Title:Dear Sempai
Part:1 of hopefully only 3...
Author:Laree
Genre:Yaoi
Pairing: RuKo and MitHana
Rating:PG13
Archive:https://llmackie.tripod.com/
Email: lareemackie@hotmail.com
RuKo! Yay! Heehee.. Me haven't been around in a while! RuKo! RuKo! RuKo! heehee...Anyways...Unbetad ficcy warning...And fluffy...As most of my fics are...Heehee....
Laree
Dear Sempai
Part One
~**~
Rukawa Kaede was actually glad when Sakuragi Hanamichi began to make a scene while they were in the middle of their gym clean up duty. The redheaded freshman claimed that Mitsui Hisashi had deliberately placed a bucket of soapy water in his path so that he would trip over it while Mitsui scoffed at the idea, saying that the whole accident had been due to the freshman’s inborn clumsiness and lack of muscular control. Rukawa didn’t really care either way. The only thing going through his mind as he watched Hanamichi tip a bucket of grayish water over the scar faced senior’s head was that this was the perfect time to slip away and accomplish the task that he had been agonizing over for the last…oh, two months or so. It had taken him a month to come to grips about his feeling for his sempai, around two weeks to write the perfect letter to express the way that he felt for the object of his undying adoration and less than innocent thoughts late at night, and yet another two weeks to psyche himself up.
All of that had been in preparation for this day. This most glorious of all glorious days when he, Rukawa Kaede, would actually, horror of all horrors, try to express himself. Something that he hadn’t done ever since he had been forced to give a speech after the Tomigaoka Junior High Basketball Team had won the National Championships. With his best effort, he had managed to come up with three words. Three words to express the elation, the utter fulfillment and joy that he felt upon going one step further up into his goal of dominating the world of basketball: We did it.
This time though, he was going to put himself out on a limb. He had poured his whole heart and soul out on the letter that was safely sealed within a baby blue envelope that he had lightly scented with the cologne that his brown eyed angel had given him…Just thinking about those brown eyes, slightly magnified by the lenses of his glasses, was enough to make Rukawa’s knees go weak. No one else in the world could make a pair of dorky round glasses look so damn sexy; of this the dark haired freshman was certain.
And no one else in the world could make as much noise as the redheaded idiot when combined with the Sempai that had the brains of a seven year old. Rukawa was taken by the sudden urge to jump into the whole dispute, to shout at the two idiots for not realizing that an important, life-altering event was about to take place. He wanted to do this, but he decided that showing any sort of emotion would just take too much effort. So he simply slipped away from the court, Hanamichi and Mitsui too busy pounding the living daylights out of each other to take any notice of him.
That’s right. This was going to be easy. All he had to do was get to the locker room, just walk to the locker room and take the envelope containing the letter that he had wasted a whole pad of his mother’s best stationary on out of his pocket. Then all that remained to be done was to slip it into Kogure-Sempai’s locker. Easy.
He hadn’t counted on his body becoming suddenly frozen as he stood before the object of his adoration’s locker.
Rukawa stared at the pictures of cute, fluffy little puppies that Kogure had stuck onto the door. He willed himself to move, to just walk up to the damn thing and cram the stupid envelope into it. But he couldn’t. All the doubts that he had been having ever since he decided that he would give Kogure-Sempai his letter
was suddenly coming over him in a great wave. The first and foremost of his concerns was what if he had been wrong? What if Kogure-Sempai wasn’t gay? What if he was just a straight guy who happened to be very much in touch with his feminine side? But Rukawa was almost certain that he was, what with the older boy’s going into ecstasy over anything at all that was cute and furry and Kogure’s habit of standing by Ayako and giggling away with her madly as they watched the rest of the team practicing. Hell, he had even overheard Kogure commenting to Ayako with a little smirk about the beauty of Mitsui’s form, and the brown haired senior was sure as hell not talking about Mitsui’s three pointers…Kogure was definitely gay. Kogure was as gay as they came. Kogure was gayer than that Ryonan Menace that jumped anything in pants.And so reassuring himself, Rukawa took one step closer to the locker, his blue eyes fixed on it intently as though it were an opponent in a game. He could do this. After all, he would never know if he had a chance if he didn’t go along with this.
Tenderly, almost reverently, the dark haired freshman took the letter from his pocket. He was just about to slip it through the locker door when the door to the room suddenly burst open. Rukawa whirled around quickly, concealing his hand and its contents behind his back.
“ Rukawa-kun! You have to help us!” Yasuda declared as he came up to Rukawa and began to tug on his arm, in his frantic state forgetting that Rukawa loathed unnecessary physical contact with anybody. “Mitsui-san has had an accident!”The super rookie of the Shohoku basketball club rolled his eyes. It figured that Hanamichi would somehow be able to ruin his plans. Sighing imperceptibly and wondering if getting a few extra minutes of sleep each day was worth all the bother of having to deal with retards for teammates, Rukawa allowed himself to be pulled away from the locker room. He decided that he would just have to deliver the letter the next day. He absently tucked it into the waistband of his training shorts, not noticing the baby blue envelope as it fluttered down onto the ground beside a black Adidas duffle bag.
