FIC: Five futures that befall Yoshikawa Tsurara (and one of them is true) 2/5
Title: Five futures that befall Yoshikawa Tsurara (and one of them is true) 2/5
Fandom: Kurosagi
Disclaimer: TBS own the rights to the drama, Natsuhara Takeshi owns the manga, no copyright infringement is intended
Notes: You decide which future is the true one. More familiar faces show up in the second half...
He doesn't like to think of it as a disappearance. Disappearing implies that he noticed her, that there was someone to miss, not merely an annoying disturbance. One day, Yoshikawa Tsurara is there, banging and rattling things in the apartment next door, and then one day she isn't.
She leaves in the afternoon, when the sun is shining its brightest and the shadows stretch across the sidewalks.
Kurosaki finds the package on his doorstep that evening. It's the rent she owed, wrapped up in the eviction notice he gave her and he tells the cat, who's come out to investigate, “Idiot girl. Who leaves money on the floor - does she want me to get robbed?”
He expects to feel relief that she's finally listened to something he's said, and instead he feels nothing - not anger or annoyance, just a terrible numbness that's only distracted by the rumbling of his stomach.
Dinner tastes overly salty and undercooked, but after the second bowl of ramen turns out like the first, he throws the entire mess out and goes to bed.
Her professor had recommended her to a fellow faculty member at another university, saying, “The experience will be good for you. My colleague needs a teacher's assistant.”
Another day passes before he allows himself to check her apartment. The key slides in easily, and he turns, waiting for the familiar click. When the door swings open, he sees the apartment is not entirely empty as he assumed. Yoshikawa - he can say her name when she's not around - left behind her furniture. He scowls at the illegally installed bookshelf - it's crooked, and there are holes everywhere in the walls. “So troublesome, even when she's not here,” he mutters.
A vase on the windowsill, the flowers inside already wilted - a frayed bathroom rug. Kurosaki sweeps through the apartment as if he's searching for clues. He finds it when he slides open the door to her closet. A shoe box, and when he picks it up, he can hear the rustling of paper.
The cat is meowing impatiently for food when he comes back, and winds itself between his legs. He nearly trips, and rights himself against the door frame. “Stop that,” he says. The cat, unrepentant, only meows louder. His discovery will have to wait, and as he's opening the tin for the savage beast, he remembers he hasn't visited Katsuragi.
She doesn't tell Yukari where she's going, just that she's decided to transfer universities. Somewhere along the way, she's acquired the importance of secrets. She wonders if it's another thing she can blame Kurosaki for. Yukari smiles and wishes her luck, but doesn't ask further. Their line was drawn in the sand a long time ago, and when Tsurara waves good bye, she knows it's for the last time.
Their relationship has never been about small talk. Kurosaki comes in, he pays for the information, and he leaves. Katsuragi is not exactly stimulating company, and his assistant - Hayase-san, what was her motive? Kurosaki realizes he's not exactly in a position where he can comfortably ask, “So, why are you serving this old bastard anyway? What does he have on you?”
So he settles his information debt, and turns to walk away. Hayase stops him with a soft, “We haven't had coffee delivered in a while.”
Katsuragi coughs, and says, “So you succeeded in chasing her away.”
It takes everything he has to turn around and say, “She's no one important,” and walk away.
Hayase looks reproachfully at Katsuragi. “Was that really necessary?”
He snorts, and mutters, “That boy needs to learn I'm not his greatest enemy. Neither is Mikimoto.”
It's strange at first, being in a new building, surrounded by strangers. The professor is brisk but kind, and helpfully tells her the cheapest places to eat and where the students spend their free time. “I'm very grateful that Nagashima-sensei told me about you. I'm behind on grading papers, and when examinations come around, I'm hopeless. Let's work together from now on!”
“I'll do my best, Honda-sensei.”
Strange, being needed, and having conversations with people who actually spoke in sentences and not contemptuous dismissals.
The box is full of envelopes, and they're all addressed to him. He lifts one from the stacks and considers it carefully, feeling the weight and the texture of the envelope against his palm. He closes his eyes briefly, taps the letter against his forehead - should he read it, and more importantly, does he want to read it?
Finally, he slits the envelope open and slides out just enough so he can read the first few lines.
Days pass into weeks, leaves fall and change color, and Tsurara marks the time on her calendar in red ink. It's been three months now, and she's made a life for herself. Students cluster around her and some of them call her Sensei, much to her embarrassment, while others invite her for tea and snacks. The professor invites her to lead a lecture course next semester, and hints that she'll be paid extra for the honor. There have even been admiring glances from a few men, not that she's had the time to actually date. Her shyness only makes her more alluring, and little presents and love letters start appearing in her mailbox.
