Chocolate Fic for frostbittenlove
To: frostbittenlove
From: novemberbaby
Title: Stolen
Pairing: Sakurai Sho/Horikita Maki, a dash of Nino/Meisa
Rating: G
Summary: Maki has her heart stolen by a nameless, coffee-drinking, newspaper-reading guy. Sho has his stolen by a girl who smiles too much.
A/N: For frostbittenlove. I believe nothing will ever beat the gem that you received last year! I’m terribly afraid that you might be disappointed with this one but a part of me also hopes you will find this to your liking.
Many thanks to my beta. ❤❤❤
He sees her for the first time at his neighbor Ohno's Beaux Arts Café on a Friday afternoon. He is armed with a cup of coffee and a newspaper just like almost every other day. She is drinking tea and reading a bestseller book Tegami two tables away from his.
In between them is a table with two babbling babies-twins to be exact-their energized little bodies flailing arms and toys from their high chairs while their frantic parents try to keep them quiet .Sho thinks the babies were cute when he first saw them. Now their babbling has become a nuisance as he's trying to read about the stock market and its recent downfalls. Things he could possibly talk about in his class. Things he can't possibly remember now because all he can hear is indecipherable fragments.
He eventually closes his newspaper when he realizes that he's just misread a primary school level kanji because one of the twins just babbled a similar sound to it. Sighing, he takes a sip of his lukewarm beverage and repeats the correct pronunciation of the word over and over in his head.
Then he happens to look around the café at the same time she does-this girl in a red sweater and a low ponytail that rests at the nape of her neck-and for a fleeting moment he catches her eye.
He doesn’t look away, hoping he's right.
And then she smiles, warmly.
He smiles back because it is the polite thing to do and because he thinks, maybe, it would keep hers on her face longer.
But then she blinks at him and looks away, leaving him to wonder if it was all just a figment of his imagination.
She's lost count of the number of times that she's seen him at Beaux Arts Café.
It seems as if he's always there with his coffee and his newspaper. He’s always refilling his cup, maybe twice every hour, and he consumes it like it’s water to him. He’d take a sip each time his eyes move to a different article and maybe two sips when she sees his brows furrow while reading an editorial. It’s as if he’s ready to argue, to prove his point and he needs all the caffeine he can get to do so.
These small discoveries about his habits amuse her and she’s wondered about a couple hundred times what he does for a living or who he is to be reading the newspaper so religiously. On some days, she likes to think he’s a newscaster who shows up on people’s television screens with a nice suit and tie. Other days she thinks he’s an author who’s on a break from writing his future bestselling novel or a journalist reading the rival newspaper and disapproving of the way they write.
Sometimes she just stares at him when the café is crowded and he doesn’t seem to notice. Then she’d daydream about how they’d meet because she knows she’ll never have the courage to approach him and he won’t ever notice her.
She’s careful not to stare at him too long though, just in case he happens to look up and catch her, but today, this Friday afternoon, he's caught her eye for the first time.
They're separated by a table with a pair of adorable, babbling babies when this happens. At first she thinks he might be looking at the babies but finds out that she's wrong.
She smiles at him, nervously, though she's sure it wouldn't show as much-she won't allow it.
Then he smiles back and she realizes this is precisely why she didn't want to get caught in the first place. His smile is too dazzling, too shiny.
She holds her breath until she looks down at her book again where the words don’t blind her.
Sho finds himself sitting alone at his university’s library later that evening with his nose buried in a book about Cambodia’s economic history. Most of his friends are up and about, probably lining up outside restaurants and bars with their dates. It’s a Friday after all and it’s a day to be dancing and spinning under the starlight.
The only thing that seems to be spinning for him is the words on the page. Having read the same chapter three time, he still can’t, for the life of him, figure out what he’s actually reading.
He shuts the book and when he closes his eyes, he thinks of a faint, curvy figure in red.
A soft buzz from his phone interrupts him and regret hits him the moment he checks his messages.
It’s from his flat mate Nino and he’s apparently forgotten to bring his wallet to dinner. Of course Nino doesn’t spell it out that way for him, but Sho knows what the deal is each time Nino sends only an address and nothing else.
He looks at his phone and back at his book, wondering if he should leave and join his friend. Eat, drink, be merry.
Five minutes pass before he checks the book out and leaves the library and gets into a cab for downtown.
I am going to break up with him, Meisa’s message reads. For good.
Maki smiles at her best friend's declaration she walks out of the supermarket. Meisa's been dating the same guy on and off for the past year, and Maki can tell how much she likes the guy even though he seems to be deliberately pushing the wrong buttons sometimes. He's not a bad guy, Maki thinks, just someone you'd need a lot of patience with. He's also hard to read, it seems, and Meisa's still trying to figure him out.
Maki decides not to ask what went wrong this time, at least not over text messages. I’m on my way to pick you up now. Should be there in about twenty minutes. We can have hot pot at my place.
She slips her phone into her bag and starts heading toward the closest train station armed with two bags of groceries and a dozen of Horoyoi beers for tonight's get-together.
She passes Beaux Arts Café on her way and tries not to peer inside to the table where he'd sat today. But she does it anyway because she's certain that whatever happened today won't happen again. To him, it was a fleeting moment and she was just random girl who happened to look up.
For her, it's something she'd been avoiding and wanting for a long while.
It takes her another five minutes before she makes her way down the stairs for the train to downtown.
Nino, Sho learns, isn’t alone when he walks into the fairly crowded soba restaurant situated on a side street in Shibuya.
In fact, Nino is with Meisa, his on-again, off-again girlfriend of a year, and she looks unimpressed with Nino’s arm around her shoulders.
Her expression softens when she spots Sho and gives him a polite nod when he approaches their table all while removing Nino’s arm from herself. “Sho-san, sorry you had to come all the way here for this. His bill has been taken care of.”
“It’s fine, really,” Sho replies, thinking he should go to a bar somewhere in the area, have a whiskey and attempt to read the book again. “I should probably go then.”
“I’ll see you back at-” Nino starts, waving his hand at his flat mate off with a smug grin but Meisa cuts him off.
“Please stay, Sho-san. Have a beer or soba. Nino will pay for it with the money he apparently did not have earlier.”
“I have no mo-” Meisa narrows her eyes and raises her brows at her boyfriend. “Fine, fine, have a beer, Sho-san. It’s on me.” He puts his arm around her again.
“Funny how you call him Sho-san but you treat him like he’s younger than you,” Meisa comments, pushing Nino’s arm off her shoulders.
Sho chuckles at this, much to Nino’s dismay. Sho’s met Meisa enough times to know that she’s perfect for Nino because she refuses to put up with his bullshit.
“You can’t stay mad at me forever,” Nino says, showing her his puppy dog look which works on everyone. Almost.
She narrows her eyes at him with her brows raised. “Watch me, Ninomiya.”
“I think I’ll have a beer,” Sho says, hoping to help his flat mate redeem himself. He sets his book down on the table and orders a Kirin when a waitress arrives to take his order.
