1/19/03- LOOK AT ME BEING PRODUCTIVE!!!
1/21/03- I'm so sorry that I didn't get this up when I said I was going to!! My parents decided that I needed to study for the SATs- despite the fact that I took them when I was twelve and am already getting overwhelmed by the email I'm receiving from colleges (because of the PSATs earlier this year. Do they even CARE about the PSATs?). Oh, and don't yell at me that three emails is not something to be overwhelmed by. It is when you never get any email at all. Anyway, to make up for going against my word, I have a drawing that I drew in school today. During my classes that are OH so easy. yay! (I purposely made the first y lowercase.) There's also a preview to the next chapter on it, since it JUST SO HAPPENS to be on the same piece of paper!! (Hint- I did that purposely for you guys.) Anyway, enjoy!
Cinnamon Eyes
"Hitomi, your date with Otogi-kun is today, right?!"
Hitomi entered the room with a mop and leaned on the handle. "It's not a date, and move the desks out of the way. The floor needs to be cleaned, Keiko."
"You're so lucky, though!" squealed another girl, Marumi, as she helped in moving the desks around. "You should hurry so that you can go!"
"I'll hurry," she positioned the mop and ran across the room, sliding it on the floor, "but only so that I can get it over with!"
The six girls rolled their eyes toward her, their arms crossed. "Hitomi…"
Hitomi stopped and glared back. "I'm not the only one that's cleaning the room, you know."
"Do you remember what he said?"
"You mean about me loving him after only one date?" She scoffed. "He's such a self-centered idiot, he doesn't know what he's talking about."
"Well…" Toshiko looked out the window she was cleaning. "That self-centered idiot is waiting outside for you to finish."
"What?!" Hitomi dropped the mop and ran to the window. Leaning out, she spotted Otogi waiting near the main gate. "OTOGI!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
He turned to look at the window and shouted back. "Are you almost finished, Hitomi-chan?!"
"NOOO!! Go home!!" She pointed in a random direction, not sure of where his home was. "I'm not walking around in my school uniform!"
"I'll pick you up at your house, then?!"
"Do what you want!!" She slammed the window closed.
"You closed the window on my rag, Hitomi."
"Oh, be quiet!" She leaned against the wall and stared at the others. "If you really want me to go on that 'date,' do your part in cleaning and I'll be out of here sooner!"
"OKAY!!!" They rushed around the room, making sure that everything was in order.
Hitomi sighed. Why can't I be in some other homeroom…?
***
A half-hour later, she found herself walking down the street next to the boy that she'd least like to be found with.
"Are you cold at all, Hitomi-chan? It's close to freezing…"
"No, I'm fine." She looked up at the sky. Why is it this cold in April? Abnormally cold weather this year… At least it isn't too sunny… "So, what are you planning to do, Otogi?"
"Well, first we could have lunch… and then whatever you wanted."
She peered at him. "Whatever I wanted? You're the one who wanted to go on this date…"
"Exactly." He smiled at her. "If you're to be suffering oh-so-much with me, you should at least be enjoying yourself."
"Hmm…" Hitomi giggled, ran ahead a bit, then turned around to look at him. "You know, you're sweet, Otogi. If I didn't hate you so much, I might fall in love with you."
"Ah. I'll have to remember that, then." He passed by her and stopped. "So, where do you want to eat?"
She caught up with him and grabbed his arm. "You're too sweet. I'm not going to decide everything."
"Well…" Otogi blushed and thought for a minute. "There's a little café around the corner that you might like. How's that?"
"That's fine." Hitomi let go of him. "Then we can go ice skating!"
"Ice skating…" He chuckled. "Whatever you want, Hitomi-chan…"
***
She put her hands on her hips. "You mean you're not going to skate? Some date you are…"
"You've seemed to lighten up a bit." He leaned against the wall near the entrance to the rink. "I'll skate later, you go on ahead."
Hitomi shrugged. "Whatever." Otogi watched as she skated off.
He leaned his arms on the ledge below the window, his eyes following her movements. If she didn't hate me, she'd love me… Ahh, she's confusing sometimes… He held his face in his hands. What did I ever do to make her hate me…? Maybe I came on too strong…
He made his way over to the rink entrance and attempted to find balance on the ice. Holding onto the wall, his feet wobbled, until his right ankle turned inward and he slipped. "Ah…!"
Before he hit the ice, he found himself being pulled by the hands along the ice. "Have you ever ice skated, Otogi?" Unusually kind eyes smiled at him through rose-colored bangs.
"Um… no, I haven't." Hitomi stopped, and he managed to stand upwards again. "Erm… thank you."
She giggled, watching the usually graceful and collected Otogi Ryuuji fighting to remain balanced. "Here, take my hands." She held them out, and he took them. "Okay, now just pretend you're walking on normal ground."
Otogi frowned. "What do you think I was doing?"
"Okay… well, then, try moving your feet back and forth like this." She demonstrated, and he followed her instructions. "That's it. Now, all you have to do is move forward while doing that."
"Um…"
"What, do you doubt me? Fine then!" She began skating backwards, pulling him along. "There you go! You're skating!"
"I'm being pulled! This isn't skating!!"
"Okay, Otogi!" Hitomi picked up speed, fast, then let go of him, shouting, "Skate on your own!"
"Ack!" Otogi rocked backwards and forwards, arms flailing, as Hitomi continued skating backwards in front of him. "Hi-Hitomi-chan!"
"Yes?"
"You didn't tell me how to stop!"
"Oh, well…"
"Watch out!"
She hit the wall, and he immediately threw himself onto the ice so as not to run into her.
"Ow…" Hitomi looked down at her comrade. "Otogi, are you okay?"
"Oh, I'm fine. I only got a mouth full of shredded ice, a few chipped teeth and about ten broken bones. Nothing serious. How are you?"
