A/N: I will be replying to all reviews tomorrow morning!

I know its been such a long time since I last updated, and I'm so sorry – I had a lot going on, uhu. Keep your eyes open for the next update, it should be coming soon!

READ FYERIGURL'S YOUR WORTH IN SAINT SEDUCING GOLD. LITERALLY THE BEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD.

There's a lot of Shigohara Minako in the following chapter, but that's only because I'm a Minako fangirl hahaha oops. Everyone, love her with me. Ugh. Fyerigurl's characters are just ugh love. I also love a pining Oshitari, so I'm capitalizing on the opportunities here. You won't understand all of the Minako scenes unless you read Fyeri's story, so, just because of that, you should. You won't regret it.

Disclaimer: I do not own PoT.

The following afternoon, the tennis team carries out practice as per usual.

The regulars are running drills on their own set of private courts while the rest of the club maintains their own, separate practice, overseen by the second stringers. The regulars' courts are right beside a set of bleachers, and all around the area, there's a tall metal fence erected to keep any wayward tennis balls in.

And the hoard of screaming fangirls, out. Though that probably hadn't been the original intention of the school when they placed the fences up.

Practice is brutal, as usual. The sun is unforgiving and the regulars are miserable and upset and their coach is relentless. Above all, Atobe Keigo is his insufferable self full of hand gestures and smirks (the regulars are happy about it even if they roll their eyes at him, because an obnoxious Keigo is a happy Keigo). Coach Sakaki barks out new and creative ways to utterly destroy the regulars' bodies and senses of self preservation, and at one point, Shishido almost hurls his empty water bottle at the fence because all these screaming fans on top of mental exhaustion has pushed him to near-violence.

Perched comfortably on the bleachers is the now-familiar fixture: the slim, neat figure of Suzuki Nanao. She's sitting in the small amount of shade there is, quietly thumbing through a book that she's hardly read because she's been glancing up at the courts every minute or so.

She doesn't mean to, she really has to get through this section, but there's this overwhelming relief when she looks up and catches Keigo's smile and the way that he's fine and okay after everything that's happened. And when she looks at him, sometimes he peers back, and when their eyes meet he quirks his lips a little on one side and Nanao can't help but to beam back, all relief and happiness and endearment.

In a few minutes, once the regulars have paired up to start playing light rallies and matches, Keigo comes over to sit beside her and he drapes himself over her shoulders, his head resting against hers. Nanao wrinkles her nose and murmurs "You're sweaty," but the fondness in her tone betrays her distaste.

Keigo sniffs. "They're liquid drops of flawless greatness."

From a distance, the fangirls can't tell exactly what words transpire between the two. They don't know that she's held his hand even when he insisted he was fine (he wasn't), don't know that he looks at her and sees a brilliant diamond in the rough (and that he's pulled it out and is in the midst of polishing it off for the world to see); they don't know that this thing between them is more than skin deep, more than the society pages and the rumors and the party attendances.

What they do see is that Atobe Keigo has gotten himself a girlfriend to keep around for more than two weeks at a time, who he's kept for longer than just in time for the next gala or ball. They see that even the regulars have accepted her until she's a near-permanent fixture in their group outings, that he leans against her and speaks to her more softly and quietly than he ever does, that her eyes light up and lips stretch into a smile whenever he does. They see it, they see ordinary, remarkably unremarkable (and Keigo would scoff because any fool who thinks Nanao is unremarkable must be blind) Suzuki Nanao, who's pulled off every fangirl's dream and landed herself the prince.

Not just a prince, but the emperor.

As much as they clamor over the relationship and strain to see the inner workings of it, to understand it, Atobe Keigo and Suzuki Nanao have established themselves as an extremely private couple. Even before, when they publicly held hands and shared brief kisses, that was all anyone ever knew – they never quite knew what words fell between them when they had their heads pressed together and secret smiles on their lips, when they stood in a corner by themselves laughing at something hilariously. As of late, however, even those miniscule public displays of affection seem to have disappeared, leaving behind- nothing.

People are lucky if they catch a glimpse of them holding hands, now. It would be easy for them to say that perhaps they aren't dating anymore, perhaps they've ended things for good, but the way that he speaks to her, the way she returns his conversation, the bizarrely intimate manner of all their conversations (even if they're talking about nothing but the weather) makes it all too clear: that Atobe and Suzuki are very much indeed still in a relationship.