“My best friend is coming to pick me up,” Meisa announces as she flings Nino’s arm away from her shoulders for the third time. She looks up at the entryway and a smile spreads across her face. “Actually, she’s already here.”
Sho follows Meisa’s gaze to the front of the restaurant and is met with a girl in red.
“Sho-san, this is my best friend, Horikita Maki. Maki, this is Sakurai Sho-san, this brat’s unfortunate roommate.”
It’s a small world, they say.
It’s an even smaller world when her best friend knows the man she’s been watching and calls him by his first name. She doesn’t-didn’t-even know his name. She’s thought about it, of course, but in her head, he’s the nameless coffee-drinking, newspaper-reading guy she seems to have a crush on.
Giving him a name just makes it harder for her to detach herself from her feeling because, in her experience, none of the guys she’s watched in the past stay in her life for long.
She smiles, careful not to look him directly in the eye. “It’s nice to meet you, Sakurai-san.”
His greeting is simultaneous as if he’d been holding it in far too long. “Pleased to meet you, Horikita-san.” His voice sounds the same way she’d imagined it: friendly, smooth, and proper.
Nino scoffs at this introduction, and Maki wonders if she’s smiled too much or sounded overly excited. Or worse, look completely in love with him already. She doesn’t have time to think about any of this, though, because Meisa stands up while glaring at Nino.
“Let’s go, Maki.” Meisa puts her coat on, takes one of the grocery bags from her and bows slightly at Sho. “Sho-san, it’s always nice to see you. Enjoy your beer and the rest of your night.”
Meisa walks away without looking at Nino, leaving Maki to bid the two men a proper good night.
“Good night,” comes Sho’s reply.
Those two words and his voice echo repeatedly in her head the entire train ride home.
“How well do you know her?” Sho waits until they’ve finished the first round of beers to ask Nino this.
Nino shows him a wicked grin and orders a second round, and it’s so uncharacteristic of a man who has just angered his own girlfriend. But it’s Nino, Sho thinks, and this is how he is.
“Who are you referring to?” Nino asks and squints his eyes playfully at his flat mate.
“You know who I’m talking about.”
Nino leans forward with his arms crossed, his grin growing smugger. “Oh, is this love at first sight?”
Sho shakes his head. “I don’t believe in that but I’m just curious about her.” Curious is an understatement, but he can’t seem to find the right word to describe what he feel. If there is a right word, he’s not the in the right state of mind to think of it.
“I know.”
Sho raises an eyebrow. “Well?”
Their second round of Kirin beers arrive just in time for Nino to speak.
Meisa ends drinking up most of the beer that night, and Maki listens quietly while she rants about Nino. The more she does, the more Maki realizes that her best friend might care for Nino deeply than it looks.
The topic eventually switches when Maki is in the middle of setting out a futon for her best friend. There’s no question that Meisa isn’t going home alone tonight.
“What do you think of Sho-san?" Meisa asks, sitting down on the loveseat that Maki’s recently purchased for her small studio.
“He seems friendly.” It is the newest adjective she’s added to her list for him.
Meisa brings her knees to her chest and smiles faintly. “I thought about introducing you to him before."
Maki kneels down to fluff a couple of pillows. “Why?”
"I don't know. I thought you might like him,” Meisa says, closing her cat-like eyes.
There is a pause as Maki searches for something to say, the right words to say. In the end, she hums softly as there’s no longer a need to answer; Meisa's fallen asleep on the sofa.
Sho heads over to Beaux Arts Café the following morning with the intention of catching up on the missed reading from yesterday. His plan is thwarted the moment he finishes greeting Ohno and he ends up being dragged into the kitchen.
"Sho-chan, you need to help me!" The culprit is Aiba, Ohno's chef who insisted on putting mabo tofu rice plates on a French café menu. Both culprit and victim have known each other since the opening of this café a little over four years ago. Sho-chan is what Aiba prefers to call him and Sho found out a long time ago that he can’t really say no to this younger and taller man.
Sho lets out an uneasy laugh. “What is it?”
"I need a plan. A plan, you know? You’re great with plans. I need one. By tomorrow evening." Aiba is great with food but not so much with words or logic, but it works out fine for Sho anyway.
“I’ll need more details than just that, so why don’t we go over a few questions first?”
And so his plan to read is postponed.
She arrives at the café and places an order for Earl Grey tea, then retreats to her table while they prepare it.
Nothing seems to have changed on the surface, but Maki feels otherwise.
He's not here today, she realizes, as she slides into her seat and looks at the antique clock placed in between two whimsical sketches. Then she shakes her head at herself as she opens up her book and smooths out the pages. It's not supposed to be like this, she thinks, as her eyes start to search for the line she'd left off at.
She had been perfectly fine just watching him on her own, unnoticed and nameless. Reality and fate are apparently against her on this and now she's developed a longing to see him, to hear him say more than just “Good night” in that friendly voice of his.
It turns out that Aiba wants to propose to his girlfriend, Becky.
Sho doesn’t know why Aiba thinks he can help with this but he comes up with several plans for the younger man and wishes him good luck.
He walks out to the counter area and pours himself cup of coffee on his own (Ohno doesn’t care or notice but Sho still pays for it anyway), when he sees her. Correction; he sees her back and is almost certain that it’s her.
With his cup of coffee in hand, he makes his way toward her table and discovers that he’s right.
He peers discreetly into her cup and finds that she's ordered an Earl Grey tea. "I hear they're pretty famous here for their coffee," he starts teasingly.
She's startled at first of course, but then a look of recognition and relief brightens up her face when she turns around and meets his eyes. "Oh, Sakurai-san, it's you.”
Regret clouds his face. "Sorry for scaring you like that. I thought you'd at least..." Notice my shadow or something, he wants to say, but that'd be self-flattery. "I shouldn't have interrupted your reading."
"Oh, no, don't worry about it. I was just trying to figure out this book I'm supposed to be reading for my senior thesis paper," she admits sheepishly, putting her hands on her lap.
"That's why I'm here too," replies Sho, holding up his hardcover book on Cambodia's economic history with a helpless smile.
She looks at his book, his coffee and then back at him, a coy grin already forming-she sure loves to smile, Sho realizes-as she picks her cup up and brings it to her lips. "You're not here for the coffee?" she teases, then sips her tea.
He laughs, his shoulders at ease. “Do you mind if I sit with you?”
She studies him for a brief moment before nodding.
He’d seemed so genuinely upset with himself for startling her that she knew she had to remedy his guilt.
The next thing she knows, they spend two and a half hours talking.
“You know, my mother’s a Literature professor,” he says once he learns that she’s writing her thesis on law and literature. “She probably has a couple of books that might be helpful. I can bring them to you the next time we meet.”
She looks at him, wide-eyed. “Is it okay?”
He smiles that blinding smile of his, only this time she doesn’t look away. “Of course it’s okay. I’ll bring them next time.”
“Thank you, Sakurai-san.” She begins to wonder if a simple thank you would be enough or if there’s anything she could offer him, but he doesn’t ask for it. Instead, she finds that he’s keeping his gaze on her, smile still intact, and then sips from his third cup of the day.
It’s only after he leaves for his class that she realizes that he’s promised her a next time.
