Getting to Know Eachother: Part 2
What A Stingy Bastard
~oOoOo~
"Well, that story sucked." Said Ichirou frankly, taking a sip of his drink. "Let's have someone go next who might have a vague chance at actually entertaining us."
Everyone looked at Kamio.
"Why always me?" he said tiredly, dragging his feet as he loped toward the T.V. set. "I don't have a special memory. If I did, I wouldn't be going to school here."
"Oh, cheer up, Kamio." Mumbled Shinji. "Tell them about that time that we did that thing."
"Oh. Huh, you're right I guess that was pretty cool."
"Wait, you're not talking about that, are you?" asked Sakurai and Uchimura. "It's a Fudomine legend, you've gots tell them!"
It was weird how Fudomine boys all knew exactly what eachother was talking about.
"But I don't really remember it all." Said Kamio.
Shinji waved this comment off. "I'll help."
Both thought in silence for a moment. Finally Kamio spoke:
"Tachibana-san was a great captain."
"He was a smart guy: compassionate and devoted and strong." Shinji added.
"He was a mentor and a friend to each of the team members."
A pause.
"That being said, he was completely psychotic." Shinji said.
"What?" Everyone in the room was completely nonplussed. They turned to Kamio, knowing he had been close with Tachibana.
"No, actually it's true," said Kamio. "He was a great guy and we all loved him. But he was crazy."
"He made our lives worth living." Said Sakurai. "However, he was mentally unbalanced."
"Whatcha sayin' playa?" Asked Echizen.
"Well, aside from the fact that the guy was totally obsessed with Dora the Explorer, he never explained things to us." Shinji said. "He was always having us do weird challenges that had nothing to do with tennis for no apparent reason."
"Challenges?" asked Choutarou.
"Tachibana was nuts." Said Kamio. "Since he was the only third year, he took control of the team and made us do what he wanted. He wouldn't let any of us play for the team until we each brought him a pumpkin from Atobe Keigo's backyard."
Everyone stared. Finally Yuuta voiced what they were all thinking.
"What the hell?"
"You've heard of hazing, right?" Kamio said. "I think it's not as common in private schools since every student is "privileged" or whatever, but public schools are famous for it. This was our team's version of it."
"But why stealing pumpkins? Doesn't hazing usually involve dancing in underwear?" Choutarou tried carefully.
"Often it does." Kamio shrugged. "We didn't get it either. To be honest, none of the things we did for Tachibana ever made sense. But he told that if we wanted to be on the team, we had to break onto Atobe's property and get the fruit."
"How would he know it was from Atobe's garden?" Kirihara garbled from the couch.
"That was the other part. You had to bring a friend with you to film the whole thing."
"Then couldn't your friend just get his pumpkin at the same time?"
"No." Kamio said simply.
"Why not?"
The boys of Fudomine exchanged looks.
"It just isn't done." Said Uchimura finally.
There was an awkward silence. Kamio cleared his throat. "Anyway, we drew numbers from a hat to determine the order we would be stealing the pumpkins. Of course, I got last. The night I had to steal a pumpkin from Atobe's yard with Shinji filming was a memorable one. And bear in mind, going last is the worst. The task got harder and harder each time."
"Why?"
"Why? Because Atobe started noticing that pumpkins were going missing from his yard after the first few times! Each time we went there, the security was greater and sometimes there were even people there on guard!"
"I remember that!" Choutarou cried. "Atobe-san started getting mad! At first he though it was us stealing from him, but when he realized it wasn't, he started forcing us to stand guard over his garden in shifts at night! Remember, Kabaji?"
"Usu."
"Well, the secret comes out now." Said Shinji. "It was us all along. And it got very difficult to get those pumpkins with so much security. That's the real reason behind the hardcoreness of Fudomine—we all had to work hard and use our brains in creative ways to get the pumpkins. It isn't because of some dumb revolution."
"Seriously?" Momoshiro was interested. "I remember how much drama that created when we played you…trying to understand your past, I mean. What actually happened with that?"
"Honestly?" Shinji asked. The others nodded. Shinji and Kamio looked at each other and then Kamio replied.
"Nothing."
There was a pregnant pause.
"…Nothing?" Kaidoh asked finally.
"Nothing. Tachibana made the whole thing up. He said it would make us seem more badass. To be honest, the only true part of the story that he passes around is that he got in a fight. But it was only him and with only one third year. And they weren't fighting for tennis ideals or anything, for Godssake. What was it, Shinji?"
"Something about vending machine change, I think." Muttered Shinji.
"Anyway, Tachibana is pretty much delusional, but he was our captain so we had to go along with all his crazy schemes to get more screen time and appear badass."
