I promised it, and I delivered... Finally winter break! I'm hoping to update lots over these two weeks. :D (Though I've failed at that so far, shh!)
For those of you who haven't already, go read Flip Side of the Coin. Opposites Don't Love is a semi-sequel/continuation of that story, and if you don't read Flip Side of the Coin, you will get pretty lost trying to understand this.
I swear, I will blow up if anyone asks me who the hell Sayuki or Kuroki or Suigo or Daichi or Kaze are. Or ANYONE. If you ask me who Ryoma is, you obviously have the wrong anime/manga.
Now, without further ado... the first chapter of ODL.
Enjoy!
-Kai
WOOOOOOOOOOOOT! *does happy dance* Time for Kuro and Kuni to get some action finally...Ok that sounded wrong...MOVING ON PEOPLE!
~Ryuu
"It's beeeen one week since you looked at me~ Cocked your head to the side and said-"
"Kuroki, shut the fuck up."
"I'm just celebrating the fact that you and your boyfriend starting going out a week ago," Kuroki grinned teasingly. Sayuki rolled her eyes in annoyance.
"Don't sing," she grumbled. She opened the door to the classroom to find that Sakuno, Tomo, Daichi, and Ryoma waiting for them. Daichi and Sakuno were chatting away happily and Tomo was shrieking at Horio for some reason or another. Ryoma had been sitting there, arms folded behind his head, but he sat up with a smirk on his face when he saw Sayuki.
"What took so long?" he asked as the two girls walked up to the group. Kuroki snickered. Ryoma and Sayuki ignored her.
"Kuroki wouldn't shut up and it took me forever to drag her out of the high school," Sayuki answered, sitting down next to Ryoma. She smirked and added quietly, "She was yelling at Tezuka-senpai again..."
"I heard that!" Kuroki called, scowling at them over her lunch. "The flipping ice cube wouldn't stop saying, 'Hn,' again. Frustrating bastard..." Ryoma snickered, disguising it as a coughing fit, but Sayuki laughed openly.
"I'm telling you, one of these days..." She trailed off, shaking her head with a grin plastered on her face. "Kuroki, you're going to fall for him. Hard."
"Sayuki, that will never happen," Kuroki answered with an eye roll as she stabbed at her food. "We've been over this."
"You never know," Sayuki answered, shrugging. "After all..."
"Opposites attract," Ryoma finished for her, a small grin on his face as he stood up from the desk.
"And like I said, attraction doesn't mean love," Kuroki replied almost reflexively. "Opposites don't love."
"Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that," Ryoma muttered. Sayuki snickered and packed up her lunch, tossing her trash in the garbage can outside.
"I'm gonna go visit Momo-senpai, wanna come?" Ryoma asked.
"Nah, I'll stay here," Kuroki answered. "Sayuki will go with you... I mean, it's not like you guys already live together right?" she continued sarcastically. "You two love birds just go and spend every single second of your lives together."
"I think I'll do that," Sayuki chuckled, standing up and following Ryoma out the door. "Have fun with your afternoon classes with Tezuka-senpai~ I'll see you after school!"
"I'll see you in hell," Kuroki grumbled under her breath, scowling at the door.
"Well, you can't say that you didn't have it coming to you," Daichi said with a uncharacteristic smirk playing on his lips. Smirking and teasing people was more Suigo's thing... But he couldn't resist this one. "I mean, with how much you bugged them, with the Cinderella play and all..."
Sakuno giggled as Kuroki merely glared at him and stabbed her chopsticks at her food again.
Just one week ago, Ryoma Echizen had confessed to Sayuki. Of course, rumors were flying, people were shocked, either congratulating them or refusing to believe it. But the days went by, and as the two showed little signs that, yes, they did like each other, the gossip died down and life returned to normal.
Ryoma's fangirls were, of course, heart broken, and they still pulled petty little pranks on Sayuki, the usual being destroying her desks and belongings. Sayuki thought it was hilarious, but Ryoma was upset about it. That, and Sayuki's secret fanclub that had decided to reveal itself when the two started going out was also trying to sabotage Ryoma's stuff. But they had gone through much worse and they didn't pay attention to the minor annoyances much.
When they had started dating, however, one surprising thing had happened. Sakuno and Daichi had become friends. Daichi, along with Suigo and Kaze, was one of Sayuki's childhood friends that originally had a crush on her. Because Sakuno and Daichi had suffered through the heart break at the same time, they empathized with each other and helped each other get over the pain. They still hadn't fully recovered from the shock and hurt, but their smiles were slowly returning to normal.
Other than that, life was pretty much as normal as it could get.
Oh, and Ryoma and Sayuki's new favorite pastime was annoying Kuroki. And Tezuka. And trying to get them together.
It was after school and Ryoma and Sayuki had just headed towards the tennis courts, discussing new Doubles tactics when they noticed that the old Seigaku regulars had decided to visit them.
"Yo, Ochibi!" Eiji called, grinning and waving. "Congratulations-nya! Momo told us all about it!" Ryoma and Sayuki exchanged exasperated looks. They were, of course, happy that everyone else was responding positively to them going out, but they had heard "Congrats" and "Congratulations" so many times over the past week that they were beginning to hate the word.
