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Title: Smile
Author:
jedishampoo
Summary: Gonou meets Kanan again.
Rating: G?
Notes: For Saiyuki_Time on LJ, challenge 12: sight. Time taken: 14 mins
writing, 6 more for re-read and formatting. Prompt (besides sight) given to me
by
sharpeslass, who
told me the prompt (see summary), then shooed me to the computer and made
dinner. Don’t know how I like it, but this is what came out. That's the
challenge, right?
“I’m so happy we’ve found each other, Gonou!”
Kanan-maybe releases his hands and clasps hers at her chest. Gonou smiles back
at her, and it’s a small smile but it’s enough to satisfy her; he’s trying to
stall her outpouring of rabid happiness because he’s busy watching her and
trying to decide if this could possibly be his sister. If they could possibly
have had the same mother, the same father, if she’s the same girl he barely
remembers. He thinks he remembers her face when she was a child but it’s warped
by memory and his own loneliness; he’d spent so much time recreating her image
in his brain, aging it up, and this person doesn’t really look like what he’d
conjured.
“I also.” He can’t bring himself to call her Kanan; not just yet.
She definitely looks like she could be related to him, around the eyes
especially, eyes that he thinks are the same color as his (but he’d need to
stand next to her and look in a mirror to be sure). The curve of her brow and
cheekbone seems familiar, but it’s hard to decide for sure because her eyes are
narrowed and her cheeks puffed out with her insanely-happy-looking smile.
“I couldn’t believe it when the sisters brought the letter to me. Things have
been so… well. I don’t know that I was ready for life outside the orphanage! I
stayed happy but.. still, we have each other now, right?”
“Of course,” Gonou says, still unable to say her name.
The problem is, he can’t believe she’s his sister because she’s smiling so
widely it looks like her face is just expanding and expanding, skin stretched
tight over those semi-familiar cheekbones. The last time he’d seen his sister
they were so young, and she’d been crying and the skin of her face had been
mottled by tears, her mouth deformed by a great gaping wail.
He realizes that the smile is what’s disturbing him, making him so unsure. How
can they have been separated and raised alone, apart, and yet she looks like she
has always been a smiler? How can they have the same blood, a girl who’s stayed
happy and the man who never smiles?
Kanan-maybe lifts the cup of tea to her lips and sips at it, and Gonou wonders
how she can possibly drink that while her lips are turned up like that. Surely
she’ll dribble it down her chin? But she doesn’t; apparently she’s inherited the
family grace. He’s coming around to the possibility, and he doesn’t know how
it’s happened, but he’s hoping like crazy that this beautiful, smiling girl
really is the sister he’s longed for all these years.
“I’m so happy, Gonou” she says again, and flutters her hands like she can’t
decide whether or not to grab his fingers again or to drink more tea or lift her
hands in prayer or what. And as he watches, a glint of what he thinks might be
desperation appears in her eyes, and her smile starts to look rather manic.
On a whim, Gonou clasps her fingers in his to stop their flailing. She looks
relieved, and he is, too. Because now, he’s sure.
“I’m happy too, Kanan,” he says.
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