[15/16] Lifetimes
Lifetimes
November 2012 - December 2013
Summary
Mikado Miwa had always been - clichés and all other stereotypes taken into consideration - just an ordinary girl. Pencil pusher-slash-coffee maker in the morning, legendary fanfiction writer and blogger at night. Her stories had been, for more than fifteen years now, about a certain man named Sakurai Sho - idol, rapper, newscaster, godsend. She had been content writing about him, and would have been happy to continue writing about him, had he not one day pulled a pseudo-Akanishi and decided to get himself engaged. It had been a week since that fateful evening the headlines had borne that earth-shattering news. So why was he now standing outside her door in the rain, requesting a place in her life?
A/N
[09.46, 03 November 2013] I started writing this story when news of Sho and Mori Izumi seriously dating first broke out. Regardless of the truth behind that rumor I was so sad. I know it’s unfair to tie our idols down to ourselves, and wish we could keep them forever, but I don’t think it’s wrong to feel sad about the inevitability of losing someone either. Emotions can run wild as long as we keep our actions in check. Besides, doesn’t feeling sad mean we really valued that person even if the relationship was only imaginary? So I thought I’d write this to let all the bad juju out. I originally wanted it to be a legitimate story, a sensible one, so when I encountered a writer’s block and couldn’t produce it the way I wanted to, I decided I wouldn’t finish it anymore.
But it was begging to be written. So I told myself I’d finish it no matter how much crap and cheese I’d have to spew forth in the process. Because it is a purging - of my personal feelings, I suppose. This is for all our almost lovers - imaginary, unknowing, long gone. They say it’s better to have loved and lost, and I agree that’s true. It doesn’t, however, change the fact that the almost always hurts the most.
PS There is a beautiful song called Almost Lover by A Fine Frenzy. My favorite lines, from the chorus, go:
Goodbye my almost lover, goodbye my hopeless dream
I’m trying not to think about you, can’t you just let me be
So long my luckless romance my back is turned on you
Should have known you’d bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do
Disclaimer
The mastermind behind this plot derives no material profit from it. While several people, places, and events exist in reality, everything that follows should be digested with a healthy dose of suspicion.
Warning
I cannot write bromance or erotica to save my life.
Words 2,162
Lifetimes
For Arashi
Episode Fourteen
Farewell to an Almost Lover
The fourth week of February
Mikado Miwa stared at the plaster ceiling of her small apartment. She had stuck luminous stickers of the solar system there, but it was only 10 in the morning and the light was making it impossible to see the stars. Distractedly, she ran her fingers through George’s fur, as he curled next to her hip where she lay on the low couch in the living room. She blinked at the universe extended over her, and tried not to think, too much.
She had dutifully gone to work that morning, perhaps even earlier than she usually did, which meant the office lights were still off and the cubicles still empty as she sat on her desk chair and stared at her workspace blankly. She didn’t know how long she had been sitting there, waiting for the others to come and waiting for the helpful cacophony of work to save her. But somehow Mitsuo had arrived before everyone else, and he had laid a soft hand on her shoulder, smiling. Go home, he had told her, his face framed in soft edges as though she were seeing him from within a dream. Be kind to yourself and go home.
And so Miwa had. Two hours of commute later, she was back in her small apartment, staring at the ceiling, and determined to continue staring at her ceiling. Sakurai Sho was getting married in the afternoon, today. She blinked at her stickers one more time. She had never understood why she bought them in the first place. She didn’t even know if she was allowed to stick things on the walls of her rented space.
Perhaps it would be more productive to sleep.
She had been struggling to lull herself to oblivion when the doorbell rang. Half-awake, Miwa turned her head slightly towards the door. The doorbell rang again. She didn’t want to answer it. George raised his head an inch at the noise, before curling back into a fur ball at her side.
Sighing, she picked her body up slowly and dragged her feet towards the door. Peering through the peephole, Miwa saw a man in a simple yet elegant tuxedo, standing restlessly in the open air hallway outside her home. His hair fell just the right way across his forehead, and for one moment, Miwa thought she was hallucinating. Sakurai Sho would not be standing outside her apartment - sans cap, sans glasses, sans disguise - just hours before his wedding. He would not be standing outside her door, waiting to speak to her, unaware that his mere presence was enough to suffocate her.
