a Normal Date...
Margaret Elseworlds based on #20/2000
----

"New YORK!? As a DATE?!"

If a swarm of bees had flown into Tsukushi's mouth at that
moment, she never would have noticed. And there was room for them all,
too. Her jaw had dropped low enough that it was practically scraping
the sidewalk.
But then again, what could she be but all gaping mouth and
pie-plate eyes, when a curly-haired boy was waving two tickets to New
York in front of her face-- NEW YORK! -- not Atami or even Yokohama
mind you, NEW YORK! -- as though they were matinee movie tickets or
lunch money, and insisting that they leave this instant!?
Tsukasa pranced about the sidewalk like an excited puppy.
"Isn't it a great idea?" he enthused. "I figure, there we can have a
normal date."
~And what on earth is normal about THAT?~ The thought rattled
like pennies in a jar around her head. Tsukasa grabbed her hand and
started pulling her, hopes and heels in high gear. Tsukushi tried in
vain to dig her shoes into the pavement and stop him. "Doumyouji!"
She looked up at him then, and his face was turned back to grin
at her, even as he scrambled blindly in the other direction. His lips
and cheeks were turned up - the excitement in them, and in those
smiling eyes, was infectious. It was the childish laughing face of
Tsukasa, the one that had brought tears to her eyes on more than one
occasion. Somehow that weakened her resolve, or opened the door to a
bevy of sensations she tried hard to ignore. But they were warm and
fluttering, and they swayed through her like a hanging monk doll* in a
strong breeze. Tsukushi felt a longing she knew from somewhere before
- the desire, strong as a wave, to make him happy. And she couldn't
help but smile.
~Maybe this might be a good idea after all.~

[*japanese "hanging monk doll" put in windows to ask for good weather]

Tell that to her five hours into the plane ride.
In front of them was a lawyer, chattering on his cell phone
about stocks and bonds. Next to them, a chubby boy sat listening to a
Walkman on full blast and popping potato chip crumbs periodically into
Tsukasa's lap. Across the aisle a baby cried, and his mother soothed
him in a tone barely less frustrated than her son's. "Doumyouji,"
Tsukushi said in a low, all-too-even voice. "Just how long did you say
this flight would take?" Tsukasa's only answer was a growl. Tsukushi
prayed he didn't get as violent as she felt.
She leaned over to look out the window. "Nothing but clouds
and ocean," she sighed. "I ache all over. I think I'm going to die
before we ever get to New York."
"I know, I know," Tsukasa grumbled. "You call this first
class? I can't even straighten my legs out. I'm going to get whoever
built this plane fired." Tsukushi did her best to laugh, hoping she
should force him to make light of the situation. But by the time she
had gotten out a halfhearted chuckle, Tsukasa's expression had changed
again. "Hey, Makino," he said in a lighthearted voice. "You want to
watch a movie or something?"
"A movie?" Tsukushi echoed, and then Tsukasa's hand flew out
and touched something just in front of her. For the first time since
they'd been aboard the plane, Tsukushi noticed that there was a
rectangular square of screen on the back of the seat in front of her;
that there was a console below it with several tiny buttons, and that
Tsukasa's touching one made a picture flicker to life in grainy pixels
of color.
"There's a TV on the back of the chair?!" Tsukushi couldn't
quite believe her eyes.
Tsukasa was flipping through a magazine. "Channel 1's the
movie channel," he read. "Channel 2, news, Channel 3, sports, Channel
4, airline safety, Channel 5, in-flight relaxation." He laughed.
"Relaxation? There's nothing to do BUT relax when you're in the air
for a whole day!"
"Channel one, movies," Tsukushi said, and gingerly reached
forward to test the buttons herself. "Doumyouji, where's the sound?"
"They give you headphones. Look in that pocket." He reached
into his own seat pocket and pulled out a set, the plastic case
crunching loudly in his hand.
"I can't believe this," Tsukushi said bemusedly, pulling out a
set and plugging it in where Tsukasa pointed. "A movie playing right
in front of me..." She sat back and watched as the voices from the
screen made their way into her ears.
The movie was a silly one - something about a dance student
being torn between the star of a show and its director - but with
nothing better to do, Tsukushi allowed herself to get caught up in the
story. She giggled at times, leaned forward intently at others, smiled
at the screen when she thought something was admirable. Tsukasa
watched her, watched the colors on the screen reflect against her round
face. Pixelated blue glittered in the depths of her dark eyes.
Tsukushi took a breath in when she felt Tsukasa's hand gingerly
touch her shoulder, then withdraw in fear. She glanced up at him,
pulse suddenly racing. Her face felt hot and red, but when her eyes
met his, she nearly burst out laughing. He was watching her out of the
corner of his eye, the edges of his mouth turned down seriously. And
his face was beet red. He looked so tentative and nervous, like a
highschooler about to make a pass for the first time in his life. A
sort of rich delight flowed through Tsukushi at being the one to make
him act that way. She smiled inwardly and leaned her head on his
shoulder.
Without even looking, she could tell his mouth had popped open
and his blush had deepened further. After the initial shock, his arm
came down to drape over her shoulders, and his head dropped to the side
to rest on hers. The warmth of it was like pleasant wine to Tsukushi,
and it wasn't long before sleep claimed her. She dozed, supported by
Tsukasa's lanky frame, as they soared through the sky.

