Author's note: The whole plot for those fics comes from a song by Lene Marlin ("What if") which will, consequently, appear in this. In short it's this: an undetermined number of oneshots about Heiji and Kazuha – 'cause that's the couple I find most difficult to write about – if… a lambda thing happened. That one's about an o-mïai. Hope you'll enjoy reading it…
-
This, Heiji thought as Kazuha opened the door and appeared in a red yukata, was something he'd never expected to happen.
Of course, his well-trained mind, immediately, mechanically, began tracing the probabilities, implications, and consequences it implied. That kind of reflection is bound to being a detective – one thought in alibis and motives, in times and locations, in suspects and culprits.
But here, he reflected gloomily, who's the culprit?
Kazuha had greeted him, let him in, and sat him in one of the living room's sofas before she answered that question herself.
"You see, Heiji, my mother…"
Her mother. Well, of course, her mother. When something went wrong in Kazuha's life, it was nearly always to relate to her mother. Heiji had of all time profoundly loathed that woman who'd left her husband when chibi-Kazuha was only two, and who always came back to bring in a disaster. She had no affection, he was certain of it, for her daughter, with whom she was distant and disdainful – turned down every proposition for the two of them to spend some time together, then showed up when she was last expected and least wanted.
Obviously, she'd struck again. Kazuha was explaining, her eyes glued to the carpet, "She wants me to go to an o-mïai. But – but, I'm a bit… scared. Would you mind coming with us?"
For a moment, Heiji thought about refusing point blank. For some unknown reason, the simple idea of Kazuha going to an o-mïai was unbearable. But she looked up at him, and the anxious expression deep in her green eyes was such that he found himself nodding in agreement.
"Thank you," she said with a sigh of gratitude. "I really don't know… I mean, I know nothing about this kind of process. But if you're here, I'll be more at ease. After all–" she glanced rapidly up at him and back at the mat, "our relationship is quite near to that of a sister and brother."
This didn't make him feel any better.
Yet, before he could think of anything clever to reply, Kazuha's mother entered the room. She was a tall, slender woman who looked a lot like an ostrich. Her head was held in a high, proud manner, but she had a way of walking with her elbows close to her sides which Heiji thought ridiculous. It was a relief that her daughter had only inherited her deep green eyes from her, though less piercing and less cold.
She gazed at him with unrestrained contempt, and he gazed back with the same unrestrained contempt. Both disliked each other cordially, her because she thought him too close to her daughter, him because of her arrogant behaviour with Kazuha, himself, and the world in general.
She, however, put up no objection to his accompanying them. True, her mouth did twitch into a disdainful smirk, when Kazuha told her about the brother and sister stuff, but she said nothing apart from, "Let us go then. We'll be late."
A taxi was waiting for them outside. The older woman went in first of all, but as Heiji was holding the door for her daughter to follow, he found his other hand unexpectedly squeezed by Kazuha's. For a second, his childhood friend stared at him with vivid, expressive eyes, while her fingers were clenching tight around his, but a dry, imperative order from inside of the vehicle broke both the contact and the gaze, and they got in.
Through the whole journey, Heiji thought about the situation. Kazuha going to an o-mïai bothered him more than he thought necessary. For a long time, he'd thought nothing would ever change between them – they'd always stay high students, best friends, and so on – but, evidently, time had gone there and had faltered this agreeable illusion. That Kazuha – or even himself – should ever marry, was something he'd never thought about; but the present problem and her own odd behaviour towards the idea – more scared than reluctant, more surprised than actually struggling – wasn't what he would've expected anyway.
At length, he found relief in the fact that they were, as she'd said, as close as brother and sister, and that his worries about it were nothing more than a brother's rightful claims on his sister's security.
But they arrived at the hotel, and Kazuha went worse.
They met the other family in the great, flower-furnished hall of the building, and were immediately led to a glass-walled restaurant where the official introduction took place.
The might-be fiancé was a young man of twenty-four or twenty-five, with rather plain features and a cocky, wealthy air. Heiji disliked him instantly. As for his father, who was presenting him, he must be around forty-seven and have been handsome in his days; but he had a way of examining Kazuha as though she was a well-born mare which was absolutely unbearable.
Kazuha was declared to be an angel on earth, and Heiji was barely presented as a 'friend of my daughter'. No one, anyhow, paid attention to him. He might have been a chair.
They sat, Heiji a little set back so as to observe them all. The conversation, turning about the bursting and various qualities of 'my darling daughter', disgusted him, but didn't surprise him – what did was Kazuha's behaviour. She acted in a very civil and reserved way, where yesterday she would've shrugged and laughed at the proud, egoistical way both those men talked about their wealth and other coats of arms. She answered with cordiality to every request they ever made about her studies, hobbies, kinds of reading, and even smiled to the least funny of their surprisingly vulgar jokes.
