"Excuse me, I would like to register for this club" told Rei to the boy who was standing in front of the oval. Rei squinted her eyes to see the name tag, which read 'Arasaki'.
The marathon club weren't given any places to train other than the oval and even then, they had to share it with the basketball regulars who did their normal exercise by running laps. This was due to the fact that the school had failed to recruit good runners in the past, which lead to failure at winning even in the preliminaries of marathon competition. Without winning any awards, it simply escaped the attention of the higher-ups, ending up being nearing abandonment.
Rei felt a sigh coming out of her mouth. It was really difficult to keep her promise with mum. Sure, it wouldn't be hard for her to come first in the preliminary marathon competition she will be forced to participate. Heck, she would even easily come first in the nationals; that was how much faith she had in her lungs and herself. But her mum, seeing her potential, had used her love of basketball against her. She made a compromise where as long as she was in the marathon club and won awards, she wouldn't touch Rei playing basketball or say anything on what she chooses to do in her free time.
'…is it really worth it' was the thought running on her mind when she had said yes to her mum. Rei could've rejected the idea but she just wasn't sure. She knew she had a good talent at marathon but she also knew that she was also as equally stunning at basketball as she was in marathon; her experience in playing street basketball with older kids had proven that to her.
However, her parents had been refusing to see her play basketball, thinking she was exaggerating about her skills. Rei didn't feel like fighting them was worth the effort either, when she wasn't even sure what she would like to do for herself in the future.
Rei was the type of person who liked to plan ahead and made sure things went according to her ways. She liked things being straight and because she had promised herself that if her talent in basketball was greater than her talent in marathon, only then would she allow the possibility of announcing it to her mum. Logically, it was the only way she could stop hearing doubts from her parent; to prove her worth. And Rei had only hoped she could achieve it before she moved on to high school.
"Sure, you just have to fill out this form. And you're done." A boy who's name she quickly remembered; Arasaki, awoke Rei from her thoughts.
"What? No test or anything?" questioned Rei. She knew that the standard would be bad, but she didn't realise they wouldn't even take the test to see what level she was up to.
"Ahhhhh," Arasaki spoke, looking as if he just realised something. "Sorry about that, we didn't have any new members last year so I kind of forgot about it". Arasaki gave a polite smile and told her to wait until he fetched something from his locker.
Rei felt something akin to disappointment at first. 'I have a lot of things I have to fix at this club'
Rei waited quietly for about few minutes. Then when her watch told her that it had been more than 10 minutes since Arasaki left, the disappointment she soon turned into anger.
'How rude of him…' thought Rei. She could understand why he looked annoyed at her; he probably didn't want any new members this year so he could go home straight away without having to waste time trialling. But he didn't have the right to be so rude to someone he just met, who didn't do anything wrong to deserve it.
With each passing minute, the desire to get him back by showing off her skills started to look very appealing. Rei wasn't originally planning to waste too much energy, as she was going to play with Aomine for a one on one; but seeing how annoyed he looked by having to walk to and from his locker to fetch whatever-only added fuel to her already swirling vicious anger.
'I'm gonna show him who the real marathon runner is' Rei told herself sternly.
"So basically what you have to do is run 10 laps within 30 minutes. If you fail the test, you won't be allowed to join the club. If you do pass, well, you get to join the club?"
Teiko's oval was huge- but not up to the point where running 10 laps would take 30 minutes. Rei got angrier at his remarks and even though she could see Aomine running out of the basketball gym with about 30 boys trailing after him, her mind was too clouded by anger to greet him and say hi.
"What about you wait and see how many laps I can run? You obviously look like you are bored out of your mind; you probably aren't expecting much of me anyways so you wouldn't have to waste 30 minutes to see me 'fail', right?" Rei had a fake smile on her face. Even though she wanted to strangle his neck and shout at him for being such a prick, he was older than her and she had to respect that.
"Sure. Then I'm just going to put a tick on the ground every time you run a lap, got it? Honestly, I'm expecting maybe 5 laps if you run full speed …maybe three, considering your body."
Rei knew she wasn't meant to hear the last sentence. But she did, and it had made her fuse go off. She hated it when someone underestimated her and she was going to show him hell.
'Three laps in full speed is my limitation, you say? I'm going to make you regret it, asshole'. With that last thought on her mind, she started to stretch her body to get ready for jogging. Then she heard a familiar voice behind her.
"Rei! What're ya up to?"
It was Aomine, running towards her direction with other boys following after him. The sheer size of the boys running laps had surprised her and she quickly asked. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be playing basketball or whatever in the gym?"
