Within the flower, upon the green velvet stamens, sat a very delicate and graceful little maiden. She was scarcely half as long as a thumb, so they gave her the name of ThumbeRena.

How much more sick can the good old woman get?

Pirika smirked as she read the sentences she had so far for the play.

Chapter 3: Onshuu (Love and Hate)

Note: I know Pilica is the correct name for our heroine, dakedo, I'm used to spelling it out as Pirika (w/c is how our local dubber pronounce it). Gomen ne!

Ren Tao slammed the script down on Pirika's desk, face distorted in a look short of homicidal.

"Yes?" she asked, not lifting her eyes to gaze at him.

"What kind of garbage is this?" he snapped, glaring at her pad paper as if it was an Anti-Christ document. Fortunately, his eyes weren't capable of incineration, or her script could have burst into flames already.

She closed her English book calmly and smiled languidly. "It's our school play. Our teacher has approved of my script."

"Oh yeah?" he snapped. "Well, I don't."

"Ah, I don't care if you approve or not. You're not the one giving my English class grades." She cupped her face. "Besides, what are you complaining about in your role?"

"It calls for me to act all girly here!" he yelled, making the heads of their classmates turn to them.

Pirika smiled. "So?'

He looked at her as if she just asked why sugar is sweet and salt isn't. "I can't do it!"

"You can; you just don't want to." She crossed her arms. "This is a play, Ren Tao. You have to cooperate, or the whole class will fail in English class."

"Great. So you're going to use some kind of a blackmail on me now, huh?" Ren sighed sharply. "Well, I do NOT care. You will never make me take this role!"

"Never?" she asked, her tone rising challengingly.

Inspite of himself, he suddenly began to be cautious with his words. "What do you have in mind?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"If you don't agree to play the role I made especially for you…" She smiled sweetly. "I'll tell them that I am your girlfriend."

Ren's eyes widened, but the next second, they narrowed. "You're that desperate?"

"I worked hard on that script, Ren Tao, and I don't want my efforts and the efforts of my classmates to go waste simply because you are too much of a brat to accept a perfectly decent role."

Ren snorted. "Look, I'm not going to play a prince or a mage or even an antagonist here. I'm going to be a delicate…" He glanced at the frigging script. His face contorted in distaste. "…and graceful little maiden. Pirika, for the love of my dog, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know how unfitted I am for that role."

Pirika clicked her tongue. "Ren Tao, a personality like yours is a much better actor for roles like those. It makes it livelier. People are used to Thumbelina being female. They would love it if this time around, we use a male, and a snobbish-looking one like you." She sighed. "Anyway, why are you arguing with me? I am the director, and you are just an actor."

"I won't participate in the play!" he yelled.

"Good! Then I'll tell them about us-"

Ren did a double take. "I'm not calling your bluff," he said after a few minutes of silent pondering.

"If that is what you think." She stood up and looked at his face purposefully. "I'm going to hug you in front of everyone," she informed him as she stepped closer to him. She fought back a giggle when she saw that Ren was starting to get a little nervous- he started to take a step back away from her.

"No, you won't," he said, but his confidence a bit less than awhile ago.

"Oh yes, I will." She took another step, bringing herself closer to him. There was only one more step left, then they would be cheek-to-cheek. She didn't know if she was going to finish the dare she started.

Fortunately, Ren gave in. "Step back already," he growled. "I'll take that damn role already."

 Her face blossomed into a full smile. "Arigato!" She took the script he earlier placed on the desk and handed it to him. "Here. Memorize all your lines already. The practice will start tomorrow afternoon, after our classes."

"Oh! I could not bear to think of living with the old toad, and having her ugly son for a husband. Alas, poor me! Poor, poor me!"

Jun did a double take when he heard the high-pitched voice coming from her brother's room. Curious, she decided to take a peek.

Ren was emoting in front of the mirror, fist outstretched in full passion. "Most pretty flowers of the fields, please tell me which way to go! I must escape from-" He paused when he saw his sister's reflection on the mirror. His face suddenly reddened. "Onee-san!!!"

Jun burst into laughter as she entered her brother's room. "I'm sorry for disturbing your rehearsal, Ren."

The colors had not yet died down from the boy's face. Damn him again for not locking doors!

"You were great back then," said Jun, smiling at him.

"Shut up."

"So what is the play about anyway?" she wanted to know.

