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margarethelstone-2 · 3 years

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Our Sleeves Were Wet With Tears | Chapter 2

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Taichi's gaze was filled with astonishment once more as he listened to Chihaya's nearly aggressive ramble, unable to wrap his head around the situation he'd found himself in so unexpectedly. He heard the words and thought that he understood the substance – he knew what Chihaya was referring to and comprehended the meaning behind her words. And yet... Something about this whole scene was just too bizarre, too unrealistic for him to believe that it was happening for real.

Too strange to have him take it for more than yet another of his feverish dreams.

Had she really gone to his house so spontaneously, after he had as much as ignored her for the past few weeks? Had she really risked meeting eye to eye with his mother, when it was obvious how uneasy the latter had always made her feel? And why had she decided to come see him now, so long after their fateful conversation in the clubroom and with so much happening since that dreadful afternoon?

Was it in any way connected – or worse, prompted – by the photo Arata had undoubtedly sent her as well?

And if so, what was the connection?

It wasn't like the message had contained any special words or wisdom, or even anything particularly nostalgic. It was a simple photo of Arata and his teammates, with a simple greeting meant to encourage them to do their best on their part so that they might meet at the Nationals this time. It was very much like the one he and Chihaya had sent him during their first year... but that was as far as the nostalgia went.

Of course, it was possible that Arata had sent Chihaya a different email, with more than just the few words he, Taichi, had received. After all, he knew for certain that Arata had spoken to her after the Master qualifiers and since that conversation had clearly taken its toll on Chihaya, it wasn't difficult to determine what he had said. He was also aware of the advantage Arata had always had over him and that Chihaya did favour him, even if she didn't fully realise it herself...

...and still, he couldn't help but think that it was not the case this time.

It was the similarity of it to the message they had sent him that made him so sure. It was not a taunt meant at him, or another display of affection addressed to Chihaya and only shared with him for propriety's sake. There was a much simpler, and much more genuine intention hidden behind it: an honest wish to inspire his friends in the same way they had inspired him before, mixed perhaps with the pride he must have felt for both himself and his new charges.

One friend reaching out to the other ones.

Friends.

Taichi's jaw tightened, his soul filling up with disgust and shame.

Had he really forgotten that that was what the three of them were, first and foremost? Friends?

Or was he just too tired pretending that he was all right with such a setup, because deep down, he realised that even as a trio, they had never been entirely equal?

Was he too much of an egoist to accept that?

"What the heck does that even mean?" he said out loud at last, letting out a hollow, mirthless chuckle that resembled a snort more than anything else. Chihaya had already managed to reach the front gate and was just about to step onto the pavement before it but now, she stopped mid-stride; if he had waited a few seconds more – or if she hadn't held back from running like she obviously had – his words wouldn't have reached her. He almost expected them not to anyway, despite her still being relatively close.

They did, however.

In for a penny, in for a pound. He had no choice but to go for it now.

"Why do you think I needed to hear that now?" he continued, careful to maintain the air of indifference or maybe even irritation, while Chihaya slowly turned around. "I didn't say I was a coward, just that I didn't want to be one. And of course I've changed since primary school; I'm not some Peter Pan who never grows up."

He could feel her stare at him, but refused to meet her gaze this time, all too aware of the effect it had always had on him. Feigning nonchalance, he adjusted the strap of his bag, hung over his shoulder and set off, descending the stairs one by one, as if he hadn't wished to get out of there just as much as Chihaya did.

The very sight of her was aggravating to him.

He knew it wasn't fair, that it really wasn't her fault that she could not respond to his feelings in kind. She had never led him on or pretended to care for him when she hadn't. She did care, she always had, and in a way, Taichi felt like an ungrateful scoundrel every time he remembered everything she'd done for him so far, never mind if it was a small smile meant to comfort him or a crazy, complex, completely over-the-top karuta tournament organised specifically in order to celebrate his birthday with him, in the most Chihaya-like way he could think of.

She wasn't the one to blame for all this.

And yet, every time he saw her, the memory of his stupid, impossible dreams came rushing back to him, always accompanied by the one of them being crushed to bits just a few short weeks prior.

It wasn't her fault, and still, he couldn't find it in him to forgive her.

Still, in the corner of his eye, Taichi saw the expectancy painted all over her face, the same perfect mixture of perseverance and dread he'd had a chance to observe more than once now. He went right past her, resolved not to grace her with a single glance, no matter how rude or cruel it might seem, and stepped onto the pavement she hadn't managed to reach in time.

He was indifferent.

He wished to be indifferent.

