2nd in the 'Whither my Love' series

Author's note: This is the second of the series of the story of the Arashi guys. I hope to get round to all of them eventually. Please note that certain points, the stories will overlap and portray events from each member's persepective. So far, Nino's story, Between Wit & Sarcasm, is complete.


Humbly dedicated to the irrepressible Junko.

The Wages of Managing Sense

Chapter 01

Expectations, expectations, expectations. Expectations practically defined my life. My parents expected me to be semi-respectable, observe the necessary proprieties, and set a good example for my younger siblings. My record label expected me to churn out hits with my band. My manager expected me not avoid creating scandals and to always be mindful of the image I portrayed. My band mates expected me to balance out their general character traits with what and who I was. Thus far, I have met these various expectations. I juggled school and my career as an entertainer. I graduated from a prestigious university. I kept out of trouble. I wrote rap lyrics for the band. I tried to improve myself. I tried not to be a disappointment to everyone. That’s the story of my life so far. It is mildly disconcerting to be defined thus, I grant you, but it is better to be defined by something than to be defined by nothing. I am a person who needs facts. I believe in the concrete and the tangible. I like it if something can be proven without a shadow of a doubt. Nothingness is a concept that is nebulous with no tangible shape and form. Because of the formlessness of ‘nothing’, I rather be a form of something even if being that something means bowing to expectations.

Being defined by expectations is helpful in shaping who I am. I do not follow these expectations blindly. I weigh them carefully and consider the pros and cons. When I believe it would behove me to carry through the expectations, I go through with them. My parents expected me to complete my formal education and I did so not because they insisted upon it, but because I had reflected on it. It would be advantageous for me to have a contingency plan when my musical career comes to an end. The entertainment industry is a fickle one where bands, singers, actors and models come and go with rapidity pending the reception from an equally fickle public. There was no guarantee that Arashi could stand the test of time. In light of this consideration, I pursued my education. My parents had frequently stressed that a truly evolved individual is one who prepares for every eventuality, and it is a belief I share.

That does not mean that I do not have any freedom away from expectations. I try as far as possible to allow my freedoms and the expectations on me to overlap. I expect myself to have freedoms and I did. I expect myself to perform to the best of my abilities in whatever I undertook and I did. I expect myself to efficiently separate my professional life from my private life and I did. It was one of those things where my own expectations mirrored the expectations of others. How did I define myself, you may ask. I like to think of myself as mired in the middle of the greater schema of things. I like doing what I do with Arashi and in the entertainment industry. The expectations there did not particularly bother me because I was given enough leeway to be myself. I didn’t have to pretend to be extremely clever, and I am not, I should stress. I am only above average in intelligence. I didn’t have to pretend to be stoical and firm all the time, and I am incapable of doing so. I enjoy looking at the ridiculous side of things and of life. I wasn’t always like this.

When I was younger, my temper was infamously foul and volatile. I would explode on the slightest provocation because I took everything seriously – so seriously that I could not tell the difference between a joke and things that are said in earnest. My friends in Arashi taught me, incongruously enough, through their madcap silliness, that it is important to laugh at myself and at things. Life is already miserable enough with work, worries about money, family, and the stock market, why should everything be taken so seriously? There is much joy in life and if only we could see that, we would see that even the most serious situation has elements of the ridiculous. Once you can see that, you can live life to fullest.

I do try to lead a full life. Life may be hectic for me with filming commitments, song recordings to cut, and being canned in a studio for PVs and photo shoots, but I complement those aspects of my life with the things I love, such as sports. Sports is a very good outlet for relieving stress as any person with half a brain will tell you. I like playing football. My sister, who is perpetually unable to see the appeal of grown men chasing a ball on a grassy field, laughs at me. I tell her that it is infinitely better than rugby, which though marketed as a ‘gentleman’s sport’ has nothing gentlemanly about it. Unlike rugby, there was no fighting, pushing or shoving in football. I can kick out my frustrations and worries on the ball. It could not complain. There was also the added advantage of playing with friends in football where the competitiveness of the game is more for the sake of relieving stress and getting rid of excess tension together than any desire to outdo each other in a strange test of manliness.

Recently, there has been all this talk about football hooliganism where drunk fans get into trouble at pubs, and where drunk footballers do equally stupid things at high end pubs. That creates the wrong image for the sport. Whatever happened to a bunch of guys running around together and kicking a ball together just because it’s a great way to do something together? Football does bring people together. Anyone can play. You don’t have to be good at it. As long as you can run, kick the ball and cheer for yourself, that’s all that matters. It connects people at the most intimate level as human beings with the same emotions and needs.

I say this because I met her, Nakahara Chiaki, whilst playing football.

It was sometime after we had filmed the Happiness PV. It was one of the less complicated PVs we did in my opinion. It wasn’t as avant-garde as Love so Sweet where there was a play on seeing that which we normally don’t see and taking pleasure in it. It wasn’t as aesthetically pleasing as ‘We can make it’, but it was casual and it allowed us to goof around on the set in between takes doing nothing at all. Yet, in spite of the casualness of the PV and the filming, we took a fairly long time to finish it up. This was so much so that we were given the weekend off to do as we chose when we managed to perform to everyone’s satisfaction.

Having the weekend to myself meant that I could play football. It didn’t matter to me whether I played with my friends or myself. It gave me an opportunity to just run around and get all the stress out of my system. It just happened that I was playing football by myself in Jindai Botanical Garden. It was on the Keio line by train, and I drive according to the train lines whenever I played football so that I could catch a glimpse of the old school and get a little nostalgic. The air there was good, the scenery was beautiful and there were grassy plains everywhere. It was an ideal place to kick back and relax – pun intended, if you can catch it.

After dribbling the ball around and running around so as to grasp the lay of the land, I finally gave the ball a mighty kick. It was one of those kicks that released my frustration with all the work we did for hardly any rest at all. Before you reproach me for what happened, I want to stress that the week had been hectic and I needed to let myself go. The upshot of that was me kicking the ball so hard that it flew over the hedge and crashed into something made of glass. Ah… That would be the greenhouse for tropical plants.

Quickly collecting myself, I picked up my duffel bag and ran towards the greenhouse where there was a gaping hole where the ball had gone thrown and someone disparaging the person who had done the deed in the most pungent terms known to humanity. Oh boy! I was in for it now.

“Gomen nasai!” I bowed lowly. “I am sorry for disturbing you. I will pay for any damages.”

“So you’re the irresponsible buffoon who did this!” a feminine voice lashed out. “A valuable specimen of clerodendrum thomsoniae was nearly killed.” I looked up and came face to face with a woman in overalls, protective goggles over her eyes and a gardening hat over her head. “You’ve nearly killed one of the most priceless specimens herein!”

“I am terribly sorry. It was an accident. I will pay for any damages.” I bowed again, racking my brains for the Japanese name of the plant she named. She must be a scientist. Only scientists go around spouting Latin names for things as if it were still lingua franca.

“It’s not about the damages. It’s about the plants. All the specimens here are sensitive to light and heat, you do not talk about replacing an ecosystem within a botanical park with a vulgar thing like money!” she railed, one arm akimbo and the other holding the football. I caught the football she threw at my head. By this time I saw that she had a pair of very large protective goggles that botanists used to look at plants known for secreting poisonous substances. Instantly, I clamped my limbs to myself. I had no wish to touch a poisonous plant and die. Were there plants that ate people in here? I did not want to be eaten. I settled for remaining silent and counting to twenty to calm myself and she settled for continuing her rant, “If your reflexes are so good, how did you manage to kick that in here?”

“It was an accident. I reiterate my offer to pay for the damages to the greenhouse.” I hastily unzipped the duffle bag I always used for sports gear and flipped through my wallet for the name card of my manager. He was paid to settle our problems if and when trouble like this arose. “You may contact this office for further details. Please inform him that Sakura…,” I continued, handing her the card with another low bow.

