Author's Note: Guess what, I had to reformat my hard drive! So very sorry, for very late update...I decided to type a long chapter to make it up... All disclaimers apply...Read on... Thanks to all my reviewers!! :p

Entrapment

Chapter Five: History

Ren tapped his fingers impatiently on his desk. He was trying to concentrate on writing his six-paged essay on literature, wait, his and Pirika's essay. He didn't know how the girl managed to convince him to do it. Yet, every time he tried to think about the essence of a particular form of literature, his thoughts seemed to end on one person... Pirika...

Four months already... And he still had not found the answers to his questions that continued to bug his mind...

Why the damn hell was Pirika acting so cold towards him these past few months?

Wait, not just months, he silently corrected himself,

The said girl had been acting like that to the point of completely avoiding him for five years...

Five bloody hell years...

For the same reason, he hated the number five as of now. (He hated the numbers four down to one once.)

Pirika was different, very different from the sweet, naïve girl he knew back then... She was so withdrawn, close to being impassive...

Was that connected with the process called "maturity"?

Or the blue-haired girl was just hanging out around Anna a little too much?

He didn't like the sound of the latter anyway...the obvious question was:

What happened?

What did he do?

Was it somehow connected with that "night" five years ago? Yet, he had already explained everything about that. The letter he left took care of it. So, what's her problem?

He was not blind to see that he was the only member of the human population that was treated that way...He was sort of honored, well, who wouldn't? Seeing Pirika all annoyed and irritable had been his favorite past time lately.

Ren had been annoying the girl for two reasons. One, it's pay-back time, and two, maybe the girl would somehow snap of it, crack, and start yelling at him for whatever reason she was mad at him, and relieve him of his confusion. He obviously preferred it that way. It wasn't wrong to make the first move, was it?

Yet it couldn't be denied the fact that a mere question haunted his mind and invaded his dreams, to the point of near insanity...

Ren grimaced as he remembered all those horrible things he'd done...

Nearly blasting the whole mansion to ruins, nearly setting fire to the whole manor, having a habit of tossing and breaking every unfortunate gadget that he happened to set eyes on, and fasting without an apparent reason at all...

Heck...

All because of a girl...

Yeah, you heard it right. Ren Tao, that Ren Tao, was nearly driven out of his wits because of a girl,

Blame everything on Pirika, and her stupid five-year escapade...

A girl... Yeah, right. Everything was all because of a blue-haired, blue-eyed girl.

Tell his sister, and she would probably party in no time.

Ren tried to convince himself that he didn't care, not a single bit.

He didn't care if Pirika just decided to permanently delete him from her memory bank, or if she suddenly decided to have amnesia whenever he was around. He didn't care at all.

That was the problem. It worked the other way around.

All this accomplished was managing to convince himself that he did care. He cared for the blue-haired Ainu a lot. Hell of a lot.

So he knew he had to get some answers. He will get some answers, or be really insane. The five-year hide and seek was a proof of that.

The thing is, it only succeeded in more new appliances, and more house repairs. It even earned him a trip to the doctor, and a couple of blind dates.

That's when he concluded that Jun Tao, heck, all women, are pretty annoying.

When his sister came up with an idea of studying in Japan, he adamantly refused. Okay, he knew there was the prospect of seeing Pirika again, but hey, that was the time he started giving up.

He already convinced himself that some things have to turn out that way. The reality of life: some people come and some people definitely have to go. Yet, why does it have to be her?

He knew he could easily forget her, if he just put his mind into it. Not that she was that special. After all, she was and always had been the little sister of his best friend.

Was she?

Fine. Well, not really, but whatever it was, it was just a simple infatuation. Infatuations fade with time. A thirteen –year old guy who sort of fell in love with an eleven-year old girl... Really funny...

Never mind that ring. Never mind wherever that ring was right now. He didn't even know why he gave her one five years ago. Excuse the behavior of a thirteen-year old infatuated guy.

Yet the moment, he stood in that classroom, looking tired and sleepy, with a horrible headache, all things were definitely forgotten.

All that seemed to matter were those eyes, and the pace his heart seemed to pick up.

In all honesty, he never expected to see her there, okay, maybe he half expected to see her, but not that soon, and definitely not there. It never occurred to him that they could be in the same class, not even in his wildest dreams. He wasn't prepared. He was two years older than her, for heaven's sake. He suddenly had the urge to go back to China and strangle his sister right away.

And those eyes... How he missed those eyes! Those aqua eyes that were staring at him in utmost shock and obvious irritation... He just found himself mesmerized; found himself staring back... Staring back at those aqua eyes he thought he'd see only in his dreams.

