High School Reunion
She walked into the room, and like a scene from a movie, the room seemed to stop as all eyes turned toward the entrance and wave of whispers replaced the previous chatter. If anyone would know this feeling, it would be Mina - after all, she had starred in several movies in the past few years. Slowly she walked further into the room, a white tag reading “Hi, my name is Minako Aino” standing out against her short black and white Versace dress.
Last week she had decided to leave her fiancée of two years, Yaten Kou, after finding out that he had been having an affair. Without a plan, she decided that she would return to her home town in an attempt to get away from everything. To her surprise, her good friend Mamoru Chiba had decided that he would go with her. Even more surprising, he agreed to be her date to her 10 year high school reunion. They had starred in a romantic movie together recently and the tabloids had been abuzz spinning stories about their secret love affair. Privately they found the stories to be amusing, but their agents insisted that they play along until after the premiere of their movie. While she did find him to be extremely attractive in that tall, dark and handsome kind of way, she didn’t feel anything when she kissed him. Somewhere between the combinations of stage lights, cameramen, the hundreds of production people and the director yelling out where his hands should be, she lost any romantic inclination that she might have had. Ever since they had been close friends, which was a rarity in the cut throat industry that they both worked in.
He walked in two steps behind her, dressed in a pressed black Armani suit and casually placed his arm around her shoulders, pulling her against his chest. She smiled nervously at him as they walked further into the room and over to the bar where Mina promptly ordered a glass of wine.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she murmured as she raised the glass to her red lips.
“This is what you’re supposed to do,” he chuckled. “You go to these reunions to see who got rich and who got fat. It’s tradition.”
“Did you go to yours?”
“I wouldn’t be caught dead at mine.”
“Wonderful,” she muttered, scanning the crowd. It wasn’t hard for her to look around and pick out faces as they all seemed to be focused on her. “I feel like I’m in a contamination bubble.”
“People are intimidated. You’re famous. Give it a few minutes and everyone will be all over you.”
“Then perhaps I should hide while I still have a chance.”
“You’re going to leave me standing here on my own?” he frowned at her.
“I’m sure you’ll have no trouble finding yourself a date.”
“If you’re not back in five minutes I’m going to start looking for you.”
Mina snorted as she walked away into the crowd. As Mamoru predicted, several people stopped her and many of those asked for her autograph. It was an odd feeling to have these people that she grew up with treating her as though she were royalty. Oddly enough, she almost believed that things would have remained unchanged in her home town. Finally she managed to cross the large hotel conference room and emerged on the balcony, the cool air feeling good against her warm skin. She closed her eyes and chastised herself for acting so depressed. He cheated on her, she was right to leave him.
“Mina?” a deep voice rumbled behind her.
“Oh, Mamoru, I’m sorry -.” The remainder of her words caught in her throat as she turned to find herself face to face with someone she had thought of so many times since she left. “Kai,” she said softly. “It’s been a while.”
“I’m surprised that you remembered me,” he teased, smiling at her.
She felt the same giddy feeling in that moment as she did when she first laid eyes on him in the seventh grade. “You were my first kiss, I don’t think I could forget you if I tried to,” she smiled at him. “Not that I would want to!” she exclaimed quickly, afraid that he would misunderstand her.
“It’s ok, I know what you mean,” he said, coming to stand next to her, leaning his backside against the edge of the balcony and crossing his arms.
“How have you been?”
“Good. Although not as good as you I see. Three hit movies in a row. Not too bad I’d say.”
“I get so embarrassed talking about that,” she blushed slightly.
“I couldn’t imagine why,” his lips pulled into a thin smile. “I have to say, I’m surprised to see you here. I think I remember at graduation when you said that you would, and I quote, ‘run as far from this town as you possibly could and never look back.’”
“The things we say when we’re young and naïve,” she laughed. “If I kept true to my word we wouldn’t be out here talking right now.”
“That’s true,” he nodded. “But how long do we have until your boyfriend gets jealous and comes out here to steal you away?”
“Don’t believe everything you read. That was a publicity stunt put together by our overpaid agents. Mamoru and I are just friends.”
“That’s good, because it looks like he has just introduced himself to your old friend Usagi.”
Mina quickly turned in disbelief to look where Kai was gesturing. Her heel slipped on a damp spot where someone had earlier spilt their drink, and nearly fell when Kai quickly reached out to steady her. Her eyes looked forward to see Mamoru standing close to the petite blonde whom Mina had once considered to be more of a sister than a friend before realizing how close she now stood to Kai. “Why is it that I always manage to embarrass myself around you?”
“We’ve done this before?”
“No,” she answered nervously, leaning back against the railing, their shoulders almost touching. “I don’t know why I’m going to bring up this horribly embarrassing moment. Remember back in the seventh grade when Mrs. Archer caught me staring at you across the room and announced it to the whole class?”
Kai laughed heartily at his remembrance of that moment. “I think you looked cute at that shade of red.”
“I’ve never been so embarrassed.”
“That may be,” he said nudging her playfully with his elbow, “but if not for that I may have never gotten the courage to kiss you. There are not many people who can say that they’ve had the honor of kissing the beautiful actress Minako Aino.”
“Now you’re just teasing me,” she said swatting at him.
He caught her wrist and held it gently in his hand. “Only partially.”
“And the rest?”
“You’re not someone that can be easily forgotten, Mina.”
“And neither are you, Kai Stormsmith.” Without thinking she leaned over and pressed her lips against his. Slowly she pulled back and found herself lost in his green eyes, just like she was back in high school. “Neither are you,” she repeated again softly, all traces of humor now gone from her eyes.