Practice has come to a gentle lull while Coach Sakaki is on the phone with- some other coach, nobody quite caught the name when he answered the call. The regulars have finished up their matches and lounge about, stretching and sharing banter and conversation; Keigo is still beside Nanao, checking emails and news on his phone while she hums under her breath and reads a paragraph twice.

Nanao looks up when a shadow looms over them.

It's Oshitari-kun, wearing that gentle smile of his ('that's his shit-eating grin,' Mukahi would say), a water bottle dangling loosely from one hand and a towel draped around his shoulders. When he'd arrived to class on Monday and saw Keigo sitting in his seat, he'd had to cover up the relief visibly gracing his shoulders and expression. Keigo had smirked at him and Oshitari had rolled his eyes with a laugh.

He's standing before them now, graces Nanao with a friendly nod and Keigo with a burgeoning smile. Keigo narrows his eyes at him and lifts his weight off of Nanao's shoulder to say "It's far too hot for that conniving smirk of yours."

Nanao laughs despite herself, and when a fond endearment overtakes the light in his eyes, Oshitari very politely restrains from making a gagging motion. After all, Keigo could very well point out his own infatuation with the leggy captain of the girls' team, and he'd rather not get into that right now.

"What are you two doing tomorrow night?"

"Studying, I think," and "A spa treatment day" are the two simultaneous responses. Nanao and Keigo each turn to one another to give the other an incredulous expression, but Keigo's wins out and Nanao laughs sheepishly in chagrin.

"I'd like to politely request that you cancel those plans," Oshitari murmurs, the ever-friendly smile still present on his lips. Nanao peers at him with interest, but from beside her, Keigo rolls his eyes.

"It's never a good thing when you ask me to clear my plans."

"But darling, we haven't had a date night in so long."

"You spent the last one ogling a girl's backside so I've cancelled all future ones."

"Ogling? Backside? Such crass words, Keigo."

"You spent the night intensely observing a female's derriere."

"She had a very shapely de-"

"Whatever. What do you need?"

Nanao watches this with a fascination and a large amount of amusement – she's envious, too, of this wonderful friendship that they share. She's mentioned as such once, but Keigo had only rolled his eyes and huffed at her to stop with the silly sentiments. But she knows that for all of his huffing and puffing, he adores Oshitari-kun, would sacrifice the world and go above and beyond for him; Oshitari-kun would do it for Keigo, too, and that sort of thing has her heart doing little tailspins of fondness.

"Go on a double date with us tomorrow night. It'll be fun – dinner at the Louxe Lounge, perhaps tea at the Atrium afterwards?"

Keigo's clearly about to refuse, because 'us' can only mean Oshitari and that wretched, wretched girl Shigohara Minako, but before he can, the girl beside him has piped up with a "But it's a school night." And that response is so ridiculous that he bestows wide and incredulous eyes upon her once more, at which point she flushes crimson.

"It'll be over by nine at the latest, what are you so worried for?" he demands before he can quite think it through, and Oshitari's nothing if not opportunistic, so he spears the chance-

"So it's a date. Six o' clock reservation at the Louxe made – don't be late. Minako will be charmed."

And before Keigo can pitch a fit (which Oshitari knows he will), he's already swept away, leaving him to pointedly stare at Nanao instead, as though this were all her fault. Which, technically, it was.

The Louxe Lounge is the latest trendy spot in the long string of hangouts the rich and famous have chosen to grace in the wealthy Azabu district in Tokyo. It's more popular with the younger crowd nowadays than the adults and parent-aged patrons, but it does well in business with a very exclusive clientele and little to no age requirement or supervision. The alcohol pours freely, because when a millionaire teen shows up with daddy's platinum card and looks not a day younger than twenty, one simply does not ask him for an identification card.

Beyond the entry standards, the space in itself was designed by the best architects to be found throughout Japan – high ceilings and glass walls on a fiftieth floor overlooking the richest landscape of Tokyo, areas with both dim and bright lighting for whatever the patron may be looking for. A bar, a café and a high end restaurant all in one large, plush-carpeted floor, and whatever isn't available, can probably be produced by one of the competent waitstaff.

It's not Nanao's usual scene, not really, because everyone's figured by now that she's more a homebody than anything else. At most, she'll visit perhaps a nice café, but hardly such a place as the Louxe; Megumi, on the other hand, fits right in like a fish to water, and even the mild-mannered Jun graces the seats quite often with his own friends.

