[~] kaoruhana’s New Year’s 2015-2016 Challenge
Prompts: Day 11 - Gold
[~] kaoruhana’s New Year’s 2018-2019 Challenge
Prompts: Day 6 - Gold
[~] December Holiday Challenge 2018
Prompts: Day 16 - Cookies
--> As you can see, 'Gold' is a doubled prompt, but while i mark it here, gold is used multiple times throughout the fic.
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Now, fun fact, I actually started this with the (tentative) intent to enter it into the long past event: kaoruhana’s New Year’s 2015-2016 Challenge. In case you didn’t notice, I did not manage the deadline, nor the next New Year’s either. I was nine pages in and then got stuck, thus missing the deadline; wrote a lot more in the interim between New Year’s, but still only got a little over halfway finished :P With this upcoming New Year’s, kaoruhana’s brought back the challenge for New Year's 2018-2019 and a new set of words which I have tried to incorporate as well! There are also prompts for this year's December Holiday Challenge too! In the end I managed to do a good chunk of all three sets of prompts! Woo me!!
Considering all that, while this story isn’t exactly Christmas/New Year’s themed, it does lead up to New Year’s.
This story is written in short moments over a period of time; the moments have no set length, and due to that and needing to get it all posted in time I am going to combine several bits into a couple chapters. So this will only be 4 longer chapters instead of 17 short ones.
There is a drawing that goes along with this piece too!: [[ http://www.dokuga.com/gallery?func=detail&id=11324 ]]
Soooo, yup!! Enjoy! ^-^
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Kagome was just sort of…frozen.
Standing at the end of the aisle, waiting in line to checkout, and then there he was, probably the most attractive person she’d ever seen. He somehow didn’t even seem real, and yet he was just…there. A basket on his arm, a can of peaches in his hand, like your everyday, run of the mill shopper would be doing. Completely and utterly normal.
The line shifted and she sort of awkwardly sidestepped forward along with it, her eyes still glued to him.
She was quite certain she’d never seen him before. The area wasn’t too large, and though the place classified as a supermarket, it was actually a bit small in comparison to the ones in the city. Plus, Kagome frequented this place quite often. If he lived in the area, she would have seen him by now. So then, he must be new to town.
Again the line moved forward, and she shuffled with it.
Suddenly, he set down the item he’d been oddly staring at for several seconds and began to walk away. As he turned the corner, the flutter of his long white hair drifting out of sight, Kagome hadn’t realized she’d been edging to the side in an attempt to follow him with her mesmerized gaze until she nearly knocked down a small display beside her.
She groaned faintly as she bit her lip, feeling stupid and clumsy while she righted herself and made sure the display wasn’t in danger of falling over.
"Ma’am?"
Startled by the voice calling out to her, Kagome swiftly whirled around to face the cashier waiting to ring her up. She smiled sheepishly and stepped forward with her few items, really hoping she hadn’t kept the woman waiting more than a second; Kagome had done enough to embarrass herself already.
"Sorry about that," Kagome tittered softly, placing down her things, "I guess my mind was somewhere else."
The cashier had a small grin on her thin face and bobbed her head in response. However, it was fairly clear she didn’t appear to care one way or the other. In fact, Kagome wondered if the woman had even really heard what she’d said. Normally that would have put her off a bit, but considering the circumstance, Kagome was glad for the invisibility.
Today was just not her day.
---///o&o///---
Trudging through the automatic doors of the store, Kagome almost dragged her feet as she lethargically grabbed a basket and made a beeline for the candy section. She wanted so much chocolate today, maybe she’d even grab a box or three of cookies. It wouldn’t really make her body feel any better, but it would at least enhance her mood. Who cared if she was pigging out, anyway?
Lazily avoiding the occasional patron, Kagome grumbled inaudibly to herself.
Sango’s workouts were much too hard. After three months of her biweekly – plus weekends –, schedule of pain, Kagome would have thought she’d become at least marginally accustomed to the workload. But nope, she was never so lucky. The woman seemed to create a new torment each time, and had her going until she was practically passing out. Kagome couldn’t even remember anymore why she’d agreed to let Sango test her new training methods out on her. What possible use did she have for martial arts? The basic exercise was difficult enough, but she was reaching the point of prostrating herself just for a let up on the intensity of the rest.
