Hello^^
Finally I got this chapter done!
Thank you for all your kind reviews =D I never would've thought that the fans of the OtRFk series would be that interesed in this story, but it makes me so very very happy =D
And, as an excuse for letting you wait for so long, this chapter is a bit longer than the others^^
This story is dedicated to my dearest and best friend Nina-chan *Love you!*
BTW: The lyrics are from the song 'Breakaway' by Kelly Clarkson. Usually I don't listen to that kind of music, but I just love that song and I thought from the very beginning that it'd fit the plot well :)
Please enjoy^^
Disclaimer: I don't own Only the Ring Finger knows.
His embarrassment of knocking the guy down vanished as soon as he heard his arrogant way of talking to him.
"Hey, don't call me an idiot! I'm sorry, ok, but there's no reason to snap at me! Nothing of you is hurt, except your head maybe, but nothing worse happened, so calm down!" he shot back and jumped up onto his naked feet, glaring at the taller boy.
The icy blue eyes refocused on him and he swallowed meeting the intense gaze, but kept their eyes locked. Then they were pulled out of their silent battle of who would give in first and look away, as Kawamura suddenly appeared next to Wataru, scratching the back of his head.
"I guess I'm sorry, too, Dude. This monkey jumped after me and I saw you too late… So, I'm sorry… And by the way, I'm Kawamura"
"Whom are you calling monkey?" Wataru asked and turned to face his best friend in a deep frown.
"Where's a monkey, Uncle?" a little girl's voice added to their conversation.
Wataru looked down and saw the small girl with her dog sitting next to her feet staring back up at him. Her uncle smirked in a really nasty way and pointed at him.
"Here's the monkey, Takako. Come on, ask him to play with you"
"What-?"
"Yuichi! Stop teasing the poor boy" someone said briskly.
Next to the man the beautiful black-haired woman from the yacht appeared. Kawamura blushed as red as a ripe tomato, but Wataru was more busy realizing that she was already a bit too old for his best friend. Although she was really, really pretty, she was already like twenty-five or even older. And she behaved like an older sister, not like a lover toward the blond man.
"I'm sorry for the trouble. We just arrived here yesterday and this girl can't sit still for a minute, neither can her dog. My name is Mizuho. This boy here is Kazuki Yuichi, the brother of Takako's father. We're here on holiday"
Mizuho had a calm, friendly and kind of dulcet voice you could listen to for hours. During her explanation, Kazuki Yuichi had crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked round, as if pretending not to hear her. His niece however, kept on calling for his attention by asking him again and again, why the 'weird boy' was a monkey.
...
"I'm Fujii Wataru and this is Kawamura. We live here"
"Yes, I thought so. Well, do you guys want to guide us over your beautiful island? I bet you know all kinds of places here, right?" Mizuho continued, perfectly conversational.
Kazuki sighed in silent annoyance.
"Uhm…" Kawamura made, not certain of how to response now.
"Oh, don't mind him. He's just in a bad mood right now, because you knocked him down, Fujii-kun. Sooner or later he'll be friendly again"
Sure? Wataru thought doubtfully, but kept it to himself. He didn't believe that the boy could ever be friendly to anyone. But Mizuho was nice and the girl, Takako, kind of cute, so he honestly thought about the request. And even if he didn't want to, his friends surely would like to guide those strangers over Kumejima Island.
"Well, I'd love to show you our little island!" Kawamura said excitedly and without breathing. "You, too, right, Wataru?"
Mizuho looked at him with her big, black eyes which shined bright in kindness and his resistance melted away.
"Yes, of course" he said and thought to himself I'll stab you someday, Kawamura…
"Ok, then how about this afternoon?"
"Sure. We'll wait at the bay where your yacht is anchoring" Kawamura chirped brightly.
Wataru stepped on his foot, but it was already too late. Mizuho and Kazuki raised their eyebrows.
"Idiot" Wataru whispered.
"Yeah, well… We er... saw it by uhm… accident yesterday, to be honest, hahaha" Kawamura stuttered and his cheeks were as red as flames now.
Thank god his embarrassment didn't take over Wataru, who decided to rescue the situation for his own good.
"We were surfing not far from the bay where you anchored and my sister and her friend were walking over the island, so it was just a matter of time until we'd see you. It's not easy to come here without us noticing it"
Mizuho's lips pulled into an amused grin, while Kazuki didn't look too satisfied with his explanation. But it was nearly the truth, actually.
"And, by the way, the yacht looks awesome. There's nothing like that here on Kumejima Island" Wataru said and smiled as innocently as he could.
"You can come visit us anytime" Mizuho said just as he hoped for and Wataru's heart jumped in excitement.
