It's been a while since I've posted a story, so ...




TMiL: "The Operative and the Schoolgirl"

DISCLAIMER: I didn't create the characters. They were created by
the wonderful people at Pioneer/AIC.

EDITOR's NOTE: This story takes place *DURING* Tenchi Muyo in Love,
but in a slightly different universe. There are some scenes from the
movie in this story as a result.




      He was cute.
      That was the first thing Tanaka had thought when a young man
 with chestnut brown hair and eyes of pale silver, which sometimes
 looked golden when the light hit them just right, walked into the
 classroom for the first time.
      The other students had their own opinions of their new classmate.
      "Spooky." Some said.
      "Creepy." Others agreed.
      "His eyes are weird." One elucidated. "His pupils are slitted."
      "Like an animal's eyes." Another agreed.
      It was clear that the new student was feeling self-conscious
 about all this talk. He had taken to keeping to himself, sitting quietly,
 not raising his hand in class, even taking lunch by himself.
      Tanaka could sense deep sadness in him, sadness he tried desparately
 to hide behind a facade of stoicism. Or perhaps he was in shock, she told
 herself.

      But why? She wondered. People just didn't wander around in shock for
 no good reason, did they? So what had happened to him? She thought of 
 asking the teacher, but the regular teacher was out and the new substitute
 seemed to have been picked from the bottom of the barrel. She was fairly
 good, but she got frazzled easily and seemed jittery in the way a bunny in
 a fox's den might seem jittery.

      The sound of the bus coming to a stop pulled Tanaka's mind back to the
 present. She stepped off, cheerfully, and made her way into the crowd on
 the school lawn. She could see the young boy in one of the nearby rows and
 she smiled to herself.

      The morning was pretty much the same as always at first, then Tanaka
 remembered she still had a magazine a friend of hers, Achika, had loaned
 her. Achika, her friend, confidante, and one of the finest people she'd
 ever know.  Achika, who just happened, Tanaka smiled to herself, to be in
 the same homeroom as the young man she'd fallen in love with.

       After asking politely to be excused, Tanaka rushed to get to the
 classroom where Achika and that wonderful boy were attending. She raced in
 and saw him leaning on the window. He was gazing, intently, at Achika, and
 for a moment Tanaka thought her heart would shatter. Was this young man in
 love with Achika? Then Tanaka realized that it wasn't love she saw in the
 young man's eyes, but fierce protectiveness, not the protectiveness of a
 lover, but of a self-appointed bodyguard. "Like a secret serviceman in
 class with the President's daughter." she told herself later, recalling an
 old American joke, which she'd heard from an American exchange student,
 and she hadn't been far from the truth.
	"Achika," She called, hoarsely, she was, after all, just recovering
 from a sore throat and had, truthfully, only seen the new boy on the first
 day he'd arrived, "I'm returning your magazine."
	"I haven't seen you for days, Tanaka." Achika smiled. "How's your
 cold?"
	"I still have a sore throat, but I've got a test, too." Tanaka
 explained.
	Nobuyuki blushed as Achika paused by his desk and waved to him.
 Tanaka could see that he was in love with her and wished that the boy 
 would love her just as much as they loved each other.  "Achika, are you 
 listening to me?"
	"Yes." Achika turned away from Nobuyuki for the moment and went
 over to her friend.




Lt. Trakal, Galaxy Police
Code name: Operative A