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The first time he saw her, she cursed him.
Not in a bad way.
And not literally. Figuratively. She wasn’t a witch, he knew that. Or he thought he knew that. She had none of the typical tattoos on her hands and fingers, nor any of that stuff around the eyes or on her lips that dark witches used to set themselves apart. Her only adornment was a crescent moon charm hooked over her ear, something that caught Van's eye even from across the room.
Maybe that did mean she was a witch, of the moon kind. His mother used to read him silly romantic bedtime stories of the Atlantean moon witches and how they enchanted men.
Maybe that’s why the very timbre of her cheerful greeting was enough to make him feel as if he were floating towards the sky. The first time he saw her, he looked up from his menu and met her smiling green eyes, and that was it for him.
Like something from those stupid storybooks.
It was all very perplexing, and a little stressful, even though the soft music and aroma of coffee and syrup was normally an uneventful experience. This was a first for him.
And for the first time in his life, he cared what a woman thought of him.
Not that she gave him any indication that she cared about him. Not that time. Maybe not anytime. Or, he couldn't tell. Van wasn’t exactly sure how to read her. She was happy and cheerful and friendly to everyone. Himself included. She never gave him any indication that she judged him as different, even if everyone else might, especially since he was one of the few who came in and ate alone like an antisocial little weirdo.
Which he wasn’t! He’d started out by coming in just like any normal person would, with a group of friends meeting for breakfast.
But he was no longer in school, and this business of seeing her wasn’t exactly a group project, so he began coming in by himself. It was something he had to do on his own. Not that he actually did much. He wasn’t exactly sure how to go about doing anything other than practicing the manners his mother drilled into him, not dribbling his food, and tipping as generously as he could. It was almost all he could do just to keep going back.
But he thought, what would Allen do; Allen would show up, so he kept showing up. That was the extent of trying to copy Allen’s mannerisms, though. He just couldn’t smile and charm his way into anyone’s good graces. In fact, that first breakfast at Asturia Cafe was another first: it was the first time he’d actually considered karate chopping his childhood friend in the throat over a woman.
Okay, not actually, not really. He wasn’t exactly inclined towards mortal combat. He’d chosen a career in healing, not hurting.
But he’d had to suppress that instinctive impulse to lash out and protect someone he had only just met—a waitress, no less.
It wasn't that he thought being a waitress was anything to be ashamed of! Escaflowne knows he’d had his share of menial jobs cleaning up animal pens before he got to where he was. Waitressing was a perfectly respectable job, he’d just never expected himself to care about one in particular. Especially if she seemed susceptible to the charms of an overly-charming sweet-talker like his friend Allen. Allen, who made being charming a study, before actually studying like Van had.
How were he and Allen even friends, he sometimes wondered? Besides the one karate class they’d taken as kids under Master Balgus, they’d had approximately zero in common through school. Perhaps Allen liked that Van kept him grounded, and perhaps Van liked to watch Allen and consider what he wouldn’t do. Like fathering a child in high school; after that happened, Van no longer cared about finding a girl to kiss.
But maybe he did care now.
It was an uncomfortable thing to realize. Day after day, it made his chest burn and his skin tingle in a new way as he raked his black hair and endured the scrutiny of the tourists walking on the other side of the wide cafe windows overlooking the Zaibach city center.
But that first day, seeing her smile and blush and lean in as Allen flirted and ordered his Omelette d’Alseides stirred something in him that he’d never felt, something more guttural than jealousy, a red-hot determination that flared up in his gut.
By Escaflowne, Atlantis would be raised and scorched before he let her become another name on the ledger his friend kept! He had to do something.
So the first words she heard him speak—after she took Allen’s order—were, “When was the last time you saw your kid, Allen?”
It had been shocking enough that Dryden and Merle had to choke back their surprise; meanwhile, Allen’s smile morphed into a pointed glare his way. But a glance at the waitress—Hitomi—satisfied him that she’d gotten the idea. She straightened and took everyone else’s orders with friendly sobriety, and Allen waited until she was gone to kick him under the table and curse him verbally.
Van merely shrugged.
And then he came back.
