Chocolate Fic for nicefinalbeam
To: nicefinalbeam
From: cupid_johnny
Title: In Bloom
Pairing: Ohno Satoshi/Ishihara Satomi
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Ohno and Satomi are suddenly married.
A/N: If you’re familiar with the Korean variety TV show, We Got Married, then this fic will instantly make sense to you. I’ve had this idea for the longest time, for the same exact couple! Hope this answers your “Reality TV show hijinks” request, nicefinalbeam.♥
*
1: Prelude
“Mori, couldn’t you have asked Matsujun to do this project?” Ohno whines. “Or Nino.”
Arashi’s long-time manager firmly shakes his head. “I’m sorry, the producer and director specifically asked for you.”
Ohno sinks further into the couch, already imagining what the taping would be like. It would probably be tiring and challenging like taping a normal drama, but just more excruciating-reality TV, him, really? Wasn’t doing VS Arashi weekly exhausting enough? And why would anyone request for him in particular, for a romantic show? Has the world turned upside down after his wonderful Okinawan vacation? He should’ve stayed with the fishes and pineapples.
“That, and Johnny-san specially requested for you to take on this project. He thinks your image can do with-a little spicing up. Can you imagine?”
Ohno frowns. “You can laugh.”
Mori shakes a little in his dignified suit and lets out a tiny, delighted chuckle. “Come on, Oh-chan, it can’t be that bad.”
“Can’t I turn this down?”
“You can, but it’s so rare that Johnny-san takes this much interest in a project. I suggest that you don’t.”
“You probably have the papers in your bag,” Ohno says.
Mori’s face betrays no remorse as he fishes out a sheaf of papers that will seal Ohno’s fate for the next few months. When the papers plop down without grace on the coffee table, Ohno moodily grabs the pen from Mori. He knows when he’s been beaten.
“No shower scenes. I mean it, Mori.”
*
2: First Meeting
When she finally sees him rounding the turn, it sinks in to her that it’s the most normal she’s ever seen him-not that he was ever fancy to begin with, as far as she knew, but of course, under the klieg lights and the scrutiny of an audience, he still had an idol vibe to him. Here, in the middle of a summer afternoon at a parking lot in Nakameguro, no one would ever think he’s one of the biggest celebrities in Japan. Not with his rumpled jeans, ragged looking black shirt, and flip-flops.
Satomi would laugh if she weren’t so nervous. When Ohno Satoshi approaches her and reveals that he has a single peony stalk for her, hidden behind his back all that time, she feels her face warming up. She knows the camera is soaking it all up-scenes caught on camera for an edit that would string all these inconsequential scenes together later on, in order to form a story. Her, standing there, waiting. Him, walking towards her with a flower. A story of two celebrities going on a fake marriage.
Whenever Satomi allows her mind to go back to that tendril of thought, she still gets a little puzzled. Satomi doesn’t have any idea why she said yes.
It seemed pretty simple and straightforward at first: spend three days, maximum, a week with her “husband”, for four months. There was no script, they only had to take on dares or do some “milestone activities” together. On paper, it seemed like an easy enough project to refresh her before her one-year taiga drama next year-her biggest project to date. But now that a lazily clothed and sweet-smelling national idol was now in front of her, she isn’t exactly sure which project is more daunting.
“Hi,” Ohno says, offering her the peony. The smile on his face is unhurried. “I’m the husband.”
“And I’m the wife. No stylist today?” she teases, as she accepts the flower. She wonders if it’s something he would do on a normal date. “Thank you.”
“No stylist. Isn’t this a reality show?” he says, smoothing over his shirt shyly.
Satomi hears the cameraman snort, which makes her laugh. Ohno looks at her in a way that tells her that maybe this wouldn’t be too bad.
*
3: Moving In
It’s a relatively small place, but Ohno, with the help of the set design team, made it as homey as possible. He’s deeply impressed with how they managed to brick up one side of the common area, which was only a passing fancy to him-he had no idea that they would actually do it. The apartment is furnished with comfortable nooks and crannies, just the way Ohno likes it. The big bay windows, unusual for Tokyo, overlooks the Meguro river. He could stare at the view for days.
“This would be amazing during spring,” Ohno says, to no one in particular. “Cherry blossoms.”
The cameraman could only half-smile in what seems to be sympathy or confusion. Ideally, Ohno isn’t supposed to acknowledge that he’s being filmed-which he still finds eerie and weird. It’s not like shooting a drama or doing a variety show-this feels a little bit more like being stalked. He ignores the nagging sentiment and allows himself to get lost again in the view.
A buzz startles him from his cozy reverie. When he sees the bright, cheerful face of Satomi on the small screen, he finds himself jolted back to reality. They really are doing this.
“Shouldn’t I have my own key?” Satomi’s voice comes out high and garbled through the machine.
“I forgot to give it to you when you said I should go ahead,” Ohno says apologetically, buzzing her in.
“I just needed to get something from my car,” Satomi says. “See you in a bit!”
A minute later, she comes in with her view obscured by the load that she’s carrying. Ohno takes the basket from her-“Sheets, pillow cases, a duvet,” Satomi says, which suddenly makes Ohno shy. They’ve worked together in a couple of variety shows, but they haven’t interacted enough for this to be comfortable for them. He watches her taking a few gulps of air, winded, her bangs framing her face just so. When she catches her breath, she lets out a small, delighted squeal.
“Ohno-san.” He thinks, off-hand, that her smile is probably the reason why she’s made it as far as she has.
“Yes?”
“Ohno-san, this is so great. I mean it,” she says, her face brightening up. “Artisanal but humble, kind of. Was that what you were going for?”
Ohno squirms. He hopes no one notices. “Just wanted to make it comfortable, that’s all.”
“I think it’s plenty comfortable,” Satomi says, sitting down tentatively on the white couch in her navy dress.
“So where should I place this?” Ohno says. The longer he carries it, the more he realizes that he should’ve helped Satomi with it earlier.
Satomi laughs and gets up. “Let me help you with that.”
“No-just tell me”-and before they knew it, the basket comes tumbling down, along with its spotless white contents. Ohno takes a look at Satomi, who seemingly has her mouth stuck in a frozen “o”.
He tries not to laugh. “I’m sorry.” He starts to bend down to grab the sheets when Satomi allows herself to land on the soft white tufts of the sheets and duvet. She sighs in a way that confuses Ohno.
He stands there and watches her, not knowing what to do. What would a husband do? he thinks.
Satomi opens one eye and looks at him.
“Aren’t you going to join in?”
Ohno does, careful not to lie down too close to Satomi. He feels the onslaught of the cameras, always watching their every move, lurking in the corners. Satomi curls up to the part of the duvet that bunched up, the sunlight grazing her face just so. She looks like she could stay still forever, in that position. It’s something that Ohno could easily understand. He allows his body to relax, his weight dispersing comfortably in every direction. Easy as breathing.
It also doesn’t hurt knowing that the director won’t ever yell cut just because he fell asleep on the job, which is about to happen in 3…2…
*
4: First Time
Satomi wakes up to the apartment awash with the colors of dusk. When she gets up, the pain in her neck strikes her anew. She always gets that crick when she doesn’t move while sleeping. At first, she’s confused as to why she’s been snoozing on a pile of sheets on the floor, when she spots Ohno sleeping a feet away.
Satomi covers her mouth and laughs silently at the realization that they have spent a huge chunk of their first day together sleeping. On a pile of sheets that didn’t even make it to the bed. She wonders if the producers were regretting casting them now. They wouldn’t be completely out of reason.
Somehow, she couldn’t get herself to nudge Ohno awake. He looked so peaceful, all tangled up in white and his own dreams. No one with a heart would dare wake up him up. She settles for placing the pretty blush-pink peony in an empty glass with water and preparing something quickly for dinner.
“Is it okay to cook?” Satomi asks the crew.
“Anything you want to do,” the director calls out.
Satomi’s still wrapping her head around this whole “play-acting”. No, it’s not acting exactly, she thinks. Isn’t the show more about how two acquaintances act when pushed together in intimate and decidedly married situations? She thinks about all those things while she’s cooking and startles when she finds a tousle-haired Ohno walking in to the kitchen. “You’re up.”
“Cream stew,” he says, a sense of dreaming still clutching on to his speech, slow but not slurring, a tone too deep. Satomi almost feels like looking away. Ohno sits down on one of the bar stools by the counter and watches her move around. When she dishes out the soup, Ohno inhales the steam appreciatively and waits for her to settle down beside him.
They eat in silence. Or, they eat in silence because Ohno is fully immersed in eating-dipping a slice of baguette into the soup, slurping in contentment. Satomi doesn’t know what to do, so she takes cues from him and enjoys their simple dinner quietly. Surely this will be an exciting episode for the viewers, she thinks wryly. When they are finished, Satomi stands up to takes the dishes. Ohno stands up and blocks the sink.
“Let me. It’s the least I could do,” Ohno says.
“But Ohno-san,” Satomi protests.
“Cream stew. I would do a lot of things for cream stew, and yours was so good.”
Satomi smiles weakly and allows the awkward yet pleasant environment to blanket her. At least, she could thank her lucky stars that she didn’t end up with an obnoxious actor as a fake-husband-this one seems to be really nice. She could almost hear the cameraman zooming in on her facial expression. It makes her jittery, like she has to arrange her features properly the whole time. But when she sneaks a look at Ohno and sees him with a face that can only be described as a nondescript dishwashing face, she loosens up. Nope, definitely not acting, she thinks. This is new territory, and maybe if she charters these new waters and come out alive, then that must mean she could do a lot of other things.
At the very least she could claim that she cooks a good cream stew.
*
5: Interlude A
Nino and Aiba grin the moment he enters their waiting room. Ohno knows those smiles on intimate terms and doesn’t want to provoke anything-at least, not until he’s somewhere warm and welcoming and won’t feel as harassed. He goes straight for Sho, who looks surprised at his interruption but allows him to burrow right beside him.
“Satoshi-kun, how are you?” Sho asks, putting down his newspaper. “Feels like I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“You look tanned,” Jun says from across them, smiling as he grabs his cup of coffee. “How was Okinawa?”
“Okinawa was nice,” Ohno says, trying not to meet either Aiba or Nino’s eyes. But they aren’t to be ignored.
“I just want to lay this out in the open before we do all the niceties, because seriously, it’s the best,” Nino starts, his eyes twinkling. Aiba is almost in whirring in his seat. “Our Oh-chan here just spent his first day as a husband to Ishihara Satomi-chan asleep on the job. Snoring, the works. After that, he just ate a lot of cream stew,” he says, and pauses for effect, “on prime time.”
Aiba can’t keep in his laughter and pushes Nino, who’s still sniggering. “You make it sound so bad. Leader’s just…unconventional.” He looks at Ohno as if willing him to agree.
Jun quirks an eyebrow. “You slept for half of the show? I haven’t seen it yet. Did Satomi-chan mind?”
