Spoilers: There may be times when a certain character is OOC, but trust me, not too much. This chapter has Haruko bashing, so beware!
Notes: Thanks to my dear friend, Seranida for adding the bits of conversation where I was hopelessly stuck! I love you girl! You saved my ass again!
CHAPTER TWELVE - Rumors are just Rumors...Time for a Wake-up Call!
Akagi Haruko walked up to the gym, hesitating to enter it as she recalled what had happened earlier that day...
***Flashback***
As she was walking to school with her friends, she noticed Rukawa rounding the corner. What was unusual was that he wasn't on his bike. Instead, he had chosen to actually WALK. And he wasn't even asleep!
Before she could step up to him, she saw the object of her infatuation stop to look over his shoulder at someone who had fallen a step behind. That someone was hunched over and was tying her shoelaces, red hair tumbling past graceful shoulders.
Rukawa walked back to the person and held out his hand to help her up, just as she finished. Haruko swallowed a lump in her throat. It was the new coach, Maléna. She had the complexion every girl in Shohoku High envied, the height of a supermodel, the elegance of a princess, and the reputation of an incredible player. And she had quickly gained a popularity with the boys.
Everyone talked about her at school. How incredible she was as a player back in America, how she helped her basketball team gain a winning streak that had boosted their confidence, and how beautiful she was. Guys dreamt of her, girls hated her, and the teachers doted over her.
And the team she coached at present absolutely loved her.
'Even Rukawa-kun,' she thought, a little bitter at the thought that Maléna had somehow captured his attention without even having to dress up or apply make-up.
"They seem to spend a lot of time together now," Fuji remarked at their retreating figures.
"I know," Matsui agreed. "But you have to admit, they look every bit like the perfect couple. Both of them are tall, model-athlete types. He's silent and brooding, she's sweet and friendly. He's GQ, she's Cover Girl."
"But that's just exterior. He probably thinks of her as a sister, or she doesn't really like him," she added hastily upon seeing the hurt look that registered on Haruko's face.
Haruko quickly cheered up, but doubts were already forming in her mind. What if they already WERE a couple. What if Rukawa was secretly in love with Maléna? She had to agree with her friends that they looked good together, as if they were really made for each other.
They pursued the subject no further as they neared the tall school building that was Shohoku Senior High. But just when they thought their day was going to be fine, the 'Perfect Couple' passed by, with Maléna jabbering about basketball and Rukawa hanging on to her every word, his gaze fixed completely on her. Not even when Maléna saw them and waved at them in greeting did he take notice.
Haruko was completely crushed. "Why is Rukawa-kun acting this way?" she asked herself. "He never talks to me anymore." (A.N: Hel-looo! Like he ever did in the first place!?!)
Her friends looked sympathetic, but didn't know what else to do. After all, Rukawa Kaede never DID talk to Haruko like a normal person, much less smile. Even the Rukawa Brigade that composed of three annoying freshmen girls didn't put up a fight when their idol had started more or less interacting with the new coach.
And Haruko could only watch as 'her Rukawa-kun' got closer and closer to Maléna Hernandez...
***End of Flashback***
Squaring her shoulders, she entered the gym, surprised to find only one person inside who was busy shooting three-pointers. Each shot sailed in a smooth arc and swished into the net, as if they were weightless. Haruko had to admit that Maléna was good. Not just at playing basketball and coaching, but good to people like herself.
Maléna looked up from her practice to find Haruko watching her. "Hi there, Haruko. How've you been?"
"Huh? Oh...I've been okay," she replied, watching as the beautiful Hispanic girl continued her shooting practice. She was completely caught off-guard. Why was Maléna so friendly to her? Was it because Rukawa was already completely hers?
Clearing her throat, Haruko neared the tall, auburn-haired girl, mustering all her courage to ask her...
"Maléna...what do you think of Rukawa-kun?"
The aforementioned girl grinned, continuing her practice. "Well, he's still pretty human in my opinion. I don't just look at him as a player, but as someone I can talk to if need be," came the reply.
"Do you..." she paused. "...do you like him?"
Maléna stilled and slowly turned to face her. "Yes, I do," she answered.
Grey-green orbs peered into dark brown irises. "But it's hard to explain," Maléna continued. "One minute I think to myself that I am training the coldest guy on the planet, the next minute I can sense that there's more to him than just basketball."
One shoulder lifted in a half-shrug. "Maybe I'm being silly, but I know that underneath that cold exterior is a genuine person. Peculiar, yes, but reliable. Just like Hanamichi is, in his own loud-mouthed way."
It was true that Rukawa and Hanamichi were polar opposites, but Maléna sensed that beneath their rivalry was a bond of friendship that bordered on brotherly. Even if they constantly fought, both boys respected each other, although their macho pride demanded that they not show it.
But why was Haruko asking her about this?
"What about you, Haruko? How much do YOU like Rukawa?" the six-footer asked, lobbing the ball into Haruko's court, wanting to know the answer.
When she remained silent, Maléna knew that Haruko had missed the shot. "Do you like him as a basketball player? As a campus big shot? Or am I wrong and you like him because he's pretty much as human and as alive as you or me?" she continued.
Haruko swallowed. She could sense that Maléna was waiting for an answer, but she couldn't speak. It was as if something was lodged in her throat that she couldn't spit out.
'Why is she acting so calm about all of this?' she wondered. 'Is it because...'
'Is Rukawa her boyfriend?'
Haruko hadn't realized that she had spoken aloud until...
"What did you say?" a voice asked.
She tore her gaze from the gym floor only to find herself reflected in curious grey-green irises. "I...I was...well, I was just wondering...Maléna-san..." the petite freshmen stammered.
"Yes?"
"Are you...do you have...that is, any..." she shook her head to clear it before finally asking, "Are you and Rukawa-kun a couple now?"
That did it. The gym was eerily hushed for what seemed like eternity until Maléna held up a newsprint with a picture of her and Rukawa when she treated him and Hanamichi out to dinner, shaking with suppressed outrage. Above it was a caption that read: 'America's Basketball Princess hooks up with Kanagawa's Super Rookie!'
"You read THIS? Are you actually reading TABLOID FODDER?!" she demanded, her voice rising dangerously. A ball of fire rolled around in her gut. Haruko BELIEVED the rumors? That explained the weird looks she and Rukawa had received that morning and the hushed murmurs she heard throughout the school as she passed the corridors leading to the gym. The said issue had sold hot off the press into the waiting hands of the public.
"Well...I...It's just that you've been spending so much time together, I thought that ~"
"You didn't think, Haruko," Maléna interrupted, not bothering to mask her growing anger. "You ASSUMED."