Miwa rested her forehead against the cold metal of the door. He rang the doorbell again. She wondered vaguely what the neighbors would think. He rang the doorbell again, longer. She vowed she wouldn’t let him run away from Komada Setsu. He started pounding on the door, calling her name. She raised a hand to her cold face and promised herself she would get him married today, no matter what.
She pulled the door open and found him staring at her in surprise, fist raised and eyes wide. She quickly stepped aside to invite him in, and without further prompting, he stepped into the threshold of her home. In the morning sunshine that washed over her apartment, over them both, they stared at each other from the closest distance they had ever been. His lips were parted and his eyes over-bright, and she could see the beads of sweat on his forehead. She smiled faintly. Surely, she looked no better.
“Mitsuo told me you might be here,” he explained breathlessly, regaining some of his composure and slipping his hands into his pockets. “He just called me and - I had thought it would be better if I never came to see you again, but then I changed my mind.”
Smiling hesitantly, he looked at the space around them. From where they stood, they could see the living room, the balcony and a fraction of the narrow kitchen. In his eyes, she saw how he seemed to be memorizing everything about this place. Perhaps he had done the same the first time he had stepped into her old home. But he had been very discreet about it then.
“Do you realize we’ve always been like this?” He grinned. “The first time I came to visit you, you wouldn’t let me in either. We just stood at the entrance, and then you took away the pickles I wanted to eat with you.” Sakurai stared at her from beneath his dark lashes. She hadn’t realized how dark they truly were before now. “We’re always, always just starting things, but they never lead anywhere.”
Miwa bit her lip. “What are you here for? If you have something to say, please say it quickly. I’m doing my best to forget you, you see, and you being here, intruding in my life when all I want is to forget you - it isn’t helping. Not in the least.”
She thought she had offended him. He was staring at her in a way that made her think she was a belligerent child, a stubborn girl who had disappointed him. But then he smiled. “I’ve always liked you, you know. I’ve always liked what you’ve written. There are a lot of wonderful fanfiction writers out there, but I’d always thought you would understand me best if we would ever meet. We’re a lot like each other, you see. Don’t you think so?”
Miwa said nothing. Laughing softly, he averted his gaze. “But then it seemed as though we would never meet. You were always on one side of reality, and I was on the other. We’ve met several times before, of course, but it’s different. We’re-”
“I don’t really mind,” she interrupted. This conversation was draining the best of her, making room for only melancholy. “The thing about being a fangirl is that you know, from the very beginning, that you’re never going to end up with the celebrity you worship. And still you worship him anyway,” she smiled sadly. “It’s the damndest thing.”
Miwa raised a warning hand.
“Stop worrying about me,” she interrupted as he seemed to have something to say. “Please. I’ve always known you would leave me someday - and besides, I don’t have the right to hold on to you. I can deal with it. That’s what fanfiction is for, you know?”
Confused, Sakurai shook his head.
“With each character I write, I think about you - and me - and the possible endings we would have had if we had been born different people. If we had lived in an alternate universe. And maybe then, we would have different lives, and somehow our paths would have crossed more properly-”
“Earlier,” he agreed. “If I hadn’t been so stupid and met you earlier-”
“It doesn’t work that way.” She rested against the corner of her shoe rack. “But I have fallen for you so many times in so many lifetimes, and really, that isn’t so bad.”
Maybe, Miwa told herself, she could write one last story about Sakurai Sho. In every other story she had written so far, the heroine and he had always ended up together - stories fluffy, hopelessly romantic and delusional in every way she believed herself to be. Maybe, if she were to write one last story, she would imagine him to be in love with her, as she had always been in love with him, but even then they would not be. If there were one last story, it would be this. He would be standing in her small house, saying goodbye, looking achingly stunning in a plain black tuxedo and his overwhelming presence. Her last story would be this one moment of him saying goodbye.
“Which one is your favorite?” he suddenly asked. “I don’t think you ever said.”
