"Odaiba High calls a timeout! With five minutes left in the game, the score is tied at two all! What a way to start the season kickoff tournament! Odaiba will have possession when play resumes!" The announcer's excited voice can be heard throughout the stadium.
"Isn't it a bit overdoing it to even have a commentator at a high school soccer game?" A blond haired, blue-eyed boy wearing an Odaiba High uniform asks his friends, who are all also wearing Odaiba High uniforms.
"Well, they are the defending national champs," a girl with auburn hair addresses the blond, "but, I agree." Her eyes fall upon one of the players on the field, one with wild brown hair. She looks around as if feeling uncomfortable with being there.
"Sorry that I asked you to come with me Sora…" a girl with long black hair directs the apology to her.
"No, it's okay Yui," she sighs and thinks for a moment before finishing her thought, "I just don't know what you see in the guy."
Yui blushes, but says nothing. The blond boy speaks up, "Oh come on Sora, don't be like that! Taichi is our friend, remember? You two used to be joined at the hip, but now you're saying all these mean things about him." He looks at Sora with a bit of guilt in his eyes.
"You've heard the rumors too, Yamato!" She reprimands her boyfriend for defending the boy in question, "I just don't want Yui to get hurt. Seriously, you deserve much better than a guy like that who will play with you for a little while and toss you aside like nothing."
After reaching high school the soccer star went into full bloom and grew up very nicely. He is now the resident heart throb of Odaiba High, and almost every girl at the school was infatuated with him. However, he is known to only have dated a couple of girls seriously in these past couple of years, and even then those relationships didn't last very long. From an outsider's perspective, it seemed like he was with a different girl every week which led to these rumors circulating throughout the school about his supposed promiscuity and carefree attitude when it comes to the opposite gender.
"Sora, you really believe those rumors?" Koushiro interjects, shaking his head, "you really don't have any faith in him anymore, do you? What exactly happened between you two to make you perceive him that way? In fact, you two hardly even speak to each other anymore, correct?" Koushiro pauses his thoughts for a moment, but after seeing that Sora had no intentions of responding properly to his comment, he continued, "I for one, have not seen anything that would lead me to believe that any part of these rumors are true in the slightest."
These words carve themselves into her and she doesn't know how she should respond. "Taichi told me you two used to be best friends," Yui says hesitantly, unsure of whether she is crossing any boundaries. "I don't know what happened… but, Taichi is a good person. He's kind, caring, and he goes out of his way so much to help others. So, I don't believe those rumors for a second either."
Sora grits her teeth in frustration with her friends pleas falling on deaf ears. Nothing had really happened between Taichi and her to create this distance, it just did. Nothing directly happened anyway. He had become distant shortly after her and Yamato started dating, although he is still good friends with Yamato just fine. Sora wasn't an idiot, she knew full well she essentially rejected Taichi three years ago that evening of Yamato's concert. But, he had said he wasn't mad, that it was fine, and even encouraged her to go to Yamato. Yet, here they are as third years in high school with Sora going to one of the most important soccer games of his life only because someone else begged her to. They hardly speak a word to each other anymore, and Sora can't help but feel a bit bitter about it.
"GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLL!" The PA system echoes across the field, and half of the crowd in the stands start to give off resounding cheers. "A spectacular play by Yagami and Takamura! Odaiba High knocks out the defending national champions in round one of the tournament!"
"He did it!" They all cheered and celebrated their team's victory, everybody but Sora. Instead, she found herself staring at the boy with wild brown hair celebrating with his team on the field while trying to sort out her thoughts. What's the truth? How does she feel? Why does even thinking about Taichi make her head hurt? For now she decides to push these thoughts aside and join in on the festive atmosphere.
Sora stares out the window from her seat in the classroom in the back row. After last night's game, word has gotten around about scouts from local universities and even some from places like Tokyo and Osaka approached Taichi after the game. Sora looks over to the right in reaction to the classroom door opening. Taichi then walks in only to be swarmed by curious students, male and female alike, dying to know about any scholarship offers he received. He waves them off with a nervous smile saying something about not being able to speak about it, and they leave him alone. The girls that crowded him were a bit more reluctant, but fortunately were considerate enough to see that he didn't want to be bothered.
