She had waited for it all year. She had known it was coming soon; the weather had been cool the past few months. And now, it finally came. It was snowing. Life really was that simple when we were five years old.
“Waaaaai!”
She danced around, her arms wide open, as if welcoming the snowflakes falling from the clouds. She giggled as she twirled, her blue hair bouncing.
“Waaaaa– Ack!”
She blinked, turning around, and saw a brown-haired boy laughing as he held a snowball.
“Oniichan!” she yelled, mustering up her angriest glare. “Don’t throw snowballs at me– Ack! ONIICHAN!”
The boy just laughed harder. “Hey, Ai-chan! Did you know you look like a fish when you’re angry?”
“I do not!”
“Yes, you do!” he said before pressing his palms on his cheeks and exclaiming ‘Oniichan!’ in his most shrill voice (which wasn’t far from his own voice, anyways).
She corssed her arms, pouting, as she tried with all her might not to do what her brother accused her of.
“Hikaru, don’t pick on your sister…” came a gentle voice.
The girl called Aiko looked up to see a beautiful woman with gentle brown eyes.
“Okaasan!” she exclaimed happily.
Kazetenshi Rieka knelt down on the snow beside Aiko, smiling. She turned to the six-year-old Hikaru again.
“Dear, it’s nice to play, but don’t throw the snowballs too hard, all right?”
“Hai…” Hikaru answered as he walked towards the girls. Aiko smirked, then stuck her tongue out at Hikaru. But then, Rieka reprimanded her.
“Aiko, don’t stick your tongue out at your brother. It’s not nice.”
Aiko instantly flushed, bowing her head. “Hai, Okaasan.”
“What do you say to Hikaru?”
“I’m sorry, Oniichan…” the little girl said to her brother.
“Hikaru?”
“It’s all right. And I’m sorry for throwing the snow ball too hard.”
“That’s better,” their mother said. “Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
The children shook their heads quietly. Until Aiko noticed something glistening on Rieka’s neck.
“Waa… Okaasan, that’s a nice necklace!”
Rieka blinked, then held her necklace in her hands. “Yes, it is, isn’t it? A good friend gave it to me, to remember them by.”
“Remember them by? Don’t you see them anymore?”
Rieka shook her head as she gazed at her necklace. “No… I said good-bye to them some time ago,” she said, almost whispering.
“Oh… Okaasan, can I have your necklace when I grow up?”
“Ai-chan!” Hikaru exclaimed in disbelief. But Rieka just laughed.
“Yes, Aiko, I’ll give it to you when you grow up. It’ll be your birthday gift from me when you turn seventeen, OK? Then you can take good care of it.”
Aiko smiled widely, nodding.
“Hai!”
—-0—-
Aiko unconsciously fingered the cold pendant on her neck as the memory finished playing in her mind. She rubbed her arms and sighed as she looked up at the evergreen trees around her.
“Are you cold?”
Aiko turned to the maroon-eyed boy with her. “I’m fine.”
“Yeah. Of course you are,” Kaji said with a scoff. “You know, I bet you’d say you’re fine even if all five Roses attacked you at the same time, and left you trapped under a collapsed building trying to saw your arm off.” His eyebrows furrowed when Aiko said nothing, and continued walking instead.
“Oei…Did you hear me? I said–”
“I heard what you said.”
“And you’re not going to say anything?”
Aiko looked at him again, then shook her head.
Kaji feigned shock, his jaw dropping. “No way! No ‘Shut up, Kaji’?”
“… Uh… No.”
“No eye-rolling?”
“None.”
“You’re not going to bash my head with the nearest blunt object?”
Silence.
“Aren’t you at least going to glare at me?”
“No.”
Kaji narrowed his eyes at her. “All right. Who are you and what have you done with the real Kazetenshi Aiko?”
“Shut up, Kaji.”
Kaji blinked, then sighed in exaggerated relief. “For a second, I thought I lost you there.”
He had expected Aiko to say something in her defense, or maybe (finally) roll her eyes, but instead, she just looked blankly in front of her as she kept walking. Definitely un-Aiko. Kaji frowned, remembering what Ran had told him:
“Her ki had been behaving abnormally ever since Kamui joined. It seems to me that abnormalities in her ki wave is most usually triggered by emotional stress and such, and it causes drastic mood swings. It would be better if you kept her away from emotionally straining situations.”
Aiko had been very quiet — too quiet — ever since she woke up the day before. She was always keeping to herself, and every time he talked to her, Aiko always looked as if she was going to cry. This, to Kaji, was definitely emotional stress, so it was his responsibility to cheer her up. But since he was walking on eggshells, his efforts have been fruitless. Aiko’s condition hasn’t changed, and it didn’t look like it was going to change any time soon. Then again, Kaji was never one to give up so easily.
“Hey, wanna know what’s up at Ran’s this morning?”
If she wasn’t going to talk, then he was going to talk her into talking.
“Sure.”
Never mind that Kaji wasn’t usually one who spoke in long paragraphs.
