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Tug-of-War	By : thewriterwhocameinfromthecold Category: +G to L > Love Hina Views: 57788 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 6
Disclaimer: I do not own Love Hina or it's associated characters. I am not profiting off this work in any way.

Chapter List
- 19
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Sakura knelt before her sensei and bowed deeply. Matsuo accepted her bow with a gracious nod.
“Please rise, my student.” He stepped behind her and opened the door to the gardens. “Come, walk with me.”
Sakura fought a smile as she imagined walking with her beloved amongst the blooming flowers, covered overall by the calling of the birds and the rhythmic clap of the shishi-odoshi. Could this be the moment she had been waiting for, would she finally have the opportunity to confess her long held love for the man who had taught her everything?
“As you wish, Master,” she said with enforced neutrality, and they went outside together. Amid the blue sky, however, Sakura detected a looming black cloud; and it seemed to be hanging directly over her sensei’s head. “Does something trouble you, Master?”
Matsuo turned her and looked deep into her eyes, as if seeking some hidden answer deep within their depths. He must have found what he was looking for, because he said, “There is something I suppose.”
Sakura felt her heart skip a beat. Her beloved master was taking her into his confidence, a gesture so intimate that it made her want to melt into him. “May I know master?”
He did not answer right away, appearing to contemplate the falling of the blossoms that bore her name, as he often did when troubled. Oh, how she wished it was her that he stared at with such single-minded intensity.
“Sakura,” he said at last, “you are the greatest student that I have ever trained.”
She looked away, desperate to hide the burning blush. “You do me too much honour, Master.”
“Indeed not. You are the best I’ve ever seen. That is good, for you will need it when the time comes.”
She looked at him. “When the time comes? What time is that, Master?”
He ran a hand through his lush locks of hair. “I have received a letter from my father. It seems that to secure the future of my family’s ambitions that he wishes me to meet with the Lady No.”
“Meet?” Sakura asked innocently.
He sighed. “To negotiate our marriage contract.”
Sakura stifled a dismayed cry. Her dear master was leaving her. She clenched her fist and willed all her pain down into it as if to crush it. She would not betray herself now; she owed it to herself and Matsuo to show dignity.
“I suppose I should say congratulations.”
“Don’t say that!” She gasped as he gripped her shoulder and spun her to face him. She gasped at the intensity of his eyes as he gazed down at her in the manner of a starving man before a meal.
“Master?”
“You must know,” he said, leaning closer. “You must know that were it not for my father I would never even agree to meet this woman.”
“Why?” Did she dare to hope?
He gave her a strange look. “Surely you know. I cannot meet a potential bride when there is already someone that I love.”
His eyes seemed to be filling her with electricity. “Who?” she asked, with her heart in her throat.
He smiled. “You, my dearest Sakura.”
A smile erupted across her face as tears pricked at her eyes. “Oh, Master.”
Then he kissed her. It was…wonderful. Everything she had imagined it would be. As he kissed her...She felt…so good. She longed to…
Motoko scratched her head. ‘She longed to’ what?
She longed to kiss him forever. She…
Motoko dragged her pen back and forth in lazy strokes. What now?
She felt so wonderful as he…as he…as he…
Motoko growled in frustration, dropping the pen on her desk. This was impossible. Why was it so easy to get into Sakura’s head at every other scene except this? The more she wrote, the better she felt she understood what Sakura was thinking and feeling. It was almost as if Sakura were a part of her or vice versa. So why, now that she had started to write directly about the overpowering love that Sakura and Matsuo felt for each other, was she drawing a blank? Why did love feel so elusive? Perhaps because the films she had seen always cut away during the kiss. She hid her pages in the back of her desk drawer and stepped out into the hallway. There was no problem, she told herself. It was just like before when she had needed to borrow a book from Naru for inspiration. If she wanted to write about love and loving, then she needed to read about it.
The question was how best to do it? She could call her sister for advice, but that might lead to awkward questions, details of Tsuruko’s relationship with Shinosuke, news about the baby Shinosuke and she were about to have, or other topics Motoko would do anything to avoid. No, Motoko did not want to talk to Tsuruko. Her roommates were almost as bad. Motoko cringed at the thought of the questions from Naru and the jibes from Kitsune if she were to knock on either of their doors asking to borrow a romance novel. Shinobu was too young, at least Motoko hoped she was, and Su was naturally out of contention. There was nothing for it, she’d have to go to the bookstore and buy a book for herself.
