A/N: HELLO! Everybody! Princess Santa Clause here. It's been a while since I've updated here... Starting at a crazy new school with crazy new 12-hour schedules does that to ya. Either way, my Snowflakes... I've decided to try something new! A long term story that I've decided to try out after watching and growing addicted to Kuroko no Basuke. Yeah, I know. Totally late right?
Thing is. I usually Hate sports-oriented anime, but I actually really loved this one! Either way, this is going to be a slow building story filled with love, friendship, drama, angst, and sisterhood. so I hope you really enjoy!
The Ozuki High School Tutoring Club.
Each of its diverse 20 stars were all blessed with an exceptional skill in a field of academics. They took struggling students under their wings, and taught them required skills to succeed, then let them fly free to success.
All from 278, a large room separated through the middle with several screens -to give it a more cubicle like feel-, they thrived in their work, gaining themselves recognition, prestige, credibility, and a heavy fanbase of repeat customers. It was life. It was love. It was the pursuit of something greater within the student body! It was…
"This place is dead."
Music Star; Suzuki Himei… Always willing to say what's on her mind – Regardless of how it impacted the other members. Speaking of which, several were now keeling over out of a crippling sense of loss and depression from that comment alone.
"W-Wait..." A young girl of more strawberry pink hair raised her hands defensively. Physical Education Star: Kameyo Antei. "I-It's not dead at all… Just this morning I had three people stop by for assistance!" Desperately attempting to raise the morale, she began to nod furiously in assurance, "I'm sure there's still hope-"
"OH PLEASE," Suzuki bellowed out. She leaned back in her chair, fingers fastened behind her head. One could see the more disdainful expression creeping on her face as she spoke seemingly from the corner of her lips, "I'm pretty sure they didn't just come for the lessons." It was easy to insinuate. A physical education tutor that was prone to really immersing herself into the lessons she gave… Jumping… Spinning.. Sprinting… "With a chest like that."
"Hah..?" Kameyo's eyes slowly slid down from her shoulders, peering at her chest for a moment. Immediately a tint as pink as her hair spread over her face, "N-No! I .. It.. I mean.. I..."
Said procurer of music would have received a swift 'pap' across the head with a full-form swing of a thick paper fan from none other than the club's very own History Star: Akira Ringo, "You're riling her up. Stop it." Keeping the fan behind her back, but out of the scrambling Suzuki's reach, Akira raised her fingers, pressing her glasses up onto her face, "It's to be expected… this drop in our productivity. We peaked with twenty members at our best… Now we're barely getting by with the eight members we have."
Eight. Eight members.
One could hear a very slight tapping sound echoing from the room, but because of its faint nature, it went unnoticed.
"Well, we had ten just at the beginning of the week," Suzuki spoke up, kicking her foot up to the edge of the desk whilst rubbing the potential bruise the paper fan had left her, "Shiori ditched us for not being productive. And Kasumi said she had better things to spend her time on."
Well. There was the crippling depression again, as made apparent by the way everyone abruptly began to slouch around the little wooden round table.
The tapping had intensified as well, becoming the steady sound of an object violently pounding against the edge of the table.
"Eight members." It was a soft, nearly eerie tone that came easing from the mouth of the Physics Star: Rina Mai. Her jade green eyes, normally hidden slightly by her black bangs, were now prominently showing from the space between hair, practically pulsing with contempt. "We sat… nicely… evenly… carefully… upon a throne of 20 members." Her brow was now beginning to twitch, her pupils seeming to shrink intensely, "We sat… evenly… capably… carefully… upon a throne of ten members..."
There was a recurrence here. Evenly. As fate would have it. Rina was terribly obsessive with order and numbers. Even… Straight… That was how things should have been. She most-often had what most would call a literal meltdown when things violated the laws of her mentally formatted order. "We need two members. We need two more."
