Edit: 14-06-13
chapter one
A New Spring
An excited buzzing filled the grounds of Teikou Middle School as old students mingled with new ones under the blooming cherry blossom trees. Spring was always a nice season to start afresh, and this spring would be no different.
A dark-haired girl leant against the wire fence around the rooftop of the building overlooking the compound filled with booths of senpai trying to recruit new club members. Looking over her shoulder at the blue-and-white-clad busybodies down below, she brought up the compact digital camera that hung on her wrist with a sparkled strap, and took a picture.
The sky was as blue as ever.
The folds were clean, sharp, and precise.
Of course they were perfect. He expected nothing less.
"How can you forget how to fold a crane? Really, Shin-chan."
Midorima Shintarou bristled as the corner of his lip slanted down into a half-frown. On this important day of April 3rd, Oha Asa had dictated that the lucky item for Cancers was a paper crane. Unfortunately, in a moment of first-day-of-middle-school-jitters, he had conveniently forgotten the process of folding one.
Hence, he was currently sipping on a glass of orange juice and munching on a piece of toast in the Ryuugamine household, waiting for its green-haired eldest child to finish folding the paper crane.
"You are a failure as a Japanese."
"I brought you your lucky item for the day," Midorima snapped back. "I even asked my parents to let you have it especially for today."
"How the hell do you expect me to hold on to a champagne flute the entire day?" the girl folding the paper crane replied irritably. "Besides, if it's that, then I can just go get one from Mama's collection."
"This is original Venetian glass—"
"Then I'm definitely not going to take it! What if I accidentally break it?"
"Libras have the worst luck for today! You're going to need the finest champagne flute to overcome your misfortune!"
"Then all the more reason for me to not walk around with priceless fragile cargo!"
"Cancers are only ranked fifth in luck today, so even if I'm around, you're still probably going to get rained down with bad luck!"
"I just need to find a Taurus to stick to, right?" the girl sighed tiredly, pulling on the wings of the finished crane. "They're the luckiest sign for today, right?"
"That still doesn't assure your fortune for today," Midorima mumbled as he took the crane.
"Shin-nii's being tsun-tsun."
Midorima glanced at the ten-year-old Aquarius sitting beside him.
" . . . Minato, today's lucky item for Aquarius is a spoon. Make sure to hold on to one the whole day," Midorima said stiffly. Faced with the sign of the Water Bearer, the Cancer Midorima was naturally disinclined to get along with the little brother of his Libra friend.
"Roger," the ten-year-old replied with an apathetic salute as he downed his glass of juice. "Hatsu-nee and Shin-nii are going to be late for the opening ceremonies if they don't get going already."
"He's right," Midorima sighed, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "We better get going, Minena."
"And whose fault is that?" the girl, Minena, asked snippily as she gathered the dirty plates and dumped them in the sink. Turning to her little brother, she said, "Minato, tell Mama that Shin-chan and I went ahead."
"Roger," the ten-year-old saluted, grabbing a spoon from the utensils drawer before heading to the living room to watch TV.
"When does his new term start again?" Midorima asked as they put on their shoes by the front door.
"Next week," Minena replied. She held up the Venetian glass champagne flute Midorima had brought, "And we're dropping this off at your house first. I am not bringing this to school, bad luck rain down on me or not."
Midorima gave her a blank look before turning way with a hmph. "Suit yourself."
Minena bit the insides of her cheeks with a pout. "You hold on to it."
Midorima sighed, relenting. Although he didn't really expect her to fully believe in Oha Asa, he was glad that she was at least partly conscious. He took the champagne flute in his right hand, holding on to the paper crane with his left.
"Let's go."
"Dai-cha—Aomine-kun!"
Momoi Satsuki caught herself at the last second. Her hand snapped out to grab on to the sleeve of the childhood friend who was about to walk away.
"What now, Satsuki?" Aomine Daiki asked irritably.
"At least find out what class you're in before going off to find the basketball club!" Momoi scolded.
