I do not know why I'm writing this. It's a weird semi-AU thing, where the teams still play tennis, and stuff like that. Except I made Hyotei and RikkaiDai sort of like brother-schools, and same with Fudomine and Seigaku. And the former two hate the latter two, and vice versa. So it's semi-AU. Which is weird.

…Enjoy it anyway?

Tachibana An toyed with her pencil, idle. She'd never been the type to space out during class, but it wasn't like the class was doing anything, anyway. The teacher had left the classroom to fetch a cart of books, and most of the students were chattering amongst themselves.

"An-chan," a girl called. "Don't you want to talk?"

An simply smiled and shook her head a bit. "That's fine; you guys go on ahead. I'm kind of tired." That wasn't exactly true. The problem was that the only thing her friends really spoke of these days was the exchange with RikkaiDai and Hyotei.

It wasn't so much of an exchange as a merging of sorts. The four schools—that was, Hyotei, RikkaiDai, Seigaku, and of course, Fudomine—were to join for a few months, simply for educational purposes. It would have been exciting. It was supposed to exciting. Except the schools had been feuding for decades. Hyotei and RikkaiDai were snobbish, unlikable in general. An snorted at the thought of them. They felt themselves so above everybody else—it was annoying, really. The whole thing started ages ago. She honestly doubted anybody still remembered the cause.

It'd continued for a number of reasons, of course. There was the rumor that Atobe Keigo, the "king" of Hyotei, had broken Tezuka Kunimitsu's arm in a match. There was the fact that Fuji Syusuke, the genius of Seigaku, and Marui Bunta, the genius of RikkaiDai, had an ongoing rivalry. There was the fact that Kirihara Akaya had broken her big brother's leg. There was the fact that Hyotei was a school of rich brats and RikkaiDai was a school of uptight bullies.

So Fudomine and Seigaku hated Hyotei and RikkaiDai—simply because their predecessors hated each other, and maybe simply for the sake of hating.

While An wasn't the biggest fan of Hyotei and RikkaiDai herself, she couldn't say she liked them, either. They certainly didn't seem like the nicest people she'd met, and she wasn't exactly looking forward to meeting them.

The teacher walked back into the room, dragging a cartful of books like she'd said. An peered at the cover.

Romeo and Juliet.

"In honor of the temporary merging of our four schools," the teacher began, and a series of boos and hisses followed, "we're going to read Romeo and Juliet, one of my favorite Shakespearean plays."

It was one of An's favorites too. The tale had been beautiful, if not awfully sad. And foolish, too. After all, their feelings couldn't really be called love. They'd fallen for the respective other's looks. And to risk their lives for that? It was romantic, it was heartbreaking—but it was also kind of stupid.

I would never do that, An decided. I would never be able to.

Kirihara Akaya strolled along to Court B, Niou trailing behind him. "You hear about the school merging thing?" Niou drawled, fishing through his tennis bag.

Not this again. The RikkaiDai students had been talking about the weird merging situation since last week.

Not that Akaya wasn't looking forward to crushing some Fudomine and Seigaku punks.

So he nodded. "The thing with Seigaku?"

"Yeah. Heard Hyotei's in it too."

Akaya snorted. "Atobe'll love that." His eyes glinted. "I heard Yukimura-buchou's looking forward to it."

Niou bared his teeth in a smile. He unpacked his racquet and began bouncing the ball. "Of course he is. He's wanted a match with Tezuka ever since Sanada lost to him." He served.

Akaya hit it back. "I could cream that guy in fifteen minutes," he replied, grunting slightly. "I still can't believe fukubuchou lost to him. He doesn't look so tough; I bet fukubuchou could beat him real easy now."

They rallied lightly for a few moments in silence. "You know, this whole exchange kind of reminds me of that English play. Romeo and Juliet, was it? We read it last year. You know, with the whole rivalry and stuff. Minus the romance. I heard we're even going to have a ball to commemorate this 'joyous merging of our schools,'" Niou said, mimicking the principal's nasally voice.

The younger boy merely quirked an eyebrow at the accent. "We read it this year." Slice. Drop volley. Niou returned it with a lob. Akaya slammed it. "It's a stupid story."

If anything, Niou seemed amused. (Personally, Akaya had been hoping Niou would be a bit more upset over the fact that he'd missed a smash.) "Why?"

"Think about it," Akaya insisted. "It's about two people who barely glance at each other, and immediately fall in love. First of all, ew." He made a face. "Second, it's stupid."

"You said that. Why is it stupid?" Niou pressed.

"Because they fell in love before they got to know each other," Akaya huffed, slinging his racquet over his shoulder. "They were willing to die for something so shallow. As it is, they just fell in love with looks. And that's not love."

Niou grinned, hopped over the net and flung an arm around the junior ace. "Who knew our Akaya was such a romantic?" he all but shouted, and the members of the tennis team—Yukimura and Sanada included—turned around to stare at them.

"Niou-senpai, you're heavy," Akaya complained, and shoved him off.

"No fooling around during practice," Yukimura said mildly, and turned back to his conversation with Sanada.

Akaya scowled and gave Niou a hard punch on the arm. "Liar. I'm not a romantic."

"Then you wouldn't be debating on love," Niou pointed out, dragging out the word "love" with a goofy accent.

"But it's true! I'd never let something like that happen to me," Akaya decided. "I'd never be able to."

Oh God, how bad was it? Let me know if I should continue this... I couldn't help it. Really. I just kind of wanted to put it out there, because it's been pestering me since... three hours ago. And I hate pesky things.