As We Stumble Along
Chapter 8/?
By Baine
Finished: September 26th, 2007
Posted: February 29, 2008
This is a predominantly Usagi/Mamoru-focused chapter today, but the next chapter will balance it with a big Naru/Umino scene because they’ve gotta talk *sometime.* Right now, we need all that awkward tension between them, right?
Sorry for the delay. I was waiting for some edits to come back. They haven’t yet, so I’ll have to come back in with changes later. I felt guilty leaving y’all hanging, though! So please ignore anything funky. Sorry!
*—(number) Implies that there is a Japanese cultural note regarding the topic at the end of the story.
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As We Stumble Along
Chapter Eight
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Outwardly, the dim lighting of the okonomiyaki restaurant seemed too dismal for a celebratory get-together, but once inside the establishment, the loud chatter and pulsing music combined to form a cheery environment. *—1
Crowding into a booth, Umino sat with Naru, Usagi, and his friends back home, while his other friends from school took the one behind them.
“You guys really did a good job up there,” Minako trilled, flopping her elbows onto the table as she pulled a menu to her face. “I still can’t get over how real it all felt.”
Usagi grinned at the blonde sitting across from her. “We did do well, didn’t we? I was so afraid we’d screw up.” Gazing across the table, she added, “Despite your protests, you did really well, Umi. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought you were actually a male.”
“Haha, imagine that,” he choked, glaring daggers at Minako, who merely buried her head further into the table’s menu. *—2
“I mean, the way your voice got all deep and husky in the last scene was just—wow. Where did that come from?” Usagi cupped her chin in the palm of her hand and leaned against the table, blue eyes sparkling with anticipation as they locked onto his own, more nervous orbs.
“Er, I guess everything just clicked into place? In the end, I was my character.” He shifted uncomfortably, ignoring the knowing smirks spreading across the faces of his male friends.
“Well, whatever you did, it was completely believable. I totally felt like Tuxedo Kamen and Sailor Moon had come to life before my eyes. You and Naru had such great chemistry going on, too. At the end, I thought you were actually gonna kiss her!”
Umino flushed and quickly shook his head. “It’s just because we naturally get along well. I’m sure being roommates has strengthened our bond, don’t you agree, Naru?”
“Hmm?” the red-head quickly lifted her gaze to meet his own, biting her lip and looking away just as fast. “Probably, yeah. I mean, what else could it have been?”
Usagi pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I’d say join the Drama Club, but I fear they’d start giving you and Naru all the juicy parts.”
Umino laughed nervously. “Plus, Minako won’t always be around to work her makeup magic.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Usagi exclaimed, an impish smile spreading across her face. “You should transfer to our school. You can be our permanent makeup artist.”
Minako laughed cheerfully. “I’m not smart enough to pass the entrance exam.” She glanced over at Umino and winked. “It’s too bad; I’m a bit sad Umi decided to leave me surrounded by a pack of boys.”
Mamoru let out a hearty chuckle. “Please, Mins, you’re loving every minute of it. All the girls are envious and all the guys are jealous.”
“True, true. Then again, I can never get a date ‘cuz my admirers are always afraid you and ‘Toki will beat them up.”
Pausing to discuss what ingredients everyone wanted for their okonomiyaki, the group placed their order. Trying to relieve the tension that had been building all evening, Umino shot Naru a playful smile. “Hey, Naru, sad they don’t have any teishoku specials for you here?” *—3
The redhead furrowed her brow, looking into his eyes for the first time that night. “Uh, no, why?”
“Well, you’re from Osaka, right? Don’t you guys think okonomiyaki is incomplete without rice and stuff?”
Shooting him a quelling look, Naru’s lips twisted into a frown as everyone else began to tease her about her prefecture’s odd taste preferences. “We’re not all like that, y’know. I mean, sure, we like rice with our okonomiyaki, but we eat more than just that these days! I mean, having that for a meal on its own...”
The table laughed as they continued to poke fun at her before moving on to tease one another about personal preferences, falling to silence as the waitress returned with their order, which they immediately began to pour onto the skillet imbedded in the center of the table. *—1
Poking at the batter with his spatula, Umino kept his eyes focused on the task before him, grateful for the distraction. He still wasn’t sure what had happened earlier and didn’t feel like talking about it. The play had stirred up strange emotions he hadn’t known existed and he had an overwhelming urge to keep them close so no one else could find them.
