Fight for Love!
27th Fight: Like a Ghost
He stared down at me with his usual poker-face but deep inside me, I knew how ridiculous my request was. We weren't supposed to talk to each other since he seemed to avoid me every time he saw me and I admitted that I had once angrily told him to stop talking to me. The wish was granted and I totally deserved his cold treatment.
I saw a glint of amusement flickered in his crimson eyes but when he opened his mouth, his grumpy sounding voice hinted otherwise.
"No."
I gasped dramatically. "Eh? But why? We should help each other!"
"No," came a harsher voice this time.
"I know you bought that get-your-girl book. So we should practice those things inside that book and my book to get our girl and guy!"
"Straight no."
"Why not?" I pretended to whine. "Just treat it as a practice..."
"Because you're lesbian," he interjected. "I don't see why you need to seduce a guy."
I narrowed my eyes at him. He finally spoke to me. True, he did keep saying 'no' to me earlier but hey, he finally said something more than a word of yes or no to me! He faced me while talking to me! Anyone would have thought that I was crazy if I told him or her that I was feeling slightly happy that he talked to me after what it had seemed to be so long. Don't get the wrong idea. It was only a slightest bit of happiness!
He took a step aside and walked past me without saying anymore. Once again, he gave me a cold shoulder. I wondered how long he should be angry with me. Did he really hate me that much? All I did was saving him from the rain and calling him a funny nickname. Maybe he was furious that I had torn his black belt. My shoulders dropped and I hung my head in dismay.
"I'm sorry, Natsume-senpai. I can understand why you're still angry with me but..." I turned to look at him and found that he had stopped walking any further away from where I was standing. "Just once. I need your help in this."
He stood still with his back facing me. I waited patiently for his response but instead of replying me, he raised his hand and waved to a male blonde who suddenly appeared from behind one of the lockers at the extreme end. Shocked, my breath hitched as I continued to stare wide-eyed at the blonde who was walking closer to Natsume.
"Ru... Ruka-senpai!" I greeted.
"Hi, Yukihira-san." Ruka smiled and waved at me. "Hanging out with Natsume before class starts?"
I shook my head immediately. "Nope!"
"Ruka, I'm hungry. Let's ditch homeroom," Natsume said as he nudged Ruka's arm.
"Now?" Ruka gave his friend a frown and a puzzled expression on his face. "Homeroom's starting soon."
"That's why we're ditching."
"Seriously, Natsume?"
Was he serious? He was clearly trying to ignore me! I bit my upper lip and grunted softly. If he was going to stay like this hating me forever, then so be it. It was not like there was only one male in the world. My eyes lingered to the fair blonde and stared straight into his bright ocean-blue eyes. Ruka glanced at me and crooked an eyebrow upon noticing my intense gaze. Then, something clicked within me and a smile slowly formed on my face.
"Don't bother to ask him," I heard Natsume's voice before I could say what I had in mind.
Oh, great. How did he know that I was going to ask Ruka for his help?
But come to think of it, it wouldn't be a good choice to ask Ruka for help. He would get the wrong idea and questioned my crush on him.
Oh wait... what the hell was I saying? Ignore that!
"It's okay. I can still perform all these stuffs without anyone's help," I mumbled in a harsh tone, hoping that Ruka won't catch what I was saying.
The good thing was that he didn't understand what I was mumbling about and he crooked another eyebrow at me instead. Natsume finally turned his head and looked at me at the corner of his eye with a playful smirk on his face.
"As if you could get him with such small assets, little girl."
"What?!" I yelled angrily at him and stomped my feet hard on the ground, feeling extremely displeased with his words.
Well, I had never once felt so pleased with him. Not even once, really!
"You're lacking in so many areas," he further added, much to my annoyance. "Like curves."
I rolled my eyes and said sarcastically, "Then, I'm sorry if I don't have anything that can satisfy you, Natsume-senpai. But, frankly, you're no better too. I bet you have no asset and whatever curves that define your muscles. You lack them and oh yes, despite being a male, I bet you look best in floral dresses."
"What did you just say?" Natsume bellowed and shot me an intimidating glare.
"You look best in..."
"Guys... Natsume..." Ruka immediately cut in and stood in between us while facing his angry friend with his arms crossed. "What's going on here? Why are you fighting with Yukihara-san?"
Natsume scoffed and turned to face his back towards us. I crossed my arms and looked away, mouth twitching as I tried to hold back my insults. I really hated Natsume. I really, really did. I wished he would stop making me feel inferior about my body. So what if I couldn't seduce any guy? With the seduction tactics in the book, I would learn to get any guy I wanted without the use of my physical appearance. In fact, I didn't even need his help at all. If I had known better, I wouldn't have approached him.
