"The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for." - Bob Marley

Chapter 3

It was that day of the freaking week again.

Monday; that word alone caused countless students across the globe to cringe as if they had just seen Cannibal Holocaust for the first time.

As the early sun's rays mercilessly played across his partially opened eyes, Raku's thoughts turned to the things he'd have to do that morning. He had to wake up; an extremely tedious task to do in and of itself, particularly since the bed felt like it was made of the unbelievably comfortable laps of angels. He had to cook up an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet for the grunts downstairs (a gruelling task he had to undertake every single weekday morning of his teenage life), and he needed to get himself dressed for school to pick up Chitoge along the way.

Chitoge. The beansprout could've sworn his heart skipped a beat as he pictured the blonde heiress in a ghostly white nightgown, radiant morning light tickling the surface of her milky white skin.

I wonder what she would be doing...at a time like this? He pondered as his gaze tethered itself to the ceiling above him, as if the blank wooden space it offered was more than enough for him to escape the subtle, horrible reality that was 'Mondays'.

Rolling over, Raku glanced at his clock. Much to his surprise, it was still quite early in the morning; before seven. Pleased, he lay back onto his bed. With all the extra time he had, he'd still be able to slack around and waste some of his precious time in his pyjamas thinking about how beautiful she was.

What am I even thinking? It seemed so wrong to associate somebody as precious as her with the word "waste". Despite his upbringing within the darkness of the Japanese mafia (a crude reality he had reluctantly come to accept and live with), he'd grown up with a sense of chivalry drilled into him from a young age.

He quietly sighed as he sat up, slowly moving about, doing his morning routine. Well, it may have been his least favourite day of whole week, but something told him that it wouldn't be too bad; after all, he would get to see her again.

Her beautiful blue eyes fluttered, slowly opening in the morning light. Chitoge quickly sprung from her extremely grandiose bed dressed in her light pink pyjamas, like a jack-rabbit on a sugar rush. In her commotion, she caused the fluffy and fat pillows around her to bob along with the bed's wobbly motion.

Yesterday was amazing! She thought to herself, as she gently touched the soft surface of her lips with the tips of her fingers. I even kissed him on the cheek. The blonde heiress giggled like a cartoon character as she thought back at that exact moment, savouring every detail. But we didn't do anything interesting after that... she sighed in disappointment, her grin fading.

Oh, well. At least it's better than having zero progress at all. And besides, after all that drama, I get to stay in the house for the rest of the day, since it's Sunday~!

Something didn't feel quite right. As soon as the hands on her alarm clock struck seven, the same dreaded beeping noise that triggered during the weekdays rung.

"Oh, right." the blonde heiress muttered with her eyes widened, slowly trying to process what was going on.

"It's Monday", she declared, with her voice slightly fading.

"B-But yesterday felt like a Saturday..." Chitoge paused. As the faint image of Raku suddenly crossed her mind without warning, her cheeks flushed bright red, the golden strands of her silky long hair slowly rising up as if she was floating in space.

"But...I'm not ready to face him yet. It's going to be so awkward!" she whined as she viciously grabbed the nearest pillow with the intent to repeatedly slamming it into the bed like a frustrated gorilla.

"Awkward, awkward, awkward, awkward, AWKWARD!" she cursed as the pillow was blasted back and forth across the cover-coated mattress.

Regardless of her lack of readiness to face normal life with the beansprout, there was nothing she could do to escape the situation. After all, it would only make him worried, confused and possibly pissed off if she bailed out on him on the way to school, as if nothing special had happened between them the day before.
I'm not even sure...if this relationship is still fake or not. Why are these things never straight forward? He did hug me like it was his last day on earth, so does that mean that...he accepted me? Does that mean I'm like his real g-girl...friend?

Her eyes widened as that totally inconvenient and impossible thought crossed her uneasy mind; it somehow made her insatiably hungry for an answer coming straight from Raku's mouth. Otherwise she wouldn't be able to sleep tonight, with that question haunting her thoughts.

She wanted to know; no, she needed to know. The only thing that could actually make that happen was to get up, go straight to school and quickly muster up the courage to ask him without making things really awkward for him and perhaps, everyone else around them.

"Oh."

Much to Raku's disappointment, Chitoge wasn't on the stop where they'd usually met before school.
What a total waste. He had even gone to the lengths of secretly using his father's expensive cologne.

"Shit!"

Chitoge was hiding behind the concrete wall around the corner from their usual meeting place, her heart rapidly beating. She could feel its intense rhythm through her fingers pressing against her chest, and the heiress could guarantee that it wasn't a good sign. Despite being clad in the same clothes he wore every day of the week, Raku looked more dashing than Chitoge had ever seen him. Honestly, it was too much for her to handle.

Chitoge couldn't stop glancing at him throughout class; she couldn't help it. It felt like she was stealthily taking freshly baked cookies from the cookie jar when nobody was paying attention. If this kept up, it would become some sort of weird compulsive habit that she wouldn't be able to refrain from doing.

