MitAmi: Medicine

A companion of sorts to Shojo S, about the timeskips of the fanfic. More on character development on Ami and Mitsui's parts, especially Ami's, so you get why she's like that.

MitAmi:  Medicine


Ami Tanaka wasn't one who set on for some random crack for medicine. She disliked the whole gangster scene, despite being rumoured to be connected to the Yankee girls who shaved their eyebrows and wore damn long skirts and roamed around the prefecture. She never saw herself as a sweet girl. Looking in the mirror made her aware of the limits of her own physical body and features. All she saw was scars, bruises and cuts. The awkward way her skin was so pale, the pixielike quality to her appearance, the artificial hair that she did everything to just to look damn good. The awkward quality of having small breasts, the small waist and long legs and the hair, oh, Kami, the hair. Fair skin and the skinny frame. Nothing but flaws. A boy who was girl.

That was her.

She wanted to change whenever the sun went down, for him. She remembered him. Did she look imperfect to him? Him…

She had a drug to cure herself of him.

The shining of her blue eyes. Bittersweet medicine that was the physical sweat and touching. Crushed and raw, the way she loved it. The fast speed of adrenaline. The grunting from the pain. The way her moist hair fell down her sweat-covered back. The way she ground her teeth. The taste of sweat on her face and her skin, falling inconsistently on her tongue, her clothes. The water from her own body set her on fire. The urgency of it all. The pure spazz she chilled on every afternoon, longing for more. She loved it.
A physical drug. A physical medicine.

It was a way she had to master. The physicality of it all. Rawness was a quality she put to herself. Brusque, and strong, and boyish but awkward. A remnant of the man she wanted to be before. Hard rock and pure gold. It was just so raw and it drove her far from her shell. To her, it was Audrey Hepburn turning into Joan Jett and hopping into a motorcycle. The speed of basketball, plus the rawness and physicality of judo, and you had it. Her medicine was tasty and addicting.

The subtlety of a baby yowling in a closet.

The two-year timeskip she tried to look for him, this medicine was in her blood. It ran in her blushing face. It pounded into her head. It mixed with the jingling hands ready to pounce and become a wild thing. Frustration. Betrayal. Anger.

Mix my medicine. Boil it. Type it.

A quick temper. A sharp tongue. All those training.  

Through the years, she leaned to hate him.

Whenever she caught sight of this shadow, she learned to hate. Rising flood in her system. Anger like lava.

It was amazing, what she did.

The irony.

Raw power and raw control.

Talent versus hard work and practice.


Respect others. Seek perfection of character. Be sincere.*

At Shohoku, it was different.

Before the training, she was another person in class. Always alone. Lingering by windows, looking around. Always pissed off easily. Antisocial sometimes. A quick-tempered introvert who others brushed off and thought by others to be annoying. Intolerable student who failed Math. A girl who stared at others blankly.
Then the day she got into trouble.

.
She was walking past a building from her tutorial sessions with Kogure and Akagi. Well, actually, she had stayed to try convincing him and Akagi to tutor her in Math, since they were athletes and they knew how to manage time. Third years. A good role model for her to emulate.

What she passed by caught her eyes.

A pair of dark eyes.

The throaty laugh.


She spun, her long and loose hair flying by. Her heart in one sleeve, she nervously took another look to see the source of the sound.

Cigarettes and long hair. Men with black coats.

The one with the throaty laugh laughed again.

What?!

He threw his cigarette on the ground and stomped on it, then waved goodbye and left, much to Ami's relief. She froze on the spot, surprised but fascinated.

Damn. Damn. Damn. A part of her wanted to run after him and demand why was he like that. Why? How? Things she raged and lusted to know. The violent frustration.
She grit her teeth.

"Whacha looking at?" asked one with bad lips and short hair. One not from Shohoku. From behind her, Ami felt more guys slip behind her.

"Who's she?" asked one who resembled a gorilla.

The one with the bad lips tilted her chin to examine her face. He smirked, as he saw her uniform and suddenly grabbed a handful of her long hair.

"This one's pretty," he declared. "Though she's got small tits."

Ami's face burned.

"D'you Mit-chan will like her?"

The others grunted.

"Of course. Look at her – not a bad catch."

Bad Lips smirked again.

"So what's your name, Pretty Hair?"

Ami gave him an impatient pout. This wasn't supposed to happen. Seriously. Out of this world. What was with people nowadays? Urgh. She spat on him.

The next thing she knew, her face was crushed against the wall. The smell of dirt. The cold steel and concrete rubbing on her face. Her roots hurt.

"What's your name? Why were you staring at us? Especially our leader."

"I wasn't staring, you idiot." She kicked him in the shin, but to her dismay, he caught the kick and smirked again. The twisting of his features gave him the look of a mad man. His eyes shone and Ami found herself reflected in them.

"Tell us or we'll make you."

