The narrator ("I") of this story is NOT me (Comrade).
This story is about AND dedicated to a fellow fan, a spºecial girl who amuses me (teeheehee hawhawhaw), my buddy who puts up with my shortcomings (one of them being my not replying to messages within a reasonable amount of time
). If Nostradamus was made of two things, it’d be h
ºer and
me. Buwahahaha! But that’s not supposed to sound creepy or anything. @_@
Aloofness is in the Eye of the BeholderListen, all! I want to tell a tale. A tale so strange and outrageous. A tale that will make you wonder whether I'm telling you the truth or not.
Let me assure that I speak nothing but the truth!
Allow me to capitalise that: The Truth.
I, an American citizen, will stake my life on what I write in this manuscript.
This really did happen to me!
Please listen to my story...
It had been a long, tough month. Final exams were coming up and I had been studying every night, attending my classes or clinicals during the day, and doing my homework assignments at night. Home life was also stressful, what with taking care of my sisters (i.e. playing with them so that they didn't think I was being a bitch and ignoring them), dealing with my mother's crazy antics and my father's stupid jokes, and trying to keep my fiancé from falling asleep while on the phone.
I was low on sleep, low on energy, and low on mental sanity (yes, I'll admit that freely).
The day that I want to talk about was a Saturday. I had my usual two day break from school, but that didn't mean I could skip studying. I had hit the books early on Saturday morning, something very unusual for me. I had studied until lunch time, had taken a break to watch a Korean drama with my dad (I had no idea why he was interested, but I was more than happy to pop in one of my old DVDs and introduce him to the delightful Yonsama), and then had decided to go to the library to finish up my studying. My mother was being bothersome and talking about "treekings." At first I thought she meant "trickings," but that didn't make any sense since it had nothing to do with what we were talking about in the first place. I figured it was "treekings" and that it was in a language other than English (although I have yet to find out what the hell that means. I looked it up in the English-Tagalog dictionary, but there ain't no such word, I'm telling y'all.)
Oh, sorry. The Southern in me comes out when I write. Y'all gonna hafta forgive me. It's like a baked potato with all the fixings.
Anyway, I decided to get a big table at the newly renovated library just a few blocks away. There was a new spacious study area that they'd created, where speaking in low voices was allowed. I figured I could go and hog on of the tables with all of my books and notes. I'd probably have no problem finding myself a whole table to myself since I lived in the hood, and nobody in the hood studied on a Saturday afternoon.
In a hurry to leave, I wasn't wary of what books I brought. I just reached into my teetering pile of notebooks and grabbed a handful, figuring there'd be enough there to keep me occupied for a few hours. I had to study all of it eventually, so it didn't matter what order I did it in. I packed up my bag, and twenty minutes later I was at the library.
Sure enough, there were plenty of free tables. A total of 4 people sat in the study area, which had a capacity of about 40 people. Two girls were geeking out over math at the far end, one boy was looking perplexed by a bunch of novels right at the entrance to the room, and a really really old man who looked like he was from the Buena Vista Social Club was reading a car magazine at the next table.
I chose a good table just left of centre, spread my books out, and began to study.
I started off with a surprise! The first notebook I opened turned out not to be a notebook, but my "storage space" for my various Hello! Project pictures. Just random things from the computer, official UFA pictures, and CD trading cards. I noticed that most of the pictures had fallen out, and I imagined them lying in the middle of my room at home, waiting for one of my family members to pick them up and throw them out with the garbage by accident. What did remain in my book was the magazine article from when Eri and Sayu had been in Up To Boy magazine (my extremely nice and lovely friend had sent it to me), and a cute picture of Koharu from the Odore! Morning Curry concert tour. I couldn't remember how I'd gotten the picture, but it was so cute that I didn’t bother to think about it much.
I almost got carried away daydreaming about how cute it would be if Koharu was my little sister. I quickly slapped myself awake. Quite literally. And no, nobody looked over or thought I was crazy. For heaven's sake, the English Major had his nose in a book, the Cuban was snoring over his magazine, and the two math geek girls were slapping
each other awake (which was really annoying. It made high pitched noises, plus they whined a lot).
I scared myself with thoughts of failing my finals, and I started to study seriously. I was highly successful! I got through four days of lecture notes and one clinical summary when I noticed a change in the air around me.
And this is where I have to make my disclaimer: I swear on my life that I did not fall asleep. If anything, I was wired on adrenalin. I was having a good study day and was excited that I was getting so much done. Keep this in mind, please.
I looked up and saw that across from me and sitting to the right was Nakazawa Yuuko.
How did she get there? I did not know. I'll probably never know.
But she was there!
She just sat there. I kind of stared at her, my jaw having hit the table the second I saw her, but she didn't say anything. She didn't look over or smile (or glare) or acknowledge me in any way.
Then I realized something else. I looked to my right and there was Fujimoto Miki sitting at the table across from Yuuko.
The first thing - the VERY FIRST thing - that came to my mind was "I wonder what her hands look like up close."
