I just want to make it absolutely clear that if I had known what kind of
mistake I was getting into back then, I would not have drawn Saotome into
my spring. Actually, I might have done it anyway, but I sure as hell
would've grumbled a lot more on the road. I mean, the guy's an idiot.
His head is just so dense sometimes that I can't help but want to use it
as a battering ram and start slamming it into the walls. Owww.
Maybe I'll try that again later when I can somehow manage to separate
from him first.
Oh, yeah, hi, by the way. Ranko here. Just found myself in charge when
Ranma got slapped silly by that girl today. I guess it was funny when I
was just watching the whole thing from a tiny little corner in his mind,
but the whole story changed when I suddenly got shoved to the front to
participate while he conveniently went away to take a nap. Not to
mention that I was stuck in a male body and had to drag myself back home
with that... thing dangling around and my center of gravity all off
whack. You'd figure that with fifteen hundred years of technological
advancement somebody would've at least, like, invent a pocket or
something to stuff that thing better down there so it wouldn't wiggle
around so much when guys walk. But noooooo, I had to suffer the
indignity and stop every few steps to make sure everything was okay
because, well, it just felt so weird.
And what's the problem with all those people staring? Of course I
couldn't use my hands to check; a girl's gotta draw the line somewhere -
and adjusting things like that is definitely out of the question. The
best I could do was, well, strut my hips around when something felt out
of place and try to bounce it back into position.
In any case, after a quick cold shower at the apartment I'm finally back
in my own element, and I've decided that since I had no idea how long it
would be before I could come out again, I might as well keep some record
while I can. That is why I'm currently sitting in front of the desk
staring at a blank piece of paper wondering what else I should write down
to let Ranma know I've been around.
Hmm.
Hmmm.
I get it. I'll just jot down all the embarrassing dreams Ranma's been
having lately after he met that girl - he still keeps that red straw hat
by the bed, in case anyone wonders. After all, turn about is fair play,
and I'm not going to let him get away that easily after he made me stuck
in his body today. All right! It's decided. Today's entry is dedicated
to all those little things Saotome's been daydreaming about, and I'll
title it...
ukulele productions
proudly presents
Side-Project #4
A Spur of the Moment Series
Split. Orange. Intersection.
A crossover between
Kimagure Orange Road
&
Ranma 1/2
You've been warned.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
TWO
Ranma-kun no ecchi no himitsu.
[1]
"Ranma's dirty little secret," read Ranma as he sat in front of his desk
the next morning before school, holding a page torn from one of his
notebooks. He had no idea what happened the day before, much less how he
got back to his apartment. Or, for that matter, how this piece of paper
appeared. He continued on, trying to make sense of the chicken-scratch
handwriting on the page that was even worse than his own - if such a
thing was indeed possible.
"...Ayukawa and I were walking along the beach. The sunset was
heartbreakingly beautiful; a vermillion candlelight puffed out by the
ocean beyond the horizon, wisps of smoke that were the clouds lingered
still in the air. The sea was singing its lullaby of nightfall, its face
a constantly changing shade of orange and red and blue, and drafts of
wind softly swept against the sandy shores with a slight trace of
chilliness as though they were urging the wayward back to home.
Being impossibly moronic to anything remotely romantic, however, I didn't
notice any of it except that my stomach was ringing the dinner bells with
its growls.
Quite impudently and without warning, Ayukawa kissed me. In her was a
shy, blossoming passion mixed with a hint of ripe, matured sensuality;
her arms circled about my neck on reflex and I could almost see the sky,
the setting sun and all the splendors of the exotic pacific dancing in
her eyes...
Yeah right, who are you kidding? This is Saotome Ranma we're talking
about here. I was too busy being shell-shocked by the sudden lip contact
to do anything intelligent at the time.
Finally, the moment passed and Ayukawa drew away. Smiling coyly and with
a slight flush on her face that might or might not have come from the
tropic heat, she asked me, 'so... did it taste like lemon?'
