Location: Hallway
Time frame: Fifth period
Point of view: Syaoran

Meiling had no important news to tell me this time. She told me she was going to see her favourite artist (a local artist on tour in Hong Kong) and was going to make sure she got onto the stage to give him something she had for him. I told her to not be too ambitious (Meiling sometimes had problems understanding her own limits and limits in general), but she told me off for being such a stiff and boring guy who sounded like a, “stiff and boring guy”. I ended the phone call by telling her to enjoy the concert.

I entered calculus class and noisy chatter from clusters of people standing and sitting around the room greeted me. I had thought that by now fifth period would have been in progress, but after looking in the direction of the teacher's desk, I realised why it wasn't: Mr. Hisamatsu, our calculus teacher, hadn't arrived as I saw his desk empty. I made my way to my desk at the front of the room.

Amongst the rowdiness, I sensed eyes following my movements: they were coming from the classroom's back corner; my left. I peered in that direction: I found three pairs of eyes—those belonging to Kinomoto, Daidouji, and Mihara—peering up before those eyes snapped to their desks below. I halted my steps momentarily and waited for them to notice my gaze; I caught Kinomoto sneaking a glance, but she returned to her desk a second later. The sight was no doubt curious, but I dismissed it and continued making my way to my desk.

“Hey, Li. How was your lunchtime?” Kojima asked as I arrived.

“Hey.” I put my bag down. “It was good.”

“That's good,” she replied to me.

Kojima Natsumi, she sat one desk diagonal to mine and was one of the top students in this class. She was also a prefect—the Head of Culture. Kojima Natsumi was one of a few people in this school who I find to be good company.

I unpacked my gear; then returned the question: “How was yours?”

“We went out for lunch and now I'm really full.”

“That's good.”

Kojima continued, “We went to this bakery in town and got some pastries. I saw that a lot looked really good, so I bought a few. But I couldn't finish...” She reached for something on her desk that I couldn't see. “Do you want this one?”

What she had reached for and then placed in front of me was a white paper bag with—what I guessed was—one of the pastries that she had bought from the bakery store that she couldn't eat. I declined:

“No thank you. You save that for yourself.”

She did not immediately retract the food item; she left it there for several moments longer before she smiled—almost awkwardly—then placed it back on her desk. She came back to me with eyes that were looking a little less fully at me. I looked at her curiously; she gave another awkward smile. I wondered why she had gone quiet all of a sudden.

There were many more moments of nerve-jolting behaviour from the class and still the teacher had not appeared. This was not the first time however. I had attempted to use this time to study up on the material that was going to be on the calculus test two weeks from now, but the noise in the classroom was making it very difficult, especially when objects were airborne like one was now: a paper dart barely missed me as it curled away from me and moved towards the teacher's desk. It finally landed just a centimetre or two from the rubbish bin located underneath the front of the teacher's desk.

I looked to the clock that hung above the whiteboard at the front for the time, but I didn't manage to see it as a person standing before me blocked my view.

“Hello, Li,” the person greeted me with.

This person who stood in front of my desk was Kinomoto. She stood with both hands clasped behind her back and a smile that could be classified as ‘cute'—an image of innocence, but I sensed her display to be far from innocent: the whispery greeting and usage my name gave it away. In addition, Kinomoto did not normally converse with me nor used my name to address me.

“I think my eraser rolled over to your desk,” she said; then pointed low. “It's just by your left foot. Do you think you can get it for me?”

I shifted my legs to one side as I looked under the desk to where her finger and the ground connected. However, after searching around the spot she claimed her eraser had rolled to, I found nothing.

She persisted, “It's just there, in front of your left foot. I can see it.”

“I already checked there. I'm sorry: it's not here. Your eraser must have rolled elsewhere.

“You kicked it under your chair. You have to move back to get it.”

I raised an eyebrow. “It did?” I asked. By now, I was becoming suspicious.

“Yeah, it's green, so it might be hard to see against the vinyl.”

I gave it another go: I pushed my chair back; a long screech of rubber on vinyl sounded. I thoroughly searched behind, in front, and to the sides of my chair; and not surprisingly, there was no sign of a small object that resembled an eraser. I got myself back up; but I didn't make it full way by myself or in the normal manner: I was forced back against the wooden backrest of my chair as Kinomoto sat herself down—on my lap!

“Hey,” in a flirtatious tone. “You know, you're quite the quiet type, aren't you?”

I felt the arm that had draped over my left shoulder move around to the back of my neck then brought forward. Her fingers played with the collar of my shirt. She giggled then smiled—a sugary smile that girls had when they were trying to seduce you as she continued:

“I like quiet types, you know that?”

