Chapter Text
“If I win,” says Sudo, his mouth curling in an approximation of a smile, “you have to go out with someone of my choice.”
Taichi would have thought that Chihaya would have learnt not to rise to Sudo’s silly bets by now. Ever since they started university, they’ve seemed to escalate in ridiculousness at every tournament the two attend. But sure enough, she jumps to her feet next to him, fists raised in approximation of a fighter.
“Fine! But if I win –”
And that’s clearly his cue to try to defuse the situation. There’s no one else who can intervene – Nishida had already been dragged off by someone in his society for a pre-tournament huddle and he can see Arata laughing at something Murao said on the far side of the room. He covers the length of the table in a few strides and inserts himself between Chihaya and Sudo.
“Chihaya, do you really think you should be making this bet?”
“What are you, her boyfriend?” Sudo sneers. “Stay out of this, Mashima.” Even now, two years and a graduation removed from the agonies of high school, the comment stings slightly. Although he’s never directly discussed his love life with Sudo, he’s been on the receiving end of too many barbed comments from him to believe that Sudo had no idea about his feelings for Chihaya, or that this particular comment was unintentional.
Chihaya, on the other hand, shoots him a defiant look. “It’s fine, Taichi. I’m not going to lose to him anyway.”
And with that, she turns on her heel and strides through the doors to where her first opponent is waiting, blissfully unaware of the stakes riding on their match.
Sure enough, Chihaya doesn’t lose straight away. But she is matched up against Sudo in the third round, where Taichi looks on from his match against a spotty member of Fujisaki, newly promoted to Class A, in dismay as Sudo starts to gain the upper hand and eventually defeats her by 3 cards.
In the break between matches, he’s scanning the match-ups for his name when he hears Sudo’s voice somewhere to the right of him loudly declare. “So, Ayase, now you have to do exactly as I say.”
He snaps his head up to see the two of them standing in the corner together. He can see Chihaya’s frustration in her posture, her eyes fixed on the floor, fists clenched. This was her first loss since she retained her title in January and he could tell it hurt her. Especially losing to Sudo, who was bound to hold it over her. Sudo himself has his arms folded, in vague imitation of the defensive pose he takes during matches when he’s frustrated.
Remembering his earlier unsuccessful intervention, Taichi resolves not to get involved this time. Maybe handing over control of her love life to Sudo, the most vindictive man in the karuta world, would finally teach Chihaya to stop rising to his challenges.
“From today, you’ll have to go out with-”
He won’t listen to Sudo’s proclamation, he’ll just focus on his own matches – he knows his own mind enough by now to know that being distracted by Chihaya’s predicaments is a very dangerous move for his game. He’d long ago constructed a clearing in his heart to prevent his emotions towards Chihaya from spreading, so he could bear to be in her presence without his whole heart being totally consumed. Still, this didn’t mean that he couldn’t be momentarily distracted by her emotional broadcasts – enough to throw him off his game, at any rate.
The official turns over the top card, which has the name Yamashiro Rion emblazoned on it, and then the next card, which reads –
“Mashima Taichi.”
He turns on the spot, eyes wide. Sudo’s gaze is flickering between the two of them, looking as smug as the arsonist that crashed through the proverbial firebreak. Chihaya, on the other hand, has turned an unusual shade of grey.
“Taichi?” She squeaks out and then she follows Sudo’s line of sight to look straight at him.
He takes an involuntary step forward, without knowing what or why.
Sudo merely arches an eyebrow at him, in utter contempt. “Don’t think about complaining, Mashima. If you refuse, I’ll make sure you end up on clean-up duty at the club for the rest of your university career.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with Wakamiya,” He declares, as he saunters off to the hall.
Taichi raises his head to meet Chihaya’s honey-dark eyes. They’re full of questions and what looks like a tinge of guilt. He opens his mouth to say something, but as soon as he does, the official calls for the players to make their way to the tatami. Instead, he has to settle for mouthing “we’ll talk later” to Chihaya, as he turns to follow Sudo inside.
