Chapter 2

Strange

Akane wasn't a huge fan of... red-heads.

Especially now.

Though she was kind of a red-head herself, seeing as she had bright red tips, she disliked them.

Why?

Because of a certain red-head that caused everything to change.

Ever since he happened to appear in her life, things started to go differently. It was louder than usual. Way, way louder than usual. It was completely different.

And that pissed her off.

Currently, her new students that sat around her was trying to make a conversation with her. She didn't answer, or respond or anything of course. It was all just unnecessary.

Ah, stupid people, she'd love to say that out loud.

Who would want to answer such a stupid question like, "Why are you so quiet?" It was a very stupid question, an opinion from Akane herself. She thought it was a very unnecessary question.

I mean, isn't obvious why? She didn't want to be talking with people like those.

"Hey, how old are you?" Stupid kid #1 shouted.

"Are you single?" Stupid kid #2 asked.

"Hey, you're hot~!" Dumbass #100000 said.

He would regret saying that.

Akane stood up from her seat, causing everyone to look at her. Including Kikumaru, who was busy talking with Oishi. Or should she say, pouncing on him.

She glared at the moron student. "Don't compliment me." She looked at all the other students who backed away in fear when she did. "And you others, don't talk to me. Don't even start a conversation. It annoys me."

And out the door she stomped.

Everyone stared at the retreating figure, and immediately scowled in disgust. "That's so mean!" One chick complained. "She didn't need to yell at us!"

"Yeah!" Another agreed.

Soon the class started rioting, complaining about the attitude Akane had just presented.

The teacher sulked in the corner. "I can't get them to stop..." Red mushrooms started to grow around the area she was huddling in.

Oishi noticed the recent increase of mushrooms in the classroom.

He sweat-dropped. "Sensei, stop growing mushrooms. We have no where to put them now! Unless Eiji eats it or something. Hey Eiji!" He glanced next to him to see that his friend was gone.

"Huh?" He looked around to see that he wasn't in the classroom anymore. "I wonder where he went..."

He turned back around.

"Sensei!" He gasped, "The mushrooms have taken over the classroom! We must stop this!"

XxX

Akane walked out the noisy room, grumbling to herself. "Stupid classmates. They don't need to bother me!"

She overheard the students complaining about her and... mushrooms? She shook her head.

She probably heard wrong.

"Hey!" A very familiar voice called out. Akane sighed. Red-head. Always the red-head. Oh how she hated that man. Or boy. Yeah, boy is more suitable.

Akane turned around.

"What?" She grunted out. Akane really didn't want to see him. Especially after how much her classmates annoyed her.

She saw that he was running towards her at an amazing speed. What the hell? she thought, her eyes widened. How can he run that fast? It's like he's a freaking monkey or something.

He caught up to her, not even breaking a sweat. Not even panting. She stared at the boy in front of her, mezmerized at the sight. "That's inhumanly impossible." She muttered, not aware that she was speaking her thoughts.

Kikumaru smiled, hearing her comment. "Its possible!"

Inhuman ears.

This guy was definitely an alien.

She let out a quiet gasp. Kikumaru raised a teasing brow.

"I didn't say anything." She denied with a frown on her face.

He laughed. "You're funny, Akane!"

She didn't say anything, nor was she bothered by it. It was a really strange phenomenon. One of the seven wonders of the world. Whoa.

Akane didn't bother to deny it, or make a witty comment. It was very strange of her. Something wasn't going very well.

Kikumaru laughed once again.

His laugh was different. Something about it made it stand out than all the others. She always thought that everyone's laugh was the same. But something about his laugh was weird. Maybe it was the pitch, or tone? No, it was something else.

She slightly shook her head.

Maybe I'm sick...

"You know, you really could run as fast as me!" He continued, snapping Akane out of her daze.

"Huh?" Was her intelligent response.

"You just need to train everyday, and do your best! Oh, and make sure you eat healthy too... Oh, but I don't do that... I eat cake and sweets everyday..." Kikumaru trailed off, and scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. "Ah, you could just ignore those last sentences, nya..."