So why did he still listen closely, awaiting her to make the move, to turn and look after him, to catch up with him and shower – no, bombard – him with another set of half-baked wisdoms and untimely arguments? Why had he slowed down, anxious, restless, apprehensive, aching to hear her say another word, no matter how absurd it might be?

He had been so good at avoiding her lately, at numbing the overwhelming feeling of solitude by simply making sure she did not come into view – so why did he feel like he was missing her already?

Was a fleeting encounter like this all it took to make all of his endeavours worthless?

He was hopeless.

Hopeless.

Just like all of his love for her had been.

Oh, screw it.

"There's a playground nearby, if there's anything else you want to talk about," he offered, the pathetic, self-disrespectful moron that he was. "I doubt there would be any kids there at this hour, and there are actual benches to sit on. Or I can just walk you home if that's what you prefer."

He set off right after, no longer knowing if he wanted her to respond or not. A part of him hoped that she would, that there was more she wanted to say than that random, abstract proclamation she had surprised him with – that there was more thought behind it than she had made it appear at first. Simultaneously, his other half (a third? a quarter? a mere, pitiful percent?) screamed at him to pick up his pace and leave that cursed place before Chihaya could even answer, to run away and pray that the consequences of his stupid decision from the previous minute would not catch up to him.

Torn like this, he walked on, the rationality of his mind battling with the naiveté of his heart and the ardour of his soul. Step by step, he moved forward, hearing nothing but the sound of his blood pumping in his ears and his own sharp, uneven breathing. If he focused hard enough, he could distinguish his own, weary step, but even that seemed to come from a distance much wider than the one hundred and seventy centimetres separating his feet from his ears.

No matter how hard he tried, he could not hear anything from behind him.

So she hadn't followed him.

Of course she hadn't, you idiot, he berated himself silently, clenching his hands into fists and jamming them even deeper into his pockets. She looked like she wanted to get away from there as soon as she could, and only forced herself to stay and talk because she thought it was the right thing to do.

She didn’t come to chat, to pour her heart out or to clear things up with me, mostly because there's nothing to clear up in the first place; she came because she felt she needed to, because at some point, she'd decided that it was something a good person would do and obviously, she decided to spontaneously follow the wacky idea her mind had presented to her.

A totally spur-of-a-moment kind of decision, honest but rash, misguided and ill-conceived, just like about everything Chihaya does.

He felt his heart shrink, as if it was squeezed in quite a literal sense, and yet, he refused to admit to his hurt, even if only to himself. There was no reason why he should've felt surprised, no excuse for the disappointment that was threatening to take over him. He knew her; he knew what kind of person she was. Bright, outgoing, sincere. Blunt to a fault and so very, very caring that it made his head ache at times.

Still, her consideration was just like her entire self: impulsive. She always went all out and never put much reflection behind it.

As for Taichi, he still couldn't quite determine whether he found it frustrating or just very, very endearing.

Perhaps it was a mixture of the two.

The fact remained, however: the only way he could find his way to her thoughts was through incidents like this. After all, he could hardly imagine Chihaya spending her nights lying awake in her bed, unable to stop thinking of him.

Certainly not in the way he thought of her.

He fought the urge to kick the pebbles under his feet, regardless of the fact that there was no one around to see him if he had, much less to care about it. The street he strolled through was empty, and since it was getting late, there was no reason to believe that the state of things should change. However, Taichi knew better than to indulge himself with his whims, no matter how insignificant they appeared to be. He'd been raised to be that way; and no matter how much he wanted to change, no matter how grand was the amount of effort he put into achieving it, there were things about himself he simply couldn't reform.

He couldn't tell if it were those traits that had made him the unlucky loser he undoubtedly was now; but at least they helped him cope with the fallout his misfortunes had brought.

Which was exactly why he needed to stop wallowing in self-pity and focus on getting on with his own life instead, just like he'd been striving to do recently. He'd done a pretty good job so far, studying harder than ever both for his regular classes and the cram school, fooling everyone that it was his exams that had made him quit the karuta club.

Good gosh, he'd actually let Master Suo persuade him into not giving up on karuta after all, and only changed the environment of his practice instead.

He was fine, or at least, he was going to be.

The recollection of his latest, little successes made his faith grow a little, bringing back that tiny bit of optimism he'd been looking for so desperately. His chin rose a little while his pace turned brisker...

...only to have him halt in surprise at the sound of a dull thud and a hiss that came from behind him.

Taichi turned around almost involuntarily, completely taken aback and therefore totally incapable of forming even the vaguest expectation of what he was about to see. Had he had more time to think about it, he probably would have come with more than a few reasonable explanations of the sound.

