"Leiko! Use more force! Hit the shuttlecock more accurately! Your stance is wrong! Your grip is wrong! How in the world did you get on the team?!" The coach barks at her, gesturing wildly with his hands.

Panting heavily, she wipes away the sweat on her forehead.

It's been a while since she moved out of Whammy's and into the city.

Now, from peacefully playing with toys with Near and eating sweet chocolate with Mello, she's reduced to playing badminton as poorly as she can in a field with other sweating people.

The coach throws his tennis racquet on the ground. "Yagami! Coach the newcomer, will you? The rest of you, dismissed!" Grumbling, he stomps out of the court, the sweating batch trailing behind him. A figure saunters towards her, a soft smile on his face.

But it will be worth it.

"Hi! I'm Yagami Light." The handsome boy holds out one of his hands.

She came to the city to learn, after all.

Who better to learn from than the boy whom everyone in school is either friends with or knows of?

"I'm Leiko." She smiles and grips his hand, letting him give a firm pump or two.

He raises his eyebrow at her for a moment, probably at her lack of surname, but he doesn't say anything and instead starts to give some patient advice.

She doesn't really listen, but nods her head whenever he asks if she understands, and makes appropriate noises at appropriate moments.

He then starts to walk away, to the other side of the net on her court, and shouts over,

"Hey! So you get it right? We'll keep it simple. After missing three shots, then the game ends. You ready? I'll serve!"

She shoots him a thumbs-up sign.

He smiles.

Throwing the ball in the air, he gently swings his racquet with just enough force so that the ball heads right for her.

She nimbly catches it with her racquet and swings a drop shot back.

Although surprised (possibly at how she even managed to hit the ball back) he still manages to backhand the ball with the same gentleness and accuracy as before.

As the wordless game continues, with him playing relaxingly, but progressively getting more into the game, and her fighting to keep up as he gets faster and harsher.

Finally, she misses her third shot.

He is the picture of ease as he walks over, hand out like a good sportsman. Holding her stomach and struggling to get her breath back, she forces a smile and shakes with her free hand.

"Good game," she pants, voice slightly shaky.

He chuckles. "Good game. I think you should sit down, Leiko-san. C'mon."

She introduced herself as just 'Leiko' for a reason, hoping that maybe that would result in less formal conversations, and she'd be able to see where his tricks lie. Although he might just be being polite, since she never really had anybody to test her theories on. She was still experimenting after all. Besides, she didn't really have a surname. The one on the name list was false, after all.

He leads the way to the nearby benches.

Sitting down beside their bags, he pats the seat next to him. She sits down, shooting him a polite smile and grabs her water bottle, letting the fresh water cool her throat. In comparison, he barely seems out of breath, taking only small sips from his bottle as he watches the sky grow orange. How long have they been playing?

Letting out a satisfied sigh, she stretches.

He turns to her.

"Leiko-san, how old are you?" he asks, as if sourcing for a conversation topic.

"I'm nine, a 1989 child." Smile. "Call me Leiko, 'san' is just unneeded. How about you, Yagami-san? How old are you?"

"Eleven turning twelve. 1986. How's school, Leiko? You just transferred, right?"

Dammit! She should have done her homework first! Now she came across as rude for treating him like one of her own age, which of course is not the desired effect.

"Light-sempai, then," she said cheerily, wanting to make up for the previous blunder. "I transferred about 2 months ago, but I only joined a club now. School's fine, everybody here is very nice."

He nods his head slowly, as if distracted. Suddenly, he asks, "Why did you play so badly in front of Coach?"

She pauses for a while, pretending to think of an answer as she purses her lips.

"For one, I think the humidity was getting to my head, what with so much sweating going on. Plus, that game I played with you just now was my best performance! I am not joking!" And she wasn't, because Matsuda could never hold a game that long. "I was thinking of the suggestions you gave me, and it did help. Thanks, sempai." She grins, smile reaching to her eyes.

It was really because in the last two months, she'd trained her butt off. When she heard about Yagami on her second week of school (after she'd made some proper friends) and from the teacher that she was supposed to choose a club to join by the end of her second month in school, she had worked very hard, training during break time, training after school, training with Matsuda back at that hotel they stayed at. He was surprisingly passable – even though he did manage to break a couple of racquets.

He shakes his head. "I think you're lying." He crosses his arms, a

She tilts her head, brows rising. "About what?" He could have been talking about anything!

"The only advice I gave you was to follow my lead, which you didn't have to do, because you already knew how to hold a racquet and the correct stance and all that. Then I gave you some tips, which again, you obviously didn't need because you don't suck at tennis." A victorious smirk creeps on his lips.

That smirk means he doesn't even need an answer.

Damn, he's better than she expected.


A/N: Google 'Just As Planned'