One-Shot for Frozen Obsidian

Akaya rolled his eyes in annoyance, heaved a sigh and started to sneak away from his very strange fuku-buchou who was in one of his moods. Hideki was rambling away about how Akaya should be nicer to their children...or something. Akaya couldn't be bothered to listen, he was way to busy with work and...stuff.

But one small detail in Hideki's monologue had been true. The team was getting closer, to him at least. Especially the twins followed him almost everywhere until he yelled at them to get their lazy bones on the courts or practice their swings. But he normally didn't mind the attention. He had always loved to be the center of attention so it was okay. Especially when they started to practically beg him for one advice or two on how to pull a prank on the soccer club or their sciences teacher. He hadn't been Niou's apprentice for nothing!

But there was one thing that never failed to annoy the new buchou of the tennis club. Asato and Seiji had no respect whatsoever and kept bullying the freshmen. The embarrassing punishment from before hadn't worked for long and the effect had worn off after about three days.

Akaya shook his head softly and sat down on the bench next to a court two first-years, Mikado and Fudo were their names he thought he remembered, held a practice match against each other. They weren't very good players but not bad either, they had a little potential but it wasn't enough to enter the regulars any time soon.

"Bend your knees a little more, Mikado!" he called after a few minutes. Mikado flinched, having noticed him just now, and did as he was told. He almost immediately turned the game around and Akaya heard the referee, surprisingly Kiyoshi who had moved his ass away from the bleachers to volunteer, call 4-1. Akaya smiled. It was just like Yanagi-senpai used to tell him; just a little advice could help to improve someone's game more than just a little.

He kept watching the two of them with his arms crossed over his chest and ignored Hideki who joined him after a few minutes, after finally noticing that the buchou had sneaked away.

"They're pretty good...for normal mortals", he said grinning.

Akaya nodded but didn't turn around.

Hideki sighed at his buchou's silent treatment but didn't comment. Instead he just said the first thing that came to mind. "Have you spoken to Asato and Seiji yet? I heard they made the ball-machine explode." He faked a sniff. "What have I done wrong with those boys? Why did they turn out like that? Maybe, if their father would spent more time with them, they would turn out a little more like the others."

Akaya chuckled at that. "No, haven't seen them since they ran away. And they're skipping practice, too." Either because they were too lazy to come or just afraid of being hit with about a dozen Knuckle Serves, he didn't know and he didn't actually care. The only thing he knew was that they weren't where they had to be and it pissed him off. Okay, he too had skipped more than once and paid with a lot of pain. Yukimura normally let him off the hook after thirty laps or push-ups but when said senpai had to go to the hospital those laps/push-ups had increased drastically to more than a hundred or two, always accompanied by one of the fuku-buchou's infamous slaps. Yeah, life wasn't easy.

And it definitely wouldn't be for his two favorite slackers...note the sarcasm. He would give them hell, that's for sure. He would make them run à la Sanada...just without the bitch slap. He may be as harsh as Sanada in some ways but he would never ever in his life turn into a cheap copy of said cap-wearing rock. Not a chance!

He had more dignity than that.

Hideki, who somehow knew what his buchou was thinking (again...), grinned. "Don't be to hard on them", he said. "Sure, they can be a pain in the a...butt -" "Big time!" Akaya tossed in. "-but they still look up to you, even if they don't act like it, especially Asato", Hideki ended as though Akaya hadn't said a word. He waited a little before he said something no one would ever dare to but well, he was Hideki. "And you respect them too."

Akaya just 'ched' but kept any remark he might have had to himself...for now.

Kirihara would give them hell, Asato knew at least that much. They overdid it a little with making the ball-machine explode. It wasn't like they had planned it that way. And, for the record, everything was just Seiji's fault. It was his idea to put with paint filled balloons into that thing to shoot at the first-years and so it was his fault they were now, pretty much, dead.

Okay, it was their fault for not asking the twins for a little advice. After all, they got theirs from Kirihara, Niou Masaharu's best (and only) pupil.

Well, hindsight is always 20/20.

"What now?" Seiji asked after finally having lost Kirihara who had been hot on their heals right after the explosion. Luckily, Kirihara was pretty clumsy outside the tennis club and so he had tripped over...something and almost fell down the stairs which gave Doubles 2 a great opportunity to get away.

Asato faked a thoughtful expression and put a finger to his chin. "Oh, I don't know, HIDE?" he almost screamed the very obvious fact in his partners face. "I don't know about you but I don't want to be around Kirihara until he calmed down a little. He can be pretty scary and aggressive in case you've forgotten!"

Seiji exhaled through his teeth and made a face. "Good point", he agreed and looked around as if he expected Akaya to pop up beside him. He really didn't want their buchou to go all red-eyes on his rear end...he liked his looks and didn't want them to be changed by one of Satan's four favorite sons, thank you very much.

"And where do we hide?" he asked. "It's not like we can just barricade ourselves in the basement. We have to go to school after all."

Asato nodded slowly. "If I were Kirihara, where would I not look?" It didn't take him long and... "The courts!"

Seiji raised an eyebrow. "Are you nuts?"

"No, I'm not", Asato snapped. "Don't you know what they say? The best place to hide a diamond is right under the nose of the one searching."

Seiji gave him a blank look. "Who says that?"

"Some Germans."

