I must say I'm very happy and overall pleasantly surprised by how much attention this story is getting. I wasn't expecting this much attention for a character who is a side character and who belongs in a series that isn't that big anymore— at least I don't think it is. Whelp, anyways! Thank you to those who followed and favorited! Special thanks to mapl3nin2cool, who pretty much gave me enough confidence to post the second chapter.

Bold- English

"Uuuuuu…."

"Akina." Her dad gave her a fed up look. His fingers clutched at the driver's wheel. The Echizen father could not believe his daughter's childishness. She just had to wait ten minutes for one of the student council members to meet her out in the parking lot and then they'll make their way to the principal's office.

"UUUuuuUUUuuUu…!"

Nanjiro mockingly gave her a concerned look. Her exaggerated moans of reluctance were starting to become annoying. He playfully smacked her with his sweaty sash that had been holding together his uniform. Akina screamed as it landed in her and she quickly swatted the offending fabric onto the car floor. The girl flailed. In her panicked attempt to remove the sash from her lap, her half hazard swatting had only delayed the already slow descent of the sash to the floor. Her fingers twisted into the dark fabric, prolonging her torture.

Another shriek ripped itself out her throat. Her shriek pushed Nanjiro's bubbling laughter over and he started to openly mock her for her over the top dramatics. He just couldn't help himself. The poor girl was freaking out about a damp piece of fabric. Granted, it was damp from his sweat but still. The said poor girl fought against the door handle, successfully opening her torturous confinement but unsuccessfully freeing herself from the said confinement.

When Akina dropped the sash, her flailing had caused the fabric to land near her feet. In her panic, she hadn't realized that she had stepped on one end while the other was kicked into a tucked groove, allowing someone— in this case, Akina— to be able to hook their other foot on the sash and not-so-gracefully fall face flat into the hot concrete below.

"Ah, are you alright?"

Akina died.

That voice did not belong to her father.

She wanted to stay down on the floor. Her first few minutes at this brand spankin' new— to her at least— and she just showed off her graceful skills to one of her new classmates. She mentally crossed her fingers. Hopefully she won't ever see him again. Akina peered up with her brown orbs. The guy in front of her was wearing the male equivalent of the uniform that she was supposed to wear. A green suit and a striped tie.

Ugh. I have to wear a tie.

The student raised his eyebrow at her. She gave an awkward wave as she raised herself from the hot concrete. He merely kept his eyebrow raised. Akina couldn't read him. He had his fucking eyes closed! The guy gave her a small bow of which she returned with a sheepish smile on her lips.

What's with brown-haired guys and having their eyes closed?

"Are you the new student here to tour the grounds?" He wanted to get this over with. That much Akina could tell.

"Uh yes. I'm Akina Echizen—" You're in Japan! "— I mean, Echizen Akina."

"And I'm guessing your father is with you?" The Rikkaidai student peered over her shoulder to find her father snickering at his daughter's antics, his sash firmly over his monk uniform. She nodded vigorously; the student couldn't help but think she looked like a rabbit with her wide eyes. "Very good. I'm Yanagi Renji. I'll be giving you a tour of the grounds today."

She shot him a glistening smile. Of which he ignored. Akina's lips pulled into a thin line. She's already liking Seigaku better. Her black hair whipped around her as she turned to call her father. Together, all three of them walked to the principal's office with minimal words, the occasional vocalization coming from Yanagi describing the surrounding grounds. She rolled her eyes behind him. Despite her previous action leading one to believe otherwise, she could fuckin' see. Akina didn't need this guy describing every rock to her as if he was afraid she would fall and hurt herself.

"Ah," the Yanagi guy stopped Akina and Nanjiro. "Here we are."

Yanagi gave a gentle, alerting knock before pushing open the door, allowing Akina to shamelessly gawk at the ridiculously luxurious office the principal had going from himself. The office was spacious, decked out with the neatest looking wood Akina had even seen. Why did she think wood looked neat? She didn't know. She just knew that the principal, Yoshizawa Tsutomu, was, no doubt, not in any need of a really nice— mahogany?— desk and a comfy looking swivel chair.

"Echizen Nanjiro and Akina, I presume?" The round and balding principal held out his hand.

The two Echizens shook his hand one after the other, each giving the man their signature smile. Yoshizawa was a very cheerful man— something that Akina had definitely not been expecting with what her mother was telling her of the school. She was expecting some Bruce Wayne type of guy. After all, Rikkaidai was only the best. With their grandiose— her mother's words— motto, "losing is unacceptable," it was quite easy to picture a super buff, stern guy who only wanted the best at Rikkaidai. What an eye roller.

"Akina?" All three males stared at her.

The girl blinked. Shit. What did he ask? "Ah?"

"I'm sure you read the student handbook?" Tsutomu raised a brow.

"Yes, of course!" No.

"Good, as expected of a Rikkaidai student." The principal smiled gleefully. "And do you have any questions over the expectations we have over Rikkaidai students?"

Akina smiled. "No, sir."

"Great," the principal clapped his hands together with a loud noise. He turned his head over to Yanagi. "Now, why don't you take Echizen-chan over here and show her around the school. Make sure to tell her about our clubs and committees. Echizen-san and I will discuss the, uh, other arrangements that need to be arranged."

