I'm sorry for the (really) late update! I was feeling really lazy and stuff, so yeah...Well, I tried to make this chapter longer than my usual ones! c:
IA rolled her eyes in annoyance as a random girl stopped Rei. Again. Annoyance, hmm? The blonde frowned; she was getting more...used to that feeling. How troublesome; all emotions were, after all. IA laughed humorlessly, soft enough not to be heard over the girl's chat – combined with a lot of hand actions, AKA, hugging – with Rei. Ah well, I don't think that kind of pesky thing called...annoyance will get in the way of my work...Turning her attention to the black-haired male who was flirting yet again with the girl, she frowned even deeper, creases forming on her forehead. For the fourth time in five minutes, he had caught the attention of girls, and all of this was just stalling dinner. Her stomach gave a little growl of protest at the thought of tantalizing food, but she ignored it. After all, it was more important that Rei Kagane didn't run off and get lost and get his stupid freaking dumb butt lost in the stupid maze or something.
Deciding to wait for him to finish his useless flirting, she leant against the wall, absent-mindedly staring at her fan, and traced her finger over the little patterns and designs on the fan, and occasionally, little splotches of dried blood. The piece of intricately decorated metal had been with her for so long, never betraying her. IA smiled faintly – not a sarcastic smile, for once – and her azure orbs flicked up to Rei and...was it Galaco? She mentally calculated the time in her head, and frowned again. Half an hour. They were late for dinner by half an hour. And she couldn't stand the emptiness of her stomach anymore.
Galaco raised her eyebrows as IA approached her and Rei. Even though she had heard of the infamous blonde and her frequently dangerous missions, and Galaco had gotten an image of a strongly built girl, she didn't really seem...that intimidating and scary up close. And IA didn't even fit her impression of said girl. Perhaps the rumors were exaggerated albeit too much. She seems more like a petite, fashionable girl, than an assassin.
"Excuse me, but we really need to get going for dinner." The blonde grabbed Rei's arm, and asked to leave coldly. Galaco smirked a little; so the rumor about the poker face part was true. She held the boy's other arm tightly. "What if I say no?" She challenged, her smirked growing bigger when IA's poker face slipped a little, revealing her frown.
"Well, why don't we ask him, then?" The blonde indicated towards Rei with a slight tilt of her head, her dislike for the black-haired male clearly visible with her upturned nose and sarcastic tone. Galaco turned to Rei, pouting. She was pretty...sure that he would take her side. After all, IA wasn't anything special, and from the looks of things (flirting and all that stuff), he seemed pretty interested in her.
"Ah, well, I guess dinner calls~! Sorry, Galaco-chan!" Rei winked at Galaco, then turned his back at her and left for the dining hall, after the blonde and chatting with her – or rather, attempting to chat with her. IA simply ignored him coolly and continued walking. The boy pouted in response, and folded his arms.
Galaco stood alone in the corridor, dumbfounded. W-wha? W-why?
Rei poked his spoon at the pile of peas at the side of his plate, and groaned. "Do I really have to eat this? It looks...bleh," he complained, scooping up some peas and sniffed at them. He then held it away from his nose. "It smells bleh too. Urgh!" IA nodded disgruntledly without looking at him, poking at her own pile of peas. She scooped up some of the disgusting green legume and chomped down tentatively on the silver spoon, and pushed her plate away from her immediately, looking green.
"I'm going back to my room." The sentence hung in the air as she walked out of the dining hall. Whispers immediately started up once the assassin's back could no longer be seen. Rei eavesdropped "unintentionally", and caught something like "thinks she's a boss" and "scary, huh?". He rolled his eyes in annoyance. What false speech. He sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose in mild anger (Wait, anger? Rei mused, how very strange), before realizing something.
"Hey! Where and how am I supposed to sleep?" He gestured wildly in the air, flabbergasted that his host-or-whatever just...dumped him here. In cold blood. "How irresponsible! How cold! How mean! How...uh...absolutely evil of you! Hey! IAAAAAA!"
Unable to watch the poor boy in distress, SeeU tapped on his shoulder shyly, and fidgeted under his surprised stare. "Uh, um, I-I could show you around the building if you liked...A-and I know where IA's room is, so..." The girl buried her face in her curly hair in embarrassment when Rei seemed to scrutinize every fiber of her being. Rei caught himself and grinned, the gears of his mind working frantically. On one hand, this girl was pretty cute (Bonus!) and he could sniff out some information about that poker face girl, while on the other...
"Ah, I'll find my way around, someway or another, don't worry! Besides, I...think, think I know where that girl's room is...Yeah." Rei smiled sweetly up at the still blushing blonde and stood up. "See yah!" Now...I wonder what interesting things I will find in this place...It better be something cool, or...consequences will be dire~ He hummed in amusement.
He turned right the first junction, and after walking for a while, came upon an innocent-looking door. The boy looked around him to make sure no one saw him and grinned. You know what they say: the innocent ones are the dangerous ones...or how it goes. Anyway. The door creaked softly as he carefully pushed it open, and Rei winced. Every single sound seemed to be loud, like the ringing of bells, when one was snooping around in a silent corridor.