“Your brother can fly now, thank goodness, though he’s still not fast enough. I think Sara is almost ready. But since her power isn’t for offense, I don’t think she can handle an attack alone. Her only weapon would be her gymnastics skills, so we’re developing her fighting skill while flying. She keeps insisting that she needs to develop her mind-reading abilities before she’s ready, though. She says it’d be very convenient to tell us what the Roses’ next move would be. But of course, Ran keeps telling her it’s not a Blue Star ability so as not to discourage her. Heh. It’s odd that she can read minds sometimes but she never read ours to find out about Blue Star, ne?
“Then the Roses attacked the palace, all five of them. But we were all so tired from training, no one was able to put up a fight except Ran. It was amazing. Ran was outnumbered, and he didn’t stand a chance, so we all tried to fight afterwards, but the Roses were too strong, y’know? So they left the place in shreds and us practically breathing through a hole in our necks. Good thing Sara had healing powers, so she healed us. But then it drained her so she died. Toriyama got so depressed, he killed himself, too.”
Silence.
“Hm.”
Kaji practically fell over. “Rookie…” he started, trying not to sigh in frustration. “did you even hear a word I just said?” He didn’t just say one word. He said about two hundred words in sixteen sentences and all she could say was “Hm”?!
After what seemed to be one full minute, Aiko finally turned to him, blinking.
“I’m sorry, Kaji, what did you say?”
“…” Kaji didn’t even suppress the urge to scratch his hair.
“Really, I’m listening now,” Aiko said, sounding apologetic. “What were you saying again?”
“Nothing. We’re here.”
Aiko was about to retort — she really is listening this time — but Kaji had spoken with finality. So she decided not to prod.
I guess I really should pull myself together, she thought. The others seemed to be getting worried about her behavior. Well, who wouldn’t? Aiko not being hyper was simply not Aiko at all. But she didn’t mean to be absent-minded, not really… With another sigh, she sat beside Kaji on the log and started putting on her skates.
————–
“Earth to Kamui…”
.
.
“Earth to Kamui, do you copy?”
.
.
“TORIYAMA KAMUI!”
“YOW!“
Yuki blinked and inspected the bento box she was holding. There wasn’t even a single dent. She smiled sweetly at the saleslady behind the counter.
“I’ll take it, miss,” she said. “It looks really durable.”
“Thank you,” the saleslady hesitantly took the box while smiling wanly. “But…what about your friend?”
Yuki blinked, then laughed, waving her hand dismissively. “I’m sure he agrees. Don’t you, Kamui?”
“Owwwww…”
“He agrees.”
The bells on the door jingled as Yuki stepped outside the store with her new bento box in her arms. Kamui, feeling his head for a bump, followed behind her.
“Sheesh, Yuki, you didn’t have to hit me that hard. I’m not Hino, you know…”
The Ice Maiden stopped walking and faced the black-haired boy. “Kamui,” she started. “do you know how many times you’ve stared out into space the past two hours?”
Kamui looked up at her. “You mean you actually counted?”
Yuki ignored the smirk adorning his face, and just answered her own question. “Twenty-four. That’s twelve times an hour. That means your mind flies out of your head every five minutes… So that means the subtle approaches I used earlier weren’t going to work–”
As if to support Yuki’s claim, Kamui’s attention was diverted yet again when his eyes caught someone across the road. Someone with midnight blue hair and excited grey eyes.
“Hey, Ai-chan!” he called out, unknowingly interrupting Yuki. But his best friend didn’t seem to hear him as she disappeared into an alley. Without hesitation, Kamui weaved through the crowd as quickly as he could, emitting several “excuse me”s and “I’m sorry”s. But when he reached the alley she disappeared into, he found it to be a dead end. And no one was there.
“Weird…” he unconsciously breathed.
“What’s weird?” came Yuki’s voice behind him.
“Aiko. I’m pretty sure she went in here, but…” Kamui trailed off.
“Kamui, Aiko’s back at the hotel resting.”
“No, really, you didn’t see her?”
“No…” Yuki answered, shaking her head. “What time did you sleep last night?”
“Late.”
“Can I just say that you’re now officially a walking zombie? You’re starting to hallucinate. Join the rest of the living world, will you?”
“Can I just say that I really really need you to hang out with Hino again? Because you’re starting to pick on me, and I don’t like it.”
“Hm,” Yuki said, putting a finger on her chin thoughtfully. “Request noted.”
“Thank you.”
The smile on her lips died when Yuki looked at her watch. “Uh-oh.”
“What?”
It took Kamui about one second to realize that Yuki had already kicked the ground and flown off without an explanation. So when he did, he shouted an “Oy!” and unvisibly flew after her.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked when he caught up to her.
“The finals!” Yuki exclaimed. “The finals are starting in an hour!”
“So? That’s plenty of time; I think we can still get good seats–”
“Kamui, I am a finalist.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t ‘oh’ me. I gotta go get ready. Go to the hotel and get Kaji; I’m pretty sure he forgot about it. And get Aiko, too, if she’s up to it.”