She doesn't read any of the letters, and gives away the chocolates. She can live without love, because what is the point if her heart's already been given away?
Of his twenty one years of existence, Kurosaki has seen things no one should see, witnessed stoic businessmen weep over their destroyed fortunes, had his name cursed and praised alike by thieves and victims, and in a moment of uncertainty - he had been kind.
There had been the bystanders, their horrified expressions - but no one was leaning toward the girl in white, who knew, and it had made him suddenly furious. He jumped, she braced herself for the impact, and then she looked up into his face, and something inside him unraveled. He didn't mean to be kind, but it happened anyway.
And now in the stretch of Yoshikawa's absence, it appeared he had inherited Yukari.
She accosts him unreasonably early in the morning, when he's still blinking away sleep and the previous night's dreams.
“You again.”
If his dismissal upsets her, she doesn't show it, and her smile barely flickers. “Kurosaki-san! I haven't seen you in a while, so I thought I would stop by...”
He wonders, not for the last time, if there was an aura that surrounded him that attracted annoying girls.
Correction, one annoying girl and the other - a mistake. He shakes his head, irritated. “You, stop. Stop talking.”
Yukari finally pauses mid-prattle and feigns confusion. “Pardon, Kurosaki-san?”
“Stop talking. Don't come here again. She's not here. I'm not interested.”
He is not kind, and this confirms it. He shuts the door against her devastated face, and crouches down, beckons for the cat. “Oi, Yoshida!”
It pads toward him, and purrs as he pets its wide furry back, its tail flicking in delight.
She finds herself on a date almost by accident. Another Friday evening at the library, and one of the girls in her class waves at her from a neighboring table. “Yoshikawa-sempai! Can I talk to you for a moment?”
Tsurara nods and picks up her books and purse, transferring them to the table. “What is it?” The other girl nervously twirls her pencil, and blurts out, “Would you consider, possibly, maybe going on a date with my friend? I'm sorry, I know this is rude and sudden - but he won't stop bothering me about it --” she finishes, bowing her head so low that it's hovering above the table top.
“A...date?” Tsurara leans back against her chair, a deep blush staining her cheeks. “I haven't --”
“I know! I told him that you weren't interested, but he doesn't believe me. I'm sorry for mentioning it, Yoshikawa-sempai.”
She was coming up to seven months now, each red slash on the calendar a reminder of what she left. In three days, she would be turning another year older. A part of her urged, “Go, go! It's time to move on. You never promised him anything,” while the traitorous part, the part that held the edges of her heart together, whispered, “You told him he would never be alone. But you left.”
“Because I had no choice. He was always one step forward, two steps back,” and she realizes she's said this out loud. She ducks her head, and apologizes. “I'm sorry, I was just...”
A look of commiseration - and the girl says, “Difficult relationship?”
Tsurara thinks of Kurosaki's darkly handsome face, and his ever changing moods. “You could say that.”
They share a laugh, and the girl says, “Boys are so confusing.”
A deeper, amused voice interrupts their conversation. “Are we? I don't think we're that confusing, Makino.”
Tsurara turns at the stranger's voice, as Makino-chan splutters behind her. “You're so sneaky, Hanazawa Rui!”
The young man walks over and quickly plants a kiss on Makino's forehead. Tsurara marvels at his calm, as the innocent action only flusters Makino further. Hanazawa Rui notices her and nods. The effect is princely and Tsurara takes in the precise lines of his grey coat and the elegant symmetry of his haircut - he was clearly not just a university student.
Makino recovers, and says, “Where's Mimasaka-san?”
“Oh, he's parking the car. He'll be here in a few minutes.”
Another name, another prince-type? It was hard to believe that her student - who was so quiet and thoughtful during lectures, and so fiery and argumentative during debates - would know one, let alone two. But then again, Tsurara mused, she personally knew a master swindler.
“Oh, Yoshikawa-sempai, the friend I was talking about, is Mimasaka-san.”
Hanazawa Rui raises an eyebrow and says, “Akira. I should have known.” He glances at Tsurara. “Actually, you're a change from his usual type.”
“Am I really....so what's his usual type?”
His smile is sudden and brilliant, as if he's about to tell a joke. “Married and desperate for attention.”
Makino's outraged “Hanazawa RUI!” fills the library.
The memories arrive like hallucinations - when he hangs out his laundry to dry, he thinks he can see her slim figure next to him, reaching out for the last stray sock. When he's coming up the staircase, he expects to hear the clip clop of her platform sandals passing by, and when he finds himself admiring a red sweater on a mannequin in a storefront in Shibuya, he feels that perhaps, finally, he's lost his mind.
