Programmed Lives – Second Stage
Chapter Thirty
Minami woke up noticing that there were several things out of the norm in that Sunday morning. To start with, she wasn't wearing anything else than a very badly wrinkled yukata and not her usual silky nightie. Another thing was that she was sleeping on a futon and not on her nice western style bed. The things that definitely were out of the ordinary were the arm that she had laid across her waist, hugging her in a rather possessive manner, and the man who was attached to said arm.
Turning round, she saw Takumi's peaceful, sleeping face. He looked so absolutely adorable that Minami had to repress the urge to kiss him.
Then she remembered what had happened, or rather, what had not happened the night before and that made her get up from the floor as slowly and quietly as possible. She still didn't know that waking Takumi up required a lot more than that…
By the time Takumi himself woke up, Minami was nowhere to be seen. Remembering her badly stifled sobs, he got up and, still feeling angry at himself, he decided to get dressed so he could look for her.
He found her at the ryokan's breakfast room with Kyoko and Ryosuke.
'Good morning,' he said as he too took a seat, 'where are Keis…'
'Keisuke is still sleeping and Akiko's feeding Kyo-chan,' Kyoko supplied.
'Ah, alright,' Takumi said serving himself some tea.
'Mina-chan here was telling us about her concert,' Ryosuke said.
'Ah…' Takumi said and, looking across the table at his girlfriend, he couldn't help but to notice the way she avoided looking at him in the eye.
'She's been kind enough to invite us and, of course, we've accepted the invitation,' Kyoko added.
'Ah, really…when is the concert?' Takumi asked Minami hoping that this would force her to look at him.
'Next Friday,' she replied looking at him for the tiniest instant before busying herself with a piece of toast.
'Ah, okay,' he just said and, not knowing if he could assume that the invitation included him too, he just chose to remain silent. Ryosuke and Kyoko noticed that and, without needing to say anything to each other, they understood something had happened and they both decided to give the couple some room so they could sort their problems on their own.
'Honey, Kyosuke's not feeling too well this morning and he's got a bit of temperature,' Akiko said coming into the breakfast room with a very subdued looking Kyo-chan.
'Let me see,' Ryosuke said feeling with the back of his hand his son's little forehead, 'yes, he's a bit too warm. Sorry guys, but I think it's better if we head back home.'
'Yeah, I think so too, I'll go and drag Keisuke out of bed,' Kyoko said getting up from the table.
'You two can stay here if you want,' Akiko said talking to Minami.
'No, I think we'd better go home too,' Minami said and Akiko couldn't help but to notice that she hadn't even checked with Takumi before making the decision.
The trip back home was nothing short of a nightmare for Takumi. Travelling with a very moody Minami sitting next to him staring stubbornly out of her window and refusing to utter a single word in the whole three hours the trip lasted was a bit more of what Takumi could handle.
'Minami I…' he tried, for the umpteenth time as they approached the motorway's exit for North Tokyo and, for a brief second it looked as though as she was going to reply when her mobile phone started ringing:
'Hello?' she said answering it and, for the following fifteen minutes, she was engaged in a conversation with what sounded like a girlfriend of hers so, by the time they finally entered the lane that led to Minami's house, they still hadn't talked.
'I'll call you sometime next week, okay?' she said as she got out of the car.
'Minami…' he said taking her hand so she couldn't run away. She snatched it out of his grasp and, as her eyes started to get glassy, she blinked a couple of times and started running towards the house's main door.
Seeing it was useless to go after her in the state she was now, Takumi started the car and drove back to Shibukawa being happy to go back home after such a disastrous weekend. He spent the rest of the day sleeping.
Still feeling horribly guilty, the next day he went to the circuit for the team's mid-month meeting and there, he found Kyoko looking at him in a really weird way. She waited until Ryosuke issued the orders of the day for everybody so she could talk to Takumi.
'What's up?' Takumi said even though he suspected the subject of this particular conversation.
'What happened last weekend with you and Minami?' she said and Takumi thought her to be unusually bold and he considered very seriously to ignore her question but then she added, 'she looked absolutely devastated when she showed up in the breakfast room…'
'Of course she did,' he said, more to himself than to Kyoko.
