Disclaimer: See chapter one.

Dot hack//Relationship

III: You Mean You're…

                School didn't really matter to me much, what with the "big date" coming closer. It pretty much clouded my mind, shrouding out everything else that mattered. I've spent the days planning it out, trying to make it as perfect as possible. I'm glad to say I've got it down.

                First, I'm to pick her up and see a movie. Clichéd as it may be, it's how I need to start it. Well, as I was saying, after the movie, I'll take her out to a ramen shop for our meagre dinner, and then I'll take her up to the watch tower to watch the sunset. It's perfect, if I do say so myself.

                "I'll pick you up at seven," I clarified.

                "Sounds great, Toshi."

                That was my nickname that she used for me: Toshi.

                "I've to go to soccer practice, I gotta go."

                I don't want to be late again. My soccer coach is getting pretty frustrated about me.

                "Seven, right?"

                "Yeah, bye."

                I gave her a little hug and a peck on the cheek before turning on my heels and heading towards the exit. I'm going to cut it pretty close here. Soccer practice ends at 4:15, so I only have a limited time to get ready. I have to look fashionable after all.

                I began the arduous jog to the soccer field and the practice.

[][]==--==[][]

                Soccer practice was pretty much uneventful. Nothing new happened, except some new girl might be on the girls' team. I think her name was Ann Shoji[1]. Pretty quiet and antisocial from what I've seen.

                Tch, enough about soccer practice. I've got two minutes to run one mile to her apartment.

                I ran wildly, jumping over benches and ducking under branches. I flipped off a few cars that got in my way, only as a little incentive to get me running faster. I'm an idiot, I know.

                I leapt over another bench… only to hit the top and fall flat on my face. I've got to stop doing that. I took a few seconds to catch my breath before continuing this seemingly impossible task, and guess what, I made it!

                I won't bore you with the details though, as I'm in front of her door right now, sweating like crazy. I swallowed a big lump in my throat, and I knocked.

                After about five seconds – which seemed like five hours – of waiting, my jaw dropped at the angel who opened the door. I can't even begin to describe her beauty. She was wearing an informal purple strapped dress that stopped at knees. The dress seemed to glitter. Her face had little makeup on, but that little made her face even more beautiful as ever. Yet, she was still wearing her bandana. What was up with that bandana?

                "You look… wonderful," I managed to say, blushing a tint of red.

                She giggled the giggle that I loved so much.

                "I did it for you," and she twirled around, giving me the chance to see the rest of her body.

                My cheeks grew very warm. I tugged at my collar; was it getting hotter in here?

                "You're funny."

                I snapped out of my trance and looked at her smiling face.

                "Shall we go, milady?"

                Aw man, I'm sounded like one of those corny old 90's movies.

                "Absolutely."

[][]==--==[][]

                This… movie… is… BORING! Holy crap, this movie's been on for about two and a half hours now.

                "I'm sorry I have to do this."

                Thank God! It sounds like it's coming to an end.

                "Wait, what's that!?"

                …

                "Eh? GET BACK HERE!"

                You've got to be shitting me. How much longer is this friggin' movie going to be on!? I've changed my position so many times now out of sheer boredom, and-

                Wait, what was that?

                "Nngg."

                There it is again! It sounds like snoring. I looked at Hanako, and to my surprise, she's sleeping. Thank God I'm not the only one who's bored out of my mind!

                "Hey Sleeping Beauty, wanna leave?"

                I gently nudged her awake.

                "Huh? What's going on?"

                I smiled. "You fell asleep watching a movie you chose."

                "What? Are you serious?"

                "Yeah."

                She looked crestfallen.

                "Hey, it's no matter, let's just leave this place."

                She agreed, so we left. I opened the door and was immediately blinded by the bright lights. I shielded my eyes, trying to refocus. Hanako as well was doing the same. After a few seconds, my eyes got used to the lights, and I held the door open like always.

                "Wanna go grab something to eat?"

                Commencing operation.

                "Sure, where you do you want to go?"

                Objective one accomplished.

                "There's this ramen shop nearby, wanna go eat there?"

                "Sure!"

                Objective two accomplished, onto three.

