Charming Love Chapter 1
Title: My Not-So-Lucky Love Charm Extra + Charming Love Prologue
Pairing: Yuto/OC
Type: Chaptered
Rating: PG-13 (being super safe)
Genre: Romance, Comedy
Summary: Yuto's childhood friend, Itsumono Kemi, confessed to him a few years ago. Yuto, not feeling the same way, rejected her. The two have now drifted and Yuto feels miserable. He thinks the only way to set things right is to fall in love with her but he just can't do it. Then he hears about the shrine from Kari and Yamada. He comes up with a plan to get his childhood friend to take down his charm from the shrine so that he will fall in love with her. Now love struck Yuto must learn how to control his new found feelings in order to win back his old friend.
Legend of the shrine: If you hang your charm on a tree it is certain that you will find your true love. However if a girl takes down a boys charm and vice versa the person whose name is on the charm will fall in love with the person who took down the charm.
I woke up to see the sun shining from my hotel window. I sat up, put on my glasses and got up to get ready. I put a white T-shirt and some shorts, not the super short shorts that might as well be underwear, those weren’t my style. I then grabbed a brush and brushed my long black hair. After I finished brushing my hair I proceeded to grab a book and sat down and read while I waited for my older sister, 3 years older to be precise, to come and get me.
And soon enough, Kimi barged into my room. I looked up from my book to look at my sister. She was wearing a tank top that showed a little too much skin for my taste and she was wearing the super short shorts that might as well have been underwear. How are we even related?
“Bleh! Are you really wearing that, Kemi? Come on! We’re in Okinawa you should at least try to be a little more fashionable. It’s bad enough that you keep your bangs in front of your face like some sort of creeper. How do you even see through them?” she said.
“I’ve trained my eyes to see through them. I’m pretty much like Superman, I have x-ray vision. It doesn’t just work for my bangs, it works for your outfit too, Kimi. You might as well parade around Okinawa stark naked, I see no difference.”
She gave me a dirty look. “You better be nice to me or you’ll never get your secret gift.”
“What secret gift?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes. “For a bookworm that was a pretty stupid question. One, it’s a secret and two, it’s a gift. Why would I tell you?”
“Ok then, why would you give me a gift?” I asked. My sister and I weren’t the type who hated each other, we just didn’t share the same interests, but that didn’t mean we were the lovey-dovey type either.
“It’s not from me and don’t even ask who it’s from because I am never going to tell you. The ‘gift giver’ especially tasked me with making sure your gift gets delivered to you safe and sound,” she said, smiling proudly as if she had just been given an award from the prime minister of Japan. “Let’s go!”
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“We’re here!” said my sister as we stopped in front of a big red shrine gate.
“Here? My gift is coming from a shrine?” I asked. I had sort of been expecting my gift to come from a shop or something.
My sister ignored my question and walked right into the shrine. I followed her and observed my surroundings. This shrine wasn’t a typical shrine, it didn’t look like one of those traditional “pray to the gods” shrine. It looked like one of those special shrines, designed for special things, like that one shrine with pools of water which were supposed to help you get better in studying if you sprinkled yourself with the water. Most special shrines were dedicated to studying or love.
We stopped walking when we reached a big old tree with many little rolled up papers hanging by strings attached to it. This must be the centerpiece of the shrine.
“Hello,” I turned around to see who it was, what I found was a little old lady. “You must be Itsumono Kemi,” she said. I nodded. “I am the keeper of this shrine and you are here to pick up a gift, correct?” said the shrine keeper.
“I think so… What is this shrine dedicated to anyway?” I asked.
“It’s a shrine dedicated to-“
“Studying!” said Kimi, interrupting the shrine keeper.
The shrine keeper frowned at my sister and said, “Yes… studying… Here is your gift,” she said as she pointed to one of the rolled up pieces of paper on the tree.
I was slightly confused but went up and took down the little paper charm. “Do I open it?” I asked
“No!” my sister yelled. “Uh… It’s a special charm for studying and um… if you open it you’ll… fail all your subjects!”
I stared down at the little piece of paper in my hand. I wasn’t much of a superstitious person but I might as well not open it, just to be on the safe side.
“Ok well, you have your gift! Let’s go!” my sister said as she proceeded to grab me by the arm and drag me out of the shrine.
“Wait!” I said as I freed myself from her and ran to the shrine keeper. “Um… thanks…” I said. My parents always taught me to be nice to the elderly and I also didn’t want to get on this lady’s bad side just in case she had any super mystical shrine powers.
