FIC FOR LUNA_TRUTHS
For: luna_truths
From: alternatejess
Title: A Day (Or Two) In Nakamaru’s Life.
Pairings/Characters: Gen except Matsumoto Jun/Kamenashi Kazuya as a side pairing.
Rating: G
Warnings: AU, Attempted crack and humour, way too many Intergroup cameos.
Notes: To my beta, thanks for reading it and handholding me throughout. To the two angels who read through drafts of this and assured me that it is okay, thank you. To luna_truths I hope you like this.
Summary: Nakamaru applies to be the pastry chef of Café Chain.
“Iriguchi, Deguchi, Taguchi~” an overly bubbly voice greets Nakamaru as he pushes the door to Café Chain open. He finds out that the voice belongs to a tall, lanky man who looks like a certain Korean star that Nakamaru has seen in posters around Shibuya. But before Nakamaru can come up with an appropriate response to the pun, another man -this one with blonde hair and a whole head shorter than the other man- kicks the pun guy and speaks to Nakamaru.
“I am sorry about him, table for one?”
Nakamaru notices the gold JOKER necklace that’s dangling from his neck as well as the multiple rings that he is wearing on his fingers. Nakamaru thinks maybe he should leave right now. But Jin’s pleading voice rings in his head.
“I am Nakamaru Yuuichi and I am looking for a certain Mr. Ueda….”
“He’s by the window,” says a third voice, this one coming from the kitchen. The first things
Nakamaru notices are his immaculately trimmed eyebrows.
“Argyle? Really?” Nakamaru hears that man mutter as he walks towards Ueda.
***
“Jin… I mean, Akanishi told me that there is a vacancy for a pastry chef here and I wish to apply for it,” Nakamaru explains to Ueda who is at the moment looking out of the window and does not seem to have any interest in the speaker. Nakamaru curiously looks out too, trying to see what it is that interests Ueda so much.
There is not even a soul on the sidewalk outside the café.
“What are your talents?” Ueda asks him nonchalantly, eyes still fixated on the non-scene outside the window.
“Oh yes, I graduated from a pastry school with above average grades,” Nakamaru began, fumbling through his bag for his certificates. He is quite sure that he hears someone snigger when he pulls out his file the wrong way and some of the contents spill onto the floor. He pretends not to hear anything though as he passes his certificates to Ueda. Ueda turns around (finally) but only to push the certificates aside, and leans in so close that his face is in other man’s private space.
Nakamaru retreats by instinct.
Ueda laughs (Nakamaru tries not to admit that Ueda’s laugh and subsequent grin made the room seem brighter) and leans back onto his own seat.
“I am talking about musical talents. Dancing? Singing?”
“I play the guitar,” Nakamaru says.
Ueda bends down to pull out something that looks like a guitar before Nakamaru stops him with a wave of his hands.
“Actually, I don’t... I lied,” He shifts his feet around nervously and tries to convince himself that he is only imagining the laughter that he can hear around him.
Ueda narrows his eyes at him.
“I beat box though... is that considered a musical talent?”
“BEAT BOX?” Voices from various parts of the Café exclaim at the same time.
“Show me,” Ueda says simply.
And Nakamaru did.
The guy with the joker necklace joins in his beatboxing, making up a rap as he wipes the tables. He is good, Nakamaru thinks to himself, although he does not understand what the man is rapping about other than random lines like “make you wet” and “my name is dangerous cat”.
He decides that maybe he does not want to know.
Nakamaru then sees the tall and lanky guy tap his feet to the beat as he flips through the reservation book and he also spots the guy in the kitchen humming along to the beats as he leans against the door.
“You are employed,” Ueda tells Nakamaru when he’s done.
***
To be very honest, the only reason why Nakamaru accepts the job is because Akanishi begged him to. He told Nakamaru that if he didn’t help him out this time by taking over his place as the pastry chef in the café, he wouldn’t be able to leave for America to pursue his dreams of being a musician or something. And Nakamaru isn’t that heartless to chain him down right? Thinking back, Nakamaru thinks Akanishi was lying, but he reasons that he is not at fault since no one is immune to Akanishi’s puppy eyes.
He refuses to admit that he is just naïve.
He will tell himself that he accepted the job because the café pays really well.
Anyhow, right after the interview, Nakamaru learned the names of his co-workers. The one in the kitchen is Kamenashi Kazuya or Kame (-chan) as everyone calls him. He is the chef of the Café and apparently specializes in pasta but hates tomatoes. Kame justified himself by saying that there are cream-based pasta recipes too, but Nakamaru still thinks it’s kind of strange. The guy with the pun is Taguchi Junnosuke or Junno and he works as a waiter together with the rapper, Koki. The boss of this place, obviously, is Ueda Tatsuya. Nakamaru does not really know what he does, beside owning the place and staring out of the window. But Ueda did ask him to come in early the next day so that someone can show him around before business starts for the day.
***
Only after reaching home does Nakamaru realize that he does not have any idea of what “early” means. He remembers that he came in at 5pm for the “interview” and everyone was in, but there were no customers. So he decides that maybe coming right after lunch might be a good idea.
Apparently not.
When he tries to push the door to the Café open, he realizes that it is locked. Trying his luck, he peeks through the windows and realizes that there is no light, nor any sign of human activity inside. Nakamaru thinks that maybe he should just wander around the neighborhood before coming back. But when he looks around, he notices that most of the shops are closed and the streets are vacant. He concludes that there is nothing worth walking around the area for. Plus, what if he gets lost and ends up being late for work? That will leave a terrible impression on his employer.
