Series: Home - Part 1
Title: Home
Chapter: 1/?
Pairing: Hiroto/OC
Genre: Romance, Drama, Humor
Rating: PG13
Summary: She went to Japan in hopes of meeting him. She rents a tiny apartment in Shibuya where her only company are her cigarettes, her books, and her loneliness. One night after a live, her dream of meeting Hiroto comes true.
She looked up the sky and heaved a sigh. It felt like it came from deep within her, like air coming from the pads of her toes going up her throat, passing her tongue, her lips, and eventually arriving to a hurried release. She had been waiting for him to come to her home, the little apartment she was renting in Shibuya that shared half of her monthly pay with her daily expenses. Sometimes she managed to scrape a few bucks off her budget, living on instant ramen and water, just so she could purchase tickets to his shows. He didn't know about it, of course, the sacrifice she had been going through to see him play live in all his glory, with hundreds of other girls at his feet, all craving his attention.
Once she caught him looking at her, or so she thought. She stood among the wild audience, frozen like a lone iceberg in the middle of the ocean. He smiled at everyone and blew kisses here and there. He even jumped off the stage, much to the delight of rabid fangirls. She wished she was somewhere near the stage. If she was then she would have managed to hold out a hand and touch him. Even just a little. It would have meant the world to her. But she was far back because she came late. She was at the school, working overtime, making sure she would be getting enough on her next pay check to go to the summer tour finale.
That same night, in bitterness over the fact that other girls were lucky enough to catch him when he dove off the stage, she hung out alone at the club's parking lot. She didn't have a car for the simple reasons that cannot afford to buy one and that she cannot drive. But she loved parking lots, especially empty, forlorn ones. She liked seeing the flat space of asphalt, glinting like a silver desert in the night.
She pushed some change into a vending machine and pressed a button for a pack of Marlboros. She searched her purse for some candy but there wasn't any. She frowned. She then rummaged through her stuff for her lighter but it too was nowhere to be found. She was getting impatient. She kicked the wall and hurt her big toe. She grimaced in pain and took a seat by the vending machine. Furious, she threw the small carton of cigarettes at an invisible target in front of her and folded her arms on her knees. She stifled a sob. She had been trying not to cry ever since she got to Japan. She was a stranger in this land, a foreign person who lived with nobody but her shadow. Having finally seen him in person, she felt tempted to go back home where people actually knew her, loved her, cared for her, and understood her.
She heard footsteps approaching. She hurriedly got to her feet, fearing it was a police or a security officer that was coming. She surveyed the lot in search for the cigarettes she disposed of and scurried to pick them up. She turned around, getting ready to walk away, and froze when she realized who it was that emerged from the back door of the club. It was him. He looked at her in wonder and to her surprise, smiled at her. "Good evening," he said.
She couldn't find her tongue. She looked around her to see if it had fallen to the ground and slithered away but she saw nothing.
"What are you still doing outside, miss?" he asked. He walked towards the vending machine and bought himself some menthol Luckies.
She blinked thrice. Her mouth was dry and she could not speak. She scratched her head and forced something out. "I'm lost," she said.
He looked at her. "Really?"
She looked at her feet and shook her head. "No, not really. I'm leaving." She knew she was speaking grammatically incorrect Japanese and was deathly ashamed to be doing that in front of him.
"You don't look like you're from around here."
"I'm not." She averted her gaze towards him and caught him blowing off smoke into the cool night air. He was standing only a few feet away. He was so near and yet all she felt between them was light years worth of distance.
"Were you at the live?"
She nodded.
"Did you like it?"
"It was amazing."
He chuckled and she blushed at the sound of the charming laughter she had been trying to make out from video and audio clips she used to download from the internet. She was still holding the box of cigarettes in her hand. She gathered all her courage and walked up to him. "May I have a light?"
He looked genuinely surprised at her query but handed her his lighter. Her palms had gotten sweaty and her hands were shaking. She couldn't think straight. It was unbelievable. She stood there in front of him, her knees slowly turning into jelly. She feared she might collapse anytime so she lit herself a stick of her Marlboros to prevent herself from falling. "You don't look like the type who smokes," he remarked.
