In the morning, Ryoma rose from his bed and let his arms stretch up high above him. He looked around and grabbed for his school uniform. Placing his pants on followed by his white button-up shirt, he turned to stare out of his bedroom window.
"Day three," Ryoma mumbled as he finished getting dressed. He placed his bag on his shoulder and headed downstairs where he ate a piece of toast for breakfast. Picking his bag up once again, he headed for the door and left for school.
At school, Ryoma did his daily routine of avoiding the crowded halls and just placing himself in his classroom. Even there he didn't bother to mingle with the other students. Of course, Horio wouldn't allow him to stay there alone.
"Hey, Echizen, what's going on with you and tennis practice?" Horio questioned the boy.
"I've been there," Ryoma leaned his cheek up against his right hand to hold his head up.
"Yeah, you just haven't been playing much. You do realize what today is, right?"
"Is there something important happening?" Ryoma pretended to be interested in the information Horio had.
"Of course there is! Today we start our matches to see who will make up the Regulars!" he growled. "Aren't you worried?"
"Not really. The only threats have graduated and moved onto high school."
"There are still a lot of strong players. You shouldn't have so much confidence."
Ryoma let out a sigh. "If you don't have confidence in yourself, there's no way you'll win…"
When classes were finished, students rushed to go to their after school activities. The tennis club met outside on the courts like always. All the members stared up at a large board to see who exactly they would be going up against in the day's matches.
"We're doing things differently," Kaidou pointed to the board. "Each day we will do one round of tennis matches. Everyone will be playing in these matches…this is including the first year students. Instead of having for groups, there are only three. Momoshiro, Echizen, and I will be the leaders of each group."
Ryoma quickly looked up at Kaidou. "What do you mean I'm a leader of a group? I wasn't told this."
"It's because you were a Regular at one point. As the three strongest members, it's only right that each of us are group leaders. If you have something wrong with that, please tell me now so I can change things around."
"It's fine…but don't expect me to go easy on anyone," he crossed his arms.
"Lets start the first round of matches. Find the court you're assigned to. Everyone should know the rules of tennis, so you will keep your own score."
On the courts, Ryoma was put against a first year student. He watched as the young boy fumbled to hold his racket. The two of them stood there in front of the net.
"If you can't even hold your racket, how do you expect to win?" Ryoma demanded from him.
"Sorry…I just…didn't think I would have to go up against you," the boy swayed slightly back and forth. "I'll try my best to keep up with you, Echizen-senpai."
"Do your best," as Ryoma walked over to the far left corner of the court, he switched his racket into his right hand. Something had caused him to feel as if he didn't need to torture the child by beating him within a minute.
After winning the match, Ryoma told the young boy to go around and watch the other matches and examine how they were being played. He quickly ran off with a carefree smile on his face as if he didn't even mind losing. Ryoma couldn't figure out how someone who just lost a match could be so cheerful. Not overly caring, he went over to where Momoshiro stood watching over a few matches.
"Momo-senpai, can I ask you something?" Ryoma saw that Horio was playing against a first year.
"Go ahead," Momoshiro turned to focus his attention on the boy.
"Have you ever kissed someone before?"
"What kind of question is that?" he scanned the boy and noticed his cheeks turning a light shade of red. "Is this because you like someone? Man, first Kaidou gets a love letter after practice and now this."
"I was the one who gave him that note. I was asking him to come over."
"Wait, so what you're saying is you like Kaidou and you want to kiss him?"
"No, Kaidou-senpai was the one who kissed me!" Ryoma slapped his hands against his mouth and quickly regretted the words he spoke.
Momoshiro took a few steps away and swung around in search for Kaidou. When he spotted the boy, he pointed his finger at him. "Kaidou kissed you?"
"I finished my match. I'll go mark it then I'm heading home," Ryoma spun around on his heels and began to head towards the clubhouse.
"You can't just leave. Echizen, is this why you're acting so strange?"
"I'm staying in the tennis club, isn't that enough for you?" he paused and let out a sigh. "It's not because I overly want to…it's just because Kaidou-senpai has confused me so much that I don't think I'd even be able to leave."
"So you're just sticking around because you like Kaidou?"
"No, I'm still hanging around because I want him to prove that he's telling me the truth when he says I'm not just a pillar holding up this team," before Momoshiro could respond, Ryoma darted off.
"In other words, you just haven't realized how you feel," Momoshiro laughed at himself. "This tennis club sure does have a lot of drama when it comes to those two."
At the end of practice, Momoshiro didn't mention the conversation he had with Ryoma. When Kaidou asked where he ran off to, he just said that he decided to go home early. Momoshiro held in his laughter when he noticed yet another note left on Kaidou's bag. It was yet another note from Ryoma stating that he would stay in the club…for now.
NOTE: And there was chapter four. Okay, I don't know why I felt like I've written more chapters for this fic than I have. Ah, oh well. Anyways, I changed how they decide on who will be the Regulars…slightly. This is because I wanted to show that Kaidou is different from Tezuka as a captain (You got to love the fact that Kaidou has say in everything and Ryuzaki-sensei doesn't really exist.). Oh, and I'm sorry about the delay for this update. The next update will be March 26th. This is possibly the last update I will do until May. Details about that can be found in my profile, but this is basically because I'll be participating in Script Frenzy (as well as hopefully moving) in April. If you actually go check out my profile, I changed it so you can see my schedule as well as special fics I'll be writing.
I finally got a boost of energy out of no where, so I'm going to go write the update for "An Unknown Disaster" and possibly work on "No! No! Megane's" as well as "Somewhere Beyond the Musical Notes". Oh, before I forget, I'm thinking one of the graduated characters might make a small appearance in this fic. I want to say Tezuka, Fuji, or Inui. If it's Tezuka, Kaidou will probably get angry at him because of making Ryoma think he's just this object holding the tennis team up. If it's Fuji, I have no clue what will happen. If it's Inui, he'll probably say something about his data. Okay, I'll probably go with Tezuka. What do you all think?
Anyways, I'll see you all on the next update. I'm off to do some more writing. As always, thank you very much for reading this chapter. If you like it, don't forget to come back for more~!