Author's Notes:Guess what?! No classes today!! Banzai, Banzai! (throws up a party). I know, I've left this one hanging for…what? One month? Fortunately, the weather's not too cooperative today (the storm's blowing up our house into pieces) so they cancelled classes. I now had the chance to make this one! But I think this little free day, no matter how enjoyable it may be, won't go for free either; we'll have our QUARTER EXAMINATIONS starting tomorrow! T-T I know, it's pitiful. Anyways, THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR REVIEWS, GUYS!!!
“Excuse me, but why don't make it a doubles match?”
The girls and Ringo turned around to the speaker in unison. Then Michiru spoke.
“Who are you?”
It was a girl no older than fourteen. She had chestnut brown hair that was shaggily cut just over her shoulders and brown eyes that seem to glimmer even without the presence of too much light. Her height was remarkable: a good five feet and four inches or so. She wore an ordinary sweatshirt and a knee-length skirt, but on her shoulders were a tennis gear and a huge camping bag. She looked at Michiru's company with either an amused or bored expression, Ringo couldn't tell.
The girl paused for a while, as if deciding whether to answer the question or not. Then she seem to come into conclusion. She stepped forward.
To Ringo's surprise, she curled an arm around her neck.
“We're friends,” she said shortly.
“W-Wha—?” Ringo started, but a faint tug from the girl told her to just play with the cover-up story. “Y-Yeah,” she quickly said.
“Look, we don't care if you're her friend or something, but she technically ruined my night!” Michiru said.
But the girl was merely staring at her and her gang of friends. “I think I saw you guys before…” she started, looking concentrated in remembering something vague.
Michiru's gang blinked at her. Then one exclaimed, in shock, “Hey…! You look familiar.”
“Who is she?” Michiru said sharply.
“Ah, now I remember you,” the girl said, pointing a finger at Michiru. “Mayuri Michiru, Hyotei Girl's Team regular.”
They gasped, and Ringo blinked blankly.
Michiru had gone pale, as if she had just seen a ghost. “Y-You!Y-You're…!”
“Heh, now you've taken into challenging random people in the streets?” the girl said amusedly. “What about a match with me?”
“C-Come on guys,” Michiru said to his friends tersely. “Let's go.”
The others looked at her and nodded, and they left quickly.
“Hey! How about the doubles match?” the girl called out to their backs. “Where're you going?” When the girls were already out of sight she snorted, and said in an undertone, “Faggots.”
“Anou…” Ringo started. “Thanks, by the way.”
The girl looked down at her. “Eh? No problem-o. Those Hyotei girls love to make trouble.”
“How come you know them, ahh…” she realized that she doesn't know her name.
The girl realized it, too. “Oh, call me Nami.”
“Nami-san,” Ringo said, “How come you knew them?”
Nami chuckled. “Let's eat. My treat. I'll tell while we're on it.”
Nami bit a large chunk from her burger. Ringo was surprised when the girl had ordered two large burgers, the largest drink size available, and a huge cup of sundae all just for herself. If that's how she usually eats, then it's a wonder that she had maintained a fairly slim body.
“You were asking how come I knew the girls?” Nami asked after a moment of silence.
“Hai,” Ringo said.
“I've met them in the Inter-School Ranking tournament. Hyotei's one of the seeded teams in Tokyo. Wait, do you even know what I'm talking about?” she said patiently, reading through Ringo's confused look.
“Well, no.” Ringo mildly blushed.
Nami chuckled. “You remind me of myself. Oh well, what are you, a tennis newbie or something?” She eyed Ringo's tennis gear, which was propped against the vacant seat beside her.
“No,” Ringo said smilingly. “Actually, I'm new here in Tokyo.”
“Even so, if you're a team regular in your school you must have heard of them.”
“The thing is,” Ringo said, “I'm new in Japan. I didn't come from here.”
“Oh.” Nami's smile even widened. “Why didn't you say so? So, where're you studying?” She picked up her large drink and heartily sipped from it.
“It's in Seishun Gakuen.”
But by the mention of the school, Nami did a double-take and gagged her soda, causing it to spill down her front. “What?!” she sputtered.
