Enjoy!
The first thing that came to mind was 'no.' And I said as much. He did not appreciate it.
"What did you say?" He said, scowling.
"No." I repeated flatly. "What are you? Deaf?"
His scowl deepened. "Ore-sama hopes this is worth the trouble." I heard him mutter under his breath.
I clucked my tongue at him. "You may be deaf, buddy, but I'm not. So, if you're not sure if this – whatever the hell this is – is worth the trouble, drop it and save us all the grief."
"Just listen." He ordered. I mirrored his scowl.
"No means no. I will not listen to you." I heard my stomach growl. "And I want my bread back."
We stood there for what seemed like hours, glaring at each other ferociously until we heard the morning bell in the distance. Atobe started to look apprehensive.
I smirked. "We can't have the student council president getting late now, can we?"
After one last scowl, he relented and shoved my bread at me. I took it smugly. "You're lucky you're a girl and ore-sama is a gentleman." He drawled, turning his back to me. What kind of gentleman turns his back on a lady? "What kind of girl eats that much in the morning anyway?"
"You misogynistic ass!" I shouted after him.
He laughed, the sound echoing in the empty hall. I wasn't sure if I was thankful that this floor was such a far-flung area that only held storage closets. If there were more people, this thing would be completely out of the water and that egoistic jerk wouldn't bother me anymore.
"If you don't hurry up ore-sama is going to give you a detention." He called from the end of the hall, back still facing me with his hands in his pockets. The perfect picture of cool nonchalance.
I had an internal debate on whether I should throw something at him. Realizing the only thing I had on me was a bag of bread, I concluded he would be an absolute waste of food and proceeded to stuff the aforementioned pastry into my mouth.
Fangirl. Chaos. Yuushi. Three words that describe what happened to me when I yanked the door to my classroom open.
Atobe. One word that describes why everything happened to me.
Let's start with fangirl:
I stepped into the classroom and was greeted by one – very violently. Like, practically strangled me with the way she pulled my shirt. Then, she proceeded to bombard me with questions that, at the rate she was going in that whiney voice of hers, were incomprehensible.
Next chaos:
What started out as one fangirl soon became every freaking girl in my class. And even some guys. I didn't stop to think why they were crowding me, too. Bad thoughts. If one person asking me a barrage of questions was bad enough, how about thirty! Not to mention Fangirl #1 was still strangling me with my shirt collar.
And Yuushi:
Oh, heaven-sent Yuushi. Yuushi who came in from the door behind me and put his arm around my shoulders while peeling of Fangirl #1's hand from their death grip on my shirt with his other hand. I smiled uneasily at him as he gave me his best lady-killer smirk – which one could actually believe could really kill ladies at the rate the fangirls were turning to mush.
"Now, let's sort this out peacefully." He drawled in that sexy Kansai accent of his which effectively shut everyone up. "So, Mai-hime, tell us, are you dating Atobe?"
And finally, ATOBE, the reason for everything bad that happened to me from now on:
"No." I answered bluntly.
Yuushi looked slightly taken aback by my answer. "Really?" He asked.
I nodded. "Really." The people around us looked confused.
"Well, I guess I never really thought you liked him. Or even talked to him." Yuushi said.
I nodded vigorously.
"But I really saw sparks fly when I saw you two staring at each other in the hallway this morning. There's no need to hide it you know, if you're really dating Atobe."
My lower jaw promptly detached itself from its partner as it now rested at my feet.
Sparks were definitely flying! Just not the way you think they were!
So, apparently, our little glaring match looked like we were enraptured by each other. I resisted the urge to retch.
I sputtered incoherently at his statement. Yuushi really thought I was dating his best friend! He was my only hope! Even my friends were staring at me expectantly. What did Atobe tell him?
Before I could correlate yesterday's events to him, the teacher stepped in and ordered us all back to our seats. As I trudged abjectly to my seat, I could feel glares burning holes into the back of my head. Much like how it felt yesterday when I fell out of the closet when Ato – Ahhhh! Bad thoughts!
