Misconceptions
Chapter Twelve:
A Song to the Sun
The keys of the piano echoed through the empty wing of the house. One key was plucked after the other to create a whirl wind of pure, emotional sound. It was unlike any other sound.
Ayame suddenly jumped, hitting the wrong note as Kouga slid the sound proof doors behind him. "You scared five years of my life!" she scolded taking a deep breath. "Where've you been? You were gone for like thirty minutes!"
He sighed as if he were out of breath and handed her a glass of milk.
Ayame took the glass from him confusingly. "But . . . Kouga, I didn't ask for a glass of milk."
His eyes widened in realization as he felt the utter stupidity come to him. He forgot to give the milk to someone in the other room. He grabbed the glass and set it on the coffee table in the middle of the room. "Never mind the milk."
She nodded. "Okay, so let's talk now. You can go first."
"No, its fine you go."
"But you're the one that wanted to talk in the first place."
"No, its fine, you can go. It's honestly a little hard for me to collect my thoughts."
She smiled and nodded. "Fine. I—"
"Here you are," Ai announced to herself as she slid the doors shut behind her. "Kouga, you're mother's been looking for you everywhere. I think that vain on her forehead is going to blow. Oh, Ayame I didn't know you were invited."
"Invited . . . to what?"
Ai looked around in confusion and pointed to the doors behind her. "To the dinner party in the dining hall—I guess I just assumed since you and Hana didn't get along—never mind that!"
Ayame set her hands at her hips and glared down at Kouga. "You double-booked?! If you told me that your mother was having a dinner party on another side of the house I wouldn't have come here in the first place!" She grabbed her purse from the table.
Ai gnawed on her lip nervously. She hadn't meant to ruin anything, but as usual, she did. "I'm just gonna go," she whispered.
Hana suddenly appeared at the doors with anger written all over her face. Her guest followed behind her as the laughed about something that was inaudible.
Ayame laughed nervously and scratched her head nervously.
Ai quickly gained back her mind and grabbed flowers from a near by vase. She shoved them at Ayame.
Ayame absorbed the idea right away and grabbed the flowers from Ai. "Yes I'm . . . um—Doctor Pepper? I take it that this isn't the Pepper . . . residence. Well I guess I better get these to him right away."
"Yes, I actually believe he's next door," Ai added in an attempt to cover for Ayame. She could tell by Hana's expression that not only was she shocked, but she was furious.
Ayame cursed herself inwardly for thinking of such a pathetic name—Dr. Pepper? What had she been thinking—she wasn't! She suddenly felt Hana take the flowers from her hand.
"Don't be absurd, Ayame. We all know you came here to entertain us for the evening. So why don't you do what you're good at—get to the piano, Hun."
Ayame looked at her confusingly. "I-I am? I mean . . . yes, of course."
Hana walked her over to the antique-looking piano. "You do know how to plain the piano, don't you?" She secretly hoped Ayame would make a fool of herself. "All privileged girls know how to play the piano. You see Ayame grew up next door," she fibbed to the guests. "And her piano skills are just lovely. I was hoping she could enlighten us."
One of the guests, and American male, nodded in assurance and smiled at Ayame. Boy was he in for a show.
"I only know one song," Ayame hissed to Hana.
"Then you better make it worth your while, little girl," Hana countered bitterly.
Ayame looked at the guests, and then Kouga who was most likely praying for someone to save them—or for a burglar to break through the window. She then looked at Ai who smiled encouragingly. Her eyes landed on Hana who looked satisfied. Ayame let her finger tips run over the keys and a ghastly sound escaped the beautiful instrument. Everyone suddenly looked at each other in shock as they whispered over the terrible sounds that escaped to piano.
"You can't be serious," Hana scolded.
Ayame glared at her. "I bet you'd like, wouldn't you?" She suddenly stopped and delicately let her fingers slide key to key, giving off a brilliant sound. The guests still looked amaze by the change of horrible playing to amazed by the song. Ayame finished off with a low key, and then stood from the piano bench. "That maybe be the only song I know, Hana, but let this be the last time you underestimate me."
Kouga wore the feelings Hana should have had. He was embarrassed for Ayame. How could Hana just put her on the spot—he'd forgotten how cruel she could be.
Ayame smiled at Hana's guest. "Enjoy your evening."
.o0o.
"All you have to do is divide it by the factor of X but first I guess you have to find the sum of X"
Carissa ignored Ginta. She had been ignoring him the whole time he was there! She hadn't meant to, but he was so boring. All he did was talk math—maybe because that's what he was trying to help her with. "Aren't you even tired of being smart?"
"What?"
She shrugged. "You talk a lot about math, that doesn't mean I'll understand it. It's hopeless." She closed her book and threw it on the floor. "
"But, what about you failing calculus?"
She shrugged again. "I'm changing majors anyways."
Ginta followed her by closing his book also. "What changing?"
"Well God invented double-majors for weird people like me so that they can make their parents happy, right? Well I'm through with it. I'm only studying fashion design next year. I'll still minor in fashion marketing, of course. But Business is so not my forte. Is that smart? I mean, you're smart. So is it a smart plan?"
Ginta shrugged. "Sure, I guess it is."
"Well I plan on starting my own business soon. Is it still smart?"
Ginta nodded. "So long as you have a business advisor of some sort, I'm sure you can make it work."
"You can be my business advisor, right? You're really smart—I think it'll help."
Ginta swallowed hard. "Sure," There was something about Carissa that was so head-strong. It was a bit frightening.
