School Rumble: Twist, Twist, and Turn

by pizza blade

This story is in a temporary pending. If you do decide to read it, a review would be most certainly appreciated. Thank you.

5. Rumble 5

SCHOOL RUMBLE: TWIST, TWIST, & TURN

By: Pizza Blade

PART FIVE

---

"Ho-AaaaaAhhh."

Tenma yawned widely.

…

"Are you still sleepy, Nee-san?" Yakumo asked.

"Hmh," Tenma answered, while rubbing both her eyes. "Yakumooo… yes, yes, I feel so sleepy…, do you think I could get permission not to attend school for today?"

Both of them were in the middle of walking to their school. Much like three days before, the weather was very pleasant—the sky was blue, the wind felt so refreshing, the air felt so clean and healthy, and the sun shone ever so beautifully. It was the kind of day where it was just impossible not to feel blissful about.

Even with all of those pleasant conditions, however, Tenma was barely able to keep her eyes open. Her eyes were bright red, and there were black and not-too-pleasant-to-look-at marks under them.

She even wobbled back and forth, like a drunken person.

…

"You couldn't ask for permission not to attend school just because you are sleepy, Nee-san," Yakumo said, "Besides, you must attend school today, right? Today is the day your team discussing the script for your movie project."

Tenma nodded weakly.

"I am sure that my script will be the winner!" she said confidently—well, as confident as a sleepy person might sound, anyway. "Because… not only I've worked so hard for it, that script is a story coming from you, Yakumo!"

Yakumo smiled.

"Yes, I hope your team would think the same," she said shortly, nodding her head.

…

Last night, apparently Tenma worked unusually hard to finish her script. She even slept in the morning, at two—the very first time on her entire life she ever slept at that hour. For Tsukamoto Tenma, lack of sleep was a very big No-No, because the after-effect would be most certainly unpleasant, as anyone could see today. She just couldn't afford to lose her precious sleep time.

…

They kept on walking, and walking, and Tenma was watched by quite number of people along the street thanks to her zig-zag walking motion and occasional wide yawn. Tenma didn't seem to mind about it, although with each person staring at her sister Yakumo would always immediately told her that yawning in the middle of a street might not be an appropriate thing for a girl to do.

…

"What about you, Yakumo?" Tenma said, trying to keep talking so that she could focus herself to open her eyes. "H---ow about your movie?"

"I've got word from my friend that the script has already been completed, except for the final scene," Yakumo replied, "And my team is going to shoot for our first scene the day after tomorrow, at Yagami Park. We're going to do a final meeting before the shooting today at our house…"

"At our house?" Tenma asked.

Yakumo nodded.

"Yes…" she said slowly, "I hope you don't mind about that, Nee-san."

"No, no, not at all, not at all," Tenma shook her head quickly. "I am actually kind of happy to have lots of people visiting our house. Brighten things up, you know?"

"Yes." Yakumo said.

…

Well, the truth was, the one suggested that her team should held their meeting on her house was none other than her best friend, Sara Adiemas. The reasons behind her suggestion were numerous yet simple: First, Yakumo's house was quite spacious and large. Second: the only inhabitants on that spacious and large house were only Yakumo, Tenma, and Yakumo's black cat, Iori. Third: the environment surrounding the house was relatively quiet, perfect for brainstorming sessions. Fourth: anyone visiting that house would certainly get the chance to eat Yakumo's rather famous home-made cooking.

So there.

…

Just the reason number four was actually more than enough to convince her team (especially the boys) to accept Sara's proposal. In the end, Yakumo didn't have any other choice but to oblige.

…

"So, in two days you're going to shoot your movie…" Tenma mumbled. She turned to stare Yakumo's face directly. "By the way, are you playing in it, Yakumo?"

Yakumo nodded once again.

"Yes," she said. "…I will play one of the characters in our movie…"

"Wait a minute!" Tenma exclaimed, her voice suddenly turned sharp. "Yours is a romantic movie too, right? Don't tell me that you will play a cuddly-wuddly scene together with a boy?"

…

Cuddly…, wuddly?

…

Yakumo shook her head slowly.

"No… Nee-san," she said. She felt rather amused to the fact that her sister seemingly had a knack to say really interesting combination of words lately. "Don't worry. The main actress is not me, I am just a supporter; a passing character. The one who will play…, um…, cuddly…, wuddly…, scenes is not going to be me, Nee-san…, so… you shouldn't worry."

"That's good," Tenma sighed, relieved, "It's not that I don't want you to get close to a guy, it's just that most guys would take that kind of opportunity to satisfy their monkey needs, given the chance—especially with a girl like you, Yakumo! If you must to act like that, don't forget that you have to be extra careful!"

"I don't want to do that kind of scenes too, you know..." Yakumo said quietly, more to herself than to her sister, her voice almost inaudible. "No matter with whom…"

Tenma smiled teasingly.

…

"But since Harima-kun is not a monkey…" she said playfully—she didn't seem to hear what Yakumo said before. "You don't have to be ex---tra careful with him… if you catch my drift, …hehehe…"

Tenma giggled, while Yakumo's face went immediately bright red.

Here we go again, Tenma teasing-teasing mode.

Yakumo decided quickly that it would be best for her interest to start steering off the conversation to another direction.

…

"H…how about you, Nee-san?" Yakumo asked hastily. "Don't you worry?"

"About what?" Tenma replied. It seemed that now Tenma has been refreshed, sort of, though you still could see her eyes were still a bit red.

"What if they choose you as the main actress…" Yakumo continued. "Seeing that your movie is a romantic drama, wouldn't you have to act…, um, …cuddly, wuddly…, too with a guy at the end?"

Tenma laughed softly.

She patted her little sister's shoulder.

"Oh, come on now, Yakumo." she said amusingly. "Do you think that my team would choose me as the main actress? Look at all of the other options! Eri-chan, Miko-chan, Akira-chan… Besides, we still could find someone from outside our team to help us out!"

"But you still have the chance of getting chosen as one." Yakumo persisted.

Tenma shrugged her shoulders.

"Its okay." she said. "The guys in my team are all good, decent guys; not monkey guys who would just jump shamelessly at an opportunity like that."

Tenma seemed to think something for a moment after that.

"…Well, probably Imadori-kun…" she said slowly. "…But we have Miko-chan in our team, so even he wouldn't be able to do anything inappropriate."

"…I see…" Yakumo said thoughtfully.

…

Well, her sister did have a point.

Harima-san and Hanai-sempai were not the kind of guy who would use this kind of thing to act inappropriately. Imadori-sempai……, well, although from what she could see he sometimes acts all playboy-like (and he got quite a reputation for that in school, too), she also could see that basically he was a good person at heart; that he was not the kind of person who would dare crossing over the line…

…

Tenma stared at Yakumo.

She flashed that mischievous smile of hers once more. She did not seem still in sleepy mode anymore.

"Don't worry, don't worry." she said, once again patting Yakumo's shoulder. "Even if in the end our team should choose Harima-kun as the main actor, he wouldn't use it to take advantage on the main actress, be it Eri-chan, Miko-chan, Akira-chan, or maybe anyone else. He's a good guy; you don't have to worry about him. Besides, you got me as your eyes, Yakumo! I will watch over him for you!"

…

It took approximately a second or so for Yakumo to really divulge in what her sister just said. When she did, as expected, her face went red all over again.

This time, however, she did not bother trying to steer the conversation to another direction. Heaven knows, no matter how far she would change the course of conversation, somehow her sister would always able to steer it back to the original point. Her sister just had some sort of genius knack for doing things like that.

…So most probably it would be a lot safer for her just to keep quiet.

Right.

---

"Good morning, Takano-san!"

Akira stopped her walk when someone patted her shoulder gently from behind. It was Yuuki. Lately Akira somehow often found Yuuki hanging around near her—not that she mind, actually; having someone smart to talk to was most certainly a good and pleasurable thing for Akira.

"Morning, Yuuki-san." Akira said, nodding her head softly. "You are not riding your bike today?"

Yuuki shook her head.

"No, no." she said. "Sometimes it's nice to move your legs every once in a while. It's healthy. Besides, I think it's a waste not to walk and move your legs on a beautiful day like this."

"I suppose." Akira replied shortly, staring at the clear blue sky for a moment.

They were climbing Yagamizaka road, en route to their school. The ones climbing the road were not just them, but most of the people were their fellow students.

The weather was really nice and refreshing.

…

"So, Takano-san…" Yuuki said slowly. She seemed to be eager about something yet at the same time felt hesitant about doing that particular something. "Um…"

"What?" Akira asked.

"Have you… um, finished your script?" Yuuki asked with a somewhat careful tone.

Akira nodded softly.

"Yes." she said. "I put it into perfection last night. It wasn't easy, but somehow I managed to pull it off at a rather satisfactory level."

"Oh really?" Yuuki said enthusiastically—almost a bit too enthusiastic, in fact. "Can I…, I mean, can I possibly see it? Even for just a moment?"

"What for?" Akira asked with one of her eyebrows raised.

"No particular reason, no particular reason!" Yuuki added hastily, shaking her head rather frantically. "I am just rather curious about it…, that's all."

"There is nothing special about it." Akira said directly. "It's just an ordinary script."

Yuuki stared at Akira.

…

She sighed silently.

The fact still remained that what Akira said yesterday at her part-time book shop still intrigued her…, very much. The part when Akira said that she based her script on one of her own romantic experiences.

Who wouldn't want to know what kind of guy does Akira like? It must be fascinating to know what kind of story Akira's romantic experience was…

…

But Yuuki of course couldn't say it out loud. She couldn't say that the very reason why she wanted to take a peek at Akira's script was because she wanted to know what kind of romantic experiences a person like Akira could possibly have.

Even Yuuki knew that that kind of reason was sort of inappropriate.

…

Yuuki once again stole a look at Akira's direction.

…

"I can't do it…" she said to herself rather helplessly. "Well, I suppose I could ask one of Takano-san's team members about it later…, I really, really, want to know…"

So Yuuki decided to just thwart her effort to look at Akira's script, at least for this moment.

…

"What about you, Yuuki-san?" Akira asked. "Have you finished your script?"

"Yup." Yuuki nodded happily. "I went to Mai-chan's place yesterday, after we went to your store, Takano-san. We worked hard. The books you gave to us yesterday were tremendously helpful. Thanks to them, we finally able to clinch…" Yuuki snapped her fingers. "…the elusive ending for our script."

"That's good to hear." Akira continued. "So, which book finally inspired you for the ending for your script?"

"The Closer Love." Yuuki answered. "The one written by that…, um, Maria… Maria Charlotte. It was a very good book—not that the two other were bad, mind you."

"Really?" Akira said, she seemed a bit surprised. "The two of you managed to read three whole novels in just one day flat?"

"No, no, no." Yuuki shook her head quickly. "Of course, no one could ever read three novels in just one day—but that is if read… read. We just skimmed through them, to get the general idea about their story. Then, we searched the endings, and found that indeed, just like you said yesterday, Takano-san, Closer Love was the best amongst the three."

"I see." Akira said understandingly. "Well, I am glad that I could help."

"Yes, thank you very much!" Yuuki said cheerfully.

"So, when you guys are going to start filming?" Akira continued.

"We still need some time to prepare the whole thing." Yuuki said. "Karasuma-san was dealing with the equipment. He said that he had some connections so that our team can get ourselves some nice equipment."

"Oh, really?" Akira said shortly.

"Yup, and Fuyuki helped him." Yuuki continued. "Aside from photographic cameras, it would seem like he also knew a thing or two about how to operate a movie camera. I guess we got lucky to have him on our team for that reason."

"I see." Akira replied.

"Megumi and Mihara-san got the costumes." Yuuki still explaining. "Those two worked well together. I suppose it was one of those invisible bonds shared by stylish girls or something, hahaha…"

She laughed softly.

"What about Ichijou-san?" Akira asked.

"Oh, she's dealing with the props, the set…, logistics, mainly." Yuuki said with a hint of apologetic tone inside her voice. "Actually at first the team didn't want her doing that—usually logistics must deal with carrying lots of heavy stuff around, right? At first the team delegated the task to the boys, Karasuma-san and Fuyuki, but then she insisted about her appointment at logistics…, well…"

"That's just fine, I think." Akira said. "If she's the one requesting it, I don't see any problems with that."

"Yes, I suppose…" Yuuki mumbled softly.

"What about the players?" Akira asked again. "The actors? Have you got them yet?"

Yuuki blushed a little.

"Well…" she said, seemingly a bit hesitant. "We got help from Mai-chan's friends, but from our group, four people will actually play in the movie: Mai-chan, Karasuma-san, Megumi, and…, well, myself."

…

Akira smiled a little.

…

"Your team is interesting." she said shortly.

"Interesting?" Yuuki replied. "Why do you call our team interesting?"

"Well…" Akira continued. "It seemed like your team is specifically made for Sasakura-sensei's project. Each and every one of you is really suited for each task: you and Ootsuka-san, the smartest girls in our class, creating the script for the movie. Karasuma, which I knew has a lot of connections, searching for the equipment. Adding to that, you have Fuyuki, most probably the most knowledgeable person in our class in regard to cameras. Sagano-san and Mihara-san—coincidentally the most stylish girls in our class, is in your team too, dealing with the costumes. Then you got Ichijou-san, although a girl… is the perfect person for dealing with… carrying lots of heavy stuff around… perfect for logistics."

Yuuki contemplated Akira's words for a moment.

…

"Well, if you put it that way…" Yuuki said slowly with a rather pleasant smile on her face. "I guess my team's indeed not so bad after all, eh…"

"Most especially true if you compare it to my team." Akira said unequivocally. "We're not even start choosing the script for the movie yet, let alone delegating tasks to our members. I guess you could say that our team's pretty laid back compared to yours."

"Don't say that, don't say that." Yuuki said disapprovingly. "I am sure that although some of your team members may look like they were laid back or something, they would do magnificently when it matters the most. I am sure that your team would make something wonderful for this project, Takano-san."

Somehow after hearing that, the image of Mikoto, Eri, Tenma, Harima, Imadori, and Hanai flashed briefly inside Akira's head.

…

Akira nodded.

"I suppose so." she said shortly.

"Besides…!" Yuuki said cheerfully, clapping her hands. "I actually don't really care if the one winning this project isn't our team. As long as the team winning this thing is from our class, I really couldn't care less. As long as our class gets the pride as the place the winner came from, I'd be content."

"I see." Akira nodded once again. "Well, if you put it that way, our class is like a one big team working together to achieve the same goal. It is quite wonderful."

"It is, isn't it?" Yuuki said enthusiastically. "But that doesn't mean that my team would just surrender just yet, Takano-san!" She said this in a rather bold manner. "Not even from your invincible team!"

"Right back at you." Akira said, smiling a little.

…

……

They have arrived at the front of their school gates. Akira couldn't see her three friends anywhere—perhaps they have arrived earlier, or maybe she was the one who got here earlier.

"By the way, Yuuki-san." she said. "All that is left for you team is to shoot the scenes, correct?"

"Pretty much." Yuuki answered. "At least, that's what it looks like right now."

"So, when are you going to start filming?" Akira continued.

"Well…" Yuuki mumbled. "Since Karasuma-san said the camera should be ready tomorrow, we figured that the day after tomorrow would be the ideal day for us to start filming."

"The day after tomorrow?" Akira said slowly, she seemed to be thinking about something. "Where?"

"At Yagami Park." Yuuki answered. "But why do you ask?"

Akira shook her head slowly.

"Nothing, nothing." she said. "I am just a bit curious on what kind of movie your team would make, that's all. It seemed like you and Ootsuka-san managed to get yourself an intriguing script, to say the least."

…

Right back at you, Takano-san…, Yuuki said to herself.

Right back at you…

---

Harima had this reputation as the most fearsome delinquent on the whole Yagami High-School—and probably around the neighbourhood as well. This alone granted him some privileges at school that 'normal, upstanding' students could only dream of.

Well, for one, no one in the school—or in the neighbourhood, for that matter—would even dare to disturb or otherwise generally annoy Harima. You just wouldn't want to get on the bad side of the most fearsome delinquent. Second, even though the fact itself may not be realized even by Harima himself, school rules generally didn't apply to him, nor the teachers on the school ever really try to impose them upon him. In general, he could weave his way around the rules in a much smoother manner than almost everyone else in the school. Special treatment for a fearsome guy, you know.

Although the term 'the most fearsome delinquent' may not be appropriate for Harima right now—seeing that he has substantially 'soften' to the degree that most of the time he acted like he was a 'normal, upstanding' student (and we have a certain klutz princess on 2-C to thank for that)—still, the reputation he (perhaps unintentionally) built during his long rough days before he met the said klutz princess couldn't just disappear right away.

So, although he's generally a 'good boy' now, people still see him as that delinquent, that fearsome man, as if he's wearing a big sign 'I am a bad-ass Delinquent' on his neck all day long. You could probably say that Harima was the unofficial ruler or King on the school (though he seemed not to realize this).

…

Even some of his current classmates still view him as such, as evident by this morning when he drove his huge bike into the school parking lot (normally, the school wouldn't allow their students to drove a huge bike like that into the school—but this is Harima we're talking about, a man blessed with 'exceptions'). Harima was befuddled by the fact that Yoshidayama and Nara were waiting for him near the spot where he usually parked his beloved bike.

-RRRRrrrmmm-

The loud, manly voice of his bike settled down as Harima turned the ignition off.

He took the keys off, and stared quizzically at Yoshidayama and Nara, who approached him with their body slightly bowing.

…

"Good morning, Harima-sama." Yoshidayama said in a very polite manner, very unbecoming of him.

"Good morning, Harima-ku…" Nara said slowly. Yoshidayama quickly nudged him rather hard on his left rib, and Nara quickly said, "…G…Good morning, Harima-sama…"

"Good morning." Harima said. What's the deal with the –sama thing? "What are you guys doing here?"

"Nothing…, nothing." Yoshidayama said, bowing himself even lower. "We're here this morning just to do our rightful duty as students of Yagami High-School, especially as students coming from the same class as the great Harima-sama."

Yoshidayama nudged Nara on his rib again, and Nara quickly said,

"That's…, that's true…" Nara said. "We would like to use this beautiful morning to salute the undisputed leader of our class, the formidable Harima-ku…, Harima-sama."

Harima raised one of his eyebrows.

It was not that he didn't like being treated this way, but even Harima knew that something was off if out of the blue two of his lesser important (heh!) classmates greeting himself in such a way.

…

……Well, whatever.

…

"That's cool." he said shortly.

Harima then took off from the parking lot, followed closely by Yoshidayama and Nara.

…

"Harima-sama." Yoshidayama continued his very polite tone of speaking, which really screamed FAKE all over it. "How's your team doing?"

"What team?" Harima replied.

"You know…" Yoshidayama mumbled. "…for Sasakura-sensei's project."

"Oh." Harima said. "…Well, we're supposed to meet today, to discuss about the movie script."

…

As he walked down the corridor en route to his class, somehow the corridor became miraculously spacious. Well, that's because nobody wanted to stand in Harima's way while he's walking inside the corridor. Harima's reputation as a fearsome delinquent still lingered in many minds of the students even though he's already around for approximately 2 and a half year at Yagami High School. It's tough to sterilize an already pre-established image of oneself, supposedly.

