(A/N: The second promise will now be revealed! Thanks again for reviews. If you were wondering, chapters 4-7 all occurred in the same day! Geez what a long day! Hehe…anyways, enjoy the chapter. It's a jump from humor to drama. Small spoiler is given, but not really important. Wonder how that will go XD. The title reveals it all…or maybe not XD.)
Italics mean the person's thoughts.
Disclaimer: The rights to PoT/Tenipuri belong to Konomi Takeshi. I own Reiko and any other characters I decide to bring in.
Chapter 7: I'll Protect You Forever
The four Seigaku regulars stood in disbelief as to where they were standing. Reiko and Oishi had entered the building moments before and the Seigaku regulars were standing right outside the entrance. Fuji was giggling, Inui was writing in his notebook, Kawamura was dumbfounded, and Eiji was still bright red. Eiji wasn't red because of the building they were standing next to, but red due to a very big misunderstanding.
"BOWLING?!" All four Seigaku regulars exclaimed.
They were standing outside a bowling alley. After breathing a sigh of relief that the worst situation was not to occur, the four Seigaku regulars entered the building. There were tables and seats that overlooked the area and a wide staircase lead down from the top area to the bowling alley. There were about a dozen bowling lanes and each lane had an overhead scoreboard. There were smaller tables and seats next to the bowling lanes to write down the scores and for people to wait on turns. The four of them sat down on one of the top tables that overlooked the bowling alley. They could see Oishi and Reiko at the bottom tying their shoes getting ready to bowl.
Reiko went to look at various bowling balls to decide which one would best suit her. She saw a marble green bowling ball that weighed about 7lbs. "Ah this will do." She was about to pick it up when a large guy came by and picked it up.
"Ano…I saw that one first." Reiko said politely. The guy looked at her and smiled. "Oh is that so? Here you go cutie." He gave the ball back to her.
"Arigatou." She turned around to walk back to her bowling lane.
"Not so fast." The guy grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around looking into her brown eyes. "What's a cutie like you doing in a place like this? Why don't we go off and do some karaoke?" The guy's friend came by. "Hey Sanada, you picked out a really cute one. Come on girl, how about we all have some fun someplace else?"
Reiko smiled and shrugged off the hand that was on your shoulder. "No thanks. I came here to bowl with a friend. Excuse me." She started to walk off.
"You think we're going to let you go so easily?" The other guy named Hiro replied. Reiko turned around. She would have liked to smack the guys, but noticed that they were about late high school age and pretty tough looking, not exactly the type she'd want to mess with. "Of all people to try hit on me."
"Rei-chan is something wrong?" Reiko turned back and saw Oishi walking towards her. He saw the two older guys and knew something was up. "Will you guys excuse us? We're going to go bowl a game."
"Oh? The kawaii girl has a boyfriend? You look pretty weak." Hiro grabbed Oishi's arm and looked Oishi straight in the eye. "Won't you let us take your girlfriend out for a spin?"
Oishi had a pissed off angry look. These guys were hitting on Reiko! But in the back of his mind, he knew that fighting them would mean trouble and he didn't want to sink to their level. He shook off the hand that grabbed him and was about to say something when Reiko cut in.
"Now now…it's not right to fight in a place like this. This is a bowling alley. How about we play a match?"
The two guys looked at each other. "I guess we could play another game. So what's the catch?" One of the guys replied.
"Let's have a two-on-two match. Each of us will bowl our own game. If your combined scores are higher than ours, then I'll give in to whatever you want. However, if ours is higher, then you guys have to stop bothering us."
"Um…could you excuse us for a moment." Oishi grabbed Reiko's arm and pulled her off to the side.
"Rei-chan what the hell are you doing?!" Oishi looked at Reiko with a frustrated but worried look. Yanagizawa was one thing, but these older guys looked like they could seriously hurt Reiko. Oishi wasn't going to let her be in a situation where he couldn't help her, let alone protect her.
"Relax Syu-kun. Please hear me out." Reiko whispered something into Oishi's ear. Oishi glanced at something nearby then nodded in agreement with Reiko. The two then walked back towards the older guys. "Alright…" Oishi replied. "Do you agree with our offer?"
The two older guys laughed. "You kids are going to challenge us? This will be a cinch!" The guys walked back to their lane. They erased the scores of their old game and started up a new one. Oishi and Reiko were in the lane next to them getting ready to bowl.
"What the hell is Oishi thinking?!" Eiji exclaimed. The 4 Seigaku regulars from above saw the entire situation. "How could he give in to something like that?"
"This looks bad." Kawamura said nervously. "Those guys look pretty tough. Maybe we should call for help."
Fuji and Inui looked on and remained silent.
