"Yukihira, where are you taking me?" Erina yelled through the wind rush. She could barely hear her own voice under the tightly strapped helmet and the ubiquitous sound of nighttime traffic. If Sōma responded, she didn't know. All she could tell was that they veered right and felt the rickety rumbling of the exhaust pipe beneath her skirt as the throttle punched them forward in a smooth, straight line. Why did she ever agree to be blindfolded? Why didn't she listen to him tell her to wear pants? Every sensible nerve in her body clenched for dear life as this reckless boy she was developing too many new feelings for sped them toward their destination on his beloved motorbike.
Suddenly, they jerked to a halt.
Sōma smiled to himself at her question but said nothing. The backdraft would've proved his words pointless, anyway. Besides, she would find out in another block.
-8-
Alice swatted her racket with full force. A resounding whack of it contacting its target echoed through the inside tennis court. Erina swiped the speeding ball with vigor over her cousin's head.
"Matchpoint," she declared with a cocky curtsey. Alice groaned and panted while looking at the scoreboard and clock. Their hourlong game flew by in what felt like seconds, but she didn't care about the score, to be honest. It had been a good, tough match with only one purpose.
"So? How was the rest of last night?"
"Good."
"Just good, Erina?"
Alice raised her eyebrows and took a long swig of water from her tumbler. She used the seconds of silence to give her unbearably private cousin time to come to her storytelling senses. Erina ignored the silence and began leaving the court. Alice noticed right after Erina hit the doorway and choked on her water.
"~Mou! Erina! Don't be rude!"
"I'm not being rude," she called behind her shoulder. The door swung wide open. "I simply don't kiss and tell." The bubbling smile spreading across her face made her feel hot with butterflies.
"You don't what?" Alice screamed. "Oh, ~bitch! Tell. Me. EVERYTHING!" She ran after her cousin.
-8-
They'd been sitting at the stoplight for so long that Erina decided to loosen her grip on Sōma's torso. She didn't want to come across as attached or (too) clingy, even if she was utterly at his mercy. Sōma did not like that. When the crosswalk countdown hit the final three seconds, just as Erina was about to let go of his waist entirely, Sōma firmly wrapped her arms around him again, then pressed on the throttle to go on green.
Erina felt her heart leap from her chest.
Sōma felt her heart pounding through his back. He knew if they were on solid ground right now, she would've punched him hard— either for what he did or how suddenly they moved. He didn't care, though. He would've eaten her love taps like a champ. He was excited, nearly erupting with nerves as they neared the destination of their rescheduled first date. It had been a scary and stressful week for his small family. He felt guilty anticipation about this moment that was planned as meticulously as one of his recipes as he sat beside his grandfather's hospital bed.
-8-
"Sōma?" Jōichiro looked up in shock. "How did you get here so fast?" He stood up without thinking, startled by his son's sudden entrance into the room.
"Nakiri," Sōma breathed and ran to his grandfather's bedside.
Jōichiro relaxed back to his usual cool."Hot date?" Sōma turned away to hide a blush. "Hm. Explains the plush recovery room."
Sōma spun around, taking in the spacious and elegant room for the first time. Indeed, it looked more like the presidential suite of a five-star hotel than a post-op hospital room. "Never mind that. How's PopPop?" Both father and son focused on the elderly man in front of them.
"Unconscious but in stable condition. You just missed his medical team, actually."
"Unconscious?"
"Yes…but in stable condition." Jōichiro eyed his son. He'd never seen the black suit he was wearing a day in his life and hadn't seen his wild red hair slicked into any discernable style of effort, either. Jōichiro sat down and reclined in his seat and stared some more. He scanned the growing boy, impressed by how well he cleaned up, appreciating how much he was his mother's child.
A strong fatherly force tugged on his heartstrings. The last time he could remember seeing Sōma in a suit was at the funeral.
"Hey, uh, Sōma?" The concerned teen never took his worried gaze off his mother's father. "Don't worry about Kazusato. He's going to be just fine."
"You don't know that."
Jōichiro felt a heartstring pluck off at his son's cracked voice.
"You're right. But the doctors do. They expect him to make a full recovery."
"Then, why is he unconscious?"
"So he can do just that."
"That's what you said about Mom."
Another heartstring frayed at his son's trembling voice. He stood up and slowly approached his fragile child. He saw this teenage boy playing dress up like a young man, breaking into a helpless little boy. He placed his hands on his son's shoulders and gently turned him around to look into his golden irises. His severe and sharp eyes conveyed every ounce of truth he possessed.
"Listen to me, Sōma. I know it feels the same, but this is not the same thing. Initially, it didn't look good, but he made it early enough for life-saving surgery. Like your mom, he's a fighter. But this is not going to be the same ending. I promise you. He will make it. We will be okay."
