I gawked at the thing, disgusted. That was just nasty, and at a time like this?

Suddenly, the blonde dude pulled out a knife. “Looks like we’re dealing with more that we bargained for,” he crooned.

Mr. Mowhawk grinned slyly and Blondie’s action, so he pulled out his weapon of choice: a gun.

My heart literally stopped for a second. 

Mowhawk smirked. “Not so tough now, huh?” He walked up slowly to me. Pressing the end of the barrel against my throat, he chuckled. “Look, girlie,” he said, his lips brushing my ears, making me shake a bit in fear, and a bit in disgust, “all you gotta do is keep your trap shut and cooperate. You do that, and you can walk out of here in prime condition, well, depending on how rough we ride you, it might not be prime.” Another chuckle. “M’kay?”

I didn’t really know whether to respond or not, so I kinda just stood there, trying to keep my breath at a normal pace, which ended up being insanely difficult, not to my surprise. I dropped my schoolbag; my hand was numb by this point. 

They took my silence as an opportunity to strike. 

“Skinner,” Mowhawk said to Blondie, now revealed as Skinner. “I’ve got her pinned, you can start.”

“Alright then,” Skinner said slyly, flexing his fingers. He approached me carefully. “Okay,” he said, reaching under my skirt, “let’s see what we got here.”

I felt his hands brush my thighs, and my flesh trembled. I felt like puking as he moaned a bit, removing my underwear and palming my private area. I’d already throrougly searched my surroundings, and I couldn’t find an opening that would give me a good chance of…well, not getting show. That was the main goal, after all. 

I didn’t know what to do!

My teeth grit together angrily and I closed my eyes. Dammit! I thought. I’m screwed!

Suddenly, my skirt was returned to where it should be. 

Taking the opportunity, I quickly pulled my underwear back up and opened my eyes. Before I had a chance to blink, Skinner’s head was smashed against the wall, and he crumpled to the ground. 

Mowhawk’s head shot up, and his eyes widened trememdously at whoever knocked out Skinner; I couldn’t see his face all that well, due to the alley being dark and the sun casting a shadow covering the man. 

I sighed; hallelujah, my savior had come. 

“Skinner!” Mr. Mowhawk called. “Skinner! You alive down there, man?!” He looked back up to the other guy, then to the gun pointed at my jugular. “Look,” he cried, the gun shaking a bit in his hand, “you attack me, and a bullet goes strait to her throat, you got that? Don’t think I won’t do it!!”

The guy snorted a bit, and I saw him raise his leg, and the gun was on the ground. 

My eyes widened. Holy shit.

Badass!!!!

Mowhawk started. “Holy fuck,” he said. His head snapped to his gun. He reached down to grab it, but I was quicker, kicking hit out of his reach.

I smirked. Now that I was safe from being impaled with a bullet, I went into action. I grabbed Mowhawk by, well, the mowhawk, and slammed his head against the brick wall nearly surrounding us. When I released him, Mr. Mowhawk was still standing so the other guy (my savior) kicked him square in the ead. 

That knocked him down. 

Taking a deep breath, I picked up my bag from the ground and dusted off the dirt with my hands. 

My rescuer still stood there, unmoving, like a statue. 

I walked up to him. Being close enough to where I could see well, I examined his face: spiky black hair, shiny blue eyes, good physique, and a cocky grin.

Holy crap, I thought. He’s CUTE!!

“Are you okay?” he said. His voice’s nice, too, I noticed. 

I pushed my hair away from my face and adjusted my clothes frantically. “Uh, yeah,” I sputtered. “But I probably wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for you. Thanks a lot; I seriously owe you.”

He smirked for a second. “Okay,” he said, half-laughing. But his face straightened. “So what did those guys want with you? Do you know them or something?”

“No,” I said, acid filling my tone. “They were picking on a kid and I yelled at them. So they decided to change their target to me. But, I guess in their eyes, guy equals beat, girl equals take off her clothes and rape.”

He examined me. “Well, mentioning your clothes, by looking at your uniform, I’m guessing you go to Karakura High.”

I looked down at my uniform, now all wrinkly and tattred from the quarrel. “Uh, yeah…what about it?”

“Well,” he said. “Look at what I’m wearing.”

I examined him more closely. “HEY!” I said. “You’ve got a Karakura uniform, too! Do you go there?”