…

"Discussing the script?" Nara asked. "That means you don't have any plans to shoot any scenes yet?"

"Not yet." Harima answered. "Well, today I suppose probably we're going to discuss that too."

"O-------kay, then…" Yoshidayama mumbled.

"Okay then what?" Harima asked. There was something in the way Yoshidayama mumbled that Harima somehow recognized. It was the same tone of speaking he used when he talked to Itoko. The only time he added the suffix –san behind her name. The only time when he…

…

"I guess it's okay if we ask you a favour then, Harima-sama." Yoshidayama continued.

…

…wanted something or some help from her…

…

Harima should have known this from the beginning. Not even Yoshidayama would greet him with such way without any hidden intentions following immediately behind.

…

…Well, perhaps he would just allow them to speak. No harm in just listening, and having people calling your name with –sama in the morning like this was kind of amusing, anyway.

…

"Help?" Harima said, adjusting his tone so that he spoke like he was some sort a high noble or something. "What kind of help?"

"…It's not much…" this time Nara spoke out. "It's just that for Sasakura-sensei's project, we're making an action-adventure movie…"

Harima raised one of his eyebrows.

"Action adventure?" he said. "You guys don't make any dramas?"

"No, no, no." Nara quickly shook his head. "First of all, Nishimoto-kun suggested that since most of the teams participating on this contest would most likely be making a drama movie, it would be best for us to create something entirely different. Something that would stand out compared to the rest of the participants."

"Ho…"

"Yeah, that's the basic idea." Yoshidayama added. "Besides, all members of our team are guys…"

"You don't have any girls on your team?" Harima exclaimed; he was a bit surprised. He didn't notice this before. "Why?"

He didn't realize that his question unleashed lots and lots of deadly and painful arrows straight upon Yoshidayama and Nara's hearts, though both of them did a fairly good job at hiding their sudden throbbing pain in front of him.

…

"N…no, no…" Yoshidayama said heavily. "We're a team made exclusively of guys…"

"Y…yeah." Nara said. "We're thinking that having an all-guys team would give us a better chance to create a kick-ass movie…, um…, something like that."

"…Strange reasoning." Harima mumbled. "But whatever floats your boat, I suppose."

"Yes, well…" Yoshidayama continued quickly—he didn't seem eager to continue talking about the reason why there were no girls on his team, "Like I said, all members of our team are guys, and frankly speaking, guys lack that… something…, in their imagination that would allow them to create good dramatic, romantic stories…"

"…So we figure why bother trying to push ourselves to create such movies?" Nara added. "We'd better stick to what guys do best for a project like this: action-adventure movies."

"Well, whatever…" Harima said, waving his hand. It's not like this was his business at the first place anyways.

…

"So," he continued. "What kind of favour did you say earlier about?"

"O…oh, oh yes, that…." Yoshidayama said awkwardly. "Well, we were wondering if you'd be as kind as to help us with our, um, li----ttle problem…"

"Which is?" Harima asked.

It wouldn't take long for them to arrive in front of their class right now.

"Well…" Nara continued where Yoshidayama left off. "To cut things short, we…, don't…, have, enough…, actors…, for our movie."

"Actors?" Harima enquired.

"Yes…, actors…" Yoshidayama continued. "Almost all of the main cast have already been covered…"

"Who's playing them?" Harima asked.

"Well…" Nara scratched his head. "…Nearly all of the characters required were played by our own team members. And a single person could act as two or more characters at once if needed…"

"I see." Harima said understandingly. "So, what kind of help would you like me to do for you guys?"

"Well, we are one actor short for one particular character…" Nara said sheepishly, as if he was afraid Harima might punch him out of the blue or something. "A very important one."

"…The thing is, no one coming from our team was appropriate for the task to handle the job." Yoshidayama continued, nervously interlocking his own fingers. "The character is very specialized, only few people would be able to cast his image perfectly on the screen—or so Nishimoto-kun said to our team."

…

They have arrived on the front of their class. Before entering through the door, however, Harima turned his face to Yoshidayama and Nara and said,

"Look, skip the explanation." he demanded. "Just get straight to the point."

"…W…, Well…" this time Nara spoke out. "…There's only one person we could think of that could act the problematic character nicely…, and, well…"

"Frankly speaking…, that person is you, Harima-sama." Yoshidayama completed Nara's sentence.

…

"Me?" Harima exclaimed with one of his eyebrows rose, while pointing a finger at himself.

Yoshidayama and Nara nodded together at the same time.

"Yes." Nara said. "At least, that was what our team has deduced."

"So you want me to play an important character on your movie?" Harima asked incredulously. "Playing at someone else's movie while I have my own movie to deal with?"

"We know that, we know that!" Nara said hastily. "That is why Nishimoto-kun said that he would be more than inclined to give you incentives to compensate for your probable problems!"

"Incentives?" Harima said.

"Yes." Yoshidayama quickly added. "Free full membership at his video rental store, plus free rental fee for one year, no limitations!"

"I rarely watch video." Harima said flatly. "So that offer really doesn't interest me much."

"…He, he, also said that the members of the team would be paying your entire lunch at school for the rest of the year!" Nara said quickly.

"Wha…?" Yoshidayama said, surprised, but Nara quickly nudged him on the rib.

…

Well, this is getting interesting…, Harima thought to himself.

A free lunch everyday for him would be something too good to pass on just like that…

…

"And…?" Harima said, baiting for more. "That's all? Working for two movies at once is going to be really tiring, you know."

"W…well…" Nara nervously stared at Yoshidayama, who also nervously staring back at him. It seemed like they were trying to trade whatever it was in their mind by exchanging looks like that.

…

"W…, well…" Nara said thoughtfully. "We could…"

It was then a sudden realization hit Nara on the spot. Why didn't he think about this sooner?

If there was something good about the beach trip he once travelled with Harima and the rest of the gang, it was that he knew something very important about Harima—something that he could use to his advantage at the current situation.

Harima's weak point… Something that he wouldn't refuse…

…

Nara actually didn't like having to resort to this, but he (and Yoshidayama) seemingly didn't have any other choice.

…

"We would spread good words about you on the school." Nara quickly blurted out what's on his mind.

"…Good… words?" Harima once again raised one of his eyebrows.

Yoshidayama cast that What-The-Hell-Are-You-Saying look to Nara, but Nara ignored it and continued his sentence nevertheless,

"Yes, yes." he said. "Good words about how Harima-sama is the kindest person on the entire school. The kind of person that would never abandon his friends in need… A person that would always reach out his hands whenever anyone is desperate for help…"

…

It seemed that both Harima and Yoshidayama were puzzled at the same time by Nara's uncharacteristic statement. They were both staring at him in confusion.

"Uhm." Nara coughed a little. "And I do believe that our fellow classmates would certainly look at a person as kind as that with admiration and respect. You would be a person our fellow classmates could look up too, Harima-sama."

"Yeah?" Harima said, unable to understand the direction of this conversation would take. "So what?"

"Well…" Nara coughed a little again. "Our fellow classmates; and that include me, Yoshidayama-kun, Nishimoto-kun, our team-mates, and of course, other team-mates; such as Sawachika-kun, Takano-kun, Suou-kun, and even Tsukamoto-kun…"

…

……

Nara stared Harima's face directly, to assess the influence of his statement on Harima.

Yoshidayama, who couldn't get a hair as to what Nara's intention was, following Nara, steered his eyes towards Harima.

…

What he saw there—well, simply put, it surprised him.

…

…Harima has grinned himself like an idiot.

Truly; a wide, wide, wide, grin now streaked along his face. The kind of grin that anyone would use on their face when they somehow able to gain something really nice.

Yoshidayama tried to speak a word to Harima, but even he knew that Harima wouldn't want to be disturbed right now, not right when he's still in his own happy-happy-fantasy land.

…

Well…, Harima thought to himself. This doesn't seem like a bad idea after all…

If words spread out that I am a good man, a man that would help his friends in need, a man that would never abandon the cries of help from the common folks…

Harima stared at his definition of the 'common folks'.

…

Even Tenma-chan wouldn't be able to ignore that…, right? And working in two movies at once shouldn't be a problem for a guy like me. I've heard that many famous artists do that all the time, going after several jobs at once…

If those artists could do it, than so am I…

…

Yoshidayama and Nara both glanced nervously at Harima, and to each other. They couldn't figure it out from Harima's thinking face whether he was inclined to accept their offer or not.

…

……

After what seemingly forever for them, Harima finally stopped his thinking face and said confidently to both of them,

"Fine." he said, shortly but clearly. "I'll do it."

Yoshidayama's eyes grew larger. It appeared that he didn't quite believe Harima just said what he just said.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Harima said to Yoshidayama. "I said that I would help you! Isn't that what you want me to do?"

"Of course, of course!" Nara said conspicuously, nodding his head with such speed that one could wonder why his neck didn't break or something. "Thank you very much, Harima-sama!"

Harima grinned widely.

"In fact!" Harima said, trying to boost his image of a "wonderful person" even further, "Just forget about the free lunch and that free membership or whatever. I am not the kind of person that likes to help his friends just for benefits."

Yoshidayama's eyes grew even larger, they might just popped out any seconds now.

Nara bowed himself, saying, "Thank you, thank you." multiple times.

"So…" Harima scratched his head. "What kind of character would you like me to play?"

"Oh, oh, a cool one, of course!" Yoshidayama quickly snapped out from his amazement and answered Harima's question. "You will be playing a handsome, popular-for-all character. He is undoubtedly a very cool character!"

"That's cool." Harima said, happily. "When do you guys want me to help you?"

"Oh, we are going to shoot some of our scenes two days from now at Yagami Park." Nara said quickly. "We are going to do it in the morning, around 9 or so. You don't have to worry about costumes or anything, Harima-ku…I mean, Harima-sama. You just need to bring yourself there…"

"What about the script?" Harima said. "Don't I have to memorize some script or anything before we do the filming?"

"Don't worry about that, Harima-sama." this time Yoshidayama spoke. "The script for your character is so easy, most probably you could memorize it in a flash. Remember, our movie is an action-adventure one, so more action than talk."

"Okay, cool." Harima nodded his head. "The day after tomorrow, Yagami Park at 9, then."

…

Harima opened the class door, and entered inside, followed by Yoshidayama and Nara.

There's a lot of people inside already, but the situation was rather calm (well, by 2-C's standards, anyway), because everybody was seemingly busy discussing something over with everybody. No one playing throw ball or throwing paper planes or anything like that.

…

"How could you do that?" Yoshidayama leaned himself near Nara, whispering to his direction by the time Harima already away at a safe distance.

"Do what?" Nara said.

"Convincing that devil to help us on our movie project!" Yoshidayama exclaimed.

"Well…" Nara mumbled.

His eyes scanned the entire class, before stopping right at the sight at Tenma, sitting on her chair, seemingly busy reading something.

…

"Well…" Nara said slowly, his eyes transfixed into Tenma. "I guess not even Harima-kun is able to resist extremely cute things…"

---

The school was over for today, and according to the plan, Tenma's team would finally commence their second meeting for deciding whose script they would finally use for Sasakura-sensei's movie project.

However, due to the prohibitions of talking too loudly in the school library (even if there's nobody around but you and the books), and discussions tend to make a lot of noise, Tenma's team has decided to move their second meeting about the script into a different location.

…

"But where to?" Eri asked.

…

Like Tenma, black marks were visible under her eyes, signifying that she too, didn't have the chance to sleep properly the night before. Most probably because she was busy finalizing her share of the script. There were black marks under Mikoto's eyes too—she must have suffered the same fate. Strangely though, Imadori, which according to his yesterday encounter with Harima, didn't actually write anything until yesterday noon—he didn't seem sleepy at all. He seemed energetic as usual. Perhaps he did able to write off his share of script very quickly in just one day flat?

…

"How about Miko----chin's place?" Imadori suggested with his usual playful tone, with a hint of eagerness inside his voice.

"No." Mikoto said flatly. "No way. My family is usually too loud, even when they're not doing anything at all. We wouldn't be able to focus if we gather in my house."

…and she definitely wouldn't want Imadori prancing around inside her house spouting Miko-chin and Miko-chin all over the place. God only knows what sort of trouble that thing would cause.

…

"…How about Tsukamoto's house?" Harima said hastily, barely containing his excitement because of this sudden development of things. This might probably be the chance for him to visit Tenma's house—or better yet, Tenma's room!

"My house?" Tenma asked.

"Yes." Harima nodded enthusiastically. "There's only you and Imouto-san in there, correct? The atmosphere would be perfect for us to discuss things up!"

"I agree!" Hanai said extravagantly, pointing his index finger to Harima. "Tsukamoto-kun's house must be an ideal place for us to do a bit of brainstorming! I am most definitely agreed with you, Harima!"

"How could you know that, when you've never even been there, Hanai…" Mikoto said, shaking her head silly.

Of course, she—and pretty much everybody else, actually—knew that the reason why he vehemently agreeing with the suggestion was because visiting Tenma's house would give him the chance to meet with Yakumo.

…

"I see no problem with the idea." Akira said unconcernedly. "Tenma's house is quite spacious, and there are only Tenma and Yakumo there. I think it is a good place for us to discuss things up. No one will bother us there."

Well said, Takano! Harima cheered inside his mind.

…

"Well, if you say it that way, then my house is okay too." Eri explained.

Gah, be quiet Ojou! Harima grunted inside his mind.

…

"Yeah, but Tsukamoto's house is closer to the school." Mikoto contemplated. "It's probably a better idea to go there for our discussion. Besides, the atmosphere there is quiet and soothing, nice for a meeting…"

Awesome, Suou! Harima yelled inside his mind.

…

Eri shrugged her shoulders.

"Fine." she said shortly.

"I will go where Miko-chin goes!" Imadori said cheerfully—apparently unaware that the team wouldn't exactly use his opinion as a decisive factor over this thing anyway. "So I am okay with Tenma-chan's house!"

Tenma put her index finger on her chin, her face slightly went up.

…

"Hmm…" she said. "I am okay with it, I guess, but Yakumo said this morning that her team will go to our place today to discuss their part of the movie project. What do you all think?"

"They could use the first floor!" Harima said quickly. "While we could use the second floor; how's that?"

Tenma-chan's room is in the second floor, right, right?

"How about your room, Tenma-chan?" Imadori asked.

Awesome, Imadori! Harima cheered because Imadori just strike gold.

…

"My room? I suppose…" Tenma said, contemplating herself. "But my room is a bit small for seven people. It would be too cramped…"

"It's fine." Akira said composedly. "From my estimation, your room will be sufficient enough for seven of us. All we need to do is just pushing the furniture here and there a bit. It will be enough."

…Right at this moment Harima decided that he would someday build an Akira Statue right in the middle of the city, honouring her magnificent contribution to the day where he would finally able to visit Tenma's room.

"And who is going to push the furniture here and there?" Eri asked, a bit apprehensive.

"Why, the boys would be the ones who do that—who else?" Akira replied.

"Leave it to me!" Harima said, he was all fired up. A little sweat from moving furniture a bit here and there would mean nothing if by that he could have the chance to stand inside Tenma's room!

"A----ww, do I have to do it also?" Imadori whined.

"Leave it to us boys!" Hanai said proudly, pounding his chest. He too, like Harima, was so all for visiting Tenma's house, though for a completely different reason altogether.

Maybe I could eat Yakumo-kun's hand-made cooking while I am there! Lucky!

…

"Well, okay then." Tenma nodded. "If everybody is okay with it, I guess I really don't have any problems with it."

…

Mikoto glanced at her wrist-watch.

"We'd better go now." she said, and the rest of the team nodded in agreement.

---

"I am home!" Tenma shouted her arrival at Tsukamoto's house. She took off her shoes and put them neatly inside the shoe rack near the entrance, and entering the house, with the rest of her entourage followed suit.

The girls—that's Akira, Mikoto, and Eri—entered Tenma's house without showing any special emotions or whatever, since that they have already been here a couple of times.

The boys, on the other hand, were a completely different matter altogether.

…

Harima, although he had already been outside Tsukamoto's house once (when he once part-timed as an AC installer—and incidentally, Tenma never knew about this), he never before entered this house in the inside. Normally merely entering a house wouldn't make Harima all fired up, but since this was the house of her most beloved, of course things would be different.

He entered this house as if he entered heaven's gate or something. Tears of joy streamed down from his eyes, his heart was thumping hard, and he barely able to contain the pressure of not to yell "Oh YEAH!" out loud.

If he was about to explode entering Tenma's house, one could only imagine what would happen when he enters Tenma's room next. Maybe he would explode for real…

…

Hanai had also never been to Tsukamoto's house before. And since this also was the house of his most beloved, Tsukamoto Yakumo, Hanai entered this place with the similar blissful look on his face just like Harima. His eyes were busy staring off at nearly all objects he could see inside the residence. Like, "Oh, so this is where Yakumo-kun put down her shoes!" when he saw the shoe rack. Or, "Oh, so this is where Yakumo-kun watched television shows!" when Tenma told him and the rest of the entourage to wait in the living room while she's looking for Yakumo.

And since visiting Tsukamoto's house might give him the chance to eat Yakumo's hand-made foods (something that he always yearned for but somehow still elusively escaped his grasps until probably now), he was literally trembling with excitement now.

…

As for Imadori, well—it's true that he was not as excited as Harima or Hanai, but entering Tsukamoto's house seemed also pique his interest, even if it's only for a little bit. Not because he was obsessed with Tenma or Yakumo or anything, but more likely because now he's inside a place where girls were the only residents. Maybe he wanted to use this opportunity as a study material for his girl study or something.

…

"Stop looking around like an idiot!" Mikoto said to Hanai, smacking his head a little. "It's not like we're inside a museum or anything!"

"Sorry, sorry!" Hanai said, scratching his head. "But I couldn't help it! This is where Yakumo-kun lives! Oh, this room is so full of Yakumo-kun's scent it's marvellous!"

…

While Mikoto was busy reprimanding Hanai for his erratic behaviour, Eri stared at Harima.

She raised one of her eyebrows looking at the seemingly very enthusiastic Harima. Hanai, she could understand, but why that stupid Hige acting like he was some sort of a child in an amusement park or something?

…

However, before Eri could come up with an answer, the sliding door of the living room opened, and behind it stood both Tenma and Yakumo; the latter was still wearing her school uniform.

"It seems like we indeed need to get to my room after all, guys!" Tenma exclaimed. "The first floor has been booked by Yakumo and her team!"

YES! Harima screamed in his mind. Thank YOU, Imouto-san!

…

"I am sorry for the trouble…" Yakumo said softly, bowing herself a little to the rest of Tenma's team.

"No problem." Akira said shortly. "Sara came here also?"

Yakumo nodded her head.

"But Nee-san, will your room fit for seven people?" Yakumo said worriedly. "It would seem that it's going to be a bit cramped…"

"No worries, no worries!" Tenma clapped on her sister's shoulder. "It will fit fine, don't worry. You'd better go back to your team, Yakumo—it appears like you're in the middle of an important discussion or something."

