Heyo I'm sneaking this in while in the middle of making projects for college because I've given up on group works I swear to Kageyama I can't work with people I hate them too much.
Anyway. :D
Disclaimer: I want to own Fudou!
32: The Quarry
Dangerously dancing with one step forward and two steps back.
Sokudone understood that in everything she did she would make enemies. If she stayed with Kageyama, failed experiment or otherwise, Yuuto would never forgive her. If she stayed with Sengoku Igajima, Ichirouta would never speak with her.
If she decided to help liven up everyone's days by getting through their hearts, Akio was going to stop her.
He was a formidable opponent; terrifyingly almost the exact copy of her father, with less hair and more devil grins. She'd be lying if she said she'd never been unnerved by either one. What was worse was that, just like her father, he knew her so much that if there need be, Fudou could stop her with the resurrection of a memory, the touch of his cold fingers, or a pair of broken sunglasses.
Sokudone tread dangerous waters.
It wasn't surprising when she entered an empty room that evening – yes, evening. Kami knew whether those two had lost control of their hormones and headed to an unoccupied classroom or they had lost control of their pent-up feelings and decided to talk it over somewhere more private and more comfortable. "What," Sokudone stopped for a moment, confused with her train of thoughts. "An office is a private place, pft." The blackette's violet eyes gleamed when she found the undiscovered tape recorder in the same spot she had hidden it – inside the flower vase. "Not to them, though." She grinned.
"I figured," She sat on the couch as she played the recorder. Mark chuckled in such a way that even Sokudone felt the butterflies flutter up to her throat. Then there was a pensive silence. "I'm sorry," He said after a while, and the president had only just realized how raw with emotion Mark Kruger really was. "I never knew. I didn't know anything."
"You weren't supposed to know," Karai's silently silky voice supplied.
"I didn't know," Mark patiently continued, as if he had a surprise plot twist for the girl in the room. "I had started liking you. I didn't know it at all. I thought it was normal." Both Karai and Sokudone held their breaths, wondering what the boy had meant. Ugh. Americans.
"I underestimated your thick headedness, Rei," There was a consequential sound of bones against muscle, and Sokudone pictured Karai punching the foreigner. "When I asked you for dating tips, I wanted you to answer what you wanted, not what those girls wanted; I thought it was a cool way to get to know you more."
"Mark—"
"When you gradually hung out with Dylan more than with me, it was the first time I wanted Dylan out of the picture. I thought you two were leaving me. I thought it was the insecurity of a friend in a trio, but looking back on it, it was far from that; I guess it was more of—"
"Jealousy," Sokudone murmured, "of a boy who couldn't get the girl."
Falling in love was great. Romance was fun. Matchmaking was awesome.
The violet-eyed school president stopped the recording and gathered her things. It was getting late, she'd told Ichirouta that he didn't have to wait for her by the gates, and she feared what the night would bring after that one rainy, Koujirou-less evening (A/N: Refer to Chap 8.).
Sometimes she'd wished her story was as great as her friends', but that was hoping for the impossible. First of all, her family wasn't normal – or present. Her upbringing was a strange conflation of prim and pauper. If she wanted someone to love her, she'd have to understand herself first. Or find someone who'd understand her with her.
Sokudone opened the door, key in one hand, ready to lock the office as she left for home, when Fudou's hunching figure on the opposite wall stopped her in her tracks. "For a second I thought you'd never get out of that place," he greeted, dark teal eyes focused on her widened violet ones. "And if I didn't?" She challenged. Why was he still in school when they had no business with each other? No friendly business anyway. The delinquent bounded off the wall and approached the shorter person. "I'd come get you."
"No one asked you to," Sokudone broke eye contact and turned to lock the office, stiffening at the intense glare the boy was sending her way. Fudou snorted. "Because I actually listen and do favors."
Sokudone offered a blunt snuffle in agreement.
There was nothing else to continue from that point, so the blackette switched cards. "Have you thought of where to get a suit?" As the two walked to the stairs, Fudou shrugged. "I was told you'd handle it."
