Fight for Love!
24th Fight: Mikan versus Hayate
First of all, I was straight. Next, I love Hotaru like a best friend would so I guessed it was normal for me to shower friendship-love on her. Lastly, I didn't understand how the hell an innocent photo of me hugging Hotaru from behind could take on a wrong meaning.
This photo was definitely taken after Hotaru and I had stepped out of the classroom where we had confronted the perpetrator. I had embraced my friend for three reasons. Firstly, I was so glad that Hotaru was fine. She had almost scared the hell put of me. Secondly, Hayate Matsudaira had agreed to help me to get rid of the rumours. Who knew he had gone to create more trouble for me?! Thirdly, I was excited to walk home with Hotaru! It was a lame reason but it was true! However, it turned out that I had to wait for her to be officially dismissed from the Taekwondo training.
Such simple reasons were replaced with one troubling yet 'sensational' heading that emphasised my homosexuality. Word play really did have an impact on how people was going to view a picture. A wrong word, a distorted perspective. Whoever wrote that heading, most probably started by Hayate Matsudaira, was going too far!
And I was going to beat, kick and punch the hell out of the people who made this silly assumption that I was not straight, starting from that one backstabbing admirer of Hotaru!
As I marched forward with an evident death glare on my face, I pressed my knuckles against my free palm and tightened my fist. Hayate's face paled and he began to tremble on the spot.
"Yukihira-san, listen to me. I didn't..."
"Why? I thought you said you'd help me!" I interrupted him angrily and grabbed his shoulders. "Why did you even involve Hotaru? I thought you like her!"
Everyone around us gasped. I heard Hotaru mutter 'stupid Mikan' far behind me but I wasn't going to question what she had meant for I was too focus on the senior before me.
Hayate frowned and argued back, "Listen. I didn't expect this to happen either. You shouldn't be jumping straight into conclusions and blaming me when you don't know a thing!"
What did I not know? The proof was already in the pudding! The picture had spoken a thousand of words that stated my homosexuality. Also, who else had taken this picture other than Hayate? Obviously, it was only him since he was the only one with us when this photo was taken. So, tell me, what did I not know?
Tightening my grips on his tense shoulders, I let out a frustrated shriek and growled at him, "How am I a lesbian?"
"Please stop it, Yukihira-san. It wasn't my intention..."
"Then, what's your intention? If you weren't helping me, then what is it?" I released him and crossed my arms. "Making my life more difficult than it has already been?"
Hayate retorted as his patience was starting to wear thin, "Don't be ridiculous. I didn't mention anything about you being a homosexual. Honest!"
"Liar!"
"Mule!"
"What did you just call me?!"
"Flat..."
Before he could say anymore, my fist flew towards his direction. His eyes widened in surprise at my incoming attack and he quickly dodged it. Dropping his books on the floor, he grabbed my outstretched arm, twisted it and tucked it behind my back. However, I wasn't going to give up so easily even if I was 'short' of a limb. I pressed my back against his chest and bent my body forward, which I regretted doing so. He was so heavy and I could not flip him over. Instead, my free hand grabbed a tuft of his hair and pulled it hard enough for him to let out a cry of pain. Finally, he let go of me and I turned around with my left leg lifted up high, preparing a sidekick which I had practiced so hard for days.
"I'm a Red Belt for goodness sake! Stop it, okay?" Hayate shouted as his two strong hands held my foot tightly right in front of his chest. "You will injure yourself like that time with Koizumi-san."
I struggled to break away from his grasp but the more I struggled, the more he pushed my leg towards me. Because of this, I was starting to hop backwards. Oh wait, this move reminded me of the short duel between Serina and Misaki. Lika Hayate, Serina had held and kept pushing Misaki's leg towards her until she had fallen down. If I recalled correctly, Misaki had told me that this move was a quick way to immobilise the opponent.
"How about this?"
Speaking in between pants, I grabbed his hands and forcefully pried them on my foot. I pulled him forward and got ready to knee his stomach. As expected from an experienced fighter, he skillfully pried himself from my grasp and blocked my attack with his arm before taking one of my arm and turning my body around.
With our backs facing each other and my arm in an awkward position as he was still holding onto it, I really had no idea what to do and what he could do to me but somehow, I knew that his next move would not be just immobilising me.
"I'm sorry..." he muttered and the next thing I knew, he easily lifted me up and flung me over his shoulder.
My whole world spun and turned upside down. I heard people screaming and gasping. Still, I wasn't going to give up. When my body hit hard against the ground, I groaned and slowly stood up again, facing Hayate directly.
