DISCLAIMER: I do not own Prince of Tennis (any of the characters and places in it).
My first day in my new school and what do I get?
A broken leg.
But all that's to be saved for later.
Monday morning, I put extra effort into brushing (such a hassle) my hair, which was much harder than I remember it ever being since my hair was layered and had grown out over the summer and it now reached a little below my shoulders. I even decided to use one of my nicer bags and not my trainer one. As I walked through the gates of my new school, the first thing I thought to compare it to was heaven. And that's not even an exaggeration – the school is literally brimming with riches (and obviously rich people). It was very, very different from the small school that I transferred from.
But it scared me to be here, so to say the least. And a part of me scolded that when one yearns to reach heaven, one must strive to face all the challenges it brings. Coming in senior year of junior high meant that everyone probably had their own cliques, had marked their territories – that everyone had and did their own thing.
And that meant that I, being the new girl, had to put in some extra effort to fit in.
Oh right, my name. It's Yuko. Yuko, the new girl.
But Lord knows that I hoped that wasn't true. The other part of me, the part that did not believe in the Law of Teenagers, liked to believe that students in Hyoutei were kind and pleasant and friendly and ever-so-considerate to those who needed their help the most (like maybe, for example, new students).
That part of me was both wrong and right… maybe more wrong than right. From the moment I stepped into the corridors, I understood just what kind of 'heaven' I was entering. While there were some who did in fact look kind and pleasant and friendly and ever-so-considerate (that really, I just wanted to run up to them and introduce myself and stay be their sides for the rest of my life), the rest of the population looked plain obnoxious. At least, the girls did. Boys generally look the same to me, which is why I liked to hang out with them just as much back in my old school.
I started to doubt then whether this was heaven or hell or just some misplaced world in between.
Fate, however, was kind enough to have me placed in a room that seemed to be filled with more angels than demons. Fate was so kind that even before the start of homeroom, I'd made more than just a few friends in my class, and the morning saw me mingling with all these people, getting involved in their catching-up with each other and doing my own introductions and telling my own tales.
One girl, Asami Sora, stared at me so hard when I told them about how my adopted pet squirrel ran away mid-summer (After I took him to the vet and cared for him after I found him near-dead in our lawn. Ungrateful, I say). And then she screamed, "Oh my gosh, my squirrel ran away too!"
Really, what were the odds?
So when the teacher came in, I was in the best a mood as I could get.
Of course, I didn't have a seat yet, but I was in a great mood.
"Settle down, settle down." The teacher was tall and looked strict but his voice had a lazy tone to it. It took him a few moments to realize that I, who had been standing by the door all the while, was not quite in place. "Ah! You're the new student," he said, to me and I nodded as politely as I could. He shuffled through the papers in his hands before proceeding to address the class.
"Alright, is everyone settled? Welcome back everybody. From this moment on, I would like you to forget all of that summer nonsense and move on with the rest of your lives. I am Kobayashi Takeshi and I will be your homeroom adviser."
A mix of hushed cheers and not-so-hushed groans engulfed the silence of the room, which prodded to Kobayashi-sensei to lightly slap the table to call all attention back to him.
That was when I got a good look at my classmates-to-be. The boys took up more than half the class population – and I earlier observed that in the school, there really were more boys than girls. Scattered in the middle was the group of girls I'd gotten to know that morning. The boys that filled the rest of the room were the most varied specimens of the male species I had ever seen: there was a boy with his hair highlighted green (who does that?); another who was seated at the back and hitting on the girl in front of him (that's pardonable, he is a boy after all); there was one with square-framed – and I really mean square – glasses; an orange-haired boy in the front who seemed to be sleeping, and by the window was one with long, brown hair that made him look like a girl seeing that it was prettier than the hair of a lot of girls I knew.
…Okay, maybe I didn't know that many girls. There were probably more girls in this school than I'd ever known. But hey, I told you, I came from a small school.
"I understand that all of you are not new to Hyoutei, save for this young lady here," he gestured to me, "Please introduce yourself."
I bowed and I tried my best to look as lady-like as possible and without gloating to get them to like me (I did not want to be branded a cocky bitch on the very first day), which was a little hard, and I hoped it worked. "Hello, I am Chiba Yukako. My parents and friends call me Yuko."
To cut things short, after I received a zombified chorus greeting from my classmates, Kobayashi-sensei assigned me to sit in the chair next to the sleeping, orange-headed boy in the front.
And to my surprise, he perked up the moment I took my seat. "Hiii! You're a new student?" He tried to whisper his words but it didn't work. "We haven't had a new student in so long. What did you say your name was? Yoko?"
"Yuko," I corrected.
"Yuko-chan! You don't mind me calling you Yuko-chan, right? I'm Akutagawa Jirou!"
The guy beamed at me with what might have been the happiest face I've ever seen. And though I didn't like the fact that his teeth were so shiny that it sent the light glaring right into my eye, I liked him. And so I put him on my list of people I had to befriend.
"Nice to meet you, Akutagawa-"
"Don't call me that! Call me Jirou!"
"…Jirou-san."
