[OneShot] Unforgettable
He was one of the guys who was unreachable.
For one Kato Shigeaki anyway. Yamashita Tomohisa was nice and friendly to everyone he met. He was all smiles all the time, but by the way they never completely reached his eyes he showed the world that he was feeling something else after all.
Shige thought it was okay. The smiles were only directed at him through the TV screen and so Shige knew per se that Yamashita Tomohisa the idol was far, far away from a normal, geeky law student like him.
Shige didn’t even care too much about the idol, just sometimes envied him a bit. For being so successful, for being popular with both boys and girls, for being so astonishing beautiful, for being someone people remembered. While Shige wasn’t even remembered by his own professors even though he was always one of the best students in the seminars. Not even the girl that had been sitting next to him for almost the whole of the last semester seemed to be able to remember his name correctly.
Kato Shigeaki was just someone no one ever remembered.
Shige afterwards thought it was absurdly ironic that of all people, Yamashita, the idol everyone knew, would remember him in every detail.
+
It was a fairly normal day and Shige was on his way to his part time job- the library. Sometimes Shige daydreamt that he would work at a bar instead, be one of the guys everyone liked because they thought he would be giving them drinks for free. But then he remembered how he managed to crash another glass this morning and thought that he was probably better off being an ordinary librarian. At least books were very hard to destroy even if he managed to let them slip out of his hand and onto the floor at least once a shift and have everyone give him angry looks.
Well, maybe they remembered him that way, Shige hoped. But of course, they didn’t.
Shige was about to turn the corner to the library when he suddenly got grabbed by his wrist and pulled away from the path and into the bushes lining the path.
He stumbled over a root which had him and the attacker both ungracefully falling to the ground. Shige would have panicked over the sudden loss of his glasses but the attacker who was now sitting behind him (and on whom he had thankfully landed) was covering his mouth with his hand. He instantly knew it was a guy not only by the force but also by the intensity of the other person’s scent that made it hard to breathe- or maybe it was because his nose was stuffed and that his mouth was covered so he couldn’t breathe through his mouth either.
“Promise me to neither scream nor attack me, okay?” the guy whispered and Shige immediately nodded. His heart began to beat rapidly and he could hear the blood rushing in his ears. Not only because breathing became very necessary but because he instantly recognized the voice as the one of none other than Yamashita Tomohisa himself.
The hand slowly got removed and Shige took in a couple of deep breaths before turning around and opening his mouth to ask what the hell this was supposed to be about. He came as far as “what” when suddenly the screams of girls reached their ears which had them first jumping and then instinctively hiding deeper in the bushes.
They were only a couple of girls but they were shrieking so loudly and painfully that Shige wondered how Yamashita was able to survive a whole concert with ten thousands of screaming girls.
When the coast seemed clear again, Shige turned around again to see Yamashita looking at him almost apologetically.
“I’m sorry” the idol said and Shige wanted to ask what for but then only formed an “oh” with his mouth when Yamashita returned his broken glasses to him.
“I must have fallen upon them. But I will replace them, promise!” Yamashita continued.
Shige wasn’t amused in the slightest and so he only grunted some incoherent swears.
“What is this all about anyway?” Shige then asked while analyzing his glasses. The bridge was broken and the two pieces only hung loosely together and the right lens was destroyed.
He tried it on but it was hopeless- irreparable.
Shige cursed silently because without his glasses he had no chance to read the book titles and therefore could actually go home straight away because what was a blind librarian worth anyway?
“I wanted to visit a friend but then got hunted down by these girls and now I am trying finding a way out without being seen.”
Yamashita watched Shige play with the broken glasses, a very rueful expression on his face. If Shige wasn’t so angry he would probably find it adorable. Instead Shige didn’t even pay attention to the idol’s expression and raised an eyebrow instead.
“And why did you have to attack me like that then? You could have just asked like anyone else.”
Yamashita winced.
“I’m truly sorry.”
“Yeah, you said that already. Unfortunately that won’t repair my glasses.”
Yamashita thoughtfully stuck his bottom lip out as if he was pouting as he watched Shige stand up and tossing the broken spectacles into the next bin.
“Would you still help me, please?” Yamashita asked sheepishly when Shige was about to not- very-gracefully fight his way through the bushes and back to the way.
Shige glared at him but still felt sorry for the very lost and rueful looking idol who was sitting on the ground. He sighed, massaged the bridge of his nose and then explained Yamashita the way to the back exit.
“Thank you, I’m going to buy you a replacement, promise!” Yamashita waved smiling before spurting away.
“Yeah, sure. As if you will remember that tomorrow!” Shige snorted to himself.
He then proceeded to go to the library to tell his boss he wouldn’t be able to work today.
+
Shige was very positive that Yamashita indeed had forgotten about him already when he hadn’t seen him or heard of him again even after a complete week. Then again he didn’t even have his mobile number or as much as his name so Yamashita had probably forgotten. The fact that Shige was bound to walk around half blindly with his old glasses now was surely not forgiven.
Shige never used contact lenses because the one time he had tried putting them on he had managed to hurt his eye so much it was red even days after. Shige would have gone to the optician to get new glasses but he had been so busy with college that he never found a shop that was still open.
At least he could guess what was written with his old glasses though he got dizzy after half of the day from the way he had to concentrate to put the puzzle that was his view together correctly. He had managed to knock down even more things than usual and even had managed to painfully fall down the stairs once.
He considered he should just take time for getting new glasses before he seriously started hurting himself.
Currently Shige was trying to identify another book so he could put it back into its respective space when a face popped into his view.
“Are you the guy?” the slightly blurred guy asked.
“Huh?” was all Shige answered. He tried getting a little more focus on the guy if only to check whether he knew him or not. When he realized it was not Yamashita, his heart sank. Not that he had believed Yamashita would go through the pain of coming back anyway.
Why was he still hoping for the impossible?
“Are you the guy with the broken glasses?” the stranger asked, voice hushed.
