Wow, it really has been a long time since I last posted here! Well, at least I warned with a suggestion of a hiatus.
I'm sure everybody will forget everything and not many will read anymore, but it's not too long to re-read or catch up with, and... Well, I hope a few of you still
me. ^_^ The day after: things begin to
change a little bit...
Chapter 13Miyabi woke slowly the next morning, and the first thing she saw was her roommate sitting backwards in a wooden chair not far from the bed and apparently watching her while munching on some rice cakes. She took a minute to orient herself and be sure that what she was seeing wasn’t another dream – she’d had many quite pleasant, but rather embarrassing, ones over the night – but the other girl only kept munching and watching.
“I know I’m the cutest thing ever when I’m sleeping, but you’re starting to freak me out you know, Maa-chan…”
Maasa kept silent for a little longer as she finished up a cake and brushed her hands together. “I’m trying to decide something,” she said finally, her eyes not straying from Miyabi’s face. Miyabi wondered if she was drooling, but she couldn’t feel anything… Under the circumstances though, she decided to keep still and comfy.
“By the smile you’ve had on your face while you were sleeping at least since I woke up – from the fact that you were sleeping that well next to me at all - I would guess either you must have been having the greatest dream in the world, or you just had a
really good night last night.” She rose from the chair and picked it up, stuffing it back under the table nearby before turning back to Miyabi.
“However, since you
are here, and not somewhere else… I kind of have to throw out the second option. Still, dreams don’t make much sense either. So!” She hopped on the bed, causing Miyabi to reflexively turn onto her back, and sat on her stomach. “Before you go anywhere this morning, you’re going to tell me what happened.”
Miyabi attempted to breathe, which was difficult with the mass above her, and looked up at the ceiling, closing her eyes for a moment. She tried to relax herself. There were worse things than being basically woken up in the morning by a large girl sitting on you.
“Last night I went to Mikitty’s party with you all and had a bit to drink… like you all… And then I came back here and went to bed. Does that explanation suit you?”
Maasa studied her face closely as if its appearance would tell her that Miyabi was lying. She was, of course. Or at least, she wasn’t telling the whole story. She was a good liar though, so she felt she would be relatively safe. The narrowing of the girl’s eyes though told her she was wrong.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, confirming Miyabi’s guess. “And since that means you’re lying to me, I’m going to have to tell Captain as well. We’ll see what
she can wring out of you about what naughtiness you were involved with last night.”
Miyabi grinned widely. “Go ahead. Tell Captain. I’d be interested to see what she’d have to say…”
Maasa’s eyes widened at the insubordinance and with a frustrated groan jumped off the prostrate girl and walked to the washroom. “Don’t bother needing to use this for a while. I’m going to be in here a long time…”
Miyabi looked at the ceiling, filling her lungs since she was unable to with the girl on top of her, and waited for her lower body to wake up again. There might be worse, but there definitely were more
pleasant ways of waking up in the morning. Well, she supposed she deserved it in return for the morning before.
Thinking of that time, even after she became comfortable again, she lay there while the events of the previous day flashed through her mind. She didn’t know where to go from here. They would be here another day, so she’d have to deal with… everyone… somehow. Well, staying in bed certainly wasn’t going to answer any of her questions.
Sliding a sheet slowly down herself, she realized she still didn’t have any pants on. What she wore last night upon going to bed was so comfortable, and she was so tired at that very late point, that she still wore the shirt she expected to go to Risako with. Trying to stop that train of thought for the moment, she jumped up and looked toward the washroom door. True to her word, there seemed no sign the other girl would be out anytime soon. The water was just running for a bath, and Miyabi imagined she could soak forever.
She certainly felt like it this morning. Cuddling and crying behind a bush for hours definitely wasn’t conducive to keeping clean.
