Chapter 7
Around the time in July, the five members of Arashi didn’t have so much work to do so Sho, Jun, Aiba and Nino thought that Ohno and Abby will have time to talk with each other, so they asked him one day.
“Ne, Ohno-kun, were you able to talk with Abby-chan lately?” Aiba asked.
“No, I haven’t,” Ohno said with a frown on his face. “It’s been four months since we last talked.”
“Eh? Why not?” Nino asked.
“She told me last March that this month until the first week of September, she will be in London.” Ohno said.
“London?!” the four chorused.
“What is she doing there?” Sho asked.
“Apparently their company has gone overseas and they opened a branch in London. Her boss originally wanted to send her to London to work there but she refused. She said she’ll only train the manager-to-be who will manage their branch there or she will resign. Her boss can’t do anything because she’s the best asset in their company and she’s very persistent with her decision to the point that she almost handed her resignation, so they relented. She will train the manager-to-be for two months then for one week on September will be her vacation and then she’ll be back to the Philippines,” Ohno explained, still with a frown on his face which got deeper by the minute he is explaining.
“Well, there’s still Skype,” Jun said.
“Yeah. But I only get to talk to her through Skype after the training. That’s still on September,” Ohno said.
The other four can’t say anything more but just to console a very sad Ohno.
In the middle of August, Abby got the chance to talk with the other members without the knowledge of Ohno through Skype. She had asked Sho when they can talk without Ohno knowing, so they decided to talk to her during the time when Ohno is going fishing.
“Ne, Abby-chan, how are you?” Aiba asked.
“Well, I’ve been very busy that I almost have no time to rest but I got this chance to talk to you guys,” Abby said.
“But why without Ohno’s knowledge?” Jun asked.
“Well actually, I wanted to ask you guys for help,”
“Help? For what?” Sho asked.
“You guys are celebrating your 16th anniversary this year, right?”
“Oh, so are you planning on going to Japan to watch our anniversary concert?” he easily caught on what Abby was thinking.
“Yes. And I also wanted to surprise Ohno-kun,” Abby said “And I wanted you guys to prepare a romantic date for the two of us after the concert. I won’t let him see me during the concert so that when you bring him to the place where we will have our romantic date, he will be surprised to see me. I know we haven’t been able to talk with each other lately and it’s still two weeks before I get to talk to him.”
“Ooh, I love that! I’m sure Oh-chan would love your surprise!” Nino said.
“Don’t worry about the romantic date, I just know the place where you could have a privacy together and I’ll take care of it,” Jun said.
“And you don’t have to worry about the tickets on the concert, we’ll just send it to you to the Philippines,” Sho said.
“How about the tickets going to and from Japan and the place to stay in?” Aiba asked.
“Don’t worry about those. When I get home to the Philippines, I have one week work to do in the office and I’ve gotten a well deserved one month vacation so for the last two weeks of September to the first two weeks of October, I’ll be staying in Japan. I’ve already booked a flight to and from Japan. I’ll be staying on a hotel and I’ve already booked on a cheap hotel I found online,” explained.
Nino on the other hand had a knowing smile on his face. It seems that his plans had actually worked.
“Oh yeah before I forgot, I received a gift from Ohno-kun on my birthday last April,” Abby said.
“Really? So he did remember after all. So what did he give you?” Sho asked.
“Well, he gave me a huge blue teddy bear. From the letter attached to it, he said he wanted to give me chocolates and flowers along with the teddy bear but since chocolates will melt and the flowers will wither, he just sent me the teddy bear. I still haven’t thanked him yet since we haven’t talked since March. I guess the surprise would be a way of thanking him.”
“ Sounds a good idea, too.”
