—I don't own Beyblade. revised a little!

Bloodstained Eyes

Nine—Black and Blue I

When Rei, Kai, Max, Kenny, and Takao entered the class they all had at the same period and the four sat in one group at the back, except for the navy-blue-haired boy, who didn't join them... they knew what was going to happen already.

Takao, who had angrily sent his friends a death glare, before turning around with a 'hmp!' and sat on a seat in front of the class with his arms crossed was pissed off at the start of the week. And if counting the time this had happened, would be quite a few hundreds in the past year.

He knew this incident concerned them not, but he felt better when he was away from the problem. The only thing that whizzed through his brain was, 'mental note: kill them next period. Kill them next period, and spit on their bloody body!' while he dug the blackboard with continuous snares.

Black circles surrounded the bottom of his eyes and whenever he didn't get the Right Sleep, he always looked as if he'd aged a hundred years. His cheeks were puffed with anger. He tried not to look behind him.

"Waking him up was the best idea you ever had, Rei," Max told the raven-head with very much a sarcasm.

"He needed to be," Rei replied, "I almost found that guy, too, and the group has to be informed."

"On a Saturday morning, too," Kenny muttered, "you just had to bother us all in the morning while I was doing my homework alone." He gave a look at Max, who still couldn't read anything through his thick glasses. Instead of feeling hurt, Max happily waved at him and chirped a 'hi!', causing Kenny to give up whining at him.

"One group, one man," the three looked at Kai, who was busy scanning his English textbook.

"That phrase doesn't really mean we'd all be like that all the time," Max complied.

"Don't we always are?" Rei uttered.

"But that doesn't mean you have to wake him up real early," Max responded.

"One in the afternoon, Max," Rei pointed out, "you can't connect breakfast and lunch together when you're having dinner."

"I'd think you'd call that a brunch..." Kenny said.

Rei rolled his eyes and quickly jolted down an answer he saw on his homework sheet. Max quickly looked over what he wrote and frown.

"I thought the answer was like this?" he held out his homework sheet on Rei's table. Without another word, Rei quickly erased what he wrote and copied what Max had. Kenny looked over theirs. He frowned.

"No, no!" he cried, "that's not how they go! You're putting the verbs where the adverbs are supposed to be."

He handed them his homework and watched as they erased their answers with irritation and copied his.

"Next weekend, something real important happens, that's when you call us," Max told Rei as he scribbled on his work.

"But it was--"

"It wasn't when you told us that something important came up last weekend," Max pointed out, "Tyson never really did liked it when you do that."

Rei rolled his eyes a second time and merely kept writing.

"Don't blame me if something important happens next weekend and you all won't be there to witness it."

"You got half of them wrong."

The three looked at Kai, as he scooted back to his seat from leaning over and watching them copy Kenny's work.

Kenny frowned.

"I'm never wrong," he argued.

Kai grabbed his homework and tossed it to them.

"Sometimes," he mumbled, "the quiet, wise, and well-mannered are smarter than any nerd."

"I'm not a nerd!"

"Hey, shut up back there!"

The rest of the students that sat at the back with the four boys looked at Takao with unease as he shot evil looks at all of them. He turned back around, returning to his sulk.

Rei bent down and leaned over towards his friends, cupping a hand to cover Takao's figure.

"Oh, and Kai?" he whispered looking into his dark eyes, "I know waking him at one in the afternoon at weekends are bad... but don't you think you woke him a little too early today?"

The said name snorted.

"I woke the idiot at eight in the morning," he answered, loud enough for everyone to hear (especially to the person he was directing to), "he went back to sleep, so I had the old man dress him up and made me drag the dumbass to school. Just thank me he's actually thirty minutes early in school."

A sixth vein popped out of Takao's forehead, but he endured not looking back and watched classroom door. As if on cue, the door slid open and in walked the new girl with the attitude.

Just like him, her face appeared restless and she looked as if she didn't have a great sleep either. Her steps were sluggishly as she balanced herself before she could fall over and take a nap on the floor. Unconsciously, she took the seat next to him.

He fixed his hat and stared at her, widening his sleepy eyes a bit, else he'd look as if he was glaring at her. The girl's shoulders droop as she let her shoulder bag slide down her arm and onto the floor.

"Bad day ya got, too?" he looked at her.

She looked at him with tired eyes. Clearly, her face was saying 'what do you know'.

"Your friend pushed you off your bed and had your gramps dress while you're in the middle of dreaming and woke up being dragged against the rocky ground?" Takao asked, half humorously... half serious.

She frowned.

"No," she replied, her voice tired and quiet, "just... late night nightmares." She rubbed her temples.

"Nightmare?" Takao rose an eyebrow, "usually, my nightmares are about me on a deserted island with a small package of food. And sometimes, the nightmare really gets going when I'm left in a deserted island with no food at all."

To his surprise, the girl started giggling, hiding her lips behind the back of her hand.

