Chapter Six: Results

"Actually, I wish we really hadn't taken that chance."

It was Niou who said this while looking at Kirihara, who was currently knocked out. Beside him stood his teammates in a circle around the boy, waiting to see him regain consciousness. Yagyuu remained in a calm guise while Jackal and Marui were shifty and anxious. Sanada was indifferent, Yukimura looking concerned, and Yanagi was just simply waiting in the patient manner he always exuded.

It was after several tense moments of waiting that the group considered this experiment a failure. Not only did Kirihara remain knocked out, he was still chubby and short and definitely male. Most members breathed a sigh of relief while Yanagi breathed the sole sigh of pure disappointment.

And then Kirihara stirred.

Eyes immediately snapped towards the child as he groaned and moaned and wriggled about until finally his eyes shot open onto the group. There was another passage of silence as Kirihara stared at his teammates who was staring at him staring at them, and then he spoke:

"What's going on?"

"He's talking," Yagyuu said rather faintly.

"And you can actually understand it unlike that goo-goo language he spoke a while ago," Niou added.

"Hmm… It seems that the effects differ from person to person… or perhaps it was just the extra ingredients Sadaharu and I added," Yanagi interpreted. "It seems that Kirihara has regained his mental maturity, but his physical appearance is still stunted."

"Extra ingredients?" Yukimura asked.

"Well, we did add a few things," Yanagi confessed.

"Why didn't you bother telling us?" Sanada asked.

"You could've poisoned him!" Jackal exclaimed.

"Or worse!" Marui said.

With everyone chirping about this and that, Kirihara was genuinely confused at what was going on. For one, he didn't really remember the events from the last two days. For another, he was lying on the ground, and finally, why did these clothes feel so uncomfortable? Especially the pants. Kirihara didn't recall ever owning such an uncomfortable pair of pants.

"Hey, what's going on?" he demanded as he tried to get on his feet. He was quite surprised when he lost balanced and landed on his bottom. It was then he finally noticed his state, and his eyes sparked red with fury. "What did you do?"

The "you" was quite clearly directed at Yanagi, whom the boy was now glaring intensely at. Even to the ones whom he was not busy staring death too felt the chill behind it.

"Oh, I'm so glad to see you're okay," was all Yanagi could say.

While Yanagi again hit the lab, the labor of taking care of the child fell onto Yukimura. Sanada had reluctantly offered due to Yukimura's implied pressuring, but Kirihara insisted that he was not going to spend a night at the demon's alcove, so responsibility jumped onto the captain.

"Why are we shopping?" Kirihara grumbled. As soon as tennis practice was over, Yukimura had dragged the rather reluctant boy to the shopping district as the two were now pushing their way across the street through a busy crowd.

"My mother asked me to buy some white thread on the way home," Yukimura responded as he ushered the child into a sewing store. Kirihara didn't bother asking why his mother wanted white thread and not so patiently waited until his captain was done buying things. When they got outside, however, he wished Yukimura had taken longer.

"Rikkai's Yukimura, was it?"

Kirihara only glared at the Hyoutei prodigy flanked by his double's partner as they made their way towards them. Yukimura responded with a polite nod of acknowledgement.

"Why are you two here? It's rather far from Tokyo, isn't it?" Yukimura asked. Gakuto held up his bags in response.

"Shopping," he told the other. Then he spotted Kirihara. "Who's that?"

"This is my… cousin," he finally decided. Kirihara, who was rather slow to this situation, responded rashly:

"I'm not your cousin!"

Yukimura's glare told him all, and Kirihara silently swore that he hadn't let those words out of his mouth. However, what was said was said and it couldn't be taken back, and seeing how sharp Oshitari was, there was no was he missed that comment.

"Oh, you can talk," he mused as he stooped down to Kirihara's level. "Aren't you cute?"

Kirihara was infuriated and so desperately wanted to retort to that with a snide comment of his own, but by now he knew better and resorted to a level he'd rather not tread on, but had to. "Goo… gah… eh…"

Yukimura couldn't help but crack a tiny smile at Kirihara's futile efforts to cover up his mistake, but he knew that this wouldn't fool those two. Kirihara seemed to know as well as he hardly responded when Gakuto poked him in the cheek.

"And he can act too," Gakuto said.

"Are you going to play tennis too when you grow up," Oshitari cooed.

"I can already play and I can beat you too!" Kirihara huffed, throwing away his already penetrated disguise.

"Is that a challenge?"

Kirihara cursed himself again for letting his rage get the better of him.

"So, one set match, okay?"

"Fine with me."

Kirihara stood with racket (is that what you call those things?) in hand as and deeply focused as he waited for Oshitari to serve. On the side, Yukimura could only shake his head with exasperation as Gakuto looked at the awkwardness of the whole situation.

"Ping-Pong? Yuushi, this is a kid, are you serious?" Gakuto asked as Oshitari served.

"Of course I am," he replied with a smirk.

It was then that Yukimura finally realized that Oshitari realized that the boy was really Kirihara. While he was grateful that they were playing Ping-Pond with tennis rules in play, he wasn't so grateful that they were playing at all. What if Kirihara fell off of the chair he was standing on? That wouldn't be a pleasant scene, not to mention the minutes were ticking to when he had to be home.

As the match drew on, though, Yukimura relaxed a bit because not only was Kirihara staying stable on the chair, his opponent was clobbering him, meaning he would probably get home before dinner. Kirihara, on the other hand, wasn't so happy with the results.

"Game, set, and match. I win." Oshitari gave him a smug smile that clearly told Kirihara that he was a L-O-S-E-R, and we all know Kirihara couldn't stand for that.

"Best of three," he snapped.

"You're on."

Yukimura and Gakuto groaned.

This is for all those who passed on this Memorial Day and to my friend who's brother recently passed away in Iraq.