He glanced over at Naru from the corner of his eye. She was leaning over the table, her chest brushing against its surface as she helped flip the mixture over, the cloth dipping a bit to reveal a tantalizing glimpse of hidden curves. Her shiny red hair glowed like fire as it reflected the light. Wisps of hair clung to her forehead as she exposed her face to the heat of the table grill. Her lower lip quivered and darkened in color as she gnawed on it. Looking away from the tempting sight, his eyes swept across her face as though he were seeing her for the first time. Her cheeks and the bridge of her nose were smattered with a sprinkling of golden freckles that rippled like the sea as she scrunched her face in concentration, her azure pupils all but disappearing as she squeezed them shut. The action only made her look more adorable.
Umino gulped and quickly glanced away as Naru opened her eyes and looked in his direction. Why was he suddenly seeing her as a girl? Not that she hadn’t always been, of course. He just hadn’t really seen her as anything more than his roommate and friend. Now, she was stirring emotions in him that he was having trouble identifying. It wasn’t quite like anything he’d felt before. What had happened onstage to cause this change? He suddenly felt awkward, nervous, and more aware of his masculinity than he had in a while. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to act normally around her, and she was his roommate, so he had no choice but to see her constantly.
He peered over at her again. It wasn’t like she was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen or anything. With her wholesome features, she shouldn’t captivate him to the extent she did. Perhaps she was a sorceress? With her vibrant mane of hair, it wouldn’t surprise him.
“Umi?” a deep voice called, interrupting Umino from his thoughts.
“Hmm?” he answered, looking across the table at Mamoru, who sat with a smug look plastered across his face.
“I think it’s done.”
“Oh, right.” Umino flushed, quickly splitting the food and scooping it into the bowls waiting to be filled.
“So,” he added, distributing the bowls around the table and keeping one for himself, “What kind of prize do we get for placing first?”
“A BBQ party at the pool next Friday. We get to miss the last two periods in addition to our normal lunch break.” An exuberant grin spread across Usagi’s face.
“Yeah, yeah, rub it in,” Rei grumbled from the other table, poking at her food with one of her wooden chopsticks and watching it wriggle as though it were the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen.
Usagi rubbed her hands together and smirked over at her roommate. “Trust me, I will.” She leaned backwards to get a better view of the table behind her and would have fallen off the bench if Mamoru hadn’t placed an arm around her shoulders to catch her at the last minute.
Once she was sitting upright once more, Usagi turned to her left and scowled at Mamoru. “I can sue you for sexual harassment, you know.”
Mamoru’s mouth dropped open in shock and a dark look flitted across his face. “What are you talking about? I just saved you from breaking your neck.”
“No one asked you to. I don’t even recall saying you could sit next to me to begin with. You’re like a stalker or something.”
Shooting her a contemptuous look, Mamoru growled, “What crack are you on? In case you haven’t realized, Blondie, I’m here because I’m friends with Umi, whom I’m sitting directly across from. You’re at the end of the table, so you sat down next to me.”
Unable to refute his statement, Usagi retaliated by jabbing him in the ribs. “Don’t call me that.”
“What, Blondie? Why not? It’s the truth, after all.”
“It’s derogatory, though. I’m not stupid.”
“Are you sure? You certainly act like you are.”
Usagi’s eyes flashed with disdain. “If I was, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now. Sakura Kita doesn’t accept idiots, you know.” Then again, if I wasn’t here, I’d have never had the displeasure of meeting you.”
A hard glint entered Mamoru’s eyes and he tilted his chin arrogantly, a gesture Umino hadn’t seen him do since they were twelve. “I’m smarter than you any day.”
Usagi scoffed. “Prove it.”
“How, by cross-dressing and beating you on every test?”
Usagi’s lips quivered in an attempt to curve upwards, but she quelled the notion, keeping them firmly in line. “Funny as that would be, there’s no way you’d pull it off. You’re too ugly to be a girl.”
Mamoru laughed, startled. “That’s the first time I’ve heard that one.”
“Well, get used to it, ‘cause it’s true. You’d make a hideous female.”
“AT least I’m secure in the knowledge that you think I’m better-looking as a male,” he stated, voice drole as a smug expression made its way back across his face.
