Disclaimer: Prince of tennis does not belong to me.

NOTE: Sorry for the slow update and the short chapters. Hope you enjoy this chapter.

"Ryoma-chan, we have arrived around fifteen minutes ago. You have to wake up." Yukimura said shaking him gently.

Slowly awaking from his slumber, Ryoma blinked sleepily at the regulars, trying to make out who the blur figures in front of were. Finally awake, he processed what Yukimura said before apologising and heading out of the bus, holding his bags and tennis rackets. Looking at the place he was going to stay in for a week, he hoped he did not get lost in the gigantic mansion in front of him. As his sense of direction was not very good, he decided that he would follow Yukimura the whole of the seven days.

"We will be staying in the room on the left of the staircase, which is beside Atobe's room. That is the room I always use when I stay over at Atobe's house. If you lose your way, you can follow Atobe or ask any maid where room number twenty-four is. I will also advise you that if your sense of direction is not very good, do not try wandering around the mansion. There are more than fifty rooms in this mansion and you might get lost." Yukimura explained.

As the three captains were good friends and stayed near to each other, they often visited the other's house to play or study. Despite this summer house being the smallest one that Atobe has, it was situated on a hill and was built with tennis courts, gyms, swimming pools and other recreational activities.

"Everyone listen up. We came here to practice for the tournaments and not to play. Training begins tomorrow at five in the morning. The three things we will be training are speed, endurance and skill. Anyone late to practice tomorrow will be punished, so will their roommates. Therefore, to not get punished, the partners should remind each other to wake up on time and be punctual. As some of the rooms have not changed the beds from singles to doubles, you will have to share the bed. Since you are all males, sharing a bed should not be a problem. If there is a very violent objections as to who is sharing a bed with whom, you can tell the maids, they will help you change the beds. You are allowed to roam around but if you get lost, just ask for directions. You are dismissed."

Atobe said before dismissing all the members. All the tennis regulars went back to their own rooms to unpack their bags and to see whether they got two beds or a queen-sized bed.

Once they reached their room, Ryoma opened the door and looked inside. They were one of the pairs that had to share a queen sized bed. Not really caring, Ryoma held the door so that Yukimura could enter. After Yukimura entered the room, Ryoma dragged his bags into the room and closed the door, which locked automatically for the privacy of the people staying inside.

"Seiichi-buchou, if I cannot wake up tomorrow, would you mind waking me up?" Ryoma knew that the chances of him being able to wake up are very low and as he did not want to get punished, he had to ask a favour from his captain.

Giving a nod as his answer, Yukimura assured Ryoma that he would not leave without him. "Besides, if you are late, I will get punished too." He added. Thanking Yukimura, Ryoma took a set of casual wear and headed towards the toilet to change. Although they were both boys, somehow, he did not like showing his body to others as they always commented about him being very skinny and having a small build.

Meanwhile, Yukimura was planning where to go. He knew this place quite well and was not sure where he should go first. Deciding to ask Ryoma whether he would like to take a walk around Atobe's house after he comes out of the toilet, he sat on the bed and waited for him to come out.

Yukimura looked at the bed and wonder how they should sleep that night. Ryoma was quite small in size and he was not very big either. But somehow, the thought of two people sharing a bed made the bed feel very small. Giving a barely audible sigh, Yukimura ran a hand through his hair and let his ever-present smile drop for awhile. He did not know why but being around the prodigy freshman made him slightly unable to control his emotion. It made him feel something he had never felt before, making him slightly worried about whether he was falling in love with Ryoma. Yukimura's eyebrow twitched, this camp would not be very boring, something was going to happen and he knew it.

At the same time, Nanjiroh could help but think that something was going on. Seeing his precious son on first name basis with a man was making him feel like chaining them up until they tell him what was going on. Sitting cross-legged for awhile longer, he finally jumped up and said "Rinko, I am going out for a few days! I will be finding someone." Taking his bicycle, Nanjiroh hopped on the bicycle and pedalled away. He couldn't help but worry about his son; after all, his son was even prettier than a normal girl.

'This is going to be a long trip.' Nanjiroh thought as he continued pedalling, 'all I have on me is a bus card, some magazines and a couple of hundred yens.'

Ryoma and Yukimura walked to the entrance of the summer house, after Ryoma had agreed to walk with Yukimura for awhile, they decided to visit the beach near the house. To reach the beach, they had to go through a shortcut Yukimura and Atobe discovered during their stay. Within fifteen minutes, they had reached the beach and were waiting for the sunset while walking around the beach. As the sun set, the few thin strips of clouds on the horizon turned shimmering gold. Yukimura and Ryoma stopped their footsteps to admire nature's beauty.

"The sunset was glorious, wasn't it?" Yukimura said to the person beside him, getting a soft 'hmm' for a reply. "Seiichi-buchou, we should be heading back. It will be raining soon." Ryoma said staring at the sky. Hearing what Ryoma said, Yukimura nodded before turning back to where they came from. Halfway back to the summer house, a cloud, ominous and black, drifted over the hills and released a sudden shower. By the time they reached the house, they were fully drenched from head to toe.

The worried regulars, especially Oishi, rushed them to their room to get a change of clothes before bringing them to the sick bay. As Ryoma had a slight fever, he was excused from practice the next day and was ordered to have a good rest.

