When You Were Young / Brothers & Sisters (Chap. 2)
When You Were Young - Chapter 2
Chaptertitle: Brothers & Sisters
Pairing: Sakurai Sho & Aiba Masaki
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: I don't own Sakuraiba. Just the plot.
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Brothers & Sisters
Chapter 2
„No, I told you I don’t want to go there! Why do I even have to accompany you to your date? How awkward is that?!”
“Oh come on, mum and dad won’t let me go alone to Tokyo! I know it’s awkward, but I really want to meet her, because she’s important to me!”
Aiba’s younger brother, Yusuke, was jumping up and down in front of his brother, begging for almost one hour now. For weeks he was bothering the whole family with this girl from his class that he madly fell in love with. And it seemed like she had interest in Yusuke too which made him go completely insane with love. Every single second he was talking about her, how much he liked her shyness, her intelligence and her character in general. Aiba felt slightly annoyed, but somehow he was also happy for his brother.
“Okay just stop it! I’ll go with you, but only this one time!” Yusuke hugged his brother and danced around wildly before he ran to the kitchen to tell his mother about Aiba’s accompany.
When they arrived at Tokyo, Aiba noticed how nervous his younger brother was. He was trembling, stroking his hair from one side to another and looked at his mobile phone all the time. Somehow Aiba felt stupid - his brother was only 13 years old and already had a date with the girl he liked whereas his older brother didn’t even have his first kiss yet; he wasn’t really interested in anyone particular… well his heart made a jump when he thought about one special person, but…
“Ah, she’s here!” Yusuke suddenly jumped in excitement and waved at a young girl that headed in their direction. Aiba had to admit that she was really cute - her round face was framed by black shoulder long hair and her big brown eyes were dazzling when she saw Yusuke. Her clothes were quite plain, but somehow it suited her. Aiba watched the lovebirds staring at each other and giggling like the two junior high schoolers that they were. When the girl noticed the taller man watching them, she immediately headed to him and smiled brightly.
“Oh hello, I am sorry I did not introduce myself. You must be Yusuke’s older brother!” Aiba had to grin when he heard the nervousness in her voice; that made her even cuter than she already was. Right before Aiba wanted to introduce himself properly to his brother’s date, he heard someone screaming from the direction that the girl was coming from earlier.
He didn’t even have to look for a second time to get sure who it was. The sound of the chain clashing against his trousers when he was running to Aiba and the rest of the group was enough. “Mai!” he yelled to the girl and stopped breathless when he reached them, putting his hands on his knees and lowering his head. “I told you not to run away from me like that!” The girl called Mai just grinned and stuck out her tongue into his direction before she turned around again and bowed deeply in front of Aiba. “My name is Sakurai Mai. Nice to meet you, Aiba-kun.”
Sho raised his head again, when he heard those four letters. Aiba. Wait… Aiba?
“Hey” Aiba greeted him shyly, now it was him who felt the nervousness overcoming him. The most popular guy from his school who happened to be his classmate and savior was standing right in front of him.
“Hey” Sho replied slightly shocked and turned his head to Aiba’s younger brother who looked at them with a questioning face. Just seconds later he remembered Aiba talking about a Sakurai from his class… that definitely was a coincidence.
“I-I’m… My name is Aiba Yu-yusuke.” Yusuke stuttered when he felt Sho’s gaze lingering on him.
“Are you serious? Since when are you stuttering?” Aiba couldn’t suppress a loud laugh and continued giggling when he saw how his younger brother’s face changed into the colour of a tomato.
“Shu-shut up! Can’t y-you see that I-I’m nervous? It’s her b-big b-brother!” Sho and Mai had to giggle too when they saw how nervous the young boy was.
“Nice to meet you, Yusuke-kun. I’m Sakurai Sho. Mai often talks about you.” Sho lightly put his palm on Yusuke’s shoulder and smiled at him while his younger sister’s face took on a bright pink colour. The level of nervousness seemed to reach its peak and before someone ran the risk of fainting they decided to go to the amusement park where Yusuke and Mai wanted to spend their date at.
Sho and Aiba decided to back off and watch them from a certain distance - they knew that their siblings probably didn’t want to be accompanied by them all the time. While Yusuke and Mai were testing all the merry-go-rounds in the park, the two classmates placed themselves on a bench and slurped their bought drinks. The awkward silence between them made Aiba feel really uncomfortable - he didn’t want to say anything stupid or move in a weird way; he wanted to be just like Sho who seemed to be relaxed and enjoyed his ice tea.
“Thank you for helping me last week” The words just shot out of Aiba’s mouth, he didn’t even think about it anymore - he just wanted to break the silence between them. Slightly surprised that Aiba spoke up, Sho put his drink on the bench and shook his head, signalizing that Aiba didn’t have to thank him.
But he can talk, can he? Aiba thought and pursed his lips. How could he possibly build up a conversation when the person sitting right next to him was answering him with a nod or a shake of his head?
When Mai and Yusuke finally finished their merry-go-round-inspection, they picked up their older brothers and dragged them to the huge Ferris wheel that glowed in the colours of a rainbow. “Amazing” Aiba whispered and counted the cabins of the Ferris wheel; never in his entire life had he been on something like this - he often went to the amusement park with his family, but somehow they never got the chance to ride that attraction, because his father was too scared of it and his family always wanted to ride it together without leaving anyone behind. That was part of the Aiba-family-policy.
