Guess who's back? Yep, it's EveryNever again with the next Gal's Life chappie! Just a warning to you guys though, I think I kinda made a few characters a little OOC in this chapter. Hey… what are you all looking at me like that for? Why would it have anything to do with me? I'm innocent I tell you! Innocent! … EveryNever dashes away and hides behind the disclaimer…
Disclaimer: If you
think EveryNever believes she owns any part of Gals! or anything to
do with them that aren't her original ideas in the first place, you
should have a long, hard chat with the nearest pineapple or replica
of one that you can find. What will that do, you ask? Go try it and
find out! I guarantee that the people who see you performing this
pineapple purifying ritual will look at you in a whole new light! …
Hey… what was I supposed to be talking about again?
The Disclaimer blames
EveryNever for its lost train of thought and shoves her away, giving
EveryNever a booboo. EveryNever rubs her booboo and sighs. "Not
even my disclaimer will put up with me anymore…"
Chapter 4: The First 'First Kiss' Part One
Key:
""- speech/dialogue
''- thoughts or an exaggerated phrase/word
There was nothing, absolutely nothing. It was completely and utterly empty, devoid of any emotion whatsoever. Expressionless. Ran's face was expressionless. There was no anger, happiness or even a single spark of mischief in those usually glittering eyes. She just sat there, staring right back at the guilty guy across from her with unrelenting abandon.
Nothing was said, but there were nearly a million things Tatsuki was trying to convey without speaking to the seemingly stunned Ran. He tried to will his face, his expression, his eyes, to show how much he cared for her, how much it would hurt him to leave her. Straining with all his might not to blink, he struggled to try to let her see that he was willing to do whatever it took to make a long distance relationship with her work, no matter the cost. He wished with all his might that she could understand that this was something he had to do, follow his dreams without looking back, or he couldn't consider even himself worthy enough to ever smile back at her. Tatsuki could only hope that this Ran Kotobuki would understand, and in turn, be understanding.
"Tatsuki."
'She called me by my real name!' Monkey Boy didn't know whether to be pleasantly surprised or insanely frightened. "Yeah?"
"Congratulations."
She said the word with such finality. Tatsuki knew she was honestly happy for him. These were the times he knew he had the most amazing girlfriend on Earth.
"Ran, you don't know how much that means to me." He voice trembled with emotion as he spoke.
"Yes I do. I can see it in your face. Shibuya's number one kogal hasn't gone blind yet, Monkey Boy." She gave him a shaky laugh. "I have to go now though. I haven't even started a single part of my summer homework and I have to get on that." Ran stood up as quickly as the bulky chair would permit and made her way to the front of the restaurant.
"Ra-" the words died on his lips as Ran once again turned to face him.
With a smile as bright as any he had ever seen, she gave him a slight wave. "I'll trust you to pay the bill Tatsukichi. If you don't do that right, you'd better be ready to face the wrath of Ran Kotobuki!" And with that, she whipped around and ran faster than he'd ever seen her run before, just barely avoiding a platter of tacos that were unfortunate enough to be in her line of fire.
Tatsuki knew he couldn't chase after her, just the look on her face told him that. Never before had she looked so unstable to him, so easy to break, so…. fragile. The thought scared him. The thought that he was the cause of this horrified him even more. He had forced Ran to use homework as an excuse to get away from him. Ran Kotobuki, the girl that fails a test every other day and worries about it no more than two milliseconds a week, would rather pretend to study than face him at the moment.
This was enough to make him feel sick to his stomach. There wasn't any other time in his life that he had wanted to crawl into a corner and make whimpering monkey sounds more than he did right now. Unfortunately, that wasn't something he could do at the moment. He had a bill to pay and he had to pay it right. Those were the last orders he had gotten from the Ran Kotobuki, and he was definitely going through with them, no matter what.
"Now this is something that should be handed out in the pits of hell." Rei glared at the substance in his hand, trying to blast it to bits with his icy gaze. "Demons could serve this with a side of moldy, year old straw and have the perfect meal."
"I don't think it's so bad Otohata," Aya gave him a sympathetic smile. "You have to take a couple bites to get used to the taste, but after that it really isn't horrible."
"Sushi is something people get accustomed to, but this… I don't know how you can stand this." Rei thought he would never find something that would nauseate him more than that image of 'Girl Yuuya', but surprisingly enough, just about an hour later, he found a winner.
The start of the horrible chain of events, that led up to this monstrosity that now innocently rests in his palm must have begun decades ago.
About a half hour earlier...
"This is insane."
"Well, it does seem pretty unusual…"
"Yes Hoshino, this is what I like to call madness."