Of course, he loses his match to Yamashiro.
After his loss, he finds Chihaya sitting backwards on a chair in the hallway. She’s propping her chin up in her hands and looks unusually pensive. He would have thought that she would have been in the hall, watching Wakamiya’s match against Sudo or Arata playing the one of the younger guys from his society. For a split second, he wonders if she’s still reviewing her loss in her head. As soon as she sees him, however, she starts clamouring apologies and explanations at him, telling him that she knows it will be a pain for six months but she’s sorry, she never thought Sudo would drag him into this -
“Six months? We have to go out for six months?”
“We may have made that extra bet between rounds…” Chihaya says, trailing off at the end.
He sits down on a chair next to her, slightly stunned. Six months seems like an eternity to him right now. At this point in his life, he feels like he barely knows which classes he’s attending next week, let alone what he’ll be doing in six months.
Six months is roughly 26 weeks. Dating would involve at least 52 occasions of spending time with Chihaya, if not more. He can’t remember the last occasion he was alone with Chihaya – not since she’d cajoled him into playing one last game with her in the clubroom at their graduation. Since then, he’s only really seen her at tournaments like this one, at the few Shiranami practices he’s been to, or in combination with other friends, whether that’s Mizusawa or Arata. He hasn’t exactly been avoiding her per se, but it’s been a while since it’s just been the two of them.
And then, on top of merely just spending time in her presence, he’s got to go out with her? In some twisted way, it would be fulfilling all of his dreams from high school – getting to hold her hand, going on dates with her, having Chihaya look at him with love and affection in her eyes – but none of it would be real. Sudo knew exactly what he was doing when he directed this at him. He might be almost completely impervious to his feelings towards Chihaya now, but it took a lot of effort to get to this point.
For Chihaya, there couldn’t be many things more awkward than being forced to go out with someone she knew carried a torch for her. He thinks back to her reaction when Sudo said his name – was that horror at the very thought of dating him? But on the other hand, he could hardly abandon her to whatever punishment Sudo might dream of if she went back on her bet.
“You’re not mad at me, Taichi, are you? It will be fine, won’t it?” She suddenly asks, her voice much softer now. Clearly, his silence disconcerted her.
He sighs. “No, I’m not mad.” I just wish I got a say in this.
“We don’t actually have to go out, you know,” he says, thinking out loud and trying to dispel his previous train of thoughts. “We can just pretend that we are in front of Sudo until six months are over, or one of us defeats him in another tournament.”
Chihaya’s eyes widen at this. “That’s a great idea! We can totally do that.”
“But – ” he continues, “given that I go to the same university as him, play in the same club as him, and he attends every tournament that we do, that’s still going to take up a lot of our time.”
She slumps over the back of the chair, her good mood deflated. “Maybe what we really need is a...plan of attack?” She mumbles, voice muffled by the seat.
“That’s not actually a bad idea.” He says, smiling at her sudden brainwave.
He leans forwards and taps her on the top of her head, causing her to suddenly whip her head upwards. There’s a slight crease between her eyebrows, but her general air of despair has disappeared, appeased by Taichi’s acceptance of her suggestion.
“Let’s figure out what we’re going to do next.”
The next day finds them in Taichi’s tiny apartment. He hastily tidied it earlier, mainly by kicking his books underneath his bed, but there’s still barely enough room for them in the living room. Chihaya, however, doesn’t seem to care about the square meterage, as she leans out of his window, waving her arms wildly at what he hopes are passers by below and not just the stray pigeons that roam the streets. The afternoon sunlight pouring in through the window illuminates her, transmuting her hair into gold. It makes her presence here feel almost otherworldly, despite the domesticity of the situation – having tea together, on a Sunday afternoon.
“I can’t believe you live so close to campus, Taichi!” She exclaims.
“My mother found it for me,” he says, matter-of-factly, as he places a teapot and two cups on the coffee table, next to a notebook and some assorted pens.
