Summer Traing Camp Part 2 (Takara)

Nagi-kun and I are playing cards when everyone comes back from their jog. Taiki comes to me. “Takara we…”
I stand up and walk away.

The next day I sit on the grass again, jealously watching the others practice. I rip out some flowers.
“You can make tea out of them.” Jin-kun says while putting the flowers in a bowl. He sits down next to me and smiles. “Are you ok?”
I nod. “Isn´t that obvious?” I say sarcastically.
“Takara we need to talk.” Taiki stands in front of me. He glares at Jin-kun, who puts down the bowl and leaves. “I have to go to the bathroom.” Is his excuse.
“Taiki could you leave me alone? I´m trying to gather flowers for a tea.”
“No, we need to…”
I stand up and try to walk away again but of course that doesn’t work out; Taiki grabs my arm.
“You need to see a doctor.” He says in a tone I haven´t heard from him in a long while; anger.
“It´s my knee, I don´t really see how that relates to you.” I say, trying to free my arm, his grip tightening.
“I´m your brother. I only want what´s best for you.”
“If that were true you would leave me alone.”
“We made a promise!” His voice getting louder.
“I know, I´m not as stupid as you think!”
“I never thought that! God, you´re acting so childish right now!”
“I´m childish? You´re the one who won´t let me leave!”
“Takara, you should listen to me just once in a while.” His grip tightening even more.
“Taiki you’re hurting me! Let go!” I free myself, rubbing my wrist.
We have a short back and forth until I say: “You´re never on my side!”
“Yeah, I mean all of my presents always just magically appeared in your room when you didn´t get any. I´m never the shield to protect you from Dai-nii-sama or mom or dad. Do you even realize that without me you wouldn´t have anyone? My childhood could have been so great if it weren´t…”
Taiki gets slapped across the face by Kei, now standing in between us.
“Stop, before you say something you´ll regret.” Kei says, clearly angry.
“Oh, now you´re on her side?” Taiki asks, even more angry.
“What? No, I´m like Switzerland I’m neutral!” Kei answers, also getting angrier.
I scoff. “Yeah why would you even think that Kei´s on my side? He´s always on yours!”
Kei glares at me. “Don´t you dare drag me into your silly fight!”
“Silly? She wants to destroy her knee and with that a potential future as a pro!” Taiki yells at him.
“It´s still my decision!” I scream at him.
Taiki rolls his eyes. “Now you´re just being stupid!”
“Tai-chi, calm down.” Kei says.
Taiki turns to him. “Why are you even getting involved? You have nothing to do with this!”
“Right because I haven´t been your friend for eleven year! I practically substitute as your older brother, because he can´t stand Ta-chan!” Kei is now also yelling.
“I never asked for either of you to…” I begin.
“You should be grateful. I destroyed my relationship with Dai-nii-sama for you!”
I look at the ground, I´m running out of arguments plus I´m starting to feel hurt by Taiki’s words. He doesn´t seem to notice. “Sometimes I wish you were never born!” He screams in my face. I feel tears welling up. He seems to finally have noticed what he said.
Takara, I didn´t… I´m sorry I shouldn´t have said that.” He tries to grab my arm.
I dodge every attempt; tears are now streaming freely down my face. “I hate you.” I mumble while running away.
Kei catches up to me. “Ta-chan I´m sure Tai-chi didn´t mean it. It just slipped out.”
I shake my head. “No he meant it, I know it.”
Kei seems to feel guilty when he sees my face streaked with tears.
“We´ll take care of her, you go calm Taiki down.” Lei-chan says. She hugs me so no one can see my face and pets my head.
Na-chan takes my hand and leads me to the girl’s room. There I burry my face in a pillow and don’t look up for what feels like hours.

Lei-chan sits down next to me. “Takara, let´s have girl’s night!”
I sit up. “Sure.”
She invites the rest of the girls from our team, it almost seems like the other girls are avoiding me.
“So…” Lei-chan thinks.
“Do you have a boy you like?” Na-chan asks.
Haru-chan puts up her arm. “There´s this really cute boy in my class and he started talking to me.” She blushes.
“Oh you mean In…” Ran-chan starts but gets her mouth covered before she can reveal the name.
Lei-chan laughs. “Young love.”
“What about you Inoue-san?” Ren-chan asks.
Lei-chan shakes her head. “Most boys our age are just way to immature. They only talk to me because of my looks, it´s honestly really annoying.”
“So you´re into older guys?” Na-chan asks.
“I guess. Like collage age.” Lei-chan says and then she turns to me. “And you Takara?”
I shake my head. “I never really thought about that.”
“What about Jinpachi?” She asks.
“What about him? We´re just friends.”
Na-chan begins to giggle. “Oh, come on, everyone can see that he likes you.”
“I didn´t notice.”
“Well Taiki-san is always trying to keep you apart.” Ren-chan says.
“Taiki…” I mumble, tears welling up again.
“I´m sorry.” She apologizes.
I shake my head. “He´s such an idiot!”
“I guess I kind of understand your situation. I mean I have a younger sister, we don’t get to see each other often, she lives in a different prefecture, but when we argue it´s not very pleasant either.” Lei-chan says.
“Can´t relate, me and my siblings barely argue.” Haru-chan says.
“Taiki and I usually don´t argue like that either. Today as the first time he ever yelled at me. You see he´s an idiot.”
The others look confused.
“It´s a long story.” I add.
“Go on, we have time.” Lei-chan says smiling.
“You see I´m kind of the unwanted third child, the daughter that´s just there because of Taiki. Our parents aren´t around much; our mom´s fashion label got really big and now she´s all over the world, dad owns a bank and works manly in Tokyo. Onii-sama never liked me, he used to ignore me a lot, always took Taiki with him to matches or just to eat some ice cream, he never took me with him. Around elementary school, we just met Kei, Taiki noticed it. He stopped spending time with Onii-sama and was just with me all the time. He started putting me over himself, gave me his presents, wore similar clothing to me, he even started to act more like me. I liked it when we were younger, but now I feel like I´m taking advantage of him.” Tears stream down my face. “I´m so scarred that he´ll just get sick of me, no not just him Kei too, he could just leave after graduation. I don´t want to grow apart! They´re all I have.”
Na-chan strokes my back. “And why don´t you want to go to the doctor? I mean that´s kind of ripping you guys apart right now.”
“The doctor who gave me first aid after the fight said he suspects that I have a meniscal tear, that would mean a surgery, weeks of not being able to do anything and potentially another few weeks maybe even months of physical therapy to be able to fight again. I don´t want that confirmed.”
Na-chan nods. “I understand, but the faster you get a diagnosis the faster you can start getting better.”
“But I´m the captain, I should fight at the spring high.”
Haru-chan jumps up. “Then we just have to train more to substitute for you.”
Lei-chan nods, she puts a hand on my shoulder. “You´ll see if you even need a surgery after you talked to a doctor and I´m sure Manami-san will help you with all of the physical therapy.”
“I´ll think about it.”