I Don't Like The Catcher in the Rye

Chapter 4

Makimachi Misao was depressed.

Three days had passed since that fateful detention session, and it seemed within that short span of time, her life had somehow been turned upside down without her actually being involved in the process.

Attempts to get Megumi off Kenshin's trail were, quite bluntly, failing. Nothing Misao did or said—from subtle hints that Sano was always considered the more attractive and manly of the two friends to not so subtle speculation that Himura was gay—would deter the girl from that sissy man. Furthermore Megumi was starting to get suspicious.

"Misao-chan," Megumi had finally, in Biology lab the following day, interrupted a spirited re-enactment of one of Sano's so-called 'finer moments'. "Why are you doing this?"

"T-this?" Misao had replied nervously. "What this?"

"You know what I'm talking about," Megumi had said coolly, narrowing her eyes. "Trying to throw that rooster head at me. Is this some kind of a joke, because it's not funny."

"What, me, no! Never!" Misao had exclaimed. She rolled her eyes. "It's just that Himura is, well… He's kind of a wuss, I just wouldn't want you to lose your rep by going out with the wrong guy." Good one Makimachi!

"Well I like him," Megumi had said huffily. "Stop trying to convince me otherwise because it's not happening." She refused to talk to Misao for the remainder of the lab, breaking the silence between them when absolutely necessary (Megumi had hunted Misao down as a lab partner, something she seemed to have sorely regretted doing).

Lunch—the period before Biology lab—had been worse. Because Megumi and Misao shared a Chemistry class before lunch, they had gone to the cafeteria together after class, meeting Kaoru—who did not take Chemistry—on the way. Misao had squirmed awkwardly as Megumi gushed over 'Ken-san' on one side, and Kaoru glared daggers at her from the other.

Things finally reached the breaking point when Sano had appeared at their table, Kenshin by his side. Grinning roguishly at Megumi, he had sat himself promptly at the table, ignoring Misao's objections and glares. Kenshin had had no choice but to follow suit.

Kaoru had abruptly stood up, saying she saw a girl from the Student's Union she needed to discuss some important thing with, and spent the remainder of lunch eating and talking animatedly with a pretty, dark haired girl across the cafeteria.

Misao spent lunch listening to Megumi laugh loudly at anything Kenshin said, while Sano bugged Misao to tell him who her crush was.

Thursday and Friday's lunch were pretty much the same. Megumi, Kenshin, Sanosuke and Misao ate together, while Kaoru had lunch with the pretty girl again. Misao kept glancing in her direction miserably. On the rare occasion that their eyes met, Kaoru would stare angrily at her, direct her gaze at Megumi and Kenshin, then toss her head haughtily and look away.

Meanwhile, Megumi and Kenshin were basically off in their own, Megumi-induced world. The end result was for two lunches in a row, Misao had only the teasing of Sano to keep her company as he had moved from bugging her to spilling the beans, to speculating who it was that 'the little weasel' was in love with in an effort to make something slip.

The only good thing that came out of this whole fiasco, Misao concluded, was that she had been too exhausted by everything that had been going on to get into trouble. Now, walking alone to her last class for the week (History), she was looking forward to a couple of days away from school. She grinned widely. She never thought she would say this, but now, all she had to do was survive an hour of Saitou and she would be home free!

After all the drama that had transpired over the past few days, the thought of going home to a nice, well deserved break put her in such a good mood even the thought of being in the same room as that ass could not bring her down. For once, she had managed to clear all her detentions, and she was looking forward to soccer practice later that day—if there was one thing she needed, it was to vent all her frustrations, and what better way to do it than to spend an afternoon running and kicking!

She entered the almost empty classroom, a glance at the clock telling her she was uncommonly early. Her last class had been English, which had been a sad, lonely affair. Kaoru sat in front of her refusing to talk to her, and Sano spent the whole period whispering to her about all sorts of weird, geeky, dorky guys she had not known even existed until that moment. She had rushed out of English class and went straight to the History classroom, nearly knocking over a surprised Kaoru in her haste.