~**~
Mitsui was fuming as a repentant Hanamichi and an anxious Yasuda helped him towards a bench in the locker room. He was going to kill that redhead. He was going to do that just as soon as he was able to get to his feet without experiencing any pain.
“ Micchy? Are you okay?”
The scar faced senior scowled, grimacing slightly as he sat himself down onto the bench. “ Am I okay, Sakuragi? Am I okay? Do you think I would be okay after falling to my knees because some idiot decided to splash water all over the court floor?”
Hanamichi gulped. Gori was going to kill him if Mitsui was seriously injured. Shohoku had the Tensai, but they also needed the former gangster to get points from the outside. “ I’m…sorry?”
“ You don’t sound sorry.”
“ But I am!” Hanamichi insisted frantically, helping Mitsui as he shifted to a more comfortable position. “ You know me…quick to anger and all…”
“ Quick to anger and slow in thought…a dangerous combination…” Mitsui commented. He began to massage his injured knee, relieved when he realized that the pain was slowly starting to dissipate. Thank God he hadn’t gone down harder. He didn’t know if he could have taken it if, after only a few weeks of being back in the basketball team, he was forced to give it up once more. Feeling considerably better, he decided that the redheaded freshman had sweated it out long enough. Being in the basketball team had mellowed him out somewhat. “ Don’t worry about it, Sakuragi. It feels better now.”
“ You sure?”
“ Yeah you idiot. Do me a favor, will you? Get me the water bottle that’s in my bag.” Mitsui instructed, pointing towards a black Adidas bag nearby.
Sakuragi meekly did what was asked of him. He didn’t think it would be too wise if he protested after what he had done. Mitsui was pretty old already after all and old people had brittle bones. He was just glad that the guy hadn’t been seriously injured or anything. Noticing a light blue envelope lying by the bag as he rummaged around for the water bottle, Hanamichi picked it up. He scanned the front of the envelope, eventually losing interest when he found that it was addressed to ‘Sempai’. It was probably a love letter from one of Mitsui’s admirers. The ex-gangster was almost as popular with the girls as Rukawa was. He handed the letter, along with the water bottle, to Mitsui. “ I better go on with cleaning the gym…”
“ You do that…” Mitsui agreed, taking a huge gulp of what was not water but actually an alcoholic substance from the water bottle. “ I’ll be going home now. To rest my knee and all…”
“ You sure you’re okay? You don’t need me to help you get home or anything?”
“ I’m not a cripple.” The senior pointed out, getting to his feet and shoving the envelope into his pocket without a second thought. “ I’ll manage on my own.”
~**~
Mitsui whistled tunelessly under his breath as he ambled down the sidewalk. It was already dark, Akagi had kept them in way after classes practicing, being the slave driver that he was. He didn’t really mind though. In his opinion, one could never play enough basketball. Besides, he had a lot to catch up on. He had missed out on two years of play time and he would be damned before he allowed himself to look washed out against the new crop of rookies such as Rukawa Kaede and that Sendoh guy from Ryonan. He was going to have to practice harder than he had ever had in his life to get himself back into the condition that he had been in before when he had taken home the MVP honor.
Grinning, Mitsui took another swig from his water bottle. He thrust his hand into his pocket for his handkerchief, his hand coming out instead with a baby blue envelope. The envelope that Hanamichi had handed him at the locker room, he remembered.
He came to a stop beside a street lamp, tearing the envelope open and catching a whiff of cologne. Taking out a pale blue piece of stationary, he began to read, his eyes becoming progressively bigger and bigger as he read further into the letter.
Dear Sempai,
This is very hard for me to say…I’ve never been good at these things and I know that I’m going to end up sounding stupid because you probably don’t feel the same, but I have to do this.
I like you a lot Sempai. Each day, for the past few months I’ve gone to practice, saying to myself that this will be the day that I’ll go up to you and tell you how I feel, but I was never quite able to do so. So I decided that I might be better able to express myself with this letter.
I hope you’ll reply, in the off chance that you do feel something for me also.
Love,
Your Kouhai
His hands shaking, Mitsui carefully folded up the letter before returning it to its envelope. Hanamichi. Hanamichi had a crush on him! And for some reason, this thought didn’t quite disturb Mitsui as much as it ought to.
He let out a little sound of frustration, turning on his heels to head towards the home of his best friend in the world, the one with all the great advice, Kogure Kiminobu.
~**~
The Locker room was a big mess. Rukawa had been turning the place inside out on his quest to find the missing blue envelope. If anyone else got it…if anyone else read it…
Suddenly, he stopped scrambling around on the tiled floor, a thoughtful look on his face. So what if someone other than Kogure got the letter? It wouldn’t make any sense to anyone else. He hadn’t named anybody after all. He had referred to Kogure the way that he usually did, as his ‘Sempai’ and he had used the nickname that Kogure called him by, ‘Kouhai’. There were hundreds of Sempais in Shohoku. There was no way that that letter would be traced back to him, not unless Kogure was the one who read it…
Rukawa smirked as he began to clean up. That’s right. He was safe. But he had no idea that his pathetic attempt at a love letter was about to change the way that a certain Mitsui Hisashi looked upon his redheaded Kouhai.
In the next chapter: Mitsui shows Kogure the letter. Kogure realizes the truth but decides to have a little fun at the expense of his friend…Heehee…