![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runicloreA Half-Truth
Author: Amber Michelle
Pairing: Lehran/Sanaki
Fandom: Fire Emblem 9-10
Theme: 28 - Wada Calcium CD3
Words: 2176
Rating: T
Warnings: save me from sentimentality.
Disclaimer: Fire Emblem is copyrighted by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. I'm not getting any money out of this, just satisfaction~
Notes: Modern AU. Why yes, there is more. LOTS MORE. I need a tag for it - something irreverent, beacuse I can't believe I just wrote this.
I blame![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
measuringlife, and you should too. >_>
......................................................
"Is his obsession with football new," Sanaki said while stood on her toes to nudge a blue pot of Noxema cleanser onto the top shelf of the medicine cabinet, "or was I just not paying attention when I visited your apartment all this time?"
Vitamins were lined up on the counter: her own, and four bottles with labels in Japanese - also from his mother, he said, as were the toothbrushes and the shampoo. She insisted. It was less to buy, and it meant he didn't have to find a similar brand here. Why not? She tried to read the katakana on one: wah-dah and she had a hard time with the second word until she realized what it was trying to say: Wada calcium. You don't need calcium supplements, she said, and he told her his mother refused to believe the food in America would nourish him properly.
How silly. The food wasn't any worse than in Japan. They lived by an ocean, shopped at the fish market at the wharf. What more could a person ask for?
"They have a pool going at the office, apparently." Sephiran leaned on the door frame, arms crossed. His cuffs were unbuttoned and his sleeves rolled up to the elbow. His long ponytail tangled at the ends, around the band. "But Zelgius and Ike were rivals in high school. I suppose it's not strange they'd bring it with them to the present."
She shook her head, settling back to the floor. All of their boxes were stacked in the living room now, because Zelgius spent his afternoon hauling them up the stairs, carrying furniture, and he even picked up take-out for them before he rushed off with Micaiah to watch the game. "I'm glad you don't care about sports." Sanaki bent over the box sitting on the toilet and chose a canister of shaving cream, eyeing the space left between the cleanser and a plastic box of razors. She'd already broken something today; she didn't want to stuff the cabinet full, only to open it later and have everything fall out again.
Sephiran limped over and took the canister from her hands. "Football puts me to sleep."
"So that's why it didn't work out?" Sanaki slapped his hand. "I told you--"
"Putting this away won't aggravate my injury," he said, looking down at her, lifting his eyebrow. He slid it onto the shelf without even stretching his arm. "Stop worrying. It wasn't your fault."
She sighed, pursing her lips, and looked away. Life would be a little easier if she were taller. The cabinet wasn't that high - just as the shelves in the kitchen weren't that high, but she needed a stool to store anything at the top. How did he get all of the 'tall' genes when she was the one growing up on milk from cows treated with steroids? But she liked leaning into him and resting her head on his chest; her head only just topped his shoulder, and when he put his arms around her, it was like being wrapped in a blanket. Sanaki placed a hand on his shirt a moment, playing with a button, letting him warm her fingers, and then reached into the box and grabbed the conditioner. It would have to go on the bottom--
"You've been at this for three hours." Sephiran took the bottle and dropped it back into the box. "The bed is made up." He turned her by the waist and pushed her out of the bathroom. She felt the uneven lurch in his step as he limped; the outside of the bandage on his heel was dotted faintly by red, darkened by dust so the weave stood out. He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled his foot up to adjust the gauze.
Sanaki picked a bit of styrofoam out of his hair and smoothed one side of it until she hit the band, watching her fingertips sink into the flawless black. It fanned on the blue comforter where he wasn't sitting on the ends, scratching the faux silk and slithering when he pulled it up, out from his neck to toss it back. She let it go and dropped onto the edge of the mattress, leaned back, squirming until only her knees hung over the edge. "I'd rather have it done, that's all." The ceiling was plain white plaster, not the crumbly texture she remembered from home. The light didn't cast any meaningful shadows or shapes. The window faced north, so it was dim, blue, diffuse. No curtains yet, but she had plans to tack a sheet up until they went shopping. She watched the fluttering leaves of a maple through the glass, upside-down. "We'll need the bathroom, and we'll have to cook."
His finger traced a circle on her knee. "It's clean. Everything important is put away."
Sanaki huffed and blew her bangs up. "That's such a male thing to say." He snorted, and she had to stretch her arm all the way to flick his shoulder with her fingers. "I remember the condition of that apartment you shared with Zelgius. Never again."
