By My Side
Summary: Two girls, Anaya and Emiko were so intrigue of Sendoh's masked personality that they are willing to unravel all. How far will they go?
Author's Note: Sendoh x OC fan fiction; I do not own Slam-dunk and its characters…only my original ones.
Chapter 1 – Grill for the Kill
"Can you describe Sendoh according to your analysis?" Emiko Saito asked challenging her best friend's determination to know about the Ryonan's Ace player.
Anaya Watanabe sighed for the fifth time, as she has not completed her keen findings. All the Ryonan players are all predictable except for the player that every high school girls are dying to know.
"All I can say is that he is extremely friendly, cheerful and very hentai-ish!" Anaya pouted.
"That's it? How crude is your research about him!" Emiko gasped
"Look, smarty, if only I can get close to that spiky-jersey-seven twenty-four-seven, I could have given you a complete version of my report…and maybe I can make a fortune out from it."
"Ooooh, are you issuing a challenge?" Emiko asked expecting a provoking response from her.
Anaya Watanabe is a second year student whose personality is as rigged as an elderly woman is. Her raven shoulder long hair matches her almost pale complexion. If she wants something, she is out to get it no matter what it takes. A school journalist job is to get detailed analysis of her article to make it interesting for the readers. In this case, it will be female readers. She got a ton of letters requesting to feature an article about Sendoh's personality in detail. Sure, she even loves the idea but dissecting him mentally is another thing to consider.
While Emiko, on the other hand, is a cool-cat photographer of the school's newspaper, Ryonan High Bulletin. She got an auburn brown hair, which makes her unique among all the female students. She and Anaya were partners in this paper as they were the most unstoppable duo that the campus has ever known. All high school students were so impressed that they even received an award called "Best Collaboration in Journalism". Though there are some disagreements between them, at the end of the day everything steers clear.
"I can only describe his physical features like tall, has a great smile, well-built body and…" Anaya paused.
Suddenly, Emiko gave some pictures that show the physical aspect of Sendoh in every angle she can take with her ever-reliable Nikon digital camera. As she turns it on, she pushes the electronic button that flashes him every picture she took.
"Since when did you start taking him some of these fantastic shots?"
"Those were taken yesterday, today and probably tomorrow. You know me, Anaya. The paper we are working in has a tremendous pressure to produce something shocking."
"What if the editor-in-chief refuses to publish this?" Anaya questioned with uncertainty.
"Even the chief is in deep trouble. You know the school press is getting unpopular due to poor articles in terms of research and features. We got to do something to resuscitate it." Emiko said as if it was a government secret.
As they went to their respective lockers that are right beside each other, Emiko spotted Hikoichi Aida doing some paper compilation from his scouting trip. Anaya caught her ever-sharp friend that she whispered almost on her ear.
"Do you think Hikoichi would be a good start to do our project?"
"What project? What do you mean?"
"Our project called 'Expose': Akira Sendoh'. Our main goal is to reveal the inner personality of the Ace hentai of our school. If we succeed, it would be a big hit in our school."
"I don't know about our agenda but that would be dangerous. He is quite unpredictable." Anaya said with a hint of carefulness in her moves.
"Since when did you conclude he was unpredictable?"
"It was during our class with him, right? He may sleep, pays no attention and does nothing in experiments but he still finishes on top academically."
Emiko thought that her best friend is right all along. Tagging Hikoichi to be the stepping-stone to get closer to Ace player can be dangerous like a queen vulnerable to expose in playing chess. They need some sort of a plan to execute all correctly and avoid mistakes at all cause. This kind of situation is like a movie when a spy meets it's comrade to grill the kill of the unusual suspect.
They started to observe secretly to Akira Sendoh who was busy mingling with his colleagues in basketball team. His personality is so likable that they are wondering if that is really him. He flashes his bright smile to any female that pass along in his locker. A girl giggles while he blushes a little in his cheeks. Koshino smiled and caught the two girls spying on them. Sendoh glimpsed secretly, too. He knew there were something was wrong but shrugged off as he went back to pay attention to Fukuda's hilarious jokes.
Somehow, the girls have to work cooperatively in order for them to succeed. The instruments that they are going to use, careful locomotive planning and finally to meet their objective.
"We need to discuss further after class." Emiko dismissed.
OoOoO
"So, Sendoh how is the discussion with Taoka-sensei?" Koshino asked.
"Pretty good, Coach Taoka told me that the team needs an outside shooter or two in order for the team to strengthen further. The team is on the right track in terms of training." Sendoh noted.
Team Ryonan may face an unexpected shuffle of players ever since Sendoh took over as their team captain. Akira's analysis never fails to impress the aging coach. He may even place him as playing coach as he suggested it to the young player. However, the latter refuses the offer and recognizes that Taoka-sensei is still, for him, a ball wizard to date.
"Hi, Sendoh, you looked great today" a girl greeted.
