Chapter One

Aella cringed as she dragged the hairbrush through her tresses, huffing in impatience. She had been trying to untangle her hair for thirty minutes already, and she'd only gotten about half of it done. She grabbed a strand of her ratty, hip-long hair and held it at eye level, yanking out the knot that had embedded itself in it.

At times she wondered, with a sigh, whether it was such a good idea to grow her hair out. Honestly, her golden tangles gave her so much trouble in the mornings, Aella swore that she could learn an entire language within the time she spent untangling it. Sometimes she was tempted to crop it all off.

She glanced at her alarm clock and gave a start, as it showed that she only had about fifteen minutes before the bus arrived. Dragging the hairbrush through the rest of her hair haphazardly, she quickly wound it in a messy bun on top of her head and slung her backpack over her shoulder.

She stopped by the kitchen on her way out and grabbed her lunch and the keys to the apartment she shared with her sister. Miyo had left earlier that morning to get to her job as a teacher at Kanagawa Dai'ichi, Aella's school when she was younger. She slipped through the door and locked it.

Aella lived with her sister in the apartment section of Kanagawa, about five bus stops away from downtown Kanagawa and ten bus stops from Rikkai Dai. The Kanagawa Mall and grocery store were a bit farther, but overall, everything was fifteen to thirty minutes away, depending on how many people were on the buses that day.

She was glad for this as she sprinted to reach her stop in time. There were a lot of people today, and she fell in line behind them as they filed neatly onto the bus. The driver held a small, transparent container out to her, and she dropped a couple of yen into it before finding a seat near the back and sitting down, setting her bag on her lap.

The bus stopped again and a girl wearing a Rikkai Dai girls' uniform boarded, slumping down in the empty seat beside Aella. "Hi." She smiled a lip-glossy smile.

Aella cast a sidelong, uninterested glance at her. The girl had silky, brown hair that crept down her back, and chocolate-colored eyes to match. She was the kind of naturally pretty girl that was all smiles and candy. Except, Aella noticed—she wasn't smiling so much as smirking.

"I'm Hanako Miyumi," she said. "I haven't seen you around before. Are you transferring to Rikkai Dai?"

Aella nodded silently. It was awkward to change schools in the middle of a semester, but her sister had insisted they come back to Japan. Aella didn't agree. America was a good place, and the little town they lived in had been very safe.

Besides—there were too many memories here.

"Are you mute?" Hanako asked.

"No," Aella said flatly.

Hanako's smirk grew wider, like getting Aella to talk was a big accomplishment. She extended a hand, and Aella looked at it warily before shaking it with her own. Hanako had a strong grip, she observed.

Aella stood up as the bus stopped in front of Rikkai Dai and walked quickly to the exit, careful not to bump any passengers with her backpack. She and Hanako were the only students on the bus that day, so there wasn't a big avalanche of people to fight through. For that, Aella was thankful.

Hanako stepped off the bus and turned to Aella. "Well, I'll see you in class, um…" Her brow creased.

"Houshigawa Aella," Aella provided.

"Okay, I'll see you around, Houshigawa," Hanako told her cheerfully, not bothering with an honorific. She walked away with a wave of her hand.

"Sure," Aella murmured to herself, watching in bemusement as Hanako left.

Once Hanako's retreating figure was shrouded by the heavy curtain of people milling in front of Rikkai Dai, Aella turned her gaze to the school, eyes widening in surprise at how different it was from her old high school back in Florence, Arizona. Florence High School hadn't been nearly as big as Rikkai Dai, and she immediately felt intimidated by the school.

Aella hadn't been in Japan for nearly three years, and she hadn't spoken a word of the language for two years. She muttered some of the harder to pronounce Japanese words under her breath, and was amused to find that she had a small lilt in her voice.

She was jerked out of her stupor when, out of nowhere, a chiming tune began playing across the campus. Aella looked around and found that the students dotting the lawn in front of the school had all paused in their actions and were beginning to flock to the building.

Must be the bell, she figured.

Aella walked by herself towards the doors, taking out the white slip of paper in the pocket of her blazer. She was in class 3-A #10. As she entered the school, she discovered with pleasure that there were floors for each grade. The thought amused Aella for some reason, probably because it was just so damn orderly.

She marched up the stairs, watching as second years scurried past her, giggling. It felt strange to be back in middle school again; since she would have been in high school had she stayed in America. She walked confidently though, despite the fact that she was probably newer to the school than the first years.

She entered the class to find that it was only half full. The teacher had yet to arrive—along with fifty percent of the students. She spotted Hanako in a seat by the window waving at her, and walked to her.

"There's an empty seat beside me, Houshigawa," she told Aella, gesturing at a desk to her left. She didn't seem surprised at all that they had ended up in the same class, and if she was, she was hiding it well.

