So… you guys are slowly getting how I'm COMPLETELY failing at comedy, lol. But ah well, a rom com is not all laughs, anyway…? So yes, it's been pointed out to me I need to specify this: This is a romantic comedy. Also called a dramedy. It's why this roommate has a fiancée xD. And yes, it also contains drama. And comedy. A rom com. But huge fail on the lighthearted and easy, lol, like HUGE FAIL, because apparently, I can't do that lol. This is gonna be complex and deep.
Anyway. I've put them (and especially Saori) into a very complex predicament, and I assure you, it will be very, very thoroughly addressed. Just give them a little time until there is something substantial to even address and react to. The drama will hit, lol.
Alllsooo, to me guest reviewer who was so disappointed that they looked online for a picture of Mamoru in kimono or yukata and not finding one – I actually drew one a while ago, and you can find it on my tumblr in the "my fanart" tag – so there you go, guest reviewer, don't be sad! I got you covered! ; )
And, of course, my forever thanks to my very, very patient beta, Uglygreenjacket. She sometimes has to keep me from deleting, like, all of it, and I know that's not fun at all! (But I didn't! So here you go!)
Usagi groaned loudly and turned her face into her pillow, as she lifted her hand from the bed to whack her obnoxious alarm clock just once more.
"I swear to god if you hit snooze one more time you're moving out," came the exasperated holler through her door and she finally woke with a start, sitting straight up in her bed.
Wait, what?
She glanced at her alarm clock, and flew from the bed, cursing.
She barely looked at Mamoru as he sat there on the couch, reading his morning paper like always, coffee cup lifted to his lips, as she ran past him in just her thin pajama top and underwear.
"WHY DID YOU NOT WAKE ME UP?!" she yelled accusingly and banged the bathroom door shut behind her.
She didn't hear what he replied, just the grumbling sound of it.
Of course, she was late. Of course, the smart, tailored, mixed and matched pant suit that Ami had bought her for her first work interview years ago that usually looked so chic and adorable on her was a crinkled, horrible mess and her blouse slightly sweaty from her run, and her make-up non-existent because she hadn't had the time, and of course, she still missed her appointment.
It didn't stop being a horrid, horrible day from then on.
Turns out, as she stood in the ATM at the conbini, because she wanted to get the latest autumn edition special drinks to at least get a vlog in, that her card expired. Turns also out, that her bank couldn't just hand her out a new card, especially not since she'd forgotten her ID at home, and she'd have to wait to get it in the mail, and had she returned their calls when they asked her for a forwarding address, she'd have gotten it already. To top it all off, she'd of course gotten to her voluntary job late because of her trip to the bank, and once she arrived, her boss sent her home with an irritated and condescending sigh, saying she'd already got someone else to take the kids to Odaiba, and she could go home, then, and if she didn't work on her reliability she should rethink her position in the company.
Of course, a day as horrid as this couldn't go out with another bang, and so, as she was on her way home from her self-pity milkshakes paid for with the last money she still had as a balance on her Suica IC card, and she answered the Unknown call right on the Oedo Line and people hissed at her because answering phones on the train was an absolute no-go, she wanted to lie down on the floor of the train car and wallow in self-pity.
She had the urge to get off and run home to her Mama.
It was a rather stern lady from the tax office on the phone. Apparently, she had failed to file her income tax return in time, and now had to pay this giant fine if she didn't get it done and emailed by tomorrow, in addition to 20% of all of her income she'd made in the past year, which amounted to pretty much all her savings and this month's rent, and had she not gotten the mail about this in the last couple months, and why did she not leave a forwarding address like any normal person, and no they could, of course, not make an exception.
She'd freaked out, and freaked out even more, when she realized she'd already dialed her ex's number for help, felt mortified when she didn't manage to hang up in time and had to then make awkward small talk and ask for her mail (that he apparently put on hold) and had to bite her lip in order to not ask for help.
And then, of course, of course, she had to drop her purse, and with it her camera. And with trembling hands, she assessed the damage, and then fell into uncontrollable sobs in the middle of Exit 4, blocking everyone else from exiting the station.
When she finally arrived home, she fell on her bed with heaving sobs, cause fucking hell, she was not an adult, she was an imposter in adult skin, and where the hell was her mommy.
So, when Mamoru came home, wearing white scrubs and a frown, he froze in the doorway at the sight of her amidst piles of receipts and paperwork, as she sat crying uncontrollably in front of her laptop in the living room.
