Hey everyone! Sorry this is one day late! . I had to work on some schoolwork and study for a big test! I actually kinda liked this chapter, and I hope you guys will too! Instead of writing it all at once, I wrote little bits at a time everyday...It's a bit longer than the other chapters...Anyways, I don't own Shugo Chara, and I'd like to thank everyone for reading! .
***Chapter 20***
Rima POV
So we learned a lot in this past week. John and Erin took us to the building where we're supposed to "fight" at in the final battle, and wow it was huge. It was bigger than Nagi's house if that's even possible, because that thing's pretty amazing too! It took us 3 whole days to study the entire place, and I'm surprised we didn't get caught doing it. It happens that we were right to trust Erin and John, because so far they haven't done one suspicious thing against us. They're really friendly and funny, and we work well with them. Even Utau lightened up to them a bit and we all know how hard she is to get to know well.
My relationship with Nagi has been great too! I've never felt so happy in my whole life. Whenever we touch sparks fly. I guess I'll still have to get used to being his girlfriend. Just the sound of that makes my heart tingle, and I start to feel all weird. But in a good way, like butterflies in the stomach. I still can't control my blush either. I'll need some getting used to, but it still makes me feel beyond happy that we got together finally. It's like a dream come true that I never want to wake up to. Sometimes I even wonder if this is all a dream, but I know it isn't. Our love is real as it can be, and that's something I know for certain.
I smiled happily and skipped through the hall to the guardian meeting, thinking of all that's happened since our last year of Seiyo Elementary. There was a lot. The bet with Nagi that I had forgotten that I'd lost, Falling in love with him, meeting Ai, graduating, starting a new school year, meeting the anti-guardians, and now all this...information. This "battle" sounds so huge and hard to believe. Everything seems so HAPPY and JOYFUL right now, and it's just so hard to think about anything negative in a non-positive way. For once I guess I'm being an optimist. There's a shocker. I started as a negative and became a positive.
I quickly found a seat next to Nagihiko who happened to sit next to John. Next to him was a sour looking Ai who actually wan't staring at Nagi to my surprise. Strangely it looked like she was gazing at John. Weird. I thought she liked Nagi...
I stared intently at her, watching to make sure I wasn't wrong about this. If I was right, than maybe we wouldn't need to fight. Maybe if she liked John we could help her realize her feelings before the fight breaks loose.
She stared at John with a goofy smile on her face. Suddenly it looked like she snapped back into reality. Her face turned bright red and she whipped her head away, frowning at herself. She looked a bit nervous as she glanced around the room to make sure no one saw. I turned the other way and hummed. When she finally turned back, I did the same, staring at her in interest. She hit herself in the head and whispered something really quietly to herself, so no one heard.
I grinned to myself. I knew it! Someone's in denial of their feelings! I hummed happily to myself and Amu looked a bit freaked out by my overly happiness.
"We need quite a few things done with this room, to make it suitable to work in!" Tsukasa announced smiling at all of us in a strange way. Child labor? "I will assign everyone jobs, so that we can fix up this room!"
I groaned, but still could not shake of this happy feeling throughout me. Even Tsukasa and his child labor couldn't get rid of it! So there! Eat that!
"Rika and Yuki can go to the store and buy some pink paint" Pink? Really Tsukasa? Pink? "Oh! And some purple and red and a bit of baby blue!" He handed them some money.
"Kukai and Utau can go get some extra chairs and tables from the other rooms."
"Amu and Ikuto can go buy me some pretty decorations! Get me the polka dot streamers!"
"Tadase and Yaya can go pick me up some dinner." And that had to do with cleaning the room for what reason?
"Rima and John can go clean this room up!"
"Nagihiko and Ai can get the printer, copier machine, scanner, and other computer stuff from the computer tech. room!" I swear that girl better not do anything while I'm gone or she's dead meat!
"So..." I started, to end the awkward silence of cleaning an incredibly disgusting and messy room. I hate it when you try and make conversations, but have no idea what to say. Usually in that case it ends with me just looking stupid, and the person I'm trying to converse to, thinking I'm retarded for not being able to talk or know what to say for that matter. John gave me a small pity smile and turned back to the green and orange goop he was trying to pry off the floor. Gross! What is that stuff?
"She's not going to do anything." He stated, in an unsure but comforting way. It seemed that he was trying to convince himself more than he was trying to convince me. "At least I hope she doesn't." He whispered to himself, probably thinking that I wouldn't catch that. Although he was trying to make me feel better, I couldn't help but notice the sorrowful look in his eyes. Was he sad for himself or me? Last time I checked it was my boyfriend who was stuck with a wacko girl. Oops...sorry. Forgot it was his best friend.
"You said the Ai I know is all an act." I finally said, striking up a conversation with ease. Thank god I thought of something to end the silence. If not I woul've bolted out of the room and stomped straight to the Computer Tech. room. He gave out a small laugh, but still had a grim look on his face. Am I really that bad to work with?
"Yeah? What about that?"