"Ah…" Yakumo said. "But first I should prepare something for you all…"

This sentence from Yakumo perked Hanai's ears up.

Finally! he said enthusiastically. I get to eat Yakumo-kun's home-made cooking!

YEAH!

…

Of course, Yakumo could see what Hanai was thinking, because those exact words were floating around his head as clear as day for her eyes to see. But at this moment, she was already very familiar with words floating around Hanai-sempai's head that her reaction about it was pretty much indifferent.

…

"Don't bother." this time Eri spoke. "You're in the middle of discussion with your group too, right? We don't want to disturb you guys or anything."

"Oh no, no, it would be fine." Yakumo said, rather hastily. She stared at her sister. "You will be discussing things in your room, right, Nee-san? I will make something for all of you and then bring them over to your room later."

This simple announcement from Yakumo successfully perked Hanai's ears even further.

"Well, okay then, Yakumo." Tenma said cheerfully. "Make something delicious for us, okay?" She winked teasingly.

"No problem…" Yakumo replied, with a faint smile, apparently unsure what was the meaning behind her sister's wink.

She turned herself to the rest of the team and once again bowed a little.

"Well, good luck on your script discussion, Suou-sempai, Sawachika-sempai, Takano-sempai, Imadori-sempai, and Harima-san…" she said politely. "Excuse me…"

"Yeah, thanks." Mikoto said, waving her hand.

With that, Yakumo went off from the living room.

…

"Well then!" Tenma said cheerfully, clapping her hands. "We shouldn't lose to Yakumo's team! Let us not waste time any longer! Come on, let's go to my room!"

"Yeah!" Harima said loudly. "Let's go!"

Imadori, Hanai, and Mikoto stood up, following Tenma and Harima, walked out from the living room.

…

By the time Eri started to stand up, all of the sudden she heard Akira mumbled something out from the corners of her mouth.

"That's interesting." she said faintly, but audible enough for Eri to hear.

Eri turned her attention to Akira, because there was something about the way Akira said that somehow tackled her mind.

…

"What's interesting?" she said.

Akira shook her head as she also stood up.

"Nothing." she said. "Come on, we should follow the others."

Eri was not satisfied by Akira's answer, because she felt that there was definitely something behind Akira's previous words.

But she also knew that the one she's facing right now is Akira, and if Akira has decided not to spill anything on her mind, then there would be no chance for her to know anything about it.

So, while suppressing her curiosity, Eri followed Akira walking to Tenma's room.

---

Contrary to what Tenma thought before, her room was actually quite spacious to house even seven people inside. The only 'moving furniture here and there' that must be done was only moving the table at the centre of the room to the side.

Besides that, the room was alright. Eri and Mikoto sat on the bed, Tenma sat in front of the bed, Imadori sat on the chair next to Tenma's study desk, Akira and Hanai sat near the window, and finally Harima sat near the door.

…

"So!" Tenma said cheerfully, opening her school bag. She took a stack of papers from inside it. "Let's us now commence the unveiling of the scripts!"

Eri, Hanai, Mikoto, Akira, and Imadori each took their own respective scripts from their bags. While Eri and Mikoto took out their scripts with a hint of embarrassment on their face (probably because they thought that they didn't create a very good script), Hanai and Imadori took out their scripts confidently—while Akira took out her script casually.

"Well!" Tenma exclaimed. "Now, let us…"

She stopped mid-sentence, because when she looked at Harima, she noticed that he didn't take his script out at all. In fact, it seemed like he's in the middle of doing nothing at all. It was like he's in the middle of a very deep reverie.

"Harima-kun?" Tenma said, trying to catch Harima's attention.

…

Oooooh…, so this is Tenma-chan's room……

…

"Harima-kun?" Tenma said once again, a bit louder than before.

…

It is so filled with Tenma-chan's scent everywhere… so wonderful…

…

"Harima-kun!" Tenma exclaimed.

…

Oooh, this is a dream comes true…, I am really inside Tenma-chan's room…

…

-BRUGH!-

Before Tenma could call Harima once again, a pillow flew fast from the direction of the bed and land successfully hard squarely at Harima's face.

It took his brain a few seconds to realize what just happened to him, and almost immediately he steered his away to the direction where the throw originated.

From the looks of things, it was clear who the perpetrator was: it was none other than Sawachika Eri.

"What are you doing?" Harima said, a bit louder than usual.

"What am I doing?" Eri said, raising her voice a bit. "What are you doing, daydreaming like an idiot like that? You don't even respond when Tenma here was calling you over and over again!"

Harima wanted to retort back, but then he realized what just happened. He suddenly realized that Ojou was indeed correct, that he was daydreaming like an idiot before, and that he pretty much ignored Tenma's calling his name.

…

He immediately turned his attention from Eri to Tenma.

"I… I am sorry." he said apologetically. "I got…lost on some thought."

"It's okay!" Tenma waved her hand.

She laughed softly.

"I bet you're just imagining about Yakumo's hand-made cooking, right? You two are such a lovey-dovey couple!" she said happily. "Don't worry, don't worry, Harima-kun! She should carry it to this room in a short while, so you don't have to think about it much, okay? You just need to hold your appetite for a moment!"

Tenma continued to laugh heartily, unaware that her statement had successfully ignite different reactions from different people inside the room…

…

The first, most obvious reaction came from Harima himself, who was suddenly thrown into a some sort of an awkward dilemma—saying yes to Tenma's assessment would only strengthen Tenma's misconception about his true nature of relationship with Imouto-san, while saying no means that he had to explain what he was actually thinking during his daydream—which, of course, a major No-No.

So in the end, he could only laugh awkwardly.

…

The second reaction came from Hanai, who was both annoyed, and excited at the same time. He was annoyed because Tenma was insinuating that Harima-Yakumo was actually still in effect, and excited because from what Tenma just said, he knew that he's about to eat Yakumo's hand-made foods, something that he could only dream of for a long, long, time. He didn't seem able to choose what kind of expression he should use, annoyed or excited, and ended up showing a rather silly, confused, face.

…

The third reaction came from Eri. She stared quizzically at Tenma, and when her eyes moved to Harima, her eyebrows furrowed. She then stared back and forth from Tenma, to Harima, to Tenma, to Harima, before finally she returned to her normal composure. It didn't end just like that, though, because she was tapping her fingers on the surface of the bed with impatient moves, and anyone who gave a good look on her face would most certainly know that there was something inside her head that bothered her.

…

The rest of the reactions were not as transparent as the others, though perhaps not less significant. Mikoto steered her eyes towards Tenma, to Harima, to Eri, to Hanai, and sighed a little. Akira kept silent, and actually managed to pull of a relatively composed stature throughout the entire ordeal—though the most attentive of person would probably have noticed that she moved her mouth just a little to speak out a barely audible, "Well, this is also interesting."

…

Imadori—well, of all the people inside Tenma's room, it appeared that he was the only one who didn't realize that the atmosphere around him has changed, even if it's only for a bit. He kept staring around Tenma's room, while occasionally humming Dojibiron's theme song. This is probably what they called the bliss of the ignorant.

…

"Right, then!" Tenma clapped her hands enthusiastically. "Harima-kun, let us see your script!"

"O…, oh yes, of course." Harima said. "The script."

He opened his school bag and took a stack of papers from inside it. Compared to Tenma's, it seemed that his script was a bit longer and bigger.

"Okay!" Tenma said again. "So, who's going to start first?"

---

At around the same moment, on the first floor of the Tsukamoto's house, at the room where Tenma and the gang did a sleepover party a long time ago, Yakumo and the rest of the team were busy discussing over their problems for their own movie project. Well, maybe the more correct statement would be some people from the team were busy discussing their problems.

…

"Now, I think that it would be best if in this scene we use a little more dignity for the heroine's side!" Satsuki said heatedly. "After all, she just found out that her own fiancée cheated on her—its just common sense that she shouldn't allow him to apologize and just say let bygones be bygones!"

"Well, true, but don't you think that it would be better if we make our main character as a person who, let's just say, an embodiment of an angel?" said the boy that was currently debating with her. "The audience would love that kind of character: wins people heart, they say."

"I disagree!" Inaba said whole-heartedly. "It is not like an angel to accept that kind of apology, it is more like stupidity!"

…

And off they go, debating and debating endlessly.

Yakumo's team consisted of herself, Sara, Inaba, Satsuki, Haruna Tougo, and two other guys from her class. The ones currently active in the debate were Inaba, Satsuki, and the guys. Yakumo, Sara, and Haruna just watched from the sidelines—perhaps they thought that participating in a heated debate between hard-headed people like that would pretty much useless. Whatever decisions might ensue from there, they would follow them anyways.

…

"Inaba-san is so spirited." Sara commented, after seeing Inaba shook her head hastily after she heard the argument from one of the guys she debated.

Sara took one of the cookies Yakumo brought for the team at the start of the meeting. The cookies were not that sophisticated, but certainly tasteful and delicious.

"Yes." Haruna nodded. She drank her tea—unlike her somewhat boastful and loud (or, some perhaps would say, irritating) brother, she was a completely composed person. Tactful, graceful—it was as if every moves coming from her were all carefully pre-planned and coordinated. Even the way she picked up her glass and poured the tea into her mouth was somewhat princess-like. She was the complete total opposite from Tougo. "But that's the kind of person she is, right? Satsuki-san too."

"I guess…" Yakumo said softly.

…

It's true, though, that Inaba-san and Satsuki-san were really that kind of person. She sort of envied them because of that: she wished that she could get even just a splash of their attitude so that she could be a lot more open in front of people—so that she could talk with her opposite gender without backing off.

…But then again, she thought to herself, if Inaba-san and Satsuki-san could read minds like she did, maybe they would act the same as her… Being able to read people minds, to know what exactly they think about you when they're talking with you—although that kind of power at times could prove to be useful, most of the time Yakumo felt that if only she didn't have that kind of power, maybe she could be a more open person like both of her friends or her Nee-san.

…

……

Yakumo sighed a little.

…Now what am I doing, blaming my powers for my own inadequacies…, she thought to herself.

There must be a reason why she had that kind of power.

Perhaps one day she could find it…, and perhaps after that, she would be able to change herself into a different person…, a better person…

…

"Yakumo?" Sara said, staring at Yakumo with a bit of a worried look on her face. "What's wrong? You are spacing out."

"Oh… nothing…" Yakumo replied softly. "Sorry."

"Don't make a habit of spacing out too often, Yakumo." Haruna said, giggling a little. "It doesn't really suit well with your princess image, you know!"

Yakumo's cheeks flushed a little, while Sara laughed softly.

…

Anyway, Yakumo thought to herself, as she suddenly remembered her Nee-san's guests. I should bring something to Nee-san's room right now…

She stared at the still debating Inaba-Satsuki-The Guys.

From the way they debating each other right now, it's going to take a while before they could wrap things up. She figured that she should have enough time to prepare something for Tenma's guests in the meanwhile.

…

Yakumo stood up.

"Hey, where are you going?" Sara asked. "Getting more cookies?"

"No…" Yakumo said, smiling. "I need to prepare something for the Sempais up there. I think I might just cook something for them—nothing too fancy, though."

"Need help?" Haruna asked.

Yakumo shook her head slowly.

"No, thanks." she said. "Like I said, nothing too fancy—I can do it on my own. I'd be back in a bit—tell them about me if they ask, okay?" Yakumo pointed at the debate team.

"I am not even sure that they would notice you're gone, Yakumo." Sara said as she was staring at Tawaraya and the co. "Maybe they wouldn't even notice if a truck crashed into your house or something."

Haruna laughed softly from that witty remark from Sara, while Yakumo just smiled.

"But don't you need someone to help you carrying over your cooking upstairs later?" Sara asked. "You just can't bring foods and drinks for seven people that easily, you know."

Yakumo gave this a thought for a moment.

"Tell you what, Yakumo." Sara said again, clapping her hands. "You go and make them something. By the time you finished, give me a call and I'll help you carrying it upstairs."

"Yes." Haruna added. "I'll help too, Tsukamoto-san."

"Right, thanks." Yakumo said, smiling once again. "If you'll excuse me, then."

With that, Yakumo took off from the room to go to the kitchen, to begin her preparations.

…

……

"You know…" Haruna said when Yakumo was already out from the area, as she picked one of the cookies and shove it into her mouth (in a graceful, princess-like manner, of course), "Don't you think it's a bit unfair?"

"What?" Sara replied, picking up another cookie of her own.

"Well…" Haruna continued. "We arrived here first, we are her team members, we are her classmates, yet all we get are these cookies… not that I don't like them, of course."

Sara giggled a little.

"Yet she said that she'd prepare something for the Sempais up there…" Haruna took another cookie. "I wish she'd 'prepare' something for us too. I bet Yakumo's hand-made cooking is delicious. She even seemed somewhat determined not to let us help her on her cooking."

"Oh yes, they are delicious." Sara said, nodding her head. "Heavenly. Anyway, I suppose it cannot be helped. Amongst Tsukamoto-kun's entourage, there is someone that at least deserved the right to eat Yakumo's hand-made cooking, right? I bet Yakumo is thinking that way too, though perhaps she didn't realize it herself."

"Someone that deserved…?" Haruna said slowly, raising one of her eyebrows.

Then, not a moment too long after that, she said, "Oh!", as if something suddenly just dawned on her mind.

"Right?" Sara said cheerfully. "So, I suppose we just have to content with the cookies."

"Well…" Haruna said slowly, with a smile on her face. "At least I do like cookies…"

---

"So, who wants to go first?" Tenma said cheerfully.

The current dwellers inside Tenma's room immediately started to stare at each other.

It would appear that almost all of them felt some sort of hesitation of having to grace the honour of opening this meeting by presenting their script at the first order. Even the usually proud Hanai and Harima were seem a bit hesitant (though before they whipped out their scripts confidently): letting others to judge something that you created so hard was certainly a difficult thing to do: you just afraid that in the end that those 'the others' might just make a judgment that flushed your entire hard work down to the toilet.

…

……

"What about you, Tenma?" Eri said, after for about two minutes no one came forward. "Why don't you go first?"

"Oh, no, no, no." Tenma laughed apologetically. "No. I mean, I am quite confident with my script; but no, Eri-chan, I don't want to go first. I mean, I am not that confident."

"Well, someone must go first otherwise this meeting won't start." Mikoto said, sighing. "Oh, by the way, I think, just to be fair, the decision on whose script would be used for our play should be done by the majority vote."

"And!" this time Hanai spoke. "We vote after we see the whole seven scripts!"

"But the author shouldn't be able to vote his/her own script." Akira added casually.

"Agreed." Eri added. "But Mikoto was right; someone must start right this meeting right now."

"What about you?" Harima said, his tone a bit sharp—this was usually the tone he used when he's addressing Eri, which—interestingly—he rarely, if ever, used when he's addressing someone else.

"No, thanks." Eri shook her head. "What about you?"

"I'd love to." Harima replied, with his head held a bit high. "But I would prefer to give the chance as the first person to someone else. In fact, I think I'll just be the last."

…

That way it would be more dramatic when I unveil my script, heheheh…

He grinned like he was some sort of a mystery villain in a thriller movie or something.

…

"What about you, Imadori?" Mikoto said, looking at Imadori. He was unusually quiet from the moment he entered this house until now. In fact, she hasn't heard he muttered a single word from that moment, just his usual humming of that strange song she vaguely recognized. If it was Imadori, 'silent' was most definitely not something he usually do.

"Eh?" Imadori turned his attention to Mikoto—he was just looking around Tenma's room the moment before. "What about me, Miko-chin?"

…

Mikoto sighed a little.

…

It seemed that he didn't realize what was happening around him, and was swimming all by himself in his own world just until she called for his name. It was so typical for this guy—although sometimes she envied that kind of attitude.

"Why don't you show us your script?" Mikoto asked.

"Oh, all right!" Imadori said, seemingly without even having a second thought. He answered it so casually that it was kind of surprising for everyone inside the room, most especially Harima.

…

He just made it yesterday, Harima thought to himself. From where did that fool get his confidence?

…Heh, most probably he would end up doing something stupid anyway…

Harima decided that he should just sit back and enjoy the show. No matter how it would turn out in the end, Imadori stepping forward might be a good thing to have since it would ease the tense atmosphere in this room for a bit.

…

Imadori flaunted the stack of papers he held with his right hand. "But I forgot to copy my work. How should I show it to you guys?"

"How could you forget to copy your work?" Mikoto said incredulously. "Maybe you forgot about there are six other people besides you in your team?"

"Aww, don't be so cruel, Miko-chin." Imadori said, in a child-like manner. "I am just too focused on creating this script that I have forgotten about practically everything else… Sorry?"

Mikoto sighed once again. Trying to counsel Imadori about something had the same successful chance as trying to jump to the moon using your bare foot.

…

"Is there anyone else forgot to copy your script?" Hanai asked.

No body answered, which means that only Imadori actually forgot to do that task.

"Lookie, I am sorry, okay?" Imadori said with a seemingly serious tone, although if you were to stare at his face you would most definitely have a hard time to consider him seriously. "What should I do then?"

"Just read it." Eri said shortly. "And just read what you think as the most interesting part of your script, to save time."

…

"Well, all right, that's a good idea." Imadori stared at his script, opening its pages one by one. "I should just read the most interesting part, yeah? Well, it will be kind of hard to do since all of my script is interesting…"

No one commented on that self-praise statement.

…

"Ah, well, maybe from this scene, then…" he said, tapping a page on his script.

"All right—here we go…" Imadori inhaled his breath deeply, and spoke,

….

THE DEFENDERS OF THE LOVE

…

"……That's two 'the' right there…" Akira mumbled softly.

…

CREATED BY: IMADORI KYOUSUKE, OF COURSE!

STARRING: IMADORI KYOUSUKE & SUOU MIKOTO, WITH EVERYONE ELSE A.K.A. THE SIDEKICKS!

…

"Now wait a…" Mikoto raised her voice to protest, but Eri held her hand and put a finger to her own lips.

"Ssshh!" Eri said to Mikoto. "Just ignore it for a while, okay? This might be interesting!"

The corners of Eri's mouth were twitching.

"Interesting for you, maybe!" Mikoto said accusingly.

But in the end she didn't do anything. Maybe she decided it would be best if she just punched him when he's done.

…

ACT THREE

-THE ARRIVAL OF THE DEFENDERS OF THE LOVE-

……

"……That's three 'the' right there…" Akira said slowly.

…

The beautiful blue-haired princess was staring at the view from the veranda outside her room, on the second floor of her mansion.

Though the view was beautiful, though the view was wonderful, it didn't have the power necessary to sweep away the quiet sadness and deep loneliness from inside her beautiful, beautiful eyes.

The sun was setting down ever so slowly, painting the sky with the beautiful yet solemn colours of the dawn. Everything on the earth was seemingly so silent and quiet. It was as if the whole world itself was aggravating together with the princess inside a deep, isolated sanctuary of sadness, and solitude.

…

Hey, this guy is quite good with words, Harima thought, a bit surprised.

The one getting surprised was not just him, though. Virtually everyone inside Tenma's room was showing a bit of a shocked expression on their faces, especially Mikoto, who certainly didn't expect that Imadori could come up with something as poetic as that. In fact, the last time he tried to say something "poetic" to her, he ended up flying through the roof thanks to her super-human punch.

