Third story! Milestone reached! Naw, just kidding. Milestones are reached muuuuch later in the story writing career.
Hey guys! How's it been? Finished my second story like two days ago and am ready to start the next one. Hopefully, it won't be like the other one where updates were erratic and had no set date on when they were coming out. I'll do like three chapters ahead so that it won't happen. I'm going to say that you should expect updates every week or so.
Bear with me, in this story it's going to snow where they live. If that's not the right region for it to snow, oh well now it is. Help me out with the characterization of the Rikkaidai Regulars so I get their personalities right!
And just for the hell of it, and for this story to make more sense, maybe, I want to make everyone older. All third years will be 19, second years 18 and first years 16. No real reason for doing this, it shouldn't change the story but for later chapters to work, they all need to be older. So, think of them being in high school.
Just a heads up, Ryoga's personality in this story won't be like the previous stories. Think of it like 'tough love'. I think he might be a mix of Momo and Kaidou and possibly have a little touch of Fuji but not certain.
Also, let's start this again, I DO NOT own Prince of Tennis.
So, third story, hope it turns out good! Have fun with it!
Of the four seasons, Echizen liked winter the best. He liked the cold wind that sent a chill up his spine, he liked being able to curl up on the couch in a warm blanket with Karupin, being able to buy hot chocolate at school; he liked making fun of Momo for forgetting to bring his jacket. But most of all, he loved the snow. Every once in a while he would wake up and look outside to see a thin layer of white outside his window and on the street. When these days approached, he felt a small pleasure in his stomach, though he would never let anyone know.
Echizen woke up that Tuesday morning and the feeling in his stomach grew. Never had he seen this much snow before. There was usually a little on the sides of the street from the snow plow clearing it away so it would be safe for cars to drive but today was different. He got dressed and went downstairs to eat his breakfast.
"Ohayou Ryoma-san." Nanako greeted him with a friendly smile.
"Ohayou." He greeted her back as he took his seat at the table.
"Did you see all the snow outside?" She asked as she set his food in front of him.
"Ah." He answered as he took a bite of egg.
"I've never seen this much before. Oji-san, when was the last time it snowed like this?"
"I've never seen it snow this much. The paper doesn't say anything about it either." Nanjiro said as he flipped a page of the paper. "She doesn't seem to say anything about it either…" he said under his breath.
"Oji-san, are you really reading the paper?" she asked accusingly.
He didn't answer but kept saying things under his breath and staring intensely at the paper. Nanako walked behind him with a frown.
"Mou, Oji-san! If you don't stop reading these, I'll tell your wife!" Nanako reached inside the paper and pulled away one of his magazines.
"Ah! M-Matte Nanako-chan! There's no need to be rash!" he got up from where he was sitting and followed her.
Echizen gave an annoyed yet amused laugh. He looked at the clock, shoved a piece of bread into his mouth and went to the front door. He grabbed his jacket, shoes and bag.
"Ittekimasu." He shouted to his cousin and father.
"Itterasshai." Nanako shouted back as she moved the magazine out of her uncle's reach.
Echizen could hear his father complaining about he always gets picked on and never has time to himself anymore. He sighed and began to walk down the street to the school. The snow that was on the side of the road, which when it snowed was only an inch or so, was now up to Echizen's ankles if not higher. Not before long, he heard Momo calling his name.
"Ooooi! Echizen!" Echizen turned to see Momo speeding his way on his bike.
"Momo-sempai, if you go that speed on an icy street, you'll crash when you try to stop."
"What?" Momo couldn't hear him. When he tried to slow down, the wheels on his bike slid on the ground and caused him to crash into some bushes in front of someone house.
"Told you so." Echizen said nonchalantly as he walked passed Momo.
"Itai!" Momo popped out of the bushes and rubbed the back of his head. "You could at least help up."
"You were warned." He ignored Momo and walked towards school.
"Matte!" Momo picked up his wreck of a bike and caught up to Echizen on their way to school.
Upon arriving at school, Momo and Echizen were surprised to see the Rikkaidai regulars on their court.
"Ah! What are they doing here?" Momo asked pointing to everyone on the court.
"Momoshiro, Echizen, 25 laps for being late." Tezuka said as he turned from talking to Yukimura.
"Tezuka, with the amount of snow on the ground and Momo's and Echizen's lack of acrobatic skills, there is an 84.7% chance that one or both of them will fall and potentially sprain or break something." Inui popped out of nowhere and started reading from his notebook nearly giving Echizen and Momo a heart attack.
"You are incorrect Sadaharu. My data reveals that there is only an 81.8% chance that something will happen." Renji stood beside him and contradicted Inui's judgment.
