Taming of the Devil
Chapter 3: Taming Starts
"Hey Asano!" Akaya called out.
"Hm?" She looked up, wiping a bit of her sweat and putting her racquet away.
"Play a match with me."
Everyone was silent for couple of seconds, staring back and forth at the two.
"Okay." Miki blinked and agreed nonchalantly, taking the racquet back out of the bag.
"Oi, Akaya, she's still tired from the match!" Marui gave him a clout on the head and scolded him.
"That's right Akaya. It may be a little too tiring for the lady." Sanada said also.
Miki's ego perked up at that; she had a pretty down-to-earth personality outside of courts. But once on the courts if someone or something just shuts her down she went ka-boom!
"I can play." Miki said firmly. "Get on the courts, Kirihara."
"Right on." He smirked and rushed out to the courts.
"Wait, Asano!" Yukimura stopped her.
"Yes?"
"Be careful."
"…Alright." She raised her eyebrows but answered anyways.
Akaya was waiting for her impatiently, tapping his foot with his arms crossed. "C'mon, whatcha takin' so long?" He complained.
"Ladies take time to get ready." She laughed a little and answered. "Now, smooth or rough?"
"Smooth" The racquet spun and fell on the ground.
"It's smooth."
"I'll serve first." Akaya grabbed the ball and walked onto the court. Miki went to her side too, and got into a ready position; Akaya stalled no time, and tossed and hit the ball as soon as Miki was ready.
Then the intense rally between the two second years began.
"She's good… keeping up with Akaya like that…" Jackal awed at Miki who was doing just as well as Akaya.
"Don't worry, there's more to come."
"It's satisfying to see a girl devote so much to a sport." Yukimura smiled and said, watching the two rally back and forth.
"Yup. She does work hard. Probably as hard as Sanada, I bet." Takamoto Miho said. "There's only one thing I could say: she's really good. Not on a mere middle school level."
"Anyhow, she better watch out for Akaya." Jackal said. "It's been about 15 minutes…"
Just as he said, Akaya's eyes started to turn red. Miki raised her eyebrows, unable to comprehend such change.
"I'll dye you in red!" He laughed maniacally and served, gripping the ball with his knuckle. The ball flew at a fast speed; Miki carefully observed the ball and noticed that it put the weirdest spin on the ball. She did a split step right as the ball landed, and as it bounced irregularly, she was able to return it.
"If the ball's path cannot be predicted, then one can use the reflexes to return it." Miki stated, returning the ball.
"She returned Akaya's knuckle serve!" Marui marveled and whistled.
The ball's power started rushing up the tempo and started pushing Miki back. Miki was consistently returning—then her eyes glinted at a slightly high, lob-like ball, and smashed it to the corner.
"Power needs to be used at the right time."
"Interesting…" Yanagi mumbled. "Her play style is just like Yukimura's. She can perceive the ball and return any."
"So she can give yips?" Marui exclaimed.
"I do not know about that. It seems that she could, if she were to… gain more experience. Or maybe, she just has other skills up her sleeve. From her physical competency, it seems that she does just as much as the boys in jogging and muscle-training."
After twenty minutes or so, Akaya lost badly with a score of 6-2. They walked up to the net and shook hands. Akaya looked challenged. Determined. Except, he wasn't sure if this girl would talk to him anymore after seeing his devil mode.
"Che, you just got lucky this time."
"Lucky doesn't apply to this score." Marui said and Niou snickered.
"SENPAI!"
"Good game." She chuckled and said. "I'm glad I got to play you; You're really cool!"
"Th-Thanks?" Akaya flushed and stuttered. He was pissed off and a little taken aback at this girl; he was pissed more like himself, but he couldn't say anything since she put on such a nice smile. And he was slightly puzzled that she called him "cool" which was the last thing he expected to hear from her after going into red eye mode. Marui and Niou cooed, upsetting Akaya.
"Anyways, it's getting late; let's start packing up." Yukimura said, clasping his hands. He thought that he saw a pretty good tennis match, and was fascinated by this new second year buchou.
The Big Three were walking home together like always.
"What do you think of the ranking match Asano thought of?" Yukimura asked the two.
"By holding the ranking match all biased choices are eliminated, so the efficiency raises by a great deal." Yanagi said. "A very good idea." Sanada also nodded in approval.
"She fascinates me a lot. I wonder how the girls' team will do this year." Yukimura said, smiling unusually.
The next day, at school—
"ASANOOO!" Akaya ran into the class, startling the girl.
"Yeah?"
"I DON'T GET ANYTHING FOR THE ENGLISH QUIZ!" He panicked, talking out a worksheet. "I COULDN'T EVEN SOLVE THIS!"
"This is basically the format of the quiz though." She looked at it and raised her eyebrows. Then Akaya looked at her with pleading eyes speaking "please save me."
"Ahaha, I guess I could help." So then, Miki started teaching Akaya. Akaya thought that she was a really nice girl; even if he kept forgetting the difference between "where" and "wear" and "it's" and "its"Asano didn't get mad at him for it.
"There you go." Miki said as she put her pencil down after checking his work.
"Yes, I'm finally done!" Akaya exclaimed, sighing. "Thanks, I owe you one."
"You're welcome." She smiled nicely. "Even if it were me I'd hate to get scolded by our English teacher."
"He's like a frickin' gigantic walking tiki-golemn! How is he not a pro wrestler?" Akaya said. The two joked around, talking about teachers and things in school.
"KIRIHARA!" The teacher yelled. Akaya flinched and stood up.
"Y-YESS!"
"Meet me during lunch. You too, Asano."
"Y-Yes!"