“We go first! And you two can get into a cabin after us!” Yusuke patted on Aiba’s shoulder, grinned and put two tickets for him and Sho into his older brother’s jacket pocket. The two junior high schoolers giggled and got into their cabin, before they took off and waved one last time at the two boys who were still on the ground.
And here comes the awkwardness again. Aiba and Sho were sitting in the cabin, facing each other. The romantic music that was playing in the background was definitely not helping right now. Aiba just tried to forget about the strange silence between them and looked at the beautiful scene outside - on the one side he saw the big city, skyscrapers almost reaching the big white clouds and on the other side the sea was sparkling, a few boats and ships sailing on the blue water. For a moment he really wished that he could just stay up there, watching the scenery forever and not going back to real life on the ground. A small sigh escaped his mouth when he gazed outside. Suddenly he heard someone’s breathing getting unsteady and immediately he focused on Sho who pressed his eyes together and trembled lightly.
“Are you okay, Sakurai-kun?” When Aiba saw the older boy shaking his head, he sat next to his classmate and hesitantly put his palm on Sho’s shoulder.
“I am afraid of heights” Sho mumbled and put his head into his lap, burying his face into his thighs and hugging his legs. Aiba wanted to say something like ‘Why the hell didn’t you say anything’, but when he saw the shaking Sho sitting right next to him he really didn’t want to make him feel any worse.
“Okay, come one” Aiba gripped Sho’s wrist and pulled him up again, so that he could look directly into the scared face, focusing his look at Sho. “Look at me. Don’t look outside, just at me. And then you breathe in and out slowly.” Sho just nodded and gazed at Aiba’s eyes that were supporting him to keep calm. Only after a few seconds Aiba felt like he was about to faint, because of the intense look from Sho, but he knew that he couldn’t just back off when his classmate needed help. He saw how the older boy was slowly starting to lower his head, so he immediately took the round face into his hands and raised it again. Sho flinched when he felt the sudden softness at his cheeks and somehow it seemed like he didn’t get any air, because of Aiba’s touch and not because of his fear of heights. Both of their faces took on a light red colour, but their gazes still focused on the other one - Sho and Aiba secretly hoped that the other one couldn’t hear the enormous speed that their hearts were beating in. The distance between them seemed to get closer by second… their lips only being separated by a few millimeters. Just when Aiba slowly closed his eyes and Sho opened his lips, they felt how their cabin stopped and surprised they looked outside, Yusuke and Mai watching them in shock.
“We’re back on the ground” Aiba realized sober, his palms still on Sho’s face. “Oh god, we’re back on the ground” he repeated one more time and both of them backed off with flushed cheeks and got off the Ferris wheel as fast as they could. They didn’t even realize what happened - but the shocked faces of their siblings made it pretty clear. They were about to kiss. Oh god.
Right after the embarrassing incident all four of them headed to the exit, no one of them dared to say even one thing. Mai just smirked lightly while watching Aiba and Sho whereas Yusuke was just walking mindlessly right next to her, holding her hand and trying to push the picture of Aiba kissing his date’s older brother out of his head. When they finally reached the exit of the park Sho and Aiba looked at the ground in embarrassment while Yusuke and Mai were saying goodbye to each other with a small kiss on the cheek.
“It was nice to meet you, Aiba-kun. I hope we can meet again soon!” Mai smiled brightly at the tall boy who just nodded, still too ashamed to look up. Immediately he pulled Yusuke away and headed to the subway station, Yusuke yelling a loud “Bye, Sakurai-kun!” before they were out of their reach. Their way back home was more than just awkward. They were sitting next to each other, Yusuke looking at Aiba and his older brother playing with his own fingers like a child. He was relieved when they arrived at their parents’ house, falling on his bed and sighing loudly.
I almost kissed Sakurai Sho, Aiba thought and he felt his heart clench against his chest. Seconds, minutes, hours passed and Sho was constantly in his head, he could still feel the hot breath against his skin, the round face in his palms. How should he face him tomorrow at school? What was he supposed to say? I liked the almost-kiss between us? Can we try this again next time? Well probably not. But honestly, deep from his heart, he wanted to tell him exactly those words which confused the tall boy even more. His thoughts were lying heavily on his mind before he drifted off to sleep.
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Comment: Here we go.. Chapter 2! With two new side characters.. Sakuraiba's siblings! It is just perfect (for my fanfiction xD) that they're both around the same age.. and somehow I think it'd be really cute if they'd be a couple.. ^///^ Actually it took me quite a while to figure out how to write this chapter, because at first I didn't know how to portray Sho's character; in the end I didn't want him to be the badass that is mean to everyone.. (even if he got the looks) I decided to make him.. a bit more natural, just like a normal teenage boy. I hope you guys like it :*
PS: so I decided not to make a fanart for every chapter for this fiction, because it is simply to difficult to find any good quality pictures of young Sakuraiba or light-haired-Sho. I did like four chapter-arts, but they sucked so much.. and since I am a perfectionist, I couldn't upload those. Sooo.. I made some icons. Hope that's still okay.. ^__^