STANDARD DISCLAIMERS APPLIED.

Written for: iu_fanfiction's Kris Kringle Fan Fiction Exchange // Kemi-chii's CONTEST ENTRY

Theme: Ending (Contest Theme) and Sin (astraldrop11's Theme) // 'Ending' might be vague.

(Original) Word Count: 2000 words // I edited some from the original entry.

WARNING! Ryoma's tendencies of OOC-ness. Extreme randomness. Partially edited. And, fluff?

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"My, Sakuno! You're burning!"

Osakada Tomoka creased her eyebrows as she held her best friend's forehead. Surely, it wouldn't be funny to get sick that day. No. Not when midterms are coming.

"Really?" was all Sakuno could answer; her puffy eyes confirming Tomoka's notion further.

"And hey, I mean literally."

"I'm fine—"

"Liar. That's at least thirty-nine deg—ah!" Tomoka stopped, her eyes looking suddenly pleased with her own thought, "Sakuno, use this to escape class. It's—"

"Good morning class," yet, it all came too late.

"Good morning, Hibari-sensei."

Sakuno had some bad feeling about this. She lately had vertigos (the sensation was, to say the least, awful), and she wasn't even sure if that would be considered normal. But, she remained seated (she merely closed her eyes) and covered her face with her book, as to not attract attention. She stubbornly wanted to linger to her migraines than to see her classmates staring at her. Besides, it wouldn't do her good to miss the class for the day.

"Ryuuzaki," a strong, irritated voice called her name. To her horror, her eyelids went heavier, causing her eyes to remain closed. She felt giddy, that she just wanted to lie down and—

"Ryuuzaki! Have you been listening?" Her chair almost fell as she stood up startlingly soon after she heard Hibari-sensei again (yet this time louder), who was looking at her intently that moment.

"Y-Yes, sensei?"

"What is the cube root of negative one?" the teacher asked all of a sudden.

Thank goodness she knew that. "Umm, negative one?"

"Good," she was half-expecting to see a pleased look from her teacher's eyes, not until she faced him.

"Now," Hibari-sensei continued, "Is that our lesson for today?"

Uh-oh, that was quite unexpected.

She then decided to steal a glance at her seating partner – Tomoka – yet her friend's bowed head in utter fear told her that it wasn't her day today. So, although quite hesitant, she nodded sheepishly.

"Pardon?" the stoic teacher asked, adjusting his glasses.

"Yes…sir." She froze when something hit her. 'Goodness, I forgot to look at the board!'

And to top it off, Hibari-sensei had been long-established to be an avid follower of Adolf Hitler's ideals. "Ryuuzaki, see me later after class."

Yup, she was so dead.

Ryuuzaki Sakuno was, by no means, a good liar. And Echizen Ryoma could attest to that.

Actually, he didn't want her to be one. She didn't have to be so good at it either. He just wanted the gods to somehow bless her with some skill.

It was not out of pure concepts, mind you. He had put it to "tests."

Yet, through all those, it was others who take advantage of her, not the other way around. It would unusually be for the good of other people, and not hers. He thought it was weird, and what fortified his idea was when she tried saving a kid's kitten drowning on the river (outwardly telling the kid she knew the basics of swimming and lifesaving) that she ended up drowning with the kitten. Or when she ate Nikuman (1) from an old woman's store that she ended up buying all of it (as per the old woman's request)… spending all of her savings on the process (she even said "It's nothing!" while smiling amiably), when she just could've said 'no.'

True, he found it quite amusing when his Ryuuzaki tries her best to make her lies believable. How her red face and flushed expression would candidly reveal how bad she was on lying. How clueless she was when he would always find her lies futile (well, to him at least).

But, she seemed to have crossed the line this time, for it wasn't helping her in any way.

Right. She was so bad for it could only mean 'trouble,' that he would always end up saving her from the consequences.

