Bokura no Kokoro de
Disclaimer: If you would believe it, I don't own Tenipuri
Summary: "Why do we have so many people who hate to lose on our team?" It's not that Seigaku can't be defeated. Seigaku refuses to be defeated, in and outside of their own team.
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Bokura no Kokoro De
Part One: Chapter One The First Day
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Classes began the next day, at eight-forty. Eiji had barely made it in time for homeroom, charging in through the back door just as the teacher opened the front one. Oishi helped him sneak into his seat as the gakkyuiin gave the order to rise and greet the teacher.
"Lucky!" Eiji whispered, giving Oishi a thumbs-up. "I made it!"
"That was too close," Oishi whispered back.
They settled down to listen to the teacher's announcements and answer role-call. Club activities were starting that afternoon – the respective captains of each club had come to the conclusion that no one would remember activities on the first full day of school anyway. Eiji was practically brimming with excitement at the prospect of going down to the courts and wreaking havoc.
Both he and Oishi had swapped yesterday's school bags for tennis ones. The school had tennis bags for the Regulars, a black one with the school name and emblem emblazoned onto it, but until they became Regulars, they would have to use normal tennis bags. Eiji's one was dark red, matching his hair, while Oishi's one was pale green.
"Please note that the senior building is off-limits and that any of you caught entering there without permission or escort will be given after school detention."
"Which one is the senior building?" Eiji asked.
"The one directly across from us," the teacher replied.
The students all crowded around the window to look. There was a bridge connecting their building to the next one, which had clean, white walls and four storeys. It was a rule that the seniors, who had to prepare for university entrance exams, were not allowed to be disturbed during school hours and thus an entire building had been given to them to use. Freshmen and juniors shared buildings.
"Okay, class, sit back down!" the teacher called.
"Look!" one of the girls squealed. "It's the tennis club captain!"
Everyone who had begun to return to their seats leapt up again and ran to the window. Yamato had exited the senior building and was making his way across the bridge to their side.
"He's so cool!" the girls sighed.
"Really?" some of the boys asked, raising an eyebrow. "He looks kind of like a retard to me."
"Yeah . . ."
A cloud of dust and the sounds of kicking and punching later, the girls were left to sigh and giggle over Yamato in peace. Eiji and Oishi, who had long returned to their seats, smiled nervously and slid lower in their seats. When Yamato had gone into the building, the class began to settle.
"All of you are to report to me at lunch today for detention!" the teacher barked, slamming his hands down on the table.
"Aw man . . ."
XXX
That morning's occurrence was related back to Yamato in the following break. The tennis club's captain found it extremely amusing, much to the teacher's exasperation, pushing his ridiculously round spectacles further up the bridge of his nose.
"You shouldn't walk around the school during class hours," the teacher berated him. "Considering your – ahem, fame – you should know the disturbance your presence can cause, especially amongst the female students."
"Hai, sensei, I'll try." Yamato bowed. "Excuse me, but I have a meeting with Ryuzaki-sensei that I am late for."
"Go ahead, Yamato-kun. Sorry for keeping you so long."
"Not at all, sensei, not at all."
With another chuckle, Yamato left the room and headed upstairs to the staff common room, where the tennis club coach was sure to be. The old woman would have nowhere better to go, anyway. He knocked on the door and, after the imperious command of 'enter!' slid it open.
"Sensei wished to speak to me?" he asked lightly.
"Ah, Yamato," Ryuzaki Sumire said, looking up from her papers. "Tea?"
"No thank you, sensei."
"Suit yourself."
She filed her papers away and dumped them unceremoniously into a drawer, motioning for her student to pull up a chair. When they were both settled, she pulled out a folder and dumped its contents in front of him. He picked up the top article with a raised eyebrow.
"Something of interest, perhaps?" she offered with a smirk.
"This year's freshmen?" he asked, eyes taking in the other articles.
"Ah, yes." She motioned to the paper in his hand. "That one you're holding was written by the Weekly Pro Tennis magazine, about Tezuka Kunimitsu."
Indeed it was. Yamato skimmed through the article. It detailed Tezuka's tennis history, his achievements (which took up almost a full column of the one-page article) and had a large, full-colour, glossy picture of the then-captain on it.
"Written last year, after the Chugaku Zenkoku Daikai," Ryuzaki-sensei told him. "When Tezuka led the team he captained to win the title of National Champion for the first time since he took over, so they've had the title for three years."
She studied the captain closely from over the rim of her teacup. His lips formed a small smile, but that was always there, so she didn't take too much notice of it.
"What do you make of that?"
"Very impressive," Yamato noted finally, setting down the article. "Sensei has been doing some snooping around, has she?"
