Dreams

Someone knocked at his door. "Ayanjou! It's me, Nanaka!"

Ayanjou smiled and set down his small clippers by the base of his banzai tree, then moved toward his apartment door. He'd moved out of his house a few months before, unable to stand his parents watching him any longer, even after the psychiatrist had assured them that he was perfectly fine. Nanaka had helped him pick out his apartment, and move in. They'd been inseperable since "the incident" as they now called it. Nanaka spent most of her free time at his place, these days. Which was more than fine with him.

Opening the door, Ayanjou smiled as Nanaka almost fell into his arms. They laughed and hugged eachother.

After exchanging the normal pleasantries, Ayanjou returned to his banzai tree, while Nanaka made them tea.

"How is school these days, Nanaka?" he snipped off a few tiny branches.

"Harder than before, but that's to be expected. End of the semester and all. The magic club's grown to almost twenty members."

"Sugoi!"

"How about you?"

Ayanjou smiled. "I officially changed my major to horticulture. It's going very well." He waited until she had set down her tea cup, then captured her hand and kissed it playfully. "Thanks to you, my dear friend."

Nanaka giggled. "It's in my best interest to see that you're happy. How am I supposed to be if you're not?"

"I'll have to get back to you on that. He winked, then his smile faded slightly, becoming slightly artificial. "How is Sae doing? Takeo wanted to know about her in his last letter?"

"Baka ne...why doesn't he just write her himself?"

"For the same reason she won't write him." He rolled his eyes expressively. "Two shyer, more hesitant people have never lived."

Nanaka got the look, the one that Ayanjou recognized as determination strong enough to move Fuji-san [read: Mount Fuji]. "It's just not right."

"No, it's not. There are a lot of things that aren't right." He let a slight note of the old bitterness tinge his voice.

She laid a hand on his arm, silently.

Somewhere, deep inside, Ayanjou felt himself make a decision. With a warm smile, he took her hand and twined his fingers with hers. "I'm alright, Nanaka. Bitterness dies hard. But I'm actually grateful. Without what happened, I wouldn't have you, my dear friend."

"Yosh." Nanaka gave his hand a squeeze. "Then what are we going to do?"

"Well...winter break is coming. Why don't we get together then...you know, bring the old group back together." He thought for a moment. "Aikawa-kun is still in China with that reporter, isn't she."

"Hai."

"So...four out of five isn't bad, I suppose. A pity she can't be here...I'm sure she'd try to help."

Nanaka nodded. "What, then?"

"Why don't we schedule for a dinner, but not tell them the other is coming...so they won't try to wiggle their way out."

"That sounds wonderful. Perhaps this will be easier than I thought."

Dinner was an unmitigated disaster. When they'd met at the restaurant, Sae and Takeo stood in shocked, embarassed silence, words hanging almost unspoken around them. Ayanjou offered Nanaka his arm, and then nudged Takeo, indicating that he should offer his arm to Sae.

Takeo had fainted, face crimson, blood spurting from his nose.

So the overactive imagination was still going strong.

The evening had gone downhill from there.

Sae had spilled her drink on Takeo's lap. Takeo had nervously overturned his bowl of soup (very hot soup) on Ayanjou's lap.

Takeo kept breaking sets of chopsticks until the despairing restaurant staff had found him a fork. THEN he nearly stabbed himself in the eyeball.

Sae, watching Takeo, had drunk a bowl of hot mustard, somehow mistaking it for her tea until it was too late.

Desert was too horrifying a thing to even remember.

Nanaka looked at Ayanjou in concern. "Are you sure your legs are ok?"

He nodded, gritting his teeth a little as he sat, then laid down on his futon. "Do you have permission to spend the night? I don't feel up to flying you home."

"Yes, I do." Nanaka smiled. She had unlimited permission, because her parents knew about Ayanjou and his former feelings for Takeo, so they assumed that she was safe. Unfortunately, Nanaka reflected, they were right. "Do you need help?"

"Actually..." Ayanjou looked embarassed. "If you wouldn't mind helping me get undressed, I'd be very grateful." His voice took up a lamenting tone. "My second best pair of pants, ruined."

Nanaka helped him pull the pants off, then turned her back after handing him a pair of boxers. "Takeo DID offer to get you a new pair."

"I'd much prefer he didn't need to at all!"

Later, Nanaka set her futon up across from Ayanjou's. "So now what?"

Ayanjou, slightly cranky because of the pants and the burns on his legs, glared at her. "What do you mean, now what? We try again!"

The trip to the aquarium wasn't any better.

Fortunately, Ayanjou knew how to swim.

Unfortunately, so did the leeches.

Nanaka supported him, all the way to his futon, then helped him lay down. "Maybe we should stop. This seems to be hazardous to your health."

Ayanjou moaned softly, and she bent down to kiss him on the forehead. "We can't give up. With those two wandering around out there, this could happen to someone else...someone that's NOT a fully trained magician."

Nanaka winced. Only magic had saved Sae from a dunking in the shark tank. "True."

"Spending the night again?"

"Hai."

"Thank you so much...I don't know what I'd do without you."

Nanaka lay down on her futon. "Get killed by Takeo and Sae."

"All too true."

So it went:

The museum--who would have known skeletons were so easy to knock over?

The train ride--someone ended up tied to the tracks...

The bookstore--for some reason the owners didn't like it when someone had a nosebleed on the science fiction books.

The icecream shop--there went Ayanjou's best pair of pants.

...let's not even speak of the skiing trip.

"Do you need another blanket?"

"You're too good to me, Nanaka."

"Just worried." Nanaka smiled and lay another blanket atop Ayanjou's shivering form.

"Nanaka?"

"Hai?"

"Why are you so fierce about bringing Sae and Takeo together?"

Nanaka sat down witha thump. "That's a difficult question."

She shivered slightly.

"Cold?" When she nodded, Ayanjou nudged aside the blankets. "I'll share."

"Arigatou." Nanaka crawled under the blankets and covered them both. Ayanjou put his arms around her. She smiled. Close contact always felt right...between close friend, why not.

"Going to answer my question?" Ayanjou rested his chin on the top of her head.

"I guess it's because Sae and I have been friends for a very long time. Even if I can't get the happiness I want, I want her to have it. And I know it's there...if she and Takeo would just admit it."

"Wakarimasu. I feel the same way about Takeo."

"Honto desu ne?" Nanaka smiled. "I thnk we must be sharing the same braincell." She gently chafed Ayanjou's still cold hands. "But what will we do? I'm worried about you."

"Shinpai nai, Nanaka." Ayanjou hugged her tighter for a moment. "Remember? I promised to never leave you."

Nanaka smiled. "Sometimes I wonder if you regret that promise, with the messes I get you into."

Ayanjou brushed his lips against her hair, then by her ear. "Never, Nanaka. If I left you, I'd be leaving something much too important behind."

"Nani."

"My heart."

Later: "What are we going to do about Sae and Takeo?"

"We're not going to stop until they find happiness, that's what."