Hehe...All of a sudden, I'm in the mood for corny jokes...but I wont
be torturing any of you with the puns I have in mind...thanks to everyone
who reviewed my story so far, please, continue doing so, it really keeps me
inspired to write if all of you just review...
~*~*~**~~*~*~*~**~*~*~~**~*~~**~~*~*
Tsukasa Doumyouji walked out of the Eitoku building with Soujiro and Akira, joking about how Rui had gone home early to sleep, even if he actually slept like fourteen hours a day. Tsukasa was paying little attention to the conversation. He was busy noticing how there were hardly any people around the school campus. Usually, since it was after school, students would have been milling around and attending to whatever extra- curricular activities they had in mind.
"Doesn't it strike anyone weird that everyone is either running towards the school gates or just not present?" Tsukasa asked with a frown to his two close friends. Akira and Soujiro stopped in their banter. They too, looked around.
"Well, Whadd'ya know," Soujiro said, noticing for the first time that there were very few people around. Even in the benches near the soccer area, there were very few students. Several students passed the trio by as they raced to the main entrance gate of the school.
Another guy started to race past them, but Akira immediately grabbed his t-shirt.
"Where's everyone going?" Akira asked the poor guy, who looked completely stunned that a member of the F4 was talking to him.
"Hey, he's talking to you," Soujiro said impatiently.
"They're hazing a second year girl, the one you put the red tag in her locker," the guy said breathlessly. Soujiro and Tsukasa looked at each other.
"You mean Asai?" Tsukasa said, frowning. "That was like five months ago, and since then, I thought I told everyone to leave her alone."
He shrugged. "What's the girl's name?"
The guy held up his hands. "I don't know...I'm just a freshman, but I heard that this is the second time the girl was red-tagged, so the student body is going to try something drastic."
Tsukasa and Soujiro shrugged, knowing that they had red-tagged far too many students to remember whether they had been red-tagged already or not. A burst of cheering erupted from the distance outside the gates, and Akira let go of the guy. The three stood there, Akira and Soujiro glaring at Tsukasa meanly.
"You didn't tell us you red-tagged another person," Akira complained. Tsukasa frowned.
"You want a punch in the face?! I didn't red-tag anybody."
The two playboys looked at each other. They hadn't red-tagged anyone either. The thought that Rui had actually came to a decision like that was too strange for them to consider. Tsukasa gave a yawn.
"In any case," he said, "It's not our concern who it is. If someone is framing our group, then we'll know who it is sooner or later. Are you guys still coming over to my house?"
Soujiro's face broke out into a smile. "Yep," he said. "Your maids cook the best caviar I've ever tasted, better even than our own cook."
Akira nodded as well, his beautiful face in a smile. The three proceeded outside. When they had exited the main gates, they immediately spotted the large group of Eitoku students in the parking lot near the group of cherry blossoms. The F3 headed towards his limousine. There were two couches in the limo, facing the other. Tsukasa sat on one couch, and Soujiro and Akira on the other, facing Tsukasa.
The car took off. The limo ran through the parking lot, and when they reached the group of students, he had to honk, since the group was directly in front of the car. The group divided in half to make way for the car, all the while cheering for the F3 as if they had done some great deed.
"Dammit," Tsukasa said, suddenly dropping down and searching the ground of the limo. "I dropped my cell phone. Hey, you guys, help me look for it!"
Akira and Soujiro looked at each other and rolled their eyes, used to Tsukasa's commands. Akira watched the top of Doumyouji's head from in front of him, and then looked out the window at the group of cheering students. They were all smiling, as if thanking them for the entertainment of hazing a student. A girl lay on the ground, surrounded by trash and filth. Akira craned his neck out the window, wondering with not much interest who the unfortunate victim was this time.
The girl tried to get up, stretching trying to support herself using her torn arms. Akira waited. Any moment, he would know who it was...she lifted her head at the passing limo...
Akira froze.
"Hey, why, is it a pretty girl?" Soujiro laughed as he saw Akira's reaction. "That's not good."
