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Please, enjoy the continuation of Covers!


Chapter 4

The whole room seemed to have a new clarity to it, as if I were seeing the world through a sharp pair of glasses. The adrenaline pumped through my body, and my muscles hummed to life as my reflexes seemed a second quicker and my mind moved crisply to analyze the situation. I grimaced as I felt a bead of sweat trail down the side of my face, which was contorted into an expression of determination. My hands shook relentlessly, despite my best efforts to steady them. I licked my lips in anticipation and steeled my nerves as I scrubbed viciously and violently, with no mercy in any of my actions.

This stain had plagued me long enough, and now that it was the weekend, I finally had my chance to tackle it. I gripped my brush until my knuckles were white, furiously doing my best to erase away the smear of dirt that had been tracked onto the bathroom floor. Slowly but surely, I could see the stain growing lighter with each successive sweep of my arms, until the white tile underneath was revealed.

"You put a good fight, but there was never any way I was going to allow you to survive." I spat at the now non-existent stain, feeling as though I were some sort of action hero in a big Hollywood blockbuster. Yeah, I know that it was kind of nerdy for me to do that, but I couldn't help myself. Cleaning is just such a rush.

Just as I planned to move on to unclogging the sink drain, which had been making it hell to wash my hands in the sink all week, I felt a buzzing in my pocket. Scowling at the interruption, I slipped off one of my protective gloves and fished out my phone, which was displaying an unknown number. I hesitated for a moment, given that I was usually only called by telemarketers. Such as was the life of the class delinquent, no matter how inaccurate that title was for me. I don't know what possessed me to do so, but before I realized it, I had my phone flipped open and pressed up against my ear, waiting on baited breath for the caller to speak up.

"Ryuu-chan." An exhausted voice moaned from the other end of my phone. I considered hanging up, assuming that it was a prank call when I suddenly realized that only two people had ever called me Ryuu-chan. The first was Mom, and the other…

"Ami! What's wrong?" I asked, now more concerned due to the fact that she sounded legitimately weak on her side. My weekend plans completely forgotten, I ripped off my other glove, hearing the plastic snap as it peeled off of my fingers, before I tossed it and its partner onto the kitchen counter.

I heard sniffling and a quiet sneeze, "I think you were right. I do have a cold."

Of course I was right. I've always had a knack for spotting sickness, partly as a product of having to take care of my mother as much as I took care of myself. Call it a housewife's intuition. Err, actually, on second thought, don't. Call it a househusband's intuition. Wait, that doesn't really sound much better, now that I think about it… You know what? Let's just forget about it.

"All right, I'm coming over." I replied, hanging up before she could respond. Luckily, I had already gotten dressed, having planned to go shopping at the supermarket later on, and all I had to do before I rushed out of the house was to leave a note for my still sleeping mother and to slip on a pair of shoes before I slipped out of the front door, but not before remembering to lock up.

By the time I ran out of the house, I realized that I had no idea where Ami lived. Realizing exactly how embarrassing my next actions would have to be, but finding that I had absolutely no one to ask without coming off as a stalker, I had no choice but to suck it up and dial Ami's number. I impatiently waited, deciding to lean against my front door as I heard ringing for a few seconds before she picked up.

"Say, Ami, you wouldn't mind telling me where you live, right?" I asked sheepishly as soon as I heard the labored breathing that no doubt belonged to Ami.

There was a pause on the other end before I heard a faint set of chuckles, no doubt form Ami laughing over my forgetfulness, "Dummy."


I gulped as I stared down the front door of Ami's apartment, finding that all of the bravado and concern that had carried my legs to this point had run out. Here I was, standing in front of Ami's front door without even thinking about what I had planned to do. As a teenager who is conscious of the opposite sex, I was nervous, as you could probably understand. I mean, I was standing not ten feet from the room where the Kawashima Ami slept, ate, and, as of now, was fighting a cold. How many guys could say that without feeling at least a little bit nervous?

Just as I considered just turning back and going home, a resounding cough sounded, seemingly loud enough to be heard outside of the apartment. Immediately, I lost all of my inhibitions and tried the doorknob, which was luckily unlocked, and stormed into the house, ears perking up as they attempted to hone in on the source of the cough. Clearly, I had made a large enough racket that Ami had heard me entering the apartment, because Ami called out, "In here!"