It had been two sleepless nights in a row for Tsukushi. First,
the eventful night in the Doumyouji mansion; then, a whirlwind search
throughout the city for the sake of her friend. So when she finally
slept, she slept well and dreamlessly. The gentle warmth of Tsukasa's
presence surrounded her like a halo, keeping everything else out.
Time, space, and all those other annoyances simply didn't matter. Her
world was sleep and warmth.
She awoke, finally, when that warmth transmuted itself into hot
breath on her cheek. "Makino," Tsukasa whispered, his lips dangerously
close to her skin. "Makino, wake up."
Her eyelashes fluttered, and she gave a sleepy moan. "Makino,"
Tsukasa repeated.
Her hands reached up to rub her eyes. "What?" she slurred
slowly. "What is it?"
"We're here. Look."
With eyes protesting loudly the influx of light, Tsukushi
rolled sideways to peer out the window...
...and was assaulted by gleaming silver buildings, bold and
tall, towering spires catching the sun, a rich stretch of green in an
island of metallic squares, darting ants of cars in a steady circle
around and around, glistening blue ocean, looming brown land on the
horizon, and a familiar looking green lady with a lamp standing in the
middle of the ocean...
The plane shook as it landed with the force of her "WOW!!!!!!"

If the Statue of Liberty could have developed a sweatdrop of
annoyance, the sheer weight of it would have toppled her right over
into the ocean. The lady could have sworn she'd heard this
conversation before, in just as jarring tones. But this time, the
curly-haired boy was on the other end of it.
"Why do I have to climb all the way up this thing?"
"Shut up, you moron! It's your first time in New York so I
took the trouble of bringing you all the way up here and what do you
have to say to me? And stop stomping on the staircase, it's
annoying."
"It looked plenty nice from the ground! How come I have to
kill myself going all the way up to the WHOAAAAAAAAAAAA...."

And so things resonated throughout the Big Apple.

"Aah, Doumyouji, don't cross the street without me, you're
going to get run ovAAHHH! Help!"
"You idiot, didn't you see the light was turning?"
"It's your fault, I was trying to follow you and you went ahead
without m... Oh, my GOD, that's the biggest TV screen I've ever seen
in my LIFE!"

"Doumyouji, look at that! How'd they all learn how to
skate like that! All RIGHT! I want to try too!"
"Moron, have you ever skated before?"
"Have you? HUH? Well, have you?"
"Right, I'll show you how it's done!"
"Wh--what the hell? Let go of me, you...! Makino, I
see you laughing!"
"Even if I haven't skated before, at least I know you
need skates!"

"Doumyouji, what is that parade about? Is that
guy wearing what I THINK he's wearing?"
"Moron, don't look at that!"

"Oh! Same Hair Man!"
"Ah- yo!"
"You know these people?"
"Old friends of mine. Makino,
check it out. You want to see me earn
money?"
"Earn money? Doumyouji, who
are these-- oh, my god....
D-Doumyouji... Doumyouji, don't DO
that!!!!"
"WAAA-O!"

