36 Drabbles
10: Homework
"Ochibi~!" Kikumaru Eiji exclaimed, tennis racket in hand as he did a few cartwheels. Surrounding him were all the former Seigaku regulars, dressed casually in sports wear (shorts and a t-shirt). Each of them held tennis rackets, more than half in the middle of warming up. Of everyone, only Tezuka, Inui and Fuji remained still, watching all the tohers.
"Echizen, nice to see you again." Fuji said pleasantly, the same old smile ever-present on his gentle face. Beside him stood Tezuka, arms crossed and face stern as it had always been. Inui was a little ways behind them, notebook open and pen flying across the page. He started writing ever since Ryoma walked into the tennis court.
"Come on, come on! I'm itching to play!" Momoshiro shouted, swinging his racket with an audible 'whoosh'. Ryoma smirked, grabbing his racket from his tennis bag and catching the yellow ball Momoshiro threw at him.
"Hai." Ryoma answered.
They had started the little tennis get-together quite early. Ryoma had commented on having previously arranged plans, but the only day the rest of them were free was this one day; Saturday. As a result, they were able to negotiate with Ryoma an earlier time period to meet up, all of them wondering if they would be able to get up and be there on time. Naturally, with the threat of laps from Tezuka (though he was not their official captain anymore), all of them arrived earlier than they were supposed to. When Ryoma got there, most of them were already warmed up. He was as well, considering his father dragged him out of bed every morning to play matches with him.
They had been playing for a couple hours, sweat decorating their entire body. Everyone had had a turn to play against Ryoma, the prince as expected winning all the matches. Some of them amused and feeling mischievous, offered to play two-on-one, with Ryoma being the one. Intrigued with the idea, Ryoma agreed and prepared to stump Kaidoh and Inui at the same time.
He won.
A little ticked off, Momoshiro then challenged Ryoma to a three-on-one game. Ryoma, feeling particularly confident that day, agreed. Taking on Kikumaru, Oishi, and Fuji at the same time, Ryoma still won. It went on to four-on-one (Momoshiro, Kaidoh, Inui, and Kawamura) until Momoshiro finally challenged Echizen to the most difficult of challenges.
The entire team of Seigaku against the Prince of Tennis.
Guess who lost?
"Good game, Echizen." Inui said, walking up to the sweating tennis prince and shaking his hand. "I had suspected not even you would be able to beat all of us in a match. I appear to be proven wrong. Ii data." His notebook out, Inui was scribbling notes into it, Ryoma watching with a raised eyebrow. He was about to take another sip of ponta, when his cell phone suddenly rang. Inui perked up, hoping for some more data on the aloof prince of tennis. He was praying for it to be a call, but it was just a text message.
Ryoma quickly skimmed through the text message, and then closed his phone. Stuffing it in his pocket, Ryoma put his tennis racket back into its bag and zipped it up, swinging it over his shoulder. The action caught everyone's attention, as they were in the middle of watching Kaidoh and Momoshiro's tennis match.
"You're leaving already?" Oishi asked, a little bit of concern etched in his face. Ryoma nodded, adjusting his Fila cap.
"Yeah. I'll see you next month senpai-tachi. Ja." Ryoma waved, turning to walk away from the tennis court. He heard them all shout their goodbyes, before the sound of tennis balls hitting the ground and two rackets became apparent again. Ryoma would have turned the corner to get to the sidewalk, if Inui hadn't come up and stopped him.
"Echizen," he said, pushing the bridge of his glasses up. "If my calculations are right…" there was a devilish smile on his face. "You are going to teach Ryuzaki-sensei's granddaughter, Ryuzaki Sakuno, tennis lessons now." Ryoma looked at him for a long while; so long that Inui began to get anxious and nervous until Ryoma broke out into a grin.
"I see you've been doing your homework." Turning and walking away, Ryoma merely smirked at Inui's mumbled words behind him.
"Ii data…"
A/N The tenth drabble! Yaaay~! I now have twenty-six more to go (damn it).
The inspiration for this chapter was Ryoma's comment, "I see you've been doing your homework." I thought it was something appropriate to say to Inui, cause it seems like the guy is doing nothing but homework when he gathers data about everyone (and sometimes everything). Plus, I thought maybe it would be another nice change of pace to not include Sakuno in this chapter, except in passing.
Review for some chocolate truffles!
Snowflake Flower