'What happened?' she insisted and, Takumi, sighing loudly, decided to surrender:
'It's what didn't happen that matters.'
'Ah, I see. If you need some advice…'
'Kyoko, no offence but I think it's very weird if…you know…'
'Would you prefer talking to Akiko or Ryosuke? After all, they are doctors you know…'
'Oh gosh, no, that'd be even worse!' Takumi exclaimed looking positively freaked out.
'Well, what about Keisuke, or maybe one of your friends?'
'Nah, they'd just get mad or laugh at me,' Takumi said miserably.
'Your dad?' Kyoko tried once more and the look Takumi gave her spoke volumes, 'alright mate, I think you're out of options here,' she said.
Takumi, deciding he needed to tell someone and that Kyoko was probably his only viable option, he proceeded to tell her everything about the weekend and, surprisingly enough, she listened to him without judging nor laughing. Then, she gave him some very important, albeit horribly embarrassing tips and, after reassuring him for the hundredth time that he had done nothing wrong, she sent him to the motorhome to get changed.
The day of the concert arrived and Takumi had only received a text message from Minami confirming the time and place of the concert and that he and the Takahashi's would have Backstage Passes. Like if he cared about that! All Takumi wanted was to see her for he really needed to talk to her.
Needless to say, they got inside the huge basketball arena where the concert would be held beating the long queue of people who stood there waiting to be let in.
'It's good being treated as VIP's,' Kyoko commented playing with the plastic badge that hung off her neck. At the end and since Kyo-chan seemed to be suffering from a cold, both Akiko and Ryosuke had decided to stay home so Takumi was playing third wheel with Keisuke and his girlfriend.
For this reason, he started looking around the backstage trying to see if he could catch a glimpse of the singer who, obviously, was very busy getting ready for the show and, unfortunately for him, was nowhere to be seen.
At long last, and seeing that the concert was about to begin, Takumi reluctantly followed Keisuke and Kyoko to the front of the stage where the VIP's had their designated area.
As soon as the concert started, the public began to go crazy and, as they heard the first notes of the first song, they all started singing along with Mina-chan.
Takumi was so mesmerized looking at his beautiful girlfriend's transformation into a superstar that, at first, he didn't hear the feminine voice that kept calling his name.
'Takumi-kun! Takumi-kuuun!'
'Hey, there's a girl there who keeps shouting your name,' Keisuke said talking into Takumi's ear while pointing at a girl standing nearby, in the normal public's area. Takumi felt his heart stop for a couple of painful seconds.
'Mogi,' he muttered as he recognised the girl. He found himself walking towards her even before he was aware of getting up from his chair at all.
'Hey! Thank goodness your friend has heard me!' she shouted so he could hear her over the music. She was smiling happily and Takumi was surprised to find that his old feelings for her seemed to be definitely dead. He just couldn't see her as anything else but a pretty girl who happened to be really sweet too.
'Yeah, the music's loud,' he said.
'What?' she shouted back and then, seeing it was useless, she grabbed him by his shoulder so he could talk to her in her ear.
As she did so, he turned his face towards the stage so he could check on Minami. Unfortunately, both motions put together meant that their noses and part of their lips grazed for the briefest of moments and, even worse was that right at that instant, Minami chose to look at that part of her public.
The shock of seeing what looked like her boyfriend kissing another girl made the singer skip a few words of the song and, by the time she had caught up, Takumi having seen the whole thing from his point of view, felt like he had been punched in the stomach.
'It's such a coincidence! I didn't even know you liked Mina-chan…' he barely heard a very flustered looking Natsuki.
'Look, I've got to go. I'll call you,' he said leaning towards Natsuki so she would hear him.
'Alright,' she said looking extremely disappointed.
He spent the rest of the concert trying to catch Minami's eye but the singer refused quite categorically to look at where he was.
'It was great! I can't believe she's my friend!' Kyoko said to Keisuke who, even if he normally didn't enjoy that kind of music, had had loads of fun.
'Guys, I'll see you, I've got to…' Takumi said.
'Yeah, don't worry,' Keisuke said waving him away with his hand.
'Say hi to her from us!' Kyoko said.
