Chapter 8

Wishes

The day went by horribly slow. After what Tezuka and Tsubaki told everyone, they were all devastated, the girls especially. They didn't want to spend one of the most fun festivals with the guys. This year was going to be especially fun though, until the captains had decided to bring the two groups together. The girls had one less person than the boys, so they decided to bring a non-regular, Ryuzaki Sakuno.

"Saori, honey!" Mr. Toyama called from the kitchen. "Are you leaving already? I have to get to work soon!"

Saori gave a mental sigh and came into the kitchen, wearing a plain green yukata with falling leaves on them.

"This is the first time I've seen my beautiful daughter wear a yukata since her mother died!" Her father practically squealed in delight. He turned his head towards a picture of Saori's mom and said, "Honey, our daughter has become beautiful indeed. If only you were here to see her now in her yukata. Our tomboy daughter has turned into a woman!"

"Don't talk to a picture frame like that! People will think you're crazy," Saori huffed. "I need you to pick up my friends and drop us off at Ayumi's house. Got it?"

"Of course! As long as I get to take your picture!"

He pulled out a camera and snapped a couple of photos before Saori interrupted, "Do you want to be late for work or something?"

"Oh, yes, right. Now, now, into the van!"

Saori's dad drove like a maniac to pick up Aine. Aine climbed into the van with a happy "hello" and sat down. She looked exactly like a kid, with her multi-colored kimono. Only children wore those kinds. Saori couldn't keep in her laughter, but she didn't want to say anything to Aine. Aine had such a pure heart, of course she would end up wearing something like this.

The van was going over the speed limit by ten, and Saori had to remind her dad to slow down or the cops would stop them. Saori spotted a group of people all in their yukatas. She yelled at her dad to stop, walking on the street were: Koizumi, Faye, Miki, and Kumiko.

Saori poked her head out of the window and yelled, "Get in the car! What are you guys doing walking?"

"You were late so we decided to walk to your house to see if you got in an accident!" Koizumi called back.

"Whatever! Just get in and be grateful!"

The others got into the car and said their thanks. They immediately started talking about what they were going to do at the festival.

"Are we picking up Tsubaki?" Miki asked.

"No, she said she would meet us there," Kumiko answered. "Mr. Toyama, can you please drop us off at Ayumi's house now?"

"Sure, ladies," Saori's dad nodded.

It wasn't a short drive to Ayumi's house. She lived on the other side of town, where all of the rich people lived. She was even neighbor's with Atobe Keigo. There were a lot of questions about Ayumi though. Most of the questions revolved around the fact that she chose to go to Seigaku instead of Hyotei.

All of the girls had made it to Ayumi's house in one piece—mostly. Saori's dad literally kicked them out of the van and drove off at 70 miles per hour.

Ayumi was already ready and waiting beside her limo. She smiled at the group all sprawled next to the big fountain that was in front of her house before she said, "Finally you guys are here. I was waiting for awhile now."

"It's not my fault that my dad was freaking out," Saori answered brushing herself off.

"Ready to leave now, everyone?!"

"No..."

"How unenthusiastic," Ayumi frowned. She waved at all of them to get into the limo already and rolled her eyes.

The ride to the Hanami Festival was too quick for the girls. They didn't want to even arrive at the place, but if they didn't, they would definitely get in trouble with their captain. The limo stopped in front of the crowds of people that were all over the place. Kumiko dragged the girls out and had a glint in her eye.

They were all walking around looking for—unfortunately—the boys' tennis team, and Sakuno. She said that she was going to go earlier than the girls' regulars because she wanted to go with Tomoka, Kachiro, Katsuo, and Horio first.

Tsubaki and Tezuka were standing next to the biggest cherry blossom tree in the park. They looked like a couple; Tsubaki in her red kimono with a yellow dragon on the back (how ungirly) and with her hair tied up, and Tezuka in his blue guy yukata. The girls slowly walked over, hoping that the other guy regulars weren't there yet. But luck wasn't on their side, and just when they arrived, the guys arrived too.

"Hi everyone...," Miki said.

"Hi...," the guys said back.

Kumiko—who had been acting weird ever since they left the limo—said, "Since we are all trying to get along, how about we play some games. And just for the fun of it, let's make it a competition."

"Fine with us," Momo replied, back to his normal vigor.

"Okay, but the loser will get the graffiti penalty!"