Following her voice, I made my way to the back of the apartment, where a sole door that likely led to her room lay. I eased open the door to the sight of a well maintained bedroom, with nothing more than a desk occupying a corner and a small TV flipped on some high school drama show to compliment the large king size bed that was currently hosting my fake girlfriend.

"Kawashima-san, how are you feeling?" I asked, shuffling carefully over to the side of the bed, which was covered with used tissues while Ami hid all of her body, save for her head, underneath her thick blue covers. I definitely needed to give her a talk about how it was unhygienic to be sleeping in used tissues, and then maybe follow that up with another talk on the value of folding her clothes every time she took them off. Sure, she was sick, but that was no excuse to leave a mess around her room!

"Sick." She replied, trying in vain to hide under her covers more, but immediately abandoning the task as she sneezed into a tissue. I recoiled in horror as she aimlessly scrunched up the used paper and tossed it to the foot of her bed, joining the small mountain of tissues that she had created.

"Wait, let me get a trash can." I managed, just barely resisting the urge to dump a bucket of disinfectant on top of Ami's head. Noticing a small metal trash can by her desk, I snatched it up and dropped by the side of the bed, so that Ami could easily reach it by extending her right arm. With the speed of a practiced expert, I swept up all of the loose tissues and dumped them into the trash can, in one fell swoop, only to find that it was already on the verge of overflowing.

"There's a bigger one in the kitchen." Ami informed me in between sneezes.

Nodding in acknowledgement, I headed through her hallways to the kitchen, which was adjoined to her rather expansive living room. The whole apartment had a modern feel to it, as expected of a wealthy model. As opposed to my house, which was traditional, with its own rustic charm, Ami's apartment was sleek and clean, with a kind of urbane cool that my house could never hope to match, not in a million years.

Not to mention, her kitchen was worth gaping over. She had all of the latest appliances, with an expansive fridge and an electric stove top, all in stainless steel. And of course, she had an oven that made me salivate in excitement before I remembered exactly why I was in her kitchen. I would have time to ogle her cookware later, after I had grabbed a trash can for her.

I quickly found the aforementioned article in a cabinet underneath her counter, which showed almost no sign of use. When Ami had said that she didn't usually cook at home, she hadn't been lying. And it really was a shame, considering what she had to work with here. I made a mental note to possibly teach Ami how to cook in the future so that her appliances would not go to waste as I returned to her bedroom, trash can in hand.

"Toss the tissues in here. It's better than having them all over your room." I informed her, and immediately, Ami followed my directions, dropping in tissue after tissue into the trash can I had brought in.

"I'm going to make you something to help you feel better, so just sit back and relax Kawashima-san." I added, giddy with the prospect of getting to work with her coveted appliances.

"Wait." Ami called out weakly, just as I turned to leave, "Why are you calling me Kawashima-san again?"

"Well, we're alone right now, so we don't have to pretend like we're dating, right?" I replied, wondering exactly why she cared what I called her.

"Well," She paused, apparently at a loss for words, "We should practice calling each other by our first names, so that it comes out naturally when we're in public."

Well, I guess she had a point there.

"Fair enough. I'll be back soon, Ami." I repeated, remembering to slip in her name at the end, although the sensation of calling someone by their first name left a strange taste in my mouth.

"All right, I'll be waiting, Ryuu-chan." She replied with a wink as she recited my mom's dreaded nickname for me.

I lost no time in flying to the kitchen, excitedly swinging open the fridge to find it completely stacked to the brim with untouched ingredients, which still seemed extremely fresh. Maybe she had gone shopping last night on her way home? Discarding my confusion over the origin of the food, I quickly decided on a menu appropriate for someone sick.

I fished out a pot and immediately put the ingredients for some rice porridge in on a light simmer. Unfortunately, I would have to tone down the flavor profile to make it palatable for Ami, but I was still happy with the result. Grabbing an instant tea bag, I dropped it into a cup of hot water, with nothing left to do but to wait as the water mixed with the herbal leaves. I gently stirred the porridge, occasionally tasting and adding in seasoning as needed until the rice was at a consistency that I had been aiming for.

I carefully returned to Ami's room, with the tea in one hand and a bowl of porridge in the other. Ami meanwhile, had turned her attention to the television, and chuckled lightly at the antics of the characters onscreen.

