OMG! I am ambidextrous! Okay, not really, but I can write (fairly) neatly with both hands, and eat with both hands (using utensils, of course) and use chopsticks with both hands! Albeit (a lot) more slowly with the left… My sister says that I'm right handed, but right brained, does that even make sense? How is that even possible? But I can write with both hands now, and that, in my book, is a fairly large accomplishment. (I am easily satisfied)

Well, on to less irrelevant things and back to the story. I deviated from the original plan. I had not prepared for the oh so popular bowl to make another guest appearance, but hey, love the little things in life!

And on to even LESS irrelevant things, I hereby declare the following chapter open. I think I dedicate too many words to utter rubbish, but hey, (love the little things in life)

And thank you all who so kindly reviewed! Your reviews all made me laugh, and really puts my *cough* horrendous *cough* haircut into perspective. It made me feel better, and not wear a hat to school, not that it was allowed anyway. But it had better grow back soon, or else. Hmm, anyone feeling violent?

ARRGH I got distracted again!

Enjoy the chapter!

P.S. English, is underlined italics, I think something went wonky when I tried it last time, but hopefully it will turn out okay when I post this up eh


The weekend passed in a flash of rushed assignments, loud noises and disturbing giggles coming from the tensai's room. Ryoma did NOT want to know what he got on that camera of his.

Before long, school started again, and Ryoma found himself in the woeful position of a certain kind of hell called 'Gym class'.

Thankfully, he was excused, because of 'Medical Reasons'. As to what he did during that period could be described in one word: nothing. Or, in nine words: sitting and stoning and trying to ignore flirting girls. Why could they not have gym class separately from those giggling demons? They happened to be doing track that day, and whenever the gun was fired to signify the beginning of the run, they would either complain about how boring this was, ignore it and continue talking, or pretended to be injured.

Not that the boys were doing much better. Most of them were gathered in little packs talking about disturbing subjects too alarming to be named. (A/N the boys at my camp really did this, please don't accuse me of being sexist). Ryoma sighed, was there even a way to get though the day still remotely normal? No wonder Fuji turned out the way he did.

He watched two giggling girls prance across the track in their illegally short shorts, swaying their hips as they did so. Turning his eyes away from this obscenity, he watched as the other levels set out to their own gym modules. Rock climbing, swimming, gymnastics, basketball and even badminton. Tennis minus ground plus feathers. He smirked. He remembered his first time with the wretched sport, watching in horror as the shuttle spun in messy routes through the air. He never touched a badminton racquet ever again. His father had asked if he had learnt anything from that experience. Nothing. Nothing at all. Except never to touch a ball with feathers attached.

Ryoga had laughed, while bouncing a shuttle effortlessly with his racquet, flicking his wrists lazily. Ryoma smiled at the memory. Ryoga had played spectacularly, and yet he had refused to even step into a court before he had re-mastered tennis. He sighed and reverted his attention back to the lesson, immediately regretting his decision as a couple of students tripped over each other and fell, limbs tangling as they did so. He smacked his palm to his forehead, feeling his IQ being severely depleted by the second.


The torture of Gym lasted another good half hour, before they were dismissed. The students set off to change into their uniforms, girls complaining about how icky it was not to be able to shower after gym class, boys continuing their discussion on disturbing subjects. Ryoma tried his best to ignore the two groups, heading off, alone, to class. Setting his head on his arms, he closed his eyes and prepared to catch up on sleep.

"Echizen-kun!"

"Echizen-kun!"

"Echizen!"

"Ryoma!"

Ryoma groaned and turned his head, the annoying voice chanting his name stuck in his head. Who dared rouse him from his slumber?

"Class is starting, I just thought you might want to—"

Meh, nothing important. He lay his head back on the table and promptly fell asleep.

It was the second voice that brought him back to reality, "YOU! The one in the third row. GET UP!"

English class. But he knew better than to damage his record.

"Why were you asleep?"

The question was asked, and even Ryoma was impressed by the only slightly accented English. Well, he could do just as well.

"I'm sorry, I only came last week and I am still suffering from Jet-lag."