Of course, for people like Shigohara Minako, the Louxe may as well be her personal living room. It's clear she comes here often, to put it lightly, when they walk in and the head waitstaff takes his time to greet her personally and with a jovial "It's lovely to see you again, miss." She walks into the lounge looking for all the world as though she owns it, owns every inch of this glittering, intimidating establishment, as though she's personally selected every crystal piece on the chandelier overhead.

And for a moment, Nanao stares at her, wide-eyed and faintly awestruck at her ability to walk with such bizarrely strong confidence – to be able to stride forward as though she belongs here, in a place that's so posh that it's probably intimidated politicians and celebrities, before. But then, she oughtn't be so surprised, when Yuushi-kun (they're such kindred spirits that they've given up on formal surnames now), from beside her, nods a familiar hello at the bartender. He looks as though he's co-signed the lease on the place with Shigohara-san, with the ease he walks towards his favorite table and the familiarity gracing his features.

They're all dressed sharply – but not too sharp, sharp in the kind of way where haute couture hangs off their figures as carelessly as if they've lazily picked up a piece off of their desk chair and thrown it on in a hurry, as though this is all casual chic. And it is, really, for Keigo and Oshitari, dressed in well-fitting slacks and expensive silken shirts and trimmed blazers, for Shigohara Minako, dressed in a form fitting dress so tight that it leaves very, very little to the imagination (practically nothing at all, but then, she has very, very little she ought to want to hide – practically nothing at all).

Keigo seems to have found a strange affinity for dressing Nanao up (she secretly thinks he ought to do something fashion-related, while Mukahi-kun snickers a "He fuckin' plays dress up, how great is that?") – and she's not exactly complaining, since even her parents have commented on her improvement since he'd begun to select her outfits. Sometimes, though, she wonders if it's bad that even a boy can dress her better than she can.

But then, this is Atobe Keigo, so standard rules don't typically apply.

Nanao herself is in a free-flowing black dress that flutters to her mid-thighs, dressed sharply in a pristine, tailored white blazer with a spattering of jewels glittering around the collars, sleek heels that still have her standing a head shorter than the leggy Shigohara-san, who's in her own pair of killer stilettos. (Keigo had gazed longingly at a pair of stilettos himself, whereupon he'd sighed and leveled a disappointed glance at Nanao: "There's no earthly way you can wobble on those, even with all of my walking lessons," as though it were a great pain to him).

She feels a bit out of place at the moment, because for all of her experience with the upper crust background, places like the Louxe had never quite been her type of hangout. Keigo, however, looks right at home as he hardly spares a nod at the nearby waitstaff, instead tugging her along to the booth Oshitari's reserved – in the back, beside a large glass panel and behind a folding screen for added privacy.

Gracefully, Oshitari steps forward to pull out the chair for Minako – she'd arrived there before him, but had halted with a natural pause, and when she sits, it's with a lovely sort of exasperation, as if she'd had to wait so long for him to finally catch up and pull out the seat for her. Even exasperation is pretty on her features, Nanao thinks – she, on the other hand, had already sat down by the time Keigo arrived, and even tries to push out his seat for him when he does.

Minako – all beautiful features of perfectly glittering eyeshadow and shimmering cheeks underneath the lighting overhead – gazes at the pair with a calculating sort of expression. Keigo rolls his eyes at her, flicks away her hand on his chair and once he sits, leans in to murmur an irritated but fond "You're not the one who's supposed to pull out my seat, idiot." And as Minako tilts her head to the side, analyzes the words and his gestures, she realizes that this 'exasperated-but-fond' manner is the entire nature of their relationship, of his mannerisms towards Suzuki Nanao.

And she knows she oughtn't care, because she has Oshitari Yuushi practically hanging off of her arm beside her, murmuring wine suggestions in her ear (despite the fact that she clearly cannot care less at the moment in her deconstruction of the Atobe-Suzuki pair before her), but Shigohara Minako is beautiful and proud enough to feel the slight sting of aggravation. She doesn't even like Atobe, doesn't feel the slightest bit of attraction towards his strange affinity for purple shirts and his obnoxious school wide announcements, but there's just something about Suzuki's seemingly oblivious nature to the magnitude of what she's done that irks her.

Does she even realize, Minako wonders, the gravity of her actions?

Does this girl in front of her – blinking owlishly at Atobe when he asks her what wine she wants, or if she wants another sort of drink – understand what it means that she has Atobe Keigo even asking her what kind of beverage she desires?

Oshitari's trailing a warm hand along her thigh underneath the table, but Minako simply pats it idly and her glance hasn't shifted from Atobe and Suzuki at all. Will he stop with the silliness, she thinks, I'm trying to think. "Not now," she murmurs at him. "Maybe later."