Was it because his looks? Well, in a way. His dark indigo hair matched perfectly with his lightly tanned, fair skin and well chiselled physique; he looked delicious. She, of course, would never be caught admitting as such. She had so many questions and things she wanted to say, to the point that her lips tingled at the thought of speaking them. But from among her vast collection of silly, romantic phrases and questions she yearned to speak, a group of few words stood boldly out from the rest.

Are we dating for real?

Great. And it only took five words in a single sentence to cause her anxiety to skyrocket. How could she pull this off? Class felt like forever, and time seemed to slowly tick by; it was infuriating. She wanted to continue scribbling down her notes; to jot down seemingly important information, but the heiress couldn't focus, her brain chaotic and anxious. Everything seemed to be in complete and utter gibberish.

She just wanted to get up from her seat with her head held high and drag Raku from the classroom with her brute strength like it was nobody's business. But there was no way she was going to be able to do such a thing in front of so many people. That would only make things more complicated for everyone involved, including him; not to mention getting herself in trouble for walking out of class without a teacher's permission; she'd have to write an apology note for it, which would be a total drag.

The only thing she could logically do in her current mental state was to wait for the perfect opportunity without doing anything irrational or stupid, no matter how challenging it was to sit still.

What's up with her today? The dense beansprout thought as he secretly glanced at Chitoge, the lower part of his slightly flustered face covered up with his left hand.
It's like she's troubled or something. As if looking at her wasn't obvious enough. Her skin was paler than usual, her hair a slight mess and her eyes looked unfocused and perplexed, as if the heiress had absolutely no idea what she was actually doing. Truth be told, she looks incredibly vulnerable.

Raku wanted to say something to her. He wanted to playfully rub her shoulders, pull her hair, and pinch the surface of her rosy cheeks, anything to bring her back from her scattered thoughts. But the beansprout wasn't sure what she was grappling with. Even after all the time they had spent together, he still had trouble reading the heiress' emotions and behaviour at the best of times.

He couldn't help but glance once more at her, checking to see if he was indeed just seeing things. As his eyes shifted towards her troubled form, he found himself caught, lost in those blue pearls.

She was looking directly at him, her light pink lips pursed and her crystalline blue eyes widened as she made mutual eye contact with him. She wasn't expecting him to glance over her way, truth be told it shocked her a little to see the beansprout do so.
Oh my God… she thought as she mentally gasped at the sight. Did he just check me out or something?

It was indeed pretty normal for guys like him to stare at a girl like her in class, but the special kind of feeling Raku's stare gave her was like that of the first time being looked at by a guy in her lifetime.

"What are you doing?" she mouthed, her eyes quickly diverting from his blank gaze as a gradual crimson blush crept across her face. Try as he might, Raku couldn't clearly make out what she was saying.

"What's up?" he greeted quietly as he slowly leaned back on his chair to take a good look at her; it looked flat-out embarrassing.

"Could you stop doing that? You're really bad at being subtle" she hissed back, promptly ignoring his greeting.

"You know I can't do that." Raku replied as he quickly took his pen from his desk and started writing something on his notebook. She couldn't make out what he scribbled on the smooth flat-lined page, not with Kosaki blocking the space between them.

"Onodera." Raku called out to the ominously silent girl sitting next to him, tugging her sleeves casually. "Onodera?" he repeated as he continued pulling the silky fabric.

"Ichijou-kun?" she politely responded, with her cheeks slightly flustered as she felt her clothes being forcefully pulled by the beansprout's hands. It felt really good and...naughty, to be honest, despite the fact it being too embarrassing for a girl like her to actually admit such a thought.

"Sorry for disturbing you. But could you pass this note to Chitoge?"

Her heart abruptly sank at the mention of her seatmate's short and childish name. The dramatic events from yesterday afternoon really had left her confidence wavering, but it wasn't enough for her to abruptly give up on loving him without making even a single move on him. Kosaki needed to do something that would even the playing field, if not put her ahead in this love race. If Chitoge herself could do it without qualms, then why couldn't she? Even the sickly Marika Tachibana made regular advances on him; albeit unsuccessful advances.

Maybe if she actively tried, then the brunette might end up turning the tables on the other girls. And of course, she wasn't stupid enough to pass off such a great opportunity. Nobody in her shoes would, not even the most incompetent of girls. What in the world was she thinking? It wasn't as if she was playing Risk with anyone. This wasn't the Sengoku era, and even if it was, she wasn't sure if she was playing as the charismatic Tokugawa Ieyasu, or the unspeakably loyal Mitsunari Ishida. Great, looks like those boring Japanese history classes have finally deemed pretty damn useful after all...

"Sure, I see no problem in that." Kosaki said, that loving smile of hers spread across her face as she quickly took the folded letter by its corners. Strangely, for a light piece of flattened processed wood, it felt like she was carrying a solid metal bar. It was likely the weight of her partly broken heart responding to the miniature parcel she had to simply hand over to her right; one whose hidden words etched inside were never meant for her to read or fawn over.

