Chapter 21

Marui knocked on the hospital room door.

"Come in," said a voice. He entered the room closing the door behind him. "Hi," greeted the patient.

"I brought cake," he remarked holding the box at eye level.

"I see, thank you," she answered.

"I'll leave it here then," said Marui placing the box down on a small table in the corner. "This is a nice room," he remarked. "You got a TV, a double bed, a small kitchen even your own toilet."

"Yeah," she agreed weakly. Marui's stomach clenched every time he heard her spoke, it was so different, so weak, so frail, her voice had changed, not the sound, but the tone, it sound almost as if she had, given up.

"Hinata!" greeted Kirihara opening the door without knock. "How are ya?" he greeted sitting beside her.

"Fine," she answered.

"Look at you, you're a stick," Kirihara looked around the room and grabbed an apple and a knife. "I'll peel it for you but you better eat it you skinny little twig." Seven cuts, eight band aids and a new apple later it was Hinata peeling the skin off the fruit and cutting it to pieces.

"Here," she offered holding the plate of peeled and sliced apples to Kirihara; he looked down with embarrassment.

"Thanks," replied Kirihara taking a piece of apple.

Soon Kuwahara, Niou, her brother Yagyuu even Yanagi entered the room to visit her.

"All the usuals made it to the prefectural," said Yanagi. "That includes Seigaku, Yamabuki and Rokkaku."

"So as usual, this years Kantou representatives," said Marui. "It'll be us Rikkai, Rokkaku, Seigaku and Hyotei then, right?" Yanagi nodded. "With Yamabuki in fifth."

"Same old same old," sighed Niou. "Can't things get more interesting?" He picked up a racket off the floor underneath Hinata's bed. "What's with this racket?" he remarked weighing it in his hand.

"What's wrong?" asked Marui taking it from his hand, his mouth fell open. "No way, how light is this thing?" The racket was passed around until everyone had had a feel of its lack of weight.

"Interesting," mused Yanagi. "It's made from fibreglass or some other sort of light weight material, the feel is very different from wooden rackets."

"Look at the strings," added Marui. "They're made from natural gut."

"It'll lack the natural spin you would get from the synthetic ones," said Yanagi. "I see, Hinata's play has a lot of powerful shots, the spin you would get from the synthetic strings would cause most of the power to turn into rotation, very clever. But this racket is white, wasn't yours blue."

"It was a gift," replied Hinata, although her tone clearly stated she didn't really care.

"From who? This looks like one hell of an expensive racket."

"Atobe," she answered casually.

"As expected of him to have this kind of money to splash around," admired Marui with a whistle.

Yagyuu watched as his sister continued to look aimlessly out the window leaning closer he said with a small smile. "Hyotei managed to get a clean sweep throughout the finals without a single regular on the team, you should be proud." But instead of a smile she sighed.

"I'm sorry," this got all of their attention. "But could you please not talk about tennis in front of me?" There was a long awkward silence.

"Oh! Sorry, god look at the time," remarked Marui looking at Kuwahara's watch. "We better go." With that he stood up and left dragging Kuwahara behind him.

"Bye," said Kirihara waving.

"Good bye," said Yanagi as the two left the room.

"I better go to class as well," Yagyuu kissed his sister on the cheek. "Get plenty of rest okay?" Hinata smiled weakly and nodded.

"Sure." Yagyuu gave her a hug before leaving. Niou sat awkwardly beside Hinata, the two now alone in the room.

"You've gotten thinner," remarked Niou, Hinata shrugged.

"I'm a picky eater," she answered.

"Hospital foods don't agree with you huh?" She nodded. "What do you want to eat?" asked Niou. Hinata frowned in thought.

"Jelly," she answered, this triggered a laugh.

"That's just water and food dye!"

"Yeah, but I don't know why but I suddenly want to eat jelly," Hinata sighed. Niou smiled as he sat closer to Hinata and held her hand in his.

"I'll bring some the next time I visit," he promised.

"Mango," she said firmly, Niou nodded in submission.

"Whatever you desire my Queen," he replied. They exchanged a small smile. I can't leave her, thought Niou. Not now, not ever I think. Leaning closer he pressed his lips against hers; Hinata was surprised at first but relax and kissed him back. "How long will you be stuck here?"

"Two months at least," she answered. "Dad says since we're not paying who cares how long I stay."

"Are you allowed to leave?" She nodded.

"I just have to tell my doctor, not that he'll likely say yes since I trashed the room." Niou looked around, all the broken glass and ceramic was gone as were the stray feathers.

"They did a good job cleaning up," Hinata nodded.

"I agree." Niou wrapped his arms around her.

"Will you never play tennis again?"

"It's not that I can't swing a racket or hit a ball," replied Hinata quietly. "It's the running around the court, I don't have any endurance left, my lungs might give out under strenuous exercise."

"So you can swing a racket, right?" She nodded. "Then why don't you just master the Tezuka zone or something?" asked Niou, Hinata laughed.

"Not that easy, I'm a power player, to master Tezuka zone I'd have to work on my technique a lot more."

"You're already a master of rotation and spin," noted Niou. "You know how to the Zero degree drop shot."

"Pure luck," remarked Hinata.

"Marui's tight rope."

"I've been learning from him for years."

"Kirihara's knuckle serve."

"I'm never using that."

"Your counter tennis techniques are good, so why can't you master the Tezuka zone?"

"It's not that, it's just that it's a really advance technique, even Sanada-senpai can't do it!"

"Yeah but, Sanada is Sanada, you are you." Hinata smiled at his words.

"Thank you." An idea sparked in Niou's head.

"Hey, why don't we sneak out for a while?"

* * *

"What did you say!?" demanded Atobe grabbing Ootori's collar.

"She's gone, missing from the hospital," repeated Ootori, Oshitari removed Atobe's hands from Ootori's collar.

"Oi Oi! We're in the middle of training Atobe," said Oshitari. "Try to calm down."

"When?"

"They realised she was missing this morning."

"Tell the coach I have something to do," said Atobe packing his bag, Oshitari grabbed his arm.

"Try to calm down would you?" he said in his rich accent. "What good will it do if you storm out to find her, do you even know where she might be?"

"Well I can't just leave her," he replied.

"Baka," remarked Mukahi.

"What did you-?"

"Leave it Gakuto," said Oshitari standing between them. "Should we call the police?"

"There's a GPS locator is her racket," added Atobe.

"Or-" remarked Ootori taking out his mobile phone "-I could just try calling her cell."

"Huh," Mukahi looked at Atobe as he pointed at Ootori. "Why didn't you think of that?"

"Shut up."

"Hello?" asked a voice on the other end of the phone.

"Hinata?! Where are you?!"

"Clear the line I need to call an ambulance!"

"What? What happened?"

"I said clear the line!" replied the voice, listening closely, he didn't recognise the voice. He hung up.

"What happened?" demanded Atobe.

"Hinata, I think she had another attack."

Argh! I know, Niou's an idiot for sneaking her out and Hinata's an idiot for following. Next chapter is about what happened between Hinata and Niou!