“Aye-aye, sir!” he exclaimed with a salute, then changed his course to the hotel…
————–
“Whoa!”
-thud-
“Ow…” Aiko said with a wince. “Are you all right?”
“BAH! That’s it! I quit.”
She blinked as Kaji pulled himself to his feet. “You can’t quit when you haven’t even started, you know. Try skating a few meters first.”
“How can I skate when I can’t even stand?”
“You’re standing now, aren’t you?” she asked with a smile, earning herself a glare from Kaji. His skates made short slicing sounds as he tried to keep upright, his arms awkwardly spread at his sides.
“Yeah, well…It’s nice–whoa…to see you finally smiling again… even if it’s in my–gah!… expense…But I’d prefer it… if you don’t laugh at me…Thank you.”
Contrary to his request, Aiko laughed. She didn’t do it on purpose, though. Kaji just looked absolutely hilarious doing his little dance.
“I am no Mizuno Yuki, you know,” he said when his skates finally steadied. “And don’t even start about my impeccable balance. My balance is horrible.”
“No, it’s no–”
“Yes, it i– WHOA!”
Aiko cringed, half-expecting to hear another thud. But it never came. She opened her eyes, and saw Kaji floating in mid-air, sporting a deep frown.
“See? Your balance IS impeccable!”
“Shut up, Kazetenshi.”
“For goodness’ sake, Hino. Stop acting so childish. Get down here, will you?”
“No.”
Aiko rolled her eyes as Kaji crossed his arms on his chest, a public declaration that he had turned on his stubborn mode. Not that he wasn’t stubborn practically all the time.
“May I remind you that you were the one who insisted to go skating with me today? You might was well join me, you know.”
“I didn’t insist on going skating with you. I insisted that you go outdoors for once,” Kaji said, slowly lowering himself down onto the ice again. “You’ve locked yourself up in your room long enough.”
“Touché,” Aiko said. “Here, want some help?”
Kaji looked back and forth from Aiko’s outstretched hands to her face. Though she still didn’t look as cheerful as he would have wanted, the smile on her lips was definitely a good development. But still, he preferred to be standing firmly on the ground than sliding around and falling over. Why he ever agreed to skating, he didn’t know.
Suppressing a sigh, Kaji took her hands, and let her slowly pull him with her across the ice. Aiko skated backwards, guiding him as he awkwardly skated on. Kaji felt utterly silly, and he wanted nothing else but to fly back to the riverbank. Aiko’s chanting “left, right, left, right” didn’t help, either. So he concentrated on his feet, making sure he wasn’t going to slip again.
“Aiya, Hino, wipe that frown off your face.”
“You have no idea how hugely embarrassing this is, do you?”
“Oh, hush. You’re doing great, see?”
“No, I don’t see.”
“Fine. Just look at me, then.”
“Then I won’t see where I’m going!”
“Quite the opposite, dear. You’ll be looking directly at where you’re going.”
After throwing a skeptical look at Aiko, Kaji relented, mumbling a weak “whatever”.
“Don’t think so much about what you’re doing,” Aiko coached on. “Just relax.”
“Whatever you say,” he answered quietly.
“Oooh, submissive today, aren’t we?”
“Don’t push your luck, Rookie.”
“Just don’t melt the ice,” Aiko told him. There were several moments of silence as they continued gliding around on the ice, their feet moving in sync. “Looks like you’re starting to get the hang of it.”
“Hah. I’m a fast learner.”
“Good for you, Sir Kaji. “
“Wow…I haven’t heard you call me that ever since your training!”
“Yeah,” Aiko laughed. “Remember that time when you were trying to teach me how to be unvisible? Man, it took me so long to finally get it right.”
“Well, you did get it right, eventually. And then you teleported us to the kitchen! That was so awesome.”
“I still can’t believe I got to do that without really wanting to.”
“Same way with lightning! You really are fully of surprises, aren’t you?”
“Too bad the surprises aren’t useful enough…” Aiko said under her breath, her smile waning.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, it ain’t,” Kaji pushed. “What do you mean, they ‘aren’t useful enough’?”
“I just…” Aiko hesitated, slowing down to stop. “I just wish…”
“You just wish…?” Kaji encouraged her.
“I just wish I had a Star Mark, too, y’know? I bet everything will be so much easier if I did.”
“Star Mark?” Kaji echoed bewilderedly. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“Well, you have one, Yuki has one. Heck, even Kamui has one, and I became a Star before he did.”
Kaji’s eyes widened in realization. “Is this what’s been bothering you this past couple of days? Your Star Mark?”
“Gee, sorry for thinking about it,” Aiko said sarcastically. “But the way Ran talked about it, I just had an impression it was something important.”
“Well, yeah, I guess it is something important, but… You can have a Star Mark or not, we don’t really care as long as you stay alive and do your job well. Rookie, the Mark ain’t the point!”
“So what’s the point? For the target not to be taken? If that’s the case, I suck.”