"If I hadn't, then Tezuka wouldn't have come to this school," she replied.
"Oh?"
"His grandfather, apparently, was of the mind to send him to Rikkaidai Fuzoku, since it is famous for having the title of Chugaku National Champion."
"And so you decided to change the tides?"
"Hm . . . you could say that." Her smirk widened. "I, however, taught Tezuka's father myself. Tezuka Kuniharu, very intelligent, but sadly no sporting talent whatsoever. Scared shitless of his father, like anyone clever would be, but he had the guts to stand up to him and let the boy decide his own future."
"And he chose Seigaku?"
"Is that a surprise?" Seeing the look on his face, she cut him off. "No, don't answer that. Anyway, what do you make of him?"
"Very capable, from his past, but nothing as of yet." His glasses reflected the sunlight from outside the window. "He will have to prove himself before I can make a general statement. He may be Shougaku National Champion, but he is still an untried freshman here in Seigaku."
"So harsh in your judgements, Yamato," she laughed. "How very unlike you."
"A mask isn't only made of plaster."
She sighed at his comment and waved him off, just as the bell rang. He bowed and scooped up the remaining documents from the table with a wink.
XXX
Lunchtime was spent in the classroom for all years, with the exception of 1-6, who spent most of it running up and down the school doing odd jobs for their homeroom teacher. Eiji passed classroom 1-1 and spotted a familiar face just next to the window.
"Look, Oishi! It's that boy from yesterday!"
Oishi paused, shifting the weight of the cardboard box in his arms. Sitting next to the window was the pale, brown-haired boy from yesterday's club sign-up. He was eating his lunch and reading a book at the same time.
"Wah, his lunch looks tasty," Eiji drooled, staring at it.
"Eiji-kun! He's looking at you!"
The boy was smiling directly at them, closing his lunchbox. He then got out of his seat and opened the window, leaning out to talk.
"Konnichiwa, you're the two from sign-up yesterday," he said, smiling brightly. "My name is Fuji Syusuke. Nice to meet you."
"Ah, nice to meet you too!" Eiji replied energetically. "I'm Kikumaru Eiji and this is Oishi, but you can just call me Eiji. We're in class 1-6, next door!"
"What are you doing walking around with boxes for?"
"Got into trouble," Eiji said, wrinkling his nose. "The whole class has to run errands for our tanin, you see, and we got stuck with putting things into the storeroom."
Fuji chuckled as a loud growl issued from the redhead's stomach. Eiji blushed, but the brown-haired boy reached back and grabbed his lunchbox, offering them what was inside. There were a couple of onigiri inside, as well as sushi.
"Here, have some, I can't finish them all anyway," he offered.
"No, that wouldn't be too appropriate," Oishi stammered, shaking his head. He kicked Eiji's ankle lightly. "We don't want to be rude."
"It's no problem at all," Fuji assured him. "Just take it. You're hungry and I have too much food."
"Arigatou, nya!" Eiji exclaimed, accepting the offer.
"Nya?" Fuji repeated in amusement. He chuckled again. "That's cute."
"So," Oishi said as Eiji chewed. "Have you got any friends in this class?"
"No one I know," Fuji replied nonchalantly. He smiled. "But there are very interesting people here."
His eyes led them towards a person sitting in the front row, only a two seats away. He was tall, bespectacled and looked rather old for his age. He was ignoring everything going on around him and eating his lunch. There was a thick textbook open on his desk and his eyes were going through it like lightning. Eiji swallowed his food and peered at him.
"He looks like a nerdy character to me," he commented. "And too serious!"
"He joined the tennis club too."
"Ee? Nerds play tennis too?"
"Eiji-kun, keep your voice down!"
Fuji's closed eyes opened just a fraction, showing glimmering blue depths as the boy in question glanced over. Surprised by the sudden display of such unearthly blue eyes, Eiji stepped back a little.
"He's very good," the shorter boy informed him. "So I suggest you keep your voice down or your opinions on him to yourself."
After this statement, Fuji closed his eyes again and was back to normal. He bowed and told them how nice their first meeting was and he would see them at tennis practice after school. He returned to his seat, closing the window.
XXX
Kawamura decided that he didn't really like his new class. Not only did he get picked on for being gakkyuiin, the loud-mouths of the class had discovered that he wouldn't fight back even if they picked on him. So he had become their target early on and was intent on making him miserable.
"What have you got for lunch?" a boy asked.
"Sushi," he mumbled.
"Ooh, got your mummy cooking for you?" the boy sneered.
"Baka," a girl called out as Kawamura blushed. "Doesn't your mother make your lunch for you too?"
Choosing to ignore this, the boy continued to torment Kawamura, before a quiet clearing of the throat interrupted him. They found themselves staring at a tall, wiry boy with short black hair and very thick, square-rimmed glasses.
