If you had the basic courtesy to review, you would, wouldn't you?

This chapter's for Devon.

x

Chapter Three

"Is this your boyfriend!" Mom shrieked halfway across the airport. A few dozen heads turned to check out who she was yelling at, and I turned with them.

It always works, you know.

"I'm here! What are you looking there for! Don't you recognize your own mother anymore?" Mom stamped her foot and shouted in Japanese, of all languages.

People sniggered as they passed me.

I heard Ru snorting softly and I shot him a glare. "Shut up," I said out of the side of my mouth.

"It's funny," he pointed out a-matter-of-factly. "Oi. She's coming here."

"KAEDEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Mom's 3 million decibel, hungover voice pierced the air-conditioned atmosphere of Narita Airport. I wiggled my fingers at her discreetly around the level of my crotch, not wanting to be identified as the 'Kaede' most of the eyes in the airport were looking for. She was skittering over in her red stilettos.

Oh, no.

"No, Mom, stay put, stay-"

Then she tripped.

Over what, I'm not sure, but 'nothing' was highly probable.

"Oh man," I groaned, walking over to help her. Ru followed in my wake. Mom was struggling to get up, without much progress.

My heart thumped (hard) against my ribcage as I drew nearer to her.

Stop it, Heart. STOP. She's not even a cute guy. Why on earth is your heart beating like this, you stupid girl-

Ru managed a silent wheeze as my mom catapulted into him, wrapping her arms around him and screaming, "I haven't seen you for such a long time, darling!"

Oh, save me.

"Whatcha lookin' at!" I scolded an innocent passerby, who was staring at my mom as if she had a fetish for men who looked 30 years younger, to save myself from embarrassment.

Prying her fingers from Ru's unfortunately handsome body, I said to her, "Uh, Mom, I'm here."

"Oh!" she shrieked (again) in no embarrassment at all. Then she flung herself at me.

"Ow, MOM!" I reeled back in pain and horror as I felt her boobs crushing my ribcage. They felt like… durians. I stared at Ru with a 'didn't-you-bloody-feel-that' look but he just said tersely, "I couldn't protest."

I could only sigh.

"Like it? I went to Korea to have them done!" she pushed up her terribly expanded twin pagodas and spun right and left to let me have proper elevation of the things. I covered Ru's eyes but he pushed my hand away, retreated into a corner and laughed.

He was actually laughing!

Now, make this straight. Rukawa Kaede doesn't laugh like a normal person. Let me educate you-

Say 'hmph'.

Now say it in rapid succession like this – 'hmph hmph hmph hmph hmph'.

That's how Ru laughs.

…The only time I saw him laugh was when I got my bare foot stuck in the toilet bowl and I had not flushed. I had to bribe him to help me get it out. He made snide comments about it for about a month and even included the scene in our manga.

"Mom," I hissed, "This is an airport!"

She giggled and pushed me in response. Hard. I slammed into Ru, but he managed to stand firm. After all, he was much heavier than I was.

What the heck was that for! I thought as I gaped at my mother, too shocked and pissed off to speak.

"I can see why your dad got full custody," he bent down to whisper.

FYI, Ru has never met my dad.

"Thanks, Ru," I stared at him expressionlessly before turning to my mom, just in time to see her waving to a stranger and blowing him a raspberry.

The stranger looked eighty years old, walking cane included.

I pulled her close to me and moved wordlessly towards the doors of the airport. "Hey, hey!" Mom pushed my hand off, mildly irritated.

"Stop it, Mom, you're drunk!" I gritted my teeth and chastised.

"I'm not," she replied in accented Japanese.

"Speak English!" I insisted, chagrined.

"Why?"

"Because then less people would be able to understand you!" I raised my eyebrows fiercely.

Mom couldn't process that information in her drunken state. "Huh?"

I rolled my eyes. "Never mind."

We walked in peace for a little while more before Mom clutched my arm painfully and gave me a frantic whisper of nonsense Japanese.

"What the heck are you talking about?" I grumbled.

"I said, there's someone following us. He's rather handsome, but I'm nervous. He looks too young to be my boyfriend."

