I think I might not hate you

Salty- A tribute to Yasu Yoake, a good friend of mine, and her OC, Raven Knight or Ayame Sayo. So, happy birthday Yasu-chan!

~ITIMNHY~

Sitting next to me in the couch in Fuji-senpai's home was Echizen Ryoma, staring at the others with a sort of happiness that hadn't been there when he first arrived at Seishun academy that spring or that summer.

Summer was over. Long over. Now it was winter, Christmas in fact. Tennis season was over. But we were still celebrating all together, like a bunch of old friends. I was glad for it. Smiling, in fact.

There was a party going on at that moment, a loud one. Far away at a table full of chips and salsas and dips were Momo-chan-senpai and Kaidoh-senpai, having some sort of eating contest.

Taka-san hadn't brought a tennis racket and was sitting in a recliner. Fuji-senpai didn't seem to want to give him his racket either. He seemed to be enjoying his time. Everyone, though scattered around the room and talking very loudly, seemed to be enjoying it just the same.

"ChutupBiper!"(Shut up viper?) shouted Momo, mouth full to this brim. "Raben'llbackmeuph!" (Raven will back me up?)

"Don't drag me into this!" I called back, as loud as I could over the other rowdy boys. "I don't know what you did!"

Conversation stopped, everyone was looking at me oddly.

"Whoa..." said Taka-san. He looked sort of shocked.

"Hm..." Fuji-senpai was smiling widely. "She yelled."

"Whoa! That's amazing!" squealed Kikumaru-senpai, looking amazed.

"That's very unlikely," muttered Inui somewhere in the far corner of the room. "Good data." Like every time he spoke, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

"What's unlikely?" I asked, looking at him from behind the back support of the lime green couch.

"Yelling," said Echizen. "You never speak that loudly." He looked a bit shocked himself.

"Come on. You're all over reacting," I shrugged.

"Well..." said Momo-chan. Suddenly, everyone looked at me with a devilish look. Except for Captain Tezuka(who wasn't paying attention), Oish-senpai and Kawamura-senpai(who were both flustered and trying to get everyone to stop embarrassing us). "Maybe it's because your dating Echizen!"

I rolled my eyes and Echizen scoffed.

"Come on, senpai," said Echizen in disbelief. "You've been guessing that for what?"

"Six months," I told Echizen.

"Yeah, it's never coming true." We both nodded. The confident look on their faces faltered.

"Well maybe..."

"Raven-chan is pretty tomboyish..."

"Yeah, and Echizen's pretty girlish..."

"Not a good match, it just isn't."

"Not a good match at all."

"Yeah."

I smirked, though I felt like strangling them a little bit.

"So you see," I said. "We're not dating."

"Yup," said Echizen.

"Whatever..." All of the people that were teasing us pouted and went back to whatever they were doing. I smiled and so did Echizen. We glanced at each other and nodded. It was best if no one knew, our looks both said.

~ITIMNHT~

"Bye," we both waved to our upperclassmen. We lived in the same general direction and lived farther than the others so we also had to leave a bit earlier. It was lucky, almost too lucky.

It was quiet while we walked, our shoes crunching in the snow below, breaths fogging the air and snow littering our faces.

"Well," said Echizen. He glanced at me and sort of grinned. There were flecks of snow in the hair not covered by his hat as well as his eyelashes and shoulders of his red sweater. He really was sort of girlie.

"Do I have to call you Ryo-kun, since we're sort of...going out...?" I felt the urge to giggle, strangely.

"Hm, only if you like me, Ayame-chan." It was weird. Nobody called me that name anymore. I might have hit someone if they called me that but...I sort of like it when he called me that.

"Well, it's close." I shrugged. He looked at me oddly. He stopped walking and so did I.

"What's that mean?" He was serious. Echizen wasn't glaring at me but...the stare he gave me was similar and...sort of sad?

"Well..." I was joking. I didn't mean to hurt him. "I-I really don't think I hate you." Something about my voice felt flustered, uncontrolled. My face was heating up.

He smirked, enjoying my state as it was.

"I think I might not hate you too." He took my glove in his glove. I blushed, definitely.

"You're mean, Ryo-kun." He smiled and we continued walking home together. As a couple. It was a weird label for us, me and Echizen. But it was. And it would be as long as we didn't hate each other too much.

End