The neon green tennis ball flew from his hand up into the air before sinking with the pull of the gravity back towards the ground before colliding with the tight strings of the racket, propelling the player towards the net into an attack position ready for the impending return of the other player. A small light rally started between the two players as they battled for the single point which would decide if the server would be the winner or not. It was a small private match taking place on a street court; with a group of close knit friends nearby to watch all equipped with tennis rackets encase they felt the energy to play under the boiling hot sun of midday in the middle of summer. As the server returned the ball what would hopefully be out of shot, the receiver reached out and ended up landing on his front with the ball bouncing in the court and then out.

Oishi quickly made his way around to the other side of the net, as Momo picked himself up slowly into a sitting position with his right leg sprawled out to the side of him. He still wore the support bandage, with the main effects of it taking pressure and pain off his leg and also hiding the hideous red, pink and purple coloured scar (and yes scars can be that colour) that lay underneath it.

Oishi knelt down on his left knee and placed a comforting hand on Momo's shoulder. "Don't push it" the mother hen said softly, "you've only been off the crutches for two weeks. You shouldn't be even able to run yet, much less being able to play tennis the way that you were." Momo looked up at the smiling vice-captain ofSeishun high school academy tennis club, and frowned looking back at his leg. Whilst he had still been on crutches, there had been many times when Momo had wanted to pound his leg down into dust. Now he was off the crutches he still had to be careful! Those metal sticks still were at home encase something happened but Momo was determined that he wouldn't need them anymore so he had to take things slowly. It was frustrating watching the new regulars and two of the olds one starting to compete in tournaments, whilst he was stuck on the sidelines taking in what menu would have to be made up. He couldn't remember a time before this year he had called Inui up so many times it was untrue.

Oishi stood with a long sigh and held out his right to help the ruffian up; the tennis game was over. That had been the agreement when Momo had finally begged Oishi to let him have a game. If Momo's leg showed any signs it was reaching its limit, they would finish the game where it stood. Oishi had been right to give that condition as it had shown in the last rally; Momo had always been good at hiding his limps from people watching the game but not when his opponent had known his tennis style for several years. Momo took the hand gratefully and together they pulled him up, Oishi quickly wrapping an arm around the boy and helped him over to a spare spot on the bench where the others in group was crowded around it; some in silence staring at the courts, others looking away, one person was writing hurriedly in his green notebook, the shortest of the group was drinking yet another Ponta. To Momo the group looked weird without the shouts that came from the red head acrobatic player and the ever knowing smile from the tensai. It didn't look right and it didn't feel right.

"Mada mada dane Momo-chan" Echizen said in between mouthfuls of the grape juice drink. The sempai had been lost when the results of the exams revealed that Echizen was now a third year in Seishun middle school academy with Kaidoh and himself. Momo gave a long involuntary groan as he sat down on the bench, his right calf was quivering slightly with pain.

"Fshuuuu. Baka, you pushed yourself too hard," Kaidoh said looking at the ruffian. Momo made another groan, this time in annoyance and looked up at Tezuka who stood looking at Oishi, who was uncomfortably seemingly squirming under his gaze.

"Why did you have to make Mamushi the captain Tezuka Bucho?" Momo complained, although he already knew the answer but he wanted to what the heck was going on between him and Oishi and he couldn't do that with the man staring him down.

"Baka, its because you would ruin everything he worked for." The viper replied, a warning tone to his voice.

"What was that Mamushi?" Momo said and sure enough a verbal argument, since Momo couldn't exactly have a physical one at the same, occurred between the two. It also managed to distract Tezuka's attention long enough for Oishi to move quickly and settle himself besides Echizen. Kawamura was sorting out the pair of hot heads effectively and getting in the middle would only redraw unnecessary attention back to himself.

