Iris
Salty- I'm feeling very generous so...two in one! In honor of Kikumaru Eiji's birthday, November 28th! However, since it's only spring in my story, it shall be Katsumi's birthday! Sorry for the confusion in the last chapter, peoples! I reread it...because I didn't read it after I wrote it...sorry!
A very special thanks to coco96 and ai-chan97. By the way, if you go to my profile there should be some links that show how Kazuma and everyone else looks. I don't own Saw or Harry Potter or The Annoying Orange or Justin Timberlake(there had been some controversy over that!)or Vocaloids or the song Kokoro by Rin and Len.
Chapter Ten. A very special birthday Saitou Katsumi!
Katsumi pov-
My birthday was always in the early spring. I always spent it with my family...but that year I couldn't. For about six months, I spent time by myself in an apartment because of my family's debt. After those months, I was seated behind Kikumaru Eiji and Fuji Syusuke, and Kazuma, my little brother, came to stay with me. I also made friends with Kawazoe Chiaki-the captain of the girl's tennis team-and Murasaki Tenjo-a mean girl that liked the scary boy's captain, Tezuka.
After I met them, I wasn't so lonely anymore. Actually, life had been a whole lot better!
But there was still a problem. That very year would be the first time that I'd ever had a birthday without my family. It was a downright depressing thing just to think!
My birthday was about three months after the start of school, on the fifteenth of June. So, I would have known all of my friends for about three months on my birthday.
Do you see my dilemma? I wasn't sure if I knew them enough to invite them to my party! I mean...yeah, they were sort of my first and only friends, other than Ren-chan but...Ah! What should I have done?
~I~R~I~S~
On the way to school the next day, June eleventh, I inwardly debated on the topic of inviting everyone to the party I was holding. The invitations were in my backpack...I even made sure that the date didn't coincide with tennis practice and discretely asked whether any of them were doing anything that day. Everything was set, but...Ah! Damn teen angst!
In class, I sat in my desk and sighed repeatedly, until one of my seat mates came in.
"What's up with you?" asked the girl who sat next to me-whose name I didn't bother to remember. "You seem all gloomy and junk."
I shook my head and attempted a smile. It wouldn't be right to unload all of my problems to a stranger and potentially ruin their day or something.
Maybe I should do that thingy where you pass people notes saying 'Will you go?' Ah, I could've just put in on their desks, that way they wouldn't have to say no to my face! Ingenious!
So, I got to work. Step one, rip out notebook paper and tear into five pieces. Done! Then write will you go to my birthday party on the fifteenth and my name...done!
After that, I walked around the classroom and put the note to their desks. Then all I had to do was sit and wait for them to come from tennis practice...late again...for ten minutes...
In that ten minutes I could take the notes back and not tell them about my party and just say that it was my birthday...Or maybe I shouldn't have planned my own party. Maybe I should have done nothing!
Bad thoughts. Bad thoughts! Gah, what would Justin Timberlake do?
"Seriously," said the person next to me. "Are you, like, having a seizure?"
I shook my head. What had I been doing? Was I twitching or hyperventilating?
"Yo, Tsumi-chan!" Ah, Kikumaru-kun! No, now I couldn't take back the notes! Kikumaru-kun smiled at me.
"Ah, hello...Kikumaru-kun..."
"Hello, Saitou-chan." Fuji came in and nodded to me.
I smiled at him.
"Hello, Fuji-kun." I watched them both sit at their desks and notice the notes.
"Oh? What's this?" asked Fuji-kun. I tried to imagine his expression and Kikumaru-kun's but found it difficult.
"Oh! I got one too!" Kikumaru-kun pulled out his note and showed it to Fuji-kun.
"Well, read it then..." I said quietly. I wanted to get it over with as soon as possible!
"Okay! Hm..." Kikumaru-kun and Fuji-kun unfolded their notes simultaneously. Ah, how I wished I could see their expressions! Why couldn't I have been seated in front of them?
"Okay!" They both said, and turned back to face me.
"I can go! Looking forward to it!" said Kikumaru-kun.
"I can too." Fuji-kun smiled. I let out the breath that I had been holding for so long.
"I'm glad!" I smiled at them.
~I~R~I~S~
Time passed aimlessly, and then the weekend came. My birthday was on a Saturday at a karaoke and burger place called Tohru's place. It was supposed have really good food.
