AN: this turned out more shippy than i expected

Hana2- well let's see how it turns out next chapter ;) yeah i also agree about the girls not having the recognition they deserved. we live in a society (still) where women in general aren't that much treated as equals. hopefully, in the near future its not like this anymore. anyway, i just gave permission in the FOLW that you can translate it as long as you give me credit. also, tumblr is a microblogging website that you can contact me directly if you cant pm me (you can ask to change your password if you forgot about your one. just click the forgot my password link and they'll give you directions on fixing it). so yeah if you want to visit my tumblr, just go to my profile and click the link

yeah i dont own captain tsubasa

Chapter 4: Surprise

It was actually nice to be out of the house for a while. She barely even left the house this summer, and she couldn't feel anymore grateful to feel the sun on her face.

Why were they out anyway? Shiori-chan said she wanted to walk her two dogs, Mari and Shiki. She thought that maybe Rika, Ayame, and she would like to come with her. But considering that she was also one of the people Natsukawa-san asked to join in the new tournament, she probably wanted to talk about that too.

Well, they've been talking about over texts when she created a group chat once Natsukawa-san left their home. Let's just say the whole conversation involved a lot of squealing and capitalization.

That's not even considering the other group chat where she managed to get a hold of everyone invited to join. Yes, all thirty of them. That's probably one of the best and worst thing she ever done. Best because they all felt the same about Natsukawa-san, and worst because her phone wouldn't stop lighting up and draining her phone battery. Needless to say, she told them to delete it because it got annoying.

Anyway, their walk led them to their soccer field by the river. They all sat by the slope, chatting among themselves. Shiori-chan's two dogs ran around the glassy field, loving the exercise and open space they were getting. They started to ask each other how their summers' have been so far, but it quickly led to the whole thing with Natsukawa-san's sudden visit to their daily lives. It seemed like it was everyone's highlight for the summer. She couldn't exactly blame them. They've all looked up to everyone in Nadeshiko ever since they won the World Cup three years ago. They would be bound to be awestruck by awesome as great as Natsukawa-san talking to them.

Though the only thing they wished they could have done, was rub it in the boys' faces. They'll be surely jealous. At least that's what Ayame thought. She was always the sadistic person in their group.

Rika-chan was disappointed though. Izawa-kun was one of the members chosen for the training camp, and since they were dating for a year now, she wanted for them to do something special with just two of them. Though she really wanted to admit it, she was kind of annoyed with this whole thing. So, just like what she and Tsubasa did, they called and texted as often as possible. But even then, she told them that both of them were unsatisfied with that arrangement.

Well, they weren't the only ones unhappy with their predicament.

"You guys are too smitten," Ayame remarked as she laid herself down on the grassy slope.

Mari and Shiki were laying by them, taking a break from running around. Well, who wouldn't be? A soccer field is quite big.

"I think it's cute," Shiori-chan replied as she stroked Shiki, who moved himself to her lap. Mari layed her head on Rika-chan's thigh, snoozing contently.

"That's because you don't see one of them constantly checking their phones in case they received a text," Ayame countered as she closed her eyes. "It was adorable seeing their whole face light up with a smile after reading a simple message, but once you see that dorky smile every single hour, you'll want to barf after the second day."

"It is not every single hour," she denied her cousin's statement. "Tsubasa's too busy to be texting every hour. He's training." Rika-chan nodded from beside her, because she knew what she was going through.

Ayame scoffed, but didn't open her eyes. "Sure, but that doesn't mean you don't look at your phone every time just to reread all his old texts to you so you can smile like some lovesick teenager."

Immediately she felt her cheeks heat up. Oh god, she knew about that? How? She's sure she was doing it as discreetly as possible. And she was not doing it every time, just a few couple of times when she was bored…

"I- I do not," she weakly denied as she crossed her arms, refusing to look at any of them.

Ayame snorted mockingly as Shiori-chan hid her mouth behind her hand, trying to stifle her giggles. Rika-chan only gave her a one armed hug.

"Its okay, Sanae-chan, I know. I understand," Rika-chan comforted her. "I've been there. You don't have to be embarrassed about it."

Well, if they just stopping about this, maybe she would stop being embarrassed about it.

"What about you?" she countered to her cousin. "Don't even deny that you've been talking to Misaki-kun all this time."

As if expecting she would bring it up, Ayame replied to her, "Contraire á votre croyance," she suddenly spoke in French, which she tended to do when making fun of someone she deemed needed to be made of. That or either in English, where she tended to use most of the swear words because apparently, English had the perfect words fit for furious bouts of rage.

"My conversations with him were of the highly intellectual kind. Unlike, your mindless love babbles."