Then she remembered, some time ago she had gone into a shop to pick up a kendo magazine and had passed the romance section of the store. She had taken one look at the lurid covers, of waifish women in the arms muscle bound almost feral looking men, and sniffed in contempt. There was no way she would allow herself to be seen carrying a book like that. What could she do? Then it came to her: a disguise. No one would recognise her that way. She went to her closet and flung the door wide.
Her shoulders slumped. The only outfits she had in her closet were her various gi and hakama, and her school uniforms. Was that really all she wore? She shook her head. What need had she for anything else? As she flipped through the closet, she came across her winter coat. That would provide some camouflage. What else could she use? In a flash of inspiration, she went down the hall and knocked on Naru’s door.
“What is it?” Naru asked. Behind her, Keitaro was poring over a textbook.
“I was wondering if you had a pair of sunglasses I could borrow,” Motoko asked. Sunglasses wouldn’t arouse curiosity, right?
Naru looked behind her at the overcast day on the other side of the window. “Why on earth would you want sunglasses on a day like today?”
Curses, why hadn’t she thought of that? “Well, it’s…It’s for a training exercise. To see how my skills fare in conditions of reduced visibility.” Please let her buy it. Please, please, please?
Naru shrugged. “Let me check my desk. I think I left them there.” A minute later she handed the pair of dark wraparound shades to Motoko. “Wait a minute.”
“What is it?” Motoko asked, stiffening.
“If you’re training, where’s your bokken?”
“In my room?” She’d meant to say it firmly, but the lie turned it into a question.
Naru gave her a quick smile. “Well, best of luck, then.”
When Naru shut the door, Motoko breathed a sigh of relief. Before taking up the pen, she was hard pressed to think of a time where she’d felt so compelled to lie. Who knew that the creation of art required so much deceit?
The bell rang overhead as Motoko stepped through the sliding door, the collar of her winter coat pulled high, hair tied back, and sunglasses firmly in place. She ignored the suspicious looks that followed her as she walked into the store and took careful stock of the genre labels that adorned the shelves. She followed the signs to the back of the store and came face to face with her quarry. All around her the same garish covers greeted her eyes. She slid the glasses down her nose to get a better look. Which one should she pick? The covers all bore similar weak women and man-beasts locked in embrace, or was it combat? The possessive grip the men maintained on their women suggested a violence that Motoko had been unprepared for. If she saw it on the street, she was sure she would feel compelled to intercede with her blade. Would reading this stuff really help?
She picked a book off the shelf – bearing the picture of construction worker pressing a woman in a sundress against the cab of a dump truck – and looked at the back summary.
“Let’s see. ‘Divorced and lonely Ritsuko had no man in her life.’” Motoko snorted. “Or self esteem, either.” She picked up another book. “ ‘Shiina knew it was wrong, but the gardener was so tempting. Especially with her husband gone so often’.” She rolled her eyes. Adultery? No, thanks. “Apparently talking to her husband about her problems is out of the question. Or making new friends, or getting a hobby.” She tossed the book back on the shelf and grabbed yet another. She read the words ‘He had a hunger only she could slake’, and suppressed the urge to gag.
Were they all like this? Surely there had to be one solitary book in this section where the men weren’t borderline predators and the women unrealistic doormats. Tsuruko had once referred to love as the bond itself. Where were those books? Surely there had to be one solitary book that had a man rather than a beast and a woman who wasn’t a total weakling. She decided to try one more time before giving up. She ran a listless finger over the book spines.
“Eeny meanie miney moe.”
Her finger came to rest on a black paperback. The title, in bold white script was The Evening’s Promise, and name of the author beneath: Naoko Katsuragi. Motoko picked up the book and looked at the cover. So far so good, no he-beast clutching a woman like the catch of the day. A short-haired woman with a cigarette between her teeth stared up at Motoko with a searching expression. She was leaning against a Renault Alpine against the backdrop of a city at night.
Motoko turned the book over and read, “Asuka’s goals in life was simple: stay one step ahead of the competition and get the story no matter what the cost. So when she gets word of corruption at city hall, she’s on the case.” Motoko blinked. It didn’t seem like a romance novel at all. She read on, “The further she digs, the closer she seems to something big. The only thing standing between her and journalistic glory is Hideaki, the mayor’s aide.” Motoko couldn’t believe her eyes. The book actually sounded interesting.
“Ms. Motoko, is that you?”
Motoko nearly leapt out of her skin. She turned to see her entourage standing at the other end of the aisle. Discovered!
“Oh, hello,” she said, pasting on a smile and secreting the book behind her back.
“We weren’t expecting to run into you here, Ms. Motoko,” Emi said, taking the lead. Motoko noted, as the group came closer that Sachiyo was making an effort to stand between Emi and Kikuko who took up the rear. They mustn’t have made up yet.
