Recap
He gaped at her, tearing his goggles off and pushing his fringe out of his eyes.
"Mori-san?"
"Tsuchiura-kun!"
Shock filled her face as his words registered in her mind. She quickly recovered and smiled warmly at him, seeming pleasantly surprised.
"What are you doing here? I can't believe I didn't recognize you!"
Hino would kill me if she knew I'd been ogling her ex-accompanist.
"I'm here with Tsukimori and Hino. That's them over there," he replied his fellow pianist, struggling to get images of her thighs out of his head.
"Ah, sou ka!" Mori waved cheerfully at them before turning her attention back to him. "Want to join me in the lounge? They have the best hot chocolate there."
Tsuchiura raised his eyebrows. "Mori-san, you're shivering."
She made a face at him. "That's why I said, let's go to the lounge."
He laughed, good mood restored. Although it was still a bit of a shock that the girl was Mori Manami, an ex-Seiso student who had lent Kaho her skills as a piano accompanist during the concours. "Well… actually," he leaned in towards her, "I'm supposed to be chaperoning the lovebirds over there…" he gestured at the two violinists.
Mori looked a little disappointed, for some reason. He wondered why… surely she had been expecting her 'white knight' to be some handsome, mysterious foreigner, and not plain old Tsuchiura?
She stood up, and cupping her hands around her mouth, she called, "Hino-saaaaaan! Can I borrow Tsuchiura for a bit?"
"Haaaaiiii!" came the reply.
"See?" Mori smiled warmly at him. "Come on."
"Uh, you go ahead first and get warm. I'll be there soon," Tsuchiura replied, blushing for some reason. It wasn't until she left that he managed to pinpoint why. Of all the embarrassing reasons… he shook his head as it came back to him.
flashback
Tsuchiura, piano student at Seiso Music College, suddenly stopped in the middle of the corridor. Sh*t! Where did that Piano Concerto in A minor go? Don't tell me I left it in class… on the day I'm supposed to be meeting Hino too… A quick check confirmed that he had, indeed, left the sheet music in class.
He ran his hand through his grass-green hair agitatedly and began jogging back to his classroom. Just as he reached, he heard girls' voices and paused with his hand on the door. Interrupting any giggly girls' conversation was never, ever a good idea.
He recognized his classmates' voices – Sawamura Hana, Maki Sachiko, Ichisoku Yumi, Mori Manami. They were fairly sensible girls, so he considered entering-
"-there's only Tsuchiura, ne?"
What?
"Sou da yo ne, a lot of guys who like music are so not sexy…" He heard sighs.
"All the hot senpais and Tsukimori-san have left…"
"Luckily there's still Tsuchiura-san!" Giggles filled the air.
And then an all-too-familiar voice sighed dreamily, "Tsuchiura-kun has a really nice body…"
"Ehh? Manami-chan, don't tell me you-?" the voices chorused.
"Don't be silly! All the footballers are always going around shirtless, if you paid closer attention you would've noticed!" Her voice was flustered, embarrassed.
"Ehh… so Manami-chan pays close attention to Tsuchiura-san?" another voice asked slyly.
"Of course… you already knew that right? Since the concours…" her voice was now shy.
WTH? I thought she didn't like me! Hino said during the second selection she said it's dangerous for music department piano students if a gen ed can play so well!
end flashback
And that was how he found out Mori had a crush on him. Anyway, the point was… Tsuchiura was unfit. Fit by most people's standards, but the firm outline of his rippling muscles was gone. Since entering university, he'd barely had time to do sports while keeping up with the heavy workload. And for some reason, he didn't feel like getting out of the pool and disappointing Mori.
What kind of stupid reason is that? She already felt me up just now when I was rescuing her… this train of thought only made him blush deeper. Ugh. He pushed these thoughts to the back of his head and hoisted himself out of the water, thinking of the warm heated lounge and hot chocolate.
….
Disclaimer: I disclaim.
I love this pairing, but I'm a pretty amateurish writer, so it's getting difficult to keep them in character. I hope you like it! Anyway, please review! ;D
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