#can we go back to times we appreciated silly things among the dark gloomy reality?

[effieotto]

everyone suddenly starting to hate the Hayffie baby trope just now that i started to write something like that, i will throw myself out of a fucking window

[greengargouille]

AK RarePair week Spring 2017, Day 1 - Rain

((Hello everyone, and welcome back for the second edition of Rarepair Week ! Are you all ready for it ? Well I am ! Not. Please somebody stop time for me.))

Rating: General Audience Characters: Hazama Kirara, Kurahashi Hinano Relationship: Hazama/Kurahashi

Ao3 link here

Hazama never was one to like the sun. Not only her skin burned easily, the dry weather made her hair curl up into a knotty mess her mother had many times, during childhood, tried to tame with rough brush strokes that left a painful impression on her. Rain was better. Rain made her hair wet, straightened them and stuck them to her face like a ghost just released from her well. She liked that appearance much better.

But her main problem with the sun have always been how she was forced to indulge her mother’s fantasies. Picnic, walk in the wood... With the rays of sun came maternal ideas straight from a fairy tale, and the girl would only be able to follow those plans. Pointing out the gap between those romanticised delusions and reality would only make her mother scream ; no one was allowed to shatter the dreamy illusion in which she lived, or there would be dire consequences. It was all very stressful, and for naught too, because ultimately she would get irritated by ants or dirt or who know what, and her husband and daughter would would get the short end of her low mood.

There wasn’t much she could do about the sun, hanging the teru teru bōzu upside down or recite spells meant to bring out the rain. She could, however, try her best to avoid her mother, mostly by locking herself in the library or following the idiots from her gang in whatever stupid idea they’ve got.

However, neither of those things prepared her for an invitation from Kurahashi. Which explained how, despite hating physical effort and staying outside whenever unecessary, the gloomy girl ended up walking in the woods near her school, sweaty from the hot yet humid summer weather accompanying a sky cloudy since days, yet refused to rain and relieve everyone. Mother Nature truly was someone terrible.

To be fair, Hazama was indebted to Kurahashi. No longer than a week ago, her newly acquired pet tarantula happened to lay eggs, something its precedent owner had somehow forgotten to warn her about. How was she supposed to guess that when its usual mating season didn’t even start, and in which conditions was it kept for such an event to happen ? Her usual composure had vanished on the moment, and it was thanks to Ritsu’s idea of contacting their animal-loving comrade that she was able to get out of this mess.

Outside of this incident, Hazama hadn’t talked much to Kurahashi. They were sitting at opposite ends of the class and frequented different groups, which left not much occasions to befriend each other, and Hazama liked it like that. If she were to be honest, the other girl made her uneasy.

She had a pretty good instinct for the darkness humans kept in their hearts. Negative emotions. Greed. Happiness at making someone suffer. Those things, Hazama always have been good at guessing them. She was pretty proud of it, in fact, how she could point out the exact things that would depress a specific person or make them show their true face. She liked awful people because she could be venomous without restraint around them, and she prefered to surround herself with the ones with a bad reputations, that would accept her as she was, far from the pretty princess her mother had tried to turn her into.

Kurahashi was a strange case, for Hazama couldn’t see this kind of darkness in her. Rather, whenever she was around, it was as if the bad feelings evaporated into the air, as if her sole presence alleviated people from their worries. She could repeat the sleazy words she heard the guys secretly say with the same innocent smile as usual. It left Hazama speechless. Unable to think of how she should speak to her or to stand next to such a bright person. Kurahashi have been described by their classmates as being a ray of sunshine, and in that they were surely right, because Hazama had a hard time handling her.

That didn’t mean she disliked the girl. Their times together were rather awkward, but she liked listening to her peppy talk, and she was grateful for her help in dealing with her pet’s many children. Plus, she took a vicious pleasure in imagining what would be her mother’s reaction if she heard that the girl she complimented when Hazama brought her home - “So charming and sweet, why can’t you be more like her ?”- was dragging her to go seek her beetle baits.

“I’m glad you came along.” Kurahashi commented while walking. If it weren’t for Karasuma’s training, Hazama would have a hard time following her while conversing casually, but she doubted her comrade would have needed it in the first place to move around with so much ease. She seemed like an outdoor person. “With the summer vacations, I didn’t know who to call, but then I remember you mentioning you were there till the end of the month, and I thought, ‘If it’s Hazama-chan she will surely come !’.”

This could seems like the girl had no idea of her comrade’s personality. Hazama choose to rather see it as her admitting she knew the gloomy student would be unwilling to refuse her something after her help. Kurahashi was, after all, one of the best students of Irina-sensei ; under her carefree air, there would be no way she wasn’t observant enough to not notice the other girl’s daily attitude, and she knew how to manipulate people in subtle ways. Hazama had no chance to win against her, as usual.

“Why do you need someone, though ? I don’t think I can help you in any way. -Because it’s a fun activity to do together ! Ah, don’t tell me, you don’t dislike beetles, do you ?” she sounded so surprised, as if the thought only just occurred to her. “I don’t dislike them, but I don’t have particular feelings about them either. I like how they look, though. -Yes, aren’t they adorable ?” This wasn’t exactly the word Hazama would have used, no. “I was more thinking in the lines of ‘elegant’. -Ah, I see what you mean ! They would make a good subject for jewelry, wouldn’t they ? -Like the scarab of ancient Egypt ? -Exactly !” Kurahashi pondered something for an instant, then asked “Do you like ancient Egypt, Hazama-chan ? -I’m more interested in their curses, but I’ve read about some of their gods. Isn’t there supposed to be a scarab beetle rolling the Sun around ? Sounds like it could suit you. -Why, thank you !”

