Banany's fic journal

Title: Voices (Part 1/?)
Pairings: Koyama/Shige, Tegoshi/Masuda
Word count: 5,649
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Following an accident, four of the members of NEWS are left comas in hospital. Upon awakening, their memories of being themselves have been replaced with ones of being other people, from another life.



You don't know where you are, but you think it could be a hotel room.
Through the window you can see towering buildings and signs covered in a foreign language. No matter how you strain your eyes, there's no Japanese in sight so perhaps, although you don't recall a plane trip, you've gone abroad. For some reason you aren't worried by any of this, and continue to gaze out the window, taking in the shape and sweep of the scenery.

Everything seems as if it's been painted with watery orange and yellow, so you guess that it's sunset. But although it must be, you can't hear any crows; just the swish of tyres and the occasional hoot of car horns floating up from stories and stories below. You're so used to hearing crows during the evening that it seems strange not to. There's one that sits outside your window at home and caws for hours, singing you your evening music. But this isn't Japan, isn't your home, and maybe being able to hear them would be even stranger than their absence.

Night time sets in slowly, and everything outside lights up. The orange-covered canvas has been taken away, replaced with dark, inky blue, splattered with bright neon and streaks of white and yellow. It's a lovely sight, the sort you've seen countless times before, but doesn't stop being pretty; a man-made beauty.

Eventually you realize that you're waiting. It feels like you're waiting for someone, but you aren't sure who or why. You still don't know where you are, but you don't ask questions, and continue to wait, because perhaps the answers will come by themselves. You sit down on the bed, although you didn't tell your feet to move, because you're tired of standing; the covers and sheets are both soft and stiff to the touch. Gentleness from the cotton mixed with the crispness of hotels.

It's as you're settling in that the door opens.
There's a man standing there, whom you don't know. You've never seen him before even once. Yet somehow you have.
'Who are you?' You try to ask, but what comes out is, "What took you so long?"
The man grins, holds up a bag, steps toward you. You don't feel scared, although you know you probably should be, because a stranger has just entered your hotel room, and you can't control your own voice.

"If you didn't want to be left behind, you could have just come with us, you know."
You try to ask who 'us' is, but it seems as if you already know because, again, the words on your tongue aren't your own, "I thought you said you were only going to look in one store down the street? That was hours ago."
The man laughs and sets his bag on the bed, next you, "Don't sound so mad. What am I, your girlfriend?"
The sentence seems familiar to you, and you chuckle in the way that you're meant to at an inside joke as you go to look through what he's bought. You don't ask permission, because you know him fairly well, although you don't know him at all.

The bag is filled with souvenirs from the store he said he was going to, and jewellery from somewhere he didn't.
"Maybe you're Tegoshi's girlfriend," You say, "If you're dragging him around to buy stuff like this." You hold up a ring from the bag, and the man snatches it away, slips it onto his finger.

You wonder who Tegoshi is. You wonder how you already know.
"It looks nice, right?" It's fat and silver, with a design too intricate to be tasteful; the kind that looks much better on than off, and somehow it suits this guy. He admires it for a moment, before looking up at you again with a smile, and fishing a necklace out of the bag.

"Maybe you're the one who's my girlfriend, since I bought this for you." He holds it out. You feel as though you should say thank you, but for some reason you don't. "Do you like it?" He asks, "If you don't, Tegoshi wants me to give it to him. But I think it's really more your style than his."

You laugh, take it from his hand, and your fingers brush together, lingering for slightly too long as they do. Your mind panics but your body doesn't, because when you pull the hand holding the necklace away, it's steady, calm, unhurried.
"I like it." You say and try to put it on, but you can't work the clasp from behind your back. The man takes it back from you.

"Let me do it, Shige." He says. You don't know who Shige is, but he's talking to you, and you do as he asks. His fingers slide against your neck as he does the clasp up, and you want to tense at the touch, but your body won't let you. Once he's done, you look into the mirror. It's definitely you staring back. The face is yours, even if the hairstyle is different, and the necklace does suit you well. It certainly looks better on you than it would on Tegoshi. You don't know what Tegoshi looks like.
The man on your bed is waiting patiently for your opinion.
You turn to him and nod.
"Thanks, Koyama." You say. "It looks good."

