A/N: Ah-ha, I return and I don't own PoT.

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Nationals...We're still going to nationals...There's still a chance...

"Now where the hell is Atobe?"

Hiyoshi, along with the other member of Hyotei, were currently searching for their self-proclaimed invincible captain. It struck him as odd that Atobe would not be present for the great news. At least, he hoped Atobe would think it was great news. With the captain, there was always a chance it would just set him off. Hiyoshi idly recalled Oshitari mumbling something about pride as they split up to search for them.

Forget Atobe and his damn pride...We better be going to nationals...

As he passed by the various athletic fields, he heard the thud of a tennis ball against a wall near the tennis courts. Realizing that the tennis captain would most likely be on a tennis court dawned on him at that moment.

When he approached the sound, he already saw Oshitari watching him. Shishido soon appeared among the stands along with Ootori and the others. In an energetic tone, Shishido shared the news.

"Hey, Atobe! We've been invited to nationals!"

A sinking feeling grew in Hiyoshi's chest as their normally boisterous captain was abnormally silent. His mouth was drawn into a thin line and his hair shaded his eyes. He snatched the ball he was hitting against the wall and kept his back turned. Hiyoshi decided he might as well drop down and beg as well, except he would not make it sound like it.

"We want to go to nationals regardless of the condition we're in! We have to pay back Seigaku!"

He hoped that part about Seigaku would be motivation enough for Atobe to agree. With perfect timing and in a humble begging manner, Ootori backed him up.

"Captain! Please!"

The others waited impatiently with pleading expressions. Atobe looked like he was about to say something causing everybody to hold their breath. Before he could tell them anything though, he was interrupted by the distant sound of cheering.

If there was any way to cure a grumpy Atobe, it was to feed his ego. Hiyoshi silently cheered the various Atobe worshipers for the first time. The captain turned around to face the school and the noise .

Beyond Hiyoshi's line of reasoning and imagination, there was suddenly an extremely large sign cheering on the Hyotei tennis team to nationals draped the length of the school wall. He was pretty sure that it was a bit overkill, but it did not matter at the moment. All that mattered was to get Atobe to agree to go to Nationals. The captain turned around and studied the entire school building filled with students hanging out of the windows and on the roof. They continued to cheer for their school. With the sound, Hiyoshi was unable to hear what Atobe mumbled exactly, but suddenly, he perked up when the diva of a captain raised his arm and snapped his fingers silencing the entire school. Smirk in place, Atobe returned to his egocentric ways.

"Come with me to Nationals!"

With that, the entire school burst into wild cheering and he stood comfortably in the sound of the cheering student body. The cheers of the Hyotei tennis members were drowned out from the other noise. Hiyoshi became far more thrilled and allowed himself a cheerful grin. For once, he could say that he was happy with his captain.

The cheering continued for a while longer before it began to die down as the teachers most likely began calling the students back in. Whoever came up with that idea was a genius and Hiyoshi wanted nothing more than to thank him or her. Before long, the Hyotei tennis team was left to themselves.

Shishido strolled up cheerily to Atobe and patted him on the back earning him a condescending glance. Hiyoshi always wondered what it was with those two. First, they already seemed to have known each other for a while and then, after Shishido lost his place, Atobe actually vouched for him. Within school or tennis or outside, those two seemed to have a love/hate relationship leaning more towards the hate end. Either way, Hiyoshi did not feel that chummy with his captain.

"Alright! We're going to take Nationals!"

"Only if you play better."

The short moment of camaraderie between the two was lost with Atobe's wonderfully simple, yet condescending tone. And back to routine, Shishido immediately jumped in on the captain and the two began a typical Atobe and Shishido argument with Ootori doing his absolute best to try and mediate but failing.

"Ore-sama is going to work you like dogs for Nationals."

A horribly sadistic shine gleamed in Atobe's eyes as he said that. The others just sighed, but nobody complained since they did have to agree with the hard practice. They were good, but it was more than clear with their last match with Seigaku that they were still lacking. Then there would be Rikkai. Hiyoshi did not know much about them, but from what he had heard, seen, and observed from Atobe and Sanada's interactions, it would not be an easy task.

"We'll start practice tomorrow. Make sure you're well rested."

The menacing and all-knowing tone of voice resulted in another small sigh from the team, but they agreed with him nonetheless.

"So, what do ya think the lineup is going to be?"

Gakuto bounced next to Oshitari who just adjusted his glasses and shrugged.

