Love Song for the Under Dog
When this idea was first conceived, after watching the Haneru no Tobira 100 Yen Shop episode with Toma & Maki months possibly years ago, this was, and is still, dedicated to calledinvain, for obvious reasons.
Also ky_rin, whose appreciation for Toma/Maki (which, admittedly, probably stems from an appreciation of all Toma pairings) despite her outcry of “YOU AND YOUR HET,” simply reinforces my fandom Golden Rule that Maki always makes JE het okay. I just hope I did Toma justice. (Yes this note was also written months possibly years ago, shh!)
Edited but unbeta’d.
Love Song for the Under Dog
pg. 2172. Ikuta Toma/Horikita Maki
“If this is expensive, let’s go borrow money together.”
“I owe you 80,000 yen.” Maki’s voice a bare whisper and the life has gone out of her eyes. She is still, as she has been for the past ten minutes after filming had ended, leaning against the wall for physical and moral support.
“If it helps, you actually only owe me 79,900 yen,” Toma offers. Maki glares. “So, not helpful then.”
“I’ll pay you back soon, I promise,” she sighs, opening and closing her wallet as if it will somehow become magically filled in that way. She closes it with a snap of resignation. “If you want to stop by an ATM on the way to the train I can get the money. Probably.”
“Probably?” He doesn’t mean for his voice to crack, but it does and she looks up at him with big, sad doe eyes.
“Well, I’m also indebted to my manager and staff-b-but I’ll be on set for Atsu-hime and Innocent Love so I’m definitely good for the money.”
Toma snorts. He can’t really help it after that.
“Ehhhh? I’m being serious!”
And the snort dissolves into full laughter. At her heartbreaking stare, he waves his hands in front of his chest and shakes his head. “No, I’m sorry, that was just-hilarious.”
“Ehh. I can start paying you in coins right now if you want? I have 70 yen leftover . . . ”
“No, that’s f-fine,” Toma wheezes, coughing to cover up the last of his laughter. “I can’t head to the train with you today, though. Practice.”
“Oh, Grease, right? Good luck! I’ll, um, well I’ll definitely get the money to you as soon as I can.” A small sigh. “I’m just glad you’re not charging me interest.”
“Who agreed to that?”
Maki smacks him lightly on the shoulder.
“Look, how about you just repay me in meals?”
“Meals?”
“Since it’s a lot of money, you can just pay me back in small increments. Until your next paycheck, of course.”
“Of course.” Maki smiles and it’s her first real smile of the day that isn’t tinged with sadness and regret and monetary loss. It is also completely, one-hundred-percent free.
*
With clashing schedules and busy lives, filming, rehearsals, and the persistent need for a few hours of sleep at a time, it takes a whole month before they can finally squeeze into a booth at a discreet ramen shop in Tokyo.
“And it’s only 500 yen,” Toma announces, breaking his chopsticks and digging into his meal with gusto. He’s been up since six and this is the first real meal he’s been allowed all day.
“But at this rate I’ll be in debt to you forever.” Maki frowns as she breaks her chopsticks and rubs them together thoughtfully.
“Because of the price or the timing?”
“Both.”
“Then I’ll have thirds.”
Maki laughs and finally helps herself, stuffs a large portion of noodles into her mouth and gives him a thumbs up for the taste.
“And we’ll make time, even when it gets hard. I don’t get to see that many people lately as it is-I could use the company.”
Toma ends up with a fourth bowl, and though his stomach is full to bursting and Maki has long since finished her own second bowl, he wants this hour to last just a little longer.
*
The third time they meet Toma is already seated at the Italian restaurant for dinner and flipping through the menu, wavering between the first and second most expensive dish on the menu. And several appetizers. He notices her come in but doesn’t realize it’s Maki and not an adolescent teenage boy until she’s seated across from him with a tired but cheery smile on her face.
“What’s good?” She has a baseball cap fit low over her eyes and she’s dressed casually in skinny jeans and flats but what immediately draws his attention is-
“What are you wearing?”