And her sobs turned even heavier, when he had the audacity to be utterly sweet, and sat down next to her, skipping his entire routine, and listened to her crying explanations with that stupid pretty hair falling into those stupid gorgeous eyes so full of concern.
"And- a-and- I've never done my own taxes, before," she cried, hiccupping, shaking the receipts in her fist. She knew her un-mascara-d eyes would be puffy and red, her skin blotchy and oily and those stupid tears everywhere, and she sobbed even harder. "My ex always did it for me, I completely forgot that this even exists, and now because I'm … I'm such a fucking failure at all things adulting…" she hiccupped, choked a little on her tears, and he rubbed her back, just listening.
"And then on the way I broke my stupid camera lens, and I only have the one, and Minako gave me this shot at interviewing this really famous pastry chef this week that could have gotten me the money to-to," she cried, shoulder shaking, "y'know, pay my fucking income tax and still have some resemblance of savings left."
He rubbed her back, and she hiccuped again, and his eyes found hers, and she wanted to crawl into a hole and die from all the concern there was in his.
"I can do it for you," he said, voice gentle and sweet.
It caused the sobs to come heavier, and a watery growl to escape her lips. "I don't want anyone to do it for me! I want to be someone who can do it on her own," she cried. "But I can't, because I'm a fucking failure and I'm not fucking perfect Shingo, or Ami, or you, and I CAN'T—"
She had to break off, the sobs turned too hard, but suddenly there were his arms, and suddenly she was in them and sobbed into his warm, soft neck, and he held her tight.
"How about we deal with this one by one?" Mamoru whispered in her ear, and all she could do was nod into his neck.
"But it's Thursday night," she sniffled into his shirt, and felt her cheek move under his shrug.
"I'll call Saori for a raincheck," he whispered.
And he managed to calm her down at least a little, talked her through a sensible course of action, and after a short call that she witnessed him having with his girlfriend, cancelling his plans with her (which left her mortified even more), she found herself outside of their building, and climbing on the back of his motorcycle she didn't even previously know he owned.
First stop was a little backstreet Post Office in Meguro. Because if her ex put her mail on hold, it would be stored in the Post Office closest to her old shared apartment with him. And when they walked in and they had it, and she received a stack of mail that did contain a thicker envelope from her bank which did contain her new card, she felt like crying in gratitude, and would have walked out of there in her fresh but happier tears, if Mamoru had not held her back and made her file a forwarding address while they were already here.
And so, with her shiny new access to her money, she was back on his motorcycle, and this time she could feel how exhilarating it was to sit with her legs pressed against his, and her arms around him as he drove them through Tokyo all the way to the nearest of the Yodobashi Camera stores, which after a quick search online said they had her lens in stock, and he stood with her in his white scrubs, as she picked her order up from the information desk with trembling, relieved hands.
And then he drove them both back home, while the sun had already long set and the streets had turned busier and brighter, and once home he'd sat down with her, and spent all night explaining the Japanese Tax system to her, her Knight in Shining Tax Knowledge.
It was three minutes to midnight, three minutes to tomorrow, when she finally hit the upload button on her laptop, and for the first time in her 25 years of life, filed her own tax return, and she broke down crying again, but this time in gratitude.
And he still sat with her, until she calmed down, and when she did, he brought over two glasses, and had filled them with red wine. It took her a moment until she realized the bottle he was pouring it from was the very same bottle she'd given him when she first came to view the apartment.
She blinked, bit her lip, and he held his glass up to her with a slow smile.
She lifted hers. It made a high, clear sound when they clinked glasses, and suddenly, sipping the classy wine Rei had picked out for her that tasted tangy, but slightly fruity, after she'd just filed her taxes, she felt so much more adult than she had this morning.
It almost brought about a fresh set of tears. Almost. Instead, she leant her head back against the couch behind her, watched Mamoru lean back and do the same, and had to giggle a little about the fact how they were both still sitting on the floor, with two perfectly sound leather couches available to them.
The giggle stifled a little in her throat at the way Mamoru smiled at her. Slow, at first, then turning wider, eyebrow lifting.
She cleared her throat. Suddenly so aware of the fact that this man that she happened to live with, but who really owed her nothing, had thrown all his plans overboard to help her through her sudden crisis in the most patient and practical ways possible.
"Thank you," she mumbled into her wine glass. "Thank you so much."
He shrugged, looked down into his own glass, and frowned for a brief second.
"So," he started, a little awkwardly, "who's Shingo, and why is he so perfect?" he said, and by the end, it had turned into this little, mischievous smile, and she blushed when she remembered she'd listed Mamoru as well in her list of perfect people, earlier today.