Nothing behind the door except for a bunch of miscellaneous stuff. A storeroom, perhaps? The boy hung his head in disappointment, but a bright sparkle from one of the items caught his attention. He made his way into the storeroom and gaped when his eyes found the item. "...Wine? Why is there wine here?! Such good wine and wasted away in this room..." Rei shook his head. This place had some weird people who kept wine in un-cold storerooms, that was for sure.
He exited the room, and this time, at the same junction, walked straight to get to the unexplored left side. The color of the lights changed from blue to purple, as he walked further in. Rei raised his eyebrow in surprise; yep, weird people indeed. A white door, the supposedly same color as the walls (he couldn't tell with the stupid lighting), caught his attention. The door had no doorknob. Aha! Another 'hidden' door?
The boy pushed open the door, secretly happy that this one slid open without a sound. The interior of the room was pitch-black, lit only by the purple lights from the outside. Rei waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark, and frowned when a thought floated around in his brain and caught it before it slipped away. Now...why aren't the doors locked, or at the very least, guarded? The storeroom is understandable, but...that white door, accompanied with the white walls, is supposed to be meant for hiding stuff, and even though it has no knob, it could still be locked. There were no guards outside of the room, and that could only mean...
Shit.
Rei quickly dodged the hit from his right, and turned around sharply, but he was too late. A strong hit to the back of his head knocked him to the ground, forcing him to kiss the cold stone floor with his nose. As he struggled to stand (and hold his poor nose), black dots began to invade his vision, and Rei realized that he was going to faint. Fighting to stay awake, the boy turned to see whom his attacker was. His eyebrows flew up into his hair when he realized who it was, and he slipped away to unconsciousness before he could acknowledge the girl who hit him hard on the head.
Galaco stared down at the boy on the floor, her lips curved into a smirk. Good thing she was relaxing in the room, or all of their secrets (How to get out of the maze, names, blah blah blah) would be spilled. She made a mental note to herself to tell the director about this matter they had, and to change the location of the room. Her amber eyes wandered over to the unconscious boy and she poked him in his cheeks, giggling to herself about how soft they were. He stirred, and Galaco froze in her poking actions. She relaxed when he merely turned his head to the other side. Grumbling softly to herself, the girl dragged Rei out of the room and in front of the cafeteria. Someone was bound to find him there, even if it was some time past dinner, she was sure of that. Some of the people here liked to visit the food store in the cafeteria for some much-needed snacks, and she herself was one of them.
Bye bye, Rei-kyun! Sorry for that hit, hehe! Eh, I suppose you could count that as payback! Galaco turned on her heels and was about to make way to her room, but froze when a hand grabbed her wrist.
"Hm, don't you agree that it's kinda mean to hit someone unconscious, then just leave him alone? I mean, hey, at least IA left me by a wall! You simply left me lying at the entrance of the cafeteria, where someone could step on me!" Rei whispered beside her ear, and even the content of his words seemed light-hearted, his tone held a certain harshness, and Galaco couldn't help but shiver in fear. Her legs felt like they were rooted to the ground, and there was a chill in the air that was unavoidable. All of a sudden, she felt like a weak prey, and Rei was the predator, waiting for her to slip up, waiting to gobble her up...A shiver ran down her spine as Rei's cold fingers came into contact with her bare arms.
"Well? Don't just stand there in shock. By the looks of it, he's going to attack you or something, so can't you run, or, at least dodge, Galaco?" IA's cool voice shattered the tension, and Galaco's head whipped to the direction of her voice in surprise. When had the girl gotten here? She certainly hadn't heard any footsteps coming their way, but...Galaco was relieved by the presence of IA, surprisingly.
"IA! When did you get here? I didn't see you, and you're so mean, leaving me there!" Rei seemed genuinely surprised, but he covered it up with the sudden carefree-ness in his tone, something that was missing when he spoke to Galaco. He released her wrist, and Galaco snatched it up to her chest, rubbing it, glad to be free of his grip. The black-haired male skipped over to the blonde, but not before sending her a dangerous look that Galaco doubted IA would see.
"You're such a freaking idiot. I came from behind you, so obviously you didn't see me," IA replied, irritated. The blonde looked at the fellow assassin coolly and saw that the girl avoided her eyes. There was something strange with Rei and Galaco's conversation just then, but she didn't know what that was. And if there was something unknown to her, she was going to uncover it. IA couldn't stand secrets, even though she...had some of her own. It brought her back to Teto's lie, but the blonde mentally shook her head, remembering that she didn't want to think about it.
She only knew that Rei had abilities similar to her own; he was able to spring up from the floor in five seconds flat, even though he was supposed to be unconscious.
Not that she really cared about that, but...she could've sworn that there was a strange mark on his back, near his waist, when he flipped up from the floor straight.
A mark that was oh-so-familiar.
But that couldn't be true, could it? It might have just been a trick of light.
Ehehe~ I wonder what that mark is, hmm?
Reviews, nya!