...Where... am I?

She looked around; everything in sight looked so familiar, yet, she could not recall any of the people or whatever was around her. Where was she? She tried to remember, but failed, as not a single thing appeared in her mind. Puzzled, she decided to ask one of those many passersby; maybe they would know something about her, right? And so, looking around for a few more times, she finally set her eyes on a boy who was about a year younger than her. How she knew that the guy with the seaweed-like hair was younger than her, she did not know. She just felt that that guy would know something about her.

Not to mention, the redhead with that egotistical look beside the seaweed-like hair guy looked awfully familiar as well.

Pushing away the thoughts of how funny the seaweed-like hair was, and how annoying that egoist was looking, she walked up to them, only to realize that they are having a conversation. Too into the conversation that they had failed to notice her.

    "I know that you are in a sour mood, but that doesn't mean you can go around and injure those kohai. If you really want to take your anger out by tennis, go play Sanada, I'm sure he will calm you down. Geez, just why do I have to look after you."

    "But Bunta-senpai! You know what happened to her! How could you act as if nothing happened? She is your classmate, not to mention best friend! Aren't you worried at all!?" The younger boy snapped, unhappy at how his senpai acted.

    "Of course I'm worried! But you've heard what the doctor said: she was fine, and she would wake up from the coma very soon. Besides, you know her well, she's too stubborn to continue like this."

    "But still..." he frowned deeply, mumbling. "She's in a coma..."

    "I told you, she'd be fine. Beside, if something's really happening up, Jackal will tell us. They're cousins after all, and they live together." The upperclassman named Marui Bunta sighed deeply as he patted his kohai's shoulder.

Overhearing their convention made her felt... strange. She tried to figure out what was that strange feeling, but she just... couldn't get her finger on it. Sighing at her failure, she raised her gaze to them, only to find out that they had walked a little further away from her.

    "Ah! Wait!" She quickly ran towards the pair, but only be stopped by someone grabbing her arm, stopping her from moving forward. "What on earth—" she stopped herself from swearing as she saw the person in front of her...

That all too familiar silver hair, and that...

Something flashed in her head as she finally realized something important.

    "You're... My classmate!" She shouted excitedly, that she actually remembered something. "The name is... er... ah! Niou!" Even though it seemed like she can't really remember him very well, but at least she does remember him!

    "And? Care to explain why are you here like this?" Said Niou Masaharu with a smile. Sarcastic, must be it. Ever since he knew that she, Kuwahara , have somehow managed to forget everything except her own name and that he was her classmate, Niou Masaharu had been acting strange...

Almost as if he was really pissed over at her, but that can't be it, right? After all, she had done nothing wrong for him to pissed at.

Now, being alone in the latter's bedroom was quite uncomfortable. Even though the room itself was quite a comfortable place for her, but the look was getting from Niou was not comfortable at all. And he just had to make it worse by showing her that all-so-forgiving smile.

He was making her feel uneasy on purpose.

    "...How would I know, when I couldn't even remember the slightest thing about myself other than my name?" the poor girl mumbled, moving her gaze away from his, not wanting to look into his eyes.

    "But I'm pretty sure you know the reason." said Niou, with that smile still not leaving his face, "There must be a reason, for that now your spirit is here, while your body is still alive, lying in the hospital." Taking a few steps forward, he trapped her into a corner of the room.

Earlier during the day, the trickster had told her about everything she needed to know – how she ended up having her spirit outside of her body. It was said that she was having a phone call while walking down the stairs, and was too into the conversation that she had missed a step and fell down the staircase in school.

    "You made everyone worried, so what should you say?" Despite what he had just said, there was no hint of worry in his eyes at all! 

    ".....................Sorry." 

    "Good girl." With a satisfied grin, Niou patted her head.

She did not question why was Niou acting as if they were close, when they weren't close at all? Instead, she pouted. "Has anyone ever told you that you're mean?"

    "Yeah, I get that a lot." It was a devious smirk, clearly shown that he was, in fact, enjoying it.

A sigh in response. "Anyway, I never knew that you could see... spirits," she paused a little, "and even touch them."

    "Saa... I wonder."

He turned away from her, as he took a step to the door. "I'm gonna get myself a drink, don't wander around; stay in here." Not even bothering to look back at her, he stepped out of his room.