She smiled at me, “I’m not so sure you should be thanking me.”
I gave the lady a confused look and was about to ask her what she meant but Kimi had grabbed me and dragged me out of the shrine for good. With the charm still in my hand I thought I felt something strange as we passed through the shrine gates.
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I leaned my head on the taxi window and watched as we passed by buildings.
“You haven’t said anything since we’ve left the shrine. You’re not even going to ask about your gift?” said Kimi.
“I already know who it’s from,” I said.
My sister had a worried look on her face, “You do?”
“Yup, it’s obviously from Mom and Dad,” I said. “A few weeks ago I complained to Mom about my grades dropping slightly, I mean they’re still pretty high, I just have high standards. But I didn’t think she’d go to this much trouble, especially since she and Dad are so busy.” Our parents held high positions in a company in Hong Kong, they were almost never home, we’d consider ourselves lucky if we even received a phone call.
I turned to my sister to see if I was correct but all she did was smile at me and then turned away to look out her window.
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*3rd person POV of your favorite drummer ;)
Yuto tapped his fingers nervously on his knee. His eyes kept darting to the clock. I wonder if they’ve gotten the charm yet. I hope Kimi and the shrine lady didn’t say anything in front of Kemi… he thought
He got up from his chair, flopped down onto his bed, closed his eyes and recalled the events that happened yesterday.
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*Ring, ring, ring ri-*
“Hello, this is Koboku shrine, home of the famous tree of love. How may I help you?” said an old lady’s voice on the other end of the line.
Yuto cleared his throat and spoke, “Um… yes, well… can I request a special service?”
“I am single, but I’m not interested in dating right now,” said the shrine keeper.
“Uh… that’s not what I meant… I wanted to know if you could make me fall in love with someone using the power of the tree…” said Yuto.
“I certainly could, all I have to do is write your name on a piece of charm paper, hang it up on the tree and have a girl take it down.”
“It’ll still work even if I don’t write my name myself? What about people who have the same name?” he asked.
“Oh child, the tree knows what it’s doing but I do not understand why you would want to fall in love with someone,” said the shrine lady.
“I have my reasons… anyways just write my name, Nakajima Yuto, on a charm and hang it up on the tree. I’ll find a way to get the girl to go to the shrine and then you have to get her to take down my charm. Oh, and please don’t tell her the legend of the shrine, I don’t want her to know what I’m up to.” And with that he hung up.
“Time to make another phone call,” he said as he dialed another number into the phone.
*Ring, ring, ri-*
“Hi, this is Kimi speaking!”
“Kimi? It’s Yuto.”
“Yuto? Hey, haven’t talked to you in a while… what’s up?”
“I need a favor…”
“What kind of favor?” Kimi asked.
“I need you to deliver a special gift to your sister for me. Will you do it?”
“Depends… what kind of gift?” she asked.
“You don’t need to know.”
“Oh yes I do. If I don’t know, I won’t deliver.” She said in a firm voice.
Yuto sighed in frustration and mentally debated with himself on whether he should tell Kimi or not. “Fine… I’ll tell you… It’s a charm that’ll make me fall in love with your sister. Happy?” he said.
“Wait, what? Ok, I’ll just ignore the charm thing, you can explain that to me later but you want to fall in love with my sister? Why? Didn’t you reject her in middle school?”
“That’s just it! I mean, I didn’t want to reject her it’s just… I didn’t feel the same way… and now we barely ever talk to each other… I... I just-“
“You miss her.”
“…Yeah… I miss her. She was my best friend and I hurt her and I want to make things right,” he said.
“By making yourself fall in love with her? How are you so sure that that’ll fix things? I don’t think my sister likes you anymore…”
Yuto felt a pang of sadness when he heard that last statement. “Well, even if she doesn’t, I still can’t find another way to reconcile with her,” said Yuto.
“Ok… fine I’ll help you. So what’s the plan?”
“Ok well the plan is-“
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Yuto’s little flashback was interrupted by his cell phone. He had received a text.
It was from Kimi. Gift delivered. There was a photo attached to the message. Yuto opened it. It was a picture of Kemi but you couldn’t see her face since she was turned around and looking out a car window, in the picture he could see that she was holding the charm in her hand.
Yuto saved the picture and then lied down in bed and stared at it some more. He was sure that the charm was working because all he could think about was how much he wanted to see Kemi.
I hate this chapter, what a crappy way to start off a fic.
Anyways I promise the next chapter will be better. It'll contain some funny dork Yuto scenes. I'm so glad I'll be able to put some humor in this lifeless fic.