dollarbanks: thanks so much! I will!
keia mizuki: well...you're gonna find out right now aren't ya? hehehe
So on to the story! Please review and read, okay, though again, not neccessarily in that order.
You Mean, Rukawa has a best friend?
Chapter Eight
Rukawa visibly paled as he heard the clapping from behind him. It wasn't a slow obnoxious clap, but a rigorous, enthusiastic kind, the kind he gets from Kira after finishing a piece in the guitar or scoring a particularly hard earned shot.
Kira must have noticed the paleness in his already pale face, because she looked at him with a slightly worried look. She leaned to the left past him and lookedat the door.Her mouth formed a small 'o'.
Rukawa bent down to her as he pushed the guitar back at her hands. As he bent, Kira whispered in his ear, "It's the red headed freak."
Rukawa wanted to groan out loud, but instead did it inwardly. He did close his eyes, a sign that shows that he was irritated, and then opened it to glare at Kira.
"Hey, it's not my fault they heard you," she said, "and they heard me sing, you think you got it bad?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, you sing well." Rukawa muttered back.
Kira rolled her eyes, but did smile at the comment.
Finally, feeling like he's back going to break if he doesn't straightened up soon, he turned to the door.
He almost wanted to strangle Kira.
It was Sakuragi by the door, but he wasn't alone. Next to him was Akagi-sempai's sister, Haruko, who was looking starry eyed at him, a slight blush in her face. Behind them was Akagi, Mitsui and Ryoga, all with either amused smiles or large grins in their faces. As he looked, he saw the entire Shohoku Basketball team was staring at the two of them and at the guitar in Kira's arms.
Rukawa rounded on Kira. "You said it was only the red headed freak!" he said loud enough for the entire gym to hear.
"WHO ARE YOU CALLING A RED HEADED FREAK KITSUNE!" shouted Sakuragi, charging at him.
They squabbled for a good five minutes before the seniors, Akagi and Mitsui, decided that it was time to end the squabble and separate the two promising athletes.
Rukawa glared at Kira for one last time before turning back to face the rest of the team, who was huddled up to form a strategy. Their game with Ryonan was after all coming up next weekend.
Ayako and Haruko sat next to Kira, who had stowed away her guitar and placed it undrneath the bench. Rukawa playing alone was nothing new to her and watching him play with the rest of the team makes the game more interesting, more fun and more exciting.
Kira kept looking sideways to where Ayako and Haruko were talking, though in rather small voices, and Ayako, who was facing her, kept shooting glances at her. Kira took a deep breath and turned to Ayako, and said, "Can I help you?"
Ayako seemed to have been taken by surprise. She turned Haruko so she and her would be facing Kira. Haruko was still rather pink in the cheeks after staring at Rukawa for a long time and Ayako was eyeing her up and down.
"I don't bite you know," said Kira brightly.
Haruko blushed even further, and was fidgeting with the end of her shirt. Kira looked at her, waiting for her to talk, but she didn't seem to want to say anything. Kira was about to say that something when Haruko suddenly burst out loud -
"Are you Rukawa-kun's girlfriend?"
"NANI!" cried Kira and Rukawa and Sakuragi at the same time. Kira even saw that Rukawa had dropped the ball that he was holding. Sakuragi's upper lip was twitching, and was staring incredulously at Haruko. Ayako looked incredibly interested, Kira thought that that maybe what they she and Haruko were muttering about.
Haruko turned to the court, where many of the players were now staring at them. She was an even deeper shade of pink now.
Kira had took a deep breath to recover. It wasn't the first time that someone had asked her that, it's just that it's been a long time since someone did ask her about Rukawa.
"Well, are you?" asked Haruko, this time in a more calm voice.
Kira smiled at her. "You like him, don't you?"
Haruko was now red.
Kira smiled even wider. "Kaede and I are childhood buddies," she answered, "best friends, neighbors, constant thorns in each other's spines, we're not a couple."
Haruko looked up hopefully. "Really?"