"Me too?" Kawamura asked hopefully.
"Of course"
"Why don't you invite the whole village, Mizuho?" Kazuki asked ironically between gritted teeth.
"Oh, stop being so mean" she said and all her kindness was gone.
She parked her fists against her hips and even though she was like ten inches smaller than him, he seemed to shrink beneath her reproachful gaze. Wataru and Kawamura changed gazes. That woman was definitely not one to mess with. After a bit more of meaningless conversation, Wataru heard his mother calling for him. So they decided to meet again at around 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The woman and the girl waved cheerfully; Kazuki only nodded and walked away without another word.
"Are you gonna to tell all our friends?" Wataru asked Kawamura, before climbing back through the bushes into their garden.
"I guess so. I wanna see their faces when I tell them that I talked to her" the boy snickered.
Wataru rolled his eyes, but he knew that side of his best friend already.
"See ya later"
"Yeah"
Kawamura disappeared down the road and Wataru finally got the chance to eat his breakfast.
...
"You should have apologized properly, Wataru" his mother said a little disappointedly and looked at him while sitting down next to him at the table in their small but really comfortable kitchen. Like every family on the island, they let all their doors and windows open during summer, so anyone could enter at any time. There were so few people that it'd be just stupid to try to steal something, since everyone knew each other.
"You should've listened to him, Kaa-san! He was so rude!" he said and shoveled a spoon full of crumpled eggs into his mouth, together with a fork full with rice. "He was so unfriendly!"
"Don't talk with your mouth full" Mrs. Fujii sighed and shook her head at her childish son.
"Besides, maybe he was in a bad mood from the very beginning. Try to be nice to him this afternoon, will you, honey?"
He shrugged and swallowed. "If he is nice to me"
"Good boy" She ruffled his hair and returned to her paperwork on the table outside.
"Kaa-san?" Wataru yelled, too lazy to stand up.
"Yes, dear?"
"Is Karin up already?"
"No"
He grinned. "Tell her to clear the table"
"Then you'll do so after lunch"
"Maybe…"
He jumped up and ran upstairs.
...
"Oh, are you kidding? You must be kidding" Kazuki Yuichi said peevishly as he saw the group of youths waiting on the beach, all their heads turned to the yacht. "I thought only that monkey and his dumb friend will show us their silly piece of island! This is half of all the folks that live here!"
"Be quiet! You're so rude, Yuichi" Mizuho commanded. "It's actually pretty nice of them to guide us over their place, so don't act so arrogantly, ok? They'll get a completely wrong idea of us if you don't change your bad attitude and temper!"
He rested his chin in his hand and glared at the older woman. He was in no mood to go down there and let all those girls stare at him and he was definitely not in the mood to pretend to want to see their island, since everything he wanted was to leave as soon as possible, though he knew that was totally impossible at the moment.
"It'll be fun and Takako wants to go"
"You can go without me"
"I can, but Takako can't"
His niece had followed their whole conversation surprisingly silent and now she looked at him with her big blue eyes which glittered with tears. His shoulders dropped and he sighed in defeat.
"Ok ok, I give up" he said a lot friendlier and opened his arms so Takako could hug him and climb onto his lap like she always loved to, but she surprised him anew as she shook her head and pouted "I wanna go see the monkey with black eyes again"
Honestly…? He thought without enthusiasm.
"Take a look, Takako, he's down there with his friends" Mizuho said and waved.
Yuichi stood up and braced himself for whatever was going to happen this afternoon and evening.
...
It wasn't exactly like he had imagined it to be and that was something positive at least. The youths all were around his age and actually pretty easy to get along with. They were funny and everyone seemed a little bit crazy, too. Yes, and they all seemed to love dangerous places and even more doing dangerous things.
It all started rather 'innocent'. A girl with black hair at shoulder-length (he later found out that she was the little monkey's sister, Karin) took the lead, so that the other girls could get their chances to talk with him, which she seemed not to be that interested in, and it actually impressed him. Most of the guys were clinging to Mizuho, made her laugh and tried to impress her and told her again and again that she was the most beautiful person they had ever seen in their lives. To be honest, he even believed them.
The youths first showed them some caves near the shore and told some wild stories about an old pirate's treasure being hidden down there and thousands of traps and how many, many people had tried to find the gold and jewels but had to leave empty-handed after losing orientation in that maze of tunnels and caves and how they got crazy after seeing some kind of ghosts or whatever. Takako listened with brightly shining eyes and even Puru seemed to listen carefully. Mizuho seemed to like the stories, too, because she even climbed down with a few boys into the first cave to see how it looked like.
"Why didn't you come with us?" she asked with an excited flush on her cheeks as they came back.
"It was really nice"
"…Hmm…" he shrugged.
