Hello, again, everyone! Don't worry, I didn't drop off the face of the planet. Instead, I was attacked by aliens for over a month and have spent the last few days recuperating. I was also drawn into a whole new obsession. I also had summer school. And really all of there reasons are just me trying to B.S. my way out of saying that I have severely been procrastinating on my stories. Now because I am leaving for band camp tomorrow, I just thought I would get done with at least one chapter of something. So here you are! As always, please read, enjoy, and review!
Disclaimer: I do not own Kaichou wa Maid-sama. If I did, well it certainly wouldn't get printed as often as it does.
Chapter Seven
Usui leaned back in the grass, his hands folded behind his head. The sun setting over the forest was beautiful, making all of the trees glow a lovely orange. He closed his eyes, peacefully listening with half his hearing to the girl who was ranting at him about how they were lost and it was his entire fault. A small smile appeared on his face.
"I don't know what you have to smile about, Usui! If you haven't noticed, we happen to be lost in the forest when it's already starting to get dark. In case you're wondering, being lost in a forest when it happens to be dark out is a bad thing! Especially when we happen to be in a place that's not familiar to us. If you really want to know, being in an unknown forest, when it's dark out is extremely bad and that badness is made even worse when there are animals that we don't know lurking out there!"
Usui opened one eye to blearily smirk at her. "Badness?"
Ruefully, Usui rubbed his now swollen shin as Misaki limped away. "Prez, where are you going?"
"I don't know about you, but I'm going to try to find some sort of shelter before we lose all of our daylight."
"But Prez…"
"What?" Misaki whirled around to glare at him.
"…nothing."
Misaki turned around and stomped out of the clearing. Usui gave the way to the river a last look before following his cute little maid the exact opposite direction.
The last of the light quickly disappeared as the two students walked through the woods. Before long, Misaki was regretting her decision to leave the clearing. The dark of the forest was far worse than she had imagined. The gloom of the whole place was giving her the creeps. It didn't help that Usui was following her so closely that every once in a while his breath would hit her neck, causing her to shiver.
"Will you stop it?" she whispered angrily at him.
"Stop what, Prez?" he asked in a normal tone.
"Shhh!" Misaki shushed him. "Stop breathing down my neck."
"Why do we have to be quiet?" Usui leaned towards her in conspiring manner.
"Because it's dark out and who knows what kind of animals are out there!" Misaki turned away from Usui and set off into the brush again when Usui caught her hand. "Let go of me!" she hissed at him.
"But who knows what kinds of animals are out there," Usui repeated. "And maybe there are ghosts out there too.
By the way Misaki's face went deathly white, Usui knew she hadn't even contemplated that idea.
Misaki shook her head and put a brave face on. "Baka Usui, there aren't any ghosts here. We just need to watch out for wolves and coyotes and animals like that."
"And ghosts."
"There aren't any ghosts!" Misaki insisted, tearing her hand out of his.
Almost immediately, Misaki regretted the warmth of his hand, but she refused to let it show. She headed of once again into the brush with Usui right behind her.
Misaki nearly jumped out of her skin about fifteen minutes later when Usui grabbed her arm.
"Prez, why don't we sleep over there," Usui suggested, pointing.
It was a fairly clear area. The moon lit up the area in a very peaceful manner, while the fireflies helped create a very serene setting. The twinkling reflection of the moon off of a little brook near a weeping willow made it the perfect spot. Misaki walked toward it, entranced. She pushed aside the willows branches and curled up at its trunk, almost asleep already. Breathing deeply, she allowed herself to relax, until she heard the branches being moved again. Usui flopped down beside her, fully intending to sleep next to her.
"Oh, no you don't," Misaki said, scrambling to her feet. "You are not sleeping here next to me."
"Why not, Misa-chan? You've slept next to me before."
Misaki blushed as she remembered all the times she had slept with Usui around. There were far too many times in that list that she didn't care to remember. "P-perverted outer space alien! It's never been like this though!"
Usui furrowed his eyebrows, confused. "What do you mean?"
Misaki's blush intensified as she tried to explain. "I-I mean, like this. We've never been asleep next to each other, you know, lying down. It's always been me on a couch or a bed or something. We've never both been asleep next to each other."
Usui smiled and grabbed Misaki around the waist, pulling her down onto his lap. "Well, there's a first time for everything, right?" he whispered onto her cheek and then planted a faint kiss there.