He goes through a round of questioning from his mother when he tells her about the books later that night.
“Maybe I should meet this girl and talk to her. I do know a thing or two about-”
“No.” He tries not to say this word to his mother often, but he knows this time that she’s trying to tease him and he knows he’s right when she smiles smugly. “You don’t need to meet her. It’d be awkward.”
“Am I ever going to meet her?”
He decides not to answer that.
She receives the books from him the next time they meet as he’d promised.
Soon she learns that his definition of next time is actually the beginning of a series of next times.
Eventually these next times amount to several weeks, then several months.
They share a table whenever they’re at the café.
Sometimes they’d talk and drink their beverages, and he’d share snippets about Ohno and Aiba. Sometimes Ohno and Aiba would stop by their table and join in on their conversations. So far she’s gotten to know people she hasn’t even met: Nana, the object of Ohno’s affections, and Becky, Aiba’s girlfriend. Somewhere in her heart, she wants to meet them in person one day.
When they’re not talking, they’d just sit there quietly, reading and sharing a smile if they ever look up at the same time.
She’s gotten used to the fact that his smile still blinds her.
He rushes into the café one morning, hair tousled and panting as if he’d been running. “Sorry I overslept this morning.”
She smiles as she motions for him to sit down. There’s no need for him to apologize because they never set a date or time to meet but she does not point that out to him. Instead she tells him that the price tag to his shirt is still affixed at the back and peeking out.
He mutters something under his breath and grabs the tag immediately over his shoulder. “This is very embarrassing,” he admits helplessly.
“I have scissors,” she offers, then opens up her handbag and brandishes a pair of small fabric scissors from an emergency sewing kit. He turns his back upon seeing his and she’s slightly nervous as she leans in closer to help.
“Thank you, Maki-chan.”
She freezes in place as she’s never thought the first time he’d call her Maki-chan would be when she’s this close. Close enough to see the small hairs on the back of his neck.
“You’re welcome, Sakurai-san,” she manages to say without losing control of the blades. She snips the tag off with a wide smile while her heart flutters. It’s just a simple gesture of helping a friend, really, and he’s only thanking her, not handing his heart or money over, but it makes her happy all the same.
“You can call me Sho.”
She’s not sure she actually can, even though she’s secretly called him by his first name in her head many times now.
“You can call me Sho-kun if you that makes you more comfortable. And please forgive me for calling you Maki-chan so suddenly. I probably shouldn’t ha-”
“I don’t mind,” she murmurs, setting the scissors and price tag on the table with a smile. “I don’t mind, Sho-kun.”
She lowers her gaze when he turns around to face her but her heart won’t stop palpitating.
She does nothing to stop it.
It doesn’t take long before his interest in her turns into something more.
He thinks she looks like a doll, all soft and fragile, but she always surprises him when they have conversations and they don’t always come to an agreement. She’s quiet but thoughtful, and he likes that she holds her own thoughts and views, and doesn’t let him walk all over her for what she believes in.
Yet she can be incredibly and adorably shy at the same time. Sometimes he’d look up from his reading and peer across the small round table and watch as the light hits her face and all he sees a natural tinge of pink. She’d look up at him briefly, blink confusingly and then those spots of pink would turn bright crimson.
Sometimes when the café is crowded, their knees would bump into each other as customers squeeze their way through, and she’d lean in so close to make way that he’s able to smell her soft, faint fragrance.
She always apologizes, of course, for invading his space. It’s always a gentle and genuine apology even though there’s really nothing for her to be sorry about.
It makes him wonder each time if she’d apologize for taking his heart.
He falls a little more in love with her one evening when he walks her home.
This happens during final exam week when they stay late at the café to study and he offers to take her home. She declines at first, which he had expected her to, but then he tells her that it’s not an inconvenience and that her flat is in the same direction that he’s headed anyway.
So they walk side by side in the dark night, chatting casually as they always do.
His heart flutters when their shoulders touch and when his fingers accidentally brush against hers. “Sorry,” he’d say each time it happens, and it happens a lot.
Her hand is that close, and he wishes he could just reach over and take hold of it.
He keeps thinking about it all the way until they reach her building where she thanks him and bids him a good night coupled with a smile that he’s never seen before on her.
She knows.
He almost panics, wondering if his intentions had been that easy to read or whether his apologies didn’t sound sincere enough.
His panic only subsides significantly when he realizes that she doesn’t start avoiding him after that.
He is the first one to receive an engagement party invitation from Aiba.
The first thing that comes to mind when he sees that ivory cardstock is wonder if she’d be willing to be his date. He shares this thought with no one, but Nino sees right through him when they go out for drinks one night, approximately three weeks before the party.
“You’re moving too slow,” Nino remarks. “Just ask her already.”
Sho almost chokes on his Kirin when he hears that. “It’s not that easy,” he says, wiping his mouth with a napkin. It’s never easy. “What about you? Have you asked Meisa-san?”
“Aiba told me to invite her. She’s going.” It’s very Nino-like to answer what he wants and most of the time it only leaves people wanting to hear more. But Sho thinks it’s better not to ask him because he knows he’s not going to get anywhere unless Nino wants to really talk about it.
“I hope she does,” Sho says after a moment of silence. Chances are, he figures, Maki would be more likely to go if her best friend would be there as well.
“I know you do.” His flat mate replies self-contentedly.
Sho laughs. His intentions are getting more and more obvious, he thinks. He wonders if he needs to draw the entire picture out for her or if she already knows that he’s in love with her.
It takes him another week to finally ask her.
“Aiba’s getting engaged to Becky,” he tells her while he walks her home in the evening. He’s been doing this a little more frequently these days, and she doesn’t seem to mind his company.
She nods, smiling as she looks ahead. “I heard from Meisa. She told me Aiba-san invited her and she might go with Ninomiya-san if he asks.”
Sho chuckles as he recalls his conversation with Nino. “So he hasn’t asked.”
“Do you think he will?”
“He will. Maybe he’ll ask her on the day of the party. He’d be able to rope her into going by that point.”
“You think highly of your flat mate,” she teases.
“I can’t help it.”
She smiles at that and while he’s supposed to be relieved that the atmosphere between them is this comfortable, he’s actually wondering if asking her now would make things awkward. But it is one of those moments where it’s now or never, and if she does agree to be his date, he’s sure she’ll need ample time to prepare.
He licks his lips and clears his throat, and she peers at him curiously.
“I was thinking if you’d like to be my date for the party, Maki-chan.”
Silence follows and it’s not the comfortable lull that he’s used to when they’re at the café. For a moment he wonders if he was loud enough to be heard, and then he panics internally thinking that she’s trying to reject him in the kindest way possible.
“I’ll need some time to look for a dress,” she finally murmurs when they’ve reached the front entrance to her building. It occurs to him that her voice seems a bit shaky though she’s trying to hide that fact. “Would that be okay with you?”
To say he’s relieved is an understatement because he breaks into a wide grin at her answer. “Yes, of course.”
She returns his smile and heads toward the doors. “Good night, Sho-kun.”
“Good night, Maki-chan.”
