Stalker

by Wowie

Shounen ai. Someone's sending gifts to Hanamichi. Who could it be?

5. Strike 5: 'Jonah'

Title: Stalker

Author: Wowie

Status: 5/12

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Humor/Mystery

Archive: Ask permission first.

Previously: Hanamichi received his first proposal of love (sort of) from an anonymous caller.

Warnings: Shounen-ai (Boy X Boy Love) and some mild swearing.

Author's Note: I already have plans for Nobu-kun and being the stalker is not one of them! It will come out eventually so just read on.

Standard Disclaimers Apply

.....

Strike 5: Jonah

It was a fine Saturday morning. The crystal-clear sky was showered with the sun's silver rays with only a few clouds drifting, creating little shadows that danced on the ground. Everything seemed to be in order, that it might be what you call a perfect day to begin with. But for Sakuragi Hanamichi, it was what we should call a Jonah day. [1]

Any people could be struck by this so-called phenomenon. It might be one of those luck-isn't-on-your-side situations that it seemed that everything you think that was right turns out to be the other way around. Or it might be one of those woke-up-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-bed days that one could say as having a foul mood all throughout the day. But then, it was just another normal day, so what was so Jonah about it?

Well for one thing, the day before was not exactly what we could call normal for a guy like him. Discovering he had an admirer was one thing, but discovering he had a male admirer who doesn't want to reveal himself and continues to stalk him was another matter. And then, that so-called admirer just told him last night on the phone that he actually liked him was another shock that he was not able to sleep a wink until the sun finally came up. Unfortunately, even if there were no classes on Saturdays, he still had to go to school because their team had to practice hard for the Nationals, much as he wanted to just stay in their house and sleep all day long.

Drinking coffee in the morning was just a simple early morning routine for other people, but somehow it became a rather difficult task for our dear redhead, being drowsy and all. First, he brought the very hot coffee to his lips without even waiting for it to cool a little. As soon as the hot liquid touched his tongue, he immediately spit it out and in the process lost his grip on the mug's handle, making it fall down and shatter into pieces on the floor. Second, this time he did wait for the water to cool down a little. The problem was, he didn't realize that what he put in his coffee was not sugar but salt. So what happened to his first cup happened to the second one.

'This is definitely not my day,' he thought sternly.

As if his coffee predicament was not enough, this was followed by an embarrassing situation.

After finally drinking a good cup of coffee, he prepared himself for school then left the house. He had walked a few meters away from home when he noticed that every people he passed by wore weird expressions or sometimes regarded him from head to foot.

'What's wrong with these people?' He scowled at them to show that he didn't like them staring at him but they continued regarding him with that weird look, as if there was something in him that was scandalizing.

"Sir," a little voice suddenly spoke in front of him that he almost jumped in surprise. Sakuragi saw a little raven-haired boy, probably about eight years of age, was looking up at him.

"What is it little one?" he smiled and knelt down so he could be of the same level with the boy's head.

The boy pointed at him then said, "You're wearing your shirt on the wrong side and your fly's open, sir."

It took Sakuragi a while before absorbing each word and felt his cheeks burn as soon as he understood the situation.

"Keichi! You shouldn't talk to strangers!" A middle-aged woman came and dragged the boy away who was still looking at him.

With this, Sakuragi slowly stood up, still conscious with the people's stares, and searched for a place where he could fix his clothes. He then found a narrow alley and went there as fast as he could, the glow on his cheeks still obvious.

'Shit! What did the tensai do to deserve this?'

As soon as he was certain that there were no other people around, he immediately removed his shirt and wore it again, this time wearing it on the right side. He was in the process of zipping his pants when he noticed a black cat looking intently at him. He didn't know if he was just imagining it or not but he swore he saw a glint of mockery in the cat's yellow green eyes. Being hot-tempered as he was, he glared at the cat in return.

"Well, what are you looking at, ugly cat?" he snapped.

To the redhead's horror, the cat's head suddenly looked like a certain fox he knew then muttered, "Idiot."

"Aaaaaaaaaaaah!" Whether or not it was because of taking too much caffeine that he was starting to imagine things, this was too weird for him to handle that he made a run for it, completely forgetting that his fly was still open. He was not looking on to where he was going, causing him to bump into someone. The impact was a bit strong that if it were not for the stranger's hard grip on his arm, he would have fallen flat on the floor.

"Whoa! Easy there, Hanamichi."

