Sachii: Hey guys it's been a while! everyone's probably gone now and I'm most likely talking to a void but just a quick update, I still won't be able to continue my other stories due to real life matters consuming most of my time but they still are yet to be abandoned. To fill the indefinite hiatus however, here's something light hearted!
The air is flooded with a crackling sort of excitement that seems to transfer fast and furious across the crowd, your heart is beating to the rhythm of the music, loud and positively overpowering, drowning you in an almost euphoric daze of tunnel like deafness.
You've been wanting to see this group since you found out they were coming to Japan over a month ago. Of course it's not one you'd readily tell anyone else. Pop doesn't exactly fit your style of life and dress. Never mind that it was also Korean.
But you did let it slip once after one two many drinks and a free and inviting karaoke machine sat at the corner of your company christmas party looking forlorn, maybe twice… or six times before the place had to close up and your coworkers had to drag you out with the mic still at hand.
Shizuru had been kind enough not to mention it the day after, when the rest of the office had burst into a horrible rendition of Girl's Generation's "I Got a Boy" as you practically crawled your way to the bathroom and locked yourself in horror.
So it had made you understandably suspicious the moment she came by your desk a few days ago telling you how she had gotten tickets from a friend who conveniently double booked themselves the very day of the concert.
Was it an elaborate plan to get a few chuckles more over your… contemporary musical tastes before the whole thing loses comedic value?
You told her you'd think about it and you did, for the whole night in fact, worrying your lip over the idea that it might really be real, and you might just be a stone's throw away from seeing them live in 3 days time.
You think about Shizuru, Shizuru who was kind and helpful and pretended she too had work to do and had to stay behind when yours were too much and you had to do overtime. Shizuru who had lent you the sweater in her office locker when the seams of your skirt ripped because the edge of your desk had come too close. Shizuru who was always the first to look up when you say "Good morning" and answers "Good morning" back with a small rise at the corner of her lips , making sure to look away only when you do.
'I'd like to go with you' you text her that night, staring at the screen that said 'I'm looking forward to it Natsuki' with a rising feeling in the pit of your stomach that makes it impossible to fall asleep.
It hadn't been a ruse because as you already know, here you are! and here they were! and here she was, standing with her arms folded and a smile that felt all sorts of 'off' on her face like someone counting the hours.
Your singing flutters away as the heels of your feet begin to fall, finally touching ground.
You look at her curiously, wondering if she wasn't enjoying this, Shizuru was, after all, someone who enjoyed finer things, music included.
She seems to have noticed your pause as she turns your way, asking the question with the tilt of her head 'is something wrong?'.
"Are you not having fun?" you ask her and hear nothing but the rising sound of an electric synth and equally rising notes of an eight girl chorus accompanied by everyone in the arena. She seems to have read your lips however as she mouths "I am" which you're pretty sure was an absolute and blatant lie.
"Don't lie" you tell her but this time she doesn't understand and leans closer with a hand to her ear trying to hear better.
the song dies in that moment and you hear the beginnings of one you enjoy much better.
"I said, don't lie" you tell her before the swell of sound overpowers you and she opens her mouth to protest once more.
You hook your arm onto hers and began dancing and laughing at the look she gives you as you do, singing along to a song called "Gee" that makes her raise her eyebrows in surprise that she understands this one (which is completely in japanese). You've raised the hand in yours which you try to make the hand gestures with and pretty soon she's laughing too and she does them perfectly the second time they come up and you start to let go.
Before you could she catches your hand and holds on tight, a bright smile lighting her face which makes yours burn and you let your eyes fall to the ground watching coloured light broken by shadow and shoes and willing your heart to slow down.
You're pretty much spending more time looking down than watching the group you came for and she's spending less time counting hours and more time smiling, and holding, and sometimes even humming along once she gets the basic melody of a song.
Everything falls away to empty streets and just you and Shizuru walking back in silence, her hand still holding yours which she gently sways.
"You… can let go now" you tell her and she looks at you and says "I know I 'can' but I'm not going to"
Your mouth opens aghast and she humorously closes it for you with a tap on the bottom of your chin.
"Natsuki knows full well it does not do good to keep her mouth open, lest she want flies to come in… or me" this effectively flusters you and you shout her name in reprimand, her grin only widens and she pulls you closer, eyes twinkling.
"I'm sorry" she coos kissing the knuckles of your hand she seems to want to keep for herself. "I'll be good"
You've gotten used to blushing tonight so you stop walking and swallow down the tightness in your throat instead, wondering out loud "What's going on?"
"Hm?" Shizuru hums lightly, as she too, stops to look at you.
"Um… this" you look at your joined hands and at her and say "also, you… do you… Shizuru, do you like me?" as soon as it leaves your lips you bite your tongue, hoping it shrivels up and the words dissipate like ash before the speed of sound reaches the short distance to her.
"Yes" she answers, not missing a beat. "Natsuki really does need to pay attention more, I've told Natsuki this a number of times already, the first time being…" she looks up, thinking, "six months ago I believe"
You splutter, trying to think of all the times she said 'I like you', and the equal number you smiled and unknowingly replied 'I like you too Shizuru', believing her to have meant it differently.
"Was… was this supposed to be a date then?"
The hold on your hand begins to gentle, and her face softens as she tells you 'yes', that there was no 'friend' and she had ordered the tickets off of someone who'd sold them at three times the price. that she's been wanting to ask you since getting them but only had the courage to the day she did because Masashi from the Accounting department had been saying he wanted to take you and had shamelessly asked Shizuru to sell him hers when he found out she had them.
"To be honest, I wasn't too keen on the music, but they're growing on me" her voice has this lilt you think is indication of her saying a half truth and she continues.
"But I am a bit worried that Natsuki might like one of them, Natsuki had been particularly attentive to that bubbly little blonde far too much for my piece of mind…" her eyes are twinkling but for the briefest moments, something in them had looked on you searchingly, almost as if she was truly afraid you would say yes and there was a possibility you would run off and be with a pop star from korea for heaven's sake.
Despite yourself you feel a giddy energy rising in you exploding into a laugh and she for the first time tonight is the one who looks to the ground abashed, blushing faintly under the street light.
"Actually, I'm beginning to think I have a thing for brunettes" You say with a tug of her hand that makes her head snap up and her pretty brown hair flutter.
You push yourself up onto your toes and press lips on soft lips which stiffens only for some part of a second.
She finally drops your hand for the first time since having held it tonight and instead wraps them around your waist, pulling you close, holding you steady, telling you she wanted nothing else but for you to stay and be hers with the persistence of lips that seem to never want to part from yours.
When you do however, her smile is from ear to ear and she starts humming a tune you recognize and you groan as she starts singing "I got a girl meotjin! I got a girl chakhan!" and you start to pull away from her, which is barely as she tightens her hold on you and begins to sway, laughing at your embarrassed huff.
"Never mind, brunettes are horrible" you tell her but your hands grip the back of her coat and you lay your head on her shoulder, thinking if Shizuru could stand your liking for flashy energetic pop groups, she'll probably last through everything else.
End.
