[ fic ] breathe me (hibari/haru)
Title: Breathe Me.
Author/Artist: seireeii
Rating: T for Teen.
Warnings: None.
Prompt: I-10; Hibari/Haru: Wings; A taste of freedom.
Word count: 2,117.
Summary: Air to breathe, space to think, a place to let your soul fly free.
breathe me
my head’s in the clouds, but my heart’s in the sky.
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In the spray bubbling from her watering can, Haru swears she can see rainbows.
She can see the bows of crimson, ruddy scarlet, sunshine yellow. The same jade dust that sparkles from the depths of her own eyes when she smiles into her mirror, the same pristine blue as the sky above her head, the indigo of the knee pads beneath her legs. Her irises linger upon the arc of violet purple - the same hue his cobalt-silver eyes carry whenever she happens to anger or injure him - and her lips curve upward into a bittersweet smile.
“It’s about time for him to stop by,” she murmurs to herself, tending to the flowers and vegetables at her knees. “It’s been over a month or two now.”
She supposes he’s found another place to find peace and quiet, and returns to tending her flowers and growing vegetables, before she hears the familiar sound of a motorbike riding up the road beside her house. Lifting her head, she glances just above the white picket fence, and notices the bike driving by, and snorts, before returning to pulling out a stubborn weed from her tomato patch. Pulling at it doesn’t free it from its stance in the ground, and no matter how hard she pulls, it refuses to come loose.
She hears the chirping of birds around her, and the scuffling of the rabbit family in the bushes under the beaming apple tree just beside the outskirts of the field behind her house, before she feels a slender hand take hold of hers, and the weed. A warm shape presses against her back, before they begin pulling as well, and with the two of them working together, the weed comes free, and slackens in her hand. Sighing in relief, Haru lifts her head to her helper’s, and offers the raven-haired teenager a sunny smile.
“Thank you, Hibari-san,” she says, wiping at the perspiration dappling her forehead with the back of her hand. He merely gazes down at her, Hibird chirping from the air around him. Haru catches sight of Roll nosing one of the baby rabbits away from her growing carrots, and she smiles. “What brings you here this time?”
“Do I need a reason?”
“Your reasons tend to vary depending on your situation,” she replies, rising to her feet and dusting herself off. She bends over and picks up the knee pad before clapping her gardening gloves. “In any case, I’ll get us some iced tea. It’s really hot out here.”
“Hn.”
She isn’t surprised when he decides to follow her. She’s accustomed to having him close behind her or in step beside her whenever he’s on her property. She’s often wondered about what drives him to be so close to her, and she’s often supposed it’s because whenever he visits, he tends to be injured and in need of patching up. And in the times when he’s not injured, he stays longer, and helps her with her chores or helps her make dinner, and sometimes, he allows her to keep a continued conversation going with him.
As she reaches into her cabinet moments later to pull out two glasses, she sneaks a glance at the black-haired boy seated at her cooking island - takes in his peaceful expression, his closed eyes, his slowed breathing, the stray onyx bundles threatening to drift into his irises in the warm breeze blowing through the screen door to the back patio - and smiles, guessing that he’s here simply because he wants to be, and nothing complicated.
Scooping ice out of the freezer in the fridge and setting his glass down in front of him, she turns back to the pitcher of iced tea in the refrigerator, and pours him a glass. Once she fills it, he takes it from the hand she holds down to him, and nods once, which Haru translates as thank you. When she finishes pouring her own glass, she sits down in the stool beside his, and sips from her cup, enjoying the summer breeze on her skin as the cold tea chills her from the inside out, protecting her from the heat the wind carries.
“It’s quite peaceful here,” he points out, turning toward her. She watches the wind dance through his obsidian bangs, and sighs, laying her cheek in her palm.
“In the spring time, it’s probably the best place to be,” she answers, smiling out the window. “The flowers start to bloom, and the birds come back, and the animals come out of hiding. Aside from the occasional snake in the drain and the spider on my curtains, it’s pretty nice here.”
“It seems almost fleeting, in a sense,” he replies, sipping from his iced tea. Haru turns toward him again, confused.
“The feeling? Or this house?” she asks.
“The herbivorous one.”
Haru closes her eyes. “I like quiet. It’s not that the town was too loud or anything. I just wanted a place to come back to that’s sort of like my place, like those secret forests and wishing wells in those fairy tales.”
“That’s understandable.”
She’s taken aback by his agreeable attitude. She’s not just surprised, she’s almost frightened. It isn’t like Hibari to be so compliant, or friendly. She scans his face, notes the normal, half-twisted scowl sitting upon his lips, before looking up at his pair of polished blue eyes. She wonders if something really is bothering him, or if he’s had a change of heart, or something equally unlikely. She parts her lips to speak, and he flicks his irises toward her, expectant for the sound of her voice.
“Hibari-san,” Haru starts, weighing her words carefully. She knows if she asks him directly, he’ll put up his walls and shut her out. But she’s unsure of any other way to ask him, and she knows that if she takes too much time trying to figure it out, he’ll become impatient. She decides to take the direct approach: “Is there anything bothering you?”
His eyes close slightly.
At the sight of it, she continues. “You’re… warmer than usual. And I’m a little concerned.”