They suffered silently though another round as all of the Seigaku ex-regulars told them the same thing, and then they dispersed to help the newbies out on their technique.
"Neh, Furei-kun," Sayuki said, catching a boy on the shoulder. He had messy dark green hair and bright, forest green eyes. He was the younger brother of the fiancees of Kuroki's twin sisters and loved tennis, almost looking up to Ryoma as a hero as of last week. "Have you seen Kuroki around?"
"Kuroki-san?" he repeated, thinking. "Not since she came to visit during lunch..."
"Alright, thanks," Sayuki said, grinning and patting him on the shoulder. "Go ask Momo-senpai to help you out on your smashes, he's probably the best." Furei grinned and took the advice, running off to Momo.
She spotted Ryoma sitting next to Tezuka on the bench, the two of them apparently deep in a conversation about... something. Probably tennis related, considering that it was the only thing that the two ever thought about. A mischievous smirk spread over her face as she slowly snuck up from behind them.
"Ry-o-ma!" she grinned, pouncing on him. She hugged him around the neck and he gagged, nearly choking on the water he was drinking.
"What was that for!" he coughed out, wiping the water off of his chin. Sayuki merely stuck her tongue out at him and sat down next to him. She grabbed her water bottle and began to drink, ignoring her boyfriend's glares.
"Hey, Tezuka-senpai, have you seen Kuroki around?" she asked, resting her chin on Ryoma's shoulder. He sighed, giving up. Even before he had realized that he loved Sayuki, she had been impossible to deal with. "Last I saw her was at lunch... She was kinda cranky, I think."
"It's that time of month again," Tezuka answered. Sayuki sputtered, choking and gagging, spraying water every where. She turned to stare at him incredulously.
"What?"
Ryoma and Tezuka looked confused.
"Every month our English teacher gives us a project that's worth a lot of points," Tezuka explained. "For that week, we don't have any quizzes or tests, but the project usually takes a long time, along with the already assigned homework."
"O-oh," Sayuki coughed, laughing. "It's just that usually when you phrase it like that..." She saw Ryoma and Tezuka's clueless faces and she sighed, shaking her head. "Never mind."
"What did I miss?" Kuroki appeared from behind them, resting her arms on Sayuki's head.
"Nothing much," Sayuki said, still grinning. "Where were you?"
"Getting the supplies for that stupid project in English," Kuroki answered, scowling. "It's due tomorrow and I still have a bunch to do, so I can't stay long."
"Kuroki, you're such a procrastinator," Sayuki muttered, shaking her head.
"OI! Sayuki, Echizen, get over here! Coach Ryuuzaki wants to talk to us!" Momo called.
"Well, gotta go," Sayuki said, standing up. "See ya later, Kuro, Tezuka-senpai." She and Ryoma walked towards the other regulars, who were already lined up and were waiting for them. Kuroki took Sayuki's spot, stifling a yawn.
"Neh, Eis, could I copy what your math homework?" she asked lazily, leaning back on her arms as she watched the clouds move by.
"No," he answered, adjusting the power band on his wrist. Kuroki scowled as he stood up, grabbing his tennis racket as he headed back to the courts.
"Hey, hey, before you leave," Kuroki called. He paused and turned his head so that she could only see half of his face. "Teach me something in German!" Seemingly resigned to the task, knowing that she wouldn't leave him alone if he didn't, he turned around fully.
"What do you want to know?" he asked. These short lessons in German were infrequent and rather random. He taught her the random little phrases that she asked for when she asked, but she never learned how to actually speak the language. Instead, she used what she learned for rather random things, such as his nickname, Eis Wurfel.
"Black fox," she answered. He racked his brain, trying to remember his days in Germany. He hadn't learned very much German himself, since he had only stayed a short time, but if he remembered correctly, it was...
"Schwarz Fuchs," he answered. Without another word, he turned back to the tennis courts, apparently going to talk to the coach.
"Schwarz Fuchs," Kuroki repeated softly to herself. She sat there, contemplating the phrase for a moment, before standing up with a snort. "Sounds weird." She stretched, looking around at all the people either practicing tennis or instructing others how to.
"Now then... Time to go get that stupid project started."
Ryoma entered his room, throwing himself onto the bed. Tennis practice had been tiring today... Eiji and Oishi hadn't gone easy on them, and after that they had to go and help the less experienced players train. And then they had to go and practice themselves...
Reluctantly, he sat up and went to his desk, where he still had homework to do. Sighing, he sat down and opened his math textbook. Tomorrow would be the last day of the week... Finally, he'd get a break.
As he scratched away at the paper, his mind wandered and wondered what Sayuki was doing at the moment. He had never thought about it before, but what did Sayuki do when she wasn't hanging out with their group? His hand stopped moving for a moment as he considered how to set up the next equation, and then he went back to writing.
She couldn't be doing homework, because she always, always finished it at school, and how she did it was beyond him. After he realized that he had been sitting there doing nothing for five minutes as he wondered what Sayuki was doing, he decided that he would simply ask her after he finished his homework.