Therefore, the first part of her that I looked at in detail was her hands. They looked so... normal. Not the hands of a groping demon, but more like the hands of a respectable 22 year old girl. Her nails were short, which reminded me of a conversation I'd had with a friend where I compared Miki to Samson from the Bible. Cuz he was the strong dude who got his hair chopped off and lost his strength, and it was kinda like Miki being de-clawed... and... hey! Wait! Don't fall asleep. It's true! I actually made that comparison. I thought it was a fine one.
Anyway (my favourite word), I could hardly believe that two of the most superduper people in the world were sitting at
my table at the library. Miki, one of my favourite idols, was within groping distance.
I forgot about Yuuko and focused on Miki because she had indicated she was alive by blinking. I decided I had to open up the conversation somehow. I really wanted to talk to her.
I guess when we're under pressure or when we’re really nervous, we think things that we would later kick ourselves for thinking. We believe that something is brilliant when in actuality, it’s simply
not.
Do you know what I thought was the best way to open up a conversation with Miki?
I opened up my H!P storage notebook and pulled out my Curry'd Koharu picture and showed it to Miki.
"She's so cute," I said, my voice at the perfect 'quiet talking' level appropriate for this section of the library. "Don't you like her?"
Miki looked at the picture briefly and then looked up at me.
"No," she said in a plain voice, shaking her head.
Of course! I thought with a laugh. Koharu wouldn't be the cutest to her when she had...
"Oh, oh yeah," I said. "Cuz you like Aya, right?"
Miki scoffed at my words.
"Aya doesn't care about that shit," she spit out.
I raised my eyebrows. Aya didn't care? As in, she didn't like Miki?
"Really? Really?!" I asked, half in English, half in Japanese. Miki nodded.
My shock! I had thought that at the very least, they were good friends. To hear that Aya would react in such a negative way to Miki... it made me question everything. All those TV shows where they claimed to be best of friends, all those backstage concert moments where they were hanging out or talking about each other, and all those stupid fan-written stories that mashed them together into outrageously sappy relationships (oh, wait! I've written one of those, too) had convinced me that it wasn't just one way. That Aya actually did care.
But she didn't!
And then came my second revelation.
Wait a minute, I remember thinking to myself.
Since when did Miki become fluent in English?!I could have continued to question it, but I stopped. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, right? Then again, it would’ve done the Trojans some good and prevented their little village from being sacked... but that's ancient history, and I'm not a Classics or a Literature major. I never read
The Aeneid.
I suddenly remembered Yuuko was sitting there, so I looked over, but she was reacting in no way. The lights were on, but nobody was home. She just sat there staring forward, beyond Miki's shoulder, beyond the wall of books...
I suddenly became depressed. The H!P girls must really not have liked each other. That must have been it. I mean, they had to act like best friends in front of the camera, but at the end of the day, they were all competing to see who could sell the most photobooks and who could get the loudest cheers at the concerts. I wondered about Miki, though, and where she stood.
"How about you?" I asked, but she didn't seem to hear me. She stared back at me, a blank look on her face. It was a bit scary, but I reminded myself that it was her regular face.
Now I have to swear again that I was not asleep. Perhaps I should also add that I had not consumed any kind of drug, legal, illegal, or questionable. Having reminded you of all that, the following might be a surprise.
I heard footsteps and looked up to see that guy who plays Borat coming over to us. I don't care to use his real name, so I'll just call him Borat. It's funnier that way.
So yeah, there he was, this tall, moustached man, coming to a halt and standing right beside the table at Miki and Yuuko's side (Yuuko was still in her catatonic state). I stared at him in disbelief.
"She said you're aloof," he said to Miki in Japanese. Amazingly enough, I spoke fluent Japanese. I frowned. What a liar!!!
"I did not say that!" I complained. Borat gave me a sarcastic look (if a look can be sarcastic. What does a sarcastic look look like anyway?).
Miki, on the other hand, looked at me as if she wanted to say "WTF?!?!" Her eyes bulged open in that weirded out way and her eyebrows knit together, creating a cute expression on her face. However, it was an expression I wanted to get rid of because I could just imagine what sorts of incorrect things she was thinking. She was probably convinced I was a terrible person who went around criticising people in front of their faces, saying nasty things, and so on.
I wanted to jump in quickly and explain what I'd been thinking, but I had no opportunity, for as swiftly and mysteriously as they had all appeared, the three left. Yuuko stood up abruptly, her chair crashing to the carpeted floor. Miki followed suit, and led by Borat, they walked quickly out of the room. I wanted to run after them, but all my things were spread over the table. I didn't want to leave them unattended.
I lost sight of them, and as each second passed, the thought of giving chase became more and more futile. I imagined they had some sort of getaway car that went at 200kmph.
Since that day, I have never seen them again. Sure, I've seen them on television and on the internet, but not in person. I don't know what those three were doing in a library in a tiny little city in the southeast of the USA. I guess I'll never know. All I can be certain of that day is that all my studying paid off and I passed my final exams and became qualified to be a nurse.
The end.
I’m not sure if any of you could guess who the narrator was. I beg you (even for those who know who I’m talking about) to read
this post quickly, because that’s where I ripped this story from. Hehehe.
Maybe sh
ºe'll kill me.
I read it this evening and couldn't stop myself from whipping this story up.
Topic: Aloofness is in the Eye of the Beholder (New chapter June 27th!) (Read 5303 times)