The next day.
Lunch time. That meant that she would finally be left alone and could eat her lunch and then have her precious nap time. Ryoma grabbed her bento (1) and walked out the class, yawning. She had finished her computer practice exercises before everyone and was getting bored. But as soon as she stepped outside the class room, she saw Kirihara, Marui and Niou walking in the hallway, searching for her.
"Echizen! Echizen!" Marui called.
"Where are you?" Kirihara yelled too.
'Yikes! What are they doing here? How did they know that I am on this floor?' Ryoma panicked. Then it struck her. Yanagi-senpai had once looked at her schedule. 'That's right! He must have told Inui-senpai and Inui-senpai must have made a copy of my schedule.'
After all, Inui-senpai was Yanagi-senpai's fellow data (freak) master.
'I better get away before they spot me!'
Discreetly, Ryoma tiptoed in the opposite direction.
Kirihara scanned the sea of people in the hall, searching for head with black hair and emerald hints. He look on his left. Nothing. He turned his head to the right. Nothing. He turned to the left again.
'Heh?' Blink. Blink.'Wait.'
He watched on the right again.
'Aha!'
There! He finally spotted a short boy with black hair who was trying to escape by climbing up the nearby stair.
"There you are, Echizen! Oi, Echizen!" Kirihara called.
'Yabe!' Ryoma's mind screamed as she scurried away, attempting to escape
"Oi! Matte (2), Echizen!" Marui called. But Ryoma didn't listen. Instead, she sped up.
"Let's go!" Niou said. And Marui and he sprinted at full speed to her. Ryoma's short legs could not compete with Marui's and Niou's long ones. They soon caught her.
"Echizen, have lunch with us!" they chanted, grinning ear to ear. And Hop!, they lifted her over their heads.
"Ah!" Ryoma dropped her bento, which Kirihara picked up.
"Hey you! What are you doing? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Put me down! Put me down! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Ryoma yelled, but Marui and Niou refused to obey.
"Yadda!" Marui and Niou answered cheekily, both grinning goofy smiles.
"Come on, Echizen, it's more fun to have lunch with friends!" Kirihara said.
"Right! Right!" Marui said.
"You're not my friends! And put me down now, senpai!"
"Now let's go!" Niou said. And he and Marui carried Ryoma over their heads in the direction of the school cafeteria.
"No! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
Marui and Niou carried Ryoma throughout the school with their stupid grins plastered on their faces, gathering spectators on their way. Despite how much Ryoma protested, screamed and yelled, they wouldn't let her down.
In the school dining room, Yukimura and the others were having their meal. As expected from Seiyou Academy, the food was cooked by five stars restaurants chefs. Today's menu was French cuisine, fancy French cuisine.
"Here he is!" Marui and Niou said as they put Ryoma down.
"Ah, Echizen-kun! I'm so glad you joined us for lunch," Yukimura said, smiling.
"I didn't come of my own free will, senpai!" Ryoma said stubbornly.
"He was trying to sneak away, but I caught him!" Kirihara said proudly. Ryoma glared daggers at him and growled. Yukimura chuckled.
"Now now, Echizen-kun. Don't be so angry. Here, sit next to me," Yukimaru said as he pulled her down on the chair next to him, not giving her the choice to protest.
"Hmph!" Ryoma turned to Kirihara. "Kirihara, give me back my bento!"
"What? You mean that this little rectangular box is your lunch?" Kirihara said, pointing at the box wrapped in a blue cloth.
"Yeah! Now, hand it to over!"
But Kirihara wouldn't give it to her. In fact, Kirihara, Marui, Niou and Ootori were examining her bento as if they never saw one in their life.
"How can it be possible? How a lunch can fit into such a small box?" Ootori said.
"Echizen, what's inside? We wanna see!" Kirihara said. And before she could said anything, he already unwrapped the blue cloth and opened the cover. Kirihara put the box in the middle of the table so everyone could see its contents.
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
They saw all sorts of colors: white, green, brown, red and yellow.
"What's this thing?" Marui pointed to the red thing.
"And this?" Niou asked, referring to the yellow thing.
"And this too?" Ootori said, showing the brown thing.
Ryoma was surprised. They really didn't know what bento was.
"This is rice," Ryoma started to explain, pointing to the white thing. "This is fried tofu, that is cooked vegetable, this is octopus and that is sweet egg rolls. That is beef cooked with oyster sauce. This is deep fried shrimps. And the triangle things here are onigiris (3). There are umeboshi (4) salmon, egg and tune flavor."
"Oooooooooooooooooooooooh!"
"So this is what the commoners call a bento…" Inui mumbled as he scribbled in his notebook.
"I read it in the newspaper. There is a common folk saying that mothers make their children fancy bentos, showing other mothers they are the best. They can wake up very early in the morning just to prepare a bento. Some people wake at 3 o'clock in the morning," Oshitari said.
"What? At 3 in the morning?" Kirihara, Marui, Niou, Ootori and Shishido yelled, incredulous. They looked down at the bento. How was it possible that such a small food box could take so many hours to prepare?
"Kaa-san and Nanako don't wake up at 3 the morning to make me lunch," Ryoma said, exasperated. "They have more common sense then that!"
"What? You mean that this lunch is made by your family members and not by a cook-chef?" Niou said.
"I think common people don't hire private chefs to cook their meals," Yanagi said.
"I think that's because they cannot afford to hire one," Yagyuu said.
"So poor!" Marui and Niou chorused.
'Rich bastards!' Ryoma thought, eye twitching.
"But it's nicely arranged, with all this coloring," Kikumaru said. "It's really cute, the cat design."
"Nanako likes doing all sorts of designs in my bentos."
"The smell of the rice is particularly nice. It's very good. I never knew rice could have such a good perfume," Ootori said, inhaling deeply.
"Kaa-san has a special way to cook the rice. She always puts something in it when she is cooking the rice to give it a flavor, like onion, mint, ginger or any kind of flavor herbs. That's why her rice always smells very good."
"Say, is this portion inside enough for one person?" Oshitari wondered.
"I would rather say that it's barely enough for a baby stomach. It's so small," Marui added.
Ryoma grunted.
'Really a bunch of rich bastards!' she thought.
The amount of food was enough for two people, because Ryoma's stomach was abnormally wide. But it was also because she really loved her mother's and her cousin's cooking. To her, their cooking was the best in the world.
"But it's only commoner foods," Atobe said. "It's so poor. It doesn't suit Ore-sama's tastes!"
"Who said that you were invited, Monkey King?" Ryoma retorted. Atobe grunted. How can that boy still be calling him by that horrible name?
"Ah! Then does it mean that we can eat this?" Kirihara, Marui and Niou exclaimed excitedly.
"WHAT? I never said something like that! Hey you! Stop it!" Ryoma yelled.
But they had already dug in. Even the others joined them. To Ryoma's horror, she saw her onigiris disappeared. Then her shrimps, then her sweet egg, then her octopus from her bento.
"Yukimura-buchou, here, try this one! It's really good!" Kirihara gave Yukimura a piece of onigiri.
"This onigiri is delicious. It's simply made but the taste is incredible. The umeboshi makes you want to eat more. Ne, Sanada," Yukimura said. Sanada and Tezuka nodded.
"The salmon onigiri is not bad too," Oshitari said.
"I preferred the tuna one," Shishido said.
"Yeah! Me too!" Ootori said.
"The egg rolls are sweet and fluffy. It's really good. Here Fuji, try some!" Kikumaru said.
"Ah…" Fuji agreed.
"I like the rice. It's soft on the tongue and the flavor is appealing," Yagyuu said.
"I didn't know that vegetable can be cooked in this way too," Inui said, chewing the cabbage.
"It's original, beef with oyster sauce," Yanagi said.
"I really like the octopus," Marui said.
"Me too!" Kirihara said.
"Have you tried the shrimp?" Niou asked.
"Hey! That's right! I wanna try too!" Ootori said.
"Hey! Let me some rice!" Jirou said.
"Ah! Jirou, you're awake?" Gakuto said.
"The aroma woke me. I wanna try too," Jirou said.
"Here you go!" Gakuto gave him a piece of egg onigiri.
"Thanks!" he popped into his mouth and chewed. "It's really good! I want something else!"
"Kabaji, give me a piece of beef!" Atobe said.
"Usu!"
"Hey, leave me some vegetables! I haven't tried them!" Kirihara said.
"Is there still a bite of egg onigiri left?" Marui asked.
In the end, Ryoma wanted to cry. Little by little, the bento box became emptier and emptier, until there was almost nothing else left inside.
Pop! A vein popped on her head, her right eyebrow twitching.
'Arrrrrrrrrrrgh! What a bunch of rude rich bastards!' she thought.
Ootori licked his lips.
"This tastes different from what I eat every day. It's light. Not rich. But I like it," he said.
"It's easy on the stomach," Yagyuu agreed, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
"And quite tasty, I admit, for commoner food," Oshitari said.
"It's good. But it's not enough for a meal," Niou said.
"Hmn!" Marui nodded.
"You idiots! It was made for one person, ME and only ME, not for twenty people!" Ryoma yelled, furious. She growled, showing her fangs, flames dancing around her, her eyes shooting laser beam. "Grrrr grrrrrrrrr grrrrrrr!"
The guys back off away from the girl in fire, sweat dropping.
"Yagyuu, did you teach him your Laser Beam?" Ootori asked.
"No, I didn't," Yagyuu answered.
"Me neither," Kikumaru said.