"Your game is still slightly off Oishi sempai," came the voice from besides him. Oishi jumped and looked at the youngest member of their group, who was more intent on looking at the Ponta can in his right hand than him. Oishi then gave a long sigh, he forgot that Echizen was had the second best eye … no, the best eyesight in the group. It was hard thinking that there was the huge possibility that there would be no more golden pair, although remembered through him, and the dream pair would eventually fade from everyone's minds. It had been nine months since Fuji and Eiji had gone missing and it was now late June with everyone relaxing on the summer holidays that they got, which allowed for all the old Seigaku regulars of the previous year to meet and play tennis on several days.

Oishi had tried being on singles when, like Ryuzaki had said, they taken over the tennis team by storm within the first two weeks of being there (by basically outdoing all the current regulars there in tennis matches and in Tezuka's case he had done that by playing a double pair on his own) but after a while, it was obvious that his style belonged to doubles and as painful as it might have been Oishi also had to admit to that. It was hard to see at the tournaments an unfamiliar face take what should have been rightfully Eiji's spot and thus over time his game became slightly off as he had to radically change his playing style. Inui had taken doubles two with a new partner and had adapted easily but everyone understood that it was different for Oishi, it was much harder. There was no way for him to think that the Golden Pair never existed. Kawamura had even mentioned once that there had been some rumours flying around that said that Oishi was breaking down and once someone had dared to say in front of Tezuka, admittedly without him knowing the captain was there, that Oishi shouldn't even be playing tennis even though it was clear he was one of the strongest players at the school. It had been said that the boy mysteriously transferred schools and fallen out of touch with everyone else he had once regarded as friends.

Oishi fiddled with the handle of his racket as Kawamura finally got Kaidoh to stop bickering with Momo with an offer of a tennis game with Tezuka as referee which meant he couldn't talk to Oishi whilst the game was going on. Oishi was so busily concentrating on his handle that he missed the random shouts of English as Kawamura picked up his racket and rushed onto the court, with Kaidoh following up hissing. It had been a while since he last wished that he could rewind time, struggling to recall some distant memories of Eiji before the last year of Seigaku.

It was in that moment that he realised something that struck him a cold hard blow. The ground started to spin randomly around his tennis racket as he stared at hard at the handle. He could faintly hear a voice from his right.

"Oishi sempai? You look pale. Oishi sempai are you alright?"

"Oishi sempai!" came an alarmed voice further from his right. Somewhere in the distance in front of him, he barely registered that the game had stopped and other voices had joined in the background; one of those voices was giving some random statement about some percentage. Slowly Oishi looked up from the handle, the ground had stopped spinning but all he could see was 5 concerned people standing there and a very classical stoic look from someone behind. In turn he studied them all individually within a span of a few seconds and came to a horrifying conclusion that the same thing that was happening to him had already started way back for them, probably several months ago. His mouth opened, but no words came out. Slowly, after a few minutes, Oishi lowered his head looking at the ground again as a few terrifying words escaped from his lips, combined with pain and hurt of the mental kind.

"I'm starting to forget him."


Yes its been 9 months since Fuji and Eiji were kidnapped ... I spent about 10 minutes working that out. And duh dun dun! The Seigaku Regulars are forgetting Fuji and Eiji! Maybe I should return them soon ... maybe ... not the most exciting chapter in the world, and my laptop screen is dying on me, the backlight keeps blinking out. I am also very tired ... time to sleep me thinks!

BF: Its your turn to appear next in the story, just got to figure out when and how... but Atobe is not going back to England and I highly doubt he would come to Lincolnshire. As for retriggering memories, we can only hope that Eiji and Fuji will be able to get their true memories back when they see everyone or at least one person.
ElementalCat: No you can't torture Smith right now, otherwise I wouldn't be able to complete the story! You can torture a copy when I get around to making them ... just got to catch Smith first
demoncat13: Erm, I think if Yuuta knew and he had the chance to kill Smith, the guy would be gone before we could even blink.

Reviews please! And I am off to sleep now ... I think ... might not seeing as it is 5:00am