Soujiro ignored Doumyouji, who was still searching the floor of the limo, shouting at the limo driver to drive more smoothly so that he could look for his cell phone more easily. Soujiro leaned over across the seat to look out Akira's window. He frowned.
He couldn't see her face. She was actually coughing up blood. From behind her, a guy threw more trash at her. Beside her, lay the limp, bruised body of...was that...Kazuya? The girl choked on her blood, and was spitting bile all over the pavement. A girl grabbed the victim by the hair and forced the victim to look up.
Soujiro froze.
He snapped back into his seat, and he and Akira looked at each other. When Tsukasa finally found his cell phone and sat back up, frowning, the limo was already on the road to his house in his exclusive subdivision.
"You lazy good-for-nothings," Tsukasa frowned. Then he seemed to remember something. "Hey, did you get to see who it was that they were beating up?"
The F2 shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Soujiro spoke up first.
"You know," he said. "It's the strangest thing...that girl...just telling you the truth, she kind of looks...she kind of looks exactly like-"
"Like my cousin," Akira said quickly. He looked at Soujiro, and Tsukasa couldn't read the expression. "Right, Soujiro? That girl was so ugly she actually looked like my guy cousin, Lukawa."
Soujiro gave a fake laugh. "Yeah."
*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~**~~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~~*
Rui yawned, and looked at the digital clock beside his bed. The phone was jangling loudly. Rui considered letting it ring and not picking it up, but he couldn't get back to sleep. The phone kept ringing. Obviously, it was someone who knew him well, because after the twentieth ring, the phone still kept jangling. Rui switched on the Persian lamp and grabbed the phone.
"Who is it? Don't you know what time it is?! It's still eight in the evening! Call me at nine tomorrow morning."
Rui hung up the phone, ignoring Soujiro's voice on the other end of the line. Moments later, Akira called him, and Rui told him to call back the next day at noon.
There was silence in the room. Rui switched off the light and rested his head on the soft silk covers of his bed...
"RUI!!!!"
There was pounding at his door. Soujiro and Akira were talking on the other side of the door in loud voices, but basically, their message was altogether clear: Hanazawa Rui, get yourself outside right now!
Rui moaned, his eyes snapping open in the darkness. He turned on the speaker system next to his bed, contacting the guard.
"Hey, stupid. You know those two you let in earlier? Well, get them out right now. They're ruining my sleep."
The guard wouldn't do any good, though, because Akira and Soujiro burst in the next second, thanks to Soujiro's strong shoulder. Akira snapped on the lights. Rui sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes, glaring at his friends. His blue eyes glinted angrily as they adjusted to the light.
"Hanazawa!" Soujiro burst, coming over and grabbing Rui by the front of his shirt.
"This isn't like you!" He shouted. "Why'd you go off and red-tag someone?! And of ALL the people, Makino Tsukushi!! Idiot! What would Tsukasa have done if he had found out?!"
Rui pried Soujiro's hands off himself and got out of the large bed. He stood in the clothes he had worn the same day, having used them as his pajamas.
"What are you talking about."
Rui walked to the mini-refrigerator and he got out a bottle of mineral water. He turned and glared at the F2 standing before him.
"You know what you did? You red-tagged Makino and now she's the target of everyone in school. Idiot! What were you thinking?" Akira was more calm that Soujiro, but he seemed to be in the middle of a great headache, because a hand was to his forehead. Rui frowned.
"You're saying I can't red-tag anyone."
"Not- Not when-!!! NOT WHEN YOU KNOW TSUKASA LIKES HER-!!! Stupid!"
"Does Tsukasa know yet?" Rui asked Soujiro calmly despite the outburst.
Akira shook his head. Rui felt his eyelids getting heavy.
"This isn't like you, Hanazawa," Akira said softly. Rui yawned.
"She's not going to be badly hurt. You know her," Rui said, unconcerned.
At that moment, Soujiro snapped. He flung himself at Rui, and Rui took the punch. The two were trained equally in areas of Aikido and Taekwondo and kendo and jujutsu and most of the other forms of defense. But those attacks were used against strangers. Soujiro and Rui were fighting in a fist fight, with no rules whatsoever.
