Chapter 3-Not an Alien!
"Bye-bye, Tenchi!" Ryoko said sweetly, waving to Tenchi and Aeka. "See you later, alien girl." The boy waved a little nervously back at Ryoko, Minagi, and Zero as Aeka barely acknowledged them. She knew Ryoko was just flirting with Tenchi to annoy her, and Tenchi just thought she was saying goodbye...but it sure was a little unnerving.
I never really noticed it before, thought Tenchi as he looked at Aeka. But people around here don't really care that Aeka's an alien from some other planet. Well, except for...
"Aeka's not an alien!"
Her.
"That goes against everything I know! All of it! And I'm the smartest kid in this school!" Yelled a pinkish-red haired girl as she walked by. Her emerald eyes were narrowed at the poor alien girl, and her hair, pulled up in a spiky ponytail with a purple ribbon, bounced around as she walked. She wasn't particularly tall, but boy could she make her voice heard. And she was definitely not lying when she said she was the smartest student in the school-she probably was. Her grades were always the top, and she ruled the science labs. But her real interests were in extraterrestrials, and all of her "studies" pointed to Aeka as being a fake.
Her name was Washu Hakubi. She was famous around the school for either being extremely smart or extremely obsessed with aliens. Of course, there also was the fact that she had the same last name as Ryoko Hakubi, but nobody was sure if it was just a coincidence, or if they were actually related. Nobody really wanted to ask either of the girls because of the risk that they would become angry and hunt them to the far edges of the earth.
Of course, Tenchi hadn't really ever crossed paths with her before, just heard her name.
"That's Washu Hakubi, um, right?" He asked in a low voice.
"Yeah, if you like Aeka, just stay away from her. Washu's like, the sci-fi guru, the walking X-Files, you know, just as much of a weirdo as Aeka." Ryoko replied in a bored tone as Washu stomped down the hall.
Later that day, Washu arrived at her house. She opened the door, closed it, and listened. Nothing.
Sighing, she picked up the phone.
"Hi, Washu, it's your mom. I'm sorry, but I need to stay in Tokyo for a couple more days, so I can't come back tonight. There's money in my room, use that for dinner. I love you, bye." Sighing again, the redhead put the phone back on the receiver. It was almost routine for a message like that to be there, as her mother was almost always away on business trips of some sort. Washu growled, and flopped down by her telescope.
"Man, Aeka really makes me mad. I mean, how is she supposed to be an alien? She is such a fake! Grrr!" With that, the telescope was set up, so she grabbed it and kicked the glass sliding door open to go outside on the second-story balcony. "On nights like this, it's best to look at the stars to feel better! Especially the ones the sector over-"
"Hey, Washu."
"Aaah!" Washu screamed, almost dropping her telescope. She looked at the boy on the balcony belonging to the house directly to her right. There sat the ever-annoying Mikamo Seniwa, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and strumming a guitar.
Washu sighed, glaring at her neighbor. "What are you doing out here? Trying to interrupt me looking at the stars for scientific and calming purposes?"
"Well, I was," Strum. "led by the stars." He smiled, play-trying to make his blue eyes, fluffy yellow hair, and slightly darker skin seem attractive.
"Argh! Why does everybody always make fun of me?" Washu stormed back inside, slamming the door.
"Huh?" Mikamo stared after her. "'Everyone?'"
Washu just set herself to glare at whatever she saw. She was NOT in a good mood.
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"Tenchi, can you hide me in your classroom during lunch?" Asked Aeka with a sort of pitiful expression on her face. It was lunchtime, and she was standing with her lunch tray next to the table where Tenchi and Mikamo were eating in their classroom.
"Yeah sure, pull up a chair." Mikamo nodded and pointed to an empty chair while speaking between bites.
"What's wrong, Aeka?" Asked Tenchi as Aeka put her tray down on the table.
"Well, there's somebody who is-"
"WAEKA JWUWAI!" The three students jumped a little as the muffled voice carried through the air of the room like a knife through warm butter. They, along with the rest of the people in the room, turned to see Washu rush in with a bread roll in her mouth.
"Hwow dwawe wo hwide fwom me!" Yelled the girl, again, through a bread roll.
"Washu?" Mikamo questioned, leaning his dark head on his equally dark hand.
"You know her?" Asked Aeka, looking at Tenchi's friend.
"Yeah, she lives next to me." He mumbled, looking at Washu as if she was some sort of raving idiot.
"Twell me if wor wewe an awien!" Asked Washu, pointing at Aeka.
"Huh?" All three of the others, Tenchi, Aeka, and Mikamo, said this, and all three voices portrayed different amounts of enthusiasm and emotion. Tenchi's was confused, Aeka's was more like "this AGAIN?", and Mikamo's was a mixture of "third time today" and "will she ever stop this?"
Finally taking the roll, which now had a bite missing, out of her mouth, she pointed to Aeka with her free hand. "Aeka's just saying she's an alien to get attention." Her hand then whipped around to Tenchi. "And you're completely fooled by her one-girl, self-scripted play."
"Wait, what?" Mumbled the confused boy, his rat-tail swishing back and forth.
"So! Jurai! Do you have proof to prove me wrong, or what?" Challenged Washu, trying to stare down Aeka.
"Well, I do, but I am technically supposed to keep it a secret." Aeka sighed. "But just to shut you up, here." She reached into her bag, rummaged around a little, and pulled out a pamphlet. In loopy, plantlike writing it said...
"'Planet Jurai Guidebook?'" Washu read as she took it, staring at it as if it was some kind of joke.
"It's a book about my father's planet. I'm a relative of the royal family, so my last name's the same name as the planet's." Aeka explained proudly.
Washu opened the book, and saw different pictures of historical moments, most featuring large trees. There were also many starships, resembling abstract versions of those large trees. Also included were pictures of people, and aside from different hairstyles and clothing, they looked just like the people of Earth.
