Seasons in the Sun
By Gabi-hime
Part One of Five
By: Gabi-hime (pinkfluffynet@yahoo.com)
Spoilers: The end of Angelic Layer TV
Pairings: Misaki/Oujiro, Shuuko/Icchan, Tamayo/Koutaro, Kaede/Sai, Ringo/Clary, although primarily Misaki Oujirou and Kaede/Sai
Rating: PG – Insert clever comment here :P
Synopsis: Four years after the third National Angelic Layer tournament, the grand circuit deuses of Angelic Layer finally leave their fields of gold.
Chapter 1
Something You'll Never Forget
Her hands were loose on the chrome handles, clammy and slick and she wobbled threateningly as she jarred over the cobblestone, feet turning one after another in a nervous progression as she strove to keep herself going fast enough so that she wouldn't pitch sideways into a wreck of twisted metal. How had she gotten herself talked into this? It wasn't worth it, wasn't worth risking life and limb. She couldn't do it. It was too hard. It was too scary. She hunched over despite herself and made a miserable little sound.
"Misaki-chan, relax. You're too tense. If you don't relax you're going to explode."
At least he was there, a firm hand on her shoulder and another hovering at her waist, a security blanket to save her from the terror that was meeting the pavement while going at least three miles an hour.
"Misaki-chan, are you listening to me? Misaki-chan, you have to watch where you're going, we're headed right for . . . "
She dared to open her eyes a fraction and found a very large cherry tree almost upon her. Without thinking, she let go of the bars and threw herself backwards, knowing in her heart of hearts that it was too late and that she was facing her own early death at the hands of a park monument.
At the last moment she was thrown roughly to one side and found herself tumbling end over end in the grass on the other side of the paved path. When she finally slowed to a stop she found herself thrown half across Oujirou's chest as he breathed heavily from the exertion. She chanced a glance back at the homicidal tree and found that it was now several feet away from her. Oujirou had thrown them a good two yards away and into the safety of thick grass.
She sang a silent praise to the fact that she was still living despite the best attempts of the tree and scooted off of Oujirou's chest, not only because she was wearing a skirt, but also because he seemed to have difficulty breathing while she was sitting there.
Free of her weight on his chest he rolled over on his side and with a little consternation managed to sit up. He let out a deep breath and brushed some of the grass off of himself and then turned to look at her.
"Misaki-chan . . ."
She felt phenomenally sheepish as she followed his line of vision until it intersected with the wrecked bicycle, wheels still spinning impotently in the air.
"Yes, Oujirou-san?" she asked, voice tiny.
"It would help if you didn't keep your eyes closed the entire time," he laughed and she relaxed. At least he wasn't angry at her over their tumble.
"Ah, about that, Oujirou-san . . . I've decided that I really don't want to learn to ride a bicycle after all," she attempted to laugh just as he had but it came out remarkable nervous and wavering.
He quirked an eyebrow at her, "No fibbing, Misaki-chan. I'm not your grandmother or your grandfather, fortunately for me."
She struggled to hold up her already transparent ruse, "Really, Oujirou-san, I mean, it's not that important . . . "
"Misaki-chan . . ." this time there was a bit of reproof in the tone.
She collapsed under his probing and admitted miserably, "I'm scared of the bicycle."
"Well, I imagine you're more frightened of the ground and the trees than the bicycle itself," he braced his hands against the ground and stood, dusting himself again. He picked a few strands of grass out of her hair and then offered her his hand.
She looked at him for a beat and then had to smile to herself. They were out incognito today which meant that he was wearing mirrored sunglasses and atrociously mismatched clothes and she was wearing her hair in pigtails gathered at the nape of her neck. Today, a few days before her seventeenth birthday, they were out not as celebrities but simply as Misaki and Oujirou and he was attempting rectify what he saw as a major oversight in her childhood education. When she'd agreed to his gentle prodding she'd had no clear idea how nerve wracking learning to ride a bicycle would be.
Still, it was relaxing to be out of the public eye. When they'd left the Angelic Layer company this morning they'd both switched trains four or five times, doubling back in an attempt to throw off any would-be followers before finally arriving at the small, out of the way park where he'd promised to give her lessons. He'd even turned his phone off (against Icchan-san's orders, she imagined, since he was supposed to be on call at all hours) so they wouldn't be disturbed during this learning experience.
