Quote:*eyes glaze over, nose starts bleeding*
That sort of situation also begets the question: 'How many licks?'
Okay, as I think I've said before, I've actually got three arcs in mind for this whole tale, and the first one? It's just about over. The next scene after this one will be the start of a new OAV...
"You look terrified," Mai told me a couple days later, with no small amusement.
"I am," I shot back. "This is about the third date I've been on in my life."
She blinked and shook her head, then reached down and started fishing around for something set by her room's entryway's shoerack. "Aren't you supposed to be older than me?"
"A little younger than Mido-er, Sugiura-sensei," I corrected myself.
"You can call her Midori-san, you know - we Japanese aren't that polite." She left off her fishing and started glancing around.
Ouch. She certainly had me pegged. "But on the other hand, I doubt it would have gone over well if I'd gone with the manners I was raised with, with your personal names from day one. If I have to make a mistake, 'courtesy' is the side I'd pick... What are you looking for?"
"My purse... I could have sworn I..."
"I hid it," Mikoto said, coming out of the bathroom. "I won't let him take you away, Mai!"
"You..." I shook my head, then told Mai, "I thought I saw something hanging under your balcony as I was walking up."
"Thanks!" she said, and left me with Mikoto.
I leaned against the doorframe and crossed my arms, just for something to do with them. "Ne, Mikoto-san, you spend a lot of time with the local cats, right?"
"...Yeah." She didn't stop glaring.
"Do any of them have to worry about the others stealing you?"
"Oh," she blinked, and went blank for the moment or so it took Mai to come back with the purse slung over her shoulder. I shot her a glance and a nod, then went back to watching Mikoto. Eventually, the shorter girl nodded fiercely, and grinned at us. "Okay! Have fun on your 'deeto', Mai!"
When we had gotten to street level and left the sword-wielding cat-monster behind, she sort of smiled and asked me amusedly, "What was that all about?"
Which, y'know, was sort of a hot-potato question for me, because it required delving into territory in which my attitudes were, frankly, more than a little wierd. "Oh boy. Er, okaayy..."
She laughed and danced around in front of me with a miscievious look that went very well indeed with her high-necked white top and off-the-shoulder overshirt. "Something embarrassing, then? You found something to bribe her with?"
"No, no, not that bad, just... I wasn't brought up in what anybody would call the 'standard way', and it's given me some pretty strange attitudes about certain things. The fact that I've had to, to rationalize them, to examine them and how they differ from the usual assumptions, has made it a bit easier for me to explain things to Mikoto, when she, um, misses the implied message."
She giggled, and swung back beside me again as we walked. "That's one way to put it. So what did you say?"
"Well... basically, I made the point that there was nothing stopping you from caring about more than one person at a time. Granted that I've never thought of 'romantic love' as anything but friendship with a dose of physical attraction added, but even if I'm wrong I've seen the principle applied there, too..."
That rocked her back a bit, naturally enough, and eventually she asked, "You're not very romantic, are you? Not believing in true love or anything like that..."
I stopped, and turned to look at her squarely. "You don't believe in best friends? 'Love' as friendship with lust in, friendship as family without blood... Marriage as fitting two stones together by sanding away the parts that don't fit each other, bit by bit... That seems far warmer, happier, saner than denying any caring for a person because they aren't 'the One', your one chance at happieness out of all the billions of people in the world..." Abruptly I realized that I had started ranting. "...and I'll just shut up now before I embarrass myself even more."
Mai laughed.
That seems as good a place as any to end it, and I've got no idea where to take that conversation next, so...
Ja, -n
===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"