Tortoise-shell
One day, Oishi caught himself reminding someone to not talk so much when he had a cold (or even better, not talk at all). He stopped mid-sentence and frowned – what was going on? Why was he so… so motherly, for heaven's sake?
The offending grade 10 took one look at the fukubuchou's face and fled. He couldn't risk annoying the last member of the tennis team who wasn't angry at him.
Oishi continued frowning. When did he start nagging everyone? In elementary school, he was the terror of the school, and the teachers left him strictly alone. He had hated noise. It unsettled him.
It had been his last year, and he was going to spend it the way he wanted, dammit!
He had quit tennis, because it annoyed him.
He had quit art, because it killed him to draw.
Everyone wanted to give him his little space, wanted to let the 12 year-old alone. Those that had understood.
He'd gone to Seigaku because his mother had wanted him to, but the moment he walked in the door, he knew he was in for trouble.
"NYA! Oishi-san is finally here!"
And so it began.
Every morning that hyperactive child would jump on him with an ear-splitting squeal. Other would shoot him looks of sympathy, secretly glad that they weren't part of the selective Kikumaru torture.
Oishi, never one for violence, only turned his famed glower on the irrepressible redhead. It didn't work. He was impervious. (The light-haired boy behind him had chuckled.)
Kikumaru didn't take hints, and he hung around like a limpet. Oishi had taken to walking very fast and mumbling, but nothing worked.
One day he stood across the street from the school gates, deeply frowning in thought. Kikumaru had seen him coming and darted rapidly across the street.
Oishi looked up in horror at the familiar sound of screeching brakes only to see a mix of boy, red hair and books tumble onto the pavement. People shouted around him, but he was oblivious.
- red and white, read and white, lights flashing in the dark and he couldn't even see anything but they took her away and nothing made sense it was dark and the lights snapped at him to go home-
He never saw his mother again.
Kikumaru, all bandaged, hobbled up to him. "Ne, Oishi-san, gomena – "
"Let's walk to school together from now on, okay?"
Oishi smiled. Eiji always brought out the best in him.
Dedicated to neechan, who always makes me smile, with drawings and words – you irascible doubles lover, you.