Of Christmas And Presents

Chapter 2: The Unveiling

From The Hunt…

Picking up the phone, Tezuka dialed his coach's house number. Three rings later, the call was answered. "Moshi moshi, may I speak to Ryuuzaki-sensei please?"

"Ah Tezuka-sempai. Please wait a minute."

Tezuka then distinctly heard the voice of Ryuuzaki Sakuno calling for her grandma. A moment later, his coach was on the phone. "Hello Tezuka. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Sensei, I have a special request for the Secret Santa game. With regards to my 'present'… part of it will only arrive at midnight. Is that okay with you?"

"I suppose you have your reasons. It's fine then. Anything else?"

"Ah yes, sensei. As part of the… requirement for the 'present', may I enquire the…"

When Tezuka finally hung up the phone after making another call, he had the feeling that the special surprise was going to come out perfectly well.

The two weeks leading up to the Christmas Eve party was over rather quickly. During that time, all the regulars had managed to find presents for not only their Secret Santa recipient, but also for the rest of the team members. A good deal of time was spent over the two weeks in making the presents perfect. But everybody was happy and satisfied with the outcome. Surprisingly, keeping the identity of whom they were playing Santa for was relatively easy.

On the evening of the party, each of the nine Seigaku Regulars made their way separately to the clubhouse to deposit their Secret Santa presents. They were met with the Ichinen Trio of Horio, Kachiro and Katsuo who were the ones in charge of handling and 'safe-guarding' the presents for the time being.

When the regulars entered the school hall, they were greeted with a wondrous sight. The plain school hall had been totally redecorated. There were four middle-sized Christmas trees at the corners of the hall and all four seemed to be decked out completely with fluffy snow. Clear plastic icicles hung from the doorways and adorned the stage whilst the floor was covered with a whitish mist produced by dry ice. In the middle of the hall was a long table covered by a pale blue cloth. On it laid the food for the party in buffet style. There was several round tables set up behind the buffet table where the regulars, as well as the other tennis club members (inclusive of the female team), could sit and enjoy their meal. In front of the buffet table was a place specially cordoned to be a dance floor. Everything was laid out in pale blue hues and pure white, making it look like heaven had descended to earth.

After two short speeches by the principal and Ryuuzaki-sensei, the party began in the midst of chatter, songs and a mad rush for food (Momo was leading the pack – to nobody's surprise – and he had dragged Ryoma along too). Almost all who were present – student and coach alike – mingled together, enjoying the atmosphere of their transformed school hall and just letting his or her hair down. The dance floor opened up and dance tunes were blasting out from the speakers, one after another. Oishi and Fuji had good-naturedly tried to get Tezuka down to the dance floor. However, they were unsuccessful even after fifteen tries using many different approaches. Inui could be seen noting down the whole process from a table away, a happy glint coming from his glasses.

A mock dancing contest arose soon enough and the better dancers were grooving to the beat, trying to out do each other. Even Ryuuzaki-sensei came down to the dance floor to do her stuff. That was met with loud cheers and catcalling from the tennis club members. The final showdown for the dancing competition was between (surprisingly) Kaidou and Eiji. It appeared that Kaidou had a hidden talent for hip-hop and break dancing too. Fuji was seen at the edge of the dance floor, snapping pictures of the duo as they tried to out do each other. The eventual winner turned out to be Eiji, dazzling everyone with his gravity-defying acrobatic dance movements. There were no prizes to be given, but everyone had enjoyed himself or herself thoroughly and that was probably the best prize!

Then there was a surprise birthday cake especially for Ryoma, his birthday conveniently landing on Christmas Eve itself. Sakuno had bashfully wheeled the cake out and wished him a soft 'Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas' before standing off to one side to watch the sudden crowd of people around Ryoma and the cake. Everyone then sang the birthday song for their first year tennis prodigy and then urged him to hurry up and cut the cake. It was an extremely large cake considering the amount of people present. But Ryoma managed the task of cutting the cake up. He even saved an extra large slice for Momo, who attacked it with great gusto after thanking him for it most enthusiastically. Fuji was there, silently taking many candid shots.

As always, Time sped by when everyone was having so much fun. It was 10.30pm and the time the rest of the tennis club members were to leave. The white mist that hovered above the floor was already non-existent. By 11pm, the last of the tennis club members had gone, with the exception of Horio, who had volunteered to bring up the Secret Santa presents, as well as Sakuno, who was waiting for her grandmother. Since there was still 45 minutes before the Secret Santa presents were to be brought to the hall, Ryuuzaki-sensei announced that if they had other presents to give out, this would be the time to do so.