She took the card and gave it a dispassionate look through her goggles. “You’re an employee of Johnny’s Entertainment?” she asked suspiciously. “No wonder you think you can buy your way out of trouble. Look here…” She turned her attention to the name card.

I did not know what sort of opinion she had of the employees of Johnny’s Entertainment, but I felt the need to disabuse her of erroneous impression. I was honestly put out by her attitude. But I was in the wrong; I had to be contrite, even if I did feel she was going overboard with the spiel about JE employees buying their way out of trouble. While it was true that some celebrities did do such reprehensible things, I strongly disapproved of such tactics.

“Ano, I’m not the person listed on the card,” I quickly interjected before she could address me by my manager’s name. “He’s my manager.”

She groaned. “That’s even worse. You must be one of those youngsters who think you can sing and dance and get away with things like breaking panels of a greenhouse!”

“I did offer to pay for the damages,” I stressed, getting annoyed with her unjustifiable prejudice against JE employees. Finally I decided to cease bowing so constantly. Perhaps if she saw who I was, she would know that I am a responsible person who did not go around breaking windows or damaging plants. “Sakurai Sho at your service.”


NOTES:

As with all my stories, any reference to football is the British/European variant of the sport where you do really play it only with your feet.

Jindai Botanical Gardens does house a greenhouse of tropical plants as well as a lily pond.

~~~~more to come~~~~

*cheers* Yay! The second story has arrived! It sounds great so far. Poor Sho, even when he's good at something, he manages to break something.

YAAAY!!!

your new fanfic! cant wait for the next chapter~~!!

Many thanks to the readers following this story. Here's the latest instalment. *bows deeply*


Ch 02

“You? Sakurai Sho?” she burst out laughing in a merry peal. She removed the hat from her head and leaned against a tree to better regain mastery of herself. I saw that she was a tanned, tall woman approximately my height, with short cropped hair cut in the ‘page boy’ style, wearing a strange pair of overly large plastic goggles. “I don’t know which band you’re from, but using the name of your well-educated and highly intelligent sempai is not going to exonerate you from crashing your football in the Jindai greenhouse. I sincerely doubt he would be making a fool of himself in the botanical gardens on Saturday when he could be doing something more constructive with his time.”

Her words brought a low laugh from me. It was amazing what clever marketing could do. She thought that I didn’t make a fool of myself? Poor woman, she was helplessly deluded. Possibly her eyesight was at fault. I am who I claimed I was. Still, it was very funny that she thought I was a model citizen. Me? Ha! I’m as useless as they come. “I am so sorry to disappoint you, but I really am Sakurai Sho.”

She removed the large goggles from her eyes by pushing them down so that they rested around her neck. She blinked several times to adjust her eyes. I saw that she had freckles on her cheeks. “Yes, and I’m really the elder Akishino-no-miya…” She paused when she saw who I was. “Oh my! You really are Sakurai Sho!” However she quickly collected herself when I guffawed. Her expression was seriously funny. Her eyes widened in shock and then quickly took on a cynical, guarded quality. “My apologies for disbelieving you earlier,” she bowed. “A full damage report will be sent to your manager in due course. If you would be so kind as to leave, the clerodendrum thomsoniae needs my care.”

“No, no, I broke the glass panelling. Please permit me to offer my assistance,” I insisted, bowing again.

She snorted at me. “You? You don’t know the first thing about plants. You’ll only give me more work to do, and you already have with that hole over there!” She waved in the general direction where my football had broken in. “You’ve already ruined my Saturday, and that is quite enough for a day.”

“All the more reason why I should assist you,” I replied. “I may not be knowledgeable about plant life, but I believe I am able to comprehend simple instructions like ‘dig’, ‘carry’, ‘pot’, and so on. Furthermore, work would go faster if there were more hands, and I will explain things to your supervisor if need be.”

“I am the supervisor. This is my greenhouse,” she said, her arms akimbo once more.

“May I have the honour of knowing your name?” I asked, and quickly added when I saw that was giving me a suspicious look. “For reference purposes when I explain things to my manager. Contrary to the commonly held perception of singers, we are taught to observe the propriety and submit reports should accidents of this nature occur. I hope you will accommodate my request.”

“Nakahara,” she simply offered without revealing her first name.

“For the purposes of the report, I must request Nakahara-san to furnish me with your first name and job title. It would expedite the monies for the damages if my manager were to be apprised of all the details,” I said with all formality. It always pays to be formal in situations when one knows that one is in the wrong. My mother had drummed that into me ever since I broke grandmother’s favourite vase when I was a little boy

She wiped her gloved hands behind her on the overalls and gestured for me to follow her. I did so and found myself stepping through a veritable jungle of creeping vines, pots of strange plants, and trees with twisted branches. The atmosphere was like that of a jungle, especially since there were the sounds of insects. I hoped they were not tiny biting insects. I held insects in high revulsion. They made my skin crawl. Eventually we came to the end of greenhouse where a lily pond stood. Next to it was an enclosure that I surmised was her office. When we approached it, I saw that the door was labelled:
‘No entry. Authorised personnel only.
Office of the Director of the Tropical Collection’

Unlocking it, she ushered me inside. It was a rather cosy, if crowded place with pots of plants clustered about. Her qualifications were hanging on the wall behind her desk. Oh ho! This was interesting! She and I were in the same batch in Keio. She got her degree in plant biology the same time I got mine. A part of me was ashamed. Here was another person of my age, doing something useful with her life and I was still goofing off as an entertainer. On the other hand, I was also proud to be what I was. I had various opportunities at my fingertips even if I wasn’t a practising economist. I had plans to enter into a management position when my singing career lapsed, but for now, I was content to do what I liked. From the way things looked in this office, I would say that Nakahara-san had the same passion for her work that I had for mine.

My attention was next caught by a section to the right that had shelves on which rested various kinds of seedlings. Next to that were various kinds of machines like that you would find in a laboratory. One particular piece of machinery caught my attention as it was shaking rather vigorously so much so that I could hear the glass in it tremble. “Touch the orbital shaker at your own risk,” she warned, handing me a name card from her desk, before throwing me a pair of overalls she extracted from a metal cupboard in the corner. I could only stare blankly at her. “Put that on and tell your manager that you’ve been put to work to pay for damages.”

“Ano, I don’t understand…” I stared at the overalls and back at her.

“I do not want Johnny’s Entertainment to compensate me for the damages to the greenhouse. I want you, Sakurai-san, to pay it back by working here until you’ve earned back the cost of the damaged plants and the cost of the glass panelling,” she stated sternly, reminding me of one of my old teachers in high school.

“But my schedule…” I stammered. I was not accustomed to people speaking to me this way. In general, I was accommodated within reasonable limits. It wasn’t that I minded working off the so-called debt accrued from breaking the glass panelling. It was a fair punishment. However, given my schedule and workload with recordings, rehearsals, and a drama commitment, I did not know how I was going to expend the time to ‘working’ at the Jindai Tropical Collection greenhouse.

“You’re not getting any special treatment because of who you are. You are like any of my staff in the Tropical Collection. Break a pot and it will be docked from your pay. Hurt the plants and I hurt you. You, Sakurai-san, are going to have a crash course as to why you should not play football near my greenhouse.”

“Surely we can come to some other kind of arrangement. My schedule may not allow me to work here on a daily basis. I will pay for the glass and the plants if you….” I ventured.

She held out a hand to stop me from talking, and spoke into the receiver of the phone on her desk. “Honami, could you send the repair team to the Tropical Collection greenhouse? There’s been a mishap at sector five, north-northeast. I want the damage fixed by the end of today and the receipts, the costs and whatnot on my desk by Monday… What? Oh, I will handle the inquiry. I caught a fellow playing football; I just volunteered him to work off the cost.”

She ‘volunteered’ me for the task? How amusing! She had spunk and was decisive, as befitting her position in the botanical gardens. There was no escaping it then. No matter, I had to take responsibility for my action. I took a quick glance at her name card. Nakahara Chiaki, it said. I chuckled softly to myself at finding myself in this predicament. There was no gainsaying it – I had gotten myself into this by being overly enthusiastic with my kick. A typical Aiba-esque move had landed me in a part-time job not of my choosing. The guys would laugh with me at my uncharacteristic clumsiness.

“Why are you still not properly attired?” she quizzed when she put down the phone. “Do you find this situation of a potential plant crisis comedic?”

“Iya, I was only laughing at myself for being so clumsy.”

She harrumphed and replaced the hat on her head. “You will learn, for the duration of your time in this greenhouse, that you – as a human being – are responsible for the plants. You can think up fine excuses for your mistakes thereby protecting yourself. Plants do not have this luxury. Hurry up and get changed.”

“Ano, Nakahara-san, about my schedule… I am unable to drop by on a daily basis,” I explained apologetically.

She turned about and replaced her hat on her head. “You will be here whenever you can make it. Give me twenty-four’s notice and I will be here to supervise your work. My number is on the card. Failure to report in at least once a fortnight will result in a formal complaint lodged to your manager on grounds of general irresponsibility. Do I make myself clear, Sakurai-san?”

I nodded my assent.

“Excellent. Now, go get changed. You start today,” she instructed.

It was perfectly reasonable. She did not demand that I work daily for a certain number of hours. I was given some degree of flexibility as to when I would come in. I could do this. All it required was a little good time management on my part. I had broken something, I should work off the debt. It was expected of me. How hard could it be to shove plants in pots of soil? It would be good learning experience to come into contact with a field completely different from my own. Yosh! I would work off the cost of the plants’ harmed and the glass panelling in no time.

Working with plants was a great deal more difficult than I thought it would be. There was a whole list of ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ to observe, such as never expose their roots, and to never over-moisture seedlings.

Working with Nakahara-san was more tiring that I expected. She exacted the best out of my meagre abilities and demanded that I put in a hundred and ten percent effort of the care of the plants that were threatened by my carelessness.

The clerodendron thomsoniae she spoke of was a mere sapling that the Jindai botanical garden had imported from Senegal. Its common name, the bleeding heart vine sounded ominous to my ears, and perhaps to hers as well. That may well account for her decision to call it by its Latin name. I learnt that the Tropical Collection had continually tried to grow the plant without much success and it was only just that the saplings were declared to be in good health when my football came crashing down on them. To my surprise, the plant had no other purpose but ornamentation. It was prized for its flowers, which according to Nakahara-san were white with a red centre. As it looked like it was bleeding, it was called the bleeding heart vine.

What strange names people give plants… Well, as long as no plants bled on me, I would be fine.

