Nao/Izumi - Candies - oneshot
Title: Candies
Characters: Nao, Izumi and a boy (hehe)
Genre: humor, fluff, friendship-fic
Rating: PG
Synopsis: One random afternoon in a park, Nao picks five pieces of candies that takes him back to a fond memory of the past.
Comment: Belated happy birthday, angelicoma! ^_^v
Five pieces of candies still wrapped in vivid colors glittered under the rays of the sun that afternoon. They were there, just there, looking poor and lonely on the dusty ground of the park.
Despite not having special attachment to sweets, Nao picks them up. It's not every day one stumbles upon freebies randomly on the floor, so why waste the opportunity?
Taking a seat on a vacant bench, the bassist dusts the candies one by one, making sure the humble foil wrap would shine brighter against the sun after his touch. He holds the candies in his hand and stares at it with a content smile. They were his little treasures now. Little treasures that would turn as salvation for his stomach during rehearsals.
He made a mental note to not forget the candy, another one to not forget to eat it, and another one to remember to not pout so much with a candy in one's mouth. Good luck with his reflex.
Casually pocketing the sweet finds, Nao looks about the park, fanning himself a bit against the heat when he spots a little boy, probably around the age of seven, staring at him---or at his hand which had the candies.
"Were those yours?" Nao turns to the boy and asks with amusement, regardless of almost being certain of the answer.
"Y-yes. I think...so." The boy responds, looking tad worried despite the determined steps he was making towards Nao's bench.
"You're not sure?" confused, Nao inquires more, "But they seem so familiar to you. It must be yours!"
Shaking his head, the boy retorts, "No. Not really," and gulps, "I stole them."
Sincerely shocked, the bassist has to look away from the boy--who's now sharing the bench with him--to hide his crumpled face. Even though stealing is a crime, a boy is still a boy: sensitive, prone to mistakes, but with valid reasons mostly logical for his age. It wouldn't be nice to upset the young man with the reaction he had.
With a few questions in his head, Nao turned to the boy and starts to question. "Who did you steal the candies from?"
"Doreamon." the boy answers with a slight frown, as if he doesn't have pleasant memories with this boy named Doreamon.
"Doreamon?" Nao asks further seriously, despite feeling a chuckle creeping between his cheeks.
"Uhn.” The boy confirms with a nod. “Everybody calls him Shinichiro. He said he likes the name Izumi better though. But I think that since he has a pocket full of candies and gums every day, and he's also a little chubby, so I think he should just call himself Doraemon."
Intrigued, Nao smiles at the familiarity of the situation, aside obviously that this boy was parading every single nickname he had for his best friend and coincidentally shares his family name, too. Who is keeping track of the number of Izumida Shinichiro in Japan, anyway?
"So," Nao starts again, "This boy, Doraemon...Izumida...is he a bad boy? Why did you have to steal from him?"
The boy sighed, looking a bit regretful as he begins to recall his actions. "I want him to be my friend. Actually," the boy looks at him now, "he gives candies to all of his close friends. One time I went up to him and asked him to give me candies, but he refused. He said it was not his candies, but Doraemon's candies, so he had to take care of them. That time, I didn't know his name yet and I didn't know he showers his friends with candies, so I just casually went up to him because I wanted candies that day. We go to the same playground every weekend, so I thought he wouldn't be stingy with me, but he was."
"Is this boy a bully? Does he like drums?" Nao wonders aloud as the story triggers a memory.
"Pardon? Drums? I heard his brother likes to play it. I think he plays it, too. He's not a bully, but his face sometimes doesn't have an expression that's why some of the kids are unsure whether to talk to him or not. He's shorter than me, so I'm not afraid of him!" The boy started to chuckle, "He couldn't even play soccer without losing breath after a minute! What do you get from table tennis, anyway?"
"Sounds like someone I know." Nao reacts with a toothy smile. Of course, that memory of the candy and a boy named Izumida.
