#63: fic: a girl
Title: a girl
Characters: Arashi, Horikita Maki, Kuroki Meisa, NEWS cameos
Rating: PG
Summary: Urban fantasy AU; overlaps with Storm Children. Nino is the sort of person who is easy to fall in love with, but difficult to love.
Word Count: 2,400~
A/N: This is for sinonymity, requested as a gift by tinyangl during the fandom fundraiser on arashi_on. Thank you for your generous donation, Kamika! I hope both you and sinonymity enjoy this. ♥ I am hugely grateful as always to g_esquared for being LIKE LIGHTNING.
a girl
It will be years later that Maki will look back and be able to admit that she may have been more than a little bit in love with Nino.
Nino is the sort of person who is easy to fall in love with, but difficult to love. He charms Maki the first time they meet, with his quick hands and quicker wit. This is years ago, when Nino is thirteen and grubby and still experimenting with trinkets and cheap tokens. He pulls a sweet from Maki’s ear - milk candy - and hands it to her with a flourish.
It is hardly a grand gesture - the sweet is likely to have been stolen - but Maki is in love. And when Nino doesn’t stop her from following him around after that, he unwittingly secures himself a lifetime of loyalty.
-
“Is it true,” asks Toma in reverent tones, “that Nino can fly?”
Maki shrugs. “You’ve seen him.”
With the arrival of Aiba comes the realisation that Nino is difficult to love simply because he never stays in one place. He vanishes off onto the roofs of the town to talk about whatever it is he and Aiba talk about. About magic and names, about crows and cards.
Maki’s love makes the natural progression into longing, and then she puts it away, not hidden or forgotten, but arranged to make way for other things.
She is a nine-year-old girl, after all, and there are great many things that clamour for her attention.
-
“Call me Kazu,” Nino tells her. “Nino is for business and favours. You’re a friend.”
He uses the word so easily. He means it, of course. Maki is a friend the same way that Aiba is a friend - close as siblings, someone to be treasured. Maki basks in the glow of this word. She hoards it like gold.
“You’re my friend too, Maki-chan,” says Aiba, beaming at Maki. His eyes are dark and glinting, like ravens’ eyes. “We’re all friends. You, Kazu and me.”
Maki returns his smile. “Of course.”
Aiba doesn’t tell Maki his first name. She thinks there may have been a time when she might have known it, either many years ago or maybe even in a dream. Sometimes she thinks she hears Nino say it, but it slips away from her every time she turns her attention to it.
-
“What’s so great about flying, anyway?” Meisa asks.
They are sitting by the bay eating the leftover meat buns from Meisa’s father’s street stall. It is freezing and Maki has forgotten her scarf, but the steaming hot buns more than make up for that.
“Flying’s nice,” Maki says between bites. “Nino flies.”
“I know,” Meisa replies. “But I don’t think it’s all that.”
Maki is loath to agree, but it’s been far too nice an afternoon for her to attempt some sort of argument. Meisa is the same age as Maki but she seems infinitely more confident. The boys in the town like to trail after her when she runs errands for her parents, but she pays them no attention at all.
“Do you think Nino is handsome?”
Meisa is sharp like that. She asks all the questions that Maki has hardly dared to voice even to herself.
But Meisa is also kind, and when Maki casts around for an answer and cannot find one she changes the subject easily.
“You can make charms, can’t you?”
Maki nods.
“Show me?”
Rather gratefully, Maki pulls out the chocolate tin she uses to keep all her magicked trinkets. She won’t admit it but almost all of them are made for Nino - rings and chains and silver coins, all designed to keep him safe. He wears what she gives him dutifully. There are charms to keep him out of trouble (although he manages to rush headlong into it either way); charms to keep him from falling; charms to keep him from breaking too many bones even if he does fall.
Meisa tries on most of the things in Maki’s box. Her fingers are too slender for most of the rings, but she takes a fancy to a bracelet that is slightly too delicate for Nino.
“You can have it,” Maki tells Meisa. It looks good on her.
“This stuff is really well made,” Meisa says, and Maki knows that she’s not just saying that. Meisa claims to find lying an inconvenience. “You should sell some of these. They’re definitely worth something.”
