NERVOUS VENUS Chapter 3 (by WASEDA Chie, originally published in Amie April'97) "I can sleep well at night, life, appetite's normal, what is, death? "500.000 yen!?" Haru shouts. "Yeah," her older sister says. "I remember cause I wanted them." But since her boyfriend couldn't afford them, she had to "settle" for 300.000 yen diamonds instead. "Huh?", Seki says, "I told you I don't want that earring!" Haru cries, "But I can't throw something like this out! Do you know how much this costs!? Will you just take it already!?" "Ok, " Seki answers, "If you kiss me, I'll do whatever you say." Haru promptly hits him and storms off. Sighing, Seki says, "So unladylike…" as he drops the earring down the back of her shirt, then takes off. Seki and Kanda are talking. Seki wishes he could just give the earring to Haru cause he doesn't want it. Kanda says Seki's personality is such that he wants things he doesn't want to disappear immediately." Seki says, "Whatever, cause if she feels indebted (to me), I'll be able to approach her." Seeing Seki blush, Kanda is overcome with his cuteness and hugs him. The class laughs. Haru comes by collecting biology reports. Seeing Seki and Kanda embracing, Seki's shirt completely off, Haru pauses for a moment, then completely ignores them. This sends Seki into hysterics, "Fine, I'll be a homo… Haru doesn't care, guys or whatever is fine…" After Kanda begs her to intervene, Haru asks Seki what he's doing. "Joking around", Seki says. Haru tells him, "Well, you're on day duty too, so go collect reports!", and kicks him. Without skipping a beat, Seki shouts, "Hey you all, you're disturbing the princess! Gimme your reports in 3 seconds, or I'm gonna sexually harass ya!" Haru scowls, thinking, "Who's he callin' a princess?’!" Seki continues joking, while Haru complains that she's exhausted. Seki glances at her with her girlfriends. Seeing her smile, he thinks, "What's this?" to himself… "You don't have to come!" Haru yells. "I'm just gonna take in the reports. I can do it myself." Seki chimes, "We're together for day duty, remember?" Haru goes on, "I can't stand it anymore! When you're around, you irritate me so I just can't stand it!" "That's love!" Seki responds coolly. Just then, some friends of Haru appear. One of them has the CD Haru wanted, and they begin talking. Seki frowns, thinking "I really can't get into girls conversation." He looks over at Haru and sees her smiling. As her friends leave, Seki says to Haru, "Hey, you always smile exactly the same, huh. " Haru's smile vanishes, and she says, "What's that suposed to mean?" Then, slamming the reports against Seki's chest, with a fierce look, she shouts, "YOU take them!!" "Wai…" Seki begins, but she doesn't look back. "I just thought that…" Seki says, perplexed. Haru is practicing swimming, as the manager calls out to her and asks what's going on. "Your records dropped sharply, that's not good! The match is the day after tomorrow, you shouldn't push it 'cause then, even if you could win, you won't! It'’s a real bad habit!" Just then, Seki and Kanda come out to the pool. Seki announces he's her cheering section, and tells her to "Do your best for me!". Haru yells, "Go away! It's an off day (from school), don't you have anything else to do?" Seki replies, "Without my girlfriend, I was sooo bored!" Then with a inquisitive stare, he asks, "Where are your breasts?" Haru tells him to shut up. The manager calls out to Seki, then says to him, "Haru's really in bad form right now, so could you please not get on her nerves?" Seki pauses a moment, then says loudly to Haru, "When it comes to body, I've certainly got you beat. No contest!! But, even your manly, "nice body"’ is ok with me!" Everyone laughs while Haru yells, "Throw him out!!" Then as he's walking away, Seki says, "This is a practice match right? Relax!" Haru is surprised momentarily, snapping out of it just as their announcing the beginning of the race… Seki is at lunch with a group of others eating lunch, when someone asks where Haru is. There's only 10 minutes till afternoon practice. Seki says he'll go look for her. As he turns to start walking, someone saysk, "But y'know, she must be happy. After all, it's the first time she came in 1st ." Haru smiles and says, "I won!" as she lies down on the ground. She thinks, "This is how it always felt…" When Seki walks up, he finds her asleep. His face turns red and his mind races, "Why is she asleep? Why is she sleeping?? Why the hell is she sleepin, in a place like this!?…….I wanna kiss her!!! Am I stupid!? She'd kill me afterwards! I'm such a beast… I'll wake her up…" So he says, "Sekiya-Sa~n! Wake u~p! You have to go to afternoon practice right?" Haru begins to stir. Seki watches as tear trickles down her cheek and she says, "Aki" Seki's eyes widen… "What the!?", he thinks to himself. "What's with this "Aki"?" He remembers Haru's Jr. High friend saying, "Aki-Kun's it's coming up, isn't it?"’ Seki brushes Haru's hair gently back, then leans in and kisses her. He jumps back, his heart pounding. Haru's eyes open abruptly, she sits up and shouts, "AA! I fell asleep! Oh no! Afternoon practice!" She takes off like a shot, then stops suddenly and starts running back. "Seki-Kun!?" she says. Seki's heart skips a beat… Haru says, "Thank you. I mean, that's the first time I ever won a match, .…when you said all that that time, I relaxed well, thanks! That's all!" She runs off. Seki's face is flushed, his heart still pounding, as he says, "Wha….. what the hell am I doing!?" and angrily punches the railing. Kanda walks up to find Seki sitting on the ground against the railing. Kanda asks what he's doing, and tells him Sekiya (Haru) left a long time ago. "I love her," Seki says, "Nothing I can do about it… It's pissing me off!! Shit!! I love her! Love her!! LOVE HER!!! This is the worst!!" Kanda wonders what he's done that he's so ashamed of… Some members of the swim club ask Seki to come with them. They joke around a while, and Seki asks Kanda to join them. Kanda’ is showing off some magic tricks to some of the girls, and Seki accuses him of being a "two-timer". The team members guide Seki to his "special seat", the one right next to Haru! Then one person calls Haru over, and another one calls Seki over and then, just as they planned, the two bump into one another, lip to lip, a kiss! Both jump back, and Seki says, "It's not, I didn't do it on purpose!" "Why youuuuu! I'm gonna kill you!!" Haru shouts. While everyone else wonders what's going on, Haru slugs Seki. Seki says, "I said I didn't do it on purpose!!" At the same time, he thinks, "Aa, just can't be happy about this today…" Haru jumps in again, "Do you think I'd let you do that on purpose!?", then hits him again. End of Chapter 3. This text is copyright of Suka-chan: sukachan@postoffice.worldnet.att.net You can find other synopsis by her of this and other mangas serialized in the Amie monthly magazine at: http://www.swb.de/~zahara/amie/amie.html Comments are welcome! And remember this is not for profit and is meant to be a guide for the people who wants to understand the manga or read more about it! ^^