A Trickster in Rikkai Dai

"Hey," Saya protested, stumbling forward as another person shoved past her, squeezing to the front of the writhing legion of people that were all pressing forward into Rikkai Dai. The tightness of the crowd surrounding her just managed to keep her upright.

"Watch out! Junior ace coming through!" a loud and obnoxious voice squawked from just behind her.

Startled, Saya leapt to the side as a boy with wild, seaweed-like hair barreled past her, bruising her shoulders with his own. The crowd parted like the Red Sea before him, and Saya opened her mouth to cuss loudly at his retreating back. She thought better of it in the middle of her breath and followed sourly in the wake that he had left, taking advantage of the gap that he had created with his loud presence and rude shoving.

Really, it was beyond Saya's mental ability to comprehend how her brothers had chosen to come to Rikkai Dai. It was her first day here, and she already hated the school and the rude inhabitants that manifested in it.

No, unlike the better half of her siblings, Saya had not elected to go to a prissy private school for prissy…people. The only reason for Saya's presence at the school was her father, who had fallen into a coma after a car accident with a drunk driver. Saya would have happily stayed in her nice little public school in America had her older sister not interfered and suggested that little "Sa-chan" should go to Rikkai Dai so she could take care of her.

And charming and beautiful Tatsuya always got what she wanted—even if her own siblings were involved in the matter.

Of course, Saya supposed that her sister had only been looking out for her. But that didn't change the fact that her best friend from the states, Sirena, couldn't have just as easily kept Saya from starving or getting kidnapped.

Speaking of best friends…

"Try to be friendly, Sa-chan."

A grimace found its way onto Saya's Japanese face as she remembered the little bit of advice Tatsuya had imparted upon her not an hour ago. Saya didn't want friends here. She'd be going back to America in a few months anyway, so what good was forming attachments that wouldn't last?

Still—as she looked upon the tall school with its wide expanse of dewy, green grass, she realized that it was also no good standing there and fuming to herself. She was already at the school, and she couldn't exactly ditch. All Saya could do was go with the flow—or in this case, what Tatsuya wanted.

So, she pressed her lips into a tight half-smile and clenched her hands into tight fists at her side, and she entered Rikkai Dai.

~x~

Saya, it turns out, was early. Despite the myriad of people that had been at the entrance, classes started at eight, and right now it was only seven thirty. When Saya discovered this, she'd promptly cursed and run out of the jam-packed halls, inhaling the cold, chilly air deeply.

Then, someone crashed into her.

A flash of bright magenta hair.

All at once, the breath left her lungs as she plummeted to the ground chest-first. She didn't have time to shriek as she stuck her arms out before her and felt them crumple under the weight of the stranger. Straining from the effort, she tried to push her head up, but as luck would have it, the stranger had fallen down after her and was now seated lopsidedly on her upper back, pinning her head to the ground.

"Ooh, sorry." The voice was distinctly male and was accompanied by the pop of bubblegum. Saya felt the person's butt shift on her backbone as he twisted to look at the back of her head.

"Get off—" Saya began through clenched teeth, but then the weight increased sevenfold and she felt it hard to draw breath for the last word.

"Marui-sama, you okay?"

"Hey, hands off."

"He's hurt, I think."

Dozens of female voices enveloped her and Saya cast her eyes upwards to see what was happening. She looked down right away when she saw what she saw—and let's just say, it apparently wasn't considered "sexy" to wear short-shorts under one's skirt, like Saya had on.

"Marui, I think you should pay more attention to the girl you're sitting on than to the girls that are suffocating her," said a mirthful, feminine voice.

Damn straight, thought Saya venomously.

A moment afterwards, she was able to scramble up, spitting grass and dirt from her mouth. She found herself face to face with the softest and most feminine face that had ever been known to belong to a man—and then the face of the jerk who had forced her to spend what seemed to be the better part of her thirty minutes as his beanbag chair.