“Explain.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, Deathrose collected five people under my nose the other day.”
“It’s not like you didn’t put up a fight. And that was a huge bunch of minors you faced off with– “
“I lost five people, Kaji! FIVE!”
“So you were defeated.” Kaji put a hand on her shoulder when Aiko looked away. “We’re not perfect, you know. Sometimes, we fail. It just happens.”
Kaji almost jumped when Aiko suddenly looked at him, her eyes burning.
“‘It just happens’?! ‘IT JUST HAPPENS’?! I can’t believe you just said that! How can you treat this like a game?!”
“A what?!” he retorted, taking his hand back before Aiko did anything to it. “OK, wait just one freaking minut–”
“How can you be so damn calm about it?!”
Suddenly, Kaji was at a loss for words. After all, no matter what everyone else says, he still can’t be as cool as Yuki in times like this. During fights, yeah, he can keep thinking straight, no problem. But when it comes to emotional situations like this, and it involved emotional people like Aiko waving her arms around as she exclaimed numerous long sentences (half of which Kaji didn’t catch, no matter how loud she said them)… well, it was a bit too much for him to handle. He needed several seconds before he came up with anything intelligent.
That’s why the very eloquent “Oei…” he emitted in the middle of Aiko’s outburst didn’t help much.
“This is serious!” Aiko went on, using her arms to emphasize practically each word she said. Kaji was almost sure she didn’t know what she was saying. He ducked, catching both her wrists, before she accidentally hit him with them. But she didn’t even seem to notice that he was already keeping his iron grip on her wrists as she continued.
“People died, Kaji! They’re not guinea pigs!”
“Whoever said–”
“This isn’t an experiment, this is REAL!”
“Don’t you think I know tha–”
“This isn’t like training where you can just disregard your mistake and try again when you fail!”
“THEN WHAT THE HECK DO YOU PROPOSE TO DO?!” Kaji decided to yell back at her. That seemed to be the only way to get through to her. “Fail once and then never try again?! That’s just freaking STUPID!”
Aiko visibly recoiled, her eyes wide. OK, so that was the only way to get through to her. Kaji sighed heavily, loosening his grip on her hands.
“No one ever said you should disregard your mistake. You’re supposed to LEARN from them,” Kaji continued, a feeling of dé ja vu washing over him. Hadn’t he heard Ran lecture him about that few months ago? “People died, yes. And that’s really too bad. But you can’t crawl into your own little world and mourn about it for the rest of your life, when you can pick yourself up and help try to prevent the same thing from happening to a million more people.”
Aiko sighed and bowed her head, her muscles finally relaxing. “But I haven’t been much help…”
Great, Kaji thought, now I’m back with the depressed Aiko. Looks like Ran’s right about the mood swings.
“I’ve been nothing but a burden ever since you came to get me after the accident. I had to be kept monitored at Ran’s, and I wasn’t permitted to go out because it took me so long to get ready.”
But every Star since time immemorial had trained for a year! Kaji wanted to tell her.
“I had to be taken to Ran’s every time I got injured, which was practically all the time,” Aiko continued. “I’m the one who always screws up. I’m the one you guys always look after. I’m the one who always worries you…I’m the one who always ends up bed-ridden and being taken care of…”
“Everyone worries about you, because we’re a team here; didn’t Yuki already tell you? And everyone has had a turn to be severely injured.”
“Not Kamui.”
“Toriyama isn’t normal.”
“Not you.”
“I’ve been a Star all my life, and you’ve been one for a little over a year. The only reason you never see me momentarily disabled because during the time that I was screwing up, you weren’t a Star yet. It’ll be a totally biased comparison. Besides, if you don’t recall, there were a couple of times you saved my sorry butt from being pulverized.”
“Totally pales to how many times you’ve whisked me out of harm’s way.”
Kaji sighed, raking his fingers through his hair again. At this rate, he felt he was going to go bald before he turned 40.
“Who cares about academic achievements? Who cares about sports medals? What’s the point when you can’t use all that to save five people from being killed when you were the only one who could have saved them? Being a Star made me realize just how much of an utter failure I can be!”
“Aiko, if you’re so freaking useless, then why do you think everyone loves you?”
“Yeah, right. Not everyone loves me.”
“Well, I do.”
The words were out before Kaji realized.
Kaji had never even considered himself to be a knight in shining armor, like the ones in the books Yuki used to read. No; in fact, he had always envisioned himself confessing his love to “the girl” in a really awkward way. Like, maybe it was during a night walk in the park, the stars glistening above them. It could be a nice afternoon by the beach after a party with friends. Either way, it was going to be a perfect time, but he would beat around the bush before actually saying it. Maybe he’d stammer. Maybe he’d even be fidgeting like crazy.
But he definitely definitely didn’t think it would happen like this. That it’d be on a snow-capped mountain. That it would come after an argument. That he would say it with such a casual, even voice. Or that it would happen when she would be this close to him.
“Uh…I mean…That is…”
The stammering finally comes.