It is definitely a good night for him.
Sho had been right about Nino asking Meisa at the very last minute.
It’s the night of the engagement party and Meisa is at Maki’s flat trying on dresses in a frantic manner.
“I don’t know which one looks good on me,” Meisa mutters as she presses a silver spaghetti strap dress against her in front of the mirror.
“I’m sure they all do,” Maki offers with a smile.
Meisa looks at her gratefully and starts pulling out more dresses from a huge shopping bag she’d brought along. There are at least seven of them and starts laying them out one by one on Maki’s sofa.
Meanwhile Maki walks over to her closet and pulls out a bag of her own. Inside is a red chiffon shift dress that she’d went out and bought the day after he’d asked her to be his date. It’s nothing too revealing but she sure hopes it won’t make her look like a woman in her mid-fifties either. At least she hopes he won’t feel that way when he sees her in this.
“Maki, you’re going, too?” asks Meisa when she sees Maki take the dress out of its bag.
She hadn’t told her best friend about Sho’s invitation or the fact that they’ve become friends. She's not really sure how to explain their friendship that seems to be progressing quickly into something else. "Sho-kun," she starts and then pauses. It's the first time she's ever called him that in front of others and it surprises her that she’s gotten so used to calling him by his name. "Sho-kun asked if I wanted to go with him." As his date.
Meisa studies her for a moment, then her dark, exotic eyes light up as she pats Maki’s shoulder encouragingly. “The dress will look beautiful on you.”
Meisa is the one who opens the door for Sho on her behalf while she grabs her clutch and a coat from the closet. She can hear them exchange greetings, and then his question of whether he'd look better with a tie on. Just then Nino’s voice interrupts them saying that he should bring the tie along and decide at the venue because they’re not going to make it on time if they keep dawdling.
She smooths her dress and heads over to the front entrance where she greets them. “Good evening.”
Nino nods at her and smiles smugly at Sho, who is eyeing her from head to toe approvingly. “Good evening,” Sho says in a smooth voice. “You look beautiful.”
Maki feels her cheeks burn at his compliment and at the fact that he’s dressed in a white dress shirt, a black suit and, surprisingly, a red tie. “Thank you.”
Meisa hands her a pair of shoes and she slips into them quietly. When she looks up again, she’s surprised to see that he’s gazing steadily at her. Suddenly she feels very self-conscious about her bare arms and calves, and she can see Meisa’s lips curl into a slight smile in the corner of her eyes.
He is about to say something when Nino speaks before he could. “As cute and amusing this is, I think we had better get going before Aiba-san starts freaking out at his own engagement party.”
Meisa raises a brow at him but follows him out, patting Maki’s arm along the way. This leaves the two of them at the entrance, and she starts to put her coat on quietly when he extends his hands out for her clutch. She pauses, looks at his hand and then back up at him, and he’s giving her a gentlemanly smile.
She smiles back and hands it to him, their fingers touching in the process.
Neither of them says a word as they exit her flat but their flushed cheeks speak volumes.
The engagement party is held in a restaurant owned by a mutual friend of theirs. Matsumoto Jun is a chef whose restaurant Marvelous has just opened and somehow Aiba had badgered him to lend him the space for one night.
“It feels as if Aiba’s invited his entire hometown plus everyone in Becky’s mobile contacts list,” Nino remarks as the four of them arrive at the already crowded upscale restaurant. Despite this, they have no trouble locating Ohno and his girlfriend Nana congregated at the buffet table, already feasting on freshly baked French baguettes.
Sho notices that Maki is peering at them curiously and leans in to whisper an explanation into her ear. “Ohno loves bread and tries it at every opportunity he gets. Nana is his girlfriend and she’s in the process of learning how to bake all sorts of bread for him.”
She breaks into a small smile at this, possibly thinking how cute Ohno and Nana seem to be as they pass each other small plates of butter and olive oil.
He is about to ask if she’d like a drink and bread and then perhaps join him at a table or corner of their own when Aiba and Becky sidle up to them. The engaged couple takes away all the attention from there so Sho decides he’ll have to talk to her privately later.
There are continuous rounds of introductions and mingling, and Sho can finally understand why Nino had said what he did when they first arrived.
Sho doesn’t know more than half of the people present and he can’t seem to keep up with all the names and relationships and occupations. He’s usually good at making acquaintances here and there, but obviously he has other priorities on his mind tonight. He’s also noticed that she’s trying her best to go along with him, but he thinks she needs a breathe of fresh air more than anything. Her cheeks are a shade of bright red and her champagne glass is almost empty even though she’d only been taking small sips.
“How are you feeling?” he asks, tugging her small wrist after they’ve been introduced to Aiba’s neighbor’s daughter-in-law.
“It is a bit warm in here,” she admits, setting her champagne glass down on a nearby table. “But I think should be okay. What about you?”
“I need some air,” he tells her, honestly, and motions to the exit of the dining area. “Do you want to join me? We can come back before the toasts.”
She looks at him, slightly bewildered, but eventually gives him a nod.
They make their way down the main hallway to a small unoccupied patio in the back of the restaurant. She takes a deep breath in the cool air to calm her nerves. This is exactly what she needed, and she’s grateful that he noticed. She'd been going along with the flow of the party and the introductions, but these social gatherings have never been her favourite or forte. The only comfort she knew she had was the fact that she was with Sho and he'd kept the conversations going when she couldn't follow.
“Feeling better?” he asks as they walk to the edge of the patio.
“Yes, thank you,” she says, resting her elbows against the wooden railing. Her heart skips a beat when he puts his blazer around her shoulders to cover up her bare arms. His scent surrounds her and it honestly defeats the purpose of getting fresh air as she feels her cheeks start to burn.
They fall into silence after that, and it’s not until she checks her phone for the time when he speaks again.
“Maki-chan, would you like to go on a date with me?” The question catches her off-guard and she looks up at him with wide eyes. He stares back, his mouth slightly agape, and she drops her gaze down to her phone. “I’m sorry. Is that an awkward question? It is, isn’t it? It’s just that I was…I knew I was going to bomb this.”
She bites her lower lip to stifle a chuckle at his last remark. She knows what he means and what he’s getting at. He doesn’t hide his intentions or he’s failing miserably if he’s actually tried.
He inhales deeply and she can see his sloping shoulders rise at that. “I don’t know how else to say this and maybe this isn’t the best place for it,” he starts earnestly, furrowing his eyebrows nervously, “but I like you. I like you, Maki.” Her name comes off as a whisper but it rings clearly in her ears.
He extends his hand out to take a hold of hers, and she can sense how nervous he is in the way he moves carefully as he’s about touch something fragile. She lets him take her hand and she watches as his thumb caresses her fingers.
He’s shaking, she realizes, locking eyes with him.
“Sho,” she murmurs as she mirrors his gesture on his fingers, hoping that he’d get the message.
She finds that he does when he pulls her into a hug.
They make it just in time back to the party hand in hand to see Aiba’s brother making a toast to the engaged couple. Their hands remain linked until it’s time to raise their glasses.
Nino and Meisa notice this right away and exchange knowing smiles.
