A/N: I'm so glad you're enjoying the Strawberry Series! Please try to be patient! Now on to the first chapter of "Love That Strawberry!".
Chapter I
"Ichi!" a voice hollered, coming closer.
Ichigo Uesugi turned to witness her friends Keiko Morino, long raven hair and Nene Nabaoe, short raven hair, rushing towards her. "Hey, girls! What's shaking!?" "Besides the ground once your okaa-san's farewell concert gets down!" They all screamed. Ichigo was as much part of this fangirl clique as the rest of her friends. She was always blown away by one of her okaa-san's performances. Though she knew the truth; deep down inside her okaa-san (though he lacked his pink hair now) was still a rambunctious ball of energy to this day. "Guys, really... How many times have I told you. He's like a normal person." "That's SO not true." Nene scoffed. "Shuichi Shindou is a J-pop legend."
"Yeah, he's the greatest next to the legendary Ryuichi Sakuma..." Keiko had moons and stars in her eyes.
"He's just a...." She shook her head, golden locks bouncing. "Ah, never mind."
"So, is this concert REALLY your present?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "It was all ready scheduled as a farewell concert. But I don't care..." She grinned. "I hear there's gonna be a special birthday surprise."
"Oooh, what?" Nene asked excitedly.
"Duh, Nene!" Keiko rapped the other girl's head. "That's why it's a surprise..."
"Oh, right!"
"This is SO great! What better way for three best friends to spend our best friend's sixteenth birthday by attending a concert."
"Getting her best friends Sakuma-sans's autograph?" Keiko intervened with a giggle.
Nene laughed. "Keiko, you're impossible!"
"Oh, come now, Nene!" The long-haired girl cajoled. "Don't tell me you wouldn't DIE for Sakuma-san's autogaph?"
"Autograph no..."
Gasp.
"His body is another story.."
Ichigo pushed her with another gasp. "Nene! I had no idea...."
"Yeah, right... I've seen how YOU ogle him." A laugh.
"Get out!" The blonde pushed her friend harder. "Do you even KNOW how old Saukma-san is?"
"Mmm. Love knows NO AGE!"
"I'm talking to myself..."
"How old is he, Ichi?"
"Older than my okaa-san and tou-san."
Blank looks.
"I think he was thirty when he met okaa-san." She calculated. "So he's at least gotta be 45 by now. WAY too old for you, Nene."
Nene pouted. "Can't you let me have my dreams?"
"No, you'll only upset yourself."
"Ichigo!"
"Promise me when you meet Sakuma-san you won't through yourself at his feet or any junk like that?"
"Hey, Ichigo?" Keiko started.
"Yeah?"
"Is it true that he's been going out with the brother of Eiri Yuki for these last ten years?"
"Wha-?" Nene looked astounded.
"You didn't know?"
Nene looked to Ichi with pleading eyes.
"Yeah. Uncle Tatsuha even brough Ryu-kun over..."
"Ryu-kun!" They both screamed.
"Since when do you know Ryuichi "the GOD" Sakuma?"
"Huh? I never told you guys.."
Furious shakes of the head.
"Must've slipped my mind."
"HOW CAN SOMETHING LIKE THAT SLIP YOUR MIND?!"
Ichigo flinched at her two friends reactions. "Well, uh..."
"You've touched him haven't you!"
"Huh?"
"Shaken his hand?"
"Well, yeah, I guess so..." Keiko grapsed her hand and looked to Nene with stars in her eyes. "The hand that shook Sakuma-san's!"
"Guys!"
"You do realize my okaa-san and he are good friends..."
She thought this would calm it down. Truth is it only made it worse. "Good friends? How much GOOD friends?" Nene asked. "Like this?" Keiko crossed her fingers. "Yeah....I'd say like that..." OH GEAT KAMI-SAMA!" They began jumping up and down and squealing. "Wow! That SO rocks!" Her firneds exchanged consipriotorail glances. "You're not gonna let this go, are you?" "For keeping something like this from your bestfriendsi? No way!" They stressed "bestfriends". She groaned and covered her head with her shopping bag, starting to run away.