~~~~more to follow~~~~

Tea and chocolate biscuits to everyone following this <3


Ch 03


The guys commented that I looked like I had strained my shoulders when I went in to the recording studio that Monday to do over some bits for our single. I did not want to share that I was now a part-time gardener of sorts because I had broken something. The only excuse I gave was that I had slept in an awkward position. This unwillingness to share the information did not stem from any embarrassment on my part. On the contrary, I was proud to be able to directly contribute to a park that I frequented. Rather, my reticence sprang from the guys teasing me about being no different from a teenager who broke something in a restaurant and was forced to wash dishes in the kitchen to pay back the cost of replacing that broken article. However, I did tell our manager the truth. He was obliged to know in the event that any complication should arise. It never hurts to cover one’s arse as the colloquial saying goes.

Our manager, who was an impartial man, understood that I was honour bound to work off the debt, as it were. As such, though he severely berated me for exposing myself in public by ‘wrecking a greenhouse at a national botanical garden’ (our manager is prone to exaggeration, so please forgive him), he allowed me to continue at the Jindai botanical gardens on the understanding that I would not further expose myself. He had, of course, received a phone call from Nakahara-san who explained the circumstances surrounding my new part-time employment and the cost involved of repairing the class panel as well as the cost of caring for the plant specimens that may have been damaged. Grudgingly, he accepted her in-depth account of the cost involved and came to realise that my working at the greenhouse would be known to only Nakahara-san, and that she had no wish to bring in the press and cameras to her greenhouse. Even if it did get out in public that I was working at the greenhouse, the facts could be twisted around and it would bring good publicity to JE that one of their singers was actively doing something for the environment by learning about plants.

With that, I made a concerted effort to go to the Tropical Collection greenhouse every Saturday for at least an hour and a half. After three visits, I was settled into an easy routine where there was very little talking between Nakahara-san and me. She would tell me what she wanted done and I would do it. There were no interview-like questions as to my role in Arashi or any awkward questions as our music or new albums or any such questions. She really treated me as a common worker who helped out at the greenhouse. While I personally found long periods of silence awkward, I did not mind it when I was at the greenhouse. It was never really quiet in the greenhouse. There would always be the sound of leaves rustling, the scraping of the soil, the clang of pots, and the chirping of insects. Nakahara-san always kept an eye on me even while checking the plants for diseases and whatnot, so much so that I suspected she had eyes at the back of her head. So far, I haven’t done anything wrong.

Perhaps I spoke too soon. It was my third visit to the greenhouse, and I was thinking as to whether I should invite the guys to play football with me the following day. It was Sunday, and they should be free for at least two hours. Two hours of sports would do anyone good, I believe. I was pleasantly running through the list of possible parks in my head when I sat down on a log beside the lily pond, drinking a nice cool draught of water. It’s really amazing how sweet water can taste when you’re really thirsty. Nature is an amazing thing, I was beginning to realise. I took another gulp of water and felt something crawl up my other hand that was resting on the log. I flung my hand out briefly and continued my ruminations whilst looking at the lily pond. It was fairly peaceful here where I could hear the frogs and the gentle lapping of the fishes in the pond. The peace was to not last. In fact, I am ashamed to admit, I was the one who broke the peaceful atmosphere. The crawling sensation on my left hand had by this time evolved into a painful stinging one. I lifted my arm to shake off the feeling when I saw ants there.

Not just one ant, but lots. Not the ordinary ants that crawled around the house, but the large red ones with huge heads. I did what any person afraid of insects in general would do under similar circumstances. I shrieked in alarm, desperately trying to sweep the ants off my arm. Their bite was stronger than I expected and it took a lot of effort to fling them away. I screamed again and flailed about in panic. Not the most glamorous picture of me, I readily confess, but you surely could not expect me to react any calmer. These were red ants with huge heads biting me for crying out loud! I never did like insects, especially tiny biting ones like these. What if I was allergic to the bites? What if I died from the bites? I hadn’t gotten married yet! I didn’t have children! What was I saying? I didn’t even have a girlfriend! What would I be remembered for? My rapping? My music? Being another pretty face in Arashi? I had not expected that I would ‘go’ in this fashion! What a way to go, Sakurai Sho! Death by ant bites! How ignominious!

“Ack, get them off, get them off!” I cried, desperately flailing my arms and stomping my feet when Nakahara-san came running.

She literally slapped her hand on her forehead when she saw me. Swiftly, she jumped down from her position near a kind of fruit tree, pulled me aside away from the pond and the log, and removed the towel that I had wrapped over my head to absorb the sweat. Using that towel, she hit my forearm several times and ran the towel over the arm so as to brush off all the ants.

