01. Dozen

Harada stands in front of the new recruits, grinning proudly, and even if the freshmen all are glancing at Harada with nervous eyes, Tsukada is nonetheless impressed by his ability to drive herd.

02. Flatter

"Don't be stupid," Sato mumbles to Tsukada, shutting the notebook with the plays hurriedly and keeping his thumb firmly over Kobayashi's name on the cover.

03. Angle

In the aftermath, Kichida realizes that he should feel some sort of retroactive fear, but instead when he's showing the three stitches on his forehead and telling the story to a rapt audience in the clubroom, it really is pretty funny that Tachiki isn't allowed to bring a metal protractor to math class anymore.

04. Take

Marty-san knocks Kichida's hand casually away from his fries without even interrupting his comment about how Kamen Rider could totally beat up Secret Dragon Hero, and Kichida glares at Harada, who grins around a mouthful of his own stolen fry.

05. Need

"What I need," Tsukada-captain snaps, "is for you to get your ass off my paperwork," and he isn't really surprised when Tachiki smirks and slides off the desk into his lap, making the ancient office chair creak dangerously.

06. Blush

When Sato opened the bathroom door, he was none too happy to find his 13-year-old sister on the other side, hot pink lips pursed and nose wrinkled, and that was before she told him that he'd be paying her half his allowance from now on to keep her quiet about his airhead of a boyfriend.

07. Word

"You don't really mean that," Tachiki says confidently, pressing him back against the stair railing, and he nearly takes a very long fall when Asakawa says it again, louder, and shoves him to come crashing down on his ass.

08. Apathy

"I'm telling you I don't care," Sato repeated, then flipped his phone shut and shoved it in his pocket and went back to staring at his math book, trying to pretend that the page was blurry because math was boring and not because Asakawa's protests were still echoing in his ears.

09. Whist

Flash games were sort of a slippery slope, Yutaka knew, but since his decline had been gradual during the entire weekend's worth of pouring rain, he hadn't exactly realized how low he had truly sunk until his brother passed by and commented "Wow, I was pretty sure you couldn't get any dorkier than Netgo."

10. Longing

The ankle only keeps Tsukada off the field for two weeks, but it's the longest two weeks of his life while people whining "Tsukada-captaiiiiiin do we have tooooo" and "that drill again" and "isn't practice over YET" separate him from the grass and his stick and the ball and the goal and the game.

11. Rival

Yutaka shrugs when Kinsho demands to know why he's doing this, not quite meeting his brother's gaze, and Kinsho narrows his eyes and shoves his own note into Tsukada-captain's locker too.

12. Style

"Well, what do you think?" Natsumi demands again, eyes dangerously narrow and pom-poms planted firmly on her hips, but nobody is paying any attention to her because Harada's pet freshman is trying to hide behind her and tug his skirt down at the same time.

13. Fit

Asakawa whines when Sato drops the coat around his shoulders, protesting that if his mother didn't care he doesn't see why Sato should, but Sato just does up the zipper and flicks Asakawa on the forehead.

14. Even

They both think for several minutes before Kinsho finally admits that he has no idea whose turn it is to get up for morning practice, and Yutaka rubs the back of his neck and says that at this point he can't even remember which sport HAS the morning practice the next day.

15. Serenity

It turned out that Harada really wasn't one for subtitled movies, but since his next suggestion was that they just make out, Marty-san was more than willing to ignore how ridiculous the dub sounded.

16. Lead

"It's graphite," Tsukada protests around the pencil, but Kichida reaches across the table and pries the pencil out of his mouth anyway, raising an eyebrow at the deep-set tooth marks.

17. Stress

"We just need to get away from it all," Asakawa's mother says brightly as she tosses her swimsuit into the heap of clothes, and Asakawa sits on the edge of her bed beside her suitcase, swinging his feet and wondering if he can talk Sato into ordering pizza.

18. White

Marty-san scratches the back of his head and clears his throat and stares down at Harada, who is watching him patiently until Marty-san finally says that Twinkies are those cakes you get in the convenience store with the cream in the middle.

