Hey...
Sorry for the late update; I was heavily bogged down by work. Chapter 3
and 4 are in draft form as of now and will be out shortly (I hope), but
still that's no reason why I couldn't post a finish to part 2... so here
goes :)
previous chapters can be found in the r.a.a.c. archives or (more
conveniently) at tannim's page: http://home.earthlink.net/~tannim
- ukie
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(continued from last part)
[7]
"You look happy today, Hikaru-chan." Madoka noted as the two girls shared
a quiet spot by the roof during lunch. "Did something happen?"
"Mm-hmm," the shorter girl nodded, stopping briefly from attacking her
lunch. "Something happened to Madoka-san too, right? I heard a bit about
the fight that broke out. Really, Madoka-san, it's not like you to get
involved like that."
Madoka almost looked startled at that. Quite self-consciously glancing
down at her feet, she deliberated with more than a hint of
uncertainty. "It's... nothing," she finally replied, though it seemed as
if she was speaking more to herself. Then, noting the extraordinarily
cheerful attitude of her companion, she added playfully, "and what about
you? You look like you found a boyfriend or something." To her surprise,
Hikaru's grin became wider - if it was at all possible. Suddenly, she
straightened herself with much affectation and stared with her
chocolate-brown eyes at the older girl as solemnly as she could
manage. "He's my..." Hikaru's voice trailed off into a low whisper.
Madoka Ayukawa realized at that point that she needed a drink - any drink.
Lunch was more or less the usual: the Tuesday bento variety bought at the
convenient store a few blocks away from home. For anyone who cared, it
consisted of desiccated vegetables steamed to a perfect paleness, rice
burned to a less-than-appetizing color, a few strips of seaweed that
tasted like they've been stuffed in somebody's fridge for too long, and
fish that was immediately disposed of as soon as the box was opened due
both to its smell and to the fact that the way it lay flat on the rice
with its mouth open and eyes glaring bore an uncanny resemblance to
Kuno. Not that I've really met him here; it's more of a matter of
principle.
Sometimes I missed Kasumi's cooking - even if I only ate it in my
dreams. I found a quiet spot on the roof and dug into my meal in much the
same way as a construction worker dug into pavements with his pick.
I guess I should not have been surprised at all when groups of people
originally going to the roof turned and darted back downstairs as soon as
they saw me coming up. Rumors usually traveled fast, I've found out, and
the worse the news the faster. My classmates might have been curious
about me yesterday, but they sure gave me a lot of space when I came back
from the fight. They acted as if they were all allergic to delinquents or
something.
In any case, that Ryoga really messed things up. Just when I finally
settled down, he had to come blundering into town - and thanks to him I
have to figure a way now to explain the whole deal to everybody in the
class, or I could kiss my "normal life" goodbye. To make matters even
less pleasant, somebody apparently told the gym teacher where I was,
because he had just come up too and was heading my way with a look that
said he wanted some answers. From the series of scrambling feet and
hushing sounds beyond the staircase, so did my classmates.
Oh well. Time to improvise.
[8]
"So, basically," Ootsuka-sensei summarized with an undisguised edge of
skepticism in his tone, "what you're telling me is that you've met this
Ryoga-somebody while your father was working in the circus a few years ago
and that this boy was a clown or a knife-juggler of sorts." The gym
teacher paused to see the small nod of confirmation from the pigtailed boy
before continuing. "And you say he's, uh, not right in the head and
thought you ran out on a duel, so he came back trying to get you into a
fight but wrecked the gym in the process when he pulled some circus stunts
on you."
"That's more or less the story, sensei."
Ootsuka-sensei regarded the young man with a raised eyebrow. "And what
about you, Saotome-kun? What kind of work did you do in the circus?"
"Ah..." Ranma seemed to be caught off-guard by the question and nearly
panicked for a split second. "I'm, um, the apprentice of, er, a
beast-tamer," he stuttered in a voice that didn't boost Ootsuka's faith in
the story one bit. "Yeah, that's it. I'm good with training pigs, uh, I
meant pandas. Heh, heh."
"I... see. You sure lead an interesting life, kid." The teacher stuffed
his hands into the pockets of his pants as he bent his head to mull over
the facts. "All right, Saotome-kun. Since you're still new here, I'll
give you the benefit of the doubt this time and believe your story," he
finally said in a dubious voice. Excited murmurs could be heard from
downstairs as the verdict was passed.
"However, I won't let you off so easily if I catch you
again," Ootsuka-sensei warned ominously. "I especially don't want you to
become a delinquent and get tangled up with the likes of Ayukawa Madoka
and that seventh-grader Hiyama -"
"SEMPAI!" A cheerful, girlish voice cut in energetically as a blur shot
out from nowhere and executed a flying tackle that took down the person to
whom he was delivering his lectures. "- Hikaru..." The sentence died on
his lips as he took in the fact that Ranma was at the moment sprawled out
on the ground in a compromising posture underneath a bubbling young girl
with short brown hair.
