In the stead of the Admin panel of the Prince of tennis Fanfiction facebook page, we thank everyone who took the time to like the fanpage! As the author of this story, I thank everyone who supported me by reading- but most of all, those who let let me know what they thought! BANZAI!

Links to larger version of my coverpages and my fanarts are in my profile. I'd be honored of you check them out.

DISCLAIMER: I WISH I own prince of tennis.


...


CHAPTER VII: Meeting the other regulars- Part 1!

TEMPLE

It was a typical spring morning. Birds chirping, flowers blooming, heroines yawning…

Reina loved to sleep, but sadly these past few years she wasn't given the privilege to sleep in because of her 'situation' with directions. And sadly there were many times, like this day for instance, wherein she inconveniently looked at the clock. It said 7:10am and her eyes widened immediately.

"Oh crap." was all she could say, and she hurriedly stood up and went down to eat.

MAIN STAIRS, several minutes later

"OI! Echizen!" Momo shouted from the bottom of the stairs heading to the temple. He thought that maybe the boy could hear it.

After a few more attempts, there was still no answer. He sighed and decided to climb up. He inhaled and gestured for another shameless yell.

"Echiz-" He stopped as he saw the figure who was watering the plants. He squinted his eyes, thinking that maybe he was seeing things… No change.

He rubbed his eyes and then closed it… still no change.

He pinched himself… still no change.

The figure noticed him and glared. "E-Echizen!" He practically squeaked in surprise.

'WHAT THE HECK! I-I just saw him yesterday and now he's T- TALLER than ME?' The idiot incoherently shouted at himself.

Echizen turned to him, slightly making the spiky-haired boy to wince.

"Who are you?" Ryoga asked irritably, obviously in a bad mood even before the moron came… and now he just made it worse. Karupin just destroyed one of his favorite shirts, after all. He could beat up an innocent passer-by right now for all he cared.

And what do you know? He just arrived.

Momo, still incredulous, had regained a bit of composure and looked visibly offended. "What? You got a little taller and now you don't even know me? I knew you lacked emotions but this is just sinful, man!"

Echizen raised his eyebrows. "I'll ask this one more time or else I swear I'll punch you – WHO THE HECK ARE YOU?"

A vein popped in Momo's head. "What the- Try if you can, kiddo! I don't know how you got a foot taller in a day but I can still beat you up if it's a fist fight!" He abruptly took the stance of a boxer and started hopping the way they do.

Echizen blinked, and then chucked out-of-nowhere surprising boxer-Momo. 'This must be Ryoma's new err…chaperone.' He thought internally. 'I guess I can't beat him up now.'

"N-Nani?" Momo asked anxiously. 'What is he laughing about? My form? I know I've never really boxed before but…'

"You must have mistaken me for my si-brother, Echizen Ryoma." He smirked, now perfectly calm. "Echizen Ryoga, Yoroshiku!"

A moment of silence passed and Momo's eyes widened in realization.

'No wonder Echizen's name sounded familiar! He's THE Echizen Ryoga's little brother! Their names sounds alike, too… NO WAY-!'

Momo was ecstatic; he watched Ryoga play as a child. Ryoga was the reason why he started playing tennis in the first place. But it was so long ago when he had last seen him play that he forgot what he looked like and barely remembered his name.

'Wait a minute… Isn't Echizen Ryoga the son of THE Samurai Nanjiroh?' His eyes widened even more. 'This is too good to be true.'

Momo, after regaining his composure, just wiped his sweaty hands on his pants and hurriedly returned the handshake. "G-Gomen. You two just look and act alike." He stated trying to look as indifferent as he can, but failed miserably.

"Yeah, we get that a lot." Ryoga grinned. "And what do you mean by '…if it's a fist fight'?" he asked slyly making Momo flinch.

"He beat you at tennis didn't he? What's the score?" He asked as if it's so obvious that Ryoma beat him. "6-3" He replied.

"Ehhh…. You're not too bad, then. Ryoma's still asleep because he knows he won't get lost. Means he trusts you… I'll reward you with a game with me, then." Ryoga declared taking Momo by surprise.

'A game… with my idol? I-I must be dreaming…' he sleepily told himself.

"Are you in or not?" Ryoga asked effectively breaking Momo's daze. Momoshiro only grinned (and jump about) in delight.