'No,' I replied seriously after a little pause, 'more like Listerine."
Ranma crumpled the page into a ball and threw it emphatically out the
window. "Why that... little... I'm gonna kill her!"
[2]
For any of you who remembered Ranko saying that after the "merge", as she
called it, was completed, she would just fade into the background and
become something akin to wallflower: trust me, she lied.
As I surveyed my threadbare apartment one more time before I left for
school, I was unceremoniously reminded of my current situation - a junior
high school student trying to live a supposedly normal life off on some
savings acquired previously in China. True, the apartment I managed to
rent was almost devoid of any furnitures or decorations of any sort, but
as little as I knew about money I was keen enough to know that I
shouldn't spend it away carelessly - especially when there's no extra
source of income to compensate. I couldn't very well set up a bank
account to earn any interests; the identifications I needed for that
would be even more than what's required for registering in school. Maybe
I should look for a part-time job soon, I thought as I locked the room
and headed out.
But to get back on the topic at hand, it was all I could do to refrain
myself from getting a frilly, laced curtain a few days ago at the market
while I was buying some food. I was just passing by an aisle displaying
some silly little gadgets on interior decoration when a strange
compulsion forced me to pick up a sickeningly cute-looking window curtain
with so much frill that it could pass for a fishnet. It was as if there
was an inner voice telling me that I must buy it, or else there would be
dire consequences to follow. Needless to say, I figured out almost at
once what was going on and fought against Ranko's whining. And as if
that wasn't enough, the complaints I got from her was even worse when I
fended off her wish to pick up a bedsheet with tiny little red hearts
sewn into it.
I had this terrible headache when I got home.
It went without saying that I was promptly visited by a red-haired girl
that night in my dreams. She was not a happy camper.
"All right, Saotome, I want that curtain." She just appeared out of
nowhere as usual and demanded suddenly.
"Absolutely not!" I absolutely-not-ed. "You just don't ask guys to do
certain things - for example, making their bedroom look like it belongs
to a pre-puberty girl on sugar high." Fire could be seen blazing in
Ranko's eyes as I lectured her on the basic social etiquettes as
insultingly as I could possibly manage. I waited for a while to see if
she'd sprout horns too.
"Oh yeah?" She retorted hotly. "It's already been a week since you
moved in here, you know, and the whole apartment still looks exactly the
same way as it had been when you first rented it. You gotta have some
style and show some life, Ranma. A bedroom's just not a bedroom if you
don't put something nice in there." She sighed wistfully at the end.
"Well, it's got a bed, ain't it?" I said smugly. "Besides, who knows
what else you'd want me to do next? Paint the walls pink? Stuff the
room with teddies and barbies?" Almost casually, I dismissed her with a
wave of my hand. "Look, why don't you just go back to being wallpaper
and let me run the things, okay? It's my body; I make the calls, you
just tag along. There's no way I'm letting you play doll dressing with
my room, and that's final."
Her gaze turned icy suddenly. "You haven't heard the last of this yet,"
she threatened before vanishing altogether from my dream.
"Oh, I'm really scared!" I taunted to the empty air, knowing fully well
she could hear me.
The only answer I got were echoes of foot stomps in the darkness. I
remembered having very pleasant dreams for the rest of the night, and was
oddly satisfied when I woke up next morning.
[3]
Frankly, I wasn't looking forward to the second day of school any more
than the first day. Especially not when I accidently bumped into Ayukawa
in the hall on my way to class.
"Oh man, I'm late," I thought out loud in dismay as I looked up at the
clock outside one of the classrooms. I had barely arrived inside the
gates before school started that day, having spent most of the walk
thinking about the incidents with Ranko than actually paying attention to
the time. As much as I disliked going to class, however, I did not wish
to explain my tardiness on top of my absence the day before to the
teacher.