She took a seat two rows from the back and groaned. Stretching lazily, she started rocking her chair backwards, balancing on the back two legs. It was a bad habit of hers, but she liked the feeling and refused to stop even though Kaoru had told her one day she was going to fall and 'break that thick skull of yours.'

Yeah right, Kaoru, Misao thought, rolling her eyes. In all her years as a backwards chair rocker, she had never even come close to nearly—

"Whoa!" she cried, as she felt her chair suddenly being pulled roughly back. "Oh shi—" Quite abruptly, she stopped her descent, her chair (and head) inches away from the ground. She looked up into the grinning face of Sano.

"SANOSUKE NO BAKA WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?!" she screeched. Without thinking she leaped straight out of her chair, jumping at him with every intention to tackle him to the ground, tables and chairs around them be damned. Still laughing, he deftly moved out of the way and she found herself sailing through a graceful arc, airborne and helpless, heading straight for—

Aoshi-kun! Her eyes widening in terror, she twisted her body to the side in a desperate attempt to avoid him. Their eyes meet, his cool and emotionless eyes widening slightly as he freezes, halfway into the seat next to hers. She shut her eyes.

CRASH!!!

Pain lanced through most of her left side as she pretty much bowled him over. They fell to the floor, her momentum carrying him, the table, and the chair he had been in the process of sitting into smashing to the ground.

"What the hell is going on?" Misao groaned. This was not happening to her! Not only did she manage to totally knock over her crush of the century, it had been witnessed by the last person she wanted ever to see—that damn bastard Saitou!

She untangled herself from the mess of legs (human and furniture) and stood up. Shyly, she offered a hesitant hand to Aoshi, who ignored it and got up, his face a mask as he dusted himself off. She could feel her face flaming up, and she ducked as she moved to help upright the fallen table and chair.

"Detention for the both of you," Saitou said casually, walking to his desk. A half-gone cigarette dangled from his lips. "Makimachi pull yourself together and sit down."

Too embarrassed to even argue, Misao simply sat down and stared at her desk quietly. Kaoru had come in just around the time Saitou had, and Misao had caught sight of her questioning look as she took the table to her left, but refused to meet her curious gaze.

"Now that the weasel girl has settled down," Saitou drawled, snubbing out his cigarette on the teacher's desk. "We shall begin our lesson today."

Misao snuck a glance at Aoshi, who had already taken out his History textbook and was taking down notes in the margins of the text. He seemed unfazed by both the detention and the crash. Was this guy made of flesh or what?

She sighed, taking her own book out to read. What had happened to the Aoshi-sama (she vaguely marveled at the honorific coming naturally to her) she once knew? True, he had never been the most emotional or talkative of people, but deep down he was kind and gentle. She knew the old Aoshi would have at least reacted to the trouble little Misao-chan had landed in yet again with her silly antics. True, he had not smiled once that she could recall, search as she may through her childhood memories. But he had responded, or at the very least said something.

She remembered the first day she saw him, after all those years. It had been—

Advanced English class, the last period of the day. Misao stretched her stiff muscles. She had a natural flair for languages ("That's cause you use it more than any one else, Misao-chan," Kaoru liked to tease) and was in both Advanced English and Advanced Japanese class. Class had yet to begin and already she was bored!

She looked around for something to amuse herself with, but since Sano could barely recite the alphabet, let alone qualify to be in a class that taught a higher level of English, she was out of things to make fun of. Most of the kids in Advanced English were the quiet, book worm type, and while she knew most of their names, she never got along very well with them. They were usually too quiet or shy to say anything and after several minutes holding up a one-sided conversation, Misao had eventually given up. Himura was also in Advanced English, but she did not see him anywhere, so she settled for writing fake love poems on her desk.

Komagata-sensei is late, Misao thought irritably. Advanced English class in itself was actually quite alright—for something academically inclined. Komagata Yumi, the language teacher, held interesting lessons. She was very young, and also very pretty. She favoured form fitting clothes that bordered on inappropriate though, and sometimes Misao found herself staring enviously at her curvaceous body. What I'd give to grow a set of boobs like that…

At that moment, Yumi strolled into the classroom, her 4-inch, red stiletto pumps clicking loudly over the classroom floor. Misao's speculation over how anyone could walk in those ridiculously tall and flimsy heels was cut short by the tall, handsome young man who followed her in. She all but ogled at the new arrival, whose long, jet-black hair cast most of his face in shadow.