"O-OF COURSE!"

...

Ryoma was finished getting ready half an hour after she woke up and was about to rush to the front door when she heard people playing in the courts. She batted an eyelid and lazily walked there. When she arrived, she coolly looked at the context - two tennis players were holding tennis rackets... Momo was crouching down sweating like hell, and Ryoga had his trademark smirk on.

"How many minutes?" She asked stoically while looking alternatively at the two boys.

"Three." Ryoga stated.

She whistled. "That's just sad, Momochan-senpai." She grinned at the crouching boy who was dead tired but still had a vibrant smile on his face. She knew Ryoga played seriously, though, to avoid worsening Momo's condition.

Her senpai took a deep breath and stood up. He looked at the older boy who just defeated him badly, looked down shyly, and inarticulately asked:

"C-Can I have your autograph?"

Ryoma chuckled, and she watched them interact in amusement. Heck, she even had a hard time convincing Momo that they were already going to be late.

"S-Sugoi Echizen! I didn't know you had such a famous family! C-Can I meet your Dad next time?" He said as he hugged the paper with Ryoga's autograph, as they walked down the stairs.

"Is he an idol of yours, too?" Ryoma asked stoically and Momo nodded. She sighed.

"Then if you want to keep your sanity, then I suggest you don't meet him… ever." She stated, her calm demeanor not changing a bit.

Momo could only scratch his head in confusion.

...

It was already 8:00am and class would start in thirty minutes. Momo thought there would be no point to go to the club then so he decided to take Ryoma to her room since she still had her cleaning duty.

"Aren't you gonna get in trouble senpai?" She asked.

"Nah… Since I played tennis during the time anyway… I can't wait to see their reactions when I te-" His excited ranting was stopped by Ryoma raising her hand. "I'm sorry to blow your bubble, senpai. But I can't afford being even more popular than I am now. It's too troublesome. So I ask you to keep this a secret."

She was looking at him intently, ensuring that Momo would not have much of a choice. He just nodded sadly in understanding, he was walking with Ryoma to school after all. They weren't even staring at him per se, but he was still freaked out.

Ryoma, seeing her friend's disappointment, promised him that he could come and play with Ryoga anytime so long as he agreed. Momo's face lightened up upon hearing her offer, and exclaimed "YATTA!" making everyone shift their gazes, which were originally on Ryoma, to him.

He blushed in embarrassment and bid his farewell. "Come later in practice. Tezuka's there." He teased knowing of Ryoma's admiration towards his captain. He was honestly expecting the boy to ignore him. But he smiled, catching Momoshiro by surprise.

ROOM 1-A

Thankfully, she was the only one inside the classroom. Apparently, Takeda-sensei asked her students to come about 5 minutes before class so the assigned cleaner, Ryoma, could clean up since the teacher knew her student would be late. She saw a few fan girls peeping here and there but there weren't many of them so she could easily scare them off with her trademark glare.

She opened the window for a little air as well as for her dusting later, but when she looked outside... for an instant then sensed something drop from above. With her quick reflexes she managed to catch the object accelerating 32 feet per second.

She looked at the object and she scoffed at the sight of it.

It was a mobile phone.

'What kind of idiot drops his phone on the window, anyway?'

She looked above to see who might've dropped it but there was no one in sight. She shrugged and put the phone on the teacher's table.

She started with arranging the chairs and the side tables, then proceeded taking care of the teacher's table, and finally went to clean the blackboard and its apparatuses. Eventually, the time to clean the erasers came and she went to the windows to do dust them.

Rustle

It came from below, and before she could even look down-

"*cough*Oi- *cough*" the bush said.

She narrowed her eyes at the figure in the bush. It was a person... pretty much white from the chalk dust. He had cat-like eyes and well, pretty much the presence of a cat in general. She stared at him for a moment, thinking of Karupin.

"W-What the heck is your problem kiddo? Can't you see I'm doing something important here? Nya~" The guy exclaimed looking violated.

She blinked and then sighed, disappointed. 'Aha, never mind... Karupin is WAY more mature than this guy.' She thought and then closed the window. But when she was walking away, she heard loud knocking on the glass window.

It was the annoying white-bushcat.

She irritably opened the window; she didn't want to get in anymore trouble by allowing the glass to break. She glared at him.

"What?"

The bushcat pouted and pointed at the phone. She looked at it and asked, "Yours?"

He shook his head,"My friend's". Ryoma saw that he was anxious and a bit scared. She just frowned at the chalk-covered boy and started to interrogate him. "Is this really your friend's? Why do you look freaked out, then?"

The boy frowned as a reply.

But then, he suddenly recalled what could happen to him if he didn't get it back.

He shivered for his life.

-Flashback-

WALKING HOME, 15 HOURS AGO

"Ahhhh~ How tiring!" he complained to his doubles partner Oishi Suichiro as they walked towards the club's meeting place on the opponent's school grounds.

Their practice game was not hard; in fact it was the exact opposite of a challenge. He was tired because their captain suddenly assigned 20 laps to him and him alone for asking harmless questions like 'Ne Tezuka, why do you seem especially serious today...?'

He was about to look at the sky in wonder when his peripheral vision caught a lone figure standing in their meeting place.

It was his best friend, Fuji, who was standing still by the school gate... smiling at his fold-able mobile phone. He tilted his head, puzzled. He barely saw his friend use his mobile phone, but now he'd seen him look at it so many times during the day.

"Ne, Fujiko~!" Kikumaru Eiji yelled as he approached his always-smiling friend. Fuji didn't answer, nor did he even move. Determined, the red-head moved even more quickly to the frozen tennis player.

"FUJIKO!" He screamed right beside his ear trying to get his best friend's attention back.

"Nani?" he answered with his usual expression, not fazed at all. The human cat was taken aback.

Something was off, very off. He'd been best friends with this boy for 2 years now, and this is the first time he'd seen him this… preoccupied.

Curious, he stared at his friend's phone wondering what could be inside. Fuji immediately noticed this and frowned. Sensing Fuji's displeasure, and the humiliation that might accompany it, he frantically tried to find a way to change the topic.

"W-Weren't you a bit too nice to your opponent earlier today? I mean, giving him 2 games and all…" he managed to ask.

"I was?" He asked back with a plastered smile still on his face. Eiji raised a brow and placed his hands on his hips. "What's wrong with you and Tezuka today, anyway? Nya~" the human cat asked perplexed at the fact that the two calmest people he knew were acting well… not like themselves…

"Tezuka?" Fuji questioned, he didn't notice at all since he was pretty much in a trance the whole day. His best friend nodded. "Tezuka seems to be pissed off today. I was just asking him some… things and he suddenly glared at me! He even assigned me laps!" He exclaimed looking like he just lost a finger.

Fuji ignored his friend's rants and automatically looked at Tezuka, who was then with the others walking to their direction.

Indeed, although most people would see no change in expression, he could see that Tezuka was in a bad mood. He wondered why… 'Maybe if I found out I'd get good blackmail material.' He thought evilly.

Eiji noticing that his friend was looking at their captain, decided to ask again what was with him and his phone. He was about to say a good opening line when they heard a vehicle's horn right behind them.

"Syusuke." A very familiar female voice called his friend. It was Fuji's sister, Yumiko.

"Hello, nee-san." Fuji smiled.

"Ready to go home?" She asked. Fuji nodded and waved at his teammates. Eiji sighed sadly.

And so, the human cat could no longer pry… for the day, anyway.

SCHOOL, A LITTLE AFTER 8AM

Eiji came to came to school with his imaginary Sherlock Holmes costume (since the real one was too expensive). He was determined to find out what's inside Fuji's phone.

He silently peeked into the classroom from the back door. He looked around and he saw Fuji, sitting in his chair smiling oddly at his phone again.

Using his inhuman stealth, Eiji slowly came closer to his unsuspecting friend.

He carefully placed himself behind Fuji and adjusted his head to see the screen of his friend's mobile phone. His heart was filled with anticipation as he was finally going to see what was keeping Fuji's attention. 'It's-"he squealed internally for an instant but stopped the second he saw the image.

"W-Wasabi?" He thought incredulously… out loud consequently making Fuji turn his head in a creepy, mechanical way.

Eiji gulped. 'What's he so mad about? It's just Wasabi…'

Then he blinked at a feint memory abruptly appearing in his head. He saw a flash of white just before he saw the wasabi; he had superhuman eyesight so he was sure.

'Could it be that he managed to change the photo at the last second?' He thought suspiciously to himself.

