[FANFIC] Charade- Chapter 6
Title: Charade
Author: stormytwilight
Rating: PG
Fandom: Hey! Say! JUMP
Pairing: Arioka Daiki X OC
Genre: Romance, Fluff, Hetero
Word Count: 3,371
Length: Series
Disclaimer: I don’t own Daiki. Or HSJ. And this is a story of pure and utter fiction.
Summary: Shimura Rika was beautiful, rich, smart and talented. She’s also a bitchy brat who gets everything she wants when she wants it. Rika proves that money can buy you everything when she asks her dad to buy her a boyfriend from Johnny Kitagawa. And the unlucky guy who the spoiled ojou-sama chooses? Poor, poor Arioka Daiki.
AN: It’s been too long since I updated this story. I know, I’m way, way past the deadline I gave myself for this fic. I’m so sorry hoshi_no_kage! Anyway, this chapter is kind of dramatic. I really don’t do that much drama so it might suck. But I hope you still like it! ♥
Chapter 6
Rika was only who knew, besides his family, that Daiki was dating someone else. His real girlfriend. The girlfriend he really had feelings for. The girlfriend that Daiki had been dating in secrecy for almost a year now. Haru Amane.
Her finding out didn’t change anything. Daiki and Rika still went out, acting like a real couple while when Daiki went home and let his hair down, he’d be spending time with his real girlfriend. But he couldn’t help but hope for a change in Rika. At least slight hesitance to interfere with his relationship with Haru would’ve been okay. But there was none.
She really didn’t have a heart when it comes to things other than her own self. That or maybe she was just too bothered to care for trivial things like ‘others’ at the moment.
“Rika, are you even listening?”
Daiki watched Rika walk through one of the many carpeted corridors of her mansion, a concentrated look on her face. She looked like she was thinking deeply about something and was completely deaf and blind to everything around her.
“Hey! Watch the statue!” Daiki snatched Rika’s wrist before she collided with the marble monument of an angel standing precociously on her lopsided path.
This made Rika snap out of it. “W-What?”
“Watch where you’re going, will you?” Daiki sighed exasperatedly, releasing his hold on her as they resumed their walk. “I said, you should get ready. The party is in two hours. And I know how long you take to prepare. You don’t want to be late, do you?”
“Party? What party?” Rika frowned at him.
“The party, Rika! The party we scheduled a week ago. The party that Johnny Kitagawa instructed JUMP to go to, where I should bring you as a date. Ring a bell?” Daiki said in incredulity.
“Oh, that party,” she said blankly.
“Yeah, that party. So, go off and get ready. I told your driver, Charles-san, to bring the car around after an hour and a half,” Daiki said, shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe that Rika would forget such a thing. She doesn’t forget anything, especially parties.
“I’m not going.”
“What?” Daiki’s eyes widened. “What do you mean you’re not going?”
“I don’t want.” Then she did the unthinkable. She frowned in misery and sighed.
“What?” Daiki said again. “Why? Wait- Is this about my girlfriend?”
Her face turned back to normal for a second. She grimaced scornfully at him. “No! Don’t be thick,” she said. Then she sighed again. “This is about Pocky.”
“Pocky?”
“He’s gotten worse since the last time you saw him. That’s why I haven’t been bringing him around lately,” Rika said in despair. “Right now, I don’t want to leave him anymore. I think I should just stay home and take care of him.”
And Daiki noticed that Rika was clutching a huge, white basket full of first-aid materials and some medicine.
“You mean to say,” Daiki said, as they stopped in front of an enormous door at the end of the long hallway, “that you’d miss a VIP event for a dog?”
Rika glared at him. “Say that again and I’ll kick your sorry butt out of my window. You’d fall four stories high,” she snapped, turning the door knob of her bedroom.
Daiki followed her inside into the room that seemed too extravagant, too elegant to be just a bedroom of a teenage girl. It was a beautiful suite. They walked past the sitting area with two couches and a bar and past the queen-sized bed covered with thick, gold duvet. They headed towards the little nook of her sleeping area where a carriage stood still. The sound of soft howling can be heard from inside the tiny crib.
Rika immediately bent over the crib and stroked the whining Maltipoo gently. “What’s wrong, Pocky? Is your stomach aching again? It’s because you don’t eat your food.” She stood up to get something from the basket. “Pocky is not just any dog. He’s my dog and he’s so sick so I have to tend to him, alright? I won’t go to a stupid party until he gets better.”
He watched her get some painkillers from the first-aid kit and let Pocky drink the medicine carefully. Pocky, he saw, drank all of the contents of the water bottle in Rika’s hands.
“I guess I won’t be going as well,” Daiki said, approaching Rika and Pocky. “I’ll be staying with you.”
“Good,” Rika said, helping Pocky drink from another water bottle. “You can help me take care of Pocky.”