"Class," Yumi-sensei said (she insisted they called her that since she was still so young, although Misao silently regarded her as Komagata-sensei out of spite and jealousy), gesturing for everyone to settle down. "We have a new student joining our class—joining our school, actually, right, Aoshi-kun?" At the name, Misao froze, her heart leaping to her throat. Aoshi…?

Misao studied the new student—who nodded silently—with different eyes. The hair was the same raven colour, as was the smooth curves of his lips, his mouth set in an impassive line.

"Ah," Yumi-sensei said, giving the tall student a meaningful smile (Is she FLIRTING with him?!). "Class, this is Shinomori Aoshi. Take a seat Aoshi-kun."

Wordlessly, he started walking down the aisle, towards an empty desk at the end of Misao's row. She looked up at him unabashedly, staring. Their eyes met as he neared her desk, and Misao felt a shiver run down her spine. They were the exact same shade of azure grey she had spent many a childhood days gazing into with admiration and love. She thought she saw a flicker of recognition—so brief and fleeting later on she was not sure if she had imagined it—in those steel blue orbs.

The greeting died on her parted lips as he blinked slowly and deliberately—while his eyes shut smoothly turning his head up and towards the back of the classroom—breaking the connection. He swept past her desk as if she were a stranger. She blinked. It had happened so fast, already Yumi-sensei was writing something on the board—

"Ack!" Misao yelped, clutching her face. "What the hell?!" Snapped out of her memories, she realized that the whole class—to her chagrin Aoshi included—was looking at her. The imprint of a large, rectangular object was slowly reddening across her nose and cheeks, flecked with a small dark spots. She glared at Saitou, who returned her killer gaze with one of indifference.

"Now that we have the weasel's attention," he drawled lazily. "We can only hope she will answer the questions I have directed towards her." Question? "Write your answer on the board so you can return the whiteboard duster to the front."

She blinked as she looked down. The offending object was, indeed, on the floor, a short distance to her right—at the foot of Aoshi's chair. Blushing, she reached over to pick it up. Numbly, she saw another hand reach down to pick it up, as if in slow motion. Her eyes travelled up the arm, disbelief taking over her as she looked into the eyes of the person she found herself thinking about nearly every waking second. Their gazes held for a second, and she felt something being pressed into her outstretched hand.

Blinking stupidly, she looked down and saw the duster in her palm. She looked back up, and Aoshi was facing the front, unruffled. She blinked again, wondering if she had just imagined the exchanged. She looked back down at the duster—the only indication that the last few moments had occurred—it's soft, reassuring weight in her hand.

"Are you done day-dreaming?" Saitou snapped irritably. "You're especially dull-witted today. Get your ass to the front and write the answer on the board!"

"I'm coming!"

Disclaimer: I don't own Rurouni Kenshin, or any of the characters that appear. The sole exception would be the teacher who appears in Chapter 1, I know, I should be putting this there but I can't be bothered to hah!

Posted: 22nd August 2007

Author's Rants (18th August 2007 - Saturday, Chapter 2 was posted up on this day ) :

This chapter is awfully short, or at least, it is slightly shorter than the other chapters by about a hundred words (chapter 1 was the longer at slightly more than 2,700 words, the other two are about 2,200), you know you're obsessed when you find yourself checking the length of every chapter to ensure each chapter is about the same length. I'm sorry about that, it's just impossible to fit any more into this chapter without it getting too long. It was incredibly easy and fun to write, although finishing it off was tough. I know, it's mean of me to leave ya'll with such a cliffhanger, haha, but I blame technology. I also don't know how it relates to this. Anyway, thanks for all the support guys :) I'm especially honoured that Silver Miko has read my fic, hee, I've read a LOT of your fics and I really admire your work! Sorry bout not reviewing and stuff, I'll try to get back and review after my exams k.