Seiji sighed at that and rolled his eyes in annoyance. Well, it probably couldn't be helped. Whether they wanted to or not, they were in this together and had to work as a team to get out of this. Yay...

They hid in the bushes by the courts almost the whole day and kept a close eye on the buchou for any sign of anger, aggression or just pure fury. Surprisingly, he was pretty calm. Almost too calm. He didn't scream at the first years, didn't assign more than twenty laps and didn't snap at Hideki when he started to talk about the team as if they were his kids. In fact, he gave advice in a normal tone, gave fifteen laps tops and just walked away from the flamboyant fuku-buchou. He acted very out of character today...never a good sign.

After watching this from a safe distance for a while Asato and Seiji exchanged a look and came to the silent agreement, that something fishy was going on. They decided it was time for some spy-action. Not spy as in "James Bond – License to Kill" but more like, sneaking around and listening while disguising as a bush.

And so, they heard bushou's and fuku-buchou's conversation on their latest faux pas. Seiji had a pretty hard time holding Asato back when Hideki called them a pain in the a...butt and it got even harder when Akaya gave his little "Big Time" comment.

And since when did Asato respect Kirihara? Or vice versa? That was new.

When Kirihara didn't respond to that Seiji and Asato exchanged a confused look. Wouldn't he normally go all angry buchou on Hideki for even suggesting that? Very weird.

They were both so lost in thought that they almost missed Kirihara who picked the conversation up where they stopped.

"Yeah, I guess you're right; I do respect them", he said, shocking the two listeners deeply. The hell? "I just wish they would start to, you know, act like they earn it."

Hideki hummed softly, an understanding look on his face. It was probably the first time he did not act like an overzealous drama queen.

"I mean, they have so much potential, be it Doubles or Singles, but they keep going at each others throats, or mine. I guess that's how Yukimura-bu...senpai and the others felt when I was being a real brat again."

Hideki nodded. "I guess we, not just you, have to be a little more open and understanding. They both have a very hot temper, much like yourself, and we need to find a way to control it."

"And that is the one million yen question: How do we control it?" Akaya asked without looking away from the two first-years who were still going at it. "It's not like their dogs we can train so easily. They're humans like you and me."

Hideki was silent for a few seconds before he answered and Asato and Seiji held their breaths so they wouldn't miss a word of what was said. "We should probably start training with them like the Big Three did with you. They helped you controlling the demon, right?" Kirihara nodded. "So, how about trying that?"

Akaya sighed. "I don't know", he mumbled and Doubles 2 had to lean forward a bit to hear him clearly. "To train like that you need complete trust in the other party and, to be honest, I don't think that is there already."

Hideki gave him a surprised look. "They trust you, I'm sure!"

Akaya nodded slowly. "That may be true, but I don't think I can trust them. I thought I could but...the while thing with the ball-machine just kinda, you know...I'm just disappointed."

The two listeners were shell shocked. Disappointed? They could both take being yelled at or if they had to run five-hundred laps around the school but that was like a punch to the gut.

Seiji turned to look at Asato who looked like he felt right now, if not worse.

That hurt. They both respected Akaya more than they would ever admit and him saying that hurt a lot.

"Oh, looks like they're done!" Hideki suddenly said with his normal, happy voice. "We should go over there and give them a few tips. They're Rikkai's future, after all."

Akaya pushed himself up and stretched. "Poor, poor Rikkai Dai", he laughed but followed his fuku-buchou all the same.

Asato and Seiji exchanged a look.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Asato asked.

"If it has something to do with being nice to Kirihara-buchou for once then...yes."

Akaya looked like he saw a ghost when he entered the locker room the next morning. "What the hell happened in here?" he asked loudly.

Everything was picobello. The floor was practically shining, the lockers were free of the old graffiti, benches were cleaned of off this unidentifiable stuff that made the sticky and the corners were free of spiderwebs and dust. It looked like a whole new room.

Yao raised an eyebrow. "I kinda get a feeling those two have something to do with that", he said and pointed towards the shower room, where Asato and Seiji just stepped out of, cleaning buckets in hands.

Akaya smirked at them. "Wow, who would have thought?"

Asato growled at him. "Don't you dare say anything! We just felt bad for blowing the ball-machine to bits and thought it would get you to not lose control of that demon thing in your head!"

Akaya's smirk grew. "I didn't say anything", he defended himself and held his hands up to calm the fuming doubles player down. "But, I guess that makes up for making the club budget for two months 'explode'. What do you think, Hideki?"

Hideki smiled. "We raised them well, buchou", the ash-blonde said and clapped his hands together like one of those anime girls who saw something cute.

Akaya rolled his eyes. "Whatever", he mumbled before shooing Doubles 2, who were already dressed in their jerseys out of the locker room. After he shut the door he turned towards the team, a sly grin on his lips. Everyone backed off a little, except Hideki who had the same grin on his face.

"Well", the fuku-buchou said. "That worked better than we anticipated."

Akaya chuckled. "Oh yeah, it did. I didn't think they would actually clean the locker room. I was expecting them to be nice for a week but that...wow!"

"Wait a second", the twins interrupted. "You planned this?"

Akaya and Hideki grinned. "Sure did!"

This One-Shot is dedicated to Frozen Obsidian!

I just love "Passing the Torch" and it's actually the first story I wrote a FOS for. So, consider yourself lucky =D

Hope you liked it and, well, leave a review on the way out, okay?

Bye bye