Chapter 8
This was getting ridiculous.
On his way home from school, another one of those snake creatures had appeared literally out of thin air, and had come at him with those same sharp little teeth. Though it was bigger than the last one, Ryoma had been able to scare it off before it managed to sink its teeth into him. But at this point, he almost wished that he'd just let it bite him – he'd rather be a boy with a bite on his arm than a girl, like he was now. Yet again.
And to make matters worse, it was the middle of the week, meaning that he would have to miss school again tomorrow. Nanako had kept her promise to help him keep his secret, and had even gone so far as to cover for him with his parents and to call his school to excuse his absences But though his teachers and classmates seemed to accept the excuses easily enough, his teammates did not.
Momo had insisted that Ryoma tell him everything, which Ryoma had reluctantly done. Oishi had asked him about his health, and Eiji had welcomed him back by nearly strangling him. Ryoma had managed to avoid Tezuka, who had been trying to talk to him about something all week, but it was Fuji's behavior that bothered him the most. Fuji hadn't actually said anything, but even the rest of the team had noticed that he was watching Ryoma like a hawk. And Ryoma was more than a little unnerved by this fact.
Suppressing a sigh, Ryoma pulled out his cell phone and called An, as it looked like he would be spending another day at her house. But An had a group project to work on, she told him regretfully, and so she wouldn't be able to meet him for a couple of hours.
Ryoma really didn't want to be out in public looking like a girl, especially by himself. But the only other person he could think of to hang out with was Momo, and that was definitely not an option. The junior was loud and attracted too much attention, and if anyone they knew saw Momo walking around with a girl he'd be teased mercilessly about his 'girlfriend' for weeks. Not that Ryoma would have minded Momo getting teased, but Momo would probably whine to him about it the whole time too.
After thinking about it for a moment Ryoma decided to go to the library to wait for An, figuring that it was the place he was least likely to be bothered at. People hardly ever tried to talk to someone that they didn't know at a library, and it was easy enough to avoid notice by sticking your head in a book or sleeping in the back. So, Ryoma sat himself down in one of the cubbies in the back and pulled out a book he had to read for school. He finished it before long, though, and as he rummaged through his bag for something else to do he came up empty. And as much as he would have liked to take a quick nap, he just didn't feel comfortable with the idea of sleeping in public right now.
But fortunately, he was in a library, so there was plenty of reading material. Picking up his bag, Ryoma wandered around the rows of books until he finally picked one off the shelf and headed back to his spot . . . which someone had taken while he'd been up. All of the single seats, in fact, had been taken, so Ryoma reluctantly started back through the aisles of shelves towards the tables in the front.
He heard several muted thuds then, as a stack of books on the other side of the shelf he was walking by fell to the floor. Ryoma rolled his eyes, wondering what idiot had knocked them over, but then stiffened as he heard a familiar voice.
"Unya! I'm sorry, Fuji, I didn't mean to drop our books on your foot!" Eiji wailed, and Ryoma cringed at the noise.
"That's okay," came Fuji's much softer voice. "Its lucky we found so many for our project at least, don't you think?"
Ryoma had heard enough. Quickly but quietly, he slipped out of the aisle and began to walk away from his senpai, and fought the urge to speed up as he heard them fall into step behind him. He ducked into another aisle and stuck his head in a book until he heard them pass, and then let out a quiet sigh of relief. He reached up to put the book back, and started violently as he felt a hand on his.
"They really should have stepladders here, don't you think?"
Ryoma turned around slowly, and froze as Fuji took the book from him and shelved it. Looking anywhere but at his frighteningly devious teammate's bright blue eyes, Ryoma ducked his head down in what could have been taken to be a nod and then bolted out of the aisle and to anywhere that was away from Fuji. He didn't know why Fuji was so interested in him like this, and he didn't think he wanted to find out.