“Guys,” Ohno whines.
“You have to be a better husband than that,” Sho says. “I mean, it’s not like Ishihara-san is bad-looking or something.”
“Astute. Sometimes I wonder why you’re a newscaster,” Nino says.
“Guys,” Ohno whines, again. “I’m not really married to her.”
“You’re unexpectedly choosy, Leader,” Aiba observes. “But the ratings are off the charts, so no biggie, right? You can sleep all you want!”
“Please tell me you at least gave her flowers? I told you to choose a pretty one,” Jun says.
They continue bantering like this for five more minutes until their recording starts, and by then, Ohno is completely exhausted, just by listening. He knows they all mean well but really, every single one of them would be the better candidate for appearing on the show. Ohno still can’t help but feeling like he’s a bad fit, wondering how he’ll take on all the challenges coming his way. He’s not very husband-material, he thinks. Maybe Ishihara-san thought she got the raw end of the deal?
She cooked it so lovingly, though, so maybe she doesn’t feel completely horrible about him. He genuinely fell for her cream stew.
*
6: Name Calling
“Ishihara-san,” Ohno calls out. He’s in the kitchen, whipping up something simple for lunch. They decided from the very beginning that their household was going to be liberal-they would alternate with the chores and help each other out, in general. It’s an arrangement Satomi could live with-equal parts pampering and being pampered. It’s only fair. “Ishihara-san.”
Satomi pouts from the couch, where she’s watching a DVD. But it’s his turn, she thinks. “Yes, Ohno-san?”
“Come here, please,” Ohno says, his voice a little discomfited. When Satomi enters the kitchen, she sees the toaster smoking up. “I just pressed four and then it-”
Satomi quickly unplugs the toaster. They draw back for a couple of seconds, waiting for something to happen. When nothing does, Satomi looks at Ohno, amused. “You don’t know how to toast bread? I mean, I read from your fan profiles that you like cream stew, curry, and bread. That, and-”
“-you researched me?”
“It’s not exactly the hardest information to get,” Satomi says, her face heating up. “You’re everywhere. I mean, I just had to type your name and all kinds of stuff came up-not that I read everything-but really, you’re-”
“You researched me,” Ohno repeats. “You know I like bread.”
“Well a lot of people like bread anyway. And wouldn’t you research someone before you marry them?” Anyone sane and normal would, right? Oh god, Satomi thinks.
Ohno knits his brows as he goes for the piece of toast that isn’t charred and assembles the sad remains of their tuna sandwiches. He doesn’t say anything for a while and concentrates on his task.
Satomi feels sheepish. “Ohno-san?”
“Actually, no, I wouldn’t. If I want to marry her then I’ll marry her.”
“Then that makes you a little naïve, doesn’t it,” Satomi says, flustered and wondering about the way Ohno’s mind works. He says the most disarming things-sometimes he really is as perplexing as he makes himself out to be on television. “I just like to be a little prepared.”
“No, that just makes you a stalker,” Ohno says, a grin spreading on his face as he hands Satomi a plate with a sorry-looking sandwich. “Here.”
Satomi reddens, silently accepting the plate. She bites into the sandwich, which, to be honest, isn’t half bad. Not that she’s giving that away. “This isn’t so good, Pan-chan. No good.”
“Pan-chan?” Ohno says, his mouth full, jeaned hips against the counter.
Satomi gulps down a bite and leans on the counter, beside him. She’s smiling before she can help it. “Pan-chan who can’t toast pan.”
“Touche,” he says, the small dimple near his mouth appearing, “Stalker-chan.”
Satomi could stand to be even more embarrassed, but she laughs instead. Ohno may not say a lot, most of the time, but when he does it’s usually something comforting or funny. This time, it’s the latter. It may be at her expense, but she knows he’s not being mean.
“So what else did you read about me,” Ohno asks, chewing and smiling in that non-gross, idol way of his.
They stand there, leaning, eating their sandwiches. The cameramen seamlessly record the moment between the two, the bright summer sunshine casting a carefree vibe to the kitchen, which was almost the site of disaster just minutes ago. For the first time in a couple of weeks, the two co-stars are oblivious of the fact that they are on a show and are being filmed, even for just a few minutes. They just eat and talk, and Satomi feels absolutely relaxed. Later, when he allows her to stay beside him when he’s painting, she feels like he’s letting her in to a world that he doesn’t show to a lot of people.
She likes the feeling.
*
7: Health and Wellness
Ohno is exasperated. He has a facial mask on his face, right after being forced to jog around the park for twenty minutes. During the summer! The director called it a “Health and Wellness Day” for the couple, which sounds like torture to Ohno.
“It’s itchy,” Ohno says, as he scrunches up his nose against the mask. He knows he’s being disagreeable, but he doesn’t care. “Itchy!”
Satomi giggles. “A few more minutes. It’s good for your skin.” Ohno glances at her and thinks she looks something like a sea monster, with the white facial mask and her protruding lips. He doesn’t know what comes over him as he tells her so-she really does look like a sea monster from one of those children’s story books.
“Ohno-san,” Satomi laughs, “how mean! You don’t look too great yourself, you know!”
He turns towards her and watches her wiggling as she tries to relax even more on the couch. Sometimes Ohno slips and forgets that they’re on a show-he realizes more and more how stunning Satomi really is. Obviously, she’s beautiful, but Ohno now glimpses an unpracticed transparence in her, something so open, wide-eyed, bright, and just there. Like a rare flower growing through a pavement crack-everyone finds it pretty at first glance, but they have to look closer to see just how unusual and how terribly beautiful it really is. He just doesn’t know how to verbalize that without sounding like a creep, or looking like he’s saying it just because they’re being filmed. He’s more eloquent in his thoughts. To be more to the point, he doesn’t even know if that’s something he should even be thinking about.
In any case, that’s all he could think about then, as his nose got itchier and itchier: her aura, her lilting laughter that coats everything it touches, and her bee-stung lips. Her lips, outlined in that stupid, funny-smelling mask.
He shakes the thought away and concentrates on something else, like the spot on the ceiling where the paint is faintly cracked. There. Better. He’s in the middle of napping when he hears the flash going off.
“Ishihara-san,” Ohno groans.
*
8: Fancy Date
“Are you usually this fancy, Ohno-san? I expected to be adrift on a boat somewhere,” Satomi says, as she spoons in a delightful bite of peanut crumble over chocolate ganache. They are seated beside a huge window presenting them with a sweeping view of Tokyo’s Imperial Garden and Hibiya Park.
He nods, chewing. “I am.”
Satomi laughs, steadily getting used to the man’s pace and humor. The lamps had stalks shaped like cherry blossom branches, the light casting a strange glow on Ohno’s tanned face. “I like this place though.”
“I like their steak,” Ohno says. Satomi suspects that he would say something similar in any cheap yakinuku joint downtown-it’s a little maddening, but endearing.
“Oh, a dare has come,” Satomi says, as she accepts a card from one of the assistant directors. She reads from it out loud, “Talk about your first impressions on each other, then how those changed after spending three weeks together.”
Satomi expects his complaint. “Do we have to~”
She smiles. “I think it’s part of the job description.”
He wipes his mouth with the napkin. “Okay, I’ll go first,” he says, as the camera focuses on him. “I’ve worked with Ishihara-san before, and it was always kind of in funny or abnormal situations, right?”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“Like, VS Arashi, sleeping in a furniture store, things like that,” Ohno says. Satomi laughs-she laughs too easily around Ohno. There’s something about the way that he says things, always treading the line between absurd and to-the-point, that tickles her.
“Oh, that’s true.”
“Well, I’ve always thought Ishihara-san was beautiful and fun, but now that I’ve gotten to know you a little bit, I also know that you’re,” Ohno pauses, reaching for a word, “womanly.”
He looks at Satomi, as if gauging her response. Satomi reddens in an instant. Ohno rubs his neck, continuing. “You have a way about you, a brightness, almost, yet you’re also so casual. You say what you want, and I think it’s great,” he says.
Satomi is barely able to meet his eyes. “Yikes.”
“Yikes?”
“This show is dangerous,” Satomi says, still flustered. It’s Ohno’s turn to laugh.
She didn’t expect Ohno to go on the extent that he did, so she’s a little loss of words. “My first impression of Ohno-san was that he’s talented-that’s expected, isn’t it,” she says. “I mean you can do everything. Right?”
Ohno shakes his head. “Common misconception. I can’t play baseball, for starters.”
Satomi finds herself chuckling again. “Well, okay, maybe not everything. But now that I’ve spent a couple of weeks being your wife,” and here, she sputters a little, “I find that you really are capable and admirable. And that you’re hilarious but you don’t even know it.”
“You think I’m funny?” Ohno asks.
“Yes.”
“Funny-looking?”
“A million girls would murder me right here on this seat, so no,” Satomi says.
“But if those million murderous girls didn’t exist, and they don’t, by the way, you’d still think I look like Nagasawa-kun from Chibi Maruko-chan, right?”
Satomi’s eyes grow big as she laughs again. “I can’t believe you brought that up here!”
“I was very hurt,” Ohno says, scooping a huge bite of melon panna cotta to his mouth.
“Sorry!”
Satomi is not usually a girl given to instant attractions. In reality, she is choosy when it came to men, obnoxiously choosy, with a rundown of absurd qualities that she looks for in a man. She knows it’s just work, but now, she can’t help but deem that rundown obsolete. Maybe there are other men as interesting as Ohno Satoshi (but she highly doubts it), and if that is in any way true, then she didn’t need her ridiculous list.
Ohno twirls the spoon gently inside the espresso he’s just been served. “What do you make of latte art?”
“I think it’s cute,” she replies.
“I want to be one of those guys who can randomly draw flowers or Einstein with just foamed milk on someone’s coffee.”
Cute, Satomi thinks. What you are is intolerably, unexpectedly cute. They spend the entire night talking about latte art and the cartoons that they watched in their childhood. Ohno gives Satomi no reason to feel like she isn’t supposed to like where she is right now-he’s weird, entertaining, and cute. A whole lot of cute.
*
9: Eyes Like Rain
It’s a downcast Tuesday morning, and Ohno’s alone in their apartment. By this time, Ohno is already used to spending Tuesdays, Wednesday, and Thursdays there-sometimes he even sleeps over for real. It’s almost like his hideaway place; at night, when they’re not scheduled, the crew is nowhere to be found. Satomi never has slept over for real, of course, but it already feels something like a second home. Slowly but surely, the place is acquiring a sense of being lived in: with Satomi’s photographs of him scattered all over (she’s been on a instant camera kick-starting with her picture of him in that cloying facial mask stuck with a magnet on the fridge), his painting materials (his manager had given him a dark look for incorporating his hobby with work), random articles of clothing, like hats and light sweaters, that never seem to make it back home, and other knick-knacks.
