Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot and my original characters. The character Kami is based on a friend of mine and she gets credit for herself. However she's not nearly as hyper or weird as the Kami in my fic, I just did that to make it more interesting.
An Interesting Day
Ryo stretched out his arms, which had gone, cramped on him during the long car ride back. It was only eight in the morning at the moment but students were up and about as was to be expected. The University was actually very small but none the less had more then enough students, which was obvious even this early. His first class wasn't for another two hours so Ryo figured he'd head for his room and try to get another hour's sleep before he had to leave. Turning around he double-checked that his car was locked before dragging his duffel bag off the top of his car and heading out of the parking lot. With a spring to his step Ryo grinned as he made his way through the campus, unaware of the picture he presented. A handsome man to begin with he looked even better with a huge smile on his face and a skip to his stride that suggest he was having a really good day despite how early it was. Was Rika still asleep Ryo wondered as he absently returned a wave. Probably not, she struck him as the type to get up early no matter what the day was. Smiling even more at just the thought of her Ryo rammed right into a fellow English student who'd stepped in front of him.
"Of gee I'm sorry, Amaura." Ryo said as he steady her after he'd rammed into her. Brushing her off with his free hand Ryo gave her an apologetic smile. 'I should have been paying more attention to where I was going."
"That's okay Ryo, I kinda walked in front of you." Amaura said with a smile as she adjusted her backpack strap that had been falling off her shoulder. "Let's call it even and say that it was both our faults."
"You're too kind." Ryo said with a warm smile. "How's your paper going for the Prof, I hear his arthritis is acting up again which means he'll be in a really bad mood when we had them in. I'm almost tempted to rewrite a bunch of it just in case."
"I'm sure it'll be great." Amaura said with a grin. "But if your worried about it I'd be happy to look it over for you, make some suggestions if you want."
"That'd be great." Ryo said feeling his day getting just that much better. "I'd really appreciate it."
"No problem, always happy to have you in my debt." Amaura said with a wink. "And in thanks maybe you'd be interested in going out some time this week."
"Ahhh thanks Amaura." Ryo said with a sinking feeling. He and Amaura had been good friends for a while now and his roommate had hinted that he thought Amaura was interested in more then that. She was a great girl and Ryo had hoped it was just John's imagination but he was beginning to think maybe he was wrong in that assumption. But how to do this tactfully. "I'd like that, it's been a while since we've hung up. And you can be the first to congratulate me."
"On what?" Amaura asked with a sinking feeling.
"Well I finally managed to convince this girl I've been after for a while to go out with me, the girls at this school are officially safe from my deadly charms." Ryo said with a grin and felt bad when he read disappointment in her eyes. But at least he'd done it in a way that would sooth her pride slightly; he'd never let on that he'd known about her feelings.
"That's great, Ryo. I gotta be going, you'll have to tell me all about the lucky girl over lunch or something." Amaura said and with a quick wave made her way towards her dorm room where she could lick her wounds in private. Then she was going to find John and Kami to pump for information on this girl Ryo was so crazy about.
Watching her go Ryo felt some of his early happiness fade away with the fact that he'd most likely hurt her. After class he'd seek out Kami, one of his best friends and ask her to spread it around that he was taken so that he wouldn't have to go through this again. Feeling a little better after coming up with the plan Ryo reached his dorm and headed up to his room. He shared the room with John, a Canadian who'd recently transferred to the University to study music and another guy who was off doing field work for the rest of the month. John was really talented and Ryo couldn't have asked for a better roommate in the whole wide world, except maybe Rika but that would be too much temptation. Coming to his door he found in unlocked and opening the door walked in and happily kicked off his shoes.
"You up John?" Ryo called out when he heard a noise from the kitchen. It was rare to find his cooking impaired roommate in the kitchen and Ryo couldn't help but wince a bit at the thought of what he might have done to the kitchen while he'd been away.
"He's over in my room trying to get the Satanic piece of junk that is my computer to work." A female voice called out and Ryo grinned when he recognized Kami's voice. He and Kami had dated for a while last year but they'd grown apart and she was now dating his roommate which suited him just fine since he'd set them up in the first place. Next to Rika Kami was his favorite female in the world and he couldn't think of anyone who deserved her more then John.