I spun around, wanting to shoo off whoever was there, but I only saw Ru. And then it hit me.

"That's my flatmate, Mom."

"So why is he following us?"

…I screamed.

x

"Sorry you had to witness that," I sighed, waiting at the lobby of the hotel. The following day was Sunday, so we weren't in a particular hurry to go back to Kanagawa.

Ru shrugged. "It's okay."

"You can see why my parents split up now, huh?"

Ru nodded.

"Kadohata Erin-san!" the receptionist called. I dragged myself up to my feet and approached the counter.

"That's my mom," I informed.

"Okay," the receptionist smiled kindly and passed me her key. "This is the key to room 511. Your mother would just have to mention which room she is in and also her name before she can partake of the meals in this hotel. Thank you very much."

"Thank you," I bowed back. Clutching the keys in one hand and my purse in the other, I went back to my mom, who was still sleeping on the lounge chair.

"Ru," I began, wanting to launch into the 'I-owe-you-a-lot-and-I-am-aware-of-that-but-would-you-please-help-me-anyway' speech, but he just stood up and lifted my mom up into his arms.

"Thanks," I murmured, thankful that he understood my predicament.

x

"You owe me one," he muttered as Mom gurgled and kissed his chest for the third time.

"You have yet to repay me for the time you left me working on era.Craze alone when you were busy with your basketball," I reminded, thinking of the previous year when he had left the manga scene for a while to join the junior All-Japan.

That shut him up nicely.

"But if your mom touches the wrong places…" he murmured dangerously.

"Spare me," I shivered.

x

"Hey, thanks for everything today," I spoke to Ru's back, as we walked to the train station. He shrugged.

"Hopefully Mom will be able to handle the nice peachy headache she will get in the morning," I grinned more to myself than to anyone else, kicking a can off the sidewalk. Ru just stared at the floor, not responding as usual.

"Tokita!" I heard someone behind me shout.

Naturally, I turned.

Ru continued walking – this confirmed my suspicion that he was either thinking about manga, if not basketball – and the person I saw next made my heart skip a beat.

Kawasaki Tadashi.

"Kawasaki-kun!" I squeaked. (Yes, I squeaked.) "What are you doing here?"

"Tennis Inter High," he replied with a small smile. "First match of nationals took place today."

"How was it?" I eagerly asked, conveniently forgetting Ru.

"We won," he stated simply with a slight upturn of his lips, the rays of the setting sun dancing on his hair like-

"Oi," a deadpanned voice shattered my dream.

Darn you.

"Oh, is this your boyfriend?" Tadashi implored, giving Ru a slight bow and smiling. He was ever the polite gentleman, Tadashi was. He would step aside to let our bikes pass him, and when little children waved to him on the sidewalk, he would-

"No," Ru coldly put across.

Why did he always have to break my concentration!

Ru was never good with strangers ever since he entered high school. It wasn't that bad in junior high, frankly speaking.

Hooray for my wonderful flatmate.

"He's my-" I almost said 'flatmate', but a thought struck me. What would Tadashi think of an unmarried 18-year-old girl who lived with a guy? Wanton? Loose? Prostitutional, if there was such a word!

"He's my brother," I lied.

I was pretty sure, at that moment, Rukawa was giving me his Death Glare. Of course, I didn't dare look at him.

"Oh, hello! Pleased to meet you, I'm Kawasaki Tadashi," Tadashi put out his hand for Ru to shake.

Time seemed to stop at that nanosecond, at least for me.

Shake it, I commanded. Shake it. Shake shake shake shake-

Tadashi lowered his hand, squinting at Ru.

ARGH! RUKAWA KAEDE! I AM GOING TO SKIN YOU ALIVE! WHY DIDN'T YOU SHAKE HIS HAND! I AM GOING TO FEED YOU TO THE LIONS, IF I HAD ANY! I AM GOING TO KEEEEEL YOU! YOU MUTE BLOB OF-

"You look familiar. Were you from Tomigaoka Junior High?" Tadashi directed to Ru.

Huh…

Ru nodded with all the hostility he could muster.

"You were the basketball guy, right? Um, oh no, I can't remember your name…"

Oh no. They KNEW each other!