“Do you…” Aiko started, effectively stopping his babble, “do you mean that?”
Suddenly, he found Aiko’s lips a tad too appealing. He figured that it must be the ‘magic of the moment’, as romantics would say. Whatever it was, it gave him enough guts not to answer. Instead, he started to lean towards her, his eyelids getting heavier by the second.
Their lips were just centimeters apart now…
“There you are! I’ve been looking all–”
Kaji’s eyes flew open, and his head turned sharply to the source of the sound.
“Gyaaa!“
Kaji gritted his teeth as he hit the ice again. Seriously, did ice have to be so slippery?! Great going, Hino, he thought. He was going to get a big ugly bruise tomorrow, for sure.
“Ka– Kamui!” he heard Aiko stammer. Kaji looked up at her, and saw her undeniably red face. To say that she was surprised would be an understatement. She was stunned, shocked, flabbergasted, like a deer caught in a car’s headlights. He shifted his gaze to Kamui over at the riverbank, expecting to see him as stunned as Aiko was. But the black-haired boy was just looking at her; there wasn’t even the slightest hint of surprise on him. Kamui looked so…emotionless.
“This isn’t what it looks like!” Aiko blurted out, making Kaji turn to look at her again. His eyebrows furrowed.
It isn’t?
“I mean–” Aiko continued hurriedly, “I mean, we were just skating — well, obviously, we’re skating — yeah, and the ice is slippery — of course, it IS frozen water, right? — and…and…”
Kamui didn’t know how long he had been standing there. In fact, he felt like he didn’t know anything at that moment. It was as if his brain had frozen along with the rest of his body. Maybe he was still hallucinating. So he blinked, but the sight in front of him remained there. So…that meant what he’s seeing is real, didn’t it? He could only watch the black-haired, brown-eyed girl on the ice speak at an incredibly high speed — or at least she totally looked like she was talking — but, oddly, he didn’t hear a word. It looked like his olfactory nerves were frozen, too.
“Yuki,” he started, looking down at the snow under his feet, not really knowing if he interrupted her or not, “The finals are going to start in about 30 minutes…Yuki’s competing. So I suppose we should all get to the tracks– I mean, rink– I mean…whatever that place is called…”
“Kamui,” came her voice, making him look up at her. Ah, so now he can hear her.
“Contest area!” he blurted out. “Yeah, that’s it. Thanks… Aiko.”
Aiko.
Suddenly, the name sounded so out of place.
Foreign.
So… wrong.
“Yeah,” he managed to mumble weakly. Then, he kicked the ground and quickly flew back to the hotel. He didn’t hear Aiko calling for him.
She kicked the ground to go after Kamui, but because of her skates, she slipped, making her momentarily lose her aerial balance. She quickly recovered, though, and flew as fast as she could.
Damn, he flies fast, she thought, dodging the trees. He was already nowhere in sight! Not wanting to give up, she slowed down to a stop, trying to feel for Kamui’s ki just to get an idea where he went. But she got nothing. She suddenly hated the fact that he was good at hiding his ki by now. She bit her lip as she looked back and forth the way she was going from and the way she was going to. She hugged her arms again, then turned around and headed to the riverbank. Knowing Kamui, she figured it was probably better not to chase after him right now. After all, if he didn’t want to be alone, he wouldn’t run off like that, would he?
What Aiko didn’t know, though, was that Kamui was sitting on a branch right above her when she had stopped. He watched her walk away, her shiny raven hair a complete contrast to the falling snow. Sighing, he remained hidden in the leaves as he leaned on the tree trunk.
.
.
Aiko tried to make sense of the afternoon as her feet sloshed in the snow. What the heck just happened? And why was she feeling…
Feeling…
What was she feeling? Embarrassed? Of course she’d be embarrassed. Anyone in her shoes would be embarrassed. Except maybe someone who doesn’t care what anybody thinks about her. Guilty? Why would she be guilty, though? Come to think of it, why did she panic back there? Was she doing anything wrong? Not really. But was she doing something right? She didn’t know. Angry? Definitely not. She had no reason to be angry with Kamui, did she? It’s not like he did it deliberately. It wasn’t his fault, really. Besides, Kamui’s her best friend. She won’t just let this get in the way of that.
But… was Kamui angry with her? Aiko couldn’t think of a reason for him to be, but, if he was, it was definitely going to a be a problem. For the millionth time that day, Aiko sighed. That look on his face… she didn’t know what to make of it. Maybe that’s the reason why she didn’t know what to feel, either.
She stopped in her tracks when she reached the riverbank. Kaji was sitting on the log, his back turned to her. She swallowed nervously. For some reason, her throat felt thoroughly dry.
Kaji had heard Aiko’s slow footsteps in the snow behind him; she was obviously having a hard time walking what with her still wearing her skates. Silly girl. She could easily just fly back, couldn’t she?
He opened his mouth to say something, but, on second thought, he closed it again. It’s not that he didn’t have anything to say. In fact, he did have a certain question he’s been wanting to ask for a while. But…it’s just that he was afraid of what Aiko would answer to it.
