Author's Note: Hi hi, IrisRaylene here with the third chapter. Sorry that this one took so long to write, but I was having a hard time narrating in the right tone and stuff…bleh.
Today's special thanks goes to NK and Lala. Thank you so much for the reviews! Your excitement makes writing this story so much more fun! I really love hearing from readers, so please feel free to review. If you didn't like it, tell me what to change. If you did, tell me what to keep doing.
As a final note before we begin, I'm trying to balance Aki and Ryuu's perspective more. Aki is a lot more fun to write, but Ryuu is a little more useful in narrating the story (he has a better attention span…). If you guys have any preference on who narrates more, let me know. Some parts of the story require certain people to narrate, but a lot of it is open to change too. I'd be interested to hear whose perspective is more popular.
Alright, enough of that, let's begin chapter three!

Disclaimer: I own nothing. I spent all my money on coffee, so I couldn't afford to anyway… T^T

-x-Chapter 3: More Trouble Than It's Worth-x-

Aki:

"…."

"….."

"…."

I swear, if someone doesn't say something soon, I might actually go crazy.

After learning that Ryuu and I had snuck onto the Base, Mom hadn't said a word. She just stood right there, arms crossed, staring at us. Even Ryuu was uncharacteristically silent. He didn't try to talk his way out of this or offer a single explanation. Not that there was much either of us could do. All the talking in the world wasn't going to change the fact that neither of us was supposed to be here.

No one spoke. No one moved. The three of us just stood there. The heavy silence hanging between us was killing me. Seriously, why was no one saying anything? Mom, if you're going to yell at me, then just do it! I mean, I already know that I'm in trouble. Let's just get this over with and move on with our lives.

Mom uncrossed her arms. Oh, here we go. She was finally going to say something. I braced myself for what would probably be an onslaught of "What were you thinking?" and "Did this sound like a good idea?" or even "You should really listen to Ryuu more, instead of dragging him around with you." Yeah, this wasn't going to be pretty.

"Ryuu, you actually look quite nice in my old uniform."

An unexpected blow! I hadn't prepared for that. And neither had Ryuu, it seemed. He choked in surprise.

"I'm sorry, what?" He coughed out. "Your uniform, Iku-san?"

"Yes, that's my old Defense Force uniform." Mom nodded.

"Aki…" Ryuu turned to me, his eye twitching again.

"Well, where did you think I got them?" I shrugged. "Besides, you know that my parents are on the Defense Force." What did he think, that I stole them from some military outfitter? Or…wherever these came from?

"Aki, why am I wearing your mother's old uniform?" He asked through gritted teeth.

"Oh, that? Of course you're wearing Mom's. You didn't think you'd fit in my father's old uniform, did you? You're way taller than he is." I reasoned. Mom laughed.

"Isn't it fine, Ryuu?" She asked. "After all, they look exactly the same."

"IT'S A MATTER OF PRICIPLE!" He shouted, clearly nearing the end of his patience.

"Oh my, he seems upset…" Mom sighed. "Anyway, Aki dear, what are you doing on the Base?"

"I…uh…kinda wanted to…you know…explore a little." Wow. I didn't realize until I actually had to justify my actions how incredibly stupid the reason sounded. What sixteen year old girl sneaks onto a defense base just to explore? What was I, a child?

"Okay then. Are you having fun?" Wait, seriously? She was okay with that?

"Iku-san, you aren't mad?" Ryuu sounded just as confused as I felt.

"Yeah, Mom, aren't I supposed to be banned from this Base?" Don't tell me she'd forgotten.

"Oh that?" Mom sighed. "That's just your father being your father, you know how he is. If you want to look around, I think that's fine. Just don't get hurt and try not to break anything. Oh, and be careful not to let your father catch you. Because I don't think he'd be very happy about this."

"You…you aren't going to tell him?" I could hardly believe our luck.

Mom just laughed. "Of course not. I don't want to ruin your fun. Besides, I have to sit next to your father for another four hours of meetings and I would really rather he be in a good mood for that…"

"Wait a second, aren't you supposed to be in meetings all day today? What the hell are you doing just walking around the Base then?!" Mom answered me by driving her fist into the top of my head.

"That's not how you talk to your mother. And, for your information, I was in a meeting until a few minutes ago, but everyone was dying of boredom, so we were let out for a short break."

