Surviving Shirai (Part 1)

There’s something to be said about an apprehensive group of people with various social skills pulling together to do a job. Whatever that is has yet to earn a phrase of its own, but maybe Tani can think one up after spending the last few hours watching his rag tag group of misfits navigate the thousands of patrons walking by.

Before it all started, he was certain that at least one of them would fall flat on their face and jeopardize the whole operation.

At first he was worried about Charl, who has been playing vanguard to the language centered trivia game that has been set up for the patrons. His podium and the LED television behind him are presenting questions in English with Japanese subtitles and script at the bottom to translate. As a way for people to partake in speaking a new language and eventually winning a prize, Charl has to present both the questions and the multiple choice answers in English.

If the patron is correct on two out of the three questions asked, they move onto the next podium manned by Mariko, which is French themed.

He figured that Mariko wouldn’t be able to handle the pressure of both keeping people’s attention and desire to continue on, and speaking the questions and answers in French without biting her tongue on a tricky word or botching an entire sentence. However, she has used her charm to get people to answer her series of multiple choice questions, and has concisely spoken each word without so much as a stutter.

For her part of of the game, the patron only needs to answer one of three correctly due to the fact French is not a commonly learned language in Japan. Once passed, they move on to Ume’s Italian themed booth and do the same.

Even with his lack of faith in how Charl and Mariko’s language journey has progressed, he had languished more over Ume’s ability to speak Italian. It’s not that Ume hasn’t put in the effort to go for the full accent and pronunciation, it’s the fact that she puts in too much effort to do it. She has always been too sharp with certain inflections, and whenever a roll of her tongue is necessary she still manages to find a way to let out a jarring purr.

But again to his surprise, she has seemed to clean those issues up in the last few days without him noticing. Emilia has told him how well she has been doing as of late, but he could never find it in him to fully believe it to be true.

The last podium is Anita’s, and every question and answer is presented in Japanese. He isn’t surprised at all with how that is going, Anita is doing a great job with those who make it far enough in the game. Out of everyone here he’s found himself able to rely on her the most, her progress in Japanese has been exceptional and he assumed that sticking to the script of friendly greetings, questions, and answers, would be easy enough for her.

For the patron to complete the final stage, they must answer all three of her questions correctly.

What has caught him off guard is the amount of attention Anita has been getting, it would seem that people are lined up at the first podium just in the hopes of making it far enough in the game to reach her. Everyone here is attractive, so there’s plenty of girls eager to talk with Charl and a multitude of boys itching to talk to Mariko; Ume has taken many pictures with fans and signed too many autographs to count, but the crowd of people who have played were always eyeing the Yukata wearing Gaijin with an almost obsessive gaze.

Anita has been able to interact with every person without seeming overwhelmed or uneasy, she greets each person with a smile and speaks to them as best she can with what she knows. It’s a sight to behold, and Tani has at times throughout the day found himself amongst the throngs of people unable to look away from her.

Shifting from the most stable of his students to the one he feared would be most likely to fail, it turns out that Emilia has completely embraced her role as an advertisement angel in a sexy maid outfit. She’s gotten just about as much of the attention as those manning the game, if not more. The glasses have worked wonders on her ability to handle every stranger who stopped to ask her about the game, she’s even managed to raise her voice to a pitch loud enough to break through the heightened din of voices humming across the festival grounds.

He’s never been more impressed with one of his students; Anita could wake up tomorrow speaking perfect Japanese and he doubts he’d feel as proud as he does when watching Emilia come out of her shell in real time.

And of course, he’s just as happy that she’s bringing in customers.

Every person pays 100 yen to play, and the prizes he has for them vary depending on how many podiums get passed. The prizes of course are American, French, Italian and Japanese sweets he made himself at the bakery he used to work at. He had asked his old boss for a favor--- believe or not it was a non nefarious favor--- and with help he was able to make all of the treats for the patrons and hold them in a clear display bar and a refrigerated showcase for ice cream that he was allowed to borrow.

With the money Togashi so generously gifted to the club, Tani was able to buy the ingredients and rent out the equipment.