He couldn't forget that one bizarre moment. Him staring at her in shock and fascination, and her, sending dagger-like stares in his direction... That's when he finally admitted it to himself.

He was in love,

Definitely in love,

With a certain blue-haired girl,

Pirika.

So, where's the ring?

The sound of his cellphone ringing snapped him out of it.

"This is harder than we thought." Yoh stretched his arms. "Who ever thought that setting up Pirika and Ren would be like taking an algebra and trigonometry test at the same time?"

"They can't stay together in a room for barely a minute without arguing." Manta said. "They actually ended in the principal's office for the third time this week."

Horo-Horo grinned. "Do I see signs of giving up?"

Hao grinned back. "We hated to disappoint you, Horo-Horo, but we still have a long way to go."

Horo-Horo was obviously disappointed.

"I wonder what would happen if we locked those two in a cold, cold room, overnight?" Chocolove sneered. "We just have to depend on hormones, eh?" This earned him a double smack from Anna and Tamao. Yoh laughed.

"Hentai!" They hissed at the same time.

"Don't even think about it." Horo-Horo snapped.

Tamao frowned. "You know, what bothers me is the fact that Ren and Pirika were friends, were once friends."

"Yeah, in fact they were even closer than friends." Lyserg smiled. "After the Shaman Fight, those two seemed to have developed a bond, you know, a typical brother-sister relationship."

"Ren sees Pirika as a little sister, a kind of sister he never had." Anna added. "He was always ready to protect her. Remember the time Pirika got lost in Patch Village? It was Ren who found her."

"Pirika admired Ren, more like a brother, and Horo-Horo here," Manta glanced at Horo-Horo, "Entrusted Ren with his sister."

Chocolove smirked, remembering the tricks he pulled on the couple. "I used to tease them about getting married someday."

"Then suddenly it was gone." Yoh sighed. "They acted as though they never knew each other."

"What happened, then?" Hao wondered. This is getting more and more interesting...

Everyone turned to Jeanne, who merely shrugged. Lyserg had told her of the "plan" and she had agreed to help them whenever she can. "I know I'm her best friend, but I don't really know. All I know is that Pirika hated him for pathetic reasons, like the fact that Ren always annoyed her, contradicted every answer she gave during class discussions..."

"He did that?" Horo-Horo exclaimed. Jeanne nodded, with a smile.

"Too vague, really." Jeanne continued, "I know Pirika, and she's hiding something. Yet, she refused to talk about it. She avoided the topic."

"So, the first thing we do is to find out what happened to ruined that special relationship." Manta began jotting down notes in his notebook, purposely bought for the project.

Horo-Horo sighed. "You are all wasting your time. Believe me... They've been acting like that for..." He hesitated. "Five years." They all exchanged troubled looks. "I tried to solve the mystery, but to no avail." Tense silence followed.

"Five years?" Yoh choked. "They've been acting like that for five years?"

"Yup, five years." Horo-Horo smiled. "I don't blame you for not noticing, I mean, they've been playing it cool and safe, especially Pirika. She's been rather careful in avoiding Ren. " With an encouraging nod from the others, he continued. "I haven't noticed at first, but then things started to become different. I'm Ren's best friend and Pirika's brother, so I soon noticed, like the fact that Pirika was never home whenever Ren was around. At first I thought it was merely coincidence, but as the months passed by, it was becoming more and more apparent. Pirika was obviously avoiding him. She never came every time Ren invited us for a vacation in China. She spends Christmas with my tribe every time Ren was spending his here."

"But Pirika said..."

Horo-Horo chuckled, cutting Manta off. "My sister is pretty good in making up excuses, don't you think?"

"Pirika is making everything up?" Jeanne sounded astounded. "All those stuff about your aunt being sick, they're not true?"

"Partly." Horo-Horo frowned. "So I guess it didn't occur to you that it is somewhat funny that my aunt suddenly is sick whenever Ren was around?"

"Ren-osis..." Chocolove muttered, laughing to himself. Everyone else sweat- dropped.

"Have you tried talking to Ren about it?" Anna firmly asked.

"Obviously, yes, but Ren doesn't have a clue why. That's why he's been trying to catch my sister all these years, trying to get an answer, but Pirika is always one step ahead of him. Not this time, though. Pirika didn't expect any of this school stuff, and I think, neither did Ren."

"What about Pirika?" Yoh asked.

"My little sister cunningly denied everything, said it was all pure coincidences. She was never a good liar, you know, I'm not blind. She even reprimanded me for being nosy, and added thirty pounds to my weights as punishment. So I dropped the subject."