"Who knows? Knowing Atobe, there will definitely be a change though."

Shishido walked alongside Ootori and put his hands behind his head and stared at the sky lazily.

"He better not change it that much. It's not like we got that much time."

Hiyoshi about gagged as he read between the lines. Shishido just did not want to be separated from Ootori. The effect was even worse since a light blush crept onto Ootori's cheeks. The reflex to roll his eyes was almost to great for Hiyoshi to stop, but it was not like it mattered that much since he took his normal spot in falling behind the rest.

"I bet Hiyoshi's hoping for a regular spot on the line up!"

The acrobatic player grinned smugly at him as he hopped around his usual doubles partner. Oshitari just gave a tiny smirk and chided Gakuto.

"Now now, Gakuto. We mustn't give the reserve players reason for or against being in the lineup."

Despite the fact that he was chiding his partner, Hiyoshi still had the feeling, like he usually does with the resident prodigy, that he was still being made fun of. However, he brushed it off like he always does and took his separate way to go home. There was still homework for him to complete even though he was far to excited to really concentrate on anything else.

The walk home was spent mainly imagining himself on the starting lineup and ultimately showing Atobe how great of a player he was as he absolutely crushed his opponent. Unfortunately, Hiyoshi noted he also had the tendency to let the captain's voice enter his head as well. It was like he was actually right there telling Hiyoshi not to suffer any delusions of grandeur.

"Stupid Atobe..."

He mumbled aloud as he walked in hopes to drown out the annoying voice. There was no way he was going to let Atobe or anybody else stop him from showing how true gekokujou was. The sun was already setting when he let himself into his home and slipped off his shoes. His mother was in the kitchen most likely cooking dinner as the smell of food drifted to his nose.

Checking the clock, he noticed that there was still a little bit of time before dinner would be ready so he decided to take a shower and clean up. As he went upstairs to his room, he remembered that he failed to practice any of his kata today and mentally slapped himself before reasoning that right now, preparing for nationals was more important.

Satisfied with his justification, Hiyoshi quickly undressed and slipped into the shower. He slowly lost track of time as the hot water rained down on him relaxing any of his tense muscles and seemingly melt away the worries.

After spending considerable time in the shower, Hiyoshi reluctantly stepped out and dried off. Just as he was tying his yukata, he heard his mother's voice call him to dinner.

"Coming."

He called back to her and quickly tossed his dirty clothing into the clothes hamper. Making his way downstairs, Hiyoshi found his family already seated. His mother was just finishing putting out the last part of the meal and sat down. Hiyoshi obediently took his seat.

"Thank you for the food."

His whole family spoke in unison and then they began eating in silence. It was not until about the middle of dinner did his mother break the silence.

"So, what was it that made you so happy today?"

Looking up from his food, Hiyoshi finished chewing and dutifully answered his mother.

"Hyotei is still going to nationals."

Hiyoshi's mother smiled while his father nodded approvingly. There was a sudden feeling of pride in having his parents recognize the importance and excitement for this new turn of events.

"Will you be playing?"

He thought about the answer and figured that he had a fairly decent chance if they were to determine the line up through matches or something else along those lines. He came up with the best answer he could think of and looked at his father.

"There's a good chance."

"That's wonderful! I suppose we should expect you to be a bit busy for a while?"

Yes, there was still the matter that he usually trained within the dojo with his father everyday, but with something as large scale as nationals along with schoolwork would most likely take him away from his normal tasks and duties.

"...Yes. Our captain is strict in training."

"Good. I expect you to work hard at your tennis and schoolwork."

Relief flooded Hiyoshi at his father's agreement to let him off the hook. He knew that his parents, particularly his father, held hard work and a certain amount of strictness to be key elements in one's lifestyle. There was that little part of him that knew that and was why he worded his response as such. Well, he could not feel bad since it was the truth.

Hiyoshi had no doubt that training would make his martial arts training look like a blessing. Atobe had a penchant for creating unique and sometimes, in his humble opinion, sadistic training regimes. He was fairly certain that he got some sort of twisted glee from making them do such things. However, Hiyoshi figured it could not be too bad since Atobe most likely would be participating himself. Then again, there was the unspoken conspiracy theory that Atobe was some sort of masochist and would actually enjoy doing horrific training exercises himse;. But then, that was merely a rumor that Hiyoshi hoped was based off of nothing.

"I'm done. Thank you."

He decided to cut his train of thought short by ending his meal. There was still much homework to be done and he would also like to have some time to meditate and clear out his mind. There was only so much about the nationals and Atobe he could take.