As Kagome came to a stop before the beautiful spread of chocolates, she resigned herself to the obviously shameful truth; she was simply too nice. Though, in reality, it was because Kagome loved her friend. However her screaming muscles were busy begging to differ.
She was in the process of grabbing a large bag of mixed flavors – milk, dark, and caramel filled chocolates – when a flash of white swept into her periphery. In an almost kneejerk response, she swung her head to the side just in time to catch him, the new, unfairly gorgeous man, walking past the end of the aisle. Even though her feet urged her to move, and her eyes refused to shift away from the now empty area, Kagome couldn’t take a single step until she had at least two bags—and something else she didn’t even look at, but knew was chocolate—in her basket. The very instant Kagome felt their combined weight as they plopped unceremoniously within, she jolted forward.
Stopping at the end of the aisle, Kagome carefully peered around the corner; she probably looked like a complete moron, but she was too busy and too achy to care. Her focus was in blinders, and it took less than a second to spot him.
Now that she had more time, she allowed herself to better observe him. Of course she did realize how creepy she was being, but again, she let common sense slide and opted for staring at the stupidly pretty man from a distance like a shy twelve year old at recess.
He was tall, his physique wasn’t quite lean but she wouldn’t call him a bodybuilder by any means, and with his back half facing her she could see it wasn’t exactly broad, though neither was it slender. Kagome suspected he had a rather nice body under those surprisingly simple yet expensive looking clothes.
Her eyes were drawn to his arms where his sleeves were both neatly rolled almost to his elbows, and the exposed forearms were taunting her like some pale, sinuous, hypnotic beacon. She could see the muscle there; nothing over-the-top, but definitely prevalent, and it was just… well..really attractive for some reason. It was sort of weirding her out that she found merely his forearms so appealing when there was clearly much more of him there to admire.
Kagome rolled her eyes with a faint scoff at her thought. Honestly, what was she? A horny schoolgirl? This was ridiculous. She was being ridiculous.
However, just as she’d resigned herself to ending her foolish little venture, he moved. And, against all sane reason, she moved as well.
By the time it felt like she’d stalked him through half the store, Kagome simply had to force herself to a stop. It was clear. She’d gone mad. And Mr. Unfairly Gorgeous was definitely the culprit of her rapid downward spiral into insanity; seeing as Kagome was relatively sure she’d been mostly normal before she had ever laid eyes on him.
Spinning round on her heel and marching away from him and toward a register, Kagome hoped that utter nonsense was enough to keep her from groaning into a pillow all night for shamelessly stalking a stranger around the supermarket.
It wasn’t.
---///o&o///---
“Dammit!” she grumbled under her breath, “why are all of these expired?”
In her frustrated efforts to shove the yogurt back and simply get away from the source of her grief, Kagome rather abruptly ran into someone who’d been walking behind her.
Utterly embarrassed, she hastily turned around while blurting out an apology. “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry, I wasn—”
Kagome was quickly shut up, mortified upon seeing the person she’d run into, the man greeting her with a vaguely annoyed expression on his familiar pretty face.
While a part of her was focused on how much more attractive he was up close and face-to-face, the rest was feeling rather irked at the look he was giving her. It was as if she’d offended him somehow.
Without a word to her, he backed away just slightly, only enough to make a small space between them, and returned to his prior path before Kagome had completely accidentally bumped him.
She watched his back while he walked away, her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide as she gawked at him. When he turned the corner, her stupor rapidly sobered into a grimace. That was so rude! And really wasn’t fair at all. The whole stupid thing was a complete accident and Kagome had apologized immediately too! What was his problem?
Huffing irately, Kagome jerked her head away from the direction he’d left and angrily shoved some of the expired yogurt into her basket anyway.
He might be attractive, but he most certainly wasn’t courteous. She couldn’t believe she’d let herself waste any amount of thought on him. Frivolous daydreams and utter, childish nonsense.
---///o&o///---
Walking into the store with a light bounce to her step, her fingers instinctively reaching for the handle to a basket, Kagome’s pleasant soft humming came to an abrupt stop when her eyes happened to catch…his. That beautiful golden color which seemed to pierce through anyone unlucky enough to be caught in the gilded stare. Sure enough, standing not too far from her and the entrance, was the man who seemed to have begun plaguing her life.