"Fuji!" Eiji yelled. "We should stop them! Reiko-chan and Oishi are in trouble! What if they lose? I'm going to go down there." Eiji got up from his seat.
"Matte." Fuji replied. "I think Oishi and Reiko know something that we don't know."
"Like what?"
"Just watch." Fuji's blue eyes were open with an interested look. "I think we'll see shortly."
CRASH!
Hiro bowled and scored a 9. His friend Sanada scored an 8. "Heh…not bad. This will be an easy win." They looked over to Oishi's and Reiko's side to see how they were doing. Oishi threw the bowling ball down the lane quickly and the ball curved directly at the center pin.
CRASH!
Both guys just stared with blank looks in their faces. Oishi just hit a strike. "Probably just luck." The guys said to each other. Reiko was about to bowl and the guys just laughed. Reiko was using the marble green 7lb bowling ball from earlier and they thought that Reiko wouldn't be able to hit anything with such a light ball. "Hey cutie! Try not to throw a gutter ball!" You would think Oishi be pretty pissed about hearing them talk about Reiko like that. However, he was sitting down remaining pretty calm. Reiko held the ball in her right hand and tossed the ball down the lane. The ball had a slight spin on it and it curved to the right side. Right before it hit the pins, the ball curved back towards the center.
CRASH!
Both guys almost gagged. Reiko just hit a strike. "That looked like a nice gutter ball to me. Except it hit all 10 pins!" Reiko said with a smirk.
Oishi got up and gave Reiko a high-five. "Looks like you haven't lost your touch."
"Neither have you Syu-kun. Looks like this will be a tough match for me to win."
"What the hell?" The older guys thought. Then Hiro noticed something. "Hey Sanada, look at what they're wearing." They both looked and a shocked look came upon their faces. "Professional bowling gloves?!" The guys exclaimed. Both Oishi and Reiko were wearing a bowling glove on their hand. "Crap!" Both of them didn't expect the two to be bowling fans. The older guys then realized this was going to be tough match for them. (A/N: If you were wondering, the glove was the "it" they brought along in their bags)
"Hey Inui." Fuji asked Inui, who looked up from his notebook. "I think I heard this a while back, but wasn't Oishi known as the 'Prince of Bowling'?" (A/N: Don't know if that is exactly true or not ^_^;)
"Nani?!" Eiji and Kawamura exclaimed.
Inui flipped some pages. "Now that you mentioned it, that does sound familiar."
"Wait a sec…if Oishi's that good bowling, and Reiko is playing a match against them…doesn't that mean…?" Eiji asked trying to put the pieces together.
"But wait…why did they accept the match so easily?" Kawamura asked.
"The two guys recently finished a match." Inui answered. "Reiko saw their scores and noticed it wasn't good enough to beat their usual scores."
"That's why Oishi accepted so easily. Not only were they going to beat the two guys, but they would also settle their promise, which was a bowling match." Eiji concluded.
The bowling game soon came to an end. The Hiro/Sanada team score was 205 and Reiko/Oishi team score was 420. Reiko's individual score was 205 while Oishi's score was 215.
"Well Syu-kun…looks like you finally beat me and kept to your promise."
"Arigatou. You played a pretty good game yourself Rei-chan." They gave each other another high-five.
Reiko and Oishi completely ignored the two guys during their game since they were so caught up trying to beat each other's score. Hiro looked at them and got very pissed. It was true that they lost the match, but they ended up losing miserably and made fools of themselves. He wasn't going to let them get away so easy.
Hiro ran up to Oishi and tried to attack by punching him in the face. Oishi would have never expected it.
Reiko saw it coming at the corner of her eye. She quickly pushed Oishi out of the way and took the hit. Her reflexes were fast enough to block the punch with her arms. However, the impact was so strong that she fell backwards and hit the back of her head on a table nearby. Reiko's brown eyes closed and her body for a moment became lifeless as she fell to the ground with a thud. The incident happened so fast. Oishi had the most petrified look on his face. "Oh god no…"
"Rei-chan!" Oishi exclaimed in shock. He kneeled next to her and placed Reiko in his arms. "Rei-chan! Are you okay? Please open your eyes!" Reiko woke up suddenly and rubbed her head. "Augh…what the hell? That hurt!" She looked up at Oishi's worried face. "I'm fine Syu-kun. Are you alright?" Oishi then had a flustered look. "Baka! Why did you push me out of the way and get hurt?!" She lightly touched his face with her hand and smiled. "I wanted to protect you. I didn't want to see you hurt…" Reiko's vision began to blur. Her brown eyes closed again and she fell unconscious in Oishi's arms. "Rei-chan? Kuso! Rei-chan!" He then held onto her tightly. "Why did you do that? You don't have to be strong and protect me…"
Sanada tried to calm Hiro down but he resisted.
