"It is nice to have valid competition; it pushes you to do better."

-Gianna Versace

Chapter 20

Rose's POV

I enter my homeroom, only to be met with uncharacteristic silence. Nearly everyone is present, frozen in their casual stances around the room, waiting for class to begin, waiting for sensei to enter begin today's lesson, waiting for… what?

I see that everyone seems to be staring at something towards the front of the room. My eyes slowly follow the invisible thread stretching from my classmates' eyes to the center of attention, which is not something, but someone. Everyone seems to be staring at none other than Midorima Shintarou. The air is thick with tension, and I see that Midorima is shaking. He is sitting at his desk, with eyes closed, and a pencil sitting within one of his clenched fists.

Oh, I get it. He's angry.

I've gotta admit, I'm a little puzzled by this. The whole in-class presentation fiasco happened a whole week ago, and he seemed to be over it after a day or two. Did he have a bad weekend? Rough night of sleep, perhaps? The runs, maybe? I'm about to ask when Takao runs through the door and nearly crashes into me as he abruptly skids to a halt. Excitedly, he grabs my shoulders and shakes me, a grin on his face.

"Kazu-kun, what's going on? You're jostling my brain around!" Takao retracts his hands quicker than expected and smirks.

"Well, we wouldn't want that now, would we?"

"Huh?" I reply, oh so eloquently. Why's he being so cryptic? Takao grins and does two peace signs.

"What, you're telling me you haven't looked yet? In that case, you should probably check the-"

Snap.

The pencil that was once cradled within Midorima's fist has now snapped in two, and I am thoroughly confused, also a little scared. I take a small step back and let out an involuntary gasp when Midorima's eyes snap open and focus on me. Ohhh, he's not angry. He's furious; royally pissed! Is he gonna beat me up? Does his green hair mean he eats lots of spinach, like Popeye, and therefore has the crazy strength of a post-spinach Popeye? Because I can't compete with that! Crap, what'd I do to be the focus of Green Bean's wrath?!

Takao drags me out of the room, pulling on the back of my uniform shirt, thus breaking my eye contact with Midorima and saving me before the Green Haired Giant can lunge at me like an animal.

"Oi, Takao, not so-"

Takao plants me in front of our board and I blink at the rows of kanji before I realize what it is. My eyes widen and I can't help but let my jaw drop dramatically.

"Careful, Rose-chan, you'll catch flies like that!" I ignore him. The board displays the new rankings for first year Shutoku students. Below that, it reads:

Matlin Rose

Midorima Shintarou

"He's gonna kill me," I mutter to myself.

"Yep!" exclaims Takao happily, shooting me a 'nice guy pose,' that suddenly gives me the urge to smack him. "Don't be so glum, Rose-chan. This is incredible! You're number-"

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!" a shrill voice shrieks, effectively raping my eardrums. Oh, great, just what I need right now.

"How could an all-around genius like me, the Ichi Rei-sama, be ranked 99th in the grade?! There has to be some mistake!" Rei is shaking some poor, random boy who clearly has neither any authority over this situation, nor any clue who she is, when she realizes that I am standing nearby. Rei suddenly smirks, as if I didn't see her just have a giant meltdown, and struts over to me.

"Takao" Rei greets my friend with a wink, causing him to shudder. She doesn't notice, and instead flips a braid arrogantly over her shoulder before focusing on me.

"Well, well, if it isn't Matlin the 'Merican Muffintop!"

"What the frick does that mean?!" I ask, more confused than offended by her bizarre… insult? I guess it's an insult. Is she calling me a muffintop or saying that I have one?

Before I can ponder this strange nickname any longer, Rei snaps her fingers a bunch of times in my face.

"Earth-snap-to-snap-loser!-snap, snap. Find your name on the board before you spaced out, or are you just too sad to find it at the very bottom. Don't cry… unless I have a camera to capture the moment! Ha, I'm sooo bad!" I just stare at her with a blank look on my face. That idiot…

"Yeah, so I don't know if you heard, but I'm in the top half of the class, so yeah, I'm like a million times smarter and better than you, Matlin."

"Oh, Rei-chan!" Takao chimes in, drawing both of our attention and breaking a bit of the tension. "Congrats on that ranking. 99th out of 200 just barely is the top half of the class after all, eh? How exciting!" I want to hug Takao when I see Rei's eye twitch a little at his deceptively sharp comment. What a good friend! My inner self sobs happily. Takao, however, isn't quite finished. He leans in close to Rei, causing her to blush.

"Ne, Rei-chan, wanna see something cool?" She nods excitedly, leaning in a little more.

"Look here!" Takao points to the top of the list, my name. Rei rushed over to get a closer look, and her previous excitement quickly dissipated to an unbridled fury reminiscent of Midorima's from just a few moments ago.

"No…" Rei whispers to herself. I elbow Takao in the ribs.

"You're kinda evil when you want to be, Kazu-kun." He just mouths "you're welcome," before beginning to retreat. I start to follow, because at this point, Rei has dropped to her knees and is screaming "Nooo!" at the top if her lungs, saying that this has to be a mistake and blah blah and how her "inferior rival," which I assume is me, could never be number one because her name is number one, and blah blah blah. Takao and I just escape quietly back into our classroom. Breathing a sigh of relief, I turn to walk towards my desk, only to find that the room has been, uh, rearranged.

While we were absent, the rest of the class managed to scoot their desks back so that they were hugging the wall, leaving a little island in the center, consisting of only three desks: mine, Takao's, and… Midorima.

The Green Bean has this crazy aura radiating off him, and I swear that if I squint, I can almost make out little kanji saying "Die, die, die, die, die" floating in an angry cloud around his body. I decide to just bite the bullet and try to smooth things over by walking up to Midorima, who has returned to his eyes-shut, fists-clenched position, and sticking my hand out towards him.

"Hey Midorima-kun, uh, I'm sorry about this happening and all, but I was just trying my best, and it was never my intent to anger you or whatever, so um, no hard feelings?" His eyes snap open and he regard my hand as if it's a dirty, subway rat.

"Die." Well, that was rude! Bolstered by his jerkiness, a tic mark appears on my forehead and a grab him by the front of his uniform and start shaking him.

"GET OVER IT AND WORK HARDER, TEME! IF YOU WANNA SETTLE THIS ONCE AND FOR ALL, MEET ME AFTER PRACTICE ON THE COURT AT 6PM SHARP!" I stare at him with wild eyes, watching his unreadable, impassive face, waiting for an answer.

"Fine," he finally says, and that's that. The class collectively releases a sigh, and everyone scuttles about to rearrange their desks to their former positions, just as the final bells chime and Itami-sensei enters the classroom.

"Good morning, Number 2!" Itami-sensei greets Midorima with a small smirk. Takao guffaws, Midorima grips his desk so hard that he's probably left his handprint on the sides forever, and I can't help but smile as I look forward to finally facing one of Teiko's famous Generation of Miracles.

Let the games begin.