So I forgot the new character. That's alright, it works out, she's here. Anyways... there is a huge blatant hint throughout the WHOLE of the story of who dies. I won't tell you what it is, 'cause then you might find out who, and you'll yell at me to not.
Not that I'll listen, but the point still stands.
Much drama in this chapter.
Also, I've decided to open up my old Nanakusa roleplay (to which this story is based off of), so for those interested, please check it out.
Links R Us
Now for the stopping of a plugging and onto the storying.Chapter 8 :: As the World TurnsTears on her shoulder.
Blood on her pants.
Worry, fear, failure, and sadness on her mind.
Hitomi was unsure how to deal with the intense amount of emotions bombarding her brain.
Maki was leaning on her shoulder as they sat there, on the floor, crying her heart out over the wound she still could not heal. However, the elder of the two was still phased by it, and wasn’t sure how to deal with Maki’s sudden breakdown at all.
“What’s… going on?” Miyabi finally asked from where she was sitting. She had gone unnoticed for too long.
“… I’m not sure,” Sayumi replied. Ai blinked at the both of them and, after crossing her arms against her chest, she sighed.
“First Gaki… and now this… I’m such a failure…”
“No you aren’t.”
Hitomi had her arms around Maki now, rubbing the younger woman’s back as soothingly as she possibly could.
“Don’t worry about it… I’m fine… it’s just a little leg wound…”
Which was far from the case. There was no way she was going to be able to get up and walk around without some attention to the wound itself, and even if she started to walk around, it would be limping followed by another meeting with Mr. Floor.
And Mr. Floor liked to hurt people today.
“What about Gaki-chan?”
Ai’s voice shot through their moment, and Hitomi gave the fifth gen girl a solemn look. The girl only became more persistant.
“What’s wrong with Gaki-chan?”
Neither of the women answered right out, until Maki managed to calm down enough to stand up and give Ai a huge hug as well.
“We aren’t sure exactly,” Hitomi replied, “… She’s… we don’t know…”
And it was the truth. Neither of them did know what exactly was going on with Risa, beyond that she was heading for a hospital right now.
“Ai! Hitomi-chan, what’re you doing on the floor! You don’t belong there!”
Through the awkward silence, Hitomi felt a pair of arms wrap themselves around her midsection and try to pull her upwards.
“Let go,” she commanded, plain and simple as that.
“But Hitomi-chan, you’re not supposed to be on the floor…”
“Let go Rika.”
After a moment, Rika still hadn’t gone anywhere, but she stopped pulling, and had her chin on Hitomi’s shoulder.
“Hitomi-chan… you sound so grumpy! Maybe we need some closet time!”
“No. Let go.”
Hitomi was rather stern, and stubborn, with what she wanted Rika to do. The girl may have tried to be more mature, but she was still cute little Charmy in Hitomi’s eyes.
Maybe it was because Hitomi was the one who didn’t want to grow up.
“But Yocchaaaaan…”
“Enough!”
After a gentle elbow in the stomach, Rika finally relented, and plopped down on the floor, just behind Hitomi, before realizing the woman had been staring at Maki for much too long.
Well, she could not actually see it, but she knew it was happening. It was just Charmy Intuition talking.
“Hitomi-chan… I thought we had a date today,” she said. Letting out an angered noise, Hitomi looked over at Rika and glared.
“We don’t. It was going to be a nice outing, and it was going to have nothing to do with kissing or anything beyond maybe a hand hold. You know better than that… Now would you stop, we’re having a little crisis.”
By this time, Maki was composed enough to comfort Ai, who was in a hysterical fit, just thinking about her friend’s predicament. The elder woman looked over at the two and raised an eyebrow.
“What’s going on?” she asked. Rika was the first to chime in.
“Hitomi’s cheating on me with you.”
The look on Hitomi’s face was a mixture of anger, horror, and more anger, but Maki was far from amused.
“Oh?”
Everything seemed to be pushed aside for a moment. Even the ignored Sayumi and Miyabi seemed to get what was going on, as they hid behind the couch and made sure they were out of the line of fire.
“Hitomi… what’s she talking about?” Maki asked. Staring over at the soloist, Hitomi kept from peeing her pants.
She went straight past the Miki glare, over Ai’s ‘You’d better as hell not be late’ aura, and right into something not even Hitomi could manage.
She went into jealous girlfriend mode.
And neither were really sure they were together.
“Uhm… Maki, if you’d calm down, I’d be more than willing to tell you what’s going on…”
“I already told her…” Rika said, angrily, persistently, and rather stupidly at that. Both Hitomi and Maki glared.
“SHUT UP!” Hitomi shouted angrily, “I’ve had enough of you doing that!”
Rika let out a noise, and went to join Sayumi, Miyabi, and now Ai behind the couch, the latter of the three was still in tears of sort, but they were forgone.
She liked her life.
“DON’T TELL HER TO SHUT UP!” Maki grunted, “She didn’t do anything! You’re the one who messed up!”