And learned her schedule, surreptitiously, mostly by trial-and-error. After the first time he wasted his money tipping a waitress who wasn’t her, he learned to peek in at the edge of the window to spot her short, golden hair before he stepped inside.
Like a cursed man craving more, he began to wake earlier, anticipating seeing her. It gave fuel to his feet, and his days grew brighter, it grew easier to show up, even as his inability to start a conversation became a roadblock.
He began to count the visits instead. The first few were uneventful. On his eighth visit, he paid without cash for the first time and handed over his bank card with his name on it; she returned it with a, “Have a great day, Mr. Fanel!”; he walked around irrationally happy for the rest of the day. On day 17, he gathered up the courage to say, “Morning Hitomi,” when she greeted him, and then spent the next three days dreaming about her smile in response. On visit 20, he finally worked up the courage to tell her to call him Van, and for the next two weeks, the very recollection of his name on her lips left him heady enough that his friends teased him. On day 30, she asked what he did for work and later touched his shoulder when she had to walk away and help someone else. On day 34, he finally found the opportunity to ask about her and learned she was three weeks away from becoming a certified massage therapist and quitting this job. From then on, every time he visited, she told him how many days were left before she quit for a new career. On visit 38—with only 14 days left—she returned his check with a hand on his bare forearm; he went to work so distracted by the sizzling sensation of her touch that he nearly over-anesthetized a cat mid-spay and was verbally stripped down by his boss.
His mistake nearly cost him his job and that cat its life. That wouldn’t do. Especially since he wasn’t sure she liked him back. She was friendly with everyone, he thought. She wasn’t overly friendly with him, was she?
Needing to get his mind together, he decided to refrain from going to the cafe, perhaps forever. He’d turned into an irrational person, he figured, wandering around with a stupid grin on his face and making stupider decisions. It was so unlike him, and his coworkers had been commenting about it. Maybe it was best to go without seeing her, so he could return to rational existence.
But he hadn’t anticipated how empty his days would feel without seeing her in the mornings. Perhaps she was a moon witch after all, bringing light to the sleepy existence that had been his life before her.
Yet she hadn’t made any move on him, hadn’t asked for his number, had kept their business professional. To her, he figured, he was just another face, a regular, sure, but nobody special. She didn't blush and flirt and giggle with him like she had a tendency to do with guys who flirted with her. Perhaps because he tipped her well no matter what. Perhaps him tipping her well is why she was friendly.
Unable to move past this, he hadn't been able to summon Allen's charm to flirt. And without that, she hadn't flirted back. She must not care about him then, he thought.
Under this rationale, he decided to stay away. He even accepted an invitation to go to dinner and a movie with Millerna, the receptionist at the clinic. He thought it would be a good distraction.
But he was wrong. He spent the entire date irrationally looking for Hitomi. He heard her laugh, noticed someone with the same curve of neck, spotted a glimpse of honey-blonde hair. Millerna was attractive, certainly. He wasn’t that stupid. But her smile didn’t make him warm. By the end of the date, he felt much the same as he had before the date.
He had to admit he wanted to see Hitomi again.
Except by the time he could visit the coffee shop during one of her shifts, she'd be a week away from graduating, giving him only four more chances to work up the nerve to get her number. If he didn’t, he’d never see her again. He’d already gone over a week without seeing her and had been miserable every second.
The fear struck him, made his breath and temper come in short bouts. He couldn’t even smile at the motherly tech who offered to set him up with her daughter. Mahad even noticed and began to ask him what bunched his boxers, telling him if he was this useless, he'd schedule Kio to work instead.
All that anxiety dissipated into the warm, syrupy air when he stepped back into the coffee shop the next Tuesday morning.
“Van Fanel, I was worried I might never see you again!” Hitomi said, her hand propped up on her hip.
Standing there in her red shirt and black apron skirt, she appeared more celestial than he remembered. She must be a moon witch; his brain power dried up right then and there and he could only smile dumbly and kick himself inside for not being able to conjure something more charming or witty than, “Nice to see you, Hitomi.”
Afterwards, his skin hummed and his heart danced in stupid happiness. Mahad noticed again, commenting mid-surgery that he must’ve gotten action; Van glared at him over his mask, and his boss laughed and continued suturing the dog on the table.