"Uhmm if you're wondering how I stole from Doreamon," the boy initiates, "I tricked him into leaving his bag of candies in the sandbox of the playground. He believed me when I said it would multiply into a hundred if he leaves them for one night in the sand. I don't even know how to count until a hundred, but I think it's really a lot, and Doraemon seems to think that way too, so he easily believed me.
Yesterday night I snuck out of our house to get the candies from the sandbox, but my mother caught me by surprise. I didn't know she followed me outside and got really angry when she found out where I went. I unknowingly dropped the candies when she dragged me home..." the boy finishes his story, looking completely defeated.
"So you never got his candies, huh?" Nao says, sympathizing. He definitely knows the feeling of failure, no matter how small the goal had been. And he's definitely sure how solid of a symbol candies could be for a friendship to bloom. He felt bad for the little boy, looking so glum with a frown and anxious hands which wouldn't stop picking on its nails.
The boy nods. "I felt worse when I saw Doraemon looking so disappointed not to find his candies in the sandbox this morning."
"Did he get angry at you?"
"No, he didn't." Shaking his head, the boy continues, "He just looked really...sad. He said he was supposed to give the candies to someone he wanted to be his friend starting today. I think he should have given them to that person yesterday. I dunno. I think he's very particular with time."
"He scolded us when we were late, too..." Nao comments with stifled laughter.
"Who?" the boy asks with sheer wonder. The boy must have been surprised with his sudden strange references.
"Well...I have a friend who has the same name as your Doraemon. His name is Izumi. When we were young, I also liked candies. There's this boy who always had candies with him every day. I would always ask him for the sweets but he would just refuse and tell me that those were not his candies, those were for a boy named ‘Izumi’. I didn't know his name before that, so I just assumed he was a different person. Then one day, we met again in a band rehearsal. I think he remembered me mostly as the ‘candy-beggar’." the bassist finished with a sigh and a hint of nostalgia.
"Did you become friends?" the boy asks.
"Of course! And I got to have candies every day!" Nao laughs, and along came the giggles from the little boy, too. "Even free meat and lodging in Tokyo!"
"Lucky~!" the boy cooed. Nao finds it adorable when the little kid smiles and finds it heart-warming that he was somehow able to lift the spirits of the once very dejected-looking child staring at his candies.
"You should tell him the truth and give these back." With the image of candies in his mind, Nao takes the small pieces of treasure out of his pocket to place on the boy's palm. "You're going to be friends for a long time if you do that because you were honest."
"Do you really think so, mister?" the boy asks full of wonder, and a glint of hope reflecting in his eyes at the same time.
"Yeah, definitely." He knows it for sure. If these two kids are fated to have the same luck he received to have met his best friend of god-knows how many years it has been, then they are blessed with great lives ahead-together.
While looking at the now jollier kid mindlessly playing with the candies on his palm, Nao notices something. Taking one of the candies, he reads a writing on the candy with the letter "N". The color of the pen used was only slightly darker against the cover of the candy wrapper, so the writing would be a sure-miss at first glance.
"There's a letter on this candy, it has an 'N'. Who is 'N'?" Nao asks the boy who also started inspecting the remaining four candies on his palm.
"N...O....K....I...A....?"
"What's that?"
"Isn't it a mobile phone?" the little boy murmurs with curiosity as he scratches his head.
The situation now seems to resonate those situations wherein nothing seems to be there to see, but there really is one. Even if you have seen it, you have to make something of it. Whatever the "it" is.
"NO...KI...A...." the bassist mumbles while trying to make another word out of the given letters. "KI...AN---"
"NAO!"
Startled, Nao directs his attention to the boy who suddenly called his name-without honorifics.
"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!"
The boy frowned at his response, but ignores his sharp reaction, nonetheless, as a smile is obviously blooming on his lips. "NAO!" He chimed again, "It's not NOKIA, mister! It is N-A-O-K-I! NAOKI! NAOKI is my name!"
"You are...who?"