"Well...if that's not Ai, then who is?" I wondered aloud. Actually, this question had been on my mind, ever since Erin and John came out and told us the truth. It's still pretty hard to believe that wasn't the real Ai. It seemed so real in such an annoying way. I really wanted to snap her neck.
"What do you mean?" He asked, a puzzled tone hinted in his voice.
"What's the real Ai like?" For once in the past hour, he actually smiled. It was a grim, sad, or apologetic smile either. It was a genuine yet secretive smile.
"She's amazing." He started, as if that one word was made just to describe her. "It's a pretty long story, if you want to know EVERYTHING. You willing to hear?" I nodded quickly. Anything to save me from this boredom I've been suffering from for the past hour. Well...John did most of the work, but that's only because I suck at cleaning and any physical event.
"I originally came from the UK. A small town in Northern England." Duh. I thought to myself. That would explain the British accent. I always wondered why he would have it even though he's from America. Now I know. "One day my parents told me that we would have to move. Normal reasons like jobs and stuff, you know?" I nodded showing him that I was being attentive.
"So my parents had to move our family all the way to New York. Believe me, that's a pretty way for me. Well...going to Japan was farther, but you get the point. Anyways, I wasn't completely sold on moving, but when have the kid's opinions mattered to the parents? Never. I just had to suck it up." He explained with a hateful tone in his voice towards the last part. "I may sound like a typical kid, hating their parents for making them move, but that's not all there is to this. Let's just say my parents are total asses. Always used to use Tommy and I for their dirty work."
"Who's Tommy?" I asked curiously.
"My little brother." He replied, beaming. He always seemed to do that when talking about something he loved or that fascinated him. "I love him. I f anyone were to hurt him, I'd tear their head off. He was a light in my day back in England. When everything else was wrong, he was the only thing that was right. That innoncent kid never deserved how our parents treated us."
"How did they treat you?" I asked, now totally interested in his story. What? It was like watching a movie or something, except in real life.
"Badly. Very badly. Have you ever heard of Cinderella?" I nodded quietly. "How did the stepsister's and stepmother treat Cinderella?"
"Like dirt. Maybe even lower than that. She was like a slave or servant."
"Exactly. That's how they treated Tommy and I. But no one believes a bunch of little kids. We weren't delusional, but they still thought we were. Everyone loved the fake them, and wouldn't believe anything bad we said about them. Besides Tommy, the only other time to finally relax and let loose was school. All my friends were there. I never did tell them about how my parents acted, because I hated people pitying me. I know I'm telling you now, but I really hope you won't feel any kind of pity for me. If you do, than try your best to hide it from me. kay?" I nodded.
"Finally my parents decided to make us move all the way to a different country. You could just imagine how much that tore me. They took away one of my favorite things I had. There were only two of them, and they just had to take away one of them. I was furious, but I had to shut up about it if I didn't want double duty work. It hurt me that Tommy was also broken. I seriously wanted to kill them. I wanted them to suffer in the same way Tommy and I had to. I just couldn't do it though. I may have come from them, but they disgust me. My parents are vile creatures."
"Did you hate the move?" He shrugged.
"Originally? Yes. The first five months were nothing to me. When I first got to my school, the guys all asked me to join the sports teams as if I didn't have anything else to do and the girls kept hitting on me. I reluctantly joined the teams thinking I could get out of the torture at home, and convinced Tommy to join as much as he could too. My parents seemed more preoccupied with Tommy and I making them popular in the neighborhood, than us cleaning up after them. But that only lasted for a short while. Later, they struck full blast at us. It was like us doing triple duty each everyday. Maybe even more. It sucked."
"Did it ever get any better?" I asked biting my lip to keep from frowning in pity.
"Yeah. Finally the light in my day came. I don't know if you'll believe me, but personally I loved her..." He smiled. "As a friend..." he added as an after thought.
"The light in your day?" I fake scoffed. He gave me a playful glare.
"Hey! It's my story. If your going to make fun of it, I could just stop telling it!"
"Alright. Alright. I'll stop interrupting!" I grinned.
"Good. You may think you know Ai, but you don't. At least you don't know the real her. She's everything I could've hoped for in a person. She's nice, funny, beautiful, sweet..." he kept naming a whole list of things, and i thought he'd never stop. She seems more like the love of his life than a best friend!
"Anyways.." He started shaking off his previous trance-like state "She sat next to me in class, and in a matter of days we became best friends. She shared her memories with me o where she came from, and laughed her musical laugh at my rarely good memories that I decided to share. I told her all about my parents, and she got mad with me about what they were doing to me and Tommy. It was as if she knew exactly how I felt, and felt the same way i did. She could relate to my feelings, even though she never experienced what I had." He chuckled a bit. "I remember one time as we were walking hom together, she pleaded to come home to my house with me. When I asked why, she told me that she wanted to help me teach my parents a lesson. I laughed and simply told her that i didn't want her to get hurt. She pouted and pleaded for me to at least let her help me with some cleaning to make my tasks less. Of course I wouldn't let her, but it just proved what a thoughtful person she was."
"I'm sorry for thinking of her badly." I said automatically feeling guilty.