Chihaya nods, as if that explains everything to her, and joins him on the couch. Like everything in his apartment, it’s tiny, but the two of them just about manage to fit.
“So, let’s start with the basics. We need to figure out who we can tell and who we can’t tell,” he says, flicking open the notepad. “Given Sudo’s connections in the karuta world, it will be quite difficult to tell anyone we know who plays regularly.”
“Oh, I received this message from him earlier!” She grabs her phone from her pocket and brandishes the email in front of Taichi’s face.
From: [email protected]
Ayase. Here are the exact terms of my victory:
- You must date Mashima for 6 months, starting today.
- Whenever either of you are in my vicinity, you must act like a couple.
- Your social media presence must also reflect this.
- I should not hear from anyone that you’re not dating or that you didn’t seem like you were dating.
- Your arrangement with Mashima must be exclusive.
- If you break any of the above terms, I am within my rights to take whatever punishment I see fit on either of you.
Upon reading this, he feels a chill run down his spine. Just as he’d thought, Sudo is being pretty prescriptive about what other people thought of them as well. Maybe some of their friends could be prevailed upon to remain quiet, but that might be too much of a risk.
“I think we’ll need to pretend in front of all of our friends who play karuta,” he says. Given their social circles, this amounts to all of their mutual friends, which is a significant number. “Family members can be kept on a need-to-know basis.”
She opens her mouth as if to protest, but Taichi shoots her a look instead. “You don’t want my mother to find out about your bet with Sudo, do you?”
Her mouth closes just as quickly and she shakes her head grimly in response.
“We can tell Arata the truth though, can’t we?” She asks.
He looks at her directly at this. There’s no pretence in her face whatsoever, just an earnest desire to be honest with the other boy. Frankly, he feels uncomfortable telling Arata one way or the other. Did she want to signal something to Arata by this? He isn’t really sure exactly what was going on between the two of them, only that they’d gone on a handful of dates last year and (according to Arata) Chihaya had then told him that she just wanted to be friends right now. Taichi knows he has no real right to interfere in Chihaya’s love life, despite the status that has been thrust upon them by Sudo, but there’s still a distinct awkwardness for him when it comes to the topic of Arata.
Then again, Arata is pretty good at keeping secrets. He never did tell Chihaya who stole his glasses, after all. And, from the few matches Taichi’s seen between the two of them, Arata does seem pretty impervious to Sudo’s provocations.
“Ok, we can tell Arata,” he decides on balance.
She smiles at his agreement. “What else?”
He looks down at his notepad to check his hastily scribbled notes. “Well…we need to consider social media,” he says. “Sudo said he would count that, after all. I don’t really use it but –”
Chihaya nods. “I have a few accounts…mainly for Queen-related promotional stuff, you know?”
They spend some time going through Chihaya’s accounts – her YouTube account, rarely used apart from a few collaborations with Shinobu; her Twitter, almost completely professional beyond a couple of tweets about the latest Daddy Bear merch; and her Instagram, which was much more chaotic and personal.
“We can probably ignore Twitter for now, but we’ll need to do something for Instagram, I guess. Maybe something subtle…” Although, subtle and Chihaya were not normally two words he’d use in the same sentence. He wasn’t even sure if she knew how to be subtle. Still, she nods again at this, enthused by his suggestion.
“And,” he starts. “We need to agree on how we got together.”
Chihaya’s brow creases, so he continues. “We need to get our story straight. And I think it could be pretty difficult…”
The furrow only deepens. He internally curses himself for bringing this topic up but continues anyway.
“Most people know that you, uh – turned me down in high school, so they will probably want to know what changed since then.”
Her mouth silently forms an ‘o’ of realisation. A look passes across her face so quickly that he can’t read it – or maybe he’s just out of practice – but it’s soon replaced by an apologetic look.
“Taichi, I –”
He shakes his head. “It’s in the past. We just need to get our story straight.”