Shige blinked, slowly nodded, his vision dazing again. Fast movements were definitely not good in his state.
The other guy rolled his eyes, at least it looked like that, and sighed out of relief.
“Thank God I finally found you. Pi called me all kinds of names when I told him that no one has a fucking clue who the hell you are. He thought I wasn’t even searching, but I tell you, I was in all kinds of places. Did you know we had a room in the cellar with a billiard table?”
Shige slowly shakes his head, his mind trying to make sense out of the riddles that were the guy’s words.
“Okay listen: Pi told me to tell you to go to this address tomorrow at 4 pm. Do not give this address to anyone and if you tell anyone you are probably going to be killed- or something like that.” Shige looked shocked. “Okay probably you won’t but still. Don’t tell!”
The guy tossed a piece of paper in Shige’s hands and before the part-time librarian could even as much as open his mouth the guy had disappeared again.
Shige glanced at the address. Blinked. Then shrugged.
He had classes tomorrow till 6 he couldn’t miss. Whatever was waiting for him tomorrow at 4 pm in some street in Omori had to wait.
+
Two days later a very pissed and annoyed not so very unknown stranger paced into the library and stopped so short in front of him that the books in Shige’s hands went flying in shock.
The guy glared at him and Shige was suddenly glad he appeared still a bit blurry.
“Where were you supposed to be yesterday?” the guy pressed and Shige felt more than a bit uncomfortable.
“Uhm.” Shige did, trying to get some space between him in the guy but the further he stepped back the closer the guy seemed to be. He was trapped.
The guy glared at him, then grabbed him by the wrist and forcefully pulled him along.
“We are going now!” was all he said and Shige was so flabbergasted he didn’t even protest.
+
Shige got almost pushed into the little restaurant and before he could ask, his kidnapper had gone already. Very confused, he looked around and eventually noticed someone with a hat pulled deep into his face and huge sunglasses frantically waving at him.
Shige cocked an eyebrow. If Yamashita wanted to stay unrecognized he was behaving pretty stupidly, Shige thought.
Shige sighed and walked over to the idol to make him stop waving like that.
“Ne, I was trying to call you.” Yamashita started, pushing the menu towards Shige.
“You don’t even have my number.” Shige replied dryly, glanced at the menu and decided he didn’t need anything to eat. Or to drink for that matter.
“Yeah, I realized that, too, after I had skimmed through all my contacts without finding you. Then again I don’t even know your name in the first place so even if you had been on my contact list, I wouldn’t have had any chance in finding you, right?”
Shige blinked. Something about this sounded terribly wrong and yet it made perfectly sense on the other hand. He was confused.
“C’mon, have something to eat. The food is delicious.” And expensive, Shige added in his thoughts.
“No thanks, I’m not hungry- or thirsty.”
It didn’t take more than two seconds for Shige’s body to betray him by rumbling loudly.
Yamashita looked amused. Shige, not so much.
“I was going to invite you out.” Yamashita added.
“No thanks, that’s not necessary, I’m really not very hungry.” As if to protest to that lie his stomach rumbled again and Yamashita gave him a very amused look.
“Take it as an apology for breaking your glasses.”
Shige sighed, then finally agreed.
“I still don’t know your name.” Yamashita noticed after Shige had ordered the cheapest food on the menu.
“Kato. Kato Shigeaki.” Shige said.
“So it’s Shige then.” Shige winced but guessed he couldn’t tell an idol to properly address him and not use his nickname. But then Yamashita surprised him by adding “I’m Tomo.”
“Tomo?” Shige asked incredulous, the name foreign on his tongue.
Yamashita- no- Tomo smiled.
“Everyone’s been calling me Yamapi or Pi for ages now and I don’t even know anymore why. It sounds nice being called by my real name again.”
Shige somehow understood.
“Tomo-kun it is, then.”
Yamapi chuckled upon the honorific but doesn’t say anything.
+
When they left the small restaurant Shige was pretty sure that if he was to die now he would die as the happiest man on earth. It had been a long time since he’d had such delicious food and the company of Ya- no- Tomo-kun had been surprisingly entertaining. Not that Tomo-kun the idol wasn’t entertaining by nature, but the conversation just spread naturally between them and for the first time in ages Shige felt as if someone was interested in him again.
“And now, we’re going to get you new glasses.” Tomo-kun announced, looked right and left before climbing in a car that stood right in front of the entrance.
“Wait what?” Shige stuttered, only climbed into the passenger’s seat when Tomo-kun called after him and felt very, very confused.
+
The optician gave Shige a very disbelieving look and asked him whether he was really alright, having been walking around with the wrong glasses.
Shige shrugged and the optician only gave him a weird look then proceeded to check his eye sight again while Tomo-kun went to search for a new frame. Shige only hoped he didn’t choose the most expensive one.
Tomo-kun came back with free frames after a while, telling Shige to try each of them one, then he would decide.
Shige had to put on each frame at least thrice until Tomo-kun finally decided without letting Shige see what he looked like. Shige hated the fact he had to trust Tomo-kun on this one. Because if he was honest he didn’t know the idol at all. He only knew what he saw on TV, but the short lunch alone had showed Shige that there was another side of Tomo the idol that was never shown to the public.
And it confused him how Tomo didn’t seem to have a problem letting a stranger- who could turn out to be his biggest fan- see this side.
When the glasses were finished and Tomo had paid, he ceremonially gave them to Shige to go and try them on.
The first thing he saw was Tomo with an expectant look on his face. It was the first time Shige saw him that closely and it almost shocked him. Until now he had only seen him on TV with the smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Now Tomo smiled only with his eyes and it must have been the most beautiful smile he had ever seen.
“What’s up? Don’t see clearly?” Tomo asked a bit worried and the smile disappeared.
Shige shook his head, forced a smile on his face even though his heart was beating so fast he thought he would have to faint right here, right now.
“Well then let’s go, I’ll drive you back to the uni. And sorry for having Kusano kidnap you. I didn’t really feel like going back to that place.”
