Update 1/18/17 Okay, I just reread my work and I AM NOT PROUD OF IT! It seriously looks like a noob fooled around and wrote this. So, go ahead, read it but know that I'm currently fixing it up and that I'm getting the second chapter up in two weeks. This is a complete warning about my noobiness.
I need to get there this year.
I promised mom.
An image of my mother's disappointed face flashed in my vision as I rushed to my destination. Shoot, I need to make it this year. This is the year I stop being a such a shut-in otaku and participate in something!
CRASH!
I instinctively twirled to the side when I recognized impact, avoiding an up-and-personal greeting with the colorful pastel stone ground. The person I had hit was not so lucky.
"I'm so sorry! Are you all right?" I asked, panicked, as I stepped forward to help.
Crunch!
OHHHHH, dear…
The person was bowled over on the ground, staring wide-eyed at the destruction. "What do I do now?" the person whispered miserably, holding up their now-broken glasses from the ground.
"I'm so sorry!" I found myself repeating more vehemently, kneeling down to meet the unfortunate person on the ground. This is what happens when you rush into things. You know you're clumsy! I scolded myself.
"What should I do?" I mumbled, more to myself than to the poor stranger. Oh, dear.
For the very first time throughout the midst of the chaos, my eyes met the stranger's. "Huh?" All coherent sound left me when I saw the adorable beauty sitting in front of me. Their shining golden hair, cutely puckered mouth, and, above all else, their amazing golden-y violet eyes. The only thing that threw me off was their gender. I couldn't figure it out. Their face screamed feminine beauty but their clothes, the glasses' brand, equally screamed masculine. As I cocked my head to the side, studying their features, the person squeaked and hastily covered their face.
"No! Don't look!" The person was far more panicked about the situation than me, which was pretty much guaranteed because their glasses were broken. As a fellow glasses-wearer, I could relate with the panic that came with sudden blindness. But still, it was a little over the top, especially the 'covering their face' bit. If I were them, I would be trying to see, not blocking out any chance of vision.
"Why?" I intoned curiously. The curiosity was soon replaced with concern quickly enough as I noticed that their grip on their glasses was cutting into their skin. They were cutting themselves!
"Gah!" I made a strangled sound in the back of my throat as I gripped their hand and tried to pull the glasses away. Another squeak and resistance from the boy. I decided that he was a boy. There was a slight bulge in his pants. N-not that I was looking! I wrenched myself from my distracting thoughts. People were starting to stare. Annoyance was starting to overtake me. Why – grip – was – wrestle – this boy – pull! – resisting so much! I finally wrenched the glasses from his bleeding hand. He whimpered slightly and lowered his head, drawing in his knees into a fetal position.
"D-do your worst," he stuttered, "God, I hate mobs." I sympathized greatly. Large groups of people scared me, too. Though, I didn't really understand his first statement.
"Shush, get up. People are staring. We need to get you and this broken glass cleaned up." I chided gently.
"H-huh?" He whispered confusedly. He peeked up from between his legs and switched his gaze between me and his bleeding hand. "Y-you don't re-recognize me?"
I tilted my head, a habit I'd gotten over the years from watching too much anime, "Should I recognize you?" I intoned questioningly.
"N-no!" He scrambled up to his feet, his voice growing stronger as he talked on, "you shouldn't recognize me at all! Wow, thanks and all, for helping me! I – I'm bleeding!? W-wah!?" I almost giggled at his babbling, except his hand was really starting to concern me. I stood up; spotting a place that could potentially help the poor guy.
"Come on," I said while leading the guy away from the wreckage, his broken glasses abandoned in the mess of jagged glass on the ground, "let's go inside this store, the storekeeper might have some bandages and napkins to help clean up this mess." I moved to scoop up his forgotten grey bag and my similar black one. Huh, did we go to the same school?
"W-wait." I paused at the guy's hesitant voice, wondering what the adorable boy needed. "Could I borrow your glasses really quickly?" I did a double take. My precious glasses? Why? I highly doubted that we were even the same prescription, due to the slim nature of his glasses' lens in the first place. I was basically blind without mine.