But losing Fuji was no easy task, as Ryoma quickly discovered. Though after spending a good fifteen minutes ducking behind shelves and carts, Ryoma thought he might have finally found a good hiding spot in the periodicals section.
For a moment, anyway.
"Hey, kawaii-chan! Don't run away this time, okay? I just want to talk to you!" Ryoma looked up to see Eiji standing a few tables over, waving at him from the other side of the microfilm readers. He had been so busy evading Fuji that he had completely forgotten about his other senpai, and Ryoma cursed himself for his mistake as he darted between the newspaper racks and out of the periodicals section.
"Waah, Fuji, is there something on my face?" Eiji's voice carried much too well in the otherwise quiet library. "Cute girls never run away from me like that!"
Ryoma didn't bother to listen for Fuji's reply, but hoped that Eiji could keep him occupied for a moment at least. Ryoma made a beeline for the reference room, remembering that there was an exit there that let out into an adjoining college. He could hear Fuji and Eiji getting closer now – mostly Eiji – and he turned the corner into the reference room.
And ran head-on into a tall, solid body. He landed on the floor in a heap, and then froze in shock as he looked up to see his buchou. Tezuka looked back at him with a rather odd and disconcerting expression on his face, and then reached down and grabbed Ryoma's arm in a firm but careful grip. Before Ryoma could protest, Tezuka had pulled him up bodily from the floor.
"Sorry," Ryoma mumbled, more than slightly alarmed by the fact that Tezuka of all people had seen him like this. He tried to move away, only to be stopped by the large hand that was still encircling his forearm. "Um . . ." Ryoma looked at Tezuka's hand, then made a slight move to pull away. When the hold didn't loosen, he looked up at Tezuka uncertainly.
Tezuka met his eyes, and then dropped Ryoma's arm as if it had burned him. Ryoma immediately took a step back and turned towards the door, but hesitated as he heard a low voice.
"I know what you are," Tezuka said quietly. "You shouldn't be afraid of us."
Ryoma nearly stopped breathing for an instant. "I'm not --" He trailed off sharply as he heard Eiji's voice filter into the reference room as he said something to Fuji. "I have to go now," he said, hating the desperation that leaked into his voice. More than anything right now, he didn't want to be found out by his teammates. What would they think of him if they knew he turned into a girl?
"Ah." Tezuka said, conveying understanding in that one syllable as he glanced briefly towards the entrance to the reference room. "I see. But we still need to talk," he said seriously. But Tezuka didn't say anything further, and let Ryoma run out the door just moments before Fuji and Eiji came in.
He didn't stop running until he met An, four blocks down.
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"You let her go." Fuji gave him a disapproving look, which was no small feat considering that the smile never left his face.
"What! Why'd you do that?" Eiji said, looking very disappointed.
"What else could I do?" Tezuka replied simply. "She's obviously frightened of us for some reason."
"Or maybe she has something to hide," Fuji countered.
"Scaring her more won't help." Tezuka gazed levelly at Fuji, but Fuji just stared right back, unconcerned.
"And we might never get answers if we don't. We're not going to hurt her, Tezuka. And if that girl really is who we think, this is for her own good as well."
Tezuka frowned and let out a slow breath, but conceded the point. "True. But Fuji," he warned, "Try to be gentle. Don't do anything rash."
"You know I always use my best judgement." Fuji's smile widened slightly, which did nothing to reassure him. Tezuka didn't doubt that Fuji could eventually manage to catch the girl and talk to her, but he did doubt that he could do so in any conventional manner.
For the girl's sake, he sincerely hoped that she'd stop trying to run from them – Fuji especially.
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Chapter 8 Notes:
Sorry for the shortness of this chapter, but this is just where it needed to be ended. I don't want to have to cut the next big sequence of events that are coming up in half. So, the next chapter will be on the long side.
I don't know in any detail what the inside of a Japanese library looks like, so I used the layout that seems to be common in all the high school, public, and college libraries that I've seen in the US.