Ren eyed her warily. "I'll tell you if you promise not to laugh."

"I promise," she said quickly.

He sighed, then said, "ThumbeRena."

To his dismay, his sister's hysterical laughter echoed all over the room. So much for promises.

"What are you so busy writing, Pirika?" asked Horo Horo as he watched his sister pen down some lines on an expensive-looking paper.

"Invitations," she said simply.

"For what?"

"Our school play," she replied, not looking up from her work. "I'm inviting Yoh and the others to watch it."

"Why are you making such a big deal on the coming play anyway? You always have a part on it," asked Horo.

"This time around, I'm directing it," she said proudly. "And I've got the reins on the story flow, especially on the character actors."

"Really? So what is the play all about?" asked her brother.

She smiled sweetly. "You'll know it at the same time that the audience will do- on the day of the play itself."

"Oh, alright." Horo grinned and rolled on to the other side of the sleeping case. "Goodnight, Pirika. Don't stay up too late."

"Hai!" she smiled at him, then continued writing the invitations. She would be sending them tomorrow.

"I told you not to laugh," said Ren crossly as his sister hiccupped. Her laughter had died down, but she was still smiling.

"Gomen," she managed to choke out.

"I'm not going through this torture anymore!" decided the boy as he threw the script on the floor, then crossed his arms defiantly.

Jun picked up the pieces of paper and eyed them. "These are handwritten!"

 "So?" asked the younger Tao.

"Pirika is also the scriptwriter, isn't she?" asked Jun. "She must have worked very hard on these, Ren. If you back out, I'm sure that the other members of the play would lose interest on the play too and back out too. all her efforts then would be for vain."

"Not my problem," he said arrogantly.

"But it will be Pirika's problem, since as the director of the play, she'll also be the over-all in charge for the project. If it doesn't pull through, she would be the biggest person to blame because she wasn't able to do anything about the conflict." The young woman smiled. "So if you and Pirika have differences, do not involve the school play anymore. Other students will be affected too, you know."

"And you want me to believe that she thought of the ThumbeRena play coincidentally?" he asked sarcastically.

"What if she did?" challenged his sister.

He fell silent.

"And if she ever did what you thought, would you also stoop to her level by ruining a group play?" she asked, eyeing him carefully.

Well then, if his sister puts it that way…

"Fine!" He swapped the script back and began to read through the lines once more. "I'm going back to rehearsing my lines, but get out of my room, will you?"

She smiled and nodded. "Good luck!"

"OK people, places!!!" called Pirika the next afternoon. She glanced at Ren who was sitting a little far from the other casts. He was seated behind a tree, reading his script.

She had to smile. She was glad that Ren was starting to take this seriously.

"Now for the first scene, we have to rehearse the part when the woman found ThumbeRena. The woman will do a voice-over in the real stage, because she is suppose to be larger than ThumbeRena." She looked at Ren. "ThumbeRena, it's your scene already!"

He glared at her as he walked towards them. She smiled sweetly in response.

"Now, you will pretend to be looking up in the air, talking to the old woman." She gestured to the cherry tree in front of him. "Look up at its branches and visualize that as your old woman."

He shook his head. "Hideous."

"Oh shut up. OK, lights, camera, ACTION!!!"

The girl taking the role of the old woman began to speak. "O-Oh. W-What a beau…beautiful f-flower, and…a-alas, w-what's t-this?" Her face turned pink when she felt Ren Tao's glare at her.

Pirika sighed. She knew giving the role of ThumbeRena's foster mother to her classmate who's got a killer crush on Ren was a big, fat mistake. But then, who else would take the role of the old woman, when ninety-nine percent of the female population in the class was infatuated with the arrogant Chinese shaman?

"Cut!' She took the script from the girl and went to the tree where Ren was suppose to look up at. She began to climb the tree.

"W-What are you doing?" asked her classmates, looking at the Ainu girl in fascination.

"I'm going to teach our classmate the right intonation for the old woman, and at the same time, I'll help Ren Tao internalize my instructions for this scene." She turned to Ren. "Remember to look at me when you're speaking. Even if we do the real thing in the stage already, remember to look up at this angle, ok?"

Ren had difficulty nodding, because he wanted to avert his gaze at the long, creamy legs shown by the short hem of her skirt. But when he saw that his fellow male classmates were gawking at her legs too, he angrily marched towards her and took off his top. Ignoring the mixed scandalized and fascinated looks from his female classmates, he threw her his coat.