Saya brushed herself off deliberately, shooting scathing looks at the jerk, who took no notice. He had bright pink hair—magenta, she thought in English—and light violet eyes. The edges were tilted up slightly in a purely Japanese fashion, and they were rimmed with eyelashes so dark, Saya had mistaken it for mascara at first. Saya sniffed the air, smelling the faint trace of green apple.

And then she switched her gaze to his friend, and found it hard not to wonder whether he was a boy or a girl. He also seemed purely Japanese and had that demeanor to him that spoke volumes of the self-confidence he must have in himself. He was smiling serenely at her as she glared at him.

"I apologize for my friend," he said, sounding sincere and apologetic.

The boy with magenta hair lifted his arm to scratch the back of his head uncomfortably. "Yeah, you know, it's really crowded here. I didn't mean to…crush you." He smacked his gum and Saya smelled green apple again.

Saya fought rolling her eyes at his feeble apology. Honestly, even if he hadn't meant to crush her, there was no way he could be stupid enough to actually forget that she had been under him when the girls swarmed over him.

His much politer friend looked at his wristwatch and frowned lightly in an unconcerned way. "Sorry, again. But we better get to class," he said softly, grabbing hold of the pink-headed idiot's wrist and beginning to drag him toward the school.

"Yep—sorry again," the idiot echoed, peering behind his shoulder.

Saya watched them for a few moments, and neither looked back. The guy with blue hair, obviously the more mature of the two, released the idiot's wrist soon after they left her.

~x~

When Saya entered her class, there was another jerk (Seriously, she thought, what was it with Rikkai and jerks?) in the room that had his feet propped up on her desk. And she identified this desk as such, because she always got a seat next to the window.

She marched over to him with an acidic air of annoyance, planted her hands on her hips with feet spread shoulder-length apart, and cleared her throat. She expected him to look up at her with raised eyebrows, but he didn't and only kept his position obliviously. This only made her seethe inwardly.

"Excuse me." She frowned at him, trying to be polite and unhappy at the same time.

Without looking up, the boy replied flippantly, "You're excused."

That did it. Without another thought at being nice, Saya, with irritated green eyes, took both his feet in her arms and lifted them from the table.

"Hey!" protested the boy, straightening up and retracting his legs from her arms. "What the hell?"

Saya grinned a little bit at the small victory and sat down in the desk.

"Seriously," he continued, "you could've just asked."

"I didn't want to waste my breath." Saya decided as she said that that she would not, under any circumstances (okay, maybe not any), acknowledge him properly. Maybe then the prick would learn not to ignore people that were trying to gain his attention.

"God." The boy exhaled through his nose, sounding very pissed off, and propped his feet up onto his own desk. "What the f*ck is your problem?"

"You are," Saya retorted lightly.

"Real original."

"This coming from the person whose reply was, 'You're excused.' Like you thought of that one on your own."

"Che…"

After that, the boy said nothing more, and Saya only disliked Rikkai Dai even more. Everyone was rude, her morning had been horrendous, and now the teacher was late. All she could do was keep being "good" and hope that her sister decided to ship her back to America soon.

~x~

"Neh, Sanada, what's that?"

The addressed boy grunted. "I don't know."

"We should go check it out."

"It's nine o'clock."

"That doesn't seem to be bothering them."

"'Them' is an amateur at tennis."

"Doesn't look like an amateur."

"Why do want to go see anyway?"

"The tennis team needs a manager."

Yukimura watched his friend carefully as he choked on his retort. Sanada's face turned mildly afraid as he saw Yukimura's eyes, shining with that steely stubbornness that he knew so well.

"Why does the tennis team need a manager?" he grumbled. "Rikkai's doing fine without one."

Yukimura shrugged and smiled a close-eyed smile, knowing that he had probably already won.

It had all started that afternoon at tennis practice when Renji had mentioned a team manager to him. Somehow, Yukimura had been convinced that he should get a team manager for the team.

Renji should join the debate team, he remembered thinking.