And Oshitari gives her a mildly baffled sort of stare (as baffled as Oshitari Yuushi can appear to be), but she's far too deep in her analysis of the way Suzuki sips her water to really quite give him the attention the boy beside her wants. Instead, she tilts her head to the other side and watches through sharp eyes as the girl across her pushes the hair out of her eyes, wonders if that's part of the seduction techniques she used to land Atobe.

Minako is not vain in the same way Atobe is, doesn't declare a day a national holiday after her own greatness, but she's simply all-too aware of the affect she has on people. She knows the way men gaze at her, the way males' eyes linger as she walks by, the way she's the first one to get a drink served despite the long line of girls waiting before her. She's not arrogant, she's keen, and those are two very different things.

And she's aware of the fact that she's consistently held the number one spot in Hyotei's infamous newspaper's 'Most Beautiful Students' list since she was a first year. She hasn't been particularly gunning for Atobe, not really, but she'd quite clearly (but with subtlety, and with much class) made it apparent that if he ever were interested, she'd be open to his affections. And in the past five years she'd been school-mates with him, he'd never even once shown a flicker of interest in her besides the initial appreciative glance he'd spared her.

Even when she'd dated his best friend, even if it had been arranged by their families, he'd held nothing but a very, very mild interest in her person. In fact, dare she say it, she was rather certain that since the relationship, he'd gone the other way and even disliked her, just a bit.

Shigohara Minako was nothing if not sharp.

She holds a very vindictive sort of satisfaction that for all of his proverbial bitching, Oshitari Yuushi is still sitting beside her, offering suggestions on meal choices (which she is also not listening to at the moment, but the effort is noted).

In any case. For all of her sly stares and beautiful smiles, she hadn't been able to capture Atobe's attention in nearly five years – and suddenly, a bumbling girl who tripped over her own dress at the gala last week and made the papers for it manages to come in and bag him in one fell swoop? There must be something else at play, here. Some sort of strange kink Atobe has that Suzuki fulfills, or some sort of unique seduction technique the girl's employed.

But then, looking at the girl now, trying – and failing – to roll up the sleeves of her blazer, Minako highly doubts that she's mastered some form of seduction that she herself has yet to. Atobe sighs before rolling up Nanao's sleeves himself, carefully folding them and handling her arm with such care that Minako's unsure if she's actually seeing correctly.

"Minako," Oshitari's voice is incessant in her ear, and finally, she turns around to level a faintly bewildered glance at her date.

What, she wants to ask, does he need so desperately? "Yes?" she manages, a perfect smile on her perfect lips.

"You look radiant tonight," he murmurs, all seduction and low voice, and Minako barely contains her sigh. With an ill-concealed roll of her eyes, she turns her attention back to Suzuki – does Yuushi not realize that there are other, more pressing, matters at the table? (She chooses to ignore the way her heart tenderly skips a beat at Yuushi's compliment, because she is Shigohara Minako, damn it, and she is above being weak-kneed at such a weak attempt at wooing).

It's ten minutes after they've placed their orders that the boys get up to go to the bar. They say it's to get drinks, but the boys go to the bar the same way girls often go to the bathroom – to do nothing else but to touch base with their fellow males and gossip a little (Nanao knows how much Keigo likes his gossip, even if he sniffs and says it's 'current events'). They order their drinks, but their body language explains very clearly that they intend to stay there for a bit, and Keigo is speaking with an annoyance in his features and Oshitari is sporting an amused smile, so nothing there's changed.

Minako is prepared to spend the next few minutes in silence, because she doesn't have much to say to Suzuki – that is, aside from inquire very politely just how a girl so unremarkable managed to capture a freaking Loch Ness monster for a boyfriend (that is to say, more urban legend than reality). But Minako has far too much grace to really ask that, so that really leaves nothing for her to say to Nanao, and she figures that the girl is the same way.

So she's reasonable startled when the meek sheep raises her head to smile at her, and even Minako cannot help the way her lips unconsciously quirk into a smile of her own when Suzuki presents her with such a disarming curve of her lips. This girl is dangerous, Minako thinks, and she's beginning to see the skill with which she's captured Atobe.

Her next words are what throws her completely off – practically hurls her into another field entirely: "He really likes you- Yuushi-kun, that is."

Minako ignores the way her heart automatically gives a little start at that, instead looks at Nanao with her usual grace and distant expression, a noncommittal "Hm" from her lips.