His second day returning, he estimated she had only two days left, and he was growing desperate to ask her for her number. By the time she'd knocked him dumb with a brush of her hand on his shoulder in farewell, he settled on asking her as soon as she brought the check the next day.
Until he witnessed a businessman two tables down laugh and compliment her and hold up a 50Gid bill with his business card and an invitation to dinner. Van saw enough to know that Hitomi blushed and smiled, just like she had that first meeting when he’d been seated with Allen.
It was a painful reminder how unlike that Van was.
Sick of overhearing the man's compliments, knowing he could never say such things to her, he dropped a 20Gid bill on the table and left without saying goodbye.
And yet, like someone under a spell, he had to go back. One last time. This time, he’d buy her flowers, and if she didn’t react well, he could just congratulate her on graduating. It was supposed to be her last day, anyway. He never had to see her again if she turned him down.
Van's heart was leaping all over the place as he tucked the flowers into his jacket and pushed through the doors and into the cafe.
One step inside, his stomach dropped. She was nowhere in sight. He’d been so caught up in rehearsing what he was going to say, that he’d forgotten to check that Hitomi was working. It was the other waitress working, the one with ice blonde hair.
It was too late. She was gone. He'd missed his chance.
He stood there on the entrance rug, gaping like a dunce and contemplating his empty future as his heart seemed to squeeze with pain.
“Mr. Fanel, your table’s ready,” the hostess said, same as always.
“No, I’ll be going,” he said, turning away.
She laughed. “Don’t be stupid! Trust me, you want to come with me.”
That was enough to make him pause, and, well, he didn’t want to be stupid, so he followed dumbly after her. She took him into the closed half of the restaurant—the part only opened for rushes, opposite of where he normally sat—and to a booth tucked into a back corner.
Van froze. Again.
There sat Hitomi, facing away from him, as if she weren’t working but. . . dining.
And dining with someone. Someone who wasn’t there. An entire breakfast and a coffee mug waited across from her own.
When her fingers lifted to the curve of her neck to play with her hair, his eyes zeroed in on them and then the moon charm wrapped around her ear; in his periphery, her leg bounced up and down. She lifted her own mug and sipped and looked up as the hostess, Yukari—who he’d forgotten existed—gestured towards the empty bench seat across from Hitomi and said, “Have a seat, Mr. Fanel,” and then disappeared.
That was his seat? Had this been a setup?
Van’s stomach started doing all sorts of bumping and jumping and his knees were weak. The flowers he’d tucked into his jacket dropped to the ground.
Hitomi turned then—her eyes taking in the flowers and then sliding up to meet his—and said with a sly smile, “Morning Van. I thought I’d eat with you today. You okay with that?”
His throat dried, but he picked up the flowers and somehow his feet—feet that weren’t touching the floor—moved closer.
“That’s fine,” he thought he heard himself mutter.
Sure enough, as he neared, he saw the waiting breakfast was the one he preferred—the Mecha Plate—and his coffee had two creamers stacked and waiting. He didn't think he could eat, though. His stomach was all discombobulated.
He’d never been more nervous in his life as he sat upon the cool, bouncy booth bench. But his heart wasn't hurting anymore and was racing warmly, and his skin buzzed with electricity, and he thought if anyone were to touch him, he’d die in electric happiness.
Was this the effect of a moon witch?
“Are you a moon witch?” he asked, half-dazed.
She laughed, her eyes dancing in amusement as her fingers traced the ear charm again. He wanted to trace it too, he thought with his own fingers twitching.
“Would you leave if I told you I was?” she asked.
“No,” Van said immediately and seriously.
This pleased her more. Her smile grew, and Van shamelessly mirrored her. “Good. Because the last thing I want is to scare you away, Van. I thought I had last week.”
One of her hands reached to clasp a ping pendant he'd never notice before. She wasn't wearing her uniform, but something pink and delicate. For some reason, that made his skin grow hotter, and all he could think to say was, “I’m sorry.” He wasn’t quite sure how to explain his absence, and he wasn’t in the practice of lying.
