A/N: Oh my God! Only one day and I already have five reviews! Thank you so much! I'm so happy! Anyway, I'd like to have a special thanks for each of them. Thank you!
Lighthawknight: yeah I know he's mature, but that was the entire point. I decided to fastfoward everyone's personalities to the much later volumes of LH because they aren't the childish kids they once were
WAFFaddict: thank you for saying such a nice thing and yeah I really liked this part of LH because it's a small look of what will happen later on in the story
jenniviennai: yeah I have spelling errors but I'M A JUNIOR IN HIGH SCHOOL SO WHAT DO YOU EXPECT!!! Just kidding. And Naru may not admit to being a psycho, but Keitaro might... oops, might have said too much, heh
Baka-Alaskan: thank you for your kind words, but I'm sure that your first fic is good too. I'll try to look it up
Turtle Lady: thank you for loving it, I like OOC-ness though, I get sort of tired of Keitaro's wimpy attitude and Naru's continuous bashings
Anyway, thank you all!
Disclaimer: I have never, do not, nor probably will ever own Love Hina. (sob) So please don't sue me. I'm poor, I could never afford an attorney, and I'll probably end up in the streets if you do.
Holding Hands
By Yamiga'sLight
Chapter 2: Sickness
"..." – talking '...' – thinking
Christmas morning came quietly. The sun rose over the horizon, and its rays slowly shone through the windows of Hinata House, kissing each of the girls' faces with its golden light. One by one, each of them woke up.
"Whazat?" Kitsune mumbled sleepily as she yawned and stretched her tired limbs. "Man, that was some party last night. Too bad that Keitaro didn't come back. I wanted to play with him some more. Speaking of Keitaro, I wonder where if he ever did come back."
She then finally noticed the heavy blanket she was under that was keeping her warm and toasty. Confused, she looked around to see that everybody more or less also had a blanket covering them. "Hey guys," she called out softly. "Wake up. It's morning."
That was enough to raise them out of their half-slumber states. Each of their eyes snapped open. "What is it, Kitsune?" Motoko asked.
"Yeah, why'd you wake us up?" Su whined. "I was dreaming I had a lifetime supply of bananas."
"That's all you ever dream about." Sarah said as she lightly punched her arm.
"That's not true," Su replied indignantly. "I dream about messing with Keitaro too."
"I seriously did not need to know that."
"Quiet, you two and listen up." Kitsune snapped. "Look around at each other."
At her prompting, everyone looked around and noticed the blankets covering them. "I wonder who did this?" Inquired Shinobu.
"It was probably Keitaro." Kitsune answered.
"That pervert..." Motoko muttered. "He probably tried to do something to us while we were asleep."
"I'm not so sure, Motoko." Haruka said. "The way Kitsune fell asleep was not exactly conservative."
"That's right," Kitsune continued. "If he was going to try anything on anybody, he'd probably do it to me because I wouldn't of looked much different afterwards. But not only are my limbs in the proper positions, he was also generous enough to give me a cushion." She gestured at her headrest. "I would have been plenty sore otherwise."
"Also, take a look on how he bundled us up. He obviously put a lot of care into it."
Motoko looked down. She was right. The blanket was tucked gently around her avoiding any of her 'sensitive' areas. She gulped at how easily Keitaro could have groped her without her realizing it.
"If you ask me, Urashima acted quite chivalrous towards all of us." Mutsumi said in a lilt tone of voice.
"Hear, hear!" Su and Sarah shouted in unison.
"And for that chivalrous action..." Su started.
"We're going to reward that dork!" Sarah finished.
The two then jumped to their feet and rushed upstairs. Haruka let out a small laugh. "It seems my nephew is about to receive a rude wake-up call." The others merely giggled at this gross understatement.
Naru then noticed Liddo-kun on the table. She let out a small squeal and quickly grabbed it, clutching it to her chest. But Mutsumi was the one to notice the note. She picked it up, read it over, and motioned for Naru to come over too.
When Naru did so, they both read it together.
*Considering I don't know who this belongs to anymore, I'll let you two battle it out. Good luck!*
Keitaro
The two looked at each other. They knew he wasn't just talking about the doll.
*****
Meanwhile, Keitaro was waking up too. Unfortunately for him, he didn't wake up so soundly. When he did, he felt like his body had just been done over by a bunch of gremlins armed with sledgehammers.
