Well, yes, this is my very, very first LoveHina fanfic.
I'm a big anime fan, so I've seen a lot of series, and read a lot of manga, including LoveHina.
Frankly, you may see things lean towards the manga more with my LoveHina fanfiction, because the anime seemed mediocre in comparison.
Although I'm a first time LoveHina fanfic writer, I'm not new to the world of fanfics at all, you can mostly find me writing up random crazy fanfics in the Evangelion (best anime…ever) section…So I'm not used to writing up non-Eva romance.
But there are some major similarities between the major Evangelion pairing of Shinji Ikari/Asuka Sohryu and Keitaro/Naru….so much so that Akamatsu made a few funny references and homages to Evangelion in his manga, I remember…
The spineless boy, they basically look the same (Except Shinji has more capability for extreme bravery and extreme cowardice, because he really got the short end when it came to life. And he's way less clumsy. But he's just as invincible.)…And the dominant red-haired girl who eventually falls for the geek, sort of (Although Asuka's a lot more brutal and psychotic, stemming from all her different complexes, mom's suicide, etc.)
But it'll be weird switching from the main character of Shinji Ikari to Keitaro Urashima. There are similarities, but only a few, from there on they're completely different people, and I'll have to try my best to stay in character as we go along here.
(By the way, my favorite LoveHina pairing? Kanako/Keitaro…I find her the cutest and coolest, and besides they're not even really related, so it's cool.)
This takes place, by the way, in the clichéd Motoko/Keitaro moment of after they fight Motoko's sister, the gamble being they marry if they lose.
(Don't worry, I haven't necessarily picked any pairing yet. Vote in your reviews.)
Disclaimer: I don't own LoveHina or its characters. Akamatsu does, and he rocks. Who else could create someone as cool as Kanako?
Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
Hinata House, Keitaro's Room
Keitaro sighed as he slowly rolled out of his bed, his cast heavy and white.
He'd gotten used to the weight however; the physical weight was only one of the many pressures the accident had brought down upon him.
Since that day…
Keitaro sighed as his eyes slowly opened and closed wearily, feeling the burden of fatigue and time bear down upon his eyelids as Naru slowly rose and flashed that beautiful smile of hers.
She stared at the timepiece Keitaro forgot he'd even given her, and sighed.
"My, it's getting pretty late; I suppose I should get going…"
Keitaro almost gasped out loud, still exhausted.
"Y-You're leaving already? Why? Can't you stay any longer? Just a bit?"
He tried to hide the desperation in his voice as much as he could. He felt a sudden absurd feeling of abandonment and failure. Yet another failure fate had dealt his life. She was going ahead to Tokyo U, leaving him behind in her tracks.
"I have class tomorrow, don't you remember?"
Oh…he remembered alright…His body was aching again.
"Don't worry though Keitaro, I promise I'll drop by later. See you later, okay?"
Suddenly, in the deepest corner of Keitaro's mind, he could see it, the inevitable.
Her visits slowly ebbing away, as well as her attention towards him as she enjoyed the social life of campus, staying late after school...talking with other boys…ones that weren't temporarily crippled failures. He could feel her slowly drift away right there, as if she were from another world now…
Oh who was he kidding, she'd always been otherworldly, above him, he'd never had a chance.
He watched hopelessly as she stood, her skirt fluttering as she made her way towards the door.
Keitaro peered numbly at her long legs, and then tried to speak, only stutters and grunts coming forth.
"Wai-…uh…Nar…wai…"
Please don't go…Please don't go…Don't let her go…
There's a good chance that… There's a good chance that…
If…If I let go of her now…then maybe…Just maybe I'll never get to see her again…
He swallowed, clenching his fists and making his decision.
It may have been pure desperation, or the hormones rushing through him, or the morphine for his leg, or maybe just some horrendously inane whim brought on by the whispering of a turtle girl, but he committed to a single phrase that moment, a phrase of finality and emptiness.
"NARU! WANT TO TELL YOU THAT…I LOVE YOU!"
He yelled it out, loud but delicate, at the same time reaching out and grasping towards her nice behind in the distance, like some stargazer reaching out to touch the light of a dying star millions of light years away.
