A/N Hello there! Long time no see, eh? I'm trying to get back into this fandom and OCs, so have this one-shot and (hopefully) a multi-chapter fic with another OC coming soon. :'D
Disclaimer: All rights belong to their respective owners.
o~
If she were a song, she'd be one of those indie feel-goods that people would get stoned to in their basements, nodding their heads while listening to the melody instead of the words.
When he tells her this, she merely laughs and shakes her head, telling him that she had never even seen anyone stoned before. She then tilts her head and asks if he had? He replies that yes, he has, while he was in English class they had watched a movie about gangsters and people doing drugs and even though everyone else had fallen asleep, he had kept on watching.
She tells him that she can never stop watching a movie, even if it is bad. She talks about movies, dozens of them, their plots and twists and characters and she claims that she has never stopped one, always finished them through to the end. (She loves movies.) He can tell, because her eyes are shining and she can remember every aspect, every award given to her favourite actors and actresses, every true story that a movie was based on.
When he asks her if she wants to be in movies, or even direct them, she tells him that she hasn't the patience nor talent. He stares at her, and the sound of cicadas surround them getting louder and louder until they are centimeters away from each other. She kisses him on the lips and he forgets the topic of conversation, twirling his hands in her hair and somehow she finds her way onto his lap and when they part her eyes are closed.
He presses his cheek against her chest, tries not to seem like a pervert, and listens to her heartbeat. It's fast, almost on time with his. He closes his eyes as well and breathes in the smell of the cherry popsicle she ate a while ago.
There are three little words that hover in the air, and for some reason, he can't remember who says them first, and who replies with me too.
Either way, someone has stepped across the boundaries of something they could never have imagined, and she says softly how funny it is that in movies, this is the part where the main characters feel like time has stopped moving.
He remarks that the cicadas are still chirping, the sun is still beating, and they are still talking. Time does not stop.
And also, they are not in a movie. Because in movies, he says softly, you can't feel this strongly.
On the afternoon of july eighth, only just months into their third year of junior high, Saeki Koujiro begins his first real relationship.
o~
His first girlfriend was a girl from grade school. He can't quite remember her full name, which he feels quite guilty about. All he knows is in grade two, he and 'Ayu-chan' held hands for the entire walk from the playground to the classroom. The other kids had 'ooh'ed and teased them, but his grip kept firm on Ayu-chan's hand.
Eventually, his grip became so hard that she started crying. She transferred two years later. When he went to shake her hand and wish her good luck, she pretended she hadn't seen him.
o~
He's getting paranoid. He watches her in Physics from his seat in the back right corner of the room, next to a frowning Ryou who wonders why his teammate is so strange. She sits in the second bench to the left in the third row, and she's wearing her hair up even though there's no lab assignment today. She looks pretty with her hair up, Saeki decides.
She smiles at her friend, and he feels himself chancing a look at Ryou. Ryou notices, and only frowns some more in his direction. There is a distinct lack of feminine charm and happiness.
He wishes he sat next to her instead.
When the boy who sits in front of her, Morishita-kun, passes back a handout, their hands briefly touch. Morishita, unfazed, smiles and turns back around. She takes two of the handouts and gives one to her partner, handing the remaining stack to the girl behind them. She goes back to laughing with her friend about something that Saeki can't hear about. He sighs, the professor's words about what to do with the handout washing over him.
It's impossible, you know, Ryou tells him as a paper suddenly obstructs his view of her.
Saeki blinks, raises an eyebrow.
Ryou rolls his eyes and starts writing his name on the sheet, murmuring that it would be impossible for Saeki to sit beside, in front and behind her.
o~
Two was the number of girls that had confessed to him during tennis season. Two was the number of girls he rejected during tennis season.
Right now, he had told them apologetically, tennis is my most important thing. I'm sorry, but I don't want anything to get in the way of us getting to Nationals. And undoubtedly, a girlfriend is a distraction.