“Of all things, you had to invade the aka-kami-ari nest! How stupid can you be? Don’t you know not to sit on logs near the water? They nest in the soil near moist areas like the lily pond where you were, under rocks and logs like the one you were sitting on? You fool! You must have stepped on a part of the log that housed a queen! Don’t you know that each colony could have as many as a hundred queens? These ants are extremely loyal and protective of the colony and the queen. They will fiercely attack intruders like you! Don’t you know anything?” she chided in a worrying tone.

I could only whimper in response. It’s not terribly manly, I confess. But it really did hurt a great deal and the area on my left lower forearm was soon bursting into bumps that simultaneously itched, burned and hurt. “Itai!” I managed to utter, adequately expressing the physical pain I felt.

“That’s what I get for leaving you alone for one minute! First your stupid football, now you get bitten by red fire ants! You’re nothing but trouble!” she scolded as she dragged me into an enclosed area beside her office.

“But it’s not my fault! It was really frightening! There were so many big-headed ants and they were all biting. And it stings and burns!” I almost wailed in despair. This was definitely not the image I wanted to project in public. Yes, I am an abject coward when it comes to many things and there was nothing I could do about it.

Nakahara-san doused me with a bucket of cold water. “Of course it stings and burns! They were fire ants!” she exclaimed in near exasperation as she doused me with another bucket of water.

“What did you do that for?” I asked in between whimpering at the forearm I was repeatedly rubbing.

She smacked me at the back of the head before grabbing my chin and jerking it towards her. What was she going to do? I was in pain and itching, and in pain. The pain far superseded the itching. Why did she bother with grabbing my chin? Staring intently at my eyes then my lips, she nodded once more to herself than to me. Why did she do that? I was not used to being treated like that! I just got attacked by aka-kami-ari on my left forearm! Why did she want to gaze into my eyes and look at my lips? Was she going to do something untoward to me? She couldn’t be that quiet for no reason. Maybe she’s a closet pervert. Ack! What had I gotten myself into!

Oblivious to these thoughts running through my head, her hand which was still firmly grasping my chin, squeezed my cheeks. She had a powerful grip. “Open your damn mouth!”

I did what I was told. What was I to expect? I was already tearing. It was really that painful, and I was scared. She peered into my mouth. I do not know what she found so fascinating there, but she closed her eyes briefly as she released her breath as if she was relieved. She then proceeded to press the side of my neck and then my stomach near my bellybutton. By this point, I had regained the use of my brain and was outraged. I was not used to be treated so carelessly in such a high-handed manner! First she stares at my eyes and lips intently, then she molests me and attempts to touch my bellybutton ring! I will not be manhandled in this fashion! “What do you mean by that, Nakahara-san!” I questioned coldly, flicking off the hand on my chin with my good right hand, the pain in my left forearm temporarily forgotten.

“If you were not such an ignoramus, you would know that I was checking whether you were prone to anaphylaxis,” she huffed, glaring daggers at me. “Hives on the lips, eyelids, throat, and/or the tongue may develop as an allergic reaction to the aka-kami-ari venom. Would you rather allow angioedema to occur and have your throat close up and you writhing in the ground from suffocation? If you knew anything at all, which you don’t, you would know that the absence of hives would not denote a lack of reaction to the aka-kami-ari venom? But that would be too much to expect from a rapper in a popular boy band, who can’t even sing well enough to save his life! You would know, if you had any milligram of commonsense, that I was checking your heart rate, determining whether your breathing was constricted, and whether you had any gastrointestinal problems of stomach pains, cramps or a tendency to vomit.”

Keeping my anger in check, I responded with gritted teeth and a low bellow. “There are better ways to check me up than by doing all that! I felt molested and violated!”

“Maybe you would have preferred it if I were to let you collapse in a writhing mass on the ground?” she snapped, jabbing a finger at my chest. “Evidently, you’re already experiencing two of the symptoms of anaphylaxis – an anxiety attack and tears from the stress to your system. Do you even realise that? But no! You know nothing! And you call yourself a Keio graduate? You’re a disgrace!”

“I am not a disgrace! Just because I am ignorant of scientific matters does not mean I am completely unworthy to be a Keio graduate! What do you know of economics?” I snarled in return, waving both my arms about.

“I know that there’s a demand and supply curve. Right now, there is a supply of antihistamines to meet the demand that will shortly appear, but you clearly seem like you don’t need it since you are more enamoured of the notion of writhing in pain on the ground!” she bellowed back and kicked my shin for good measure.

That only made me crosser, and I was about to complain about her treatment of me in spite of my responsible act of helping out at the Jindai tropical greenhouse to pay off my debt for breaking a glass panel when I tried to rub the shin she had kicked. My left forearm, I noticed, was covered in white pustules, still desperately itching and burning. That only made the earlier panic return. “Ack! I’ve got bumps now, and they still hurt and itch!”

Nakahara-san slapped her forehead again and dragged me from the enclosure into her office whereupon she opened her drawer and extracted a tube of something that looked like toothpaste but not of a brand I know and a strip of pills.

Placing the pills before me with a glass of water, she sternly said as she strode purposefully to the laboratory like corner of her office, “Take one antihistamine. It will help reduce the itching sensation.”

“What if I don’t want to?” I sniffed. I was crying now for some reason. Perhaps she was right about me having a panic attack.

She cracked two eggs and separated the whites, placing the whites in a bowl with some kind of white powder. “Then you will continue to itch and you will scratch. Once the skin is broken, you will bleed. Once the bleeding begins, infection will set in and then the area will septic!” she spat in irritation, waving a wooden spoon threateningly at me. “Take the stupid antihistamine, get changed and sit back in that chair.”

Not wanting such a horrible fate to befall me, I did as I was told. When I returned from changing (years of concerts did perfect my skill at changing quickly in and out of clothes), I saw her beating the things in the bowl together. “It still hurts,” I complained, blowing my nose in a tissue paper.

“Stretch out your arm,” she instructed without further preamble. My reluctance to do so only made her grab it, upon which, she slathered it with the mixture.

“It stings,” I whimpered, sniffing in spite of myself.

Slapping my wrist and tightening her grip, she angrily responded. “Of course it stings! This is egg white and salt! It will help with the pain if you will stop your stupid fidgeting! Now stop whining!”

She was right, it appeared. My left forearm did feel slightly cooler and a little more soothed. “How long do I have to leave it on?” I blew my nose again.

“Half an hour.” She made a face by crooking her mouth sideways as she took a fresh piece of tissue paper and dabbed my tears. “Who would have known you were such a big baby? You’re really more trouble than you’re worth. I pity the woman who ends up as your wife.”

“Bah! I will worship the ground she walks on and be no trouble at all,” I sniffed again as she held a tissue to my nose.

“Blow,” she commanded and I did so. As soon as she threw away that sheet of tissue, she threw the tube of what I had assumed to be toothpaste at me. “That’s hydrocortisone. It will help with the itchy blotches that will appear in the next twenty-four hours when the pustules turn from white to red. Use it until the blotches go away.”

“Will I be all right?” I asked, feeling the pain and the stinging gradually ebb away.

“The blotches will be gone a week or two. You’d be fine.” She patted my hand as if I were a child. “Now you learnt an important lesson – always be careful where you sit.”

“My manager…” I exclaimed, realising that he would nag at me if he found out.

“Do you have filming that will expose your arm?” she questioned with a note of exasperation in her voice. I shook my head, trying to control the urge to sniffle again. “Then he won’t have to know.”

“Can I do anything to thank you for saving me?” I asked, staring at my forearm now that the egg white and salt mixture was gradually drying.

“From aka-kami-ari? From fire ants?” She looked askance at me.

“You did save me!” I insisted in what could be construed as a petulant tone.

“Stay out of trouble next time you’re here!” she said without hesitation, dabbing my eyes again. “Your panic attacks are terrible! I really pity anyone who has to deal with this on a day-to-day level.”

