Something about Jin Kobayashi owning School rumble as well as others owning the anime series based off the books. Dont own a thing.
Tani-sensei had just returned from the faculty room after having spoken with his fellow co-worker of 2-D. He was not happy, because the guy had eaten the cookies he had recieved from the new school nurse. He turned and faced the class from the podium, he sighed and raising his hands up, brought them down on the podium with a loud crash. The class went silent as the sensei extruded an aura of anger and determination. "Class, the current schedule is no longer valid. 2-D has challenged us, and in order for us to obliterate them, all of you will train." His glasses gleamed in the light, "Now go get changed, training starts shortly."
An hour later, in the auxilary gymnasium, the sensei stood beside a portable writing board that had the words "Cooperation Exercises". After the entire class had arrived, and the entrances closed, the sensei began explaining.
"Hear me out on this class. I know we have great athletes here, and I appreciate that which we have, but what we do not have is a cooperative spirit. We lack the spirit of respect towards each other. This is what we muist work on. Therefore, I have assigned each of you partners to work with on various tasks. First task, two on two basketball with heavy emphasis on passing and teamwork...."
After Tani-sensei finished speaking, he watched as the assigned students begrudgingly went about their tasks. Ten minutes later, he frowned at the state of things. Certain teams on the field weren't working out, "Sawachika and Harima, it is time for your next task, if the both of you will please approach me..."
The mentioned two slowly approached their sensei, "What's up Sensei?" Harima spoke first. Eri simply tilted her head inquisitively.
Tani-sensei handed them a paper. "This is a scenario, feel free to figure it out together. You have the rest of the hour."
The two went over to the side with their assignment, Eri held out her hand. "Can I see what it says?"
Harima took off his shades as he wordlessly handed her the paper, which read:
A Must-do Scenario for Aspiring Business People,
The company you own is doing well. Well enough that you can merge with a competitor. However, the particular company you wish to aquire refuses your merger attempts. What option would you take to force that company into your hands?
Harima pondered this, "Ojou, would you have any ideas about this sort of thing?"
Sawachika looked up frowning, "I might have a little idea, mostly from overhearing my parents. All I know is something to do with hostile takeovers."
Haarima stroked his beard in thought, "Hostile takeovers....." He pictured the publishing company building under seige with soldiers pouring into the place. A chibi version of himself standing on the roof victoriously.
Eri pictured a chibi self glaring everyone into submission. "So what's your idea Harima?"
"...I'd kill them all...." He muttered before looking over at Eri, "What? That's my definition of a hostile takeover... What's yours?"
Eri glared at him a moment, "I'd glare them into submission."
Harima knew he shouldn't, but he started chuckling, which became full laughter. "G-glare thwem into s-submission? bahaha-ulp!"
Sawachika glared at him and poked his chest, "Got any better ideas?"
A now rather docile Kenji shook his head, "No mistress!"
Eri growled at him, "Shut up Harima."
They sat in silence for a while, just watching their classmates shoot hoops. The unshaded eyes of Kenji glanced over at the blonde next to him as he thought in silence for a while. "Maybe Tenma's right about Ojou. She is pretty after all, but I don't get why we always seem to get on eachother's nerves so much." Kenji looked up at the others he knew, and pondered his memories. Tenma... How could I have been so blind? How could I not have realized that you never liked me in that way?" Harima sighed out loud a bit, causing his companion to look at him. "Ojou," He quietly intoned, "I might have the answer to that question the sensei gave us."
Eri nodded, "Go on."
"Glaring them down with guns."
Sawachika thought about that for a moment. It did seem like a good idea, she thought about it some more before finally nodding. "That seems workable enough." The silence drove a wedge between them again as Eri returned to her inner thoughts. "Its interesting, the first time we really met, all he did was walk me a ways under his umbrella. There was no pretense there at all, he was straight forward as I've ever seen. The next time we crossed paths...." A faint tinge of pink graced her cheeks, "I wonder about his feelings now... What am I thinking? I was there when he confessed to Tenma, and I know he's still hurting after that. Maybe I should apologize for the beach hotel incident..." She glanced over at him, nearly catching him looking at her if she hadn't had her eyes half closed. "Hey H-Harima, I just want to say I'm sorry for the beach hotel thing." She hoped he got what she meant, if she had to explain further, she would be blushing noticably.
Harima was taken offguard by this and blushed a bit himself once he got her meaning, "Ah, heh. That's in the past Ojou, but you're forgiven." Kenji was fairly amused that Ojou would actually apologize for something, but her doing so did go a long way in his book.
In the meantime, in the field of the gym floor. Mikoto had glanced more then once at Eri talking with Harima, thinking of planning something reguarding the two. She turned to Akira, who shook her head. "Leave them be Mikoto."
"How could you tell what I was thinking Akira?"
"I just can." Came the enigmatic reply.