Slowly trudging up the stairs, Hiyoshi stepped into his room and closed the door. Walking over to his backpack, he pulled out the day's assignments and set them on his desk. He pulled out the chair and sat down while pulling out a pencil from one of the desk drawers.

"Math sucks..."

He mumbled to himself as he studied the abominable piece of paper and heavy as a boulder math book. Nothing good could come from math in his opinion. He certainly never used it in his martial arts or tennis. Well, there was keeping track of the score, but that hardly counts as math. As he began methodically scribbling out the formulas, gathering the information, and incorporating it into something coherent, Hiyoshi continued his mental rant of math.

Thinking of all his teammates, he tried to see if any of them used it for anything relative to them. As he processed all that limited information, there was no definitive answer; just like the accursed problem before him.

There were to many variables. Why do they never give anybody enough information? Supposedly, there was enough data to satisfy the proper variables, but as far as he was concerned, there was nothing else. Flipping through the pages of his book searching for some indication of what he should do, Hiyoshi grew increasingly more frustrated. Leave it to math homework to ruin a good mood.

After several long minutes scouring for some sort of answer, he angrily threw down his pencil and glared menacingly at his homework. He idly wondered if this was how Gakuto felt when he was attempting to do his math homework. However, Gakuto had Oshitari to help him. Who did he have? Nobody. Hiyoshi had to rely solely on himself to get through it. Even though he had long forgotten about the actual problem, he found himself growing increasingly frustrated.

All of the others seemed to have somebody who would help them or somebody they could get to help them. Hiyoshi could not say he could do that. He supposed he could technically do that, but it was more of a matter of pride than anything else. The only other person he figured did not need help with anything, was Atobe. The mere thought of how arrogant he would be if Hiyoshi admitted he needed assistance from him. Then again, there was that nagging feeling that Atobe most likely knew how to do it since he could apparently do anything.

He recalled seeing Atobe's homework before and noted that he must be in the most advanced math class for their grade since the problems looked like a blur of shapes, swirls, and letters. The captain could also complete said problems with a seemingly incredible ease that was more than enough to make anybody jealous.

Actually, there was plenty to make anybody be jealous of him. Atobe was the prime example of the perfect student with perfect grades, the perfect class president, and all the random language classes the school offered. The worst part in his opinion was that Atobe did everything as if it were second nature. Then, he joins one of the largest clubs at school and becomes the captain without really trying.

Hiyoshi scowled as he considered all the work he put into the team and all the sacrifices he made and still wound up a reserves player. While he entertained the idea that when it did come to using the reserves, he was the one they would all count on and therefore be the deciding factor, he still hated admitting that he was not an official regular; he was just the reserve.

He caught himself thinking such depressing and meaningless thoughts when he heard himself heave a fairly loud sigh. Shaking his head to free his mind of the torturous thoughts, Hiyoshi returned his attention back to the homework sitting in front of him.

"Dammit!"

Now, Hiyoshi was not normally one to curse outright since his parents instilled good manners into him, but as he looked over the math problem, he could not help it. It was as if he was looking at a different problem. It actually made sense and after glancing at the book, he realized that the answer to the problem was quite simple. He had misread the problem and in doing so, created a new type of math problem. On top of that, he looked at the pages in his book and saw an almost exact replica of the problem as an example.

There was nothing more that he wanted to do than slam his head against the desk. So, he did just that. Far too frustrated with his own oversight, he just gave into the feelings and let his head make a hollow thunk against the wooden desk.

"Is everything all right?"

His mother's voice came from the other side of the room's door. Hiyoshi sighed.

"Yes. Everything is fine..."

"...Okay."

He listened to his mother's footsteps disappear down the hallway before lifting his head back up and finding the strength to finish the remaining homework. Somehow, he did manage to find such strength and ignored the clock move painfully slow. Methodically working through the problems, Hiyoshi was interrupted by the sound of his cellphone.

Putting down his pencil, he pushed away from the desk and reached over to his phone. He about fell out of his seat when he read the number.

Why would he be calling?...

"Hello?"

"Hiyoshi, there will be a sort of pre-practice tomorrow at the school courts."

"Understood."

"...Would it kill you to show a little more enthusiasm?...Ah-ha, you must be trying to hide that you're ecstatic since ore-sama has generously interrupted the monotonous drone of gloom that is your life."

"Good-bye Atobe...Um..."