"I forgive you." He laughed, "Later on Ai introduced me to another one of her friends. That's how I met Erin. Sooner or later, we all became best friends. We were inseparable. Then one day Ai seemed extremely excited. She told me that her dad was moving her back to Japan. At first I was angry, very angry. I didn't want to be separated from her, and I couldn't understand why she didn't mind about being separated from us. It turns out that she already planned to ask if we'd like to come, and knowing the problems I had with my parents, I agreed on the condition of bringing Tommy too. Erin also decided to come."
"You ran away?" I asked incredulously.
"I guess you could put it that way..." John shrugged, "I'd rather say that we escaped. Escpaed from the tortures they planned to put us through."
We stood in a strangely awkward silence for a few moments before I finally spoke again.
"Ai and Nagi sure are taking a long time aren't they?" He suddenly froze. "We should check up on them." I added nervously.
***Ai's POV***
"Errr..." I struggled with the big machine thingy I was carrying.
"Do you need help carrying this?" Nagihiko offered. He picked up the thing out of my arms, and carried it over to the crate we laid out.
"Is that everything?"
"We still need the fax machine."
He slowly picked the machine up, but unlike the others, this thing was huge. He seemed to be having some trouble with it, so I offered to help. I took a step toward him as he staggered around with the machine in his hands.
"Here let me help with t- Ahh!" I screamed as he fell into me.
I slowly opened my eyes, feeling something heavy on me. Duh. It's Nagihiko. He fell on me. The door creaked, and out of the corner of my eye I saw two figures. The short one fled, and I could've sworn I saw her crying. I felt pity for her, although I don't know why. Why was she crying anyways?
Looking straight forward, I saw it. Nagihiko wasn't only on me, but we were kissing! Normally this would've been something I would've gotten overly excited about, but strange enough, I pushed him off with all the strength I had left from carrying the machines.
"Your girl just ran away. You better catch her." I whispered to him. His expression was troubled, but as I've already said, this was really strange. He whispered a quick thanks and took off running after Rima. Meanwhile I headed towards the other figure at the door. I automatically felt a bit guilty, praying he hadn't saw what happened, but of course he already did.
"I didn't think you'd stoop that low." John stated sternly. His disappointed glare burnt into my eyes. I felt horrible. I felt guilty. I just didn't know why. John was my friend, and nothing more. Then why was I praying he wouldn't have seen what just happened. Why did I want him to understand so much? Why did I strangely feel the urge to just give him a big hug?
"I-I" I started, struggling to find my voice in all that mass of confusion. "It's not what you think!" I finally managed.
"It's not?" He asked coldly, "Then what is it Ai? What do you expect me to believe?"
"I c-can explain!" I stuttered.
"Sure you can." He said sarcastically. He started walking away, leaving me to sort out the confusion in my brain. The question had bothered me ever since I came back here. Why didn't I feel that same passionate feeling I felt years ago? I thought I loved Nagihiko, I really did. I still think I love him right now, but that kiss just now. That might just lead me to actually start thinking outside my tiny box of thoughts.
Even though it was supposed to, it didn't. This kiss wasn't al I thought it was supposed to be, because even though I got what I wanted. I didn't feel anything from it.
CHAPTER: Aww...Last time this only got 2 reviews. But that chapter wasn't as good anyways...I kinda liked this one, because I've always wanted to wrte a bit more about John. I like him best throughout this story now. I want to hurry and set Ai and him up, but I don't want to rush this...the battle will start in the next chapter or so...
QUESTIONS SEGMENT: I only got one question response from WantingFreedom, so here are my responses to that:
WantingFreedom Question 1: My Favorite color is blue, every shade.
HappyJunjou: I really like blue too. My favorite shade of blue is either baby blue or sky blue. I like lighter shades of it.
...I love watching shows that make me laugh. My dad says that if you laugh a lot you'll live longer. I guess I'm going to have a long life then...lol: HappyJunjou
. I love to laugh and I'll watch any Question 2: My favorite TV station is Comedy CentrWantingFreedom
WantingFreedom Question 3: My favorite episode is the one where 'Nadeshiko' comes back and Rima asks Nagihiko out ona 'Date'
HappyJunjou: lol...I loved that episode! Especially the part where he has to keep changing from Nadeshiko to Nagihiko over and over and over again. Poor Nagihiko. Rima is evil XD
HAPPYJUNJOU'S ANSWERS:
Question 1: My favorite color is purple. I like violet purple the best, because love darker shades of purple. It's such a majestic color!
Question 2: I really like Fox. All my favorite shows are there....Maybe not all, but most are!
Question 3: I like the same episode as WantingFreedom best! It has the most Rimahiko moments. It was so cute (insert fangirl scream)
QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK:
1. Do you watch American Idol? If so, who's your favorite girl? Boy?
2. This is kinda random, but who do you think would win in a fight? Kukai or Ikuto?
3. If you could kill any celebrity, who would it be? How would you kill them?
The 3rd question is kinda odd, but anyways please R&R. Toodles!