Soon enough, Tani-sensei approached them. "Figured it out yet?"
Eri shrugged, "Somewhat, but storming their headquarters glaring threateningly while waving guns around seemed like the best idea. Harima came up with the guns and I came up with the glaring." She handed Tani-sensei the paper.
The sensei nodded slowly, "I.... see. That's a literal way to put it, hostile takeover indeed." He took the paper and walked away. After he reached the center of the room, he blew a whistle to single an activity shift, "Ok class, Its time for you to know what's coming up at the meet, gather round please..."
From Harima's standpoint, the training was a good idea. He understood the meaning of being ready for a competition and therefore appreciated the homeroom sensei's sense. The day wore on while him and the rest of his team did a great deal of warm up exercises to stretch and limber up muscles that might be needed in that particular competition. Largely, he had remained on good terms with Sawachika throughout the rest of the day. In his estimation, the viewpoint on the rich girl had changed for the positive.
On the other side of the viewpoint category, Eri was having a difficult time restraining herself from throttling Tenma. While within her mind, Eri thought that the day was certainly looking brighter for her, she really wished that her friends wouldn't tease her so much. She decided to have her bulter pick her up instead of walking with her friends. The embarrassment factor in her opinion had already reached intolerable levels for this day alone.
Later, after bidding her friend's goodbye, she watched buildings go by as she pondered one Kanji Harima. Despite his initial tendencies to push all her buttons in such a way that the initial conversation would likely be hostile. Once she got past that and forced herself to not reply in such a manner, the atmosphere mellowed out between them. It had been a good day.
Harima yawned and slowly rose out of bed after a so-so night's sleep. School, he reflected, was an abhorant pain. He went to the bathroom and felt somewhat better after a shower. Slowly, the memories of yesterday returned to him while he ate breakfast. Tomorrow was the athletic meet.....
In the classroom an hour later, Harima was sleeping while only a few classmates remained in the room. Specifically Eri, Akira, Mikoto and Tenma were playing around with the pom-poms. Tenma and Mikoto had just finished a practice cheer round when Tenma decided to look at what Akira and Eri were up to. "Hey Eri, Whatcha doin?"
Eri had just put a pom-pom on Akira's head and started trimming the latter's hair to get the right look, on occassion brandishing her barber's scissors as she made adjustments the pom-pom so that it would cover Akira's hair completely. After a minute of this, Eri stepped back and let the other girls have a look at her handiwork.
Both girls were very impressed with the results, Tenma spoke first, exclaiming, "Wow! Akira, you look hot!"
"Where did you learn to do that Eri?" Mikoto asked, pleasantly suprised.
Eri smirked, "I dunno, I'm just that brilliant." And with that, she unfolded her right arm, her right hand still holding the scissors, and proceeded to let a very small giggle erupt before the sound of the scissors snipping something quickly brought the group to a halt.
Eri glanced out of the corner of her eyes and internally cursed as what she saw was very clear. The scissors that were in her hand hand plainly cut Harima's growing beard mostly off. She quickly drew back from the sleeping Harima, "AAHH!"
"Whoops." Offered Akira unhelpfully while the other two moved closer to see what was going on.
"WAAAAAAAHHHHH!" Then they screamed at the atrocity too.
Tenma, being the great genius she is, added, "His whiskers!!" Before being shushed by Eri as they saw Harima rising from his desk turned makeshift pillow.
Akira put the remains Harima's beard behind Mikoto's hair as a makeshift ponytail in the hope that Harima wouldn't notice.
Thusly causing Harima to start waking up. He'd been dreaming that Eri was giving him a haircut oddly enough. Kenji looked at the girls blearily, "Stop screamin' so loud will ya?" He muttered before attempting to regain blissful unconsciousness.
"Close one."
Mikoto frowned at the beard that Akira held, "He's gonna be so mad."
Tenma confronted a rather apprehensively agitated Eri. "I can't believe you did that, what the heck is wrong with you?!"
"It was an accident!" Eri defended herself. Really it had been an honest mistake on her part, she just hadn't been watching where the scissors were going.
Mioto looked over at Eri and Tenma, "Okay, we've got a serious problem, Harima seemed like he was really attatched to that beard [indeed]."
Akira was inspecting the beard in her hand, "He was just telling me about how much he strokes it..."
Tenma had decided to tie a pink ribbon to Harima's beard, what remained on his face that is. "I think he looks really cute like this." She said , wiping her forehead with the back of her hand.
Mikoto disagreed, "To me, he looks kinda creepy, somehow I don't think cute is the right word to describe how he looks."
Eri composed herself and looked at Harima before speaking, "Hey Tenma, when he wakes again, can you tell him to meet me on the roof? I need time to sort my apology out to him." She looked rather introspective as she went towards the door, "On second thought, don't tell him. He'll likely come up to the roof anyway." She rectified her statement before she left the room.