“Oh for god’s sake… WOULD YOU LET ME EXPLAIN!?” Hitomi replied, “Here I am, sitting on the floor, bleeding out of my leg, and all you can do is yell at me for a relationship I don’t have?!”
There was a small silence. Rika went to say something, but decided against it. Maki stared incredulously at Hitomi.
“What do you mean… a relationship you don’t have? Are you saying Rika’s lying?”
“No… I told you, let me explain. It’s a lot more complicated than she makes it out to be…”
“Oh?”
“Well… okay sorda not… but I’m not cheating on anyone and I’ve only got eyes for you…”
“Right now.”
”Would you let me finish?”
“No. I’m tired of humoring you to get answers out of you…”
“… Fine. Then I won’t answer…”
There was a small silence, before Maki sighed and rolled her eyes.
“Brat.”
“Yes I am.”
“Fine. You can bleed to death then.”
At that moment, Rika launched over the couch and plopped down next to Hitomi, hand on her leg. After a few moments of Hitomi trying to tell her ‘no,’ Rika removed her hand and smiled.
“All better.”
Indeed, there was no leg wound. There wasn’t even a scar left behind. It was perfect.
Maki was furious.
“Do you mean you have healing powers too!? WHY DON’T YOU PEOPLE TELL ME THESE THINGS BEFORE!?”
Hitomi rolled her eyes and stood up.
“Rika’s had more time to test her powers out… Now can we talk about this?”
Maki snorted, and looked away.
“No.”
Hitomi looked down.
“… Fine.”
After another moment or so of silence, Hitomi went on.
“Look… I’ve got to sort some things out… so I’m gonna go talk to Tsunku… and then I’m gonna get outta here for awhile… see what’s going on with the others… if you wanna talk to me before I leave… then… I’m more than willing…”
When she got no response out of Maki, she let out a small, depressed sigh, and walked off.
The silence that followed was all but happy.
“… Uhm…”
Rika was the first to finally speak up, as she innocently gave Maki the ‘Don’t hurt me I’m cute’ eyes and tried to talk to her.
“She really likes you, you know that right?”
Maki gave the girl a look.
“She coulda fooled me…”
“She’s stupid with her feelings. She can help anyone else and their feelings out no problem… but when it comes to her own emotions, she can’t do anything right. She was like that with everyone. It’s just the way she is…”
“Why’re you defending her if she cheated on you?”
“Because she didn’t. She wasn’t lying, It’s … it’s just the term I use… when I’m annoyed with her… because she doesn’t spend enough time with the people who’ll just sit and talk with her…”
“I’ll sit and talk with her…”
“I know that. She knows that, but she’s trying to develop something past just sitting and talking with you… I dunno, I guess it’s just me being my selfish self, but she was like that a lot. She tried with Aya and Miki, and they didn’t work out… Mako didn’t work out either, but Mako was afraid enough to get out of that relationship…”
“Rika…”
“Hmm?”
“Was she ever with you?”
“Oh yeah. A long time ago. Before Mako, but after Aya. It was a long one… I graduated and she didn’t talk to me the same since… it was like we broke up there… So we didn’t like… formally break up, but we did just stop. Seeing each other like that I mean. I guess she was bitter at me for leaving the way I did.”
Rika smiled, a little half heartedly.
“To be honest, I think it was good we broke up. She seemed happier after that… I don’t think I make a very good girlfriend… I’m too needy.”
“Wouldn’t that make you the perfect girlfriend?”
“Not for Hitomi-chan. Hitomi-chan’s needier.”
They could agree on that much.
“… Are you going to talk to her before she leaves?”
“I don’t think so… I don’t think I’m ready for a relationship… not right now…”
“She might not come back…”
Maki raised her brow at the girl.
“What?”
“… A long time ago… like, right after you graduated… Kaorin got all weird on us… like… you know how she spaces out? Yeah… she’s supposed to be a… uhm.. seer. I think that’s what Hitomi-chan called it. She’s one of those. Anyways… after you graduated, Kaorin started rambling on about a prophecy or something… and how in the seventh year of the 21rst, the graduating leader was going to die. Or something like that. We all got paranoid… for about two minutes, because then Kaorin was like ‘ah hah, I’m just joking!’”
Another silence.
“But I was always afraid about it in the back of my mind… If I knew Hitomi was going to be a leader, I would have been more wary of it back then too… Now I’m just frightened at the thought of her dying… She means a lot… to everyone…”
Maki stared at the girl a moment.
“And… did she know this? She knows this, right?”
After a moment of silence, Rika looked down.
“… Right?!”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
The three had snuck away after Hitomi left, the awkwardness of the situation getting the best of them. Miyabi stared at her two elders a moment before finally saying something.
“What’s… going on?”
Sayumi smiled at Miyabi.
“Not really sure. Haven’t had this much drama since the time Reina got caught with a boy.”
Ai snorted.
“Gaki’s in the hospital.”
The other two stared innocently at Ai as she stared back at them.
“And we’re gonna figure out who’s responsible.”