Standard disclaimer: As much as I grovel, Konomi-sensei will still not give me Prince of Tennis. :-( I'm just borrowing them for my non-profit causes.
Actually, thank you for the suggestions of putting in Kaidoh because that gave me an idea.
If you're wondering, the "prince" is loosely based on Fruits Basket's Yuki, and the exercise is meant to be confusing and strange. I will also try to move back into the PoT characters, but I needed to set something up.
Thank you for reviewing!!!
Aya walked towards the court with her tennis bag slung over her shoulder. She had changed quickly to get away from the chatter of her teammates in the locker room, so she arrived at the courts early. The only people there were two groups second- and third-years. Those wearing blue were standing with Arai, while those in green were standing with those two jerks from the day before. None of them were people she wanted to talk to.
This was not an auspicious beginning to the day's practice.
"Hsss…"
The hiss caused Aya to jump slightly as she passed a bush. Half-expecting a rattlesnake, she turned around to find a bandanna-sporting regular sitting cross-legged in the shade of the bush.
"Ah, Kaidoh-" she hesitated, "-kun… wait, no, Kaidoh-san? Kaidoh-semp… no, that's definitely not it. Or is it Kaidoh-ch-…"
"Just call me Kaidoh!" Kaidoh grunted impatiently.
"Ah, sorry, Kaidoh. I'm still having trouble with my honorifics," Aya said sheepishly. "I know what to say to people older and younger, but not people who are the same age as me."
Kaidoh's surly expression did not change. He didn't know how to respond to that. For a moment, it looked like the two second-years were having a staring contest.
"Okay…" Aya said slowly after a minute. "It's been nice talking to you then, Kaidoh." She turned around to leave.
"Don't think we are all as pathetic as that weakling Arai."
Aya turned around and smirked at the boy. "I would never think that about you. Not after that incredible match you and Inui-sempai had against, what was the name of that school? Oh right, Hyoutei."
Kaidoh eyes widened in surprise; he didn't know that she had been at that game. But he said nothing, so Aya continued.
"That shot of yours, what was it? Oh right, 'Boomerang snake', that was impressive, and that unique variation on the Buggy Whip Shot…"
How does she know all of this? Has she been collecting our data? Kaidoh wondered nervously. Great, another person like him.
Still no response. Okay, I guess I should keep talking. "I guess I was really lucky. I never expected such an exciting match-up my first weekend here, really, Seigaku versus Hyoutei. Too bad we lost that set, but it was great tennis."
Kaidoh had to grunt in agreement.
"Hey Aya, you should be careful about flirting with the mamushi," Momo called out as he walked past them heading toward the locker room.
Kaidoh felt the blood rush to his face as a deep, dark blush set in. He jumped to his feet. "What did you say, you stupid powerhouse?" he growled at the boy with the violet eyes.
Momo got into Kaidoh's face. "I was warning her about you. You got a problem with that, ma-mu-shi?" he enunciated each syllable in that last word slowly and clearly.
"You…" Growling, the two suddenly grabbed each others' shirts.
Aya watched this display of testosterone in silence. Part of her wanted to stop them, but a bigger, more vocal part of her was highly amused. The amused part won out, and she did nothing.
The two boys kept growling.
"Kaidoh, Momoshiro, cut it out!"
The two released each other and looked at the source of the voice.
"Momoshiro, hurry and go change," Ryusaki-sensei's cutting voice commanded.
Momo grudgingly obeyed and headed toward the locker room. Kaidoh sulked back to his spot near the bush and sat back down.
Ryusaki-sensei sighed. "Those boys… they'll never change."
Aya looked at her with raised eyebrows.
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After the warm-up run (no Inui juice this time, Inui told them, he had a surprise for later), the regulars gathered for their drill. It was a strange little exercise cooked up by the ever-innovative data man.
The regulars with Aya were divided up into two groups of four, with Inui being the odd man out. One group occupied court A while the other used court B. Each player was set in a different quadrant of the court and had to cover the entirety of their own quadrant. It was not team play though; no one was allowed to step outside their own space. The point of the drill was to keep up a volley by hitting the ball to the correct person when it landed inside your court. The difficulty came in that the name of a person would not be yelled out until the ball landed into your court, giving a second's notice for you to hit the ball in the right direction. Furthermore, regardless of the name called, if the ball bounced into your space, you must return it. According to Inui, it would help the players better direct their hits and improve their ability to read the movements of the person sharing a court with them.
Inui then held up a white plastic water bottle. The punishment for hitting the ball to the wrong person or missing a shot that lands in your court was, to the horror of the regulars (except, of course, Fuji) and the puzzlement of Aya, Inui's newest upgraded version of his "Penal-tea".