"Seduce him, I dare you." I heard Natsume's low voice which was clearly hinting that he was angry. "Just don't go home crying that he has rejected you, flat-chested boxer."
I looked at Natsume's back once more with fury eyes which were threatening to spill tears out of if he was to say any more ridiculous comments to me.
"Natsume, cut it out!" Ruka scolded as he pulled his friend's arm closer to him and forced him to look into his blue eyes. "What do you mean by seducing him? Yukihara-san is..."
"Ruka-senpai," I interrupted him, causing him to turn and look questionably at me again. "This is between Natsume-senpai and me."
Upon hearing that, Natsume covered his mouth and snorted loudly. "Don't involve me in your pitiful seduction. I have never seen someone so desperate before. You're no different from those hateful fangirls."
That was it! He was so dead. As if he wasn't desperate enough to buy a book on how to get a girl he liked. He had bought that book, hadn't he? He definitely did! And I was no different from those desperate and hateful fangirls? Ouch... I wasn't seducing for love. I was doing it for Special Club.
Something wet trickled down my cheek and dripped down from my chin. I brought up my shaky hand and wiped away the wet trail left by my tear. My chest hurt. Out of everything he had called me, being called hateful by him was like a knife stabbing into my chest.
"Do you hate me that much?" my voice managed to come out, albeit quivering.
He remained still and silent just like before. His cold treatment was back in action again.
He really hated me...
Just then, I had decided to do the same thing to him too. I should ignore him, give him my cold shoulders which he deserved, say hateful stuffs which would release whatever thing that was hurting my chest and lastly, laugh like nothing, including this conversation, had ever happened.
So, I laughed.
"Then, so be it! I don't care about you at all. Just freaking forget that day when I picked you up in the rain! Ignore me forever, and I won't care. Hate me all you want, and I won't care. Seduce all the girls you want, and I won't care too!"
I clutched onto my slingbag and ran away as fast as I could, ignoring the stares around us. My eyes were still tearing although I knew that I should not be crying over such a matter. I had vowed not to care for him so I shouldn't be feeling so sad and angry because of him.
I kept running, not knowing where I was heading to and before I knew it, I found myself enter into the ladies' restroom and shut myself inside a cubicle. I slammed my back against the door and slid downwards until I was in a squatting position. Panting heavily, I rubbed my tear-stained cheeks and gently hit them a few times.
"Stop it. Stop crying, you stupid girl," I said sternly to myself, followed by a hiccup.
Still, my tears were forcing their way out of my eyes. My face fell against my knees and I brought my legs closer to my aching chest. No matter how many times I told myself to stop crying over such a trivial matter, the pain that had been throbbing in my chest for awhile didn't subside and my tears kept staining my face and my knees even though I had wiped them away many times.
For heaven's sake, I didn't understand myself anymore. The last time I had ever cried was a long time ago. Even when I was nearly raped back in my middle school days, I didn't cry. When Hotaru had crossed the line with her teasings multiple times, I didn't cry as well. I had lost my way in an amusement park when I was six years old, but then again, I didn't cry helplessly. Instead, I had gone to a nearby cafe and gotten myself some free sweets from the waiters and waitress, probably thinking that I was one of their valued customers' child. Even when people thought that I was homosexual, I didn't cry except for the fact that I was angry and upset over it.
From what I had stated above, I wouldn't cry that easily. However, when one doesn't cry easily, it doesn't mean he or she is strong. Before, I had disagreed with this statement. But at this moment, I finally understood what it meant.
Remembering the day when I had suddenly woken up in a foreign place, the five-year-old me was misunderstood by the police for trying to give false testimonies. I was being labeled as a child patient with amnesia which I knew it wasn't true at all, and my accounts of my real past were labeled as child-testimonies which prompted the police to dig further for more information by asking me leading questions. I didn't know what was going on then but all I knew that I was mistaken as someone else who had apparently caught in a terrible ordeal and my parents had to chase the police away each time they had wanted to 'visit' me.
That was a tough period for me as a five-year-old child because no one had understood me. The police thought I was either lying or a patient with amnesia. My parents didn't do anything to prove that I was actually fine, instead they had told me to think about the incident which led me to be confronted by the police carefully. So, I cried. I bet any child would have responded the same as me.
Because someone whom I wanted to understand me misunderstood me, it hurt me till I cried.
That was why I couldn't understand myself anymore. I didn't get why I would cry because of Natsume. True, he had misunderstood me and said nasty remarks to me... but it was not like I had never faced them before. How could I be so weak?
I must have gone crazy.
I wiped my wet hands against my skirt and opened my slingbag. I took the book on seduction and flipped it open, revealing the content page.
"First lesson... Eye techniques," I read out softly with my voice cracking from all the sobbing and crying.
