𝚂𝚞𝚖𝚖𝚎𝚛𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝚂𝚊𝚍𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜

Chapter-4

I got in touch with Yuki, we settled on lunch at Elsa, Matteo had managed to get us a table. Kenji being the typically annoying person he is decided to tag along.

Which was fair considering I was too scared to even make the phone call and had to be prompted about what to say. I literally took 10 minutes to decide my outfit while Kenji took an hour figuring out how he wanted to style his hair.

"Yes Ken! Wear your hair like that Yuki's going to fall in love with you the minute he sees you!" I beamed sarcastically.

"This is why you have no friends." He rolled his eyes.

"So you do admit you're doing this for his attention?" I pushed his buttons.

"No you moron."

"We're getting late Himbo-"

"Baba she called me a himbo again!" Kenji complained.

"Stop calling your brother a himbo Emi! Your mother forgot to tell me both of you are still 10."

I shrugged off the last comment and headed out of the door, it was a nice and sunny day. I was glad Matteo had got us a table overlooking the sea, Kenji kept blabbering about how excited he was but I just wished he would shut up and focus on driving.

"We're here." He beamed.

"Okay thanks for dropping me off, you can wait in the parking lot." I said plainly.

"You're such a brat! I'm coming, the reservation is for four people."

"Yeah but I decided I don't want you around now shoo."

"You're so-"

"It's so easy to annoy you." I laughed.

"A literal brat is nicer than you are, in fact the word brat feels berated when I use it to describe you." He rolled his eyes.

We got out of the car and headed into the restaurant, I let the host know that the table was booked under my name and she led us straight to it.

The harbour looked so beautiful from up here, I couldn't decide what was more azul the sky or the sea. Everything about the ambience was just right, the music, the decor and the view.

We took our seats and waited for Yuki and his guest. It wasn't too long until the arrived, Katsumi was right. He really was very excited about this.

"Hello!" He beamed giving me a firm handshake, "I'm Yuki, so nice to finally meet you Miss Nohara."

"Please call me Emiko, there's no need to be so formal." I smiled. "Please, come take a seat."

"I'm a very big fan of your show." He gushed. He looked at the man who came with him, "I told you to watch stardust, did you watch it?"

The man looked at him in confusion and back at me with an apologetic smile, "No, I'm sorry Yuki I couldn't watch it-"

"You're so useless I watch all the French shows you ask me to but you won't watch the show I asked you to." He huffed, "this is my teammate Pierre." He introduced the good looking Frenchman next to him.

I awkwardly nodded and smiled, I could see in the corner of my eye that Kenji looked like he was going to burst into peels of laughter, before he could do that I decided to introduce him to them.

"I'm so sorry I couldn't watch the show, but can you please summarise it for me?" Pierre spoke up.

"Huh?" I looked into his eyes, gosh they were pretty! "Oh! I'm sorry yeah- um so it basically starts with-" I was making a fool out of myself, why was I getting so flustered!

"She gets a little nervous talking about her own work. A very harsh self critique." Kenji spoke up, "I'll summarise the plot so far for you."

"Thank you!" I whispered. He looked at me and mounted a quick you owe me big time before telling the rest of the story to Pierre.

"So the problem with our culture is that there's not enough representation of girls and women..." Kenji trailed off.

This was my cue, "the problem isn't that we don't have female leads, rather it's always some damsel in distress or she's really dense."

"Did you just call characters dense?" He laughed.

His laugh was adorable, it made me smile at him like a fool. He was trying to maintain eye contact but that was making me blush, really deep. I looked away and continued.

"We follow the story of Hana, a headstrong young girl from Kyoto who dreams of living in Paris. How is she going to get there? What is she going to do? That's something you'll have to watch the show for."

A smile curled on his lips, "you're a good storyteller, I'm going to have to watch the show now."

"See! I told you it's good!" Yuki beamed, "Emiko, can you tell me more about what I'm going to do?"

"Yes of course!" I smiled handing him the binder, "I've written you a small character description and a draft of what your dialogues could look like."

"What's he going to do in such a good storyline? He's going to mess everything up." Pierre teased him.

"No, I'm not! I'm the one who got offered the role not you." Yuki snarled, "I'll be playing a character she meets at university-short, sweet and impactful."

"Just like you." Pierre booped his nose.

"I was talking about the role. Not me." He glared.

The rest of lunch went by fine, I learnt more about Formula One and they learnt more about storylines. I couldn't help but steal glances at Pierre, it's like I didn't even have control over the movement of my own head.

He had a charm that was unique to him, a little laid back, but still suave. When he caught me looking at him, he simply smiled. He knew damn well that he was attractive.

"This was great! I had so much fun, thanks for agreeing to meet us." I smiled.

"Thank you Emiko! This is like a dream come true." Yuki cheered.

"It was nice meeting you." Pierre flashed a smile.

"Yeah... it was." I gulped awkwardly. Kenji shook their hands and I quickly scurried away not even making an attempt to wait for him.

"Hey!" I heard Pierre call out, "Emiko!" He walked towards me, "can I...I don't know how to say this." He scratched the back of his neck. "Can I get your socials?"

"I don't have any social media accounts." I blurted.

"Oh." He looked taken aback, "I'm sorry I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable, I completely misread-"

"Oh no no! I think you're very-" I stopped myself, "what I mean is I'm not on any social media platforms I'm not trying to avoid you."

Where was I getting all this courage from? Damn! I felt like my heart was beating at a million miles an hour. Was he going to say something or just stand there!?

"Can I get your number then?" He asked fidgeting with his bracelet.

"My number?"

"Please don't tell me you don't use a phone." He laughed.

"Yes I do!" I laughed, "and yes, you can have my number."