After staring at the door a moment as her mind felt blank and not quite awake yet this morning, she wandered through it, looking around at a hallway that was still rather quiet. Sounds of some sort came from one of the doors near her that could have been real voices or just the television. She knew many of the girls liked to watch the morning variety shows.
Walking slowly, she headed to the end of the hall and a door that stood silent before her. Gathering some courage after the events of the night before, she knocked softly on it. Just a few seconds later, it was opened by a girl who still held her toothbrush in her mouth. They exchanged looks for a moment before she pulled it out and with a closed mouth tilted her head to show she had to hit the sink. Miyabi nodded, and after a short disappearance the head popped up again.
“Good morning!” Saki said with the smile she always showed in greeting.
“Good morning…” Miyabi said slowly. “Um… Do you mind if I use your washroom? My roommate is being a hog and keeping me from ours because she’s mad at me or something…”
“Sure!” the other girl responded, backing up and pulling the door fully open to allow Miyabi entrance. Saki gave her a funny look. “You’re still not wearing pants, huh?” Blushing furiously and hoping Saki wouldn’t notice, Miyabi walked in, looking around at the dimly lit westward-facing room, no sign of much lying around except for a few small piles of neatly folded shirts on a dresser.
“Um…” Saki began, still holding the door open. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Miyabi stared at her at a loss until Saki’s eyes traveled up and down her body, making her cheeks faintly flush again. “Your, er, shirt…” she explained. “Since I’d guess you want to change, you’ll need something to change into, won’t you? I’d offer you something of mine, but I have a feeling they wouldn’t fit too well…”
That made Miyabi flush brighter at her cluelessness. It was most certainly lucky they were
not the same size, because she wasn’t sure if she was ready to deal with the other girls seeing her walking around sporting Captain’s skirt. Not that they would have any reason to think anything of it. None at all.
“I’ll be right back…” she said, and ducked quickly out of the room, the other girl nodding as if Miyabi wasn’t tripping all over herself this morning.
Keep your control, Miyabi… Keep your control! There’s no reason to be acting like this…Finding an appropriate set of clothes for the day, and still hearing soft splashing coming from her
own washroom, she returned to find Saki sitting crosslegged on her bed watching TV. After closing the door, she thought about approaching the other girl, but since her eyes didn’t waver from the television, she just headed on into the bath.
She came out to find the TV off and Saki gone, so she headed on out herself after supposing she should begin the day. Maasa was
still in the washroom, though she supposed the girl really had no reason to leave it since the day was pretty much their own until the afternoon. Plus, Miyabi knew her friend must be loving spiting her. On the other hand, it was good she was cooped up in the room and unable to see where Miyabi had gone…
She walked back out into a silent hallway. Aside from Maasa still in the bath, the other girls apparently had already left since there were no more sounds of television or video games emanating from behind closed doors. Miyabi checked her cell. She was slightly surprised to see that it was well into the morning now. She tilted her head to the side and felt suddenly as if someone had stuffed a bag of cotton into her ear. Despite the loss of time and apparent sleepiness of the morning, the events of last night had made her give up her vow to never drink again. There was just too much that happened in life to not allow yourself certain pleasures… And, she thought, being the performer she was at least she definitely had no interest in mind-altering drugs in order to promote her “creativity”. Well, that’s what songwriters were for. Hers were more
physical talents. For some reason, she blushed at that thought.
Still, she didn’t let that stop her from taking certain other… liberties… in life. She smiled thinking of what awaited her once she returned home tomorrow. The experience of yesterday was just what she needed…
“Miya-chan?” came a squeaky voice from behind that broke her out of her reverie. “Why are you standing in the middle of the hallway twirling your hair and staring at the ceiling?”
Miyabi spun, her hand flying down to her side, to see Momoko slipping out of her room and shutting the door softly behind her, scrutinizing her closely. She narrowed her eyes at the unexpected encounter. Momo must have just been getting ready to leave and so had turned anything off already that would alert Miyabi to her presence within her room. “If you
must know, I was pondering the metaphysical effects of extreme elation.” Momo tilted her head, studying Miyabi as if she were a fairly uninteresting species of worm. “And for some reason, now you’re here my train of thought seems to have left for Hokkaido.”
