The Ghost of Kissmas Past

Although Niou said they'll talk on Monday, he really couldn't consider this as 'talk'. Somehow he felt guilty over something but he was not sure what to feel guilty about. He kept on recalling what he said to Chika on the phone knowing for sure that it all started there but he really couldn't see anything wrong from whatever he said. Chika wasn't helping too since whenever he asks her something, she doesn't answer like she normally does. All she would say is 'yes', 'no', 'maybe' or 'dunno' and that's when he's lucky, most of the time she'll just say 'hm'.

"Are you ignoring me?"

"No"

"Then why won't you answer with complete sentences?" Niou asked

Chika was currently reading a book. Normally she'd just put it down, face him and answer, but now the books seems more important than him. He's not being full of it or anything but Chika would always pay more attention to him than some book.

"Hey" Chika exclaimed when Niou grabbed her book and stuffed it in his bag.

"Now will you stop ignoring me?"

If this happened before, Niou wouldn't give a damn. But now, he really couldn't stand it. He likes talking to Chika and he hates if the girl just suddenly stops talking to him.

"I'm not ignoring you" Chika just said then stood up from her seat and exited the room.

Niou sighed in irritation, facing front. He placed his hands in his pocket and slouched. He stared outside wondering again what must have ticked Chika off.

"Yo" Marui's voice said

"Hm" was all his answer

"What's up with you and vice pres? She looked, I dunno, sad?"

"Sad?" Niou repeated "you mean pissed"

Marui furrowed his eyebrows "pissed? Nah, it looks more of sad."

"She's not pissed?"

Marui snorted "how would I know? I'm telling you, she's sad. When you two are talking, I see her pissed most of the time, now just plain sad"

Niou frowned this time, slightly irritated with Marui "were you staring at her?"

Marui laughed "staring? In case you haven't noticed Niou, I'm sitting right beside her. Whenever you two talk – loudly at that – I hear everything even when I don't want to. I don't need to stare to know she's pissed or sad; it's obvious in the voice. That's how much of a genius I am"

Niou looked at him for a while, as if seeing if he's telling the truth. When he saw that Marui wasn't really that interested in Chika, he nodded.

"What? You jealous of me? Haha, can't see why you won't be since I'm a hot-shot but vice pres is your girl, I don't steal from friends"

Niou raised an eyebrow "what? You think me and her are… haha, no, no, no, no… no… no, no, noooo, no… NO"

Marui huffed "really? Ten no's?"

"We're not like that okay?"

Marui shrugged "whatever, that's not what everyone thinks though"

"Still that rumor?"

"Oh, no not that rumor. Someone saw you two kissing"

Niou went pale at this. Is she angry because of this?

"Kissing?" Niou repeated, trying to look innocent which apparently worked in front of Marui.

"Ha, I knew it. It's just another rumor"

"What exactly does the rumor say?"

Marui shrugged and grabbed a seat facing Niou.

"Some girl said she saw you and the vice pres by the vending machine, on the floor kissing. I mean it's stupid, if you two kissing, why on the floor? And why would you do it by the vending machine? Really, that's lacks imagination" Marui laughed

Niou laughed to, but in his case, forced. So someone did see them.

"Marui, that's not a rumor, that's true" Niou said, not knowing why on earth he would tell that to Marui. But Marui is a teammate and has proven to Niou that he was trustworthy. That is another story though.

Marui stopped laughing and stared at Niou. He just stared as if he was frozen.

"What?" was the first thing he asked after a long moment of silence

"It was accident" Niou sighed "the floor was wet so I slipped, I grabbed onto her and we both fell. When I opened my eyes we were… uh… our faces are near each other"

"But you two kissed?"

"It wasn't a kiss, it was a lip bump, a lengthy lip bump okay?"

Marui frowned "hmmm… so then the girl exaggerated it huh"

"What did she say?"

"Well she claims that you two were kissing, by kissing I mean, moving your lips and you were holding on to vice pres' hair and face. I can't remember most but from her description, it was really kissing, not an accidental bump-lip-thing, what was that? Whatever"

Niou didn't know what to say. Mainly because he didn't have any recollection of what exactly happened after he realized his lips were against hers. Partly because this whole thing might be the reason Chika is angry at him… or sad.

But why would she be sad? It's more logical if she's angry. I mean I did kiss her, if that girl was actually telling the truth and there's not a rumor about us. But she wasn't angry about the rumor before. Maybe because the first rumor wasn't true…. Ugh, girls are so confusing

"So you think that's why she's pissed?" Niou asked Marui

The boy sighed "I dunno, so did you really kiss her?"

Marui was no help at all, Niou thought.

"I don't know, maybe, I blacked out"

Marui laughed "how can you black out when you're kissing someone? Either she's that bad or that was your first time and you have kissing issues"

Niou snorted and thought it's not my first time, I've kissed girls before so she must be that bad haha… wait, is she?

"I don't remember, maybe that's why she's pissed. Or maybe she's sad because she thinks she's a horrible kisser"

"Well whatever it is, you stole her first kiss, and first kisses are important to girls."

But why is she only sad now? Why not right after the kiss?

Niou stood up and was about to go out the room.

"Hey, where're you going?" Marui called

"I'm going to find her, get some answers" Niou just said before closing the door. As he exited, he heard a lot of whispers. He couldn't get a clear statement though since the whispers collided with each other.

But he knew one thing, this is going to fuel the rumors about him and Chika and it was not going to be good.

After Chika exited the room, she wasn't quite sure where to go. Her feet automatically headed to a direction and it took her brain a while to figure out where. When her feet stopped, she realized she was in front of Yagyuu's classroom. She sighed, not even knowing why she was there. She started to pace outside the door, talking to herself about what was bothering her. But after losing an argument against herself, she realized she was not really sure what was bothering her.

