Love is Like a Video Game (Detective Conan, Heiji/Kazuha, #21)
Title: Love is Like a Video Game
Author: fireblazie
Pairing: Heiji/Kazuha
Fandom: Detective Conan
Theme: #21 - violence; pillage/plunder; extortion
Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan. Am just borrowing the characters for a bit! I don't own the song, either!
Even from a very early age, Heiji considered himself pretty darn smart. He was always able to solve anything and everything the teacher shot at him; always got the top grades; always the one who knew it all.
Like just about every other teenage guy, Heiji went through a phase where he was obsessed with video games. As Kazuha had so aptly put it, "You love those games more than you love solving those murder mysteries of yours!"
Which certainly was not true. Heiji, of course, held his murders and mysteries as his highest priority.
But something had set off the balance of his already perfect (at least, in his eyes it was) world.
It had been her fault (It always was, really).
So they were just lounging around, right? He was sitting barely six inches away from his TV screen, furiously pounding on the control. Up, right, jump... no, you little idiot, JUMP! Gah! I died...
On the screen, the village went up in flames.
Heiji mumbled bitterly under his breath.
"Heiji?" Heiji jerked out of his angry trance to see Kazuha, tapping her foot impatiently on his couch.
"Hang on," Heiji turned back to the screen. "Let me just beat this one level and then we'll go to - wherever it is you want to go.."
He heard the rustling of clothes behind him. He paid no mind to it. She was probably just getting a drink.
Then the door slammed shut.
Heiji winced. On the screen, a group of enemies from a neighboring town arrived to plunder the village. He swore, threw the control on the ground, and sprinted to the back door. "Oi! Kazuha!"
No answer.
He threw open the door and glanced around at his surroundings. Nothing. Absolutely no sign of her, whatsoever.
He furrowed his brow. Why was this bothering him so much? It shouldn't. It really shouldn't.
He stomped back inside the house. He grabbed the phone and dialed her cell phone number. He knew it by heart. Four rings, and Heiji was good and ready to leave her a nice, long, lengthy message on the voicemail, when she finally decided to pick up.
"About time!" Heiji growled.
Click.
Heiji lowered the phone numbly - and then glowered heatedly at the receiver. She did not just hang up on him..
-.-
"Kazuha? OI! Aho! Pick up!"
Beep.
Heiji was not about to give up. Oh no, not that easily. He dialed the number again and waited impatiently for the obligatory number of rings to go before the machine picked up.
"You friggin aho! What is your problem? I was almost done with the game; and then we could have gone out - or whatever the hell you wanted me to do! And will you PICK up the phone, already? DAMMIT! Kazu -"
Beep.
Heiji tightened his grip violently on the phone. Oh. He was this close to throwing the phone out the window and - and just screaming his lungs out. God. That infuriating woman.
He dialed her number again.
The machine beeped; Heiji inhaled; and got ready.
"YOU FRIGGIN IDIOT! WILL YOU PICK UP THE GODDAMNED PHONE ALREADY BEFORE I -"
"SHUT UP!"
Heiji blinked, momentarily stunned. But he quickly got over his shock and opened his mouth - "Well, you're the one who just stormed out of here -"
"Aho!" She screeched through the phone, and Heiji had to pull the receiver away from his ears to save his ear drums. "Go play with your stupid - with your stupid videogames! You obviously like spending more time with them than me, anyway!"
Heiji growled. "What are you -"
Click.
Heiji narrowed his eyes. She did not, she did not just hang up on him again...
Beep-beep-beep. The unmistakable sound of the dial tone.
Heiji swore.
Is it okay if I speak to you today?
You've been pissed off for a week now...
Heiji was completely in her face the following morning. He sat on top of her desk and was fully aware of the heated glare she shot at him during her painfully slow walk from the door to the desk - it had killed lesser men, after all - and he continued talking to a fellow classmate, pretending to be oblivious.
She cleared her throat behind him.
He ignored her - "Yeah," he went on, talking to a black-haired boy with glasses he'd never spoken to in his life, "so then I just struck him in the shoulder and took home the kendo championship trophy."
She cleared her throat again.
Heiji talked louder, more animatedly, until she finally lost her patience and jabbed him harshly in the shoulder. He prepared a sickeningly sweet and innocent grin before turning to face her. "Yes?"
"You're in my desk," she said, stiffly.
Heiji glanced down. "Eh." He shrugged. "I'll get off before the bell rings. Don't worry."