End.
From: novemberbaby
Title: Stolen
Pairing: Sakurai Sho/Horikita Maki, a dash of Nino/Meisa
Rating: G
Summary: Maki has her heart stolen by a nameless, coffee-drinking, newspaper-reading guy. Sho has his stolen by a girl who smiles too much.
A/N: For frostbittenlove. I believe nothing will ever beat the gem that you received last year! I’m terribly afraid that you might be disappointed with this one but a part of me also hopes you will find this to your liking.
Many thanks to my beta. ❤❤❤
He sees her for the first time at his neighbor Ohno's Beaux Arts Café on a Friday afternoon. He is armed with a cup of coffee and a newspaper just like almost every other day. She is drinking tea and reading a bestseller book Tegami two tables away from his.
In between them is a table with two babbling babies-twins to be exact-their energized little bodies flailing arms and toys from their high chairs while their frantic parents try to keep them quiet .Sho thinks the babies were cute when he first saw them. Now their babbling has become a nuisance as he's trying to read about the stock market and its recent downfalls. Things he could possibly talk about in his class. Things he can't possibly remember now because all he can hear is indecipherable fragments.
He eventually closes his newspaper when he realizes that he's just misread a primary school level kanji because one of the twins just babbled a similar sound to it. Sighing, he takes a sip of his lukewarm beverage and repeats the correct pronunciation of the word over and over in his head.
Then he happens to look around the café at the same time she does-this girl in a red sweater and a low ponytail that rests at the nape of her neck-and for a fleeting moment he catches her eye.
He doesn’t look away, hoping he's right.
And then she smiles, warmly.
He smiles back because it is the polite thing to do and because he thinks, maybe, it would keep hers on her face longer.
But then she blinks at him and looks away, leaving him to wonder if it was all just a figment of his imagination.
She's lost count of the number of times that she's seen him at Beaux Arts Café.
It seems as if he's always there with his coffee and his newspaper. He’s always refilling his cup, maybe twice every hour, and he consumes it like it’s water to him. He’d take a sip each time his eyes move to a different article and maybe two sips when she sees his brows furrow while reading an editorial. It’s as if he’s ready to argue, to prove his point and he needs all the caffeine he can get to do so.
These small discoveries about his habits amuse her and she’s wondered about a couple hundred times what he does for a living or who he is to be reading the newspaper so religiously. On some days, she likes to think he’s a newscaster who shows up on people’s television screens with a nice suit and tie. Other days she thinks he’s an author who’s on a break from writing his future bestselling novel or a journalist reading the rival newspaper and disapproving of the way they write.
Sometimes she just stares at him when the café is crowded and he doesn’t seem to notice. Then she’d daydream about how they’d meet because she knows she’ll never have the courage to approach him and he won’t ever notice her.
She’s careful not to stare at him too long though, just in case he happens to look up and catch her, but today, this Friday afternoon, he's caught her eye for the first time.
They're separated by a table with a pair of adorable, babbling babies when this happens. At first she thinks he might be looking at the babies but finds out that she's wrong.
She smiles at him, nervously, though she's sure it wouldn't show as much-she won't allow it.
Then he smiles back and she realizes this is precisely why she didn't want to get caught in the first place. His smile is too dazzling, too shiny.
She holds her breath until she looks down at her book again where the words don’t blind her.
Sho finds himself sitting alone at his university’s library later that evening with his nose buried in a book about Cambodia’s economic history. Most of his friends are up and about, probably lining up outside restaurants and bars with their dates. It’s a Friday after all and it’s a day to be dancing and spinning under the starlight.
The only thing that seems to be spinning for him is the words on the page. Having read the same chapter three time, he still can’t, for the life of him, figure out what he’s actually reading.
He shuts the book and when he closes his eyes, he thinks of a faint, curvy figure in red.
A soft buzz from his phone interrupts him and regret hits him the moment he checks his messages.
It’s from his flat mate Nino and he’s apparently forgotten to bring his wallet to dinner. Of course Nino doesn’t spell it out that way for him, but Sho knows what the deal is each time Nino sends only an address and nothing else.
He looks at his phone and back at his book, wondering if he should leave and join his friend. Eat, drink, be merry.
Five minutes pass before he checks the book out and leaves the library and gets into a cab for downtown.
I am going to break up with him, Meisa’s message reads. For good.
Maki smiles at her best friend's declaration she walks out of the supermarket. Meisa's been dating the same guy on and off for the past year, and Maki can tell how much she likes the guy even though he seems to be deliberately pushing the wrong buttons sometimes. He's not a bad guy, Maki thinks, just someone you'd need a lot of patience with. He's also hard to read, it seems, and Meisa's still trying to figure him out.
Maki decides not to ask what went wrong this time, at least not over text messages. I’m on my way to pick you up now. Should be there in about twenty minutes. We can have hot pot at my place.
She slips her phone into her bag and starts heading toward the closest train station armed with two bags of groceries and a dozen of Horoyoi beers for tonight's get-together.
She passes Beaux Arts Café on her way and tries not to peer inside to the table where he'd sat today. But she does it anyway because she's certain that whatever happened today won't happen again. To him, it was a fleeting moment and she was just random girl who happened to look up.
For her, it's something she'd been avoiding and wanting for a long while.
It takes her another five minutes before she makes her way down the stairs for the train to downtown.
Nino, Sho learns, isn’t alone when he walks into the fairly crowded soba restaurant situated on a side street in Shibuya.
In fact, Nino is with Meisa, his on-again, off-again girlfriend of a year, and she looks unimpressed with Nino’s arm around her shoulders.
Her expression softens when she spots Sho and gives him a polite nod when he approaches their table all while removing Nino’s arm from herself. “Sho-san, sorry you had to come all the way here for this. His bill has been taken care of.”
“It’s fine, really,” Sho replies, thinking he should go to a bar somewhere in the area, have a whiskey and attempt to read the book again. “I should probably go then.”
“I’ll see you back at-” Nino starts, waving his hand at his flat mate off with a smug grin but Meisa cuts him off.
“Please stay, Sho-san. Have a beer or soba. Nino will pay for it with the money he apparently did not have earlier.”
“I have no mo-” Meisa narrows her eyes and raises her brows at her boyfriend. “Fine, fine, have a beer, Sho-san. It’s on me.” He puts his arm around her again.
“Funny how you call him Sho-san but you treat him like he’s younger than you,” Meisa comments, pushing Nino’s arm off her shoulders.
Sho chuckles at this, much to Nino’s dismay. Sho’s met Meisa enough times to know that she’s perfect for Nino because she refuses to put up with his bullshit.
“You can’t stay mad at me forever,” Nino says, showing her his puppy dog look which works on everyone. Almost.
She narrows her eyes at him with her brows raised. “Watch me, Ninomiya.”
“I think I’ll have a beer,” Sho says, hoping to help his flat mate redeem himself. He sets his book down on the table and orders a Kirin when a waitress arrives to take his order.
“My best friend is coming to pick me up,” Meisa announces as she flings Nino’s arm away from her shoulders for the third time. She looks up at the entryway and a smile spreads across her face. “Actually, she’s already here.”