"Penalty"? I wonder what he means by that, Aya pondered.
Unlike the lax atmosphere of the day before, this day the air was thick with fear-induced determination.
Ryusaki-sensei was the name-caller for the group of court A, with Kaidoh and Oishi on one side of the net and Kawamura and Kikumaru on the other. On court B, Inui called out the names to Aya and Echizen, who were opposite Fuji and Momo. The drill designed to work on their reflexes and reaction times soon morphed into game of dodge-ball when Momo and Aya began losing the concentration due to the screaming that was coming from off the courts.
"Ryoma-sama suteki! Ganbatte, Ryoma-SAMA!" Ryoma hit the ball to the intended target Fuji.
"Oh my goodness," Aya cringed. "What is that sound?"
"That's Echizen's fan club, the damned brat," Momo answered.
"Tsuyoshi," Inui commanded.
"Jealous, Momo?" Fuji asked, easily returning the ball to Aya.
A slight blush spread across Momo's face. "No!"
"Momo."
"Ryoma-SAMA!"
Aya jumped slightly at the voice, but managed to hit the shot to the second-year boy. Unfortunately, the distracted girl sent the ball flying toward Momo's face. Fortunately, he was able to jump out of the way and position himself to hit the ball.
"Ryoma-sama! Ryoma-sama!"
"Tsuyoshi."
Momo could not hear the low voice of Inui over the shrill cries of Tomoko, so he hit the ball toward Echizen. However, having lost his concentration, his aim was off, and it landed just inside the line, on Aya's court. She was completely caught off guard and missed the ball.
'Dammit,' she muttered as she bent down to pick up the ball. When she was back upright, Aya felt a presence behind her. She turned around slowly to find Inui, eyeglasses aglow, holding out to her a glass. Aya looked at the liquid inside the glass: its color was an ungodly mixture of swirly purples and browns, and under the head of foam, there was a mass of bubbles. A strange aroma emanated from the offered cup.
Aya gulped. So that's why everyone had had that look on their faces. She reached out and took the cup from her sempai.
"What's in this?" she asked as she peered into the cup.
"Food," Inui replied, grinning.
Aya looked at the spiky-haired boy. Somehow, she did not find that assuring. She stared into the cup again, hoping the bubbles would settle down. When it didn't, she looked up at the others with uncertainty.
No one in Oishi's group seemed to notice that the ball had now settled at the net. Every set of eyes on courts A and B had turned to the girls' regular. Aya could see the sympathetic looks on Kawamura and Oishi's faces and the sheer horror that occupied Kikumaru, Momo, Kaidoh, and even Echizen's faces. Even Ryusaki-sensei was looking a little distressed. Fuji, of course, was smiling, looking on with morbid curiosity.
Can't be that bad, right? Just ignore the smell. Aya took a deep breath before throwing her head back and chugging the entire cup.
It seemed like an eternity passed before she lowered the cup from her lips. Her head was still thrown back, so the others could not see her expression.
Then she chuckled.
The chuckles then grew into full-blown laughter.
Oh no, she's gone mad, Oishi panicked.
What kind of monster is she?! Kaidoh thought.
She's worse than Fuji! Kikumaru sweatdropped.
Still laughing, she lowered her head so that she could look at them. Everyone (to her great surprise, including Fuji) looked at her wide-eyed.
"Oh, my god," she started, laughing. "That was the nastiest, most foul-tasting thing I've had in a long time!! Ugh! So this is the secret behind the Seigaku boys' team's strength! No wonder you guys always run like crazy!" Sticking her tongue out, she made a silly face. "Ugh! It's almost as bad as the health shakes my coach back home used to make me drink!"
Inui's eyebrow twitched. "Almost"? Inui thought.
"Ooh," Aya winced as the aftertaste surfaced. "I need water." She handed the cup back to Inui before running to retrieve her water bottle and taking several long swigs from it, making faces in between each mouthful. Inui set the cup down and immediately delved into his notebook with his newly found data.
Everyone except Fuji let out a sigh of relief. So she's normal… or at least somewhat normal.
As for Fuji, the tensai stared at the girl who was shaking her water bottle, trying to dump the last few drops of liquid onto her tongue. He chuckled. That was the most different reaction he had seen yet.
The regulars snapped back into reality when Ryusaki-sensei's voice boomed out: "All right, whose ball was this?" She pointed to the ball resting at the net. "If no one takes responsibility, everyone will have to drink."
A collective gulp arose from Court A.