He didn't mind (he quite liked that, actually), though, he didn't know if she was doing it on purpose, or she was just being Sakuno.

But either way? He didn't care.

"Seriously, sensei should change his glasses!" Ryoma always believed he had immunity to the likes of Tomoka. "Can't he see you're sick?! Geez!" yet after that, he trashed the thought.

"Hey, wait. Sakuno, I could always tell sensei to—"

"Really, I'm fine Tomo-chan," she said frailly, flailing both her hands to her front.

Ryoma looked from the corner of his eye, a bit troubled, yet he sure did his best not to ruin his cool.

'Liar.'

"No!" Tomoka exclaimed, "You're not fine! How could you be fine? With your fever and Hibari-sensei's torture, all in one day…isn't that insane?"

"No, it's actually…it's a good way to study."

Tomoka fought the urge to raise a brow, "Study…hu-what?"

"I… can recite formulas while cleaning the chalkboard, right?"

It sounded completely ridiculous coming from Sakuno that Tomoka had to heave a dejected sigh, but other than that, she was convinced she did it, "Fine."

At least she managed to get a good one this time. Well, almost.

It was late afternoon at Seishun Gakuen, and there was Ryuuzaki Sakuno, feebly dragging the broom back and forth on one place.

Hibari-sensei in fact gave her two choices for her 'detention,' claiming himself as one considerate teacher: to clean their classroom for the day or to answer a hundred-item Math problems. She chose the former, for the latter was quite risky. Although Math – unlike English – was 'tolerable,' even Hibari-sensei's glares were enough to send her to Leibniz's era.

"Mou…"

She heaved a sigh. It was her fault, anyway. As Tomoka said, she didn't have to do it at all, for the mop's sake, she had to rest. She could even use her condition to excuse her from detention. But for some odd reason, she didn't like admitting her situation. She didn't like people worrying about her, as if she was the most fragile thing in the world. She too, had a thing called ego. And she had to rub it to everyone's faces, even if it was to the extent of telling lies, in spite seeing how bad she was at those.

She weakly sat on one of the classroom's table (she was half-done anyway), feeling terribly drained. Keeping up an ego surely was tiring.

"Ryuuzaki."

She paused at the sound of the awfully familiar voice who just uttered her name. What surprised her more was when the owner of the said voice placed his head comfortably on top of her shoulder.

"Ryoma…Ryoma-kun?" she heard herself ask, already confirming who her intruder was.

"What are you doing?" he answered with another question, making her turn to his direction.

She raised her left hand holding the broom, "Umm, cleaning?" she replied with an awkward smile, as if it was the dumbest thing she said that day. "You…? Aren't you supposed to be pract—"

"You're sick," he stated, confirming as he touched her forehead. And the next thing she knew, Ryoma got the broom from her, and then he started sweeping the floor.

Great, now she made him worry.

It was the least thing she wanted to do. And even if it was to trust her lying again, she wouldn't hesitate to say "I'm okay," and to at least try wearing a smile.

He wanted to give her some credit for her effort, really. Yet it was so obvious that he had to let her know that it wasn't helping at all. Anyway, it wasn't the topic at hand.

"Coach told me to check up on you. Osakada seemed so frantic about you getting sick that she might have passed it to her," he said casually. He was actually proud of himself that he turned out to be good to all the things she wasn't. And well, that includes lying of course.

"Ryoma-kun," she sounded worried, apologetic even, which made him frown a bit. "Really, I'm…I'm okay. You can have your practice. I don't need you to—"

Lie. She knew how Ryoma could exchange his precious practice hours (add Tezuka's laps and his senpai-tachi's teasing to that) just to check up on her.

"You need me." He said plainly, as if stating a basic fact. It was clean and simple …very straightforward, that he didn't bother to even rephrase his statement to a question.

For a moment, Sakuno was lost for words, feeling as if her tongue was tied. Though, she didn't feel like objecting. Besides, it was the truth. She didn't know why but she was happy that Ryoma could easily read through her.

