[oneshot] For the Love of Silence

[dreamweavernyx]

Title: For the Love of Silence

Author: Luna (dreamweavernyx )

Pairing: Hikaru x OC

Genre: Fluff

Notes: Super belated birthdayfic for Saki (shiroikazex )!

Unbeta-ed, because I don't want to scare anybody with the size of the MSWord file.

Written in dual perspective. '***' indicates a change in pespective, '~' indicates a change in scene.

'Shizuka' means silence.

~


Practice was over for the day.

“Let’s go grab dinner,” Inoo suggested, as he slung his bag over his shoulder and cast an inquiring glance at Hikaru. “I know this great ramen place.”

Hikaru grinned crookedly.

“I’m the ramen expert, Inoo-chan. I know every good ramen place.”

“But this isn’t one of those famous ramen places! It’s awesome, and at the same time awesomely small and relatively unknown. They serve amazing ramen, trust me.”

Laughing, Hikaru ruffled Inoo’s perm, making the boy flail in protest.

“Alright, alright. No need to get your panties in a twist.”

He was out of the door before Inoo could gather his senses and shriek at him.

~

Harukawa Ramen, the small sign at the front of the shop read.

Inoo pushed open the glass door, and a tiny bell dangling in front of the door tinkled. A young man working behind the counter at the bar table raised his head.

“Ah, Inoo-kun! You’re here again! You brought your friend?”

“Yeah,” Inoo laughed, “Souta, meet Hikaru. Hikaru, meet Souta. He works part-time here.”

Souta was a happy-looking young man who looked only slightly older than Inoo and himself, with sandy brown dyed hair and sparkling eyes.

“Hi!” he waved, grinning. “Inoo-kun, your usual? What will Hikaru-san have?”

Souta spoke fast, rather like a Shinkansen, and it was hard for Hikaru to hear all the questions that he asked because each was joined to the next.

“Um,” he said, glancing at the menu board, “…pork miso ramen?”

“Sure!”

Souta reached out and grabbed their menus, and as he headed to the kitchen at the back he could hear him yell “One pork miso and one spicy pork broth special!”

Inoo sighed, and stretched his arms above his head.

“Sorry about that. Souta speaks like a bullet train, but once you get to know him he’s an awesome guy. Great friend, too. He’ll never backstab you or anything, he’s too nice for that.”

“How many people work here?” Hikaru asked curiously.

Inoo blinked, and thought for a while.

“Well, there’s the owner, Kitano-san, and his wife, who do the cooking and preparations of the ingredients. The wait staff are generally all part-timers, but I’ve only seen Souta except for a couple of times when it was someone else instead. Apparently during holidays though, Kitano-san’s daughter comes here to help out with the cooking and serving.”

“Daughter?”

“Yeah…come to think of it though, I’ve never actually seen her before,” Inoo mused.

Their conversation was cut short when Souta plonked down two steaming bowls of ramen in front of them.

“Enjoy!”

Inoo broke apart his chopsticks, and with a quick Itadakimasu dug in straight away, eating away ferociously at the noodles in the suspiciously red broth. Hikaru, on the other hand, took his time to savour the aroma.

It smells good, he thought to himself, and his stomach rumbled in agreement.

The noodles were all gone under five minutes.

~

“You were right, they do have awesome ramen!” Hikaru enthused to Inoo after they left the shop, “And it’s affordable, too! I think I may start coming here more often.”

Inoo grinned.

“I spend half my free time there. It’s great. Well, see you!”

Hikaru waved, grinning, and he headed for the train station.

“Oof!”

Hikaru blinked. He had bumped into a girl while not paying much attention to where she was going.

“Sorry…” he gasped, bending down to help her pick up the thick textbooks that she had scattered on the sidewalk after bumping into him.

“Thanks. And it’s okay!”

Piling all the textbooks into a mountain which she balanced on one hand, the girl brushed off her capris and stood gingerly, lifting her free hand to brush her chestnut-brown dyed hair behind her ear.

Bowing quickly once again, she brushed past him, clutching her thick textbooks to her chest.

Strange…

Shrugging, Hikaru resumed his walk to the station.

***

She sighed, and clutched her Psychology textbooks to her chest as she walked off.

At least, she thought, that random guy was nice enough to help me pick them up after he bumped into me.

Sighing, she dug out her slim sakura-pink keitai from the pocket of her capris, and began typing out a text message as she walked.

“I’ll be coming for work during my term break.”

She sighed, shivering slightly in the chilly autumn night air, and continued on her walk home.

***

“Hikaru! Stop spacing out!”

Hikaru jerked back to attention, blinking rapidly.

“Huh?”

Yabu groaned, and buried his face in his hands.

“You were staring into space with your mouth open.”

