To Zing or Not to Zing
Chapter Six: Admit
Admit defeat, and defeat will surely admit you into permanent custody.
-Beret Girl, 'An Extremely Goofy Movie'
xxXxx
Haru only opened the note in case it was from someone new, her eyes skipping past the message to check the name.
Cat R. Waul again. A glance up at the message revealed him to have invited her to have lunch with him. Haru heaved a deep sigh while scanning around for the closest trash can. "You'd think they'd figure out by now it's not happening," she muttered under her breath, making a toss with both the rose and note, but the note disobediently fluttered to the side and missed the trash can completely.
Haru decided to take care of her locker business before trying again. But she noticed that there were scratch marks along the bottom of her locker that the note had previously covered up. She studied those marks carefully before setting her shoes in and grabbing the note before checking that trash can.
A small bunch of black and white roses with a note had been shoved deeply into that trash can, shredding the plastic liner within. Haru made a mental note to make this particular bin her responsibility when it was time to clean up after school. She could only assume that 'Wally's minion hadn't been too pleased to see that Mephistopheles or Meowrice had left her flowers before he could, but she wasn't curious enough to go fishing for the other note. She tossed the current one in the trash and carried her things up to her first class.
ooOoo
Haru saw an immediate problem when she walked into her classroom and saw another bunch of roses on her desk. As well as the few classmates that had been clustered around them but broke away when they saw it was her.
"Again?" she couldn't resist asking with depression.
Two of them couldn't look her in the eye, but Mai approached her with a small envelope and held it out like she was handling one of Haru's bombs. Haru decided not to take issue with the fact that the card within had definitely been read before she walked in.
"Bla bla bla, Si and Am," she skimmed through the note before taking another look at the cream roses, accented with blue baby's breath and held together with a brown ribbon. "Must be the kinky twins from the grocery store. Hard pass!" she announced without much thought, balling the note into a tiny ball and trying to shoot it into the distant trash can.
She made it in, but only because the ball hit the edge of the rim just right. "These roses are also up for the first person that wants them," she announced, pointedly taking the roses off her desk and setting them on the desk beside her to emphasize the point. She was about to sit down until she noticed that her desk was right up against the window. She looked out, really noticing that it was about the same as using window chalk to draw a bull's eye around her. "Who would like to switch me for the window seat?"
"Is that allowed?" Akio asked worriedly. "I mean, won't that just make whoever sits there the new target?"
"If only it were that easy to distract them," Haru sighed tiredly. "No, they'll just get grumpy and try to find a new way to get to me. They aren't that likely to give a care about anyone else."
"Oh, now you admit to it?" a familiar voice asked coldly.
Haru turned to see Hiromi glaring daggers at her. "How was I to know werecats would think I'm hot?" she complained. "They didn't start being blatant until after we talked."
"How nice," Hiromi answered a little frostily, taking the long way to get to her seat so that she wouldn't have to intersect with her best friend of three years.
"Believe me, Hiromi; you don't want their attention," Haru assured her, but her best friend wouldn't even turn to acknowledge her.
For once, her best friend seemed only interested in getting her books, papers and pens ready for first period.
"I'll switch with you," Makoto offered, hurriedly grabbing her things and dragging the roses back to Haru's old seat.
"Thanks, Makoto," Haru responded gratefully, though she was feeling an empty hole start to grow in her chest.
This was just a little problem, right? Hiromi would have her hissy fit that she wasn't the center of attention, and then come crawling back to Haru as soon as a new movie came out or their favorite stores came out with something that was too good not to share.
Haru suddenly got a brief mental image of Thiris holding a knife to Hiromi's throat, his dark eyes never leaving Haru as he again asked for a date, slowly cutting into her friend's pale flesh as she came close to saying no.
She shuddered from the idea, firmly deciding that it would be for the best if Hiromi had her hissy fit and her distance until after Haru figured out how to neutralize her unwanted admirers.
Or just neuter them. She was willing to broaden her options at this point as she avoided eye contact when Machida came in with some of his friends.
ooOoo
Not that Hiromi's absence was helping her morale at all. The other students were willing to talk to her, but almost solely about why the werecats were acting like she was made of catnip. She dodged those questions as much as possible, protesting again and again that she couldn't think of a reason why monsters would find her so attractive.
That much was truth. The ability to blow up buildings should scare monsters even more than humans, and everything about that night should have screamed that she had no interest in becoming a cat's bride. Why were they being so persistent? Haru could only pray that some obscure prophecy about her wasn't playing a part, because no matter how she tried to angle her thinking, it still seemed like a bad idea to harass a girl that had no problems with blowing up cats to get her way.