“Yeah, you seem to like attacking people.”
Tomo laughed, walking back out in front of Shige.
“You are the first, actually.”
“Then I should feel honoured?”
Tomo threw a mischievous smile at him before climbing back into the car.
The drive back to the university was over way too quickly and Shige knew that since he had gotten his new glasses, there was no need for Tomo to meet him again.
But again, the idol surprised him by holding Shige back when he was about to get out of the car and thanked him for the lunch and everything afterwards.
“Can you give me your mobile number and E-Mail address?”
Shige stopped, plopped back into the seat and stared at Tomo incredulously. Tomo shifted in his seat, looked almost a bit embarrassed.
“So that the next time I want to meet you, I won’t have to kidnap you again.”
There was an amused glint in Tomo’s eyes and Shige had to laugh.
“Your logic astonishes me.”
When Shige watched Tomo drive away a few minutes later he felt bubbly inside and there was a smile plastered on his face that had all of the other people he met almost jump back a step. He didn’t care.
Yamashita Tomohisa, the idol, had remembered him and chances were he would see him again. Shige felt like he was flying.
+
The clock on the wall behind him was ticking mercilessly, reminding him that time was something he didn’t have. He had to write a rather long essay by tomorrow and even though he had spent the last couple of hours sitting on his desk trying to work, he came as far as… nothing. A plain wide sheet of paper was staring back at him and he could swear that the stupid paper was grinning at him.
Annoyed he tossed his pen on to the desk and with a sigh let his head follow. He groaned and looked around the room for inspiration and sighed when his eyes found his cell phone once again. It was as silent as it had been for days, at least concerning one specific person.
“Maybe he’s just too busy.” Shige tried convincing himself- again.
But even if hope took a while to fade Shige believed there wasn’t any hope left. Even if Tomo hadn’t forgotten about him, maybe Shige wasn’t interesting enough in the end and the whole “give me your number” talk was just politeness.
Shige sighed and rubbed his eyes. He really had to get this damn essay done even if it meant staying up the complete night.
+
It was a couple of hours later deep into the night, way after midnight when suddenly Shige’s cell phone went off, waking him up. Still confused he needed a couple of seconds to recover and realized he must have fallen asleep- mid-sentence.
Blindly reaching out he picked up the phone and answered it without even looking at the caller ID.
“Hello?” Shige mumbled into the phone and suppressed a yawn.
“Shige? Did I wake you up from sleeping?” was the answer from none other than Yamashita Tomohisa. Shige was wide awake.
“What? Oh no, I’m still working.”
Tomo laughed.
“At that hour? Shouldn’t dutiful students be sleeping at this time of the night?”
Shige turned around to look at his clock. 3:12 am. Then he faced his only half done essay. When he calculated how much time was left for him he winced.
“Can’t. Need to finish the essay.” He sighed, massaging his temple with his free hand.
“Oh.” Came the instant reply and Shige was pretty sure it was out of disappointment.
“Why are you still awake?” He asked instead.
“I was out with some friends and thought I’d call you, ask what you’re up to and stuff.”
“At 3:15 in the morning?”
Tomo chuckled.
“Well, the truth is I wanted to leave a message to tell you to call me back.”
“Why so complicated?”
“Because I would forget calling you throughout the day so I thought I’d call now so that I won’t forget. But is that important?” Tomo sounded a bit impatient.
Shige laughed, shook his head, then when he realized Tomo couldn’t see it said:
“No, it doesn’t matter. It’s just your logic is very… well… unique.”
There was a pause on the other side and Shige heard some rustling voice.
“Yamashita-kun?”Shige asked, wondering whether the other one was still there.
Tomo chuckled again.
“I told you to call me Tomo, remember?”
“Sorry.”
There was more rustling. Then Shige heard Tomo readjusting the phone and then a suppressed sigh of satisfaction.
“Ne, Shige. Tell me what you have to work on in the middle of the night.”
“What?” Shige laughed half incredulous, half laughing not believing that Tomo would find that interesting at all.
“What do you work on?” Tomo repeated.
“I don’t think that’s interesting at all.”
Shige swore he could hear Tomo smile on the other end of the line.
“It will be. And I like hearing your voice.”
Shige blushed, thousands of butterflies suddenly in his stomach.
And so he began talking about the essay that was due by tomorrow. He talked about how he went to research but still can’t quite seem to get his hand on the topic and Tomo occasionally asked something when he didn’t understand.
And when Tomo didn’t answer a while later, probably because he had ended up falling asleep considering the even sound of breaths coming from the other end of line, Shige only had to write down the complete essay that had suddenly popped up in his head.
+
The first thing that popped up in his mind when Shige received the results of his essay was calling up and thanking Tomo. He was sure that without Tomo’s help he wouldn’t have been able to complete the essay, much less get an A.
It took for forever until Tomo finally picked up his phone.
“Hey Shige, what an unexpected call.” Tomo greeted him enthusiastically.
“Yeah I, uhm, kind of just wanted to thank you for helping me with my essay.”
Shige suddenly felt a bit embarrassed but Tomo just laughed.
“What for? I fell asleep halfway.”
“Yeah but still. You kind of- inspired me.”
Tomo laughed again and it warmed Shige’s heart. It had been long since someone was laughing and chuckling because of the things he said. The bubbly feeling inside his stomach grew again.
“So you want to ask me out as a Thank you?” Shige couldn’t overhear the mischievousness in his voice.
Still he was a bit taken aback, somehow didn’t expect the bluntness and honestly, hadn’t even thought about asking him out. For him it was still Yamashita Tomohisa the idol, even after all the kindness he had received from him. There was still something inside of him telling him that Yamashita, even though he called him Tomo, was unreachable for him and that he would get tired of Shige pretty soon. A normal university student dating a top idol? He had never heard of these kinds of fairy tales existing. And why was he thinking about dating anyway? There was no way in hell Tomo would ever consider liking him like that.
“Well, considering your very busy schedule…” Shige started but didn’t come very far.