"Oh lord, Yuichi, what's going to become of you?" she sighed and put her sandals back on.
He grimaced and she chuckled lightly.
...
Then they were lead through wild forests and over rough cliffs, they saw more caves and heard even scarier stories and they climbed up some weirdly formed rocks that looked like the evil grinning faces of water dragons or giants and, the 'highlight', was a cliff like thirty meters above the Pacific Ocean.
Kazuki stepped to the edge of the cliff and looked down. The water down there crashed pretty fiercely against the crags. He turned around. He had a beautiful view over the island. The deep green forests looked like covered with gold in the evening sun and in the valleys, mist was gathering and the sun let it look like light clouds out of silver droplets. Close to the horizon, he saw the shadows of the biggest town slowly fade into the darker getting sea, which seemed to swallow the small ships and boats at the harbor.
"That's so high!" Takako said stunned and pressed Puru to her chest, who whimpered in a high voice.
"Takako, step back" he said and put his arm around her shoulders, so she wouldn't go any further.
"Does one die when jumping down?" Mizuho wanted to know and everyone could see that she felt slightly uncomfortable.
"No or at least, till now no one has died yet" Karin answered with a mischievous grin on her face.
"So the people do jump down there?" the woman continued, raising her nicely shaped eyebrows in surprise.
"Isn't it dangerous?"
"A bit, but surfing is also dangerous and we keep on doing it" a pretty girl with long blond locks said and her eyes flashed over to Yuichi. He pretended not to notice it.
"Hey, let's show them!" one boy said excitedly.
"Great idea, I wasn't up to walk the whole way back, anyway" the smallest boy, who happened to be Fujii Wataru, said.
Kazuki looked at him. The boy was wearing swim trunks and was just about to take off his t-shirt and thongs.
"Will you bring them back down, Karin?" he asked his sister in a tone like he knew the answer already.
"Sure, no problem, if you set the table tomorrow morning" she answered and smiled at him.
He rolled his eyes but nodded.
...
"Wait, Fujii-kun, you don't have to do this" Mizuho said in a hurry and now she really looked worried. But he smiled at her and Kazuki noticed a strange fire burning in his black eyes. A fire, lighter than the sun. Kazuki's gaze wandered unconsciously down the boy's body.
He was slim, his arms and legs lanky, not too muscular but not fragile, either. He bet that at first, the boy had had pure black hair, but after years of playing and surfing and swimming and living beneath the sun, his hair had gotten lighter to a light chocolate brown with a few darker strands. It looked like he didn't know the meaning of the word 'comb'. On the opposite, his skin was tanned and flawless except from a few scars on his knees and elbows and the new bruises from this morning's accident. What caught his eyes was (next to some colorful wristbands on his left wrist and two around his left ankle) the necklace the boy was wearing, but he stood too far away to see what kind of necklace it was.
"Don't worry, Mizuho-san, it's not the first time he jumps down there" Karin explained reassuringly.
"Go, Wataru!"
"Fly, Fujii!" the boys cheered.
Fujii Wataru grinned at his friends, before he climbed up some large rocks as big as some rowboats and took a few steps back. Kazuki watched him intently and for a second, he believed that Wataru's eyes had rested on him, but maybe it had just been the sun.
It looks like he wants to jump into the sunset, he mused.
Then the boy ran – jumped - and flew, his shadow passing over the cliff like the one of a wild, beautiful, untamed albatross.
Then, after three-quarters of an endless heartbeat, there was a mighty splash. And the youths ran wild with cheerfulness.
...
The fire cracked and orange glowing sparks jumped through the night chilly air. For them, the 'gorgeous guests and strangers' as Miho called them; they had put up a large bonfire on the beach where they used to surf and hang out together. A few girls had even brought dough for breads on a stick, together with fresh fruits, sweets and something to drink. Now they sat on palm logs and joked and laughed while waiting for their bread to be ready for eating.
Mizuho had brought Takako and Puru back to the yacht, because it had been an exhausting day for the two of them and they needed to sleep. The girl had screamed and cried, because she hadn't wanted to leave, but in the end, the woman had managed to get her into bed and return to the bonfire.
Wataru sat next to his sister, who had brought the guitar of their father. They both knew how to play the instrument and later, maybe they'd even get the chance to actually prove it to their friends. The boy rested his chin in the palm of his right hand and stared down the beach to the ocean, which was quiet and silent tonight; the sea seemed to enjoy their warmth and the stories and all the cheerful voices.
Or so he imagined.
