So I decided to bring you another chapter out of the goodness of my kind little Jade heart. Plus I have cappuccino goodness! (Teresa, I've finally developed my taste for coffee! AND I IS LOVING IT SO MUCH! I think that was the caffeine talking.) Oh and I as much as I love the fans and want to bring them what they want, this is a dictatorship and what I say goes.

Disclaimer: I don't own Hana Yori Dango

Warning: Cussing and stuff…

Never Quite As It Seems

Chapter Seven

"I was on my way to be with you today,

And you know it's true because I would never lie to you,

First my car broke down so I had to hitch a ride,

I was almost there when the motor died."

            -Another Random Song Quote

            I was calmly walking out of one of my classes, ready to go home and maybe pass out on my bed. I was beyond tired. I think that all the homework plus just life in general was running me ragged.

            "Hi Tsukushi." Junpei walked up to me, waving a little. I smiled at him.

            "Hi Junpei." I greeted him.

            "Do you want to get coffee with me?" Junpei asked me with a slightly pleading look. "If your not busy." I felt a little guilty because lately it seemed like I was always busy. Maybe coffee with Junpei would refresh me.

            "Okay, but I have to tell Doumyouji or he'll be waiting a long time." I told him. Junpei nodded happily. I went out into the parking lot where Asai was sitting there trying to talk to an annoyed looking Doumyouji.

            "Hey Doumyouji! I'm going to go have coffee with Junpei!" I exclaimed as I ran up to them. "I'll just take a bus back. Don't worry." Doumyouji didn't look like he liked the idea one bit.

            "You can't." Doumyouji said simply.

            "Why not?" I asked confused.

            "See Doumyouji, Tsukushi is busy, let's go do something." Asai's voice rose in a whine and I felt myself wincing slightly.

            "You aren't having coffee with Junpei." Doumyouji stated in a tone that said he couldn't be bargained with. I put my hands on my hips.

            "Who says?" I asked him defiantly.

            "Let her have coffee with that stupid guy." Asai jumped in.

            "Asai, shut up!" Doumyouji snapped at her. "Tsukushi, get in the car."

            "Make me." I replied grumpily. This seemed at first a great thing to say when it popped in my mind. Little did I realize that Doumyouji wasn't in the mood for bantering. Before I could say anything, Doumyouji picked me up. Then he promptly deposited me in the car.

            I was pissed.

            Of course he was just buckling himself up like throwing me in a car was perfectly acceptable. Junpei was staring with wide eyes. I went to open the door, jump out, call Doumyouji a string of names, and then go to coffee with Junpei, my plan was interrupted though. Doumyouji had locked the doors. I was half tempted to stand on the seats (Which I hadn't attempted before but I don't think Doumyouji would have liked that.) and jump over the car door but Doumyouji pressed on the gas, flinging me back in my seat. I turned, glared, and then put my seatbelt on, just in case I needed something to strangle myself with something when the car exploded in a crash.

            "What the hell was that all about?" I asked him angrily.

            "You can't have coffee with another guy!" Doumyouji told me as if I had broken some sort of unspoken law. "You're my girlfriend!"

            "I'm not really your girlfriend, in case you've forgotten." I reminded him as I crossed my arms. "I think it's okay to have coffee with my friends!"

            "Your not having coffee with him!" Doumyouji countered.

            "What are you? My dad?" I asked him. "You can't just order me around!" We were starting to get into a real shouting match.

            "Apparently I can!" Doumyouji yelled back at me. "If you didn't really want me I think you would have actually fought me!" I paused with wide eyes. W-what…

            "What did you just say?" I asked him.

            "I said if you didn't really want me to take you home you would have fought a little harder." Doumyouji repeated. Except that wasn't exactly what he had said and I knew it.

            "That's not what you said." I told him. "You said 'If you didn't really want me I think you would have actually fought me.' What does that mean? Why do you keep saying things like that?"

            "None of your business!" Doumyouji snapped. He looked pissed at being caught in his own lie but he didn't argue with me about it. I looked the complete opposite direction from him the rest of the car ride. That was it; I was never talking to him again. It just wasn't even worth it.

            I jumped out of the car as soon as I could and stomped away to my room. I was still tired I realized fast as I threw myself onto my bed. Even though I was angry, I decided to go to sleep. Some extra sleep was not a crime and I didn't feel like doing anything else.