An hour passed and he finally dropped his pencil, stretching his arms. Somewhere in the middle, Karupin had entered his room and jumped onto his bed. The cat meowed and followed him out of his room and into Sayuki's, where he found her rolling around on her bed, hugging her pillow to her chest. He sweat dropped. Apparently, this was something that she did when she was bored... She stopped rolling around to sit up and grin at him.
"Think fast!" She threw the pillow at him, which he caught on reflex, blinking in surprise. She scowled.
"I can never get something to hit you," she grumbled. "Stupid reflexes..." He smirked, tossing the pillow back and going to sit beside her on the bed.
"You're the one who throws others over your shoulder when surprised," he answered. She stuck her tongue out at him and he chuckled, punching her playfully.
"If you're so bored that you roll around on your bed for hours, maybe you should actually leave your homework to do at home," he said, snatching the pillow from her.
"Give it back!" Sayuki said with a pout, reaching for it as he held it above her head. He grinned, his new height making him feel smug. Originally, he had been the same height as Sayuki, but he had begun to go through his growth spurts and he was already half a head taller than her. Scowling, she pounced on him and they fell off the bed, rolling around on the ground as they struggled for possession of the pillow.
Karupin watched on in a disinterested manner, taking over the bed.
"I... win!" Sayuki said triumphantly, holding the pillow over her head. She was straddling Ryoma and they were both out of breath and laughing. "Revenge is mine!" She went on to beat him with the pillow.
"Argh, OK, sorry!" he said, laughing as he tried to defend himself from her attacks. She finally relented, getting up and throwing the pillow at him one last time for good measure. This time he let it hit him.
"To answer your question," Sayuki said, sitting back on the bed next to Karupin, "I do have things to do other than homework and rolling around, so I still prefer to finish everything at school."
"Such as?" Ryoma asked, dropping the pillow on the bed. Sayuki nodded over towards the desk, and he saw several drawings scattered on its surface. He raised an eyebrow.
"I know you like drawing, but you sure spend a lot of time on it," he said, walking over to see them more clearly. Sayuki grinned.
"Unlike you, I have hobbies other than playing tennis," she replied. "Other than drawing, I also get to annoy Kuroki while she's doing homework," she said with a mischievous smile, holding up her cell phone. "You should see some of the texts I get from her. Half of them are ranting about homework and how Tezuka-senpai won't help her on it and the other half are just plain random." Ryoma smirked.
"Heh~ She's doing that project now right?" he said, taking the phone and scrolling through the texts, stifling a laugh at a few of them. He tossed the phone back and she caught it single-handed. They shared an evil smile.
"Let's bug her, neh?"
Kuroki almost smashed her phone when she heard it vibrate against the library's table yet again. Instead, she settled for tightening her grip on the pencil in her hand and snatching her phone to see what Sayuki had sent her.
Kuroki~ I'm going to be sending you random texts every five minutes if you still haven't figured that out from my last ten texts. :D
WORLD IS MINE
Have fun working on your project and say hi to Tezuka-senpai for me!
Kuroki scowled, not bothering to ask how she knew that Tezuka was sitting beside her, eying her warily and hoping that she wasn't going to break anything. She punched a reply back to Sayuki (LEAVE. ME. ALONE.) and turned off her phone.
"This is ridiculous," Kuroki grumbled, looking once more at the project requirements sheet. "We have to read one of the following books, summarize it, write a review of it, illustrate the main points, and then write an alternate ending for it..." She sighed and glared at the list of things to do. "At least I already finished everything else. Math homework was a pain to do though..."
"You should've at least read the book," Tezuka said, scribbling a few more words in his summary. Other than the review, he would be finished. Kuroki, on the other hand, had barely started... She looked at him, blinking in surprise as if to say 'Did you just say something?'
"Oh, I finished reading it a few weeks ago," Kuroki answered offhandedly, rummaging through her backpack for a clean sheet of paper. This time it was Tezuka blinking in surprise.
"Heh, why so shocked?" Kuroki grinned, twirling a pencil in her hand as she set to work. "I have to do something when I'm not annoying my buddies, right? Sayuki draws and I read. We all have our little hobbies..." With that, she stopped talking, devoting all of her attention to the project.
Half an hour passed and Tezuka finished his project, opting to stay and help Kuroki with her work so long as she didn't ask to copy. Finally, Kuroki dropped her pencil for a short break.
"Ugh, my fingers are cramping up," she grumbled, flexing her fingers. She sighed then grinned at Tezuka. "Thanks for helping, Ice Cube. I should be done in about another hour or so..."
"How are you finished so quickly?" he asked, looking over her work. Indeed, all of the illustrations were finished and colored, the review was done, and the summary half finished. "It should have taken quite some time to do all this, but you finished in a mere thirty minutes." Kuroki snorted.
"Wasn't that hard, for once," she said, stretching her arms. "I already finished the book, so there's half the work done. I'm the one who taught Sayuki how to draw, so that part was super easy. Reviews, you just make up a bunch of crap saying if you liked it or not and which parts you thought sucked and were awesome. And summary..." She tapped her head with a grin. "Take a four hundred page book and shorten it down to three pages. That's all there is to it." She sighed, rubbing her right hand absent mindedly. "It's the alternate ending thing that'll take a while, I think. I don't have any idea how I'd change it."
"Hn," Tezuka said, quite impressed. "I was thinking that you'd be working into the night because of your laziness, but I suppose I was proven wrong."
"When you're a procrastinator like me, you learn to cram hard and fast," Kuroki answered with a half-smile. It was closer to a genuine grin than her smirks and mischievous grins, but it quickly turned into a frown. "Ya know, if you were anyone else, you probably could have twisted that last line very badly."
"Hn... Good thing I'm not anybody else then," Tezuka answered. Her lopsided smile was back as she picked up her pencil.
"One thing before I get back to work," Kuroki said, shuffling the papers as she searched for the last page of her summary so that she could continue it. "Teach me one more thing in German."
"What do you want to know?" Tezuka asked, watching her twitch the pencil back and forth as she contemplated what to write next.
"... Heart," she answered, staring resolutely at her paper. After another moment's consideration, she began to write.
"Herz," Tezuka answered. He watched her continue to write, not showing that she had heard him in any way.
"Why do you want to know?" he asked finally as she turned the page to the back so that she could continue writing.
"Hm?" she said, not really paying attention. She was almost done... Just another paragraph or two and she could move on to the alternate ending.
"Why did you want to know black fox and heart?" he asked. She glanced up at him for a moment before turning her eyes back to her paper.
"Think about it," she said, continuing to scribble. "My name... Kokoro Kuroki."
Tezuka thought about it. Kokoro... Meant heart, so that explained why she wanted to know herz. Kuroki... Kuro? Kuro was black... Kuroki... Ki... Fox... Kitsune?
"Black Fox Heart?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. Kuroki grinned at him.
"Yup," she answered, pushing away her papers. "Finally finished the summary," she mumbled to herself. "My full name is Kokoro Kuro Kitsune... Put in Western order, that's Black Fox Heart. Well," she said thoughtfully, "that's what it says on my birth certificate. But Sayuki, Akai, and Aoiri have always called me Kuroki."
"... And your parents?" he asked cautiously. Now that he thought about it, she had never mentioned any of her family members other than her sisters, and he was more than aware that it might be a touchy topic.
"Oh, them?" she said nonchalantly, thinking about what to write for the alternate ending. "They travel a lot. Last they wrote to me, they were in Hong Kong. I think they were going to some place in England..."
"I... see," Tezuka answered. Kuroki glanced up for a moment with a grin on her face.
"So that's why I was raised by my crazy sisters for most of my life," she continued. "Eh, I don't mind because they write every week and they usually come visit for a couple of weeks. It's always crazy when they're staying... Now please shut up and stop asking questions because I need to finish this."
Tezuka stayed silent unless Kuroki asked a question, and it was only a quarter of an hour later that Kuroki finally turned on her phone and replied to all of Sayuki's texts.
Sayuki sat on her bed, wondering what to do. Kuroki had stopped replying to her texts and she presumed that her friend had turned off her phone. Ryoma was outside (reluctantly) playing tennis with his father. Daichi, Kaze, and Suigo were all busy with their own things. Daichi was supposedly helping Suigo's parents, who were doctors (Daichi wanted to be a doctor in the future), Kaze's sister, who lived in Osaka, was visiting, and Suigo... He hadn't specifically said what he was doing, but Sayuki guessed that he was planning another prank.
She sighed and grabbed her pillow, preparing herself for another round of aimlessly rolling back and forth when her phone rang. She grinned, threw her pillow aside, and flipped the phone open. Kuroki had finally decided to text her back...
Gawd u r so annoying. I FINALLY finished the damn project... Jesus Christ it took forever.
In the car rite now. Aoi's driving, Aka's blasting music. We're taking Ice home cuz I figured I owed him for helping me out.
So what's going on over there?
Sayuki quickly summarized what everyone was doing and complained about her boredom, before an idea struck her. She added a few more lines and hit send.
Ryo's playing tennis with Nanjirou-san. You'd figure that he'd be sick of it by now, but nah, tennis is his life and his dad dragged him out. Dai's at Sui's place, Kaz is w/ his sis, and Sui is probably cooking up another plan to piss off our teachers. Man, that was priceless...
I. AM. SO. BORED.
Aha, you and Tezuka-senpai? I knew something was going on... :3
BTW, do you know Kikumaru-senpai's number? I was planning on crashing the cafe that they work at but IDK their shift times.
Recently, Oishi, Eiji, and Momo had begun to part-time at a cafe. At first they said it was to raise money for a welcome party for Sayuki and Kuroki, but seeing as the two had been here for a while now, nobody was really sure why they were working there. They refused to say, but apparently most of the other ex-regulars knew.
Sayuki had just picked up her pillow once more when Ryoma stumbled into her room, looking very annoyed.
"What's up?" she asked, hopping off the bed to look at him better. He appeared tired, which was to be expected, but she still had no idea why he looked so pissed off. The anger disappeared a little when he saw her, though.
"Nothing, the old man was just being exceptionally annoying today," he answered. "Your phone is ringing," he added, nodding over to her cell phone. She skipped over to pick it up and read Kuroki's reply.
Draw. That always makes u feel better.
And gawd dammit, I told u, there is NOTHING happening between us. Eis pisses me off, honestly. Him and his stupid 'hn'...
Cat Boy? I'll have to check w/ Apple... I'll send Kitty's # in a few.
Kuroki had nicknames for almost everybody in their little circle. Eiji, with whom she had a rival-like relationship with, she called Kitty Boy (and in turn, he called her Weasel Girl), and Apple referred to Fuji. Yuuta was known as Little Apple...
She is very creative with her nicknaming.
"Why do you need Kikumaru-senpai's number?" Ryoma asked, reading over her shoulder.
"Wanted to visit that cafe again but I dunno what times they work at," Sayuki answered, dropping the phone on her bed without bothering to reply. "Ugh... I would draw, but I have no idea what..."
"Don't ask me," Ryoma said, a small smirk on his face. "I'd have no idea." Sayuki rolled her eyes.
"I know, I wouldn't have bothered to ask," she answered, sitting down at her desk as she searched for a sharp pencil. "Tennis is like the only thing you're good for." Ryoma frowned at the insult.
"Hey," he murmured, putting his hands on the desk so that he had Sayuki trapped between them. "I'm good at other things too..." He leaned down, nuzzling her neck, his lips pressed against her skin, slowly making his way up...
"I know you are," Sayuki chuckled, turning slightly so that she could reach and pat him on the head. Ryoma scowled and pulled back and Sayuki couldn't help but grin at the annoyance on his face.
"Couldn't resist, sorry," she murmured, a smirk on her face, as she tilted her face upwards. Ryoma smirked and leaned down again, this time successfully pressing his lips to her.
And then the phone started ringing.
"Oh God dammit," Ryoma growled, pulling away. Sayuki laughed, deftly catching the phone when he tossed it to her. He sat down on the bed and she could've sworn that he was sulking. She snickered and he scowled, folding his arms over his chest, waiting impatiently as she checked Kuroki's reply.
Got his number, put it at the end. Just dropped off Ice, heading home. Prob. gonna be online in a few, get on the comp if u can.
Sayuki grinned, setting her phone aside on her desk and walking over to Ryoma.
"And? What did she say?" he asked, scooting over so that she would have room.
"She got his number, I'll call him later," she said, waving it aside. "She wants me online in a few minutes." She smirked. "You know, it's hilarious when you sulk."
Ryoma growled and tackled her.
Kuroki snickered slightly to herself as she reread Fuji's message to her. Fuji had mentioned an inside joke between them in his text. She giggled, jumping into the rolling chair as it spun, grabbing the table to stop her from crashing into the wall. Humming a cheerful little tune to herself, she grabbed the mouse connected to her laptop, tapping her fingers impatiently as she waited for the laptop to turn on.
She had just finished typing her password to log onto her IM account when Akai poked her head around the door, grinning at her.
"Youngest sister, the kid left some of his stuff in Aoiri's car," she said gleefully, waving around several sheets of paper. Kuroki banged her head on the desk.
"You're kidding me right."
"Nah, and oh!" Akai smirked as she read the notes written on the papers. "I think these are the notes you took for him... in English class."
"... I hate that class..."
Tezuka frowned as he rummaged around his backpack, searching for his English notes. He had been checking over his project and had realized that he had left a part blank because he hadn't been sure of the translation. He was sure that the notes he needed had been on those notes that Kuroki had written for him.
"Kunimitsu! Your classmates are here again!" He glanced up from his backpack and decided to go downstairs to see who it was.
"It's those girls that were visiting while you were sick," his mother explained. He nodded and went to the door and found a very pissed-off looking Kuroki glaring back at him.
"These," she said, shoving the papers into his hand. He blinked and took them and realized that they were the notes that he had been looking for.
"You left them on the car," she grumbled, shoving her hands into her pockets. "Helluva class... Always problems with English." She shook her head, muttering profanities under her breath in different languages. Tezuka was sure that they would have been terrifying if he had understood them.
"Thank you," he said. She waved off his thanks, turning back to the car that her sister was waiting in.
"See you at school tomorrow," she called over her shoulder. He nodded, and she turned back around, slouching as she made her way back to the car.
He shut the door, and as he read over the notes on his way back up the stairs, he noticed that Kuroki had scrawled another note at the bottom of the page.
Sayuki wants to visit Kitty's cafe again. Saturday 10:00 AM
-Kuroki
It was morning... And Ryoma was sleeping in, as always. Sayuki crept silently into his room, deviously sneaking towards his bed. An unmistakably evil smirk was on her face as she crawled onto the bed, making the bed dip with her weight. Mumbling in his sleep, Ryoma rolled around drowsily, eyes half open.
"HOLY SHIT, SAYUKI!" he yelped, falling out of his bed as Sayuki burst out into laughter. She rolled off the other side of the bed, struggling to regain her breath as Ryoma stood up slowly, still shaking off the clutches of sleep and recovering from his fall.
"Ugh, not funny, Sayuki," he mumbled, shaking his head as he glared at Sayuki gasping for breath on the floor. She merely grinned at him and got to her feet.
"It got you to wake up, didn't it?" she smirked. "And I got a laugh out of it. Win-win!" she sang as she skipped out of his room.
"For you," he muttered, smiling despite his annoyance with the method with which she had decided to wake him up this morning. Sayuki's cheerfulness was contagious... And he much preferred the hyper morning Sayuki over the grumpy one.
He sighed as his thoughts went forward to the next day. He, Sayuki, and Kuroki would be going to the cafe again, although Kuroki swore that she was going to ditch them in the middle of it. She had teased them endlessly about them going out on their first date, but Ryoma and Sayuki were the types who could care less about what to call their outings. Dates, gatherings, in the end, it was all the same. After all, they did spend most of their time with each other, as Kuroki had said. Not to say that they didn't enjoy every second of it, but more or less time made no difference to them.
When he sat down at the table, he noticed Sayuki was still smirking and his first thought was that she was still snickering about his reaction this morning. He scowled and she only laughed again.
"Don't worry, I stopped laughing at you a few minutes ago," she said, knowing why he was disgruntled without him asking. Her strange eyes were the reason for that... She had spent enough time being him to know how he felt most of the time. "I'm happy cause Kuroki said she invited Tezuka-senpai to come with us tomorrow." Ryoma found himself smirking as well.
"Heh, and she denies that she likes him," he mumbled, shaking his head as he began to eat. "Denial can only get you so far..."
"Far enough, seeing as how it took you so long to realize that you liked me," Sayuki teased. He glared at her and she merely snickered.
"Well, I suppose she's not the only one in denial," Sayuki said thoughtfully. "After all, Tezuka-senpai probably still only sees her as a classmate."
"An annoying classmate that he hangs out with a lot and does homework with," Ryoma continued. He paused, then added, "that isn't a fangirl."
"That's always a plus," Sayuki grinned.
Kuroki was half asleep, chin resting in her hand, when her English teacher suddenly clapped his hands, making the class settle down.
"Turn in your projects at the front of the room," he said. Kuroki groaned, not wanting to move. She looked around for someone to be her gopher.
"Ice," she whined, reaching over diagonally to grab the corner of his desk. "Could you turn mine in for me?" He looked at her strangely, raising an eyebrow.
"It's only five steps away," he answered, and he got up to turn in his project. Kuroki scowled but got up and placed her own on the desk.
"Time to get out your textbooks!" her teacher said cheerfully as everyone returned to their seats. "It's your favorite! Read the story on page 156 and summarize it... using English, please." Everyone groaned in annoyance... except for Tezuka. Though he did look rather annoyed (as annoyed as he can get). They had been reading and summarizing for the entire week...
"At least it was better than when he made us do those stupid vocab maps," Kuroki grumbled. "My God, that was torture..."
"I'd say that it was rather fun, actually." Kuroki blinked and turned around in surprise.
"Yukina," she said, blinking. "I forgot you sat behind me... Why didn't I get you to turn in my stuff for me?" she muttered.
"English is my favorite class," Yukina said, absently turning a page in her text book. "After art." Kuroki stared at her incredulously.
"Only you would think that this class is fun," Kuroki sighed, sounding rather exasperated. "The homework is crazy and the classwork is boring..."
"Well, many people have described me using the word 'crazy,'" Yukina said coolly, turning another page. "So I wouldn't be surprised."
"Whatever," Kuroki muttered, scanning the page. She found a few words she didn't know... With a sniff of annoyance, she turned to the back of the textbook to look them up in the glossary. When she found that the words weren't there, she finally turned back around to Yukina.
"What's this word mea... You finished." It came out as a statement rather than a question, but it was full of disbelief nevertheless. Yukina merely smiled at her.
"Well, yes," she answered, putting away her textbook as she pulled out her math binder. "That word is 'miffed'... Annoyed, like you."
"What're you doing with your math stuff?" Kuroki asked, ignoring the last statement. "You already finished your homework..."
"That's because we have a test today," Yukina answered brightly. "I have to study because math is my worst subject. Carry on with your summary."
"Right, te... WE HAVE A TEST TODAY!"
"Kuroki, you look even more pissed than you were yesterday," Sayuki said, blinking as she walked with her best friend up to Seigaku's rooftop, where Ryoma and Momo were waiting. "What's up?"
"Just had a math test that I forgot about," Kuroki grumbled. Sayuki laughed and Kuroki glared at her.
"Well, if it's just math, that's your best subject right?" Sayuki said, frowning at her friend's anger. "It shouldn't have been a problem even if you didn't study."
"It was geometry crap," Kuroki scowled. "I hate proofs..."
"Tezuka-senpai didn't remind you?" Sayuki asked cautiously as they opened the door to the rooftop. Ryoma and Momo glanced up and immediately went back to eating their food when they saw Kuroki's face. An angry Kuroki is best avoided unless your name is Saiki Sayuki and you have the ability to change your personality according to a person's eye color.
"No," Kuroki said, blinking. "... He knew I forgot too," she growled. "I usually complain about tests the day before and I didn't yesterday... He noticed, I know. Bastard..."
"Well, you can complain to him later," Sayuki grinned. "Now c'mon... You're scaring Momo-senpai. Take off your scary face."
Kuroki's scowl was immediately replaced by a sweet and pleasant smile. Momo wasn't sure which one was worse. Her happy smile was far too similar to her smirk... And her smirks never ended in good things.
"Momo, check the back of your shirt," Kuroki said gleefully. Momo blinked and turned around, ripping a piece of paper that had been taped to the back of his shirt. Ryoma had never seen someone's expression change so many times so quickly. Momo frowned, jaw dropped, and then had an expression of pure anger.
"I'm going to kill that Suigo brat," he snarled. Sayuki glanced at what the paper said and she burst out laughing, quickly followed by Kuroki and Ryoma.
In Suigo's unique messy scrawl were the words, "The best part about being in the tennis club... The locker rooms... So many hot guys changing."
"Tezuka Kunimitsu. We were together for a whole 3 hours yesterday and you didn't find time to inform me that there was a test today?" Kuroki scowled, arms crossed, hugging a text book to her chest. School had just ended for the week and she had refused to let him walk away without bugging him first.
"... What?" Tezuka said, turning around. He had just been talking with Oishi about a problem on the math test (something that Kuroki found annoyingly ironic) and hadn't been paying attention to her. Kuroki glared at him.
"Eis Wurfel, why didn't you tell me we had a test today?" she asked.
"It is your own responsibility to study for such things," he answered calmly, not fazed in the slightest by the daggers she was glaring at him. With a snort, she, Oishi, and Tezuka began walking again, making their way to Seigaku's.
"Knew you would come up with some wise-ass shit like that... Fucking Ice Cube," she muttered, rolling her eyes. Tezuka felt that oh-so-very-rare twinge of mischief. He had to admit, an angry Kuroki was an amusing one, and the one thing that made her the most annoyed...
"Hn," he goaded. As expected, she whirled around, looking like she could commit murder with her bare hands.
"You and your fucking 'Hn' can go to hell!" she yelled, mimicking his "Hn" in an almost uncanny fashion. "What the hell does that even fucking mean, anyways?"
"... Hn," Tezuka said once more, resisting the urge to smirk. She looked absolutely furious now, and Oishi glanced back and forth nervously between the two. The hallways were empty of people, but had there been students, those two would have been the center of attention.
"THAT. IS. IT!" Kuroki snarled. She chucked the textbook she had been holding violently at his head, and with reflexes born only through years of tennis practice, he caught it in a single hand. This time the smirk that spread over his face couldn't be resisted.
"God DAMMIT," Kuroki growled, storming off. She hadn't bothered to stay behind to retrieve her book... The thought hadn't even crossed her mind. Tezuka stared at the book for a moment, then resisted the urge to laugh. Oishi watched him warily.
"Tezuka... Were you... teasing her?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. Tezuka looked up at his friend.
"Maybe," he answered. "I honestly wouldn't know."
"Fucking went to his house to deliver the fucking notes for him when he was down with his fucking fever and he fucking doesn't tell me there was a fucking TEST." Kuroki was still extremely 'miffed' despite that an hour had passed. Ryoma inched away from her cautiously, but Sayuki only smirked. Ryoma frowned. Sayuki smirked a lot, but when she looked that evil, then she had to be...
Negative.
Ryoma resisted the urge to bang his head on the nearest wall. 'Negative' Sayuki still had many sides that he hadn't met and he would very much like it to stay that way. So far he had seen the angry one, the sarcastically evil one, and the depressed one... What would this one be like?
"Wow~" she said in mock amazement. "Tezuka-senpai and the word 'fuck' used that many times in the same sentence? Didn't know you were that... wild, Kuro."
Ryoma wanted to run away. This one was perverted. A perverted Sayuki and a pissed off Kuroki. Definitely not the best people to be around. Especially when they were in the same room... or whatever, seeing as they were walking home.
"I'm... gonna go on ahead," he muttered quickly, and then he ran ahead. Best get away while he could... He doubted that he could survive around those two.
"God dammit, Sayuki, I really don't need your sarcasm right now," Kuroki growled, not showing the slightest indication that she had realized that Ryoma had left. Sayuki merely shrugged nonchalantly.
"So you and Tezuka-senpai still aren't going out?" she asked, grinning at her friend.
"For the last time, NO!" Kuroki yelled. "Why do you keep asking that!"
"You know what they say," Sayuki said, shrugging. "Opposites attract." She had repeated those two words so many times in the past week that she had lost count...
"And yet again," Kuroki growled, "attraction does not mean love. It could mean friendship or having to be stuck together in all the classes like two fucking magnets that don't want to be together but end up that way anyways."
"... Fucking magnets," Sayuki said thoughtfully. "Interesting mental image right there."
"Ugh," Kuroki muttered, face palming. "Mental note to self: stop using the words 'fuck' and 'screw' around Sayuki... especially while she's in Negative-Perverted mode."
Sayuki only grinned and skipped ahead.
Sayuki walked into the kitchen, the grin on her face immediately wiped off when she saw Ryoma. He stared back at her like a deer caught in the headlights.
He had been licking his thumb, his other hand reaching inside the cookie jar...
"Ryoma... is that my cookie stash?" Sayuki asked slowly.
"... Your what?"
"Where did you find that jar?"
"... Behind the fridge?"
They stared at each other silently for a moment. And then:
"RYOMA, YOU BASTARD!" She leaped at him, and he reflexively stood up, taking a step back so that she flew in front of him. There was a crash...
"Ow... Dammit," Sayuki mumbled, rubbing her head. Ryoma tentatively offered a hand to her, but she only glared at him and got up by herself. On her way out the kitchen, she swiped the cookie jar and took it with her upstairs.
Ryoma frowned. Even if he had nicked some of her cookies, and really, she should've hidden them better, normally Sayuki wouldn't have been that angry. Unless she was still negative...? But she had seemed perfectly fine when she had walked in. Then something registered in his mind and he flew into a panic.
Sayuki had gone upstairs. With the cookies. Meaning that she intended to eat them. And the equation for pure chaos of loss of sanity is Sayuki+sugar+caffeine... And if she was still negative... Ryoma suddenly remembered the first time he had encountered a hyper Sayuki, and had asked Kuroki a question.
"What's her 'negative' side like when she's hyper?"
"... You don't wanna know."
She had quickly changed the topic after that. Kuroki usually avoided topics only if she really didn't want to talk about it because the answer would probably hurt someone or if she didn't want to think about it. And Kuroki was pretty freaking scary, so if she didn't want to talk about a hyper negative Sayuki...
"Damn," he swore under his breath, face palming. "I'm so screwed."
"... What the fuck, Ryoma." Kuroki was a moment away from banging her head on the wall. "Alright, so lemme get this straight. You ate her cookies."
"I didn't know they were hers!" Ryoma yelled defensively into the phone. Sayuki had shut herself in the room, presumably eating her cookies, and hadn't left it since. He had called Kuroki for advice, seeing as she was the only one who had encountered a hyper negative Sayuki... "And she saw me eating the cookies and tackled me. After that she went negative, grabbed the cookies, and locked herself in her room."
"... Hyper negative Sayuki. Kill me now."
"Actually, I can't really kill you over the phone, but you can tell me how to deal with her," Ryoma said quickly, nervous from the serious tone of her voice. "Don't kill yourself either... I'm gonna need someone to suffer through this with me." He heard a resigned sigh from the other end of the phone.
"Alright, alright," Kuroki mumbled. "The only time I ever saw negative Sayuki was after the three little birds," here, it took Ryoma a moment to remember that she was referring to Suigo, Daichi, and Kaze, "confessed to Sayuki and she went all depressed and stuff. Normally, people gorge themselves on 'happy food', which is ice cream and stuff..."
"Oh." Well. That made sense. Ryoma hesitated before asking the next question. "How bad was it? Did the 'happy food' work?"
"Eh..." Kuroki sounded sheepish. "I guess it did, in a sense... But you know how Sayuki's really sadistic right? I don't know if it was because she was in her sadistic negative or something else, but..." She trailed off, but Ryoma understood.
"She was like a sadist on steroids," he finished for her. "So she caused a bunch of pain and so was happy..."
"Pretty much," Kuroki answered. "But you know how Sayuki, Suigo, and I all like pranking others right? Think of it more like... All three of us working together. And then... Oh, I don't know, throw Kitty Boy into the mix and maybe you'll have something close to a hypergative Sayuki."
"... Hypergative?"
"Got tired of saying 'hyper negative,'" Kuroki sighed. "In any case, a hypergative Sayuki suffers from a severe case of schadenfreude."
"... What the hell is shaden... whatever it was?"
"It's a word that the bastard Eis Wurfel taught me," Kuroki said, a bit of anger returning in her voice at the mention of Tezuka. "It's an English and German word. It means 'deriving pleasure from the pain of others.'" Ryoma snorted.
"Yeah... I can definitely see a hypergative Sayuki like that." Something occurred to him as he was contemplating the horror of hypergative Sayuki. "How the hell did she get negative anyways? She looked normal when she walked in."
"... Well you say that she crashed right..."
Ryoma understood where she was going with this.
"You don't think...?"
Kuroki sighed. "I'll have her check in with Suigo's parents... But yeah, I'm thinking that when she crashed, something messed up and she's stuck in negative..."
"... Shit."
Well that's a great way to start things off. :D
I was going to say a lot of stuff and then I forgot... Oh yeah. ODL's chapters are going to be much longer than FSC's, so the wait for updates will be longer, but hopefully worth it.
Also, the WORLD IS MINE in Sayuki's text is, yes, you guessed it, a reference to the very epic Vocaloid song "World is Mine." I love Vocaloids. :D
Yes I did just make up the word hypergative. Get used to it. Insert it into your mental dictionary. It will be used in the future.
Favorite quote right now: It's that time of month again. xD Oh, the things I make Tezuka say...
I'm so sick of this chapter. I don't want to look at it again. I've read it at least 7 times over to check for mistakes. It's just so... LONG. And it gets quite old after a while and I get sloppy in my reading and then I have to go back and BLEH. So please disregard any errors you might find in here. This applies to all future chapters too...
Well, happy holidays y'all! I'm thinking of making a Christmas special? If I have time, ha ha, still writing the regular ODL. I might also put up the Halloween special I did. I didn't put it up earlier because it had some spoilers, but I think it'd be safe to put up now. Opinions?
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
-Air Beast
(KAI)