"Acting up again huh?" Ryo commented as he walked into his kitchen to see Kami at the stove cooking some eggs. She was just a little shorter then he was with milk chocolate brown skin and eyes, set off by a head of black hair. She was extremely pretty even wearing an apron and when she smiled at him or anyone they couldn't help but smile back.
"Hi ya handsome." Kami said setting down the spoon she'd been battering the eggs with. Walking over she gave Ryo a quick hug before drawing back to study his face. "I take it from that smile that things went well?"
"I'm no longer an eligible bachelor if that's what you mean." Ryo said with a huge grin before impulsively pulling her back into another hug. "Last night was very close to being perfect."
"And why wasn't it perfect, don't tell me you forgot the flowers or got her home late." Kami said putting her hands on her hips.
"Nope, those were both fine and the only problem is one I need your help with, you and your devilish mind." Ryo said and smiled at the twinkle that appeared in her eyes.
"Oh do tell." Kami said raising her eyebrows comically. "I take it I'm going to enjoy helping you with this little task?"
"God help us all, she's up to it again." came a voice from the hallway and Kami's face lit up even further when John walked into the room with a smirk on his face.
"So you get the computer from hell to work, buddy?" Ryo asked after Kami was done kissing him in thanks. Kami tended to have a problem with being in the same room and not kissing him at least once ever five minutes. In Ryo's opinion there were worse things.
"Pretty much. If she'd stop smacking it and fooling around with the buttons it wouldn't act up so much." John said with a smirk. Ever since Kami had found out John was good with computers she'd been getting him to try to get her machine to behave which was a constantly losing battle. Wrapping an arm around her waist John gave a long suffered sigh before looking down at her from his 6 ft 4 height. ""What are you planning to do and to whom?"
"I don't know yet, Ryo hasn't told me." Kami winked as she elbowed him lightly in the stomach. "And you make it sound like I'm some sort of menace."
"You'd but Dennis the Menace to shame." John said with a smirk. Tugging on a lock of her hair John turned back to Ryo. "So what did this person do to deserve you unleashing Kami on him."
"You can be replaced you know." Kami said sticking her tongue out at him. "This is a co-ed university, there are plenty of other guys out there that can replace you."
As this was a long-standing thing Ryo just shook his head. "Basically a football player punched a friend of mine, was going to punch out another friend of mine and serious insulted Rika and me."
"And he's still alive for Kami to tortured?" John said raising an eyebrow. He of all people knew how much Ryo cared about Rika, he'd made it obviously clear in hundreds of ways in the past. Plus Ryo wasn't one to back away from a fight, especially if someone close to him was somehow involved.
"They got him out before I found out what the fight was about. Henry got in a punch but I intend to see the son-of-a-bitch suffer. Hence bring in Kami. Oh and I have one more favor to ask you Kami."
"Ask away." Kami said, her head already filled with all sorts of ideas on how to pay the jock back for almost ruining Ryo's date after she'd worked so hard to make sure that the date would be a success.
"I need you to spread around campus that I'm taken and if you see me heading for a female trap unaware let me know. Rika was quite specific on what she was going to do to me if I cheated on her and I'd really rather remain in one piece." Ryo said with a weary grin that got bigger as she gave a delighted yelp and threw herself back into his arms.
"You did it, you did it. I'm so happy for you!" Kami said practically squeezing the life out of him. 'You've got to get her to come out here sometime so that I can meet her, gotta make sure she's good enough for one of my favorite guys in the whole wide world."
"Well I'll give it my best shot." Ryo said with a grin. "So you got any ideas?"
"Plenty." Kami said with an evil grin that only began to hint at what was going through that twisted little mind of hers at that very moment. "Of course you'll have to give me a couple of ideas to fine tune everything, Rome wasn't built in a day after all."