"'Um?' What is it that makes you hesitate so, Hiyoshi."

Hiyoshi gritted his teeth. Why could he not just be normal and ask what was wrong like normal junior high students? Not to mention the tone of voice, that syrupy voice that was somewhat condescending and far too sly.

"...May I...ask you a question?"

"Of course. It is only natural you would seek out ore-sama's brilliant mind."

He cursed to himself. Never in his mind did he plan on asking Atobe for help on the final math question. While he was talking with him, the problem came up and this time Hiyoshi was sure that the answer was not obvious. There was nothing more that he wanted than to be done with his homework and if it meant stooping low and asking help from his tennis captain, then so be it.

"The answer is quite simple."

"I haven't told you the problem."

"Does not exist. The answer is that it does not exist. It's a trick question."

"...I still haven't told you the problem."

"Ore-sama already knew what the question was."

There was a long pause as Hiyoshi slowly processed the information. His eyes went wide as he thought about the random idea he fancied during one of his classes. Atobe had ESP. That was the only way he could know. No, there had to be a different answer. While it was not beyond the realm of Atobe's little world, it was definitely impossible in his.

"How?"

"Ore-sama took that class once. The teacher always does that. Chances are, there will soon be a call from Ootori. He's taking that class as well, right?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Normally, ore-sama would have made you think about it yourself, but that problem is just cheap tricks to amuse the boring lives of the school's teachers."

The events of the day plus the stress of homework must have been having strange effects on him. If he was listening correctly, Atobe was actually having a semi-normal conversation with him.

"Does Ootori ask questions often?"

"Why does it matter? As a matter of fact, he does...unlike some people. Ore-sama's brilliance is beyond the imagination. Ask what you will with your math."

It would have been easy enough to end the conversation right there, yet Hiyoshi found himself continuing his talk.

"Why is that the answer?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yes."

"Very well, ore-sama will amuse your request. There are too many unaccounted for variables in which, even if there were more numbers, would still not work. Keep in mind that many aspects of math and numbers are still only in theory. I'm sure there are parts you are able to solve with the given formulas. However, there would be no way for you to know that such a number cannot exist since the line will not exist at any point at that given limit. It will continually increase or decrease, but will never become that limiting number at any point. Therefore, it does not exist at that exact point."

"...What the hell?"

"You asked. Though I do share your sentiment since you're in something akin to algebra, yes? Such a ridiculous question at that level. Any other morsels of information you would like from ore-sama?"

"No...Thanks..."

"Incredible. Hiyoshi actually thanked ore-sama. Don't forget though, tomorrow, practice, eight a.m."

"Understood."

The other end of the line went dead and Hiyoshi slowly folded his phone and set it on his bed. He regarded it with a blank stare for a while. It took a few moments for him to accept that he just had a civil conversation with Atobe that was not about tennis. No matter what he thought, he needed to get the answer down and have the homework done with as soon as possible.

Quickly jotting down the answer, Hiyoshi happily slammed his book shut and placed the homework and book in his bag for school. The difficult homework was out of the way and he had time to spare. Checking the clock, he saw that he still had little over an hour for meditating.

Turning off the lights in his room, Hiyoshi stepped quickly and quietly to the small dojo attached to the house. The large room was devoid of life and sound and perfect for clearing the mind. He walked to the center of the room and knelt on the floor. With a large, deep breath Hiyoshi relaxed and closed his eyes.

For the first half hour or so, he was quite proud that he managed to keep his mind relatively blank, but after hearing the house phone ring in the background brought back memories of his phone call with Atobe.

His mind attempted to process the previous phone call. There was no way to determine what was more of a shock, Atobe agreeing to answer the question with relatively little condescending undertones or his answer. All pompous formality was lost when he went into his explanation and Hiyoshi was impressed or surprised at the clarity of the response. It was short and to the point, hardly the normal for somebody like the Hyotei captain. Atobe knew exactly what he was talking about and everything about his response let those who heard it know it. Hiyoshi found himself grudgingly admitting that there was something admirable in Atobe's confidence. Maybe there was an advantage to entertaining Atobe's ego after all.

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A/N: I don't like math. Yes, Hiyoshi is still a second year making him something around an eighth grader so he should be in something like algebra, right? I dunno, I just know that I was in that (I think) at that time. Well, I remember one time when I was in pre-algebra my teacher gave me a question like that. Seriously, you don't do limits until calculus. And no, it was not a completely random insertion. Well, enough on that, thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed!