Title: For The Price Of A Cup Of Tea
By: Kibethan
Plot Idea By: Ro-buddi (THANK YOU, RO!)
Beta-reader: Myuu-Foxgirl
Disclaimer: I do not now, nor have I ever, owned Gravitation. Similarly, I got the name from a Belle and Sebastian song.
Summary: One-shot; slight-AU Takes place before the formation of Bad Luck. Could this brief meeting between Hiro and Suguru have caused the future? We may never know.
Happy Birthday, Anna This is for you!
For The Price Of A Cup Of Tea
Hiro sighed as he entered possibly the fiftieth shop. He was on vacation, but the way that he was acting, you would think that he was in hell. Well, he was on a vacation if you could even count the school trip as a vacation. So far, all they had done was visit a few shrines and shop. Sure, he didn't mind the shrines, and even the shopping wasn't so bad –that is, wasn't so bad unless you had a friend like Shuichi Shindou who liked to go into every single shop for about 20 minutes and not buy anything.
After they had finished visiting all the shrines, their chaperones had given them the rest of the afternoon off, as long as they promised to be back by seven o'clock for dinner. All of the kids had jumped at the idea of not having adults watching over them and had quickly promised and scampered away as fast as they possibly could.
"Are you finished, yet, Shuichi?" Hiro asked with a very blatantly bored tone of voice, hoping that his friend would catch on to his mood. Unfortunately, Shuichi was quite possibly the most unaware person in the world and just gave him a huge grin and told him that he needed to check the last five rows before they could go.
Hiro heaved a bigger sigh than even before. If he had to go into another one of these cutesy little tourist shops, he might scream.
It was another ten minutes before Shuichi decided that he was ready to leave the store –empty handed, of course- smiling that huge silly grin to the store owner as he left.
"You know, Shuichi, somebody is going to think that you stole something if you keep giving them that crocodile grin without buying anything," Hiro explained, teasingly. Shuichi froze in his tracks and gave Hiro a look of total horror.
"No! I would never! You think? I need to go back and apologize to everybody!" Shuichi made a move to walk back into the store and it was Hiro's turn to have a look of horror. Without thinking, he grabbed his friend and dragged him forward, not wanting to have to go back into all the stores they had gone into.
"I was kidding," Hiro explained. Shuichi seemed to relax a little bit at this, but when they went into the next store, he was careful not to grin too big. Hiro cringed when they entered another store, and he vowed that it would be the last one he would go into if it killed him.
Yet, as soon as Shuichi had finished going into that store, he walked right down the sidewalk and was about to walk into the next one. Hiro looked at his watch. It was almost 3 o'clock. They'd had already three hours to themselves.
"Shuichi," Hiro stopped him, as he was about to cross the threshold into the store. "I think I'm going to just walk down the sidewalk for a while."
"You, you, you, you don't want to come into the store with me?" Shuichi asked, his eyes becoming big and watery.
"No, no, no, not at all," Hiro lied through his teeth, "I just see something down there that caught my eye, and I wanted to check it out."
This, of course, was not at all true. But Shuichi didn't need to know that.
"Oh! Okay! I'll meet you down there! If I can't find you, I'll give you a call!" Hiro nodded and watched as Shuichi disappeared into the store. Well, that was all fine and dandy. Now he was on his own, but had nothing to do. With a look of slight contempt on his face at all the stores, Hiro did what he had told Shuichi he was going to do; he walked down the walk.
He felt liberated the first time he was able to walk by a store and not have to go into it. After he passed his first store, he relaxed a little bit, realizing that he didn't have to go into all of them. He'd been casually moseying along for a little while when something actually did catch his attention.
The sound of beautiful piano music filled his ears and he looked around trying to find where it was coming from. After a few seconds of searching, he finally found where it was coming from.
A music store.
Now that was a store that he wouldn't mind going into. Music was his life and he and Shuichi had been working for a little bit on arrangements and were thinking of starting their own band.
He walked into the store and searched around for where the music was coming from. Finally, he spotted it. It was coming from a boy who was playing the piano. The boy looked to be no older than ten, but the way he was playing you would have thought that he'd been playing for at least twenty years.
His music instructor –Hiro could only guess- not five feet away from the boy, had his eyes closed and was unconsciously bobbing his head and tapping his feet in time with the music. There was no doubt; the kid was good.
Hiro walked further into the store, pretending to be looking at music books, while he was trying to get closer to the boy that was playing the piano. His eyes were drawn to how nice of posture the boy had, as well as the way his fingers just flew over the keyboard, as if they were always meant to do that.
Suddenly, the song ended. The music instructor lifted his head up and looked at his student.
"Very good, Suguru, I see you've been practicing."
Suguru. So that was his name. What a beautiful name for such a beautiful person. And, of course, the kid was beautiful. He had gorgeous brown eyes and perfect green locks from what Hiro could see.
"Yes, I have, Sensei," Suguru answered politely. The instructor smiled a kind smile towards Suguru.
"I think one more song, Suguru, and then you can be on your way." Suguru nodded and started to play another song. Hiro panicked. If only one more song played, then the lesson would be over and the chance of him ever seeing the person called Suguru again would be slim to none. Hiro walked around the store, still pretending to be looking at merchandise, biting his lip, trying to decide what to do.
Finally he decided that the least he could do would be to praise the kid and tell him how well he thought he played. The thought that Suguru might be a pompous ass crossed his mind, but he gave it no attention. The politeness that Suguru had shown towards his teacher had convinced him that Suguru could do no harm to anybody else.