Speaking of which, my exams are nearly over, my last paper is in 3 days (ugh I need to study instead of write) and possibly you'll see more updating soon after. I've re-watched all the anime episodes worth watching, and read a lot of the manga, just to get a better feel for the characters' personalities and the way they talk. Who am I kidding, RK rocks, I don't need an excuse to re-watch and re-read it, haha.

Anyway, hopefully conversation will be less stunted in the next few chapters, I'm not very happy with my dialogue because I feel it's very awkward, totally not smooth and absolutely not witty or funny, the way I'd imagine they should be. I guess I have a lot of growing to do as a writer, and I hope you'll put up with it, at least until I get better. All comments and criticism welcome, I'd rather you flame me than praise me, seriously, I truly want to get better as a writer, both in the content and in the writing itself.

Anyway, I have a vague idea of where I want this fic to go, now the only problem is getting it there. While I have a hazy outline of the distant future, it's the immediate future that I draw a total blank at, namely, what will happen during Misao's detention with Aoshi. In there, there's only one or two details in which I'm certain of, so I guess you can say that I'm reading the story as much as you all are, only I get to have a story that I totally approve of, haha… Well actually that's not true also…

So much for keeping this short. Right now, it's in the early hours of Saturday (4am actually) and I just spent 3 hours reading the translated manga. I'm downloading the full thing, because I lost my manga (yeah, such a shame right, I had the FULL set, albeit in Chinese and since I got an F for that, reading it is a bitch so I just end up looking at translations anyway or relying on my memory) and all I have are parts of it in Japanese (I'm not obsessed with RK) and volumes 22 and 23 in English (my school library has them so I borrowed them, cool huh).

I also have volumes 24 and part of 25 already downloaded, but I realized if I kept downloading the books individually it wouldn't work because the connections kept dying, or certain chapters couldn't be downloaded, you know, the usual problems with downloading stuff illegally (but I do plan on buying the full manga—probably in Japanese because I'm trying to self-learn it—so it's not exactly illegal).

I also happened to read Hikaru's rant against AU fics, which you can find at her website which is angelic-strawberries dot net slash blog slash (what, FFN won't allow links…) it's like, the second post. Personally, I have nothing against AU fic, I like it because I'm such a sucker for high-school romances, but she does have a point that most people don't really describe what or why the characters are as such, although it doesn't bug me anyway because I usually just suspend my belief so I can enjoy the romance.

Anyway, I'm glad that I don't feel that I fall into that category, because I'm a sucker for details. I hate things not making sense, like if in one scene they're in the bedroom, and then suddenly it's written they're in the kitchen without any letting the reader know they actually transitioned to that, etc, so you can expect me to go to great lengths to explain why every one is a certain way (i.e. if Kenshin happens to be a whiz at a sword, I'd fit in a logical explanation to it that isn't hopefully too clichéd or improbable). Furthermore, because it's an AU, I understand that certain things are definitely going to change, but I'm not sure how different I'm willing to go. But I DO hope that the essence of each character remains true, and any comments on the job I'm doing would be great.

Of course, I do realize I'm guilty of one thing, which is placing the characters in an environment I know next to nothing about except from what I've read. Fortunately, I had long ago realized that myself, and had decided to ignore it and try and fit it in as logically and as smoothly as possible, without making it too 'out there'. So think of this as a sort of AU in modern times, only not quite in a proper, Japanese or American school culture but rather a fusion, as I'd already mentioned earlier. If things don't make sense, or if I make any mistakes, comments and criticism are gladly welcome.

Again, thank you for the support. I'm going to end the Author's Rants here, if not I'm going to go on forever. I have an annoying habit of loving to talk about myself, so if you've managed to read up until this line then thanks for bearing with me. I'm going to sleep now, I've got a bit of a headache since I've been up since 10am and out from then till about 12am (although I did get a 3 hour nap in between with my beloved boyfriend/husband/technically he should be my fiancé, hee snuggle). While waiting for sleep to come, I shall try and think of what will happen next k, till then, bye bye!

( 22 August 2007 - Written while posting ) :

I know this rant is ridiculously long, but I just wanna say hah! I updated when I said I would, and hah! You guys are lucky, I almost forgot to post haha... Chapter 5 is about half done by e way, whoo! Not too sure how I'm gonna continue though, oh well, we'll see...