How to Date Japanese Idols (The Tenshi Series)

by Cilia Jaspers

  “Why can’t you just call her?”

  “I don’t have her cell phone number. I only know her school number and that won’t work.”

  “You worried about the press? Or something else?”

  “I just don’t want to overstep. I’ve already gone there once. She wasn’t happy about it. Calling there might create a problem for her.”

  “Well, why not just send her a phone with a number you do know?”

  “I...actually. I should do that.”

  “So have one sent to her with a note explaining and problem solved.”

  “Thanks, Sano.”

  “How are you feeling about your jail time?”

  Gakino laughed and shook his head.

  “I know I deserve it, but it’s going to be busy.”

  “Do you think you deserve it?” Sano’s head tipped to one side in both question and habit.

  “Yeah. Yoshida has a job to do, keeping us on track. I just needed to follow an urge. I don’t think I was wrong exactly, but I know I have debts to pay now.”

  “They’ll be watching you closely.”

  “I bet they will. I won’t step out of line again. I’ll do everything within their requirements.”

  “You told us where you were, but did you tell them?”

  “Yoshida?”

  “Yeah. Did you tell Yoshida or Kishimoto-san?”

  Gakino laughed. “No, you think I have death wish? I was vague and extremely apologetic. Seemed to satisfy them.”

  “Good. Good. Let’s keep it that way.”

  “What they don’t know can’t hurt them.”

  “Or us,” Sano agreed, nodding.“Now...back to shaking your fringe. Seriously, man, this is ridiculous.” Sano swiped at the fringe hanging from his belt, both of them laughing as Gakino flipped his phone open to place an order.

  *

  “Ms. Bromleigh, you have a package in the office.”

  Eloise’s head snapped up at the announcement as it boomed through the halls minutes after the last bell rang. She wasn’t expecting anything. Maybe Bethany had gotten a wild hair and sent her something.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She smiled and nodded to the last kids as they left the room. They were younger students than she was used to teaching, but, so far, there were no big surprises. It was a challenge to teach the younger kids, their needs so different from what she was used to addressing. But it was somehow easier to be patient with them when they acted up at odd moments because she was that much more aware of their nature as children.

  This was a challenge. But, it was a challenge that she would work out.

  “Right over here, Eloise.”

  She let her thoughts drift away as the secretary pointed to a small box waiting for her on the front desk. Something about the box didn’t seem quite right.

  Glancing at the shipping label, she saw the country of origin. This was not from Bethany.

  She grabbed at the box quickly, overcompensating out of sudden anxiety, clutching the box to her chest after a quick fumble that bumped her chin with a cardboard corner.

  “Something nice?”

  “Uh, yeah. Thanks!” Eloise sped out of the office to her classroom. Much faster than she normally would have, she gathered her things, shoving the box with a mailing address from Japan to the bottom of her school bag.

  Fifteen minutes later she was pulling up to her apartment building. Clutching her school bag to her like a bank robber on the run, she was out of breath when she got to her apartment door, but not because of exertion.

  “Oh oh oh.” The door closed and locked behind her, Eloise confronted the package at the bottom of her bag.

  Reaching tentatively down to the bottom of the bag, she ran a finger across the top, tracing it around the label’s edge.

  What do I do with you? she wondered.

  The box stared back at her, mute. In disgust, she yanked it out of the bag and grabbed a pair of scissors out of her table drawer. She drew one of the legs of the scissors neatly and efficiently across the taped edges of the top. Finally, she cut across the label itself, opening the box for her inspection.

  She laughed, short and strangled.

  There was another, smaller box inside. Only this one had the flashy packaging of a common electronics company on it. And a picture of a phone.

  Should she open it? Did she even want to?

  When Yoh had left to go back to Japan, promising that he’d return, it transformed everything that had happened into some kind of day dream she’d had after a lazy Sunday afternoon on the couch dozing. But this was a reminder. It really happened.

  The damn thing started to vibrate, flashy orange packaging and all.

  She just watched it. At least until it stopped vibrating.

  Then, she pulled open the thin cardboard top of the phone box.

  Sure enough. There was the cutest little phone Eloise had ever seen. It was sleek and white with a video screen.

  And there was a Tenshi phone charm hooked to the top.

  And it was vibrating in its plastic bed again.

  *

  “Hello?”

  Gakino clenched his fist against the jean fabric of his pants.

  “Curly-chan! You received the phone! They told me someone had signed for it not long ago.”He heard her clear her throat and not much more. “Eloise?”

  “Yoh...why did you send me a phone?”

  “Oh, I wanted to talk to you.”

  “You wanted to talk to me?”

  “Yes.” Gakino stared at the wall of the van he was in and couldn’t help but bounce his leg, the weight of it all balancing on the vibrating ball of his foot. “Do you like the phone?”

  “Yoh, it’s a very nice phone, but I have a phone. Where can I send this back to you?”

  “But I...don’t send it back.”

  “It’s...a very nice thing of you to do, Yoh, but I can’t except a gift like this.”

  “Think of it as a gift for me.”

  “For...what?”

  “I forgot the note.”

