A/N: I absolutely love this anime/manga/like action show. I have seen and read everything I can get my hands on with regards to this storyline. I hope you all enjoy this story, and I OWN NOTHING! I am just borrowing Naoki and Kotoko for my own amusement.
-3K+N3-
Naoki Irie was more than just your average third year high school boy. He has lightly tanned skin, stood at 6 foot 2 inches, purple-grey eyes, and light brown shaggy hair that strategically fell over his eyes. All of that sounds normal, but Naoki is a 17-year-old with an IQ of 200, while being the number 1 student at Tonan, with an eidetic memory (meaning that if he sees or hears something once, he can perfectly recall that information.) The only thing that Naoki struggles with is emotions. He has never understood why people let themselves to be driven by something other than logic, which never works out for the poor young girls that attempt to confess their feelings for him. He does not know these girls and understands that their emotions are fleeting for his intelligence or his looks, and he doesn't wish to waste his time on such superficial emotions.
'So, it begins,' Nakoi sighs to himself as he walks through the gates of Tonan University's affiliated High School for his third and final year. 'Hopefully this year goes quickly.' Right at that thought, he had to pause as a young girl appears before him. She has pale skin and a strange burnt-orange effect in her long hair. She was bowing over top of a letter, and stuttering.
"Irie Naoki," she begins in a soft voice. "Will you accept this letter?"
Naoki observes her for a few seconds as she raises her chocolate brown eyes to his face. He felt a flicker of something in his chest as he gazed into her eyes, before moving his eyes to the letter that was being extended to him. "I refuse," he replies.
"You…re…refuse?" she stutters.
"Right now," he amends. "I refuse." As he finishes his statement, he steps around the crushed girl and becomes flanked by his friend Watanabe. He sides glances at the girl to see that she is staring after him with a questioning look on her face. 'Good,' he thinks. 'She caught the difference in the statement.'
"Who was that" his friend asks, looking back at the girl.
"No idea," he replies as he continues walking to their shared class. All around him he begins to the hear the rumors swirl.
"Did you hear that Aihara Kotoko of Class F tried to give a love letter to Irie Naoki of Class A?"
"Is she delusional?"
"She should know her place."
Naoki was just bored of all of it. What did it matter if she was from Class F.? Did her lack of intelligence make her less than him? 'I guess to some it does,' he muses. 'Honestly no one is on the same level of intelligence as me, so what does it matter? Aihara Kotoko. Hmmm….' While his face continued to appear uninterested, he was recalling the odd color of her hair, and the fire that he saw in her eyes. 'Until next time.'
The day finally ended, and Naoki began to leave the school with Watanabe by his side. "Isn't that the girl that tried to give you the letter?"
Naoki raised his eyes to observe the scene in front of him. A tan lanky boy of about 6-foot 1 inch with gel styled black hair had his body draped over Aihara Kotoko, whining about how she could ever profess her love for him when "KIN-CHAN" was right here for her. 'What type of self-respecting man refers to himself in such a way?' As he ponders this, he hears his name screamed. Looking up he notices the girl's eyes on his face, the inquisitive look still there. 'Good girl,' he smiles inwardly before facing the annoyance.
"Can I help you?" he asks in an icy voice.
"How dare you reject my sweet Kotoko!" he exclaims while pounding on his chest like a monkey.
"I'm sorry," he begins, enjoying the shocked looks on everyone's faces that believe he was apologizing for the treatment of the girl besides her. She looked puzzled, as if she was trying to work out what was going on in his head. 'Unintelligent... Right…' he thought sarcastically. "Who are you?" he asks the fool that was standing in front of him with his mouth open.
"WHAAAAT?" the boy exclaimed. "I am Ikezawa Kinnosuke, or Kin-Chan to my friends. I am going to marry Kotoko! So how dare you refute her feelings for you!"
"You are not going to marry me, Kin-Chan," the girl stated strongly, before her eyes swept to him. She observed him for a few seconds before allowing her gaze to go back to her paramour. "I refuse to marry you. I have told you this."
"But Kotoko" Ikezawa whines pathetically.
"So, you would rather I accepted?" he asks intrigued in the conversation. Everyone in the vicinity stopped. Aihara's eyes were back on him. 'Where they belong,' he thought smugly. "Would you rather I accepted her affections?"
"WHUUUUU?" the fool exclaims.
"Well, if I accepted, then you would truly have no chance." Naoki concluded. "Here you are upset with me for denying her, but if I had accepted, where would that have left you?"
"I... I…."
Naoki begins to walk away with his friend at his side before he pauses, looking over his shoulder and connects his eyes to the girls. "By the way, I don't remember fully refusing, did I Aihara?" He watched with satisfaction as her eyes widen the fire and emotion in them strong to see. "Until next time, Aihara Kotoko." With that, he continued on his trek towards home, smirking internally as he heard the inhumane squeal from his friends.
"You didn't refuse her?" Watanabe asked confused. This would be a first during their friendship. "Why?"
"Honestly," he responds softly. "I don't know."
-3K+N3-
That night as Naoki was reading a book in the living room, his family was watching the news on the television. Suddenly the breaking news jingle hit his ears, making him focus on the screen. "HOUSE COLLAPSED DURING 2.0 EARTHQUAKE, LEAVING SINGLE FATHER AND DAUGHTER WITHOUT A HOME." Naoki was observing the scene when the news people went to speak with the homeowner. "Aihara?" he asks confused seeing Shigeo Aihara on the screen talking about how his new home had collapsed. Then he saw her, Kotoko, standing behind her father looking like a lost and broken little girl.
"Ai-Chan!" his father, Shigeki Irie exclaimed! He was short and portly man with balding hair and round glasses on his face. "He's my best friend from middle school! OH! I need to help him!"
"Yes dear," his mother, Noriko Irie placated. Her short brown hair was styled in some super fashionable way, while her slim frame wrapped around his father.
"Would you all be okay with me inviting them to stay?" his father asks his family.
"Where would they stay?" his younger brother Yuki (who was a spitting image of himself, just with his baby fat still in place as he was only in the 3rd grade).
"You and Naoki would share, the daughter shall have your room, and Aihara-san could sleep in the spare room down here." That was his mother. Always with a plan.
Naoki began contemplating the situation. 'It allows me to observe the girl more,' he thought. 'Maybe then I can finally give an actual response to her letter.' "I'm fine with it," he stated, closing his book and rising. "I am going to take a bath and then go to bed." He heard his father move to the phone, presumably to call the Aihara's.
As he laid in bed that night, he could not help the soft half smile that graced his lips at the thought of the pale girl with the fire in her eyes. 'Soon,' he thought happily.