Nanao's smile doesn't falter, though. "He- talks about you. A lot."

Rightfully so, Minako thinks; if a boy's dating the voted number one beauty queen at his school, he ought to capitalize on his bragging rights, no? "He's started picking up a lot of classics, these days." Minako can't help the way her brow quirks at this, and in response, Suzuki flushes a bright red that makes Minako feel embarrassed for her. "Um- well- he and I go to bookstores a lot, because Keigo doesn't like them very much; he doesn't like the dust and all that. Yuushi-kun's usually into, ah…"

"Trashy romance novels?" Minako lifts a sharp brow, in amusement this time, and Nanao laughs, bright and open in a way that makes Minako think that perhaps this is what laughter ought to sound like.

"Well, yes. But he's started picking up a lot of classical literature these days, and he'd mentioned that they were your favorite. I think- I think he's reading them to be a little closer to you. In the little ways he can."

And this makes Minako's stomach give out entirely, makes her hand clench just a bit around the edges of her dress, makes her stare at Suzuki and her bright, disarming smile, and wonder just what on earth is this girl? She glances at Yuushi at the bar, then, can't help the way she now has images of him picking up Tess of the D'urbervilles despite the fact that she knows he doesn't very much enjoy classics the way she does. She thinks of the way that their conversations have lengthened now that they delve into deep, exceptionally insightful debates about the books she's always loved and how she hadn't given it a second thought, simply made an idle note in the back of her head how it's a coincidence that the books they've read are all the same.

One simple, harmless little sentence from ordinary Suzuki Nanao has Shigohara Minako in the verge of a tailspin, and is this how she's been affecting Yuushi and Atobe from day one?

Minako finally manages to recover enough to try to reply, to try to play off the way her heart is hammering in her chest at the idea of Yuushi going to such lengths, but she doesn't have a chance because the boys have returned. Oshitari sets down a glass of wine in front of her, smiles, and she feels herself coming undone just a bit more.

Across from them, Atobe's arrived, sets a dainty glass of soda water in front of Nanao because for all he teases about her lack of an alcohol tolerance, he finds it endearing all the same. He presses an affectionate kiss to the side of her head, lets Nanao lull him into a perfectly ordinary conversation about some movie or another she watched the other night. It strikes her all of a sudden, then, the way he looks at her as though she's something awfully precious, the way Nanao catches Minako's eye and gives her a wholesome, encouraging smile – that Nanao had been reassuring Minako that Yuushi did indeed care for her.

That in the few minutes they'd spent together, Nanao had managed to find the tiny bit of barely-there insecurity that she held and had, in the next minute, affectively unraveled it altogether.

And this girl is scary, Minako thinks, but in an entirely different way than she'd thought before. She's so much more dangerous than she'd thought, because even she's begun to feel this strange sort of fondness when she looks at the way Suzuki practically beams when Atobe pokes at her cheek, not unlike the way she'd feel for a small puppy.

And Minako doesn't want to like Nanao, wants to keep thinking of her as 'Suzuki,' but then- Yuushi starts a conversation of his own about Madame Bovary, and when Nanao clumsily knocks her foot against Minako's under the table and smiles widely at her in a very not-subtle 'nudge nudge wink wink,' she can't help the laughter that threatens to bubble up in her throat.

Later, when Keigo walks her to the door, Nanao will turn around and ask what he and Yuushi-kun talked about at the bar. Keigo will nudge her forehead, kiss her goodnight and return to his car without ever answering her question.

"We should get back soon; I don't want to leave Nanao alone with that viper for too long."

Oshitari's answering smile is highly amused. "Are you sure you're not confusing Minako for Seigaku's Kaidoh?"

"She's poisonous, Yuushi. Pretty smiles concealing fangs tinged with venom that'll stop your blood cold."

"Oh. Such poetry – you ought to be a wordsmith, my darling."

"Will you stop being so insufferable and listen to me for once? She's not- she's not good for you, she's not-"

"Just because you've suddenly found an interest in goody-goody girls with not an ounce of deceit doesn't mean that's everyone's tastes, Keigo. I happen to find deceit quite alluring, in a girl."

Keigo's eyes drift towards Nanao at the table, smiling softly at Minako. "She's really quite genuine, isn't she?" And there's this soft tone of wonder in his voice that had it been anyone else but Oshitari, it would have gone unnoticed.

Oshitari laughs.

"What's so funny?"

"You're practically smitten, Keigo."