Rui had knocked Soujiro a couple of times on the stomach and jaw, and likewise before Akira jumped in and actually had the strength to pry them from the other. Akira was stronger than he looked. And Rui was sleepy. He wiped a drop of blood from the corner of his mouth and cursed the security officer. He must have gotten lost again, he thought scornfully.
Akira held Soujiro back, urgently telling his best friend to shut up and calm down. Finally, Soujiro yanked his arms free and wiped the blood off the side of his own mouth. He staggered backwards and plopped on Rui's bed.
"It's true..." he started. "It's true that Tsukasa doesn't know what he like half of the time, but Tsukushi is one of the people he sort of cares for. The idiot just doesn't know it."
"You don't know that for sure."
Akira chuckled without humor. "All three of us know Tsukasa likes her. He's as transparent as a scrap of glass. The way he took care of her expenses..."
"It wasn't for her. It was for her parents."
Soujiro leaned back in the bed. "Also for her. Her parents were in a car accident and they were both in the hospital. Her parent's expenses alone cost more than a million yen. Her expenses cost nine hundred fifty yen."
Akira smiled. "That Tsukasa has money to burn, so it doesn't kill him. He just accesses to his father's bank account. He can do that."
And Rui stood still. He knew that Tsukasa had given Tsukushi some money for her medicine, but he had no idea that Makino's medication had been that expensive. And he hadn't known that both her parents had been involved in an accident. If their expenses were so high, they must have almost died, the two of them. He hadn't dropped the watch on purpose; the latch had always been a bit loose. But when he had turned back to find the watch, he had seen Tsukushi grab it and put it in her pocket.
He had hired someone to get back the watch when she was finished with it. The man in the pawn shop had indeed been a con artist, but the person he had hired was able to buy it back for much more than what it had been worth in the first place.
But...somehow, he knew that Tsukushi had tried to get it back, and Tsukushi had come to the emergency stairs to tell him about his watch. He could hardly blame her. Sure, she had sold something that was never hers in the first place, but she was dying, and there was barely any other solution.
"How badly hurt was she?" Rui asked Soujiro in a low voice, hating himself completely for what he had done.
"Geez, I don't know. She was pretty bad when we left school, around three hours ago. Me and Akira were planning to go check up on her after this place."
Rui immediately started for the door. "Don't bother. I'll do it."
He disappeared out the doorway. Akira was about to follow him, but Soujiro put a hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Don't," Soujiro said. "When Rui goes out alone, that means he wants to take care of these things by himself. There must be something we don't know."
*~*~*~~**~~*~*~**~~**~~*~*~**~*~*~
Tsukushi was battered. Her uniform was torn enough as if it had been through a hurricane. She whimpered. She could barely find enough strength to open her eyes. When she did, it took her an even longer time to have her eyes adjust to the darkness around her. Blood was pounding in her head, and dried blood was on her hands.
She couldn't get up.
A voice came up and made her blood freeze.
"So she's finally awake," a male voice laughed. Three other voices were chuckling among themselves. "I want her to be awake to witness this."
He stepped up. From the ground, Tsukushi couldn't make his face out.
"Remember," he started. "Remember that time in the beginning when Hanaawa Rui stopped us? This time, we're going to finally finish it. You really hurt our pride back there."
(Again, for those who haven't read the manga, these four guys attempted to rape her at the beginning of the year, the first time she had been red-tagged, and she was saved by Rui.)
One of the guys grabbed her by the arm, and she was too weak to even tense herself up. They didn't have any trouble dragging her to the area under a lamplight. This time, she could stare up at their faces. They were four shadows against a yellow background, and she couldn't see their faces. She couldn't get her mouth to move.
"Gawd, she stinks," one of the guys complained. "Why do we have to do it TONIGHT? Why not tomorrow, when at least she could take a bath?"
"The sooner the better. Who knows what could come up tomorrow."
