Author's Note:
Chapter 4 of the still untitled sequel to TRTCT is finished and I started the bloodcurdling opening scene of chapter 5.
To those of you who might be displeased with romantic developments in the short story below, I say:
Over the years most people go from one romantic relationship to another. What isn't now might be in the future.
Clouds rise before my vision while my heart is astir with new emotions
It was 10 - 14 for the blue team in the fifth set with each team having won two sets. But with the past 6 points scored by them, the yellow team was riding a huge wave.
Their captain, Hikari Kimura was about to deliver what she hoped to be her seventh winning serve.
Guided by the sharp eyes of the tennis club's ace, the volleyball went in a high arc toward the left-back corner of the blue team.
Hikari knew all too well she had to avoid the other side of the opponent's court.
Blue team attacker, Yoko Kikuchi, jumped up and intercepted, bumping the ball over to her teammate, Emi Hayashi, who spiked the projectile over the net.
Yellow team defender, Kumiko Takagi, blocked, sending the ball back to the brunette whose short ponytail was bound by a red ribbon that was shaped into a bow.
Emi had to bump the volleyball over to the blue team's left-side defender, Mio Mori.
The stout girl with the long black ponytail often had moments of inspiration and this was one of them.
She spiked the ball to the left side of the yellow team's court, taking Yuna Nakano by surprise.
The tall blonde managed to bump the ball without aim but was saved by attacker Mei Sugawara who spiked the ball toward the back of the blue team's court.
Hikari bit her lip in apprehension as the ball went high.
Too high for anyone who saw this as no more than a meaningless physics education middle school game to reach it.
Like a dolphin out of the waves, Hotaru rose up above her classmates and smashed the volleyball onto the court of the yellow team, ending the game with 10 - 15, before landing on her feet and rolling herself up as she was sent forward by the momentum of her jump.
"Hotaru-chan! Are you alright?" Emi called out as the tall black-bobbed stoic rolled forward in a ball until she spread herself out flat on the floor.
"Hahaha!" Hotaru laughed. "That was amazing! I was a little scared for a moment. I really could have hurt myself."
"Well, of course, you maniac," Yuna rolled her eyes and bumped her classmate's shoulder with the tip of her big toe after having run toward her before the other members of the yellow team. "Who would try and retrieve a ball like that?"
"It just seemed like fun," Hotaru smiled as she got to her feet.
"Hotaru-chan!" She heard behind her from the classmates who spectated during the match. "That was amazing! You're so cool!"
The two most beautiful girls from class came walking up to the group.
One of them, whose long shiny black hair cascaded over her shoulders, smiled cheerfully and pulled the uneasy-looking girl with the long light-blonde hair behind her along by her right hand like she owned her.
"Wait!" Rina weakly protested against her friend's unhindered advance while her left arm trailed behind her in an attempt to balance herself.
"Here's a bottle of water," Chiyuri Otsuka excitedly said as she and Rina presented Hotaru with the beverage and draped a towel over her shoulders.
"You really were great, Hotaru-chan," Emi smiled. "Thanks for winning us the match."
"Hey! I thought we won as a team?" Hotaru laughed while slapping the brunette on the shoulder.
"Yes. Thanks for beating us at the last moment," Yuna grinned while bumping up against her friend from the right.
"You shouldn't have slept during the critical moment, Yun-chan," Hotaru smiled cutely while shaking her bottle of water at the blonde.
"So mean," Yuna laughed as she tried to avoid the squirt of water heading toward her.
Hikari approached the two while most of the other girls went towards the seats at the edge of the court to get some towels of their own or went to the showers.
Only Kumiko, Yuna, and Emi stayed next to Hotaru as the teacher also came closer.
"You were really great, Hotaru-chan," Kumiko said. "Back when we went to Mugen Gakuen Middle School I thought you were just some useless disabled person, but you turned out an amazing athlete."
"Disabled people are what?!" Hotaru turned on the redhead with a sudden terrifying cold glare.
"Hahaha!" Kumiko laughed nervously at the unexpected reaction. "I… I… You're just so cool. Bye now. I'm hitting the showers. Starting to smell…"
As her classmate hastily ran off, Hotaru squinted her eyes and aimed a tiny squirt of water in her general direction.
"Honestly…" The 14-year-old sighed. "It's like you're just fighting one kind of evil to protect another kind sometimes."
"Man…" Hikari whined when she stopped in front of Hotaru, Emi, and Yuna. "We came so close. Why did you have to pull out your superhuman routine again?"
The girl with the long curly light-green hair clapped hands with the blackette who drank from her bottle with her left hand.
"Hey, Hotaru-chan. I'm going to go ahead and try to beat the track and field club to it, but since you came out of summer break with such energy and athletic ability AND since you beat me today, I think you owe it to me to join the tennis club."
Hotaru frowned and turned her eyes downward and then to the ceiling.