Touji sniggered.
"Think it's funny, do you?" Kamio snapped, getting irrationally angry, "I'd like to see what kind of stupid hazing your captain would come up with. It was no joke. I still remember the night that I had to get my pumpkin.............
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Kamio and Shinji had arrived in front of Atobe's house just after two o'clock in the morning. All was silent. Both were swaddled in long black cloaks with hoods and wore dark ski masks.
"Ready?" Kamio asked.
"If you are." Shinji pressed the red button on his video camera to turn it on.
Before them an ostentatious gate loomed, guarding the grandest mansion in all the city.
"I can't believe we're actually doing this." Kamio murmured, approaching the charcoal gate dotted with golden spikes. "Is tennis worth this?"
"How can you say that?"
"I'm not the Prince of Tennis."
The two boys removed the grappling hooks that Tachibana had told them to bring and used them to hoist themselves over the gate. They landed, soft footed, in the front lawns of the Atobe mansion.
"We are in the front lawns of the Atobe mansion." Shinji dictated softly to the video camera. "It is…" he checked his watch, "2:15am. The gate has been safely passed."
The two crept across the front lawn, silent as silhouettes.
"Does this seem strangely easy?" Kamio asked after a long pause.
"Yeah, I was just thinking that. Not even a dog barking. I thought that Atobe would have hired guards to keep watch everywhere after the first six break-ins."
"Seriously. What a stingy bastard."
The two stopped just before the mansion.
"We're just in front of Atobe's mansion." Shinji informed the camera. "Now we'll go around the side of the house and proceed for about fifty meters. The sideyard has a pond that we'll have to cross on a bridge, and then once we make it to the backyard, there's a series of gardens including a vegetable path where the prize awaits."
"That doesn't sound too bad." Kamio muttered. They crossed the pond on a quaint little arch bridge and slipped into the backyard, silent as shadows. There were several garden patches, but Shinji pointed to what appeared to be a vast field of produce on the farthest end. It was completely deserted.
"Okay, so you just go in there and get a pumpkin." He instructed Kamio. "I'll hide here behind this tree and film in case something goes wrong."
"How would that help if something went wrong?" Kamio asked.
"'Cause then I wouldn't get caught as well."
Kamio rolled his eyes and walked around the perimeter of the garden until he could see where the pumpkins were growing.
"He didn't guard it at all. What a dumbass." Kamio muttered to himself, striding forward. "I'll just have to be quick about—
The moment that Kamio's foot crossed into the flowerbeds, a shriek of an alarum bell pieced the air, causing the two boys to jump about a foot into the air.
"My God!" Kamio recoiled a few steps and Shinji came running to see if everything was alright.
"Atobe must have put motion or heat sensors into the ground around the perimeter of the garden so that he could tell if someone broke in!"
"Hiding security weapons in the ground? That tricky bastard!"
"By the way, if an alarm just went off, why are we standing around talking? Shouldn't someone be after us or something?"
"I don't know. You're the one that saw the new James Bond movie; you tell me!"
"Dude, it was so stupid. Casino Royale is way better."
At that point, their conversation was interrupted as guards dressed in Star Wars storm trooper costumes poured out of the garage, while several more sprang from trees. A light went on inside the mansion and now the face of Atobe himself appeared at the window.
"You won't get away this time!" he roared, before turning, presumably to change out of his pajamas before capturing the intruders.
"Oh my god. We are so fucking screwed." Said Kamio.
"Yeah, I think that sums it up nicely." Replied Shinji.
Kamio drew a knife from his cloak. "Distract the guards!" He hissed to Shinji, readjusting his mask, "For just thirty seconds! I'll cut the pumpkin loose!"
"My job is to film the process of Kamio stealing a pumpkin from Atobe's yard." Shinji said to the camera. "Now he's asking me to work part-time as a distracter."
"Quit being such a jerk! And this is serious! Put the camera away for a minute! You know what will happen if we're caught?"
Shinji thought about this. "Will we be castrated?"
"Worse."
"How do you mean?"
"Atobe is known for his cruel and unusual forms of torture. It's evident from the attitudes of his teammates. Most likely we'll be locked in a room and forced to listen to the music of Miley Cyrus and the Jonas brothers….at the same time."
Shinji blanched. "No…" he breathed, staggering backwards. "That's…too cruel to imagine!"
"THEN HURRY!"
Shinji held the camera in one hand and with the other he fished out a deck of cards that was in his pocket. Why did he have cards in his pocket? Precisely for situations like this.