“Why didn’t you come around last week, Mr. Fanel?” she asked as the smile faded from her face. “Were you sick?”
The truth spilled from his lips. “No. I nearly killed a cat in surgery.”
Her expression widened in horror. “Is the cat okay?”
“Yes.”
“Did you. . . lose your job?” she asked.
“No.”
Her eyebrows contorted in question. “So, how did that happened?” she asked.
As he searched for a simple way to explain that her touch had fried his brain for an entire day, sweat broke out on his neck. “I was distracted,” he said soberly.
“That must’ve been some distraction!” she said with equal sobriety.
His answer was to watch her carefully, to see if she understood that she was the distraction. Her eyes darted around his face until she tore them away, looked down at her plate, and took a bite of pancake, occasionally glancing up at him as she chewed. He liked her lips, even when she wasn't smiling.
“Aren’t you going to eat, Van?” she asked. “Do you want something different?”
“I didn’t really come to eat today.”
He watched her slender neck bob as she swallowed and straightened and looked at him with curious eyebrows. “Why did you come, then?” she asked softly.
Under her gaze, his face burned and his skin vibrated pleasantly. “I—” he began. But, pathetically, he couldn’t continue, couldn't conjure any of the charming words Allen might use. The pressure in his chest grew too much, as if he might burst, and it somehow kept his brain and tongue disconnected.
Her voice was soft when she spoke. “Other than last week, you’ve been coming every day I work,” she began, and he looked up to see her gazing at him intently. “I was wondering. . . if you meant something by all that?”
His hands flinched in surprise, crinkling the plastic around the flowers. For the first time in minutes, the sensation of the cool bunch of flowers he’d been death-gripping made its way to his brain. Relieved to have a distraction, he looked down at them. White moon lilies. His mother's favorite flower. His nose could just detect their fragrance over bacon and coffee.
Was he stupid for giving a woman he did not think of like his mother the same flowers she liked?
Rubbing his neck nervously, he pulled them out from under the table. “I brought these for you.”
A grin broke out on her face. “Moon lilies are my favorite," she said, reaching for them.
As she took the flowers, she seemed to linger, her delicate fingers brushing his without pulling them out of his grip. Van’s heart somersaulted and skipped around as the sensation spread through his body to his fingers and toes.
"Did you get these because you think I'm a moon witch?” she asked, her hand still lingering over his.
Van could only shake his head and bask in her glowing grin. He probably shouldn’t go to work today. He was going to be deadly distracted.
Reluctantly, Van pulled his hand away and massaged it under the table, glancing between her smile and the swirls in his coffee, but mostly her smile as she admired the flowers. This pleased him.
“What are you doing the rest of the day?” she asked, drawing his attention back to her.
“I’m supposed to work,” he said. “But I don't think that's a good idea.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“I’ll be too distracted,” he said, watching her for her reaction as his face burned.
Realization lit up her features as her mouth formed a pretty little O. Then it was her turn to look down as she bit back a smile. For a moment, neither spoke, and Van listened to the distant sound of dining and chatter.
“Would you like to. . . go for a walk?” she asked. “There's a path nearby that leads to the Dornkirk Memorial Gardens.”
“With you?” he asked in surprise.
She giggled. “Yes, with me.”
Van knew he was a dummy sometimes. “Just checking,” he said.
He was being serious, but she laughed, snorting a little in glee.
As her shoulders shook, Van smiled and realized that he hadn't seen her laugh like this when he witnessed other guys flirting with her.
A new idea entered his head: perhaps it was okay with her that he wasn't charming like Allen. There was none of that formal friendliness he’d often witnessed, and something about her laugh and the way she smiled at him made him feel like she might think of him as more than someone to flirt with.
With that thought, he sat back, the tension in his shoulders melting away as his body hummed with pleasure.
Whatever this was, it wasn't a stupid curse. Rather, he decided, it was a fine thing to be enchanted by a moon witch. In fact, he really liked it. He didn't feel dumb at all. For the first time, he understood why all those stupid storybooks were about romance.
“I like walks,” he said.
Just like that first time, when he met her cheerful green eyes, Van yet again felt himself floating to the sky.
Her lips curled into a beautiful smile. “I like them, too.”