I look at her and sniffed again. “How about coffee today? As a thank you,” I ventured uncertainly. “I won’t know what to do if it starts itching and burning again.”

She seemed to consider the matter briefly because she furrowed her brow. “All right,” she sighed with resignation after looking up at her ceiling and shaking her head. “But start whinging and wailing and you’re on your own.”

~~~~more to come shortly~~~~

Bwhahahaha!! Only Sho would manage to do that!! Poor guy! Nakahara is cute! She's so strait to business.

Much to everyone following this story.


Ch 04

We went to a coffee establishment near Keio. One of my old favourite haunts when I was student and had two hours to kill in between class. I was the sort who could not tolerate the notion of being cooped up in prolonged periods in the library facing books. I do not mean to imply that I did not bother with studying. I did study and strive to do my best as I did with everything. Rather, I liked sitting at the back of the coffee bar where soft lounge music would be playing, coffee refills were always forthcoming, and I could study in peace. Contrary to my appearance, I do like places with good ambience. An establishment with good ambience sets the tone for the place, which in turn sets the mood of the clientele. The more discerning students of my batch tended to favour the little coffee establishment too. It was tucked away in a corner of a junction so much so that one would not find it if one were not consciously looking for it.

Somehow, returning to that place was mildly nostalgic and would have been soon if I were not attacked by aka-kami-ari. Now that was truly mortifying. It is my personal belief never to be ashamed of what I was. Yes, I was frightened of many things, but who wasn’t? Why should I hide my fear of insects and heights and whatnot? My mortification stemmed from the fact that I had thoroughly embarrassed myself while being afraid. Usually, if I was frightened, I would make a couple of loud noises and laugh over it when it was over. However, this time, I had descended into a full panic attack. I could not fully get over the keen shame I felt in getting so caught up in the moment that I did not pay attention to Nakahara-san until she tugged at my sleeve.

“Are you certain you want to come here?” she asked the moment we stepped into the coffee bar.

I led her into the booth at the back that I usually used when I was a student. “We can go somewhere else if you prefer.”

“No, no,” she shook her head. “I was labouring under the impression that you were not to be seen in public with young ladies not from your immediate family.”

“The proprietors of this establishment are very discreet,” I stated, waving for a waiter. “I used to come here all the time when I was a student.”

“While that may be so, this place is still a public arena. You are still visibly who you are under that baseball cap. What if you start having another panic attack? The red fire ant venom is still in your system. I may be unable to keep you in check should you deign to bring unwanted attention to yourself,” she explained. “Should that occur, I will leave you to your fate.”

I could not help but chuckle lowly. The way she spoke reminded me of my mother when I threw a temper tantrum as a child -- a firm warning with an explanation as to the consequences if the warning were not heeded.

The waiter who recognised me from my student days raised a faint brow to that effect said nothing other than. “May I take your order?”

I gestured to Nakahara-san first indicating that she should place her order. She may look like a tomboy and have a penchant for running around in overalls and jeans (as she was dressed now) but it never hurt to treat a member of the other sex with due respect and decorum. After a quizzical look at me as if disbelieving such gestures were still practised in the world today, she made her selections. “Vanilla coffee, and a slice of blueberry cheesecake. Thank you”

The waiter turned to me and I asked for my usual. “Turkish coffee for me and a chocolate muffin. Thanks.”

As soon as the fellow had disappeared to locate the barrista, I addressed my companion. “Is there anything I can do to avoid the insects next time? I have no wish to be similarly besieged next week.”

“You were not besieged,” her voice rang out curtly as she thumped the table slightly. “From the ants’ point of view, you were encroaching upon their territory. They only sought to defend their home and their queen.”

I grinned. The comment about the ants was a perfect analogy to her situation in the Tropical Collection greenhouse. I wonder if she had caught that? Perhaps not. In my experience, the members of the faculty of science often speak in dry academics and had very little to no sense of humour. Those of us from the faculty of arts and social sciences were somewhat more open to word play. “You must have ordered them to attack me. Your position as director of the Tropical Collection places you as their queen, does it not? They are honour bound to protect you and your home away from home in the greenhouse,” I suggested.

The look of confusion on her face soon gave way to one of laughter. She laughed openly, unafraid of who may see her or what she appeared. She wasn’t the most genteel of females when laughing. But she was a person who lost herself in it. Such a person had no pretense. Such a person was of the ‘what-you-see-is-what-you-get’ variety. They are very rare in our modern world where everyone is waiting to stab a knife in everyone else’s back. The corner of her eyes crinkled slightly when she laughed and she did not affect the modest habit of covering her mouth. She was brash and loud in her chortles and utterly natural. That was to be expected. She is a naturalist after all. I found that a refreshing change vis-à-vis the females I usually came into contact with who pretended to be dainty, delicate and helpless. Nakahara-san was nothing like that, which could be one of the reasons why I didn’t mind helping out at the greenhouse to repay my debt.

The waiter who returned with our orders looked askance at us but said nothing, again doing credit to his profession and enhancing the reputation of this establishment for being discreet, chose to close his eyes and ears to us. When he had left with the tray, Nakahara san had regained mastery of herself except for the hint of a laugh still peeping through the corner of her eyes. “Do you want me to feel sorry for you because you were stung by fire ants?”

“That would be a gracious and appropriate sentiment,” I grinned again, looking up from the coffee cup. “Now, I confess to feeling a mild antipathetic vibe from you when I broke the glass panelling to your palace, but I did not know that it had reached such a fever pitch! Please forgive me if you deemed me to be invading your territory.”

“You invaded more than my territory, Sakurai-san.” She waved her fork haphazardly at me before digging into her cheesecake. “The Japanese fire ant colonies have more than one queen. The queen of the rose gardens is displeased with the reckless footballer who ruined a shrub. The queen of the exotic grasses collection is displeased that someone had flattened a bed of her crops. You have been causing trouble everywhere in our colony. I was the lucky one who caught you. It’s payback time.”

“Should I count myself lucky that I wasn’t torn from limb to limb by your soldiers?” I asked, trying hard not to laugh as I ate the muffin.

“I would not go as far as to say that.” She took a large bite from the cake and chewed. “All us queens expect the drones to be obedient and do their jobs. We never expected one to be an aspiring Ian Rush. You should not have been pretending to be Robbie Fowler with his kick. Imitation is not always the best form of flattery, especially if it gets you into trouble.”

I moved my left forearm to better lean forward, but jumped back when it came into contact with the hot coffee cup. “It burns again!” I exclaimed.

“That’s because you’ve just aggravated it!” Nakahara gave me an exasperated glare as she reached forward to inspect my forearm. “How can anyone as clumsy as you manage to sing and dance on stage without any mishap? If you can do that, why couldn’t you avoid creating accidents!”

“I do not create accidents. It just so happened that I was at the wrong place at the wrong time and the ants thought I looked like a threat, or that I was delicious and started biting me!” I replaced my coffee cup in the saucer crossly and tried to scratch at injured forearm. It was an act that earned me a sharp rap on my knuckle with her fork. “You didn’t have to do! It itches! It’s natural to want to scratch something that itches!”

“Sakurai-san!” she snapped, rapping my knuckles with the fork again. “You are a disgusting and unhygienic human being! You used that same hand to eat your muffin and you want to use it to scratch an itch at a potentially septic part of your body! Do you want infection to set in? Do you even know what happens when infection sets in? Does pus and gangrene ring a bell?”

“But it itches and hurts!” I complained.

She bit her lower lip as if controlling her anger and searched in her backpack. It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for and she placed a packet of antiseptic wet-wipes on the table. Taking one out, she proceeded to rub it gently but quickly over the affected area. “There, now you do it. That would kill the microbes and help with the itch. And for goodness’s sake, take the antihistamines when you get home, one every 6 hours if still itches, and use the hydrocortisone cream.”

I glanced up at her as her hand left my forearm and picked up her coffee cup. Amazing! Simply amazing! She had prepared for nearly every eventuality and had all the necessary wipes, creams and whatnot at her disposal. Most women would just carry a tiny handbag with very little else and be stranded and helpless but not Nakahara-san. Ironically, I was beginning to feel like those women with small handbags. I had nothing but my wallet on my person, a few band-aid plasters, a football and sports clothes, and a water bottle in my duffel bag. I was completely unprepared for anything and everything. Nakahara-san stood in stark contrast to me. I guess that’s why it is often said that entertainers are very sheltered and don’t know a thing.

“What?” she asked suspiciously, taking another large mouthful of cheesecake, when she realised that I was blatantly staring at her without a valid reason. “Eat your muffin and drink your coffee before it gets cold.”

“Feeling sorry for me now that your ants have attacked me?” I grinned, doing as she suggested. She was a very unusual woman. She ate as she liked; she dressed as she liked; she spoke as she liked without caring what others must have thought of her. If you put her next to the women I usually came into contact with in the film and music business, she would stick out like a sore thumb because she didn’t eat like a bird, dress to her nines, and cared about how ladylike she appeared. Nakahara-san seemed genuinely happy to be herself, which is a rare thing in this modern world.

“Me, feel sorry for a big baby like you?” she snorted as she tried to stifle a laugh. “Your manager is going to kill me if I let anything happen to you. He already kicked up a fuss when I insisted you work to pay off the damage to the Tropical Collection greenhouse.”

“I am nursing an injured arm,” I stated, pouting a little, rubbing the affected area with the antiseptic wipe before peeling off a piece of chocolate muffin and throwing it into my mouth.

“You were stung by fire ants. You did not break your arm. It is in no way injured,” she dismissed me with an emphatic thump on the table.

“Ah, but when one is in an accident, one will be in pain. Since I am in pain now, I must have been in an accident. Therefore, the ants accidentally bit me!” I declared, grinning widely at my dazzling display of logic.

That did not convince her because she burst out chortling at me. “That kind of syllogism… Chocolate… your teeth,” she laughed. “Silly, you’re so… just too silly.” I closed my mouth and licked my tongue about. Oh, she was right. There were bits of the chocolate muffin sticking to my teeth. How mortifying! “You’re not very clever, Sakurai-san,” she continued, still laughing. “Why is it that your employment agency chooses to market you as an intelligent Keio graduate when you’re just so silly? How do you do it?”

“Do what?” I asked, taking another mouthful of coffee and chuckling a little in spite of myself. Laughing at myself is a healthy habit after all.

“Manage to portray yourself in the media as an intelligent person when you’re really just so silly,” she steadied her voice. “You take all those photos and you appear so aloof and sexy when you’re really a helpless fellow who’s only good at breaking glass panels in greenhouses with footballs, getting stung by fire ants, and getting pieces of chocolate muffin stuck in your teeth!”

“Very clever marketing by the company, the stylists, the makeup artists, photographers, and the manager,” I smiled thinly. She did have a point, even if she did call JE Central my ‘employment agency’. I suppose she wanted to give it a neutral sounding name rather than the place that churns out boy bands that leaves the country’s girls swooning or the place that churns out idols who have no personal life, no private life and no real life at all.

These reflections were interrupted when I felt her dabbing the affected left forearm. “You almost had me feeling sorry for you, Sakurai-san. But that can’t all be true, no? You do have some choices in life you lead. Be happy for those choices.” She looked at the chunky watch at her wrist. “I have an appointment elsewhere.”

“A date?”

“With a couple of girlfriends. Why?”

“I need to know what to do if my arm drops off from itching.”

“If the ant stings still bother you, call my keitai. Number’s on the back of the card. But for emergencies only. Thanks for the coffee.”

And then she got up, patted me on the arm as if to say ‘have courage’ and left. Nakahara-san really said what was on her mind. She was unguarded, with a certain easiness of manners that rendered her real, unlike the pretentiousness of the actresses and models I usually came across in my work. She wasn’t calculative. She acted as the situation dictated and did whatever she could to the best of her ability as she had done with the fire ant bites. She was collected and rational, so completely unlike me. I should get to know her better and learn some of that collectedness and rationality.


Notes:

aka-kami-ari = Japanese name for fire ants