"Oh. I wonder what type I seem like," she laughed. Slowly, she was feeling more comfortable. Cigarettes had always worked for her in times like these. Alcohol helped too, but it was nowhere near so she had to make do with the bitter taste of nicotine alone.
"What's your name?" he asked. Why he was interested to know was beyond her mind's grasp. Her brain was slowly crumbling like a sandcastle slowly being eaten by the waves ashore. Still she gave him her name, which he recited back to himself a few times, amused.
"What's your name?" she asked back.
"Eh?" his eyes were wide, apparently confused as to whether the girl before him was serious or not.
"Kidding," she smiled. They ended up briefly laughing together and it was dreamier than any of the most vivid dreams she had had in her lifetime.
That was how they ended up as acquaintances. That night, she went home in a cab he had hailed for her. She said good night to him and he replied with "see you". The entire taxi ride to her small apartment felt like a haze. It was only when she woke up the next morning and found his lighter in her purse did she realize that it really did happen.
He went on with his rock and roll lifestyle. She with her normal, struggling, and at times alienated existence. Twice they had met elsewhere. She was window shopping in Shinjuku and saw him outside a clothing shop with a pretty girl holding onto his arm. She tried to walk past them, half-heartedly hoping he would recognize her, half-heartedly wishing he wouldn't.
But he did. He called her name the same way he did that night at the parking lot. She smiled shyly and bowed twice, first to him, second to the lucky girl. She then walked away in hurried steps, her back turned to him. She was too hurt by the mere sight of him with someone else but she knew it was bound to happen anytime. She didn't look back. Hence missing the fact that he followed her with his eyes for a good ten seconds, and the argument that followed between him and his girlfriend with her eventually spitting "Let's break up!" to his face and getting into a taxi. He shook his head in embarrassment, but surprisingly he did not feel any loss at the suddenness of it all. If she was secretly hoping that he'd follow her to her house, apologize, and swear he wouldn't see the foreign girl again (whom he had only seen accidentally anyway), he made sure that she was not going to get it. He turned the other way and walked home.
The second time happened a week later, during one of her visits to the electronic town of Akihabara, one of her favorite places in Japan, and in the world for that matter. She liked looking at the stuff sold in shops although she rarely bought anything. Back home, she spent most of her money on anything that tickled her fancy but it was different in Japan. She couldn't just buy anything without worrying about how to go by in the coming days. As she walked out an electronic store, she bumped onto someone. As per usual, she bowed and apologized but the person caught her hand and said her name. She looked up and saw that it was him. Beaming, she asked him how he was and said sorry for the second time. He was his usual friendly self and, much to her surprise and joy, was without a girl in hand.
"Good, good," he replied. "How are you?"
"I'm--" she was cut when someone said "excuse me" from behind her. It was then that they realized they were blocking the entrance. She moved away and he followed. "I'm okay," she said.
He looked at his watch and appeared to think of something for a brief moment. "Hey, would you like to have lunch with me?" he asked.
She was dumbstruck. "Pardon?"
"Lunch?"
"Seriously?"
He chuckled. "Do I look like I'm kidding?"
"No, but it sounds unreal."
"Eh? Lunch?"
"No, I mean... never mind."
"You don't want to then?"
"I do!" The two syllables she just blurted out made her feel like she was getting married. To him. She blushed at the thought, enough for him to catch the red tingeing her cheeks. A quiet laughter escaped him, amused at the blushing girl at his side.
"I want omelette rice. Do you want omelette rice?"
She simply nodded. Her mind was a mess, like a city struck by a high magnitude earthquake. Suddenly her brain was made up of what remained of the skyscrapers that collapsed. She simply followed his lead like a dummy, and before she realized it they were already at a parking lot and he was getting into a shiny red car. She admired his car before finally asking, “Where are we going?”
“It’s a secret,” he answered and opened the door to the passenger seat for her.