From the almost frantic scramble to find the bags, Ryuuzaki-sensei deduced that everyone had brought something for everyone else. The old lady smiled and announced whilst the boys were still bringing out their gifts, "Since everyone seems to have presents to give out, you'll all take turns to do so. How about we start with Tezuka and work down the ladder?"

And thus, the 'gift exchanging session' was officially open.

The eight other regulars had a pleasant surprise when they received their presents from their team captain. Each had unwrapped the paper to find a beautiful glass paperweight, which differed in design for everyone. Then their names were also plated on the base of the paperweight.

Oishi's one had three blue-tinted crescent moons placed one behind another, so that a portion of each moon was shown. It signified his signature move, the Moon Volley.

Inui's one showed an open notebook with a glass of frothing white drink in front of it. On the glass of the drink, was a black toxic label. There was no doubt what at Tezuka was hinting at with this paperweight. Everyone had a good laugh when they saw it. Who knew Tezuka actually had a sense of humor?

Kawamura's had a sushi roll, which was backed by orange-tinted flames. The flames were to indicate the "Burning" mode he would go into when holding a tennis racket, or somewhat related items – like baseball bats.

Next up was Eiji's. His showed a person that actually looked much like Eiji himself (what with the red-tinted hair and a white bandage on the right-side of the figure's face) doing a one armed handstand whilst clutching a tennis racket. After taking a look at it, Eiji promptly imitated the figure of the paperweight, inducing merry laughter from many.

Kaidou's had an upright boomerang, in which a green-tinted snake was coiled around it. It was no ordinary snake too; it seemed that Tezuka had specified for it to be a viper to play on Kaidou's nickname. Momo had an immensely wonderful time ribbing Kaidou about it afterwards, which earned irritated hisses from Kaidou.

Momoshiro's paperweight was in the shape of… a cheeseburger. A large cheeseburger, with all the colors you would find on a real one. The violet-eyed boy took at look at it and bemoaned the fact that it wasn't a real burger for it looked tasty enough for him to eat. This, of course, prompted a round of laughter at Momo's expense as well as Kaidou picking on Momo about it.

Then came Ryoma's. Their youngest regular received a paperweight with a tennis ball that wore a small crown towards the side. On the tennis ball, there were the words "Prince of Tennis" inscribed. Ryoma had instinctively pulled his cap down slightly before mumbling a 'thank you' to Tezuka. This led to Eiji commenting that O-chibi-chan is so kawaii when he wants to be.

Lastly was Fuji's gift. His paperweight was of a swallow, with its wings spread as if preparing to fly from the branch it was perched on. The most obvious significance was one of Fuji's Triple Counters – the Tsubame Gaeshi or Swallow Return. Yet it could also mean to let his potential take flight for the swallow was preparing to fly instead of making a landing.

Following Tezuka's presents was Oishi's. True to Oishi's practical nature, he had bought the regulars grip tape. But it was not the normal kind of grip tape. Somehow, Oishi had managed to find Christmas-themed grip tape on sale and decided it would make festive fun amongst the team. Each of the regulars had different ones and Oishi had also bought one for himself. Perhaps one day, they could all use the grip tape and have play against each other. The games would be literally colorful with the different colored grip tape.

Then it was Fuji's gift for the regulars. The tensai – in probably more ways than one – had designed T-Shirts for the whole team. On the front of the white T-Shirt was a picture of the Seigaku Regulars during their camping trip earlier in the year. Diagonally across the bottom right corner of the picture was "Seigaku" written in Fuji's flowing handwriting. The back of the T Shirt had, in smaller font, the words "Seishun Gakuen Tennis Team". And below that line of words, was in even smaller font, the words: "Don't mess with us." Upon receiving the gifts, there was a chorus of thanks directed towards Fuji, who smiled a genuine smile in return.

"Hey, why don't we wear them now?" Momo suggested.

