I'm done! Finally! Anyway, before you read this chapter, let me warn you that this is utter crack and does not contain anything in the way of romantic development of any sort - for anybody... Ja, read on!

Chapter 4

"There's so much homework!" Maika wailed, looking at the mountain-high pile of books that had steadily been growing ever since first period. "How am I ever going to finish it?"

Tezuka simply looked at her, having been disturbed by all the banging on her table.

She looked at the books. "Sometimes I think teachers were put here just to torture us poor students…"

His disapproving frown clearly said that talking about teachers like that was very bad manners. But Maika was too busy bemoaning the tons of homework given to care.

"And I have that stupid music class tonight…" Her grumbling was beginning to grate on his nerves.

He tried to tune her out, focusing instead on his English exercise.

"…I don't even know how to do half of these…" Somehow, her voice had a very penetrative quality. It wasn't exactly loud, but it had a way of worming itself into one's consciousness, and that was exactly what Tezuka didn't need.

Letting out an exasperated sigh, he turned to her. "Then read the notes sensei gave."

She looked at him as if he was crazy. "And waste all that time which could be spent finishing my homework?"

"You said you didn't know how to do it…" He hated being made a fool of, and she was an expert at doing that, unfortunately for him.

"I'll figure out a way somehow," She said, waving a hand dismissively at him. "And it'll be much faster than reading a bunch of stupid notes."

Taking that last shot as his cue to start ignoring her again, he turned back to his work. Maika noticed it, and a wicked smile formed on her face.

Mission accomplished.

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It wasn't that she purposely set out to aggravate him. He was just so teasable. Sometimes she wondered what he would say if she suddenly took on the personality of one of his fan girls for a day. She stifled a small snort of laughter as a vision of him sitting impassively next to a gushing girl with adoring starry eyes presented itself in her brain.

"Do your work." Tezuka admonished her, getting tired of all the little giggles that popped out from time to time. It sounded far too girlish for his comfort.

"Yes, sir." She flashed a meek smile at him before indulging in a last chuckle.

The huge pile of homework obviously had not dented her spirits one bit. He sighed, and started to calculate the formula for pi.

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"It's going to rain soon, don't you think?"

She looked up at the black sky. "I guess so."

Thunder rumbled threateningly as she bid a hasty goodbye to her friend and started off for home. It looked as if she would have to do some serious running unless she wanted to get soaked by what was probably some deadly form of acid rain.

Lightning streaked across the rapidly darkening sky, a moment before the first raindrops started falling.

"!!!"

The comfort of home suddenly seemed very far away as she ran for the nearest bus stop a good hundred metres away. She was quite thoroughly soaked by the time she got to the (in her opinion) rather measly form of shelter, but it was better than standing unprotected in the freezing rain. She shivered slightly, and perched on a seat nearby in an attempt to get comfortable.

"What do you mean you can't come? I don't care if you're stuck in a jam! Just come and pick me up now!!!"

She looked up to see a boy roughly about her age shouting into a cellular phone. He snapped the phone shut and leaned on the wall of the bus stop, looking extremely displeased about something.

He has a phone!

She moved over to where he was peering dissatisfiedly into the rain and tapped his shoulder lightly.

"Excuse me," She began.

He turned around with a start. "Don't scare me like that, Ka-" He stopped abruptly as his brain finally registered that what he was seeing was not Kabaji, but a girl.

"Who are you?" His tone was unfriendly, and his eyes traveled up and down from her head to her toes, as if assessing her.

She flushed, knowing she must look quite a sight right now, with bedraggled hair and soaked uniform, but she wasn't one to back down from what she had started.

"Could I borrow your phone for a moment?"

He stared at her, wondering what sort of girl dared to ask to borrow a stranger's phone. A pretty desperate one, obviously. But he couldn't just lend his phone to mere commoners, especially a Seigaku student. She'd need a brilliant reason to convince him otherwise.

"Who are you?" He repeated insistently.

She looked at him. What difference did her name make, anyway? But if he wanted to conduct an introduction in the rain, he was free to do so. After all, she did need that phone quite badly.

"I'm Tawako Kamaika. And you?"

Her name didn't ring any bells. But since she asked so nicely, she could have his name. "Atobe Keigo."

He said it with such flair that she half-believed he actually expected her to swoon or kneel at his feet. But maybe that was just the way he talked… She shrugged it off, and asked hopefully. "So could I?"

He was wondering why she didn't respond at all to his name. "Could you what?"

"Could I borrow your phone?" She repeated patiently.

He looked at her as if she had just suggested he run out and dance naked in the rain. "Of course not!"

"But why not?" She frowned. "I'll pay you back, if money's what you're worried about."

He quite nearly choked on that. "Money?!!"

"Yes," Then a sudden insight into the root of his problem occurred to her. "I do have money, you know."

He looked highly insulted. "Ore-sama has more than enough money!"

"Well then, that's good!" She still didn't get what he was so upset about. "If you don't want me to pay, there's no problem. I just want to borrow your phone!"

"I don't want to lend you my phone!"

"Why not?" She was starting to get more than a little annoyed. It was just a single call, for goodness' sake!

"Because you're not worthy of it!" He was shouting by now.

"WHAT?!" Now she was really mad. "Don't be silly!"

"I'm not being silly!" Atobe simply didn't get why she couldn't understand his logic.

"Yes, you are! Not worthy my foot! If you're just too selfish to lend me your phone, just say so! There's no need to hide behind your lame excuses!"

"Are you calling me a coward?!!!"

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When his driver arrived, he found his young master engaged in a shouting battle against a young lady.

"Atobe-san?"

Atobe gave him a cursory glance before promptly ignoring him in favour of shouting a reply back to the last insult hurled at him.

The driver winced at the colourful language. "Atobe-san, you really should be getting back…"

"You're a – a nincompoop!"

Atobe was momentarily stumped, but he soon came up with a suitable reply. "And you're a sodden piece of tempura gone bad!"

Their argument was not very mature, to say the least.

"Argghhh! I give up! Talking to you is like talking to the wall!!"

"That's because you're silly enough to talk to it!" He shot back.

The rain did not show any signs of letting up, and Maika suddenly remembered something which had quite gone out of her head during the shouting match.

"Oh, shucks!" She balled her hands into fists. "My homework!"

"What about it?" He asked, not very pleased that she was changing the subject. It was his motto never to leave a match unfinished.

"It's due tomorrow, and there are tons of it!" She counted on her fingers, her face turning ashen at the sudden realization. "And I have less than half a day to finish it!"

"You've still got tonight, haven't you?" He said impatiently.

His question only served to make things worse. "My music class! Crap!"

He looked at her. "Well then, what are you waiting for? Go home and finish it!"

She rounded on him, eyes shooting sparks. "Go home?! The only reason I'm not there right now is because of you!!!!"

"And this stupid rain…" She added under her breath.

"Then use the phone!" He thrust the object at her.

She looked at it. "No thanks. I think I'll just walk home. Besides, I would probably dirty the receiver or something."

"In the rain?" He couldn't believe her. "You must be crazy!"

"Yes, I am. From talking to you." She shot him a pointed glare. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get home."

And she began walking out into the rain, leaving behind an extremely stunned Atobe and his driver.

"You'll get pneumonia!"

"I was already wet anyway!" She shouted back.

Atobe shook his head. "Well, if you die, your blood is on your own head!"

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, I know." And with that, she walked off and soon disappeared from sight.

"Crazy girl…" He muttered, and got into the limousine.

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"At-choo!" Maika sneezed again, much to her annoyance. That guy - Atobe-san, was it? - well, whatever his name was, his prediction had come true. She wondered briefly if he had voodoo-ed her, but then dismissed the idea.

Tezuka wrote on, trying to ignore the frequent sneezes, and even more frequent sniffles. How she came down with the flu he had no idea, but he didn't want to share in her misery either. He inched his chair just the slightest fraction of a centimetre away, and tried to take shallow breaths so as not to inhale the germs.

After a while, he started to sound rather like a dying horse. Maika looked over from her book.

"Are you alright, Tezuka?" She asked curiously.

He chose not to reply, as replying would require more breathing, which meant a higher number of germs inhaled. He wasn't normally this paranoid, but with the Kantou tournament just around the corner, he figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

She shrugged. If he didn't want to reply, that was his business. After all, she had more urgent things to take care of, such as the sneeze that was threatening to come anytime now…

"AT-CHOO! Sumimasen…"

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So how was it? Review, ne?