A/N: a thousand apologies! I haven't updated in forever! I was at UCSD for about a month with no access to a computer. And senior year is turning out to be a real bitch in terms of work. Oh and this chapter contains SPOILERS if you haven't read the more recent chapters of Shaman King. And a big thank you to Chokopoppo who is made out of all kinds of awesome and whose reviews make my life complete.
Bluebell Cafeteria
"How long has it been?" A plate was set down on top of the generic brown plastic tray.
"Um…a m-month now…" Tamao looked at the congealed mess that was cheerfully broadcast as "meatloaf" earlier that morning over the announcements.
"A month?" Pirika frowned as she waved at the lunch lady and motioned towards a salad.
"Yes." The lunch lady glared at both of them as they held up the line. "What do I do?" Tamao looked dangerously close collapsing in on herself.
"Ugh, my idiot of a brother!" The blue haired girl declared as she slammed down her lunch money. "He's so frustrating sometimes."
"I don't even know what I did..." she sighed as the two sat down at a relatively quieter table than they usually frequented. Pirika nodded solemnly with all the wisdom of a sixteen year old as she placed a napkin on her lap and folded her hands.
"Okay, can you run me through the whole thing again?"
Tamao stared at her plate. "Well, I didn't really notice it at first since we were really busy but I think that it started sometime after your cast party."
Pirika scrunched her nose up as she poked at her salad. "Did anything out of the ordinary happen at the cast party?"
She shook her head. "Not that I can think of."
The younger girl tentatively brought a leaf of lettuce up to her mouth. "When exactly did you start noticing that he was legitimately ignoring you?" She immediately spit the salad out into a napkin, hacking and coughing violently.
Tamao furrowed her brow as she passed Pirika a cup of water. "I suppose it would be after we returned each other's notebooks…"
She gasped for air. "Thank you." She handed the glass back to Tamao. "What's this about notebooks?"
"We both have the same type of notebook and we both brought it to the party. I guess we must have brought home the wrong ones. But when he gave it back to me…" Her voice trailed off.
"Did you write anything that could've like, offended him or something?" Pirika rested her head on her arm.
Tamao's eye twitched. "Oh dear…I didn't know it would've hurt him." She covered her face with her hands. Pirika kept quiet as Tamao told her about the journal entry she had mindlessly written a few months back.
"That's it?" She nodded. "My brother…is such…a drama queen. Really now. He's just overreacting." Pirika ran a hand through her hair. "An explanation would help a lot, wouldn't it?" She cleared her throat as Tamao nodded vehemently.
"So when we were younger, like way younger, we lived in Hokkaido, right? I know that this is really, really hard to believe but…there was a girl that liked Horohoro. And he liked her back." Tamao's head jerked back slightly, surprised and secretly envious.
"And they used to hang out a lot, yeah? But then she was the daughter of the contractor of the new dam that they were building there at the time so everyone hated her. Cuz no one wanted our beautiful river dammed up. Our father also ordered Horohoro to stop associating with her so he did. Then one day, during winter, I guess she was sick of him ignoring her so she followed him into the mountains…" She frowned sadly and shook her head. "She should never have done that. Only the natives can even hope of surviving a Hokkaido winter. In the mountains especially!"
She sighed. "It wasn't a surprise. She ended up freezing to death. And Horohoro has blamed himself for it…he's never liked another girl since. Or let himself care for another girl. You know Kororo? She gave that to him. It's already falling apart but he insists on hanging onto it. I get that he still is torn up about it but he's clinging too much to the past. That's why I keep refusing to fix it for him, he needs to learn to let go and move on."
"She also gave him the nickname Horohoro. She's still too much a part of him. And that's why it's such a big deal for him that he likes you. You're the first one that he's really, really cared about since her. Hey, no matter how much you or my brother try to deny it, he's really crazy about you!" Pirika countered after seeing a look of protest cross Tamao's face. "And I suppose that's also why something that wouldn't normally hurt another person really upset him; since you're the first person that he's really opened up to and your entry can be misinterpreted as you using him to get to Yoh…"
Tamao sniffed. "I really had no idea..."
