*pulls off 'Ganbatte, nothingtodo!' banner from her head and sighs in relief* I finished. Phew. *faints in exhaustion*
Sey Lee: Heh heh! That's a nice way of saying my characters are OOC!!! Thanks for reviewing!
Mskitusne: Arigato!
Profundus: Whoa… what are you deep in? ^_^ Enjoy this chap!
Maemi: You want Jura for a cousin? Okay, we'll make a deal. You'll get her for… um… three cents.
Hana-lai: Thank you! Cute or handsome? Kiyota? Muahahaha!
Patty g: Ha ha! Look out for more sap!
Sleeping Chocobodo: That's the way Kiyota is! Ha ha! Empty vessels make the most noise!
Tiran: Hey, you sound so surprised when I updated… *ponders on the implication*
Kka: He he! Enjoy this!
Unquestionable: Squashed the whole day under the table? Wait till you start feeling the aches. ^_^ THEN you tell me if you minded it or not! Enjoy this chap!
Crazy4u: What for keep your stories in your diskette? Sapa nak baca if like that? Ppl with AB blood are abnormal? Wahahaha! I'm a O blood. Phew!
Akane: *nothingtodo beams as her butt enlarges* Okay, okay, enough flattery *tries to stop her bum from growing any larger* Ha ha! Enjoy this chap!
Unchained: ^_^ Enjoy!
Viceversa: You kept on laughing? Hey! You were supposed to CRY, not laugh. ^_^ Ha ha! Just joking. Enjoy this!
Cho Aki: Eh? Why not? Aren't most of the writers in FF.net still in school? Thanks. One thing I must tell you, ALPHA are NOT sore losers. Despite contrary reports, we DID NOT write a letter of complaint to Pn. Lyla. He he.. just wanted to clear the air about that *glares at fellow Beta-ian* ha ha! Find who you are at school? As if I don't have enough stuff with my SPM coming to worry about lar!! Give me some clues lar.
Daiya: You don't like Fujima? Why? *sad face*
Stefified: Updated! But about poor you too… erm, that might take some time yet. Sorry!
Fiery-Ice: Wow. Am green with envy. Ha ha! At least you didn't DROP down the holes yourself!!
Jeano: Thank you! You keep reading too!
Alexia: Whoa, whoa whoa! *heads off Alexia's attack* Daughter of a geisha! Wahahaha!
Chidero: He's in my cousin's Barbie doll's McD. ^_^ Thank you! We were a bit disappointed, but we're okay now. ^_^
Kiss Is the Best: I'll see about it!
Tensaispira: You have kids??? 0.0
Fer-chan: I've been okay, barely alive but okay. ^_^ I'm having my exams too, actually. Pure torture. Wish me luck!
Yasu: Thanks! Me glad to know you like Kiyota now! Yep! He is cute! When he's not noisy!
"Taking up basketball now, aren't you?"
Shouri regretfully tore her eyes away from Kiyota's back. "Hmm?" She blinked. "Oh, Ruriko. Um… hi."
Ruriko sat down beside her, doing it so gracefully that Shouri was suddenly ashamed at how she simply plopped her butt wherever it fit. Yeah, well, she's a gymnast. What did you expect? She blew a distressed breath. But then again, so am I. So was I, she corrected.
"I see you coming around here more often these days," Ruriko commented further, stretching her legs. "You're not planning on taking it, are you?"
"Basketball's only for guys." What an idiot.
"You're right," Ruriko agreed with a laugh at herself. "Besides, this sport is far too strenuous for you. I mean, with your fractured leg and all."
Suddenly Ruriko's perfect legs seemed to be insulting. "Yeah," Shouri said shortly, unconsciously running her hand down her 'fractured' leg. Impulsively, and rather defensively, she added: "But I can still run." A little. For about five minutes or so. "I can run."
"Everybody can," Ruriko said dryly. "Even my baby brother can." In a swift change of conversation, she smiled brilliantly. "I like coming here as well. These guys here? Not hard on the eyes at all."
Darn, not another Jura-clone.
"Maki, he's drop dead gorgeous. But he's a bit too huge, isn't he? He's got the biggest chest I've ever seen in my entire life."
"Good thing he's not female," Shouri muttered, "or it'd be even bigger."
"What?"
"Nothing. Just mumbling calculation formulas."
"And Jin? Cutest guy in the entire school. One angle, he looks really innocent. Then you catch him at certain moments, like when he smirks – which doesn't happen very often – he practically oozes with sexiness."
