Rito ½

Chapter 10: An Unwanted Pest

HeroSpirit: "Annnddd... The poll results are IN!"

Rito: "Cool! Which character won?"

HeroSpirit prints the results and looks at them. "Wow..."

Rito: "What do you mean 'wow'?"

HeroSpirit: "Wow as in you're never going to believe who won..."

Rito: "Well who DID win?"

HeroSpirit goes to his computer and starts typing. "Read the chapter and find out..."

Rito: "Are you really that much of a douche?"

HeroSpirit: "Is the sky blue?"

"What do I do... what do I do?"

I asked myself this question in my head with this new problem I had. I nervously tapped my foot on the ground as I evaluated what to do next.

"Rita, are you alright? You look a little pale.." Darlyne asked with a worried expression. I tried to seem calm and collected so she wouldn't be that way.

"Huh? Really? I-... I'm fine really. It's just that uh... I had remembered something from earlier and uh..." I stammered... needless to say my calm and collected act didn't go over so well...

I was watching Rene from a few tables over she sipped at her soda looking all around, and checking her watch every two or three minutes just to keep track of the time. She set her soda down on the table, and I looked downward to see that Rene's foot was tapping vigorously.

"Ah, she's my sister alright. Both of us tap out feet when we get nervous."

Darlyne didn't seem to convinced, and I didn't blame her. She had a look a bit unsettled, and she seemed like she was trying to figure me out like a rubix cube.

"Are you sure?" she asked again. Darlyne was kind enough to care about me, but it was getting a bit annoying with the current situation. Rene was patiently waiting for me, and I couldn't just leave Darlyne here... or could I?

I was faced with an ultimatum. Leave Darlyne or leave Rene. which would have less consequence? Rene would get totally upset, call the cops or something, and scold me when I got back. On the other hand. Darlyne seemed more friendly, and that could also mean forgiving. The most I could imagine out of her was "It really hurt me that you did that."... but that's all I'd think she'd do. Then again, hurting Darlyne in such a way is just as bad as the other! In the long run, I had to make my choice, and I stood up from the table.

"Excuse me, I... have to use the bathroom." I pardoned as I grabbed the sack of my own clothes next to the table and ran off.

"I'm sorry Darlyne... please forgive me..."

I ran into the boy's bathroom, luckily it was totally empty, if it wasn't then I'd have had no idea how to handle it. I walked into a stall and started to remove the clothes that Darlyne had given me, making sure to keep my eyes shut so I couldn't look at my bare chest...

Eventually, I had to pop out of the bathroom with my own clothes on my body and the other set in the bag. My clothes were quite wrinkled since they were drying in the bag, so hopefully Rene wouldn't ask. I ran up to Rene still looking at her watch and sighing.

"Sorry I'm a little late!" I apologized. Rene turned around and got a small sign of relief in her face.

"Shesh Ritoki! If you're going to be late then you should at least call me! You did have your cell phone with you right?" she scolded. I had forgotten that I had my phone... even though it was probably soaked in my pocket.

"Well you should have called..." Rene sighed as we made our way out. I managed to keep the bag I was carrying inconspicuously behind my back, hoping Rene wouldn't ask what I thought she'd ask...

"Hey! You went shopping! What'd you get?" Rene suddenly asked turning back towards me.

"Damn..."

"Eh... it's nothing important... really." I replied, keeping the bag behind my back as Rene tried to peek at what was inside.

"Come on Ritoki! Lemme see! I wana see what my little brother got..." Rene seemed to giggle. It was like she was enjoying this like some sort of game.

"No really you don't! I'm just saying that-..." I didn't get to finish before Rene managed to snatch the bag, and open it up.

"Now let's see..." Rene started, but when she looked inside, her eye twitched, and she pulled out the skirt I was wearing in female form while I was still in the mall... you know... the one Darlyne bought me. "Oh... I see." she solemnly said.

"Sis! It's not what it looks like, really it's not... I mean that is my bag but someone must have..." I tried to explain as Rene looked further into the bag to see the blouse I was wearing moments ago as well.

"Ritoki, relax, I have no right to persecute you for your hobbies." Rene maturely told me as she handed my bag back to me.

"That's what I'm trying to say though! There's nothing to even persecute me for!"

"Exactly. I'm glad you feel that way."

"What? NO! That's not what I meant!"

Needless to say that evening didn't go as planned. Luckily I had hopes the next day would be better.

