The Guy Next Door

Chapter 7
Miki Megurine

Rin's POV

"Jealous?" I asked. "Of what?"

"I don't want you going near Ren or Rei," he whispered in my ear. I shuddered at his warm breath. I placed my hands against his chest and pushed him off as I sat up. He looked at me with serious eyes and that feeling I shoved down came rushing up to my face. I blushed and he chuckled.

"You can't tell me-"

"I never told you to stay away, I just said I didn't want you to go near them," he said. I blushed and he sat back up, grabbing the controller. "Are you going to the festival?" I looked at him in surprise. How can he change the subject so easily? I looked towards the screen. How the heck did he get to Ganon so quickly?

"Uh...yeah," I answered. "Miki invited me to join with Neru." I shifted back onto the couch and tucked in my legs as I watched him play. "Miki's really nice. You're lucky to have someone like her." Len paused the game and gave me a look. "What?"

"You obviously haven't been with her for very long," he said, returning to the game. "Do you know how yandere that girl is? It's almost suffocating." That little word nagged at me. Suffocate? Suffocate...where have I heard that before? I remember someone telling me about being suffocated by someone...but what? I tapped me temple trying to think and then I heard Len chuckle. "Do you have a headache or something?"

"Huh? No, it's nothing," I said. "I was just thinking about something. Wait, Len, don't let Link-!" I watched as Len got a game over and laughed. He glared at me again. "I warned you!"

"You distracted me!" he said. "I can't believe I lost to the Zelda form." He restarted the game and tried again. "So anyway, Miki likes to suffocate you with love, make you hers, and threatens anyone who tries to steal something from her. It's kinda weird, but you get used to it after a while."

"How long have you two been dating?" I asked.

"Uh...a couple of months?" Len said, unsure. "Dunno. She gets real pissed if I forget our monthly anniversary." I laughed.

"Monthly anniversay?" I asked. "Isn't that going a bit too far?" He shrugged.

"I guess, but she doesn't care if I get her a present or not," Len answered. "As long as I'm not 'going to stop being hers'."

"So she has some kind of obsession?" I asked. Len nodded. "I'm going to head to the main kitchen for a smoothie. Do you want anything?"

"Uh...can you get me a smoothie too?" he asked. "Same as yours." I nodded and headed downstairs. During the way, I thought about what Len said and I finally figured out who I was thinking about. Mikuo. Didn't he have a suffocating girlfriends too? I headed into the kitchen, but was pulled away by someone.

"T-Tamako?" I asked. She shhed me.

"Quiet and listen to what's going on in there!" she said, covering my mouth. I nodded and we leaned on the wall next to the kitche entrance.

"...shouldn't do this. I want to break up with you," I heard Mikuo say. "It's not right and I don't love you anymore. I love someone else." Then we heard an angry shriek of frustration.

"There's no way I'm breaking up with you, Mikuo," a girl said. "You promised me you'd be mine!" Mikuo pounded his fist against a table.

"No, I am not!" he yelled. "One, I hurt the girl I like because of you and two, it's not any fair to Len! Miki, isn't it obvious? Len's only staying with you because he's as loyal as a dog! You probably don't even like him yourself. You're treating us as if we were objects! It's pretty obvious that Len has a crush on someone else."

"I'm not treating you like objects and I told you that we're just friends!" Miki complained. I looked at Tamako in shock, but she just stared at me with eyes mixed of anger, worry, and sadness. "C'mon Mikuo..."

"How long?" I mouthed.

"Just today," she mouthed. "Are you going to do something about it?"

"I...I don't know," I mouthed. She glared at me and ran back upstairs.

"Great friend to Len you are, Rin," she said. Then she disappeared up the stairs. I sighed and walked into the kitchen.

"R-Rin?" Mikuo asked, surprised. From the corner of my eye, I saw Miki leave the kitchen quickly. "What are you doing here?" Okay, time to act like I didn't hear a thing.

"I came to get some smoothies," I said. "Why?" Mikuo looked relieved and smiled.

"Okay, what kind?"

"Two orange and banana smoothies, please," I said, sitting on the kitchen counter. He looked at me questioningly, but didn't hesistate to make the smoothies. "One's for Len."

"You forgave him?" Mikuo asked, surprised. "Wow, the merciless Rin Akita finally shows some kind of forgiveness instead of beating up people. Tokyo's changing you, Rin." I gave him a look and he chuckled. "It's a good thing, don't worry."

"By the way, Mikuo, how in the world are you guys working here?" I asked.

"We asked your mother," Mikuo said. "And we got here faster by taking a different plane that you guys did." He handed me the smoothies. "There you go." I smiled, gave him a thanks, and ran back upstairs, deciding not to tell Len about Miki just yet. There were somethings I had to straighten out.

"Rin? Are you here alone?" The next day, I found myself standing outside of Ren and Rei's place and a surprised Ren in front of me. "Is there something wrong?"