Before Haruko could reply, she went on. "You assumed that because Rukawa spends time with me that we're a couple. Either that, or because I'm a lonely American girl in a foreign country who needs release and the only way I would find it was if I grabbed the nearest boy in my vicinity, am I right? I have had enough of these rumors and hearing you ask a question like that changes my perception of you."
"Let me be honest with you, Haruko. I thought you different. I thought you'd never be like any of Rukawa's groupies and I respected you because you were Akagi's younger sister."
"It turns out that you're a big disappointment. I never thought you'd succumb to pining over the only known walking iceberg in the world. You've let yourself become one of the girls you despise the most and hating me for doing my job as a coach is not helping any. Grow up, for the love of God, Haruko! You're a 16-year-old, not a 6-year-old! And as far as my lovelife is concerned, that is my business, not yours!"
"Our conversation is finished," Maléna said, picking up the basketball and tossing it into the ring with one hand. "You may leave."
Without another word, Akagi Haruko turned and left, too stunned to even think of what to say.
~*~*~
"She blew you off?"
Haruko nodded, swallowing. "She...she called me one of Rukawa-kun's groupies."
Both her friends looked at each other over her head and nodded in agreement. That Maléna certainly was observant. And she had done something they didn't have the heart to do. Tell Haruko a bit of reality.
"I'm not one of those girls! I don't wear those silly pink costumes and wave pompoms in the air, squealing like a pig!"
Fuji and Matsui never realized until now how wrong it was to have encouraged Haruko's infatuation. Every teenager was entitled to have their own crushes and all, and Haruko wasn't an exception.
"Haruko, listen to me. I think what you just did was insult Maléna with what you said. Whether she and Rukawa DO have a relationship is none of anyone's business. Not me, not those groupies…not even you," Fuji said, trying to sound as gentle as possible so as not to hurt Haruko's feelings.
"But you two told me that Rukawa-kun may be thinking about me. I mean, what about the time when I called out to him and he actually stopped…he looked at me and…" Haruko stopped when Matsui interrupted.
"He stopped because you CALLED OUT, Haruko. That's what mostly people with normal hearing do when someone calls out their name. And also, you happen to be the younger sister of his superior, the captain of the basketball club," Matsui pointed out, somehow nearing the end of her patience in trying to make Haruko see the light.
"W-what are you saying?" Haruko asked, somehow knowing what the answer already was.
"Haruko, we don't think he was ever interested in you. Our biggest mistake was to encourage you into thinking so. I mean, the guy's life revolves around basketball and if he wanted a girlfriend in the first place, he could've gotten himself one. If he wasn't so engrossed in basketball, he wouldn't be sleeping in class all the time or riding his bike while still in dreamland," Fuji said in a fast pace, not wanting to back out on telling her friend the truth about what she thought.
"But I love him! I do!" More to herself that to Fuji or Matsui.
"What makes you so sure, huh? Yeah, you've said many times already that you love him but that it was a one-sided love. But if you really love him, what do you know about him? When you love someone, you at least have an idea on what kind of a person that he is aside from the persona that he usually displays to everyone. Given the fact that he's so silent, one would think he's mute or so cold that one would think he's not even human."
Something in Fuji wanted her to stop as Haruko's eyes turned moist, but this was the compensation for making Haruko assume a lot of things. Maléna was right. Tabloid fodder wasn't any philosophical writings about people's lives but just a cheap way of earning money by smattering the pages with lies and half-cooked truths.
Haruko looked dumbly at Fuji, trying to think of what she did know about Rukawa, wanting to prove to her that she did love him. She was beginning to feel hatred towards the two of them. They agreed with Maléna! She thought they were her friends and they agreed with the girl who had stolen Rukawa from her.
"I do know something about Rukawa-kun! He got into the Mythical Five of Kanagawa, he scores an average of 26 points per game, he wears the number 11 on his jersey, he gets roughly 4 rebounds per game, he ~"
"What?! Those are Rukawa's BASKETBALL STATISTICS! Haruko, the only Rukawa you love is the one who plays basketball like an obssesion. You don't love the real person behind him. I mean, do you even know what he likes to eat? Do you know what kind of TV programs he likes to watch? Do you know if he's ticklish? Do you know if he likes to be cuddled? What else do you know about Rukawa except that he's an excellent basketball player?" Fuji continued to barrage Haruko with questions that could help her to get back her common sense.
Haruko looked at them with tears running down her cheeks. Reality came crashing down like a ton of bricks. She didn't know what he liked to eat, she didn't know what kind of TV programs he liked to watch, she didn't know if he was ticklish, she didn't know if he liked to be cuddled.
She knew absolutely nothing about him. Yet for the truth that they had said, she couldn't help but resent them for that. Because she knew it was what she hid from herself for some time now. That she had no reason to really love him except for his being 'Rukawa the Super Rookie.'
What was it that Maléna had mentioned earlier about Rukawa? That she could sense a genuine person under that cold exterior? That she felt there was more to Rukawa than just basketball? That she thought of him as someone she could talk to if need be? How could Maléna know all these things and not her?
'Because she doesn't have to pretend...because she's true to herself...because she's someone you can never be and can never hope to imitate...because she's Maléna and you're Haruko...nothing more...'
That small voice inside her head ended her girlish fantasy in one fell swoop and Haruko promptly burst into sobs. "Why can't I be her? What is it that Rukawa saw in her, anyway? There must be something she has that I don't," she blubbered, unsuccessfully trying to wipe away her tears.
Fuji embraced her then, with Matsui patting her back to soothe her. "There, there...it's okay. We're to blame the most because we didn't tell you the truth in the first place, Haruko...it's not your fault."
The girl in her arms looked up, sniffling. "I can never hope to be like her, Fuji...she's just so perfect!"
There was a hint of contempt in her voice that Matsui wanted to tamp down completely. "Haruko, she's her own person and you're yourself. And she's not perfect at all...I read a recent autobiography written by her parents and do you know what I found?"
Matsui paused to make sure Haruko was listening before she continued.
"She was once dirt-poor, with hardly enough food to eat for a day. She was so sickly, her family thought she would die before she saw her seventh birthday. Do you know by now how lucky you were as a child, compared to what she had to go through? If you could only see her pictures as a kid in that book, you would hardly recognize her."
"Just ask her...get to know more about her and you'll find out that she's been through worse and survived. Haruko, she's not someone to be hated because of her reputation and her present status. You have to look past all that," Matsui finished, nearly breathless from narrating the more painful parts of Maléna's past.