Ohno is perfectly content to wait for Satomi, who is coming in the afternoon after a previous engagement. He bides his time by contemplating a medium-sized piece of canvass that he’s beginning to work on. Satomi has been asking him about what it is, but Ohno couldn’t tell her, even if he wanted to. All he has painted is a pink shape.
He could hear some of the crew yawning after filming him stare at a canvass for half an hour. After spending some time mixing paint and not getting the color right, he decides to take a break and boil some water for tea. He’s surprised when the lock turns and Satomi comes walking in, eyes not quite blood-shot but red, nonetheless. She’s not smiling, and something inside Ohno deflates a little.
“I didn’t want you to wait all alone,” Satomi says, voice betraying the slightest tremor. She sits down in the kitchen and drops off her bag to the side.
The sound of the boiling water fills the room. “Are you okay?” Ohno asks.
“Yeah,” Satomi says, biting her lip. Ohno feels the silent plea in her gaze.
“You don’t have to,” he says.
“I do. We can just cook something then watch some TV.” She has on that face that girls get when they’re trying to look brave.
“No, you shouldn’t have to,” he says, calmly walking away to talk to the director. He makes sure that Satomi doesn’t hear anything. To his relief, the director and their managers allow it this one time-they all leave the apartment silently, to Satomi’s confusion.
“Wait, where are they going?” she asks. Ohno doesn’t say anything. He walks back to the kitchen area and sits down, the melodious patter of the rain filling the room. “Ohno-san,” Satomi says, her shoulders trembling. Tears immediately spill down her face. “Why did you ask them to go?”
“Because you’re not okay,” Ohno says, not knowing what to do now that she’s crying. She grabs the leftover tissue that she sees lying around on the table and dabs her face with it.
“I’m okay,” Satomi insists. “I don’t-I don’t need to be seen as unprofessional here too.”
“No one’s thinking that,” he says, gingerly transferring to the seat beside her. Satomi cowers back.
“Look, you’re also starting to think that about me too.”
Ohno takes a deep breath and remembers that she’s just covering her tracks, covering her feelings. “Ishihara-san, I only asked for them to give us a few minutes to decide if we’re pushing through with shooting today-wait, please hear me out. I just want to make sure you’re okay,” he says.
“Why? You don’t have to do that, we’re not really married,” Satomi says, frank now, water in her eyes and down through her cheeks, like tiny, unstoppable rivulets.
“I know,” Ohno starts, faltering, not knowing if he was right to interfere, “but I can be your friend. I am your friend.” Satomi turns towards him, considering. Ohno continues, “If you want, you can tell me what’s wrong, and I’ll listen. I’m good at listening.”
“Oh god,” Satomi moans, “I’m a horrible mess. I’m sorry, Ohno-san.”
“You know, you don’t have to be so formal with me,” Ohno says, encouraging. “On camera and off.”
“Ohno-kun?”
Ohno shrugs. “That’s fine.” He smiles at her, wanting her to be okay. His impulse to wipe away her tears is so strong that he wrings his hands together to stop himself. He doesn’t want to push her or make her feel even more uncomfortable than she already is.
Satomi sniffs, her nose, reddening, but she stops crying. “You’ll probably hear about it within the day, anyway.” With that, she tells him about the horrible morning she’s had, when she went to the first reading for her upcoming taiga drama. When she arrived, the producer and director took her aside to talk to her about “something important”. They briefly informed her that she has been “exempted” from the drama, because the storyline would be changed-she wasn’t a fit for the heroine anymore. It would be less of a slap if she, while walking away, didn’t hear them talking about how her doing “that cheap dating show” did not fit the image of the pure, innocent, and untouched princess. “I mean, they won’t say that in the press release, of course, but what difference does it make. I know the real reason.”
Ohno has never fancied himself a knight in shining armor, but he truly feels bad for her, and is angered by what seems to be an unfair judgment of her. Sometimes, he can’t swallow down the double standards set for females in the entertainment business; he wishes he could speak out about it-he could, if he really wanted to-but Johnny would probably flay him the moment he opens his mouth. It’s a bad excuse, and now that he sees Satomi, he feels ashamed. “Ishihara-san, they made a horrible mistake. They really did.”
Satomi smiles sadly. “I thought we weren’t being formal anymore?”
“Satomi…chan.” She nods, sniffling again. She reaches out for her bag to the side when she accidentally brushes against Ohno’s hand. The look in her eyes is questioning, when Ohno grabs her hand, tenderly, like it might break. He does it before he thinks better of it, because he will, eventually. She doesn’t shake him off.
“Satomi-chan, you don’t have to do this,” Ohno repeats, intoning a different meaning that he knows Satomi understands. Not today. Not ever again, if that’s what you want.
When Satomi answers, “I want to,” Ohno thinks, for the first time, that she’s someone who’s capable of making him feel lonely. If not soon, then some time in the future. She squeezes his hand back, stands up, and goes out to ask the crew to go back inside again.
*
10: Wedding Photos
There will always be something surreal about wearing a wedding dress, even if she’s done it a couple of times before for shoots. She looks at her reflection. This dress is different from the ones she’s tried on before-it’s made out of gossamer lace, and it clings to her arms and back in beautiful and delicate tendrils. It’s just follows her hips gracefully, downwards. She chose this at the atelier because when she gets married for real, she wants it to be traditional. The dress she’s wearing now is the one she’ll never get to wear otherwise, and it feels great. She wonders what Ohno is wearing.
As she steps inside a van and proceeds to head to the shoot venue, her thoughts automatically go to Ohno, and how he held her hand last week. He’d been awfully nice, and Satomi couldn’t appreciate him more. She will do anything to see this project through. Her heart may have twittered and skipped a couple of beats, when her hand was in his warm one, but she doesn’t want to go down that route needlessly, when she’s probably just imagining things. She wants to steel herself and do the best that she can, everyday.
Satomi explores the venue, charmed by the small and rustic Portuguese restaurant the crew rented for their shoot. It even has a small garden with faded but tasteful white metal chairs and cheerful banderitas. She smiles when she realizes that the crew matched her dress: simple, rustic, with a quiet grace. “Wow,” she hears.
“Okay, wow,” Ohno says, as she faces him. He’s wearing a finely cut gray tuxedo that tapers perfectly down his body, and just this once, it seemed that he allowed his hair to be styled. He looks like his idol self, but somehow, even better.
“Wow to you too,” Satomi says, pleased with his reaction and pleased with him. “You clean up very nicely.”
Ohno chuckles. “I think I look pretty bedraggled next to you,” he says, making Satomi blush. She could smell something musky yet sweet on him-did he put perfume too? The camera follows them as they walk down together through the garden and go towards the set-up. When they get there, they’re pleased to find out that the photographer is someone they’re both used to working with. But even with that, they stand there, unsure of what to do.
“So what do we do?” Satomi says, bravely, smiling at Koide, the photographer.
“We’ll do a few basic ones first,” the photographer says kindly. He takes them through a couple of “starter shots”, with her and Ohno standing beside each other, her sitting on a chair, things they were used to doing in their regular work. Ohno is a dream to work with-not fidgety and always cracking little observations here and there that has Satomi and the crew laughing. Outside of Arashi, he seems to be a little bit more outgoing, Satomi realizes.
It’s when Koide requests for Ohno to carry Satomi that he starts to be a little more self-conscious. Satomi, who’s used to starring in romance dramas, thinks nothing of reenacting cheesy situations in front of a crowd. When she wraps her arm around Ohno, he bites his lips.
“Are you okay, Ohno-kun?” Satomi asks.
“You’re pretty heavy,” he jokes, making Satomi slap him in the chest.
“Take that back!”
Ohno grins. The photographer snaps the picture. “That’s great, you guys!”
When Ohno puts her down, she regrets it immediately. He really did smell extra good today. They go through other poses that Ohno is clearly uncomfortable with. It’s not that he shows his discomfort to the crew, but Satomi just knows that it isn’t the usual Ohno. When the photographer asks Ohno to kiss her cheek, Ohno hesitates. “I hope this is okay,” he says, stepping in closer to her. Something about his manner makes Satomi’s heart beat nervously again. He hand rests lightly on her waist as he kisses her cheek, allowing the photographer to take his shots. It’s soft and fleeting, and way less than what she’s done with her other co-stars before, but it has her reeling.
“Okay, Ohno-san, let’s have you looking like you’re whispering something into Ishihara-san’s ear,” Koide directs.
Satomi keeps her composure as Ohno parts her hair and comes near. She feels his breath on her ear. “Ohno-san, whisper something to Ishihara-san, so it looks real.”
Ohno follows the instruction. “You-you look gorgeous today, Satomi-chan.”
She feels her hand trembling. The easy and bantering atmosphere between the two of them is gone instantly.
“Okay, next, let’s have the two of you kissing,” the photographer jokes. Satomi almost turns green.
After they wrap up for the night, Satomi says to him, “Sorry for that.”
“For what?” He knits his eyebrows together.
“I think it was uncomfortable for you,” she replies, not even knowing why she’s saying it, why she’s projecting her own feelings to him. Maybe she just wants to hear him say that yes, it was uncomfortable, but it was just part of the job. That it was nothing out of the ordinary. She needs to hear it because all of a sudden, she doesn’t know what’s real from what’s not. Not that she needs it in her life-not then. It’s all easy when everything’s prepared for them and they just have to act out a part, but what if it becomes messy? What if she’s starting to feel something?
“Don’t even think about it,” he says, clambering in to his van, picking that moment to be brief with her. “Good work today.”
*
11: Boys and Ramen
Ohno fidgets in his seat, already regretting this night. He sips some cold sake and taps his fingers on the table. When a casually dressed Jun arrives, it is with a flurry of news about their concert arrangements. Ohno bides his time as Jun continues on about the preparations. Their ramen arrives when Jun shifts to telling him about a new single they’re doing for a taiga drama-
“That sounds great,” Ohno says.
Jun looks up at him. “That’s very half-hearted, even from you.” As if remembering who invited who, Jun looks at Ohno suspiciously. “So what’s this ramen dinner for, anyway?”
Ohno sighs, not knowing where to start. It had seemed like a good idea, in theory, but now that the two of them are here together, he’s suddenly not so sure. “I guess I have a question to ask.”
Jun puts down his chopsticks and waits for him to start.
“I-how do you-I mean, have you ever liked your co-star?” Ohno asks, feeling very stupid and vulnerable the moment he asks it. They never talk about girls or dating with each other, and he doesn’t know why he thought this would be any different.
Jun sips from his tea. “Maybe. But why do you ask?”
Bastard. “I’m curious.”
“I have, but just once. And it was nothing serious really. It was more of a crush, sort of.”
“Who was it?”
“Industry secret,” Jun says, grinning. “I’m not at liberty to tell.”
“You’re enjoying this.” Ohno shovels in more ramen to his mouth, wondering what the hell he was doing.
