Chapter 11: Plan number 2, Start!

Sunako Nakahara had recently realized that she liked Takano Kyohei, and that Ranmaru and Kyohei liked her. She was okay with the latter, but Ranmaru?

He's just some eccentric playboy who took an interest in me merely because of my new looks, or something thought Sunako, sourly.

She was finding it hard to cope up with having an almost-boyfriend. Especially since this person was Kyohei. He was so bothersome sometimes. If she didn't know better, she would have thought that he only confessed to her to get her to make more food for him.

One day, while she was in her room, watching one of the new DVDs Takenaga gave her, she heard someone enter her room, with an aura of light around them

"Kyohei, why are you here? I'm not going to make you any food right now, okay?" Sunako naturally assumed it was Kyohei, because all the other boys had enough manners to knock before entering.

"Why do you just assume that I'm Kyohei?" said a voice which was definitely not Kyohei's.

Oh god, it's Ranmaru.

"What, Ranmaru, what do you want?"

"No need to be so hostile, kitten. I just wanted to show you something."

"What?" asked Sunako, wondering what Ranmaru could possibly interest her with.

"It's a MAGIC trick!" exclaimed Ranmaru, pulling out a 5-foot long chain with handcuffs. As soon as he saw Sunako's expression, he was sure his little scheme worked. She looked ready to float away into her supernatural world.

"Is it…dark magic?"

"It most certainly is, kitten"

"SHOW ME!!!"

"Okay, so this is the trick. I'm going to handcuff myself to someone, and magically escape. Okay?"

Or I'll 'magically' forget the spell, thought Ranmaru.

Unfortunately, Sunako was too far off in her alternate dimension to realize that he would chain himself to her.

"Okay!!!" said Sunako. She was almost jumping up and down like a little kid.

"Okay, here I go."

And of course, he chained himself to Sunako.

"What are you doing??? You never said anything about chaining yourself to ME!"

"Well, yeah, you're the only person in the room."

"Okay, then perform your little trick quickly and unchain me. I'm melting already" said Sunako, a bit uninterestedly.

Ranmaru recited his 'spell'.

"Chains that hold us together,

After this moment you shall sever

And release your entwined grip around my arm

Before you cause us any harm"

It was a pathetic rhyme, but Ranmaru had made it up just five minutes ago.

Sunako waited, awed, for the magic to work, and for the handcuffs to break. Nothing happened.

"Wait, why isn't it working?" asked Sunako.

"Well, see, I think I messed up the spell a bit."

"So… get the key."

"I lost it."

Out of nowhere, Ranmaru felt a fist punching his face.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU LOST IT?"

"I misplaced it."

Another punch.

"WELL, FIND IT!"

Ranmaru chuckled to himself.

"Sunako, take this as a golden opportunity for you to spend some time with me."

"WHY WOULD I WANT TO SPEND TIME WITH YOU? I'LL ME-E-E-E-ELT!!!!" screamed Sunako, acting like the Wicked Witch of The West.

"Sweetie, it's about time you realized that you can't MELT if someone who is 'radiant' touches you" said Ranmaru, slightly hurt by the fact that she didn't want to be with him. But what else was expected from Sunako?"

"I can, too! I don't want to demonstrate! Find a hot metal rod, and cut these chains! NOW!"

"I'm afraid that's not possible, said Ranmaru. "You're going to have to spend all your time with ME until I find a replacement key.

And so, after Sunako sulked for some time, she got up to go and make dinner for everyone.

"Get up, radiant creature. I must go make dinner."

"Of course, darling."

Sunako whipped around and glared at him with vampire teeth.

"Shut UP! It's your fault we're chained together."

"Ah, this is so nice. I get to go everywhere with you!" said Ranmaru. He 'accidentally' came a little too close to her face, and Sunako got a massive nosebleed.

"Now look what you did, Baka, how am I supposed to take a bath???" raged Sunako.

"We all have to…compromise some time or the other, Sunako. I think this chain is long enough for me to stand outside the shower while you take a bath."

"NO"

"Well, there's nothing else you can do about it."

So Sunako set off to the bathroom, with Ranmaru trailing behind. She made sure Ranmaru was closing his eyes, and she quickly took off her clothes and jumped into the shower cubicle.

"You didn't peek, did you?"

"Definitely not, my darling" said Ranmaru, trying a little too hard to sound seductive. But he truly had not peeked, because he had already experience two very painful punches, and was not looking forward to a third one.

"I still hate you for this."

"I love you too" muttered Ranmaru.

Do I really?

Yes, I do.

"What was that?" asked Sunako. His voice was not audible over the sound of the shower.

"Nothing. Would you like me to come in there and give you a massage?" asked Ranmaru, jokingly.