Haru was tempted to take a nap during her lunch hour after inhaling her sushi rolls and vegetables, but ultimately decided it was too risky. Plus she didn't know if she purred in her sleep or not. School was the last place to find that out on top of everything else.
Next period was gym, making Haru secretly glad that her stamina had increased a bit since the Cat Kingdom incident. She may have been dead tired, but at least she'd be able to keep up until getting home, making dinner, and doing homework before bedtime, possibly checking to see if she needed to make more bombs before calling it a night.
… Before starting the process all over again tomorrow. Haru honestly felt a little part of her wither away at the thought of another day of dodging werecats that claimed to be smitten with her, and yet had mysteriously few reasons for why they would care that she existed.
There were too many eyes in the locker room. Too many that were on her. Although Haru felt naked about it, she knew she had no choice but to leave her bombs in the hidden pockets in the normal school clothes when she switched to the customary gym shorts and shirt. What was the current lesson? As long as it wasn't dancing, Haru was willing to put up with anything, but they already covered that earlier in the year.
The gym teacher led everyone up to the roof while holding a volleyball under her arm. She was probably the only one that was acting exactly the same before and after Haru's life turned into a circus, which the poor girl adored the woman for.
The gym teacher separated the class into equal parts and set herself on the exact alignment as the net to referee the hour.
It was the first time Haru didn't pout at not being on the same team as Hiromi. She distantly wondered if Hiromi would start talking to her before or after the werecats gave up on her. How long would it be until they got the idea that Haru didn't take too well about being bullied into a relationship?
Haru tried to put those thoughts out of her mind to focus on the game. It was barely a blip on her personal problems, but she knew for a fact that this was the most important thing that would happen today for a lot of her classmates.
She pounced after the ball, bouncing it sky high to take out her jealousy over the fact.
Hiromi may have preferred lacrosse, but she was no slouch in volleyball. She must have been really upset over the werecat misunderstanding to have aimed that spike directly at Haru's face. Her feline reflexes were the only thing that saved her from a massive bruise on her nose.
The ball went sailing over the net, a lot higher than needed until Sakuya was just able to reach it before it sailed over the edge of the building.
"Be a little more careful, Hashima-san!" the gym teacher called out, thankfully having paid attention to the whole situation.
After three more rounds, Haru was fine with switching out so that other girls could play. She sat against her team's side of the fence contentedly, wishing that this was the most strenuous thing she had to worry about. She was even fine with the fact that the other girls on her side had clustered to other parts outside the lines of the court.
"Haru-san?" an unfamiliar voice whispered from the other side of the fence, where people couldn't normally get on the roof.
She automatically tensed. "Oh, no," she groaned under her breath.
"I'm not with any of the werecats, I just want to talk."
That sounded promising, especially since the voice seemed to gurgle in a way a cat's voice wouldn't. Haru turned her head just enough to see who wanted her attention. Her eyes widened.
It was a kappa, clinging to the side of the building for dear life.
"Should you be this far from water?" Haru whispered from the side of her mouth.
"This is important." He took in a deep breath. "I just wanted to make sure you know that not all monsters are as bad as those werecats. I'm sorry that this is your first impression of us."
She managed a warm smile for the nervous water demon. "I'm turning them down for being jerks, not because they're monsters. I'm doing what I can to keep things from exploding, I promise."
He visibly relaxed at her gentle words and tone.
Then Haru got an idea. "But if you would do me a tiny favor," she continued to whisper. "Would you mind-"
Mitsuku screamed, making the poor monster nearly jump out of his skin. "A kappa!"
"Oh, calm down," Haru scolded her classmate. "He wasn't doing anything bad!" Haru turned more fully to comfortably talk now that his cover was blown, but he was already retreating down the side of the building. 'Drat!' she inwardly fumed.
He probably could have contacted the hotel without a problem.
"An actual kappa!" Mitsuku wept as the other students crowded to get a better look at the retreating monster, unintentionally pinning Haru to the fence in the process.
"For crying out loud, Haru!" Hiromi snapped at her. "Don't you have enough attention from the werecats?!"
"He wasn't interested in me, he just wanted to talk for a few seconds!" Haru defended herself as the gym teacher nearly swam through her students to get a look herself.
"Aw, he's already gone," she moaned with disappointment. "Next time he comes to see you, Haru, let him know that my family collects myths about them, my dad would love to-"
"How can you be so calm?!" Mai demanded, looking between Haru's exasperation to their gym teacher's intense interest. "How many more monsters, huh? I can handle werecats, but not kappas!"
"He was way nicer than the werecats!" Haru swiftly defended herself, desperately trying to slide against the fence to get her personal space back.
"What's next, Haru? In all honestly, what monster's coming to our school next because of you?!" Sakuya demanded.
"I don't know!" Haru screamed back, for once going to her full volume. "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know!"
At least her lungs were enough to force the other students to finally back away from her while holding their hands to their ears in agony.
"You honestly think I want all this attention?!" Haru demanded while fighting against the tears threatening to leave her eyes. "Because I don't! I don't hate monsters, I hate jerks, but they just keep coming! I just wish everyone would calm down and leave me the heck alone if they can't be bothered to offer a scrap of sympathy, because I'm having a hard enough time without all of you joining in on the 'let's make Haru Yoshioka regret she was ever born' party!" She breathed heavily after she was done screaming, glaring at everyone in hopes that they would get the picture.
They did. They almost seemed to flinch as her eyes went over them, and Hiromi couldn't even force herself to look at her.
How Haru managed to keep her eyes human during her temper tantrum, she would never know.
"Yoshioka-san," her gym teacher started, but even she took a step back when Haru turned her angry glare on her. "… I think that the current situation is hitting you a little harder than you've been letting on. Why don't I talk to the school nurse and get you permission to head home early today?"
"… Really?" Haru asked as she began to relax a little.
"Just this once, mind. Because that's the first time I've ever seen you lose your temper."
ooOoo
"… Yeah, Mom. Fifteen minutes tops, I'll call if trouble intercepts me. Love you too, bye." Haru ended the call with a heavy sigh and pocketed her phone as she left her school's campus. She valued her education, but desperately needed this small reprieve. It might even give her a little extra time to figure out what she was going to do about the werecats.
She still thought that the best option would be to get in touch with Count Dracula. Haru didn't know a thing about monster society, but he was surely high enough on the social ladder to be able to pull some strings for the good of his fellow monsters if not for her.
But now that Thiris knew she wanted to contact the hotel, it was going to be that much harder to ask for help. Her phone clearly was being tracked, but would it do any good to ask to borrow someone else's? Or was he keeping a close enough watch on her to intercept those as well?
She had to get out from under his thumb to initiate contact, but how? Just how far did his 'tech eye' reach concerning her?
"Haru-" Neko tried to wheedle, but she didn't even bother to check out her handiwork on his fur. She chucked a glue bomb at him and kept walking, feeling just a shade cool about not needing to look to know she had gotten him. The fact was only confirmed when he gave a loud yowl of displeasure.
She instinctively bent down, allowing for Wally's biggest lackey to pounce face-first into a light post after another block.
She could hear the distinctive roar of an engine she had heard that morning, so even though she was running low on energy, the tired teenager still made a running charge for the road, hearing the car match her in order to stop right in front of her. Since she still needed to pretend to be human for at least a little longer, Haru did a rolling jump over the roof of the limo as black cats were opening the back door, likely to grab her since Mephistopheles couldn't talk her into getting into his car on his own merit. She continued the roll until coming off on the other side, and continuing to run down the sidewalk. She couldn't help enjoying the fact that if he wanted to follow her, it would be on the other side of the road to give her a tiny bit of warning if his people tried to grab her again.
Without warning, a slightly familiar man started jogging next to her. "Hello, Haru?"
"Whatever it is you want, can you take a number?" she asked a little desperately. "My hands are kind of full right now."
"That's why I want to talk to you," he insisted, already looking a little miffed. "My name's Shima Mamoru, Channel 8 News?"
"So that's why you look familiar," Haru noted absently, though she was feeling light-headed from all the energy she was burning up. "But no, no interviews for now, and even when I do bother, it will likely be with Chiba Fumio."
Mamoru gave a very offended sound. "What's he got that I don't?"
"My mother's affections," Haru stated before adding an extra burst of speed.
Although she knew she could likely get in trouble for it, Haru tossed one of her catnip bombs into a hedge one block from her house that she thought could potentially be hiding an ambusher.
She felt a lot less guilty after she heard three different throats coughing dizzily when she knew for a fact that no one should be in that back yard at this time.
Home never looked so good. Her steps were staggering as she allowed herself to slow to a limp while turning into her front yard.
