7

chibahaya

between rivals

—

Hiii people! Sorry for the lack of updates, and sorry for this being short - I promise I'll update more on the summer holidays!

Also I have no idea how to play paintball or what it's like so forgive me please…

—

Hayami was skilled.

Very skilled.

That was quite obvious.

Whether academically or in shooting, she had great talent and everlasting patience. She was professional and business-like, ambitious and stoic.

Hayami was going to be very successful in life.

Broadly speaking, there were only two things that bothered her.

The first was that she was already seventeen and she still hadn't found her soulmate. Like everyone else, Hayami was born was two different coloured eyes - her own natural eye colour and her soulmate's. When she would meet her soulmate, her eyes would automatically turn back to their natural, original colour.

So she walked around with one maroon eye and one green eye, looking a sight, but no different from her other comrades. However, her friends had already found their soulmates - Kanzaki's blue eye changed to brown to match the other, and Okuda's right golden eye turned to an identical purple as her left.

Hayami had looked for ages, but she still hadn't found a man - or woman - with one maroon and one green eye.

It was frustrating and time-consuming.

The second problem was her long-time arch rival in academics and sharpshooting.

Ryunosuke Chiba.

She didn't openly hate him, but held a degree of envy and distaste for him. Chiba disliked her equally as much, if not more.

They had, by fate and coincidence, ended up attending the same primary school, middle school, and high school. She was pretty sure he'd gotten into her university, too.

"I don't understand why you dislike him so much," Kanzaki had said.

That was easy for her to say. Both of Hayami's closest friends were gentle and generous and quiet, like herself, but they seemed to be scientifically unable to dislike a person.

Hayami's annoyance over her two problems were blatantly obvious.

Kanzaki and Okuda were so lucky to have found their soulmates at a ripe young age, so they wouldn't be distracted over finding them when they were older and needed to work. Yes, this was Hayami's main concern.

Chiba…was…different. Whilst he was practically her male clone, he was liked and accepted more than she was. Why was that? It wasn't fair! They acted exactly the same, so what made Chiba, some weird emo, more popular than her?

Hayami was not a petty and selfish woman, but she had a right to be upset by his existence. And that was exactly how she felt.

—

"I mean, you could always put an ad in the newspaper," Okuda suggested brightly. Hayami looked up at her. The ginger found herself once again unused to the absence of the chemist's golden eye - her soulmate Karma's eye colour.

"That would make me seem too desperate," she replied, voice flat and stiff.

Kanzaki set down her phone on which she was most likely texting heart emojis to Sugino with. "But Rinka-chan, if you're very stressed about it, you need to take action."

"I agree with Yuki-chan," Okuda said.

Hayami frowned and looked away - a seemingly typical act of haughtiness to people who didn't know her well, but a familiar representation of shyness to her close friends. "No thanks."

The bell rang loudly, and the three of them stood up. Kanzaki beamed as she spotted her baseballer boyfriend from a distance. "I'd better go grab Sugino for Commerce. See you guys!" She waved cheerily and bounced off.

Hayami rubbed her temples as Okuda silently stuck by her side - two often walked in comfortable silence. Hayami's head ached from seeing all the coupley, mushy nonsense. It made her even more stressed.

She felt guilty for being spiteful towards poor Sugino, who she regularly addressed coldly and robotically due to the grudge she held against him for 'stealing' Kanzaki. Karma attended a different high school (thank goodness) so he didn't face Hayami's pointless wrath - which Okuda was slightly concerned about.

Hayami entered her maths classroom and greeted Fuwa, who was the only student besides Hayami who hadn't found their soulmate. Fuwa had one leaf-green eye and one purple eye, and looked just as strange as Hayami. For that she was grateful.

"Good morning, class," their teacher, Koro-Sensei, greeted, black hair dishevelled (probably from escaping a smash on the head from Irina-sensei). "I'll be a little busy today with some test-marking, so I have a worksheet for all of you!"

The class collectively groaned whilst Koro-Sensei chuckled his strange chuckle. "Hayami, Chiba, do you mind handing these out? Thank you."

Hayami narrowed her eyes at her rival's name. She brisk-walked up to the teacher's desk, but Chiba reached it first. They both scrambled for the smaller pile. He snatched it out of her hands. "You can take the bigger pile," he said, smiling slightly.

Hayami bristled. That little—

Huffing, she diligently started handing out the sheets, internally cursing Chiba.

She sat back down and started working on the problems. She was gifted and smart - knowledge came easily. Twenty minutes later, she finished and scraped her chair back, just as another person did the same.

Her eyes flitted to the back of the room.

Chiba.

