Don't own School Rumble.
Harima nodded, "Clean shaven is the best way to go really." It was then that he spotted the three lurkers, "Oh Tenma, how are you?" Inside Harima was astonished, "Wow, I spoke her name without any sort of feeling attatched, weird."
"Harima-kun, if clean shaven is the way you want it. Please allow me to cut your hair for you." Eri smiled again at Kenji, who looked towards her and nodded slowly as if coming out of a dream.
Harima sank to his knees as he recalled the dream he had earlier that day, feeling his head become lighter as more hair was removed. This was about as great of change as he had ever gone through in his life so far, and he forced himself to be calm as Eri finished shaving his head bare.
In the meantime, Tenma had watched in astonishment as Harima was changed. "I'm fine Harima... Nice job Eri, he looks good like that."
Mikoto nodded, "Yes, he does look good Eri, you did a great job on him."
Eri's cheeks tinted pink with the praise, "Thank you." She looked at Kenji again and smiled. He really did look handsome without his hair. She never even noticed that deep within her own heart, a shrine for Harima was under construction.
Later that afternoon, Kenji was in the junior editor's office discussing his manuscript with the junior editor.
"One of the problems I see Harima-san, is that you keep changing things. It would work out much better for the both of us if you would stick to a layout."
"Really?"
The man nodded, "Yes, generally Manga characters are always constant, very little change of feature or look in general. Yours, while its not finished yet, does change and shift a little much. We can run a test run with the first 30 pages and see, but if you could stick to your story here. It would be best for you in the long run."
Harima thought about that for a while, "Huh, well, I will continue this story then. Thank you for your time sir." Harima stood and collected part of the manuscript before bowing.
"You're welcome, and by the way, I like your hat, its a rare find here. Keep up the good work Harima-san."
Harima walked out of the publishing company and decided to head to his cousin's place for now. Before he got too far however, his cell phone rang. "Yo, this Harima."
"Hey, this is Takano. I hate doing this, but Haruki would like to know if you want to sign up for the track relay team-"
"Yes." Answered Harima without a second thought, "I'll be there."
"Arigato Harima-san, bye."
Harima continued to his cousin's, where he also called home. He needed to practice stretching and exercising even with all the walking he did.
Accross town, in her family's mansion, Eri was in the exercise room also stretching, not only her muscles, but her thoughts as well. "Ok, gotta focus on tomorrow. I know Harima-kun will be on my team for that crazy horse event. I wish I could see what he was thinking, hell, I wish I could tell him that I'm counting on him for tomorrow." She switched to another leg stretching exercise as she continued to think. "Its ironic that I have Tenma to thank for Harima-kun's willingness to talk more with me. Both me and him communicate so well, its scary. While he may unintentionally push my buttons, there's no duplicity or fakery between us. We're on the same level, if he says something to me, I respond. But..."
She continued with her internal thinking, trying to avoid the core issue of whether or not she loved him. Her attention had to be on the athletic meet tomorrow, but after her workout that evening, thoughts drifted back towards the city and one guy who held the key unknowingly to her heart. "Harima-kun, sleep well." She whispered before adjourning for the night.
Harima slept uneasily, his dreams constantly shifting faces. The nature of the dreams he was having tonight reminded him in some part of his mind of a gambling wheel. Eventually the wheel stopped on Sawachika and the dream.....
Dream Kenji raised his eyebrows as he recognized the person accross from him, one Eri Sawachika. His dream-memory adding that she was going to be Eri Harima soon. As to the dream scene, she had just found his comic he was finishing, and was reading through it.
After dream-Eri was finished, her golden eyes pierced into his own as she gently stated, "Confess your love again my dear Kenji-kun." The dream-Eri stood, and offered her hand to him, at which point, the dream suddenly faded out.
Harima sat up in bed, "What the hell was that about?" He turned over on to his side thinking, "That was so completely out of left field, oh man what a weird dream." He turned over towards the wall and tried to go to sleep, but found that he kept seeing Sawachika's face just behind his eyelids. With a sigh, he resigned himself to a troubled night.
The next day was bright and sunny with few clouds. Yagami High was the center of attention today, at least for the students that went there. The athletic track was packed with students from mostly the first year section of school who were the audience on the outer limits of the track area while the infield of the track was filled with students from second year.
The speech was nothing special as it was Kotou-Sensei of 2-D who gave it. The only notable part of the opening ceremony was the introduction of the new school nurse. Harima frowned as nearly the entire male population of the field let out a cheer. "Jerks, all of them." He muttered sotto voiced, Let's get on with it!"
The first event involved attempting to get balls into baskets, the key word here was attempting, as most opted to use said balls for throwing at the opposition. The females were relegated to the cheerleader section for the time being, some were not too pleased with the stipulated cheertime however. This was very evident in class 2-Ds Lala Gonzales, who was widely known to enjoy action more than the sidelines.
