Junko's Story - bonus chapter one
Dedicated to @BluIdDreamer and everyone who has supported this story. This story is very special to me and your support even more so.
*Special note*
Since so much got left out of A&F, I originally intended write a novella retelling much of Jack and Miko's story from Junko's point of view. The following two bonus chapters were the beginning of that. Since I've decided to re-write the entire thing in a series of 4 stories it will be added to the new Tanabata Story series. The content of these chapters will come after the first two chapters where Jack and Miko become a couple.
Since this story deviates from my normal work, I decided to publish the new series under Jack's name. If you want to find out when the first story comes out, you can follow Jack now at: https://aztruyen.top/tac-gia/Jack_Patrick but don't expect to hear anything soon. Still, the story is always in the back of my mind. It's not one I'll ever be able to let go of.
Junko's Story
It started with a look—several of them in fact—but it was the first one that caught Junko's eye. It was a vacant, glassy-eyed expression one only saw on the face of confused idiots or teenage boys in love—not that there was a difference. Junko watched the boy ignore his goofy friends, who laughed together like a bunch of monkeys on the crowded park bench while he drooled in her direction.
He was a gaijin, so of course, he stood out from all the Japanese boys at school. Tall-ish with short, wavy, sand-colored hair and hazel eyes, he was reasonably good looking when he wasn't drooling. An actual drop of drool quivered on the edge of his lip. He seemed to jerk awake as it escaped his open mouth and looked around in embarrassment, noticing Junko for the first time.
Of course, he wasn't looking at her, Junko thought. No boy ever did, especially when she was sitting next to her best friend, the living boy magnet, Miko Miyamoto. Next to her, Junko truly was invisible.
Realizing he'd been caught, the gaijin flushed and turned back around to his friends.
Junko laughed. It was the funniest thing she'd seen the whole boring class outing. She had to tell Miko. Junko poked her in the side. Miko jerked with a startled yip and nearly fell from the stone planter on which they were sitting and eating lunch.
"Junko!" She laughed in playful accusation. "Why'd you do that?"
"It looks like you caught a new admirer." Junko pointed to the gaijin's back with her chopsticks.
Miko frowned in that direction. "What?"
"The gaijin."
"Jun-chan! You shouldn't tease like that."
"I'm serious. He was staring at you and drooling. Actual drool came out of his mouth."
Miko looked at her suspiciously. "No..."
Miko was beautiful, smart and athletic—everything Junko was not. Well, OK, Junko thought to herself. I did manage to get accepted into the elite Atarachi High School and even assigned to the same classroom as Miko. But, unlike Junko who no one ever noticed, Miko was the school's idol. Boys and girls watched her from afar with something like awed reverence. She was the Takane no Hana, the unreachable flower on a high peak.
If she had any faults it was that Miko could never understand how other people saw her. She always pushed herself to the breaking point, but not because she had to be the best at everything. She did it because no matter the measure, she could never live up to what she thought others expected of her.
"It was gross," Junko said.
"I don't believe you."
At that moment, the gaijin turned around again to sneak another look at Miko. Miko stared back quizzically.
"Staring and drooling, drooling and staring...the whole time we've been sitting here," Junko muttered as the two locked gazes. "You've always wanted a big slobbery dog. Why don't you ask him if he'll go home with you as your pet? I'm sure he'll say yes."
Miko turned to Junko with a squealing laugh and gave her a playful shove. The red-faced gaijin whirled around to face his friends.
"Aww. I think you embarrassed him," Junko said in mock sympathy.
永 遠
After lunch, the students gathered into their assigned groups. They would spend the rest of the day touring the temple and the surrounding small shrines in the park. Miko leaned into Junko and spoke in a soft voice. "He wasn't really looking at me the whole time, was he?"
"I told you he was."
Miko scanned the surrounding students and smiled as she found a sandy-haired head poking above the sea of straight black hair. "There he is!"
When the students were released, the gaijin's group of boys took off running, ignoring the teachers' shouts to slow down.
Miko and Junko didn't have a group. When the girls in their homeroom began picking their groups, no one asked Miko to join. Miko took it as yet another rejection, not recognizing it for the intimidated awe that it was.
"Let's follow them!" Miko grabbed Junko's hand and hurried after the boys, but they were hard to follow. They would stop at each designated culturally significant spot just long enough to have the waiting teacher stamp their log sheet before tearing off again.
Junko chased after Miko, barely able to keep up. "Can we slow down?" She wheezed, as a pain jabbed her in her side.
Miko paused, rising on her toes and shading her eyes as she peered across the park. "I think I see them down by the duck pond." Tireless, she took off again.
Junko began to resent Miko's long athletic legs. "Slow down!" Panting, she following Miko down a steep zig-zagging path. It led to a narrow, arched, wooden bridge that crossed a small stream which fed the pond. "They're going to see us if we get too close."
The boys skid to a stop and shouted to each other. Realizing they had already come this way, they abruptly turned around and started back. Miko, following too close behind, lurched to a halt, her forward momentum standing her up on her toes. For one breathless moment, she and the gaijin stood nose to nose, staring into each other's eyes.
"Konnichiwa," Miko gasped breathlessly.
"Uh, hi," the gaijin blurted out in startled English. Then, with an embarrassed smile that even Junko had to admit was kind of cute, followed up with a slight apologetic bow—little more than a ducking of his head—and a "Sumimasen..." His wide eyes never left hers.
"Ie. Daijoubu da," Miko whispered, telling him No. I'm OK. Her eyes locked onto his as he slipped past her on the bridge. Miko stared after him with her own dumb expression, not seeming to notice the cringing line of boys apologizing as they tried to pass her on the bridge without brushing against her.
