Chapter 1
Despite already being a month into her first year of high school, Taniyama Mai still felt like a complete outsider to her school's community and was sorely disappointed with herself for a lack of progress with fitting in. For the past six years she lived at the nearby orphanage, which, regrettably, required their orphan tenants to volunteer their time with daily housekeeping chores so that she had been unable to participate in any club or school event activities.
As soon as she turned sixteen she was finally able to legally move out to her own place, receiving a modest living stipend thanks to her deceased parents' savings and some monetary help from some distant relatives, and she foolishly entertained high hopes that her high school life would be much different. However, she failed to take into account just how much her circumstance crippled her development during her formative years, and she now found herself without any talent, nor particular interests. Even just the prospect of choosing which club to join was impossible. Her best bet was to just follow whatever Michiru and Keiko decide, both of whom she had been close friends with since middle school, but sadly, she found out that growth spurts could surprisingly wedge a great distance between them, physically and figuratively. Who knew?
Keiko and Michiru, who both had always been bigger than her to begin with, had grown considerably taller and were now skirting the 168 cm mark, while she stayed at a measly 154 cm, hardly any different from her height in middle school. By the third week of school, feeling better settled in, Michiru excitedly suggested they all join the volleyball club together. Mai was excited at first, especially at seeing both of them so enthusiastic about the idea, but they quickly realized that Mai's short stature made her unfit to even step foot anywhere near the court. When they showed up for a trial run during the team's practice one day, Mai couldn't help but feel severely outclassed and felt incredibly silly standing among giants, more powerful and agile than her and she went home that day feeling more hopeless than ever.
Her friends, of course, felt bad about it and suggested they look for a different club altogether; Mai argued that she didn't want them to miss out on something they'd enjoy just for her sake. The entire night the three of them argued over the phone, although eventually that turned out to be a non-issue after all because Mai's luck didn't even spare her a chance. The next day she found that talent wasn't the only thing she was lacking- apparently she also lacked brains. The two had no choice but to yield after Mai showed them her failing marks on their English test, which meant she had no time for any after school activities except remedial lessons for at least two weeks until she passed the next test.
A full week of remedial classes later and Mai was finally making some headway with her English material. She didn't just want to barely pass for her next time, she wanted to at least score a 75%.
When the bell rang Mai sighed and sunk into her chair as one by one her classmates left the room, ready to begin their second set of activities for the day. Michiru and Keiko waved her goodbye and headed out to the gym, leaving her and three fellow students in the classroom. After greeting them with a hello, rather than fraternizing, she instead excused herself and raced out of the classroom, knowing that she only had ten minutes to herself before the frighteningly strict Kana-sensei arrived for the remedial classes.
She stopped by her locker first, replaced her indoor shoes with her outdoor ones, and then continued running at full speed to the vending machines just outside the school grounds. She had been doing this ritually since last week. It felt refreshing and made her feel like she was doing some sort of sport, and as long as she hurried she always made it back on time with two minutes to spare. She inserted the exact change, pressed the button for her favorite drink, and watched as the tiny spring-shaped appendage pushed the can tumbling down the chute.
After gulping its contents down, she threw the can in the nearby recycling bin and raced back up the stairs, trying her best to balance agility and safety by taking it only one step at a time (she tried taking it by two steps once and she almost tripped and died), but as soon as she reached the top and rounded the corner, she bumped head first into someone much taller and sturdier than her, sending her small frame flying backwards in a rebound and was in danger of falling down the flight of stairs.
It all happened in a blur and she had absolutely no clue what just happened, only that she was surprisingly not dead, was suddenly enveloped in someone's tight embrace, and her uniform felt sticky and wet from the front. She was dragged away from the stairs and unceremoniously let go. Mai clutched at her wet chest and tried to steady her furiously beating heart, blinking slowly to let her mind catch up to the events.
A sharp, deep voice cut through her thoughts. "Idiot."
She looked up at her savior and saw him readjust the giant sports bag on his shoulder. He was watching her with a furious scowl, his blue eyes narrow, stern and cutting, expressing an obvious disgust at her clumsiness. The gratitude she was just about to express quickly died in her throat.
The other boy she originally bumped into quickly jumped in front of her and grabbed her by the shoulders, turning her around to inspect if she had gotten hurt somewhere, and cried, "Oh, crap, I'm so sorry Miss! Are you hurt?"
She shook her head. "N-no, I'm fine. No worries." Mai noticed he was carrying an almost empty bottle of sports drink.