"This is part of the stupid test. Only 10 out of all of us that can last the longest while running the fastest can be considered to get to play against the first string of the Teiko. I'm going to win and be the last person remaining for sure!"
"Hmm fun…" Rei spoke to herself as she observed the group while doing her last stretch. She noticed that there was already one guy with a light blue hair giving up.
'What a weakling…' thought Rei. When she moved her eyes towards the boys whom were in front of the group, her mouth widened in wonder. Red hair, green hair, blue hair, purple hair…it was like a rainbow running together. Shooting amused glances at the boys, Rei quickly rolled her ankles and wrists as she always did before a big match and she began to run.
Rei always sprinted from the very beginning to get good a head start and this time, she was aiming to reach to the head of the group. As she was on her way, she passed many tired looking boys.
Then there was that one that particularly caught her interest. It was a boy with a dark grey hair, who had been stealthily putting his foot in front of many people to trip them. It was a good dirty trick to use during the marathon and the same motion was sometimes seen during an actual competition as well. It was normally done at the start when there is a big herd of people and Rei knew exactly what she needed to do to him to get a revenge of the boys who had already fallen over and given up. Watching him quietly, Rei discreetly moved so she was in front of him and as he looked back to trip another poor guy, she pulled his hair down. Hard.
"!? Who the heck was that!?"
Laughing indiscreetly, Rei joined the sea of the boys to camouflage herself and after few seconds have passed, she made sure to trip him as she repeated the same action again. Rei was a pro at this since she had to avoid getting tripped quite a few times during a serious competition. And smiling widely, she enjoyed seeing him fall face-planting onto the ground. 'Ouch, that would've hurt- that's why you don't do that to other people. Karma's a bitch, asshole'. Then she pushed her speed slightly faster.
When Rei nearly reached the front, she felt like she was in a garden; she was surrounded by colourful hairs. She wanted to stay at her pace for a bit longer, but she increased it more so she could reach right behind the dickhead she was supposed to catch up to. She ignored the curious and surprised glances shot on her way.
"What's up, dickhead" spoke Rei as she neared him
"What the- what are you doing here? Didn't you say you are applying for a marathon club? Shouldn't you be running or whatever in the-"
"In the oval. And you and I are running in the oval, idiot."
"Ahh, I forgot about that! So are you doing your test as well right now, Rei?" smiled Aomine as he looked sideways. 'He doesn't look tired' thought Rei as she made eye-contact with him.
"Yes I am. And I was planning on telling you; the guy who's supposed to be watching my test seriously pissed me off just now, so I'm going to be running for a while just to annoy him. Hence I don't think I can come and beat your ass off today Aomine, you should be crying in joy cus you're saved today"
"Tsk tsk tsk, I wonder what he did to piss off the little shortie here" laughed Aomine, rubbing Rei's hair as if she was a little girl. Shooting curious glance at him, Rei realised how light and happy his laughter sounded like. It felt genuine.
"Don't put your sweaty hands on my hair, dickhead" Even though her words sounded angry, her tensed face had lessened and she felt her initial anger disappearing. It was always refreshing to talk to Aomine.
"Dickhead? Well, at least the dickhead in front of you can last longer than you"
"Ha, so you are finally admitting you're a dickhead now, eh?"
"It's called being sarcastic you little shit-"
"And I hope you didn't forget the incident where you gave me the chance to take the 'fluke shot' because you couldn't keep up with my stamina? It's called persistence, d-i-c-k-h-e-a-d. And I bet you won't be able to win against me, sadly" said Rei in a teasing voice. Then patting on Aomine's back as if to encourage him further, Rei started to speed up more.
Rei had a habit of sprinting full speed until she was the first; because she liked the feeling of being ahead of everyone else. And after that, everything went hazy for Rei. When Rei jogged, she ignored everything happening around her as she concentrated fully on keeping her pace and balance. So besides giving a smirk at Arasaki- who turned paler and paler each time she ran more laps-she emptied her mind and thought. This obviously meant that she didn't hear any voices being shouted at her. Voices other than what was made from her head was just a nuisance and a distraction for Rei and she kept ignoring them.
When Rei realised that she was the only one jogging out of the whole crew, she sprinted one more lap in her full speed again just to show off at Arasaki. But as she passed each boys lying on the ground with their mouth opened wide, she realised she had made a mistake of showing off at the wrong time.
"What" was the only voice she spat to the audience. Then she looked around, trying to see the blue haired teenager. When she did, she walked towards him and sat down.