"Argh grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" Ryoma continued to growl.
Marui, Kirihara and Niou gulped, sweating cold sweat.
"Maa maa, Echizen, calm down. We've never seen a homemade bento before in our lives. We were just a little bit curious. Here, have some too," Kirihara said, handing her her bento box. But, "Ara? There's nothing inside. What happen to all the foods in? Where did they go?"
There was absolutely nothing left. They took everything. And she was looking so much for today lunch because her mother made her Japanese foods, and all her favorites. And she couldn't have a bite of her mother's so awaited cooking.
"ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!" Ryoma growled like an angry dog, ready to bite. But her growl didn't match with the one coming from her stomach. It was screaming loudly.
Gugugu… Gugugu… GURU GURU GURU GURU GURU !
The boys sweat dropped. It was so embarrassing, but Ryoma wasn't feeling embarrassed at all because her fury dominated everything.
"Amend me my bento! NOW!" she roared.
"Hai! Sugu ni ikimasu (5)!" Kirihara, Marui and Niou saluted her in a soldier style and dashed to find something to replace her lunch.
'He's scary when he's hungry!' they thought.
Back home.
BAM!
Ryoma kicked the door of her house and stomped in.
"Oi! Bishou-…!" Nanjirou stopped. Ryoma shoot him one of those dangerous glares when she was angry. Flames were dancing around her and her eyes were an enraged crimson.
"Grrrrrrrr…"
"Kaeri Chibi-…!" Ryoga stopped too. There was something about her that frightened him.
"Grrrrr! Grrrrr!" Ryoma growled.
"Yikes!" Ryoga and Nanjirou gulped and ran to hide behind Rinko.
"Okaeri, Ryoma," Rinko tried.
"Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" was Ryoma's only answer. Then, she stomped up stair into her bedroom.
"Kaa-san, didn't you make her favorite lunch today?" Ryoga asked, shivering.
"Yes, I did," Rinko said. "But I don't understand what happened to her."
Once a month, Rinko made sure to make for Ryoma her favorite foods for her lunches. It was always during the days of Ryoma's PMS periode times. The family discovered that if Ryoma was fed with her favorite foods during her PMS, her mood was better. And it was also safer for Ryoga and Nanjirou too. During her PMS time, Ryoma was particularly dangerous to all people with a Y-chromosome in their genes. Alas for Ryoga and Nanjirou, they were born with a Y-chromosome in their DNA. Today, Rinko had made a Japanese bento for Ryoma so they didn't understand why her mood was so bad.
"Rinko, let's have Japanese supper for tonight. We don't want to die now," Nanjirou said, chattering his teeth. Ryoga nodded vividly.
"Hmn," Rinko nodded.
"Kaa-san, I don't want to die now. I am still young. I am going out for a while. I will be back by supper time!" Ryoga said, scurrying to the door before Ryoma decided to come down.
"Hey, I will go with you!" Nanjirou said. "We leave the rest to you two!" And the two men flew away as if they had a horde of devils on their tails. Rinko sighed.
"Well Nanako-chan, let's change tonight menu," Rinko said. Nanako chuckled.
"Hai, obaa-san (6)."
After supper - it was all her favorite foods -, Ryoma was feeling better. Plus, her brother and her father bought her her favorite ice cream flavor. For what reason they did it, she don't know, but it made her happier. After another handful scoop of ice cream, Ryoma's mood was restored to the best. She was grinning a huge smile from ear to ear, petting happily her stomach.
'Piouffffffff!' Ryoga and Nanjirou sighed, relieved. They were saved now.
It was a really good idea from Ryoga to buy her her favorite ice cream flavor. Japanese foods did miracles with Ryoma during her PMS, but sweets were also Ryoma's weaknesses. Nanako asked her what happened at school today.
"Those rich bastards never saw a homemade bento before in their live. They stole my bento! They didn't even leave me a single bite!" Ryoma explained.
'So that was why!' they all thought.
"At they replace it with Western foods, French foods!" Ryoma finished. Ryoma hated Western foods, so it wasn't the best thing to give her if someone wanted to make her happy.
Alas for many guys, they suffered from her fury during today ranking tournament after school. Yesterday, the opponents whom she beat thought that she was a monster. But today, they told themselves that they were lucky to have had a match with her yesterday and not today. They pitied the guys who played against her today. Ryoma went on rampage and all the opponents who encountered her had a huge psychological shock. They would need a couple of days off, if not a week, to recover.
'Fear the wrath of a PMS-ing Ryoma who is not fed with Japanese foods!' Ryoga and Nanjirou thought.
(1) bento: lunch box;
(2) matte: wait;
(3) onigiri: rice balls;
(4) umeboshi: plum pickles;
(5) sugu ni ikimasu: I'm going right away;
(6) obaa-san: aunt.