~*~*~*~

Kadou Seisuke was sure that he'd never known anyone by the name Koyama Keiichiro.
During the day he was occupied with the worries of a normal university student - studying, trying to find enough free time to go shopping, spending time with his girlfriend - so he didn't worry about it much. But sometimes Seisuke awoke during the night with a jolt, the name 'Shige' ringing in his ears, the name 'Koyama' on his tongue, and a dream he couldn't quite recall fading from his mind.

He'd only brought the matter up once, only with his mother, when he'd asked if the name Koyama Keiichiro rang any bells for her. She'd shaken her head and asked why, so Seisuke hadn't pursued it any further. Still, sometimes during the seconds between sleep and consciousness, he could make out a face with a gentle smile, a face with slightly narrow eyes. And in those brief moments he could recall a feeling of comfort, of hands on his shoulders, the sound of boyish laughter... More than a dream, it felt like a half-forgotten memory.

Koyama...
Koyama. It was a name he'd been haunted by for years now, and it seemed that the more time passed, the more frequently it bothered him. There were other names and othr faces, but none of them were as prominent, and he never remembered them once the day wore on. Unlike them, 'Koyama' stayed with him.

Over the past few months, it had been happening to him while he was awake as well. It didn't matter what he was doing; it could be feeding his dog, complaining about his cat allergy, talking on the phone, when suddenly it was like he wasn't himself anymore. Like he was having a flashback about something that had never happened. It was starting to frighten him a little, but the thought of going to see a psychiatrist and being told that he had a mental problem was even more terrifying. He could live with this, he thought, no matter what it was. Suffering from the occasional hallucination - because that's what they were, right? - every once in a while was something he could stand. Knowing there was something wrong with him... Seisuke didn't think he could handle that.

Other than this, there was little wrong with his life; he had supportive parents, his mother often doted on him, and he was extremely intelligent. He had little self confidence despite this, but plenty of girls found his shyness endearing. It helped that he had a pretty face as well, and so finding a girlfriend was never an issue; they usually found him. He had a few friends, nice ones, though not many, since being social wasn't his strong point. Sometimes he got lonely. Sometimes, but not too often.

If he did, his girlfriend Mika was only too happy to inundate him with cute mails; since Seisuke was aiming for a scholarship to study overseas, he had to work hard and this often meant that he and Mika didn't get to see one another as much as they'd like. He'd lost girlfriends in the past for the same reason, and sometimes he worried it'd only be a matter of time before the same thing happened again.

They were going out today though, since it was Sunday, probably just to eat and go shopping. He waited in the same spot as always; near the bus stop in town where Mika would get off, about a hundred metres from the train station. He occupied himself with watching the customers in the little sweet store to his left through a large glass window. If he squinted a little, he could see the cakes on display as well. At the moment, there was a young mother in there with two little girls, one eating a cake, one eating a sundae. He was still watching when Mika arrived, and didn't notice her until she'd snuck up on him and grabbed his shoulders.

She just laughed at his unimpressed face, completely ignored his attempt to be displeased and asked if he liked her new skirt. He said no to annoy her, even though he actually did. She pretended to get upset, even though she actually wasn't.

"What do you want to do first?" Mika asked, once their game was over. Seisuke shrugged. He always worried that other people would be displeased with his choice, and Mika usually ended up choosing instead. Today, she took his arm and dragged him off into the sweet shop to get something to eat. The mother and her children were just leaving as they entered, and neither group paid attention to the other.
The rest of the day was filled with idle chat and shopping, and then an ice cream because Mika was starting to feel hungry again. They were on the way back to the bus stop when she grabbed his arm and pointed towards an arcade.

"Sei-chan, let's go and take some purikura."
"Ah." In Seisuke speak, that meant yes, but he didn't want to seem too excited about going to take photo stickers in front of his girlfriend. That wasn't particularly cool. However, in secret, he really liked taking them. He liked posing for the camera, making silly faces. There was something nostalgic about it, something he couldn't quite put his finger on, so he pretended to let Mika persuade him, acting like he was doing her the biggest favour in the world.

He walked towards the arcade with Koyama, bumping shoulders as they giggled about something one of them had said. He wasn't sure what, exactly.
"Aah!" Once they'd drawn closer, Koyama let out an indignant squawk. "Shige, it's another no boys only one." He glared at the arcade in a way that probably passed for menacing in Koyama world. It paid him no attention, continuing to radiate tinkly, mechanical music and an atmosphere of cheeriness.
Purikura booths where boys weren't allowed to enter unless there was at least one girl with them seemed to be increasing recently, and so finding one where they could take pictures together was starting to become a pain.

"You could try posing as a girl." Seisuke heard himself say, and he could feel a smile painted on his lips "If you're that desperate."
Koyama gave him a pained look that suggested he'd been insulted.
"Shige-chan's the one who looks like a girl." He protested, and jabbed Seisuke in the shoulder, not hard enough to hurt. "So you should try posing as one."
Seisuke laughed, even though he hadn't meant to.

"I do not. You've seen me dressed as one. You know I make a painfully ugly woman."
"No you don't." Koyama jibed back as they walked away from the arcade, "You make a totally cute girl. Cute, cute, cute girl Shige."
Seisuke heard himself laughing again, "You're a freak, Koyama. There's something wrong with your brain."

"Aah, Sei-chan, look at your face there! You look totally blank." Mika elbowed him in the ribs, "You're not even looking at the camera, and there I am, I'm smiling like that."
"Eh?" He blinked a few times, trying to clear his head, and looked at the shot in question. It really was kind of stupid; he had a vacant look in his eyes and his mouth was open slightly too wide. The juxtaposition with Mika's beaming smile was pretty extreme. It made him grin, "We should use that one. It's kinda funny."
They did in the end; Mika put a pretty border on it and wrote 'What are you looking at~~~?' down the side. He let her decorate the other ones too; he wasn't very good at that part.

"I'll cut them up tonight and give you yours on Wednesday." She assured him as they walked back to the bus stop. Seisuke nodded, scuffing the pavement with his shoe as they went. A couple of people on bicycles rode past them and the traffic rumbled by.
"Oh. Sei-chan. Could you lend me some money for the bus? I don't have enough to get home." Mika was double-checking her wallet as she spoke, displeasure showing itself on her face in a grimace. "Just 150 yen. I'll pay you back soon."

"If it's only 150, you don't need to worry about it." Seisuke slid the strap of his bag off his shoulder and opened it. He stuck his hand inside, feeling around until his fingertips came into contact with cold metal, then offered Mika a handful of coins. It was as she was picking through them to find the right change that someone pushed harshly against Seisuke's back, and he stumbled forward, losing his balance and starting to fall towards the ground. It was chance enough for the person behind him to grab the bag hanging carelessly from his left arm, and they took off across the street with it at great speed.

Seisuke didn't think before he reacted. He didn't have time to realize that running across a busy road after a bag snatcher was a bad idea. He didn't have time to see the truck; only time to feel the movement of it closing in on him before it knocked the life clean out of his body. He was dead before he'd even realized he was going to die.

At the same moment the driver hit his breaks, Kadou Seisuke woke up in a hospital room reserved for the treatment of a boy named Kato Shigeaki.
The moment his eyes opened, he started to scream.

~*~*~*~*~

It was white.
A white and foreign land, and his body felt light and unnatural. He was dead. Stone dead. He'd died, but he could still scream, louder and louder, and there were strange noises, and then his voice gave out.
He lay still, save for his frantic breathing.

Bed.

He was in a bed. It wasn't his bed, but it was a bed. His heart kept racing, but the panic slowly subsided, slowly, slowly, until he realized there were people around him, looking at him, speaking frantically with one another. Someone was talking at him, but he couldn't listen to them yet. He needed to breath. His heart was beating. He was breathing, and his heart was beating and there was blood pumping through his body, pounding in his ears. And he was alive.

Slowly his surroundings were beginning to make sense. These people were doctors. Nurses. There were machines, beeping, humming, making mechanical noises. One was monitoring his heartbeat. He didn't know what the rest were for. One of the doctors tried to talk to him again, but the words being formed by his mouth didn't seem to hold any meaning, make any sense. He didn't need them to talk to him anyway. He could figure this out on his own.

He was in hospital; it was easy to tell from the people and the machinery. From the aspirin-white walls and floors, to the pungent smell of antiseptic. He could tell. He knew.
He'd put that jigsaw together all by himself; he could put the next one together too, figure out why he was here. He didn't need anyone to hand him the right pieces.
~*~*~*~*~

Mashita Takaharu was a well-liked, 20-year-old boy with aspirations of becoming a chef. After graduating high school, he'd left his home in Okinawa to come to a cooking school in Tokyo. Currently he rented a room, big enough for only one person, on the twelfth floor of an apartment complex. To make up for living alone, he often went out with friends when he didn't have work or school; pretty much everyone liked him, and pretty much everyone agreed he seemed much younger than he actually was: he was always sporting a smile, and his cheeks were slightly chubby, giving him a boyish look that deducted at least a good three years from his appearance.

