Title: Paparazzi
Summary: Harrowed by merciless people stalking them with cameras and microphones, Yuki decides to take advantage of this to make a question he's been meaning to ask Tohru a little easier.
Genre: Romance
Rating: K+
Word Count: 1,355
On their usual Sunday routine, Yuki and Tohru strolled through a narrow aisle lined with dried noodles, rice, and various seasonings, scanning the dried goods for items to add to their already full shopping cart, or at least Tohru was selecting items. Yuki's silver eyes focused on peering through gray-tinted lenses and under the rim of his navy cap at the brunette girl beside him pushing the shopping cart. He was dressed like this, not because of his reputation as the "Prince" of his high school, but because, now nearing the age of twenty five, he had garnered fame as a member of a trio band that included him, Kyo, and Haru, that Shigure had somehow persuaded Akito into endorsing, and that said dog had somehow tricked the three into forming four years ago on a rainy, early morning.
If he spoke honestly, he'd have to admit that most of their fans probably did not stalk them, in reality or cyber-wise, because of their musical talent- he still wasn't quite sure which was the C-string though he had mastered how to hold a guitar so he looked like he knew how to play to all except for the professionals.
When he finally glanced inside a magazine featuring their band for the first time, he quickly understood how they had accumulated an exponentially expanding fan base so rapidly with only one of their members, Haru, having any musical experience beforehand. Those heavily airbrushed photographs of them, posed in whatever nonsensical scenes Shigure concocted, did succeed in exaggerating what Shigure called "their natural beauty," though Yuki himself struggled with understanding what these girls found attractive with his features, which he had cursed as feminine all his life. Luckily, age had sharpened his features enough that people no longer mistook him for a female.
Despite the disparity between the media's image of him and his own natural appearance, people still recognized him, especially in big public places like this supermarket, but he didn't want to corrupt Tohru's life with the complexities of his, and rather than spend a few hours apart from her, he just tried to cover his face and dress in the baggiest clothes he could find.
Tohru was dressed in a similar manner with her hair swept into a messy bun under a pink sunhat and matching sunglasses because ever since Yuki officially asked her out three and a half years ago, the media had been following her, and his female fans had been harassing her, not too dissimilar to their high school situation, though he was surprised that they could keep hating her when she welcomed them into the apartment she shared with Yuki, always offering them warm cookies or another snack when they came with death threats and cameras that didn't seem able to stop flashing. With gullibility as one of her main attributes, she tended to answer more of their questions than she should, but that didn't help make any of the news about them anymore truthful.
Those magazine writers had a creativity level on par with Shigure's. They never ceased to entertain him with whatever scandalous stories they had made up for some trivial picture that he always doubted was really of him and Tohru or whether they could really still claim those photographs as being of him and Tohru after all their manipulations, but he had to admit they were all quite talented at editing photographs. This had lead to his and Tohru's little hobby of browsing through the magazines in supermarkets while they waited in line to pay for their groceries, and they ended up before a magazine rack filled with magazines covered with their faces after an hour and a half of shopping this Sunday.
Pointing towards the first magazine on the left and forgetting that they were currently in a public place, Tohru exclaimed to Yuki, "Look! Yuki-kun! They're claiming we've broken up again!"
"Why do they think that this time?" Yuki asked her after checking that no one other than an elderly woman in line before them and a middle-aged man were near enough to hear them.
"Well, this one says you cheated on me," Tohru responded rather matter-of-factly without looking up from flipping through the pages of the magazine.
"I didn't. I swear," he quickly assured her, trying to peek around the pages of the magazine at her face for any signs of distress.
"I know. Besides, this one says you abandoned me after I told you I'm pregnant," Tohru responded with a smile after gesturing towards another magazine.
"Are you?"
"Yuki-kun!" she playfully cried as she slapped him gently on the shoulder.
He just smiled secretively as he browsed through another article describing a vacation they hadn't taken to Australia. He tried to keep his face lowered so she couldn't tell his eyes were actually focused on her rather than the article he just carelessly past, but he had to lift the magazine higher to cover all but his eyes when he noticed her reaching for the center magazine in the top row. He couldn't keep his lips from curling into a smile when she began studying the bold font and enlarged photos with a growing grin spreading across her face. She had barely flipped through the first few pages before she excitedly spun towards Yuki and tugged on his sleeve for his attention with such vigor that he dropped the magazine he was pretending to read, but she hardly noticed.
"Oh! Yuki-kun! Look at this one! It says we're getting married! Look they even have a picture of you on your knees! How do you think they made that picture? It looks so real! And the ring! It's so beautiful, Yuki-kun. I thought they would have picked a flashier one. If we get married, promise me you'll get one just like this one!" she rambled, opening the magazine to show him and pointing at each picture.
Leaning towards her, he pretended to scrutinize the photographs carefully as he slid his free hand into his pocket and wrapped his fingers around a small velvet box. He nodded thoughtfully to her jubilant crooning about the article as he tried to soothe the erratic beats of his heart. Feeling his sweaty palms begin to dampen the velvet coating of the small box, he took a deep breath, gathered his courage, and grasped her left hand, interrupting her babbling and making her glance up at him with her mouth half open and her eyes still glimmering with joy. Intertwining their fingers with one hand, he used his other to lift the little box from his pocket and into her eyesight, which immediately made her lift her sunglasses off her face and her jaw lower in surprise.
Opening it, he showed her the ring cushioned inside, whispering, "You mean like this one?"
"Oh, Yuki-kun!" Tohru gasped.
Her hand slid out of his to join her other covering her mouth as her eyes widened. Her eyebrows couldn't climb any higher on her forehead as Yuki dropped down on one knee and pulled out the ring from the box. She saw his mouth moving, so she knew he must be speaking, though she couldn't force her brain to comprehend his words at the moment. She was sure whatever he was saying was as sweet as everything else he had ever done for her, so after her tears blurred her vision until she couldn't quite make out the details of his face anymore, she could only find herself nodding with the widest smile until she felt something cold slid onto her finger and his arms pull her into a warm embrace. She didn't know whether she was crying or laughing with joy, but she didn't care. She didn't even care that she could only see blinding flashes and could only hear the clicks of cameras and gossiping whispers. She could only notice the two arms wrapped around her and the band wrapped around her finger.
Perhaps this was one scene they'd let the paparazzi plaster all over magazines and the internet, though neither could guarantee that they'd be describing a proposal.
Just a simple story that took me forever to edit because I am lazy but hopefully two more oneshots before New Years? Please correct my mistakes and tell me what you think.