And his eyes were dark. 

----------

In the hospital building, followed right beside Niou. Just not long before, Niou had told her to follow him to the hospital. He told her that if she saw her own body, she might be able to remember her past and go back into her body, since if she just goes back into her body without remembering anything, she might not be able to remember them when she wakes up.

The trip was silent; none of them spoke a single word ever since they left Niou's house. The one who first broke the silence was him.

    "Staring is very impolite, you know." 

    "Eh!?" It was then she realized that she had been staring at Niou the whole time ever since they left their house, and Niou didn't said anything about it until now? A good fifteen minutes later?

    "Or am I so good looking that you can't help yourself?"

felt heat rising up on her face as she saw that mischief smirk on that beautiful face of his – how does spirit blush when they don't even have temperature? Oh well, that doesn't really matter. The point is: she was blushing at him! How could she be like that to someone she barely know? And besides, she already has...

She already has...?

    "What's wrong?"

Hearing Niou's question, she simply shook her head. "Nothing," she smiled a bit, "just thinking of something."

He did not said anything after hearing her answer, instead, he continued his way down the corridor of the hospital, with the spirit of still following behind him. It was after a minute or two when Niou had suddenly stopped in front of a room,. Sshe stopped too, knowing that they had finally reached their destination.

She held her breath, as Niou slowly turned over the doorknob. Finally, she would get to see herself, to know more about herself...

And at the other side of that door, laid a girl who looked about the age of seventeen. In the center of a white room, she was lying peacefully on the white bed. Instead of saying that she was in a coma, it'd be more suitable to say that she was actually sleeping, a very long sleep it is.

felt a little dizzy, her head seem to be working out on something...

    "Jackal!" she shouted, running across the playground from where her mother stood to the young boy whom she shouted to. And she stopped just a few steps in front of her cousin; opening her palm to show him the coins she had in her hands.

    "Jackal! Mummy just gave us some money, let's go have some ice-cream!"

    "So? Did you remember anything?"

    "Hn," she nodded at the trickster's question, "I remembered quite a few things happened when I was still a kid." She smiled at the memories of her cousin and her; "It was really fun."

Niou, after hearing what she had said, simply frowned a little and sighed. "It seems like your cousin complex is getting from bad to worse..."

    "What the heck are you saying?"

    "Nothing." He smirked, "You'll know when you remembered everything."

    "...Whatever." She mumbled under her breath, as she took a look at 'herself' lying in the bed; and a question rose in her mind. "Hey, Niou." She looked over her shoulder at him, "Are you sure I fell down from the stairs? Because I saw no wounds or whatever around my body."

    "Well, you are not a person that would be hurt easily," he replied, as he went up towards her body and started twisting her shoulder length hair with his finger, playing with it. He seemed bored, or he was just simply wanting to irritating by doing that. Either way, he has successful. 

    "..........What are you doing?"

Niou looked up at her, grinning. "I wasn't doing anything." He answered, fingers still playing around with her hair. With the doubtful look he was receiving from , Niou repeated his answer. "Really, I wasn't doing anything yet."

Her eyes twitched, very annoyed at the trickster. "I don't want to know what you meant by 'anything yet'." She mumbled to herself. "Let's go then, I want to recover my memories and go back into my body as soon as possible so that I don't have to deal with you anymore."

    "Sure," It was a quick reply, as he stopped playing with her. A hint of mischief could be seen in his eyes as he opened the door of the room. No, decided, the look in his eyes was definitely more than mischief.

----------

It has been a week ever since she met Niou on that day, and three days since she had a fight with him. 

Her eyes twitched dangerously at the student sitting in front of her, paying attention to the teacher's speech while taking down notes.

And she twitched again when the said student had chosen to totally ignore her and instead, focus on the lesson he was currently having, which happen to be mathematics.

And still she twitched when she knew perfectly well the reason for him to choose to pay attention to class rather than skipping or sleeping through the class was for the sake of ignoring her. Because everyone who knows of Niou knew that he would never be a person who would pay attention to class; he was smart enough to pass his exams without having to study.

He was trying to let know that he was ignoring her on purpose.

Just to annoy her.