Pirika shook her head fiercely. "No, no, no, it's not your fault. You could've never known that. No one knows about Damuko except for me and Joco!"
Tamao looked quizzically at her. "D-Damuko?"
"Her name was Damuko, I think." The bell rang. "Hey, come on, cheer up! At least you know why, so now you can fix it, right?"
Patch Theater—Premiere Night
"Are you nervous?"
"What? I mean, what?"
"I said, are…you…nervous…?"
"No, no…no, of course not. Why would you think that? I'm the most not-nervous person I know. I don't get nervous. Hah!" Pirika's voice cracked.
Ren stared at her. "Whatever you say." He leaned back to observe the audience on the other side of the curtain. "Oh look, Joco and Tamao are here," he remarked nonchalantly.
"Are you serious?!" She shoved Ren away to see for herself. "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. I thought Horohoro said they wouldn't be here. I thought they weren't going to write a review on the musical this year!" she shrieked as Jeanne took a seat next to Tamao, cradling her camera in her arms. "Oh dear Lord, they're taking pictures too!" She pulled the thick material of the curtains to hide her flushed face. "I think I'm going to be sick…" she muttered woozily and staggered into a nearby chair.
"I'm going to kill myself if you're like this every show. We have six other performances after this, you do know that, right?" Ren warily stated while the hyperventilating girl put her head between her legs and did some breathing exercises. He rolled his eyes. "Hey, watch where you're going!" he snarled as someone shoved past him and Pirika.
Lyserg turned around. "Oh, sorry, I suppose I didn't see you there." He promptly whipped back on his heel and walked offstage.
Stupid British boy. If he doesn't watch it… Ren heard something that sounded like sniffles. He glanced at Pirika. "Um…what are you doing?"
She looked up at him. "I-I'm just trying to g-get in…character!" she sobbed.
"Why are you…crying…" he said slowly and carefully, trying to affect some semblance of concern.
"I'm not!" she hiccupped.
"I'll kill him if you want."
"W-What?"
"I'm serious."
"Yeah, I know…"
"Don't worry about him, just concentrate." He lifted up his hand to console her. What am I supposed to do…? he thought blankly. His hand wavered around before he settled on her shoulder and awkwardly placed his hand there. "Um…yeah." And left.
"What the hell?" Pirika suddenly felt light headed as she straightened up, trying to register that a never before seen species had just shown some sort of affection to her: the extremely rare Compassionate Ren. "I am so confused right now." She scratched her head.
"We're on in five minutes!" a stage hand called out.
"Stupid boys," she moaned. And sunk back into her chair.
Joco's Car
"Did you see how he looked at me?" Tamao whimpered from the passenger's seat as Joco braked at a red light.
"You mean how he didn't look at you?" Her face fell. "Er, what I mean was…" Joco leaned his head against the car's headrest. "But you're right, I've never seen him react like this before."
"See, everyone else thinks I'm just reading too much into it!" Jeanne leaned forward and rubbed Tamao's back.
"He's just being an idiot," Pirika scoffed as she looked out the window. "Don't worry, I'll give him a talking to when I get home later."
"Please don't…" The three other students looked genuinely surprised. "It's all my fault, not his." She closed her eyes and thought back to earlier that day after school when Horohoro refused to look at her in the eyes and thrust the folder containing the musical review assignment at her without bothering to say a word.
And then there was the time when they were switching seats in English and she had gotten to class early and decided to put her backpack down and walk around for a bit. Horohoro had arrived later with some other people and apparently didn't know she was sitting there and proceeded to take the seat next to hers. That is, until he saw who exactly the backpack belonged to, froze, stood back up, and moved a couple of rows over.
And how could she forget last week in chemistry when after he was done presenting his project, she said good job to him as he sat down behind her and was totally ignored. Less than five seconds after that, someone else called out a nice job to him and he turned around, flashed a smile and said Thank you, good luck on yours! I'm sure you'll be great! "That's what he would've said little more than a month ago to me…But no, I had to go and screw it up." She held her breath and counted to ten, praying to God she wouldn't start crying in front of her friends.