I dropped my head on my desk with a load 'thump,' making the ones next to me jump in their seats.
"Takashina-san," I gulped and raised my head to look at the slightly irritated teacher. "Would you like to tell us the answer to this question or have you effectively knocked it out of your brain?"
I answered it coolly. The teacher had nothing else to say and proceeded to ignore me the rest of the class, leaving me to wallow in my complete annoyance with our dear student council president.
The moment I dreaded came just as the last bell of the day sounded. When I look back on that moment, I could swear it sounded a lot like a dirge.
Yuushi didn't say much to me the rest of the day, just smiled at me encouragingly a few times whenever he noticed the fangirls glaring in my direction. I tried to talk to him, my friends didn't want to listen to my explanation and just kept congratulating me on 'such a good catch,' and I had hoped that he would listen to me at least. But every single time I tried to talk to him, he was dragged away by his tennis club friends and even once by Atobe. He didn't talk to me, thankfully. Although that was mostly because the second I saw him at the door, I ran as fast as I could out the other door, effectively tripping on the way out(hence, the cut on my knee). It wasn't that I was afraid of facing him per se, but at the moment I felt that if we even tried to make conversation, I'd knee him in the crotch. And, while that would prove that I really wasn't dating him, it would give me a heaps load of crap to deal with from the teachers, the fangirls, the tennis club and the rest of the school population that admired him and I didn't think I was ready for that many enemies.
Him, I could take. His fangirls, I'm not so sure. I mean, even he can't take them! And they're on his side!
Anyway, back to my dreaded moment…
"Mai-chan," My classmate, Haginosuke Taki, who also happened to be in the tennis club, called me. He was a nice guy. That is all he will ever be. We went out in second year but, while it was nice and all, it just didn't quite work. We were still friends, though. Seriously.
"Yeah?" I excused myself from my friends who leered at me as I left. They just couldn't get that we were completely over him. "What is it?"
He looked down awkwardly and handed me a folded piece of paper, still not meeting my eyes. I took it from him and stared at it for a second before looking at him again, seeing my friends looking on interestedly behind him. I looked around and saw that a few of my other classmates were staring at us as well. I shrugged, figuring that my situation couldn't really get any worse at this point, and unfolded the paper. I initially found that the handwriting was too neat to be a boy's but it was pretty obvious that it came from him. I mean I could practically feel the ego seeping out of the words as I read them.
Meet me at the roof. Now.
P.S.
Don't try to escape. Haginosuke's taking you there by any means necessary.
I looked at Taki expressionlessly before I walked over to my desk and grabbed my bag. I walked out of the room wordlessly, trying to contain my irritation, as a distressed Taki followed close behind me. I was not going to run away this time.
Who did he think he was? I seethed. And I did not mean Taki. With the way he was, I wondered what means he could even manage to use to get me there.
"Mai-chan," He called after me repeatedly.
Sighing, I turned slightly to face him once I calmed down a bit. "Taki, I'm going. You don't need to follow me."
He scratched the back of his head, smiling sheepishly. "Buchou told me not to leave you alone until I was sure you were with him."
"Aren't you sure that I'm on my way there, Taki?" I tried, putting on my best 'cute' face. He blushed slightly but still shook his head.
"Sorry, Mai-chan. Atobe-san can be pretty harsh."
I sighed for the umpteenth time that day and nodded. "He can be pretty stupid, too." I muttered darkly.
Taki looked like he was trying hard not to laugh but I could see the sides of his mouth turn up. We talked amiably the rest of the way to the roof. Taki tactfully avoided the topic of his captain. He had always been a considerate guy.
When we finally arrived at the door leading to the rooftop, he stopped. I paused with my hand on the door.
"Now, I'm sure that you're going to meet him." He said, leaning on the wall. "But just in case, I'll stay here until you go out."
I smiled at him. "Well, Taki, thanks."
He cocked his head to the side inquiringly. "What for?"
"For not asking why the hell I'm here." I stated, pushing the door open harshly. With one last parting smile, I shut the door behind me.