He immediately sensed her gaze and borderline ran to Koro-Sensei's desk. Hayami followed suit.

"DONE, SIR!" they both screamed, banging their paper down on the table.

Koro-Sensei looked up. "Excellent. Allow me to check your answers."

At an alarming speed, he marked their worksheets. "Hayami with a 98 and Chiba's all correct. Outstanding!"

Hayami took a deep breath. Two points off. And he got full marks! Ridiculous!

The smugness radiated off Chiba the way heat radiated off a heater (for lack of a better simile). She resisted the urge to punch him and returned to her seat, temporarily humbled for the day.

—

"Where the hell did you get this?" Hayami asked, eyes wide.

Karma grinned. It reminded her vaguely of a crocodile reading to chomp someone's neck in two.

"I have my ways," he answered mysteriously.

"He means he won it from a community event," Okuda quipped helpfully.

"Damn it, Manami! I was trying to sound mysterious!"

"Sorry…"

"I was joking. I love you."

"Oh…sorry."

"You apologise too much."

"I'm not sorry?"

Hayami ignored their playful and loving banter and focused on Karma's birthday present to her. Two vouchers for a one-on-one paintball fight. She remembered the last time she'd help her team become victorious during a three-team paintball war. But these tickets were just for her and a chosen competitor.

And she knew exactly who she wanted to invite.

When Hayami had a mission, nothing would get in her way (except maybe a brick wall and armed guards). She took her keys and phone, put on her ankle boots, and started walking dutifully to Chiba's house.

Good grief, what was she doing? Being an idiot, that's what. However, the competitive streak in her marched on, and so did her ankle boots, and Hayami eventually found herself ringing the doorbell of his house.

He opened the door immediately and looked so shocked that she almost laughed in triumph.

"Hi," she greeted flatly.

"Good morning." His tone was equally stoic. "What are you doing here?"

"Challenging you to a duel."

He straightened up, obviously interested all of a sudden. "What for?"

"Paintball." She shoved one of the vouchers into his hand. "Take it or leave it."

He glanced down at it and she wondered how on earth he could see with those ridiculous bangs. "I will destroy you," he said monotonously and without a trace of excitement, before slamming the door in her face.

Nonetheless, Hayami felt immensely satisfied. She would show Chiba who was superior once and for all.

—

Hayami crouched behind a fake tree, wielding her paintball gun. Her camo outfit - which was both the strangest yet the most stylish paintball gear she had ever worn - was currently spotless, without a trace of paint. She intended it to stay that way. The arena was enormous. Figuring height would give her an advantage, she wordlessly scaled the artificial trunk and found a comfortable viewing spot in the plastic branches.

The room was darkened - which was both good and bad. The neon glow-in-the-dark paint would show up nicely on Chiba's gear when she'd claim her victory.

Hayami made sure to be aware of her surroundings at all times. She knew he would be able to sneak up on her, if he spotted her, and she would not let that happen.

There came a rustling sound from the artificial bushes. Hayami grew alert and spotted a mop of black hair in the foliage. She cautiously spider-crawled along the enormous plastic branch so she was hanging directly above Chiba. Cocking her gun, she aimed it at his head, smiling triumphantly.

Before she could shoot, he did.

A neon paintball came sailing towards her arm. Desperate not to lose, Hayami did the dumbest thing that could possibly come to her mind - she released a sound reminiscent to a dying cat, and leapt off the branch that was hovering three metres in the air.

The next few seconds almost appeared in slow motion. Chiba looked up and opened his mouth to either scream or swear at her. He didn't get the chance to do either, as she toppled on top of him in the most awkward position known to man.

Breathing heavily, Hayami struggled to lift her head from his chest. When she did, she realised that their faces were in ridiculously close proximity to each other.

She gulped.

"I-I'm really sorry," she blurted - the nicest thing she'd said to him all decade. "Are you hurt?"

He rubbed his eyes, and for a split second - and the longest second of Hayami's life - she saw his eyes through his bangs.

More specifically, his eye colour.

Maroon and green.

They locked gazes. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead. Hayami blinked rapidly as his eyes - which were by far the most attractive ones she had ever seen - suddenly turned maroon. And she could bet that her's turned green.

"Um," she started.

Suddenly, a wet and sticky paintball lodged onto her hip.

"I told you I'd destroy you," he said.

—

"How long have you known?" she asked tiredly.

"Too long. But I didn't like you, so I never told you," he responded.

Sitting at a cafe, the only word that could correctly describe Hayami's emotions was overwhelmed.

"This has got to be the most disasterous couple of the millenium," Chiba laughed.

Hayami found herself cracking a small smile too. Goodness, was she in love with him?

Most likely.

They were soulmates, after all.