His eyes traveled up to the dark sky he knew so well. It was the same sky and the same stars like last night and the night before. He looked to the bonfire. The flames were bright and hot and white in their centers. He sighed without a sound and for a brief moment, he closed his eyes and wished with all his heart to see a different place when opening them again. But of course, he was still where he had been before trying, sitting on the log in front of the fire, taking in the cool, salty and slightly heavy air. His friends hadn't noticed a thing.
...
"Hey, how's a song?" a girl with short black hair asked later.
Kazuki could manage to remember that her name was Ookusa Miho.
"Yes, why not?" Kawamura said and smiled at Mizuho, who nodded.
"It'd be nice. The atmosphere is perfect"
Yuichi frowned slightly. The youths, he had to admit, were friendly and nice and cool and crazy, but singing?
"Are you sure?" he asked the monkey-siblings.
He received two similar gazes that both told him to shut up.
"Are you gonna play or shall I?" Karin asked.
"Let me, your hands are all full of dough" Wataru Fujii said and put the guitar on his lap.
"Which song do you want to hear?" he asked Mizuho and avoided his gaze. No, now he looked at Kazuki and he saw a strange kind of glow in his eyes. Like his mind was only partly here, and his heart somewhere far, far away.
"What kinds of songs do you know?" Mizuho asked back, joy coloring her voice.
"Hey Wataru, how's 'Breakaway'?" Miho asked.
In the big black eyes there was something shifting. Or was it only a flame? Kazuki couldn't tell.
"'Breakaway'? But that song is so old" Karin said and frowned deeply.
"So what? It fits the night" another girl muttered dreamily.
Wataru looked from one girl to the other, until he sighed and said "Ok, 'Breakaway'. After that, someone else can decide. And don't forget, everyone will sing, got it?"
...
"Na, na, na, na, na, na
na, na, na, na, na
na, na, na, na, na, na…"
He knew the song but didn't know the lyrics by heart, so he just listened to the children of the island singing that song that everyone seemed to know. Right now, only the girls were humming and muttering the start. The boys seemed to flow on the acoustic waves the guitar was sending.
"Na, na, na, na, na, na
na, na, na, na, na
na, na, na, na, na, na…"
Mizuho moved her body faintly in the rhythm of the melody. She had half turned her upper body to the sea, which was behind them. She had closed her eyes and exposed her face to the wind.
...
"Grew up in a small town
And when the rain would fall down
I'd just stare out my window
Dreamin' of what could be
And if I'd end up happy
I would pray…"
Wataru was only singing in a very low voice, barely audible above the sound of the guitar, the wind, the ocean and his friend's more or less melodious voices. They all knew the lyrics by heart, but tonight, for him it was even harder to sing this song as it usually was already. He didn't need to look on his fingers; he had played this song a thousand times already. But tonight, his fingertips burned with every chord, with every note.
"Trying hard to reach out
But when I tried to speak out
Felt like no one could hear me
Wanted to belong here
But something felt so wrong here
So I prayed I could breakaway…"
His lips still moved but no sound came out of his mouth. Wataru's eyes wandered to the near-black ocean, which flowed into the now near-black horizon far, far away at a point he couldn't see anymore. It looked like it was all one and the Kumejima Island, no, this beach, was the center of the world. His world. Everything he knew.
A feeling he had felt so often recently, overwhelmed him like a gigantic, icy wave. He felt so divided, as if a crack in his heart was growing larger and deeper with each second he sat here and let the minutes and hours of his life slip away right through his fingers that played that song. His heart beat a jolty beat and suddenly it hurt and his heart beat faster, as if trying to run away from the pain, but it only got more and more and worse and worse. And even though he sang soundlessly, something in his voice quavered to a silent yell and then a silent nothing.
...
The song was carried through the night and seemed to be alive, filled with the voices and the thoughts of the youths who were singing the song. Even the boys sang, quieter and less talented, though. But they sang and each of them gave the lyrics an own, unique meaning, no one but them understood. Kazuki watched them how they were caught in the song like in a mighty current, which tossed and danced them around, randomly but also with care. Then his eyes fell upon the monkey with the guitar and what he saw caught him and didn't let him go anymore.
The black orbs were directed at the Pacific, but now, no fire was burning inside them anymore. All he saw was an endless sadness and a desperate longing. What for, he couldn't even tell but he could tell that the boy's heart was clinging to something which grew further and further out of his reach.
"I'll spread my wings
And I'll learn how to fly
I'll do what it takes
Till I touch the sky
make a wish, take a chance, make a change
And breakaway…"
To be continued...
All of you, please don't mind that I made Wataru play a guitar. I thought it was a nice idea, since it would just fit a Wataru, who lives17 years on a little island, to know how to play the guitar. He won't be much of a great musician in this story, all I wanted is to let you exactly feel the atmosphere :)
I hope you enjoyed =D
Please Review^^