blughise: The funny thing is, is that I already did what you requested before you even requested it. Look forward to it.
immortal_K: Rena shall be healed soon enough! ...I think...
karomuwi: Life is indeed very busy. Thank you for the support.
arisa03: You are my Sensei forever~
Nyanoha: Hereeeeee'ssssss yourrrrrr updaaaaaateeeeeeeeeee~ And don't cry so much, Mama D:
RenaChii: AND HERE YOU GO~
kahem: O: How about a Doctor Jun danso? With Rena? "I will heal your heart" LOL
Kiri-el: I also hope the end will be good.
haruhi16: Kojiyuu is the best kind of support
BlackRockAnon: PFFTTTTT, I'd go straight for Jun
(I'ma gay, btw LOL)
caghaunt: Ah, those rules. Don't worry about them. They won't really factor into this story... and it's not because I'm making them disappear. The rules are still there, but they won't be important.
Haruko: I think I remember Jurina once saying Yuko was her oshimen? Or was that someone else? LOL Either way, I believe they would be a troublesome pair if they spend more time together. 8D
endless14: Ahaha, everyone wants the jealous Nezumi. But we shall see, depending on how much time I will have in the future.
Thank you everyone for all your kind comments!
And here's the picture of
Jurina dressed up as a guy ('cause I thought ya'll would want to see the picture that started this fic LOL):
Hello There Sexy~I highly advise checking that picture out. It'll even make straight guys go gay~
Well... I usually try to stay ahead before posting chapters and have a reserve chapter just in case I don't write enough... I didn't expect to use it so soon OTL
Anyways, here you go~ Threw in some more pairings for all you people with different OTPs.
As always, special thanks to Nishi for being awesome and sorting through my writing~
Two Roses Chapter 5When the sun burned Jun’s eyes open in the morning, he immediately groaned, turned over in his uncomfortable bed, and buried his face in an unfamiliar pillow.
He quickly rose up afterwards once he had gotten a whiff of his own scent. Boy, did he smell terrible. It seemed like what people said was true: Guys stank a lot worse than girls.
“Ugh... I don’t even have clothes to change into after I shower...” he mumbled, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He was sure that Haruna wouldn’t have any guy clothes lying around either. Deciding that he might as well shower off the sweat and tears from the previous day, he rolled off the bed and trudged his way out of the guest room and toward the shower room.
Without bothering to knock, he sleepwalked into the bathroom and threw his shirt off just as Haruna stepped out from behind the glass door of the shower stall.
They stared at each other, seconds ticking by in the stunned silence.
“Ahhh!!!” Haruna shrieked, running to get a towel around herself as Jun turned scarlet while covering his eyes.
“I’m sorry! It’s okay! I was girl before! We’ve seen each other na-” He was pelted with a bucket. “Ow! Alright, I get it! I’m out, I’m out!”
He sprinted out of there and shut the door behind himself, panting heavily and rubbing at the sore spot on his arm where the bucket hit him. Damn, that girl could throw.
“What happened?” Yuko yawned, coming out of Haruna’s room with half-open eyes. “Why was Nyan Nyan screaming? And where’s your shirt?”
“She was showering in there and I didn’t notice, so I walked right into there and saw her completely nude,” he sighed. “I threw my shirt off right as I got in there.”
Yuko laughed. “Seeing as how your friend
down there isn’t poking his head out, I can safely assume that nothing happened,” she winked while Jun just stared, unamused by the joke.
“No, Yuko,” he retorted, “That’s your job.”
“Nice six pack by the way. Did they come with the new body?” Yuko mischievously smirked, poking the wall of flesh on Jun’s stomach. Almost as if he just realized he had a six pack, he looked down and let out a “Huh...” before slapping Yuko’s hand away.
“That’s not a six pack, idiot. I’m not that muscular.”
She kept trying to poke him anyway.
Only this woman could be so feisty in the morning, he thought to himself. How did Haruna deal with her everyday?
Right when he thought that, the door from behind him burst open and smacked him in the back of the head, causing him to let out a pathetic yelp of pain.
“Shower’s yours,” Haruna stated, walking crisply past the two and into her room, shutting the door firmly behind her.
As he rubbed his sore head, Jun then wondered how Yuko could deal with Haruna everyday. She was quite vicious when she wanted to be.
---
“Listen, I already apologized! What more do you want from me? I was a girl too, you know. I didn’t see anything that I hadn’t already seen before,” Jun pleaded while he trailed behind the still-fuming Haruna and the smirking Yuko.