Jun laughs. “No, I’m just thanking god that you had the sense to ask me instead of Nino. Or anyone else, really.”
“I thought really hard about that,” he admits.
They eat together silently, their hot noodles the conduit for the conversation that, were they two other people, would already be taking place. Ohno almost forgets what he came for as he gets lost in the perfect tonkotsu broth. He could eat this everyday. “Leader?”
“Hmm?”
“Just make sure you think and know she’s worth it. Whatever that comes with deciding that will come, and everything can be dealt with when they happen,” Jun says, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Just make sure.”
Ohno hates thinking about that kind of thing, to be sure, but if there’s someone whom he can trust about this, it would be Jun. “Just make sure,” Ohno repeats.
Sure? How can anyone ever be sure? Doesn’t it just happen?
Yes, Ohno really hates this kind of thing. They order more sake, and talk about everything else except for that. Ohno turns towards the mounted television on the wall, after coming back from the restroom. A headline on a tabloid entertainment show catches his eye.
Ishihara Satomi, 27, snubbed by taiga producers for doing a “dating” show
Ohno feels a ringing in his ears. When Jun follows what he’s looking at, alarm kicks in. It’s as if what he said has come on much too quickly, with a vicious tone to it. Ohno stands up and shells out money. “Ohno-kun. It’s just a ridiculous gossip item, don’t-”
“Sorry,” he says, not hearing the rest of what Jun has to say. He runs and tells a cab where to go, trusting his instincts-he just needs to feel like he’s moving, towards her, even just the idea of her. He remembers her eyes on that rainy day, and just like that, he’s sure.
And when he opens the door, it’s dark, and she’s right there.
“Ohno-kun,” she says, standing up from the couch, dressed in sweats, her eyes bleary.
“Satomi-chan.”
“Why are you here?”
When he walks up to her, somehow, Ohno knows that they both know that it could be a moment, and it makes him shake a little. Ohno shares breathing space with her, taking all of her in-her sad face, the hair piled up haphazardly on top of her head, her freshly-laundered smell.
“You.”
“Yes?”
It could be a moment, ready for him to take, but Ohno would not do that, not to her. Not now. His head is racing. “There’s a TV station that needs ass-kicking,” Ohno says, stepping back and falling to the couch.
Satomi whimpers and sits down beside him, curling her legs underneath her. “You saw that?”
Ohno nods. She smiles her sad smile. “It’s nothing, those producers apologized for that rumor coming out. It doesn’t matter. It’s not supposed to matter.”
But Ohno is mad, steaming mad. He doesn’t remember ever feeling like this-heady, but not drunk. Or maybe he is a little drunk. Whatever it is, it’s making him feel dizzy. “We shouldn’t have painted that wall orange,” he says, and doesn’t remember anything until the next day.
*
12: Undulating
She bites her lips and wonders what to do about a clearly drunk Ohno Satoshi in “their” apartment. Satomi is a little relieved that the next day isn’t a shooting day, so the crew won’t be there early tomorrow morning to find him with a hangover. She can always leave, but something holds her back. He lies there, his head lolling his head to the right, mouth pursed, looking like a child. Satomi sighs.
She stands up and looks out at the string of lights illuminating the Meguro River. She knows she will remember this exact moment in her life for many years to come-something about it feels so pathetic yet so momentous at the same time. There won’t be a lot of moments topping this in its ambivalence. Her pride is smarting from the very rumor that she claims “doesn’t matter”-what happened to her was unfair, and she didn’t need the whole of Japan to know. She’ll get over it, she knows, but it doesn’t stop being upsetting just like that.
Satomi grabs a blanket and throws it over Ohno. I’m selfish, she thinks-if you want to have me then I have to have you, all to myself. Honesty won’t redeem her, not with this, but she feels what she feels. Tonight, she could stare at his face and wonder when everything changed. She could steal a kiss while he’s sleeping. She could just stay beside him. She could, but she won’t. She likes him, and she thinks he might-that there might be something there. Does she dare hope? She sleeps in the bedroom instead, wanting the day to be over. Maybe, when she wakes up, something would have changed.
When she does wake up, nothing has changed. Of course. Except for the glass of pink peonies that has appeared on the coffee table.
*
13: Actions
For the next couple of weeks, he and Satomi tread on careful ground, as if measuring each other. The longer it drags on, the surer he gets, as if impatience for the right timing cements his feelings even more. He just needs a little word from her, an action he can interpret-he’s usually impulsive, but with her, he wants to be careful. He can’t go too fast.
When the issue of the single comes up and he realizes what project it was actually for, he fixes everything with a resolve that the other members couldn’t say anything to. When their manager say that he was being unreasonable, that he was risking the group’s relationship with that particular producer, he remains firm.
“I won’t sing in any performances for that song then.”
Aiba, who-else-would-it-be-but Aiba, is the first to speak out. “Then I won’t too, if Leader won’t.” The other three don’t say anything, but Ohno sees the warning and the trust in their grave eyes. Just this once, he’ll ask for their indulgence, and he knows, gratefully, that he has it without even asking.
“You’re sure,” Jun says, understanding fully.
How far do you think we can go? We look up at the same sky
It’s a song not to be stained by anything that made her cry. Ohno will make sure of it, if it’s the only thing he can do.
*
14: Meet the Family
For that Tuesday, they are scheduled to be individually on location for the show-meaning, the crew follows them around doing their own thing, to add more dimension to the show. Today happens to be a practice day for Ohno, so he’s stuck the whole day in the studio with the members. It doesn’t feel any different because there’s always a camera from the agency following them around anyway, so Ohno doesn’t particularly feel like it was a different day.
During the break, the five of them settle down on a table to the side of the studio, waiting for their curry bentos to be delivered. It’s Nino who first sees her.
“So these are the perks of marriage,” he says, grinning. “Amazing.”
Ohno turns around to see Satomi, followed by cameramen, walking towards them, with a stacked bento in hand. Ohno is mortified, but he’s also happy. Because food. Satomi. Satomi came. For him. To him.
“I hope I’m not interrupting,” she says shyly, obviously as flustered as Ohno is.
“Not at all, Ishihara-san,” Sho says, standing up and offering up his seat right beside Ohno. She thanks him, still as red as a beet. Jun smakes Aiba’s hand away and berates him for poking his nose in the bento that Satomi brought. “But it smells so good,” Aiba says, stretching across the table to smell it even better.
“I cooked it this morning,” she says. When Satomi opens the steel bento, Ohno’s eyes light up.
“Ooh, cream stew,” Nino simpers. “Our Leader here can’t stop talking about it. You shouldn’t spoil him too much you know? He’ll become even lazier.”
“Shut up,” Ohno says, accepting the spoon from Satomi. “Thank you,” he mouths to her. Her smile is distilled sunshine.
“I made enough for everyone,” she says.
“CREAM STEW,” Aiba repeats, bouncing in his seat as Satomi gives him his own bento. “Best wife ever!”
“Hey,” Ohno interjects, his mouth full of sopped up baguette. Satomi only laughs and looks at a loss-he couldn’t blame her, the room smells like sweat, and here are his four idiotic bandmates subtly showboating for her and for the cameras like attention-deprived seals at the zoo.
“But what about the curry I chose so painstakingly for each of you?” Sho complains. “I must’ve looked at ten flyers just to pick the perfect curry for everyone!”
“It just means more food, Sho-kun,” Jun says, as he helps Satomi with the spoons. “Surely you won’t object to that.”
When the circus that was lunch finishes, Ohno accompanies Satomi downstairs to her car. “Thank you for today.”
“Don’t even mention it,” she says. “You’re my husband after all. I should spoil you when I can. I want to spoil you,” she corrects herself.
Ohno knows it’s all for the benefit of the camera, but he can take a hint. He needs to see her, just her, away from everyone. Away from the cameras. “I like being spoiled. See you later?”
Satomi looks at him funny, and then her expression changes. “You mean tomorrow, right?”
“Oh, yeah. Tomorrow.” He says goodbye to her and watches her drive off. It’s going to be a long afternoon of wondering and thinking and hoping.
*
15: Today = Tomorrow
Her heart pounds unforgivingly as the lock recognizes the keycard. They’ve danced around it for so long that this feels surreal.
He stands up when she enters the room, and walks towards her. Before she could even say anything, he cradles her cheek gently and kisses her. It is brief, just lips touching lips, and Satomi’s heart hammers on. She places a tentative hand on his chest.
“Ohno-kun,” she whispers against his lips. Sharing breathing space with him, with his smell, the softness of his shirt warm from his skin, is almost toxic, almost too much.
“Satoshi,” he says, reaching for her hands, threading it around his neck.
“Satoshi,” she repeats, relishing the name on her tongue, relearning him, hand curiously running through the soft hair on his nape, ecstatic to feel him for her own hands.
“You should be kissed everyday,” he says, his breath is a murmur in her ear, and Satomi, Satomi shivers, as he closes down on her again. It is sweet heat, a slow burn somewhere inside her-the tactile satisfaction of his body a buffer against the questions gurgling up through her. Ohno kisses unhurriedly, deepening it in steps, walking her slowly against the wall. Satomi doesn’t have enough time to think, and that’s completely fine.
When they stop enough to catch a few breaths, she slides her hands down his torso. “I know what you did. You didn’t have to.” Someday, she will do something as selfish and selfless as that for him. Someday. She will wait for that chance.
Ohno tucks a strand of her hair to her ear. The lamp casts a soft glow on his face. “Satomi, I like you.”
Is it really as simple as that? When Ohno kisses her again, with less restraint this time, hands slowing on her waist-it is.
There’s a lot of time for talking later on-for now, she will spoil him, touch him, show him that she wants him. And by the looks of it, Ohno’s planning the same thing too. Just for tonight, they will not hold themselves back. No one is watching, and they’re all alone.
*
16: Future
As the last day of shooting winds down, they finally exchange gifts. Ohno laughs over the album of polaroids that featured his faces captured in many states. “I don’t know if I’ll want to look at this again,” Ohno says. “It’s just my ugly, old face.”
“Should I have just taken pictures of myself then?” Satomi asks. Well isn’t that a stupid question, he thinks.
Ohno finally gives her the painting he’s been working on. He relishes her laughter when she tears apart the brown packaging.
“This sea monster thing is getting old,” she says. He painted her with many limbs, afloat in the sea, her lips pink and her head crowned with peonies. “But thank you.”
“Read the note,” he says.
“’Now that we’re not-‘”
“No, silently.”
The cameramen get the message and leave Satomi to read the note for herself. When she finishes, her smile guts Ohno all over again. They say goodbye to each other without ceremony, hugging warmly. . Thousands of girls watching on TV sigh for different reasons. Ohno can’t believe that he’s actually a little sad that the show that had felt like an intrusion in his life is ending. As the sun sets, they walk away from each other, not turning back once.
*
S,
Now that we’re not married anymore, please go on a real first date with me. I hope sea monsters don’t mind fishing. (And that they allow second base on first dates.)