Even Akira seemed somewhat intrigued.

…

……

The night has dawned, the sun has gone.

Slowly but surely, the dreamy reddish dawn sky was replaced with the black yet majestic night sky. The moon has finally decided that it's time for it to show up, to do its job, to illuminate the Earth so that no one could ever get lost amidst the darkness of the night, so that no one should ever felt afraid because the shining sun has gone to its slumber.

And the moon was not alone in its duty. The sky would be too empty if it was only the moon clinging up there. So the moon asked its friends, the stars, to accompany it; to help sharing their brilliant sparkling light to shine upon the Earth, to push away the dark and reap away through the unseen.

Yet even as those events of the nature unfolded, the beautiful blue-haired princess was still adorned with sadness as clear as a reflection in a crystal. What caused her to grieve like that? What contemplation did she have on her mind that led her to stand alone on her solitude like that?

"Milady, Princess Miko-chin…" a sudden, deep voice came from her behind.

…

Eri was barely able to hold back her outburst of laughter.

Hearing the term 'Princess' paired up with 'Miko-chin' was a bit too much to ignore; even more so when the word was being spoken out by Imadori—with all of his undefeated seriousness—right in front of Mikoto herself.

Even Akira seemed amused.

As for Tenma, she was seemingly particularly interested to what Imadori had to say next. It seemed that she was being absorbed already at Imadori's story. She stared at him intently with a rather serious look on her face.

Harima was more of annoyed now than impressed by Imadori's script. He admitted that Imadori's script—so far—was quite good, actually, but he couldn't help to feel a bit disdain because the script was able to capture Tenma's attention.

Only his script should be able to do that!

…

The only one who seemed a bit lost on what to do was Mikoto. At first she was rather impressed by how Imadori structured his script, the way he chose his words. But now with the emerging of the term Princess Miko-chin, she didn't quite sure that she would ever be even remotely impressed by his script again. A part of her was tempted to stop Imadori's reading here and now, but another part of her was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

In the end she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. If, by some strange, twisted, surprising, and ultimately unlikely chance the team would choose his script as the winner, the name Princess Miko-chin could be changed into something else more appropriate anyway.

…

"Princess Miko-chin." the deep voice spoke out again.

Princess Miko-chin turned to see the person calling her name.

The person was a big, fat, and a rather bald man. He wore a very tidy uniform, with sparkling black formal shoes and a dazzling tie. Even his moustache was formed in such a way that it would appear that even the sharpest sword wouldn't be able to cut it through.

His name was Nishimoto, the head butler of the Princess Miko-chin's mansion.

"What, Nishimoto?" said Princess Miko-chin.

…

Aaah…, even her voice exuded such aura of sadness. The soul behind such a voice must be a soul tormented, a soul that was shattered, looking for a way out from a big, deep maze that was constructed with walls of desperation and bars of seclusion.

…

"I am sorry to disturb you." Nishimoto said politely. "I knocked on your door, but there was no answer—and the door itself was not locked. So I took the liberty of entering your room…, without permission. Forgive me."

"It doesn't matter." Princess Miko-chin waved his hand. "So, why are you here?"

"Your father is here." said Nishimoto. "Along with your fiancée."

If it was even possible, the sadness ingrained inside Princess Miko-chin's eyes were pushed even further down.

"My father is here?" Princess Miko-chin said distantly. "Along…, along with that…, that man?"

"Yes." Nishimoto said, nodding deeply. "And My Lord wishes to see you."

"Tell my father that I am not available." Princess Miko-chin said sternly. "Tell him I am sick. Tell him I am resting. Tell him I am in a deep sleep. Tell him I am dead. Tell him anything. I don't want to meet with that man."

"But, Milady…" Nishimoto seemed awestruck by her instruction. "Your father persist that he…"

"Are you saying that you won't obey my orders, Nishimoto?" Princess Miko-chin said imposingly.

"It's not that…" Nishimoto said awkwardly. "It's just that today you were supposed to…"

"What are you trying to say?" Princess Miko-chin said, adding more pressure to her tone of speaking. "Are you trying to…"

Before she managed to complete her sentence, however, she heard fast footsteps emerged from down the corridors leading to the door of her room.

She stood in horror, as if the carriers of the legs responsible for those footsteps were monsters, were abominations.

Nishimoto realized those footsteps too, because he quickly side-stepped onto one of the corners of the room—perhaps trying to appear as invisible as possible, a feat most likely he wouldn't be able to achieve, thanks to his large, round, stature.

The footsteps were getting closer, and closer.

…And closer…

…

And finally, the ones causing them appear in front of Princess Miko-chin's room.

It was two people: one was a vile looking, wickedly smiling short man with a hair-style so weird that it wouldn't be strange if someone mistaken it as a broom or something. This person was Princess Miko-chin's father, the cruel man with little love for anything but fame and fortune, Lord Yoshidayama-chin.

…

Eri nearly explode trying to contain her laugh, while Mikoto looked at Imadori as if he was some sort of new species on Earth or something. Akira raised one of her eyebrows.

"Wait." Hanai said to Imadori, raising his hand. "So chin is really a part of their names?"

Imadori nodded.

"Well, yeah." he said. "Pretty cool, isn't it?"

"Uh…" Hanai said, unsure about how to best answering that question.

"I think it's cool!" Tenma said enthusiastically. "Very original!"

"Thank you, thank you, Tenma-chan." Imadori bowed himself to Tenma. "Now, to continue the story…"

…

The other person coming with Lord Yoshidayama-chin was a rather tall and muscular young man. He had this quality of exuding an imposing presence just by being there. His eyes behind the square glasses were staring intently at Princess Miko-chin, as if he was really hungry and the Princess was a very tasty food, ready to be devoured.

He was the man known simply by the feared name of Sir Hanai, a very rich and wealthy royal descendant from a faraway country.

…

"Hey!" Hanai interrupted.

Imadori ignored him, and continuing his story,

…

The look of desire coming from the wicked eyes of Sir Hanai was being greeted by a look of contempt coming from Princess Miko-chin's lovely eyes.

"Father!" Princess Miko-chin said aloud."Why do you bring this man here?" She pointed her fingers at Sir Hanai.

"Why?" Lord Yoshidayama-chin said, his voice a bit amused. "Are you forgetting that today is the day that you and he shall become one? Today is the day the two of you are getting married! I've told you this morning that at four in the afternoon you should go to the marriage! But you didn't come!"

Princess Miko-chin gripped the railings on the veranda tightly. Her eyes stared deeply onto Lord Yoshidayama and Sir Hanai.

…

"You even told the servants I've instructed to escort you to the marriage to disobey my orders!" Lord Yoshidayama-chin said with a high-pitched voice. "Just what are you trying to do, my daughter?"

"But I AM NOT IN LOVE WITH HIM, father!" Princess Miko-chin said aloud. "If I am to be married, I wanted to have it with a man that I LOVE who LOVED me back!"

"I do love you, Princess." Sir Hanai said with a wicked smile, no less wicked than Lord Yoshidayama's. "Oh, you are the loveliest thing on this planet. You are the one I love the most!"

"Lies!" Princess Miko-chin retorted. "I know you are lying! The only thing you're interested in is money!"

"How so?" Sir Hanai said amusedly. "I am already rich, so for what reason am I doing this if it's just for the money?"

"It's true, my dear." Lord Yoshidayama-chin. "Don't be saying such an absurd thing, not on the day that you are supposed to get married!"

Princess Miko-chin stared disbelievingly at his father.

"You're the same as him!" she said accusingly. "Father! The only thing you consider is more fame and more fortune! You're just trying to make me marry him just that you could expand your treasury!"

"Didn't I already tell you that you shouldn't say anything absurd, my dear?" Lord Yoshidayama-chin said, his voice rose even higher.

He looked at the trying-to-be-invisible Nishimoto, who stood silently throughout the entire ordeal at one of the dark corners of the room.

…

"NISHIMOTO!" he said, aloud. "Bring her to the carriage down below! Use force if you have to, I don't care! She must get married today! I don't care if it's already night!"

"It's better if it's night, actually…" Sir Hanai said, smiling mischievously. "After the wedding, we could start…, ah…, playing…, immediately."

Nishimoto stared at Princess Miko-chin nervously, his entire body was shaking.

"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?" Lord Yoshidayama-chin exclaimed furiously.

Hesitantly, Nishimoto moved himself closer to the Princess, slowly. It was clear that he was doing this not because he wanted to, because he couldn't bear to see the pleading eyes of the Princess directly.

"Come, Princess." Nishimoto said softly, as he grabbed Princess Miko-chin's hands. "We must go. You must…, you must obey your father!"

"NO!" Princess Miko-chin shouted. "I don't want to! I don't want to!"

She was trying to resist, but Nishimoto's grip power was too strong for her to handle.

She pounded Nishimoto over and over again with her free hands, but to no avail.

"Nishimoto!" Princess Miko-chin screamed hysterically. "Let me go, let me go!"

"I am sorry, Princess." Nishimoto said solemnly. "I am truly sorry…"

"No, Nishimoto, no!" Princess Miko-chin started crying, while Lord Yoshidayama-chin laughed and the young Sir Hanai snickered.

…

"If you really don't want to marry this fine young man, then why didn't you run away, child?" Lord Yoshidayama-chin exclaimed. "Why didn't you run? Instead, you stayed at this mansion, waiting for us to pick you up! Pretty stupid, eh? Well, you've wasted your chance to run; now you WON'T be able to do it, EVER!"

Princess Miko-chin stared pleadingly at the eyes of her father, perhaps still hoping that maybe the bond of father-daughter they share might just be able to soften his wicked heart. But as her stare was being replied with a sinister smile, she knew that she couldn't count on such a fragile hope…

"Come, Princess." Nishimoto said, applying more force yanking the Princess' hand.

"Nooo!"

…

-FLASH-

-BANG-

-BANG-

…

All of the sudden, a blinding light appeared inside the room, followed by continuous loud sound of -bang-

…

"Oh my!" Tenma said, tensing up. "What is going on?"

…

"What the?" Lord Yoshidayama-chin said, surprised, his eyes went fuzzy for a moment because he wasn't prepared to witness such a bright light all of the sudden.

The weather outside was clear so it was certainly impossible that the blinding flash he just saw was caused by a lightning strike. No, it was most definitely something else.

Sir Hanai was apparently thinking the same thing too, since he was also clearly surprised and shocked by the sudden flash.

…

When their eyes have recovered from the blinding flash, what they saw in front of their eyes were even more surprising: Nishimoto was not standing besides Princess Miko-chin any longer—rather, he was laying unconscious on the floor about three feet away from her.

But that wasn't the most surprising.

The most surprising thing was that all of the sudden, there were five other people standing inside the room!

…

"Whaaaaa?" Lord Yoshidayama-chin said disbelievingly. "W…what is this? Who…who the hell are you all?"

Princess Miko-chin and Sir Hanai were also stunned by the sudden presence of five other mysterious people inside the room. Both of them were now staring at the sudden intruders without even blinking.

The one in the middle, the tallest and the most handsome—and the most attractive to boot—one amongst the other five, stepped forward. Wiping his beautiful glowing and sparkling—and enchanting, plus dazzling—blonde hair a little, the person said,

"I am Imadori! The leader of the Defenders of the Love!"

…

Eri was trying very hard to stifle down her laugh, while Mikoto slapped her own forehead, the sentence "I should have known that it would be like this" written all over her face.

Tenma was still excited though (if not even more), and Harima was too busy being mad at Imadori for grabbing Tenma's attention that much, and was busy trying to find ways to impress Tenma when his turn come up later, to even pay attention to Imadori's story.

Hanai scratched his head, unsure whether he could understand the…, uh, "underlying theme", of the story behind the script or not.

Akira? Well, it was quite hard to gauge whether she actually paid any attention to Imadori or not. Her face was looking at his direction, true, but no one could really tell whether she was seriously listening to Imadori or that she was just looking blankly. After all, besides Karasuma, Akira was a master of keeping stoic face at all times. She didn't appear to be distracted or anything, though, so perhaps she might be listening seriously.

…

The other four stepped forward one by one, introducing themselves grandiosely.

"I am Harima!" said one of the four, a not-so-bad looking kind-of tall guy, wearing a sort-of cool Sunglasses. "I am the second in command in the Defenders of The Love!"

…

"Oh, that's great, Harima-kun!" Tenma clapped her hands joyously. "You are one of the main heroes on the script!"

"…Well, yea, of course Tsukamoto!" Harima said quickly. "A guy like me could only be a hero in a mov……, what did you say?"

Harima quickly steered his eyes to Imadori, his eyebrows furrowing.

He didn't notice it before because he was busy scheming plans to impress Tenma, but now that he thought about it, he did seemingly hear Imadori was mentioning his name.

"…The hell…?" he mumbled.

Eri was very close at letting loose all of her laugh.

…

The third person stepped forward. While making a flamboyant style, the person spoke aloud, "I am Takano, the tactical genius amongst The Defenders of The Love!"

…

"Not bad…" Akira mumbled softly.

…

The fourth person stepped forward. She didn't do any fancy moves or making any extravagant entrance, though—she simply said, "Hello. I am Ichijou, the front-line fighter working for The Defenders of The Love. I am pleased to make your acquaintance."

My, what a very polite individual.

…

Finally, the last person of the four stepped forward. Brandishing her blonde hair, she held her head high and said, "I am Sawachika, the self-proclaimed most beautiful member amongst The Defenders of The Love! Yield before my beautiful aura!"

…

This time it was Mikoto's turn to choke up, while Eri stopped her stifling laugh and then, she stared at Imadori dubiously.

"What?" she said. "I am in it too?"

"Hey!" Harima exclaimed. "What are you doing with my name in there?"

Imadori ignored the protests though—it seemed that he was already being drawn too deep right now by his own script. He continued,

…

Lord Yoshidayama-chin pointed his fingers at the five mysterious personas.

"How did you pass my security guards?" he said furiously. "And from where did you come from?"

The leader, Imadori, flashed a dazzling smile.

"Security guards do not mean anything for us, the defenders of justice." he said flamboyantly. "Where are we coming from? We are coming from the Garden of Love, answering the desperate call of those whose heart is being trampled by injustice such as the fair princess here. Who we are? I thought we have said that to you: we are none other than the Defenders of The Love, of course!"

"………Wha?" Lord Yoshidayama-chin said, confused.

"I do not expect you, as a human unblessed with the wonderful powers of love, understand my words, nor do I expect you to understand the wonderful reasons behind why we are here now, standing in front of you." Imadori continued.

He turned his eyes to the beautiful Princess Miko-chin.

He approached her.

…

Although Princess Miko-chin never before saw this person, and she was as confused as Lord Yoshidayama-chin and Sir Hanai when all of the sudden this person and his other friends showed up just like that in her room, she couldn't even move a muscle or said the tiniest bit of word when he approached her.

She was already so being drawn by the looks of his handsome face. She was already so being drowned by the intensity and the depth of those clear, blue eyes staring at her right now.

When he flashed his smile to her, she suddenly knew all too well that she wouldn't be able to ever forget about this man for the rest of her life.

…

At right this exact moment, Mikoto was gathering her strength for a very, very, very, hard punch. She didn't seem to care that some sort of collateral damage might ensue if she were to punch Imadori inside Tenma's room. She didn't even care about anything else, actually.

…

"My lady Princess Miko-chin." Imadori said, bowing himself a little. "Your scream evoked the power to call us here, to defend your heart from the evil clutches of these vile men. Surely you don't want to marry that man…" He pointed at Sir Hanai, who gasped a little, "…Because in truth you are not in love with him, correct?"

Princess Miko-chin nodded nervously.

"Y…yes…" she said, stammering—she was undoubtedly under-whelmed by the sheer presence of someone as fabulous as the person standing in front of her right now.

"Very well." Imadori said, smiling. "You don't have to say another word. We will get you out from here, Princess, so that you can find the love you seek out from all of these cages that your despicable father have built upon you."

"LIKE HELL I'M GOING TO LET YOU WEIRDOS TAKE HER AWAY!" Lord Yoshidayama-chin. "GUAAAAAARDDDSSS!"

His scream echoed throughout the halls and walls of the mansion. Not too long after that, everyone in Princess Miko-chin's room were able to heard distinct barrage of footsteps coming closer to their location—a lots of people would definitely show up.

…And it's true. A LOT of people did show up. Large numbers of them—all the supposedly guards of Lord Yoshidayama-chin's mansion.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, letting these freaks inside my house?" Lord Yoshidayama-chin approached what appears to be the leader of the guards and slapped him hard on the cheek, while pointing at Imadori and his friends.

"I…I am sorry, Milord—b…but we really-really didn't see them coming…" he said apologetically.

"FOOL!" Lord Yoshidayama-chin once again slapped the guards' leader on his cheek.

…

"Heeey…, heeey…" Imadori said audibly, turning all of the attention to him. "Don't be too rough on him, Milord. It's no wonder that no one could see us, because the only ones capable of doing that are the ones under the divine protection of Love. You can see us right now just because we let you to…"

"Stop talking nonsense!" Lord Yoshidayama's anger exploded. "GUARDS! CATCH THESE FOOLS AND CUT THEIR HEADS OFF!"

Imadori shook his head slowly.

"I really dislike resorting to violence, but I guess I don't have any other choice…" he mumbled, smiling slightly. "Alright, guys, time to transform!"

"It's about time you say that, Chief!" Eri exclaimed.

"I…, I am sorry about this… but I will…, have…, to… hurt…, you…" Ichijou mumbled nervously.

"Now it's time to kick some major ass!" Harima said aloud.

"…" Akira said nothing, but she was posing a cool style too, nevertheless.

"Alright then…" Imadori said, smiling. He clapped his hand. "TRANSFORM!"

"DEFENDER YELLOW!" Eri shouted extravagantly, and as soon as she said that, her body was being enveloped by a blinding light.

"D…DEFENDER BLUE!" Ichijou said, trying to sound as excited as Eri. Her body was soon being enveloped by a blinding light too.

"Black." Akira said slowly. Though she sounded not nearly as excited as Eri, her body was also enveloped by a blinding light afterwards.

"DEFENDER PINK!" Harima said aloud, lifting his right hand on a dazzling victory pose. His body, too, was soon being enveloped by a blinding light.

"And I…, DEFENDER RED!" Imadori shouted spiritedly.

…

All of people on the room were stunned by the magnificent performance done by The Defenders of The Love. They were all staring unblinkingly at the blinding light that was seemingly merged into one.

Princess Miko-chin's heart was pounding fast…, she couldn't wait to see whatever it is that she would see after the light dissipated later on.

…The true form of The Defenders of The Love……

…

……

"And that's the third act of my script, in a nutshell!" Imadori said, tapping his script. "What do you guys think?"

"I think it's awesome!" Tenma said heartily. "I think it's very original! I have never heard anything like that before! You have done a very good job, Imadori-kun!"