Pocky whined again, spluttered out some of the liquid he drank and he laid his little head against the white pillow on his crib. Daiki stared at the weak figure of Pocky while Rika hurried to wipe the mess Pocky made.
“Have you tried asking for medical help?” Daiki asked, his hands patting Pocky’s limp paws gently.
“I called a veterinarian a few days ago and told him the symptoms. He advised me to give Pocky medicine for the stomachaches,” Rika said, her voice heavy as she searched for something inside the kit. She got a thermometer out and went to Pocky to measure his temperature. “I mean, he’s always whining about his stomach. He doesn’t eat. He’s always in bed and doesn’t run around like he usually does. Ever since that photo shoot three days ago...”
“Did he do something the day before the shoot to make him feel this sick?”
“No. It was like a sudden attack,” she said, tucking the thermometer away. After, she sat on a chair beside the crib and buried her face in her hands. She looked very exhausted and to say that she was worried was an understatement.
“Something must’ve happened…” Daiki said, concerned, thinking of the possible reasons of his disease.
There was silence. His lips pressed grimly together, he glanced at Rika and then at Pocky. He had never seen Rika worry this much over something and he could bet his iPod that this had never happened even before they had met.
Ring! Ring!
Daiki got his cell phone, flipped it open and stared at the caller’s name. She glanced at Rika, her head still low and hesitated.
“Just answer it,” Rika said, her voice muffled against her hands, which made Daiki wonder if she was psychic or that she just knew him well.
“Hello, Haru?” Daiki said into the phone. “Hey. No, I’ve been quite busy… What? Where am I now? I’m at Rika’s. Maybe until 8. I’ll have dinner here.” He paused. “I’m sorry… Are you sure? Okay. Take care. ‘Bye.” He pushed the ‘end’ button and sighed. “She’s officially angry with me.”
Rika rubbed her eyes and stood up. “What makes you say that?” She strolled over to Pocky.
“Well, I promised I would go home right away after work. But then Johnny said that I have to be here.”
“Stuck with me, unfortunately for you.”
“Yeah. Oh, well.” He pocketed his cell phone and walked over to the other side of the room, where, beside Rika’s top-of-the-line stereo system, a wooden shelf cased thousands of Rika’s CDs. “Hey, I’ve just noticed, you have an awesome CD collection.”
He picked one CD up and stared at the English words written on the American album. “No way. This is a limited edition Green Day album! Don’t tell me you listen to this kind of music? Cool! I do, too.” Daiki looked around at Rika and saw her looking strangely at him. “What?”
Rika had a “you’re-taking-this-far-too-lightly” look. “Nothing.”
Daiki placed the crystal case back onto its place and said, “Honestly, surprisingly, I’m really not--“
“Pocky!”
All of a sudden, Pocky’s body jerked and he started twitching terribly.
“POCKY!”
“What happened?” Daiki hurried to them, mouth open in shock.
“He’s shaking! And he’s-“ Pocky began choking, as if his lungs were suddenly incapable of doing its job. “He can’t breathe! D-Daiki, do something!”
Rika stared, horror-struck, at her dog’s pained face. Then he vomited all over the crib, the room reeking of spoiled food. Daiki felt nauseated but the worry overcame it by a hundred.
“Th-The vet! We should take him to the vet! Come on, let’s go!” Daiki scooped Pocky’s convulsing figure. “He feels hot!”
“Oh, my God,” Rika said, her body trembling slightly with Pocky’s horrible state. She covered her mouth, eyes suddenly stinging and heart beating rapidly.
Daiki looked back at Rika as he hurried out of the door. He suddenly realized, amidst the commotion, that something was different about her. Her face was white and she was looking far from the composed and collected Rika that he first met but those weren’t the changes he noticed. Then he realized, Pocky still quivering alarmingly, that she seemed more human, more like a person with feelings, a person with a heart.
***
“What’re you doing?”
Rika heard that incredulous tone in Daiki’s voice again. She closed her eyes briefly, tightening her grip on the many shopping bags she was holding in one hand before replying, as calmly as she could, “This is called retail therapy. Have you ever heard of that? Or do I need to spell it out for you?”
“Yes, I know what retail therapy is. Girls blow up their credit card by hiking the malls whenever they’re depressed. But calm down, alright? We left Pocky in the hospital. He’s going to be cured and everything’s going to be fine,” Daiki said. “So stop freaking out.”
“I’m not freaking out,” Rika said. She tried not to think what had happened to Pocky since they left him yesterday.
“I think I’ve known you for a while to know whether you’re bothered.”
“Okay. How do you know?” Rika crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at him.