Hikaru, for her part, blinked in surprise as the presence of a faculty
member at last registered in her brain and quickly jumped to her
feet. "Um," she managed a tad uncertainly as she gingerly tiptoed past
the shocked gym instructor, "see you later, okay, Darling?" Then, without
waiting for any response, she ran away from the scene as fast as her legs
could take her, leaving one bewildered Ranma along with a livid teacher
and a mortified crowd huddling petrified by the stairs.
Ootsuka-sensei pointed a shaky finger at the new student. He had tried to
speak, but for some reason the words stuck in his throat. His face
burning an angry red and his tongue tied up at the most inconvenient time,
the teacher could only glare at the source of all his
troubles. Undaunted, he tried again. "D-Da-Dahhhh-"
"-ling?" Madoka queried weakly with a nervous smile. Out of habit her
hands fumbled inside her lunch bag for a glass. Finding only milk
instead, she nevertheless opened the small carton and took in a gentle sip
that seemed to have relaxed her slightly.
"Yup! He's..." Hikaru was about to confirm when she caught a figure at
the other end of the roof. "Hey! He's over there! SEMPAI!" The young
girl waved her hands and exclaimed as she sprinted towards the other end
of the platform without a second thought, dropping the rest of her lunch
and a speechless Madoka behind.
"Hi-Hikaru-chan, wait!" Still drinking her milk, Madoka called out after
her friend as she turned to look towards the direction where Hikaru took
off.
And promptly choked.
[9]
The faculty room at Kouryou High School looked practically the same as any
other faculty room in Japan; meaning long office desks arranged into a few
even longer rows that stretched from one end of the room to the other, a
much-used blackboard by the wall near the front door, a staple-and-tack
ridden bulletin-board by the powdery blackboard, a water fountain by the
swiss-cheese-ish bulletin-board and a few tea leaves half-clogging the
drain on the water fountain. Heaped into piles on the ageless (read
unrenovated) desks were the primary occupants in the faculty
room: papers. Papers that came in three forms - not graded, the majority
of the three; graded, which were delivered back to the students
immediately along with a few well-placed lash marks from a wooden ruler or
a bamboo stick; and unused - the ones which one teacher usually stole from
another when he thought no one nearby was noticing. Sometimes, if one is
lucky, however, one may even catch a glimpse of a faculty member amidst
the sea of stationery doing work, although the chance of that was
comparable to winning the next lottery ticket.
And if luck was to be measured by the same standard, then today was
definitely a lucky day for Ayukawa Madoka, who at the moment was not
merely glimpsing at a teacher in the faculty room, but rather three feet
away from one bearing the receiving end of yet another tiresome lecture
regarding her impromptu class-skipping habits. Although, funnily, if she
harbored any gratitude from the concerned - if slightly nosy - young
teacher, she did not show it on her face as she sat stonily throughout the
session.
To tell the truth, Madoka felt so lucky that she could yawn.
Trying not to look too bored, she straightened up in her chair and forced
herself to be more attentive when several voices a few rows away caught
her interest. Though the view from her chair was blocked by piles of
binders and books and paperwork in general, she easily identified one of
the speakers as Matsuoka-sensei, her homeroom teacher, because of his
trademark wavering tone which always betrayed his inability to discuss any
subject with any significant amount of self-confidence.
"Well, it's apparent that the incident was only a
mistake." Matsuoka-sensei continued nervously. "I didn't really think
that you would do such a thing anyway, Saotome-kun."
Saotome-kun? Madoka thought. Isn't that...
"Yeah, come on..." Ranma responded. "Molesting a girl? No way!"
Ootsuka-sensei countered without any apparent sign of backing
down. "Nevertheless, that Hikaru girl -"
Hikaru? A second, more urgent thought interrupted the first. Oh
no... the lunch period!
" - is a delinquent. She dresses wildly, hangs out with gangs, and looks
quite rebellious. You shouldn't hang out with her if you know what's good
for you."
Try as she might, the frown on Madoka's face simply refused to disappear
when she heard this. Her frown deepened when she remembered Hikaru's
sudden fixation on this Saotome boy. That goody-two-shoes kid, she
muttered under her breath as she replayed yesterday's events in her mind
once again, he's just like the others... can't handle it when girls don't
squeal and get hyper and talk about shoujo manga all day...
"Actually, sensei, I think you're mistaken." Ranma's voice cut through
her private thoughts and surprised her. "I don't think Hikaru-chan's a
delinquent at all."
The comment brought the gears in her brain to a grinding halt. "Not a
delinquent?" Madoka's large emerald eyes blink-blinked in surprise and
puzzlement. Unknowingly, her lips curled into the tiniest hint of a
smile. Feeling strangely relaxed, she leaned into her chair and tilted it
back slightly as Ranma continued. "Actually, I was thinking that she's
more of a tomboy than a delinquent."