"Graffiti penalty...?" all of the guys—except Tezuka—asked.

"We will all play five games. Out of those five games, the team will have to win at least win three. Whoever loses will get the graffiti penalty, which means that the winning team gets to write all over the losing team with permanent marker. When I say write all over, I mean that the winning team gets to write on any body part or any article of clothing on the losing team."

"Won't that ruin the clothes though? And it would take forever to get the permanent marker off of skin. Wait... Any part on the body?!" Oishi asked.

"Exactly!"

"I guess a friendly competition couldn't hurt, could it Tezuka-san?" Tsubaki asked.

"It's fine with me," Tezuka grunted.

Just then, Sakuno came running up. She said her apologies and started walking with the group. She walked with Ryoma, and occasionally glanced over at him. She and Tsubaki were the only ones in the girls' group that didn't feel any aggression towards the boys.

They made it to the first game, the challenge was like bowling in a way. You had a baseball that you threw at glass bottles from twenty feet away. Whoever knocked down the most bottles with their one baseball first, won the game.

Oishi was chosen for the boys, and Saori was chosen for the girls. Saori got into a pitching stance and threw the ball, it knocked down all of her bottles. Saori did play softball at one point in her life. Oishi took a breath and aimed the ball at the bottles, he was the best at control in the group. He threw the ball and knocked down all of his bottles too. They both got the biggest prizes in the stall, but Saori was not happy about tying with Oishi.

The next game was fishing for a turtle. There were a bunch of turtles in a little pool, you had to catch one of them with a very thin, tiny, paper fan. The game was usually a rip-off, and the turtle food that the stall owner sold cost much more than it was worth.

It was Fuji against Kumiko. Whoever got a turtle first, won the challenge. Fuji got his paper fan and tried to scoop the turtle up and put it into the jar, but the turtles he tried to pick up kept breaking through the paper of the fan. Fuji was getting frustrated, he opened his eyes and began to get serious. He got another fan and was about to scoop up a turtle, when he heard the girls screaming in joy. Kumiko had already caught her turtle, and was smirking at the guys.

"You should have gotten serious faster, Fuji-sempai," Ryoma acknowledged.

Fuji just smiled a sadistic smile at Ryoma and didn't say anything.

Third challenge was bobbing for apples. Ayumi against Kaido. There were ten apples in each bucket, whoever got all of their apples first won. As soon as the stall owner said "go", Kaido tore into the bucket and bit into the apples. He ripped through all of the apples, leaving them damaged beyond repair. Not that the owner was going to reuse those apples anyways.

Kaido easily won that round, with ten apples to two. Ayumi really didn't want to get dirty. She wasn't raised that way, this was her first time at a Japanese festival. She had been living in Norway her whole life up until high school while her parents had been living in Japan with their business.

Challenge number four was a free throw contest. Whoever made the most free throws in one minute won. It was Momo against Koizumi. The timer started and Momo and Koizumi were neck-in-neck with each other. Each one scoring one after the other. Koizumi went and threw the basketball, there was only five seconds left. Momo threw his basketball too, but only one of them made it...

"No!!!!" Koizumi shouted as she missed the hoop, but Momoshiro made it in. "Why?!"

"Oh yeah! Momoshiro to the top!" Momo shouted out.

"Last challenge, we cannot lose. If we do, it means total humiliation. If we win; it's a tie, if we lose; it's the graffiti penalty," Ayumi stated.

The last game was darts. You got five darts, and you had to throw them at balloons. There were three colors of balloons and each color stood for different points. Blue balloons were three points, green balloons were four points, and red balloons were five points.

The challenge was Faye versus Takashi. Faye threw her first dart at a green balloon and got four points. Takashi threw his first three darts and they hit green and blue balloons, he used his last two and hit two more green balloons. He ended up with eighteen points. Faye only had four points so far, she threw the next two darts at red balloons and hit them. She had fourteen points already. She aimed her forth dart at another red balloon but it only hit a blue one, she had seventeen points! Her team was screaming at her not to miss the next balloon, it didn't matter which one she got, as long as she got a balloon.

Just as Faye threw the dart, Momo threw a peanut at Faye's head, in an attempt to make her miss. But Momoshiro's attempt was lost, because Faye's dart hit a blue balloon."

"Thank god we're safe!" Koizumi sighed.

"That was a close one, I agree," Miki nodded.