For Mashita, since he'd moved to Tokyo, every day had seemed somewhat like a repeat of the last. Get up, have breakfast, brush his teeth, go to school, go to his part time job, come home, watch television, have dinner, bathe, go to bed. That's not to say he minded though; he was used to going with the flow. He had never been the type to complain, after all. That's why, as he was walking on his usual route home, finding a girl on a bench near the mall, sobbing into her hands was a big surprise for him; something out of the ordinary.

She was dressed very prettily, he thought, although her hair was a little unkempt. It seemed funny to him that someone like her would be sitting alone during the evening, crying into her hands. He watched her for a while, but there was no one around, and no one stopped to help her.
The only movements she made were when her shoulders shook a bit. She wasn't going anywhere. And no one was coming for her.

Of course, it wouldn't be like Mashita to tell himself it would be okay to leave her alone, forget about her. One time when he'd been 15, he'd come across a little boy crying over an ice cream that he'd obviously dropped. Mashita had promptly bought him a new one. He had always been soft-hearted, certainly never the type to leave a person in distress on their lonesome. His conscience would never be clear if he left the girl by herself.

She'd been wearing make-up, he noted, when she lifted her face from her hands to look at him as he approached her. It had trailed down her face and sat in ugly blotches on her cheeks and hands.
"I'm sorry." She said, and her voice was so thick with tears that it was difficult to understand. "I'm sorry, I should go home, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."

"What's wrong?" Mashita asked gently. The girl hiccupped and drew in a long, shuddery breath, but didn't reply. He didn't force her to, choosing to wait until she felt she was ready to say something instead. It was as she was trying to straighten her hair that he noticed the goose bumps on her skin, and how the evening air had become cold.

"Let's go somewhere warm." He suggested, and handed her his jacket. She took it from him, slipped it on without even realizing what she was doing, then took the hand he offered her. He turned in the direction of the mall, and she followed numbly, not in the right frame of mind to realize that going somewhere with a stranger could be a bad idea. It made Mashita glad that he was the one who'd found her. If it had been someone else, someone wishing to provide her with more than just help...
At any rate, he was glad he'd done the right thing.

He took her to a fast-food restaurant; bright lights and happy music to contrast with her tears and makeup stained face. They secured a booth in the corner of the room, where he sat her down before he went to buy something.
"Are you hungry or thirsty?" He asked. The girl stared at the table in front of her. Although it had been wiped recently, there was a sticky pink stain in the middle, probably left over from a soft drink. For some reason, she couldn't take her eyes off it.

"No. Thank you." She replied, and Mashita nodded, patted her on the shoulder, then he went to order for himself.
He smiled wide and cheery at the woman behind the till as he ordered a burger and fries. With the evening rush of people clogging the restaurant, too tired or busy to make their own dinner, it took a while before he was served. He tapped his foot in time with the generic pop song playing over some invisible speakers while he waited, occasionally glancing over in the direction of the booth where he'd left the girl. He couldn't see her from all the way over by the counter, but it didn't stop him from trying.

She seemed more composed by the time he returned, but whether she felt that way was another story. He slipped into the seat beside her, rather than the one opposite, hoping that human warmth could give her comfort.
"I'm Mashita Takaharu." He said, realizing his introduction was late. But, he decided, exchanging names any earlier would have seemed oddly inappropriate. "It's nice to meet you."
Speaking formally felt strange. Nothing about the situation was formal at all. Neither Mashita with his tray of fast food, nor the girl with her mascara tears, nor the setting itself.

"Mika." She replied softly and simply, not giving more information than that. Mashita didn't push her for a last name. Instead, he nudged the paper napkins on the tray towards her, his smile undemanding and encouraging.
"Here." He said. "Use these."

She would need soap and water later to clean up properly, but this would do for the time being. Mashita began to eat as she rubbed her face raw with the napkins, seemingly unworried by the lack of conversation. He was gentle and calming and perfect in a time that was anything but. Taking care of a complete stranger, not pushing her for details about anything... His kindness was almost unnatural. And suddenly Mika's mouth was moving before she realized what was happening. She didn't know why, but some part of her wanted to tell him, wanted to let him know everything. If he knew, he'd be able to make her feel better. If he knew, he could make everything alright again.

"He just ran. Out into the road. He didn't even think. He didn't even scream. I don't think he even knew he was going to die. And there's no way, no way he could have survived. It was a truck. It could've been a car or bike or something, but it was a truck, and it was so fast. I don't understand. He's so smart. He was so smart. He is so smart. I don't know how he could have done it, because it's so stupid. And his body is gone. I saw it, I saw Sei-chan's body hit the windscreen. I saw his body shatter the windscreen, so why can't they find him?" She choked on her own words, her own tongue, but didn't stop talking, "I just couldn't stay, and the police came, but I couldn't talk to them, I still can't talk to them. I couldn't answer their questions. And I didn't cry then. But then they told me his body was gone, and I couldn't stay. I couldn't listen to them."

Her frantic babbling made little sense, and the words didn't fit each other the way that words should. They lumped together in awkward sentences, falling from her mouth instead of flowing, but they told Mashita enough. They told him that someone was dead.
He ate, perhaps without noticing that he was doing it, and listened at the same time until Mika's words changed back into tears, and they'd run out of napkins. He dug into his bag and passed her his handkerchief, which she took without a word; just buried her face into it, shoulders shaking in time with each sob that came from her throat. The cheerful, dreadful pop music and noise of the evening customers drowned her out until she managed to get control of herself again.

She pulled the handkerchief from her face, and it came away smudged with black and pink, mascara and lipstick. If they found Seisuke's body, maybe it would look something like this; bruised and bloody and ruined. Mika didn't want to think about that.

"I'm sorry." She folded it in half and lowered it to the table, careful not to look at it again. "I'll... I'll wash it. I'm sorry."
"I'm not sorry. You don't need to be either." Mashita assured her. His mouth was full of food as he spoke, and Mika found the incivility strangely comforting. "You can keep it if you want."

It was a kind gesture, but after tonight, even if she cleaned it, Mika wouldn't want to see the handkerchief again. The same way she wouldn't want to see the clothes she was wearing, or the handbag she was carrying again. Memories were difficult to get rid of, but things weren't. If she threw everything out and started over, she might be okay.

"Do you feel any better now?" Mashita asked, offering her one of his fries. She declined politely. If she ate right now, she'd throw up.
"I... I feel cleaner." Mika said, and she laughed. It brought a fresh onslaught of tears, but she didn't try to stop them. Maybe once she had nothing inside left to cry out, it wouldn't hurt so much anymore. When she didn't stop, Mashita put an arm around her shoulders, pulled her closer until her face was pressed against his neck. He said things, things she didn't take in, but his voice was soothing. Maybe the words he was using weren't real words at all. It made no difference.

"Seisuke was really bad at comforting me." She muttered, barely aware that she was saying anything. The words she spoke around her sobs were quieter, but sounded no less hysterical. Still, Mashita didn't try to hush her.
"He was really useless, really, really useless. Like, if I did badly on a test and cried about it, he just stood there looking awkward because he didn't know what to say. He didn't like it when I cried, because he never had a clue how to deal with it. He really didn't, he could be so stupid, because all I needed was a hug, and he couldn't even think to do that. But he never made me cry, ever. He never made me sad, not even once."
But he was making her cry now, she realized, and for some reason, it stopped the tears abruptly. Mashita kept stroking her hair anyway.

"You're kind." She said into his neck. Her throat was blocked up, and her own voice sounded odd and thick. Usually, she'd be embarrassed about it. Right now, she couldn't even manage that. "You're really... really nice. You... I must've looked so awful... My mascara... but you picked me up anyway. You're so kind. I can't believe..."

"Anyone would've." Mashita patted her head gently, and she finally pulled away from him and sat up straight on her own. "Nobody leaves a girl crying alone on the street."
The hundreds of people who walked past me without sparing a glance did, Mika thought, but didn't tell him that. She concentrated on his smile instead; it was sweet, understanding... everything about this boy was comforting. He made the events of the day seem like some sort of nightmare she'd just woken up from. Everything that had happened seemed so ethereal, and this boy seemed so real, so... there.

"Thank you..." Mika said. And then, in a fit of boldness, a fit of grief-induced madness, added, "You know, I think that you're... you're the sort of person I could fall in love with. If... one day, when I'm... if I'm better... is it possible... if it was possible..."

Mashita's smile remained unchanged on his face. "I want to be your friend. But I'm already in love with somebody." He said it airily, as though he were only talking to himself, and continued to pick at what was left of his food. It was probably cold by now, but he didn't appear to mind.
"I see." She was still too overcome with loss, too tired from crying, too numb from everything, for the rejection to carry any sting. "Is she... what kind of person is she?"

"He." Mashita said without a hint of embarrassment, and his voice still had that dream-like quality about it. Mika couldn't even bring herself to be surprised. Maybe she would be when she woke up tomorrow. "His name's Tegoshi. Tegoshi Yuya."

Right now, she couldn't do much else than say, "Oh. So... what's he like?" Because she did want to know. Honestly, she wanted to know, she wanted to think about something else. Maybe she'd ask about his family after this. She wanted to know all about him, fill her mind up with him until there was nothing left of her. Nothing left of Seisuke.

Mashita nibbled on a piece of lettuce that had fallen from his burger earlier on. It looked limp and unappetizing, but he probably didn't notice.
"I don't know. We've never met." He said, and his eyes seemed glazed over. Looking at them reminded Mika of peering through thin mist, or out of foggy car windows. "But I remember him singing. I wish you could hear it... We sing together sometimes..." He was still smiling, but the smile wasn't for her anymore. Mika could tell.
"I don't understand. You haven't met, but you..." She shook her head, and Mashita laughed, playing with the empty food wrappers with the tip of his fingers.

"That's okay. I don't understand it either." He smiled wider, and even though he was still facing her, Mika felt as though his eyes were looking through her. "One time we went to the beach together, even though it was pretty far from where we live, and we played there for hours. And by night time there were clouds, so we could barely see a thing. But we stayed and danced on the sand together. Took off our shoes and danced..." Mashita trailed off, and Mika knew that he was there right now; dancing with Tegoshi next to the ocean, under a starless sky.

He looked so peaceful, it made her wish that she could follow him. To the sand and waves, somewhere away from real life. But she didn't know how to get there. She didn't think Mashita could tell her how to.

"I should go home." She told him instead, pulling both of them back into their world. "I have to feed my dog. And my parents are... well, they're probably worried."
Mashita nodded, and snatched up the receipt from his tray.
"Do you have a pen?" He asked, "I want to give you my cell phone number."
"Okay. Just a moment." Mika opened her bag, and picked through the contents until she came across a cheap blue biro. It was one she'd borrowed off Seisuke a few weeks ago, and had completely forgotten to return. Her stomach flipped, and she fumbled, dropping it onto the table. It made her feel ill, looking at that pen, and she knew she wouldn't be able to touch it again. Mashita, unaware of this, picked it up and scrawled down his name and number on the back of the receipt in big loopy writing.
"Keep it." Mika told him, when he offered her both the little piece of paper and the biro. "I don't want it anymore. Your handkerchief for the pen. It's not even mine anyway."

Mashita nodded in understanding, though whether he really understood or not was unclear.
They left the booth, and headed to the door of the restaurant. Cold air rushed around Mika's limbs once they were outside, biting at her through Mashita's jacket. She shivered, and then almost stumbled as a rush of fatigue hit her.
"Do you need me to see you home?" Mashita asked, shooting her a worried glance. Mika hesitated, not wanting him to go too far out of his way, but not wanting to be alone at the same time. Eventually she settled on him waiting with her until the bus arrived.

"The bus practically stops outside where I live, and I'll be fine while I'm sitting down."
"You won't be alone once you get to your house?" Mashita asked. Mika would've been touched by his continued concern if she hadn't run out of emotions. Sleep sounded wonderful right now, and she could bring herself to worry about little more than that. She almost dozed off as they sat in silence on the bench at the bus stop, and once the bus arrived she could barely bother to give him back his jacket and wave goodbye. Mashita waved, though, waiting until the window he could see her face through was out of sight before he stopped.
Half way home, Mika realized she'd left the handkerchief on the fast-food table. She couldn't bring herself to regret it.
~*~*~*~

There's no more Mika after this, for anyone who's worried. She's not a recurring character, she's just a plot device to tie the actual NEWS boys together. Just so you know. Just so those of you who worry about OCs taking up too much importance in a story don't get put off.