The girl’s approval made Hazama conscious of what she had just said, leaving her feeling slightly awkward, through her face only showed composure. She hadn’t even meant it as a compliment. Casual compliments aren’t her style, except as thinly veiled insults. Was it that Kurahashi was so used to be called ‘sunny’ that she thought it was probably something similar ? Maybe not. She did seems the kind who would actually appreciate being compared to a bug.

“It’s too bad there isn’t a lot of stories about beetles. I like every insect, but I have a soft spot for them. -I think there’s one in North America. They helped the natives in making the rain falls.” She didn’t know the details, but that one story had peeked her interest enough to remember it. “Oh, that’s interesting ! It would be nice if the rain would fall here, too, the clouds accumulate but won’t release anything. If we find beetles, maybe we should ask them if they know a song or two for that !” While she said that lightly, Kurahashi then hummed a song to herself, as if really considering this eventuality.

Hazama envied her, if only for a bit. The way she acted as if those silly stories would have no impact on her - no, it was more than likely the case. If the rain was to fall, they would be soaked, but that would be far from the end of the world. If the clouds would dissipate and let the sun shine even brighter, they might get sunburns, but all kinds of bugs would probably come out, maybe even unusual ones. The weather didn’t matter much for Kurahashi’s enjoyment of the situation.

It was sort of cute. And also something Hazama was unable to do. For a fourteen year old, it wasn’t unusual to have strong opinions on insignifiant subjects, but she thought she was mature enough to be above this. Yet. She couldn’t forget that feeling she got as a younger child, buried in incantation books and whispering words she forced herself to pretend she didn’t believe in. That tiny sparkle of hope that, maybe, with enough efforts, she could make the rain fall on the garden and her mother would be forced to cancel the afternoon tea she spent days organizing. Maybe, if she repeated the words enough times, she wouldn’t have to sit among all those adults and look at sweets she wouldn’t be allowed to eat, because her food and health advisor of a mother wanted her to stay thin and pretty.

Hazama was unable of letting go of her bitterness from those memories, nor did she wished to. Kurahashi could be as happy as she wanted to be, the pleasure of seeing rain fall down on people’s expectations suited her much more.

Still. As water droplets descending from the sky minutes after their conversation, she felt a tad jealous to see the girl’s lighthearted humming being rewarded.

“You must be kidding me... -Ah, I know where to shelter ourselves ! Quick !”

A hand took Hazama’s, warm from the summer heat. She had no time to react, as she was suddenly pulled forward.

She hated running, especially in the woods where the ground was uneven and her feet could potentially be caught in anything, but she wasn’t given the leisure to choose her pace. The air was supposed to get chillier, but as they arrived at their goal, she felt even warmer from the race.

The place Kurahashi was thinking about was small. A cavity in the rockier part of a slope, not even a cave. Was there a cave on this mountain ? There must be one. It would be more comfortable than being forced to sit down, the hole not tall enough to permit standing up, nor big enough to let them have much personal space between them.

After catching her breath a few minutes, tempting the ignore how close the other girl was to her - she could almost feel her against her skin, soft and lukewarm-, Hazama finally told her.

“I think that’s confirm it. You’re really a beetle. -No way !” Kurahashi laughed at the suggestion. “You seems happy, given our current situation. -Well, it was really time for rain to fall. And it makes me kinda glad you came, since else I would have to wait alone. -...It’s true that the rain is refreshing.”

She wasn’t sure how to interpret the second sentence. Kurahashi just wanted to say she would be bored without someone there. It could have been anyone else. But she still felt a tiny bit happy at those words.

That... bothered her. She wasn’t even sure why. She wanted to ignore this, to respond casually with a snicker. She used a low, supposedly menacing voice. It came out more nervous than she wanted.

“You know, though, I could do terrible things to you just to distract myself, are you sure you’re glad that I’m here ? -Hm ? What could you do, I wonder ?”

Kurahashi turned her head to face her comrade, a smile on her lips.

“If it was Rio-chan or one of the boys, it would probably be something sleazy, but that would be too boring from your part... You always get interesting ideas, don’t you ? I want to hear all about them~"

That’s right, Hazama had always been clever when it came to this kind of things. Always finding the most unexpected words to bully someone verbally, or methods to scare them without brute force. Her reputation as a witch was earned honestly.

Yet, when Kurahashi approached her face, her mind was empty.

It really made her feel uneasy to be so close. Her face was so bright, after all. Her arm so warm against her own.

“If you’re not going to do anything, maybe you won’t mind if I act first, then ?”

Aah, that wasn’t good, that wasn’t good at all. This was precisely a reason why Kurahashi made her feel apprehensive. The way she would get so familiar that Hazama couldn’t keep her coolness, nor find any way to push her back -no spiderweb can resist to the beetle’s will after all. The way that made her not even sure she actually wanted to keep her distance with this ridiculously cute and happy girl.

...If only for letting this moment exist. Hazama was glad it rained this time.