"Hi there, Sweet Cheeks!" a new werecat greeted her, jumping out from behind a neighbor's fence to stand in her way. He was almost as big as Tohru, but there was nothing in his wide smile or tiny black eyes that had any of the cop's warmth. Even his short black fur seemed almost greasy to her, and most of his weight was definitely centered on his generous belly. "The name's Pete!"
"Don't even bother!" Haru snapped at him, chucking a glue bomb into the middle of his ample stomach.
The bomb exploded, foamed, and soon solidified enough to bind most of one arm to his side. Pete stumbled from surprise, and immediately began to try breaking the bond.
"Not my type, not even a runner-up, and you wasted your time!" Haru snapped at him, not bothering with manners this time. "Go home, because I will not consider a guy that calls me 'sweet cheeks'!" With that, she turned on her heel and ran into her house.
She slammed the door behind her and took a moment to rest herself against it while locking the door. "I'm home," she moaned with sheer exhaustion, knowing that her mother could hear her from the living room.
"That's great sweetheart. Would you mind coming in here for a minute?"
"Only if I get to pass out afterward," Haru countered, reluctantly dragging herself the two steps over to look into the living room.
Her blood ran cold at the sight.
Her mother was there, and there was no sign that she had been working that day. Instead of her casual clothes, she was in a sharp suit that she normally reserved for meetings and possibly quilting interviews. Fumio was sitting next to her on the couch, keeping a firm grip on her mother's hand. He was also dressed to the nines.
There were others there; a tall man with salt and pepper hair in a nice suit as well as a young lady that had the aura of a secretary. They had stood up hurriedly when Haru came into view and had 'public smiles' plastered on their faces as they looked at her.
Haru looked directly at her mother with a tired glare. "If they're planning on talking me into talking to a hate group, I'll turn myself around right now and take my chances with the werecats."
"Haru, will you just hear them out?" Fumio begged, but Haru was already turning to the door.
"I was hoping to recharge my batteries until I can deal with this issue again, but I guess getting sent home early from school due to stress isn't a good enough reason to take it easy on me for a while," Haru mused out loud between clenched teeth. She had to stop and concentrate to reshape her mouth from the unconscious change to feline after leaving their sight.
'Haru, you need help, and they can give it!" her mother told her in pure exasperation.
"I don't like the price tag. Call me when they're gone," Haru bid her mother, unlocking the door and opening it… to reveal Pete, who still had pieces of the purple shards gripping his sleeve and hand.
"No one says no to-" he tried to bellow at her, but Haru threw a Nair bomb in his face so quickly that her hand was a blur, even to her own senses.
He stumbled backward in horror, screaming as the pink foam seemed to attach itself to his fur and shirt.
"After this is over, no one will be able to mock Thiris for being the only Sphinx werecat," she hinted heavily.
Pete looked even angrier than Neko had early that morning, but he did get the hint to start running immediately down the street.
"Where are all these entitled idiots coming from?" Haru muttered to herself, making to close the door after herself.
"What was that?!" the tall stranger asked, sounding heavily impressed. He had followed the girl to the main entry way.
Haru opened the door slightly to fix him with a one-eyed glare. "I'm a chemist. I make stuff go 'boom'. Funny that Mom didn't mention that was how I was keeping the werecats at bay."
She closed the door firmly and began walking down her front lawn, fighting back the urge to cry. All she wanted to do was collapse on her bed for a few hours-
"Haru-san, wait!" the man called while almost violently opening the door to follow her. "You could be a great asset to our cause!"
"I don't believe in your cause," Haru answered him without looking back. "Mom knows that. Sorry you wasted your time." 'Where can I possibly go to get a bit of rest? I'm pretty sure I don't have enough money for a hotel bed, the library's way too public to be left alone."
It didn't help that Haru didn't have that much money right now.
"Why are you acting like this?!" the man demanded, actually daring to reach out and grab her by the arm. "Surely you of all people realize how dangerous monsters are!"
Haru ripped herself out of his grasp, opened her schoolbag and took out three different types of bombs. She held up a yellow one. "This one will make you slick for hours, no matter how many baths you take!" She held up a purple one. "This one will glue you to the pavement, and your secretary will have to chip you out with a screwdriver!" She held up a pink one. "This?! This will make you as bald as an egg! Make your choice, because if you don't leave me alone, I will be chucking one of them at you! Do you want to be the test subject for what will happen if I do all three at once?!"
He backed away with a horrified expression. "There's no need to threaten me like that! I'm not one of the monsters bothering you!"