Usui allowed himself to be shoved out of the branches, smiling softly as he rubbed his sore arm. He went back into his position of laziness from earlier, with his hands behind his head, gazing up at the moon. It sure was a beautiful spot he had found. He glanced at the girl between the curtains of willow branches. She was already breathing deeply, sound asleep. Although Usui would never admit it to Misaki, she was right when she said that there were all kinds of animals in the forest. He would keep watch at night. She would be capable to take care of herself in the morning, and then they could find the trail again. He closed his eyes and let himself doze, but kept his ears open, ever on the alert for any dangers.
Misaki opened her eyes slightly. It was still dark out. The moon had completely crossed the sky and was almost gone. There was something wrong though. Misaki could feel the tension in the air, and she was sure that was what had woken her. Not moving, she listened for anything that seemed out of the ordinary. After several long minutes, she decided there wasn't anything for her to hear. She closed her eyes and was just about to relax her intense posture when something bumped into the small of her back. Misaki froze yet again. Whatever had run into her was still moving. She felt the thing, bump at her again. Not hard, but… like it was curious. Then it scrambled up onto her hip. It was small and light. Slowly, Misaki opened her eyes to see if she could see the creature in the side of her eyes. She didn't need her peripheries. The little thing hopped off of her and wandered around to her face, sniffing. Misaki's eyes widened when it made a sort of mewling sound. It was unmistakably a lion cub.
Watching her carefully, the cub lifted a paw, as if in greeting. Then it sneezed.
Misaki couldn't help but smile. "Bless you," she whispered.
The cub started at the sound Misaki had made. It darted back a few steps and then looked at her curiously.
"Sorry," Misaki whispered.
The cub cautiously stepped back towards Misaki and raised its paw again. This time, instead of lowering it, the cub swatted Misaki's nose gently.
Misaki giggled, causing the cub to dart away again.
"Sorry," Misaki apologized again. The cub bounced forward and swatted Misaki's nose again, but spilled some of her hair down in front of her face. At the sight of this new curiosity, the cub sniffed at her hair and swatted at it. When it moved, the cub gave a little squeak of a growl and started chewing on her hair. Misaki giggled again, but the cub was too busy being ferocious to notice.
Misaki had been watching the cub so intently that she had forgotten something. "Hey, where's your mom?" she whispered at her little attacker. As soon as the words left her mouth, the smile vanished from her face. She could feel the mother's eyes watching her. She didn't know where the mother was, but she knew that somewhere a lioness was not far away. Misaki knew that if the mother thought her cub was in danger, she would attack and Misaki's hope of surviving it would not be very good at all.
As the minutes passed, Misaki began to feel more and more tense. The cub was still contentedly playing with her clothing. At the moment, it was busy killing off her shoelaces.
More minutes passed.
Fifteen minutes.
Half and hour.
Eventually, an entire hour had passed and the lion cub was finally tiring of Misaki's clothes and hair. It gave a great yawn, showing off all of its small but sharp white little teeth. Sleepily, it padded up to Misaki's chest and curled up right next to her. Sighing deeply, the small cub quickly fell asleep, leaving Misaki to worry about its mother.
And... CLIFFHANGER!
I know, it's a really mean thing to do, but my father has forced a new rule on the kids of the family. Four hours of screen time per day. That includes television AND computer. Frankly, it's kind of killing me. When I'm on the computer, I need time to get side-tracked and then go back to what I was really doing. It's very important to me! Plus, now I have to add in my latest obsession that I mentioned at the top (It's a TV show called Doctor Who. It's AMAZING. I've watched it before, but now I'm completely hooked. It's a minor problem.) so that cuts into my screen time even more. Each episode is an hour long! Add that, plus fanfiction of various stories, mangas, animes, books, and movies, plus the manga and anime themselves, PLUS actually checking my e-mails... It's more than a four-hour workload.
Oh well... thanks for actually reading my rant. Unless of course you just skimmed through it, which is what I usually do. (haha.) Anyway, I've been thinking about going back and changing a few things in the earlier chapters. Nothing big of course, but I have found that Duena's dialogue with Misaki is much too fluent. Misaki shouldn't be able to understand so much so readily. Plus, I've decided to change the menu in the restaurant to French. Much more difficult for Misaki to read. Add that all together, and that equals... a lot of work to be done. Are there any other holes that you guys have noticed in my plot? Or anything else that needs to be fixed? Oh, and of course, after I've done the changes, this note here will disappear.
Now if you have skimmed through both of the above paragraphs, (or even if you haven't) welcome to the end! Please review, even though I don't deserve it for being gone for so long!
