Disclaimer: I do not own PoT...

Marui Bunta was not happy. In fact, he was grouchy as hell. Ever since that incident with Niou and the perfume, the cake and sweets shop that he regularly went to had 'closed'. It was all of a sudden and Marui couldn't understand why it had done so. The owners didn't have to close it just because they were going on holiday, someone else could have managed the shop. And he wasn't going to go anywhere else for sweets or cake because only theyhad everything he liked at prices he could afford. Of course, the shop closing impacted on everything else in his life . He had injured some poor freshmen during practices whom he had hustled into playing him and had almost injured the other regulars during matches. Then just two days ago, he was almost suspended for a violent outbreak towards one of his teachers. All the time, Niou was cracking jokes, adding to Marui's rage.

The morning was glorious. The white glittering sun in the cloudless sky made the day seem magical. It was just one of those days where it seemed impossible for anyone to be unhappy... that is, until Marui went outside. Suddenly, it was as if all the shadows nearby had surrounded him in an eerie aura. With his hands shoved in his pockets and a frown on his face, he trudged to school. As always, Niou met him about five minutes down the road from his home.

"Hey, how's my little girl," Niou greeted enthusiastically and mockingly.

"Shut up." Marui mumbled. He was used to Niou's morning greetings being an insult to him over the last couple of weeks. He would have burst, but even he was affected by the magic of the day. Wait, that couldn't be right...

"Well, it seems your period is finally coming to an end! Just when I thought my girl had something severely wrong with her after two we-"

"CUT IT. I AM NOT IN THE MOOD!" Marui shouted in reply. A few pedestrians looked at them before continuing on their way. A little girl walking past asked her mother why a girl was shouting on the street and if it was lady-like.

Obviously, Marui heard, "I AM NOT A GIRL! I AM A MAN!" He exclaimed loudly at the little girl and her mother. He didn't bother to look back at their reactions before storming off with Niou jogging to catch up.

"I guess I was wrong," he whispered to himself. A smirk grew on his face. When Marui turned to see if Niou was following, he noticed the smirk and, for a second, wondered what he was up to. That was his I've-got-some-big-prank-planned-that's-sure-to-work-and-embarrass-someone smirk. Then Marui's stomach rumbled and he was painfully reminded of his lack of sweets.

By the time they reached their school, Marui had cooled of a bit (at least he hadn't heard Niou's comment earlier). As he made his way towards the school entrance, three girls seemed to materialise in front of him with huge smiles and a bag of...something.

"Marui-senpai! We have something for you!" They chorused while blocking his way to the school. Obviously some fangirls who didn't realise the mood Marui was in. Luckily, he was slightly curious as to what they had in their bag(which was obviously meant for him as a gift).

The girl holding the bag offered it to him with a smile and Marui took it happily. Finally, something good was happening. Opening the bag he saw an assortment of his favourite sweets. A grin engulfed his face.

"Niou-senpai told us that maybe you would start smiling again if we gave you these," One of them said shyly. Definitely some girls infatuated with him or something- wait. Did she say Niou-senpai? Instead of thanking them for the sweets, he asked, "Niou gave these to you?"

"Yes! We hope you enjoy!" And together they ran off, whispering and giggling. He took a look into the bag once more. Yes, they looked normal, but he remembered the smirk on Niou's face. Marui was smart and knew Niou. This is one of his pranks, I'm sure of it, he thought to himself, they will be wasabi flavoured or have some other horrible flavour or side effect after eating them. Taking the bag to the nearest bin, another thought crosses his mind. What if they are fine? I'm probably just paranoid. With one last thought, he put them into his bag. He would get Kirihara to try them later at practise before him, just to be safe.

A lurking Niou smiled mischievously from a hiding place.

________________

Marui told himself that he would get Kirihara to try the sweets before he did, but with them just sitting there in his bag, next to him, was torture. Three weeks without sweets was taking its toll on him, and he didn't think he could wait any longer.

The time dragged and the day seemed to move by endlessly. It felt like hours he had endured the sweets being with him, untouchable until practise this afternoon. He looked to the clock, expecting the day to be over very soon. First period still...The minute hand had barely moved a quarter way around the clock face, indicating less than 15 minutes of the school day had passed. Why! Why must I suspect something so awful of something so sweet! More and more he was suspecting Niou had put the sweets in his hands to taunt him, make him think there was something wrong with them when they were fine.

The lessons went on without Marui taking anything in. The next class was much the same. By lunch he was over the suspense. He would go to Kirihara and get him to eat the sweets NOW. The second the bell rang, he got up and left, only to hear his name being called after him.

"Marui-senpai!" Some fan girls were calling, "We have something for you!" Marui didn't really hear what they were saying, but did smell the delicious scent of cake wafting from behind him. He turned around and almost collided with the girls, one of which was holding a medium sized square cake box. It was from his favourite cake shop.

If it weren't for his hurry to reach Kirihara, he might be a bit happier to see these girls bringing him cake. Instead, his face lightened only slightly and he pointed at the box.