"It's too much of a hassle with all these people," Aomine mumbled, scratching the back of his head as he felt numerous individuals bumping into him. "We'll find out later."
"The class listings are posted just beside the map of the booths. The basketball club's not going to move; there's no rush," Momoi said, pointing to the large notice board with several pieces of paper posted on it.
"Ahn, troublesome," Aomine grumbled, letting out a loud yawn.
"There, I've found your name!" Momoi pointed. "Class 1-E."
"Yeah, yeah. And you?"
"Wait up," Momoi said, bright pink eyes roving across the listings. "Ah! 1-C!"
"Okay, that's settled," Aomine said, clapping his hands together. "Now, let's go to the basketball club."
"At least look for it on the map first, instead of just wandering around until you find it," Momoi scolded, grabbing onto Aomine's sleeve before he disappeared into the crowd.
"Satsukiiiiii," Aomine whined, already getting impatient. "It's just over there."
"Eh?" Momoi blinked, glancing over to where Aomine was pointing. Indeed, right across where they were standing was the basketball club's booth, just between the baseball club's and American football club's booths. "Oh."
Aomine freed his sleeve from Momoi's grasp and held on to her wrist, dragging her along with him to the basketball club's booth.
"Interested in the basketball club? Just fill in this application form. There'll be an orientation for new applicants tomorrow after classes," one of the senpai said, passing out the application forms.
Aomine immediately grabbed one.
"Um, will you be accepting managers?" Momoi asked the senpai from whom Aomine had taken an application form from.
"Oh, interested in the position, are we?" the senpai said with a kind smile. "Then, just go talk to that brown-haired big sister over there."
Momoi bowed politely. "Thank you." She glanced at Aomine, who was filling up the application form by the table, and headed to talk to the person the senpai had pointed out.
"Excuse me. I'd like to apply as a manager for the basketball club," Momoi announced with a smile.
The girl in front of her was probably a second-year, with rich brown hair cut just below her jaw line. She was wearing a varsity jacket in Teikou's colors, and a pen was tucked into her left ear.
"Oh? Are you a first year?" the senpai asked.
"Yes. I'm Momoi Satsuki," the pink-haired girl introduced herself with a bow. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Well then, it's nice to meet you, Momoi-san. I'm Kohaku Aimi. The basketball club usually has three managers, but since one of them graduated last year, and the other one is focusing on high school exams this year, we're looking for two newbies to fill in the empty spots," the senpai, Kohaku Aimi, explained. "We'll be having an orientation for the manager applicants at the same time as the team. Here's the application form." Momoi took the piece of paper she was offered. "You can submit it at the start of the orientation tomorrow at four. Good luck and enjoy your first day at Teikou."
Momoi nodded with a bright smile.
"Thank you very much, Kohaku-senpai! I'll see you around."
Momoi walked away from the table, intent on finding her childhood friend when she felt an arm drape around her shoulder. The application form was pried away from her hands.
"Ah—"
"What? You were serious about applying as a manager?" Aomine asked in disbelief as he stared at the application form.
Momoi huffed, taking back the paper from Aomine and folding it in half. She opened her schoolbag, slipping the form in between the pages of her new notebook before zipping her bag back up.
"Is there something wrong with that?" Momoi asked, puffing up her cheeks and crossing her arms.
Aomine took his arm off her shoulders, raising both his hands in front of him in a gesture of surrender.
"No arguments here."
Ryuugamine Hatsuna—age: 13; blood type: AB; birthday: October 20th; star sign: Libra; usually called 'Minena' by her close friends and family—stood within the ranks of first years in Teikou Middle School's auditorium for the opening ceremonies.
"And now, to give a few words of encouragement, we call on the highest scorer of this year's entrance exam, the first year representative, Akashi Seijuurou-kun."