Since Hiro was planning on someday being in a band, he had trained his ears to hear what parts of the song were coming, and when he thought he could hear the end of the song coming, he took a deep breath and started walking towards the piano.
True enough, within eight bars the song ended and Suguru stood up, thanked his teacher, and started gathering his sheet music. Now was the perfect time to approach him. Hiro walked closer to him.
"Excuse me," Hiro started. Suguru wheeled around in surprise. Hiro took a deep breath and just continued talking. "Those pieces that you just played were absolutely amazing. I've never heard anything like it."
Hiro watched Suguru's cheeks tinted pink.
"Th-thank you very much!" Suguru said with a big smile on his face.
Without knowing what he was doing, Hiro continued talking, his voice just taking a hold of his body and not caring at all what his brain was saying.
"Would you like to go out for a cup of coffee or tea?" Hiro asked. "My name is Hiro, by the way." He stuck out his hand, hoping that Suguru would shake it.
Uneasily, Suguru stuck his hand out and took his hand, "I'm Suguru, and sure, I'd love to join you for a cup of tea. Let me just call my ride and tell him that I'm going to do it." Hiro nodded and watched as Suguru set his music on the piano bench and picked up his cell phone to call his ride.
When Hiro heard Suguru tell his ride about picking him up later (thankfully his ride hadn't left yet), and tell him why he wanted to be picked up later, Hiro instantly heard yelling on the other side of the phone.
Suguru flinched and held the phone away from his ear as the ranting continued on. When he thought it sounded like the rant was slowing down, Suguru put his ear next to the receiver again and calmly explained that he was just going around the corner for a cup of tea with Hiro and when Hiro couldn't hear the yelling on the other end of the line anymore, he knew that it was okay.
Suguru hung up the phone with a shy smile. "Sorry about that," he said while sweatdroppping. Hiro shook his head.
"Not a problem. Shall we go?" With chivalry that Hiro didn't know he possessed, he opened the door for Suguru and followed him out the door. Just as Suguru had told his ride, there was a cute little coffeehouse (that had tea) just around the corner.
When they entered they were pleased to find that it wasn't too crowded and there were still a few tables and chairs left to sit at. They walked up to the counter and ordered their respective drinks. When Suguru tried to pay for his own, Hiro just shook his head and handed the cashier his money. Not for the first time, Suguru blushed. After they had ordered their drinks they went to sit one of the tables that was free.
"So," Hiro started rather awkwardly, "you like music?" He figured it was the perfect thing to ask Suguru since he had seen him at a music store and he'd been playing the piano.
Just as he'd thought, it was indeed the perfect subject to get Suguru to open up to. Suguru instantly started talking about how piano and how it was the perfect instrument in the world, especially since you didn't have to press down on painful strings or blow into anything.
"…and I mean, I've been playing it for nine years, so of course I really, really, like it…"
Hiro's eyes widened.
"Wait," he interrupted, "You've been playing for nine years? Just how old are you?"
Suguru looked down at the table, "I've been playing since I was five years old. I'm fourteen." Before Hiro had a chance to question him further, the person making their tea called out their orders and he had to leave to go get them.
Thoughts were racing through his head. Suguru wasn't that much younger than himself, only maybe a year. If Suguru joined his and Shuichi's band they could have the most popular band in Japan. There was no way that Shuichi would go for it though.
He returned with the two cups of tea.
"Here you go," he said as he handed Suguru the cup.
"Thank you. You seemed so shocked when I said I was fourteen. How old did you think I was?"
"Ten," Hiro answered without missing a beat. "But that's okay, sometimes it's better to look younger than older. In a few years people will be saying your twenty when you're actually thirty-five." Hiro kept backpedaling, trying to make what he had said seem like less of an insult –which he hadn't meant it as at all. All the while, Suguru was laughing.
They were talking for a while when all of a sudden, a cell phone rang. Hiro jumped about a foot into the air. He reached for his cell phone, thinking that Shuichi was calling him, trying to find him, but he finally grabbed his phone, he realized that it wasn't his ring tone that was ringing.
Suguru looked at his phone. "Tohma," he muttered under his breath. With an apologetic look to Hiro he answered the phone, "Hello?" Voices could be heard on the other side. "I told you I was getting tea. Yes, I'm still fine. No, I don't need you to pick me up yet. You brought Yuki? Wait, you're where?"
Suguru whipped around and narrowed his eyes at the person Hiro could only assume was his ride. He snapped his phone shut. Turning to Hiro, with a quick apology, he explained that his ride was here to pick him up.
"It's fine. I hope you had a good time."
"I did! Maybe I'll see you again someday?" Suguru asked hopefully.
"Maybe."
Hiro watched as Suguru walked out of the coffeehouse with the two blond haired men. Suddenly, his own phone rang. He downed the rest of his tea in one swig and answered his phone.
"Hello?"
"Hiro! Hiro! Where are you! I can't find you!"
Hiro smiled, at least some things never changed.
"I'm in a coffeehouse; I'll be back on the street in about a minute."
"Okay! I'll look for you there!"
Hiro hung up the phone, stuck his hands in his pockets, and walked out the door. While he was walking towards where he thought Shuichi was, he was debating in his head whether or not to tell the pink-haired boy about Suguru.
He shook his head and decided not to. After all, he would never see Suguru again.
Right?
End For The Price Of A Cup Of Tea
Well, there's that! I hope you liked it! Expect the last Chapter of Blindsided to come out quiet soon!