Her tone lost the icy politeness it had held. "Get off. Now."
Heiji cocked his head to the side. "Oh, come -"
"Now."
He blinked, pretending to think about it for a second. And then he easily slid off the surface, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and watched as she slowly and deliberately took her seat, setting her bag down on the floor next to her.
"Hey."
She made a sound of acknowledgment but refused to look at him.
Heiji narrowed his eyes in thought. She was really pissed at him, wasn't she?
"You're too emotional," he stated, rolling his eyes. "What's up with you?"
She huffed and turned away.
"Aho," he said.
She completely and totally ignored him. Which had a bigger effect on him than he would have liked to admit. But.. but this was different, all right? Usually, when they got into fights, nobody ever gave each other the silent treatment. They often fought at incredible volumes, but never cold shoulders and silent treatments. It was.. it was..
It was downright creepy, was what it was.
"Ka - zu -ha.."
Still, nothing.
The bell rang. Heiji shuffled slowly into his seat, the wheels in his head turning rapidly.
But nothing I can say could make you look up
Or crack up
He cornered her after school. Literally. He knew that she had to clean up the classroom after school, and long after everybody else had left, he loitered around the hallways. She was oblivious, and hummed a song under her breath. From his vantage point at the door, he could see that she'd rolled her sleeves up to her elbows and adjusted her ponytails.
His mind chose that moment to rearrange the scene.
An older Kazuha, hair tied back in a low ponytail. A green ribbon.
In the kitchen. Doing the dishes. Sunlight filtering in through the windows.
Two mini-Heijis running around her feet.
Heiji promptly fell over with a thud.
She froze inside, walking curiously over to the door. She clutched her broom behind her. Heiji winced.
"Who's there?" she called.
He decided he'd rather face her wrath than a heavy broomstick.
"Me!" he said, hastily getting to his feet. "You could poke an eye out with that thing.."
She struggled with her mask before pasting on a cold look of indifference. "What are you doing here?"
He cast around his mind for a good, solid excuse that wouldn't earn him a lump on the head. "Waiting for you." And it was the truth, wasn't it?
Her cheeks turned the slightest shade of pink - but then she closed her eyes and turned away. She swept up the floor. "Go away."
"What's wrong with you?" And his voice lost the edge it'd previously held, the one that had been on the brink of shouting and yelling. Now it was just plain, honest and pure curiousity. Confusion. "...what did I do?"
"If you don't know," she said, icily and yet - and yet waveringly at the same time... "Then you don't deserve to know."
Is there anything that I can do?
Anything to show you..
So his rational mind decided to go back over all the stuff that had happened before she went all crazy and overemotional on him.
The video-game.
He blinked, staring blankly at the screen. He'd been playing the game again - he was this close to beating it, darn it! - but then thoughts of her and that.. that weird expression on her face kept distracting him.
Always because of her. Everything was entirely her fault. Everything.
She was such a pain.
He shut off the video-game - he was losing, anyway; his village had just been plundered and looted for the third time in a row and it was driving him mad - and turned to the news. There was some new headline about some big-shot politician and some extortion case or other... Heiji changed the channel. Extortion wasn't his thing.
He didn't need this right now. He needed - no, what he needed was a goodnight's sleep. Just sleep on it, he decided, and.. and then tomorrow morning, everything would be okay again. Somehow.
He hoped, anyway.
-.-
It wasn't.
Two full days had passed at this point, and she still hadn't given him any sort of acknowledgment, whatsoever. She breezed past him without so much as a glance; she pointedly avoided his piercing gaze; she surrounded herself with flocks of girls so that he couldn't get to her.
It was driving him insane.
And his words wouldn't stop echoing in his mind, day in and day night: "If you don't know, then you don't deserve to know."
Heiji furrowed his brow and resisted the urge to just march over there and give her a piece of his mind.
He settled for observing her, in the end. That was what he usually did when solving cases, right? Sitting back, acting nonchalant. Taking in every single miniscule detail. Using that to solve the crime. He would do it now, like he'd always done before..
He propped his feet on top of his desk, leaning his chair on its back legs. He opened up to the middle of an Ellery Queen novel, eyes skimming the lines.
That was when he caught it. It was the tiniest thing, something that nobody else would have ever caught, in a million years, but he'd seen it, he'd seen it, he'd seen it..
She'd looked at him.