For one, it could have been an ordinary jogger, whom he couldn't have seen when he'd exited through the cram school's gate, but who'd caught up to him silently while he was occupied with his own thoughts afterwards, and who now tripped over something and now was groaning in pain. It might have been a passer-by who'd emerged from around the corner, carrying an object so heavy that they had eventually dropped it on the ground.

For all he knew, it might have been a kid running from his friends in another round of tag. Out of all people, he surely was aware how fast little children could move; how quickly and unexpectedly they might invade other people's space.

All of these he could have thought of, and yet, he still wouldn't have guessed the real cause of the noise that had startled him so.

Of course, the culprit simply had to be the one person he'd been trying to ban from his mind.

How had she even got there without him realising her presence until now?

And yet, it was her, undoubtedly, undeniably her. Ayase Chihaya, the love of his life and the greatest, most unpredictable dork of a friend, now hunched and squatting, with one knee rested against the hard concrete surface while she eyed her other one attentively, instinctively pressing her scratched fingers against the more severely injured skin on her leg. With the few metres separating them (and his still fresh bemusement) Taichi needed a moment to fully absorb the scene before him, as well as its less obvious details. Despite the initial falter, his instincts soon took over him, however, and pushed him towards the wounded girl, before he could even see the grimace on her face or observe the way in which she chewed on her lower lip.

In no time was he kneeling down before her, pulling her hands away from the wound by her wrists so that she wouldn't accidentally infect the cut with one hand, while he rummaged through his hastily unzipped bag with the other one, searching for the towel and a water bottle he was sure he'd packed in there earlier.

"Taichi, no! Wait!" He heard her protest against his actions, only to ignore it completely. "It's just a scratch, nothing serious, I can handle it myself just fine here!"

"Like hell you can," he muttered in response after he'd finally found the objects he'd been looking for. "You've just pressed your dirty hands against a fresh wound, you idiot. I don't even want to know what you were planning to do next."

"No, but -"

"Just do me a favour and don't press them like that again now, will you?" he cut her off sternly. "I can't exactly hold your hands and dampen the towel at the same time, I'd need at least one other pair of arms for that. So stop arguing and keep your dusty fingers away for just a second, while I do my job over here."

Chihaya opened her mouth to argue with him some more but shut it right after under his severe glare and bowed her head obediently instead. Seeing that her opposition would not last – or at least, that her revolt would not rise again for a while – Taichi let go of her wrists and focused on wetting the fabric in his hands, before applying the now cold towel to Chihaya's injured knee. She winced under his touch, her head jerking up once more and her eyes glued to his intent countenance.

He saw her movement in the corner of his eye, felt the shudder that jolted all of her body, however, he refused to look up himself, instead making sure that his own gaze remained plastered to the cut he was supposed to be taking care of.

Not that clearing up the skin on her leg was doing any good to his sanity, mind you.

"How on earth did you even do that?" he muttered the question under his breath, if only to make his attention shift to something else, desperately hoping it would be enough to drown out his rebellious thoughts for a short while at least. "There's literally nothing you could have stumbled upon and you don't usually go tripping over your own feet; I know you can be careless sometimes, but you're not a klutz."

"I just wasn't paying attention," Chihaya answered him, her tone slightly offended, but still quieter than he might have expected. "My shoelaces had come undone and I stepped over one."

Taichi sighed, almost impatiently.

"And fell like this? What were you doing, trying to break the world speed record?"

"I tripped! Why does it matter how I fell afterwards?"

"Because I've seen you trip about a hundred thousand times since we first met and it was always due to some crazy stunts you were doing and never because you were simply distracted," he continued to parry her arguments; with every second it became more difficult for him to maintain his grumpy, cool attitude and not let his lips curl into an amused smile at both her behaviour and the memories he'd just recalled himself. "You were constantly running around, jumping over fences and climbing trees and half the time your shoelaces weren't tied, and yet you hardly ever let that get in your way. And now you want me to believe that you've hit the ground with your knee and cut it because you'd stumbled over it? When you were walking?"

"I don't know why you find that so improbable," she replied, shifting her eyes up at him for a second only to have them cast down a moment later. Unlike her most recent retort, this one was once again quiet, so much so that it was almost a whisper.

"I never thought Chihaya was capable of speaking quietly enough to be drowned out by a bell."

Was that it? Was that how she was now?

Was he responsible for that change in her?

