An Affiliated Project between Teniyume and Endless Dreamers
Part Nine: Of Bets and Blackmail / Hiyoshi Wakashi
Hiyoshi groaned inwardly at the choice of “entertainment” the amusement park has to offer. Said “entertainment” clearly wasn’t doing its job if one of their customers had spent nearly the entire day wandering about aimlessly waiting for the day to end. The martial artist glared at the ground as he continued to walk, mentally condemning Atobe for dragging him to the godforsaken spit of land known as X-Zed Amusement Park. Perhaps if he thought hard enough, Atobe would somehow read his mind and send him home.
No, no, that was a stupid idea. But at this stage of boredom, Hiyoshi was praying that anything would happen.
“Hey, you!”
Hiyoshi ignored the voice. Obviously it was a figment of his imagination.
“Hey! HEY! I’m talking to you, broody boy!”
Now that certainly didn’t sound like just a figment of imagination—if it were, Hiyoshi would have to question his own thoughts. He spun around, eyes narrowing at every person until he found the source of the wretched voice that has insulted him.
You.
“, what are you doing?” Hiyoshi deadpanned, not in the mood for your crazed antics.
“I challenge you!” was your brilliant reply, point your finger at the boy to emphasize your statement.
Again, Hiyoshi deadpanned. As much as he loved a challenge, he had learned form experience that your versions of “challenges” were intricate and excessive, not to mention completely and utterly ridiculous. Although Hiyoshi wanted to be the best at almost everything, everything did not include being the Number One Idiot in all of Tokyo, maybe even Japan.
“I don’t have time for this,” was all Hiyoshi said as he continued his meandering.
“Lies! You have nothing better to do! You’re just running away, Wakashi!” you yelled at his back, knowing that if he wouldn’t respond to your instigating, he would answer to your calling his first name. Although you had only met when the two of you were first years, you believed you were close enough to call Hiyoshi by his first name. Obviously, he didn’t agree, as he always corrected you.
“…If I agree to your pointless challenge, will you stop nagging me?” Hiyoshi questioned, already back in front of you. When he heard no agreement leave your lips, he turned to leave again.
“All right, fine! I’ll stop being annoying!”
And the male was back by your side. Yes, he found this entire situation stupid, but it was much better than wandering about with nothing to do.
“The challenge: who can get a higher score in karaoke in front of a large audience!”
…Already Hiyoshi was regretting his decision.
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After literally dragging the boy to the nearby karaoke stage, you positioned him directly in front of the over-sized TV—leave it to Atobe to provide such a large TV—and shoved the microphone into his hands. You intended on making him sing first, just to see exactly what your competition was. It had nothing to do with the butterflies currently flittering about in your stomach, not at all.
“All right, the way we’ll do this is we’ll both sing the same song. You’ll pick the song for the first round, I’ll pick for the second, and then we’ll use a roulette to choose the final song. Whoever has the best average wins this challenge!” you explained enthusiastically, pumping your fist into the air.
Hiyoshi shrugged. It seemed easy enough.
“Where’s the song list?”
You handed him the small, yet surprisingly thick, book and sat down on the floor, facing the ever-growing audience. As you were one of the many girls from Hyoutei that had enough respect for other schools to actually talk to their students, you recognized a handful of faces. The captain from Seigaku’s tennis team, Tezuka, was there, as well as Rikkaidai’s Niou and Yagyuu. There were several Hyoutei boys in attendance as well, some with dates, some without. Of course, when you saw a certain Hyoutei boy, you could barely hold back your glare.
“Atobe,” you growled under your breath.
Said boy seemed to notice your hostility, as he smirked in your direction. You mouthed out the words “I hate you,” knowing he would be able to read your lips. In response, he whipped out a cell phone and dialed a number. Your phone rang soon after.
“Are you enjoying, ?”
You stood up immediately, taking advantage of the fact that Hiyoshi was far too absorbed in singing his song, Fujouri, to even notice you, and walked backstage.
“Of course I’m not, you idiot. I can’t believe you’re making me do this,” you hissed into the phone, you attitude completely different from when you were with Hiyoshi.
“Ah~h? You can’t blame Ore-sama for wanting to help you. After all, if it weren’t for Ore-sama, you would be wandering around X-Zed with nothing to do.”
“Better than making a fool out of myself. Did you know how stupid I looked challenging him in the middle of the walkway?”
“It’s never stopped you before.”
“That’s because I did those willingly! You’re blackmailing me into this! I know I enjoy a good challenge, Keigo, but you’re making me look like a deranged, psychopathic moron!” Your voice was shrill, yet not loud enough to overpower the blasting background music of Hiyoshi’s song. You glanced over at the stage to see if he had noticed your disappearance.
