Doo doo doo doooooo! That was supposed to be a fanfare, but whatever :). I got fourteen reviews for that last chapter –finally shuts jaw- this story is more popular than Kiseki, something I didn't think possible. Yay for getting better at writing!
twilight eyes 8120- Eeeeeexcellent –Mr. Burns grin and fingers- I'm insanely happy that you are confused… hee hee. And you're not going to know Seto's predecided answer, either! I shall keep you in the dark! –turns off the lights-
kikoken- Fast! Once a week is the pattern I've fallen into! That's as fast as I can write! And yes, you should update The Missing; letting it sit there and get cold is worse than me dropping only hints about Seto!
panmotto- Yes! Another reader! Another confused reader… hee. Neither of your questions will be answered in this chapter, however. Mwaha. You'll just have to keep reading!
Arabella Silverbell- -hurriedly shuts Araballa's diary and tosses it away- Reading your diary? Of course not! Whatever gave you that idea?
ShibiChicken- Nice to see you as your normal chatty self again. And stop thinking. You'll ruin my plot! –holds up a ring of masking tape and stops- Oh, and I wasn't online because I hardly ever go online anymore. I'm sorry I'm not there to chat anymore! Email me if you get bored again –gets a length of tape- now, to stop you from thinking out the outcome… I will say that one prediction you made in your review was wrong, but other than that… -turns out his lights- you'll be in the dark, too.
Aoi Dragon- Unfortunately I have only seen the first episode of Escaflowne, so I can't really empathize with that –grins- I do apologize for the chapter title, though; for you, that chapter shall be dubbed "The Hairtie".
BishounenzAngel- Fluffery? …….. interesting word…. It's fun! Fluffery! Whee! –coughs- anyway, I'm glad it makes you feel fluffery! And I hope it will continue to be adorable –Harmful Crush puts on puppy eyes- Thanks!
SukiLovesAnime14- Naah, don't fret about not reviewing; I remember when I moved. I was without a computer for about a week! –cries-
Jade Wyvern- Seems you have a few issues with your other personalities –smiles sympathetically- Seto only makes a very small appearance in this chapter. Gomen! Oh, and stop hugging Seto in your reviews. He's mine :P. –points to pen name- Oh—wait.. I guess that'd make me his. Same thing! Grr.
Skitty 2004- I followed your review as best I could; I wish you the best of luck with your situation! Kinda sounds like something that happened to me recently… I was waiting for my crush to give me some sort of sign that he liked me (the one who inspired this story, in fact), and I vowed to not go out with anyone unless I was sure I couldn't have him, but then I asked my best guy buddy to the next school dance and now we're going out… wait… that's completely different. I can empathize with the first part of your dilemma!
tyrantyoshi- I emailed you before, but I emailed you again with my screen names in there x) if it still doesn't work, you could always just go to my profile and look somewhere in the middle where I have both of them written.
SirisAnkh- Whoa, what a coinkydink, eh? I'm glad you like it so far! Awesome penname, by the way.
AllisonWalker- Hee hee, you really are ruthless. Independence is awesome! And I know what –cough- areas you mean; you made it quite plain in your review of Passing the Time –grins-.
Hikari, Lady of Light- A… brain fart? That's definitely a phrase I haven't heard before. Anywhoodleedoodles, yeah, I love Katsuya Jonouchi WAY better than Joey Wheeler –shudders at the horrible dubbed name- and you, like everyone else, shall have to wait to find out what was with the hairtie! Ahh, the power…
Alright, now that my fingers are about to fall off, I shall continue on with the story! This one's slightly longer than the others so far, and that's about all I can say. Enjoy!
Chapter 8-
Ring, riiiiiiiiiing.
"Whaaa…" I groggily lifted my head from my pillow, wondering vaguely what was making the high-pitched, annoying sound that had woken me up. It was the phone. I sort of rolled out of bed and picked up the phone. "Yah," I muttered out.
"Kumi-chan! Rise and shine! Where are ya?" Shinobu's voice slowly registered through my mind.
"Wha're you callin' so—so early?" I asked, stifling a yawn.
"Early, it's 9:30!"
"9:30?" My eyes snapped open as I was effectively woken up. "9:30?! School started a half hour ago! Crap!" Without waiting for a response, I slammed down the phone and hopped over my bed, scrabbling for my uniform. I got into the bathroom, knowing that I'd have no time to brush my teeth, but I brushed my hair and was about to put it up, when I remembered that I was going to wear it down for Seto. I shook my head slightly, grabbed my bag, and dashed down the stairs, nearly falling and crashing to my death.
I fumbled to get the front door open, and I heard the phone start to ring again. Well, no time for that, I had to go. I threw open the door and squeaked as I ran into something rather solid standing behind it. "What the—"
Shinobu was looking down at me as he hung up on his cell phone, starting to laugh. "Wow, Kumi-chan, what's the matter?"
