Beautiful Stranger
A Seiya/Usagi alternate reality fanfiction
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Alright, chapter 9 is done! *gets pummeled with rotten vegetables from angry readers* Okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I’ll try not to take so long with the next chapter. But do keep reading, and send me lots of mail (drive_me_mercury@hotmail.com). It might convince me to get my butt in gear. Send me flames, too! Those are funny! Fic business: Looking back over the previous chapters, I saw I needed to make a few corrections: One, the bet should have been 5000 yen, not 50000! I realized the conversion added up to a bit much. Yes, they’re rich now, but… ^^;; Sorry, it’s going to be 5000. Second, I noticed in chapter 8 Yaten mentions a gondola. Gazebo is what it should be. I don’t know what I was thinking… a gondola is a boat. (I wonder if anyone even noticed) Anyway I hope you enjoy this next chapter. ^_^
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“Ha HAA! Take that!!! And that and that and THAT!!” I fired blast after crippling blast with my mounted laser cannon.
“Hey! Why you..!! Argh… You’ll die for that!!”
I fired another deadly round, skillfully dodging her return fire, diving and maneuvering around her as she chased after me. “Ha, ha, Odango… You’ll never catch me! You can’t defeat the power of the Force!!” I made another swift maneuver and moved in for the kill. One blast, and…
“Iiieeeaaa!!” she wailed as she plunged into a spiraling dive, her craft erupting in flames. “No! Unfair!!”
“Alright!” I did a little victory dance in my seat as WINNER – PLAYER ONE flashed across the screen. I had met Usagi after school, and we’d come straight to the carnival as per our date. Our first stop – the midway. “And that,” I stated, placing my hands behind my head, “is why they shouldn’t let little girls behind the controls of a Star Fighter.”
“Ah…” she glared at me. “But they should let little boys?”
“Of course. If you can’t win, don’t play the game.”
“I can play the game if I want to! I play video games all the time. You’re just a sore winner! As a matter of fact, I let you win this time.”
I laughed at that, tilting my head back. “Sure, whatever you say, Odango. And were you letting me win when you were crying in defeat? Iiieeeaaaaaa…!!” I imitated her high-pitched wail.
“Hey! Shut up!” I was giggling in fits of laughter, when her hand shoved my shoulder suddenly, and I found my self toppling off my stool and landing hard on the ground on my rear.
“Ow…! Hey! Damn, Odango… I think I have a rock permanently embedded in my butt now…” I said as I rubbed the sore spot. Feisty little thing, she was. But I suppose it was mostly my fault. Making fun of her probably wasn’t the best way to get her to like me. I don’t know why, but it just seemed to come natural to me, and she always reacted so easily. And why was I the one who ended up with the sore bottom?
“Daijoubu?” I looked up to see a hand stretched out to me.
I took her hand and stood up. “Yeah, thanks. You’re dangerous, you know.”
She turned away with a swish of pigtails. “What? A pretty girl like me?”
“Okay, I take it back. You’re just strange.”
She stuck out her little pink tongue at me before spotting a cotton candy stand across the way. “Oh look, look! Let’s get some!” She bounced over to the vendor’s stand ahead of me. “Two, please!” she told the man. “He’s paying.”
We walked around the carnival grounds with our two mounds of pink fluff, as she chatted about her family, her three best friends, and the tribulations of high school academics, and I made both of us laugh with embarrassing stories about Taiki and Yaten from our childhood. After the cotton candy was gone, we bought candy apples, then sodas, squid on sticks, popcorn – we consumed quite a bit of junk food, actually. I don’t know how, but somehow she convinced me to ride the merry-go-round (and I prayed no one would recognize me the whole time I sat on that blue aluminum pony). And so afterwards I convinced her to ride the roller coaster.
It must have been the combination of squid and cotton candy, or something, but all of it came up after the roller coaster ride. Rather embarrassing, especially when Odango wasn’t even complaining of an upset stomach.
“I’m okay, I’m okay, I tell you! I feel fine now, it was just the roller coaster.”
“Are you sure?” she pressed. “You don’t wanna go home?”
“Trust me, Odango, I’m really fine. I never get sick on the roller coaster; it must have been something in the food we had. But I feel great now – we can even go on it again if you want.”
