A/N :

This was written a good few years ago, but sadly the site hosting the story is no more.

Even though the member only community gives you more freedom to write, but Fanfiction . net is still one of the more stable sites for fiction around.

Much of the background were taken from manga, but mixed here and there with the drama version.

The story is set in the future. I change the original title this story was published under at the previous site.

It was a small apartment, small for American standard, designed for one person with not many possessions. Inside was a small bedroom, enough to fit in a single bed and a do-it-yourself wardrobe from IKEA. The living room was adjacent to the kitchen, so you could eat the dinner in front of a small TV, which was where her life rotated once she arrived at home.

Yuuki liked it there. She liked her new routine. She liked being alone for the first time in her life. Truly alone. It's true, she missed Tsukushi, she missed their once a week catch-up on weekends, because there were always things to do from Monday to Friday. Their college life had been different. She still worked every night at the bakery to help pay for her tuition fee. Her parents had decided to move away from Tokyo to open a new business in her father's hometown. Life was not exactly hard, but she didn't like to just sit there and wait for a handout.

Tsukushi had attended the prestigious Eitoku college, tuition paid by Domyouji for the full four years. But being engaged to the heir of the company had caused sharp downfall on Tsukushi's social life. Every day she had to attend a special class at Domyouji's house, as requested – no, required - by his mother.

'You're a really tough girl,' she made a comment once to her best friend.

But Tsukushi laughed and said, 'No, Yuuki. I think I'm the one who has to say that.'

And she felt herself blushed at her friend's reply, because she understood perfectly what Tsukushi meant by that one sentence. It was not a secret, because they never have one. But it was not something they would openly discuss, either.

Months later she revealed her plan to Tsukushi.

'I am going to work for Japan Tourism Board once I finished college.' She grinned and showed her acceptance letter. 'They liked the fact that I'm an – quote – expert – unquote - in the whole tea ceremony thing, and that I'm fluent in English as well. They said I might even get to work abroad.' She beamed proudly.

'Really? Wow, Yuuki, that is really impressive!'

'It is, isn't it?' She smiled at Tsukushi. 'I want to go to New York. You went there years ago to find Domyouji. You met a lot of people. I want to have the same experience.'

Tsukushi smiled at her enthusiasm and hugged her. 'But I will be lonely if you're not here, Yuuki.'

'I will miss you, too.'

'Have you told him?' Tsukushi asked her a heartbeat later.

She took her time before shaking her head. Smiled at Tsukushi but didn't say anything. Any words would be too much for her and she couldn't trust herself not to crack her carefully crafted shell in front of Tsukushi.

'He will be worried.'

"He will not,' she said after sometimes. 'Don't tell him anything, OK? You have to promise.'

'Hmm..' Tsukushi reluctantly twined her little finger with hers. Their eternal symbol of promise and friendship. It never got old.

New York didn't exactly happen in the end.

She was sent to another part of America, a place with warm weather and beach and sand. But she was far from complaining. She made a plan to visit the green lady once she had enough leaves to have a one-woman adventure.

She called Tsukushi once in a while, but she didn't give her friend her phone number. She didn't want Tsukushi to lie had someone asked about her whereabouts. Not that anyone would try to find her anyway.

Life was good. She enjoyed going to work every day, meeting new people, experiencing culture clash, laughed at her own mistakes and stupidity. Life was good but for the fact that she still could not banish the thought of one person and one person only. Not really.

Asked her to define a man-woman relationship and she would launch into a full blown essay counting her friend's experience as a case model. But asked her about her OWN relationship and she would clam up and retreated into a safe haven of not saying anything at all. Not because she was being secretive, but because she herself did not quite have a grasp of what she was doing.

It was months after she boldly said, 'I want to make you feel warm,' to Nishikado and they have spent that night together that she got a call from him.

'Congratulations for the new college!'

She was just got accepted into college, major in English and international law.

'Thank you,' she said.

'How about dinner?'

'Your treat?' She thought about how much money she would have to spend to treat Nishikado to a nice restaurant.

'Of course it's my treat, silly girl.' She could hear his warm, honey coated laugh. And just like that, she melted at the thought of him sharing a table with her.

'You haven't changed,' he said over dinner. His chin rested on the back of his hand while his eyes looked intently at her.

'I have,' she said, pointing at her hair. 'See my hair's much longer now.' He laughed, and his voice never failed to make her falter. She could not recall what the dinner was like, whether she had salmon with asparagus over a bed of mashed sweet potato, or grilled chicken with golden roasted slivered almond and salad with vinaigrette and olive oil dressing. She didn't remember if she was served baked strawberry cheesecake afterwards or had opted for a cup of black coffee with no sugar instead.

What she remembered in detail was afterwards.

She remembered his warm hands unbuttoned her simple peasant top (the palest of pink over pleated off-white mini skirt), his fingers expertly removing her bra while she watched him with eyes half closed. He kissed her mouth softly at first, and as she opened her mouth to respond she could feel his tongue rolled over hers. She thought it was very strange that she could give in so completely to a man she hardly knew. Of course, she had done it with him once before, but if there was ever any doubt, they evaporated the time his strong yet smooth hand splayed over her stomach, his lips made a playful trail from her neck to her breast, down to her belly button.