"Ayukawa-kun! Are you all right?" The teacher standing over her asked in
genuine concern when a noisy crash near her stopped her tirade and saw
that Ayukawa had obviously tipped her chair backward too far and fell to
the ground. "You shouldn't tip your chair like that, Ayukawa-kun!" She
admonished gently, extending a hand to help the poor girl up.
"Hai, sensei."
"Now, where were we again? Oh yes, dress codes..."
On the other side of the room, Ranma wondered how exactly he could
convince the teachers and make his point across their disbelief. I need
to tell them that there's a definite difference between a delinquent and a
tomboy, but how? He asked himself. After a few eternal moments of
indecision, inspiration struck him like a large, wooden mallet.
Meanwhile, the blue-haired girl dusted her uniform and once again took her
seat beside the young teacher. "I should've known..." Madoka said to
herself, fuming slightly. Nevertheless, she seemed unable to keep his
voice from invading her ears and once again was forced to tune out the
teacher.
"To tell you the truth," she heard Ranma explain, " Hikaru-chan's noteven
that much of a tomboy. I know this one girl with blue hair who's such a
kawaikune otemba that she's no good at anything feminine." Blue
hair? Tomboy? No femininity? Madoka completely missed the slightly
wistful tone in Ranma's voice and clenched her fists. The scene from the
day before played itself out in her mind once more, ending with the
echoing mantra - "You are a girl, aren't you?" - that pissed her off to no
end.
"For example, she's a violent maniac."
Madoka gritted her teeth.
"She's got a mean punch, but is as slow as a pregnant elephant."
The hair at the back of her nape began to rise in a gravity-defying
fashion.
"She can't hold a tune to save her life, and she dances like a gorilla
with clubbed feet..."
Without a second thought Madoka abruptly excused herself and stood up
right in front of the teacher's startled face. It was with an unspoken
promise of slow, excruciating torture burning a raging bonfire in her eyes
that she began marching purposefully towards Ootsuka-sensei,
Matsuoka-sensei, and one soon-to-be-dead boy named Saotome Ranma.
[10]
Matsuoka and Ootsuka-sensei could look pretty funny, I decided, with their
eyes wide and mouth gaping like some fish out of water. From their
reactions, it was easy to tell that they had absolutely no idea what real
tomboys were like. If you'd ask me, Hikaru's definitely a mild case
compared to Akane... though I wonder why the two of them had suddenly
sprung out of their chairs and fled all the way to the back of the room
cowering in the corner like that. After all, it's not like she's here or
anything, right?
"Calm down, sensei!" I heard myself calling out in
exasperation. "There's no reason getting so worked up... it's not all
that bad. I was just pointing out that some girls couldn't act feminine
no matter how they tried, but that doesn't mean they are delinquents or
anything! And just what are you pointing at anyway, sensei?" It was
getting hard to ignore them shivering as if they'd just seen Godzilla, and
out of both annoyance and a tinge of curiosity I turned my head back to
see -
"Good afternoon, Saotome-kun."
- Ayukawa with a leveling gaze that made my stomach sink for some
reason. "Uh, hi, Ayukawa." The reply came out pretty lame, I guess, but
I never thought I was going to bump into her in the faculty room.
"Please, don't stop talking on my account. It was a very interesting
conversation and I'd just love to hear more." It was at that point when I
suddenly noticed how the sunshine filtering through the windows seemed to
highlight solely on her long, blue hair. Uh-oh.
"Umm, well, I was just, uh," I found myself stammering. "I was just
telling our sensei that since they told us never to judge a book by its
covers, they should also give macho chicks a chance because those girls
could actually be, um, really kindandgoodandpolite?" The last bit sounded
a tad rushed because all of a sudden I had just realized why exactly those
two teachers were huddling to themselves by the walls. Me and my big
mouth, again!
To my surprise and relief, Ayukawa broke into a sweet, demure smile after
a pensive pause. "Ah-h-h. I see," she said cheerfully. "So you think
tomboys should be more polite?"
Even though it wasn't what I said, I guessed it was close enough. I
nodded.
"Well, okay." She beamed a dazzling smile at me. "Excuse me then."
Then she slammed a haymaker across my jaw.
[11]
"You know," Ranko smirked and told me that night while customarily
interrupting my dreams, "I think that girl did you a favor since sensei
excused you right after she left and told you to go to the infirmary to
get checked out. Who knows how much longer you'd have to listen to their
lecturing if she didn't come?"
"She didn't have to hit so hard," I complained. I actually felt that
punch... and it was fast!
"Are you absolutely positive that you don't have a fetish for getting hit
by girls?" She sniggered and asked. "Because it looks like you've just
found Akane all over again."
"Shut up, Ranko."
"Well, you sure seemed to dream a lot about her ever since you two
met. And what's with that punch anyway? Even if it was pretty fast you
could've still dodged it."
"I got distracted, okay?"
"By what, oh great heir of Musabetsu-Kakuto-Ryu?"
I didn't say, and as a result I almost didn't fall asleep until morning
because Ranko was laughing so hard inside my head.
[END OF TWO]