He was sure his English had been flawless, and impressive for someone his age. The teacher however, was unfazed.

"Well, if you do need to rest, please keep it out of my class. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior again. Is that understood?

Mildly surprised at this reply, Ryoma raised one arched eyebrow, "Yes."

"This is an English class."

"Yes." He was starting to get annoyed

"Now, since you have so kindly volunteered, how about you read the next three pages?"

He wished eternal suffering upon the miserable teacher.

Idiot.

"Not long ago, there were millions and millions of passenger pigeons in North America. These pigeons flew in large flocks. Sometimes the flock is so large that they blocked out the sun. They were called passenger pigeons because they travelled from place to place looking for food."

Really? This passage was barely fifth grade level.

"Passenger pigeons lived in oak and beech forests. In the 1850s, Man began to cut down forests to make way for building of farms, houses and railway tracks. Man used the wood for building and also for burning."

He highly doubted that whatever he was saying was even understood by the numerous blank faces around the room.

He finished the passage grudgingly, before seating himself on the chair and trying to glare at the teacher without seeming rude. Big failure.

"Echizen, you're being extremely rude."

More passages were read, and Ryoma swore he had seen harder passages in FIRST grade textbooks.

"Teacher… I… can… go toilet?"

The poor girl was trying to string the words together. Ryoma had to stifle a snort. He knew it wasn't very nice, but the sentence itself could be seen as a joke without the strong Japanese intonation already.

"It's 'May I go to the bathroom?' Koshiba-chan. Repeat."

"May… I… go to… the… bathroom?"

The teacher sighed and waved her hand, "Yes, yes, go now and be quick."

Oh? Where did the 'this is an English class' go?

He resisted the urge to scowl. Supporting his head with his palm, he wondered if the teacher was in any way related to Fuji. They seemed alike enough.

"Echizen!" came a bark, "Sit up straight!"

Yep, definitely related.


Well, at least the other teachers let him sleep in peace. Either that or they didn't notice with the book Ryoma had propped up as a secondary precaution. Feeling very much alive after the little nap, Ryoma headed down for lunch. He wondered what Fuji had made.

He knew he would have had a much better lunch experience if not for the bright neon ORANGE colour of the box. Just how many boxes did he own? Oh what the heck, food was food.

Unless he was being gawked at by numerous drooling fangirls. And boys, for that matter.

He stood up suddenly and picked up the precious bright neon ORANGE box and briskwalked to the gardens, where he knew he could eat in peace. Whether it was allowed, was as usual, another matter.

Spotting a shaded area beneath a vaguely familiar tree, he shifted into a comfortable position before devouring his meal, which seemed to consist of chicken cutlets, rice, and something that didn't quite register in his mind as he stuffed it into his mouth. Why he was eating so fast was beyond him. There was no rush after all. Lunch did not end for another thirty minutes.

With that kind of speed, it wasn't surprising that Ryoma soon found himself staring at the bright neon ORANGE colour of the bottom of the box.

And then there was the voice, which scared the living daylights out of him.

"Saa… quick as ever aren't you Ryoma-kun?"

Shooting up into a standing position, Ryoma held his arms out protectively, swiveling his head around to check for that brown haired blue eyed…

"IDIOT!"

This brown haired blue eyed idiot in question had leapt out of the tree and landed on the leaf litter with almost inhuman precision and grace, directly in front of Ryoma, who, of course, did not like it one bit.

"So Ochibi is Fujiko's wonderboy nya?"

"Why wonderboy Eiji?"

"Because you look at him and wonder nya!" (A/N I think I overdid it on the Nyas. Oh heck, it's cute :)

"Saa… how very amusing."

He was being purposely ignored, he knew it. He cleared his throat, to get his presence known.

"Ah, yes, Ryoma. How was lunch?"

"Orange."

"Yes, I love that colour, don't you?"

Ryoma felt that it was best to keep his mouth shut.

"OCHIBI! Are you coming for practice today? We all want to see you play again nya!"

"Err…"

Fuji cut in, "But Eiji, aren't we doing conditioning today? I'm sure it won't be fun."

"Ohh right! Well then, maybe next time ochibi!"

Huh? Did that sadist of a tensai just help him? He shook his head as he watched the two head back for the building. That Fuji sure was confusing. Well, he had better things to worry about, starting from math.

Math brought out the worst in people, he soon came to know. The teacher was not present that day, and the entire class was left with a stack of worksheets and instructions to distribute them in class that day, complete it, and hand it up by the end of lesson. Needless to say, all three were violated.

Of the few people who had actually bothered to collect the worksheet, half of them had given up halfway. The other half were either going half mad at trying the questions, or copying answers from the one person who actually knew how to do the questions. Ryoma was glad he was not that person, though he was sure he knew how to do all, or at least most of the problems.

Hmm, and he had always thought that Japan's education system was better than America's. It was probably because he was in the honours class. Yep, that was probably it. (A/N I went through two years of American schooling, so you can't blame me for prejudice ehe )

Ryoma had gotten enough sleep for the day. Having nothing better to do, and curious as to why the students were so crazy about, Ryoma grabbed a sheet and pulled out a pen.

Okay, so it was a teeny bit harder than expected, but he managed to finish it. With about two out of six questions left blank.

This is unacceptable. I must have been slipping lately. He could not allow this. He had to pull up his socks. Tennis was distracting him again. Fuji was distracting him. He had to talk to him about this. He folded his arms, unconvinced that he could not tackle those two questions. They weren't that hard. He just had to think. Think harder.

He growled. His math was supposed to be impeccable, and yet he didn't seem to be able to sole this question. What was the topic again? He consulted the front page. Yes, trigonometric ratios in circles. But how on earth was he supposed to find that stupid AO if OE wasn't given? This was impossible. No, he had to think harder, where had he seen this sort of question before?

He flipped through his catalogue of a brain, trying to find a situation, any situation, where he had come across this type of problem. He hadn't had a challenge like this for a long LONG while. Time to come out of hibernation eh?

Heh, this was nice.


School ended with the long musical bell. Unfortunately, the entire class was held up by the Geography teacher who just had to cram in extra stuff about the sinkhole in Guatemala, and about how it was NOT a tectonic feature. Like who cares? Apparently some random person did, resulting in excited explanations from the teacher, who just could not get enough of talking and talking.

At last, they were dismissed. He dumped his papers into the bag and tried to ignore the idle and loud chatter in the hallways.

Anyway, he still had to get those two questions solved. Going over the question in his head again, he frowned. He should know this. He just didn't. Yet. Scrunching his face in a very un-Echizen-like manner, focusing his mind on the diagram already embossed in his memory. He was so focused, in fact, that he didn't notice that he had walked into something hard.

"Sorry," he muttered, eyes narrowed and eyebrows furrowed. He continued on his way, muttering numbers and formulas under his breath.

"Hey brat!"

Momentarily jerked out of his stupor, Ryoma frowned. Did that guy just call him brat?

"Yes?" He replied coldly. He would have ignored him. He should have ignored him. He just didn't.

"How dare you walk into me?"

Ryoma surveyed the tall boy's uniform. Judging by its similarity to his own, it was probably Seigaku's high school division. Okay, so this guy was at least three years older than him. And about thirty centimeters taller. Oh well, he could handle him just fine. Just fine, considering that the boy was holding a tennis racquet. Wrongly, at that.

"I apologized, didn't I?" Did he? He wasn't completely sure.

"You think that will get off so easily?"

"Yes, very much so." Ryoma smirked, he had so wanted to let out some of his anger today. Math was actually quite frustrating.

The boy turned around to one of his sidekicks, whispered something into his ear, and started laughing hysterically.

"What?" Ryoma asked dangerously.

"No-nothing," the boy replied, still hiccupping with laughter.

Ryoma was starting to get a little annoyed. Just a little. He crossed his arms across his chest and inclined his head to the left, giving the boy a calculating look, with as much contempt as he could muster. Gathering up all the cockiness he had, he said disdainfully, eyeing the boy as if he was a stubborn speck of dirt on his shoe.

"Hey kid, you're holding it wrong."

