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Seriously-What Is Love?
This is Part 4!
Title: Seriously-What is Love?
Genre: romance/comedy (hopefully)
Pairing: haistu
Rating: PG-13 right now
Warnings: none...yet!
Disclaimer: Obviously none of this actually happened. And if I owned any of Laruku, I wouldn't have to write a fanfiction.
Seriously-What Is Love?
Part 4~Coming Closer
At times, school has no impact on life whatsoever. Rather, it is the instinct of survival that tells us right from wrong. For example, one does not think about quantum mechanics or trigonometry upon waking up from falling off the side of a mountain. My body woke before my brain to the cold. Way too much cold. It alerted my brain to the danger, and instantly the memories of my little adventure returned. My eyes snapped open and were met with a view of the tent’s ceiling, if you can call it that. So Ken did find me then, good. I remembered then why I had awoken, and sat up. Or tried to, at least. It never occurred to me that I could have broken a bone or given myself a concussion until then. Feeling as though both of those things had happened to me, I settled for propping myself up on my elbow, and my brain received a further shock when my eyes found nothing familiar in my surroundings.
“Wait…where am I?” I asked aloud. A sound of surprise found its way to my from outside, followed by the rustling noise of someone pushing their way into the tent.
“So I see you’re awake. Good, you had me really worried for a bit there. Welcome back to reality, Tet-chan.” It was Hyde. A sigh of relieve escaped from my lips, but my brain could not relax just yet.
After it had time to reassemble its scrambled sections, I was finally able to answer him. “Oh-hi Doiha-chan! Thank you SOOOO much for saving me! What happened while I was sleeping? And why are you here?” came my barrage of questions.
He just laughed. “I’m only camping here because a fellow classmate who introduced himself as ‘Tetsu’s friend, Ken-chan” asked me to leave you alone over school break and suggested that I camp here instead of whatever I would normally do.” I continued to listen as I made a mental note to torture this information out of him. “Though I should probably ask you the same thing, considering that most people who jump off cliffs don’t thank the person who saves them for disrupting their attempted suicide.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill myself!” I was able to sit up fully now, thanks to astonishment.
“Why else would you jump off a cliff with your hands tied up and a blindfold on?” he asked reasonably.
“It’s a long story,” I began, “We were playing Truth or Dare, and-”
“And so you actually took a dare to jump off a cliff?! I knew you were naïve, but I didn’t think you were stupid.”
“I’m not! I told you, it’s a long story.” I was getting frustrated now, but Hyde laughed again.
“Sure, sure. Either way, you’re lucky there was a nice snow bank waiting for you at the bottom of that drop. Otherwise, I’d be stuffing your pieces into my bag and returning you to your family that way.”
I shivered at the thought. “Sorry for causing you trouble,” I said, and looked down in embarrassment. My eyes widened. “Hyde, where is my shirt?” Worried, I peered under the blanket covering me. “And where are the rest of my clothes?!” I panicked, my imagination stretching the situation way out of proportion.
“When I found you, Tet-chan, you were almost frozen to death. I carried you back here and into the tent to try to ‘revive’ you, so to speak. But your clothes were soaked and preventing your body from warming up, so I had to take them off. They’ve been in the sun to dry. And I would have dressed you in my clothes, but they’d be way too small for you.”
“You didn’t do anything…weird while I was unconscious, right?”
“What would be the point of doing things to you if you aren’t able to experience them?” he asked sarcastically. At my change in expression, he added smugly, “But that doesn’t mean I tried to control my thoughts or dreams last night, either. No, that wouldn’t have been possible after what I saw.”
The conversation had taken an uncomfortable turn somewhere, so I was extremely glad when my stomach decided that it should have a say, too. Grimacing, I met his smirk as he explained, “It’s already past lunchtime, and you haven’t eaten anything all day. The only food I have that’s already been prepared is cold pizza, though. I hope that’s okay…”
My stomach was making me giddy. “Nonono, that’s fine! Anything sounds good right now, anyways. I could eat a whole horse, or even you!” I smacked myself mentally. “I mean, I’m just THAT hungry, so anything that I can put in my stomach would be greatly appreciated! Oh, and so would a blanket-it’s still really cold in here.”
“No problem.” A genuine smile appeared on his face. “One minute!” He crawled over to the pile of bags that took up a large portion of the tent. Hyde haphazardly threw me a fleecy blanket and dug deeper in the same bag, pulling his head and hands back out to reveal a wad of tinfoil. Tossing that to me as well, he said cheerfully, “I’ve already had a few bites, but I’m not sick so there’s nothing to worry about. It just doesn’t look as whole as before.”
