A.N.: OK, with this chapter, we are now entering PHASE 2: DEPRIVED. This is still a Nokoru-sama-centered fanfiction! So that means much more suffering for Nokoru-sama because I love him so! ''''
THE WAY YOU ARE IS FINE ENOUGH
CHAPTER 7 – LOVED ONES
The following day was a real chaos: girls from all grades and ages showered over class 6-Z, where Imonoyama Nokoru had just walked into. The teacher could barely enter the class in order to give his lesson, but it only took one smile and a polite request from the blonde and they were out; the other people in the class could only be amazed at his ability to control females.
After a quick check-up from the teachers and the rest of his classmates, Nokoru was really relieved when the class began. When it finished, he had to go directly to the Student Council, where there would surely be an entire pack of papers flooding the room.
However, it was impossible for Imonoyama Nokoru to walk through the School without being noticed and inevitably hassled, so, soon enough, there was another group of girls surrounding him and asking if he was alright.
"Nokoru-sama, are you really going to work now… already!"
"But you just recovered from a very serious situation!"
"Wouldn't it be better if you rested a bit longer? I'm sure Takamura-san and Ijyuuin-san will understand!"
"Nokoru-sama!"
"Nokoru-sama!"
The blonde smiled at them, truly touched by their words, but he had a job to do, and he was feeling much better anyway. However, he could only think of responses to offer them, but the chance to actually say something never really came, as the female students around him wouldn't calm down, not giving him a chance to reply.
So all he did was smile… and eventually, they quieted down. When they did, Nokoru gave the girls a quick reassurance.
"I'm OK, please don't worry about it; besides, Suoh and Akira have been alone handling all that work by themselves up until now, that's why I must help them as soon as possible. Now if you'll excuse me," the President asked as he walked towards the huge doors of the Elementary School Student Council room, which they had reached by then.
"Nokoru-sama!"
As a lot of the voices called him in unison, the blond just had to look back, silently questioning them.
His answer came in the form of a girl with curly brown hair, green eyes and medium-height, apparently a 5th-grader. She stepped forward, placing herself one step in front of the others, shyly voicing their request.
"Please, don't overexert yourself!" She asked and the others behind her nodded.
With a yet another smile, this one even more content than the previous ones he had given them, Nokoru gave a short nod. "Of course!" He replied, and slightly opening one of the doors, he slithered in, closing it behind him.
Inside the room, leaning on the wooden doors as he sighed, his right arm over closed eyes, Nokoru was greeted by two happy faces.
"Ohayou gozaimasu, kaichou!" Akira and Suoh said together.
"Ohayou!" The blonde replied. "You guys must be really lost and tired by now, take the rest of the day off, Akira, Suoh, I'll take care of the rest of my papers…"
"Actually, kaichou, we're not leaving you alone again. Besides, look at the amount of documents you'll have to go through!" The fourth-grader said, his hand gesturing to the endless stacks of papers behind him. "We couldn't get half of them finished even though we were working full time these last couple of months! How do you do that!"
"Wow! Now that's a LOT of papers!" Nokoru said, amazed at how much problems one school could have in his absence. Stacks and stack of white sheets flooded the room, particularly near his desk, making it almost impossible to get to it. To finish all those papers, even he would need at least a few days to get through all of them. "Oh well," he sighed, "let's get to work!"
Suoh and Akira stared at him in awe: it was the first time they actually saw him eager to do any of the school paperwork. The Takamura heir specifically had been expecting major headaches for the next few days, since he thought it would probably be even harder to get the President to look through the documents, but seeing that his kaichou seemed unexplainably eager to start, or perhaps to finish would be a better wording, Suoh wasted no time in helping the blonde get to his seat. Placing the older boy on his shoulders, the ninja jumped over the rivers of white cellulose flawlessly, thus reaching the President's desk and placing him on the large chair.
"Arigatou, Suoh!" Nokoru said with a wide smile. The fifth-grader gave a small nod and, leaping back to his desk, proceeded with his own work, as did the Treasurer. The young Imonoyama gave the other two a quick look and a small smile, even though they were too preoccupied to see it, and started his own job.
It took the blonde about five days to finish both the late documents and the ones that kept coming since he returned. When he finally stamped the last of the papers, Suoh arranged them all and Akira brought in some tea and a huge chocolate cake to celebrate. Nokoru ate about half of it by himself.
"Gokurousama deshita (Good work), kaichou!" The black-haired boy said, a little sweatdrop on the back of his head as he watched the older senpai happily eating. The President had worked practically non-stop all those days, only once accepting the snacks Akira had brought, and that was once half of the documents were viewed and stamped, which had been on the third day. Nokoru had been the first one to arrive at the Elementary Student Council Room and the last one to go during the five days span.