Keigo rolls his eyes. "Atobe's don't do smitten. You, on the other hand – for a moment I thought you'd finally wizened up and grew better taste than your trashy romance novels. But then, I saw you pick up Tess of the D'urbervilles."

Oshitari has the grace to appear sheepish, though he manages to carry on with a: "I don't know what you're talking about."

The look Keigo gives him is one of positive disgust. "Is she really worth all that effort?"

"Have you seen her legs?"

A snort. "Drop the act, will you? She wouldn't be worth all the trouble if this was just about her legs, Yuushi. Are you- is she really that important to you?"

A flickering glance. "Maybe. I hope so."

"You hope so?"

"I'd like her to be someone who can be worth it. I'd like to think that she is."

Keigo knows exactly what he means, but he sighs anyway, leans on the bar and orders a soda water for his alcohol-intolerant Nanao. "You geniuses and your utter rubbish." A pause. "We are never double dating again."

That last part quite doesn't work out very well, for Nanao has developed a completely unexpected fondness for Shigohara that has Keigo completely bewildered. He finds her peeking over at the girls' practice courts instead of watching his own practice at times, catches her waving enthusiastically to a lightly-smirking Minako, and it has him completely up the walls.

What was it about Shigohara Minako, he demands to know, that's captured the hearts of not only his best friend but also his girlfriend?

And then, from across the courts, Shigohara rests her racket lightly against her shoulder, lifts her chin and looks Keigo square in the eye, and turns to wink at Nanao. Nanao, who's practically swooning, then, and Shigohara turns back around to smirk at Keigo-

-and he's never quite contemplated murder like this before.

The following week, the regulars' coach calls them together into a circle in the midst of practice.

"You boys will be going to a training camp this next weekend."

What?

"With Seigaku."

What?

"Rikkai Dai may be joining us as well, but as of the moment, the two confirmed teams are Seishun Gakuen and Hyotei. We'll be using Atobe's small estate in the countryside."

…What?

The most surprised is Keigo himself, who hadn't even been aware that they even had a small estate in the location that Sakaki-sensei was speaking of now, let alone that he'd spoken with his father who'd agreed to let the teams use it. After the kitchen incident, however, Keigo smoothly accepted all previously unknown possessions with a grace only given to Atobes.

Still, the training camp business was sprung out of the blue – but then, Sakaki-sensei did have a small habit of doing so. He thought it kept everyone 'on their toes.'

By the time he's done frowning at this unexpected turn of events, the regulars have already started to discuss – or bitch – about the camp. Hiyoshi, as always, is happy, considering how that intense boy is happy whenever they mention training at all. Training camp for Hiyoshi has always been like sending a five year old to an amusement park.

Gakuto is highly unamused at the prospect of being sent away for a weekend unannounced, but brightens considerably when he mentions "That dumb Kikumaru's gonna be so jealous of my new moves- Yuushi, pack my new trampoline!"

Shishido is muttering and grumbling under his breath, but he seems to be placated by a careful and gentle Choutarou, and Jiroh isn't even awake at all – he'll most likely wake up when they're already on the bus towards the specific location.

Kabaji, lovely Kabaji, is silent and supportive, and Yuushi-

-is busy trying to catch Shigohara's attention, most likely to announce his departure with a sad farewell (forget the fact that their trip was in a few days still). Everyone called Keigo the drama queen, but if one asked him, Yuushi gave him a fair run for the money.

With a sigh, Keigo moves to the bleachers instead, where Nanao peers up from her phone and smiles at him. "You guys are going on a training camp?" He blinks, and she blushes lightly. "Sorry- I overheard sensei talking about it. That's so exciting!"

"I don't see how this is exciting – at all."

Nanao tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. "Well- camps are always fun with friends, aren't they? And you're going with your friends from Seigaku, too!"

Keigo looks horrified. "Those obnoxious brats are not Ore-sama's friends."

She tilts her head. "Really? Yuushi-kun told me that you even play tennis with- one of their freshmen. I think- his name was…Echizen-kun? He told me that you guys even bet on it. You guys aren't friends?"

The water Keigo had been drinking is promptly projected onto the floor. "He told you what?"

"He wouldn't tell me what the bet was, but it sounds like it was fun."

He thinks of the five weeks it'd taken for his hair to finally grow back from when that hellion had shaved it, thinks of the five weeks more it'd taken for it to be restored to a shadow of its former glory, thinks of the countless appointments he'd had and hats he'd worn and-

"…Keigo? Are you okay- you look a little purple- Keigo?"

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