"We're not asking you to get over Rukawa right away, Haruko...These things take time, we know that. All that we're asking you to do is be a little more rational, a little more level-headed about things. As your friends, we would rather tell you the truth before you hear it from other people and get even MORE hurt. Do you understand?" Fuji handed her friend a tissue, smiling gently, comfortingly.
"And we're sorry again for not telling you sooner," she added.
Haruko only nodded mutely, still too overwhelmed to talk about anything. Her friends wisely said nothing more and hustled her off to the classroom before they went to the gym to talk to Maléna.
~*~*~
Maléna sat quietly on the benches with the basketball at her feet, leafing through the tabloid pages and desperately trying to control herself from going over the edge.
'Damn them! No matter where I go, they write about me. They actually have the guts to splash me on the front page!' she ground her teeth, her hands crumpling the sides of the paper.
She SHOULD have gotten used to the attention the media was giving her by now, but facing cameras, popping lightbulbs, paparrazi, microphones and tape recorders still unnerved her to no end. Though she had gained more professionalism in dealing with them, inside she cried out for them to leave her alone and she sometimes wished she had never joined Team USA.
'Good God, Maléna! You KNEW this was going to happen! You knew that once you made that crucial decision, everything would change for you! You'd be under public scrutiny and your life would practically be under a microscope!' a voice yelled at her, pounding her brain and making her angrier with herself.
"It was a matter of life and death for my family! I HAD to make a choice!" she shouted back. "I never wanted this! I never wanted what I have now, but my family NEEDED to be saved! I was the only one who saved them! The only one!"
"...Maléna-san..."
She looked up to find two girls standing by the doorway, looking very unsure. No doubt they had witnessed her sudden outburst and she felt the embarrassment creep in. Smiling weakly, she motioned for them to step inside.
They looked very familiar, but with the faces she had seen and the names she had been introduced to, it was quite difficult to recall. All she remembered was that she had seen them hanging out with Haruko during practice.
Thinking about Haruko made Maléna feel guilty. She had not meant to throw a tantrum and raise her voice at the girl, but things had just become so stressful for her and she had gotten easily affected by the early morning issue that was selling like hotcakes.
"Are you Haruko's friends?" she asked.
They nodded.
Closing her eyes, Maléna searched her memory bank for their names. "Ummm...let me see...I think you're uh...Fuji, I think was your name...and you're Matsui...probably."
Scratching her head, she grinned sheepishly before sighing. "Sorry, I seem to be forgetting names. I meet a lot of people and they're mostly faceless so I forget...But I DO try my best to remember."
Fuji shook her head. "Iie...it's okay. We understand."
For a while, neither of them spoke until Maléna opened her mouth. "I take it you already know the argument I had with Haruko a while back. I'm sorry I never gave her a chance to explain. It was wrong of me to flare up at her for something she didn't mean to do." She sighed again, running a hand through her hair.
Maléna looked so tired just then and a whole lot older to them as they sat down on the benches. In the harsh light, she looked like a 20-year-old, not a 16-year-old. The dejected slump of the Latina's shoulders told them as much and both Fuji and Matsui felt sorry for her as much as they felt sorry for Haruko.
"I'm sure Haruko's very much hurt and insulted and I am very sorry for what I had yelled at her to her face. I guess I'm still not used to the fact that I'm living a life under the eye of the public now. I regret not behaving maturely and ~"
"You did nothing wrong, Maléna-san," Fuji interrupted kindly, hesitating a bit before she finally placed her right hand on a slender arm.
"Uh...can we lose the -san part? I get a little uncomfortable with that, too."
Matsui smiled. Maléna was still as normal as her next-door neighbor. "You had a right to feel that way about what Haruko assumed. And you had the right to react the way you did to what was written about you that wasn't true. But you see, it's not very easy for her to see you get along so easily with the guy she's been crushing on for a long time."
The red-head looked thoughtful. "I do remember Ayako mentioning Haruko's crush on Rukawa, but I didn't think it was that serious. I even told Ayako that 'fixation' was too strong a word to describe that. Maybe I should step back so Haruko can talk to him. I must have been taking up too much of his time. It's my fault she feels that way."
Matsui looked as surprised as Fuji. Never in their lives had they come across a person who looked like one big walking guilt trip! Here they were, trying to tell Maléna that she was NOT AT FAULT, but she was taking the blame upon herself! For a moment, they saw the person she truly was and not the celebrity athlete she had become and their admiration for her grew.
"We're the ones most at fault, Maléna. We encouraged Haruko's feelings and because of that, she thought Rukawa had feelings for her, even if only a little bit. When you first arrived and Rukawa started following you around, even if he did it unconsciously, Haruko started to feel bitter about the fact that you caught her crush's attention so easily."
"To make matters worse, we STILL encouraged her, making her think you were blatantly flirting with Rukawa. So you see, Maléna, the fault was never with you. It was with us. We didn't act like the true friends we should have been and tell her that it was already obvious that Rukawa was already showing interest in you from the very start. The fact that you didn't seem to notice it added to Haruko's bitterness. She told us you had stolen Rukawa from her."
"Exactly why I should let those two have time to talk," Maléna replied, looking down at the newsprint that now lay covering the basketball.
Fuji shook her head. "Even if you did, things would be awkward and Rukawa would be thrust into a position he wouldn't like. The best thing we can do is give each other time..."
For a while Maléna was quiet, bending down to pick up the basketball from underneath the tabloid. She stared at the orange sphere in her hands for a long moment and then she looked at the both of them, a look of forgiveness written all over her face. "Then I'll talk to Haruko later. I think it would be best to patch things up. The sooner, the better."
~*~*~
She wouldn't stop crying. All throughout her class, only her sniffles were audible in the quiet classroom. The teacher diagnosed a mild cold and whisked her away to the clinic. Only her friends knew that it wasn't a cold, but a girl who had just been doused with an ice cold bucket of water known as truth.
As soon as Haruko had left for the clinic, a gentle knock on their classroom door brought them to attention. When the teacher slid it open, he was more than surprised to see Maléna standing outside. He had to take a few steps back just to see her face as she towered over him by more than a head.
"Oh...Maléna...This is such a surprise for you to come to our class. Is there a problem?" Everyone, especially the boys turned their attention to the doorway, leaning forward to catch bits of the conversation.
"I was just wondering if Akagi Haruko is here, sensei. I'd like to borrow her for a while if you may."
The teacher shook his head and smiled politely. "You just missed her. I sent her to the clinic. I think she has a mild cold."
"Okay...then I will see her there. Arigato gozaimasu, sensei." She bowed respectfully to the teacher, turned swiftly on her heel and was gone.