“As of today, I am a member of class 1-C.”

My jaw dropped.  “No way. I’m in the same class!”

His eyes widened. “Really? That’s great! Actually, that works out perfectly!”

“Huh?” I inquired. “What works out perfectly?”

He smirked. “Well, you owe me, right? Then repay me by showing me the school! I’m a bit lost, even now, so….”

I laughed. “Sure, sounds fun. I’d love to! Plus, I’ve always wanted to be that cool kid that somehow mysteriously knows the new kid!”

He gave me a funny look, but shook it off. He looked at the four passed-out idiots. “Um,” he said wearily. “Maybe we should get out of here….”

I laughed. “Don’t worry, cops don’t patrol ’till nine A.M. But nevertheless, if we don’t go now, we’ll be late. Come on,” I said. I walked past him and waved for him to follow. He quickly caught up to me, and we started walking to school.

In the sunlight where I could see him better, I also took in his height. He was probably 5’11’’,  compared to my 5’7’’. I felt kinda small beside him.

“Oh,” he said, “can’t believe I forgot, my name’s Takeshi. Fujimoto.” He stuck his hand out. 

I smiled and shook back. “Adelhelm Lancaster, but please, call me Adel. It’s nice to meet you, Takeshi.”

“You, too, Adel.”

“So Takeshi,” I said inquiringly, “where’d you get all those badass ninja moves from?”

“Oh,” he said, laughing a bit. “Two years of tae-kwon-do and way too many ninja movies.”

I laughed. “That’s just awesome,” I chuckled. 

We continued on our walk in silence for a moment, until I heard some quiet humming. I looked around until I found the source of the music: Takeshi.

“Are you humming?” I asked. 

He looked at me, as if remembering I was there. Rose lightly sprinkled his face. “Uh, yeah…sorry. I seem to have a habit of humming without realizing it.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” I said, waving it off as nothing serious. “But, just out of plain curiosity, what was it that you were humming?”

He shrugged. “Just some American music; you probably wouldn’t know it.”

I smiled. “I bet I would, considering I am American.”

He did a double-take on me. “No way! Seriously?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m pretty sure there aren’t any Japanese with natural white hair, now are there?”

He shrugged, tilting his head to the side. “I guess not.”

I smiled. “So, back to the subject. What were you humming?”

“Oh, ’The Moritician’s Daughter,’ by Black Veil Brides.”

My jaw dropped. “No way!” I shrieked. “I LOVE B.V.B.!”

A smile lit up his face. “Really? That’s awesome! Finally, someone to talk to about music! No one else I know likes my type of music!”

I stuck my chin up proudly and started to march. “Well, as of now, you have a friend in me. Fanboy all you want.”

He laughed, a deep, enjoyable sound. “Well, I’m no crazy fanboy, but I’d go insane at one of their concerts.”

I laughed. “I know, right?! That’d be so awesome. Like, the very second I saw Andy, I’d pass out and die. You’d have to carry me to the morgue.”     

“I dunno about that,” he said. “I’d probably be so indulged in the music, I wouldn’t even notice you.”

I frowned. “That probably wasn’t something you should have told me.”

He grinned shyly. “Sorry,” he said. “But at least that tells you to bring a third person to the concert, so you have backup.”

I thought about that for a moment, stroking my chin. “Yeah,” I said thoughtfully. “I guess you have a point.” 

We had a somewhat-awkward silence, but eventually burst into laughter. 

“Ooh,” I said, wiping a small tear of laughter from my eye, “Takeshi, I can already say that we’re gonna be great friends.”

“Agreed,” he said, a childlike smile covering most of his face. It was one of those smiles that, no matter how sad you were, it would make you smile, even if it was just the slightest little grin. 

We continued talking about stupid, nerdy things: animes we liked, video games, more music, etcetera. Eventually, we reached Karakura High.

Takeshi looked at the large main building. “So this is it,” he said, a hint of wonder in his voice.

“Yup,” I said, my lips making a pop noise at the “p.” 

“Dang,” he said. “My old school wasn’t nearly this big.”

“Really?” I said, a bit surprised. “Well, it may look huge, but it’s not really all that big, once you get used to it.” (A/N: That’s what she said…sorry :D)

He shrugged. “I guess it always works that way, huh?”

