Week 2

Monday

He's late for class, because he was still practically asleep when he walked into English.

"Good of you to show up Mr. Kaede. Why don't you take a seat next to your friend and fellow tardy member Mr. Sakuragi, if you would please."

Life he's realized was now out to get him.

He'd had it good for some sixteen years.

But now:

"Mr. Dokou, Rukawa's looking at my answers," Sakuragi lies and then goes onto say, "I don't blame him since I'm the super genius here and he sleeps allllllll the time in class.

Mr. Dokou looks at Sakuragi and then bursts into laughter. He then goes onto say loudly, so that the entire class can hear,"The moment that anyone, anyone cheats on your…"assignments" I will promptly resign my twenty-three year career as an educator.

Tuesday

"Okay something is definitely wrong here." Akagi, god bless his perceptive soul has stopped Sakuragi from hiding his gym shoes, again.

"Get over here you imbecile. What the hell are you…oh for the love of…Why do I have such children on my team." He rears back and then slams Sakuragi's head against a locker.

He hopes it knocks back whatever screws loose in his head.

"He started it!"

Apparently it's made it worse. His own anger--on the bright side of things--is currently choking him and he doesn't know if he should just hit Sakuragi, or ignore him, or try to calm down.

So he ends up telling him off instead, "What are you talking about? You've been harrassing me for this past week, so just stop throwing your idiotic paper balls at me, stop spitting your gum in my water bottle, stop letting out the air in my tires, stop stealing my uniform and basketball equipment when I'm not looking, stop performing your flying wresting maneuvers on me while I'm sleeping, stop accusing me of cheating on your stupid, non-existent homework. Just stop it, or I'll kill you."

Wow. He didn't even know he was bottling up that kind of rage.

Everyone for the most part was shocked too, and so they were all shocked together.

That is, until Sakuragi blurted out, "Make me, fox boy."

And then it was his fist connecting with Sakuragi's face while simultaneously trying to choke him…to death.

Wednesday

He had a busted lip and his jaw felt raw, and he had bruises on his stomach from where Sakuragi had tried to perform some type of botched Suplex move that had gone horribly, horribly wrong, if he was any kind of judge of these things.

Thursday

Sakuragi was put in timeout.

Akagi actually had a system where you could be put in time-out.

Sakuragi was now facing the wall, his back completely exposed to enemy fire.

Sakuragi Hanamichi, sixteen years old, 6'2, 183 pounds, starter for the Shohoku High School Basketball team was currently in time out.

Rukawa thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever saw.

Friday

Kogure had pulled him aside during practice to whisper, "Akagi asked me to mediate, so if there's anything I can-"

"Tell him to stop harassing me." He didn't need time to think about an answer, he'd already had one.

"Okay." Kogure said, his hands up in front of him, his movements and his speech slow as if not to startle a small animal. Then Kogure, the happy bastard was…smiling at him and patting him on the back and…laughing.

He was laughing.

At him.

Did he not understand what the word harassment meant?

"Rukawa…"

What about restraining order? Did that ring any bells?

"Rukawa-kun…did you ever think that maybe…Sakuragi wants to…um…"

"Wants to kill me. I've thought about that and all the ways he can do it."

"No, no." Kogure was shaking his head and that smile was still on his face. "Did it ever occur to you that Sakuragi might…"

"Might be insane. Yes, it's the only explanation for his behavior. It keeps me up at night."

Kogure sighed. "Wow, you basketball players are so dense."

"What?"

Kogure smiled, but a bit shakily this time, "Tense! You're tense. You should try to relax. It's starting to effect your game."

Yeah I know. Thank you Captain Obvious.

"Rukawa-kun, maybe you…um instead of trying to outmatch Sakuragi…why don't you take a different approach. I mean, you both play completely different games of basketball. It's only normal that you'd play differently at life as well."

Hmm…that kind of made sense.

"How about," he continued, "When Sakuragi is being 'mean' to you, how about instead of shouting and fighting with him, you tell him you're sorry for whatever you did to get him so upset."

"No."

"It's just a thought," Kogure said, feeling suddenly pinned by that dark, bone-chilling stare. "You don't have to mean it. Just say you're sorry and all will be forgiven. I understand that you have your pride, but do you honestly value pride over…" he takes a few seconds to think about what he's going to say, "Sleep perhaps?"

Rukawa realized that this boy, this senior was a…genius.

Saturday

Fake apology training commences.

Basketball practice.

Sunday

Review in fake-apology-intensive-training exercises.

Resume basketball practice.

Sleep.