He turned the page, keeping his eyes fixed pointedly on the page. He'd probably read the last sentence about twenty times, but the words didn't register, and he didn't care. He kept waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting, like a predator lurking in the bushes for its prey..
Three.
Two.
One.
And he didn't know how he knew it, but at that moment, he lifted his head from his book and his eyes sought out hers. She turned to look at him at the exact same time and in that one brief second, something clicked and something happened, and an unfiltered emotion flickered across her green orbs. She broke the gaze first, shaking herself almost violently, and Heiji teetered dangerously on the hind legs of his chair before he finally brought the chair down on all fours.
What was that?
That emotion in her face, that - he had... He had seen it before, he had seen it.. somewhere. But where? Darn it.. Heiji exhaled, threw his book down on his desk, and buried his face in his arms, cursing a million times in his head. If only he could just figure out what that emotion had been.. or.. or heck, maybe even where he'd seen it before. That would help, and then maybe he could finally figure why she was so pissed at him..
She was such a friggin pain in the neck..
-.-
He found himself walking home by himself that afternoon. He scowled petulantly at the ground, kicking furiously at a pebble. She was such an annoying idiot; always causing him so much anguish and - and irritation and pissing the hell out of him! Honestly, he didn't even know why he'd stuck with her for so long. Maybe he was a masochist. Maybe.
Now that he thought about it, she really did make him mad. Constantly. As in, every single darn day. But.. but every single time, somehow, things had worked themselves out, right? He figured that this would blow over as well, but it had been two days now, two days, and they usually forgot about their petty little arguments come the next morning..
She. Was. So. Annoying.
And the worst part of it all was, he reflected, the fact that he couldn't stop thinking about her. She was always on his mind, always floating in at the most random, irrelevant moments.
When he made her cry, it made him want to rip out his insides.
When her smile disappeared, it made him want to run to the ends of the earth to bring it back.
When she yelled at him, he enjoyed it. Because it meant that they were together.
And when she wasn't there, he felt lost. Empty. Incomplete.
For reasons he could never fathom, could never in a million years be able to explain.
So this, he thought, this was why the past few days had been a living hell. Because she hadn't been there. And - and he was so used to having her around that when she wasn't, he found himself missing her, missing her terribly, missing her insanely, even if all she did was yell at him until his ears felt about ready to fall off..
No matter what she did..
No matter what she said...
He needed her.
He didn't think he could survive another day without her. As annoying, as idiotic, as crazy and insane as she was.. he didn't think he could spend another day without her.
"Damn her," he muttered, sitting himself down in the middle of the sidewalk, in dire need of some rest. "Damn her, damn her, damn her." He hated her for making him feel this way.
You're a bitch!
....but I love you anyway.
"Damn who?"
Heiji jerked his head up. She was standing about a foot away from him, digging the toe of her shoe into the pavement. The wind was whipping her hair into her face, and she reached up and pushed her hair to the side. He watched, mesmerized.
She seemed to grow uncomfortable under his steady gaze. She cleared her throat. "You're blocking the sidewalk," she said, trying and failing to keep a steady voice. His acute hearing caught the faintest hint of a trembling in her voice.
"So?" he challenged.
"So move."
He crossed his arms over his chest. "Not until you tell me what's wrong."
She closed her eyes briefly. "Nothing's wrong."
"Bull." The word was spat out, harshly, coldly. " 'zuha, I'm not moving until you tell me what's wrong."
"Then it looks like we'll be out here for a long time."
"What the hell is the matter with you?" Heiji demanded. "Whatever I did, I'm sorry, okay? But if you won't even tell me what I did, then how the hell do you expect me to -"
"You don't care."
His temper dissipated into thin air. "...what?"
"You don't care about me." She was staring at the ground. "You don't. Don't try to lie."
"What are you talking about?" He was incredulous. What was she - how could she even think that -
"It's obvious." Her voice was devoid of any emotion. Cold. Apathetic. "You'd ditch me in two seconds flat to go solve some mystery. I understand that. Obviously making sure that a murderer doesn't get loose on the streets.. yeah. I get it. I get it. But video games, too?"
"You're wrong." He stood up and took three steps closer. She backed away.
"Don't," she warned. "Don't.."
You can't sing
But you still put me to sleep
"You can be really stupid sometimes."
She wriggled in his grip, trying and failing to get loose. "Stop." Her voice was flat. "I get it, okay? Just go home - go home and play those stupid games of yours."
