A/N: Hullo hullo! Quick update because it's winter break and I'm feeling inspired and I thought I should give you guys an appearance of Fuji Syusuke before asking any of you to come along for the ride :)
AND A CAMEO FROM…...can you guess? Our good ol' buchou! And maybe some other weirdo tennis friends :D
PLEASE READ:
Reminder that they are all in high school. All the events in the original Prince of Tennis have already occurred, and three years have now passed. The original Seigaku regulars are reunited in high school. For the sake of convenience, Ryoma, Tezuka, Oishi, and Kawamura will still be there. US Opens, Germany, doctor dreams, and sushi restaurants can wait until after high school, kay?
And honestly I have my hands full already with Nami and Sakiko. Seigaku tennis boy OCs would probably wreak just a little too much havoc in this story :)
Disclaimer: PoT is Konomi-sensei's brainchild. I can only hope to one day broach such creative genius.
Bursts of Light: Chapter 2
Panorama
A wide-angle photograph.
Often, but not restricted to, a landscape.
Tsuchida Nami was not having a great day. And as usual it had been Nakamura Sakiko's doing.
Sitting in the back of one of Nakamura & Ito Law Firm's company cars, Nami fidgeted and fingered the package of clothes on her lap. "Ano, Takahashi-san?"
The elderly driver turned around to face her in the backseat. He could afford to, with the Hiro-fake-eating-his-vegetables speed at which traffic was moving through the city right then. "Yes, Nami-sama?"
"How much longer do you think, until we get to Seigaku?"
"I'm sorry, Nami-sama, I can't promise anything during the Tokyo morning rush."
"Ah—it's just school started 10 minutes ago..." And it was her first day too.
Takahashi-san looked so remorseful that Nami couldn't handle it. "I'm very, very sorry," he said in his gravelly voice. "I'll take full responsibility for your tardiness when I report to Mitsuko-sama."
"Nono, please don't! It's alright." She smiled at him reassuringly.
That was the last thing Nami wanted, for poor Takahashi-san, who drove around their entire screaming family every week, to get in trouble with her stepmom for something that wasn't even his fault.
She leaned back in her seat and blew at the baby hairs falling into her face. The plan had been to start taking the subway to school again now that she no longer had to commute with not-a-real-person Sakiko, who refused to take any form of public transport.
The plan had also been to pick up her new mint green Seigaku girl's uniform three days ago, from the school-recommended tailor just a few blocks down the street from her home. But her stepsister had never cared much for anyone's plans except her own.
"Otou-san, Mitsuko-san, I'm off to pick up my new uniform! Don't wait for me to eat dinner!" she yelled down the cavernous hall of the McMansion lovenest they'd all moved into last year.
"Don't bother going, Nami."
She looked up to see Sakiko at the top of the stairwell, having come out of her room.
"Sakiko, I'm not going to ask Takahashi-san to go pick up my uniform when I'm perfectly fine doing it myself."
"No, I mean that your uniform won't be ready until three days from now." For some reason, her stepsister looked mighty pleased with herself, which was never a good sign.
Nami furrowed her brows. "I'm positive the tailor said it would be ready by today at the latest."
"Oh you don't want to be tailored by him," Sakiko said airily. "He's only had experience with common fabrics."
"I'm going to school, Sakiko, not to a society gala."
"I think it's really important you make a good first impression at Seigaku, Nami, especially since who knows what you'll get yourself into without me. I called the tailor and told him we'd be switching your uniform situation over to Mori-san, who works with okaa-san's firm to fit all their suits. Silk and cashmere is the way to go."
"You WHAT?" Nami spluttered.
"Mori-san, Nami. Don't tell me simply transferring to Seigaku has already made you lose that many brain cells."
"So you have my uniform then?"
"Of course not, silly." Sakiko's laugh tinkled down the stairs. "Mori-san takes his work very seriously. Didn't you hear me earlier? It won't be ready until three days from now."
Nami counted the days in her head. "Three days—THREE DAYS? The start of school is in three days! Am I supposed to show up for the first day in my St. Rudolph blazer?"
"I mean, that'd be better than wearing Seigaku trash, am I right?" That was Sakiko's idea of a joke. "But gosh, Nami, you can just pick it up in the morning before school."
"Um, you're kidding right? First day starts at eight o'clock. Mori-san is on the other side of town."
