"He… is… so-oooo-ooo-oo-o… dead!"
Stray grains of rice sticking to her chin and pooling on her lap, Kaname practically shoveled the contents of her bento lunch into her mouth, even though she wasn't really all that hungry.
She had dumped Sousuke's identical box in the garbage.
"You did kind of bring a lot of that stuff on yourself," Mizuki said. She flinched, seeing the look that Kaname gave her.
"Everything I did was Sousuke's doing, one way or another," Kaname claimed. She dropped as piece of sushi heavy with wasabi. It landed on her shoe top.
"Was that Sousuke?s fault, too?" Ryo grinned.
"YES!" Kaname's shout caught Maya by surprise.
"Kaname!" Maya frowned. Her hand had jerked at that shout. Her pickled plum bounced across the floor. "Sheeesh, girl. You need to lighten up some."
Kaname sighed. Maya was right. It really wasn't such a big things as her life went those days. She hadn't been kidnapped. There was no Arm Slave battle in the street.
"So, what did he really do?" Mizuki asked. "Kiss some other girl?" She had no doubt in her mind that Kaname and Sousuke were an item. "Forget a date?" She grinned. "Leave the toilet seat up?"
"No!" Kaname grumped. "I mean… hey… we're not even dating or anything! Geeez. I'd have to be either crazy or desperate."
"Which is it then?" Ryo asked.
"AH HAH HAH HAH HAH," Kaname laughed. "Really funny. Get real. He could kiss as many girls as he wanted. Starting with Mizuki." She grinned, seeing Mizuki begin choking on her Nori. "She probably still thinks about that one kiss."
"So, what did Sousuke do this time, Kana-chan?" Kyouko asked, placing her tray on the lunch table. "And where is he? We usually see him one or two tables away, watching you." She sat and opened her own lunch. "You were pretty angry even before classes started today."
"What, is this Question-Kaname day?" Kaname scowled. Kyouko should know better. "Alright, if you must know, he was acting crazier than usual this morning. He had dropped some things and I asked to help, but he just ignored me."
"Oooooh." Maya brought her hand to her mouth. "I did that to Kaname once. The poor fool. He doesn't know what he's done!" Her voice was awash with sarcasm and a sardonic wit.
Kaname frowned. "Hah hah. After all the help I gave him with his studies this week, he called me a distraction. Me, the distraction. It doesn't pay to help anyone any more!"
"Was he busy with something, Kaname?" Kyouko wanted to settle her friend down. It was one of her self-assigned responsibilities. "He's usually very polite."
"Him and his stupid book!" Kaname bit her lip. Maybe she shouldn't have mentioned that. They'd think that she was losing it. On the other hand, maybe they could help one way or another. "He was doing his best to keep me from finding out what it was."
"Oh."The girls all answered at once, as did a gaggle of eavesdroppers, who quickly dispersed when Kyouko began taking their mugshots. Now it made sense. Kaname had wanted to know what something was. Someone did not tell her what she wanted to know.
She was not one who took refusal well.
"Does he have any reason to keep secrets from you?" Mizuki asked, her eyes twinkling.
"No!" Kaname said. "Why would it matter, even if he did?"
"Maybe he's doing what some of the other boys have started doing," Ryo said. "They write messages throughout their school books, and then pass them along to their crushes. That way, the teachers never suspect anything."
"Oooooh. But, Sousuke was reading, not writing." Maya looked at Ryo. Their eyes widened. They looked at Mizuki and Kyouko. "Maybe he was the one getting love notes."
"Huh?" Kaname began coughing. She looked down at her hand. She had squeezed her mandarin orange so hard, the juice had squirted out. Mizuki handed Kyouko a napkin to wipe her glasses off with. "Well… he… who would ever send Sousuke a note?"
"Well, it wouldn?t be Saeki. Not again," Mizuki said. "But, if she felt compelled to do it once, there is no reason to think that some other girl might not feel the same way."
Kaname began to feel a chill run down her back. Could that be it? Might Sousuke have found someone else? No. That's silly. He would never do that.
Would he?
"No wonder he was sweating," Ryo said. "It would have been embarrassing if the teacher grabbed that book!"
"That's… not… it…." Kaname said, a little too heatedly. She forced herself to calm down. "It's probably something otaku. Or worse!" Her mind was working furiously. There was some truth to what she offered as a supposition. But, what she needed now was a reasonable concern to help galvanize the others to action without suspecting her true motives. "You remember what happened before. When that big shot politician in the Metropolitan government came by, because he was a leading member of the district education committee."