Out of reflex I turned my head when I heard someone coming towards me
from the far end of the hallway, and instead of the teacher I was
startled to find that it was Ayukawa - in school uniform. All of a
sudden I realized that I was inconveniently alone with her as we headed
into the classroom - and since the handprint she attached to my right
cheek was still fresh in my mind, the circumstances at the time were
awkward, to say the least. "A-Ayukawa," I began, hoping to strike up a
conversation without any idea where to really begin. I fully expected
another slap from her as she caught up with me from behind.
To my surprise, she simply walked past me and, as if nothing had
happened, cut my attempt at an apology off in an offhanded manner.
"Don't worry," she said to me with the tiniest hint of a smile as a small
wind from outside breezed through the open windows and lifted the hem of
her dress and her long, blue hair gently into the air. "The teacher
won't come up for a while yet. I usually walk through around this time,
and thirty seconds later he comes up from those stairs off the side."
True to her words, I heard the footsteps from those stairs right before
we reached our homeroom. "See?" Without waiting for a reply, she went
to her seat at the back by a window looking out towards the school yard.
Throughout that morning my thoughts kept coming back to this mysterious
classmate whom I've only met for a few times, and though everyone else
around here seemed deathly afraid of her for some reason, I concluded to
myself in the end that she probably was a cute girl after all, and that
I've probably just caught her in a bad mood yesterday. For a while I
wondered if she was a bad student, or one of those rebellious types, but
she seemed very attentive to the lectures so I had no choice but to
dismiss that thought as well.
Without meaning to, I threw a glance at her direction once during history
class. I was sure she noticed, but then she deliberately turned her head
away from me for the rest of the period. Man, cuteness aside, there's
just no figuring out to what she's thinking.
Since Ayukawa didn't miss any of her classes today, I noticed her in line
for vaulting practice in the gym during PE class before the guys'
basketball sessions started. Komatsu and Hatta were there by the vault
as well, though obviously for a different reason than to participate in
girls' gymnastic exercises.
"What are you two doing here?" I moved over to them and asked out of
curiosity. Both of them carried a small memo pad in their hands and were
scribbling down something furiously.
"Scoring." Komatsu replied automatically without bothering to look
back. "She's Sugimoto in class E," he said to himself aloud as he
continued to write. "According to the data last year, a size B is a
78... and she's well over 80 now, don't you think so, Hatta?" He paused
to ask his companion in a strangely satisfied tone.
"She's definitely growing up quite well," agreed the latter with a lewd
grin. "Hey! That's a 9.9!" Hatta exclaimed as that Sugimoto girl
finished her routine and landed. It wasn't anything spectacular in my
book though, no matter what Hatta and Komatsu believed.
"Next, Ayukawa!" The teacher announced after the short girl left. The
duo quite suddenly shut their notepads and stood up to leave. "Wait,
aren't you scoring her?" I was confused.
Hatta shrugged. "Sorry, but we don't bother to score punks. Let's
hurry, our practice is starting."
I did afford myself another look as I headed down the basketball court on
the other end, and I was almost transfixed on the spot as I saw her
launching herself high into the air with such grace and elegance that it
could bring all the other girls to tears. Ayukawa came down with a
well-balanced landing after a full-body twist followed by two loops, and
none of her movements felt rushed or gratuitous. I almost clapped.
Actually, there's really no question that I could've done much more if I
had been the one vaulting. I could have easily jumped to the height of
the ceiling and do ten or fifteen turns and flips and still manage a
perfect landing, but it would all come down just as a flashy show of my
skills. On the other hand, although Ayukawa's performance was clearly
above anything the other girls in the group could hope to match, she
didn't seem as if she was doing it to impress anybody; in fact, she just
walked away slowly in the end without a word, completely missing the
slightly awed and envious expression on everyone else's face.
Personally, I thought that definitely counted as something in my book.