Sho follows Meisa’s gaze to the front of the restaurant and is met with a girl in red.
“Sho-san, this is my best friend, Horikita Maki. Maki, this is Sakurai Sho-san, this brat’s unfortunate roommate.”
It’s a small world, they say.
It’s an even smaller world when her best friend knows the man she’s been watching and calls him by his first name. She doesn’t-didn’t-even know his name. She’s thought about it, of course, but in her head, he’s the nameless coffee-drinking, newspaper-reading guy she seems to have a crush on.
Giving him a name just makes it harder for her to detach herself from her feeling because, in her experience, none of the guys she’s watched in the past stay in her life for long.
She smiles, careful not to look him directly in the eye. “It’s nice to meet you, Sakurai-san.”
His greeting is simultaneous as if he’d been holding it in far too long. “Pleased to meet you, Horikita-san.” His voice sounds the same way she’d imagined it: friendly, smooth, and proper.
Nino scoffs at this introduction, and Maki wonders if she’s smiled too much or sounded overly excited. Or worse, look completely in love with him already. She doesn’t have time to think about any of this, though, because Meisa stands up while glaring at Nino.
“Let’s go, Maki.” Meisa puts her coat on, takes one of the grocery bags from her and bows slightly at Sho. “Sho-san, it’s always nice to see you. Enjoy your beer and the rest of your night.”
Meisa walks away without looking at Nino, leaving Maki to bid the two men a proper good night.
“Good night,” comes Sho’s reply.
Those two words and his voice echo repeatedly in her head the entire train ride home.
“How well do you know her?” Sho waits until they’ve finished the first round of beers to ask Nino this.
Nino shows him a wicked grin and orders a second round, and it’s so uncharacteristic of a man who has just angered his own girlfriend. But it’s Nino, Sho thinks, and this is how he is.
“Who are you referring to?” Nino asks and squints his eyes playfully at his flat mate.
“You know who I’m talking about.”
Nino leans forward with his arms crossed, his grin growing smugger. “Oh, is this love at first sight?”
Sho shakes his head. “I don’t believe in that but I’m just curious about her.” Curious is an understatement, but he can’t seem to find the right word to describe what he feel. If there is a right word, he’s not the in the right state of mind to think of it.
“I know.”
Sho raises an eyebrow. “Well?”
Their second round of Kirin beers arrive just in time for Nino to speak.
Meisa ends drinking up most of the beer that night, and Maki listens quietly while she rants about Nino. The more she does, the more Maki realizes that her best friend might care for Nino deeply than it looks.
The topic eventually switches when Maki is in the middle of setting out a futon for her best friend. There’s no question that Meisa isn’t going home alone tonight.
“What do you think of Sho-san?" Meisa asks, sitting down on the loveseat that Maki’s recently purchased for her small studio.
“He seems friendly.” It is the newest adjective she’s added to her list for him.
Meisa brings her knees to her chest and smiles faintly. “I thought about introducing you to him before."
Maki kneels down to fluff a couple of pillows. “Why?”
"I don't know. I thought you might like him,” Meisa says, closing her cat-like eyes.
There is a pause as Maki searches for something to say, the right words to say. In the end, she hums softly as there’s no longer a need to answer; Meisa's fallen asleep on the sofa.
Sho heads over to Beaux Arts Café the following morning with the intention of catching up on the missed reading from yesterday. His plan is thwarted the moment he finishes greeting Ohno and he ends up being dragged into the kitchen.
"Sho-chan, you need to help me!" The culprit is Aiba, Ohno's chef who insisted on putting mabo tofu rice plates on a French café menu. Both culprit and victim have known each other since the opening of this café a little over four years ago. Sho-chan is what Aiba prefers to call him and Sho found out a long time ago that he can’t really say no to this younger and taller man.
Sho lets out an uneasy laugh. “What is it?”
"I need a plan. A plan, you know? You’re great with plans. I need one. By tomorrow evening." Aiba is great with food but not so much with words or logic, but it works out fine for Sho anyway.
“I’ll need more details than just that, so why don’t we go over a few questions first?”
And so his plan to read is postponed.
She arrives at the café and places an order for Earl Grey tea, then retreats to her table while they prepare it.
Nothing seems to have changed on the surface, but Maki feels otherwise.
He's not here today, she realizes, as she slides into her seat and looks at the antique clock placed in between two whimsical sketches. Then she shakes her head at herself as she opens up her book and smooths out the pages. It's not supposed to be like this, she thinks, as her eyes start to search for the line she'd left off at.
She had been perfectly fine just watching him on her own, unnoticed and nameless. Reality and fate are apparently against her on this and now she's developed a longing to see him, to hear him say more than just “Good night” in that friendly voice of his.
It turns out that Aiba wants to propose to his girlfriend, Becky.
Sho doesn’t know why Aiba thinks he can help with this but he comes up with several plans for the younger man and wishes him good luck.
He walks out to the counter area and pours himself cup of coffee on his own (Ohno doesn’t care or notice but Sho still pays for it anyway), when he sees her. Correction; he sees her back and is almost certain that it’s her.
With his cup of coffee in hand, he makes his way toward her table and discovers that he’s right.
He peers discreetly into her cup and finds that she's ordered an Earl Grey tea. "I hear they're pretty famous here for their coffee," he starts teasingly.
She's startled at first of course, but then a look of recognition and relief brightens up her face when she turns around and meets his eyes. "Oh, Sakurai-san, it's you.”
Regret clouds his face. "Sorry for scaring you like that. I thought you'd at least..." Notice my shadow or something, he wants to say, but that'd be self-flattery. "I shouldn't have interrupted your reading."
"Oh, no, don't worry about it. I was just trying to figure out this book I'm supposed to be reading for my senior thesis paper," she admits sheepishly, putting her hands on her lap.
"That's why I'm here too," replies Sho, holding up his hardcover book on Cambodia's economic history with a helpless smile.
She looks at his book, his coffee and then back at him, a coy grin already forming-she sure loves to smile, Sho realizes-as she picks her cup up and brings it to her lips. "You're not here for the coffee?" she teases, then sips her tea.
He laughs, his shoulders at ease. “Do you mind if I sit with you?”
She studies him for a brief moment before nodding.
He’d seemed so genuinely upset with himself for startling her that she knew she had to remedy his guilt.
The next thing she knows, they spend two and a half hours talking.
“You know, my mother’s a Literature professor,” he says once he learns that she’s writing her thesis on law and literature. “She probably has a couple of books that might be helpful. I can bring them to you the next time we meet.”
She looks at him, wide-eyed. “Is it okay?”
He smiles that blinding smile of his, only this time she doesn’t look away. “Of course it’s okay. I’ll bring them next time.”
“Thank you, Sakurai-san.” She begins to wonder if a simple thank you would be enough or if there’s anything she could offer him, but he doesn’t ask for it. Instead, she finds that he’s keeping his gaze on her, smile still intact, and then sips from his third cup of the day.
It’s only after he leaves for his class that she realizes that he’s promised her a next time.