- O
From: cupid_johnny
Title: In Bloom
Pairing: Ohno Satoshi/Ishihara Satomi
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Ohno and Satomi are suddenly married.
A/N: If you’re familiar with the Korean variety TV show, We Got Married, then this fic will instantly make sense to you. I’ve had this idea for the longest time, for the same exact couple! Hope this answers your “Reality TV show hijinks” request, nicefinalbeam.♥
*
1: Prelude
“Mori, couldn’t you have asked Matsujun to do this project?” Ohno whines. “Or Nino.”
Arashi’s long-time manager firmly shakes his head. “I’m sorry, the producer and director specifically asked for you.”
Ohno sinks further into the couch, already imagining what the taping would be like. It would probably be tiring and challenging like taping a normal drama, but just more excruciating-reality TV, him, really? Wasn’t doing VS Arashi weekly exhausting enough? And why would anyone request for him in particular, for a romantic show? Has the world turned upside down after his wonderful Okinawan vacation? He should’ve stayed with the fishes and pineapples.
“That, and Johnny-san specially requested for you to take on this project. He thinks your image can do with-a little spicing up. Can you imagine?”
Ohno frowns. “You can laugh.”
Mori shakes a little in his dignified suit and lets out a tiny, delighted chuckle. “Come on, Oh-chan, it can’t be that bad.”
“Can’t I turn this down?”
“You can, but it’s so rare that Johnny-san takes this much interest in a project. I suggest that you don’t.”
“You probably have the papers in your bag,” Ohno says.
Mori’s face betrays no remorse as he fishes out a sheaf of papers that will seal Ohno’s fate for the next few months. When the papers plop down without grace on the coffee table, Ohno moodily grabs the pen from Mori. He knows when he’s been beaten.
“No shower scenes. I mean it, Mori.”
*
2: First Meeting
When she finally sees him rounding the turn, it sinks in to her that it’s the most normal she’s ever seen him-not that he was ever fancy to begin with, as far as she knew, but of course, under the klieg lights and the scrutiny of an audience, he still had an idol vibe to him. Here, in the middle of a summer afternoon at a parking lot in Nakameguro, no one would ever think he’s one of the biggest celebrities in Japan. Not with his rumpled jeans, ragged looking black shirt, and flip-flops.
Satomi would laugh if she weren’t so nervous. When Ohno Satoshi approaches her and reveals that he has a single peony stalk for her, hidden behind his back all that time, she feels her face warming up. She knows the camera is soaking it all up-scenes caught on camera for an edit that would string all these inconsequential scenes together later on, in order to form a story. Her, standing there, waiting. Him, walking towards her with a flower. A story of two celebrities going on a fake marriage.
Whenever Satomi allows her mind to go back to that tendril of thought, she still gets a little puzzled. Satomi doesn’t have any idea why she said yes.
It seemed pretty simple and straightforward at first: spend three days, maximum, a week with her “husband”, for four months. There was no script, they only had to take on dares or do some “milestone activities” together. On paper, it seemed like an easy enough project to refresh her before her one-year taiga drama next year-her biggest project to date. But now that a lazily clothed and sweet-smelling national idol was now in front of her, she isn’t exactly sure which project is more daunting.
“Hi,” Ohno says, offering her the peony. The smile on his face is unhurried. “I’m the husband.”
“And I’m the wife. No stylist today?” she teases, as she accepts the flower. She wonders if it’s something he would do on a normal date. “Thank you.”
“No stylist. Isn’t this a reality show?” he says, smoothing over his shirt shyly.
Satomi hears the cameraman snort, which makes her laugh. Ohno looks at her in a way that tells her that maybe this wouldn’t be too bad.
*
3: Moving In
It’s a relatively small place, but Ohno, with the help of the set design team, made it as homey as possible. He’s deeply impressed with how they managed to brick up one side of the common area, which was only a passing fancy to him-he had no idea that they would actually do it. The apartment is furnished with comfortable nooks and crannies, just the way Ohno likes it. The big bay windows, unusual for Tokyo, overlooks the Meguro river. He could stare at the view for days.
“This would be amazing during spring,” Ohno says, to no one in particular. “Cherry blossoms.”
The cameraman could only half-smile in what seems to be sympathy or confusion. Ideally, Ohno isn’t supposed to acknowledge that he’s being filmed-which he still finds eerie and weird. It’s not like shooting a drama or doing a variety show-this feels a little bit more like being stalked. He ignores the nagging sentiment and allows himself to get lost again in the view.
A buzz startles him from his cozy reverie. When he sees the bright, cheerful face of Satomi on the small screen, he finds himself jolted back to reality. They really are doing this.
“Shouldn’t I have my own key?” Satomi’s voice comes out high and garbled through the machine.
“I forgot to give it to you when you said I should go ahead,” Ohno says apologetically, buzzing her in.
“I just needed to get something from my car,” Satomi says. “See you in a bit!”
A minute later, she comes in with her view obscured by the load that she’s carrying. Ohno takes the basket from her-“Sheets, pillow cases, a duvet,” Satomi says, which suddenly makes Ohno shy. They’ve worked together in a couple of variety shows, but they haven’t interacted enough for this to be comfortable for them. He watches her taking a few gulps of air, winded, her bangs framing her face just so. When she catches her breath, she lets out a small, delighted squeal.
“Ohno-san.” He thinks, off-hand, that her smile is probably the reason why she’s made it as far as she has.
“Yes?”
“Ohno-san, this is so great. I mean it,” she says, her face brightening up. “Artisanal but humble, kind of. Was that what you were going for?”
Ohno squirms. He hopes no one notices. “Just wanted to make it comfortable, that’s all.”
“I think it’s plenty comfortable,” Satomi says, sitting down tentatively on the white couch in her navy dress.
“So where should I place this?” Ohno says. The longer he carries it, the more he realizes that he should’ve helped Satomi with it earlier.
Satomi laughs and gets up. “Let me help you with that.”
“No-just tell me”-and before they knew it, the basket comes tumbling down, along with its spotless white contents. Ohno takes a look at Satomi, who seemingly has her mouth stuck in a frozen “o”.
He tries not to laugh. “I’m sorry.” He starts to bend down to grab the sheets when Satomi allows herself to land on the soft white tufts of the sheets and duvet. She sighs in a way that confuses Ohno.
He stands there and watches her, not knowing what to do. What would a husband do? he thinks.
Satomi opens one eye and looks at him.
“Aren’t you going to join in?”
Ohno does, careful not to lie down too close to Satomi. He feels the onslaught of the cameras, always watching their every move, lurking in the corners. Satomi curls up to the part of the duvet that bunched up, the sunlight grazing her face just so. She looks like she could stay still forever, in that position. It’s something that Ohno could easily understand. He allows his body to relax, his weight dispersing comfortably in every direction. Easy as breathing.
It also doesn’t hurt knowing that the director won’t ever yell cut just because he fell asleep on the job, which is about to happen in 3…2…
*
4: First Time
Satomi wakes up to the apartment awash with the colors of dusk. When she gets up, the pain in her neck strikes her anew. She always gets that crick when she doesn’t move while sleeping. At first, she’s confused as to why she’s been snoozing on a pile of sheets on the floor, when she spots Ohno sleeping a feet away.
Satomi covers her mouth and laughs silently at the realization that they have spent a huge chunk of their first day together sleeping. On a pile of sheets that didn’t even make it to the bed. She wonders if the producers were regretting casting them now. They wouldn’t be completely out of reason.
Somehow, she couldn’t get herself to nudge Ohno awake. He looked so peaceful, all tangled up in white and his own dreams. No one with a heart would dare wake up him up. She settles for placing the pretty blush-pink peony in an empty glass with water and preparing something quickly for dinner.
“Is it okay to cook?” Satomi asks the crew.
“Anything you want to do,” the director calls out.
Satomi’s still wrapping her head around this whole “play-acting”. No, it’s not acting exactly, she thinks. Isn’t the show more about how two acquaintances act when pushed together in intimate and decidedly married situations? She thinks about all those things while she’s cooking and startles when she finds a tousle-haired Ohno walking in to the kitchen. “You’re up.”
“Cream stew,” he says, a sense of dreaming still clutching on to his speech, slow but not slurring, a tone too deep. Satomi almost feels like looking away. Ohno sits down on one of the bar stools by the counter and watches her move around. When she dishes out the soup, Ohno inhales the steam appreciatively and waits for her to settle down beside him.
They eat in silence. Or, they eat in silence because Ohno is fully immersed in eating-dipping a slice of baguette into the soup, slurping in contentment. Satomi doesn’t know what to do, so she takes cues from him and enjoys their simple dinner quietly. Surely this will be an exciting episode for the viewers, she thinks wryly. When they are finished, Satomi stands up to takes the dishes. Ohno stands up and blocks the sink.
“Let me. It’s the least I could do,” Ohno says.
“But Ohno-san,” Satomi protests.
“Cream stew. I would do a lot of things for cream stew, and yours was so good.”
Satomi smiles weakly and allows the awkward yet pleasant environment to blanket her. At least, she could thank her lucky stars that she didn’t end up with an obnoxious actor as a fake-husband-this one seems to be really nice. She could almost hear the cameraman zooming in on her facial expression. It makes her jittery, like she has to arrange her features properly the whole time. But when she sneaks a look at Ohno and sees him with a face that can only be described as a nondescript dishwashing face, she loosens up. Nope, definitely not acting, she thinks. This is new territory, and maybe if she charters these new waters and come out alive, then that must mean she could do a lot of other things.
At the very least she could claim that she cooks a good cream stew.
*
5: Interlude A
Nino and Aiba grin the moment he enters their waiting room. Ohno knows those smiles on intimate terms and doesn’t want to provoke anything-at least, not until he’s somewhere warm and welcoming and won’t feel as harassed. He goes straight for Sho, who looks surprised at his interruption but allows him to burrow right beside him.
“Satoshi-kun, how are you?” Sho asks, putting down his newspaper. “Feels like I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“You look tanned,” Jun says from across them, smiling as he grabs his cup of coffee. “How was Okinawa?”
“Okinawa was nice,” Ohno says, trying not to meet either Aiba or Nino’s eyes. But they aren’t to be ignored.
“I just want to lay this out in the open before we do all the niceties, because seriously, it’s the best,” Nino starts, his eyes twinkling. Aiba is almost in whirring in his seat. “Our Oh-chan here just spent his first day as a husband to Ishihara Satomi-chan asleep on the job. Snoring, the works. After that, he just ate a lot of cream stew,” he says, and pauses for effect, “on prime time.”
Aiba can’t keep in his laughter and pushes Nino, who’s still sniggering. “You make it sound so bad. Leader’s just…unconventional.” He looks at Ohno as if willing him to agree.
Jun quirks an eyebrow. “You slept for half of the show? I haven’t seen it yet. Did Satomi-chan mind?”