She seemed to have caught the guy's fancy. He sat near her, presenting her cup of tea upon cup of tea and plate of biscuits upon plate of biscuits, and talked every time he addressed her with a kind of obsequious civility which ought to have her either burst out with laughter or turn away in disgust. But all she did was to thank him for his amiability and, if she sometimes looked disconcerted, rapidly recollected herself.
The parents was bending to each other and often spoke in a low voice with satisfied accents, probably enumerating the advantages of the match and making out the time when proposal and marriage could most likely be expected. Kazuha's mother would sometimes give her daughter some gratified, faintly tender looks which Heiji thought he wouldn't bear long.
He was worried and distressed by Kazuha's behaviour. He tried to extrapolate on the reasons which could lead her to act that way when, as he bent forward to seize his cup of tea, he noticed her hands. They lay on her lap among the tablecloth's folds, and were methodically tearing up her paper napkin to very small bits. There was a striking contrast between the smiling composure of her face and the nervousness, thorough anxiousness of her hidden fingers.
He thought about taking that hand in his, like herself had done not so long ago – a way to tell him something? an SOS message? – but a dark gaze from her mother forced him to lean back, with discomposed feelings.
He was now positive about hers, at least. The o-mïai was bothering her as much as it did him, and after a few moments' reflection, the reasons for her acting the way she did weren't so obscure. It was, as always, her mother. Kazuha had always kept a strong daughter's affection for her, which Heiji thought the elder woman did not deserve at all – she had probably been given advices, no, orders would be the right word, about manners and behaviours towards the two men, and she hadn't dared infringing them.
Heiji looked at her mother with relief and satisfaction. Her plan, finally, for a daughter's fortunate wedding, wouldn't be achieved – if she could force her to go to an o-mïai, she couldn't force her marry someone whom she disliked. This simple thought made him more comfortable, and he was now ready to bear the rest of the meeting with relative ease.
About an hour or so after it began, however, Kazuha excused herself and departed to the bathroom, so hurriedly that she didn't even notice she'd left her bag on her chair. Without paying any more attention to Heiji than before, the three others began to talk in a precipitated way about her and how beautiful, how well-bred, how intelligent she was. the conversation engrossed them so much they didn't remark how long she was staying away.
Heiji finally rose and went in search for her. It was almost fifteen minutes since she had gone when he discovered the women's restroom, fortunately empty but for her. She was leaning over the washbasins, her head bent down and hidden by her hair – she didn't seem well at all.
he'd kept at the door and was preparing to call her when she looked up into the mirror.
She was crying.
Her make-up had run down around her eyes and cheeks, tracing every tear with a line in faded red or dark blue. She raised a shivering hand and splashed some water on her face – she looked a bit refreshed then, but she was evidently distressed. She was wiping her cheekbones when, turning her head a little, she saw Heiji, who had unconsciously advanced towards her.
She said nothing and neither did he. Her tears spoke for themselves enough. Heiji hated it. He came forward and cupped her face between his hands – she did nothing to shake away, she just looked down.
For a long moment they kept like this, in complete silence. Later on, they would remark how fortunate they were that no-one had come in meanwhile – a man in the woman's bathroom, shocking! In such a classy hotel as this one, it would have caused a scandal altogether.
"All right," Heiji said at last. "Let's go."
He grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room, into the hall.
"Let's go… where?" Kazuha stammered, stumbling after him.
"I don't know. Somewhere. Away from here."
Rain was pouring down outside. In the few minutes they lost to get hold of a taxi, they were both soaked to the bones. Yet, as they got in the car, dripping on the seats and giving the driver Heiji's address, it was as though a great, heavy, weighty burden was falling off their shoulders, fading away with every yard they put between the hotel and themselves.
The driver made no question about Kazuha's dishevelled state and neither of the two said more than three words through the whole route. Rain was going worse and worse; it was drumming against the car's windows, and, when they got out in front of Heiji's house, dropped buckets of water upon them.
It was only inside, under the entrance, once the door was shut and locked behind them, that they allowed themselves to look at each other. They then felt the awkwardness of their situation. They had run away without a previous thought about the implications of their flight, but these were now more obvious than ever. Kazuha was the most distressed. She was looking down, eluding Heiji's gaze and probably going over whatever her mother would say.
"Do you regret?" Heiji asked.
"No!" She looked up at him. "Not at all," she said decisively, as though more answering herself than him.