[4]
Basketball, the instructor decided as Ranma leapt to swipe away another
shot made by one of his increasingly-frustrated classmates, was without a
doubt something this new student had a natural talent for. He seemed to
be doing quite well holding his own - a block here, a steal there, a
couple no-look passes behind the back; it looked as if either Ranma was
not altogether truthful about his claim of not having played the game
since he was six years old, or he was incredibly agile and adaptable.
The queer thing was, however, that during all this time he had never even
attempted a shot himself.
Perhaps that was about to change, the burly middle-aged coach thought as
Ranma's teammates seemed adamant on pressing him into shooting the ball
as well.
"Come on! Seven seconds left and we're down one! We need a basket from
you, Saotome!" One of the guys yelled in short, breathless gasps,
fatigue evidently settling in on his sweat-covered face.
"Yeah, show us what you've got, man!" Komatsu, one of the players on
Ranma's team, also cheered.
It's not that I don't want to shoot, I muttered to myself. It's just
that if I went all out there would have been no contest at all
whatsoever, and I was having too much fun playing around to allow that to
happen. For the first time that I can remember in a very long while, I
was truly enjoying playing with my classmates. The last time I recalled
touching a basketball I was still in kindergarten, and back then I was
already jumping high enough to do one-hand dunks while everybody else was
struggling to even toss the basketball two feet above their heads.
Needless to say, I was mostly shunned by other kids - and since I was
still young I didn't really know I was miss anything. Now, on the other
hand, it's a completely different matter.
I guess for all her faults and nagging Ranko was still pretty helpful at
times. She had told me back then that I might consider controlling my
actions somewhat - at least in public - and that it might be a change for
the better. "You know, Ranma," she appeared in my dream one night after
my escape from the Joketsukozu village and said, "have you ever thought
about what it'd be like to just be a normal person for a while and not
worry about people looking to either kill you or marry you?"
I admitted that I hadn't. Pops had raised me to become nothing but the
best martial artist in the world, and I was intent on being just that.
"And since I'm the best, I'll just handle whatever comes my way." I
replied confidently.
"Well, yeah, that's all nice and good," she exasperated with slightly
exaggerated motion, "but don't you get tired of it all after a while?"
"Maybe," I gave in grudgingly. "But what else can I do? Trouble seems
to follow me everywhere whether I want it or not."
"It's really not all that hard, Saotome. All you have to do is try to
act normal."
"Normal?"
"Yes, normal. Which part of the word don't you understand?" She asked
acidly. "You're the furthest thing away from it right now. In fact,
you're so abnormal that I think you don't even remember what being normal
means anymore."
"But that's just the way I am!" I said defensively. "I can't help but
being good at doing physical things."
"There's nothing wrong with being good or even being very good, Ranma;
people'd look up to you." Ranko clarified. "But it turns into a problem
when you show them that you're so good that you're practically
superhuman. They'd get scared that way." Then, quite impatiently, she
blurbed out. "Look, just give it a try, okay? I think you'll be
pleasantly surprised at how things can turn out."
And I was, even though at the time I thought I was being railroaded by
her into something I wasn't.
"Ranma, the ball!" A yell from Hatta brought me back to the present. I
glanced at the shot clock: two seconds left. All of a sudden I noticed
from the corner of my eyes that Ayukawa had also stopped to watch the
game from the other end of the gym as well, and for some reason the
basketball left my hands at that point. Oh well, I thought; it's only
basketball anyway. I'll just give them what they want from me.
Everyone's eyes widened as the ball made an arc in the air towards the
rim. There was no question from the trajectory that it was going to hit
all net. The only thing was that Ranma had made that shot from the
half-court line. As the ball hovered above the basket, however, the
students on the court became aware that it was suddenly knocked off track
by some sort of strange flying object. The next thing they knew was a
deafening bang as the basketball exploded and pieces of rubber began to
shower down upon them. Ranma looked at the scene disbelievingly and
almost seemed to cringe back. "It couldn't be..." he mouthed wordlessly
in denial.
"Ranma! At last -" Amidst the utter silence in the gym, a bellowing
voice began from behind the entrance.