Rika sat on the bench and looked at her watch before settling down for a wait. As pre-agreed she would want another five to ten minutes before calling Alice in case her friend was in need of rescuing. She'd just dropped off her rolls of film from the dance and seeing how many people had been there doing the same she'd told the owner that she didn't need them anytime soon. The poor guy had looked at her like she'd just promised him the world. Breaking into her thoughts was the sound of her cell phone going off and remembering Ryo's promise to call eagerly pressed on and placed it to her ear. "Hello?"
"Hi, is this Rika?"
"Aww yeah, it is. Can I help you?" Rika asked in confusion, not recognizing the voice on the other end at all. It was female with a slight accent she recognized as European. But this was her private line and her family knew not to give it out unless it was really important. Pressing call display she frowned when she didn't recognize the number.
"You don't know me but I'm calling for Ryo, he had to rush off to help John after my computer started to smoke. He wanted me to tell you that he got here all right and he'll call you later tonight." The voice said cheerfully and Rika had a feeling that this girl was definitely a character.
"Awww…..thanks." Rika replied not knowing what else to say. "It was nice of you to call."
"No prob, now that you're dating Ryo were going to get to know each other a lot better. My name's Kami by the way, I use to date Ryo but we broke up a while ago and I'm dating his roommate, I think you met John during Thanksgiving?" The voice, a girl named Kami apparently said.
"I remember." Rika said with a smile. During Thanksgiving Ryo had brought his roommate, John with him because it wasn't possible for him to fly home to spend it with his family. Thinking hard Rika pictured the tall and quiet black man and tried to picture him with this bubbly girl on the other end of the line. It was an interesting image, especially when she remembered Ryo mentioning a girl name Kami and showing her a picture. Interesting.
"Before you ask Ryo and I are just really good friends now and that's one of the reasons I volunteered to call you for him, I wanted to get to know you better." Kami said with a smile in her voice. "Ryo's like a brother to me which makes you family!"
"Thanks." Rika said having no idea what to say. She had a feeling that this was going to be the beginning of an interesting relationship. "I wish we could chat but I have to call a friend about something, emergency. Another time?"
"No prob." Kami said cheerfully. "Talk to you later."
"Later." Rika agreed not knowing what else to say. "Bye.
Alice could literally feel the muscles in her face protesting as she struggled vainly to keep a smile plastered on her face as Henry's grandmother continued to talk. The current topic was about how today's youth were losing sight of what was important; how the Chinese culture was being lost because children today had no time for their elders or to learn the truths about the world around them. When her cell phone went off Alice just barely managed to restrain herself from dropping to her knees in thanks. Smiling apologetically Alice opened her phone and pressing the sound button smiled truly into the phone. "Hello?"
"Alice, its me Rika, are you busy, I couldn't remember when you're meeting with Henry's grandmother is." Rika's voice came out of the phone, amusement barely contained at the emotion she'd heard behind the hello.
"I'm there now, something wrong?" Alice asked putting emphasis on the wrong in case she'd forgotten the signal. She was moments away from being free; she could taste it all ready.
"Ah yeah, gee I hate to do this." Rika said with a really sorry voice. "But you remember that project we have due on Monday?"
"Yeah, we just have to make the title page, right?" Alice said putting concern in her voice, which was really hard given her present circumstances. Lord only knows what she'd do if she were stuck here for much longer. The possibilities were endless and none of them were good. "Is something wrong with it?"
"I think my lap-top ate it or at the very least mutated it." Rika said with a fairly good imitation of distress. "I finished the title page and decided to go over the report one more time to make sure that everything was all good and set, there's something wrong with the disk or the file Alice because its reading in symbols and gibberish."
"Please tell me your joking." Alice said trying to remember what her hour had been like to get her voice to sound truly horrified. "All of it is like that."
"Yeah, Alice you gotta come over and help me with this. I have no idea what to do and if we don't figure out something we can count on big zeroes going into the mark book." Rika said in mock horror.
"I'll be right there, don't worry, we'll figure something out. Bye." Alice said and had the phone shut off before Rika could even return the sentiment. "I'm very sorry Mrs. Wong but an emergency has come up and I really have to go. I wish you were staying longer so that we could get to know each other better." Alice said struggling to work up some really regret but falling short of the mark. Really short of the mark. "Would you like me to go get Mr. Wong or Henry?"
