5 No one calls me a freak!

Rumi pushed through the crowd that had gathered at the entrance, she had heard from some juniors alerting everyone in on the current situation involving Professor Tenji, Fiku, and headmistress Maiyu.

In a rush, they had sprinted out of their classroom and she just had to tag along.

"Watch it, you freak!" A boy hissed as soon as he was pushed.

When he turned to see who he had made such comments about, he froze in shock, "R-Rumi... I... Didn't know."

Rumi's blue eyes had glowed as she was about to take the comment personally, this had been a word she had been called several times in her neighborhood and it triggered a brooding action.

Unable to predict what might befall him, he bolted in the direction in which the whole crowd had converged.

He looked back a few times before he accidentally crashed into someone.

Shaking his head and pushing himself up, he was met with a frustrated Maiyu–she had been the victim.

"What are you doing, Dai?!" She snapped.

"I am deeply sorry, headmistress." He pleaded with a bow of his head as his heartbeat quickened, "I didn't mean to cause your fall."

'Weak!' Rumi thought with spite and rolled her eyes. Folding her arms, she drew her lips into a thin line and watched the turn of events.

From the corner of Maiyu's eyes, she could see the hand Tenji offered to her to pull her up. Without giving him any chance at making things more complicated, she got to her feet and ignored the outstretched hand.

Tenji was stunned by her reaction for a brief second and immediately pulled back his hand and shoved it into his right pocket.

Dusting her body, she pulled and placed her hand on Dai's shoulder, "you better have a good explanation for this."

Dai looked behind him, wondering where Rumi was. When he had been able to spot her amongst the crowd, a chill ran down his spine.

Rumi was glaring at him with untold disdain. 'No one calls me a freak!'

She tilted her head when her attention was drawn to the traumatized professor.

'What happened to her?' She wondered and turned her attention to Tenji and pieced a bit of the clue together.

Immediately she locked eyes with Tenji, he switched gazes between her and Dai.

Shrugging, she pretended not to have any clue about what was going on with the latter. A bright smile graced her lips as she nodded in the headmistress's direction.

Tenji looked towards Maiyu and caught her staring at him with confusion and hurt in her eyes.

She quickly tore her gaze from him and cleared her throat, "I would appreciate it if some do not make the life of others miserable even if you initially meant well."

Murmurs erupted among the students, some of the professors had already gathered on the scene and glared at Fiku with rage. She had just disturbed their one chance of latching their arms on Tenji.

"There was a presentation set to hold today," Maiyu announced with a smile, glancing through the crowd of students.

Maintaining a firm grip on Dai's shoulder, she kept him fixed to a spot in front of her, forcing him to be the center of attraction.

"I would be amused to know the result of today's presentation, wouldn't you all?" She said with fiery determination.

The students all clapped and raised their hands in the air in support of the event.

Rumi looked around her and wondered why they were all so dumb to realize the strange behavior of professor Fiku before she was led out by two other teachers.

There was some secret revolving around professor Tenji which was discreetly covered up by the headmistress.

Narrowing her eyes at Tenji she gave an inaudible chuckle at her new zeal on him. 'What secrets do you suppress?'

"I would implore all to get to their various departments and their partners. This was all just a misunderstanding." Maiyu concluded with her signature charismatic smile which made the males swoon.

Rumi scoffed and turned to leave, it was not worth her appearing at the scene.

'All I need to do is make my presentation awesome, then he can notice me.' She resolved.

When a student was closely following her, she thought nothing of it at first and pushed back a stray strand of her hair.

But when the student had caught up to her and threw his hand over her shoulder, she had grabbed it, ready to twist it, but stopped in her tracks when she took in his familiar scent.

"It's me, Rumi. Your pal?!" He squealed in panic.

"Asahi?" She confirmed and let go of his arm.

He had medium-length messy blond hair. His hair long enough to cover his forehead with a fine, mischievous face. Lidded blue eyes stared back at her.

His short-sleeved, cotton black jacket covers below his waist and is buttoned up completely at the center. The sleeves of his jacket are a little narrow and reach down to just above his wrists, they're decorated with a decorative silver band almost at the edges.

The jacket has a round neckline which reveals part of the relatively simple cream shirt worn below it and is worn with a small leather belt, which is held together by a decorative pin.

His jean pants are simple and narrow and reach down to his bound black leather boots.

"I saw what you did back there, you scared the shit out of Dai!" Asahi laughed as he remembered the scene.

"Would you like to experience the thrill?" Rumi took a step closer as her eyes glowed and a creepy smile plastered on her face.

"Sheesh! Is getting a laugh from you so hard?" Asahi clicked his tongue and strategically took a step back.

Complying with the one thing he wanted to see, she flashed a smile and immediately changed the topic.

"Someone dressed up and ready for some presentation." She mocked with a giggle and playfully punched his shoulder.

Asahi stifled a groan and forced a laugh, "that's not how you talk to your best friend and partner in this criminal masterpiece we're about to pull off."

Rumi's once gloomy mood had been replaced with a cheerful one. Pulling on his ear as she walked on.

"Don't have any funny ideas about outshining me with your clothing or I'd send you off to the northern region like last time."

Asahi struggled to get free from her grip, he only knew too well that she meant what she said. After a two days journey back to the city, he was glad that he could make it in time for their presentation.

"You wouldn't do that again, would you?" He joked and covered his nervousness with a smile.

Rumi looked over her shoulder and at him behind with a smile. "I think you learned your lesson after what you did to deserve that."

Bopping his head, he threw his hand yet again over her shoulder and pulled her close to which she complied reluctantly. "Let's show them the power of the Ru-hi duo!"

*****

A/N

I would really appreciate your comments and support of this novel with your power stones. Your active comments would motivate me to write more chapters.

I wouldn't be placing 'Pov' at the beginning of a switch, if you'd read it, I think it should be fairly noticeable which character is being focused on at the point.

¶ I hope a little bit of an intro on Rumi's pov was a fair transition from Tenji's.