DIAMOND GIRL

Chapter 4

모르는 척 외면하듯 너를 느끼고 싶어, 지금 이미 늦은 걸 되돌릴 수 없는 걸.
As if I’m ignoring you, as if I’m turning away, I want to feel you; it's already too late, I can't turn things back. --CNBLUE, DIAMOND GIRL

Original AO3 Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/2487854/chapters/7328150

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He makes a big show of reading the menu offered him, before saying, “All right, I’ll be having what she’s having.” The waitress walks away from them then, looking at their orders with a confused expression.

“Mayu-kun,” Chiyo says, deadpan. The younger man’s name still rolls unfamiliarly off her tongue, but he’d insisted and it’s not like she could just call him ‘Nozaki-kun’ too, that’d open up a wholly other can of worms so. Yeah. ‘Mayu-kun’ it is. “I got a strawberry shortcake and a caramel macchiato. You’re really sure you want to have that too?” With his nigh-monochromatic looks and no-nonsense, piercing eyes, Mayu Nozaki liking sweets would not be something she’d expected entirely.

Then again – she’s been fake-married to Mikoto Mikoshiba for months now. She should know better than to fall back onto generic stereotypes.

“It’d be more tedious if I ordered anything else,” Mayu tells her. To be completely honest, Chiyo really doesn’t get what he means by this. “Enough about that. We had stuff we had to talk about.”

“Right...”

Okay, so it would be understatement of the freaking century for Chiyo to say that she was not looking forward to this conversation. At all. On one hand, Mayu-kun was most likely her childhood crush – the ages matched up, and now that she thinks of it hard enough his elder brother Umetarou’s age didn’t, and the set person had been calling for a ‘Nozaki’ anyway. On the other hand, Mikorin had told her that he was gay, when this all started, and seeing that he’d only ever spent most his time with Mayu, if he had to have one guy as his love interest, it had to be him. And Mikorin was still married to her, albeit on paper...

It sounded like the kind of sappy soap only Yu Kashima would be able to pull of convincingly. Chiyo would ask her brother if he’d consider going back to his roots and direct such a script, only that would enlist him asking for Umetarou Nozaki’s help and Masayuki had already begun giving the other man glares ever since he’d oh-so-politely turned Chiyo down. The awkwardness would be legendary.

“I really don’t – like – spending this much time talking,” Mayu confesses, sighing, “But Mikoto-san is ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous how?”

“Long ago, Roman Academy’s elementary department had this play.” That Mayu didn’t honor her mostly-rhetorical question with a response should have annoyed her, but considering the man’s seeming impatience with words, it’s really not much of a surprise. “Niisan told me it was Roman Holiday for kids, only, the princess was a prince ‘cuz the president wanted Kashima-san to play the lead, and that was non-negotiable.”

Yup, that definitely sounds like something niichan would do, Chiyo thought, reminded of how her brother all but gave up the stage so Yu could shine, even then.

“Then Kashima-san slipped, and fell.”

“I remember that,” Chiyo says. Even considering the fact that she was five back then, the memory was vivid enough – her brother had worked such a fit back then. Their mom joked that she hadn’t seen someone worry about anyone that much since their dad during their mom’s first pregnancy. “They’d found a replacement...”