"THIS PROOVES NOTHING!" Washu screamed as she slammed the book onto the table with enough force to slightly crack the table.
"Maybe you should just explain it all to her." Tenchi said under his breath to Aeka.
"I could care less about what she and other people think as long as you know." Aeka replied, crossing her arms.
"How can you say that without blushing?" Washu seethed. "So your little boyfriend's the only one who knows?"
"Are you trying to use poor little Aeka to get on TV or something, Washu?" Asked Mikamo, finally getting annoyed enough to stand up.
"Of course not, Mikamo. What do you take me for? I just want to know the truth." Washu waved her hand. "I want the scientific facts, not some made-up fantasy."
"If you don't stop," Mikamo said, and rather loudly. "I'm going to tell everyone about the bed-wetting problem you had when we were kids!"
And now everybody knows. Thought Aeka. Tenchi thought that also, and probably anyone else who heard what Mikamo said. And that wasn't really a small number.
Later that day, Washu and Aeka were changing into their gym clothes in the girls' locker room.
As far as I can tell, except for her weird hairstyle and hair band thing, she's just an ordinary human, no extra body parts, weird functions-
"Why are you staring at me?" Aeka snapped, looking at Washu.
"It's nothing! You're just such a fake, loser!" With that, Washu walked smartly into the gym for class to start. Aeka followed, shaking her head.
As the girls started to play basketball, Washu grabbed one. Aeka was waiting on the sidelines to switch in, as was she. If you're really an alien, you should be able to dodge this! With that thought, Washu threw the ball straight at Aeka's back.
"Whoa!" Aeka said as she dodged the ball, her shoes squeaking against the gym floor.
"What? Grrr!" Washu began to throw basketball after basketball after basketball, and Aeka dodged them all rather easily.
"Haha! You can't get me-OW!" Unbeknownst to Aeka, Washu slipped in a baseball, which hit the purple-haired girl near the eye. Aeka fell the ground moaning slightly.
"Hahaha! I knew you were human!" Washu clutched her sides, laughing. She didn't notice her foot was in the path of a rolling basketball, though. "You're such a fool!" And then her foot stepped on the rolling basketball.
"AIEE!" She slipped, and fell backwards.
"She hit her head!" Shouted one girl.
"Oh no, she's bleeding!" Shouted another.
"And she calls me an idiot." Mumbled Aeka, pressing a cloth to her baseball wound.
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Aeka sighed. She had a small bandage over her minor injury. It wasn't anything to worry about, but it was annoying. Especially since her headband rubbed against it all the time.
"You know, Aeka, I think you should stay away from Washu. It could be bad for your health or something." Tenchi stated, pointing at her bandage.
"Well, I plan to." Aeka said, a little miffed.
"Ah!" Washu had just started to walk by, and both girls saw each other. Washu, like Aeka, had a bandage over a minor, not-serious-but-still-annoying, injury.
"Blee!" Aeka made a face at Washu.
"Blee!" Washu made a face at Aeka.
"How tiring." Aeka sighed as Washu stomped off. She seemed to be doing a lot of that.
Tenchi scratched the back of his head. "Wait, didn't you just say you were going to avoid Washu?"
Aeka looked at Washu getting smaller in the distance as she walked home. "I wonder why she's so into finding out if I'm an alien or not. I wonder if that's really not it-and if there's something else that makes her mad. I wonder what that really is."
And as Washu stormed by Mikamo, every now and then pushing someone out of the way, he wondered the same thing.
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"I could care less about what she and other people think as long as you know." Sheesh, what a fake. But still, Washu sighed. I guess I'm just fine...by myself. I don't need friends. I'll just be a scientist, by myself.
"Hey, Washu." Once again, the girl screamed.
"Stop doing that, Mikamo! Sometime, I'm just call the police on you for trespassing!" Exclaimed the surprised redhead, her spiky ponytail bobbing as she spoke, the small bandage barely visible under the hair.
"Go ahead." Shrugged Mikamo as he climbed over the railing and onto Washu's balcony. "You know, we used to play together here all the time when we were little. It was fun."
"I didn't choose to, it was purely coincidence. It was how we were raised, that's all." Washu said, leaning against the wall of her house and staring at her already set-up telescope.
"Can I look through your telescope." Mikamo asked, pointing a finger at it.
Washu shrugged. "Do whatever. But if you break it, you die." She smiled, chuckling.
"You know, you know way too much about space stuff. You're just as strange as Aeka is." Mikamo smirked as he looked through the telescope.
"Well, sor-ry." Snapped the slightly ticked-off girl.
"Maybe we can go to this planet over here?"
"What?" Washu looked at him like he grew another arm.
Mikamo smiled at Washu. "Let's ask Aeka sometime if she can take us there. You know, if she's really an alien." Washu smiled back.
"Stop acting like such a space cadet! And that probably wasn't a planet, it was most likely a star." Washu giggled.
"If you didn't understand that, you're not human."
"I am TOO human!"
"Yeah, but do you have proof? Like a 'Welcome to Earth' guidebook or something that I can reject?"
"SHUT UP!"
Author's Note: Whoo-hoo! Washu/Hajime's up! Yay! And if you think Washu is going to be a mean girl, think again. Or just read The World of Narue manga. Or watch the anime. There are going to be a couple of slow chapters, kind of like this one, then we get Sasami/Kanaka and Tsunami/Bathyscaphe. Then we get a funny one. Well, I hope you enjoyed it! Read and Review!
Disclaimer: Tenchi Muyo! and Narue no Sekai/The World of Narue do not belong to me. Tenchi Muyo! belongs to Masaki Kajishima and Narue no Sekai belongs to Tomohiro Marukawa.