She looked back as Momoko stared at her with her beady tilted eyes. She somewhat regretted being so harsh, but the girl was hardly nice to her lately, so she held her tongue from any sort of apology. “You’re a strange girl, do you know that?” Momo said quietly.
“Yeah,” Miya responded with a bored expression. “I hear it all the time lately. I must be doing something right.”
Momoko stepped primly closer to her, her eyes still studying Miyabi’s face. Miyabi’s bored expression evaporated into a suspicious look, and she dropped a foot back herself. Momo’s face no longer seemed to express her usual teasings, but instead made Miyabi feel like she was something caged that was being carefully examined. “Something’s changed…” the girl said after a moment. “Hasn’t it?”
Having not a clue what the girl was blabbering about, Miyabi looked down her own body. She was just wearing some snug jeans with a thin chain hanging from the pocket and a T-shirt with an English phrase she thought looked cool beneath her thick leather jacket – nothing out of the ordinary for her. “What are you talking about?” she asked in an honestly blank voice.
Momoko continued to peer at her though in silence until breaking it again after a time. “Would you like to go for some coffee?”
Caught off-guard once again, Miyabi felt her mouth hang open before she was able to respond, “Er… why?” Immediately realizing how that sounded, she hastily corrected, “O-of course.”
“Great!” Momo said, and her studious look disappeared in a flash. She bounced up to Miyabi and took her arm in her own, pulling her along the hallway, Miyabi stumbling to keep up with the other girl’s skipping trot.
They were able to find a corner coffee shop quite easily – strangely, it was just around the corner. As Miyabi felt herself wake up over the coffee, even though it most definitely didn’t help the cotton in her head which now felt the size of a giant panda, the two girls chatted about meaningless things as well as how the concert yesterday went. It was not precisely the start to the day Miyabi expected, but after a while she admitted to herself that she would have been hard-pressed to find more pleasant company. Excepting perhaps that of Saki, although she felt there also would be quite enough awkwardness involved in that to cancel much of the pleasure out.
All of this, lying underneath the edges of Miyabi’s mind the whole time, fed growing suspicions of what brought this on. Just the fact that she was having a quite relaxing and friendly time speaking with Momo was enough to throw kilos of coal on that fire. Of course obviously the girl did have many friends and surely shared occasions like this with them all the time, but occasions such as those that included Miyabi were quite rare, especially recently for some reason. Suddenly however, it was like they had just met again and each was happy to get to know the other.
Miyabi expected the conversation to at any point turn to the real reason Momo asked her out to coffee, as well as to follow up on her cryptic comment about something having changed, but as their cups were drained and their plates lightened to hold only crumbs, there seemed no sign of movement of the conversation away from chatter about last night’s party.
“And when Toku-san started scolding Mikitty’s armoire for peeing on the floor, when it was just her that had spilt her drink, and Mikitty herself came up and virtually dragged her away by her ear, I almost
died!” Momoko tittered, breaking out in a fit of giggles.
Miyabi laughed along since it undeniably made a very funny image, although it was one she hadn’t the faintest recollection of as it was long past the time when she could remember anything at all. A faint feeling of envy of the girl sitting across from her pervaded her however, since she wished she had such a head for alcohol. Momo had drunk at least as much as Miyabi. Hadn’t she? Miyabi propped her head with her hand and stared out the window in thought as the girl continued going on about last night’s apparent misadventures of Natsuyaki, Tokunaga and Kumai. The girl had
surely drunk as much as her. She took one pretty much as often as Miyabi herself did after they played flippy cup…
She was trying to remember if Momoko actually had
played flippy cup when out of the window she saw some girls walking by that caught her eye. She raised her head slightly from her hand, still hearing Momoko nattering on, her attention now back in the present. The girls were talking to each other, but their heads also swiveled in interest at everything they passed. One, who had glanced into the window Miyabi was staring out of, came to a sudden halt, and the two with her paused soon after, looking at their friend and then into the window once they followed her eyes. Miyabi stared back at them as they shuffled their way into the shop, the shortest leading the others, of whom the youngest looked slightly reluctant to enter the shop, but curious as well along with her companions.
