Summary: What was the use of being 32 on a 14 year-old body? An introspective fic about Wakaba.

Author's Notes I: I found out Wakaba has been a shinigami for 18 years. I changed some dates, but kept her as 14 for the sake of the story, 'kay? (We don't know her real age anyway...)

The shower sprinkled her thoughts instead of washing them away.

Now she was thirty-two.

What was the use?

She let the hot water run over her skin, eyelids closed.

It was very nice of Tatsumi-san to give her the afternoon off. She only felt a bit guilty for Hajime, who would probably have extra work. No, surely he had extra work. He was late. Hajime was never late. She felt guiltier. Sigh.

Watari-san gave her a plush owl, the cutest thing in the world. Kachou brought her a birthday cake, but she ended up giving half of it to Tsuzuki. She - no, make that anyone in the office - couldn't resist his puppy eyes. The boys were all so kind to her.

Who was she trying to fool? First, they weren't boys - chronologically, they were all old men - and second, sometimes their kindness got on her nerves.

They pampered her. Overprotected her. Sometimes, even underestimated her. She knew they all liked her... but they saw her as her body showed her to them. As a girl.

What was she?

She wasn't, wouldn't ever be a woman. An adult. She died at the age of fourteen, at a time when girls didn't grow up as fast as they did nowadays. She died as innocent as her body confessed to be. Her hormones had barely started to touch her cells. But they did nonetheless, and there was the conflict now living inside of her. She wasn't a girl either: her breasts, though small, were there, her hips, though not fully round, were there. Her lovely young face could look seductive sometimes. Lolita was twelve, wasn't her? And she became a best-seller!

Stupid. It was plain stupidity of her, to believe she could seduce any of them. Even if she wasn't strictly a child, her body was that of an older girl rather than of a young woman. Her hands and eyes roamed over her, to prove the statement. And they did. Damn her hormones, she often chanted to herself, for not letting her fully grow into a woman. Maybe, had she been a child of the eighties, she would have had a much nicer-looking - and touching - body. But she was born on 1963, which made her life drastically different. And, consequently, her afterlife.

Damn her hormones.

Damn her hormones for being just enough to confuse, to trick, to derange her.

She had to admit, yes, sometimes she felt quite attracted to her colleagues. Perhaps - probably - due to the fact that she was the only wom-- girl working at the Shokan Division. And the other workers were interesting men. Tatsumi-san with his mysterious eyes, Watari-san with his good-nature and beautiful hair, Tsuzuki-san for being Tsuzuki-san. Even Kachou had his charms, though usually he was more like a father or uncle. The hormones made that to her, made her blush when they were too close, made her wonder if they were in love with someone, if they'd been when they were alive, if they had had girlfriends, what they looked like. Sometimes she would catch herself thinking about what their kisses would taste like. Huge blush.

In the end, all that thinking and wondering was of no use. She was quite attracted, but deep inside she knew they were just co-workers. And that was all. Even if she actually felt something for them, nothing would happen. They saw her as a girl. Period.

Of course, there were exceptions. Kurosaki-kun was one of them. He didn't saw her as just a girl. He didn't saw her just for her body. He was an empath. He knew what went on inside of her.

That had been the first reason for her to befriend him. Knowing her for a shorter period of time, the boy had been able to see on her a side the others didn't, even if involuntarily, even if he'd prefer not to. Secondly came the fact that he, like her, died young - not counting the afterlife years, he was the one closest in age to her. Sometimes, during lunchtime, while Tsuzuki-san stuffed himself up with desserts, they talked about things. About growing mentally but not physically. About the damned hormones. Things like that.

Even so, they had differences. He was still slightly older than her in matters of "Chijou time". Two years, but those two years could mean a great gap when talking about a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old. Still, the striking one was the gender difference. Kurosaki-kun was a boy. She was a girl, on a statistically male job. Kurosaki-kun had others to share experiences with him. He was a young man surrounded by men colleagues to talk about men trouble. She was a girl. Period.

Yuma and Saya, both far away at Hokkaido, had been her last hope. And she was quite frustrated when they told her she should be happy for not having to go through PMS, pimples, depilating, menstrual cycle, bras too small or too big. The list went on. She envied them for 90% of the items of said list.

They bought her panties. Colourful panties. With smilies on the back. Absolutely cute, but excessively girlish anyway.

(Kurosaki-kun gave her a small notebook with a mechanical pencil attached to it. She understood it was his way of offering her what he himself, as her friend, couldn't. A confessional. That was one of the gifts she'd liked the most.)

And there was him. Hajime. Her partner and roommate. The only one who fully understood her. Who knew her inside and out, and whom she knew inside and out. The one she trusted, desired, needed. Loved.

Exactly the only man in the entirety of Shokan Division who was forbidden to touch women.

She was so out of luck, she wouldn't know what it looked like if it was right before her.

What was the use? What was the use of finding your match, your twin soul, when he'll turn into a monster if he touches you?

What was the use of loving without ever becoming a lover?

The sound of keys and the familiar "tadaima" pulled her out of her thoughts. Always traditional, her Hajime. Teleporting the less he could. She closed the shower tap and twisted her hair to extract the excess of water; then, after quickly rubbing the towel over her body, she rolled herself in it and left to her room, leaving a track of droplets on the way.

- You'll have to clean your mess later, you know - his voice at the end of the small corridor made her blush and hold the towel tighter against herself. Really, she should wear something decent when Hajime was home.

- Oh, come on, - she whined, - it's my birthday!

- You always convince me when you use that face - he chuckled. - Happy birthday, blackmailer.

She smiled. - Where's my gift?

- Greedy, aren't we? Go dress yourself. Walking all wet and half naked as you are you'll only get a cold. - He gave her a wink, a very sexy one, and closed himself inside his room.

She went inside hers, and found a surprise on her bed.

A dark red rose bud.

It was on that stage of growth when it hasn't opened completely, yet it isn't exactly a bud anymore - when the external petals have already started to unfold.

On the card, by Hajime's best handwriting, she read those words:

"Roses on Meifu are different than on Chijou. They never fully bloom. This might seem sad, because they might never show us their full beauty. However, they never wilt, never die, never abandon those who care for them. They are always there, offering them their everlasting youth. And for that they are the most beautiful things in this world."

Beside the flower, two tickets for the theatre, to a play she had been craving to go for months, and another message: "Dress up! Hajime."

So what if it was of no use?

It was wonderful.

Author's Note II: This is my first Yami no Matsuei fan fiction (I already have 27 Rurouni Kenshin fics and a Count Cain one on my curriculum vitae, though). I've seen all the anime series, except episode 11 (the download of which mysteriously never ends) and read all scanlations at Sakura-Crisis site... if there's something contradictory on chapters I haven't read yet, please just let it pass by (^__^)
I like Wakaba-chan a lot, even though she hardly appears over the series... Since I couldn't find any fiction specifically about the girl, I had this urge of writing it myself. Hope you enjoyed this humble work of mine! I made up her age and her relation with some other characters as well (specially Hisoka-kun, who basically doesn't interact with her at all and became her close friend here).
There's another Wakaba+Terazuma fic idea on my brain, and I'm also writing a Tsu+His one-shot - even though my favourite YnM pairing is Tats+'tari (-__-'') Guess I have a hindrance for writing fics with favourite pairings.

Prudence-chan,
who has this bad habit of liking neglected characters.