Sora watches him as he sits down in his seat on the right-most side of the classroom in one of the middle rows. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a book, one that Sora has seen him reading a few times before in the past few years. She supposed he was fond of that book, seeing as this is the third time he's reading it. No Longer Human. She somewhat knows what the book is about, something about feeling isolated from the rest of society. Sora can't help but wonder why Taichi reads it multiple times. Does he feel some kind of resonance with the main character? Does he also feel like he's isolated from the rest of society and can no longer understand others?
It could be just that it's a classic and an enjoyable read, supposedly. Taichi has started to become a real bookworm over the past three years. Turns out that he is actually really smart and his grades are top notch in the humanities. Math and science aren't his strong suits, but he manages to get by decently in those as well. In fact, Taichi seemed to change from the dumb jock type to quite the intellectual, although he does have dumb jock tendencies still. Who knew that stupid Taichi would ever be able to calm down and grow out of his hyperactiveness?
"Morning Taichi!" Sora's eyes shift a bit to the left to identify the source of that nauseatingly chipper voice.
"Morning Yui." Taichi smiles warmly at her as she plops down in her seat next to him.
He sets down the book as the two begin chatting and Yui begins laughing at something Taichi had said. Normally Yui is a very shy girl, but she feels comfortable around Taichi, a fact that she has confided in Sora about. It has only been a couple of months since she's transferred in, but the two have already managed to become pretty close, which is the reason the female populace at the school are resentful towards Yui.
Sora hates how close those two are as well, but for different reasons than the others. Part of her misses her friendship with Taichi and is jealous that him and Yui have become so close, and another part wants Yui far away from him so she doesn't get hurt. Although, taking into consideration what the others have said the other night, perhaps she has been too hard on him.
Sora looks at the clock. Five minutes until homeroom starts… She gets up from her seat and walks over to Taichi and Yui's desks. She stands there for a moment while the two are unaware of her presence before speaking, "Um…"
Taichi is the first to notice her standing there, "Oh, good morning, Takenouchi." Sora grits her teeth; since when has Taichi ever called him by her last name? Taichi notices her shaking fists clenched in anger and asks, "Is something the matter? Do you need something?"
Taichi continuing to speak in a formal manner to her only further angers her. Something inside of Sora's brain snaps, and she forgets all about trying to make peace with him, "Meet me on the roof during lunch break, I've got a bone to pick with you." Sora immediately turns around without waiting for a response and heads back to her seat to wait for class to start. On the way back to her seat she can hear her classmates whispering about what they just witnessed.
"Whoa, what's with her? Don't tell me she's going to confess!"
"No way! That's Takenouchi, she already has Ishida!"
"Does she want both Ishida and Yagami? What a slut!"
"You guys are totally misreading the mood, she looked pissed at him! Maybe she slept with him and he didn't call back."
"Doesn't that prove my point about her being a slut?"
"Uh.. I guess you're right."
Taichi watches Sora as she heads back to her seat all the while ignoring the whispers. She is trying to act as if she isn't fazed by them, but Taichi knows that whatever hot water he was in with her now, those whispers were only going to make it harder on him later. He turns to face forward in his seat again, clicking his tongue with irritation.
"Everything alright?" Yui looks at him with a concerned look in here eyes.
He immediately smiles and waves the question off dismissively, "Totally fine, that just caught me off guard is all." Unable to completely control his facial expressions, the side of his mouth twitched angrily for a moment. Yui takes notice of this, but says nothing of it and plays along after a moment of thinking.
The bell for homeroom sounds off and the day continues as normal. Taichi studiously takes notes, placing the events of the morning completely on the backburner while Sora has a difficult time trying to concentrate. Part of her feels embarrassed, yet part of her feels angry - at her classmates and at Taichi. She manages to write down whatever the teacher is writing down on the board, but the verbal parts of the lecture go in one ear and out the other. She figures that she'll be fine if she goes over the notes later with a sincere attempt to retain the information.
Finally, the bell signaling the start of the lunch break sounds off. Sora is one of the first to leave the classroom, eager to get away from the remnants of the judgmental whispers and gazes of her classmates that have not forgotten her forwardness with Taichi before class. She heads up to the roof and waits, leaning her back against the railing along the perimeter of the building.. Ten minutes go by, and no sign of Taichi yet. Her blood begins to heat up, and her frustration levels start to exponentially increase. She stares down the door as if it had said something nasty about her mother. Finally, three minutes later she sees a familiar wild-haired brunette emerge from the door to the roof.
"You're late." Sora glares at him with the intensity of the sun.