Clapping his hands to bring their attention to the front, the teacher began furiously writing sentences on the board. "Now, let's proceed to logical fallacies, class. Open your textbooks to page 87," he droned on, ignoring the reluctant groans from the students.
~*~*~
Akagi Haruko had been lying on the sofa for quite some time when she heard the door open, telling her that someone had just entered. She couldn't see who it was as her view was blocked by the curtain, but when the nurse opened it, she stiffened.
There standing right in front of her was the girl who was the cause of her misery. Her resentment boiled to the surface, but in her anger she couldn't speak, she couldn't lash out. She just lay there, staring into those grey-green eyes, her vexation making her mute.
It was Maléna who spoke first. "I came here to speak to you, Haruko. And I think I owe you an apology."
Haruko was surprised. Definitely, totally surprised. The girl was apologizing to her now? But her face hardened again, remembering that the person standing in front of her was the one who had stolen her love.
The taller lass pulled out a chair, bringing it in front of her and straddling it, like she usually did during team practice. Everyone knew that was her accustomed sitting position.
"I'm sorry for saying all those mean things to your face, Haruko. It wasn't very fair of me."
"But," she added. "That's not the only reason why I'm here. I came here to talk to you about Rukawa."
"I don't want to talk about it," Haruko suddenly snapped, averting her gaze to the ceiling.
Maléna sighed, ignoring that comment. She then decided that it would be best to tell everything straight instead of beating around the bush. It certainly wasn't going to work in a situation like this.
"You know, I have to admit the guy is good-looking. Although not good-looking enough for me to swoon at his feet. I'm 6'2" and that would make me look really stupid and clumsy," she smiled, trying to imagine herself 'swooning' in front of the rookie. It was a ridiculous picture that tickled her so much she giggled.
Seeing that Haruko was giving her a weird look, she quickly collected herself together. "Your friends talked to me a while back. I think we need to clarify a few things about Rukawa now. About how you feel about him, how I feel about him, and what we should put aside about him."
"He likes you. It's so obvious," Haruko spat out bitterly, crossing her arms in front of her chest. Gone was the shy, meek freshman Maléna once saw. In her place was a girl so full of resentment it nearly overflowed.
Maléna shook her head disbelievingly. "You're the second person to say that, after Ayako. And really now, I find that quite laughable. There's nothing extraordinay about me and I never considered myself attractive in the first place. I hate a lot of things about myself, Haruko, did I ever tell you that?"
"I hate my hair color, the way my hair frizzes out if I don't blow-dry it. I hate that I'm too thin for my height. I hate the way my butt sticks out, I don't like my height at all since I could never get a date. All the boys I ever liked found me too skinny at one time, too tall another time and too much of a bitch, as well. I hate the way my shoulders seem to slump most of the time, and no matter how much I exercised, I could never get the broad-shouldered look I wanted. The only thing I ever liked about myself since I was a kid was the color of my eyes."
"When Ayako told me about Rukawa, do you know what my first reaction was? I laughed. I laughed so hard I thought my sides would split. And do you know that he insulted me and that I had to beat him to gain at least a smidgen of respect from him?"
"Haruko, I'm not nice to him all the time. In fact, I yell at him more often than the others on the team. That's another thing I'm trying to change: the bad temper I inherited from my father," she wrinkled her nose at the mere mention of her infamous temper. Definitely Spanish, everyone had remarked, the first time she had lost her temper and slapped Hanamichi.
Maléna's mother was as gentle as her father was strict, and even her older brothers took after him in that department. Only Neil had been the gentle one in the family. She shook her head, trying to erase the painful memories of her youngest brother. 'Cancel, cancel,' she told herself, noticing all of a sudden that Haruko was sitting up, listening to her.
"Why do you yell at Rukawa?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. I guess because we're both stubborn and I usually like having the last word. And because he insulted me. He said that a girl like me could never be good at basketball. I was so angry that he had stereotyped me that I wanted to prove him wrong. And I did. Very easily, I must add. He made me so fighting mad, I itched to break that nose of his and give him two black eyes. And maybe give him a mouthful of broken teeth, too."
Grinning sheepishly at the look of shock that registered on Haruko's face, Maléna scratched the back of her head. "Hehe...I knew my revelation would shock you. Ayako nearly fell out of the chair when I told her. Usually, I ignore people who try to get my goat and I try to be patient most of the time, but Rukawa succeeded in bringing out the worst of me. I don't know if he revels in provoking people to anger or if he just doesn't know how to act civilized towards others."
A brief smile flickered then died, replaced with a look of sadness. "But he likes you, Maléna. He follows you around, he walks with you to school, he hangs out with you after practice, he goes near you most of the time just to get you to talk to him...and I've seen him stare at you so many times already when you were busy with the others."
Maléna reached out and patted Haruko on the shoulder. "You can't make me believe that very easily, Haruko. I'm very stubborn, like I told you earlier. All I can see in Rukawa right now is that he has the makings of a great basketball player with extremely poor people skills. He listens to me, yes, but only because I told him that I'm more comfortable around him and Hanamichi than the rest of the guys. And if he DOES stare at me like you say so, it's most probably because he's planning on how to defeat me."
Haruko sighed just then, feeling tears well up in her eyes. "He sees something in you that I don't have. You should be happy that you have the attention of the most sought-after guy on campus...everyone envies you, can't you see?"
"And I envy them as well. I envy everyone else around me," came the soft reply, surprising Haruko the nth time that day.
"Why?"
"Because I want a normal life. Because I want my life to be the way it was before. Nevermind that I was once poor, but I would rather have that than live like this, always having to smile for people because they expect me to be so perfect. I can't do any crazy stuff because my reputation as a clean-cut person puts restrictions. While you...you people are just so lucky to do whatever you want without being judged by anyone else..."
Maléna put her arms around the smaller girl, feeling the familiar wetness of tears on her shoulder as Haruko returned the hug, crying her heart out. How many times had she once cried like that when she was little? How many times had she once wept because she pitied her family so much for having to suffer because of her? That pity was what led her to decide, what led her to finally cling to the knife's edge in the hopes of saving them.
Sympathy be damned. She was pathetic. She felt this way because she had nothing but the best intentions in mind that later put her life to risk.She was no longer normal. She had to choke down on her bean curd and swallow it bravely, as she continued to deal with vultures that flocked to her, trying to drain her of energy, trying to exhaust her of everything and finding her weakness.
In the silence that followed, Maléna then realized that Haruko had forgiven her.
And she wanted to become her friend.
~*~*~
TBC
Author's notes: I apologize that this Haruko-bashing scene truned out to be longer than I thought...This wasn't what I had in mind! ::smacks forhead against the monitor:: Don't worry, minna! The three-on-three will DEFINITELY be in the next chapter! Enjoy!