Tsukushi slurped contentedly on a towering cone of strawberry
ice cream, leaned back on the unevenly painted bench. Her eyes darted
about, glittering with delight at the squirrels, passing joggers, and
all the varying colors and shades of this foreign rainbow of life. "I
can't believe this," she murmured, as happy and relaxed as she had ever
been. "Doumyouji, isn't this unbelievable?"
"Yeah," muttered Tsukasa noncommitally. He didn't face her,
but his eyes rolled slowly in her direction, lips curved in a slight,
unreadable smile.
"So do you know where we're going next, then?" Tsukushi popped
the remainder of the cone into her mouth.
The smile unmoving on his face, Tsukasa nodded. "Yeah," he
said again.

Tsukushi dug her heels into the pavement. "No! No, and I said
no, so that means NO!"
"Would you cut it out? People are looking!" Tsukasa tried,
without much success, to pull Tsukushi along, but she would just not
cooperate. "What would you prefer, to get right back on a plane
tonight?"
"I don't care!" Tsukushi shood her head back and forth in a
continuous protest. "I'm not going to stay at some seedy hotel!"
"You know," Tsukasa said in the deliberate, didactic tone he'd
learned from his older sister, "a 'hotel'* means an inn. It doesn't
mean all the dirty things you're thinking."
"But- but-"
Tsukasa rubbed his forehead with one crooked finger. Heaving a
huge sigh, he bent down and got as close to Tsukushi's obstinately
frowning face as he possibly could. Staring her right in the eye, he
scowled. "Did I, or did I not, tell you that I would wait?" he
growled.
Tsukushi's eyes turned to blank dots and the anger reddening
her face turned to purple embarrassment. Tsukasa grabbed her wrist and
shuffled her inside.

[* The word "hotel" has been adopted to Japanese... but it
tends to exclusively mean the sort with the coin-operated beds.]

The next thing Tsukushi knew, she was surrounded by gold and
marble. It certainly wasn't a seedy hotel by any stretch of the
imagination; on the contrary, everything glittered. Reflected in the
huge mirror above a stately marble fireplace, Tsukushi's image seemed
to her like a ragged scarecrow lost in the palace of Oz. Behind her,
Tsukasa talked to a Japanese-speaking concierge.
"I need two rooms," he said, and Tsukushi's world stopped
turning.
She whirled. "Doumyouji?" she said, loudly, her voice echoing
in the pristine emptiness of the lobby. She clapped a hand over her
mouth and walked up to him. "Why'd you do that?" she asked, tugging
slightly on his arm. "I didn't think..."
"You are a moron," Tsukasa said flatly.
Tsukushi's eyes filled with fire. "What is that supposed to
mean? Huh!?"
There was a certain way Tsukasa sometimes looked at her that
stopped Tsukushi in her tracks. It was with that look that he now
turned to face her, and as always, she lost all her fight and fire and
could do nothing but stare blankly at him. "Wh- what?" she stuttered.
He looked at her like she was three thousand different kinds of
stupid. "We're having a normal date," he said. "It's not normal to
sleep in the same room on a date."
There were no words for the feeling that swept over Tsukushi at
that moment, nor for the whirlwind of thoughts that came whistling
through her mind at hurricane speeds. The sheer simplicity of
Tsukasa's statement, the tone in his voice that made it seem there
could be nothing else to say - these were a kind of brilliance that
befuddled her infinitely complex mind. What she thought was right, she
muddled over, worried about, ran here and there trying to confirm or
deny, and eventually found some level of truth that she could halfway
believe in for the time being. But he knew what was right, without
question, and that was fact in his world. This simplicity, that
transformed itself by turns into idiocy or genius, always made her mind
aware of a level of understanding she couldn't penetrate, try as she
might. And she had no choice but to trust it.
At the same time, something beyond thought or understanding
welled up inside her. It was true feeling - an image of him as a true
prince, as her true partner, as the one person in her life who prized
her happiness above his own, the one person she knew she could depend
on when she was storm-tossed and lost among the waves of her own
existence. The feeling was need. She needed him. Desperately. In
this far-away paradise where nothing stopped moving for an instant, she
needed him.
Her hands clutched the back of his shirt and tugged. As he
gasped at the sudden movement, her lips parted and she spoke, the heat
from her blush surely drifting high enough that he could breathe it in.
"It's okay," she said.
"It's okay."



Tsukasa didn't know the phrase "Spare no expense," merely
because he didn't know its opposite. The room he'd secured was huge,
opulent, far too big and imposing for Tsukushi to feel at all
comfortable in it. But Tsukasa treated it like a matter of course. He
left his muddied boots on the thick Persian rug, tossed his jacket on
the pearl-colored quilt draping across a too-wide bed, and stomped off
toward the bathroom announcing he was taking a shower. Meanwhile,
Tsukushi sat gingerly on the edge of a delicately uphoistered love
seat, as though she might destroy it were she to let it support her
whole weight.
~What am I doing here?~
Tsukushi looked around, trying to take in her situation. Huge,
adorned room, bed and sofa and fireplace... tiles, rugs, Tsukasa's
shoes... the sound of the shower hissing slightly from the other side
of the room... a door between her and a whole other tiled, mirrored
world, where Tsukasa's hair was flowing straight around his bare
shoulders as the water beat on his back and his long legs... the steam
bringing a flush to his face so intense she could almost feel it...
only that wasn't the steam, that was her blush, and the image
she had in her head at that moment was...
"WHA... WHAT am I THINKING!?" Tsukushi forgot her earlier
timidity and banged her head several times against the arm of the sofa.
When the image had been successfully knocked out of her mind, she sat
back, panting, her hands curled into frustrated fists. Sick with
self-loathing, she berated herself for ever thinking about it in the
first place.
~It's his fault... he's always thinking nasty things, and it
spills over into me!~
Her face relaxed slightly, her blush fading, but resolution
lifting her cheekbones.
~I guess....~
~I guess I am going to have to say something after all. I'm
sure he misunderstood me. I'm going to need to clear things up.~

As if on cue, the hiss of the shower stopped, and a few minutes
later, the door handle rattled. Tsukushi bolted up from her sitting
position, and took a huge breath. As the door opened, she shouted in
an unstoppable voice, "Um, you KNOW..."
"What?" said a very wet and half-naked Tsukasa.
Tsukushi lost her words and just gaped, open-mouthed. Tsukasa
had a towel in one hand and was squeezing water out of his long,
tangled hair, which tumbled to his shoulders in loose waves. He was
wrapped in a huge, nearly blindingly white robe, and his skin glistened
where it parted to reveal the long columns of his legs or his
dewdrop-studded chest. His eyes, somehow darker than usual against the
pristine paleness of his skin and the ivory robe, caught hers. "What?"
he repeated.
"I... I..." Tsukushi knew her face was a talking tomato at this
point, but she couldn't do a thing about it. Her brain refused to work
with her, and her jaw flapped open and shut a few more times. Tsukasa
started walking toward the bed, and against her will, Tsukushi's feet
began to move too. "I'm going in the shower next," she heard herself
say. The bathroom door moved steadily, obstinately, closer.
"Okay," Tsukasa said from behind her - he was behind her, now,
and she was nearly through the bathroom doorway. She cursed herself
silently and brought a fist to her forehead in frustration.
~This is no good...~
"Makino," came suddenly from behind her, in a serious tone.
She turned. "Huh?"
The first thing she was aware of was the beauty of his pose...
sitting, legs just slightly parted, on the bed, leaning back as his
robe hung loosely off his shoulders. His hair darted in and out on the
surface of the fabric. There was something stark and severe about the
black-and-white scene, like he was a character in an old movie. Not
altogether real. She swallowed.
"I heard what my sister said," he said. "She had a point. And
I told you I'd wait. So relax, would you?"
The words hit Tsukushi like blows. She winced.
~He can read me that well...~
Her eyes lowered, and she sighed. "I'm sorry," she said. She
advanced a few paces toward him. "It must be kind of hard for you."
He blushed and then puffed out his cheeks in an overwrought
imitation of nonchalant machismo. "Nah," he said loudly, avoiding
meeting her gaze, "it's not that hard, not really."
"I'm glad." Tsukushi smiled genuinely. "Well, I'm going into
the shower now." She turned on her heel and walked confidently through
the doorway.