"Sorry about that, I had to go buy lunch. I didn't have the energy to make my lunch last night and I didn't have time for it this morning." He gestures to a box in his hand. In his other hand he is holding two drinks, one of which he extends his hand to offer to her.
She takes the drink, scoffing all the while. After all, it'd be rude not to take the drink. They stand in silence for a while. Sora attempts to arrange the thoughts in her head while Taichi patiently waits for her to say something. After a what felt like an hour, but in reality was only half a minute Taichi speaks up.
"So… Why did you call me out here?" Taichi only receives an irritated "tch," in response. After a brief pause, he decides to prod further, "Look, I don't know what your problem is. I don't know what I did to get on your bad side this much. I'm just trying to live my life." Taichi finds himself getting a bit worked up, but manages to calm himself after a deep breath, "So are you going to say anything, Takenouchi?"
There it is, the last push over the edge. Taichi doesn't say her surname with any venom or hostility behind it, but rather with the inflection one would use when talking to a stranger. Respectful, polite, and formal. She hates hearing such formality directed toward her from him.
"Stay away from Yui," she spits out finally. "I know your game, Yagami," unlike Taichi, Sora spits out his name like a bad hairball. The amount of hostility in her tone is enough to make her wince, "You think you can just push around all of these girls like your playthings. Tugging at their heartstrings like they're your little puppets." This isn't what she had intended to say to him at all. Instead of, "I want to be friends again," all of her resentment rushes through the floodgates of her mind and leaves in a torrential downpour from her mouth. "Yui is a nice girl, and I'll be damned if you break her heart."
At first Taichi is frozen in shock. He can't believe what he is hearing at all, but the shock quickly turns into indignation towards how he's being treated from his former best friend. "Are you done?" he spits out angrily. His eyes downcast, hiding his expression, teeth and right fist clenched in anger. He waits a few moments - gentleman to the end, "First time we've talked in over a year and this is all you have to say?" His fists stop shaking and he unclenches his teeth to look Sora in the eyes, "Even if I was interested in her, it'd be none of your business." He murmurs the next part so quietly that she can barely hear, his eyes returning to the ground, "You have no right to lecture people about breaking hearts." He makes eye contact with her once more and smiles sadly, "If that's all, I'd like to go eat my lunch. Goodbye, Takenouchi."
Sora continues to stand on the rooftop, glaring at his back as he walks through the door. She knows she's being stupid, but she can't help but become even more angry after this exchange. She walks through the door and down the steps, muttering, "Stupid Taichi, who does he think he is? Stupid Mr. Big-shot-soccer-star-thinks-he's-better-than-everyone." At the bottom of the staircase of the floor her classroom is on, a poster on the wall catches her eye.
"Odaiba High Cultural Festival Talent Show, sign up here!"
She scans the poster for a moment before a light bulb goes off in her brain. The perfect way to get back at Taichi.
"Good work everyone!" Taichi calls out to his teammates as they part ways at the end of soccer practice. Despite getting an offer from a prestigious university, he is still working hard in order to improve. The goal this year is to go to the national tournament with his team and win the whole thing after all.
"Yeah, you too Captain! Also, we can't wait to see you sing at the talent show for the cultural festival!" One of his teammates call back.
"Wait, what's that supposed to mean?" He turns to his teammate that hasn't quite finished up packing yet.
"What do you mean? Didn't you sign up? The whole school has been talking about it. Your name is on the sign up on the third floor." His teammate shrugs and slings his bag over his shoulder, finally finished with packing up.
"I never signed up for that…" Taichi murmurs. Without another word, Taichi picks up his own bags and races to the third floor to where the sign up sheet is located. The school is mostly deserted, but not locked yet as some clubs are only just finishing up their activities. He reaches his destination and there it is, his name on the list for the talent show - in Sora's handwriting. There's no way he could mistake that handwriting for anybody else's. He curses under his breath and heads home.
After dinner and washing up, Taichi plops down on to his bed face-down and reaches for his phone tiredly. All of the events today run through his mind as slideshow images and he feels anger begin to well up inside of him. Tomorrow is a Saturday, but a short day of class with no club activities. He sends a message to Koushiro and Yamato that they have to meet up tomorrow after school. Although, his message to Yamato is worded with a bit of irritation.
"Sure thing – Koushiro."
"Sure, I'm free. No band practice tomorrow, but is there any reason why? -Yamato."
"Your girlfriend is fucking crazy. -Taichi."