“Why are you wearing sunglasses?” Kikuko asked.
“Oh!” Motoko ripped the shades off her face. “I forgot about these.” In a moment of uncertainty, she stuffed the book under the back of her coat. “I just decided that I could use some new reading material.”
“I didn’t think you were the type to read romances,” Sachiyo said.
“Romances?” Motoko scoffed, beginning to sweat. “No, I was looking for…” She sought salvation in the opposite shelf, pulling a title at random. Upon seeing the cover, a high squeal seeped through her tightly pressed lips.
“Is something the matter?” Emi asked.
“Nothing,” Motoko replied, slamming the book back in its place and stalking down the aisle. “Wrong section.”
‘I didn’t even know they wrote books like that,’ she thought as she tried to expunge the image of two impossibly pretty men entangled in each-other’s arms, smiling hungrily at each other with opposite ends of a rose stem between their teeth.
Later she was standing in line holding a copy of Ueshiba’s The Art of Peace, which she already owned, with the other book still stuffed up the back of her coat, and her friends standing with her clutching manga. Somehow, she had to get rid of them lest they force her to become a shoplifter.
“Where are you going after this?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
“We were thinking about getting some tea at the Pink Pearl,” Sachiyo said. She was still standing between Emi and Kikuko who had said little to each other since arrival.
“Perhaps I might join you?” Motoko suggested. Sachiyo looked tired of having to play referee.
“Would you?” Sachiyo and Emi asked together with glee.
“That would be very nice,” Kikuko said, giving her idol a half smile.
“Good,” Motoko said. “Oh!” she cried, pretending to see something. “There’s someone I need to speak to over there. Why don’t you go on ahead and I’ll meet you there?”
Before the others could confirm or deny, she was out of the line and running down an aisle. She returned The Art of Peace to the shelf and waited a few minutes before returning to the line. When she returned to the line, the clerk smirked at her.
“Finally lost them, did you?”
“I’m sorry?” Motoko asked.
The clerk scanned the Katsuragi novel and stuffed it into a bag. “Once a week a girl like you will come in, wearing the same ridiculous get-up acting like they’ll die of shame if someone sees them buying a romance.” He chuckled to himself. “You’d think they were buying Hustler.” He handed her the bag, which she accepted with a sheepish look to the side. “You were more entertaining than most I must say.”
Motoko said nothing but burned with embarrassment as she walked out of the store and down the street.
Kitsune glowered down at the textbook. “How do you stand this day after day?” she asked her oldest friend.
“Something tripping you up?” Naru asked as she turned off the stove, picked up the tea kettle, and filled a pair of mugs.
“Tripping me up?” Kitsune scoffed. “More like running me down. Is this really all necessary to get into university?”
Naru opened the cupboard by the fridge and removed a box of tea bags. “Apparently.”
Kitsune growled and ran her hands through her hair in rapid frustrated gyrations. “You know, I hear that in other countries you don’t need to take exams to get into university. In some places, they just look at your high school grades and that’s it.”
“That might work for other countries,” Naru said sitting down and placing a mug in front of Kitsune, “but do you really want universities to judge you on your grades alone.”
Kitsune thought back to her report cards. “Fair point.”
Naru patted her friend’s hand. “Cheer up, only a couple weeks to go. Then we can all get back to normal.”
“Normal? Which normal would that be?” Kitsune counted off on her fingers. “Would that be the normal where men were too terrified to look at us for fear of Motoko’s wrath? Or would that be our current normal of living just one door down from a sweet, kind, giving guy who’s good in the sack, but too noble to scratch my itch, which is getting worse by the day by the way.” Kitsune rested against her elbow, looking to all the world like a girl who had lost her favourite toy. “Normal sucks.”
Naru gave a sympathetic nod and sipped her tea. Once you got used to getting it on a regular basis, a return to celibacy felt like torture. Even if she’d felt inclined to go on a manhunt, her reputation, or rather Motoko’s reputation, still preceded her. Most of the boys at school still avoided her gaze.
“Too bad we can’t turn her into one of us,” she mused.
“Can’t we?”
“We’ve had this conversation before. Whatever she does to Keitaro now will pale in comparison to what she’ll do to us if we try. So we’re stuck until Keitaro decides he’s done being a saint or someone fucks the bitchiness out of Motoko.”
Kitsune dropped her head on the table with a loud smack. “We’re doomed.”
A loud bang from the hallway and Su crowing her return put an end to the conversation. A second later, Kitsune and Naru were watching in wonder as Su darted about the kitchen at a speed that defied explanation as she got a plate from the cupboard and ran to the fridge.