Ryoma looked out the window, a flash of forked lightning and a great clap of thunder came close upon each other. The wind was sighing and thrashing in the tree tops and the boughs moaned. He had the urged to ask a regular to accompany him, but his pride would not allow him to. Deciding to return to his room, he got off the bed and walked slowly to his room.

Somehow, he managed to locate his room and entered it using his keys. Yukimura was preparing to sleep when Ryoma entered the room. Concealing his surprise, Yukimura went over and helped Ryoma. When they were about to reach the bed, a bolt of lightning tore across the sky and a peal of lightning followed. This time, Yukimura was unable to hide his shock when Ryoma jumped on him causing them to fall on the bed. The look in his eyes softened when he saw Ryoma's frightened expression. Putting one hand around Ryoma's waist and the other holding the blanket, he covered the blanket over the both of them.

Taking a walkman out of his bag, he placed it over Ryoma's ears and on a song. Slowly, Ryoma began to fall asleep in Yukimura's arms and soon, Yukimura was also asleep.

"Yukimura-buchou, Echizen is excused but not you! You have to wake up!"

Luckily, the door was locked and they could not see what was inside. Ryoma had this bad habit of snuggling up to anyone that shares a bed with him. Yukimura had his hands wrapped around Ryoma's waist in a death grip, and his legs were tangled with Ryoma's. Ryoma was lying within Yukimura's embrace and was still snuggling into him like a cat. They were in a very compromising position and if others were to see it, they would definitely misunderstand. Slowly stirring from the noise the people outside were making, Yukimura tried to get up only to see himself tangled up with Ryoma. Flushing red, he untangled himself and within a few minutes, got himself ready and headed out of the room; not before throwing the sleeping Ryoma a glance.

"Sorry for making you wait. Let's go."

Normally, Yagyuu would not really involve himself in his captain's business. However, he could help but wonder why his captain who was never late could oversleep. 'Did he stay up all night to take care of Echizen? Why is he so worried about him?' Yagyuu didn't really say anything but he could tell that his captain was quite attached to the freshman prodigy. Something about that boy attracted Yukimura's attention. 'To be the centre of Yukimura's or the elder Fuji's attention, many people would long to be in their place. However, those who know of their wraths would sympathise the person, Ryoma in this case, as they are very protective and will take pleasure in seeing others suffer. If what I think is correct, I sympathise Echizen greatly.'

"Yagyuu, what are you doing standing over there! You can visit Echizen later!" Sanada's voice broke Yagyuu's train of thoughts. Quickly catching up with them, he decided not think about it anymore.

"This is the place. So this is where Ryoma is."

Nanjiroh said standing at the foot of the hill. He was cycling when it started pouring. A nice young man gave him a ride and dropped him off in front of the house. On the way to his destination, Nanjiroh picked up a flyer and managed to get a job at the summer house of a couple of days. The coach in charge of the tennis courts was taking a couple days of leave as he had family business to attend. His job required him to take the regulars to the court and make them do their warm-up and also to assign the players their blocks. The salary he was able to earn was not much to him as although he had no jobs, he was just about as rich as Atobe with the money he earned when he was a professional player.

"Now to go in and visit Ryoma." Nanjiroh hummed a tune and started walking up the hill.

"The coach will be here later so for now, you people can do some stretching." Atobe told the regulars. The coach has not arrived and until he arrives, they had nothing to do. 'If he isn't here in ten minutes, I will make them play matches among themselves and the captains will take one third of the regulars each.' Glancing at his watch, Atobe started stretching too.

"Hello! I am your coach for today until Wednesday. You can call me coach or Nanjiroh-san! It is nice to meet you all!" Nanjiroh said popping out of nowhere, scaring some of the regulars. Giving a sigh of relief, Atobe introduced himself and so did the regulars.

"You are Echizen Ryoma's father aren't you? I was a fan of yours since I was five!" Kirihara said voice filled with admiration. Momoshiro and a few other regulars also confessed that they were fans of his. Nanjiroh was about to reply when a ball came flying to his head, his quick reflexes saved him from an aching head. Turning around, preparing to shout at the person, he saw Ryoma glaring at him. Anger forgotten, he scratched his head before greeting him. "What are you doing here, you old man?" Ryoma grounded out, anger radiating off him.

Thinking of a feeble excuse, he shuffled his feet and started moving backwards. An angry Ryoma was not nice to mess with. Before Ryoma could do anything drastic to his father, Yukimura stepped out and said to Ryoma, "Your father being here is not very bad right? After all, with his experience, he could teach us a lot of things."

Listening to Yukimura's reasoning, Ryoma sighed and backed down. His captain was someone that he respected a lot and thus what he said was very important and mostly right. Everyone, including Ryoma's father, was shocked that Ryoma let his father off just because Yukimura told him to do so.

"Well, let's get started already. Time waits for no man." Despite Nanjiroh being an easy-going person, he was very strict when it comes to teaching tennis. Soon, all the members except Kaidoh, Yukimura, Atobe, Ryoma and Tezuka were panting and sweating profusely. By the end of the day, the regulars had to drag themselves all the way up to their rooms. After washing up and changing out of their tennis outfits, all the regulars were fast asleep before eight pm.

This is the end of chapter 10. Do you think I should update a short chapter once in a few days or a slightly longer one in a couple of weeks?

Please review.

Life beyond wishes.