The next day was upon me, and I walked into the classroom hoping that Brayden would be sitting in his seat. I hadn't seen him all morning, and I was thinking he had been out sick. As I walked in, I did see Brayden in his seat, but he didn't look so good, in fact, he looked about ready to kill someone.

He look really peeved at someone or something, and if I didn't know any better, I'd put a timer on him and set it to ten minutes and evacuate the building.

"Yo Einstein, what's with the long face, calculator break again?" I sarcastically asked. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have provoked him.

"Don't push me... cross-dresser..." Brayden said rather infuriated.

"Wow! Someone get the barbeque grill, this guy is flaming mad..."

"Seriously man, what's going on? Whenever you insult me, you usually don't do it where it hurts." I tried to sympathize as I sat down in my seat next to Brayden. Brayden groaned a little and reached into the backpack to pull out a sheet of paper. It seemed blank from one side, but on the other side it had hundreds of characters on it. Brayden handed it to me like the paper was carrying some sort of disease, and he could only touch it with his index finger and his thumb.

I swiped the paper and started to read, from what I gathered it was a letter from Brayden's aunt Kathryn. She was a sweet old gal, I met her on Brayden's 11th birthday. She was the one who bought us tickets to that water park where I ended up getting pushed down the slide butt naked by a few school bullies and ended up crying when I got to the bottom.

"I'm going to go back to repressing that..."

I started skimming down the lines. Line after line, word after word, the letter seemed like just a simple communication between Brayden and his aunt before I got to a certain word. A word that, whenever it's mentioned, trouble always follows it. This word was all to well known the bane of Brayden's existence, and also mine as well whenever I managed to meet up with it.

"Ian..."

"You're cousin Ian?" I gasped. Brayden was about ready to cry when he heard me say it.

"Yeah, unfortunately." Brayden sighed. I managed to muster up the courage to read on through the letter... and somehow... I wish I hadn't...

"Oh god..." I choked. My eyes almost bulged out of my head and my pulse started to race. "Your... your cousin Ian... is... is coming to STAY with you?" I felt like collapsing in my seat. For those of you who are reading this, I'm sure you're thinking that I'm totally overreacting with this whole situation. I'm sure you're thinking "how bad can this 'Ian' guy be?"... well trust me when I say that if anything, I'm under-reacting.

"Don't say it don't say it! If I ignore that statement enough maybe it'll go away!" Brayden implored. He collapsed his head onto his desk and covered his ears. I couldn't help but feel so sorry for him.

For those reading, allow me to explain. Ian Ganslea is a name that is widely famous yet infamous around the Ganslea family tree. This spawn of Brayden's uncle, Calvin Ganslea, is a sophisticated, well-mannered, gentle, egocentric, idiotic, stupid, self-centered, pretty boyish... wait... what was I saying? Oh yeah! Point is, this guy has two sides like a coin, but he knows how to control the flip of his coin skillfully and strategically.

When Brayden and I were small, well, not really small, we were in the 5th grade... anyway, I met Ian for the first was Brayden's dad's birthday, and aunt Kathryn decided to stop by with her son, Ian. I went over to say hi, and well... lets just say I ended up face first in the dirt. No, I didn't fall, and no, nobody tripped me. Ian practically shoved my face in the dirt like a bully. That day I learned that Ian may seem like a nice guy, but deep down, he's different.

"It's worse than that." Brayden added. "Over the years, Ian has acquired a special taste for a certain persuasion of the species that is non-male if you know what I mean."

"Oh, so you mean he's a lady's man now?" I tried to translate. Brayden nodded.

"Not only does Ian know how to manipulate his looks and actions to his advantage, but he knowns the feminine heart inside and out. I'm quite jealous of that actually, I never knew a guy with such a low IQ could do such a thing." Einstein seemed to say this like he somehow wished he were Ian, but nobody deserves to be that terrible of a person. "To put it more simply. Ian is extremely nice towards girls, but he's a complete jerk to guys."

"Huh, that reminds me of someone... I can't quite put my finger on it though..." I started to remember, but managed to shrug it off since I couldn't quite recall it. "When is Ian getting here anyway? Is he going to transfer here?"

"Yeah, he's coming straight away tomorrow. My aunt Kathryn and uncle Calvin only live a few states away, so they'll be here by tomorrow morning." Brayden moaned. He took the letter back from me,crumpled it up into a wad and threw it into the teacher's garbage can across the room.

"Nice toss."

I'm going to skip ahead to the next day, because lets be honest, you just want to know what happens when Ian shows up right? I thought so. Anyway, the next day hit, and I was off to school, only... there was really one issue in particular that bugged me about the day before it started.