"Thank you, thank you, Tenma-chan." he said, bowing his head slightly. "Your appreciation is appreciated. This is the third act of my script, right? Well, the first two acts tell the story about the birth of The Defenders of The Love, and the last two acts tell the story about how The Defenders of The Love is finally able to wrest off Princess Miko-chin away from the evil clutches of his wicked father! And how the Princess finally found her love on the persona of the leader of the Defender himself!"

"That's great!" Tenma said excitedly.

"What about the rest of you guys?" Imadori turned his attention to the rest of the crew. "My script is so great, isn't it?"

…

Too bad for Imadori, that the only person who was enthusiastic about his script in this room were only Tenma and himself.

Akira was staring at him, but she didn't say anything. Hanai too, was staring at him, but he looked like he was confused more than anything.

Eri was also staring at him. Incredulously. She said, "Are you including me in that story of yours? As one of those… uh…, Defender thing or whatever?"

"Well, yeah." Imadori nodded. "I think it would be nice if everyone is having a fair share on this thing…"

"Hey! But I didn't get to be anything!" Tenma protested.

"Oh, your character does available, Tenma-chan!" Imadori said heartily. "But not in the act I've just read. It's on the first and the second act, and the last act!"

"Oh, okay then." Tenma said, smiling happily, seemingly satisfied.

…

"Are you sure you are creating the correct script for our movie project?" Eri said disbelievingly. A part of her was half-expecting that soon Imadori would flip out his real script, saying, 'Ha-ha! Got you with that one!'

"Of course!" he said confidently, and seeing that he was actually serious, Eri couldn't really able to find anything else she wanted to say to him.

…

"Hey, what's the thing about me in pink?" Harima exclaimed furiously. "Why do you have red, and the rest of the girls got all the cool colours, while I got stuck with pink?"

"Don't you think it's cool, though, Harima?" Imadori said, smiling broadly. "It gives your character a unique flavour, different. You are going to be the centre of attention!"

"Yeah, but I don't want to be the centre of attention because I am pink!" Harima continued fussing.

If Tenma wasn't around, he would pretty much kick Imadori out of oblivion. It was very difficult to hold the temptation to do that as it is now.

He should have known that this guy wouldn't be able to create a good, sensible, script!

…

"Well, what do you guys think?" Imadori asked again.

"Don't ask me." Eri said, shaking her head. "But you might want to listen to Mikoto's opinion on this."

"Right!" Imadori said. "So, Miko-chin, what do you…"

He stopped mid-sentence because he felt chills permeating down his entire skin. When he turned his eyes to Mikoto, he saw that Mikoto has stood up from the bed, staring at him intently. Really intently. Really really intently in really not a good way.

He froze as he could feel a murderous intent leaking out from her. Even both Hanai and Harima appeared to be a little scared when they saw Mikoto.

…

"Are you done yet, Imadori?" she said menacingly.

"……uh, yeah?" Imadori answered awkwardly.

Mikoto approached Imadori in steady, slow-motion, intimidating, steps.

"…Good." Mikoto said, clenching her fists. "Let me tell you about my opinion."

---

Yakumo stared at the pot intently.

…

…The colour has changed… That's the signal for her to turn down the heat on the stove right now.

So she did.

…

She picked a spoon nearby, and shoved it gently inside the pot, taking a small part of what she cooked inside it.

She put it into her mouth, tasting it.

…

She smiled.

It's good, she thought to herself. Thank goodness.

…

Then all of the sudden, she heard a loud ruckus coming from upstairs. She looked up to the kitchen's ceiling.

……

"Nee-san's friends are really…" she said, contemplating. "…Bustling, aren't they?"

She smiled.

Not that she mind a little hustle and bustle inside her house, though. It put a very new and fresh atmosphere inside her house. And once in a while, cooking for someone else besides her sister and herself was a nice thing to do.

The last time she made something for someone else other than her sister and herself was when she stayed overnight at Harima-san's place, helping him with the manga.

She smiled again, remembering that at that time, Harima-san was very surprised that she was able to cook something decent from things that she could find inside his refrigerator. The surprised look on his face back then was quite…, amusing, to say the least, and she felt a bit of happy when he complemented her, saying that whoever lucky enough to date her would certainly be happy.

…

She stirred the contents of her pot slowly, carefully watching it.

…

I hope this turns out to be good…, she said to herself.

…

And in a way, she was sort of curious about what kind of face would Harima-san make later when he later tastes this one…

---

"…Are you all right, Imadori-kun?" Tenma said worriedly at the smacked-down Imadori, currently lied on the floor, unconscious, with a very clear mark of an apparently very awesome punch right in the middle of his face. He was certainly in no condition to answer her question.

"Don't worry about him, Tsukamoto." Mikoto said sternly—she has returned to her original spot, on the bed besides Eri. "His endurance is very admirable. I bet even my strongest punch wouldn't knock him out for more than ten minutes, tops."

"Yeah, yeah." Eri waved her hands. "Let him…, uh…, rest, for a while there."

"We'd better continue." Akira said. "Who's next?"

"Let's go with clockwise direction." Hanai suggested. "And with that, the next one would be…, you, Sawachika-kun."

"Hey, wait a minute, what's with this sudden clockwise direction thing?" Eri protested.

"I think it's a good idea, though." Mikoto said.

"Yeah…, well after me, it would be you then, Mikoto!" Eri pointed out.

Mikoto shrugged her shoulders.

"Fine." she said casually. "Sooner or later everyone would have to step forward anyway."

"Yeah, yeah, Eri-chan, you're next!" Tenma said enthusiastically. "I want to know about your script, Eri-chan!"

"Just hurry up already." Harima added to the pressure.

…

Eri stared at the faces of her comrades for a while, before sighing, defeated.

…

"All right, then…" she said, as she put down her script on her lap. "But I have copied my work into six pieces, enough one for each of you. So you just could read it, and tell your opinion about it. I don't have to read it like Imadori-kun back then…"

She picked six copies of her original script from inside her school-bag and handed them over to her team-mates one by one.

Tenma was clearly disappointed that Eri wouldn't expose her script in the same way as Imadori—apparently she forgot about the fact the only one forgetting to copy his work was Imadori.

Nevertheless she accepted her share of the copied script without making a fuss when Eri handed it over.

…

"Thanks." Harima said, taking her share of copied work when Eri handed one to him, unaware that Eri was blushing a little when she did that.

As for Imadori, Eri put one right atop his unconscious face.

…

"You guys should be able to read it in a snap." Eri said. "My script is not that long anyway."

"What's this script about?" Mikoto said, staring at her share of the copied script—she looked mildly interested.

"Nothing special…" Eri mumbled as she sat back on her original spot. "I haven't even given it a title yet. Just read it, and tell me your opinion, okay?"

---

"Excuse me, Yakumo."

Yakumo switched her attention from her cooking to the one called her. The person was Sara.

…

Sara entered the kitchen with her face looking a little up, sniffing.

"Hey." she said. "Smells delicious."

"Thanks." Yakumo replied, smiling. She continued stirring down the contents of the pot she cooked on the stove right now.

"What are you cooking?" Sara approached Yakumo, taking a look at the contents of the pot.

"Oh, just some…" Yakumo said. "...beef curry. Nothing special or anything."

"Hmmm…" Sara sniffed out the smell coming out from the pot. "Still, it smells very delicious."

Yakumo just smiled.

"Need help with anything?" Sara said.

Yakumo shook her head.

"No thanks." she replied shortly. "Any progress with the script discussion?"

Sara sat at one of the chairs near the dining table. She watched Yakumo's cooking figure from behind, and sighed.

…

"No, not much." she answered. "Now they are busy discussing things about whether the main character should cheat her fiancée or not, as a revenge. They seem to be very serious about the discussion, actually."

"Well…" Yakumo said thoughtfully. "It's supposed to be for the final scene, yes? So it's no wonder that they're trying hard. I've read in a magazine somewhere that the final closure is very significant for how the viewers would feel about a movie."

"I guess." Sara mumbled. "But I suppose we are quite lucky, eh, Yakumo. We are just players for the movie; we don't have to worry about those kinds of stuff."

"Yes." Yakumo replied, sniffing her own cooking a little. "But the day after tomorrow is our turn, remember? That's when we are going to shoot our first scene… It's making me a bit nervous, Sara……"

"Don't worry! Don't worry!" Sara clapped her hands cheerfully. "I bet you would look wonderful in front of camera, Yakumo. Even if you couldn't act, the audience would surely love you anyways!"

Yakumo blushed a little from the praise.

"Anyways," Sara continued. "Haruna-san, our main actress, she didn't appear to be nervous at all for the shooting. So you shouldn't worry much about it, Yakumo. Just give it the best you got."

"Yes." Yakumo nodded.

She stirred the curry for a little more.

…

Then, she turned away from the cooking stove. She picked up two empty glasses, and then she walked to the water dispenser. She filled those glasses with drinking water, and then she put one near Sara. The other one she put near herself, when she too sat at one of the chairs near the dining table.

…

"Is it okay to leave it like that?" Sara asked, watching the pot above the stove.

"It's all right." Yakumo said softly. "In order for the flavour to really develop, I ought to leave it like that for about twenty minutes."

"Well, you're the expert, Yakumo." Sara picked her glass and took a sip from it just a little bit. "But you seem to take this thing very seriously—this cooking, I mean."

…

Yakumo gave it a thought for a moment.

…Did she?

…

"Well…" Yakumo said slowly. "It's because this house has never been this crowded before… We've never got this many people before visiting our house… I guess I am kind of…… excited."

…

Yakumo stopped.

…

"Excited?" Sara repeated Yakumo's words.

Yakumo nodded.

For some reason or another, all of the sudden Sara laughed.

…

"…Why do you laugh?" Yakumo asked, bewildered by this sudden act from Sara. "Is there something funny going on?"

"Oh, no…" Sara waved her hands, smiling "No, no, nothing. I just remembered a small conversation between me and Tougo-san a bit earlier…"

"…Which is about?" Yakumo said, still perplexed.

"Oh, nothing important, really." Sara answered while shaking her head. "Nothing out of the ordinary." She smiled as she said that.

She stood up from the chair.

"Yakumo." she said. "Call me and Haruna-san when you're done with the curry, okay? We'll help you carry the food upstairs."

"…Sure…" Yakumo said.

Sara smiled. She turned her body and walked out from the kitchen, leaving Yakumo behind with a feeling that she didn't notice something important, something that Sara noticed but she didn't.

…

…Maybe it's just me… Yakumo thought to herself.

---

The atmosphere inside Tenma's room was still, and quiet.

The only sound available inside the room was the sound of Tenma's windows rattled because of the wind hammered them from outside.

Everybody (except Imadori, who was still unconscious) was reading Eri's script, while Eri herself nervously stared at the face of her team-mates one-by-one, trying to gauge from their faces whether they like her script or not.

…

From her assessment of their faces, she could come up with a conclusion that there were at least three different reactions from her team-mates regarding her script.

…

One: the positives. This was clearly shown by Tenma, who read her script with a very appreciative attitude. Sometimes she showed a serious face, reading it like it was the final test for a lesson on the school or something. Sometimes she smiled, sometimes she laughed a little. Eri thought that all of that was a good sign, so she guessed that there would be no problem coming from Tenma.

Eri also thought that somewhat positive reactions also coming from Hanai and Mikoto. They both read her copied script very seriously—particularly Hanai—to the point where Eri thought if a plane came crushing down into Tenma's room they wouldn't notice it at all. Although, she noticed that sometimes Mikoto took a pause from her reading and then turning her eyes to her with what Eri thought as a playful look. She smiled teasingly too, every once in a while.

…

Well, at least it seemed that she didn't appear to dislike her script.

…

The second, the negative reaction, as far as she could see, came only from Harima. She noticed, with a feeling of little discontent on the corners of her heart, that Hige didn't read her script with the reaction that she would have hoped. Oftentimes he raised one of his eyebrows, and grumbling slowly here and there. He often said "Hmmm…" too, in a tone that Eri felt didn't sound that positive. Sometimes he also scratched his hair, although Eri didn't quite sure whether that could count as a reaction too or not.

……Too bad Eri couldn't see through his dark glasses……, if she could stare directly into his eyes, perhaps she could see more…

…

Eri shook her head slowly.

Now it's not the time to think about stuff like this, she said to herself. Anyway, even if he didn't like it, he still only got one voice over this matter……

…

The third reaction was……, how she should say it…, unpredictable. She didn't have a clue whether that kind of reaction could be classified as positive, negative, or in-between. It came from Akira.

Her face didn't change at all when she read Eri's script. Her eyes didn't wander, her lips didn't even move—and her body was all in a perfect still. It was kind of eerie, actually. People who didn't know Akira before might think that she was in a serious mood by looking at her face. The trouble was people who did know Akira before, must have known that Akira was the kind of person who always wore that kind of expression no matter what the occasion. So even Eri, who had known Akira for a long time, couldn't tell from her expression right now whether she was serious reading the script or not, or whether she liked it or not.

Fifty-fifty though, Eri thought to herself.

…

Imadori didn't count, since he was still unconscious.

…

Eri was eager to know the true judgement from her team-mates, but she decided that she would give them some more time to read her script, so that their judgement could be more precise.

…

……

After about 15 minutes or so has passed though, Eri couldn't bear it much longer. Nervously, she asked, "Well? How about it?"

…

The first one to answer was Tenma. She put down her share of Eri's copied script, stared at Eri, and then she smiled.

"I like it." she said with her sweet smile. "In my honest opinion, it is much better than Imadori-kun's script. Really."

Although that kind of comment was what she would expect coming from Tenma, Eri was glad to hear it nevertheless. One correct prediction and it was a positive opinion! Nice!

…

"Yeah, I agree." this time it was Hanai who spoke. "The characters were nicely developed, and the plot was quite well thought-of. I am surprised that I am actually read something this good."

Eri's heart was thumping with joy. Two correct predictions and the positive ones too! Very nice!

…

"Speaking of plot…" Akira spoke, her eyes squinting at the copied script she held on her hands. "I think that your plot was…, hmm, how should I say it…, very… life-like, Eri."

"…Life-like?" Eri said slowly.

Akira nodded.

"Yeah. It feels like I have seen something similar to this plot unfolding somewhere during my life…" Akira mumbled.

"I see your point, Takano." Mikoto said, smiling a little. "For example: the main character, this girl: a rich Japanese girl born in a foreign country. Somehow she reminded me of someone…"

Eri suddenly realized the direction this conversation would eventually venture to. Before she could say anything, though, Akira intruded,

"Hm." Akira said shortly. "Yes. And this character that the main character 'felt something different' with…, he reminded me of someone…"

"Really?" Tenma said. She opened her copied script once more to find the description of the said character. When she found it, she read it aloud,

…

"A troublesome individual." she said. "A boorish, loud, and an annoying person. But deep down inside there was a kind-hearted soul. An honest, proud man; he was a man that would never stop to give up once he fixed his eyes into a direction. Rugged and fearsome exterior bellies the true nature of this person, which only a few could only see through with their unclouded eyes……"

Tenma stared quizzically at Akira and Mikoto.

"…Do you girls really know this kind of person?" she asked. "Because I couldn't really remember that I have an acquaintance with that kind of description."

Mikoto chuckled.

"Really, Tsukamoto?" she said, her face looked amused. "Maybe you should look a bit closer…"

"ANYWAY!" Eri intruded all of the sudden; her cheeks were a bit flushed. "Should we discuss this matter any further? Why don't we continue on with Mikoto's script? So that we…"

"Harima-kun." Akira spoke, and with that Eri froze in the middle of her sentence, "What do you think about the script?"

Eri quickly steered her eyes to Harima, her heart began to thump a bit faster than before.

…

"Huh?" Harima said, scratching his head and staring at Akira. "You're asking my opinion?"

"Yes." Akira said, nodding her head. "What do you think of Eri's script? Especially about the ending where…"

Akira stopped for a moment. She glanced at the script she was holding, and swiftly turned its pages onto the last one.

"…where finally the main heroine realized her 'true feelings', and that she somehow able to find something 'to like' about the 'boorish but kind' man." Akira continued. "What do you think of it?"

"Yeah, Harima-kun!" Tenma added. "What do you think of Eri-chan's script? Do you like it?"

Harima seemingly hesitant to answer the question, but now since Tenma herself also requested his opinion on the matter—and he was a person who just couldn't shake his head in refusal if the one requesting was Tenma—he gave it a thought for a moment.

…

……

After what seemingly like forever for Eri, Harima finally spoke,

…

"Well…" he said slowly. "I wouldn't say that I didn't like it…"

He trudged his fingers alongside the script he was holding, unaware to the sigh of heavy relief coming from Eri's direction.

…

"…What I like the most about the script is the character." Harima said, continuing with his judgement. "Most particularly this…, male protagonist. I like this kind of man. It feels like I've known him from somewhere too, you know? I feel so familiar with this guy."

Mikoto chuckled again.

The amount of thick-headedness surrounding both Tenma and Harima's head were truly astounding.

…

"Thanks to this character, the script and the plot were alive. He was a very well thought-of character." Harima said again. "…I guess that's it. If you are asking me whether I like Ojou's script or not…, well…, I guess I do."

"That's great!" Tenma clapped her hands enthusiastically. "I knew that Eri-chan would be able to make a script that everyone would like!"

"Thanks, Tenma." Eri said, smiling.

Mikoto peeked at Eri, and she felt somewhat happy seeing Eri was sighing in relief once again. It seemed like she was just free from under a heavy pressure or something.

…

Akira hasn't finished just yet, though.

……

"Now that you say you like the male main character." she said in the same level of tone she usually (well, "always" was more like it, actually) spoke with, "…What do you think about the female main character?"

Mikoto quickly moved her eyes from Eri to Harima.

…Now this is something that would make her visit today to Tenma's house worth all the effort!

Eri substantially froze once again. She didn't think that Akira would have gone that far—but she should have known better. This was a situation that she should have known would arise from the moment she started to write that single word for her script—most particularly when there was a person like Akira floating around nearby.

…But now that she's in it, she couldn't help herself not to feel curious about how that stupid Hige would answer Akira's question. Her heart accelerated faster and faster as she was waiting for the answer to float out from Harima's mouth.

…

……

"Well…" Harima mumbled thoughtfully. "I guess… she's okay."

For some reason or another, when hearing Harima's response, Eri's face immediately went bright red. You could almost see puffs of smoke rising from both sides of her ears.

…

Akira smiled a little, though she did it very quickly that no one in the room would probably see her smile.

"That's good enough." she said casually, waving her hand slowly. "As for me, I like it too. Good overall quality."

"All right!" Tenma once again clapped her hands. "Now since we have read Eri-chan's script, it's time for Miko-chan's…"

…

-TA RA TA TA TA TA, TA RA TA TA TA TA-

Before Tenma managed to finish her sentence, a ring tone of someone's cell-phone suddenly rang.

…

It was Eri's. She hurriedly opened her bag, picking up her cell-phone from inside it. At first she was rather surprised to see that there was only one icon left on the battery indicator, signifying that it wouldn't take too long for her cell-phone to die out (Damn it! How could I forget to recharge the battery!)

It was indeed, someone was calling for her. She just hoped that whoever was calling her, the conversation would be done before her cell-phone died.

When she stared at the name on the cell-phone's list, however, her expression suddenly changed.