"Rina..." From the direction of this voice offered a soothing wind from the light motion of a decorated, orchid-patterned paper fan. None other than the Art Star; Sasayaki Hanabira. "No need to be so hasty… Our goal is to offer optimal assistance services to our students… The quantity of our members isn't as important as their skills as tutors...right?" Always with a calm sense of wisdom. However, this time, her words seemed to fall on deaf ears.
"That is irrelevant now."
The host of the members looked to their unofficial leader with a mixture of expressions – though for the most part, they displayed clear surprise and/or confusion.
"Ri..na..." The quiet… soft-spoken Home Economics Star; Ume Amai. She was normally one that stuck with the group out of fear of leaving, but the little outburst from Rina seemed to send shivers up her spine, "A..A-Are you..."
"No." A dark… brooding purple aura had overtaken her, blazingly enveloping her form like a terrifying storm, "Listen up."
"Sorry, I'm late." The Japanese used here was a bit broken. It was enough to call it fluent, but the little spaces and pauses in between dictated thinking or further processing in a sense. This blonde bombshell was what the tutor class referred to as their ...Moral Support Star: Alison Miller. She had come in from London a couple of months ago, and more-or-less claimed that she had no redeeming skills to offer but her ability to reaffirm the spirits of tutoring hopefuls. She came in, dropping her bag at her chair and taking a seat, "Were we talking about anything import- " Her blue eyes slowly slid to Rina, to which she drew silent, simply looking around the table for some sort of explanation.
"Ah!" Suzuki spoke up, tapping her finger knowingly against the side of her head knowingly, "I see what you mean now! We just need placeholders, like Alison!"
"What did you just say, you punk trash?" She shot back sharply, slamming her hands against the table.
"One… Minus One..."
This unlikely interruption was courtesy of the usually quiet Mathematics Star: Kana Odayaka. She had just a tad bit of homework to do, but the aloud murmuring of such a simplistic question often left people stumped at how she could ever tutor anyone in math. She seemed, however, to always get the job done.
"It's zero," Suzuki dully piped up, receiving only a brief nod from Kana, "Thank you..."
"If I could have your attention… once more." Oh, right. That little problem hadn't been solved. Luckily, the dark undertone to Rina's polite words temporarily settled the quarrel between Suzuki and Alison. Whence the room had fallen back into attention, she peered up again, "We are looking for two new members… Right now..? No more no less. "
"Where are we supposed to oh-so-luckily find two students that haven't heard of our dying reputation?" Suzuki inquired thoughtfully. She rested her hands lightly against the guitar that was sprawled across her lap, her cheek swelling into a considering pocket.
"So I was looking at the map of the school..." Began the young girl. She seemed to be talking to a friend whilst waving around the little crumpled map between her hands, "But then I still got lost." She sported her brown hair in a preferable half-up style, with a little ponytail amongst the hair she left free. And despite describing potentially the worst thing that had happened to her, she still smiled almost absent-mindedly, "So I asked some students that were hanging around."
"With your broken a-s-s Japanese?" This came from the accompanying friend, who despite the first girl having been slightly accustomed to the layout of the school, seemed completely marveled by the complex layout and differing set up.
"Oh, it was confusing, yeah… I got misdirected so much..." The brown haired girl ran her hand through her hair exasperatedly at the thought, but then immediately shifted her comical rage to the dark haired girl at her side, "TOYIN! YOU CAN NEVER BE OUT FROM SCHOOL AGAIN!"
"What!?" Toyin narrowed her eyes sharply, gripping the straps of her backpack tighter whilst huffing, "Normally I wouldn't dream about it! But there's really nothing I can do about having Bronchitis!"
"Oh, Elle, look at me. I'm full of reasons why I'm drowning in foreign sicknesses…" Following that, the brunette uttered a couple of haphazard, baby-sounding coughs; though, unfortunately, as karma would have it, she began having an actual coughing fit.
"That's what you get."
Ignoring -for the most part- the multitude of odd and various stares they received, the two girls continued to talk on in secrecy with their use of English.
