The Mask

Chapter Three

We Make a Connection

"So… basically, you're crushing big time on this classmate of yours who hardly says a word," Kyouko said, later that evening. We were in a restaurant after training, late night dinner for the girls. Kazu had gone home, a stickler for his own rules.

I blushed into my cheese pizza. This was embarrassing, these girls were like my sisters but they had never experienced what I was experiencing. School, a crush on a classmate, it was so confusing.

"Shush. He's sooo cute. And when he does talk," I paused to sigh, "it's like, boom, butterflies. And when we shook hands there was electricity," I said. The five girls around me, the girls who were the closest things I had to sisters, all looked at each other before grins broke out on their faces.

"Ooooh sounds like Bi-chan is crushing hard and fast!" Miyuki said, a devious grin on her face. I could tell it was Miyuki, because her Pizza was covered in spinach. Miyuki only ate green foods. Sayuki only ate things that were orange or yellow, so her pizza was covered in pineapple. Other than that the twins were utterly identical in every possible way… physically. Both had dark black hair pulled back into tight ponytails, dark brown eyes, a mole high on their left cheek, and both were crazy good at the floor routines.

"Bi-chan can crush all she wants but she can't touch unless she wants the boot," Sumi said through her pizza crust. She was a rough girl, she and Kyouko were from a rough part of town, Sumi was a former yankee, and Kyouko came from a shelter.

Sumi's hair was bleached and her eyebrows plucked thin, a tattoo decorated her ribs which was thankfully always covered by her leotard around the officials, and piercings decorated her ears, her routines were fluid, beautiful, and deadly.

Kyouko didn't wear her roughness on her sleeve, she wore it in her routines, all barbs and spikes, telling stories in each of her routines. Telling them, I'm here and I will not go down that easily. Her hair was black and short, her eyes a light brown, her body long and lithe. She looked like a freakin elf.

"I won't, I know where the boundaries are," I reassured, pointing my crust around at each of them.

"As long as you make sure you don't overstep those boundaries Hanabi," Kyouko said.

"It's healthy to have a crush. Makes us gymnasts seem almost like normal girls," Aiko said, stoic as ever. She was the team captain, and for good reason. She was always ready for business, but wasn't above doing things with the team. She also always knew when was a time to get the officials, and when things should just be resolved between teammates.

We all stilled. She did not…

"Ai-chan, did you just…" Miyuki said.

"I think she did," Sayuki agreed.

"Aiko-chan, you just made a joke," I said. Aiko said nothing, just continued to eat her cheese pizza. Like me, she didn't have anything on hers other than cheese. She looked so beautiful, her hair long and curly, a brilliant shade of black, her eyes bright and hazel, tall, thin, and graceful as a swan. If Kyouko was an elf, Aiko was the wind itself.

"See, Ai-chan approves a crush, just remember. We're the best Japan has to offer, we can't let something stupid like boys distract us from that," Sumi said, winking at me. I grinned and stuffed my face with my piece of pizza.

We laughed the entire night, at least until ten, and ended the night splitting ways at the gym. My house was down the street from there and it was easier to keep our bags there.

After my teammates had left, I stayed behind, making sure I was alone before beginning my solitary practice.

I practice for hours, rotating beam, floor, and bars, I kept at it until past midnight. Not intentionally though, I forgot to keep checking the time. I get so wrapped up in my gymnastics, I have my music blaring and I just get so focused. I lose all sense of the outside world, just my own little bubble of gymnastics.

BREAK

The next day, I was dead to the world. I thought I was going to oversleep, so I set my alarm clock extra early so that I could wake up.

Yeah, my alarm clock worked extra well and I got up at five, thinking it was seven, and basically ran to school only to be the first one there.

And I do mean first. I had to wait on someone to come and unlock the door.

So as I waited, I sat against the wall, head tilted back as I tried to get some sleep.

I only looked up when I heard someone approaching, thinking it was a teacher. Instead of having to get up and go to the classroom to sleep in my desk, I was pleasantly surprised to find Hatsuharu staring down at me.

"Hey," he said.

"Hi," I said back, my voice raspy from both sleep and the fact that I was afraid that my voice would crack if I spoke any louder.

"Why are you here so early?" Hatsuharu asked, moving to sit down as well. He didn't sit exactly next to me, it was about three feet away.

"Short version, alarm clocks suck. You?" I asked back.

"Felt like it."

"That is a wonderful reason," I said in a mock serious tone. When he didn't respond back, I began to panic a bit.

I was just a total freak, that was a lame thing to say, I shouldn't have said anything.

"It helps to stretch before doing the exercises. That way your shoulders won't be sore after," Hatsuharu said suddenly. My head snapped up to look at him, eyebrows raised.

"What?" I asked dumbly.

