Chapter 1
Hundreds and hundreds of students from the "South African American Transitory School" (which was an English-speaking school for children whose parents had a temporary residence in South Africa, due to work or what not), anyway the students in their assorted teenage years, were all crowded around a green wire mesh fence that enclosed the basket ball court.
Directly positioned in front of the fence were mainly long legged, beautiful girls, (at least half of them guaranteed to be cheer-leaders) –they were there to gape, mindlessly cheer, pout and blow kisses at the beloved male basket ball team.
Squashing the young athletic girls in to the dark, dirty (although this was temporary forgotten) hashed wire encasing, was the mindless crush of the rest of the student body; -the affect however of the large bosoms pressed appreciatively against the wiring was not lost on most members of the male basketball team.
The inner crowd were mainly girls scantly clad, in multi-coloured stripy spaghetti tops and white mini-skirts –this was the new rage and was a trend that had been set by a certain Green-eyed, blonde haired Ruth Flockenheart (she was one of the girls right at the front.) Any men here were popular members of the football team (–the ones that weren't also in the basketball team that is) they were dragged by their hyper girl-friends, who had immovably latched on to one of their arms –they in return got to sneak a hand or two up their skirts. They were all here to make an appearance.
As the crowd progressed outwards, clothes became significantly darker and trousers significantly baggier –the headmaster often commented that they were useful for sweeping the streets. Girls with dog-collar necklaces were sitting on the shoulders of their boyfriend, watching yet not watching the game. Most of the boys that found their head encase by their 'beloved' girlfriends thighs weren't complaining and used the concealment of the crowd to inhale some gratefully received cocaine from the person next door. They all came for the sake of coming (except one or two feminists who were here to scream and rant every time the female team scored a goal –and gloat shamelessly if they won.)
Lastly at the end were those few boys and girls with milk bottle lensed glasses, who had no hope of seeing a thing right at the back and ended up cheering ten minutes after everyone else. How they would try in vain to fit in!
Everyone on the entire campus was here –well everyone except the teachers that is. They had no doubt decided to seek refuge in the staff room frantically sucking the life out of packets and packets of cigarettes.
The disgruntled, severely groped and pinched girl's basketball team had somehow managed to find their way in to the entrance of the court.
"We all thought you weren't coming." Wufei commented in his arrogant way with his cocky lopsided grin –he was the captain of the boys team.
Although the school had no uniform the basketball squad had a blue and white uniform. The boys wore a blue shorts with two white stripes on both sides of their legs. They wore the standard white sports aertex. The girls wore the same aertex top, except extra small, so it was tight and gave the impression of a crop top when they reached up to catch the ball. They wore a plain blue pleated skirt that reached just below mid-thigh and a white sash at the waist band of their skirt.
The two basketball teams stood waiting silently, they stood in their appointed positions. A sheepish looking Meiran walked in a few minutes later. The whole of the girls team sighed at the disgrace when they saw what their captain had came in wearing. Meiran was wearing the boy's uniform…only ten sizes too big. The Chinese girl's shorts were extremely baggy and reached below her knees and were nearly covered by her aertex, her hair was in her trademark two black ponytails only untamed and sticking out like messy shoots, which came from battling the entire on campus teenage population. She, however, didn't appear to care.
She took her position opposite, fellow captain, rival and best friend Wufei Chang, who raised his eyebrows quizzically at which she just shrugged her shoulders.
'Typical Meiran' Catherine said from her position as a wing, Meiran should have been by all means born as a boy and they would have gladly given her to the boys team had she not been both female and an excellent player.
'Meiran is that your older brothers uniform?' someone shouted from over the fence.
She decidedly ignored the comment, now wasn't the time to drag that person out of the crowd and beat him in to a bloody pulp.
The whistle blew and the ball was tossed in to the air. Wufei managed to knock it over to his team that were facing him from Meiran's back. Meiran however knowing Wufei had the height advantage, and well generally knowing Wufei had known he would get the ball from the toss up. So when the whistle blew and Wufei had jumped up to hit the ball Meiran ran away from it towards the left wing, where when hit by Wufei's more powerful right hand would go and managed to reach the ball before it came in Trowa's possession. She then threw the ball past Wufei who had come to reclaim the ball. From then on it was a mad frenzy and both teams had integrated with each other in a stalemate.
With only five minutes left in the game both teams were on one goal each. The basket ball players couldn't even hear the shrill screams of the spectators past their thudding heartbeats. To come out of this gridlock Duo had formulated a plan. He ran past the tall blonde defender Maria, whose height was the main reason why she had qualified, as unlike the desperate demand to be in the boy's basket ball team, the girls of the school were not very keen on sport, so the girl's team were willing to accept any one to fill the space. She wasn't talent less, Duo knew this but she wasn't exactly 'On the ball' and was quite naive and dim witted. He ran past her tugging at the loose white material at her waist.
'Maria' screamed Duo his usual grin in place 'Your sash.'
The blonde basket ball player looked down to see her white sash strewn upon the floor. She bent down to pick it up. At this point Heero had thrown it over her crouching figure to be caught be a laughing Duo who bounded past a confused Maria to score the boys second and winning goal. The ball was once more in the girl's grasp and a determined Meiran attempted a last minute score, the ball ascended over the hoop, the whistle cut through the screaming crowd as the ball danced around the rim of the hoop. They were out of time. The ball growing tired of its game fell in through the hoop –it was too late.
'That was dirty Maxwell' Meiran all but spat at Duo.
'What? I didn't do anything' He said grinning madly, blowing kisses at the hysterical girls who were screaming 'We love you' and shrieking madly at all of the boys.