"Only if you couldn't," she answered automatically. She wasn't a bank, much more anyone's personal piggy bank at that. "What if I refused to until you did?" Fudou challenged as they bounded down the first two flights of stairs in near-perfect unison. "I am not your attendant," Sokudone huffed, clearly angry, as she hastened to leave the banana lover's side. Fudou merely widened his stride.
"And no one is your project – but we do what we want, don't we?"
"Are you just here to spite me?" Sokudone spun around, irritated at how he was attacking her here and there. Her sudden pause in walking surprised a rarely surprised Fudou, and he crashed none too gently into her and the wall.
There was an angry sprinkle of scarlet on the president's face, and Fudou liked to think he'd been the reason for it. He grinned mischievously at her. "Suddenly I'm wishing that goggle-brained loser saw us like this."
"Do you still think I like him?" Sokudone nearly laughed for the first time that day. Only hopeless romantics thought people fell for their childhood or best friends. The brunette tilted his head. "I thought you like me."
"I don't like anyone," She glared up at him, wondering why he wouldn't get away from her. If anything, Fudou disliked human contact nearly as much as he loathed Kidou Yuuto. "Romantically anyway."
"Ah, so then you like me," Fudou disturbingly brightened up. "One way or another."
"If you want someone to like you so bad, why don't you give that Hiroki-san a chance?"
"You're not denying it," Fudou was still grinning at her, but there was no amusement in his eyes. He wasn't happy that she just had to mention that crazy McDonalds monster. "And you're changing the topic," Sokudone smirked at him, the ire she once felt suddenly melting away and seeping into the boy trapping her. Immediately he pulled away. Sokudone exhaled the breath she had been holding in. She was fairly surprised that despite the irritation on the Mohawk-haired teen's features, he waited for her to collect herself before they headed down the last flight of stairs.
"Did someone teach you manners?" The blackette raised her eyebrows at the propped elbow that her companion was holding out. She only saw him get more irate, and she couldn't stop herself from smiling. "A giant maroon emu told me your dad was going to sell me off if I didn't behave." He answered, and the two resumed walking at a more relaxed pace once Sokudone perched her hand on the crook of his elbow. "Usually they say a little bird," The girl said pointedly.
"He's annoying. He's an emu."
"Really, my father was going to sell you? You sound like a five-year-old."
It was almost half past seven when the two had arrived at the Kazemaru household. The son of the house welcomed the two at the door. He gave them a one-over and took his cousin's hand. Sokudone eyed a pokerfaced Fudou. "Would you like to join us for dinner?"
"The real question here is would you like me to join you for dinner?"
An angry vein popped on Kazemaru's temple. "No one's forcing you if you don't want to," he spat, tightening his hold on his cousin and headed inside. "Let's go, Sokudone – ow!" The speedster glared at the blackette, but she was looking up at her blue-haired uncle. "Is that how you should be thanking the person who walked your cousin home, which you were supposed to do?"
"I didn't think she'd finish this late!"
"I didn't think I'd finish this late!" Both Kazemaru and Sokudone chorused. From the entrance, Fudou raised his brows, slightly amused.
"Something's weird with the way you treat him," Kazemaru whispered to Sokudone as the two settled on their seats at the table. Their guest settled on Sokudone's other side, much to Kazemaru's chagrin. The blackette returned his accusing look. "You mean with how I'm the only one not treating him like a criminal like the rest of you do?"
"Of all the people, I'd thought you'd be the angriest with him."
"Yes, because he was my father's temporary favorite and that just hurts me." The identical cousins rolled their eyes at each other. "You know what I mean," he hissed.
"Are you two eating or gossiping?" Kazemaru's mother interrupted as she sat beside her husband. The two barely let up. "In a minute," they chorused.
"To love is to forgive, Ichi-kun," she smiled patiently at him, but the addressee was confused. When had she started liking Fudou Akio? "I thought you were going to get him a date."
"Yes, I know, I am."
Yikes I've exceeded the usual limit. And this is a very bad ending, one of the worst I've made yet. Also, tune in for random story updates. It's December, and I'm obviously on break from college *celebratory dance*, so I've got plenty of time to make plenty of updates. Weeee!
-wanonymous
