The red polka-dotted wrapping paper slipped from Sakuno's hands as she let out a squeal of excitement. On the table in front of her was a flat oblong-shaped box, and inside it, embedded in a sea of glittering tissue paper, lay five sets of new hairclips with five different designs embossed onto the oval copper plates on each pin. Sakuno drew in a sharp breath as she picked up a hairclip at the right side of the gift box and watched the shiny metal glow softly under the morning rays. The pattern on the hairclip in her hand was that of a tennis ball lying on a bed of embossed grass and surrounded by dainty little daisies.
"They're beautiful... thank you so much, Grandma!" Sakuno's eyes lit up with joy as she carefully pinned the hairclip into place above her ear.
"You're welcome... Surely you'll receive more presents at school?" Ryuzaki Sumire smiled kindly at her granddaughter as she stirred the miso soup bubbling away on the stove.
"I hope not," Sakuno replied honestly. After all, the memory of receiving a rubber eyeball on her last birthday, with fake blood squirted all over it wasn't as easily forgotten as she had anticipated, although she added good-humouredly: "Plus, no one else will probably remember my birthday anyway."
"Is that so? ...Personally I'd like to see what Ryoma will give you-"
"Oh Please, Grandma! If he remembers my birthday then I swear I would chop off both of my arms and present them to you."
"-or is it Akito-kun now?" Sumire chuckled when she saw the flinch and the blush that slowly crept up her granddaughter's neck.
If it's Akito-kun…then maybe he would remember… Sakuno thought with a glimmer of hope. Then she shook her head as she told herself not to expect too much from him. We have only known each other for a few months after all. She sighed as she carefully placed the birthday present from her grandmother on the chair next to her to make room for breakfast.
Unlike someone…who has known me for four years and still has no clue about which month - or which year, for that matter- my birthday is in.
Sumire smiled as she watched her granddaughter's arched eyebrows furrow together into a frown as she pondered over her "troublesome love life" and placed a plate of pan-fried fish and a bowl of streaming hot rice in front of Sakuno.
Mornings at the Echizen household are always chaotic.
First, Ryoma was awoken by a screech from his pet cat Karupin as his owner accidentally pressed his tail while shifting under his thick feather duvet. Tried to sit up, but failed miserably as he lost his balance and tumbled out of bed onto the freezing wooden floor. Then, scrambling up drowsily, he peered at the green flashing digits on his alarm clock through a pair of tired hazy eyes.
6:43am
He groaned, yawned, and buried his face in his hands. But, knowing he'd have to endure the torture of having no breakfast that morning if he didn't get up on time, he pulled on his school uniform reluctantly, just in time to hear his cousin, Nanako's call for breakfast. After several loud curses during an attempt to find his school bag under the hills of wrinkled clothes and shorts, he successfully arrived at the dining table, although still in a half-asleep state.
"...Western again?" Ryoma grumbled in complaint at the food in front of him. His mood was worsening by the seconds.
"Be grateful, young man, for any food prepared for you," Echizen Nanjirou said with mock sternness behind the newspaper.
"I don't need you to tell me that," Ryoma shot back grumpily and chewed a corner off his toast.
"Hmm…let's see, let's see…ahh, the world sure is filled with filth…with the petrol prices rising, murders and robberies everywhere-"
"Uncle! You are reading dirty magazines again! I should really tell Aunty about all those magazines you hide behind the shoe cupboard-"
"Arrgh! W-WAIT! Give it back to me and don't tell Rinko… I'll do anything!"
Ryoma sighed as the argument followed along the usual lines of "True men should read dirty magazines" and "Concentrate on eating breakfast", it seemed like he couldn't get any peace at home either, yet perhaps it was better that way...at least now he wouldn't be hassled by his wise father about having a blonde girlfriend in New York.
After a nasty verbal fight resulting in the confiscation of the magazine, Nanjirou had no choice but to actually read the newspaper. He spread the newspaper on the table in front of him and scanned the contents as he spooned porridge into his mouth.
"Well, the world is depressing, I didn't need to read this to know…look at all these death notices…Hmmm, although the birth ones aren't that few either…births…" Nanjirou scratched his head as he stared at the columns of newborn's names.
