Here it is! Enjoy!
It was Sunday, there was nothing to do except practice my concours piece – a rare situation in the past few weeks since school had started – and I had every intention of sleeping in until the latest possible time when my phone went off on my bedside table. A strange feeling of déjà vu came over me as I dragged myself up to a semi-sitting position and drew my knees up so that I could rest my head on them as I stared at the digital clock next to my phone.
I stared at the blinking numbers. 10:42 am
10:43 am
10:44 am
10:45 am
10:4 – I jolted up and snatched my cellphone of the table, snapping out off my bleary-eyed daze.
Meet me at -
The one sentence on the message stared back at me as if in mockery and I glared at it, my glare sharpening when I saw the sender's name again. That inconsiderate bastard! Thinking he owns my time.
I snapped my cell shut and tossed it towards the foot of my bed, intending to get some more sleep and ignore that pretty boy's message.
Just as my eyes drifted shut, the phone buzzed again at my feet and I snatched it up in frustration.
Almost as an afterthought, the message read:
I'll treat you to lunch.
I was set to ignore that, too, if only my stomach hadn't growled as I read the word 'lunch.' Scowling, I dropped back into bed and told myself to forget about it. And I was about to do just that when my stomach, as if it had its own mind, growled so viciously that I was prompted to sit up and actually consider my situation.
Staring across the room at my door, I mulled over the fact that I was out of groceries to make a filling meal and the fact that I had three bowls of instant ramen for dinner. Also, Atobe was offering me a free meal – probably in exchange for information, I knew. All in all, it was a bad situation and a not so bad situation at the same time.
Sighing, my head lolled forward in between my blanket covered knees before I clambered out of bed and to my closet.
The things I'd do for food.
It was unusually hot out, to say the least, as hot as a summer day would be. And I hated hot days. The kind of days that made me curse how my hair so darn long. My hair was already pulled as high as it would go and it was still so hot. I'd told my mom before I'd have it cut just a little shorter but I knew that it was futile. My grandma had standards on quite a number of things. Hair was one of them, unfortunately. I think all the forcefulness that she decided not to exert on us regarding marriage was transferred into all the other aspects of life.
And as I stared at the sign that informed me that I had reached my destination, I wasn't cursing the weather or my hair anymore.
Atobe. I seethed silently as I made my way up the steps of Atobe Sports Gym.
The inside was classy, modern, and looked like it was built for an Atobe, simply put. The message he sent me simply told me to meet him at this address before noon. It was half past eleven and I had absolutely no idea where in the building he was. So, like any sensible person, I went to the front desk to ask for him. The reply I got was a pointed glare from the lady at the front desk that remained fixed on me even as she picked up the phone to call – I presumed – Atobe. She looked to be in college, in her late teens or early twenties, and – apparently – still within the range of Atobe's attractiveness if her glare was any indication. If half of my body wasn't covered by the countertop, she would've probably given me a proper once over instead of the half one she was gave me as she asked for my name which she repeated over the phone.
After replacing the phone in its cradle after a polite and curt conversation, she stood abruptly and told me to follow her. Having no other choice in the matter if I wanted my food, I followed the lady that probably wanted to flay me alive as she led me up a flight of stairs and knocked on one of the doors. I heard Atobe's voice call us in. She gave me one last glare before opening the door for me, bowing politely and subsequently missing my behind by a hair as she practically slammed the door behind me.
I was in a room that appeared to be a private training room from what I could gather. Every piece of exercise equipment I have ever seen from my (admittedly scarce) visits to the gym were littered around the room, coupled with machines that I had never seen before in my life and never intended on using either. But what stood out the most was not Atobe staring at me expectantly from the other side of the room, sweat dripping down the tips of his hair, skin glistening in the fluorescent lights, looking like I should know that he looked like a Greek god; it was the little detail that the room felt like a sauna and I felt like melting into a puddle at his feet for totally different reasons than I'm sure he thought.
As such, the first words to come out of my mouth were: "Can you not afford air-conditioning in your state of the art fitness center?"
He smirked at that, as per usual, and put the weights he was using back down on their rack. "I suppose the lure of food was too much to refuse."
Unwilling to concede to him that that statement was true, I scowled at him then settled for scanning the walls for the thermostat control. Finding it behind where he stood, I grudgingly started towards him. "Are you trying to tell me something by bringing me here?" I said as I tinkered with the temperature, bringing it down to an acceptable level as he sat down on a bench next to me, leisurely sipping at his water.
"Only if you think I am."
"Oh, shut up," I complained, plopping down next to him. "What did you want?"
"To take you out to lunch." He deadpanned.
"That was the bait." I said just as flatly. "What's the catch?"
He raised an eyebrow at me patronizingly, running a hand through his hair the way he did and making droplets of sweat scatter around us and on me. I stared at him exasperatedly and then stood up.
"Hurry up, then." I took a towel from the pile beside me and wiped his sweat off my arm before throwing it at him. He caught it flawlessly, as always. Damn athlete. "This fish will only nibble on the bait for so long."