"Oh." I said, crouching on the ground and holding my head. "Okay."

"I should really be getting back soon," Mom sighed. "Ah, have you two been to the main library building yet? I heard there's a new shipment coming in. That might be interesting to see. Of course, be sure to stay out of the way so you don't get roped into helping them move things."

"Alright."

"One more thing, Ryuu?" Ryuu looked up, surprised that Mom was addressing him. "Please try to keep my daughter safe. It'd be difficult to explain how she got hurt to her father without getting all of us in trouble. I'll see you two later!" She jogged back to the main building, giving us a small wave before disappearing inside.

"Your mom," Ryuu said after a minute, "is really weird."

"Yeah," I sighed. "I'm not gonna argue with that."

-x-

Ryuu:

In retrospect, I should have guessed that Iku-san really wouldn't care if we snuck onto the Base or not. Iku-san had never really been mad, no matter what kind of stupid 'adventures' we had. Her father would always be the one that yelled at us. My father would try not to get involved. And both of our mothers would just laugh, finding our adventures to be "highly entertaining."

I suppose, in that sense, we were pretty lucky. Out of all of the people on this Base that know who we are, or at least know that we don't belong here, out of all of the people that could have found us, we were caught by the one who really didn't care.

"Well, now that that's over with," I turned to Aki, "would you like to take a look at the Library?" Had Aki even been to the Library? I know that she had been banned from coming near the Base, but did the main building count?

"Can we really?" Aki clasped her hands together, eyes sparkling. Apparently it did count.

Once we made it into the main building, Aki's hyperactivity went right into overdrive. She raced around the library in a silent flurry of overwhelming excitement. It was actually kind of funny how the one rule she would follow was keeping quiet in a library. But, then again, she was from a family of book lovers.

"Ryuu, Ryuu, this has to be the coolest place ever!" She ran back over to me, who was still standing by the entrance. Her eyes were sparkling even more now. "I'm so glad we came here!"

"Nice to know you're having so much fun." I chuckled.

"Well of course, adventures with you are always fun, Ryuu!" She grinned.

That damn smile. I couldn't even count the number of times that I forgot how reckless and dangerous Aki's ideas were, all because of that stupid smile. No matter what kind of adventure it was and no matter how much trouble we inevitably ran into, she would always smile like she couldn't imagine ever being happier in her life. She would smile like that, and I would forget all the reasons I had protested the adventure in the first place. This girl was dangerous, that was for sure.

"Eh, isn't that Aki and Ryuu?" Shit, seriously? Why did this keep happening to us? How many times were we going to get called out before karma was satisfied?

"Oh, Hisa! Rie-chan!" Aki waved. Wait…did she say Hisa and Rie? What were the odds of that? I turned around and, sure enough, we had been called out, not by any library employee, but by two middle school students.

Hisoka and his younger sister, Rie, were in their third and first year of middle school, respectively. They also happened to be the children of close family friends, so the four of us had known each other pretty much since birth.

"I wanted to explore the Library Base, so Ryuu and I snuck in!" Aki announced.

"Idiot, who says that in such a loud voice in the middle of the freaking library?!"

"You two are as amusing as always." Hisoka chuckled. "So this is another one of Aki's 'brilliant adventures' I take it?"

"Naturally," I sighed. "You think I was going to come up with a plan this stupid on my own?"

"You did go along with it, Ryuu-nii." Rie pointed out in her quiet voice. I froze.

"Don't question it too much, Rie." Hisoka patted her on the head, smiling calmly. "You know that Ryuu's a pushover when it comes to Aki."

"Oy, oy…" What the hell did he think he was saying?

"Ah, that's right!" Rie giggled. "I forgot that Ryuu-nii always follows Aki-nee. He's her knight in shining armor! Right, nii-san?"

"Hey!" I hissed, desperately trying to think of something to get them to shut up. "That isn't funny." Judging by how hot my face was, I was probably bright red by now. How exactly was I supposed to explain that away?

"Um, I don't really get what's happening…" That's right, I forgot. Aki is naturally oblivious when it comes to things like this. I almost felt like laughing. With both her and her mother, I got all worried and panicky for nothing. "But what are Hisa and Rie-chan doing here?"

"We came to check out books." Hisoka held up a small stack of novels, smiling. "You know, the thing that most people do at libraries." Rie nodded enthusiastically, holding up her own stack.

