[drabble] I Just Called to Say
Title: I Just Called to Say (Alternative Title: 13 Steps to Fall in Love)
Author: Luna (dreamweavernyx )
Pairing: UmiChii (Chinen Yuri x Kawashima Umika)
Genre: Fluff
Rating: G
Summary: AU. Just his luck that he'd fall for the most oblivious girl in the world.
Notes: Written in the Kimi ni Todoke universe.
Lyrics in the story are a translation of One Love (Arashi).
~
un
Chinen’s not stupid - he knows.
He knows he’s got a massive crush on that Umika girl, which is sort of strange because he doesn’t really know much about her except for the fact that she is a good friend of Yamada’s new girlfriend.
Still, Chinen likes to believe in ‘love at first sight’, and maybe a little more than that as well.
deux
“Do something about it, then,” Yamada tells him dryly.
“It’s not like I’m not being painfully obvious about it,” Chinen huffs in reply. “Besides, it’s not like you did anything until we went to extreme measures, so you don’t have the right to sound so complacent.”
“Hey!”
Rolling his eyes, Chinen jabs his elbow backwards without looking into Yamada’s stomach.
He later finds himself running away from an annoyed Mirai, trying to tell him off for injuring her boyfriend.
trios
After winter break Umika comes back with the bizarre idea of wanting to learn gymnastics.
“I saw videos from the Beijing Olympics and they all looked so cool!” she spazzes over lunch, flailing with a sandwich in one hand. “I want to learn those cartwheels and flips and stuff too.”
Chinen feels the gazes of all present shift slowly to him, and he puts down the gyoza in his chopsticks equally slowly.
“…What, me?”
“You’re the guy with the gymnast parents and the acrobatics trophies,” Yuto offers.
Chinen looks into Umika’s eyes shining with hope and can’t find it in his heart to say no.
quatre
Chinen is eternally thankful that Umika used to be in dance up till high school, because that means she is flexible and thus would make it easier for him to teach her gymnastics.
“Slowly lean to this side,” he instructs. “Your hands come down - that’s right - and when they’re both on the ground you jerk the rest of your body to the same sides while keeping your legs straight.”
Umika wrinkles her nose and attempts to follow his instructions. Unfortunately, halfway through the cartwheel her arms buckle, and she ends up rolling across the gym mats and banging into Chinen’s legs.
When they stop rolling Chinen realizes he’s lying on top of Umika, and immediately pushes himself up with his hands. Their legs are still tangled together, and as he tries valiantly to free his foot he happens to meet her eyes.
She’s beautiful, he thinks unconsciously, taking her cherubic face framed by messy hair tied loosely in a ponytail.
“…Chinen-kun?”
He is wrenched out of his thoughts by her slightly embarrassed voice, and belatedly realizes what kind of position they’re in. Quickly, he rolls to the side and scrambles to get up, before offering a hand to her.
“I guess I’m not meant for cartwheels,” she giggles as she dusts off her trackpants and gets up.
“You just need to practice more,” he assures, and she beams at him.
“Alright!”
cinq
For her birthday Chinen decides to bake a cake. Girls, he reasons, like cake.
It’s not easy, but he manages to make one with his mother’s help after slipping away from the campus in the afternoon. It is well past dinner when he trudges back to the dorms with a strawberry shortcake in a cooler bag, which he promptly keeps in the dorm room fridge before going to sleep.
The next day he sneaks back to the dorm room at lunch before Umika arrives. When he returns to the cafeteria he notices that everybody else has plied her with presents.
“Happy birthday,” he tells her, and places the small pink cake right in front of her.
Her eyes light up and she gets up from her seat to hug him.
“It looks tasty!” she squeals. “Thank you, Chinen-kun! You’re the best friend ever.”
Somewhere in his heart he feels something plummet at the word friend, but keeps his smile on anyway.
“I baked it just for you,” he says cheerily. “I hope you like strawberry shortcake.”
Umika cuts a slice to taste and promptly declares that it’s the best cake she’s eaten for a while, upon which everybody else immediately begins clamouring for a slice.
Chinen resigns himself to sitting on the cafeteria bench, watching Yamada try to steal strawberries from everybody else.
six
“Way to go, Captain Obvious,” Yuto sniggers.
Chinen sighs.
“She didn’t even notice.”
“Tough luck.”
sept
Somehow Yamada ends up spilling the entire story to Mirai, who is incredibly amused.
“Umika is extremely blur,” she advises Chinen. “You’ll need to be blindingly obvious.”
“I am obvious,” Chinen groans. “How much more obvious must I be?”
huit
A couple of months later Umika invites Chinen to go watch her friend’s musical. Her friend, it turns out, is studying directing, and this musical is her first major project.
Chinen is all for going, until he realizes that the day of the musical coincides with the day he was meant to go watch the band ARASHI perform live in Tokyo.
He agonises long and hard over this. On one hand, ARASHI is only going to perform in Tokyo for one night before heading to Osaka; on the other hand, Umika will have nobody else to go with for the musical.