He doesn’t offer an explanation. He merely gazes at her, his glass hovering in the air in front of his lips, before his eyes close and he sips from it. She swallows, and turns back to the open screen door, closing her eyes. She hears him lift himself to his feet, and feels his steps hit the wooden floor behind her, and she rises also, turning toward him with her left palm unfolded at her side and right hand folded over her heart.
“If I said anything that offended you, I’m sorry, Hibari-san!” she exclaims, earning a backwards glance. He isn’t leaving the house, she notes, when his curve into a small smirk as he heads for the kitchen. “You… just want another glass?”
“You’re crowding much more than usual,” he replies, opening the refrigerator door. She catches her breath, and tenses her lips against each other, eyes widening above the fervent blush that colors her cheeks. “And to answer your previous question, there is something on my mind.”
Haru blinks. “Th-there is? What is it? You can tell me.”
“I’m sure I could,” he answers, his voice lingering in her ears a few moments too long, “but the possibility of being capable of explaining it to you in a way herbivorous enough to allow you to understand it is irritating.”
“Just what is it exactly?” she asks. He pours his glass as she walks toward him, taking the pitcher of iced tea from his hand. “I went to Midori-Middle. I’m not stupid.”
Hibari closes his eyes, and sighs. “No.”
She notices his hands touch the countertop at both sides of her body, cornering her against the counter, but she doesn’t think anything of it. “Hibari-san. You can explain it however you want, herbivorously or not. I won’t judge you, and you know that.”
“Haru.”
She stutters, stopping her movements entirely. She turns to face him, abandoning his glass and the pitcher on the countertop and braces herself against it, taking note of how effectively he had trapped her. She can’t move in either direction, not that she would, considering how close he is to her in a nonthreatening way, and how open and calming his aura is. She closes her eyes and sighs, lowering her guard.
“You wanted to know what’s on my mind?” he asks, touching the side of her face with his fingertips. Her eyes open once more, and she faces him bravely, fighting the blush that threatens to light her face on fire. There’s the ticklish feeling beating against the sides of her stomach with fervent wings, and already Haru’s knees threaten to break under her. “It’s that herbivorous feeling you mentioned earlier. This house. You. I” - he stops for a moment, turning his eyes away from her for a fraction of a second - “enjoy the peace and quiet here.”
Her eyes tremble. “Hibari-san…”
“But,” he continues, leaning closer ever so slightly, “I cannot tie myself to this place while I still have Namimori to protect.”
“Tie yourself… here?” she echoes, confused. He nods, his azure-silver eyes strangely vulnerable, almost desperate.
“However,” he responds, releasing her, and parting the brown hair that clings to the side of her face, “the peace, and contentment, and herbivorous feelings that crowd me whenever I am here continue to vex me even while I am not.”
“So, you don’t know why you feel the way you do about both places?” Haru asks, watching his left hand fall from the countertop. With a shy, almost hesitant expression, he nods. She sighs, and gathers her thoughts. “Hibari-san, it’s alright to love more than one place.”
“This isn’t a question of whether or not I am capable of loving places,” he replies, leaning closer again, the ticklish feeling beginning to crawl up Haru’s chest beneath her skin. It wraps itself around her heart and tenses, coiling and winding tighter and tighter as Hibari holds her still. His forehead is barely brushing hers, his graceful curve of a smirk hovering just short of her lips.
She swallows.
He smells an easy victory.
“It’s a question of whether or not I am capable of loving you.”
She widens her eyes. His voice is so husky, low, and soft in her ears - his lips meet hers, his eyelids falling shut. In the moments that their lips are connected, there isn’t any confusion, or questioning, or wide open blue sky. It’s just hibari and haru; his hand in her hair, her palm against his chest, his forehead pressed against hers. He kisses her as if she’s the only thing that matters, as if Namimori isn’t the one thing he holds above all else - as if she’s the only thing he needs in this world.
She breathes in the taste of him as he pulls away, and holds his kiss inside her behind two strawberry-hued bows.
His eyes slide open, and he faces her, his expression vulnerable and unsure, before he calmly takes the tea she poured him, and heads back to the cooking island, leaving Haru dazed and shocked. It isn’t until she hears the back screen door open that she realizes that Hibari went out to the back porch, and snaps out of her stupor, putting the pitcher away and running out the back door to join him.
He looks up from where he is on her garden chair, reclined back against the maroon cushion with Hibird and Roll hovering about in the backyard. Haru smiles back at him, blush and all, and sits beside him, taking his free hand with hers, and laying her right cheek on his shoulder. The warm, summer breeze blows across the back porch, rousing the birds from the tree branches, and the rabbits from the corn field in the distance, and in that moment, Haru is content, secure.
She whispers, “I think you’re capable of anything you put your mind to, Hibari-san.”
“Is that so?” His fingers tighten around hers, weaving them together. “That simplifies things.”
“So, will you stay?” she asks, her eyes still closed.
He hesitates. “I-“
“How about this, Hibari-san?” Haru suggests, lifting her face to press her lips to his temple gently, lightly, warmly, affectionately. Her left hand cups the right side of his face, holding him close, before she breathes against the bundles of obsidian clinging to his forehead, “We’ll take this one step at a time.”
He sighs, and leans against her mouth, his lips broadening into a soft, small smile of his own.
.
end.