“Great, then I’ll pick you up at 8. Where do you live?”
Shige blinked, taken aback again and stuttered his address. Even after Tomo had hung up Shige sat there, not quite getting what had just happened.
+
Shige had spent the last hour or so trying to pick out the perfect clothes. It hadn’t been easy considering that he was a full time nerd didn’t really own any fancy clothes. In the end he hoped that Jeans and a nice shirt (the nicest he could find that didn’t look too fancy) would do for whatever Tomo had planned.
And then it hit him: What if he took him to some fancy restaurant? Shige didn’t even have the money for any restaurant let alone some fancy, expensive one. And what if Tomo expected him to pay? But he couldn’t quite let Tomo pay if he was the one throwing the party, right?
Shige panicked. When the door bell rang he stumbled over his rag and clashed into the coffee table, painfully hurting his knee in the process.
“Shit.” He cursed limping to open the door behind which a smiling Yamashita Tomohisa greeted him.
“You ready?” the idol smiled though he started looking a bit worry when Shige’s answering smile was a bit forced. “Is everything alright?” he therefore asked.
Shige nodded, rubbed his knee and proceeded to put on his shoes.
“Where are we going?”
A mysterious grin formed on the idol’s face.
“You will see.” And that was all Shige found out while following Tomo to his car.
+
Shige still couldn’t believe it. It was two hours later and he was exactly where he had started his trip. The only difference was that he stood in his tiny kitchen, a humming Tomo by his side who cut vegetables and who danced along to the melody. And Shige’s kitchen was really tiny, so tiny that there was hardly space for the two of them and every time Tomo swung to the side, he almost bumped into Shige which had the university student jumping.
Shige was still a bit mortified from when Tomo had dragged him into the next supermarket and had told him that they would be making curry.
“What, in my kitchen?” had been Shige’s incredulous answer to which Tomo had just grinned. And then he had started asking Shige about the ingredients. Even more incredulously Shige had asked back whether Tomo hadn’t even looked up the recipe but Tomo had just shrugged and said that on his drive here he had suddenly felt like eating curry.
Shige really couldn’t believe it. Even now when they somehow had managed to create an edible curry with only Shige’s memory as the base. He was both fascinated and worried by Tomo’s oblivious “my pace” attitude.
“This is really good, right Shige? I was really craving for some good curry.” Tomo chirped, making a very satisfied face while chewing on his food.
Shige just shook his head, sniggering and in silence they finished their food.
+
Tomo plopped down on Shige’s old couch, sighing contently. He closed his eyes, leaning his head on the back of the couch, exposing a long, slender neck that had Shige catching his breath and almost dropping the last two bottles of beers he had found in the refrigerator.
He slowly sat down next to Tomo, carefully avoiding accidentally brushing against any part of the idol’s body.
Tomo cracked an eye open and lazily reached for the bottle of beer Shige was holding out for him.
“It’s really nice.” Tomot said, half smiling, beer still untouched. Shige’s was already half empty if only to calm him down again.
In movies this was the part when the kissing and fumbling would have started and even though Shige knew that this was neither a movie nor that Tomo would even as much as make a move him, he was still somehow nervous.
It wasn’t that Shige had never dated anyone or had never had sex but it had been a long time and he was sure he had all forgotten about it.
“What?” Shige croaked.
Tomo said nothing for a while, only smiled at him then bumped knees together which had Shige almost dropping his beer.
“Sitting like this. Just. Sitting.”
Shige nodded, copied Tomo’s position on the couch and eventually closed his eyes as well, listened to Tomo’s even breathing and eventually calmed down again. There was something comforting about this silence. Something that put Shige on ease and he was sure he could sit here for the rest of his life, with Tomo beside him, only moving when taking a sip of his beer but staying motionless for most of the time.
“Ne,” Tomo suddenly spoke up and Shige cracked an eye open to see Tomo directly looking at him.
“Hm?” was all Shige could make, somehow had been so relaxed it felt like waking up and he didn’t quite trust his voice.
“I was wondering something.” Tomo continued and Shige cocked an eyebrow.
“What about?” Shige eventually asked, the slight amusement in his voice turning into horror when Tomo’s face suddenly drew dangerously. Shige had no time to react and when their lips touched a split second later he thought his heart was about to explode right here, right now.
He was so astonished he didn’t even reciprocate the kiss until Tomo was about to pull back and he protested. Tomo grinned into the kiss and made some humming noises when Shige finally properly reacted. Their tongues playfully danced with each other and there was no haste in the kiss and Shige felt like just melting in to it.
Tomo did pull back in the end and it made Shige feel lonely immediately. Tomo grinned.
“So I was right after all.” The idol mumbled, leaning his forehead against Shige’s.
“What about?” Shige asked again, his voice slightly raspy.
“Your lips are kissable. I’ve been wondering that ever since I first met you.”
“What?” Shige laughed unbelievingly.
“When I covered your mouth with my hand I was already wondering. But I guess it wouldn’t have been good kissing you right there, right?” Tomo sniggered.
“No, probably not.”
Shige closed his eyes again then started chuckling.
“Though I’m still not sure about your lips.”
Tomo pulled back making Shige almost fall over.
“What? You’re not convinced yet?”
Shige shook his head, grinning widely before melting into the kiss that was coming straight ahead.
+
Shige wondered, really wondered later how and why this actually happened. Before he knew it he was had over heals for the idol, no, for the guy behind the idol. For the guy with the goofy smile who would cook and then not help clean up the kitchen. For the guy who acted as if he never cried but then would have to fight back the tears with all his might because of the movie they were watching. For the guy who would change plans on such a short notice Shige had always trouble adjusting to.
“I want to remember you.” Tomo once whispered. “I want to be the one who remembers you in every detail.”
And it’s what he did by kissing every part of Shige’s body, by counting every wrinkle in his face, by bringing out all the different shades of noises Shige made.
And Shige learnt after a while that for the idol Yamashita Tomohisa, Shige ended up being the one person he could not forget about.