She laughed. "I'm okay. You aren't looking up my skirt, are you?"
"Let's see, I'm facedown and my eyes are swollen shut. No."
"Everything's okay, then!" She held out her hand. "Come on, get up. We'll go somewhere else now."
He groaned.
"Come on!" She kicked him so that he was face-up, then grabbed his hand. "Get up, now."
"Meeehhh…"
"Geez, how much do you weigh?"
"Sixty-four kilos."
"I didn't expect you to answer that…" Hitomi attempted to get him into a sitting position, and failed. "Do you want me to drag you off the ice?"
"Okay."
"Otogi, you idiot!" She dropped his hand. "You'll get skated on!"
He opened his eyes. "Oh, why did you let go? Your hands are so nice and warm…"
Hitomi blushed furiously. "You… argh!!" She turned around and left the rink.
"Hey! You can't just leave me here!" Otogi managed to scramble to his feet and pulled himself across the wall to the exit of the rink. Hitomi was there, waiting for him. "Hey, why do you get so mad? I try to compliment you, and this always happens!"
She scowled up at him. "You're lucky I waited for you."
"Why did you have any reason not to?" He tore off his skates with relief. "There was no excuse for you to get mad at me!"
"Because… I don't like you." She walked out the doors into the fresh air, and he followed. "However…" She turned around and looked into his face. "I suppose I don't hate you, either."
"As long as you're happy," he laughed.
Hitomi gasped and ran into the clearing in the park, looking up at the sky. "Otogi, look! It's snowing!"
He stood beside her. "Why is it snowing in April?"
"Well, it won't stick, I know that…"
"Right…" Otogi looked down, straight into those beautiful cinnamon eyes, which then started tearing up. "What's wrong?"
"Otogi…" she moved closer to him, "I'm starting to fear what you said about this date…"
"Oh, Hitomi-chan…" He offered a hug, which she willingly walked into. "What's so bad about me?"
Hitomi buried her face into his chest. "It's… I hate you…"
He sighed, and stroked her hair. "You tell yourself that, but is there really a reason that you hate me?"
"Of course… It's…" She paused. No matter how hard she thought, she couldn't remember why she had started hating him. Why did she hate him…?
Otogi pushed her away a bit and stroked her face. "You know how I feel about you. I'm willing to wait an eternity or more for you to sort our your feelings."
"Otogi…" She lifted her head to look into his face. "You have snow in your hair…"
He chuckled. "I know. I don't care, I'm here with you."
Hitomi slowly closed her eyes. "You… I…" What am I doing?
Otogi leaned in, then stepped away. "Hitomi-chan, the thing about you is that you try to decide what your emotions are before they know what they are themselves. Think it over, I'll be waiting for you…"
She opened her eyes, stunned, and watched him walk away. "O… Otogi, you idiot! I hate you!!"
He gave her a short wave without turning around. "Think about it!"
***
Hitomi entered her room and flopped onto her bed.
Oh, I'm being so stupid… she thought. I don't know, but… while I was unaware, he became dear to me…
***
I wanted to make it snow.
Hey, maybe I should have a DIFFERENT separating thingie between the story and my notes?
Now, don't you guys jump to any conclusions or anything. Tomorrow's a new day! (Maybe I'll have the next chapter up tomorrow…)
Anyway, here's the picture I mentioned in the beginning notes that nobody reads. http://www.boomspeed.com/yugi_h_2_oh/skating.jpg
Okay, now here are my rants about it! ^^
First off, I didn't feel like totally screwing Otogi up, so I just drew a blobbish thing that barely resembles him. I've never drawn him before, really… Oh, and he's not wearing his regular clothes because it's COLD. WOW!
Hitomi, um… her head is squished. And there's supposed to be a wall there. And I think I've been being a little lax on the fingers… Hitomi only has four on each hand, and Otogi has none. His hands are just blobs.
I'm going to rant more about Otogi. More than just Otogi himself, I didn't want to draw his FACE. That was good, since he's supposed to be face down anyway! *smiles*
Okay, one last thing to rant about… isn't my handwriting atrocious? And I do write in italics when needed. Aren't I a freak? Well, maybe I'm not the only person who writes in italics by hand… but there sure were a bunch of people wishing that they could a few days ago in History class!! (My school is so incredibly random… one Friday we were let out 15 minutes early because "we won the state championships." We didn't, by the way.)
Um… I think that's it. Oh! One more thing!
I wasn't going to respond to any reviews this chapter, but I have one that is bothering me (not in a bad way, though).
Mutou Yasu- After reading your review, I seriously considered what you said, and pondered over Otogi's actual personality and whether or not I was making him out of character again. Then I remembered how he acts around Shizuka-chan after he comes into Battle City (See? I'm being serious and not calling it Batoru SHTEE!!!), and decided that he would actually act that way over a girl. (Basically, in Battle City, he acts almost exactly like Honda, except a bit more… erm… slick? I dunno… He and Honda actually are around each other a lot, but probably more because they're rivals over Shizuka-chan's love and are trying to prevent the other from making a move. :D Otogi's a bit more successful with her, because he can tell when Honda is about to try to score points with her, and then jumps in before he can say more than five words, stealing Honda's act. I'm sure they're both heartbroken when Shizuka-chan falls for Seto… and then they find support in each other and sleep in the same bed and fall off a blimp together… but I won't get to that.) I'm not sure if you have seen any Battle City episodes with Otogi yet, since there's still several to go until 4Kids dubs them… but there's the possibility that you might have Japanese DVDs (like me!) or have downloaded some episodes… yeah… I'll stop talking now.
Why am I suddenly referring to her with the -chan suffix?
Next Chapter
Chapter 5: Suki? Chigau na! (Love? That's not it!)