"Tamao, don't you ever, ever say that." She sharply inhaled, momentarily flustered by the force that Pirika had spoken with. "Sure, what you wrote was slightly insensitive at most. It's his fault that he's still hung up over what happened a decade ago." Tamao turned around.
"B-But—"
"Nuh-uh, no but's here, please. He just needs a good slap in the face is all." Tamao paled and opened her mouth to protest vehemently. "Figuratively speaking, of course," Pirika hurried to say. She winked knowingly. "You'll know what to do."
Tamao paused and thought and came to the conclusion that Pirika knew how to apologize to Horohoro. "Er, what would that be exactly?"
"You'll know what to do," she repeated. "Now how about you guys tell me how bad I was in the musical!"
There was a collective groan in the car. Joco slapped his forehead as he swerved around another car. "Not that again, please. We already did that for half an hour earlier!"
They all laughed as they pulled into the driveway.
Kyoyama Household
"Yummy, ramen!" Pirika stared excitedly at the plastic bowl of chemically enhanced broth, noodles, and godliness that was currently being heated in the microwave. She rubbed her hands together. "I can't wait! I'm so hungry." She bounced up and down on the balls of her feet.
"Don't stand in front of there. You'll get cancer," Anna warned, more annoyed with the prospect of the kitchen being crowded than concerned about the younger girl's well being. She huffed as Pirika ignored her completely and continued drooling over the ramen. Anna turned to Tamao. "They're sleeping over again?"
Tamao enthusiastically nodded. "It was Pirika's first performance and we're celebrating! She did a really good job."
"No, I didn't," the blue haired girl said automatically, not even bothering to break her gaze from the microwave.
"I think you did a very good job," Jeanne called softly from Tamao's bedroom where she was changing into her pajamas. "Would you like to see the pictures I took?"
"What?! No-ahhhhh!" The microwave beeped loudly. Pirika squeaked as she was torn between the cooked ramen and preventing her friends from seeing what were sure to be embarrassingly ugly pictures of herself.
Anna rolled her eyes and plucked the camera from Jeanne's hands as Tamao joined her side. "Wow, Pirika, you look really pretty! Kino did a good job with the costumes."
Anna squinted her eyes. "What are you talking about, you made most of the costumes by yourself by hand."
Tamao blinked furiously. "U-Uh, that's not important." The two returned to looking at the pictures. Pirika came sprinting into the bedroom, her mouth crammed with noodles.
"Unnnnghmphhhh!"
"Oh hush," Anna said impatiently, batting her grabbing hands away. "Either Ryu put too much stage makeup on you or you really like blushing when you're acting."
Pirika swallowed and cleared her throat. "I-I don't know what you're talking about! No I don't…? Let me see!" She craned her neck forwards.
"Hmmm, actually you're fine in the other ones. Only in the pictures with that Tao boy are you blushing." Anna shot Pirika an accusatory glance.
"No, I'm not!" she shrieked. She grabbed the camera from Anna and colored as she realized that it was true.
Tamao looked uncertainly at her. "Do you have something to tell us, Pirika?" she asked, half joking, half genuinely curious. Jeanne nodded her assent while Anna smirked, slightly reminiscent of Ren.
She looked at all them, wanting to shout a big, fat, "NO OF COURSE NOT!" so that the whole city would know of her sheer disgust, hatred, annoyance with that short, wannabe-cool, way-too-serious for his age, work-out freak, life-ruining, embarrassing, overprotective, extremely attractive—Uh…what…? She shook her head. What the hell, where did that last one come from? I guess he is kinda, sort of, maybe, really good looking—no, stop that!
"I actually…don't know," she said, dumbly, letting the camera tumble onto the bed.
Tamao's jaw dropped. "Really?"
Pirika snapped back to reality. "That doesn't mean yes, you know! Anyways, can we talk about something else?" she asked quickly as she saw that Tamao and Jeanne were bursting with questions and Anna's face was filled with amusement.
Jeanne giggled behind her hand and nodded. "Did you see Ryu after the play?"
Anna groaned. "Oh dear God, yes. He tried asking out Ms. Jun."