As soon as he heard his name, Hanamichi looked up and saw Ryonan's ace, Sendoh Akira, smiling (as usual) down at him, holding a fishing rod in his other hand. The redhead immediately tried to remove Sendoh's grip on his arm, but Sendoh didn't budge a bit.

"Oi Sendoh! Remove your hand from the genius' arm!" Hanamichi demanded. Sendoh's smile widened then obeyed Hanamichi's request. He looked at Hanamichi from head to foot then his gaze stopped just below the redhead's waist.

"XYZ," Sendoh said, his eyes gleamed in amusement.

"What? The genius already knows English alphabet so—"

Sendoh chuckled then moved closer to whisper in the redhead's ears, "eXamine Your Zipper." [2]

Sakuragi immediately turned around and zipped his pants, his face was almost the same color with his hair. When he looked back, Sendoh still wore the same expression, which irritated him more. "XYZ! Now where the hell did you learn that crap?"

"Well, from Hikoichi," Sendoh shrugged. "Anyway since I ran into you, if it's not any trouble, would you like to go fishing with me?"

"Wha— wait a minute. Isn't Ryonan a bit far from here? And from what I can recall, your place was near the harbor. If I hadn't known better, you were spying on the genius," Sakuragi said suspiciously. Again, Sendoh just shrugged his shoulders with a broad smile still plastered on his mouth.

'Shit! What is this smiling idiot up to now?' "Oi, answer me!"

"There's no reason for you to be irritated," Sendoh replied at last, he chuckled a little with the redhead's temper. "Even if our place is near the harbor, that doesn't mean I'm not allowed to search for new spots to fish. So I decided maybe I could try fishing near Shohoku so if I still have time, I could drop by your gym and watch your team practice."

"Aha! I knew it! You're going to spy on the next National Champions! You have to accept that we're going to the Nationals and you're not! Nyahahaha!" Sakuragi boasted, with his hands on his waist.

If Sakuragi had said this to other Ryonan Basketball Team members, especially Uozumi Jun or Koshino Hiroaki, he would have been punched hard on the face by now. But knowing Sendoh, he would either shrug or smile at this. Well, with Hanamichi's case, he did the latter.

"Since you're one of the chosen ones to go to the Nationals and our team is not, how can we even think of spying on your team? What's in it for us?" Ryonan's ace asked.

"Well... I don't know... so you could feed up information to other teams so they could beat us?" Sakuragi replied, which made Sendoh laugh.

"You're being ridiculous, Hanamichi! [3] And I thought you call yourself the genius?" Sendoh said still chuckling.

"I AM THE GENIUS SAKURAGI!!" Sakuragi emphasized each word.

"Well then, you wouldn't mind if I go with you to Shohoku gym and see if you really play like a genius?" Sendoh challenged.

Of course, Sakuragi always stood up with this kind of challenge. "Nyahahaha! You would be surprised with the genius's new secret weapon!" Hanamichi declared, not noticing the look of triumph in Sendoh's azure eyes.

.....

"Well, that's odd. Why is Hanamichi not here yet?" Youhei asked frowning as he scanned the pool of freshmen basketball players cleaning the court while the higher batches were fixing their things. Hanamichi always come on time, sometimes earlier. Well, there were times when he would not show up at all, but there was no reason for him to be absent today. "Takamiya, didn't you say he called you last night? Did he tell you he's not going to attend practice today?"

Takamiya shook his head. "I told you, he just asked me if I was the one who made the prank call on him."

"You don't have to worry anymore, here he comes—" Noma's sentence was cut short when he noticed who's walking with the redhead. The other gundan members turned to where he was looking.

"Well I'll be... It's Sendoh of Ryonan!" Takamiya exclaimed. All the members of the Basketball Club stopped what they were doing then looked at the gym door just as the two men appeared. Akagi, along with Kogure, Mitsui, Miyagi and Ayako walked towards them to greet Sendoh.

"Sendoh, this is really a surprise. What brings you here in Shohoku?" Akagi extended his hand, which Sendoh accepted good-naturedly.

"Well, I was planning to fish near here but I bumped into Hanamichi and well, I decided to tag along and watch you all practice," Sendoh replied with his usual polite demeanor. In the corner of his eye, he noticed Rukawa mopping the floor as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening around him, though this act could not fool Sendoh. He knew how much Rukawa despised him and who knows what scheme was playing in his head right now.

"Well, you're always welcome here, Sendoh," Kogure smiled.

"Nyahahaha! Well I told him the genius here has a new secret weapon!"

Akagi's fist landed on his head, "Fool! You're late!"

"That hurts! Gori!" Sakuragi held on to his head and cringed down in pain.