Aella sat down in the seat, kicking her backpack under the desk. She smiled despite herself, thinking about the year to come.

When she'd visited Rikkai Dai on Sunday, the principal, taking her for a foreigner (she couldn't blame him. Given her blond hair and turquoise eyes, plus the lilt in her voice and her Aeropostale T-shirt, it was easy to mistake her for an American), had promptly informed her in that patronizing tone that the teachers had used on the stupid students back in kindergarten that "the teachers switch classes here, not the students."

Aella liked the thought that the teachers would do most of the walking between classes. It was strangely alluring to her, and much more logical than the idea that a sea of students should go scrambling through the halls every fifty minutes, like it had been back in her old school.

Soon, the seats started filling up as students came in. Aella was sitting behind a nice-looking boy with inky hat-hair and in front of a girl who kept on twirling a lock of her straight ebony hair. To her right was Hanako, and to her left was a sporty-looking girl who looked like she ran track, judging by the bulging muscles on her legs.

The teacher arrived last, striding into the classroom on clacking heels and setting a folder down on the desk in front of her. "We have a new student among us today," she announced.

There were murmurs from the class—it was strange for students to transfer schools in the middle of the first semester, or any semester, really.

"Houshigawa Aella." The teacher scanned the room.

Aella looked around and, after a moment's hesitation, stood up and walked to the front of the class.

"It seems you've already found yourself a seat. Please introduce yourself and tell us some things about yourself." The teacher's eyes twinkled at her merrily.

Aella rolled her eyes. The class already knew her name. What else was there to tell? Besides, she liked knowing the name of a person before she started telling them stuff about herself. Still, with another dramatic roll of her eyes, she began.

"I'm Houshigawa Aella, and I don't really have any particular hobby. I'm not allergic to anything, and you guys are bored."

The teacher blinked twice, then, smiled again. "I'm Tekumi-sensei. It's nice to meet you. Please take a seat so that class can begin."

Aella smoothly moved to her chair and sat down. She leaned into the back of her seat and crossed her arms over her chest loosely, tilting her chin up in a superior manner. Her turquoise eyes peered down on the class and Tekumi-sensei coolly.

Rikkai Dai, she hoped, would be interesting.

"Y'know, Houshigawa, I bet you'd have to drink a cargo ship of alcohol before I got a dollars worth of information about you," Hanako marveled that afternoon.

Aella laughed. They were walking towards the soccer fields for Hanako's practice, as the girl was a starter on the girls' soccer team. The two had become fast friends; sharing a common interest in old movies and making people feel uncomfortable.

"I swear," Hanako cried, throwing her hands up uninhibited. Aella had discovered soon after meeting her that Hanako was not the type to be embarrassed about anything. "It's absolutely impossible to worm any information out of you."

"Then why do you keep trying?" Aella asked.

Hanako grinned. "It's a challenge."

"Just go to practice already," Aella scoffed, shoving her lightly in the direction of the soccer field. She turned away after watching for a minute or two and decided that she would explore Rikkai Dai.

She wondered if she should join a club—because it would be awfully boring to wait around in the halls for two hours. Besides, her after-school job didn't start until five thirty.

She rounded a corner, when upon spotting a familiar silver head; she skidded to a stop in her tracks, coming to a statue-still pause as her mind registered the person standing not a few feet in front of her.

Haru.

He was with a pretty third-year girl, back slouched and hands in his pockets, eyes hooded with boredom. The girl scrutinized his shoes whilst murmuring something incomprehensible. She looked so shy next to his confident smirk that if Aella wasn't so damn frightened at the sight of him, she would've felt sorry for her. It was obvious that the girl was confessing to him, and it was obvious to Aella in the tilt of his head and the set of his shoulders that he was going to reject her.

He was relishing in her nervousness—but the moment she grew confident, he would crush her.

Aella tried to decipher what the girl was saying, how soon that moment was, but the up and down movement of her mouth wasn't enough. Niou looked at her with a sneer draped gracelessly on his lips, and Aella was able to make out the word "girlie" before his mouth started moving too fast for her to keep up. The girl said something back to him, looking like she was struggling to hold back tears. He replied coldly and she shook her head vigorously, running away, her long hair streaming behind her.

The time had come earlier than she'd expected, Aella mused in her head.

He turned to her, sneer still caught on his lips, and she watched, frozen, as his eyes widened fractionally when he recognized her and he took a step towards her, lessening the distance between them.

She panicked and melted into a crowd of Rikkai students nearby before he could get any closer.

Niou Masaharu felt his heartbeat increase as he saw a crowd of students cover her retreating back. He took a step, then another, in the direction she'd gone in, but Yagyuu appeared by his side, looking quizzically in the direction he was looking in.

"What are you looking at, Hiroshi?" Niou smirked, abandoning his efforts for the moment.

Yagyuu blinked. "Ah—Niou-kun, let's go to practice."

