Disclaimer:

I, in no way, shape of form, own the manga/anime Diamond no Ace. This is, after all, fanfiction.


Chapter II — What Happens Next


Emotional roller coasters are the worst kind of rides.

.

.

.

To Eijun's unbridled joy and Emi's unbridled fury, they weren't exactly able to have an actual reunion. This, of course, dampened Emi's plans of murder dramatically as she hadn't expected her cousin's practices—well, his team's practices—to run so late. The sun had already dipped down passed the horizon by the time Emi realized she wasn't going to get her hands to him.

Luckily enough, her face had been scrunched in a manner befitting of murder so the crowd had dissipated fairly quickly—kind of like dry ice in water, the remnants being wisps of wisps of "smoke." So, she had gotten to the station unhindered by other pedestrians and her mood left unbothered.

This was rather unfortunate for the younger cousin because she got to stew over her annoyance with him.

(It seemed like the two cousins were both having odd days.)

And it really felt like an odd day for Emi.

She wasn't the type of artist that the media liked to display as free-spirited or idiosyncratic—although her pieces were formed from a plethora of mediums—she was a perfectionist. She liked things tidy, organized and identifiable. She didn't mind surprises—and this transfer hadn't really been a surprise, she had known for months now—but she didn't like being thrown so far out her bubble. Being a perfectionist—at least to her—meant knowing the possible outcomes, knowing her environment.

She didn't know Seidō, and what normalcy she had thought she would keep from Tōō had thrown out the window for about two weeks now.

At times like these, she wished she had her three cousins' stubbornness.

(Not to say she wasn't stubborn, she just wasn't as stubborn as Daichi, Suzume or Eijun.)

She flicked her cellphone open with a flick of her wrist, her lips twisting into an annoyed frown at her own actions. Her scowl deepened as a middle-aged woman quickly sidestepped her, the woman's pace quickening as her eyes fluttered from her face to a point on the far wall.

"Don't backtrack yourself."

She was going to get it later—if she ever found out.

[Moshi moshi?] came the smooth—and dare she think, seductive—drawl. Emiri couldn't help the hitch in her breathing as she heard him greet her in his signature carefree drawl, punctuated by his polite Kansai accent.

"...Hi."

[Ah, Emi-chan? What can I do for ya'?]

Emi shouldered her way past an older man dressed in a suit as she entered the bullet train. The station's lights were overly bright against the darkened sky and what few bodies remained loitering around were waiting for the other train.

"I wanted to talk."

[Hm? I wouldn't say 'no' t'you, Emi-chan, but ya know I'm kinda busy right now—]

Emi clicked her phone closed, an ugly expression knotting her brows, pinching her features and an annoyed hiss left her lips. "Why did I bother? Asshole."

Emi briefly mused at the fact she was beginning to sound like her other cousin, a year her elder and a girl as well, in her opinions of Shōichi. Suzume was more Eijun's clone than hers, although the two girls amongst the cousins did share a passion—once upon a time—for dancing. Suzume had favoured contemporary and hip-hop while Emi, when she hadn't been hospitalized for one thing or another, had favoured all types of dances. Suzume also had an unrivalled hatred for her complicated friend and wasn't afraid to get in the boy's face to cuss him off—one of the few differences that separated her from Eijun—while the youngest of the four cousins would quake in fear in friend's presence.

Her doctor had encouraged her interest in the visual arts as much as her parents had, to help muscle growth with how long she was kept on bed rest with all the various injuries she would accumulate whenever she and Eijun spent time together. Despite the younger cousin's recklessness, some-fucking-how, Emiri had always been the one that ended up with the brunt of the physical retributions.

More than a few broken bones.

At least two concussions.

Teeth that had been knocked out.

Allergic reactions.

Several first-degree burns.

Getting knocked out. Several times.

"Son of a bitch," Emi snapped suddenly, scaring the poor boy—he looked to be her age or a bit younger—that was seated several seats away who then hid behind his bag. "I'm going to end up in the infirmary one way or another, aren't I?"

