Marui looked at Momo's shirt. "Early Front Side? What does Early Front Side mean?" He showed the garment to Jirou, who shrugged.
"Maybe it's the brand?" Jirou offered while examining Echizen's shirt. "This thing is all worn out. Does he wear it everyday?"
Marui shrugged. Seigaku was weird, with their Early Front Side and their bad doubles formations. "Tezuka actually let those two compete in an official match?" That was like asking Kirihara to play doubles. It was just a bad idea.
"So I've heard. I didn't see the match, though. It was against an easy team, so they won." Jirou was still inspecting Echizen's shirt. "There's a hole in the armpit." Jirou poked his finger through said hole. "His parents let him go out in a shirt with a hole in the armpit?" He threw the shirt into a trash can.
"Hey!" Marui fished the shirt out of the trash and shook it off. "Maybe it has sentimental value." And, if it didn't now, it would later, when it became the shirt Echizen lost the day he found Momo. Yeah, that had a nice ring to it.
"What are you grinning at?"
"I'm a genius." Marui waved the shirts in front of Jirou's face. "Come on, we need to break into Seigaku's clubhouse and put these away." Oh yes, Marui had a wonderful, devilish, tensai-type plan.
&-&
"Ochibi, why is Momo's shirt in your locker?" Kikumaru bounded over and took the shirt from Echizen, who was staring at it like it was a live viper. Kikumaru dangled the shirt over Echizen's head. "It's all sweaty, too. Why would you want a smelly Momo shirt?"
"So that's where my shirt went!" Of course Momo-senpai would have to enter and say the wrong thing. It seemed to be the way Echizen's day was heading. First oyaji made fun of him for drinking milk, then there was a pop quiz in math, then Momo-senpai's shirt shows up in the very last place it should be and Momo-senpai and Kikumaru-senpai have to be loud about it.
"Is there something you'd like to tell us, Echizen?" Fuji-senpai stood behind Kikumaru, smiling. Echizen really didn't like Fuji senpai's smiles.
"Practice is starting," Echizen mumbled, closing his locker.
"Hoi hoi! Ochibi is blushing!"
Echizen made a mental note to accidentally send a Twist Serve into Kikumaru's chin in the near future.
&-&
Momo wasn't quite sure what to make of anything, all he knew was that sitting on Echizen's bed, trying to study English wasn't working. The problem with English, he reasoned, was the adverbs. If you were running, who cared if you were doing it quickly or spookily or whatily. You were running, and you better keep running or Oishi-senpai would text Tezuka-buchou and you'd have to do another twenty laps for insubordination.
Okay, and Momo was still a little bit bothered about the teasing during practice. True, the teasing wasn't aimed at him, but Momo was still part of the teasing. Besides, Echizen was his friend, a friend who knew adverbs and interjections and could help Momo not fail his test and get suspended from the team for bad grades.
"Momo-senpai, you're not working."
Still, Kikumaru didn't have to lay into Echizen like that. He could've just let the kid off with a few jokes and been on his way, but Kikumaru had to make a spectacle of it. And worse, Kikumaru-senpai laughed at the shirt, which was rude because it was one of Momo's favorites. You didn't find a shirt with a cool saying like "Early Front Side" everyday. Momo saved up for that shirt and even convinced his mom to take him shopping down in Shibuya to buy it.
"Momo-senpai, you're going to fail your test."
It was a special shirt, one he only wore when he needed extra luck. Now the shirt was dirty and smelly and still in Echizen's locker because Momo didn't have the nerve to walk up to Echizen and ask for his shirt back, not after the ruckus Kikumaru made. The Mamushi was watching, too, and Momo didn't want Kaidoh thinking that he and Echizen were like that, because the Mamushi would hold it over him for the rest of the year and probably into the next. Once Kaidoh sunk his fangs into something that agitated Momo, he just kept at it until Momo exploded and had to run laps for exploding. Kaidoh was learning from all that time he spent with Inui-senpai.
"Mo-mo-sen-pai!"
Momo toppled off the bed as a trash can hit him in the head. "Echizen, I'm trying to study!" Momo glared at his small tutor but found that meeting Echizen's gaze was pretty uncomfortable right now.
"Momo-senpai you weren't studying, you were daydreaming. If you're going to daydream, do it aloud and in English." Echizen stood from his desk and righted the trash can. He pointed at Momo's English text. "Adverbs."
&-&
"Where are they?" Marui sighed, taking in the street courts with a snort. "They should be here."
"Maybe they're not coming today," Jiroh yawned. Watching mediocre tennis always put him to sleep. "If they're not going to come, we should go find them."
"I'll call Kikumaru and see if he's heard anything." Marui took out his cell phone and dialed "Spazzy Cat." Jiroh could hear it ringing through to voicemail. Marui needed to turn his cell volume down. "Damn."
"No answer?" Jiroh sprawled out on the concrete bench. "We'll just have to wait here until they arrive or Eiji checks his voicemail."
"I'm calling Kamio." Marui dialed "Jumping Bean." Jiroh wasn't sure why Marui chose "Jumping Bean" as Kamio's alias, but Kamio was going to be hacked when he found out. "Oi Akira-kun, the subjects aren't at their usual venue."