She lost all her reasoning as their eyes met; her legs naked on his shoulder and she felt his tongue warm and wet and teasing. It was a thrilling ride at a formula one speed, and yet it was also a slow motion picture with all her senses heightened. And she realized how their heart pulsed at the same pace as he collapsed over her body.

'We have the same heartbeat,' she whispered to his neck as his hand raked through her hair, then was shoulder length.

'Hmmm…' he didn't answer. Instead, he pulled her closer until she felt his breath slowed and his body relaxed.

She left before he woke up the next morning and promised herself that it would be the last time she would ever see him.

That was of course an empty promise because she would always answer her phone whenever he called. Weeks, or even months would go by without him calling once, then all of a sudden she found herself waiting for him in the club he frequented at the time with Akira. She had gotten used to call Mimasaka Akira with only Akira, as she had also gotten used to call Hanazawa Rui by only Rui. But she never called him Soujiro even once. It was always Nishikado. She had dropped the 'san' along the way but somehow Soujiro sounded too personal for her.

'Are you going out with anyone at all?' her friends from university had asked her once.

She would shake her head and laughed. Because she knew for a fact that Nishikado Soujiro was not her boyfriend. It's too far from reality. He was her fantasy, her dream, not her goal. Not even a remote possibility. And she wasn't sure what she meant for him.

'I need Yuuki to make me warm,' he said to her once, his body towered over her small frame, turning her face crimson red and for once she was thankful for the dim light on her terrace.

He had knocked on her door in the middle of the night. It was raining and his hair was wet after running from his car to her rented one room apartment. She never asked why he had come so late and why he had chosen to go visit her. Because the world around had somehow turned fainter and fainter once he had kissed her and lifted her to the bed.

'Are you OK with it?' Tsukushi asked her after this had been going on for two years, and she shrugged her shoulder in her typical fashion. He was still the biggest playboy in town, of course. She had accepted the fact that in his world, marriage is something akin to a business merger than romance. And yet there was always that tender feeling every time she looked at him. He was the loneliest person she had ever met. Not Akira, because Akira never once fell in love with anyone. Not Rui, because Rui always had his own little world. Certainly not Domyouji, because he had Tsukushi with him. It was Soujiro who once lost his faith in love. And she loved him for that very reason.

'I went to dinner with this American guy last week,' she said to Tsukushi on their last phone conversation.

'Really? Wow, was it different from dating a Japanese guy?'

She laughed and said she couldn't say, and it wasn't exactly dating, thank you very much. Her one and only Japanese boyfriend was that bastard in high school. The one Nishikado beat up for making her cried.

'Surely it went better than that whatshisnameagain…'

'Yeah, a thousand times better actually,' she said cheerfully.

'You know, Yuuki, he's been pestering me for weeks already,' Tsukushi suddenly said.

She didn't say a name, but Yuuki knew whom she was talking about.

'And you didn't say anything, right?'

'No. I didn't.'

'Good. I told my mom to say I'm actually living in Korea or India if anyone came to ask around.' She laughed a little. 'It's not like me, isn't it? Don't you think it was a bit presumptuous of me to actually think that anyone would knock on my parent's door looking for me?'

'Yeah, big headed Yuuki. I should have known. That was you all along.'

She laughed again.

'Does it mean that you are truly happy?'

'I am happy.'

'Good. I want my Yuuki to always be happy.'

'Me too,' she smiled before ended the conversation.

She was happy, in a way. She was happy that she wouldn't need to see him with his various girlfriends again. She was happy that she wouldn't have to experience that pang of jealousy again. She was happy that she could at last be free from him… or was it? Because the dreams she had been having since she moved had not abated at all. She couldn't tell if they were dreams or merely imaginations. She could see his face on the ceiling, before her eyes closed. She could see his smile inside her cereal bowl. She thought she could even sometimes feel his touch in the middle of the night, and she would wake up feeling the emptiest she had ever been.

With a sigh she opened her laptop and started writing a report she promised her boss to finish before the week end. Dinner was instant ramen she bought last week from the Asian shop downtown with eggs and broccoli. She missed the small restaurant she used to work at when she was still in the university. The noodle was always fresh, and she loved her ramen spicy with lots of chili and curry paste.

'God, I'm hungry again,' she said to the small crack on the wall just above the front door. If there's one thing she'd like to change about her apartment, it's the sound proofing. It's not terrible, but the wall seemed a little bit too thin for her liking. People in front of her door could hear the going on inside as much as she could outside.

'Will you have dinner with me?'

She froze at the sound for a second before making her way forward slowly.

She wasn't getting mad, was she?

With shaky hands she unlocked the door and pushed it open.

'I need you to make me warm,' he still towered over her. His soft brown eyes met her glassy ones. With the softest of touch his fingers brushed her lips, and he stepped inside, closed the door quietly behind him.

'Don't ever go away without saying anything again,' his voice soft as he carelessly seated himself on the only couch in the room and pulled her to his lap. 'I missed you a lot.' He buried his face on her hair.

'How… how do you find me?'

'Is it important?'

No, she slowly shook her head. She should have known better, it's impossible to run away from any of them. Akira, Rui, Tsukasa. Nishikado.

And she didn't care if she couldn't really run away. Because when his mouth found hers, his hand disappeared inside her skirt, she had stopped all her reasoning. She probably had to live her whole life clinging to her dream. She probably could live with it.