"ICHI!" They shouted after her. "COME BACK HERE!"
Ichi ran and ran, laughing all the way. She spotted a bookstore and dashed into it. Thinking quickly, she spotted a HUGE stack of her tou-san's books and hid behind them. A girl who was cracking open one of his latest novels looked at her with a slight smile. "You okay?" Huff, huff. "Yeah. It's a good thing tou-san's books are so popular..." Whoops. She clapped her hand over her mouth, praying the girl hadn't heard. "You know THE Eiri Yuki? I mean, of course you would! You just said he was your father, right?" She chattered. "What are you some illegitimate offspring? How exciting!"
The blonde eyed the other skeptically. Where had this girl been for the past fifteen years? "Umm.." "There you are, Ichi!" Nene's voice chimed in. "Gotcha! Thought we wouldn't think to look behind this stack? Eiri Yuki's novels might be good...." "Might be good?" Ichigo scoffed. "Tou-san's novels are the coolest!" She propped her hands on her hips. "He can wipe the floor with any other novelist." Her attitude was a haughty stuck up frigid one. An Eiri Yuki attitude. "So you ARE his child! Do you think-?" She held the book out. "Sorry." Ichi held a hand out. "Wait for the signing..." She walked off. "Ichigo, don't you think that was rather cold?" "No." She took on Yuki's attitude full blast. "Tou-san has signings for a reason. I can't let every Mariko, Mizuho, and Kaede take advantage of me!"
"You, Ichigo... We don't take advantage of you. We like you as a friend."
"I know."
That was thing about Ichigo Uesugi; she could either be sugar like her okaa-san or vinegar like her tou-san. "We're sorry." "No, it's okay. I should be sorry..." She laughed. "Hey, my birthday's almost here!" "Yeah!" "Let's go walk my okaa-san home from the studio, kay?" "Cool!"
Ichigo and her friends approached the tall building of N-G pro and walked in through the front door. "Walk like you own the place. I almost do.." She laughed at this. The man at the front desk stopped her. "Yes, miss." "Ichigo Shindou to see Shindou-san." He smiled. "Ah, yes. Ichigo-san. Go right up! Almost didn't recognize you!" "That's okay, sir." She walked head up and tall and straight like a soldier. She walked likeshe OWNED N-G pro. Keiko and Nene followed her lead. "That was awesome!" "Oh, that was nothing..." Ichigo grinned wide. "Watch how I deal with K-san?" "Who?" They asked as the doors closed.
When they finally made it to the correct floor. She could here her okaa-sans' new song coming in loud a clear. "Hmm pretty. Good. I like." "Like what?" Nene asked. "Don't you here that?" She shook her head. The blonde flung her arm wide and smiled. "It's the sound of greatness!" Her friends strained to hear. "Here we go! Studio two..." She reached her hands in her jacket as she placed a hand on the door handle. Grinning she flung it open and yelled, "This is a hold up!" In her best Yuki voice she could muster, hoping to throw the crazy gun-toting American off guard.
She did no such thing however.
Ichigo DID succeed in half scaring her poor okaa-san half to death as he screamed, ducking behind Fujisaki-san, "Don't hurt me!" Nakano-san flinched while the keyboardist remained stoic. "Hello, Ichigo-san." He said taking his fingers off the keys. "What a pleasant surprise." She found the nutcase American grinning. "Nice try, Ichigo-san. But not good enough." "Damn you..." "Ichi!" Shuichi scolded, getting up from the ground with the aid of Hiro. "That's all right, Shuichi..." "Smug bastard..." ICHI!" the singer's eyes practically popped out of his head as he through a hand through his now-black hair.
"Me thinks the lady doth protest too much."
"Me thinks the manage should stop the stupid lines..." She glared at him. For some reason she had never ever gotten along with K-san.
"Touche, young lady. Touche."
She rolled her eyes.
"Ichi-honey...Why are you here?"
"To walk home with you of course, or have you forgotten? We've been doing this since I was twelve, Okaa-san."
"True. Just let me finishd this up, okay?"
"Okay! Can I sit in?"
"Huh?"
"Can I sit in?"