He knew it was the wildest and most foolish promise he had ever made, but luckily, Jōichiro was a winning-betting man, and he would've betted his soul to reassure his son.
-8-
"We're here," Sōma said as he kicked down his bike's kickstand and took off his helmet. When Erina didn't budge, he wrapped an arm to rub her back. She grabbed his hand with ninja-like speed, surprising them both. "Nakiri. You can take your helmet off now. We're here."
-8-
Erina wrapped a clean white towel around her bodice. "He took me to Konica Minolta."
"A planetarium? Really? How gauche!" Alice poured water over hot coals. The bamboo sauna thickened with fresh fog. "He does know we have a JAXA telescope in the observatory, right?"
"You know, that's what I thought at first, too. But, he made it feel so different that after a while…" Erina blushed, her mind tracing back through her evening. "I didn't mind."
-8-
"Keep that blindfold on, young lady!"
"I really hate this, Yukihira." Sōma led Erina by her shoulders into a dark private room in the Konnichi planetarium.
"I know you do. You're not in control," he snickered. He led her down the aisle's low flight of stairs, carefully ensuring their steps were ordered. Then…
"Ah!"
Sōma's reflexes moved as swiftly as his knife. As Erina lost her footing and began to fall forward, his hands left her shoulders and gripped her waist. The momentum pressed them firmly together. Erina felt Sōma's heartbeat thumping a steady rhythm on her back, and her knees buckled under her. He swooped down before she hit the floor. It wouldn't have been easy for Erina to return from two near-falls if not for how breathless being swept off her feet and into Sōma's arms made her. She couldn't see a thing, but she felt more than enough to know she would never feel safer with anyone else.
"You would think I'd be more careful. Y'know, since I'm carrying precious cargo and all." He carried her down the remaining steps, then crouched down.
"Uh, w-what are you doing?"
"Placing you in your seat."
"You do not have to do that. I am the director of Totsuki—not a baby."
"Not right now, you're not. Right now, you're a blindfolded baby, and I refuse to drop the baby." She could feel his body heat through her stockings and the strength in his forearms under her thighs. A rumbling growl came from Erina's mouth, but she happily relented. She would rather kill him than admit that she liked being held by him.
"Why am I leaning on my back? Why are you placing me on my back?" Erina began to struggle in his hold. "I don't know who you take me for, Yukihira! But I am not that kind!—" She scrambled to remove the blindfold. "…of girl." She swallowed at the sight before and above her.
-8-
"So, I heard my grandson took a lucky girl out on a date tonight? How was it?"
Sōma slid close the door to his grandfather's hospital room. Visitation hours were long gone, but he had to come; he wouldn't have been able to sleep if he had missed even one day.
"It was nice," he said, smiling to himself. Kazusato sat up in bed to get a better look at his grandson and groaned a bit. Sōma rushed to his side. "Ojii-sama?"
"Oh, ho! It must've been better than nice if you're showing respect like this!" A bushel of red hair swayed left to right in disagreement.
"Cut it out," Sōma frowned. "I always show you respect."
"So you say. Now, tell me. Were you a gentleman like your grandfather or a rascal like that no-good dad of yours," Kazusato winked. From the corner of the room, Jōichiro grunted behind a culinary magazine.
"Keep it cute, Old Man. Remember, she proposed to me."
"Don't remind me," Kazusato exhaled. "That Tamako sure loved bringing home strays." He laughed so hard that he started coughing.
"Okay, keep it up, and that heart of yours will give out again," Jōichiro said with a genuine laugh.
"Back to the only other living Yukihira I like." Kazusato turned back to his grandson. "So, what did you cook for her?"
He knows it shouldn't have, but the question caught Sōma off guard. He thought about it, and that childlike excitement he felt whenever he was in the kitchen flushed over his face.
-8-
The stars playfully danced against the black canvas. It was a New Moon, so they dazzled brighter than the naked eye would've been able to see through all of downtown Tokyo's light pollution.
But they weren't downtown anymore.
Moody classical music filled the atmosphere as they relaxed in their shared pod. Constellations projected and transformed the sky above them, taking them to a remote island in the city's center. Thousands of stars smiled down upon them, singing a silent song of:
Hello, goodnight. Please hold each other tight.
They started a safe distance apart— both too nervous and more conscientious of the other's body heat, virtue, and presence than before. The more they reclined their heads to see the slow orbit of the planetarium's open ceiling, the closer the distance between them drew.
Wrapped in each other's warm embrace, Erina and Sōma watched as the sparkling light show progressed as countless silver, red, and blue stars began dotting the sky. Sōma shifted in his seat, anticipation building within his chest. The more he squirmed, impatiently drumming his fingers, the more Erina eyed him with concern.
"Yukihira? Is…everything okay?"
