Shojo S by yinyang80
Summary: Now matter what, she doesn't want him to give up at all.
Dedication: to blackrabbit34 for getting the answer correct: it is Kanji Kanazawa. Also this is for Bowllie, who'd like to read this.
Disclaimer: Hisashi Mitsui is NOT my property, and so is SLAM DUNK. Thank you.
Attraction is beyond our will or ideas sometimes.
-Juliette Binoche-
Today, the Kanagawa air was blowing a weird zephyr. The birds chirped, and the prefecture of five million, more or less, souls bustled with the energy of the metropolitan Tokyo with the spirit of the 1770's. Phoebus bloomed fully, letting his golden light scatter and spill through the whole prefecture.
In the Shohoku school, the light of Phoebus was most evident, through the vast hallways of the public school campus.
The early hour was an advantage for the students to go to school. And apparently, Mitsui was taking his time to get to school.
Things had certainly changed.
Back from the days he was just a naïve first year who looked forward to something to play basketball for, he had gone from a desperately obstinate invalid, to a gang leader, and now, back on track as a three-pointer specialist. After cutting his hair, he never felt any better. Never mind his horrible teeth, courtesy of Ryota Miyagi, he still felt great. Days of walking around smoking and lazing and skipping school and beating up innocent people were over. Despite the reversal of roles, he wondered if what would actually happen today.
His first time to attend an actual third year class.
Yesterday had been pretty exhausting. He had tried to disqualify the members of the basketball team. It was emotionally strenuous, wrestling with a million emotions in one soul. Of course, he had to beat them down. But he had failed, and in the end, he as redeemed by the person he truly respected the most. It was none other than the old man with white hair, a beard, and a large area of fat/adipose deposited in his stomach. Chubby, and always smiling. Coach Anzai.
As he entered through the gate of the school, he could hear hushed whispers. Gossip about him. All those who whispered were men – of course, no girl dared associate with him all these time, save for the constant nurse who had watched over his humiliating times of having a broken knee.
He smiled.
No one would recognize him anymore, mayhap. The short hair. The neat uniform. Finally, he was making a good start.
Something held him to his place, something magnetic shook. The feeling of a pair of eyes fixed on him held him planted to his place outside. Craning his head, he turned to look at who was staring at him.
To his surprise, it was a wide-eyed girl.
She was harmless.
"What are you staring at?"
The girl did not reply. She tilted her chin, her eyes meeting with his, and she still wore a tight frown on her face. Fair skin, and glowing indigo eyes, waist-length brown hair worn in pigtails, looking like it was blow-dried. A glint of lip gloss touched her lips, and she had a small waist, and long but skinny legs. Her hands planted at her hips, pouting.
She angrily walked up to him.
Her friends, a few girls near her, assumed scared expressions. They were not the only ones – a few boys got pale.
Why were they?
The way she moved – something in her made them fear her perhaps. For a moment, he froze.
"You have a scar on your chin." Aside from the words she uttered, it was followed by –sa.*
Her voice was high-pitched and pretty bossy. In close-up, her face was too small, and her features were adolescent as she was.
The other people sighed in evident relief.
"So what?" he snapped, trying to argue with her. It was best she left him alone, seriously.
"Your scar will get dirty. And if it gets dirty, you will contract some infection. Besides, the scar's still fresh. It'd be best you protect it." As she spoke, the girl fished a new BandAid from her pocket. She peeled it off.
"If you insist," he snapped. "I can do it myself."
A few girls giggled.
"Shut up, Toothless. You'll probably mess it up, I assume. Now stop fidgeting and I'll put it on."
Was he imagining things or did the whole school just shut up when she said 'Toothless'? She might as well call him Dickless. He mentally sighed in expasparation. Why did she even do that?
"What did you just call me?" he demanded.
"I said you were Toothless." She smacked him hard on his shoulder and put the Band Aid lightly, like she held a rose petal.
"There. All done. You look better. I'll see you around, Toothless." She rubbed her hands on her school coat, and proceeded to run quickly.
"Yo! Mitsui!"
He craned his head to see Kogure grinning. He was walking beside Akagi, his hands firmly tied to his school bag.
"Hi."
"So what were you doing with Tanaka?" Kogure asked, an expression of amusement creeping his face. Akagi, as usual, was sober.
"Tanaka? That's her name?"
"Yep," Kogure confirmed.
Honestly, he felt annoyed at her. Butting in his business. He wanted to yell something back at her. Just her voice was enough to make his nerves twitch. That girl – she reminded him a lot of Sakuragi. Hubristic. She needed a taste of her own medicine. He needed to talk back to her.
"Tanaka what? I don't know her. She's… pretty bossy."
Kogure laughed; Akagi raised a brow.
"Tanaka Ami. She's second year, and I know her. She's nice, though she's bossy and hotheaded. You'll get along fine."
"How did you meet her?"
The thought of Kogure actually getting along with that annoying Tanaka was pretty unbelievable.