"Those two remind me of Momo and Kaidou." Taka said.
"How so?" Hiroshi asked.
"Nya, they both argue about stupid things." Kikumaru said as he hopped on Taka's back. Momo and Kaidou both walked up to him.
"What do you mean 'stupid things' sempai?" Momo looked at him accusingly.
"Fsshhh, the only stupid thing is him." Kaidou pointed to Momo.
"Nani?" Momo glared at him. "Who's the stupid one here?"
"Did I stutter? You are." Kaidou hissed at him.
A vein popped. "You wanna go Baka Mamoshi?!"
"Bring it on you stupid peach!"
"They're acting like children." Sanada said.
"Is it always like this?" Marui asked.
"How can they stand this?" Jackal added.
"Saa, it tends to grow on you after a while." Fuji said with a grin.
"I don't see how you can get use to this…" Niou said as he watched Taka and Oishi pull Momo and Kaidou apart.
"If you ask me, I think that both of them are stupid." Kirihara said.
"What are you saying?" Momo and Kaidou gave him a death glare.
"We think alike Kirihara-sempai." Echizen smirked in his direction.
"Echizen!" Momo and Kaidou tried to jump at him but where stopped my Oishi and Taka.
"Your team seems very lively Tezuka." Yukimura said.
Tezuka gave a small frown then sighed. "Kaidou, join them in their laps."
The three looked at him with disappoint in their eyes. Momo and Echizen had hoped he forgot but knew that he hadn't.
"Buchou, we can't run laps." Momo said in protest. "It's like Inui-sempai said. There's too much snow on the ground and we could slip and injure ourselves." He winked at Echizen. Echizen gave him a 'Do you really think he'll fall for that?' look and sighed.
"We're not practicing outside. We're going to go practice in the gym." Tezuka struck down Momo. "Get changed and meet us there."
"Hai." Momo and Echizen quickly went to the club room and got changed. Instead of just their normal shorts and club shirts, they had pullover hoodies and sweats that they put over their shorts. They returned to everyone just before they went into the gym. Momo's question still wasn't answered.
"Sempai," he went to Kikumaru. "Why is Rikkaidai with us today?"
"Fsshhh, you would've known if you were here on time yesterday." Kaidou hissed at him. Momo glared at him.
"Tezuka said that Rikkaidai wanted to have some matches with us before the break." He replied.
"Why not just have the matches during the break?" Echizen asked.
"Inui predicted that the weather would get worse during that time so we scheduled the matches for today." He looked at the ground. "By the looks for it, Inui could be a weather man."
Momo and Echizen sweat dropped as they went into the gym.
Everyone set their things down and prepared for their matches. While everyone else was doing that, Momo, Echizen and Kaidou stared on their laps. The two older boys were going head to head trying to stay in front of one another while the youngest ran behind them, not wanting to interfere. One thing led to another and somehow they ended up tripping each other. Momo and Kaidou fell to the floor with a slam. Echizen merely jumped over them and kept running. He ran passed them with a smirk.
Momo and Kaidou gave him an annoyed look then glared at each other.
"It's your fault!" they both said to each other.
"How is it my fault?" Momo protested. "You tripped me."
"Fsshhh, you ran in front of me." Kaidou hissed. "If you plan to do that, speed up, don't slow down."
"Momoshiro, Kaidou, keep running or you'll add 10 laps." Tezuka shouted to them.
"Hai." They got off the floor, fixed themselves then started to run again.
"Mada mada dane sempai-tachi." Echizen ran passed them again.
Upon finishing their laps and joining the others, everyone was assigned a match with someone from the other team. Doubles was taken by Inui and Kaidou vs. Niou and Hiroshi and Oishi and Kikumaru vs. Jackal and Marui. Singles were Taka vs. Renji, Fuji vs. Sanada, and Momo vs. Kirihara. Echizen stood on the sidelines drinking from his can of Ponta with slight curiosity about why he wasn't playing a match with anyone while Tezuka and Yukimura were talking about various things that they have been working on.
Echizen sat on a bench and looked towards a window. They sky was gray but it was a calming gray, like if stared at for too long, it would carry you away. He loved the sight of the clouds, being if there was possibility of it snowing again. He kept staring at the sky and clouds, so much that he blanked out and started seeing an old two story house in front of him.
It had big bushes covered in snow in the front yard with an old iron fence surrounding it. The pillars that were holding the roof up looked at least fifty or more years old. The windows all had the old fashioned shutters that opened on either side and sapphire curtains blowing out of some and black blowing out of others. One of the windows was different from the others. From behind the sapphire curtains, a lady in an old Victorian style dress was seen. The dress was a bright dandelion yellow except for the patches of red on it. The red seemed to be coming from her neck. Her face had a smile on it as if nothing was wrong. Watching the lady, she pulled a knife out from behind her back and slit her throat.