    "Niou Masaharu," she hissed, "stop that crappy acting of yours and answer my question."

No reply.

    "Niou Masaharu."

No reply.

Even though she was still twitching, she knew it very well that she was no match of this stubborn trickster. She frowned, not wanting to deal with this guy any longer, and so she went out of the classroom.

Wandering around the school, cursed as she recalled what had happened over the past three days. For the past three days, she had been following Niou everywhere, mostly around school or, sometimes, the way to her house, so that she would be able to go back to her own place whenever she felt like it.

And, due to her following him for almost twenty-four hours per day (she refuse to acknowledge that it was Niou who helped her), she had managed to recall about 85% of her memories in her life...

...Like how had Bunta and her became best friends.

...Or how many times had she been trying to help Akaya in her homework, only to give up and let him being scolded by his English teacher in the end.

...Or maybe whenever poor Jackal was being bullied by his teammates, how she'd help him in teaching Akaya and Bunta a lesson.

But, she began to notice it three days ago, that all those memories she remembered were only up until she was fifteen.

And currently, she was seventeen.

Something was very wrong.

She just couldn't figure out how the heck is going on in her head, for her to first lose all of her memories, and only to gain back the ones two years before.

She had also tried asking Niou, for that she thought that he might know something about it, after all, he has been seeing all these spirits and others for his whole life. But, she had gotten no answer from him at all. Upon hearing her question, Niou just remained silent for a few seconds, as if he was thinking of something. And then he'd ask her what was she remembered. After getting her answer, all he does was remaining silent for another few seconds before saying that he doesn't know anything.

It was a lie. She knew it perfectly well. The answer must have something to do with him. 

Of course, knowing that it was a lie, questioned him, only to receive a cold reply that he doesn't know anything and ever since that day, he had been ignoring her on purpose.

She frowned once again, as she did not know just what is going on in both their minds.

She sighed, it was about time for her to go back. It seemed that she had wandered to a corridor located at the west direction of their school quite far out from most classrooms. The whole corridor was awfully quiet; it must be because of the fact that this corridor is a place where the general office was. She turned; ready to get back to classroom as it was about time the class end.

    "But still, who would know that she's that fragile?"

The sudden laugher of some female students made her heart skipped. They were coming from the stairs right up in front of her.

    "It has been a week already isn't it?"

She started shaking as the voices got louder, indicating that they were coming down from the stairs.

    "Ne, aren't you getting a little too much?"

    "Stop sticking around him like a glue."

    "He only goes out with you out of boredom; he will ditch you the very moment he's sick of you."

Hearing that, the cornered girl did an unexpected act: she chuckled at those words.

    "—Just what on earth was that..." Her head hurt from the sudden flashback in her mind. They seemed to be unstoppable; it just kept flowing back into her mind, making her headache worse.

    "Geez, what's going around here?"

Great. She thought. And now he was going to join in into this mess? Fine, after all, she does have some question to ask him anyway.

    "Niou-kun!" the leader of the group of girls greeted with her best smile at the trickster, "It's really rare for you to come this area, is there anything?"

Of course Niou wouldn't be at this area often. If he were seen by any of the teachers, all he received would be nothing but lectures from them despite doing nothing wrong. The teachers here were all unfair towards him.

    "I just happen to pass by here, Mia. But I didn't know that you gals gather around here as well." He smirked that smirk he had used to charm his fangirls, "I've seen you all hanging around this area for quite sometime already."

    "That is because this is a quiet place, we like to stay in quiet places." The leader of the group, named Mia responded cheerfully, as if trying to please him by showing him her nicest side.

    "Ooh~" Niou nodded at the answer, "so that means that you all were here too on that day?" he asked another question, the tone of his voice remains the same as his usual carefree tone.

Mia paused a little when she heard the question. Her smile turned to a nervous one as she tried to reply to the question. "That day? Sorry but I'm not quite sure what day you are talking of. Now if you excuse me, I have to go to prepare for my next class."  And the group of girls fled away from the scene.

    "So, are you finally done with your flirting?" She twitched, staring straight at him.

    "Jealous?" he grinned, seem to be amused at 's reaction.

    "Why should I?" She replied coldly, gaze turned to the staircase in front rather than him. "Anyway, I remember you said that I fell off these stairs because I was talking on phone right...?"