She slid into the car and slapped herself hard the moment she got onto her seat. He stared at her, gobsmacked. An awkward smile plastered itself on her face and she turned her head the other way in humiliation. She wanted to smash her head onto the window. He guffawed. When she looked at him he was close to tears with laughter and soon she was laughing too, uncomfortably though, knowing he was laughing at her silliness. He opened his window and lit a cigarette. She then recalled that she still had his lighter so she opened her bag to look for it. When she found it, she handed it to him but he just shook his head and told her she can have it. “Really?”
He looked at her and laughed again. “Why do you keep asking for confirmation, you silly woman? Yes, really. It’s yours.” She frowned and stuck her tongue out at his direction. He just kept laughing. She felt good making him laugh like that, although it was at the expense of her acting like a fool in front of him.
That day, he took her home to his apartment and cooked omelette rice for her.
After lunch, they sat at his veranda and smoked. She had a million questions she wanted to ask him but her head was still in a state of chaos. She couldn’t organize her thoughts. Everything was occurring too fast it was becoming harder and harder for her to believe it was actually happening. One question made it out her mouth though.
“Where’s your girlfriend?” She was unable to help but ask about the pretty girl she saw him with in Shinjuku.
Nonchalantly, he replied, “Gone.”
“What? Gone? Dead!?”
“No!” he laughed although he knew he shouldn’t be laughing. “Gone as in we broke up.”
“Oh. Why?”
“She didn’t like you.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “What?”
“She didn’t like any other girl. She hates it when I talk to girls, be it a fan, a friend, a member of the staff. She’s childish like that.”
“Oh. So you broke up with her?”
“It’s the other way around, actually.”
“Eh!? She broke up with you!?” She couldn’t believe a girl could actually break up with him. “She’s really pretty though.”
“She is, yeah.”
“Is she an actress or something?”
“A model.”
“No wonder.” Jealousy stabbed her with a knife. Invisible blood slowly dripped out of the wound on her chest and a lump started to form in her throat. She lit another cigarette with the one in her hand before putting it out on the ashtray in between them.
“She’s like a flashy accessory. Wear it and people would all be looking at you, eyes clouded with envy. But wearing too many jewels could get heavy, and sooner or later you’d find the urge to take it off and opt for a simpler one.”
“Was that how you felt?”
“Kinda. When she yelled at me in Shinjuku I was embarrassed. Girls aren’t supposed to act like that, you know?”
“Hah. How are girls supposed to act then?”
He puffed on his cigarette and blew off the smoke before replying. “I don’t know. I just don’t think they should be screaming at their boyfriends’ faces like she did, especially in public.”
She snorted. “I’m sure she hoped you’d woo her though.”
“Well, I’m not going to.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not worth it.”
“Poor girl.”
Silence followed. She didn’t have a watch with her so she didn’t know how much time passed with them just sitting there, smoking their ways closer to death. He was the first to break the quiet with a question. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
“Huh?”
“I asked where your boyfriend is.”
“Oh. In here,” she gestured towards her head.
“What? You’re boyfriend is in there?”
She nodded. “He’s imaginary.”
“Well, isn’t that sad.”
“Only when it gets cold.”
“Eh? What difference does it make if it’s hot or cold?”
“I like being alone on hot days but on cold days I like having someone at home.”
He gave her a meaningful smile. “I hope you find someone nice soon,” he said.
She took one last puff at her cigarette and put it out as she blew the smoke off into the air. She got on her feet and straightened out the creases on her skirt with her hands. “It’s okay. It’s not as bad as it sounds.” She walked towards the parapet wall and rested her elbows on the ledge. From the color of the sky, she could tell it was almost sundown.
“Where are you from, by the way?” he asked.
“Somewhere far.”
“How far?”
“I don’t know. Some place you wouldn’t probably dream of visiting.”
“I can’t see why not. I like travelling.”
“Find out for yourself then,” she said and left it at that.
He didn’t insist on getting an answer from her. Apparently the girl standing just a few feet away didn’t want to give out everything about her. “So why did you come to Japan?”
“Do you want a whole truth or a half truth?”
“The whole truth of course.”
“Are you sure? It might shock you.”
“Try me.”
“Okay.” She took another cigarette and lit it. “I came here to see you.”
True to her words, the truth did shock him. And he was glad she had her back to him, otherwise she could have seen him reddening at her confession.
