A/N: Oh my goodness. After almost nine months, I have finally updated Fairytales! I'll admit that it was due to a mix of writer's block, schoolwork, and other things that distracted me from getting any writing done. I wrote two other editions before settling with this one. Thanks to all the readers for the patience! Sorry for the delay, but the show must go on!

(Note: some of the story is told from Aya's point of view. If it is, it will be indicated; otherwise, it is told in third-person POV.)

Chapter 9: Soapsuds

Aya's P.O.V.

I'll bet he's thinking about it.

The girl who sits to the right of me, Ritsuko-what's-her-name, keeps looking at the back of Fuji's head instead of at her test. She's new—just transferred before winter break—but she's falling for him pretty quickly. Occasionally, she gathers her guts and steals a look at me, probably because: A) I am her neighbor, or B) she might think that I have a crush on him. If the latter was the case, by my word, she'll be damned.

I'm staring at his shoulders; they are tilted as he takes his test. I definitely know he's not concentrating on the problems. Definitely. He's thinking about it.

The kiss.

The kiss was a heart-stopping, quick meeting of his lips. I remember thinking that I should blink to let the moisture roll out, but his face swarmed up and grew in size like a big movie screen. Then there was no music, no Dad, no An, no Seigaku, no Japan, nothing but him. On impact, the corners of my mouth twitched. Heart stoppage. It had probably taken just one second, but it felt like a whole minute.

When he told me that he liked me—with those magic words, my heart came back to life and collided with my ribs.

Good grief, concentrate on the test. Although I knew right from wrong, I continued to stare at him. Looking at him now, it feels impossible that this guy sitting in front of me was that boy who kissed me. Three days after the horrendous retreat from the Underworld, I was beginning to sink into that lull of everyday school life. We haven't said a word to each other; I knew he would've liked to, but I'm not going to let him. In an environment that was both big and small, Seigaku made both of us act like nothing was different.

To top it off, there were rumors. When I looked up, the teacher was pointing at me and nodding.

I pointed to myself questioningly. "Me?"

"You're wanted in the principal's office."

"Hai."

I got out of my chair and walked across the room just like any other day. I'm not positive, but if I were Fuji, I'd stare at myself retreat. At the principal's office, it turns out that I was to be put under kitchen and cleaning duty for the rest of the semester for punching Tachibana An in the nose, and that the school has no tolerance for violence, and they're enjoying my punishment as much as I do, do I understand? I nodded yes.

"We've notified your mother about this already," she said. "You can start tomorrow."

"Okay." As soon as I was out of there, I locked myself inside a bathroom stall. Nowadays I just carry an eye pencil in my pocket, so it was safe to cry a little. I blotted tears from my cheeks and just stood there for a minute. It could've been any one of those idiot bystanders who tattled to the principal. But the school understands nothing, and now I was being punished for it.

I came back just when a new math lesson was starting. I took my seat and watched the teacher write down math formulas on the board until school was over.

...

Miyu was wearing a tight yellow sweater and white capris when she visited me after school. I was washing the blackboard in my dirty uniform and gave her a big grin.

"That looks like fun," she said, grimacing at the bucket by my feet. It was filled with brown water.

"Yeah, it's totally fulfilling. You wanna get in on some of it?"

"Ha! No, thanks." But right after she said that, she helped me anyway. She cleverly dodged around The Topic, and talked a lot about nothing. Finally she said, "I heard a rumor that An and Fuji are going out."

"It took you a while to catch on," I said, not sounding bitter at all. In fact, I was even amused by her timidness. Did she think I was going to burst into tears?

"Well, I didn't hear from you all weekend. When were you going to tell me?" She nudged me.

"I just wanted to know how widespread the rumor was. Does everyone know?"

"Um, yeah, basically everyone. I'm so—I feel really bad, Aya."

"Miyu, it doesn't matter. Let everyone think what they wanna think." I threw the sponge into the bucket and observed my work. "This place looks spotless, don't you think? I think I'll just go home. Hey, do you want to get some ice cream with me?"

