I suppose that this chapter is a bit longer than the last one was, but not really by much. this chapter is a good one-thousand-seven-hundred-ten words worth of storyline, minus this headnote, right here, the disclaimer that comes after this headnote as soon as I'm finished with it and the one little comment of mine disguised as an author's note that I wrote about my own birthday and in dedication to an old classmate of mine slightly hidden between two slanted lines somewhere in this chapter. try to find it if you dare. now, on to the disclaimer.
disclamation: I do not own the 'Wedding Peach' anime or manga in any way, shape, or form, not even in the form of copies of the manga in books or DVDs of the anime. I do not know who the series belongs to, but it definitely ain't me. I'm still but a humble writer of fanfictions like this one and of other kinds of stories.
So, there I was minding my own business following soccer practice out on the field when the captain came up to me with a bottle full of some kind of liquid.
Yours Truly: What up, Captain? What's in the bottle you got there?
Captain Kazuya Yanagiba: Oh, just a stamina drink that one girl from the newspaper club gave me as soon as the game was over.
'That one girl from the newspaper club', huh? I wonder which one it could have possibly been. Then again, it was not as though I had even cared just which one of them had given Yanagiba that stamina drink. If it was Momoko who gave it to him, it would so be mine; and even if it was not Momoko who gave it to him, it would still be mine.
Yours Truly: Uh, maybe you'd like to share it with a select one of your soccer teammates… like me.
I had to be specific about this or else he would have shared that little thing with every other member of the team like it was a free pick-me-up. I guess that it kind of was supposed to be free in technical terms, but that did not mean that the rest of the team had to know about it.
Captain Kazuya Yanagiba: Oh, you want some of it, yourself, Yousuke? Alright then. As a treat from me, I'll even let you have the first sip.
Oh, I would take more than just a sip of it… that was, as long as the captain did not mind me downing over half of it.
Yours Truly: Thanks a lot, captain. I'll be sure to give it back to you once I'm done with it.
Which was going to be just about when the whole entire thing of it was already nearly downed by me. I know it was a pretty jerk ass move to down the stuff when it was a gift meant for the captain, but I was way thirsty.
There was even the fact of considering that even just one of the newspaper club girls had given this stamina drink to the captain, there was a slight chance that Momoko was the one who had given it to him. If it did happen to be from Momoko and I could down the whole thing of it, it would be just like that one time I took her rice ball lunch for myself which would result in an indirect kiss.
Wait a minute. Why did I just call it an indirect kiss? What on Earth was wrong with me? Why did I always seem so eager to steal food of any kind from that Momoko if it were for nothing but the sake of a stupidly indirect kiss?
I did not even know why I was suddenly always so into indirectly kissing Momo-pi, but for one reason or another, it always felt good to feel like I was that girl's first kiss. I suppose that it had something to do with just wanting to keep her away from the captain. I guess that keeping a stalker like that girl away from Captain Yanagiba was just my way of being a good friend to the captain of my own soccer team to whom I looked up so much.
I was pulled back to reality from which I did not even realize I had drifted into my head over by the captain, himself, just a few short moments after my sudden random reverie.
Captain Kazuya Yanagiba: I'll be sure to come back for that drink as soon as you finished with your sip from it. The newspaper girl even said it was high in soccer energy.
Of course, hearing that from the captain had made it even more perfect. I knew it was pretty wrong to basically steal it from the captain, and I knew I would probably feel guilty about taking it from him the following day, but that was hours away from the time I was just about to down this whole delicious stamina drink.
I began swigging it down like I was dying of thirst. The instant I started, however, it tasted so horrible that I could not keep it down and just spat it back out of my mouth.
Yours Truly: What is this? Topsoil?
That was around when I suddenly heard the voice of a girl heading towards me.
Female voice: Oh my gosh!
It was Momoko and her friends, alright.
Momoko Hanasaki: Yousuke, you didn't drink that, did you?
While Momoko sounded pretty worried for my taste, her friends, Yuri and Hinagiku, just sounded like they were only happy that the captain did not wind up drinking that nasty stuff.
Hinagiku Tamano: Oh, thank goodness.