"Tennis?" She repeated as if the idea was utterly foreign to her.
"It's rather late to join a club now," Emi shrugged. "But since you are getting into physical education class with such vigor every time, aren't you interested in joining one?"
"I honestly just wanted to have fun in class," Hotaru said with a blank expression. "That's why I spend most of the summer training until I was on your level."
"Hahaha," Yuna laughed dryly while lightly hitting Hotaru's right shoulder. "This is how the great and powerful mock the weak."
"Tennis is a really cool sport, Hotaru-chan," Hikari promised with energy. "Even cooler than volleyball.
Since we're in the third semester already you won't be able to join us in competitions, but if you come and train with us I'm sure you'll be our perfect secret weapon next year."
"I don't know, Hikari-chan," Hotaru shrugged. "Haruka-kun told me she wants to start training me as a track and field athlete. I thought it might be fun.
But I'll come by the club and give it a try if you're that sure I'll like it."
"I knew it," Hikari stated with pinched eyes while shaking her fist at nobody in particular. "If I waited a day longer to ask you, I might have lost you to the track and field club."
Emi's attention was suddenly occupied by the handsome young man in the white shorts and white-and-yellow T-shirt who walked up to the group.
"You played a great match, girls," Daiki Miyamoto said while a brilliant smile adorning his handsome face. "All four of you.
You alright, Tomoe-san? You took quite the fall there."
"Yes, Miyamoto-sensei. Nothing broken. Nothing sprained," Hotaru smiled. "Don't worry."
"You wouldn't say you were so worried about Hotaru-chan with how long it took you to come over and ask her, Sensei," Emi scolded the man.
"Well now," Daiki scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. "You know I had to evaluate you girls for this match, you know? My apologies if I came over as uninterested, Tomoe-san, but it took some time to get the red tape done.
Meanwhile, let me give my personal opinion on the subject you were discussing just now:
When we started this year and I saw you girls at our first lesson together you were by far the student I was most worried about, Tomoe-san.
I read about your illness in your file and I planned to carefully help you build your body up with what exercise you could handle.
To my surprise, not only did you throw yourself into every lesson with a passion, but you also trained yourself up in your own free time to a level I scarcely thought possible.
I guess that's what happens when a girl who knows what it's like to have to struggle through life with a mind or body weaker than average gets a new chance through a miracle recovery.
But Tomoe-san, if your performance in today's match is the result of your passion for sports I think it would be a waste to not try and take your revenge on mother nature further by really applying yourself to one particular discipline."
"That's right, Hotaru-chan," Hikari grinned. "You listen carefully to Miyamoto-sensei. This man has some sense in him."
"But I'd choose that discipline wisely," The sensible man with the short wavy black haircut dryly continued. "Without allowing my friends or family to push me in one or another direction even though they might mean well."
"Thank you, sensei," Hotaru nodded. "I'll keep your advice in mind."
"As for you, Hayashi-san," Daiki said as he walked up to Emi and patted the girl on her head. "The bow is cute but it's against regulations.
I know all the girls want to look like Ai No Shojo these days, but you'll have to wait until next year to copy Aino-san's style.
Yes, it sucks that school regulations became more strict for Juban Public middle school students. But that's just the way it is."
The brunette was left with a steaming hot face as her teacher walked off.
"I swear he does it on purpose," Emi whined while covering her chest with both hands. "He should know not to tease a maiden's heart like this."
"Hahaha. You better harden your heart, Emi-chan," Hikari chuckled. "You know there's no future for a teacher's crush."
"I know! That's why he shouldn't do stuff like that."
"Oh. Never mind," Yuna waved with her left hand. "We'll get to know all kinds of new hunks who will replace our charming physical education teacher in your heart when we start high-school next year."
"I hope I won't get taken in by any boys," Hikari said with a blasé attitude. "I want to give it my all and reach the nationals next year. I won't have time for boys."
"We'll see if you can keep your fabled discipline if there's some handsome male team member who'll take an interest in you, Hikari-chan," Emi smirked. "I've seen you eyeing Hashimoto-san. Don't tell me you wouldn't swoon in his arms if he took your first kiss."
Hotaru watched Yuna take part in the teasing and laugh at Hikari's adamant denial, actively putting an effort into maintaining her cool and smiling stoically in the face of the subject…
While quite vividly and to the animation of her heart her mind replayed every second of her first kiss with Shingo Tsukino at the end of summer break.
And their second and third and fourth and fifth and…
The first time they met was when Hotaru came looking for Chibi-Usa in her home after dinner and saw the fourteen-year-old boy sitting alone on the edge of the porch playing his guitar in the slowly setting sun.
It seemed such a magical moment. Shingo looked like one of the characters in the stories her mother used to read to her when she was barely old enough to remember.
Hotaru had walked up to him and surprised her Queen's younger brother in the middle of the song he was practicing.