"I see." He turned his head away, then back at her. "You're soaked," he remarked matter-of-factly. He pointed over his shoulder at the bathroom door. "Go take a shower. I'll change and bring you dry clothes." With this he was gone, down the corridor and into his room.
Kazuha kicked off her getas and closed herself up in the bathroom, with a hazy mind. She began to undress dreamily – her kimono was so tight and drenched it clung to her skin – it was a real release to wear it off, to step into the shower and turn on hot water.
A sigh of relief left her lips when it flowed across her shoulders, down her arms, along her bare skin when it drew thin, shimmering streams before getting drowned. Everything, everyone of her worries, of her fears, of her sadness – no, maybe not her sadness – was dragged down at her feet, into the drain, and along with them the remains of her make-up, the fixing gel her mother had applied to her hair to succeed in smoothing it down. She messed it up without scruple, removed the few pins that hadn't yet fallen down, and her brown locks scattered all around on her shoulders, dripping them with the same soft, butterfly kisses-like drops that brushed against her face.
There was a knock at the door, the rustle of its opening, and Heiji's voice, "I brought a change of clothes. Put them here."
And he went out, without even some 'Do you feel better' stuff, which might have allowed them to entertain a casual conversation once she got out. A condensation blurred the rather greyish glass of the shower place, and she couldn't quite see, even after wiping it off, where 'here' was, it was probably just as well.
When after an eternity she pushed the pane open and stumbled down onto the bathroom's tiled floor, her body was certainly relaxed. The heart was another matter. She interested herself in the clothes Heiji had brought.
They were some of his, and therefore way too big. The immense, white T-shirt was floating like a wave around her bust, and she had to roll up the jeans' legs. After vaguely drying her hair with a towel, and giving up tying it down, she went out.
Heiji was sitting on the living-room's couch. He wore a blue shirt and black jeans which, as she would have noticed in some other situation, really suited his dark skin. His fingers were fumbling listlessly with the radio remote, but his eyes were frowned upon a grave elsewhere – upon the whole, he looked severe and serious and worried. Worried about her, Kazuha's mind registered, but it didn't seem to mean a lot.
Her hand had trailed off on the doorframe and herself on the doorstep. Heiji, her childhood friend, her childhood love, had undoubtedly grown into a man by now. His face, the look stamped on his features, made Kazuha's heart beat faster, made her want him – to look up and come to her.
He did look up, but sat still. And she had wished it so dearly that disappointment brought back every matter of trouble she had succeeded in keeping away so far, about the o-mïai, about her mother, her own mother who's used her so abominately ill… tears began to sting at her eyes. She wiped them off, irritatingly.
"Why do you cry all by yourself," Heiji then said slowly, "when I can at least provide you with a shoulder to weep on?"
The information took just a little time to travel up to Kazuha's brain – then she was down on the couch with him, sobbing in his neck, buried in his warmth and in the circle of his arms.
"Heiji – Heiji – I…"
"I know," he murmured, running his hands through her hair with a tenderness she had never suspected in him. "Hell, no, I don't." He seemed to smile at the absurdity of his own remark, and leant back in a slow way, until he lay on in full back and Kazuha was completely drawn up onto his chest.
A long, difficult moment followed – for him, at any rate. Holding a crying Kazuha against him wasn't something he was used to do, nor he thought he ever would. And she had a way of clenching at his shoulders and nuzzling her nose into his neck which he… didn't dislike. Maybe that was the worst – that he should be thinking of such things when she was in so wretched a state.
"I suppose saying I'm sorry wouldn't help," he said at last, stroking gently the top of her head, then added firmly, "No. I'll shut my mouth."
She smiled a small smile into his shirt, but made no answer.
"I'll shut my mouth," he said, tentatively.
"No – speak," Kazuha managed to say. "At least you can – you could unburden all – this. Talk it away for me. Can't you?"
"I suppose I could," he said prudently. After a few moments he found it easier than he thought. He blurted out everything he'd kept all day, anger, surprise, concern. He talked endlessly. Kazuha listened, sometimes shivering at his animation, and wondered how, with his savage state of mind, he'd succeeded in keeping it all inside.
"This guy – those guys," he roared for the umpteenth time, "one that looked at you as a winning-prize and the other as a winning-mare – it was infuriating. What were you, a piece of meat? I mean, they didn't even look at you – they had no thought for your… ideas, your concerns – you were just a, a… an object. As for your mother," but there he cut short.
He was silent. She could feel his chest raising and falling under her cheek, and his breath short in her ear. Of course she knew al too well what he was going to say. He was going to say the truth, as always.
"Kazuha, I know this is gonna hurt, I'm sorry – but you can't deny the facts. Your mother, she was – she was selling you, there's no other word. Y our own feelings towards the match held no importance – she had decided so, she would have her point. At least that's what she thought." He paused. Kazuha's tears had dried. Her distance towards what Heiji said was maybe not that incredible – after all he as only putting words on what she'd known for long.