Chapter: 1/?
Pairing: Hiroto/OC
Genre: Romance, Drama, Humor
Rating: PG13
Summary: She went to Japan in hopes of meeting him. She rents a tiny apartment in Shibuya where her only company are her cigarettes, her books, and her loneliness. One night after a live, her dream of meeting Hiroto comes true.
She looked up the sky and heaved a sigh. It felt like it came from deep within her, like air coming from the pads of her toes going up her throat, passing her tongue, her lips, and eventually arriving to a hurried release. She had been waiting for him to come to her home, the little apartment she was renting in Shibuya that shared half of her monthly pay with her daily expenses. Sometimes she managed to scrape a few bucks off her budget, living on instant ramen and water, just so she could purchase tickets to his shows. He didn't know about it, of course, the sacrifice she had been going through to see him play live in all his glory, with hundreds of other girls at his feet, all craving his attention.
Once she caught him looking at her, or so she thought. She stood among the wild audience, frozen like a lone iceberg in the middle of the ocean. He smiled at everyone and blew kisses here and there. He even jumped off the stage, much to the delight of rabid fangirls. She wished she was somewhere near the stage. If she was then she would have managed to hold out a hand and touch him. Even just a little. It would have meant the world to her. But she was far back because she came late. She was at the school, working overtime, making sure she would be getting enough on her next pay check to go to the summer tour finale.
That same night, in bitterness over the fact that other girls were lucky enough to catch him when he dove off the stage, she hung out alone at the club's parking lot. She didn't have a car for the simple reasons that cannot afford to buy one and that she cannot drive. But she loved parking lots, especially empty, forlorn ones. She liked seeing the flat space of asphalt, glinting like a silver desert in the night.
She pushed some change into a vending machine and pressed a button for a pack of Marlboros. She searched her purse for some candy but there wasn't any. She frowned. She then rummaged through her stuff for her lighter but it too was nowhere to be found. She was getting impatient. She kicked the wall and hurt her big toe. She grimaced in pain and took a seat by the vending machine. Furious, she threw the small carton of cigarettes at an invisible target in front of her and folded her arms on her knees. She stifled a sob. She had been trying not to cry ever since she got to Japan. She was a stranger in this land, a foreign person who lived with nobody but her shadow. Having finally seen him in person, she felt tempted to go back home where people actually knew her, loved her, cared for her, and understood her.
She heard footsteps approaching. She hurriedly got to her feet, fearing it was a police or a security officer that was coming. She surveyed the lot in search for the cigarettes she disposed of and scurried to pick them up. She turned around, getting ready to walk away, and froze when she realized who it was that emerged from the back door of the club. It was him. He looked at her in wonder and to her surprise, smiled at her. "Good evening," he said.
She couldn't find her tongue. She looked around her to see if it had fallen to the ground and slithered away but she saw nothing.
"What are you still doing outside, miss?" he asked. He walked towards the vending machine and bought himself some menthol Luckies.
She blinked thrice. Her mouth was dry and she could not speak. She scratched her head and forced something out. "I'm lost," she said.
He looked at her. "Really?"
She looked at her feet and shook her head. "No, not really. I'm leaving." She knew she was speaking grammatically incorrect Japanese and was deathly ashamed to be doing that in front of him.
"You don't look like you're from around here."
"I'm not." She averted her gaze towards him and caught him blowing off smoke into the cool night air. He was standing only a few feet away. He was so near and yet all she felt between them was light years worth of distance.
"Were you at the live?"
She nodded.
"Did you like it?"
"It was amazing."
He chuckled and she blushed at the sound of the charming laughter she had been trying to make out from video and audio clips she used to download from the internet. She was still holding the box of cigarettes in her hand. She gathered all her courage and walked up to him. "May I have a light?"
He looked genuinely surprised at her query but handed her his lighter. Her palms had gotten sweaty and her hands were shaking. She couldn't think straight. It was unbelievable. She stood there in front of him, her knees slowly turning into jelly. She feared she might collapse anytime so she lit herself a stick of her Marlboros to prevent herself from falling. "You don't look like the type who smokes," he remarked.
