Iris
Salty- Whoohoo! New chapter! I am PUMPED! Standard disclaimers apply! Katsumi-Chan changed her honorifics!
Chapter 6. Befriending the crazies
The skies were a mixture of thin gray clouds and blue atmospheric whatever it was when I arrived at the wet, dewy Seishun academy tennis courts. After I had 'made up' with Fuji-kun and Kikumaru-kun, they both wanted me to go see them play tennis in action since I had missed their first game of the season.
Honestly, I had expected the boy's tennis courts to be a huge, high tech place but...that wasn't true at all. Everyone seemed to rely on only their rackets, bodies and tennis skills. It was sort of fascinating(and hilarious)to watch all of it happen. There were also a small number of boys(men or guys, whatever)wearing different jerseys than other people. After a few minutes it was obvious that those guys were on totally different levels from everyone else.
"Saitou-chan!" It was Fuji-kun's voice. I looked over and saw him jogging to me from one of the tennis courts. By the look of his sweat, his smile and the towel around his neck I would have guessed that he just had quite the exhilarating tennis tournament-whatever it's called. He panted a little as he stopped in front of me. Fuji-kun too wore the jersey of the better tennis players. How cool!
"Ah, hi Fuji-kun," I said. My eyes searched around for either Kikumaru-kun or Momo-Chan. I found neither.
Fuji-kun laughed. Omg! Did he see me looking? Wait, why was I embarrassed? I had no reason to be!
"Eiji's in a match," said Fuji-kun. He was still laughing! "Would you like to watch with me? My match just finished." I nodded. Fuji-kun started walking towards a court that was directly across from where he had just come from. I followed.
Outside the gate I peered my eyes out and saw...Kikumaru-kun in the jersey! He was staring intently across the net at his opponent-obviously a second year-who was in some weird position. He didn't wear the jersey that the others had.
"That's Arai-san across from Eiji," Fuji whispered down to me. I nodded. Kikumaru-kun suddenly began to twirl his racket over his wrist. "He's serious," said Fuji. I was gonna look up to him but the ref said that Kikumaru-kun was supposed to serve, so I didn't.
"Heh, he really is serious!" said an excited voice next to me. I glanced over and saw a girl standing next to me. She looked really familiar but I couldn't place her...
"Queen Murasaki," Fuji nodded, not looking to her. Queen Murasaki? Why did he call her queen Murasaki? I had a feeling that I was gonna find out sooner of later.
I went back to watching the game, unaware that I hadn't been paying attention. Wait, it was already five games to one? Either I was really interested in whatever I was looking at or that second year-Aro or something-sucked!
It was that Aro person's serve now. Even though he was losing, he was smirking. Or at least trying to. He threw the ball up in the air, lined up the racket, and smacked the ball to Kikumaru-kun. Like he knew it was coming, Kikumaru-kun did a skillful diveand smacked it right back. It was awesome!
"Hoi hoi!" He smiled and I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. Fuji-kun chuckled about something next to me.
"Oh~" Queen Murasaki said...or hummed? I wondered what they were talking about but my eyes were glued to Kikumaru-kun and what's his name. It was really weird, though, to see someone I saw sitting in a desk all day being so...active. I wondered what Fuji-kun looked like while playing tennis. Aw, now the game was over...
"Whoohoo!" Kikumaru-kun raised his arms up and twirled around and around and around. Aro-or whatever his name was-was frowning and resting on the floor. "Saisai-Chan! Fujiko! Raki-Chan!"
Oh, he saw us. I waved back to him, and Fuji-kun did too. Queen Murasaki just rolled her eyes.
"Raki-Chan...?" She muttered lowly, obviously annoyed. I could practically hear the forehead-vain in her voice.
"I won!" he shouted while waving his racket around dangerously. Me and Fuji-kun started laughing. Raki-Chan snickered.
"D-don't do that, K-Kikumaru-kun!" I had to try to make myself stop laughing...which came out unsuccessful. "Y-you're gonna hurt yourself!"
He froze and gave me a curious, innocent look. And then, he grinned.
"Don't worry!" he waved even harder and faster. Gah, I hated being a worry wart!
"Eiji!" Fuji-kun cupped his hands around his mouth(like a megaphone.) "I think you're gonna give her a seizure!"
He, Fuji-kun and Raki-Chan started laughing. I pouted, even as Kikumaru-kun walked out of the gate and stood beside all of us.
"I think that was my last match for today!" he said cheerfully, with his arms and racket behind his back.
"And unfortunately, I have a match in about ten more minutes," said Fuji-kun, sighing. I was pretty sure that he was joking, though. It was fairly obvious that he really wanted to go to the next match very badly.