~~~~more to come shortly~~~~

Now I really like Nakahara! She's a laugher! Great chapter!!

A big thank you to everyone following this story. *deep bows*

Ch 05

As Nakahara-san had explained, the white pustules did turn red. I did need the antihistamines to keep the swelling down, and the cream she supplied did soothe the itching and burning sensations on my poor forearm. I was careful to wear long sleeves or throw a jacket or coat over my shirt during filming to ensure that no one would see the ant bites. How would it turn out if word got out that Sakurai Sho had been an utter baby because of ant bites? That would have been amusing to be sure. The guys would have poked fun at the whole situation. Ohno-kun would have been sympathetic in his own absentminded way; Matsumoto-kun would thank me for leaving him to shine as the sexy one; Aiba-chan would have stared and poked at the pustules in morbid fascination and do goodness knows what else; Nino-kun would have just remained behind game, his eyes darting to inspect the arm for a split second and make some disparaging remark as to my perceived general stupidity. Dealing with the guys would have been easy. It was dealing with our manager that would be problematic. I certainly had no wish for him to lecture me on the importance of keeping my skin pristine and staying out of trouble et cetera et cetera. I also had no wish for him to rail at Nakahara-san.

Nakahara-san had been nothing but decent and responsible in her behaviour towards me. She never allowed me to do any of the complicated stuff she did with the plants on orbital shakers and the centrifuge system and all those things. She always told me to re-pot plants, water them, check them for any white spots of diseases and so on. She had always remained professional with me and trusted me enough to do the work to which I was assigned. I had no wish for her to get into trouble for ant bites. Not that my manager would understand. He’s prone to exaggeration and would panic if something so much as happened to us.

Thus it was that I wore long sleeves for a whole week, leading everyone to think that I had gone ‘respectable’ for a change. Nakahara-san seemed to find it amusing too for she cast me a quizzical look when I reported in to the greenhouse a fortnight later to help out. The weather by then had turned colder and I had a good excuse to have long sleeves. Nakahara-san raised a brow when she saw me. She said nothing, thank goodness, beyond the usual instructions of what I should do. I was about to check on some specimen known as an Pterocarpus indicus, which according to her, was a kind of Asian rosewood tree for parasites when I bent down to the roots and found ants. A long trail of black ants to be exact. A long of trail of black ants holding something white in those pincer things at their heads. I reacted like any other person who had had the misfortune to be besieged by these formidable creatures. I screeched, flailed my arms about and jumped away.

“What now?” she asked testily from behind some kind of hibiscus plant.

“Ants! Lots of them!” I said in a shaky voice, pointing a jerkily spasmodic finger at the general vicinity of the Pterocarpus indicus tree. I quickly ran towards her and hid behind her. “What if they attack me again?”

“The Pterocarpus indicus is resistant to termites and ants as a rule,” she answered, prying my fingers from her shoulders. “Are you sure you saw ants?”

“They were there!” I insisted stoutly, mildly offended that she should doubt my words. I do not have the habit of lying about things I had seen.

“All right, all right,” she sighed in annoyance, giving me a mighty glare for good measure. “Let’s see if they are fire ants.”

We trudged to the tree; rather she trudged towards it while I tried to tiptoe my way towards it. The moment she squatted down at the roots where I had been pointing, she burst out laughing. “That’s what you were scared of? These are common black ants. They don’t do any harm.”

“Are you sure? But they have these things in their mouths.” I shuddered, imagining their numerous tiny legs crawling all over me.

