CHAPTER ONE
"Do you think you'll be able to fit in just one more student, Mr. Saibara?"
"Well, even though we've got enough students to fill the Tokyo Stadium," a man paused and chuckled at his own joke, "I think there's still one spot left for your daughter to fill, Mrs. Utsuruko."
I glanced up at the conversation happening between my Mum and the principal. I shifted in my seat uncomfortably as I glanced around the principal office, completely bored out of my mind. An antique clock, huge vases filled with ornate flowers standing atop marble tables, a chandelier hanging from the ceiling; if I hadn't known this was an office, I could easily mistook this room for a hotel lobby.
Well, not really.
"What do you say to that, sweetheart?" my mum looked at me.
Hadn't been listening to what they have been talking about, I smiled weakly at both my mum and the principal and nodded.
"We'll have your uniform sent by tomorrow and your books can be picked up from the administration office on your first day," Mr. Saibara smiled at me. From what I could tell, he's just smiling for the sake of being polite. So I smiled back. Kind of.
"Great, then!" my mum clasped her hands in delight as she stood up slowly, "thank you very much for letting my daughter enrol here Mr. Saibara," she shook his hand and gestured me to do the same.
"It was a pleasure Mrs. Utsuruko, hopefully she will do well in the academic as well as the extracurricular activities, yes?" Mr. Saibara gave me a hopeful look as he shook my hand. Again, I just smiled and nodded.
"Oh, I'll make sure of that," my mum closed the conversation with a smile.
I sighed.
It was my very first day at Oujou, and to be honest, I wasn't really feeling it. Sure, the decor was very luxurious and the hallways were clean—unlike my old school—but I just couldn't seem to fit in very well.
Maybe I was a bit quick on judgement, since I haven't even gone to my first class yet.
I leaned against the wall and looked up, text books in my thin arms, keeping them close to my chest. Slowly, I scanned the rows of lockers for number 164, and I found it almost right away. My eyes were quite sharp, after all.
I walked over to the locker that was located in the middle of the row, inspecting it. Sure, there were dents here and there, but I've seen worse. Sticking my tongue out as I balanced the heavy books in my left arm, I used my right hand to unlock the blue locker in front of me.
'Right 49... Left 21... Right... 13!' I thought as I turned the lock to the appropriate direction.
It didn't open.
Raising an eyebrow, I tucked a strand of black hair behind my ear and tried again.
'Right 49... Left 21... Right... 13...' I carefully turned the lock, making sure that I stopped at the exact number with each turn.
Still didn't open. 'Well that was embarrassing. Thank God no one is here,' I glanced around, making sure the hallway was empty. I think they all went to the auditorium for an assembly or something. I tried to open the lock again.
And again.
And again.
I groaned when I got to my 7th try. My first class was going to start in 5 minutes, and how could I make a good impression if I was late? I slammed my forehead to the locker door and sighed again.
Feeling a tap on my shoulder, I turned my head around slowly to see who it was.
A guy who was quite—no, scratch that—very tall, with blonde hair was staring at me weirdly. Taken aback, I quickly spun and hit my back against the locker. Don't ask me why I got taken aback, people who are taller than me makes me feel inferior, okay?
"Uh... hi," I greeted lamely, trying to make contact with his eyes and failing miserably.
"Hi," he replied, his arm remained awkwardly in front of him. "So, umm," he continued as he pulled his arm back down, "you're having some problems with your locker or something?"
I glanced back at the lock I've been fumbling with for the last 15 minutes and nodded weakly, "Sort of... yeah. The lock's been kinda failing on me."
The guy took a look at my locker number and gave an ooh-sound that someone makes when they discover something terrible. "No wonder, this is locker number 164," I raised an eyebrow as he pointed the obvious, but let him continue, "see, the trick with this lock is..."
I stepped aside as he fumbled with the lock, turning it to the same directions as I did some minutes ago. Then, he grabbed the round part firmly and tugged hard.
By God, it got unlatched.
"You just have to pull really hard on the lock," he explained, "I used to have this locker; I know how you feel."
My chocolate brown eyes widened as the distance between my lips got wider and wider. A chuckle from the blonde guy brought me back to reality.
"Thanks," I tried to smile—I really did—at him, tightening my hold on my text books.
"No problem," he smiled back.