A polite applause resounded within the wide auditorium as a red-haired boy from the first row walked towards the stage. A bit further down the same line, Minena spotted the familiar crop of green hair that belonged to her childhood friend and neighbor. Though Teikou did not distribute its students into classes through virtue of academic ranking, the special A sections for each year level held the top twenty-five students of each batch. And included within those top twenty-five students were the first year representative, Akashi-kun, and Minena's childhood friend and neighbor, Midorima Shintarou, who aimed to become a doctor.
As the first year representative gave his speech, Minena let her eyes wander around the auditorium. Just three people away to her left stood the bubbly, pink-haired girl who was in the same class as her—Momoi Satsuki. Momoi had come into the classroom like a happy tornado, immediately embarking on a journey to learn all her classmates' names before the first bell rang. Minena had appropriately introduced herself, and Momoi had joyfully exclaimed with apt wonder her admiration for Minena's magnificent and manga-main-character-like last name.
Letting her dark green eyes wander around the auditorium again, the first person that caught Minena's attention was the head of purple that stood out like a stubborn nail within the crowd of twelve- to thirteen-year old first years that had an average height of perhaps less than 150 centimeters. Clearly being a full head taller than everyone else, his slouched shoulders and lazy gaze were particularly prominent, almost as much as the bag of potato chips he was noisily eating in the middle of the opening ceremony.
After finally processing the oddity of the purple-haired giant, Minena's ears picked up the contents of the idle chatter of the two girls behind her.
"See that cute blond over there? I saw him on a magazine once!"
"Really? We're actually attending the same school as a model?"
Minena craned her head backwards, nonchalantly looking over at where the two girls were throwing obvious glances at.
She spotted the blond almost immediately. There was a clear brilliance about him that simply overpowered the plain-looking people around him. He was all smiles as he patiently conversed with the beet-red girl standing beside him.
"I think his name was Kise, or something . . . "
"That's 1-D's group, right? He's in 1-D, the classroom next to ours?"
Another round of polite applause echoed in the auditorium, and Minena brought her gaze to the stage and raised her hands to join in with the clapping. The red-haired Akashi-kun stepped up beside the podium and bowed once more before going back to his position at the front row.
Minena's phone began to vibrate in the pocket of her skirt as the principal went to give the closing remarks.
In their class of twenty-four, Minena ended up with a place on the second row, just a seat away from the window. The pink-haired Momoi Satsuki was in the row behind, diagonally to the right of where Minena sat, smack-dab in the middle of the classroom.
She didn't expect any different.
Their homeroom teacher was the head of the Mathematics department, the fifty-two-year old Takamura Natsuhiko-sensei.
Being one of the oldest teachers in Teikou, Takamura-sensei valued the traditions of the academy very much. Having handled numerous classes before theirs, the Math department head was used to dealing with freshly-graduated elementary students just starting their middle school journeys.
"Instead of the usual roll call with a self-introduction, let's start with an ice-breaker game to get to know each other better. Does anyone know 'Two Truths and a Lie'?"
A boy in the back raised his hand. "You tell people three things about yourself—two truths and a lie—and they have to guess which one is the lie."
Takamura-sensei smiled. "Correct. Everyone, state your name, and then tell us two truths and a lie about yourself. To give you an idea of what to do, I'll start."
Takamura-sensei walked out from behind the teacher's desk and started strolling around the classroom.
"I'm Takamura Natsuhiko. I have three kids. My favorite color is blue. I once won an all expenses paid trip to a ski resort in the shopping district's lottery."
Everyone glanced at each other.
"The lie is that your favorite color is blue."
All heads turned to the pink-haired girl who had confidently announced that.
Takamura-sensei smiled warmly. "And why do you say that—Momoi-kun, was it?"
"Sensei's notebook, folder and handkerchief are all yellow," Momoi said with a smile. At her words, everyone glanced at the folded yellow handkerchief sticking out of the breast pocket of Takamura-sensei's plain white shirt, and the stack of yellow folders and the yellow notebook he had brought with him.
"Very good observational skills, Momoi-kun," Takamura-sensei complimented. "I'm in awe."
