Hello readers. This may be a bit rough and I didn't know what rating to put on it so I played it safe. This is my first story so please read and review so I know if I'm doing anything wrong. Thank you!

Chapter 1: The New Girl

I stepped nervously out of my mom's car and gave a good look around the school grounds. Mother dearest worked for a multinational company and recently got transferred to JAPAN to be a financial advisor. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing bad about Japan… but I don't want to live here! School was hard enough without learning a completely new language on top of that.

Never-the-less, here I am. There's no turning back now.

Sighing, I grabbed my bag from the floor in front of the passenger seat and began the walk to the front doors. There weren't very many people here yet but that made me stand out even more. A few groups of people stood beneath the sakura trees scattered throughout the courtyard while others sat on benches lining the sidewalk.

After much pointing, staring, and whispering I reached the front doors of Sakura Jousui. Feeling strangely alone, I made my way to the office to collect my schedule and such.

Okay, NOW everyone was staring. I stood front and center beside a frighteningly bubbly teacher named Katori-sensei. Gripping my shoulders, she smiled at the class and introduced me.

"Class, this is Stonebrook Casey. Casey-chan, tell us a little about yourself."

"Like what?" I asked as politely as possible. I hate introductions and I hate spotlights even more. Know I'm there, just don't focus your attention on me. Guess it can't be helped.

"Where are you from? What are your favorite things to do? Things like that."

"Okay… I'm from Iowa. My favorite things are soccer and reading fanfiction on the internet." I looked at Katori-sensei and her smile widened (if that is possible).

"Oh, you play soccer! I'll introduce you to the girl's team captain. She'll be so excited!" She was now hugging me and exclaiming to the entire world how happy she was.

"Ano… Katori- sensei?" One of the students in the back was raising his hand. "Where's ay-oh-ah?" He seemed to struggle with the pronunciation.

"Glad to see you're awake today Shigeki-kun. Iowa is in the United States. Now would you be so kind as to wake Kazamatsuri-kun? We're about to start the lesson."

"No problem sensei." The blonde boy smirked as he grabbed a textbook and stood, walking over to a sleeping brunette. I assumed that this was Kazamatsuri-kun. Surprisingly, he was even shorter than me, and I am only 153cm tall.

Shigeki snuck up next to Kazamatsuri's desk and dropped his textbook right in front of the brunette's face. He snapped upright so fast that he tipped his chair backwards and fell into a heap on the floor.

I tried not to laugh as I found my seat and the boy got up, blushing and stammering an apology to Katori-sensei. Shaking my head, I focused on said teacher and tried to decipher what she was saying with my limited knowledge of the Japanese language.

Weaving through the crowd of students in the hallway, I made my way to the soccer fields with the forms Katori-sensei had given me. As of yet, only one person was there. It was a girl with shoulder- length black hair. She was juggling the ball expertly, making any confidence I had had melt away. There was no way I could be that good.

Never-the-less… "Excuse me!" The girl trapped the ball and turned. "Are you Kojima Yuki?"

"Yes. Can I help you?"

I held out the forms, glad to see me hands weren't shaking with the butterflies in my stomach. "I want to try out for the team."

She smiled and took the forms. "No try-outs necessary. Now we have just enough people for a full size game. If you hadn't come, we would have been stuck with mini- soccer. Have you played before?"

"Yes, but I'm not very good."

This seemed to make her smile even more. "At least you have played. You can go change in the locker room. Meet the team here in 10 minutes."

"Hai!"

10 minutes later I emerged from said locker room and was met by the rest of the girl's team on the pitch.

"Girls, meet our newest member Stonebrook Casey," Captain Kojima announced.

"Konnichiwa!" they shouted simultaneously.

"Alright. Now that we have enough for a team we need to practice a lot. I know that not many of you have ever played soccer before, so we have to practice even harder. I talked to the boy's team coach and he agreed to help us get started. Let's get down to the other pitch and see what he wants us to do."

"Hai!"

The boy's pitch was nearly the same as the girl's but much smoother. There weren't any rocks or weeds on this field. There weren't any players either. The team stood on the far base line with the coach- a tall man with long black hair and a cigarette poking out of the side of his mouth- in the center. Both Shigeki and Kazamatsuri stood among them. I must say, it was actually pretty intimidating.

"Ready to get started Captain?" he asked. She nodded. "Alright, 5 warm-up laps around the field, stretch and we'll do some drills. Then I'll suggest a position and we'll go from there."

There was a groan from the team before we started running but Kojima-chan pumped them up as best as she could and led the way.