And Maki is so flattered at this unexpected compliment that she finds herself unable to protest that she does this for Nino, not for money.
Nino has enough of her charms at the moment. She can always make more, after all.
-
“Should I pay you back for all these, then?” asks Nino, waving his rings in front of Maki’s face.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Kazu,” Maki snaps. “They were a gift. And they’ll continue being gifts.”
Nino is a man who holds almost all the town’s secrets, but seems wholly unburdened by them. Maki knows he deals with both the police and the agents of the King alike, taking no sides in any of the town’s numerous conflicts. Her readings of his fortune have always produced similarly ambivalent results; they change within the span of one day, one card contradicting the other.
“I’m not bothered,” Nino tells Maki, when she brings it up. “I won’t go as far as to claim that I make my own fortune, but I have led a charmed life.”
“Be careful anyway,” Maki warns, as she always does.
Nino grins. “You too, Maki-chan.”
-
Pi is leader of one of the gangs by the bay. He’s got dark eyes that remind Maki a little of Aiba, and when he smiles it is sheepish and slightly silly.
Maki is introduced to the whole lot of them through Meisa. They are mostly harmless but lead a fractious existence, with members breaking off from the group to form their own gangs, or defecting to another leader, even though they are essentially still sharing the same stretch of space. Their allegiance is officially to the King, but they are hardly worth his time.
“Could I pay you back in ramen?” Pi asks Maki cautiously, when she brings him his charm to ward against drowning and he realises that he has not the money to pay her.
“You should probably take it,” says Kato, whom Pi has introduced as being wiser than most but perhaps a little less valiant. “Otherwise he’ll clean forget and you’ll get nothing.”
Pi takes Maki out for ramen (he puts it on his tab at Koyama’s) and they talk about magic and mutual friends. He’s got a talent for fire, it turns out, but not one for scraping together enough magic for it.
“Ryo-chan’s the one who tracks it down, and Massu’s really good at diving for it as well, but most of the time we sell whatever we find,” he tells her. “I like the feeling of making fire, though. It makes my fingers tingle.”
He smiles at the thought of it, that sheepish, silly, slightly toothy smile on that lovely face of his. Maki thinks she could get used to it.
-
“Pi’s all right but he has no ambition,” says Meisa.
Meisa is full of ambition. She doesn’t care for the King but talks of joining him anyway. It’s part of the reason why she stays so close to Pi and the others down by the bay. Maki can see it happening - little by little, Meisa is making these gangs her gangs. In a matter of months she will have enough share of the territory to become one of the King’s subjects; maybe even one of the King’s Men.
“That’s good for you, isn’t it?” Maki replies. “And besides, most of them are besotted with you.” She’s not sure if Nishikido has actually managed to string together a full sentence in Meisa’s presence.
Meisa smiles. She is beautiful, more so than when they were girls. There is something in her gaze that calls to mind a wild creature, all fierce power and hunger.
But then Meisa turns to Maki and asks, “Do you think Pi is handsome?” and suddenly they are young again, eating meat buns by the bay.
Maki laughs. “Everyone thinks Pi is handsome.”
“Who do you think is more handsome?” They both know who Meisa is comparing him with.
“I don’t know,” says Maki. “Who do you think?”
“Handsome is one thing,” says Meisa. “Love is another. What do your cards say?”
“My cards say nothing of love,” Maki replies. “They speak only of crows, and a storm brewing.”
Meisa nods. “What do mine say?”
Maki reads Meisa’s cards and sees swords and chariots.
But in the recent months, everyone’s fortunes have pointed to war.
-
“This town is changing,” says Nino.
Maki has no particular talent for cleaning wounds, but she does have a steady hand. She is not especially gentle when she dabs at the gash on Nino’s left leg. He hisses in pain, but bears it anyway.
“This town has always been changing.”
“Yes, I know, but it’s changing rather too quickly for my liking.”
He has never come to her for help like this before. Then again, it has been years since Nino has been beaten in a scrap.
“I lost one of your rings again.” It is odd to hear him so subdued.