“Eh? Sorry, I’m just…well, kind of hungry,” Hikaru laughed sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head before Chinen reached up and bonked it hard.

“We just had lunch three hours ago! And you stole some of Dai-chan’s pocky too!”

Daiki nodded away furiously behind Chinen, righteously indignant, while Yamada just sighed and demolished another strawberry, watching the show.

“Mou~ I want ramen,” whined Hikaru, and he saw Inoo roll his eyes.

“You can get ramen at dinner,” Inoo groaned, “but if we don’t get this done, we’ll never get any dinner.”

Hikaru sighed.

“Alright.”

***

She pushed open the door of the family store.

“Mum?” she called, and heard an answering voice ring out from the back of the kitchen.

“I have something to discuss with you!”

She set down her sling bag behind the counter, and retrieving a slim file of papers, she pushed aside the curtains at the kitchen entrance and entered.

“Mum, this is a decision of a lifetime…”

***

“Are you like, addicted to Harukawa’s ramen?” Inoo asked dryly as they left the jimusho.

Hikaru sighed.

“I’ve made it a personal goal to try every single flavour on the menu, but they have like, so many flavours and they keep coming up with specials! So I’m going to live off ramen for a while. It’s awesome!”

“…Right, okay, whatever.”

~

“Souta~” Inoo wailed the moment they stepped into Harukawa Ramen, “I need your help!”

Souta blinked, then gestured to two empty chairs. Inoo plopped himself down on one, and extracted his fat university textbook. Within seconds, the two were engaged in a deep conversation regarding architecture, and Hikaru was lost.

“Don’t mind them,” laughed a voice from just out of his range of vision, “Souta-kun is apparently Inoo-san’s senior in Meiji. This is a very common scene.”

Hikaru turned to meet a sparkling brown eyes of a girl dressed in jeans and a hoodie with an apron on top.

“Ah!” he cried, suddenly realizing something, “you’re the one from that night!”

She blinked rapidly.

“Oh, yes, that’s right! You’re the one who helped me pick up all my Psychology textbooks.”

“You work here?”

Her laugh was boisterous, not delicate like the pretty girls in the television dramas his seniors at Johnny’s acted in, but it was infectious and happy, and he found himself grinning along for no reason.

“Nice to meet you,” she said, still smiling slightly, “I’m Kitano Shizuka. My parents own this restaurant. I’m helping out because it’s my term break.”

That’s right, he thought, Inoo did say the owners had a daughter.

“I’m Yaotome Hikaru,” he introduced himself, and she peered at him.

“Have I seen you on TV before?”

Hikaru blinked, lost for words.

“I’m…ah…from Hey! Say! JUMP. You know, Johnny’s Entertainment?”

“I know Arashi,” was her chipper reply. “And NEWS. Do you mean Heisei, like this current era Heisei?”

A sudden feeling of devastation swept across Hikaru.

There are people in Japan, teenage people, who have never heard of us?

When he came back to his senses, he realized his mouth was hanging open, and gathered that he must have been gaping like a bullfrog for a while. She was laughing, stifling her laughter with her hand.

“Your face,” she choked out, “was hilarious! I’m sorry. Of course I know you, I’ve been to your concerts before!”

“But you like Arashi more?”

She nodded furiously, then abruptly stopped as if she had remembered something.

“Oh, yes! What would you like to order?”

“Hm? Oh, um,” he was suddenly at a loss, “…the Hokkaido special?”

“Sure.”

She whisked his menu away, and headed back into the kitchen.

***

Safely ensconced within the confines of the kitchen, she closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath.

My heartbeat did not just increase when he looked into my eyes. I am perfectly fine. I am not crushing on that guy. I am not. Even though I know so much about him and Ayako is making me flail him along with her. I am fine. Totally cool-

He was kind of cute, remarked an inner voice dryly.

Shut up.

She willed the tiny blush still on her cheeks to fade away. Sighing, she reached for the pot and began to cook his order.

***

“This tastes slightly different than usual,” Hikaru noted, slurping up the noodles.

Shizuka blinked.

“Different in a bad way? I know my cooking isn’t on par with my mum’s yet…”

“A good way. It tastes delicious!” Hikaru gave a huge thumbs up as the last of the noodles disappeared from the broth.

She grinned.

“Thanks!”

“It tastes like my mum’s cooking,” Hikaru continued, “Delicious, and full of love!”

Shizuka raised her eyebrow, smirking slightly.

“Love? Yaotome-san, the words you tell the magazine reporters aren’t guaranteed to work on the heart of every girl. You sound like a flirt.”

“I didn’t mean to!”

He was presented with an eye roll.

“That’s worse. You flirt with girls you’ve only met for the first time who you don’t know anything about, and you’re not even aware of it. You’re a natural-born flirt. It’s ingrained so deeply into you that it’s become natural!”