Tsukushi could barely feel her clothes being torn off. When she felt the cold night air against her bare skin, that was when she knew that she was in trouble. She tried to scream, but all that came out was a strangled sob. She fell into blackness.
~*~*~**~~*~*~*~**~*~*~~**~*~~**~~*~*
Tsukasa Doumyouji walked out of the Eitoku building with Soujiro and Akira, joking about how Rui had gone home early to sleep, even if he actually slept like fourteen hours a day. Tsukasa was paying little attention to the conversation. He was busy noticing how there were hardly any people around the school campus. Usually, since it was after school, students would have been milling around and attending to whatever extra- curricular activities they had in mind.
"Doesn't it strike anyone weird that everyone is either running towards the school gates or just not present?" Tsukasa asked with a frown to his two close friends. Akira and Soujiro stopped in their banter. They too, looked around.
"Well, Whadd'ya know," Soujiro said, noticing for the first time that there were very few people around. Even in the benches near the soccer area, there were very few students. Several students passed the trio by as they raced to the main entrance gate of the school.
Another guy started to race past them, but Akira immediately grabbed his t-shirt.
"Where's everyone going?" Akira asked the poor guy, who looked completely stunned that a member of the F4 was talking to him.
"Hey, he's talking to you," Soujiro said impatiently.
"They're hazing a second year girl, the one you put the red tag in her locker," the guy said breathlessly. Soujiro and Tsukasa looked at each other.
"You mean Asai?" Tsukasa said, frowning. "That was like five months ago, and since then, I thought I told everyone to leave her alone."
He shrugged. "What's the girl's name?"
The guy held up his hands. "I don't know...I'm just a freshman, but I heard that this is the second time the girl was red-tagged, so the student body is going to try something drastic."
Tsukasa and Soujiro shrugged, knowing that they had red-tagged far too many students to remember whether they had been red-tagged already or not. A burst of cheering erupted from the distance outside the gates, and Akira let go of the guy. The three stood there, Akira and Soujiro glaring at Tsukasa meanly.
"You didn't tell us you red-tagged another person," Akira complained. Tsukasa frowned.
"You want a punch in the face?! I didn't red-tag anybody."
The two playboys looked at each other. They hadn't red-tagged anyone either. The thought that Rui had actually came to a decision like that was too strange for them to consider. Tsukasa gave a yawn.
"In any case," he said, "It's not our concern who it is. If someone is framing our group, then we'll know who it is sooner or later. Are you guys still coming over to my house?"
Soujiro's face broke out into a smile. "Yep," he said. "Your maids cook the best caviar I've ever tasted, better even than our own cook."
Akira nodded as well, his beautiful face in a smile. The three proceeded outside. When they had exited the main gates, they immediately spotted the large group of Eitoku students in the parking lot near the group of cherry blossoms. The F3 headed towards his limousine. There were two couches in the limo, facing the other. Tsukasa sat on one couch, and Soujiro and Akira on the other, facing Tsukasa.
The car took off. The limo ran through the parking lot, and when they reached the group of students, he had to honk, since the group was directly in front of the car. The group divided in half to make way for the car, all the while cheering for the F3 as if they had done some great deed.
"Dammit," Tsukasa said, suddenly dropping down and searching the ground of the limo. "I dropped my cell phone. Hey, you guys, help me look for it!"
Akira and Soujiro looked at each other and rolled their eyes, used to Tsukasa's commands. Akira watched the top of Doumyouji's head from in front of him, and then looked out the window at the group of cheering students. They were all smiling, as if thanking them for the entertainment of hazing a student. A girl lay on the ground, surrounded by trash and filth. Akira craned his neck out the window, wondering with not much interest who the unfortunate victim was this time.
The girl tried to get up, stretching trying to support herself using her torn arms. Akira waited. Any moment, he would know who it was...she lifted her head at the passing limo...
Akira froze.
"Hey, why, is it a pretty girl?" Soujiro laughed as he saw Akira's reaction. "That's not good."
Soujiro ignored Doumyouji, who was still searching the floor of the limo, shouting at the limo driver to drive more smoothly so that he could look for his cell phone more easily. Soujiro leaned over across the seat to look out Akira's window. He frowned.
