Disclaimer: I don't own Tennis no Oujisama.

Ice-cream solves everything
Alex found it harder than she'd thought it would be to avoid Kaidoh. She didn't want to insult him by openly telling him to stay away, so she instead had to make sure she was consistently anywhere Kaidoh was not. It was a lot of trouble, but even in the brief time she'd known him, she'd learned that tennis was important to Kaidoh. If he was having problems, she'd do anything in her power to fix it.

After a few days of this, Alex found herself approached by Inui. In a very round-about way containing a large multitude of figures and data, he informed her that there had been no change in Kaidoh's level of concentration. He recommended that she flirt with Momo, Kaidoh's long-time rival.

Alex stared at him as if he were crazy. "No," she said flatly. "I do not flirt."

Distaste dripped from her mouth like poison as she uttered the hateful word.

Inui adjusted his spectacles. Didn't all girls flirt? According to the data he'd collected so far, girls were born with an inbuilt ability to flirt without shame. Was it possible his data was wrong? It seemed he would have to revise this matter.

His thoughts were interrupted by Alex's exasperated sigh. "Tell you what," she compromised "I'll talk with Momo-san a few time, make sure Kaidoh-san notices, will that be enough?"

Inui nodded slowly. "If you're sure you can't flirt…"

"Quite sure," she interrupted firmly.

Inui nodded before slipping away to investigate the apparent flaw in his data.

Momo grinned triumphantly. He'd heard that Kaidoh's girlfriend had been ignoring him, and though he didn't know why, she was now here talking to him! Score 15-0 to Momo! She must have finally succumbed to his irresistible charm!

Encouraged by the girl's apparent interest in him, Momo then proceeded to preen and pose confidently. Alex inwardly sweatdropped, but remained careful to keep her face bland.

Momo, chatting avidly, glanced over Alex's shoulder and spotted Kaidoh staring at them. A smug grin spread itself across his face as he formed his hand in the 'peace' sign for Kaidoh's benefit.

Kaidoh turned red with fury and, hissing loudly, stomped away.

Alex quietly pretended not to have noticed the exchange between the two and politely continued her conversation with Momo, though she privately thought that Kaidoh had overreacted, just a little.

Alex repacked her bag in readiness to go home. Her movements were unhurried – unlike most of her class, she did not attend a club, or extra classes of any kind, and so could take her time in leaving the classroom.

Heaving the heavy bag onto one shoulder, she slowly trailed out of the classroom, doing her best to avoid the bell-time rush.

Wandering outside, she was just about to leave the school grounds when she was accosted by a red-faced, sweaty, and desperately panting for air guy, whom she vaguely recognised as being in her grade, though not in her class.

"Buchou," he began, leaning his hands on his knees and trying to speak between pants. After a moment he tried again. "Buchou says to come to the tennis courts."

Recovering slightly, he grabbed the girl's arm and began to drag her to 'buchou'.

"Hurry up!" he yelled desperately, his voice squeaking with fear. Apparently, Tezuka had been stern enough to make the boy mortally afraid of what would happen if he were too slow. Tezuka's reputation had preceded him – the thumb-screws and lead weights in strange places gossip had added to Tezuka's punishments had gone down in high school tennis legend. The fact that no thumb-screws had yet been seen had not deterred the rumours in the slightest, and some of the regulars had developed a somewhat disturbing tendency to encourage some of the wilder rumours whenever possible. It was suspected that the dark mind behind the thumb-screws rumour belonged to none other than one Fuji Syusuke, though when asked about it he merely smiled serenely and changed the subject.

Alex finally managed to extricate her arm from the boy's grasp as they neared the courts. Tezuka, Inui and Fuji stood in the centre of the courts, watching Kaidoh's practise match against another regular. All three of them stared with blank expressions as Kaidoh lunged towards a shot that Sakuno could have hit, and missed, his racquet slipping out of his fingers and hitting the umpire's chair, where it shattered. Even Inui's pen was frozen against his ever-present notebook.