Akina nodded, knowing exactly what her father and the principal needed to discuss. Giving her father a gentle squeeze on his shoulder, she followed the Yanagi boy out into the overly decorated hallway. Like all high schools, they showcase their accomplishments with won trophies in neat little cases. But Rikkaidai was ridiculous. Just to do a massive flex on the other schools, this school decided to sort their trophies by year instead of by sport. That meant that they were so confident with their school winning a trophy in each sport that they decided it would just be easier to sort the trophies by year. The flex… was impressive. Naturally, her eyes tried to search for the tennis trophies.

"Do you play a sport, Echizen-chan?"

Akina tore her eyes away, a thin line resting on her lips. "No."

"Then perhaps the other clubs would interest you?"

"Probably."

"As you will remember, each student will need to enroll in a club or a committee. Here's a list of all the committees and clubs." No, she did not remember. She wasn't paying attention, but he didn't need to know that. Akina reluctantly took the papers he handed to her and stared at the thick packet in her hands. Brown eyes widened. "With almost three thousand students, it's natural that we have an excessive number of clubs and committees."

She slowly nodded, silently regretting her choice to going to this school. But her mom did beg and then the hospital…. Ugh…. Akina placed the packet in her purse. This was getting annoying. Black hair shifted as she cracked her neck, much to the displeasure of Yanagi. He looked down at his papers, desperately wanting to finish this tour and get back to his team mates. They could handle themselves, he knew that, but with their former club manager now in college, the Demon Trio were surprisingly inadept to handle growth of the already large tennis club. Yanagi didn't want to add any more stress to the rest of the team— especially not Yukimura.

"It seems your homeroom will be here," he gestured to the locked doors of a random classroom. "Homeroom C3."

Satisfied with her indifferent response, Yanagi continued to drabble on about the history and something or other… blah blah blah…. Akina grimaced. She could be watching her baby brother! But no! They just had to have her tour a damn school that she was forced to transfer to. Maybe she should have asked to stay with—.

Buzz. Buzz.

Hands flew to her purse, rummaging through to find her phone. Akina's eyes widened with hope. Making sure that Yanagi was in front of her and not paying attention to her, her eyes quickly flitted down to her phone, finding two messages from Ryoma. Her fingers typed in a familiar pattern of numbers that unlocked her phone. The number two hanging onto the message bubbled begged to be pressed, silently but intensely calling the elder Echizen to desperately open the app. Her thumb hovered over the app—.

"Do you have any questions so far?"

Akina snapped her head up, a fake smile on her lips. Yanagi was just beginning to turn his head towards her. "No! So far, so good!"

The student council member grimaced at her loud shout, cringing even more with her voice echoing off the tiled floor. He was not expecting her to shout so loud, especially with how quite she's been. He merely continued with the tour making a mental note to write his findings down later. Akina sighed, relaxing her shoulders. With a swift tap of her thumb, her brother's messages popped up on her screen.

Dweeb: dont go to the park. Were actually finished. ill send you an address for dad to drop you off at

The next one from Ryoma was a string of numbers and names. Akina frowned. There was another but from her father.

Dad: Get your ass up here. We're finished.

"Echizen-chan?" Yanagi called out to her, no doubt seeing the phone in her hand.

"Ah, they want us to come back up to the office. They're finished." Akina place her phone back in her purse. They returned to the office— silently to both of their pleasure— and found the two adults bowing to each other.

The principal gave her a smile. "Well, that about settles it! I'm sure you'll enjoy your time at Rikkaidai!"

"I'm sure I will," Akina returned his smile.

The Echizen pair left leaving the principal and the student council member to themselves, one more agitated to leave than the other. Yanai Renji watched the female Echizen babble something to her father about addresses and babies, betting to himself that she was a student so not fit for their school.

"Ah," his principal moaned mostly to himself. "Too bad we can't have her join the girl's tennis team."

That caught his attention. "Sir?"

"Ah," he misunderstood Yanagi's question. "Thank you for doing this. I know you have District matches today. I do appreciate it."

"It was no problem." It was. He didn't want to stress his team.

The principal smiled. "Whelp, I guess we can go now."

"Yes, sir." Yanagi simply walked off the Rikkaidai grounds, heading off towards the park that would contain the matches for this week. He looked down at his watch. They would still be playing. Despite being told to stay off his phone during matches, Kirihara had texted him that the matches were delayed for some reason that the officials didn't say. There was no doubt that they had been told why the officials decided to delay the matches and that Kirihara had simply not paid attention. Regardless, he left his items with Seiichi and he would need to meet up with his team to get his possessions back. He opened his phone, his fingers typing in a memorized number.

Ring ring. Ring ring. Ring ri—.

"Hello?"

"Seiichi, it's Yanagi."

"Ah, did you finish with the tour yet?"

"I just did. I'm walking to the park now." Yanagi could hear muffled voices in the background.

"Good, we'll see you soon."

And with that, Yukimura had hung up on him. Their exchanges had always been like that. Quick, precise, and to the point with no hesitation on either side. Yukimura was a man who always went into a conversation knowing what he wanted from the exchange. Whether to merely pass the time or retrieve information, Yukimura was certain. That's why Yanagi admired him so much. Yukimura didn't spend his time pondering over his own feelings and trying to decipher what he so desperately wanted; he already knew.

Ivy can grow strong just like friendship.

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