A/N: Hi you guys, I hope you liked the prologue, I had to think a lot about how to catch people's attention in it, so please continue reading!
Chapter 1 – Creature of the Night
Sakuno was just about to turn off the lights downstairs and go upstairs to her room to get ready for bed, but suddenly, she heard the sound of sitting hitting her patio door. She rushed downstairs to the patio door and when she got there, nothing but a smudge was there.
"Grandma's going to be mad at me if she sees this smudge!"
Sakuno hurried to get a rag to wipe it off from the kitchen. Suddenly,
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
It was as if someone was knocking on the door. Sakuno went to check, completely forgetting about the smudge on the patio door.
"Hello?" Sakuno said nervously as she opened the door.
"Wait! Grandma said not to open the door when I'm she's not here!" She slammed it shut.
Too bad she wasn't tall enough to be able to see through the peephole that was way above her height, being only 3 foot 7.5.
Her back was to the door. She was so curious to who was at the door. Her curiosity didn't spite her to open the door, but instead she heard another weird noise, this time coming from the basement. Who was it that was making such a fool out of her?
She grabbed her teddy bear for protection and went down to the basement. The basement was bare, it didn't even have any furniture yet. Sakuno's grandmother never even bothered to clean this place. There was dust everywhere, spider webs up on the ceiling, the lights didn't work very well, but well enough for the room to be in low light, and a couple bugs here and there. That was the very reason why Sakuno never went down here unless her grandmother made her. Her grandmother kept very old family albums and old tennis equipment down there just for safe keeping. Sakuno didn't know much about tennis despite her grandmother telling her lots of things about it.
"H-Hello?" Sakuno said with her teddy bear covering all of her face except for her right eye.
Footsteps. She heard footsteps. From behind, from above, from left or right? Everywhere she looked for where they were coming from. There was only one place she didn't consider: beneath her.
"Kyaa!"
She saw a hand. A hand right by her ankle. As she looked beyond that, she saw a figure. At first, she thought it was a cute little puppy that was wanted for her birthday, but instead she saw a boy. A boy of the same age as her with black-green tinted hair with hazel eyes shaped like a cat. His eyes were looking up at her that seemed to be expecting something. Taking her attention off of the boy, she glanced at where his hand was. She was about to trip over a tennis ball. Was this boy trying to save her or scare her? Sakuno became inquired about the boy.
"Umm…who are you?" Sakuno asked, still in shock of the boy in front of her.
Silence.
"What's your name?" Sakuno asked again hoping to get an answer out of him this time.
Silence.
She couldn't figure out what to do with this boy. Should she just leave him down here and wait for him to approach her, or should she continue trying to ask him questions?
The boy got up from his feet, took the tennis ball from the ground and headed towards the stairs.
"Umm…where are you going?"
"I want some Ponta."
Those were his first words to her. "I want some Ponta." What way to introduce himself to her! Well she knew one thing, this boy liked Ponta.
She hurried up the stairs after him.
"Where's your fridge?" He said hastily.
"It's just around the corner…"
This was awkward. A boy just "saved" her from tripping over his tennis ball and just started going around her home asking where her fridge was. She still had yet to ask him a million questions of what is he doing here, why he is here, and how he got here.
Sakuno became aware of her surroundings again and watched the boy carefully, trying not to make weird faces at him.
He finally found the fridge and grabbed himself some Ponta. It was the last one too. Who knows what would happen if there wasn't anymore. Offer him something else to drink?
"Hey."
"Y-yes?" She still hadn't gotten over the fact he was here.
"Your hair is too long."
What? That's all he had to say? After barging around her house, that's all he had to say?
"No it's not! My grandma said it's not long at all, and I don't even trip over it—"
He threw the tennis ball she almost tripped over at her and half-heartedly waved good bye, leaving through the patio door.
"He almost hit me in the face with this!"
She looked at the tennis ball, and it had something written on it.
"You've got somebody to hang around now, be happy. – Ryoma."