The Robot Girl
She storms onto the tennis courts bringing the wrath of Heaven and Hell with her. She points her finger—The Finger—at Niou Masaharu and does not stop walking until she is mere inches from him. She is nearly struck by the ball Niou is too distracted to hit but it does not stop her.
"You!" she shouts. "I know it was you!"
The courts go silent and everyone turns to watch the girl pointing The Finger at Niou during the middle of a match (during practice two weeks before the National Tournament, not that she knows that). The only person not interested is Sanada, who is more angry than curious at the girl's sudden appearance.
"I have it on tape," she says. She reaches down into her bra and pulls out a flash-drive. She sticks the device under Niou's nose. "Give it back or I give this to the headmaster."
"There were no cameras," Niou says.
"I built one into the robot dog."
"The one on the workbench?"
"Yes."
"Smart."
"Thanks. Give it back."
Niou's eyes flick to Yukimura, who is watching with as much curiosity as everyone else, then back to the pissed off girl in front of him. She looks like the kind of girl who could show up with intricate colorful tattoos all over her arms and piercings all over her face, and no one would be surprised.
"It'll be back in your club room before lunch tomorrow."
"I'm checking and if it's not there"—she puts the flash-drive back into her bra—"you won't be playing tennis for a long, long time."
Sanada has had enough; he walks over and puts a hand on the girl's shoulder. She whirls around like a tornado and points The Finger at him. He is stunned into silence.
"Don't touch me, you"—she looks him up and down—"oaf!"
She leaves the courts and casts once last menacing glance over her shoulder at Niou before she disappears around the corner of the school.
Marui leans over to Jackal. "Who the hell was that?"
"No idea."
...
Marui asks around the next day; no one seems to know who she is and Niou is not telling. Marui knows she must attend the school because she was wearing the female uniform—complete with an oversized bow, a navy sweater, and a (wonderfully) short skirt.
Niou does not leave class to return whatever it is he took and when lunch comes around Marui wonders if he should expect another visit from the girl.
But she does not show at afternoon practice, nor the one after that, or any days to follow. After a week Marui has given up his interest in the girl with The Finger, who managed to stun Sanada and verbally attack Niou, until he sees her in the hall.
He follows her instead of going to afternoon practice. She goes to the basement of the Science Hall and into a room that looks like it's a closest or used to be one. There's a piece of paper taped to the door with ROBOTICS CLUB written in sharpie. He didn't even know they had a robotics club.
He peers through the window on the door and raises his eyebrows.
"This is way better than practice," he thinks.
She undoes the oversized bow, takes off her sweater, then her white blouse leaving her in only a flimsy white camisole and the short skirt. Marui feels slightly perverted, but the feeling of being a creep is much stronger. It's not his fault she started to strip after all; she did that of her own volition.
She moves out of view to the other side of the room. He leans up against the door until his face is pressed against the window.
Suddenly and without warning the door opens and he tumbles in landing face first on the dirty tile floor that smells like oil. He groans and rises to his knees, reaching up to rub his forehead, which seems to have taken the brunt of his fall.
"Who are you?"
Marui looks up and sees the girl looking back. Her hands are on her nonexistent hips and her arm muscles are firm—she's ripped for a girl. She bends forward so her long black hair has encased Marui like prison walls. He can see down her shirt. Her bra is green.
"Answer the question."
"I'm Marui Bunta," he says with as little quiver to his voice as he can manage. "And I was not spying on you while you stripped."
"Then what were you doing?"
"Spying on you while you stripped, but not on purpose."
"Get out."
"But—"
"Get. Out." She stands up and uses her finger—The Finger, Marui notes—and points to the open door. Her face says that she's not kidding and her arms say she will beat him up if he doesn't listen.
Marui stands and she's taller than him by two inches. He hurries out and hears the door slam shut behind him.
...
Marui goes back to the room in the basement of the Science Hall the next day with a memorized apology in his mind. He has ten minutes then he needs to be at practice or he's going to get extra push-ups like he did yesterday.
He blows a bubble and knocks on the door instead of falling through it. The girl opens it, still in her uniform (though Marui is not necessarily happy about that), and glares at him.
"I'm not a show," she says.
"I'm sorry," he blurts. It's not how his speech started but it comes out anyways.
She leans against the doorframe and crosses her arms. "I have work to do, you know, and unless you can turn into a screwdriver I don't need you here to do it."
"I'm Marui Bunta."
"I know."
"See this is where you tell me your name."
"Ask your pal on the tennis team."
