A/N: Warning: major POV shifts up ahead. Please take pain reliever should you develop a headache. Words in parentheses are supposed to be deleted words. Strikethroughs aren't recognized by the explorer.
Mr. Kiyo, Shohoku English teacher, chuckled and put down the paper he had finished reading. Who would have thought that tough Mito would be able to write a love story? Love at first sight indeed!
He stretched out a bit and noticed that he was alone in the faculty room.
"Everyone must have gone home," he murmured.
He shrugged then picked up the next paper on the pile and saw in bold letters the name Sakuragi, Hanamichi. His scanned the work and his lips quirked with amusement at the colorful words the boy had used. Out of curiosity, he shifted through the pile and took out the one marked Rukawa, Kaede. Scanning the composition, his eyes widened. His mind sped back to the class he had finished just a few minutes ago.
— 0 —
"Good afternoon everyone," Mr. Kiyo said. "Today I have a little seatwork for you that's related to the little project for your Social Studies class. I had a little chat with Ms. Tanada yesterday and she told me all about it. I was intrigued about it so today we will be doing a little exercise on writing that's slightly connected to that project."
He heard a few groans and smiled.
"Don't worry, it won't be hard. It will probably be the easiest writing exercise that you will do for this class for the whole year."
The protests became louder. Ignoring the voices, he stood up and paced to the front of his table.
"I want you to write, in English, a fictional account of how you and your partner actually became…what was Ms. Tanada's words…oh yeah, housemates! I know this is supposed to be a pretend type of situation, so pretend. Let your imaginations run wild and tell me how it all happened. Don't worry about writing a story different from that of your partner's. I want to know how you think everything started out. Submit your work at the end of the class. You may start."
As he went back to his seat, Mr. Kiyo noticed the trouble-duo glaring at each other. He sighed, expecting mediocre papers from those two again.
— 0 —
Mr. Kiyo focused back to the two papers in his hands. If he didn't know better, he would have thought that Sakuragi and Rukawa had copied each other's works and placed in different words so that they wouldn't be accused of blatant copying. Even the words they had erased seemed similar. That was impossible though. The two were well known rivals …
— 0 —
It all started, wrote Sakuragi, when I met the love of my life who said that she loved somebody else. I swore I would kill that person named Rukawa. Then one day I met this guy (in the rooftop) in a building and our eyes clashed. The world shifted, wrote Rukawa, (as if time had stopped) probably because I was meeting a very stupid person. It lasted until the idiot redhead heard my name. Then he suddenly attacked me. I later learned that it was about some stupid girl who had a crush on me.This genius set out to prove to Haruko that I am better than that Rukawa bastard. I joined the basketball team and mastered the game easily.
At first he kept fouling out of games. He was persistent though. He had become serious about the game even at an early stage.
There were hard times, especially during the first few games. However, whenever I saw the fox, my resolve to beat him became stronger. I even told him that one night while he was practicing by himself. Hmp! That fox, always alone! He couldn't even play like a team. He thought he could play basketball all by himself.
Until the first time we played against Shoyo.
That was when everyone realized that this genius was truly talented. Even that bastard Rukawa said that it was a pity that I got kicked out of the game after I made that spectacular slam dunk.
His talkativeness started rubbing off of me. I started talking more.
I started paying more attention to his moves—so that I could learn how to surpass him, of course! I became better.
(In a way I started trusting him, as much as I could trust a stupid teammate.) I passed the ball to him during the Sannoh match. He would've been a really big idiot not to have made that shot…even though his back hurt at that time.
So that stupid Rukawa finally realized that I was better than him. He even tried to salvage his reputation by making me envious when he became a part of the All Japan team. Ha! He only got in because I was injured. But when I got back, I proved to everyone that no injury would put me down.
He became more annoying when he came back.
I then led the whole team to the National finals even when I was in College. I got a slot at the All Japan team and became a regular member after College. The fates were against me though. The genius was on his way to becoming a famous basketball player already when he got a new coach for the team. This new coach was small and not deserving of the position. On the first day (she) he gave us a terrible announcement. We would have to room in with a teammate so that we would have better bonding or something.
"What?!" I yelled. "Damn you! No way! What would Haruko think of such an arrangement?"
I protested too.
"No," I said.
I liked my privacy thank you very much.
But the coach was a sadist worse than gori.
"You are all doing this because I say so," (she) he said.
Then (she) he wrote the names of all my teammates and I actually got paired up with Rukawa!
"Noooo!" I said. " I won't live with that damn fox! He'll just sleep all day and not do anything at home!"
"You're the one who'll be too lazy to do anything, idiot."
"Damn you, Rukawa!"
"Both of you shut up!" the coach yelled then bashed only my head not Rukawa's. "You are both doing this! Or are you scared, Hanamichi Sakuragi?"
"What?! Me? Scared? Ha! In your dreams you newbie (teach) coach! I shall prove to you that I can do whatever you throw against me. I am a genius after all," I declared.
Idiot.
"As for you Rukawa," the coach turned to me, "do this or no more basketball for you."
Damn (her) him.
And that is how the fox and the genius became housemates.
It's pure hell.
The fox keeps drooling all over the furniture. He falls asleep doing the laundry. He keeps crashing his bike at the front door. He keeps calling me an idiot when everybody knows he's the stupid one!
The idiot keeps forgetting to buy groceries and he's the one who eats up everything inside the house!
This is entirely that stupid coach's fault!
— 0 —
Mr. Kiyo shook his head and chuckled. He guessed that the two had based their story on real events involving Ms. Tanada's class. He had to hand it to them for accomplishing such a feat.
"The wonders that they could do if they just focused their minds more," he murmured to the empty room. "They might actually pass their exams if they did that."
He glanced at the two names and decided to give them both moderately high grades, just this once. They had turned up a good combined report.
As he wrote the grades down, he was struck with the thought that if those two could unintentionally produce a good piece together, what wonders could they do when they actually worked together.
"Ms. Tanada's project might yield something much more than anyone expected," he mused, "especially for those two."
-TBC-
A/N:
1. Again, sorry for the long delay!
2. Hope the short story wasn't confusing.
3. Please do review!