"Yesterday, as you walked to the changing rooms, you were rubbing your shoulders like they were hurting you. Doing some stretches before should help," he explained. He didn't look at me, only stared ahead. My heart soared, he had thought about me, given me advice on how to not be in pain. I tried really hard not to blush.

"Oh, well, it's not that it was hurting, it was just a bit sore because I'm not really used to doing things repetitively, at least not like that. But thank you, really. It's nice of you to think of me," I said, pushing my bangs back out of my face. My hair was pulled back again, as it always was, but I was suddenly self-conscious about it.

Hatsuharu only shrugged, and we sat there. After a while, a teacher came and unlocked the door for us, but we didn't move. I didn't want to, both for the fact that I was so tired and for the fact that I was sitting with Sohma Hatsuharu! Hatsuharu didn't make a move to get up, and neither did I.

It was close to eight when we finally moved, and that was because Momiji came bounding up towards us with too much energy for anyone to exert in the morning.

"Guten Morgen!" he yelled to us. I smiled up at him.

"Hi Momiji-kun," I said. I pushed myself to a standing position, pulling my backpack onto my shoulders.

"Hanabi-chan! Today you have to eat lunch with us! I want you to meet my friend Tohru!" Momiji said grabbing onto my hand. I laughed, he was so energetic.

"I'd be happy to meet your friend Momiji-kun," I told him. Momiji seemed to shine at my words and then began to pull me forward. My tired body simply let him, though my tired mind was screaming for me to stop and just go to sleep on the pavement. Hatsuharu followed behind us as Momiji animatedly talked to me about random topics.

Class that day was murder, History I sort of blanked on, I barely concentrated on Science and Math, and by the time lunch rolled around, I'd forgotten what the teacher's name was. I was curled up on my desk, prepared to sleep the entire lunch away, when a persistent prod kept poking my left wrist.

I thought about ignoring it, but then an adorable voice spoke up.

"Hanabi-chan, are you okay?" Momiji's voice said right next to my ear. The tone was so cute, like a child, I had to look up.

I sat up, and stretched my arms high as I tried to stretch the tiredness away.

"I'm okay, just a bit tired," I said, yawning. My eyes clenched themselves shut in the yawn, drawing little pricks of tears to the corners of my eyes.

"Do you still want to meet Tohru?" he asked. I dropped my arms and opened my eyes, my brown eyes meeting his, and smiled sleepily.

"Of course I do Momiji. Let me get my lunch and we can go," I said. Momiji grinned at me and I smiled back. I couldn't help but notice that Hatsuharu was absent and I wondered if maybe he and his cousin weren't as close as I believed.

"Haru went on ahead, don't worry," Momiji said, walking with me to my locker. My steps faltered slightly, as did my heart rate. What did he just say?

"Eh?" I asked, surprised. What was he talking about? Momiji only looked back at me and smiled before pressing a finger to his lips.

"I won't tell," Momiji whispered conspiratorially. My eyes widened for a split second. Surely he couldn't mean my crush on Hatsuharu could he? It was just a small meaningless crush, I couldn't do anything about it!

I stayed silent, and hastened my steps towards my locker.

Once there, I opened my backpack and took out my lunch and my cell phone. I needed to send a quick text to Kazu saying I wouldn't be able to call today and that I'd see them after school.

"Oh! Hanabi-chan, we should exchange numbers!" Momiji said excitedly upon seeing my phone. He pulled his out of the pockets of his shorts, which by the way were about as short as some of my running shorts.

"We definitely should Momiji-kun, don't give me your number yet, I have to send a text first," I said, smiling at Momiji. My eyes were closed, I did that sometimes when I smiled, so I didn't see Momiji take a picture of me until after I heard the click and I opened my eyes back up.

Momiji grinned mischievously at me as I playfully pouted.

"Momiji-kun," I said warningly.

"But you looked so cute Hanabi-chan," he said. I rolled my eyes, smiling despite myself, and sent a text to my friends. We exchanged numbers, after Momiji stole my phone to take a photo of himself, and went off to lunch.

I should have pieced it together, I really should have.

"Hanabi-chan, meet my friend Honda Tohru," Momiji said to me upon reaching the lunch spot. I blinked a bit, having lost my focus for a second, before my eyes zeroed in on the girl in question.

"Eh, Honda-senpai?" I said, confused. No way; I, for real, met a friend of theirs? Hatsuharu was sitting near a guy I recognized as Sohma Yuki. Tohru was seated with her two friends from yesterday and there was another guy there too with really cool looking orange hair.

Tohru pieced together where she'd met me as well and started behaving all frantic like.

"OH! Itsue-san! I didn't realize you and Momiji-kun were friends! That's so wonderful!" she said. She smiled so brightly, and she was so polite, I almost thought she was being sarcastic.