It was impossible for her not to.

One of her earliest memories of having a play date with Eijun ended up with her getting a split lip from falling and her face swelling in plum-sized welts from bee stings—Eijun had accidently knocked a hive down when they were playing catch—and she had to stay overnight at the local hospital in their grandparents' and Eijun's home town.

Needless to say, the staff had become well acquainted with her over the years, especially when she moved to Nagano temporarily back in primary school for the third to sixth grade.

Actually, everyone had known her as the "Sick Girl" and everyone stopped blinking at the casts she would wear after the third one. Her teachers had been worried about child abuse—like her parents were abusive; annoyingly annoying, but they could never be abusive—until they had witnessed what happened when she Eijun would interact.

Hell, the school nurse had a bed reserved for her and everything—she even kept a small collection of educational books for the girl to read when she would find herself there—since her visits to the infirmary were, at the very least, weekly.

...Now that she thought about it, Emi had a pretty sad childhood.

And as much as she blamed Eijun for all her accidents and days indoors—that was why she so fucking pale, she swore—the idiot really did feel sorry and bore the brunt of her temper with little hesitation.

The little demon child had made her get-well cards with gigantic smiley faces and would pick flowers from the road-side for his visits—even when Emi demanded him to be thrown out.

On the other hand...

She still couldn't excuse his behaviour from today. The fucking bitch.

He had the gall to waste her time?

She could feel her blood pressure begin to rise as the nostalgia left her bones and she begin to seethe. Emi lived further from Seidō than comfortable commuting distance, she had pieces she wanted to finish and she had to cram some study time here and there to keep on top of her school work—especially considering she lack any motivation to do it.

And fuck, she had another side project to do that was unrelated to school and art—a favour, more or less—and her dumbass had promised it to be ready for April 7th—the day after tomorrow—but she hadn't fucking started because she was a procrastinator through and through!

She had wanted to start it tonight—really—but she had gotten distracted and—

"Oh, fuck my life."

And to make matters worse, her overly keen eyes had picked out familiar black hair, fair skin and silver, square-framed glasses.

"Oh, fuck my life."

The wide grin that split the near-psychic teen's face was downright disturbing.

Emi wasn't the only one that shivered at the sight, catching several inching away at the sight of the wicked look, more than few quickening their pace and refraining from looking up and all the strangers around them giving them a wide berth.

But despite her distaste for the teen currently standing in front of her, she didn't stop his overly affectionate gesture of tracing over her face with the rough pads of his fingers in a languid motion. Smooth, intentional and calculating—the teen down to the very core expressed in a single motion.

She didn't dissuade him from wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her into his side, her tiny stature perfectly fitting into the expanse of his lean figure but if anyone asked—and she would vigorously argue that this was true—she didn't lean into his chest, breathe in his scent that was unmistakably him, and Emiri definitely did not purr when he ran his fingers through her air nor when she felt the vibration of his chuckle through his chest.

For now, she would allow his touch.

It was comforting, above all, and...

And...

And.

(She couldn't help but imagine a different smile, softer around the edges and drawn up in actually sincere affection rather than sharp lines of a smirk, taunting and teasing.)

— [ + ] —

When Nakano Katsuki got home, he hadn't really expected his daughter to be there—he had gotten home fairly late after all—so he had taken his shoes off, said his greetings in a respectable tone of voice and volume and set off to find the food his wife had set aside for him once he had informed Eiko of his belatedness.

Although he hadn't expected his wife to have a—dare he say it—ditzy expression on her face as she smiled widely and greeted him with a saccharine tone that did not suit her typically passive-aggressive, more aggressive than passive, demeanor.

"Eiko?" He called, hesitant and slightly disbelieving.

Eiko looked up at him—though their height difference wasn't too great, Katsuki had roughly ten centimetres on her—with warm eyes and a content hum leaving her sealed lips.

