Well it's almost the day of love and I figured I'd update all my fanfics. (For full details about how Fanfiction.net screwed me plans up, check out Operation: Happy Valentine's Day.) I know that was shameless self-plugging ~_^. Love ya guys! So I hope you enjoy this chapter! It's cool.

Disclaimer: I don't own Hana Yori Dango.

Warnings: Cussing. More slightly Kare Kano-ish attempts on Doumyouji's part…

Never Quite As It Seems

Chapter Eleven

            Ice cream is good.

            This little epiphany came to me as I sat outside on a park bench, eating ice cream with all Akira, Soujirou, Doumyouji, and Rui. Now, Doumyouji had asked me alone if I wanted to go out for ice cream and all the others decided that they just had to come along. I'm not so sure Doumyouji wanted them there but he wasn't really putting up much of a fight. Every now and then he would give them annoyed looks. I really wanted to know what was up with him lately. He kept trying to tell me something and I wasn't sure it was ever going to come out. Whatever it was.

            "Popsicles kick ass." Soujirou informed us as he turned his mouth purple on a grape Popsicle.

            "Indeed." Akira was eating an orange one right next to him.

            "You guys are a bunch of losers." Doumyouji told them. "Don't you have anything better to do than follow me and Tsukushi around?"

            "This is the most entertaining thing to do right now." Soujirou defended himself. "You guys are hilarious. Me and Makiko have probably gone farther then you and Tsukushi."

            "Shut up!" Doumyouji looked about to throw his fudgesicle at Soujirou's head. "How would you know anything?"

            "I've seen you two together! Look at the way you two are sitting now!" Soujirou pointed at us. "Tsukushi is almost a foot a way from you! I swear sometimes…" Before I knew it, Doumyouji had pulled me till I was almost sitting in his lap. I went a little red in the face at the sudden closeness of our bodies.

            "Still, you guys don't follow Rui and Shizuka around!" Doumyouji protested.

            "Well, one, Rui is good at slipping away so no one even knows where he went and two, Shizuka and Rui actually do things." Akira ticked off the items on his free fingers. I rolled my eyes at them.

            "Soujirou, I'd think you'd be busy with your own girlfriend." I said rather pointedly.

            "She's busy today." Soujirou sulked.

            "And the truth is out, you really just don't have anything better to do." I concluded, folding my arms. 

            "I hate you guys." Soujirou glowered.

            "Let's go climb trees!" Akira suggested, seeming for a moment ten years old once more. "Tsukushi and Doumyouji are boring."

            "Yes! Go!" Doumyouji looked excited that the others wanted to do something else.

            "I'm going back to the house." Rui informed all of us. "I'm tired." With those words he walked off. I had to wonder about Rui sometimes. All he ever did was sleep all day (when he could of course) and then when he wasn't sleeping he would go to Shizuka's. Of course, it wasn't really my business. Akira and Soujirou dropped their now empty Popsicle sticks, scrambling over to a very large tree which people were often found sitting on.

            "Do you want to go for a walk?" Doumyouji asked me as I finished off my ice cream.

            "Umph omkway." I had taken a large bite of the last of my cone. It ended up with me spraying bits of it all over myself in an attempt to answer his question.

            Coherency wasn't the goal of that sentence was it? 'Cause it might have missed…

            "What?" Doumyouji looked the very picture of confused as I swallowed my mouthful.

            "Okay." I answered clearly with a grin. Doumyouji looked like he had won some sort of battle. I wasn't sure what the battle was though. We were walking on the cement path in silence. I was remembering painfully that the last time I had been at a park was with Junpei. I closed my eyes, firmly pushing away from that. I wasn't going to drudge up the past at that moment. "You know, this place is pretty nice."

            "I was just thinking that." Doumyouji gave me a definite look. I'm not sure what the look was supposed to say. I mean I felt all of a sudden that there weren't a lot of things I knew. I was missing out on something and it was important. Still, Doumyouji's eyes looked very intense as though trying to see into my mind.

            "It's great to be outdoors when you spend all week inside." I commented trying to keep the conversation going.

            "Yeah." Doumyouji nodded his head in agreement. "You know…"

            "What?" I asked him.

            "I've been thinking about a lot of things lately." Doumyouji explained slowly. "See…I…" He trailed off.

