Ninth grade is a pain. (This is nithila again, by the way. AKA nila's sister.)
This very simple fact, combined with the fact that I've been forced to dwell on educational stress and people always being forced to win, be the best, be the smartest, and blah blah blah...well, it inspired this story. A lot of the things that will happen are based on things that have actually happened to my classmates, cousins, or random other people. The school is based on my cousin's school.
As I said, ninth grade is terrible. The academics, as well as my classmates. I can't stand it, and that was another source of inspiration. Some of the characters will be based on my classmates, and maybe some teachers as well. NOTE: Many teachers will be OCs. I bet you know why.
So, it took two months to type this up. Its been written, rewritten, again and again.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Prince of Tennis.
Hope you enjoy it!
Rain splattered against the car window, fogging it up and obscuring the view. Ryoma wrinkled his nose in irritation. Now he couldn't look outside anymore.
Sighing, he crossed his arms and fell back against his seat, staring into space.
"Ryoma?" His mother called from the front seat. "Keep looking towards the right. We're almost there."
Why, he would have loved to look towards the right. The only problem was, he'd just see a huge blurry smudge.
But he really did want to see the first view of the building...
After a moment's thought, he opened the window. Rainwater splashed inside the car and on his face, but he'd always liked the rain. His mother, on the other hand, didn't appreciate this decision.
"Ryoma, close the window. The seats are getting wet," she warned.
Ryoma ignored her. "Just a few minutes..."
Rinko frowned, but said nothing.
A minute later, "Ryoma? We're here."
Ryoma squinted through the darkness to see the building, and inhaled sharply when he saw it.
That place...his new school...
...looked like hell itself.
The main building was practically a castle, with four tall, dark towers at the corners. Before the building were two other towers, that were as tall as the ones attached to the building, but were considerably less wide. On top of these two towers, bright lights that could be mistaken for flames had been lit, adding to the eerie effect.
The place felt somehow...dangerous.
As they drove through the gate, he could see a marble fountain in front of the school entrance. The statue was of a king, dressed in royal clothing, and holding a crown slightly above his head. The king was smirking in victory, and on the pedestal of the fountain, a few words were engraved: Knowledge Itself, is Power.
Ryoma looked a bit further, towards the perfectly trimmed bushes and trees, and came to a decision: He closed the car window.
His mother turned around to face him and smiled cheerfully. "It's beautiful, isn't it? The best school in all of Japan. You're going to love it!"
Beautiful? Best? Love it? Ryoma's eyebrow twitched. The whole place was creeping him out! It seemed so dark, so eerily deceptive, and she thought it was beautiful?
They parked the car, and he stepped outside cautiously, pulling out an umbrella. His mother did the same, and, together, they walked towards the entrance.
He climbed up the three or four steps that led to the door and pushed it open, revealing a small lobby. To one side was the principal's office, to the other side the office room, and ahead of him was a long corridor that led into the school.
His mother turned towards the principal's room. "I have to finish off some paper work. You can look around a bit, but whatever you do, stay on the first floor."
Ryoma nodded absently, and proceeded down the corridor.
He didn't like this school. Not one bit. The whole atmosphere made him feel out of place. It looked too big, important, and perfect. He felt so...lost.
Various awards, certificates, and photographs hung on the walls, but Ryoma didn't look at them. He stared steadily at the ground, and it wasn't long before he was lost in his own world.
So he was pretty surprised when he suddenly crashed into something. Or someone.
He looked up crossly, intending to insult the person for daring to stand in his way, but his words died in his throat.
The figure was wearing a dark, red cape, and as he turned to face Ryoma, it swirled behind him. He looked down at him with cold, unforgiving sapphire eyes, and then smiled vampirishly.
Then, in an icy voice, he spoke.
"Welcome to hell."
If Ryoma had been anyone other than himself, he would have run screaming from the room. Luckily, he had the honour of being himself, so he merely raised an eyebrow at the person.
This was a very good decision, because once he did so, the person dropped the cold expression and started laughing. He then pulled off the cape and extended a hand towards Ryoma.
Ryoma shook it cautiously, and the older boy smiled. He had light brown hair, and had his eyes closed, concealing the icy blue he had seen earlier from view.
"I'm sorry about that. I just heard that our floor was getting a new student, and that he was going to be roommates with me and Kirihara-san. And what better way to ensure that I make friends with a person than to greet him personally?"
'What better way indeed. He's just ensured that I make sure we never do.'
The older boy continued smiling. "I'm Fuji Syuusuke, your senior. You're a first year, right?"
"Hai." Ryoma bowed slightly. "Echizen Ryoma."
"Ah..." Fuji looked at him knowingly, and somewhat accusingly. "Momo has told us a lot about you."
Ryoma tensed slightly at the name. 'Momo-senpai...how do I explain things to him?'
"So, would you like to come upstairs to see our floor?" Fuji asked, starting towards a staircase.
Ryoma broke out of his reverie. "Er...I'm supposed to stay on the first floor."
Fuji was taken aback. "Your parents said so?"
Parents, huh? "Yes?"
Fuji looked even more surprised, if not amazed.
Ryoma stared back at him. Seven seconds. Fifteen seconds. His patience ran out and he snapped.
"What?"
Fuji was still staring at him."You listen to your parents?"
Now that was...a weird question.
Fuji shook his head in disbelief. "I never did." Then he continued towards the stairs like he hadn't said anything, waving a hand at him to follow.
Despite himself, Ryoma followed him, coming to the conclusion that his room-mate was insane.