"Kawamura Takashi," he began without preamble. "Right-handed, tennis player, style: Aggressive Baseliner, powerhouse . . ."
"E-Excuse me," Kawamura stammered, going red. The boy stopped in mid-rant and peered down at him.
"Inui Sadaharu," he introduced, tucking his notebook and pen under an arm so he could shake Kawamura's hand. "I've been following you around since yesterday."
Not knowing how to react to this statement, Kawamura stuttered again.
"You live upstairs to your family-owned Sushi Bar," Inui continued. "Single-parent family, work with your father before and after school . . ."
The boys were beginning to creep out because of the bespectacled boy's thoroughness in information gathering. He was proceeding onto clothing sizes when he realised that Kawamura was frozen in shock and the others had scattered in his midst.
"My data is incomplete," he commented offhandedly. "I hope to gather more."
"Anou . . . that's nice?" Kawamura ventured.
"It's not that hard, since I am sitting next to you . . ."
Kawamura decided to add: creepy data-guy onto the list of why he was miserable in his new class.
XXX
The time all the freshmen had been waiting for had finally come. As the afternoon bell rang to signal the end of school, various cheers came up from the first year classrooms. They all scrambled to pack their things after clean-up – returning brooms to closets, mops and buckets to store rooms and so on – to get ready for club activities.
Fuji was wiping down the blackboard, as was his duty for the week, when the bell rang. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand and wrung out the cloth into the bucket. There was still fifteen minutes until the bell rang again to signal the beginning of club activities, so he still had time.
"Nya, Oishi! We don't want to be late! Come on!"
Eiji's mop of red hair came into view from outside the classroom and Fuji saw this through the windows looking out to the corridor. He jumped down from the chair he was standing on and carried the bucket to the washbasin at the back of the classroom, emptying its contents.
"Fuji-kun!" Oishi's voice called from the back door. "Are you coming?"
"Ah," Fuji replied. "I'll be there as soon as I finish cleaning up."
"Hurry up then!" Eiji sang, waving. "Don't wanna be late, do we?"
"I'll see you there, Eiji."
They ran off and Fuji returned to his cleaning. As he was rinsing out the bucket, the door opened again to reveal Tezuka. The other boy stood in the doorway for a second, then nodded to acknowledge him.
"I just came to get my bag," he said shortly.
"You don't need to explain to me, Tezuka-kun," Fuji replied lightly. He turned off the tap and was tipping out the water from the bucket again when it slipped. "Oh dear."
Tezuka steadied the bucket with both hands, before Fuji could even react. How he had gotten there was beyond the other boy, but he was very fast. His smile returned to his face, however, when Tezuka emptied the water out for him.
"Arigatou, Tezuka-kun," he said with a small bow. "I'm sorry for causing trouble."
"It's all right."
"Anou, if it's all right, could you wait for me so we can go to practice together?" Fuji asked. "I just need to grab my bag."
"Sure."
The shorter boy put the bucket and washcloth back into the closet and ran to his desk to grab his bag. On the way, he tripped over a chair and steadied himself on the desk.
"Oh dear," he chuckled again. "I'm clumsy today. Let's go, Tezuka-kun."
They walked down the corridor, in no particular hurry. People who weren't in club activities were leaving the school, while others were running to their respective rooms. Fuji was of slight build and almost got knocked over twice by people running down the corridor, but he only laughed it off.
"It happens," he said good-naturedly. "I'm small for my age."
"Sou ka . . ."
Somehow, to Tezuka, Fuji seemed very ordinary. The bespectacled boy wondered if his first feeling of intrigue in Fuji was misplaced.
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End of Chapter One
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Chapter Two:
First tennis club practice, the freshmen get properly introduced to Yamato-buchou and Ryuzaki-sensei, the future Regulars all gather together for the first time!
Translation notes:
I will only be putting new translations in, okay?
-kun – an honorific for boys, usually young boys to about teenagers, used by friends for boys, sometimes teachers use it too, but mostly amongst peers
Chugaku Zenkoku Daikai – Junior High School National Championships (Chugaku junior high school, Zenkoku National, Daikai – championship, tournament)
Konnichiwa – hello, used in the afternoons until early evening
Tanin – (not sure if this is spelt correctly) homeroom teacher
Onigiri – rice balls (the ones that anime characters always eat)
Baka – idiot, stupid
Anou – um (one of the many words for 'um' in the Japanese language, I prefer saying 'eto', but the characters usually use 'anou')
Sou ka – really?
Reviews will be greatly appreciated. Flames will be used to aid Fuji in his little schemes to greatly embarrass the others.
Relinquished