19. Soulmates Part Three
Under the prompt Cellphones/Technology
"So who's the guy?" Hiromi asked without any pretense after she and her best friend found outside seats at their favorite café.
Haru jumped guiltily on her side of the little table. "Uh, who?" she asked with an uneasy smile.
Hiromi gave a scornful laugh while smugly lacing her fingers together so that she could rest her chin on them. "Haru, I'm not stupid. Up until last month, you thought your phone was for playing the occasional game or checking the time. Now every time it vibrates, you blush and try to hide your grin. Who do I thank for luring your attention away from Machida?"
Haru tried very hard not to blush, but honestly had no idea on how to successfully do it. "I… got a pen pal," she managed evasively.
She had no idea how she said that with a straight face.
"A boy?" Hiromi coaxed like a child, wiggling excitedly in her seat in the same fashion. "Why haven't you mentioned him before now?"
'Because you'd want to know how we met, and I'm not going to let you turn my arm into a school scandal?' She traced a circle on the plain white table's surface. "It's been a very slow, hesitant thing, and you fly off the handle. Especially where boys are concerned."
"Well," Hiromi replied without a trace of shame or guilt. "Boys," she stated as if nothing more needed to be explained. "So. His name?"
Haru sighed and adjusted how she was sitting. "All right, if I tell you his name, you'll calm down about this."
Hiromi eagerly nodded and was about to say something when Haru's cellphone pinged with a text.
Now that her friend had mentioned it, Haru could now feel her face flare with heat as her mouth automatically began grinning. Without even thinking about it, Haru reached for her purse, but her lunch companion snatched it first.
"Hiromi!" Haru shrieked in protest, immediately standing up to take it back, but the sandy blonde was already tossing her the purse and opening up the lock on Haru's phone.
"Oh, just let me see what he says to make you smile like that!" the snooper pleaded while leaning back in her chair to play keep away.
Stiffening her jaw, Haru prayed that the connection was still active as she grabbed a pen out of her bag to write on her wrist from under the table.
Hiromi stole my phone. Please prank her for me.
As you wish wasted no time appearing beneath it.
"Oh, this is too precious!" Hiromi cooed as she looked over the last few days' worth of messages. "'Baron', huh? Is he usually so polished when he talks to you?"
Haru's blush was no longer delighted. "Hiromi. This is why I don't tell you anything. Give back the phone before you see something that scars you."
Hiromi scoffed but didn't take her eyes off the phone. "Please. This guy couldn't send you something scarring if-" She cut herself off as the phone pinged with another message. She scrolled back down to see what it was and squealed like she was going to suffer a 'cuteness' overload.
While her friend was distracted, Haru snatched her phone back and slapped Hiromi's wrist for good measure. "You could have chosen a better way to tell me I need to switch my phone lock," she snarked, looking down at what Baron had texted to make Hiromi lose control.
Or we could save time and get married. I would not object.
"Baron!" Haru fumed, but the damage was done.
"Taking it slow, huh?" Hiromi gushed with a wicked grin, but blinked as her friend grabbed her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and started walking away from their table. "Hey, where are you going?"
Haru turned her head enough to snap over one shoulder. "Away until you can respect my privacy!" Just to make sure that her friend got the idea of how upset she was, Haru started running down the street.
"Don't be so dramatic!" Hiromi called, a bit of scraping noise from her chair stating that she was also leaving her seat to follow but didn't have the practice running that her friend did.
This was the exact sort of thing that Haru wanted to avoid. Her lungs were heaving more from rage than from the exertion of running down streets and intentionally choosing the route that Hiromi would be least likely to go down in pursuit.
After a while, she noticed a small book shop that she had never stepped into before. Since there were no bright colors or recent posters taped to the glass to attract her flighty friend, Haru let herself in.
A sweet-looking old man looked up from the bookshelf he was dusting. "Hello. May I help you find something?"
Since Haru didn't see the point of lying, she gave him a tired smile while intentionally walking to an inner aisle to get out of sight from the windows. "I'm looking for sanctuary from a friend that doesn't understand boundaries. Mind if I look around?"
He gave a small sigh of complete understanding before going back to his dusting. "Stay as long as you like."
"Thanks," she replied gratefully before ducking her head enough to keep from being seen. Pulling her phone out of her bag, she ignored a text from Hiromi to tap on Baron's number instead of going into their texts.
It only rang twice before he picked up.
"If this is not Haru, I will be very disappointed."
Despite herself, her heart skipped happily at the sound of his voice. "I said prank HER, not me too!" she tried to hiss under her breath to keep the storekeeper out of the conversation.
Baron had a little too much amusement in his tone to be apologetic. "Ah. You should have been a little more precise. But at least she gave your phone back."
"What on earth possessed you to say that out of all things? I've told you that Hiromi can't keep a secret; the whole school will think we're engaged by this time tomorrow!" Haru took in a deep, steadying breath, since this is one thing they had never actually discussed. "I don't know about you, but I've been fighting tooth and nail not to draw hasty conclusions about how we came in contact."
"Then you're the most rational person in this business. People on my end wasted no time drawing conclusions. But now that the subject has come up, is there any way that your mother would agree to let you spend your summer break in England?"