The simple expression of happiness on his wife's face made his heart bloom with joy and a crooked, boyish smile split his face—making him look twenty years younger. "I'm guessing Emi-chanisn't mad at us anymore?"

Eiko hummed so more, handing him the other cup of tea she had made and gently nudged him to the dining room table. He unravelled the dishes covered in plastic wrap as his wife scooped out some rice for him and listened to her talk. "She's in a better mood than she has been in the past two weeks—and I didn't get any calls from the school, so it's safe to assume Ei-chan is alive."

Katsuki raised a brow. "Not well?"

Eiko gave him an exasperated eye roll before sitting to his right. Katsuki laughed around the food in his mouth and swallowed. "You're right, that's too presumptuous—she inherited too much from yo—ITAI! Eiko!"

Eiko gave her husband an innocent flutter of her eyelashes before she continued. "Ei-chan is adorable—adorably stupid, but adorable. And our Emi-chan gets bored with stupid unless she's the one being stupid."

"Again, she got that from you—" He ducked, avoiding the sweep of her hand. Really, it was so easy to ruffle his wife's family—a fact that the notorious prankster in him loved to exploit; it didn't do well for his employment if he got caught doing the shenanigans he would pull in his school days so he took what he could get.

"Still, I worry for Ei-chan's health more than Emi-chan's, our daughter is a trooper and in no thanks due to her cousins"—Eiko shot her husband the evil eye when she suspiciously heard him mutter something about her bloodline. Again—"But her mood is improving so I think there might be hope for him yet."

"She's only annoyed because of that boy—with the annoyingly arrogant smirk? Him. I can't believe you let her date him of all people, Eiko."

Katsuki was now firmly involved in his ranting and had stopped eating.

"I know she's generally annoyed with Ei-chan but she's just as wrapped around his fingers as we are—the only reason she decided to go to Too of all places was because of him and I know you damn well encouraged it! Really, Eiko, how could you—you, who is so vehemently against revolving your life around men and—and why are you smiling at me like that?"

"Shōichi-kun walked her home—it was adorable really, she went up to her room to sulk after he untangled himself from her and left."

"What."

"I'm glad they stopped fighting—perhaps they'll be back together again soon?"

"What?"

Eiko continued to ignore her husband's increasing panic with an amused smile. "I'm debating about whether or not to tell her your real intentions for transferring her to Seidō—"

"What?!"

— [ + ] —

Emiri startled out of her trance when she heard a loud bang and unrecognizable screeching but relaxed when she recognized the tone as her father's. Everyone referred to her mother as dramatic, and Emi also believed that she was, but her father was the more dramatic of the two. Although one would never guess from the image the man imposed—taller than average, inky hair combed back and sharp, inquisitive, onyx eyes, all emphasized by the handsome suits he would wear.

She heard several louder bangs, each sounding louder than before, which she recognized as her father banging his way up the stairs.

"Tou-san? You okay?" Emiri called out, shifting her body to look at her bedroom door.

Katsuki's frame slammed into her closed bedroom door, a groan escaping him. "I'm okay, Emi-chan," he replied, opening her door and letting his gaze scan her room minutely. "I heard he walked you home."

Emi rolled her eyes and fell back onto her bed. "Kaa-san!"

"I know, Emi-chan," her mother sounded, probably behind her father's frame. A manicured hand grasped her husband's ear and yanked. "Dear, she wants alone time."

"And you're sucking up to her so she's not mad at you anymore—"

"I am not."

"Are too."

"No."

"Yes."

"Katsuki, I'm not—"

"And I'm saying you are—"

Her parents failed to notice her pushing them out the door way and back towards the landing as they childishly argued. Emi successfully closed her door, her parents squabble successfully muffled, not without hearing her father say her mother was shit at self-analyzation and her squawk of protest—making her grin, a laugh wanting to bubble its way past her lips.

And while Emiri did agree with her father's opinion of her mother's behaviour, she couldn't help but think her mother also did it because Emiri's patience with the both of them was exponentially decreasing by the day.

