Disclaimer: I don't own Prince of Tennis or any characters

Eiji's POV

On Monday after practice, I almost decided not to go meet everyone at the wall because I didn't really want to see Alex. I was still embarrassed that I had skated into them just to keep them from kissing. It was the only thing I could think of at the time and after I seen that Alex was hurt I was mad at myself.

"C'mon." Shuichiro said. "It's not like you to avoid things."

"With her, it's different." I told him, following him in that general direction anyway.

"I know it is." He sighed. "Why don't you tell her that you like her? That could solve all your problems."

"She's dating Kiryu now. I should've told her from the beginning." Why was I feeling like this? It wasn't like me to call it quits before the end of a game.

"I don't know man." Shiuchiro sighed. "They say love changes for you for the best." We rounded the corner to the wall and everyone was there except Alex. I hopped up on the small wall and watched for Alex.

"Did you guys have fun on Saturday?" Tezuka asked us, not looking up from his book.

"Yeah." Momo said. "Did anyone else know that she was dating Kiryu Endo?" Shusuke spit his pop everywhere and started coughing.

"What?" He asked between his coughs.

"Yeah." Momo said, digging through his backpack for something. "She was all snuggled up with him, skating with him and his friends like she didn't have a care in the world on Saturday."

"Well no wonder she kept turning me down." Shusuke said, wiping his hands on his pants in an attempt to clean them.
"They do seem to get along quite well together." Sadaharu said. "But I was not aware that they were an item."

"He said that secret relationships were more fun." I said angrily remembering the smirk he gave me right after he winked at her.

"No doubt she was the one who wanted to keep it a secret." Sadaharu said. Everyone looked at him curiously and he explained further. "In her year, Alex is quite popular and she spends 40 percent of her time with us. No doubt she didn't want us to know because there is a lot testosterone among us." If this wasn't such a serious conversation, I would've busted up laughing but he made sense.

"Among her concerns could be the possibility that we are going to try to intimidate him, warning him that if he hurts her he'll have to answer to us. In the end that could scare him away, he is somewhat more fragile than the male should be." I thought about that one and I groaned internally as the odds of that happening were high.

"Well I know that's what I'm going to do." Shusuke said.

"As am I." Kaoru said. Everyone looked at him and he hissed. "What? She's my friend and I don't want to see her get hurt."

"I probably would say something too." Shuichiro said. "I would also like Kiryu to know that if he's just messing with her that he's messing with the wrong girl."

"Me too." I said quietly. I was watching towards the gate when I saw Alex come into view. I jumped off the wall and waited while she made her way to us. I felt my face get hot when Kiryu intercepted her and they started talking. I shook my head and turned to head off to class even though the bell hadn't rung yet.

In my first hour Haruna came and found me.

"Did you have fun on Saturday?" She asked me. I thought about Alex and Kiryu together and almost said no when I thought about the question and knew she wasn't talking about that.

"Yeah." I smiled. "You know, leaving out my collide with Alex and Kiryu." She laughed and I started doodling random things in my notebook.

"Well I was wondering if maybe you'd like to do that again, just you and me." I looked at her and she turned a bright shade of pink.

"Yeah. I would like that." I will never understand why I had just said that. She smiled and I felt so guilty that I was giving her false hope.

"Great. Are you free on Friday?" I looked out the window and seen Alex and Kiryu sitting under a tree talking and the guilt seemed to disappear.

"Yeah. I'm free on Friday." The first bell rang and I watched as Kiryu helped Alex up and they started off towards class together.

The first half of the day passed by slowly and by lunch, I was starving. Me and Oishi headed off to the cafeteria and joined everyone at the table. Alex joined us not soon after we got there and everything was so normal it was almost scary.

"Why did you do that?" I heard Alex ask Shusuke, getting my attention. "He told me that you talked to him."

"Did he tell you that I talked to him too?" Kaoru asked.

"Or me?" Sadaharu put in.

"Me too." Tezuka asked. Alex threw up her hands and all I could do was stare at Tezuka. He was the only one I was expecting not to talk to him.

"Why are you guys doing this?" She asked.

"None of us want to see you get hurt." Shusuke said. "So if he really likes you, he has nothing to fear."

"But it's not like that." Alex said.

"Then how is it?" Kaoru asked.

"Well." Alex said, "It's more complicated than that."

"How complicated can him liking you and you liking him be?" I asked, a little annoyed.

"It's just," She started but to all of our surprises Kiryu came and sat down next to her on the end of the table.

"What did I miss?" He asked, smiling like nothing was wrong. I stared at him like he was crazy.

"Hey Kiryu." Momo said, the first one to recover. Everyone greeted him except me.

"Sorry to surprise you guys on Saturday." He laughed. "We were going to tell you, but we just didn't know when. Honestly I thought you were guys were going to be harder on me."

"You've still got 3 of us to survive buddy." Momo said cooly.