"Wait, Aya..." She looked at me, more nervous than ever before, wrenching the sponge in her hands even though no water came out.

"What?" I asked.

"I, um, I was at tennis practice this morning. I was there with a couple of other girls—and I snuck over to the club room to see Tezuka-sama. What I saw instead was...Tachibana and Fuji-kun, and...they, I think they..." At this point, she broke out in hives.

"Were they saying something bad?"

"Saying?" Her eyebrows scrunched together. I get the feeling this is a lot worse than just gossiping about me. "They weren't saying anything."

"But they were...?" I made circling hand motions to urge her.

"It's nothing, really. They just looked like a couple, that's all." She dipped her sponge in the bucket and started scrubbing vigorously. "I didn't believe the rumor at first, but you know, I guess this is really real. It shocked me to hell, I just thought I should let you know."

Listening to her talk, an image of An and Fuji holding hands came into my mind. There was a pang and I quickly forgot how to inhale. Damn! Usually, I was pretty good at seeing these things coming and preventing them. Today, just when I thought I was stronger, the "new" me turned out to be a figment of my imagination. I quickly chased the image away.

Feeling guilty by my silence, she continued with strained optimism, "It's actually pretty silly. Maybe I was just imagining it."

"It's okay."

"I don't blame you if you're upset at me."

"Miyu, of course I'm not. Will you stop sweating? C'mon, I wanna catch the bus before it leaves."

She seemed to buy it, and smiled gratefully. "Okay, then. I heard my friend mentioning about this water-ice parlor..."

My brain drowned her out. It was as if Happy threw itself out the window and Sadness, Self-Pity, and Hideous waltzed through the front door in unison. However, just as all the in-the-moment drama did, the feeling came and passed. My breathing rate returned to normal, and I tuned back to my loudmouth friend. "Eh? Oh, you were still talking."

"Heh, that's not insulting at all," she said sarcastically.

...

"Syuusuke, could you come down here for a second," called Fuji Yumiko. She was doing paperwork and was currently holding a manila folder in her hands, staring at the papers when Fuji appeared, wiping his hands on a dirty towel. He said, "I was just finishing the shelving on my cabinet. What is it, nee-san?"

"Do you know these girls?" she asked, holding up a wallet-sized photo of the sisters that he knew so well. Caught off guard for a moment, he dropped the cloth on the floor, then bent over to pick it up. He examined the picture again.

"The silver-haired one was parked in front of me at your school." She pointed to Aya. "And this one definitely goes to Seigaku. Do both of them go to your school?"

"Not the older one," he said, not taking his eyes off the photo. "Why...do you have a picture of them?"

"Their mother is one of my clients this week. She says she just moved here and wanted her husband's papers. He died almost exactly a year ago, so I don't know why she waited this long to take care of it." She removed the paperclip from the documents.

"Exactly a year ago?"

"You see, here," she said, pointing to the tiny numbers on the sheet. "December 28, 2006. Sabishii ne, only three days after Christmas."

"Souka," he said quietly. "I didn't know that." Abruptly, he had an urge to touch his lips. His fingertips wavered in the air, right in front of his face, but then his sister turned to look at him so he placed them on his chin.

"We get cases like these quite often and I knew these girls looked familiar, but I suppose you don't know much about them." She stacked the papers neatly and put them back in the folder. "Syuusuke? Syuusuke!"

He looked up. "Hai?"

"The picture, please," she said, holding out her hand. He handed it back. She continued, "I'm going to go pick Yuuta up from the gym. I'll be back before dinner." She grabbed the car keys and pushed the chair in.

As soon as she was out of sight, he went to the backyard and turned on the hose. He held the tap water up to his face and stood calmly as the water crawl from his jaw and into his shirt. What had he done? What had he wanted to do when he kissed her? It was suddenly impossible to tell. He stood there, feeling as if he had just ran a mile, the sheer thought of what he did last week making his heart stop. He dropped the hose by his feet. It was the dead of winter and the winds were coming in; the gutters on the roof rattled and dripped melted snow.