"Stop it, Yukihira-san. We should talk nicely about this issue," he said calmly.
I rolled my eyes and asked, "What's there nice to talk about? You're the one who created this fuss..."
"You're the one fussing over nothing!"
"Shut up, Hayate-senpai. How can you call this nothing?" I yelled and prepared another welcoming fist in his way.
"You must hear me out first!" he shouted while using his arm to block my punch and using his another hand to push me away which resulted me in falling on the ground again.
I smugged. Serina had taught me how to break my fall the week before so falling down had become a no-big-deal to me. As soon as my side touched the floor, I rolled and used my strongest leg to push myself back up on my feet within a second or two. Hayate's eyes widened at my quick recovery.
"How did you do that?" he asked in astonishment.
This time, it was my turn to widen my eyes in panic. Oh gosh! I shouldn't be showing off my Taekwondo moves in public! What was I going to do? Should I say that I did it out of instinct? But he surely wouldn't buy my answer because this breaking fall technique required lots of practice in order to do it swiftly.
"Mikan Yukihira-san and Hayate Matsudaira-san," a familiar voice sliced through my thoughts. "May I know what is going on here?"
Hayate and I froze. That voice was definitely Narumi's. I bit my lower lip and turned to look at the teacher in pink polka dotted blouse walking out of the school building. He wore a stern look which was unusual but not surprising at all since the two of us had created quite a ruckus in the morning. He stopped in front of us and looked into each of our eyes. I hung my head low and my fingers began fidgeting with the hem of my school blouse. Lady Luck was obviously not by my side since I was caught fighting with an upperclassman by my teacher. Never in my life had I been caught for misbehaviour since I had always been a good girl. Really, I had always been a goody-two-shoes.
I shifted my gaze to Hayate and sent him a glare before shifting my gaze back to the ground, sulking. Hey, my good girl reputation would be gone for good because of him!
"Follow me to the office, love birds. I need to talk to the both of you," Narumi said, turning his back to us and he began to walk back into the building.
"We're not love birds!" I cried and stomped towards the school building as well.
Hayate snorted as he picked up his books on the ground and followed after. We entered the staffroom and stood side by side next to Narumi's desk while Narumi pulled his chair over and sat down in front of us.
"Let's cut the chase, shall we?" Narumi's voice sounded really stern and harsh which destroyed my image of him as a gay-ish teacher.
He crossed his arms and put his leg over the other. He looked at me and nodded, urging me to speak up first.
"Narumi-sensei, before I tell you my side of story, may I ask if you have seen the campus news?" I spoke calmly.
Narumi closed his eyes and answered, "I did. So what?"
Upon hearing his nonchalant response, I furrowed my eyebrows and argued, "So... what? I mean... it's about me and my homosexuality!"
"I swear I didn't write anything bad about you, Yukihira-san!" Hayate butted in, earning a glare from Narumi for speaking when it was not his turn.
The teacher ran his fingers through his golden locks and twirled the ends as he spoke again, "I don't see what's wrong with the headlines. Being not straight doesn't have to be homosexual. It means to be curvy."
I sighed heavily. What rubbish!
"Besides, being not straight can mean you're flexible. Or maybe..." Narumi cupped his own chest and squeezed whatever meat he had there. "It can mean that you have grown some chests here."
I gaped. What the hell was this educator sprouting?
I heard Hayate cough loudly as if he was choked on his own saliva. Well, I wasn't surprised because I swore anyone would be choked by his nonsensical statements.
"Or maybe it can mean..."
"Enough, Sensei. Seriously... stop the crap," Hayate said hoarsely.
Narumi crossed his arms again and looked at me. "Mikan-chan, tell me your story now."
"Alright, do you know this guy here..." I pointed at Hayate. "... uploaded that silly photo? No, in fact, two photos!"
"They weren't that bad, right? I liked those photos myself," Narumi professed with a beam.
With a frustrated sigh, I shook my head and interjected, "That's not the point. Anyway, Hayate-senpai agreed to help me to get rid of the rumours about the first photo. And look at what he has done! He has created another rumour, far worse than the previous one, saying that I'm not straight!"
"I didn't say that you're not straight!" Hayate shouted at me.
"Oh yes, you did. If not, how did those words even make themselves appear on the headlines?"
"Believe me, Yukihira-san. I didn't even mention a word about you being not straight."
"And you included Hotaru into the picture. I thought you liked her!"