It took about another five seconds for his brain to catch up.

“You’re worse than Souta!” he whined petulantly, and Shizuka laughed out loud.

“You’ll get used to it,” she said consolingly, reaching across the counter to clear his bowl.

She returned from the kitchen soon enough, with a short slip of paper.

“300 yen,” she said cheerfully.

Hikaru dug around in his wallet for some coins, and stopped short when he realized he had none. Chinen had probably hidden all his money as a joke again, but this was one of the worst times to discover it.

“Inoo!” he howled across the eatery, “can I borrow 300 yen? Chinen hid my money again!”

But Inoo was currently engaged in a loud debate with Souta over some sophisticated-sounding architecture topic, and didn’t hear him.

“Your band mate hides your money?” Shizuka asked dryly, a note of disbelief in her voice.

“Chinen’s got the mentality of a five-year-old brat sometimes,” Hikaru groaned.

Shizuka sighed.

“It’s okay. I’ll pay for you then. Just remember that you owe me a favor now!”

“Thanks!” Hikaru let out a sigh of relief, “You’re awesome!”

She blinked at him as she took out three 100-yen coins from her purse to place in the cash register.

“At this point, I should be flattered that a famous teenage idol is telling me this, but considering that this teenage idol yells the same phrase every day during concerts I’m not sure how much it’s actually worth anymore.”

She smirked as Hikaru groaned and attempted to bang his head on the table.

“I meant it! Really!”

“…Right.”

“Why won’t you believe me~?”

Her laughter caused even Inoo and Souta to pause in their argument, hands still waving in the air, to stare at the two of them curiously.

“I see we’re going to become great acquaintances, Yaotome-san.”

***

“Something going on between you and Hikaru-san?” Souta asked her mischievously the next day.

Rolling her eyes, Shizuka smacked Souta’s head lightly with a tea towel.

“None of your business. Slacker.”

“What did I do wrong now?”

She took one glance at his attempted puppy-face, and struggled not to burst out laughing.

“Yaotome-san,” she said primly instead, “is extremely fun to poke fun at. That is all.”

Souta grinned.

“They say that if you tease someone a lot it means you like them~!”

Shizuka whirled around and pointed a soup ladle accusingly in his direction, brandishing it menacingly.

“You’ve been reading too much shoujo manga. Has Inoo-san been lending you his?”

Souta squawked in protest and attempted to tickle her while avoiding her ladle.

“Take that back!”

***

It had been a week since he met Shizuka.

It had long become routine for him to drop by the ramen store for dinner every couple of days or so, despite Inoo’s protests that too much ramen was unhealthy. Every time he opened the door, Shizuka would usually greet him from behind the counter, and a conversation would ensue, full of teasing (on her part) and flailing (on his) before she remembered to take his order.

The bell tinkled as he opened the door, and he saw her eyes snap towards him.

“Yaotome-san,” she said cheerily, “work ended earlier today?”

“Yaotome-kun, at least,” he groaned, “I feel old when you use -san.”

She set the dishcloth down and leaned her face in her hands, elbows on the countertop as she watched him take a seat.

“Those who feel old are the ones who are truly old, Yaotome-san~! Besides, you’re just a customer, it’s not like I’m familiar with you or anything.”

“I’m not old!” he wailed, before the second sentence caught up with him.

“So…if we were on more familiar terms you’ll call me Yaotome-kun?”

“…I guess?”

Hikaru grinned, stretching out his hand to her.

“Let’s go out for lunch tomorrow! I have a free day.”

“What? What’s this, all of a sudden?”

Hikaru pouted.

“…Didn’t you want us to be on more familiar terms?”

“I don’t recall,” she said nonchantly. “And ask properly if you want me to seriously consider it,” she added in on second thought.

At a loss for words, Hikaru stared into space for a while before hesitantly asking again.

“Would you…give me the pleasure of accompanying me…for lunch tomorrow?”

There was an awkward pause, before Shizuka started laughing.

“You sounded so formal!”

“I tried my best!”

Wiping her tears from laughing too hard, she drew a small notepad from her apron pocket.

“Alright then. What time, where do I meet you, and what would you like to order now?”

***

“He asked you out on a date,” Souta deadpanned the next morning, arriving early to take over her shift when she left for lunch, “and you still claim nothing’s going on between you and Hikaru-san?”

“Not yet,” she said mildly, stamping out the flutter in her heart at the word date, “it’s only lunch, after all. How bad can that be?”

***

“An amusement park?”

Hikaru grinned slightly at Shizuka’s scandalized voice.

“I thought we were going for lunch!”

The wind blew her fringe into her eyes, and she irritably reached up to push them back.

“We are,” Hikaru said mildly, “but let’s have some fun first! You like roller coasters?”

Shizuka sighed.