I smiled wide. “Yeah,” I laughed. I grabbed his arm and started pulling him. 

“Woah!” he said, surprised. “What’re you doing?”

I laughed. “Chill, dude; as a new student, you have to go to the main office to get all you paperwork. Trust me, I know how this works. Now come on, I can’t drag you the whole way there.”

He rolled his eyes at me ostentatiously, and followed my pulling on his arm. We finally got to the front office, where I saw Mrs. Aiko, the secretary (if you actually remember her name), looking very flustered. She had two phones, one in each ear, hands full of paper, and sweat beading on her face. I figured it was best not to bother her, so I just led Takeshi in front of her desk; we were way early to school, so we had time to wait for her to finish--whatever it was she was doing. 

We were standing there for a good seven minutes until another lady that worked there, Ms. Ayame, noticed us and came up to the front desk. She was a younger lady, about twenty-five, a lady that all the guys at school absolutely drooled over. She had long blonde hair, almost down to her waist, long legs, a pretty face, and had a tendency to wear shirts that showed way WAY too much of her clevage. 

“Hey,” she said, leaning on the desk to expose even more of her chest. I noticed Takeshi’s face reddened a bit. I bit my tongue; what a hoe. “Do you guys need something?”

“Yeah,” I said, sending her a rude glare, accompanied with a slight growl. “Takeshi here,” I said, pointing to him, “is new, and he needs his paperwork.”

“Oh!” she said, perking up. “A new kid? Okay, Takeshi, what’s your last name?”

“Fujimoto,” he answered almost mechanically. 

“Okay then,” she said, bending down to the filing cabinet under the desk. “Fujimoto…Fujimoto…” she whispered, searching for his student file.

Twenty seconds later she pulled out a large manila envelope. “Here we go! Fujimoto!” she said, sighing a bit in relief. She opened the folder and pulled out a handful of color-coded papers. “Okay,” she said, laying three out for Takeshi to see, “this,” pointing to a green, smaller piece of paper, “is you schedule. Class begins at eight, ends at three-thirty. And this,” she pointed to a normal-sized, pink sheet of paper, “is a map of the school. Now you’re in Class C, right here,” she highlighted our classroom on the map with a green marker, making a large circle around it, “and this,” she pushed a white sheet of paper towards him, “is the basic school code. No bringing weapons, firecrackers, no cheating, school holidays, normal stuff. Shouldn’t be anything new. And FYI, if you think it’d be funny to bring a knife and show it off to your friends or whatever, the school is fully equipped with cameras and metal detectors, so don’t even try it. Even in dimly lit hallways, we can see you and your girlfriend making out by the lockers, so that‘s out of the question, too.” She gave me an evil eye, one I happily returned sevenfold. 

Takeshi decided to ignore that last comment. “Thanks,” he said, an obviously strained smile plastering his face. “What about the rest of the papers?” he said, referring to the rather large stack in her hand.

“Oh,” she said nonchalantly. “These are for your parents; we’ll send them to you house later.”

“Uh,” he said, “I…live alone…did you guys not get that memo? I’m pretty sure my mom sent a note saying I’d be by myself.”

Ms. Ayame’s eyes widened, as did mine. “Oh…um, I don’t believe I was made aware of that…is there any way we could get this to your parents?”

He shrugged. “Not unless you guys’re willing to ship international; last I heard, Mum was in Venice; she’s probably in Novosibirsk by now.”

Ms. Ayame gave him a strange look, but just slid the parent forms back into his student file. “Well, we’ll just see what we can do,” she said, a bit of a snooty tone to her voice. 

I snorted.

“Excuse me, Miss Lancaster,” Ms. Ayame said, “is there something funny that I seemed to have missed?”

I held back my laughter and gave her my best bitch-smile. “Not at all, Ms. Ayame. Just a private joke that suddely popped into my head. I apologize dearly.”

She sent me a snarky smile. “Of course, it’s fine.” She turned to Takeshi, breaking into a smile. “So, that should be everything! Is there anything else you need?”

I snorted, in my head this time. What was it with this lady and making sure she had every boy in school sitting in the palm of her hand? She was known for only being nice to the boys, and being a total bitch to the girls, especially the ones with boyfriends. 

Of course, I expected Takeshi to be no different than the other boys and fall right into her trap.