“Hoo.. looks like Mr. Star Pilot champion can’t handle a little bit of air turbulence.”
“Hey, that’s sharp.”
She giggled.
“Like I said, we can ride it again-“
“No, no, I’d rather not.”
“You’re never going to let me live this down, are you?”
“Sure I will.” We walked past a row of food stands, and she got a malicious grin. “Want a soda and some squid?”
“That’s not funny!” I protested. Her laugh was infectious, though, and I couldn’t help joining in.
“Damn… and I needed to keep my cool image today.”
“That’s okay…you’re cute when you’re throwing up, Seiya!” she grinned. “Even if you’re not cool.”
“Then you admit I am cool, most of the time.”
“Nope, I still think you’re just rude.”
“Then why did you come here with me today?”
“Because I enjoyed myself last time.” That threw me off guard for a moment, since I was expecting some sarcastic answer.
“Oh… well, uh, I did too.”
She got a strange expression on her face and I wondered I’d said.
“Usagi-chan!” I turned to find the source of the voice and the person Odango had been looking at. She was a tall woman in her mid-twenties, I guessed, with long, long green-black hair, who carried an air of maturity and sophistication despite her jeans and T-shirt. A tall, dark man, about the same age, stood at her side. She approached us with a smile.
“Setsuna-san!” Odango said cheerfully, which made me wonder if I’d imagined the brief look on her face just moments ago.
“What a coincidence to meet you here,” Setsuna said. “But I would have expected to see with the other girls. They didn’t come today?”
“No, no… Mako-chan had a date, and Ami-chan said she needed to stay home and study. Rei-chan is working at the shrine, I guess. She didn’t really say. Ano… Setsuna-san, Mamoru-san, this is Seiya Kou.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I nodded.
“Setsuna,” the man said, “why would you ask where the other girls are, when it’s so obvious Odango Atama is on a date. Ne, Usagi-chan?”
Okay, I knew I wasn’t crazy. Odango’s cheeks flushed slightly at that statement, but it was more than that – something about the dark-haired man made her uncomfortable. I had been a little surprised when I heard him call her by “my” nickname (though it’s not like I had any claim to it or anything), and maybe that was what made her upset. Whatever it was, I found myself not liking him, and crossing my arms in a somewhat defensive pose.
“Pleased to meet you, Seiya-san,” Mamoru said. “Now, am I mistaken, or have I seen your face somewhere before? Aren’t you member of that band, Starlight…uh…”
“Three Lights,” I offered deadly.
Odango and Setsuna chatted for a few minutes more before we parted ways.
“What do you feel like doing now?” I asked the question before I realized she had fallen several steps behind me.
“….What is it?”
“Nothing.” She tried to hide it with a smile and a shrug, then dropped her head. “That was… that was Mamo-chan.”
Wait a minute. Back up. What was going on here? I was trying to put two and two together. Mamoru-san… Mamo-chan… “Your boyfriend?” Yet he had had that green-haired woman on his arm, and treated Odango like a baby sister or something. I was still confused.
“Yes…and no,” she said softly. “Um, Seiya – I haven’t really been honest with you.”
Alright. I wasn’t expecting this, but it couldn’t be any worse than…
“I don’t really have a boyfriend. When I told you that, it was a lie. I didn’t want you to think that I… I - I really don’t know. It felt good to say I had a boyfriend, someone who cares about me, someone I could give my love to, and he would protect and comfort me. Mamoru-san is just a friend I know. Well, he’s my aunt Setsuna’s friend. I know it’s stupid to think that he’ll ever look at me. He’s only interested in Setsuna-san, and looks at me like a little sister or something. I – I’ve never told him how I feel, I just keep hoping that maybe someday he’ll notice me, even if he probably never will. It’s childish, I know. But I liked… pretending to be his girlfriend… even if it was only with you.” She smiled slightly, chewing on her lip as I noticed water standing in her eyes.
So that was it. A secret crush?
“I’m sorry for lying to you, Seiya. Can you forgive me?”
“Hey, don’t apologize! It’s fine.” (If she only knew the lie I was telling her.) “And you know what I think?” I placed a hand on her shoulder. “If he’s too blind to notice what a wonderful person you are, he doesn’t deserve you anyway.”
