Chapter 8- Still In Love With You

A flock of squawking crows decided to roost in the tree Hazelnut had collapsed against, rousing the sleeping girl. She sat up and flung some rocks at them.

"Shut up."

Her arm was streaked with dried blood and bits of grass. She stumbled over to the duck pond and splashed some water on it.

A little old lady who was feeding the ducks looked scandalized. Hazelnut just scowled at her. What did old people know? They were just among the rest of the world, who understood nothing of her and her problems.

She walked back to her motorcycle. Good. No one had taken it while she was out.

Slumping down and propping herself up against it, she wondered what she should do next. No point in going to work. She wasn't going crawling back to Ryou if he didn't want her.

She punched the ground. Stupid Ryou. Thinking about him made her want to find someone else to hit.

It was stupid, really. He had smiled, and she had liked it, and it had hit her like a ton of bricks.

She was in love again.

Shoot.

Hazelnut wasn't really sure when she started to fall in love with Ryou. It had snuck up on her, permeating her existence like the plague.

She had liked guys before, but a guy will agree to go out with you much more easily if you have your gang standing behind you, ready to maim him if he says 'no'.

Now she didn't have any protection against rejection.

She didn't expect him to return her feelings. She knew he kept her around because he needed help, and he liked to tease her. He may have even figured out that she liked him and enjoyed the power he had over her.

She hated that. But she wasn't about to leave. She hadn't ever been one to stop fighting, even if the battle was foolhardy.

It had been nine days since Akasaka-san had said "Three weeks." So she still had time. Plenty of time.

She had actually tried to start carrying a knife with her again. For protection. She never stabbed anyone with it if she could help it. One tends to lose a fight if one faints in the middle of it.

But Ryou had confiscated her weapon. "Honestly, do you think I'd allow Keiichiro to harm you while you are under my employ?"

Well, duh, Akasaka-san wouldn't do it in front of Ryou. He'd make it look like an accident.

She gave up and decided to make the most of the twelve days she had left with him. If she was to spend her last few weeks on earth anywhere, it may as well be near to the one she loved.

A dull buzz hummed from somewhere above Hazelnut, reaching her ears for the first time. She glanced upward. A beehive hung from a limb about halfway up the tree.

Her mouth began to water. "I'm going to kill Akasaka-san for cursing me with these stupid genes."

Still, she stood up and tried to hoist herself onto a low hanging branch.

"Stupid tree." She dug the heels of her boots into the trunk, and succeeded in getting herself stuck upside down.

She swore loudly.

"Coarse language for a sloth."

Hazelnut turned in the direction of the voice, and saw the unwelcome bob of a familiar blond head coming toward her.

"Go away, you –––––!!"

He wasn't fazed. "I'm not sure I deserved that."

She kicked herself out of the tree, landing ungracefully.

Dusting herself off, she glowered at him. "What do you want?"

"An employer should keep track of his employees."

She snorted. "Then I quit."

"Fine," he said carelessly. "Keiichiro will be thrilled."

She raised a hand to strike him, but he caught it.

Ryou spoke as though it were an ordinary conversation between a worker and her boss. "But before you leave, I would like to know why you didn't show up this morning."

She spat. "I was tired of working for a –––––."

He gingerly released her. "Is that all I am to you?"

"I have plenty of other words to describe you, but I'm afraid they aren't very proper" she growled, though with somewhat less intensity.

He laughed weakly. "I come all this way to find you and all you do is insult me." He ran a hand through his hair. "But I still feel like this is the place I'm supposed to be."

He smiled, and Hazelnut cursed inwardly. The urge to hit him was gone.

It was Thursday. Three days left.

Hazelnut had decided to confess to Ryou. It was insane, but she couldn't stand it anymore. She was as hopeless as a lovelorn schoolgirl around him, always half hoping that he would ask her to hand him something so that their fingers would touch for just a second.

Pathetic. She knew.

But she loved him. It built up inside her until she was sure she would burst if she didn't tell him. And she was running out of time.

"Alright," she had told herself that morning. "Today is the day."

Uncapping a black permanent marker, she wrote on her arm, "I will definitely not hide my feelings any longer."

A gangster's pledge. You could stake your life on it.

Ryou and Hazelnut sat on a grassy hill, which was, by a strange coincidence, the same one Ichigo and Masaya's first date had been. The two could see the café from where they sat, but neither one felt like going to work that day.

"Ryou, I'm thirsty. Go get me a drink."

Ryou didn't move. "It should be you getting drinks. I'm your boss, remember?"

She shoved him playfully. "I quit this morning, remember?"

"Two weeks notice," he said, and leaned back in the grass.

She lay down next to him. "I guess we're going thirsty then."

He smiled. "I guess."

They were silent for a while. Late afternoon joggers kicked up the dusty pathway. Young couples and long married retirees strolled through the park, hand in hand. A cicada let out its lazy summer cry.

Hazelnut rolled to face the figure next to her. "Hey, Ryou?"

He turned. "Hmm?"

"Do you…?" She couldn't believe she was asking this. "Do you like cats?"

"Nah, I'm allergic."

She straightened. "Serious?"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Do you think I'd infuse a girl with cat genes if I was going to be allergic to her?"

"Ah." Hazelnut turned back to face the sky.

If she had still been looking at Ryou, she might have seen the spasm of indecision that crossed his face.

"There's nothing going on between me and Ichigo," Ryou said, cool-as-you please.

Hazelnut tried to emanate his nonchalance. "What makes you think I would be concerned if there was?"

Ryou smiled, even if she didn't see it. He knew.

"Nothing," he said.

"Hey, Ryou."

Hazelnut's boss turned around. "Hmm?"

She kicked a foot on the ground to hide her nervousness. "Can I talk to you for a second? Outside? Where I know Akasaka-san isn't crouching in the next room with an ear to the door?"

"You have an irrational fear of my colleague." Ryou said, but complied with her request all the same.

The night air was chill, and a waning moon hung in the sky, lighting the side yard next to Ryou's basement.

"What is it, Hazelnut?"

The ex-gangster stared at the ground and clutched the arm with that morning's pledge written on it.

"You know, Ryou, you live with a serial killer, you have a superiority complex and a fetish for fluffy pink robots, plus, you're kind of a jerk…"

"Did you bring me out here just to insult me?"

She stamped her foot. "That's not it! Ryou, even though you're all those things, I still can't get you out of my head!

Hazelnut paused, and softly said, "Ryou, you're a baka, but I love you."

Just a couple of things:

Apologies for using a Jonas Brother's song for the title again. It seemed to fit.

Apologies for writing a sappy chapter. I'm trying to learn.

You may have noticed a blank where Hazelnut should be calling Ryou something very insulting. Please fill this in with whatever you usually call someone when you're ticked off at them.

You know Hazelnut and Ryou's conversation about cats? That went through several revisions, and I still couldn't think of anything better. So, apologies for that too. This is what it looked like before its current form:

Hazelnut rolled to face the figure next to her. "Hey, Ryou?"

He turned. "Hmm?"

"You remember the day we met?"

"Yeah."

"Why did you take me to your house instead of a hospital?"

Ryou shifted in the grass. "I was afraid of taking a gangster to a hospital. You might have gotten arrested."

Hazelnut started to laugh. "They don't arrest thirteen-year-old girls! Unless they do something really bad, I guess, but we never had any fatalities!"

I wanted you to know why Ryou didn't do the responsible thing and take her to the hospital. In case you ever find a random wounded person in the street, don't follow his example; just find some trained medical technician to help you.

Yeah, I'm just going to go now.

Espero que tu vida esta lleno con éxito y alegría. Y, claro que sí, con conejitos y otros animales lindos.

Quédate en escuela!

By the way, I'm sorry; I had no idea that an anonymous reviews filter even existed. If you feel slighted by having to log in to make a review, well, feel slighted no more! You are now free to leave anonymous reviews to your heart's content.