"STAY OUT, UNLESS YOU'RE WILLING TO HAVE A MASSIVE SCAR ON YOUR FACE!"

"Whatever you say, my lady."

Sunako was in an extra bad mood. It was all that stupid, stupid, stupid Ranmaru's fault that she had a nosebleed, AND she had to strip in front of him. Well, not in front of him, literally, but it was still an embarrassing incident.

Five minutes later, Sunako quickly hopped into some clean clothes and came out of the shower cubicle.

"You smell very nice" complimented Ranmaru, not realizing how creepy it was to say things like that.

Sunako chose to ignore that compliment. She briskly strode to the kitchen, and on the way, she ran into Kyohei, who had not seen Ranmaru yet.

"Why do you smell so clean?" he asked.

"I just took a bath." said Sunako. "What do you want for dinner?"

"Fried shrimp, of course."

"We had it for lunch. No, I'm thinking carrots would be nice" teased Sunako.

"NO CARRO – Ranmaru, what are you doing here?"

Ranmaru was standing in the shadow, not enjoying the married-couple-like conversation that Kyohei and Sunako were having. Ranmaru held up his arm to show that he was chained to Sunako.

"Why are you both chained together?" asked Kyohei.

"Ranmaru attempted a MAGIC trick, which miserably failed. And now, I'm stuck with him. Could you please, please get a replacement key for us? I think they have them at that one store in – "

"Sorry to interrupt, but I kind of lied to you. There IS no replacement key for this lock."

"WHAT?" shouted Kyohei and Sunako together.

"So we have to stay like this forever?"

"Not forever, unfortunately" said Ranmaru, shamelessly flirting. "Just until the day after tomorrow. We'll go to the blacksmith's and get this chain cut off. All right?"

"HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SLEEP??"

"We can share."

"Shut UP! NO way in hell that I'll do that. You can sleep on the floor."

Kyohei was enraged. No doubt that Ranmaru did this to get back at him and to get closer to Sunako.

"What about if we put another bed for you a little distance away from Sunako's bed?" suggested Kyohei, stressing on the 'away' part.

"That could work, but I wouldn't prefer it."

"Shut up. You'll do what Kyohei said."

Kyohei was overjoyed. Sunako had sided with HIM, and not with Ranmaru.

Then the two set off to the kitchen, and Sunako started cooking shrimp, again, even though she told Kyohei she wouldn't. Kyohei, determined not to let Ranmaru be alone with Sunako, came into the kitchen, and saw what was on the stove.

"SHRIMP! HOORAY!!!" shouted Kyohei joyously. In a sudden burst of emotion, he ran over to where Sunako stood, stirring the soup and hugged her tightly. He forgot the fact that Ranmaru was standing about 5 feet away. Sunako was surprised, because she had been facing the other way, and had not seen him coming. She gasped and dropped the metal soup spoon on Ranmaru's foot. No one paid attention to his moans of pain.

"You're hugging me because I'm making shrimp? You're that desperate?" laughed Sunako.

"Yes, Sunako, I'm desperate. So, so desperate" replied Kyohei, tightening his grip around her.

"Since you did that, I'm going to stuff them with carrots."

"I don't care" said Kyohei, finally letting go of her. He knew that she wouldn't do it, and even if she did, he wouldn't mind, because Sunako had finally shown that she liked him.

When dinner was ready, and everyone had come to the dining room, Takenaga and Yuki were very surprised to see Ranmaru and Sunako chained together.

"Why are you chained to her, Ranmaru?" asked Takenaga.

This obsession with Sunako is going too far. I wonder how Sunako is feeling, thought Takenaga.

"Long, story. In short, Ranmaru is an idiot" said Sunako, looking absolutely disgusted with Ranmaru.

"Sunako, I'm getting sick of fried shrimp. Can't we have something else for a change?" asked Yuki.

"Yeah, you always make stuff Kyohei likes" said Takenaga, laughing to himself. He had started feeling guilty about his little plan, and so he decided to help Sunako and Kyohei get together properly, as intended in the beginning.

Sunako looked down and blushed.

"Shrimp is good for you. It has a lot of calcium and no fat. Now eat them!" said Sunako, sounding like a mother telling her children to eat their vegetables.

"You're only defending the shrimp because Kyohei likes them. You don't make carrots, because Kyohei doesn't like them" said Ranmaru. He couldn't stop the jealous edge from creeping into his voice.

"Don't be jealous, Ranmaru. Sunako, are you doing this for Kyohei?" asked Takenaga.

"Now, why would I do that?" asked Sunako, sharing a small smile with Kyohei. Rephrase: She had a small smile, while Kyohei was grinning ear to ear, looking like an absolute idiot.