Of no fault of their own, really.

Emiri was just...

Tired.

It wasn't a good sort of tired. Sometimes she just felt numb and sometimes she felt everything at once. She wasn't particularly astute about her own characteristics but she at least knew she was being bitchier these past few months, and especially in the past two weeks. And while Emiri blamed her younger cousin for her—more or less—temper tantrum earlier, it was, she would admit, some part due to her own emotional flip flop.

So, she guessed that going to Seidō was better than where she was at Tōō, considering it was what had been going on over there that was the root of all her problems.

She only ever had him over there, most of her friends following in her elder cousin's footsteps and attending Itachiyama that was in the city over. And she wasn't as big of a fan of the people in her class—especially the oversized blonde caveman with a bullhorn for a voicebox—they were either too... insignificant or too much, in her opinion.

She didn't ever want to go back to Tōō, though, no matter how much she bitched and complained about her parents' decision.

Which meant...

She really was stuck with Eijun for the rest of her high school career.

And though she found that absolute idiot annoying, simple-minded, obnoxious, downright stupid—no, incredibly stupid—pig-headed and an all-around pain in the ass, the moron cared about her more than anyone.

He would always seek her out and make her feel special and always chased after her and calling her "Emi-nee" even when she told him to fuck off.

Emi looked over at her sketchbook, having abandoned it on the far side of her bed, to her right, when she pushed her parents out of her doorway—who were still arguing who was sucking up or not—and found herself heaving out a breath at the sight. The lines were messy, but she was also messy in the preliminary stages, but the model of the picture was abundantly clear.

She had roughly sketched the skeletal base of him, mid-drive, elbow bent near ninety degrees, tilted forward at the waist, legs pushing at the ground with one foot lifted off as he sprinted forward. Though the face remained a compilation of hastily drawn circles and harsh lines, the tilt of his ever-present smirk had taken its rightful place. While the picture was of him in motion, doing something he loved, she couldn't help but feel melancholy.

She flipped back towards earlier sketches, the subject remaining the same though sometimes he was joined by other figures, all the pictures radiating an aura of happiness and contentment.

Emiri switched sketchbooks and didn't know whether to cry or not.

All her sketches, unrelated to school or personal projects, were of the same subject—whether he was drawn alone or surrounded by others—all her sketches were of him. All her mindless sketches fell back to one person and one person alone.

She couldn't even see when her subject of choice began to be him, no matter how many sketchbooks she leafed through. A bitter taste began to sit in her mouth, eyes tracing rough lines and smooth lines, noting the devolution of detail as she travelled backwards in time.

"I still don't get it," she muttered bitterly. "Probably... It's probably..."

Because I'm nothing like him.

If her parents had heard the sound of sketchbooks slamming into the far wall, they didn't care to tell her to quiet down. Emi stomped back to her bed and ignored the sound of her stomach rumbling its demand for food. She thought back about the events today, as a distraction to her current ire, and found herself feeling guilty.

While she was more than pissed off at Eijun and his faults, she had been an asshole to people that didn't deserve her anger—not including her parents.

That lady she had scared out of her way as she got off the train.

Some middle schoolers that were there when she called her mother.

A handful of school mates when she walked onto the school's grounds with a permeating aura of death.

Those spectators at the baseball practice today when she had caught Eijun in his punishment.

All those pedestrians she'd terrified on her way to the train station as well as the people on the train.

And especially that boy in her class who had looked like he would piss himself right there and then at her glare. Not only that, she'd basically verbally grabbed him by the balls and told him to bow down to her.

"I should apologize to that boy," Emiri mused absentmindedly. She still hadn't changed out of her uniform, nor had she moved from her sprawled out position on her bed. The girl felt as if she'd been drained of any kind of effort—a feeling that was beginning to happen frequently.

Emiri briefly wondered if she was going as crazy as the rest of her family.


A/N:

I've been meaning to upload this since May but never got around to actual editing, revising and then publishing until now. Summer Vacay for the high school student y'all.