In the days leading to my party, I searched for the perfect birthday outfit until I could narrow it down to two. The one I chose in the end was a casual baby blue button up shirt and a denim blue skirt. My shoes were ordinary brown ones and my socks were knee high.
For about an hour, some hours before my party, I stared at my reflection after dressing in those clothes. My chestnut-ish brown hair-that came to my chest-would definitely need some work. My skin looked too pale that day as well and my light brown eyes looked really plain.
There was only one thing to do about it.
I walked out of my pink and white bedroom and into the black and red apartment next door, aka Ren-chan's room.
"Ren-chan! I need some help!" I called through the frightening darkness to which she preferred.
"Shut the door!" She hissed. I closed it and was trapped in complete darkness. The was a rustling and a tickling feeling at my feet. "Now, what is it child?"
I pouted, even though she couldn't see it. "You're only two years older than me, Ren-chan. And anyway, aren't you getting ready for the party?"
There was a spine chilling chuckle from the rear of the room and a bright red light turned on from above. Like usual, I glanced about the pictures of blood and dead people around the room. There was a couple of new ones. Oh, she wasn't a murderer. She just had an obsession with death since her dad was a coroner for some police station in town.
"I am always ready, Tsumi-chan." I glanced at her gothic outfit, unsurprised. High black boots with tons of buckles were the first things that caught my eyes. Then I saw her outfit. A little black dress with denim boot cut jeans underneath. Her black dress had a surprisingly low and had a thin v-cut to it(I could see her belly button)and her straps were t-shirt cut. It was actually a little better than usual.
"Nice," I grinned. "Any who, I need some advice. It's in your area of expertise." Ren-chan loved makeup of the gothic persuasion. I hated it, personally, but I wanted to let that slip a little for today.
"You need to kill someone without leaving any evidence behind?" She was joking. I shook my head, not at all shocked.
"No, I need you to do my makeup for the party." One of the reasons that I hated makeup was that I couldn't apply it properly. She nodded and I saw her usual malicious grin on her pale face. I stopped fearing that grin in the second grade, honestly, though most people feared it. I knew that Kikumaru-kun definitely did!
Some time later, I was staring at myself in Ren-chan's black Victorian style mirror and watching as she did my hair in a cute bun. Admittedly, I looked pretty good. My eyelashes were pulled up slightly and the makeup wasn't too heavy either. When I came in, I almost expected myself to come out as that guy from that one horror movie...Saw? Yeah, the emo clown from Saw. But, I definitely didn't, I thought with a glance at my slightly pinkened lips. The guy from Saw didn't look cute at all!
I giggled at the thought and Ren-chan karate chopped my neck!
"Ow! What was that for?" I was about to turn my head back to her but she snapped it into place.
"Shut up and stay still! A person's hair is very hard to do! One wrong move and you'll become Bellatrix LeStrange!" I grimaced but didn't move anymore. Instead, I looked at Ren-chan's straight, black hair. Then her dark blue eyes, and sighed. She could be cute if she worked on herself a little-like wearing lighter clothes, for instance-but she didn't and so she was just a goth. Just a goth...
"Done!" she grinned happily and my eyes went back to myself and swam in disbelief. I was adorable! My hair was hanging down in my face just a little but the rest was in the promised cute bun. My usual bowl-cut bangs were clipped out of my face in a way that made me look really mature too! I no longer looked like a child!
~I~R~I~S~
At the restaurant, me and Ren-chan got seated in the orange restaurant portion of the store. It was only a couple of minutes before the first guest stumbled in. It was Kazuma, who had been stuck in his video game club for nearly all day. When he came in he was stretching his arms and I almost immediately noticed the dark circles around his eyes.
"We played Galacto-Battles for four hours," he smiled and then yawned. "I'll just take a nap, then." He laid down on a red cushioned bench. "Wake me up when the party ends."
He yawned again and almost immediately started snoring like a whale.
Ren-chan started laughing.
"He really doesn't change, that mortal."
We waited until almost everyone came until we started the party. Raki-chan and some others were the last to come in. We waited for a few minutes until it was evident that Kikumaru-kun wasn't coming.
"Who are these people?" asked Kawazoe-chan, edging away from a group of surrounding emo-looking high school boys that were apparently determined to sing karaoke with her.
"Uh...Probably her friends." I pointed to Ren-chan on the chairs next to me.
