009. Ramen

The Story of Kukai and Utau

It was a bright, sunny, morning at the festival. Kukai had just met up with Amu, and after greeting her and talking for a while, he took his leave. Now, since Kukai never made any plans for the festival except visit the ramen booth, he decided that he would go there first to fill his appetite before wandering off.

Kukai walked passed the entrance and to the section with the food booths. The ramen booth was a small, beige colored, tent-like booth in the middle of two bigger ones. When he entered, he headed straight for the long table and waited for the waiter. Looking around him, he saw that the majority of people at the ramen booth were guys. Even all the workers were guys. There were very few girls there.

"Hey Souma! Can I take your order?"

He turned back to see a fellow member of the soccer team with a notepad in his hand, waiting to take Kukai's order.

"Oh, hey Akira!" he greeted his teammate. Scanning through the twenty-one items on the menu, he calculated that he might be returning at least twenty more times. "I'll have order number one. Oh, and, you heard right? All my bowls are free since I donated all the ramen."

"Yeah, the boss told me. Dude, you're so lucky! I'm so doing that next year! Anyways, since we'll be switching shifts around, to prove that you get all your bowls free, we made this." Akira handed Kukai a manila cardboard piece of paper. It was a make-shift coupon, and on it was scribbled,

Souma Kukai

Coupon for free ramen bowls

Valid: Festival Day

(Reason: Donated all the ramen)

Sign here: ...

Kukai grinned: they even made him a coupon! Taking the pen in the waiter's hand, he signed his name on the line. Then, waving his coupon around like it was a flag, he declared, "Order number one please! Free bowls for Kukai-sama!" Akira laughed at his friends antics, and gave him the ramen bowl.

Order number one was hard noodles, with a large variety of orange and green vegetables. He rapidly finished his bowl and leaped off his chair. Waving back as he ran out, he thanked Akira for his ramen.

Kukai stumbled out of the ramen booth and stopped where he was. In a dilemma of where to go next, he turned to the nearest person and asked them to play Rock-Paper-Scissors with him. Confused, the random person played, and lost—scissors vs. rock. Kukai thanked the person and headed to his right. Apparently, if he won, he would go right of the ramen booth. If he lost, he would go left. He really didn't plan his day.

To his right were the entertainment booths; there were many luck booths. So, he went to every single one of them and tested his luck.

One of the booths consisted of him trying to scoop goldfish with those flimsy nets. "This isn't luck, it's skill!" he had cried. So after paying the required fee, he picked up his net and aimed for the nearest goldfish. With a flick of his wrist, he caught the goldfish with ease and placed it in the plastic bag. The audience was amazed at his skill. They started placing bets on him and paying him to catch the goldfish for them.

After spending about two hours there, he finally broke away with the excuse that he was hungry. It was true, of course, so he didn't have to feel guilty about lying. Pocketing the money, he started to walk towards the ramen booth again, eager to try order number two.

As he slowly strolled towards the food booths, he bumped into someone. "Sorry!" he apologized. Upon seeing who the culprit was, he smiled and acknowledged him. "Fujisaki! Sorry dude, I wasn't looking!"

"Haha, that's okay Souma-kun." Nagihiko replied.

"So," Kukai said, "what's the rush?"

Nagihiko rubbed the back of his head. "I was just looking for-"

Kukai interrupted him as he suddenly remembered something that Amu had asked him to do that morning.

~Flashback~

'Kukai! Everyone texted me saying they couldn't meet up with us this morning because of work, but Rima never texted back! She said she had to work at a booth, but nothing more than that! When you're going around the festival, can you please look for her?'

'Sure Hinamori!' he waved as he walked away.

~End Flashback~

"Oh, you're looking for someone? Hey, could you look for Rima for me? Okay, thanks Fujisaki!" Kukai started walking away.

Nagihiko caught up with him and told him, "Actually, I was just-", but was caught off when Kukai dashed towards the ramen booth, only a few meters away. He didn't even notitce the bright red ribbons on the ground next to him.

Meanwhile, a certain someone picked up those ribbons and smirked to herself. "I can use these." She put them on and shivered at the sight of herself and her outfit. 'Ugh, uniforms.'

Turning, she accidentally bumped into someone. "Ah, sorry..." When she looked up, she silently gasped. "Oh, what are you doing here?"

The other certain someone smirked at her. "You know, enjoying the festival." He did a double take at her and teased, "Nice get-up. Red really suits you."

"Ah, shut up. Anyways, if you're here for her, I don't know where she is."

"Oh?" he questioned. "And what are you here for? Him?"

The girl blushed and stammered, "W-whatever." Calming herself down, she added, "Well, it was nice to see you again. You really ought to look at your phone more often, you never reply to my texts."

As she started to walk away, the boy called, "While you're here, don't forget to buy a souvenir for mom!"