"She failed Mathematics and Home Economics two times last year. She wanted Akagi to tutor her. We met her in basketball practice last year; she comes to watch, though."
"That's all?"
"She said she graduated from Takeishi Middle School, you know."
His middle school?
Hard to believe he had never seen her.
Huffing, he bit his lip.
"So, what did she do to you?"
"She insisted on putting a Band Aid on me and did it herself. I have no idea why."
Kogure grinned. "She likes you."
"Likes me?" He laughed. "It's not obvious. She was pretty bossy when she was talking to me. If she does, I don't reciprocate her sentiments. She's so troublesome."
True enough, she was.
The next time he spotted her, it was after practice, and she was outside of the basketball gym, obviously besotted with Romeo and Juliet. Weirdly enough, it looked like she was waiting for him.
She likes you.
"So you like me?" he teased, his words half-meant with the sarcasm and annoyance he reserved for her.
Tanaka looked up from her book, her face quite monotone.
"I. don't."
"Then what are you doing here outside of the gym? Stalking me? Waiting for me?" He scratched his head. "Annoying," he muttered to himself.
"MIT-CHAN HAS A GIRLFRIEND!"
Sakuragi was teasing him.
Annoyed, he craned his head to Sakuragi. And so did Tanaka.
"SHE'S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!" he snapped.
"For crying out loud, he's not my type! He's really annoying, you know," Tanaka retorted. Her voice was loud.
The thud of a heavy bag and Shakespeare book made Mitsui look at her.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
A vein throbbed in her forehead. Her eyes flashed, and her face was turning red. "Showing him that it's bad to piss me off!"
She ran towards the gym in the direction of Hanamichi Sakuragi and started to beat him up.
Forty-five minutes later, she was leaning on him, with a pissed expression on her face. Her arm brushed against his shoulders. Her brushed hair was frizzing out of its respective scrunchies and her cheek was dirty.
They were walking home already.
"DAMN GORILLA! WHY DID HE RUIN MY FUN?" Tanaka furiously ranted. "KILLJOY!" Angrily, the second-year student shook her first melodramatically at the night sky. Her loud voice echoed through the corners of the night and the Moon smiled at her qualms. "GOOLLY!"
Mitsui snickered.
Akagi had not punched her, but rather tore her apart from beating Sakuragi up fully. She was unstoppable in her fury, and pretty scary. Even Kogure had looked embarrassed.
"Did you just snicker?"
He nodded.
"Stop snickering at me, Toothless!"
"You're not my mother. You don't tell me what to do."
She sighed. "Jeez, Toothless, stop being so stiff. You know, if you're that way, you'll get white hair faster than you can say 'Basketball.'"
It was his time to fire out something at her.
"I should say the same to you, Tanaka."
She scowled at him.
"What makes you think so? You barely even know me. It's not your business, Toothless." Her hands balled.
"You," he grinned at her, "are very bossy, Tanaka Ami."
Oddly enough, when he decided to have his teeth fixed, he was thinking about her.
Why?
She was always calling him "Toothless." Aside that, she was also bringing him boxed lunches* – that were positively beneficial for toothless people. All soup, no meat. It pissed him off. Perhaps, he jested, she would cease all her attempts to call him names while he was in practice. Given his teeth were fixed, she would finally take him seriously and that was it.
He and Miyagi were on their way home when he finally told the younger one about his little annoyance.
"You know Tanaka Ami?"
The Shohoku point guard did not flinch. "Yeah, so what?"
"She's annoying," he grumbled.
"Why? You two are always together. Ayako even told me she saw Tanaka give you a boxed lunch."
"Her boxed lunches are for old people. I'm not old. Do you even know she calls me Toothless to my face?"
Miyagi laughed.
"Don't get so worked up all about it, senpai. Maybe she likes you and it's her way of showing it."
"Hey, Toothless, you got your teeth fixed?"
So he had been wrong. When he shows up and she notices he got his teeth fixed, she still didn't correct her address.
Here we go again, he thought as he watched her face twitch and dimple. God, she was so annoying -
She burst out in uncontrollable laughter. Her cheeks flushed a light shade of pink against her fair skin, and her ears also became pink. The Kanagawa breeze blew her braided long hair across her face, loosening. From some female hothead, Laughter made her into a goddess playing under the happy summer sky.
"So I guess I'll have to make you real food now, from now on, sa?" she laughed, the way she spoke utterly undergoing a metamorphosis from his very eyes. Her indigo eyes animated, and even the masculine verbal tic she added to her sentence lost its edge.
He smiled.
What was worse was that he found out he had nothing to say, but only powerless, only to enjoy the moment and her very presence.
"Well, good luck with your match, okay?"
When Ami cut her hair after the Shoyo match, she was thinking about him. It was not that he rejected her or anything, but it had to mean something. Honestly, whenever she ran or played basketball, her hair got in her way. It had gotten too long and too troublesome to fix up. Daily, she had to have it blow-dried. Her father had scolded her for the enormous rise of the electricity bill on her for using the blow dryer every morning.