Just a second. And then she remembered why she'd listed those people in the first place.
She sighed, lowered her glass. "My little brother."
He held her gaze, nodded, but looked a little surprised, as if that had been the last thing he'd expected.
She shrugged. "He just graduated from university – Waseda, actually. Top of his class. He's really smart," she said, sighing deeply. "And he just moved out and got this really good job, and my parents are so proud…"
She took a sip of her wine, a bigger one this time, and frowned into her glass as she shook it a little, the red liquid sloshing around in her glass in a rhythmic way, around and around.
"And I am proud of him, I am. My brat of a baby brother in a suit like that, landing a job like that, but…" she trailed off slowly with a frown.
"Meanwhile, here am I…" she sighed.
He frowned. "What do you mean?"
She threw him a look, gestured toward her laptop, the mountain of wrinkled receipts, and the little cardboard box beside it, still left unpacked, that held her new camera lens, and then down on herself and the wrinkled mess that was supposed to be a classy look.
She sighed, took another sip of her wine. She felt it getting into her head a little.
"It's kinda why I'm here…" she said in a small voice, not looking at him.
She felt him shift closer, and out of the corner of her eye, saw him incline his head down towards her.
"What do you mean?" he asked, his voice taking on this concerned hue to it once more.
She shrugged, a little uncomfortably, and looked up, scrunched one eye shut and wrinkled her nose as she inclined her head and looked into his way too pretty, way too concerned, way too gentle face.
It was so easy to forget, like this, like now, that they were just roommates, and he was taken, and he was… And he'd not even be here tonight, instead he'd be in the bed of a woman she had never even met.
She really wondered what she was like… The woman Chiba Mamoru loved.
She shook her head, cleared her throat. "Why I broke up," then she shook her head, quick and erratically. "It's really silly."
"Tell me," he said, almost in a whisper.
It occurred to her, with a little start, that this was the most honest conversation they'd ever had. The most honest day they'd ever had, as she sat beside him with bloodshot eyes and no make-up, talking about what really was something she liked to push down, ignore, and never talk about.
"I'm Chaos," she shrugged, and he then pursed her lips, as he had the audacity to snort beside her in this agreeing way, as if it was obvious, but she sighed, because yes, yes, she was.
"I can't cook. I shrink my clothes when I wash them. I can't use a washing machine without flooding the bathroom for using soap accidently instead of detergent." She threw him a look when he snorted again, vividly remembering the mess, no doubt. "I graduated with the lowest grades and it was hard. My first job was this office job I flunked so badly, and now…" she sighed.
"I'm really bad at paying my bills on time and I'm really bad at not eating ice cream for breakfast when I can," she said, in a small voice. "But… I wanted to be this put together person, once I would cross that magic border into adulthood and everything would be glamorous and classy and easy, but…"
"It's never easy," he finished for her, and she nodded.
"Never." She sighed again, slumped her shoulders. "I want to be a responsible adult, but I'm just not. I want to be someone my parents can be proud of, too."
She shook her head, took a sip. He was silent, waiting for her to go on. She felt his shoulder bump against his arm when she shifted again.
"When I broke up… it was either this, or going back to my parents," she said, and she felt him move a little, start a little.
She leaned her head back against the couch seat with a little thud. "I don't wanna be one of those people in 'fast growing ecologic Asia' who—"
"Economic," he corrected, but she talked right on with a roll of her eyes
"– can't manage to leave the nest... Yeah, I'm chaos. And really shitty at adulting. But I am an adult, whether I'm shitty at it or not, and…" she swallowed, gripped her glass between both hands, the stem of it resting against her thigh, legs outstretched.
"... I don't wanna be the girl who returns home and lives with her parents forever and pretends to look after them but then my mom still does my laundry..." she said in a small voice and felt that pit in her stomach – how it must be so insensitive, all these things she was saying, all these things she was feeling, when he had no parents at all.
She cleared her throat. "And yes, it's also probably some part of the reason why I broke up, if I'm really honest."
He bumped her shoulder as he moved to lean forward a little. She held her breath until she understood what he was doing.
He was reaching for the open wine bottle on the coffee table, and then refilled her empty glass, saying nothing and yet urging her to continue.
He was strangely good at listening.
"He wanted to marry me," she said in a small voice, and this time, Mamoru threw her a look.