He hasn't touched another letter since the first one, and contemplates burning the entire lot, but he never does.
Yoshida has been looking a little lonely as of late, and he think he might have to get another cat, as he's been spending more and more time out of his apartment.
On their seventh date, she invites Akira into her modest apartment. She cannot tell who is more surprised, herself or Akira, who actually stutters and says, “Would that be okay?”
She cooks for him, a quick dinner of curry and rice, but he is impressed anyway. He keeps on glancing from the food to her, and then at the kitchen as if he can't believe he's there.
“You look cute in that apron.” He smiles and raises a fork full of rice and curry and takes a bite. “This is delicious.”
“Thank you,” she says, and wonders when this became normal. Akira is more of a gentleman than she gave him credit for, and after a few false starts and some terrible pick up lines, she's approaching something that resembles comfortable.
She asks Makino-chan about him. What does he like? Who did he date before? Why is he interested...in her?
The answers are not encouraging: Older women, Older women, preferably married, and I don't know.
Makino shrugs apologetically, and says, “Mimasaka-san doesn't date, usually, he 'sees' people.” The implication that he does more than just 'see' these bored wives hangs in the air.
Akira hasn't even tried to hold her hand once.
The picture is grainy, and in black and white, but the face is unmistakably hers. She's laughing, and the photograph catches her in a remarkably carefree moment as she leans toward her male companion. The cover of a gossip rag is the last possible place Kurosaki expects to see Yoshikawa, and the identity of her so-called 'boyfriend' brings him into Katsuragi's restaurant once more.
“There's one more thing I didn't tell you about Mimasaka-san.”
“What is it?”
“He's kind of involved in....mysterious things. It runs in his family.”
“What, is he a yakuza heir?”
She meant it as a joke, but Makino's face had told her otherwise.
He has always had a talent - an uncanny knack of turning up when she least expects him, but it's still a a shock to find him sitting outside of her apartment. She blinks, but the dark figure on her steps doesn't move - and she walks toward him.
“Kurosaki?” Her voice is hesitant, as if she's not quite sure of his presence. “Are you really...here?”
He motions at her door. “Took you long enough. Go inside.”
She mutters, “Yes, hello, my day was great, how was yours?” as she rummages in her purse for her key - and then stops, her heart thumping, because suddenly he's there, his breath warm against her neck and his arm hovering against hers, and he's turning the lock with her spare key. The one that she kept in a dish on the windowsill of her bedroom.
She forgets to be embarrassed, turns around, and says accusingly, “You!”
Kurosaki smiles and says, “You need to hide things better, Yoshida. Anyone could just let themselves in.”
The maddening thing is how easily he insinuates himself into her surroundings. In his usual black, he stands out against the flowered throw pillows, his body relaxed in a careless sprawl on her sofa. He looks thinner, his hair brushing against too sharp cheekbones, and there's something in his gaze that triggers all of her ridiculous maternal instincts.
She tries to be indifferent, and sits as far away as possible. “Have you eaten? You look hungry.”
Kurosaki snorts. “Still the same charity-minded girl as ever, I see. I'm not my cat, you know.” Still, he shifts a little, and she catches his eyes flickering to her kitchen.
“Well, I'm starving, so I'll make some dinner. You can have some, if you want. Or not.”
Small steps, she reminds herself as she walks to her kitchen. He'll probably leave at the first sight of
my apron - that'd be too domesticated for him.
He comes in when she's setting the table - for two, naturally, and she takes her time placing the chopsticks and arranging the plates before she looks up. “Are you going to sit down or not?”
She prides herself on not turning around and pumping her fist in the air for victory when a startled Kurosaki crosses the threshold and sits down.
They make small, awkward conversation at first - she doesn't press him on why he's here, and he doesn't offer any answers. Instead she tells him stories about her students, about Makino-chan, who makes her laugh a hundred times a day, it seems, and how she hardly has any time left after classes to do things - she misses reading novels, and there's not enough money in her budget to get a TV, so she never knows what people are talking about anymore. She neatly skips over Akira and instead fills the silence with bright, sparkling notes of a life she's not even sure she's living, but Kurosaki is nodding and eating, and sometimes he even laughs. It's almost like they're normal people, two strangers becoming acquaintances.
The illusion doesn't last long however, and as she clears the table, Kurosaki reaches into his pocket and takes out a rolled up magazine. He tosses it onto the table, and Tsurara recognizes the issue of Friday immediately. Akira had called her the day the tabloid hit the news stands, and told her that he could buy out the entire company and have the issue recalled, but she had only laughed.
Kurosaki's expression is undecipherable. When he speaks, the contempt is clear enough.