Yes, he felt afraid.
Dammit, why does life have to be so complicated?
Why did she have to make his life so complicated?
Come on, Rookie, say -something-, he mentally urged her. The long, tense silence was starting to ring in his ears. Lay it on thick and get this over with.
He had expected to hear something that would wipe that smile on his face on any other day. But, since he isn’t even smiling now, Kaji knew that he had to make an extra effort to act as calmly as he could.
“Kaji…” she finally said in a broken voice.
He panicked. All she said was his name, but he somehow knew that staying there wasn’t going to make things easier. So Kaji decided to leave. He was just standing up when Aiko spoke.
“Hey, wait…”
“You heard him,” he said, “We should get going to the contest area.” He brushed past Aiko without even looking at her. She quickly caught his hand, but she let go of it almost instantly, as if she was scalded, when he turned around. Anger was written all over his face, and that piercing look in his eyes caused Aiko to forget everything she was going to say.
Another “Kaji…” was all she could muster.
“Look, you don’t have to explain anything, I totally understand,” he said. To Aiko, he didn’t look like he understood. He looked mighty upset. “I guess I was an idiot for actually hoping– … I mean, he is your best friend, how can I compete with that, right?”
“Wha?”
“Let’s just act like this whole fiasco never happened. I bet it’ll be easier for everyone.”
When Aiko didn’t respond, Kaji took one last look at her before turning to walk away.
“I said ‘wait’, Kaji,” Aiko called, but he didn’t stop walking. Her own feet felt like they had been bolted to the ground. For the second time in less than 10 minutes, Aiko was left standing in the snow, still wearing her skates.
“I said ‘wait’, Kaji…”
————–
“Hey, Oniichan…Do you have extra gloves?”
“Do I look like I brought extra gloves, Aiko?”
“I was just wondering…”
Hikaru blinked as he watched his sister rub her arms beside Sara. “Are you cold?”
“Gee, is it obvious?”
“Just wondering,” he answered, imitating Aiko. She just stuck out her tongue at him. “Hah. That’s the advantage of having Hino as a friend. You can always ask him to–”
“I’m fine.”
Again, Hikaru turned to his sister with a start. “Eh? I thought–”
“I am. But, I’m fine.”
Hikaru’s eyebrows furrowed. He opened his mouth to ask again when Sara suddenly stood up and pointed at the rink.
“Look, it’s Yuki!” she exclaimed.
“Don’t sound so surprised, she is the reason why we’re here.”
“Yuki-chaaan!!!” Aiko called excitedly, waving at their friend at the sidelines of the large rink. The Ice Maiden waved back.
“Sheesh, you two!” Hikaru exclaimed, laughing, “She hasn’t even started yet. Lower down your cheerleader energy a notch, will you?”
Aiko and Sara looked at the brown-haired boy, then at each other, their eyes communicating.
“GO, YUKI!!!!” they exclaimed at the same time.
Hikaru couldn’t help but smile. Well, being energetic is in their DNA. Why stop it, right? The girls sat down again, and started to talk excitedly about what they were going to do in town after the finals.
Speaking of energy, he thought as he noted the other two Stars with him. To his left, Kaji was leaning back in his seat with his arms crossed. His face clearly said “Don’t bug me.” To Hikaru’s right was Kamui, who had his elbows on his knees, and was looking blankly at the little twig he was twirling in his fingers.
“You seem awfully quiet today,” Hikaru said, not addressing anyone in particular.
Kamui scoffed, sideglancing his sister beside him. “Compared to the racket these two are making, you can call me a mute.”
“Hey, I’m offended by that,” Sara said with a matching light slap on his head.
“OW!”
Unfortunately, that spot wasn’t the luckiest one for her to hit.
Sara blinked at her brother. He held his head, and he was crouching down in his seat (Sara imagined that he would’ve been kneeling down if it wasn’t for the bench under him).
“Oei… You OK?” she said hesitantly. Kamui seemed to be in pain… a LOT of pain. If he was just acting as if it hurt, he was doing a really good job.
“No…” he whimpered.
“But I didn’t hit you that hard!”
“You didn’t, but Yuki did earlier today.” Kamui sighed when he sat upright again. “Why is everyone so physical today?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Sara apologized.
No reaction whatsoever from Hino… Hikaru mentally noted. He wasn’t able to ponder about it, though, when the announcer spoke.
“Last contestant: Mizuno Yuki from Kobayakawa High School. Music from Final Fantasy 4: Theme of Love.”
Yuki wore a black glittered skating outfit, and her hair was held in a French twist. She stood in the middle of the rink with her eyes closed, obviously concentrating. When the music started, Hikaru almost stood up when Yuki looked like she was going to collapse. But, as it turns out, she did it just to get momentum to skate backwards. Her eyes still closed, she raised her arms slowly, in perfect time with the dramatic strains of the violin. Though she wasn’t doing anything complicated yet, her movements matched the emotion in the music so well, everyone seemed to be entranced.
