Bossa Nova

"Hmm mm mm mmm mm…"

Mamura Daiki looked at his girlfriend bemusedly. Ever since the morning, when they had walked to school together, she had been humming a rather pleasant sounding tune, which she now continued to hum as they made their way home, swinging her arms (and his left arm, whose hand was holding hers) with gay abandon.

Mamura decided not to interrupt her humming, which he found quite nice. When it sounded like the song had come to an end though, he couldn't help but ask.

"What song is that? You've been humming it all day."

Yosano Suzume grinned at him. "It's an Italian song."

"An Italian song?" Mamura raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know you listened to Italian songs."

"Uncle was listening to a foreign language radio station and this came on. It's a very old classic song, Uncle said. He knew the title, so I looked it up and downloaded it."

"Hee."

"It reminds me of Mamura-kun." Yosano gave him her big smile again, the one that made Mamura feel like everything was right in the world.

"…why? What do the lyrics say?"

Suzume shrugged. "I dunno. But when I listen to it, it reminds me of how I feel when I'm with Mamura-kun." She let go of his hand and started to dig around in her bag. "I'll send it to you now, and you'll understand what I mean."

Mamura bit back the urge to give her a huge squeeze right there and then. He allowed himself a smile though as he watched her email the song to him.

"Done!" Suzume shut her phone and put it back into her bag. "Listen to it later, okay?"

"Hai." They were now approaching her street. Although he spent a fair proportion of his free time with her, Mamura always found it regrettable that the walk home was rather short. But with college entrance exams around the corner, they had promised each other to spend more time studying and less time aimlessly wandering parks or malls, as they had earlier in the year. Or rather, he had promised her uncle that Suzume would spend more time studying – in the name of cementing her uncle's blessings for their relationship.

"Ja ne," Suzume waved cheerily and entered her gate. Mamura could faintly hear her start to hum again as she unlocked her front door. Smiling to himself, he turned and started to walk home, digging in his bag for his headphones.

The song was a short one and did not take long to download from his email.

It started with a slightly dramatic sounding piano intro, and suddenly a rich baritone started crooning, and a slow, bossa-nova-like beat entering to complete the harmony.

It reminds me of how I feel when I'm with Mamura-kun.

Mamura broke out into a grin, ignoring the strange looks thrown at him by some middle school girls.

Xxxxx

"Did you like it?" Was Suzume's first question as soon as she hurtled out of her gate to where Mamura was standing, leaning against the wall waiting for her. She would have called him last night, but her uncle had clamped down on late night phone calls (the bill was skyrocketing, he claimed, and she needed to pull her grades up, so they had had to limit themselves to short good night messages.).

"Yeah." It made him feel like he was falling in love all over again, he thought. "Actually, I got curious, so I went to see what the lyrics meant."

"You did?" Suzume gaped at him. "Well, I did too, but they're all in English and I didn't really understand."

"Yep."

"So what is the song saying?" she prodded her fair-haired boyfriend.

"Actually, the singer just kept singing how it rained and people were running but yet his lover didn't appear," Mamura said with a straight face.

"Hee? That's so depressing!"

"Yeah, and there was even something about him not knowing whether his lover was playing games or deceiving him," Mamura continued.

"That's terrible!" Suzume exclaimed. "…are you pulling my leg?"

"No really, that's what the lyrics meant," Mamura said, trying not to laugh. It really was true. Mamura had been half-amused, half-disappointed at how such a romantic-sounding song had turned out to have such melancholic lyrics.

Suzume wrinkled her nose. "Meh, I don't care. It sounds wonderful, and I'm going to play it during our wedding. Nobody I know knows Italian, anyway."

"Wedding?" Ours? Mamura felt a familiar hot blush spread across his face.

Suzume looked at him innocently. "Too soon?"

She always knew where to push his buttons, Mamura thought, half-irritated, half-affectionate.

Trying to suppress his blush (and knowing that he was failing), Mamura slipped his hand into hers. "…I'll find a band that can play the song."

They exchanged smiles, and Suzume started to hum. Silently, Mamura hummed along.

fin

A/N: I found myself reading HnR (not really a huge fan, but I really loved the ending) and somehow I started listening to old songs and this was the result. Largely inspired by a classical Malay song called Getaran Jiwa by the late P. Ramlee as well as Esta Tarde Vi Llover (Lisa Ono's version – that's where the lyrics Mamura was talking about came from.)