Niou nodded and turned towards the tennis courts, where he'd been going before that pesky girl had confessed to him and before he'd seen Aella. His steps were slow, reluctant as he started after Yagyuu, sweeping his gaze through the crowd. He turned his neck so that he could scan behind him, but he saw nothing.

Che. Figures. She'd be the only who could vanish completely in a crowd of ten.

He turned back as he approached the tennis courts. He and Yagyuu both got ten laps for being late, but he didn't mind. It gave him time to think and scan the crowd of fangirls for her.

Houshigawa Aella

The name struck memories buried deep within him. As far as he knew, nobody on the team, not even Yanagi, knew about her. He didn't keep it a secret; he just never brought it up.

She'd quite literally disappeared one day. Niou remembered going home and asking if he could go over to Aella's, to get the answer that she'd flown to America that afternoon.

What the hell?

He'd been shocked.

Because, what kind of friend just up and left, without a goodbye? Without a word even?

And then, when he'd raced to his room to email her, he found that she'd deleted her account. He tried to call her, but her cell phone number had been disconnected. Of course, being the resourceful eleven-year-old he was, he'd found new ways to contact her—all of which failed.

Eventually, Niou gave up. He stopped trying to email and call her, and he focused instead on tennis and Nationals and establishing his new reputation in Rikkai Dai as "The Trickster."

Niou had forgotten about her.

…Until now, that is.

Aella felt guilty.

She felt guilty because she'd left. She felt guilty for disappearing, for running away three years ago. She felt guilty for running away again, today. She felt guilty, guilty, guilty, and she wanted to stop.

So she did.

She splashed ice cold water onto her face and ran her wet hands through her hair. She composed herself, telling herself that she wasn't dodging Niou because she was afraid. She told herself that she would confront him when the time arose.

And for now, that was enough.

Slipping past a first-year girl who had come in, she went out to explore the school like she had planned to do before. She had now completely made up her mind to join a sports club, like gymnastics or track and field or something. Rikkai Dai had a lot of sports team, which was good luck on Aella's part.

Her first thought was to check out the gymnastics club, for the sport had always interested Aella. The thought of flinging one's self into the air wasn't completely foreign to her because she'd sky-jumped once, a process in which she had been required to hurl her body off of a terrifyingly tall structure with nothing more than a harness attached to her abdomen.

She quickly dismissed the idea when she saw the people that were in the club.

Nobody without prior experience joined the gymnastics club, it seemed.

Her second choice was track and field. She had never been one for teamwork and track and field didn't seem to include anything of the sort. Aella didn't know too much about the sport, but she supposed that she was passable. She was a pretty fast runner and she had good stamina and endurance.

Of course, when she saw the club's practice, she realized that passable wouldn't get her very far. At her old school, the girls running in circles in front of Aella would've been the fastest people around. I guess I need to get accustomed to Rikkai standards, she thought wryly—because, damn it, these girls were fast.

Aella soon discovered that while her old school's sports teams had been good, Rikkai's sports teams were on a whole other level. Here, sports were taken to the extreme, with two hours of bone-crushing practice and back-breaking labor every single day. Each team was granted state-of-the-art equipment and the students on these teams were given special treatment, as long as they kept on bringing back shiny gold trophies to be mounted in display cases.

The teams of Rikkai were expected to be no less than Nationals champions.

Aella sighed as another golden curl fell in front of eyes. She tucked it behind her ear, but another one fell in front of her a moment later. A disgruntled noise escaped her as she inserted it back into her bun. The strand behind her ear sprang forward again, and Aella exhaled sharply in frustration.

She reached up to untangle her hair-tie from her hair so that she could tie back the tresses that had managed to come undone. She dragged her fingers through her tangles and grabbed it all in one hand. Twisting it gently, she unwound the hair-tie from her wrist and dragged her hair through it. She twisted and repeated the process until her hair was in a ponytail that reached to just above her waist.

There.

Now she could concentrate.

Her eyes floated over to the tennis courts, but they quickly skidded past them to the school. Maybe she could give the volleyball team a try. After all, it was never too late to learn teamwork, and she couldn't be picky about which team to tryout for. She'd be lucky to make any team given the level of playing Rikkai's athletes were on. Besides, the teams couldn't be that bad.

She'd be fine as long as it wasn't tennis.

Author: So, this is the first chapter of the newly-revised version of 'Double Trouble.'

Aella: I was so much awesomer before…

Author: I agree. But you were also unrealistic to me. Besides, I like to think that my writing has gotten better now. Plus, I think you're pretty awesome now, too.

Aella: *pouts* Your opinion doesn't count.

Author: Shut up, or I will pair you up with someone terrible. Now, you must excuse me. I am hard at work on the second chapter.

Aella: Read, review, and hopefully convince Author to change me back.

Author: She's kidding.