'Yeah,' he mumbled as he tried to make his way back to the part of the stage where he hoped he would find Minami.
'Where do you think you're going?' one of the security guys said as he tried to walk into a corridor.
'I've got this…' he started to say showing the badge that supposedly allowed him access to the backstage.
'That's for the area up to here,' the security guy said drawing an imaginary line with his index finger, 'from here onwards, it's for Mina-chan and her staff.'
'I'm a friend of Mina-chan,' Takumi said already knowing that his attempt was as useless as it was pathetic.
'Yeah, and I'm Madonna,' the security guy said ironically then, getting serious, he said, 'look, she's got too many friends already, why don't you go and get drunk or something like that.'
Takumi really wanted to punch this guy but he knew that doing so would only land him in trouble and nowhere near Minami so, doing something he'd learned in all those years with Ryosuke, he forced himself to calm down and analyse the situation with a cold head.
Finally, he came up with a plan: walking to the outdoor parking where he had left his car, he climbed into the AE86 and drove it to the only possible exit that any cars driving out of indoor car park could take.
He then climbed out of his car and waited patiently till he saw the gate open. At first only a service van got out but soon he saw a limousine drive out and, luckily enough, the window was half open and through that he saw Minami: she looked exhausted and she was crying.
With his heart in a knot, he got back into his Toyota, started it and began following the limousine.
The chase wasn't very fast nor very long for, after only ten minutes, the long and black car stopped, forcing Takumi to do the same.
As he saw the limousine's driver getting out of the car, Takumi, going as fast as he could, climbed out of his car and, running to the limousine's passenger door, he lowered himself so he could look into the car through the window and said:
'Minami, we need to talk.'
The girl looked at him trying hard to appear unconcerned about his presence there.
'Where's your girlfriend?' she asked bitterly.
'What?' he shouted then, whispering so the approaching driver couldn't hear him, he said: 'Minami YOU are my girlfriend…'
He didn't have time to say anything else because two rough hands grabbed him and removed him from the car's side.
'Hey, get your hands off me!' he shouted at the guy then, looking towards the car, he shouted even louder, 'Minami! Please! I love you!'
That made the car's door open.
'Please let him go,' she said to the driver, 'get in,' she said to Takumi who obeyed the instant he was free from the driver's grasp.
'Minami…'
'Who was that girl?' she asked, jealousy brutally imprinted in her voice.
'That was Mogi Natsuki. I dated her for a while during high school but she means nothing to me now. You have to believe me,' Takumi said and the desperation in his voice seemed to convince Minami that he was telling her the truth.
'That kiss didn't seem like nothing,' she said nonetheless.
'That was an accident. I was turning the face one way and she turned hers the other…Minami, I've been dying to see you and it killed me not being able to find you.'
'Not as much as it killed me seeing you kiss that girl while I found myself incapable of doing what I wanted to do.'
'You can slap me now if that makes you feel better,' Takumi offered.
'Who said anything about slapping you? I would have slapped her! Like you said, you are my boyfriend, not hers!' Minami said being back to the determined girl Takumi loved so much. He allowed himself a brief smile that died as he saw her face darken once more.
'Minami…'
'I almost died when I saw you with her. I didn't want to talk to you earlier because I thought that you were thinking of dumping me because I couldn't… you know…'
'What? Are you mad? I would never dump you for something like that! Even less because it was my fault,' Takumi said.
'It wasn't your fault,' Minami said.
'Yes it was, I should have done a few extra things that apparently make the whole thing easier,' Takumi said, determined to keep his conversation with Kyoko a secret he'd take to his grave, 'In any case, I intend to be with you even if we don't do it. If you're not ready now, I'll wait for you.'
'But I want to do it,' she said blushing and Takumi was grateful the driver had decided to stay far enough as to give them some privacy.
'If you want, we'll do it but I don't want to put any pressure on you,' Takumi said.
Minami looked at him and, after meditating something for a while, she said:
'Can you stay over my place this weekend?'
'Er…yes, I guess so,' Takumi replied.
'Perfect. Because I'd like to try a few of those 'extra things' you're supposed to do,' she said with a wicked smile.
To be continued…