19. End

Harada wraps arms tightly around Marty-san's waist right in front of everybody and buries his face against Marty-san's chest to say that he hates hates hates the airport, and Marty-san hugs him back until they can't breathe, right in front of everybody, and says that he does too.

20. Snow

Kazuhiro and Asakawa ignore him and go right on catching snowflakes on their tongues like children, but they get the last laugh when Misaki's lips get stuck to the metal of his can of coffee.

21. Bizarre

"No," Tsukada said, "I really wasn't going to ask at all," and then he reached past Misaki's bare shoulder to grab the bag of flour, snatched the spatula out of Tachiki's hand, and pushed the door to the Home Ec closet back closed as quickly as possible.

22. Window

Misaki hunches under his blankets, his shoulder throbbing dully where it got twisted back too far during practice and then again later, and doesn't get up no matter how many pebbles Tachiki throws to clatter on the glass.

23. Buffer

They go right on glaring at each other when Kichida steps smoothly in between them, but after a second Kobayashi makes a derisive noise and turns on his heel, and Misaki stomps off to the showers.

24. Full

"Four," Kichida answers, and they all watch with wide eyes as Harada's pet freshman sets the ramen bowl down with a decisive thunk and waves his hand at the waiter for another order, and Misaki suddenly stops wondering why Asakawa was smirking when he said it was Misaki's turn to treat the kouhai.

25. Average

"I haven't had my growth spurt yet!" Harada shouts, hands on his hips and shampoo bubbles running into his eyes, and Kichida reaches across the showers to shove Tachiki and ask what his excuse is, exactly.

26. Passion

It's far enough into the lacrosse season that Yutaka knows that Kinsho's red cheeks and narrowed eyes mean that Yutaka will be taking over baseball practice probably for the rest of the week, and it isn't that he minds the other sport, it's just that he wishes once in a while Kinsho would act like a proper, obedient younger brother instead of winding himself up this tightly.

27. Rest

"You wish," Tsukada-captain says, and then he blows the hated training camp whistle, but his laugh borders on the edge of maniacal and nobody on the team really dares to go on lying on their backs in the grass rather than go back to the 10-mile run.

28. Culture

"God bless Japan," Marty-san murmurs, and just then the third page finally unfolds out of the magazine, and Tachiki slaps him on the shoulder and says "Amen!"

29. Mystic (mystic comes from the Greek word for 'an initiate')

In the end they do initiate Harada to the Regulars a little early, so that Marty-san can be the last one to slide fingers through Harada's sweat-curled hair and feel the way Harada's skin is shivering with exhaustion and pleasure, be the one to reach underneath him and wrap fingers around Harada's cock, to make him look up with eyes glazed and bright.

30. Stranded

"We'll just have to wait until it stops," Kichida says, peering out from underneath the underpass at the sheets of icy water pouring down from the sky to stream over the pavement, and Tachiki hooks an arm around his waist and shoves him up against the curve of the concrete wall, his lips a cold shock against Kichida's throat.

31. Grave

"I'm sure there are lots of sunflower seeds there," Misaki assures, stroking a sobbing Shuuko's hair, and Ayaka jams the popsicle stick with Ham-ham-sama's name on it down into the ground when Tachiki has finished stomping the dirt back flat.

32. Blue

Kazuhiro shrugs and trades the raspberry sno-cone back for Asakawa's cherry one and says that it just isn't his favorite flavor anymore, is all, and Kobayashi rubs the back of his hand across his forehead and says that it's just an ice headache.

33. Repent

"You will rue the day you crossed Secret Dragon Hero!" the TV announces, but all Sato really rues is agreeing to stay over to watch these with Misaki while he catches up to Tachiki's completely psycho position of episode #139.

34. Wing

Tsukada thinks about that for a second, then agrees, yes, it's sort of like soccer in that way, and Kazuhiro's expression clears and he bops off happily to suddenly begin beating the pants off the 'shirts' side of the scrimmage.

