Teacher

Chapter 20 : I Love You

There Shinichi stood there; out of breath, clutching his aching ribs. He looked and smiled softly at the look of absolute shock on Shiho's face from the look of hate and resentment on Sanshriyuki's. Yamakasi grinned to himself. " Five hundred and fifty going once. . ." he called out. ' You were right again, Yorokobi.' he thought to himself softly. ' There really is a show going on for all of us to watch.'

Sanshriyuki looked at Shinichi for a complete second, gazing into his eyes. Shinichi looked back with equal resentment, smirking as Sanshriyuki clenched his fists.

" Going twice. . ." Yamakasi shouted.

Sanshriyuki looked at him.

" Five hundred and sixty." he said.

Sonoko bit her lip and looked sideways at him, but he was glaring at Shinichi, his eyes never leaving him, almost daring him to go a cost higher than that.

" Five hundred and seventy."

Akemi giggled to herself, zooming in on Shinichi's face. " Oh dear, he has been beaten up pretty badly. . ." she muttered to herself. " Looks like he had to meet peril just to arrive for little Shiho-chan's balloting."

" Five hundred and eighty." Sanshriyuki said, face harder than any rock on the face of the earth.

Shinichi smirked.

" Six hundred." he muttered.

The entire room was quiet now; you could have dropped the hole in the middle of a doughnut on the ground, and it would have been heard. Shiho just stood there, looking from Shinichi to Sanshriyuki, her eyes wide with shock and confusion. She bit her lip at the sorry sight of Shinichi's attire. Where had he been for the last thirty minutes? Who did he have a fight with? Or was he just having a wrestle with a hog near some farm? She looked around for Yoro, but could not find him anywhere. She blinked but said nothing.

" Six hundred and thirty!" Shinichi yelled.

" Six hundred and fifty!"

" This is not looking good," Ran muttered under her breath, nibbling on her bottom lip. " I never knew Sanshriyuki had so much money. Shinichi I can understand; he just received a thousand dollars from Old Master Qi for rescuing his priceless Ming Vase and fingering out the culprit. . .he never had a problem with money from the start. Besides the fact that his father is a famous writer and that his mother is an actress, that is."

" Sanshriyuki only can go up to seven hundred and fifty." Sonoko said quietly, and Ran looked at her. Sonoko shut her eyes sadly before smiling at Ran. " He told me he had saved up like mad when he found out about the balloting. Borrowing money from me, working doubly hard at his job, saving up every cent in his allowance. . .it still will only be until the small amount of seven hundred and fifty; he already told me. And he does not want to borrow any more money from me," she added as Ran opened her mouth to argue.

Ran clamped her lips shut.

" Oh." she said. " That's nowhere near Shinichi's, I guess."

" That's not true, actually." Sonoko said confidently. " My sources told me that Kudo blew it off to buy a present for Shiho. . ."

" . . .It's Miyano-sensei." Ran said.

" Right." Sonoko said impatiently before continuing. " . . .He spent most of his money to buy something for Shi- - -Miyano-sensei." she said in a rather exasperated voice as Ran opened her mouth. " He only has seven hundred and twenty dollars left, if lucky, forty."

Ran gasped.

" That's below Sanshriyuki's!" she said.

" Glad you're catching on." Sonoko said dryly.