            I must have had the weirdest dream imaginable. I was at my own wedding. I couldn't figure out who the groom was at all. Then as he lifted my veil I saw that it was Doumyouji. When I tried to protest I found that I couldn't talk at all and had to go along with it. I woke up as I through the bouquet viciously at the guests. It was completely dark in my room and I looked at my clock. Ten o' clock.

            The strange thing was, I was tucked in under my covers. I knew I had fallen asleep on top of my blankets but one could attribute it to moving around a lot in my sleep. Then I realized that I had also fallen asleep with my shoes on. But no, my shoes were on the floor, neatly sitting next to each other. There was more to this than I thought. Someone had been in there.

            My first thought was perhaps, Rui. Rui did odd things from time to time. He left coffee in mugs right outside our doors sometimes. I can't tell if it's meant to be a practical joke or not. But Rui might have come into my room and put the blanket over me. Of course the person would have had to lift me up, then pull back the blankets without me waking up at all. I wasn't a deep sleeper so they would have had to been very good.

            That's when another thought occurred. What about Doumyouji? But we had just been in an argument so I decided that maybe I had taken off my shoes and just happened to get under my covers in my sleep. This wasn't unheard of but I knew that my mind was making stuff up. It couldn't have been Doumyouji…there's no way he'd be like that…

            I noticed that my daisies were dying and threw them in the trash, for there really is nothing else to do for dying flowers. I didn't feel like going downstairs, as Doumyouji was probably down there. I did turn on my light and decided to read one of my various books. I chose Tad Williams' first Otherland book. It was a good series in my opinion. I read until eleven before I started to get sleepy again. I was changing into my pajamas when the door opened. Now I did the first thing that came to mind when a girl is caught without her shirt on. I screamed. Then took immediate action by hurling the nearest hard object at the person.

            I covered myself up with my pajama shirt as quickly as possible before seeing who it was. A rather annoyed looking Doumyouji was holding my psychology book, which was obviously what I had thrown. There was a bruise rising on his forehead where it had hit.

            "What was that for?" Doumyouji asked indignantly.

            "Um, you have to knock! You can't just come in, I was changing!" I told him.

            "I didn't even see anything." Doumyouji crossed his arms. "I was just coming to see if you were awake."

            "Why?" I questioned him.

            "Well, I wanted to say that maybe…maybe I overreacted a little today." Doumyouji admitted.

            "That's an understatement." I shot back.

            "I'm apologizing and you're sitting there saying things that make it worse!" Doumyouji accused me. "Could you be any harder to please?"

            "Me? You're the one who sat there acting like a dictator!" I put my hands on my hips, which seemed to be the battle stance of choice.

            "Well I'm sorry!" Doumyouji yelled angrily. He threw his hands up in the air in frustration. "Are you happy now?"

            "Yeah I am!" I shouted back. Doumyouji and I sat there trying to stare the other down before he made an annoyed noise and left my room. I shook my head. It's a good thing that Doumyouji and me won't really going out because we would probably break up three hundred times a day.

            *                                                                                  *                                                                      *

            "I don't think your boyfriend likes me." Junpei told me looking a little nervous. I could understand being nervous. I mean in a fight between Doumyouji and Junpei, I would be forced to put my money on Doumyouji. But I didn't that there was going to be any fights so it was pretty safe to assume that Junpei was worrying too much.

            "Doumyouji is stupid." I shook my head. "Don't worry about it."

            "I hope I didn't cause a fight." Junpei looked a little apologetic.

            "Oh no, I think he caused the fight. Like I said, don't worry about it." I gave him a reassuring grin. Doumyouji and me had more or less made up. Though we were still pretty snappish around each other.

            "Well okay." Junpei smiled a little. "We should do something this weekend." I wondered how well this would blow over with Doumyouji. Of course, Doumyouji didn't have to know everything that I do. Maybe, I just wouldn't tell him. Or better yet I would say I was hanging out with Makiko. He seemed to have no problems with me and all my female friends.

            "Okay! Let's do something on Saturday." I suggested. I had made up my mind. Doumyouji was not in charge of me.

            "Great what time should I come by?" Junpei asked eagerly.

            "Um, actually, why don't you meet me in the park behind the houses?" I asked him. "What's it called again?"

            "Kaede Park. They say it's named after the wife of the man who paid for it." Junpei informed me.