A few minutes later…
"GO, GO, RYOMA-SAMA!"
"Ugh! I can't take it anymore!" Aya groaned. "Ryoma, will you please shut your little girlfriend up?" She hit the ball to Fuji.
"She's not my girlfriend," Ryoma told her in his normal apathetic voice.
"Echizen," Inui instructed.
"Fine, fan club member, lover, stalker, or whoever the hell she is, please just get her to shut up!"
The ball lands in Echizen's court.
"Momo."
"Do it yourself," the first-year told the girl as he sent the ball hard toward his sempai.
"Brat."
"Echizen," Inui said as the ball bounced high up.
The powerhouse jumped in anticipation of smashing the ball.
"There it is, Dunk Smash!" the freshmen trio shouted.
"Momo-chan-sempai suteki!" Tomoko screeched.
Between the bickering and these last outbursts, Momo lost all his concentration and forgot to aim. He had sent the ball flying spectacularly out of bounds.
"Out!"
Momo's eyes widened in fear. Inui held out a cup to the sweating boy.
Momo started to take his punishment. When he had drained the contents of the cup, both he and the cup fell to the ground.
"Momo!" Oishi, Eiji, Taka, and Fuji yelled out in concern.
"Don't lose your concentration!" Ryusaki-sensei reprimanded the three boys in her court.
Fuji and Aya walked cautiously to the fallen boy's side while Echizen looked on. Inui immediately took out his notebook.
Aya poked at the limp body. "We should get him off the court, no?" she asked the tensai, who was kneeling beside her.
"Uhn," Fuji agreed. The brown-haired boy went to grab Momo under his arms, while Aya grabbed his feet. The two didn't stand a chance under the powerhouse's weight.
"Hey Ryoma, come over here and help. Your sempai's heavy!"
"You're not allowed to call Ryoma-sama by his first name!" a voice screeched, startling Aya and causing her to drop Momo's feet.
"What?" she looked at the two redheads.
The one with shorter hair replied, "I said I won't permit you to speak to Ryoma-sama so personally! No one is allowed to be so friendly with Ryoma-sama without my permission!"
"Tomo-chan…" Sakuno whispered as tugged on her friend's sleeve. The other redhead paid her no attention.
"And just who are you?"
"His fan club president, of course!" Tomo-chan replied proudly.
"Huh," Aya said most amusedly. She glanced over at Fuji, on whose feet Momo's head was now resting. Aya could tell from his smiley expression that he shared her amusement. "His fan club president?"
"That's right! And anyone who wants to be close to Ryoma-sama has to go through me!" She beamed a smile at Echizen, who was now lightly kicking his fallen sempai's body.
"Is that right?" Aya smirked. She walked over to the first-year. "You mean like this?" She put her arm around the short boys' shoulders. Her smirk grew when a growl escaped from Tomo-chan. She leaned towards the boy and said in a low voice to him in English, 'Sorry, but I really can't stand any more of her blabbering. You don't mind, do you?'
"Betsuni," Ryoma answered, his hat still covering his face.
'Do you think this'll shut her up?' Aya gestured to a fuming Tomo-chan. 'Because if I have to drink one more cup of that juice because of her, I'll kill her,' she said while smiling sweetly. "I'm serious. I'll kill her."
Ryoma smirked. 'Only low-level players would get so easily distracted by people not on the court.'
'Brat.' Still smiling, Aya put more of her weight onto Ryoma's shoulder, causing him to slump down a little and wince.
Sakuno looked on with a worried expression. She stared at the two Americans and blushed. It bothered her that this other girl had such familiarity with Ryoma, and a small, unnoticed whine escaped as she thought about their physical closeness. She didn't know what the two were saying, but from her sempais in the tennis club, Sakuno knew that the older girl liked to provoke people and could be scary when provoked herself. She herself, however, had never witnessed that side of Aya before. To her, the older girl had always acted civil, if aloof.
"Get your hands off of him!" Tomo-chan screamed.
Neither Ryoma nor Aya acted like they heard the loud redhead. 'Hey Ryoma, you said this one's not your girlfriend, right? What about the quiet one?'
Ryoma shifter his weight slightly; Aya could feel him tense underneath her.
'Was that a "yes"?' She grinned.
"No!" the shorter form responded emphatically.
'Really?' Aya looked at the girl with pigtails who was now holding back the louder girl. She knew the girl from club and thought she was a nice enough person. Nice… but ditzy. Definitely ditzy. 'Well, I think she has a thing for you. She's been blushing ever since I touched you.'