“You’re spending time with him, right?”
“I’d rather spend time with him doing something normal,” you deadpanned, almost imitating Hiyoshi’s earlier tone with you. Again, you looked towards the stage. He still hadn’t noticed you were gone?
“You’d better get back out here, . He’s almost done with his song.”
The line went dead as soon as Atobe finished his sentence. You abandoned the call as well, taking a moment to compose yourself before walking back to the stage.
You glanced at the screen, noting his score on the song.
“Hiyoshi, do practice singing this song at home? You got a perfect score on it!” you said, the light-hearted attitude you normally had returning right away. A little voice in the back of your mind told you that perhaps your silly personality wasn’t just an act, but you shooed it away immediately. You were just accustomed to acting; that was all.
“Nevertheless, I will beat you!”
Taking the microphone out of his hands—and ignoring the spark that you felt when your hand touched his—you replayed the song. By the time you had finished, more people had come to see yours and Hiyoshi’s performances, probably to poke fun at the boy.
“Damn, only a 90,” you muttered, crossing your arms.
“You’re choosing the next song, right?” Hiyoshi asked, mildly surprised by the fact you could actually sing on tune. Granted, he had found out that you had always done better when in front of an audience, but that wasn’t too important.
He waited for an answer, but instead, he found a title flick across the screen.
My Heart Will Go On.
“…Of all the songs you could choose, why that one, ?”
You grinned, flashing him a peace sign, “Because I need to beat you! And because I like angst-ridden romance films.”
If Hiyoshi had felt deep regret for agreeing to your idiotic challenges before, it was nothing compared to his humiliation and regret now. He looked out into the audience and nearly paled when he saw several of his teammates—his captain not included—and competition watching him with amused eyes.
The Hyoutei second year wanted to disappear before he could damage his pride and reputation. He began to plot various escape plans, but doubted if any of them would work.
“Ha! Beat that Wakashi!” you taunted, bringing him out of his outrageous thoughts.
Hiyoshi read your score off the TV, dieing a little inside when he realized that he would need at least a 96 to beat your score of 95. But with the vocals in this song, he doubted he could accomplish it without making a complete fool of himself. Scratch that, he doubted he could even sing a single note in the godforsaken song without being the laughingstock of the school.
“…You know, you really don’t have to sing this,” you told him hesitantly, “it was just a joke. You could pick a different song.”
Hiyoshi shook his head, his mushroom haircut waving around as he moved his head.
“I don’t need pity. I’ll sing this… and beat you.”
It was his way of telling you, “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me as I destroy whatever image I made for myself.” Still, you couldn’t help feeling the overwhelming pity when you saw him prepare to sing the song. It was his pride on the line, after all. It was true that you normally wouldn’t care about your opponent during a challenge, but the situation was much too socially devastating to feign apathy.
Of course, when you heard him attempt to hit the notes in the chorus, you couldn’t hold back a snigger. You liked the boy, yes, but you were a Hyoutei student. Immense arrogance and insulting nature came with the deal.
“N-no way,” you stuttered as he finished the song, the number 90 flashing across the screen, “how the hell did you get a 90 on this song on your first try? Hiyoshi Wakashi, are you cheating?”
You pointed an accusing finger at him, your silly behavior actually real for that one moment. He could only stare at you blankly.
“How do you cheat at karaoke?” he protested plainly, crossing his arms.
“Why don’t you tell me, you cheater?” you huffed, copying his crossing of arms with your own arms.
Hiyoshi rolled his eyes, “Just hurry up and choose the last song so I can leave.”
Again, you huffed at him before selecting the roulette option form the main menu. You watched in mild interest as a pixilated roulette wheel appeared on the screen. A little cartoon girl, smaller than the ball itself, appeared and comically lifted up the ball before dropping it down into the wheel. Round and round the ball spun until it fell into a slot.
“Anything You Can Do? Isn’t that from an American musical?” you pondered aloud, poking the side of your cheek with your pointer finger.
“…Yes. Yes it is,” Hiyoshi replied with, by far, the most ridiculous face you had ever seen. He looked completely and utterly horrified, which in turn made you nervous. Was the song that bad?
“Hey, wait a minute, this song is a duet!” you exclaimed, flailing your arms about—it was clear that your strange personality was no longer an act at that point, “Ahh! How do you get out of this? Turn off! Turn off!”
The brunette looked at the screen with irate eyes. This was, by far, one of the most annoying things that had ever happened to him. And after a moment of thinking, he decided it was worse than having that first year from Seigaku destroy him in tennis.