            "Huh." I nodded. "I didn't know that."

            "Class settle down!" The teacher ordered. The class went instantly silent and we all got to work.

            *                                                                                  *                                                                      *

            On Saturday, I got up, picking out a nice outfit, not too nice as to raise suspicions at all. I went downstairs as Akira and Soujirou were sitting down at the table. They sat there as if waiting for something. Ten minutes went by of them sitting quietly, eyes going to their watches every now and then.

            "You think it's safe?" Soujirou asked Akira.

            "I think so." Akira looked around and saw only me. Apparently I was not a hindrance to whatever was going on.

            "He put them in the usual spot I suppose?" Soujirou asked. It kind of reminded me of those secret agent movies. I stifled a giggle.

            "You'd think he'd figure out we knew where they were." Akira got up and walked out of the kitchen into the living room. A few moments later the longhaired boy came in toting a box of Lucky Charms. I rolled my eyes.

            "You guys are so weird." I told them before sitting down at the table. We were all eating Lucky Charms when Rui came down closely followed by Doumyouji.

            "Dammit! How did you guys find those?" Doumyouji asked as he took the box off the table.

            "You hide them in the same place every time." Soujirou explained. I laughed.

            "I'm tired." Rui announced as he sat down, putting his head on the table before looking as if he had just fallen asleep again.

            "We should do something today." Doumyouji sat down pouring himself a bowl of cereal.

            "Oh! I can't!" I started up in my best sorry voice. "I promised to hang out with Makiko today." I am a wonderful actress I decided.

            "Makiko? Why can't she just come along?" Soujirou asked with a wicked grin.

            "Well I don't trust you." I joked. "We want to hang out with each other that's all."

            "Well fine, Tsukushi is dumping us for girly time." Akira teased. "So, what do we want to do?"

            "I don't know." Doumyouji shrugged.

            "Rui, why don't you go back to bed?" I asked him, as he tried to make his head more comfortable on the wooden table.

            "No." He said in a sleepy whiney voice. I rolled my eyes. I looked up at the clock. I had slept pretty late and I had to meet Junpei at eleven.

            "I should probably be going." I got up. "I'll see you guys later."

            "Do you need a ride?" Doumyouji asked me.

            "No, no." I waved my hand out in front of me. "You stay here." I left the house feeling a confidence that I had tricked everyone. I walked out behind the house and tried to keep low as not to attract attention at all. As I got to the park, the place we decided to meet was the duck pond, and ran to our meeting spot.

            "Hello Tsukushi!" Junpei was sitting there staring off into space until he spotted me.

            "Hey Junpei!" I greeted him. "Nice day isn't it?"

            "I think so." He told me as I sat down on the bench next to him. "The ducks are happy." That sounded like something Rui would say, just for the sake of saying it.

            I shrugged. "They might be."

            "I'm happy." Junpei looked directly at me. "This is the first time I've been out with a friend."

            "Ever?" I asked.

            "Yeah." Junpei told me. I thought that was really sad. It would have been Rui if I hadn't constantly hung out with him. I punched Junpei good-naturedly in the arm.

            "Well then I better not be boring huh?" I joked. "What do you want to do?"

            "I don't care." Junpei shrugged. "Let's go walk around. This place is really big." And so we set off, running around, looking at the whole park. We pocketed wet quarters from the fountain just for the heck of it and climbed a few trees. It was a lot of fun. But fun always gets interrupted in my opinion. I mean it just seems like I try to do things and some how as if someone has planned it, things happen that change that.

            We were walking along the park, after just buying some ice cream. Junpei smiled at me brightly. Then I turned my head and froze. I stepped backwards behind a tree, slipping out of view. I had just seen a very unwelcome sight. I peaked around to see if I was just imagining things or not.

            Doumyouji and the others were having a picnic.

            Oh crap…I decided that the best thing to do was to just turn around and walk away so that I could slip away, not getting caught. But this plan didn't work out.

            "Hey Tsukushi!" Rui waved wildly at me. I hit myself on the forehead. This was just my luck. Doumyouji looked up and caught sight of me. I thought I was going to die. He looked surprised until he saw Junpei walking next to me.

            "Yo." The one word was so incredibly cold sounding that I gulped nervously. Doumyouji looked ready to kill.

            "H-hi." I stepped out from behind the tree. I approached with Junpei tailing behind nervously.

