A/N: The usual - I own nothing here except my storyline.

A while ago, I read John Galsworthy's "The Japanese Quince" for a class assignment and these two came to mind. I only hope I did them justice. Please read and review - heaven knows I need it.

Fruitless

It was a lazy spring day in Nishinomiya, the kind of day where nobody could possibly be faulted for closing her eyes and taking a moment to daydream and appreciate the sunlight. And Mikuru Asahina would have continued to do so, had she not an empty tea kettle in her left hand.

Taking one last, hesitant breath from the open clubroom window, she left the window-side and, after a quick announcement to her Brigade Chief of her intentions, walked out of the room with a bounce in her step and a melody on her lips.

As she reached the ground floor, a strange feeling in the back of her throat interrupted her musings of how she could best profit from this weather, of the someplaces she could go and the somebodies who might accompany her. She coughed softly and noted that it wasn't a wholly unpleasant sensation, but rather, she had smelled something sweet. Not saccharine-sweet or perfume-sweet, but something similar enough that she thought she might recognize the scent.

However, her memory does not serve her. Shrugging a little, she continued on her way in the hopes that the fresh air outside would make the all-too-poignant sweetness disappear. She hummed again to herself as she rounded the corner towards the water fountains, savoring this tiny modicum of bliss in which her only concern was water for tea. It wasn't often these days that she had so little to worry about.

She turned on the tap and waited for the pot to fill, all while watching her fellow students around her with a longing curiosity. There were athletes washing their uniforms for practice, gardeners fetching water for their plants, artists rinsing their brushes for a still-life outside. She could have been like them - a calligraphy club member in her school uniform, cleaning an inkwell, maybe. Yet here she was, the SOS Brigade mascot in a maid costume replenishing a tea kettle. In an environment such as the prosaic North High she was undoubtedly quite the spectacle.

It couldn't help but make her wonder, just a little, what things might have been like had she not been a time traveler. She would probably attend school in her time, with people her age that would understand her - there would be no need for "classified information". She would start the day with breakfast from her mother and end the day with a hug from her father. She would probably go home with her friends while talking about the little things that don't matter. Boys, perhaps. And would she have met another boy she liked? Would she be allowed to love him? Would they have dated? Wouldn't they have been happy? It seemed all so ordinary...and yet, for her, all so impossible.

"How impossible?"

She felt a presence behind her, but before she could turn around to identify who it was, he had walked up to her and wrapped his arms around her, securing her back against his chest. She turned her head to look up at him, and was met with the smiling visage of none other than Kyon.

"Kyon," she said, trying to push away. "W-We can't do this!"

"But you want to, and I want to. Isn't that enough?"

He held her closer, and planted a kiss upon her forehead...

A loud splash told her that the tea kettle was overflowing, and, slightly startled, she twisted the tap shut with a bitter smile on her face. The real Kyon was still in the clubroom, and he would never, could never, should never get that close to her. He was slowly but surely falling for Haruhi at this point, and she knew they'd eventually get married - it was a given. Impossible can't even begin to describe it; yet, she still couldn't keep herself from dreaming. Nothing could.

She lugged the now-heavy kettle out of the fountain and was about to return inside when she felt that tingling in her throat again, coupled with a mild emptiness in her chest. Oddly enough, it seemed that whatever she had smelled in the corridors only got stronger out in the courtyard. Setting down her kettle, she sighed and dabbed at her brow; it was then that she noticed the tree.

It wasn't an attention-getting tree - shorter than the cherry trees, with fewer flowers of a muted red. From a distance, she could see that many sparrows had alighted on its thin branches, keeping the tree atwitter with their conversation. Her interest piqued, she slowly made her way through the courtyard, tea kettle in tow, until she was only about five meters from the tree. There she could see in detail the gossamer petals of its flowers, the delicate curvature of its branches, the sheen of its new leaves, and the happy little birds bobbing up and down. It looked so wonderfully alive and so unimposingly stunning that she couldn't help but smile.

It's almost like finding a hidden treasure, she thought pleasantly to herself. Nobody else in the courtyard seemed to know that this little tree existed, and it made her feel a little more special to be the only one who did - until, that is, she heard a voice calling her name:

"Miss Asahina," called the other person from his side of the tree, in an almost-friendly way. "What might you be doing here?"

"Ah, Koizumi," answered Mikuru, recovering from her daze. She met his eyes diffidently, not quite remembering how to speak.

"I'm just here to get water to make tea," she replied, after a pause. "What about you? Shouldn't you have been in the clubroom already?"

He smiled in that mysterious way of his that didn't involve his eyes. "I...had cleanup duty today."

It was an obvious lie. But it was never much like Itsuki Koizumi to make his lies obvious, that much she knew. Of why he would step out of character now, of what he might be hiding, she didn't know. It surprised her how little she actually knew about the ESPer as a person, despite the many files she's studied of him and the hours they've spent together in the club.

And so, lacking the necessary knowledge to disprove his lie, she simply nodded and reciprocated his smile.

Her gaze returned to the tree and its blossoms, at a loss for what do to next. She usually never had opportunities alone with him, and when she did, it was about work matters and nothing else. What would a normal high school girl have said to a normal high school boy?

She cast a furtive glance across from her and saw that curiously enough, he had not left. In fact, he was standing with his hands in his pockets, also looking up at the tree like she was. As if sensing her attention, he hazarded a look in her direction as well; their eyes met for the shortest of seconds, and they both quickly looked away, almost guiltily.

It occurred to her at that moment that she might like to know what type of tree this was.

"Don't you dabble in gardening, Miss Asahina?"