"I don't want to."
She shook her head. "Don't lie."
"I'm not!" He was beginning to grow exasperated with her now. "What do I have to do to show you that I - " He froze suddenly as an idea.. an absolutely crazy, downright insane idea fluttered into his brain.
She had her hands on his chest now and was trying to push away. "Let - go -"
It was crazy.
Crazy enough to work, at least.
He steadied his grip on her - firm, but gentle at the same time. He looked directly into her eyes and felt her sharp intake of breath. He bent down and she leaned up. It was instinctive, as if it had always been meant to be, had always meant to happen.
You make me sick
But, don't ever go away
"You're out of popcorn," she later informed him.
"What? But we just bought some.." Heiji muttered distractedly as he pounded furiously on the game controls. "Dammit! Jump! JUMP! Do you want to get looted again?"
He heard her come up behind him. "Heiji," she said, warningly, "I thought we were going to go watch a movie."
"We are," he said, "after I beat this level.."
He heard her take a few steps back and listened as her footsteps faded away in the kitchen. Straining his ears, he could hear the creaking sound of the back door opening and shutting.
He threw down the control. "That annoying, infuriating..."
You're a bitch
But I love you anyway
He nearly tripped over something in his haste to run after her. He met irritated green eyes.
"Were you trying to kill me?" She rubbed at her shoulder.
He blinked. "...you didn't leave."
She smiled wryly. "Figured I might as well wait a bit more. I've waited so long, what do a few more minutes matter?"
He twitched. "It's cold," he said, after a beat of silence. "Come back in."
"But it's just started to snow," she protested, reaching out a gloved hand to capture the falling flakes. White, crystal dots in the sky. Falling, falling, falling. Landing in her hair.
Heiji leaned himself against the door, watching her. This was better than any other video game, hands down.
-.-
Love was like a video game, he decided, later that night, her scent still clouding his senses. Constantly watching your back, making sure the enemy didn't sneak up on you. Pulling all the different tricks out of your sleeve to get to the next level unscathed.
Love was like a video game, between him and her. She always kept him on his toes. Always kept him wondering, wondering, wondering. Always making a complete idiot out of him.
In the end, though, wasn't that why he loved her anyway?
So why don't you...
Stay?
- fin -
Author: fireblazie
Pairing: Heiji/Kazuha
Fandom: Detective Conan
Theme: #21 - violence; pillage/plunder; extortion
Disclaimer: I don't own Detective Conan. Am just borrowing the characters for a bit! I don't own the song, either!
Even from a very early age, Heiji considered himself pretty darn smart. He was always able to solve anything and everything the teacher shot at him; always got the top grades; always the one who knew it all.
Like just about every other teenage guy, Heiji went through a phase where he was obsessed with video games. As Kazuha had so aptly put it, "You love those games more than you love solving those murder mysteries of yours!"
Which certainly was not true. Heiji, of course, held his murders and mysteries as his highest priority.
But something had set off the balance of his already perfect (at least, in his eyes it was) world.
It had been her fault (It always was, really).
So they were just lounging around, right? He was sitting barely six inches away from his TV screen, furiously pounding on the control. Up, right, jump... no, you little idiot, JUMP! Gah! I died...
On the screen, the village went up in flames.
Heiji mumbled bitterly under his breath.
"Heiji?" Heiji jerked out of his angry trance to see Kazuha, tapping her foot impatiently on his couch.
"Hang on," Heiji turned back to the screen. "Let me just beat this one level and then we'll go to - wherever it is you want to go.."
He heard the rustling of clothes behind him. He paid no mind to it. She was probably just getting a drink.
Then the door slammed shut.
Heiji winced. On the screen, a group of enemies from a neighboring town arrived to plunder the village. He swore, threw the control on the ground, and sprinted to the back door. "Oi! Kazuha!"
No answer.
He threw open the door and glanced around at his surroundings. Nothing. Absolutely no sign of her, whatsoever.
He furrowed his brow. Why was this bothering him so much? It shouldn't. It really shouldn't.
He stomped back inside the house. He grabbed the phone and dialed her cell phone number. He knew it by heart. Four rings, and Heiji was good and ready to leave her a nice, long, lengthy message on the voicemail, when she finally decided to pick up.
"About time!" Heiji growled.
Click.
Heiji lowered the phone numbly - and then glowered heatedly at the receiver. She did not just hang up on him..