"Yes, thank goodness that's over with! Gokurousama deshita, kaichou!" Suoh said, knowing how much effort the sixth-grader had put, thus not really minding the fact that the President was practically eating the cake by himself. Of course, he also knew the Imonoyama wouldn't really eat the whole sweet alone because the blonde would never be that greedy. "Let's leave for tomorrow any other papers that will surely still arrive today, since we're only in the middle of our council work period. I think we can call it a day."
Had that been any normal circumstance, Akira would have looked at the Takamura boy in wild shock, but their senpai had been working so much the last five days, the signs of exhaustion were evident on his handsome face. Clearly he hadn't been sleeping or eating much lately, therefore he had obviously lost a bit of weight. Summing all that up, the fourth-grader found nothing astonishing at Suoh's words; their President surely deserved the extra rest.
By then, Nokoru had already finished eating enough to satisfy his stomach, so he just sat back against the couch. "Aren't you going to eat, Akira, Suoh?" He questioned.
"I'm not really hungry, I ate just an hour ago, kaichou."
"Same goes for me. You, however, clearly needed to eat something, and now that you're done, go home, kaichou, and get some sleep! You obviously need it, we can tell just looking at your face! We'll see you tomorrow," the ninja said, a slight tone of worry in his voice.
Smiling a bit, Nokoru got up. "Thanks. Well then, I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Of course," the blue-haired boy replied, "and I hope you don't start giving me trouble again." He added mentally, but never let the words escape his lips, knowing well that they weren't very appropriate at the moment.
Grabbing his coat, the blonde was about to open the doors when the same voice stopped him.
"Wait!" Suoh shouted, "On second thought, I'm dropping you home. Don't want you being kidnapped yet again!" He said, giving the Imonoyama boy a pointed look that could be translated as knowing something more.
Nokoru immediately looked down and brought out his fan, using it to hide the lower part of his face from the other two boys. "There's no need to bother, Suoh. I'm fine." He said, voice a little bit lower than normal, but the lack of the usual twinkle in his eyes told the others something wasn't right.
Assuming it was just the fatigue, though, they immediately dismissed the fact and, getting their respective coats, accompanied the older boy home.
Waving off to his friends back at the limousine, Nokoru entered his house. As soon as the blonde boy was out of sight, the other two stopped waving and looked at each other as the large black car, which belonged to the Takamura family, followed the driveway out of the huge Imonoyama property.
"Was it just me, or did kaichou seem really tired!" Akira asked.
"No, you're right, he was very tired, he's been working for days straight."
"I know, Takamura-senpai, and I was wondering, just why did he suddenly stop arguing with you about it and decided to do all his paperwork with no complaints?" The younger boy inquired with a raised eyebrow. "I miss the kaichou that argued all the time, but still got the job done, he was much more fun!"
"I don't really have a doubtless answer to that, Ijyuuin, but I can guess. You know, as much as kaichou hates the student council work, what he hates even more is disappointing people, or worse, burdening them. He probably felt guilty for leaving us with all those papers by ourselves and wanted to make amends for it by working as much as he could to have them finished as soon as possible." The ninja answered with a calm expression as he looked out the windows.
Akira, however, wasn't really convinced. "But it wasn't even his fault! He was kidnapped and hospitalized! How can that be his fault, Takamura-senpai!"
Suoh gave a small smile before answering. "You know him, Ijyuuin, that's just how kaichou is. He blamed himself for burdening us, that's how he's always been."
"But…"
"Besides," the blue-haired boy interrupted his kouhai and, with a sigh, continued, "now that all the documents are viewed and that he'll get a good night's rest, kaichou'll be totally reenergized tomorrow and back to his unstoppable self. You'll see, when we arrive tomorrow, he won't be there, as usual, he'll come late and will give us a major headache until he starts to work on the student council documents again, and by then, there'll be lots of stacks of papers by his desk."
The 4th-grader suppressed a giggle. "That sounds like the usual kaichou, all right!"
"Yeah, so it does." The other whispered as the limousine finally reached the enormous gates of the Imonoyama property and left it.
As the large car exited, a lonely figure back at the mansion stood by the tall glass windows, right palm completely flattened against it, his eyes never leaving the long black vehicle until it was out of sight.
"Thank you, Akira, Suoh…" Nokoru whispered, a small smile adorning his features.
Not surprisingly, things happened the following day exactly like Suoh had predicted: the President arrived late and refused to acknowledge his duties, as usual. Akira found it relieving to have the old Nokoru back, but felt a little sorry for the Secretary, since he was the one that was losing his time and patience trying to get the older boy to work.
With a smile, the youngest of the three served the afternoon tea and cake, quite happy that his President was eating it with satisfaction evident on the blonde's face.