“Well, for instance, when we left your house at eight o’clock in the morning, you stepped out of the house without looking twice, thrice and a million more times at the state of your hair and clothes. You’re actually eating in public, which you said was very unladylike,” Daiki gestured at the Cinnabon rolls in her other hand, “And you’re in Gap.” Daiki pointed at the sign of the store they were currently in. “I thought you said this was a store for old, fat ladies who have no sense of fashion?”
Rika’s lips were twitching to smile. It was actually nice to hear that he knew so much about her. “Fine, you convinced me.”
Daiki laughed as Rika stepped out of the store and threw the half-eaten rolls into the nearest trash can.
“So, what do you expect me to do? I’m not fine at all. The vet was hiding something from us yesterday and I can’t help but think that Pocky’s disease is something serious. I’ve never worried this much in my whole entire life. I don’t know what to do…”
Rika sighed and glanced at the happy faces of the shoppers that passed them. How could they be so happy when it seemed like the end of the world for her? She had no idea how to handle the heavy feeling she had now. Her way of releasing tension through shopping seemed like a funny way to deal with it.
“I-I’m really not myself now. I’m so confused. It’s so strange- Hey!“
Daiki’s fingers curled around her thin wrist and he started pulling her. “Let’s go and distract you.”
“Where are we going?” Rika asked. “And slow down, Daiki!”
“Oh, yeah, I almost forgot.” Daiki loosened his grip on her wrist and let his fingers intertwine with Rika’s instead. He continued on leading Rika to wherever he was taking her.
The warmth of Daiki’s hand seemed to have shut her mouth a tiny bit. She let him drag her, taking fleeting glances at the whispering people they passed by as they saw Daiki, the famous idol, with his “girlfriend”.
“In here, Rika.”
After passing hundreds of boutiques along the mall’s hallway, they both paused. Rika looked up. It was a music store.
“What’re we doing here?” she asked incredulously as Daiki dragged her inside.
“I’ll show you how Arioka Daiki calms down after a long and stressful day,” Daiki said, smiling.
“Huh?” She was confused, looking around as if trying to find the reason why the place would be some sort of sanctuary for him.
The store was huge. It was like the national library. But instead of books filling the many shelves, there were countless albums and records stacked neatly along each other and CD players with headphones connected to it were hanging especially for the customer’s use to try out certain CDs on display.
It was a cozy store, too. Red sofas against the black carpet looked entirely inviting. Next to the chairs were also some CD players on tables for listening purposes. Groups of people are seen huddled around the headphones, enjoying the music, while some were alone, listening to relaxing music while reading magazines available beside the chairs. It also added to the atmosphere that some jazz music was playing in the background.
“Come on.” Daiki was dragging her along the many aisles to head to the counter right at the far end of the store. Then he stopped at a short distance to the counter and released her hand. “Wait here.”
Daiki left Rika standing confusedly as he went and talked to the store’s attendant behind the counter. After a few minutes, Daiki went back to her, smiling mysteriously.
“What did you do?”
“Shh, listen.” Daiki pressed a finger to his lips.
The jazz music playing on the store’s speakers stopped and there was a crackling noise of a microphone turning on.
“Good morning, everyone. We have our first dedication of the day! This song is dedicated to the princess who’s feeling very sad today. The dedicator wishes the princess to feel better. A song to put a smile on your face, here’s a track from one of America’s promising artists, Lifehouse.”
Rika listened as some sort of acoustic music filled her ears. Her eyes met Daiki’s and he smiled as if saying, “What do you think? Cool, huh?” She smiled back and let the song fill her. The soft, rhythmic strumming of the guitar, the husky crooning voice of whoever was singing and the harmonious melody of the English song were very soothing on her frazzled nerves.
“What’re you doing?” Rika asked, shaking her head but looking quite happy nonetheless. She couldn’t believe that he just dedicated a song to her.
“Making you feel better, what else? Is it working?”
The smile on her face became more apparent.
“I guess it is,” Daiki said, pleased, grabbing her hand again, pulling her along the corridors again as the song played in the background. “Come on. I have lots of my favorite songs to let you hear.”
And she let him pull her because whatever he was doing to make her feel better, she guessed it was working.
***
“So…”
Rika turned and saw Daiki looking at her intently, eyebrows high and expectant.
“It was fun,” Rika said, feeling light as different tunes echoed in her head. She had enjoyed Daiki’s world of music. “I’m feeling a lot better, surprisingly.”
Both were standing side by side on a little wooden bridge on the mall’s beautiful outside garden, overlooking the manmade pond that came with it. It was a popular attraction and they understood why. The atmosphere was so serene, with quaint little cafes dotting the borders of the garden and lush flowers blooming everywhere.
They both looked towards the nice view, sipping their cups of latte. Fishes in the pond chased each other and Rika grinned.
Daiki looked happy and pleased with Rika’s positive reaction. “Have I told you that I like music?”
