One-Shots of a Most Mediocre Kind

Sakura and a Subway

This wasn't requested, obviously, but here's a sample of something. It's America X Nyo!Japan, with that Soulmate AU where the first words your soulmate speaks to you are written on your wrist. I try to start in media res, because that's interesting.

Some of the passerby halted in their rushed walking and stared at Sakura. She couldn't resent them for it. It was certainly more interesting to watch the foreign girl having an emotional breakdown in the middle of the subway station than to run (well, by American standards, walk) off to work. Besides, Yao had drilled into her to be polite and respectful. She didn't have to like living in America, and she didn't have to like the people in America, but she had to be polite and respectful.

Sakura desperately snatched at one of her concept sketches that had flown out of her reach due to the wind caused by hundreds of feet racing past her. The contents of her entire briefcase were strewn about her in an arc of disaster, and only a few people stopped to slide a few sheets in her general direction. Sakura, a barely-21-year-old mangaka, was a mess, and it was quite obvious that she was not used to it, nor was she used to speaking English in a country where slang made it almost a completely different language.

"Oops! Sorry, gotta look where I'm going!" an obviously American man said to her. He must have been the one to knock into her.

Sakura shook her head, partly to clear it, and recited in relatively fluent English, with a tad of Japanese at the end, "It was my fault, sumimasen."

The young man with glasses smiled at her, a wide, sparkling, truly American smile. He helped her pick up her things, sometimes pausing to admire them. Perhaps he was a collector of drawings such as hers, or at least had been raised to appreciate them. Sakura flushed with the beginnings of suppressed pride, as well as embarrassment. She eventually closed the briefcase full of a manageable bunch of papers, bowing to the American man who had decided to take the time to aid her.

One of the several homeless men that were begging together in the subway station walked over. With a grubby hand, he gave her one of her papers, that had wafted in his direction. It was surprisingly still flat and unstained.

"Arigato gozaimasu," Sakura breathlessly said, just as the young man beside her said "thanks a lot!". The homeless person nodded and walked away.

Sakura turned to her American savior, who motioned at her wrist. "Could you tell me what it says, please?"

Sakura checked it, to humor him. She didn't want to be rude to someone that had been so kind to her, and she didn't know if it was an American custom of some sort to do so. Quite a few memories were attached to the words on her wrist. Yao had once had to scold a naughty boy that had made fun of Sakura for having messily written "first words". They were in English, Yao had told her, so Sakura had decided to make her way to America. She had heard that the anime fans in America were willing to pay decent money, more than she would earn in Japan, for commissions and general publications. This time, upon rereading the words and recalling the moment when the young man next to her had first spoken, she paled.

"That's what I thought," the young man, who looked as if he was actually just about 20, closed his eyes and smiled. "You're my soulmate."

Sakura believed, after that, that she fainted. Whether from shock, exhaustion, or generally being overwhelmed, no one could tell. At least her newfound soulmate was kind enough to catch her and her briefcase in his arms. What a story this would be to tell to children... bumping into her soulmate in the subway, and fainting before they even exchanged names.