FLCL

happy.

This woman was a completely different kettle of fish compared to the secretary, but as Ninamori watched Haruko and Naota play, she knew she was up against another enemy.

Chapter 4

It was dark again. There was no light—no one there. Time had stopped. He stood in a dark place, but he'd been to this dark place before.

Yes, he knew it well. This was the darkness in which he mustn't turn around—the darkness in which he couldn't turn around. If he turned around, that girl would never come back again.

Girl? What girl?

If he listened closely, he could hear something—a murmuring.

There seemed to be a river flowing in front of him. At the center of the darkness, the surface of the river had gradually lit up.

There happened to be something floating in the river. It was a cat floating in a cardboard box.

He ran out quickly. He had to help her. There wasn't any time. He couldn't catch her, though, and the box with the cat in it had begun disappearing into the darkness. Although he knew it was futile, he chased the cat as fast as his legs would allow, because if he couldn't save it, the cat would be carried to the depths of the never- ending darkness, swallowed by the abyss.

He had to catch up… had to catch up. He had to save her. In spite of the urgency, he started to tire and finally collapsed in the darkness.

It wasn't any good. He couldn't chase any longer. The cat had already disappeared and the river was also disappearing. Once again, everything was becoming utter blackness.

'You came all this way, didn't you, Your Highness?'

Standing in front of him was Miyu Miyu, wearing boots.

'I'm not Your Highness,' he answered as the Nandaba pet cat shook its head.

'No, you are, Your Highness—the proof of that being your ears are donkey ears.'

'I don't have donkey ears.'

'Remove the crown you're wearing from your head and see for yourself.'

'My head… a crown?

But I can't take this off. I can't take this off! he panicked.

'Why can't you take off the crown? If you don't have donkey ears, why can't you take it off? Your Highness, you're a liar. As punishment, you will be food for the man-eating demon.'

'Man-eating demon?' He asked, sensing someone. Before he knew it, the man-eating demon was coming at him from behind. When he turned around, the man-eating demon was a girl riding a Vespa and carrying a metal guitar. She had a bloodthirsty laugh, and her red mouth was wide open.

'Stop it! Stop!' he yelled with all his might, but the man-eating demon closed in on him.

Smooch! Haruko kissed Naota's sleeping face, which caused all his classmates around him to start giggling.

Having been asleep for half an hour, Naota lifted his head from his desk, finally noticing the presence of Haruko and Canti in front of him. What?

Naota was in a classroom after school on a Saturday. He'd been searching for an opportunity to escape so he could skip rehearsal, but he must have fallen asleep at some point. Why are Haruko and Canti here? he wondered.

Holding ukuleles and other stage props, Naota's classmates stood in a semicircle, watching him from a short distance. Among the crowd was Ninamori, who'd stayed over at the Nandaba residence the night before. She wore a foul expression and was glaring at Naota and Haruko.

'Sh-she just smooched him, didn't she?'

'It's a robot!'

'Is someone in it?'

'Who's that lady who smooched him?'

Hearing the voices of his peers, Naota finally grasped the situation. He realized it hadn't been a dream when someone had kissed him, prompting him to touch his cheek instinctively a moment ago. What's going on?

It seemed that Haruko and Canti had come together, Haruko kissing Naota while he was sleeping, with all his classmates watching.

What's going on?

'What are you doing? Here's your lunch,' Haruko said as she took the lunchbox Canti had been carrying and offered it to Naota. 'Saturday rehearsal, huh? I'm such a good housemaid, aren't I?'

'Ugh, whatever. I'm not doing any dumb rehearsal.'

'Well, you still need to eat lunch.'

'I don't need it. I'm out of here.'

'No, you can't ditch today.'

In an overt display of strictness, Ninamori cut in between Naota and Haruko. 'Everyone decided this was how we were going to do it!'

Ninamori's voice was loud, but her classmates didn't find it odd that she had reacted so emotionally. No one said anything, although everyone now knew about her father's scandal and had noticed Ninamori was paying more attention to Naota recently.

'I won't let you go,' Ninamori insisted, grabbing Naota's arm. That she would do such a thing to prevent him from skipping rehearsal was a reasonable thing for a responsible class president to do.

As for the other students, the question at the moment wasn't whether Naota would skip class, but the identity of the girl who'd kissed him so shamelessly and the story behind the robot she'd brought with her.

'More important, what's with the robot?'

'Isn't that the Vespa girl?'

'No way…'

Haruko and Canti, who'd suddenly appeared in the classroom, made quite an impressive combo. However, Ninamori was blase about the maid and the TV walkman, having stayed at the Nandabas' house the night before. As Haruko and Canti were familiar characters to her, she was far more stressed over Naota.

'You have to do what we decided!' Ninamori ordered Naota.

'You must be joking! I have things to do!'

'Everyone is coming.'

'No one will come to see this play!'

'They will!'

'They won't!'

'I want them to see it!'

'Because you're a show-off!'

'My father and mother are coming to see it together!'

It's so embarrassing, but it makes me happy when Dad and Mom come together to see me, too. Now I see—Ninamori is looking forward to her parents enjoying the play together, Naota thought.

Unfortunately, Naota had already gotten caught up in the emotion of the moment and shouted, 'School plays are for kids!'

'You're a kid! You can't even eat spicy foods!'

'Playing a cat is embarrassing!'

Enraged, Ninamori pulled off Naota's hat. 'How can you say that when you have a head like this?'

As a result of Ninamori's ruthlessness, everyone got to take a close look at Naota's head, and of course,