"Takahashi can drive you. You weren't actually going to take the subway, were you?"
Nami stared at Sakiko as she headed back into her room without a glance back. Now poor Takahashi-san, who lived close to Mori's tailor shop, would have to wake up at five in the morning to get to their home early enough for the six o'clock departure that was required.
What in kami-sama's name was wrong with her stepsister?
Six o'clock, it turned out, had not been early enough. In fact, Nami was pretty sure she would have gotten to Seigaku by now if she'd just revolted and taken the subway.
"Nami-sama?" Takahashi-san peered back at her timidly. "Might I suggest something?"
"Anything, Takahashi-san."
"If you want to minimize your tardiness, you could change into your uniform in the car so you're ready to go when we arrive at Seigaku."
Nami gulped and surveyed the large number of windows. (Did cars usually have this many windows? Yes, yes they did.)
"I promise I won't look," the elderly driver added.
She assured him that that had been the last of her worries. It seemed that all the commuters around them were tapping away at their phones, having given up on the standstill traffic. She sighed, fingered the weird expensive fabric that she was sure would not be worn by any of her other uniformed peers, and began to peel off her pants in the backseat.
Takahashi-san was kind enough to start tinting the windows, and Nami made a mental note to herself that this was a car feature to be used for the next time Sakiko decided to ruin her life.
The black company car finally pulled up at Seishun Gakuen a whopping forty-eight minutes after she was supposed to get there. But this was Nami's day, her biggest triumph in the past year, and she couldn't help but feel small shivers of joy as she thanked Takahashi-san heartily and ran toward the building with the tall clocktower that her new school was famous for.
That was, until she realized that the imposing iron gate at the campus entrance was firmly locked and not budging. Clearly she had surpassed any sane conception of lateness that the administration expected of its students.
She was about to press the button at the side of the gate, on the black plastic box with the speaker that would transfer her over to the front office, when she paused. A front office encounter meant a tardy mark. And a tardy mark meant that Takahashi-san—sweet, helpful Takahashi-san—would ignore her earlier instructions and take the blame in front of her stepmother.
No, Nami couldn't let that happen.
She dubiously surveyed the cherry red brick wall, on each side of the gate, that seemed to stretch on and on and on until—what was that?
She ran over to the patch of green she had spotted. It turned out to be a dense wall of tall shrubbery that was in place of the brick wall for a good ten meters or so. Dense was an understatement. The span of shrub was positively cement-like. It was apparent that whomever had nurtured this plant had made it their life's work to ensure that no shrub of theirs would ever fall inferior to a silly brick wall.
But it was also apparent to Nami that the most breachable of Seigaku's primary line of defense stood right in front of her.
This is for Takahashi-san, she thought grimly as she reached her arms in for her first attempt at clearing a human girl-sized hole to step through.
Then there was a second attempt. Then a third.
In the end, it took a grand total of six tries, an extra pair of stockings she had dug up from her school bag to tie away some of the branches, and several ounces of the gracefulness that was Nami's only Sakiko-approved trait, to burrow over to the other side.
Thank kami-sama, Nami thought as she plucked away all the leaves she could see from her hair and uniform, surveying Seigaku's inner courtyard with triumph.
Suddenly, a pair of gardeners carrying rakes came into view. Shoot. She sprinted away as they were still happily chattering with each other instead of noticing the gaping hole in the shrub just twenty meters away from them.
The closest door to the main building let into what looked like the choir room. That couldn't be right. She needed to find the auditorium, where she prayed, prayed, that the start-of-school assembly was still running, only after which the first attendance of the year would be taken.
She ran out of the choir room into a hallway. Left. Right. Fifty-fifty chance. She picked left and wandered down the locker-lined halls. From her harried glances, she could tell that Seigaku wasn't as shiny as St. Rudolph, but it was a heck of a lot less pretentious.
Nami kept her eyes peeled for large double doors and a room sign indicating the auditorium. It wasn't until finally—finally—she found it that she started to breathe again, hearing the blare of a microphone still resounding from within.
She closed her eyes and imagined peace, calm, elegance. Her posture and poise from years of taking photographs in delicate—even dangerous—situations were what she still had control over after the craziness of the past year, and it was the one thing Mitsuko-san and Sakiko couldn't pick apart about her. And if she was going to make a good first impression on her peers like Sakiko had insisted, it would be with her utter gracefulness and not anything her stepsister forced on her.