“Don’t you recognize it?” Maki’s voice is dry but genial, and Toma does indeed recognize the 165,000 yen parka, still stained yellow at the neck and pink at the sleeves-after multiple washings, Maki later assures him-old and well-worn. The first parka ever made.
“Okay, let me rephrase that-why are you wearing that?”
“Well, I figured we bought it, so we should put it to use.”
“Why not try selling it?”
“You think I haven’t tried?” Maki deadpans, and Toma remembers his own ill-fated attempt to sell a neon green glass cup that looks like it’s made of plastic. “I’m a day away from eating rice out of that paintbrush bowl.”
Dinner is warm and cozy, filled with baskets of fresh-out-of-the-oven bread with melting globs of butter, calamari with spiced marinara sauce, stuffed portabella mushrooms oozing with melted parmesan cheese, and a large wedge salad with light dressing, at Maki’s insistence. Toma orders the second most expensive cut of steak and Maki, predictably, has the chicken with tomato sauce.
“I can’t eat another bite,” Toma says by the end, although Maki somehow manages to get one last forkful of greens into his mouth.
She pays for the check by card and while they wait she sets her cap neatly on the table and wriggles out of her parka. She looks like a breath of fresh air free from the dwarfing mass of fabric, and the simple tee she has on underneath is definitely more form-flattering. If he has any further thoughts after that, they’re interrupted by her folding the sweater store-front-neat and then offering it to him with both hands. “Here.”
“Uh?”
“It’s your turn next.”
“My turn?”
“I did say we should put it to use.” She laughs at the obvious look of displeasure on his face. “It’s still technically 68,000 yen’s worth yours.”
“I do have some dignity, you know.”
“Before or after you wore a bra and put panties on your head? Or when you wore the maid costume. Or when you-”
“All right, all right!” Toma exclaims, hastily taking the sweater from her before the waiter comes back with the check.
When he studies the parka later that night and places it over his head, it smells of her.
*
The seventh, eighth, twelfth time they meet-he decides to stop counting the moment it seems, to him, a countdown-she arrives dressed in a kimono, with her hair pulled tight on her head; he arrives with slicked back hair and stage makeup still on.
“Lovely to see you, Princess Kazu,” Toma says with a bow as she joins him at the dango stand.
“And lovely to see you, Danny of the T-Birds Clan.” She bows back easily, with the grace of a true princess. “The parka suits your leather pants.”
“It would look better over your kimono.”
Maki buys as many sticks of dango they can cram into their mouths in thirty minutes before they make a hasty retreat for a more secluded area, somewhere a princess and a greaser can eat in relative, paparazzi-free peace.
“Oh, right, did you hear?” Toma says, leaning back against the park bench and polishing off his fifth stick of dango. “Nanba-senpai is getting married.”
“Mizushima-kun is? Really? How?”
“Love sprung from behind the scenes of his drama, I heard. She sang the theme song.” He glances at her, her thoughtful profile and the billowing sleeves of her kimono, hands folded over her lap. “Like a fairytale.”
“I want that.”
“A fairytale?”
“Love.”
*
He sends her off with the parka over her kimono, and if she notices all the looks she’s garnering as she runs back to the studio in her wooden sandals, she doesn’t show it, just looks back once with a cheerful wave and squinting, sunlit eyes. A thought occurs then, unbidden, but it lingers long after his performance that night, lingers straight until the sun breaks at dawn.
Love.
He’s spent so much time loving her without being in love with her that even months after the special, he’s no longer sure where Nakatsu Shuichi ends and Ikuta Toma begins.
Mizuki was so much easier to read, and it was an ending that surprised no one. But with Maki he realizes he doesn’t fear the pain of unrequited love; what he fears most with her is simply this: an ending.