A wave of compliments was hurtled at Momoi, whose face took on the shade of her hair.
"Now, who'd like to start?"
"Oh, me!"
The game went on in good spirits. After a couple of people, the class decided to vote on which was the lie and started keeping individual points. The one who managed to guess the most lies would win a chocolate bar from Takamura-sensei tomorrow.
"Momoi-kun, why don't you go?"
Momoi stood up from her seat with a flourish. "I'm Momoi Satsuki. My star sign is Taurus, my favorite sport is basketball, and—um, my blood type is O!"
"Alright, then. Who says that Momoi-kun's lie is that her start sign is Taurus?"
A couple of people raised their hands.
"That her favorite sport is basketball?"
Over half of the class raised their hands. Momoi simply smiled.
"That her blood type is O?"
Ryuugamine, along with a few others, raised their hands.
Takamura-sensei turned to the pink-haired girl. "Well, Momoi-kun?"
Momoi smiled, clasping her hands behind her back. "My blood type is A."
The people who got it wrong groaned, and the people who got it right cheered. As Momoi sat back down, Takamura-sensei let his eyes travel across the room.
"Okay, who hasn't gone yet?"
Ryuugamine raised her hand.
"Ah, yes. Ryuugamine-kun, was it?"
The green-haired girl stood up from her chair and faced the class. "Ryuugamine Hatsuna. I was born in America. I have a little brother who was selected for the U-12 Japanese soccer team. I'm in love with my childhood best friend."
There was a brief silence as the students of 1-C quietly analyzed her words. To Momoi, judging simply by the way she said it, it was entirely possible that all three were truths. Being clear and direct in meaning, the first fact—that Ryuugamine was born in America—was likely to be a truth. It was the other two proposed 'facts' that were questionable, having very specific definitions. To be that particular meant that there was a possibility that one of them may only be a half-truth—that is, Ryuugamine may have a little brother, but that little brother wasn't selected for the U-12 Japanese soccer team, or that Ryuugamine may be in love with her best friend, but he wasn't a childhood best friend.
Or something like that.
However, going about it the other way, it could be that the direct and clear meaning of the first 'fact'—that Ryuugamine was born in America—made it the lie, and the detailed 'facts' of having a little brother who was selected for the U-12 Japanese soccer team and being in love with her childhood best friend were the truths.
Of course, Momoi didn't have to trouble herself too much with over-thinking it. She was moderately confident that the first fact was a truth, and she remembered the little tidbit from the sports section of the local newspaper about a Ryuugamine Minato-kun being selected as the youngest member of the U-12 Japanese national soccer team to compete overseas. So, unless this green-haired Ryuugamine Hatsuna had inadvertently voiced out a vague confession on the first day of classes, Momoi was pretty sure that the third 'fact' was the lie.
"Well, then," Takamura-sensei said with an amused tone, "anyone warrant a guess? Who says that Ryuugamine-kun wasn't born in America?"
Three hands were raised with a wavering confidence.
"Then, the second fact was the lie? What was it again?" Takamura-sensei looked at Ryuugamine for confirmation. "Your little brother plays for the U-12 soccer team?"
Ryuugamine nodded with a smile.
A few more hands go up.
"The last one then? That Ryuugamine-kun is in love with her childhood best friend?"
The moment Momoi raised her hand, the rest of the class followed.
The pink-haired girl let out a stifled giggle. She liked this class already.
Ryuugamine silently laughed as well.
Takamura-sensei turned to her, "Ryuugamine-kun?"
The green-haired girl smiled. "I'm sorry to my childhood best friend, but Kamiya Hiroshi's voice is too hot."
There were a few squeals from the other girls who had recognized the name Ryuugamine had said.
"Ryuugamine-san likes Kamiya Hiroshi, too?"
"I love him as Law from One Piece!"
"No, no! He made it big as Natsume-kun from Natsume Yuujinchou!"
