Chapter 9

~A couple of days after the event at Nino & Ohno’s  apartment~

Noriko was just finishing up her class and was heading to work, when a car pulled up beside her. The tinted window rolled down to reveal Masami looking at her with a blank expression on her face. Noriko raised an eyebrow at this, what an earth was Nino’s girlfriend doing at her university? “Nagasawa-san, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Noriko said, accidentally letting a little sarcasm slip out into her voice. Masami glared slightly at the girl “I wanted to talk to you.”  She said making Noriko gave her a look that just said ‘and?’ “Just get in the car Matasumoto-san” Noriko just gave her a blank look. “yeah for you to drive me off a cliff or something. No thanks. If you want to talk to me talk, or go home.”

 Masami glared once again, but didn’t want to make a scene by dragging the woman in to her car so she just started talking through the window. “Stay away from Kazunari-kun.” She said simply. Noriko rolled her eyes “And why would I do that?” Masami looked smug when she opened to talk again “Because if you don’t then bad things might start happening to you.” Before Noriko could respond Masami spoke again “Remember when you used to live in Chiba, with a man by the name of Namida Yukio?” she paused for a moment. She knew Yukio seemed to be a possessive guy, and she didn’t know why Noriko broke up with him, but he would be certain to keep her away from Nino “Well I just so happen to be in contact with him, and if you really don’t want to see him then you will stay away from Kazunari-kun!”

Noriko was terrified of this information, but she wasn’t about to show it. Luckily, Noriko was smart, and had already had her phone in her hand when Masami’s car pulled up. When Masami showed her face and started talking, she immediately dialled the only number she remembered at that moment, which happened to be Usagi.

What she didn’t know was that Usagi happened to be having with one Ohno Satoshi therefore didn’t pick up her phone and it the conversation was going through to her voicemail.  Noriko decided to just accept it for now “Fine, Nasagawa-san, but what are you going to do when Nino becomes suspicious of the fact that I never come round to see him anymore?” Masami shrugged and looked like she didn’t care “By that time he will be doting on me and forgetting that you exist.”  Masami said turning her face back to the front of the car with a smirk “Well it’s been a nice chat Matsumoto-san, demo I’m an important person with lots of things to do.”  She said rolling up her window and driving off.

As soon as she left, Noriko put her phone to her ear and spoke “Usagi-chan!...Usagi-chan are you there?...” then she realised it must have gone through to voicemail. Noriko just sighed and hung up the phone “Let’s just hope she won’t delete the damn thing….” Noriko muttered to herself, and begun walking to the station to head to work.

~Later on~

Aiba and Noriko were sat curled up on the couch together with a blanket over then and Coco-chan laying on top of the blanket watching TV when the door bell rang. Aiba pouted, he didn’t want to get out from the blanket. The heating was broken at the moment and that was the only warmth they had in the house.

Noriko giggled at then sulking man and pushed him from out of the covers to go and answer the door. Aiba trotted over to the door slightly grumpily, with a curious Coco-chan following him, and opened the door, only to find a worried Usagi & Ohno, and an angry but worried Nino.

Rushing to take of her shoes, Usagi then rushed over towards Noriko and enveloping her in a hug. Apologising that she didn’t pick up the phone, until Ohno came over and enveloped the distraught woman into his arms, evidentially getting a look of surprise from Noriko but he shrugged it off. Now wasn’t the time to be discussing his and Usagi’s relationship.

Noriko looked over to the one person who had yet to make his way over to her, minus Aiba who was rather confused about the random bust of activity in the apartment. Nino eventually walked over to Noriko and sat down next to her on the sofa. “Eto… Noriko-chan… Gomen…” He saw that Noriko was about to say something but he shook his head as he wanted to finished what he was saying “I didn’t know she would be that overly possessive that she would go and do something so impulsively stupid. As far as I know, she doesn’t realise what Namida put you through, but that still doesn’t excuse her for doing what she did.” Nino was seriously trying to keep his anger down.

What Masami did was inexcusable and pissed him off at how relaxed and cocky she was about it. As soon as he heard the message on Usagi’s phone, he had wanted to phone up Masami and break up with her right then and there, but then decided that it would be a bad idea to do that over the phone, so he came round to see Noriko first, and apologise for his girlfriends, soon to be ex’s behaviour.

“I…I’m going to break up with her this evening. I refuse to be with anyone who would treat yo-… my friends that way…”Nino Stated and Noriko tried to lighten up the mood in the room by making a small joke “Well at least now we will be able to finish that level of Trauma Centre with no interruptions ne?” she said with a small giggle, making Nino smile and ruffle her hair slightly, making Noriko blush.

Aiba watched the scene from start to finish and still couldn’t make heads or tails of what was going on. “Would someone please explain to me what the hell is going on?!” he exclaimed with a cute pout , and Coco-chan adding in her own bark from Aiba’s arms, as if to say she also wanted to know what was going on.

Ohno Let Usagi go, seeing as she had calmed down, and took Aiba into the kitchen, grabbing Nino along the way to explain the situation. Usagi wandered over to Noriko with a sad look plastered to her face, making Noriko roll her eyes at her friend. “Usa-chan, stop blaming yourself over something that you had no control over!” Noriko said with a small sigh and pout. Usagi sighed in return “But I should have at least picked up the phone… I saw it ringing and I ignored it…” This comment made Noriko raise an eyebrow. “Nande?” She questioned. Usagi blushed as she responded “Because… because I was on a date…” Noriko remembered the interaction with Ohno and Usagi earlier and giggled “With Toshi-kun?” Usagi’s eyes widened “Eh?! How did you know?”