Echizen was pulled out of his fantasy when he heard his name being called. He looked around to see one of his classmates calling for him from outside. The boy rushed inside to escape the cold and ran to Echizen. He told him that one of his teachers needed to talk to him about something and now was the only free time they had. The boy ran back out and Echizen went to Tezuka and told him what his classmate said. Tezuka allowed him to leave and see his teacher.
Echizen walked outside and felt a cold breeze on his face. He loved winter so much. He couldn't think of anything wrong with it. It was cold yet the sun was out, there were warm things to eat and drink and he got to see Momo make a fool of himself again.
He walked to his science class and found his teacher sitting at her desk. She explained that he had missed a test and needed to make it up sometime in the day or else it would count as a zero. He thought for a moment about when he could make it up; he couldn't do it before or after school because of practice, the passing periods and breaks were too short, the teacher wasn't there during lunch. He decided to make it up during his English class. He figured that he could sacrifice one day of sleep to make his grade up.
They settled the matter and Echizen went back towards the gym. He had a feeling that he was being watched from somewhere but didn't know where. He could feel the persons' eyes on him, watching his every move. The feeling of uneasiness made him quicken his pace.
He made it back to the gym just fine but when he was about to go in, a snowball hit him in the back of the head. He looked around to see where it came from and saw someone standing to the left of the gym with another snowball in hand. Echizen gave them an annoyed look and started to head into the gym.
"Matte!" the person shouted as he threw the snowball at him. Echizen ignored him and went into the gym. He could hear the person chasing after him but he shut the door with a slam before they could reach. Everyone looked at him as he slammed the door then leaned on it and sighed.
"Not him again." He said to himself.
"What's wrong Ochibi? Why did you slam the door?" Kikumaru asked skipping towards him.
"I bet he has a bad grade in his class and has to take make up classes." Momo said with a cheeky grin.
"Not everyone's like you stupid peach." Kaidou said.
Snickers filled the room with Kaidou's comment and Momo's look of hatred.
"Is there something wrong Echizen-kun?" Yukimura walked up to him.
Echizen sighed again. "Is there any way we can lock this door?" he asked everyone.
"Why would you want-" Sanada's question was cut off by a loud bang from outside.
"That's why." He said as he leaned on the door trying to keep it shut as the person started banging on the door trying to force it open. Everyone looked at him with slight confused faces while he leaned on the door, trying to stop the person who was trying to get in. They all pondered who could be out there.
"Echizen, who's out there?" Taka asked.
"Or what?" Niou added.
"A nuisance."
With that said, the banging stopped. Everyone watched as Echizen sighed once more and eased off the door.
"Echizen, who was out there?" Inui asked.
Before Echizen could answer, the door flew open and knocked him to the ground.
"Oi, who are you calling a nuisance?" a person stood in the doorway.
All the regulars looked at the person in the doorway. Some smiled, some cringed and the others were surprised at who was standing in front of them. Rikkaidai were mildly confused.
"Wasn't it obvious? It was directed at you." Echizen gave the person an annoyed look.
A vein popped. The person jumped on Echizen's back and started pulling his arms.
"You little bastard. Don't call your older brother a nuisance!"
"Uno, who is that?" Marui asked.
"That's Echizen's older brother Ryoga." Fuji said with a smile.
Everyone watched as Echizen was bent backwards getting scolded by Ryoga. Oishi frantically ran towards them trying to convince Ryoga to stop but he said that he was helping Echizen get taller. After a few minutes, with Taka's help, Oishi finally got him to stop. He introduced himself to the Rikkaidai regulars and they introduced themselves to him.
"What are you doing here anyway?" Echizen asked as he stretched out his shoulders.
"Why else, I wanted to see my dear baby brother." Ryoga slung his arm around Echizen's neck. "And we're going to spend the break together." He pulled out a pamphlet. "At this mansion."
Whoooo! Chapter one is done! I've been getting very lazy with doing this. Normally, one chapter takes me about a day to write but this took me like a week. I've got all the ideas but I've been preoccupied with things like Batman, Teen Wolf and Criminal Minds.
Hahaha stupid procrastination. But in all seriousness, I'm kinda stressed out because my sister is going to Japan for two years so I'm helping her with her stuff. That's why I'm going to write three chapters before I upload anything.
How'd you like it? I hate boring beginnings but it will get good. Review and keep me going!
Please help me with the personalities of the Rikkaidai regulars! I think I got them right but help me make sure!
Forgive stupid mistakes!
Hope you liked it! Bai!