She smiled and swiped her eyes. “Thanks.”
“So does this mean you’re single now?” I joked.
“Whaat? Um…I – “ she blushed suddenly.
“Well, geez, don’t act like it’s a proposal.”
We stood there a few minutes unsure what to do next, and the semi-awkward silence was getting to me. I looked over my shoulder suddenly. “Damn it! Paparazzi! Follow me, Odango. Run!” I snagged her wrist and dove into the crowd of people, dragging the bewildered girl behind me.
Squeezing and dodging through the crowd of people, we finally ducked beside a vendor’s stand. “What is it?” she queried.
“Shh. We can’t let them follow us.”
“Ah..okay.” She crouched down beside me. “I… I don’t see anyone.”
“Exactly.”
“What??”
“Shh… They’re tricky. I don’t think we lost them. Wait a sec… They’re coming this way. C’mon!” We dashed from our hiding place, freaking out the man at the stand who hadn’t seen us earlier. We wove between and behind booths and vendors, rides, and people, barely hearing the angry shouts directed at us when one of us occasionally bumped into someone or knocked something over. We were both laughing and breathing hard when we slid in between two trailers to hide again. I pulled Usagi next to me and motioned for her to be quiet as I peered around the corner, looking for our pursuers.
“Are they gone?” she whispered, almost in my ear. I was suddenly aware that I had my arm around her waist, her body pressed against my side in the narrow space. I could feel the rapid beat of her heart, and her breath tingling against my neck.
“Uh… yeah.” I slowly released her, even though we were still close in the small corridor.
“Seiya,” she whispered after a moment’s pause. “Who is ‘Papa Ratzi’?”
I blinked and stared at her for a second before I realized what she was talking about. Then I burst out laughing. “No, no - Paparazzi! Photographers.”
“Oh! I see, I get it! Whew! I thought we were being chased by the Italian mafia!”
“Odango, why would the Italian mafia be after me?” I laughed.
She burst into giggles again. “I don’t know, maybe you owe them money? Do you?”
I tugged at one of her pigtails. “You are blonde, aren’t you?”
“Hey, that’s not fair!” She snatched her hair back.
“You two! What are you doing in there?” An official looking man appeared in front of us and we both froze. “This area is off-limits.”
“Eh…We’re um, er… exterminators, sir! You see, there’s been a problem with rats lately.” I looked down at the ground around my feet. “Well, this area seems to be clear. No problem, then – sorry to disturb you!” We walked past the dumbfounded man and back into the main straightway of the carnival.
The rest of the day went too fast, though we enjoyed every minute of it. I led Odango over to the batting cages, determined to teach her how to hit a baseball, though I learned soon enough that that was a lost cause. But we had fun dodging the balls together that the machine threw at us. Then suddenly it was sunset and we were riding the bus home with the three prize teddy bears, two balloons, and miscellaneous other baggage we’d collected through the day.
Dusk was falling as we paused in front of the gate to her house. She spun to face me, smiling wide, bright blue eyes sparkling as they always did. “I had a great time, Seiya. Thank – oh.” Two of the three teddy bears she was trying to juggle in her arms slipped to the ground. “You keep this one,” she said. “I can’t carry them all – Here.”
“What do you know – he looks like Taiki. I bet he’ll appreciate that.” I grinned and tucked the red plush toy under my arm.
A silence fell between us, and I wasn’t sure now what to say. “Um… Goodnight… Odango.” And then without thinking I leaned toward her and brushed my lips lightly against hers. She blushed slightly as I pulled away.
I couldn’t believe what I’d just done. What the hell was wrong with me? Had I really just kissed her, a girl?!
“Goodnight, Seiya. Um… I’ll see you at school tomorrow,” she said softly.
I must have mumbled something in response, because she turned and walked up to her house. I turned back home as well, still wondering what on earth or in hell had possessed me to do that, even while the sensation of her soft lips touching mine nagged at me, no matter how much I tried to push it away. She’s a freakin’ girl, after all! You’re going to end up screwing with her mind, is that what you want? But it was only a kiss, and barely that. So why are you making such a big deal of it?
I reached
our apartment and fell on the couch after slamming the door behind me. I needed
to lay down. This was getting confusing. I was taking this boy band disguise
way too far.