"You little brats!" Hiro said furiously. "How dare you make fun of us! Such a pity she took your hit. Oh well, I would have taken care of her afterwards." Hiro brought out a pocketknife.
"Crap! This looks bad!" Eiji said to the three Seigaku regulars that saw what had happened. He jumped out of his chair. "I'm going to go help Oishi out."
"But what can we do? They're too strong for us!" Kawamura said in a panic.
"Oishi." Fuji had on a serious look. He saw Oishi place Reiko gently on the ground and stood up in front of her facing his opponent. Oishi was enraged and was clenching his fists. Someone had hurt his Rei-chan and he wasn't going to let anyone get away with it. Oishi knew he had no chance against Hiro with a knife and that fighting was wrong, but if he could protect Reiko, that was all that mattered to him. "Baka Rei-chan. Seeing you hurt brings me more pain." He thought back on the times he wasn't there to protect her when she was bullied on the team and her mom's passing. Never again was he going to let anyone, nor anything hurt Reiko. Oishi readied himself in a defense position. "Whatever happens here on, I'll protect you forever! Even if it cost me my life!"
"Looks like I'll take you down as well!" Hiro grinned and ran up to Oishi attacking him with his pocketknife. Just when Hiro was about to make contact…
"HORA HORA! MOZURE BURNING!"
"What the…?" Hiro exclaimed.
Running down the stairs was a fired up Kawamura. In his right hand he held a racket and was running straight towards Hiro and Sanada.
"HOW DARE YOU HIT A GIRL! I SHALL BRING JUSTICE!"
"Holy crap!" Both guys said. They ran away with a pissed off Kawamura running behind them.
"That was close." Inui said in relief. "Good thinking Kikumaru." Eiji smiled and gave a victory sign. He had taken out a racket from his tennis bag and placed it into Kawamura's hand right before Hiro was going to attack.
Oishi breathed a sign of relief. He then remembered Reiko and ran down next to her. He shook her lightly. "Rei-chan, are you alright?" Reiko woke up a little dazed and blinked a few times. "What happened? I remember getting hit but…" Oishi hugged her. "Its alright Rei-chan. You had a small concussion. I'm glad you're fine."
"Hey! Oishi! Reiko-chan!" Both looked up to see Eiji up there hollering their names and waving. "Are you guys alright?!"
"Eiji-kun!" Reiko exclaimed. She stood up and waved back. "We're fine! What are you doing here?" (A/N: Reiko has a very fast recovery rate)
"Eh…" Eiji blushed. He couldn't say they were following them. He tried to think up a legitimate excuse. "Um…well…you see…"
"We came to bowl as well." Fuji cut in. "Right Eiji?" Eiji just nodded in agreement.
"Oh I see. How about we all play a game together?" Reiko suggested.
"That sounds fun." Inui replied. "I've actually never bowled before."
"Alright then. But first, let's wait till Taka-san comes back." Fuji pointed at Kawamura who was still chasing after the two guys. Everyone laughed.
Oishi looked at Reiko who was joining in on the laughter. He thought back on the moment when he saw her fall to the ground. A scary thought at that time went through his head. "Thank god. For a moment there I thought I had lost you forever. I'm glad that you're alright."
"Syu-kun."
Oishi who was lost in thought broke out and turned to Reiko. "What is it Rei-chan?"
"Let's all play a game together."
Oishi smiled and nodded.
After Kawamura chased the two guys away, Oishi introduced Reiko to Kawamura and Inui. Some misinterpretations were settled, which left Eiji turning red for having thought of such things. Eiji however was relieved to know that Reiko was not Oishi's girlfriend but his childhood friend. All six of them: Oishi, Reiko, Eiji, Kawamura, Fuji, and Inui then went to go bowl a game.
Back at the street tennis courts…
"Game Set Fuji/Echizen pair 6-3."
Fuji Yuuta and Ryoma both shook each other's hand.
"I can't believe we lost again!" Both Kamio and Momoshiro yelled at each other. "It's all your fault!"
"Mada mada dane."
To be cont.
(A/N: I hope you enjoyed this one. Second promise was revealed and it happened to be bowling! I found out in a later episode/manga that Oishi is really good at bowling so I decided to incorporate it in. I hope this wasn't too sappy. I actually have one more chapter planned and depending on how people like it, I might continue or do a sequel. Please give reviews or email as always. I appreciate every single one of them. )
Preview: Mother of Seigaku. This is my chapter that contains my version on how Oishi developed his caring personality (which I truly adore). It will be tragic but heartwarming. Oh and if you remember…the incident mentioned back in chapter 2 will finally be revealed. Sorry for keeping it off for so long.