However, there was one thing that he noticed right away. Aya wasn't like the fan-girls who talked to him; it might've been because she was raised in a different country, but her attitude was refreshing. Almost, he might say, weirdly charming. She was half-Japanese, but he could instantly tell that she came from the mainland because she was taller than most of the girls. And unlike An, she wore her hair past her waist. She was exceptionally tan, not too dark and not too pale, and probably came from a very hot climate. Her laugh, although she rarely laughed around him (and he didn't know why), was another quality that he liked.

But there was something about her that he liked so much—even more than just the strange magnetism—and he couldn't place it. A thought hit him: it's possible that she really did not like him back. Definitely, that could be a possibility.

The thought of that made him turn the water on again.

Aya's P.O.V.

I turned the tap on, and threw my uniform into the laundry basket. The one good thing about Japan is that the typical bathroom consists of two rooms, an entrance room where you undress and the real bathroom that is equipped with a majestically deep bathtub. I showered while waiting for the tub to fill, and soon I was soaking the day off in the mini-pool. I recounted the events of the day.

By the time I got home, it was ten-thirty and as always, Aoi wasn't home and Ma was asleep. I didn't want to go back to my bedroom. It was bare and unfurnished, containing no real furniture and one lump of mattress. And tons of cardboard boxes. I recalled when I would try to fill the tub in Beijing, but to no avail; it barely came up to my knees.

I closed my eyes. By doing so, I could almost hear the other sounds of my apartment: my mom talking on the phone with her sister in the hallway, my father watching TV in the living room. I even visually saw the back of her sister, her hair naturally black, laying out tomorrow's outfit on her bed.

Dad, would you like some Chap Stick? A nod, yes. Do you want to watch the winter Olympics? A smile, a nod. My dad lay on the hospital bed and I watched the games. That was one year ago.

I opened them again, and I was in the same strange, empty house.

I adjusted my body to a comfortable position and watched the steam cover the mirror. What is my life, a soap opera? Soaps are always exaggerated, unpredictable...and then slowly, all the hidden crap of the dramatized characters starts rising to the surface until it becomes both exciting and unbearable. The water was starting to become lukewarm and I didn't even bother getting out. Too tired. I must've passed out because it was sheer adrenaline that woke me up later that night, my skin wrinkling like a prune. With some difficulty, I got up and drained the water, got dressed soaking wet, then passed out on my bed. After what felt like a few minutes, it was morning and time to go to school. I skipped breakfast and walked into the classroom a lot earlier than I usually did.

Miyu looked surprised when she saw me. "Dude, ohayo! What are you doing here?"

"I got to thinking. From now on, I want a real fresh start in Japan."

"Oh, that's right!" commented another girl who was sitting in a nearby desk, "You've only been here for, like, a month. What do you think of Tokyo?"

A little more than a month, but it feels like six. "It's still going to take some getting used to, but overall I like it."

"To move from a different country, now that must be amazing," she said. "You know, I've always wanted to see the Great Wall."

Now the entire room was listening to us. A boy changed the topic when he said, "Oi, did you guys enter any nominations yet?"

"What nominations?" I asked him.

"All the third-years have to elect a guy and a girl to make a speech at the New Year Festival."

"I know one person who's on the list, period," a girl in pigtails said, smirking. "Who else can it be? Fuji's definitely one of the nominees."

"I'll bet his fan-club entered him," added the girl who was talking to me. "They're insanely giddy about it."

"Ikumi, aren't you in his club?" the grinning guy asked. "Haven't you guys heard that he's seeing a girl from Fudomine High?"

"Speak of the devil," she said when the door slid open and Fuji himself stepped in. He took notice of me, or at least it looked like he did, and greeted everybody before taking his seat. "Ohayo, minna."

"Syuusuke, don't you have practice today?" Ikumi asked.