His whole body ached. Every moment he made resulted in a numbing pain. I felt like someone had stuck a roto-rooter down his throat, and shoved radioactive waste into his stomach. He didn't feel like crap, he felt like he was being made into it.
'Great,' he thought bitterly. 'Not only do I have that problem from last night, I get sick on Christmas morning too."
His mind then started to wander. What was that law on bad luck? Ah yes, Gunderson's Law. If anything bad could happen, it will, and at the worst possible moment. It seemed that God in all his loving care of Earth decided he was bored and that he wanted to spice things up a bit.
So he made the human equivalent of Gunderson's Law, Keitaro Urashima. The man, who at every possible waking (and sometimes unwaking) moment, had something horrible happened to him. Luckily, God made it up to him by adding immortality to his lists of pluses.
Keitaro's mind snapped back into reality when he heard a rumbling from behind his door that connected to the hall. It seemed an extension of Gunderson's Law was about to come crashing through it.
It did, in the forms of hyperactive Su and capricious Sarah, the terrible duo. They were joined in a high-jump kick, but luckily for Keitaro, Su noticed how bad he looked before connecting with his cranium.
Before her foot made contact, she grabbed Sarah and landed a gentle faceplant on Keitaro before flipping off of him, thus defying all laws of physics in this mortal realm. When her foot touched Keitaro, she was shocked to feel how hot he was. He felt like an inferno!
After, landing, she turned to him. "Hey, Keitaro," she said putting her finger to her mouth in a worried gesture. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, dork, you don't look so good."
"I'm not, guys." Keitaro smiled grimly. "I think I'm really sick."
"Oh, Su knows, Su knows!" Su waved her hand around excitedly. "I'll make you my special egg malt and read you stories like the last time you were sick."
"No, Su!" Keitaro let out before dissolving into a fit of hacking coughs.
Su's face drooped. "Why not?" She asked.
"Because of yours and everyone else's 'treatments', I had some really freaky dreams afterwards." He punctuated his sentence with a giant sneeze.
"Like what?" Sarah asked.
"You mean besides the combination of what happened that day and the storyline of Su's tales?" They nodded. "It basically ended in what happens to me every day when I'm awake. I get put into a compromising situation, you guys call me a pervert, and I promptly get the shit kicked out of me." He let out a small chuckle.
"What's so funny, Keitaro?"
Keitaro allowed another chuckle to escape from his lips. "Even in my dreams, you girls continue to torture me."
"Aww...we're sorry Keitaro. We don't mean to hurt you. You're just so fun to knock around." Su whimpered as she leaned forward to hug Keitaro.
"Whoa there, Su." Keitaro said as he held his hands in front of him to stop Su. "I'd feel awful if I got you sick too."
"Don't worry about her," Sarah smirked. "She's as hardy as a cockroach."
Keitaro relented and Su gave him a squeeze, but not as hard as one of her full-out glomps. She then forced him to lie back down. "Now, Keitaro," she said in a dignified manner so unlike her. "Would you like us to get you anything to help?"
"If you guys don't mind, could I have some hot tea? I could really use it."
Su's hyperactivity returned rather quickly. Okies," she smiled as she planted a kiss on Keitaro's forehead. She then ran out calling out behind her, "Be back soon!"
"Wait! I'll help too!" Sarah yelled as she ran out after her. Before leaving however, she stuck her head back in. "Just so you know, I don't like you or anything. I just don't think Papa would be happy if his best part-timer died on the job."
Keitaro let out a smile. "Thanks, Sarah." Amazingly, Sarah let out a small smile too before disappearing. Keitaro sighed, shook his head, and quickly fell back asleep.
*****
"Shinobuuu!"
Su's voice echoed through the halls of Hinata House announcing her arrival. It was swiftly followed with Su launching herself from the top of the stairs and clearing every step to the bottom. Her feet let out a muffled thump as she landed softly.
Kitsune winced at the noise. "Please, Su," she pleaded. "Be quiet. My hangover is killing me."
Su merely ignored her. It wasn't like it was anything new. Kitsune's state of drunkenness was a common sight to behold within the walls of the dormitory.
"Shinobu," she said louder than necessary (torturing Kitsune was almost as fun as torturing Keitaro, and much more satisfying.) "I need some hot tea A.S.A.P. C'mon, let's go." She moved her hands into a shooing gesture.
"What for, Su?" Shinobu asked. She had never seen Su so demanding, Well, actually, she had, especially when it came near dinnertime. But there was a look in her eye that told Shinobu something was different.