He thus resorts to camping outside the café with a book about the environment until someone comes along.
***
That someone happens to be Kame, who arrives about an hour later with a cart full of ingredients and a very nice smelling vanilla scent. Not that Nakamaru will tell Kame - the other man might freak out and think that he is a stalker. Or even worse, gay. As Kame lets Nakamaru in, he informs Nakamaru that nobody else but him arrives before 4pm. The only reason why everyone was there at 5 yesterday was to see the person Akanishi suggested to work at the café. More accurately, Kame helpfully supplied, they wanted to collect their winnings from their bets over what type of man Akanishi would send them.
Nakamaru questions his decision in joining the place.
After sorting the groceries in the kitchen, Kame proceeds to whip up something quick for the two of them - ‘You haven’t eaten lunch, have you?’ Kame had asked. Nakamaru has tried to say that he is okay with it but Kame insisted and Nakamaru finds that he is weak against Kame’s insistence as well. It reminds Nakamaru of Jin’s puppy eyes and he tries to dispel the looming sense of doom that he feels.
He observes as Kame ties up his hair into a small ponytail and tugging some of the stray strands of behind his ears. There is something effortlessly cool about the way Kame cooks, Nakamaru realizes, and he wonders briefly if Kame has ever been to culinary school before. But his thoughts are interrupted when Kame declares that he finished cooking. He makes Nakamaru bring the plates out to Kame’s favourite table by the window and they talk.
Nakamaru was too anxious the previous day to notice the interior decorations of the cafe. It is a very classy place and, in his opinion, the red sofas go very well with the black tables on the carpeted floor. There aren’t any decorations other than that and Kame explains, upon spotting him looking around, that that’s because all of them have different tastes and the sofas and tables were the only things they could agree upon.
“What is that stage for?” Nakamaru asks while pointing to the elevated platform in the middle of the café.
“Performing, of course,” Kame answers, “We take turns to perform for our customers. It’s part of our charm,”
“Every night?” Nakamaru asks, killing Jin in his mind.
“Well, it depends on what the customers want,”
Nakamaru decides to focus on eating his pasta. The lesser he knows, the better, he thinks. Good thing is that the pasta tastes heavenly and Nakamaru makes no attempt to hide his delight in the good food. He spots Kame giving him a warm, proud smile as he twirls the spaghetti with his fork.
“By the way, you have very pretty fingers, you know,” Kame says after a period of silence.
Nakamaru spits his food.
***
“So what does this café serve?” Nakamaru asks as he washes the dishes while Kame sits on a chair nearby.
“Anything Jin and I wanted,” The younger man replies as he crosses his legs, “Now, anything you and I want,”
Nakamaru frowns in confusion.
He hears Kame laugh and stand up to wrap an arm around Nakamaru’s shoulders. Nakamaru kind of wants to shake him off, but he thinks that it might be rude to do that to a new co-worker. He does not want to get into anyone’s bad books after all.
“We don’t have a menu here,”
“Then how do the customers know what to order?” Nakamaru asks innocently.
“They trust us,” Kame says with a smile, “Because we serve the very best,”
Nakamaru tries to deny the fact that confidence is a pretty expression on Kame’s face.
***
The two waiters stroll in a bit before 7pm and at that point, Nakamaru is already busy in the kitchen, making some simple pastries from whatever ingredients that Jin has left behind in the section of the kitchen that dealt with desserts. He wonders briefly at how Akanishi worked in the mess he himself has created decides that since it is Jin, anything is possible. Nakamaru feels good and perhaps accomplished donning the chef uniform that was given to him as a graduation present from the pastry school. But every time he looks across at Kame who is only dressed in a comfortable T-shirt with jeans, he feels slightly over-dressed.
Maybe too overly dressed.
The waiters stick their head into the kitchen. Nakamaru looks up from baking to notice that Koki’s hair is now black instead of blonde but chooses not to comment about it. Koki gives Kame a brotherly hug as greeting while Junno beams at them both and tries to tell them what he has seen on his way to work. Kame blatantly ignores him and launches into his own topic.
Which happens to be an imitation of how Nakamaru looked when he spit his pasta out.
“I am still here,” Nakamaru grumbles loudly from the other end of the kitchen where he has just taken some freshly baked buns out from the oven.
“I am still hereee,” Koki imitates the annoyed look on Nakamaru’s face immediately. Kame and Junno laugh loudly. Nakamaru grumbles even more. And to think he thought he escaped from Jin’s jabs about his nose. It is then that Koki’s phone rings with some obnoxious music that starts with “Can you feel like this, want to feel the same,” and he answers the call, voice immediately changing to something that is ridiculously sweet as he walks out of the kitchen to engage in a private conversation.
“I wonder if Nakamaru’s pastries will be as sweet as Koki’s sweetie,” Junno says with a smug look and spins the towel he has in his hands. Kame glares at him. Nakamaru stares at him as if he doesn’t believe what Junno has just said.
“Get out and start preparing,” Kame commands.
Junno escapes quickly; after all, Kame has a knife in his hand right now.
But not before stealing some pasta.