I caught onto her skirt which exposed more of her legs as she crossed them further.

I looked around the class and I found many eyes looking in my direction. Kojima supported the same look as I had—confusion. I returned to Kinomoto: her eyes had left me and was looking over my head and towards the left; her entire expression brightened, as if victorious—victorious in what, I did not know.

Her attention returned to me. More flattering words about the qualities I possessed that she liked came from her. When she told me that I was as good-looking as Ashida I came around: this performance, it was her trying to impress or get noticed by that cocksure loser again. “She is an idiot,”—using me to get his attention will not work. If she wanted his approval or get his attention, she should do this performance on him and done in his bedroom.

Her hands reached for my face; I moved back. The aim she had for this performance was not something I wanted to help her achieve.

“Get off m—“

I was about to tell her to get off of me, but her attention moved away from me. It was towards the back of the classroom. I called for her, but she was too far gone—mesmerised by whatever it was that was happening behind me. A moment more, Kinomoto's expression transformed from flirtatious to something that looked like hurt.

Concerned, I called to her again—“Hey.” She appeared lost when she answered my call as she returned back to me. “You okay?”

She didn't answer me as whatever was behind me got her attention again. Her expression further depressed and a frown appeared on her lips before I felt the collar of my shirt moving: she had begun playing with it again, but this time, it was out of dejection.

I looked to Kojima to see if she could provide me a clue to what this Kinomoto was seeing: she pointed behind and told me it was Ashida Kansuke. I attempted to turn and look at what was happening behind me, but with Kinomoto on me it was impossible to do so. I could only call for her and get her to return to me—I said,

“Hey.”

Her head sharply returned back to me and I felt cold air go past my right cheek with the forcefulness of the return. I found fury and hurt within her eyes. I asked her if she was okay again, but I only got a blank look from her before she finally snapped out of it. Her eyes were now filled with a sense of determination. She began again:

“Do you want to go out with me? I'm free tonight if you are?”

“Go out?” I asked, confused.

“Yeah. You...” She moved her face until it was only inches from mine. The flirtatiousness was back in her tone and body language as she resumed: “and me.”

She was still at it; still trying to get Ashida's attention. I felt pity—pity that she was so desperate as to do this. She may have sensed my thoughts as she retracted the suggestion—“Never mind,” she said before she moved onto another topic:

“You know, I was wondering: do you work out?” The hand that was at the collar of my shirt moved to rest on my left thigh. She continued,

“Mmm, you do work out a lot, don't you? I think your physique is better than the school's top athlete.”

Her eyes flicked up. ‘The school's top athlete' was a reference to Ashida. It was the second time she compared me to him. From that, I guessed that she was failing to get Ashida's attention and this was her means of getting him to pay attention to what was happening here.

She took hold of my thigh with the hand; then it became mobile. Slowly, it travelled. I was slow to understand her actions, but when the hand began to move further into the area of my inner thigh, I immediately understood: she was reaching for a part of my body that was inappropriate for her to reach for. I couldn't help but be amused though: I applaud her for the guts to attempt this, but I was not going to let that hand reach its destination.

I wanted to hear her reasons for sliding her hand up my thigh, however. I placed my hand on top of the travelling hand and stopped it in its track before calmly I asked,

“What is your hand doing?” I couldn't suppress the amusement that rose within me again as I felt a corner of my lips lift.

She made no response. After a couple of moments, she told me—a lie it was, however. Stammering as she did so, she explained:

“I was looking for your cell phone. It looks really pretty. I really like it.”

I found the muscle of my right cheek twitch again. This Kinomoto was not only amusing, but also quick on her feet. I suppose my cell phone could be around that area, but, “It's not there,” I replied, hiding my internal reaction. “You're several inches too much to the left.”

I placed one of my hands on her shoulder to keep her balanced before I reached into my trouser pockets in search for the object she claimed she was looking for. I flipped the top open before handing the cell phone to her. “Here.”

A little unsure, but Kinomoto took the object in hand; and although this was not what she had come over here for initially, one might say that she had as I saw her opening and closing my cell phone, examining things here and there, playing with it in a way that told me she was intrigued by the cell phone. By this time, with the length of time that Kinomoto had been sitting on my thigh, and although Kinomoto was not the least bit heavy, my legs were beginning to tire.

The teacher's entrance moments later saved me as he entered the room and said,

“That's enough of that, students. Leave that sort of thing outside of my class, please.”

At the announcement, Kinomoto abruptly jumped off before she handed me the phone and with a frosty voice, she said, “Here: your cell phone.”

I took it and watched her storm back to her desk.

I smirked in amusement: that was no doubt one amusing start to calculus class.