Those who made it through Charl’s test received a donut. Those who made it through Mariko’s test got a creme or marmalade croissant. Those who survived Ume’s test got a choice between multiple flavors of gelato. Anita’s test awarded a sweet Taiyaki, an Akihiro Tani specialty.

Each of their tests involve trivia questions ranging from the pop culture of western nations all the way to Japanese history. If a person passes through all four podiums, they get an opportunity to answer one final question to win the main prize.

Tani’s pride and joy, displayed brilliantly in the showcase with lights specifically in place to give the item a fairytale like glow…

The Grand Cannoli.

And a cash prize, of course.

No one has managed to answer this once correctly yet, so the Cannoli remains.

He couldn’t ask for better results so far in the day, but there has been one person that hasn’t quite lived up to his expectations.

Shirai Keiko.

She’s been helping Tani introduce the details of their club to those interested, presenting all the info with a lovely smile and friendly small talk, but something about her seems off. Missing is the usual inflection of her voice in which she speaks, and the way she’s carrying herself is more stiff and proper.

He first noticed her acting strange when he deterred him from answering whether he thought she was attractive or not. Usually, she'd chomp at the bit to try to squeeze an answer out of him, and it it were negative she'd likely twist it into something positive somehow.

All this evidence has him unable to shake the feeling that there might be something wrong with her. It’s either that or she’s a lot more put together than he gave her credit for. She did become a teacher after all, there has to be some semblance of responsibility floating around in that air filled head of hers.

He should be happy about her ability to lock in when needed; but when it doesn’t make him happy, he is forced to ask himself a pressing question.

Why not?

It’s the kind of question he refuses to allow himself time to ponder on any longer than need be, there’s more important things to worry about.

Like for instance, it’s officially time for all of them to take a much needed break. He can’t have his workers going at it too hard and risk a burn out--- an hour to go explore the festival and get food of their own will be just what they need to come back and finish off the remaining couple hours of the shift with rejuvenated vigor.

“Alright everyone.” Tani declares with a clap of his hand to get their attention during a lull. “It’s time we shut things down for a bit and take some time off. What do you say?”

“Hells yeah!” Ume bellows out her approval.

Mariko and Charl take a sigh of relief as though they had just mercifully completed a sisyphean task.

“Color me impressed, you are all doing way better than expected.”

“We’ve been training our butts off, I never had any doubts!” Mariko says, flexing her arm in the process.

“That’s a lie.” Charl interrupts. “Mariko had told me just this morning that we were going to bomb.”

“I thought ya were a bud, you're supposed to keep that between us!”

“Oh? That’s rich coming from the biggest blabber mouth here.”

"Excusez-moi!?" she shouts incredulously in French.

Charl shrugs his shoulders and chuckles.

Tani holds his thumb up to them and says, “You’ll be happy to know that I never had any doubt in you guys.”

“....”

They all send him a knowing glare as sharp as a razor blade.

He clears his throat to dispel his offense, and uses the universal remote he’s been carrying to flip the channel of each individual LED screen to a page that reads in a friendly text, ‘On break, come back later!’

“On that note, you all should go out and enjoy yourselves. I’m going to stick around the booth to keep an eye on things.”

Ume lets her disapproval known by drooping her shoulders and saying, “Ehhhh what’s there to keep an eye on? Let’s go have some fun together!”

“Neither the TIU or Tokyo U faculty have shown up yet, or if they have they haven’t made it known. I need to make sure I’m here as a representative of our school whenever they do.”

“Don’t worry about that.” Shirai says, shooing them all away. “I’ll stay behind and act on your behalf. Go ahead and get yourself some food and relax for a bit.”

Shirai is presenting a friendly face, but a keen eye could sense a hint of disappointment beneath the surface. Tani perks up and is about to speak before his arm is grabbed by Ume.

“Hooray! Thanks sensei!”

She begins pulling him away, not wanting to give either Tani nor Shirai a chance to change their minds.

“Wait a second here, I didn’t agree to this.”

His dissent is ignored, and the whole group leaves a waving Shirai behind and disappears into the crowd.