On exiting the room, Eri made her way to the fourth floor female restroom and shut the door behind her, sighing quietly. "Why did that happen? I certainly didn't mean for it to be like this. Ugh, I should've paid more attention to what I was doing! Argh, Now I'm stuck owing Hige an apology." She walked over to the mirror and examined what she saw critically. "Why do I still wear my hair in double pony tails anyway? Looks like a little kid in a way, ugh. Well, If I'm going to apologize, I should look a little different." She rearranged her hair in a single ponytail and examined herself again. "Better, I look more mature now." Suddenly the memory of Harima's first, albeit mistaken, confession popped into her head and she stiffened. "Why does this pop up now? Do I- No! I must apologize first, no matter what happens, I want him to accept my apology." She firmed up, her eyes determined, and headed for the roof.
Harima woke up a bit after it had gone all quiet in the classroom and looked around, "Huh, nobody here." He stood up and stretched a bit, "Oh well, can't be here....all...day?" His voice trailed off as his fingers found the ribbon tied to his beard, his shortened beard. "WHAT THE HELL?!" He frowned and started stalking toward the roof, simmering in his mind as his mind was a whirlwind of thoughts.
"What the hell happened while I was asleep? And what kinda dreams were those anyway? Bearded girls? since when are..... Wait a minute, one of those girls likely had something to do with this!" He growled as he slammed the door open to the roof. "Who cut off my beard?" He walked over to the fence and sat down in a sulking position. A few minutes later he frowned and lay back on the roof, staring despondently at the sky. Thinking quietly, he took off his shades and looked at them. "Are these shades really necessary? Is my beard really that necessary? It seems that these two things are connected with Tenma, who refused me a couple weeks ago. She even said for me to drop the shades-"
Eri quietly closed the roof entrance door and turned to just observe the only guy who had made an impact on her heart. She reminded herself of her purpose and quietly approached Kenji, who apparently hadn't heard the roof door.
"-and possibly this beard." He turned the shades over and over in a hand, remember something that Tenma had told him on their way from the old schoolhouse. "Harima, please remember that to a girl, your appearance is not the most important thing, but its how act. How you carry and handle yourself around others and how you treat those around you. Remember this every day you're at school. girls chiefly look at the personality of a guy, You don't need to hide your face from those around you. Please listen to me Harima, take off your shades that blind you from the real beauty around you."
Harima sighed softly and reflected on what Tenma had said and asked himself outloud, not realizing he now had company. "Have I used these shades and my beard as masks for myself?" He opened his eyes and beheld a blonde pony tail to his left, "Sawachika-san, what are you doing here?"
Slowly, the head rotated until sad amber eyes met his. "Hi-Harima-kun... First of all, I want to apologize for accidently cutting your beard off. I wasn't watching what I was doing and I was being careless." Eri took a deep breath, "This is hard for me to do, apologizing is horrible, but what I did to you was even worse-"
He softly spoke, cutting her off as he sat up. She noticed that he left his shades off but remained quiet as he looked at her. "Eri-san, your apology is accepted." He looked out toward the skyline continuing to speak, "Once I got spoken with about changing my life for the better. Its ironic that Tenma-san was the one who first told me and got me thinking about change."
He turned and smiled genuinely at her, unaware of the effect his smile had on her. "Today, you helped me decide to make the change complete."
Eri now had most of her attention on him as he spoke, not realizing that her friends were by the roof door.
"I was initially very upset with the one who had chopped my beard, but something Tenma-san told me a while back returned to me. And it has occurred to me that for my future, my beard and shades must go." He finished, looking toward her for her response.
Eri blinked and stood up, "Change is hard. Having to apologize to you was really hard Harima-kun. Yet I'm glad I did it." She paused and thought a bit, only to get sidelined by a very off the wall question.
"I wonder if girls like clean shaven guys or bearded types?"
Eri smirked, "I can tell you what I prefer Harima-kun, and thats clean shaven."
Harima blushed lightly, "I can't believe I'm actually doing this...." he thought as he took out a shaver blade and disposed of the rest of his beard. "How do I look?" He asked as he unknowingly presented hhis profile to the three quiet audience members.
Eri smiled a truly genuine blinding light kind of smile towards Harima, "Better."
Harima was blinded by the light in Eri's smile, "Wow, that's a hellava smile." In a small section of Harima's heart, a Sawachika statue began to be built to replace the rubble that once had been the Tenma shrine.
E.4.N
Well, this is my take on a Harima that gets both refused by Tenma and yet encouraged by Tenma as well. I do acknowledge that this Harima is getting out of character a bit, but that is due to Tenma's words that encouraged him to be himself and to grow. In the series, I believe that Kenji makes the most changes as far as general personal growth and realizing change. Anyways, stay tuned for the next chapter. Hope you enjoy and don't be afraid to leave feedback.