The two sat down, and looked at each other, fear clearly shown on their faces. The class went by fast, which Miki and Akaya did not appreciate at all.
"Dude, we're fucked! We're SO FUCKED!" Akaya banged his head on the table repeatedly and said, clenching his hair.
"Haaaa…" Miki just sighed. At the end of lunch, fighting back the fear, Akaya and Miki went to the teacher's office and visited the English teacher.
"Excuse me, Komori-sensei." Miki called him. He glanced, and turned around on his chair, and crossed his arms.
"Good, you guys are here." He said, tapping his index finger onto his arm. The two gulped down, seeing the intimidating glare from the teacher.
"Kirihara. Asano."
"We're sorry!" The two bowed together and apologized. The teacher was taken aback for a second.
"Why are you apologizing, Asano?" Puzzled, he asked. The two straightened back up, puzzled themselves.
"I-I thougt we were in trouble for talking in class…?" Akaya trailed off. 'And not to mention calling you a big, gigantic walking tiki-golemn…?'
"No, it's something else."
They inwardly sighed. Looks like they can live another day. The teacher went through his file—and dug up a paper marked all over in red.
'Shit.' Akaya cussed immediately after seeing the paper with his name on it. It wasn't just a paper—it was the quiz they took today. He did pretty well on it—at least he thought he did, after being tutored by Asano and all.
"You scored two out of fourteen on this." The teacher showed him the paper. "And you never did your homework, you never paid attention in class, and you bageled your first quiz." He frowned and glared at Akaya. Akaya was feeling very comfortable. Oh yes, veeery, very uncomfortable.
"Asano." He called her.
"Yes?"
"I want you to tutor Kirihara." He said, giving her the do-it-or-else look. "Two times a week. I expect you to show some progress in this boy."
"Okay."
"You can leave now."
After they left the teachers' office, Akaya ranted. "TUTOR?"
"Well, it looks like you have no choice. I mean, I don't mind but it's solely your choice… and I know for the fact that Sanada-san won't really er, permit this."
"You're right…" Akaya bit his lips. "God dammit. Which day's fine for you."
"Any day."
"Then how about Wednesday and Saturday?"
"Alright. Starting today?"
"Sure. You can come over starting today." Akaya said.
"Okay. I'll see you after practice then."
So the rest of the class went by without much trouble. Akaya thought that she reminded him of a mixture between the Big Three. She was good at every subject (at least she seemed to be) and academically excellent like Sanada. Not to mention, she was good at tennis. But she had that vibe—that nice, gentle vibe (although it was a little twisted on the courts, just like Yukimura) and was quite delicate in thought like Yanagi.
Her personality was similar to his, however; she was rather lively when she spoke.
He looked at her as she stood up and explained a math problem fluently.
"By using the synthetic division…"
'She's seriously like one of those overachievers… like fuku-buchou. What subject is she not good at?' Akaya thought. Although he knew her only for about two days, he thought that she was one of the smartest people he's ever met. She and Sanada would get along just fine.
Her eyes—her auburn, golden that had slightly red tints were unique and pretty. At least he thought that it was. Her hair fell a little below her shoulders; facial features? Overall pretty. Like Yukimura.
Miki caught Akaya staring at her as she sat down after finishing the problem; she put her face down too and stared back, startling Akaya.
"What are you looking at?" She asked, smiling. Akaya swore to god that he saw Yukimura's face overlap hers.
"Nothing." He avoided her eyes, blushing a little.
Miki thought that this little kid was a bit too cute for god's sake. Maybe a lot. Like a little puppy/brother.
"Hehe, so cute!" She let out, chuckling. Akaya's face heated up immediately, blood rushing all the way to his head.
"D-D-Don't call me cute!" He began stuttering. Miki gave him cooing eyes and chuckled again.
"It's the fact." She said as she held her from laughing.
"Che. By the way… what subject are you not good at?" Akaya asked.
"Hm… that'd be history."
"History?" Akaya raised his eyebrows and gaped. History was an easy class for him.
"Yeah. For some reason it's not my thing. I only do well because of memorization stuff, but I soon forget them all unlike math formulas." She said. "So once I even scored a D on my history test. Ahaha." She laughed nonchalantly.
Akaya sweatdropped at an unusual carelessness of the girl. At least she didn't boast her intelligence in front of people. He hated it when people did that.
"Say, since you were at Hyotei, you must know who Atobe Keigo is." He said, interested to find more about Hyotei.
"Atobe Keigo…?" She raised her eyebrows. She then thought for a moment, dazing into the ceiling, mumbling his name. "Atobe… Atobe… ah"
"You know him right?"
"Yeah. He's really arrogant. I don't like him."
"But I heard he's a good tennis player."
"He is. But it's so noisy there; girls, maybe in units of couple hundreds, crowd around the court and squeal and scream the regulars' names all day. It's really annoying. Think of fangirls here times infinity."
Akaya's face dreaded in fear and disgust. Now he knows where to not go for transferring schools.
"That is so annoying."
"Right? And funnier thing is, Atobe actually enjoys that kind of attention."
"So he's an attention whore."
"Pretty much, yeah. Honestly, he's not that good looking. People fuss over him having the 'features of a God' and all, which I really don't see. But I guess he's a really good tennis player."
The class bell rang, and students exited the room excitedly. Miki and Akaya walked to the changing rooms and got ready for another day of intense tennis practice.
Miki was thinking of the Big Three; if only she could play one of them, she'd have no wish. Preferably Yukimura.
'I wonder if he would play a game with me if I asked…'
Hello, readers. I'd appreciate it if every single one of you, especially those of you who subscribed, were to leave a review. Reviews help me write, so please be supportive of the new story.
