I got very rhymey in this chapter. Yes, I know that isn't a word, but it is now. Go look in a dictionary and it'll be there. Why, you ask? Because I'm magical, that's why.

Anyway, I have no idea why, but a bunch of random parts of this have rhyming words in it.

Sorry it always takes a week to post; the weekends are the only days that I have time to finish the chapters and post.

Comment comment comment! I will love you if you do!

Damn. See, I'm rhyming already! Sad face…

Chapter 4

Arachnids Galore!

I was jolted awake by banging on the door of my dorm room. I sat up quickly, only to smack my head on the bunk above me. The resonating thunk of my head against the metal support of the top bunk made a sheet-covered lump on the floor stir. Holding my head, I stepped onto the floor and over to the door. Opening it, I saw a certain redhead standing in front of me.

"What do you want, Eiji?" I asked wearily, rubbing my eyes with my other hand.

Eiji was practically bouncing up and down as he rapidly communicated the urgency of the situation.

"R-Rikio-chan," he said, tears brimming in his wide, scared eyes. He grabbed both my hands so tightly that his knuckles turned white as he whispered hoarsely, "T-There's a sp-spider! It's fat! And it's in my room! It tried to attack me!"

I tried not to burst out laughing as Eiji stood in front of me, silently pleading for help.

I sighed, and asked, "Where is it?"

He tiptoed over to his room, which was next to mine in 219, and pointed to his desk through the open door. The spider was actually quite large; about 1 ½ inches in diameter. I personally wasn't afraid of spiders, so I found a cup and spare piece of lined notebook paper and let Eiji's source of terror outside.

Once I was back, the once again bouncy redhead tackled me again in a killer hug, but this time I didn't fall over, which was a big accomplishment. I only hit my head on my dorm room door, which gave me a headache.

"Thank you so much! Domo arigato gozaimasu!" And with that, he rocketed back into his room to go back to sleep.

Shaking my head and sighing, I reentered room 218. By now, the floor lamp was on and Fuji was awake, wrapped in a blanket and sitting against the side of his bed. He was looking down at the floor, one arm rested on a bent knee and the other casually cushioning his head against the sideboard of the bed. He looked up sharply when I shut the door, as if being yanked off a thought process.

"What did Eiji want?" Fuji asked, yawning. "I'm surprised you two didn't wake up everyone in the general vicinity with the racket you made."

On a side note, "general vicinity" for Eiji means 100 square feet in all directions around wherever he's currently present.

"Wasn't my fault," I countered quietly. "Eiji is the one who makes all of the noise."

"You have a point there. How's your head?"

"What? Oh," I felt my forehead. A bump was beginning to form. "Well, aside from a killer headache, I'm golden."I decided that just standing in the middle of the floor was an awkward position, so I took a seat in the desk chair.

Fuji, turning again to face me, said, "That sound your head made on the metal bars did not sound like orchestra material."

"You have no idea. How did I get there, anyway?" At that moment, I wondered why I was asking him. But as it turned out, it seemed that he had the answer.

"You fell asleep on the desk, so I decided it'd be easier to put you in my bed for the night. And I'm not trying to change the subject here or anything, but maybe you should have all three meals today instead of… oh, say… one." As soon as he mentioned it, I realized that I was famished. I hadn't eaten since about twelve o'clock the day before.

Fuji continued, "And they have mini cereal boxes as you walk into the cafeteria, so if you don't like the breakfast, you can have a few of those." I gave him a why-didn't-you-tell-me-this-before look, and then the clock tower bells struck six.

"We can head down to breakfast now, if you'd like," my roommate offered. I nodded, and we headed out to get the first meal of the day.

Again, Seigaku had genius designers. They put the cafeteria under the floor that held the rowdy first years. This setup not only put the eating area underground, but it also increased the noise threefold since the first years were yelling and screaming everywhere they went.

But anyway, Fuji and I were some of the first ones there. Out of the 10-ish people in line to get breakfast I recognized two- Tezuka and Oishi.

Upon discovering that a western-style breakfast was being served today, I happily joined the line to get my bacon, scrambled eggs, croissant, etc., all of the things that I enjoyed eating back in Oregon. Sitting beside Oishi and across from Fuji and Tezuka, I was starting to feel a bit homesick. The four of us ate in relative silence, and when I had finished I sighed.

The other three surrounding me looked up from what they were doing- Fuji and Oishi from eating and Tezuka from reading a very thick book.

"What's the matter, Rikio-san?" the mother hen next to me asked.

"I'm just… starting to miss Oregon," I explained. "I mean, I really love Tokyo and all, but I've been in America for as long as I can remember."

The other three didn't really have anything to say to that (not that Tezuka would've talked anyway), but we were saved from too long an awkward silence by Eiji clanking his plate down onto the table and sitting next to me. He launched into the story of the morning and how I had miraculously saved him from the evil spider and blah blah blah. His loud talking made Tezuka go straight back to his reading with one finger in the closest ear to Eiji.

The redhead ended his tall tale by giving me a bear hug and calling me his "savior." And being Eiji, when he gave hugs they never ended well. This time I was almost knocked into Oishi's lap, which would have been very, very bad. Instead, though, I found myself falling into his shoulder and then accidently into his arms, which were outstretched to the table. He hadn't meant to catch me in the first place, I could tell.