"Ooh, that one looks interesting!" Aki slid one of the books out of Rie's arms.

Well, this wasn't exactly how I had expected our adventure to end up, but I suppose it was fine. Aki was happy, and we had avoided any serious trouble so far. Running into Hisoka and Rie had been unexpected, but they certainly weren't going to cause problems for us. Not the mild-mannered Hisoka and timid Rie. We were fine for now. Let's just hope that the rest of this day goes smoother.

-x-

Aki:

I had been talking to Rie-chan about the latest mystery novel that I read when a small group of men in Defense Force uniforms passed us. One of them bumped me as he passed, knocking me into Ryuu.

"Hey!" I called after the man, who apparently intended to walk away without even bothering to apologize. "Watch where you're going!" The man turned around and gave me a half-hearted nod.

"Not even an attempt at an apology?" Hisa sighed. "Adults these days…"

"My apologies…" The man said in a forced voice. "I did not mean to run into Corporal…" He trailed off, frowning at me. Crap, he wanted to know my name. I wasn't wearing a nametag, since that was kind of an issue. But I still had the rank insignia, so he thought I really worked here.

"Satou." I blurted out the first name I could think of, thanking every god in existence that it was a normal enough name. There probably was a Corporal Satou somewhere.

"Corporal Satou." The man nodded again.

"It's okay!" I smiled. "Just be careful." The group, five men in total, turned and continued on their way. They seemed to be headed toward the front desk.

"That was weird." Hisa shook his head. I was content to let it go at that, but Ryuu was still frowning in their direction. "What's the matter, Ryuu?"

"Nothing…" He shook his head slowly. "It's just…something felt off about those guys."

"Off?" I looked back at them. "How so?"

"Well, that's…you gave them a fake name, but they didn't even blink an eye. All five of them were pretty close to our supposed rank, too, so they should have been able to recognize you. Or, recognize that you aren't really a Defense Force member."

"You said the same thing about everyone we passed today. Maybe they just assumed we were in a different training group?"

"I'm sure that's it." Ryuu shook his head again, letting out a small sigh. "I'm probably just overthinking things."

Hisa and Rie-chan resumed the conversation about books, but I couldn't focus on it anymore. If those men had bothered Ryuu that much, then there must be something about them that didn't fit. I kept my eye on them as they made their way to the front desk and turned on one of the vacant computers. One of the men opened a folder that he was carrying and seemed to be comparing the notes in the folder to whatever was on the computer.

Oh, Mom had said that there was going to be a delivery to the library today. They must be checking the delivery details to make sure that it went smoothly. Of course they'd been edgy, they were in a hurry.

I sighed. This library adventure was turning out to be really stressful. With everything that kept happening to us, I was starting to wonder if maybe this was more trouble than it was worth…

-x-

Final Note: We end this chapter with serious Aki and awkward Ryuu…haha. But seriously though, this chapter was so hard to write, I'm not gonna lie. I rewrote the entire thing about three times, and then individual sections even more than that. It took forever to get the plot headed in the direction that I wanted *sob*. And it ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would. What do you guys think? Did I do okay?
Ah, I should also apologize for both this chapter and in advance if any of the original characters seem kind of OOC to you. I blame it on them getting older and having kids (also my writing ability, but we don't need to talk about that…). I'll do my best to keep them as close as I can, but bear with me, this is my first attempt at a fanfic.
As a side note, I think Iku would probably be a great mother. She does really well with kids and she seems like the kind who wouldn't be too upset if her kid got into fights or had wild adventures, so long as they didn't get hurt or cause too many problems for other people. Which is how Aki ended up the way she did, I think. Doujou, on the other hand, would definitely be an overprotective parent. He would freak out about all kinds of things. But that isn't part of the story…yet. (mwahahaha…*cough cough*)
Anyway, as of now, you have met the four OCs that will be in this story. Excluding minor sides and villains, since no one cares about them. Aki, Ryuu, Hisoka, and Rie. Can you tell who all their parents are? Aki for sure, but what about the others? I think it's pretty easy, but my opinion is irrelevant since I wrote this…
If you could please send me your thoughts, that would really help with future writing. Also, I love hearing from people. So yeah. Review, favorite and follow me! I will love you forever if you do. 3 See you all next time! Chapter four should be up soon!

Love, IrisRaylene