“I’m neutral…I guess? I rarely go to amusement parks.”

“All the more you should enjoy yourself now!” Hikaru said enthusiastically, pumping a fist into the air.

“Not with a guy next to me who looks like a complete dumbass.”

“What?”

Shizuka sighed, and reached out to unwind the scarf from his neck.

“You look so much like Sho-kun on Mannequin Five with that on. See, now you look much better!”

She folded up the scarf and shoved it into his messenger bag, then beamed at him.

“Race you to the roller coaster!”

“Hey!”

~

The roller coaster carriage slowly went higher and higher up the slope. Right at the top, it pauses, hanging in equilibrium for a bare moment.

Shizuka sucked in a breath next to him, eyeing the distance from the ground far below.

“We’re up high,” she whispered.

In the next moment they were plunging down, down, down, and she was hugging his arm and screaming and giggling, burying her face in the cloth of his shirt sleeve.

The ride was over in a rush of wind, and they sat panting on the seats, before slowly getting up. Shizuka stumbled slightly while getting out of the carriage, and his arm automatically shot out to wrap around her shoulders.

“Thanks,” she mumbled, and he hoped she wouldn’t see his cheeks flame red.

“Let’s go for lunch? Unless you want to take more rides.”

“Let’s have lunch first,” she said practically, “maybe after that we can take the ferris wheel. Or play some games.”

Lunch turned out to be a bento set each and a box of takoyaki to share. They sat down on a bench under some trees and dug in.

“Itadakima~su!”

He watched Shizuka demolish her food with vigour, almost as quickly as Yamada chomping up strawberries. They ended up finishing their bentos around the same time, and began to slowly eat the takoyaki piece by piece.

“Ah,” she suddenly said, glancing inside the takoyaki box, “there’s only one piece left.”

Hikaru blinked.

“You can have it,” she continued, pushing the box towards him.

“Ah-I-”

The box was shoved into his hands, and he sighed. Spearing the last takoyaki ball, he lifted it out of the box and noticed her looking at it hungrily. Hikaru sighed.

In a sudden motion, he pushed the takoyaki ball into her mouth, causing her to splutter and attempt to swallow it down.

“What did you do that for?” she wailed at last when she had swallowed it all and wiped off bonito flakes from her mouth.

“You probably wanted it, right?”

She pouted.

“Whatever. Race you to the game stalls!”

“What-Hey! At least help me clear the rubbish first!”

~

They ended up leaving the amusement park just before dinnertime. Shizuka was hugging a large white stuffed dog to her chest, and smiling happily.

“Thanks for winning this for me,” she said brightly, and Hikaru shook his head.

“It’s no problem. Do you want me to walk you back to the store?”

“No need,” she said, “Thanks for taking me out! I’ll go back by myself from here.”

Hikaru smiled.

“See you then.”

He began to turn to walk to his bus stop, when she called after him.

“Wait! Give me your phone number?”

Walking back, he did so, and she beamed, sending him her number before slipping her keitai back into her pocket.

“Well…see you soon.”

“Jaa!”

She waved cheerfully, then headed off in the opposite direction, still hugging the toy dog.

“Yeah,” Hikaru whispered to nobody in particular, “see you soon.”

~

“You’re twitterpatted,” Inoo told him firmly the next day, after discovering that Hikaru had gotten Shizuka’s number.

“…What?”

Inoo turned to Souta, who was leaning over the countertop.

“I can see what’s happening,” he sighed.

Souta nodded gravely.

“And they don’t have a clue,” he agreed.

Very appropriately, Hikaru looked between the two of them and uttered a loud “Huh?”

“They’ll fall in love,” continued Inoo.

“And here’s the bottom line-”

“Our trio’s down to two,” he and Souta chorused together, making exaggerated sad faces.

Hikaru rolled his eyes.

“Oh, shut up. Stop blowing things out of proportion. You guys are just jealous because you have no love life whatsoever. You can’t even get the girls to look at you.”

“Hey!”

***

One day, Hikaru showed up later than usual. Although she didn’t admit it, she felt slightly relieved when he pushed open the door.

“Sorry,” he told her, “Choreographer-san made us perfect the new dance before we could leave.”

“New single?”

“Yeah. We’ll be releasing it in a couple of weeks.”

Shizuka blinked.

“Hikaru-san, you're only starting to learn the dance now?”

He ignored this, and began perusing the menu instead.

“…Am I the last customer?” he asked suddenly after a while?

“Hm?” she was caught off-guard, “Oh, yes. I was actually going to close up. I’ll do that after you finish your ramen.”

“Sorry to trouble you,” said Hikaru sheepishly, but she shook her head emphatically.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Now, hurry up and order! You take as long as an old man, really. Maybe I should go back to calling you Yaotome-san.”

~

She heard thunder roar as she finished washing his dishes.