“That’s a difficult question. It’s like asking a mother which kid she likes best. But,” she squinted into the walls as she thought about her answer. “I would have to say I like the one where the lead character is an ordinary office lady, and then this celebrity called Sakurai Sho contacts her one day to ask for help. But things get complicated, as things often do.” They stared at each other. “You might not have read that one yet.”
She had not noticed, but he had stepped forward, holding her fingers in his warm, pale hand and pulling her towards him. Resigned, she rested her cheek on his shoulder, one hand in his and the other clutching his jacket. She closed her eyes. He was so warm, much softer than she had ever imagined.
“But then if I had met you earlier, I still would have hurt you,” he murmured into her hair. “I wouldn’t be able to protect you, and I’d probably only take you for granted. Maybe we’re better off like this.”
She stared at the buttons on his jacket. “It was never going to work out between us anyway.”
She could feel his arms wrapping tighter around her, crushing her, and in return, she felt her fingers tighten over every inch of him she could reach. She couldn’t breathe - from his embrace or from the sheer closeness of him, she couldn’t tell. His warmth washed over her, comforting her, and the sunshine bathed everything in soft, golden edges. If they had not been perfect, at least this moment was.
His hand had found its way to her hair, and he lost himself in the light strands, laughing slightly. “Bleached hair looks horrible on you. You look like a delinquent.”
She pulled away and pouted. “It’s not blond. It’s caramel.”
“Of course,” he agreed, pulling a strand and letting it slip in his fingers.
Exhausted, Miwa sat on the bump of her front door and watched him standing before her. He squared his shoulders, and smiling, extended a hand towards her. “Thank you, Miwa. I’ll never forget you.”
Still seated on the floor, she gingerly shook his hand. “Goodbye.”
Sparing her one last glance, Sakurai Sho opened the door and left. The sunlight from outside blinded Miwa momentarily, and she closed her eyes, pained. She could feel the teardrops falling into her open palms again.
Just when she had believed she had cried herself dry.
A/N
[12.00, 3 November 2013]
[18.10, 31 December 2013] Wonderful betas are wonderful. You reading this again, ianne_xxyl ?
November 2012 - December 2013
Summary
Mikado Miwa had always been - clichés and all other stereotypes taken into consideration - just an ordinary girl. Pencil pusher-slash-coffee maker in the morning, legendary fanfiction writer and blogger at night. Her stories had been, for more than fifteen years now, about a certain man named Sakurai Sho - idol, rapper, newscaster, godsend. She had been content writing about him, and would have been happy to continue writing about him, had he not one day pulled a pseudo-Akanishi and decided to get himself engaged. It had been a week since that fateful evening the headlines had borne that earth-shattering news. So why was he now standing outside her door in the rain, requesting a place in her life?
A/N
[09.46, 03 November 2013] I started writing this story when news of Sho and Mori Izumi seriously dating first broke out. Regardless of the truth behind that rumor I was so sad. I know it’s unfair to tie our idols down to ourselves, and wish we could keep them forever, but I don’t think it’s wrong to feel sad about the inevitability of losing someone either. Emotions can run wild as long as we keep our actions in check. Besides, doesn’t feeling sad mean we really valued that person even if the relationship was only imaginary? So I thought I’d write this to let all the bad juju out. I originally wanted it to be a legitimate story, a sensible one, so when I encountered a writer’s block and couldn’t produce it the way I wanted to, I decided I wouldn’t finish it anymore.
But it was begging to be written. So I told myself I’d finish it no matter how much crap and cheese I’d have to spew forth in the process. Because it is a purging - of my personal feelings, I suppose. This is for all our almost lovers - imaginary, unknowing, long gone. They say it’s better to have loved and lost, and I agree that’s true. It doesn’t, however, change the fact that the almost always hurts the most.
PS There is a beautiful song called Almost Lover by A Fine Frenzy. My favorite lines, from the chorus, go:
Goodbye my almost lover, goodbye my hopeless dream
I’m trying not to think about you, can’t you just let me be
So long my luckless romance my back is turned on you
Should have known you’d bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do
Disclaimer
The mastermind behind this plot derives no material profit from it. While several people, places, and events exist in reality, everything that follows should be digested with a healthy dose of suspicion.