Ayame slammed the door shut behind her and threw her things down on the ground. "Ugh, I hate him!" She screamed. She finally stopped to take a deep breath.
Carissa came out of the kitchen with mouth full of cookie dough. "What wrong with you?"
"I need your car."
"For what?"
"I'm going to run over him, back up and then run over him again until I know for sure he'd dead!"
Carissa lifted a brow as her jaw froze. "Sounds beautiful—but I can't let you do that to my tires. Daddy got my new tires and if he finds out they're wrecked because you had to run over someone, he won't be happy."
"I'll buy you new tires," Ayame offered as a bribe."
Carissa sighed and thought about it. She grabbed her keys and threw them to her best friend only to have it intercepted by Ginta.
"You're not really gonna let her run over . . . well Kouga, I'm guessing, are you?"
Carissa shrugged. "She said she'd get me new tires. Besides, that's her prerogative. If you want to go to jail for running over Kouga, far be it from me to stop you."
"How encouraging," Ginta teased out of sarcasm. "Look, Ayame as your friend, I can't let you run over Kouga. Besides, he's my cousin and it would just be wrong if I even knew about the plot to kill him."
"You obviously weren't with me an hour ago."
"Well I'm with you now."
"The fact that you're his cousin and he was this close to clawing your throat out slowly just a few days ago should be enough to convince you to run over him with me."
Ginta thought about it for a moment. "Tempting, but no. Somehow I'm guessing if I put murder on my resume, no one would ever want to work with me. You should just calm down."
Ayame rolled her eyes and threw herself on the couch. "I can't really sleep off the urge to kill."
Carissa offered her a cookie. Just as Ayame refused, she ended up shoving it in her mouth anyway. "You shouldn't be angry all the time. Why don't you just call him? I'm sure he has an explanation for . . . whatever it is he did this time. What did he do this time?"
"The unthinkable!" She dramatically sighed and rested her hand on her forehead. "I can't even talk about it."
Carissa shrugged. "Fine, but your father called and left a message. He said he tried your cell phone, but you weren't picking up."
"Oh no, I totally forgot to reschedule our dinner. You think he's still at the restaurant?"
.o0o.
The hostess pointed at a table near by. Ayame nodded and bowed as a thank you. She rushed to see her father as she hugged him from behind, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. "I'm so sorry I'm late! I wasn't going to come but I forgot to call you and this whole night just became a total mess."
"Well, you came in time to order," Burke laughed. "You haven't eaten, have you?"
"Are you kidding? I'm starving!" She slipped off her jacket and hung it on the back of her chair and grabbed a menu. "So how was your week? I forgot I haven't been able to see you all week."
He smiled. "It was . . . interesting."
"Really . . . that sounds mysterious. I'm curious now. What happened?"
He waved his hand at her. "Nothing that you need to worry about. It's just some business stuff, I guess," he fibbed. "How's school."
She shrugged. "Good, I guess. I managed to catch up on my studies."
"That's good to hear. I forgot to mention I'm taking a small trip."
"A trip . . . where?"
"I have to go to Seoul to check on some stuff over there. I'll only be gone a week. An old friend came to visit me a few days ago so I decided to go back with him."
"When will you leave for Korea?" She couldn't help but sound a bit saddened.
"Next week. Don't worry. It'll only be a week. I'll be back in no time. There's nothing to worry about. Besides, you won't even miss me with all the school work you'll be getting over your spring break."
She nodded absently.
"I'd ask you to come . . . but I just wasn't sure if you'd be comfortable with it."
Ayame shrugged and closed her menu. "Why wouldn't I be comfortable?"
"Well, it'd be our first out of town trip. You haven't known me that long."
"You're my father, I shouldn't have to you know long to know we're blood."
He smiled. "So will you come, Kido?"
.o0o.
"You aren't seriously going, are you?" Carissa asked.
Kagome poured her friends some tea. "Carissa, don't be so rude," she scolded. "I think it's great that Ayame's getting to know her father more. A trip to Seoul is a great idea. She gets to go on vacation and get to know her father more."
"Let me rephrase that: You aren't seriously going to Seoul with out your two best friends—more importantly me, are you?"
Ayame rolled her eyes. That was the Carissa she had always known. "Carissa, I already told him I'd go. Plus, Landon's going too. I'll mostly be hanging out with him anyway."
"Ugh, I want to meet some hot Korean guys."
Ayame took a sample of her tea after blowing on it. The steep rose up her nose leaving a calming aroma. "We're going next week. Besides, I need to get out of the country before Kouga becomes the death of me—or the reason I end up in jail."
Her friends laughed. "True," Carissa agreed. "So what are you going to do in Seoul, any way? Do you even know Korean?"
She shrugged. "I'll probably end up sight-seeing with Landon or something. My Korean is a little rough, but I had to learn it in grade school anyway. It was either that or Spanish—and I ended up learning that too."
Kagome sighed. "I guess we have packing to do then, huh?"
.o0o.o0o.o0o.o0o.
A/n:
Yay! I've gotten better at updating! Lol. Thanks for all your support and reviews. Keep up those reviews please!!
So onto the next chapter: What will Ayame do about Kouga? And what will happen in Seoul? And how about Hana—what is her next plan?
Spoiler…sort of: Next chapter, I'm going to unveil a huge secret. Something strange will happen to Ayame in Seoul…but what could it be? And who is that mysterious man that keeps calling her a different name? TUNE IN NEXT CHAPTER LOVES!!