I nodded gratefully before stuffing as much of the cheesy goodness into my mouth as I could. IN a way, I guess that eating that pizza counted as an indirect kiss, but it hardly mattered at that point. Hyde leaned against his bags and waited patiently for me to finish eating (aka napping, in Hyde’s world). I took the opportunity to watch his sleeping form while I munched. He seemed so petite at first glance, but looking past his height reveals the stockier form that lies hidden beneath until closer examination. Even his face, smooth and feminine though it is, has distinct masculine qualities. But peacefully sleeping. He looked so fragile and innocent that I could almost fool myself into believing that my friend really was a girl that hadn’t gone through puberty yet. Moving away from that train of thought before I felt like a complete pedophile, I considered the other side pf him, the real him. Hyde could be fairly nice most of the time, but he was a little rough around the edges and could also seem hard to approach. The contrast between his appearance and personality is probably best described as exotic, and I truly wondered whether I would be able to resist his charm for much longer. The rational part of my brain realized that my thoughts were bordering absurd, and it forced the rest of Hyde’s pizza down my throat, which I promptly cleared to signal the end of my meal. As I had hoped, Hyde woke up and stretched.
“Feeling better?” he yawned.
“Yeah, a little,” I said, yawning back. “You didn’t want any of that pizza, right?”
“Even if I did, it’s too late now,” he replied. Awake enough to satisfy his needs, Hyde crawled over to the lamp that he had put next to me and turned it on. “Since it’s getting dark out, we should probably sleep soon. You need your rest after such an eventful day.”
“You’d make a better mom than a teenager,” I retorted. I honestly wanted to spend some more time alone with him, just talking and joking and being friends despite how exhausted I was feeling. “Why don’t we play a game instead?”
“Look where your last game landed you. Are you sure you’re up for another round-especially against me, rather than your other friends?”
I nodded without any doubts. “I trust you. Plus, I’m already injured, so there’s a limit to how extreme your dares can get before I am physically incapable of completing them.”
“Touché. And by ‘dares’, I’m going to assume that we’re playing Truth or Dare again, correct?”
“Yup.”
“I’ll start then. Truth or Dare?”
Since nobody but Hyde was around to bully any information out of me (and since the only information I wanted to withhold from people was the logistics of our relationship), I was free to pick whichever option I felt like. “Truth.”
“Okay. When you bathe, where do you start to wash yourself?”
“Uh…” I was not expecting a question like that one. “My left arm-wait, no! I start with my face, that’s it!”
“Same here. I think most people do, though,” he commented.
I laughed, “Yeah, I don’t know many people who would want to scrub their face after they washed their feet or something like that. My face would feel all gross!” I stuck my tongue out for emphasis. “Anyway, it’s your turn!”
“Hmm…I’ll go with truth, too.”
“Why do you like me so much?” I asked, fully aware that it was a risky question to ask for someone in my situation. But his expression remained lighthearted, and he answered me after a moment of exaggerated thinking.
“I think it’s because you are a straightforward person. You don’t judge others or blow them off-you are very good at communicating ideas and you don’t double-cross people. That’s why I like you, and most people would probably say something similar. But next round, I think you might want to ask why I’m attracted to you instead. So, Truth or Dare?”
After opening and closing my mouth a few times, I gave up answered his question. “Dare,” I said resignedly. He grinned immediately, and my stomach decided that it felt a little too full. Needless to say, I was suddenly very nervous.
“I dare you…” Hyde added a dramatic pause, “…to sleep with me in that sleeping bag and in your current state of dress, or undress, really.”
“WHAT?!” I shrieked.
He continued calmly, “There is actually a logical reason behind this, of course. I only have one sleeping bag, since I wasn’t planning on finding someone who fell off a cliff, and I’m cold. But your clothes are still wet, so you can’t wear those or give up the sleeping bag because you’ll freeze. Therefore, move over and let me in.”
Blushing deeply, I rolled over so that I was facing away from him and squished as far to the side as I could, which wasn’t very far at all. I felt him slide in behind me, facing outward like I was. My breathing was so unsteady, and it was only made worse when his shirt refused to follow him into the pitiful amount of space we had to share. The feel of his bare back against mine instantly gave me goosebumps.
Adjusting his shirt, he continued. “Relax a little. There’s not enough room in here for anything interesting to happen between us. Oh, and it’s your turn, by the way.”
“Ano, I’m actually feeling pretty tired now, so maybe we should call it quits for tonight. I’d rather get some sleep,” I suggested hesitantly.
“Sounds good to me,” he said in a tone that held some unreadable emotion. I felt his whole body shift as he reached out to turn off the lamp, leaving us practically blind with nothing but the feel of a back against a back to give us any sense of where we were.