***
Nakamaru is decorating the cupcakes when he spots someone walking, or more accurately strutting, into the kitchen like he owns the place. He tries to ignore how the man’s clothes stand out, but a purple glittered suit is basically screaming at people to look at it. Nakamaru observes as the newcomer walks towards Kame and hugs him from the back. Kame’s shoulders rise a little in surprise before leaning in with a small sigh. The newcomer (with really bushy eyebrows - Nakamaru notices) kisses Kame’s hair lightly. Kame reaches for a spoon and scoops up some of the sauce that he has been cooking to feed the visitor. Nakamaru has a nagging feeling he is intruding in a very intimate moment.
“Mm, needs more salt,” the visitor mumbles as Kame reaches over for the salt. In the meantime, he lets his lips attach to the base of Kame’s neck.
Nakamaru clears his throat. Does the world think he is invisible?
Instead of becoming more modest, Kame smirks and turns around to give the newcomer a full kiss on his lips. Nakamaru tries to pretend that the tongues he sees are an illusion when Purple Glitter Suit guy takes the chance to let his hands slip under Kame’s T-shirt…
Nakamaru flees.
***
Koki explains to Nakamaru, while sewing pants for his younger brother, that the guy with really bushy eyebrows is called Matsumoto Jun, a fashion designer who is the head designer for the Arashi Line and has been dating Kame for 3 and a half years. According to Koki, he pops by to say hi to Kame everytime he is around the area, and he advises Nakamaru to vacate the kitchen if Jun is around in order to avoid being scarred forever.
Nakamaru gives him a look that says that he has already being scarred forever.
Koki pats him on the back.
Without the needles in his hand, of course.
Jun comes out of the kitchen at the exact moment when Junno screams “DIE!!” to his DS. Nakamaru is confronted with two different sets of emotions at the same time. First, he jumps at the scream (he is sure both Matsumoto and Koki laughed at him) and, second, he turns red at the recollection of what he witnessed earlier. Matsumoto does not look like he cares though as he throws Junno a box. The waiter promptly pauses his game.
“Nino always has the best games,” Junno says, beaming like a third year old kid on Christmas morning.
“Oh and Ohno wants to know when you are free to go fishing again,” Kame’s boyfriend adds while rummaging through his bag (Nakamaru can’t help but notices the Prada logo on the zip) for a stack of CDs before passing it to Koki.
“From Sho-chan,” Matsumoto says and Nakamaru looks over to see a bright green post it that says ,“ The Grate Aiba Pet Food Recomendation,” on top of the rap music CDs. It’s Koki turn to beam and Nakamaru concludes that this is probably rent for letting him and Kame use the kitchen for their own purposes.
Jun turns to Nakamaru next, “I will bring you new clothes next time,”
“My clothes are fine!” Nakamaru says, but by then Jun is already gone.
No wonder he and Kame are a couple.
***
The first customers stream in before 7 and Nakamaru is surprised at the absence of Ueda.
“He has boxing lessons,” Kame screams in between decorating the plate of pasta that has been ordered. The customers outside are talking too loudly (in Kansai dialect, Nakamaru notices) for Nakamaru to hear Kame the first time round.
“Boxing lessons?” Nakamaru shouts back against the obnoxious laughter from outside.
“Yeah, he used to fight us all…Gave me a bleeding nose just because I said that he should have helped me out me when I made a mistake, ”
Nakamaru wants to shrink behind his counter. He is a peace-loving person and does not want to fight anyone. His face must be way too obvious because Kame laughs and assures him that they don’t fight anymore.
Nakamaru hopes he isn’t lying, but in any case, someone outside is asking for him - more accurately shouting for the new guy to serve them.
***
Nakamaru leaves the kitchen to be confronted with 7 guys sitting around a table right outside the kitchen and wearing strange outfits that reminded Nakamaru slightly of Kamen Riders - only less stylish and more obnoxious. He also sees Koki, who is supposed to be working, eating chicken kaarage with these strange men and gossiping at the top of his voice about Junno and his inability to read the atmosphere.
“He totally spoiled Kame’s birthday surprise for us! That guy!” Koki exclaimed and the one in the red costume nods along in agreement before noticing Nakamaru.
“Oh hey, big nose!”
Nakamaru struggles to find a correct reaction before another man, this one in purple, reaches over to hit the red one’s forehead. Nakamaru can’t help but notice how his teeth look a little like fangs and perhaps a little scary.
“That’s very rude! Apologise!” Purple guy with fangs says.
“Sorryy…” The red says, scratching his head.
“Nakamaru?” Nakamaru supplies.
Koki helpfully takes over the situation again by explaining, against the whines of the one wearing yellow about the lack of mayonnaise for the chicken kaarage, that all 7 of them are actors and they are filming for a movie about rangers saving the world. That doesn’t mean they have to wear these costumes out for dinner, Nakamaru thinks to himself.
He stands around awkwardly until the one in blue shifts a little to his side and offers space for Nakamaru. Once seated though, he notices that the man right opposite him -clad in green- is asleep amidst all the noise that the group is producing. Just as Nakamaru is trying to understand how anyone can dose off in such an environment, he feels goosebumps rising from his skin as though someone scary is staring at him. Nakamaru turns to look at the source of the stare, who happens to be the one wearing the black costume. The guy makes eye contact with him.
Nakamaru quickly looks away, freaked out.
Before Nakamaru can fully recover from the creepiness that is the black guy, the café suddenly falls into an awkward silence.
“You spilled coffee on yourself,” he hears Ueda saying.
“That’s because you bumped into me,” The guy in yellow retorted.
“Which was caused by you stretching your legs in the aisle,”
“You should have looked,”
Ueda clenches his fists.