"- I've found you. Prepare to die." Ranma interrupted the voice and
finished the sentence in a dead and decidedly weary tone. "Yup, it
was." He slapped a hand to his forehead and exhaled deeply.
[5]
"Ryoga!" Ranma exclaimed as he barely dodged several spinning bandannas
suddenly sent cleaving towards him. "What in the world are you doing
here?" By this point the gym had dissolved into pure chaos with
screaming and panicking junior-high kids as everyone fled madly towards
the rear exit door.
"To get my revenge for all the hells you've put me through!" The
umbrella-wielding boy named Ryoga answered in rage as he tore yet another
bandanna from his forehead and threw it at the pigtailed student.
"Man, not here! You can hurt somebody by accident!" Ranma made a move
to catch the projectiles that spun uncontrollably into the student body
after moving out of the way of yet another head ornament. He had a
pretty good idea what kind of damage those things could cause.
Before Ranma could reach them in time, however, a few small objects
streamed out seemingly from nowhere and promptly knocked each of the
flying bandannas to the ground. Affording himself a closer look, he was
astonished to find that each headband was pinned firmly into the wooden
floor by a tiny, plastic guitar pick.
Madoka Ayukawa emerged from the hysterical crowd, her expression hard.
"Take your problems outside." She stared at the two and ordered crisply
in a tone full of steel.
Ranma was the first to recover. "You know, I really don't want to
fight." Bluish-green eyes met with his own as he ignored his assailant
temporarily and turned to address her. "But it's not as if I've got any
choice." Ayukawa's gaze remained distant and unforgiving. "Aww, just
forget it," he finally gave up trying to explain. Then, turning to the
muscular boy who was still standing petrified in shock, he shrugged.
"C'mon Ryoga, you can shut your jaw now. We'll go somewhere else and
settle this once and for all."
"Um," the coach, still standing by the court, ruled meekly after all the
students had finally left. "Goal tending?"
Evidently Komatsu and Hatta weren't kidding when they told me that
Ayukawa knew martial arts too. I could tell that she must've been pretty
good at it too once I've seen her vault; I just didn't know she was this
good. From the way he looked walking mutely behind me as I lead him to
an abandoned lot close to the school grounds, Ryoga most likely didn't
know about it either.
"So, mind telling me what this is all about?" I stopped once we were in
the clearing and asked. I had to bite back from calling him "pig-boy"; I
was positive that I didn't knock him into a spring this time - and for
all I know, Ryoga probably isn't cursed anyway.
Suddenly shaking off his thoughts, the fang-teethed boy snarled. "You
mean you don't remember? How dare you!" I blinked. "Uh," I offered
tentatively, "this isn't about the bread, is it?" I would have just
laughed so hard in his face if he even so much as nodded.
"Of course not! You ran out -"
"- on our man-to-man fight." I completed for him. So it came down to
that again. "Man, get it straight; I waited three days in your backyard
and you were a no-show." From the way he was shaking in fury I knew I
might as well have argued with a brick wall. "Fine," I sighed, "I won't
even waste time on it anymore. So what next? You followed me to China?
You trailed me to Jyusenkyo?"
"Jyusenkyo?" Ryoga frowned. "Where's that?" A-ha. So the lucky pig
wasn't cursed. "I tracked down your trails and went after you to the
village of Amazons."
Now that was not what I was prepared to hear. "Once there, I started
looking around for you and all of a sudden an old ghoul with a pogo stick
came out and asked me what my business I had with you. I told her to
mind her own things unless she knew where you were, and she challenged me
to a fight saying that if I won I could leave freely and that if I lost I
had to answer her questions." Then he slammed the tip of his umbrella
deep into the pavement, causing a small crater in the ground. "And all
because of you I suffered a humiliating defeat at the old woman's hands!
I agreed to the battle and charged, but she flew at me and shouted
something about a chestnut fist - and the next thing I knew, I was flat
on my back and totally dazed!" Unable to stop himself any longer, Ryoga
raised his heavy umbrella and dashed at me.