Aomine was sitting in the group consisting of the same coloured hair she noticed earlier. Red, green and purple. As she looked at their faces closely, Rei realised that the red-headed boy was the class representative.
"Hey, you're my class representative, right? Akashi-san. I didn't expect to see you here". Rei started the conversation.
"Hello, Tezumi-san."
"Please, just call me Rei"
"Please, Tezumi-san. I don't think we are close enough to already be on the first-naming basis when this is our first real encounter"
"Errr, sure, if you insist" said Rei, looking weirdly at Akashi.
"Anyways, I never knew you were so good at marathon Tezumi-san. Since when did you start doing the marathon?"
"I started jogging ever since I was little, Akashi-san. My mum was a marathon runner so I used to jog around with her quite a lot"
"I see. You seem to be quite talented at it, as you managed to run first and also be the last one remaining"
"Thank you for the compliment, Akashi-san." Spoke Rei politely. "But I'm sure you could've done better than me, since I saw you stop straight after Aomine fell down. I'm not part of the basketball team, so technically you are the first and last one jogging."
To be honest, even though she was politely conversing with Akashi, on the inside she felt tired. It was opposite of how she felt when she talked with Aomine. With the dickhead, she felt easy. With Akashi, she felt like she had to put up another façade.
As if to show Akashi that she had no interest of continuing the conversation, Rei quickly faced Aomine. What she didn't notice was that a small smile was forming on her lips unconsciously.
"Guess who won, dickhead" teased Rei. She could tell that Arasaki was walking up and down agitatedly, peaking a look at her direction here and there. But Rei couldn't care less; he had insulted her ego big time and she was happy to ignore him just like how he ignored her by rocking up late.
Then Rei, opening the front part of her school bag took out few chuppa chups that she was saving up for later. She was planning on giving it to Aomine only, but she decided to put up her polite façade for a little bit longer and offered them to the colourful haired boys. And out of them, the purple-headed giant's reaction was the best. He had looked exceptionally happy with it and was the loudest one to say 'thank you'.
Sensing that the atmosphere had become quite awkward just now, Rei brought up a subject that she knew would start the conversation going. "How do you guys know each other? Are you from the same primary school? It's really weird to see how you guys already became friends when it's only the first day of school"
"We don't. We were ordered by the coach before to sit in groups of four, in the order of how long each person lasted for. We are the top 4 who managed to keep jogging at the front and to last the longest" Said Aomine as he concentrated on peeling the wrap off the candy. Rei could hear some pride in his voice and she knew he felt pretty proud of himself.
"I remember now- weren't you obsessed with this thing back then as well? It's even in the same flavour!" spoke Aomine as he eyed her weirdly. "Are you still obsessed with this thing? Heh, that must be why you're still in the same height as before-"
"Chuppa chups are nice~" Rei turned her head towards the voice that just spoke. Then she saw the purple giant man.
"Do you like chuppa chups, giant-san?"
"Yes- I do like them a lot. If you don't want yours, I can have yours too..?"
Rei suddenly poke in a very serious manner. "What is your favourite flavour…?"
"Hmm, I don't really have a favourite flavour, I eat whatever's sweet~"
"Do you like coke…?"
"I don't mind, why?"
"Good! Because I bought a packet with fifty chuppa chups before and I don't really like coke flavour- I can give them to you if you want?" Rei beeped in happiness as her eyes sparkled by meeting someone who had a sweet tooth like her.
"Really~?"
"Sure, why not? It's a waste throwing it out anyway"
"Thanks Ren-chin"
"Ren…? My name is Rei, giant-san"
"But Ren-chin is easier to pronounce than Rei-chin~ I like the sound of Ren-chin better too~"
"Sure, why not..." Then Rei realised that they were the only ones talking in the group, and that the other guys were staring at them weirdly.
"Sorry guys, um, my name is Rei as you probably just heard, if you don't mind me asking, may I know your names?"
"It's Shintaro Midorima-"
"My name is Seijuuro Akashi, if you weren't sure, Tezumi-san"
"It's Atsushi Murasakibara~ since you are Ren-Chin you can call me Muk-chin as well~"
.
.
After her meeting with the boys and promising Aomine that they will play at some other time- she had turned around to face Arasaki. When Rei looked sideways, she could see the total of 32 ticks made on the ground. Looking smugly at him, she put up her chin slightly higher than usual, daring him to speak about her results.
"Rei-san…You are officially in Teiko's marathon club for sure…con-congratulations" The poor guy was still shaken in disbelief.
