Part Un
The four boys huddled together under fur-trimmed parkas for warmth. The fire they had so diligently tended to had long spent its life. All that remained were glowing embers. The boys knew they had to coax it back to a blaze soon before it truly died out, but all were too miserably cold to move.
“It’s c-c-c-freezing!” Shun moaned, teeth chattering.
“H-h-hai,” Mitsuru concurred, burrowing deeper in his cocoon of down and Gortex.
“It’s colder than a witch’s teat in here!” Hasukawa exploded violently.
“Would you rather we were outside?” Shinobu asked calmly.
“At least someone could see us and save us if we were out there!” The redhead declared hotly.
“If you’re so hell-bent on suicide, be my guest. Oh, and before you go, could you blow the fire back up? The rest of us don’t have death wishes.” Shinobu was suddenly, uncharacteristically sarcastic.
“Damn you, Shinobu!” Hasukawa all but choked on his anger, deliberately dropping the “senpai” honorific in his extreme ire.
“Oh, let’s not fight. It’s not good, the fighting.” Shun wailed, still shivering.
“Yes, there’s no use pointing fingers. We’re all in this mess together,” Mitsuru reached stealthily under cover of the parkas and squeezed Shinobu’s hand.
The two combatants grudgingly ceased their wrangling, Hasukawa still muttering darkly under his breath. Shinobu squeezed Mitsuru’s hand back. In the sudden silence, the boys listened to the howl of the wind the crack of branches breaking under the heavy weight of snow. What little light to be had from the makeshift fire pit in the center of the room soon dwindled as the last of the embers gave its final gasp.
“Great. Wonderful. Terrific.” Hasukawa growled.
“I told him to blow it back up,” Shinobu announced to no one in particular.
“Damn you, Shinobu!”
“Silence.” Shinobu commanded tonelessly, his implacability firmly in place once more.
For a moment, Hasukawa remembered his place and, if his blood hadn’t been rendered sluggish from the intense cold, he would have had the grace to blush. Then the boy thought back to how they had gotten in this situation in the first place, and who had gotten them there, and he scowled unrepentantly. Still, Hasukawa was no fool. So his next remark was barely a whisper.
“Damn you, Shinobu.”
The other two, perhaps thinking the same thing as the dorm president, could only shake wretchedly in mute agreement.
~flashback~
Mitsuru irritatedly hunched his shoulders and walked just a tad bit faster. He had that itching between the shoulder blades that signaled a presence behind him. Yet, when he turned around for the third time, Mitsuru saw no one. Perhaps a flash of orange, a whisper of scurrying feet, but no one of substance. Mitsuru would like to have believed that it was just his imagination, but this feeling had been with him since the bell had rung and he’d left school, and the boy had had too many run-ins with Nagisa’s goons to be anything but cautious. The suspicion that he was being followed persisted as he made his way home to the dorm.
“Senpai!” Seemingly out of nowhere, a tuft of orange hair popped up to greet Mitsuru’s nose.
“AAAAAHHHH!” The startled boy backed up a few paces, clutching his book bag to his chest.
It was the troll.
“Konichiwa, senpai!” The orange hair was replaced by a largish box thrust hastily into Mitsuru’s face.
“Have you been following me?” Mitsuru growled, ignoring the box.
“Hai, senpai.” The tone was cheerily unconcerned.
“What do you want?” Mitsuru inched further away from the intruder.
For an answer, the box was shaken silently in front of him, and Mitsuru sighed. He knew he would not be able to get rid of the offensive brat until he accepted the offering. Mitsuru sighed again with exaggerated long-suffering. This was the fifth time that week. The boy held out his hand and gingerly examined the package placed in it.
“You got me a box of chocolates. How…sweet.” Mitsuru didn’t know what else to say.
It seemed his comment was enough. The little orange-haired pest turned tail and ran as soon as it was obvious that the mission was accomplished. As always, there hadn’t been more than a few words exchanged between them.