“These ants don’t hurt people at all. They only smell a little if you crush them. Would you like to try squeezing one between your fingers?” she asked, her expression grave as she looked up at me.

My jaw dropped. Was she insane? Why would I want to do something like that? If I killed one ant, wouldn’t the whole nest come after me? Had I offended her that badly when I accidentally kicked my football in the Jindai Tropical Collection greenhouse? “I do not want to be devoured by ants, if that’s all right with you,” I blustered.

“These aren’t yellow crazy ants. If there are yellow crazy ants in here, we would have to evacuate because they are worse than locusts,” she explained. “These are common black ants. The kinds that disturb you when you’re out having a picnic.”

“I don’t know that!” I retorted defensively. “They all look the same with their scary mouths and they bite.”

“Hai, hai, that’s why you’re metaphorically urinating in your pants.” She smiled knowingly at me. “I should tell you that there are wasps in here too.”

Instinctively I jerked away from the tree. Much to my chagrin, she laughed at me again. “You really are completely useless, aren’t you? You’re just a city boy who knows how to preen yourself and look good.”

“There aren’t any here?” I exclaimed more in anger than shock. That was cruel. She did not have to taunt me that way. I know I’m not exactly brave, but she did not have to make me fun of me. “That is a mean and paltry trick to play!”

She settled for ignoring me and concentrated on digging in the soil.

“A person’s fear is not to be laughed at,” I continued, getting increasingly incensed that I had been thus made fun of.

Standing up suddenly with the small spade still in her hand, she gesticulated at me as if wanting to jab my chest with it but without actually touching me. “Then I presume you want to go through life being afraid of what’s out there in the world? Do you really want to be so afraid of the things? Use your expensive Keio-educated brain and think, Sakurai-san! Do you want to go through life being afraid of things be they things from nature or things that life throws at you? How can you say you lived life if you are afraid of what it is in life?” she responded, her voice dripping with vitriol. “Where do you live, Sakurai-san, in the real world where troubles and fears must be met head on or in a bubble?”

“The real world, the entertainment industry has its own troubles! You think I have no fears for career or my future? I do, just like any other person on the street! I deal with these fears like any other person! I laugh and joke and play the fool because I want to live life, to laugh things off. I am the way I am because it is a way of coping with the fear and the insecurity. Worrying about my fears isn’t going to bring in the money! What do you expect me to do? If I take things too seriously, I might end up completely miserable, and trust me, I’ve been there,” I rejoined.

“Your fears!” Her voice now took on a bitter edge. “Your fears are nebulous and come and go with the tide of popularity that could turn as quickly as the blink of an eye. What about the real world where people fear not having enough to eat or how they are going to survive winter? Those are real fears, not your pathetic fear of whether your stupid band will top the Oricon charts again, and are most certainly equated to your irrational fear of things that exist in nature!”

“What do you know of fears? You only deal with plants! You don’t even know that you have appalling people skills?” I shouted.

“As if your people skills are any better?” she snorted, her eyes flashing dangerously. “You don’t know what it’s like to fear when you have to move from one squalid little lodging to an even more squalid one because your father gambled away the money your mother earned! You don’t know what it’s like to fear that you will be thrown out of school because your mother can’t afford the tuition! You don’t know what it’s like to fear when you don’t know whether you can cope with schoolwork and your part-time jobs when you were never one of the top students in your class! You have never known real fear in your spoilt, rich boy life, Sakurai-san! So don’t you talk about fear!”

The sharp come back on my tongue died the moment I heard her words. Her words gave the impression that she had lived through those fears. Her words had more than a grain of truth in them. She was right. What did I know of the fears she spoke of? My fears were extremely superficial compared to hers. “I concede that I am a useless, rich boy coward,” I said as the earlier anger receded.

“Good, because you have no conception of…” She paused and blinked twice, her tone was one of disbelieving shock. “You admit that you’re a useless coward?”

“Useless, rich boy coward to be exact,” I stated apologetically.

“That’s unusual coming from a rich fellow.” She eyed me suspiciously.

“I know my fears cannot compare to that which you have gone through,” I continued, staring at her in frank amazement. Her anger was easy to dissipate. It was like she let it out and that was that. She was definitely a ‘what-you-see-is-what-you-get’ person. “It was wrong of me to cause you to bring up painful memories. Please forgive me.”

She twitched her lips to the side in a crooked smile of sorts and nodded to herself. “Then I must admit that it was wrong of me to make fun of you too.” She bowed.

“Don’t apologise, Nakahara-san, the guys make fun of me all the time,” I laughed nervously without really understanding why.

“I imagine they must,” she chortled, slapping me in the back like the guys would. “You are rather easy to make fun of. Come on, help me with the Pterocarpus indicus.”

For some odd reason, that whole conversation left a deep impression on me. I couldn’t help but feel that I was really useless when I compared myself to Nakahara-san. She had overcome adversity and her fears to be what she was, whereas I had opportunities offered to me on a platter. I should make it a point to adopt her weltenschauung (as my mother likes to say) or world view. It would be in my own interest to do so, to make me a better person, a stronger person, a person able to overcome adversity.

If I were to be honest, I would say that working at the Jindai greenhouse was turning out to be a very informative and eye-opening experience. Not only because of the things I was learning about the plants, but also for the things I was learning about life. It would be safe to say that I did enjoy working at the greenhouse. My conversations with Nakahara-san would always lead me to reflect on some part of myself, and I learnt to be more mindful of the things around me. I could now see that the greenhouse was really magnificent, and was nothing like the glass building housing plants I didn’t give a hoot about. The air was fresh, and there were so many smells and sounds that I could imagine myself to be in the tropical rainforests of Borneo. It was peaceful, and gave the illusion that the plants were all that mattered, that there was no bigger world out there with its noise, bustle and constant rushing about.

I found that it very much to my liking. I remember reading a poem in English class in my teenage ages to that effect. I cannot for the life of me remember who wrote it, but I remember two lines most particularly that went, ‘What is this life so full of care / If we have no time to stand and stare?’ That exactly expressed my sentiments whenever I went to ‘help out’ at the greenhouse. There was so much beauty in nature right in front of us, and yet we were too busy to see it. In a way, I was glad to be offered such an opportunity. However, there was a slight problem. I didn’t know how long I would have to work there until the cost of the glass panelling and the exotic plant saplings had been reimbursed. I knew how much petrol cost, not the cost of plants. When I voiced out this reservation to Nakahara-san, I was informed that she would let me know when the debt was fully repaid.

I was seriously beginning to wonder about my debt to the greenhouse, or whether it was the arrangement of a higher being to teach me something about life and myself. I was also beginning to seriously consider what would happen after I finish paying off that which I owed to the Jindai Tropical Collection greenhouse.

Collectively, it had been seven weeks of one to two hour’s work. The work was both a form of release and routine that I had come more or less accustomed to. My thoughts on the duties I would be called upon to perform at the greenhouse day were interrupted by Nino jabbing at my arm. That brought me back to reality and I realised I was still in the studio where Music Station was in full swing. Ah yes, Utada Hikaru-san was singing, I recognise the beat.

“Ne, Sho-kun,” Nino whispered out of the blue.

“Hmm,” I replied noncommittally, hoping that he wasn’t going to pull a prank on someone or on me.

“What does ‘scrutiny’ mean?” he asked.

That was unusual. Nino usually did not ask me for the meaning of words I used, so why should ask me for a definition now. “To observe intently, to watch closely,” I answered, eyeing him carefully lest he was up to one of his tricks. “Why?”

“I read it in a book,” he laughed, then abruptly stopped and threw another question. “Ne, how about the English expression ‘pull up your socks’? Does it really mean pulling up socks that have fallen down to the ankles?”