“No thanks,” he said, to my great surprise. You could tell Ms. Ayame was surprised, too; her eyes were wide and there was a single bead of sweat on her forehead.

He wasn’t gonna come on to her? I thought. What a weird boy.

“A-are you sure?” Ms. Ayame asked. Her expression of worry quickly turned into a sensual one. She leaned on the desk further, to basically show him her chest. “I mean, if there’s anything you need….”

“I said I’m fine,” he interrupted. He took the papers in one hand, my hand in the other. “Come on, Adel,” he said, pulling me away. 

I was startled for a minute, but regained my composure quickly. I waved to Ms. Ayame. “Bye-bye,” I said in a meanly teasing voice. She just frowned angrily and turned to some work she was gonna pretend to do. 

I laughed, still being dragged by Takeshi. “Hey, Takeshi,” I said, twisting my head around to look at him, “looks like you’ve got your first admirer.”

“Shuddup,” he mumbled. “It’s not like I was into her anyway; she was a total slut.”

I regained my position, standing up. I stood still, making Takeshi stop with me. I looked him seriously in the eye. “You’re gay, right?”

He looked a bit shocked, but quickly started laughing. “No, not at all,” he chuckled. “What makes you think that?”

“Well,” I said, as if it was an obvious thing, (which, to be honest, it kinda was) Ms. Ayame, the school beauty, the woman that has every strait boy here sitting right in the palms of her hands, was totally coming on to you, and you just look absolutely disgusted.”

He shrugged. ‘That’s because I am. I dunno about other guys, but when I’m looking for a girlfriend, I don’t just look for boobs and a butt. I actually look to see if they take pride in themselves, something she obviously doesn’t, if she was so easy to reveal her chest like that.”

I smirked. “You have a point there.”

“And,” he continued, “doesn’t she know that’s completely illegal? A, what, twenty-four year old, hitting on high school boys? That’s pedophelia. I hope she knows she could be arrested.”

“Oh,” I said in a dreamy voice, “if only that could happen. My life would then forevermore be complete.”

He snickered a bit. “Lemme guess, you don’t like ‘er?”

I grimaced. “Not in the slightest, teensiest, weensiest little bit. She’s annoying, she’s loud, and she’s a whore. Need I say more?”

“Yeah,” he said a bit dreamily. “Say ‘whore’ again.”

“Uh…” I said, caught off guard. “Whore?”

“Hmm…” he said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. 

“What?” I said, my hands flying to my mouth. “Is there something on my lips?”

“No,” he said nonchalantly. “It’s just…your lips look really pretty when making an ‘o.’”

I immediately felt my face heat up. “Uh…thanks?” I said, my voice shaking a bit. What the hell was wrong with me? What happened to my voice?

Why the hell was Takeshi watching my lips?

All of these questions I would contemplate later. But for now I just brushed them aside and regained my composure.

Takeshi’s face was blood red, as if he’d just been attacked by an angry strawberry farmer. He had this look on his face that just screamed why-the-hell-did-I-just-say-that? It was a funny expression that almost made me want to burst out into laughter, right there in the school hallway. But I knew Takeshi was extremely embarassed, and that would only make it worse, maybe even make him mad at me. 

I decided just to move on and pretend as if that observation of my lips never happened. I grabbed his hand and started pulling him to our classroom. “Come on,” I said. “I wanna get there at least ten minutes before class. If you make me late, I swear you won’t hear the end of it.”

He still seemed a bit dazed, but followed along. We turned left, right, around, upside down, any way possible. Eventually we did reach 1-C, though, thank the Lord. Upon entrance, I was jumped by Keigo. 

“Adel!” he said, grabbing onto me, knocking me to the ground. I, startled, closed my eyes as hit. When I opened them, Keigo had a thoughtful expression on his face, half-delight (I was guessing because he was lying on my chest), half-observation.

“So,” he said, making his astounding observation, “that’s what your sex hair would look like!” My hair was all spread out across the floor, a white curtain blown in the wind. My face was red from the surprise, and…

…wait, my SKIRT WAS UP?!?!?!?

_________________________________

Toodleoodleoo!!!

OKAY, so I had posted this earlier (don't worry, nothing changed but teh song to teh right) and...it's mysetiously gone? So yeah, if this same chapter appears twice, do not alarm, good citizens! For the Crimson Chin is here!

tee-hee....

<3 Maycee-CHAN!