“Guys,” Ohno whines.
“You have to be a better husband than that,” Sho says. “I mean, it’s not like Ishihara-san is bad-looking or something.”
“Astute. Sometimes I wonder why you’re a newscaster,” Nino says.
“Guys,” Ohno whines, again. “I’m not really married to her.”
“You’re unexpectedly choosy, Leader,” Aiba observes. “But the ratings are off the charts, so no biggie, right? You can sleep all you want!”
“Please tell me you at least gave her flowers? I told you to choose a pretty one,” Jun says.
They continue bantering like this for five more minutes until their recording starts, and by then, Ohno is completely exhausted, just by listening. He knows they all mean well but really, every single one of them would be the better candidate for appearing on the show. Ohno still can’t help but feeling like he’s a bad fit, wondering how he’ll take on all the challenges coming his way. He’s not very husband-material, he thinks. Maybe Ishihara-san thought she got the raw end of the deal?
She cooked it so lovingly, though, so maybe she doesn’t feel completely horrible about him. He genuinely fell for her cream stew.
*
6: Name Calling
“Ishihara-san,” Ohno calls out. He’s in the kitchen, whipping up something simple for lunch. They decided from the very beginning that their household was going to be liberal-they would alternate with the chores and help each other out, in general. It’s an arrangement Satomi could live with-equal parts pampering and being pampered. It’s only fair. “Ishihara-san.”
Satomi pouts from the couch, where she’s watching a DVD. But it’s his turn, she thinks. “Yes, Ohno-san?”
“Come here, please,” Ohno says, his voice a little discomfited. When Satomi enters the kitchen, she sees the toaster smoking up. “I just pressed four and then it-”
Satomi quickly unplugs the toaster. They draw back for a couple of seconds, waiting for something to happen. When nothing does, Satomi looks at Ohno, amused. “You don’t know how to toast bread? I mean, I read from your fan profiles that you like cream stew, curry, and bread. That, and-”
“-you researched me?”
“It’s not exactly the hardest information to get,” Satomi says, her face heating up. “You’re everywhere. I mean, I just had to type your name and all kinds of stuff came up-not that I read everything-but really, you’re-”
“You researched me,” Ohno repeats. “You know I like bread.”
“Well a lot of people like bread anyway. And wouldn’t you research someone before you marry them?” Anyone sane and normal would, right? Oh god, Satomi thinks.
Ohno knits his brows as he goes for the piece of toast that isn’t charred and assembles the sad remains of their tuna sandwiches. He doesn’t say anything for a while and concentrates on his task.
Satomi feels sheepish. “Ohno-san?”
“Actually, no, I wouldn’t. If I want to marry her then I’ll marry her.”
“Then that makes you a little naïve, doesn’t it,” Satomi says, flustered and wondering about the way Ohno’s mind works. He says the most disarming things-sometimes he really is as perplexing as he makes himself out to be on television. “I just like to be a little prepared.”
“No, that just makes you a stalker,” Ohno says, a grin spreading on his face as he hands Satomi a plate with a sorry-looking sandwich. “Here.”
Satomi reddens, silently accepting the plate. She bites into the sandwich, which, to be honest, isn’t half bad. Not that she’s giving that away. “This isn’t so good, Pan-chan. No good.”
“Pan-chan?” Ohno says, his mouth full, jeaned hips against the counter.
Satomi gulps down a bite and leans on the counter, beside him. She’s smiling before she can help it. “Pan-chan who can’t toast pan.”
“Touche,” he says, the small dimple near his mouth appearing, “Stalker-chan.”
Satomi could stand to be even more embarrassed, but she laughs instead. Ohno may not say a lot, most of the time, but when he does it’s usually something comforting or funny. This time, it’s the latter. It may be at her expense, but she knows he’s not being mean.
“So what else did you read about me,” Ohno asks, chewing and smiling in that non-gross, idol way of his.
They stand there, leaning, eating their sandwiches. The cameramen seamlessly record the moment between the two, the bright summer sunshine casting a carefree vibe to the kitchen, which was almost the site of disaster just minutes ago. For the first time in a couple of weeks, the two co-stars are oblivious of the fact that they are on a show and are being filmed, even for just a few minutes. They just eat and talk, and Satomi feels absolutely relaxed. Later, when he allows her to stay beside him when he’s painting, she feels like he’s letting her in to a world that he doesn’t show to a lot of people.
She likes the feeling.
*
7: Health and Wellness
Ohno is exasperated. He has a facial mask on his face, right after being forced to jog around the park for twenty minutes. During the summer! The director called it a “Health and Wellness Day” for the couple, which sounds like torture to Ohno.
“It’s itchy,” Ohno says, as he scrunches up his nose against the mask. He knows he’s being disagreeable, but he doesn’t care. “Itchy!”
Satomi giggles. “A few more minutes. It’s good for your skin.” Ohno glances at her and thinks she looks something like a sea monster, with the white facial mask and her protruding lips. He doesn’t know what comes over him as he tells her so-she really does look like a sea monster from one of those children’s story books.
“Ohno-san,” Satomi laughs, “how mean! You don’t look too great yourself, you know!”
He turns towards her and watches her wiggling as she tries to relax even more on the couch. Sometimes Ohno slips and forgets that they’re on a show-he realizes more and more how stunning Satomi really is. Obviously, she’s beautiful, but Ohno now glimpses an unpracticed transparence in her, something so open, wide-eyed, bright, and just there. Like a rare flower growing through a pavement crack-everyone finds it pretty at first glance, but they have to look closer to see just how unusual and how terribly beautiful it really is. He just doesn’t know how to verbalize that without sounding like a creep, or looking like he’s saying it just because they’re being filmed. He’s more eloquent in his thoughts. To be more to the point, he doesn’t even know if that’s something he should even be thinking about.
In any case, that’s all he could think about then, as his nose got itchier and itchier: her aura, her lilting laughter that coats everything it touches, and her bee-stung lips. Her lips, outlined in that stupid, funny-smelling mask.
He shakes the thought away and concentrates on something else, like the spot on the ceiling where the paint is faintly cracked. There. Better. He’s in the middle of napping when he hears the flash going off.
“Ishihara-san,” Ohno groans.
*
8: Fancy Date
“Are you usually this fancy, Ohno-san? I expected to be adrift on a boat somewhere,” Satomi says, as she spoons in a delightful bite of peanut crumble over chocolate ganache. They are seated beside a huge window presenting them with a sweeping view of Tokyo’s Imperial Garden and Hibiya Park.
He nods, chewing. “I am.”
Satomi laughs, steadily getting used to the man’s pace and humor. The lamps had stalks shaped like cherry blossom branches, the light casting a strange glow on Ohno’s tanned face. “I like this place though.”
“I like their steak,” Ohno says. Satomi suspects that he would say something similar in any cheap yakinuku joint downtown-it’s a little maddening, but endearing.
“Oh, a dare has come,” Satomi says, as she accepts a card from one of the assistant directors. She reads from it out loud, “Talk about your first impressions on each other, then how those changed after spending three weeks together.”
Satomi expects his complaint. “Do we have to~”
She smiles. “I think it’s part of the job description.”
He wipes his mouth with the napkin. “Okay, I’ll go first,” he says, as the camera focuses on him. “I’ve worked with Ishihara-san before, and it was always kind of in funny or abnormal situations, right?”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“Like, VS Arashi, sleeping in a furniture store, things like that,” Ohno says. Satomi laughs-she laughs too easily around Ohno. There’s something about the way that he says things, always treading the line between absurd and to-the-point, that tickles her.
“Oh, that’s true.”
“Well, I’ve always thought Ishihara-san was beautiful and fun, but now that I’ve gotten to know you a little bit, I also know that you’re,” Ohno pauses, reaching for a word, “womanly.”
He looks at Satomi, as if gauging her response. Satomi reddens in an instant. Ohno rubs his neck, continuing. “You have a way about you, a brightness, almost, yet you’re also so casual. You say what you want, and I think it’s great,” he says.
Satomi is barely able to meet his eyes. “Yikes.”
“Yikes?”
“This show is dangerous,” Satomi says, still flustered. It’s Ohno’s turn to laugh.
She didn’t expect Ohno to go on the extent that he did, so she’s a little loss of words. “My first impression of Ohno-san was that he’s talented-that’s expected, isn’t it,” she says. “I mean you can do everything. Right?”
Ohno shakes his head. “Common misconception. I can’t play baseball, for starters.”
Satomi finds herself chuckling again. “Well, okay, maybe not everything. But now that I’ve spent a couple of weeks being your wife,” and here, she sputters a little, “I find that you really are capable and admirable. And that you’re hilarious but you don’t even know it.”
“You think I’m funny?” Ohno asks.
“Yes.”
“Funny-looking?”
“A million girls would murder me right here on this seat, so no,” Satomi says.
“But if those million murderous girls didn’t exist, and they don’t, by the way, you’d still think I look like Nagasawa-kun from Chibi Maruko-chan, right?”
Satomi’s eyes grow big as she laughs again. “I can’t believe you brought that up here!”
“I was very hurt,” Ohno says, scooping a huge bite of melon panna cotta to his mouth.
“Sorry!”
Satomi is not usually a girl given to instant attractions. In reality, she is choosy when it came to men, obnoxiously choosy, with a rundown of absurd qualities that she looks for in a man. She knows it’s just work, but now, she can’t help but deem that rundown obsolete. Maybe there are other men as interesting as Ohno Satoshi (but she highly doubts it), and if that is in any way true, then she didn’t need her ridiculous list.
Ohno twirls the spoon gently inside the espresso he’s just been served. “What do you make of latte art?”
“I think it’s cute,” she replies.
“I want to be one of those guys who can randomly draw flowers or Einstein with just foamed milk on someone’s coffee.”
Cute, Satomi thinks. What you are is intolerably, unexpectedly cute. They spend the entire night talking about latte art and the cartoons that they watched in their childhood. Ohno gives Satomi no reason to feel like she isn’t supposed to like where she is right now-he’s weird, entertaining, and cute. A whole lot of cute.
*
9: Eyes Like Rain
It’s a downcast Tuesday morning, and Ohno’s alone in their apartment. By this time, Ohno is already used to spending Tuesdays, Wednesday, and Thursdays there-sometimes he even sleeps over for real. It’s almost like his hideaway place; at night, when they’re not scheduled, the crew is nowhere to be found. Satomi never has slept over for real, of course, but it already feels something like a second home. Slowly but surely, the place is acquiring a sense of being lived in: with Satomi’s photographs of him scattered all over (she’s been on a instant camera kick-starting with her picture of him in that cloying facial mask stuck with a magnet on the fridge), his painting materials (his manager had given him a dark look for incorporating his hobby with work), random articles of clothing, like hats and light sweaters, that never seem to make it back home, and other knick-knacks.