That further caught my attention, and all thoughts of the greenhouse were put aside for the time being. I turned to face him, looking him in the eye “It means to ‘buck up’, ‘take heed’. What kind of book have you been reading?”

“A new one,” he said with a deceptively angelic smile. “Is it American?”

“English, as in from the United Kingdom,” I said, furrowing my brows in curiosity. “Look, is this really from a book?”

“Iye,” Nino laughed as he shook his head. “It’s part of the original script for the drama, but was dropped at the last minute. I got curious that’s all.”

Surely he didn’t expect me to believe that. What kind of a drama uses English expressions known only to the British? Something was definitely up with Nino. However, I settled for watching his expression for any clue and continued to speak as normally as I would to him. “It must be a very weird drama. And it’s set in Todai? Very weird. I wonder why they didn’t go to Keio to film. I could have been in it if that were the case.”

I would have gone on and asked to see the script sometime when he blithely anticipated my question and interrupted me. That was Nino through and through. He had a knack for reading people.

“We could be both in it if it were a weird sequel to Yamada Tarou Monogatari, and charged them at third more than our going rate because we’re two JE boys instead of one,” he hastily said, cutting me off. His timing was perfect because Utada-san’s song came to an end and the hosts of Music Station were addressing me on some point or the other. I could have pursued the matter with him after the show, but I had to get to Jindai. Picking up my football duffel bag, I said goodbye to the guys and left. I had to work off my debt to Nakahara-san’s beloved greenhouse and gain some respite from this maddening schedule.

~~~~more to come soon~~~~

LOLLLL. I finally caught up! I love Sho-chan!

“I imagine they must,” she chortled, slapping me in the back like the guys would. “You are rather easy to make fun of. Come on, help me with the Pterocarpus indicus.”

Ahahaha! Kazuko and I always say he's so much fun to torture.

I absolutely love Chiaki. She and Alys must make a formidable pair.

How have you been lately? I've been exhausted, but tomorrow's my day off so I'll have a chance to be a goof again.

Ah! Junko, daisuki! *kiss*kiss* I'll be online tomorrow and we'll chat. I missed you too, Junko! <3

Poor Sho-chan is easy to bully, ne. Demo, it's part of his charm also, eh? Eto... It's just one of those things. Jun-kun seems to think so too, ne? (As you can tell, I'm writing Jun's story right now. Trying to imitate his speech patterns is absolutely maddening, I tell you.)

Can you imagine Chiaki, Alys and Sora thrown together with pacifist Kaoru (and perhaps the mysterious bengoshi)? All hell will break loose! Hmm... Omake, anyone? I'll really have to draft an omake for 'Between Wit & Sarcasm' soon with a Gimmick Game theme (oh yes - you know what I mean). lol
~~~~~~~


Ch 06

“Hello? Nakahara-san?” I ventured, walking into the eerily quiet greenhouse. Normally, whenever I came by, she would around somewhere, trudging up and down the path with buckets, pots, vials and seedlings with her floppy gardening hat on her head. It wasn’t normal to hear only my own voice and the chirping of crickets or other strange insects that likely would attack me at any moment.

I took another uncertain few steps forward. This was getting to perturb me. This must be what explorers felt like when they entered the jungles of Borneo or Africa or the Amazon. It was like entering into a new plane where I didn’t know what to expect or what would be waiting. Where was Nakahara-san? She knew I would be dropping by. I had called her as we had previously arranged. Perhaps she was busy in her office with paperwork. That could be it. She was the director of the Tropical Collection, and I imagine a director of any of the plant collections would have to submit reports to the head of the Jindai Botanical Garden board. I knocked and entered the enclosure that was her office. The door wasn’t locked, which was a good sign. It could mean she was around somewhere. But she was in the office. She wasn’t at her desk or at the laboratory with her vials, orbital shakers and other strange things she told me I should not touch unless I wanted to be a living Petri dish. I knew she had been there earlier because I could see her clothes hanging by the rack near her desk. She always changed into overalls at the greenhouse and left her jeans, checked long sleeved shirts (she seemed to like checked designs), scarf and woolly coat on the rack.

Perhaps she was out in a corner of the greenhouse in one of those plastic protective spaceman like suits dealing with some kind of pest. That was possible. She had spoken of fumigating a certain area because of aphids. But if she had been fumigating the area, wouldn’t there be white smoke in the greenhouse? Wouldn’t the air in the greenhouse smell kind of funny? Hang on, the air did smell a little off… Did she fumigate the greenhouse and left so that the gas could do its work? Oh boy, that could only mean I wasn’t meant to be there in the greenhouse. That could only mean that I was inhaling all this fumigated gas meant for killing aphids or ants or whatever insects. That could only mean I was going die horribly from some kind of gas poisoning. Oh boy! Why didn’t I use my brain before entering the greenhouse?

My mind was playing host to these morbid thoughts when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Oh no! Something was out to get me! Momentarily, I froze. Where was this flight or fight instinct that scientists were always talking about? I usually froze when I was scared stiff. The English term was ‘petrified’ and for good reason, I really did feel like a lump of stone unable to move out of sheer fear.

“Boo!” a voice said, after tapping me on the shoulder again.

“Aack!” I cried out, jumping back and turning around. It was only Nakahara-san with an amused look in her eyes. The protective goggles she liked to wear in the greenhouse were hanging around her neck, her gardening hat was a little crooked and she held a pot of some kind of plant in her left arm. “You scared me!”

“I noticed,” she grinned unapologetically.

I laughed, surprising myself that I wasn’t angry at being the butt of her joke. Perhaps it was because I knew what she was like, or perhaps I was getting used to her as a person. “I thought you were a leech monster or giant ant.”

She chortled aloud, patting the pot in her arms as if it were a child. “What kind of horror movies have you been watching, Sakurai-san? An ant would have just crushed you in its mandibles and a giant leech would have crushed you and left you for dead. It’s too convenient to have every single horror movie creature as a bipedal humanoid.” She proceeded to tap the side of my head with a gloved finger. “Use that brain of yours for a change.”

Hmm. She did have a point. Those horror movies were a bit much to expect giant leeches and ants to behave like people would. It would indeed be much easier to crush one’s victims than to scare them and chase them around for two hours before killing them. She was really very sensible. “I was worried about you, Nakahara-san, when I couldn’t find you,” I revealed, still chuckling at her explanation of cheesy horror films.

“Really?” she laughed to signal that she didn’t believe me. “I’m touched. This here plant specimen just managed to survive the hybridization and growth process, I wanted to pick it up from the live plant culture centre. Isn’t that right, little one?” She addressed the pot with some kind of green leaves lovingly.

“You’re talking to it like a baby,” I pointed out, slightly curious. It was difficult to tell what kind of plant it was. They all looked green and without flowers, I can never tell.

“This hybrid is my baby, aren’t you, little one?” she patted the pot again. “It’s something I created myself.”

“What is that?” I asked, prodding at the pot.

“A new bougainvillea cultivar, thornless and sterile, grown from various cuttings and the gene of the bougainvillea glabra. It will be as manageable as a bonsai but as a resilient as a regular bougainvillea strain,” she said proudly. “Do you want to hold it? I have to plant it with the other bougainvillea.” I nodded and accepted the pot she gently placed in my arms. “Careful, Sakurai-san, drop it and I’ll use you as fertiliser. It doesn’t have thorns, so you can touch it.”

The leaves felt waxy and hairy, and I felt surprising enough rather happy to be entrusted with a new pot of a new plant. Nakahara-san usually wouldn’t let me near any of the new cultivars or hybrids because she thought I would wreck them with a football or my general incompetence. It was a step forward that she trusted me with a plant. “How can I tell that it’s a bougainvillea?” I asked, following her to the floral section of the greenhouse.

“Normal bougainvilleas have oval leaves and are slightly waxy. But this little one