The guy who made fun of her said, "Baka, can't you see it's raining?"

The Smiling Devil let out a noise of indication. "All clubs were canceled, for the morning and after school."

I noted the fact that Ikumi and the guy who called her baka definitely liked each other, but I had no intention on joining the conversation; I tuned out. I went back to my seat, the one behind Fuji's, and pretended to be busy with Miyu's math notes from the previous lesson. Fuji didn't speak. One by one, the class filled and the voices grew. When I heard Eiji's slow and carefree footsteps, I tuned in again.

Doing an imitation of a boxer, he knuckled Fuji's shoulder. "Omedeto, champion! Everyone's saying that you were the very first to be nominated!"

"Everyone says that you've been nominated, too, Eiji."

He laughed. "Does it matter? Fujiko's ladies will make sure that you win, no matter what."

"Quiet!" It was the voice of the teacher. Everyone hushed, and Eiji scurried to his seat. "The nominee list is decided by the student council, so keep in mind that it can't be your decision. Class has begun."

I felt something bump against my head, and found a sheet of paper on the ground. It read:

I know where the nominee list is!!

It's in the gym, the teachers keep it in the ballot desk.

Details at lunch.

Miyu

...

Seishun Gakuen gymnasium, 8:00 P.M.

"This is the craziest thing you've ever done, not counting making me join the tennis club," Aya hissed in the angriest voice she could, hoping that it would change her friend's mind. "And you know we're not supposed to be on campus this late at night!"

"This was the earliest time I could get out of the house because my parents think I'm at my dance classes. And what's not in our favor? The janitors are done, and it's too dark for anyone to see us." She tried to open the front doors, but they wouldn't budge. "Ugh! It won't open." Currently, it was early nightfall, without a single star in sight. The moon had also disappeared behind the rolling clouds. Aya's watch said that it was 8:04 already. "See, the great janitors must've done it. C'mon, let's go home."

"But the back door's never locked." She slipped away through the corner, and left with no choice, Aya followed her.

The walls were bumpy, like acne. She didn't know how Miyu could possibly like roaming around school at night; she thought these Seigaku buildings looked creepier than it did in daylight hours. She reached out for Miyu's sleeve and tugged on it impatiently. "You can go without me, I'm going home."

Miyu grabbed Aya's arm and forced her to walk. "We'll be there in a sec! Don't you want to see who's on the list?"

"Not this badly."

"Well, I do. I might be on it, you know!"

She grimaced when she stepped on sloshy soil, all watered from the previous rain. "You know, this would be a perfect spot to rape unsuspecting schoolgirls."

"Minase Aya..." The shorter girl rolled her eyes. After reassuring her that no rapist would haunt an empty school, Miyu finally found the wooden door. "Aha! It's open, didn't I tell you?"

"I never do this in real life," she murmured, then entered reluctantly. The click-clack sound of their shoes echoed through the building. The ceilings were covered with rows and rows of steel beams; three pigeons were nestled on one, their heads tucked inside their wings. Aya wrapped her arms around herself and stood by the door while Miyu rushed to the platform, where the speech is supposed to be delivered. There was even a microphone laid out, ready for the occasion. Determined, she looked over and under, but there was no sign of the ballot desk.

They hissed back and forth in the dark, one wanting to go home and one wanting to explore:

"It's not here! Let's go back."

"Shh, of course it's here. They must've known people would try to look at it, so they stowed it away. Maybe it's under these volleyball nets."

"Or maybe it's not here after all? It could be in the teachers' lounge or in an office or whatever."

"I have a friend who's on the student council, and she said it was here."

"Well, what exactly is a ballot desk anyway?"

"It's a regular desk, but they give it a special name because they're not clever."

"Figures," she said.

"I know, right?"

"No, Miyu, I see figures."

Miyu got up off her knees and looked. "Where?"

"At the back windows," Aya said, quieter than ever. The two of them stood still for a full minute, but no one came.