“You were followed home tonight. And the night before - you know, for someone who wants to be a lawyer, you have absolutely no sense of your surroundings. And the company you're keeping - “
“Don't.”
He breaks off mid-tirade, surprised, then wary.
“Yoshida, this isn't like you.”
“How would you know?”
Kurosaki shoves his hands in his pockets, and looks at her. “Because you don't change. You care too much about things, and being right.” He nods at the tabloid on the table. “This isn't...”
“Right for me?” Tsurara finishes coldly. “I don't think that's any of your business.”
“Fine,” Kurosaki says. “It was a mistake to come here.”
Tsurara can't trust herself to speak civilly, so she just walks toward the door.
He stands at the threshold of her kitchen for a few minutes more, then follows.
His last words to her are an abrupt, “Be careful.”
After the door closes behind him, Tsurara leans against it, and exhales.
She breaks up with Akira two days later.
It's both a relief and incredibly painful at the same time - Akira sips his drink and listens while she says, haltingly, “I can't go out with you anymore.”
Before Akira can say anything in response, Tsurara continues. “It's really complicated, someone I knew - I mean, nothing could happen, but he suddenly appeared and I'm...”
“You're in love with him.”
Tsurara frowns and fidgets with the hem of her skirt. “I don't know. No. Maybe, I think so - it's just....he makes me so....angry and confused half the time and the rest - I want to know everything he's thinking, I want to be able to help him. To be allowed to. And I know it's irrational, but until I can let it go, I can't be with anyone else truthfully. And,” her voice hitches, “I used to be able to tell the truth. I want that back.”
Akira stands up and walks over to her side of the table and gently pulls her into a hug. ”It's okay, Tsurara-chan.”
She lets herself cry finally, her tears soaking into his silk shirt. “I'm ruining your shirt.”
He chuckles. “It's fine. I have other ones.”
Slowly, things revert back to life-that-was. Akira still drops by and surprises her with the occasional lunch or dinner date, but more often than not, Makino tells her about the latest harem of women that surround him and their friend Soujiro. Tsurara grades papers, discusses school policies with Professor Nagashima, goes over research notes with Makino, and makes pots of tea for her colleagues. Sometimes she pages through the left behind newspapers in the faculty office, searching for mentions of Kurosaki. His name never appears, though Detective Kashima's transfer to another police force makes the news.
She wonders how his cat is doing, and if he remembers to feed it.
When she walks home from the bus stop, she carefully looks behind her - but no one is ever there. She doesn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed.
It is the first day of spring, and she is hanging out her clothes to dry, when she hears the knocking at her door. "Just a minute," she calls, and wrings out a shirt and clips it to the line.
When she opens the door, Kurosaki is on the other side, holding an all too familiar box.
"You forgot something," is all he says, before he walks past her and inside her apartment.
He sets the box down, then comes back. There is something different about him, and then she realizes that he's smiling. A real, open mouth smile, like a child who's just gotten a treat.
It makes her breathless, even more so when he comes closer, and leans toward her. "Faith is the sister of justice,"** he whispers. "I read that somewhere, once. Is it still true?"
She remembers the letter now, the last one she ever wrote to him, back when she thought she would never see him again.
She blinks, swallows hard. "I hope so."
He is gentler now, and as he leans his face closer to hers, Tsurara instinctively closes her eyes. Kurosaki winds his arms around her, holds her close. "You belong everywhere, you know. I don't. I can't promise you --"
She hugs him tighter. "I don't care."
Later she will see the newspaper with the bold headline, Notorious Swindler Mikimoto Finally Caught, and in smaller type: Police aided by Mysterious Second Party.
Even later, she will find a key to an apartment just two streets away from her own, where a black cat struggles for dominance with a tawny kitten, tucked inside the front pocket of his jeans.
There will be nights when he wakes her out of a peaceful sleep, his body trembling and eyes haunted. She will kiss his forehead and wipe away the tears as he mumbles secrets into her shoulder.
He forgets anniversaries but buys her flowers every weekend. He says her name like no one else in the world - like a prayer.
But that is all later.
Now, in the silence and warmth of her apartment, Kurosaki kisses Tsurara for the first time.
I don't know what's going to happen in the future - I know what I would like to happen. I want to be the best prosecutor I can be, because I have to believe that even one person can make a difference. Faith is the sister of justice, after all.
What will happen when you achieve what you want? Will you be happy, sad, or worse - apathetic?
Will you laugh at me if I told you that I worry not just about you, but the boy you used to be?
