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Botanical Pair

Yamabuki's Inakichi Nitobe stood at the threshold of the street courts. He heard that the Fudomine kids and sometimes the St Rudolph boys would go to this street court and he and his best friend Ichiuma Kita decided to check it out. If anything, it would be a worthwhile way to scope out the competition. And even if there was nobody worth playing, there'd always be someone to joke. Kita and Nitobe made a regular habit of people watching.

It wasn't like Nitobe was the most popular kid in the Tokyo tennis circuit. In fact it was quite the opposite. He was good… but not good. He was a regular at his school without putting up much effort and if anything, that was something for a boy with little accomplishments to be proud of.

Besides, it wasn't like he wanted to be a professional tennis player one day. It was all for fun and he would never want to lose the friendship gained either. Not to mention, he had a personality that tended to turn people off rather than have them flock to him. He thought it had to be some sort of fate that led him to meet Kita in the first place, since they were so well matched in personality and play style.

Oh, and Nitobe had a leaf on his head.

But that's irrelevant.

As he and Kita made their way over to the bleachers they noticed there was a doubles match with St Rudolph's Yuuta Fuji and Shinya Yanagisawa versus Hyotei's Gakuto Mukahi and Wakashi Hiyoshi.

"Oi, Nitobe look at that! I never knew those kids would ever get off of their high horses to come here!" Kita said, jabbing his friend in side with his elbow and looking at the Hyotei doubles pair.

Nitobe laughed aloud at the statement and pulled his friend to the closest available seat to watch the game. He had to agree with Kita's observation. If these two were anything like their Buchou, it would be an interesting game.

"For all that Hyotei's about," Nitobe observed. "We never got a chance to play them."

"Hey, that's a good point," Kita replied, mouth twitching downwards as he talked. He then turned back to the game and cupped his mouth. "Me and Nitobe-kun's got winner!" A pause and then. "Unless the winner's St. Rudolph! We got Loser!"

That succeeded in getting the attention of the others around them. They were mostly given looks of annoyance, and even the players on the courts were successfully distracted by the swirl-cheeked Yamabuki player's shout.

The main one whose eyes lingered, narrowing upon the two, was the Hyotei junior.

"What are you looking at, mushroom?" Kita asked.

Hiyoshi didn't bother to reply and went to serve the next ball.

"Don't worry, Wakashi-kun!" the bouncy Hyotei acrobat said, turning to look at his doubles partner. "We'll stomp them for sure!"

And they did.

But that isn't important. What was important was, that was how Nitobe first chanced to become acquainted with Hyotei's Hiyoshi, and the first step to Nitobe's becoming the first half of the Botanical Pair.

-end-

Or is it.

I think it's good as a oneshot sort of. It works… sort of. This is a repost btw in case you find this familiar.

Thanks for reading please review.