Haru's heart froze in panic and excitement. She knew she should have expected this, but it seemed a little out of sequence.
They hadn't even exchanged selfies yet. Haru would consider herself passable but couldn't shake the feeling that Baron was at least an eight.
"It is the simplest solution to finding out if Grandmother's assumptions are founded or not, and I would very much like to meet you in person. I will be more than happy to pay for your airline ticket."
Haru started tracing the book spines with one hand thanks to the nervous pit in her stomach. "I'm a little afraid that you won't like me as much in person," she forced herself to confess as one title teased at the corner of her eye.
She ignored that in favor of listening to her friend's warm laugh. She smiled, feeling the same as if he had wrapped a blanket around her.
"I hope that suffices as my response to such a statement. As to that fear, wouldn't it be better to find out now instead of later?"
He had a point there. Baron was first-grade friend material, so even if she wasn't interested in him later, she would at least stop worrying about whether or not he could be what he had convinced Hiromi he was?
You're the most rational person in this business. That had to mean that he did think that they were supposed to…
Haru blushed but tried to keep her status as the most rational person. "I honestly don't think Mom will agree to that. She knows you're a man, and no matter how much I tell her that you're too honorable to hurt me, she'd probably prefer for me to go on that quilt cruise with her instead since she has that teaching job for it. I don't know if she's bought the tickets for both of us yet."
"Do you want to meet me?" Baron asked a little wistfully. He seemed to know the answer but needed to hear it for himself.
Haru laughed nervously at her own feelings. "I'm a bit terrified, but I think it's going to haunt me if I don't get to personally see you at least at some point. That's just how I think a single mother will react about her only family going to another country on her own."
He hummed thoughtfully into her ear as that same book title nibbled at the edge of Haru's vision. She relented and pulled the book out to inspect it more carefully.
"That is a fair point, I suppose. Would you be terribly offended if I hung up and consulted with Grandmother over this? She may think of something we haven't yet."
Haru nodded distractedly from her half-crouched position, still studying the red book in her hand. "If she's half as clever as you like to brag about, she'll know what to do. Baron, before we hang up, what can you tell me about The Canterville Ghost? I'm hiding in a bookstore from Hiromi, and-"
"Buy it. It's an excellent satire that you will enjoy at least as much as The Ghost of Captain Gregg and Mrs. Muir. Let me know when you finish it so that we can have another excellent book dissection together."
Haru smiled happily at the prospect as she tucked the book under her arm. "You're the best, Baron. Let me know if your grandmother thinks of something."
She felt a lot better about things after talking to him and tucking her phone back into her bag. Sure, it was his fault that no matter how upset Haru was, Hiromi would be spreading the 'engagement' to anyone that would listen, but it wasn't like she had boys lining up for her attention anyway.
Haru thought about that more carefully as she continued to peruse the books, occasionally grabbing one that looked promising or had heard Baron mention in passing.
Her new friend had been happy when she admitted that he was the first man she'd had a decent conversation with since losing her father. He was… unbelievably easy to talk to. Just thinking about him made a giddy smile grow in her heart as well as her face.
'Keep a grip on yourself, Haru. Do you really want to get crushed later if this is all just an act?'
Haru's head bumped against something softer than a bookshelf as she continued to inch her way down the aisle. "Sorry!" she automatically apologized while standing to her full height again.
It was the storekeeper, smiling gently at her. "He'll like you," he stated without hesitation.
Haru blushed hard since she had been hoping he wouldn't overhear. "He laughed when I said that," she admitted while looking down at the five books she picked. "I think I'm ready to check out."
He beamed and led her to the register. He couldn't resist looking at her choices as he rang them up. "You're certainly interested in the classics!"
Haru couldn't resist blushing again. "His influence," she admitted with a sheepish grin. "He likes what I recommend to him, too."
"Oh? What do you recommend to him?" the old storekeeper asked, but never got an answer.
Probably due to the ringing phone from inside her purse.
Giving the grinning man a sheepish smile of apology, Haru yanked out her phone to answer it. "Well? Did she have any ideas?" she asked while handing over the money that the register said that the store needed.
"Grandmother agrees with your assessment. Would you be willing to let her talk to your mother about it?"
Haru actually stopped in the middle of accepting the change. "That would probably go over a lot better. How convincing would you say your grandmother is?" she asked while accepting the books back in a paper bag.
The storekeeper was openly grinning again, giving her an encouraging nod for a goodbye before holding the door open for her. She grinned back at him, though her own smile was a bit more foolish than his as she kept one hand on her new books and the other holding the phone to her ear.
"As soon as you make the introductions between them, I would advise you to start packing for an English summer. Sweaters and at least one umbrella would be strongly advised."
Haru tried not to crack a smile as she began the walk home. "Mom's successfully talked down her boss's boss from a very stupid decision that would have put their magazine out of business inside a year. She did it so diplomatically that she accidentally got a promotion out of it. Are you sure your grandmother can take her?"
"I can tell from her expression that she overheard everything. You have increased Grandmother's respect for your mother, Haru. But I would still recommend putting things in order for a trip to England."
Haru smiled shyly as she continued her walk home. "Text me her number. I'll explain the situation to Mom, and we'll see what happens from here."