"My name is Naoki! It is nice to meet you, mister. I'm Naoki! And these are my candies!" with a beaming smile, the little boy proudly raises his set of candies as if they are the best of sweets in the entire world. Surely unique though, as those are the only candies with his names, after all. Nao returns the smile at the boy, ruffling his hair with affection while thinking life's strange, extremely amusing turns.
Here he is with a boy who shares his name, with a friend who shares his best friend's name, and a history of candies that tied them in the past and can possibly tie the lives of another set of Nao and Izumi in the future.
"He was going to give those to you, after all, Naoki."
The boy nods, still looking elated at his achievement of solving a game. "Mister," the boy then turns to Nao, "I'm going to find Doraemon now and tell him the truth as you advised. My mother told me never to tell lies. She also told me to never talk to strangers, but I think you're okay. You're a stranger, but I think you're okay. Really, really, okay." The boy smiles as he finish his sentence.
Nao smiles at this. He's been given a thousand compliments-some sincere, some empty-but this one compliment coming from a boy in still in his stage of innocence, is strangely one of the most uplifting compliment he has received.
The boy suddenly slides off the bench and heads to the direction he came from earlier. Nao follows with his eyes the excited boy about to open some new doors of his life in a while. Whatever happens today, he sincerely wishes for both of the boys' happiness together, or even apart.
Checking the time, Nao remembers to check for messages on his phone when he was alerted by a familiar voice again.
"THANK YOU, MISTER STRANGER!!!" Of course, the voice was owned by his earlier companion, the small Naoki.
He was waving his hand at him with a smile brighter than that afternoon's sun. And maybe he can make it brighter than it already is, so he yells, "NAO!!!” the bassist yells back, “THAT'S MY NAME TOO! MY NAME IS NAOKI!!!"
Nao observes as the expression on the child's face turned from confusion, to wonder, and to realization. He yells a louder THANK YOU than before and heads out in search of his friend.
With an amused smile, the bassist returns to his business of checking his phone for new mails and a missed call from the exact person in his mind now: IZUMI.
To: Izumon
Subject: Candies
xx/xx/2012 14:01
Can I have your candy?
To: Naoran
Subect: Re:Candies
xx/xx/2012 14:03
No.
To: Izumon
Subject: Re:Candies
xx/xx/2012 14:05
Why?
To: Izumon
Subject: Re:Candies
xx/xx/2012 14:08
They are not mine. They are Izumi's candies.
To: Izumon
Subject: Re:Candies
xx/xx/2012 14:09
(TT_________TT)
To: Izumon
Subject: Re:Candies
xx/xx/2012 14:11
Buy candies on your way here.
I have an incredible story for that.
And what do you think of Hokkaido?
Let's visit!
Ahahahhahaha~
This is so weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiirrrd!
Come here! Quick!
CANDIIIIIIIIIIIIESSSS!!!!
To: Naoran:
Subjecy: Re:Candies
xx/xx/2012 14:11
Almost there.
See ya!
Returning the phone in his pocket, Nao returns his attention to the now unoccupied space beside him at the bench. Despite the empty feeling that subtly lingered without the little boy beside him anymore, the bassist know full well that the spot would be taken again shortly, once his best friend arrives.
As always, Izumi with the candies will arrive.
Some friends will never change, Nao muses with a smile.
Author's Note:
Long-delayed fic, but at last I was able to deliver. The drive to write suddenly attacked me at two o'clock in the morning, it was ridiculous. Nonetheless, here's a simple story of our boys.
I opted for a different direction for this story, but this is how it developed in the end. I think I had more than five scenarios in my head for this story. Haha~ Of course I'm still referring this childhood story of Nao and Izumi from their SHOXX August 2002 interview. It's really cute how they became friends. ^^ With the Doraemon nickname, it escapes me if I read this nickname of Izumi somewhere or if it's just an image I have of him sometimes. Lol. Do pardon the reference, if I'm mistaken.
