Disclaimer: Not mine.

AN: Basically, this is practice for me writing different characters and pairings. If you have a request for a theme or a pairing, feel free to let me know. Also, if there are any errors, I would welcome your corrections. Thanks!

Traveling

Shishido Ryou/Ohtori Choutarou

Shishido stared glumly at the wall, hardly noticing when the small green ball bounced past him. He was bored, dammit, and nothing seemed to alleviate the feeling of utter boredom. Even tennis, tennis, which used to always make him feel better, did nothing but remind him why he was stuck practicing against a wall with no other form of entertainment.

Ohtori Choutarou, his younger doubles partner, was out of the country with his family. To make things worse, the boy wasn't answering his cell phone and Ryou was already hesitant to call very much, lest he interrupt his kohai's family fun time.

So while he respected his kohai's space, he was slowly going out of his mind putting up with the relentless teasing of his teammates. What did they know about whether he could function without his doubles partner? Sure, he was close to Choutarou, but it wasn't like the boy was his whole world.

He sighed, shaking his head and moving to pack up. "C'mon, Choutarou, let's – " he trailed off, blushing brightly until he realized no one was around to see his blunder.

He hoped his silver-haired kohai would come home soon.

Women

Atobe Keigo/Echizen Ryoma

Ryoma bit his lip harshly to keep from yelling out and expressing the intense feeling of jealousy that coursed through his blood. It was ridiculous, of course, he really had no cause to be feeling the way he did.

His somewhat-secret boyfriend's head was swelling from inside the swarm of girls, all attempting to present him with some sort of gift. Atobe, of course, had no problem whatsoever with allowing them to fawn over him as he basked in the limelight.

Ryoma scowled. Oh, how he hated his boyfriend's birthday. If they could just stay inside and celebrate it privately, perhaps it wouldn't be so bad. But no, Keigo had school and the entire female population seemed to be aware of the significance of the date. Echizen had planned on meeting the Hyoutei King outside his school after practice and presenting him with his gift before hopefully receiving a nice kiss in return, at the very least. But no, these pesky girls just had to go and ruin his plan. He couldn't even reach the arrogant tennis captain through this crowd of girls.

Huffing, Ryoma was ready to just turn tail and leave, figuring Atobe could come and get him himself when he was through here. He was nearly out the gates, too, before it occurred to him that he'd just spend the next few hours waiting for Keigo to show up and then he'd be in a royally bad mood when he finally did. Sucking in a breath, he decided to go through with another course of action.

Pushing and shoving his way through the crowd was difficult and he was forced to practically manhandle a few of the determined ones, but eventually he fought himself through to the center of the group where the Great Monkey King stood in all his glory, arching an eyebrow in his direction. Rearranging his clothing to be presentable after the scuffle with the crowd, Echizen Ryoma walked right up to Atobe and grabbed him by the collar, forcing him to bend down as lips met his. Atobe, apparently, had no protest to that and wrapped his arms around his short lover's waist, smirking into the kiss.

Women, Ryoma decided as he gasped for air and reveled in the shocked silence, made you do very weird things.

Lost

Kamio Akira/Atobe Keigo

Kamio Akira, Atobe laughed quietly, looked so totally lost inside the walls of the illustrious Hyoutei Gakuen. The image was made even more amusing by the fact that said boy was currently wearing a Hyoutei uniform that must've been three sized too big for him.

Kamio sighed deeply, thinking back on how this had happened. All he'd wanted was to appease his lover's request of appearing at the school's art show. He wasn't quite sure how that had led to him wearing the orange/tan uniform that clashed terribly with his hair.

He'd been wandering down the vast hallways, looking for the auditorium or wherever the art show was supposed to be hosted, when he'd heard heavy footsteps coming his way, accompanied by the deep voice of what sounded like a security guard of some sort. He wasn't really thinking straight when he'd ducked into the first open door he came across, but he didn't think the guards would reflect kindly on a public school student gracing their halls, especially when he probably looked like he was loitering around.

Finding himself in a closet, he'd done the first thing that popped to mind: put on one of the uniforms hanging from a peg. After all, without the uniform, you couldn't really tell what school he went to, right?

Messily knotting the tie, he stumbled out of the closet and continued down the hall, still not sure where he was going.

When he finally did find the right room, he almost wished he hadn't. The swarm of rich Hyoutei students was quite intimidating and he felt beyond embarrassed when more than one of him threw him disparaging looks, no doubt scoffing at his appearance.

Wishing the ground would just open up and swallow him, he jumped in surprise when two firm arms encircled his waist. "Didn't realize you started attending Hyoutei," a sexy voice spoke lowly in his ear.

"Shut up," Kamio murmured, turning bright red when a hand slipped under the jacket and brushed against his stomach.

"Hmm," Atobe smirked and moved away from him, latching a hand around his wrist and dragging him over to a particular display. Only in Hyoutei would artwork be displayed like it was in a museum, with rooms arranged according to themes. "This is Jirou's portrait of ore-sama. Very accurate, don't you think?"

Kamio stared at it, open-mouthed, for a good minute before rounding on his boyfriend, eyes seeing red. "You – were you posing nude for your teammate!?" he demanded, heatedly.

"But of course. Shouldn't everyone be privileged to see the Great Ore-sama in all his glory?" he raised an eyebrow delicately.

"You arrogant bastard, you – "

Atobe cut him off with a tug on his tie, making it constrict about his throat. "Speaking of which, where might your own clothing be? After all, ore-sama can hardly allow you to parade around in Hyoutei colors. Ore-sama shall have to remove this uniform, and if you don't have your own…" his hands slid under Kamio's shirt again, "well, ore-sama would hardly mind seeing you without clothes." His breath ghosted along the redhead's ear.

Kamio knew he shouldn't have come here. That didn't stop him from returning to Hyoutei the next time Atobe requested, though.

'Til the Day You're Mine

Kirihara Akaya/Kamio Akira

The devil of Rikkai Dai growled threateningly at the lowly pests that surrounded a small group of public school students. He wasn't having such a great day and these little pesks were just asking for him to take it out on them.

Truthfully, he didn't really care about the unknown students the bullies were picking on. He just wanted a punching bag and these guys were fair game. At least, that's how he felt before a knife's blade flashed in the setting sun and a falling body caught his attention. It wasn't the blood that prompted the shock settling into his body. No, it was the fact that he recognized the one who'd been cut. And it enraged him.

With a snarl, he launched himself at the one responsible, twisting the man's wrist and forcing the blade to plunge into it's wielder's own thigh. A harsh screen echoed down the street and blood poured out of the wound.

Drawing himself up, Akaya focused his bloodshot eyes on the rest of the bullies. They scattered instantly, one or two of them letting out whimpers of fear. Unsatisfied with the lack of a fight, he lashed out at the body still pinned under him, hitting the man's face repeatedly.

"Stop! You're going to kill him!" A familiar voice shouted, but Kirihara was too far gone in his rage to identify it.

A hand, wet with a warm liquid, came down on his shoulder and he spun around, ready to strike out until his eyes met the other's. His fist dropped uselessly to his side and his eyes began reverting back to their normal state as he observed the blood soaking into his uniform, both from the body under him and the hand on his shoulder.

Kamio Akira quickly snatched back his arm as the demon boy eyed it. He winced and cradled it gently, vaguely examining the deep gash on his forearm. His teammates, Uchimura and Mori, stood to each side of him, worry and fear clearly showing on their faces. Mori's eyes, one blackening with a bruise, darted back and forth between his arm, their unconscious assailant on the ground, and their inadvertent savior. With a pained sigh, Kamio turned his attention back to Kirihara, attempting to ignore the anger he felt towards the man.

"Thank you," he bit out, despising the fact that he owed gratitude towards the man that had injured Tachibana-san. The Rikkai Dai ace was looking at him strangely, as if he was…worried? But that couldn't be possible, right? After all, this was the guy who hurt people without a second thought, the guy who'd put Tachibana-san in the hospital! He couldn't possibly be worrying about Kamio…could he?

Kirihara stared at Fudomine's speed ace for a long while, eyes often straying down to the wound. There was silence, an awkward, encompassing silence after the redhead thanked him. Said redhead was really pale and he clutched his arm like it was going to fall off.

He growled softly, slightly worried about the state of the Fudomine player. "Get to a hospital already, idiot."

He closed his eyes to the blood flowing down the pale skin of Kamio's arm and pulled himself up, fisting his hand in the unconscious boy's collar and dragging him up as well. Glaring at the bully, he held him out to the Fudomine tennis player that wasn't helping to support Kamio. "Take him to the hospital or throw him to the side of the road. It's up to you," he said shortly, before turning on his heel and leaving. He would've liked to have left that damn bully to die in the streets, but Kamio had told him not to kill him. Kamio's words were the only things stopping him.

He looked at the sky and wondered if the redhead knew he'd do whatever he said. Probably not. But it didn't matter. Kirihara would keep doing it until Kamio told him not to. Maybe at that point, the redhead would belong to him.

Cheer

Atobe Keigo/Echizen Ryoma

High school tennis was at a whole other level than the junior high matches had been. This fact was represented by Atobe Keigo, King of the Courts, kneeling on the clay courts, panting. He was down five games to three and the Hyoutei cheering squad was silent. From the opponent's stands, teammates and supporters jeered at him, laughing at his "lack of ability".

Atobe's own teammates were biting their lips in worry. This was the first game of the season and they'd already lost two matches. If Atobe lost, they were completely out of the running. And even if he did win, could they really pull a victory out of the last two matches? They certainly hadn't had any luck so far.

Keigo raised himself on legs shaky with exertion and positioned himself to receive the other's serve. He could hear the whispers around him, noticed the gathering of past opponents as they heard about the mighty Atobe's plight. He grit his teeth and pushed himself forward, catching the serve and launching the ball back across the net. His opposition mercilessly smashed the ball just to the right of his foot.

"Dammit," he cursed softly to himself. He didn't care about his image right now, didn't care that he was using low class language. All he cared about was winning…somehow.

In the stands, a dark haired figure frowned deeply. Usually, he'd be wearing an almost-trademark white Fila cap on his head, but people weren't really supposed to know about his presence here. Perhaps that was the reason he was no uncomfortable when he noticed the first year high school students from the Seishun Gakuen tennis club, as well as those from Rikkai Dai Fuzoku and other various schools, gathering around behind him to watch as the star tennis player, Atobe Keigo, got slaughtered by some unknown tennis team. (Unknown to him, at any rate.)

However, at the moment he didn't really care whether or not someone recognized him. Atobe was clearly having a hard time and he hadn't a clue as to what he could do to help. He was all alone down there on the courts and nothing Ryoma did would affect him in any way. Or would it? Ryoma thought about how it felt to be beaten down on the singles court and how he'd recover from it. It wasn't his own strengths that would help him, but the strengths of those around him, or his teammates and supporters.

Taking a deep breath, he hesitated only slightly before letting out in a piercing voice, "The winner will be Hyoutei!" At least a dozen ludicrous stares focused on him as he called out again, "The winner is Atobe!" Tentatively, the Hyoutei cheering squad began taking up the chant as well, growing in volume and strength with each passing minute.

On the court, Keigo's head had jerked abruptly towards the stands when Echizen began yelling. He stared as others began to join in and when he turned back to his opponent, cheers all around him, his mind lingered on the victorious smirk gracing the golden-eyed boy's face.