Sometime during the night I must hade turned over, for I woke up that next morning to find my arms wrapped around Hyde in a bad habit that was normally suppressed by an extra pillow back at home. The suggestive way that he was leaning against me made it obvious that he was awake too. When I tensed up and tried to pull away, he grabbed my wrists and mumbled, “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist me this close.”
Worried, but unable to free myself from his grasp, I tried to piece together a response. “No-that’s not it. I just sleep weird. I can’t control what I do while I’m dreaming. I didn’t mean to give you the wrong idea, so could you please let go of me now?”
I felt a chuckle reverberate through his body. “I think the subject of your dream is pretty damn obvious. You might want to take care of that when you head outside for a piss. Just saying.” He released his hold on me then. Once I realized what he was getting at, I grabbed the blanket and slid out from beside him, wrapping myself up in it as I ducked through the tent flap. Damn teenage body, I cursed as I worked.
Back inside the tent, Hyde was preparing breakfast. Even after such a twisted start to the day, I was still hungry. We had simple sandwiches to eat while he kept a casual conversation going. After we had finished, I checked my clothes and were surprised to find that they were already dry after a day in the sun. Hyde suggested that we play a game of basketball since I was fit to walk around unashamed again. I thought that with such an advantage in height, he would stand no chance against me, but Hyde’s karate lessons and stretches (which he informed me of after the game) proved their worth as he scores in my snow bank time after time with the beat-up old ball that he had brought with him.
Eventually I forfeited, ignoring his snide remarks, and we proceeded to pack up and look for Ken. Luckily, but him and Hyde had cell phone service, so we were able to meet up in no time. Ken glomped me at first, and after giving me a once-over to make sure I was still alive, he turned off ‘big-brother mode’. Ken then proceeded to try and throw a few lewd jokes our way, but the situation allowed us to throw them right back. The four of us began our descent towards the parking lot together. Ken and Hyde finally introduced themselves properly, and as it turned out Hyde already knew Yukihiro very well, so no introduction was needed there. I had a feeling that all of us would be going somewhere again very soon.
Glancing over at Hyde, who very much seemed to be at ease, I could tell that we had grown a lot closer as well. And maybe, just maybe, I would be able to admit to myself what it was that I was beginning to feel toward him.
Title: Seriously-What is Love?
Genre: romance/comedy (hopefully)
Pairing: haistu
Rating: PG-13 right now
Warnings: none...yet!
Disclaimer: Obviously none of this actually happened. And if I owned any of Laruku, I wouldn't have to write a fanfiction.
Seriously-What Is Love?
Part 4~Coming Closer
At times, school has no impact on life whatsoever. Rather, it is the instinct of survival that tells us right from wrong. For example, one does not think about quantum mechanics or trigonometry upon waking up from falling off the side of a mountain. My body woke before my brain to the cold. Way too much cold. It alerted my brain to the danger, and instantly the memories of my little adventure returned. My eyes snapped open and were met with a view of the tent’s ceiling, if you can call it that. So Ken did find me then, good. I remembered then why I had awoken, and sat up. Or tried to, at least. It never occurred to me that I could have broken a bone or given myself a concussion until then. Feeling as though both of those things had happened to me, I settled for propping myself up on my elbow, and my brain received a further shock when my eyes found nothing familiar in my surroundings.
“Wait…where am I?” I asked aloud. A sound of surprise found its way to my from outside, followed by the rustling noise of someone pushing their way into the tent.
“So I see you’re awake. Good, you had me really worried for a bit there. Welcome back to reality, Tet-chan.” It was Hyde. A sigh of relieve escaped from my lips, but my brain could not relax just yet.
After it had time to reassemble its scrambled sections, I was finally able to answer him. “Oh-hi Doiha-chan! Thank you SOOOO much for saving me! What happened while I was sleeping? And why are you here?” came my barrage of questions.
He just laughed. “I’m only camping here because a fellow classmate who introduced himself as ‘Tetsu’s friend, Ken-chan” asked me to leave you alone over school break and suggested that I camp here instead of whatever I would normally do.” I continued to listen as I made a mental note to torture this information out of him. “Though I should probably ask you the same thing, considering that most people who jump off cliffs don’t thank the person who saves them for disrupting their attempted suicide.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill myself!” I was able to sit up fully now, thanks to astonishment.
“Why else would you jump off a cliff with your hands tied up and a blindfold on?” he asked reasonably.
“It’s a long story,” I began, “We were playing Truth or Dare, and-”
“And so you actually took a dare to jump off a cliff?! I knew you were naïve, but I didn’t think you were stupid.”
