Neutral Ground
Chapter One:
The sudden blaring horn of a passing car cut through the stillness of an otherwise quiet April morning.
"Sorry!" An apology pushed out of her lungs as she slammed her palms on the hood of a car.
There was a kind of thrill that passed through her veins when running against Time, however, she was not built like an athlete and running didn't come naturally to her. Her legs were heavy with fatigue and her muscles ached with a pain she attributed to her sedentary life.
She had been drowning in anxiety since she had taken her first breath in the country, forcing down a language her mother adopted long before she was born. Her mother spoke it with an ease and a precision of a native, but the natural leaning had skipped to her younger sibling. She was left grasping at words, phrases, and characters in her desperate attempt at some preparation for her first year as a student at Tōō Academy. Much to her dismay, she had overslept and there wouldn't be any words in Japanese to excuse her for missing the morning ceremony much less a string of apologies for the first period she was about to miss.
"Ayase Reina?"
She clung to the door frame, her breathing coming out in sharp rasps. Reina croaked out an apology as she entered the classroom. A rising murmur seemed to grow in tuned with her stride. She felt the nervous anticipation clawing their way from the pits of stomach.
The teacher, a middle aged woman with a peculiar set of brown eyes knitted her brows together. Her lips were tightly pressed, the lines of disappointment shaping the curves of her mouth. She was unlike the kindly elderly teacher who had received her admission papers. She had no previous school records in the country, and gathering the ones she did have were met with delays. Reina had prepared as much as she could the short amount of time she was granted, and he was gracious enough to look kindly at her circumstance.
"Akira-sensei informed me of your late enrollment, but this is no excuse. You're not making a good impression of yourself, Ayase-san." She reprimanded, "Please, understand this can't happen again."
Reina nodded, feeling the tension tight against her muscles.
"There's an empty seat next to Sakurai-kun," the teacher gestured at the student sitting in the second to the last seat in a row next to the window.
"Hai, Nakao-sensei!" Reina saw a hand shot up into the air belonging to a brown-haired youth with a rather flustered disposition.
Nakao gestured for Reina to take her seat and she eagerly took quick steps down the aisle. Once settled in her chair, Reina smiled at her classmate to which he reluctantly returned. She chalked it up to those awkward first impressions—not that she could necessarily blame him. She had swept into the room with her uniform askew, sweat dripping from the side of her face, and her black hair sticking out in ways that defied logic.
She let out a defeated sigh, her eyes lingering on the wooden floor. They were a light shade of chestnut that had faded away from repeated abuse, black skid marks from chairs and tables etched on the surface. Her gazed paused at the pair of long legs that had settled themselves underneath Sakurai's chair. Her eyes scanned the trail of limbs that belonged to a student with his arms on his desk, his head nestled on them.
.x.
At the sound of the bell, there was a collective burst of energy from the student body. Lunch time was meet with a rousing enthusiasm that if Reina hadn't kept herself in check, she would have been easily swept by it. She couldn't deny the overwhelming relief that finally settled the stubborn uneasiness she had been feeling all morning. The lessons weren't as difficult as her imagination had conjured. She was able to grasp enough of the spoken language with ease that came from hearing it in her household—the written portion was another matter, however.
Reina studied her notes. She had elegant curves to her handwriting that took a sudden dive into inscrutable scratches—English words peppered with awkwardly written characters whose lines were drawn with lumbering precision. She was sure they only made sense to her and the wasn't really what she had aspired for herself. It was a disappointment to say the least.
"Ayase-san?" Reina turned to the boy sitting adjacent to her. He introduced himself as Sakurai Ryo, his shy and seemingly fragile temperament was quick to show itself with how equally agile he was at apologizing for not knowing to shake her hand.
"It was my mistake." She studied the way his eyes seemed to glaze over with childlike innocence. "I'm not use to living in Japan yet."
He paused, "You're a foreigner?"
The question was harmless enough, but it had a complexity that many transplants like her couldn't readily answer. By citizenship, she was American. By nationality, she was a mix of her mother's strong ancestral lines to the Pacific and her father's lineage that went as far back as the Spanish colonization of the Americas. By her mother's second marriage, she was Japanese in name only.
Her lips tugged to a smile, "Is it obvious?"
"Oh, no! Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude, Ayase-san!"
"Oy, Ryo." A deep rumble cut through Sakurai's words. He faltered, his body going rigid.
"Gomen, Aomine-kun! Did I wake you? I'm just talking with Ayase-san and I got carried away."
He lifted his head from his arms, untangling his limbs to a stretch, "Tch, too damn loud." A grumbling noise escaped his chest, abruptly interrupting Sakurai's preceding apology. "Is it lunch yet?" He let out a yawn.
Sakurai mouthed a yes, his body vibrating with a nervousness akin to a small frightened animal. "Didn't bring my bento today. Give me some of yours, okay?" He had a way of asking that left the other boy to stammer out an agreement.
As soon as Sakurai pulled out the bento box from his bag, Aomine snatched it from his hands, flicking the cover off and haphazardly tossing it aside. "This looks good." The low timber of his voice was unlike that of a teenager at the cusp of his youth.
If it had been anyone else, Reina would have put words to those intangible feelings that come with meeting someone attractive. He had olive skin sun-kissed by a perpetual summer, and dark blue hair that seemed to glisten to a brighter hue when the light struck it. He had a masculine curve to his face but not lacking that boyish nature common to teenagers—it was all the more prominent when he tossed a squid into his mouth then giving a self-satisfied smirk. She noted how much attitude and outward demeanor could suddenly make someone repulsive.
Reina recoiled at him devouring an onigiri.
"Sakurai-san," She spoke softly, uncertain if there was anything to be done in that situation. They seemed familiar with each other, a closeness apparent in the lack of honorifics from Aomine, and Sakurai's willingness to let him do whatever he wanted. Perhaps, she was impertinent to read into a circumstance she really had no knowledge of, but the situation didn't sit well with her. "Do you want some of mine?" Reina took out her own bento from her bag, opening the lid to show a neatly packed lunch. "It's mushroom curry with rice and vegetables."
Sakurai politely declined, "You don't have to do that, Ayase-san. Really, I don't mind sharing my lunch with Aomine-kun."
Sharing? Reina felt her jaw slack. Had she misread the situation?
"I insist." She gave another encouraging nudge but his reluctance was unwavering.
"If he doesn't want it, he doesn't want it." Aomine spoke with a finality that splintered her simple gesture into something unnecessary.
She took in breath, gathering her patience close to her bosom. "If you change your mind later," Reina dug into her bag and took out a neatly packaged onigiri, "I have some snacks."
Sakurai beamed, "You're too kind, Ayase-san. I'll let you know."
"I'll take it then." Before Reina could sputter out a protest, Aomine snatched the rice ball right out of her grasp. Reina wouldn't have described herself as confrontational. She was anything but, at least, not in a physical sense. She had no aptitude for such things. However, she felt a surge of righteous anger directed towards people like him.
He didn't lose any time in pondering possibly repercussions of his actions. Aomine ripped at the plastic cover and sank his teeth right into the plum rice ball she had made for herself last night, the same rice ball she had been saving for her commute back home, the same rice ball that would have eased the fatigue of having slept three hours the night before.
Aomine let out a hearty burp before pushing his seat back. "I'm outta here, Ryo." He gathered his bag and made his way towards the classroom door.
Her foot shot out, kicking Aomine in the back of his leg.
Somewhere in someplace in another time a declaration of war had just been made.
.x.
I really had fun setting up the beginning of this story! I hope you did too. It's a bit slow right now, but I hope to pick up the pace pretty soon. Thanks for reading!