The girl... with the attitude... was laughing.

"You're really weirder than I thought" he frowned.

He wasn't expecting her to laugh at his lame joke. He was practically expecting her to tell him to literally 'fuck off'. Not laugh.

She looked at him through black eyes and smiled.

"You're funny," she said. Or at least... she drawled.

Then she grabbed her head with her hands and winced.

"Oww," she mumbled, "my head hurts like hell."

Realization hit Takao. He was just about to reach her when she quickly sat up and looked at him. Suddenly, her eyes widened and her face gave a petrified look that scared Takao himself.

"I... I had a dream," she breathed, with fear, "a dream that I dream everyday and night..."

Takao looked at her with same widened blue eyes.

"What?" His anger ebbed away and all problems seemed to have passed, revolving more on what was going around the girl and him.

"That... that my ex was trying to kill me like he'd been doing before--" then, she shrieked.

She shrieked as loud as she could and hid her face behind her hands, causing Takao to fall off his chair in shock and the other students to stop talking and looked at them.

"He... he what?" Takao regained consciousness and looked at her. "He was... trying to kill you?"

He burrowed his brows again when her shrieks diverted into laughter.

"Y--you!" she gasped between breaths, "you're... you're so easy to fool!"

She held her stomach and face-faulted, laughing on the floor, hiccuping and coughing.

Rei, Kai, Max, and Kenny started looking at him as he stood up and watched the girl giggle like a maniac.

"What did you, Takao?" Rei frowned.

Should he tell him she went to school drunk with a hangover and started fucking around seriousness?

A plan was really needed. Takao widened his eyes and then blinked. He exhaled and shook his head, trying to look mystified. He put his hands up in the air.

"Wow," he gasped, pretending to look stunned, "she actually understood my joke... unbelievable...!"

The girl giggled ever louder.

"Y--you're hilarious!" she panted.

Takao looked at his friend and shrugged.

"See?" he said. "Uh, now excuse me while"--he picked the girl up and took one of her arm around his shoulder to help her balance--"I go try and un-charm her."

Both of them quickly left the room.

"Did you see that?" a student gasped.

"I know!" a girl pouted, "he's actually touched a girl!"

Max, Kenny, Rei snorted, and Kai rolled his eyes.

"Should we go after him?" Max asked.

"Why?" Kenny answered, taking out his laptop. "If you think he'll do something with her, I don't think so."

Max pursed his lips, then smiled.

"Oh, that's right," he laughed, "he doesn't know what boiling pheromones are. I doubt he'd do anything but ask if she has any lunch."

"Wanna bet?" Rei grinned. "Kai, wanna bet?"

Kai looked at him. "A hundred yen."

"That he won't do anything to her?"

"No. A hundred yen. That he will."

The three looked at him with incredulous looks as he stared at them back with his usual grave one. They knew Kai. That he was never wrong.

Kenny only scoffed and betted another hundred yen that Kai was wrong.

He made sure nobody detected him as he stealth through the crowded hallway and away from the teachers. Nobody'd wanna see him with a girl, who's obviously a drunken maniac and smelled like sake.

You're not even old enough, he told her in his head. He didn't even know girls could drink alcohol.

He made it through the side exit and quickly found a bench outside the grass field. He helped the girl take a seat and took a seat himself on the other side.

He'd seen so many men hammered by drinking, often resulting to fighting or risking doing something really stupid. Most often he'd had to avoid drunk men who wanted to pick a fight with him just because he had crossed their sidewalks, where other million people marched through.

Although trying to avoid them wasn't easy, he'd sometimes let loose his temper and clobber the stupid shit down the ground for trying to mess his bad mood. It wasn't easy avoiding them but it was pretty easy beating them up to a pulp until they learn their lessons.

But women getting drunk?

He made sure to mentally jot down that they laugh for no reason with their annoyingly high-pitched voice, grab onto any people they see on the street (and school...) and who knows what else he might discover today...

The girl was still recovering from laughing, rubbing tears from her eyes with both hands. She snickered a few times after pausing to a serious matter, slapped the table a couple of times from a joke she'd remembered in her head, and catch her breath every once often.

Strange... the tears she had wipe off after finishing laughing was still flowing down like rivers.

He'd never been around girl's this long. They made him uncomfortable because of the way they act around him. He'd had a couple of girls clomp at him like crabs, holding him like a maniac as he limp across the hallway, dragging the whiners with him.

He didn't know anything about them, or what to do when he was near them. He had asked them why they liked a boy like him and, to their ears, it was a love-confession from The Takao Kinomiya. He didn't go to school for a week after that... averting those girl because they wanted to kiss him.

He wanted to say something to the girl but nothing came out of his mouth.

Shit.

This was why girls were on the complete bottom of his list. He was still working halfway to finishing his number one.

"So, uh...?" he asked, when the girl finished crying. "I'm guessin' you got a hangover."

