[Arashi] [Sakumiya] Her Silver Lining

[radhaj]

Rating: NC-17 for future chapters
Disclaimer: Those people are not mine. Damn.
Warnings: Transgender character. Sexy stuffs later on. Nothing super kinky this time. Maybe
Summary: The job might not be the most prestigious and by far not something she had envisioned herself doing to support herself at this point of her life. But perhaps this whole thing was exactly what she needed to finally feel confident in who she was.
Note: It's technically Sunday already so I'm posting this so I don't need to think about it later. Enjoy! Hopefully >_>


Chapter 8

She couldn't get rid of the thought that she should quit.

That was just logical, wasn't it? Getting involved with her employer... Nothing screamed inappropriate more that that, did it?

But the moment she had mentioned it to Nino (on Wednesday, like usual, two days after their date in the bar) he almost got angry and told her to stop being ridiculous. That was the first time he had spoken so harshly to her, and he had apologized immediately, but that made an impact on her. That he didn't personally think it was needed was obvious, what was less obvious was that he also did understand why she might think it would be. The reason he reacted so defensively to it, she realized, was because he didn't want their relationship to cause her to lose the income source that she so desperately needed. Throw her back out into the job market which was so harsh to someone like her. That would make him indirectly guilty for causing all that stress to her after all.

She would have like to be able to get offended at that. To get mad that he thought that she couldn't do it. But she knew he was right. The mere thought of putting herself out there, where she would constantly be judged and rejected by employers just because of who she was... That was harsh even for someone who didn't already have issues with believing in their own worth.

So she stayed. If he said their relationship would not affect her work, she should believe him, right? He was the who would get most bothered if she could no longer do her job right, after all. And he turned out to be correct. Just like before, he wasn't even at home when she worked most of the time, and she barely even thought about the fact that it was her apparent boyfriend's (she still wasn't even sure if she could call him that, they only went out a couple of times) sheets that she was changing. Like before, it was just work, nothing changed, so she wasn't leaving.

But by the time Friday evening rolled around, she suddenly wished she would have.

It was late, at the end of her work day, and she was back at the servants' room, putting away her tools when Fujita-san approached her. Seeing as he did that almost every day to ask if everything was okay and sometimes giving special tasks, she was not surprised. But this time he quietly stood back, observing as she put everything away with a slightly unsettled look on his face, and thus she got a little apprehensive about it.

“Is everything alright with your work, Shouko-kun?” the elderly man asked, as usual, and she tried to smile in answer as normal.

“Yes, Fujita-san,” she responded casually. He nodded, but didn't say goodbye to her then as was usual, instead continuing to stand there, thoughtful.

“I'm afraid there is a special task I have to ask you to do,” he finally revealed, “I know you like having Monday as a free day usually but the Masters are having guests over...”

“Oh,” she let out, actually feeling relieved. If that was all... “So you need me to come in on Monday and prepare the guest rooms? That is absolutely fine, of course,” she smiled easily this time but the troubled expression didn't disappear and he shook his head.

“No, they won't be staying the night. But they are very respected and important guests to the mansion, so the Mistress requested that all maids would be present for the occasion,” he explained further and the relief was gone again. Sure, it wasn't that big of a deal but...

“I understand,” she said, now feeling a little troubled herself. Surely it would turn out to be nothing to worry about in the end, but during her time here, she had yet to serve during dinner or welcome guests directly. She mostly just worked behind the scenes. In fact, she even had yet to actually meet anyone from the family other than Nino and, once, in passing, his sister. She was apprehensive to be seen by any truly conservative members of the family and Fujita-san seemed to expect and understand that, making sure her work wouldn't bring her into contact with them.

But now, not only would she be meeting them for the first time, it would be while other visitors were around as well and it understandably made her feel nervous. But-

“I don't think you understand,” the steward suddenly disagreed with her, and she blinked, surprised, at the urgency in his tone. The old man sighed and it was the first time she had seen him in such a flustered state. She waited for him to continue, slowly getting a really bad feeling about all this, “Shouko-kun... The guests that are expected to come are the lady's colleagues in the political scene... You would know them, I would expect. Shun and Yoko Sakurazawa?”

For a second, Shouko's eyes glazed over, the whole world spun, her stomach lurched and she swerved on her feet, feeling like she might faint. Breathing was difficult and it was as if someone had slapped her hard, a humming sound in her head as her blood pressure spiked and she struggled to find something to brace herself on. She didn't know how much time passed before she felt like she could function again.

“E-excuse me,” she mangled out, her instinct to flee taking over and she just stepped past the elderly steward towards the door out of the room and into the corridor. Fujita-san didn't attempt to stop her.

