Tezuka looked up when a shadow fell over the page he was reading.
"Echizen."
Echizen plopped down beside Tezuka, and suddenly his shadow shrank, showing how much smaller he was compared with Tezuka in reality. "Buchou, what are you reading?"
Tezuka showed the cover page. It was a novel Echizen had seen in the shops before, one of the recent English bestsellers, which Tezuka was reading with the help of a dictionary. Echizen didn't care about that. He wasn't here to talk about books; it was just that Tezuka had always made him a bit nervous.
"So... what are you doing this summer holiday? Besides tennis?"
Eyes not leaving the page, Tezuka's response was simple. "Camping in Chiba."
"Oh."
"With Yamato-senpai, Fuji, Hyoutei's Atobe, and Rikkai Dai's Sanada and Yukimura."
"The monkey king and the penguin?" Echizen could hardly believe his ears. Atobe Keigo, getting his hands dirty and mingling with nature? And Sanada of Rikkai, too?
Tezuka glanced up from his book, surprised by the reply, and almost laughed. Almost. "We go every year."
"I see..." said Echizen longingly.
Book closed now, Tezuka turned to Echizen. "Would you like to come?"
"Me?" With all those people? They were all his senpai, and the 'cool' group on top of that. "I don't know anything about camping."
"The rest of us do. Kirihara maybe coming this time, too, and he is also new to camping."
Kirihara too? "I'll go I'll go I'll go!" That meant Echizen would not be the only first timer there. He bet he could learn to camp better than Kirihara at least.
Tezuka smiled, though only briefly. "I'll give you more details later." He resumed reading.
"Thanks, buchou."
Later on, Echizen would go and tell Horio and the others that he had been invited to an exclusive camp with all those very awesome people. Imagine the look on those faces! They would say "oh my God, Ryoma-kun, you're so cool!"
Indeed, Echizen felt a bit cool, himself.