"All right, drink some tea first." I ordered, handing her the steaming cup. I watched Ami slither out of her covers, propping herself up against some pillows, revealing that she thankfully had been wearing a set of red pajamas. She gently blew on the scalding liquid before she took a small sip, eyeing the bowl in my hand the whole time.

"Say, Ryuuji, I'm still feeling really weak. Do you mind feeding me?" Ami asked, with a little inflection at the end of her words that made me nod in spite of myself. I pulled up a chair to seat myself in and before I even realized what I was doing, I had lifted up a spoon of porridge and gently ladled it into Ami's mouth, which closed up around the plastic and cleaned off every last grain that had been on the spoon.

She chewed thoughtfully for a moment before she swallowed and weakly grinned, "Tastes great, for some rice porridge at least."

Egged on by her words, I enthusiastically continued to feed her, only realizing what I had done after the bowl was completely empty. At the realization that I had just fed Ami, my cheeks instantly reddened, and I found myself looking away from the blue haired beauty who had snuggled herself back underneath her covers.

"That was really good." She sighed as she closed her eyes and drifted off into a peaceful sleep. Despite my attempts to look away, I couldn't help but to find myself staring at Ami as she napped. I had never really noticed it before beyond a simple acknowledgement, but now that I took the time to examine her, I had to admit that she really was beautiful, just as a model would be expected to be. Her porcelain skin was without a blemish or a wrinkle, and without her usual bubbly smile, I somehow found that she seemed more mature in the way that a high school girl most certainly should not have been, with her elegant features being highlighted even more by a placid expression.

Her soft blue locks lay splayed over her face, and as strands occasionally tickled her face, her nose scrunched up cutely in a way that made me forget just how cunning and devious Ami could be in reality. All that mattered to me in that instant was how peacefully she was sleeping, with long, drawn out breaths punctuating the silence of her room. I didn't realize that I had been staring until the ringing of a phone snapped me out of my trance.

It took me a second that I was Ami's phone which had gone off, and as I remembered that I had been staring at her in her sleep, my face reddened even more than before, until I was sure that I could pass for a tomato. I checked her phone to see that it was one of her friends calling. For a moment, I wondered whether or not I should pick up, but I realized that me picking up Ami's home phone would raise some unwanted questions.

Deciding to instead occupy myself with tending to Ami's unfolded clothes on the floor, I stiffly handled the clothes, relying on old, ingrained movements that had been honed by years of picking up after Mom. My hands moved deftly, transforming the pile of clothes into a perfectly folded set that I placed on her nightstand.

"Ryuuji."

I was about to respond to the sound of my name when I realized that it had slipped from Ami's lips as she was still sound asleep, if the soft sound of her breathing was any indication. It appeared that she was having a dream, and that I was somehow involved in said dream. Now interested, I silently leaned closer to try and hear more.

"No, don't do that." She mumbled softly, her trademark smirk coming to her face as she did so. I guess even in her dreams, she couldn't stop it from slipping out, "You're such a bad boy."

Hey, I'm not a delinquent! It's a bit disheartening to know that Ami thought of me that way. And just when I thought that I had made some progress. What was it that Thoreau said? Our truest life is when we are in our dreams awake, or something like that? I guess that, despite the fact that she trusted me enough to choose me for her plan, it was hard to change first impressions.

Deciding that I should leave Ami alone to rest, I quickly tip toed out of the room, taking care to make as little noise as possible, so that I would not wake her up. Easing the door to her bedroom closed, I moved back to the kitchen so that I could clean up some of the pots I had used earlier.

As I moved across the metal of her pot, I noticed a stain on one of her windows and made a mental note to tend to her windows once I finished with her dishes. The warm water and soap worked quickly to wipe away the relatively light amount of gunk in the pot. After all, I had only really used rice and water, so there wasn't really much to clean up. Once I had everything placed into the dishwasher, I turned my attention to the windows and their offending rainwater stain.

Before long, I had already finished with cleaning off the windows, dusting the whole house, preformed some maintenance on Ami's bathroom, and was now currently sweeping the floors when I heard the creaking of a door and some soft footsteps that were growing progressively louder.

"Ryuuji, are you still here?" Ami asked as she stumbled into the living room, a thick blanket wrapped around her figure.

"Yeah, I'm just sweeping your floors." I replied as I propped up the broom that I had been using up against the wall so that I could talk to her.