But the moment she was out, she realized she had overestimated her strength. She could only watch, as if in a slow motion movie scene, as her legs buckled under her even as she walked and the ground started getting closer...

Strong arms caught her, as if they had been waiting for her, and when she managed to look up she saw Nino's concerned face staring down at her. She was shaking, her whole weight supported by him only, but somehow he managed to get her back to her feet while she, as if in shock, did nothing.

“Come with me,” he said, leaving no room for discussion even if she had been in a state where she was capable of arguing. Seeing as she was no longer in danger of just dropping to the floor again, he grabbed her by the hand and led them towards an unknown destination.

When she came back to awareness, they were outside, walking down the street. She still felt queasy but no longer unable to think and thus looked around, confused.

“Where are we going?” she asked. Nino turned back to look at her, but didn't stop walking. His face was still set in a worried but determined expression, “Why are you home, you're not usually back until hours later on Friday?”

He shook his head, dismissing her questions.

“Those are your parents that are coming, aren't they?” he asked seriously and her heart gave another painful pang. Her gaze dropped.

“How did you know?” She whispered barely audibly. He stopped, causing her to halt as well, and suddenly embraced her gently.

“When you first introduced yourself to me, I thought the name sounded familiar in a slightly weird way,” he explained as she shivered and clung to him as if for her dear life, “It wasn't until days later, when I realized some other things about you that I connected the dots. The world of us rich bastards isn't that big, and the news of the mysteriously disowned eldest son of the Sakurazawa family was big news a few years back. Your folks made sure noone found out the reason, but you didn't really try to get far away from your original name, did you?” he asked softly, “Everything seemed to fit only too well so I came to suspect it that Sakurazawas were your family...”

She swallowed hard and forced herself to leave his embrace, standing up straight.

“Not anymore,” she whispered, wiping away the tears from the corners of her eyes that she hadn't even noticed shedding. Her make-up was probably shot to hell already, “Where are we going?” She asked for the second time. This time he smiled.

“We're going to visit Oh-chan,” he revealed, reaching out for her hand and they resumed their walking, this time in a much calmer pace.

“You mean... Ohno-kun? Your friend?” she asked, not understanding, and he nodded.

“When mother dear told me that I was expected to attend the dinner on Friday and the reason for it, I knew this won't go well,” he talked further, “Your... The Sakurazawas visit us once every year, but you couldn't have known - that only started comparatively recently after they started working together on some projects I think. It's still a crappy coincidence that they come so soon after you've become a maid here. I am not sure what to do, really, if I ask my mother to let one maid be exempt from the dinner service she'd just get suspicious but...”

“It's okay,” she interrupted quietly but evenly, “As long as I... handle it well myself. They probably won't even recognize me.”

That sounded miserable even to her own ears. When he looked back at her again then, she could see pity in his eyes. She didn't want that from anyone, least of all someone she was dating, but she couldn't really blame him. She was pitiful, wasn't she? Her whole life was rather pitiful. He obviously didn't even know what to say back.

For a few more seconds, they walked in silence, entering someone else's property. The guards at the gate only glanced at Nino's face and let them through without as much as a question and he guided them through the huge yard as if it was his own. In the end she was the one to speak up and end the quiet between them.

“Are we not going into the house?” she asked as he was quite obviously leading away from the front door. He chuckled.

“No, Oh-chan has set up base in what used to be a guest house out in the back-yard,” he explained, with a sudden bright smile, “You see, unlike my family, Ohnos were much faster to realize that hoping their son would take over the family business would get them nowhere. Satoshi has a lot of skills and talents but a business sense is definitely not one of them. He's hopeless. Even Aiba-chan is better for that, but he's only going to be inheriting a couple of restaurants, not a multi-billion hotel business among other things. So auntie and uncle let Oh-chan do what he did best and let their daughter take up the other stuff. The only problem was that he kept on leaving his projects all around the mansion and making a great mess, so they told him to move his work to the guest house instead, to keep it all more or less confined in there. It works. Mostly.”

As she listened to Nino talk, Shouko could now understand why Aiba thought it was important to reassure her that there was nothing more than friendship between Nino and his apparent best friend. The young man spoke with such fondness in his voice that it could have been easy to get jealous, becoming much more animated as he thought about his artist friend. Maybe she would have been jealous even with the warning had she not been, still, too preoccupied with her own troubles. But as it was, she just felt distant happiness that her boyfriend apparently had such a wonderful friendship in his life.

“But... that still doesn't explain why we're visiting him now?” she asked as they came around the big white mansion and she saw what had to be the guest-house at a corner of a gorgeous garden.

“I think he has something that you could really use right now,” Nino answered her mysteriously.

“And what is that?”

He brought them up to the door of the small building and turned to her to flash her a smile.

