I really should be working on my school work. But at least I'm back to writing!
"Have fun, Akina!" Her father waved out of the car door, giving his daughter a smile before driving off back home. She waved back at him, watching his car shrink as it got further and further away from her. He wouldn't pick them back up. When Akina had realized how close the sushi parlor was to the Echizen home, she didn't think it was necessary.
The female Echizen spun around, holding her hands out to make sure she didn't fall flat on the floor again, and faced the building that she was supposed to enter. The restaurant had a cute bamboo garden in the small area between the side walk and the store front. How the owner managed that, she'll never know. A blue sign above the door announced the name and most likely owners of the store: "Kawamura's Sushi!" Akina froze when she spotted the closed sign on the front door.
"Ah, isn't that someone's name on Ryoma's tennis team?" Akina walked up to the door, giving a small knock. Might as well knock.
"I'm sorry!" A familiar, muffled voice spoke from the other side of the door. Although she recognized it, she couldn't place whose voice it was. The door cracked open, revealing a familiar face of Ryoma's tennis teammate. "We're closed for today— oh! Akina! Ryoma said that you might come by!"
Akina nodded. "Yeah. He said it would be okay for me to come?"
"Of course!" The shy brown-haired teenager rubbed the back of his head. "Everyone would love to see you again!"
"Are you sure? I don't want to intrude or anything…."
"No!" Kawamura waved his hands out in front of him franticly. His eyes grew wide then quickly snapped to an embarrassed expression. He rubbed the back of his head again. "I mean— we don't want to leave you out. And you're here anyways."
"As long as it's fine, I'll be happy to join—"
"Taka-san!" The sound of Momoshiro's voice flew into Akina's ears, a stark contrast of Kawamura's soft tone. "What's taking so long?"
The not-so-quiet giggle of Eiji's rang through the air as he teased Kawamura about talking to some girl. His signature red hair poked up from around the corner as Akina stepped into restaurant. While Kawamura began sputtering defenses, Eiji's comments went ignored as he shouted at Akina. "Ah! Akina!"
"Eiji!" Akina shouted back, slightly bewildered at his actions.
A smile beamed on his face. "You did come!"
"Yup! Ryoma said something about a party, how could I not?"
"Come, sit next to us!" Eiji patted the empty space next to him, a spot at a table where Fuji and Kaido sat on the other side. He scooted over to the wall, letting her sit in the spot on the end.
Leaving her shoes at the door, Akina make her way over to the three teenagers. Her purse was ditched by the coat rack, snuggling down next to the other purses most likely left by the female sports reporter and the freshman girls. It was odd that the sports reporters joined in on the Seigaku party, but Akina was not in the position to say anything. As she gave a pat to her brother, a white eye patch caught her eye. She let out a gasp. "Ryoma!"
He turned to her, giving her a good look at his face. "What?"
The sister pointed to his no doubt hurt eye. "What is that? I literally told you not to hurt yourself."
"It was just an accident." He waved her off, letting her huff at him as she went back to sit by Eiji.
"I swear, that boy is going to be the death of me," Akina rolled her eyes as Fuji let out a small chuckle at her expense.
Fuji only smiled with his eyes closed at her. "He seems to do that with everyone."
"Honestly though." Akina picked up her chopsticks, separating them with a quick pull. Her chopsticks hovered around the sushi dish— carefully avoiding the wasabi selection near Fuji— before picking up a colorful roll.
"So where did you go? Ochibi wouldn't tell us," Eiji asked before popping a roll into his mouth.
Akina nodded, chewing patiently on her roll. After swallowing, she gave an exhausted sigh, remembering the awful tour with that Yanagi who was so obviously high strung. And she wasn't even going to mention the reason why her hands were smudged with the dust from the black asphalt. "I had to tour the school I'll be going to."
"Oh, that's right. You're not going to Seigaku." Fuji nodded.
"So where will you be going?" A deep voice spoke up, a voice that belonged to the angry looking Kaido. Akina was surprised that he spoke up.
"Rikkaidai." She plopped a sushi roll into her mouth.
All hell broke loose. Fuji's eyes opened, completely out of shock, revealing his beautiful blue eyes while Kaido had to control himself as to not spit his drink all over Akina's shirt. Eiji— the dramatic character that he was— fell back, a hand over his heart. If Eiji hadn't massively freaked out— him flailing his arms as he shouted about Rikkaidai and them stealing Akina— then the entire tennis team would not be staring back and forth between the two Echizens as if they had betrayed them. Even Tezuka was shocked. Well, she thinks he was shocked. He really only raised an eyebrow at Eiji's exclamations.
Akina gapped at the Seigaku team like a fish. "What? What's wrong?"
Eiji grabbed her shoulders, shaking her hard as he babbled nonsense on why Rikkaidai was the worst decision she could have chosen. Fuji merely opted to talk Eiji out of shaking Akina while Kaido and Momoshiro actually tried pulling Eiji off of Akina. This all played out to the amusement of her brother. After Eiji was quarantined and everyone else went back to eating— and pestering either Ryoma or Akina— Akina was able to finally take a breath.
"So what exactly is wrong with me going to Rikkaidai?"
"Everything!" Eiji called out.
"Rikkaidai is the number one tennis team in the nation— for boys at least. So you going there while Ryoma is going to Seigaku will kind of be like a betrayal to him," Fuji explained for her while Eiji cried out again. "But you're a girl so I don't know why Eiji is throwing such a fit."
Eiji slammed a fist down on the table, rattling the dishes. "Cause she should be joining the girls' team at Seigaku. We're one of the top three in girls'. Rikkaidai's girls' team isn't even in the top ten! The girls' team could finally beat Hyotei's girls' team. Then both Seigaku teams will be on top this year! Fuji! How do you not get this?!"
The boy who was currently getting screamed at by the red-head merely put up his hands in defense, knowing fully well how invested Eiji got into the sports ranking of Seigaku's teams, especially when one of his good friends was a team member on the female tennis team. Kaido eyed the Echizen sister, noticing the way her face twisted in pain when Eiji mentioned joining the females' tennis team.
"You don't plan on joining their tennis team, do you?"
Eiji stopped his shouting and Fuji stopped his defenses as they both turned to Kaido. Eiji rolled his eyes, giving him a look as if Kaido was stupid. "Of course she is. She's Chibi's sist—"
"No actually," Akina waved a hand in her face. "I'm not that good. At least not compared to Ryoma. And besides, I can't deal with him 24/7. I need a break! How do you guys put up with him?"
After successfully diverting the conversation to Ryoma, Akina could finally relax throughout the party, mentally prepping herself for the weeks to come at Rikkaidai. Seigaku member after Seigaku member still mentioned small tidbits about the probably one-sided rivalry between Rikkaidai and Seigaku, giving her small guilt over choosing the elite school over the underdog. Oh well. Shaking a snoring Echizen awake, Akina realized it was it time to leave lest she wanted to carry Ryoma back home.
Their walk back home was peaceful. Passing by closed shops and dark homes, the two siblings walked in silence, content with just being together after a month of separation. After an odd month of walking back home by herself, Akina was truly grateful to have her brother back by her side, even if it was only just one. With a turn of her key, Akina pushed open her house's door and welcomed the family's fluffy cat into her arms.
"Ah! Karupin! I missed you!" She snuggled the poor animal into her chest and walked up to her room, much to the displeasure of her brother.
"Hey!"
"Hey what?" Akina threw over her shoulder. "You had him for a whole month! It's my turn!" Akina ignored him as she climbed the stairs with Karupin snuggled up in her arms. She gave him a small peck on the head. "Finally, back home with my favorite kitty cat."
"Hi! I'm Echizen Akina." Akina waved at the class that were half interested and half unimpressed. Everyone expected a stereotypical American from an American transfer student, not a fully Japanese student who was raised in America. Most were mildly interested in the new American transfer student; however, the rest were mostly dreading the extra student they had to beat in testing scores. "It's nice to meet you guys!"
"Everyone welcome Echizen-san to our class," the teacher gestured weakly to the new student, nodding in an equally weak manner when the class responded with murmured welcomes. Ah well, at least no one threw eggs at her. "Echizen, you can sit in front of Marui-san."
A boy with bright red hair raised his hand high in the air, a bubble of gum growing on his lips. Akina shot him another smile. She scanned the room, happy to find that that Yanagi guy or whatever was not in this homeroom. The first time meeting him was too much. There was a cute brunette who gave her a small, cheery wave as Akina passed by the girl's desk. The red head gestured to the desk in front of him with a welcoming grin. Akina didn't miss the smirk on one of the guy's face further down the rows. His Jedi padawan ponytail flipped behind him as he turned his head towards her.
Akina let out a small hi towards the people around her as she sat herself down in her new seat. Setting aside her bookbag— an actual one; she didn't bother to get a side bag like what everyone else in Japan had—, she pulled out a few notebooks, getting ready to transfer her notebooks into the desk. Her hand touched the lid and— unbeknownst to her, a red head and a silver head exchanged looks behind her— she lifted up the top of the desk.
What the fuck?
The sight before Akina had the poor girl flipping her shit. On the outside, no one would ever know what that girl had experienced, but on the inside, all hell went loose. Cockroaches roamed around in the empty desk, just waiting to scare the ever-living shit out of the new transfer. They squirmed and crawled their way around the desk, moving their disgusting antenna thingies and just being disgusting in general.
Face stone cold, Akina quickly slammed down her desk lid. Whelp. That was interesting.
Marui looked down at his phone, hiding it behind his pile of books and overall cluttered desk. It's not like it was hard to get away with his phone out. Even the teacher was about to fall asleep.
Niou: wtf was that
You: idk did you get the right desk
Niou: of course i did
"Marui-san, can you tell me the answer to problem five?" The teacher breathed out. Marui could barely hear him.
He looked down at his homework sheet, finding that he did not do most of it correctly, if at all. In fact, his problem five was blank. Fuck. Marui scrambled to do the math in his head, finding that he needs some more practice to actually correctly do the math. But then again, if he was paying attention, he wouldn't need the extra practice.
"Uh…"
"Twenty six times t." A silver haired friend tried whispering to him from two rows down. Marui didn't know if he should trust him, no matter how good Niou was at math.
"Niou-san, I'd prefer it if you'd let Marui answer the question on his own after he finishes up his homework that he didn't do last night." The room snickered at the teacher's jab as Marui rolled his eyes at the teacher. Luckily the teacher let him go without painfully struggling through the right answer and that was the end of math class. And the end of hell for Marui. After Japanese Literature had passed, talk between classmates and friends broke out, signaling break time. The best time for him and Niou.
Marui mulled over something in his head. Then, after almost a full minute, he quickly gathered the courage he didn't need and took a pencil in his hands. Using the eraser end, Marui leaned over his cluttered mess and gave a gentle poke to the back of the girl sitting in front of him. The poke startled her, and she flipped her head to face her assailant. Black hair attacked the boy's face as she turned towards him with round brown eyes. Marui couldn't help but think about how pretty they looked when they were full of surprise.
"Hey, I'm Marui Bunta. Welcome to class B3."
Jonquils are for desire.
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