Pirika was idly listening to the Love Hour program of the radio as she scribbled some last-minute details on what the stage would need. She didn't really like the sappy mush of the program, but with a radio like theirs that could only get one station clearly, she must endure. Besides, it couldn't be worse than the sound of her brother snoring the day again as usual.

"Mr. DJ, my boyfriend and I just broke up," said the first caller. "I don't think I can take this anymore. How do I live without him?"

Pirika rolled her eyes. "Just keep breathing, and you'll get along fine," she muttered as the DJ started yet again to spout the clichés of moving on.

"Mr. DJ, I think I'm in love with the son of our family's arch nemesis," said one caller. "He hates me so, but I can't stop loving him. What should I do?"

For some reason, the word hate caught her attention, and she found herself listening expectantly to what the DJ would say.

"Go on a wait-and-see situation and try to gauge his feelings. Who knows? Maybe he feels something for you too. They always say that the more you hate, the more you love," said the disk jockey.

Pirika rolled her eyes yet again. "If that is how life works, Hao Asakura wouldn't have existed in the first place."

She looked down at her pad, exasperated.

"Love stinks."

Chapter 4: All About Ai

Jun and Pailong watched as Ren trudged on the treadmill, holding his script folder. For the last four days, all Ren had been doing was memorizing his lines in the script. Even when he was taking breaks from his shaman training sessions, his nose would always be on the script.

"I'm glad he's taking the play more seriously," said Jun happily. "I knew sending him to high school wasn't such a bad idea."

Pailong nodded. "He may not say it out loud, but he looks pretty excited about the presentation. It's a week from now, right?"

His mistress nodded. "And we're going to watch him." She smiled at her bodyguard. "It's a date, ok?"

He blushed faintly. "Jun…" He smiled. "Oh, alright."

Bason watched as his master muttered the lines under his breath, "Why don't you say the lines out loud, Master? Just so you can have a better feel on your lines."

"Shut up! Don't act like a know-it-all because I know what I'm doing." Ren looked at his lines in the scene when the mole was courting him. Once again, it was too disgustingly cute and sweet, and he knew that this was more than a coincidence. Just like what Horo always say, never trust the principle of coincidence.

"As you wish." The power spirit maintained his silence once again.

"Pirika is really mad at me," he muttered. "All of Thumberena's lines are rubbish!"

"Personally, I think you did great. You can be a dubber already!" said Bason loyally.

However, what the spirit said didn't help his master. Ren was still muttering.

"I'm sure that by sun down, you have already memorized the lines in that scene," said Bason cheerfully.

Sun down. Ren suddenly remembered what transpired between him and Pirika yesterday late afternoon. It was the first time that he had been that intimately close to her, and for some reason he still couldn't pinpoint, her presence stirred something within him in so many ways unexplainable.

He hated her now even more, because she was doing it again to him. It was bad enough what she did to him years ago, when she confessed to him all of a sudden that she loved him dearly- that he was her favorite person in the world, in the same level her brother was.

How many weeks passed before he was able to forget that incident? Even when she and Horo Horo left a month after, his heart was never the same again.

"Master Ren, look out!" yelped his power spirit.

"What now, Ba-" Ren's face slammed on the moving floor of the treadmill. He was so immersed in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed that he had stopped walking already and had fallen off the exercise machine.

"Master, are you alright?" asked Bason, hovering beside him worriedly.

Irritated, he wiped his face with his towel. "I fell down from the treadmill, slammed my face on it, and is now in danger of internal hemorrhage. Does that answer your question?"

The spirit blinked. "I suppose." He scratched his cheek. "Are you hurt, Master?"

Ren's hair vibrated.

"Bason, what are you doing up there?" asked Jun when she saw the power spirit hanging upside down on the handbars of the stationary bike.

"Mistress Jun, good afternoon!" greeted Bason weakly, perhaps from being hung on his toes for the last three hours.

Jun sighed. "Did you do something to anger my brother? You should know better than that. He is in dire need of anger management and sensitivity workshops, you know."

Pailong sighed. "Good thing for me that Jun isn't like that when she's mad. Oh wait, she never gets mad."

Bason wailed. "Waaah! Even if my Master Ren is like that, I still love him dearly!"

The Tao giggled. "Ssh! Father might hear you!"

The next day, the group wrapped up rehearsing the four important scenes of the play.

Pirika clapped her hands. "Listen, all we need to do now is to practice the finale, where Ren, I mean Thumberena," she amended when the Tao shot her a lethal look. " Meets the Flower Prince and they all dance."

Ren rolled his eyes. "Do we have to practice that?"

"Of course!" exclaimed Pirika huffily, as if he just asked whether the word cat has two Gs or three. "It's the finale, and our ending should have impact! Something that would make the audience remember our play for a long, long time."