"What the hell are you still doing here? Why aren't you at school?" I asked, flabbergasted and out of breath.
"Why would I be there?"
"Because it starts at 9! Let's go!" I made my way past him, shutting the door behind me.
"Kumi-chan—"
"Come on, Shinobu!"
"It's Saturday."
I froze, my bag swinging in front of me and nearly making me fall flat. "It's…"
"Saturday," Shinobu repeated with a laugh, coming over to where I stood.
My body must have gone back into sleep mode at the very mention of the word, as I was slow to react. But it filtered through. "That means I should still be in bed," I muttered, trying my hardest to ignore the sniggers he was not trying very hard to conceal.
"Nuh-uh, Kumi-chan; you're up already," he commanded, looping an arm through mine.
"That's 'cause you woke me up, dummy." Now that I knew it was Saturday, I knew that my alarm didn't turn on for a reason, and that I had gotten myself up and nearly died, all just because I thought it wasn't Saturday. I felt really grouchy.
"I always wake you up early on the weekends! You know I can't sleep in!" he whined. "What am I supposed to do without my little Kumi-chan when I'm awake?"
"Go hang out with your other friends."
"They sleep in, too!"
"So wake them up, for God's sake!" I yelled. "I'm going back to sleep. If you want to stay until I decide to wake up, fine, but I'm going back to sleep." I paused. My brain must have been shutting down already to have let a redundant phrase like that slip out.
"Fine. I'll wake you up every half hour until you decide to wake up and spend the day with me," he said, smiling and turning the both of us around to go back to my house.
Once inside, I didn't feel the need to go upstairs, so I flopped onto the couch and curled up, immediately feeling drowsiness overpowering me.
"Kumi-chaaaaan, I can see up your skiiiiirt."
"Buzz off." I threw a pillow at him and pulled the decorative blanket over myself, burying my face into the just as fancy pillow that looked like it had a doily for a cover. I vaguely heard Shinobu going to the bookshelf in the living room to pull out some of my books to read. Why he'd want to read girly manga or fantasy was beyond me; not that I took any time to think about it. I fell asleep in a few minutes to the sound of crinkling pages.
Crinkle…crinkle… jump… skip…a giggle…
CRASH
Crying… what's going on?
Yelling… swearing… it wasn't me, I swear it wasn't…
"Your boobs are so small!" "Hey! Four-eyes!" "Go play with your Gundam models!"
I don't like Gundam… I don't like it… I know I'm small… leave me alone…
Kumi-chan…
Who's there…
Kumi-chan…
Leave me alone…
"Kumiko!"
"What?" I shouted, sitting up and waving a hand in front of me to ward off whoever it was. Oh right, Shinobu.
He was looking at me funny. "'I don't like Gundam'?" he asked.
"I know you don't," I muttered, rubbing my eyes.
"You were talking in your sleep, Kumi-chan; sounded like it was a dream you didn't like at all, actually."
"Did I say anything else?" I had never known myself to be a sleeptalker… seeing as how I don't have any siblings to poke fun at me for it.
"Well to me it sounded like you were trying to defend yourself. Maybe is was a dream about Jono?"
"How the hell did you make that connection?" I was fully sitting up now, and I stretched until I heard a satisfying pop in my back, then settling back down, still in somewhat of a sleepy daze.
"It sounded like someone was making fun of you, and Jono is the only one I know of that made fun of you more than anyone else; is it really that hard?" His logic was at work again.
"Oh."
He put down my copy of Wish and shifted his weight on the love seat. "Do you feel up for telling me what happened?"
I thought for a moment. "Well, I'll try not to talk for too long, else I might wake up fully and change my mind," I decided, smiling.
A little girl hopped around on the sidewalk, jumping over the cracks and humming a soft tune to herself as she did so. A man was reading a newspaper next to her on the bus bench, coughing every now and again. He didn't seem to notice her or her musings. Her parents were inside the store behind them, getting some groceries. It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and the little girl was wearing a small Sunday dress with flowers on it, her thick glasses glinting brightly as the sun hit them, her short blonde hair of youth shining just as brightly.
Out of nowhere, shouts resounded down the street, and the little girl stopped in her musings to stare at the source, pushing her glasses up on the bridge of her nose. A boy suddenly appeared, riding his bicycle as if his life depended upon it, his blonde hair blowing behind him from the extreme speed. The child took a step back in amazement as he approached; he looked so strong and more mature than any boy she had seen, his hands gripping the bike handles as he grit his teeth.
"Move!" he shouted at her.
Instinctively she obliged, her glasses catching the sun once again and flashing; the burst of light caught the boy directly in the eyes. He swerved to the side with a yell as he thrust his arm over his face; the little girl screamed, and they collided.
