Chapter Three
The first time I laid eyes on Hanamiya Makoto also happened to be the first time I had ever watched a basketball game. It was October and it was the season of the Pumpkin Spice Latté, and Japanese high school basketball. This meant that any one with a life was either at Starbucks or at the gym.
By this point in the year I had grown over the fact that I was going to school with the vermin that hurt my brother and even managed to make some friends. These friendships were nothing more than temporary and hardly worth mentioning, except they are needed to further the plot so I must bring them up.
Yui, Rio, and Yuna; they were sweet girls, but there really wasn't anything special about them. They were mere sheep in the herd, however at the time, I thought they were really cool and it felt great to have made friends.
"Chouko, you're going to the game after school right?" One of them had asked me, which one I don't remember.
I had no intention of going to the game, not wanting to see that mans face, but I didn't want to seem uncool or something superficial like that, "Uh, I don't know, I have a lot of home work to do." That was such a lame excuse and they knew it.
"Come on. Don't be like that. We should all go together!"
"Yeah, Chou-chan, let's go!"
"Fine." I finally gave in under the pretense that I could totally ignore the garbage that would be playing, but really I just ended up glaring at him the entire game.
~x~
It was honestly the most disgusting thing I had ever seen. The way that this team could get away with so much with out getting into any trouble, yet the other team would get fouled for the tiniest of things. The way that you could see the life getting drained out of each of the opposing players with every tick of the timer. The way that our team seemed to get livelier and livelier with each blow they made to the other team. And probably the most disgusting thing, even to this day, was how every one on our side of the stands was cheering it on. The violence brought something out of my fellow classmates that was borderline criminal.
"Kill em!"
"Break their legs!"
"Turn them into trash!"
The longer I stayed in the gym, the worse the chanting became. My brain was screaming for me to leave, but I couldn't get my body to move from my seat. My friends were just sitting there joking, gossiping, and sipping on their pumpkin spice while I sat beside them on the brink of tears.
That's when he looked up into the stands. Number 4, the captain, Hanamiya Makoto. We made eye contact, our eyes lingering on each other's until the tears came falling down my face, but I didn't look away, he smirked in response and ran back to the game. With the breaking of our eye contact I fell out of my trance, wiped the tears from my face, and looked back at my friends. They were watching me.
"Hey, I saw that! Chouko has the hots for Hanamiya!"
"He was totally staring back, you've got a shot girl."
"Did you know he is also head of the disciplinary committee? He is really strict and stern but he is also really smart."
"Omg, I know! He's supposed to be one of the smartest in the school. Smart and athletic, Chouko knows how to pick em"
"I get that you're all happy, but he is also known for getting into a lot of fights, none of the guys at our school like him and all his exes say bad things about him."
"They must just be jealous. Don't say bad things about Chouko's future husband!"
I could vaguely hear these words in the background of my horror. Me and him? Were these girls crazy? Do they not see what he is doing to those poor players down there? They have to be able to, yet they still are encouraging this? I am furious.
"It's not like that at all!" Was all I could manage to say before I stormed out of the gym, just as the final buzzer rang. The final score 61-36 Kirisaki Daichi's win.
~x~
I didn't know where I was going. All the feelings that I had managed to shove away managed to come back and were blinding my senses. Even as people started to leave the building I didn't notice them, continuing in the same direction, no awareness as to what I was doing.
The only thing I could see was the loss of hope in the opposing teams face. The only thing I could hear was the chanting of the malicious crowd. The only thing I could feel was a burning anger. Seeing how my team played made everything so much more real to me. I imagined my brother playing against them, how he must have felt, and a fire began to spark in me; A spark that was about to get me into a lot of trouble.
"How did this little butterfly find her way into my web?" His words had been like a brick wall that I had driven right into. I was ripped out of my own mind and shoved back into reality. All thoughts prior to this had shattered like glass right before me.
My eyes refocused on my surroundings, not knowing how I got there, or where there even was, I looked for clues as to what was happening, but all I could see was him. His dark hair, his pale skin, his evil eyes and repulsive grin.