--------------------------
Spread the ShigePi love :D
For one Kato Shigeaki anyway. Yamashita Tomohisa was nice and friendly to everyone he met. He was all smiles all the time, but by the way they never completely reached his eyes he showed the world that he was feeling something else after all.
Shige thought it was okay. The smiles were only directed at him through the TV screen and so Shige knew per se that Yamashita Tomohisa the idol was far, far away from a normal, geeky law student like him.
Shige didn’t even care too much about the idol, just sometimes envied him a bit. For being so successful, for being popular with both boys and girls, for being so astonishing beautiful, for being someone people remembered. While Shige wasn’t even remembered by his own professors even though he was always one of the best students in the seminars. Not even the girl that had been sitting next to him for almost the whole of the last semester seemed to be able to remember his name correctly.
Kato Shigeaki was just someone no one ever remembered.
Shige afterwards thought it was absurdly ironic that of all people, Yamashita, the idol everyone knew, would remember him in every detail.
+
It was a fairly normal day and Shige was on his way to his part time job- the library. Sometimes Shige daydreamt that he would work at a bar instead, be one of the guys everyone liked because they thought he would be giving them drinks for free. But then he remembered how he managed to crash another glass this morning and thought that he was probably better off being an ordinary librarian. At least books were very hard to destroy even if he managed to let them slip out of his hand and onto the floor at least once a shift and have everyone give him angry looks.
Well, maybe they remembered him that way, Shige hoped. But of course, they didn’t.
Shige was about to turn the corner to the library when he suddenly got grabbed by his wrist and pulled away from the path and into the bushes lining the path.
He stumbled over a root which had him and the attacker both ungracefully falling to the ground. Shige would have panicked over the sudden loss of his glasses but the attacker who was now sitting behind him (and on whom he had thankfully landed) was covering his mouth with his hand. He instantly knew it was a guy not only by the force but also by the intensity of the other person’s scent that made it hard to breathe- or maybe it was because his nose was stuffed and that his mouth was covered so he couldn’t breathe through his mouth either.
“Promise me to neither scream nor attack me, okay?” the guy whispered and Shige immediately nodded. His heart began to beat rapidly and he could hear the blood rushing in his ears. Not only because breathing became very necessary but because he instantly recognized the voice as the one of none other than Yamashita Tomohisa himself.
The hand slowly got removed and Shige took in a couple of deep breaths before turning around and opening his mouth to ask what the hell this was supposed to be about. He came as far as “what” when suddenly the screams of girls reached their ears which had them first jumping and then instinctively hiding deeper in the bushes.
They were only a couple of girls but they were shrieking so loudly and painfully that Shige wondered how Yamashita was able to survive a whole concert with ten thousands of screaming girls.
When the coast seemed clear again, Shige turned around again to see Yamashita looking at him almost apologetically.
“I’m sorry” the idol said and Shige wanted to ask what for but then only formed an “oh” with his mouth when Yamashita returned his broken glasses to him.
“I must have fallen upon them. But I will replace them, promise!” Yamashita continued.
Shige wasn’t amused in the slightest and so he only grunted some incoherent swears.
“What is this all about anyway?” Shige then asked while analyzing his glasses. The bridge was broken and the two pieces only hung loosely together and the right lens was destroyed.
He tried it on but it was hopeless- irreparable.
Shige cursed silently because without his glasses he had no chance to read the book titles and therefore could actually go home straight away because what was a blind librarian worth anyway?
“I wanted to visit a friend but then got hunted down by these girls and now I am trying finding a way out without being seen.”
Yamashita watched Shige play with the broken glasses, a very rueful expression on his face. If Shige wasn’t so angry he would probably find it adorable. Instead Shige didn’t even pay attention to the idol’s expression and raised an eyebrow instead.
“And why did you have to attack me like that then? You could have just asked like anyone else.”
Yamashita winced.
“I’m truly sorry.”
“Yeah, you said that already. Unfortunately that won’t repair my glasses.”
Yamashita thoughtfully stuck his bottom lip out as if he was pouting as he watched Shige stand up and tossing the broken spectacles into the next bin.
“Would you still help me, please?” Yamashita asked sheepishly when Shige was about to not- very-gracefully fight his way through the bushes and back to the way.
Shige glared at him but still felt sorry for the very lost and rueful looking idol who was sitting on the ground. He sighed, massaged the bridge of his nose and then explained Yamashita the way to the back exit.
“Thank you, I’m going to buy you a replacement, promise!” Yamashita waved smiling before spurting away.
“Yeah, sure. As if you will remember that tomorrow!” Shige snorted to himself.
He then proceeded to go to the library to tell his boss he wouldn’t be able to work today.
+
Shige was very positive that Yamashita indeed had forgotten about him already when he hadn’t seen him or heard of him again even after a complete week. Then again he didn’t even have his mobile number or as much as his name so Yamashita had probably forgotten. The fact that Shige was bound to walk around half blindly with his old glasses now was surely not forgiven.
Shige never used contact lenses because the one time he had tried putting them on he had managed to hurt his eye so much it was red even days after. Shige would have gone to the optician to get new glasses but he had been so busy with college that he never found a shop that was still open.
At least he could guess what was written with his old glasses though he got dizzy after half of the day from the way he had to concentrate to put the puzzle that was his view together correctly. He had managed to knock down even more things than usual and even had managed to painfully fall down the stairs once.
He considered he should just take time for getting new glasses before he seriously started hurting himself.
Currently Shige was trying to identify another book so he could put it back into its respective space when a face popped into his view.
“Are you the guy?” the slightly blurred guy asked.
“Huh?” was all Shige answered. He tried getting a little more focus on the guy if only to check whether he knew him or not. When he realized it was not Yamashita, his heart sank. Not that he had believed Yamashita would go through the pain of coming back anyway.
Why was he still hoping for the impossible?
“Are you the guy with the broken glasses?” the stranger asked, voice hushed.
Shige blinked, slowly nodded, his vision dazing again. Fast movements were definitely not good in his state.
