Yours to Hold (An OHSHC fanfic) [Completed]

Chapter Eleven

I began to wonder if my body was mocking me. By the time we were gathering our things to get ready to leave, the pain in my wrist had died down into a dull ache. The moment I reached to pick up my sword, however, it sent a spike of pain down my arm that was bad enough to make me pause for a moment. It was as if my vision had suddenly gone bad, seeing as the world around me tilted and blurred.

Who knew a simple wrist injury could hurt like that?

I managed to shake it off, however, the moment I felt his eyes on me. Gritting my teeth I managed to balance all of my things on my left side then casually dropped my right at my side. I actually felt thankful that I’d left the majority of what I brought with me sitting on our table in the commons. Noticing that everyone else was already done, I ignored the curious looks my teammates were giving me on how long it took me to gather my stuff and passed them on my way to join our little group.

The moment I neared the group Haruhi seemed to appear at my side. Her eyes studied me before she sighed and held out a hand. I could only look at her in confusion for a second before I realized she was offering to take something from me. Forcing on a friendly smile that I didn’t feel like sharing, no matter how grateful I was I just didn’t have the energy for it, I handed over my sword, keeping my normal clothing piled on my arm.

Instead of changing this time, I decided it would be better to keep my wrist as still as I could. Who knows, perhaps it was a simple injury that if I left it alone would go away by the time of our next match.

I almost snorted at how ridiculous that thought was. No way a simple injury would bruise so darkly as quickly as it had, or cause blurry vision because of how intense the pain was when I went to pick something up. Even with as stubborn as I knew I was being I couldn’t deny those obvious facts.

Time passed at an annoyingly slow pace as we waited for the next round to start. Luckily, since there had been half the number of teams as last time there wasn’t as big of a gap between second and third round as there had been between the first and second. There was simply twenty minutes to give all of the competitors time to take a break before going again. During this time I ended up reluctantly sucking on a few of the honey soaked lemons I brought, although a majority of them ended up being split between Ayumu and Fujii. The idea behind the snack was that it somehow re-energized athletes after tough workouts, although the only thing going through my mind as I sucked on one was how sour lemons were in comparison to my sweets.

Sour was something that definitely was not on my list of appreciated flavors.

By the time that everyone stopped chattering cause of the realization that we needed to go find our room, my nerves had begun to die down. Sure, the pain had gone back to be a constant throb, but it was one that I could easily push to the back of my mind and ignore. Keeping in mind my limits, however, I ended up leaving everything except for my sword where we’d discarded the rest of our possessions. The sword I could easily grip in my left hand without having to move my right an inch.

The first thing I became aware of when we entered the competition room was the change in the size of the audience. Instead of the ten to fifteen people I’d been seeing in the balcony during our rounds, I could easily see at least that many standing on one side alone. It seemed that the semi-finals could draw quite a crowd, especially when it was between two schools that had a grudge against one another.

When that last thought crossed my mind, I quickly switched my gaze from the balcony to the opponents bench. The first person my eyes fell on was Ren, his easy going smile that he’d had in place earlier having been switched out for what seemed to be an almost constant scowl. From where I stood I could even see him snapping at his teammates. Apparently being in the same room as a few select people put him on edge so much that he couldn’t even keep that fake smile in place.