"Cover your legs!" he yelled.

Pirika blinked, then realized he was right. But she wasn't about to let him know how grateful she was. "Thanks for the concern! You don't expect me to wear it, do you?" She could picture out his top reaching just some inches below her chest.

To her amusement, he suddenly looked indignant. "Shut up! Put that on your lap."

She grinned, did as told,  then sat down on the lower branch and read the script in an old woman's voice.

Ren, on the other hand, still couldn't forget the protective instinct that came over him all of a sudden when he was confronted by the fact that other men were ogling at her flesh.

This is all her fault anyway. Why did she have to sit up there where she knows everyone can see her body?

His heart replied that Pirika was innocent, and had no malice yet on such things.

"ThumbeRena!" yelled Pirika, hands on her hips. "Pay attention to the practice, will you?"

He scowled. "Alright!" He ignored the snickers from his classmates.

The sun was going down when Pirika decided to call it a day.

"See you tomorrow!" she greeted as her classmates waved goodbye.

"Aren't you going down from the tree yet?" asked one of her classmates.

"Later. This place has a nice view." She smiled at him and waved. She turned her attention once again to watch the sunset.

Her eyes softened when the yellow-orange color bathed her face. She took a mental note of this, so she could describe it later to the man in charge of the stage lights.

Ren was about to go home when he remembered that Pirika had his top. He was about to go to her and ask her about it when he saw that she was too busy looking out at the sunset.  He decided to not disturb her for awhile and just to watch her watching something else.

He was a little surprised by how he suddenly felt peaceful, his eyes on the serene, unaware beauty of the Ainu little girl.

Must be the sunset. Yeah, that must be it.

Pirika blinked when she felt that Ren was beside the tree where she was sitting down. "W-What are you doing down there? Y-You're…" Her eyes widened. "You're peeping on me, you perverted dwarf!"

His eyes blazed. "Nani?!!! Why should I…why would I…gah, you're not worth to be peeped on!"

Her blood boiled. "What did you say?!!!" She prepared to step down on the branch underneath her so she could jump down when it suddenly broke. She leaped back to her place just in time before the branch fell.

"Wha-" Pirika panicked. "It was too high to jump from her place. She looked around desperately for any other branch to jump down on, but found none.

Ren seemed to sense her problem, basing on the smirk on his face.

"What will you do now, Princess?" he asked with a sneer.

She weighed her options- stay in the tree for the night, wait for her brother to come looking for her (unlikely, she knew), ask Ren kindly to get the janitor to help her come down (unlikelier), or break her bones by jumping down.

The last option was the only one she could live with. She shut her eyes and was about to jump down when Ren's harsh voice snapped at her.

"Give me your hand," he ordered.

She opened her eyes and found Ren sitting beside her, his brows furrowed.

"No way!"

"Yes way!" He grabbed her hand, and without prelude, pulled her down along with him.

Pirika screamed, and the next thing she knew, she landed safely on the ground, Ren's arms supporting her tiny waist.

"We made it," she said breathlessly.

"Yup, we did," he agreed.

Pirika shivered when she realized that his breath was a bit too close to her ears. She turned to him, and realized why. His face was inches away from hers, and he was panting heavily.

She wanted to scream "Pervert!" at the top of her lungs, but it seemed that her larynx had disappeared. His intense gaze must have melted it already.

She managed to put her hands on his chest and give him a weak push. "T-Thanks."

His eyes flickered with something unreadable for a moment, then he pulled away. "O-OK."

When he helped her up, she forced a smirk on her face. "Thanks for saving me, Superman. I didn't expect that at all."

"Shut up," he grumbled, silently grateful that the darkness was enough to cover his reddening face.

That night, Pirika was sleepless. Her notepad was poised above her knee, but it was blank. All she could think about was the intimate contact between her and Ren awhile ago.

She sighed. "Pirika, only hate. Only hate. Only hate, do you understand, girl?" she kept on telling herself over and over. "He's a pig through and through. He's too short, and his ego is too big. He's not worth a second look. He's garbage, Pirika."

She silently vowed to repeat that mantra the next time she sees Ren Tao. She was over him already, right?

She paused, then groaned. She remembered once more how nice it felt when his breath fanned her face.

It must be the toothpaste. Yeah, that was all to it.