"Yeh," Ryo said. Her eyes widened. "Uh oh."
"Right! He was a strict conservative, who focused on orderly conduct, educational reform, and strict code of behavior. And everyone had tried to get rid of Sousuke for that one day, so that our school wouldn't suffer any more loss in reputation."
"Is he coming back, Kana-chan?" Kyouko asked. "Is that something that you're worried about as Student Council Vice President?" No one could forget what Sousuke had done last time, after studying up on the darker side of ancient Japanese politics. It had made his misadventure in Art Class look like a cheery get together.
"It's something I'm worried about as a member of this school!" Kaname said, not wanting to lie if she didn't have to. Her misdirection seemed to be working. Good. "If that otaku idiot is planning some kind of demonstration or something, we might be having our classes out in the street!"
"Why don't you just check out the book?" Mizuki asked. "If you really believe any of that nonsense."
"Good idea. I should have thought of that myself." Kaname said. She had to be careful not to lay things on too thick. "But, he's probably guarding it like a mother hen. That's what has me really worried."
"No, Kaname. He isn't." Kyouko shook his head. "Sousuke was called to the Principal's office for some reason. I saw him in the hallway. He didn't have the book."
"YES!" Kaname smiled. "I mean… good. He's usually too difficult to get around. Let's go before he gets back. It's now or never!"
"Uh huh. And why exactly do we want to go with you?" Ryo asked, arching an eyebrow.
"Right. We're still eating. It's probably nothing." Maya shrugged.
"I need witnesses, if it's something that I need to bring to Principal Tsuboi. She requires proof in things like this," Kaname said, sighing in exaggerated fashion. "But… if we wait too long to find some kind of proof, the school could find itself the victim of yet another public relations catastrophe."
"I'll go," Kyouko said.
"Me too," Mizuki added. This had a lot of possibilities, one way or another.
Ryo and Maya hung their heads. Maybe there would be time to eat when they were done. "Count us in," Maya said, resigned.
"But, maybe we should hold off." Ryo looked a bit troubled. "If he put it in his locker…."
"B-o-o-m!" Mizuki said, her eyes full of life. "It's Kaname's idea. She gets to open the door. Heh heh heh."
"That otaku moron might just booby trap his own locker, alright?" Kaname was all too aware of Sousuke tendencies. But, she also had learned a lot about his methods over the past months. She also knew his locker combination. "But, the honor of the school is at stake. As Class Rep, I can't chicken out!"
No. In actuality, she needed to know what the hell that book was!
"Booby trap. I wonder where that word comes from." Kyouko rubbed her head. They had gotten out of English class just prior to lunch..
"It could have to do with sailors or something," Ryo said. "The Blue-Footed Booby is a seabird. Maybe sailors made a noose or some other kind of trick, so they could catch birds for food."
"Blue-Footed?" Mizuki asked, staring at Kaname's hair.
Kaname didn't miss the inference. She scowled, clenching her fists. "That?s probably not it. I spent time in America, remember? A 'booby' is a dope or simpleton. Someone like Sousuke. A booby trap probably means some kind of trick able to catch a simple person."
"I know some other American slang," Maya said. "'Booby'. Or 'boob.' It means 'breast.' She looked over at Kaname. "He wouldn't be trying to… ehem… catch Kaname, would he?" She held her hands at chest level and flexed her fingers.
"MAYA!" Kaname objected. "You… he… I…." She glowered. "That's just plain disgusting!"
"That would mean that Sousuke got a booby prize," Mizuke quipped. She knew some slang, too. A booby prize is something that goes to the loser of a contest.
Kaname didn't fall for the bait, that time.
The girls all made their way to Sousuke's locker, but only Kaname stood in plain view of it. Carefully, she disarmed the one true trap she knew was present. Sousuke had put another blasting cap/ink cartridge device just inside the door. That big jerk! She had told him not to do that again, after the last one ruined her favorite blouse.
"It was trapped," Kaname said with a swelled head. "But, he couldn't fool ace sleuth Kaname Chidori! The big stupid head. Hmmmppff!" She searched the locker, not finding any books. That itself left her somewhat irked. Any nomal schoolboy should have school books in his school locker.
"See, it's probably nothing." Kyouko said. "If it was something important, it would have been in the locker." Kyouko didn't want Kaname to find anything that might make her angry at Sousuke. "Maybe he just left it in his desk. I think that we should respect his privacy."