"Yes, I like her! Really, really like her!" Hayate's cheeks began to flush pink as he confessed his love for Hotaru in the teachers' staffroom. "Hotaru-chan is my goddess! So, I obviously won't do anything stupid to hurt her!"
"And this thing is stupid!"
"Argh! I seriously did not say that you're homosexual!"
"If not, why..."
"Shut up!" Narumi yelled and placed his hand in between us. "This is beginning to sound like a quarrel between two in-laws."
The two of us went silent and glared at each other. Narumi stood up and looked at Hayate straight into his eyes.
"Speak only when you have the talking stick," he said sternly and handed him a pink pen with a pink feather at the top tip. "Now, speak."
"Okay, this is my side of this whole silly issue," Hayate started, emphasising the words 'my' and 'silly' by dragging them. "Firstly, I'm innocent. And yes, I did agree to help Yukihira-san to get rid of the previous rumour because it was my fault for posting a picture of Nogi-san and Yukihira-san. So, I took a photo of Hotaru-chan and Yukihira-san together and posted it on the Internet."
"And wrote that I was not straight," I helped him to end off his sentence.
Narumi narrowed his eyes at me and asked, "Mikan-chan, where's your talking stick?"
Oops... I shouldn't be talking yet.
"Carry on, Matsudaira-san."
Hayate nodded and continued, "I posted the photo of my sweet Hotaru-chan and her bestie online and tagged our school social media websites. Then secondly, I wrote something like... err... best friends will stay with you forever and ever... Oh! And one cannot comprehend how deep her love for her bestie is unless you have dived into the ocean in her heart. Hashtag, bestieslove."
He had to be lying. How did these words become related to homosexuality? It was either he was lying or someone had misinterpreted the words and made a woo-haa out of it. Both scenarios seemed possible to me anyway.
Narumi cupped his cheeks and cooed, "Aww... that's a nice quote at the end. Are you the one who thought of that?"
"Of course. My Hotaru-chan is in there so obviously, I had to come out with something sweet and... you know, the feels."
Yeah, right. The feels...
The unspeakable feels for my sexuality crisis that was being questioned!
"Ah, I have the feels too. What a friendship." Narumi clasped his hands together and sighed dreamily. "I think Matsudaira-san is not lying when he said that he didn't write about Mikan being homosexual."
"What makes you think so?" I snapped.
"Where's your talking stick, Mikan-chan?"
I pouted at Narumi and sulked. "Forget about that stick and just answer me."
Narumi waved my words aside as if to show that he was going to ignore me. Fine then, so be it! No matter what Hayate said, I was very firm that I was wronged while Hayate was actually the one who was wrong. He was definitely the one who had written those words online. No one could change my thought because I trusted only my intuition.
"Matsudaira-san likes your best friend, right?" Narumi asked.
I nodded slowly.
Narumi continued, "So, he wouldn't have said bad things about you since you're her best friend and her face is in the photo itself."
"Yes, of course!" Hayate exclaimed and clutched onto Narumi's arm, giving that pitiful look of his. "Sensei understands me best!"
I gave up. I really wanted to flip a table and walk out of the staffroom. My palm hit against my forehead as I let out a tired sigh. Could someone tell me why this conversation was going nowhere? While the three of us were just wasting time here, my name was moving down the ladder of reputation at each passing second. Hey, my high school life was at stake!
"Mikan-chan, the only way to find out if he was telling the truth is to see the original photo. Not fighting," Narumi chided and sat back down again. "Matsudaira-san, which social media website did you use to upload the photo?"
Hayate blinked a few times. "Ah... you mean I can show you guys what I actually wrote?"
"Yes, sure."
Hayate muttered 'okay' before moving towards Narumi's desk and touched the keyboard on the desk. He keyed in the website link and pressed 'enter', thus leading him into his personal social media platform which was opened to public viewing. He scrolled the website down a little and suddenly, the familiar picture came to view. I yelped at the sight of the picture, not on purpose though. It was just an involuntarily response, probably due to my anger whenever the thought of me being mistaken as a homosexual.
I inched closer to the computer screen and read the captions out loud, "Best friends, the best few people in your life, will stay with you forever and ever. Nothing, not even romantic love, can beat true friendships. One cannot comprehend how deep her love for her bestie is unless you have dived into the ocean in her heart. Hashtag, bestieslove, bestiesforlife, ilovehotaru, hotaruisthebest, savingmikanyukihira, doubleheartsforbesties, hotaruchanchanchan... What the hell?"
"Ignore the hashtags, will you? Just focus on my quotes." Hayate tilted his face up high and smugged at his own creation which I found impressive.