“I’m not! I told you, it’s a long story.” I was getting frustrated now, but Hyde laughed again.
“Sure, sure. Either way, you’re lucky there was a nice snow bank waiting for you at the bottom of that drop. Otherwise, I’d be stuffing your pieces into my bag and returning you to your family that way.”
I shivered at the thought. “Sorry for causing you trouble,” I said, and looked down in embarrassment. My eyes widened. “Hyde, where is my shirt?” Worried, I peered under the blanket covering me. “And where are the rest of my clothes?!” I panicked, my imagination stretching the situation way out of proportion.
“When I found you, Tet-chan, you were almost frozen to death. I carried you back here and into the tent to try to ‘revive’ you, so to speak. But your clothes were soaked and preventing your body from warming up, so I had to take them off. They’ve been in the sun to dry. And I would have dressed you in my clothes, but they’d be way too small for you.”
“You didn’t do anything…weird while I was unconscious, right?”
“What would be the point of doing things to you if you aren’t able to experience them?” he asked sarcastically. At my change in expression, he added smugly, “But that doesn’t mean I tried to control my thoughts or dreams last night, either. No, that wouldn’t have been possible after what I saw.”
The conversation had taken an uncomfortable turn somewhere, so I was extremely glad when my stomach decided that it should have a say, too. Grimacing, I met his smirk as he explained, “It’s already past lunchtime, and you haven’t eaten anything all day. The only food I have that’s already been prepared is cold pizza, though. I hope that’s okay…”
My stomach was making me giddy. “Nonono, that’s fine! Anything sounds good right now, anyways. I could eat a whole horse, or even you!” I smacked myself mentally. “I mean, I’m just THAT hungry, so anything that I can put in my stomach would be greatly appreciated! Oh, and so would a blanket-it’s still really cold in here.”
“No problem.” A genuine smile appeared on his face. “One minute!” He crawled over to the pile of bags that took up a large portion of the tent. Hyde haphazardly threw me a fleecy blanket and dug deeper in the same bag, pulling his head and hands back out to reveal a wad of tinfoil. Tossing that to me as well, he said cheerfully, “I’ve already had a few bites, but I’m not sick so there’s nothing to worry about. It just doesn’t look as whole as before.”
I nodded gratefully before stuffing as much of the cheesy goodness into my mouth as I could. IN a way, I guess that eating that pizza counted as an indirect kiss, but it hardly mattered at that point. Hyde leaned against his bags and waited patiently for me to finish eating (aka napping, in Hyde’s world). I took the opportunity to watch his sleeping form while I munched. He seemed so petite at first glance, but looking past his height reveals the stockier form that lies hidden beneath until closer examination. Even his face, smooth and feminine though it is, has distinct masculine qualities. But peacefully sleeping. He looked so fragile and innocent that I could almost fool myself into believing that my friend really was a girl that hadn’t gone through puberty yet. Moving away from that train of thought before I felt like a complete pedophile, I considered the other side pf him, the real him. Hyde could be fairly nice most of the time, but he was a little rough around the edges and could also seem hard to approach. The contrast between his appearance and personality is probably best described as exotic, and I truly wondered whether I would be able to resist his charm for much longer. The rational part of my brain realized that my thoughts were bordering absurd, and it forced the rest of Hyde’s pizza down my throat, which I promptly cleared to signal the end of my meal. As I had hoped, Hyde woke up and stretched.
“Feeling better?” he yawned.
“Yeah, a little,” I said, yawning back. “You didn’t want any of that pizza, right?”
“Even if I did, it’s too late now,” he replied. Awake enough to satisfy his needs, Hyde crawled over to the lamp that he had put next to me and turned it on. “Since it’s getting dark out, we should probably sleep soon. You need your rest after such an eventful day.”
“You’d make a better mom than a teenager,” I retorted. I honestly wanted to spend some more time alone with him, just talking and joking and being friends despite how exhausted I was feeling. “Why don’t we play a game instead?”
“Look where your last game landed you. Are you sure you’re up for another round-especially against me, rather than your other friends?”
I nodded without any doubts. “I trust you. Plus, I’m already injured, so there’s a limit to how extreme your dares can get before I am physically incapable of completing them.”
“Touché. And by ‘dares’, I’m going to assume that we’re playing Truth or Dare again, correct?”
“Yup.”
“I’ll start then. Truth or Dare?”
Since nobody but Hyde was around to bully any information out of me (and since the only information I wanted to withhold from people was the logistics of our relationship), I was free to pick whichever option I felt like. “Truth.”
