ちびまおう - たなか きみこ：dananaha!
chibi maou – tanaka kimiko:＃7
Weeks passed, but Kimiko still persisted in her quest for Tomoyo. She continued to persuade Meiling to 'act' with her whenever her love was around; but to her distress, it seemed to be driving Tomoyo further and further away. The other students had also noticed the new, strange behavior and were constantly gossiping and talking about them behind their backs. Finally, Meiling had had enough.
"No more of this, Miko, no more! If I get another nasty anonymous note in my desk, I'll pull out all my hair! This is all your fault!!" she yelled. Miko smiled nervously and held her skateboard behind herself as if to protect it from Meiling's fury. "Don't get so upset… I know things haven't exactly worked according to our plan yet, but…"
"'TO OUR PLAN'?! OUR PLAN?? HA! WHAT A JOKE!! You're the one who made it up!! You're the one who keeps making me look stupid! You you you!! Meiling cried, stomping her foot and pulling her ponytails in a fit. The other girl sweatdropped and warily put out a hand to calm her friend down.
"Meiling… don't get mad… I promise I won't ask you to do it again. You're right, it's time for a change of plan."
"Finally, for ONCE you agree I'm right about something! Well, you'd better start convincing people I'm NOT GAY or else I'll-I'll…Um…I don't know WHAT I'll do, but when I think of it it's gonna be something REALLY bad!! Understand??" shouted Meiling, throttling the other girl violently. When Miko finally pried Meiling's hands from her neck, she nodded and choked until her face went from purple back to its normal tanned color. "Ok, Ok. I'll, uh…see to that." she replied with a gasp.
"Good." replied Meiling. "I'm going home now. By myself. I'd appreciate it if you kept your distance from me from now on. At least until people understand it was all uh… a joke."
Miko watched her walk off. She rubbed her neck. "A joke. Ha ha ha."
She dropped her board down on the ground and kicked off. It felt good to have the wind in her face, and to feel the smooth obedience of the wheels turning with every small shift of her weight. Miko decided to head for a little skate park she knew in her neighborhood before going home.
'Home is so depressing.' she thought. 'Dad is always home late from working at that horrible smelly factory, and Onii-san is always locking himself in his room. It creeps me out to think what he's doing there all the time... I'm sure I even saw a syringe in his trashcan once. But I guess it's not my place to tell him how to live his life… I'm just a kid anyway…"
She leaned back and the tail of her board scraped the ground to an abrupt stop. There was a dirty metal sign over the recently padlocked chain-link door. She jiggled the lock a few times.
"Closed For Repairs"?? No way!" she leaned aside to see behind the sign. All the ramps looked fine. "They can't keep out 'MAD MIKO!'" she shouted defiantly. Miko stuffed her board into her backpack and climbed the chain-link fence. "Hello? Anybody there?" The sofly whistling wind was her only reply.
She reached the top of the fence and fell off onto the other side. "YATTA!! I have the whole thing to myself!! Yaaaaa ANARCHYYYYY!!" she yelled triumphantly, running towards the nearest half pipe.
She practiced her run that she had been planning for almost 2 months. It was in preparation for the biggest competition in her life, and it was only about another month away. The trouble was, she could do all the stunts individually, but when it came to doing them all at once with almost no break in between, she often got tired near the end and that was enough to make her loose her balance and screw up her finale. Grind, jump, twist into the pipe, 3 jumps and grabs, flip onto the next ramp and turn around. Up the next ramp and twist…
"Ahhh!!" she yelled as she neglected to turn all the way and bounced on the hard concrete. Her board landed on the ground a few seconds later.
"I should have brought my pads…But that's the price for looking cool…" she moaned, holding her badly scraped arms. "Are you ok, Sukebo?" she asked her board with concern.
Suddenly, she heard a scream. It sounded familiar… "That voice! It sounded just like…Tomoyo!" Miko realized with a start. Her injuries forgotten, she grabbed her board and her backpack and climbed to the top of the highest ramp to see where her damsel in distress might be.
"Please don't hurt me… I don't have my money with me." pleaded Tomoyo to the scruffy dark stranger who was gripping her thin, white wrist. The man pulled her closed and laughed a terse, dry laugh. "That's not what I'm interested in, sweety." Tomoyo started to reach for her phone with her other hand, but the man grabbed it away from her. "Who are you trying to call? Your friend won't help you. Just relax. I-"
But his sentence was broken off. Tomoyo opened one eye as she felt the man's grip on her wrists loosen. His eyes rolled up in his head and he slowly fell forward onto his face, his body limp on the ground.