35. Drip

Even after he has Sato trained to just let him finish, once in a while Asakawa pulls back at the last second anyway, and even if Sato is obviously smart enough to know it can't really be an accident all the time, when it happens he still gives Asakawa the look that makes Asakawa's fingers curl tight against Sato's thighs.

36. Luminous

Misaki's crouched in the bushes, hair ruffling in the warm summer breeze and thinking that he's really glad humans don't have to make their whole ass glow in the dark every time they want to get laid, and then he pulls the flashlight out of his pocket and aims it at Tachiki's window.

37. Spoon

Sato lets the strangely-colored Os dribble back into his bowl along with the increasingly discolored milk and really regrets saying yesterday that there was no possible way that Natsumi-chan could have an adverse effect on breakfast too.

38. Past

On the third day of summer vacation, Misaki answers the door to find Sato and Asakawa with their tennis rackets on their shoulders and thwocking the fuzzy yellow ball against his stoop, and Misaki grins like a fool until Sato slingshots a wristband at his face.

39. Deceive

"You can't lie worth a damn," Asakawa tells Misaki, reaching up to press gentle fingers against the bruise on his cheek, but because Misaki is his best friend in the whole world except for maybe Sato too, he helps Misaki practice his story until it's almost plausible.

40. Least

As the first fat drops of the summer thunderstorm start hammering down around them while they are still trying to scrape Kichida's papers and books back into his torn backpack, Kichida demands, "Why would you SAY that?!" and Kazuhiro shrugs sheepishly and strips his shirt off to make a makeshift book sling.

41. Prestige

"Now THAT'S a trophy," his father says pointedly, pointing at the television screen and it's population of sweaty and screaming basketball players, and Kobayashi slinks off to his room to sulk among his shougi plaques.

42. Front

They try it the other way once in a while, when things just happen to work out that way, but after a few minutes Misaki usually reaches behind himself and shoves Tachiki down onto his back, then turns around and climbs on top of him, because what's really the point if you can't see anything good?

43. Language

Marty-san really does not understand how he ended up with a bar of soap in his mouth when it's Harada who said that Angelina Jolie had lips like a fucking porn star, but he fully intends to repay Harada in full immediately after his mother sets him free.

44. Gear

"That's NOT what shin-guards are FOR!" Tsukada-captain booms, making Kichida and Tachiki jump about six inches off the bench, and Harada howls and slaps his pet freshman on the back so hard he yelps.

45. Sparkle

"Guess that answers that question," Tachiki cackled, making Misaki tear his gaze away with flaming cheeks; in front of them, Sato was still staring, dazed, at the uke-flowers waving gently behind Asakawa's head.

46. Answer

"You, you idiot," Kazuhiro says, smiling, and holds out the box of handmade chocolate with both hands, and Kobayashi is so stupid with relief that he reaches out and grabs Kazuhiro's hands instead of the box, and realizes suddenly that he's about to make an even bigger scene in the shoe alcove than he did two minutes ago.

47. Spirit

Sato's fingers dig into Asakawa's shoulders, but it's different than usual, different enough that Asakawa looks up to see Sato's face gone very pale and his eyes fixed on something behind him, and when Asakawa turns, his blood turns to ice at the sight of the chalk white girl across the bathroom with a red scarf tied around her neck.

48. Return

"Okay," Kobayashi stared at his sneakers on the tile of the office floor rather than have to actually look Tsukada-captain in the eye, hands shoved in his pockets, "I guess lacrosse will be okay for now."

49. Flash

Kazuhiro can't even get halfway through the sentence "What did you THINK I meant?" with a straight face, and Kobayashi snatches his pants back with all the dignity he can muster while wearing a pair of boxers with Silver Generals all over them.

50. Clasp

"It's tangled in my hair!" Natsumi twisted her neck and gave Misaki a pleading stare, and Misaki fumbled with the necklace unsuccessfully for a long minute before Tachiki reached over and just yanked.