“Okay. When you bathe, where do you start to wash yourself?”
“Uh…” I was not expecting a question like that one. “My left arm-wait, no! I start with my face, that’s it!”
“Same here. I think most people do, though,” he commented.
I laughed, “Yeah, I don’t know many people who would want to scrub their face after they washed their feet or something like that. My face would feel all gross!” I stuck my tongue out for emphasis. “Anyway, it’s your turn!”
“Hmm…I’ll go with truth, too.”
“Why do you like me so much?” I asked, fully aware that it was a risky question to ask for someone in my situation. But his expression remained lighthearted, and he answered me after a moment of exaggerated thinking.
“I think it’s because you are a straightforward person. You don’t judge others or blow them off-you are very good at communicating ideas and you don’t double-cross people. That’s why I like you, and most people would probably say something similar. But next round, I think you might want to ask why I’m attracted to you instead. So, Truth or Dare?”
After opening and closing my mouth a few times, I gave up answered his question. “Dare,” I said resignedly. He grinned immediately, and my stomach decided that it felt a little too full. Needless to say, I was suddenly very nervous.
“I dare you…” Hyde added a dramatic pause, “…to sleep with me in that sleeping bag and in your current state of dress, or undress, really.”
“WHAT?!” I shrieked.
He continued calmly, “There is actually a logical reason behind this, of course. I only have one sleeping bag, since I wasn’t planning on finding someone who fell off a cliff, and I’m cold. But your clothes are still wet, so you can’t wear those or give up the sleeping bag because you’ll freeze. Therefore, move over and let me in.”
Blushing deeply, I rolled over so that I was facing away from him and squished as far to the side as I could, which wasn’t very far at all. I felt him slide in behind me, facing outward like I was. My breathing was so unsteady, and it was only made worse when his shirt refused to follow him into the pitiful amount of space we had to share. The feel of his bare back against mine instantly gave me goosebumps.
Adjusting his shirt, he continued. “Relax a little. There’s not enough room in here for anything interesting to happen between us. Oh, and it’s your turn, by the way.”
“Ano, I’m actually feeling pretty tired now, so maybe we should call it quits for tonight. I’d rather get some sleep,” I suggested hesitantly.
“Sounds good to me,” he said in a tone that held some unreadable emotion. I felt his whole body shift as he reached out to turn off the lamp, leaving us practically blind with nothing but the feel of a back against a back to give us any sense of where we were.
Sometime during the night I must hade turned over, for I woke up that next morning to find my arms wrapped around Hyde in a bad habit that was normally suppressed by an extra pillow back at home. The suggestive way that he was leaning against me made it obvious that he was awake too. When I tensed up and tried to pull away, he grabbed my wrists and mumbled, “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist me this close.”
Worried, but unable to free myself from his grasp, I tried to piece together a response. “No-that’s not it. I just sleep weird. I can’t control what I do while I’m dreaming. I didn’t mean to give you the wrong idea, so could you please let go of me now?”
I felt a chuckle reverberate through his body. “I think the subject of your dream is pretty damn obvious. You might want to take care of that when you head outside for a piss. Just saying.” He released his hold on me then. Once I realized what he was getting at, I grabbed the blanket and slid out from beside him, wrapping myself up in it as I ducked through the tent flap. Damn teenage body, I cursed as I worked.
Back inside the tent, Hyde was preparing breakfast. Even after such a twisted start to the day, I was still hungry. We had simple sandwiches to eat while he kept a casual conversation going. After we had finished, I checked my clothes and were surprised to find that they were already dry after a day in the sun. Hyde suggested that we play a game of basketball since I was fit to walk around unashamed again. I thought that with such an advantage in height, he would stand no chance against me, but Hyde’s karate lessons and stretches (which he informed me of after the game) proved their worth as he scores in my snow bank time after time with the beat-up old ball that he had brought with him.
Eventually I forfeited, ignoring his snide remarks, and we proceeded to pack up and look for Ken. Luckily, but him and Hyde had cell phone service, so we were able to meet up in no time. Ken glomped me at first, and after giving me a once-over to make sure I was still alive, he turned off ‘big-brother mode’. Ken then proceeded to try and throw a few lewd jokes our way, but the situation allowed us to throw them right back. The four of us began our descent towards the parking lot together. Ken and Hyde finally introduced themselves properly, and as it turned out Hyde already knew Yukihiro very well, so no introduction was needed there. I had a feeling that all of us would be going somewhere again very soon.
Glancing over at Hyde, who very much seemed to be at ease, I could tell that we had grown a lot closer as well. And maybe, just maybe, I would be able to admit to myself what it was that I was beginning to feel toward him.