Title: EVERYBODY'S GOT SOMETHING TO HIDE EXCEPT ME AND MY HONEYStarring: Yamashita Tomohisa and Mao Inoue and A LOT of other famous people
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Love/comedy
DISCLAIMER: No I do not own Yamapi (though I wish and pray hard I do) and Mao. I am not whatsoever affiliated with JE either. It's fiction. Look it up in the dictionary.
Chapters:?
CHAPTER 3 After Yamapi had brought Mao home, he went straight to the other NewS members for a magazine interview. It was nothing new. Just the same old usual questions asked in interviews.
“Inoue Mao is your new co-star, huh?” Koyama remarked, drinking a soda.
“Yes. She’s my tutor too.” he added.
Koyama almost choked on his soda. Ryo looked up from the book he was reading. Tego had a hentai expression on his face while the others plainly looked at Yamapi in a WTF? face.
“Tutor? At your age, you need a tutor?” Koyama guffawed.
“Well I’m having a hard time catching up.” he explained.
“I am too! We go to the same school you know, and you don’t see me needing a tutor.” Koyama debated.
“Yeah well…you’re different.” Yamapi muttered.
“I think it’s okay. If I were Pi I’d be happy. She’s kawaii.” Tego butted in.
“Wait a minute.” Ryo said, putting down his book and standing up, facing Yamapi.
“She’s going to help you study and be your tutor, and she’s also going to be working with you in a drama? Am I sensing a new relationship here?” Ryo continued in a taunting voice.
“Boy, does she know you sleep around a lot?” Tego said, smiling impishly. Koyama and Massu laughed.
“Shut up. I’m not going to sleep with her.” Yamapi said defiantly.
“At least not today.” Ryo said, which caused Yamapi to throw a magazine at him while everyone laughed.
“Baka. I told you I have no intentions. I really do need someone to help me study.” Yamapi said defensively.
“Pi, you’ve slept with a lot of girls. A lot, a lot, a lot. And now you’re telling us it ain’t happening? Especially now that the girl is Mao Inoue-chan?” Koyama said emphatically. Yamapi gave up and just shook his head.
“You wouldn’t understand.” he mumbled under his breath.
“Can I have her number?” Tego asked bluntly. The other members snickered boyishly when Yamapi hit him on the head.
“No, baka.” Yamapi said, making a face.
During the course of the day, Yamapi had been told that another rumor had sparked and it was about him and Mao, though this didn’t worry him much because it was printed by a magazine he didn’t even know existed. Nobody is going to take it seriously and even if it does get blown out of proportion, they have nothing to hide because they were friends and co-stars. Platonic friends and co-stars at that. He convinced himself this but he was a bit worried about Mao. The girl’s got such a clean reputation and he doesn’t think he’s heard a scandal about her. He decided to call her up. Meanwhile, Mao was in the bathtub when her mobile phone range. She stretched out her soapy arm to get the phone that she brings everywhere.
“Hello…” she crooned.
“Mao-chan? Sorry, are you doing something?” Yamapi said in a tone of urgency. Mao got so surprised she jerked upright and almost dropped the phone into the tub. Soapy water splashed everywhere.
“No, no, I’m not doing anything. What is it?” she said, her voice bouncing and echoing off the bathroom walls.
“Eh…? Are you taking a bath?” Yamapi asked in a boyish air of tone. Mao laughed shyly and thought lying would be unnecessary.
“Yes.” she said, biting her lips in embarrassment.
Yamapi started to laugh but then an image of her naked and covered only in bubbles popped into his head and he couldn’t stop it.
“Hentai baka, stop it! Stop it!” he told himself, but somehow he had said it out loud.
“Huh?” Mao asked.
“Nothing. Uhm. Should I call later?” Yamapi said, still trying to get rid of his boyish imagination.
“I’ll call you.” Mao said, already pink from the embarrassment of telling him that she was in the bath.
“Oh. Okay. Bye.”
“Bye.”
As promised, the minute she finished and covered herself up, she called him back.
“Mao-chan.” he semi sang.
“Yamapi-kun. What is it that you wanted to say?” she said, shaking the excess water off her hair.
“Well, it’s nothing really, except that a magazine wrote a rumor about us. But it’s an unpopular one so don’t worry. I just wanted to let you know in case you get surprised.”
“Oh, okay. Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“You’re funny, you seem to be more worried than I am.” she said, laughing girlishly.
“Eh? Of course I’m worried. Not for me, but for you.”
“What’re you saying, I already told you I don’t get easily affected by these things, ne. I’m a tough cookie so I can handle anything. A little rumor is nothing.” she said as-a-matter-of-factly.
“Oh is that so. That means I don’t need to worry.” he chuckled, relieved that she was such a strong girl.
“Right. But thank you for worrying and for warning me. I think I owe you more than enough.”
“Just help me on my studies and you’re pardoned.” he joked as she laughed. What a pretty laugh, he thought. It was so natural and pleasant, almost like music.
So indeed, Yamapi worried over nothing, to his delight. Every time, it seemed so, that he got involved with any girl, he’d have to make sure it doesn’t come out as a scandal, because everytime a rumor broke out, the girls crumbled and complained and curled up in humiliation. It was a restraint for him to date anyone he liked, because he, as a gentleman, wouldn’t want a girl he liked to be caught up in a dirty scandal and get her reputation ruined. So after being assured by Mao’s toughness, he felt more confident in hanging out with her and to be seen in public beside her without worrying about the freaking rumors. That said, the following day, their first session began and as promised, he picked her up after the sun had set.
“Where’re we going?” Mao asked.
“There’s a place near TBS. Kind of like a small park . It seems like a quiet place, a perfect place to study.” he replied.
“Why not in your place?”
“I live with Akanishi. And there are always people coming over when you’re living with Akanishi. He’s one party animal.”
Mao nodded while laughing quietly.
“What? Why?” he asked, noticing her childish giggle.
“Nothing. Its just, I always thought you and Akanishi-san were party animals and ultimate playboys and I was right.” she said, continuing her amused chortle.
“Eh? Me? A player? That’s not true.” he said defensively. Although what she just said was not entirely false.
The sky was already a dark haze of purple when they arrived at Yamapi’s
designated place. It was a mini park alright, with mushroom tables and chairs. It was a small place adorned with tiny flowers and vines. What makes it perfect is that it’s deserted.
“Ooh it’s pretty here.” she said, awestruck.
It was noise-free as well, except for the occasional zooming of cars that passed by—it was right long the side of the road. Little lamps were lit so the lighting was appropriate. they sat at a mushroom table face to face.
“Have you done this before?” Mao asked as soon as they sat.
“Done what?”
“This.”
“No.”
“Me neither. So let’s start with math, shall we?”
Yamapi let out a tiny groan since he hated math with an unholy passion, which is ironic because he’s taking up marketing. So they began their business. Mao wasn’t exactly genius at math but they helped each other out. The atmosphere was peaceful, much like the atmosphere in the library, except maybe for their constant bickering about which is x and which is y and how he didn’t understand her handwriting. It was pretty much a circumstance where they loosened up to each other more. It was getting darker and colder by the minute and it was a good thin both of them were wearing sweatshirts.
“Yatta. I got it now.” he exclaimed after solving an exercise.
“Me too. Your math is hard. We don’t even have math in my degree.” she said, stretching.
They had solved the same equations together and they’ve been doing so for an hour now.
“We should be thirsty by now. From all the thinking we’ve done.” Yamapi said, baffled.
“I’m not even hungry.” she implied.
“Maybe we should just drink something then. There’s a 7/11 nearby.” he suggested.
“Yeah okay. Let’s just walk.” she agreed, closing all his books. They began walking and dropped his books in his car and headed for heaven that is 7/11. As they were walking, small droplets of water one by one dripped from the sky. It was about to rain. He looked at her in her cute yellow hoodie sweatshirt and had to smile inside. She looked so petite and small next to his gallantly tall figure.
“What’re you smiling about?” she asked him suspiciously.
He didn’t realize he’s been really smiling. What was wrong with him? He had to answer quickly before she thinks he’s gone mental.
“I’m smiling about your handwriting.” he joked.
Mao cracked a smile and lightly hit him on the arm.
“What? It’s cute!” he said in a teasing way.
Then all of a sudden rain began to pour. Hard. They stopped for a second to gather the gravity of the situation that they were getting wet fast. Yamapi acted quick—he put her hood over her head and put his own hood over his.
“Run!” he said, and ran they did while he kept his hand on her head to keep her hood from sliding off. They rushed into 7/11, wet, haggard-looking and hooded like punks. They both slid off their hoods once they hid behind a stall so as not to attract attention. They looked like they just got out of the pool.
“Sorry. I suggested walking.” Mao apologized, twisting and squeezing her long hair.
“It’s okay. It was…fun.” Yamapi smiled. And he actually did find it fun, for some inexplicable reason.
He opened the fridge and got out two bottles of iced tea but since they were cold and wet, he put the two bottles in the microwave to heat it up.
“I’ll pay for it.” Mao said from the cashier.
“But I never let girls pay.” he said, his eyebrows meeting.
“Just this once.” she said in a cute voice and a semi pout as if asking him to just let her pay and let it go. He replied with a smile.
They sat on the floor side by side, holding their warm tea, right behind the last stall in the corner of the store. It was still raining pretty hard outside and it wasn’t showing signs of stopping.
“You can open that by yourself?’ he asked, referring to the bottle. He had already opened his.
“Of course I can. Pi-chan.” she smiled, looking up at him with those bulbous round eyes of hers.
Somehow, that adorable little thing she just did made his heart go
pow! He doesn’t know if anyone else in the store had heard it, but he sure did, and it felt good and painful at the same time. He watched her trying to open the bottle and exclaiming “Yatta!” when she did. He watched her drink while her hair dripped with water. He watched her make a strange noise while drinking and he watched her press her lips together after she drank. It was as if everything she did, every little pretty thing, was in slow motion as he watched her. He was in a weird stupor and it was as if he got lost in time. He has no idea where the hell he is all of a sudden. He doesn’t know what’s happening, but we do, don’t we?
He had fallen about half in love with her by the time they sat down. And with every other little pretty thing he watched her do, he fell deeper and deeper and then deeper. That’s the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, you fall half in love with them and then you never know where the hell you are.
“Say that again.” Yamapi said, as if drooling.
“Say what?” she asked, finishing her bottle.
“What you just called me.” he went on.
She paused for a moment and looked up at him dubiously.
“Pi-chan?” she said, tilting her head sideward.
He stared at her blankly for a few milliseconds. She thought he had blacked out with his eyes open or something, until he reached his hands out to her and grabbed both of her cheeks, pinching them.
“Kawaaaiii~” he laughed while pinching her big cheeks.
“Itai! Itai!” she yelped, struggling to break free.
He let go and watched her rub her face fervently, making faces he couldn’t comprehend.
“That hurt!” she said, hitting his chest flippantly.
“But you were so cute.” he said and began to imitate her voice. “Pi-chan?” he said in a high-pitched voice and tilted his head the way she did. She laughed hard and lightly pushed him.
“From now on that’s what you should call me.” he persisted.
“Eh?”
“And it has to be the way you just said it with the head tilting and all.” he instructed, while tilting his head sideward.
“Fine. I’ll call you that from now on.” she said, yielding.
The rain had finally ceased and as much as they wanted to sit on the floor just laughing and teasing, they had to go home.
“Maybe we should bring an umbrella next time.” Yamapi said as they stood up.
“This was fun though, getting wet like this ne, Yamapi-kun?” she said as they headed toward the doors.
“What was that?” he said.
She made a face and crinkled her nose.
“Ne, Pi-chan?” she corrected.
“Kawaaaiii~” he automatically crooned as they walked out of the store.
Then they both had a laugh out of it and that “Pi-chan! Kawaii!” game went on until Yamapi dropped her home.
“Goodnight Pi-chan!” she said, waving, as she got out of the car.
“Kawaii!” he called out one last time as she sprinted cutely into the building to avoid the cold.
She had a funny way of running, he thought, but it was another one of those pretty little things that made him fall more and more for her.
--END OF THIRD CHAPTER--
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Little disclaimer. The part about being falling half in love when girls do something pretty was a tiny excerpt from J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye.