They spend the rest of the afternoon in relative quiet, comparing their schedules with each other’s – Taichi’s colour-coded one, filled with far more contact hours, and Chihaya’s hastily scribbled one – and staging photos for her Instagram post. They brainstorm the story of how they got together on a piece of paper that Taichi tears out from his notepad, although Chihaya gives up halfway through and decides to draw it out as a manga in the corner of the page. He’s so focused on the task at hand that he doesn’t notice the lengthening shadows until Chihaya suddenly notices the time on her phone. At once, she springs to her feet and gulps down the rest of her cold tea in one mouthful.
“I’m sorry, Taichi! I lost track of time – I know you have to study –” she exclaims, grabbing her bag and bolting out of the front door. His protestations are lost in the whirlwind she leaves in the wake of her departure.
He waves her off and closes the door behind her, feeling an involuntary smile creep onto his face as he walks over to the window. A part of him somewhere hopes that he’ll spy her on the street below, but either she sprinted down the street or she ended up walking in completely the opposite direction to the station, as the only thing he can see out there are the pigeons.
Taichi let Chihaya choose the café for their meeting with Arata. It ends up being an incredibly cute café in Shibuya, all pink and white and gold, with a flower wall perfect for social media. It’s not really his kind of place, but he’s thankful at least that Chihaya didn’t choose the pop-up Daddy Bear café. The thought of having this conversation with Arata surrounded by a thousand bear faces staring at him, with those dopey eyes, is too much to contemplate.
The waiter guides them over to a table in the back corner. From his seat, he has a perfect view of said flower wall and the teenagers crowded around it, taking selfies. Chihaya perches in the seat next to him, looking extremely uncomfortable. Her eyes dart around the room, in clear expectation of the other boy’s arrival.
“Relax,” he says to her.
Her right hand is lying on top of the table and he idly thinks about taking it, to provide her with some small measure of reassurance, before remembering who they’re here to see. Back in high school, the simple thought of doing so had consumed him. He probably would have had a nervous breakdown at the sight of her hand, left out in the open like this, let alone the possibility of having to do so in public.
“I am relaxed,” she hisses back at him, but it’s not terribly convincing, as her knee starts jiggling under the table at the same time.
Taichi rolls his eyes. “Chihaya, if that’s relaxed –” but he’s suddenly interrupted by her springing to her feet and waving frantically in the direction of the door.
“Arata!” She cries, a note of relief in her voice.
He joins them at their table. They exchange their usual greetings, Chihaya throwing her arms around him, and the boys awkwardly nodding at each other. Then he slides himself into the free seat nearest Chihaya, looking far more comfortable in their surroundings than Taichi feels.
The waitress takes their orders perfunctorily. Whilst they wait for their drinks, Arata makes small talk about university, showing genuine interest in Taichi’s complaints about his schedule and his lecturers, and tells them about his new roommate, who has filled their apartment with bonsai. If it wasn’t for the mysterious pretence on which Chihaya had called him here, it would be almost comfortable. But Taichi notices the way that Chihaya has fallen silent and the way Arata steers the conversation away from anything serious until the waitress returns, drinks (perfectly presented in pink china) in hand.
When at last she disappears, Arata raises an eyebrow quizzically above the frame of his glasses and asks, “Chihaya, you said you both had something to tell me?”
She exhales and looks down at her matcha latte, before launching into the story. “I lost a bet against Sudo. And now Taichi and I have to pretend to go out for six months.”
He blinks in response. “…Sorry?”
“I’m serious,” she fires back at him.
He opens his mouth as if to say something, but instead of words, the only thing that escapes him is a chuckle, which widens into a full-blown laugh.
“Stop laughing!”
Arata rapidly composes his face into something closer to a neutral expression. “Sorry. How did Taichi even get dragged into this?”
Taichi frowns. “Under threat of blackmail,” he admits, reluctantly. Arata doesn’t need to know the exact nature of Sudo’s threat, or how easily he’d given in.