Notes: Thanks to my dear friend, Seranida for adding the bits of conversation where I was hopelessly stuck! I love you girl! You saved my ass again!
CHAPTER TWELVE - Rumors are just Rumors...Time for a Wake-up Call!
Akagi Haruko walked up to the gym, hesitating to enter it as she recalled what had happened earlier that day...
***Flashback***
As she was walking to school with her friends, she noticed Rukawa rounding the corner. What was unusual was that he wasn't on his bike. Instead, he had chosen to actually WALK. And he wasn't even asleep!
Before she could step up to him, she saw the object of her infatuation stop to look over his shoulder at someone who had fallen a step behind. That someone was hunched over and was tying her shoelaces, red hair tumbling past graceful shoulders.
Rukawa walked back to the person and held out his hand to help her up, just as she finished. Haruko swallowed a lump in her throat. It was the new coach, Maléna. She had the complexion every girl in Shohoku High envied, the height of a supermodel, the elegance of a princess, and the reputation of an incredible player. And she had quickly gained a popularity with the boys.
Everyone talked about her at school. How incredible she was as a player back in America, how she helped her basketball team gain a winning streak that had boosted their confidence, and how beautiful she was. Guys dreamt of her, girls hated her, and the teachers doted over her.
And the team she coached at present absolutely loved her.
'Even Rukawa-kun,' she thought, a little bitter at the thought that Maléna had somehow captured his attention without even having to dress up or apply make-up.
"They seem to spend a lot of time together now," Fuji remarked at their retreating figures.
"I know," Matsui agreed. "But you have to admit, they look every bit like the perfect couple. Both of them are tall, model-athlete types. He's silent and brooding, she's sweet and friendly. He's GQ, she's Cover Girl."
"But that's just exterior. He probably thinks of her as a sister, or she doesn't really like him," she added hastily upon seeing the hurt look that registered on Haruko's face.
Haruko quickly cheered up, but doubts were already forming in her mind. What if they already WERE a couple. What if Rukawa was secretly in love with Maléna? She had to agree with her friends that they looked good together, as if they were really made for each other.
They pursued the subject no further as they neared the tall school building that was Shohoku Senior High. But just when they thought their day was going to be fine, the 'Perfect Couple' passed by, with Maléna jabbering about basketball and Rukawa hanging on to her every word, his gaze fixed completely on her. Not even when Maléna saw them and waved at them in greeting did he take notice.
Haruko was completely crushed. "Why is Rukawa-kun acting this way?" she asked herself. "He never talks to me anymore." (A.N: Hel-looo! Like he ever did in the first place!?!)
Her friends looked sympathetic, but didn't know what else to do. After all, Rukawa Kaede never DID talk to Haruko like a normal person, much less smile. Even the Rukawa Brigade that composed of three annoying freshmen girls didn't put up a fight when their idol had started more or less interacting with the new coach.
And Haruko could only watch as 'her Rukawa-kun' got closer and closer to Maléna Hernandez...
***End of Flashback***
Squaring her shoulders, she entered the gym, surprised to find only one person inside who was busy shooting three-pointers. Each shot sailed in a smooth arc and swished into the net, as if they were weightless. Haruko had to admit that Maléna was good. Not just at playing basketball and coaching, but good to people like herself.
Maléna looked up from her practice to find Haruko watching her. "Hi there, Haruko. How've you been?"
"Huh? Oh...I've been okay," she replied, watching as the beautiful Hispanic girl continued her shooting practice. She was completely caught off-guard. Why was Maléna so friendly to her? Was it because Rukawa was already completely hers?
Clearing her throat, Haruko neared the tall, auburn-haired girl, mustering all her courage to ask her...
"Maléna...what do you think of Rukawa-kun?"
The aforementioned girl grinned, continuing her practice. "Well, he's still pretty human in my opinion. I don't just look at him as a player, but as someone I can talk to if need be," came the reply.
"Do you..." she paused. "...do you like him?"
Maléna stilled and slowly turned to face her. "Yes, I do," she answered.
Grey-green orbs peered into dark brown irises. "But it's hard to explain," Maléna continued. "One minute I think to myself that I am training the coldest guy on the planet, the next minute I can sense that there's more to him than just basketball."
One shoulder lifted in a half-shrug. "Maybe I'm being silly, but I know that underneath that cold exterior is a genuine person. Peculiar, yes, but reliable. Just like Hanamichi is, in his own loud-mouthed way."
It was true that Rukawa and Hanamichi were polar opposites, but Maléna sensed that beneath their rivalry was a bond of friendship that bordered on brotherly. Even if they constantly fought, both boys respected each other, although their macho pride demanded that they not show it.
But why was Haruko asking her about this?
"What about you, Haruko? How much do YOU like Rukawa?" the six-footer asked, lobbing the ball into Haruko's court, wanting to know the answer.
When she remained silent, Maléna knew that Haruko had missed the shot. "Do you like him as a basketball player? As a campus big shot? Or am I wrong and you like him because he's pretty much as human and as alive as you or me?" she continued.
Haruko swallowed. She could sense that Maléna was waiting for an answer, but she couldn't speak. It was as if something was lodged in her throat that she couldn't spit out.
'Why is she acting so calm about all of this?' she wondered. 'Is it because...'
'Is Rukawa her boyfriend?'
Haruko hadn't realized that she had spoken aloud until...
"What did you say?" a voice asked.
She tore her gaze from the gym floor only to find herself reflected in curious grey-green irises. "I...I was...well, I was just wondering...Maléna-san..." the petite freshmen stammered.
"Yes?"
"Are you...do you have...that is, any..." she shook her head to clear it before finally asking, "Are you and Rukawa-kun a couple now?"
That did it. The gym was eerily hushed for what seemed like eternity until Maléna held up a newsprint with a picture of her and Rukawa when she treated him and Hanamichi out to dinner, shaking with suppressed outrage. Above it was a caption that read: 'America's Basketball Princess hooks up with Kanagawa's Super Rookie!'
"You read THIS? Are you actually reading TABLOID FODDER?!" she demanded, her voice rising dangerously. A ball of fire rolled around in her gut. Haruko BELIEVED the rumors? That explained the weird looks she and Rukawa had received that morning and the hushed murmurs she heard throughout the school as she passed the corridors leading to the gym. The said issue had sold hot off the press into the waiting hands of the public.
"Well...I...It's just that you've been spending so much time together, I thought that ~"
"You didn't think, Haruko," Maléna interrupted, not bothering to mask her growing anger. "You ASSUMED."