Idiot, he thought, of course she does. Just look at her.

Nearly messy hair, baggy eyes squinting and narrowing from head aches, and sluggish movements.

No shit.

"Wha - appen - ?" she drawled, rubbing her teary eyes. "I - wa - jus - dwinkin - an' - then... wha 'appened?"

"You were in school a few seconds ago," Takao replied, "and, strangely... you laughed at my joke...?"

The girl gave a small smile, but suddenly groan and clutched her head.

"Oww," she moaned, "I dwunk too much. I feel so nosheesh... nosheesh... new... newsheesh... no shoes? No... noshaws" - nauseas? Takao thought - " ... noshoes... nooo--oh screw it."

She heaved a sigh and started to look around the place with a look of curiosity on her face.

"This a pwetty place," she smiled.

It was a sunny day but he felt so uneasy...

He watched as the girl saw her bag on the table and took out something, a book, with the words 'Crap Book' written on the cover.

"Wha's that?" he asked.

The girl gave him an evil smile. She placed the book against her chest and hugged it like like a stuffed bear.

"Cwap Book," she replied.

Takao rolled his eyes.

Duh.

"No... what's in it?"

"Cwap," the girl replied, "I ruwite aw da bah tings tha appened."

I have no clue what you just said, he wanted to tell her, but it sounded a little rude. So, he let her continue.

He watched her dawdle on the book, no idea why she was doodling wavy and curved lines that wouldn't lined up above the space lines. She was narrowing her eyes, concentrating on her work, as Takao merely watched her hands move in different ways.

This is how girl's handwrite? he asked himself, I can't even read a thing!

Suddenly the girl growled and stuffed the book inside her bag.

"I can' even ruwite!" she mumbled.

Takao made a 'hmm' sound. You're drunk, duh. That's probably why.

He'd gotten drunk before, but he had never acted this way like the girl did. His body was quite used to it, and he had to keep it secret from the adults that he and his friends drank at such a young age.

Looking at the girl's tiny figure, he'd say she'd be hammered within half a glass of alcohol.

When someone drinks, they were either celebrating, bored, or messing up their life even more. Observing the girl, he was sure she wasn't celebrating last night.

"So," he began, "Tachibana Hiromi... right?"

The girl nodded and placed a cheek on the table with dazed.

"So, Tachibana-san--"

"UGH," the girl grabbed her head with her hands and looked at him with an accusing frown.

"What now?" Takao asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Of all the names I have, you just had to call me by that," she groaned.

Takao scratched his cheek.

"... Then... Hiromi-san...?"

"No!"

"Hiromi... chan?"

"No!"

"Hiromi... sama...?"

The girl snorted and started laughing, banging the table with her fists.

"No!" she giggled.

"Err... Hiromi-psychot--... err... Hiromi?"

The girl closed her eyes and straightened up, tilting her head up to the sky, as if absorbing his words. Takao had to admit, the girl was silly enough to make him hide a laugh. She exhaled and looked at him.

"Much better, but call be Romi instead" she mumbled.

Takao tilted back, frowned when heat crawled up his neck. He batted the warmth away and looked at her. Subconsciously, his inner mind seemed to chant, 'she's drunk, she's drunk, she's drunk' over and over, making his head spin in a way it never had. He shook them all off and looked at the girl.

"So, Hiromi--"

"Romi."

"Fine! Romi then! Sheesh, you're really an annoying bit--" Takao fought a growl and calmed down, "you... drink?"

"No," she replied.

"Why?"

"Hmm... I didn' wan'a go home," Hiromi yawned, rising her shoulders, "nothin' to eat ah home."

"So... you decided to drink sake instead?"

"I was..." Hiromi hicupped, "mad."

Takao looked at her.

"Why?"

Hiromi closed her eyes.

"Hmm... too much to count..."

"Lemme guess. You're so-called mean streak were just 'cause you were pissed off since Friday?"

Hiromi moved her head a bit.

"Eh?"

"Friday," the navy-haired repeated, "you all gave us a first bad impression, counting second bad impression, too. I mean, I never thought there were girls like you in this universe. I thought they're all, like, 'oh my gosh, I broke my nail!' and 'he's so hot!'"

The girl looked at him, placing her chin on the table.

"Did I really?" she drawled.

"Yeah, you did," Takao replied.

"How bad?"

Takao just looked at her. She read his eyes and closed hers, smiling a small smile.

"That bad, huh?"

The boy nodded and looked at her dull black eyes. He couldn't read them. Strangely, he couldn't even see his reflection on her black eyes. All of a sudden, he was taken aback when her face crunched up into a hurt look and tears flowed at the corner of her eyes, sliding down her cheeks. She pursed her lips as tightly as she could and buried her face on the table top.

Unconsciously, Takao wanted to reach his hand out... but her angry voice snapped him back to reality.

"It wasn't supposed to be like that!"

to be continued.