Words flew from her mouth as she piled her plate high with leftovers. “Hi Naru hi Kitsune school was great today I spent art class perfecting my latest invention I can’t wait to test it out on Keitaro is he home where is he oh well later then I have to go build the prototype if you see any funny smoke coming from my door just don’t inhale is Shinobu all right she seems strange today I tried to talk but she won’t say anything oh well I have to go call me when supper starts bye!” At that moment, Su’s stream of consciousness was dammed by a rice ball; and she ran to her room with her plate.
“Did you catch any of that?” Kitsune asked as her head began to spin.
Naru scratched her head. “Half. Maybe.”
Kitsune sought solace in her tea. “Me too. Hopefully not the same half. Oh, hi Shinobu.”
The little chef made no acknowledgement as she passed with her head down and her shoulders slumped. Kitsune and Naru shared a look. In most people, Shinobu’s behaviour could have meant nothing more than a bad day. In Shinobu, however, it could indicate something far more painful. The two young women caught up with the girl on the stairs.
“Is something wrong, Shinobu?” Naru asked.
The girl paused in mid-step, but didn’t turn.
“You can talk to us if you want, Sweetie,” Kitsune coaxed.
Shinobu turned, looking at her feet, considering something. Then, coming to a decision, she asked, “What do you do when someone you know is being…?”
“Being?” Naru prompted after a pause.
“Being bullied,” Shinobu finished.
By unspoken assent, Kitsune and Naru asked Shinobu into the kitchen. This was obviously not a stairway conversation.
“Now, just what’s going on?” Kitsune asked once they’d given Shinobu a cup of tea.
Shinobu sipped at the steaming mug to avoid talking until she couldn’t anymore and then stared down at her knees. “There are…these girls in my class.”
“Have they been picking on you?” Naru wanted to know.
“A little, but nothing I can’t handle.” Shinobu played with her fingers. “Mostly they ignore me, but they’ve been going after this other girl, Akiko.” Shinobu’s face contorted into an angry pout. “And the worst part is that she doesn’t even realise that they’re doing it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Shinobu worried her lip, “Akiko is very…trusting. We’ve been friends for a while, you see. But these other girls come at her when no one’s with her, and they pretend that they’re her friends and do stuff to humiliate her, and she doesn’t even know it.”
So it was that old game. Kitsune grimaced. There must have been a clique of girls like that in every high school in the world. She ought to know since she had been part of one for a while. Scammers attracted scammers, and it wasn’t long in Kitsune’s high school career before she had built up a group of friends whose idea of a good time was to kiss up to guys to get free stuff or pretend to be friendly with an isolated girl for the laughs. She might still have been that way if it hadn’t been for Naru.
Before Naru and she had become friends or live together, Kitsune had been playing around with a member of the school computer club. The poor boy – a guy of above average intelligence, but little in the looks department and nothing in terms of street sense – came from a wealthy family, which made him a prime target for Kitsune in her less than scrupulous days. It didn’t take much to get him under her thumb. Just the hint that she might someday kiss him or relieve him of the shameful weight of his virginity (as if the guys who teased him about being a virgin were any further along than he was) was enough to get him to capitulate to any coy requests she made for money or presents. Little did she realise that one of her underclassmen, Naru, had been watching these games from afar with mounting disgust; and decided to do something about it.
One day after school, Kitsune went looking for her little toy, but he was nowhere to be found. So she asked around and was told that an underclassman had asked him for her help down at the equipment shed. Upon investigation, she found the shed shut with no one around. It was unlocked, so she decided to look inside. When she opened the door, she heard an unmistakable moan. When she ventured farther in, she realised that she it wasn’t one person moaning but two. There, lying on a gym mat, safely hidden from view by a vaulting block, were Naru and the boy whose name Kitsune could no longer remember (a fact that shamed her to this day). Naru’s shirt was open and she held his hands tight to her breasts as she rode him with her skirt still on. She smiled down in approval as the guy stared transfixed by the sight of his cock disappearing into her pussy.
At first, Kitsune’s rage had demanded that she break the whole thing up right then, but her greed forced her to consider the coast of losing her meal ticket. So she waited outside the equipment shed for them to finish. Once the guy had left, she stomped into the equipment shed where Naru was still buttoning up her blouse.
“Just what do you think you’re doing with my-”
“Your what?” Naru asked, looking far too composed for a girl who had been found half naked in a storage room. “Your boyfriend? Well, we both know that isn’t true, don’t we?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kitsune replied, digging her heels in. “Aren’t you being smug for someone in your position?”