I quickly distanced myself after avoiding a few swipes from him and held
up my hands in a placating manner. "Wait, hold on a second, what
happened then?" I signaled a little time out and asked tensely; somehow
those Amazons didn't seem intent on just forgetting about me. What the
hell was their problem anyway?
Ryoga was about to attack me again when he paused and seemed to think
better of it. He restrained his temper with some difficulty and went
on. "What else? I stuck to my word and told her I was looking for you
for revenge. Then the old ghoul showed me a way to strengthen my body to
withstand powerful attacks and promised me that if I could find you and
bring you back to their village, she'd teach me a technique that can
explode boulders at a single touch so that I could defeat you." Oh man,
Cologne must've been really desperate to get me. From what he claimed,
she even taught him the basics of bakusai-tenketsu.
All of a sudden something occurred to me, and I cracked up despite
myself. "You moron," I covered my face with a hand and groaned. "I
can't believe you went along with that."
"What did you say?" Ryoga demanded hotly in indignation.
"I said you're a moron." I explained after getting myself under control
again. "Use your head for a moment, for kami's sake. If you can manage
to bring me back to Joketsukozu, then you've got to be able to beat me
already. What's the point of learning a technique to defeat me if you've
beaten me already?"
I could tell he was caught off guard by that. The thought probably never
crossed his mind. "Shut up!" He yelled, cheeks flushing in a mixture of
shame and anger. "Don't try to worm your way out of our fight again with
talks! Prepare to die!" He came at me with his umbrella in one hand and
all the intention of murder in his eyes.
"Fine. I'll give you a fight if you want one," I said calmly as I ducked
under a vicious jab and backflipped away from a powerful leg sweep linked
into a rising kick combination. "If I win, you get your ass out of my
life and never bug me again."
"Deal! But no chance of that happening, Saotome!" He growled out and
attempted another stab at me which I sidestepped casually. "The Amazon
Elder had trained me in their arts! I'm tougher than anything you can
handle now!" The umbrella went cleanly through a large tree trunk nearby
instead, and a gaping hole was left in the unfortunate tree as he pulled
the weapon out with a violent jerk.
"Maybe, maybe not." I replied grimly. Although I had trained
extensively in the techniques that I've seen in my dreams, I was nowhere
as proficient with them as I liked to be. I was fully expecting to go
back to my classes this afternoon, and therefore I really couldn't afford
to go head to head against him and tire myself out too much. Under the
circumstances, there was only one way I could think of to dispatch the
guy as soon as possible. "You see, Ryoga," I continued casually, "I also
know some Amazon tricks as well."
That stopped him dead in his tracks. "You lie," he finally said after a
short pause. It was obvious that Ryoga was growing wary, however. Good,
I thought. Then I sprang my trap. "Really? Then let's see you explain
this!" I yelled as I flew at him at full speed. "Kachuu Tenshin
Amaguriken!"
The look on his face was priceless. In dread Ryoga reflexively brought
his hands up in a blocking stance over his torso, hoping that his
strengthened body could take the punishment. Once bitten, twice shy, I
smiled wryly as I nailed him with a flurry of kicks at his legs instead
of trying to force my way past his defense with punches, taking complete
advantage of the openings that he left below. Ryoga realized too late
that he'd been had, and by that point I had tripped him and jumped back a
good fifteen yards.
"Ranma! You tricked me! That wasn't the Amaguriken!" He hollered in
fury as he slowly lifted himself off the ground and dusted his clothes off.
"Hey," I smirked nonchalantly, "just because my name's Ranma Saotome
doesn't mean I can't tell a little white lie from time to time, you
know." Then, before he could mount another attack, I pressed on.
"Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken!"
"Ha! I won't be fooled by your - urk!" Ryoga sneered as he prepared to
block low this time when I dashed towards him at blinding speeds.