To angelicoma, sorry for the belated gift! Hope you like it!
Characters: Nao, Izumi and a boy (hehe)
Genre: humor, fluff, friendship-fic
Rating: PG
Synopsis: One random afternoon in a park, Nao picks five pieces of candies that takes him back to a fond memory of the past.
Comment: Belated happy birthday, angelicoma! ^_^v
Five pieces of candies still wrapped in vivid colors glittered under the rays of the sun that afternoon. They were there, just there, looking poor and lonely on the dusty ground of the park.
Despite not having special attachment to sweets, Nao picks them up. It's not every day one stumbles upon freebies randomly on the floor, so why waste the opportunity?
Taking a seat on a vacant bench, the bassist dusts the candies one by one, making sure the humble foil wrap would shine brighter against the sun after his touch. He holds the candies in his hand and stares at it with a content smile. They were his little treasures now. Little treasures that would turn as salvation for his stomach during rehearsals.
He made a mental note to not forget the candy, another one to not forget to eat it, and another one to remember to not pout so much with a candy in one's mouth. Good luck with his reflex.
Casually pocketing the sweet finds, Nao looks about the park, fanning himself a bit against the heat when he spots a little boy, probably around the age of seven, staring at him---or at his hand which had the candies.
"Were those yours?" Nao turns to the boy and asks with amusement, regardless of almost being certain of the answer.
"Y-yes. I think...so." The boy responds, looking tad worried despite the determined steps he was making towards Nao's bench.
"You're not sure?" confused, Nao inquires more, "But they seem so familiar to you. It must be yours!"
Shaking his head, the boy retorts, "No. Not really," and gulps, "I stole them."
Sincerely shocked, the bassist has to look away from the boy--who's now sharing the bench with him--to hide his crumpled face. Even though stealing is a crime, a boy is still a boy: sensitive, prone to mistakes, but with valid reasons mostly logical for his age. It wouldn't be nice to upset the young man with the reaction he had.
With a few questions in his head, Nao turned to the boy and starts to question. "Who did you steal the candies from?"
"Doreamon." the boy answers with a slight frown, as if he doesn't have pleasant memories with this boy named Doreamon.
"Doreamon?" Nao asks further seriously, despite feeling a chuckle creeping between his cheeks.
"Uhn.” The boy confirms with a nod. “Everybody calls him Shinichiro. He said he likes the name Izumi better though. But I think that since he has a pocket full of candies and gums every day, and he's also a little chubby, so I think he should just call himself Doraemon."
Intrigued, Nao smiles at the familiarity of the situation, aside obviously that this boy was parading every single nickname he had for his best friend and coincidentally shares his family name, too. Who is keeping track of the number of Izumida Shinichiro in Japan, anyway?
"So," Nao starts again, "This boy, Doraemon...Izumida...is he a bad boy? Why did you have to steal from him?"
The boy sighed, looking a bit regretful as he begins to recall his actions. "I want him to be my friend. Actually," the boy looks at him now, "he gives candies to all of his close friends. One time I went up to him and asked him to give me candies, but he refused. He said it was not his candies, but Doraemon's candies, so he had to take care of them. That time, I didn't know his name yet and I didn't know he showers his friends with candies, so I just casually went up to him because I wanted candies that day. We go to the same playground every weekend, so I thought he wouldn't be stingy with me, but he was."
"Is this boy a bully? Does he like drums?" Nao wonders aloud as the story triggers a memory.
"Pardon? Drums? I heard his brother likes to play it. I think he plays it, too. He's not a bully, but his face sometimes doesn't have an expression that's why some of the kids are unsure whether to talk to him or not. He's shorter than me, so I'm not afraid of him!" The boy started to chuckle, "He couldn't even play soccer without losing breath after a minute! What do you get from table tennis, anyway?"
"Sounds like someone I know." Nao reacts with a toothy smile. Of course, that memory of the candy and a boy named Izumida.