Shouri raised an eyebrow. "Oh. I think he's nice."
Ruriko simply shrugged at that narrow statement. "But I guess the guy that we really come here for is him," she thrust her chin in Kiyota's direction. "More our type and age. He's exciting, isn't he? I hate dull people, don't you?"
Shouri kept her lips pursed.
"Kiyota can never be dull," Ruriko said in amusement. "He's the loudest and most egoistical guy ever. But it actually adds to his charm, don't you think? At least he's not reckless, like this guy from Shohoku whom everyone is talking about. They say he's got red hair. I can't imagine Kiyota with red hair. His hair is nice as it is."
Shouri studied Kiyota's wild hair.
"He's always talking about basketball and talent and stuff like that. I'm just glad he's in the team now. Official player too, and he's only in Year 1. I think that's amazing, don't you? He's grown a lot too. Physically, that is. Dunno about the mental part." Ruriko released a loud laugh, which caused some others, including Kiyota to turn around and look over. He looked at both of them blankly at first, and then shrugged, assumed they were praising him and gave a wink. "Oh, yes, he's grown just fine."
At the almost breathless purr, Shouri glanced suspiciously at her. "You and Kiyota…" she began awkwardly. "Are you, like…"
Ruriko turned her head. "We go a long away back. Primary school friends." Her eyes glinted. "No, we're not together. I have a crush on him, that's obvious – which girl wouldn't? But not like what you think."
Shouri immediately straightened her back. "I'm not thinking anything."
Ruriko snorted. "Why, of course." She gave a small grin. "I know a jealous girl when I see one. Don't worry. I'm jealous of you too, so the feeling's mutual."
"There's nothing to be jealous about," Shouri stated, surprised and flattered.
"I know!" Ruriko agreed, rather enthusiastically. "That's just it. There's nothing to be jealous of you about. I'm just as good-looking as you are, if not prettier. You're not any cleverer than I am. I'm a medal-grabbing gymnast whereas you're old news. And you sit like a hippo with an aching butt."
Shouri blinked. "Thank you."
"No, seriously," Ruriko insisted. "I still am jealous of you. And I don't get jealous easily."
Yeah, because you're perfect already. Snob. "Wow. I'm honoured."
Ruriko ignored that, released another sigh. "Kiyota's wild, but you can tame him. Maybe." She turned on that smile again.
"We're not getting married," Shouri said quickly. "We're not even dating."
"You know," Ruriko started with a rather annoyed curl of the lip. "Some people think that others are so stupid that they can't even tell the state of two persons' relationship when it's so obvious. You have this habit of denying things especially when it's true." She looked levelly at Shouri. "Even I can see through it."
Shouri stared at her. "I do not –" she trailed off, speechless.
Ruriko waited as her comment struck home. Then, with another easy smile, she started to get up. "He's just crazy about gymnasts. You might want to continue."
Shouri stared over the court. "You know I can't."
Ruriko nodded sympathetically. "And isn't that just sad? How does it feel like not doing gymnastics anymore?"
Shouri considered her for a while. "You won't understand," she said finally. "Just be thankful you can still do it, all right?"
"What were you talking about?" Kiyota asked curiously as he mopped sweat from his face. "Me?"
"Actually, we were discussing the colour of my socks." She displayed them. "Have you ever noticed how nicely I coordinate my socks to match my outfit? Isn't that just a fascinating talent?" She saw him roll his eyes. "All right, all right. We were talking about you. Your socks don't match your shorts."
"You spent ten minutes commenting on my socks?"
"No, it was just a side comment. Ruriko was telling me how glad she was that you got into the team. Said how you talked of nothing else, and how amazing it is that you're already an official member."
Kiyota snorted smugly. "Duh! The team would be stupid to drop a talented guy like me. Nobody else in the team can do the things I do. You think it's easy to jump as high as I do? Hah! You think anybody can dribble the ball as fast as I do? Hah! I'm the one who's going to lead Kainan to the National Championship and soon take Maki's place." He gave himself a satisfied pat on the shoulder. "What else were you talking about?"
She was surprised he even cared to ask. "Oh, you've finished talking." She only sighed when that comment rolled right over him unnoticed as he continued to smile conceitedly. "Nothing much. Ruriko muttered some irrelevant stuff. She asked if I was taking up basketball –"
"The greatest game in the world," Kiyota interjected.
" – and praised Maki and Jin a bit and –" Shouri stopped.