"Tsubaki-buchou, Tezuka-sempai, since Momoshiro-kun tried to cheat, maybe he should get the graffiti penalty," Kumiko smiled.

"Momoshiro, you know that we play fair and do not cheat. So as your punishment, the girls get to do the 'graffiti penalty' on you," Tezuka's voice boomed out.

"Captain! Why?!" Momo yelled out.

The girls all pulled out permanent markers and started to draw weird things and swirls on Momo's face. They also wrote things like "I'm lame" on his clothing. Just to embarrass him, the girls pulled down the top of his guy yukata and wrote more stuff on his back.

"God, your spine is really bony," Saori commented. She punched his spine and he fell, coughing.

"Oh yeah, you have to walk around the festival half-naked, showing all of your 'graffiti marks' until the end of the festival," Kumiko remembered.

What no one knew was that there was a certain someone who was writing down all of the data that he got during the competition. Inui was getting a lot of data on how the girls acted, and how their minds worked. It was...very good data.

"Hey! What about Saori-san? She punched me in the spine!" Momo shouted.

"Uh... That doesn't count because...I have to go somewhere else right now!" Saori yelled. She randomly grabbed Kaido's arm and ran away.

"Well, there goes those two," Inui stated. "Ayumi-san, can you tell me more about the AO Corporation?"

"Of course!" Ayumi replied, she would do anything to spread around the good name of the AO Corp.

The two walked off, with Ayumi talking non-stop about all of the good things about the AO Corp. and how it has helped Japan for the many years that it had been in service.

Tsubaki and Tezuka had already set off earlier, talking about the training camp that they were going to go to, Eiji had dragged Koizumi away to play more games, Miki and Takashi were talking about cooking, Momo said that he wanted to talk about something important with Aine, and Sakuno followed Ryoma to go look around.

Faye, Kumiko, Oishi, and Fuji were left. Fuji saw some of his fan girls near and he immediately grabbed onto Faye.

"What do you thing you're doing?!" Faye screamed.

"Don't say that, Honey," Fuji replied.

Fuji's fan girls turned towards the two and started yelling, "Fuji-sama, you're here?! With Faye-san?! Why?!"

"Get off of her you—!" Kumiko shouted, but she was cut off by Oishi covering her mouth.

"No foul language, please. I need to talk to you about your violence, Kumiko," Oishi said with a stern look on his face. He dragged her off and they left.

"Should we do something...together?" Fuji asked Faye.

"NO," Faye replied, she started walking away from him.

"Hm?"

As soon as Faye got at least five feet away from Fuji, she could hear screams and squeals of delight. She turned around and saw ten of Fuji's fan girls surrounding him.

'What a perfect opportunity!' Faye thought as she slipped away from sight.

She walked around the festival, hoping to come to something interesting. Then a thought popped into her mind. This was the Flower Viewing Festival, after all. She ran to the beautiful river that graced the park. There were people there holding baskets full of orchids.

She ran to one of the people holding a basket. One orchid was only permitted to one person, so you couldn't get more than one. You were suppose to hold the flower up to your face as soon as you got it, then whisper a wish into it, and after that you would set the flower down into the water of the river and it would float away, carrying your wish with it so it would come true. Faye grabbed a orchid, nodding her thanks to the person. She went to the river, holding her flower in both hands.

The white flower was so beautiful, it had a purple center surrounded by white. It looked pure and innocent. The orchid did stand for magnificence, love, beauty, and refinement. It was also one of the most fragile flowers around, it was delicate, and could die easily.

Faye held the flower up to her face and smelled the sweet scent. She opened her eyes and said, "I wish... I wish that I could just live a peaceful life without Fuji Shusuke."

"What did you wish for?" Fuji asked his head right next to Faye's. He gave her a hug from behind.

"Eeep! God! Where did you come from?!"

"Oh, I just thought it would be nice to follow you since you so graciously left me with ten other girls."

"How did you get rid of them?"

"That's for me to know, and for you to find out."

Fuji grabbed a flower from a basket and chuckled at Faye. She turned away from him and started walking.

Fuji chuckled again and said, "I wish I could have another fun day with Faye. She's so fun to mess with." And he dropped his flower into the water.

Saori had bought two cotton candies, and she brought one over to Kaido. She began to eat hers and Kaido just looked at her strangely. He thought that she hated him, so he was confused about her acts of kindness towards him. Usually, she would be trying to beat him up or something close to that.