Ohno is perfectly content to wait for Satomi, who is coming in the afternoon after a previous engagement. He bides his time by contemplating a medium-sized piece of canvass that he’s beginning to work on. Satomi has been asking him about what it is, but Ohno couldn’t tell her, even if he wanted to. All he has painted is a pink shape.
He could hear some of the crew yawning after filming him stare at a canvass for half an hour. After spending some time mixing paint and not getting the color right, he decides to take a break and boil some water for tea. He’s surprised when the lock turns and Satomi comes walking in, eyes not quite blood-shot but red, nonetheless. She’s not smiling, and something inside Ohno deflates a little.
“I didn’t want you to wait all alone,” Satomi says, voice betraying the slightest tremor. She sits down in the kitchen and drops off her bag to the side.
The sound of the boiling water fills the room. “Are you okay?” Ohno asks.
“Yeah,” Satomi says, biting her lip. Ohno feels the silent plea in her gaze.
“You don’t have to,” he says.
“I do. We can just cook something then watch some TV.” She has on that face that girls get when they’re trying to look brave.
“No, you shouldn’t have to,” he says, calmly walking away to talk to the director. He makes sure that Satomi doesn’t hear anything. To his relief, the director and their managers allow it this one time-they all leave the apartment silently, to Satomi’s confusion.
“Wait, where are they going?” she asks. Ohno doesn’t say anything. He walks back to the kitchen area and sits down, the melodious patter of the rain filling the room. “Ohno-san,” Satomi says, her shoulders trembling. Tears immediately spill down her face. “Why did you ask them to go?”
“Because you’re not okay,” Ohno says, not knowing what to do now that she’s crying. She grabs the leftover tissue that she sees lying around on the table and dabs her face with it.
“I’m okay,” Satomi insists. “I don’t-I don’t need to be seen as unprofessional here too.”
“No one’s thinking that,” he says, gingerly transferring to the seat beside her. Satomi cowers back.
“Look, you’re also starting to think that about me too.”
Ohno takes a deep breath and remembers that she’s just covering her tracks, covering her feelings. “Ishihara-san, I only asked for them to give us a few minutes to decide if we’re pushing through with shooting today-wait, please hear me out. I just want to make sure you’re okay,” he says.
“Why? You don’t have to do that, we’re not really married,” Satomi says, frank now, water in her eyes and down through her cheeks, like tiny, unstoppable rivulets.
“I know,” Ohno starts, faltering, not knowing if he was right to interfere, “but I can be your friend. I am your friend.” Satomi turns towards him, considering. Ohno continues, “If you want, you can tell me what’s wrong, and I’ll listen. I’m good at listening.”
“Oh god,” Satomi moans, “I’m a horrible mess. I’m sorry, Ohno-san.”
“You know, you don’t have to be so formal with me,” Ohno says, encouraging. “On camera and off.”
“Ohno-kun?”
Ohno shrugs. “That’s fine.” He smiles at her, wanting her to be okay. His impulse to wipe away her tears is so strong that he wrings his hands together to stop himself. He doesn’t want to push her or make her feel even more uncomfortable than she already is.
Satomi sniffs, her nose, reddening, but she stops crying. “You’ll probably hear about it within the day, anyway.” With that, she tells him about the horrible morning she’s had, when she went to the first reading for her upcoming taiga drama. When she arrived, the producer and director took her aside to talk to her about “something important”. They briefly informed her that she has been “exempted” from the drama, because the storyline would be changed-she wasn’t a fit for the heroine anymore. It would be less of a slap if she, while walking away, didn’t hear them talking about how her doing “that cheap dating show” did not fit the image of the pure, innocent, and untouched princess. “I mean, they won’t say that in the press release, of course, but what difference does it make. I know the real reason.”
Ohno has never fancied himself a knight in shining armor, but he truly feels bad for her, and is angered by what seems to be an unfair judgment of her. Sometimes, he can’t swallow down the double standards set for females in the entertainment business; he wishes he could speak out about it-he could, if he really wanted to-but Johnny would probably flay him the moment he opens his mouth. It’s a bad excuse, and now that he sees Satomi, he feels ashamed. “Ishihara-san, they made a horrible mistake. They really did.”
Satomi smiles sadly. “I thought we weren’t being formal anymore?”
“Satomi…chan.” She nods, sniffling again. She reaches out for her bag to the side when she accidentally brushes against Ohno’s hand. The look in her eyes is questioning, when Ohno grabs her hand, tenderly, like it might break. He does it before he thinks better of it, because he will, eventually. She doesn’t shake him off.
“Satomi-chan, you don’t have to do this,” Ohno repeats, intoning a different meaning that he knows Satomi understands. Not today. Not ever again, if that’s what you want.
When Satomi answers, “I want to,” Ohno thinks, for the first time, that she’s someone who’s capable of making him feel lonely. If not soon, then some time in the future. She squeezes his hand back, stands up, and goes out to ask the crew to go back inside again.
*
10: Wedding Photos
There will always be something surreal about wearing a wedding dress, even if she’s done it a couple of times before for shoots. She looks at her reflection. This dress is different from the ones she’s tried on before-it’s made out of gossamer lace, and it clings to her arms and back in beautiful and delicate tendrils. It’s just follows her hips gracefully, downwards. She chose this at the atelier because when she gets married for real, she wants it to be traditional. The dress she’s wearing now is the one she’ll never get to wear otherwise, and it feels great. She wonders what Ohno is wearing.
As she steps inside a van and proceeds to head to the shoot venue, her thoughts automatically go to Ohno, and how he held her hand last week. He’d been awfully nice, and Satomi couldn’t appreciate him more. She will do anything to see this project through. Her heart may have twittered and skipped a couple of beats, when her hand was in his warm one, but she doesn’t want to go down that route needlessly, when she’s probably just imagining things. She wants to steel herself and do the best that she can, everyday.
Satomi explores the venue, charmed by the small and rustic Portuguese restaurant the crew rented for their shoot. It even has a small garden with faded but tasteful white metal chairs and cheerful banderitas. She smiles when she realizes that the crew matched her dress: simple, rustic, with a quiet grace. “Wow,” she hears.
“Okay, wow,” Ohno says, as she faces him. He’s wearing a finely cut gray tuxedo that tapers perfectly down his body, and just this once, it seemed that he allowed his hair to be styled. He looks like his idol self, but somehow, even better.
“Wow to you too,” Satomi says, pleased with his reaction and pleased with him. “You clean up very nicely.”
Ohno chuckles. “I think I look pretty bedraggled next to you,” he says, making Satomi blush. She could smell something musky yet sweet on him-did he put perfume too? The camera follows them as they walk down together through the garden and go towards the set-up. When they get there, they’re pleased to find out that the photographer is someone they’re both used to working with. But even with that, they stand there, unsure of what to do.
“So what do we do?” Satomi says, bravely, smiling at Koide, the photographer.
“We’ll do a few basic ones first,” the photographer says kindly. He takes them through a couple of “starter shots”, with her and Ohno standing beside each other, her sitting on a chair, things they were used to doing in their regular work. Ohno is a dream to work with-not fidgety and always cracking little observations here and there that has Satomi and the crew laughing. Outside of Arashi, he seems to be a little bit more outgoing, Satomi realizes.
It’s when Koide requests for Ohno to carry Satomi that he starts to be a little more self-conscious. Satomi, who’s used to starring in romance dramas, thinks nothing of reenacting cheesy situations in front of a crowd. When she wraps her arm around Ohno, he bites his lips.
“Are you okay, Ohno-kun?” Satomi asks.
“You’re pretty heavy,” he jokes, making Satomi slap him in the chest.
“Take that back!”
Ohno grins. The photographer snaps the picture. “That’s great, you guys!”
When Ohno puts her down, she regrets it immediately. He really did smell extra good today. They go through other poses that Ohno is clearly uncomfortable with. It’s not that he shows his discomfort to the crew, but Satomi just knows that it isn’t the usual Ohno. When the photographer asks Ohno to kiss her cheek, Ohno hesitates. “I hope this is okay,” he says, stepping in closer to her. Something about his manner makes Satomi’s heart beat nervously again. He hand rests lightly on her waist as he kisses her cheek, allowing the photographer to take his shots. It’s soft and fleeting, and way less than what she’s done with her other co-stars before, but it has her reeling.
“Okay, Ohno-san, let’s have you looking like you’re whispering something into Ishihara-san’s ear,” Koide directs.
Satomi keeps her composure as Ohno parts her hair and comes near. She feels his breath on her ear. “Ohno-san, whisper something to Ishihara-san, so it looks real.”
Ohno follows the instruction. “You-you look gorgeous today, Satomi-chan.”
She feels her hand trembling. The easy and bantering atmosphere between the two of them is gone instantly.
“Okay, next, let’s have the two of you kissing,” the photographer jokes. Satomi almost turns green.
After they wrap up for the night, Satomi says to him, “Sorry for that.”
“For what?” He knits his eyebrows together.
“I think it was uncomfortable for you,” she replies, not even knowing why she’s saying it, why she’s projecting her own feelings to him. Maybe she just wants to hear him say that yes, it was uncomfortable, but it was just part of the job. That it was nothing out of the ordinary. She needs to hear it because all of a sudden, she doesn’t know what’s real from what’s not. Not that she needs it in her life-not then. It’s all easy when everything’s prepared for them and they just have to act out a part, but what if it becomes messy? What if she’s starting to feel something?
“Don’t even think about it,” he says, clambering in to his van, picking that moment to be brief with her. “Good work today.”
*
11: Boys and Ramen
Ohno fidgets in his seat, already regretting this night. He sips some cold sake and taps his fingers on the table. When a casually dressed Jun arrives, it is with a flurry of news about their concert arrangements. Ohno bides his time as Jun continues on about the preparations. Their ramen arrives when Jun shifts to telling him about a new single they’re doing for a taiga drama-
“That sounds great,” Ohno says.
Jun looks up at him. “That’s very half-hearted, even from you.” As if remembering who invited who, Jun looks at Ohno suspiciously. “So what’s this ramen dinner for, anyway?”
Ohno sighs, not knowing where to start. It had seemed like a good idea, in theory, but now that the two of them are here together, he’s suddenly not so sure. “I guess I have a question to ask.”
Jun puts down his chopsticks and waits for him to start.
“I-how do you-I mean, have you ever liked your co-star?” Ohno asks, feeling very stupid and vulnerable the moment he asks it. They never talk about girls or dating with each other, and he doesn’t know why he thought this would be any different.
Jun sips from his tea. “Maybe. But why do you ask?”
Bastard. “I’m curious.”
“I have, but just once. And it was nothing serious really. It was more of a crush, sort of.”
“Who was it?”
“Industry secret,” Jun says, grinning. “I’m not at liberty to tell.”
“You’re enjoying this.” Ohno shovels in more ramen to his mouth, wondering what the hell he was doing.
Jun laughs. “No, I’m just thanking god that you had the sense to ask me instead of Nino. Or anyone else, really.”