The other guy rolled his eyes, at least it looked like that, and sighed out of relief.
“Thank God I finally found you. Pi called me all kinds of names when I told him that no one has a fucking clue who the hell you are. He thought I wasn’t even searching, but I tell you, I was in all kinds of places. Did you know we had a room in the cellar with a billiard table?”
Shige slowly shakes his head, his mind trying to make sense out of the riddles that were the guy’s words.
“Okay listen: Pi told me to tell you to go to this address tomorrow at 4 pm. Do not give this address to anyone and if you tell anyone you are probably going to be killed- or something like that.” Shige looked shocked. “Okay probably you won’t but still. Don’t tell!”
The guy tossed a piece of paper in Shige’s hands and before the part-time librarian could even as much as open his mouth the guy had disappeared again.
Shige glanced at the address. Blinked. Then shrugged.
He had classes tomorrow till 6 he couldn’t miss. Whatever was waiting for him tomorrow at 4 pm in some street in Omori had to wait.
+
Two days later a very pissed and annoyed not so very unknown stranger paced into the library and stopped so short in front of him that the books in Shige’s hands went flying in shock.
The guy glared at him and Shige was suddenly glad he appeared still a bit blurry.
“Where were you supposed to be yesterday?” the guy pressed and Shige felt more than a bit uncomfortable.
“Uhm.” Shige did, trying to get some space between him in the guy but the further he stepped back the closer the guy seemed to be. He was trapped.
The guy glared at him, then grabbed him by the wrist and forcefully pulled him along.
“We are going now!” was all he said and Shige was so flabbergasted he didn’t even protest.
+
Shige got almost pushed into the little restaurant and before he could ask, his kidnapper had gone already. Very confused, he looked around and eventually noticed someone with a hat pulled deep into his face and huge sunglasses frantically waving at him.
Shige cocked an eyebrow. If Yamashita wanted to stay unrecognized he was behaving pretty stupidly, Shige thought.
Shige sighed and walked over to the idol to make him stop waving like that.
“Ne, I was trying to call you.” Yamashita started, pushing the menu towards Shige.
“You don’t even have my number.” Shige replied dryly, glanced at the menu and decided he didn’t need anything to eat. Or to drink for that matter.
“Yeah, I realized that, too, after I had skimmed through all my contacts without finding you. Then again I don’t even know your name in the first place so even if you had been on my contact list, I wouldn’t have had any chance in finding you, right?”
Shige blinked. Something about this sounded terribly wrong and yet it made perfectly sense on the other hand. He was confused.
“C’mon, have something to eat. The food is delicious.” And expensive, Shige added in his thoughts.
“No thanks, I’m not hungry- or thirsty.”
It didn’t take more than two seconds for Shige’s body to betray him by rumbling loudly.
Yamashita looked amused. Shige, not so much.
“I was going to invite you out.” Yamashita added.
“No thanks, that’s not necessary, I’m really not very hungry.” As if to protest to that lie his stomach rumbled again and Yamashita gave him a very amused look.
“Take it as an apology for breaking your glasses.”
Shige sighed, then finally agreed.
“I still don’t know your name.” Yamashita noticed after Shige had ordered the cheapest food on the menu.
“Kato. Kato Shigeaki.” Shige said.
“So it’s Shige then.” Shige winced but guessed he couldn’t tell an idol to properly address him and not use his nickname. But then Yamashita surprised him by adding “I’m Tomo.”
“Tomo?” Shige asked incredulous, the name foreign on his tongue.
Yamashita- no- Tomo smiled.
“Everyone’s been calling me Yamapi or Pi for ages now and I don’t even know anymore why. It sounds nice being called by my real name again.”
Shige somehow understood.
“Tomo-kun it is, then.”
Yamapi chuckled upon the honorific but doesn’t say anything.
+
When they left the small restaurant Shige was pretty sure that if he was to die now he would die as the happiest man on earth. It had been a long time since he’d had such delicious food and the company of Ya- no- Tomo-kun had been surprisingly entertaining. Not that Tomo-kun the idol wasn’t entertaining by nature, but the conversation just spread naturally between them and for the first time in ages Shige felt as if someone was interested in him again.
“And now, we’re going to get you new glasses.” Tomo-kun announced, looked right and left before climbing in a car that stood right in front of the entrance.
“Wait what?” Shige stuttered, only climbed into the passenger’s seat when Tomo-kun called after him and felt very, very confused.
+
The optician gave Shige a very disbelieving look and asked him whether he was really alright, having been walking around with the wrong glasses.
Shige shrugged and the optician only gave him a weird look then proceeded to check his eye sight again while Tomo-kun went to search for a new frame. Shige only hoped he didn’t choose the most expensive one.
Tomo-kun came back with free frames after a while, telling Shige to try each of them one, then he would decide.
Shige had to put on each frame at least thrice until Tomo-kun finally decided without letting Shige see what he looked like. Shige hated the fact he had to trust Tomo-kun on this one. Because if he was honest he didn’t know the idol at all. He only knew what he saw on TV, but the short lunch alone had showed Shige that there was another side of Tomo the idol that was never shown to the public.
And it confused him how Tomo didn’t seem to have a problem letting a stranger- who could turn out to be his biggest fan- see this side.
When the glasses were finished and Tomo had paid, he ceremonially gave them to Shige to go and try them on.
The first thing he saw was Tomo with an expectant look on his face. It was the first time Shige saw him that closely and it almost shocked him. Until now he had only seen him on TV with the smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Now Tomo smiled only with his eyes and it must have been the most beautiful smile he had ever seen.
“What’s up? Don’t see clearly?” Tomo asked a bit worried and the smile disappeared.
Shige shook his head, forced a smile on his face even though his heart was beating so fast he thought he would have to faint right here, right now.
“Well then let’s go, I’ll drive you back to the uni. And sorry for having Kusano kidnap you. I didn’t really feel like going back to that place.”
“Yeah, you seem to like attacking people.”