…

…"Excuse me for a moment, guys." she said apologetically. "…It's my father."

"Your father?" Mikoto said, a bit of a surprised look on her face.

"Take your time, Eri-chan!" Tenma said.

"Excuse me." she stood up from the bed, and walked to the location near the window in order to receive better signal for her cell-phone. Akira moved herself from her previous location to where Eri originally sat on the bed.

Everybody was watching Eri while she was talking with her father.

Harima, in particular, was looking at her rather intently.

…

It was rather a peculiar sight for him to witness something right now: the time when Eri wore such a honestly happy, joyous expression on her face. Nothing faked, no pretend—just that: just happy, just joyful. Harima had never seen this kind of Ojou before.

…

…I guess she really do love her old man, huh, Harima thought to himself.

…

"Yes…" Eri said conversationally, nodding her head multiple times, her face looked considerably cheerful. "Yes, all right. Yes, I'll be there. Good health for you, father. I love you too."

She closed the connection.

She turned herself to face the rest of her team-mates with that apologetic look on her face.

"News from your father?" Akira asked.

"I am sorry, I am terribly sorry!" Eri bowed herself down. "I need to go, right now!"

---

Yakumo opened the door to the room where her team assembled themselves and found to her relief that the debate was still on-going (she kind of wondered how someone could continuously speak in a loud voice like that).

…

"Um…" she said softly, carefully stepping in so that she wouldn't disrupt the debate. She approached Sara and Haruna, both of them were still picking up cookies while occasionally engaged themselves in a casual conversation.

"Sara… Tougo-san." Yakumo greeted them softly. "…Sorry to bother you, but the food for the Sempais is ready…"

"Really?" Sara said. "Well, let's go then, Tougo-san. Let us help Yakumo carry the food upstairs."

"Oh all right." Haruna nodded. "At least I have something to do instead of listening to that endless debate."

The three of them walked out from the room and venture into the kitchen.

…

Like what Sara did previously, when entering the kitchen, Haruna sniffed the delicious smell.

"Oh my!" she said when she entered the kitchen. "What a…" She sniffed again. "…delicious smell!"

"The taste itself would be ten times more delicious than the smell, I can guarantee you that." Sara said, laughing softly. "Anyway, where are they, Yakumo?"

"Oh…" Yakumo replied. "Over there…"

She pointed at the top of one of the kitchen's drawers. Lied above it were seven plates of yummy-looking curry. Anyone who set their eyes upon them and didn't feel their stomach rumbling was definitely not a human being.

"Oh my!" Haruna clapped her hands. "Are those delicious-looking food were made by human hands? I couldn't believe it!"

"Nah, it was made by a goddess, of course!" Sara said teasingly, making Yakumo's face went a little red. "Anyway, seven plates—I figure each one of us could only carry two plates. Should we fetch a person from the debate team to help us?"

"No…no, don't." Yakumo replied. "I'll just have to make two trips. It's not that difficult."

"Maybe you should train Iori so that he could help you with this kind of stuff, Yakumo!" Sara said, laughing softly. "Speaking of Iori, I haven't seen him around, Yakumo—where is he?"

…Now that she thought about it, Sara was right. She didn't see Iori yet from the moment she arrived from school until now. Having many people visiting her house made her mind a bit pre-occupied.

She doubted that anything bad happened to him, though. This was not the first time Iori was out of her sight, only to show up later when he smelled his favourite smelts dangling around from her hand.

…

Anyway, Yakumo felt that she should look for him later, just in case.

…

"Who's Iori?" Haruna said, bewildered because all the talk about training Iori and stuff.

"Yakumo's pet cat." Sara answered. "A cute cat, really. Though he had a habit of disappearing and showing up suddenly…"

"Let us go…" Yakumo said slowly, approaching the plates and picking up two of them carefully with her left and right hands.

"Okay!" Haruna approached the plates and picking up two of them with her left and right hand respectively. "Let us go then, my stewardess comrades!"

"Be careful, okay?" Sara said, approaching the last two plates and placing them in her left and right hands—she did it rather smoothly, maybe it was because she worked a part-time job at a restaurant so that she was capable of that kind of stuff. "Tread slowly. We don't want to spoil the result of Yakumo's hard work with some silliness like tripping over or something, right?"

"Right!" Haruna nodded heartily.

---

"Go?" Tenma said worriedly. "Go where? Did something happen to your father, Eri-chan?"

Eri shook her head.

"No, no…, my father's fine…" she said. "It's just that he is about to arrive in Japan in…" She peeked at her wrist-watch, "…about three hours from now. He finally went home after business dealings in America. It was so sudden—he didn't even tell me before that he was about to go home today. He told me that he wanted me to pick him up…… so…"

She once again stared apologetically to the rest of her team-mates.

"So…" she said slowly. "It looks like I have to bail out this time right now from this meeting…"

…

"Oh, just go now, Sawachika-kun!" Hanai said aloud. "A reunion for a father and a daughter is something that is certainly more important than a meeting like this! Most particularly because it was your father himself that requested your presence!"

This encouragement from Hanai cheered Eri considerably.

It wasn't just Hanai, though.

"You'd better go, Sawachika." Mikoto said, "You haven't meet with your father for what long? One month? Two months? I bet your father missed you, and that's why he wanted you to pick you up: you are the first person he wanted to see on the day he arrived back home in Japan."

"Yeah." Tenma jumped into the fray. "You and your father missed each other, right, Eri-chan? SO it would be prudent for you to go now to pick up your father. I am sure he brought with him a lot of neat presents for you from America! How lucky!"

…

Eri turned her eyes to Akira, who just nodded slightly. Then her eyes streaked pass Imadori (who was still unconscious—a reminder to anyone just how powerful Mikoto's punch was) to Harima, who (after a "Hrrmmmh") said, "Just go, Ojou."

…

Eri's face really brightened up from the nods coming from her friends.

"Thank you!" she said cheerfully. She stared at the cell-phone—the battery hasn't died out just yet, but she expected that it wouldn't hold for long. She'd better hurry.

…

Eri dialled the number of her house.

To her immense relief, the one picking up the phone was Nakamura. Good, that would save precious time, then.

"…Nakamura? It's me." she said, unaware that Tenma was now staring her in a bit of an awe because the way she spoke to Nakamura was exuding some sort of a regal-like feeling. "Listen, father had just called me—soon he will arrive in Japan…, yes, yes, he'll be home from America. Father wanted me to pick him up at the airport…" Eri's face turned into such a happy expression that Mikoto couldn't help herself not to smile when she looked at it her, "Yes. Could you please hurry and pick me up at Tenma's house? You know where it is, right? I've told you before…"

…

Harima was also staring at Eri, though what he had in mind when he stared at her was quite different from Mikoto.

…

Damn, he said to himself. Rich people are so convenient with their lives, aren't they? They could just easily order people around to do anything!

…

"Oh, Nakamura, could you also bring a nice set of clothes?" Eri said to Nakamura, still through her cell-phone. "…I just want to wear nice things when I greet father at the airport. I just don't want to wear my school uniform on such an occasion. Okay, thanks, Nakamura."

…

Just right after she was done talking to Nakamura, the screen of her cell-phone suddenly went blank.

It looked like the battery had finally died out.

…Well, at least it didn't die out during her talk with her father and Nakamura.…

"Everything's fine, Sawachika-kun?" Hanai asked Eri.

Eri nodded as she tucked her cell-phone on her pocket.

"Yeah. I have to go now… but what about the script?" Eri said. "I wanted to know the creation of the rest of you guys, and I wanted to cast a vote too, on what script we would use for our movie."

"The only one forgot to copy his work was Imadori." Akira spoke out. She took out a copy of her script from inside her school-bag. "You just take his original script for you, in case you want to……review it further. The rest of us could give you our copied scripts so that you could read them later."

Akira pulled out one of the copy of her script from her bag, and gave it to Eri. Everybody else was doing the same—except for Imadori, of course—Eri picked up his original script from above his unconscious face. Eri also picked up her bag laying on the bed.

"…But what about my vote?" Eri asked, stuffing the copied scripts and Imadori's script into her bag. "We are planning to decide it today, right?"

"Oh just call one of us later to tell your opinion." Mikoto said casually. "The person you call later will tally the vote and voila! We have the result as quick as tonight. Of course, you and that person later should take responsibility to inform each and every one of us about the result."

"Why don't we just wait for tomorrow?" Hanai suggested. "It would seem less troublesome that way…"

"…Except that everyone in here is dying to know whether his or her script win or not, Hanai-kun!" Tenma said enthusiastically. "We just couldn't wait until tomorrow; right, everyone?"

"You said it, Tsukamoto! I totally agree with you!" Harima said aloud—he had been waiting an opportunity to agree with whatever suggestion Tenma came up with.

Hanai shrugged his shoulders.

"Fine." he said shortly.

As long as he would still get to eat Yakumo's hand-made food today, he wouldn't mind about everything else.

…

"So, who is this person that I should call later…?" Eri said.

By then she just realized something. She didn't know Harima's phone number. Asking his phone number from her friends that knew it already, such as Tenma and Akira, would seem too conspicuous (and she just couldn't imagine what kind of reaction Akira would make should she ever ask Harima's phone number to her).

Isn't now the perfect chance to know his phone number in a not so obvious, natural, kind of way? If she somehow could make it that it's going to be Harima that she would call tonight, naturally he would have to tell her his phone number, yes?

…

"If you want to know Harima's phone-number…" Akira said out of the blue. "Its…"

"I THINK I SHOULD JUST CALL TENMA, THEN!" Eri said aloud, cutting through before Akira had the chance to finish her sentence. "…I mean… if it's okay with you, Tenma."

Mikoto giggled softly, and Akira seemed amused.

Thank goodness for Eri, Harima didn't seem to catch on the event unfolding before his very eyes.

"Sure!" Tenma nodded. "But the phone in my house is currently damaged…"

"Damaged?" Mikoto said, raising one of her eyebrows. "Why is that?"

"Nothing! Old age equipment!" Tenma said quickly—she couldn't say that it was damaged in the same way her air-conditioner was broken previously—she swung things a little bit too hard and a little bit too enthusiastic when she's playing Mangoku-chasing-the-cat with Iori just the day before. "So you just have to call my cell-phone, Eri-chan."

"Your cell-phone, then." Eri said, nodding her head.

"Aaaand… I forgot to tell you guys, I have changed my cell-phone number." Tenma said apologetically. "Recently, I've bought a new number."

"What's wrong with the old one?" Mikoto asked.

"Nothing wrong!" Tenma answered cheerfully. "It's just that I accidentally found this pretty number when I was walking out with Yakumo two days ago. The number was soo nice that I couldn't bring myself not to replace my old number with it... so I've changed it."

Mikoto sighed slowly.

That's pretty much like Tenma for you, changing her number because of whimsical things like that, unaware that by doing that her friends might get confused when they're going to contact her or something.

"What's the new number?" Mikoto took out her cell-phone from her pocket.

…

Ooooh, Tenma-chan's new cell-phone number! A MUST HAVE INFORMATION!

Harima hurriedly took out his own cell-phone, preparing himself to input this most precious information to his address book.

Akira and Hanai took out their respective cell-phones too.

…

Eri was about to reach for hers, before she remembered that her cell-phone had just died out of battery power.

"Uh, wait a moment, Tenma—my phone just died out of battery." she said. "Do you have something that I could write with?"

"Sure." Tenma nodded, pointing at her study desk. "Just rip a paper out from any writing book you can find there."

"Thanks." Eri said.

She approached Tenma's study desk (bypassing Imadori in the process, by the way).

She didn't need a paper with a large size. She just wanted to write down a phone number, anyway. All she needed was a not so big piece of paper, not too big so that it would be a waste and not too small so that she could lose it easily.

…

Then something caught her eye.

A notebook, tucked away at one of the corners of the desk. It was of the perfect size.

She reached it with her right hand and picking it up.

"I'll be using this then, Tenma." Eri said, taking out a pen from inside her pocket with her left hand. "It's just the size I need."

Eri opened the notebook with her right hand.

…

Just when she's about to rip a paper out from the notebook, her eyes suddenly caught something else.

It was right on the first page of the notebook.

A rather long writing—she recognized it as Tenma's hand-writing.

What was so different about it was that Tenma's writing on that first page was embellished with many, many pictures. Pictures of hearts, pictures of flowers (it was done in a childish sort of way, but you still could still clearly that they were meant to be flowers), and pictures of smileys.

What had caught Eri's eyes were not particularly those kinds of stuffs, though. Sure, they were all sort of eye-catching—but for Eri, something else on the first page was even more eye-catching.

…

It was the title above the writing.

It said, clearly, in a rather large bolded font:

"Lessons I learn from Yakumo & Harima-kun about Dates."

…

……

Eri's eyes went down from the title.

She was reading what Tenma had written below the title, and she read them with a very serious look on her face.

She didn't even notice that Tenma was telling the others about her new cell-phone numbers. Her attention was entirely fixed upon what she had just discovered on the notebook she's holding right now.

…

……

"Today, I and Karasuma-kun went for a double-date together with Yakumo and Harima-kun. It was so much fun!

At first I wasn't planning to have a double-date like that. Really, I didn't. But Yakumo this morning was so different than the usual everyday Yakumo. She actually lectured me something about love!

…Yooo-hooo!

Finally Yakumo has entered a stage where love was not a foreign concept for her anymore! That girl was so gullible that many times I am actually worried whether she could accept things like that or not, but I guess Yakumo was developing herself while I am not looking, and I don't have to worry about that kind of thing anymore!

…

I must thank Harima -kun for that, I suppose. I bet it was because of him now that Yakumo has opened to the possibilities of love. Oh it was so exciting, really!

…

At our double-date today, I watched them closely. What a kawaiii couple they are! I've never seen Yakumo ever dressed up that long for anything, and I've never seen Yakumo ever spoke so open with a boy like she did today with Harima-kun! It seemed like Yakumo now is a lot more experienced love-fighter than I do! Ooooh!

So I observed them. I want to know about the things that I should do if I want to date properly some time in the future with Karasuma-kun. Since Yakumo is a more experienced person than me, it wouldn't hurt to steal one of her two ways of dating, right?

Well, here are the stuffs that I noticed during our double-date. Better remember all of these, Tenma!

.…

……

And then Tenma went along with the description of "things she noticed from the way Yakumo and Harima-kun are dating with each other." It was a quite long list, and Tenma had written each point on the list in a way that every person who looks at it would most probably think Yakumo and Harima as the greatest couple on the face of the planet.

Eri read each and every point on the list.

…

……

"Sawachika?"

…

……

Her heart was thumping faster and faster, but not in the way like when she waited for Harima's judgement about her script previously.

No. It was thumping in a different kind of way…

…

……

"Yo! Sawachika!"

"E…eh? what?"

Eri was being pulled away from her reverie by Mikoto calling to her.

She turned to Mikoto, and immediately realized that everyone in the room—save Imadori—was staring at her.

"What are you doing, dazing off like that?" Mikoto said quizzically. "Are you sick or something?"

Eri shook her head slowly.

"No…, sorry." she said.

She ripped apart a page from the centre of Tenma's notebook. She then put the notebook back to where she found it on Tenma's study desk.

"I am sorry, Tenma, I didn't catch your cell-phone number." she said, trying to sound as normal as she possibly could. "Can you repeat it for me? Thanks."

Tenma looked at Eri for a moment, a hint of 'what's wrong with Eri-chan?' question dangling within her eyes. Nevertheless, she repeated her phone number to her.

…

"…Thanks." she said shortly. She folded the paper neatly and inserted it at her pocket alongside her pen.

Mikoto stared at Eri.

She felt that there suddenly there was something different about Eri—about the way she carried herself. And no, it wasn't the excitement because she's about to meet her father.

Something else; something entirely different.

What is it? Mikoto wondered to herself. What's wrong with her?

The change was so sudden that Mikoto couldn't deduce what was the cause.

…

"I…I have to go now." Eri said, trying to sound casual, but she couldn't hide a slight tremble on her tone. "Sorry. Tenma—I'll call you later, ok?"

"Okay!" Tenma answered cheerfully.

Ignoring the questioning mark on Mikoto's eyes, Eri quickly turned to the direction of the door, and walked there.

…

"Excuse me." Eri said sternly to Harima who was sitting near the door.

Harima moved himself to the side while staring at her in confusion. She seemed mad at him, but why? He couldn't tell. He felt that he didn't do anything that could warrant her to be mad at him.

He didn't say anything, though.

…

Eri moved her hand to the door handle.

…

-Knock knock-

…

Right before Eri's hand touched the handle on the door of Tenma's room, someone knocked the door from the outside.

"Yes?" Tenma said as she stood up.

"Nee-san." Yakumo said softly from outside. "I've brought something for the Sempais…"

---

Eri froze on her tracks.

…

She totally forgot about this.

She totally forgot that Yakumo did tell them that she would bring something over to Tenma's room.

…

"Ooooh, Yakumo-kun has arrived!" Hanai's ears perked up. "Finally! I got to eat Yakumo-kun's hand-made foods!"—he didn't seem bothered at all that he just literally said the biggest reason why he agreed to go to Tenma's house in front of everyone else.

Not that anyone really cared, though.

…

Harima sniffed out the smell coming from the other side of the door. It smelled delicious.

"Is it curry?" he said. "Man, it smells good!"

Eri stared at him for a moment. She stepped backwards to give room between her and the door, staring at the door with her eyes a bit squinted.

…

"Come in, come in Yakumo!" Tenma said enthusiastically. "We have been waiting for you! The door is not locked!"

She stared at the still unconscious Imadori on the floor. That previous punch must have been really powerful.

"Miko-chan, shouldn't you wake him up already?" she said concernedly. "Yakumo worked hard to bring us her cooking; it's too bad if everyone is not enjoying it."

"Oh… all right." Mikoto said half-heartedly. Too bad, though, because she had already began to get accustomed to the quiet and unconscious Imadori. It's quite ironic that Imadori was such a more likeable person when he's unconscious rather than when he's awake.

Oh well.

…

"Um, Nee-san?" Yakumo said from the outside. "If you don't mind, would you please open the door from inside? It's difficult for me to open the door—my hands are full. I just barely able to knock on the door using my elbow……"

"I'll do it then." Harima said, waving his hand to Tenma.

He stood up and opened the door.

…

And there she was, Yakumo, standing behind the door, holding two very-yummy looking curry plates on both her left and right hands.

"Excuse us, Tsukamoto-sempai!" Sara said cheerfully from behind Yakumo. "We are here to bring some supplies to your group, if you don't mind!"

"We don't mind, we don't mind!" Hanai said excitedly—he acted as if the world would end shortly if he couldn't get his hands on Yakumo's food as soon as possible. "Of course we don't mind!"

"It smells delicious, Yakumo-chan!" Mikoto said appreciatively, as she slapped Imadori silly on the face back and forth numerous times. The idea was to wake him up, but with her strength slapping Imadori on his face like that might just cause the reversed effect from what she intended.

Not that anyone really cared, though…

…

"Do you cook all of that yourself?" Akira said.