Later, he'd been walking home from the calligraphy shop downtown with Sanada when they'd passed the street tennis courts. The girl from that morning was there—even from a mile away, Yukimura could see her shoulder-length white hair. Her racquet flashed silver under the streetlamps as she covered her side of the court with practiced familiarity.

Yukimura had stopped.

"Renji says that the Hyotei and Seigaku teams have improved ever since they got their managers," he answered in a tone that was akin to that of a child tattling on his sibling.

"Those two teams are and will never be up to the level of Rikkai Dai," Sanada returned.

"They aren't and they won't ever be, but keep in mind Sanada; we must always be on the lookout for any way to improve our game. I think that a manager will help us."

"We have Renji."

"Renji's also part of the team. It would affect his game if he had to always worry about the team's training menus and such."

"It's worked so far."

Yukimura cast an icy look at his friend. "I am going to look, Sanada," he said in a hard voice. The words "whether you like it or not" went unspoken.

Sanada sighed as he watched his friend stalk towards the street tennis courts, back held up straight and shoulders squared. Despite being childhood friends with Yukimura Seiichi, the boy was the captain of the team who won Nationals two years in a row above all else. This was good at most times, but Sanada sometimes wished that Yukimura wouldn't get so dead set on an idea.

He blamed Renji for this one.

His shoulders heaved as another sigh went through him and he followed. When he got there the girl had just finished off an opponent, wiping sweat from her brow as she scanned the mass of boys that pressed onto the sides of the court. The other courts nearby had been abandoned in favor of her match. As he watched, his captain took to the stage, a borrowed racquet in his hand.

Sanada folded his arms across his chest, lips pressing into a thin, disapproving line. He heard jeers from the mob of boys and his brows knitted together. He knew that no matter how skilled the girl was (he didn't think it was that much), Yukimura would beat her, even if he had to use his Yips.

~x~

Saya cocked a brow in anticipation as another opponent stepped onto her territory. Her eyes lit up in recognition as she registered that it was the not-a-jerk boy from this morning across from her, a racquet hanging loosely at his side. Her eyes narrowed as she sized him up, and then she ambled to the net, smirking.

"It's a surprise to see you here," she commented, clasping his hands with her own. "Thanks for getting your friend off me, by the way." She had nothing against him since he hadn't sat on her that morning. (And then, Saya grimaced, remembering the unpleasant experience.)

"Yukimura Seiichi," he said, a natural smile on his lips. "And, I'm just as surprised as you."

Saya reached into her pants pocket and extracted three neon green tennis balls, offering them to Yukimura out of politeness. He shook his head and she retracted her hand, shrugging.

Saya never missed a chance to serve. If Yukimura thought she was to be underestimated, well, it wasn't her fault.

~x~

From the beginning of the match, Yukimura controlled the pace, hitting balls with backspin so that the girl had to bend her knees to reach them. The girl had been playing tennis for a longer amount of time than Yukimura had. By making her bend her knees, he was robbing of her stamina.

It was strategy that was almost too simple for a man with the tactical brilliance of Yukimura, but Sanada understood perfectly.

It was mostly a test to see how quickly she could adjust and adapt to the situation, and Sanada admitted grudgingly that she was rather good. She'd responded quickly and started approaching the net to volley the shots.

Time seemed to stop when the ball met her racquet towards the end of the match, but Yukimura still won in the end, seamlessly ending the match with a flat shot that zoomed straight to the baseline and bounced out before the girl could get to it. She had managed to take three games from him, though Sanada knew that she wouldn't have been able to take one if Yukimura had been playing seriously.

The girl left the courts and Yukimura followed her off. Sighing, Sanada realized that this could take a while and stepped onto the court, his stance demanding as he waited for an opponent to enter so that he could pass the time.

A boy with flames adorning his racquet stepped up and Sanada began the match, eyes flickering to his friend and the girl every once in a while.

~x~

Saya was surprised when Yukimura stepped off the courts and walked with her to where her tennis racquet case was lying dejected under a wooden park bench. He didn't come here just to talk to me, right? she wondered, slipping her racquet into the case and zipping it.