Meiran was the first to walk off the court.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was lunch. All of the students scattered around the huge grass field after the match, each opening their brown paper bags to see what had been packed for their lunch, whilst others decided to risk the canteen food (-this event usually only occurred once in a pupils life, for after the first time they were sensibly traumatised against it). Some sat on the dark grey wooden benches beside the wooden tables (despite the fact they were sporting some strange green mould in the long thin cracks along the planks). Some students preferred to kneel under the large coconut trees, greatly receiving the shade from the midday sun. Others had hidden themselves in the recesses of the school building, hiding from the teachers on lunch duty, smoking cigarettes or some mild weed, dashing frantically at the sound of approaching footsteps.
Meiran was the first to get changed out of her basketball uniform –she wasn't the sort to bother with her makeup or perfume. It wasn't that she did not care for her appearance, she was just caught up in what was practical for her to wear; it wasn't easy to wrestle arrogant boys and wear miniskirts and if she were to wear make-up it would certainly smudge, she would forever be redoing it. She felt it was weak for a girl to be held back by fashion; it was a phase her mother said she would grow out of, or at least hoped desperately (otherwise she thought it would be impossible for her to get Meiran a husband when they went back to China.)
She walked over to their empty table; her table was reserved for most of the male members of the basket ball team, Meiran (as far as everyone on the team thought she was as good as a boy anyway) and Catherine who turned up every now and then to check up on her boy friend Trowa, although strictly speaking she was part of the idolised older girls (although she was actually intelligent and mature.) Meiran glared at the little wooden table which was surrounded by a little circle of palm trees wondering whether to sit down at the table or not, she was still angry at the dirty underhand trick Duo had pulled (-at which she held the whole basket ball team responsible, especially their captain Wufei). Finally her pride won over and she marched over to the empty table her nose high in the air and sat down defiantly, showing the approaching occupants of the table that she would not let defeat stop her (well at least this is what was going through her mind.)
Meiran didn't look up from the contents of her brown paper bag as she saw Duo approach from the corner of her eye, although her knuckles whitened as she balled her hand in to a tight fist.
'Meiran why didn't you stick around? Our team were practically throwing autographs at the crowd, not to mention a few members of your team.' Duo laughed
Meiran still didn't look up staring even harder at the contents of her brown paper bag. Wufei walked over to his seat opposite her on the table, eating the chips that he received from the canteen (one of the very few edible things available.) He stared up at Meiran mischief in his eyes, a smirk on his face. She was still ignoring everyone, refusing to make eye contact with them, especially Wufei who was staring at her trying to provoke in to looking or even glaring at him.
'Why what's wrong Meiran, jealous you didn't get my autograph?' He knew exactly what buttons to press in order to get a response; it was what came out of the weird love-hate friendship they possessed,
'No, you know that wasn't fair. It was unjust for Maxwell to…' She argued defensively only to be cut off.
'Meiran stop being such a sore loser!' Now he had received a response he was starting to enjoy this.
'What, I'm not a sore loser he was cheating! Maria –'
'Sore loser' He laughed
'Tha-'
'Sore loser'
'Stop it. You know –'
'Sore Loser'
'Can you jus-'
'Sore Loser'
'Please jus-'
'Sore Loser' by now the whole of the table was trying to suppress their laughter with the back of their hands; James (a good friend of Duo and a relatively good basketball player) had actually begun to choke on his food.
'Chang for Gods sake listen to me!' she all but screamed at him, she was now standing up and looking down at him a sudden calmness in her expression as she saw she had caught his attention, however she was slightly out of breath from screaming. Most of the surrounding students were gathering around at the scene.
'Meiran?' He said looking genuinely interested, she took a deep breath, posture straightening.
'Thanky-'
'Shut up' Wufei said cutting her off, causing raucous laughter.
Wufei was still laughing when he saw Meiran turn her back preparing to walk off, when he stood up and caught her wrist; he spun her around, and caught her when she was off balance. He then placed a meaningless chaste kiss on her lips. He started to laugh along with the rest of the surrounding students (who had now started to gather around like vultures.)
His mouth was still slightly parted from laughing when he caught the expression on Meiran's face ma second before she walked off. She had looked around at all those people laughing at her, she was furious, but then something changed within her to defeat, it was almost as if she had acknowledged that she couldn't stop them from laughing –to her it was another one of those competitions with her best friend, and she lost again, just like she always did against the naturally talented Wufei Chang. Usually the only humiliation she had to deal with was in her head, but now she was being laughed at, and to Wufei it seemed like someone had knocked off the legs beneath her and she looked slightly defenceless. But what really got the ever nonchalant Wufei Chang was just as she walked off, she had looked him straight in the eye, and she looked at him as if she hated him, and he had just betrayed his best friend.
He was still standing up staring in space when the table and its surroundings began to settle down.
'Hey Wuffles, are you gonna sit down or what?' Duo asked, taking one of the chips off Wufei's lunch tray.
'Um, yeah Maxwell.' He replied slightly confused from being disturbed from his thoughts.
'Whoa he didn't even yell at me for calling him wuffles this time.' He said leaning over to Trowa, who graced him with his usual silence.
'I thought that was a bit mean Wufei.' Quatre chided from his seat next to Trowa. 'She didn't do anything to deserve that!' Quatre sighed. He, despite his weak appearance, had actually managed to qualify for the basket ball squad and was in fact one of the best.
'Yes!' Duo exclaimed, searching through the brown paper bag Meiran left behind, 'She has noodles for lunch, and that girl can cook.' He sat happily eating away at the noodles whilst the rest of the table sat in an unusual silence.
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