Warning
I cannot write bromance or erotica to save my life.
Words 2,162
Lifetimes
For Arashi
Episode Fourteen
Farewell to an Almost Lover
The fourth week of February
Mikado Miwa stared at the plaster ceiling of her small apartment. She had stuck luminous stickers of the solar system there, but it was only 10 in the morning and the light was making it impossible to see the stars. Distractedly, she ran her fingers through George’s fur, as he curled next to her hip where she lay on the low couch in the living room. She blinked at the universe extended over her, and tried not to think, too much.
She had dutifully gone to work that morning, perhaps even earlier than she usually did, which meant the office lights were still off and the cubicles still empty as she sat on her desk chair and stared at her workspace blankly. She didn’t know how long she had been sitting there, waiting for the others to come and waiting for the helpful cacophony of work to save her. But somehow Mitsuo had arrived before everyone else, and he had laid a soft hand on her shoulder, smiling. Go home, he had told her, his face framed in soft edges as though she were seeing him from within a dream. Be kind to yourself and go home.
And so Miwa had. Two hours of commute later, she was back in her small apartment, staring at the ceiling, and determined to continue staring at her ceiling. Sakurai Sho was getting married in the afternoon, today. She blinked at her stickers one more time. She had never understood why she bought them in the first place. She didn’t even know if she was allowed to stick things on the walls of her rented space.
Perhaps it would be more productive to sleep.
She had been struggling to lull herself to oblivion when the doorbell rang. Half-awake, Miwa turned her head slightly towards the door. The doorbell rang again. She didn’t want to answer it. George raised his head an inch at the noise, before curling back into a fur ball at her side.
Sighing, she picked her body up slowly and dragged her feet towards the door. Peering through the peephole, Miwa saw a man in a simple yet elegant tuxedo, standing restlessly in the open air hallway outside her home. His hair fell just the right way across his forehead, and for one moment, Miwa thought she was hallucinating. Sakurai Sho would not be standing outside her apartment - sans cap, sans glasses, sans disguise - just hours before his wedding. He would not be standing outside her door, waiting to speak to her, unaware that his mere presence was enough to suffocate her.
Miwa rested her forehead against the cold metal of the door. He rang the doorbell again. She wondered vaguely what the neighbors would think. He rang the doorbell again, longer. She vowed she wouldn’t let him run away from Komada Setsu. He started pounding on the door, calling her name. She raised a hand to her cold face and promised herself she would get him married today, no matter what.
She pulled the door open and found him staring at her in surprise, fist raised and eyes wide. She quickly stepped aside to invite him in, and without further prompting, he stepped into the threshold of her home. In the morning sunshine that washed over her apartment, over them both, they stared at each other from the closest distance they had ever been. His lips were parted and his eyes over-bright, and she could see the beads of sweat on his forehead. She smiled faintly. Surely, she looked no better.
“Mitsuo told me you might be here,” he explained breathlessly, regaining some of his composure and slipping his hands into his pockets. “He just called me and - I had thought it would be better if I never came to see you again, but then I changed my mind.”
Smiling hesitantly, he looked at the space around them. From where they stood, they could see the living room, the balcony and a fraction of the narrow kitchen. In his eyes, she saw how he seemed to be memorizing everything about this place. Perhaps he had done the same the first time he had stepped into her old home. But he had been very discreet about it then.
“Do you realize we’ve always been like this?” He grinned. “The first time I came to visit you, you wouldn’t let me in either. We just stood at the entrance, and then you took away the pickles I wanted to eat with you.” Sakurai stared at her from beneath his dark lashes. She hadn’t realized how dark they truly were before now. “We’re always, always just starting things, but they never lead anywhere.”
Miwa bit her lip. “What are you here for? If you have something to say, please say it quickly. I’m doing my best to forget you, you see, and you being here, intruding in my life when all I want is to forget you - it isn’t helping. Not in the least.”