"Keitaro's sick." Su simply stated.
"Oh, no. Not again!" Whined Kitsune.
"Poor sempai," murmured Shinobu.
"Another blow to his immortality." Motoko said stroking her cheek.
Naru, Mutsumi, and Haruka simply stayed quiet. Naru clung to Liddo-kun like it was some sort of life preserver in some deep sea. Haruka was in her usual stoic silence that seemed to pulse with wisdom. Mutsumi had accidentally passed out for some unknown reason yet again.
Haruka finally broke her vigil of silence. "Well, it looks like my nephew needs some taking after yet again by you girls."
Sarah piped up (she had arrived shortly after Su,) "He requested that you give him none of your treatments and to not read him any stories."
The other girls blushed at this mention. They remembered the so-called 'treatments' they had tried on him: Su's strange concoction of alcohol, Motoko's downright combination of backyard wildlife, and Kitsune's somewhat risqué actions after the consumption of Su's said drink.
Then came the simultaneous readings of four totally different stories at once. They didn't learn it till later that the combination of chemical inbalances caused by the treatments and subconscious playings by their readings resulted in nightmares for the next couple of weeks.
They did find out later when awoken by inhuman screaming coming from the manager's room. They rushed to find Keitaro wide-awake, breathing heavily and sweating profusely. Luckily, this subsided after a while and life returned to its abnormal, hectic pace at Hinata House.
"Did we ever find out what he was dreaming about?" Kitsune wondered.
Su answered. "He said it was a combination of his daily life with us and the stories we read him that usually ended up with us beating him up."
"That would explain the screaming." Motoko said.
The others couldn't help but laugh out loud. Their jovial moment was ruined by an explosion that rocked the entire dormitory. Smoke was pouring from out of the stairs that lead to the second floor.
"What the hell was that?!" Naru screamed.
"Oops..." Su's face had a look of horror on it.
"Su...dear..." Naru looked like she was trying to hold back a vast amount of anger. She wasn't doing a very good job at it however. Her mouth was clenched into a grim smile; her eyes were also closed, the left on twitching violently. "What...did you...do?"
Su laughed nervously. "I...kinda forgot that gave Mecha-Tama a wake-up program as punishment for Keitaro for leaving early and not returning last night."
"What kind of program was it, Su?"
"..."
"Su, what was it?"
"Self-destruct..." Su mumbled softly.
"What?"
"Self-destruct." Su said louder.
Naru's eye twitched even more. "Su, you do realize that your inventions carry miniature nuclear reactors as a power sources, right?"
"Oh yeah, that's right." Su grinned sheepishly.
As if to prove her point, a charred object crashed through the roof of Hinata House, and plunged into the middle of them at the speed of about 100 mph. The tenants didn't have to look to know that the boor, burned mess in front of them was Keitaro.
"You know," Keitaro said in a strangled voice. "Sometimes I'm really glad that I'm immortal. Otherwise I would have been dead or left long ago." He then let out a wracking series of coughs. "Too bad it doesn't apply to colds too. I feel like I just went through a garbage compressor."
"Keitaro!" Naru shouted, concern etched on her face. She rushed over to his side and planted his head in her lap. "Are you okay?"
Keitaro's eyes focused on her. "Oh hey, Naru," he said in a distracted tone. "Did you and Mutsumi get Liddo-kun back? Sorry that I got him messed up."
Naru smiled slightly. "Yeah, thanks for asking. That was sweet."
Keitaro smiled back. "Oh, okay."
Kitsune her classic fox face. "You sure are acting friendly towards Keitaro, Naru. Anything happen that we should know about?" Nary blushed.
Keitaro noticed. "Yet another reason I'm glad I'm immortal."
"Why's that?" Naru asked.
Keitaro's face turned to puzzled. "Aren't you going to beat me up?"
Naru opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. She blushed again. "No, not this time silly," she said, stroking his cheek.
Keitaro grinned. "Okay. Well, I'm going back to sleep. Good night, or is it good morning? I'm not really..." He abruptly fell back into unconsciousness.
Everyone remained silent. Kitsune spoke up. "Silly?" She said with one eye opened and an eyebrow raised.
"W-what?" Naru stuttered, still blushing furiously.
"Oh my!" Everyone turned to look at Mutsumi. "I think that we've had enough time to make fun of Naru," she said with a hint of jealously I her voice. She had awakened early enough to see the position Keitaro and Naru had been in.