Unfortunately, I had other ideas as well and actually followed through
with the chestnut fist, gladly seizing the opportunity he so generously
provided to strike out at his chest and stomach. He went down hard.
"How dare you trick me again, Saotome!" He flared as he struggled to
pick himself up once more and threw a hate-filled glance at me. I gave
him an innocent look in return.
"Geez, Ryoga, you complain when I lie, and you complain too when I tell
the truth." I feigned some irritation and said. "What do you want me to
do?" Stubbornly, he rushed at me and readied himself for another
attack. It looked as if he was putting all his strength into one final
strike and wasn't bothering with his defenses any longer.
Obviously he was still missing the point, and it didn't sound like he was
going to give up anytime soon. I stopped to look at my watch: only five
minutes before the next class. The idiot made me miss PE - the only
class I ever really liked - all because of his stupid revenge schtick. I
felt myself slowly taken over by an irrational, burning fury, and this
time I met his charge head on. "Kachuu Tenshin -" I called out again as
we were in striking distance of each other, but then I simply snapped and
decided to end the fight altogether because I was getting tired of this
farce. "- aww hell, Takabisha!" I cried as I fired the ball of ki
point-blank and sent him into the sky.
"Have a nice trip!" I waved after his rapidly-fading figure. "And don't
ever, ever come back!"
Then I ran back to school.
[6]
The gym had seen better days. Chunks of rubber and wood were strewn all
over, seats overturned and trampled, equipments scattered randomly about
with no sign of an attempted reorganization any time soon - in short, it
looked only approximately half as bad as if a deranged elephant had been
left loose stampeding around the area. Not a usual sight, to be sure,
but it served Hikaru's purpose well enough precisely because the place
looked temporarily abandoned. She found herself a secluded corner behind
a row of vending machines by the rear exit, grinned at her good luck, and
promptly lit a cigarette.
Then she heard the footsteps, dropped her cigarette in surprise, and
cursed with a vocabulary bank that few junior-high students possessed and
certainly no seventh-grader should have.
Craning her neck out just enough to take a peek from her concealed
position, she tried to discern who the untimely intruder was. If it
happened to be a member of faculty; she was right next to the back door
anyway - though if it were anyone else, well, she was quite eager to take
on the mantle of a teacher ex tempore and educate the unfortunate person
on what an extremely bad idea it was to disturb Hikaru Hiyama in her
smoking break.
It was one of those anyone-elses. Calmly, she ruffled a few strands of
stray brown hair away with a hand, composed her self mentally, and put on
the nastiest grin she could make up as she walked towards the newbie whom
she recognized to be a ninth-grader transferred here only yesterday. The
guy seemed clearly upset for some reason, and he was standing at one end
of the court looking down at a basketball which he held in one hand. But
no matter; upperclassman or not, no one messes with Hikaru and gets away,
she thought. She cleared her throat lightly, tested her voice off the
side, and started to prepare to yell when she was satisfied with the results.
"Hey, moron! What the hell are you doing here?" She screamed. Or, she
had intended to scream. Instead, Hikaru never quite managed to utter
past the first syllable as she saw the student mouthed a curse and
suddenly whipped his arm in an arc, sending the ball crashing violently
off the glass and neatly into the basket on the opposite end of the
court. Her eyes widened into the size of coffee plates. Surely that was
just luck; nobody could be that good, right?
In the midst of her astonishment she had forgotten to punish the new kid
as she had originally planned. In fact, she didn't even know that he was
leaving until he shut the entrance door on his exit - upon which the
glassboard on the other end of the court shattered and the rim, no longer
supported, fell noisily to the ground with a clang and the post which
formerly held the former two wobbled once, twice, and finally decided to
follow suit to crash into the wooden floor with an ear-splitting CLANG.
Hikaru Hiyama simply stared. Then, unable to help herself, she smiled.
And the smile was the smile of a cat who had just now discovered a
particularly lively rodent.
[To Chapter 2, Part 2...]