Ryoma walked quickly down the sidewalk and into the tennis court area. He was greeted by Momoshiro and Eiji with hugs.

"You made it, Ochibi!" Eiji giggled as he pulled at the younger boy's cheek.

Ryoma pulled away. "It hurts."

"As sensitive as ever," Momo laughed along with Eiji.

"Kikumaru-senpai, Momo-senpai…you two are weird. Lets have a match already."

"Well, there's a problem, Echizen. There's only one court…so we decided to play doubles," Momo informed the younger boy.

"What?" he dropped his bag on the ground. Ever since that time back in junior high when he played doubles with Momo, he decided to never play doubles again.

"Echizen!" Fuji called for him. "Why don't you play doubles with me?"

"Yay, yay, yay!" Eiji bounced his way over to Oishi. "Play against us~!"

"I don't want to," Ryoma mumbled.

"Come on, it'll be fun," Fuji smiled as he pulled Ryoma towards the court.

"But―!" Ryoma stopped himself from arguing. Though he didn't like playing doubles, this might be the only chance he would get to play alongside Fuji.

"One set match! Oishi to serve!" Momo called out.

"Lets do this, Oishi," Eiji positioned himself close to the net.

As Oishi served, Ryoma watched Fuji gracefully hit the ball back. Eiji wouldn't dare let the tennis ball get by him, so using his acrobatic play, he returned the ball. Ryoma saw the ball fly quickly pass him. He couldn't even move. He was still mesmerized by Fuji's movement.

"Sorry," Ryoma looked away and adjusted his hat.

"It's ok. We still have time to catch up," Fuji reassured him.

"I think I'd rather just watch today," he sat down on the bench.

"Echizen, you can't just quit in the middle of a match," Tezuka told the boy.

"I obviously can!" Ryoma didn't mean for his words to come out that way.

"Ochibi! You're so mean! What's your problem today?" Eiji whined.

"It's nothing."

"Is it about us third years graduating in a month?" Oishi wondered.

"That doesn't even matter anymore," Ryoma folded his arms. "It's not like I'm even going to be here afterwards."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Momo quickly turned to the younger boy.

"It's nothing."

Fuji sat next to the younger boy. "If it was nothing, Echizen, you wouldn't be affected by it like you are. I won't push you to tell us anything, but you don't need to hide anything from us either."

"Oh, is this the girl problems Eiji-senpai was talking about?" Momo patted Ryoma on the head. "If you need any help with girls, I'm here to help."

"It has nothing to do with girls," Ryoma's voice showed how annoyed he was getting. "The day the third years graduate is the day I'll be leaving."

"Leaving?"

"I'm moving back to America."

"Why didn't you tell us sooner?" Oishi frowned.

"I just found out today. I wanted to pretend as if I didn't hear it. I wanted to pretend that we could continue to go on forever in the happiness of our friendship. I was being childish."

"Just because you're moving or we're graduating won't change a thing. We'll continue to be friends no matter what. No matter the distance, we'll stay together," Fuji let his eyes open to show there icy blue color. "Echizen, don't ever think differently. As long as you want to continue to be friends, nothing will stop us from being friends. Do you understand?"

Ryoma nodded and focused on the ground. "Fuji-senpai…thank you."

"Hey! That's true about all of us, Ochibi," Eiji pouted.

"Right," he stood up. "I'd rather not play doubles though. It's not really my thing."

"Ok, then we'll go eat instead!" Momoshiro decided. "Tezuka can pay."

"Fine," Tezuka had a solemn look.

"Eh? Really? Awesome!" Momoshiro ran down out of the court.

"Wait up!" Eiji chased after him.

"Momoshiro! Eiji! Hold on!" Oishi tried to call after them. "Those two…"

Tezuka didn't even bother to say anything. He just walked out of the court and made his way down the sidewalk. Oishi quickly followed behind.

"Those guys…" Fuji shook his head. "Echizen, shall we go?"

Ryoma grabbed his bag and threw it over his shoulder. "You know, senpai, you were wrong before."

"What do you mean?"

"The problem does have to do with you, but I'd rather not talk about that right now."

"I see. Well, I'm here to listen when you're ready."

"I know," Ryoma looked up to the sky. "I don't know how long it will take me to be ready to tell you though. I hope you'll be willing to wait a long time, Fuji-senpai."

"For you, I'll wait forever," Fuji grabbed Ryoma's wrist and dragged him down the sidewalk. "Lets catch up to the others."

Ryoma nodded as his cheeks began to change to a red shade. He would usually be annoyed by being dragged like this, but not this time. He wanted to remember the warmth of Fuji's touch. He wanted all the memories of Fuji etched into his heart forever.

NOTE: And…that was chapter two. Kaidoh, Inui, and Kawamura haven't made an appearance yet, but I'm sure they will seeming that Inui and Kawamura are third years and will be graduating. I might even end up bringing Horio, Kachiro, and Katsuo into this fic. I'm not that sure though. We'll just have to wait and see.

Anyways, I really don't have much to say. I think I'm finally caught up in updating all my fics. It's a lot easier with only three that I need to work on instead of four. It'll get even easier once I'm down to two. Of course, knowing me, I'll end up throwing out another fic before I only have two left. I'm still debating on what pairing I want to go with next. I have long fics for FujiXEiji and FujiXRyoma. I think I should do a different pairing for once. I just need to have the ability to go longer that a few paragraphs with it. I want it to be another long fic. Think, think, think. I'm not sure. It's obvious that there are pairings I won't do at all but…I just don't know. I'll have to keep thinking about it. Once I figure something out, you guys know I will throw another fic out. It's just how I am.

Well, thank you for reading this chapter. I hope that you'll continue to read it. As it continues, I will probably get more attached to this fic seeming that I kind of understand what Ryoma's going through (I guess it's always good when you can connect to the characters…). Enough of that. I'm going to continue to listen to music from the Prince of Tennis (I love the song "Takaramono" which is sung by Kikumaru Eiji's seiyuu. It's…very…um…lets go with beautiful~!) and do other random things. Thank you for reading~!