She closes the door in his face and Marui runs to practice.
...
After thirty minutes of constant, annoying nagging, Niou finals says:
"Oshiro Sen."
Marui smiles victoriously. It does not occur to him that Niou could be lying and it will not for some time. Though Niou is telling the truth, if only because he knows that girl will give Marui hell. That girl lost her shit over a borrowed (stolen) screwdriver. Niou figures Marui is going to drive her to murder.
...
"I know your name."
Oshiro looks up from her workbench for a brief moment before looking back at the mass of parts that Marui cannot identify. She's in her camisole and Marui can see her bra again. It's blue.
"I deduced it," Marui goes on. "I have genius skills, you know."
"Stop bullshitting me."
"I'm serious."
She looks up. "Bullshit."
He smiles and leans on the table where his arm dips into a pool of oil. He tries not to grimace but he does and she smirks wickedly. Her eyes and chin are pointed like an elf's and her hands look worse than his.
"I can show you my genius," he says.
She picks up a wrench. "I can show you what you look like without a dick."
Marui stops leaning on her workbench.
...
Nationals come and Marui forgets about the robot girl in the basement of Science Hall. For a few days he lives, breathes, and sleeps tennis, and it pays off because they win. Three consecutive titles in the high school tournament—it's the best feeling ever.
He gets back to school and falls into his old routine. He goes to practice after school, not the basement in the Science Hall, but he sees her anyways. He's half way through a match with Jackal (winning four-one against Sanada-Yagyuu, which is by far Yukimura's strangest combination yet) when he spots Oshiro Sen walking.
Yagyuu sends a shot Marui's way and Marui lobs it over to Oshiro. She stands completely still with her eyes cast downwards and black hair surrounding her face.
"Don't just stare! Toss it back, robot girl!" Marui shouts.
He hears the shifting of gears and the pat-pat of dog feet. He looks down and sees a silver robotic dog at his feet with a ball in its crude metallic jaw. The dog drops the ball then jogs back to Oshiro and Marui realizes she is looking at a remote the size of a textbook.
Her eyes, colder than metal, say it all—don't call me robot girl.
...
"Are you the only one in the club?"
"No."
"Then where is everyone else?"
"They show up for meetings."
"Then why are you always here by yourself?"
Oshiro puts down her screwdriver. Marui has perched himself up on a tall stool that makes him taller than her and is blowing large green bubbles.
"Why are you here?" she asks. "Don't you have to prance around hitting balls?"
Pop. She flinches at the annoying sound.
"Nationals are over," Marui says. "Practice goes back to the three-day schedule. Duh."
She clenches her jaw and goes back to work, tightening the side of something. She's apparently finished her robot dog as it now sits on a shelf next to what looks like a fancy alarm clock and a metal star.
"I like the star," he says.
She waits a moment before saying, "I do too."
Pop.
She whirls her head to look at him. "Get the hell out."
She uses The Finger to point to the door. He sighs and leaves knowing that arguing won't do any good. He'll just have to come back another day.
...
She removes her bow first and sets it on a stack of cardboard boxes full of parts. She takes off her sweater and folds it then does the same to her blouse after undoing each button with battered, nimble fingers.
Her sniper eyes lock on him through the window in the door and he runs.
...
Marui asks Niou about Oshiro Sen the robot girl but he does not give any information. Niou claims he only steals tools from the robotics club to work on various "projects," but other than that has no idea who the hell she is. No one seems to know who she is. Rather they don't know anything about her which by Marui's standards is the same as not knowing who someone is.
But he wants to know.
He goes to the gym Jackal boxes it and sits in the corner until Jackal is done. They're going to a movie afterwards then Marui is spending the night at Jackal's. It's a well over due hang out.
Only once again Marui finds himself staring at the robot girl.
She's in a sports bra and shorts shorter than the uniform skirt. Some older guy Jackal said is the trainer is wrapping her hands in tape. Her actual gloves are blue with a single white star on each on the top. Marui can tell it's not her first time here.
Marui usually falls for the singers, the dancers, the pretty ones. He likes short big-eyed girls who can bake cookies and cakes for him and do so often, the ones who cringe when he's sweaty and hugs them. Those girls are his type.
Robot girl is covered in sweat and can hit that bag hard.
"Bunta, dude, let's go," Jackal says.
Marui stands up and follows Jackal out of the gym. They talk about tennis, the horrible movie, drink beer Jackal smuggles from his dad's stash, and shoot some zombies on Xbox. It is not exciting like the wild promises of adventure he sees in her eyes.
