Chapter LIII- "It's Product Placement!"
Team 3rd Years and Team Doubles happen to be the most cohesive teams ever, so much so that their strength and determination to stay together as a team should have easily made them all winners. But, as we saw previously with Team Tall, simply wanting it doesn't cut it. After all, if both teams want to win so badly, they would just end up cancelling each other out and wouldn't that just result in a forfeit or something equally horrendous?
"Saeki and Ryou from Respect Your Elders!" announced Ryuuzaki. "Take to the courts!"
"And we're on it too!" declared Atsushi and Eiji pushed their way by and waved their rackets in the air like they just don't care. A small and petty quarrel began, and the rest of the teams not involved only stood by, idly confused as to what was going on.
"Should we be going in there…?" Oishi asked nervously.
"You just want to go in there to see if Eiji is okay," Jirou accused.
"So?" said Oishi. "Maybe he's hurt!"
"Why would he be hurt? Who would hurt him?"
"I don't know! It could happen!"
"HEAR YE! HEAR YE!" Ryuuzaki shouted as she banged a gavel in order to get everyone to pay attention to her. "There will be no dissention in the ranks. We are going to begin the match."
"Saeki and Ryou!" announced Saeki as he got to his feet with his racket in his hand.
"Yeah!" Ryou agreed as he did the same thing.
"Uh…us too?" Eiji said to Atsushi.
"YEAH!" Atsushi agreed.
"We need to get his hurried along so we can know who we will be playing against in the finals," said Kirihara. "I'm so curious."
"As are we," chimed the rest of the geniuses.
"Let's do it!" said Eiji.
Oishi didn't know who he was going to cheer for because he wanted Eiji to do a good job of course, but naturally, Eiji was on a different team as him. Eiji found himself in an identical situation because he wanted to cheer for Oishi but clearly couldn't. At least they were playing against different people so they would be able to watch each other's matches.
Saeki and Ryou readied themselves at the baseline as Atsushi and Eiji ran to the other end and readied themselves too.
"Look, this could potentially be a big crazy Rokkaku match—" Eiji started.
"It won't ever happen again!" Atsushi interrupted. "Stop living in the past!"
"You can't recreate that kind of beauty," said Kentarou since he was watching and reminiscing about the times when he did sea activities with his friends from Rokkaku.
"Is it weird for you to play against your brother?" Eiji asked Atsushi.
"No, why would it be weird?" Atsushi questioned.
"Because you guys are brothers. It's like...I don't know. It just seems like something that would be weird to me."
"We live together. We grew up together. We play tennis against each other all the time. It's not weird."
Eiji didn't really know how to respond to that so he just decided to ignore it.
"'Respect Your Elders' will do the first service game," Ojii decided.
"Oh dear," sighed everyone on the Doubles team.
Saeki decided to take the serve because I'm about as unsure if he has a specialrific serve as I am unsure about Ryou's. So we'll just say that Eiji was able to return it, and it was an entertaining volley situation for a little while before points were eventually scored. And those points were awarded to Respect Your Elders.
"Yes!" cheered Saeki and Ryou as they high fived.
"It's only one service game!" hollered Switch Trick Play from the bench.
"Switch Trick Play to serve!" announced whoever was being the referee.
"I'LL serve!" Eiji announced because, now that I think about it, I am equally unsure about Atsushi and Eiji's serves as well.
Fake tennis proceeded along nicely but for the sake of sanity and eventually maybe finishing this story EVER, Saeki and Ryou emerged victorious.
"We have emerged victorious!" Saeki and Ryou announced as they emerged victorious.
"Yeah!" cheered their team.
"So, if Oishi and Yanagisawa win this time, then we move on and play against the geniuses in the finals!" said Jirou.
"Wait, where's Oishi?" questioned Yanagisawa.
Then they all noticed Oishi was over at Switch Trick Play's bench telling Eiji what a great job he did, and how proud he was, but Eiji was having one of his famous temper tantrums because he was all upset that he had to play with someone who wasn't Oishi and that Oishi was playing with someone who wasn't HIM even though it was beyond everyone's control but Eiji just likes being a bitch like that.
So everyone started clearing their throats, getting annoyed with all the PDA displayed by the Golden Pair in such a short amount of time, since they were probably making up for all the time they had been absent from one another. Some other ambiguously gay duos started getting jealous too so the coaches insisted the next match begin.
"This one is between Oishi and Yanagisawa from Respect Your Elders against Gakuto and Choutarou from Hyoutei," said Sakaki. "I mean Switch Trick Play."
All the other coaches stared at him with raised eyebrows. "That was so intentional," said Banji.
"So?" said Sakaki.
"I don't even understand why," said Ojii. "What's the point of dropping your team name in such a meaningless situation?"
"It's product placement!" Sakaki announced.
"ANYWAY," said Ryuuzaki as she took over refereeing if she wasn't already doing it. "Let's begin the match with Respect Your Elders!"
"Hey!" said Gakuto. "That's not fair!"
"Why isn't it fair?" said Ryuuzaki.
"Because they got to start the service round in the previous doubles game!" Gakuto reminded them.