-.-
"Kazuha? OI! Aho! Pick up!"
Beep.
Heiji was not about to give up. Oh no, not that easily. He dialed the number again and waited impatiently for the obligatory number of rings to go before the machine picked up.
"You friggin aho! What is your problem? I was almost done with the game; and then we could have gone out - or whatever the hell you wanted me to do! And will you PICK up the phone, already? DAMMIT! Kazu -"
Beep.
Heiji tightened his grip violently on the phone. Oh. He was this close to throwing the phone out the window and - and just screaming his lungs out. God. That infuriating woman.
He dialed her number again.
The machine beeped; Heiji inhaled; and got ready.
"YOU FRIGGIN IDIOT! WILL YOU PICK UP THE GODDAMNED PHONE ALREADY BEFORE I -"
"SHUT UP!"
Heiji blinked, momentarily stunned. But he quickly got over his shock and opened his mouth - "Well, you're the one who just stormed out of here -"
"Aho!" She screeched through the phone, and Heiji had to pull the receiver away from his ears to save his ear drums. "Go play with your stupid - with your stupid videogames! You obviously like spending more time with them than me, anyway!"
Heiji growled. "What are you -"
Click.
Heiji narrowed his eyes. She did not, she did not just hang up on him again...
Beep-beep-beep. The unmistakable sound of the dial tone.
Heiji swore.
Is it okay if I speak to you today?
You've been pissed off for a week now...
Heiji was completely in her face the following morning. He sat on top of her desk and was fully aware of the heated glare she shot at him during her painfully slow walk from the door to the desk - it had killed lesser men, after all - and he continued talking to a fellow classmate, pretending to be oblivious.
She cleared her throat behind him.
He ignored her - "Yeah," he went on, talking to a black-haired boy with glasses he'd never spoken to in his life, "so then I just struck him in the shoulder and took home the kendo championship trophy."
She cleared her throat again.
Heiji talked louder, more animatedly, until she finally lost her patience and jabbed him harshly in the shoulder. He prepared a sickeningly sweet and innocent grin before turning to face her. "Yes?"
"You're in my desk," she said, stiffly.
Heiji glanced down. "Eh." He shrugged. "I'll get off before the bell rings. Don't worry."
Her tone lost the icy politeness it had held. "Get off. Now."
Heiji cocked his head to the side. "Oh, come -"
"Now."
He blinked, pretending to think about it for a second. And then he easily slid off the surface, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and watched as she slowly and deliberately took her seat, setting her bag down on the floor next to her.
"Hey."
She made a sound of acknowledgment but refused to look at him.
Heiji narrowed his eyes in thought. She was really pissed at him, wasn't she?
"You're too emotional," he stated, rolling his eyes. "What's up with you?"
She huffed and turned away.
"Aho," he said.
She completely and totally ignored him. Which had a bigger effect on him than he would have liked to admit. But.. but this was different, all right? Usually, when they got into fights, nobody ever gave each other the silent treatment. They often fought at incredible volumes, but never cold shoulders and silent treatments. It was.. it was..
It was downright creepy, was what it was.
"Ka - zu -ha.."
Still, nothing.
The bell rang. Heiji shuffled slowly into his seat, the wheels in his head turning rapidly.
But nothing I can say could make you look up
Or crack up
He cornered her after school. Literally. He knew that she had to clean up the classroom after school, and long after everybody else had left, he loitered around the hallways. She was oblivious, and hummed a song under her breath. From his vantage point at the door, he could see that she'd rolled her sleeves up to her elbows and adjusted her ponytails.
His mind chose that moment to rearrange the scene.
An older Kazuha, hair tied back in a low ponytail. A green ribbon.
In the kitchen. Doing the dishes. Sunlight filtering in through the windows.
Two mini-Heijis running around her feet.
Heiji promptly fell over with a thud.
She froze inside, walking curiously over to the door. She clutched her broom behind her. Heiji winced.
"Who's there?" she called.
He decided he'd rather face her wrath than a heavy broomstick.
"Me!" he said, hastily getting to his feet. "You could poke an eye out with that thing.."
She struggled with her mask before pasting on a cold look of indifference. "What are you doing here?"
He cast around his mind for a good, solid excuse that wouldn't earn him a lump on the head. "Waiting for you." And it was the truth, wasn't it?
Her cheeks turned the slightest shade of pink - but then she closed her eyes and turned away. She swept up the floor. "Go away."