Noriko continued to giggle “I have my way’s, not to mention he was the one comforting you earlier…” Noriko said with a grin, making Usagi blush again. Noriko was just about to question more about their relationship, when there was a large shout from the kitchen area “EHHH?!” The two girls turned to the shout and giggled at Aiba’s gaping face. “Ne~ Masaki-kun, you look like a fish.” Aiba blushed and closed his mouth slightly glaring at Noriko “Demo Noriko-chan, how come you never told me?”

Noriko just shrugged “it’s not something you really bring up into a conversation, plus by the time I got home, you were panicking about the heating and all we both wanted to do was keep warm.” Noriko said with a little chuckle. Nino was watching Noriko throughout the interaction with Aiba, He could tell that even though she was smiling and joking around, she was scared. He had always been able to read her, no matter how much like she was her brother when it came to hiding her emotions, she could never hide them from him.

He was about to say something when he felt a buzzing go off in his pocket, sighing he picked up the phone. “Moshi Moshi?”  “Kazunari-kun Anata ga doko ni iru no?!” Nino’s eye twitched at the voice down the phone, how did he never notice her voice was that squeaky before? “at a friends house why?” he sighed back at the woman. “What friend?” Masami asked back all too quickly. “Why do you need to know exactly?” and how on earth did it take him this long for him to notice this weird possessive thing she had going on too? “Ah… no reason.” She once again said to quickly.

“Look im kinda busy now, but I need to talk to you later anyways, can we-” “Ah Nino-kun, Gomen for interrupting but were ordering take out, you want anything?” Noriko’s voice cut into the conversation, he smiled slightly but shook his head. Watching the girl nod and turn back to the rest of the group he continued his conversation “anyways as I was saying-” “Was that Matsumoto-san?” Nino’s eye twitched for the second time “So what if it was?” there was silence on the other end of the phone, and Nino just decided to continue what he was saying before he got interrupted… twice… “anyways if you’re not going to answer me, I’m just gonna continue what I was saying, can we meet up later please? Just come round mine in about an hour?” Masami responded with a ‘Hai!’ rather happily down the phone. Then Nino hung up the phone and turned to the group and excused himself, telling them that he needed to go and break up with Masami. They group nodded and said there byes.

Once Nino arrived at his apartment, he was unsurprised to find Masami already standing outside his door. He sighed and walked over announcing his arrival with a short ‘hey’. Hearing his voice Masami looked up from where she was currently texting away on her phone, and gave him a smile. “Hey~” she said back waiting for him to open the door and invite her in. Once he had done so and she had gotten comfortable on the sofa, Nino sat on the sofa next to her and started talking “So… this is kind of awkward for me to announce so suddenly, but, Masami…” He watched as Masami’s eyes widened and she had a big smile on her face as if she was going to suddenly get some really good news ‘does she really think I’m going to propose to her or something? After about 4 months or so of dating? Really? ‘ “Masami, We need to break up.” Her smile immediately dropped overtaken by a frown “Wha..wha…what? Nande?!” she announced aggressively.

“Nande? Really? Your actually asking why?” Masami looked confused at his question, of course she was asking why, she had no clue as to why he would want to break up with her, as far as she was concerned she had been the perfect girlfriend. Nino rolled his eyes at her expression “I’m breaking up with you.” He started  “As for why well, you always seem to want to know what I’m doing ,if I don’t answer my phone the first time you call it you complain that I don’t like you, your completely rude to my friends, but try to go around it in a way so I won’t notice. If not any of those reasons then the fact that you THREATENED Noriko-chan is more than enough! And with the worst thing possible too!” Masami looked really surprised that Nino knew about that and tried to deny it straight away “No I didn’t! did she tell you that? Because she’s obviously just jealous of us too being together! There’s no way I could do something like that.” She announced smugly thinking that she had changed Nino’s mind.

Nino grabbed his phone from his pocket and played the recording from Usagi’s phone to her, watching Masami’s face turn to dread. Once it had finished he placed his phone back in his pocket “Now tell me that you didn’t threaten Noriko! Do you even know what that man done to her? Do you know the reason why she ran away?!” Masami shook her head “That man used to beat her for fun! It got progressively worse over the time she lived with him and the final time when she ran away it was the worse, she came with bruises all over her face, and I’m certain someone mentioned something about cuts and more bruises elsewhere. And then you go and threaten he that your gonna tell that man where she is?!” Masami now had tears streaming down her eyes “Go-Gomen Kazunari-kun… I didn’t know… if I knew then I wouldn’t…” She trailed off stopping herself from saying the next words.

Nino knew something was off. He didn’t think she would be quite this upset about having to apologise for threatening Noriko, which meant there must be another reason…”Masami. What did you do?” He asked firmly. Masami’s head was bowed and she refused to look up and meet his eyes as she started talking. “Gomen… I already…I already told…him…where she works and… where she goes to school…” Nino’s eyes widened at this information. “You did WHAT?!” with that exclamation Masami started sobbing again, making Nino growl in frustration. “Masami. Please leave.”  Masami continued to cry as she got up and left the house.

Nino sighed as he looked up at his ceiling “Kuso….”

End Chapter 9

ARGH! That took way too long to get inspiration to finish!!! Well actually it was more like to get rid of writers block so I could finish >.> . and about the mini chapters I said I would post… I still have to write them so they will be posted after this one instead of before xD

P.s. With all these server issues on AFF, I just wanted to let people know that if you want to read my fanfiction but the sites down, everything is on my livejournal: lilemokai.livejournal.com so please go and check em out there if the sites down ^^