She started to gather speed, but she did it so gracefully, it looked like she was still floating slowly. In fact, even when she reached the part where the flute hit the high notes, and she was doing complicated twists and turns, her face remained faithful to the emotion of the song. Her dance was telling a heart-felt, seemingly tragic story.
By the last chorus, Yuki was back in the middle of the rink. With her arms spread wide, she slowly lifted her one leg. Her one arm reached down, while the other maintained balance. Her flexibility was simply impressive. Then, she jumped up and turned 450 degrees in the air, before gracefully landing back on the ice precisely when she wanted to. Before the audience even finished applauding, she was twirling in place at a very high speed, eventually slowing down as the music ended.
The applause thundered in the contest area as Yuki took her bows. She happily waved to the Stars again, very satisfied with her performance. Her teammates welcomed her back to their side of the rink, and gave her a jacket.
“Oh, come on…” Sara mumbled after a few moments. “What’s taking the judges so long to compute the score?”
As if on cue, the announcer spoke again.
“Mizuno Yuki, Kobayakawa High School. 10, 10, 10, 10…”
The crowd went wild. Yuki won with a perfect 10!
“UWAAAA!!! GO YUKI!!!!” Aiko and Sara exclaimed at the same time, jumping up and down.
“Yuki’s such a great skater, isn’t she?” Sara excitedly asked no one in particular when she sat down again.
A simple “Yeah…” was Hikaru’s answer as he watched Yuki celebrating with her teammates.
“She’s sooooo awesome, isn’t she, Oniichan?” Aiko asked.
“Yeah…”
“And she’s sooooo beautiful, too, isn’t she, Hikaru-kun?”
“Yeah…”
“Oniichan,” Aiko started, grabbing Hikaru’s arm, “let’s go congratulate her!”
Hikaru didn’t even have time to think if he was going to protest. Aiko and Sara were already pulling him down the bleachers…
…leaving Kaji and Kamui by themselves.
Well, Kamui thought, this is awkward.
Truth be told, Kamui didn’t know why he found the situation uncomfortable. If this was a normal day, he’d probably be agreeing with Kaji about how Aiko and Sara are uncontrollably genki sometimes. If this was a normal day, maybe they’d be heading down to the rink to congratulate Yuki, too. Then again, if this was a normal day, he wouldn’t have seen Aiko kissing Kaji.
Not that they actually kissed.
Kamui suppressed a sigh. He had known from the beginning that Aiko liked Kaji, and he was never really bothered about it, except that time that she was keeping secrets from him. But the secret turned out to be Blue Star, and again, all was well and good. He found it great that he and Kaji agreed on a lot of things. He even grew to respect the guy for being a leader.
So why was he so upset?
Kamui closed his eyes, willing himself to think of something else. But the complete opposite happened. Without him wanting to, the scene he saw at the riverbank flashed through his mind again: Kaji leaning down to kiss the beautiful black-haired girl. Kamui mentally shook his head to clear his mind.Dammit. What’s wrong with me?!
“Just so you know,” a voice broke through Kamui’s thoughts, “I don’t hold it against you for hating me.”
“I don’t hate you. Who said I hated you?” he involuntarily snapped.
With his arms still crossed, Kaji sideglanced the black-haired boy. “Whoa, cool it, man. I was just trying to make a conversation–”
“Well, you picked a rotten topic.”
“What the heck’s your problem, Toriyama?”
“You. You‘re my problem right now, Hino.”
“All this coming from someone who doesn’t hate me.”
At this, Kamui turned to glare at Kaji, who, in turn, just looked at him, though the older boy’s facial expression was nowhere near friendly, either.
Right now, I so wanna rearrange his face.
“Oooh, what’s this? A lovers’ quarrel?” came a voice behind them.
Yuki almost laughed when Kaji and Kamui turned to her at exactly the same time. Sometimes those two were so much alike, she thought it was no wonder they liked the same girl.
“Hey, hey!” she said, raising her hands, “Don’t look at me that way, I just won! Cut me some slack… I deserve a ‘Congratulations, Yuki’, don’t I?”
After throwing a last glare at Kaji, Kamui stood up, mumbling a ‘Congratulations’ as he brushed past Yuki.
“What’s with him?” she asked.
Kaji leaned back in his seat again, and closed his eyes.
“What’s with you?” Yuki asked, this time.
Before Kaji could answer — not that he was going to answer at all — Sara and Aiko (with Hikaru trailing behind) came running up to them.
“Yuki-chan, you were so awesome!” Sara exclaimed. Yuki just smiled at her, then looked inquisitively at Hikaru.
“Looks like you got yourself a fan club,” he said.
“Hey, Yuki, we were thinking we should celebrate at Ran’s.”
“That’s a good idea, Aiko,” Yuki looked at Kaji, who hasn’t moved a muscle still. “What do you think, Kaji?”
“Whatever.”
