Author's Note: (because this game is played in the story)
Suikawari (Watermelon Splitting) is a traditional Japanese game that involves splitting a watermelon with a stick while blindfolded. Played in the summertime, suikawari is most often seen at beaches.
Let's begin, shall we?
Chapter One: In which we establish that both Rokkaku Chuu and Rikkaidai are equally insane.
Jackal POV
Jackal Kuwahara, the distressed and long-suffering member of the Rikkaidai Fuzoku Chuu tennis club, was yet again assuming the role of babysitter for their team's mentally unstable junior ace, Kirihara Akaya. No matter how many times Yukimura forced this daunting task upon him, it never got any less exasperating to the unfortunate Japanese Brazilian. But today, playing mommy for Kirihara was even more difficult because they were on a field trip to one of Chiba's beaches. Tired from the early morning bus ride which involved Kirihara throwing bits of his lunch out the bus window and onto unsuspecting traffic to "see if his mother's cookies could break a windshield," Jackal was now wearily watching his kouhai.
Kirihara was digging for hermit crabs and attempting to have them fight eachother inside a small red pail he had brought with him and thus was distracted. He was staring intensely at two of the small crustaceans, prodding one with a stick, whispering "fight to the death, gladiator!"
Jackal allowed himself a quick break to let his mind wander.
In the distance, his other teammates were all grouped together in what looked like a dysfunctional situation. Jackal sighed and observed them for a few moments. It looked as if Sanada had lost his swim trunks while in middle of swimming laps. It wasn't surprising; Sanada was a quick swimmer and the waves were rather rough that morning. His loose-fitting board shorts must have been swept away within the first lap. At the moment, he was in the water just deep enough that no one could see anything indecent. The only thing he was wearing was an expression that seemed to be a mix of horror, embarrassment and anger. He was going to explode any minute. Jackal watched a smug-looking Niou walk over holding something.
A few moments later and Jackal's short-tempered fukubuchou was redfaced (from both sunburn and fury) and screaming at Niou who was holding up what looked like a neon green Borat-style speedo. The exasperating trickster had a satisfied smile and Jackal could hear him tell Sanada "Someone must have stolen your spare change of clothes-This is all I could find in your bag. I guess wearing that's your only clothing option... unless you want to turn this into a nude beach experience, puri-"
"TARUNDORU! You are going to regret this, Niou Masaharu! Two hundred laps, full length of the beach-And DO NOT come back until they have been completed!"
Niou smirked, "Make me." He stood at the shoreline, not moving an inch.
Jackal supposed Niou's newfound confidence infront of his terror-inspiring fukubuchou could be attributed to the fact that it was the end of the school year and tennis season only had one practice left. What more damage could Sanada inflict with so little time before summer break?
A large, angry vein pulsed in Sanada's temple as he realized that chasing after Niou meant abandoning all his decency and dignity. He was still ass-naked at the beach. If Sanada moved any closer to the shore, the water level would go below his... Tennis balls, yeah, that's it.
Jackal turned his attention back to Kirihara, who was still trying to get his little collection of hermit crabs to fight eachother to the death. "Die! Die! Die!" he chanted, as one of the larger crabs scuttled lazily over to a smaller crab.
What was the rest of the team up to? He could see Yukimura approaching Sanada from the corner of his eye, holding a large rubber-ducky shaped water tube. Sanada's face assumed a hot blush and Jackal heard him murmur a begrudging "thank you", before pulling it over his body so the tube went around his torso and hid anything inappropriate. He still looked ridiculous, with his indignant and embarrassed expression and bright yellow duck shaped watertube. But it would have been better than being naked or in Niou's Borat-style speedo.
"Enjoying the beach?"
Jackal looked behind him. It was his bespectacled teammate, Yagyuu Hiroshi. The purple haired boy was wearing a rather comical-looking golf visor with a multicolored mini umbrella attached to the top of it and a pale yellow golf shirt, tucked neatly into long khakis. He was also holding a large sack of golf clubs and golf balls, each club with his initials finely embossed on the handle. There was a dark purple leather fannypack filled with golf tee's around his waist. Hard as it was to believe, this was the second least-insane member of the Rikkaidai tennis club.
Jackal let out a tired sigh. "Not particularly. But I guess I didn't really expect anything functional to happen today. What have you been up to?"