He shook his head resolutely and lowered his own gaze onto her knee once more. He realised he was giving in to his nonsensical fears again, finding alterations where there were none, simply because he'd felt the change so acutely. Sure, Chihaya's voice was much softer than what he was used to; but to think that it was a general transformation was a little too much. It wasn't like she couldn't speak loudly or even downright shout at him – she had proven that much with the entire 'you're not a coward' scene, and even with the little comebacks she had thrown at him a short while earlier.

She wasn't mad at him, she hadn't taken offence. She wasn't avoiding him like he had avoided her, nor was she trying to daunt him with her curt, frosty answers; if anything, she'd given him the impression that she wished to talk to him but had no idea how to do it without overstepping his boundaries.

As if she had been afraid of him.

Was she?

Taichi risked another glance at her and saw that she still wasn't looking at him or even at the wound he'd been treating for her. Instead, her gaze was turned to her right, focused on some distant spot he couldn't name unless he followed her gaze with his own eyes. Afraid she might catch him staring, he looked down again quickly, however; he could figure out what had arrested her attention later on.

He had enough to think about as it was, without adding any additional information to the mix.

"There, it's all clean," he announced after a moment, taking the wet towel in his hand away; he pressed it back to her knee almost immediately when he saw that the seemingly unserious injury hadn't stopped bleeding. "It looks like it's a pretty deep cut you've got there. Nothing that would need stitches, but you certainly should have it wrapped up, and not only because of the possible infections. That is, unless you actually want to walk around Tokyo with bloody streaks all over your calves. I don't have anything of the sort so-"

"I do!" she cut him off, energetic again. Taichi raised an eyebrow at her sudden cry and she turned away, blushing. However, she continued, "I do. Just hand me my bag, please?"

He did as he was told, and passed on the bag that had somehow ended lying behind him. Chihaya grabbed the item zealously and began to search its insides, flipping the books and other tools she kept in it with as much hurry as if her life really had depended on it. Taichi regarded her curiously, suddenly indifferent to whether she decided to meet his eye this time.

It took her a good while before she found what she'd been looking for; it was a perfect opportunity for him to have a closer look at her at last.

No matter how silly his behaviour was, Taichi made good use of that time.

She was a mess; there was no doubt about that. No longer panting like she had when he'd seen her first (something Chihaya had been trying very hard to conceal and perhaps even thought that she'd succeeded, only Taichi obviously knew better), she still seemed to be anything but relaxed. Her hair looked as if she had combed them with her hands (which she'd done often enough in the past to make his guess more than likely) and her cheeks were grey from the dust, though again, it looked like she had attempted to clean it in some amateurish way.

He wondered if the slightly darker traces he saw on her cheeks really might have been the remnant of her tears, like he feared they were.

Gosh, she really cried too damn much, never mind how serious the reasons were.

He was roused from his meditation when Chihaya finally pulled out the small first aid kit which she'd been looking so frantically for and straightened up a little, relieved. She sure was glad with herself, a softer, more placid expression finally reflecting on her face as she opened it and drew the bandage and gauze packs she needed from it, and even waved them before his eyes as if to tell him that she could take care of herself now.

That darn moron.

"I can deal with it now," she said, confirming his suspicions. "If you just take the towel away from my knee I can wrap it up just fine. But you really have to move away."

"And how do you plan to do that with your leg bent like this?" he asked, simultaneously ignoring her suggestion completely. "You're still kneeling."

"I can straighten my leg anytime, so-"

"And lay it flat on the ground? Good luck moving your hand underneath when you try to go around it. Also, are you really carrying a first aid kit in your school bag?"

It was the first time Chihaya met his eye since her unfortunate fall and boy, was she vexed. "My mum made me carry one around after I stepped onto a nail and had to block the blood flow with my classmate's spare t-shirt in middle-school. She wasn't very happy with that."

"Your mum or the classmate?"

"Neither. But at least I learnt to carry these things around, and since I know how to use them, I'm going to wrap my own injury now. I just need to stand up and-"

Without a word of warning, she leaned on one arm and pushed herself off the ground, leaving the startled Taichi to stare at her helplessly. She hissed at the pain when she put more pressure on her wounded leg but said nothing, determined to carry out the plan she had formed in her head without letting her friend interrupt.

Only, his hand was still pressed against her knee... and he wasn’t going to do anything to change that.

"You're impossible," he told her instead, the faintest shadow of mirth flashing in his eyes.

"Move your hands, Taichi, I'm bandaging my knee," she ordered him, feigning deafness.

"You'd need to dry your skin first."

"I know that!"

"Not what I heard."

"I am, but I still need you to move away. Why aren't you moving away?"

"Who knows." Taichi shrugged, raising his eyes so he could meet Chihaya's weary glare. "Maybe I'm just being awful for the fun of it. Or maybe as usual, I'm the sensible one here and realise that you're gonna need help with that stupid cut. And since the only way to make you give up is by this kind of opposition, it's exactly what I'm doing now."