"Something-kawa… You were the ace player of the junior team!"

And I told him Ru was my BROTHER……………………

"Natsukawa? Hm, no. Arakawa? No, not that either…"

I looked at Ru and he gave me a shrug which clearly spelt, You're in this yourself.

"Maybe it is Ishikawa-"

Oh no. I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead I'm- Hey. Yeah!

"Ahem," I cleared my throat. "It's Rukawa."

"Oh, yes! Rukawa Kaede!" Tadashi grinned brightly as the name clicked into place.

Ru looked at me with an eyebrow raised.

"He's actually my cousin," I continued, nodding seriously. "I just call him 'brother' because we're really close. That's why we don't share the same family name."

"Ah, I see," Tadashi smiled in understanding. "But isn't it funny for two cousins in a family to share the same name?"

I quickly defended, "My mother was gave me the name 'Fuu' but she wrote it wrongly and when my dad went to register my birth he read it as 'Kaede' so it stuck."

I heard a soft snort coming from Ru and tried to ignore him.

Tadashi gave me a condescending grin. "I see, so that's what happened."

"Well," I quipped, "we'd better be going! I need to do, uh, stuff. Bye, Kawasaki-kun!"

Tadashi laughed and waved goodbye as I pushed Ru towards the station, my cheeks flaming from all the lies that I had told in the past ten minutes.

x

"Sorry," I managed to compose myself on the train.

Ru was silent.

"It just slipped out," I continued.

Still, it was silence.

"Don't tell me you've never had a crush before."

...No response.

"You've never had a crush before!" I exclaimed.

Ru shrugged.

"Oh, for the love of Da Vinci," I moaned in exasperation, not believing it.

Normally, silence with Ru was okay, comfortable even. But that evening, it was torture.

"Ru…" I began.

"You didn't have to be so fake."

…I felt as if I got slapped in the face.

"What did you say?" I was aware of the fact that my voice had taken on a particularly negative tone, but I couldn't help myself. How dare he. Who did he think he was?

"You heard me," was his reply.

"Just because you've never seen me like that before doesn't mean I'm trying to act like someone else," my voice rose, my head amazingly cool. I saw facts swimming in front of my eyes, crystal clear and ready to prove him wrong.

His eyes flashed. "You lied. You were ashamed."

"What do you care?" the words left my mouth before I could stop them. His features hardened.

I felt horrible at that moment.

"I don't," he put across simply, folding his arms and turning away from me.

x

The following morning I woke up in the weirdest mood I had ever woken up in on a Sunday.

I woke up cautiously.

I then moved very slowly across the mattress, before popping my head down to the lower bunk.

Ru wasn't there.

I flopped back onto my pillow, my heart sinking to my toes.

x

It was a rest period for me, which meant that I did not have to draw manga for a long while and still be able to live on royalties from the previous series. I mooned about the apartment after calling my mom to make sure she was fine - apart from the headache that made her yell a few thousand profanities into my ear, she was in mint condition – and suddenly I remembered.

While running over to the room to locate my cell phone, I glanced at the clock. It was 9 in the morning.

Kusou.

Flicking the phone open, I scanned my message inbox for a certain message Sendoh had sent a few days ago.

SENDOH AKIRA 9:14 PM
Basketball match on Sunday, 8 am, against Shoyo. Our school. Please come to support. If we win, it's IH we're talking about. Oh yes. You'd probably make Koshino play better. Ha. So, please come.

I hurriedly grabbed my keys and rushed to school. I had promised Sendoh I would go – he did let me copy his Math homework practically every day. I owed him.

x

Note: If you can read Japanese, the only difference between the word for 'wind' (pronounced as 'Fuu' for names, 'kaze' for the noun itself) and 'maple' ('Kaede') is a radical. There is only a slight difference. The word for 'maple' can also be pronounced as 'Fuu', incidentally. The characters, if your computer can identify Japanese characters, are as such:

風 Kaze/Fuu
楓 Kaede/Fuu

Laily thanks so much for the feedback and praise. I believe I've replied you via the message system? Hope you liked this installment!