“Well,” says Maki, casting around for the bandages, “that can’t be helped.”
Nino doesn’t ask about Pi or Meisa, or about the fact that Maki’s been going to school again. It’s not his business, Maki supposes. Or perhaps he does not need to ask because he’s already heard.
Meisa is out again that evening, the nature of her business privy only to the King’s men. Nino lingers a little longer because of this, resting with his leg propped up on the coffee table and watching as Maki returns to her studies.
When the sky deepens from sunset grey to inky black, Nino tests his weight on his left leg and deems it all right.
Maki doesn’t get up when he pulls open the window to leave. “So you’ll be going, then?”
“You know you can look for me if you ever need anything,” Nino tells her.
Maki smiles. “If you tell me where to find you,” she says dryly. “I can never find you.”
Nino climbs up onto the windowsill and perches there like he’s done many times before.
“I’ll know if you’re looking.”
-
She convinces Tegoshi to help her gather the magic for her next charm.
“It’s for Pi, isn’t it?” he says with a little wink, and disappears off to look for it before Maki can reply.
He brings her a crow’s abandoned nest and the whisper of a child’s dream.
“These are potent ingredients,” says Maki, slightly awed.
Tegoshi beams. “I find only the best.”
Maki splits the magic into two charms: a ring for Nino, to replace the one he lost, and a heavier bangle. Perhaps she will give the second charm to Pi, like Tegoshi thinks she will. Then again, Meisa might have more use for it.
She does not need to decide who to give the bangle to, in the end. The day she completes the charm is the day they receive news that the King is dead.
The bangle burns, along with the magic that the others bring along. An adequate gift for the passing of a King.
Meisa swears to hunt down whoever sent the Vole, as do all of the King’s men. Maki swears nothing, but looks to her cards instead.
-
“Crows,” Maki tells Nino, but he only laughs.
“I’m surrounded by them,” Nino says.
Nino flies with a crow, but he is not one. Maki sometimes thinks that he may have forgotten this.
“Be careful,” she warns. He merely tells her to lie low.
-
It is only later that Maki realises the nature of the souvenir Nino has left her.
“Clever, isn’t it?” says Aiba, who appears to have come to visit in Nino’s stead. He examines the scribbled-on poker card with a mixture of amusement and fascination.
“I’m not letting him off the next time I see him,” Maki says heatedly. “Hiding me, of all things-”
Aiba slides the card back across the table to Maki. “It’s his way of keeping you safe.”
“I’m not some… item for safekeeping.”
Aiba cocks his head to one side. “I know.”
“I’m not sure if Nino does,” says Maki. All of a sudden she feels the vast divide of the five years that lie between her and Nino; five years and a multitude of spells and secrets.
Nino is not hers, but neither is he Aiba’s. He is neither a crow nor one of the King’s men. Maki has known him since she was eight years old but he has only grown to be more of a mystery.
“Keep him safe, Aiba-chan.”
“I’m working on it.”
-
The storm continues to brew. When Meisa returns, which is seldom, her bangles and bracelets jangle as she stalks through the house. It is an armour of magic that Maki has gifted her with over the years. Now Meisa needs it more than ever. The King’s men are at war - at war with whomever it was who sent the Vole. After that is done, they will battle each other for succession.
And then, Matsumoto calls the crows.
-
“It’s not over,” Nino says. “Far from it.”
They have found their way to the top of a building overlooking the bay. Out of habit, Nino is crouched dizzyingly close to the ledge.
“I think you’ve done enough for now,” Maki tells him.
Nino opens his mouth to contradict Maki, but thinks better of it. In that moment Maki thinks she glimpses something like fatigue in his expression.
“Maybe for now,” he concedes. “There’s still much to be done, though.”
“Well,” says Maki, “it’s not like you’re King.”
“You have a point.”
They are silent for a long while as they witness the sullen red swell and sinking of the sunset.
Maki turns to Nino. “Are you hungry, Kazu?”
Nino shrugs. “Not particularly, why?”
Maki pulls a sweet from Nino’s ear and hands it to him with a flourish.