“What makes you think learning boxing makes you better than me, princess ,”
Ueda glares, “Not. a. princess,”
The yellow guy stands up from his seat, “Want to fight?” he challenges, while he can hear collective gasps of “Ryo-chan,” from the table.
Nakamaru remembers what Kame said about boxing lessons and continues to freak out. He is part of the staff here, he should be helping and he still in panic mode when suddenly all the lights in the room are dimmed and a spotlight is casted on the stage.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s Iriguchi Deguchi Taguchi’s shoooow time!” Nakamaru thinks that his voice is a little too cheery for such an atmosphere but Junno goes on happily with cheers from his table, “My performance today is entitled Finale, enjoy!”
“It’s not even the last performance of the day,” Nakamaru hears Koki mutter under his breath.
By then, Ueda is gone and yellow is left sulking.
It was then that Nakamaru felt someone poking him. He can’t really see colours very well in the dark, but he is quite sure this guy is in orange.
“You have a Maru in your name too? We can be Marumaru together and perform something later!”
“Busy,” he whisper-screams and takes the chances to escape to the relative safety of the kitchen.
There is a limit to weirdness he can take in a day.
***
Nakamaru is busy decorating more cupcakes when he turns around to find that the fruit tart he has made had disappeared from the plate. Nakamaru panics and looks around only to find half the fruit tart inside Ueda’s mouth.
“HEY, THAT IS FOR THE CUSTOMER!”
“Yummy, just make something else for him then,” Ueda says in between bites.
“HEY!”
Nakamaru is pretty sure that Ueda pranced away as though the argument earlier has not happened.
Why did he agree to work here again?
***
Nakamaru is cleaning up for the day when another man bounces into the kitchen, wearing his soccer jersey with the name Tegoshi printed on it, and latches himself onto the chef.
“Kame-chan! I missed you!” Tegoshi declares.
“Jun will be jealous,” Kame says, removing Tegoshi’s wandering hands from his hips. Instead of detaching himself from Kame though, the newcomer decides to lay his head on Kame’s shoulder.
“But he isn’t around!” He whines, “Can I have ramen today? Please?”
“We sell pasta, not ramen” Kame mumbles but gestures for Nakamaru to take out the ramen noodles from one of the cabinets anyway.
Another man, this time tall and skinny with single eyelids, pops into the kitchen (Nakamaru is seriously questioning the privacy of the kitchen with the number of people barging in) and yanks the Tegoshi guy away from Kame.
“Sorry Kame-chan,” Then he notices Nakamaru and smiles warmly at him, “Hi, I am Koyama, nice to meet you,”
Nakamaru introduces himself and Koyama apologizes again for Tegoshi before turning to the culprit and lecturing him: “Don’t disturb Kame-chan and Nakamaru-kun when they are cooking! Junno has served us peas as appetizers,”
“Okay!” Tegoshi leaves the kitchen, clinging onto Koyama as he does so.
***
Kame makes Nakamaru bring out the ramen. He finds that 4 people are sitting around the table right in front of the stage. Nakamaru recognizes Tegoshi, who is this time invading another guy’s private space and pointing out hairstyles that he wants the other male to help him set next time. He seems to be half-hearted in entertaining Tegoshi though, as his eyes keep drifting to a book about cats, placed on the table. He notices Nakamaru and turns around to smile at him but Nakamaru thought the smile looked a little fake and freaky. He doesn’t think it’s in his place to comment, though.
Beside them is a man seemingly engrossed in eating the gyoza that he brought into the café himself, but he does look up and smile at him and offers to share his gyoza. Nakamaru accepts the offer and slots himself into a seat beside him. He feels safer than with the others, Nakamaru concludes, despite him wearing a shirt with balloon patterns all over it.
Koki joins the table soon enough and pets Tegoshi as a form of greeting. He then flips open his phone to show Tegoshi new pictures of his puppies and informs Tegoshi that Nakamaru can beatbox.
“Do it on stage!” Tegoshi demands promptly.
“Do it, you don’t want to cross him,” whispers Kame from behind him as he is still contemplating on a response. Nakamaru jumps; when did Kame appear?
Is there anyone actually normal in this place, he wonders to himself as he goes onto the stage. Before he can perform though, he proceeds to trip over the wires (which, unless Nakamaru remembers wrongly, aren’t supposed to be on this side of the floor) before reaching the stage, making himself a laughing spectacle. He is pretty sure that Tegoshi laughed the loudest among everyone. And from the sly grin that he has on his face when their eyes made contact…
Kame’s reminder rings in his head.
When he finally does get up from the embarrassing fall, he finds Koki on stage with him, with his arms wrapped around Nakamaru as a form of encouragement. He looks ahead to see Kame giving him a thumbs-up sign from wherever he is standing and Nakamaru is pretty sure that he can feel Junno’s beam from the other end of the stage. Ueda is at the same spot where he interviewed him yesterday, with his headphones off and leaning forward in anticipation to his performance.
Sappy as it may sound, it feels like he has been infused with power as he begins, and Koki adds in raps at times. At the end of it all, Koki decides that their duet should be called One on One and they should perform more together. Nakamaru spots Kame mouthing “good job” at him with a peace sign (but why is the tip of his tongue sticking out, Nakamaru thinks) while Junno cheerfully hangs up the dart board on one the walls.
“Post work entertainment!” he announces to the cheers of everyone in the room.
***
Nakamaru collapses promptly into his bed when he reaches home.