"I think," she continued. "That we should get Urashima back to bed. Unless you want him to get worse that is."
"Good idea," Motoko grunted. She picked Keitaro up, and slung him over her shoulder.
"Motoko..." Naru started.
"What?"
Naru eyed Keitaro's slightly uncomfortable position.
"Oh, come on," Motoko complained. "It's not like he's even conscious to whine about it!"
Everyone sweatdropped.
"Oh, fine," Motoko muttered. She took Keitaro off of her shoulder and held him in her arms. She had one arm under the small of his back and other one in the crook of his knees. She blushed at the awkwardness of the situation. She was holding him bridal style... Naru nodded her approval.
"Come along, Urashima. It's time for bed." Motoko headed for the stairs when she remembered what had occurred just a few minutes ago. "Umm... Considering that Urashima's room is currently non-existent, where's he going to sleep?"
Everyone remained silent. "That's a good question." Haruka said.
"Maybe he could shack up with Naru," Kitsune joked.
"Oh, come on, Kitsune," Sarah said, exasperated. "He's not even conscious to be embarrassed."
"I suppose..." Naru said.
Everyone stared at her. "What?" The said in unison.
"Not like that, you depraved-minded dimwits!" She yelled. "I mean he takes my room while I double with someone else." They all sighed.
"I'd be happy to share my room, Naru." Shinobu suggested.
"Thank you, Shinobu." Naru smiled.
"Now that that's settled, shouldn't I get our manager to his temporary quarters? Motoko said.
"Mighty eager to get alone with Keitaro, ain't ya?" Kitsune grinned.
"I-I-I...Of course not!" Motoko gulped while blushing. Keitaro chuckled in her arms. Motoko looked down at him. "Urashima! Are you awake?" She shook him. "Answer me!"
"Heh...little me...turtle..." Keitaro chuckled.
Kitsune sweatdropped. "Guess he's still asleep."
"Name's Keitaro...not Taro..."
"What in blazes is he talking about?" Motoko asked.
"Ooh, Su knows!" They turned to her. "Remember he said he dreamed about the stories we read him? Mine was 'Taro Urashima.'"
"That's right," Kitsune said. "Hey, I know!" Let's listen to him. I always wanted to know how that dream of his went."
"I don't know..." Naru said. "Isn't that kind of immoral?"
"So? Maybe we could even get some information to blackmail him with."
"Like I said...immoral. Say it with me..."
"Oh, come on." Sarah whined. "Don't be such a spoilsport."
"Ohhhhh, fine!" Naru huffed.
"Good girl," Kitsune grinned.
They all leaned in to hear Keitaro's random tellings of his dreams.
A/N: Yay! Second chapter is done! Hope you like it! I do have the entire story done so all I have to do is type it up and upload it on fanfiction.net. And now, to talk to the characters.
The room is full of gigantic holes and burn marks. Gloworm16 is tied and gagged on the floor with Su's laser trained on him. Su and me are standing over him.
Me: Sorry about this. (gives a quick kick to gloworm16) After he promised to be good he got a little out of hand and tried to steal Su's gun. (looks at mangled room) He did and went on a little rampage before I got Naru and Motoko to stop them. Thanks girls! (waves to them)
Naru and Motoko: You're welcome!
Me: Anyway... (looks at gloworm16) Are you ready to try again?
gloworm16: (nods) Mmph.
Me: Okay. (removes gag)
gloworm16: (sighs) You jackass!
Me: Whoops! (puts back gag) You know...you hate spamming right? (gloworm16 nods nervously) I could give some real world info on you. Like how your name is Vince...
gloworm16: Mmph!!!
Me: (grins) Or how about that your phone number is 268-...
gloworm16: Mmmppphhh!!!
Me: Or maybe that you live at...
gloworm16: MMMMMPPPPPHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
Me: Now...?
gloworm16: (nods head) Mmph.
Me: Good. (takes out gag)
gloworm16: Jerk.
Me: Hey, it's a start.
Su: Yes it is!
Me: gloworm16?
gloworm16: Yes? (I nod towards the audience, he sighs) Please Review. Good enough?
Me: (grins) Very.
A/N: Sigh... Well at least that crisis is over. I'm sure gloworm16 will be much better next time. I'll try to get the next chapter done as soon as possible so keep on reviewing. And remember...no flames! Oh, and by the way, how the hell do I keep bold and italics! I can't do it! Please help me!