Errand Girl

[sevendials]

Date: Wednesday November 5, 1997
Location: Outside the Koneko
Warnings: None.

It was probably a bit late to realize that she really should have cut her hair.

If there was anything that summed up the whole... whole thing of her presence outside a flower shop she'd almost sworn she was never going to visit again, not after that whole embarrassing

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[sevendials]

It wasn't the time: Sakura had known that. And, going by her actions, Aya did too.

She didn't protest. Sakura just let Aya lead her into the store and sit her down on one of the couches, she just sat and listened while Aya whispered urgently to her about how it wasn't the time and she knew, she knew and there was no need to pretend around her-- And there was hysteria in her friend's tone and her voice was shaking and then she was crying. Aya was crying and it was awful, just awful and somehow Sakura just couldn't escape the feeling that it was all her fault.

She knew it had been a bad idea to come.

Sakura didn't know what to do next, so she did the only thing that came naturally. Leaning forward, she impulsively gathered her friend into a clumsy hug.

"Oh, Aya-chan, I'm sorry!"

And no, Sakura, don't you start crying too. Her friend was sad and she was hurting and she needed - Aya definitely needed somebody, and she knew she probably wouldn't be much help when she was so caught up in this whole horrible messy thing too but what else was there that Sakura could do? She was going to do her damndest to be the person that Aya needed right now.

"Aya-chan," she said quietly, after who knew how long had slipped past - it could have been no more than a few seconds, but it felt longer. It felt like it had been much, much longer than that. "Do you want to talk about it? I mean... like you said you know and so do I, so there's no harm in it if it's just us, right?"

[stillneedsakiss]

Aya hated that she was crying, but she just couldn't stop herself. On instinct she returned Sakura's embrace, hiding her face on the girl's shoulder and wetting her shirt with her tears.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I thought I had all of this out of my system. I don't know if I even can talk about it... I don't know what I can say. It's just there, and..."

[sevendials]

"I know," Sakura said.

Was she trying to be reassuring? She had no idea. She just knew better than anything that what Aya was saying was true. It was just there and it just... the truth of the matter sat there in the corner of the mind, huge and immovable as some big, ugly statue, and sometimes you could ignore it for a little while and sometimes when the light hit it just right you thought that maybe the horrible old thing didn't look so bad after all - it looked weirdly noble, if never quite good or beautiful or right, but it didn't care what you thought of it, or even if you ignored it. It just was, and it wouldn't go away. It would never, ever go away.

"Don't be sorry," she said. "It was a - a horrible shock even for me, and I hadn't known any of them for long at all."

[stillneedsakiss]

Well, that was something they could relate on-- for the most part at least. Aya certainly hadn't known Youji or Omi for long. How did half an hour fare?

"How do you feel about them? Do you still trust them and... are they really good people? After Oniichan told me, I just..."

[sevendials]

"Oh, yes!"

That... had probably come out a little more enthusiastic than she had intended to. The slightly breathless, how-could-I-ever-think-anything-else tone in her voice was totally unfeigned, and the smile that accompanied it was warm and totally genuine. There she went again with the whole awkward Aya thing, but - but this was the truth too, and by the sounds of things her friend really, really needed to hear it.

"I'm sorry, Aya-chan," she said with an embarrassed sort of semi-smile. "That probably sounded silly. But yes, yes of course they're good people! Your brother... all of them, really. They don't do... the things that they do because they enjoy them. I know they don't. They would never hurt someone for no reason, Aya-chan, I promise you that. The people who would--" She hesitated for a moment. Dark thoughts, Sakura, dark and unpleasant. "They're absolutely nothing like your brother. Ken-san gave me his shirt just because I was cold... well, actually Youji-san made him do it but he did it anyway. A bad person would never have cared about something so silly at a time like that. They care, Aya-chan. They're good people, I promise."

[stillneedsakiss]

Aya visibly took back at Sakura's unbridled enthusiasm. It was startling, the absolute lack of doubt in her reply. She hadn't even had to think about it. After she got over the shock, though, it was a very reassuring answer. Not for the words themselves, but for exactly that lack of doubt with which they were spoken. She slowly nodded.