Before Haruko could reply, she went on. "You assumed that because Rukawa spends time with me that we're a couple. Either that, or because I'm a lonely American girl in a foreign country who needs release and the only way I would find it was if I grabbed the nearest boy in my vicinity, am I right? I have had enough of these rumors and hearing you ask a question like that changes my perception of you."
"Let me be honest with you, Haruko. I thought you different. I thought you'd never be like any of Rukawa's groupies and I respected you because you were Akagi's younger sister."
"It turns out that you're a big disappointment. I never thought you'd succumb to pining over the only known walking iceberg in the world. You've let yourself become one of the girls you despise the most and hating me for doing my job as a coach is not helping any. Grow up, for the love of God, Haruko! You're a 16-year-old, not a 6-year-old! And as far as my lovelife is concerned, that is my business, not yours!"
"Our conversation is finished," Maléna said, picking up the basketball and tossing it into the ring with one hand. "You may leave."
Without another word, Akagi Haruko turned and left, too stunned to even think of what to say.
~*~*~
"She blew you off?"
Haruko nodded, swallowing. "She...she called me one of Rukawa-kun's groupies."
Both her friends looked at each other over her head and nodded in agreement. That Maléna certainly was observant. And she had done something they didn't have the heart to do. Tell Haruko a bit of reality.
"I'm not one of those girls! I don't wear those silly pink costumes and wave pompoms in the air, squealing like a pig!"
Fuji and Matsui never realized until now how wrong it was to have encouraged Haruko's infatuation. Every teenager was entitled to have their own crushes and all, and Haruko wasn't an exception.
"Haruko, listen to me. I think what you just did was insult Maléna with what you said. Whether she and Rukawa DO have a relationship is none of anyone's business. Not me, not those groupies…not even you," Fuji said, trying to sound as gentle as possible so as not to hurt Haruko's feelings.
"But you two told me that Rukawa-kun may be thinking about me. I mean, what about the time when I called out to him and he actually stopped…he looked at me and…" Haruko stopped when Matsui interrupted.
"He stopped because you CALLED OUT, Haruko. That's what mostly people with normal hearing do when someone calls out their name. And also, you happen to be the younger sister of his superior, the captain of the basketball club," Matsui pointed out, somehow nearing the end of her patience in trying to make Haruko see the light.
"W-what are you saying?" Haruko asked, somehow knowing what the answer already was.
"Haruko, we don't think he was ever interested in you. Our biggest mistake was to encourage you into thinking so. I mean, the guy's life revolves around basketball and if he wanted a girlfriend in the first place, he could've gotten himself one. If he wasn't so engrossed in basketball, he wouldn't be sleeping in class all the time or riding his bike while still in dreamland," Fuji said in a fast pace, not wanting to back out on telling her friend the truth about what she thought.
"But I love him! I do!" More to herself that to Fuji or Matsui.
"What makes you so sure, huh? Yeah, you've said many times already that you love him but that it was a one-sided love. But if you really love him, what do you know about him? When you love someone, you at least have an idea on what kind of a person that he is aside from the persona that he usually displays to everyone. Given the fact that he's so silent, one would think he's mute or so cold that one would think he's not even human."
Something in Fuji wanted her to stop as Haruko's eyes turned moist, but this was the compensation for making Haruko assume a lot of things. Maléna was right. Tabloid fodder wasn't any philosophical writings about people's lives but just a cheap way of earning money by smattering the pages with lies and half-cooked truths.
Haruko looked dumbly at Fuji, trying to think of what she did know about Rukawa, wanting to prove to her that she did love him. She was beginning to feel hatred towards the two of them. They agreed with Maléna! She thought they were her friends and they agreed with the girl who had stolen Rukawa from her.
"I do know something about Rukawa-kun! He got into the Mythical Five of Kanagawa, he scores an average of 26 points per game, he wears the number 11 on his jersey, he gets roughly 4 rebounds per game, he ~"
"What?! Those are Rukawa's BASKETBALL STATISTICS! Haruko, the only Rukawa you love is the one who plays basketball like an obssesion. You don't love the real person behind him. I mean, do you even know what he likes to eat? Do you know what kind of TV programs he likes to watch? Do you know if he's ticklish? Do you know if he likes to be cuddled? What else do you know about Rukawa except that he's an excellent basketball player?" Fuji continued to barrage Haruko with questions that could help her to get back her common sense.
Haruko looked at them with tears running down her cheeks. Reality came crashing down like a ton of bricks. She didn't know what he liked to eat, she didn't know what kind of TV programs he liked to watch, she didn't know if he was ticklish, she didn't know if he liked to be cuddled.
She knew absolutely nothing about him. Yet for the truth that they had said, she couldn't help but resent them for that. Because she knew it was what she hid from herself for some time now. That she had no reason to really love him except for his being 'Rukawa the Super Rookie.'
What was it that Maléna had mentioned earlier about Rukawa? That she could sense a genuine person under that cold exterior? That she felt there was more to Rukawa than just basketball? That she thought of him as someone she could talk to if need be? How could Maléna know all these things and not her?
'Because she doesn't have to pretend...because she's true to herself...because she's someone you can never be and can never hope to imitate...because she's Maléna and you're Haruko...nothing more...'
That small voice inside her head ended her girlish fantasy in one fell swoop and Haruko promptly burst into sobs. "Why can't I be her? What is it that Rukawa saw in her, anyway? There must be something she has that I don't," she blubbered, unsuccessfully trying to wipe away her tears.
Fuji embraced her then, with Matsui patting her back to soothe her. "There, there...it's okay. We're to blame the most because we didn't tell you the truth in the first place, Haruko...it's not your fault."
The girl in her arms looked up, sniffling. "I can never hope to be like her, Fuji...she's just so perfect!"
There was a hint of contempt in her voice that Matsui wanted to tamp down completely. "Haruko, she's her own person and you're yourself. And she's not perfect at all...I read a recent autobiography written by her parents and do you know what I found?"
Matsui paused to make sure Haruko was listening before she continued.
"She was once dirt-poor, with hardly enough food to eat for a day. She was so sickly, her family thought she would die before she saw her seventh birthday. Do you know by now how lucky you were as a child, compared to what she had to go through? If you could only see her pictures as a kid in that book, you would hardly recognize her."
"Just ask her...get to know more about her and you'll find out that she's been through worse and survived. Haruko, she's not someone to be hated because of her reputation and her present status. You have to look past all that," Matsui finished, nearly breathless from narrating the more painful parts of Maléna's past.
"We're not asking you to get over Rukawa right away, Haruko...These things take time, we know that. All that we're asking you to do is be a little more rational, a little more level-headed about things. As your friends, we would rather tell you the truth before you hear it from other people and get even MORE hurt. Do you understand?" Fuji handed her friend a tissue, smiling gently, comfortingly.