The peace of the remote park was refreshing. They seemed to have so little time to themselves these days. Her mother was the Queen of Angelic Layer, the reigning benign matriarch. Icchan-san was the father of Angelic Layer and Oujirou was both the Prince errant and the layer's greatest teacher. After many years of consistently refusing the title of Princess because 'it just didn't seem to fit,' Icchan had finally settled it and formally dubbed her Angelic Layer's Grand Champion, since she could no longer be seriously called the Miracle Rookie, having been a deus (and a champion) for nearly four years. Together they were what the press enthusiastically referred to as "Angelic Layer's Royal Family," and they always would be, no matter what miracle rookies might appear from the ranks in the future. They were a fairy tale that the press would never tire of, or so it seemed at least.
As if their status as royalty wasn't enough to busy them, Misaki had a heavy workload at school that seemed to do nothing but add to her stress without providing anything concrete in return besides more opportunities for autograph sessions. Oujirou had recently finished his accelerated pace masters in experimental sciences at Toudai, but Misaki's hopes that a formal graduation would grant him a bit more spare time to spend with her had been dashed in recent weeks when he'd been completely tied up in what he and Icchan would only refer to as "the secret project."
Between secret projects, autographs, honors convocations, and guest appearances, they'd had little time for any exchange that didn't involve the winged headsets that seemed almost permanently attached to their heads.
Misaki sighed and not for the first time desperately wished that their "quiet time" did not involve something physically draining and potentially dangerous. She leaned forward and took his hand and he helped her up.
"It's not as bad as you think it is, Misaki-chan. You shouldn't worry about it so much," he reassured, hand lingering on her back, ostensibly to brush a few more grass strands away, "After all, I'm here to catch you."
And he was. He was also there to take the brunt of the fall for her. She bit her lip as she caught the slight jump in his movements as he rolled the muscles in his back in preparation for another round. That scrape up his forearm also hadn't been there before their ill-advised tumble. Her 'education' might well end up being more dangerous for him than it was for her. After all, she'd come out of the tussle with nothing more than mussed hair and a winkled skirt.
So she allowed him to lead her back to the bicycle and shake it out and she climbed back onto it obediently, knowing that to satisfy him she would have to face her fears and live through what she'd missed during her childhood. The entire reason her lesson was this private so there would be no chance that her mother might catch wind of it. The last thing either of them wanted was Shuu falling into a funk over something that was past and there was no helping. Oujirou liked roasted chestnuts and Misaki couldn't ride a bicycle to the family proper, but alone they shared secrets. She was going to learn to ride if only because he cared enough to teach her, cared enough to know that she really wanted to learn, had always wanted to learn. She would manage it somehow. She just had to be brave. It couldn't be that bad, not if she relaxed.
Three unhappy spills later she has seriously doubting her earlier optimism and Oujirou was sporting a wide grass stain down his back and several deepening bruises. She was still none the worse for wear. She was used to flying through the air as Hikaru, but not as herself and not without the benefit of wings.
"Oujirou-san?" she asked, slumping against the park bench next to him, the bicycle discarded nearby in the thick grass.
"Mmm?" he let out a little sigh, whether from exhaustion or contentment, she did not know.
"I think that life is kind of like riding a bicycle," she ventured tentatively, turning to look at him and catching her own reflection in his mirrored sunglasses
"It's something you never forget?" he asked wryly, mouth quirking at the edges as he peered over his sunglasses at her.
"No, it's more like . . . it's something you have to learn to deal with by yourself. I think if you keep diving to catch me every time I start to fall then I won't ever fall . . . but I think that I won't ever learn either. I don't want to fall, but it seems to be part of the learning. If I don't learn how to do it without the comfort of knowing that you'll throw yourself into a tree to spare me some hurt, then I'll never be comfortable enough to go it on my own," she finished quietly, averting her eyes and fidgeting as if there were no tomorrow, hoping she hadn't upset him. She knew he was only trying to help, was always only trying to help . . . .
His response was a long time coming, slow and quiet, and the as he shifted position his sunglasses obscured her view of his eyes, "Then you don't want me with you Misaki-chan? Do I stifle you?"
Her eyes nearly popped out of her head at this response and she stumbled over herself to correct him, "No! It's not that don't want you with me, Oujirou-san. I'm ha-happiest when we're together. I always want to be with you, I just wanted . . . I just wanted . . . Naa! I was only trying to figure out how to learn to ride a bicycle better!" She hadn't meant it that way! Now what was she going to do? She had to make it up to him some how . . .