"…Speaking of births, that old hag spoke of something last night on the phone…what the hell-" Suddenly he slapped the table in remembrance.
"A-HA! I knew I'd remember! Young man, today is a special day, y'know?" Nanjirou slurred in excitement as his eyes shone with mischief.
Ryoma ignored him, as he so often did in the morning.
"Young man! Are you listening to me!? You really don't know what day today is? Tut, tut…how can I have such an idiot for a son!? Today is the birthday of the old hag's cute granddaughter! How can you possibly forget?"
"…So?" Ryoma continued to scoop bacon and eggs into his mouth, although his cold honey-coloured eyes have opened just a fraction wider.
"So it is now that you should give the girl something that shows your affection for her, like flowers or chocolates or-"
"She has nothing to do with me." Ryoma cut his father off coldly.
"Denial only makes it more suspicious!" Nanjirou sang gleefully and slapped his son on the shoulder, hard.
"Aww, look at Ryoma-sama, getting all worked up over a girl-"
"Shut up, Old Man." Ryoma brushed Nanjirou's hand off and stood up to put his empty plates in the sink. "I'm going now."
He swung his tennis bag over his shoulder and practically sprinted out of the doorway. Relieved for the escape, he closed the gate and heard it click shut behind him before he set off in the direction of Seisshun Gakuen High School.
Even though she had sensed a dawning disaster before school on the morning of her seventeenth birthday, Sakuno had not expected to be ambushed the minute she stepped through the school gates.
She fought to remain calm in front of her pursuers, five third-year girls whom she recognized to be some of the senior members in Ryoma's Fan Club. They had cornered her in the girls' changing rooms before she had the chance to get changed for her morning tennis practice, and were all glaring at her with hatred as if she had killed their tennis idol – who Sakuno presumed to be the reason for this… friendly encounter. Sakuno trembled slightly but balled her hands into fists as she prepared to fight back. After all, I can't depend on other people now. It's win-all or lose-all.
"You think you're so marvellous, don't you? Snuggling up to Echizen-kun like that? We saw you. We all saw you running off to him last week with a towel…what, you think he'd need to wipe away the tears of frustration caused by your presence?" A slim girl with makeup caked on her skin purred dangerously.
"Only because you're his old coach's granddaughter doesn't mean you can go flirting with him whenever you want to, it's disgusting," The girl standing nearest to Sakuno added in a tone as icy as her gleaming golden eyes. "I mean, you're not even in the Fanclub... didn't deserve the place, I dare say."
"Gosh, the second-years are so arrogant these days, don't you agree? ...They think they can just climb on top of us and order us around, it's time some of them are put into their right places," Another girl with ghostly pale skin hissed and reached out a hand to grab Sakuno's right arm. Sakuno shivered at the coldness of the hand gripping onto her. It was like a ring of ice cuffed around her bare skin.
"You know, doing this proves you don't have the guts to fight back," Sakuno gathered up her courage and said with, what she hoped to be, equal coldness, although, to her dismay, she could detect the faint tremble in her voice as she added: "You don't have what it takes to even attract his attention-"
The sentence was cut off by a sharp slap from the girl with cold golden eyes. Her cheek stung from the sudden attack and her eyes watered from the burning pain, yet she clenched her fist and continued, "-and you know it."
"Oooh, I'm so scared! The little second-year is talking back!" A fourth girl with misty brown eyes said shrilly, the mock fear in her voice made Sakuno's skin crawl.
The girl who spoke first pulled out a mirror from her skirt pocket and flipped it open to reapply her lip-gloss, although she already had enough to make her lips look five times thicker and oilier. Looking up with a sneer, she spoke up once again.
"Let's show her that we can fight back… why don't we leave a mark somewhere visible on her? …Like a kind of warning to the other girls, to let them know the consequences…?"
"You mean… like a cut or something?" A small girl who had kept quiet all this time suddenly piped up from behind the other over-powering voices. Sakuno's heart went cold.
The girl who grabbed Sakuno's arm grinned and for a terrifying instant, her eyes shone with a hunger for blood. "On her face?"
"On her face!" The make-up girl agreed and, much to Sakuno's horror, slowly drew out a penknife from her school bag.