After minutes of pushing through the crowds, Rei had finally found the restaurant he had been looking for. This was about as far as he and Aya was going to get though. Surrounding the building were what looked like hundreds of people screaming, yelling, and attempting to push their own way to the entrance. Above all the commotion hung a huge banner that must have been the cause of all the excitement. In bolded letters it read: 'Shibuya's Fine Cuisine 20th anniversary celebration! For tonight only, all diners will receive their meal half price in celebration of our twenty years of service! Thank you for your support!'
"There are always other places to eat around here." Aya hiked up her middle-of-the-shin length skirt and dove out of the way as a stampede of hungry locals swarmed into the fray, nearly running her over in the process.
"Then, why don't we find a place where our lives won't constantly be in danger?" Rei sighed and headed over to the bench Aya was currently hiding behind.
As he made his way over, Rei ended up on collision courses with several stampeding masses. He gave each of them one of his infamous stares that froze them in their tracks faster than a trigger-happy man wielding a machine gun ever could and reached the bench without incident.
Aya smiled at Rei from her hiding place. "You know, I think I've figured out the perfect job for you. When you graduate Otohata, you could work as a bodyguard. If anyone tried to attack your client, all you would need to do is glance at the criminal and he would willingly surrender."
"No can do Hoshino. When I graduate, I'm going to get a job where all I have to do is twiddle my thumbs while one of my underlings does my work for me. Glaring would be too much work for a guy like me." The corners of his mouth twitched up, slightly resembling a smirk; as he reached down to help her up.
Before even their fingertips touched, a shrill scream rose above all the yelling. "LOOK! LOOK! EVERYONE, THERE'S REI OTOHATA!"
"Why me, why now?" Rei, in his last couple seconds of freedom, turned his eyes to the mockingly calm sky before nearly all the girls who happened to be within a two-mile radius of the yell surrounded him.
Aya was thrown out of the way, right –as luck would have it-near the entrance to Shibuya's Fine Cuisine. Soon she was swept away by the crowds, through the entrance of the restaurant.
Her single cry of, "Otohata!" was lost within the hundreds of other voices. Shoved and jostled by a people possessed with the elusive promise of quality at a low price, Aya found she could only stagger along in the direction of the flow (or should I say flood…). Assailed not only with impatient elbows to the side and kicks to the leg, but also with the enticing scents of exotic dishes nearby that ambushed her nose and preyed upon her sense of smell. Now that she had gotten a whiff of what this restaurant could supply her stomach reminded her, in the form of a furious growl, that she was almost famished enough to want to eat portions that Ran normally would!
While scores of relentless diners were trampling Aya, Rei wasn't faring much better. Surrounded by a sea of females (and even a few males), ranging from seven years old to seventy, he was bombarded with presents, admiration and requests for everything from autographs to certain pleas for things far less decent.
Nearly suffocating from all this unwonted attention, Rei knew he had to do something and do it fast. The waves of psychotic fan girls were closing in. Like a pack of crafty wolves, they circled eagerly, drawing ever nearer to their prey. He gave the crowd a glare meant to send them flying, but all it did was make a couple of them shriek in delight and others quickly snapped pictures of his perturbed expression.
When one of the more audacious fans decided to actually pluck a couple hairs right out of his head, Rei reached his breaking point. To put it simply, Mr. #1 Model had snapped. Slowly, blocking out the sounds of the crowd for a few precious moments, he lowered his head and took a long deep breath.
All of a sudden, Rei brought his head back up with a model's expertise and gave his perpetrators a smile that blinded every single one of them into an awed silence. As a sparkling background appeared behind him, he laughed a soft laugh. The kind of charming chuckle that gives the listener a feeling that the chuckler is one of those who would listen to any well-meant joke and laugh at every punch line. By this time, Rei had his fans entranced with his every move, each one of them was a puppet only he could control.
With another heavenly grin he addressed his awaiting audience. "Did you know…"
Holding their breaths, the crowd hung on each articulated word that came from his smirking mouth.
"… that in the Shibuya Train Station Yuuya Asou is doing a scene for a commercial." he gave his fans one last dramatic gaze as he finished. "Did I mention he'd be shirtless?"
Rei's last word was the magic word. The spell he had over his admirers was broken. With excited screams, the mob dashed over to the direction of the train station with the speed of world-class sprinters. In seconds, Rei was alone and thankful to be breathing fresh air again. Sighing, he sank down onto the bench Aya had hid behind only a little while before.
Gazing off towards where the rabid fans had disappeared, Rei gave an involuntary flinch, "I'm sorry Yuuya." After a couple more seconds of staring out into the distance he spoke again. "Actually, I'm really not. Better you than me, man."