“N-Nami-san!” Ringo said, alarmed, rising from her seat. “Is something wrong?”
“No, no, no, nothing at all!” Nami said quickly, raising her hands before her. “Just shocked, nothing big.”
Ringo eyed her suspiciously. “Are you sure?”
“I told you, yeah,” Nami said convincingly, and Ringo, left without another choice, sat back. Though she still looked at her worriedly.
Nami regained her composure and hitched back her usual beaming expression. “So, are you in the Girl's club?” she continued to ask.
Ringo thought how she would tell it. “I was recruited—”
“Really?” Nami cut in. She looked amused, and her smile doesn't only suggest amazement. “How?”
A sweatdrop was lingering on Ringo's head. Why was she so interrogative? Is she some interesting specimen she needed to gather data from? The look Nami was giving her is sharp, if not, critic. She audibly gulped. “I…ahh…had this match with a regular and she said I could pass as a member.”
Nami regarded her for a while before nodding, almost to herself. “We'll see your competency, shall we?”
Ringo blinked. “Eh?”
Nami's grin stretched further. “Don't you mind a little friendly match with me? We could both do some muscle stretching.”
“Wait a minute,” Ringo said, her eyes narrowing at Nami, “why is it that you're the only one asking? Why are you so interested? Do you know something?”
Nami looked at her, mildly taken aback, before laughing so loud that she attracted the attention of those nearby. “I'll answer you,” she said aggressively, “if you'll have a match with me.”
Ringo didn't know why, but something in the way Nami looked at her makes her want to accept the challenge. Was she mocking her?
“Hai. Wakateru. You can have the first service play, Nami-san.”
Nami laughed. “Oh? So you're the one offering a handicap? You have some guts! I like you!”
Ringo smiled sheepishly. “No. I'm just used having the opponent as the first server.”
“Means you suck in racket flips?”
Ringo's smile faltered slightly. Nani? “You can say so.” She shook Nami's outstretched hand and began to walk to her baseline.
Nami watched Ringo's back for a while before positioning herself in her baseline, too. “You might just regret having me the as the first server,” she said under her breath, as she let the ball bounce up and down from her palm to the clay surface of the court. Yosh, I expect a very good match.
She finally felt that it was time, and she threw the ball up high. She bent backward and tightened her grip on her racket, swinging her arm back for a powerful topspin, when—
Riing.
“E-Eh?” Nami staggered as she lost her momentum, distracted by the beeping noise coming from her pocket.
From across the court, Ringo sweatdropped. She puts her phone in her pocket while playing tennis?! She watched as Nami hastily answered her call, her face turning slowly from irritated to apologetic.
“G-Gomen ne!” she heard her say to the caller, slapping a hand on her forehead. “I completely forgot about it!” She talked more, before finally hanging up. She quickly approached Ringo.
“I'm so sorry; I forgot I've got to meet somebody at six-thirty! And look at the time! It's six-fifty-one!”
“It's fine, Nami-san. You should be going instead of explaining to me,” Ringo said.
Nami smiled at her thankfully. “Thanks.” She hastily hefted her tennis gear and camping bag and dashed off, waving a hand in farewell. “Bye Ringo! See yah on Monday!”
“Yeah, see you,” Ringo said, waving in farewell as well, before Nami's words had sunk in. She blinked in confusion. “Huh? Monday?”
Sunday went by too fast for Ringo's liking. She still hasn't fully unpacked all her baggage up to that point, and the pile of schoolwork weren't helping too much either. It was already eight in the evening when she remembered the math quiz they're going to have first thing in the morning; she ended up reviewing the whole night and sleeping for only four hours, and also forgetting about everything that transpired the day before.
She looked dead on her feet on Monday morning.
“You didn't sleep well,” Tezuka said pointedly, as he watched Ringo walk slowly towards him.
Ringo mumbled a yes and they started walking to school. She yawned and stretched her arms above her head as they walked, trying to make herself look livelier. She was so busy that she hadn't noticed the stray rock on her way, so, she tripped on it. She fell facedown on cement and asphalt. The good thing about it was that it was the one which had waken her up.
“Ittai!” She picked herself up, clutching her nose.