Hao narrowed his eyes, "When do you think this started?"

Horo-Horo was silent, appeared to be lost in thought. "I think the day Ren left for China five years ago. She never showed up in the airport to see Ren off."

"Wait, the night before Ren left, the two of them were doing fine." Tamao recalled, "They even decided to have a picnic, considering the weather! I remember Pirika getting excited about it, asking Ren and all! Ren was against it at first, saying it was stupid having a picnic in an almost freezing night. They got into an argument, and as expected, Pirika won. Ren never seemed to get his way around Pirika." She added, with a smile.

"How ironic, isn't it?" Horo-Horo said bitterly, "One moment they were going along fine, still having picnic and all, then the next day, becoming far worse than enemies. Everything changed after..." He stopped dead in tracks as what he was going to say finally hit him. "Everything changed after that night... After that picnic..."

Silence.

"What happened that night?" Lyserg's voice was calm, yet it couldn't be denied that he was intrigued by the turn of events. "What happened that night they had their picnic?"

"Rape?" Chocolove suggested. As usual, a smack from Anna.

"I don't know." Horo-Horo honestly replied, ignoring Chocolove for the first time. "Pirika took off very early the next day, so I didn't get the chance to talk to her. Besides, how am I to know that I was supposed to know what happened that night? I didn't know yet about the raving tension between them."

"So all we have to do is find out what happened that night." Jeanne frowned. "But how are we supposed to know that?"

"Pirika and Ren won't surely talk." Tamao added.

'Wait!" Horo-Horo exclaimed, "I remember something. Remember the day Ren left for China? He insisted on waiting for Pirika even in the last minute. Then before he boarded the plane, he handed me a letter, and asked me to give it to Pirika, he even made me swore that I'll give it to her. He sounded almost desperate... I heard him say that the letter would explain everything..."

"Explain everything?" Manta repeated.

"Did you give Pirika the letter?" Anna asked.

"Of course!" Horo-Horo quickly replied. "I gave it the moment she came back a month later. She looked shocked at first. I didn't know what happened after, even to the letter. I'm not even sure she read it."

Yoh sighed, for the second time. "What do we do now?"

"Easy." Hao grinned devilishly. "We'll just have to kill two birds with one stone."

He began telling them of his plan...

"You wanted to celebrate your birthday here?!" Ren cried in surprise... "Why here?"

He moved his cellphone away from his ear as his sister started yelling at him in return. "What do you mean why there? And don't go shouting at your sister like that in the line!"

"Fine, sorry." Ren calmly replied, "So, why here?" He heard his sister scowl, "I mean, you can celebrate it there, and I can just go back there, right?"

"I wanted the gang to be there on my birthday." Ren sensed excitement in his sister's voice. "I haven't seen them for ages! Besides, I'm not asking your permission about it, I'm simply telling you, Ren Tao."

He narrowed his eyes in confusion. "Nee-san, what do you mean you're simply telling me?"

"I've got everything arranged! In a first class hotel..." His sister started telling him about all the arrangements... It figures... "So be sure everyone goes, even Pirika!"

Even Pirika? He knew that tone...it was a very familiar tone... He sighed. "Nee- san, is this one of your pathetic matchmaking tricks again?"

"Of course, not! I just missed the girl that's all... I haven't seen her for years... " Jun Tao defensively replied, "What made you even think I was setting you up? His brother wouldn't even approve of it!" Makes sense, he thought... "And don't you even dare call my matchmaking pathetic! I'm doing this all for you..."

Uh-oh, not that speech again... "Whatever. I got the point, Nee-san."

"So, I have to go Ren. I'll just call you again, okay? Take care of yourself... Don't forget to..."

"I'm not a little boy anymore, Nee-san." Ren impatiently said.

"I'm just being a concerned sister! Anyway, bye..." He heard his sister hang up.

Ren groaned. His sister is going to celebrate her 21st birthday here... What was she thinking?

He could sense that Jun is up to something, and he happened to trust his instincts. They were never wrong...

The question is: what was it?

Be sure everyone goes, even Pirika...

Ren vigorously shook his head in frustration. He had enough things to think about, like this essay for example. He'll worry about his sister's party later...

Crap...

What does he care about the essence of a certain form of literature? And the damn essay had to be six pages... What kind of essay is that?

Then there was Pirika...

Aarrgh...

What a life...

What a damn, miserable life...

"Bason!" Ren yelled, "Get me a bottle of sake!"

Just review, okay? Why was Pirika mad at Ren? You'll know... I'm revealing the details slowly...

Expect late updates... I'm busy lately...