“I thought really hard about that,” he admits.
They eat together silently, their hot noodles the conduit for the conversation that, were they two other people, would already be taking place. Ohno almost forgets what he came for as he gets lost in the perfect tonkotsu broth. He could eat this everyday. “Leader?”
“Hmm?”
“Just make sure you think and know she’s worth it. Whatever that comes with deciding that will come, and everything can be dealt with when they happen,” Jun says, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Just make sure.”
Ohno hates thinking about that kind of thing, to be sure, but if there’s someone whom he can trust about this, it would be Jun. “Just make sure,” Ohno repeats.
Sure? How can anyone ever be sure? Doesn’t it just happen?
Yes, Ohno really hates this kind of thing. They order more sake, and talk about everything else except for that. Ohno turns towards the mounted television on the wall, after coming back from the restroom. A headline on a tabloid entertainment show catches his eye.
Ishihara Satomi, 27, snubbed by taiga producers for doing a “dating” show
Ohno feels a ringing in his ears. When Jun follows what he’s looking at, alarm kicks in. It’s as if what he said has come on much too quickly, with a vicious tone to it. Ohno stands up and shells out money. “Ohno-kun. It’s just a ridiculous gossip item, don’t-”
“Sorry,” he says, not hearing the rest of what Jun has to say. He runs and tells a cab where to go, trusting his instincts-he just needs to feel like he’s moving, towards her, even just the idea of her. He remembers her eyes on that rainy day, and just like that, he’s sure.
And when he opens the door, it’s dark, and she’s right there.
“Ohno-kun,” she says, standing up from the couch, dressed in sweats, her eyes bleary.
“Satomi-chan.”
“Why are you here?”
When he walks up to her, somehow, Ohno knows that they both know that it could be a moment, and it makes him shake a little. Ohno shares breathing space with her, taking all of her in-her sad face, the hair piled up haphazardly on top of her head, her freshly-laundered smell.
“You.”
“Yes?”
It could be a moment, ready for him to take, but Ohno would not do that, not to her. Not now. His head is racing. “There’s a TV station that needs ass-kicking,” Ohno says, stepping back and falling to the couch.
Satomi whimpers and sits down beside him, curling her legs underneath her. “You saw that?”
Ohno nods. She smiles her sad smile. “It’s nothing, those producers apologized for that rumor coming out. It doesn’t matter. It’s not supposed to matter.”
But Ohno is mad, steaming mad. He doesn’t remember ever feeling like this-heady, but not drunk. Or maybe he is a little drunk. Whatever it is, it’s making him feel dizzy. “We shouldn’t have painted that wall orange,” he says, and doesn’t remember anything until the next day.
*
12: Undulating
She bites her lips and wonders what to do about a clearly drunk Ohno Satoshi in “their” apartment. Satomi is a little relieved that the next day isn’t a shooting day, so the crew won’t be there early tomorrow morning to find him with a hangover. She can always leave, but something holds her back. He lies there, his head lolling his head to the right, mouth pursed, looking like a child. Satomi sighs.
She stands up and looks out at the string of lights illuminating the Meguro River. She knows she will remember this exact moment in her life for many years to come-something about it feels so pathetic yet so momentous at the same time. There won’t be a lot of moments topping this in its ambivalence. Her pride is smarting from the very rumor that she claims “doesn’t matter”-what happened to her was unfair, and she didn’t need the whole of Japan to know. She’ll get over it, she knows, but it doesn’t stop being upsetting just like that.
Satomi grabs a blanket and throws it over Ohno. I’m selfish, she thinks-if you want to have me then I have to have you, all to myself. Honesty won’t redeem her, not with this, but she feels what she feels. Tonight, she could stare at his face and wonder when everything changed. She could steal a kiss while he’s sleeping. She could just stay beside him. She could, but she won’t. She likes him, and she thinks he might-that there might be something there. Does she dare hope? She sleeps in the bedroom instead, wanting the day to be over. Maybe, when she wakes up, something would have changed.
When she does wake up, nothing has changed. Of course. Except for the glass of pink peonies that has appeared on the coffee table.
*
13: Actions
For the next couple of weeks, he and Satomi tread on careful ground, as if measuring each other. The longer it drags on, the surer he gets, as if impatience for the right timing cements his feelings even more. He just needs a little word from her, an action he can interpret-he’s usually impulsive, but with her, he wants to be careful. He can’t go too fast.
When the issue of the single comes up and he realizes what project it was actually for, he fixes everything with a resolve that the other members couldn’t say anything to. When their manager say that he was being unreasonable, that he was risking the group’s relationship with that particular producer, he remains firm.
“I won’t sing in any performances for that song then.”
Aiba, who-else-would-it-be-but Aiba, is the first to speak out. “Then I won’t too, if Leader won’t.” The other three don’t say anything, but Ohno sees the warning and the trust in their grave eyes. Just this once, he’ll ask for their indulgence, and he knows, gratefully, that he has it without even asking.
“You’re sure,” Jun says, understanding fully.
How far do you think we can go? We look up at the same sky
It’s a song not to be stained by anything that made her cry. Ohno will make sure of it, if it’s the only thing he can do.
*
14: Meet the Family
For that Tuesday, they are scheduled to be individually on location for the show-meaning, the crew follows them around doing their own thing, to add more dimension to the show. Today happens to be a practice day for Ohno, so he’s stuck the whole day in the studio with the members. It doesn’t feel any different because there’s always a camera from the agency following them around anyway, so Ohno doesn’t particularly feel like it was a different day.
During the break, the five of them settle down on a table to the side of the studio, waiting for their curry bentos to be delivered. It’s Nino who first sees her.
“So these are the perks of marriage,” he says, grinning. “Amazing.”
Ohno turns around to see Satomi, followed by cameramen, walking towards them, with a stacked bento in hand. Ohno is mortified, but he’s also happy. Because food. Satomi. Satomi came. For him. To him.
“I hope I’m not interrupting,” she says shyly, obviously as flustered as Ohno is.
“Not at all, Ishihara-san,” Sho says, standing up and offering up his seat right beside Ohno. She thanks him, still as red as a beet. Jun smakes Aiba’s hand away and berates him for poking his nose in the bento that Satomi brought. “But it smells so good,” Aiba says, stretching across the table to smell it even better.
“I cooked it this morning,” she says. When Satomi opens the steel bento, Ohno’s eyes light up.
“Ooh, cream stew,” Nino simpers. “Our Leader here can’t stop talking about it. You shouldn’t spoil him too much you know? He’ll become even lazier.”
“Shut up,” Ohno says, accepting the spoon from Satomi. “Thank you,” he mouths to her. Her smile is distilled sunshine.
“I made enough for everyone,” she says.
“CREAM STEW,” Aiba repeats, bouncing in his seat as Satomi gives him his own bento. “Best wife ever!”
“Hey,” Ohno interjects, his mouth full of sopped up baguette. Satomi only laughs and looks at a loss-he couldn’t blame her, the room smells like sweat, and here are his four idiotic bandmates subtly showboating for her and for the cameras like attention-deprived seals at the zoo.
“But what about the curry I chose so painstakingly for each of you?” Sho complains. “I must’ve looked at ten flyers just to pick the perfect curry for everyone!”
“It just means more food, Sho-kun,” Jun says, as he helps Satomi with the spoons. “Surely you won’t object to that.”
When the circus that was lunch finishes, Ohno accompanies Satomi downstairs to her car. “Thank you for today.”
“Don’t even mention it,” she says. “You’re my husband after all. I should spoil you when I can. I want to spoil you,” she corrects herself.
Ohno knows it’s all for the benefit of the camera, but he can take a hint. He needs to see her, just her, away from everyone. Away from the cameras. “I like being spoiled. See you later?”
Satomi looks at him funny, and then her expression changes. “You mean tomorrow, right?”
“Oh, yeah. Tomorrow.” He says goodbye to her and watches her drive off. It’s going to be a long afternoon of wondering and thinking and hoping.
*
15: Today = Tomorrow
Her heart pounds unforgivingly as the lock recognizes the keycard. They’ve danced around it for so long that this feels surreal.
He stands up when she enters the room, and walks towards her. Before she could even say anything, he cradles her cheek gently and kisses her. It is brief, just lips touching lips, and Satomi’s heart hammers on. She places a tentative hand on his chest.
“Ohno-kun,” she whispers against his lips. Sharing breathing space with him, with his smell, the softness of his shirt warm from his skin, is almost toxic, almost too much.
“Satoshi,” he says, reaching for her hands, threading it around his neck.
“Satoshi,” she repeats, relishing the name on her tongue, relearning him, hand curiously running through the soft hair on his nape, ecstatic to feel him for her own hands.
“You should be kissed everyday,” he says, his breath is a murmur in her ear, and Satomi, Satomi shivers, as he closes down on her again. It is sweet heat, a slow burn somewhere inside her-the tactile satisfaction of his body a buffer against the questions gurgling up through her. Ohno kisses unhurriedly, deepening it in steps, walking her slowly against the wall. Satomi doesn’t have enough time to think, and that’s completely fine.
When they stop enough to catch a few breaths, she slides her hands down his torso. “I know what you did. You didn’t have to.” Someday, she will do something as selfish and selfless as that for him. Someday. She will wait for that chance.
Ohno tucks a strand of her hair to her ear. The lamp casts a soft glow on his face. “Satomi, I like you.”
Is it really as simple as that? When Ohno kisses her again, with less restraint this time, hands slowing on her waist-it is.
There’s a lot of time for talking later on-for now, she will spoil him, touch him, show him that she wants him. And by the looks of it, Ohno’s planning the same thing too. Just for tonight, they will not hold themselves back. No one is watching, and they’re all alone.
*
16: Future
As the last day of shooting winds down, they finally exchange gifts. Ohno laughs over the album of polaroids that featured his faces captured in many states. “I don’t know if I’ll want to look at this again,” Ohno says. “It’s just my ugly, old face.”
“Should I have just taken pictures of myself then?” Satomi asks. Well isn’t that a stupid question, he thinks.
Ohno finally gives her the painting he’s been working on. He relishes her laughter when she tears apart the brown packaging.
“This sea monster thing is getting old,” she says. He painted her with many limbs, afloat in the sea, her lips pink and her head crowned with peonies. “But thank you.”
“Read the note,” he says.
“’Now that we’re not-‘”
“No, silently.”
The cameramen get the message and leave Satomi to read the note for herself. When she finishes, her smile guts Ohno all over again. They say goodbye to each other without ceremony, hugging warmly. . Thousands of girls watching on TV sigh for different reasons. Ohno can’t believe that he’s actually a little sad that the show that had felt like an intrusion in his life is ending. As the sun sets, they walk away from each other, not turning back once.
*
S,
Now that we’re not married anymore, please go on a real first date with me. I hope sea monsters don’t mind fishing. (And that they allow second base on first dates.)
- O