Tezuka sighed audibly and knelt down to be in level with her. He produced a white handkerchief from his pocket and handed it out to her. “You have dirt on your face.”
Ringo blinked. “Oh…thanks, Tezuka-senpai.” She reached out the handkerchief and dabbed it on her hurting nose. It smells nice, she found herself thinking, lingering the piece of cloth on her nose longer than what was necessary. Does he smell like this, too? At the thought, he glanced at Tezuka. Realizing what she was thinking, she slightly blushed and hastily wiped her face.
“Are you fine?” Tezuka queried, watching her closely.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?” he prodded on.
“Why? Don't I look okay?” Ringo said curiously. “Did my nose break?”
“No,” said Tezuka thoughtfully. “Your face was red a while ago.”
Ringo blushed more and she quickly stood back and walked ahead, leaving Tezuka mildly confused, despite the never-changing stoic expression his face showed. She became redder.
The school as usual is still eerily quiet when they arrived. Tezuka as usual walked his way up to the boys' tennis grounds, with Ringo taking the opposite path towards the girls' club. He still wondered vaguely the reason behind Ringo's blushing face, when two familiar voices reached his ears.
“Demo…what if Buchou sees us…?”
“Just shut up and do it! Don't you believe your senpai?”
Tezuka's brow knitted together. Arai. He turned a corner and indeed, he saw the forms of Arai and his gang cornering the newest members of the tennis club, a pair of freshmen transferees. It seems that Arai was yet again thinking of some prank, and he wanted the kouhais to do it for him.
He walked up to them. “Arai!”
Arai and the other juniors jumped and turned around quickly to face him. “O-Ohayo, Tezuka-buchou!” They bowed at him.
“What are you standing here for? You must by now have prepared the balls for practice.” He turned to the freshmen, who were looking at him as though he some sort of savior. “Freshmen, the nets are still not fixed.”
“H-Hai!” everyone said, and scattered to do as what they were told.
Tezuka had taken into checking every nook and cranny in the courts, until he caught sight of the other regulars noisily making their way to practice. Back to the usual, he thought, before shouting at the regulars, “It is only five minutes before practice starts! For latecomers, twenty laps around the grounds!”
Meanwhile, in the girls' tennis courts, another story was taking place.
“Did you hear Ringo-senpai?” Sakuno said eagerly to Ringo, who was fixing her power band on her right wrist.
Ringo looked up to her kouhai. “Here what, Ryuzaki-san?”
Sakuno beamed at her. “The captain of the girl's team has come back.”
“Really?” Ringo said, brightened. “I'm going to see her at last! What's she like?”
“She's a hag,” interrupted regular player Yuki Midori, entering the clubhouse already clad with her tennis clothes. “A complete slacker.”
“Ohayo, Yuki-senpai,” said Sakuno and Ringo together.
“Ohayo.”
“Maybe she's not that bad,” said Ringo, slightly perplexed.
Yuki snorted as she tied her black hair in a high ponytail. “Yeah, right. See for yourself. But at least she's way lot better than Shina.”
Ringo totally agreed with the Shina part, though by the way Yuki described their captain, it seemed a bit unlikely. She always imagined the Girls' captain as someone like a female version of Tezuka; strict, stoic, an achiever, has a strong personality, and attractive…wait, did she just say attractive? She mentally shook her head, then picked up her racket and proceeded outside, erasing her thoughts about charming captains.
“Echizen, did you hear about the captain of the girl's team?” Momoshiro asked his freshman buddy. “I never really saw her up close.”
“Tsch,” Ryoma said from under his white cap. “I wouldn't care.”
“You never saw Ichigo-chan?” interrupted Eiji, who was supposed to be just passing by and had overheard what Momoshiro said.
“Ichigo-chan?” said Momoshiro.
Eiji grinned. “I always call her that way. She's addicted to strawberries.” He then looked around, as if checking if anyone's listening, and said to the others in a low voice, “She loves to tease Buchou. Actually, she's the only one who made him blush aside from Fujiko-chan!”
“Ooh,” said Momoshiro, awed. Even Ryoma looked interested.
“Did you know what she said to us that made Buchou really embarrassed?” the acrobat said mysteriously.
“Nani? Nani?”