Ryo, Maya, and Mizuki looked at one another. "No!" When Kyouko put it that way, they all wanted to see if there was some scandal or trouble brewing.
"Did Sousuke respect our privacy when he burst into the Girl's locker room, or when he put the security cameras in our shower room?" Kaname struck a pose much like those favored by Kurz Weber. "Remember… Ono-D somehow managed to get a picture of you, Ky?" She could have added the word 'nude' or 'naked… or 'full frontal'… but did not.
Kyouko turned beet read.
"We're a team, then." Kaname put her hand out. With a little prompting the other girls covered it with theirs. "Time to strike a blow for a woman's world and for otaku-free schools." She didn't feel so enthusiastic inside. She had begun to worry more than before. What if Sousuke was getting notes from someone else. If it were harmless like Saeki, he would tell her, possibly misinterpreting the simple school-girl flirtatu=ion as a terrorist attack, something he had to root out for her sake. If he didn't tell her about a girl, it might mean that he was interested in someone with a less combustible attitude.
Things had been going so well. Maybe that by itself should be reason to worry, knowing how fate had treated her throughout her life. The two of them had begun dating in secret, and Sousuke actually seemed to be taking to it. Slowly, but surely. She had no desire to get married next month, or start sleeping together tomorrow; but, it hadn't been unreasonable to hope for increasing closeness, had it? But… a leopard can't change its spots. She still had the habit of exploding when the moody melancholy maniac did something well beyond the norm.
Walking into homeroom, the girls clustered tightly around the desk. Their need for discovery, not to mention gossip, was making them incautious. Their worries about the locker were long forgotten, in part because of Kaname's successful disarming procedure.
"Shouldn't we be careful?" Kyouko asked, the sole voice of reason.
"Nah!" Ryo said. "Not in homeroom. He wouldn't do something here."
"Not after the last time," Maya said. "The Vice Principal threatened Suspension. No one wants a mark like that on their record." She didn't know Souisuke's true background, and the fact that Mithril could erase a lot of marks on a record, if one actually existed in the first place. They paid money… mistakes and mishaps were forgotten or excused.
"You mean those stories are true?" Mizuki asked, fortunate to be member of a different homeroom.
"It is not a problem," Kaname said, her ego inflating more than it should. "So far, so good. I only see one book. There are no trip wires and no motion sensors. I can't feel any wires leading to a pressure plate."
The girls all leaned closer.
"Ah-hah!" Kaname lifted up the book. "Victory!" She pumped her free hand triumphantly, never considering the possibility of a delayed detonation timer. Sousuke had been thoughtful. He didn't want things to explode in someone's face.
That might be harmful.
B-A-M-P-F-!
The explosion was not one geared for destructive force, but rather dispersal. An extremely fine powder, which had been sprayed over the surfaces lining the desk, kicked up in the air. The girls were all inundated with the yellow dust. They immediately began sneezing uncontrollably.
"Th-Th-Th- (achoo)(achoo) Th-Th-Th- (achoo)(achoo)(achoo) Th-Th-That-" Kaname?s valiant efforts were for naught. She couldn't even curse Sousuke. "Arrr-rrr-rACHOO!" Snot hung down from both nostrils, like rappelling lines thrown out of a hovering helicopter.
Kyouko, unable to see, her glasses coated with powder and her eyes watering, tripped over a chair. Her dress hung down over her head while her legs went straight up. A boy looking in the room had to cover his nose to contain the spurting blood. Tiny red spots painted the front of his new exclusive sneakers.
Mizuki, equally blind, stumbled and fell, her rump becoming wedged tightly in a garbage can. Ryo and Maya ran into one another, banged heads, and then suffered a fate similar to Kyouko. A growing group of boys was clustered around the door way.
"Quick," a boy's voice called. "Go to the school newspaper room and get a camera. No! Every available camera!"
"Move! Now! No negotiations.!" That was Sousuke?s voice.
The guys soon beat a retreat.
"S-S-S- (achoo)(achoo)(achoo) S-S-S- (achoo)(achoo)(achoo) Y-Y-Y- (achoo)(achoo)(achoo)(achoo)(achoo)(achoo) Y-Y-You B-B-Bast-(achoo) (achoo)(achoo)." Kaname reached out her arms in the direction of Sousuke's voice. Her hands curved into hooks. Strings of mucus hung from her grasping fingers.
"Sit down, Kaname. There is no antidote. Things will resolve in a matter of minutes." Sousuke's voice was stern, but there was an obvious undercurrent of concern. Fear, too. "I need to get the janitor's Shop Vac. Those who did not try to invade my private territory should not suffer the same fate as you perpetrators. You will be safe enough while I am gone."
"S-S-S-" Kaname was trying to shout an incredulous 'Safe?' but was unable. The sneezing had too contracted. And, what's more, her tongue felt tingly and somewhat swollen. Her rage having passed the point of reason, she charged in Sousuke's direction. Eyes watering, she could not see him step aside at the last moment. She ran square into the door post banging her forehead. Teetering over like a tipped bottle, she crashed into a large potted plant, leaving an imprint of her face in the potting mix.
"Uhhh?" Sousuke swallowed hard. He checked to see if Kaname was conscious, getting a kick in the groin for his troubles. "Owwww? Ren? your assistance?" He enlisted Ren into helping the girls before he limped off to get the vacuum cleaner.
Kaname, imaginary stars spinning around her head like the rings of Saturn, mistakenly thought that Sousuke was asking Ren to ease the pain in his aching testicles. "Hands off Ren! Those are mine!" Her jealousy prompted that near fatal utterance. Fortunately no one had any clue what she meant. They attributed the outburst to a possible concussion. "Baka!" That was for herself. That choice of words wasn't A Freudian slip, was it? I mean, she didn't think of a certain soldier as a possession. And if she were to claim ownership of any one… or two… parts of him, it would be his b-b-b-… you know.
By the time Sousuke returned, the room was quarantined. He was able to don a respirator, enter the room, and quickly remove the remaining dust. While he was doing so, the girls sat in the Nurse's Office, the costly target still in their possession.
"So, what's the book?" Mizuki asked, sniffling. Despite the nurse's effort to wipe her face clean with cotton balls and alcohol, the sniffling girl looked badly jaundiced.
Kaname was too angry to speak. Her blouse was soaked after her nose's prodigious outpouring of water and mucus. There was a note taped to the dust cover of the text: 'Kaname, do NOT touch this book'
"Here." Kyouko managed to pry the book out of Kaname's grasp. Her pigtails looked like giant Cheetos chesse puffs. "It's Sousuke's Chemistry textbook."
"Give me that!" Ryo grabbed the book. She began leafing thjrough it. ?No secret messages. No notes. No code numbers. Nothing!" She slammed the book down hard, the noise prompting a boy to jump off of his cot, slip on an unrolled length of bandage the nurse had been preparing to wrap around a small raise knot on his noggin. He hit an unused IV pole hard, raisnig a larger welt than the one he had incurred during his clumsy dash for a camera. "Thanks, Kaname! Thanks a w-h-o-l-e bunch!"
"I told you it would be nothing,"Maya said crossly. "Now we're all in trouble because we broke the damn 'Don't Mess With Sagara's Belongings' rule. Sousuke got off with a slap on the wrist. They were pleased with how quickly he rectified the situation at his own risk." She put a hand to her overly warm forehead and sighed. " Geeez. It's so unfair." She coughed, and tiny yellow particles flew from her nose and mouth, floating away on air currents blown out from a dusty ceiling vent.
"Rectified the situation," Kaname said, too quietly for Kyouko's liking. "REC-TI-FIED THE SI-TU-ATION?" Her voice grew shrill in record time. "Oh no. He will NEVER rectify THIS situation.? She smacked her hand hard against a metal stool. "O-u-c-h! Damn him." She had broken two nails.
"Ummm… uh… Kaname. We did kind of mess with his things. Even if it was only a Chemistry book." Kyouko almost fell again, stepping back away from a growling Kaname. "I mean… we did… you know…."
"Chemistry book?" Kaname laughed a terrible laugh. "Really? You that was what he was guarding? It was just a misdirection, Ky. This will not be the book. Why would he set a trap to protect a simple text book, if there were no notes scribbled inside?" She rubbed at her eyes. They still stung terribly. The inside of her nose was raw, and her mouth hurt. There was a bump the size of a goose egg on her brow.
Enough was enough.
She would get that book, alright. After she did, and had found out the secret, she would shove the damned thing up (*CENSORED*) as hard as she could!
"Oh, Kaname…." Kyouko said.
Her friend had spoken her thoughts out loud.