She looked up with immense relief at her savior.
"Shaoran-kun! Thank you so much for coming, I'm so grateful…" she stopped suddenly, looking from the boy's sheathed sword to the dirty man sprawled on the ground.
"You didn't… Is he..??" she began. "No," replied Shaoran. "I hit him in the back of the head. With the blunt edge. He's only unconscious." He suddenly tensed up. "Do you… hear that?" he asked. Tomoyo listened. "You mean that muted wailing noise?" They both looked around.
Suddenly, they heard a loud clacking sound behind them, and then the scrape of wheels on pavement. The wailing sound grew louder every moment! Shaoran spun around and whipped out his sword; instinctively placing himself in front of Tomoyo.
"BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANZAAAAAAAAAIIII!!!" yelled Kimiko as she flew past a corner and spun around them. Shaoran tried to turn himself to keep facing the monster on wheels, but she was spinning around him and Tomoyo in circles so fast that all he was doing was getting extremely dizzy.
Tomoyo's eyes widened in surprise. "Kimiko-chan??"
"I should have known!! This Chinese brat is nothing but a TROUBLEMAKER!" Miko sprang off her board and tackled Shaoran, who by now was so dizzy that the impact knocked him onto the ground.
Wha…!?" he cried.
The skater girl punched him clumsily, but having not much training in fist fights she wasn't doing much damage. "WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL, HUH!?" I know you're after Kinomoto, but that's no reason to start attacking TOMOYO-CHAN!! RAAH!!" she yelled furiously. Shaoran regained his wits and gave Miko a kick to the stomach that sent her flying off him onto the ground near Tomoyo. She shook herself off, got up and ran back at him.
"What…are…you…doing!?" he asked, in between blocking her powerful, but badly aimed blows.
Tomoyo ran to Miko and tried to pull her away. "You've misunderstood, Kimiko-chan! Li-kin was only…"
"Tomoyo-chan, I'm afraid you don't know what you're dealing with. Back off and let ME handle him!" replied the other girl, shrugging Tomoyo's hands away. Shaoran was getting fed up with blocking. He kicked Miko back again, not hard enough to hurt that much, but enough to give him time to catch his breath. Miko panted heavily, holding her already scratched limbs. Her stomach ached and her ribs hurt again from the old soccer ball incident. She growled in pain, but for the moment her soreness was too great to get up. Shaoran stepped slowly towards her.
In a sudden movement, she grabbed her board from the pavement and ran with it at Shaoran, using it like a shield, intending to pin him against the wall. He lifted his arm in a karate-chop action and swung it down at the last moment. A sharp, horrible splintering sound filled the air.
Kimiko stared in horror at the two pieces of wood she held in her hands. She made a small strangled sound, but no words could come out.
Shaoran remained frozen in his position. Tomoyo took her chance and dashed between them, looking from one face to the other. "Are you both alright? Stop fighting, please! I can't let you get hurt over this misunderstanding!"
"You…killed my board. You killed Sukebo! You KILLED HIM!!" cried Miko. Shaoran looked scared and confused. "I'm sorry… I mean…You were running at me with it! It's just a piece of wood, anyway!" he replied defensively.
Tomoyo remembered how the very first day she had met Miko, the girl had made such a big deal about the board getting banged up. This plank was very obviously special to her. "Don't worry, Kimiko-chan," she said hurriedly, "there are many ways to repair it. In fact, I'll pay for all the damage. Don't blame Li-kun, he was only trying to defend himself. He wasn't attacking me just now, he saved me from that man lying over there." she added, pointing to the aforementioned criminal. "Kimiko-chan… You're bleeding!" Tomoyo took the other girls arm and examined it. "I have a handkerchief, here…" She looked through her bag.
Kimiko lowered her head in absolute mortification. "I-…I'm so very sorry. I'm so ashamed... I guess… I just jumped to conclusions, when I heard you scream, and saw Li-kun with that sword… I…I'd better go home now." And without a parting glance, she clutched the pieces of her dear Sukebo to her chest and ran off as quickly as she had come.
Tomoyo called after her. "Kimiko-chan! Wait…!" But she was already gone.