Oh man, I didn’t bring an umbrella.

Sighing, she checked over the kitchen one last time. Finding it clean to her satisfaction, she flicked off the lights and walked back out into the eating area. To her surprise, Hikaru was still waiting there, swinging his legs idly while sitting on the bar stool.

“…Why are you still here?”

“It’s going to rain soon,” Hikaru pointed out the obvious, “I’ll walk you home.”

“Hikaru-san, may I remind you that you don’t even know where my house is?”

He winced at her acerbic tone.

“You…can show me?”

He was rewarded with a roll of her eyes and a grudging agreement.

“I don’t have an umbrella anyway,” she reasoned.

“…Right. Are you done? We’ll try to get to your house before the rain starts.”

“Let me lock up.”

She grabbed the keys and her bag, and turned off the lights in the eating area before following Hikaru out the door, pulling the door shut and locking it securely. Shoving the keys into the pocket of her jeans, she took her scarf out of her bag and wrapped her neck in it, breath silver mist in the cold air of one of the last nights of autumn.

With Hikaru following slightly behind her, she set out on the journey home.

~

They were passing by a small park when she felt it.

One tiny ice-cold drop fell from the skies and landed on her cheek.

“Oh no,” she muttered, “this is not good.”

Hikaru blinked dumbly.

“It’s raining!”

“Yes it is, Captain Obvious,” she said snarkily, as another four drops landed on her.

Suddenly, he grabbed her hand and began running for the small pavilion in the garden as the rain began to fall even more heavily. They made it in time to avoid the rain as it escalated into a furious downpour, and they bent over under the roof of the pavilion, gasping for breath.

“You must be cold,” Hikaru said suddenly, and indeed, the cold air combined with the rain did feel quite cold for Shizuka, who was only wearing one long-sleeved shirt.

Before she could say anything, he shrugged off his jacket and draped it around her shoulders.

“There,” he said, “much better.”

Her gaze flicked up to his, and held him there for a while, neither saying a word.

***

Perhaps it was the way her cheeks were adorably rosy after the short sprint. Perhaps it was the raindrops clinging to her eyelashes, tempting him to reach out and brush them away. Perhaps it was the fact that she, in an extremely rare moment of silence, was staring straight into his eyes.

Perhaps it was the fluttering in his heart and the tingling in his body that pushed him to do so.

He couldn’t be sure what it was exactly that made him do it, because it was most probably a combination of all those factors,

Reaching out a hand, he wiped away a couple of raindrops from her cheek, and the swooped in to capture her lips.

***

Fireworks went off beneath her eyelids.

This definitely felt like a dream - an idol was kissing her, and she was kissing back - and she buried her fingers in his wet hair, running her fingers through the dyed strands. Her legs tangled with his, and she felt his arms, strong after years of playing the bass, wrap around her waist to steady her.

This was definitely not like how she’d used to dream about meeting Arashi’s Ninomiya and falling in love with him.

But it was close enough.

***

“Ne,” Hikaru whispered one night, as they sat together on a park bench, “have you ever thought about your future?”

Shizuka looked up at the stars, lost in silence for a while before replying.

“My future?”

“Yeah. What do you want to do?”

Shizuka sighed.

“I don’t know. I’ve always wanted to become a psychologist, but now I’ve begun to wonder if I should just take over the ramen shop for Mum and Dad instead of that, after I graduate.”

“You should pursue your dream! I think that would make your parents happy.”

She shook her head slowly.

“There is this course, this immersion programme that my lecturer recommends for anybody interested in truly becoming a psychologist. It’s in Oxford, for one year, and going there would definitely be one huge step towards achieving my dream. But…it’s quite expensive to go, even though it’s quite subsidized, and I’m not sure if Mum and Dad will be able to afford it. So if I do manage to get in, I can’t turn back, because I’ll put their efforts to waste.”

Hikaru was quiet. He was useless in this kind of situations - and he knew it - because he had already decided on the path his future would take a long time ago.

“I don’t even know if I’ll get selected anyway,” Shizuka whispered, “only one student from Toudai will be offered this, so my chances of getting it are slim.”

“Only one Japanese student will get to go?”

“No. One from Waseda, one from Keio, and one from Toudai. Apparently many countries get these opportunities to go to England.”

Hikaru sighed.

“Follow your heart,” he murmured, stroking her hair.

There was a pause as she buried her face into his sleeve.

“Cheesy,” she mumbled into the fabric.

“Eh?”

She raised her face to look at him.

“‘Follow your heart’? That sounds like something ripped off those motivational posters. Or Disney movies. Or something.”

Hikaru pouted.

“Hey! I was being deep and insightful there!”

“That’s a rarity,” she snorted, and poked his cheek teasingly, previous somber mood hidden away.