"It's raining!" I cried as I ran down the street, trying to cover my head with the book bag that I was holding, but it was no use. I already had the equation in my head.

"Rain=raindrops...raindrops=water... water+Rito+curse=Rita!"

Meaning that the second my skin were to be exposed to this horrible weather, I would be completely in for it.

"Don't get wet don't get wet don't get wet don't get wet!" I repeated. I as I sprinted down the drenched streets, and I slid down a corner only to smash into something, something tall and hard... and holding an umbrella.

My body made full contact as I crashed into this unknown person and tumbled to the ground, dropping the book bag that was keeping me dry on the ground. I held my head as I started to sit back up and recover from that fall, and saw a hand appear before me.

"Oh my, I'm sorry miss, are you alright? That was some fall you had." I heard a... strangely soothing voice say.

I looked up to see a guy. He was about my age actually, he had a head of short, blonde hair that seemed to be styled so most of it was pointing itself forward, yet it was short enough so it wasn't in his eyes. His... lush... gorgeous... ocean blue eyes...

"Ga! Maintain focus Rito!"

"Yeah-... I'm uh... I'm fine... really." I stuttered. For some reason I found it hard to speak around this guy. He seemed so inviting yet so intimidating. It was like I knew him from somewhere and yet I didn't. You know that feeling you get in your stomach when you're talking to the principal in his office when you don't know whether you did something bad or not? That's the feeling I got.

"Here, at least let me help you up." he said, grinning slightly. I felt myself blush as I allowed this stranger to help me up, unable to say anything on the matter.

"Uh...ah... th-...thanks..." was all I could say to this guy as he adjusted the position of his umbrella so it were to cover both of us underneath it's dry shield.

"Here, take it, you're going to catch a cold without it." he insisted, handing me the handle to the umbrella he was holding. I reluctantly took it without much of a fight. There's no way I could take this guy's only defense against the bad weather, but then again I needed it more than he did. "Cya!" he called, suddenly dashing in the direction I was supposed to be heading, leaving me standing out in the rain. I looked up at the umbrella this guy had given me, and then back at the direction he was heading.

"Wow, that was kind of... sweet of him."

I shook my head at this thought. Was I going nuts? Why did I use the word "sweet" in that thought? Regardless, I realized something.

"Ah! School! I'm going to be late!" I cried as I started running now under the protection from the rain.

After a hard run, I got onto school grounds where Einstein found me changed into a girl. He seemed a little disappointed, but it couldn't be helped, especially because of the weather. Luckily, I found out something interesting as we both managed to make it to the equipment shed in the football field were I was about to change.

"Ever since I found out how you change with your curse, I've always kept a thermos of hot water on me at all times. You never really know when you'll need a quick change." Brayden happily said as he handed the silver thermos to me through a crack in the door.

"What kind of guy keeps a thermos with him at all times?"

I couldn't help but think this as I opened up the thermos and poured it's contents onto my head. It felt so soothing to have it trickle down my body on such a cold day. Like when you have a hot bath when you've just spent hours in the snow.

"The guy who saves my butt every other day... that's who."

I managed to dry myself off in the guy's bathroom before school started. It didn't seem so questionable as to walk around the school soaking wet on a day like this, so luckily I didn't get any questions from my classmates. I even accomplished to make it to class on time for once, which was a little rare for me.

Anyway, as well all sat down, Mr. Henry clapped his hands, signaling us to "shut up" as he called it.

"Alright all, we have a transfer student joining us today. Mr. Ganslea, please come in and introduce yourself." Mr. Henry called.

"Mr. Ganslea? Oh man, this is it, let's see how much this jerk has grown up."

The door to our classroom opened, and out came the one thing I somewhat didn't expect.

"No way..."

You remember that guy I ran into while on my way to school? Yep, I'm sure you saw this cliché coming a mile away didn't you? It was him, right then and there, blonde hair and all. Sure, I might have been too stupid to realize that the guy I bumped into earlier was wearing my school's uniform, but that was mostly because I was too busy looking into his eyes... wait... did I just say that out loud?

"Class, this is Ian Ganslea, he's a close relative of one of our current classmates, so treat him with the same respect as you would his cousin." Mr. Henry advised.

"He is SOOOOO going to get beat up right after class...I wonder if that'd be a good or bad thing."