Two was the number of times Rokkaku did not make it to Nationals.
Two was the number of times he didn't regret it, either way.
o~
Fuji muses that Saeki's gone soft while the previously mentioned snacks on tea and strange coloured biscuits. He continues his reasoning that Saeki must be crazy for this girl as the white-haired boy chokes on the wasabi flavoured cookies.
Fuji smiles, apologizes, and tilts his head. Oh, he murmurs, I must have given you my secret stash, oops.
Saeki wipes his mouth, tries to smile and laughs a little. They've been good friends since they were little, but sometimes, the other boy does frighten him.
And then Fuji asks him if it's really true that he's got a girlfriend now, and Saeki nods with a tint of colour on his cheeks that is not from the cause of the wasabi cookies.
The brown-haired boy speculates on how it's the middle of the tennis season, and Saeki really shouldn't get distracted with such things. He's trying to rile me, Saeki thinks as he just smiles in response.
He tells Fuji that she is different, she is special, and she is really really beautiful.
Fuji asks of her name.
Saeki just laughs and says that Fuji probably already knows, so what's the use?
The two chuckle together, and Saeki tries to ignore the fact that Yumiko is standing in the doorway of the kitchen, beaming like he has just grown up to be a man.
o~
The rhythm of the ball was something he could always count on. Something that never changed. The size and shape of a tennis ball would never sway. A match was always between two people, and it was always full of energy.
And then one day the ball broke past him, and the match ended.
o~
She slaps him, right across the face, hard and tough and all anger, no hesitation. The rest of the team watches on as she pushes him backwards, his body slamming into the clubhouse.
He's shocked, still numb from the adrenaline and pain that's coursing through his cheek. He can feel the cold metal through his shirt and he shivers, still wide-eyed and staring at her.
The rest of the team looks up, down, away. They don't lock eyes with him, they stand metres away from the two, and they pray to god that she will leave and leave them alone because they don't know how to deal with women, especially angry ones.
At some point in all of this, she has started talking. The talking then turns into screaming, and the team members back away slowly, slowly, until they've escaped and all that's left is an empty space and a girl yelling at her ex-boyfriend.
Is that what he should refer to himself as now? He finds the word sour in his mind. He stares at her, in all her glory, long black hair and angry black eyes and pale arms and thin legs and an expression that makes him want to speak. An expression that makes him want to grovel and apologize and beg her to take him back because even though it sounds conceited, he knows that she wants him back.
He wants her back, too.
It's been three days since he was kissed by that girl, Hime-chan. Two days ago, she found out. Yesterday, Saeki had pretended he had the flu and skipped school.
Today, he's getting broken up with.
Every time he opens his mouth, she beats him to it, accusing him of breaking their promise and asking him what had she spent almost a whole year for when he can't even stay faithful to her?
It gets him angry after the fifth time he's tried to speak. He wants to apologize, he wants to explain that it wasn't him that initiated, if anyone was going to get slapped then why couldn't she slap Hime and this was all so stupid and-
Suddenly, there are lips on his and they leave just as quickly as they came, and he is struck speechless again.
She tells him that he has one more chance, and that if she ever even catches him even looking at another girl, she will tear him apart.
He tells her that it wouldn't be very hard since she has all his pieces, anyways.
Tears start falling onto the ground and then he hugs her tight, whispering in her ear that she is no longer just a feel-good stoner indie song, now she is his song and he will never give her up, ever.
She tells him that she is moving to Tokyo in two months.
He says that there are reasons why they made the Shinkansen.
She wipes her tears and calls Hime a little whore.
He wonders aloud how much money he can earn by starting up a kissing booth.
She burrows her head into his shoulder and asks why she ever kissed him in the first place.
He tells her that although she may not have the patience for it, she's the only one who owns the talent of making him happy.
It is February 26 and Saeki Koujiro is not even quarter way through his first real relationship.