Upon turning to the indicated page, my teary eyes widened at the first sentence of the chapter, causing a tear to drop and wet the thin paper.
'Look at him as if he is your favourite food and you're craving for him.'
I brought the book closer to my face and squinted at the text.
Whenever I saw my favourite lime favoured ice-cream, what kind of gaze I would make? I thought my eyes would sparkle at the sight of the ice-cream but I didn't think it would be seductive. What if the author meant that I had to stare at the other party intently? In my opinion, staring intently at a person was seductive. Those romance movies had proven it.
'Let your puppy-eyes work on situations when he refuses to let you have something (which you think you ought to have). It works well on guys who have soft spots.'
Ah, puppy eyes! That should be easy!
But... Koko didn't seem to have any soft spot.
I shook my head. It was okay, I told myself in determination. There would always be another technique to make up for those puppy-eyes! With that in mind, I flipped to the next chapter on mouth techniques.
'Lick your lips as if he is your favourite ice-cream. Show him that he looks delicious.'
While picturing a lime ice-cream in my head, my tongue went round my lips. It seemed weird to me. This licking-my-own-lips technique showed how hungry I was instead of seduction. I would question anyone who did that in front of me if he was hungry.
Next, I flipped to the following chapter on the importance of physical contact. Like all other chapters, there were many suggestive ways of touching a male shown in the chapter. Most of them seemed ridiculous because I didn't see how and why men would fall for these tricks! Well, rubbing circles on the skin was the only technique I could understand so far since it gave off a nice and sooth feeling to the receiver.
After spending a few minutes skim-reading through the chapters, the school bell rang, causing me to jump in alarm at the loud ringing sound. Pushing the book inside my bag, I immediately rushed out of the cubicle and ran past the huge wall mirror which I happened to catch a quick glimpse of myself.
Although I had stopped crying, I looked horrible. My eyes were swollen and red while my cheeks looked flushed and sticky. I ran to the basin and turned on the tap. Then, I splashed the cool water on my face to reduce the puffy effect on my face. Without having to wipe my dripping-wet face, I rushed out of the restroom and headed towards my classroom.
On the way, I met him again along the corridor. He who was holding a piece of bun in his right hand walked past me without even giving me a glance. But there was one thing I was sure that he had noticed me.
It was his left hand.
The ghost-touch of his hand against mine as we walked past each other made my heart clench and my eyes sting once more.
"I'm sorry."
Even his whisper was like a ghost's.
I swallowed hard. His apology made me feel guilty for I was also the one who was in a wrong. I was the one who started everything. If I had stayed calm after his middle-school self had called me flat-chested, I wouldn't have punched him.
And he wouldn't have hated me.
Both of us would live a normal life without knowing the existence of each other. Maybe I would know him since he was famous among the girls but he wouldn't have known me. Nevertheless, the idea of him not knowing me was great because we would not have to disturb or say bad things to each other.
"Natsume-senpai..." I turned around, thinking that I could at least see his back and apologise to him like he did to me. "I'm..."
Like a ghost, he was nowhere to be seen.
Hi, everyone! Thanks for reading up to Chapter 27.
Special thanks to the reviewers:
- Mystery555
- CC
- Ayame-hime 11d7
- sweet little
- PureInnocence3
- Anonymous
- CrimsonPrincess14
-Susan
-Haruhi-chan131
Lastly, I would also like to thank those who had story alerted and favourited this story. :)
Brief preview of the next chapter:
28th Fight: Round One
"Let's get back to the main point," I began, earning a curious look from Ojisan. "Will Koko be dropping by your bookshop?"
"Koko-chan? Shall I call him? Koko-chan will be excited to see you!" Ojisan turned his head and winked at me before walking towards a dark room. "Koko-chan! Wake up, you sleepy head! Mi-chan has come to see you!"
Huh? So... all along he was... in the dark room? My mind went blank upon the scary thought of him hearing what Nobara and I had said. Suddenly, I heard a loud thud, followed by quick and heavy footsteps coming from the ceiling above me. Head tilting upwards, I gazed curiously at the ceiling and then I heard an annoyed voice shouting above all of us.
"Your trick won't work on me anymore, Ji-chan!"
"But it still manages to get you out of bed, Koko-chan!" Ojisan yelled. "Good morning, little idiot!"
"I wasn't on the bed!"
"Get up, you lazy bum! Mi-chan is here to see you!"
"Argh!" Rapid footsteps slowly faded above us and were replaced with heavy ones which seemed to be running down the stairs inside the dark room. "I told you alrea... eh? Mi-chan?"
As a familiar rugged looking boy emerged from the dark room, I mentally screamed in alarm.
Please don't forget to review this chapter and tell me how it is! Thanks! :D