"Okay, there. You got cotton candy. I have repaid you," Saori stated.

"Repay me?" Kaido asked confused. He didn't remember doing anything for her.

"Yup. I almost got a penalty for punching Momo-san in the spine. You came with me to cover for me, so I'm grateful."

"Hm."

Saori ate all of her cotton candy in silence, then said, "Well, see ya! I have to go now."

Saori gave Kaido a wave and then ran off. Kaido gave a sigh and then followed her. He couldn't leave a girl all alone at night at the festival when there were a whole bunch of perverts on the loose. Saori was fast and he almost had a hard time catching up with her.

When Kaido saw Saori, his face turned red. She was at the river, there was a soft and innocent look on her face as she looked at the orchid that was cupped in her hands. The light was dim and the reflection of the moon shone on the water, it reflected off of Saori's face. He approached her and he heard her say, "I wish that I could get along better with people." Kaido grabbed a flower too, and put it to his face.

"I wish that I could understand everyone, and that way, I would be able to help them," Kaido whispered.

Saori had a sad look on her face, and he wanted to help her. He wanted to help a lot of people, but they were all intimidated by him, even though there was no reason to be. Even though Kaido looked like a mean person, he was soft on the inside, and he cared about a lot of people.

Inui was writing in his notebook. He was getting so much information on the heir of the AO Corporation. She seemed to really care for her company. It was the biggest company in all of Japan, and a lot of people would be proud just saying that they take the garbage out for that place. It was an exclusive company, and only certain types of people were able to get a job there.

"Ayumi-san, you're so rich. How come you didn't join Hyotei instead?"

"Well, I just simply didn't want to. I wanted to hang around normal people for once. I always hang out with rich people, and they have no personality. I was getting bored, so I went to a normal school. My parents supported me one hundred percent, and they didn't care what school I went to, as long as it was a good one," Ayumi sighed.

"Why are you telling me all of this? I am the enemy."

"I just needed to get some things off of my chest. And anyways, I would do anything to spread around the good name of the AO Corporation, even talk to an enemy. You wanted to know about it, so I told you. We have to get along, or we won't be able to go to the tennis training camp. I want to go, so I'll even be nice to you. The war, in my opinion, is still on. Just that the ways of attacking, have changed."

"I see."

"You want to go make a wish?"

"Pardon me?"

"Whatever, come on!"

Ayumi dragged Inui all the way to the river. She grabbed two flowers and gave one to Inui. She told him what to do and he nodded. For a girl that had never been to one of these festivals before, she sure knew a lot about what to do. She must have researched it up before she came because she didn't want to look like an idiot here.

Inui bowed his head down and whispered, "I wish I could get more data on the girls' tennis team."

Ayumi did the exact same thing that Inui did and whispered, "I wish that I will become a worthy heir for the AO Corporation."

"Ugh...." Koizumi sighed out. She was tired. She and Eiji had practically played all of the games in the whole festival, but he was still hyper and full of energy.

He was bouncing around, pointing at various stalls and asking if she wanted to play a game with him. She kept shaking her head "no", but Eiji was still animated. What she didn't understand was why Eiji was acting as if they were friends. He knew that she hated him, and yet, he still acted friendly towards her. But what she really couldn't understand was why she was actually following and playing games with him.

"Hoi, hoi! Let's go to the river! I heard we can make wishes there! We have to go before the fireworks start! Please, Koizumi?! I want to go so bad! Please, please, please!!!!"

"Okay, fine...," Koizumi would do anything to make him shut up for a minute.

He grabbed onto her arm and dragged her all the way to the river. He scooped up two flowers and handed one to Koizumi. He was talking animatedly on how to make the wish and what to do. Then, he just started talking about what wish he was going to wish.

"There are so many things I want! I don't know what to wish for! What should I do?" Eiji kept asking.

Koizumi looked away from Eiji and blocked out his talking. She turned her head towards the flower in her hands and said, "I wish I can play my guitar to the world someday."

Eiji saw that Koizumi already made a wish, so he made one too, "I wish that the boys' and the girls' tennis team can all get along! Then we'll have a lot of fun!"

Eiji was the only boy on the tennis team who didn't want to war to go on any longer. He didn't really care if they won or lost, as long as they had fun doing whatever they were doing.

"Ha Ha! Look at that guy! What's up with him?!" were the screams of random people as Momoshiro walked by.

