A/N: ...Uh. OC fic. Angst. :D Enjoy?

01.

"What?" he says to you. Your fingers tighten around your mug and you know without looking down that your knuckles have whitened. You can't let go; it's your lifeline in this storm, and if you let go, you might cry. You might break. So you compose yourself and sit straight in your chair and you don't—you can't—falter.

"It would be the best for the both of us," you say, as calmly as you can. He forces out a bark of laughter and the business men at the next table to their left turn their heads. "We need to end this." You are glad that your bangs hide your eyes; you don't—you can't—look at him.

There is a moment of silence before he stands up, pushing the chair backwards with a loud, screeching noise. The silverware rattles and the tiles on the floor are left with a gray mark. You picture his angry face in your head, and because you can't look at him, you look down at your coffee and realize too late that it's gone cold.

"What," he repeats, "after all that we've—" he says angrily, but then he pauses. "You know what? Fine. Screw this." Then he's gone, leaving you to breathe in the lingering smell of expensive cologne and burnt hearts.

The door of the café opens and closes with the faraway sound of remorse.

02.

In your dreams, he is not a famous tennis player, the heir to the Atobe Corporation and you are not the coffee pourer and the sweeper of sticky floors. In your dreams, you are both normal, with no paparazzi over your shoulders, looking for the right flick of the match to set problems on fire.

You meet him one day and it's not on a day with spring flowers or fields of poppies, where a gentle breeze is blowing through your hair and playing with the hem of your sundress. You do not meet him when it is pouring outside, either, when you've got nowhere to go and you've forgotten your umbrella and he comes up to you, a million dollar smile on his face, with an arm outstretched.

No.

You meet him when you have both your elbows propped up against the counter and when you're chewing at the stub of your pencil, sketching and doodling in the corner of a clean handkerchief. He comes in, wearing sunglasses and a blue-striped cap, covering half of his face, and you know that he counts as a somebody in society by the way he walks over. His glance passes you and he orders from your co-worker instead.

You wonder what had compelled him to come, as he walks off, takes a seat nearby the window. He looks outside, takes a sip, and by the way he grimaces, you know that he thinks that the taste is too light, too weak for someone like him.

He finishes it anyway.

03.

He comes back in again the next week with a different pair of sunglasses and a few other people behind him, wearing shorts and carrying bags that tells you that they are sportsmen. He orders coffee; you turn around to make it for them, dropping your pencil back onto the counter to make use of both hands. When you turn back around, he's got his head bent over your napkin.

Your face turns red and you snatch it away. He looks up, surprised, and his mouth is set in a line, like he's the one whose privacy was invaded. You push his coffee towards him almost bitterly.

Then, he speaks to you for the first time.

04.

In your dreams, he learns to trust you completely after only the second time he comes for coffee. In your dreams, he becomes one of your best friends and he tells you every secret.

It's a whole month of on and off visiting to get coffee before he tells you his name, and he learns yours.

You ask him one day why he still comes here though it's obvious he doesn't like the coffee. He shrugs; says, "Nobody knows me here. Nobody cares."

You leave it at that and turn around to make his coffee.

05.

It's a whole year and a half before he begins to trust you. He's unsure of girls like you—girls who are in need of money and yet dream big.

He invites you to go out drinking with him sometimes, and you would follow him, you in your normal attire, and him in his classy gray hooded sweaters. Or sometimes you would cook something up for him in your apartment because all these years he's taken to eating fancy, decorated meals. Or perhaps he was the one who cooked for you, because you always managed to mess something or other up and he has to take over, nose crinkling in disgust at your amateur cooking skills, tongue clucking and the tiniest of smiles on his lips.

06.

You like him but it's something you will never tell him.

You sigh and spend your days at the café, writing lyrics to classic love songs on white napkins, like you know what is happening to yourself. Like you know how it feels like to be vulnerable. Like you know how it feels to love someone and have them love you back.

You see him on television sometimes—he still has that million dollar smile on his face, the beauty mark on his face under his eye, the flip of the hair or the snap of the fingers and then the following silence—it feels like he was born to be seen on every single fashion and tennis magazine. During these times, you cup your hands around your mug and lean in closer, because he feels distant—so, so distant, and it's like the two of you aren't friends, anymore.

You wonder if it's a good idea to like someone who was born to be a star.

07.

He kisses you one day and it is not while you are looking at cherry blossoms at the park and he's brushing pink petals out of your hair. Nor is it when you've got something on your nose and he's leaning in with a handkerchief.

No—it is when you are watching a horror movie and he's beside you, pretending that he's not jumping out of his skin when the murderer appears behind the shower curtains. You laugh and throw popcorn at him while he groans out loud as red blood splatters on the screen.

"You're such a girl," you say, and he glares at you.

It is sudden. Unexpected.

His face is sharp angles and he holds your cheeks in his hands while he closes the gap between your faces. He kisses you softly and it is like your first kiss all over again—all clumsiness and shyness rolled up into one.

"I thought you were the romantic type," you stutter out afterwards, and as another bout of screaming sounds from the speakers, you see his smile.

08.

You fall in love; it's not when your lips first meet his for the first time. Nor is it when he's holding out a bouquet of roses, his face flushed, with eyes diverted, and he's stammering out a confusing confession.