“You’ve been watching Ninomiya-kun too much,” Hikaru groaned, “you’re as snarky as him!”

“Good,” she said, satisfied, “I meant to be.”

“Shizuka’s a meanieeeee~”

“That’s it,” she shrieked, “you’re going down!”

She began tickling him mercilessly, both forgetting the world for a while, lost in a world of their own.

***

“Tadaima.”

“Okaeri, Shizuka!”

Shizuka looked up to see her mother sitting at the dining table, poring over the papers she had left on the dining table days earlier and pushed to the back of her mind.

“Shizuka, are you interested in applying for this immersion programme to the school of Psychology in England?”

Shizuka pulled out a chair to sit beside her mother.

“I…don’t know. Can we afford it?”

Her mother smiled, eyes crinkling up.

“Don’t worry about us, Shizuka. Pursue your dream, if you wish.”

~

“I’ve decided,” she told Hikaru the next day, “I’m trying for that immersion programme.”

***

And suddenly, Hikaru found himself with a month of relative freedom. They had just finished their tour, they weren’t likely to release another single any time soon, and all he had left were his television shows and occasional appearances on music shows.

Takaki gave him a phonecall, and asked if he would like to go shopping with him and Inoo and ‘some other friends’. Takaki was stylish and had good fashion sense, and Hikaru found himself agreeing before he had registered Takaki’s full sentence.

So that was how he found himself in Shibuya, walking the streets with Inoo and Takaki and one of Inoo’s classmates, who surprisingly did not follow their group and thus was not a crazy fangirl.

The girl in question was cute and giggly - kawaii, Inoo called her - and completely Takaki’s kind of girl, in his opinion. But for some reason, he was the one who ended up carrying all her shopping, along with Inoo’s and Takaki’s. They ran ahead, peeking from shop to shop, while he trudged behind grudgingly.

“Come on!” the girl chirped, turning back for him, “you’re slow!”

Reaching out, she grabbed his hand and began to run, dragging him along through the throng of people.

“Oof!”

The girl had banged into someone. Hikaru blinked, and realized that that someone in particular was staring at him with a pair of incredulous brown eyes.

Shizuka.

Curse you, Murphy, he swore inside his mind. Of all the people he had to encounter when out with a girl, it just had to be the girl he might have feelings for.

“Sorry!” gasped the girl, hand over her mouth, “I didn’t mean to knock into you!”

Hikaru couldn’t see Shizuka’s expression, but he could have sworn he heard a little bitterness in her quiet reply.

“It’s alright. Please, don’t get held up by me. I’ll pick up my books myself.”

As the girl nodded and started dragging Hikaru away again, he risked a backwards glance at Shizuka. She was kneeling on the concrete pavement, slowly picking up the scattered books one by one.

“Shouldn’t we go help her?”

The girl tossed her hair.

“She said she’s fine. Besides, we’re already late! We’ve got to run faster!”

Sighing, Hikaru turned his back on Shizuka and followed after the running girl, not once turning back.

***

She watched his back disappear into the crowd, eyes filled with a cocktail of betrayal and sadness.

Only wishful thinking, she berated herself, It was only wishful thinking. He wouldn’t ever know I like him because he’s too dumb to see the signs, so why am I still disappointed?

Picking up the last of the books, she began to walk home with heavy steps and a heavy heart.

Looks like he has a girlfriend now.

Her lips curled into a bitter half-smile.

~

“It’s only one more week until they release the results of the scholarship application, isn’t it?”

Shizuka looked up from the sofa to see her mother’s face.

“Yeah,” she said, “and two more weeks before the new term begins.”

“I have faith in you,” her mother said.

Shizuka sighed.

“When the sakura start blooming in winter, then I’ll believe that I’m truly capable of pursuing my dream, Ma.”

Her mother didn’t reply.

“I mean, there are so many people better than me. Why would I ever get chosen?”

“Believe in yourself, dear.”

“I wish I could.”

She wasn’t so sure which dream she was talking about anymore: England…or Hikaru.

I wish I had the courage to chase after my dream.

She closed her eyes and curled up on the sofa, chest heaving with silent sobs she couldn’t let out.

***

Hikaru entered the shop the next day to find only Souta manning the counter alone.

“Eh? Where’s Shizuka?”

Souta stopped mopping up a table and turned to him.

“I have no idea. Maybe she called in sick? Anyway, your usual pork ramen?”

“Mm, yeah, sure thing.”

But for some reason, the noodles tasted different.

Probably because Shizuka didn’t cook them, a voice in his mind whispered.

Silently, he agreed.

~

He decided to go for yakiniku with Yabu and Takaki the next day. The day after Inoo dragged him along for a three-day gourmet trip in Hokkaido. And after he returned all of BEST decided to randomly crash Daiki’s house for an impromptu sleepover, ignoring all protests and attempts to kick them out.

Very soon, he had forgotten about his habit of visiting Harukawa Ramen on a daily basis.

Two weeks flew by in a breeze, and soon he found himself going back to the jimusho for practice again.

One day, he heard yelling coming from the reception.

Thinking nothing of it, he walked down the corridors to the JUMP practice room.

Five minutes into dance practice, the door burst open to reveal their flustered-looking receptionist.

“Yaotome-san!” she gasped, “Do you know someone called Nakamura Souta? He’s been a nuisance at the front, asking for you.”

“…Souta?”

“Hikaru, that’s the Souta you know,” Inoo supplied helpfully, and Hikaru nodded.

He followed the receptionist out into the front of the jimusho.

“Hikaru-san!” Souta gasped, looking windswept with his cap askew on his head, “there you are! I need to tell you something urgent!”

He grabbed hold of Hikaru’s hand, and made to drag him out of the jimusho building, but turned back when he felt the stare of the receptionist bore into him.

“I’m not going to…rape him or anything, I swear,” he assured the receptionist, and walked out of the jimusho, leaving her spluttering like a fish out of water.

Once they were safely out of the jimusho and out of earshot of any people listening out the windows, Souta turned to Hikaru.

“Why are you still here?”

“…Because I…have…work…?”

Souta groaned and put his face in his hands.

“Shizuka. Why are you not with her? I had the impression that you guys were a couple.”

“…Did something happen to Shizuka?” Hikaru asked cluelessly.

Souta grabbed Hikaru’s shoulders.

“You, Hikaru-san, are probably one of the biggest idiots I have met in my entire life. Inoo-kun was completely right about you.”

“Hey!”

~

Souta told him everything.

Everything.

About Shizuka leaving for a week and half to go to Kyoto ‘to clear her head’. About Shizuka getting that scholarship to Oxford.

About Shizuka flying off in an hour’s time from Narita.

“She’ll have to enter the boarding area in 30 minutes,” Souta said urgently, “aren’t you going to see her off?”

“Should I?”

Souta gave him a sharp look.

“Follow your heart,” he said mildly, unwittingly repeating the words Hikaru had said to Shizuka on that night which seemed so long ago.

Hikaru took a deep breath.

“Let’s go.”

~

He stopped Souta on the way to get something, then he was back in Souta’s car, roaring down the highway to the airport.

***

“Remember to take care of yourself,” her mother said, “and eat your meals regularly. Don’t stay up too late! Write to us often as well, and have fun!”

“Yes, Ma,” Shizuka laughed, hugging her mother again, “I’ll remember.”

“When you come back your English had better be perfect,” teased her father.

“Yes, yes.”

Her mother glanced at the airport clock.

“Shouldn’t it be time for you to go soon?”

“Souta-kun said he was coming, wasn’t he? I’ll wait a little while longer for him.”

***

The car screeched to a halt in the parking lot, and Hikaru tumbled out of the car, tripping over his feet in a rush to run to the terminal.

“Good luck!” called Souta, following behind at a slower pace.

***

“Dear, I think you should go. Perhaps Souta-kun got held up in traffic. We’ll tell him you said goodbye.”

“Alright,” Shizuka sighed, “I love you Ma, Dad.”

She took hold of the handle of her suitcase and turned to enter the boarding gate.

“Wait!”

A voice she hadn’t heard in a while rang out, painfully familiar.

She spun around, and her eyes widened in shock.

***

He saw her mouth his name.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he gasped as he caught up to her.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shizuka’s father give him a wink before walking off with her mother.

“What…are you doing here?”

Her voice was strangely quiet and cold, not like the times she was teasing him before.

“Souta’s ramen doesn’t taste as good as yours,” he blurted out, before he could register what he was saying.

A puzzled stare.

“And cup ramen doesn’t cut it either,” his traitorous mouth blabbed, before he clamped his mouth shut, surprised at the words that had spilled his mouth.

Shizuka looked torn between horror and amusement, mouth twitching to stay flat.

“And why, may I ask, does your ramen obsession seem to have any relevance to my question?” she asked, with a slight return of her familiar snarky tone.

Hikaru sighed, and forced himself to organize his thoughts before opening his mouth again.

“I miss you and your ramen and your teasing and everything. So I came to say goodbye before you left. I’m sorry if I made you angry or anything, but I just can’t take it anymore. Do you know how quiet and lonely it is without you and your endless talking? I missed it, even though I was always being made fun of.”

“…Won’t your girlfriend be upset? You’re coming all this way to see off another girl.”

“Shizuka,” Hikaru said confusedly, “I don’t have a girlfriend.”

She frowned.

“That girl at Shibuya wasn’t your girlfriend? Sure seemed like she was.”