"Oh?" Haru answered coldly. "Could have fooled me." Realizing that there really wasn't anywhere in town that she could go, she ran past him and did her best to make it look like jumping high enough to get on the roof was a challenge for her. Ignoring his protests, Haru pretended to carefully maneuver herself to the other side of the house and sit down.
It was the opposite side of her own window, but she wasn't interested in getting her hair dyed an obnoxious color of pink to get into her own room at the moment. She just sat and tried to collect her thoughts.
'Okay, the main thing is to not fall asleep until it's safe to be in the house again. But at least I'm sitting, that's a start.'
Haru could hear something pounce on the roof not that far from her. On reflex, she chucked a bomb in that direction.
Meowrice's henchcat didn't make a sound until he slid right off and back onto the pavement, leaving a greasy-looking streak in his wake.
"I just want to be left alone," Haru breathed in depression. "Why is that so much to ask for?"
It was a good two hours before she could hear the two newcomers finally leaving her house, speaking very loudly about how the youth of today had no respect for their elders.
'By that logic, neither do you,' Haru didn't have the energy to retort. 'I bet a lot of monsters are a lot older than you, but you have no trouble disrespecting any of them!'
But of course that didn't count. If you didn't look and act exactly like a human, it would never count with them. She looked down at her own arm, mentally comparing it to when it was covered with chocolate-colored fur. 'Even looking human doesn't mean that I'm going to be heard, that's for sure!'
"All right, Haru, you win," her mother tiredly called out the back door. "They're gone, do you need help getting down?"
"I can manage," she answered truthfully, just having enough of her faculties to make the climb down look as clumsy as it would have been before the Cat Kingdom incident.
Unfortunately, she was tired enough that it didn't require as much pretending as her pride would admit. She slipped off the roof with a yelp and landed partially on the hedge surrounding her house, which at least cushioned the fall.
"You've made a mistake, you know," Fumio informed her darkly as he helped her get back on her feet. "It took me a good amount of time to reach him for that meeting."
"Then you should have waited for my okay before trying to arrange it," Haru informed him angrily. "I can't cook tonight, Mom, I can barely see straight," she informed them while stumbling into the house a second time, just remembering to leave her shoes at the door inside the house.
"Haru, you can't go on like this," her mother said sternly. "This is the fourth day of this nonsense, what happened to that plan you had this morning?"
"Thiris is interfering with my cell phone, so I can't do it," Haru reported miserably, seeing over their shoulders that another werecat was closing in; either one of Meowrice's henchcats or Mephistopheles'. She hurriedly chucked another bomb and quickly closed the door after her mom and Fumio so that none of the dye smoke would get on them or their clothes.
Though she'll admit that the yowl of displeasure was pretty musical once the werecat outside discovered his new fur color of neon green.
"Just what plan could you have had that was better than mine?!" Fumio demanded, even though he looked a little unnerved at the aftermath of the latest bomb.
"Cutting the problem off closer to the source," Haru explained, inwardly bracing herself for her mother's reaction. "Count Dracula-"
That was as far as she got.
Her mother shrieked in horror as Fumio gasped loudly enough to feel like he was taking all the air in the house.
"What were you thinking?!" he screamed at her. "Going to him for help when you knew I could get you human help?!"
"For a cost," Haru answered him coolly. "He has a higher stake than the humans do to make the werecats behave themselves, so he was the logical choice to get the problem solved without a messy public display of violence."
Her mother just about choked on her word choice. "Logical?! No violence?! Have you forgotten what vampires are?!"
"Nope," Haru responded calmly, wishing that the room would stop swaying.
"Have you forgotten what they eat?!" Fumio nearly screamed.
"How do you know they don't eat other things?" Haru demanded. "How much do you really know about monsters that isn't blind propaganda?!"
"What if I don't want to know?!" her mother demanded right back.
Haru stared at her, wishing she didn't still feel like crying. "Then the future will hold nothing but disappointment for you," she replied in a soft voice that both of the adults had to strain to hear.
Done with the argument, and done with the day in general, Haru silently walked past them and heavily braced herself on the walls of the staircase as she made her way up to her room.
Not tonight. As much as Haru desperately wanted to just show her mother the truth and be done with this charade, it would probably be better if her mother and Fumio had time to think over her words before she went any further.
Haru barely had the energy to check and reload her window trap before collapsing face-first onto her bed for at least a few hours.
Just as long as she didn't have to resort to baking a cake and writing 'Congrats! Your girl is a cat' in the icing.