Then Naru shocked Kitsune by laughing. “Come on, everybody knows that you’ve been shaking that guy down, even he knows now. I just decided to give him what he’d never get in a million years from you.” She finished with the blouse and stood up, smoothing down her skirt. “You missed out, actually. He may not have much background knowledge, but he’s so eager to please and follow directions that I came twice.”
Something in Kitsune snapped, and she yelled, “Who do you think you are?”
Rather than answer, Naru replied with her own question: “Tell me, have you ever liked any of the guys you’ve fucked?” With that she was gone.
The question was still on Kitsune’s mind the next day. So much so that she begged off joining her friends at the usual lunch time perch, and went in search of Naru. It wasn’t hard to find her given her popularity, and Kitsune soon caught up with her playing a pickup game at the softball diamond. From her place in the dugout, Naru caught sight of Kitsune and her intent stare. She left the game to meet her on the side of the field.
“Something on your mind?” she asked.
Kitsune kicked at the dirt. There had been many things that she’d wanted to say, but seemed to have vanished. “Yes,” she said finally.
“I beg your pardon.”
“Your question yesterday. Yes, I used to.”
“But not anymore.” A statement, not a question.
Kitsune’s stomach gave a queasy little turn as she acknowledged the answer to herself and thought about the little favours she’d given or pretended to promise in exchange for money, gifts, and attention. It made her feel worse than dirty. “No, not anymore.”
“That’s because you use sex as a weapon,” Naru replied.
“What? I do not!” Yes, she did.
“A tool, if you prefer. The point is that you do it with guys because you want something from them, rather than because you want them, and that’s why you’re miserable.”
“Who says I’m miserable?” Kitsune demanded. How did this girl know so much? Wasn’t she, Kitsune, supposed to be the perceptive one?
Naru shrugged as if the answer were obvious. “You did, or you wouldn’t be here. You’d be off scamming some other poor guy.”
“And I suppose you’re just so happy?” Kitsune asked, grinding her teeth.
“Happier than you. At least I’m with those guys because I like them.”
“Even a loser like that guy from yesterday?”
“Yeah,” Naru replied without hesitation. “He’s actually really nice. I mean you’d know that if you bothered to see him as something other than a cash machine.” She turned on her heel and returned to her softball game.
That conversation had been the beginning of a change in Kitsune. She started hanging out with her friends less and less until she stopped speaking to them altogether. Then came the lonely days. Word got around, and not too many people were prepared to accept a girl who had a reputation for being a scam artist. For a couple weeks, she spent her time outside of class alone as she made the cursory walks from Hinata House to school and back. Life had dried up most of Kitsune’s tears; otherwise she would have cried herself to sleep. This went on until Haruka came to the door one day, announcing to Kitsune and Su that the house had a new resident. To Kitsune’s surprise it was Naru Narusegawa. The two girls regarded each other with a wary uncertainty as they greeted each other formally.
Later that night, Kitsune climbed the stairs to Naru’s room and knocked on the door to ask the girl how she was settling in. Naru replied that she was doing quite well and that she was looking forward to making the most of her new situation; but she was looking away as she said it, and Kitsune had the sense that it wasn’t entirely true. Perhaps they weren’t so different after all. Then Naru turned to look at her and must have seen something because her face became clouded with concern.
“Kitsune, are you all right?”
No. No she was not; and for the first time she didn’t feel like lying about it.
“I’m a total bitch,” she said, staring at her feet. “And I hate it.”
That had been the night that Naru became her friend, her conscience.
Back in the present, Shinobu was explaining an incident that had happened to Akiko just that afternoon. “They told her that if she wanted to look mature, she needed some make up, so they took her to the washroom and covered her all over in this bright lipstick and this horrible eye shadow. She looked terrible, and they just let her walk into the class like that. The teacher asked her what had happened to her face, and she had no idea what he was talking about. Everyone laughed.” Shinobu looked like she wanted to cry.
“Sounds like a rough situation,” Naru said.
“I don’t know what to do to help,” Shinobu said.
“Have you tried talking to the teacher?”
“Yes, but he says that unless Akiko makes a complaint, there’s not much he can do.”
“Don’t worry,” Kitsune said suddenly. “We’ll think of something.”
“Really?” Shinobu asked, with hope underlying the scepticism.
Kitsune smiled, ignoring Naru’s surprised expression. “Just you leave it to Big Sis.”
“That might not have been wise,” Naru said once Shinobu had gone upstairs to play with Su. “If you can’t deliver on that promise, she’s going to be broken hearted.”
“I’ll find a way,” Kitsune said. “Someone has to save this girl from them, like you saved me.”
Naru gave her a startled look, and then crossed the table to take her friend in her arms and kiss her on the forehead. “You saved yourself,” she said.
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Tug-of-War