At my words. Ami looked all around at her apartment, which was definitely much cleaner than it had been before I had arrived, and chuckled, "Say, you would definitely make a great housewife, wouldn't you?"

"It's not that bad, is it?" I laughed in reply.

Ami's eyes ran up and down my body before she replied, "Well, you definitely dress like one."

"What's wrong with how I dress?" I muttered, looking down at my attire. I had on a pair of black sweatpants paired with a long sleeved white t-shirt. I never really cared about how I dressed, and on non school days, I usually just threw on whatever felt comfortable. It wasn't that bad, right?

"Well, at least I know where we're going for our first date. Even if you are only going to be my fake boyfriend, you can't possibly go out in public dressed like this." Ami sighed, alluding to my get up. Oh come on, it can't be that bad!

Although, I guess that her words made sense. She was a model, and it would be expected of her boyfriend to dress similarly to her, if only to keep up appearances. I mean, you didn't see celebrities dating bums for a reason, right?

"Anyways, you shouldn't be out of bed yet!" I snapped, my caretaker instincts kicking in.

"But I'm bored!" Ami whined in response, shuffling over to her couch and plopping herself down, grabbing the television remote, "And besides, I'm warm enough with my blankets right now."

"All right." I relented, joining her on the couch.

"Have you been watching any dramas recently?" Ami asked as she began flipping through the channels.

I blinked, realizing that, for once, Ami and I were just having a normal conversation. It occurred to me that, for as long as I had known Ami and for as many times as I had spoken to her, we had never just had a casual conversation. Usually, we discussed some more serious topics, but this was different. We were just two high school students, talking about whatever we wanted to.

Who would've guessed that the first person I would have a normal conversation like this with other than Kitamura would end up being Ami?

"No, not really. How about you?" I struggled through my words, desperately piecing together enough words to constitute a response. Given that I was relatively inexperienced at the whole thing, coupled with the fact that I had no idea what to say to Ami, made it very difficult to find anything to say.

However, she didn't seem bothered in the slightest by my struggles and placed a finger on her chin as she thought of a response, "Well, I've been watching some American movies recently. My parents sent me a bunch of DVDs that they got from some of their American friends, and I've been going through them. Do you want to watch one?"

I shrugged, "Why not?"

Ami nodded and hopped out of her seat, moving to a bookcase that she had placed next to her television, filled with a large assortment of DVDs, both American and Japanese. She rifled through the various cases before she seemed to decide on one, popping open the case and inserting it into her DVD player.

The screen darkened before the words, "The Beauty and the Beast" appeared on the screen.

I saw Ami settle into her seat more, wrapping her blanket around her even tighter in anticipation. Deciding that all I could do was to sit back and enjoy myself as well, I ignored the odd reality of me sitting beside Kawashima Ami, watching a movie in her apartment. Never in a million years would I have thought that I could be saying those words.

Well, I guess there's a first time for everything, right?

"Hey," Ami suddenly spoke up as the movie began, "Why did you come to take care of me? I didn't ask for any help."

I thought about it for a moment. Why exactly had I come? I mean, I didn't really think about what I was doing until I was already in the apartment, cooking lunch for her. It had just seemed like the natural thing to do at the time, and it was only now that I realized that I had no good reason to actually have come.

"Well, I guess you could call it my instincts. I take care of Taiga and my Mom, so when I heard how sick you sounded, I just knew that I should come over." I answered, trying to articulate some sort of coherent response.

"Oh, all right." Ami seemed to accept my explanation.

"Thanks." She added a moment later, falling into silence as she began to focus on the film.

I smiled. By the lack of fanfare with which she answered, it had seemed like she had spoken genuinely there, and that touched me for some strange reason. I guess the rarity of such a gesture left an impression on me.

"No problem."


Well, I ended up writing a lot more than I originally anticipated that I would, so I hope that was a welcome change from the last few chapters! I can't say for sure if all of my future chapters will be at this length, but if I get on a roll like I did this week, I can definitely see more chapters at this length. If you guys did like the longer chapter, then please, let me know and I'll try to write more each week!

Please, if you guys have any thoughts or idea, don't be afraid to leave a review or PM! Right now, I'm in the top ten of reviews with Covers, and I don't plan to stop until I'm on top. Because of that, every review counts, so please review!