"No, but can I talk to you and Rei?" I asked. He nodded and I went into the living room. Rei was already there and looked up at me surprised. "Hey Rei." He smiled and greeted me as Ren sat down.

"Okay Rin, what's up?" Ren asked. I took a single person seat and breathed in slowly.

"Do you guys know Miki Megurine?" I asked, calmly. Rei and Ren glanced at each other and nodded. "What exactly do you know about her?"

"Well, she lives in the villa closest to the waterfall," Ren said. "But that's all I know. Rei used to date her."

"Until I got that restraining order," Rei pointed out. "Rin, Miki is a really nice girl and really caring, but she goes overboard when protecting people and doesn't hesistate to hurt others. Basically, she's a raging yandere. I tried to break up with her, cleanly, but she said no and wouldn't leave me alone. In fact, she almost pushed my current girlfriend over the waterfall because she didn't want her to be with me." A restraining order? That bad? This wasn't a normal person I was dealing with, it was some kind of psycho whore. Excuse my language.

"But Rei just keeps on going for those yandere girls," Ren said, flipping though the channels on the TV.

"I hope you're not talking about me." I turned around to see a cute girl with short, black hair and amber eyes.

"Hi Rui," Ren said, smiling. "We were talking to a friend of ours about Miki." She looked towards me and I noticed she also had a white bow in her hair. Awesome. "Oh, Rin, this is Rei's girlfriend, Rui. Rui, this is our friend Rin Akita Sachine." Rui smiled at me and shook my hand.

"It's nice to meet you, Rin," Rui said. "And I can tell you a lot about Miki." There was so much venom when she said Miki's name that I shivered. But I guess that's natural after Miki almost killed her. "Let me tell you the first thing about Miki Mergurine. Most of ex-byfriends have restraining orders against her. There's only one guy that doesn't have a restraining order against her, but he's dead." I looked at her if she was kidding. She was completely serious.

"So the only way to get her to stop going near her exs is to get the law involved?" I asked.

"You could kill her."

"That's not on my options list," I said. "And I'm not much of a murder." She smiled and I turned back to Rei. "Is there any records of her cheating on her boyfriends?"

"Hell yes," Rui said. "Any pretty boy she sees, she'll make him hers even if she has a current boyfriend. Why? Because she sees guys as posessions. It's really creepy."

"Why are you asking about her, Rin?" Ren asked, turning off the TV. "It doesn't seem like you to just randomly ask about Rei's ex."

"I found Miki cheating on Len with Mikuo last night," I said. "In short, I'm really worried about him." Ren made a face and looked at Rei.

"I'm going to give you a copy of a restraining order," Rei said, standing up. "To make it legal, we can take you Miki's eldest sister, Luka. She's really nice and helped me out with my own restraining order. Making sure Miki doesn't see it." Rei headed upstairs for a bit and Rui followed him, leaving Ren and I alone.

"I don't know what you see in that guy." I looked towards Ren confused.

"Um...what?"

"I said, I don't know what you see in that guy," Ren said. "He's so oblivious to everything and can't read the most obvious signs. Not only that, but he's a complete hypocrite. He says he doesn't want to be like Dell, yet he flirts with almost any girl he sees when Miki's not around. It's sickening, really. He even holds pointless grudges that aren't even our fault."

"It sounds like you hate him back," I said. Ren shook his head and smiled.

"No, I'm just frustrated with people like him," he said. "I don't hate him. It's hard for me to hate people seriously." Rei and Rui came back downstairs and gave me a small stack of papers.

"Here you go," Rei said. "One more thing, make sure Len doesn't see it." I nodded.

"Thanks guys," I said.

"No problem," Rei said, with a smile. I started for the door and Ren followed me.

"I'll walk you home, Akita," he said, smiling. I blushed and nodded. We walked to my dad's villa and along the way, Ren told me more about the festival that Miki talked about. He said that we could wear yukatas there and that it was a lot of fun to be there. I decided I was going to wear a pink yukata after that. We walked up the front of the villa.

"Thanks for walking me here," I said. "But you know you didn't have to. I mean, it's not that far." Ren smiled and I jumped onto the porch.

"It's no problem," he said. Then he leaned towards mean for a kiss, but a hand gently covered my mouth.

"I'm sorry, but don't sexually harass girls near where I live." I turned around to see a smiling Len. Ren looked kind of surprised and Len pulled my into the house. "Goodbye Haine." Then he slammed the door.

"Len?" I asked. "What was that for?" He gave me a weird look and chuckled.

"Oh, you think I'm Len," he said. "Nice try, but my name's Rein. I'm Len's older brother. You must be Rin Akita." He shook my hand and I finally recognized he wore red hair clips in his hair.

"Um yeah," I answered, looking around. This wasn't my house, but it was still pretty nice.

"I think you walked too far," Rein said. "How about I take you back to your real house?" Then I felt a sudden weight on my shoulders and the smell of Axe with smoke.

"No, Rein, I think we should get to know her a bit better. Hello Rin, my name's Dell."