He liked the reaction the boys showed. Ah, how nostalgic. He hadn't felt like this in what, five years? He watched as the boy's face suddenly exhibited very interesting colour displays, turning from a blotchy red to deep magenta.

"What did you just call me?"

Ignoring the question, Ryoma repeated himself, "You're holding it wrong."

Following Ryoma's gaze, the boy looked from his racquet, to Ryoma and back again. He started pacing slowly, menacing, towards Ryoma, who stood unflinchingly in the same spot, arms still folded neatly.

"And you would know because?" His tone was soft and low, and he was so close Ryoma could feel the boy's breath on his face.

"Well," he continued, ignoring him again, "that grip is the western grip, not the eastern grip, which you seem to be aiming for."

The boy raised one eyebrow.

"The western grip is only used by beginners," why the heck am I giving this idiot a theory lecture, "because it is easier to hold. But, I'm sure senpai is not a beginner, no?"

He cocked his head again, to the right, widening his eyes innocently. The boy growled. Ryoma's smirk became, if possible, even loftier, clearly set on pissing the boy off.

"Then why don't you show us?" the boy's sidekick called from about ten meters away, pitching a yellow tennis ball at Ryoma. Without even turning around, Ryoma raised one arm and caught the ball, before bringing it up in front of him and examining it closely, rotating his wrist in experimentation.

"Nope, too slow…" he mumbled, apparently to himself, but loud enough for all to hear. He raised his voice and said more confidently, "Not bad on accuracy, but your speed is still," He bounced the ball on the pavement, "Mada mada."

Without a second glance, Ryoma turned on his heel and headed off down the road. The boy, however seemed to have other ideas. Ryoma felt the ball being thrown into the air and heard the whack of the tennis racquet. He didn't turn around as usual, and held out a hand to stop the ball. A serve with a racquet, was obviously much, Much more powerful than a throw. Ryoma estimated it to be around fifty meters per second.

And it hurt like hell. Well, not like he was going to give them the satisfaction. He turned his head slowly, the smirk still adorning his face.

"Try harder." He could hear the insults the boys were throwing at him, but he didn't care. He had to make sure his wrist wasn't sprained or anything. Even broken. How stupid could he get? Using his hand to stop a direct serve, by that huge boy no less? He shook his head at his own foolishness.

Oh shit. Another whack of the tennis racquet. Ryoma stiffened. If he had to use his hand again he swore it was going to break off. No, he just had to be a wimp and dodge it.

Thwack. The expected hit did not come. Surprised, Ryoma spun around, to find a very angry looking Fuji standing in the middle of the pavement. Or, as angry as one could look with that supposedly serene smile on his face. Ryoma raised one eyebrow. Trust Fuji to look so frightening without trying to at all. He seemed famous, and the boy and his sidekicks whispered among themselves, before turning to leave.

"Phew! Lucky!" He smiled cheerfully and skipped towards Ryoma, who was still in that half turned position of his.

"Ryoma-kun, you okay?"

Ryoma's eyes darted towards his left wrist before returning to his senpai's face, "Of course, why wouldn't I be?" He turned sharply and walked off. Fuji, it seemed, wasn't convinced.

"Oh really?" He reached out a hand to grab Ryoma's wrist. The owner of this wrist gave a gasp of pain before crouching down into a more comfortable position.

"I told you so!" his voice was teasing, and Ryoma didn't like it one bit.


Okay… I wouldn't consider it a cliffhanger.

Well, it's over! This is about all I have planned for this story. Any ideas? Haha. Well, I suppose things are looking up!

I had to end it here because my mom was threatening to cut my allowance if I didn't go to sleep by eleven thirty, so I will go now1

Okay, I just edited it, and I hope I improved on the vocabulary I just seem to always repeat over and over again, which may make it quite annoying for readers.

So I tried to use more big words (thanks to the numerous thesauruses sitting on my shelf.

Well, hope you enjoyed it!

MC

P.S. I will not be posting any more chapters until around 17th October, because my End of Year assessments end then, and I cannot afford to have my grades slip below seventy-five percent. So, I guess I'll have to stop for a while, but 17th October, that's a promise :) I will post