Chapter 3

AN: I'm sorry, I know it moves along really quickly, but I'm just too eager to start my new story and I don't like doing multiple stories at once. It messes up my head =P.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything. The characters belong to Minami Maki and the quotes from "Romeo and Juliet" belong to William Shakespeare. All that belongs to me is the plot of this fanfic.

The day of the performance:

Kei's mood was as bad as a mood could get. Within three short hours, his beloved Hikari would have to kiss Iori, on stage, on air, in front of the whole of Japan. He let his misery take over him as he sat in his chair, and tried to focus on not obliterating his laptop as he typed furiously. Flames engulfed his body, as well as his chair, which was almost at its limit. Luckily, Hikari stepped in just as the chair was about to collapse from fire damage. Kei, not wanting to frighten Hikari or make her worried, tried to calm the atmosphere around him. However, this was easier said than done. His anger was so high, that even he could not reduce to a level that even Hikari couldn't notice within a second.

"Is something wrong Takishima?" Hikari asked who was already aware of Takishima's jealousy (well kind of, just not how jealous he was).

Kei was having a hard time repressing his frustration. "No, nothing at all," he managed to force out without cracking to his temper.

"Oh, okay then." Hikari looked thoughtful, as if suspicious of something brewing up behind the now calm mask that covered Kei's face, but then decided that it was just an illusion of the sun. "I'm looking forward to performing the play his afternoon," she said, as she sat beside Kei, beaming. For one second, Kei's aura went back to its gloomy, angry self, but returned to normal before Hikari could notice.

…

There was one more rehearsal in the morning before the afternoon performance. Everything started smoothly. When it was Hikari's turn to rehearse with Iori, Kei went to sit in the seat closest to the stage. Their part started.

Iori started, "If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this; my lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss."

"Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this; for saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss," recited Hikari.

Iori started his next line; however, Hikari wasn't paying attention to him. She noticed Takishima glaring at Iori with pure hatred and opposition. Hikari was shocked. Never had she seen such an angry face on Takishima. She didn't want to see such a mad expression on Takishima's face ever again, though her eyes could not leave his face. Once Iori finished his line and Hikari didn't respond, he gently nudged her foot using his. Hikari snapped back into focus and went on with her lines. Everything went on smoothly until the part when Iori had to pretend to stab Takishima came. When Romeo and Paris fought, Takishima had that same expression of hatred.

Hikari did not miss it. She remembered every single time that Takishima came to her rescue, every time that he made her smile, and she repaid him by making him this angry. "I have to do something," Hikari thought.

…

Rehearsals were over and the S.A. were headed back to the greenhouse for tea and lunch before the performance. On the way there, Kei noticed Iori looking at him, almost as if he was sneering.

"Go on without me. I'll catch up later," Takishima said to his friends.

Getting the feeling that they would face deadly consequences if they disobeyed Kei, they did so without further question. Tadashi was scared much more than the others after his experience with Kei after he made him Paris and Iori Romeo (he was still picking out pieces of wax out of his ears and hair XD).

Kei took three ling strides towards Iori, who walked the rest of the way. Kei started their little chat. "I guess you can't wait to kiss Hikari, can you?" he said, keeping an emotionless face.

"You guessed right. And I guess that the jealousy is just eating at you."

"You guessed right as well, though I think you are more jealous than I am, right? Jealous that Hikari is my girlfriend and not yours, that I get to spend my entire school day with her and you can't, jealous that she's closer to me than to you, aren't you?"

Iori scowled, "Aren't we getting cocky here? She could switch to me at any given moment, especially after I get my kiss with her."

Kei was honestly considering sabotaging the play now, but then he remembered Hikari's previous words, "I'm looking forward to performing the play this afternoon…" and her excited face, when she first saw the high tech stage. He dropped of the thought of sabotaging, not wanting to ruin Hikari's happiness.

Iori continued, "I'm going to confess to her after the play, while she's still wearing Juliet's costume and I'm wearing the Romeo costume."

Kei imagined the worse-case scenario: a female with long black hair, wearing a wedding dress; the male wearing a tux, placing the wedding ring on the girl's fourth finger on her left hand; then, with pure emotion, kissing.

After a second (once Kei realized that his visualization was the absolute worse-case scenario), Kei replied, "Fine. If Hikari agrees to be your girlfriend, I'll leave you two be and not interfere with your… relationship." Kei said firmly and turned to walk away. "If Hikari does say 'yes', then I want her to be happy," Kei thought, on his way to the greenhouse.

What he didn't know, was that the cogs behind sabotaging the play were already in motion.

Thanks for reading. I forgot who, but I replied to someone saying that this would be the last chapter. I decided to chop it into two, making chapter 4 the last one, because if I added the rest, this chapter would feel kinda too long. But now this chapter's really short. Oh well =p. Thanks again. R&R please.