Prettyinpinkgal: Four new reviews! Thank you, friends! Here's Chapter Nine. I gotta say, everything's just so dang happy and fluffy in this chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" film or novel.

BEFORE SHE LEAPT

CHAPTER NINE

"Auntie Witch went on a date last night?" Makoto whispered to Chiaki as Kousuke, ignorant to their inattentiveness, went on about isosceles triangles.

"Yup. At least, I'm assuming."

"With who?"

"My brother."

Makoto's gaze flickered to Kousuke before leaning towards Chiaki again. "The no-good brother you warned me about?" she asked, her soft voice dripping with wariness.

He grinned. "I was wrong about him."

"How can you be wrong about your brother? Don't you know him at all?"

"You can say that because you're so close to your sister."

"Hardly. She's lost all her cuteness since going into middle school." Makoto paused. "Why did you think he was no good?"

Chiaki's mind reeled and landed on the first plausible answer that was the closest to honesty that he could get. "I thought he was being a lolicon."

The idea of stern-faced, thoughtful Ken Sogoru being a lolicon made both of them let out a bark of laughter. Their laughter stopped short the second they realized there was a need for discretion. They just managed to dodge the pencils Kousuke chucked at their heads.

"Oi!" he shouted at them, for once really put-out. "If we're going to have any chance to do something fun when vacation starts next week, you have to focus, Mako!"

"I'm sorry!" she whined. "But blame Chiaki! He just told me his brother and my aunt are going out!"

"What?" Kousuke said, dropping the teacher facade to gape at Chiaki. "Mamiya-san, the no-good brother?"

"I was wrong, okay?" laughed Chiaki. "And you might as well call him Sogoru. We had, uh, separate surnames due to certain reasons. But yeah, they were making total doe eyes at each other."

Makoto gaped at Chiaki. "No lie? I mean, Auntie Witch doesn't seem like the type to fawn over a guy at first sight."

"It wasn't. They were friends in high school."

"No way," Makoto breathed. Then she paused. "What the crap! Is spring fever in the air or something? You get asked out-" pointing at Kousuke "-Auntie Witch gets a guy...Yeesh! Chiaki, we need to get on this."

He stiffened. "Uh, how?"

"Both of us need to find someone and fall in love," she said, pointing at him now. "We're going to be left behind at this rate! Even Yuri has a guy she likes, but she won't tell me who."

Kousuke and Chiaki exchanged a look. Kousuke's said, "Sorry, man" while Chiaki's asked, "Why is she so freaking oblivious?"

"What?" Makoto demanded, looking back and forth between them.

Both sighed and grabbed one of her shoulders each.

"What?" Makoto wheedled.

"Back to work," Kousuke said, moving back to his chair.

"Guys, seriously. What was that look about? I'm so sick of people looking at me like I'm stupid!"

"You ought to be used to it," Chiaki replied nonchalantly. A second later, he cried, "Ow!" as Makoto punched him in the side.

An hour later, Makoto, between Chiaki and Kousuke's unyielding efforts, managed to grasp the basic concepts of the latest chapters in math.

"Hallelujah!" praised Chiaki as he collapsed on the ground, fists pumped in the air. "She can be taught!"

"Took long enough," grumbled Kousuke, taking his glasses off and setting them in their case. "Haven't you been paying attention at all this trimester, Makoto?"

"Not as well as I thought, apparently," Makoto mumbled, face down on the desk. "Sorry, guys."

"It's fine," Chiaki said, pulling himself upright and ruffling Makoto's hair. "I just want to hang out with you guys this summer. Let's do all kinds of crazy things."

"Like what?"

"Like..." Chiaki thought. What were some of the things that happened during summer vacations in this era? "Busting watermelons open on the beach. And going to festivals. Makoto, didn't you mention doing that at some point?"

"Yeah, I think. Wanna see me in a yukata?" she chirped.

"Heck yeah," Chiaki cried, wrapping an arm loosely around her.

"All right, enough flirting, you two," Kousuke said with a smirk.

Chiaki was about to make a dry comeback when Makoto suddenly pulled away and flushed. "Geez, Kousuke! What the crap?"

Both guys stared at her in bewilderment. Chiaki knew well that Makoto was the sort of girl who would roll her eyes and ignore the comment, or otherwise make a cutting remark. She wasn't the type to get embarrassed without probable cause. Was she?

"Anyway," Makoto cried, her voice high. "Let's talk about my little sister. Did I tell you she ate my pudding again?"

"Keep a chain on that fridge," Chiaki said inattentively. Maybe he was completely pushing his luck, but his heart raced in his chest, growing more excited with the possibility that presented itself in his mind. Dare he hope? Maybe the "spring fever" Makoto spoke of was affecting herself? This could be a real possibility. Holy...What if Miss Yoshiyama and Sogoru reuniting was a prelude to his relationship with Makoto? They had been interacting one-on-one a lot more in this timeline. And he had saved her life. Surely that ended up accidentally winning him some bonus points. There was that moment when he'd been holding her where she seemed to have a shift in her feelings. What if it was permanent? No, it had to be permanent.

She liked him.

