False Advertising

style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-bidi-font-family:
"Courier New";color:black'>Twenty-Two

            Shivering, the boy curled into his wares as the morning
carried on through the streets of Nerima.  It had been a long, though
enlightening week or so.  The leaves fell like snow, leaning to ideas of a
close winter.  Month-dead leaves littered the streets, crunching as Shun
shuffled through them.  A familiar tinge in the air was beginning to haunt
him as his breath made clouds in the crisp air.  It felt resolved,
somewhat, but ominous in the big picture.  He was never really one for
destiny, so it didn't really bother him.

            Turning, he began walking down a street on his loop back
to Greenwood. 
A road traversed before, but still a relaxing journey just the same.  A
few of the trees were bare, now, brown, black and otherwise ashy fingers of the
branches scratching the blue skies, the earth and its system waking up with the
rest of Japan.  Suddenly, the breeze shut down, the cold air stilling as
the leaves above failed to sway.  He looked up, a small cloud dotting the
middle of the sky, static in the azure field.

            He looked down to the sidewalk, the rush of stepping on
leaves filling the air in the wind's place, the cicadas long since gone in
these colder days.  It was an eerie silence, a bird chirping off somewhere
in the distance.  Somewhere else in the hills came the clink of a gate,
maybe a few blocks away, the stillness settling back in.  Immediately he
looked up, paling a bit as he stood before a shadow.

            There sat Senkoyou
Girls School,
the notorious pink-and-purple laden lesbian farm.  Something about that
school suddenly scared the living daylights out of him.  They were
terrible colors, indeed, and were probably part of the mass programming that
went on there.  Oh, you'd think Shun would know better, but girls are
different from boys.

            He snorted and he recommenced his walk, not getting far
as the patter of foot falls sounded behind him.  Turning to look, his brow
lifted at an oddly fitting sight.

            ". . . Miko?"

            "Ah!" she exclaimed, nearly skidding to a stop
before him.  "You remember me!"

            He wondered if she knew.  Probably not.  He'd
run so fast that he probably did look
like a girl.

            "Yeah. . ." Smiling politely, he gulped. 
"What do you want with me?"

            She blushed for a moment, looking down to the
street.  "Oh, right, that whole thing that happened. . . I mean, you
ran so fast, I figured I'd just scared you."

            Scratching his head, he hugged his coat tighter, giving
the faint hint of a bosom he didn't have.  "Well, I didn't
think–"

            She coughed, sweeping of her curly blue locks back behind
her ear.  "Oh, I am. . . I had somewhat of a revelation this past
week." She blushed to no end, Shun's shock equally as displayed via his
slack-jawed gape.  "And I couldn't stop thinking about you!" She
flashed him a soft smile, green eyes sparking a bit like morning dew.

            Did everyone just up and go gay?  Man!

            "Oh, gosh, I'm flattered," Shun sputtered,
rubbing the back of his head, digging his foot into the ground.  He
couldn't help as his own smile rose to his face, his cheeks just a little
red.  "But," he said, gazing at her apologetically, as he gave a
simple laugh,  "I'm taken. . ."

The End!

If you care to read my notes,
go ahead along to Chapter Forty-Nine
(49)