Jiroh tuned Marui's chorus of agreement noises out in favor of a small nap. Marui would wake him up if anything important happened, which was unlikely.
&-&
Momo was looking at him again. Normally this wouldn't bother Ryoma but, in light of the teasing that day, Echizen would prefer that Momo just study his English and go home. If Echizen were honest with himself, he'd admit to a slight partiality for his loud-mouthed senpai. He might even go so far as to say that he enjoyed playing doubles with Momo on their usual afternoons out. Unfortunately, Echizen's honesty was currently being overridden by his need for his teammates, Kikumaru-senpai especially, to stop prodding into matters that didn't concern them. Also, Echizen was fairly certain that Momo had a crush on Kaidoh.
Kaidoh-senpai wasn't bad looking, Echizen supposed. He was a little hard to talk to, though, and really violent. Also, Kaidoh-senpai was going out with Inui-senpai. The two never talked about it, but Echizen saw Inui kissing Kaidoh by the river one afternoon. Unless the kissing was some sort of new breathing exercise, there was more going on with the newly formed doubles team than they let on.
"Echizen, how do you conjugate this?" Momo shoved his workbook under Echizen's nose.
Echizen wrote out the declension of "to see" and sighed. "That's an easy one, Momo-senpai. You should know it."
Momo snatched his notebook back. "It's hard! Besides, you don't need to know English if you play tennis."
That was what Momo always said when pressured about his studies. Echizen always replied with, "You're going to be kicked off the team if your grades slip, Momo-senpai." Momo wasn't stupid. Echizen wished his senpai would apply himself a little more.
Momo laughed and scratched at his head. "I'm fine! I've got you to tutor me, so I can't fail my exam."
"I can't teach you an entire language in a week, Momo-senpai. You need to study on your own, too." Echizen was vaguely aware that he sounded like Ryuzaki-sensei. She was always lecturing the first and second years on the importance of keeping up studies. Echizen didn't need to study, but chose to anyway. Oyaji would get on Ryoma's case if his grades slipped below immaculate.
"It's easier when you're around. I don't get so distracted." Momo twirled his pencil around his fingers and set back to his workbook.
Echizen was going to regret this, and if word got out, Kikumaru-senpai was never going to shut up. "You can stay here tonight and study if you want. Just don't make too much noise, I have to study for a Chemistry test." Echizen moved to his desk and opened his Chemistry book.
"You're the best, Echizen."
"Study, Momo-senpai."
&-&
It took a while, but Kikumaru finally found out from Inui that Momo was studying at Echizen's house. Kamio ran to Momo's house to wait in secondary position in case the smash specialist came back and overheard Momo's mother giving approval for Momoshiro to stay at Echizen's for the night. So, Marui and Jiroh ran, after acquiring directions from Kikumaru, to Echizen's house to spy.
"Sugoi!" Jiroh watched Marui scale the side of Echizen's house, using nothing but a few decorative beams to hold him up. "Go up and a little more to the left. It's that window right there," Jiroh said into his cell. Marui was using a hands-free set. This felt just like a movie.
"Roger that. I hear some talking so I'm going into silent mode. Give the signal if we're in danger." Marui climbed up a little further and peeked into the bedroom.
&-&
Momo was trying to sleep, but a scratching at the wall was keeping him up. It wasn't Karupin; the Himalayan cat was nestled, rather cutely, on Echizen's chest. It wasn't the wind, either. The window was open to let some cool night air in, but none of the papers on Echizen's desk were moving. The noise sounded more as if a squirrel were climbing up the side of the house. Momo wasn't going to get any sleep like this.
"Guess I'll just study," he yawned, moving to the desk, stretching a bit. Echizen's guest futon wasn't the most comfortable. Momo'd slept on grass that was much better. He opened his cell phone – he didn't want the desk lamp to wake Echizen – and began going over the vocabulary list for the test. "Robust." That was a funny sounding word. Momo continued to mumble the words aloud, hoping that they would stick. It was a lot easier when Echizen was using them in sentences and all Momo had to do was listen.
The wall scraped again.
Momoshiro walked quietly to the window and stuck his head out; nothing. He trudged back to his vocabulary. "Reticulated," he mumbled, garbling up the last half of the word.
"Momo-senpai, what are you doing?" Echizen's voice was thick with sleep and inhaled cat hair.
"Nubile," Momo continued, garbling the word again.
"You said it wrong, Momo-senpai. Go to bed." Echizen's complaint was accented by Karupin's yowl of disapproval at being jostled.
"Plentiful." Momo set his pen down. "These words are stupid, Echizen."
Echizen slid out of bed and stomped over to the desk. He grabbed Momo's arm and, in a show of strength that had Momo's jaw slackened slightly, shoved his senpai onto the abandoned guest bedroll. "Go to bed, Momo-senpai." Echizen crawled back onto his bed and curled around Karupin.
"Agitated," Momo whispered. "Grumpy." Momo lifted his head and watched Echizen's arm curl around his cat. "Nubile."