"See ya!" Kikumaru-kun waved, grinning.
"Bye bye," Raki-Chan smirked. "See y-"
"Echizen! Echizen! Fight-o!" Almost at once, all of us looked to the source of the noise, a second year girl with short, blue hair? Dang, she was loud.
"You!" A brown haired person(I said person because I wasn't sure of their gender)yelled out, pointing to the louder blunette. "Please, do not interrupt practice. We could hear you from the girl's tennis courts."
It seemed that everyone had paused, with the exception of the players, to look towards the two people. When I looked again, I realized that the person who was not blue haired was quite obviously a girl. Her brown hair was a bit longer than the average boys, her dark green eyes were too big to belong to a male. I was proved wrong in my assumption about five seconds later.
Out of the gates came a boy-I knew this because he was wearing the male uniform-with huge gold eyes and slightly longer-than-average-black hair. Wow. I had never been more gender confused.
"Echizen!" The loud blunette hugged the 'boy' till he was slightly purple. "You won!"
The boy rubbed his neck after he was released. "Yeah, I did." He rolled his eyes and smirked.
"Hey," Raki-Chan suddenly abandoned me and Kikumaru-who was looking at the boy with intrigue-and walked to the boy. "Don't be so stoic to your elders!" Her fist softly pounded against the top of the boy's white cap.
Suddenly, I was aware that I was completely in the background. It was just a thought, though.
"I'm not, old lady." Raki-Chan's eye twitched. Kikumaru-kun shivered. I couldn't turn my eyes away, but everyone else went back to their own business, surprisingly.
"What? What'd you just call me, shorty?" Raki-Chan's eyes narrowed and a way too big grin was on her face.
"Ah, Mura-"
"Shut up!" It was the short girl/boy who had came from the girl's tennis courts that spoke up. "Run thirty laps now!" The three people ran without hesitation. I almost did as well. Dang, that person was loud and scary. And walking right to me!
"You okay?" they asked, to me! They were eying me with actual concern!
"Uh, uh yeah! I'm fine!" I glanced at Kikumaru-kun besides me, who looked surprised as well.
"Good. You looked like you were about to have a spazz attack or something." Gah! I did? What the heck had I been doing? Did I look like a freak! Why did I keep looking like I was about to have a seizure?
"T-thanks...?" The person nodded.
"No problem. Those three are usually being really noisy around here. And school only began three weeks ago!" The person gave a dry little laugh. At that point I realized how much taller I was than the person. Was the person a first year? "Oh!" They looked up to me. "I'm Kawazoe Chiaki. I'm the girl's tennis team captain!" I smiled as she held out her hand for me to shake.
"I'm Saitou Katsumi. I'm...not really in a club or anything..." I shook her hand. Almost immediately after I released, Kikumaru-kun took hold of her hand.
"I'm Kikumaru Eiji!" He shook her hand excitedly.
"I-I know!" Kawazoe-san furrowed her eyebrows. Kikumaru-kun pouted.
"You're so mean, Wazo-Chan!" I laughed. And unexpectedly soon, tennis practice was over.
~I~R~I~S~
I'd learned some more from Kawazoe-chan(she made me switch honorifics)during tennis practice. The people who she had talked to were regularly being noisy. Raki-chan, or Murasaki Tenjo, was new at the school and had a crush on Tezuka Kunimitsu. Okay, pause. I had heard a lot about this Tezuka and, from what I had gathered, he was a freakishly tall, intimidating beast. Seriously.
The boy with huge, creepy gold eyes was Echizen Ryoma. He was a freshman that was attempting to become a regular. The girl cheering him on was his girlfriend or something. Her name was Tsuchida Kamo. Apparently, she was really annoying.
Kawazoe-chan also told me to avoid Raki-chan because she was apparently very mean. But, Fuji-kun and Kikumaru-kun seemed to like her so...I wasn't sure what to believe. Then again, Fuji-kun did call her Queen Murasaki. Could that have meant something?
~I~R~I~S~
After tennis practice ended, I chose to run up the lesser used hallways and corridors to class. The others ways were jam packed with students.
"Saitou-sempai!" I looked down from the stairs I was currently walking on and saw a familiar first year student running up the stairs towards me-but I had no time for him.
"I'm sorry! Class-I have to..." Oh, class! Where for art thou or something similar!
"Sempai!" He ran up-surprisingly quickly-and blocked my way up to the stairs so that I had to look at him and his...surprisingly serious chestnut eyes...When he saw that he had my attention, he crossed his arms. "Please join the track team!"
Eh?
~I~R~I~S~
Salty- Five...four...three...two...done! Officially done! WOOHOOO!