I have got to do something about this. It’s getting ridiculous. Damn that little troll! I’m being made a laughing-stock at school! I’ve got to talk to Shinobu; maybe he’ll have some ideas on how to get rid of that thing...
Tucking the unwanted chocolates under his arm, Mitsuru resumed his trek home with purposeful strides.
later...
“But these are really yum, Mitsuru-senpai! If anything else, the troll’s got good taste!” Shun snatched the last piece of chocolate from the plastic tray. Hasukawa, who had been leaning over for it as well, glared at his friend. Shun smiled happily back and popped the sweet in his mouth with a great, big smacking of lips.
“I don’t care. That misbegotten creature has the entire school pointing fingers and laughing at me. At me!” Mitsuru was properly outraged at the thought of such disrespect.
“I think it’s kinda cute, the way the troll follows you around and gives you presents and stuff. Ah, first love!” Shun pretended to swoon, hands clasped to his chest in mock melodrama. Hasukawa, who would normally have smiled at his friend’s antics, simply scowled, still sulking over the lost chocolate.
The three boys were sitting conspiratorially around the chabudai in the center of Room 211. They had gathered to wait for Shinobu to return from training the new student council president and Mitsuru had gladly given up his present to his two voracious kouhai in exchange for some company as he vented. It was becoming clear, however, that he would be getting no sympathy from the two younger boys.
“Cute?! Are you out of your mind? How would you like it if some soddy little freshman stalked you all over campus? Everywhere I go, there’s the troll. It’s like my entire schedule is tattooed in that mindless little noggin. It’s eerie.”
“Oh, come on, Mitsuru-senpai!” Shun scoffed. “Like you never obsessed over anyone before!”
“Well, yeah. But not over another boy!” the blond exclaimed loudly.
It was at that exact moment that Shinobu walked in the door. The boy’s green eyes narrowed ever so slightly, and his hand stilled briefly on the door knob, but otherwise, nothing belied the turmoil that erupted in his heart when he’d overheard his roommate’s comment.
“What’s up?” Shinobu dropped his book bag on his desk and inquired mildly of the room in general.
“The troll’s been bugging Mitsuru-senpai,” Hasukawa abandoned his sulking in favor of gossiping.
“And the troll gave him chocolates again,” Shun, not to be outdone, offered this piece of news triumphantly.
“White?” Shinobu asked, taking off his jacket and undoing his tie.
“Nope. Dark.”
“With cherries in liquor?”
“Yup. It was really yum, Shinobu-senpai!” Shun gushed in remembered pleasure, making Hasukawa scowl again.
“Will you all stop talking about the damned chocolates! I’m the one that’s important here!” Mitsuru was having a really bad day.
“My, my. We’re a bit testy this evening,” Shinobu couldn’t resist needling his best friend; he deserved it, after all.
“Shi-no-bu!” Mitsuru whined. “You’ve got to help me!”
“Yeah, senpai. You’d better do it. And quick. He might burst a blood vessel or something.” Shun joined in the teasing.
“Or develop an ulcer,” Hasukawa worried uneasily, thinking of his own precarious stomach and completely missing the joke.
“Well, as a matter of fact, I do have something planned…” Shinobu began as he casually slid into the chair by his desk.
“Really? What?” Mitsuru eagerly turned to his roommate, certain that his problems were next to solved.
“I’ve decided that a trip to the mountains is in order for winter break. My treat.” Shinobu announced expansively.
Shun whooped with delight and Hasukawa momentarily forgot his tummy woes and turned his thoughts toward the prospect of snow and freedom and fun and…and trouble. Because, whenever Shinobu “planned” something, trouble always seemed to follow. Hasukawa felt the familiar clenching in his stomach once more and eyed the silver-haired boy warily.
Mitsuru was also looking at his friend with suspicion. “What does that have anything to do with my problem?”
Shinobu sighed patiently. “Nothing. The world does not revolve around you, Mitsuru.”
Mitsuru groaned in defeat.
~end flashback~