"Objection!" Brayden called. He stood up from his chair and slammed his palms on his desk. "He's not my cousin! He's my cousin's cousin's cousin's cousin's roommate's uncle's brother's son's best friend who happens to share a similar last name! We are in NOOOOO way related!" Brayden sat down and pouted. I saw that he was trying to defend his family's honor by denying a blood connection to this guy... and I don't blame him.

"Aw, come on cuz, are you really that sour about me being here?" Ian said in a... well it's actually kind of hard to describe how he said it. He said it like he was mocking Brayden and yet he used a tone that made it sound like he wasn't. You couldn't quite call it a sarcastic tone, but you couldn't call it honest either.

I stared down Ian at the front of the room, just to give him a sort of telepathic warning that if he messed with Brayden then he'd mess with me first. Ian managed to catch sight of my glare, and he gave my look right back to me ten fold with a smug grin. A smug grin with his... perfectly white... straight... shining teeth.

"AH! What the hell am I thinking?"

A flashback suddenly occurred in my mind. The moment where I bumped into Ian on the streets in the middle of the rain. The moment where he handed me his umbrella and smiled. He smiled with such care, such concern, such a sweet... and yet devilish smile. I felt my legs go to jello.

"AHHHHHHHHH!"

I slammed my palms onto my desk, and raised my left arm high in the air, squeezing my eyes shut so I wouldn't see anyone's expressions.

"Mr. Henry! I'm not feeling well, I have to go to the infer-miry NOW!" I insisted as my chair was propelled outwards and toppled over onto the floor. I dashed for the door and came this close to kicking it open, but with a lot of self control I managed to swing it open violently instead of kicking it.

"Mr. Richards, stop this instant! I have not given you permission to-..." Mr. Henry answered, but I didn't give him a chance to finish his thought before I completely booked it full speed out of the classroom. I ran through the halls, passing class after class, door after door, and the only thing that was running through my mind... was Ian's smiling face.

"AHH! What the hell is wrong with me? That guy is making me nuts! He's making me crazy! He's making me COMPLETELY INSANE!"

I skidded across a corner of the hallway. I knew exactly where I was going now. I didn't know before but I did now. I was going to my locker, my school locker, my school locker that held something I needed.

Once I was there, I didn't bother with the lock, I was too much in a hurry. With my newly formed dexterity and strength, I smashed my foot into several weak points in the locker's structure. I pinpointed those weak spots with a sort of sixth sense I never knew I had. Afterwards, without causing a single dent in the locker... it gently glided open to reveal it's contents. My gym bag was sitting at the locker's floor.

I grabbed this bag, and kicked the locker closed. You know what a normal guy keeps in his gym bag right? A pair of shorts? Some deodorant? Perhaps an extra pair of shoes and socks? Do you want to know what I keep in my gym bag? A skirt, a blue jacket, and a neck ribbon. Yep, my girl uniform.

"I have to escape. Just for a day, just for 24 hours, just so I can clear my head and get Ian out of my mind... and there's only one place in this entire school where I can be Ian free."

"The girl's side of the school." I whispered to myself as I drifted down another corner of the hallway and charged into the bathroom, once there I examined it's contents, totally empty. I went over to the sink and turned the cold water valve on high. I slowly inched my hands under the steady stream and splashed some of it's icy liquid into my face. I then looked into the mirror in front of me, only to be greeted by a familiar feminine face. I smiled at my female self in the mirror, and gave myself a wink. With a sort of smug grin, I whispered to myself...

"I'm feeling better already."

HeroSpirit flexes his fingers and stretches his neck. "Yada! Finished!"

Rito: "Yeah! I can't believe that Brayden's cousin was the one who won the poll."

HeroSpirit smiles nervously and looks away "Hahaha... yeah... who would have guessed..."

Rito glares, and gasps. "Wait!... he DID win the poll... didn't he?"

HeroSpirit twittles his thumbs. "Well... yes and no."

Rito: "What do you mean by that?"

HeroSpirit: "Well... there was... kind of a tie..."

Rito: "Seriously?"

HeroSpirit: "Yeah... between Ian and another character."

Rito: "Wow! So who was the one who tied with Ian?"

HeroSpirit: "Can't say. But don't worry, I'm staying loyal to my readers and inserting that character into a chapter as well!... just not the next one... or the one after that..."

Rito: "Well when ARE we going to see the 2nd character?"

HeroSpirit: "Can't say, but he/she WILL be inserted...just keep your eyes peeled."

Rito: "You my friend...are a serious douche."
HeroSpirit: "That's only because the sky is blue."