Tomo laughed, walking back out in front of Shige.
“You are the first, actually.”
“Then I should feel honoured?”
Tomo threw a mischievous smile at him before climbing back into the car.
The drive back to the university was over way too quickly and Shige knew that since he had gotten his new glasses, there was no need for Tomo to meet him again.
But again, the idol surprised him by holding Shige back when he was about to get out of the car and thanked him for the lunch and everything afterwards.
“Can you give me your mobile number and E-Mail address?”
Shige stopped, plopped back into the seat and stared at Tomo incredulously. Tomo shifted in his seat, looked almost a bit embarrassed.
“So that the next time I want to meet you, I won’t have to kidnap you again.”
There was an amused glint in Tomo’s eyes and Shige had to laugh.
“Your logic astonishes me.”
When Shige watched Tomo drive away a few minutes later he felt bubbly inside and there was a smile plastered on his face that had all of the other people he met almost jump back a step. He didn’t care.
Yamashita Tomohisa, the idol, had remembered him and chances were he would see him again. Shige felt like he was flying.
+
The clock on the wall behind him was ticking mercilessly, reminding him that time was something he didn’t have. He had to write a rather long essay by tomorrow and even though he had spent the last couple of hours sitting on his desk trying to work, he came as far as… nothing. A plain wide sheet of paper was staring back at him and he could swear that the stupid paper was grinning at him.
Annoyed he tossed his pen on to the desk and with a sigh let his head follow. He groaned and looked around the room for inspiration and sighed when his eyes found his cell phone once again. It was as silent as it had been for days, at least concerning one specific person.
“Maybe he’s just too busy.” Shige tried convincing himself- again.
But even if hope took a while to fade Shige believed there wasn’t any hope left. Even if Tomo hadn’t forgotten about him, maybe Shige wasn’t interesting enough in the end and the whole “give me your number” talk was just politeness.
Shige sighed and rubbed his eyes. He really had to get this damn essay done even if it meant staying up the complete night.
+
It was a couple of hours later deep into the night, way after midnight when suddenly Shige’s cell phone went off, waking him up. Still confused he needed a couple of seconds to recover and realized he must have fallen asleep- mid-sentence.
Blindly reaching out he picked up the phone and answered it without even looking at the caller ID.
“Hello?” Shige mumbled into the phone and suppressed a yawn.
“Shige? Did I wake you up from sleeping?” was the answer from none other than Yamashita Tomohisa. Shige was wide awake.
“What? Oh no, I’m still working.”
Tomo laughed.
“At that hour? Shouldn’t dutiful students be sleeping at this time of the night?”
Shige turned around to look at his clock. 3:12 am. Then he faced his only half done essay. When he calculated how much time was left for him he winced.
“Can’t. Need to finish the essay.” He sighed, massaging his temple with his free hand.
“Oh.” Came the instant reply and Shige was pretty sure it was out of disappointment.
“Why are you still awake?” He asked instead.
“I was out with some friends and thought I’d call you, ask what you’re up to and stuff.”
“At 3:15 in the morning?”
Tomo chuckled.
“Well, the truth is I wanted to leave a message to tell you to call me back.”
“Why so complicated?”
“Because I would forget calling you throughout the day so I thought I’d call now so that I won’t forget. But is that important?” Tomo sounded a bit impatient.
Shige laughed, shook his head, then when he realized Tomo couldn’t see it said:
“No, it doesn’t matter. It’s just your logic is very… well… unique.”
There was a pause on the other side and Shige heard some rustling voice.
“Yamashita-kun?”Shige asked, wondering whether the other one was still there.
Tomo chuckled again.
“I told you to call me Tomo, remember?”
“Sorry.”
There was more rustling. Then Shige heard Tomo readjusting the phone and then a suppressed sigh of satisfaction.
“Ne, Shige. Tell me what you have to work on in the middle of the night.”
“What?” Shige laughed half incredulous, half laughing not believing that Tomo would find that interesting at all.
“What do you work on?” Tomo repeated.
“I don’t think that’s interesting at all.”
Shige swore he could hear Tomo smile on the other end of the line.
“It will be. And I like hearing your voice.”
Shige blushed, thousands of butterflies suddenly in his stomach.
And so he began talking about the essay that was due by tomorrow. He talked about how he went to research but still can’t quite seem to get his hand on the topic and Tomo occasionally asked something when he didn’t understand.
And when Tomo didn’t answer a while later, probably because he had ended up falling asleep considering the even sound of breaths coming from the other end of line, Shige only had to write down the complete essay that had suddenly popped up in his head.
+
The first thing that popped up in his mind when Shige received the results of his essay was calling up and thanking Tomo. He was sure that without Tomo’s help he wouldn’t have been able to complete the essay, much less get an A.
It took for forever until Tomo finally picked up his phone.
“Hey Shige, what an unexpected call.” Tomo greeted him enthusiastically.
“Yeah I, uhm, kind of just wanted to thank you for helping me with my essay.”
Shige suddenly felt a bit embarrassed but Tomo just laughed.
“What for? I fell asleep halfway.”
“Yeah but still. You kind of- inspired me.”
Tomo laughed again and it warmed Shige’s heart. It had been long since someone was laughing and chuckling because of the things he said. The bubbly feeling inside his stomach grew again.
“So you want to ask me out as a Thank you?” Shige couldn’t overhear the mischievousness in his voice.
Still he was a bit taken aback, somehow didn’t expect the bluntness and honestly, hadn’t even thought about asking him out. For him it was still Yamashita Tomohisa the idol, even after all the kindness he had received from him. There was still something inside of him telling him that Yamashita, even though he called him Tomo, was unreachable for him and that he would get tired of Shige pretty soon. A normal university student dating a top idol? He had never heard of these kinds of fairy tales existing. And why was he thinking about dating anyway? There was no way in hell Tomo would ever consider liking him like that.
“Well, considering your very busy schedule…” Shige started but didn’t come very far.