"You're pretty good," he complimented, sitting down beside her.

Saya shifted awkwardly and gulped down water from her bottle. "Thanks, I guess. You're not so bad yourself." Okay, actually, he was freaking amazing—but Saya would rather die (not really) than say something like that to him.

Yukimura shrugged. "I've been playing for a while. By the way, I didn't catch your name."

"I didn't give it," Saya said. "But it's Kaminari Saya, if you're wondering."

He nodded like she'd just explained something confusing to him. "Hmm—Kaminari-san, y'know, I was actually going to ask if you would be my tennis team's manager," he said easily.

Saya bit her bottom lip gently, the tips of her mouth curving into a thoughtful frown. The offer was tempting, and some of the bitter feelings she'd carried about going to Rikkai Dai had disintegrated from three hours of playing tennis, but the idea of staying at the school permanently still irked her.

After weighing the pros and cons, she finally shook her head, wisps of white hair flying up. "Sorry."

A flash of disappointment seemed to appear on Yukimura's face, but then he shrugged. "No problem. But think about it, okay?"

Saya laughed. "You probably wouldn't want a manager like me anyway. Japan is only like a not-so-mini vacation. It's nothing permanent."

"Oh—well, still—think about it."

Saya offered him a little grin and got up, shouldering her racquet case. "Bye, Yukimura-san."

~x~

Saya finished chewing her squid and capped her lunchbox, stifling a sigh. She had been going to Rikkai Dai for a week now, and though she had gotten used to it, she still preferred America. She'd even thought she would try actually eating in the cafeteria instead of the rooftop today.

It seemed that she wasn't ready for that yet.

She stood up from her half-empty table with eyes that were almost lidded and strode out of the cafeteria with an air of faint annoyance blended with resignation. For Rikkai Dai, lunchtime was basically free time; students could do anything, from studying to streaking through the halls, though the latter was deeply discouraged. Saya chose to spend her lunchtimes on the rooftop garden, where it was empty and quiet.

She sat down at a wooden park bench, a safe distance from the poisonous Angel's Trumpets, and resumed eating her lunch. Because of the construction for some new pathways, nobody visited the rooftop—but construction workers had lunch too, and Saya took advantage of that.

Really, Saya wasn't a person that could be described with the words reserved or cold. She was actually quite extroverted and warm when she wanted to be. It was just—the unconventional move across the globe hadn't exactly given Saya time to come to terms with everything.

"Hey! What is your problem?"

"Nothing. What's yours?"

"Shut up, Marui-senpai. Give it back!"

"Give what back? You gotta get that brain of yours checked out, idiot."

"Gah!"

Saya looked up, startled, at the racket occurring below her. She set her lunch beside her, wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her white blouse, and approached the edge of the roof cautiously, making sure to skirt around the poisonous flowers. Her heart hammered in her chest as she peeked over the edge, the prospect of falling to her death finally coming upon her. There was no fence.

Saya licked her lips, eyes flickering to the metal catastrophe a few meters away.

She leaned over a bit more.

"Whatcha lookin' at?"

Saya's heart skipped one, two, three beats and she whirled around in a tornado of white hair to face the person behind her. She saw sharp, blue eyes and an eerily sadistic smile, and she stepped back—

—into empty air.

A breathless squeal, a moment of freefall and weightlessness, and Saya found herself dangling by her left hand from the roof. She dared a peek over her shoulder, squeezed her eyes shut, and then opened them again to look at Yukimura Seiichi.

~x~

She's afraid of heights.

Yukimura suppressed a little chuckle at the realization about the girl in front of him. Her expression of pure and utter horror when she looked back at him was enough proof of that.

Her breath came in short gasps as she looked up with a ghostly complexion. Her fingers were slipping from the concrete ledge that they gripped, and Yukimura knew that grabbing her wrist before she fell to her death would be the right and un-psychopathic thing to do.