“This might cheer you up.”
The End
Characters: Arashi, Horikita Maki, Kuroki Meisa, NEWS cameos
Rating: PG
Summary: Urban fantasy AU; overlaps with Storm Children. Nino is the sort of person who is easy to fall in love with, but difficult to love.
Word Count: 2,400~
A/N: This is for sinonymity, requested as a gift by tinyangl during the fandom fundraiser on arashi_on. Thank you for your generous donation, Kamika! I hope both you and sinonymity enjoy this. ♥ I am hugely grateful as always to g_esquared for being LIKE LIGHTNING.
a girl
It will be years later that Maki will look back and be able to admit that she may have been more than a little bit in love with Nino.
Nino is the sort of person who is easy to fall in love with, but difficult to love. He charms Maki the first time they meet, with his quick hands and quicker wit. This is years ago, when Nino is thirteen and grubby and still experimenting with trinkets and cheap tokens. He pulls a sweet from Maki’s ear - milk candy - and hands it to her with a flourish.
It is hardly a grand gesture - the sweet is likely to have been stolen - but Maki is in love. And when Nino doesn’t stop her from following him around after that, he unwittingly secures himself a lifetime of loyalty.
-
“Is it true,” asks Toma in reverent tones, “that Nino can fly?”
Maki shrugs. “You’ve seen him.”
With the arrival of Aiba comes the realisation that Nino is difficult to love simply because he never stays in one place. He vanishes off onto the roofs of the town to talk about whatever it is he and Aiba talk about. About magic and names, about crows and cards.
Maki’s love makes the natural progression into longing, and then she puts it away, not hidden or forgotten, but arranged to make way for other things.
She is a nine-year-old girl, after all, and there are great many things that clamour for her attention.
-
“Call me Kazu,” Nino tells her. “Nino is for business and favours. You’re a friend.”
He uses the word so easily. He means it, of course. Maki is a friend the same way that Aiba is a friend - close as siblings, someone to be treasured. Maki basks in the glow of this word. She hoards it like gold.
“You’re my friend too, Maki-chan,” says Aiba, beaming at Maki. His eyes are dark and glinting, like ravens’ eyes. “We’re all friends. You, Kazu and me.”
Maki returns his smile. “Of course.”
Aiba doesn’t tell Maki his first name. She thinks there may have been a time when she might have known it, either many years ago or maybe even in a dream. Sometimes she thinks she hears Nino say it, but it slips away from her every time she turns her attention to it.
-
“What’s so great about flying, anyway?” Meisa asks.
They are sitting by the bay eating the leftover meat buns from Meisa’s father’s street stall. It is freezing and Maki has forgotten her scarf, but the steaming hot buns more than make up for that.
“Flying’s nice,” Maki says between bites. “Nino flies.”
“I know,” Meisa replies. “But I don’t think it’s all that.”
Maki is loath to agree, but it’s been far too nice an afternoon for her to attempt some sort of argument. Meisa is the same age as Maki but she seems infinitely more confident. The boys in the town like to trail after her when she runs errands for her parents, but she pays them no attention at all.
“Do you think Nino is handsome?”
Meisa is sharp like that. She asks all the questions that Maki has hardly dared to voice even to herself.
But Meisa is also kind, and when Maki casts around for an answer and cannot find one she changes the subject easily.
“You can make charms, can’t you?”
Maki nods.
“Show me?”
Rather gratefully, Maki pulls out the chocolate tin she uses to keep all her magicked trinkets. She won’t admit it but almost all of them are made for Nino - rings and chains and silver coins, all designed to keep him safe. He wears what she gives him dutifully. There are charms to keep him out of trouble (although he manages to rush headlong into it either way); charms to keep him from falling; charms to keep him from breaking too many bones even if he does fall.
Meisa tries on most of the things in Maki’s box. Her fingers are too slender for most of the rings, but she takes a fancy to a bracelet that is slightly too delicate for Nino.
“You can have it,” Maki tells Meisa. It looks good on her.
“This stuff is really well made,” Meisa says, and Maki knows that she’s not just saying that. Meisa claims to find lying an inconvenience. “You should sell some of these. They’re definitely worth something.”