"No, you go on dear, I hope you solve the problem." Mrs. Wong said with a smile. "And don't worry about a thing, I'm sure we'll be seeing each other again soon."
"That would be lovely, give my regrets to the rest of your family if you would." Alice said and when the old lady nodded her head Alice bowed her head and slowly walked out of the room, gaining speed as soon as she'd closed the apartment door behind her. First speed walking then all out running Alice took the apartment stairs two at a time and raced out of the building like a bat out of hell. Running until she was all the way down the block and couldn't see the apartment building anymore Alice moved off the sidewalk and dropped to her knees on someone's lawn. "That, was worse then being forced to wear color for the rest of my life."
Hearing her swearing before she saw her Rika hopped off the bench as she watched her friend walk towards her, steam practically coming out of her ears as people got out of her way out of fear that she'd trample them. Instinctively knowing to keep her thoughts to herself Rika simply waved at her friend and waited for the storm.
"He's going to pay if I have to spend the rest of my life seeing to it. When I get through with him there's going to be nothing left of him but piece so small they'll look like crumbles to the mice. And when they bury him I'm going to dance on his grave. There's no jury in the world that would convict me after I tell them what he put me through." Were the first words Alice shouted out that Rika could understand.
"That bad huh?" Rika said sympathetically as she watched her friend pass in front of her, too angry to even consider sitting down on the bench.
"That woman is enough to drive a saint to murder and mayhem." Alice began, her ice blue eyes flashing dangerously. "I knew ahead of time from Henry that she wasn't an easy person but that doesn't even begin to describe her. You wouldn't believe what I've gone through in the past hour. I deserve to be sainted for putting up with it!"
"What happened." Rika said with a barely concealed smirk. This was going to be one hell of a story, she'd bet her Digimon cards on it.
"Well for starts she looked me over like a brood mare." Alice said, getting angrier just recalling it. ""She grabbed onto my face and studied my eyes for a bout a minute then practically forced my mouth open to check out my teeth, literally! Apparently you can tell a lot about a person from their eyes and teeth. She did this all minutes after I arrived; it was the first thing she did after we were introduced. Then Mr. I'll Stay in the Room with You Henry goes off with his father and grandfather so that we girls can talk the good for nothing louse. Of course Mrs. Wong tried to protect me from her mother in law but the woman's a dragon, Henry's mom didn't stand a chance."
"Was she born in the year of the dragon?" Rika asked and drew back when Alice gave her a scalding look. "Sorry."
"And you know how Henry told me not to give her my birth date? My dad volunteered it! He forgot to tell me something and came back to remind me just as Henry's grandmother asked for it. Apparently our, Henry's and mine, birth dates are a bit off but our marriage would most likely work out since were from the same year of the Zodiac which makes up for the fact that I'm not Chinese. Did you know that I'm very lucky to have a nice Chinese boy who'll be able to take care of me and treat me as well as Henry will? I'll never have to worry about anything outside the children and the household!"
"Oh." Rika said with a big wince, that would not have gone over well with Alice.
"And that's only the beginning of my suffering!" Alice declared as she flopped down on the bench beside Rika. "It gets worse!"
"You know what you need, Alice? You need to go visit Dobermon and relax a bit; it'll make you feel a lot better. I'll call Jeri and Suzy and we'll make a girl day out of it." Rika said wincing a bit since she wasn't a big fan of the idea herself but maybe it would back Alice feel better.
"Yeah, I have to tell Dobermon to eat Henry anyway." Alice said crossing her arms in front of her chest. "He'll regret the day he caused me all this mental anxiety."
"I'm sure he will." Rika replied, perfectly serious. This was definitely proving to be an interesting day. "Let's round up the girls shall we?"
"Yup, they can help me plot my revenge." Alice said with a rather scary smile. "This is going to take some work, when were done Henry's going to be begging for my forgiveness.
"Uh oh, I really don't like the sound of that."
Well that's it for now, I hope you enjoyed. The next chap will features our girls and their digimon so don't worry; they are going to be part of this story as well. Hope you enjoyed and always review cause I love to hear from ya!