Chapter 7
'Unfortunately, I'm not shitting you. Far from it.'
If Oukosu's face could get any blanker, it would've right at that moment. 'Are you saying that you're the shithead that writes those shitty entries and boggles the shit out of us?'
'What do you mean...? You didn't open it, did you?' Sendoh's eyes widened.
'Of course I did. If you must know, Hedgehog, we take your posts very seriously and with the crap you're writing, I should say you make a perfect pigeon for tabloids.'
'We? What do you mean by we? You mean you're not the only one who knows about my diary?'
'Four of my friends including Sakuragi there already know about it. At least up to the point where you let him drink on your jug. Now if you're lucky, I can just let the whole world know right at this moment.' Oukusu mocked. He seemed to have forgotten the difference between Sendoh's height and physical prowess and his.
'Wh-why would you do that?'
'Because it's fun. Duh.'
Sendoh scratched his head. He looked beyond agitation. 'That item is mine. I have the right to have it back.'
'Hmm. Let's see; that diary was lost, we found it; we have the right to keep it.'
'But...you're not ransoming it, are you?'
'A few seconds ago, no. But now that you've mentioned it, yes.'
'Oh boy. Just tell me what you want,' Sendoh said, his face brimming with entreaty.
'Right. First things first; why pink?'
It was Sendoh's face's turn to look blank.
'I like the color I suppose.'
'OK, you're the gayest thing ever.' Ookusu said trying to look disgusted while Sendoh flinched and started shooting constant glances at his sides.
An avalanche of questions swarmed into the blond boy's head and when he couldn't decide what to ask next, 'Let's take this to my firends, I've a lot to ask you regarding your stuff and it would illuminate us if you yourself explain to them'
'Are you nuts? This is criminal! Why can't I just have it back and maybe, I don't know, get on with our respective lives?'
'Oh, it's that easy, isn't it? Well, let me inform you. A week ago we were minding our own business, getting on with our very private lives when suddenly your stupid diary turned up and now look at us! We can hardly focus on our studies or sleep at night or even eat!' Ookusu's voice escalated into a considerable volume. Heads turned towards their direction. Sendoh, noticing the commotion, chuckled pretentiously to present a scene in which he and Ookusu were simply goofing around.
'OK. You and your pals want to know what's up with me and my love life? Fine. I'll go tell my teammates to go on ahead without me.' Sendoh said and headed to his teammates leaving Ookusu mildly embarrassed with his behavior.
The rest of the Ryonan and half of the Shohoku players had left the gym when Sendoh came to join the Guntai. Ookusu had already explained the initial details to his friends so when the hedgehog joined the circle, Youhei and the others were grinning meaningfully.
'So Mr. Lovesick Puppy, what have you come to share for? Are you familiar with this bag of cheese?' Youhei was grinning idiotically while waving the diary in front of Sendoh. 'Wait wait, let me read just one more page to refresh your memory, here goes-'
Dear Page 5,
I followed him on his way home. He used the Tanaka detour. Which is 11 kilometers from my house. I don't mind; I can walk 100 kilometers more for him. But someone else was following us. What a bother. I turned around and saw it was him! On his pink bike. Did he think he could offer Sempai a ride? Not a chance while I'm here!
Mode: really angry. Pissed off, I'm so pissed off!
By the way, I learned something from Chemistry today. If you add yellow and blue, you get a different color. I'm so smart. I'm gonna call it blellow. (1)
Love,
Ookusu looked as though he was suffering from epilepsy. To further Sendoh's torment, the others were pounding their fists on the floor. A great howl of laughter rumbled away inside the gym. It didn't subside until the group could hardly catch their breath. Sendoh only shook his head in both frustration and shame.
It was Noma who broke the wordless racket. 'We all know it's Mitchy but who is the third party?'
'Nice one.' Takamiya told Noma as the latter gave a high five.
Sendoh felt as though he was being surrounded by a pack of wolves. He sighed deeply, to commence the narration he so dread to impart; the life of the accursed diary.
'As you have noticed, the first entry dated back three months ago, just around the time when we had our second practice game against Shohoku. The time when Mitsui rejoined the basketball team. That was the first time I saw him.' He would pause and sigh as if wanting to abort the task of imparting his love escapades but would continue anyway noticing that the Guntai were giving their full attention. 'And from then on, without the influence of magnetism, my eyes would always fall upon him. I got to know him better when the coaches decided to shuffle the team members to create a variety of teams so that we all could get acquainted with different playing tempos, you get my drift?' The guntai nodded and motioned him to get on with the story. 'So there I was, standing in front of this bookstore, wondering where I could find a diary. As I have mentioned, I like the color pink. It's not a girl color; you see, I find it rather sexy. Moving on, almost everything I ever wrote on it was about him. So it's basically a record of my love life. He's really friendly; he would say goodbye to me, drink from my jug, give me high fives and all even though I'm from Ryonan,' Youhei was about to interrupt but Takamiya stuffed his fist in the former's mouth. Sendoh continued, 'You've read some of the entries so I suppose you've learned that there is this someone else.' The guntai inched closer to Sendoh so as not to miss a single syllable, 'As you can tell, my moments with Sempai were very special and I couldn't help grinning whenever things of that sort took place. But what I really couldn't ignore were the two cold eyes drilling holes in me whenever I share these moments with Sempai. Guess whose eyes they were.' Sendoh finished and left the question for the Guntai to answer.
'Who?' The Guntai asked in unison, apparently so anxious to hear the answer. They closed in on Sendoh even more tightly that their cheeks were all rubbed together. Sendoh stared at them one by one which just elevated their anticipation into a ridiculous level. This went on util a ringing silence ensued.
'Guess who.' A cold voice broke through their silence. They turned their heads to the voice's direction to see someone tall with a pale complexion standing with his arms folded across his chest, looking like a total bitch.
It was Kaede Rukawa.
-TBC-