He goes through a round of questioning from his mother when he tells her about the books later that night.
“Maybe I should meet this girl and talk to her. I do know a thing or two about-”
“No.” He tries not to say this word to his mother often, but he knows this time that she’s trying to tease him and he knows he’s right when she smiles smugly. “You don’t need to meet her. It’d be awkward.”
“Am I ever going to meet her?”
He decides not to answer that.
She receives the books from him the next time they meet as he’d promised.
Soon she learns that his definition of next time is actually the beginning of a series of next times.
Eventually these next times amount to several weeks, then several months.
They share a table whenever they’re at the café.
Sometimes they’d talk and drink their beverages, and he’d share snippets about Ohno and Aiba. Sometimes Ohno and Aiba would stop by their table and join in on their conversations. So far she’s gotten to know people she hasn’t even met: Nana, the object of Ohno’s affections, and Becky, Aiba’s girlfriend. Somewhere in her heart, she wants to meet them in person one day.
When they’re not talking, they’d just sit there quietly, reading and sharing a smile if they ever look up at the same time.
She’s gotten used to the fact that his smile still blinds her.
He rushes into the café one morning, hair tousled and panting as if he’d been running. “Sorry I overslept this morning.”
She smiles as she motions for him to sit down. There’s no need for him to apologize because they never set a date or time to meet but she does not point that out to him. Instead she tells him that the price tag to his shirt is still affixed at the back and peeking out.
He mutters something under his breath and grabs the tag immediately over his shoulder. “This is very embarrassing,” he admits helplessly.
“I have scissors,” she offers, then opens up her handbag and brandishes a pair of small fabric scissors from an emergency sewing kit. He turns his back upon seeing his and she’s slightly nervous as she leans in closer to help.
“Thank you, Maki-chan.”
She freezes in place as she’s never thought the first time he’d call her Maki-chan would be when she’s this close. Close enough to see the small hairs on the back of his neck.
“You’re welcome, Sakurai-san,” she manages to say without losing control of the blades. She snips the tag off with a wide smile while her heart flutters. It’s just a simple gesture of helping a friend, really, and he’s only thanking her, not handing his heart or money over, but it makes her happy all the same.
“You can call me Sho.”
She’s not sure she actually can, even though she’s secretly called him by his first name in her head many times now.
“You can call me Sho-kun if you that makes you more comfortable. And please forgive me for calling you Maki-chan so suddenly. I probably shouldn’t ha-”
“I don’t mind,” she murmurs, setting the scissors and price tag on the table with a smile. “I don’t mind, Sho-kun.”
She lowers her gaze when he turns around to face her but her heart won’t stop palpitating.
She does nothing to stop it.
It doesn’t take long before his interest in her turns into something more.
He thinks she looks like a doll, all soft and fragile, but she always surprises him when they have conversations and they don’t always come to an agreement. She’s quiet but thoughtful, and he likes that she holds her own thoughts and views, and doesn’t let him walk all over her for what she believes in.
Yet she can be incredibly and adorably shy at the same time. Sometimes he’d look up from his reading and peer across the small round table and watch as the light hits her face and all he sees a natural tinge of pink. She’d look up at him briefly, blink confusingly and then those spots of pink would turn bright crimson.
Sometimes when the café is crowded, their knees would bump into each other as customers squeeze their way through, and she’d lean in so close to make way that he’s able to smell her soft, faint fragrance.
She always apologizes, of course, for invading his space. It’s always a gentle and genuine apology even though there’s really nothing for her to be sorry about.
It makes him wonder each time if she’d apologize for taking his heart.
He falls a little more in love with her one evening when he walks her home.
This happens during final exam week when they stay late at the café to study and he offers to take her home. She declines at first, which he had expected her to, but then he tells her that it’s not an inconvenience and that her flat is in the same direction that he’s headed anyway.
So they walk side by side in the dark night, chatting casually as they always do.
His heart flutters when their shoulders touch and when his fingers accidentally brush against hers. “Sorry,” he’d say each time it happens, and it happens a lot.
Her hand is that close, and he wishes he could just reach over and take hold of it.
He keeps thinking about it all the way until they reach her building where she thanks him and bids him a good night coupled with a smile that he’s never seen before on her.
She knows.
He almost panics, wondering if his intentions had been that easy to read or whether his apologies didn’t sound sincere enough.
His panic only subsides significantly when he realizes that she doesn’t start avoiding him after that.
He is the first one to receive an engagement party invitation from Aiba.
The first thing that comes to mind when he sees that ivory cardstock is wonder if she’d be willing to be his date. He shares this thought with no one, but Nino sees right through him when they go out for drinks one night, approximately three weeks before the party.
“You’re moving too slow,” Nino remarks. “Just ask her already.”
Sho almost chokes on his Kirin when he hears that. “It’s not that easy,” he says, wiping his mouth with a napkin. It’s never easy. “What about you? Have you asked Meisa-san?”
“Aiba told me to invite her. She’s going.” It’s very Nino-like to answer what he wants and most of the time it only leaves people wanting to hear more. But Sho thinks it’s better not to ask him because he knows he’s not going to get anywhere unless Nino wants to really talk about it.
“I hope she does,” Sho says after a moment of silence. Chances are, he figures, Maki would be more likely to go if her best friend would be there as well.
“I know you do.” His flat mate replies self-contentedly.
Sho laughs. His intentions are getting more and more obvious, he thinks. He wonders if he needs to draw the entire picture out for her or if she already knows that he’s in love with her.
It takes him another week to finally ask her.
“Aiba’s getting engaged to Becky,” he tells her while he walks her home in the evening. He’s been doing this a little more frequently these days, and she doesn’t seem to mind his company.
She nods, smiling as she looks ahead. “I heard from Meisa. She told me Aiba-san invited her and she might go with Ninomiya-san if he asks.”
Sho chuckles as he recalls his conversation with Nino. “So he hasn’t asked.”
“Do you think he will?”
“He will. Maybe he’ll ask her on the day of the party. He’d be able to rope her into going by that point.”
“You think highly of your flat mate,” she teases.
“I can’t help it.”
She smiles at that and while he’s supposed to be relieved that the atmosphere between them is this comfortable, he’s actually wondering if asking her now would make things awkward. But it is one of those moments where it’s now or never, and if she does agree to be his date, he’s sure she’ll need ample time to prepare.
He licks his lips and clears his throat, and she peers at him curiously.
“I was thinking if you’d like to be my date for the party, Maki-chan.”
Silence follows and it’s not the comfortable lull that he’s used to when they’re at the café. For a moment he wonders if he was loud enough to be heard, and then he panics internally thinking that she’s trying to reject him in the kindest way possible.
“I’ll need some time to look for a dress,” she finally murmurs when they’ve reached the front entrance to her building. It occurs to him that her voice seems a bit shaky though she’s trying to hide that fact. “Would that be okay with you?”
To say he’s relieved is an understatement because he breaks into a wide grin at her answer. “Yes, of course.”
She returns his smile and heads toward the doors. “Good night, Sho-kun.”
“Good night, Maki-chan.”
It is definitely a good night for him.
