A/N: Enjoy!

Chapter 11

True to her word, Rika practiced every lunchtime. Danielle joined in sometimes, but she just couldn't score a point against Rika. Most of the time she just watched Rika hit back every ball with both accuracy and strength.

"How come you pretended you suck at tennis when you weren't?" Danielle asked Rika one lunchtime. Rika had paused and walked over to have a drink.

"There wasn't any point." She replied after a long hesitation.

"No point? It would've upgraded your P.E mark from a C to at least a B plus," Danielle pointed out. Rika just shrugged, and shoved her bottle back into her bag.

"I don't see how upgrading my report mark was worthwhile."

"Rikaaa…" Her friend sighed. But it was fruitless to argue back, it was obvious Rika didn't want to discuss more of the subject.

"Fine. I won't ask about that. But I will ask, however, why did you suddenly take up an interest in tennis?"

"Mr. Jones blackmailed me." Rika sat down and fanned herself with her science book.

"B-blackmailed you?!" Danielle was stunned, he's like, the first ever person to successfully blackmail Rika! Just how stalker-ish is this teacher anyway?

"He's a freak!" Rika suddenly exclaimed, angry blotches of red appearing on her cheeks.

Danielle nodded, she sympathized her friend. "How did he manage to blackmail you?"

"He threatened to remove ice cream out of my life." Danielle nearing choked on her sandwich, but muffled it up by coughing. If Rika hadn't been so serious, Danielle would've laughed long and hard.

"I-ice cream? Just… that?" Danielle managed to ask.

"Especially Cookies and Cream." Rika glared at the gym, her brown eyes narrowing as she saw Mr. Jones walked out of the building.

What she saw next made her eyes go even narrower. Ryoma was walking behind the coach, his left hand holding his racket, and his right clutching a piece of paper.

Danielle followed her gaze and raised her eyebrows. "What's that he's holding?" She asked, squinting.

"His racket." Rika immediately answered. Danielle gave a groan, and pointed at the shorter figure in front of them.

"I meant the piece of paper! I think it's… blue? Or yellow?" She stood up for a better view.

Rika sighed and stood up as well, but for different reasons. "Bell's going to go." She reminded her friend. Danielle didn't answer, nor did she made any movement to pick up her things, instead, she continued to squint at the two figures who were now having some sort of quarrel.

Rika left Danielle alone in the tennis courts, and hurried (no wait, she never hurries) to her Maths classroom, whatever Ryoma and the coach was talking about, it didn't concern her.

Ha.

She was wrong, as usual.

"Tournament this Saturday folks! Boys and Girls teams are on the same day, same grounds!" Mr. Jones shouted over the chattering students. Rika watched as the coach tried to separate two girls from smothering Ryoma with their hugs, and bit on her lip to stop her from laughing as Ryoma edged away, casting nervous looks at the crazed-fans.

"Permission form in the left hand corner of the first courts, I want everybody to take one, please!" Mr. Jones grunted as he finally pulled the girls off, his face with sweaty and red from the exertion.

Rika picked up the form, and read it quickly. It was lucky that she read it straight away, because in tiny writing at the bottom right hand corner were the words: "Rika Yuuki is to join the boy's team, pairing with Ryoma Echizen."

She immediately scrunched up the form and threw it in the bin. She didn't mind pairing up with Ryoma (She'll just let him do all the work on his own, how he liked to play tennis) but the fact that she had to be in the Boy's team made her good and angry.

"What is this?" She hissed to Mr. Jones, pointing to the stack of forms. Mr. Jones seemed unfazed at the fuming girl facing him, and smiled cheerfully. "There isn't enough boys to be eligible, so I had no choice but to enter a girl. By the way, you're name's Bob for the tournament, just for Saturday, okay?" Then, patting her back, he walked away whistling happily, not noticing that Rika was practically breathing out fire.

"Oi." Someone poked her with a racket. She turned around, her eyes still flashing.

"What?" She asked, looking down at Ryoma. He gestured at an empty court, oblivious that Rika was about to snap.

"Lets practice."

"Fine. Whatever." She walked briskly there, leaving him behind. It'll be a good way for me to use all my extra energy, she thought as she glared at the coach.