Aine was walking about a foot in front of him, he didn't want to embarrass her. There was writing all over his face, neck, chest, and back. And he couldn't cover himself or wash off the marker until the end of the festival. It was super embarrassing. He had just been following Aine. He didn't want her to be going around alone, and anyways, he wanted to see if she was okay. But during the whole walk, she didn't even utter a word to him.

Aine on the other hand, was too nervous to even say anything to Momoshiro. She was afraid that he was mad at her for saying all of those mean things to him on their "date". She was fast walking to try and get away from him, but he kept up just fine. So she decided to ignore him instead. It was hard though, because she could feel his gaze on her back.

She walked all of the way to the river. She did hear that you could make wishes here. Aine quickly snatched an orchid up from the basket and put it to her face.

"I wish the girls got the appreciation that they deserved so that this war could be over already!" Aine whispered fiercely into the center of the flower.

Momo didn't like making wishes on flowers and he thought that it was too girly anyways. But since everyone else was doing it, he felt kind of left out. So he just got a flower and said, "I wish that the beach trip would come sooner."

Momo dropped the flower carelessly into the river and continued to follow Aine.

Miki and Takashi were the two in the groups that actually were friendly towards each other. Their parents had just recently become friends, so they hung out a lot now. Miki's parents were always going to the sushi bar, and Miki would go with them.

Takashi was actually a really good guy. He had two personalities, but that was fine with her. He only went into "burning mode" when he held a racket. They had ended up becoming friends because of their parents. Takashi was really adorable when he was shy, but that didn't mean that Miki liked him. He was just a sort of acquaintance.

"Miki-san, I heard we can go make wishes at the river. Want to go?" Takashi asked, rubbing the back of his head.

"Sure, Taka-san," Miki replied with a smile on her face.

They walked over to the river and saw the millions of flowers floating down, it was so beautiful. There were white orchids gently floating down, there were so many already! Miki and Takashi each grabbed a flower and held it to their faces.

"I wish that I will become a great sushi chef someday," Takashi whispered, he knelt down and laid his flower on top of the water.

"I wish that people would judge me on who I actually am, and not on how I appear to be," Miki whispered and also laid her flower on top of the river.

Takashi and Miki waited by the river, and watched until their flowers were no longer in sight.

Sakuno was silently following Ryoma Echizen around. Now and then, he would look behind him to see if she was still following him. Sakuno wondered if he thought that she was annoying, or if he was just okay with her following him. He had changed, when he entered high school, he had grown taller and leaner, he also got more muscle, and he got a little more social. But that meant that Ryoma also got more fan girls. Sakuno was afraid that now that he had more admirers, that he wouldn't even notice her anymore.

"Um...Ryoma...?" Sakuno kept trying to make conversation with him. "Do you want to go to the river? I heard you can make wishes and stuff."

"Hm...You're talking a lot today," Ryoma replied.

Sakuno felt her chest get heavier. She didn't want to annoy the person that she liked. Even thought Ryoma said that, he still led the way to the river. Sakuno was surprised when she and Ryoma got there.

"You wanted to make a wish, right?" Ryoma asked.

Sakuno nodded her head and got an orchid. She whispered into it, "I wish Ryoma would return my feelings for him."

Sakuno looked back at Ryoma, he was just staring at the sky. He didn't even make a wish.

Everyone had to meet up again at the end of the festival. The festival didn't end until midnight, and at midnight, was the best part. Right when it turned twelve, fireworks burst into the sky. They looked like flowers blossoming in the night. There were so many colors; red, blue, green, purple, and yellow.

"Beautiful...," Aine whispered.

"Speaking of which. Tsubaki, did you and Tezuka-san go and make wishes?" Koizumi asked.

"Maybe," Tsubaki replied.

"Hm," Tezuka said.

Everyone was wondering what Tezuka and Tsubaki did while they were all making wishes. They all saw each other a couple of times, but none of them even saw Tsubaki or Tezuka.

"I think the trip to the beach might be moved up to this Sunday, instead of in the summer," Tsubaki stated.

"Awesome! My wish came true!" Momo said back.

They all stared up at the sky. Watching the rest of the fireworks. This was going to be some heck of a school tennis trip.

People, if you want me to update...I need more reviews! Reviews fuel the writer's mind and help the writer come up with better stories.

Hey! If you guys want to see what the characters look like, the links to their pictures are up on my profile!