Usagi opened her mouth to refute him, then quickly closed it again, reminding Umino of a gaping fish. Unable to think up a witty retort, she turned her attention to the hand still splayed across her shoulder. “If you’re done pawing me, get your nasty hand as far away as possible.”
“Who said I was done?” He shot her a lecherous grin and pressed down just to infuriate her further.
Grunting, she twisted in her chair and would have succeeded at kicking him in the shins if he hadn’t moved out of the way.
Eyes burning with indecipherable emotions, Mamoru ground out, “Listen here, Odango—”
“Odango!?” Usagi screeched, cheeks darkening with fury. “That’s even worse than Blondie!”
“How so? It doesn’t insult your intelligence, does it? I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“What I want is for you to leave me the hell alone.”
“It isn’t my fault you style your hair to look like food.”
Raising her nose toward the ceiling, Usagi adopted an icy tone of voice as she primly proclaimed, “You need to prune your friends and weed out the bad ones, Umi.”
“Yeah, starting with you.”
With a haughty toss of her head, Usagi peered over at Mamoru once more. “You think you’re so smart, don’t you?”
“We’re back to this, are we?” Mamoru shoveled the last of his food into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully, eyeing the petite girl sitting beside him and causing her to squirm nervously.
“What?” she asked, a look of trepidation crossing her face as his eyes turned predatory.
“I was thinking...”
“No.”
“Huh?”
“Whatever you were thinking, the answer’s no.”
“”Hear me out first, won’t you?”
A low tsk of disapproval rumbled from Usagi’s throat, but she held her tongue and imperiously waved for him to continue.
“I think we should have a little competition.”
“What kind?” she asked, interest piqued, though she tried to hide the fact by playing with her chopsticks.
“It’ll be a game of knowledge.” A feral look entered his eyes, causing them to glow as he stared down at his prey.
Usagi furrowed her eyebrows. “How do I know you won’t cheat by looking at the questions early?”
“We’ll have an impartial bystander make them up.”
“Like who?”
“I dunno, a teacher, maybe? We can discuss it later.”
“What’s the point of the game, to see how badly I can trounce you?”
“No, to prove that neither of us is stupid.”
“And the prize?”
“Winner’s choice—within reason, of course.”
“So I can ask you to stop calling me stupid nicknames and leave me the hell alone?”
“If you’d like.”
She shot him a calculating look. “Okay, fine. It’s a deal.”
“Shake on it, Odango?”
She eyed his hand with disdain, but slowly reached toward it with her own, barely touching it before she dropped it like a hot cake and wiped her fingers against her wash towel. “You won’t be calling me that for long, baka.”
“You never know, I might win.”
“And if you do? What kind of prize could you possibly wish to claim?”
Mamoru smirked and leaned toward her. Because the restaurant was so crowded, Umino couldn’t make out what his friend whispered to Usagi, but judging from her wide eyes before she began screeching unintelligibly, he assumed it couldn’t have been anything good.
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Hmm, this chapter was pretty short and mostly Usa/Mamo focused, but my muse finally decided to start playing nice again, so I thought it best to be accommodating. What did Mamoru say to Usagi? Oh, I like this new twist that my muse has given to me. Things are about to get more interesting, so stay tuned!
Cultural Note #1: Okonomiyaki is very hard to explain! It’s easier just to look on Wikipedia or some other website. Visuals are much easier than what I can do. Many people will call it a Japanese-style pizza, but it’s not like a pizza at all. There’s no dough. They’re only similar because you can choose the toppings (though it’s more of an internal ingredient here) and sometimes, it can be circular. I would say that it’s a bit more like a pancake because of the batter that is required when you’re making it. Usually, it has a lot of cabbage, and you can add lots of ingredients: Vegetables (such as corn, which is beloved in Japan) and meat, usually seafood (Squid is extremely popular) are mixed into it. Usually, it is topped with LOTS of fish flakes and LOTS of mayonnaise and sauce dressing (you can get a lot or a drizzle, depending on where you go).