The hot water felt good, and the hotel's shampoo seemed to
cleanse right through her hair to her mind. Tsukushi could smell the
slight scent of fruit as she combed through it afterward. There was
another huge terry cloth bathrobe hanging on the door, and she slipped
into it. It was just scratchy enough against her skin, rubbing it raw
and pink. Gripping the robe tightly around her to shield against the
inevitable influx of cold, she turned the brass handle of the bathroom
door.
Instead, she was surrounded by a sudden rush of warmth, as a
figure moving faster than she could see leapt from the wall next to her
and held her fast. Tsukasa's one arm was wrapped around her waist, the
other her shoulder. His breath was ragged, hot, against her ear, the
movements of her lips nearly a kiss as he spoke.
"Don't get me wrong," he whispered. "Don't think I don't want
to."
Tsukushi was frozen with fire and fear. Her lips trembled.
Thin whistles of breath made their way out in quick succession. She
could feel her hair hanging on her neck, tiny sweatbeads clinging to
the individual strands. A million miniscule, specific sensations
blossomed beneath the canopy of warmth that was Tsukasa's embrace. And
still his breath fell hot and rhythmic on her cheek, and she could do
nothing but swallow and wait.
"I want you, Makino," he said hotly. "Don't forget that."
The admission was so blunt, so startling, that Tsukushi forgot
to breathe. The situation came rushing into her consciousness... they
were alone, SO alone, with no thought of any interruption. An ocean
away from anyone or anything else but each other.
His arms loosened around her shoulders, and he took a half-step
back, his hands trailing down her arms to hold her own hands lightly.
When he spoke again, his voice was calmer, less charged, but still
earnest. "At least... can we fall asleep together tonight?"
She couldn't move. He'd said as much before, of course, but to
beg her permission like that - it threw her, and her words failed her.
To her, that pleading in his voice was frightening. Could he sound so
sincere, so tentative, without meaning something beyond what he said? Could she believe in him right now?
And still, without even looking at him, she knew what his face
must look like. The gentle pleading in his eyes, the desire and
resolve in his firmly set jaw... the way the dim light must have been
illuminating his features. As though that was a part of him too. And
there was no way she couldn't believe in that face. There was no way
she could refuse it, either...
But before she could draw breath to say whatever it was she'd
decided to say, the warmth of his hands slipped away and left her palms
cold. She winced. "I understand," he said under his breath. "Okay."
And without turning to look at her, he walked past her, leaving her
behind.
"Ah - Doumyouji!" she blurted out.
He turned, and in his shadowed face she saw a million
disappointments. "What?" he asked, in such a morose tone of voice
that she forgot whatever she had originally wanted to say.
"Uh..." She stammered, and when she later realized what had
come out of her mouth at that time, she nearly collapsed in shame.
"Y-you take the bed, okay? You're the one who's paying for the room
and all, so you should have it..."
He cracked a half-hearted grin. "Of course, moron," he said.
"That goes without saying."

Minutes passed, the lights went off, and Tsukushi lay covered
in a white blanket on a huge sofa with cloudlike cushions. It was
comfortable, but she couldn't sleep. Her mind felt like a racetrack, a
huge often-traveled loop that she'd been along so many times but still
not mastered. Time and time again, she returned to this place of
uneasiness. No matter how honest she tried to be, how directly she
tried to face her feelings, she somehow always ended up as she was now.
In the dark, separated from him, wondering how she'd managed to hurt
him again.
He'd done so much for her. Again and again. And he'd shown
his love in so many millions of ways... saving her... talking to her...
holding her... and even their uglier, cruder counterparts at times.
But each of the myriad puzzle pieces easily adding up to the one
immutable truth of his feelings. And in return, what had she done?
~I fell in love with him. Isn't that enough?~
Her mind replayed a million moments when she hadn't been able
to say how she felt... embarrassing awkward silences... horrific
misunderstandings... and still, still haunting her, no matter how long
ago it had been, the biggest lie of all, a rainy night where she'd run
away, the declaration that she didn't love him hanging in the air
between them, but the knowledge finally ringing ever-louder in her
ears...
~time again, and time again, and time again, I've felt that I
loved you...~
Tsukushi squeezed her eyes shut as emotion filled her again.
She still felt as though she relived those moments every time she
thought about them. How would she ever put that into the past?