Forgetting that there were females present, almost all the regulars started to remove their original tops. Their shirts were halfway off when a high-pitched "eep!" and a loud, somewhat embarrassed cough stopped their movements. A furiously blushing Sakuno was running towards the doorways and had disappeared out of the hall in record time; her grandmother was following after her but much more slowly. There were sheepish smiles amongst the regulars, for only Tezuka, Fuji, Oishi and Inui were fully clothed. All four were looking at the rest of their teammates, with relatively amused expressions on their face. Yes, Tezuka included, though his expression was gone almost instantly when the others looked his way.

"Nya! Next time, tell us that Ryuuzaki-sensei and Sakuno-chan are present!" Eiji complained to the foursome.

"Saa… I thought it'd be interesting to see whether you'd find out," Fuji replied with a disconcerting smile. "And are you sure you want a next time, Eiji?"

"FUJI! Nyaa!"

When all the regulars had changed into the T-Shirts, they sent Horio to look for Ryuuzaki-sensei and Sakuno. The boy returned with the two females five minutes later. Sakuno still had a tinge of pink on her cheeks. The regulars hurriedly apologized to their coach and her granddaughter for the previous, um… indecent display.

After everyone had gotten over the awkward moment, they returned to the giving out of presents. Now, it was Inui's turn. Frankly speaking, most of them were apprehensive of what their data analyst was going to hand them. When they only saw a stack of papers in Inui's hands, they were relieved but still they had not let their guard down. For all his preference for data, Inui could be one extraordinarily unpredictable person. Then the said teen gave each regular a piece of decorated paper and whipped out his notebook to jot down the response.

Several seconds later, there were indignant cries of, "INUI!" and "INUI-SEMPAI!"

It was a good thing that Inui had not given them some strange drink, but what they received wasn't that much better. On the paper was a list of ingredients and a recipe of how to make a special kind of juice, unique to each player. Apparently this was the next best thing to Inui Juice for a Christmas present in Inui's perspective. Other than Fuji, who was reading the instructions, everyone else had mentally vowed never to try what Inui recommended for them. They had had enough experience on Inui's interestingly deadly juices.

However, their next present brightened up the mood considerably. Kawamura had given all of them food coupons to his father's sushi shop. Furthermore, it was customized so that they would get extra of their most favorite sushi when they came to eat.

Next, it was Eiji's turn. His was a surprise to all members of the team for the energetic redhead had never been known for doing things that needed utmost patience and carefulness. Thus, his presents of personally decorated, wooden photo frames came as a pleasant surprise to his teammates. Each of the photo frames were decorated differently and it could be clearly seen whose frame it was via the decorations. Eiji had a faint blush when he admitted that he had really spent time to decorate them himself.

Kaidou's present for the regulars were an assortment of his mother's homemade pastries. His mother was rather well known for being an excellent cook as he always had a scrumptious spread in his lunch box. The pastries had been evenly distributed in eight boxes so the regulars could take them home to enjoy with their families. However, nobody realized that Inui's box happened to contain a little more of the pastries than any one else's. Well, nobody besides Inui himself that is. Said boy made no move to comment, but gave Kaidou a discreet nod and smile.

Momoshiro's presents were – not too surprisingly – food, in the form of assorted chocolates, toffee and sweets. Fuji innocently wondered how Momo had prevented himself from devouring all of them before the end of the day he had bought them. Momo had then scowled at his senior and insisted that he could abstain from the candies. Inui made the protest lest effective by stating that there was a 99.5 probability that Momo had more than once been unsuccessful in totally keeping his hands of the treats.

Lastly came Ryoma's presents. Which turned out to wristbands. The wristbands, however, were in the colors his respective seniors liked and had the names of his seniors embroidered on it. Ryoma admitted, however, that it was his cousin who did the embroidery. He left out the part that he had to beg Nanako-san though. Tezuka's was dual toned, with dark blue and dark green. Oishi's was white and sky blue. Fuji's was sapphire blue with a beige stripe at the side. Inui's was totally black, while Kawamura's was light blue. Eiji's was a deep red color (like his hair) with a blue stripe to complement it. Kaidou's was blue with a green stripe whereas Momoshiro's was dual toned too, with dark purple and red.

Glancing at her watch, Ryuuzaki-sensei realized that it was 11.42pm already. Time certainly sped by when you were having fun. She told Horio to go down to the clubhouse and bring the presents up. The first year immediately obeyed and disappeared from the hall.

At exactly 11.45pm, Horio returned to the hall, lugging at huge bag. He appeared to be panting quite heavily too. "Here, sensei!" he said as he handed over the bag to Ryuuzaki-sensei almost gratefully.

