Beauty Pop Fan-fic
A/N: alright, so lemme set this up here. The SP is nearing the end of the meeting for the day. It's been three years since Kiri left for LA, and, though she is mentioned occasionally, SP members have found it quite sad to discuss her leaving, so they don't mention it that often. *Slightly Important Point du jour* Ever since his partner in eating snacks during SP meetings left for LA, Kei has felt lonely; he is the member least likely to talk about Kiri at any given time. Until...
"I can't stand it any longer!" Kei dropped his chips onto the table. "I miss her too much!"
"Miss who, Kei?" a slightly annoyed Narumi asked.
"Kiri-chan! I can't believe all of you here! We were all her friends and not one of you has ever talked about going to see her! Doesn't anyone miss her at all?"
Ochiai sighed. He'd noticed long ago conversations about missing Koshiba-san were mostly just sad and long and even a little depressing. "We all miss her, Kei. You know that."
The rest of SP just continued to get ready to go, now a little wistfully as they remembered their sleepy friend.
"She'll probably be coming to visit us all soon. She said she would sometime, the last time we talked to her, remember?"
The teen just sighed. "Yeah, but that was like, what? a years ago? That's not the point. We shouldn't just wait for her."
"Besides, Naru-Naru," Kei added with a sad little shrug, "Its been three years. She's super popular because of her hair-cutting talent. And so many cute guys from LA are probably all over her all the time. Don't you think by now she might have found a boyfriend amongst all of them? Of all those people, doesn't it make sense that just one of them would maybe be able to steal Kiri's heart in the end? She's probably already forgotten about SP completely by now."
It seemed like the moment Kei stopped talking, the entire SP room went completely still. This was by far the longest Kei had ever talked about missing Kiri since the day they had watched her leave for LA. Ochiai stopped typing. Iori stopped spraying perfumes. Kanako and Taro stopped talking. And Narumi just stood there, frozen, uncomprehending of Kei's words and confused by the sharp, sudden pain in his chest.
"For... forgotten?" Narumi blinked a couple of times before falling unusually silent... for about three seconds.
"THAT'S CRAZY! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? SHE WOULDN'T FORGET US!"
"Oh," sobbed the over-dramatic Iori. "But perhaps she already has forgotten! She and Emi don't answer phone calls and emails that often anymore, and we haven't heard from any of them in the longest time... Kiri-chan How could you?"
"Prince-sama would never forget us, would she?" Chisami's lower lip trembled. She was beginning to wish she hadn't insisted to tag along with Narumi for the SP meeting today.
"Of course not." Narumi declared, and promptly began to gather up his things to go."Mussy-Head hasn't forgotten any of us, alright? Just forget about that!"
He said the words somewhat indignantly, though, almost like he was trying to use them to convince himself instead of the rest of them.
Narumi seemed to be in his own little world the next day during school.
What if Kei's right? thought that annoying part of his head that always seemed to be pushing ideas at him when he most wanted to avoid them. He kicked at a pebble on the ground and sighed, exasperated, as he wlked by the place where Kiri would always stand talking to the SP from outside the window.
What if Mussy-Head barely thinks of us at all anymore?
That would be... cruel, he decided. Although he would never admit it to anyone, all his practice in the past three years, all his improvement in styles and cutting and speed, it had all been for Kiri. He'd never forgotten the promise they'd made at the airport the last day he'd seen her, and she was the reason he'd been pushing himself to improve as much as he could for the day she would come back and visit. Or he would go see her.
"...doesn't it make sense that just one of them would maybe be able to steal Kiri's heart in the end?"
And why was it that this particular sentence would hurt him so much more than the rest? A mixture of anger and shock and hurt was swirling around inside him, and the only thing he could think of was how similar this was to how he'd began to feel when Billy Iketani had first come to live with Kiri. Jealousy? Nah... But it was the same feeling he now felt whenever his mind wandered and began to picture the Mussy-Head going out with and being happy beside some other guy. So happy, in fact, that she'd soon forget about Narumi completely.
His blood boiled just thinking of it.
No, he thought, I can't let that happen.