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Enemies Till The End
Chapter 9
Wow. Big news from Misao. Kaoru could hardly believe her ears. It was simply a miracle. She had never thought that she would see the day. But she felt bad for Misao. She is so insecure about what it could mean. She obviously couldn't see what the rest of them could. Aoshi cared about her. Maybe he didn't recognize his affection for her either, but it is there. Visible in his actions and words towards Misao. Kaoru only hoped that he wouldn't do anything stupid because of the situation.
It was the end of the day and Kaoru was sitting in class, literally falling asleep. Her head was on her hand and her eyes were drooping. Who knew that one whole school day could make you this tired? She had learned during a previous period that she would be going shopping later. Wouldn't that be just great? She was so tired and now some time in the mall would only serve to make her more irritable.
She sighed. There was absolutely no way that she was going to be able to get out of it. She had had the luck of missing that last three trips to the mall, but this time they had waited before telling her so that she had absolutely no chance of coming up with any kind of excuse. Having sneaky friends, who went behind her back and came up with evil, twisted plots to torture her, was not a good thing. She had already resigned herself to that fact that she was going to be in the overcrowded, shopaholic's dream world for at least three hours after school. The time where she should be doing her homework, cleaning her extremely messy room, coming up with some new prank to play on her overgrown twin and his friends, walking the imaginary dog. Anything else but being in the mall.
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Kenshin had been watching Kaoru for a while from his seat, one row over and two desks back, for nearly the whole period. It was amusing to just watch her. She didn't seem to be able to concentrate at all and for the first thirty minutes of the period she had been shifting in her seat and taking halfhearted notes on a sheet of paper. She had then started to fold the paper into some kind of shape, therefore making any notes on the paper useable. She had finally settled down and was just resting her head on her hand.
While he had been watching her he had been thinking some things over. At first he had been thinking serious thoughts, but then they turned mischievous as he spotted something crawling its way up his desk. Probably not the best thing to do if he actually wanted to have a civil conversation with Kaoru after class, but he shrugged and reached over anyway.
This was going to good.
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Ten more minutes before she was going to dragged to her death. 'Well, that's making the situation a little too dramatic, but it is feasible.' She told herself. 'This is so not fair. I have evil, plotting friends who are out to get me in any way possible. I thought that was the job for Kenshin and my overgrown, rooster-headed brother.' She willed the clock to freeze and the bell to somehow stop working so that school wouldn't be over and then it would be too late to go to the mall.
All thoughts disappeared when she felt a feathery brush on her arm. It wasn't enough to interrupt her thought process, so she ignored it and went back to her musings. She took notice seconds later she felt something else. The sensation made tingles and chills go down her spine. She reached over with her other hand while simultaneously looking down at her arm and flipped.
It had eight legs and it was BIG. It was one of the daddy long legs kind. Which made it ten times worse because of previous experiences. She immediately jumped up, emitting a half shriek, which she had tried to choke back, turning it into a half squeak that was loud enough to catch the entire class's attention. She shook her arm furiously as she hopped around, finally managing to flick it off. That did not make the situation any better. Although she was a little bit calmer she didn't take her eyes off the spot where it had landed. The damn thing had scuttled into her open bag which had been resting besides her desk. There was no way she was touching that bag now. NO WAY!
'Why do these things always happen to me?' She thought as she groaned aloud. 'It's just not fair!'
She couldn't leave without that bag. It had all her class work, well, what little she had gotten done, and her homework assignments. By now that class was laughing. The girls had gotten over the initial shock of seeing the spider, most of them hopping down from the chairs they had jumped onto and calming themselves down. The boys were still laughing and teasing the girls about it.
"Does anyone want to help me out please?" She asked the class. Most of the girls shook their heads and the boys didn't respond at all, although her plea had elucidated a few titters throughout the classroom. The teacher made no move to help either and just turned back to the board to continued teaching. Kaoru turned around. Her gaze snagged with Kenshin's as he gave her an innocent look. It was entirely too innocent.
"Why do I have the feeling you have something to do with this?" She whispered to him as she sat down and edged her bag away from her seat with her toe as the teacher resumed the class. The student's had calmed down and were studiously taking notes again.
"Me? I sit back here." He told her gesturing to the desk.
"You could so reach if you wanted to." She told him. "And for your information, if you don't find some way to get that damn spider out of my bag after class, you are going to regret it very badly." She glared at him fiercely to let him know that, when it came to spiders crawling around in her book bag, she was deadly serious.