With the stealth of her mother stalking a lion for her next National Geographic photograph, Nami creaked open the door to the auditorium.
So far so good. Every head remained turned toward the speaker at the podium center stage rather than turning around to stare accusingly at her. The speaker—the student body president, she guessed—had hazel hair in a side part, wire-rimmed glasses, and a military posture that she couldn't help but be impressed by.
So this was the Seigaku version of Sakiko. Nami wondered if he was just as insufferable.
"Each of us has an important role to play at Seigaku High School," he said to the audience, his voice stern. "Whether you are matriculating from the junior high with old friends or you are new to our ranks, whether you are a student, athlete, or artist—we are one family, one team. So I'll end with this: Let's do our best together. Don't let your guard down."
Nope, definitely not like Sakiko, Nami thought in relief. Maybe there was just a little bit of a stick up his butt, but he seemed like a really good guy. A good leader.
As the applause began to grow for the young man who was switching places with their principal, who would then give his speech, Nami capitalized on the noisy opportunity to hurry to an empty seat she had spotted several rows from the back. Gracefully, of course.
She glided toward it, not believing her luck. Maybe things were going to turn around at Seigaku after all. Maybe she'd be able to find some peace here. Maybe—
"Ah, excuse me?" a soft male voice spoke from behind Nami as she felt a slight pulling sensation at the back of her head.
Nami whirled around, perplexed. Sitting at the edge of the row she had been about to pass and now facing her was an older boy, the speaker. He had sandy brown hair that framed soft features and a beatific smile that squeezed his eyes shut into half-moons.
And he was holding a—a branch?!
"Sorry about that," he murmured. "I just thought I would help get this out of your hair before you had walked away." The students around the boy snickered.
THAT had been in her HAIR?
So much for elegant first impressions.
Nami, a second year, had been placed into class 2-D. But honestly, she didn't care if she was in class 2-A, 2-C, or 2-E, so long as there weren't any students in her room who had witnessed the branch debacle earlier.
Thankfully there weren't, she noted as she looked around the classroom from the vantage point of the third row window seat that the seating chart at the front of the room had assigned her to. However, it did seem that most people already knew each other, which she expected, especially as this was her second new school in two years.
As the clock struck 9:30, a later start to class than they would have after the first day, their homeroom teacher—a smiling woman in her early 50s—called the gaggle of teenagers to attention.
"Good morning everyone. My name is Okada-sensei. Along with being your homeroom teacher, I will also be your math instructor. I look forward to working with all of you in the coming school year."
Polite claps.
"Let's begin our day with introductions. Name. Birthdate. Favorite school subject. Favorite hobby. Favorite math theorem. That last one is optional." The side of her mouth quirked up.
"Sensei, is that necessary? I don't think it is. It's not," a boy in the row in front of her said loudly, though not maliciously at all. "Everyone already knows each other."
All Nami could observe of him from behind was a tuft of spiky black hair that obscured her view of the chalkboard.
"Not everyone, baka," a girl scoffed at him, though not maliciously either. She was the one sitting next to Nami, and she proceeded to nudge her head toward Nami when the boy turned around, about to argue.
"Oh," he said, his purple eyes a bit sheepish.
Momoshiro Takeshi turned out to be his name, birthday was July 23. Favorite school subject was math, favorite hobby was eating hamburgers. (How was that a hobby? thought Nami.) He even answered the math theorem question, which made sense considering his favorite subject. It turned out to be Euclid's theorem, which Nami had honestly never heard of.
Soon it was her seatmate's turn, the one who had come to her defense earlier. She stood up, her black ponytail swishing confidently, her forest green eyes bright. "Kikuchi Miori. Birthday is February 3. Favorite school subject is English. Favorite hobby?" She paused and seemed to smirk a little at Momoshiro. "Beating cocky boys at tennis." Appreciative laughter from the class. "And favorite theorem is whatever helps me pass math this year." More appreciative laughter.
And suddenly, twenty-five pairs of eyes had landed on Nami. "A-ah." She stood up, keeping her back straight and giving what she hoped was a friendly smile. "Tsuchida Nami, new transfer from St. Rudolph High School." Whispers. She ignored them and plowed on. "Birthday is December 18. Favorite school subject is—eh—I guess literature. Favorite hobby is probably photography." She paused. "And I'm with Kikuchi-san on the math theorem." A few chuckles from around her and a small smile from Kikuchi.