"We brought this for you!" Said the girl holding the box, and offered it to him, "We hope that you will be happy again!" Together, they darted off down the hall. Marui was slightly surprised now. Why am I surprised? I was just given a cake because some girls wanted to see me happy! But something didn't feel right. He opened the box to find a perfectly mouth-watering looking cake. Nothing wrong with it-

A flash of silver caught the side of his eye. Snapping his head up, he caught Niou smirking at him from behind a corner in the hall. A perfect, taunting you-suspect-I'm-pranking-you smirk. Now he was making me really paranoid. Is the cake part of his scheme? Is there a scheme? Why am I thinking so much? He would make Kirihara test the cake first too. He left without giving Niou a second look. The sweets needed taste testing fast. He couldn't wait any longer.

Searching everywhere, asking students, even asking the teacher of Kirihara's last class, he could not find him. Weird, he hadn't seen any other regulars around. Lunch was over too soon and he was back in class, now with two temptations. Tennis practise came with huge relief. He was first to the courts, waiting with agitation. When the regulars started to show up, Kirihara was the last one to show.

"Where have you been? No, never mind. Can you try these? And this? Please!" Marui basically delivered this in a long stream of words that Reinji repeated to the rest of the tem and a very confused Kirihara. Once he processed the words, he remembered what Niou had said to him.

"No, I don't want any sweets," he sounded like he was reciting something. The rest of the regulars (except a missing Niou) sweatdropped in the background. Why oh WHY was Kirihara the one Marui had to get to first? "But Niou did tell me to give you these. He thought you needed them." He handed Marui yet another bag of sweets. Niou owed him for having to resist the offer of eating Marui's sweets.

When Yukimura noticed that he wasn't falling for Kirihara's answer he intervened. "Everyone, 20 laps, you two, 30 for disrupting practise."

Marui took the sweets that were stuffed in his face and scowled at an escaping Kirihara. Something was definately going on and he was not going to touch the sweets until he found out what Niou was up to. The other regulars had started their laps so he hurried away. During the laps, he noticed Niou had just appeared and was running with them but, whenever he even got close enough to question (/strangle information out of him) someone would come between them.

At the end of his laps, Yukimura smiled sympathetically at him. Sanada stood there, trying to be stoic and calm, but was glaring at something happening behind him with exasperation. Before he could turn to see, Yukimura spoke.

"You seem like you need some sugar and by need I mean now. Take this and eat it quick," he ordered, handing me a chocolate bar. He walked off with Sanada to handle the little 'dilemma' behind me. Kirihara had gotten into an argument with another third year on the tennis team. He looked at the chocolate bar. Something about how Yukimura had spoken made him wary of the chocolate. And why was everyone suddenly giving him sweets today anyway? Anyway, if the bar was from his Buchou, it must be safe, right? While unwrapping the bar, a certain trickster appeared in his view, once again smirking. He couldn't handle it anymore.

"What have you done to my sweets! I know you are trying to get back at me for that whole perfume incident, but it won't work. I'm onto you!" Marui exclaimed this a bit too loudly. A few people stopped to see what was happening.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"YES YOU DO! You got those girls to give me sweets so I thought they were fine, but really you asked them to give me some substitute that you tampered with. Same with the cake! Then you made Kirihara reject the sweets because they were intended for ME only!" By now, many people had stopped what they were doing to look at their paranoid and shouting tensai. Some were backing away slowly.

"What are you talking about?" Niou asked innocently. Boy was he good at acting.

"You know what I'm talking about! I am not going to touch ANYTHING I have received today! Your plan failed. I know you too well! MUHAHA![mwahaha]" Just when everyone thought Marui was going completely insane and Jackal insisted he should take him to get checked (in which Yukimura had him restrained. He didn't need his entertainment taken to a mental hospital), the girls who had given him the cake went up to Marui. They had heard his last statement.

With sad and rejected expressions, they went up to him, crying, "We just wanted to make you happy! We bought that cake for you to see you smile because Niou told us it would make you happy!" They ran off. Everyone looked at their now horrified Marui.

"You mean...nothing was poisoned? Or going to harm me if I ate it?" Marui asked, sounding slightly detached.

"Yep, and now you just made a bunch of girls cry and lost some of your fans. Way to go-" Niou couldn't finish guilt tripping Marui because he was already off to start wolfing down the sweets in his bag. An abandoned chocolate wrapper was still floating down to the ground where he was standing.

"Damn, this didn't go as well as I planned. Maybe this time Yagyuu was right. I should have just gifted him to Hyotei for a week. Torture enough with that crazy red head, loud mouth and obsessive narcoleptic to attack him." Cursing his failed plan, he went back to practice.

"So you're saying that you don't care that you hurt a bunch of girls' feelings?"

"Nope."

"You aren't mentally ill?"

"Nope."

"You don't care that I played a prank on you?"

"Nope."

"I'm a good actor?"

"No."

Sanada, Jackal, Niou, a frowning Kirihara and the other regulars looked at him expectantly.

"I got free sweets and cake for a day and all I lost were some fangirls. Why shouldn't I be happy?"

Kirihara agreed and sighed. His tensai was really lucky.

A/N: Yea, the revenge wasn't that great, but I hope it was still enough. I feel bad making Marui go a bit psycho in this. He is my second favourite PoT character after all, but I still love writing that. And I don't think Jirou is narcoleptic (but Niou might...) Reviews kindly appreciated!

Tqwee