And Maki is so flattered at this unexpected compliment that she finds herself unable to protest that she does this for Nino, not for money.
Nino has enough of her charms at the moment. She can always make more, after all.
-
“Should I pay you back for all these, then?” asks Nino, waving his rings in front of Maki’s face.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Kazu,” Maki snaps. “They were a gift. And they’ll continue being gifts.”
Nino is a man who holds almost all the town’s secrets, but seems wholly unburdened by them. Maki knows he deals with both the police and the agents of the King alike, taking no sides in any of the town’s numerous conflicts. Her readings of his fortune have always produced similarly ambivalent results; they change within the span of one day, one card contradicting the other.
“I’m not bothered,” Nino tells Maki, when she brings it up. “I won’t go as far as to claim that I make my own fortune, but I have led a charmed life.”
“Be careful anyway,” Maki warns, as she always does.
Nino grins. “You too, Maki-chan.”
-
Pi is leader of one of the gangs by the bay. He’s got dark eyes that remind Maki a little of Aiba, and when he smiles it is sheepish and slightly silly.
Maki is introduced to the whole lot of them through Meisa. They are mostly harmless but lead a fractious existence, with members breaking off from the group to form their own gangs, or defecting to another leader, even though they are essentially still sharing the same stretch of space. Their allegiance is officially to the King, but they are hardly worth his time.
“Could I pay you back in ramen?” Pi asks Maki cautiously, when she brings him his charm to ward against drowning and he realises that he has not the money to pay her.
“You should probably take it,” says Kato, whom Pi has introduced as being wiser than most but perhaps a little less valiant. “Otherwise he’ll clean forget and you’ll get nothing.”
Pi takes Maki out for ramen (he puts it on his tab at Koyama’s) and they talk about magic and mutual friends. He’s got a talent for fire, it turns out, but not one for scraping together enough magic for it.
“Ryo-chan’s the one who tracks it down, and Massu’s really good at diving for it as well, but most of the time we sell whatever we find,” he tells her. “I like the feeling of making fire, though. It makes my fingers tingle.”
He smiles at the thought of it, that sheepish, silly, slightly toothy smile on that lovely face of his. Maki thinks she could get used to it.
-
“Pi’s all right but he has no ambition,” says Meisa.
Meisa is full of ambition. She doesn’t care for the King but talks of joining him anyway. It’s part of the reason why she stays so close to Pi and the others down by the bay. Maki can see it happening - little by little, Meisa is making these gangs her gangs. In a matter of months she will have enough share of the territory to become one of the King’s subjects; maybe even one of the King’s Men.
“That’s good for you, isn’t it?” Maki replies. “And besides, most of them are besotted with you.” She’s not sure if Nishikido has actually managed to string together a full sentence in Meisa’s presence.
Meisa smiles. She is beautiful, more so than when they were girls. There is something in her gaze that calls to mind a wild creature, all fierce power and hunger.
But then Meisa turns to Maki and asks, “Do you think Pi is handsome?” and suddenly they are young again, eating meat buns by the bay.
Maki laughs. “Everyone thinks Pi is handsome.”
“Who do you think is more handsome?” They both know who Meisa is comparing him with.
“I don’t know,” says Maki. “Who do you think?”
“Handsome is one thing,” says Meisa. “Love is another. What do your cards say?”
“My cards say nothing of love,” Maki replies. “They speak only of crows, and a storm brewing.”
Meisa nods. “What do mine say?”
Maki reads Meisa’s cards and sees swords and chariots.
But in the recent months, everyone’s fortunes have pointed to war.
-
“This town is changing,” says Nino.
Maki has no particular talent for cleaning wounds, but she does have a steady hand. She is not especially gentle when she dabs at the gash on Nino’s left leg. He hisses in pain, but bears it anyway.
“This town has always been changing.”
“Yes, I know, but it’s changing rather too quickly for my liking.”
He has never come to her for help like this before. Then again, it has been years since Nino has been beaten in a scrap.
“I lost one of your rings again.” It is odd to hear him so subdued.