I was not lying when I mentioned that I was impressed by him. Those bestfriends quotes sure sounded nice and matched well with the photo of Hotaru and me. Well, I still didn't get how these quotes could become so sensational that I became 'not straight' on campus news.
"Someone must have shared the photo and rewrite the captions," Narumi muttered as he analysed the situation by looking through the list of names who had shared the photo. "Or someone who has good imagination submitted his journalistic article to the campus news writing team."
"It's not even journalistic if you ask me," Hayate commented with a dull look.
"I agree," I quickly said.
"It's 'scandalistic'," Narumi added with a grin.
I rolled my eyes at his remark. Just then, the school bell rang. The other teachers who were watching us all along and were probably thinking that we were unruly students immediately stood up from their respective seats and rushed out of the staffroom. Narumi turned to Hayate and smiled.
"You're dismissed. I will try to think of something to deal with this case," he said. "My goodness, you two are so lucky that I was the one who caught the both of you. Imagine it was Jinno-sensei..."
Yikes! Not that teacher! He was the strictest teacher I had ever seen. Jinno-sensei would have given us, bad students who fought on the school ground, an offence slip each and then sent us for detention and to do corrective work order like cleaning the toilets every Saturday until he was satisfied. Despite how old he looked, he was actually a sadistic, youthful old man with two horns on his head. I was not kidding. Although he seemed kind enough to let me quit the Taekwondo Club, there were multiple stories of him not letting students off the hook for not being committed to their clubs. Perhaps Special Club had saved me from seeing his devilish side.
"Thank you, Narumi-sensei!" Hayate said and bowed to the blonde teacher.
I copied his movement and said a word of thanks. Feeling a little guilty for wronging Hayate, I bowed to him too and apologised to him. When I was about to leave the staffroom together with Hayate, Narumi held me back and decided to talk to me about a certain club-related thing which I certainly wouldn't want to listen.
It was about me 'showing off' my Taekwondo skills when I was supposed to be a noob who had left the Taekwondo Club after losing a deal with a Red Belt. A spy shouldn't be standing out too much but I guessed I did since I had declared a fight with Hayate and had even attempted to do a break fall which I didn't learnt during the days of my Taekwondo training with Hotaru. Much credits should, of course, go to Serina and Misaki.
I was not saying that I was good at my fighting skills because I knew I would never be, but what I meant was that I, a noobie, could not have learnt those skills unless I had taken up Taekwondo training sessions secretly after quitting that club. I was supposed to know how to punch and kick only!
"You're a noob in others' eyes. A noob who doesn't deserve a white belt," Narumi reminded me.
I hung my head and nodded slightly. "I'm sorry. I have allowed my feelings to get the better of me."
"Seriously... you're doomed as a spy if someone from the Taekwondo club knows your involvement with the said sport."
"I will take responsibility for this if anyone finds out. Besides, I don't think others will find out," I said softly, so softly because I wasn't sure about it myself.
"Don't do this again, okay? Serina-sensei will have your head if she knows about this." Narumi stood up and led me out of the staffroom. "Don't be late for lessons, Mikan-chan. Leave everything to me now."
I stared at the smiling blonde teacher with a hesitant look on my face. No matter how much he had tried to assure me and Hayate that he would do something about the homosexual issue, my gut was telling me that his involvement would only make this matter worse.
I returned Narumi a smile and thanked him for his help. If only I could voice out my worry...
Hi, everyone! Thanks for reading up to Chapter 24.
Special thanks to the reviewers:
- mystery555
- AnimeMango
- Dwmalove
- xetherall22
- pretty-awesome-girl11d7
- Haruhi-chan131
- sweet little
Lastly, I would also like to thank those who had story alerted and favourited this story. :)
Brief preview of the next chapter:
25th Fight: Seduction Plan
"No, you're wrong. It's not that easy to seduce him..."
"But why?" Nobara interrupted me with a puzzled look. "Unless you're friendzoned."
"Ah... it's not like that. It's just that..." I paused and laughed sheepishly. "Koko-chan is a fighting maniac. He has no interest in love... probably."
"Then, that means you still have the chance to make him fall for you! Do your best in seducing him, Mikan-chan!" Nobara clenched her fists and puffed up her cheeks adorably. "Fighting!"
Gosh... I felt like a cheater. If Koko really fell for me, I would feel bad. Really, really bad. I really hoped Natsume wouldn't know about this seduction plan. Please not him...
Please don't forget to review this chapter and tell me how it is! Thanks! :D