Fuji's attempts on hiding it just made the already meddlesome human cat more curious. And being the fastest on their tennis team, he swiftly grabbed the phone loosely being held by his friend's hands.

Fuji's eyes opened in surprise, and Eiji shivered instantaneously at the sight of Fuji's cerulean orbs- filled with irritation. He never did this before- especially not to a sadist. He looked around and saw people cluttering around... some of them amused some just curious.

He frowned. No one would help him in this situation- and he frantically looked for a way out of his friend's wrath.

'Should I run away?' he asked himself as he looked at the location of the door. It was behind Fuji, and he was now nervously backing away from it and towards the open window. He mentally punched himself for not using his already barely-used brain.

"Eiji." Fuji called in a serious tone of voice as he slowly walked closer to him. He now had his eyes closed but Eiji was still shivering like a rabbit trapped by a wolf with no place to escape. Fuji took a particularly heavy footstep getting his victim to instinctively back away.

The human cat knew there was no place to run now. 'Maybe if I give up now, I won't die…?' he thought hopefully. So Eiji, being Eiji, believed in the optimism of his situation.

And so, he decided to give Fuji his phone back.

He raised both of his hands up at the gesture of surrender. But unexpectedly, Fuji's eyes opened all of a sudden. He was staring at the hand that held his phone.

Eiji automatically looked at his hand. The phone was no longer there. He gulped.

Fuji eyes slowly and eerily shifted from his hands to his eyes. Eiji could only manage to chuckle nervously.

'Oops.'

-End of flashback-

The red-head's face turned to that in a horror movie. He was the person to be killed.

"My friend's a sadist so if I don't get it fixed and bring it back to him by today I will see hell. Nya!" He said as if it had nothing to do with him, but anxious regardless. He was now chalk-free, revealing his very red head, because he decided to go inside the room. That, and Ryoma said she would punch him if he gets chalk to the floor.

"Fixed?" Ryoma asked.

"Duhh… It fell from the fourth floor, nya~" he replied as-a-matter-of-factually.

"You're a senior?" She said, incredulous. Eiji, who didn't sense the mockery in her voice, just grinned proudly.

"You smell like a five-year-old." She stated raising an eyebrow.

"Nya?" he questions, having no idea what she just said. 'Didn't I take a bath this morning?' he tried to reassure himself but he smelled different parts of his body effectively showing off his flexibility anyway.

'He sure can remind people of cats.' She thought, amused. Ryoma liked animals, especially cats. She even used to like monkeys … before that accident in a certain zoo...

-Flashback-

NISPEDANA CHILDREN'S ZOO, 8 years ago

5-year old Reina was walking happily with the limited edition 1-liter bottle of pineapple-flavored Ponta resting in her arms. But since the bottle was half her size she had a hard time drinking it.

She decided to lay it on a surface about as high as her chest and tilt it in a way she could drink it with minimal spill. But unfortunately, the surface was the rail right outside the cage for monkeys. And it just so happened that the monkeys could reach the said rail.

And so as if by some force of nature, a monkey tipped her Ponta as she was drinking it, effectively sending 99% of it to the floor.

-End of flashback-

And since then, she had a tendency to associate annoying people with monkeys.

...

"What do you mean by smell? Nya~" The human cat asked her after finishing his little inspection. Ryoma examined him; she knew she would have a hard time explaining it to him, so she just muttered that it was nothing.

She looked at the boy and how he pouted. He's doing the kitten-cat eyes intriguing Ryoma to no end. She grabbed the cell phone and climbed up to the teacher's table so that she got to be a meter taller than him.

Eiji blinked. 'Nya?' He asked himself confused at what the kid was doing.

Ryoma smirked. He was like a cat, albeit not Karupin. Karupin was a really smart and mature cat, maybe even more of an adult than this guy.

Ryoma let one of her hands out with the phone on it. She started moving it in circles above Eiji's head. The human cat instinctively tried to grab it but Ryoma lifted it higher so that he couldn't reach it. As the play went on for about a minute, a bystander would think cell phones were the catnip for human cats.

But soon enough, they heard footsteps about several meters away.

Eiji immediately went to serious mode and jumped to grab the cell phone that was high above Ryoma's head. She blinked, surprised at the impressive leap. She looked down on the boy who was now jumping from joy like a toddler who finally got his pacifier back from his bullying older sister.