"Oh yeah? Well I think that I won't regret it. This could be really interesting, in fact, I have somewhere to be directly after class, so I'm sorry, but you're going to have to find someone else to help you out." Kenshin smiled benignly at her and turned away, apparently not noticing the enraged glare that he was receiving.
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The bell had rung and Megumi and Misao were waiting for Kaoru by her locker, but she was nowhere in sight. A few minutes later she came into view around a corner, a dark expression on her face and walking in swift, angry strides, muttering to herself. People got out of her way very quickly. Misao and Megumi glanced at each other and waited.
"Hi Kaoru!" Misao greeted. She was bouncing in place on the tips of her toes and her braid was swinging all over the place. She had nearly hit Megumi a couple of times.
"Hey Kaoru." Megumi said more calmly, shooting a glare at Misao's unruly braid as it swung by her head.
"Hey guys. You know, I've been having a really bad day and I think that-" Kaoru was cut off abruptly.
"No. You're coming with us today and that's final. You've been wearing jeans for the past two weeks which means you need new clothes and you're helping me out at the same time." Megumi said firmly as she pushed Kaoru towards her locker.
"The only reason I've been wearing jeans is because all my wash is sitting at home in piles because I've been too busy to do it. I would have been doing it today, along with all the other chores I need to get done, but instead I'm going out with you guys." Kaoru reasoned.
"I still need you to help me anyway." Megumi said, not letting Kaoru argue any further. "Hurry up so you don't drag this out any longer than it has to be. You're already delaying us." Kaoru made a face, but turned to her locker.
"So, what took you so long anyway?" Misao's curious nature go the better of her. All she received was some incomprehensible mutterings on Kaoru's part. "Huh?"
"You two are going to have to help me come up with something really good to get Himura back, okay?" Kaoru said as they walked out of the school building and into the parking lot.
"Why? What did he do?" Megumi asked.
"He dropped a daddy long legs on my arm during class and I freaked out. To make things worse," She added, "It landed inside my bag and he wouldn't help me get it out, so after class the teacher managed to get it out for me. He is so in for it." She looked at her friends, who were giggling. "I have to get him really good."
"We'll help you out. This should be fun." Misao chirped, bobbing up and down. They got into Megumi's car and pulled out of the parking lot.
"How was the rest of the day for you guys?" Kaoru asked after a few minutes. She was curious to know if anything more had happened between Misao and Aoshi after she talked to Misao at lunch.
"Good." Megumi answered first. "Sano was being his annoying self, but other than that my day was fine."
"Same here." Misao added. "I didn't see Aoshi at all though. I didn't expect to though because we don't have any other classes together. I guess I'll see him tomorrow though."
"Oh, that's good." Kaoru said. "Wow it seems like we're all having trouble with boys today." She joked. Once more Misao and Megumi shared an amused glance and the car was filled with giggles.
"Look! We're here!" Misao bounced up and down pointing to the very large building that had come into view.
"Are you buckled?" Megumi asked, exasperated. "Sit down and put it on now! I don't need to be pulled over you know!" She pushed the small girl down into her seat.
Misao grumbled as she was forced into her seat and pulled the constraining buckle across her lap.
"We're almost there anyway. Why does it matter so much?" It clicked into place, holding the girl in her seat.
"Well, for one thing, you could go straight through the windshield of I got hit-" Megumi started.
"You won't. You're a good driver, which you've said yourself on many occasions." Misao pointed out.
"Somebody else might not be such a good driver. I for one don't want to have to tell your parents that you died while I was driving. My parents would never let me drive again either!" Megumi continued. "And like I said before, I don't need to be pulled over either. I don't want a ticket because of you."
"I didn't see any police on the way here. You were fine and my seat belt was off for most of the drive here." Misao argued back.
Kaoru sat back and listened to her friends bicker with a small smile on her face, even as the dreaded prospect of the mall grew on the horizon.
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Ahh! The ice cream man keeps driving up and down my street. Seriously this has to be the fourth time. The music is driving me nuts and also the urge to go out there and buy some ice cream, but I'm in my pajamas and I'm sick, so I'm stuck listening to the music.
So, looks like I'm apologizing once again for the lateness and the shortness. I hope you guys enjoy this chapter and I'll try to get the next one out as soon as possible. So review please and I'll see you next time!
Keta Himura