A/N: I have completely revised this story. I was bored, and it needed doing...I've changed some mistakes and taken some small things out of the story. And I have also added an extra chapter; which I had accidentally - not entirely sure how - missed out beforehand...which was troublesome...and I wanted to add it in...therefore you might want to read the story again; although you won't be missing overly much if you don't. Although I do like the story much better the way it is now...Thankies muchly to anyone who has reviewed in the past! :D WOopWoop! I love you all...and I hope you enjoy the new version of the story...

Song for this chapter: It's been a while - Stained

Chapter 3: Memories

The first time he saw her, he was sitting alone on a table, at the back of the crowded cafeteria. Everywhere he looked were crowded tables of people; all from different places in the world. Some from France, some from England, a couple from Africa, and many from Germany; which was where he currently resided – the rehabilitation centre in Germany; surrounded by strangers gabbling in different dialects that he did not understand. He was far from home; that was for sure. He was lucky he could even communicate with the doctors; now was one of those times he understood why middle school students were forced to take English as a compulsory subject; all the doctors here spoke English. So far the only other person he had met, who actually spoke Japanese, was Hannah – his personal trainer. She was a nice woman, but she drank too much; and they trained too little – though he supposed that was because she did not want to harm his arm; she was the professional, after all.
He was sitting on his own in the cafeteria, because he had arrived in Germany only a couple of days before, and as yet, he had met no one he could befriend. The English patients tended to gather in one big, quite intimidating group; and he felt that it would be rude to try and befriend them, since he did not speak their language overly well. He worried that they would not exactly take to him well; and that he might feel like an outcast. Also, he did not know any English 'slang' words; so he felt he might be a little dumb as to what they were talking about. As yet, he still knew of no Japanese patients that were staying here at the centre.
He was merely watching the rest of the patients moving around and eating, as he picked at his own food when he saw her. She was standing around with a gabble of girls; who had come down to lunch in a group; he heard her first; rather than saw her – she was chattering away in English; but he heard a slight Japanese accent. He looked up and there she was; a Japanese girl, gossiping with the other patients – the English ones.
The girl was quite tall; about a head shorter than himself, he would guess; and she was terribly scrawny. If he had to guess; he would say she was here for an eating disorder; although her plate was piled high with food. However; he doubted that anyone could be that skinny naturally – she didn't seem to have much muscle either, from what he could see, so she didn't seem like she could be sporty.
As he watched, she threw back her head and laughed at something one of the other girls had said. That's when he noticed her hair. It was extremely long; falling all the way down to her waist; further when she was laughing; head falling back; and it was bright red, even brighter than Eiji's – a feat Tezuka wouldn't have thought possible unless he had seen it with his own eyes; which he had. When she straightened up again, he noticed her smile for the first time; and he saw it was a very nice smile indeed; her lips curled up high at the sides, and he could see that she had small dimples. Yes, he told himself, she had a very nice, and more importantly, a friendly smile.
He was just pondering on whether he had the courage to go up and speak to her, once he had finished his lunch, or not, when she turned around and met his eyes. He could see from here that her eyes were a bright, sparkling green. And he watched as her mouth spread into another lovely smile. He attempted to smile back, but his frown seemed stuck in place; he was probably too practiced at holding his stoic face, he thought to himself, somewhat annoyed at himself. By now she had turned back to her friends – she probably thought he was very unfriendly because he had not smiled back.
Tezuka turned back to his food, grimacing a little more than usual. Now he would have to work up the courage to go and speak to her, maybe to apologise for such a, well, unsociable greeting. He supposed she probably thought he was rather grouchy or something now.
It came as a huge surprise to him therefore, when he heard a tray slap down on the table next to his, and a chair sliding out from next to his.
His head snapped up, and he found himself face to face with the girl who had smiled at him only minutes ago. She was smiling again now as she looked at him; before she sat down next to him, still smiling, and reached out for her can of coke.
Tezuka watched silently as she cracked open the top, and poured the entire can into the large glass which she had brought down with her, before she pulled it towards her and started gulping it down; drinking almost half the glass, before putting it back down, and leaning back, sighing. "Sorry," she said, leaning forward again, and grinning, "I really needed that; this therapy sucks right?"
"Ah", he replied; not thinking of anything else to say, he turned his head back towards his food.
"Ah right, the food sucks more huh?" she carried on. He looked up at her as she pulled her knife and fork towards her, before spearing some pasta and putting it into her mouth; he watched as she chewed and swallowed; before looking up at him and making an over dramatic grimace. The corners of his lips twitched upwards into a small smile.
The girl grinned back at him, "that's better", she told him, "we can smile even when we are in rehab you know?"
"Ah", he replied again. Picking up some more pasta on his fork, and eating it; the girl sat and laughed at him, until he looked up at her again questioningly.
"You don't have much to say do you?" she asked him, still smiling. Well, I guess that's okay – I'll just talk enough for both of us!" she continued. Tezuka hoped she was joking.
It appeared that she was, as she didn't try to engage him in conversation; the two continued to eat in silence, until, that is, Tezuka caught on to the fact that her friends were throwing glances across the cafeteria at them every now and again. He turned to her and asked whether she shouldn't be sitting with them or not. She just laughed at him.
He decided, since she was being so kind as to be sociable with him, that he ought to help her out a bit. It would be nice to have someone to talk to while he was here after all; and she did seem nice enough.
"What's your name?" he asked. He waited for her to swallow the food she had been chewing, before she opened her mouth and…