“You three!” barked Tezuka from across. “Twenty laps around the grounds for slacking!”
The three regulars flinched at his rapt voice, nevertheless, they faced him and replied, “Hai!”
Tezuka watched as Eiji, Momoshiro, and Ryoma began running. As he observed the tennis club with an alert eye, a part of his mind was vaguely wondering as to where a certain acquaintance (he tried not to think of `friend') of his might be. She was supposed to be here already…
Ringo was disappointed. Throughout the two-hour morning practice, there had been no sign of their captain. She would hear the regulars talking among themselves about her whereabouts; even Mizuno Shina looked as if she was expecting her arrival.
“She's hopeless,” Yuki groaned after practice, as they changed back to their school uniform. “She doesn't know the word punctuality. I wonder how come she became the captain.”
“Maybe Buchou met some accident,” said Sakuno nervously. “Maybe we should contact her?”
“Yeah,” said Shina sarcastically. She was eavesdropping in the conversation. “Maybe she ate too much and had a severe case of stomachache.”
“Come on, Buchou can't be that bad,” Ringo said.
Shina laughed haughtily. “Talk like that once you saw her.” She left to her class, leaving Yuki, Sakuno and Ringo trailing behind her in a slower pace.
“See yah later guys,” said Yuki, as they entered the school building. She went off course into a shortcut towards the senior corridor.
“Are all the things they were saying really true?” said Ringo to Sakuno.
Sakuno looked slightly uneasy. “Anou…Buchou is indeed a little weird…demo!” she quickly added, scared at the prospect of talking bad about an upperclassman, “she's a really good tennis player. Even Yuki-senpai can't get three straight games from her.”
“Really?”
They reached the freshman corridor and they had to separate ways. As she watched Sakuno clumsily running to her class, she still thought of the captain. She couldn't be that bad.
The math test had been fine in Ringo's opinion (Momoshiro said it was like hell), but History proved to be very troublesome. The day went on smoothly, with occasional ruckus caused by pranksters in the other section who had put peanut butter on Kaidoh's chair, causing the Viper to turn red in anger and scare the living crap out of the perpetrator, and gaining the attention of half of the junior population (Momoshiro was having a laughing fit, claiming that it was the best he had seen so far). It was already dismissal; time for another two-hour practice.
The attendance was checked in the girl's club, and the only one missing is their mysterious captain. A vein was seen pulsating in Shina's temple as she stood in front of the neat lines of club members, fulfilling her substitute captain duties. After a few more minutes, when nobody else had come running to catch up, he cleared his throat loudly.
“Our Buchou is not yet seen,” she started. “Hideki!” she called for one senior regular, who perked up at once. “She's in the same class with you, isn't she?”
“H-Hai,” Hideki said nervously. “She said she'll just do something before catching up.”
Shina grunted. “Oh really…if that's the case, then I would still be the captain as of now. Now, freshmen—”
But she paused when a tennis ball came whizzing past the side of her face and hit the wire fence behind her with a faint sound. Every member turned around to see who have done it. A tall, lanky girl stood in the court's entrance, her racket hefted on her shoulder. She was grinning.
“Heh, Shina, who said I'll not come?”
“I-It's Buchou!” said Sakuno in a happy voice.
“Finally,” Yuki said under her breath. “She really loves dramatic entrances.”
Ringo observed as the captain began to walk towards them. That grin…that height…the brown hair and shiny eyes…She gasped.
Their captain went in front beside Shina and pointed her racket towards the surprised club members.
“Fushiki Nami,” she said in a haughty voice, “your captain, is here.”
PLEASE READ this Author's Note:YES! Finally finished this one! This one is shorter than the others because I really am too lazy to add anything up. Besides, I think I just cut it in the right place, ne? Anyway, thanks again for the wait and the reviews. Appreciated them much.
Btw, I had posted a new fic in the Naruto fandom. Check it out if you want to. It has an OC, so if you don't like OC's, screw off (wahaha, how can this be read by those who hate OC's when this fic has an OC as well?). It's entitled `Eternity.' I made Sasori my protagonist because I like him, right next to Uchiha Itachi. I hope you'll like it as well. Thanks for reading!