                The walk to the little shop was quite uneventful, so I won't bore you with the details.

                Except maybe the once or twice she tripped because of her heels, and every time she fell on me, but nothing great proceeded from those events.

                "Almost there," I said, pointing a ways ahead.

                "Great because I'm so hungry."

                As if on cue, her stomach rumbled. I ginned a bit and touched my own stomach. I'm getting a bit hungry too. It's funny, you only hear about these kinds of events happening in movies. Whenever one gets hungry, the other will always be hungry, no matter what.

                But hey, who am I to complain?

                The air of cooked noodles soon filled the air, and my stomach grumbled in anticipation.

                "Hey there, young man, what do you and your date want?"

                The man behind the counter seemed friendly enough.

                "What do you mean, Hanako?"

                She put her finger to her chin and looked at the selections.

                And this continued for a minute.

                "Uh, Hanako?"

                I waved a hand in front of her face and snapped my fingers. That seemed to bring her out of her reverie.

                "Oh, I'm so sorry," she frantically apologized. "Um, I'll have the vegetarian ramen noodles."

                Vegetarian? Ah well.

                "And I'll have the chicken noodles."

                I quickly handed him the money, ignoring the pleas from Hanako that she should pay for her own meal. No way in hell I'm gong to let her pay. Think of my reputation if people find out I'm a cheap shit.

                "Here, sit."

                I motioned to the seat with my hand, and she sat down. I took the one next to her, and when I did, she leaned her back against me. Her bandana came into my view again. Seriously man, what was up with it? It's not like it bothers me, it's just – ah!

                That's it; I'm going to ask her.

                "Yo, Hanako."

                She sat up and looked at me. "Yeah?"

                "There's something I've been meaning to ask you."

                "Yeah, what is it?"

                Well, here goes nothing.

                "It's about your ban-"

                "Here you go you two lovebirds, one vegetarian meal and one chicken meal, fresh off the pot."

                Eh?

                I looked at the now steaming bowls in front of us, and then looked up at the face of the cook.

                I see.

                …

                THE DAMN COOK INTERRUPTED THIS SERIOUS CONVERSATION!

                Whoa, calm down.

                I put on a smile, "thank you."

                I handed him a somewhat generous tip, and he left a smiling man.

                "What was that?"

                Hanako was asking me what I said earlier. "It's nothing, forget about it."

                Well, there goes another chance shot down by fate.

                But enough about that, I'm starving! I picked up the chopsticks on the side, and begun riffling through the noodles, searching for a piece of chicken that I so desired.

[][]==--==[][]

                Well that went smooth.

                You may be wondering exactly "what" was.

                Well, I guess I'll start from the beginning… no, wait, that's the boring stuff.

                I'll start in the middle. Well, you see, dinner was going smoothly. Quiet chit chat, a bit of slurping here and there, smooth as it could go. That is until some guy started to – ahem – feel Hanako up. And you know how girls are. They get all prissy and shit, so she slapped the guy across the face. Hard.

                And then you know how guys react at being humiliated by a girl. He shoved her down, but I caught her. And that's when I got into the action, and boy was it fun! I started out by acting like the protective boyfriend, you know the ones who yell out 'you'll regret that' and then hit the bad guy. Yeah, that's exactly what I did.

                As soon as the guy was on the floor, Hanako was there kicking the shit out of the guy. I remembered something I read online, I think it was a fanfic[2]. Anyway, the guy was some US soldier and he was kicking the shit out of a person, much like our present situation, except he was shouting out obscenities… and was beating up a monster.

                I think he was shouting out some of these, but be warned, they are offensive:

                "Bitch!"

                "Fucker!"

                "Take that!"

                "Die damnit!"

                "Attack women will you?"

                "Think you're getting up now?"

                "Who's your daddy?"

                "No soup for you!"

                "You're my bitch now!"

                Yeah, it was hilarious. And as it turned out, Hanako was, in fact, shouting out obscenities at the guy. Talk about coincidences.

                "Whoa, Hanako, I think he's had enough."

                I told her that, and then she calmed down.