“It’s not really obvious, is it?” She was being sarcastic and playful as she rests her latte beside her phone on the bridge’s ledge.
“It’s a stress-reliever for me. Something so simple like a bunch of notes together makes me so happy that it’s wonderful. Like magic. I breathe on it. That’s why I’m thankful that I’m in the business to make music and make others feel amazing.” He smiled thoughtfully.
Rika nodded. “It is a stress-reliever. It helps that you have good taste in music,” she said, seeing the blissful expression he had on. “You really like it, huh?”
“Yeah, usually foreign rock bands like Green Day. They’re my ultimate favorite,” Daiki said. He then dug into his pocket and took out an iPod. “You want to listen?”
“Sure.” She took the iPod, inserted the earphones into her ears and browsed the playlists. “Wow, these are a lot of songs.”
“Cool, huh? Most of my songs aren’t mainstream and are extremely rare. I’ve spent most of my money downloading everything. My iPod is one of my most treasured possessions. It’s the first thing I bought with the money I earned.”
Rika was suddenly entranced at the massive music collection. The bass of an unfamiliar rock song thumping gave her a rush. “This is actually cool.”
“Thanks,” he said, wearing a pleased grin that looked like it won’t go off anytime soon.
She closed her eyes as the next song played out the soft strumming of a guitar. And then the next song switched from acoustic to jazz. A warm shiver ran through her. Do saxophones do that to you?
Today was one of the most memorable days she had with Daiki ever. He was so kind to her, so sweet, so concerned. She wondered why that was. It can be deduced that Rika had ruined his life and maybe would come to ruin his relationship with his real girlfriend. She took too much of his time, his patience and yet she never heard him complain nowadays. He was more cooperative. Throughout the day, she felt like she didn’t deserve his… friendship. He was a friend to her now, more of a friend than her egoistical cronies. It was surprising.
Maybe the weeks changed them both.
Soft vibration of the ledge pulled her from the calmness of the saxophone crooning in her ears. She opened her eyes and saw that it was her phone which was disturbing her.
“It’s the vet,” Daiki said, staring at the caller ID. He glanced at Rika and picked up her phone. “I’ll answer it, okay?”
Rika nodded. Then suddenly, her heartbeat paced faster and she nervously removed the earphones. The feeling of calm was long gone.
“Hello?” Daiki said into her phone. “Yes. It’s her boyfriend. Why? Is there something wrong?”
Her hold on the iPod tightened as Daiki’s face contorted in shock. “What? What did he say?” Rika demanded. The look on his face didn’t spell good news. “Is Pocky alright? What did he say?”
Daiki’s face was pale as he ended the call without so much of a good-bye. His gaze focused on the wrinkled surface of the pond.
“What’s wrong, Daiki? What did the vet say about Pocky?” she asked frantically, his expression scaring her. Rika gripped his sleeve and shook him. “What did he say, Daiki?”
He looked at her and tears welled up in Rika’s eyes. Daiki gazed at her with so much apology and sadness that she could bet that whatever he would say would break her heart.
“I’m so sorry, Rika,” he said quietly.
“Why are you sorry?” Rika asked, voice rising. People glanced at them but she couldn’t care less. “Tell me what happened!”
“P-Pocky… He’s- He…”
Rika felt heavy at the morose tone of his voice. . “What? What happened? Tell me, Daiki!”
“He just died.”
The world crashed before her. A gasp strangled in her throat and as she blinked, tears fell. Unknown to the both of them, Daiki’s iPod fell from her grasp in shock, hit the bridge and fell to the pond.
“No.”
“Rika…” Daiki reached out to touch her.
“N-No! There has to be some mistake! It can’t be!” She wouldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe it. It was impossible.
“Rika, I’m sorry.” He looked so helpless.
She turned. “It can’t be!”
Then she started to run, leaving drops of her tears marked on the wooden bridge.
“RIKA!”
-END-
AN: I’m sorry if it was sad. :’-( Pockyyyyyy.
It’s been so long since I updated. And I’m absolutely sorry! So many things have been happening. The laptop broke and I have limited time in using the computer. And then, school just started and then there are college entrance exams, which I have to study for. So, I’ll be on a long hiatus until August. I know, I fail. I’m so sorry!
Anyway, please share your thoughts on this chapter (it’s not as good as the other chapters TT_TT). I’m not that good with dramatic scenes.
Rielle/ hoshi_no_kage this is for you and thanks for being patient with this series. I love you! :-*
AND BTW BEFORE I FINISH. hoshi_no_kage and I ( stormytwilight) have a fic comm! Please join savage_nocturne! It's a comm for our yaoi and NC-17 fics. LMAO. Thanks so much! I should be ashamed of the shameless pimping. XDD
CHAPTER 7 WILL BE UP ON AUGUST. Thanks so much for reading!