Summary: A childhood friend of Tezuka's comes back for a soccer tournament. They've always been close; now, with a limited amount of time, she has to tell Tezuka how she feels. But trouble gets in the way...not to mention her temper. TezxOC
Chapter 1
"Do I have to go, Mom?" A young girl asked desperately.
"Yes, dear, I'm afraid you do." Her mother answered gently, yet sadly, gazing down at her daughter who was as close to tears as she had ever seen the tough little thing. "Mom and Dad have to go back to L.A. for Dad's work. We can't just leave you alone here."
"Yes you can! You can, you can!" A hand on the girl's arm stopped her from protesting further, the jingling of a few necklace chains wrapped around her arm stopping as she calmed down a bit.
"It's ok, Yumi." A young boy soothed. "We'll stay in touch. Besides, America has better soccer programs than here, right?"
"Well...yeah...but still-!" A stern golden brown gaze caused her to bite her lip and hang her head. "...Ok..." Her own gaze fell to the chains around her arm, and the locks that held them closed. She loved locks; they were what she collected, be that strange as it was.
"Here. It's a goodbye present." The boy said, holding out something in his hand.
Little Yumi reached out and felt a small weight drop into her palm. Opening her hand, she saw a small lock, almost as large as the face of a watch. It was shining gold and shaped like a heart, the keyhole being on the front instead of on the bottom. The head of the small key was also in the shape of a heart.
Pulling out a golden chain where the links were just big enough for the lock—meaning the holes of the links big enough to fit most of the tip of a sharpened pencil through it—Yumi wrapped it around her neck. The chain was too long, and hung down to her stomach. Unlocking the heart lock, she slipped it through the chain links and closed it, making a necklace. The key she gave back. "You keep that." She said quietly. "Then if you grow up big and tall and look really different, I'll still know it's you."
"Thanks."
"Come, Yumi...let's go." Her mother said. This time, she went without a fuss.
-Yumi!- A voice called down the street.
A girl looked up in surprise from where she was walking on the sidewalk. Her bangs, which had almost all been grown out to the bridge of her nose, fell a bit to the side over one of her rose red eyes. Most of her shiny raven-wing blue hair was left to hang loosely just past her shoulders.
The only thing undermining the cute and harmless appearances of her face and her clothes was a clink of metal when she turned to face her friend. She had on a white tank top and blue jeans that flared at the bottom over her white sneakers; only instead of a belt around her waist she had a silver chain held at the front by a lock. On the belt loops of her pants she had a different lock for each loop; some were plain and square, others were round, some had dials and some required keys. The keys were all attached to key rings that were attached to each other to form a bracelet around her left wrist. She looked cute, but make no mistake, Yumi wasn't the cute, innocent helpless type.
-I-I called you ten times!- Cari stuttered, slightly flushed. -Do you know how many people stared at m-me!?- She then noticed what had distracted her friend. -Did you get a call?- She asked, looking down at the black cell phone in her friend's hand.
Yumi hurriedly flipped the phone down and into her pocket, but not before her shy friend had been able to catch a glimpse of the message. "Good luck." Now who would send her that message? Cari wondered. She never gives out her cell number to anyone but close friends...meaning only a list of about five people.
-Ready for the soccer game?- Yumi asked Cari, grinning.
-Y-Yes...- Cari was a shy girl, rather timid, which was completely opposite of her appearance just like with Yumi. She wore a baggy black T-shirt with a grey skull design on the front, a rose between the teeth. It hung low over her black, grey, and green plaid miniskirt. Black stockings rose to her knees and on her feet were simple brown shoes. Her hair was cut short to her ears, and was white with a tint of light purple to it, and her eyes a soft brown. She was cute, so boys were always into her, but unfortunately she hated attention.
-I can't wait!- Cari exclaimed happily as they walked down the street together. She shy and timid around everyone but her closest friends.
Both girls were on a high ranking soccer team from their school. Red Hill High School used to be one of those hardly known, unimportant schools when it came to the soccer area of sports. It focused more on track and field, swimming, tennis, etc. That was before Yumi came, however. Ever since she joined the soccer team, it had changed. The girls were more aggressive, eager to play to win and have fun at the same time, ready for the harsh training of their new captain.
And two of the girls had become very close to Yumi; Cari was one of them. The other...
A figure was in sight at the bus stop down on the bench. Their head was resting on their soccer bag like it was a pillow, a white sunhat forced down to cover their eyes from the morning sun. Hands folded over a brown leather vest and pale blue turtleneck, black pants flaring out with brown boots poking out from the ends. It all looked strangely cheery on the sleeping person.
That is, until they woke up.
Sitting up, the hat was tilted back up to lean properly on the girl's head and springy blond curls fell down to mid-back, framing a tanned face and ocean blue eyes. Those who didn't know better would think her a happy, go-lucky beautiful girl. Yumi and Cari knew better. -Hey…- Ieris greeted gruffly, face remaining an indifferent expression of boredom.
There was absolutely nothing cheery about Ieris, Yumi thought with a smirk. There was about as much cheer in Ieris as there was innocence in her. And that isn't damn much. She thought. Her parents had seriously considered calling in for some anger management courses for her before she had some friends to calm her down…even if the methods were rather unusual.
"Tezuka, you dropped your keys." Fuji informed the captain while they were changing for afternoon tennis practice.
"Thanks." Tezuka replied, retrieving them from the tensai and placing them carefully in the pocket of his folded pants, along with the cell phone already there.
Fuji raised an eyebrow curiously. One of those keys was much smaller than the others, and shaped rather...cutely. Not quite the thing that Tezuka would have fashioned for himself. He chuckled slightly at the thought of it being a bike lock that the heart shaped key was for, imagining the lock to be pink with red hearts or something silly like that. When Tezuka looked at him questioningly, he said with a smile "Nothing, just thinking of something."
When Tezuka turned away to finish changing into the Regulars uniform, Fuji thought that maybe—it was just a hunch, really, but those usually had interesting results—maybe it would be worth looking into a bit.