He couldn't see her face. She was actually coughing up blood. From behind her, a guy threw more trash at her. Beside her, lay the limp, bruised body of...was that...Kazuya? The girl choked on her blood, and was spitting bile all over the pavement. A girl grabbed the victim by the hair and forced the victim to look up.
Soujiro froze.
He snapped back into his seat, and he and Akira looked at each other. When Tsukasa finally found his cell phone and sat back up, frowning, the limo was already on the road to his house in his exclusive subdivision.
"You lazy good-for-nothings," Tsukasa frowned. Then he seemed to remember something. "Hey, did you get to see who it was that they were beating up?"
The F2 shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Soujiro spoke up first.
"You know," he said. "It's the strangest thing...that girl...just telling you the truth, she kind of looks...she kind of looks exactly like-"
"Like my cousin," Akira said quickly. He looked at Soujiro, and Tsukasa couldn't read the expression. "Right, Soujiro? That girl was so ugly she actually looked like my guy cousin, Lukawa."
Soujiro gave a fake laugh. "Yeah."
*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~**~~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~~*
Rui yawned, and looked at the digital clock beside his bed. The phone was jangling loudly. Rui considered letting it ring and not picking it up, but he couldn't get back to sleep. The phone kept ringing. Obviously, it was someone who knew him well, because after the twentieth ring, the phone still kept jangling. Rui switched on the Persian lamp and grabbed the phone.
"Who is it? Don't you know what time it is?! It's still eight in the evening! Call me at nine tomorrow morning."
Rui hung up the phone, ignoring Soujiro's voice on the other end of the line. Moments later, Akira called him, and Rui told him to call back the next day at noon.
There was silence in the room. Rui switched off the light and rested his head on the soft silk covers of his bed...
"RUI!!!!"
There was pounding at his door. Soujiro and Akira were talking on the other side of the door in loud voices, but basically, their message was altogether clear: Hanazawa Rui, get yourself outside right now!
Rui moaned, his eyes snapping open in the darkness. He turned on the speaker system next to his bed, contacting the guard.
"Hey, stupid. You know those two you let in earlier? Well, get them out right now. They're ruining my sleep."
The guard wouldn't do any good, though, because Akira and Soujiro burst in the next second, thanks to Soujiro's strong shoulder. Akira snapped on the lights. Rui sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes, glaring at his friends. His blue eyes glinted angrily as they adjusted to the light.
"Hanazawa!" Soujiro burst, coming over and grabbing Rui by the front of his shirt.
"This isn't like you!" He shouted. "Why'd you go off and red-tag someone?! And of ALL the people, Makino Tsukushi!! Idiot! What would Tsukasa have done if he had found out?!"
Rui pried Soujiro's hands off himself and got out of the large bed. He stood in the clothes he had worn the same day, having used them as his pajamas.
"What are you talking about."
Rui walked to the mini-refrigerator and he got out a bottle of mineral water. He turned and glared at the F2 standing before him.
"You know what you did? You red-tagged Makino and now she's the target of everyone in school. Idiot! What were you thinking?" Akira was more calm that Soujiro, but he seemed to be in the middle of a great headache, because a hand was to his forehead. Rui frowned.
"You're saying I can't red-tag anyone."
"Not- Not when-!!! NOT WHEN YOU KNOW TSUKASA LIKES HER-!!! Stupid!"
"Does Tsukasa know yet?" Rui asked Soujiro calmly despite the outburst.
Akira shook his head. Rui felt his eyelids getting heavy.
"This isn't like you, Hanazawa," Akira said softly. Rui yawned.
"She's not going to be badly hurt. You know her," Rui said, unconcerned.
At that moment, Soujiro snapped. He flung himself at Rui, and Rui took the punch. The two were trained equally in areas of Aikido and Taekwondo and kendo and jujutsu and most of the other forms of defense. But those attacks were used against strangers. Soujiro and Rui were fighting in a fist fight, with no rules whatsoever.