Yuri Tanima: I can't tell you how relieved I am.
Of course, I had a thing or two to say to whichever one of the three of them it was that was responsible for even making that nasty swill, never mind ever even giving it to the captain in the first place.
Yours Truly: Who's responsible for this swill?
That was when Hinagiku grabbed onto the bottle of that nasty stuff I was holding from the strap up with my right hand.
Hinagiku Tamano: It's not swill. It's an unfinished work in progress, that's all.
Well, I guess that that answered my question as to which one of the three of them had given that nasty thing to Yanagiba which he let me have. I could not believe it. I just did not believe it. That stuff was from Hinagiku, of all three of them. I had gotten that indirect kiss from Hinagiku? That felt twice as disgusting as that topsoil drink alone.
That was when Momoko, herself, spoke up about any existent concerns for me.
Momoko Hanasaki: Yousuke, are you alright?
I had to say that it brought a slight warmth to me that Momoko was this openly worried about me, of all the soccer team members. Of course, I was not going to let her know that I thought about her concern for me in such a way that easily, though. I had to think of something fast to cover it up, along with my own mistake of indirectly kissing her friend, Hinagiku, through that nasty swill which had tasted of topsoil.
Yours Truly: You idiot. How could you let me drink that nasty 'work-in-progress'? Thanks, Momo-pi!
I know it was a total jerk-ass move to blame her for it when Hinagiku was the one that gave the stuff to the captain, but I had to think of something to cover up for what I had planned for that stamina drink for Captain Yanagiba and I suppose that blaming Momoko for it just seemed like the best thing that I could even do about it. Granted that I also made the mistake of thinking it was even given to the captain by Momoko, herself, but if anything could help me recover from every last one of those courses of action, I guess I firmly believed that that would have easily done the trick.
Momoko Hanasaki: It's not my fault. If you weren't such a glutton, you wouldn't have stolen Yanagiba's drink in the first place.
This was so not good. Momoko was onto my original motives for that nasty 'work-in-progress' from her friend, Hinagiku, that tasted of topsoil. I could not believe that my intentions for that gift to Captain Yanagiba had backfired on me this badly. I had to say something to cover up for it.
Yours Truly: I didn't steal it. He gave it to me and said it was a stamina drink.
I should have known thereafter that all of that would only result in yet another argument with Momoko, but I just had to hope that the cherry-blossom-pink-haired girl would understand that I was doing the captain a favor when the gift for him was something like that swill. No such luck, though.
Momoko Hanasaki: There you go again, blaming other people for your own stupidity.
Oh, I was the stupid one that time? If that girl wanted to see real stupidity, she should have had the nerve to look into a mirror at any given time.
Hinagiku suddenly showed up in between the two of us to stop our in-fighting.
Hinagiku Tamano: Now, now. I'm the one who made the nasty swill.
So, the lime-green-haired one was even the creator of the whole thing, was she? That made me feel even more disgusted by that nasty 'work-in-progress' of Hinagiku's times infinity.
A/N: and that, my readers, was nothing but a shout-out to an old middle school classmate of mine. I'm twenty-nine, now, by the way, if people have to know just how old I am. my birthday was on March 26th.
I was embarrassed enough without the stamina-drink-knock-off I was actually dumb enough to try and down by myself having been given to Yanagiba by Hinagiku without the nasty thing having been made by the lime-green-haired girl in addition to that, thank you very much. I had to think of something to get away from the three of them if only to hide all my shame and humiliation.
Yours Truly: Well, it's not like I have the time to deal with this right now, anyway. The three of you are just lucky that I gotta head home or else my cat's gonna eat up the furniture again.
I know that it was not exactly the best excuse ever, especially since I did not even own a cat or any animal companion whatsoever, but I had to say something to get the three of them away from me. Momoko, Yuri and Hinagiku finally left me alone after a hostile glare or two from Momoko, herself, only to get followed by a little boy who was apparently Hinagiku's kid brother. Akira Tamano, I believe was what his elder sister said his name was when he had first shown up with something that was supposed to be put in that nasty 'work-in-progress' of hers that I guess would have made it taste a lot less like topsoil, since the kid said it was syrup.