His celebration, though, was abruptly halted as he realized that the phone wasn't broken at all.

"I caught it when it was falling down." Eiji winced in surprise before beaming and quickly hugged the little boy. "NYA~~ ! Arigatou, Ochibi-nya~!"

A vein appeared on her forehead 'I saved his life and he calls me LITTLE?'

"I just saved your life senpai. You owe me." She stoically stated with a hint of annoyance in her voice.

Then, they realize that the footsteps had gotten very close. "Better go now neko-senpai." He nodded at the little boy who saved him from total humiliation courtesy of his best friend. He quickly went to the window, also relieved that the kid didn't press him for payment.

Little did he know that the said kid was smirking evilly at him.

'I'll make you pay later… at the club.'

3-A

"You're late, Kikumaru Eiji." the deep male voice of their English teacher stated.

"G-Gomen, s-sensei." Eiji stuttered. The teacher pointed at a sentence on the board. "Translate this paragraph into English. You will not sit down until you answer it correctly."

"EEEHHHH!" the human cat shouted loudly that even Ryoma could hear. She laughed internally, along with the boisterous laughter of Eiji's classmates.

*An hour later*

"Here." Eiji begrudgingly handed the phone over to Fuji during the break between subjects. Fuji raised his eyebrows examining the unharmed phone. "It's still working." He stated with a mix of relief and worry in his voice.

"A cute little freshman caught it." He said happily while Fuji frowned in suspicion. "Did either of you look inside?"

The neko flinched. 'I didn't think about that! Oh maaaaaaaaaaaaaan. Nya.' He shouted despairingly at himself.

"Well…?" Fuji pressed waiting for an answer. Eiji shook his head getting Fuji's frown to disappear. Fuji knew his best friend wouldn't – or couldn't, rather - lie to him, after all.

"You should sit down now, Eiji. You don't want Takeda-sensei to see you standing up when she gets here, no?" The red-head winced. Takeda Maya preferred to see her class already seated and quiet once she had entered the door. If she saw anyone still standing up, or just chatting, she would make them stand up the whole session.

So Eiji hurriedly went to his seat and stayed there until the end of the break.

...

"Good Morning class."

Takeda arrived and the students did their costumary greetings. As soon as they sat, she immediately started speaking about the day's lesson. Her class kept quiet, as usual, so she got to concentrate on writing on the board for a while.

And as she wrote Math problems on the board, the engrossed teacher did not sense that one of her students was playing with his phone.

It was Fuji, unfortunately for her, and he had never put himself up for trouble unless he could avoid it. He looked at his phone and clicked on 'my pictures'. There was a folder named 'E.R.' that could easily mean 'Emergency Room' containing gory pictures if it was on Fuji's phone.

He smiled and clicked on it. Inside there were a few pictures of a certain girl frantically looking for a shade under the rain… and one as she was petting his favorite cat, Karupin.

He chuckled internally. It wasn't easy to take pictures of her since she was so alert. It was made even harder because her brother and father were in the vicinity.

It was an achievement to get that last one.

He looked at the girl's serene face…

…and wondered when he'd get the chance to take some more pictures.

.

.

END OF CHAPTER VII

Next:
Chapter VIII:Meeting the other regulars- Part 2!


...


REPLIES TO ANGELS

Blueberryxn - Thanks again for the review~!

Tsuky0Angel - Lolz, nice support on the guys woman! Hahaha. Thanks for the review!

rjifblue - Saa... the prefecturals haven't even started yet! Haha. Let's take it sloooooowww. HAHAHA. Thanks for the review~!

Mintleafeon - Hehehe. Sure do hope she stays cool! Ty for the reviews!

Silverharpie17 - Thank you! And me too. Sometimes I wonder if I torture him too much. Haha

SoulSilverShipping - Hahaha. Can't reall think of anything to describe those type of guys. Thanks for the review!

Frostfire613 - Can't guarantee you that just yet. Haha, but I'll count your vote and you should vote in the polls as well, if you have the time. Thank you for the reviews!

Annanimeaddict - Be reasonable! Haha. First you tell me not to die, and now this? HAHHAHA. Thanks for the review~


Thank you for reading,
and please pause for a moment and let me know what your reactions were!