"Thank you, Horio," Ryuuzaki-sensei said with a nod to the first year. Then to the regulars she announced, "Alright everyone! It's time for the Secret Santa presents to be given out. Would you all sit down?"

There was a sudden silence before the regulars made their way to the nearest chairs and settled down. Despite some calm expressions, everyone was undoubtedly interested to see what the results of the game would be.

"Okay. Remember, all of you can only open your presents when it's midnight. Nor are you allowed to look at the card yet. Come get your presents when I call your name."

"Kawamura."

"Kaidou."

"Ryoma."

"Inui."

"Momoshiro."

"Oishi."

"Eiji."

"Tezuka."

"Fuji… There has been a special request for your present. It'll only arrive at midnight. So until then, you'll have to wait."

"Aa. I wonder what it can be," Fuji said contemplatively. This was interesting. A gift that would only arrive at midnight…

The distribution of presents took about two minutes ("Two minutes and twenty five seconds, to be exact," muttered Inui), there for there was still quite some time left before it would be twelve midnight. This left most of the regulars, especially Eiji and Momo, very restless. They were itching to find out what their present would be and who was their 'Santa'. However, with Ryuuzaki-sensei's sharp eye, they could not try to peak.

After an agonizing twelve minutes, it was finally 11.59pm. Then, the regulars began their countdown to midnight.

"Sixty…"

…

"Thirty…"

…

"Ten…"

…

"Five…"

"Four…"

"Three…"

"Two…"

"ONE!"

There was a loud chorus of "Merry Christmas" before everyone started to unwrap his presents carefully. Hence, other than two pairs of eyes, nobody else noticed that the hall's door had been pushed open and someone had walked in.

There was a concentrated silence for a minute as all the regulars who had presents were focused on the their task of figuring out what their present was and who was their Santa. Fuji was just watching the group. When all the presents were finally open, the silence was prolonged for a moment more. It turned out that Oishi was the first one to break it by simply walking over to Eiji and thanking him for the photo album.

Admittedly, Oishi was surprised about his present. Eiji must have grown a patient streak overnight or something to be able to finish something as meticulous as this photo album. All the decorations in there were all so… so Eiji. It definitely meant that the redhead was the one who decorated and organized the album. It touched Oishi that his partner took the effort to compile all the pictures. Oishi didn't even know Eiji had them.

"So, what did you get then, Eiji?" he asked.

"Hoi! These!" replied Eiji, sounding just as cheerful though a little surprised at the same time. He pushed the box into Oishi's hand and awaited the green-eyed boy's reaction.

Said boy took a look at the contents of the box and started to splutter in shock. Well, he'd be damned. He had never expected this. Someone had gotten Eiji a set of white cat ears with a tail and whiskers to boot. "W-Who gave this to you?" he asked.

"Eh? It was O-chibi. Surprising, nya?"

"Very," Oishi agreed, suddenly remembering his meeting with Ryoma not too long ago. So Echizen has a cheeky streak after all, he thought with a mental smirk.

When Oishi turned back to look at Eiji, he very nearly dropped the photo album and the box he was holding. In an amazingly short amount of time, Eiji had swiped the costume and had put them on. Oishi blinked. Eji was often described as cute… Now, he looked simply adorable in the cat outfit.

"Hoi, Oishi! Let's go say thanks to O-chibi!" Eiji said as he bounced off his seat and made his way, quietly for once, to where Ryoma was. Besides Oishi and Fuji, nobody noticed Eiji. He was almost like a cat in both actions and looks, if Eiji didn't say so himself.

Therefore, Ryoma was caught completely off guard when his senior latched onto him in an almost bone-crushing hug from behind and with a feline purr to boot. The startled boy turned his head slightly and was met with a cheekily smiling face, red hair and a familiar pair of cat ears… "Ki-Kikumaru-sempai?"

"O-chibi! Thanks for your present! Nya!" Eiji said as a flash came from a certain camera. "Saa… what did you get then?"

"Eh? Oh, this," Ryoma said, as he showed his seniors the set of bathing salts. "Inui-sempai gave them to me," he added.

At that moment, Momoshiro came over and joined Eiji in hugging Ryoma. Which caused the younger boy to gasp as he tried to get more air into his lungs. Luckily Oishi had hurriedly pulled both of them off the small boy, thus Ryoma's birthday remained still just that.