Their shared gaze was unexpectedly intense, though it remained locked for hardly a second or two. In that time Kagome could swear that sharp gold glared at her just a little before turning away, his tall figure disappearing down an aisle.
That’s it. Now she was pissed.
That stupid accident had happened a little while ago and it was hardly anything to begin with! It was the sort of moment a person cast off with a wave of their hand, the kind some people didn’t even bother to notice beyond a half mumbled apology. Yet there he was, being…just… that. It was as though the man was condemning her for simply touching his person at all.
Narrowing her eyes as her lips twisted into a frown, Kagome stormed right back out of the store. Her intentions were completely forgotten in her irritation and her mood thoroughly soured for the rest of the day.
---///o&o///---
Okay. She could do this.
Kagome had spent a stupidly large amount of time thinking over everything that had happened since her first literal run-in with the man, and at last she’d come to a decision. She was going to confront him and ask what his problem was.
Staring at his stupidly attractive back draped by his equally stupidly pretty silver-white hair, Kagome sucked in a deep, palliative breath and marched her way up to him, anxious but determined to get some answers. And she’d told herself quite firmly that she wasn’t going to play around either, so common courtesy be damned.
Kagome came to a stop right beside him, purposely making sure she was noticed with her loud steps and over-the-top movements, and then just as purposely left hardly a foot of space between them.
“What is your problem?” she calmly demanded.
Rather than answer, he didn’t even bother to acknowledge her presence, let alone her words. In fact, he seemed to be ignoring her entirely; Kagome might as well have been invisible. Which was evident as he hardly shifted at all when he started to walk right past her.
Aghast and frustrated by his holier-than-thou attitude, she swiftly reached out and grabbed his arm to stop him. Thankfully, it did.
In the moment, he truly seemed surprised, though whether it was because Kagome had actually dared to touch him or because he really had believed her to be nonexistent and was shocked that the nothingness had grabbed him, she didn’t know. Either way, the expression didn’t linger long before another vaguely annoyed one overtook it, mirroring the one Kagome had first received from him.
Ignoring it, she demanded again, “what is your problem with me?” her tone more forceful this time.
Though Kagome had keenly wanted an answer, it was rather unexpected when he actually did.
“I have no problem.”
Just like the rest of him, his voice was unfairly attractive; even when marred with frustration the even timbre was smooth and lovely. God, he was so… unfair!
Frowning both at her own thoughts and his response, she faintly scoffed. “That is obviously a lie. Otherwise, why else would you glare at me when all I did was bump into you, once, by accident, and I even apologized immediately afterward!”
“I did no such thing,” he responded simply, his mien indifferent.
Further aggravated, Kagome blustered, “you most definitely did so!”
“I did not,” he countered just as coolly as before, “and I would appreciate it if you released my arm.”
Kagome jerked her head back in mild surprise at his request, then shifted her eyes to where she was very intently grasping his rather solid forearm. The very forearm she’d once gawked over.
Her cheeks grew warm as a blush darkened them in her embarrassment and Kagome hastily let go, moving to cross her arms tightly against her chest so she could hide her hands. But, although her flushed cheeks didn’t lessen much of their pinkened hue, her frustration still remained.
She wanted to say something, anything, but despite her continued aggravation with the man, Kagome found herself a little tongue-tied. And, unfortunately, in the interim of her attempt to form a sentence he had silently turned from her and walked away. Now that left her fuming a little, both at him for being so passive and totally lying, and at herself for letting her embarrassment get the better of her determination to get an answer.
With the moment gone, Kagome was forced to contemplate yet another encounter until the next time they met. And they were going to meet. She’d make sure of it.
---///o&o///---
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I wouldn't consider this piece my best, especially since i worked on it various times over a couple years. Still, it's a short (not technically, but the concept kinda is) and sweet fic so that doesn't really matter in the long run.
Hope you enjoyed, the next chapters are quickly on the way! Gotta get this all up before the new year!
Don’t forget!!
I ALWAYS have the statuses and information about any updates and/or progress of any of my stories on my profile in the ‘Main’ section. ^-^
~itsu