Six miracles: Crossed paths

Chapter 1 || Rakuzan High

Rakuzan High

Sora sat rigidly in the front row of the convocation. On stage, the only person she knew in the entire god-damned school was giving a speech. Given a choice, Sora would have chosen a nice seat a few rows back, so that she would at least have the liberty of discreetly yawning, but apparently there were things like seating arrangements to be taken into account. Her eyes travelled back to the speaker, Akashi Seijuro, who had been speaking for the last six and a half minutes with the utmost solemnity. Sora's speech had been much shorter. At least she had empathized with the audience and had made it snappy. Not that people expected too much from students who spoke at convocations.

She noticed that his eyes flicked to her once in a while. It was to be expected. Both of them were new to the place and like her, he didn't know anyone too. Sora pretended to cough slightly and put her thumb to her nose and wriggled her fingers. Akashi's lips twitched but it didn't throw him off his beat in the least. "As expected of the emperor," mused Sora, and then grimaced when she remembered that it was Akira who had mostly used that nickname for him.

Tamotsu Akira. She had been a part of the girls' basketball team at Teiko along with Sora. They had played in the finals thrice together. Sora felt a wave of homesickness pass over her as she recalled everyone's face. At least the rest were in the same town whereas she and Akashi had been completely uprooted. Sora heard the rest of the auditorium applaud and mechanically joined them. Not that she heard a word he said. They had practiced their speeches together so she knew every line of both their speeches and could appreciate the finesse with which he had put things.

Akashi got down from the podium and took his place a few spaces away from her. Sora tried to peek at him and saw that he was looking at her too. Akashi gave her a reassuring nod and then turned back to face the stage. Unlike her, he had a perfect image to maintain but Sora could tell that his heart wasn't in the speeches too. Sora sighed and contended herself with admiring the backdrop until the nightmare was over and they were finally released.

They students filed out the auditorium in a quick but somewhat orderly fashion. So, none of them were too happy about sitting in too. Sora caught up with Akashi and all but clung to his arm. "Eh? My little neko can't survive three hours without me, huh?" he teased under his breath. Sora was too busy scanning the crowd to respond immediately. Akashi sighed. "Sora?"

"Hmm?"

"I promised you that I would look after you, didn't I? And when you're so lost, it looks as if I'm doing a horrible job."

"I fine," murmured Sora half-heartedly.

Akashi had indeed promised her before they left Tokyo that he would look after her. She remembered Akira's reaction at the airport but that only made her feel worse.

'.... Bakashi! Look after her if you don't want to get socked. You'll never be able to set foot in Tokyo I tell you! Then you can't play the finals....'

She felt Akashi draw her a bit closer and twine his fingers in her hair and she was brought back to reality. Akashi winked at her. "I suppose this isn't too bad," he said. "At this rate I'll have you all to myself --at least for the first week." Sora stuck out her tongue slightly. "Idiot," she said shaking her head. Akashi had taken to considering her to be 'his own' and he had been squabbling about that for an entire half of their third year with Akira. Well, there were a couple of downsides to being with a yandere but Sora didn't mind.

"That red-head! Cool! Nae, someone told me that he was the captain of Teiko's basketball team for two years! That's just insane. I wonder what'll happen when he first sees me..."