The Prince of Tennis and Friends
"You know what, guys?" said Saeki to his two teammates as the three of them chillaxed in the living room.
"What?" they both said.
"We don't have anything to be ashamed of." He said.
"What are you talking about?" Hiyoshi questioned.
"About the game." Saeki said. "Do you guys realize who we were up against? That team was OUTRAGEOUS! I think we did great, bringing them all the way to a tiebreaker situation!"
"Yeah…" said Sakurai. "I think you're right."
They heard the front door open, and in walked Yukimura and Ryoma, both looking perfectly healthy, except Ryoma had on two eye patches.
"Hey Ryoma, why are you wearing two eye patches?" said Saeki.
"Well," said Ryoma. "When I got the hospital, the doctor said I was exaggerating my pain and that I wasn't really bleeding out of the eyes. But I didn't want to leave empty handed so I grabbed some eye patches and some tongue depressors."
Ryoma held up the tongue depressors and lifted the eye patches up onto his forehead.
"Oh." said Sakurai. "That's silly."
"How about you, Yukimura?" said Hiyoshi. "How are you doing?"
"Oh, I'm still as medically fragile as ever." Said Yukimura.
"Well, at least we're all back together again." Sakurai shrugged. "Saeki was just talking about how we should be proud of how we did in the tournament, and we've finally all gotten around to agreeing with him."
Yukimura and Ryoma looked at each other.
"Um…SURE…" they said uneasily.
"I guess when your expectations are so low…" Ryoma shrugged, tossing the tongue depressors and the eye patches on the table.
The SnakesAkutsu was sitting in the kitchen puffing smoke like a big old dragon and he was making the others cough. Even after they had opened up all the windows in the house, they were still quite overwhelmed with second hand smoke.
"What are you, a chimney?" said Oshitari finally.
"I thought you were going to quit!" said Kaidou.
"I WAS." Said Akutsu.
"And how come we never noticed you smoking a single time before you brought it up earlier today and now you can't seem to stop smoking?" Ryou questioned.
"Because, up until now I always did it outside." Said Akutsu.
"Why the change of heart?" Atsushi asked.
"Because now I don't care anymore." Akutsu shrugged.
"Well stop." Said Kaidou. "What good is all of my endurance training if you're just going to fill my lungs with second hand smoke?"
"I don't want to hear another word about it!" Akutsu threatened.
Oshitari looked at Kaidou and the twins, and then they all nodded at each other. He whipped out a frying pan from behind his back, and slowly the four of them made a quiet assault on Akutsu, hitting him over the head with a blunt object. The frying pan.
As Akutsu fell limply to the floor, they collected up his cigarette and tossed it outside.
"Even though that was a little extreme, I think we got our point across." Said Ryou.
"Yes." Said Atsushi. "But I'm not going to sleep tonight."
"Neither are we." Everyone agreed.
The Team That Is Better Than Shuusuke's Team"I can't believe it." Said Yuuta. "I just CAN'T BELIEVE IT!"
He continued to grumble as everyone else tried to ignore him.
"My brother's team ended up making it to the finals!" he went on. "WE could have definitely made it to the finals! We could have played against them! And guess what? Our coaches said we could switch around the lineup so I could have played against him!"
They all blocked their ears.
"Unbelievable." Yuuta muttered to himself. "Just unbelievable…"
They tried giving him disparaging looks, but he didn't seem to notice.
"That Atobe…if I ever get him in a room alone…"
Yuuta looked up and then realized that Atobe was in the Parents room right then and there as he was talking to himself, while the rest of the family was all sitting in the living room.
Slowly, Yuuta got to his feet.
"Guys…" he said, slowly back stepping towards the bedrooms. "I'm gonna go and um…go over here…"
"Yuuta, wait." Said Jackal standing up.
"Yeah, hang on a second." Bane agreed.
"Shh…" said Shinji as he tried to watch television.
"If you go in there and kill Atobe right now then you'd just be sinking to your brother's level." Said Jackal.
"…What?" Yuuta looked betrayed.
"And I thought you didn't ever want to be like him." Bane commented. "And killing Atobe for something like this is something that only he would do."
Yuuta sighed and looked defeated. "As much as I hate to admit it, you guys are right." He put his hands on their shoulders. "Thank you for preventing me for making a horrible mistake. The consequences of accidentally doing something that my brother would do are far more dire than the consequences of murder in my book."
"That's the spirit." Said Jackal.