Sho had been right about Nino asking Meisa at the very last minute.
It’s the night of the engagement party and Meisa is at Maki’s flat trying on dresses in a frantic manner.
“I don’t know which one looks good on me,” Meisa mutters as she presses a silver spaghetti strap dress against her in front of the mirror.
“I’m sure they all do,” Maki offers with a smile.
Meisa looks at her gratefully and starts pulling out more dresses from a huge shopping bag she’d brought along. There are at least seven of them and starts laying them out one by one on Maki’s sofa.
Meanwhile Maki walks over to her closet and pulls out a bag of her own. Inside is a red chiffon shift dress that she’d went out and bought the day after he’d asked her to be his date. It’s nothing too revealing but she sure hopes it won’t make her look like a woman in her mid-fifties either. At least she hopes he won’t feel that way when he sees her in this.
“Maki, you’re going, too?” asks Meisa when she sees Maki take the dress out of its bag.
She hadn’t told her best friend about Sho’s invitation or the fact that they’ve become friends. She's not really sure how to explain their friendship that seems to be progressing quickly into something else. "Sho-kun," she starts and then pauses. It's the first time she's ever called him that in front of others and it surprises her that she’s gotten so used to calling him by his name. "Sho-kun asked if I wanted to go with him." As his date.
Meisa studies her for a moment, then her dark, exotic eyes light up as she pats Maki’s shoulder encouragingly. “The dress will look beautiful on you.”
Meisa is the one who opens the door for Sho on her behalf while she grabs her clutch and a coat from the closet. She can hear them exchange greetings, and then his question of whether he'd look better with a tie on. Just then Nino’s voice interrupts them saying that he should bring the tie along and decide at the venue because they’re not going to make it on time if they keep dawdling.
She smooths her dress and heads over to the front entrance where she greets them. “Good evening.”
Nino nods at her and smiles smugly at Sho, who is eyeing her from head to toe approvingly. “Good evening,” Sho says in a smooth voice. “You look beautiful.”
Maki feels her cheeks burn at his compliment and at the fact that he’s dressed in a white dress shirt, a black suit and, surprisingly, a red tie. “Thank you.”
Meisa hands her a pair of shoes and she slips into them quietly. When she looks up again, she’s surprised to see that he’s gazing steadily at her. Suddenly she feels very self-conscious about her bare arms and calves, and she can see Meisa’s lips curl into a slight smile in the corner of her eyes.
He is about to say something when Nino speaks before he could. “As cute and amusing this is, I think we had better get going before Aiba-san starts freaking out at his own engagement party.”
Meisa raises a brow at him but follows him out, patting Maki’s arm along the way. This leaves the two of them at the entrance, and she starts to put her coat on quietly when he extends his hands out for her clutch. She pauses, looks at his hand and then back up at him, and he’s giving her a gentlemanly smile.
She smiles back and hands it to him, their fingers touching in the process.
Neither of them says a word as they exit her flat but their flushed cheeks speak volumes.
The engagement party is held in a restaurant owned by a mutual friend of theirs. Matsumoto Jun is a chef whose restaurant Marvelous has just opened and somehow Aiba had badgered him to lend him the space for one night.
“It feels as if Aiba’s invited his entire hometown plus everyone in Becky’s mobile contacts list,” Nino remarks as the four of them arrive at the already crowded upscale restaurant. Despite this, they have no trouble locating Ohno and his girlfriend Nana congregated at the buffet table, already feasting on freshly baked French baguettes.
Sho notices that Maki is peering at them curiously and leans in to whisper an explanation into her ear. “Ohno loves bread and tries it at every opportunity he gets. Nana is his girlfriend and she’s in the process of learning how to bake all sorts of bread for him.”
She breaks into a small smile at this, possibly thinking how cute Ohno and Nana seem to be as they pass each other small plates of butter and olive oil.
He is about to ask if she’d like a drink and bread and then perhaps join him at a table or corner of their own when Aiba and Becky sidle up to them. The engaged couple takes away all the attention from there so Sho decides he’ll have to talk to her privately later.
There are continuous rounds of introductions and mingling, and Sho can finally understand why Nino had said what he did when they first arrived.
Sho doesn’t know more than half of the people present and he can’t seem to keep up with all the names and relationships and occupations. He’s usually good at making acquaintances here and there, but obviously he has other priorities on his mind tonight. He’s also noticed that she’s trying her best to go along with him, but he thinks she needs a breathe of fresh air more than anything. Her cheeks are a shade of bright red and her champagne glass is almost empty even though she’d only been taking small sips.
“How are you feeling?” he asks, tugging her small wrist after they’ve been introduced to Aiba’s neighbor’s daughter-in-law.
“It is a bit warm in here,” she admits, setting her champagne glass down on a nearby table. “But I think should be okay. What about you?”
“I need some air,” he tells her, honestly, and motions to the exit of the dining area. “Do you want to join me? We can come back before the toasts.”
She looks at him, slightly bewildered, but eventually gives him a nod.
They make their way down the main hallway to a small unoccupied patio in the back of the restaurant. She takes a deep breath in the cool air to calm her nerves. This is exactly what she needed, and she’s grateful that he noticed. She'd been going along with the flow of the party and the introductions, but these social gatherings have never been her favourite or forte. The only comfort she knew she had was the fact that she was with Sho and he'd kept the conversations going when she couldn't follow.
“Feeling better?” he asks as they walk to the edge of the patio.
“Yes, thank you,” she says, resting her elbows against the wooden railing. Her heart skips a beat when he puts his blazer around her shoulders to cover up her bare arms. His scent surrounds her and it honestly defeats the purpose of getting fresh air as she feels her cheeks start to burn.
They fall into silence after that, and it’s not until she checks her phone for the time when he speaks again.
“Maki-chan, would you like to go on a date with me?” The question catches her off-guard and she looks up at him with wide eyes. He stares back, his mouth slightly agape, and she drops her gaze down to her phone. “I’m sorry. Is that an awkward question? It is, isn’t it? It’s just that I was…I knew I was going to bomb this.”
She bites her lower lip to stifle a chuckle at his last remark. She knows what he means and what he’s getting at. He doesn’t hide his intentions or he’s failing miserably if he’s actually tried.
He inhales deeply and she can see his sloping shoulders rise at that. “I don’t know how else to say this and maybe this isn’t the best place for it,” he starts earnestly, furrowing his eyebrows nervously, “but I like you. I like you, Maki.” Her name comes off as a whisper but it rings clearly in her ears.
He extends his hand out to take a hold of hers, and she can sense how nervous he is in the way he moves carefully as he’s about touch something fragile. She lets him take her hand and she watches as his thumb caresses her fingers.
He’s shaking, she realizes, locking eyes with him.
“Sho,” she murmurs as she mirrors his gesture on his fingers, hoping that he’d get the message.
She finds that he does when he pulls her into a hug.
They make it just in time back to the party hand in hand to see Aiba’s brother making a toast to the engaged couple. Their hands remain linked until it’s time to raise their glasses.
Nino and Meisa notice this right away and exchange knowing smiles.
End.