"Not as much as I'd like," said Mikuru truthfully. "I'm not too good at it."

"Oh," said Itsuki. "That's too bad. I was hoping you could tell me the name of this tree."

Mikuru shook her head. "I was about to ask you that."

"Wait, there's a label."

Itsuki closed the distance between him and the tree in a few steps.

"Chaenomeles japonica," he read, his brows knitting. And then, coming upon the common name printed below, "It's a Japanese quince."

"It's a very beautiful tree," opined Mikuru. "I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it..."

"In your time? Or in general?"

She thought for a bit. "Both."

He looked like he might say something more, but stopped short of it.

"There's not as many of these flowering plants," began Mikuru, "at least, not where I come from."

"That's such a waste," said Itsuki. "And it's nice weather out too - almost flower-viewing season. Or do you not do that either?"

Mikuru assured him that they did.

"It would be wasting spring if we didn't," she said wistfully, thinking about how she was going to do just that by returning to the clubroom.

"Wouldn't sitting inside all day today also be a waste of spring?" he asked archly. It caught her off guard.

"Yes...yes, I suppose it would," she said, measuring out her words as she spoke them.

"Is that why you're still here as well, Koizumi?"

He smiled again, this time a lopsided grin that made him seem younger than he was, a grade schooler playing hooky for the first time.

"What do you think, Miss Asahina?"

She gave him a rueful grimace.

"I think it'd be unwise to keep Miss Suzumiya waiting for much longer."

His expression dimmed a little. "I would agree."

He let out a small sigh and let his line of sight fall among the red petals of the Japanese quince. It seemed to notice his staring, and sent a few of its blossoms in his general direction. One landed on his shoulder and another in his hair, but he only saw the former. He gingerly plucked it from his blazer and, after holding it between his fingers for just a moment, set it free to float away in the breeze.

"Koizumi."

"Yes?"

Mikuru fidgeted with her hands a little, wanting to say something and not knowing how to at the same time. Finally, she looked up at him:

"Do you ever wonder how things would've been?"

"How things would have been...with what?"

The puzzled look he gave her was not unkind.

"If...if you hadn't become an ESPer. If you were ordinary, just like everyone else. If Miss Suzumiya was an ordinary person and none of this happened."

He tilted his head, as if figuring out how best to word his response.

"It's a question I've played with many times, yes..." he answered. "But what of it?"

"Wouldn't things have been nicer...if you were ordinary?"

Mikuru searched his countenance for a response of some sort, but could find none. It seemed he was also looking for his response himself.

"Some things, yes," he said, at last, catching her gaze. "Like today - I would be able to spend time outside. I wouldn't have to deal with closed space all the time. I could lead a normal life and just focus on my friends, my family, my studies and..."

He hesitated and looked off into space, as if recalling a fond memory.

"...getting the girl I like."

They shared a look of understanding then, and in more ways than one it was like looking at herself. In him she saw the same exhaustion, the same anxiety, the same fear of making even one mistake - the same silent, suppressed rebellion of their respective pursuits of happiness. Their free wills were bent beyond recognition, their patience and tolerance broken more than once and only haphazardly repaired each time. It was okay though, because it was all for the greater good. It was always for the greater good. Never for Mikuru Asahina or Itsuki Koizumi, but for a nameless, faceless greater good. For this greater good they gave their everything, so much that ordinary pleasures became unattainable luxuries. The only thing they dared keep for themselves was their beautiful hopes and beautiful fantasies, but who could blame them? It was all they could have.

When things got too hard, she could close her eyes and imagine a coffee date with Kyon. He could let himself doze off and picture walking with Haruhi home from school. And that was enough. They made it enough, with each reimagining more splendid and vivid than the last. Their dreams had to be beautiful to make up for their reality that couldn't be, and it was enough.

"Do you know something interesting about this particular tree, Miss Asahina?"

Mikuru replied that she didn't, and asked him what it might be.

"I read it on the label earlier; it's especially cultivated so that it bears no fruit."

Hearing her silence, he continued:

"It's interesting, isn't it? That a tree with such pretty flowers that smell so nicely...can't ever bear fruit."

"Maybe that's why its flowers are as pretty and as fragrant as they are," said Mikuru softly, half to herself.

"What do you mean?" asked Itsuki.

His question snapped her out of her torpor, and she worried her bottom lip, trying to find the words:

"Maybe...it's because it knows that it won't bear fruit that it puts more effort into its flowers, is what I'm trying to say. I mean...when all it has is flowers...even though the flowers don't last, it's worth making them the best they can be while they do last. Because in the end, there's no fruit anyway..."

She pursed her lips, and then exhaled.

"I don't know if that made sense at all. I'm sorry if it didn't."

"You don't have to apologize," said Itsuki, wearing an amused look on his face. "I think I understood you, although I don't know if it's the meaning you intended."

"But you make this tree sound very much like a person - no, two people," he added. "Two people whom I dare say I now know very well."

Before she could reply, he stepped past the tree so that he was now a few paces ahead of her.

"Anyway, we have a clubroom to go to now, don't we?" he asked. "I can carry the tea kettle for you. It looks heavy."

"If you don't mind," she said, catching up to him. He took the pot from her hands, and they walked back into the school building. As they scaled the stairs, Mikuru experienced the same feeling in her throat as she had before. She realized that the quince blossom that had landed in Itsuki's hair was still there, giving off its strong, lemony scent. And Itsuki was none the wiser.

It would have been simple to call his attention to it, or even to pick it out herself. But she decided to let it stay, and thrive a little longer. It was the most she could do for a fruitless dream.