“Well hello there!” Saki said, beaming at the two girls on high chairs as Momo finally ceased her chittering. Yurina shared her expression, but Risako looked off to the side as if avoiding their eyes. Miyabi wasn’t really concerned with that though, and it was something she only caught out of the corner of her eye. She was doing her best to hide a blush at the wide smile Saki bestowed on her.
“Hello,” Momoko replied with one of her small squinty-eyed smiles that betrayed absolutely nothing of what she was really thinking or feeling.
Trying to avoid the infuriatingly genuine expression on the girl who barely came up to her elbow as she sat on the high stool, Miyabi saw that Yurina was now looking between Momo and herself, a questioning expression on her eyes. She didn’t look her direction, but she imagined the youngest girl appeared the same.
“How… nice to run into you two here,” Yurina said, plainly curious at the odd coupling. Miyabi and Risako normally kept to their own business or that of the group, and Yurina, Maasa and Chinami normally hung out together, and none got along incredibly well individually with Momo who was, well, rather individual. Except for Captain of course. The two of them could be seen speaking alone sometimes, but that could be said of Captain and everyone. Her non-judgmental demeanor won the loyalty and friendship of, to Miyabi’s knowledge, anyone she came into contact with. At these thoughts, she once more found herself gazing into the face of the girl in question. It was much nicer when it wasn’t red and tear-streaked, although when it was, it allowed Miyabi a peek at an inner vulnerability she had a feeling the older girl had only ever shown to very few.
“Miya and I were just talking about everything that happened yesterday. It was all great, wasn’t it!” She looked around them as if for chairs, but there were only the two at the table, which in itself was barely large enough for even the two of them. “You can… join us if you’d like…” She hesitated when she realized that there actually was no way they could really join.
“It’s okay,” Risako said, and Miyabi thought she noticed a strange insistency in the young girl’s voice she hadn’t noticed in a long time. She didn’t bear her more than a glance though before returning to the dregs of her coffee, which were unpleasant, but preferable to the frown she found on a face that was staring back at her as if trying to catch her eye. Was the girl finally going to pay her attention now? Well it didn’t matter anymore. Miyabi actually felt too confused to be around most anyone in particular, which led her to give Momo an odd look as she wondered why she had no trouble carrying on for an hour alone with her.
“We were just passing by, really,” Risako continued. “Kuma-chan wanted to do some shopping, and Chinami had just left us to go look for Maasa… You two haven’t seen her lately, have you?”
“Call Toku-san up and tell her to look in our bath,” Miyabi said, pointedly not looking at the girl she was responding to. “Maybe she’ll have drowned herself by now…” she finished hopefully, resting her head back on her hand and staring wistfully up at the ceiling.
“Now, now!” Saki laughed. “No wishing death on other Berryz! We know you want more of the spotlight Miya, but really, that’s not the way to go about it.” Miyabi’s widened eyes darted to her Captain, who was smirking back at her. Her heart had almost stopped at the scolding, but one look into Saki’s eyes told her how she meant it, and it even skipped a beat starting back up again as she burst into a smile herself.
“
You don’t have to sleep next to her while she snores all night long…” she grumbled dramatically. The girls around her laughed, all having experienced that unfortunate situation in the past. All except Risako, Miyabi noticed, as her grin widened at the glance she caught of the girl’s darkened pouting face. Well, today might not turn out so bad after all.
Topic: Berry Beautiful [Volume 2] (Read 94633 times)