2-C or not 2-D, that seemed to be the way of things in the first few events, with 2-C dominating most of the events. There were also events where no quarter was given or taken, like the female tug of war event between 2-C and 2-D, no one won that one.
After that, an outdoor picnic sort of lunch was allowed. Some however found the pom-poms more interesting than being social and eating with aquaintances while some wondered where those others were.
Joint Random Eri and Harima Viewpoints
Eri held the paper with the upcoming event on it, privately she was a bit trepedative about being teamed with not only Harima-kun but one of the class perverts as well. As she told Mikoto before she went to join her team, "Look, I'm fine with how things are ok? Don't worry about it."
Harima wore a hat with a dragon on the front of it today. He nodded to Eri as she approached, "Hey."
Eri looked up at him, not really having realized how tall he actually was. "Wow, He's almost a head taller than me." "Harima-kun, could you bend a bit please?"
Harima softened his stance and obligued her, "Sure Ojou."
Eri stepped onto his outstretched hand and held on to his shoulders for stability as he lifted her up a bit. She could feel the coiled muscles under the shirt he wore as he directed the othe two guys to assume their support roles. She swung her other leg over the makeshift mount feeling Harima's other hand catch and support her right foot, shifting her balance a little as the other two support guys brought their free hands to also lend in support of Sawachika's feet. With Eri now properly supported, [most of her weight was on Harima] they went off to join the rest of 2-C.
Eri looked around her was they moved to the starting position. Mikoto was with Asou, Suga and Another Guy. Tenma was escorted by Nara and two others. Akira was heralded by Nishimoto and supported by some other male classmates. Ichijou was guarded in front by the raging bull Hanai and augmented with 2 nameless guys.
Eri leaned down a bit toward Harima, "Let's do our best okay? We need to stay serious here." She patted his hat a bit and glared at the back of his head. She knew he wasn't entirely used to not having any hair on his head, but she reasoned, it was the principle of the thing. They both needed to be strong here and work together as a team. "Let's go for the win alright?"
Harima frowned a little at Eri's comment, but kept quiet. "She is right after all, we need to be a team and work together." He joined the throng lined up and await the signal.
Karasuma blew into a large seashell to start the event, deafening the starter gun guy. and the two sides rushed to the center. Guys strained against one another as the girls tried to fight and defend their headbands. Others did sideswipes and drive-by grabbing of headbands.
After that first charge, the game was narrowed down to members of either 2-C or 2-D actively going for points. Until 2-A and B decided to concentrate their efforts on mainly 2-C.
Ichijou scaled the pyramid of 2-A to collect all the headbands from there, after that, the pyramid caved in on itself after some idiot left his spot and therefore created a pileup of good sized proportions.
Next was 2-B's three fat guys and their rider. Suou tackled this problem using her head, she had Asou kick out one of the fat guys lega and then rammed them again to successfully unhorse that rider.
In the meantime, the two main focuses of our story were wandering hither and yon due to Harima's fear losing his hat. Harima knew that he really had nothing to fear but he was still not used to having bare head. A few seconds later, the school nurse encouraged Harima and Yoshidyama decided to throw out a comment that was curtailed by Harima's retort, "Shut it and get your hair harvested!"
Eri had been asking him to get reinvolved in the event repeatedly before the school nurse had gotten his attention. She frowned forcefully grabbed the top of his head, "Right turn." Then she forced his head the other way, "Left turn."
Harima growled to her begrudgingly, "Alright Ojou, you're the boss, I get it."
"Glad to hear it. Now let's get back into the fray!" Eri growled when all of the sudden, her just spoken words became a moot point.
Two nameless teams suddenly came at them in a pincer attack. One lead guy got kicked in the face by Harima while Eri evaded and captured one of the girls' headbands. "Get lost losers!" was Harima's reply. Outward arrogance battled imaged arrogance as Harima and Eri continued to bicker until Eri sighed and bent her head down to whisper in his ear.
"Listen Harima-kun, let's stop wandering all over okay? Please, let's stop arguing as its pointless alright?" Silence was the answer she got back, with a slight nod to show that he had heard her.
It wasn't too long before another "final attempt" weapon by one of the competing classes was realized in the hulking form of a bulky guy. named Tanoshi. Who generally was someone who relied on his bulk and size for easy going. It was not going to be a cakewalk to destablize this guy.
After the first try at a kick, Harima knew he had to think fast and used the opportunity to swing out very wide while he explained his plan to Eri. "Ok Sawachika, follow what I tell you to do....."
Eri grimaced and gave a slight nod, "Let's do it." She jumped up and prepared for a kick as Harima raced the team in and also kicked at the same time, resulting in Tanoshi slowly starting to topple over.