He laughed, and she felt his fingers slide up to the hem of her skirt, though he only rolled the edge, and she didn't think he meant anything by it. He was staring at the door when she lifted her head to look at him, twisting a loose ribbon over and over. It was an old sundress, red and white and plaid - something she would never wear past the front door unless everything else in the closet had mysteriously burned, worn today because it left her arms bare and cool - and because she liked making Sephiran look at her legs when she crossed a room.
They didn't have to worry about the sensibilities of others anymore; not when they were here at home, by themselves, the dissertation sleeping on his laptop at the bottom of a blue suitcase. He showed his appreciation of her choice in the kitchen-- and the dish broke, just slipped out of her hands to shatter on the white tiles, and he was idiot enough to carry her into the living room instead of doing something smart like jumping over the mess, leaving her on the counter, and digging around in a box for his house slippers.
Tanith would be appalled. She'd know the price of the dish, down to the half cent - though it was just plain white glass - and quote it because knowing the value of one's things was important. Mother would roll her eyes, ask if they disinfected it before putting the bandage on. Did they have hydrogen peroxide? Soap? Was it anti-bacterial?
Sephiran leaned back on his elbow, turned onto his stomach. "This is your first time away from home, isn't it?"
Sanaki stretched her arms above her head. "Unless you count a few summers in Japan."
"Where?"
She stretched her legs, pointed her toes. This was so much bigger than the bed she had at home. She'd never outgrown the single she had as a child. "There was an English immersion camp near Kyoto one year, but I don't remember the city." Sanaki squinted at the plain ceiling. "Another time we went to Osaka with my grandmother. I guess that's where our family is from - before the war, not after. She has all these stories about working at the shrine and stuff."
Sephiran folded his arms. "Did they leave because of the state mandates?"
"I don't know." Her grandmother still lived with them, but Sanaki had never thought to ask her. Asking questions meant being required to answer others, being told about 'fine young men' wanting to be introduced to her. It happened at least once a week. Grandmother met a nice young boy at the grocery store, thought Sanaki would be interested; she conversed with one at the library, and came home sure he was perfect for the family.
She still thought that way - in terms of family, rather than individual. She'd thought Sanaki should stay home until marriage, and had no idea what kind of roommate had allowed her granddaughter to move out of the house. One of Micaiah's friends is what they told her, and it was half-true.
"You miss your family." Sephiran stretched his arm over her, pulled himself over, until his face was close enough she couldn't look away at anything but his hair. "Who bought those dishes?"
Sanaki averted her eyes. Wrinkles creased his shoulder. "I'm tired of hearing I should get married. You'd think I was the one who grew up in Japan."
He leaned on his elbow, green eyes unwavering. "You know - I met Zelgius when I was assigned to his family for homestay in high school."
She pulled her arm free and pressed her fingers over the wrinkles. They sprang back. "How long have you been here? I thought--"
"Ever since then." Sephiran pulled her hand away. "I went home for a year each time I applied for a degree until the one I'm working on now." She flicked her gaze up automatically, but he spared her, playing with her hand instead - bending the fingers back, pressing it flat, kissing the blue web of veins on her wrist. "When I first arrived I unpacked everything I brought with me and read two books in English, which was still difficult for me then. I didn't speak to him for the first time until school started a week and a half later."
She watched his eyelashes shift and looked aside again when he turned back to her. "You missed your mother, then."
"Everyone." He pressed her hand onto the mattress. "I missed my grandfather, my cousins, I missed okayu for breakfast, and real homemade miso. My mother made everything from scratch, even that. Even tea, and flower tisanes, and coffee."
Sanaki rolled her eyes. "Does she bind your books for you too?"
He laughed. "Did your mother buy those dishes?"
She sighed, and thought he was too heavy, though he was barely leaning on her at all. "I can't make miso from scratch."
"She made me help. I hated it."
Sanaki flattened her lips, but the corners still curved against her will. "You poor thing."
Sephiran frowned, and told her exactly how much work it was, and how bad it smelled, and how heavy the containers were. She nodded and made all the right affirmative sounds in the right places, and snickered when he accused her of humoring him. They'd never talked much about his home, his family, and Sanaki assumed he heard about her own home when Micaiah went over to see Zelgius. They'd seemed to know each other well enough. For weeks after she first met Sephiran, she'd thought he liked her sister because of the way he talked about their conversations with her over coffee, and when Micaiah came home and mentioned him.