Chihaya's fingers tightened around the packages. "But why?"

"Who knows," he said once again. "Perhaps I'm just too used to looking after you to simply walk away and leave you to deal with it on your own. After all, I know you well enough to realise how incompetent you are."

That little jab at the end of his reply was meant to lighten the mood, to avoid a situation in which his earlier words would sound like yet another confession on his part. He wanted to make sure it didn't sound tender – that the 'looking after you' part was a statement coming from a long time buddy rather than from the love interest he so wished to be, from an easygoing, disinterested comrade and not a suitor she was so afraid of.

He wanted to turn it into a joke, and yet, it only took a second for him to realise that his tactics hadn't worked.

She didn't answer him; didn't snap or turn away, didn't huff, offended by his remark – but she didn't laugh, either. He saw her knuckles turn white as her grasp tightened even more and opened his mouth to apologise...

...but then she straightened her arms, shoving the bandages right before his eyes, while she looked away from him, again.

She nearly hit him on the nose and yet, he was too stunned to care.

"You do it then," he heard her mutter under her breath as she moved the package even closer to him. "Just... be quick about it. It doesn't need to be that precise, I only need it to last until I'm home."

He wanted to contradict her, to say that the main reason why he'd insisted on helping her out was to make sure that the dressing around her wound would not be a shoddy one; but something stopped him. Whether it was the way in which she was so determined not to meet his eye again or how her hands trembled when he finally took the cursed bandages from her, he couldn't tell; but he couldn't be more sure if Chihaya had told him that directly.

His jokes hadn't been too terrible a strategy overall – one more challenge, however, and he could lose it all.

So he remained silent, attentively drying her skin with fresh gauze before pressing another piece against the injury and wrapping it up with utmost care. It didn't matter that it was her bare skin anymore, or that the rim of her skirt was moving gently right above his bowed forehead. He was a friend, a companion. He was willing to call himself a nurse, for goodness' sake – as long as what he did was of any benefit to her.

Now wasn't he a failure.

Bet someone else, someone like Sudo, would never let anything like that happen, he thought to himself. He probably would have left her at that gate and walked away without a word, unless it was to roast her with one of his terrible lines. Actually, I'm sure nobody I know would've acted as stupidly as I have, whether it would be Nishida or Komano, or – Arata...

"All done," he announced a little too hastily, deliberately breaking his own train of thought before it could take him too far, and stood up. "I hope it's not too tight, but if it is, just tell me and I'll fix it. We don't want your leg to go all stiff and blue while you walk back home, right?"

"No, it's good. It's perfect," she answered, shaking her head. "Thank you."

Her head and gaze were still lowered when she spoke to him, so Taichi couldn't quite tell what her expression was and so he couldn’t use that knowledge to guess how she actually felt. At first, he was sure she would turn away as soon as he was done treating her wound, and just set off towards home without further delay, or that she would at least step back, no longer needing to stay in his close proximity like she had before.

They really were standing quite close now, so close that one step forward would make her forehead rest against his collarbone, literally.

And yet, she still didn’t allow him to see her face. He waited patiently for another moment, even though his heart was threatening to jump out of his chest any moment now. He stuck around, motionless and quiet, giving her every chance to flee like he expected her to, awaiting the moment when she would leave his personal space.

He couldn't imagine her wanting to be there, not after how he had treated her today – how he'd been treating her ever since the day she had rejected him.

And yet, she was still there.

"Chihaya," he whispered eventually. "Do you want to talk?"

It was a simple question, an obvious question. It was a ridiculous one, too – after all, they'd been exchanging statements back and forth, so technically, it was way past time for asking it. However, he certainly knew that it was not a simple chat he'd had in mind; and maybe it was naive of him, but he still believed that Chihaya understood it, too.

She didn't answer him immediately, and not even after some time had passed. It wasn't because she hadn't heard him, of that he was sure... but that didn't mean that he had more than the vaguest idea of why she tarried, either.

Was his question not so simple after all?

He didn't dare to lean forward, on the off chance that she would decide to look up at him after all, in which case their closeness really might become too much for him. His eyes remained fixed on her, however, boring into her hair as if to jinx her into replying at last. She didn't move; she didn't look up.

And for the longest time, she didn't make a sound.

Until...

"Yes. Yes, I do."

#Our Sleeves Were Wet With Tears #chihayafuru #taichihaya #mashima taichi #ayase chihaya #more reposting #more new arrrrt #margaretwrites

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