...
She smells like metal.
Marui is not around her when he realizes this and he does not know what makes him come to this epiphany. It comes to him when he is in Chemistry lecture and the thought consumes him.
He looks at the periodic table and wonders what metal it is—Au, gold; Pb, lead; Ni, nickel; or any dozen of the metals in existence.
But it is simply metal.
...
"You're always locked up in here," Marui notes. "Don't you have friends?"
"Don't you want to leave?"
"I'm good, thanks for asking though." He smiles but she does not. He kicks his legs and figures she would blow if he asks another question so he sits silently.
Then she says, "I'm not good with living things."
Her adept fingers fiddle with tiny gears the size of her chewed finger nails. She looks at peace and for a moment Marui thinks she forgets his existence.
...
Marui is walking through the city on the weekend when he passes the glass front of the boxing gym Jackal attends. He peers inside and sees her jumping rope. He thought that only happened in movies but now he thinks otherwise.
She sees him too, though probably not the same way that he sees her.
He puts his face and body flush against the glass with the goofiest expression he can manage. She trips on the jumprope and when she pushes herself up she is glaring at him.
Before she can use The Finger Marui has already disappeared.
...
He takes her phone when she is busy putting her hair up. She ties her hair up high and watches him type his number into his contacts. His phone beeps and he acts surprised.
"I have a text message," he says and pulls out his phone. "Thank you, robot girl, now I have your number."
He waves the phone in her face without thinking of the consequences. There are wrenches and screwdrivers and a dozen other weapons within her reach. He wonders if he'll bleed apple gum like Jackal says he will.
She picks up her latest project (Marui does not know what it is; he never knows) and goes to work. "Don't send me stupid shit."
"I only send stupid shit, robot girl."
She pauses and is ready to scream or threaten with bodily harm but once again it never comes.
Marui kicks back in his chair and adds her number to his contacts.
...
At some point, watching her strip became watching her strip. He begins to feel less creepy and more perverted because he realizes that he likes watching the girl strip. She is not curvy and her muscles are defined yet he likes it.
Marui has seen girls—curvier, sexier girls in lingerie—strip for him in much more intimate settings to much less than a camisole. Despite that, seeing Oshiro Sen strip to a camisole is ten times hotter. It's her sharp collar bones, or maybe it's the way her back dips and curves before joining her lower half.
He walks in when she is done. She stares at him and Marui knows she knows. Her gaze goes through him like a drill through metal.
She wanders around the small room going through boxes and shelves and drawers as she collects random bits and pieces for a new machine.
She does not have a plan; she never does. Marui asks why.
"Why think when you can do," she replies.
Marui sits and watches her work. He does not understand and never does.
...
Marui sits in class using his backpack as a cover to text. Halfway through a text to Jackal, he spots the many abandoned paper clips that have collected in the bottom of his bag.
"If she can make something so can I," he thinks.
Later that afternoon Marui sets a ball of metal in front of Oshiro Sen. She picks it up and turns it every which way in examination. It's a crude silver rose (or daisy? tulip?) though it could be several other things depending on the angle.
She holds it in her hand and stares at Marui with the eyes of a curious stargazer. "What is it?"
"I made it out of bent paper clips. I know you don't like living things."
She looks back down at it and smiles because of him for the first time and that makes Marui smile too.
...
Marui gets his first text from her one Sunday—meet me at the school gates. He does not understand (he never understands when it comes to Oshiro Sen) but he goes regardless. She is already there when he arrives.
Hot damn, he thinks.
She's wearing jeans and a leather jacket and is sitting on a black motorcycle like she was born to have that thing between her long legs. Her hair is tucked into the jacket and she looks so bad ass that Marui can't help but remember the way she stormed onto the tennis courts some weeks ago.
"Please tell me you did not build that thing," he says.
"It's my dad's," she says. "He let's me borrow it."
"You have a license?"
"Stop asking dumb ass questions. Of course I do." She tosses him a white helmet and says, "Get on."
"Where are we going?"
"There's a meteor shower."
"Non-living things falling from the sky?" he asks.
"Non-living things falling from the sky," she confirms. "Now get on before I change my mind."
He gets behind her and puts on his helmet. His arms fit around her with room to spare and his head rests on her shoulder. Her helmet is black with stars. She turns the motorcycle on and Marui flips a shit.
"What the hell am I getting myself into?" he wonders, but then she's off and he can no longer think.
She laughs; he can't find the air to breathe.
...