"Oh, I've just been practicing my golf. Good sand-pit practice for the trickier shots,"
"Ah, I see. I haven't seen Marui and Yanagi around. Everything alright with them?" Jackal inquired.
"Marui's in the bathroom; has been since we got here actually."
"No way, what happened?"
"Twelve pack of Twinkies and two chocolate shakes before the drive here. That, in addition to the bumpy bus ride, made Marui extremely carsick."
Jackal cringed. Too bad Bunta was on his own; Jackal couldn't hold his doubles partner's hair back while he vomited if he was already in the middle of Kirihara babysitting duty.
Yagyuu continued, "Yanagi is doing some chemical experiments further along the shoreline. Not sure exactly where he is, but he has five of his chemistry sets with him. He informed me that conducting these experiments at the beach would be the optimal location because if there is a volatile chemical reaction and the subsequent explosion creates a large amount of toxic waste, cleanup is easier."
Jackal nodded. It was hard being the only normal person at Rikkai. Well, aside from Yagyuu, he supposed. But the beach golf practice was still kind of weird. As was Yagyuu's golf fashion-sense.
"Jackal-senpai, are hermit crabs edible?" Kirihara suddenly said, mouth dangerously close to one of the twitching crustaceans in his pail. Jackal cringed.
Yagyuu spoke up, "Jackal-kun, you seem like you need a break. I'll watch Kirihara for a bit, don't worry about it. Go relax a little."
Jackal eyed Kirihara who was eyeing the poor crab with a hungry glint in his eye. He could probably trust Yagyuu, even if technically Jackal was the one who Yukimura assigned to watch Kirihara.
The half Brazilian rubbed his eyes and slowly got up. "Thanks a lot, Yagyuu. I'm just gonna go for a quick walk."
Yagyuu nodded, "See you. Kirihara-Do NOT eat that, stop!"
Jackal got up and left before he could be dragged back into Rikkai's madness.
Man, it sure sucked being the only sane member of his team.
Ryou POV
Adjusting his cap, Ryou leaned back into his fold-up chair and let out a satisfied sigh. Chiba's beaches were perfect: bright white sand, scenic cliffs lining each end of the shore and the refreshing spray of ocean waves. How peaceful and relaxing. A light smile played on the boy's face and he began to grab for a lemonade juicebox in the ice cooler next to him. Until-
THWACK!
Ryou heard the loud noise of a metal bat hitting something hard. A split second later, a dozen large chunks of a light pink pulpy substance flew past Ryou's head, landing right in the middle of the cooler. Little bits of ice (which lined the bottom of the bin to keep the drinks cold) and the pink substance flew everywhere, several nailing Ryou right in the face.
Ryou heard a second loud "thwack!" and part of a watermelon rhine hit the back of his head, nearly knocking off his beloved cap.
Ryou clenched his jaw, turning around to glare at the source of this mess. Rokkaku's rookie captain, Aoi Kentarou, was playing Suikawari no less than five feet behind where Ryou was sitting. The younger boy made eye contact with Ryou from across the beach towel and rushed over.
"SORRY ABOUT THAT, RYOU!" Kentarou nearly yelled, bowing frantically and apologetically. "Itsuki's parents packed him with a lot of fruit and I thought it might be fun to go melon smashing on the beach! In retrospect, maybe I should have done this activity farther away from where you're sunbathing, but-"
Ryou cut off his captain's nervous, rambling explanation by holding his hand up, signaling Kentarou to cease talking. Kentarou wasn't getting the message and continued his nervous apology in a rather Ibu-like fashion for a few minutes.
"...Anyway, I'm sorry! Really! Won't happen again, promise!" Kentarou finished, bowing one last time for good measure.
Ryou rubbed his temple with his left hand as his right hand picked little melon pulp bits off of his white tank top. He looked at each one with disgust before flicking it off into the sand. Kentarou was still standing infront of him, unmoving and waiting for a response.
Ryou sighed. "Just, please, don't let it happen again-Okay? And help me clean up a bit?"
"Ofcourse!" Kentarou responded, smile returning to his face. He scampered over to the ice cooler and began picking out chunks of the destroyed watermelon that had landed inside the container. He must have found this an entertaining activity, because he suddenly hastened his pace of picking out the melon debris. As his cleaning got faster, it also got a lot sloppier. Kentarou was now quickly grabbing at the melon chunks with both hands and tossing them behind him with little regard for where these pieces actually landed.