He knows that he needs all the sleep for tomorrow.
From: alternatejess
Title: A Day (Or Two) In Nakamaru’s Life.
Pairings/Characters: Gen except Matsumoto Jun/Kamenashi Kazuya as a side pairing.
Rating: G
Warnings: AU, Attempted crack and humour, way too many Intergroup cameos.
Notes: To my beta, thanks for reading it and handholding me throughout. To the two angels who read through drafts of this and assured me that it is okay, thank you. To luna_truths I hope you like this.
Summary: Nakamaru applies to be the pastry chef of Café Chain.
“Iriguchi, Deguchi, Taguchi~” an overly bubbly voice greets Nakamaru as he pushes the door to Café Chain open. He finds out that the voice belongs to a tall, lanky man who looks like a certain Korean star that Nakamaru has seen in posters around Shibuya. But before Nakamaru can come up with an appropriate response to the pun, another man -this one with blonde hair and a whole head shorter than the other man- kicks the pun guy and speaks to Nakamaru.
“I am sorry about him, table for one?”
Nakamaru notices the gold JOKER necklace that’s dangling from his neck as well as the multiple rings that he is wearing on his fingers. Nakamaru thinks maybe he should leave right now. But Jin’s pleading voice rings in his head.
“I am Nakamaru Yuuichi and I am looking for a certain Mr. Ueda….”
“He’s by the window,” says a third voice, this one coming from the kitchen. The first things
Nakamaru notices are his immaculately trimmed eyebrows.
“Argyle? Really?” Nakamaru hears that man mutter as he walks towards Ueda.
***
“Jin… I mean, Akanishi told me that there is a vacancy for a pastry chef here and I wish to apply for it,” Nakamaru explains to Ueda who is at the moment looking out of the window and does not seem to have any interest in the speaker. Nakamaru curiously looks out too, trying to see what it is that interests Ueda so much.
There is not even a soul on the sidewalk outside the café.
“What are your talents?” Ueda asks him nonchalantly, eyes still fixated on the non-scene outside the window.
“Oh yes, I graduated from a pastry school with above average grades,” Nakamaru began, fumbling through his bag for his certificates. He is quite sure that he hears someone snigger when he pulls out his file the wrong way and some of the contents spill onto the floor. He pretends not to hear anything though as he passes his certificates to Ueda. Ueda turns around (finally) but only to push the certificates aside, and leans in so close that his face is in other man’s private space.
Nakamaru retreats by instinct.
Ueda laughs (Nakamaru tries not to admit that Ueda’s laugh and subsequent grin made the room seem brighter) and leans back onto his own seat.
“I am talking about musical talents. Dancing? Singing?”
“I play the guitar,” Nakamaru says.
Ueda bends down to pull out something that looks like a guitar before Nakamaru stops him with a wave of his hands.
“Actually, I don’t... I lied,” He shifts his feet around nervously and tries to convince himself that he is only imagining the laughter that he can hear around him.
Ueda narrows his eyes at him.
“I beat box though... is that considered a musical talent?”
“BEAT BOX?” Voices from various parts of the Café exclaim at the same time.
“Show me,” Ueda says simply.
And Nakamaru did.
The guy with the joker necklace joins in his beatboxing, making up a rap as he wipes the tables. He is good, Nakamaru thinks to himself, although he does not understand what the man is rapping about other than random lines like “make you wet” and “my name is dangerous cat”.
He decides that maybe he does not want to know.
Nakamaru then sees the tall and lanky guy tap his feet to the beat as he flips through the reservation book and he also spots the guy in the kitchen humming along to the beats as he leans against the door.
“You are employed,” Ueda tells Nakamaru when he’s done.
***
To be very honest, the only reason why Nakamaru accepts the job is because Akanishi begged him to. He told Nakamaru that if he didn’t help him out this time by taking over his place as the pastry chef in the café, he wouldn’t be able to leave for America to pursue his dreams of being a musician or something. And Nakamaru isn’t that heartless to chain him down right? Thinking back, Nakamaru thinks Akanishi was lying, but he reasons that he is not at fault since no one is immune to Akanishi’s puppy eyes.
He refuses to admit that he is just naïve.
He will tell himself that he accepted the job because the café pays really well.
Anyhow, right after the interview, Nakamaru learned the names of his co-workers. The one in the kitchen is Kamenashi Kazuya or Kame (-chan) as everyone calls him. He is the chef of the Café and apparently specializes in pasta but hates tomatoes. Kame justified himself by saying that there are cream-based pasta recipes too, but Nakamaru still thinks it’s kind of strange. The guy with the pun is Taguchi Junnosuke or Junno and he works as a waiter together with the rapper, Koki. The boss of this place, obviously, is Ueda Tatsuya. Nakamaru does not really know what he does, beside owning the place and staring out of the window. But Ueda did ask him to come in early the next day so that someone can show him around before business starts for the day.
***
Only after reaching home does Nakamaru realize that he does not have any idea of what “early” means. He remembers that he came in at 5pm for the “interview” and everyone was in, but there were no customers. So he decides that maybe coming right after lunch might be a good idea.
Apparently not.
When he tries to push the door to the Café open, he realizes that it is locked. Trying his luck, he peeks through the windows and realizes that there is no light, nor any sign of human activity inside. Nakamaru thinks that maybe he should just wander around the neighborhood before coming back. But when he looks around, he notices that most of the shops are closed and the streets are vacant. He concludes that there is nothing worth walking around the area for. Plus, what if he gets lost and ends up being late for work? That will leave a terrible impression on his employer.
