Gym. It was definitely Hayner's best subject in school. Obviously, math wasn't his forte and his history teacher always hounded him for homework. At least in that large, smelly, metal building he could release the anger that he's built up throughout the day by speeding in front of everyone else during laps or pretending the softball lobbed toward him was Seifer's head and swing at it, hoping it'd split in two like a melon. Yes, gym was the perfect way to let off steam at the end of the day.

But, not today.

Today, it was the first rainy day of September. It was a cold rain, so it also hinted that autumn would come soon. Hayner had just gotten out of history class, which he attended with Pence, his second best buddy compared to Roxas. His history teacher, Mr. Aleman, had just gotten on Hayner's case for returning his homework assignment in soaking wet. His excuse that it fell in a puddle would've worked, but Aleman pointed out it still had no writing on it and gave him a 30 minute detention for after school.

So, naturally, he felt like slugging the guy in the jaw. But he held in that anger and would soon release it at the gym, where there was no homework and Mr. Aleman was in the shape of baseballs, kickballs, hockey pucks; whatever was available to hit.

"Why don't you ever do your homework? Don't you know Mr. Aleman always yells at you for it?" asked Pence, opening his umbrella and zipping up his jacket, "Now that you have detention, you won't be able to make it to the usual spot."

Hayner, narrowly avoiding a puddle, answered, "It'll be too muddy in there today, anyway. We all might as well go home right after."

Pence looked down at the rain soaked ground, "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Yeah," Hayner replied, "And besides, don't worry about Aleman chewing me out, cuz' in Gym today, Im'a imagine him as a tennis ball and just smack him out of the field!" Hayner made a large swinging motion with his hand not holding the umbrella and almost fell over into a large puddle. He recovered, though, grabbing onto a nearby pole and pushing himself back up.

"You okay?" asked Pence, his hand out in case his friend needed help.

Hayner was back on both his feet and wiping off his hand, "Yeah, but why do these poles haveta be so damn grimy in wet weather?"

Right at that moment, a girl with a transparent umbrella quickly walked in between them. Although she was short, Hayner could see white hair and a piercing red eye through her umbrella.

"Hi, Fuu," said Pence in an overly cheerful tone. However, the girl didn't respond. Instead, she glanced at Hayner, who was wiping his dirty hand on his pants, and smirked meanly.

"Spaz," she commented, then continued on walking.

"Well, now my day is worse," sighed Hayner, beginning to walk again "First Aleman, then I almost slip, now Seifer's lackey."

"You mean Fuu?" Pence asked, his trance-like fixation on the petite girl broken, "I wouldn't say she's a lackey, and you have to admit, she's pretty cute."

Upon hearing this, Hayner stopped in his tracks and looked back at Pence, a wry look on his face, "Cute?"

After a three second silence, Pence opened his mouth to talk, but Hayner kept going before he had a chance to speak, "The girl is bitter, rude, awkward, and totally isolated. Or is that your kind of thing?"

Pence, still surprised over Hayner's sudden outburst, couldn't think of how to respond, so he just shrugged.

Hayner exhaled roughly, "Let's just get to the gym. The sooner I get to hit stuff, the better."


After getting dressed in the boy's locker room, they quickly ran across the rain to get inside the gym.

The inside of the gym was about 100 meters wide and 80 meters across, with a hardwood floor that had a basketball layout painted on it in white paint. On the left and right ends were bleachers, where the school would sit during assemblies, basketball and volleyball games, and on rainy days when the PE teacher was too lazy to make them do rainy-day exercises. The two boys could see their class already sitting on the bleachers, with their teacher standing in front of them with a burlap sack. They hurried to sit down with their class and their teacher, Mr. Sandoval, said to them in a naturally booming voice, "Boys, today, since it's raining, we have two options; one, sit on the benches and do nothing," everyone groaned at this, especially Hayner, who was dying to smack a ball toward the heavens or run away from his problems with some laps around the court. Sandoval continued, pulling a red rubber ball out of the sack, "Or…we can play dodge ball."

With that, the whole class erupted into pandemonium, garnering the attention of the surrounding classes. There was just something so appealing about hitting someone in the stomach with a rubber ball and not getting in trouble for it.

Hayner said excitedly to Pence next to him, "This is gonna be awesome! Just hope that you're on my team, cuz' if you're not, I won't show mercy."

To this, Pence laughed, "You're kidding, right?"

Hayner shook his head slowly, the excited shine in his eyes melting into a only-slightly-serious killer stare, "If you're on the other side of that line, I will bury you in red rubber."

Mr. Sandoval quieted the class down and added, "But for today's dodge ball session, we'll be playing against a different class."

Hayner almost shouted with glee when he heard this. He knew that there were only two other all-boy classes in the school, and one had Rai and the other had despicable Seifer. Whichever one they played, he knew that come Monday, either Seifer or Rai would be fresh out of the hospital, their vision blurred red from all of the balls thrusted in their face (y'know, in a non-sexual way).

"We'll be playing against Ms. Vasquez's class."

What?

An all girl class? But that was against the rules, Hayner's rules! He already made a vow to never, ever harm a cute girl, and when those cute girls are all wearing those skimpy gym shorts, it becomes really hard to want to hit them. Hayner decided he'd have to blow off steam some other way, because he wasn't gonna dare make a bad impression on the ladies. He was horrible at catching dodge balls, so today, he decided he'd just chill in the back, or get hit early so the temptation to throw a ball would be relieved and he could go back to the bleachers.

Mr. Sandoval put three cones across the center of the basketball court to mark the boundary line, and blue tape around the area that both teams would stand in; if they stepped outside the blue line, they'd automatically be called out. He then got three large red dodge balls out of the burlap sack and laid them along the boundary line, equal distance way from both teams.

Hayner, Pence, and his 20-something classmates stood on the north side of the court, while Ms. Vasquez's class, a group of about thirty 14-15 year old girls in skimpy PE shorts, stood on the south side.

Hayner scanned the opposing team for any cute girls to watch out for, so far counting three 5's, nine 7's, four 8's, and a girl that could've been a 10, but her nose was too big and her eyes were too far apart (He was very picky about women.) he decided to let his team handle it and if the situation ever got too dire, he'd try to catch a ball or two to make some easy nonviolent outs. Even though they were girls and therefore were exempt from the intense war of dodge ball, he still wasn't going to cope with losing to a bunch of dainty females.

After scanning from left to right, he noticed another girl who could've been a perfect 10; long, slim legs, nice butt, decently filled out, and nice, soft looking white hair. Now if only she'd turn around so he could see her hopefully beautiful face (according to Hayner law, if a girl had a 10 body and a butter face, than you add both scores and divide by 2 for your final answer. It's probably the most math Hayner's had to do in his life.)

Finally the girl turned around and Hayner's jaw almost dropped when he saw the signature scowl and crimson eye.

"Hey, it's Fuu!" Pence said to Hayner from behind, making him jump suddenly, "You OK, dude?"

"Just fine," Hayner thought, "I mean, all I did was check out my archenemy's lackey and rate her a 10!"

Hayner turned to Pence and replied wearily, "Man, you have to stop scaring me like that. And yeah, I'm fine, I was just checking out the chicks."

"Oh," Pence replied simply, also looking over at girls, "Well, they are cute. Fuu looks pretty good in a PE outfit, don't you think?"

Hayner made a slight jump again at Pence's last question. Fuu looking good? Looking like a totally datable, kissable human being? That was a laugh. As if. No way.

Well, maybe.

Once that thought crept into his head, Hayner made a slight groaning sound and slapped the side of his head as if to knock something loose from his brain.

Pence saw this and showed concern for his friend, "Hayner? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, just don't mention Fuu again," Hayner then said to Pence without looking toward him, "Nothing's wrong, it's just…"

Before Hayner could complete his thought, Sandoval blew his whistle to garner the attention of both classes.

He announced, with Ms. Vasquez by his side, "Ok, classes! The reason you're facing each other today is because Ms. Vasquez and I have a little circumstantial negotiation."

Everyone mumbled questionably at his last remark, confused.

Ms. Vasquez chimed in, "He means a bet."

Cue many "oh"s and "ah"s coming from both sides.

Compared to Mr. Sandoval's booming voice, intimidating features, and tall stature at 6'2", Ms. Vasquez stood 5'0", dwarfed by the much taller teacher in both size and voice. However, whenever Mr. Sandoval said something that didn't make sense at first, Ms. Vasquez would always be somewhere within hearing range, and always available as the dictionary from Sandovalnese to English.

"Anyways," Mr. Sandoval continued, "I bet Ms. Vasquez that if my boys could beat her girls in a game of dodge ball-"

"-which they can't-"

"-shut up- that if we win, her girls will be cleaning up after all of our sporting activities for the rest of the semester!"

To this, the boys cheered loudly, while the girls jeered and booed.

"And if I win," Ms. Vasquez said, "Which I will, the boys have to run in a lap around the school in our PE short shorts during passing period."

"What?", thought Hayner, "That's a horrible bet! If we win, we don't haveta clean, but if we lose, we embarrass ourselves in front of everyone? Oh, hell no, we're not losing!"

Hayner could feel a gaze on him, and looked to see Fuu staring at him, her arms crossed and a smirk on her face. She said no words (as usual), but she stuck her tongue out at him and blew a raspberry.

Hayner didn't know why, but even after the incident with Fuu at passing period, he felt the urge to hit her melt away. He also noticed he was looking at her face more. Looking (staring, actually) at her now, he could see her clear, smooth skin, small nose, shiny pink lips-

"Get these damn thoughts outta my head!" thought Hayner, turning away from Fuu and hitting his forehead, "She's the enemy, she always has been! So why am I looking at like this now!"

Hayner heard Sandoval's whistle blow again, then heard him say, "The rules of dodgeball are if you're hit with the ball anywhere from your feet to your chest, you're out! If you catch a ball thrown at you by an opponent before it hits the ground, the thrower is out and a teammate who was out is brought back in! Now, let's play some dodge ball!"

Everyone readied themselves behind the line, waiting for Vasquez's signal. Hayner himself was trying to clear his thoughts so he could fully concentrate on the game and not have to parade around school in short shorts.

"Ready.."

"Set…"

"DODGEBALL!"

TBC


No, this isn't entirely about dodgeball, but the first drabble is based primarily on the game J Hi, this is Sec (Waka for you that have known me in the past) here saying I'm back from doing Persona 4 stories! :D I decided to take a break from P4 and relax by beginning one of the only Hayfuu stories in existence, but anyways, I plan to go far with this fic and see it to completion with a chapter a week, so next weekend, expect chapter 2, featuring the dodge ball match of the century! (Yeaaah, not really that epic, but somewhat epic.)

Until then, don't forget to R&R, because criticism and compliments are very supportive towards this story and inspire me to write better and-obviously, if no one even seems to be reading this, I might just stop and take another looong hiatus L

So later!

R&R