The storm troopers were nearly upon them now, loading their guns. Kamio crouched, hacking at the pumpkin and just as the storm troopers seemed upon them, Shinji held out the deck, spread out as a fan. He shouted the first thing that came into his head.
"Who wants to see a magic trick!?"
The storm troopers stopped running. They looked at one another and then back at Shinji. Taking advantage of their shock, Shinji advanced.
"Pick a card, any card! Show it to the rest, but not to me!"
There was a hesitant silence and then one of the bolder storm troopers slowly stepped forward and tugged a card from Shinji's deck. Shinji turned his head and closed his eyes while the storm trooper showed it to the other guards. When he had replaced the card in the deck, Shinji shuffled the pack and then drew a card out at random.
"Was this your card?" he asked, holding up a three of clubs.
There was scattered applause.
Kamio finished cutting the pumpkin and he tucked it into his jacket, securely zipping it into place. It kind of looked like he was carrying a baby, but whatever.
"Shinji, we have to leave!" Kamio hissed. "Atobe will be out any minute!"
"But I didn't get to show them the really cool one I learned at tennis camp!" Shinji complained.
"You can do that later! We just need to distract them for a second so we can run for it!"
"Easier said than done." Shinji mumbled out of the corner of his mouth. "They probably won't be fooled easily. Atobe will have hired the best. We'll have to outwit them in a game of skills and cunning."
That gave Kamio and idea.
"Whoa!" he shouted, waving his arms like a windmill before pointing to the opposite end of the garden. "What's that!?"
The guards all turned to look.
Kamio grabbed Shinji's elbow and they ran for it.
XxXxX
"Goddam, that's like the thousandth time that's worked," Kamio panted, as he and Shinji made it halfway across the garden.
Atobe arrived in a silky lavender bathrobe, just as the stormtroopers began to realize that they had been tricked.
"Have you got them?" He demanded.
The storm troopers shifted their weight sheepishly.
Atobe roared in frustration. "GET THEM!" he bellowed, quite beside himself.
The storm troopers immediately sprinted after the two cloaked figures that were growing smaller and smaller in the distance.
"Idiots!" Atobe hissed furiously. "I suppose there was a reason that Lord Sidious didn't want them."
He stormed back into the house, still fuming.
XxXxX
"Kamio…wait!" Shinji panted, trying to catch up to his friend.
Kamio was sprinting far ahead, but stopped at his friend's call. "They'll catch us!" He cried. "We have no time to stop! Now come on!"
"Whoa, WHOA, Kamio, wait a second!" Shinji cried, grabbing Kamio by the back of his shirt to stop him.
"What?" Kamio rounded.
"Kamio, this is a fourteenth century style rock garden! People really don't make them like this anymore; we have to take a quick shot with it!"
"Yeah, or NOT!"
"Come on, they won't catch up for at least another twenty seconds! There's enough time for a quick shot. You grab the rake and pretend to be organizing the waves!"
"Shinji, this is ridiculous!" Kamio dodged as a flare dart from the guns of the storm troopers narrowly missed his head. "We'll get killed out here!"
"Just really quick! The flare darts add effect! You can be all like, 'I'm a Zen Monk. There's people trying to shoot my head off but I'm just raking my garden.'"
Seeing that there was no chance of convincing Shinji to move, Kamio nearly tore his hair out in frustration. Idiotic though he felt, he grabbed the rake poised at the edge of the garden and began drawing lines.
"Excellent, Kamio." Said Shinji, sidestepping a laser bullet to get a better angle, camera pressed to his eye. "Now pose with the storm troopers in the background."
"SHINJI!"
Kamio literally sprang forward, grabbed Shinji, and dragged him away as the guards caught up.
The two of them rounded the corner of the mansion to get out of sight and then quickly dove into a rose bush for cover.
"Damn! I can't see anything!"
"It's okay, I'll put the camera into NightVision Mode."
Kamio said nothing.
"What's your problem? You'll thank me for taping this later!"
The two stopped bickering when the distinctive noise of hundreds of storm troopers boots passed them, evidently thinking they had continued ahead.
They both held their breath until the footsteps faded. Kamio hung his head in punctured anxiety.
Shinji broke the silence.
"We're in a bush." He said.
And no, he was not stating the obvious. He was documenting to the camera again.
"How we got into this bush is anyone's guess," Shinji continued, looking into the lens. "None of the other guys managed to cause so much ruckus just by breaking into Atobe's house. Kamio is exceptionally loud. He's also clumsy."
"Only because I can't ride my goddam rhythm!" Kamio shouted.
"Hey, what was that?" asked a storm trooper, hearing the shout.
"I don't know," another said. "But it sounded like it came from that rose bush!"