He threw the towel over his hair and looked up at me, that sharp-eyed look that made girls swoon and made me want to gag, and his smirk widened. "There are a lot of fish in the sea."
Out of the blue, there was this bubbling urge to laugh I just couldn't resist. "Unfortunately for this fish, the hook hunted it down."
When Atobe got out of the shower he found me as I was cooling down directly under the air-conditioning vent. While he was showering, I had turned the temperature down to the lowest it would go, relishing in the cool feel of the air on my skin. I looked up at him from my position, cross-legged on the floor and smiled contentedly. The feeling was so good I almost forgot I was hungry. Almost.
"Are you ready to go?" He said, eyebrow raised at me curiously. Nodding, I glanced over at his grey hoodie, jeans, and tennis shoes.
I pulled myself up, and fixed the temperature with the remote I found while he was gone before I placed it down on a bench. "I was ready to go before I even got here."
He motioned to the door with his head and I ambled forward to stand next to him as we went down the stairs. We got to the bottom of the steps and he wound his arm around my waist just as we got to the lobby, making it obvious to all the employees present. He excused himself as a proper young master would and we walked out of there without glancing back. I could've sworn there was something stabbing at my back. The mental swords of scorned women.
Once we'd reached the end of the block, I peeled his arm off of me impatiently and pulled away until there was a breathable distance between us. "It's hot and I need more space. That's enough touchy-touchy for those people to tell your parents that I'm 'too close to their obocchama.'"
Flicking his hair out of his eyes, which made girls stare and drool in the process, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and smirked, coolly keeping my requested distance away. Atobe was too proud and too classy to mention how his hotness probably had something to do with the hotness I was complaining about. So, he settled for one of his 'ore-sama knows ore-sama's hot' smirks.
"Wipe that smirk of your face and feed me, Atobe." I elbowed him in the stomach brusquely and dragged him across the street.
He fell into step with me properly once I'd let go of his arm and directed me down the street to wherever the hell we were eating. "You really are quite a – "
"Shut it, pretty boy."
Shrugging again, he gave a curt chuckle before stopping abruptly. We were in front of a small but high-end restaurant just barely in the vicinity of Ginza and he began walking up the stairs after motioning for me to follow. I didn't think twice. I took the steps two at a time to get to air-conditioning and food.
We were seated immediately despite the death glares I was receiving from the hostess and the younger waitresses. Once we'd ordered – talk about hostile service – Atobe cradled his head in his palm on the table, staring at me as I devoured the bread that our waitress placed in front of him. "Speak and you will be heard, pretty boy. It's rude to stare," I said, popping a piece of buttered bread into my mouth. "I'm sure Allyssa-san taught you that."
He gave me a small smirk but kept his head in his hand. "You know what ore-sama wants from this little outing."
I sighed. "Well, it's complicated," he raised an eyebrow and I smiled. "Okay, maybe it's not, I just really wanted to try and say that."
Atobe shook his blonde head at that but the smirk was still there. "Where do you plan on starting this not-so-complicated tale, arn?"
"The beginning, I suppose," I said lightly. "Although, I'm telling you now that there's nothing really quite critically significant about my story."
"Might as well get it over with, then."
"Yeah, might as well," I conceded. "Alright, then, you are aware I have siblings, right?" The lack of expression on his face told me that the answer to that was a no. "You have been made aware. I have two older sisters and a younger brother."
"And they couldn't put up with you so they moved out?" He drawled.
I rolled my eyes at him and snorted, forcing down a smile. "You wish," I stuck my tongue out at him. "This will be over much quicker if you don't talk. Ever." He was about to open his mouth mockingly when the food arrived and the waitress placed it in front of us. I grabbed my fork off the table and I brandished it in front of his face warningly once the waitress had turned around. "Well, my oldest sister, Kazue-nee studies over at Kyoto University. And then my second sister, Saki-nee, studies at Osaka University." Stopping to stuff some of my fettuccine into my mouth, I smiled fondly. "And I'm sure you know that Osaka and Kyoto aren't exactly places you can commute to daily."
Atobe raised an eyebrow but kept his mouth shut. Shocking.
The shock, however, was short-lived as he swallowed. "And your brother?"
I sighed. "I was getting there." I chewed on the end of my fork before smirking. "Ryoji, yeah, well, he left for England with my dad. Since he's the only guy and all, my dad decided to take him there."
"And why did your father decide to go?" He asked coolly. Did I really think that he was going to keep quiet?
"He needed to maintain permanent residence there. The company is London-based," I stated. "And the work was amassing and his relatives there were nagging. So, he went." He studied my smirk curiously.
"Why the smirk?" He drawled out slowly.
Shaking my head, I brought another forkful of pasta into my mouth and chewed carefully. "I'm just feeling nostalgic..." I said once I'd swallowed. "And savoring the fact that I live alone, perhaps."
He gave his own shake of the head but picked up the topic. "And your mother?"
"Well, my mother's family is from Hokkaido. Grandmother fell ill and since my mother was always the most efficient in handling the family business, my grandmother had her summoned over there. I was given the choice to go with my mother to Hokkaido or go with my dad to London."