Kira nodded. "Hmm.." she said, "Don't worry, I'll even put in a good word for you."
"You will?"
"Sure," she said brightly, though she doubted whether Kaede would be interested. She didn't say that to Haruko, though, the girl looked like all her dreams had just came true all at the same time.
Haruko grinned. "I'm Akagi Haruko, by the way," she said, "first year, Shohoku High."
"Yamato Kira, freshie, Ryonan High."
Haruko looked surprised. "We're playing you next week!"
Kira nodded. "Hmm," she said, "I'm sure that it'll be - "
"KITSUNE!"
Kira, Haruko, and Ayako had all turned to the court, where Sakuragi, was once again, causing tirade to stop practice.
Rukawa shot the ball neatly into the basket before turning his attention to the red head.
"ONE ON ONE!" he cried, "NOW!"
Rukawa blinked at him. "Doahou."
"NANI!"
Rukawa spared him one last glance before turning to the basket again, and shooting the ball.
"He's very good, isn't he?" breathed Haruko.
Kira grinned. "Your school's lucky to have him."
"How come you're in Ryonan anyway?" asked Ayako, who has since now, only been listening curiously. "If you're close and all?"
"Oh," said Kira, smiling, "well, at the end of junior high, we kinda fought, well actually, it was war between the two of us and we both got so mad at each other that I decided to go to Ryonan while he went to Shohoku. We made up a month after school started so we couldn't transfer to the other's school."
Ayako looked like she wanted details.
"I don't wanna talk about it," added Kira hastily.
By the courts, they could see that Sakuragi was engaged in a tussle with Rukawa again, and was threatening to throw balls at him. They chose to ignore him.
"So," said Ayako curiously, a small smile in her face, "what are Ryonan practices like? Do you any from the team?"
Kira smiled, thinking of Sendoh. "Well, we're not close," she began.
"It's Sendoh, isn't it?" asked Haruko suddenly.
Kira smiled. "Stop looking at me like that, it's not like -"
But whatever it wasn't like, they never found out, because at that moment, a ball came hurtling out from the side of Kira and hit her squarely in her left eye.
"KIRA!"
Kira's hands went instinctively on her eye as she said, "Itai..."
Her left eye was shut completely, but her other eye was wide open, and she could see after a few seconds of blurness, Rukawa in front of her.
"Can you see properly?" he asked her, placing a hand over her own hand that was above her eye.
Kira nodded, but her eyes were watering. It was only then that the pain was registering, and she started to feel the tears that were about to fall in her good eye.
"You're gonna cry aren't you?" he muttered, an eyebrow raised in her direction.
"It's hurts a lot!" she cried, tears now slowly falling.
"Shh..." said Rukawa, wiping the first few tears that were now running in her cheek. He sat beside her, his hand over her shoulder as he sort of cuddled her. Her bruised eye was covered in Rukawa's chest. Her hand was still in her eye, and saw that Akagi had thrown him an ice pack. "Here," he said, "put this over you eye."
Kira looked up at him, finally managing to stop the flow of tears. "My first black eye." she said, trying to force a smile.
"It better not happen again." he muttered. Kira saw that he was glaring at Sakuragi, who was being told off severely by their captain.
"You're not gonna beat him up are you?" asked Kira, who was now sitting up, as Haruko was looking at her, slightly worriedly.
"Who's gonna stop me?"
"You can't!" she cried. "You need him for the game next week," then she thought, "oh wait, go on beat him up that way we win." She grinned, then winced.
Rukawa eyed her slightly, but chose to follow the first advice and instead of beating him up, just gave him one of the iciest glares that Kira had seen him manage.
After a while, Rukawa had left back to the courts. The cold ice was numbing the pain, though Kira was sure that by tonight, a black eye would have formed there, and she didn't want to find out what would happen on school come Monday.
Sakuragi had come up to her to apologize, or more like Rukawa had forced him to go up to her and apologize. Kira accepted, and Sakuragi had walked away, shouting, "We're still gonna beat your school this weekend!"
At the other side of the court, Rukawa was forced to agree.