"Oh. I wonder what type I seem like," she laughed. Slowly, she was feeling more comfortable. Cigarettes had always worked for her in times like these. Alcohol helped too, but it was nowhere near so she had to make do with the bitter taste of nicotine alone.
"What's your name?" he asked. Why he was interested to know was beyond her mind's grasp. Her brain was slowly crumbling like a sandcastle slowly being eaten by the waves ashore. Still she gave him her name, which he recited back to himself a few times, amused.
"What's your name?" she asked back.
"Eh?" his eyes were wide, apparently confused as to whether the girl before him was serious or not.
"Kidding," she smiled. They ended up briefly laughing together and it was dreamier than any of the most vivid dreams she had had in her lifetime.
That was how they ended up as acquaintances. That night, she went home in a cab he had hailed for her. She said good night to him and he replied with "see you". The entire taxi ride to her small apartment felt like a haze. It was only when she woke up the next morning and found his lighter in her purse did she realize that it really did happen.
He went on with his rock and roll lifestyle. She with her normal, struggling, and at times alienated existence. Twice they had met elsewhere. She was window shopping in Shinjuku and saw him outside a clothing shop with a pretty girl holding onto his arm. She tried to walk past them, half-heartedly hoping he would recognize her, half-heartedly wishing he wouldn't.
But he did. He called her name the same way he did that night at the parking lot. She smiled shyly and bowed twice, first to him, second to the lucky girl. She then walked away in hurried steps, her back turned to him. She was too hurt by the mere sight of him with someone else but she knew it was bound to happen anytime. She didn't look back. Hence missing the fact that he followed her with his eyes for a good ten seconds, and the argument that followed between him and his girlfriend with her eventually spitting "Let's break up!" to his face and getting into a taxi. He shook his head in embarrassment, but surprisingly he did not feel any loss at the suddenness of it all. If she was secretly hoping that he'd follow her to her house, apologize, and swear he wouldn't see the foreign girl again (whom he had only seen accidentally anyway), he made sure that she was not going to get it. He turned the other way and walked home.
The second time happened a week later, during one of her visits to the electronic town of Akihabara, one of her favorite places in Japan, and in the world for that matter. She liked looking at the stuff sold in shops although she rarely bought anything. Back home, she spent most of her money on anything that tickled her fancy but it was different in Japan. She couldn't just buy anything without worrying about how to go by in the coming days. As she walked out an electronic store, she bumped onto someone. As per usual, she bowed and apologized but the person caught her hand and said her name. She looked up and saw that it was him. Beaming, she asked him how he was and said sorry for the second time. He was his usual friendly self and, much to her surprise and joy, was without a girl in hand.
"Good, good," he replied. "How are you?"
"I'm--" she was cut when someone said "excuse me" from behind her. It was then that they realized they were blocking the entrance. She moved away and he followed. "I'm okay," she said.
He looked at his watch and appeared to think of something for a brief moment. "Hey, would you like to have lunch with me?" he asked.
She was dumbstruck. "Pardon?"
"Lunch?"
"Seriously?"
He chuckled. "Do I look like I'm kidding?"
"No, but it sounds unreal."
"Eh? Lunch?"
"No, I mean... never mind."
"You don't want to then?"
"I do!" The two syllables she just blurted out made her feel like she was getting married. To him. She blushed at the thought, enough for him to catch the red tingeing her cheeks. A quiet laughter escaped him, amused at the blushing girl at his side.
"I want omelette rice. Do you want omelette rice?"
She simply nodded. Her mind was a mess, like a city struck by a high magnitude earthquake. Suddenly her brain was made up of what remained of the skyscrapers that collapsed. She simply followed his lead like a dummy, and before she realized it they were already at a parking lot and he was getting into a shiny red car. She admired his car before finally asking, “Where are we going?”
“It’s a secret,” he answered and opened the door to the passenger seat for her.