Aya removed her arm from Ryoma and switched back into Japanese mode. "Sorry for that little diversion, Fuji-sempai. Ne, let's move Momo-chan off the floor before your feet fall asleep."
-------------------------------------------
"So after Momo-chan fainted, we had a little break until Taka-san missed a shot and had to drink the penal-tea. And then he fainted too!" Aya stopped. She leaned the barrier on the bridge and looked at the water underneath.
"Is the drink really that bad?"
"Yes! It's disgusting!" Aya grimaced at the thought. "But the scariest thing was when we started doing individual exercises, and Fuji-sempai missed a really easy shot, which, by the way, I think he did on purpose. He drank a cup, and actually said it was delicious. It was so creepy, the way he was smiling when he said that!" Aya shuddered.
"I heard that he really a ruthless person despite the smile."
"Hmm… I would think that of all people, you'd know better than to judge someone by what other people say, prince." She returned his glare with a smile. "He's an interesting one, though. I'd love to know what he's really like underneath that smile."
The two stood in silence for a moment, listening to a rhythmic splashing of the water that was coming from below the bridge.
Aya sighed before picking up the conversation again. "So… I managed to piss off yet another fan club today."
"What happened this time?" the "prince" of the second-year class asked.
"Well, apparently Ryoma, the boy I know from the states, has his own fan club here. The president of Ryoma's fan club didn't like that I was friends with Ryoma. She was an annoying little imp, so I did some things to piss her off."
"Like what?" the boy asked her.
She told him. "Stupid, huh? Now I kind of wish I hadn't."
"Why? I thought you didn't care about the fan clubs."
"I don't," Aya shrugged. "It's just that my brothers bet me that I wouldn't be able to make a single female friend this year, and pissing the girls off like this really doesn't help the cause."
"And the fan club members are people you really want to be friends with?"
"No."
"Then don't worry about them! You don't need them. What's wrong with your guy friends? How many fan clubs are after you now? Three?" he started counting. "Ryoma's, Oishi-sempai's, and …" he let his words trail off.
"Yours," she finished for him.
"Right, mine," he said uncomfortably.
Aya sighed. "I guess I should be content. But you'd think from the way people are acting, that guys and girls can't simply be just friends." She took another deep breath. "But you know… the types of people in the fan clubs really say a lot about the person they're after."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, Ryoma's fan club president is snarky, bratty, and doesn't really show any respect to anyone. Oishi-sempai's fan club is nicer. There are a few crazy, angry ones, but most of them just came up to me and pumped me for information on him or asked me to introduce them or get an autograph. Their fan clubs sort of fit their personalities."
"I'm afraid to ask, but what does mine say about me?"
"Well, considering that your fan club likes to leave little death threats in my locker, I'd say you're a homicidal psychopath and I shouldn't be friends with you anymore."
"Why do you still hang out with me then?" he said, attempting to sound hurt.
"Convenience, of course!" Aya replied brightly. "I mean, come on, we're in different classes! If you didn't live right across the street, we wouldn't have never met, and I wouldn't be standing here with you right now."
"…"
"I'm joking, you know that right?" Aya smiled at him. She grabbed his arm. "Come on, we should get going. My aunt's expecting me home soon."
Aya dragged the boy toward the direction of their neighborhood.
Suddenly, she stopped. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"I-- I thought I just heard someone say the word 'data'."
"I didn't hear anything. You must be hearing things."
Her brows furrowed. "I guess Inui-sempai's got me all paranoid. You know, he's already devised a menu and exercise routine for me. It's not bad for one day's observations. It's almost as intense as the one I've been following at the advice of my coach back home." She paused. "Hey, did you notice? The splashing's stopped, too. Bizarre. Oh well, let's go."
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Kaidoh was practicing in the stream as normal. Inui arrived not long after he started. He was practicing his swing with the towel in the water when two people started talking loudly on the bridge above. He simply continued, but it soon became clear that one of the speakers was the girls' regular, and their topic of conversation was the team.
Inui immediately stopped his exercise and picked up his notebook. Kaidoh hissed slightly and continued swinging. He was not going to be so despicable as to eavesdrop.
The two above finished and walked off. Or so he thought. Inui adjusted his glasses and said, "Ah, iie data."
And she heard.
Kaidoh's eyes widened and threw his sempai a look. Inui was too busy collecting his data to notice.
Luckily, her companion convinced her otherwise, and she started talking again.
Kaidoh resisted smirking at his sempai when he caught Inui's eyebrow twitch at the new data.
"Almost"?
Kaidoh held his breath until he heard them walk off, "Che" he muttered as he continued working on his swing.
Next chapter: I don't quite know yet. .