Tezuka turned towards them as he noticed their approach. "Sinclair-san," he greeted her sternly. Her escort made a panicked sound and fled.

Inui unfroze and started scribbling again, muttering something about the 23 times Kaidoh had dropped his racquet in that one match before it finally broke.

Tezuka ignored him, instead returning his attention to the afflicted mamushi.

"Kaidoh," he yelled, summoning the other boy. Kaidoh hissed, and stalked reluctantly over to the buchou. He failed to notice Alex, who was talking with Fuji – Inui and his notebook were standing between him and the girl.

Momo, however, had a clear line of vision. "Fuji's with mamushi's girlfriend!" he crowed, smirking with glee. Fuji had been explaining to Alex why she had been summoned, and Momo had deliberately misinterpreted the situation. "Hey Mamushi!" he called "Looks like your girlfriend don't want you no more!"

Kaidoh, very predictably, turned red and hissed furiously, telling Momo to "Shut up, idiot!"

OIshi hurried over to investigate the cause of the commotion. Eiji bounced along behind him.

Seeing Alex, Oishi immediately realised the problem. He put a hand on Tezuka's shoulder. "Tezuka, let me handle this."

Tezuka nodded.

Kaidoh scowled at them. "If you're going to drop me from the regulars, hurry up and do it," he muttered

"We're not going to do that," Oishi assured him quickly. Kaidoh hissed at him, sure that he was lying.

"Um…" Now that he had volunteered, Oishi realised he had no clue how to continue. "We thought that Sinclair-san might be the cause of your recent distraction, so we… heh… asked her to stay away for a while…"

He trailed off, sensing that this information wasn't going to go down very well at all.

"What?!" Kaidoh was livid.

"We're sorry! We were trying to help!" Oishi was about to panic. Kaidoh ignored him, instead turning on Alex. "Why the hell did you go along with their stupidity?!"

Alex shrugged apologetically. "They said it would help," she replied.

Kaidoh hissed. "And you believed them?!" He didn't really expect an answer. He likened what he'd just been told to the phrase 'for your own good'. Needless to say, this phrase never went down very well at all.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I know you're upset," she said, uttering the understatement of the century "but we were trying to help you. Tennis is your life, isn't it? They had some crazy idea that I was a distraction."

It was obvious from her tone that she had never really believed it.

Kaidoh turned and glared at his fellow regulars.

Oishi scratched the back of his head nervously. "If it helps…" he pointed out hesitantly "I think it took two hours for Tezuka to convince her…" he once again trailed off and shut up as Kaidoh concentrated his glare on him.

Tezuka decided enough was enough. He glanced at the people standing around idly and sternly ordered them to get back to practise. There was a flurry of activity as everyone tried to pretend they had actually been doing that all along.

The regulars drifted reluctantly away from their entertainment before they were forced to run laps. Eiji leapt onto Kaidoh's shoulders. "Hoi hoi! Don't hurt Alex-chan, nya! She was being nice!"

With a flash of a 'peace' sign and a single 'bui', he bounced away. Kaidoh hissed after him.

"Are you angry?" Alex asked him calmly when Eiji was gone.

"No," Kaidoh hissed his denial, somehow managing to sound absolutely furious – an impression which wasn't helped by the fact that he was still glaring menacingly at his fellow regulars.

"You look like you are," she pointed out.

Kaidoh hissed one last time and tore his attention away from his team-mates, schooling his face into a slightly more agreeable scowl. "I'm not," he insisted.

Alex seemed to accept this.

In reality, Kaidoh was angry – just not at Alex. He could more or less understand the slightly twisted logic behind Alex's participation in this whacked-out scheme. What he couldn't understand, was how his team-mates could just mess with his life like that, and when their plan failed so spectacularly, just shrug their shoulders and practically tell him it was for his own good. Now that made him mad! 'For your own good'. A phrase which seemed designed to irritate the hell out of almost anybody. And it irritated Kaidoh slightly more than most.