The slender brunette felt like she was on fire, as if the blood in her veins were rushing through her body like a flowing waterfall. An adrenaline rush, perhaps? She clearly wasn't in any danger. She wasn't dangling by a string that separated life and death. How could she possibly hold in such inconvenient feelings for a short period? Yes, human beings were created to endure even the most herculean of trials, but this…this was beginning to be too much for her to handle.

"Chitoge-chan." she called out to her blonde rival, patting the heiress' smooth shoulders with the polished tips of her fingers.

"Kosaki-chan..." Chitoge responded, her eyes fixated towards the folded letter sitting between the brunette's fingers.

"Ichijou-kun wanted me to pass this over to you, for some reason." Kosaki had the urge to frown after saying those words. Doing so wouldn't do anything to change the situation however, rather, it would only potentially give away her true feelings.
"Is there something going on between the two of you?"

The blonde heiress' cheeks gradually flushed red like a steaming teapot served inside a Japanese sauna.
"N-Nonsense!" she laughed nervously, her ribbon twitching back and forth like it was a part of her body.
"He's probably asking me for some important pointers and stuff! You know h-how awesome I am when it comes to academics. Right?" The pair paused for a few moments, each waiting for the other to break the silence between them.

"Yeah, you really are a reliable person, Chitoge-chan." A cheesy smile suddenly formed on Kosaki's face after hearing the heiress' suspicious words. Yes, it was certainly the best answer for the brunette could respond with; she didn't want to arouse Chitoge's suspicions; if the latter even had any to begin with.

Chitoge gently took the letter from Kosaki's hands, a look of sheer anticipation on her face. She didn't want anybody to see what Raku wrote for her. With a glint of golden greed rushing through her veins, she quickly turned away from Kosaki and placed the mundane note against the surface of her desk.

The heiress' heart fluttered like the beat of Clyde Stubblefield's drums.
What could be in here? Chitoge thought as she gazed upon the surface of the folded page. Don't tell me...this could be some kind of confession?! Her eyes lit up as the unlikely possibility dashed through the reaches of her consciousness. Wasting no further time, she quickly unravelled the freshly torn piece of paper like a time bomb being diffused.

Written crudely on the neatly creased note were three simple words. Nope, it wasn't what you think it was. Despite the care written in those words, Chitoge's heart still sank a little

'Are you okay?'

A simple 'I love you' from the beansprout would have been more than enough to make her feel okay. But somehow she still felt happy about the note. Despite the fact that the contents of the letter were rather platonic instead of romantic and classy, as she had desired, Raku had torn off a chunk of his math notebook simply just to write to her; a chunk of paper far larger than was necessary for the short note. Slightly disheartened, yet flattered, a radiant smile formed on her pinkish lips as she began writing a reply.

'Kiss me, Idiot.'

Surprised at her courage to write such words, Chitoge wanted to laugh at herself for writing that. It was too stupid and futile. Yesterday's drama was more than enough for her to act on. But so was the unused space remaining on the paper...

"Kosaki-chan?" she called out, with the re-folded note clipped between her fingers.

"Yeah?" Kosaki replied, feeling slightly worried at Chitoge's jovial, light-hearted tone, as if she'd just read something special to her.

"Could you give this back to Raku? I think he has a good idea of how the formula works." the blonde heiress asked as she slipped the note over to the confused brunette's desk. Formula? Kosaki's chocolate-brown eyes lit up as she heard that particular word coming straight out of Chitoge's mouth. Ah, so it wasn't a love letter. A nervous, somewhat crooked smirk formed on the surface of her lips. Thank God...

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." - J.K. Rowling

So, they're passing each other notes? How cute. Marika Tachibana couldn't help but feel a glint of jealousy while observing the pair from afar, her dark orange eyes narrowing. Too bad...poor old Kirisaki-san doesn't know the whole truth to the story. The frail and slender lass grinned at the thought, savouring the feeling of knowing something others did not. She stealthily took her phone from her pocket, and quickly composed a short yet simple text message addressed to Chitoge herself.

'I know who Raku-sama likes. :3'

She slyly snickered as she softly pressed the send button.

Woah, hold up. Two chapters in, and I'm now having like 6 faves, 9 follows and a lot of positive feedback. I absolutely wanted to thank you guys for taking your time to read my story. I know I may seem really corny just by saying this, but you guys inspire me to improve my quality of writing, and thinking about it makes me smile every single day.

Well, I do want to apologize for the slight delay in uploading the chapter. I have been brainstorming quite a lot recently on how to make my fic more interesting to read, so, this is probably the best I've got for now. (Forgive me if I've ticked you guys off with the last line. Cliffhangers are pretty much my thing.) And don't worry, Guest (Whoever you are, I love you.), I will most certainly continue making this fanfic, knowing that readers like you would like to know what would actually happen next.

ChaosOmega8, Echopapa1 and Shiho M, thank you for letting me know about what you feel about each chapter. It makes me so happy knowing that you guys support me a lot, and I promise you that I won't let you guys down.