S-CRY-ed Fan Fiction ❯ Crash into Me ❯ Do You Ever Think of Me? ( Chapter 2 )

Warning: This story is for grown folks! There's some mature content in this chapter and those following it so please heed the rating and proceed at your own risk! I don't want messages from irate parents or worse, from small children asking me questions I'd rather not answer. :shudders: Not this chick.

 

Disclaimer: Not mine! :tear-stained cheeks:

 

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Crash into Me

 

Chapter 2- Do You Think of Me?

 

 

Reaching the relative safety of his quarters, Ryuho sank himself heavily in one of the kitchen chairs, relieved by the solitude now surrounding him. However, his muscles and brain immediately protested the stationary position and he found himself up and pacing soon after. Thoughts, emotions and images swirled around in his mind, crashing against the walls of his skull like bumper cars, each demanding his attention.

 

He stopped for a moment and took a meditative breath, calling for absolute inner silence. It worked for a spell and he leaned against the table with a small sigh. Grasping the ends of the tape binding his fists, he slowly unwound his hands as he decided what thought to focus on. Pale, clammy skin revealed itself under the bindings and he wondered how long it would be before he was being admonished for the punching bag; the Commander probably wouldn't hear about it until tomorrow. Then again, Jigmar did encourage intensity in his fighters- such a demonstrative show of strength might redeem Ryuho somewhat in the Commander's eyes. He found himself smirking at the irony- garnering praise for a self-conscious loss of control. Only at HOLY.

 

An audible growl from his midsection prompted a walk into the kitchen and Ryuho found himself staring absently into the fridge before even registering he was really hungry. He pulled out a carton of leftover take-out, deposited it on the counter and dug a fork out of a drawer before noticing his grimy and sticky palms. He thoroughly scrubbed his hands up to the elbows in the sink and, as an afterthought, vigorously splashed the cool water all over his face. He dried it and his hands with a thick kitchen towel and then decided to use the damp cloth to wipe down the grit from his arms and chest. It was hardly a shower, but his growing hunger had fostered a bland indifference. Snagging the carton and the fork, he dropped back down at the kitchen table and tucked in to his cold food.

 

As he methodically chewed large mouthfuls of pasta, he allowed his mind to slowly return to its tumultuous thoughts. Somehow it wandered straight to a certain raven-haired young woman with whom he'd just had a literal run-in. Something about her today…both familiar and yet not… had snagged his attention without his consent.

 

As before, he had recognized the gentle, witty little girl from his past. In her more adult features he still saw shadows of the angelic face that had captivated him back then. In his young mind Mimori had been a paradox in the truest sense: whimsical and yet practical, tender and yet socially forward, brilliant and yet adorably naïve. In their too-brief history together she had fluttered quite suddenly into his life, spun him around like a dizzying carnival ride, and then had just as suddenly disappeared, leaving him disoriented and forever changed. However he would never admit how scarring her sudden and unexpected departure had been; perhaps on some subconscious level it might have contributed to his resentment of her presence now.

 

Still, even amidst the discomfiting memories of her withdrawal from his life, he couldn't help but marvel at how much she'd changed in six years. Obviously she was taller, though he was surprised at how much so. Her limbs had lengthened into longer, more graceful extensions of an elegant, fluid figure and her face had lost the impish roundness of adolescence. Despite all efforts to ignore her, Ryuho couldn't help notice the devastatingly beautiful woman she was growing into.

 

Of course, his colleagues had noticed her as well. Her arrival had been punctuated with generous chatter about the pretty new researcher they had gotten from the Mainland and how different she was from the other girls at HOLY. Nearly all the guys he knew had been tripping over their own tongues just to talk to her. The brazen ones (like Cougar) had immediately assailed her with gratuitous compliments and invitations to dinner. The more subtle ones had invented crafty ways to try and get her attention or engage her in trivial conversation- anything that would allow them a chance to linger on her alluring eyes and gracious smile. And she was so polite that it was rather easy for them to accomplish their modest tasks or feel absolutely elated when she gently turned them down. Though she probably didn't realize or intend it, her amenable disposition somehow made every guy think that he had a shot with her. Ryuho found the whole thing ridiculous; he repeatedly told himself that he didn't care.

 

The sound of prongs scraping Styrofoam alerted Ryuho to the fact that he'd inhaled his cold food without even tasting it. He'd been thinking of Mimori through his entire meal- something he hadn't allowed himself to do in a very long time, perhaps years. It had been an ongoing test of his discipline, like giving a child a candy bar but then telling him he couldn't eat it. This thought suddenly prompted him to wonder why he had equated Mimori with a candy bar, or as any kind of prize or reward to be won. Such an idea would imply that he gained pleasure from her, or at least the thought of her, and he was not even remotely ready to acknowledge such a concept. To do so would mean that she was special to him and therefore a potential weakness, that her absence or even the absence of the idea of her could hurt him. Such a thought was unallowable.

 

And yet Ryuho's mind instantly traveled back to an incident that would be forever ingrained in his memory- Criminal NP3228's sensational escape from HOLY.