"Well, I don't know.."
"Oh, c'mon, Okaa-san!"
"Shuichi," This was from his best friend in the whole wide world. "What could it hurt? Think of these girls as our test subjects. They can tell us if we have a hit or not."
"I'm sure you will!" Keiko gushed.
Shuichi nodded at Hiro.
"Go, Fukisaki!" The keyboardist started up the song on his synthesizer.
Ichigo watched with pride as her okaa-san took hold the microphone and started singing with all his might. His voice was sweet, like a, like a...a strawberry. She grinned. He took hold of the souls of young fan girls and gripped their hearts tight-even now. Even when he 35 years old. He moved in sync with the music, he was older now, but he still had the boyish face of his youth. His amethyst eyes pierced through the canopy of black bangs. He was smiling. "Open up your eyes and see the kaleidoscopic rainbow. Don't close your soul. But don't leave it to bleed dead and dry... Hearts pound fast in my ears; it rises. See the joy that is... Sparkling! Shining! Your heart pours out with incessant melodies!" It went on like that for a while, Ichi grinning through it all. It was great! Of course she would think it was great! Anything her okaa-san wrote was gold.
When it ended. She got up on her chair and clapped enthusiastically. "Yeah! Okaa-san, that was wicked cool!"
Her parent smiled back at her. "You really thinking so..."
"Oh, yes!"
"And you? What did you think about it?"
"Great!" Keiko said.
Nene nodded. "What she said!"
"Okaa-san..."
"Hmm." He turned to look at her. "That's Sakuma-san's philosophy wrote out in song, isn't it?"
"Guilty."
"What took you so long to write something like that?"
"Ichi-honey.... This is special. A special time for you. A special time for me and Bad Luck!" He grinned. "I needed a song that would "sparkle". Just like Saukma-san told me so long ago.."
"You WILL sparkle, Okaa-san." She hugged.
"Thank you, Ichigo..."
"After all..." She wiped her tears. "You always do!"
"How sweet. My little Strawberry..."
"Okaa-san!" She blushed furiously. "My friends are STILL here!"
"Strawberry? What about Strawberries?" Keiko asked with a grin on her face.
"Nothing!"
"I get it!" Nene grinned.
"What!?" She whispered into Keiko's ear. "No kidding!"
"Great! Now I won't hear the end of it!"She turned an evil Yuki eye at him.
Heh, heh. That's my daughter. One minute she's the sun, the next she can be the nastiest storm.
"So, Strawberry..."
"Cut it out, Nene!"
"But that's your name. Right, Strawberry!?" A chuckled followed this.
"You must me really stupid if you failed to remember that Ichigo means strawberry."
Her friend ignore this comment, seeing it as Ichi's testy mood in which she really didn't mean a thing that came out of her not so nice mouth. "So that's what was with the strawberry ice-cream!" "The strawberry on the cake!" "The strawberry-!" "Okay al ready. You got your kicks, now let's go!" The girls giggled. "Sorry, Ichi..." She shot her okaa-san a glare and he crumpled. "Guess I gone and did it." The rock star sighed, picking up his pack. "Did what?" "What else, Hiro? I've gone and made Ichigo mad at me again. Things sure change when they grow up..." "That's life man..." The guitarist threw an arm over his friend's shoulder. "You've gotta take things as they come at you. Ichi, will forgive. She always does. You ARE her favorite parent. Always have been, man."
"I suppose your right..."
"Of course I am!" He slapped his shoulder. "Now go home and rest! You deserve it!"
He nodded.
"See you later, Fujisaki!"
"Shuichi..." The green-haired man acknowledged.
"Taidama!"(sp?) Ichigo shouted coming into the big house.
"Welcome home," Yuki said coming out of the kitchen. He looked around. "Where's your okaa-san..."
"Who knows!?" she stomped upstairs and slammed the door to her room.
He sighed heavily.
That was his daughter, Whirlwind II.
Next Chapter: The Boyfriend Inspection
A/N: Yeah, found out what my DSL problem was! (tell me how to spell that one word correctly please--the one with the (sp?) thing behind it)I'd really appreciate it!Review onegai!