"Way to go, Akira." Said Shinji to the camera.
"Turn that camera off!"
The two of them were forced to vacate the bush and run for the entrance gate again for their grand escape.
Atobe saw them from his window.
"TWO DEATH EATERS ARE ESCAPING WITH MY PUMPKIN! STOP THEM!" he screeched. "DON'T LET THEM PASS THE POND! BURN THE BRIDGE!"
"But sir…" one of the storm troopers implored Atobe.
"I SAID DO IT!"
A storm trooper about one hundred yards behind Kamio and Shinji stopped short and withdrew a compact, ridged something from his vest. A Model 24 Pretrarde hand grenade.
Yeah, Atobe had officially lost his mind.
The storm trooper looked at it doubtfully before lobbing it into the air as hard and far as he could. Kamio and Shinji reached the bridge and sprinted to cross it. They managed to get to the other side just as the grenade landed on the bridge and exploded it. Both Kamio and Shinji were thrown off their feet, and rolled away from the impact, but neither was seriously injured.
"It's 2:30 am." Said Shinji into the camera. "Atobe just tried to blow us up. But we made it over the bridge just in time."
"Quite contrarily, his plan has actually backfired." Kamio added, while checking himself for wounds. "Now Atobe's gotten his own guards stranded on the other side of the pond. What an idiot."
Shinji turned the focus back to himself. "I guess that grenade didn't kill us. It must not have been very good quality. Must have been one of those lame incendiary models. Heh. Atobe thought that would take us? He seriously thought he would catch us with that? He should have paid a little extra and invested in the far better quality Sorore grenade. That might have caused some damage."
"What a cheap bastard." Agreed Kamio, getting to his feet. "Now let's roll!"
Seeing that his plan had, in fact backfired, Atobe was beside himself with rage.
"You fools can't do anything right!" he screamed from his window. "I am not going to allow this to happen a seventh time! That's it! I'm coming down myself!"
And so saying, he whipped off his purple nightgown and heaved himself out his window, intending to land catlike near to where the two thieves were standing.
…
…
…
Unfortunately, he undershot a bit, and landed in his own pond.
"NOO! Ore-sama's hair!" He cried. "Now Shishido's will be better!"
"There, there now." Said one of the storm troopers, kindly, trying to comfort him.
Atobe began to sob, and called for his storm troopers to fish him out of the pond. This distracted both Atobe and the entire force of guards and soon everyone was involved in the task of removing Atobe from his pond.
No one was paying the least bit of attention to the two thieves, who stood aside, feeling rather wrong footed.
"…Is this seriously happening?" Shinji asked finally, still filming as three storm troopers tried to lift Atobe out of the pond but slipped and fell in themselves.
"Must be. Only we could have lives as ridiculous as these."
And so Kamio and Shinji calmly walked away from the Atobe mansion at a comfortable gait, with no one pursuing them or trying to shoot their heads off.
XxXxX
Two and a half blocks away, Shinji stopped dead, and fumbled with his camera.
"Shit!"
"What is it?"
Shinji looked up, his face white. "I forgot to put film in it!"
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"Wow, that sucks." Said Yuuta. "Did you guys have to go get another pumpkin? Did he make you do hazing all over again?"
"Tachibana?" Kamio said. "Oh, actually, he kind of forgot."
Silence.
"He forgot?"
"Told you he was senile."
"Hey wait a minute, there's something I have to know!" Choutarou had gotten to his feet. He swayed for a few moments before gaining his balance, and then he pointed to Shinji. "How did you do that magic trick?"
Shinji reached into his back pocket and pulled out the exact same set of cards that he had been carrying around with him that day.
"So I'm always ready," Shinji explained. He spread the cards out in a fan shape and then turned them over.
Every single one was a three of clubs.
"Oldest trick in the book." Said Shinji proudly.
"Weak." Said Ichiuma.
"So what'd you guys do with these precious pumpkins?" Echizen sniffed.
"Well, what do you think we did with them?" Asked Uchimura sarcastically.
No one wanted to answer for fear of saying the wrong thing.
"We cut them up into scary faces and played with them. Obviously." Said Shinji. "Those were some good times."
"Sure were." Agreed Kamio. "And after we were done playing, we had pie."
"Oh yes. Lots of pie." All the Fudomine boys chorused.
"Well, better than Kaidoh's story, anyway," said Ichiuma doubtfully, clapping a little bit.
"Oh yeah, and that's saying a lot." said Ichirou sarcastically, ignoring the finger he got from Kaidoh. "I'm still not getting the 'best thing that ever happened to you' vibe from these stories. You guys have weird lives. Does anyone else have a story?"
oOoOo