**This is actually a quote from Madeline D'Engle's classic A Wrinkle in Time
As some of you might be aware - the characters of Hanazawa Rui, Mimasaka Akira, and Makino Tsukushi are borrowed from Yoko Kamio's manga Hana Yori Dango. Though their representations are clearly from the TBS live-action drama. ;-)
Fandom: Kurosagi
Disclaimer: TBS own the rights to the drama, Natsuhara Takeshi owns the manga, no copyright infringement is intended
Notes: You decide which future is the true one. More familiar faces show up in the second half...
He doesn't like to think of it as a disappearance. Disappearing implies that he noticed her, that there was someone to miss, not merely an annoying disturbance. One day, Yoshikawa Tsurara is there, banging and rattling things in the apartment next door, and then one day she isn't.
She leaves in the afternoon, when the sun is shining its brightest and the shadows stretch across the sidewalks.
Kurosaki finds the package on his doorstep that evening. It's the rent she owed, wrapped up in the eviction notice he gave her and he tells the cat, who's come out to investigate, “Idiot girl. Who leaves money on the floor - does she want me to get robbed?”
He expects to feel relief that she's finally listened to something he's said, and instead he feels nothing - not anger or annoyance, just a terrible numbness that's only distracted by the rumbling of his stomach.
Dinner tastes overly salty and undercooked, but after the second bowl of ramen turns out like the first, he throws the entire mess out and goes to bed.
Her professor had recommended her to a fellow faculty member at another university, saying, “The experience will be good for you. My colleague needs a teacher's assistant.”
Another day passes before he allows himself to check her apartment. The key slides in easily, and he turns, waiting for the familiar click. When the door swings open, he sees the apartment is not entirely empty as he assumed. Yoshikawa - he can say her name when she's not around - left behind her furniture. He scowls at the illegally installed bookshelf - it's crooked, and there are holes everywhere in the walls. “So troublesome, even when she's not here,” he mutters.
A vase on the windowsill, the flowers inside already wilted - a frayed bathroom rug. Kurosaki sweeps through the apartment as if he's searching for clues. He finds it when he slides open the door to her closet. A shoe box, and when he picks it up, he can hear the rustling of paper.
The cat is meowing impatiently for food when he comes back, and winds itself between his legs. He nearly trips, and rights himself against the door frame. “Stop that,” he says. The cat, unrepentant, only meows louder. His discovery will have to wait, and as he's opening the tin for the savage beast, he remembers he hasn't visited Katsuragi.
She doesn't tell Yukari where she's going, just that she's decided to transfer universities. Somewhere along the way, she's acquired the importance of secrets. She wonders if it's another thing she can blame Kurosaki for. Yukari smiles and wishes her luck, but doesn't ask further. Their line was drawn in the sand a long time ago, and when Tsurara waves good bye, she knows it's for the last time.
Their relationship has never been about small talk. Kurosaki comes in, he pays for the information, and he leaves. Katsuragi is not exactly stimulating company, and his assistant - Hayase-san, what was her motive? Kurosaki realizes he's not exactly in a position where he can comfortably ask, “So, why are you serving this old bastard anyway? What does he have on you?”
So he settles his information debt, and turns to walk away. Hayase stops him with a soft, “We haven't had coffee delivered in a while.”
Katsuragi coughs, and says, “So you succeeded in chasing her away.”
It takes everything he has to turn around and say, “She's no one important,” and walk away.
Hayase looks reproachfully at Katsuragi. “Was that really necessary?”
He snorts, and mutters, “That boy needs to learn I'm not his greatest enemy. Neither is Mikimoto.”
It's strange at first, being in a new building, surrounded by strangers. The professor is brisk but kind, and helpfully tells her the cheapest places to eat and where the students spend their free time. “I'm very grateful that Nagashima-sensei told me about you. I'm behind on grading papers, and when examinations come around, I'm hopeless. Let's work together from now on!”
“I'll do my best, Honda-sensei.”
Strange, being needed, and having conversations with people who actually spoke in sentences and not contemptuous dismissals.
The box is full of envelopes, and they're all addressed to him. He lifts one from the stacks and considers it carefully, feeling the weight and the texture of the envelope against his palm. He closes his eyes briefly, taps the letter against his forehead - should he read it, and more importantly, does he want to read it?
Finally, he slits the envelope open and slides out just enough so he can read the first few lines.
Days pass into weeks, leaves fall and change color, and Tsurara marks the time on her calendar in red ink. It's been three months now, and she's made a life for herself. Students cluster around her and some of them call her Sensei, much to her embarrassment, while others invite her for tea and snacks. The professor invites her to lead a lecture course next semester, and hints that she'll be paid extra for the honor. There have even been admiring glances from a few men, not that she's had the time to actually date. Her shyness only makes her more alluring, and little presents and love letters start appearing in her mailbox.
She doesn't read any of the letters, and gives away the chocolates. She can live without love, because what is the point if her heart's already been given away?