 

The situation had been volatile, but unquestionably under Ryuho's control. The Commander had been kept safe from attack and the criminal had been mere moments away from capture. However one cameo from the newly arrived `Ms. Kiryu' had affected Ryuho's complete loss of control over the situation. A flash of vulnerability and the fugitive had greedily pounced. Snatching Mimori forcefully from behind, pulling her roughly to him, and hiding behind her shuddering body like it was a shield. Grabbing her and freefalling down hundreds of feet of elevator shaft. Blasting out of the speeding getaway car, causing it to careen out of control and nearly kill her. It had been the cheapest trick, the lowest low. And it had been Ryuho's undoing.

 

Even now, just recalling that moment instantly tightened something in his chest, making his head float and his blood sizzle. The panic that had raced through him because that man had touched her! The affront to Ryuho's manhood as Kazuma had somehow sensed his and Mimori's deeply concealed connection, laid it bare for all to see, and then used it against him! It was maddening! That day, his hatred for Kazuma the Shell Bullet had easily tripled.

 

Suddenly fidgety, he felt an instant urge to pace again and pushed himself away from the table. Hoping to burn off the nervous energy, Ryuho dropped to the middle of his living room floor and cranked through a long set of push-ups. When that failed to calm him, he did them one-handed. When even that didn't calm him, he pushed himself up into a handstand and, balancing on widespread palms, began another set of push-ups straight into the air. This position finally brushed against his tension and he focused on breathing and counting.

 

As he pressed himself up on straight elbows and then lowered himself back down towards the dreary carpeting, he decided that it was an indescribable itch- the bizarre sensation that had slowly yet methodically crawled across his skin and mind, permeating his entire being. He ached, but for what he was uncertain. He sought satisfaction, a resolution of some kind. As his conscious mind invariably drifted back to the enigmatic, raven-haired beauty that had invaded his thoughts tonight, he came to yet another decisive conclusion- picking her up from the floor had been a huge mistake…

 

Not that he'd really had any other choice. Proper social etiquette dictated that one should always help up a young lady whom you've plowed into and knocked on the floor, regardless of how beautiful she might be or how awkward the situation might turn out. It had to be written down somewhere. But what a dilemma it had created. With only a few notable exceptions he had tried very diligently to not touch her, to not even so much as shake her hand, ever since she had returned to the island. Even if he had to be civil to her in the hallways, there was no need for physical contact between them. Without caring to understand why, he rationalized that it was just simpler that way.

 

But of course there was to be no peace for Ryuho as far as Mimori was concerned. As soon as he had placed his hands around her body an inexplicable pang had shot through him, running from his toes to his ears, detouring only once to lap his accelerating heart. It was something akin to the sensation one had right before they passed out, he'd imagined. And at that moment he'd been forced to take a really good look at `Mimori, the maturing young woman'. He'd been avoiding that Mimori like a communicable disease.

 

There she was, in his arms, in all her mysteriously captivating glory. She exuded a ladylike grace that was absolutely effortless. Honestly, she didn't have to do anything; evident yet understated elegance simply wrapped itself around her like a too-soft mink. Even those androgynous research uniforms couldn't camouflage her feminine softness and undeniable radiance. Feeling her curves settle gently against his palms, Ryuho had to admit that the years had been kind and, though she tried to conceal it beneath drab clothing, puberty had been entirely too generous to the girl. That figure… and that little sway as she'd walked away…

 

Head swimmy and arms burning, Ryuho reacquainted his feet with the ground and then stood back up to his full height. This brief and reflective time in his room had put him through his emotional paces, revealing certain truths that he'd been subconsciously fighting for a while.

At the center of these discoveries was Mimori, and the most unnerving of them hit him with a shocking sort of clarity: the longer he thought about her, the better he felt. These long moments of imagining her face, her personality, her beauty… with each passing image something tight and volatile slowly uncoiled within him. It hummed in quiet yearning, inviting him to explore beyond the boundaries of his comfort zone. It echoed like a siren's song, threatening to sweep him away into a sea of blissful contentment… the last place he needed to be.

 

He didn't deserve comfort, didn't deserve peace. He didn't deserve her.

 

He had not yet paid his debts or avenged his greedy demons. The fugitive Alter that truly obsessed his thoughts and evaded his detection was still at large after all this time. His mother's memory was still tainted by the crime that had taken her life. The Lost Ground was still plagued by acts of terror from renegade Native Alter users, men exactly like the one that had escaped him today. He could not afford a distraction as consuming as Mimori Kiryu. It was impossible.

 

Sighing in frustration, he felt a familiar agitation threaten to take hold of him once more. Daydreams were a double-edged sword: they allowed you a brief moment of pleasurable escape but the eventual crash back into reality was inevitably that much more painful. This was the reason that he avoided them at all costs.

 

Suddenly his apartment was too stuffy- he needed some air. A walk through the quiet halls might help settle his nerves. Something about the uniformity of the stark, sterile hallways of HOLY had a calming effect on him. Strong, purposeful strides carried him to his door and he took one last look at his empty room before leaving it behind him.

 

 

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