In the end he sells the ticket online for nearly double the price he bought it at, and tells Umika he’s free.
Yamada is incredibly shocked.
“I thought you were an insane fanboy of ARASHI!”
“I am,” Chinen says.
“Weren’t you babbling about finally going to see them and their lead singer Ohyama perform live? I know you practically worship him and all.”
“It’s Ohno,” sniffs Chinen with an injured air. “I can always buy the DVD anyway. Besides, Kawashima-chan would be all alone if I’d gone for the concert.”
Yamada slowly shakes his head.
“You’ve got it bad for her,” he sighs. “Really bad.”
neuf
The musical is good though, and Chinen is happy when they walk out of the concert hall with Umika’s arm looped through his.
“Thanks for coming,” Umika tells him happily. “I know I’ve said this before, but you’re the best friend ever.”
Chinen commits her sparkling eyes to memory and tries not to be too affected by her words.
A couple of days later, as he reads fanreports about the ARASHI concert, he feels slightly jealous. Apparently the lead guitarist and co-lead singer Ninomiya had decided to have an audience interaction session. They’d given away five posters, each one with all five of their signatures, by lucky draw. In addition Ohno had gotten to sing a solo this time, and had the pianist Sakurai and drummer Aiba backdance for him.
It had apparently been awesome in every sense of the word, but Chinen recalls Umika’s smile and the warmth of her arm threaded to his, and doesn’t feel as bad.
The next concert, he tells himself. I’ll go for the next one.
dix
A week later Umika comes to find him.
“I heard you missed the ARASHI concert because you accompanied me,” she says sorrowfully. “I’m sorry.”
Chinen blinks dumbly.
“It’s…no big deal, really.”
“If it’s any consolation, I like them too,” she adds. “Next time they come to Tokyo let’s go watch them together!”
“I didn’t know you liked ARASHI,” Chinen responds slowly, and Umika giggles.
“I like Matsumoto, the bassist,” she admits. “He looks so cool, don’t you think?”
onze
They spend lunch the next day arguing over Matsumoto’s vocal skills (or lack thereof).
“You two are so alike it scares me,” Suzuka groans, and Yuto agrees.
“Just get married already,” Yamada jokes, but thankfully Umika does not hear this.
Chinen glares at Yamada.
Shut up, he tries to telepathically convey.
This fails when Mirai giggles and tells him he looks like a constipated frog.
douze
“Just call her and tell her straight and be done with it already,” Yamada sighs, flipping idly through the radio stations.
“It worked for Yamada-kun,” Kamiki chimes in, and Chinen sighs.
“But how-” he begins to retort, but falls abruptly silent as One Love, one of ARASHI’s more ballad-like songs, blares out from Yamada’s radio.
At that exact moment, the perfect idea hits him.
treize
He dials Umika’s number.
She picks up on the fifth ring, sounding curious.
“Chinen-kun?”
He steels himself - it’s now or never. He’s never really held faith in his singing abilities, despite Yamada telling him he sounds great at karaoke (everybody sounds good at karaoke, he reasons) and he can feel butterflies stirring in the pit of his stomach.
“Chinen-kun…?” Umika sounds confused now.
“No matter what you’re like, or what I’m like, it’s always lovely,” he begins to sing, and he hears a gasp on the other side as Umika recognizes the lyrics. “With you around I don’t need anything, because we’ll surely be happy.”
There is a short silence, before Umika asks tentatively:
“What…”
Chinen groans mentally. Just my luck to fall for the incredibly blur one, he thinks.
Changing key and tune, he sings again.
“I just called to say, I love you. I just called to say how much I care~”
It’s definitely a sob he hears on the other line now, and he stops abruptly.
“Oh god,” he breathes, feeling insanely guilty. “I’m sorry-”
“That was the sweetest confession I’ve ever heard,” Umika whispers on the other end of the line, stopping him short.
“Eh?”
“I just wanted to make sure you didn’t call to randomly sing my favourite ARASHI song,” she adds, and Chinen smiles in spite of himself.
“You know, I’ve been pretty obvious about it for a while.”
“I’m sorry!” she gasps, sounding horrified. “I didn’t notice or anything. I’m such a blur blob!”
He can just imagine her flustered look, and grins.
“It’s okay,” he says. “You’re my adorable blur blob.”
He hears sputtering on the other end, before Umika replies again.
“I love you too,” she says shyly, and Chinen thinks that he can’t be any happier than right now.
+ un: epilogue
“He sang me One Love!” Umika practically squeals to Mirai and Suzuka. “It’s my favourite ARASHI song, and he used it to confess to me! How romantic is that?”
“It’s cheesy,” Mirai decides.
Umika pouts.
“Besides,” Suzuka adds. “You only like it because that Matsumoto dude got many solo lines, didn’t you?”
Sniffing, Umika flushes red.
“You’re just jealous your boyfriend didn’t pledge his eternal love to you~” she retorts, sticking her tongue out.
“…Whatever.”