"If I'm going down, you're comin along with me!" Tanoshi grabbed at Harima's hat long enough that it started to fully slide off before Eri made a snap decision and grabbed for his hat while making a somersalt and quickly replaced it upon Kenji's head before tucking in and rolling along the ground uncaring if she unhorsed herself in the process.
As her teamates and former mount stared at her in suprise on the ground, she knew that Kenji was still insecure as far as his image was concerned. She could see that Harima was very suprised by her action as the other two looked on in shock, but at the moment she was a little banged up. She rubbed her lower back and tailbone a little to make sure it was still there.
"Ojou, you ok?" Harima stood behind her, concerned. Inside he admitted that it had probably been wrong of him to wear any hat today, but considering he'd just had his head shaved the day before. He wasn't all that used to having no hair. So when Eri got back up and turned around with a rather dark look on her face. Kenji attempted to ward off the coming storm. "Look Ojou, I realize that it was wrong of me to even wear a hat to begin with here and the very least I should've done was take it off beforehand. I realize that what you just did would unneeded if I had simply sidelined my hat today."
Eri paused to process his words, then smiled to him. "Apology accepted Harima-kun. Could you help me to the nurses station please?"
Kenji nodded and walked with Eri as the other two guys shrugged and went toward their respective friends.
Harima walked alongside Eri quietly, "I don't particularly care for this new nurse," He started to explain. "So I'll just wait outside if that's ok with you."
Eri nodded and soon she was inside the nurses office with Kenji outside. After five minutes she returned, "I've got a race to run, I can't be sidelined for it."
Harima nodded as he travelled beside her. "Never give up Ojou-chan," He encouraged, not noticing the pinkness to her cheeks as he spoke. "I'll be rooting for you from beside the finish line Eri, no matter what happens, I want you to finish the race okay?"
"Hai." Eri was astonished that he'd used her first name for the first time ever. "Focus on the race." She told herself.
"Looks like the next event is due to start, remember what I said Ojou. Go get em!" said Kenji before he departed. Eri stared after him until Mikoto poked her arm.
"Hey, you up to the race?"
Eri smirked, "Of course I am! Let's do it."
The intercom blared, "All runners to their places please. Repeat, all runners to their places on track. The race starts in one minute."
Eri went to her place on the track and started to stretch as best she could. She grimaced at the momentary tenseness and firmed up her expression. "Harima-kun is counting on me to do my best, and for me, that equals winning. This leg just has to hold out for that long." She heard the starter gun go off and took several deep breaths before assuming her position. She knew that Sagano would be handing off to her soon and took a deep breath. "I can do this." She repeated to herself for the umpteenth time, "I will not fail my friends, nor will I fail Kenji-kun. I must do this!"
She felt the baton enter her hand from Sagano and took off as fast as she could. Finding out that running on a weak ankle wasn't the best of ideas, but relentlessly she raged at herself. "My feet feel like they're lead weights, but I must-" She winced as a twitch of pain shot through her leg and strained to continue.
Kenji watched the blonde ponytail silently, attempting to channel his own drive and energy telepathically into Sawachika. "Come on Eri, you can do this! Don't give up! Only 50 meters to go."
Determination ruled Eri's facial features as she tried her best to ignore the pain and keep going. She knew the others were catching up to her with every step she took. Her mouth became a hard line as she rounded the final turn. "I will do this. 40 meters to go, come on, please!" She spotted Harima in the red jacket by the finish line and a surge of energy hit her.
Harima was tense with anticipation when, at fifteen meters from the finish....
Eri's foot landed wrong and she was falling. "Dammit!" She made her way up to her hands and knees and started looking for the baton, she found it as the other runners passed her. She had the sense to let them go by before rising and with the baton in hand, walked accross the finish line.
Harima draped his jacket over her shoulders, "We're going to the nurses office." He said in a don't argue tone. This was much to the suprise of Mikoto and Tenma, who had hurried over to check on Eri, but were shocked to find Eri being helped by Harima towards the nurses office again.
After Eri came out of the office wearing a bandage around her ankle. Harima quietly walked with her, "Perhaps you don't like me around this much Ojou, but I'm starting not to care what others think. If they see us together, then they see us together, it really can't be helped. Anyway Ojou-chan, this next race is for you."
Eri stood by the fence and slowly sat down as she watched Kenji move towards the track. "Do I love him?" The thought came to her suddenly, causing her to pull the jacket tighter around her. "Harima, don't lose."
E.4.N
I hope I'm writing Eri and Harima as close to their general action/reaction base as possible. In my mind, they generally act without thinking toward eachother very much. I might be wrong in thinking that, but most of the time, neither of them prepare for interactions with each other. Those just seem to happen on the moment. I do apologize for heavily excluding writing other characters in, but I felt that it was best to focus on these two characters rather then try to include the entire main character cast. Anyway, I've got at least one more chapter to go. Feedback is good, encouragement is greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading and please review.