"As long as I'm serious about her I'm in the clear, yeah?" He asked, putting his arm around her. He smiled at her and she smiled back, obviously relieved about something.

"Just don't slip up at the finish line." I growled and got up without touching my food. I was so mad that I made my way to the tennis courts. I sat on the bleachers, bouncing a tennis ball off the fence and catching it. Maybe if I had told her how I felt before, this wouldn't be a problem.

"AAAHHHHH." I screamed, whipping the tennis ball as hard as I could.

"I haven't heard you scream like that in quite some time." I heard a familiar voice behind me.

"Yeah, well I haven't felt this frustrated in some time." I said, without turning to look at Shuichiro.

"I know. I noticed." He sat down on the bleachers some ways away and bounced the ball at an angle so that it bounced towards me. We didn't talk for a minute, just bouncing the ball back and forth.

"I don't really know what to tell you man." Shuichiro confessed.

"You can't tell me anything." I said.

"This is a whole different game that has no rules." He said, tossing the ball at me with some force.

"You're telling me?" I asked.

"You know, I honestly thought that eventually you 2 would end up together." He scoffed. "You know, I can tell she likes you too."

"She has a weird way of showing it." I told him.

"Yeah. Girls are so complicated. You can't live with them…"

"And you can't live without them." We said in unison. In spite of myself, I had to laugh. We sat there in silence some more, just tossing the ball back and forth and I felt a little bit better.

The lunch bell rang and we got up and headed back into the school.

"Are you going to be alright?" Shuichiro asked. I nodded and headed off to class. During my last class free period, I went to the library and started to study.

"So you're really dating that American girl Alex Cross?" I looked up at Alex's name and saw Kiryu walking with a group of friends. I left my stuff there, and followed them on the other side of a book shelf, listening.

"Yeah." He said.

"Dude, why didn't tell us you were dating her?"

"I don't know? We just didn't want to tell anyone."

"Why her?" One of his friends asked. "Why not one of the other girls that fancy you?"

"I don't know. I just think she's different."

"Different. Are you feeling alright? That doesn't sound like you." The boys laughed and I just listened as they found a table and continued to talk.

"I'm telling you, if I wasn't serious about her I wouldn't even have gone near her. You wouldn't believe me even if I told you what those tennis guys all said. If I was with her and I wasn't serious, I would probably end up dead in a month." So, the rest of the guys had got their point across and he was still with her.

"What did they say?" One of his friends asked.

"Just that if I was messing around with her that I was messing with the wrong girl." He said. There was a hand on my shoulder and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I looked around to see Alex standing next to me with her finger to her lips, telling me to shush.

She snuck her hand into mine and I followed her as she led me to the 2nd floor balcony and to the back.

"What is it?" I asked, not bothering to whisper cause no one came back this way. I don't even know why they had this part in the library, it was a complete waste of time and space.

"Have you talked to Kiryu yet?" She asked, letting go of my hand.

"No." I said, wondering if she only brought me back here to talk about Kiryu.

"Are you going to?" She asked.

"Yeah. I am." I said, honestly.

"It's not what you think it is." She said quietly, looking me in the eyes. I stared back at her, not breaking the stare down and I felt captivated by her.

"He's just using you." I said, angrily. "I knew it. I'm going to let him have it." I made to go after Kiryu but I felt Alex grab me and pull me to her. I wondered what she was doing when her lips bushed against mine so lightly that it tickled, and then she fully kissed me. I was taken completely off guard that I didn't react for a second and then I kissed her back. But just as I was starting, she pulled away and looked down at the ground.

"I know that you like me." She whispered. I felt my face get hot.

"So why didn't you say anything?" I asked, whispering back.

"Because me and you can't be together." She said.
"Why not?" I asked, my heart feeling heavy.

"Because it's not fair."

"What's not fair?" I grabbed her by the chin and made her look me in the eyes.

"I can't give you my entire heart." She said, her eyes tearing up. "I may like you, but I can never love you." It felt like every time I took a breath, a small needle was being poked into my heart.

"What do you mean?" I asked, confused.

"It's not fair to be with someone if you can't eventually give them all you have." She said.

"How do you know if you've never tried?" I asked.

"Because I know myself very well and I'm not going to let you in." I stared into her eyes and knew that she was telling the truth. I thought about telling her that we could still be together and that I would wait, but I didn't know how true that was going to hold. She was right, we couldn't be together.

She leaned in closer to me and I thought for a second that she was going to kiss me again and my lips began to tingle with excitement. I closed my eyes and I felt her breath on my lips, soft and warm.

"So you understand that we can't?" She asked, her lips brushing mine so softly that they felt like eyelashes were being fluttered on them.

"Yeah." I said without moving my lips.

"Good." She said, pulling away from me and moving away. "When you talk to Kiryu, make sure that you're nice." With my eyes still closed, I listened to the sounds of her feet rushing away. I didn't open my eyes for a few more minutes, remembering the softness of her lips against mine and only wanting one more kiss.

How the hell did Kiryu get so damn lucky?