Sakuno gulped but there was nowhere else for her to retreat to. She tried shouting for help, but the quiet girl had clamped a sweaty hand over her mouth to prevent that. She struggled and attempted to break through the group to the door, but they pinned her against the lockers with such brutality that she thought it was a miracle that her arms hadn't snapped. It was obvious the third-years were overjoyed to see the fear spilling out from her eyes; the sharp silver blade gained speed as it gradually inched closer to her cheek. Sakuno felt a scream gurgling at the back of her throat but could do nothing as she sensed the cold metal denting her skin. Hopelessness made her eyes squeeze shut, but they flew open involuntarily as the tip of the knife pieced her flesh and she felt an incredible burst of pain shoot through her nerves.
Sweat broke over her forehead as she bit her lip to hold back a gasp. Worse still, the pain did not stop there. It burned and churned in her stomach as the blade sliced a long curve down to her chin and did a final vicious stab before it was pulled out, leaving a fiery red mark in the shape of a crescent moon.
Blood surged.
It poured down the side of her face as Sakuno was released and as she sank onto the floor in agony, dripping fresh red dots onto the ground and her skirt. The pain was still ripping through her face when she heard the girls back away from her, obviously alarmed by the amount of blood spilling out from her the wound they had caused.
Murmuring "That should do it…" and "let's go before anyone else sees…", the group slipped out with a hurried slam of the changing room door.
Soon the deserted girls' changing room was completely silent apart from the sound of Sakuno's heavy breathing; still in a stunned state of fright and with brilliant red liquid streaming down her face like stained tears. She could even taste the distinctive metallic tang on her tongue as it trickled through the corners of her mouth.
It was not until some fans' sudden roar of victory broke out on the nearby tennis courts that she snapped out of the blank devastation. She drew in a sharp breath as she lifted a trembling hand to her damp face, now coated with a mixture of both blood and tears, then glanced down at the small pool of blood she had unconsciously made kneeling on the changing room floor.
It would not stop.
She could feel the warm sticky fluid seep through the gaps between her fingers as she pressed her palm to her cheek, but the chilly air did seem to help slow the outflow as she stumbled outside and slipped behind the first concrete sink she could spot. The cold water stung the cut a little, but did effectively clean her face and ease the pain after a while as she lowered her face to the running tap. The water turned scarlet as it rushed towards the drain like a flooding river of red wine.
What are the chances of being cut and threatened by a bunch of mental obsessive girls on your birthday? Sakuno felt the shadow of rage gliding over her mind as she dampened her pink handkerchief; rage at her own weakness.
The cool moisture was comforting when the soaked fabric was held to the cut as a temporary bandage. Turning off the tap, she decided to make the trip to the health centre her top priority.
So much for choosing the most concealed route.
Sakuno thought resentfully as she found herself sprawled awkwardly on the patch of melting snow next to no other than Echizen Ryoma, the young tennis prodigy who, in her opinion, thought about nothing else but tennis all day long, he had probably never even dreamed of any non-tennis related things either, not even when he was napping at school, such as the case now.
In her hurry to cover up the wound before anyone else sees, Sakuno had chosen to tramp through the school gardens, hopefully reaching the health centre faster as well as being camouflaged by the thick green bushes. It had seemed like the perfect solution, until her usual clumsiness resulted in her hooking an ankle under a solid tree root and sending her tumbling head over heels onto the ground into the slushy snow.
Even worse, Sakuno thought as she glanced sideways and saw Ryoma stir in his morning nap.
A/N: Exams are OVER!! So sorry about the late update, but now I can finally get back to my writing properly (not just sneaking a few sentences here and there during study breaks). Thanks again to all my reviewers for taking the time to let me know how my story is progressing... I really appreciate all the comments and criticisms that everyone offers. I've actually planned the plot for this fic quite a while ago... but there has been quite a few fics with Ryoma's psycho fans attacking Sakuno (or so I've read), so I apologize if this chapter resembles the other fics... but I swear on my life that I havn't used anyone else's ideas without permission. Anyway, this development will be significant for future events so please bear with my overused plot for a bit...I promise there will be new ideas and RyoSaku moments.
Cheers!