Chapter 13: "…Of Mice and Men"
"Kaji-kun, I think you missed the turn." Hino Kahoko turns from the pleasant giddy conversation that Mori seemed intent on continuing unencouraged.
So many varied subjects had passed between the two girls, that Hino's head was spinning from trying to keep up with Mori Manami's racing tongue.
And it seemed Mori's wagging tongue was in competition with Kaji Aoi's driving. Hino had been a passenger in Kaji's silver shiny Jaguar sports car many times already since the trio had started school at Ferris/Meiji colleges. Kaji Aoi was not an overly cautious driver by any scope of the imagination, but never had he driven like a madman on a death wish before this morning. More than once today, Hino was startled to a shriek after the high speeding vehicle hit a bump or two all too quickly for any resemblance to a 'comfortable ride'.
"Did I?" Kaji says innocently, though his eyes could not meet the girl's squeezed in next to him, for fear of losing his cool. (Which was a very easy thing indeed for sift-headed Councilman's son sometimes.)
"Yes!" Hino nods emphatically, pointing backwards to the passed by road.
"I don't think so." Mori contradicts in a serious tone, shaking her head plausibly.
"Oh." Hino gives in. After all, Kaji had been driving in these parts for two years now, and if Mori agreed -
"Wait! We're definitely on the wrong road!" Hino panics when she sees the strange sight of a milking cow swishing its tail behind a fence and strange none too grassy field that she'd never seen before.
"I don't think so." Kaji says in his most convincing voice, though it was less than Oscar award-winning.
"Nope." Mori backs him up with a closed-eyed smile right in Hino's face.
"Yes, we are, you two! I saw a cow!" Hino was getting flustered, feeling outflanked on either side as Kaji says something and Mori swears to it.
"You saw….a cow…..Hino-san? Ha ha ha. That's funny." Kaji's acting was improving, though his guilty giggles were so highpitched they were dripping over syrupy, as he looks with wide incredulous eyes at the redhead seated on the convertible's front bench beside him.
"Very funny, Hino-san! You're becoming quite the comedienne!" Mori joins Kaji in the silly chuckling. Hino felt like tearing her hair out about now as the unfamiliar scenery on the long expanse of strange road is added to by billboards for some nearby amusement park's smiling clowns and giraffe cutouts looming down over her.
"Kaji-kun! Wait! We definitely never pass that sign with the clowns and animals on the way to Ferris before!" Hino cries out.
"Shortcut." Comes his simple, clipped reply.
"But -" Hino wonders helplessly, looking to Kaji at the wheel in exasperation as he makes a sudden quick turn.
"Shortcut to the shortcut." He looks away, pretending his immediate attention required to be fixed on the road.
Hino turns to Mori, who just shrugs and smiles saccharinely back at her as if all were right with the world.
Hino swivels around in her seat to look at that billboard for a mile marker or location sign. Her frustrated eyes instead gaze wonderingly at the mass of suitcases and baggage, accompanied by a warm winter coat or two piled in the backseat.
So that's why I couldn't sit in the back like usual. Hino muses, not quite putting two and two together yet.
"Are you planning to go on a trip, Kaji-kun?" Hino asks, cocking her head inquisitively.
"Trip? Trip?! Trip!?" Kaji looks to Mori to bail him out, his head empty as the wind blowing through it.
"Oh, well..." Mori's mind rapidly races for a feasible excuse, biting her lip as the wheels in both her head and convertible spin erratically.
"You've found us out, Hino-san." Mori says with well delivered resignation in her most convincing voice, followed by an effective little sigh.
Kaji grits his teeth, shaking his head wildly at her over Hino's in worry of the beans being spilt.
"Kaji-kun, and I," Mori pauses dramatically as she grasps at straws for thought, as Kaji's stupid mouthing of 'Don't Tell!' over Hino's back and forth head, was not helping one bit.
"Kaji-kun and I…" Mori struggles until a brilliant thought pops into her head.
"-Are running away together. Just for the weekend." Mori crosses her fingers behind her lying back, hoping that Hino bought the quickly spun tale as Mori gives Kaji, over Hino's head, a raised brow hopeful grin.
"Ohh~hh." Hino says with a low whistle, looking from one reddening face to the other.
"Please don't tell on us! We're on our way to the airport now." When her eyes focus on him with curious scepticism, Kaji bites his lip for effect with the added corny fib as he shakes his acting head.
"I think that is just so - so -" The two conspirators were hanging on every word, both fully ready for a disbelieving rebuke.
"Romantic!" Hino finishes with the delirious smile and a girlish dreamy sigh, slumping in her seat at the thought. She was too lost in the fairytale tale to wonder much about where that would leave her, if the lovey-dovey couple abandoned both her and their car for a stolen away airplane ride to parts unknown.
"Don't worry, Mori-san, Kaji-kun. I won't breathe a word to anyone!" Hino promises the guilty faced couple on each side of her, placing a friendly palm on each guilty arm.
"Oh! And I'll take very good care of your Jaguar too, Kaji-kun. Thanks for thinking so highly of me, I know how much this car means to you." Hino puffs up with pride at the trust he was placing in her newly learned driving skills with his very expensive vehicle, she petting it's smooth leather dashboard with promised care.
She misinterpreted the reason now that the pair had insisted on picking her up. She thought Kaji intended for her to drive the car back from the airport and keep it while they were gone.
"Umm...Gee…thanks? He he he he." Kaji is just able to squeak out. Mori's quick excuse for their reason to travel to the airport was quite a lot for his little brain to entertain just now. Kaji blushes from the base of his red neck all the way to the bottom of his red toes as his eyes sneak a now bashful glance at his 'runaway lover', Mori Manami unable to squelch her own ear to ear smile back at him.