But then he laughed and it was soft and gentle, "It's all right, Misaki-chan, I think I understand. You don't want me to throw myself between you and what might be a learning experience. I guess I can't protect you from your own life. Still . . . would you mind terribly if I kept beside you? This might put me at the risk of being involved in one of your bicycle accidents, but at least then you'll know that I'm with you. Is that too . . . stifling?"
She felt as if she might puddle in relief. He understood her so well. How could he always know what she was thinking? "No, Oujirou-san, that's just right. It always makes me feel better to know that you're there."
He took his sunglasses off absently before responding with yet another question, "And how long would you like me to be there, so I can pencil it into my schedule?" He began to fish around in his pockets, apparently looking for his datebook.
She looked back at her folded hands still so small in her lap. There were some things that would never change. She answered quietly, "As long as you want to be there, Oujirou-san."
"How about for the rest of my life? Does that sound acceptable?" he asked nonchalantly, finally finding the thing that he quested for in his pockets.
Misaki's eyes widened farther than they had ever widened at any point previous in his company and her mouth fell slightly slack. Was he asking what she thought he was asking? No, it wasn't possible . . .
. . . but it was, because instead of a datebook Oujirou produced a simple black box and flipped it open with a thumb, still as casual as could be, and somehow it meant so much that he'd asked this way, away from the cameras, the press, when he was only Mihara Oujirou and not the Prince, when she was not the Grand Champion, but only Suzuhara Misaki, third year high school student who still could not ride a bicycle.
She could no longer contain the tears of relief, of joy, of heady elation as she leaned against him and squeaked, "That's fine. Pencil me in."
* * * * * * * * * *
The train ride back home was like a long nap in the sun. Their business for the day done, Oujirou saw no reason to overcomplicate their route home and Misaki knew that before long she'd have to face the press anyway. There'd have to be a formal announcement and an engagement party and all manner of other things before the adoring public would let them rest. The slim filigree ring on her finger would not go unnoticed for long, of that she was certain.
For now at least there were still a few blessed moments of peace before they launched themselves back into the whirlwind that passed for daily life. Even the train car was nominally deserted, they shared it with another young couple and a pair of children, so there was plenty of room for the partially mangled bike against the sideboard.
They both dozed lazily in the warmth of the setting sun. A quiet ride back from the country was the perfect sort of way to end a perfect sort of day in Misaki's opinion. She slouched against him, pillowing her head against his chest, comfortable only because of the relative desertion of the car. She was not much for public displays of affection, no matter what the doujinshi might claim.
As she settled down and tried to get comfortable, her face kept hitting the hard, crisp corner of something in Oujirou's breast pocket. She moved a bit to better situate herself and as she did he seemed to remember something and he shifted and pulled his cel phone out of his pocket.
"So, what's the verdict? Shall we reenter the world of the living?" he asked curiously, thumb hovering over the button that would reconnect them to the world.
She paused thoughtfully for a moment and then smiled to herself. Turning the phone on would connect them to the stress of their lives again, but it would also connect them back to their friends and family and she found that she shyly wanted to tell about the day's surprises. She nodded and he obeyed her decree.
They had less than two minutes of peace before the phone rang, frantic and jarring and not at all how Misaki had imagined. Oujirou answered calmly, apparently sure that it was Icchan ready to bawl him out. From the way his expression clouded seriously she immediately surmised it was not. Very little could obviously upset Oujirou, and his elder brother was not one of those things. She waited with baited breath, a thousand worried thoughts racing through her mind. What if something had happened to her mother? Or Shouko-san? What if something had happened to Miyoko-san, or to Oujirou's step-father?
When Oujirou finally spoke it was infinitely rattling if only because it was something that she did not expect at all.
"That was Sai. Kaede collapsed at the Kantou Exhibition."
Not Kaede. Nothing could happen to Kaede. She was summer-touched. She was everyone's mother. She was the sun's grace, so young and alive . . . Nothing could touch them. They were too young, on top of the world. It wasn't true.
"They couldn't revive her on the ground so she was air-lifted to Tokyo Hospital."
She could barely formulate an answer. When it came it was nothing but a lost, little-girl question.
"What is it?"
And his reply was some how more damning because he looked so lost.
"They don't know."
A/N: You knew the angst was hiding around her somewhere. Stay tuned, sports fans.
Back | Next | Angelic Layer