Suddenly, a shiver ran down my spine as I felt someone stare at me. I tried to suppress it, but I guess it showed because that guy gave me a weird look. Not that I wasn't accustomed to weird looks, but you know...
"Sakuraba, we're going to be late for class."
I turned my head around for the second time and noticed a guy with black hair standing beside my newly made friend—was it okay to call him a friend by the way? I wasn't too sure; I was never an expert at friend making. Ironic, because according to my horoscope, I was meant to be outgoing.
He was muscular and tall, though not as tall as my... friend (still unsure of what to call him). His thick eyebrows were knitted together, a crease forming in the middle of his forehead. His hair was messy, and he was frowning. His eyes were fixed in an intense stare, directed at his friend's face. By the look of it, I didn't think he smiled a lot.
"Oh, crap! I haven't taken out my books!" the tall guy suddenly came to realization.
"Um, you can go ahead if you'd like to," I told him. 'Wait, why would he need my approval of leaving in the first place?'I mentally slapped my forehead.
"Is it alright? You should hurry too, class starts in two minutes," he asked for assurance.
"Yeah, it's fine, I got this figured out," I chuckled as I pointed to the lock.
"Okay then, see you around!" he dashed to the end of the freakishly long hallway, waving his hand at me. I gave back a smile. "Oh wait, I haven't got your name—too late," I laughed to myself.
After taking my history books out of the locker, I closed the door and did a little pirouette before crashing into someone. I was never a dancer, I'd admit that, but who else were in the hallway? I slowly glanced up and there he was. You know, the guy with the black hair? The muscular one?
"Um... what are you doing?" I asked him awkwardly, not sure of how to response to his intense stare nor this current embarrassment of a predicament. Very gently, I took small steps back, regaining my private bubble.
He didn't reply, but I could've sworn he raised an eyebrow.
"Don't you have class? You did say you were going to be late," I explained. He remained still.
"I mean... are you waiting for someone or something..." my voice trailed off to the Neverland. I always seemed to have this problem when communicating with someone new. It was a habit, I suppose.
He still didn't say anything. 'Don't tell me...'
"I mean, you can go if you want to..." I left yet another sentence hung in the air.
He glanced at me and asked, "Are you sure?"
'Whoa, he talked to me,' my doe eyes widened a bit. "I'm sure," I gave him a small smile. "Hey, what's your—"
Before I had the chance to finish my sentence, he dashed off to the direction of that blonde guy. 'Damn, I failed to get his name, too.'
"Wait wait wait, so he was waiting for my approval?" I asked out loud in disbelief. The ringing of the bell brought me back from my stupor.
"Oh, shoot! I'm gonna be late for class!"
Luckily, I ran fast enough to get in the class before the bell finished ringing. It helped that I had memorized the map of the school, too. I scanned for a free seat and found one near the window, on the far right corner of the class. Smiling, I jogged to that seat and set my books on the table before slumping on it, gazing outside to the empty field.
'Is that where the sports team practice?' I asked myself. I've heard about this school's reputation with American football, but I never actually involve myself in the sport itself, be it physically or mentally. I've just heard about the team on the newspapers.
The teacher walked in a few minutes after the bell rang, and closed the door gently. Luckily, I wasn't specifically called to introduce myself. You know that awkward moment when you have to explain to a bunch of new people a few things about yourself and you just have no clue what to say? Yeah, I've had to go through those a couple of times, and I never liked them. She introduced me to the class briefly; all I had to do was stand up and smile.
After that, she did role calls and smiled when she checked the very last box on the absent sheet. Apparently, no one decided to play hooky. She started the lesson with an introduction to world history and that was where I kind of got bored.
I decided to doodle on my textbook and when I got bored doing that, I looked to my left. A girl with brown hair tied up in a neat pony tail was sitting upright, diligently taking notes of every little thing the teacher said.
'She looks friendly,' I thought. I shrugged when I thought of myself making friends—because you know, I sucked at doing that—and continued on doodling.
A tap on my left shoulder brought me back to the realms of the real world. I looked at the direction of the poke and saw the pony tail girl—I swear I would call her by her name if Iknew what it was—looking at me.
"Is there something wrong?" I asked.
"Um... Well," she glanced around. I think she didn't want to be caught talking during class. "Do you have a spare highlighter with?"
"Yeah, I do, hold on," with that, I took my pencil case and scrambled its content. I'm not trying to brag, but my pencil case was fully packed. "What colour do you want?" I asked her.
"Anything is fine, really," she glanced again. "But I do prefer yellow ones."
Taking out a yellow highlighter from my pencil case, I handed it to her discreetly. She took it and immediately went back to taking notes. I frowned slightly at the lack of appreciation but shrugged it off.
I glanced up at the blackboard to see what I've missed so far. Nothing I didn't already know, but what was so wrong in playing safe? I took out my favourite pencil and started jotting down on my doodle filled notebook.
The bell rang and I immediately stretched my arms out with a yawn. It was pretty nice reviewing things; my memory wasn't the best, it took me 30 minutes to memorize the school map. I noticed a dainty hand at the corner of my eye and looked up to see who it belonged to.
"Here, your highlighter," the ponytail girl said with a smile. "My name is Koharu Wakana, I'm the manager of the American football club. You can call me Koharu," she introduced herself shortly. "Thanks for lending me your highlighter," she beamed and held out her hand.
"No problem, I'm Utsuruko Mio, but you can just call me Io," I shook her hand and placed my highlighter inside my pencil case before tossing it into my black bag.
"Huh? Why not Mio?" Koharu asked.
"Well, I'm just more used to the name Io," I smiled meekly. "My parents told me that they put the M in front of Io so that it would sound more... Japanese..."
Koharu giggled, "well that's pretty unique."
"I suppose."
"What class do you have next?" she leaned forward to look at my scheduled that was sprawled on my table. That was one of my attempts at memorizing by the way, just so you know. "Ooh, you have Chemistry! With me!" she beamed.
I groaned. Koharu looked at me weirdly; I think I hurt her somehow by groaning.
"Is there something wrong?"
"No, no! It's just that Chemistry has never been my... forte," I tried to justify myself, waving my hands in front of my chest frantically.
"Oh, don't worry about that! It's really easy, I'll teach you!" she grabbed my hand and pulled me up before attempting to drag me outside the classroom. Quickly, I grabbed my bag and schedule before caving in to her fierce motions.
Chemistry was boring. With a capital B. Koharu tried to teach me the calculations and all, but none of it actually got into my head. Well, they did, but none of them stuck there. I felt a bit guilty about making her explain things over and over again.
We parted ways at lunch; she had some things to take care of at the club. She asked me to come, but I told her that I had to do something important. I felt guiltier about that, since the important thing I had to do was just a bit of thinking, but I couldn't think unless I was in a quiet environment. That's when my noodles really start working.
I took a seat at a bench outside, the one that was far away from every other bench. Protected in the shadows of the trees, I took a deep breath and released it with a smile. Then I took my crumpled schedule out of my front pocket and smoothed it out before turning it to the other side. On it, the regulations of this school as well as a list of the clubs were printed neatly.
I took my lunchbox out of my bag and opened it before checking what was inside. 'Tempura shrimps, my favourite.' I took one and stuffed it inside my mouth with its uncovered tail sticking out, putting my chin on my left hand.
Honestly, I wasn't really interested in a lot of these clubs. The ones that took my attention were track and field, the debate club and art club. In my old school, I was one of the main runners in the track and field club. I've won quite a lot of competitions, but I didn't really like the pressure the club members were giving me so I quitted.
'I guess we can safely cross this one out of the list,' I took my black marker and dragged it across the club name.
I swallowed my shrimp before crossing the art club with my marker.
'I've got enough art activities at home; I don't need more, do I?' I asked myself a rhetorical question before stuffing another shrimp into my mouth. 'So that leaves the debate club,'I checked the time and place for the debate club: 15.00, room 405, building A.
'That's the building across the field, right?' I took out my map from my bag to double check.
The bell suddenly rang, signifying the end of lunch: 12.30. 'Shoot!' I gobbled up the remaining shrimps and dashed off to my next class.
The last two classes were okay. I had Maths and English, which I wasn't so bad at. I couldn't recall anything from those two classes actually, because my mind has been occupied with the debate club. I wasn't so sure why I was so excited either.
I quickly scuffled down the hallway to my locker. After learning the lock trick from that... blonde guy, I hastily opened my locker and stuffed my books in there before slamming it closed and checked the gigantic watch on the wall.
'14.50. Lucky! I still have time to spare,' I thought to myself, allowing a little smile to form on my lips.
I twirled around and accidentally bumped a girl on the way. The girl was carrying a cup of coffee with her. And unfortunately, the cup fell out of her hand and onto my white blazer.
Maybe I wasn't so lucky that day after all.
Five minutes later I was in the girls' bathroom, scrubbing wet paper towel on my stained blazer. I had apologized to that girl—bowing and everything—all there was left to do was get this stain off of my blazer and then I could rush to building A.
'This is hopeless,'I thought as I folded my blazer neatly and tucked it inside my bag. 'I'll just drop it off at a dry cleaner later.'
I washed my hands and peeked at the great clock, only to discover I had 3 minutes to get to the debate room on time. I did not want to be late for anything on my first day.
I dashed out of the girls' bathroom and ran to the nearest exist.
The sun hit my face as I ran out of building B. Reflexively, I brought one of my arms to shield my eyes from the sunlight.
'That's better,' I thought. The sun rays were still burning my eyes though, so I tried to run across as quickly as possible.
I glanced to my left side. I couldn't make out specific details, but I could see some figures running about.
'Are those the American football club? Wa-wait! The bell is ringing already!' I quickened my pace as I heard the bell rang. I thought that I could reach it in time, just like the history class. I wasn't called the star of track and field for nothing, after all.
The sunlight got even more intense as they infiltrated my eyes through the small gaps my fingers had created. It was official.
I got blinded.
And that day was definitely not one of my lucky days.
"Kyaaah!" A scream was heard as I crashed into someone. A couple of dull thuds let me know I dropped—or made that person drop—some things on the ground. Yet I still had the decency to smile when I felt a personalized sanctuary fell on my face—covering my eyes, to be exact.
"Ah~" I let out a content sigh as I fell onto my back. I didn't care if I was going to be late for the debate club, my eyes were burning like hell and this thing was soothing them.
"Oh my God! Io, I'm so sorry!"
'Wait a second,' I thought, 'I know that voice!'
Slowly I peeked out of my asylum—which turned out to be some piece of cloth—and saw my newly made friend (I'm sure this time) on the ground, trying to pick up scattered towels and kneeling at the same time.
"I'm sorry Io! I wasn't paying attention!" Koharu apologized frantically.
Quickly, I tore off the cloth off my head and apologized repeatedly as I helped her pick up and fold the towels neatly.
"No, I'm sorry for not paying attention! It was my fault, I was trying to get to the debate club on time—"
"Are you guys okay?" A shadow protected my heated hair and I looked up to see who it was.
Upon noticing that it was the blonde guy from earlier, I jumped up and pointed at him while screaming. Not the best reaction, but I told you that tall people makes me feel inferior.
"P-pardon me?" the tall guy seemed to have shrivelled as he looked at me strangely, before a light of realization come upon his eyes.
"Oh! You're the locker girl!"—see, I wasn't the only one giving out nicknames—"from this morning!" he pointed at me, though not as rudely as I did to him. 'My bad,' I thought.
"You guys know each other?" Koharu asked, looking from me, to him, then back to me as she finished folding all the towels.
"Yeah, we met this morning by the lockers, she got stuck with locker 164," he explained in my place. "Oh yeah, I never got to know your name," he held his hand out. 'Whoa, his arms are long,' I thought as I shook his hand.
"I'm Sakuraba Haruto, Oujou's wide receiver," he smiled. I thought my eyes got blinded for the second time today.
"I'm Utsuruko Mio, you can call me Io," I smiled back in return. I didn't think that I blinded his eyes though. Darn.
The second I finished my introduction, I felt the same shiver run down my back. Immediately, I looked around for Sakuraba's friend.
Surely enough, there he was, standing on the field with his intense gaze fixated on me. I wasn't a person who would back down from a staring contest, so I stared at him with the same amount of intensity.
Well, maybe not as much.
Noticing our little 'contest', Sakuraba waved his hand in front of me. "Um, are you okay?"
I immediately responded: "Yeah, I'm fine. Gotta run for the Debate club though. See you around!" I smiled and ran as quickly as I could towards building A.
A/N: Hey, I'm OddChicken. I thought that putting the A/N at the end of the chapter would be better, so here it is! I just want to say I'm sorry if OCs bother you; I really wanted to write a Shin story that is non-yaoi (because I've never tried that before) and I just can't see him with Wakana, mainly because I have plans for her later. Also, sorry for the shortness of this chapter! It will get longer later on! (I think?) So yeah, wanna click the little box and give me a review? I like constructive criticism, too! :)