"Uhmm if you're wondering how I stole from Doreamon," the boy initiates, "I tricked him into leaving his bag of candies in the sandbox of the playground. He believed me when I said it would multiply into a hundred if he leaves them for one night in the sand. I don't even know how to count until a hundred, but I think it's really a lot, and Doraemon seems to think that way too, so he easily believed me.
Yesterday night I snuck out of our house to get the candies from the sandbox, but my mother caught me by surprise. I didn't know she followed me outside and got really angry when she found out where I went. I unknowingly dropped the candies when she dragged me home..." the boy finishes his story, looking completely defeated.
"So you never got his candies, huh?" Nao says, sympathizing. He definitely knows the feeling of failure, no matter how small the goal had been. And he's definitely sure how solid of a symbol candies could be for a friendship to bloom. He felt bad for the little boy, looking so glum with a frown and anxious hands which wouldn't stop picking on its nails.
The boy nods. "I felt worse when I saw Doraemon looking so disappointed not to find his candies in the sandbox this morning."
"Did he get angry at you?"
"No, he didn't." Shaking his head, the boy continues, "He just looked really...sad. He said he was supposed to give the candies to someone he wanted to be his friend starting today. I think he should have given them to that person yesterday. I dunno. I think he's very particular with time."
"He scolded us when we were late, too..." Nao comments with stifled laughter.
"Who?" the boy asks with sheer wonder. The boy must have been surprised with his sudden strange references.
"Well...I have a friend who has the same name as your Doraemon. His name is Izumi. When we were young, I also liked candies. There's this boy who always had candies with him every day. I would always ask him for the sweets but he would just refuse and tell me that those were not his candies, those were for a boy named ‘Izumi’. I didn't know his name before that, so I just assumed he was a different person. Then one day, we met again in a band rehearsal. I think he remembered me mostly as the ‘candy-beggar’." the bassist finished with a sigh and a hint of nostalgia.
"Did you become friends?" the boy asks.
"Of course! And I got to have candies every day!" Nao laughs, and along came the giggles from the little boy, too. "Even free meat and lodging in Tokyo!"
"Lucky~!" the boy cooed. Nao finds it adorable when the little kid smiles and finds it heart-warming that he was somehow able to lift the spirits of the once very dejected-looking child staring at his candies.
"You should tell him the truth and give these back." With the image of candies in his mind, Nao takes the small pieces of treasure out of his pocket to place on the boy's palm. "You're going to be friends for a long time if you do that because you were honest."
"Do you really think so, mister?" the boy asks full of wonder, and a glint of hope reflecting in his eyes at the same time.
"Yeah, definitely." He knows it for sure. If these two kids are fated to have the same luck he received to have met his best friend of god-knows how many years it has been, then they are blessed with great lives ahead-together.
While looking at the now jollier kid mindlessly playing with the candies on his palm, Nao notices something. Taking one of the candies, he reads a writing on the candy with the letter "N". The color of the pen used was only slightly darker against the cover of the candy wrapper, so the writing would be a sure-miss at first glance.
"There's a letter on this candy, it has an 'N'. Who is 'N'?" Nao asks the boy who also started inspecting the remaining four candies on his palm.
"N...O....K....I...A....?"
"What's that?"
"Isn't it a mobile phone?" the little boy murmurs with curiosity as he scratches his head.
The situation now seems to resonate those situations wherein nothing seems to be there to see, but there really is one. Even if you have seen it, you have to make something of it. Whatever the "it" is.
"NO...KI...A...." the bassist mumbles while trying to make another word out of the given letters. "KI...AN---"
"NAO!"
Startled, Nao directs his attention to the boy who suddenly called his name-without honorifics.
"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!"
The boy frowned at his response, but ignores his sharp reaction, nonetheless, as a smile is obviously blooming on his lips. "NAO!" He chimed again, "It's not NOKIA, mister! It is N-A-O-K-I! NAOKI! NAOKI is my name!"
"You are...who?"