"You're hallucinating. Either that, or you've been staring at a light bulb." Before she could finish, the creaking of the front door caught their attention. Two shadows entered, holding flashlights. Miyu immediately ducked behind the volleyball nets, and Aya followed after her. It was completely dark, except for the two beams of light. Then they heard a voice, a boy's voice: "Are you sure the list is in here?"

"Definitely." A girl's. "It's in the ballot desk, the black one with square knobs?"

Miyu stood up. Surprised, the two flashed their lights on her. "Who are you?"

"We're looking for the list, too."

"We? Who's with you?"

The guy kept the light on Miyu while the girl shone hers on Aya's shoes. "I see you, whoever you are." She stood up slowly, a weak smile on her face. "Um, we weren't expecting visitors."

The guy looked impressed. "Sweet mother of...how many people are hunting for it?"

"Just us. Counting you guys, that's four," Miyu replied.

"Three," Aya said. "I think my sister's getting suspicious." Turning to Miyu, she said: "Tell me about this tomorrow, I'll come to class early again." She said her goodbyes and exited through the front door, leaving the obsessed schoolmates searching the platform. However, she stopped in her tracks when she reached the tennis court. She hadn't been to practice lately because of her punishment, but it's not like anyone took attendance. Or maybe they did. Whatever the case, it wasn't her fault.

She leaned against the fence and stared at it for some time. When she decided that she couldn't possibly stay out here any longer, a picture of an angry mother popped up in her mind, but she then turned to face—the silhouette of a man, standing inside the equipment shed.

Another student, Aya thought. She thought about leaving, but Miyu would definitely be excited if she found the list for her. Upon a closer inspection, some of the white paint was rusting off the walls, revealing a rusty brown color underneath. It had one window, which was half-covered by the bushes. The whole ensemble looked run-down and creepy, and she was having second thoughts about the rummaging man. O-K, Maybe not.

"Wait! Don't go."

"Eiji-kun!" she said, when his face peeked above the bushes. He grinned, flashing two rows of white teeth. She could've sworn two of them looked like fangs. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Miyu told me that you guys would be here, so I'm helping out. What do you think about these?" He held up a pair of orange gardening gloves. "I wouldn't let something like this pass by without getting involved, nya," he said.

"You smell like banana toothpaste," she commented. He dusted his hands and came out of the shed, dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt, with dark jeans. He looked really cute without his usual attire. He was taller than Fuji, maybe by one or two inches. Just looking up at him confirmed that fact. "The desk's not here, or in the gym. I give up just about now. Where's Miyu?"

She thumbed at the gym. "She's still in there with two other people. It's so sweet that you decided to help," she teased. "But you should probably get home, it's getting pretty late."

"One thing first, Aya-chan. I want to ask you something."

"You always want to ask me something."

"This is important. Here, stand right in front of the window." The wool of his gloves felt thick as he led her to the window, and made her stand so close to it that it touched her nose. She furrowed her brows. "What are you..."

"It's a psychological test," he said, obviously finding the humor in it. "Close your eyes, and open it when I tell you to. Don't look, okay?"

"Sure?" she said uncertainly, but obliged anyway. "When can I open my eyes?"

"When I tell you to," he yelled from a distance.

Where is he going, that goofball on stilts... She kept her eyes shut, and kept her feet planted in the same spot. After a several seconds, she thought she felt a raindrop on her head. "It's beginning to rain, Eiji..."

"Hoi hoi," he said, sounding foggier than he did before. "That's your cue!"

Her eyes fluttered open—and a scream escaped her lips. Eiji had gotten back inside the shed, glued his face to the other side of the window, and lowered himself so that his eyes matched hers. She backed up and pounded on the glass. "Get back out here!"

He didn't, but he ducked his head immediately in an attempt to look ashamed. "I can see that you're smiling, idiot! What's wrong with you?!" she said, making him look at her.

"It wasn't a prank," he said, rising to his full height. "I was wondering why you didn't talk to us anymore, and I thought that the kiss had something to do with it."