He's just trying to learn more about living here, her sister said. He's taking a class on Asian American history. Sanaki hadn't really believed her.
"I want you to make that soba dish you brought over for Micaiah's birthday last year." She let him press her fingers apart and weave their hands together, and his ponytail finally slithered over his shoulder to fan and curl over her chest. "As for miso, that paste you bought is fine. Everyone uses that. If you try to make it from scratch I'll have to sabotage your efforts."
She let herself smile, even laugh a little bit. She didn't know the first thing about doing that anyway. "My mom used to make that when we were kids. Usually just with leftovers, but for Micaiah, she did all the cutting and shaping by hand." The carrots were slivered with a knife, the daikon cut into flower shapes, the yam into leaves. With green soba it looked like a spring garden on a plate. "It took her forever."
"Make it for me." Sephiran kissed her cheek, her nose, her lips. "Just the way your mother did. I cleaned the kitchen."
She couldn't glare at him when he did that. "I told you not to."
"We can't cook in the living room." He kissed her again and again, until she stopped frowning. "Punish me later if you want to."
Sanaki straightened his collar and picked the button loose, hooking her fingers into his undershirt. They'd never get anything done if he kept making offers like that. "I think I will."
....................................................
Sanaki must have dated Naesala in high school to make her parents mad. :D
There will be S/Z modern AU too... eventually. WHY NOT, I mean.
So anyway, I don't like this one as much.
.
Author: Amber Michelle
Pairing: Lehran/Sanaki
Fandom: Fire Emblem 9-10
Theme: 28 - Wada Calcium CD3
Words: 2176
Rating: T
Warnings: save me from sentimentality.
Disclaimer: Fire Emblem is copyrighted by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. I'm not getting any money out of this, just satisfaction~
Notes: Modern AU. Why yes, there is more. LOTS MORE. I need a tag for it - something irreverent, beacuse I can't believe I just wrote this.
I blame
measuringlife, and you should too. >_>......................................................
"Is his obsession with football new," Sanaki said while stood on her toes to nudge a blue pot of Noxema cleanser onto the top shelf of the medicine cabinet, "or was I just not paying attention when I visited your apartment all this time?"
Vitamins were lined up on the counter: her own, and four bottles with labels in Japanese - also from his mother, he said, as were the toothbrushes and the shampoo. She insisted. It was less to buy, and it meant he didn't have to find a similar brand here. Why not? She tried to read the katakana on one: wah-dah and she had a hard time with the second word until she realized what it was trying to say: Wada calcium. You don't need calcium supplements, she said, and he told her his mother refused to believe the food in America would nourish him properly.
How silly. The food wasn't any worse than in Japan. They lived by an ocean, shopped at the fish market at the wharf. What more could a person ask for?
"They have a pool going at the office, apparently." Sephiran leaned on the door frame, arms crossed. His cuffs were unbuttoned and his sleeves rolled up to the elbow. His long ponytail tangled at the ends, around the band. "But Zelgius and Ike were rivals in high school. I suppose it's not strange they'd bring it with them to the present."
She shook her head, settling back to the floor. All of their boxes were stacked in the living room now, because Zelgius spent his afternoon hauling them up the stairs, carrying furniture, and he even picked up take-out for them before he rushed off with Micaiah to watch the game. "I'm glad you don't care about sports." Sanaki bent over the box sitting on the toilet and chose a canister of shaving cream, eyeing the space left between the cleanser and a plastic box of razors. She'd already broken something today; she didn't want to stuff the cabinet full, only to open it later and have everything fall out again.
Sephiran limped over and took the canister from her hands. "Football puts me to sleep."
"So that's why it didn't work out?" Sanaki slapped his hand. "I told you--"
"Putting this away won't aggravate my injury," he said, looking down at her, lifting his eyebrow. He slid it onto the shelf without even stretching his arm. "Stop worrying. It wasn't your fault."
She sighed, pursing her lips, and looked away. Life would be a little easier if she were taller. The cabinet wasn't that high - just as the shelves in the kitchen weren't that high, but she needed a stool to store anything at the top. How did he get all of the 'tall' genes when she was the one growing up on milk from cows treated with steroids? But she liked leaning into him and resting her head on his chest; her head only just topped his shoulder, and when he put his arms around her, it was like being wrapped in a blanket. Sanaki placed a hand on his shirt a moment, playing with a button, letting him warm her fingers, and then reached into the box and grabbed the conditioner. It would have to go on the bottom--
"You've been at this for three hours." Sephiran took the bottle and dropped it back into the box. "The bed is made up." He turned her by the waist and pushed her out of the bathroom. She felt the uneven lurch in his step as he limped; the outside of the bandage on his heel was dotted faintly by red, darkened by dust so the weave stood out. He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled his foot up to adjust the gauze.