"...Will you tell me about them? What they're like, what I can expect... I don't know them at all and..." And she felt lost. It was unsettling and strange and just hard to be forcibly relocated into a home with strangers, especially when they were all the opposite sex and you didn't even have your own door! Whether they were the sort to take advantage of that was completely beside the point. That kind of thing just wasn't done. It just wasn't.

"If I knew more about them, maybe it wouldn't be so... weird." For lack of any more diplomatic a word.

[sevendials]

Weird. Well, yeah. It must have been weird to be uprooted from your own home to go and live with two virtual strangers and your brother, who from what Aya was saying was, after all this time and everything that had happened, not much more than a stranger himself.

"Well, I..." She smiled, a little more awkwardly this time. "I didn't exactly get to know Youji-san or Ken-san that well. Youji-san's a good person, though. He's always really friendly to all the girls who come here and they seem to like him a lot, too. And he's thoughtful, he was the one who got Ken-san to lend me his shirt. Ken-san's nice too... he's kind of loud sometimes and he doesn't really notice things like Youji-san does but he's nice. Like someone's brother on the TV.

"Omi-san is..." Is what? Nice again? No, something as generic as just nice didn't really cover it. She paused for a moment, marshalling her thoughts. "Well. I kind of like Omi-san," she said, a little lamely, then her brain caught up with her mouth and she felt herself coloring slightly. "Not like that, though, Aya-chan, I don't mean like that, he's just always been really kind to me, even when I probably didn't deserve it. He's been a good friend, he - it's weird, but there's something really... comfortable about him. I've told him things I wouldn't even have told Aiko-chan and I've known her since first grade, and he never made me feel like I was being stupid or like I was boring him."

And then, of course, there was Aya. Ran.

Ran. What in the world, Sakura wondered, was she supposed to say about him? Should she leave him out of this, and just assume that Aya hadn't meant him, too? Did Aya really want her to sit here and introduce her to her own brother? It seemed strange and sad to think that she would need to do that for anyone; it seemed unfair of her not to mention it, to wait for Aya to ask herself...

"Your brother's a kind man, too," she volunteered. "I know he is, though he comes off as so... so distant a lot of the time. He's always seemed so - all the time I've known him he's been this really serious guy who's always so quiet about everything. He doesn't let much slip and won't get close to anyone but there's - there's more there, Aya-chan, you can see how much he's holding stuff back and how much it's hurting him to do it but it's like he thinks he has to and I don't really understand why. He thinks he doesn't deserve to be close to anyone now, and it's just so sad. He's so much better than that, he shouldn't have to live that way. He's... Ran-san is a good man. I just don't think he can make himself believe it, and I think that's really sad."

[stillneedsakiss]

Aya listened attentively as Sakura described the four boys. From what little she'd seen of Youji she could already agree with Sakura's assessment. He was very thoughtful and gracious, probably the easiest of the three to be around. That was rather sad to Aya considering one of the other three was her own brother but things were just awkward between them for now. She hoped they would get better with a little time.

It was impossible to have much of an opinion on Ken since she'd not actually met the guy, but it was helpful to have a bit of an idea the kind of person the other three were currently missing.

Sakura's description of Omi interested her. Not just for the slip-up near the beginning-- and don't think that didn't get a raised eyebrow, Sakura-chan-- but the words she used afterwards. Comfortable. Kind. Good friend. Even one to the point that Sakura talked to him more intimately than friends she had known for far longer. So Omi was easy to talk to? Funny, Sakura hadn't once mentioned how easy to tease he was. Surely he didn't only act that way around her. Maybe Sakura just wasn't the type to notice or take advantage of it.

Aya felt an awkward silence after that. It would be too weird to ask for help with her own brother for goodness sakes, and of course it must be equally awkward to Sakura to think of telling her about her own brother. It was with relief and profound quiet gratitude that Sakura went ahead anyway. Of course it also came with a deep sense of disappointment in herself to even need such a thing, but that wasn't something for Sakura to have to deal with.

She nodded slowly and offered Sakura a sad smile. "That's helpful to know. Thank you, Sakura-chan. For all of it."