"That is true," Ojii pointed out.
"I can't admit that I'm wrong!" Ryuuzaki declared. "Someone else do it!"
"Fine, we were wrong," said Sakaki. "Switch Trick Play will serve."
"But what if you're wrong NOW?" Jirou called from the sidelines. "I don't know what to believe anymore! My world is falling apart!"
"Just be quiet so we can get this over with," commanded some tennis player whose team had already been eliminated and was only waiting around so he could find out if he was going to an illustrious tennis camp.
"But it's not fair that Switch Trick Play gets to serve!" Jirou complained. "Choutarou's serve is too good!"
"That's true," said Yanagisawa. "That ISN'T fair."
"They've got a point," said Banji. "It is quite impossible to return, so therefore it is unfair."
"I don't understand what's unfair about it," said Choutarou, confused.
"Choutarou can serve the ball however he wants!" Shishido said as if his commentary was really necessary. (He probably just wanted to fill the Silver Pair quota.)
"Thanks Shishido!" said Choutarou as he got inspired.
"Realistically, we can't claim the serve just because his serve is too hard to return," Oishi said reasonably. "I think that's the whole point of tennis… to use your abilities to the best…of your abilities, I guess."
And, before Eiji could pipe in with a pointless comment, Ryuuzaki decided to intervene. "Switch Trick Play serves and I don't care what any of you has to say about it because that's just what's happening!"
She said it like it was some kind of revolutionary new idea, so everyone just saluted her and decided to pretend as though she was the first one to think up JUST DOING IT.
Choutarou decided to put all his heart and soul into serving, especially since Shishido was watching, and proceeded to kick ass with his serve which defies most laws of physics, though not all of them. In the end, of course Switch Trick Play won that particular round of fake tennis, so that meant it was Respect Your Elders' turn, making the earlier argument entirely pointless because both teams would get an even chance to serve anyway.
"I hate fake tennis," Gakuto decided to observe.
The elder team took the serve but wouldn't you know it? They just couldn't stand up to Gakuto expert flipping at entirely no-flipping-necessary moments. And, against all my better judgment (because the chapter could potentially be over right now), Switch Trick Play won this game as well so that meant it would actually have to go to the singles game!
By this time, everyone within a twenty mile radius was fairly bored with fake tennis and asked quite nicely if they could leave, but the coaches would not allow it. In fact, Jirou would also not allow it. He, of course, was all hyped up about playing tennis in front of his peers… AGAINST TETSU. It's not as though it being against Tetsu had any consequence to Jirou, but I just thought maybe I could remind you who his opponent was so the coaches wouldn't have to pointlessly announce it.
"Jirou, we have faith in you!" said Oishi supportively.
"He wouldn't even HAVE to play this game if you two hadn't lost," said Ryou.
"Hey, we tried our best and that's all that counts!" said Oishi.
"It would have been nice if we won, though," Yanagisawa admitted.
"Be quiet!" Oishi commanded.
So Tetsu and Jirou took to the courts cause they were…THE BEST. AROUND. NOTHING'S EVER GONNA KEEP THEM DOWN. Since there had been such an enormous argument about who got to be the first to serve in the previous round, they decided to flip a coin since it would now be fair based on the fact that each team had gotten a chance to serve first in other rounds. In the end, Tetsu won, which is good because I vaguely recall Tetsu having a good serve?
But Jirou wasn't about to be bitched around by one of the largest and manliest thirteen-year-olds in the history of middle school. (Maybe 'manliest' isn't a good word…I mean that in the sense that he looks like he's thirty.) Jirou pulled a return service game out of his ass and managed to send every shot right back at Tetsu, giving him an advantage going into the second round when HE got the opportunity to serve!
But wouldn't you know it? Tetsu sent all those serves right back at Jirou and ended up winning THAT round! So with each tennis player now officially trumping the other (which means they're now tied) it all came down to the most ludicrous part of fake tennis; that round where they switches off services until someone either fails or succeeds, which I suppose would be the exact same moment.
Since this story is where climax and tension go to die, Jirou ended up winning. YAY!
"It's all right, Tetsu," said the rest of the team as they gave Tetsu a hug and then all wept because they weren't going onto the finals.
"HURRAY TEAM!" cheered Respect Your Elders as they jumped into a pit of confetti and streamers and then had a party.
"This is wonderful," said Sakaki as he looked at the easel he may or may not have and connected the last dots to the finals. "We now officially have our two participants in the finals."
Team 3rd Years looked up from their fiesta and over at Team Genius, Achilles' Heel, standing there at the ready, tennis rackets in hand, totally prepared to take down any egotistical age-obsessed morons. In that moment, they sort of wished they had allowed Switch Trick Play to win.
"Let's begin right away," said Ojii. "The first round will be between Saeki and Ryou from Respect Your Elders against Oshitari and Fuji from Achilles' Heel!"
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Two chapters to go! YAAAAY!! Go to my profile page and click on the poll at the top of the page to vote for which team you think should win a trip to this unnamed illustrious tennis camp. I may or may not actually pay attention to it depending on how realistic the outcome will be and if I can justify it. Like the lolcats, I is trying. 3