            "Go on." I prompted, hoping that perhaps he might give me some insight on what it was that was causing him to be slightly moody.

            "Tsukushi, sometimes when…" Doumyouji trailed off shaking his head. He took a deep breath before starting again. "What I'm trying to say is…"

            "What is this like the lead up to you asking her to have sex?" Soujirou asked making a face at us. My eyes widened suddenly in surprise when I saw that Soujirou and Akira were up in a tree next to us.

            "DAMMIT! SOUJIROU!" Doumyouji yelled angrily.

            "Geez you guys scared me." I inhaled slowly. "Don't just pop up like that!"

            "We couldn't resist." Akira explained in a teasing voice. "It was just too tempting."

            "Get a life." Doumyouji still looked ticked off. "Stop following us around!"

            "See? I told you he's trying to get some." Soujirou pointed out to Akira who nodded as if they were having a scientific debate about it.

            "Soujirou, I swear that if you do not shut up I will hurt you." I told him. "Now why don't you and Akira go do something before Doumyouji kills you." Soujirou and Akira were identical grins before climbing out of the tree, scampering off to some destination. "Now, what were you saying before?"

            "Well…" Doumyouji trailed off in a considering tone. "I'm not sure."

            "Oh? It sounded important to me. Maybe you'll remember later." I was pretty optimistic even though I still wanted to know what was going on with the curly haired young man.

            "I'm sorry about the guys." Doumyouji apologized. "You know them."

            "Yeah, well don't worry about it." I laughed. "They'll get wrapped up in some video game and we won't hear from them for a few weeks."

            "That's pretty safe to assume." Doumyouji laughed a little too. "Maybe I'll go out and buy them a new one just so they'll leave us alone."

            "I'm getting sick of 'Tsukushi and Doumyouji are a lame couple' jokes." I informed him. "Even if we aren't actually a couple, I still don't think we're lame."

            "I don't think we would make a lame couple at all…" Doumyouji started to get that look in his eyes again.

            Why does he have to say it like that?

            "What do you mean?" I inquired. Part of me felt like this whole scenario might not ever end unless Doumyouji would just get over it and tell me what was going on. I think somewhere deep in my mind I knew what it was. That part of my mind just wasn't sending postage to the other parts however.

            "I mean," Doumyouji paused, as he seemed to search for the right words. "I mean that…I mean if we were…I mean if I…"

            "If what?" I couldn't help asking, as Doumyouji seemed to be in a bit of a stand still at what he was trying to say.

            "Hey you two!" Yuuki and Sakurako walked by eating ice cream.

            "Hey you guys!" I waved back at them. "Having a nice day?"

            "Yeah." Yuuki nodded as the duo past. "You?"

            "So far so good!" I called out before we were out of talking range. I turned to Doumyouji who looked irritated beyond belief. "So-"

            "Never mind!" Doumyouji snapped, stomping a little away from me.

            "What? It's not my fault if someone interrupts you!" I was a little indignant about the whole matter. Blaming me was like blaming a stick on the ground when you stepped on it.

            "Well this isn't easy at all!" Doumyouji crossed his arms, still looking rather peeved.

            "I'm sorry then." I apologized quickly. "But all the same it isn't really my fault. Why don't we just go back to the house?"

            "Okay." Doumyouji sighed before reaching over and taking my hand into his. This was becoming a habit for him to do this. I have no clue why he did it though.

            But truthfully, I kind of liked it.

*                                              *                                              *

            "GET OUT NOW!" I ordered, hitting Soujirou's hand with a spoon. Now some tasks are impossible. Like counting every star in the sky or all the grains of sand on the beach. But I had found the most impossible task that has ever been given to do.

            Make cookies with four boys in the house.

            Oh it sounds easy at first. But it isn't. For one thing, all four boys kept deciding to check up on my progress. Rui had come in and tasted the cookie dough when it was only at its butter-sugar stage. I kicked him out of the kitchen so that I could finish in peace. Or so I thought. Then Doumyouji wandered in innocently enough, inquired as to what I was making, then going to sample the dough. I hit him over the hand with my wooden spoon and pointed at the door. Another bites the dust.