    "That's what others said, no one witnessed it anyway."

    "I..." she paused, wondering if she should tell Niou about what she was thinking of in her mind. She wasn't 100% confirmed about it, but she had a feeling that it was true.

    "I don't think that was the reason for me to fall off this staircase."

    "Hmm... ok. I will get Yanagi to check on it."

    "You sure don't sound like you will bother to get him to check on it."

    "Because I don't think there's a need for that." He once again smirked at her puzzled figure. "It's 4^th December tomorrow."

    "What is so great about 4^th December?" scowled.

    "You will know it tomorrow."

----------

frowned. She wasn't in a good mood today, for her head had been hurting ever since that morning. And now, Niou just had to take her out to somewhere, not even bothering to tell her where he was planning to take her to. Just by trying to figure out what was he thinking made her headache worse.

    "Just where are we going to?"

He did not reply. As if not hearing any of her questions, he continued his way up the staircase in the park. There was an ice-cream stand at the side of the park, which she found it awfully familiar. That's right! She had came to his park before with Jackal when they were younger! And if she remembered correctly, right up in front from here would be a...

    "Here we are."

Right in her eyes was an empty street tennis court. They were the only person in the place. It must be because everyone was still in school studying. No one in the right mind would skip school just to come to a street tennis court except for the nut beside her.

    "...Why are we here?"

Niou frowned at the question. "Can't you seriously remember a single bit of it? Geez, try harder remembering it."

    "...?"

He hopelessly sighed. "Try to remember what happened here two years ago, on this day."

    "Two years ago...?"

It was a sudden breeze. was thankful that it was a Sunday, and that she wasn't wearing her school uniform but her casual clothes. Wearing a skirt on a windy day certainly wasn't a good idea at all for her. Especially when the wind today were strong.

They went to the street tennis court near their house to play a game, since had not played any tennis for a few months. She really need to start playing it again before she completely forgotten how to play it. Seiichi wouldn't be too happy about it after all; and no one makes Seiichi unhappy.

    "That was really a strong breeze isn't it, Jackal?"

    "Yeah... hmm?" Seeming to have spotted something, Jackal pointed out somewhere far in front of them. "Isn't that Niou?"

too looked at the direction Jackal was pointing at. And the silver hair that was shinning brightly under the sun caught her sight. So that was Niou Masaharu, the only regular of the tennis team who she has yet not met. But of course, his reputation was bad enough for her not wanting to meet him.

    "I guess we will have to greet him or something...?" she sighed, not really wanting to meet with this youth known as a trickster in school.

    "On that day... Jackal and I saw you talking to yourself in this court. And from that moment onwards, I started thinking of you as a nut rather than a trickster." She chuckled at the thoughts.

    "You don't have to remember something like that."

    "And..." she paused. Trying to confirm if she had remembered it correctly or not. "And..."

    "And what?" Niou smirked. Seeing her reaction, the trickster already knew that she had remembered.

    "..........We started going out because of a bet Bunta and Akaya set. Worse of all, none of us realized it because Seiichi had joined into the 'fun' as well. The bet was originally only to last for only a month, but somehow, we continued for three months... until Bunta and Akaya couldn't stand it anymore and told us that we would stop the bet already...

    "After that, you tricked me into continue going out with you..."

Hearing everything said, Niou grinned. "You missed out a lot of details."

    "Shut up."

    "Fine fine," with that, he took her hand. "It's no fun playing with a spirit anyway, time to be back to where you belong, my princess." He winked at her with his usual playful attitude.

    "...You're really mean."

Those were the last words she said before disappearing from Niou's sight.

Staring into the space was before she was vanished, Niou let out a soft chuckle.

    "Just who is truly mean, I wonder?" Oh well, he will deal with her later. Now it should be the time for him to head back school to deal with some more serious matters. 

Because no one messes with him, or his girl.
 

.fin
Kei
4.December.2006

This is a Dream Novel based on the a novel akira-sama wrote, named 'Zutto Soba ni...', it was more like a side story of it. Take place two years after the story when the Rikkai boys are in high school. And also, this is a birthday DN for Niou. I wonder how many people remembered this day...? Sigh.