A/n. Here is a shout-out to hprareslashfan for requesting an update. Sorry for not updating last night but I hope this chapter makes up for it!

"What are you doing here?" Syusuke asked incredulously, still not quite believing that Ryoma was standing in front of him after so long.

Ryoma smirked. "Well…you see…I'm the newest student here at Seigaku."

There was a pause and then…"YAY! OCHIBI IS COMING HERE!" Eiji yelled, happily bouncing around before tackling Ryoma again.

"Kiku!" Ryoma protested, rolling his eyes.

"Which sport?" Syusuke asked, running through all the sports that he's already done and matching them up with the sports offered at Seigaku.

"Tennis." Ryoma said, smirking widely and laughing when Syusuke joined Eiji in the Death Hug.

"So we get to play each other again!" he exclaimed.

"This time we will be on the same team, my dear Syu. We won't have to compete against each other." Ryoma said smiling fondly as he remembered the first time he met Syu and his brother.

"Fuji-senpai, you and Kikumaru-senpai know Ryoma Echizen?" the violet eyed youth asked incredulously.

"We met around eight years ago. It was a curling tournament and I made it to the finals. My opponent was Ry-kun." Syusuke smiled, happily remembering that day.

"And you won, right?" the same teen asked, a cocky note in his voice.

"I lost horribly." Syusuke said cheerfully. "So then I went up to the boy who beat me…he was only seven at the time…so cute…but anyway." Syusuke said, clearing his throat. "I asked him his name and kinda followed him around for a bit, dragging Yuuta with me in the process. He went into a hotel that was decorated with cactus and we talked."

"You and your cactus." Ryoma said fondly.

"I have to tell Yuuta! He will be so excited to see you again!" Syusuke exclaimed happily.

"I will come home with you after school today and we can talk more." Ryoma said decisively, perking up at the mention of another one of his friends.

"How do you know Echizen, Eiji?" a boy with bowl cut hair asked.

"My family got tickets to see the big gymnastics tournament in England nine years ago. We went and I saw this young child performing beautifully so I broke away from my family to watch him. He was amazing! I can still remember his whole performance!" Eiji recounted excitedly.

"That was the day he won his first championship for gymnastics." Eiji said proudly. "I was just getting interested in tennis and starting to work on my acrobatics. I was entranced with him so I decided I was going to talk to him."

"You should have seen him. Not much taller than I was at the time with short, shaggy red hair that flopped into his eyes. His wide chocolate eyes had stars in them and there was a bandage across his nose. He was so cute." Ryoma said teasingly, causing a light blush to rise on Eiji's face.

"ANYWAY!" Eiji said loudly before Ryoma could say anything else. "I introduced myself and we talked. You had such a soft voice then. You were really quite shy and you didn't talk a lot. You also weren't nearly as confident then as you are now." Eiji said with a grin.

Ryoma rolled his eyes. "Before I left, I offered to teach him a few tricks."

"Ochibi here taught me everything I know." Eiji revealed happily.

Ryoma blushed but a smile came over his face. "I think that you are giving me too much credit, Kiku. You've developed so many more techniques since then."

"Only because you taught me the basics and how to safely develop new things." Eiji said before a thought came over him. "WAIT?! How would you know about my new techniques? Does that mean you've been watching me?"

"I kept watch over all of my friends. My mother stayed in Japan while my oyaji and I travelled so I gave her a list of names and asked her to record any matches that she could and send them to me." Ryoma said with a shrug. "It's only fair since anybody and everybody can watch what I'm doing and I wanted to see how everybody was doing."

Eiji glomped him again. "You are the best friend ever!"

"Kiku…can't breathe!" Ryoma gasped as he slowly turned blue.

"Sorry." Eiji muttered sheepishly before releasing Ryoma. He took a few grateful gulps of air.

"So are you two going to introduce me to your team mates?" Ryoma asked with a raised eyebrow.

"They are your team mates now, Ry-kun." Syusuke said with a huge grin before sweeping his hand. "These are Kunimitsu Tezuka, Syuichiro Oishi, Takashi Kawamura, Sadaharu Inui, Takeshi Momoshiro, and Kaoru Kaidoh. Minna…this is Ryoma Echizen!" he introduced with an elaborate flourish.

Ryoma nodded at the others and smacked Syusuke on the back of the head.

"Mou Ry-kun! What was that for?" Syusuke said with a pout, surprising the rest of his team mates bar Eiji.

"For being an idiot." Ryoma said drily.

"Um Echizen?" Oishi asked hesitantly.

"You can call me Ryoma you know. Echizen is my baka oyaji." Ryoma said in amusement.

"Right…Ryoma. When did you start touring?" Oishi asked.

"I was six when I started touring. My first sport, however; was tennis but this is the first time I've toured tennis." Ryoma explained.

"So Eiji was the first person you met?" Inui asked, pen poised and at the ready.

"Yup…he was my first friend that I made too. We've already been over how adorable he was when he was younger so there's no need to rehash that." Ryoma said with a teasing grin at Eiji.

"Iie data." Inui muttered, scribbling quickly in his book.

"You just finished your boxing debut, right?" Tezuka asked, remembering his dad mentioning something about an up and coming young boxer.

"Yeah I just flew in from France yesterday." Ryoma agreed.

"You must be so tired then from jet lag! We shouldn't be standing here and bothering you when you should be getting sleep!" Oishi exclaimed, fretting over the sports star.

"I'm fine, really…Oishi, right?" Ryoma asked. At his nod, he continued, "I've dealt with jet lag a lot so I hardly even notice anymore. Besides, I've already played a tennis match and been out with a few of my other friends and their team."

"You've already been playing tennis?" Kaidoh asked with a hiss.

"I don't need to learn this sport. My oyaji and I play tennis in between tours to keep me in top condition. Plus, it was the first sport I learned, even though I didn't tour it." Ryoma explained with a fond smile on his face.

"Who did you play with?" Syusuke asked, feeling a flare of something in his chest.

"Hisa." Ryoma said as if that explained everything.

"And who is that?" Eiji asked, also feeling a slight bit of a strange feeling enter his chest.

"You would know him as Takahisa Kajimoto." Ryoma explained, watching with a smirk as all of their jaws dropped open in shock.

"He's really good! How the hell did you manage to play him when you should be exhausted from jet lag? What was the score?" Momoshiro asked.

"I slept for a bit when I got here so it's not like I was dead on my feet or anything." Ryoma said with an eye roll. They were definitely blowing this way out of proportion. "The score was six games to one in my favor." Ryoma said, savoring their once again shocked looks.

"You seriously beat him so easily?" Syusuke asked incredulously.

Ryoma nodded and decided to tease Syusuke a bit. "Better close your mouth, Syu. Wouldn't want anything flying in it, ne?" he asked mischievously before turning around and walking away just as the morning bell rung.

"Ryo-kun!" he yelled, running off after the teen and picking him up, setting Ryoma on his back once he caught up with him and ignoring his team mate's laughter.

"It's nice to have you back, Ryoma." Syusuke thought with a small smile before his eyes slid shut again and he assumed his normal expression, acting like he didn't currently have a protesting Ryoma clinging to his back.