"Why? I don't even think that we're the same prescription." I questioned, suspicion edging into my voice. Another possibility crept into my thoughts. What if this guy was trying to take away my glasses on purpose to lead me away from the rest of the population to go and try something? I mentally shook my head amusedly. Sometimes I thought of the most ridiculous things. The cutie looked hardly the part of the controlling manipulator. I finished picking up the bags and turned to go to the store.
"Please. Please help me." The request was simple enough, but I spied the slight desperation coating his words. "Please, I beg of you." He made a motion that was suspiciously close to kneeling down. Oh, no. Do not kneel to me. I jerked him upright again, not wanting to attract any more attention than there already was.
"Stop," I hissed, "fine, I'll give you my glasses. Just give it back as soon as you can, okay?" I hesitatly started removing my glasses, unwilling to part with it for real. It always made me feel self-conscious. Oh, look, it's little Hayami. Poor baby, trying to look pretty again? Face it; you'll never look beautiful, with or without your crappy glasses. My black hair got caught in the glasses' joint, yanking me back to real life.
I gave a small, panicked squeak and tried tugging it out of my hair. It only got worse. I was near tears. This stranger is bleeding, I'm not going to make it to the Summer Fair in time, and now my glasses are stuck in my hair. Why? My distress was a little uncalled for, but hey, I was in a big crowd of people, blind, and with a stranger. I was bound to break down at some point. Darn my mother's insistence for social interactions! A gentle hand entered my peripheral as I struggled against the sudden onslaught of depressing thoughts. It slowly unwound the strands from my cheap plastic glasses and succeeded in untangling my hair. I froze, heart beating in the slow, steady beating of a drum.
"Are you going to be okay without your glasses? I'm sorry for asking for them now if they're going to cause you this much trouble." The soft girlish voice I associated with the stranger came from the same direction of the hand. His hand, I amended, still listening to the steady beating of my heart. He's kind, I realized with a start. A mean or selfish person would've just watched me struggle and wouldn't have apologized for inconveniencing me. The steady tattoo of my heart gave a little jolt at that. Unfortunately, it still didn't change the fact that he was bleeding and I was blind.
I squinted at his direction, debating about how to answer his question. "I'll be fine. You are still bleeding, though. We should go in there." I gestured towards the general direction I thought the shop was.
"Okay." He kind of just waited for a moment, obviously forgetting that I was currently incapacitated. "Oh, right." And he started leading me towards it.
I breathed a sigh of relief when we made it all the way to the store, the cool air-conditioning indicating we had made it where my vision would not. I blinked as a few items came into focus. The shelves closest to us, about an arm's length away, were filled with…chocolates? Huh? I blinked again and shifted my hazy gaze to the next closest shelf, around an arm and a half to my left and a great deal blurrier. It was filled with distinctive card-like shapes. What? A final glance to my right confirmed it. We were in a love shop.
Oh-hoho. I'm so evil. Anyways, this is the start of the adventures of a particular shut-in otaku, an overzealous actor, and an oblivious girl. I'm going to put out three stories out in succession in the next three days. Depending on the reception of each of them, I'll choose which one to work on first. I quite like all of them so I can't decide. This is "Story 1". If you see any of my stories with a story # on it's title, you know it's part of the group I'm trying to decide between. And if you couldn't tell. I'm EXTREMELY inexperienced writing romance. In fact, this is my first time actually TRYING to write a romance...ever. So, yeah, if it doesn't seem to be fleshing out well, please tell me. I honestly don't like writing outright romance, implied romance is more of my thing. So please, put your criticism down below, I can take it. And another thing. The most Japanese I am is being a shut-in otaku so...yeah. If I seem super wrong about some part of Japanese culture, I will fix that if you can tell me. And, oh, consider honorifics automatic, I'm not too familiar with them either... Why am I writing this, again? :{)
~Ciao