Chapter 3: Movie time

Narumi tapped his foot impatiently. Where was she? It was 4:20. All the movies would start in 10 minutes!

"Hey" a voice said behind him, causing him to nearly jump out of his skin. He turned around to see Kiri's bored face .

"What took you so long!?" he said.

"I was feeding Shampoo some snacks." Kiri replied. Narumi looked at her strangely. "Is something wrong Naru-Naru? If you keep frowning like that you might get wrinkles."

"...you, um, feed shampoo?" he asked hesitantly, ignoring her last comment.

"Yeah. So?" asked Kiri. Did he expect her to let him starve? Narumi gave her another weird look.

"You do realize you don't need to feed shampoo, and if you do, using it on someone's hair would be really stupid."

"Shampoo's my cat." Kiri informed him. Did he really think she'd feed a bottle of shampoo snacks?

"Oh, that makes sense." Narumi commented. He was silent for a moment before he started snickering. "You named your cat 'Shampoo'? What kind of name is that?"

"A good one, considering he lives in a beauty salon. What would you prefer? Fluffy?" Kiri said, her voice as monotonous as usualy, but her eyes narrowed. Nobody messed with her cat. Narumi unconciously took a step back.

"No, sorry, you're right. 'Shampoo' is definately better." he muttered. Kiri looked up at him and tilted her head a little.

"Did you style your hair differently?" she asked, completely igonring his apology. Rude as always.

"Y-yeah" he answered nervously.

"It's weird" she said. He felt himself tense up. "In an ok way" she continued. The tenseness left his shoulders. Wait a minute! Why was he worried about what she thought? It's not like he had changed his hair for her! He just had extra time before coming...

"We don't have time to stand around taking!" he said quickly, deciding it was best to change the subject now before he started thinking any more weird things.. He grabbed her wrist to drag her to the counter, and found himself suprised at how soft her skin was. He looked up at the lady behind the counter. "Two tickets to, um, uh.... what movie do you want to see Mussy-head?" Narumi looked back, asking Kiri. She just shrugged. No help at all, as usual. "What movie would you recommend?" he asked the lady instead. She smiled politely.

"A great movie for you and your girlfriend would be Twilight. It's rather popular with kids your age."

Narumi blushed, and glanced at Kiri and down at her hand in his. And quikly let it go. Kiri was of course, concentrated on the candy display, and hadn't heard a thing. That, or she chose to ignore it.

"She's not my girlfriend, but sure, we'll watch Toilet."

"Twilight" the lady corrected him, giving him a scandalized look. If Narumi wasn't so embarrased at being confused as Kiri's boyfriend, he would've found it quite funny. Instead he just turned around and muttered:

"Whatever. Let's go Mussy-head"

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The movie was horrible. The story was hard to follow, the acting (especially in 'action' scenes) wasn't that great, and the special effects were cheap. At least the tickets were free. Narumi got bored ten minutes in. He couldn't stand romances. At least it wasn't a horror movie. He didn't like movies that made him scream his head off like an idiot.

To kill boredom, he watched Kiri watch the movie (though from the glazed look in her eye, he suspected she was just as bored as he was). He watched her slowly eat the candy they'd bought earlier. Of course he'd had to pay for it since she (conveniantly) forgot her wallet, but he didn't really mind. Narumi looked at her long eyelashes. He looked at her silky hair that managed to look soft, despite the horrible haircut. After staring a little while longer, he decided that even though this wasn't really a date for him, he could at least pretend. After all, if Kei was right, he didn't want to hurt Kiri's feelings or anything.

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They didn't talk much about the movie after. Neither had really watched it till the end, which meant neither really knew what it was about. Kiri had been too busy eating candy, and Narumi had been too busy watching Kiri eat her candy. They walked in comfortable silence towards Kiri's home.

"Isn't your house that way Naru-Naru?" Kiri asked, pointing in the opposite direction.

"W-well, I thought maybe we could go to the park or something." Narumi stuttered.

"Why?"

"Well, I don't know. To hang out or something. I mean, you did me a favour taking that ticket, so I figured we should at least do something fun."

"No thanks," Kiri said. Cut and dry. "I'm gonna go home and nap."

"You can nap at the park!"

"Not as comfortably."

Narumi sighed. Why did she have to be so difficult?

"I'll buy you a crepe..."

"Hmm...." Kiri pondered. "Alright." She was always ready for a free snack.

They entered the park and went to a nearby bench.

"Stay here while I get the crepes" Narumi ordered.

"That's what I was planning to do anyways" Kiri answered, sitting clazily on the bench. Narumi rolled his eyes. She really never acted cute at all.

He walked down the gravel path, rounded a corner out of sight of Kiri, to a little stand selling crepes and bought two chocolate ones. They were all good, but the chocolate one was definitely the best. He paid quickly and started walking back. He stopped at the corner however, when he heard voices.

"Hey little girl, watcha doing?" a sleek voice asked. No answer. "Hey you! I'm talking to you."

"I noticed. It was pretty obvious since I'm the only girl in sight." Was Kiri's reply. Narumi smirked. It was refreshing to not be on the recieving end of her wit.

"Well aren't you just a bright little genius" the sleek voice sneered back.

"If you think that took a genius to figure out, you must be pretty stupid." She retorted.

"Why you little-"

"Calm down Fumio" another voice murmured. Apparently there were two guys. "So little lady, are ya here on your own?"

"No." Kiri answered.

"Oh a date?" the guy answered. "That's too bad."

"I'm not on a date."

Kei was wrong. Kiri had never seen it as a date. Narumi expected to feel relief, but felt this strange twisty feeling in his stomach instead.

"Oh, so you wouldn't mind hanging out with me and Fumio then?" the guy asked.

"That's not what I said you idiot. Learn to listen properly." Kiri answered shortly. She was starting to get annoyed. These two guys were ruining her nap.

"Oh I insist." The guy answered. "Just ditch your friend and hang out with us."

"I said NO."

Narumi decided he might as well return now before things got complicated. When he rounded the corner though, he was surprised to see one of the guys grabbing Kiri's wrist and pulling her.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing!?" he yelled. Both guys looked up and the one grabbing her wrist let it go.

"Nothing..." they answered evasively.

"Then go get a life instead of budding into ours!" Narumi snapped. The guys started backing off.

"Whatever, she's not that cute anyways..." he heard one murmur.

"Didn't realize she had a boyfriend..." the other commented. After they were gone, Narumi rounded on Kiri.

"Why didn't you scream for help?" he demanded.

"I would've if it'd actually gotten out of control." she answered.

"They were trying to drag you away!" he replied, outraged.

"I was fine." Kiri stared at him with her usual bored face. It was clear this conversation wasn't going anywhere.

"Urg! You know what? Believe whatever you want to. Excuse me for being worried! Here's your crepe." he said, angrily handing it to her. Kiri accepted it.

"Thanks" she said in a softer voice, and for some odd reason, it calmed him down.