“A soothing presence,” he said seriously and then unceremoniously turned the handle, “Ohno! We're here!” he called out as they entered and Shouko's nose was assaulted by a the smell of oil paints and clay.

“Ah,” a crash, “Nino?” a rather muffled voice could be heard, then some un-identifiable ruckus and finally a head of disheveled hair poked out from around the corner. The man had round, dirtied with paint cheeks and eyes of a child which blinked a few times when they caught sight of Shouko, “Oh,” he said and his head tilted to and awkward angle, “Not our uniform. Your girlfriend?”

Shouko suddenly blushed. That's right, she was still wearing her uniform. And she walked the street in it and was now visiting someone all while wearing a silly french-maid outfit. She quickly reached up and took off her headband. Not that this helped much. She didn't feel very soothed at all. Nino was rolling his eyes beside her.

“Yes, Oh-chan, my girlfriend,” he answered with a smile in his voice as he carefully put a hand against her back to guide her further into the clustered room, “We need a distraction from unpleasant things. Got any new art pieces that we could make fun of? Or, lacking that, show that painting of J that you've got so I can cleverly insult his frowny face and ridiculous eyebrows in front of an audience.”

For a second, Shouko was a bit shocked at the way her boyfriend talked about his “best friend's” art, but then she remembered that this was Nino. The tiny owner of the mess around them seemed completely unperturbed by how the cheeky man had spoken either, showing that, yet again, Nino just had a unique way of communicating with the people who were precious to him.

“Ah that's... I just painted one piece but then...” Ohno looked sheepish for a second, rubbing the cheek which was especially multi-coloured, “I might have... fallen asleep on it and then dropped it,” he added, proceeding to scratch his nose while Shouko struggled against a desire to raise an eyebrow. Well, at least that crash she heard when they first entered now made sense, “So it's not really in a good state right now but... Jun-kun's portrait is over there,” the artist added suddenly as he walked around the various tables and piled up canvases or half-collapsed easels with a surprising grace. Nino prompted her to follow and went on to save her multiple times from tripping and stumbling as she maneuvered the same path. Her “boyfriend” seemed rather used to it. She started feeling a little embarrassed about her complete clumsiness that contrasted the two men's way of moving so much. But then all such thoughts disappeared when Ohno flipped over a large piece of cloth that covered one of the canvases and revealed the piece of art hidden under it.

“Wow,” she breathed out, blinking as she took in the amazingly beautiful portrait before her. There was no doubt that she was staring at the face of the man that she had met a few days ago in the darkness of a club, yet this was... different. Ohno's apparent not really realistic art-style made Matsumoto Jun look even more ethereally beautiful than in reality, and she was mesmerized, “This is... this is beautiful,” she said coming even closer to inspect the details. It was no wonder that Matsujun felt reassured by the existence of this painting. If this was how he looked in Ohno's eyes, then...

“It's pretty good, right?” the artist himself commented in a tone of voice that was quite different from before and she couldn't help but grin at the almost childish pride that permeated through it, “I think I captured Jun-kun's cuteness not too badly...” he said, looking at his painting himself and Shouko felt warmed when she saw the emotion in his eyes that was directed, quite obviously, not at the portrait itself but the person that was immortalized in it.

She had seen it before, she realized. On Nino's face, that time a couple of weeks ago when he fully played her the song that he had written for her for the first time. She had to be pretty special herself then, right? If she was the inspiration of a piece of art that was as good as the one inspired by someone who had his feet as firmly on the ground as Matsumoto Jun. A man that had managed to genuinely impress her even thought she had barely chatted with him once.

“I find I can't really draw men well,” Ohno was speaking up in the meantime beside her and she, a little flustered, made herself pay attention, “That's partly why I've never painted anyone else no matter how many times Masaki asked me to... But Jun-kun can be as pretty as a girl sometimes,” he explained thoughtfully before looking up at her, “I would definitely love to draw you though, if you'd allow me. I've always wanted to paint a girl as pretty as you.”

Shouko felt as if the air was suddenly squeezed out of her for the second time that day, but this time it was completely different. This time it was from happiness.

It was ridiculous, really. Such a stupid, obvious thing, but... This was her most basic insecurity after all. The one that got resurfaced by the thought of her parents and their horrible remarks about her when they first found out...

But she felt like a girl. She looked like a girl. She was a girl. That was why Ohno wanted to paint her. He didn't feel confident with painting men but he saw no such problem with her. It was so simple.

“Thank you. But maybe another time,” she responded wistfully once she could actually make her voice work again.

Not really. She had no intention of intruding upon this connection that the two men that were obviously more than fond of each other shared. But just having heard that Ohno thought of her as someone most worthy to be the second person he painted was more than enough.

And what do you know: even as she sniffled and struggled to not start crying again, she felt quite soothed.