"Better?" Tenshi-kun asked, and Neko nodded. "Then, walk me to class?"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
*Where the hell are they?* Mi-chan thought to herself, exasperated. Jian-kun was never late and Neko-chan shouldn't have taken this long to go to her locker.
Suddenly she started to feel a little dizzy, but it quickly passed. She decided it was a side effect from her concussion. Technically, she wasn't supposed to be back at school and she certainly wasn't supposed to be working out, but she hadn't wanted to miss out on stuff. Besides, the alternative was staying in the hospital.
She went back to worrying about Neko-chan and Jian-kun. "Where are you guys!?" She was so mad that she sent a spinning rear kick into a punching bag that flew off its chain. "Oops," she said sheepishly, and then "Ow!"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Tenshi walked alongside Neko-chan. She was a little worried about her. Neko-chan's heart, more than her body, had been seriously bruised by the events of the dance. Tenshi wasn't sure if she'd be able to recover completely from the experience.
She started to speak, but stopped as Neko-chan sneezed and a second later winced in pain. Tenshi stiffened at the thought of Neko-chan being in pain, but then Neko-chan said, a little irritated, "Mi-chan!" and Tenshi relaxed a little.
"What happened?"
Neko-chan rolled her eyes. "Mi-chan just decided to work out a little, that's all. She knows better, but she did it anyway." Tenshi hadn't spent as much energy on healing Mi-chan as Neko-chan, except for when Mi-chan was on the edge of death, and Mi-chan had taken a worse beating than Neko-chan, so Mi-chan wouldn't have been as ready to return to her normal activities as Neko-chan, at least not physically. "And� I think she's mad at me."
They continued walking to Tenshi's class. Tenshi was purposely taking her time because she was working up the courage to ask Neko-chan out again, and she didn't want to wait for pole vault because she might lose her nerve.
"Neko-chan," she started quietly, "after pole vault, I was wondering�"
She cut herself off as she realized that Neko-chan was shaking her head and fighting back tears. "I'm not going to pole vault, Tenshi-kun," she admitted.
"Wh- Why not? Are you feeling alright? You said you were ok."
"Hai, demo� Mi-chan can't go to her activities for awhile and it might be better for me not to too." Tenshi stopped and crossed her arms. She wasn't buying this at all. Neko-chan saw this and continued shamefully, "If I go to pole vault today, I have no excuse to skip Kempo and soccer tomorrow, and I don't think I can handle that. I just� can't�." Neko-chan hid her face in her hands in order to hide her tears and frustration. Tenshi embraced her and let her cry on her shoulder. She knew that Neko-chan didn't like it when she went into "protection mode," but she couldn't help it, not when Neko-chan obviously needed comforting.
"You can't hide from him forever," she reminded Neko-chan softly, knowing that that was why she didn't want to go to those activities.
"I know. But I'm not ready. Not yet."
Tenshi decided to lighten the mood. Maybe Neko-chan would feel better. "Well, pole vault will be really boring without you."
"Gomen nasai." But she didn't look quite as depressed as before.
"Not your fault that no one's as interesting as you." Tenshi's eyes twinkled mischievously. "I just wish there was something more fun that I could do afterwards that would make up for it. Say, a movie with a cute girl." This was a lot easier and more fun than just asking her out.
Neko-chan giggled. "Ok. I'll meet you outside the locker room when pole vault's over."
"Good. Well, this is my class. Do you think sensei will mind that I'm 15 minutes late?" Since Neko-chan frowned in worry, she added, "I'm just kidding, Koneko-chan. Don't worry about it." She turned on her most charming smile and blew Neko-chan a kiss before entering the classroom.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Well, this was poor planning on my part," Neko said to herself. She had sent Mi-chan home already and asked her dad if she could hang out at school and then go to a movie with Tenshi-kun. Now she had to waste more than two hours before Tenshi-kun would be free. Neko realized that she could watch Tenshi-kun pole vault, but then she'd feel bad that she wasn't doing it too.
She decided to go for a walk. She could probably get to Infinity Park in less than an hour. Then after she came back, she just could hang out and study until Tenshi-kun was done, which was an indefinite time depending on how high Tenshi-kun and everyone else vaulted.
Poor Mi-chan had to go home as soon as school was over. Mi-chan went to school mostly for the extra-curricular activities, but now she couldn't participate in them. And Neko suspected the whole reason Mi-chan had come to school was to see Jian-kun today, but she didn't think he'd have gone to her after having - well, she didn't want to say "attacked me," but it did look that way. Yet Tenshi-kun seemed convinced that he wasn't directly responsible for Neko fainting.
Neko knew there were other reasons that she could've fainted. Besides having recently taken a brutal beating in a good vs. evil fight, she had felt pretty stressed out lately, and she also hadn't been sleeping very well the last two nights. Especially last night, after having recovered a little. It was one of the few times when she had not fallen asleep before Mi-chan (who Neko was pretty sure was having a nightmare last night; she hoped Mi-chan wasn't reliving the fight in her dreams), in fact she had hardly gotten any sleep at all. Yet she didn't think that a couple of nights worth of insomnia would cause her to pass out, and it seemed very improbable that Jian-kun would just happen to be there at that moment.
It all made her confused and upset, so for now she changed her thoughts to something happier. Today she'd be going to the movies with Tenshi-kun! She wondered what kind of movie they'd see. She preferred action movies and dramas, but she had no idea what Tenshi-kun would like. She pondered the possibilities of her date for the remainder of the walk to the park.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"It's not fair! How come Neko-chan gets to go on a date tonight and I had to come straight homefrom school? From what I heard, she got really beat up in the fight too. Why does she get to do stuff? Even Chibi