Sanaki picked a bit of styrofoam out of his hair and smoothed one side of it until she hit the band, watching her fingertips sink into the flawless black. It fanned on the blue comforter where he wasn't sitting on the ends, scratching the faux silk and slithering when he pulled it up, out from his neck to toss it back. She let it go and dropped onto the edge of the mattress, leaned back, squirming until only her knees hung over the edge. "I'd rather have it done, that's all." The ceiling was plain white plaster, not the crumbly texture she remembered from home. The light didn't cast any meaningful shadows or shapes. The window faced north, so it was dim, blue, diffuse. No curtains yet, but she had plans to tack a sheet up until they went shopping. She watched the fluttering leaves of a maple through the glass, upside-down. "We'll need the bathroom, and we'll have to cook."
His finger traced a circle on her knee. "It's clean. Everything important is put away."
Sanaki huffed and blew her bangs up. "That's such a male thing to say." He snorted, and she had to stretch her arm all the way to flick his shoulder with her fingers. "I remember the condition of that apartment you shared with Zelgius. Never again."
He laughed, and she felt his fingers slide up to the hem of her skirt, though he only rolled the edge, and she didn't think he meant anything by it. He was staring at the door when she lifted her head to look at him, twisting a loose ribbon over and over. It was an old sundress, red and white and plaid - something she would never wear past the front door unless everything else in the closet had mysteriously burned, worn today because it left her arms bare and cool - and because she liked making Sephiran look at her legs when she crossed a room.
They didn't have to worry about the sensibilities of others anymore; not when they were here at home, by themselves, the dissertation sleeping on his laptop at the bottom of a blue suitcase. He showed his appreciation of her choice in the kitchen-- and the dish broke, just slipped out of her hands to shatter on the white tiles, and he was idiot enough to carry her into the living room instead of doing something smart like jumping over the mess, leaving her on the counter, and digging around in a box for his house slippers.
Tanith would be appalled. She'd know the price of the dish, down to the half cent - though it was just plain white glass - and quote it because knowing the value of one's things was important. Mother would roll her eyes, ask if they disinfected it before putting the bandage on. Did they have hydrogen peroxide? Soap? Was it anti-bacterial?
Sephiran leaned back on his elbow, turned onto his stomach. "This is your first time away from home, isn't it?"
Sanaki stretched her arms above her head. "Unless you count a few summers in Japan."
"Where?"
She stretched her legs, pointed her toes. This was so much bigger than the bed she had at home. She'd never outgrown the single she had as a child. "There was an English immersion camp near Kyoto one year, but I don't remember the city." Sanaki squinted at the plain ceiling. "Another time we went to Osaka with my grandmother. I guess that's where our family is from - before the war, not after. She has all these stories about working at the shrine and stuff."
Sephiran folded his arms. "Did they leave because of the state mandates?"
"I don't know." Her grandmother still lived with them, but Sanaki had never thought to ask her. Asking questions meant being required to answer others, being told about 'fine young men' wanting to be introduced to her. It happened at least once a week. Grandmother met a nice young boy at the grocery store, thought Sanaki would be interested; she conversed with one at the library, and came home sure he was perfect for the family.
She still thought that way - in terms of family, rather than individual. She'd thought Sanaki should stay home until marriage, and had no idea what kind of roommate had allowed her granddaughter to move out of the house. One of Micaiah's friends is what they told her, and it was half-true.
"You miss your family." Sephiran stretched his arm over her, pulled himself over, until his face was close enough she couldn't look away at anything but his hair. "Who bought those dishes?"
Sanaki averted her eyes. Wrinkles creased his shoulder. "I'm tired of hearing I should get married. You'd think I was the one who grew up in Japan."
He leaned on his elbow, green eyes unwavering. "You know - I met Zelgius when I was assigned to his family for homestay in high school."
She pulled her arm free and pressed her fingers over the wrinkles. They sprang back. "How long have you been here? I thought--"
"Ever since then." Sephiran pulled her hand away. "I went home for a year each time I applied for a degree until the one I'm working on now." She flicked her gaze up automatically, but he spared her, playing with her hand instead - bending the fingers back, pressing it flat, kissing the blue web of veins on her wrist. "When I first arrived I unpacked everything I brought with me and read two books in English, which was still difficult for me then. I didn't speak to him for the first time until school started a week and a half later."