He thus resorts to camping outside the café with a book about the environment until someone comes along.
***
That someone happens to be Kame, who arrives about an hour later with a cart full of ingredients and a very nice smelling vanilla scent. Not that Nakamaru will tell Kame - the other man might freak out and think that he is a stalker. Or even worse, gay. As Kame lets Nakamaru in, he informs Nakamaru that nobody else but him arrives before 4pm. The only reason why everyone was there at 5 yesterday was to see the person Akanishi suggested to work at the café. More accurately, Kame helpfully supplied, they wanted to collect their winnings from their bets over what type of man Akanishi would send them.
Nakamaru questions his decision in joining the place.
After sorting the groceries in the kitchen, Kame proceeds to whip up something quick for the two of them - ‘You haven’t eaten lunch, have you?’ Kame had asked. Nakamaru has tried to say that he is okay with it but Kame insisted and Nakamaru finds that he is weak against Kame’s insistence as well. It reminds Nakamaru of Jin’s puppy eyes and he tries to dispel the looming sense of doom that he feels.
He observes as Kame ties up his hair into a small ponytail and tugging some of the stray strands of behind his ears. There is something effortlessly cool about the way Kame cooks, Nakamaru realizes, and he wonders briefly if Kame has ever been to culinary school before. But his thoughts are interrupted when Kame declares that he finished cooking. He makes Nakamaru bring the plates out to Kame’s favourite table by the window and they talk.
Nakamaru was too anxious the previous day to notice the interior decorations of the cafe. It is a very classy place and, in his opinion, the red sofas go very well with the black tables on the carpeted floor. There aren’t any decorations other than that and Kame explains, upon spotting him looking around, that that’s because all of them have different tastes and the sofas and tables were the only things they could agree upon.
“What is that stage for?” Nakamaru asks while pointing to the elevated platform in the middle of the café.
“Performing, of course,” Kame answers, “We take turns to perform for our customers. It’s part of our charm,”
“Every night?” Nakamaru asks, killing Jin in his mind.
“Well, it depends on what the customers want,”
Nakamaru decides to focus on eating his pasta. The lesser he knows, the better, he thinks. Good thing is that the pasta tastes heavenly and Nakamaru makes no attempt to hide his delight in the good food. He spots Kame giving him a warm, proud smile as he twirls the spaghetti with his fork.
“By the way, you have very pretty fingers, you know,” Kame says after a period of silence.
Nakamaru spits his food.
***
“So what does this café serve?” Nakamaru asks as he washes the dishes while Kame sits on a chair nearby.
“Anything Jin and I wanted,” The younger man replies as he crosses his legs, “Now, anything you and I want,”
Nakamaru frowns in confusion.
He hears Kame laugh and stand up to wrap an arm around Nakamaru’s shoulders. Nakamaru kind of wants to shake him off, but he thinks that it might be rude to do that to a new co-worker. He does not want to get into anyone’s bad books after all.
“We don’t have a menu here,”
“Then how do the customers know what to order?” Nakamaru asks innocently.
“They trust us,” Kame says with a smile, “Because we serve the very best,”
Nakamaru tries to deny the fact that confidence is a pretty expression on Kame’s face.
***
The two waiters stroll in a bit before 7pm and at that point, Nakamaru is already busy in the kitchen, making some simple pastries from whatever ingredients that Jin has left behind in the section of the kitchen that dealt with desserts. He wonders briefly at how Akanishi worked in the mess he himself has created decides that since it is Jin, anything is possible. Nakamaru feels good and perhaps accomplished donning the chef uniform that was given to him as a graduation present from the pastry school. But every time he looks across at Kame who is only dressed in a comfortable T-shirt with jeans, he feels slightly over-dressed.
Maybe too overly dressed.
The waiters stick their head into the kitchen. Nakamaru looks up from baking to notice that Koki’s hair is now black instead of blonde but chooses not to comment about it. Koki gives Kame a brotherly hug as greeting while Junno beams at them both and tries to tell them what he has seen on his way to work. Kame blatantly ignores him and launches into his own topic.
Which happens to be an imitation of how Nakamaru looked when he spit his pasta out.
“I am still here,” Nakamaru grumbles loudly from the other end of the kitchen where he has just taken some freshly baked buns out from the oven.
“I am still hereee,” Koki imitates the annoyed look on Nakamaru’s face immediately. Kame and Junno laugh loudly. Nakamaru grumbles even more. And to think he thought he escaped from Jin’s jabs about his nose. It is then that Koki’s phone rings with some obnoxious music that starts with “Can you feel like this, want to feel the same,” and he answers the call, voice immediately changing to something that is ridiculously sweet as he walks out of the kitchen to engage in a private conversation.
“I wonder if Nakamaru’s pastries will be as sweet as Koki’s sweetie,” Junno says with a smug look and spins the towel he has in his hands. Kame glares at him. Nakamaru stares at him as if he doesn’t believe what Junno has just said.
“Get out and start preparing,” Kame commands.
Junno escapes quickly; after all, Kame has a knife in his hand right now.
But not before stealing some pasta.