Mindless love babbles? Really?

"Oh, so if I look through your phone right now, all I would see there would be 'intelligent' debates over life?" she argued, and noticing the way her cousin tensed up, she believed she won this argument.

"Sure," Ayame relaxed. "If you know how to read French."

Shiori-chan and Rika-chan exchanged glances, their faces producing the common expression of realizing that as usual, she just got dissed by Ayame. For her part, she could feel her eyes narrowing in irritation because Ayame just beat her. But, she wasn't going to let her win that easily.

"That should be easy," she remarked nonchalantly. "I just have to use an online translator. I'll figure it out from there. You'll be fine if I read the translated conversations out loud, right?"

Ayame suddenly bolted up from her position and gave her a glare. "You little bitch," she exclaimed in English. Looks like she won, and it seemed those conversations weren't as innocent as she makes them out to be.

Shiori-chan and Rika-chan tried to stop their giggles, interrupting the dogs from their naps. They must be wondering why their pillows wouldn't stop shaking all of the sudden.

"Checkmate," she smirked in triumph. Heh, she thought she won. Like she'll ever make it easy.

"I wonder what exactly Ayame-chan and Misaki-kun talk about," Shiori pondered teasingly while giving her and Rika-chan a wink.

"None of your business is what," she replied aggressively, but she gave out a defeated sigh soon after.

"Sometimes, I really hate all of you so much," her cousin stated as she laid dejectedly on the grass. "Why am I even friends with you guys?"

"Oh you love us anyway, Ayame-chan," Rika-chan laughed, and she was soon joined by Shiori-chan. Ayame only ignored them, muttering something in French, but there was a hint of a smile gracing her lips.

It was times like these that always made her happy, and it helped distract her from thinking about him, like how it was right now. She didn't want to be that one girl whose only existence depended on a boy. That's not exactly a great thing. It was fine to be in love, but dependency wasn't.

That's why she's so frustrated she's missing him this damn much. It wasn't as bad when he was gone for three whole years, or that time he went to France? What made this different?

Ugh, whatever. She's just going back to teasing Ayame. If she continued to think about this again, she'd only make herself feel helpless than she already were.

She was about to quip something really witty when all of the sudden her vision was blocked by a pair of hands, and she felt something warm touch her back. A familiar scent she's been missing for the past weeks entered her nose, and she couldn't believe what was going on.

She barely heard the hushing sounds coming from around her as she gingerly touched the hands covering her eyes.

Oh my god.

"Tsubasa?" she mumbled softly.

She felt something rumbling behind her, and a chuckle entered her ears. Slowly, the hands were taken off her eyes and she turned to look behind her.

"You just know me too well, don't you?" He greeted her with a smile. "Hi."

He wasn't supposed to be here. At least, not yet anyway. It's a week early.

"Anego, a fly might come into your mouth if you don't close your mouth."

She thought of giving that smarty pants a glare when she realized that the only person who would actually say such a thing was Wakabayashi-kun. She looked over Tsubasa's shoulder and sure enough he was there, along with the other boys that was supposed to be in Tsumaigo.

"Wha-" she started as she looked back to Tsubasa with wide eyes, who only laughed and gave her a hug.

"What are you guys doing here?" Ayame exclaimed as she sat up abruptly. "You're not supposed to be here until the end of next week. I thought I'm going to have another week of peace and quiet."

"Tough luck, Ayame-chan," Misaki-kun remarked as he took a seat beside her. "We're here now, and we're here to stay."

"No!" she whined as she laid done on her back again, before rolling on her stomach. Misaki-kun retorted by smacking her in the middle of her back. They could only laugh as her cousin let out an indignant cry of pain before looking towards Misaki-kun and pinched him.

She watched as all her boys took a seat by them, forcing a small circle and immediately they all began to chat. She felt herself smile. It was nice having them back.

Unconsciously, she leaned into Tsubasa, who had an arm around her. She noticed Izawa-kun bringing Rika-chan closer to him as he sat her between his legs and hugging her tight. He was probably telling her much he missed her like the loving boyfriend that he was. Rika-chan's more than happy to have him back near her.

Though it was a little surprising to see Wakabayashi-kun taking a seat by Shiori-chan and was greeted by her dogs enthusiastically, and when her dogs were generally not that excited when they see someone. At least, not as happy they were right now.

Hmmm…

She was interrupted by her thoughts when she felt Tsubasa bury his face on her shoulder.

"I missed you," he whispered to her as he brought his face up to look at her.

Again, she could feel herself grin wider.

"I missed you to, Eagle," she replied, kissing his cheek. He seemed to be surprised her peck on his cheek, but it soon turned into a smile and proceeded to pull her closer to him.