There are two ways to eat okonomiyaki when you’re out and about. One is to have it made for you. This is especially true if you’re at a festival or event and there are many vendor stands. This is a popular way to get okonomiyaki, though you tend to have little to no choice over ingredients. You can go to restaurants with counters where you watch the cooks make it for you, too. The most common type of restaurant, though, is the one where the tables come with this….sort of a stovetop frying pan type of thing imbedded into the middle of the surface. You’ll order the ingredients you want for your okonomiyaki, and then the waiter/waitress will bring over what you’ve asked for and you’ll cook it yourself on the surface of the table. It’s incredibly hard to explain properly without seeing it online, but you can probably google for pictures of it or see them doing it via various anime/drama series and stuff….? It’s a lot of fun, though, and I chose for our beloved characters to be doing this because I got the idea while watching an early episode of the Japanese version of the Hana Kimi drama... [Though, personally, I prefer having someone else make it for me when I eat okonomiyaki because I never seem to cook it well!!!]
Cultural Note #2: Just a short note about menus in Japan. At many (though not all) restaurants, you are only given one menu per table, or one menu per side of the table so that people can share. Especially at specialized restaurants such as ones that cater to okonomiyaki, you tend to get a “menu” that lists ingredients for your batter and stuff. There’s also a side menu with drinks and other food you might order, but for a place such as this, it is a frequent occurrence to see people sharing menus. (If you come to Japan for a visit, be aware that you have maybe a 1/3 chance of getting an English-language menu. Most of the restaurants that do this are chains or heavily popular or in areas that have a large English-speaking population, such as towns with U.S. naval bases in Okinawa/Nagasaki/etc. Many menus WILL have katakana characters, though. Also, many, MANY restaurants have plastic food dishes in the windows/in displays so you can see pictures of what the food looks like. If push comes to shove, you can always point at a plastic plate or try to remember what it was called!!)
Cultural Note #3: Teishoku is a “form” of okonomiyaki that is most readily found in Osaka Prefecture. Basically, it’s a set meal. In Japan, meals are usually very elaborate. For example, in the States, if you go to McDonald’s, for a set meal, you’d get fries and a drink along with your main course. At a nicer restaurant, you can get baked potatoes and broccoli and stuff as a side. In Japan, the most traditional sides are miso soup (which you can look up on Wikipedia for details, but it’s so delicious!!) and rice. Also, at many restaurants, instead of a free glass of water, you get a free cup of tea—usually, but not always, green tea. In Osaka (which is in the Kansai Region of Japan [also known as the Kinki Region, but I won’t get into the history of it all here]), when you order teishoku, it usually comes with the tea and the miso soup and the rice, and then the okonomiyaki is your main dish. To many people living in Japan—most notably in the Kanto Region, which is where Tokyo is--teishoku is very shocking because they never, EVER eat okonomiyaki with rice! In fact, sometimes in Osaka, you can get a special meal called udon-teishoku that comes with udon (a fat, buckwheat noodle…again, you can wiki it or google for pics ^^). Again, this is frowned upon in other parts of Japan because, like rice, you don’t eat udon with your okonomiyaki. Today, it is not so traditional, even in Osaka, to eat a main course of okonomiyaki and nothing else. It has become more of a stereotype, kind of like how in the States, it is a stereotype to say “dumb blond(e)” or that only people in New Orleans like Cajun-style food. So, a lot of people will tease people from Osaka about this stereotype of eating it as a meal, or of the fact that they, even today, eat it with rice/udon/etc. In fact, if you know the anime series Azumanga Daioh, one of the characters, Ayumu, is often teased about how they eat okonomiyaki in Osaka. Because Naru is from Osaka (at least, I assume she originally is, since the voice actress, Kakinuma Shino, has a heavy accent from Osaka…which is funny, because in the Japanese version of the anime, Naru’s last name *is* Osaka! [Technically spelled Oosaka, but Westernized with one ‘O’]), I thought I would play on the stereotype a little and insert a bit about teishoku.
[Wow, that was a long note. Sorry!!!]
Author’s Note: This chapter is dedicated to my friend Sapphire Girl from the .dotmoon forum. She “watched” (via the internet while we chatted together on AIM) the J-drama Hana Kimi with me all summer. In its early episodes, Mizuki and Nakatsu were always at the okonomiyaki restaurant, so it became an inside joke of sorts. SG, this chapter is for you! Thanks for all of the great memories!
Like it? Hate it? I’m the one to talk to! Hit the little review button or Email ladybaine at gmail dot com today!
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