"I don't know." This time, the grip of her head was tighter and her forehead clashed with the plane of the wall.

"I guess I have no choice, then," he mumbled. As Ami shuddered, she heard the faint tingles of a belt being unbuckled –

"I thought you were saving her for our leader," one interjected.

While Ugly Lips loosened his grip on her, Ami quickly took advantage of this. She was about to sprint away when she felt his hand rest tightly on her waist –

Hammer fist! Her forearm automatically twisted and landed on his collarbone. He was knocked off, and alarmed, she ran as far as she could.

That was the first troubling night in Kanagawa.
All because of the boy with long hair.

The following days after that, she started to spot him randomly. On the grocery, buying cigarettes. He'd taken a look at her and left. Another instance, while at school, he was on the rooftop and she was there to look at the clouds and he ignored her. One time, while jogging in the morning, wherein she had bumped into an old friend who had blushed and said his hi's, all the while, looking at her with goo-goo eyes.

This old friend had quickly filled her in about himself. Last time she'd seen him was middle school like her beloved lost love. He'd changed, grown taller, gotten in an elite school in Kanagawa. Spikier hair. Paler.

"I promised myself not to lose."

"Aah."

"How about you, Ami-san? Do you still like basketball? You should go see me at Shoyo sometime."

She smiled.

"I… I'm not into basketball anymore that much. He… left. I'm into karate now. I decided to chase after black belt. I just got promoted, too. JKA* wants to offer me a scholarship once I graduate high school. But I do love basketball still."
As she smiled, she breathed.

"Uh, Ami-san…"

Her eyes flashed.
"Yes?"

"I want to get your number. We should go out one of these days. Get to watch a movie, or just walk. I know you like to walk. I promise you, it won't be bad."
"Why not?"

"Err…" He cleared his throat melodramatically. "Sure. I think you look prettier with long hair. I like it. You look thinner. But prettier."
"You're too kind," she asserted.  

He may not be here. She can't find him. For now, she'll let this goo-goo-eyed Shoyo player whisk her away from her disease to plow and find. She'll let him lead her on, but with limits. He has his basketball and unspoken vow to never lose; she has her obsession to train and her karate. It will suffice; but somehow, she gets the feeling that she's very KY* to the way he sees her. Ami Tanaka will still be herself.
.
Ami Tanaka, the day the gym fight brewed, finally remembers everything.
The short messy hair she had. The girls who thought she was a boy and chased after her. The male teammates who said she was lucky to have fangirls. The laughing high-spirited captain who went to Shohoku because of one person who had to empower him so. Their dependence on his superb accuracy and abilities, the storm he unleashed into the basketball court. The day she snuck out of her classes to see him at the hospital and bother leaving flowers into his room discreetly. Her own low voice, husky and cursed with the indignant temper that let her attack the room like a storm. Her promises to let the captain see her as a girl that eventually lasted.

Then she saw the guy with the long hair enter, and she stalked surrpeptitiously, eager to put her own fighting skills to use. But she never did – she let her eyes follow him and she left the gym to pursue her own training. Ayako-san had seen her often watching. And smartly, Ayako-san had told her her own guesses why Ami had been watching the practices.

"It's Rukawa, isn't it?"

"He looks like a cat. He's a useless man."

"Hmmm… Ryota?"

"I'm taller than him. Such a pairing is illogical. Besides, he's such a bad boy. One I'd beat up."

The violence and the heat of it all. The drama.
She wants to give up on him, she wants to say that. She wants to throw everything he has given to her to the wind. But he's too precious to her to make her actually renounce it all.


On the way home, it's Ayako she catches up to her, Ayako in a breathless and flustered state.

"I think I know already why, Ami-san!"

"Hn."

"It's that sharpshooter."

Ami scowls.

"Shut up!"

This, Ayako takes with the vivacious teasing. It's him.

"You like him, don't you? Spill it!"

"Hn. He's too tall for me. And too troublesome," Ami retorts.

When she'd see him tomorrow, she promises, she'll beat him up. If she can't, then she'll verbally abuse him and tear him down. If he remembers her, then he'll have to understand. If he can't… Ami refuses to give up easily on this. She's grown to worrying that once he leaves, he'll forget her, the fireworks of her worry extinguishing away in the darkness.

"Come on. You're too uptight."

"Shut up!"

Deep down, she won't have to admit it. Deep down, she knows she can never have such cruelty to beast him up. She'll have to start by something else. Sadness into kindness.

- - ---------

*These are the Dojo-Kun, the rules of those who practice karate, in and out of the dojo.

*JKA is the Japanese Karate Association. It is the primary headquarters of Karate in Japan where all who take karate that wish to teach it go for further study. They are required to train, and do research and pass their thesis. If they are successful, they are given the right to go back and teach Karate.
*KY – Japanese slang for can't read the atmosphere

The karate information is verified; I myself took karate for a time. Then I switched to Muay Thai.

Ami belongs to me. <3