"We're doing a class project together with Hatsuharu-kun," I told her. Momiji nodded in agreement as he went to claim a seat between Tohru and Yuki. I sat down in a open spot by the Goth girl, smiling at her slightly.

"Hi," I greeted.

"Hello…" she responded.

"Itsue-san-" Tohru started, before I cut her off.

"You can call me Hanabi, Honda-senpai," I said quickly. I hated being called by my family name, it was a pet peeve. Everyone needed to call me Hanabi or I'd seriously start to dislike that person. I smiled to show that I was sorry for interrupting her.

"Your waves are very conflicted," the goth girl beside me said, before Tohru had the chance to speak again. When I turned to look at her, she met my gaze with a blank one of her own.

"What nonsense are you spouting now?" Orange top sniped.

"At first, your waves seemed very calm, but beneath there are many different layers… The strongest and most vibrant being a vicious one," she said. I felt a presence in my head, pressing down threateningly on me. What was she doing? She was causing this? Instead of freaking out, I smiled.

"I should hope so. Viciousness is something I can't afford not to have," I laughed. This earned me stares from each of them, so I elaborated. "I'm a gymnast, I compete frequently. I can't be all buddy buddy with the other competitors, if I do, I'll feel bad about crushing them into dust in front of the judges." I said all of this smiling, not allowing them to see my inner embarrassment.

"Right… So gymnast, that's the thing where you move around to music in front of an audience right?" the blonde said. She sat on the other side of the goth, almost next to Hatsuharu.

I pondered this. "Um, I don't know. We have music to go to, but there are lots of things where you could move around to music in front of an audience. Pop star, dancer, porn star-" at the last comment, the orange haired guy and the blonde girl started freaking out. I'm glad I wasn't opposite from orangey, because he had spit his water out all over Hatsuharu.

"THAT'S DISGUSTING!" he yelled, glaring at me.

"WHO THINKS OF SHIT LIKE THAT?" the girl yelled. I kept my face blank as my insides started squirming. Dammit, I'd said something stupid again.

"I was just being honest…" I said, trying not to bite my lip.

"Well don't! Keep that kind of shit to yourself," Orange hair said. I was beginning to apologize when something surprising happened.

And I don't mean the fact that a spider crawled up Momiji's leg and he did not freak out.

"So you want her to keep her comments to herself just because she says stuff that you don't like?" Hatsuharu said. I looked over at him, surprised. We all did other than Momiji.

He looked angry, hell, he sounded angry. His voice was darker and rougher than usual, just like his eyes. His eyes were normal a pretty soft grey color, but now they were dark and turbulent, bordering on the color black.

"Hatsuharu-kun," I started, but was cut off.

"Stuff it Haru, you're no better. You say that kind of shit left and right, but she's a girl," orange hair said, gesturing towards me. I sat there uncomfortably, trying not to look as uncomfortable as I felt.

"You're just pissy because now you're not the only one with orange hair," Hatsuharu said, smirking.

"What'd you say brat?" orange hair snapped. Hatsuharu's smirk grew wider.

"You heard me Kyo, you're jealous because someone else has the same hair color only hers actually looks good," he said. I blinked. Did he just compliment me?

"Why you little punk!" Orange haired started to reach towards Hatsuharu, when a hand came down on Hatsuharu's head. I blinked twice together now, before connecting the hand to a calm looking Yuki.

"Ah, Yuki-kun," Tohru said, hands up ready to help. My eyes stayed on Hatsuharu, to make sure he was okay, but when he looked up, he acted like nothing was wrong, like nothing had just happened. His eyes were even back to their normal color.

"What just happened?"

"You flipped out again Haru, Yuki calmed you down again!" Momiji said as if that explained it all. Which it did… kind of… sort of… no, not at all really.

"Ah, I see, it's like that," Hatsuharu said, looking towards Yuki. He then stood and bowed towards the other Sohma. "Thank you."

"Just sit down and eat Haru," Yuki said, going back to his meal.

I looked around to the others, Tohru seemed to have calmed down a bit, but everyone else seemed to not care that Hatsuharu had just flipped personalities. Well, Kyo seemed a bit pissed but it was relatively uncaring. But since I really didn't want to appear to be nosy or anything, I didn't ask what just happened. Though I really wanted to.

I think my being paired up with these two for project partners might just drive me into an early stress induced grave…

Author's Corner

Alright this one was shorter than the last, but longer than the first two.

Last chapter until I write more.

They probably won't be in bulk unless my mother grounds me again...

I only threw a shoe at her face...

(I'm not a morning person, and what else could I do when she keeps banging on my door like she's gonna break it down)

Okay, I'll see ya'll later after I write more.

Sincerely,

RHD