"They must have noticed we're gone by now," he remarked, with relief at taking on another track. "But they can't know where we are – even your cell stayed at the hotel. They'll burst in at your place, thinking you've gone home, but here they can't track us down."
"It's easy to get lost in your words, Heiji," said Kazuha, not totally out-of-purpose. "You've got a beautiful voice, low and deep."
Any other time she would've been ashamed to say such a thing to Heiji, but not now – not now.
"It's easy to get lost," he repeated dreamily. "Damn, I'm going to cry too."
"It'd be the first time I'd see you cry," Kazuha remarked without looking up.
"Yeah. You girls are at least allowed to cry whenever you want – whenever you need. It's considered as a weakness is a guy cries."
Kazuha pondered on this. She would never love Heiji less because he cried, but she had to admit his remark held some truth in itself. "I suppose it'd depend," she said, unwilling to get involved in so absurd a discussion. But Heiji didn't follow.
"Unless, of course, there's a bug fad relying on effeminism."
Kazuha said nothing. She looked up at him, and flushed a little – crying or not, Heiji could never be called effeminate. He dropped his eyes to her face as she thought so, but obviously mistook her reddened cheeks for some kind of animated amusement.
"Feeling better, aren't you?"
Kazuha came back to the surface and looked down. "A bit."
"Good." He loosened his arms a little, but his hands were still resting on her shoulders, warm. He was warm. Somewhat bony, but comfy, she thought drowsily, sinking in the depths of his broad shoulders, and thinking about those fingers that caressed hers…
"–bout some music?" Heiji was saying.
She remembered nodding, and the noise he made by fumbling with the remote then letting it drop from the couch to the floor. Then his hand was retrieved onto its right place, almost in the crook of her neck.
"What's that one?" she asked after listening to the first bars in silence.
"Dunno. I put on the radio," Heiji said into her hair.
They then dropped in complete silence.
What if I don't wanna move on
I f I like it as it is
Wanna keep like this, for a while… for ever
Just let me lie close to you
Don't wanna let you go, don't wanna let you go
-
If I said I want you, if I said I need you
If I said I love you, what would you do
If I said I want you, if I said I need you
If I said I love you, what would you do
-
What if I don't wanna forget
Don't want anyone but you
Believe me, it's true, for a while… forever
Just let me stay here with you
I don't wanna leave, I don't wanna leave
-
If I said I want you, if I said I need you
If I said I love you, what would you do
If I said I want you, if I said I need you
If I said I love you, what would you do
-
And I thought I could, let this go
I thought I would, but now I know
Now I know
-
If I said I want you, if I said I need you
If I said I love you, what would you do
If I said I want you, if I said I need you
If I said I love you, what would you do
-
This expressed Kazuha's present state of mind so well that she unwittingly looked up at Heiji, anxious to know how his feelings were affected.
He was asleep.
He was asleep! He looked calm and relaxed and peaceful, and he hadn't listened to a word of the song.
"Oh, damnit," Kazuha hissed, and frowned at his sleeping face. "Ahou", she between-her-teeth'ed, and lied down again. He made a good pillow, all right. And his arm around her was a sufficient cover. She was beginning to doze off.
"If only," she whispered, "we could stay like this forever."
"We could," Heiji said with his eyes still closed.
She thought about blushing. But – really – what use could that be. He'd heard her. Oh, well. She was dozing off, dozing off in his arms.
-
If I said I want you, if I said I need you
If I said I love you, what would you do…
-
When Heizo and Shizuka Hattori came back late that night from the party where they'd gone, they were exhausted. Not so much by what they'd found out there, but rather by the incessant phone calls Kazuha's mother had drowned them under all evening, requiring to know where her daughter was.
They'd answered every time, more and more wearily, that they had no idea about it, and why should they? If Heiji had gone with her, well, why not asking the question directly to the people concerned? His phone was off. All right. They couldn't do much about that, now, could they? Have a nice evening my good lady.
Last time they were under their porch – Heizo had shut his phone at the sole sight of the number appearing on the screen. Bit inside the lights were on. And, on the living-room sofa, were Heiji and Kazuha lying, carefully entangled in each other arms, and most peacefully asleep.
Well, well. If her mother wanted to find them, she wouldn't – at least, not tonight.
-
I have no idea why this song immediately brought up Kazuha's image to my mind. Then I thought about incorporating the o-mïai, but I wrote a very fluffy – I mean, fluffier version of this before scratching it all off and writing this instead. But I guess it's still fluffy, though…