"What's wrong with you?" And his voice lost the edge it'd previously held, the one that had been on the brink of shouting and yelling. Now it was just plain, honest and pure curiousity. Confusion. "...what did I do?"
"If you don't know," she said, icily and yet - and yet waveringly at the same time... "Then you don't deserve to know."
Is there anything that I can do?
Anything to show you..
So his rational mind decided to go back over all the stuff that had happened before she went all crazy and overemotional on him.
The video-game.
He blinked, staring blankly at the screen. He'd been playing the game again - he was this close to beating it, darn it! - but then thoughts of her and that.. that weird expression on her face kept distracting him.
Always because of her. Everything was entirely her fault. Everything.
She was such a pain.
He shut off the video-game - he was losing, anyway; his village had just been plundered and looted for the third time in a row and it was driving him mad - and turned to the news. There was some new headline about some big-shot politician and some extortion case or other... Heiji changed the channel. Extortion wasn't his thing.
He didn't need this right now. He needed - no, what he needed was a goodnight's sleep. Just sleep on it, he decided, and.. and then tomorrow morning, everything would be okay again. Somehow.
He hoped, anyway.
-.-
It wasn't.
Two full days had passed at this point, and she still hadn't given him any sort of acknowledgment, whatsoever. She breezed past him without so much as a glance; she pointedly avoided his piercing gaze; she surrounded herself with flocks of girls so that he couldn't get to her.
It was driving him insane.
And his words wouldn't stop echoing in his mind, day in and day night: "If you don't know, then you don't deserve to know."
Heiji furrowed his brow and resisted the urge to just march over there and give her a piece of his mind.
He settled for observing her, in the end. That was what he usually did when solving cases, right? Sitting back, acting nonchalant. Taking in every single miniscule detail. Using that to solve the crime. He would do it now, like he'd always done before..
He propped his feet on top of his desk, leaning his chair on its back legs. He opened up to the middle of an Ellery Queen novel, eyes skimming the lines.
That was when he caught it. It was the tiniest thing, something that nobody else would have ever caught, in a million years, but he'd seen it, he'd seen it, he'd seen it..
She'd looked at him.
He turned the page, keeping his eyes fixed pointedly on the page. He'd probably read the last sentence about twenty times, but the words didn't register, and he didn't care. He kept waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting, like a predator lurking in the bushes for its prey..
Three.
Two.
One.
And he didn't know how he knew it, but at that moment, he lifted his head from his book and his eyes sought out hers. She turned to look at him at the exact same time and in that one brief second, something clicked and something happened, and an unfiltered emotion flickered across her green orbs. She broke the gaze first, shaking herself almost violently, and Heiji teetered dangerously on the hind legs of his chair before he finally brought the chair down on all fours.
What was that?
That emotion in her face, that - he had... He had seen it before, he had seen it.. somewhere. But where? Darn it.. Heiji exhaled, threw his book down on his desk, and buried his face in his arms, cursing a million times in his head. If only he could just figure out what that emotion had been.. or.. or heck, maybe even where he'd seen it before. That would help, and then maybe he could finally figure why she was so pissed at him..
She was such a friggin pain in the neck..
-.-
He found himself walking home by himself that afternoon. He scowled petulantly at the ground, kicking furiously at a pebble. She was such an annoying idiot; always causing him so much anguish and - and irritation and pissing the hell out of him! Honestly, he didn't even know why he'd stuck with her for so long. Maybe he was a masochist. Maybe.
Now that he thought about it, she really did make him mad. Constantly. As in, every single darn day. But.. but every single time, somehow, things had worked themselves out, right? He figured that this would blow over as well, but it had been two days now, two days, and they usually forgot about their petty little arguments come the next morning..
She. Was. So. Annoying.
And the worst part of it all was, he reflected, the fact that he couldn't stop thinking about her. She was always on his mind, always floating in at the most random, irrelevant moments.
When he made her cry, it made him want to rip out his insides.
When her smile disappeared, it made him want to run to the ends of the earth to bring it back.
When she yelled at him, he enjoyed it. Because it meant that they were together.
And when she wasn't there, he felt lost. Empty. Incomplete.
For reasons he could never fathom, could never in a million years be able to explain.
So this, he thought, this was why the past few days had been a living hell. Because she hadn't been there. And - and he was so used to having her around that when she wasn't, he found himself missing her, missing her terribly, missing her insanely, even if all she did was yell at him until his ears felt about ready to fall off..
