Chapter Ten: Unwanted Attention
"How long are we going to pretend that we don't know what happened to Hiyori?" Jitsumi whispered to her best friend.
"The thing is, we really don't know what happened to her. She should've been on the street still, but it's almost like she just disappeared into thin air. And Hibiya..." Eiko trailed off in an equally quiet voice. "I wonder what happened to him."
"What are you two talking about?" Kano asked, suddenly appearing behind them.
Jitsumi and Eiko let out exclamations of surprise and nearly jumped three feet in the air. Eiko quickly turned to him and waved her arms in a defensive way with a nervous laugh.
"Ahaha, nothing, Kano-kun! We were just talking about where we think Hiyori might be!" she lied.
Kano waved his finger at her, a disapproving look on his face. "Tsk, tsk, you don't possibly think you can deceive the deceiver, do you? And besides, I told you to skip the honorifics, kid."
"Eh?" Eiko could only make a sound of confusion.
What did he mean by "deceive the deceiver"?
"Why do you call Eiko 'kid'?" Jitsumi inquired to change the subject.
"Because she is a child, silly," Kano answered matter-of-factly.
"Hey, I'm not silly!" Jitsumi argued.
"I don't know, you do act pretty silly sometimes," Eiko objected thoughtfully.
"Eiko!" Jitsumi whined. "You're not helping!"
Kano chuckled at the girls' behavior, while Konoha only blinked in confusion. Just then, a unknown voice broke up this somewhat bonding moment.
"Drop the boy, now."
All four of them turned to see an orange-haired girl glaring daggers at them.
Jitsumi looked at her with bewilderment. "Eh?"
"I said, drop him!" the new girl repeated loudly, anger clearly written on her face.
"I'm sorry, but we can't do that," Kano replied simply.
The orange-haired girl gritted her teeth in frustration and clenched her fists.
"Um, K-Kano, does she know Hibiya?" Eiko asked tentatively.
Kano shrugged, before the orange-haired girl gave her own reply.
"Yes, I do," she answered coldly. "Now, put him down!"
Suddenly, any other person who was nearby had their attention drawn to the group. Kano merely smirked at this, and at the girl herself, while the others were confused as to why this was happening. The surrounding crowd that had now formed uttered things like "Is that Momo-chan?" or "Wow, she's even cuter in person.", but the orange-haired girl (presumably Momo) ignored them and glared daggers at the quartet that held the unconscious Hibiya.
"M-Maybe we should just do as she says," Jitsumi suggested.
This weird girl was honestly scaring her, especially with those red eyes... Jitsumi gasped and turned to Eiko.
"Eiko, look at her eyes! They're just like ours!" she whisper-yelled to her best friend.
Eiko looked at Momo's eyes which, sure enough, were glinting a bright red. "You're right, Sumi..."
"I'm afraid we can't do that, because we have direct orders from our leader, who can be preeetty scary when she gets mad," Kano mused.
Just then, Hibiya woke up, and was clearly not happy.
"Let go of me!" he yelled, struggling out of Konoha's grasp and landing on the ground with a thump.
"Hibiya!" Momo exclaimed.
"Well, this could have gone better," Kano muttered.
Konoha looked down at Hibiya with a blank expression. "Let's head back, Hibiya."
"Like hell I'd go with you," Hibiya replied curtly.
Momo took this as her cue to grab Hibiya's wrist, yank him to his feet, and run off with him tightly in her grasp.
"O-Oba-san!?" Hibiya exclaimed confusedly.
"No time to explain, let's go!" Momo responded.
"Wh-What? What's going on?!" Hibiya questioned, but received no answer.
That was the last the quartet heard of him before he and Momo disappeared around a street corner. The crowd around the bewildered group chased after the runaway duo, shouting things like "Who's that kid?" and "Let's go after them!".
"Ah, there they go," Kano commented rather bluntly.
Eiko glanced over at Konoha, who looked quite upset by this and even had a few tears forming in his eyes.
"B-But we finally found him..." he uttered sadly.
"Eh? K-Konoha-san, please don't cry! We'll get Hibiya-san back, I promise!" Eiko tried to reassure him.
Jitsumi nudged her and gave her a look that said "seriously, stop making promises". Eiko sent her friend a pointed look, though she supposed her compassion could be irritating to someone who was forced into these situations. Konoha seemed to feel a little better after hearing this, for he sent Eiko a very faint, gentle smile.
"I have to admit, Eiko-chan, your determination is a bit admirable," Kano mused.
"I think it's just impulsiveness," Jitsumi muttered under her breath.
Eiko gave a slightly nervous laugh. "I'm just trying to be considerate. It's nothing, really." Then, she added jokingly, "Hey, that's the first time you've called me by my real name instead of 'kid'."
"Ah! I forgot about that!" Kano chirped. "Thanks for reminding me, kid~"
Eiko sighed. "I should've known..."
A/N: Well, after like three months (I think) of not posting anything, I'm back! This chapter's pretty short, so I might post another one tonight since I have like 20 chapters pre-written. (I know, I'm sorry, please don't be mad at me)
Anyway, have a nice day/night/whatever.
(It's 2:30 in the morning where I am right now, haha /shot)