With thousands of people bunched together and walking about, it should come as no surprise that within a couple minutes, the once merry group is immediately split in two. Emilia, Charl, and Mariko are nowhere to be seen, leaving Ume, Anita, and Tani to fend for themselves in the craze.

Trying to spot Charl’s ten gallon hat towering above the horizon of heads, they’re disheartened by the absence of what should be an obvious buoy in the sea of people.

“Uwaaa, we might spend our whole break trying to find them.” Ume points out with a sigh.

“What should we do?” Anita asks.

The two girls look to Tani for advice, but he returns their wanting gazes with an exasperated scratch of his head.

“Let them go off on their own, it’s probably too much of a pain to navigate this crowd in a big group anyways.”

“I’m sure we’ll run into them later then.” Ume says without much confidence.

“You guys….” Tani’s hesitant tone of voice serves as a magnet to their attention. “I’m going to go back to the booth, there’s something I forgot. Go ahead without me and I’ll text you and find you after I’m done.”

The way his eyes slide away as he awaits their response prompts a more accepting reply out of Ume.

“If it’s important then it can’t be helped… be sure to come find us soon, okay?”

Anita doesn’t seem to mind one bit, she smiles and says, “See you later.”

"See you." Tani says while turning around and hurriedly making his way back through the crowd.

He doesn't feel bad about leaving them on their own, because he truthfully did forget something back at the booth. And if he doesn't do something about it now, he's sure that it will affect how the rest of the Festival goes.

----------------------------

Tani shivers at the thought of the amount of shoulders he has bumped into on his treacherous adventure back, and the sights and smells of each person he makes contact with is overwhelming. Progressively getting more lightheaded and running dangerously low on breath, he stumbles out of the pile and is saved by the space of his booth.

“Fuuaah!” he gasps, hunching over to gather himself.

“Oh, Akihiro kun?” Shirai asks, sitting on a chair underneath the tent with her legs folded over one another.

“Sensei, I’ve never been happier to see you..!”

If he gave that statement any thought before saying it, he’d have certainly chosen to say something else, but he really felt like he was going to pass out in the crush for a moment there and is genuinely relieved he made it here in one piece.

“Are you okay?”

Shirai somehow manages to gloss right over it.

“Yeah, I’m good now.”

“Did you forget something?”

“I did, actually.” he says as he makes his way to an open fold out chair right next to her and takes a seat. “It’s your birthday.”

She tilts her head. “...Eh?”

Her genuine look of bewilderment might as well have been an egg thrown at his face.

“You’re kidding??”

“Is today May 29th?”

“It is.”

“Oh wow, it is my birthday! How about that?”

“There’s no way you forgot that!”

“Hehe, I’m more surprised that you remembered, Akihiro-kun.”

Truth be told, Tani didn’t remember until just a few minutes ago. If not for Shirai acting cagey since before the gates opened up this morning, he wouldn’t have given it any thought. Her antics gave him the kind of feeling one would get while heading to an airport for an international flight, something just had to be left behind. So he went through a few probable causes before he landed on her birthday.

“I know the birthdays of everyone in the Languages club.”

She turns away from him and sighs, “I see, so I’m not special.”

“No, you’re not.”

“....”

Shirai looks particularly crushed upon hearing that.

“But you are special today at least. Here.”

She lifts her forlorn head up to look his way and she notices that he’s offering her a box filled with Takoyaki.

“Is this… for me?”

“Something to eat for lunch.”

“Aha, that’s really sweet of you, but I can’t eat that.”

“What do you mean you can’t? I almost died in the queue getting these.”

“Akihiro-kun, I just turned 28 years old today and I can barely fit in Anita-san’s uniform as it is. One bite of that and I just might pop!” Shirai says, putting the back of her hand on her forehead and swooning dramatically.

Tani gives her a face, opens the box of four Takoyaki and presents it to her in all of its glory. The fried round balls glisten like something as valuable as gold nuggets, the sauce and the toppings even sparkle.

“You’re telling me that you can look at these beauties and deny them? What else are you going to eat for lunch if not this?”

Shirai hasn’t blinked, she has to stifle a drool when she replies, “I... I packed my usual lunch.”