She watched his eyelashes shift and looked aside again when he turned back to her. "You missed your mother, then."
"Everyone." He pressed her hand onto the mattress. "I missed my grandfather, my cousins, I missed okayu for breakfast, and real homemade miso. My mother made everything from scratch, even that. Even tea, and flower tisanes, and coffee."
Sanaki rolled her eyes. "Does she bind your books for you too?"
He laughed. "Did your mother buy those dishes?"
She sighed, and thought he was too heavy, though he was barely leaning on her at all. "I can't make miso from scratch."
"She made me help. I hated it."
Sanaki flattened her lips, but the corners still curved against her will. "You poor thing."
Sephiran frowned, and told her exactly how much work it was, and how bad it smelled, and how heavy the containers were. She nodded and made all the right affirmative sounds in the right places, and snickered when he accused her of humoring him. They'd never talked much about his home, his family, and Sanaki assumed he heard about her own home when Micaiah went over to see Zelgius. They'd seemed to know each other well enough. For weeks after she first met Sephiran, she'd thought he liked her sister because of the way he talked about their conversations with her over coffee, and when Micaiah came home and mentioned him.
He's just trying to learn more about living here, her sister said. He's taking a class on Asian American history. Sanaki hadn't really believed her.
"I want you to make that soba dish you brought over for Micaiah's birthday last year." She let him press her fingers apart and weave their hands together, and his ponytail finally slithered over his shoulder to fan and curl over her chest. "As for miso, that paste you bought is fine. Everyone uses that. If you try to make it from scratch I'll have to sabotage your efforts."
She let herself smile, even laugh a little bit. She didn't know the first thing about doing that anyway. "My mom used to make that when we were kids. Usually just with leftovers, but for Micaiah, she did all the cutting and shaping by hand." The carrots were slivered with a knife, the daikon cut into flower shapes, the yam into leaves. With green soba it looked like a spring garden on a plate. "It took her forever."
"Make it for me." Sephiran kissed her cheek, her nose, her lips. "Just the way your mother did. I cleaned the kitchen."
She couldn't glare at him when he did that. "I told you not to."
"We can't cook in the living room." He kissed her again and again, until she stopped frowning. "Punish me later if you want to."
Sanaki straightened his collar and picked the button loose, hooking her fingers into his undershirt. They'd never get anything done if he kept making offers like that. "I think I will."
....................................................
Sanaki must have dated Naesala in high school to make her parents mad. :D
There will be S/Z modern AU too... eventually. WHY NOT, I mean.
So anyway, I don't like this one as much.
.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-04-20 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-21 02:15 am (UTC)whorecheerleader.Thank you. XD
And I was kind of thinking that. XD
no subject
Date: 2009-04-21 12:41 pm (UTC)S/Z AU? *approves* Eee. :D
no subject
Date: 2009-04-21 07:11 pm (UTC)OH yes, I can't abandon the S/Z possibilities either~~~
no subject
Date: 2009-04-23 11:44 am (UTC)This is cute~! It makes me wonder who else will end up together in passing. Zelgius/Micaiah? Sothe/Micaiah? Pelleas/Micaiah? Football/Micaiah?
I like the details you kept in -- leave it to you to describe Japanese culture well. It was a lot of fun to do for you, eh, eh?
The fact that Sephiran/Zelgius didn't work makes me sad somehow XD I hope they parted amicably at the very least! (the fact that he didn't comment when Sanaki mentioned it made me almost believe they were ACTUAALLY STILL SECRETLY DATED!11)
no subject
Date: 2009-04-23 04:40 pm (UTC)Well, Sephiran's mother is a bit unusual, and a bit of a... control freak? :D But there are still households around fermenting their own miso and that kind of thing, probably more in the rural areas. And in general it's just a sign of expertise to blend your own tea leaves because supposedly you know what you're doing. Like being a connoisseur of incense or something, being able to scent all of the notes that make it up.
Sephiran and Zelgius stayed roommates until Sanaki needed one. :D It's just that they got involved with other people, and meanwhile were friends with benefits. I'm leaning toward Zelgius/Micaiah, but they could just be friends. The only one I'm fanatic about is my OTP~
Also, Zelgius probably feels him up sometimes. Or all the time. Sanaki just rolls her eyes and says please, not while I'm in the room.