"Oh, hi there, you looked great, too." He said warmly.
A girl giggled and blushed as Sendoh noticed that she was quite cute. He looked towards to his shorter colleague as he gave a visual communication if he agrees with him.
"Yeah, I know she is cute and everyone else is. Every girl in this campus would like to have a piece of you." Koshino exclaimed. Just as then, he looked over to his right shoulder as he notices the dynamic duo of school journal. Emiko and Anaya, looking at them as if they were talking about the captain.
"Could it be they want an interview from you?" Koshino asked as Sendoh looked over them, too.
Upon seeing them, the girls split to attend their respective classes.
"Honestly, men are not the most intuitive species in the world but I'm beginning to sense something that would rock us all." Sendoh mused.
"Could it be a player will turn to a nightmare?" Fukuda quipped.
The boys looked around at the other way and laugh hysterically. They exchange hi-fives as they walked altogether in the hallway like a band of brothers.
OoOoO
"I'm staying over to Emiko's house tonight due to a project that needs to work out. Besides, today is Friday and you don't have to worry about me," Anaya said talking to her mom over her mobile phone.
"Okay, honey, but be very careful. I trust your safety instincts. Please tell Emiko I said, hi."
"Sure, mom, I will and thank you for giving me permission. I love you."
"Bye, dear, I love you, too." the middle-age woman said as she heard the click at the end of the line.
Anaya puts down her phone as she sitted across to Emiko. She told her best friend "hi care of mom."
"Your mom is so sweet…"
"Our moms are both so sweet that we never give them headaches." Anaya said with a little sparkle in her eyes.
They both laugh as Emiko switch off the main lights while the mini-lamp over the table remains on. The discussion held in her best friend's bedroom with windows and curtains close. Not to mention that even a door is lock as if there would be an intruder coming in. Emiko pulls out sheets of paper while Anaya bundled pens and displaces them over the table.
"First thing to discuss are the resources. What do we have?" Anaya asked critically.
"We have paper, pens, tape recorders, your digital camera and my laptop." Emiko said meticulously detailing their available resources.
"Good! I do not see any lacking here. Now here comes the grueling part, how?"
"We could send anonymous letters to Sendoh's locker." Emiko suggested.
"Why are we sending him anonymous letters since he receive those things everyday? Another thing, those were love letters from his fan club." Anaya said pinpointing her friend's idea.
"Well, we could make it different. In a way, we could send him a letter that would stand out from the rest of it.
"Can you give me an example of that?"
"An example would be a black letter with a skull on it or maybe a poison sign."
"That is ridiculous! Are we threatening to kill him?" Anaya said in a panic mode.
"No! We are not going to kill him. It is a matter of getting his attention but the content of it will be a mystery." Emiko defended her idea.
"Mystery? In what way do you want to pertain?"
"You see, getting Sendoh in a curious mode is a challenge. You know how deeply interested he was in strategies."
"That strategy thing only exists in basketball, my dear." Anaya quipped.
"You are wrong, my dearest friend. It works like magic for him."
"He knows no magic."
"Sendoh loves strategies and his matching unpredictable nature can be dangerous. Indeed, we are going to crack his shell open wide that we should promise ourselves to do it no matter what. We both know that we wanted a piece of Sendoh and not just his superficial side of him." Emiko said in a serious tone.
Anaya wanted to know Sendoh for a long time since she first entered Ryonan high. Not to mention, her personality of being a truth digger is already a part of her. Emiko, on the other hand, raises her one eyebrow as if she is seeking approval from her.
"I always wanted to talk to him but he never seriously engaged in a conversation that is worth listening. Yes, indeed, just like every girl in the campus, we like him. On the deeper side, we wanted to know his 'other personality' badly."
Emiko grinned as she began to clasp her best friend's hand as if telling her 'you are not alone'.
"So, what is the next step?" Anaya asked as they both laid out their plans.
OoOoO
Sendoh lazily walked into the school's pavement as he greets every female that goes along his way. This kind of routine is getting boring as he enters the main hallway meeting shrieks in his ears. He smiled sheepishly as he approached his locker with a watchful stance. As he opened it, dozens of letters suddenly flush out landing to the floor as he picked it up one by one. Letters and envelopes vary in feminine colors such as pink, light blue, peach…
His azure eyes got wide open as one of the letters disturbs him.
It was color black with silver print of human skull.
Sendoh picked the peculiar letter as he place the rest of it back to his locker neatly. While he holds the black envelope, Koshino greeted the taller colleague giving him a bright morning mood.
"Hey, more letters of those…"
He, too, notices it from Sendoh's hand.
"Wow, where did it came from?" Koshino asked as if it was part of him.
"I don't know, "Sendoh said with a questioning expression in his face.
"Have you read it?"
"Not yet…I…"
The bell rang to signal the start of the class. Sendoh kept the black envelope in his breast pocket as they both headed in their class.
I don't like this…he thought warily.
-To be continued-