Of his twenty one years of existence, Kurosaki has seen things no one should see, witnessed stoic businessmen weep over their destroyed fortunes, had his name cursed and praised alike by thieves and victims, and in a moment of uncertainty - he had been kind.
There had been the bystanders, their horrified expressions - but no one was leaning toward the girl in white, who knew, and it had made him suddenly furious. He jumped, she braced herself for the impact, and then she looked up into his face, and something inside him unraveled. He didn't mean to be kind, but it happened anyway.
And now in the stretch of Yoshikawa's absence, it appeared he had inherited Yukari.
She accosts him unreasonably early in the morning, when he's still blinking away sleep and the previous night's dreams.
“You again.”
If his dismissal upsets her, she doesn't show it, and her smile barely flickers. “Kurosaki-san! I haven't seen you in a while, so I thought I would stop by...”
He wonders, not for the last time, if there was an aura that surrounded him that attracted annoying girls.
Correction, one annoying girl and the other - a mistake. He shakes his head, irritated. “You, stop. Stop talking.”
Yukari finally pauses mid-prattle and feigns confusion. “Pardon, Kurosaki-san?”
“Stop talking. Don't come here again. She's not here. I'm not interested.”
He is not kind, and this confirms it. He shuts the door against her devastated face, and crouches down, beckons for the cat. “Oi, Yoshida!”
It pads toward him, and purrs as he pets its wide furry back, its tail flicking in delight.
She finds herself on a date almost by accident. Another Friday evening at the library, and one of the girls in her class waves at her from a neighboring table. “Yoshikawa-sempai! Can I talk to you for a moment?”
Tsurara nods and picks up her books and purse, transferring them to the table. “What is it?” The other girl nervously twirls her pencil, and blurts out, “Would you consider, possibly, maybe going on a date with my friend? I'm sorry, I know this is rude and sudden - but he won't stop bothering me about it --” she finishes, bowing her head so low that it's hovering above the table top.
“A...date?” Tsurara leans back against her chair, a deep blush staining her cheeks. “I haven't --”
“I know! I told him that you weren't interested, but he doesn't believe me. I'm sorry for mentioning it, Yoshikawa-sempai.”
She was coming up to seven months now, each red slash on the calendar a reminder of what she left. In three days, she would be turning another year older. A part of her urged, “Go, go! It's time to move on. You never promised him anything,” while the traitorous part, the part that held the edges of her heart together, whispered, “You told him he would never be alone. But you left.”
“Because I had no choice. He was always one step forward, two steps back,” and she realizes she's said this out loud. She ducks her head, and apologizes. “I'm sorry, I was just...”
A look of commiseration - and the girl says, “Difficult relationship?”
Tsurara thinks of Kurosaki's darkly handsome face, and his ever changing moods. “You could say that.”
They share a laugh, and the girl says, “Boys are so confusing.”
A deeper, amused voice interrupts their conversation. “Are we? I don't think we're that confusing, Makino.”
Tsurara turns at the stranger's voice, as Makino-chan splutters behind her. “You're so sneaky, Hanazawa Rui!”
The young man walks over and quickly plants a kiss on Makino's forehead. Tsurara marvels at his calm, as the innocent action only flusters Makino further. Hanazawa Rui notices her and nods. The effect is princely and Tsurara takes in the precise lines of his grey coat and the elegant symmetry of his haircut - he was clearly not just a university student.
Makino recovers, and says, “Where's Mimasaka-san?”
“Oh, he's parking the car. He'll be here in a few minutes.”
Another name, another prince-type? It was hard to believe that her student - who was so quiet and thoughtful during lectures, and so fiery and argumentative during debates - would know one, let alone two. But then again, Tsurara mused, she personally knew a master swindler.
“Oh, Yoshikawa-sempai, the friend I was talking about, is Mimasaka-san.”
Hanazawa Rui raises an eyebrow and says, “Akira. I should have known.” He glances at Tsurara. “Actually, you're a change from his usual type.”
“Am I really....so what's his usual type?”
His smile is sudden and brilliant, as if he's about to tell a joke. “Married and desperate for attention.”
Makino's outraged “Hanazawa RUI!” fills the library.
The memories arrive like hallucinations - when he hangs out his laundry to dry, he thinks he can see her slim figure next to him, reaching out for the last stray sock. When he's coming up the staircase, he expects to hear the clip clop of her platform sandals passing by, and when he finds himself admiring a red sweater on a mannequin in a storefront in Shibuya, he feels that perhaps, finally, he's lost his mind.
He hasn't touched another letter since the first one, and contemplates burning the entire lot, but he never does.