"You took long enough." I heard a very irritating voice say as I shut the door.
Rolling my eyes, I walked over to the railing he was leaning against. He smirked at me as I reclined next to him.
"Before anything, ore-sama would like to take this." He said as he pulled my bag out my hand and set it down next to him.
"Baka." I muttered.
"That book of yours did some damage, ore-sama has a bump on ore-sama's head from our previous encounter." He stated coolly.
I scoffed. "Well, I'm sorry to have injured your beautiful head, Your Headness – I mean Assness."
His smirk widened as I blatantly insulted him. Maybe I did cause some brain damage. I looked at him weirdly.
"You're here because ore-sama wants to proposition you."
I raised my eyebrow at him. "Here we go again with this whole proposition thing. I'm starting to sound like some kind of hooker."
"A request, then." Atobe drawled.
"Look, Atobe. I don't want to have anything to do with you."
"And that's why you're the only that can do this."
I stared at him blankly. "I have half a mind to ask what 'this' is but the other half is telling me that you're going to tell me even if I don't ask so get on with it."
At that point, wiping of that pompous smirk of his head via book bag was very enticing.
"Be my girlfriend. Or rather, pretend to be my girlfriend."
You probably couldn't see my eyebrows with how high they shot up into my hairline. Once they had returned to their original position, I spoke to him slowly, wondering about the extent of brain damage a really heavy book could cause to a person. "I think you and I both know the answer to that is no."
"Arn," he drawled amusedly. "You're a girl, aren't you?"
"If I say I'm a guy will you leave me alone?" I deadpanned.
He chuckled. "You can try but I don't think that's enough to threaten ore-sama's sexuality."
Cue immaturely sticking tongue out.
"Back to the point, don't you ever read those shoujo manga where the popular guy pretends to date someone to get annoying girls of his back?"
There was absolutely no modesty to this guy, it was pretty obvious who the popular guy in this analogy was. So that left me as the girl he pretends to date. I tilted my head as Taki did earlier. "Are you telling me you read those shoujo manga where the popular guy pretends to date someone to get annoying girls of his back?" I asked as innocently as possible.
Atobe glared at me. "No, ore-sama doesn't but the idea has been presented to ore-sama in the same format. Focus. So, do you?"
"For your sake, I hope the one that presented the idea to you knew what they were getting into." Before he could respond to that, I continued. "And yeah, I've read a few. What about it? I am not interested in being 'the girl the popular guy pretends to date to get others of his back.'"
"It'll only be until graduation in a few months. After that, we'll be off to university and we won't have to see each other again."
"No. I get nothing out of this. How are you even so sure that it'll work?" I retorted. "And why should I agree anyway? You kiss me against my will in front of a murderous audience, announce something that is completely unfounded, you steal my bread and my book bag and somehow managed to convince Yuushi that we're really dating!"
"Then, you do get something out of this. You tolerate ore-sama until graduation and ore-sama will do one thing for you." He said in that infernal drawl of his. "And ore-sama knows that this will at least discourage them."
"No matter how humiliating?" I was starting to feel his desperation.
"Within reason." He said.
I frowned. So much for having him streak naked…
"And if I can't tolerate you until graduation, what then?"
He looked contemplative for a second. "Then you'll never get your revenge on ore-sama and ore-sama will tell ore-sama's fanclub that you hit me. Which you will probably do if you can't tolerate me that long."
I caught my long jet-black hair in between my fingers, twirling them absently as I stared off into the distance. Atobe didn't say anything.
My answer broke the silence which had settled around us. "It's being considered. But, just for the record, you are so not being a man about me hitting you."
Atobe smirked at my answer, cautiously he handed me my bag.
"Business is business." It seemed as if that was really all he needed from me. Some rough equivalent to yes. After that, I was free to go.
I took my bag and sauntered over to the door. Once I had gotten out of his arm's reach I turned back.
"But Atobe, hasn't anyone ever presented to you the idea that the popular guy will always fall for the girl he pretends to date?"
I hoped you liked it!
Does anyone know what Atobe's dad does for a living?
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