Akane stared at the boy in confusion. What was he rambling on about? And why was he here? Why was he here?

Kikumaru stopped his extremely long speech once he noticed that she wasn't listening. "Akane?"

"Why are you here?" She suddenly asked.

He gave her a curious glance before he smiled and answered, "Because you suddenly walked out! Ya know, people in the class were talking bad about you!" He pouted, and crossed his arms. "I thought they were nice people, nya!"

Nya? What the hell is, 'Nya'?

Akane blinked. Once. Twice.

Whatever.

She turned back around, and walked away from Kikumaru. He frowned, and walked right beside her. "Hey, nya! Where are you going?"

Akane turned to the boy, and muttered, "The roof."

"But class is starting soon!"

She stopped, and she never would've admitted it, but she sweat-dropped. "Eh..."

Kikumaru noticed the face she was making, and laughed. "Come on, lets go back!"

Akane sighed, and followed the red-head back to their class.

She was being swayed by his alien powers.

XxX

For some strange reason, large piles of mushrooms were scattered all over the place.

Akane stared, and then realized it had to be someone sulking in the mushroom corner. She rolled her eyes. Who installed that in the classroom anyways? It was annoying, and had a huge difference between the other classes.

Kikumaru was playing in the pile of poisonous mushrooms, throwing them at various people.

People like Oishi, Chick #1, Chick #2, Dumbass #100000, oh, and Akane herself.

And she was pissed. Again.

Kikumaru saw the glare in her eyes, and shrunk down to fit at the size of her palm. "Don't kill me Akane..."

She stopped glaring, and smirked.

You're on.

She threw a mushroom at Kikumaru's face, and took cover behind a desk that was conveniently placed beside her.

"NYAYA!" He shouted in surprise, and fell on his cat butt.

Oishi backed up, surprised. Never in his life had he heard his friend make that... interesting sound before. He glanced at Akane and Kikumaru who were in the middle of a Mushroom War. Something was going on here!

He smiled, and wiggled his eyebrows knowingly. It was a very creepy sight.

And he fell back, a mushroom stamp engraved on his face.

He heard Kikumaru.

"Don't make that weird face, Oishi! You're completely defenseless, nya!"

He got up, a demon glint in his eyes.

"Ohoho? We'll see about that."

Mushroom Revolution!

XxX

Akane lasted the whole day, fortunately. She got away with a Mushroom War which was NOT FUN at all. She'd never admit it.

After all, Akane hated change. She never admitted anything. At least, out loud.

She continued to walk home, oblivious to the green ball spinning towards her. Very oblivious.

It flew past her face, barely missing her pale cheek. I mean the face.

"What the hell?" She mumbled, looking around for the source. She met her eyes with the tennis courts.

People were playing matches. Well, obviously. Its a tennis court, for Cheese's sake. Of course people would be playing matches. What else would they do, have a boxing match?

"Nya!"

She knew that annoying voice anywhere. Akane grimaced when an image of Kikumaru appeared in her head. A stupid cat like grin and a UFO in the background.

"Can you give us the ball... Akane?"

She turned around, and handed him the desired ball. "What?"

He shrugged. "Never mind! What are you doing here?"

She raised a brow, and motioned towards the direction she was going in. But it didn't seem like he was catching on very well, seeing as his face was scrunched up, trying to make do what she was trying to tell him. She sighed. "I'm walking home, idiot."

He laughed nervously. "Ahaha... I knew that, nya!" He glanced at his team mates who were waiting for his return. Kikumaru smiled at Akane, "Ne, would you like to watch us play? Tennis, of course!"

"Tennis?" She questioned. This guy was a tennis player? Didn't seem like one. Not even looking like one. He looked... too weak, I guess? Too skinny. Too stupid-looking.

Without warning, Kikumaru grabbed Akane's hand, and skipped merrily back to the tennis courts, not noticing her struggles to get out of his grasps. Damn! This guy's grip is strong! She scowled, and let him drag her everywhere.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

Get dragged by some dude that you just noticed and met yesterday?