Mitsui rolled his eyes, "You're always saying that, yet up until now, you don't want to show it to us."

"Yeah, if I hadn't known better, you just fooled around behind Anzai-sensei's back," Miyagi added.

"You're just jealous of the genius because the old man trained him personally and you'll never have that chance, Missy! You too, Ryo-chin," Hanamichi retorted, still stroking his aching head.

"What!?" Mitsui and Miyagi both exclaimed and were about to pounce at Hanamichi when Ayako hit both their heads with her fan.

"Aya-chan," Miyagi was teary-eyed while Mitsui looked at Ayako accusingly.

"Sorry, Mitsui-sempai. But someone should remind you both of your manners. As for you, Sakuragi Hanamichi, you shouldn't be late in practices such as this!"

"Hey Akagi, you don't have to be angry with him. I'm sure he didn't mean to be late," Sendoh explained to help the redhead.

"Sendoh! You're so kind!" Sakuragi gave him a grateful look, Sendoh winked at him in return. Suddenly, a flying ball hit Sakuragi straight on the head and fell flat on the ground.

"Whoa! Bull's eye!" Ookusu proclaimed.

All eyes turned to where the ball came from and saw Rukawa near the basket with a pile of other balls. Sakuragi, got up with his face red with fury.

"You sly fox! What did you do that for?"

"You still have chores to do idiot," he replied in his usual monotone.

The four gundan members immediately held Sakuragi's body to prevent bloodshed. Sendoh looked at Rukawa and saw his eyes colder than usual. For a while there was a glint of emotion in those blue eyes, though he was not sure if it was anger or... jealousy? But it was gone before Sendoh could decide which was which.

"Good morning, everybody," someone spoke behind their back. They turned around only to see the coach of Shohoku.

"Good morning, Anzai-sensei," Akagi bowed down then flashed a warning look at Sakuragi, which calmed the redhead down a bit. He did not want to be kicked out of the team just because it would give him pleasure to kick the fox's ass.

"Ohohoho! Good, you're all here," Coach Anzai prodded then he noticed Sendoh standing behind Sakuragi. "Sendoh-kun, what a surprise to see you here."

"Well, if you wouldn't mind, Anzai-sensei, I would like to watch Shohoku practice for the Nationals," Sendoh bowed down in respect.

"Ohohoho! Of course, you can. Everyone's welcome here," Coach Anzai replied.

"Oi old man!" Sakuragi went to Coach Anzai and played with his double chin (his usual gesture). "Allow me to have a one on one with Sendoh here so I could show him my secret weapon and— ouch!" he felt his ear being pulled.

"You still have to clean the court," Akagi said while dragging him to where the mops were stored and dropping him like a discarded thing.

"Go for it! Hanamichi!" the gundan cheered mockingly while laughing. Mitsui and Miyagi laughed with them while Ayako rolled her eyes and Kogure just shook his head.

"Shut up!" Sakuragi stood up to go back to his gundan but Ishii, Sasaoka, and Kuwata tried their best to restrain him. Of course, with Sakuragi's built, they were not able to hold him even for a full minute and were all thrown away.

"Fool!" Akagi punched him again on the head, which added up to the gundan's entertainment.

Sendoh watched the whole scene in amusement and couldn't help but join in mild laughter with the redhead's temper but stopped as soon as he felt something cold shot through his spine. He turned around to see Rukawa giving him a cold glare. Sendoh just returned this with a you-don't-scare-me look and a matching smile of challenge.

Youhei noticed the staring contest so he elbowed Ookusu. "Look at Sendoh and Rukawa," he whispered. The two were still in that position and it seemed that Mitsui also noticed this and gave Youhei a questioning look, which he answered with a shake of his head. Ookusu smiled meaningfully then whispered back a bit excited, "This means war..."

Everyone in the gym now noticed the heated scene between Sendoh and Rukawa... well except for Hanamichi, who was thinking of ways to show everyone his secret weapon to at least compensate for the jinx he was having that day.

-Tsuzuku-

...

[1] I first encountered Jonah Day in L.M. Montgomery's "Anne of Avonlea", one of my favorite classic stories.

[2] Thanks to Akin Sijin for telling me about this.

[3] In the Anime, Akira-sama always refers to Hana-kun by his first name. I don't know if it's the same case with the manga since I haven't read it yet. I only have the last volume and Akira-sama didn't even show up there except where Ayako was reminding the team how hard the teams of Shoyo, Ryonan, and Kainan were practicing for the Winter IH.