“Look, Shizuka. There is only one girl I like, and she’s the only one I would ever consider dating, alright?”

He noticed her face fall, just a little, yet again.

“…I see.”

Gently, he reached out and pushed her bangs aside from where they had hung when she lowered her head.

“Shizuka,” he whispered softly, tucking her hair behind her ear, “don’t jump to hasty conclusions before I finish. There is only one girl I like. And that girl is you.”

***

Her heart skipped a beat.

Did he just say those words I’ve always dreamed of hearing?

Hardly daring to believe her ears, she slowly glanced up at his face to see a soft smile plastered on it.

“You…what?” she managed to croak out.

“I like you,” he repeated, and she felt her heart jump in her chest.

He must have mistaken her incredulous stare for denial, and he hastily added, “It’s find if you don’t like me back, really. I just don’t want you to be mad at me anymore.”

“…I’m not mad,” she murmured. “Not anymore.”

***

And suddenly she was in his arms and sobbing on his shoulder.

“I like you too,” she whispered into his ear, voice scratchy, “I like you too.”

He embraced her back and they stood like that for a while in the midst of the busy crowd.

At last, reluctantly, he let go of the girl in his arms.

“You’d better go,” he said, “or you’ll miss your flight.”

“I’ll write,” she promised, wiping her eyes dry.

“Wait!”

From his pocket he extracted a tiny pink mess, and pushed it into her hand.

“On the way here, I saw a sakura tree that for some reason had one flower clinging to the branch. It’s such a miracle, isn’t it? For such a fragile flower as sakura to unexpectedly bloom in winter. I’m giving it to you, because it was a miracle that we met, and in hope that you will experience many more miracles in England.”

“Thank you.”

She accepted the delicate bundle from him, and slipped it into a small pocket of her bag.

“Oh! Your address, may I have it? So I can write to you.”

Quickly, Hikaru dug out a pen and hastily scribbled out a barely-legible address on the back of a receipt he found in his pocket, and passed it to her as well.

“Have a safe trip.”

“Yeah.”

He stood and waved until he couldn’t see her anymore.

***

The words she had said to her mother floated back into her head as the plane took off, streaks of sun-dyed clouds rushing past the window.

“When the sakura bloom in winter, then I’ll believe I’m truly capable of pursuing my dream.”

The faint scent of the single sakura blossom Hikaru had given her still clung to her fingertips, and she smiled.

Thank you, Hikaru.

The plane soared off into the sunlit sky.

***

~Epilogue~

Dear Hikaru:

How are you? I’m sorry I haven’t written to you yet. These two weeks have been really hectic, but finally I’ve managed to settle down and find some time to write this letter.

I’m not sure if you know, but the other two Japanese students who made it for this immersion are male, so I’ve ended up with a nice roommate from China instead. Her name is Wang-san, but she insists that I call her En-ting, without any suffixes or anything. I’ve always thought I was good at English, but her English is near perfect! She’s even got a cute American accent. Do you know what the best thing is though? She knows Arashi, and she likes them too! We’ve promised that if we can make it, we’ll go for an Arashi concert together during term break.

Ayako wrote to me to flail about your upcoming album. Congratulations! This is your second studio album, right? And you’ll be having a tour in a month or two. Try not to overwork yourself, okay?

I won’t be able to make it for your concert, but I’ll be sure to get the DVD when it comes out!

Life here is really fun. I really like the lessons, the students are nice, the lecturers are understanding, and there’s so much to do even on rest days! Just two days ago, our classmates Jenny and Carol took us to London to watch an awesome musical, CATS! One day, if the troupe ever comes down to Japan, I’m definitely dragging you to watch, okay? It was one of the best experiences in my life.

I also found this nice-looking Linkin Park poster in one of the shops when En-ting and I went shopping in London last Sunday. I think you’ll like it, it’s autographed and all. I mailed it to you in a poster tube, I hope you get it soon! That’s a belated birthday present for you.

Next time I write, I’ll include some pictures of my hostel room and the beautiful school campus. Please write back! I’d love to hear stories about you and your band mates and how you all are coping with practice for your concert.

Remember that sakura you gave me at the airport? Well, we found a shop that makes customized pendants, so now I have a petal from that sakura suspended and preserved in a glass pendant as a permanent reminder to look for miracles everywhere and to pursue my dreams. I have you to thank for that.

I wear the pendant every day.

Until next time!

With all of my love,

Shizuka.

Hikaru smiled as he finished reading the letter, and slipped it back into its envelope.

“Ooh,” Takaki sing-songed, “letter from your girlfriend?”

“Oh, shut up,” Hikaru grinned, “at least I have one.”

Ignoring Takaki spluttering, Hikaru withdrew a sheet of paper from his bag and begin to write, drowning out the din of the dressing room.

Dear Shizuka…