After the long round of introductions, the rest of the morning passed quickly with a brief math class. Soon the lunch bell rang and with it a mad dash to grab friends and rush out the door to beat the long food lines that were sure to form.
Nami, however, took her time putting her writing utensils in her pencil bag and filing away the math syllabus in her pretty organizer, since it would be at least a few months before she would have people to grab and rush out the door with for lunch. Not that she minded, as this was all part of going to a new school. Her heart was still riding on the gladness that was Seigaku and its brick (bush?) walls that protected her from Sakiko for the school day.
"Hey, Tsuchida-san right?"
Nami looked up and saw her seatmate Kikuchi looking out of breath. Nami's eyes traveled along Kikuchi's arm to find the reason why, only to see that it was attached with pincer-like force to the arm of a slightly put-out looking Momoshiro.
"This madwoman dragged me over here insisting that I apologize when I didn't even do anything wrong. Ah..." He scratched the back of his head. "I am sorry though—about earlier. I'm an idiot and I usually don't watch what I say. But yeah, welcome to Seigaku. We like new people. We do."
"Yeah, don't mind idiots like him, Tsuchida-san," Kikuchi smiled brightly. "We're glad you're here."
Nami was stunned. Not only were the three of them the last ones left in the room and sure to be relegated to the cold lunch bread line (even Okada-sensei had bolted off to get her hands on some miso soup), they had taken the time to apologize for the smallest of slights. How could Kikuchi be so perceptive when Sakiko was denser than the bush Nami had traversed this morning? Were they even the same species?
She smiled at them. "Thanks Momoshiro-san. Don't worry about it at all. And thanks for, er, escorting him over here, Kikuchi-san. You guys should call me Nami."
"Done. And no more of that Kikuchi-san bullshit. I'm Miori."
"And I'm Momo."
"Baka, that's not even your first name!"
"Momo is obviously much friendlier-sounding than Takeshi, you witch!"
Miori rolled her eyes. "C'mon Nami-chan. Let's go scrounge up some lunch if we can."
And with that, Nami found herself pulled along the wave that was Miori and Momo's bickering, with their occasional attention turned toward her.
"What's with the uniform, Nami-chan?" Momo asked as he fingered the expensive fabrics that she'd been forced by Sakiko to wear. "Is that silk?!"
"God, can you for once stop making her uncomfortable on her first day of school?"
"It was just a question, geez."
"Long story short," Nami said pointedly. "I have a crazy person in my life."
Miori nodded empathetically while glancing at Momo.
They made their way into the cafeteria and bought some pitiful lunch bread. Nami offered to pay, since she was the reason that they had gotten there so late, but the other two turned their baka-calling on her with such vehemence that she shut up.
As the three of them walked back across the campus courtyard, Nami noticed that a small crowd of teachers and staff had gathered together along a spot on the campus perimeter. As they got closer, she saw several of them frowning at—at the gaping hole in the shrub she had destroyed this morning. Crap. Nami hurried her group back to their classroom to eat, feeling grateful that Momo had been moaning about being famished the minute he had finished apologizing.
It was during lunchtime that high schoolers did a majority of their socializing, so there was a constant flow of people she didn't know in and out of their classroom. Which was why Nami didn't even bother to look up from the second bread she was unwrapping (it had a sweet custard filling!) when she heard someone approaching the trio that was her, Miori, and Momo.
That is, until she heard a very familiar soft male voice say, "Ah Momo, there you are. Nee-san got these vouchers from work. They're to a new burger restaurant that's opened a few miles from here. I thought you and Echizen might like them."
Before she could stop herself, Nami had looked up in horror. Sandy hair framing the face. Beatific expression and half-moon slits. Recognition dawned on his face as well, a small smile growing on his face.
"Tree-san!" he exclaimed lightly.
Nami blushed. The boy seemed to smile a little wider.
"Eh? No, Fuji-senpai, you must have the wrong person," Momo said. "This is Tsuchida Nami. She's new to Seigaku."
"No, this is Tree-san. I pruned her earlier this morning. She's a tree, you know?"
"What the hell, Fuji-senpai. How come I never know what you're talking about?"