"Ugh, I miss eating your sweets!" he exclaimed.

She turned to him in confusion. "Weren't the ones I gave you enough?" she asked. He slowly shook his head in answer. "You were with me baking them and I made sure that you didn't eat half of it. There were at least four bags of cookies, two bags of chocolate, and a bag of mini doughnuts. How in the world was that not enough?"

"Well, technically it was more than enough," he admitted, but then he gave a glare to the other boys, "but if people just didn't run though my bag and eat them while I'm not in area, then maybe I wouldn't be complaining to you about this."

"Hey, hey, hey," Ishizaki-kun complained. "You can't just expect us to stand by while you gorge yourself with Anego's treats. That's unfair! We're her boys too."

In rebuttal, Tsubasa stuck his tongue out at Ishizaki and pulled her closer. "Well, guess what? I'm the boyfriend now. I'm the favorite."

Okay, maybe he has more leverage than the others because they're dating now, but her favorite?

"Nuh uh!" they denied. "Anego doesn't have any favorites!"

Yeah she did. He's just around the area.

"Oh boo hoo!" Ayame interrupted, finally standing up with her hands on her hips. "Who cares if Sanae has favorites? I'm sure whoever that person is, he wouldn't be here." Thank you, dear cousin.

"Wha-"

"More importantly," she interrupted again before another fiasco broke out. "Nobody still answered me on why you guys are back so soon? This wasn't part of the plan! You guys are ruining everything!"

Assuming that she did have plans. She's pretty sure Ayame didn't have anything at all. Or maybe she considered caging herself in her room to work on her sewing as plans. Besides, how did the boys coming home wrecked whatever she wanted to do?

"Calm down, Kiseki," Wakabayashi-kun pacified. "We're as surprised as you were when our Coach told us to come back earlier than expected. We just got here at noon."

"Yeah," Taki-kun agreed. "Coach Gamo just told us we would be coming back today three days ago. He didn't even explain exactly why we needed to leave early. He only told us that that the Association needed him for something."

Three days? How come she never knew this? They could have planned something for them.

"How come you never told me?" she inquired to her boyfriend with a light glare.

He gave a nonchalant shrug as he smiled. "I wanted to surprise you."

Oh be still, her beating heart. This was just another of Tsubasa's ways to fluster her.

She gave him a smile and kissed his cheek again. "Look at you being all romantic and gushy again," she teased.

He chuckled softly and kissed her head. "You love it anyway," he retorted.

She replied by chuckling as well, and leaning more into him. She really did love it when he's like that, but she wasn't going to say it out loud of course. Not with their friends around anyway.

"He also said today before we all left that FIFA would be announcing something in the next couple of days. Keep a close eye on J Sports 1* since they would be broadcasting it live or something."

So FIFA would be broadcasting it live and worldwide? They finally approved it? Just imagine all the uproar and hysteria of making the World Youth mix gendered would bring.

Man, just thinking about it was making her excited and apprehensive.

"Huh," she said as aloof as she could muster, "I wonder what FIFA has in mind." She could see the small smirk on Ayame's lips as well as the knowing grins on Shiori-chan and Rika-chan.

What she failed to see though, was her boyfriend's puzzled stare directed at her.

"Beats me," Ishizaki-kun shrugged, not noticing her tone at all. "I'm just glad I don't have to train as hard as Coach Gamo has been making us do."

"…Dude, you do know that we have the Autumnal Prefectural Tournament coming up, right? And Tsubasa's captain now, so don't expect a lighter training."

All of them then laughed at Ishizaki-kun's cry of despair, and asking Tsubasa to give them a light training regime, to which he answered a definite no.

As everyone continued to poke fun of their bald friend, Tsubasa tugged on her hand, a small look of accusation in them.

"You know something about the thing with FIFA, don't you?" he asked.

She tried to stop her smile, she really did. But for some reason she found it amusing to make him wonder. "Maybe," she sang teasingly.

"So I assume that's a yes," he replied with a raised eyebrow. "Mind telling me?"

She giggled and bopped his nose. She promised Natsukawa-san she wouldn't tell, and tell she wouldn't. Besides, it'll be funny to see how he reacts to this.

"Just wait, Eagle. Just wait."

End Chapter

AN: i have no idea if my french was right or not. i just google translated it. sorry for all my french readers out there :( anyway, yeah. this turned out fluffier than i thought. i dunno, i hope you guys liked it, even though i did say that i wont be focusing too much on romance :/

*j sports is like the espn of japan so i chose that channel hehehe he... he

anyway, thanks for reading and please review! see you soon