"My name is Naoki! It is nice to meet you, mister. I'm Naoki! And these are my candies!" with a beaming smile, the little boy proudly raises his set of candies as if they are the best of sweets in the entire world. Surely unique though, as those are the only candies with his names, after all. Nao returns the smile at the boy, ruffling his hair with affection while thinking life's strange, extremely amusing turns.
Here he is with a boy who shares his name, with a friend who shares his best friend's name, and a history of candies that tied them in the past and can possibly tie the lives of another set of Nao and Izumi in the future.
"He was going to give those to you, after all, Naoki."
The boy nods, still looking elated at his achievement of solving a game. "Mister," the boy then turns to Nao, "I'm going to find Doraemon now and tell him the truth as you advised. My mother told me never to tell lies. She also told me to never talk to strangers, but I think you're okay. You're a stranger, but I think you're okay. Really, really, okay." The boy smiles as he finish his sentence.
Nao smiles at this. He's been given a thousand compliments-some sincere, some empty-but this one compliment coming from a boy in still in his stage of innocence, is strangely one of the most uplifting compliment he has received.
The boy suddenly slides off the bench and heads to the direction he came from earlier. Nao follows with his eyes the excited boy about to open some new doors of his life in a while. Whatever happens today, he sincerely wishes for both of the boys' happiness together, or even apart.
Checking the time, Nao remembers to check for messages on his phone when he was alerted by a familiar voice again.
"THANK YOU, MISTER STRANGER!!!" Of course, the voice was owned by his earlier companion, the small Naoki.
He was waving his hand at him with a smile brighter than that afternoon's sun. And maybe he can make it brighter than it already is, so he yells, "NAO!!!” the bassist yells back, “THAT'S MY NAME TOO! MY NAME IS NAOKI!!!"
Nao observes as the expression on the child's face turned from confusion, to wonder, and to realization. He yells a louder THANK YOU than before and heads out in search of his friend.
With an amused smile, the bassist returns to his business of checking his phone for new mails and a missed call from the exact person in his mind now: IZUMI.
To: Izumon
Subject: Candies
xx/xx/2012 14:01
Can I have your candy?
To: Naoran
Subect: Re:Candies
xx/xx/2012 14:03
No.
To: Izumon
Subject: Re:Candies
xx/xx/2012 14:05
Why?
To: Izumon
Subject: Re:Candies
xx/xx/2012 14:08
They are not mine. They are Izumi's candies.
To: Izumon
Subject: Re:Candies
xx/xx/2012 14:09
(TT_________TT)
To: Izumon
Subject: Re:Candies
xx/xx/2012 14:11
Buy candies on your way here.
I have an incredible story for that.
And what do you think of Hokkaido?
Let's visit!
Ahahahhahaha~
This is so weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiirrrd!
Come here! Quick!
CANDIIIIIIIIIIIIESSSS!!!!
To: Naoran:
Subjecy: Re:Candies
xx/xx/2012 14:11
Almost there.
See ya!
Returning the phone in his pocket, Nao returns his attention to the now unoccupied space beside him at the bench. Despite the empty feeling that subtly lingered without the little boy beside him anymore, the bassist know full well that the spot would be taken again shortly, once his best friend arrives.
As always, Izumi with the candies will arrive.
Some friends will never change, Nao muses with a smile.
Author's Note:
Long-delayed fic, but at last I was able to deliver. The drive to write suddenly attacked me at two o'clock in the morning, it was ridiculous. Nonetheless, here's a simple story of our boys.
I opted for a different direction for this story, but this is how it developed in the end. I think I had more than five scenarios in my head for this story. Haha~ Of course I'm still referring this childhood story of Nao and Izumi from their SHOXX August 2002 interview. It's really cute how they became friends. ^^ With the Doraemon nickname, it escapes me if I read this nickname of Izumi somewhere or if it's just an image I have of him sometimes. Lol. Do pardon the reference, if I'm mistaken.
To angelicoma, sorry for the belated gift! Hope you like it!