Momoi read the expression on Ryuugamine's face as something like: she was glad to have started a fangirls' war in the middle of homeroom.
Really, it took a while for even Takamura-sensei to stop the fierce, impromptu debate.
The ultimate challenge of the first day of middle school started when the lunch time bell rang.
This was when the groups and cliques were formed.
Momoi stood up determinedly while the ringing of the bell was still echoing in her ears.
"E-Excuse me!" she all but shouted to the person next to her.
The girl with her hair in a ponytail gave Momoi patient smile.
"W-Would you l-like to have l-lunch with me?" Momoi stuttered out.
There! The pink-haired girl internally congratulated herself. I said it out loud.
"I would love to have lunch with you, Momoi-san," the girl with the ponytail said. "Izumi Yayoi. I'll be in your care from now on."
"Ah! Same here," Momoi replied, remembering her manners as she bowed respectfully.
"Momoi-san, Izumi-san, will you two be eating in the cafeteria?" a girl with brown hair in pigtails asked. "We're going there right now."
Momoi remembered the brown-haired girl's name to be Kohaku Aiko. Since her name and hair color were similar to Kohaku Aimi-senpai from the basketball club's booth earlier, Momoi had made a mental note to ask her about that. Behind Kohaku were the girls Momoi remembered as Fujisaki Kurumi, Suoh Mayuka, and Ryuugamine Hatsuna.
"That sounds great!" Momoi exclaimed. She clapped her hands happily, looking over to Izumi. Izumi smiled as well.
"I heard the curry rice here is the best," Suoh remarked as they walked out of the classroom.
"My older sister's personal favorite is the katsudon, though," Kohaku quipped.
"That's right! Kohaku-san, your sister wouldn't perhaps be a manager for the basketball club, would she?" Momoi inquired.
Kohaku smiled at her. "Actually, yeah. Aimi-nee-chan has been a manager for the basketball club since last year. One of our relatives was one of the founding members of the original Teikou Basketball Club years ago."
"That's amazing!" Momoi exclaimed.
"Momoi-san must really love basketball, huh?" Fujisaki commented.
"Are you applying as a manager?" Kohaku questioned.
Momoi nodded enthusiastically. "Of course."
"If you love basketball, why don't you try out for the girls' team instead?" Izumi asked.
Momoi chuckled weakly, scratching her chin. "Ehehe. Well, I really love basketball, but I'm not very good at actually playing."
The group laughed out loud.
"Is that so? Too bad then," Kohaku said. "We could have used another player."
"Oh, does Kohaku-san play?"
"Yep," Kohaku said proudly. "I'm applying for the girls' team."
"That's really great," Suoh complimented.
"How did Momoi-san get into basketball anyway?" Fujisaki aksed. "It doesn't really seem like something a girl like you would be drawn to."
"That's true," Izumi pointed out.
Momoi smiled. "My childhood friend was made for the sport. It's only natural that I got into it as well."
"Oh?" Kohaku smirked. "Another childhood friend love story? It looks like you and Ryuugamine-san are the same type."
Ryuugamine merely smiled as Momoi laughed out loud.
"Well, more than anything, Aomine-kun is like a little brother to me," the pink-haired girl explained. "He's always needed a lot of looking after; he's a good guy, but more often than not, he acts like a pain in the neck."
"But even then, you still look after him," Fujisaki pointed out. "If that's not a childhood love story, then I don't know what is."
Momoi just smiled. "Can't a girl and a boy be just friends anymore?"
Everyone exchanged glances.
"We're not in elementary anymore, so of course not!" Fujisaki said with a giggle. "Our middle school lives won't be as interesting if we're 'just friends' with guys."
Everyone laughed.
"You've been reading way too many high school romances," Suoh pointed out with a grin. "Middle school's a bit different."
As Fujisaki and Suoh continued on debating about the differences between romances set in middle school and high school, Momoi thought that with a comfortable aura like this, middle school would be over way too quickly.
She didn't expect to be proven wrong.