The boy readjusted his glasses and gave a long, dramatic sigh of relief. "Damn, that almost gave me a heart attack. I need a drink!" He eyed the bottle in his hand with a sad expression and sloshed it around before tipping whatever little remained into his mouth. Turning to the scowling boy beside him he exclaimed, "Plus one-hundred cool points for you, Boss. Gotta ding you for thirty, though, since you didn't do it cleanly. Still, this puts you at second place! Congratulations! I'm still first though." He laughed and pointed at his friend's ruined navy blue jersey. "Yeah, don't worry, pretty boy's got extra shirts lying around in case he gets too stinky, so you can probably just borrow one."
She mutely turned her gaze to the scowling boy once again. He wasn't looking at her now, but was studying his ruined jersey, which she noticed was also wet. Putting two and two together, she understood that she must have bumped into the glasses boy, who then spilled his drink on scowling boy next to him, who then pulled her close to him to save her from falling. Mai opened her mouth to say something, but scowling boy just turned and descended the stairs without a word.
"Oi, Boss! Wait! Jeez," glasses guy called out, bowing to her apologetically one last time and running down after him, leaving a dazed Mai alone at the top of the stairs.
"Taniyama-san! Are you planning on attending remedial class, or are you planning on just slacking off out there?"
Mai gave a start and turned around, finding Kana-sensei standing outside of the classroom with her arms crossed. With a groan, she ran toward her and apologized profusely for being tardy.
-000-
Gene laughed out loud and slapped his thighs, pointedly ignoring his twin brother glaring down at him. He was sitting down on one of the wooden benches in the club room, his conversation with Yasuhara becoming more animated by the minute. In the corner, John and Sakauchi were changing into their jerseys, warily keeping an eye on Oliver who had been standing stock still next to his twin with his outstretched hand.
"Wait, wait. So Noll actually managed to touch a girl?"
"No, not 'touched'. Practically squeezed her close. Man, you should have seen it! Boss instinctively reached out to grab her hand and then pulled her tight against his chest, heroically saving her from certain death." Yasuhara proceeded to dramatically re-enact the scenario, even the part where Oliver had to brace an arm against the wall for balance, to get more of a rise out of his friend. "He was like some sort of black knight in shining armor. That move was easily worth a hundred points, I tell you. But then he got her all wet."
Gene crinkled his nose and playfully punched his friend. "Okay, let's not get lewd. You're being disrespectful."
"No, no. I mean literally. Come on, man."
Having enough of their stupidity, Oliver pushed Gene aside roughly and pulled out an extra jersey from his brother's bag. Just as Yasuhara said earlier, Gene did like to keep spare clean shirts for whatever inane reasons he couldn't fathom. Surely all that space could be better used to store extra grips, balls, or even a spare racket? He took his own shirt off and without wringing it dry, stuffed it in Gene's bag before slipping into the clean Jersey.
"Hey, hey! My clothes will get wet!"
Oliver turned around and icily stared at the two troublemakers. Gene and Yasuhara shivered in fear and gulped, knowing that the angrier Oliver was, the quieter he became. And he wasn't talking now. With one last imperious look, Oliver turned around and exited the club room, slamming the door loudly behind him.
After a few seconds of silence, John finally spoke, his voice softly admonishing. "Really guys. You shouldn't tease him too much."
Gene sighed. "Yeah, I guess we went too far. He really does hate any sort of physical contact, especially from random girls."
He took out Noll's shirt and wrung it out himself, hanging it on the bench to dry hopefully at least by the time practice ended. A few of his clothes also got ruined, so he took those out as well. Then with a sudden laugh, he continued, "Which makes it so funny. Why did he hug her if he's just going to be angry about it?"
Yasu chirped, "Maybe his repressed-self thought she was pretty cute so he instinctively did it."
Gene laughed and clapped Yasuhara in the back. "Pfft, yeah right, Noll thinking girls are cute."
"I know, right? What am I saying? Honestly, I'm glad for his superior reflex because otherwise the girl would be in a hospital right now. It was almost funny how disgusted he looked. I do feel sorry for the girl though; I didn't have the chance to explain it's not her that he found disgusting, but himself for getting caught up in the moment. Boss is so cute when he gets shy." The two sniggered.
John and Sakauchi looked at each other and shook their heads. Sakauchi warned them, "You guys are asking to die early if you keep on messing with Oliver-san that way, you know," but the two paid his wisdom no heed.
"Boss' tactic might actually have some merit though. Girls dig the tsundere types."
"Damn, you might be right. So you were saying he's at seventy points now?"
"Yep. Dinged him because it wasn't perfect."
"Well how much points have I got?"
Yasuhara pretended to count in his head. "Sixty five. You know for having such godly beautiful faces, you guys aren't really living up to expectations right now."
A/N 12/8/17: I'm editing all the chapters for readability. They're just minor changes. I'm getting ready to publish the next half of the series so I wanted to make sure the writing is consistent. Cheers!