Tamao laughed. "Seriously? Oh, no!" She reclined on her bed as Pirika and Jeanne began rolling out their sleeping bags.
Pirika straightened out her pillow. "I should've seen that coming. The way he was basically devouring her with his eyes at the casting party!"
"So what happened after that?"
Anna yawned. "Well she turned him down naturally." The three other girls nodded and waved their hands to say Well, duh. "And told him why." Anna shot a knowing look at Tamao and Jeanne.
Tamao squeaked and clapped her hands. "So she finally admitted it?" The rarest hint of a smile graced Anna's lips.
"That she did."
Pirika looked at the two girls. "Admitted what?" She ran her fingers through her hair. "Am I the only one not in the loop right now?"
Jeanne looked sympathetically at the older girl. "Afraid so."
"Well, everyone in LASNC knew it already…it was so obvious! Especially over winter break. Ms. Jun's going out with Bailong!"
Pirika gasped. "No!" She shook her head in disbelief. "Really? You're kidding…you're…not kidding? Oh my God, this is way too…God! Wow! Bailong. The Bailong. As in the action movie star. I've seen all of his movies! Now I can get his autograph!" She began smiling like a maniac. "How did they even meet?"
Anna drew her mouth into a straight line as if to say Someone's been living under a rock. "He was in a photo spread for Vogue with her and they hit it off rather well."
"Ahmygodreallythisissoamazingdoyouthinkshe'llletmemeethimIcan'tbelievethisishappeningahmygod!" Pirika shrieked in one breath, burying her face into her pillow.
"What?" Anna looked disgusted at the blatant mistreatment of the English language. Somewhere, a timer dinged. "Tamao, come help me."
"More cookies, Anna?" Tamao knew better than to groan. Because I rather enjoy being alive.
"Yes, more cookies. How else is LASNC going to get a budget besides from fundraising? Everyone likes our bake sales anyways." Anna stood up and stretched her legs before exiting the room.
The only reason people buy from our bake sale is because you threatened all the other clubs and organizations on campus that if they had a bake sale, then you would put anthrax in their lockers. And your cookies give people food poisoning so I have to get up early every time to throw them out, bake a fresh batch and replace them before you notice. But of course, Tamao didn't say this either. Because from the last time she still does, indeed, enjoy being alive. Instead, she silently exited the room to follow her cousin.
"So," Anna said in the kitchen while tying her Kiss the Cook and you DIE apron around her waist. "Am I going to have to torture you before I get the story?"
"Um…what?" Tamao froze in the middle of opening the oven door to turn to face Anna.
"Why you and the blue haired idiot haven't been talking to each other for the past month or so," she said nonchalantly while slipping on a pair of oven mitts.
Past one month, two weeks, four days, and seven hours to be exact. "Well…" And then the whole story came tumbling out of her mouth before she even realized she was talking.
Anna was quiet the whole time, respectfully listening to her younger cousin recount the painful ordeal. She closed her eyes in sympathy at the appropriate times and pursed her lips and shook her head in pity whenever Tamao looked close to tears. By the end of her story, Tamao was stuffing her face with Anna's cookies, not caring anymore if it gave her salmonella or whatnot.
"That's it?" Anna looked expressionlessly at her.
"Yeff."
"That's what's got you so upset and mopey for the last four weeks?" Tamao stared incredulously at her. "You're kidding."
"…No…"
"Then that's easy to fix. Just apologize."
Tamao reeled back as if she had been slapped. "What? B-But how?"
"Just do what you do best." Anna patted her hand awkwardly in a sudden display of rare affection and walked back to Tamao's room.
"What do I do best?" Tamao asked the empty kitchen, its only response a bright green LCD that proclaimed it was 1:47 a.m. that blinked back angrily at her.
"Hey, Tamao, where did you get this typewriter from?" Pirika's voice drifted out from the ajar door. And then it hit the pink haired girl square in the forehead.
With the three other girls asleep, a solitary figure stole out of the room, typewriter in tow and headed towards the living room with a flashlight. There, Tamao began to write. And the words spilled out onto the page like the blood pouring from the cuts on her heart.