~Maybe... just falling in love with him wasn't enough...~

~I have to trust him, too.~
Something huge and bold inside Tsukushi emerged and grew to
fullness, like a blossom or a huge fruit.
~I have to make him know...~
She made a fist and a decision. And she started to move.

Tsukasa heard dimly the rustling of the sheets in his muddled
haze between sleeping and waking. Perhaps it was her, on that couch
near the foot of the bed. Then again, perhaps he was moving and didn't
realize it. He groaned in sleepy confusion.
That was when he sensed a sharp movement near him - a quick
withdrawal of some sort. His eyes blinked open and he tried to
identify its source without having to move. Slowly, like a gently
opening door letting in the light, he became aware that there was
another presence, very near him. Coming nearer in small but determined
movements. A shadow began to fall across him.
And then the entire world trembled and collapsed into the
single sensation of a hand on his shoulder.
Sparkles of yellow and gold seemed to fly through him as that
hand slid down, across his chest, onto the bed in front of him, and a
warm mouth began to breathe near his ear. The warmth of a woman's body
behind his, knees bent slightly into his, chest just barely brushing
his back in the most maddening of ways. And then the voice in his ear.
That voice had to be heaven itself.
"Falling asleep together... that's okay with me."

Tsukushi felt Tsukasa stir, and she watched him carefully even
in the dark. His body was warm, addictively so, and she found herself
selfishly wanting nothing more than to be in his embrace. He turned
over, and their dark eyes caught each other. Not a word was spoken as
they lay side by side on the huge white bed... but the communication
between them was so intense it was like a brilliant light in the
darkness.
His hands cradled her face tentatively, asking her a silent
question. Her cheeks were hot, but so was her breath, and she couldn't
help but smile in surprise at her own boldness - and the sweet desire
that flew through her in a million unnamable colors. He drew her lips
in to his and kissed her hungrily. Her arms wound around his neck.
Cool sheets felt glorious against her still-wet hair and her
flushed skin, and soon she was trapped between that coolness and his
unbearable warmth, seeping into her from above as his mouth locked onto
hers. She felt as though he was both feeding her and feeding on her.
Taking and giving incredible warmth, incredible sensation. Filled with
light, she held him tight, kissed him as well as she knew how, her eyes
closed against everything in the world that wasn't part of this one
intense embrace.
His lips lingered over hers, teasing her with tiny kisses and
finally easing his hold on her with gentle goodbyes, fluttering touches
of his mouth on hers. As her eyes opened to see him looking down at
her, her lips were still pursed, warm and wet, and so inviting he had
to bite his own lip to keep from returning to her. Her eyes widened
until they looked almost inhumanly big, like sweet pools of chocolate
glistening in the darkness.
"Let me guess," he said in a voice that broke several times,
hovering awkwardly between soft speech and whisper. "Still 'not yet,'
right?"
"Sorry." Her voice, unlike his, was clear and soft in the
darkness.
"I understand," he said. Earlier, he'd used the same words.
But now, there was no regret, just passion and a sort of respect she
wasn't sure how to identify. Maybe it was in sleep that the answer
came to her; maybe it never came at all, and she misunderstood him yet
again. But somehow, at some point, Tsukushi was sure that was the
voice of a man addressing someone or something he truly cherished. She
felt a smile simmering within her into a pool of sunshine that flowed
through her whole self.
He kissed her, settled behind her, and wrapped his arms around
her. Tsukushi melted into his arms, felt her whole body dissolving
into liquid. Then the world faded too, and she slept. Sleep neither
blessed with dreams nor plagued with nightmares, but wrapped in a
constant sense of warmth that she was conscious of even in
unconsciousness. She felt like a baby returning to her mother's arms;
like someone who'd finally found their way home. It felt natural...
even normal. The sort of thing she'd been meant to find all her life.

So, in a hotel in New York, in the arms of Doumyouji Tsukasa,
Makino Tsukushi slept better then she ever had. And whenever morning
came, and whatever came with it...
...well. That's the next story. For now, fade to black.

-fin for now-