She stopped right in here tracks, stiffening, as if he had told her he hated her (For hate and love are similar you see, both are blind passion spliced with misery), or as if he had shot her in the back, betraying her with the change of this confession.
She turned her head slightly around after what seemed like hours, he still in that desperate almost imaginatively lecherous position of grasp, her face almost as crimson as her flowing locks of hair, her face twisted into an odd expression.
Keitaro could read it well, oddly enough, but even though he could clearly see the emotions there, they told him nothing really.
Wide eyes of disbelief and betrayal, sweaty wet brow of nervousness and rejection, soft red cheeks of embarrassment and confusion.
It didn't help much, and it certainly didn't help either when she sprang out of the room, darting away like a falling star.
Keitaro sighed.
He was used to the patient loneliness, waiting for the chance to fulfill his promise, his most important promise.
But now he was on the brink of Tokyo U (more or less) and it seemed in the end that he was even more confused and lonely.
He felt horrendously lonely, even with all the girls crowded around him at Hinata.
Mutsumi Otohime, young, beautiful, possibly his promise girl, kind and affectionate. Any other man would've sprung at the chance to have a beautiful relationship with her. But he had not, crippled by indecisiveness, and now she was off to Tokyo U ahead of him like Naru, sure to, like her, forget about him after a few weeks of the exciting new education and social life.
Shinobu Maehara…well, he didn't understand why he was thinking of her at this point. Maybe the smell of breakfast cooking now pervading around the house. She was nice enough, although she seemed to constantly act odd whenever he was around, She was considerate at least, and never added problems to anyone else's list of troubles.
Mitsune Konno…hah…she was simply a trickster, a nice but saucy girl who enjoyed riling him up and trying to lower her rent money with her charms.
Kaolla Su…well, she was a nice young, but odd girl, who mostly thought of Keitaro as a fun toy or punching bag. It was alright though, painful, but the invincibility helped…Sarah usually came along with her.
Then…finally…Motoko.
Usually thoughts of her came along with images of her shouting in anger, chasing him down, or unleashing some horrendously painful move upon him (or a combo of those three). But recently different images had haunted his thoughts and even dreams. Haunted because he knew they were wrong, she would kill him if she ever found out, literally slice him in twain.
These images were odd and startling, and he knew exactly where they'd come from.
Her calm smile, the feeling of her soft lips colliding painfully against his, her crumpled body against his…begging for help…as he wrapped his arms tight around her body…
Keitaro shook his head, slapping away his blush and fantasies as he made his way down the stairs towards the dining room.
That had never happened, but such moments still haunted them, those of memory and fantasy, and he couldn't be sure exactly why.
He sighed as he made his way down the stairs, smiling at Shinobu's friendly face as she greeted him with the same "Good morning sempai".
"Good morning…"
He sat down without any other words, in total silence.
Having woken up earlier, it was basically only him and Shinobu, and she made no real effort to talk to him, inexplicably nervous and shy.
Keitaro smiled at her once more for measure as he finally finished his breakfast and glass of orange juice, waving peacefully to her.
She always did seem to bring him to calm…when she wasn't crying, of course.
"I think…I'll go for a morning walk Shinobu, thanks for the breakfast, it was great."
Shinobu seemed to beam with the reply as Keitaro slowly turned and left the House through the front doors.
"Thank you, sempai…"
Keitaro continued to walk and walk, or more or less hobbling, onward, not really thinking at all. Too tired and overloaded to think, or to stop and give his aunt any greeting other than a numbed wave and a long distance mouthed "Hello".
She seemed to nod at this, although Keitaro couldn't tell if she was acknowledging his greeting or his apathy.
In the end, it didn't matter too much, all he wanted to do was to get out of the house as quickly as possible; before any of the girls that were drifting through his mind appeared before him.
He'd already fretted about all of them enough for the past week, it was starting to wear on him, and he realized he simply needed a quick excursion by himself, without Naru's confusing glances, Shinobu's shyness, Motoko's brash actions, and flying dropkicks to the cranium from certain foreign exchange student.
Although he was physically invincible, or apparently very hard to physically damage, he still felt the pain inside his mind and heart, as well as the rest of his body, it wasn't like he had numbed nerves or anything like that.