"Hey guys, doesn't school start in a week?" asked Yuki.

"Oh yeah, it does. I'm going to miss these holidays. They were…very eventful" said Ranmaru. He couldn't resist the urge to tease Sunako, just a little bit, even though he knew that she would tell him to shut up.

"Shut up, Ranmaru. I shouldn't even be giving you any food today for what you did."

"You're enjoying it." Ranmaru said slowly. Ranmaru was attempting to hypnotize Sunako into liking him, now that he was sure she liked Kyohei more than her. "I'm much more…experienced, you could say" he continued. A shower of rose petals appeared to fall around him.

"More experienced than who?" Sunako pretended to wonder. Had she really made it that obvious that she liked Kyohei? Or was he making it too obvious?

"You know who I mean" retorted Ranmaru.

"Well, I don't know who, so someone'd better tell me." Said Yuki, completely oblivious to Kyohei, Sunako and Ranmaru's blushing faces.

"Yuki, hush" said Takenaga.

After dinner, all of them cleared the table and helped Sunako wash the dishes, except for Kyohei, who never helped out.

"Why don't you make Kyohei do something?" whined Ranmaru. "You're always partial to him."

Takenaga and Yuki started laughing, Kyohei quickly and picked up a bowl and started scrubbing it furiously and Sunako pretended not to hear the comment.

After dinner, Sunako announced that she was going to her room to watch a movie.

"I'll come too" volunteered Kyohei.

"Kyohei, it's okay, me and Sunako will be very cozy, just the two of us."

"Ranmaru, shut up. He can come if he wants" said Sunako. "I'll need another person to kick him when he gets too close" she whispered to Kyohei. Kyohei laughed, and Ranmaru was trying to figure out what Sunako had told him.

"Can I come too? I feel like watching a mo –" said Yuki, before Takenaga dragged him away saying "We have to, um… finish our homework."

"But it's the middle of the vaca –" started Yuki, but Takenaga put his hand over Yuki's mouth and pulled him away.

"Well, that was odd" said Sunako.

"Whatever. Forget them. What are we watching?" asked Kyohei. They both were completely ignoring Ranmaru, but Ranmaru was not one to be ignored.

"Oi, you two, don't pretend I'm not here" said Ranmaru, trying to sound very hurt.

"How many times must I tell you to shut up? Do you want another punch, Ranmaru?" threatened Sunako.

"You punched him?" asked Kyohei, very amusedly.

"Yeah, I did. He deserved it."

"Nice one" said Kyohei.

The three of them headed to Sunako's room, and Sunako picked out the movie 'Dawn of the Dead'.

"Sunako, I'll be frightened out of my socks, pick another movie" said Ranmaru.

Sunako looked up. "It's either this or 'A Tale of Two Sisters'"

"Neither. Don't you have some nice romantic comedy?" begged Ranmaru. He truly was terrified.

"No, we are watching one of these two."

"Let's watch 'Dawn of The Dead'" said Kyohei.

"Okay."

"See, there you go again, letting Kyohei get his way all the time" sighed Ranmaru.

They started watching the movie, and Ranmaru really was frightened out of his socks, as he had threatened to do.

Man, this girl's really, really brave to even like this kind of stuff, thought Ranmaru. And Kyohei appears to be enjoying it too. And I can't escape, because I chained myself here. Nice job, Ranmaru.

After the movie, Ranmaru was scared to be in the same room as Sunako, with all her creepy room decorations. Kyohei got up and walked towards the door.

"That was a cool movie. We should do this again sometime" said Kyohei hopefully. "Without this retarded person" he added.

"Yeah, maybe" said Sunako, causing Kyohei's heart to do several back flips.

She walked over, stood on her tip-toes and quickly kissed him on the cheek.

"Thanks for watching with me, I wouldn't have survived being alone with this perverted git" she whispered to him. Kyohei turned his face very slightly and kissed her properly, and walked off.

"What were you two doing back there?" asked Ranmaru.

Sunako didn't reply, but this time, she wasn't pretending not to hear him. Her head was replaying that incident again and again.

Sunako walked slowly to her bed, climbed on and put the blanket over her head. Ranmaru settled down on his makeshift bed, and turned to face her.

"Sunako, I really do like you. You can't ignore me forever" he added, when she didn't respond.

"Sunako. Are you still awake?"

No response.

Sigh

Ranmaru gave up and drifted off into an unpleasant sleep.

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This is the longest I could manage to make it. Hope you like it!

Notice how Sunako stops calling Kyohei "creature of light" or "radiant creature", and how she starts acting more like a normal teenage girl. The next chapter is very short, comparatively. And also, it's the last chapter.

Plus, I'm not going to update it immediately, because where's the fun in that?