She waved signaling that she would. The boy shook his head slowly as he muttered, "Hmm. Looks like she's finally over me. She's finally growing up."

"Anyways, time to start looking for her."

About five hours had passed, and Kukai had already visited the ramen booth at least eighteen more times. He also went to every single booth he laid his eyes on, and he roamed the hallways of the school countless times.

Using some of the money in his pocket, he had gone to one of the booths and bought a backpack. Kukai wanted to try everything on the menu that day, but he wanted to leave his stomach empty for order number twenty-one.

Order number twenty-one was the biggest ramen bowl he had ever seen. It was filled with every single type of noodle the ramen booth sold, and tossed in was everything that could be put on ramen. The size of almost three lobster plates, it was the ULTIMATE ramen bowl.

So, the eighteen times that he went to the ramen booth after his meeting with Nagihiko, he ordered his free ramen bowl and put it in his backpack. He could save it and eat it at home, and save himself some money at the same time.

He raced to the ramen booth, ready to face the bowl that he had been awaiting for about five hours of his life.

As he sat down on his chair, he closed his eyes and imagined what it would look like. Would it be as big as it claimed? How many types of noodles were possible? How would it taste? He sensed that the waiter was near, so without opening his eyes, he ordered number twenty-one and placed the coupon in front of him to show.

He heard a small laugh and a familiar, feminine voice exclaimed, "You're pretty lucky there Kukai, getting to have free ramen."

Kukai was confused. All of the workers at the ramen booth were guys, so why was there a girl serving him? He opened his eyes and stared at the girl in front of him. She stared back. After a few seconds had passed, he jumped up and pointed, "AHA! So it is you, Utau!" He flailed his arms around, excited that he had guessed correctly.

Utau grinned as she asked him, "How did you know it was me?"

"Disguises are no match for me! And besides, it was pretty obvious, considering you looked pretty much the same." Utau had somehow obtained the elementary school uniform in her size, and along with the red plaid skirt, she had bright red ribbons on her hair to match.

"Darn, I thought it would work. Oh, and here's your order." she placed the humongous ramen bowl in front of Kukai and gazed at it longingly.

Kukai caught her gaze and smirked to himself. "Hey Utau, wanna share it with me?"

Utau blinked at him and smiled. "Sure." She hopped onto the chair next to him. Kukai cut an imaginary line down the middle of the bowl.

"This side is yours," he pointed to the right of the imaginary half line, "and this side is mine." He gestured towards the left side.

"Okay." She replied. Then, smirking, she asked, "Are you challenging me?"

Kukai threw his head back and laughed. "You know me too well, idol."

So, they picked up their chopsticks and readied themselves. One the count of three, they started eating their half of the ramen as fast as they could. They went so fast it was very blurry to look at. Because they were so excited about the wonderful taste of order number twenty-one, they had their eyes closed. The wonderful different tastes blended together into one magnificent taste you could never have imagined to taste in ramen.

A few minutes had past and they were almost done eating. But what they didn't notice was that, when it was down to the last noodle, they both picked it up without knowing. The noodle was very long, and they had their eyes closed while they ate, so they didn't notice. They rapidly slurped the long, big noodle. Their heads turned towards each other, both hurrying to finish the noodle.

Finally, when their faces were practically a breath apart, they opened their eyes. The two of them were so shocked to be close to each other that they bumped into each other, and...

...their lips touched.

They stayed in that position for a moment; the world around them froze and they were still.

Utau finally came to her senses and ate the last of the noodle while Kukai just sat there, gaping about what happened. Blushing furiously, Utau stood up and stammered, "I-I call victory."

That brought Kukai back to earth, and he tried to act normally. "Ah...aw man!" he managed to shout as he slammed his fist on the table, making a bang! "That just isn't fair Utau, I've been coming to eat here at the ramen booth the whole day!" he whined.

"Well that's too bad Kukai. I win this time and you know it."

But he didn't hear her; he was lost in his thoughts about their little "moment". Suddenly grinning evilly, he said, "Hey, let's do that again."

Utau stared at him, confused. "Have another ramen contest? We can have one next time-"

"No," he cut her off, a blush forming on his face, "I mean let's do that again."

She blushed too and blinked at him, obviously very flustered. Then she smirked and cooed, "Oh, that? Okay. Will we use the ramen again?"

Ahahaha. Kutau. And Nagi makes a guest appearance! :D

Remember when you asked what Utau was gonna do with Yaya's hair ribbons? Where here it is.

SPOILER; All of the chapters will be linked together in some way or another.

Did you enjoy it? Again, my very first time writing this couple. And it's longer than the last chapter! I feel so proud of myself. :)

And, one more thing...I told myself I would never do this but, just to tell you...when I see your review, it makes me happy. *wink wink*