Current mood:	hungry
Current music:	Chiisama Hoshi ga Oriru Toki--Kuribayashi Minami
Entry tags:	30_kisses, card captor sakura, fujitaka/nadeshiko

Fic: Sunday Afternoon
Title: Sunday Afternoon
Author: fairymage
Rating: G
Community: 30_kisses
Theme: #29-the sound of waves
Fandom: Card Captor Sakura
Pairing: Fujitaka/Nadeshiko

I discovered today that I really shouldn't have both Fujitaka/Nadeshiko and Touya/Yukito on 30_kisses. Oh well... the mods haven't said anything yet!



She lay back in bed, shifting against the pillows. The tape she’d borrowed from him played very, very softly, just barely loud enough to reach her ears as she closed her eyes and rolled over restlessly.

She was ready to return it, having nearly memorized all the songs on it over the last two weeks. It had been difficult, finding time to listen quietly on her own, when Sonomi or her grandfather or anyone else could have asked where she’d gotten such a strange tape from. But staying up late and waking early had been worth it, and she was quite certain her hearing had improved.

But it seemed so… condescending to return the loan without an offer of her own. Everything she liked to listen to she was sure he already knew about. After all, he could hear Japanese pop every time he turned on the radio or television. And he’d hinted that he was somewhat familiar with classical music.

No, music was not what she was looking for.

Footsteps pounded against the floor down the hallway—Sonomi could never be quiet. Quickly, she flipped over and hurried to turn off the music, her steps light as a moth. She was always very careful there should be no evidence, unless someone should check beneath her bed while she was gone. Shoving the cassette in its case beneath the bedskirt, she hopped nimbly back amongst her pillows and comforter.

“Do you want to go to the beach this weekend?” Sonomi asked, throwing herself onto Nadeshiko’s bed.

The beach! What a splendid idea! But… if Sonomi was going to be away for the weekend, it would be the perfect opportunity for her to see Kinomoto-san. “I don’t know…” she replied evasively. As it was, staying at home would arouse suspicion. “I have so much schoolwork to do…”

Sonomi brushed it off. “No need to worry. We’ll play during the day and in the evening we’ll help each other with the homework.”

Nadeshiko shook her head. “I just don’t know if I feel like it. I feel like staying at home and working… the beach, you, might be too distracting.” That might please Sonomi.

Her cousin frowned, but the roundabout compliment had worked its magic. “Well, okay, think about it, and just decide before we leave.”

Nadeshiko nodded eagerly, and Sonomi hefted herself off the bed. On an impulse, she leaned over and kissed her cousin’s forehead, then shyly hurried away.

But Nadeshiko barely noticed.

Rolling onto her stomach, she reached over to her bedstand and slid the slip of paper out from under a book, fingering the worn, soft paper with his phone number written so neatly on the back.

*****

“I thought you might like this back.” She held out the tape, smiling.

“Oh, no, it’s all right.” He stepped aside to admit her, closing the door behind her. “Are you finished with it?”

“Yes! It was rather interesting. Most of it I liked, but some of it just wasn’t to my taste.” She sat down in a chair and pulled her feet up underneath her.

“I thought as much. It’s a… well, I suppose it’s something of an acquired taste.”

Before a truly awkward silence could fall, she blurted out, “Would you like to… to… to go somewhere with me this weekend?”

She was entirely certain she was blushing, and his eyes were wide. Not shocked, and certainly not disgusted, just… surprised. She was rather surprised with herself. That certainly hadn’t been the way she’d wanted to ask the question.

“What did you have in mind?” he asked, regaining his composure quickly, much to her relief.

“Well, my cousin is going to the beach this weekend. And I was thinking about something I wanted you to hear—never mind. There’s a lake in the mountains where my family often vacations. It won’t take long to get there or back, so we could only go for a day. It’s very pretty… we could have a picnic.”

He smiled. “That sounds lovely. I do, in fact, own a car. It’s not nearly as nice as the one I’m sure you’re used to riding in—“

“Oh, please! Not that again!” But he was smiling a little, so she knew he was teasing, and she blushed at herself.

“But it’ll do. I can make plenty of food.”

“Let me buy it. The ingredients, at least,” she begged. “I can’t cook, you know, so I can’t even help much…”

“You can give me directions to get there. And you can come here, or pick another meeting place.”

“That isn’t…” fair, she thought, but there wasn’t much chance of changing his mind.

“Nonsense. I can’t have you paying. It would be quite rude of me.”

She bit her lip. “Can you pick me up at the park? The one two blocks east of here. That way it’s… well, it’s a little less noticeable, don’t you think? At ten o’clock Sunday.”

“Certainly.”

*****

“Here, turn up there.”

“Left or right?”

“Oh, left, I’m sorry.” They’d already gotten confused several times because of faulty or last-minute directions.

“Don’t worry about it.” And each time he reassured her that everything was all right, that every wrong street and wayward turn and all the backtracking was just part of the trip.

“See? There it is!”

He leaned forward a little, and smiled the smile she loved so. “It’s beautiful.”

They drove a little ways around the lake, then he pulled the car over and parked along the road. Together they hefted the picnic basket and blankets out of the backseat and made their way down to the lakeshore.

“This is so wonderful,” she sighed happily as she finished off another musubi.

“The food, or the lake?” he asked teasingly.

“Both.” She blushed a little, much to her embarrassment.

“Ah, the food is nothing. It’s very simple, really.”

“But it tastes very good, which is more important.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, eating quietly. It was only mid-afternoon; somewhere farther along the shore, they could hear children playing in the water and a dog barking. The sunlight, so radiant and warm, glinted off the rippling water. The birds chirped contentedly in the trees. Insects were largely absent. It was perfect, serene, and everything she had wanted to show him.

“Can you hear it?”

“What?” he asked, their eyes meeting.

“The lake.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, then smiled and nodded.

“Yes, I do.”

“That’s why I wanted to bring you here.”