She slid into the car and slapped herself hard the moment she got onto her seat. He stared at her, gobsmacked. An awkward smile plastered itself on her face and she turned her head the other way in humiliation. She wanted to smash her head onto the window. He guffawed. When she looked at him he was close to tears with laughter and soon she was laughing too, uncomfortably though, knowing he was laughing at her silliness. He opened his window and lit a cigarette. She then recalled that she still had his lighter so she opened her bag to look for it. When she found it, she handed it to him but he just shook his head and told her she can have it. “Really?”
He looked at her and laughed again. “Why do you keep asking for confirmation, you silly woman? Yes, really. It’s yours.” She frowned and stuck her tongue out at his direction. He just kept laughing. She felt good making him laugh like that, although it was at the expense of her acting like a fool in front of him.
That day, he took her home to his apartment and cooked omelette rice for her.
After lunch, they sat at his veranda and smoked. She had a million questions she wanted to ask him but her head was still in a state of chaos. She couldn’t organize her thoughts. Everything was occurring too fast it was becoming harder and harder for her to believe it was actually happening. One question made it out her mouth though.
“Where’s your girlfriend?” She was unable to help but ask about the pretty girl she saw him with in Shinjuku.
Nonchalantly, he replied, “Gone.”
“What? Gone? Dead!?”
“No!” he laughed although he knew he shouldn’t be laughing. “Gone as in we broke up.”
“Oh. Why?”
“She didn’t like you.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “What?”
“She didn’t like any other girl. She hates it when I talk to girls, be it a fan, a friend, a member of the staff. She’s childish like that.”
“Oh. So you broke up with her?”
“It’s the other way around, actually.”
“Eh!? She broke up with you!?” She couldn’t believe a girl could actually break up with him. “She’s really pretty though.”
“She is, yeah.”
“Is she an actress or something?”
“A model.”
“No wonder.” Jealousy stabbed her with a knife. Invisible blood slowly dripped out of the wound on her chest and a lump started to form in her throat. She lit another cigarette with the one in her hand before putting it out on the ashtray in between them.
“She’s like a flashy accessory. Wear it and people would all be looking at you, eyes clouded with envy. But wearing too many jewels could get heavy, and sooner or later you’d find the urge to take it off and opt for a simpler one.”
“Was that how you felt?”
“Kinda. When she yelled at me in Shinjuku I was embarrassed. Girls aren’t supposed to act like that, you know?”
“Hah. How are girls supposed to act then?”
He puffed on his cigarette and blew off the smoke before replying. “I don’t know. I just don’t think they should be screaming at their boyfriends’ faces like she did, especially in public.”
She snorted. “I’m sure she hoped you’d woo her though.”
“Well, I’m not going to.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not worth it.”
“Poor girl.”
Silence followed. She didn’t have a watch with her so she didn’t know how much time passed with them just sitting there, smoking their ways closer to death. He was the first to break the quiet with a question. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
“Huh?”
“I asked where your boyfriend is.”
“Oh. In here,” she gestured towards her head.
“What? You’re boyfriend is in there?”
She nodded. “He’s imaginary.”
“Well, isn’t that sad.”
“Only when it gets cold.”
“Eh? What difference does it make if it’s hot or cold?”
“I like being alone on hot days but on cold days I like having someone at home.”
He gave her a meaningful smile. “I hope you find someone nice soon,” he said.
She took one last puff at her cigarette and put it out as she blew the smoke off into the air. She got on her feet and straightened out the creases on her skirt with her hands. “It’s okay. It’s not as bad as it sounds.” She walked towards the parapet wall and rested her elbows on the ledge. From the color of the sky, she could tell it was almost sundown.
“Where are you from, by the way?” he asked.
“Somewhere far.”
“How far?”
“I don’t know. Some place you wouldn’t probably dream of visiting.”
“I can’t see why not. I like travelling.”
“Find out for yourself then,” she said and left it at that.
He didn’t insist on getting an answer from her. Apparently the girl standing just a few feet away didn’t want to give out everything about her. “So why did you come to Japan?”
“Do you want a whole truth or a half truth?”
“The whole truth of course.”
“Are you sure? It might shock you.”
“Try me.”
“Okay.” She took another cigarette and lit it. “I came here to see you.”
True to her words, the truth did shock him. And he was glad she had her back to him, otherwise she could have seen him reddening at her confession.