All three of them were now in the shopping center of the area, going to pick out new clothes for Jun and buy him basic necessities, like deodorant and similar items. He had already received a toothbrush from Haruna (albeit grudgingly, as the girl had thrown it at his face) so at least he wasn’t walking around feeling like his mouth was submerged in bacteria.
Once they reached the first store, Haruna couldn’t hold it in anymore and finally burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, Jun, but that was too fun. I already forgave you the moment you walked out of the bathroom,” she told him, patting him on the head.
He pouted and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re so mean!”
“Ahaha! It’s times like right now that I remember you’re only fourteen-”
“I’m actually eighteen...” Jun cut off, looking nonchalantly to the side.
Yuko’s and Harun’s eyes bugged out as they stopped walking. Jun also stopped and looked back at them, cocking an eyebrow upward in confusion. “What?”
“You’re eighteen?!” Yuko shouted. Haruna quickly clamped her hand over the small girl’s mouth before she could draw any more attention to themselves from nearby shoppers.
“Yup. What’s the big deal about that?” Jun asked. He scratched the top of his head and tilted his head to the side.
Yuko looked up at Haruna with sorrowful eyes. “You lost four years off of your life, kiddo...” she quietly explained, turning back to face the boy.
To their surprise, he nonchalantly shrugged. “I’m alive. I’ll take what I can at this point,” he solemnly stated. “No need to be too greedy.”
He went ahead to go search for clothes before they could say anymore. As they watched him leave, back turned, Haruna sighed and reached down to grip Yuko’s hand. Startled, the smaller girl looked up expectantly at her girlfriend.
“It’s not being greedy if all you’ve done so far is give...”
---
Rena knew she hated drinking for a reason. Groaning as her head pounded with her pulse, she laid there wishing she could have a nice, cool glass of water and some painkillers. A lot of painkillers. She felt like someone was beating her head with a hammer.
“Here,” someone said, thrusting a glass of water and two small painkillers in front of Rena’s swimming vision. She blinked, disoriented at the sudden appearance of the hand and looked up at the person.
“Taka... mina?” she asked, wincing as her head pounded heavily again. The captain nodded and gently handed the pills to Rena. Gratefully taking them, she threw them in her mouth, drank from the glass, and heaved a relieved sigh as the cool water slid down her throat.
The room spun slowly around her vision as she plopped back down on her bed and rubbed at her aching eyes. Could someone put her out of her own misery?
That thought sobered her up. Jurina was dead because she saved Rena’s life, and now she was wishing to waste the girl’s sacrifice. A deep feeling of self-disgust welled up inside her.
“Rena... are you okay?” a voice from the other end of the room asked. Squinting through the bright morning sun, Rena realized Atsuko had accompanied Takamina to her home.
“Yeah... I’m alright, just a bit hung over. I don’t think I drank myself into a coma though,” she croaked, reaching for more water. Taking a gulp, she continued, “What are you two doing here, though?”
“We came to check on you, Rena-san. We’re all worried for you,” Takamina explained, placing a hand on Rena’s arm. “Ju-... her... her death was hard on all of us. We’re hurting too...”
Rena winced. “You can say her name, you know. Hearing Jurina’s name isn’t going to kill me.”
Takamina let out a noncommittal grunt and looked over at her girlfriend. Atsuko, responding to the look, came over and sat down on the bed with Rena, hugging her from the side. “Just know that we’re here for you alright? Jurina wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself by drinking or anything else.”
“I’m surprised you even made it home, Rena,” Takamina remarked, sitting down on Rena’s other side.
Suddenly, a barrage of blurry and unfocused images hit her mind. “No,” Rena said slowly, “I didn’t make it home by myself...”
The ace and the captain let out an identical “Ehhh?” as they looked at Rena in confusion.
“Someone... carried me home. I wasn’t completely out of it, so I can remember... but it’s all unfocused,” she explained to them.
“Was it anyone from AKB48?” Takamina asked. Rena shook her head, wincing as the motion made her headache throb worse.
“No, it was a guy around my age... I think,” she pondered, biting her lower lip as she struggled to recall the finer details.
“A guy?! Did he do anything to you?” Takamina yelled, panicked. Atsuko quickly bonked the captain on the head as Rena winced at the loud shout.
“Stupid. Rena has a hangover. Don’t yell, okay?” Acchan told her. The captain, ever the obedient girlfriend, nodded as she clutched her head.