“Great, then I’ll pick you up at 8. Where do you live?”
Shige blinked, taken aback again and stuttered his address. Even after Tomo had hung up Shige sat there, not quite getting what had just happened.
+
Shige had spent the last hour or so trying to pick out the perfect clothes. It hadn’t been easy considering that he was a full time nerd didn’t really own any fancy clothes. In the end he hoped that Jeans and a nice shirt (the nicest he could find that didn’t look too fancy) would do for whatever Tomo had planned.
And then it hit him: What if he took him to some fancy restaurant? Shige didn’t even have the money for any restaurant let alone some fancy, expensive one. And what if Tomo expected him to pay? But he couldn’t quite let Tomo pay if he was the one throwing the party, right?
Shige panicked. When the door bell rang he stumbled over his rag and clashed into the coffee table, painfully hurting his knee in the process.
“Shit.” He cursed limping to open the door behind which a smiling Yamashita Tomohisa greeted him.
“You ready?” the idol smiled though he started looking a bit worry when Shige’s answering smile was a bit forced. “Is everything alright?” he therefore asked.
Shige nodded, rubbed his knee and proceeded to put on his shoes.
“Where are we going?”
A mysterious grin formed on the idol’s face.
“You will see.” And that was all Shige found out while following Tomo to his car.
+
Shige still couldn’t believe it. It was two hours later and he was exactly where he had started his trip. The only difference was that he stood in his tiny kitchen, a humming Tomo by his side who cut vegetables and who danced along to the melody. And Shige’s kitchen was really tiny, so tiny that there was hardly space for the two of them and every time Tomo swung to the side, he almost bumped into Shige which had the university student jumping.
Shige was still a bit mortified from when Tomo had dragged him into the next supermarket and had told him that they would be making curry.
“What, in my kitchen?” had been Shige’s incredulous answer to which Tomo had just grinned. And then he had started asking Shige about the ingredients. Even more incredulously Shige had asked back whether Tomo hadn’t even looked up the recipe but Tomo had just shrugged and said that on his drive here he had suddenly felt like eating curry.
Shige really couldn’t believe it. Even now when they somehow had managed to create an edible curry with only Shige’s memory as the base. He was both fascinated and worried by Tomo’s oblivious “my pace” attitude.
“This is really good, right Shige? I was really craving for some good curry.” Tomo chirped, making a very satisfied face while chewing on his food.
Shige just shook his head, sniggering and in silence they finished their food.
+
Tomo plopped down on Shige’s old couch, sighing contently. He closed his eyes, leaning his head on the back of the couch, exposing a long, slender neck that had Shige catching his breath and almost dropping the last two bottles of beers he had found in the refrigerator.
He slowly sat down next to Tomo, carefully avoiding accidentally brushing against any part of the idol’s body.
Tomo cracked an eye open and lazily reached for the bottle of beer Shige was holding out for him.
“It’s really nice.” Tomot said, half smiling, beer still untouched. Shige’s was already half empty if only to calm him down again.
In movies this was the part when the kissing and fumbling would have started and even though Shige knew that this was neither a movie nor that Tomo would even as much as make a move him, he was still somehow nervous.
It wasn’t that Shige had never dated anyone or had never had sex but it had been a long time and he was sure he had all forgotten about it.
“What?” Shige croaked.
Tomo said nothing for a while, only smiled at him then bumped knees together which had Shige almost dropping his beer.
“Sitting like this. Just. Sitting.”
Shige nodded, copied Tomo’s position on the couch and eventually closed his eyes as well, listened to Tomo’s even breathing and eventually calmed down again. There was something comforting about this silence. Something that put Shige on ease and he was sure he could sit here for the rest of his life, with Tomo beside him, only moving when taking a sip of his beer but staying motionless for most of the time.
“Ne,” Tomo suddenly spoke up and Shige cracked an eye open to see Tomo directly looking at him.
“Hm?” was all Shige could make, somehow had been so relaxed it felt like waking up and he didn’t quite trust his voice.
“I was wondering something.” Tomo continued and Shige cocked an eyebrow.
“What about?” Shige eventually asked, the slight amusement in his voice turning into horror when Tomo’s face suddenly drew dangerously. Shige had no time to react and when their lips touched a split second later he thought his heart was about to explode right here, right now.
He was so astonished he didn’t even reciprocate the kiss until Tomo was about to pull back and he protested. Tomo grinned into the kiss and made some humming noises when Shige finally properly reacted. Their tongues playfully danced with each other and there was no haste in the kiss and Shige felt like just melting in to it.
Tomo did pull back in the end and it made Shige feel lonely immediately. Tomo grinned.
“So I was right after all.” The idol mumbled, leaning his forehead against Shige’s.
“What about?” Shige asked again, his voice slightly raspy.
“Your lips are kissable. I’ve been wondering that ever since I first met you.”
“What?” Shige laughed unbelievingly.
“When I covered your mouth with my hand I was already wondering. But I guess it wouldn’t have been good kissing you right there, right?” Tomo sniggered.
“No, probably not.”
Shige closed his eyes again then started chuckling.
“Though I’m still not sure about your lips.”
Tomo pulled back making Shige almost fall over.
“What? You’re not convinced yet?”
Shige shook his head, grinning widely before melting into the kiss that was coming straight ahead.
+
Shige wondered, really wondered later how and why this actually happened. Before he knew it he was had over heals for the idol, no, for the guy behind the idol. For the guy with the goofy smile who would cook and then not help clean up the kitchen. For the guy who acted as if he never cried but then would have to fight back the tears with all his might because of the movie they were watching. For the guy who would change plans on such a short notice Shige had always trouble adjusting to.
“I want to remember you.” Tomo once whispered. “I want to be the one who remembers you in every detail.”
And it’s what he did by kissing every part of Shige’s body, by counting every wrinkle in his face, by bringing out all the different shades of noises Shige made.
And Shige learnt after a while that for the idol Yamashita Tomohisa, Shige ended up being the one person he could not forget about.
--------------------------
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