Yoshida has been looking a little lonely as of late, and he think he might have to get another cat, as he's been spending more and more time out of his apartment.
On their seventh date, she invites Akira into her modest apartment. She cannot tell who is more surprised, herself or Akira, who actually stutters and says, “Would that be okay?”
She cooks for him, a quick dinner of curry and rice, but he is impressed anyway. He keeps on glancing from the food to her, and then at the kitchen as if he can't believe he's there.
“You look cute in that apron.” He smiles and raises a fork full of rice and curry and takes a bite. “This is delicious.”
“Thank you,” she says, and wonders when this became normal. Akira is more of a gentleman than she gave him credit for, and after a few false starts and some terrible pick up lines, she's approaching something that resembles comfortable.
She asks Makino-chan about him. What does he like? Who did he date before? Why is he interested...in her?
The answers are not encouraging: Older women, Older women, preferably married, and I don't know.
Makino shrugs apologetically, and says, “Mimasaka-san doesn't date, usually, he 'sees' people.” The implication that he does more than just 'see' these bored wives hangs in the air.
Akira hasn't even tried to hold her hand once.
The picture is grainy, and in black and white, but the face is unmistakably hers. She's laughing, and the photograph catches her in a remarkably carefree moment as she leans toward her male companion. The cover of a gossip rag is the last possible place Kurosaki expects to see Yoshikawa, and the identity of her so-called 'boyfriend' brings him into Katsuragi's restaurant once more.
“There's one more thing I didn't tell you about Mimasaka-san.”
“What is it?”
“He's kind of involved in....mysterious things. It runs in his family.”
“What, is he a yakuza heir?”
She meant it as a joke, but Makino's face had told her otherwise.
He has always had a talent - an uncanny knack of turning up when she least expects him, but it's still a a shock to find him sitting outside of her apartment. She blinks, but the dark figure on her steps doesn't move - and she walks toward him.
“Kurosaki?” Her voice is hesitant, as if she's not quite sure of his presence. “Are you really...here?”
He motions at her door. “Took you long enough. Go inside.”
She mutters, “Yes, hello, my day was great, how was yours?” as she rummages in her purse for her key - and then stops, her heart thumping, because suddenly he's there, his breath warm against her neck and his arm hovering against hers, and he's turning the lock with her spare key. The one that she kept in a dish on the windowsill of her bedroom.
She forgets to be embarrassed, turns around, and says accusingly, “You!”
Kurosaki smiles and says, “You need to hide things better, Yoshida. Anyone could just let themselves in.”
The maddening thing is how easily he insinuates himself into her surroundings. In his usual black, he stands out against the flowered throw pillows, his body relaxed in a careless sprawl on her sofa. He looks thinner, his hair brushing against too sharp cheekbones, and there's something in his gaze that triggers all of her ridiculous maternal instincts.
She tries to be indifferent, and sits as far away as possible. “Have you eaten? You look hungry.”
Kurosaki snorts. “Still the same charity-minded girl as ever, I see. I'm not my cat, you know.” Still, he shifts a little, and she catches his eyes flickering to her kitchen.
“Well, I'm starving, so I'll make some dinner. You can have some, if you want. Or not.”
Small steps, she reminds herself as she walks to her kitchen. He'll probably leave at the first sight of
my apron - that'd be too domesticated for him.
He comes in when she's setting the table - for two, naturally, and she takes her time placing the chopsticks and arranging the plates before she looks up. “Are you going to sit down or not?”
She prides herself on not turning around and pumping her fist in the air for victory when a startled Kurosaki crosses the threshold and sits down.
They make small, awkward conversation at first - she doesn't press him on why he's here, and he doesn't offer any answers. Instead she tells him stories about her students, about Makino-chan, who makes her laugh a hundred times a day, it seems, and how she hardly has any time left after classes to do things - she misses reading novels, and there's not enough money in her budget to get a TV, so she never knows what people are talking about anymore. She neatly skips over Akira and instead fills the silence with bright, sparkling notes of a life she's not even sure she's living, but Kurosaki is nodding and eating, and sometimes he even laughs. It's almost like they're normal people, two strangers becoming acquaintances.
The illusion doesn't last long however, and as she clears the table, Kurosaki reaches into his pocket and takes out a rolled up magazine. He tosses it onto the table, and Tsurara recognizes the issue of Friday immediately. Akira had called her the day the tabloid hit the news stands, and told her that he could buy out the entire company and have the issue recalled, but she had only laughed.
Kurosaki's expression is undecipherable. When he speaks, the contempt is clear enough.
“You were followed home tonight. And the night before - you know, for someone who wants to be a lawyer, you have absolutely no sense of your surroundings. And the company you're keeping - “
“Don't.”