She thought she had offended him. He was staring at her in a way that made her think she was a belligerent child, a stubborn girl who had disappointed him. But then he smiled. “I’ve always liked you, you know. I’ve always liked what you’ve written. There are a lot of wonderful fanfiction writers out there, but I’d always thought you would understand me best if we would ever meet. We’re a lot like each other, you see. Don’t you think so?”
Miwa said nothing. Laughing softly, he averted his gaze. “But then it seemed as though we would never meet. You were always on one side of reality, and I was on the other. We’ve met several times before, of course, but it’s different. We’re-”
“I don’t really mind,” she interrupted. This conversation was draining the best of her, making room for only melancholy. “The thing about being a fangirl is that you know, from the very beginning, that you’re never going to end up with the celebrity you worship. And still you worship him anyway,” she smiled sadly. “It’s the damndest thing.”
Miwa raised a warning hand.
“Stop worrying about me,” she interrupted as he seemed to have something to say. “Please. I’ve always known you would leave me someday - and besides, I don’t have the right to hold on to you. I can deal with it. That’s what fanfiction is for, you know?”
Confused, Sakurai shook his head.
“With each character I write, I think about you - and me - and the possible endings we would have had if we had been born different people. If we had lived in an alternate universe. And maybe then, we would have different lives, and somehow our paths would have crossed more properly-”
“Earlier,” he agreed. “If I hadn’t been so stupid and met you earlier-”
“It doesn’t work that way.” She rested against the corner of her shoe rack. “But I have fallen for you so many times in so many lifetimes, and really, that isn’t so bad.”
Maybe, Miwa told herself, she could write one last story about Sakurai Sho. In every other story she had written so far, the heroine and he had always ended up together - stories fluffy, hopelessly romantic and delusional in every way she believed herself to be. Maybe, if she were to write one last story, she would imagine him to be in love with her, as she had always been in love with him, but even then they would not be. If there were one last story, it would be this. He would be standing in her small house, saying goodbye, looking achingly stunning in a plain black tuxedo and his overwhelming presence. Her last story would be this one moment of him saying goodbye.
“Which one is your favorite?” he suddenly asked. “I don’t think you ever said.”
“That’s a difficult question. It’s like asking a mother which kid she likes best. But,” she squinted into the walls as she thought about her answer. “I would have to say I like the one where the lead character is an ordinary office lady, and then this celebrity called Sakurai Sho contacts her one day to ask for help. But things get complicated, as things often do.” They stared at each other. “You might not have read that one yet.”
She had not noticed, but he had stepped forward, holding her fingers in his warm, pale hand and pulling her towards him. Resigned, she rested her cheek on his shoulder, one hand in his and the other clutching his jacket. She closed her eyes. He was so warm, much softer than she had ever imagined.
“But then if I had met you earlier, I still would have hurt you,” he murmured into her hair. “I wouldn’t be able to protect you, and I’d probably only take you for granted. Maybe we’re better off like this.”
She stared at the buttons on his jacket. “It was never going to work out between us anyway.”
She could feel his arms wrapping tighter around her, crushing her, and in return, she felt her fingers tighten over every inch of him she could reach. She couldn’t breathe - from his embrace or from the sheer closeness of him, she couldn’t tell. His warmth washed over her, comforting her, and the sunshine bathed everything in soft, golden edges. If they had not been perfect, at least this moment was.
His hand had found its way to her hair, and he lost himself in the light strands, laughing slightly. “Bleached hair looks horrible on you. You look like a delinquent.”
She pulled away and pouted. “It’s not blond. It’s caramel.”
“Of course,” he agreed, pulling a strand and letting it slip in his fingers.
Exhausted, Miwa sat on the bump of her front door and watched him standing before her. He squared his shoulders, and smiling, extended a hand towards her. “Thank you, Miwa. I’ll never forget you.”
Still seated on the floor, she gingerly shook his hand. “Goodbye.”
Sparing her one last glance, Sakurai Sho opened the door and left. The sunlight from outside blinded Miwa momentarily, and she closed her eyes, pained. She could feel the teardrops falling into her open palms again.
Just when she had believed she had cried herself dry.
A/N
[12.00, 3 November 2013]
[18.10, 31 December 2013] Wonderful betas are wonderful. You reading this again, ianne_xxyl ?