Arata nods, pensively. “Six months is a long time though…”
“I know! That’s why I thought we should tell you. Sudo said he can’t hear from anyone else that we’re not a couple, but you won’t tell him, will you?”
“Of course not.”
She lets out a sigh of relief, her nerves clearly dissipating. Had she just been worried that Arata might tell Sudo? Or was she taking his agreement as an unspoken sign that he was taking the announcement of their fictious relationship well?
“But,” Arata continues, “I hope you have a plan. This might be harder than you think.”
Chihaya grins at this. “Don’t worry. Taichi and I have the best plan.”
The night they selected as the one for Chihaya’s Instagram post inaugurating their relationship finds Taichi sat at his desk, scrolling through his feed. He wasn’t lying when he told Chihaya that he barely uses social media (there’s a grand total of one picture on his profile – a picture of Toudai on his first day at university), but he can’t help but look in anticipation.
He really should be studying – his immunopharmacology textbook, open on his desk, glares at him accusatorily – but he feels too tense to even take in the words on the page at the moment. Instead, he’s looking at photos of kimonos posted by Oe and dinners posted by his coursemates.
Pathetic, he thinks to himself. It’s not even a real relationship and yet he still feels nervous about it, nervous enough to distract himself from what he really should be doing this evening.
Suddenly, his phone vibrates in his hand, as a notification pops up at the top of the screen.
From: Suo
I heard all about your new girlfriend! Congratulations~
For a brief moment, he contemplates throwing his phone at the wall, the catharsis of the aggression, the inevitable crack on the screen that would ensue, a perfect excuse not to reply to Suo.
Given that they haven’t gone public yet and the chances of Arata having spoken to Suo are practically nil, there can only be one person who has told him – the mastermind of the whole scheme itself. The sarcasm dripping off the text certainly implies that Sudo has told him everything as well.
He hesitates to reply for a minute, returning to scrolling through Instagram in search of some inspiration, but his curiosity eventually gets the better of him.
To: Suo
How much did Sudo tell you?
Suo responds almost instantly.
From: Suo
I’m shocked that you think I need him to tell me the latest gossip!
But the answer is everything.
Just as he’d predicted, then. He can almost imagine the two of them gossiping over tea and sweets together, instead of practicing as Sudo always claims they do when he mentions he’s seen Suo recently. This time, he really does resolve to ignore Suo, as some kind of punishment for voluntarily choosing to enjoy Sudo’s company and choosing to indulge the other boy’s callous whims. But after a few minutes, he receives another notification.
From: Suo
It won’t be a problem for you though, will it? After all, aren’t you over Ayase?
He stares at the text for a minute. He can tell that Suo is trying to imply something by his message – that he’s not over Chihaya, hence his current concern over their pretend relationship. But he’s wrong. Regardless of his current feelings for Chihaya, it’s still weird to have to pretend to date someone you used to love, and that’s the only reason he feels this way. He’s spent a long time trying to become unaffected by her, so being forced to become vulnerable in front of her again is naturally strange.
He’ll get used to it eventually though – especially if a certain former Meijin would stop texting him about his (lack of a) love life. Sighing, he puts his phone down at last and pulls his textbook closer. It’s definitely easier to just remove the temptation to reply to Suo’s provocations.
Later that night, several pages of notes on cytokines later, he unlocks his phone again, and there in front of him, is Chihaya’s post.
QUEEN Ayase Chihaya ✓ @ayasechihaya
Image Description: A pink scarf, with DB embroidered on it in lilac, neatly folded on top of a coffee table.
Caption: A perfect first present! 💝 ✨🎁
#daddybear #dbfans #karutaqueen
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Comments
Wakamiya Shinobu ✓ @snowmaruqueen
The limited-edition Daddy Bear scarf from the pop-up café? Impressive.
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nishida yusei @nishida.yusei
Wait, isn’t that Mashima’s apartment??
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Oe Kanade @kanadeoeclothing
Oh my goodness!
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Hanano Sumire @hanan09
😱 SENPAI CALL ME RIGHT NOW