When the song began, you couldn’t help snickering at the lyrics. If possible, they were
more outrageous that Hiyoshi’s martial art poses. And as much as you liked the boy, those poses made you embarrassed for even looking at them.
As the song continued, you couldn’t hold suppress your thoughts: the song was the musical interpretation of your so-called rivalry with the martial artist. And as idiotic as the song was, it was true. You did go around proclaiming you were better than Hiyoshi at things—surprisingly, you weren’t acting whenever you had done so. Similarly, Hiyoshi would almost always protest after you had provoked him enough. Of course, you didn’t ever say that you could “get a sparrow with a bow and arrow.”
“Any note you can sing I can sing higher,” Hiyoshi sang. He glanced at you in hesitation. Were you aware that you had to sing an opera-like note in less than ten seconds?
“I can sing any note higher than you,” you sang back, nearly paling as you did so. The two of you sang to each other again, “No you can’ts” and “Yes I cans” flying back and forth. And when the time came for your ultra-high note…
Silence.
The audience was bewildered. Did you really just skip an entire line’s worth of notes?
“You all try singing that note,” you snapped while Hiyoshi had attempted to hold back a laugh.
“Any note you can hold I can hold longer,” was the next line form Hiyoshi you had bothered to pay attention to. Again, you paled. That song was made to destroy all females. You could simply just not sing the line, just as you did earlier, but you were positive that the audience would chase you off stage if you tried it once more.
So, there you stood, gripping the microphone for dear life as you sang—without breathing—for a good twenty or so seconds. When the note finally ended, you bent over and heaved in air. That song was not made for normal singers—there was a reason that only Broadway singers would attempt the damned song. You cursed at Atobe mentally, the total amount of times today now well over fifteen.
Thankfully (for a certain charm-pointed male), there were no other lines that contained anything that would make you want to pursue Atobe’s demise any further. But even with the song already over, a scowl couldn’t escape your face. Oh, someone was going to get the scolding of their life, you knew that for sure.
“…We got a 99,” Hiyoshi remarked in disbelief. He had been sure that the two of you would have gotten a lower score since you had been “smart” enough to dodge one part of the song.
“, I think you broke the machine,” he said in what should have been a joke, although it sounded as if it were more of a complaint.
Hiyoshi blinked. He turned his head left and right. Where had you disappeared to? He was sure that you were next to him only seconds ago. The boy frowned for a moment before sliding behind the curtains. You had to be nearby, he thought logically. There was no way someone like you could have run far in the span of five seconds.
“Atobe, I know you can hear your phone ringing, so stop being an ass and pick up!”
Hiyoshi’s head perked up. That was definitely your voice.
“Jerk, you don’t even have the guts to pick up! I can’t believe you made me do this! Do you have any idea how embarrassed I am right now? No, of course you don’t because the great Atobe would never be embarrassed because your ego takes nearly everything as compliments! I swear, the next time I see you, you are so dead!”
Hiyoshi watched you closely as you shut your phone—quite violently, if he had the right to say so. If your blatant death threat to his captain wasn’t enough to gain his attention, then the fact that you had been forced to do something had definitely caught his eye—ear.
“Atobe has that power over you?” Hiyoshi asked, mildly interested in the topic at hand.
You didn’t even bother turning around, and he assumed you didn’t recognize the voice of the interrogator, “He does when he blackmails me. I should’ve never told him that I liked one of his teammates!”
At that, Hiyoshi felt his stomach churn. And, to make matters worse, he had no idea why. It couldn’t be that he was jealous of the object of your affections, right?
“Damn it, now he must think I’m even stupider than before! Why did Atobe make me challenge him today? I was perfectly fine just wandering around! But no~. Atobe just can’t enjoy his date unless he plays matchmaker with Hiyoshi and I!”
And at that, Hiyoshi would have nearly fainted if not for his pride. You liked him? You? actually liked him?
“,” Hiyoshi said almost hesitantly, “do you have any idea what you just said?”
You turned around and nodded your head. Contrary to what Hiyoshi had thought, you were aware that it was he who stood behind you.
“And what’s your response to that,” you asked, just as hesitant as the boy before you. Hiyoshi had never known you could be so…delicate.
“…I don’t hate you.”
You grinned at his answer. Leave it to Hiyoshi to make his confession something so vague, yet so understandable.
“Wakashi,” and again you smiled when he flinched, “I have one last bet.”
He gave you a small smirk, “Fine, what is it?”
A cheeky grin replaced your sweet smile.
“I bet I’m a better kisser.”
~Owari~
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Ayu
Edited by Marishka