***
Nakamaru is decorating the cupcakes when he spots someone walking, or more accurately strutting, into the kitchen like he owns the place. He tries to ignore how the man’s clothes stand out, but a purple glittered suit is basically screaming at people to look at it. Nakamaru observes as the newcomer walks towards Kame and hugs him from the back. Kame’s shoulders rise a little in surprise before leaning in with a small sigh. The newcomer (with really bushy eyebrows - Nakamaru notices) kisses Kame’s hair lightly. Kame reaches for a spoon and scoops up some of the sauce that he has been cooking to feed the visitor. Nakamaru has a nagging feeling he is intruding in a very intimate moment.
“Mm, needs more salt,” the visitor mumbles as Kame reaches over for the salt. In the meantime, he lets his lips attach to the base of Kame’s neck.
Nakamaru clears his throat. Does the world think he is invisible?
Instead of becoming more modest, Kame smirks and turns around to give the newcomer a full kiss on his lips. Nakamaru tries to pretend that the tongues he sees are an illusion when Purple Glitter Suit guy takes the chance to let his hands slip under Kame’s T-shirt…
Nakamaru flees.
***
Koki explains to Nakamaru, while sewing pants for his younger brother, that the guy with really bushy eyebrows is called Matsumoto Jun, a fashion designer who is the head designer for the Arashi Line and has been dating Kame for 3 and a half years. According to Koki, he pops by to say hi to Kame everytime he is around the area, and he advises Nakamaru to vacate the kitchen if Jun is around in order to avoid being scarred forever.
Nakamaru gives him a look that says that he has already being scarred forever.
Koki pats him on the back.
Without the needles in his hand, of course.
Jun comes out of the kitchen at the exact moment when Junno screams “DIE!!” to his DS. Nakamaru is confronted with two different sets of emotions at the same time. First, he jumps at the scream (he is sure both Matsumoto and Koki laughed at him) and, second, he turns red at the recollection of what he witnessed earlier. Matsumoto does not look like he cares though as he throws Junno a box. The waiter promptly pauses his game.
“Nino always has the best games,” Junno says, beaming like a third year old kid on Christmas morning.
“Oh and Ohno wants to know when you are free to go fishing again,” Kame’s boyfriend adds while rummaging through his bag (Nakamaru can’t help but notices the Prada logo on the zip) for a stack of CDs before passing it to Koki.
“From Sho-chan,” Matsumoto says and Nakamaru looks over to see a bright green post it that says ,“ The Grate Aiba Pet Food Recomendation,” on top of the rap music CDs. It’s Koki turn to beam and Nakamaru concludes that this is probably rent for letting him and Kame use the kitchen for their own purposes.
Jun turns to Nakamaru next, “I will bring you new clothes next time,”
“My clothes are fine!” Nakamaru says, but by then Jun is already gone.
No wonder he and Kame are a couple.
***
The first customers stream in before 7 and Nakamaru is surprised at the absence of Ueda.
“He has boxing lessons,” Kame screams in between decorating the plate of pasta that has been ordered. The customers outside are talking too loudly (in Kansai dialect, Nakamaru notices) for Nakamaru to hear Kame the first time round.
“Boxing lessons?” Nakamaru shouts back against the obnoxious laughter from outside.
“Yeah, he used to fight us all…Gave me a bleeding nose just because I said that he should have helped me out me when I made a mistake, ”
Nakamaru wants to shrink behind his counter. He is a peace-loving person and does not want to fight anyone. His face must be way too obvious because Kame laughs and assures him that they don’t fight anymore.
Nakamaru hopes he isn’t lying, but in any case, someone outside is asking for him - more accurately shouting for the new guy to serve them.
***
Nakamaru leaves the kitchen to be confronted with 7 guys sitting around a table right outside the kitchen and wearing strange outfits that reminded Nakamaru slightly of Kamen Riders - only less stylish and more obnoxious. He also sees Koki, who is supposed to be working, eating chicken kaarage with these strange men and gossiping at the top of his voice about Junno and his inability to read the atmosphere.
“He totally spoiled Kame’s birthday surprise for us! That guy!” Koki exclaimed and the one in the red costume nods along in agreement before noticing Nakamaru.
“Oh hey, big nose!”
Nakamaru struggles to find a correct reaction before another man, this one in purple, reaches over to hit the red one’s forehead. Nakamaru can’t help but notice how his teeth look a little like fangs and perhaps a little scary.
“That’s very rude! Apologise!” Purple guy with fangs says.
“Sorryy…” The red says, scratching his head.
“Nakamaru?” Nakamaru supplies.
Koki helpfully takes over the situation again by explaining, against the whines of the one wearing yellow about the lack of mayonnaise for the chicken kaarage, that all 7 of them are actors and they are filming for a movie about rangers saving the world. That doesn’t mean they have to wear these costumes out for dinner, Nakamaru thinks to himself.
He stands around awkwardly until the one in blue shifts a little to his side and offers space for Nakamaru. Once seated though, he notices that the man right opposite him -clad in green- is asleep amidst all the noise that the group is producing. Just as Nakamaru is trying to understand how anyone can dose off in such an environment, he feels goosebumps rising from his skin as though someone scary is staring at him. Nakamaru turns to look at the source of the stare, who happens to be the one wearing the black costume. The guy makes eye contact with him.
Nakamaru quickly looks away, freaked out.
Before Nakamaru can fully recover from the creepiness that is the black guy, the café suddenly falls into an awkward silence.
“You spilled coffee on yourself,” he hears Ueda saying.
“That’s because you bumped into me,” The guy in yellow retorted.
“Which was caused by you stretching your legs in the aisle,”
“You should have looked,”
Ueda clenches his fists.