Keitaro sighed as such thoughts drifted through his usually more optimistic mind, slowly stepping onto the street and-
"Oof!"
Keitaro recoiled and then stumbled backwards, realizing that as he'd blindly made his way off the curb, he'd stepped on something, something soft and warm.
He toppled over from surprise, landing on his behind on the curb as something groaned in front of him, a squirming mass of humanity on the street.
Keitaro gasped, realizing what it was, a young teenage male, appearing to be around Shinobu's age, crumpled up on the street, with scratches and dust covering his face. He appeared to be unconscious.
Keitaro suddenly panicked, having no idea what had happened or what he could do.
Argh! I didn't kill him by stepping on him, did I! What's he doing outside Hinata House's entrance! Is he homeless? At this age!
Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan
Hinata House, Dining Room
Shinobu smiled calmly as the entire house began to slowly become a living, breathing, dropkicking, screaming thing, as it always did in the morning.
Mutsumi first came in, with a polite greeting, then inevitably tripped over her chair and almost cracked her skull.
Then came Motoko, usually after an early training session and shower. She'd seemed to become more and more aloof, not really talking as much, and she acted weirder towards Keitaro now, not just horrendous rage and slicing fury.
Then came Su, always hyper and giggling, bouncing her way in and pouncing on other people as if she just liked touching and being touched, like a sort of acceptance thing. Albeit, Keitaro wasn't there like he usually would be that morning, so she had no one to dropkick, especially Motoko seemed to gloomy to joke around.
In the end, Mitsune would usually always come last, yawning and saying she'd had a good deal of "Beauty sleep".
This was the daily routine most of the time, with Keitaro and Naru coming in at often ever-changing times, especially when they'd pulled off long bouts of overnight studying.
But Shinobu was fine with that, she liked everything being in order without any real change, sort of like….
My relationship with sempai.
She was the girl for which nothing would change.
Suddenly the front door opened wide, startling her, and Keitaro stumbled in, evidently bearing something heavy
The group around her opened their eyes wide in shock as Keitaro groaned from fatigue and lay the young boy in his arms as delicately as he could on the kitchen floor. It'd been obviously a grueling task dragging/carrying the young teenager there, since he was still injured.
Naru gasped, apparently not noticing that.
"What in the heck is that? Keitaro, you can't just dump him over here!"
Su smiled, beaming.
"Oooh! A new toy?"
Motoko's eyes blazed.
"Urashima? What are you doing bringing more men in here!"
Mitsune smiled.
"He's only a kid Motoko, geez…"
They all circled around the silent, slumped over young man, staring at him.
His eyes were shut close, and he had a messy shock of long black hair along with what was adolescent stubble and although there were cuts and dirt on his skin, it seemed evident that he was handsome, at least in a vague way.
Keitaro stared, beleaguered, at the others, explaining where he'd discovered the boy, and what had happened.
Naru scratch her head.
"Well, we can't exactly keep him here, can we? There's got to be something we can do…."
"Should we call the police?"
Suddenly a voice interrupted her, unfamiliar to the ears of every person in the room except the young mysterious boy.
"No."
He opened his eyes, revealing piercing and confused brown orbs, and then simply coughed, his face revealing confusion and turmoil.
"No…I can…get up myself…"
He slowly stood, like a wounded animal, and the entire group around him backed away quickly, as if he were dangerous.
But after only one unsteady, wobbling step, he'd plummeted straight back to the ground, groaning as no one caught him and stopped his collision.
The group stood in silence for a few minutes, confused.
"So…what do we do?"
"Well, go ahead and put him in Keitaro's room for now! "
"Huh? Wha? N-"
"Yeah, he is just some strange guy, we can't let him loose about the apartment. Have him rest in Keitaro's room, you watch him Keitaro, once he's better we can send him away.
Keitaro sighed as they began to lug the limp boy up the stares.
For someone who ignores most of the important things I say, Naru sure is one to still give out orders…
Well, done.
Awkward? Short? Lame?
Well, this was my very first chapter in my very first LoveHina fanfic ever…
Don't worry, it'll get better and the chapters will get longer as we…go along.
So just be patient…eheh
And remember, I still haven't decided the pairings yet, so don't worry people.
Well, see you next chapter!