She had grown it out since she was middle school, nothing but a hopeless fangirl. Admired, loved him. But she was growing up – and she had to change. She had to kill something to mature.
Toothless had been so worked up – and something had melted within her. But with his help, the team had won, and she had left, and went home.
Stepping inside the bathroom, she locked the door and got out her scissors, new sharp scissors. The tiles of the bathroom were cold under her feet as she stood in front of the bathroom mirror, looking at herself.
Her eyes were red-rimmed, from crying for him.
She raised the blade, not bothering to take off her braids and fingering her hair, cut off a long and straying lock.
It fell to the floor.
And it was followed by more.
Snip, snip went the scissors.
"Why did you cut your hair, Ami?"
Lunch and she was sitting under a sakura tree, leaning against it. She had not shown up at morning to inquire about the match from him, which she usually did. She didn't drop a word at Kogure and Akagi to ask about him, too. The morning had been quiet.
In her hands, she did not hold a boxed lunch, but a book.
He was surprised to see her so…changed. Her hair was down, and cut shorter, shoulder-length. Sleek and straight, her bangs covering the side of her forehead in a fringe the shape of an M. The brown highlights from her hair were lost, drowned in a deep almost-black shade of brown. She wore black stockings, and looked more mature.
"It got in the way," she replied tersely, rolling her eyes, "and besides, it's too hot. I miss the days when I could run without my hair getting in the way."
"Well, where's my lunch?"
"I forgot. I was busy studying Math."
"I thought you hated Math."
"I'm forced to bear with it, Toothless. I need to get a good grade to pass. I want to go to Tokyo U." She rolled her eyes.
"Why would you go to Tokyo U? What do you really want in life?"
"Idiot." Ami chuckled. Golly, he had an IQ the size of a wheelbarrow, honestly speaking. From her recollections, he never mentioned actually studying as part of his activities.
"Just tell me." Dammit, she was troublesome.
"I want to study Education. I want to teach History," she said proudly. It reminded him of Akagi, somehow. The determination in their eyes. The pride in the way they said it.
No matter how many years it takes, don't give up*, she sang.
He smiled.
Graduation for Third Year was vague, but inevitable.
Despite the self-assurance he was staying until the Winter Games, Mitsui was often annoyed thinking about graduation.
The thought of leaving Ami annoyed him.
She was too annoying for her own good. Scary. Bossy. Hot-headed. And she was always so overbearing in her own subtle way. His thoughts wavered to think more of her. The way she smiled when he was around. The way she treated him like he was some close friend she knew for a long time. The way she bossed him around like she was the queen of the world. The way her eyes lit up when she saw he had his teeth fixed –
Damn, she was really annoying.
"Ami, do you like me?" he asked one day, they were walking on a Sunday, and she was looking at the manga section of a bookstore.
She craned her head towards him, innocent.
"Excuse me?"
"I said, do you like me?"
She blushed like hell. "WHAT MAKES YOU THINKS SO, TOOTHLESS? Who told you, huh? Tell me who did and I'll –" She rose her fist to hammer fist him, but he managed to catch her wrist.
"I said, do you like me?"
She snorted, turning a ruddy pink.
"What makes you say that?"
"Kogure and Miyagi think so. I'm starting to get the same impression actually." He smirked. "You always smile when I'm there. You always laugh when I'm there. You give me boxed lunches and you put a Band Aid on me when I arrived at school with short hair. You boss me around and you tend to hit me a lot. You're the only girl I know who ends her sentences with –sa."
"What the heck are you trying to articulate to me?" Ami asked, her features twisting as she tried not to laugh at him.
He touched her upper lip with his finger.
"I think you like me."
"Well, I think youlike me, too," she replied playfully.
"Well, I like you, too," he admitted.
"WHAT?" Her eyes were practically bulging.
"I really do. Go out with me. You can make boxed lunches for me if you like. I'll let you call me Toothless all the time. I'll listen to you rant about Akagi and his gorilla-like mannerisms. I'll walk you home after practice, if that's what it takes. Even if you're annoying, I will tolerate it."
She sighed.
"I like you, too. I've liked you since middle school, Hisashi." She wiped her temple nervously. "I was too chicken to even confess. By the time I went here, I forgot all about you – until you just showed up with that dang scar on your face."
"So you did like me all along, did you?"
"Be quiet, Toothless." She was blushing furiously.
"I gave you that Band Aid out of respect. I thought you really needed one. Honestly, by that time, I thought you would be annoyed."
"I was."
"Well, you annoyed me, too, just so you know." She laughed again.
"Honestly…will you go out with me?"
She nodded, lifting her chin.
"I will."
True enough, she did.
.end
Note:
*-Sa is actually a sentence-ending tic among Japanese men that indicates assertion.
*In Japan, usually girls give boxed lunches to the boy they like.
*The line that Ami sings is actually a translated line from the SCANDAL song Shojo S. She is actually directing the lyrics to Mitsui.