Rui had knocked Soujiro a couple of times on the stomach and jaw, and likewise before Akira jumped in and actually had the strength to pry them from the other. Akira was stronger than he looked. And Rui was sleepy. He wiped a drop of blood from the corner of his mouth and cursed the security officer. He must have gotten lost again, he thought scornfully.
Akira held Soujiro back, urgently telling his best friend to shut up and calm down. Finally, Soujiro yanked his arms free and wiped the blood off the side of his own mouth. He staggered backwards and plopped on Rui's bed.
"It's true..." he started. "It's true that Tsukasa doesn't know what he like half of the time, but Tsukushi is one of the people he sort of cares for. The idiot just doesn't know it."
"You don't know that for sure."
Akira chuckled without humor. "All three of us know Tsukasa likes her. He's as transparent as a scrap of glass. The way he took care of her expenses..."
"It wasn't for her. It was for her parents."
Soujiro leaned back in the bed. "Also for her. Her parents were in a car accident and they were both in the hospital. Her parent's expenses alone cost more than a million yen. Her expenses cost nine hundred fifty yen."
Akira smiled. "That Tsukasa has money to burn, so it doesn't kill him. He just accesses to his father's bank account. He can do that."
And Rui stood still. He knew that Tsukasa had given Tsukushi some money for her medicine, but he had no idea that Makino's medication had been that expensive. And he hadn't known that both her parents had been involved in an accident. If their expenses were so high, they must have almost died, the two of them. He hadn't dropped the watch on purpose; the latch had always been a bit loose. But when he had turned back to find the watch, he had seen Tsukushi grab it and put it in her pocket.
He had hired someone to get back the watch when she was finished with it. The man in the pawn shop had indeed been a con artist, but the person he had hired was able to buy it back for much more than what it had been worth in the first place.
But...somehow, he knew that Tsukushi had tried to get it back, and Tsukushi had come to the emergency stairs to tell him about his watch. He could hardly blame her. Sure, she had sold something that was never hers in the first place, but she was dying, and there was barely any other solution.
"How badly hurt was she?" Rui asked Soujiro in a low voice, hating himself completely for what he had done.
"Geez, I don't know. She was pretty bad when we left school, around three hours ago. Me and Akira were planning to go check up on her after this place."
Rui immediately started for the door. "Don't bother. I'll do it."
He disappeared out the doorway. Akira was about to follow him, but Soujiro put a hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Don't," Soujiro said. "When Rui goes out alone, that means he wants to take care of these things by himself. There must be something we don't know."
*~*~*~~**~~*~*~**~~**~~*~*~**~*~*~
Tsukushi was battered. Her uniform was torn enough as if it had been through a hurricane. She whimpered. She could barely find enough strength to open her eyes. When she did, it took her an even longer time to have her eyes adjust to the darkness around her. Blood was pounding in her head, and dried blood was on her hands.
She couldn't get up.
A voice came up and made her blood freeze.
"So she's finally awake," a male voice laughed. Three other voices were chuckling among themselves. "I want her to be awake to witness this."
He stepped up. From the ground, Tsukushi couldn't make his face out.
"Remember," he started. "Remember that time in the beginning when Hanaawa Rui stopped us? This time, we're going to finally finish it. You really hurt our pride back there."
(Again, for those who haven't read the manga, these four guys attempted to rape her at the beginning of the year, the first time she had been red-tagged, and she was saved by Rui.)
One of the guys grabbed her by the arm, and she was too weak to even tense herself up. They didn't have any trouble dragging her to the area under a lamplight. This time, she could stare up at their faces. They were four shadows against a yellow background, and she couldn't see their faces. She couldn't get her mouth to move.
"Gawd, she stinks," one of the guys complained. "Why do we have to do it TONIGHT? Why not tomorrow, when at least she could take a bath?"
"The sooner the better. Who knows what could come up tomorrow."
Tsukushi could barely feel her clothes being torn off. When she felt the cold night air against her bare skin, that was when she knew that she was in trouble. She tried to scream, but all that came out was a strangled sob. She fell into blackness.