"And we're sorry again for not telling you sooner," she added.
Haruko only nodded mutely, still too overwhelmed to talk about anything. Her friends wisely said nothing more and hustled her off to the classroom before they went to the gym to talk to Maléna.
~*~*~
Maléna sat quietly on the benches with the basketball at her feet, leafing through the tabloid pages and desperately trying to control herself from going over the edge.
'Damn them! No matter where I go, they write about me. They actually have the guts to splash me on the front page!' she ground her teeth, her hands crumpling the sides of the paper.
She SHOULD have gotten used to the attention the media was giving her by now, but facing cameras, popping lightbulbs, paparrazi, microphones and tape recorders still unnerved her to no end. Though she had gained more professionalism in dealing with them, inside she cried out for them to leave her alone and she sometimes wished she had never joined Team USA.
'Good God, Maléna! You KNEW this was going to happen! You knew that once you made that crucial decision, everything would change for you! You'd be under public scrutiny and your life would practically be under a microscope!' a voice yelled at her, pounding her brain and making her angrier with herself.
"It was a matter of life and death for my family! I HAD to make a choice!" she shouted back. "I never wanted this! I never wanted what I have now, but my family NEEDED to be saved! I was the only one who saved them! The only one!"
"...Maléna-san..."
She looked up to find two girls standing by the doorway, looking very unsure. No doubt they had witnessed her sudden outburst and she felt the embarrassment creep in. Smiling weakly, she motioned for them to step inside.
They looked very familiar, but with the faces she had seen and the names she had been introduced to, it was quite difficult to recall. All she remembered was that she had seen them hanging out with Haruko during practice.
Thinking about Haruko made Maléna feel guilty. She had not meant to throw a tantrum and raise her voice at the girl, but things had just become so stressful for her and she had gotten easily affected by the early morning issue that was selling like hotcakes.
"Are you Haruko's friends?" she asked.
They nodded.
Closing her eyes, Maléna searched her memory bank for their names. "Ummm...let me see...I think you're uh...Fuji, I think was your name...and you're Matsui...probably."
Scratching her head, she grinned sheepishly before sighing. "Sorry, I seem to be forgetting names. I meet a lot of people and they're mostly faceless so I forget...But I DO try my best to remember."
Fuji shook her head. "Iie...it's okay. We understand."
For a while, neither of them spoke until Maléna opened her mouth. "I take it you already know the argument I had with Haruko a while back. I'm sorry I never gave her a chance to explain. It was wrong of me to flare up at her for something she didn't mean to do." She sighed again, running a hand through her hair.
Maléna looked so tired just then and a whole lot older to them as they sat down on the benches. In the harsh light, she looked like a 20-year-old, not a 16-year-old. The dejected slump of the Latina's shoulders told them as much and both Fuji and Matsui felt sorry for her as much as they felt sorry for Haruko.
"I'm sure Haruko's very much hurt and insulted and I am very sorry for what I had yelled at her to her face. I guess I'm still not used to the fact that I'm living a life under the eye of the public now. I regret not behaving maturely and ~"
"You did nothing wrong, Maléna-san," Fuji interrupted kindly, hesitating a bit before she finally placed her right hand on a slender arm.
"Uh...can we lose the -san part? I get a little uncomfortable with that, too."
Matsui smiled. Maléna was still as normal as her next-door neighbor. "You had a right to feel that way about what Haruko assumed. And you had the right to react the way you did to what was written about you that wasn't true. But you see, it's not very easy for her to see you get along so easily with the guy she's been crushing on for a long time."
The red-head looked thoughtful. "I do remember Ayako mentioning Haruko's crush on Rukawa, but I didn't think it was that serious. I even told Ayako that 'fixation' was too strong a word to describe that. Maybe I should step back so Haruko can talk to him. I must have been taking up too much of his time. It's my fault she feels that way."
Matsui looked as surprised as Fuji. Never in their lives had they come across a person who looked like one big walking guilt trip! Here they were, trying to tell Maléna that she was NOT AT FAULT, but she was taking the blame upon herself! For a moment, they saw the person she truly was and not the celebrity athlete she had become and their admiration for her grew.
"We're the ones most at fault, Maléna. We encouraged Haruko's feelings and because of that, she thought Rukawa had feelings for her, even if only a little bit. When you first arrived and Rukawa started following you around, even if he did it unconsciously, Haruko started to feel bitter about the fact that you caught her crush's attention so easily."
"To make matters worse, we STILL encouraged her, making her think you were blatantly flirting with Rukawa. So you see, Maléna, the fault was never with you. It was with us. We didn't act like the true friends we should have been and tell her that it was already obvious that Rukawa was already showing interest in you from the very start. The fact that you didn't seem to notice it added to Haruko's bitterness. She told us you had stolen Rukawa from her."
"Exactly why I should let those two have time to talk," Maléna replied, looking down at the newsprint that now lay covering the basketball.
Fuji shook her head. "Even if you did, things would be awkward and Rukawa would be thrust into a position he wouldn't like. The best thing we can do is give each other time..."
For a while Maléna was quiet, bending down to pick up the basketball from underneath the tabloid. She stared at the orange sphere in her hands for a long moment and then she looked at the both of them, a look of forgiveness written all over her face. "Then I'll talk to Haruko later. I think it would be best to patch things up. The sooner, the better."
~*~*~
She wouldn't stop crying. All throughout her class, only her sniffles were audible in the quiet classroom. The teacher diagnosed a mild cold and whisked her away to the clinic. Only her friends knew that it wasn't a cold, but a girl who had just been doused with an ice cold bucket of water known as truth.
As soon as Haruko had left for the clinic, a gentle knock on their classroom door brought them to attention. When the teacher slid it open, he was more than surprised to see Maléna standing outside. He had to take a few steps back just to see her face as she towered over him by more than a head.
"Oh...Maléna...This is such a surprise for you to come to our class. Is there a problem?" Everyone, especially the boys turned their attention to the doorway, leaning forward to catch bits of the conversation.
"I was just wondering if Akagi Haruko is here, sensei. I'd like to borrow her for a while if you may."
The teacher shook his head and smiled politely. "You just missed her. I sent her to the clinic. I think she has a mild cold."
"Okay...then I will see her there. Arigato gozaimasu, sensei." She bowed respectfully to the teacher, turned swiftly on her heel and was gone.
Clapping his hands to bring their attention to the front, the teacher began furiously writing sentences on the board. "Now, let's proceed to logical fallacies, class. Open your textbooks to page 87," he droned on, ignoring the reluctant groans from the students.
~*~*~
Akagi Haruko had been lying on the sofa for quite some time when she heard the door open, telling her that someone had just entered. She couldn't see who it was as her view was blocked by the curtain, but when the nurse opened it, she stiffened.
There standing right in front of her was the girl who was the cause of her misery. Her resentment boiled to the surface, but in her anger she couldn't speak, she couldn't lash out. She just lay there, staring into those grey-green eyes, her vexation making her mute.
It was Maléna who spoke first. "I came here to speak to you, Haruko. And I think I owe you an apology."
Haruko was surprised. Definitely, totally surprised. The girl was apologizing to her now? But her face hardened again, remembering that the person standing in front of her was the one who had stolen her love.
The taller lass pulled out a chair, bringing it in front of her and straddling it, like she usually did during team practice. Everyone knew that was her accustomed sitting position.
"I'm sorry for saying all those mean things to your face, Haruko. It wasn't very fair of me."
"But," she added. "That's not the only reason why I'm here. I came here to talk to you about Rukawa."
"I don't want to talk about it," Haruko suddenly snapped, averting her gaze to the ceiling.
Maléna sighed, ignoring that comment. She then decided that it would be best to tell everything straight instead of beating around the bush. It certainly wasn't going to work in a situation like this.
"You know, I have to admit the guy is good-looking. Although not good-looking enough for me to swoon at his feet. I'm 6'2" and that would make me look really stupid and clumsy," she smiled, trying to imagine herself 'swooning' in front of the rookie. It was a ridiculous picture that tickled her so much she giggled.
Seeing that Haruko was giving her a weird look, she quickly collected herself together. "Your friends talked to me a while back. I think we need to clarify a few things about Rukawa now. About how you feel about him, how I feel about him, and what we should put aside about him."
"He likes you. It's so obvious," Haruko spat out bitterly, crossing her arms in front of her chest. Gone was the shy, meek freshman Maléna once saw. In her place was a girl so full of resentment it nearly overflowed.
Maléna shook her head disbelievingly. "You're the second person to say that, after Ayako. And really now, I find that quite laughable. There's nothing extraordinay about me and I never considered myself attractive in the first place. I hate a lot of things about myself, Haruko, did I ever tell you that?"
"I hate my hair color, the way my hair frizzes out if I don't blow-dry it. I hate that I'm too thin for my height. I hate the way my butt sticks out, I don't like my height at all since I could never get a date. All the boys I ever liked found me too skinny at one time, too tall another time and too much of a bitch, as well. I hate the way my shoulders seem to slump most of the time, and no matter how much I exercised, I could never get the broad-shouldered look I wanted. The only thing I ever liked about myself since I was a kid was the color of my eyes."
"When Ayako told me about Rukawa, do you know what my first reaction was? I laughed. I laughed so hard I thought my sides would split. And do you know that he insulted me and that I had to beat him to gain at least a smidgen of respect from him?"
"Haruko, I'm not nice to him all the time. In fact, I yell at him more often than the others on the team. That's another thing I'm trying to change: the bad temper I inherited from my father," she wrinkled her nose at the mere mention of her infamous temper. Definitely Spanish, everyone had remarked, the first time she had lost her temper and slapped Hanamichi.
Maléna's mother was as gentle as her father was strict, and even her older brothers took after him in that department. Only Neil had been the gentle one in the family. She shook her head, trying to erase the painful memories of her youngest brother. 'Cancel, cancel,' she told herself, noticing all of a sudden that Haruko was sitting up, listening to her.
"Why do you yell at Rukawa?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. I guess because we're both stubborn and I usually like having the last word. And because he insulted me. He said that a girl like me could never be good at basketball. I was so angry that he had stereotyped me that I wanted to prove him wrong. And I did. Very easily, I must add. He made me so fighting mad, I itched to break that nose of his and give him two black eyes. And maybe give him a mouthful of broken teeth, too."
Grinning sheepishly at the look of shock that registered on Haruko's face, Maléna scratched the back of her head. "Hehe...I knew my revelation would shock you. Ayako nearly fell out of the chair when I told her. Usually, I ignore people who try to get my goat and I try to be patient most of the time, but Rukawa succeeded in bringing out the worst of me. I don't know if he revels in provoking people to anger or if he just doesn't know how to act civilized towards others."
A brief smile flickered then died, replaced with a look of sadness. "But he likes you, Maléna. He follows you around, he walks with you to school, he hangs out with you after practice, he goes near you most of the time just to get you to talk to him...and I've seen him stare at you so many times already when you were busy with the others."
Maléna reached out and patted Haruko on the shoulder. "You can't make me believe that very easily, Haruko. I'm very stubborn, like I told you earlier. All I can see in Rukawa right now is that he has the makings of a great basketball player with extremely poor people skills. He listens to me, yes, but only because I told him that I'm more comfortable around him and Hanamichi than the rest of the guys. And if he DOES stare at me like you say so, it's most probably because he's planning on how to defeat me."
Haruko sighed just then, feeling tears well up in her eyes. "He sees something in you that I don't have. You should be happy that you have the attention of the most sought-after guy on campus...everyone envies you, can't you see?"
"And I envy them as well. I envy everyone else around me," came the soft reply, surprising Haruko the nth time that day.
"Why?"
"Because I want a normal life. Because I want my life to be the way it was before. Nevermind that I was once poor, but I would rather have that than live like this, always having to smile for people because they expect me to be so perfect. I can't do any crazy stuff because my reputation as a clean-cut person puts restrictions. While you...you people are just so lucky to do whatever you want without being judged by anyone else..."
Maléna put her arms around the smaller girl, feeling the familiar wetness of tears on her shoulder as Haruko returned the hug, crying her heart out. How many times had she once cried like that when she was little? How many times had she once wept because she pitied her family so much for having to suffer because of her? That pity was what led her to decide, what led her to finally cling to the knife's edge in the hopes of saving them.
Sympathy be damned. She was pathetic. She felt this way because she had nothing but the best intentions in mind that later put her life to risk.She was no longer normal. She had to choke down on her bean curd and swallow it bravely, as she continued to deal with vultures that flocked to her, trying to drain her of energy, trying to exhaust her of everything and finding her weakness.
In the silence that followed, Maléna then realized that Haruko had forgiven her.
And she wanted to become her friend.
~*~*~
TBC
Author's notes: I apologize that this Haruko-bashing scene truned out to be longer than I thought...This wasn't what I had in mind! ::smacks forhead against the monitor:: Don't worry, minna! The three-on-three will DEFINITELY be in the next chapter! Enjoy!