Unfortunately for Ryou, another one of those chunks hit him in the head. He didn't even say anything this time. He just sat there, eyes burning holes into Kentarou's back as if he would somehow feel Ryou's displeasure. The melon chunk which had hit his head slid onto the brim of his cap and was now beginning to drip watermelon juice onto his already pulpy tanktop.
"Kentarou."
Rokkaku's young buchou turned around from his sloppy cleaning with a happy expression and a cheery, "Yes, Ryou?" Until he noticed that he had accidentally gotten even more watermelon debris onto Ryou's clothing.
Before Kentarou could repeat his frantic apology and explanation, Ryou gritted his teeth and simply said, "Let. Me. Clean. It. Up. Myself."
Kentarou opened his mouth to protest, but then thought better of it. "Y-Yes, Ryou! And sorry again!" The boy quickly scampered away to go swim in the ocean and away from the exasperation that radiated from the older Kisarazu.
Ryou let out yet another long winded sigh and quickly changed from his formerly white tanktop into a basic black tee shirt. Sure, black was a painfully hot color to wear under the summer sun, but at least it wouldn't get watermelon stains. He supposed he should finish cleaning up the melon from ice cooler, but Ryou was not in the mood for anymore of that dastardly fruit. So he brushed off the remaining bits of pulp from his red hat, gingerly placed it back on his head and continued "sunbathing" in his fold up chair.
He reclined further back in his seat, closing his eyes and letting the sun warm his body. At least now he could enjoy the beach in peace. Or so he thought.
"Hey. Hey, Ryou,"
Ryou heard someone say his name from behind, then he felt the beach towel shift underneath his chair as another body sat down next to him. He didn't have to open his eyes to recognize the voice as Davide's.
"Yeah?"
"You know why we don't play tennis at the beach?"
Ryou opened one eye too look down at the younger boy. "Uh... Because there are no tennis courts-?"
"No... Because... Because our balls would get sandy! Pffffft!" Davide explained, just barely containing his giggles.
Ryou looked at him, horrified. He had been dreading the day that his kouhai found out about sexual innuendos and "that's-what-she-said" type humor. And today just happened to be that day. It took him a moment to realize that his mouth was still hanging open. He quickly closed it.
"Very funny." he said, not smiling at all.
As Davide sobered up, he asked Ryou another question, "Did you use protection?"
Ryou raised an eyebrow, but didn't bother responding. He sensed another sexual joke on the horizon. Maybe his teammate would just stop punning if he pretended to be deaf.
"...Well, I hope you did. Wouldn't want you to catch any crabs at the beach... Pfffffffffft!"
Ryou grimaced. The regular puns, he could take. The attempted sexual humor, not so much.
Suddenly a loud call came from behind Ryou, "Would you cut it out with the stupid freaking jokes?!"
The long haired boy whipped his head around just in time to see his teammate, Kurobane Harukaze, running at breakneck speed towards him and Davide. Someone was about to be Bane-kick'd bigtime.
Unfortunately, it wasn't Davide. Although Davide was Kurobane's intended target, Davide moved out of the way just in time to dodge his doubles partner's impending kick. Instead, Ryou was kicked harshly in the side (Was this what Davide had to endure twenty times a day? It's a miracle he's still alive...). As Kurobane's foot collided with Ryou's side, the capped boy fell forwards out of his folding chair and face-first into the melon-filled ice cooler, receiving a face full of watermelon chunks.
"Watermelon you doing in the cooler, Ryou? Pffffffft!"
In the distance, he heard Kentarou rushing over to help him, Kurobane furiously apologizing, Saeki happily asking him to stay like that for a moment so he could take a few pictures on his phone to send to Fuji, and a series of "Why is Ryou's head in the cooler? Why do you smell so much like melon? Why?" from Itsuki.
Man, it sure sucked being the only sane member of his team.
To be continued...
Oh man, I feel so bad for Jackal and Ryou!
In the next (and final) chapter, the two will finally get to meet and exchange team horror stories and bond over being too normal for their own good.
As always, please review! I love responding to my reviewers and receiving any suggestions/improvements you may have. It's also just nice to know that people are actually reading my story, so I have motivation to continue, haha.
See you next time!