Mai-HiME Fan Fiction ❯ Mai-HiME: A Letter for You ❯ The Price of Perfection ( Chapter 5 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimer: Mai-HiME/My HiME, and all associated characters are the
property of Sunrise. This is a work of parody and no profit has been
made from it.

Mai-HiME: A Letter for You

Part 5: The Price of Perfection


From the Personal Journal of SUZUSHIRO HARUKA

Another day, another omiai. This one will probably fail too. Perhaps
mother is right; I'm just too headstrong for a woman. Men see my
take-charge attitude and run the other way. I just can't be any other
way. If I am to lead the Suzushiro Group one day, I need to be as
strong as possible to defeat our many rivals.

I hate this stupid kimono! The color's wrong and it's stifling in
this heat. (I must remember to send grandmother a thank-you note).

But what's wrong with me lately? This wasn't a part of the plan.
By this time I was supposed to be happily married with child on the way.
Another heir to the Suzushiro fortune.

As many times as I write it, that life just doesn't seem like mine.
There should be more to this.

I watched mother and swore to myself I'd never have her life. Married
for convenience to a man she barely knew. She's always said that she
learned to love father. I can tell they love each other in a way. But
there's no passion, no romance. They're just comfortable with each
other.

Listen to me going on about passion and romance like some giddy schoolgirl!

That girl has long, since grown up. Days of sending love letters
to a certain classmate only to have them returned un-opened are over.
Maybe...if she'd have just told me to my face that my feelings were
unwanted, that she didn't feel the same about me, I could have let it
go. But this was worse than a refusal. I was ignored.

I can endure many things but Suzushiro Haruka, future leader of the
Suzushiro Group WILL NOT BE IGNORED!

I realize now that it was a silly thing to base my high school career
on. But I'd made up my mind. It took me three years of hating Fujino
to finally realize what my real problem was. I idolized her without
knowing her heart. I loved an image rather than a real person.

I thought she pitied me, a common girl born into a prestigious family.
My life was filled with tutors and training, etiquette, posture,
literature, flower arrangement, dance. All things that seemed to come
naturally to Fujino.

It all came to a head when I saw her together with that Kuga Natsuki.
How dare she throw away everything for this love? How dare the star of
Fuuka Gakuen, so easily slip out of her appointed role? While awkward,
pushy Suzushiro Haruka had to struggle every day to keep up appearances.

Every day I kept up the appearance of a proper young lady. Slavishly
adhering to school traditions, ignoring my wants, my dreams.

Ignoring my real feelings, ignoring those surreptitious glances my kouhai
gives me. Pretending I don't hear the tenderness in her voice when she
says my name. Disregarding the hurt look she gets when I send her on
another assignment when I could have gone with her. How she always
knows to rub my shoulders when I'm tense or how I like my tea, and a
million other things. Ignoring the way my heart skips a beat every
time she enters a room.

It was just too cruel that Fujino Shizuru, who had so much going for her
could come clean with her feelings while I had to play the part of the
good girl.

Yukino, I never let on that I knew. I wasn't brave enough to tell you
the truth. Now Fujino Shizuru is happy with her abnormal little family.
And I'm destined to marry a man I don't even love.

I can't believe I lost to her again.