And so, everything was back to normal, mainly Nokoru's disposition to not do any of the student council work and his ability to turn any of Suoh's attempts to convince him otherwise into totally different topics. Of course, the President never really completely slacked off: when the papers started becoming too much, he would go through them all in one shift and start the whole quarreling with his Secretary the next day all over again. It made the latter wonder if the Imonoyama actually had fun with Suoh's distress.
A month later, on a lovely Monday afternoon, the blonde had barely set foot in the room when someone was immediately before him, as if coming out of nowhere; the doors suddenly shutting with somewhat of a large noise, which startled the 6th-grader, until a familiar voice made pierced the tension.
"Kaichou, these papers," Suoh said as he displayed about 25 sheets before the older boy, "I need you to look at them. The girls of the orchestra club are having a small problem with their event. We can't take any action until you look these through!"
With a nervous laugh, Nokoru managed to escape the ninja's arms trapping him against the closed doors and put a few meters between them. "Well, you seem a bit exasperated to do that, Suoh. This wouldn't have anything to do with our dear Nagisa-jyou now, would it?" He asked the Secretary, the trusty fan appearing out of nowhere to block his face from the other's view. "If I'm not mistaken, she's the President of that club and the Kindergarten Student Council Treasurer, isn't she?"
At the thought of his young girlfriend, the fifth-grader turned bright red and couldn't manage a proper answer, stumbling on his words instead. "Ah, well, I, uh… I… don't know what you mean, kaichou! I just need all these papers done," he said, pointing to all the new stacks of documents that had accumulated during the last five days, "but I'm trying to get through at least with these, which are more urgent. They're due this evening!" The Secretary replied exasperated. In truth, he was really trying to get the urgent papers done, but that didn't mean he couldn't try to help the younger girl while at it.
"Oh…" the President merely responded, the fan still hiding the amused smirk on his lips, although Suoh knew it was there.
At that moment, Akira came in through the side door that connected to the toilet. As he set eyes on the scene, he immediately knew the fifth-grader was trying to get their senpai to work, but decided to play innocent and see if he could help. "What's going on?" The black-haired boy asked sweetly.
"Nothing, Ijyuuin." The ninja replied, but the blonde wasn't about to stay quiet.
"Nothing, nothing at all, Akira. Suoh's just worried about the event that his girlfriend's club is organizing. I'm sure you remember Nagisa-jyou, your girlfriend's best friend, right?" Nokoru said as he waved his fan and walked past the youngest of the three, who had tensed and seemed to be turning changing skin color. The President hid an impish smirk, "Speaking of Ookawa-kaichou, how is she? Have you two seen each other much lately? Is she the reason why you had to leave early on Friday again?" He asked, a very amused expression hidden by the papery object he always carried around.
With those words, it was Akira's turn to acquire a very reddish color on his cheeks, almost spreading throughout his entire face. "What!" He shouted weakly.
The older boy merely sat back on one of the room's couches and watched his two kouhais' reactions interestedly. He had to admit they were really cute when blushing like that, so Nokoru made a mental note to comment more about the two girls and their relationships with the Elementary School Student Council Secretary and Treasurer. He liked to tease them about it, that's right, but he was also very happy because both had found people he knew loved his two precious friends back. The Imonoyama heir had full consciousness of the fact that he wouldn't be able to concentrate on anything of the sort, and that if one day he actually did have a more intimate relationship with anyone, it would be his family's doings for sure.
It had always been like that ever since the Imonoyamas became a powerful family: marriages were always arranged, treated like any other business, used to increase the family's resources and to secure the next generation of its members. As for dating, the children were educated to not think of such trivial things, so the marriage was usually their first real experience. Sighing as he thought of that, Nokoru laid back against the comfortable seat he was in and closed his eyes, completely forgetting the two panicked boys before him. It wasn't that he was actually sad or anything about the situation, the blonde knew his role and was prepared to accept it, but sometimes he wished someone would understand just how lonely he felt.
"And what loneliness does to me." He mentally added bitterly. He had never told anyone about all the health problems he'd faced, especially the mental breakdowns; these had all resulted in very bad consequences, some almost disastrous.
Oblivious to their kaichou's trails of thought, Akira and Suoh finally managed to compose themselves somewhat and, looking at each other, both mutely reached the agreement of backfiring Nokoru's diversion trick. Clearing their voices and getting the older boy out of his own world, as soon as they had his attention, the Secretary finally muttered a coherent reply.
"Really, kaichou, you already know about our love lives, how come we never get to know yours?" The ninja asked with a smirk, anxious to see the President blushing like they had just seconds before or at least top see the President try to evade the subject.
"Takamura-senpai's right, kaichou! It's unfair! You always have advantage over us!" The black-haired boy complained with an innocent expression as he and the other closed in on the oldest of them. "Come on, tell us who you like!"