            "So how was Makiko?" Doumyouji asked. I felt trapped but I quickly thought of a believable lie.

            "Oh well she was fine, actually I was coming back but I ran into Junpei who wanted to go get ice cream." I explained to them. "I didn't know you guys were going to have a picnic!" Nice save Tsukushi! Way to go! I could almost hear thunderous applause at my performance.

            "Yeah, I just wanted ice cream you know?" Junpei covered for me. I smiled at him gratefully. "But actually I have to go now…" He looked nervously at his watch.

            "Oh see you Junpei!" I waved to him. "See you in class!" Junpei waved before running off. Doumyouji still looked a little suspicious as he watched me sit down next to him.

            "You missed it Tsukushi! We played Star Fox and I won every time." Akira told me importantly. "Then Doumyouji got mad and we went on a picnic." I laughed a little too loudly. Why is Doumyouji looking at me like that?

            "You guys play video games more than anyone on the face of the planet." I stated. Soujirou and Akira just shrugged as though they had already acknowledged that fact themselves.

            Rui was munching on his sandwich before looking up at us. "This park is cool." Doumyouji made an irate face.

            "One day I'll introduce you to me mom and we'll see what you think then." Doumyouji said crossly.

            "Huh?" I inquired.

            "My mom is the one this park is named after." Doumyouji explained giving me that weird look as if searching my face for something.

            "Your dad paid for this park?" I asked in surprise.

            "Yep." Doumyouji nodded looking slightly distracted. We hung out at the park for about half an hour more before we headed back to the house. I was grateful that I hadn't really gotten caught though trust Rui, Captain Oblivious, to notice the weirdest things. When we were all back and Soujirou and Akira had settled down with video games, Rui had settled down to sleep, then Doumyouji came into my room.

            Now, I kind of suspected he knew I was lying but I didn't really think about it that much. I mean so I lied? Big deal. Or it seemed that way to me. Of course I learned pretty soon that not everyone saw it my way.

            "What's up?" I asked as Doumyouji walked into my room. I was sitting on my bed and he sat down on the side of it, looking at the floor with a concentrated look.

            "Did you really go see Makiko today?" Doumyouji asked me. From the tone in his voice I hung my head. He knew the truth; he wanted me to admit it too. I felt so guilty at that moment and decided that I had to face what I had brought upon myself.

            "No." I answered.

            "Why did you lie to me?" Doumyouji questioned me, looking directly at my face; our eyes were locked in an invisible battle.

            "Well…I knew if I told you what I was really doing you wouldn't let me go." I answered slowly. I felt a sharp pain in my stomach. I wondered why that was. That look of hurt that I swear flashed across Doumyouji's face was a little difficult to see.

            "That's right I wouldn't have!" Doumyouji agreed quickly. Then his voice became quieter. "Do you like Junpei?"

            "What? I like him as a friend." I put emphasis on the word.

            "Does he like you as just a friend?" Doumyouji asked raising an eyebrow.

            "What do you think?" I fired back.

            "I don't trust that guy at all." Doumyouji told me. "Promise not to lie to me." I blinked at the request. Um…huh?

            "Why?" I questioned.

            "Promise not to lie to me." Doumyouji repeated himself. "I don't like it when you lie to me."

            "What if it's direly important and I have to lie to you?" I asked. He shook his head.

            "Please." Doumyouji leaned towards me. "Promise not to lie to me."

            Should I promise? I mean how come Doumyouji thinks I should? He always says things like this! But…look at how he's looking at me…If I don't promise, I don't think he'll forgive me. Why do I feel like this?

            "I promise." I finally said. I was surprised by my own defeat. Oh well maybe it was better this way.

            "Thank you." Doumyouji murmured. I was a little confused. We sat there in silence for a long time, both of us contemplating our own thoughts.

            *                                                                                  *                                                                      *

            I recommend getting your heart trampled on to anyone. Yeah. That's my mood right now. So yeah. Okay well, I just posted this up because otherwise if I didn't have wonderful fans…I'd be a lot more sad right now. Doom. Love ya guys! Really. Okay I'm going to go and do…something…Man, I'm tired. I need COFFEEEEEEEE!!! My cappuccino ran out on me. COFFEE IS MY ONLY LOVE!!!  

Favorite Line From This Chapter: "You guys play more video games than anyone else on the planet." (Sounds like something Teresa said to me…)