"What did you get Echizen?" Momo asked as he thumped the boy on his back, almost making the smaller boy double over and fall. Then turning to his other senior, he said, "Oh yes! Oishi-sempai! Thanks for the chocolates! They taste really great!"

"You've eaten them already?" Oishi asked, a little surprised. Sure, he knew about Momo's appetite. He had heard Eiji complain about it more than once when Momo and Echizen tricked the redhead into treating them to burgers. But still, after all that food during the buffet… All he could say now was that Momoshiro was definitely one of a kind.

"Yeah! Some of them only, though. I'm planning to make these last!" Momo replied with a wink and then turned around… to find his favorite junior gone. A quick look around alerted him that Ryoma was talking to Inui-sempai. Immediately, Momo started towards the same direction and so did Oishi, Eiji and Fuji.

The foursome arrived in time to hear Ryoma mutter, "So that's how you found out…"

"So you got Echizen those bath salts, Inui?" Fuji asked, although he had actually found out quite some time ago. Like about the time he spotted Inui outside the ornament shop. "I'm surprised you didn't get something more… interesting." Fuji felt his sadistic side kick in and he had a feeling it was going to go into overdrive quite soon.

"Ah… I decided not to in the end…" There was a 98.5 probability that Fuji would press on. It was a 100 that Fuji was in 'Sadist' mode.

"Aa… Sou ka," the tennis prodigy replied in a thoughtful voice. Then his eyes opened just a fraction as he added almost maliciously, "Oh well. And here I was thinking that perhaps it had something to do with To-"

"Kaidou!" Inui abruptly called as he spied the boy walking towards his general direction. This time he had no time to contemplate logically worming his way out of the situation. He had to react instantaneously.

"Yes, sempai?" Kaidou asked.

"Ah, thank you for the novel."

"Fshuu…" Kaidou hissed, a little embarrassed but he nodded nonetheless.

It was then when Inui noticed something around his kouhai's neck. Adjusting his glasses to take a better look, he was surprised to that it was a black leather collar with a stud in the shape of a snake coiling round a pole. He was about to ask where Kaidou where he had gotten it, snapped his mouth shut at the last moment to watch an exchange between the said boy and Momoshiro.

"Momoshiro."

"Ah Kaidou? Oh. So you're wearing it."

"Hn. Thanks."

"No problem."

And there lay Inui's answer to his unasked question. The notebook was out before you could even blink. "Ii data…"

"Ooh! Nice collar there, Kaidou!" Eiji exclaimed as he went to take a closer look. And he very nearly gave Kaidou the shock of his life when he saw his senior in a cat costume. If Kaidou were permitted to comment, he would say that his bouncy senior pulled off the cute kitty look pretty well.

After Eiji had finished his 'examination' of Momo's present to Kaidou, he suggested that they all go find out what Tezuka had gotten and to see whom his Santa was. So the group trouped over to where Tezuka was sitting next to Kawamura. They noticed, as they got closer to their captain, that he was flipping through a book.

It turned out that it was a guide to the best camping locations all over the world. It even offered information on what to expect and what were the best times to go camping in a particular area. It was easy to say that Tezuka was pleased with this gift. The attention was then turned to Kawamura, who they found out was the one who gave Tezuka the book.

"So Taka-san, what's your present?" Oishi asked.

"Oh? Um, this," Kawamura replied and he held out a rectangular casing for them to see. In it was an ornamental dagger. One from the shop Inui had seen Fuji in, not that Inui or Fuji had told anyone about there meeting. Furthermore, there was an engraving on the metal blade. It showed a person in a karate pose, surrounded by a halo that looked much like fire.

"Fuji gave this to me," he added, before suddenly realizing something, "Oh no! I haven't thanked him yet!" He started looking around for the tensai.

"Fuji!" Oishi called loudly to help Kawamura after he noticed that the brunet was no longer amongst their group.

But he received no answer…

Whoo! Another chapter done! Though I think that this cliffhanger is spastic. Eh, whatever. And I can't grasp why Sakuno would want to run off. I'd stay and oogle. Well, it's her loss. XD

I'd so love to chapter to have fanarts...Like Eiji in cat costume glomping an unsuspecting Ryoma! And I'd like to see Kaidou in that collar too! Heehee. Anyway, an early happy birthday to Ryoma!

Hope you enjoyed this chapter!

carzla