"And?" Kiyota prompted. "Didn't she praise me?"
Shouri glanced down at her fingers. "No, she asked me about my injury." She gave a small smile. "My fractured leg, as she puts it." She turned to Kiyota rather hotly. "It's not fractured. It's just not as it used to be, that's all."
Kiyota glanced at her legs. "It looks okay enough." He nodded approvingly. "As a matter of fact, it looks just fine. How did you injure it?"
Shouri stared at him incredulously, and then laughed. "Doesn't matter. You don't really care anyway."
He looked slightly furious and ego-bruised. "Of course I care. I don't just think of myself all the time, you know."
She laughed even louder. And it ended in a choked snort of surprise when he placed his warm hand on hers and bent down to look directly into her eyes. "I care enough to ask."
"I…" she started, couldn't quite tear her eyes away from his face. She would kill for eyes like his. "Well…" Shit. Did he have to look so uncharacteristically and appealingly serious? "It was nothing… could you sit down properly?"
"I am sitting down properly."
"Not so close."
He smirked, and his roguishness, which she was more comfortable with, surfaced back. "I make you nervous," he said with relish, clearly enjoying it. "Okay," he backed away one or two centimetres. "How's this?"
He hadn't removed his hand from hers, and she was way too embarrassed to ask. Gritting her teeth and ignoring the weight of his hand, she shifted slightly to make herself comfortable. "It was the Winter Gymnastics Tournament," Shouri began, recalling back. "I was the State representative and had fought my way up to the finals. I wanted to win so badly, and managed to coax my coach into adding more impressive moves in my routine. You know, to impress the socks off the judges and make their tongues loll out."
"Show off," Kiyota muttered.
Shouri glared at him. As if you're not. JERK. "Anyway, I was practicing my routine a day before the competition and went wrong somewhere and sprained my knee. It wasn't a big deal. Just a little ache. My coach thought I should rest and skip the competition tomorrow, which is totally ridiculous because I'd worked so hard. I mean, as if I'm going to let a little pain get in my way."
"Egoistic," Kiyota grinned, unaware he was describing himself.
"Whatever," Shouri shrugged. "So I managed to convince her to let me perform, on the condition that I stop immediately if my leg starts to throb with pain. I was the last person to perform, and the ones before me were so good. Like, really, really earth-shaking. That made me nervous, and I thought that my routine was just as good as long as I don't mess up even a little."
She paused.
"Then my turn came. And I was so determined to do well. To complete it at least. I couldn't bear the thought of having a humiliating exit without even finishing. My leg started to ache the very minute I started, but I was so geared up, see. Didn't even feel it. It wasn't until halfway did I realise it."
"You didn't stop," Kiyota predicted.
"My coach wanted me to." She shrugged. "She was all but yelling at me from the sidelines to stop. But I couldn't. Do you know that feeling? How could I even think of stopping when I was so near to victory? After all the effort I put in to get there?" She sighed. "I didn't stop. Gritted my teeth and continued on. It was just a slight pain. No big deal."
She looked at him, was surprised that he was actually listening attentively.
"I was doing a rather difficult double cartwheel when it broke." She could still remember the slice of pain that cut through her. "Collapsed in a very unbecoming manner and started to screech in mindless pain." She smiled half-heartedly. "So much about not wanting a humiliating exit. They actually had a picture of me in the paper with my mouth hanging open and my eyes flooding with tears."
Kiyota smiled, but remained strangely silent.
"It was a career-ending injury," Shouri wrapped up, lifted the talked-about leg. "At least I can still walk."
"What is it like not being able to do gymnastics?"
Her eyebrow raised at the similar question asked by Ruriko, thought of giving the same answer – he was a basketball player, what would he know? – and then surprised herself by answering, "Incomplete. That's what it feels like." She shrugged. "I have this longing inside me to do it, but I know I can't. And it hurts." She smiled, nevertheless. "I'll get over it."
"Yeah, there's always sumo-wrestling."
She firmly ignored that. "Ruriko told me about this absurd infatuation of yours for gymnasts."
He grinned. "Oh, I like gymnasts fine. But currently, my taste is running high for ex-gymnasts." She didn't resist when he squeezed her hand. When he leaned forward to kiss her. "Yep, I like ex-gymnasts even better."
When she didn't say anything but simply stared at him, he winked. "Now, about today's basketball lesson…"
Nothingtodo is currently attempting to die. You will see her again after she has been successfully resurrected.