He breaks off mid-tirade, surprised, then wary.
“Yoshida, this isn't like you.”
“How would you know?”
Kurosaki shoves his hands in his pockets, and looks at her. “Because you don't change. You care too much about things, and being right.” He nods at the tabloid on the table. “This isn't...”
“Right for me?” Tsurara finishes coldly. “I don't think that's any of your business.”
“Fine,” Kurosaki says. “It was a mistake to come here.”
Tsurara can't trust herself to speak civilly, so she just walks toward the door.
He stands at the threshold of her kitchen for a few minutes more, then follows.
His last words to her are an abrupt, “Be careful.”
After the door closes behind him, Tsurara leans against it, and exhales.
She breaks up with Akira two days later.
It's both a relief and incredibly painful at the same time - Akira sips his drink and listens while she says, haltingly, “I can't go out with you anymore.”
Before Akira can say anything in response, Tsurara continues. “It's really complicated, someone I knew - I mean, nothing could happen, but he suddenly appeared and I'm...”
“You're in love with him.”
Tsurara frowns and fidgets with the hem of her skirt. “I don't know. No. Maybe, I think so - it's just....he makes me so....angry and confused half the time and the rest - I want to know everything he's thinking, I want to be able to help him. To be allowed to. And I know it's irrational, but until I can let it go, I can't be with anyone else truthfully. And,” her voice hitches, “I used to be able to tell the truth. I want that back.”
Akira stands up and walks over to her side of the table and gently pulls her into a hug. ”It's okay, Tsurara-chan.”
She lets herself cry finally, her tears soaking into his silk shirt. “I'm ruining your shirt.”
He chuckles. “It's fine. I have other ones.”
Slowly, things revert back to life-that-was. Akira still drops by and surprises her with the occasional lunch or dinner date, but more often than not, Makino tells her about the latest harem of women that surround him and their friend Soujiro. Tsurara grades papers, discusses school policies with Professor Nagashima, goes over research notes with Makino, and makes pots of tea for her colleagues. Sometimes she pages through the left behind newspapers in the faculty office, searching for mentions of Kurosaki. His name never appears, though Detective Kashima's transfer to another police force makes the news.
She wonders how his cat is doing, and if he remembers to feed it.
When she walks home from the bus stop, she carefully looks behind her - but no one is ever there. She doesn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed.
It is the first day of spring, and she is hanging out her clothes to dry, when she hears the knocking at her door. "Just a minute," she calls, and wrings out a shirt and clips it to the line.
When she opens the door, Kurosaki is on the other side, holding an all too familiar box.
"You forgot something," is all he says, before he walks past her and inside her apartment.
He sets the box down, then comes back. There is something different about him, and then she realizes that he's smiling. A real, open mouth smile, like a child who's just gotten a treat.
It makes her breathless, even more so when he comes closer, and leans toward her. "Faith is the sister of justice,"** he whispers. "I read that somewhere, once. Is it still true?"
She remembers the letter now, the last one she ever wrote to him, back when she thought she would never see him again.
She blinks, swallows hard. "I hope so."
He is gentler now, and as he leans his face closer to hers, Tsurara instinctively closes her eyes. Kurosaki winds his arms around her, holds her close. "You belong everywhere, you know. I don't. I can't promise you --"
She hugs him tighter. "I don't care."
Later she will see the newspaper with the bold headline, Notorious Swindler Mikimoto Finally Caught, and in smaller type: Police aided by Mysterious Second Party.
Even later, she will find a key to an apartment just two streets away from her own, where a black cat struggles for dominance with a tawny kitten, tucked inside the front pocket of his jeans.
There will be nights when he wakes her out of a peaceful sleep, his body trembling and eyes haunted. She will kiss his forehead and wipe away the tears as he mumbles secrets into her shoulder.
He forgets anniversaries but buys her flowers every weekend. He says her name like no one else in the world - like a prayer.
But that is all later.
Now, in the silence and warmth of her apartment, Kurosaki kisses Tsurara for the first time.
I don't know what's going to happen in the future - I know what I would like to happen. I want to be the best prosecutor I can be, because I have to believe that even one person can make a difference. Faith is the sister of justice, after all.
What will happen when you achieve what you want? Will you be happy, sad, or worse - apathetic?
Will you laugh at me if I told you that I worry not just about you, but the boy you used to be?
**This is actually a quote from Madeline D'Engle's classic A Wrinkle in Time
As some of you might be aware - the characters of Hanazawa Rui, Mimasaka Akira, and Makino Tsukushi are borrowed from Yoko Kamio's manga Hana Yori Dango. Though their representations are clearly from the TBS live-action drama. ;-)