Marui always feels like an oncoming inferno on the tennis court, but around her he feels like a small kindling while she is wildfire.
She says she strips so her uniform does not get dirty, but most of the time something ends up on it, either Marui's apple gum or the oil and rust on her hands. If she cares that he watches she does not show it. (Once again, Marui does not understand her.)
Marui tinkers as she creates.
"What is that?" Marui asks. He always asks that. This time, he gets an answer:
"A bear's guts at this point."
"What's it gonna do?"
"Walk around. It's just a desk toy."
"And it'd make a good paper weight."
"When gold shitting pigs fly, it will be a paper weight."
He smiles and pokes at the gear-bear-guts that will be the core of another one of her creations. He wonders if it will end up on the shelf with the star and the rest of her finished inventions.
"You should make a tennis ball that dispenses candy," Marui says.
But he never receives a response. Her mind is on her work and he has disappeared from her current reality. He sits silently and chews his gum, his fingers fiddling with pieces that never connect into anything.
...
"It's nice out today, pretty even," Marui says. They're walking to the gate together because Marui completely skipped tennis practice and she had to leave the basement eventually.
"I don't see weather as pretty."
"You're pretty."
She looks at him, head tilted slightly down because she is taller, and smiles and she says, "You are too."
He blows a large green bubble and she laughs.
...
Oshiro opens her toolbox and frowns. She loads up an old computer in the corner of the room that looks so ancient Marui is surprised it works. She hooks in a chord from her robot dog and leans back in her chair with a look of war on her face.
Marui watches a video of Niou taking a wrench from a star covered toolbox under her workbench. She stands up and heads for the door.
"Be right back."
Twenty minutes later, she comes back victorious, twirling her wrench like it is the key to the universe.
He imagines her walking on to the courts and grabbing Niou by the front of his uniform until he gives her the wrench. Maybe she went into the locker room when everyone was still changing and walked straight up to him with her iron guts and metal eyes.
"Shit," he swears as he scrambles for the door. "I have practice! See ya later, robot girl!"
He is already half way down the hall and cannot hear her shout, "Don't call me robot girl, tennis boy!"
...
He goes to the boxing gym with Jackal one weekend and sees Oshiro Sen hitting a bag. He sits in the corner and watches her instead of his best friend. Her hands can create and destroy, he realizes, and he wonders what that means. Nothing, really, but it means something to her.
"You staying here?" Jackal asks.
Marui shrugs. "You mind?"
"You look like a drunk two seconds away from drooling," Jackal says then leaves, because he understands that Marui likes this girl even if Marui doesn't quite understand it himself.
She walks over to him in her leather jacket and tattered jeans. "Want a ride home?"
"Sure."
He follows her to the parking lot in the back where her dad's motorcycle is parked. She sits on the grimy ground and Marui sits next to her.
"Wasn't I getting a ride home?" he asks.
"In a minute," she says. "I like it here. On a clear night, you can see the stars just over that hill in the distance where the city ends."
"Before that meteor shower I hadn't seen stars since I was five or something like that. I had always wanted to see them, but I never did." He smiles, "Until you showed up on a motorcycle."
"This is what I mean. People spend their whole lives thinking and planning instead of doing. But what's the point of thinking and planning if you're never going to do?"
She talks with her hands (she can never keep them still). Her hands look raw and Marui misses that raw, worked feeling on his own hands. He would get callouses from those long tennis practices.
"Let's get out of here, at least for the night," she says. "Let's go to some country town where you can see the stars. Let's do something."
Marui laughs. "And what? Sleep in the grass and get ticks? Eat bad food and get diarrhea? No."
"I'm serious."
"You're serious?"
"I just said that."
Marui stares at this strange girl and wonders why he hadn't noticed her until recently because he wishes he'd met her sooner.
He nods and smiles saying, "Yeah. Yeah. Let's go."
They both know there'd be hell to pay in the morning, but right then and there the stars were calling their names.
Oshiro jumps to her feet and Marui follows her. She tugs on a helmet, straddles her dad's bike, and tosses the second helmet to Marui.
"I can't believe I'm doing this," he thinks.
She zips up her leather jacket and adjust the mirrors like she's hell on wheels and Marui loves it. He folds his arms around her waist and can smell her, smell the metal worked so deeply into her skin it is part of her, and he holds on even tighter.
"Hang on tight, tennis boy."
"Anything you say, robot girl."
They never look back.
A/N: Constructive criticism is loved :)
Thanks to xxTemarixx for looking this over for me and suggested writing a MaruiOC.
Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis.