I accidentally wrote this while writing chapter 17 of "Restart". I didn't want the chapter to be too long, so I cut it out. Here it is. (Yes, it's totally pointless. And fluffy, too, I guess.)
The Third Thing
Aya and I got home around three o'clock after parting with Shibata. We sat around for ten minutes in silence, wondering what to do in our spare time.
"It's been so long since we've both had an afternoon off together," Aya said, breaking the silence. "Have we lost our creativity? What should we do?"
Part of my brain was focused on trying to think up something to do, but the other part was working on how to approach Aya with my questions. Questions about what she and Shibata had been talking about. It had to do with me. I needed to know.
"I have a question," I started.
"What is it?"
"It's about Shiba-chan."
She nodded for me to go on. Looking at her face that was so willing to answer anything, no clue what I was going to ask her, I lost my nerve.
"What did she say was her favourite food?"
Of all the things I could have asked about Shibata, I had to ask something trivial like that.
"Oh, for when we have her over?" Aya asked with a smile.
I nodded enthusiastically. My question wasn't so random after all. Aya turned thoughtful and launched into a rant about what foods Shibata liked, what foods she didn't like, what day we should have her over, and oh, look, the table is old and we should go and buy a new one. I nodded, pretending to care while my brain worked on how to approach my question.
I wasn't given a chance to think, because I was dragged out to a furniture store. It turned out Aya was serious about the table. We stood there looking at tables, Aya rambling on about size and style. I finally got a word in edgewise when she broke for a breath of air.
"You don't need a new table. The one you have is fine."
"No, I'm positive the legs are going to fall off any day," she insisted.
"Have you tried tightening the screws?"
Silence.
"There are screws?"
Completely clueless.
I grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the store, muttering about vacuous idols and their refusal to do work they saw fit only for the common people. Aya flared up in her own defence, but I waved the example of the screws above her head, muting her complaints with my oh-so-rightness.
We walked back to the apartment, and on the way, I asked Aya what she did when she had a broken pipe or needed to change a light bulb.
"I call a friend," she murmured.
I rolled my eyes.
"Today I will teach you how to: one, screw screws into their proper places; two, change a light bulb; and three, a surprise."
"What's the third one?" she asked straight away. "Why won't you tell me?"
I had no third thing. It was a ruse to get her interested and to get her to listen to the first two in hopes of number three being more exciting. In short, I wanted her to get the wrong idea.
"You'll see once we've completed one and two."
The sly look in her eyes made me laugh inwardly.
Oh, my Aya. Thinking dirty things just as I expected.
"Fine."
I had her cooperation.
We arrived at her place, found a dusty screwdriver ("an ex brought it over and left it here" was her explanation for having one), and cleared the table. Then we carefully turned the table over and inspected the legs. I pointed to several loose screws, and Aya, defiant in her efforts to not seem ignorant, held her head up high and merely uttered an airy "oh."
I handed her the screwdriver.
"What are you giving me that for?" she asked.
"I'm not your personal handyman. Your table, your work."
She frowned at me.
"And who pays for rent and sacrifices her personal space to put up with an extra person in the house?"
Not fair! Aya had the ultimate advantage over me. That argument could be used for anything.
"It's about time you earned your rent," she finished.
I crossed my arms.
"It's about time you learned to do something simple like this. I'm telling you to do it for your own good."
"Ooohh, look at that. All high and mighty because she's older and in university," Aya sang out bitterly.
"Ooohh, look at that. All high and mighty because she's delicate, rich, and famous," I retorted.
She grumbled, grabbed the screwdriver from me, and started to fix her table. After she was finished with the first leg, I knelt down beside her, taking the screwdriver out of her hand.
"Since you're right and I do need to help with the work around here, I'll do half."
I moved to the second leg and fixed it up. When I handed her back the tool for the third leg, she took it with a twinkle in her eye.
"Thank you."
After tightening all the screws, we set the table back up on its legs and proceeded to her bedroom.
"Next, the fluorescent light. This looks complicated, but it really isn't."
I stood up on her bed and she got up beside me, the mattress wobbling underneath us unsteadily as we moved. I reached up to the light.
"Unhook here and here... unplug this... and carefully..." I muttered as I removed the tubular light from its encasing.
I handed it to Aya.
"Now put it back in," I ordered her.
She did so perfectly.
"You do know how to do these things. You're just lazy," I scolded her.
"Lazy? Me of the 'oh my god, you should take a holiday' schedule? Lazy??"
"Gah."
She really had good counter-points.
"Besides, I've seen it done before. In fact, this whole situation is rather familiar to me," she said, and I wondered who she'd stood on a bed with to fix a light bulb before.
I didn't ask. I didn't think I wanted to know.
"Okay, third thing!" she said excitedly.
I was at a loss. She held me at the waist and backed me up to the wall.
"What's the third thing?" she demanded.
Greedy, spoiled, hungry want-it-all, I thought playfully. She's not getting anything from me.
"Number three," I said slowly, watching her look of anticipation grow, "is... how to make Miki smile."
"And how can I do that?" she asked innocently.
I grabbed her hand and tugged her off the bed, pulling her out to the kitchen.
"It's really quite simple," I said. "The one thing that can make me smile without any doubt is if you learn how to prepare a full meal properly on your own."
Aya started to yell and curse, hitting me over and over again as she accused me of making up there being a third lesson. I cackled, raising my hands to protect my body. After growing tired of abusing me, she stalked off to her room.
I snickered to myself in the kitchen for a bit and then walked to her bedroom to go and atone for my sins. I would give her a kiss on the cheek and then promise to make her the most delectable of dinners that she would never forget.
And while doing that, I'd think up a slightly more fun third thing, because simply saying "sorry" was never enough when dealing with her.
The grump.
The one who wanted it all.
The fascist lover.
My judge, jury, and executioner.
My Aya.
-End!
[edit - Apparently, I'd make a lousy carpenter. That's "screws", not "bolts". Different things.]
Topic: 10 x 2 + ∞ Chapters of Pointless, Plotless Fluff (Read 29283 times)