            Rui and Doumyouji were pretty easy to keep out but Soujirou and Akira were a whole other story. They kept trying to do some sort of weird guerrilla warfare tactics on me. They would try to lure me out of the kitchen or they would try to sneak in very quietly. I had probably run them out of the kitchen four times already and was very near my fifth. It was getting ugly.

            "I mean it this time! The next person who comes in here is not getting any!" I had my hands on my hips, ready for the next person who thought they needed to test the dough. This announcement made both Akira and Soujirou fall over laughing.

            "Hey did you hear that one Doumyouji?" Soujirou called up at the curly haired boy. "You better stay out of the kitchen!" My face went a little red as I turned to go back into the kitchen so that I wouldn't have to dignify that with an answer.

            "Oh like you've gotten anywhere with your girlfriend." Doumyouji retorted from somewhere upstairs. I was ready to put the chocolate chips in but feared that if I were to open the bag, people might start trying to sample out of it. I carefully opened it, making as little noise as possible. I was about to dump the bag into my dough when someone came into the kitchen from behind me, grabbing a handful of chocolate chips. I whirled around with my weapon of choice (a wooden spoon) to hurt whoever the foolish individual was that decided to into my kitchen.

            "I'm going to-" I cut myself as I turned to see Doumyouji eating the chocolate chips rather calmly. My eyebrow twitched, this was going to be a long day. "DOUMYOUJI!"

            "What?" Doumyouji asked as if he had no idea what he had done.

            "Those are for the cookies!" I brandished the spoon threateningly. "Which you don't get any."

            "Why not?" Doumyouji questioned in a demanding voice. He grabbed the spoon, which stopped me from waving it in the air threateningly.

            "Because you people can't stop bothering me." I was surprised by Doumyouji taking the spoon from me.

            "Well if I can't have any cookies, can I lick the spoon?" Doumyouji already had it, making it seem a bit rhetorical. He put it in his mouth.

            "Hey! I needed that still!" I protested even though know it wouldn't make a difference. "That's the last time I try to do something nice for you guys!" Doumyouji took a half of a step towards me and I backed into the counter behind me. Doumyouji was practically standing over me.

            "This is really good." Doumyouji told me. He put the spoon between us. "Want some?"

            "Um…" Okay this may sound weird, but it seemed like there was more then just this cookie dough on a spoon involved in the question. But as I could not resist something that it was right in front of my face, I took the spoon from him, licking off part of the dough with my tongue. I watched the look on his face change a little. It was hard to describe but it reminded me of the look he had given me that night when we were drinking that soda. Kind of hungry. "Doumyouji…" I have no clue what I started to say even.

            "Tsukushi…" Doumyouji rested his hands on top of mine, eating more of the dough off the spoon. Heat was probably radiating off my face though. Thoughts, very odd ones were popping in and out of my head.

            Doesn't seem a little…ahem… Tsukushi, get a grip! Even though Doumyouji's eyes are looking at you like that, it doesn't mean anything! Of course not! Not a thing! Nothing to worry about! Your imagining things…

            "Heh, don't think your getting any cookies." I pulled the spoon away from him. "I already said that anyone else that came into the kitchen wasn't getting any, so there." I folded my arms, hoping to look stern.

            "I don't get any?" Doumyouji was the nearest I had ever seen to a pout. I could have died laughing if I hadn't been trying to keep a straight face.

            "None." I shook my head.

            "Not one?" Doumyouji's voice went a little higher in a whine. I caved though.

            "Well, I guess you can have some if you leave the kitchen in three seconds…" I told him. Doumyouji smiled triumphantly.

            "I knew you couldn't resist me." Doumyouji teased.

            "Three…two…" I went on counting, trying to ignore Doumyouji who scampered out of the kitchen. I shook my head as I started to get out new spoons. Sometimes I had to wonder. Especially about how it was I was going to get all the freshly baked cookies hidden away from the boys. They'd be gone in a half an hour if they had their way.

*                                              *                                              *

            Well I guess that's the end of that chapter. I've been updating like crazy and I had to finish that story so fast…gah, I'm always so rushed about stuff. Please R&R!!! I will love you and wish you lots of candy. (Let's cross our fingers and hope Jade gets to mooch off her friend's candy tomorrow as she'll undoubtedly get none of her own!)  

Favorite Line From This Chapter: "Want some?" (And I said give it to me baby! Give it to me baby! I want me some of that!)