Forcing herself to turn away from the pot of gold held out in front of her, she opens up her bag placed by her feet and pulls out tupperware. Lifting the lid, she grabs onto her chosen food item and holds it up for Tani to see.

Tani rubs his eyes in disbelief.

It’s a stalk of celery.

Just because she can hardly fit into Anita’s uniform shouldn’t be enough to warrant as brutal of a self punishment as plain celery for lunch at a Festival. She’d naturally fill those clothes differently due to the fact that she’s a full 8cm taller than Anita is, to any rational person she’d be considered someone with an incredible figure.

Shirai has some kind of eating disorder at bare minimum, and potentially full blown body dysmorphia at worst.

The last time Tani was confronted with her food issue was when he was fully committed to his role as a ruthless future diplomat, so he chose to take advantage of it by reprogramming her brain to secure her help in forming his club. This time however, he feels compelled to let it be known that she’s being unfair to herself.

“Sensei,” he says with stern eyes and still holding the box out to her. “Someone wiser than me once said that thinking about the future and trying so hard to get there runs the risk of missing out on what you have now.”

“...What I have now?”

“Your scale watching and diet. You do it because you’re worried about how doing otherwise would affect your future, right?”

“I mean, I’m almost 30 now, I don’t have much time left.”

“You’re not a dinosaur, geez!” He has to take a moment to gather himself, she’s being very difficult. “Listen, I know a thing or two about following self imposed rules specifically catered to an optimal future, but I’ve learned that those rules and enjoying myself from time to time aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“But…”

“But nothing, you’re going to eat some Takoyaki.”

Tani has come to realize that if he wants anything to get through to her, he has to do it with force; so he holds the box even closer to her and sternly reiterates,

“Eat it.”

The last thing he said works like a switch that has been flipped inside her brain, there's even an odd clunking noise to accompany it. Shirai’s eyes seem to go glossy, and instead of backing away from the food like she once was, she slowly inches towards him while breathing heavily through her slightly open mouth.

Her expression makes Tani’s heart rate skyrocket, he feels like he’s been trapped inside a cage with a big cat that is looking at him like a snack instead of the food he’s offering up.

“Yes…” Shirai says in a sussurate tone.

Her voice makes the hair on his neck stand on end, and although it’s a warm day, Tani thinks he can see her next batch of heavy breaths turn to vapor and float away when she says,

“I’ll eat it, goshujin-sama…”

Tani jumps in his chair and pulls the Takoyaki box away from her as though protecting a child from this feline predator.

“W-Whoah whoah whoah, what the hell was that!?”

His reaction snaps Shirai out of her stupor, but not before her leaning causes her to lose balance and fall off her chair.

“Eeep!”

Falling on her knees and hands, she looks up to him with a sheepish smile and says, “Oh goodness me, I got a little carried away there.”

“A little!?”

“Hehehe sorry, Akihiro-kun.” Getting herself back up on the chair, she pats the dust off her skirt and says, “Anywho, I will eat one Takoyaki ball.”

It’s not the whole box, but it is a start. Tani’s body language is projecting a desire to keep the space between them, but he stretches his arm as far as it can go while holding out the box to her.

“Only if you do one thing for me.” Shirai says with her index finger up.

“You’re giving me conditions on whether or not you’re going to eat the food I brought you? Is this some kind of joke?”

Shirai smiles and asks, “You don’t want me to waste your efforts right?”

“I don’t know what I want from you.”

“I know what I want from you, though. Think of it as my birthday present.”

“...What is it?” he asks suspiciously.

Pointing her index finger to her mouth, she tilts her head cutely and asks, “I would like you to feed it to me.”

“..........”

Tani remains silent, hoping that she’ll drop the whole thing if he simply doesn’t entertain that devious suggestion. This tactic usually works with her.

“Pretty please? It’s my birthday!”

But this time it doesn’t.

He debates the act in his head and immediately comes to the conclusion that doing such a thing is out of the question. However, what if he said yes? Shirai is a lot like a dog chasing a car--- what would happen if she finally caught it?

(I bet she’d wimp out and feel like an idiot.) he thinks to himself.

