A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews! Keep 'em coming and I'd luv u all forever and ever! Enjoy this chapter!

Chapter 8

As I stared at my homework, I groaned. The list of math problems that I was forced to do seemed endless. And the fact that I wasn't doing any of it didn't help much. I hadn't really noticed that I was zoning out until Kagura burst into the room, giggling and talking to her one friend on her cell phone. I immediately snapped to attention and looked at my blank piece of paper. I scowled.

"Hey there, Risa-chan," Kagura greeted me after hanging up her phone. She flopped down on her bed and smiled at me. "What are you up to?"

"Homework," I mumbled with a sigh.

"Wipe the drool from your face," she instructed. Embarassed, I did and gave her a weak smile. She smiled back, then looked confussed. "Isn't that ass supposed to help you?"

"Who, Satoshi?" I blurted out his name before I could even think, and gasped. Both hands shot to my mouth and covered it as Kagura's eyes grew big.

"Satoshi who?" she asked suspiciously. "And why are you on first-name basis with this guy?"

I felt the heat rush to my face and I shook my head. Not only had I given away Satoshi's real identity (was it really a secret anyway?), but Kagura thought that I was in love with some random guy! Not like I should care about this, but I did anyway. "He's no one. Really."

"No one, huh?" Kagura questioned. "If you use his first name, then isn't he someone?"

I shook my head again. Why the hell was my body getting so hot? "He's... he doesn't even exist. He's... I don't know. He's my imaginary boyfriend." Kagura laughed and I prayed that she would just leave it at that. She did and I was thankful. As she started up a conversation about what could be in the school's lunch tomorrow, my cell phone rang.

"Hello?" I answered it.

"Are you free?" The voice from the other line sounded like a recording. If it weren't for the next thing he said, I would have hung up. "Do you still need help with math?"

"Uhh..." It was almost unreal to me that Satoshi had called. I really thought that he would ignore me. "Y-yes. I'm still having trouble with math, but-"

"Meet me at the football stadium," he said, cutting me off.

"Now?" I replied, surprised. "But I'm-" I stopped when I heard a tone. He had hung up on me! Angered, I closed my phone and threw it on the desk. "What an ignorant, irrespectable, no good...!"

"Was that the ass?" Kagura asked. I crossed my arms and nodded, still grumbling insults. Kagura just shrugged. "Come on. I'll walk you to wherever you're going."

I packed my math book and a few peices of paper into my small bag, slung it over my shoulder, and walked with Kagura to the football field. She kept me light-hearted with talk of her friends and their idiocy. We insulted ourselves, talking about how slow we were, mentally, and laughed about silly girl things. Again, she brought up the possibilities of what would be in tomorrow's lunch. I decided that I didn't want my stomach to come out of my mouth so we avoided the subject.

I shivered in the cool wind as we approached the field. "Why are we outside when we could have gone to his dorm room or something?"

"Do you want to go into his dorm room, Risa-chan?" Kagura asked. I didn't notice the slyness in her tone until she laughed at me. I stared at her, horrified.

"N-no!" I stammered. "I-it's just th-that... it's fall! The end of November! I mean... Christmas season is in the air, and... it's cold outside!"

"Sure, uh huh." Kagura waved it away, still giggling. "Whatever, Risa-chan."

"Well, it is!" My voice became extremely high-pitched and Kagura burst out laughing again. I was embarassed so I looked away and saw Satoshi standing at the gates, waiting for us. He saw Kagura laughing and didn't look pleased. When had he ever looked pleased?

"Hey there, Yitoren-san," Kagura greeted him more friendly than I expected. "Risa just wanted a friend to walk with her. Don't die of humiliation, I'm leaving right now."

Satoshi looked at her for a second, then cleared his throat and shrugged. I stayed quiet throughout this. I didn't want to say anything that Kagura could twist around. She smiled at me, telling me something I couldn't understand with her facial features.

"Well, see you guys!" she said with a wave. I was relieved when she turned and began walking, but then she stopped. I cursed silently. "Oh, Yitoren-san..." she faced him with an ominous-looking smile. "Don't try any tricks tonight, ok? Not only will you have to answer to me and Izumi, but Risa's got an imaginary boyfriend." She said imaginary as if it were a lie. "His name is Satoshi or something and they're in love. Heard he's a real tough guy too, so... no tricks, ok?"

She turned and walked away, leaving me to cover my face with my hands. I felt Satoshi staring at me and I shivered. Now I was humiliated. There was a long moment of awkward silence, then Satoshi caughed.

"Come on," he said. He was walking away and I quickly followed behind.

"Where are we going?" I asked. "You said the football-"

"It's too cold," he replied. "We're taking a drive to someplace warmer."

"Wait." I stopped walking when he reached his car and opened the door. He stood, looking at me expectantly. "We're going off-campus?"

Satoshi rolled his eyes. "We're allowed to. It's not against the rules. Now get in. You look like you're freezing."

Indeed I was freezing, but I wasn't going to tell him that. "I am not freezing." I sniffed back the running mucus and climbed into his car.

It was really, really, really nice. He had leather seats, with seat warmers, and the best heating system ever. He also had that special kind of satelite radio, an expensive-looking stereo, a sun roof... yeah. He was loaded. I didn't want to be selfish so I didn't touch anything except for the seatbelt. He backed out of the parking space, then stopped.

He said nothing, however, just pressed a few buttons. I felt the seat begin to warm up, and a blast of warm air came out of vents near me. The radio was on some kind of classical music station and I sighed. This actually wasn't all that bad.

"So where are we going?" I asked again once we were on the main road. He glanced at me, then sighed. He still remained quiet, which kind of made me angry. "You know, you could answer me. It's not like talking to me will kill you." He flinched at the word 'kill', but refused to show any emotion. I crossed my arms and looked out the window. "I'm just saying, you could be nice to me. Especially after being so rude."

