A/N: As much as I love the Tokiya x Fuuko pairing, I think it's simply ludicrous that every other Flame of Recca fanfiction is about them. They're not canon – there weren't even hints! So why does everyone think they make the perfect couple? Granted, Tokiya is popular and I suppose his fans want him to end up with someone (since they can't have him themselves)... But geez, throw him with Yanagi or something.
Disclaimer: If I owned Flame of Recca, what makes you think that I would be writing fanfiction and be broke?
Credits: To Twilight Suzuka for beta-reading.
I was definitely not in a good mood today – I hadn't been all week. First, on Monday, Yanagi and I were given a school assignment. We had to write a research report on some obscure thing that wasn't even in our textbook. And worse, get this: we weren't allowed to use the internet! What kind of cruel, sadistic, demon-possessed teacher would say that? And what skills would that teach us? If there's information in a book, there's an in-depth explanation of it on the internet! Who the heck uses books now anyways? They're not even good for reading; I mean, look at all those stupid fanfictions that have popped up on the internet!
So I dragged Yanagi to the library with me. But then that damn Mikagami (I'm not calling him Mi-chan after all the trouble he caused me!) comes in and Yanagi just splits – no goodbye – she just takes off and when I turned around after greeting Mikagami, she's not even there! So I had to do the whole damn research by myself. And two hours later, when I had finished the first page of "our" report, Yanagi comes back in, dragging Mikagami to me. At that time, I didn't suspect anything; I simply figured that she was having a strange case of PMS or something.
After fuming about that, the next day, I get escorted to school by none other than Mikagami. And guess what we talked about? "Yanagi's forcing me to do this." My company isn't that bad that he has to be forced to spend time with me, is it? When I said that to him, he simply shrugged, figuring that I wasn't worth an explanation!
And on Wednesday, there was another pair project (this time, it was writing an essay about how Newton's Third Law of Motion affected our everyday life. The science teacher thought that it would be funny if we worked in "action and reaction pairs". Ha ha ha. Stupid nerd jokes). I was working with Recca, but after a sharp jab in the rib by Yanagi, he shot up and asked if he could trade partners with Mikagami. He offered to sweep the floor and clean the chalkboard at lunch for a week. The teacher agreed (after some negotiation) and that was when I knew something was definitely up. The first time was Yanagi on PMS, the second time was Yanagi on her periodical quests to make Mikagami more social, but the third time is completely unexplainable; especially because the girl that Mikagami was going to work with was the class slut (and she was not very happy to end up working with Recca). As nice of a person as Yanagi is, she's not oblivious – she wouldn't just hand her boyfriend over to a slut, especially for no reason.
And today was the worst. Yanagi had convinced Mikagami that it would be very profitable for him to have me as his pretend girlfriend to drive away his rabid fangirls. I'm not quite sure how Yanagi managed to get past the con of me smashing his head in every five minutes, but she managed (although she's the damsel in distress of the group, she's quite resourceful when it comes to sinister plans of match-making).
Of course, I solved that problem quite easily by pummeling Mikagami into a literally meter deep hole when he asked for my permission. At he had the courtesy to do that – in the movies, the guy suddenly goes, "She's my girlfriend" and the girl's like, "What the hell are you talking about, you womanizing bastard?" (Okay, so she doesn't say that, but that would certainly be what I would say in her situation)
And now, after school, I was stomping off to Yanagi to demand why the hell she was being a pain-in-the-ass matchmaker. I would probably have gotten an answer quicker if I ran, but stomping had a so much more dramatic effect.
"Yanagi!" I screeched, catching sight of her laughing with Recca and Kaoru. I stomped even harder towards them.
She squeaked, "Ah, Fuuko!"
"What the hell is wrong with you?" I screamed. She shrunk back and looked at her dear knight in shining armor for protection from me (not that it would help, mind you. I could pulverize Recca in a second the way I was feeling), but both he and Kaoru had ran off, deserting her. At least they had the sense to stay away from me when I was furious, although I'd get them later, after I finish with their ringleader.
"Well..." she started laughing nervously, "You see..."
"What?" I asked through gritted teeth.
"It wasn't me?" she chuckled meekly.
"Of course not. That would certainly explain why you know what I'm talking about."
"But you were single..." I cleared my throat angrily. "...Uh, are single and so is he, so I figured..."
"You figured that you would mess with my life by leaving me to do our project alone, get escorted to school by an ice-cube, and be used as some fangirl-away charm!"
"Well... That's a pessimistic way to look at it."