Eiji jerked back to his seat, apologizing over and over again. I quickly sat back up, blushing slightly, and decided that it was time to clear my eating area. As I left, I noticed that the mother hen was blushing as well, more so than I was.

The event of the morning made the rest of the day awkward (which, I decided, was going to be my eternal state of mind as long as I was at Seigaku), especially when I was paired up with Oishi in chemistry.

What was strange was that I had no recollection of finishing my task of copying Tezuka's notes, yet there they were, completely duplicated on another sheet of paper. I'd been diligently taking notes today, so I didn't need to borrow Mr. Stoic's notes again. Something made me really mad, though. The notes that I had asked Tezuka for were for Japanese History; the ones that he had given me were from English class, and they were dated a year ago. I was also ticked that I hadn't noticed this before. This, naturally, put me in a rather pissed off mindset as lunch rolled around, so I decided that I'd find somewhere else to sit.

Wandering through some empty corridors, I passed several kouhais' classrooms, one of which held two bickering 2nd years and another a sleeping freshman. I made my way up some stairs and out a door.

My eyes met with blue sky and clouds as I stepped onto the rooftop of Seigaku's classroom building. I couldn't believe that such a school as Seishun Academy could have such an awesome hang-out spot as this. I walked to a bordered edge and looked off into the horizon.

A sparkling lake and numerous houses could be seen in the distance, and on the Seigaku grounds alone I could see the baseball diamond, basketball court, and tennis courts all aligned in their own special way.

I sat down so that I could still see the landscape and began to eat in solitude. My anger had long since evaporated.

After a while, I heard the rooftop door open. Looking over, I saw a tall brunette with hair spiked at one side of his head standing there, staring at me.

"Ah, gomen," he said shyly. "I didn't know you were here. Sorry to disturb you…" And with that, he started to turn away and shut the door.

"Wait!" I shouted, louder than I meant to. He froze, startled, and then looked back at me.

I continued, "I'm not eating with anyone and I can see that you aren't either. Care to take a seat?"

He blinked a few times as he considered the invitation. Finally, he stepped onto the outside landing and let the door shut behind him as he walked over to me.

"Thank you," he said gratefully, sitting down. "I'm Takashi Kawamura, by the way, but you can call me Taka."

I smiled, and introduced myself. "Rikio Hisakawa. Nice to meet you. Are you a third year, too?"

Taka nodded. He opened a bento that held all kinds of different sushi. I just stared, aghast.

"Did you make that?" I asked, amazed.

He concurred. "I'm training to be a sushi chef, and I practice every day. After middle school, I'm going to stop playing tennis and train full time."

"I bet you never get tired of making sushi." I smiled.

We chatted for a while longer, and then our conversation was interrupted by the clock tower bells signaling that class was going to start soon. As we both stood up and brushed ourselves off, Taka looked over at me and asked, "What did you do to your head? It's very purple."

My hand subconsciously went to my forehead, and sure enough, there was quite a large bump there.

"I hit my head this morning on my bunk bed. I know it sounds weird, but that's how it happened."

He laughed quietly. "I hope it gets better soon. But now I have to get back to my class so I'm not late. Being at the other end of the wing isn't always the best thing." He smiled and headed inside. I followed suit, only pausing to hear a daily announcement about sports clubs.

I was glad when sensei let us out early, and I practically ran to the Seigaku office and back to my dorm room, carrying a pamphlet.

Plopping my backpack down on the floor and quickly climbing the ladder up to my bed, I opened the paper leaflet. There were so many sports to choose from, and I didn't know which ones I wanted to try.

Fuji entered the room quietly after a while, and walked up to the bunk beds.

"What are you reading?" He asked, peering through the bars on my bed to the small book. I handed him the now well-thumbed booklet, and as he read the title, his smile slowly faded.

"You're not thinking of doing sports, are you?"He asked, a firm expression on his face.

"Yeah," I answered. "I don't see any problem with that."

"Do you want to be expelled as soon as possible?"

"Well, no, but I'd like to enjoy my last year of middle school."

"There are other things you can do that don't involve sports."

"You could help me."

"…" He didn't have anything to say to that. He just stared at me sternly with his gorgeous azure eyes.

I finished my sentence, "I don't think it's a bad idea for me to join any sports teams. I'm a careful person." Right then, I regretted saying that last sentence.

"So how did I discover that you were a girl if you're so careful? Only paying attention to detail won't help you from other people finding out your identity. Other people won't have a problem with turning you in. You shouldn't risk everything you have here for your own selfish want to indulge yourself in your desired activities."

"That was a bit rude." I was starting to be a bit angry.

"You wouldn't listen if I put it lightly." He tossed the pamphlet back so that it landed right in front of my face and into the bathroom for a shower.

I was now faced with a dilemma. I could go with my own wants or follow the direction of my idol. But since I was hot-headed at the moment, I decided to not listen to Fuji. Then, all that I had to decide was which clubs to choose…

You like?

Okay, who can tell me the three regulars that appeared other than Taka? Their names weren't mentioned but their characteristics were shown.

Riko is a bad girl not to listen to reason. What'll happen next? Chapter 5 coming soon!

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