“Ok…” Yuki said hesitantly. “So, you guys go back to the hotel and pack our stuff, and I’ll just tell the team. Let’s meet up at the lobby in an hour?”
“Whatever,” was, again, Kaji’s answer as he stood up.
“You know,” Aiko suddenly spoke, “Yuki just won the championships. I bet it’d be nice if you didn’t answer her questions with a stupid ‘whatever’.”
“She asked a question, and I answered. Got a problem with that?”
“The least you could do is be happy for her.”
“I am happy for her.”
“You certainly don’t act like it.”
“Then I’m sorry for not following your every whim. I suppose my acting skills aren’t as good as yours.”
“I didn’t say you should follow everything I say.”
“I didn’t say you said I should follow everything you say.”
“Yes you did.”
“I did not!”
“Why’re you contradicting everything I say?!”
“I am not contradicting everything you say!”
“Yes you do!!!”
“No I don’t!!!”
“See?!“
“Whoa whoa whoa! Hold it, you guys!” Yuki exclaimed, getting in between the glaring pair. “What is this? Sparring season?”
“Meet you in an hour, Yuki,” Aiko said with a huff, then quickly walked away.
“What on earth happened while I was gone?” Hikaru asked as she passed by him.
“Go ask that fire-boy beside you!” was Aiko’s answer before she disappeared into the leaving crowd of students.
“Fire-boy?” Hikaru echoed.
Instead of answering, though, the ‘fire-boy’ surprised everyone by turning unvisible and wordlessly flying off.
“Is my memory failing me,” Sara said after a second, “or did Kaji himself tell me never to do that?”
“He told you.”
“Hey, where’s Oniichan, anyway?” Sara asked, only then realizing that her brother was missing from the group.
“Uh…he left earlier.”
“I’m going to look for him. Meet you in an hour, guys!”
And that was how their group of six shrunk to two in a matter of minutes.
“Care to explain what just happened?” Yuki asked Hikaru.
“Don’t ask me, I just got here.”
“I already did.”
“Hm.” Hikaru said thoughtfully. “It must be sparring season.”
————–
Mai hummed as she glided over the ice, her feet not quite touching the frozen river.
It must be so nice to skate, she thought. That blue-haired girl sure knew how to…
Mimicking the girl she saw earlier, she held her arms stretched on her either side. She slowly lifted her one leg, balancing herself on the other as she ’skated’. Then, she jumped up and turned in the air, before ‘landing’ back on the ice lightly. She crossed her hands behind her back as her feet alternately took long, smooth steps.
That was when she heard it.
“You JERK!!!”
Mai blinked, slowing down to a stop. Somehow, that voice sounded so familiar… She waited for the other girl to yell again so she could determine if she indeed knew her or not. But instead of a yell, she heard sniffling. Curiosity getting the better of her, Mai stepped on the snow and started looking for the crying girl. And, as she expected, she saw her sitting under a tree, her head in her arms.
“Jerk…” she said again.
Mai frowned, feeling sorry for the girl. Though she was sitting down, Mai guessed she was around her age. Her black hair spilled on her shoulders, and her hands were obviously tense: her jacket was crumpled where they gripped tightly on her elbows.
Someone must’ve done something really mean to her, Mai figured, for her to be crying like this…
Either that, or she simply had shallow tears.
“Hey,” Mai said hesitantly, taking another step towards her. “Hey, are you all right?”
The crouching girl was visibly startled, though she didn’t lift her head.
“Not exactly,” she answered quietly.
Mai smiled, embarrassed, “I suppose that -was- a stupid question, wasn’t it?”
The girl laughed a bit, lifting her head slightly. But still, Mai couldn’t see her face. “It’s better than ‘are you crying’, though.”
At this, Mai laughed. “Yes, I guess you’re right.” She crouched herself as the girl wiped her face with her gloves.
“I’m Mai,” she said. “Kurobara Mai. What’s your name?”
The girl took one last sniff before looking up at her with a smile. “It’s Ai– “
Mai instantly felt all color literally drain from her face.
.
.
Oh. My. God.
.
.
————–
Next on Blue Star
Talking always is the key to get a message across, but some people just can’t get it. A duel, a truce, and one heck of a shuriken. It’s time to leave the mountain and reach the destination.
“This is one promise I don’t intend to break.”
Episode 19: Fading
————–
From the Author
UWAAAAA!!!!!!
Don’t kill me.
Review, review, review!!!! I want to thank Maggyd, by the way, for being such a faithful reader 
By the way, Final Fantasy is owned by SquareSoft. It’s not mine. Ehehe. Go and download the song Yuki used. It’s so beautiful, I swear. I am not a figure skater, by the way, so if anyone knows the terminology I should have used, any help would be greatly appreciated
By the way, I don’t know if there really IS a Tokyo Figure Skating Open. :þ
Man…Sparring season… Very taxing, ain’t it?
Sarah-chan: Poor Kamui… -pats Kamui’s head-
Kamui: -glare-
Sarah-chan: Urk… -slowly backs off and runs away-