And she gave a little sarcastic snort. "And that's so silly because that was… my dream... maybe still IS, as stupid as it sounds. I always wanted to be married and be a housewife to a great man..." She sighed. "He hadn't asked yet, but I found the ring. And my mom was so proud when I called her freaking out about the find…" she inhaled deeply, and exhaled with a huff and falling shoulders "… and then I realized that I was on the verge of agreeing, of saying yes, but… not because I couldn't imagine my life without him, but because my mom was so proud, and because for a second there I thought this proposal would mean I would be a 'success' …"
She bit her lip. This sounded so awful. She sounded so awful…
She saw him frown, out of the corner of her eye.
"So… you didn't love him?"
Her eyes widened, and she whipped around to her side to face him, appalled. "Yes, of course I love him!" she exclaimed.
He blinked at her, and his eyes were so close to her now, and so very confused.
She deflated, turned around again and bumped her backside back against the couch. "But..." she sighed, frustratedly. "It wasn't…. I know what love is, I believe in it. And I do love so many people. I love everyone. I don't ... it doesn't..." she frowned, started again. "I feel like I fall in love every five minutes. My heart starts beating and my eyes are all hearts all the time. All the time. Boys, girls, everyone. You know, when I first met you…" she trailed off, blushing.
His head whipped to hers.
Her eyes widened, and she shook her hand, almost dropping her red wine onto his white scrubs in the process, and he jumped a little.
"I mean… I don't now, don't worry… but," she swallowed, thickly, embarrassed, "that's what I'm saying. I get like that… always. My friends… you know, when I met Rei, for instance… I could have sworn I was in love with all of them. It's so confusing."
He frowned, swallowed, frowned a little more.
"So..." he said after a moment of silence. "You were ...afraid you'd betray him...?"
She looked at him, even more appalled than before. "No, of course not! I would never hurt him in that way!"
He blinked, confused.
"I…" she started, and frowned a frown that mimicked his almost exactly. "I love him, I do. But I don't love him more than I love everyone. It wasn't… it wasn't right. There's more out there, I know it. I couldn't sit around and wait for it to happen while I was still with him. And I… I could see it, how it made him sad. How his love grew and grew but mine stayed the same. He loved me so much, and wanted this life… and I … I felt like I could have replaced him with anyone."
Mamoru blinked, his frown stuck in place, and he took a long, slow sip from his glass, frowning into the distance.
"I do love him. But I… Not enough? Not the same? Not more… I couldn't promise to…" she sighed, breaking off. "I don't know… it's so confusing."
He nodded, brow crinkled and tense. "It is," he said.
She sighed, her face falling into a pout, and let her head fall back against the seat cushion once more and turned her face so she could look at him, with her cheek resting against the soft leather.
He looked deep in thought.
"Well," she said, loudly, trying to bring back a somewhat more cheery mood. He almost jumped a little.
"Thank you, Mamo-chan," she whispered, and held up her glass to his. "For having me, and for helping me adult."
He smiled. It looked a little crooked.
He clinked his glass against hers.
"Anytime, Usa."
"—and then he hugged me, so tight, and just… cancelled his date and instead drove me through Tokyo on a motorcycle and helped me make it all better and—"
"Wait," Makoto interrupted, confused, pulling out a chair at the table and brushing her hands against her floury apron. "This was Mamoru? Chiba 'I prefer to work in silence' Mamoru? 'I snort all the way through a romantic movie'-Mamoru?"
"Yes, and then he, like, spent all night teaching me the tax system – which, by the way, I totally get now, and then he opened up that bottle of wine and—"
Usagi was talking in a voice so excited, she'd barely even touched her second slice of Makoto's lemon sponge cake with passion fruit crème and lemon curd topping, and instead waved the little ornate, golden fork around erratically as she spoke, when Minako interrupted her.
"So, what you're saying is; we're back to having the hots for roommate?" Minako said with a raise of her eyebrows. "Mr. Boring-Ass 'My kind of fun Friday night is cleaning out the trash bins with bleach' roommate, really?"
Usagi physically recoiled. "What, no, I didn't say that!"
Makoto and Minako threw each other a look across the table, and Usagi had to blink, and leant back against the white iron chairs of Makoto's café with a frown.
No… he's engaged, I'm not… I can't be.
"He's engaged, Usagi-chan…" Makoto said, in that kind, sympathetic voice of hers.
She shook her head, sharply. "I don't, I promise. We're just… roommates. And maybe friends, now."
Minako snorted into her piece of mascarpone cream cake. "Yeah, right."
"I'm not!" Usagi exclaimed with a huff, and then dug her fork angrily into her cake-y lemon sanctuary.
She frowned around her angry chewing. They didn't know what they were talking about. She wasn't into Mamoru. No. NO!
Next up: Meeting Saori!
Let me know what you think, please! : )