Eiji chose, just at that moment when Kaidoh was most irritated, to come bounding back. "Hurry up and apologize so we can practise, nya!" he yelled.

This was the last straw. With a furious hiss, Kaidoh stalked off. Alex followed him. "Where are you going?"

"Away" came the growled reply.

"What about practice?"

Kaidoh hissed in the general direction of the tennis courts, which were already out of sight. "Fuck it," he muttered with feeling, a highly uncharacteristic reply which clearly demonstrated just how pissed off he was.

Alex followed him uncomfortably as he continued to stalk away. She hadn't anticipated his being quite this angry, and was at a loss as to what she should do about it. She noticed that Kaidoh had begun muttering furiously under his breath. She decided to head off the impending explosion in the only way she could think of.

"Let's go get some ice-cream," she suggested.

"What?" Kaidoh had been so busy with his muttering that he hadn't heard what she'd said. He stopped in his tracks and turned to face her.

Alex sighed and repeated herself.

Kaidoh looked at her blankly. Ice-cream? Why, of all possible things, would she suggest ice-cream? What he really wanted right now was to whoop all their asses with a tennis racquet! Unfortunately, though, Alex's suggestion had been so unexpected as to have thrown him off entirely. He gave one last half-hearted hiss before reluctantly giving it up. "Sure" he muttered. "Ice-cream…"

He followed Alex to a nearby café, where she promptly ordered two of the largest sundaes he'd ever seen, announcing that it was her treat. He stared at his in shock. He'd thought only Eiji, Echizen, and that idiot Momoshiro could ever hope to conquer one of these. He glanced at Alex, who was happily digging into her ice-cream. "Are you going to eat that?" she asked, gesturing with her spoon towards his sundae. "Because if you don't want it, I'll have it"

Kaidoh had to work to stop his jaw dropping. She couldn't be serious! Even the bottomless pit known commonly as Momoshiro had been sick after one and a half!

Staring at his formidable monster of a sundae, he raised his spoon and hesitantly poked it. When it reassuringly failed to rear up out of what must, for practical purposes, be called its cup, and swallow him whole, he scooped up a small dollop of the stuff – which to his disgust fairly oozed with chocolate sauce – and transported it to his mouth. Upon discovering that it wasn't nearly so bad as he'd feared, he scooped up another spoonful with slightly more enthusiasm.

Alex, satisfied, went back to her own dessert.

Silence reigned between the two as each focused on demolishing their own tower of ice-cream – not the awkward kind, but the sort of comfortable, familiar silence which happens ever-so-rarely in today's constantly busy world.

The silence shattered as Kaidoh hesitantly cleared his throat. Alex, scooping the last melted bits of ice-cream from the sides of her cup, looked at him enquiringly.

"Um… Sinclair-san…" he began, a slightly pink tinge tainting his cheeks. "Will you… go out with me?"

Alex froze. "I beg your pardon?" she asked finally, trying to confirm that she hadn't just heard what she was sure she had.

"You heard me," Kaidoh muttered, blushing slightly redder and cursing himself for apparently having just made the biggest mistake of his life.

Alex closed her eyes with a sigh. Why did people always want more than you were willing to give? Friendship was wonderful, but in her opinion, anything else was completely unnecessary, and likely to lead to hurt on the part of all involved.

Still with her eyes closed, she opened her mouth to utter an extremely apologetic negative. Her eyes flicked open with shock as she heard her mouth, seemingly with no input from her brain – nor, indeed, any other part of her -, utter a single word. 'Why?' she thought, stunned, finding no clue as to her motives for voicing a single, unexpected phrase of agreement.

Damn traitor mouth…

About the ice-cream. Trust me, in Japan it is possible to find ice-cream sundaes that tower over one's head when placed on the table. You just have to know where to look.

I saw it on TV, along with a niku-man weighing two kilos, and other giant meals. It was in colour, so it must be true.