Just about a week and a half ago, the two long-time friends had found themselves gifted with the incredible offer to study abroad during their high school career. It was, of course, a scary thought, for one to pick up and move from all they knew in America, but the excitement of accomplishing something of such magnitude as a duo made the experience seem much less daunting.
Unfortunately, as one would have it when traveling from place to place, Toyin came down with a nasty case of Bronchitis upon arrival, causing her to miss the first week of school. Elle, on the other hand, was pitifully equipped to handle it on her own, due to her struggling Japanese skills, terrible sense of direction, and even more awful sense of naivety.
Since the duo was now back together, they were able to lend one another the necessary assistance to survive school.
"So, did you meet any new friends?" Toyin inquired, though her expression then fell after a moment, as her eyes shifted elsewhere, "That was probably a stupid question."
"Actually… aside from a couple of people in my history class, I didn't get much of a chance to mingle like I'd wanted..." Elle's finger gently tapped her own chin, "Probably on account of the fact I got lost and wound up late so much… And everyone's always so quiet in class."
"You're supposed to be," The bespectacled girl spoke up. She peered over to her less-culturally-savvy friend, tipping her head to the side, "It's an education difference. They want you to listen up and take notes."
"But that sounds so… impersonal..."
"Excuse me."
At the sudden interruption, the two girls directed their attention upwards. They were greeted with a girl that seemed around their age. She was adorned in the school uniform – a navy and green plaid skirt, white button up, and navy bow tie-, and seemed to carry her long black hair in a pinned up style with a crystal-like orchid pin.
'She's… so pretty…' Toyin thought quietly to herself. She could feel her eyes widen slightly at first glance, but after her facial expression settled some, her brow furrowed ever-so-slightly. She took a single step back, lowering her eyes instinctively to avoid eye-contact.
Elle, on the other hand, merely perked up, naturally feeling herself smile at the newly found introduction. Now if only she could get her Japanese right, "Yes? Can we get you anything?"
The girl seemed to chuckle lightly from behind the back of her hand, "In a way… My name is Sasayaki Hanabira… And I was wondering if I could interest you two a spot in my club."
"Su-"
"Um." Immediately cutting off Elle's mindless attempt to simply agree, Toyin seemed to glower at her companion. She was aware that Elle was often one that left a lot to be desired on the terms of rationally thinking. But to honestly join a club without even asking the bare minimum? She had better have been reconsidering her enthusiasm.
Elle paused, having assessed the glower she received, and instead, she spoke up with a more acceptable response, "What kind of club is it?"
Toyin, after initially getting over the terrible fluency she held, nodded in approval. Inquiring was how to avoid doing something stupid off of a simple whim -which was something she found Elle did often.
"We're a tutoring club," Despite Sasayaki's awfully calm expression ,something within her dark eyes seemed to be set aglow by the answer at hand. Was… she getting persuasive..? Or simply fired up? "We mend and mold the precious minds of our students in need, one session at a time!"
Ahhh, so that was where the appeal stopped. Toyin motioned to raise her hand, as though to opt out of this, but before she knew it…
"That sounds so good! I'll join!"
Crap. And there went her way out. How on Earth was she supposed to this now..? She opened her mouth as if wishing to reject the offer, but… she soon fell into a state of inability, dropping her head and sighing quietly, "Yeah..."
"Excellent!" Sasayaki lightly clapped her hands together in a joyful disposition, "I'll show you to our meeting room after school. Please meet me back here."
Whence the young girl had disappeared into the school building, Elle turned to Toyin, a huge smile on her face, "She seems so nice!" The brunette chirped, however received a punch to the shoulder as a reply, "You're an idiot!"
A/N: I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! I prefer to look at it kind of like a long prologue, but I have high hopes for this... It's just such a slow starter. Like Gawsh. Slower starter than Regigigas.
ANYWHO. CYA LATER, SNOWFLAKES~ :3