Miori rolled her eyes at the two boys. Nami could hear her muttering under her breath that the guys' tennis team was a bunch of fucking weirdos and how come they got more funding than the girls did.
Then, thank goodness, Fuji decided to show a bit of mercy and change the subject. "Tsuchida-chan was it? Which school did you transfer from?"
"St. Rudolph."
Fuji cocked his head. "Oh really."
"Neh, Fuji-senpai, doesn't your brother go there?" asked Momo, his mouth filled with his fifth and sixth breads.
And then it clicked in Nami's mind. Fuji as in Fuji Yuuta. Fuji as in Yuuta-kun's aniki.
"Have you ever met my baby brother Yuuta, Tsuchida-chan?"
Put on the spot, Nami didn't know what to do but nod dumbly. Suddenly, there seemed to be a glint in Fuji's half-moon slits where his eyes should have been, which Nami didn't even know was possible.
"Ah, I've never had an opportunity to examine a classmate of Yuuta's so closely," Fuji said sweetly. "Do you happen to have any stories you can share with me? Lost loves? Cuddle buddies? Sleeping habits? I don't know them too well anymore now that he lives in a dormitory and I can't sneak into his room at night."
Um, what the hell. Nami took back what she had said to Yuuta about Sakiko being worse than his aniki. They were clearly on the same level.
"Gunning for data, aren't we," Nami shot back. "Are you some sort of Seigaku Mizuki Hajime?"
She saw Fuji stiffen, the same way Sakiko had the other night when asked about her ex-boyfriend.
"No, I'm not," he said quietly.
For a good five seconds, no one seemed to know what to say. Momo broke the silence with an awkward laugh. "Well thanks for the vouchers Fuji-senpai. Are you sure you don't want to take a few?"
And with that, the relaxed atmosphere was back.
"No, I'm good, Momo. Well I've got to get back to 3-B, Eiji's getting a little antsy without me. Ja." Giving them a small wave, Yuuta's older brother, Fuji Weirdo, walked out of their classroom.
"How is it possible that you freaks have fangirls?" Miori asked Momo dryly.
"Because we're good at tennis, madwoman-chan."
"We're good at it too, you jerk!"
Nami wondered why she always ended up hanging around tennis freaks. It was as if the world she lived in revolved around the sport.
"What a weird first day," Nami muttered to Yuuta over the phone later that night.
She had just finished explaining why she had had to drill through a bush in her weird-ass cashmere silk uniform because of Sakiko, and how the two classmates she'd eaten lunch with had bickered non-stop. She'd chosen not to tell him that they played tennis, because she knew Yuuta got a little competitive over that sport and would grill her about how good she thought they were compared to him.
She'd also neglected to mention meeting his aniki. Because, well, she didn't feel quite ready yet to share about how his brother had "pruned" her at their first encounter. And also because she wasn't ready to admit that his aniki was just about as bad as Sakiko.
"But they sure are a lot friendlier over here," Nami added.
"Yeah," Yuuta laughed, a little sadly. "Yeah they are."
Tsuchida Nami.
Why did that name sound so familiar? Fuji thought to himself later that night after he'd finished writing his English homework and editing the photo of Tezuka giving the start-of-the-year speech so that all the teachers behind him looked like they were falling asleep. (It'd be a great poster to blow up for the tennis club room.)
He was sure he'd heard that name somewhere. He typed it into a search engine and hit enter. The first five links that popped up were photography award websites.
That was right, she was that young photography prodigy trained by the one and only Tsuchida Nadeshiko. As he scrolled through the first two links and looked at some of her work, he felt his breath hitch.
Her pictures were mundane, but in the best way possible. A middle-aged man reading a book (her father?). A little gray-haired boy bouncing a basketball. The thing was, her pictures—they moved. They captured motion the way people hoped to catch moonlight in a jar.
Fuji frowned. Why hadn't he heard more about her in the last year then? Why did it take so long for him to figure out who she was?
He checked the dates of all the awards and photographs online. They all dated from two years ago or earlier.
What had happened?
He wanted to know.
~XX~
A/N: Welp let me know what y'all think! Next update might not be as fast, since I'll have recovered from the horrendous cold that's been brutalizing me these past four days.
Any reviews and constructive criticism would definitely encourage me ;)
xoxo rainywindows