No matter what she did..
No matter what she said...
He needed her.
He didn't think he could survive another day without her. As annoying, as idiotic, as crazy and insane as she was.. he didn't think he could spend another day without her.
"Damn her," he muttered, sitting himself down in the middle of the sidewalk, in dire need of some rest. "Damn her, damn her, damn her." He hated her for making him feel this way.
You're a bitch!
....but I love you anyway.
"Damn who?"
Heiji jerked his head up. She was standing about a foot away from him, digging the toe of her shoe into the pavement. The wind was whipping her hair into her face, and she reached up and pushed her hair to the side. He watched, mesmerized.
She seemed to grow uncomfortable under his steady gaze. She cleared her throat. "You're blocking the sidewalk," she said, trying and failing to keep a steady voice. His acute hearing caught the faintest hint of a trembling in her voice.
"So?" he challenged.
"So move."
He crossed his arms over his chest. "Not until you tell me what's wrong."
She closed her eyes briefly. "Nothing's wrong."
"Bull." The word was spat out, harshly, coldly. " 'zuha, I'm not moving until you tell me what's wrong."
"Then it looks like we'll be out here for a long time."
"What the hell is the matter with you?" Heiji demanded. "Whatever I did, I'm sorry, okay? But if you won't even tell me what I did, then how the hell do you expect me to -"
"You don't care."
His temper dissipated into thin air. "...what?"
"You don't care about me." She was staring at the ground. "You don't. Don't try to lie."
"What are you talking about?" He was incredulous. What was she - how could she even think that -
"It's obvious." Her voice was devoid of any emotion. Cold. Apathetic. "You'd ditch me in two seconds flat to go solve some mystery. I understand that. Obviously making sure that a murderer doesn't get loose on the streets.. yeah. I get it. I get it. But video games, too?"
"You're wrong." He stood up and took three steps closer. She backed away.
"Don't," she warned. "Don't.."
You can't sing
But you still put me to sleep
"You can be really stupid sometimes."
She wriggled in his grip, trying and failing to get loose. "Stop." Her voice was flat. "I get it, okay? Just go home - go home and play those stupid games of yours."
"I don't want to."
She shook her head. "Don't lie."
"I'm not!" He was beginning to grow exasperated with her now. "What do I have to do to show you that I - " He froze suddenly as an idea.. an absolutely crazy, downright insane idea fluttered into his brain.
She had her hands on his chest now and was trying to push away. "Let - go -"
It was crazy.
Crazy enough to work, at least.
He steadied his grip on her - firm, but gentle at the same time. He looked directly into her eyes and felt her sharp intake of breath. He bent down and she leaned up. It was instinctive, as if it had always been meant to be, had always meant to happen.
You make me sick
But, don't ever go away
"You're out of popcorn," she later informed him.
"What? But we just bought some.." Heiji muttered distractedly as he pounded furiously on the game controls. "Dammit! Jump! JUMP! Do you want to get looted again?"
He heard her come up behind him. "Heiji," she said, warningly, "I thought we were going to go watch a movie."
"We are," he said, "after I beat this level.."
He heard her take a few steps back and listened as her footsteps faded away in the kitchen. Straining his ears, he could hear the creaking sound of the back door opening and shutting.
He threw down the control. "That annoying, infuriating..."
You're a bitch
But I love you anyway
He nearly tripped over something in his haste to run after her. He met irritated green eyes.
"Were you trying to kill me?" She rubbed at her shoulder.
He blinked. "...you didn't leave."
She smiled wryly. "Figured I might as well wait a bit more. I've waited so long, what do a few more minutes matter?"
He twitched. "It's cold," he said, after a beat of silence. "Come back in."
"But it's just started to snow," she protested, reaching out a gloved hand to capture the falling flakes. White, crystal dots in the sky. Falling, falling, falling. Landing in her hair.
Heiji leaned himself against the door, watching her. This was better than any other video game, hands down.
-.-
Love was like a video game, he decided, later that night, her scent still clouding his senses. Constantly watching your back, making sure the enemy didn't sneak up on you. Pulling all the different tricks out of your sleeve to get to the next level unscathed.
Love was like a video game, between him and her. She always kept him on his toes. Always kept him wondering, wondering, wondering. Always making a complete idiot out of him.
In the end, though, wasn't that why he loved her anyway?
So why don't you...
Stay?
- fin -