“He didn’t do anything. I know he would never do anything like that. I felt strangely safe in his arms,” Rena explained. A wave of pain crashed over her head as she tried recalling more memories and she let loose a cry of agony. Startled, Atsuko and Takamina both jumped off the bed and watched as Rena clutched her skull, trying to make the pain go away.
“Here, lie down again. Why don’t you get some more rest?” Atsuko asked, gently lowering Rena back down onto her bed and tucking her in. Rena offered no resistance. “We’ll be downstairs when you wake up again.”
“And we’re not leaving until we know you’re okay,” Takamina stated. With that, the two of them walked out of the room quietly and clicked the door shut behind them.
As Rena drifted off to sleep again, the throbbing in her head subsiding a bit, she thought to herself that she was really lucky to have friends like them.
---
When Rena woke up again, she felt refreshed and alive, no pain assaulting her head or body.
Becoming more aware, she retraced her memories from last night in her mind. Now, after a good rest and with a clear mind, she could remember. Stretching on the bed, she thought back to when she entered the bar and began drinking. Sometime during the evening she had become hysterical, and before long, a young man had come over to her and called her name. He was very familiar, but Rena couldn’t think of any males that she knew who was quite like him. Then he carried her on his back to the train station where she had fallen sleep on his shoulder during the ride. Not once had he made a noise since they left the bar.
He should have at least complained so Rena would feel less guilty. Strangely, she did not feel fear nor uneasiness at the fact that this man had her life and security in his hands, knew where she lived, and even knew where her extra key was. There was only one logical conclusion: She definitely knew this man and trusted him deeply.
She reached up and touched her cheek. Also... one detail that kept coming to mind... someone... that very same man who brought her home... he had kissed her cheek.
She was sure that it wasn’t her imagination.
“Regardless, that was dangerous. I am never drinking again,” she muttered to herself, propping herself up and slipping out of her bed. She checked her clock and saw that it was around ten. Time to start the day.
After a quick shower, putting her clothes on, and brushing her teeth, she walked downstairs and into the living room. Takamina and Acchan were snuggling on the couch, watching a horror movie where both of them were giggling at the bad visual effects and the cheap pop-up scares.
“Enjoying yourselves?” Rena asked, smiling knowingly at the two. They jumped off the couch when Rena’s voice came from behind them. Startled, they turned around to see Rena grinning at them in her infamous “Gekikara” style.
“Geez! You scared us worse than that movie did,” Takamina groaned. “And wipe that smile off your face! It’s creepy.”
She giggled her infamous giggle, causing Takamina to cover her ears and scowl.
Ignoring the captain’s whining, Acchan merely mirrored Rena’s smile and asked, “Are you feeling better now, Rena-chan?”
Rena nodded. “I think I’m going to go out now and get away from staying in my room all day. I can’t afford to lose myself again like I did last night.”
Acchan patted Rena on the back and smirked, “Okay! Then why don’t Takamina and I take you out shopping for the moment? Both of us need appropriate clothing for the wake tomorrow.”
Rena blinked, surprised at the offer, before she nodded. “Okay,” she agreed. With that, the three left Rena’s home for a meeting with fate.
Even as she smiled and laughed with the captain and the ace though, she couldn’t help but remember that once Jurina’s funeral came, it would be very hard to laugh again. The sense of finality that came when the body was cremated ... She tried not think about the wake that was going to happen in another day, then the cremation, then the burial at the grave-site, to the memorial services that would remind her constantly that Jurina was never coming back.
Never, never, never...
As she looked for her shoes at her doorway, her eyes caught a piece of paper lying near her shoe rack. Picking it up, she gasped and almost dropped the sheet, hands trembling heavily. Takamina and Acchan turned to look at Rena in concern and confusion as they stood outside the open door.
“N- no way... w- what...?”
*Traditional Japanese funerals/burials for those who do not know of them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_funeralQuick summary (in my own words and arisa03’s): There is a ceremony called a wake where a photo of the deceased and some incense is in the family’s house and people would visit, light some incense, and pray for the soul of the deceased (pay respects, basically). This happens for 2-3 days, then comes the cremation and finally the remains are placed in graves (like some we see in Anime). Then memorial services (which I am still not fully clear on, OTL).
Apologies in advance for any butchering of the process that may occur in my writing. Please inform me of my mistakes so I can correct them. Thank you~