“What makes you think learning boxing makes you better than me, princess ,”
Ueda glares, “Not. a. princess,”
The yellow guy stands up from his seat, “Want to fight?” he challenges, while he can hear collective gasps of “Ryo-chan,” from the table.
Nakamaru remembers what Kame said about boxing lessons and continues to freak out. He is part of the staff here, he should be helping and he still in panic mode when suddenly all the lights in the room are dimmed and a spotlight is casted on the stage.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s Iriguchi Deguchi Taguchi’s shoooow time!” Nakamaru thinks that his voice is a little too cheery for such an atmosphere but Junno goes on happily with cheers from his table, “My performance today is entitled Finale, enjoy!”
“It’s not even the last performance of the day,” Nakamaru hears Koki mutter under his breath.
By then, Ueda is gone and yellow is left sulking.
It was then that Nakamaru felt someone poking him. He can’t really see colours very well in the dark, but he is quite sure this guy is in orange.
“You have a Maru in your name too? We can be Marumaru together and perform something later!”
“Busy,” he whisper-screams and takes the chances to escape to the relative safety of the kitchen.
There is a limit to weirdness he can take in a day.
***
Nakamaru is busy decorating more cupcakes when he turns around to find that the fruit tart he has made had disappeared from the plate. Nakamaru panics and looks around only to find half the fruit tart inside Ueda’s mouth.
“HEY, THAT IS FOR THE CUSTOMER!”
“Yummy, just make something else for him then,” Ueda says in between bites.
“HEY!”
Nakamaru is pretty sure that Ueda pranced away as though the argument earlier has not happened.
Why did he agree to work here again?
***
Nakamaru is cleaning up for the day when another man bounces into the kitchen, wearing his soccer jersey with the name Tegoshi printed on it, and latches himself onto the chef.
“Kame-chan! I missed you!” Tegoshi declares.
“Jun will be jealous,” Kame says, removing Tegoshi’s wandering hands from his hips. Instead of detaching himself from Kame though, the newcomer decides to lay his head on Kame’s shoulder.
“But he isn’t around!” He whines, “Can I have ramen today? Please?”
“We sell pasta, not ramen” Kame mumbles but gestures for Nakamaru to take out the ramen noodles from one of the cabinets anyway.
Another man, this time tall and skinny with single eyelids, pops into the kitchen (Nakamaru is seriously questioning the privacy of the kitchen with the number of people barging in) and yanks the Tegoshi guy away from Kame.
“Sorry Kame-chan,” Then he notices Nakamaru and smiles warmly at him, “Hi, I am Koyama, nice to meet you,”
Nakamaru introduces himself and Koyama apologizes again for Tegoshi before turning to the culprit and lecturing him: “Don’t disturb Kame-chan and Nakamaru-kun when they are cooking! Junno has served us peas as appetizers,”
“Okay!” Tegoshi leaves the kitchen, clinging onto Koyama as he does so.
***
Kame makes Nakamaru bring out the ramen. He finds that 4 people are sitting around the table right in front of the stage. Nakamaru recognizes Tegoshi, who is this time invading another guy’s private space and pointing out hairstyles that he wants the other male to help him set next time. He seems to be half-hearted in entertaining Tegoshi though, as his eyes keep drifting to a book about cats, placed on the table. He notices Nakamaru and turns around to smile at him but Nakamaru thought the smile looked a little fake and freaky. He doesn’t think it’s in his place to comment, though.
Beside them is a man seemingly engrossed in eating the gyoza that he brought into the café himself, but he does look up and smile at him and offers to share his gyoza. Nakamaru accepts the offer and slots himself into a seat beside him. He feels safer than with the others, Nakamaru concludes, despite him wearing a shirt with balloon patterns all over it.
Koki joins the table soon enough and pets Tegoshi as a form of greeting. He then flips open his phone to show Tegoshi new pictures of his puppies and informs Tegoshi that Nakamaru can beatbox.
“Do it on stage!” Tegoshi demands promptly.
“Do it, you don’t want to cross him,” whispers Kame from behind him as he is still contemplating on a response. Nakamaru jumps; when did Kame appear?
Is there anyone actually normal in this place, he wonders to himself as he goes onto the stage. Before he can perform though, he proceeds to trip over the wires (which, unless Nakamaru remembers wrongly, aren’t supposed to be on this side of the floor) before reaching the stage, making himself a laughing spectacle. He is pretty sure that Tegoshi laughed the loudest among everyone. And from the sly grin that he has on his face when their eyes made contact…
Kame’s reminder rings in his head.
When he finally does get up from the embarrassing fall, he finds Koki on stage with him, with his arms wrapped around Nakamaru as a form of encouragement. He looks ahead to see Kame giving him a thumbs-up sign from wherever he is standing and Nakamaru is pretty sure that he can feel Junno’s beam from the other end of the stage. Ueda is at the same spot where he interviewed him yesterday, with his headphones off and leaning forward in anticipation to his performance.
Sappy as it may sound, it feels like he has been infused with power as he begins, and Koki adds in raps at times. At the end of it all, Koki decides that their duet should be called One on One and they should perform more together. Nakamaru spots Kame mouthing “good job” at him with a peace sign (but why is the tip of his tongue sticking out, Nakamaru thinks) while Junno cheerfully hangs up the dart board on one the walls.
“Post work entertainment!” he announces to the cheers of everyone in the room.
***
Nakamaru collapses promptly into his bed when he reaches home.
He knows that he needs all the sleep for tomorrow.