"Why did you even dare attempt to match-make us?" I demanded.
She nervously began, "You guys seemed sort of attracted to each other..."
"What the heck do you mean by that? Name one instance!"
"Remember when you hugged the life out of him?"
"When? Oh, that time! You idiot! That wasn't a I-like-you hug; it was a I-took-you-for-dead hug!"
Yanagi shrugged, "A hug is a hug."
"If I hug you, would you think that I'm in love with you?" I snapped.
"No..."
"Exactly! Next reason!"
"You always called him Mi-chan; that's got to show some sort of endearment."
"That's because his name is so frickin' long! Besides, it's funny seeing him pissed – it's one of the few emotions that he shows. Anything else?" Yanagi quietly shook her head. "So you did all that because you assumed, without any facts, that I liked him?"
"But I thought he liked you too..."
"And how do you justify that?"
"He lets you call him Mi-chan."
"I called him that for so long, he's just tired of telling me to stop."
"But... I just have this feeling that you guys like each other. Call it match-maker's intuition."
"There is no such thing!" I snapped.
After arguing for quite a long time, Recca, the oh-so brave and masculine hero, decided to show up to save his girlfriend from my wrath. He didn't manage to save her from my wrath; he just divided it between the two of them.
To make matters worse, Mikagami decided to come into the scene, asking what we were doing. Turning my attention away from Recca and Yanagi (Kaoru was smart enough to stay away from me for twenty-four hours), I snapped at him, "Arguing about us and our relationship!"
Oh, that did not come out right and Mikagami proved it by asking, "Our relationship?" He raised an eyebrow inquisitively, deathly afraid to jump to any conclusion lest I box him harder than usual.
"Not that type of relationship! They were trying to match-make us! Can you believe the nerve of them?"
He suddenly turned onto Recca (he would never scream at Yanagi), "Sea monkey, believe it or not, I'd rather not date your primate relative."
"And you think I would want to date you, ice block?" I retorted.
"You'd be getting the better end of the deal – you get to date someone more evolved, monkey."
"What do you mean more evolved? In case you forgot, a monkey is at least an organism; an ice block isn't."
"So you admit you're a monkey."
"I did no such thing! I just said that monkeys are better than ice blocks!"
"Fuuko?" I turned to Yanagi, who had broken up the argument for a few seconds at best. "That's reason number three: you guys look so cute together! Especially when you're arguing!"
Mikagami and I blushed and then turned away from each other without saying a word in an attempt to make us un-cute. "Aw, that's still cute!" Yanagi commented on our blushing faces. "You guys just have to get together! Then we can go on double dates!"
Mikagami and I turned on her and screamed at the same time, "No! I'm not going out with that thing!" Then, we glared at each other, and I was about to launch an insult, but an image of Yanagi going, "So cute!" kept my mouth shut. I decided to be the bigger person and turn away.
"So cute!" Yanagi clapped her hands together and grinned. What was wrong with her? What kind of demented person would consider glaring cute? But to keep her mouth shut, I huffed and stalked off. Mikagami followed suit. She couldn't possibly declare us cute if we were blocks away from each other.
However, Yanagi did manage. To Recca, she noted, "Aw, don't you think it's just adorable how they keep on denying that they like each other and they always futilely attempt to stay away from the other?" Recca probably nodded mutely (I couldn't see with my back turned). I felt like turning around, stomping back, and correcting Yanagi yet again about my feelings toward Mikagami, but then that would probably make it worse since she would come up with some more obscure reasons why she thinks we like each other (something which I would think that I know better than she does, considering that its my love life and not hers).
For the next week, I ignored Yanagi whenever I could to get my point across that I was mad at her. She got the point and didn't say or do anything about my love life.
That is, until a fateful event a month later. Yanagi and I were walking along the hallway and talking. I was walking backwards so I could face her (and after what happened, I never will again). As luck would have it, Mikagami was leaning on a wall that I was close to. At the last second, Yanagi warned me (I swear she planned it like that), so I turned around, but not fast enough to see him and stop. I crashed into Mikagami and we went sprawling on the floor in a rather odd position, which I'm sure Yanagi took as suggestive.
When we both got up with blushes on our face, I remember seeing Yanagi with evil glint her eyes. A chill went down my spine and then, I was thrown into another match-making catastrophe because Yanagi somehow made the assumption that if I blush, then I must be in love with Mikagami (even if I were blushing fifty miles away from him, she would probably make the assumption that I was blushing because I was thinking of him). Why did I just happen to have a friend with both a strange interest in my love life and an overly active imagination?