Fuji laughed. "Trust me, Yukimura is just as bad."
Great. He could mind-read, too.
"Momoshiro, please, calm down!"
Momo stubbornly continued pacing around the room, swinging his arms violently. Oishi sighed and rubbed his temple.
Crash.
Momo banged his arm against a chair, and grunted slightly in pain. But not even the mighty chair could sway him.
"Really, Momo," Taka tried, eyeing him wearily, "I'm sure he had a valid reason."
Momo swung around to face him. His dark, purplish black eyes were wild and furious, and his hands were shaking in anger. "I went to school one day, and couldn't find him anywhere. I thought he was sick. At the end of the day, I overheard two teachers talking about him, and only then did I find out that he'd left the country." He took a deep, shaky breath. "He...he was my best friend...and he left without telling me! He changed his cell phone number, didn't reply to my emails, and no one even knew where he was! Didn't the idiot think for a moment about how I'd feel? "
"Momo, he must have-"
"I don't care about his reasons! If you're leaving the country for nearly two years, you should tell your best friend!"
"He does have a point," another voice spoke up. Momo turned slightly, and saw Mukahi Gakuto sitting in the corner of the room. "I mean, I'd be pretty grumpy if Yuushi left Japan, whether he told me or not. If he hadn't told me, I would have gotten Atobe's spies to track him down and murder him to death."
"ORE-SAMA DOES NOT HAVE SPIES!" Atobe insisted loudly from his room.
"And the word 'murder' itself means to cause the death of a person, so it is highly unnecessary to say 'murder him to death'," Oshitari Yuushi added, pushing his glasses up.
Mukahi rolled his eyes, and opened his mouth to retort, when the door opened.
Fuji stepped inside first, smiling widely, and he pushed a smaller, younger boy in front of him as he did so.
There were only seven people in the room, as everyone else was still roaming around the school. Some of them smiled at the new boy, one of them seemed uninterested, and another flipped his hair and posed stupidly. Yet another stared at him, unbelieving.
"Everyone," Fuji said, still smiling, "This is Echizen Ryoma."
There was a moment of silence as first impressions were made.
The boy was rather short for a fifteen year old, and also rather thin for his age. His hair was black with an emerald tinge, and his bangs fell in his face, casting a dark shadow over his eyes. Even then, those golden eyes shone brightly, and they darted quickly around the room, looking for someone.
The moment he caught sight of Momo, he stiffened. "Momo-senpai..."
Momo did the natural thing. He punched him.
After a moment, Momo did the next natural thing. He grabbed his best friend in a death hug.
"You complete idiot! I missed you! Where were you? Why did you leave? Why the hell didn't you TELL ME? I was so angry! In fact, I still am! What did you leave like that for? You didn't think of anyone else, did you? What happened to your phone? Why didn't you answer my mail? Why didn't you send me mail in the first place? Where the heck were you? "
Ryoma ignored Momo's ranting, as well as all of his questions, and concentrated on rubbing his nose. He glared up at his senior grumpily. "That hurt, Momo-senpai."
Momo waved a hand in dismissal. "You deserved it. Anyway, look at you! You look so different! You've grown so much taller! You're so short!"
Ryoma's eyebrow twitched. What the heck?
Fuji cleared his throat, interrupting the conversation. "I think we'd better introduce ourselves," he started. "There's a total of twenty five students on this floor. This is our common room, and the surrounding rooms are our dormitories. It's either two or three to a room. As I said before, you'll be rooming with me and Kirihara-san, who's sitting over there." Fuji pointed at a black haired boy at the side of the room. The boy glared at Ryoma, who whole-heartedly glared back. He hated both of his room-mates already, the joy.
A tall, black haired boy stood up, smiling kindly. "I'm Oishi Shuuichiro, third year. Nice to meet you!"
"Kawamura Takashi, third year," A brown haired, friendly looking boy added.
A red headed, "Mukahi Gakuto, third year," was followed by a blue haired, "Oshitari Yuushi, third year," and then introductions were finished with a grayish, purplish haired "Atobe Keigo, third year, prefect. Be awed by Ore-sama's brilliance."
"Speaking of which, you're a prefect too, aren't you?" Momo asked him. Ryoma nodded in reply.
"Fuji-senpai's a prefect, too, and so are Sanada-senpai and Yanagi-senpai. Tezuka-buchou and Yukimura-senpai are both Head Boys," Momo said proudly.
"I heard you play tennis?" Oishi asked kindly. "Momo told us that you won the nationals in junior-high."
Ryoma froze, and his eyes widened slightly in shock.
He'd almost forgotten.
Tennis...
Of course the topic would come up. Momo didn't know yet. How could he? He hadn't told him. He hadn't even met him in two years.
He looked up at his new schoolmates' expectant faces. The red haired boy snatched up a racket from a nearby table and held it up to him, bouncing on the soles of his feet. "You want to play a match?" he asked excitedly.
Ryoma stared up at him for a moment, and then slowly shook his head no.
"Ha!" Mukahi cried in triumph. "Are you scared?"
He felt a flash of irritation. "It's raining," he stated. Mukahi stared out the window in disbelief.
Then, he looked straight at Momoshiro and spoke directly to him. "But even if it wasn't, I wouldn't be playing, because I quit tennis years ago."
Then he ran out of the room, down the three flights of stairs, and back into the dark, foreboding corridors.
To be Continued.
So, how was it? Please review! Constructive criticism is appreciated.
Oh, and does anyone want to be my beta-reader?