"Ayame!" yelled a familiar voice.

…the words were taken right out of Ayame's mouth. She just smiled at him, before turning around to greet the woman who had stolen her words.
"Hannah!" she said; grinning. "What brings you to our merry table?" she joked.
"Ah, I see you've met our Kunimitsu", the trainer answered, sitting down next to Ayame, and smiling at him. "He just arrived from Japan a few days ago; it's good to see you've got another Japanese friend now right?"
"Hai", Ayame replied, turning to smile at Tezuka again, "it's very nice to meet you, Kunimitsu". It would be a lie to say Tezuka wasn't surprised to hear her call him by his first name; although he supposed Hannah had called him Kunimitsu; it seemed that here in Europe everyone called each other by their first names; he had a lot to get used to, it would seem.
He supposed he didn't mind though.
"And you, Ayame san", he told her. He watched again as she laughed. He wondered why; maybe she just had a fixation with laughing? Could that be why she was here?
"Don't bother with the suffix Kunimitsu", she told him, "I don't like formalities at the best of times."
"Ah", he replied.
Both girls turned and smiled at him again.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Over the next few months, Ayame and Tezuka became inseparable; especially after Tezuka learned of her connections to tennis, and a certain grumpy first year on his regular team.
He was extremely surprised to learn that Ayame and Ryoma were cousins; to say the least; however, as he got to know her, he found out that they did share quite a few family traits; for example, an exceptional talent in tennis, and an obsession with the phrase 'mada mada dane'. Tezuka, needless to say, was not looking forward to a time at such Ryoma could use the phrase on him. Sometimes he hoped it would never happen; other times he realised that it was inevitable.
Another thing Tezuka was extremely surprised about, was the fact that he got on so well with this girl. Tezuka usually had a bit of a problem getting on well with the opposite sex. It seemed to him that they were all either troublesome fangirls, or hated him for no apparent reason. He assumed the reason was he was too unsociable, or that they were not in favour of his popularity. Though he thought this would mean that they'd get along great – he was not in great favour of his popularity either.
Ayame, it seemed, was in neither category; and she made it incredibly easy for them to be friends. She seemed to understand that he did not want to talk all the time; and the fact that he did want company, even when he didn't want to talk. This was probably, he guessed, because she had grown up with Ryoma in her family. She also told him, on many occasions, some very amusing stories about the young prodigy, at an even younger age. He would never tell Ryoma, for fear of death, but the kid really was pretty funny, and even cute.
Because they got along so well, Hannah, their trainer, decided to even give them therapy at the same time, which meant they could hang out then, and also spend time together out of therapy, because they would have the same times off. During this time they went sight seeing, and played friendly tennis matches together; but very lightly, since they were still in rehab. Sometimes Tezuka wished they could both go all out; he was very interested in seeing how skilled she really was; although he could tell from her form, and the style in which she played, that she was definitely very good.
Day by day they discovered more about each other; and the interests they shared. Both enjoyed running, tennis, reading, and had been forced to endure piano lessons all their lives. However, Tezuka couldn't understand her loves of chocolate and shopping; while she couldn't grasp his enjoyment of maths and green tea.
Ayame, he discovered, had very interesting ways of balancing their likes and dislikes through compromise; though they seemed to be weighted in her favour more often than not. Like the times she convinced him that a good compromise would be to do maths homework in the morning, and then go late night shopping in the evening.
Another one of her interesting compromises was the drinking of green tea, whilst eating chocolate. Eventually they both dragged themselves down to the nearby shops; so that she could buy some ice tea, and he could buy some dark chocolate. That turned out to be the best compromise by far.
Tezuka, overall, had to admit to the fact that; despite not being able to play proper tennis, the bad food, and the endless, mostly bad, and sometimes very amusing, but generally failing, compromises that Ayame came up with – somehow; he wasn't sure exactly how yet; Tezuka had enjoyed his time in Germany. And he knew that it undoubtedly had something to do with the redhead he ended up spending the majority of his time with.

Xx x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x X

Here is the extra chapter promised; there was a better original...but I losted it xxx