*
It is the new year before they meet again and the time apart has given Toma ample time to think. “Maybe we’re going about this the wrong way,” he says, sliding into the booth across from Maki. She glances up at him and he takes it as a sign of encouragement. “Maybe we should go big or go home.”
Maki blinks and tilts her head to side. “What do you mean?”
“You said this was your first free day for months, right?”
They spend the entire day at Tokyo Disneyland and it is freezing cold. It is perhaps the first time the parka has looked remotely becoming on her, underneath her puffy down jacket with a fur-lined hood. They walk briskly and stop into several stores and restaurants to ward off the cold in-between exploring and waiting on line for rides. Steam rises from her chattering lips and Toma feels an increasing urge to wrap his arms around her to keep her warm. He settles for offering his scarf, and it is halfway off before she declines, readjusting the material over his neck.
“I’m fine, the parka is actually very warm.” She pauses, considering. “Not 165,000 yen warm, but warm enough.”
Toma smiles and when Maki realizes she’s been fidgeting with his scarf for the better part of two minutes, she promptly drops her mittened-hands and apologizes in a babble of teeth-clattering chatter.
In the distance, Cinderella’s Castle glitters silver and blue against the night sky.
*
“And with that I only owe you 200 more yen!” Maki exclaims, leaning against a rack of Mickey Mouse ears in a candy store at the World Bazaar. She hands him a bag of assorted candies and chocolates, but not before pilfering a sour straw or two.
“Keep the change,” Toma replies graciously, though his heart is beginning to thrum in his throat. He hopes the candy can help, but all it does is make his throat sticky sweet and his heart beat faster from all the sugar.
“No, no, fair is fair,” Maki says firmly, glancing around the store for anything worth buying. “Mickey ears?”
“Pass.”
“Oh wait, I’ve got it! I’ll be right back.” Maki slips both her parka and jacket hoods over her head and motions for him to stay there as she sprints out the door, letting in a blast of cold air in her wake. She’s gone only a few minutes, but somehow the bag of candy is empty except for a few stray sugar crystals left at the bottom.
Maki raises an eyebrow at the empty bag, but brandishes her latest find at him with little fanfare.
“Wrist bands.” They are pearly white and there are two of them. “They look like the ones I got for you and Shun last time.”
“I know. Actually, mine broke a few weeks ago and I’d been feeling awful about it,” she admits, glancing up at him-nervously? “Sorry.”
“No, I’m just,” speechless, “surprised you wore it at all after filming.”
“Of course I would,” she says a little too loudly, a little too breathlessly. “Anyway, take it will you.” This is accompanied by a friendly slug to the arm.
“There’s only two. Shun’s going to be jealous,” he says, slipping one over his wrist.
“Shun-kun doesn’t have to know.” The matching band gleams merrily on her wrist.
“So.”
“So?”
“This is the end I guess.” This is ending.
“Yeah.” Maki makes as if to take her sweater off, then says, sheepishly, “I guess this parka is one-hundred-percent mine now. I don’t owe you anymore.”
“You look sad.”
“I am sad.” She glances up at him with those big doe eyes and there’s something faintly there that he tries to understand, but then she blinks and he’s left wanting. “This parka is so sadly expensive.”
“So where-” “Technically-”
After much hemming and hawing and you first and no, you hand gestures, Toma finally gets her to speak first.
“Technically,” she repeats, clearing her throat and looking pointedly at the band on her wrist. “Each wristband only cost 100 yen.” He blinks. “And I bought one for me.” He blinks again. “Which means . . . I still owe you 100 yen.”
Oh.
Oh.
“You were saying? Before, I cut you off, I mean.”
“I was going to say, ‘where to?’, but I think I know the answer now.”
“Oh?”
“Fancy a trip to a 100 Yen Shop?”
She bites her bottom lip but there is a smile peeking at the corners of her lips, clear as day and one-hundred-percent his. “Really?”
“Really.” He grins and marvels at the way the matching bands look around tightly clasped hands. “And if it ends up too expensive, we’ll go borrow money. Together.”