She was about to turn to walk away when she bumped into someone.

"Oh, sorry… oh, it's you" the boy said

"Uhm, do I know you?"

"Oh, no, I well we met, briefly at the opening ceremony. That was ages ago so it's fine if you don't remember me. We've never been classmates before anyway and I'm not popular so…" the boy rambled "I'm Koichi… Fuwa Koichi"

Chika furrowed her brows a little then tried remembering the opening ceremony.

"oh, you're that guy who asked me about where the to sign up for soccer, sorry I wasn't any help" Chika said "I was a freshman at that time after all so… still, I'm sorry"

Koichi chuckled and rubbed his nape boyishly "oh, no, It's fine. When I got there I didn't have the courage to join anyway"

"So you're not in the soccer team?"

"No, anyway, are you looking for Yagyuu? I think I saw him heading to the student council room"

"Oh, thanks… you should try out for soccer"

"It's too late, we're third years now"

"But there's still high school" Chika said before heading to the student council room

Koichi just smiled, watching her sprint away from him.

"Fuwa Koichi, third year class _, quit the soccer team because of an injury, lied to vice pres about it, is it safe to say you have a crush on the vice pres?" a voice said, making him jump in shock.

Niou smirked from his reaction and folded his arms to survey him closely

"Well do you?"

Koichi blushed and became nervous. Everyone in school knew Chika and Niou were dating. It's not like he can just tell the boyfriend he has a thing for the girlfriend.

"n-no" he lied

"An obvious lie. You can't lie to the number one liar in Rikkai" Niou laughed but slightly irritated and it was kind of showing in his face

"Okay, yes, look, it's a one sided thing. I'm not even making a move. She's your girlfriend, I get it"

"Whoa, she's not my girlfriend. Rumors are rumors and truth is truth, you can't go mixing them together. Have you at least tried making a move on her?" Niou asked

"No, why are you so interested if she's not your…"

"I'm helping her find a boyfriend. I can set you two on a date"

Koichi just couldn't believe this. It's impossible for Niou, the trickster of Rikkai, to help a stranger like him go on a date with the girl he likes, especially when that girl is a friend and rumored girlfriend of the trickster. He's messing with him; that was his conclusion.

"No thanks" was all he said before going inside the room.

"Too bad" Niou just said with a smirk on his face. Secretly, deep down inside him, Niou was dancing the caremelldansen in rejoice of the boy rejecting his offer.

Finally, Chika found him. He was sitting in the student council room, "reading" something and looked extremely serious. Chika can tell that despite his head facing down the book, Yagyuu wasn't exactly reading it. Just staring at it.

"Hiroshi" she called

He looked up and gave her a stern expression.

"Okay, what did I do?"

"There are rumors I heard recently"

"Ugh… about what now?" Chika asked irritably

"About you and Niou-kun"

Chika laughed "that rumor? Isn't that a rumor ages ago?"

"Not that rumor, that rumor died out. The new rumor says you and Niou-kun kissed"

Chika's face went pale and she turned to look away "hmmm… it's going to rain, did you bring an umbrella Hiroshi? I think I forgot to bring one"

"You're effort to change the subject tells me this rumor is true" Yagyuu said

"It was an accident" Chika sighed "he's not saying anything about it, I'm not asking him either. It was probably a spur-of-the-moment thing"

"So he kissed you? And he didn't say anything about it?" Yagyuu's voice was rising

"I don't think he even remembers" Chika chuckled

"He kissed you! How can he not remember? That was your first kiss!"

Chika could almost chuckle to how Yagyuu was fussing about this too much, if only she wasn't bothered by it too.

"It happened long ago, I'm not even sure why this is coming out just now. He must have not seen that as a striking event, maybe I'm a bad kisser, maybe he just felt like doing it. I don't know okay? I don't know what's going on in that brain of his. I just don't want to talk about it anymore" Chika sighed

Yagyuu sighed. It's very crystal clear to him how much Chika is affected by Niou and he knew why. The problem was Chika didn't know it and Niou didn't know it and here he was shouting at her for events she may not have any control off.

"I'm sorry for shouting" Yagyuu said, hugging Chika "I should be yelling at him, not at you"

Chika chuckled again "can you really do that?"

Yagyuu chuckled this time "maybe not, but I can try to at least get some explanations"

"I'm just really confused right now. I don't know what's going on with me" Chika sighed, resting her head against Yagyuu's chest "he says things that really bothers me and I don't know why it bothers me. It shouldn't but it does. And he does things that drive me insane. I just wish he'd go away sometimes but I don't really want him to go away. It's driving me nuts!"

"Everything will become clear to you soon, so right now, just distract yourself. Why don't you work on that upcoming fieldtrip. It might take your mind off things" Yagyuu offered and handed her the paperwork

"If you're not you, I'd think you're just passing this job to me because you're being lazy"

"I think you're referring to Niou-kun" Yagyuu smirked

Chika's mouth dropped.

Did Hiroshi just smirk?


Author's rant:

And this is the part where I apologize for taking so long to update so… I AM SO SORRY! And this is the part where I tell you my reasons for not updating for so long so… I had my psychology research, I had my exams, I had a bit of writer's block and I was mesmerized by Photoshop. I was going to update right after our final exams but we had a power outage so I wasn't able to access the internet. I took the time to write the outline of what will happen in future chapters though so yeah… oh and I have an apology gift for you. You can find it here: http:/blackcricket*dot*deviantart*dot*com/art/good-luck-kiss-182483986?q=sort%3Atime+gallery%3Ablackcricket&qo=0 (or you can find the link in my profile)

Yeah, I'm done with my rant. If you have any questions, just ask me and I'll answer. Oh and thank you so much for still reading this even though I'm a lousy updater. I adore you!