"Of course Takano-sempai!" Sara intruded before Yakumo herself could answer the question. "These foods were made by Yakumo's goddess hands themselves! So it's a 100 percent delicious-ness guaranteed!"

Yakumo blushed a little from that praise.

…

"Well, they smell wonderful, Imouto-san." Harima said appreciatively. "I bet they taste even more wonderful too!"

"…Thank you, Harima-san…" Yakumo said softly.

Tenma was smiling broadly.

…

……

It seemed like during all the commotion, no one in the room did actually realized that there was one person inside who was not in a positive mood. That person was Eri.

Though she tried her best to hide what was turning upside and down inside her heart, an attentive person could easily see through the façade and noticed that something unpleasant was brewing ever so slowly on Eri's face right now.

…

……

Is it true? Eri said to herself.

Is it true what was written on that notebook?

That Tenma and Karasuma-kun had a double-date with Yakumo and Hige on Sunday?

Why Tenma didn't mention anything about that to us?

…

Is it true?

But Yakumo said during the closing ceremony of Bunkasai that she didn't date Hige…

Yet Tenma said on her notebook that they were both had a double-date together with her and Karasuma-kun. And Tenma said that they were a couple…… Plus all the stuffs on the list on the notebook…, what's the deal with those?

…

From all the time Eri had known Tenma as one of her closest friends, one thing that she quickly learned that she should rarely take Tenma's words seriously. Tenma was childish and a bit air-headed, and those two traits usually constrict her ability to see through things the way they really are.

But even someone like Tenma was capable of some judgement, right? Childish and air-headed as she may be, she was a high-school student, an adult, so she should be capable of deducing some correct assessments about things, right?

If she said that Yakumo and Hige was a couple, maybe then they were indeed a couple. Maybe if the list she made at that notebook suggested that Yakumo and Hige appeared like a great couple having fun during their so-called double-date on previous Sunday, maybe then they were indeed a great couple having fun during their so-called double-date on previous Sunday.

…

Then what's the deal with what she said during the Bunkasai?

She still remembered it clearly. Yakumo said to her that she was just merely a helper to Hige; that she didn't go out with him as a couple…

…

Yet the thing Eri just found on Tenma's notebook by accident suggested otherwise.

Yet how Tenma behave concerning the matter suggested otherwise.

Yet how Yakumo herself behave around Hige right now might suggested otherwise…

…

Was she lying back then at the Bunkasai?

Was she lying?

…

"Sawachika-sempai?" Yakumo said, snapping Eri's out from her thoughts.

Eri didn't realize that during the time she was being drown on her own thoughts, she was staring intently at Yakumo—like she was scrutinizing her.

"Is anything wrong…?" Yakumo said again.

"Nothing." Eri said shortly, unaware of a hint of unfriendly tone on the way she spoke.

Yakumo was aware of it though, because right now she's staring at Eri with a confused look on her face.

…

Did I do something wrong? Yakumo asked to herself.

…

Mikoto—and Akira too, it seemed—was aware of it too, because she was now staring intently at Eri, realizing that there was something definitely happened to her (by the way, the slapping miraculously worked—Imadori appeared to regain his senses). She just couldn't finger it on what.

…

"…Are you going somewhere, Sawachika-sempai?" Sara asked, peeking from behind Yakumo's shoulder.

"Ah, yes." Eri answered, forcing a smile. "I…, my father had just returned from America, and he should arrive in Japan in about three hours later or so… I want to pick him up at the airport."

"America?" Sara said, still from behind Yakumo's shoulder. "That's nice! I bet he brought you some very nice souvenirs!"

I doubt it, Eri said to herself, but she smiled all the same.

"Yeah, I hope so." Eri said.

…

Eri turned her eyes to Yakumo.

…

"So, I'll be going now." she said in a rather deep voice. "I am sorry that I won't be able to eat your…" she stared at the plates of curry Yakumo was holding both on her left and right hands, "…delicious-looking curry, Yakumo. But I bet someone…" she stole a very quick glance at Harima, "…would be more than happy to eat my share of curry."

"Leave it to me, Sawachika-kun!" Hanai said boldly, apparently unaware that Eri didn't refer to him when she said what she just said. "I'll eat all Yakumo-kun's cooking if I have to…Urp!"

A pillow was thrown to his face by Mikoto.

…

Yakumo caught something was buried beneath the way Eri spoke to her, but for all the life in the world she couldn't finger what was it, and what was the reason behind Eri's speaking that way to her.

"I…I see…" she said awkwardly. "…Well, I guess it couldn't be helped…"

"Yes, sorry." Eri said again.

…

I need to get out of here and clear out my mind, Eri said to herself. And being in the same room with both Yakumo and Harima would most definitely not what she could say a help on clearing out her mind.

…

Just right at that moment, Haruna, who stood behind Sara, spoke,

"Hey!" she said. "Why the traffic jam?"

She couldn't see anything because her view was blocked by Yakumo and Sara in front of her.

"Hurry, please!" she said once again. "The plates are hot and my hands…"

…

All of the sudden, she felt something head-butting her legs.

It was Iori. It was just a cat. It was just an ordinary cat. It was a cat that was probably being lured there by the delicious smell coming from the curry plates.

But Haruna didn't know at first that the one head-butting her legs was a cat. If she knew, she wouldn't have to act that surprised, jerking out, and loosing her balance.

But she didn't knew, and that's why she was very surprised when something all of the sudden head-butting her legs, and then she was jerking out, and then the next thing that happened was that she lost her balance and trudging forward, knocking Sara who was standing in front of her in the process.

Sara didn't expect that to happen, of course. You could see that she didn't expect something like that to happen because of the surprised look on her face when all of the sudden she felt a sudden force on her back, pushing her forward and causing her to loose her balance. She leaned forward uncontrollably.

Of course, by doing that she was bound to knock Yakumo in the process, because Yakumo was standing right in front of her. Obviously Yakumo also didn't expect that something like that would happen, because she had also that surprised look on her face when she felt Sara knocking her from behind.

Like a domino effect, Yakumo was also losing her balance because she was getting knocked by Sara from behind. Too bad for Yakumo though, because she didn't have anyone standing directly near her to bump to, so she couldn't regain her balance as swift as Sara or Haruna could.

Thus she was tip-toeing unsteadily forward, towards the only person standing in front of her—and that person was Eri.

…

"Aaa…!" she said with a horrified look on her face.

That was the last thing she could ever say, though. She failed to regain her balance, and as the result she collided with Eri.

"Waaah!" was the only thing Eri could say during the whole ordeal. It was all happening so fast and so sudden that neither she nor Yakumo could have time to properly react.

…

-SPLAT-

-SPLAT-

-SPLAT-

…

……

"I am sorry! I am sorry!" Haruna said hurriedly. She managed to regain her balance and to keep the plates of curry she's holding safe on her hands.

She hurriedly moved forward, to see the result of the chain-effect she had started. Sara was alright too—she was able to save herself and the plates of curry she was holding from falling down.

…

But the sudden quiet atmosphere inside the room suggested that something must have happened there. When Haruna looked inside, she found to her horror that Yakumo was not as lucky as her and Sara.

She had fallen down—on top of Eri.

What's worse, it wasn't just her and Eri who had just fallen down. The plates of curry Yakumo held were under the same fate too. The plates themselves were fine, but their contents were splattered through-out the floor, and through-out Eri and Yakumo's body—some were even went as far as staining Eri's blonde hair.

…

……

Everyone was silent.

No one was talking—no one was even moving. No one even blinked.

The whole atmosphere inside the room was turned into a perfect silence, perfect still.

Even Eri, who had Yakumo on top of her, couldn't move. It was as if her brain was suddenly jammed.

Yakumo, too, who fell on top of Eri, couldn't move or say anything. It was all so sudden, that she just didn't know what to do. Now that everything has happened, though, like Eri, it was as if a part of her brain just went down all of the sudden.

…

Harima was staring at both them with his mouth slightly open, just like Tenma.

Mikoto was paralyzed, unsure about what was exactly happened in front of her.

Hanai was staring at the sight of her beloved Yakumo-kun on top of Eri with his jaw dropped on the floor. Most likely it would become a scene that he wouldn't be able to forget for a long, long, time.

Imadori, who had just regained his consciousness, was bewildered that as soon as he opened his eyes he was greeted by the sight of Yakumo on top of Eri, with Eri covered in some hot-looking liquid or something. "Kinky" was naturally the first word to cross his mind.

Haruna stared in horror to the catastrophe she initiated by accident, and Sara just couldn't seem able to say or do anything in particular.

The only one seemingly indifferent about the whole ordeal was Akira, though it would be very hard to say whether she was surprised or not because she's just that damn good at keeping a stoic face at all times.

…

……

For about a minute or so, nobody moved.

…

Finally, Akira stood up. She approached Yakumo and Eri.

She pulled Yakumo's hands softly, helping her to regain her posture.

"Come on." she said. "How long the two of you are planning to stay in that position?"

It appeared that Yakumo just realized that she was on top of Eri. She immediately stood up, blushing furiously in the process.

Mikoto moved to help Eri getting back on her feet.

…

What a mess. The curry had splattered down on the floor, true, but the worst victim here was most definitely Eri's clothes. Most of the curry contents were splattered there, and… well…

What a mess…

…

Tenma stood up too. She quickly grabbed a lot of tissues from the tissue box on top of the drawer right next to her bed, and she immediately use them to wipe the curry from Eri's clothes as best as she could—though of course, you couldn't just wipe out a whole stain of curry from someone's clothes as easy as that.

Yakumo had some curry stains on her clothes too—but nowhere as bad as those in Eri.

…

Yakumo closed her mouth with both her hands. She was too stupefied at the chain of events to even talk.

…

……

"I… I am sorry…" Yakumo finally stuttered. "Sorry—sorry, Sawachika-sempai."

Eri didn't say anything.

"No, no, no, I am the one who should apologize!" Haruna said hurriedly. She had put down her plates of curry on the floor, probably afraid of tripping over or something. "I…I was surprised because all of the sudden something touched my legs, and then I jumped, and…"

She turned herself to stare at the perpetrator of this whole mess, the black cat of doom, Iori.

No matter how sharp she stared at him, though, she knew that he was just a cat…, and you couldn't really blame a cat for stuff like this, could you?

Iori just meowed.

…

"It was all right, both of you." Mikoto said calmly, as she helped Tenma trying to remove curry stains from Eri's clothes as much as possible. "It was just an accident. Nobody is at fault."

Tenma was now trying to clean the curry splattered on the floor, with the help of Akira.

"But I…, I am sorry…… sorry…" Yakumo repeated herself.

"Don't worry." finally Eri spoke. "Like Mikoto said, it was just an accident."

…

Yeah, an accident…, just like when I found that writing on Tenma's notebook… she said to herself. It was all just an accident…

…

It was a calm voice; but a different calm from when Mikoto spoke earlier. A very different kind of calm—and Yakumo was seemingly aware of it.

…

"Are you really okay though, Eri?" Akira spoke out. "You are going to pick up your father, no? Yakumo, maybe you should lend her some of your clothes…"

Yakumo nodded hastily, but just as she started to turn back, Eri stopped her.

"No, you don't have too." Eri said slowly. "I have told Nakamura to bring me a nice set of clothes, remember?"

She untied her pig tails, and let loose her beautiful long blonde hair. She touched the part of the hair that was stained by some curry.

She turned to Tenma.

"Tenma." she said, pointing at the part of her hair that was stained. "I need to borrow your bathroom for a while—I have to wash this up. I also need to borrow your soap, to wash out this curry smell from my body."

"S…sure!" Tenma answered. "Come on, Eri-chan, I'll help you wash it out."

…

"I…is there anything that I can do?" Yakumo said nervously.

"No, thank you." Eri said shortly. "Let's go, Tenma."

She and Tenma then went to the bathroom on the first floor, leaving the rest of the guys behind.

…

Yakumo bit her lip a bit—her face looked very sorry.

"Yakumo…, I am sorry…" Haruna said—it looked like she was on the verge of crying or something.

Yakumo shook her head slowly.

"No…, it's all right… It's not your fault, Haruna-san." she said.

"That's right." this time Harima spoke out. "Like Suou just said earlier, it was all just an accident. More importantly, Imouto-san, you should also clean yourself. You got yourself some nice stains there too." He pointed out at the stains on Yakumo's clothing.

"Harima-sempai is correct, Yakumo." Sara nodded approvingly. She appeared to be very sorry too, to have bumped into Yakumo previously. She didn't say anything about it though, perhaps to avoid making Haruna felt guiltier than she already had right now. "You go clean yourself. I'll help to clean all of the stains on the floor."

"I…I'll help too!" Haruna said hastily.

Sara looked at the plates of curry she was holding.

She entered the room and gave the plates to the still jaw-on-the-floor Hanai.

"Here, Hanai-sempai." she said, smiling sweetly. "For you."

It seemed like the image of her beloved Yakumo-kun lying on top of someone else—a very insinuating position, to say the least—was very shocking to him, because he didn't even say anything when Sara handed him the plates. All of the 'Yey I got to eat Yakumo-kun's hand-made food' were seemingly gone, just like that, from his mind.

Haruna picked up her two plates of curry, and putting them down on Tenma's study desk.

It was then everyone heard a sudden honk, coming from below.

Akira walked to the window and stared down to the gates of Tenma's house, which could be seen quite clearly from where she stood.

…

"It was Nakamura-san." she said. "Pretty professional, coming here that fast…"

"Well, you must be good if you are to be the head butler of a family like Sawachika's." Mikoto commented.

…

"I…" Yakumo said, still with that apologetic look on her face. "Maybe I should go apologize once more."

"You don't have to, Yakumo-chan, don't worry." Mikoto said with a comforting tone. "Sawachika is not the kind of person who would hold a grudge over something as trivial as this. Don't worry."

Akira looked down through the window. She saw Tenma hurriedly approaching Nakamura and the limousine. She then saw Tenma was explaining something to Nakamura in a hurry. A while later Nakamura nodded. He opened the limousine, and picked something from inside.

It was a nice set of fresh, clean, dress. He gave it to Tenma, Tenma bowed herself in thanks, and hurried back inside.

…

About five minutes later, Tenma went back outside, this time together with Eri, already changed with the dress Nakamura just brought with him, with Tenma carrying the stained Eri's school uniform on her hands.

Eri and Tenma chatted awhile at the front of the gate, with Tenma bowing herself over and over to Eri, most probably asking for forgiveness for what just happened to Eri (it's not like it was Tenma's fault, though).

Eri patted Tenma's shoulder, probably saying things like "Don't worry, it's not your fault."

Tenma gave Eri's school uniform to Nakamura.

Eri then entered the limousine along with Nakamura (he carried her uniform with him to the front seat), and off they go, to the airport to pick Eri's father up, while Tenma returned back.

…

"Eri and Nakamura-san has gone." Akira informed the rest of the people inside Tenma's room. "I hope she will be alright."

"Don't over-dramatize things up." Mikoto said sternly. "It's not like she was injured or anything—she only got some curry spilled down on herself. There's nothing serious about that."

Akira just shrugged.

…

……

"Speaking of curry!" Harima all of the sudden exclaimed. "This is very delicious, Imouto-san!"

Yakumo was a bit surprised that Harima was actually eating one of the curries that Haruna put on Tenma's study desk. After all of that, she kind of forgot her first intention of coming here to her sister's room.

"Yeah!" Hanai said. He has regained his composure and has actually remembered that the very first reason that he had agreed to come to Tenma's house was actually to eat Yakumo's hand-made food. Now he was busy eating down the curry Sara gave him.

"It was very delicious!" he said heartily.

…

Despite herself, Yakumo actually managed to smile a little bit.

…

Right at that moment, Tenma entered the room.

"Yakumo!" she said. "Your friends are looking for you down below."

"Oh my gosh!" Haruna exclaimed. "We totally forgot about them!"

Sara giggled. The atmosphere had softened a bit, thank goodness.

"You'd better go back." Tenma said.

Yakumo nodded.

"Right… sorry about the whole mess, Nee-san. I'll be going down, then." she said politely. "…I will wash this…" she pointed at the carpet on Tenma's floor which was stained by curry sauce. "…later…"

"Don't worry, don't worry!" Tenma said cheerfully. "Off you go, then!"

"…right." Yakumo said, smiling a bit.

With that, she, Sara, and Haruna went to the first floor, back to their team members.

…

……

Mikoto sighed.

"What a mess." she said. "It was all happening so fast I didn't have enough time to react back then."

"I am sure Eri-chan would be alright!" Tenma said confidently. "We have washed her body with my soap—the curry's odour has completely gone from her body. No worries!"

"That's good." Mikoto gave a sigh of relief.

…

……

"Uh, guys…?" Imadori said all of the sudden, while raising one of his hands, like a student at school wanting to ask something to his teacher. The mark of Mikoto's punch was still fresh on his face. "I…am not following exactly what was going on in here…, but…… what about the script?"

---

It was already 8 PM in the night.

Normally, a house inhabited only by two young girls would pretty much be quiet, but that was not the case for Tsukamoto's household.

Not when there was a girl called Tsukamoto Tenma around.

Not when she was watching television.

And most definitely not when the show on the television was "The Three Who Were Slashed," featuring Mangoku, played by the actor, Yakushamaru Kouji, yours truly.

…

Every time Mangoku sliced his enemy, Tenma swung around a mop. Every time Mangoku yelled his cries of victory, Tenma also yelled her own cries of victory. Every time wicked bad guys ambushed him out of the blue, Tenma would yell, "Injustice, injustice!" And so on, and so forth.

No wonder it was quite lively here in Tsukamoto's house. Any thief planning to break into the house might probably would reconsider his plan, thinking that there was a party going down on the house or something.

…

……

Now the television was playing a commercial, so Tenma was cooling down a bit. Yakumo, who never been able to talk properly with her sister during the show, seized this chance to strike a proper conversation with Tenma.

…

"Nee-san." she said, softly. She was rather glad that The Three Who Were Slashed was a very popular show—thus it was filled with plentiful of commercials during its break—providing enough time for Yakumo to converse normally with her sister.

"What?" Tenma said, puffing out. She had just imitating Mangoku's secret technique of cutting down one hundred bad guys, so she's a bit out of breath.

…

"I never get to know the result of your meeting." Yakumo said. "How was it? Whose script your team will finally use?"

…

"Well…" Tenma said, contemplating. "The meeting went like this, Yakumo. Nobody was voting for Imadori-kun's script, so he was out of the picture… Then, Imadori-kun voted for Miko-chan's script—that was obvious. Miko-chan got one vote."

"…And then?" Yakumo asked.

"Harima-kun voted for our script, Yakumo!" Tenma said cheerfully. "I didn't think that he would vote for our script. So that's one vote down for us."

Tenma stopped for a moment, apparently thinking about something.

"…But he seemed surprised when I reveal our script, Yakumo." Tenma said. "Like he was in some sort of a shock or something."

…

Of course, it's only normal for him to be shocked, because Tenma based her script on the story Yakumo told her, and Yakumo based her story on his story.

……Now that she thought about it, she did reveal Harima-san's secret to her sister, about the whole manga thing; only that she did not do it in a blatant, obvious kind of way.