"How did you know about the...?"

"Why are you being defensive? I thought it was cute."

"I wouldn't call a heart attack cute." She saw his grin erupt into a full-out smile, and she couldn't help it—he has that effect on people—she smiled, too. For the first time in a long time, she finally admitted that she liked being friends with this boy. For weeks she had seen Kikumaru Eiji as Fuji and the tennis team's friend, who she talked to occasionally...but after a night like this, why shouldn't he be her friend, too? They smiled at each other, and the more they did, the funnier it seemed. "Hey—you'd better spill it out. If you're not coming out, I'm going in."

"Be my guest, senpai."

She broke eye contact with him and entered through the door. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, reaching for a can of Ponta that laid next to him. "I found out because I followed you and Fuji."

Her hands flew to her head, and she shook her head as if wanting to knock something out of her head. "Oh, shit, why would you do that for?"

He shrugged, taking a sip. "I don't think he'll appreciate me saying this, but yep, I saw you guys. But I left right after I saw that, I knew I shouldn't have been spying. He sounded really strange, though." Another sip. "I've never really seen him upset, except when he's playing a serious match. Or defending his brother."

"He has a brother?" All this time she thought he was an only child.

"Nya, a younger brother. And he has an older sister, who's really beautiful."

Now she was really intrigued. He gets upset at matches, he loves his brother, his sister is beautiful. Aya sat down, feeling lost. "What about his parents?"

"I've never met his mom, but I know his dad works for a foreign employer."

"Have you ever met him?"

"Actually, no." He lowered his drink, thoughtful. "Now that I think of it, I don't know much about his home life. But I think you'll find this interesting, nya. Fuji didn't really grow up in Tokyo, he actually moved to Seigaku from Chiba."

Fuji was new to this school? She gaped, her mouth large enough to catch a fly. Her reaction made him say, "No, it's true! I didn't know whether he was sad about leaving or not, but we became friends really quickly."

In her mind, she was thinking, Where was this Fuji that Eiji was talking about? Where is he? "I never knew that."

"All of us call him a sadist, but he really does care about his friends. One time, we pressed him to go out with a junior high girl named Kurumi and he was really nice to her. They were friends by the end of the day." Eiji continued to say that Fuji's immune system was built so strong that he could withstand Inui's juices. Fuji was also good at pool, and had a tongue for spicy foods. Aya listened to all this in shocking understanding, nodding quietly.

For the next hour or so, Eiji talked and related back on his opinion of Fuji. And she actually listened. She thought she wouldn't be able to stand anyone say Fuji's name, but she wanted to hear more. It turned out that she misunderstood him from the beginning, writing him off as someone she could never like, and not really taking the time to understand the other aspects of his life. "So, the question is this...how many girls did he kiss besides me?"

"No one," he said confidently. "You're the first."

Silence ensued. She didn't say anything for a long time. "Nya, are you okay? Gomen ne. What did I say?"

"Don't apologize," she said, staring at the floor. It was so quiet that she could hear Miyu and the other two closing the gym door. Next came car headlights, and as it passed by the equipment shed, it sent a square white box moving along the ceiling. The motor stopped, then started again. "I think Miyu got a ride home," Eiji whispered.

Aya didn't respond; she wasn't even listening. She was thinking of the guy who kissed her, who told her he liked her, the guy who made her feel 20 different emotions. There was the guy that she liked, then there was the guy who's going out with An. Which one was he? An was pretty, and An plays tennis, and Tachibana An had a lot of things that made guys look twice. She was sassy and sporty, like a heroine out of a novel. There was only one way to find out if Fuji really is who Eiji says he is.

"Don't apologize," Aya said again. She had made the decision already. "I think you might've just helped me."

A/N: The end of chapter nine! It took me a while, but I'm happy with it. It's summer holidays so I have more spare time to type, play volleyball, and basically do whatever the hell I like! As always, constructive criticism will be taken into consideration.

Bye!

Luvracci