"When was I rude?" Satoshi asked. Ha! I got him to actually say something!

"When you ditched me at the party," I pointed out. "And when you came into my room in the Nurse's Office only to ignore me. And when you pretended like you didn't even know me when I first saw you here..."

"I don't know you," Satoshi said evenly. We stopped at a red light and he turned his head to me. I shrank when he looked me in the eyes. "I've never met you before in my life."

The amount of unreasonable pain seemed to overcome my anger and I just shook my head. I chose to stare at the dashboard instead of doing anything else. Both of us were silent through the next couple of lights, then he turned to me again.

"I'm Kazutaka Yitoren," he said, as if introducing himself for the first time. "And your name is...?"

"You already know my name," I said sternly. "But if you must act like I'm a stranger... I'm Risa Harada."

"Nice to meet you, Harada-san."

He held out his hand to shake and I rolled my eyes. Stiffly, I reached out and shook it. The rest of the ride was in silence, and it was the most awkward car ride of my life. We finally reached a small cafe and he parked the car. We hurried inside and sat down at a table.

Then he did something I never thought he would do. Never in a million years.

"Do you want anything?" he asked, reaching into his pocket.

"I've actually been craving hot chocolate for the past several days," I said, not thinking. I began to take out my math book, but he stood. I froze. "Uhh... where-?"

"I'll be right back," he said simply.

He left without saying anything else and I wasn't sure of what to do. He was not supposed to be buying me a drink. We were just supposed to go over math homework! I then gasped. It was almost like... a date. I looked around to see if there were any people from school there. I saw none.

Was I embarassed to be with him or something?

I cleared the sore spot in my throat as Satoshi returned with two full, styrofoam cups. He went to get some creamer and sugar for his coffee, and I hesitated at drinking my hot chocolate. After looking around three times, and making sure that he wasn't watching, I took a sip. At first it burnt my tonuge, but I took another sip, and was glad of the hot liquid that eased my mind. Satoshi returned and added the components to his coffee.

"You really didn't have to do that," I said, taking the cup in my hands, but refusing to look at him. "I could have bought it myself."

"What are you having trouble with in math class?" he asked, choosing to ignore my last statement.

And so the time passed by, carrying all the attempts that Satoshi had at explaining mathematics to me with it. He tried more than several tactics, but it all still looked like gibberish. After some time, a lightbulb went off in my mind and I was beginning to understand. He was probably getting frustrated, however, because I would always do one of two things. Joke around, or tease him because he was too smart. I wanted to bring up past events to see if I could get him to accidentally say something about Middle School, but I decided against it. I was laughing and he seemed to be lightening up a bit. I didn't want to chance the good mood.

We ended up spending two and a half hours in that cafe, thanks to my ADD. It was dark by the time we reached the campus. Satoshi parked the car, but did not turn off the engine. Neither of us wanted to get out and brave the cold weather. All I could do was melt into the leather seat or close my eyes...

"Do you really have an imaginary boyfriend named Satoshi?"

He asked this question out of nowhere, and I couldn't answer the question immediately. "Uhh..." He looked at me, and I felt my face heat up. I noticed that my face heated up a lot whenever he was involved in a conversation. It was... odd. "I don't. I just let your... I mean... Kagura and I were talking when I was trying to do my math homework, and she asked if 'the ass' was supposed to be helping me..."

"So they call me an ass," he repeated. I felt guilty, but he merely shrugged it away.

"Well... I thought you were someone else, and I wasn't paying attention, so I tried to clarify by questioning the name Satoshi," I said, carefully making sure not to say something wrong and annoy him. "And Kagura got the wrong idea, and asked who he was. So I told her, jokingly, that he's my imaginary boyfriend."

Satoshi seemed to ponder this, but he remained silent. I couldn't really add anything to our 'conversation'. So I unbuckled my seat belt, took my bag, and opened the door. The wind was a lot colder than I predicted. It was as if I had just jumped out of the hot shower, into an ice box, with no clothes on. And I hadn't even stepped out of the car!

"Hang on." Before I could exit the vehicle, Satoshi had leaned across my seat and closed the car door. I was thankful once the cold wind had stopped blowing on me. Satoshi was too, because he sighed and stayed in that position. It was then that I noticed that his hand was overtop of mine.

And for some bizarre reason, all time seemed to stand still.

"U-um..." I stammered, my breath getting caught in my throat. I didn't want to say anything rude, becuase Satoshi didn't really know what he was doing, and he was acting like... well, like he wasn't practically holding my hand.

Satoshi straightened up, letting go of my hand, and restarted the engine again. I couldn't get a good look at his face, but he still acted as if that small half of a minute never happened.

"Where is your dorm room?" he asked, backing out of the parking space. I told him, with a good amount of stammering, and he drove me around the campus. I stared at the door entering to the wing where my room was. He actually drove me to the door. Although I should have left, I didn't. I don't know why, but I didn't want to either.

"U-um... thank you, Hi- I mean... Yitoren-san," I said, gripping my bag. Satoshi shook his head, telling me that it was nothing, and I smiled at him. "U-um... g-good night, then." Maybe it was just my hearing, but just before I closed the car door, from the outside, I thought I heard him say something. It sounded like he had said good night also, but I wasn't sure. And I wasn't about to find out.

When I was back in my cosy dorm room, Kagura was asleep. It should have been a peaceful night, beacuse Satoshi had been kind to me. But, as I climbed into bed that night, I began to worry. I wondered why I had not wanted to leave the car...

It was the warmth. Just the heating system or somethng like that. It must have been.

A/N: Hmm... is Risa changing her mind? How should I know? I'm only the author anyway...