Suddenly Yakumo felt worried. Harima has specifically asked her not to spill his manga secret to anyone, most particularly her sister. But in a way, Yakumo just did that, to her sister too, nonetheless.

…

Yakumo felt worried that Harima would be able to make the connection the story on her sister's script was really about him, and that the one spilling the beans was none other than Yakumo herself.

……

………

"But then…" Tenma continued thoughtfully. "Right after being shocked, all of the sudden he grinned…"

…

"Grinned?" Yakumo said slowly.

"Yeah!" Tenma nodded her head. "Like, he's really happy about something. He didn't even seem so upset anymore about his script didn't get any vote. I just don't get it…"

…

Yakumo didn't get it too…

But at least she felt really glad that Harima-san didn't appear to be upset over the revealing of her sister's script.

…

"Miko-chan voted for Eri-chan's script." Tenma continued her explanation. "She said that she liked the script. So that's one for Eri-chan. I had a hard time to decide where I should put my vote to, since I couldn't vouch for our script..."

"…So, whose script you chose?" Yakumo continued to ask. "Harima-san's?"

Tenma shook her head.

"No…, I felt kind of bad to Harima-kun, since he voted for our script and all… but I really liked Akira's script, so my vote went for her." Tenma explained. "Her script was so unique! Everybody was quite surprised when she unveiled her script!"

Knowing her sister, Yakumo didn't pursue to ask what was it that was "so unique" about Takano-sempai's script. If she were to ask, her sister might try to explain it to her thoroughly through-out the night, non-stop.

…

"So that's one for our script, one for Miko-chan, one for Eri-chan, and one for Akira-chan." Tenma said, raising her fingers one by one. "Harima-kun didn't get any vote… too bad. I figure at first that Hanai-kun would vouch for him, but…"

"Hanai-sempai didn't get any vote?" Yakumo asked.

Tenma shook her head.

"No." she said. "Miko-chan said that no wonder he didn't get any vote, because Hanai-kun's script was……"

Tenma stopped all of the sudden. She stared at Yakumo, apparently thinking of something.

"…Hanai-sempai's script was…?" Yakumo said, raising one of her eyebrows.

"No, no, no, nothing." Tenma shook her head once again and waved her hands a bit frantically. "Nothing. Anyway, Hanai-kun didn't get any votes too, so there was none among the boys who got any vote whatsoever. So it's finally the showdown between the girls!"

Tenma said that last sentence in such a full spirit that Yakumo couldn't help herself not to smile watching it.

…

"So, Hanai-sempai's vote went to whose script?" Yakumo said.

"At first I thought that he would give his vote to Miko-chan…" Tenma said thoughtfully. "But I was quite surprised to see that he finally gave his vote to our script, Yakumo!"

…

Yakumo didn't get any surprise at all hearing that, actually. Seeing that her sister was always using the term "our" to describe her script, during the meeting she must have slip out the fact that her script, in fact, was based upon something that came originally from Yakumo.

And well… after that, it was quite obvious about whose script Hanai-sempai would choose…

…

……

Yakumo actually blushed a little by thinking that way, but she felt happy all the same that her "influence" on her Nee-san's script would actually make Hanai-sempai voted for "their" script.

…

"So…" she said slowly. "Our script got two votes…"

"Yeah!" Tenma exclaimed happily. "But don't feel glad yet, Yakumo, because we've still got one vote left: Eri-chan's!"

"Ah…"

"Yup!" Tenma said. "Tonight she is supposed to call me, to tell me about her vote. If she later votes one of the girls' scripts except ours, then tomorrow we have to make a re-voting between our script and that script she voted."

"I see…"

Yakumo turned her eyes to the television. It was very impressive how the people running Touto television actually managed to squeeze all of those commercials into her sister's favourite show, because the commercials were still running right now.

…Not that she would complain about that, though.

…

"…I still feel bad to her, Nee-san." Yakumo said quietly. "About what happened today. I should go apologize again tomorrow at school."

Hearing that, Tenma laughed softly.

"Yakumo, Yakumo, Yakumo." she said. "First of all, it was just an accident, and no one got hurt or anything. Second of all: it wasn't everybody's fault. Third of all: Eri-chan's herself said that it's okay. As far as I am able to conclude, what was happening today is already over. Zip. Nada. Over. Why do you get so worked up over the incident anyway?"

Yakumo didn't answer the question.

…

It's true, though, that if you really looked into it, unexpected as it was; what was happening back then in Tenma's room wasn't really something serious. Sure, she spilt some curry over someone else's clothing by accident, but it wasn't something that someone would actually think about all day long or anything. In fact, most people would probably chuckle themselves when they remembering that kind of thing.

No one got hurt.

It was an accident.

And the victim herself already said that she was okay with it.

…

But why did Yakumo felt something……, something different?... something unusual from the whole things happening back then.

……

She felt like Sawachika-sempai was staring at her differently right from the moment she entered her Nee-san's room. There was a hint of unfriendliness on the way Sawachika-sempai talked to her. There was a hint of coldness inside Sawachika-sempai's voice.

Something in the way she acted, it was as if Yakumo had done something terribly wrong to her and she was holding some sort of a hidden grudge about it.

…

But what?

For all the life in the world Yakumo couldn't think of any reason why Sawachika-sempai would all of the sudden act that way towards her.

The last time Sawachika-sempai act all unfriendly towards her was during the whole misunderstanding fiasco about her relationship with Harima-san…, which reached its peak when—due to all sorts of this and that—she inadvertently took a part on 2-C's theatrical play.

But she cleared that up, right…?

…

She… she already told Sawachika-sempai the…true…nature of her relationship with Harima-san when she danced with her at the closing ceremony…… right?

She knew that Sawachika-sempai was not the kind of person like her Nee-san, whose mind was so impenetrable that sometimes Yakumo just felt helpless about trying to remind her every time her Nee-san teased her about her relationship with Harima-san.

…

So everything was over, right…?

…

……

So why it felt like I have done something wrong towards her even before the curry incident? Yakumo thought to herself. I felt that she was mad to me about…something…

…

That's why she was a bit worked up about the whole curry incident. She feared that it was only further fuelled Sawachika-sempai's anger towards her, even if Sawachika-sempai said it was okay, and even if she didn't even know the reason behind Sawachika-sempai's anger towards her in the first place.

…

……

Yakumo stared at her sister, who was now starting to get excited again because the commercials were already over.

Probably they wouldn't be able to hold a decent conversation right now, no thanks to Mangoku, but Yakumo figured that she should just try anyway,

…

"Nee-san?" she said.

"Hmm?" Tenma replied, with her eyes still fixed on the television screen.

"When… Sawachika-sempai calls you later…" Yakumo continued. "Can I borrow your cell-phone for a while? I want to… talk to her about something."

"Sure!" Tenma said.

She answered that so fast it appeared that she wasn't actually thinking when she's doing that. Yakumo didn't even sure whether her Nee-san actually heard the question or not: she sort of felt that when Nee-san would just simply say "Sure!" in reply to anything said to her right now.

…

…Well…, it's good enough, Yakumo said in her mind.

…

About six minutes later, Tenma's cell-phone on the table suddenly rang.

…And such was the concentration Tenma had in her mind when she watched The Three Who Were Slashed that she didn't even notice that her cell-phone was ringing.

"Nee-san…" Yakumo said to her sister.

Her sister didn't react, while the cell-phone was continuously ringing.

…

"Nee-san!" Yakumo said, a bit louder.

Thank goodness that right at that exact moment, the show was being halt yet again by commercials. Truly a sign of a very popular show—the commercials were very often and most of the time they took up a lot more time in the show than the actual show itself.

With the show out of the picture (!) for a while, Tenma was now able to hear her cell-phone rang.

"…Oh no!" she said as she ran to the table (it was Tenma's custom to actually watch the show while standing, so that she could swing around her arms when Mangoku kicking ass on the screen), sat next to it, and hurriedly answered the call.

…

"Moshi-moshi. Tenma?" it was Eri's voice coming from the other side of the phone.

"Oh, Eri-chan!" Tenma said cheerfully.

Yakumo jerked up a bit.

Tenma gave Yakumo the signal to turn down the television's volume, so Yakumo picked up the remote and do what her sister just told her to do.

…

"How's the deal with your father, Eri-chan?" Tenma asked. "Everything's okay?"

"Oh, yes." Eri answered. "Don't worry about that. Everything's fine. My father is now sleeping, after having dinner with me. He must be exhausted from all the trip he must endure from America to Japan."

"I see." Tenma said, feeling relief that everything was okay for Eri and her father. "But he's okay, right?"

"He's fine, he was just tired. That's all." Eri replied. "But we got to talk quite a bit during the trip from the airport to our house, and during the dinner we're having together. It was quite fun."

Eri sounded so cheerful at the phone right now that Tenma couldn't help herself not to be cheerful too.

…

"Anyway, Tenma, enough about me and my father. What about the meeting?" Eri asked. "Has the winner been decided yet?"

"No, not yet." Tenma answered. "We are waiting for your vote on the matter, Eri-chan."

"Well, I figured that if someone's script already gathered four or five votes, my vote wouldn't matter anymore, right?" Eri said. "So, what's the situation?"

Tenma explained to Eri what she previously explained to Yakumo.

…

"Ah, I see." Eri said when Tenma finally done with the explanations. "So the boys didn't get any votes, and their chances to win this thing were pretty much blown to oblivion…Well, I'm not saying that I am surprised about that, though."

Tenma giggled. Sometimes the way Eri worded things up was quite amusing for her to hear.

"And seeing that I can't put a vote to my own script, I guess my chance to win is already gone too, eh?" Eri said from over there.

Tenma stopped giggling.

…

"Ah…" she said with an apologetic tone. "I…, I am sorry about that, Eri-chan."

Eri laughed softly over the phone.

"Silly girl, why do you have to apologize?" she said. She appeared to be amused. "It was all fair and square, and I won't upset or anything with you cast your vote to Akira instead of me. Don't worry about it, Tenma."

"Oh…" Tenma sighed with relief. "Okay."

"So…" Eri continued. "If I choose either Mikoto or Akira's script, then tomorrow we would have to commence a re-voting session between your script and the script I choose right now."

"Yes." Tenma nodded her head.

"But if I choose your script right now, then that's that! Your script shall be the winner, right Tenma?"

"Yes…" Tenma said, a bit nervous.

In reality, she really hoped that Eri would vouch for her script, because that would mean that the combined effort of herself and Yakumo actually become the official script of her group for Sasakura-sensei's movie project, and not only that would greatly please her, she was sure that it would make Yakumo happy too.

But of course, she couldn't just say that directly to Eri.

…

……

"Well…" Eri said, contemplating herself. "I have read all the scripts. And what's the deal with Akira anyway? Making a script like this? It is just so weird."

Tenma couldn't help herself not to laugh hearing that assessment, her nervousness evaporated in an instant.

Her mind flew to the moment today when Akira finally revealed her script to the rest of the team. The astonished looks from everybody's face back then were just so amusing.

…

Akira's script in the nutshell: it was a story about an undercover female spy-detective extraordinaire, being hired by a famous politician to spy upon her own wife, because the famous politician suspected that her wife was having an affair with his greatest political rival. His greatest concern was not the fact that his wife was having an affair with someone else, but the possibility of that greatest rival of his would use his wife to obtain invaluable secret information about him that his rival could use to topple him off from the opposition.

So he hired that undercover female spy-detective extraordinaire to investigate the suspected affair. He thought that if the affair was true, then he could make it to work on his favour. If he could get the hard-cold evidence that his wife was having an affair with his rival, he could use it to expose the affair to the public, saying that his rival was the kind of wicked man who would use dirty tactics such as wooing someone else's wife just to get the things that he need.

That would put a heavy negative impression from the public upon his rival. Of course, the public would have a negative impression upon his wife too, but that wasn't his main concern. At least the public would view him as a man victimized by his own scandalous wife and his dirty rival. That would push his popularity among the public through-out the roof, without a doubt.

Of course, the affair was true enough, and the undercover female spy-detective extraordinaire was able to make hard-cold evidences in the form of photographs and recorded video of that affair when she managed to sneak in to the mansion of the rival and witnessed the affair itself with her own eyes.

Unfortunately, due to an accidental fluke, the guards of the mansion spotted her, and the rival soon realized that someone was spying on him when he was all mushy-wishy with the betraying wife. He too realized the fact that whoever sent the spy would try to expose this affair in an effort to blow up his positive image in front of the public.

Of course, he couldn't let that happened!

…

So the rest of Akira's script tells the story of the undercover female spy-detective extraordinaire trying to escape the grasps of the rival's guards trying to catch her and the evidences of the affair. It involved many extraordinary things, including—but not limited to: car-chases, bike-chases, swimming, camouflaging, even the act of masquerading as a nun.

Of course, they wouldn't call her the undercover female spy-detective extraordinaire if she wasn't the kind of person who couldn't finish a job like that, even with all the obstacles and the dangers involved. So she finally succeeded, and the evidences were successfully delivered to the man who hired her.

The famous politician went public with that evidence, and as he got the expected results. The public was booing his rival as a man who would go as far as trying to steal someone else's wife just to get his needs, and the public was booing his wife as a cheating woman. Well, not that the famous politician cared about his wife being hammered down by the public though, because just as he predicted, his image as the victimized person boosted his popularity among the public very considerably.

In the end, the whole incident really helped him to gain a very important position on the government.

…

……

When Mikoto asked Akira how she could consider a script like that as a romantic script, Akira said nonchalantly that her script did involve a romance between the cheating wife and the rival. She even mentioned the word 'love' on her script approximately…, twelve times. So it should be enough, right?

In the end, everyone was just wondering just how she could possibly come up with a script like that.

She got no vote, save from Tenma, who found her script to be really exciting.

…

……

"Are you going to vote for Akira-chan's script, Eri-chan?" Tenma asked.

"Are you crazy?" Eri said disbelievingly from the other side. "Even if we to ignore the fact that the script is so weird and out of place for a project like what we're trying to do right now, how could we possibly come up with the budget to fund all of the car-chases scenes and such? I couldn't believe Akira came up with something as crazy as this. So, no Tenma, my vote is not going to her."

"I see." Tenma said. "So, to Miko-chan's?"

…

Eri was silent for a moment there. Tenma could heard the sound or rustling papers coming from Eri's side—it appeared like Eri was holding the scripts themselves right now.

…

"Her script was indeed interesting…" Eri mumbled. "But……, Tenma, did you know what happened to her a long time ago, around the time we watched the firework festival together?"

Tenma tried to return her mind to that mind.

"No…" she said—she wanted to say 'around that time you were having a fight with her, Eri-chan?'—but in the end she decided against it. "Why do you ask me that?"

"……"

"Eri-chan?" Tenma said.

"…Nah. Nothing. Forget it." Eri finally replied.

Tenma had the feeling that Eri was hiding something from her, but she didn't press the matter further—if that was a thing that she should know, Eri would have told her already. So she didn't ask any more questions about it.

…

"So, anyway, about your vote, Eri-chan…" Tenma said nervously.

"…You know what, Tenma." Eri said. "I think I am going to cast my vote for your script."

…

……

It took a couple of moments for Tenma to actually digest what Eri just said. She thought that she heard it wrong, or that there was something wrong with ears.

…

"W…What?" Tenma said.

"That's what I said." Eri said again, this time with a more assuring tone. "I want to give my vote to your script, Tenma."

"…A…are you sure, Eri-chan?" Tenma said, stuttering because of the building excitement within herself.

"Of course I am sure." Eri answered confidently. "Why do you act so surprised, anyway? You should be happy now that your script is the winner. Congratulations."

Now that she was sure that she didn't misheard what Eri just said, Tenma couldn't contain her excitement any longer.

She yelled out a loud "Yeah!", while simultaneously punching her left hand on to the roof, making Yakumo who sat near her jerking up a bit out of surprise.

…

"…Wow, Tenma." Eri said from over the phone, she appeared to be amused by Tenma's sudden yell. "Calm down a little."

"I am sorry, I am sorry!" Tenma said, while smiling broadly. "It's just that, I didn't think that you would cast your vote for our script, Eri-chan."

"Well…… your script is surprisingly good, Tenma. I didn't know that you are able to write something as good as that." Eri explained.

She stopped for a moment, apparently thinking for something.

…

"What do you mean by 'our' script, Tenma?" Eri asked slowly. "Do you have someone helping you making your script?"

"Yes, of course!" Tenma said cheerfully. "I mean, I do write all of the script all by myself, but the original idea was coming from Yakumo!"

…

……

"I… see." Eri said slowly. She inadvertently changed the tone with which she spoke, although Tenma was too happy right now to actually aware of it.

…

"It must be wonderful…" Eri continued. "...to have such a dependable young sister by your side, eh, Tenma?"

"Of course!" Tenma answered cheerfully. "Oh, speaking of which, Eri-chan, Yakumo said that she wanted to talk with you about something."

Tenma peered to her sister while at the same time Yakumo was also looking at her.

…

"...Talk to me about something?" Eri's voice suddenly became a bit deeper. "…About what? If it's about the curry incident, tell her that it was okay—I am not upset by it."

"Well, that's what I have been trying to tell her." Tenma said, nodding her head. "But she still wanted to talk to you about something. Here, I pass the phone to her, okay?"

"Wait, Ten…!"

Tenma didn't hear Eri's last words because she already passed her cell-phone to Yakumo.

Tenma mouthed 'Our script won!' to Yakumo, making Yakumo smiled.

…

Yakumo moved the cell-phone to her right ear, before saying, a bit nervously, "Moshi-moshi… Sawachika-sempai?"

…

……

………

The commercials were over, and the show has resumed. By this time Tenma was usually standing up, walking to the front of the television set again, preparing herself to cheer on Mangoku's awesomeness.

But she didn't do it this time—because amazingly, something distracted her from her most favourite show.

…

At first she felt that it was kind of odd that Yakumo didn't talk at all while holding her cell-phone. When she looked to her direction, she saw to her bewilderment that Yakumo's expression has changed.

Her face looked a bit down.

…

"Yakumo?" she said worriedly. "What's wrong?"

Yakumo looked up to her sister, smiling.

"…Nothing." she answered as she gave the cell-phone back to Tenma. "Nee-san, I want to go sleep right now. Is that okay with you?"

"Are you sure?" Tenma asked, taking the cell-phone back. "You don't want to watch the rest of the show together with me?"

Yakumo shook her head slowly.

"No…, I am sorry." Yakumo said as she stood up. "I am…rather tired today."

"Oh…" Tenma said.

Well, she also had that meeting for her group, so Tenma figured that it would be natural for her to get tired, after all. Besides, Yakumo was not that big of a fan of The Three Who Were Slashed, unlike Tenma, who just by staring at the show title alone would get all of her energy re-energized in an instant.

"Okay, then, Yakumo." Tenma smiled. "Sweet dreams."

"Good night, Nee-san." Yakumo said softly.

With that, Yakumo walked out from the living room.

…

……

Tenma felt that something was happening to her sister, but she couldn't figure it out.

When she looked at her cell-phone, however, she noticed something.

She noticed that there was a word there, a warning coming from the program on her cell-phone.

…

It said,

-DISCONNECTED-

---

To Be Continued