Ren groaned, then glanced at the Flower Prince, played by the biggest braggart in the class. He forgot his name though- he didn't care to pay attention to attendance rollcall except when it was his name being called.

"Ah, don't worry! With me in the scene, we undoubtedly will deliver the impact you want, Classmate Pirika," said Mr. Braggart, smiling charmingly at Pirika.

Ren stared hard at the boy's nose, willing it to bend or crack or fall off. Beside him, Bason could sense his master's temper starting to boil.

"It is a group effort," said the director, smiling politely. The Tao rolled his eyes- how could she maintain being civil to him? How come when it comes to him, he could see no trace of her restraint?

Mr. Braggart turned to him. "Ready to dance?"

Actually, I'm ready to punch your nose into gory pieces of trash. Ren though, chose not to speak up. He merely followed him to the center of the stage as Pirika signaled the soundsman.

"OK, and action!" shouted Pirika, just in time with the happy waltz that resounded in the sound system.

"One, two, three, four! One, two, three, four! One, two, one two!" she yelled over the music.

Ren smirked when Mr. Braggart suddenly screamed in pain. He had been stepping on Flower Prince' foot for ten counts already. He suddenly wished he had worn military combat shoes for today. He smirked at his snickering power spirit.

"If you can't squish the nose, squish the foot," laughed Bason.

"Ren Tao!" shrieked Pirika, making the music stop.

Ren looked at her. "What do you want?"

"I was watching you. You were messing up deliberately!" She placed her hands on her hips. "Whether you want it or not, the dance scene can't be removed from the script. Now please save us the grief and do your dance steps right!"

Ren scowled as Bason cringed. He knew his young master since childhood- he was never yelled at by any other woman except for the two prominent ones in his life, his sister and his mother. The rest of the female species were afraid of him.

"I don't know how to dance!" said Ren instead.

Pirika looked at him skeptically, then marched towards Mr. Flower Prince. "Watch me, ok?" She held her hand out to Mr.-Ego-Has-Landed, who took it eagerly. Ren's face turned dark- he was not only cocky, he was perverted too.

"One two three four, one two three four," counted Pirika, swaying gracefully along with her partner.

Everyone watched, awestruck. The two danced beautifully, as if they were a scene from a ballroom dance floor. The soundsman took the cue and began to play the music. The back-up dancers sprung to life too and began their choreographed movements too.

Ren watched from the sidelines, his fists clenching. He wasn't liking what he was seeing- especially the way Mr. Braggart's hands were laid possessively on Pirika's waist.

Bason watched in awe when Ren suddenly marched towards Pirika and pulled her out of the Flower Prince's grasp.

"Wha-" Pirika could feel everyone's eyes on the three of them.

"I can't stand to watch…I don't want to just watch." His movement was swift- in a second, it was his arms around her waist.

Pirika was stunned by what he suddenly did. "R-Ren, um, I'm suppose to be the one to hold your waist-"

"Shut up," he hissed as his feet started to sway with the waltz. The people stopped dancing and contented themselves in watching the two.

She started to dance along too- and she suddenly felt how light her body felt in his arms. He made her dance in a way no man ever made her want to- awhile ago, she danced to go with the movement of her partner. But with Ren, she felt that she was dancing because she wanted to be one with him.

She looked at him and realized that as she stared at his suddenly warm and open eyes, she was being transported back to the time when she adored him secretly- cheering for him in his matches in the Patch Village, watching him train unceasingly on his own, gazing at him in every opportunity he wasn't aware.

She was brought back to reality when something crashed down. She blinked, and Ren did too. It was the soundsman, who was rubbing his head sheepishly. The radio fell from the table.

Pirika felt everyone's eyes on her and Ren- some amused, some surprised, some jealous, some teasing. She cleared her throat, embarrassed. "O-OK, I think Ren got it."

"We think so too," said the propsman, grinning wickedly.

The director chose to ignore the crack. "S-So see you guys tomorrow." She glanced at Ren. "Your lines, don't forget them."

He nodded curtly. "I won't."

Pirika sighed, kicking herself mentally. "And where did all my Hate-Ren-Like-Hell mantra go?" She picked her book bag up, groaning.

"I'm afraid to fall in love. I've been hurt before and I've learned my lesson, but my heart won't obey me. What do you think?" asked the caller when Pirika was listening to the radio again that night.

The DJ laughed. "While it may be true that a woman's heart should know better than to give itself so easily, it is also true that the most important thing in the world is knowing what the heart knows after it surrendered itself to another."

And that made Pirika think.

Had she regretted falling for Ren Tao then and rekindling the feelings little by little right now?

She couldn't say that, based on what she was feeling.

Ah, she still had so much to learn about love.

tsuzuku