"You obviously didn't choose either of those two."
"Good observation. Well, obviously, I didn't. I made myself a third option: stay in Tokyo. That was the one I chose. I love my grandma and all but she is the strictest grandmother," I breathed heavily, remembering all the torturous hours me and my sisters spent under her tutelage. It was something that the three of us chose to bury over time. "And London didn't feel like a good choice to me either."
He stared at me curiously at that and it dawned on me that he lived in London himself and was probably wondering why I didn't want to. "Pretty boy, I lived in London for a good five years. All my relatives there are male. I hope you get the picture." He nodded, his stare turning amused.
"When did this happen?" He asked sedately.
"Around the start of High School, if I remember correctly. Before that we lived right next to Yuushi. When they all dispersed, I moved in to where I live now. They send me an allowance every week."
"That's it."
"Yep, that's it. The story of my boring life." I grinned at him. "Did you think I was an orphan?"
He ran a hand through his hair and shrugged nonchalantly, looking to the side with a hint of a smirk.
"And pretty boy," I chimed. He turned to look at me from the corner of his eye. "I want seconds."
He faced me fully and glanced at my immaculately clean plate and chuckled before calling over a – decidedly way-too-eager – waitress.
He paid for the bill, of course – I would have stabbed him with one of the salad knives if he hadn't – after three entrees and two rounds of dessert on my part.
We were walking our lunch off afterwards – I turned down his offer to chauffeur me back home so I could walk home(despite the heat, I seriously wanted to walk some of what I ate off) – he made a joke about that, of course, exercising and all – when I remembered I had to buy stuff to put in my pantry so I wouldn't have to live off instant ramen anymore. He refused to leave me alone until I went home so, lo and behold, he was in the freaking grocery store with me.
Atobe Keigo. In the grocery store.
Was it snowing in hell?
I blazed through the aisles as fast as my legs would go and he simply followed coolly behind me. Attracting female attention with every turn I took. I tried not to look at him. A group of girls giggled. He smirked. I groaned inwardly.
"You do housework?" He asked as we were in line at the check-out counter.
Looking up at him, I ran a hand through my hair testily. "You know, we just had a rather long conversation about my living alone. Did you miss that?" I asked him with just a bit of sarcasm. He flicked a lock of his hair away from his face and the girl in the next line blushed. "I cook, I clean, the works," I explained as I slid the basket onto the counter. "Although, someone comes by once a week for a general cleaning of everything."
He carried the groceries for me despite my vehement pleading that he didn't. And he walked me home, too, despite my vehement pleading that he didn't. He even went up to my apartment with me.
Do I even need to say the he did so despite my vehement pleading that he didn't?
He kept on walking when we got inside while I stayed by the door to adjust the thermostat. Once he'd placed all the groceries on my kitchen counter, he made his way to my living room and stared around at my place. My flat was all glass, chrome and leather and at this time of day – which was around 4'o'clock – the light was shining through the floor-to-ceiling windows, reflecting off the polished surface of my grand piano. Yuushi actually helped pick out the place. He liked a bit of extravagance himself.
And well, my parents liked him.
Atobe carefully walked over the grand piano, which was situated right at the center of the alcove of windows, and ran his hand over the polished – I was meticulous about polishing – wood. "You play?"
"Not in my file?"
He looked at me acerbically before cracking a smirk and uncovering the keyboard. "Do you want to play?"
"Do I have to play?"
He shrugged. "Perhaps it was a little more than a request."
I sighed, walking over to the piano and sliding into the seat he was standing next to. "If I play, will you leave?"
"Sure."
"Any request?"
"Wagner."
I placed my fingers on the keyboard and was about to start when I remembered something. "Hey, Atobe," I said, looking up at him slightly. He was standing idly by my piano seat as he stared down at me with a raised eyebrow. "I took your advice." I smiled.
His eyebrow rose higher to inform me of his confusion.
"Well, I just thought Mukahi may really like his new tether."
His face broke out into a semblance of a grin and I just smiled wider.
Just like that, I played.
And just like he said, he left.
And I had a full stomach to remember him by.
That was a good way to remember someone by.
The next early(very early) Monday morning was as normal as it could get. I woke up at a godforsaken hour and went jogging with Atobe. Normal. The one thing out of place in my normal early morning was Atobe waiting for me outside my building's entrance.
Yep. Totally normal.
I was supposed to have this up by last weekend but I was whisked away for an unplanned vacation. Anyway, some more developments and bonding between Atobe and Mai here. Can you seriously just imagine Atobe in the gym? -mini fangirl moment- And if you guys recall, it was really Atobe's suggestion to get the tether, a suggestion he made when they were in the car after his parents' party.
Oh, and I'm open for suggestions for some mini bonding ideas for Mai and Atobe. I'm curious. :)
To all my lovely reviewers: Thank you ever so much for making my day! YOU GUYS ROCK!
Hope you enjoyed!
Tell me what you think!
READ and REVIEW, please!