The photo shoot had ended an hour ago, Rei and Aya were who knows where and only Rei had the keys to the motorcycle- their way to get anywhere in this city. Yuuya was completely and absolutely stuck. He slouched ever further in his seat, idly watching the people strolling along. Whenever a couple meandered by, hands interlaced and gazes lovingly locked, he seemed to sink just a little lower into his wooden companion. His watch read 5:00, about a half an hour since his abandonment, and he had now slipped so low that only his upper back and head still took residence upon the solitary bench.
He groaned and turned his gaze skyward. "Awww man. I never thought Shibuya could be this boring! I wouldn't even care now if Monkey Boy showed up if he'd give me some entertainment." Yuuya gagged at the thought. "I think I've just hit rock bottom…" He sighed as the rest of him slid off the bench and plopped onto the concrete below, "…physically and mentally."
And there he lay for only a few moments before it came. His whole body shot upward, alert and tensing as it began.
He shuddered.
Not just any shudder… The Shudder.
As if a malevolent spirit had hold on the innermost workings of his back, his whole spine shook with a vengeance and tremors rapidly convulsed throughout his body. Goosebumps took residence upon his arms and legs as he felt his skin grow colder than ice.
It was over in mere seconds. His bones were once again his to control and seemingly no one had noticed his miniscule spasm. Even so, it had happened and Yuuya knew what would inevitably come after. This shudder was not an illness; it was more like his sixth sense. It came from being best buds with Rei Otohata. After hanging out with him for a while, it just… appeared. Always, right before Rei (whom we all know isn't exactly the nicest guy out there) was about cause something 'unfortunate' to happen to Yuuya, he would feel this shudder.
The first time it happened was in third grade. Their teacher had decided to make them play 'trust games.' In this certain game, kids partnered up and one fell backward while the other caught the faller before he hit the ground. It was Yuuya's turn to fall and Rei's turn to catch. Right before he tipped backwards, Yuuya had shuddered that unique shiver and a few seconds after, his head connected with pavement. Two days later he had woken up in the hospital and found out he had suffered a concussion from minor head trauma. Yuuya knew why Rei had decided not to catch him; why he had done the deed. At lunch the day before, Yuuya had refused to share some of his candy with him and this was Rei's revenge. 'Innocent Little Rei' wasn't blamed for a thing though. He showed the teacher his angelic, eight year old, gap toothed smile and was forgiven on the spot.
However, when Rei got older, he became less violent in revenge and ever more crafty. When Yuuya did something to tick off him now, Rei would 'forget' to pick him up after a magazine interview in the middle of nowhere or 'mistakenly' give him notes for the wrong test before his midterm. They were small little accidents that could happen to anyone and no one could ever really hope to see the sly vengeance behind the innocent tirade unless they were a person who really knew Rei or had developed The Shudder. Yuuya was unfortunately one of the people who had both of these traits. He would feel The Shudder every time. Like a solemn messenger of foreboding doom, it came without fail.
So now, standing alone except for an inanimate park bench for company, all he could do was wait for what would come. Like the calm before the storm, everything was silent. The rustle of the grass was no more than a muted whistle and the chatter of the people and animals nearby seemed to have quieted to monosyllabic whispers.
Nervously, Yuuya started to pace. In his mind he ran over the events of the last couple weeks, wondering what he could have done that would have warranted Rei's revenge. There was no way he could have known not revenge, but self-preservation was Rei's motive on inducing The Shudder.
Yuuya's anxious mind had only a few moments of deliberation before the inevitable repercussion of The Shudder decided to make its appearance. The ground almost seemed to quake under its might as it arrived in a flurry of screams and camera flashes. Yuuya only managed one surprised yelp before his bombarded with the might of hundreds of enamored fans.
Oh the joys of being a model…
Now as Yuuya gets mauled we can begin our Q&A session! Just ignore the anguished screams in the backround….
Question: 'Hey! I read the whole chapter and there was no kiss in it! The title is lying to me! It says The First 'First Kiss'! Is there some hidden meaning behind those words or did I just miss something? Am I really just an ignorant fool who wanders through life never seeing the things that truly matter? Am I doomed to see titles, but never ever see what they truly mean! '
EveryNever's Answer: There's no hidden meaning in this title. A kiss shall come! Stay tuned for The First 'First Kiss' Part Two and you will come to realize that you are never doomed if EveryNever has something to say about it!
Everynever turns on her super powers and with a cheesy heroic laugh, she goes out to save the world... one title at a time!
