CHAPTER 1: FALLEN
Seeking…
A man of beauty and masculinity
Hair blacker than coal
Skin purer than snow
Eyes bluer than the deepest ocean.
Deadly precision
Lightning speed
One who does not fear, but embraces a challenge
A modest man with silent confidence
The epitome of perfection
Target…
Rukawa Kaede
Mission status…
FAIL
Rukawa…
The ball flew past me and so did he.
Rukawa…
Sweat glistening on his pale skin, his eyes fixed only on his target, arms outstretched…
Flying…almost.
"Baka kit…"
Rukawa…
His graceful fingers felt the rough texture of his target and with one smooth movement, he slapped the ball back into the court.
Rukawa…
He turned towards me with a look of victory on his face, knowing he's just won my heart.
Then… THUD!
Flesh fell upon flesh.
My legs gave way under the impact and I felt myself fall like a stack of loose cushions. My back felt the cold hard surface of the timber floor and the cracking sound of bones breaking immediately followed.
But I felt no pain. Perhaps I was too paralysed by shock that my brain could no longer function properly. Perhaps I had even hit my head when I fell down. Or perhaps it was because I never had anyone lie on me like this before. Not to mention that this was a man, a rather heavy man.
It appeared he was just as shocked that I was in his way! So there we were, just laying there, trying to pass the time by staring deeply into each other's eyes while our bodies and minds recovered.
His brown eyes were still burning with energy.
Wait…
Did I just say BROWN eyes!
And that's when I noticed… the flaming red hair… those arrogant lips…
OMG!
I'm being crushed to death by the DEVIL himself!
It was at that moment that the pain washed over me and I felt every muscle in my body start to twitch and spasm.
My eyes must've grown so wide that it scared the devil himself. He released me from his grasp and jumped up.
"Whaaaa! Baka kitsune! That was my ball!"
And that was the last thing I heard the devil say before the air escaped from my lungs and darkness fell.
The basketball players gathered around the fallen pair, as did the Rukawa brigade. They had been lying there, not moving for a while already. A while too long in the fan girls' opinion.
"You're crushing her, pervert!" one of them squealed.
"You're squashing her, Baka!" the other one followed.
A third squeal would've normally followed had the third member of the brigade not been the one being crushed and squashed by the "perverted baka".
However, there was still no movement from either party.
In an act of desperation, the leader of the Rukawa brigade grabbed the red head's jersey and tugged with all her might, trying to pull him up. Her companion soon joined her and the two of them tugged, slapped and cursed the self proclaimed tensai. The crowd that had gathered around them were either too shocked or too scared to do anything.
Then, without warning, Sakuragi Hanamichi jumped up and the two members of the infamous fan club jolted backwards and landed on the floor in fear. Hanamichi scanned the crowd around him like a preying lion and stopped when he spotted the familiar messy black hair and long blue eyes. And as if oblivious to the member of the brigade that he had flattened or the ones that had just attacked him, he stared only at his nemesis as his strange wail filled the room.
"Waaaa! Baka kitsune! That was my ball!"
The hot-headed member of Shohoku basketball team was just about to trudge back to court and tell everyone off for lazing around when he felt cold fingers grasp his leg. He looked down and saw her, eyes wide yet looking into nothing and mouth gaping open, seemingly wanting to say something. Yet no noise came out of the girl who had yelled at him so many times in the past. Her two best friends were also on the floor, kneeling down beside her, crying pools of tears.
"Something's wrong with her," cried Ka, making an intelligent observation.
"Yeah," cried Ru, backing up her leader's theory.
"Ahhhhh!" Ru and Ka screamed when they saw Hanamichi's head inches away from theirs screaming,
"GEMMMEEEMERAG!"
"Whaaaaaa!" they screamed again, and once again Hanamichi cried, "GEMMMEEEMERAG!", a little more urgently this time.
They continued this for a few seconds, each time screaming louder than the last until both parties began to run out of breath. Sakuragi then took Ka by the shoulders and treated her to his death stare which immediately froze her on the spot. Then he slowly whispered in her ear, "Your friend is having a heart attack, get me her bag."
The words didn't take long to register, and soon, Ka was on her feet and rushing out the entrance, returning shortly with Wa's bag. She shivered when she saw the red head cradling Wa's head but followed his instructions nevertheless when he told her to look inside for a bottle of pills which she eventually found in one of the bag's secret compartments. She handed it to Hanamichi, who had already ordered someone to bring him a glass of water, and he promptly fed Wa the pill.
Wa's eyes widened one more time before her body started to loosen up and her facial features relaxed. The crowd let out a deep breath as they watched her sleeping on the gym floor taking slow but even breaths.
"Is she dead?" Ru was about to ask when she was interrupted by another voice down by the gym entrance.
"The ambulance is here."
Baka: Idiot
Kitsune: Fox
Tensai: Genius
Disclaimer: Most of the characters belong to Inoue-san, I've only delved deeper into their characters.
Authoress' Note: Thanks to everyone who has reviewed.
Yun Fei: Yes, the little boy is Sakuragi. In the anime, 'spring' was used to represent love. When Sakuragi first saw Haruko, he cheered "My spring is here! My spring is here!" So finding spring would be like finding that piece of unconditional love that he lost when his mother died and maybea little more?