“Well,” says Maki, casting around for the bandages, “that can’t be helped.”
Nino doesn’t ask about Pi or Meisa, or about the fact that Maki’s been going to school again. It’s not his business, Maki supposes. Or perhaps he does not need to ask because he’s already heard.
Meisa is out again that evening, the nature of her business privy only to the King’s men. Nino lingers a little longer because of this, resting with his leg propped up on the coffee table and watching as Maki returns to her studies.
When the sky deepens from sunset grey to inky black, Nino tests his weight on his left leg and deems it all right.
Maki doesn’t get up when he pulls open the window to leave. “So you’ll be going, then?”
“You know you can look for me if you ever need anything,” Nino tells her.
Maki smiles. “If you tell me where to find you,” she says dryly. “I can never find you.”
Nino climbs up onto the windowsill and perches there like he’s done many times before.
“I’ll know if you’re looking.”
-
She convinces Tegoshi to help her gather the magic for her next charm.
“It’s for Pi, isn’t it?” he says with a little wink, and disappears off to look for it before Maki can reply.
He brings her a crow’s abandoned nest and the whisper of a child’s dream.
“These are potent ingredients,” says Maki, slightly awed.
Tegoshi beams. “I find only the best.”
Maki splits the magic into two charms: a ring for Nino, to replace the one he lost, and a heavier bangle. Perhaps she will give the second charm to Pi, like Tegoshi thinks she will. Then again, Meisa might have more use for it.
She does not need to decide who to give the bangle to, in the end. The day she completes the charm is the day they receive news that the King is dead.
The bangle burns, along with the magic that the others bring along. An adequate gift for the passing of a King.
Meisa swears to hunt down whoever sent the Vole, as do all of the King’s men. Maki swears nothing, but looks to her cards instead.
-
“Crows,” Maki tells Nino, but he only laughs.
“I’m surrounded by them,” Nino says.
Nino flies with a crow, but he is not one. Maki sometimes thinks that he may have forgotten this.
“Be careful,” she warns. He merely tells her to lie low.
-
It is only later that Maki realises the nature of the souvenir Nino has left her.
“Clever, isn’t it?” says Aiba, who appears to have come to visit in Nino’s stead. He examines the scribbled-on poker card with a mixture of amusement and fascination.
“I’m not letting him off the next time I see him,” Maki says heatedly. “Hiding me, of all things-”
Aiba slides the card back across the table to Maki. “It’s his way of keeping you safe.”
“I’m not some… item for safekeeping.”
Aiba cocks his head to one side. “I know.”
“I’m not sure if Nino does,” says Maki. All of a sudden she feels the vast divide of the five years that lie between her and Nino; five years and a multitude of spells and secrets.
Nino is not hers, but neither is he Aiba’s. He is neither a crow nor one of the King’s men. Maki has known him since she was eight years old but he has only grown to be more of a mystery.
“Keep him safe, Aiba-chan.”
“I’m working on it.”
-
The storm continues to brew. When Meisa returns, which is seldom, her bangles and bracelets jangle as she stalks through the house. It is an armour of magic that Maki has gifted her with over the years. Now Meisa needs it more than ever. The King’s men are at war - at war with whomever it was who sent the Vole. After that is done, they will battle each other for succession.
And then, Matsumoto calls the crows.
-
“It’s not over,” Nino says. “Far from it.”
They have found their way to the top of a building overlooking the bay. Out of habit, Nino is crouched dizzyingly close to the ledge.
“I think you’ve done enough for now,” Maki tells him.
Nino opens his mouth to contradict Maki, but thinks better of it. In that moment Maki thinks she glimpses something like fatigue in his expression.
“Maybe for now,” he concedes. “There’s still much to be done, though.”
“Well,” says Maki, “it’s not like you’re King.”
“You have a point.”
They are silent for a long while as they witness the sullen red swell and sinking of the sunset.
Maki turns to Nino. “Are you hungry, Kazu?”
Nino shrugs. “Not particularly, why?”
Maki pulls a sweet from Nino’s ear and hands it to him with a flourish.
“This might cheer you up.”
The End