"Now let's continue watching America's Funniest Home Videos." Said Bane as they all went back into the living room.
ii Data
"I am so glad I went to the tennis matches." Said Inui as he recorded information in his data book.
"You were gone?" Tetsu said as he observed Inui walking in.
"Yes." Said Inui. "I was gathering data and I found out something very important about Fuji Shuusuke."
"Oh?" said the others.
"His BIRTHDAY." Inui said as he wrote in 'February 29th' instead of 'unknown'.
"Well, then I suppose it was a worthwhile waste of time." Sanada sighed.
"I think the next order of business is being confident enough to erase this question mark…" Inui tapped his book.
Renji leaned over Inui's shoulder. "Inui, with all due respect," he began. "But don't you think that the fact that Fuji plays on the BOY'S tennis team is proof enough of his gender?"
Inui shook his head. "You would be surprised."
"Guys, I'm kind of glad that we didn't win!" said Jirou as he stretched out on the floor. "Because now we get to relax and go to bed early!"
"Not me." Said Inui. "I'm going to the finals to see the matches. I'm sure they will be the greatest of them all."
"Perhaps I will join you…" said Renji. "If there's nothing good on television."
"Only a Spongebob Squarepants marathon." Said Tetsu, flicking through the channels.
Renji and Inui looked at each other, then at the clock and sighed. Both sat down.
Pillars"My arm STILL hurts." Said Aoi, getting a new ice pack from the freezer.
"That's MY line." Said Tezuka, taking the ice pack from Aoi's hand.
"Come on!" whined Aoi. "I was in an arm wrestling competition!"
"Well, this is my recurring injury that always comes back to haunt me at the worst of times." Tezuka said.
"I've been meaning to ask you about that, Tezuka." Said Tachibana with a frown. "What is WITH that recurring injury of yours? It always comes back to haunt you…"
"At the worst of times, I know." Tezuka said.
"What's with it?" David further inquired.
"I can't explain it." Tezuka said. "It is unfortunate and ever so recurring. I let my guard down during the match and got careless. At this rate, even if I use the Tezuka Zone, I hardly think I am a sufficient pillar for Seigaku." Then he looked at his teammates. "Twenty laps."
"Why?" they all said.
"Because I said so." Tezuka replied. "What more do you need?"
"Tezuka…just no." said Aoi. "Whenever you tell us to run laps, we just go outside and pretend to do it just so you'll leave us alone."
"But we're tired of doing that too." Tachibana added. "It's time you stopped thinking you're in control of this household."
"Plus, it's raining." Said David.
Tezuka looked disappointed. "I am disappointed." He reported.
"Well…okay…" said the others.
"Thirty laps." Tezuka revised. "And don't let me catch you PRETENDING."
"Come on, let's watch television in the other room." Said Tachibana as he went into the living room. The others followed him and Tezuka only stood there with his ice pack.
"Once again…" he muttered. "I have let my guard down…"
The Rhythm…"So how much of a bummer is it that we got disqualified from the tournament?" Sengoku said.
"Not that much." Kamio admitted. "I mean, Shishido would have forfeited his match at that point anyway so we would have lost."
"This is all Shishido's fault!" said Sengoku, clearly choosing to ignore Kamio's comment. "I mean, there was no reason for him to come home that day acting all crazy, thus FORCING us to lock him in the bathroom with the air conditioning on full blast!"
"Sengoku…" said Oishi with a sigh. "Do you think that maybe you're just biased because you like yourself and don't like Shishido?"
Sengoku sighed and slumped in his chair. "Yeah, probably." He said.
"I think we all need to just calm down and evaluate the situation." Said Oishi. "We'll take Shishido's temperature every once and a while and do what we can to keep him from dying."
"Do you think we should call an ambulance or something?" Itsuki said.
"No." said Oishi. "That would make us look bad."
"Yeah, how are we supposed to explain this to the paramedics, huh?" Sengoku agreed.
"I thought we were going to try to do what we can to keep Shishido from dying." Itsuki said.
"Well…" the other three looked at each other.
"As long as it doesn't involve leaving the house." Kamio said.
"Ooohhhh…okay." Itsuki nodded.
"But we shouldn't let Shishido's deathly sickness stop us from having a fun time!" said Sengoku. "Who wants to play Mario 3?"
"ME!" they all yelled as they made a mad dash for the video game controllers.
Next up: THE MATCH OF THE CENTURY!!