Junko would later decide that this was the point where Miko was well and truly hooked.
永 遠
"Are you sure? How do you know?" Miko asked for the thousandth time.
Junko rubbed her forehead. Miko's constant pleas for reassurance were literally giving her a headache. She looked to Rio Kitamura and Ai Yazawa, who failed to notice her silent cry for help. They were busy, along with some other girls from their class, in making campaign posters for Miko's run at the student council. Junko had rounded them up in her effort to help Miko become the first first-year vice president of the student council. She was already the first to be allowed to run. At the moment, Miko was supposed to be working on the campaign speech she would make before the student body, but she was more concerned about that boy.
"I've told you a hundred times before, so I'm only going to say this one more time." Junko put down her pen and leaned forward, staring into Miko's large gorgeous eyes to make sure she had Miko's full attention. "You could ask to be the girlfriend of any boy in this school—hell, any boy in this town—and not one of them would say no."
"But—"
"That's it!" Junko held a hand up to stop her. "I'm not saying it again." Then she muttered, "It's embarrassing enough having to tell you how beautiful you are."
"But—he's an American."
"How do you know that?"
Miko blushed and looked away. "I asked around."
Asked? Who? Junko wondered. As far as she knew, Miko never talked to anyone but the occasional teacher. "So? What does that have to do with anything?"
"Well..." Miko glanced at Ai Yazawa, "I'm not flashy and sophisticated like some girls. I'm not even little and cute." She glanced at Rio and began fiddling with her long straight black hair. "I'm just big old plain me."
Junko stifled a laugh so as to not hurt her friend's feelings. Leave it to Miko to only see her faults. It was true that nearly every girl in the school had colored, cut or permed her hair in some fashion to stand out from the typical straight black-haired Japanese look. Miko, with her natural hair and her hime haircut, was as traditional as a kokeshi doll. "I'm sure he saw plenty of flashy girls in America."
"But wouldn't an American prefer that sort of girl?"
Junko chuckled. "That's what makes you special. In his eyes, you are both beautiful and exotic."
Miko blushed.
Junko shook her head. "You're driving me crazy. If you don't confess to him the next time we see him, I'm going to tell him you like him."
Miko jerked back and looked at her with wide frightened eyes. "You wouldn't!"
"If it will shut you up, I will."
永 遠
Unable to handle the academic pressure, the former vice president had transferred to another school, leaving the student body only a few weeks to replace him. A rumor started circulating among the older boys, that if Miko was elected to replace him, she would have the student council declare a swimming suit day and she and all the girls would show up to school in bikinis. Junko did her best to quash the rumors until she realized that every boy in the school had already decided to vote for Miko. Most couldn't even name her opponent.
Rio, Ume and some of the other girls from their classroom helped Junko and Miko distribute campaign fliers about the school. With the election only days away, they were standing on the steps near the front entrance handing out fliers and asking for votes, when Junko saw the gaijin approaching. She nudged Miko and directed her attention to the boy with a nod of her head. "Here's your chance," Junko muttered. "Either you tell him, or I will."
Junko was mostly just teasing, trying to make her feel some of the discomfort she felt with Miko's constant babble about the gaijin whose name she had somehow learned was Jakku. To Junko's surprise, Miko took a deep breath and stepped toward him.
"Please vote for me," Miko said, barely suppressing a nervous tremble in her voice.
Junko could see Miko's smile reflected in the boy's face as his expression lit up. "Of course," he said in Japanese. Jakku absentmindedly took the offered flier and they started bowing to each other, repeatedly, in the following awkward smiling silence. Junko shook her head. She wasn't surprised that Miko couldn't do it.
Miko seemed to go about the rest of the day in a distracted daze. Later that night, she called Junko, in tears.
"I couldn't do it. I tried, but I just couldn't do it."
"Do what?"
"Tell him!"
A pajama-clad Junko sat at the desk in her room, trying to finish her homework, only half listening. "I'm not surprised."
"Jun-chan, what do I do?"
"About what?"
"About him!"
Junko was not feeling too sympathetic. She preferred the old, quiet and serious Miko and wished she would go back to that as soon as possible. It was Miko's job to patiently listen to her complaints and assure her that all would be well, not the other way around. "What do you want to do?"
"I don't know!"
Junko sighed. "Do you want me to tell him how you feel?"
"No! I would die if you did that."
"Why?"
"What if he didn't feel that way about me? I'd be too embarrassed to show my face at school."
"I already told you, you don't have to worry about that."
"But..."
"Would you like me to ask him how he feels about you?"
"Yes! No! Would you do that for me? But what if he says he doesn't think of me like that?"
"Miko—"
"If he does, don't tell me. I don't want to know."
"Miko—"
"But if you don't tell me yes, then I'll know he said no—"
"Miko, stop! Just stop already."
"Jun-chan?"
"I'll take care of everything, so stop worrying."
"You will?"
"Yes. Just go to bed and don't think about it. Think only of what you'll do after he says yes."
"Oh, Jun-chan. Thank you!"
"Good night, Miko-chan." Junko hung up and sighed again. Who was that girl and what happened to the Miko she knew? Miko was the last person she expected to lose her mind over a boy. All through junior high, she had sympathized if not actually joined in with Juno's scoffing at the shallow, vapid, boy-obsessed things they shared a classroom with.
Tomorrow she was going to have to talk to this Jakku person. Junko removed her glasses and scrubbed her face with her palm. What had she got herself into?
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