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Sun And Sunflower

Yukimura x OC, Tokugawa x OC, Tanegashima x OC

Chapter Twelve

After a full day of practice, it was safe to say that the players were all knackered. Mifune was not exactly an angelic coach, and neither were his methods. None of them understood what anything they did had to do with tennis, yet none of them dared to question the old man (a few of them did though what happened to them was more than enough for the others to shut up). Despite being just a volunteer, Haruka went through every single practice with them on top of her own duties. It was a little heartbreaking to see her running around, doing errands for the high school players who remembered her as the girl with the tennis ball.

When they went back into the cave for the night, she stayed near the entrance, leaning against the cave wall. While everyone went to their respective spots, Sanada made his way over to Haruka and sat down next to her. He did not speak, not even when Haruka acknowledged his presence. Instead, they just sat in silence side by side, watching the night sky above.

This had always been the relationship between Sanada and Haruka.

In front of Yukimura, Haruka was always the happiest girl in the world; she had the brightest smile and the cutest laugh. But whenever she was unhappy, she would come to Sanada. I don't want Sei-kun to worry, was what she always said. Sanada had no idea if Yukimura knew, but there were days when Haruka would visit his house and they would sit on the veranda with a pot of tea between them. Sometimes, they would talk. Most of the time, they sat in silent. Much like now.

"All we're missing now is a pot of tea." Haruka broke the silence first. Sanada was a little surprised with her choice of words, looking at the smaller girl. She looked up at him with a smile though like earlier in the day, he could tell that it was an obligatory smile, not genuine one. "Before I transferred...I really wanted to come to you for some tea."

Sanada did not quite understand the meaning behind Haruka's words. Perhaps that was the reason why Haruka liked coming to him with all her worries. He would only listen and not say much apart from the few wise words that his grandfather had given him before.

"Geni-nii...have you ever been scared to see someone?" Haruka asked. A ten to twenty seconds of silence followed after, as if Haruka was waiting for Sanada to say something but they both knew that he would not. He was always passive in conversations. "Scared that when you look at them, they can see right through you, see everything that's on your mind."

"You're talking about Yukimura?"

"There's something I never told any one of you before," Haruka admitted. "The reason behind why I transferred."

~Three years ago~

Where was she?

By now, several trains had already arrived at the station and crowd after crowd of students filed out, rushing to school yet none of them looked like the person he had been waiting for. There was still plenty of time before school was to start but that did not mean Yukimura was not worried. This was Haruka, after all. Yukimura would not be surprised if she stayed on the train because she was too busy watching the scenery. Just as he was about to give her a call, a pair of hands covered his eyes and a sweet voice greeted him.

"Guess who, Sei-kun."

"Good morning, Haru," Yukimura chuckled.

He took her hands off his eyes and turned around to face her. When they first met at seven, Haruka was about an inch taller than he was. After one summer, just before they graduated from elementary school, Yukimura started growing a little taller which irritated Haruka to no end. Their first day of middle school and he was now standing half a head taller than she was.

Yukimura never thought that he would become such good friends with Haruka. It probably had something to do with how persistent she was in being friends with him. Because you're as cool as my onii-chan, was what she always said. Now that they were attending the same school, Yukimura could not wait to see that bright smile of hers greeting him every single morning when he came to pick her up. Perhaps this was the start of something new for them. Something...a little more than friendship, perhaps.

"I can't believe I'm going to the same school as Sei-kun!" Haruka grinned. "Onii-chan went to Rikkai too."

"He's become quite a legend at the school, so I've heard," Yukimura said. "Have you had breakfast?"

"Mum made me a special breakfast this morning."

The two then met up with Sanada just outside of the campus, and much to Haruka's annoyance, he too had grown a lot taller over the summer. A few bickering back and forth between the two ensued before Yukimura broke them up, ushering them into the building.

All three of them were in different classes but that never stopped them from meeting up to have lunch together every single day. Haruka never found the need to make other friends because the two that mattered the most were right there with him. Even when Yukimura and Sanada joined the tennis club, she would tag along and sit on the sidelines, watching and waiting for them. And like he had promised from the beginning, Yukimura waited every morning at the station for her and walked her back after school every day. Without fail.

Until that fated day.

"Practice is running a little late today," Yukimura explained. "Do you mind walking to the station alone? I don't want you waiting too long."

"It's okay," Haruka replied with a smile.

"Be careful, okay?"

"Stop treating me like a child, Sei-kun."

Her little pout brought a smile to Yukimura's face as he gave her a gentle pat on the head. As he watched her leave with a little spring to her steps, he could not help but worry. Though soon, he went back to practice and Haruka was long gone from his thoughts.

Although it was her first time walking to the station alone, scared or worried was definitely not how Haruka felt. She was a little disappointed; Yukimura did promise that he would walk her every single day after all. But it was all soon gone with the wind as she hummed a soft tune to herself, taking the usual route she did with her childhood friend. Until she turned a corner.

There was a long set of stairs that she had to go down and there was still quite some walking before she would reach the station. But a group of three girls were loitering around the top of the stairs, as if they had been waiting for Haruka. She stopped for a second, surprised to see someone there, but soon continued on though she was suddenly yanked back by her uniform collar.

"Oh look, if it isn't the Kobayashi girl."

"Oh yeah, the one with the famous brother, right?"

"Yeah, the one who's always around Yukimura-kun."

"What do you guys want?" Haruka asked.

She recognised the girls; one of them was from her class and she was always seen with the other two. They made quite a few appearances too, at the tennis club's practice. But Haruka was not friends with them. Nor did she think she was an enemy either. Her school life consisted of classes, lunch with her two friends, more classes, and waiting for their tennis practice to be over. She never interacted much with others though it seemed like they knew her quite well.

"Look, just because your brother went pro in tennis doesn't mean you can use that to hog Yukimura-kun." Haruka did not quite understand what she meant. What did her brother playing pro tennis had anything to do with her being friends with Yukimura? They did not become friends in the first place because of that. Neither did either of them thought of it as an important element of their friendship. "What are you trying to achieve, hm? Are you trying to date Yukimura-kun?"

"W-what are you talking about? Sei-kun and I are just friends!"

"Sei-kun? How dare you call Yukimura-kun by his name? This is so typical of spoiled girls like you. Stop hanging around Yukimura-kun, understand?"

The girl shoved Haruka. Hard. She could not balance herself and crashed into one of the others, who was quick to push Haruka away. For a good two minutes, they pushed Haruka around between them, repeatedly telling her to back off from Yukimura. One rough push, Haruka was suddenly heading in a different direction. The girl who was supposed to be there stepped out of the way for some reason and what was welcoming Haruka was the flight of stairs she walked up and down every day. She could not stop herself. She knew what was coming for her. She could only brace herself.

As she tumbled down the stairs, Haruka's forehead bumped hard into one of the steps with a jagged stone stuck in the crack, cutting deeply into her skin. The back of her head collided with the steps several times too, as she fell. By the time her tumble came to a stop, Haruka was already at the bottom of the steps, unconscious and bleeding.

The girls ran away, of course.

~Presently~

"I don't remember much after that," Haruka said softly. "Mum said a woman on her way home found me and called an ambulance for me."

Silence followed after.

Haruka felt a ton lighter now that she had unloaded the one secret she had been keeping for three years. For three years, Yukimura and Sanada never knew why she transferred. All they knew was one day, they went to school, and Haruka was not there. One day, the teacher came and told them that she was never coming back to Rikkai. It hurt Yukimura more than it did Sanada but he had to admit (silently) that he missed Haruka. Every day, for about a month after her transfer, Sanada would walk past her classroom, hoping to see the girl sitting at her desk.

But she never came back.

Yukimura tried calling her but she never picked up. They tried visiting her but she was always too busy to see them (or so they were told). Sanada never thought that this was the reason why. He always just thought, this was life. People came and went, and Haruka happened to be one of those people. They were naive in thinking that they could be friends forever. But they wanted to know why. Yukimura, especially.

"I don't want you treating me differently," Haruka said, looking Sanada in the eyes. From the times they spent sitting together on veranda, Sanada had learnt to read Haruka's expressions really well. She wore them on her face most of the time; she was the most honest person he had ever known with her feelings. Right now, she was looking at him, almost pleading but mostly with seriousness. "It's...partly why I never told anyone. I don't want anyone to treat me with pity. I just want to be the Haruka that you grew up with."

What Sanada felt in him, it was not pity. No, he thought Haruka was brave for what she went through. Even after the bullying, she still found the confidence in others and treated everyone with a smile whenever she saw them. She still found the courage to keep her kindness, despite what happened. What Sanada felt, however, was guilt. Guilt because all that could have been prevented if him and Yukimura were there. Haruka would still be at Rikkai and they would be graduating together this year. Guilt because she kept it all to herself, to save them from the guilt.

Still, he placed a hand on her head, his way of showing affection and to promise her silently that he would not treat her differently. "Goodnight, Geni-nii," Haruka smiled, getting up on her feet and walked into the cave, finding herself a space near Oishi before laying down.

"Hey brat."

The next morning, when the middle school players were sent to get water, Mifune called out to Haruka though it was a little confusing with the fact that he addressed every other student there with 'brat'. Haruka liked to think that her 'brat' was with more affection. She hung back, waiting for Mifune as he took a swig at his gourd (more like three gulps). "Are you sure it's a good idea for you to be drinking so early in the morning?" Haruka asked. Mifune glared, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before throwing a racket and a piece of cloth at her. "What's this?"

"A racket, you dumbass."

"I know it's a racket but why am I holding a racket?"

"Well, I think it's about time you show them the blindfold practice."

"Not that again..."

Although she had given up on playing tennis a long time ago, every year when she volunteered at the U-17 Camp and came up to the mountain, Mifune had her joining all the practices. While she was not exactly Nationals material, it was safe to say that Haruka could hold her own game. About two years ago, Mifune discovered that Haruka's hearing was exceptionally good (she could tell how much sake was left just by listening to the liquid swish around in his gourd and always refilled it before it finished). He took advantage of this, coming up with what seemed like a ridiculous practice and had Haruka demonstrate it. Like he was showing off his best student.

As the middle school players were returning, they were told to gather around the court with the high school players and watch the demonstration. Haruka walked up to the court, the racket (which apparently belonged to Echizen) under her arm while she blindfolded herself with the piece of cloth. She stood at the baseline, waiting for Mifune to do his little introduction.

"Game is easy. You blindfold yourself and you return the five balls served at you. You must return them in the order they were served. You miss one, you're out. Anyone who can't do five sets doesn't get to eat dinner tonight. Anyone got questions?" Some hands shot up into the air but Mifune disregarded them, taking another swig from his bottle. "Let's start. You five, get over to the other side and serve as I tell you."

Five players were chosen at random, standing at the baseline on the other side of the court. Finishing off his sake, Mifune then used his finger to point at the person he wanted to serve. To demonstrate the basics of the practice, he had them served one after the other only when Haruka had returned the ball during the first set. Then, he upped the difficulty, having them serve with only about a second of delay.

Running from side to side, Haruka still managed to return all the balls in perfect order. As they watched, most of the high school players were mumbling among themselves, commenting on how the practice seemed a little...too easy. After all, if the tiny middle school girl could do it, why could they not? She was not even a proper tennis player. "It's not easy at all," Yanagi and Inui said at the same time.

"It would be easy if you could return the balls in any order but you have do it order," Inui explained. "Our instinct is always to react to anything in our immediate vicinity. Any balls near us, we would want to return it first. However, returning it in order means that you must disregard the one nearest to you if it was not the right order."

"This is not something that could be easily done even without the blindfold. With the blindfold, it is at least 74% harder. You have to determine the distance and location of the next ball with just your hearing in a split second. It's not something that could be pulled off so easily," Yanagi added.

"My question is, how is Kobayashi-senpai doing so well at this?"

Ryoma asked the one question that was on everyone's mind. For a non-player, she was doing exceptionally well. The only trouble they could see her struggling with was her stamina. The more sets they did, the more tiring it was for her and therefore, she was getting slower. Besides that, she was able to determine the order of each set with no mistakes.

Once her five sets were done, Mifune took her off the court and ordered the players to start their practice. The high school players were to go first and just as Yanagi and Inui had said, it was not a simple practice as they had thought. Most of them barely got past the first set, failing at the second. Only a handful of them managed to get to the third and even less actually completed the practice. When the middle school players went, they were better at it. Although not all of them passed, they all managed at least three sets before they failed. Some passed flawlessly while others passed with some struggles.

"Don't beat yourself up about it, Echizen. You nearly got it."

"I'm not beating up myself about it, Momo-senpai," Ryoma stated, his eyes gliding over to where Haruka was seated on the steps of the hut. "I just don't understand how Kobayashi-senpai was able to pass it but I couldn't."

"Mada mada dane," Haruka smirked.