No. You fall in love when you are both singing karaoke at his place—his very, very big place—and you both sound so very awful. The smirk on his face is wide and you're laughing at both him and yourself, body leaning over onto his. He's complaining, as a deep chuckle rumbles from his throat as well, telling you to 'get off' and 'your elbows hurt', but you only laugh harder and his hand clings to your arm tighter.

There's a small knock at the door then—so he turns down the volume, readjusts the insane expression on his face, while you sit on the sofa, your hand clamped over your mouth with strange snuffling sounds escaping your hand.

That is when you realize you're in love.

09.

The details of his life are on the glossy pages of fashion and sports magazines, and there, sometimes you stop to read about him, his life, his middle school—Hyoutei, the prestigious one down in Tokyo—and his character, though the pages have captured the things about him you could do without.

There are things that only you know—his obnoxious attitude when he's being meticulous, the way he treats his butlers and servants like people and not things, the light in his eyes when he's watching a particularly difficult tennis match on the wide screen television.

He sits in the armchair, the latest magazine about him in his hands, when you tell him.

"I love you," you say, and you know he's been waiting for you to tell him. His eyes light up and his smiles—your stomach does a flop and it feels like a fairytale.

10.

'Mystery girl seen with Atobe heir', it says. Your thumbs shake and your eyes widen as you flip the page and see a blurry photo of you and him—your mouth midway open in laughter and still, his charming gaze on you. You remember it was when you'd been telling him of a vivid, colourful dream you'd been having.

The gossip travels everywhere and when you search online, your fingers tremble over the keyboard—'what is she wearing' and 'she doesn't deserve him' and 'I bet he's just using her'.

It's the first time you've felt so invaded by the words of strangers.

He calls you and he sounds pissed off—you imagine him dressed in dark blue, gripping at his cravat, a scowl on his face—and he swears and curses at the reporters and at all the people who don't understand and will never understand you. He calms down a bit as you talk, but his voice is still strained and tired and you realize that he's not been getting sleep; but even still, he tells you, smoothly, that 'everything will be alright' and 'I'll protect you, no matter what'.

You watch him on television in the evening and he laughs the situation off—you sense the bitterness in his voice, but he's always been a terrific kind of actor—and almost everyone believes him, because of his convincing words and the presence that fills the room.

The hostess laughs, comments that he's too busy looking in the mirror to care about another significant being, and you don't miss the grimace that flashes across his face.

Somehow, that hurts you more than the criticism online.

He kisses you later that night and it tastes of dry makeup and fatigue.

11.

Your fairytale begins to fall apart at the seams when you try to travel together.

It is perfect at first—he helps you with all your luggage and you go sightseeing everywhere and he kisses you in public where everyone can see—that you are what you are and no one can touch you now.

But when you head back, it is alone on his private jet, your hand resting on the metal bar instead of his hand, and as you wait for him to arrive as well, he leaves you to his luggage and hails for a taxi for your ride home.

You begin to wonder if this is too much (or perhaps too little).

12.

There is a match he has to play in America—he is excited and you are happy for him when he tells you. He begins practicing lines in English and you can't catch what he's saying for more than less of the time now, and you support him, because that's all you can do in Japan.

You try not to sound too worried about the distance as the two of you wait for his private jet.

"I'll call you," he says, and you know he will.

13.

"Hey," he says, and his voice is tired, tired, tired—you hear it, and you know that he is calling at an insane time in America to make things easier for you. Suddenly you wish he would stop doing this, but only a small part of you wants it to continue because this way, you're not feeling like you're being forgotten.

"Hey," you say back, and your voice is a whisper, only because if you talk out loud, you're afraid your voice might crack.

14.

He kisses you when he comes back. It tastes like faded dreams and the blank pages of children's storybooks.

15.

It all closes on you and you can't breathe sometimes because you've got a duty—you've got to protect him and everyone's expectations and the future.

You've got to protect him. You cry in the nights, because sometimes you begin to think that it's you that he needs to be protected from.

16.

All you wanted was a short love story that would last maybe forever, but today, tonight, from now on, you don't think you'll be able to be brave enough to write the next chapter.

17.

"I didn't want to hurt you," you say to the empty chair in front of you.

The businessmen at the next table are staring at you as you bury your face in your hands.

18.

He kisses you for the last time and it is not when you have gray in your hair and hands that are weathered and veined and delicate and old and light.

It is when he might have realized that he's losing you. He kisses you long and hard but it's clashing and with the biting of lips. It tastes of desperateness and cold fear. The dying embers of a fire.

He whispers 'I love you's against your lips and his hands shake against yours, holding them a fraction too tight.

You have tears at the corners of your eyes because you want to believe that this could evolve and still become something more and it is not the end—not just yet.

But it is.

19.

In your dreams, he did not get up and leave you. He did not throw the napkin across the table and he did not wretch open the door so hard that the bell clanged instead of clinked.

In your dreams, he would have kissed you one last time and the kiss would have been slow and delicate and it would feel like forgiveness and new beginnings. He would have told you 'you're right, you're right, maybe this wasn't working out' and you would have remained friends—best friends that told each other secrets and laughed together while singing karaoke in a large, fancy mansion. That's how your story would have ended.

Instead, he's leaving you feeling like a heartbreaker. He's leaving you with memories telling you a thousand reasons why you are so, so very wrong.

Owari

2010.10.01