She seemed too scared to talk, he noted with absolute delight. Good, he thought. It would make things so much easier.

"Hello, Kaminari-san," Yukimura greeted in a light tone, squatting down.

She spluttered.

"I see you've decided to hang around." He smiled at his pun.

"Y—you…"

His smile broadened. "Even though you rejected my offer, I hope you still thought about it."

Her mouth opened and closed like a fish as her mind processed his words.

"Really—the spot is still open for you. Please think about it a bit more before giving your final answer."

And then her eyes widened in surprise as she realized what Yukimura meant: he would leave her there, dangling from the side of a building by one hand, if she didn't agree to become his tennis team's manager.

All at once, her face grew red from anger that she was being blackmailed so.

"You…wouldn't."

Yukimura cocked an eyebrow and stood up.

"Wait!" tore from her throat. "F—fine," she forced out of her shaky lips.

Yukimura smiled and reached for her hand—

"Aah!"

She lost her grip, and he threw his body forward, hand reaching out for hers. He found himself flat on his belly with her dangling from his hand, her body shaking so violently Yukimura could feel it resonate into him.

Grunting and sweating with effort, he pushed himself onto his knees with his other hand, and then heaved her up beside him.

She lay there next to him, teeth chattering and quite possible vibrating. Yukimura stood up, casting a shadow over her, and waited until she regained her breath. Finally, she stood up on shaky legs, took a step—and nearly fell back off the edge of the roof had Yukimura not been there to steady her.

"…Thanks…," she muttered, out of breath again.

"No problem." Yukimura smiled. "D'you need help getting to class?"

She shook her head, but she let him guide her to the bench and sit down beside her.

He stood up not long afterwards. "Well, Kaminari-san, you're expected to be at practice this afternoon, immediately after classes end. I'll see you then."

She seemed to have forgotten all about the deal from just a minute ago, because she suddenly flushed red with anger and humiliation, and she bites her lower lip, fists clenching. She shot a glinting, green-eyed dagger of ice at him, gathered her lunchbox to her quickly, and dash from the rooftop before Yukimura could even think about chuckling.

He stared after her trail of dust and pondered whether he had gone too far.

~x~

That afternoon Yukimura gathered the tennis team before practice started and introduced Saya.

"Oh, my fuckin' God!"

"It's a girl."

"What's she doing here?"

"Akaya, stop poking me. I don't know."

"Really?"

"Yanagi-senpai, can't you give some boring statistic or something?"

"If they're so boring, why d'you want to hear them?"

"Senpai!"

A sigh. "Fine. There is an eighty-six percent chance that she is our new manager."

"Hello, everybody. I'd like to introduce you to Kaminari-san. She is our new manager."

"Eh!"

"No way!"

"I just said that…"

"Didn't we meet before?"

"Yeah. You sat on me and wouldn't get up."

"Puri. So, Bunta, you are a man."

"It—it wasn't like that. Besides, most girls would kill to have me sit on them."

"That's because they don't know about how heavy you are."

"Hah. Told you so, fatso!"

"Yukimura, is this really a good idea?"

"Yes, Sanada."

"Hey! Stop poking me!"

"Wait—you're in my class. How can you be manager? You're in the same grade as me."

"We may be in the same grade, but I'm at least three grades more mature."

"You got that right."

"Yeah, idiot."

"Hey, senpai-tachi! You're supposed to support me on this."

"Says who? Besides, the girl is kinda cute."

"My head is not a headrest, you gray-headed porcupine."

"Ooh. Fiesty."

"Hah! She got you there, Niou."

"Get your arm off of my head, too, you pink-headed, bubblegum-chewing idiot."

"Stop harassing the girl, you guys."

"Yukimura-san, really?"

"I agree with Kaminari-san."

"Renji, Kaminari-san, yes. Really."

8-1-2014 Edit: So I recently realized that Tatsuya suffered a name-change in chapter five and beyond I think. I went and changed it so it's gone now.