They talked for about twenty minutes until Chibi-Usa came down from her room and the two of them went out for a sleepover at the outers' apartment.
The second time they met was in the city where Hotaru ended up accompanying Shingo to the shops for a winter jacket and tried to put all the advice she had gotten from Michiru and Setsuna into practice.
Afterward, they went to the park where Shingo treated his new friend to crepes as thanks for her help.
This narrative doesn't quite convey how increasingly awkward and nervous they both became with each other throughout the process of the shopping experience.
The third time, Hotaru came to the Tsukino residence to visit Shingo himself after having ascertained that Usagi would be absent.
Shingo blunderingly invited the black-bobbed teen up to his room where talk of music and school quickly devolved into caressing and kissing.
That was last Thursday.
They had talked on the phone twice since then and anxiously awaited the time of their first - or rather, second - proper date over the weekend.
The reason Hotaru tried to keep the relationship to herself, for now, were the stories she had heard from Chibi-Usa during unrelated conversations about how awful Usagi could get when it came to meddling in other people's relationships.
In fact, Chibi-Usa had claimed that the only one of the bunch who could be entrusted with information of a romantic nature was Ami.
This had impressed upon the black-bobbed stoic - whose smile was turning into a sweatdrop grimace as she considered her situation - to especially keep any word of her relationship with Usagi's own brother from reaching the pigtailed blonde's ears.
Hotaru, however, had not demanded the same secrecy from Shingo. So she started to wonder what his opinion on the matter was.
Optimistically, she hoped Shingo shared Chibi-Usa's view.
"What do you think, Hotaru-chan?"
"Oh?" Hotaru suavely reacted with her left hand leaning against her hip. "I think I'm agreeing with Hikari.
If I'm joining a club and putting more effort into study for the sake of entering a great medical university I haven't got time for a boyfriend."
Yuna, Hikari, and Emi regarded their friend in confusion.
"Not that," Emi slowly spoke. "We were arguing over whether Ai No Shojo shouldn't have worn a matching outfit in the music video of her collab with Wink."
"Ah… You mean the music video for Meatnight Splinter?" Hotaru laughed while trying to cover up her mistake.
"English…" Yuna shook her head with a dramatic sigh. "The one weak spot of the young beauty who excels at both academics and sports "
"Meet Knight Sprinter?"
"Can I borrow your English textbook please, Emi?" Yuna nervously begged while scratching the back of her head upon coming to the constatation that she forgot to pack a certain article that morning.
"Again?" Her friend sighed. "Geez, Yuna-chan. Your brain is only good for quipping."
"Mietnites Plantor?"
While thinking hard about the correct pronunciation of the song title, Midnight Splendor, Hotaru underwent the shocking sensation of having her eyes directed to her far right.
As if invisible hands were pulling her face in that direction.
As if her body was moving through the willpower of another.
Hotaru's head turned and her body swayed until she saw a tall handsome woman with a long dark-purple braid dressed in a short black skirt and short blazer over a blue shirt watching her from the balcony over the school gym.
A tall older man with short gray hair in brown pants and jacket over a white shirt stood beside the unfamiliar appearance.
"Who's that woman with Principal Shimizu?" Emi wondered out loud when Hotaru's friends looked in the direction the black-bobbed stoic was staring.
"Oh? I heard the new homeroom teacher of grade 10 class 1-3 is receiving a guided tour of the school's facilities from the principal today. Nagahasu Kaito-san is her name, I think," Hikari informed her friends.
Hotaru couldn't help noticing that the woman was smiling at her.
Seemingly smiling specifically at her.
"That means she'll be our homeroom teacher next year. Won't she?" Yuna asked.
With a suspicious frown, Hotaru kept staring back at Kaito Nagahasu while Hanzo Shimizu addressed the woman.
Until, with what seemed like a deliberate last glance over her shoulder, the stylish woman with the dark-purple braid and the eyes like sapphires turned and walked further along the balcony with the Juban Public High School's principal.
"Wow. She's very beautiful," Emi whistled. "I bet the boys in 1-3 will be happy."
"A new homeroom teacher, huh?" Hotaru remarked as she turned to face her classmates. "What happened to their old homeroom teacher?"
"Dunno," Hikari shrugged. "I guess he got a better offer at another school."
"Hey, Emi. Look," Yuna jested while bumping her friend with her elbow. "That's Miyamoto-sensei coming back from the dressing area. He probably wants to confiscate your ribbon. How romantic a way to gain a keepsake of his beloved."
"What are the four of you still dawdling about for?!" The peeved gym teacher exclaimed. "Get your butts into the shower! Your next class starts in seven minutes!"
With a jolt, Hotaru and her friends realized their situation and hurried to the dressing area to join their friends afterward for the first lesson of the day.
Summer had come and gone with its surprises and discoveries.
The new trimester had started and would bring with it new opportunities, new possibilities, and new challenges.