Nope, not supposed to happen. Not in a million years.

Oishi was at the courts, waiting for his friend to return. He looked up to see him, and his assumed girlfriend, Akane? Yup, that was her name.

Kawamura looked over to see Oishi's confused face. "What's wrong, Oishi?" Oishi pointed to Akane and Kikumaru, who were just skipping around like idiots, not caring about a single thing in the world.

"Saa... Kikumaru has a girlfriend? This is new." A sudden voice said. And it was... Echizen! No, it wasn't. It's just Fuji.

The comment caused everyone to gather around, including Tezuka, who had no idea what was going on.

Kikumaru and an angered Akakne finally arrived at the tennis courts. Finally.

Fuji, of course, was the first one to speak. "Saa, Kikumaru... Who might your new friend be?"

He glanced at Akane. "Oh!" Kikumaru began. "This is Chiharu Akane! She's my friend!"

Ryoma smirked. "Friend, eh? Kikumaru-senpai, are you sure that's all you are?" He nodded, "What are you talking about, Ochibi? Of course she's my friend! What else can she be?"

Such an idiot he was. Able to notice a relationship unfold in front of him, but unable to notice the relationship unfolding that he's involved in. Now kids, this is the appropriate time to call Kikumaru a Dense Idiot.

Akane frowned. What did she do to deserve this? Maybe she was God's Golden Target or something.

Finally, Kikumaru introduced everyone.

Lets see...

The arrogant kid with the hat= Echizen Ryoma
The guy who never cracked a smile= Tezuka Kunimitsu
The guy who has that stupid angelic smile= Fuji Syusuke
The BABY guy= Takashi Kawamura
Spiky Dude= Momoshiro Takeshi
FSSHHH guy= Kaidoh Kaoru
And... The mother hen= Shuichiro Oishi

Oh, and the damned red-head... KIKUMARU EIJI. Oh she was gonna murder the dude.

But how was she gonna explain the reason behind that to the cops...?

Oh, I just met him yesterday and I hate his guts because he changed my life? Yeah, not a very good reason.

After Kikumaru introduced everyone, he dragged her over to the stands. "Now, you can just stay here! It's the perfect place to watch!"

The tennis team watched as Kikumaru chatted with the girl they just met. Ryoma smirked. "I never knew Kikumaru-senpai was capable of getting a girlfriend. How interesting." Fuji and Momoshiro, who were standing next to the tennis prodigy, were having the same thoughts.

Momo clenched his fists excitedly and turned to Fuji. "Now I have a reason to make fun of Kikumaru-senpai! OH YEAH."

He turned around to see Kikumaru happily skipping back to the tennis courts.

He caught up to the team, and grabbed his things. "Hoi Hoi! Let's continue playing the game now!"

Kikumaru continued to play tennis like there was no difference before. Oh, he was wrong. He didn't notice that they all had knowing smirks on their faces.

XxX

Akane glanced around. She met her eyes with two girls and two boys cheering for them.

Why were they cheering? It wasn't an official game.

Weird people.

She sighed. How did she get so easily dragged into this? Ah, the damn red-head.

Akane turned around, watching Kikumaru play tennis as if he was an acrobat. "Wait, he doesn't get tired after doing all those flips?" She muttered, "then he must have amazing endurance..."

It was like a puzzle piece.

Kikumaru was a tennis player, not to mention an acrobatic one. Meaning... he would have to run extremely fast. So that was the reason why he ran so fast.

She snapped out of her thoughts, and just watched the game unfold in front of her fire-red eyes. She noticed how much he changed when he was playing tennis. Kikumaru was a lot more focused and more determined.

He looked more... handsome...

Akane's eyes snapped open. She did not think that.

She angrily shook her head, trying to fight off the creeping blush.

Damn it, Red-Head! This is all your fault!

There was it! This by far is the longest chapter I have written. I am so proud of myself.

Anyways, this chapter was more focused a bit more on the humorous side and some development in their relationship.

If you enjoyed the chapter review. If not, then review and complain about it.

Reviews are appreciated! BYE!