That's it. At the end of the day, it would always be him—her knight in shining armor, just like any other fairy tales. And at that moment, she felt even luckier than any Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty.

Yet afterwards, she frowned.

Then again, she thought of not involving him further to her dilemmas. She didn't have to, anyway. All the more reason when the price was the time for the things he was supposed to be doing. "No, uhm… your practice. Senpai-tachi would be mad if—"

Lie. She knew very well on how their senpai-tachi loves seeing them together.

Removing the broom from his hand, he cut her off and whispered "Ryuuzaki," as his face inched closer to hers, "by any chance," and closer, "do you know how I hate liars?"

"Well, uhm—"

"Especially bad liars," he continued, not letting his infamous smirk off his face, "Do you want to know how I punish them?"

"I'm not a ba—" She was about to bring out her 'defensive' side when—

Kiss. "Liar."

"Ryoma-ku—"

He kissed her. Again. Yet this time, he wasn't sure if he would get himself out of it for a while. The other was hesitant at first, yet gave in on the process, thinking that if punishments were this good, then she was certain she could have it any day. It made her want to desire not to stop, mentally noting that he was, indeed, a good kisser. Ryoma, on the other hand, deepened the kiss, putting his arms around her petite waist.

Yet now both desperately in need of air, they somehow managed to break the kiss. Half-heartedly though, neither of them wanting to let go.

And as he still held her, he sighed, gaining a confused look from the other, "Should I always end up saving you?"

"What… do you mean?"

"You looked pale earlier. At least now you're getting some color," He started, after gathering all his cool back.

Now that he mentioned it, she was. "Eh?" she said consciously, as she touched her boiling cheeks.

"I might have your fever because I kissed you. So you owe me one, Ryuuzaki." He stated matter-of-factly, making the other look even more dipped in garnet red. "And, you're a bad liar."

She remained silent, as if her brain still was on the process of picking up all the things he said for the past minute.

"But," he continued, now placing his index finger atop his chin, "I don't mind. Your being a bad liar is still on my advantage."

No matter how lovely it sounded, she was not taking another 'you're a bad liar' from anyone again. Not even from her Ryoma-kun. "I'm not—"

Kiss. "You'd take" –kiss– "twice—no, thrice of" –kiss– "that if I caught you lying again. Am I" –kiss– "making myself" –kiss– "clear?" He said further, butterfly kisses in between, that she couldn't help but saying a weak 'yes.'

"Good." With one final kiss and a 'mada mada dane,' he then took his leave.

And Sakuno had no words.

After a few seconds, a picture from the Polaroid came out. And it didn't take them another beat to know how difficult and awkward their positions were on the tree just beside the classroom.

"Wicked! Ahhh, young love."

"Shouldn't they be having some privacy?"

"Not when I'm getting my data, Oishi."

"Oooishi, your paranoia's scaring the hell out of me."

"Hmm, I wonder though, why is Tezuka here?"

"HUH?!"

"Fifty laps around the court, now."

~fin

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FOOTNOTES:

Nikuman – steamed manju cakes with meat filling; popularly eaten as snacks or quick meals during winter. (Source: h t t p: / / japanesefood . about . com /)

I still can't believe it until now, but I actually /won/ because of this...this fic. Yes yes, unbelievable right? It's the least I expected and...well, not to mention that the other participants were the writers I look up to. Anyhow, I really want thank the judges of the Fic exchange for the lovely concrits. I have yet to edit this one (just /scanned/ it again before posting), so I still might commit errors. My apologies. :)

Uhm, I have to apologize that the plot turned out to be...shallow. Immature, even. I'm actually thinking that I used 'sin' quite wrong, same as through with 'ending.' And well, it came a bit to late for me to realize that (I re-read the entry days after I passed, and the rest was...history?).

Hmm...but maybe, it would do me good if you tell me your thoughts about this 'chic fic'? :)