He likes the idea of that.

So he grabs one of the little sticks from the box, sticks it in a Takoyaki ball and scoots his chair towards her.

“Okay, just because it’s your birthday I'll do it.”

Shirai's cheeks go flush when she bashfully asks, “R-Really?”

“Yeah, hurry it up.”

She fumbles in her chair, not sure of how to go about getting herself in position to eat it properly. It takes her a second to get herself to properly face him, and she pulls a few strands of her hair back behind her ear before saying,

“Could you maybe… uhm, you know, stand up?”

Shirai does look flustered, but those were not the words of someone in the process of chickening out of a dare. Even worse, that was a request of someone 100 percent all in on a full blown debaucherous act.

Now Tani is the one feeling the heat of embarrassment, and he’s trapped himself in a position where he’d look like a scared little child if he doesn’t go along with it.

“No way, this is the best you're going to get.”

Akihiro Tani may be pot-committed, but he isn’t a pervert.

He moves the ball closer to her and she doesn’t make another move, she actually furrows her brow.

“What?”

“You at least have to say, ‘say ahhhh~’.”

“Can we just get this over with?”

“If you don’t say it, my body will reject the ball! It’s bad enough that you’re not standing, Akihiro-kun, I’m already sacrificing so much here.”

“You are?? What about me!?”

Shirai bites her lips and pouts.

Tani can’t resist any more, he has to do this.

“F-Fine… say ‘ahh’.”

“Ahhhhn~~~”

She opens her mouth wide and takes in the entire ball. Which is all fine and dandy, if not for the fact that to get the whole thing in, her lips squish against Tani’s fingertips holding the little stick. She notices this at the very same instant Tani does, and expecting him to pull away in shock, her mauve eyes instead see his eyes widen and his face go bright red.

Tani is far too overwhelmed by his senses to react properly and remains frozen in place. This split second seems to drag into a minute, allowing the sensation of her lips to wreak havoc on every single nerve in his body.

This very unique assault started on his face, lighting his ears on fire, then raced downwards to sap away any moisture left in his throat, from there it made sure to race down his arm to aid his fingertips in taking in every detail of her soft lips. After hanging there for a moment, it raced back up his arm, dropped down to ruthlessly squeeze at his heart, then became a tornado in his belly before precariously stopping in a spot below his belt line.

Only now does he pull his hand away.

“!!!!!”

“Oh my!” Shirai says, caressing her cheek with the palm of her hand. “I honestly haven’t had one of these since college, it tastes so much better than I remember!”

It's like she didnt just completely kiss his fingers, she either didn't notice it or is purposely choosing not to acknowledge what happened in order to tease him.

Trying his best not to be an absolute mess, Tani folds one leg over the other and twists half his body away from her. “H-Ha! To think you were just going to eat that celery.”

“I was wrong, thank you for such a wonderful present, Akihiro-kun.”

“I would have got you a cake, but since I’m already giving you sweets every day and our booth has so much extra pastries and gelato, it felt like it would have been kind of cheap.”

“I’m sure I would have enjoyed that as well, since it came from you.”

Tani sighs, and doesn’t dare respond to that.

“Anyways, I need to go meet up with the others now. We’ll all be back soon.” he says, shutting the box of Takoyaki and rising to his feet.

He doesn’t get more than a step away when his sleeve is grabbed, he turns around only to come face to face with a now standing Shirai. She is showing him an expression yet to be afforded to him, it looks nothing like the series of other new faces he has seen out of her today; this one is both insecure and hopeful, like a person who genuinely wants something but is too afraid to ask.

“Say… you graduate this year, which means that on my next birthday we might not be able to spend time together like we are right now.”

Tani is speechless, he lets her continue.

“You said I should think about what I might be missing out on now... So I would like one more present.”

“I can’t buy you anything more than a snack, I don't have a job at the moment.”

“Good news then, this costs nothing.” she says, pressing her palms together. “Hehe I know I’m being bad, but sometimes your sensei likes to be selfish.”

“Just tell me already.”

“For the next hour while we’re on our break… I want you to be my boyfriend.”

To Be Continued!!