"Huh?" He shot a quick, nervous glance her way, which made him take a double-take. He felt like a first-year again, just the two of them, back in that car on the tsukiage to Hokkaido. Erina's purple eyes looked as deep, doe-like, and gentle as that randomly fateful night. His heart rate slowed.
"I asked if you're all right." Her voice was soft and sweet, just like then too.
"Yeah. Everything is perfect."
Suddenly, Erina noticed that the stars had begun moving faster than before. Their trajectory aligned in ways that stars usually wouldn't. She tilted her head upward to pay closer attention and began deciphering that they were forming a pattern in the night sky.
When the stars finally stopped moving, she could only stare at them.
When the stars finally stopped moving, he could only stare at her.
Erina slowly turned to see Sōma's golden orbs glowing with an intensity she'd never seen before. She looked back at the message in the sky and then at him. Her face was expressionless, or maybe Sōma wasn't sure what to read from it.
"Nakiri…" Sōma's heart rate spiked beneath his ribcage. His dress shirt felt damp under his pressure points, and he could feel the air in his lungs thinning like he was shooting into space.
"Yukihira…"
"Will you-"
Erina placed a delicate finger on his pursed lips and shook her head. "I know how to read what is written in the stars." She removed her finger and looked down at her twisting fingers. Sōma felt lightheaded, waiting for her reaction, waiting for her response.
She looked up at him again, this time with tears glazing over her eyes. The stars dimmed into the background, and the doors behind them opened, letting soft rays of amber light into their cozy darkness. In sync, footsteps approached them on either side.
"Your dinner, la signorina." The familiar voice perked in Erina's ears. She lifted her head over the pod. "Buon appetito," Takumi whispered with a soft smile. Hisako stood beside him, flowers in her hand, her eyes alight. Erina's jaw dropped. She looked over to her left, past Sōma, and made eye contact with Alice and Ryō, holding the same tray and sparkling apple cider bottles. They were all in their school uniform and all wearing their Council blazers. Her head darted back to a beaming Yukihira Sōma.
"Would you like some abalone miso soup and—"
"Salmon roe?" She looked down at the spread being presented to her by her best friend. "Sōma, this is like—" She faced him, lost for words to express the fluttering in her belly.
"Yup. The first nice conversation we had on the tsukiage."
"Why would you remember such a time?"
"How could I forget? It was the first time you laughed with me— not at me."
"No, if memory serves me correctly—which it always does—I was laughing at you."
Sōma raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "Nakiri…you were giggling like a cute little schoolgirl."
Her head tilted to the side. "Because you bring that softness out of me."
As soon as she left that moment of honesty slip, several different responses passed through the dimmed room.
Hisako cooed.
Takumi sighed in yearning.
Alice squealed and whooped and whistled and—
Ryō raised his eyebrows, roused.
But Sōma's eyes melted into her gaze. It was his turn to be speechless. It wasn't planned, he hates to admit, but his mind went blank. He picked up a rice cylinder topped with black roe and a ribbon of saffron from his tray and held it at the tip of her pink lips. "Care to do the honors?"
Erina nodded.
She took a bite.
She closed her eyes.
She savored his cooking.
She looked back at the stars.
She looked back at Sōma.
Erina nodded. "Yes."
A tear fell from her eye, only to be wiped away by her boyfriend's softest kiss and whisper saying, "Thank you."
"For what?" Erina asked nonplussed. She couldn't hide her surprise. What did he have to be thankful for? He was the one who did all this for her. He planned and prepped and cooked and picked her up. "I mean, how did you—"
Sōma placed a calloused finger on her pursed lips and shook his head. "Thank you for making this the best day of my life," he said, tucking her hair behind her ear.
Time split into a million seconds under his spine-tingling touch. Erina couldn't believe her night—her life—had turned out like this. She pressed her body into the boy who used to make flesh crawl just to see in the same room.
"Uh, guys, I don't think they know we're here anymore," Takumi muttered.
"Yeah, it looks like it's time for us to take our leave. Let's give them some privacy," Hisako purred.
" ~Mou! But I wanna stay and celebrate with the newest happy couple! It took a lot to keep this under wraps while planning it with Yukihira, you know!" Alice whined as Ryō dragged her away.
a/n: 2.20 is our couple's anniversary in this story, so here's a flashback to that fateful date of new beginnings to celebrate! today also marks six months since this story went live with ch.1. thank you all for reading six months later! a little author's insider: this is the story's last (standalone) flashback chapter for a while. now we progress with their present-day. i hope you're enjoying the ride thus far. if so, as always, please review, like, and share with someone you think would, too!
-My pleasure! Hope you enjoyed!-
8.20withlove
disclaimer: i don't own the rights to SnS, but i do own my imagination. \_(ツ)/