"So Kousuke," he said, clearing his throat to make his voice seem somewhat normal. He would confess again to Makoto when they were alone. "Did you ever more about that Kaho girl?"

"No," Kousuke replied, raising a subtle brow at him as he packed up his books. "I've been making sure to say hi to her in the hall, but usually her friends are around her and hurry her away. I guess they think I'm just hurting her more."

"You should totally go out with her."

Makoto, never one to be left out of a conversation, jumped in, shoving a pencil in Kousuke's face. "That's right! I've been telling you this over and over again. The poor girl needs someone like you in her life! You don't have to be worried about me; I won't be left alone. I have-I have Yuri!" When they boys looked skeptically at her, she added, "And Kaoru!"

"Who's Kaoru?" both boys asked.

"Uh, a girl I work with in gym class!"

"You've never talked about a Kaoru before except when you complained that she dropped you during a trust fall," Kousuke deadpanned.

"We're completely cool now!" Makoto claimed, her face flushing adorably with agitation.

Chiaki was not so entranced with her blushing, however, to keep from saying, "What am I, sushi? You'll have me."

Makoto glanced at him, then quickly looked away. "You're fine." There was no secret smile, no blush. Nothing. The only smile he did receive was a few seconds later, when she gave him an amused but merely companionable grin.

His hopes were dashed. Ordinarily, he'd bear the sting of what was surely a joke without showing it, but he'd thought-

Never mind what he thought. It was too early to have any expectations of her returning his feelings even a little.

He was such an idiot.

Maybe he was encountering the "spring fever".

He stood, grabbing his bag. "I'm out," he told Kousuke, his voice gruff. "Catch you guys later."

"Huh?" Makoto's voice stung his heart. "Chiaki, what are you-?"

"You know," he shouted, whirling on her, "I've had to do a lot for you. You don't even have a clue!"

As soon as the words left his mouth, shame punched him in the gut. He'd known he had no right to expect anything from her. But apparently he'd gone and done so anyway, to the point where he had somehow made himself believe that because of what he was doing to prevent her time leaps, because of what he had done in this timeline and the last, she owed him some sort of affection.

That made him sick.

Makoto and Kousuke were both gaping at him. The expression in Makoto's eyes pained him too much, and so he mumbled a "sorry" and took off downstairs, bumping into Makoto's sister and forgetting to reply to Mrs. Konno's "Leaving so soon, Chiaki?" before shoving his shoes on and opening the door.

A minute after he'd fled the Konno residence, Chiaki spotted the perfect way to take out his anger at Makoto and himself. Some guys from school who had tried to rough Chiaki up at the beginning of the year strode up the street, cackling to themselves. Upon landing their eyes on Chiaki, they began to sneer.

"Hey, perfect timing! Look at the orange-haired freak! Hey, man, your friends not here to protect you?"

Chiaki was beyond livid now. He didn't try to say anything. He let the usual calm that always took him before he fought take root in him, letting it consume him and lull the side that had a conscience to sleep, just as he always did-

Kousuke's hand was heavy on his shoulder. "Sorry, guys, but my dad doesn't treat delinquents. You'd better find something else to do before this guy rips into you. He's a loose canon today."

Chiaki glanced at him, the part of him that was aware of his surroundings feeling surprised at Kousuke's words. Shouldn't he be stopping him from fighting altogether? Nevertheless, Chiaki shrugged him off and took a few steps towards the boys.

They, apparently, had seen the look in his eyes and took Kousuke's words to heart. "Whatever, guys! Let's go!" one of them said, and the rest half-ran back the way they'd come, occasionally looking over their shoulders.

Once his potential punching bags were gone, Chiaki glared at Kousuke. "What," he said in a dead voice. "You should be with Makoto."

"I should be with my friend who's making some stupid mistakes," Kousuke replied, glaring back. "I know why you said what you did. It was obvious you felt bad about it-"

The sound of Chiaki's fist colliding with the concrete wall beside him made Kousuke's mouth snap shut.

"Are you effing kidding me," Chiaki said, too numb to feel the pain of his blood-smeared knuckles. "You saw the look on her face. I hurt her. I hurt her. Me, the one who'd promised himself he'd never let anything hurt her again."

"'Again?'" Kousuke murmured, looking at Chiaki as if for the first time. "Just calm down-"

"I am calm."

"Maybe, but you still need to talk this out. You're acting worse than you did when you first moved here. Listen," Kousuke said, more gently this time. "I know how you feel towards Makoto, and it must be awful keeping the pain in, but after all the times I've seen you swallow your hurt before, why couldn't you hold it in now? She didn't mean anything bad by what she said. I don't understand why you acted that way. What were the things that you had to do for her?"

"I can't talk about it."

"Maybe that's part of the problem, Chiaki," Kousuke said evenly after a beat passed. He took a step back. "Maybe she can't ever love you because you never let her see enough of the real you to let her love you."

"Huh?"

Both boys froze. Chiaki, whose eyes were facing the road, saw the speaker, and the dangerous peace inside him crumbled.

Prettyinpinkgal: "I gotta say, everything's just so dang happy and fluffy in this chapter!"

April fools. ;D