The girl fell backwards, skidding on her arm and tearing open her skin; blood sprang to the wound as well as in her mouth as she bit down on her tongue when she fell; the boy toppled off and got up, ignoring the gravel embedded in his palms. As the girl started to cry, the boy hurried over to her and sat her up; no sooner had he done that, when the shouts were nearer and more threatening. A flash of panic manifested itself in the boy's eyes, and he thrust his hand into his pocket. Fumbling for only a second, he glanced back at the fat man now slowly galumphing towards them, the shaking of his fist apparent even from a distance.
The boy shoved something into the girl's hands, then streaking off to hide somewhere; the girl was crying too hard to care; her eyes were clouded not only from tears but from the loss of her glasses, as they had been flung off her in her fall. The man on the bus bench was no longer there, and she sat alone on the hot pavement; the fat man stumbled to a halt in front of her, panting like a winded rhinoceros.
"Caught you!" he shouted, pointing furiously at her with a sausage-like finger. "You little brat! Give them back!"
It was only then that the little girl took the time to stare at what was in her hand—two shiny, diamond earrings. She looked at the man again with a look of terror on her face as she realized what had just happened, tears still streaking down her face. He stooped and snatched them out of her hand, unfazed by the blood now dripping onto her leg and staining her dress, and began to shout at her, waving his fists like a madman, looking like he would strike her at any moment.
"Where are your parents?" he finally demanded. He roughly yanked her up by the back of her collar right as her mother and father came out.
"The store owner didn't have his glasses on… since I had blonde hair back then he thought it was me that had stolen them and run off. I couldn't convince them that I wasn't the culprit; I was too frightened to do anything. All I wanted to do was get away from that guy… he was so scary, and the fact that I had blood in my mouth was freaking me out. I was only about 6; I didn't know how to make them believe me."
"Do they still think you took them?" Shinobu asked.
I shook my head. "They knew that I could never be that insistent when I was lying, and I told them it was Katsuya; I knew who he was from school but up until then we hadn't talked or met or anything. After he got in trouble, he… I guess he got really ticked off at me, and made fun of me every day after that. Sometimes he'd even punch me or steal my stuff. I just—" I shuddered, rubbing my arms.
Shinobu was silent for a moment. I glanced up at him, and he looked a bit unsure, biting his lip thoughtfully.
"What is it?"
"That's… definitely what you'd call getting off on the wrong foot." It sounded awfully forced.
I pursed my lips. "Anything else you want to add?"
"Well." He put his hands together, narrowing his eyes a bit, as though he were trying to find the right way to phrase what he was thinking. "…granted, that must have been scary as a kid… but… that's really not all that… bad." He shrugged apologetically.
I raised an eyebrow incredulously. "What do you mean, 'not that bad'?"
"I'm not saying that it wasn't traumatic, but I really think that you should be over your fear of him by now… I mean, that was what, ten years ago? From the way you were acting, I thought he had molested you or something." He let out a small chuckle. "I'm so glad that wasn't the case."
"But—but, it was scary!" I defended pitifully.
"I think you just had a mental block against it, Kumi-chan. Maybe you refused to think about it, so your mind didn't have time to grow up about it. Have you ever told anyone else about this?"
I shook my head.
"There you go," he said, sitting back. "You've been avoiding getting over it all these years, so you're still 6 years old when you think about it. I suggest you think about it more and then try to get to know Jono again. He sure as hell doesn't sound like the guy who hit you with his bike."
I cast my eyes downward. Now that I thought about it, I had almost never thought about it after that; seeing Katsuya again forced me to. Shinobu never ceases to amaze me with his reasoning. It made perfect sense when he said it to me; I sure as hell would have never thought of that in a million years.
He sniggered slightly. "I still can't imagine you as a blonde, though."
I smirked and threw the doily pillow at him; he didn't react fast enough and it smacked him in the face. He leaped onto the couch beside me and put me in a headlock, rubbing his knuckles over the top of my head for a second before hugging me tightly. "Don't rush yourself, Kumi-chan. Ten years of growing up is hard to do in a few days; I've tried."
"When you were still too young to buy porn and wanted to grow a beard to look older, you mean?" I joked, putting my head on his shoulder. He laughed and put his head on mine. "…thanks, Shinobu."
"No prob, Kumi-chan." He sat up slightly and I got up. "You're awake now, I assume?"
"Yeah. I'm gonna go get changed."
"Keep your hair down, will ya?" he shouted after me as I went up the stairs.
"I'll think about it!"
I left it down, mainly because I felt like taking more of Shinobu's advice now that he had come to the root of my fear of Katsuya, but I told him it was because I couldn't find a hairtie. He knew I was lying—I have about a million scattered around my room.
That day we met up with a few of his friends, and I noticed that they seemed to be flicking glances at me more than usual. I also remember that we passed by the library and saw Seto coming out of it—Shinobu swore to me that as soon as I looked away in embarrassment, Seto did a double-take.