  “It’s a gift for...forgetting a note?”

  “Oh no no. I forgot to write a note. I meant to write a note.”

  “About what?”

  Gakino could hear the curiosity in her voice and a strange distance that bothered him. It was harder to do this over the phone.

  “Oh. uh, well, I needed to, uh, wanted to talk to you because, well, I stayed a little too long in Taiwan, and the company wants me to stay here for a little while. I am not allowed to leave this weekend like I wanted to...to come see you.” Perfect, Gakino. That wasn’t awkward at all.

  “Oh. Okay.” Her voice didn’t change, but she spoke a little quieter, the words spaced slowly.

  “But I’m still going to come! I just can’t come right now.”

  “Sure. Sure.”

  “So I sent the phone.”

  “What does the phone have to do with anything?”

  “You never gave me your phone number. Well, I never asked for your phone number,” he rushed out in one breath, realizing he had just seemingly accused her of having the fault in this situation.

  “Oh.”

  “So, I didn’t want to call you at work. I know you wouldn’t like that.”

  “No! I mean yes. You’re right. Work is not...a good place to talk.”

  “So my only choice was to send you a phone for which I knew the number...if you look in the address book, my number is in there.”

  Silence answered him.

  “Please keep the phone, Curly-chan. We can just talk. I’ll call you every night after you finish work.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to call me every night. That’s silly. Really, you don’t have to call me at all.”

  “I want to call you. Have you read your book?”

  “Oh...my book?”

  “If I call you tomorrow, will you answer?”

  There was a breath of silence.

  Another.

  “Ok.”

 
; *

  Eloise picked up the phone as soon as it rang at 5:27 p.m. She’d been checking her phone all day, glancing at the contacts, unable to process that she could click a button and talk to Gakino Yoh.

  “Hi, Curly-chan.” She could hear the eternal Yoh smile in his voice. It was hard not to smile at the sound of it.

  “Hi, Yoh.”

  “It was a beautiful day in Japan today. How was Taiwan?”

  “Hot, but sunny.” Was she really going to talk about the weather? Weather talk on a phone sent especially for her from Japanese Pop star who had a picture of him flashing the ubiquitous asian peace sign as phone wallpaper? She felt utterly ridiculous.

  Eloise had allowed him to talk her into keeping the phone for now. It was only for now.

  “Thanks for your notes on Jane," she offered. The last few nights, curled up on her couch, she’d flipped through the pages, amazed and astonished that Yoh had flipped through the same pages and left comments worthy of a literary scholar, as well as others that were perceptive and warm and even conversational because he often scribbled things right next to where she had written her own thoughts.

  "You didn't mind?"

  "No, it was fun. It was more than that. It was wonderful." Eloise blushed and looked at her toes as they curled into the carpet at her feet, the infamous book resting on the coffee table in front of her. She felt so exposed in her own living room as she talked to him. As though he might be standing on her patio, looking through her windows, as if he could see right through them and right through her.

  "I'm so glad. It felt miraculous. To find your book there like that. I knew it was yours, I had seen you with it earlier. I opened it up, and you were all over it. It felt like having a conversation with you. That book is why I came to find you. I wondered, what would we say to each other without so much between us."

  "We haven't said too much have we? Do you regret the trip?"

  He laughed quietly, and answered, “No.”

  But she realized she had asked two different questions and that he could have just been laughing the questions away, not wanting to answer them

  "Well, I yelled at you a lot last time, although you were doing something very nice.” Before she could think better of it, she added, “I’d like to make it up to you. We can do anything you want. If you come back that is."

  "I’ll come back. I want to see just how much I can get you to try? I want to see that blush as much as I can? Is that ok?”

  “I suppose you can try.” Eloise tried to keep her voice as normal as possible.

  “And so can you.”

  *

  Over the past few days, Gakino had decided to be as honest as he could with Eloise. He didn’t know how to play these games well. He would do his best, but he had no idea what the rules were. He’d spent most of his life working. Any girl, and later any woman, he’d been with had sought him out. He never had to convince a woman to like him and he’d certainly never had to get her to see him as a man. How did one do that? The only thing he could think to do was to face her with honesty and intention. Shun had told him not to be too honest and to make her wonder about him. He worried he would talk too much, so he tried to say only the important things. Would she understand if he were too mysterious?

  “How are things going with your fan?” Shun’s voice called him out of his thoughts. They were both sitting in chairs that had been set up at the edge of the filming stage. In between takes or if they weren’t needed for a shot, they would catch their breath, and their thoughts, at the edge of the flurry of flashes and glitz in front of the cameras and lights.

  “I think pretty well. I sent her a phone.”

  “Not bad.” Shun was leaned back in his chair, his legs stretched out, one crossed over the other. His arms were folded across his chest, his eyes keeping a careful catalogue of the activity in front of him. Shun’s fingers twitched against his biceps where they rested when the director called for Sano to redo a shot. “When was the last time you talked to her?”

  “About an hour ago.”

  “An . . .” Shun turned to arch an eyebrow at him.“How much do you call her.”

  “Only once a day.” Gakino sighed at Shun’s snort. “What?”

  “You call her every day. Does she call you?”

  “No. I call her when she finishes work.”

  “So...you’re calling her every day and she has never once called you?”

  “Yes. Why is that strange?”

  “Gakino . . .what happened to the wonder?”

  “I want to talk to her. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing. But how is she ever going to wonder about you if you’re always there?”

  “But I’m not. I’m here.”

  “Yeah, so remind her of that by being here.”

  “Shun, that’s ridiculous. I want to talk to her. We have great conversations. She’s really interesting.”

  “I wonder if she thinks you’re really interesting. I bet she thinks you’re the best friend she ever had.”

  “That would be great. That would be really great.”

  Shun walked off laughing as the director called for him.

  What was so wrong about wanting to talk to this woman? He was staying as mysterious as possible. He wasn’t even in the same country as she was. They didn’t even talk for that long. He had barely managed to call her every day for the last week because Yoshida-san was keeping him so busy, watching his time like a guard dog.

  Truly, Gakino was exhausted. He was paying for his sins three times over.

  Still, he couldn’t quite regret it. He couldn’t regret it at all.

  “Yoh! Last take, then you need to get changed. We have to make the meeting for the commercial shoot by 8. Oh, and don’t forget you’ll be doing that interview before the shoot tomorrow morning, so your car will bring you to the studio two hours earlier.” Yoshida delivered his energy-draining diatribe and then waved his hands at Gakino to get moving.

  Bouncing up from his chair with all of the energy he could muster, Gakino wondered if Eloise pictured her Yoh-kun of the great Tenshi being commanded around like an errant child. He could be satisfied with a little mystery on that front.

  *

  Eloise tried not to wait for the phone call. He would call or he wouldn’t. The phone sat in the center of her coffee table, silent and shiny.

  He had called every day for the past two weeks between 5:15 and 6. It was enough time for her to get home from work and she often wondered if he considered that. Did she want him to consider that?

  Refusing to wait, she’d read through Jane Eyre and their observations. She’d flipped through student work and lesson plans. She’d even cleaned and swept the floor.

  At 7:30 Eloise decided he wasn’t going to call tonight. He was busy of course.

  She’d been busy herself. She was teaching almost a double load of classes now with the added responsibilities. She was a great teacher, she knew, but this was a challenge she hadn’t had up to this point. Her boss called her in at least twice a week for a progress report on some of the kids, and she’d been hard pressed to make it home in time to talk to Yoh. She’d been hard pressed to keep her attention where it needed to be anyway.

  Really, this was just another sign of how distracted she’d gotten by the silly luxury of talking to an Idol...an incredibly famous and charming Idol on a daily basis. Her normal day-to-day shouldn’t include that kind of expectation. She should be focused on how to teach English to children at completely opposite ends of the spectrums without attracting the wrong kind of attention from her boss.

  “Yoh is busy. He said he was filming two commercials this week.” The phone stared back at her, unimpressed. “He can’t call every day. Who can call someone every day? That was a ridiculous promise to make. I can’t wait for him.”

  She’d done her share of waiting too. She’d spent way too much time putting her needs aside for the promise of acceptance and love from the Senator. She was done with that. Very
and completely done with fantasies and unrealistic hopes.

  Eloise grabbed the phone and went to shove it in the drawer of the table by the door, refusing to stare it down anymore.

  She nearly dropped it when it vibrated suddenly.

  Hitting the button to turn it on, she’d half raised it to her ear before she realized it had buzzed shortly and gone still. The screen was still lit up and a little bubble of text appeared.

  I could not call. So sorry! I’m filming a TV show tonight. Talk to you tomorrow?

  Eloise stared at his words. She’d known he was busy. Before he’d sent his shiny phone into her life, she’d never once spent her evenings waiting on anyone to call. She certainly wouldn’t start now.

  It’s nothing. Good luck with your TV show.

  She turned the phone completely off and put it in the drawer.

  *

  It’s nothing. Good luck with your TV show.

  Gakino rested his forehead against the arm he was leaning against the car window. Ryo and Hiro sat behind him playing cards. Sano was sleeping in the chair beside him. Shun read over the itinerary for the TV show they were about to film. They had hours of filming ahead of them. Nothing unusual, really.

  But, on top of the recording and filming schedule he’d been following in addition to the normal Tenshi schedule, he was exhausted. At the rate he’d been following, he’d been sleeping maybe two to four hours a night, and very few of the other hours in the day had he spent alone.

  As Gakino had watched the hands on the clock speed by, finishing up the last bit of camera work, he’d felt each second of time that had been taken from the small window he had to slip away and call Eloise. Then, they’d all been herded into the car together.

  It’s nothing.

  The text message rang through his head in cartoon echoes and block letters until it was all he could think about.

  What was she doing right now? He should call her. He had time. They were still in the car. He didn’t even care if they others gave him trouble about it later. He hadn’t talked to her today and it made the weight of his time feel unbalanced.

  Gakino pulled out his phone from his pocket as the van stopped in front of the studios. The door beside Sano slid open and the screams of cheering fans poured loudly in through the night air.