"I don't know them," she shook her with a glare at me. I had forgotten that she hated boys that were taller than her. "They're probably just party crashers."
I sighed.
"Dang it!" I was mad enough as it was. Kikumaru-kun said that he would come...But maybe I was expecting too much. We had only been friends for about three months. Still...
"Hey, Saitou-chan," Fuji-kun sat down at the table where me, Ren-chan and Kawazoe-chan were sitting. "And Kawazoe-san." He nodded and then stared at Ren-chan curiously. Only Kikumaru-kun had seen her at the party. "And Yamashita-san? What're you doing here?"
Eh? They knew each other?
"What a shocking finding? What shall our main protagonist, Katsumi-chan, do about this?" I looked to Kawazoe-chan and tried to understand what she had said.
"Why am I the protagonist?" I asked, as calmly as I could to someone messing with the fourth wall.
"Dunno," she shrugged indifferently. "Seemed like fun!"
"So, how do you know each other?" asked one of the emo boys, suddenly sitting next to Fuji-kun across from us.
"I know her little sister..."said Fuji-kun. "Kakeru-chan...Second year in our school..."
Ah, Kakeru-chan. The famous tomboy second year of Seigaku. I met her once but she didn't seem to like me, so we didn't talk a lot.
"I just didn't know that Yamashita-san lived next to Saitou-chan. It's quite the coincidence." He chuckled.
"Anyway," said Kawazoe-chan, standing and tugging on my arm so I did as well. "Let's go karaoke!"
Suddenly, I was on the dance floor with a mike in my hand and a television screen in front of me and Kawazoe next to me, winking. "Let's go with a happy song! Mm...Vocaloids would be good...Let's sing the Kokoro duet!"
I nodded, though I had no idea what the heck she was talking about.
All of a sudden, there was really loud music and I had no time to ask.
Apparently, Kawazoe-chan had the part of Len and I had Rin.
"Robot made by solitary scientist,
To say how it's done...
Miracle!
But still missing
one thing that just can't be made
That is called Kokoro.
A program."
Rin- "Few hundred years pass"
Len- "I hope I could share with her"
Rin- "left alone"
Len- "happiness, sadness as human"
Rin- "Robot of miracle"
Len- "Scientist of miracle"
Both- "Hopes"
Rin- "Want to know what that man was"
Len- "Distress continues"
Rin- "Till end of his life"
Len- "Only time passes by"
Rin- "Making for me"
Len- "With a singing voice that was left behind and..."
Both "Kokoro."
And then we sang and sang...and I couldn't stop thinking about how weird it was that I got over my sadness over Kikumaru-kun so quickly. But...I've only been friends with him for three months, so it's okay, right? It's not like he made an obligation...Did he even say that he was coming?
"Greetings!" the restaurant people greeted. I didn't look back to see the late comer, the party was ending soon anyway.
I was on my twenty first song, and my last one. Nothing much mattered anymore.
"Ah! You're that Kikumaru-mortal, are you not!" I pushed my mike into Kawazoe-chan's hand and looked behind me to see a tired, panting Kikumaru-kun.
He came!
"Sorry I'm late!" he said, running up to me. He looked down at me and grinned. Because I'm really close to his shoulder in height, I saw him reach into his coat chest-pocket thingy and pull out a small brown paper bag. "Here! It took me all day to locate the best present!"
He was so exaggerating! But...I was really curious...I grabbed it and pulled out a little bright pink box with a ribbon on it. I carefully pulled off the ribbon and the box to find...That white stuff that cushions it. I put all that useless stuff on the table and saw...a little blue sea glass necklace!
It had what looked like golden claws attached to it to hold it up, and it looked like a really fat tear drop! The actually lace thing was a gold-ish strings with two silver clasps at the end. It was so cute!
"Thanks..." I grinned up at him and he gave me both a grin and a thumbs up.
He came...! Now, even though my party was almost over, I could celebrate with all of my friends! It felt so great to think that...that I smiled and thanked him again.
"Cake!" And then, I had the best triple chocolate cake that a goth girl could make. How great could a birthday get?
~I~R~I~S~
Salty-So...Review! Tell me how much this rocks or sucks! Go ahead! Push that button down over there! Go on! CHUUCAUNDOEET! (I will not say what that means.) I'll try my best to update again this weekend!