"Kun."
"Jirou-san."
"Mou, you're stubborn."
Jirou then promised to show me around during lunch, declaring that everybody was prone to getting lost in Hyoutei.
Lunch time soon came, after I whisked through the first half of the day without feeling too out of place, but guess what? Jirou was sound asleep on his desk.
I was contemplating on whether I would coo and go 'Aww, how cute,' or bang my head on the wall. I rather regretted letting him be my tour guide – it made me feel like I would only end up more lost.
While I was staring at Jirou, still trying to figure out what to do, Asami Sora ran up to me and invited me to join them for lunch with her all too perky voice. "Yuko-chan! What are you waiting for? Come on, we'll introduce you to our other friends!"
"Gomen, Sora-chan, I promised him," I said, pointing at the sleeping boy, and her face took on a look of surprise before she laughed.
"Well, good luck? Come join us tomorrow then! Okay? Okay!" She took my hand and quite forcibly intertwined her pinky with mine, shook it once, then ran off to catch her friends.
After that, I wasn't so sure about their group. They gave off cheerleader vibes.
…I suppose that's fine.
"Chiba-san, you'd better find someone else to go with," someone chuckled from behind, and I turned to face a group of boys, including the one with green highlights. "You can sit with us. Just look for us in the cafeteria. But if you're staying, good luck waking him up." The one who spoke shrugged and they walked off.
"Good luck waking him up… what is that supposed to mean?" I started tapping his shoulder, and when that didn't work, I shook him lightly.
"You're supposed to do this to wake him up."
Before I could even look up to see who spoke, a book came flying down on Jirou's head. It was the boy with the pretty, long hair. I didn't know if that was a friendly or more provoking gesture. Either way, it didn't leave me a very good first impression of him. "Hey!"
Jirou raised his head groggily, stared at both of us, and then yawned, "That hurt."
"Atobe wants us to fill out the reservation forms before lunch ends." This guy sure knew what it meant to go straight to the point.
"Eh? Now? But I promised her!" Jirou pointed at me, and pretty haired boy didn't look too happy.
He looked – or rather, scrutinized – me, before flicking his head away. "Hn."
The nerve of him. So we were on a 'Hn' basis now, were we? I was fine with that, no problem. Look, if you're nice, I'll be nice. If you're not, I won't be. Simple as that.
Obviously, this guy wasn't nice. And the way he looked at me? He looked at me like I was a girl – and I am a girl but it was meant that as a bad thing. The look in his eyes screamed 'I do not hang out with girls.' That was a huge step to my pride and frankly, my pride did not like getting stepped on.
"I know! Let's take her with us!" Jirou was now standing up, grasping my arm and ready to pull me along.
"No need, Jirou-san," I moved my arm making him let go, "Since this particular classmate of ours does not seem to like my company."
Pretty head's (pretty haired boy is much too long) lazy look turned into a glare, and I could already feel the string of not so nice words forming in his mouth but Jirou spoke before he could, slapping pretty head's back in the process.
"Oh, you haven't met! Shishido, introduce yourself!"
He scowled but did so anyway, nodding at me albeit grudgingly, "Shishido Ryo, yokoshiku." I nodded back with the same flavor, which only served to make his scowl deepen.
Jirou didn't seem to notice the immediate tension between us, and went off, calling to Shishido to hurry up so he could sleep again.
Shishido sent me one more scowl before leaving. "You've got guts," he said. You know how that's usually said as a good thing? Like, I don't know, as some sort of motivation?
When he said it, it felt like he was trying to bore holes into me, like he was telling me to back off.
Like I would do that. There he was, stepping on my pride – again. I wasn't going to forget this.
"So I do," I said with a smile. And just like that, he left, his pretty, long hair swaying behind him. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to chop it all off.
I managed to find my way to the cafeteria. I planned to sit with Sora and her friends since they seemed most willing to have me, but I caught a glimpse of them skipping out of the room to who knows where (to their boyfriends? To the bathroom? The possibilities are endless). I spotted the guy with the green highlights waving to me from one of the tables, and I decided to sit with them.
That was probably the smartest decision of the day I've made. Good people, good people.
The afternoon of that day was almost like the first half. Come dismissal time, I was readying myself to leave when I remembered that my mom specifically asked me to take pictures of the place so she could send it to Tou-san who was currently on a business trip to Canada (she absolutely refused to use the pictures online and on the catalogues, saying that personal was always better than professional).
"Yuko-chan!" Jirou, who was sleeping only a few moments ago, was once again standing before me. "I didn't get to tour you during lunch. Want to go now?"
"Sure thing," I smiled, very thankful for the offer (who knows what could've happened if I'd gone on my own), waving the camera to show him, "I remembered that my mom wants me to take pictures."
"Yosh!"
I suppose I was wrong to assume that he wouldn't be a good tour guide. He rather was.
Except, well, he got easily distracted. Like how when he was explaining to me the many other ways to get to the gymnasium aside from the entrance we were at, he suddenly started talking about fish. Turns out he took notice of the trees and the trees had orange flowers and he had a cousin who had a bright orange koi fish.
Ta-da: fish. And I thought I had a short attention span.
But putting all those little moments aside, he made a good tour guide, like I said, and was successful in the one thing he was supposed to do: make sure I wouldn't get lost.
…Until, while I was taking pictures of one of the gardens, I turned to see he was gone.
Just… gone. Poof. Nada. He just vanished – left me stuck out in a garden somewhere in this school that was the size of an airport.
And thus began my survival journey. I didn't know where I was going, but I did my best (and I was doing a pretty good job) to keep calm because panicking would obviously not do me any good. I got to see more of the school while I was lost like that, much to my surprise. Of course, I didn't know what and for what all those buildings and places I saw were, but at least I knew what they looked like and where they were.
I also realized that it was the most wonderful opportunity to take pictures. And I may not have been a professional photographer but mind you, I got some damn good shots.
I walked into a particularly nice looking garden (there were so many of them). I held up my digital camera and started snapping away while walking through it. When I walked forward and looked to the left: I got a beautiful picture of swings against the trees and a blue sky. I walked forward some more and looked to the right: a picture of… grass. I turned left and snapped at what was straight ahead: a picture of trees and birds. I stayed in place and turned to my right: a picture of trees and two boys in the distance who looked like they were kissing.
Oh. Oh shit.
I shook my head. Maybe I was getting delusional. But when I lowered my camera, I saw that they were indeed there. They were far from me but they were there – pressed up against each other, and it looked like one of them, the one who had his back turned to me, even had his hand on the other boy's chest. He seemed to be clutching his shirt.
Wow, that was farther than I've ever gotten with a guy. I've only had one boyfriend and we never even kissed (he was an ass, don't ask).
Okay, so I had a picture of two guys kissing each other in the middle of one of the school's deserted gardens, no biggie.
I suppose my only mistake was that I stayed and there and watched them. I stayed there for a good ten seconds more and just stared. Who wouldn't? It wasn't everyday something like this happened.
That was when I noticed that the boy whose back was turned to me had very nice long, brown hair that was held up in a ponytail, and I couldn't help but gasp and let my eyes widen at the sudden realization. That was pretty head Shishido.
Pretty head Shishido who stepped on my pride twice today was kissing a guy.
All of a sudden, the guy who was in my line of sight looked up and looked straight at me, and I swear that even though he was far, I could see some sort of amusement in his eyes.
That was when I bolted. I didn't really know where I was going; I just had to make sure I was gone from there. If that really was pretty head, then given his attitude, I didn't want to get caught up in anything rough with him. And I'm pretty sure that other guy would come running after me too if I stayed. All I could hope for was that he didn't know me, or didn't recognize me at least.
When I was sure that I was a considerable distance away, I slowed down my pace to a walk. Then I took out my camera and pressed play and zoomed in on that last picture.
And good grief, it really was him. It was his hair, it was his build, I could see the side of his face – it was Shishido. In the shot though, he covered up the other guy so I couldn't tell who it was. All I could see of him was his shaggy blue hair.
I did not like this one bit.
You see, I don't have a very good history with homosexual men. A lot of girls seem to say that gay guys are fun to be around, but do not be fooled. I once had a classmate who was openly gay and I was thus introduced to his posse of other openly gay men. Because I liked to hang out with guys just as much as I hung out with my girlfriends, it suffices to say that they didn't like me just because of that fact.
They had the impression that I was one of the boys so I could get the boys.
As if.
So while I was walking, looking at my camera, all these thoughts running through my head, I didn't notice the steps.
Need I say what happened next? I fell. Hard.
Good thing there was someone else there when it happened. The girl who was there was friendly and helped me to the infirmary. I realized I should apologize to her soon. I was rather prickly and rude then because of the pain.
So anyway, the nurse did what she could but soon handed me over to the care of real medics who took me to the hospital, where I was met by my worried mother.
Then they told me that my leg was broken, but they at the same time told me that it wasn't a bad break on a big bone so it would only take about six to eight weeks to heal.
Only? Six to eight weeks is forever.
I sighed. It was the only thing I could do. Not that I could reverse the situation.
Great god, I was right, this isn't heaven – but I suppose that neither is it too bad to be hell. Just some messed-up world in between.
And now here I am with a broken leg, miserable beyond words.
It didn't make things any better to remember the fact that I was in invited to Hyoutei because I was to receive an athletic scholarship. Now I can't run and I can only hope that I'll be allowed to stay.
And I put the blame on one person and one person alone: all this is because of my stupid classmate, Shishido.
It's all because of his being gay.
The story came into my head the other day while I was writing my AtobexOC fic.
I said in one of my Author's Notes in my other story that Shishido is a character I find particularly hard to write, which is why I didn't write much of him there. But that's exactly the reason why he is the center of this story right here. I wanted to challenge myself a little. This chapter doesn't have much of Shishido yet, only because I wanted to introduce my character first (that's what I always do).
So anyway. It's a first for me to be writing in this style. I have to say that it was rather hard at the beginning, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.
So. Any thoughts? Should I continue?