                From there, I took her to the lighthouse to watch the sunset. And that's where we are now, watching the sunset, just like I had planned. Now, I'm about to finally ask her what the hell's up with her bandana.

                "Hanako, I've been meaning to ask you something."

                I must sound like a broken record.

                "Hmm?"

                Once again, here goes nothing.

                "It's about your bandana."

                She immediately reached up and grabbed a hold of the knot, and took a step back. A look of fear flashed in her eyes. Fear?

                "Why are you so scared?"

                I took a step forward.

                She calmed a bit, and after a minute, she responded, "it's my hair colour."

                Her hair colour is what's been bothering her? Weird.

                I reached out and went to untie the knot, "can't be that bad."

                She stiffened as I undid the knot, but made no move to stop me. That gave me the go-ahead to continue. I moved the cloth around until it untied, and then I slowly moved it away and her hair fell down gracefully. I stared for a minute, before putting on a smile.

                "Purple hair, eh?" Purple hair doesn't look too bad.

                She looked like she had a tear forming in the corner of her eye. She turned and leaned on the railings, facing her back towards me.

                "You can go if you want now, I'll understand."

                She wants me to go because she has purple hair? That's crazy talk.

                I walked up to her and wrapped my arms around her waist.

                "Now why would I do a thing like that?"

                She sobbed, "because everyone else does. They think I'm a freak with purple hair."

                "Purple hair isn't so bad, in fact, I know someone with purple hair myself."

                I don't' know why, but I had a sudden urge to tell her about Black Rose.

                "Really?"

                She brightened up a bit.

                "Well, I don't exactly know her, as in real-life know her."

                She looked confused, so I elaborated.

                "She's an on-line friend."

                "Online… as in The World Online?"

                Well whaddya know, she plays it too.

                "Yeah, it's a great game, ain't it?"

                "It is," she said. "You can be anything you want in the online world. You can be whoever you want there. It's an escape from reality."

                Weird, that sounds like what I told Black Rose when I first took a break.

                "I know, but it's still a place to have fun," I grinned, remembering all of our adventures, Black Rose and I.

                "It's still dangerous… my brother fell into a coma because of that game."

                Her brother fell into a coma while playing The World Online. Damnit, tell me Skeith didn't get her brother.

                "What do you mean?"

                I had to know.

                "He was playing The World Online when he got home, but then when dinner was ready, he didn't come down."

                I could tell she was trying not to cry. I let her learn her head on my shoulder for some emotional comfort.

                "I checked his room, and he… he was on the floor," she sobbed a bit, but continued. "On the screen, it showed a picture of his big monster with a staff, and his name was Sketih."

                So it was Skeith. It's a good thing I killed that bastard.

                "Hey, hey, it's okay." I tried to calm her down.

                She got up and separated herself from me, "It's okay."

                "You sure?" Didn't want her feeling gloomy.

                "Yeah, I'm fine," she wiped her eyes.

                I decided to change the subject. "What's your name on The World Online?"

                "Black Rose."

                …

                Holy shit!

                "B-Black Rose!?"

                "Yeah, why?"

                This can't be true… no way in hell can it be true!

                "What's yours?"

                I hesitated for a moment, knowing how she would react if I told her. I had no choice.

                "Well, Hanako, it's…"

                "Hmm?"

                She was waiting.

                "It's Kite."

                Three.

                Two.

                One.

                "KITE," she literally yelled it. "Is it really you?"

                I nodded, and she threw her arms around my neck, screaming out intelligible words. After a minute or two, she calmed down. She smiled brightly at me.

                "Glad to finally see you again, Black Rose." This time I used her avatar name.

                "Same, Kite."

                The sun was about to set.

                "So what do we do now?"

                I hesitated, "We do what we always do on The World Online."

                I stopped, looked at her in the eyes, and then kissed her on the lips.

                I slowly parted, "and we continue to do what we do here, offline."

                And with that, I leaned in for another kiss.

Fin

[1] = If memory serves me correctly, Ann Shoji is Tsukasa's real name.

[2] = This is from the fic, "A Soldier In Tokyo". FF.Net Story ID = 774619. Anyway, I read this story and I found this part HILARIOUS.

A/N: After you people nagging me, I decided to finish it.