"There's not much to talk about. There's no one, really. That's it." Nokoru replied with an apparent careless attitude.
They were a bit disappointed with the blonde's lack of reaction and the blank reply, but they pressed on anyway, certain he was just trying to hide the truth from them. Ganging up on the Imonoyama, they came close enough to him to actually breathe the same air.
"Kaichou, don't try to fool us! You of all people would be the last one we'd believe to not have anyone you really like!" Suoh said.
"Don't expect us to believe that! There's no way someone as wonderful as you can still be single! Or don't tell me you're afraid of rejection, kaichou?" Akira said mockingly, trying to get a reaction from the blonde.
Now that hurt. Nokoru could barely believe the two people he treasured most were causing him all the pain he suddenly felt in his heart. "I think it's the first time I'm actually hoping I'm having a heart attack," he thought as his hand reflexively raised to the left side of his chest, "Anything's better than being hurt by them. I can't bear it!"
As much as he was suffering inside, however, the 6th-grader never let it surface on his face, where his kouhais were anxiously eyeing. Clutching his chest discretely, he just turned quietly and gently grabbed the papers from Suoh's hands. "It's time we start on these, don't you think, Suoh?" The President asked with a fake smile as he raised himself from his seat.
The fifth-grader was a bit surprised; that wasn't any of the reactions he'd been expecting, but since the blonde actually decided to start with the documents, the ninja silently let Nokoru slip by him gracefully. When he looked at the black-haired boy, the latter just shrugged and kept quiet, observing the Imonoyama heir sit on his chair and work on the papers. To their surprise, not only did he finish in less than four minutes the documents he'd grabbed from Suoh, Nokoru also started working on the other stacks of papers at an incredible speed without a word needing to be said by the Secretary; he didn't even stop for a snack. In fact, the President seemed so absorbed by the task, he pretty much ignored the other two unconsciously during the rest of the day. At night, he kept unusually quiet on their way to his house, and when the two bid him goodnight respectfully, their senpai avoided their concerned looks and walked in, shutting the door slowly behind him.
To Nokoru, since the pain in his chest started, his actions seemed almost mechanical, involuntary, both to him and to the other two. The difference was the blonde thought he was hiding his feelings pretty well, while Akira and Suoh thought it was obvious he was suddenly saddened by some unknown reason to them.
"Hey, Takamura-senpai, kaichou turned awfully quiet after we ganged up on him. Do you think we hurt him in any way?" The fourth-grader asked in a low voice, almost shyly, when the blue-eyed boy disappeared inside the huge mansion.
"We can find out tomorrow. If he's normal by then, we'll know it was nothing. If he's still upset, we'll ask him and apologize if it was our fault." Was the calculating reply. "Kami-sama (God) forbid this doesn't evolve into something worse again." Suoh thought as he remembered the information on his kaichou's health background he'd discovered before.
And right then, as soon as the limousine exited the property through the large gates and those thoughts were registered by the Secretary's mind, harsh rain fell upon the CLAMP Campus grounds. It poured heavily throughout the night, making so much noise at the Imonoyama mansion, no one heard the disturbing clattering of metal against wood as a sharp blade fell on the polished wooden planks of the heir's bedroom floor.
No one heard the noise made by a weak body falling only seconds after the previous sound either.
END of CHAPTER 7 – LOVED ONES
A.N.: Phew! This chapter was a difficult one! It took me about two weeks to actually figure out how I wanted it and how to make it fit in the story, but I finally got it! From this point on, I think it'll go smoothly… ''
That was a bit OOC for all three of the boys wasn't it? Suoh and Akira when they ganged up on Nokoru-sama and the latter because he's being a bit weakly willed in my fic, but that was the whole point of me writing it, so I'm not about to change the personality I developed for Nokoru-sama's here!
Oh yeah, I warn you things are going to get a bit dark in the next chapter, so please remember this is a PG-13 rated fic (I believe that's T+ in the new rating system)!
I cut most of the Japanese dialogues when I was editing this to make it easier for the readers. The only speeches I refuse to remove are the ones that emphasize the difference between the way the characters talk to each other (Suoh and Akira talk to Nokoru in a very respectful way, as does Akira towards Suoh, but Suoh is not like that towards Akira and neither is Nokoru towards them).
One more thing, not everything I put here conciliates with the manga or anime; some details I don't know, I make up or guess, so don't take everything here seriously! BTW, if anyone knows Nagisa Azuya's real job at the Kindergarten School Student Council, please do tell me! Is she the Secretary, the Treasurer or both! Oo
You can, and I would appreciate it much if you did, give me your opinion about the fic and/or the chapter in a review and/or tell me of any mistake I might have made or overlooked.
Syaoran-Lover signing out!