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Chapter 25

Everything Moves

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Seigaku and Daigaku spent the next couple of days polishing the presentation. None of them had mentioned anything about the incident with Kinigaku. Almost.

Tatsue watched as Sakuno and Ryoma basically ignored each other for some obscure reason. Being one of the special group sort of had its advantage of "spying" on the other groups and even on their own group mates. She observed the two, as they winced, flinched, step back, and avoid each other all the while; Sakuno refused to say anything about what happened while Ryoma was in a foul mood, that despite his cool attitude he tends to slip it out for a while.

"Kids. Really." She muttered as she stretched. It was lunch break at that time, and it was fishy. Tatsue hadn't seen her senpai-tachi (especially Ayashi) in the cafeteria.

She walked around a bit, and found herself standing before the hall where they were going to present about Ryuzaki-no-kimi (a very old way to say –san) and the Seigaku team. There, at last, she saw her senpai-tachi; they were doing the polishing practices. She had no idea on how far they had been doing, but it seemed like things were going smoothly; the captains weren't on stage, but rather on the audience seats while the two fukubuchou were blabbering stuff on stage.

"Must be their scripts." Muttered Tatsue as she continued to watch from the doorway. (So yep, she must be skipping work.)

Emiko, Jun, Inui and Fuji were both on the stage too, though they seemed to be immersed into talking in hushed voices; Mai and Kikumaru were just some seats away from the two buchou, while Atsuyo and Takashi were nowhere in sight.

Well, no anymore though.

"Kitami-chan, let us through." Said a breathy voice. It was her senpai, Atsuyo, she was with Kawamura, they were holding trolleys.

"Lunch?" asked Tatsue as she moved away. Atsuyo nodded, but added that the others had already eaten their share, "By others…"

"The special group, excluding you of course," it was Kawamura who answered, "… you could eat with us."

"Ah… it's ok. I'm…" she then remembered something, she raised a brow, "…oh, yeah. I just remembered… ok." She traipsed inside the hall. Atsuyo and Kawamura exchanged puzzled looks at each other.

In act of "courtesy", Tatsue greeted her senpai-tachi, and then, said that she couldn't work with the rest of the Special Group members.

"Nani?!" Mariko raised a brow. Ayashi was busy wolfing down her 1st plate, Seigaku stared at the kendo buchou as she hungrily asked for more food. Kikumaru looked like he was going to be sick…. She was even more gluttonous with food than all of Seigaku put together.

"They're all fidgeting, throwing stuff at each other, those two senpai from the tennis club." Tatsue said with a tone of "as-a-matter-of-fact" lingering with her every word, "But it's sort of boring after some time, what's interesting was that Sakuno-chan and Ryoma-kun seemed to have LQ today. They weren't even looking at each other." She "slurped" a bowl of udon. Ayashi put down her food, she seemed interested.

"Kya! Don't dare do anything, Ayashi." Emiko glanced at the kendo buchou at the corner of her dark orbs. Jun giggled a little.

"Not doing anything!" Ayashi whipped her head at the other 3rd year and stuck out her tongue childishly.

"What's LQ?" asked Kikumaru, turning to the female kohai, Mai.

"Lovers' quarrel." She answered simply, "But I honestly don't think they're a couple… they're cute together but…" she trailed off as she had a mouthful of fried rice.

"They're not talking that much to each other." Atsuyo said, frowning.

"Hmm… how much does Sakuno-chan know about Ryoma-kun?" asked Jun, looking mildly interested in the two.

Tezuka sighed as Oishi, Fuji, Kikumaru and Kawamura looked at Inui, who took out his green notebook out of nowhere (hm, it is up to us whether to think that he's a magician or it's that he's too good in Physics that he'd found Einstein's "Theory of relativity" applicable in real life).

"According to data, Sakuno-san—" Kikumaru stuck his tongue at Inui, "—fine, Sakuno-chan had gotten her crush on Echizen Ryoma on his first day here in Japan. He was her inspiration in tennis, and was also the reason why she wanted to play tennis. She had been seen watching Echizen's games, and seemed to cheer him silently, as opposed to a certain—" Tatsue coughed, "—girl; she had also been seen giving him bento during lunch. There is one instance that Sakuno-sa…chan had lost a game to Echizen, three times called Echizen as Echizen not "Ryoma-kun"—"

"Ah, Ryoma-kun, eh?" Emiko muffled a laughter. Inui fixed his black rimmed glasses at the bridge of his nose and cleared his throat.

"And I think, that they may know a certain Minami Kenichi." Ayashi choked on her food.

"AYA!" the other third years exclaimed, Atsuyo immediately gave a glass of water to the kendo buchou.

Basing from the look on her face, Mariko almost wanted to knock Ayashi's head off, "That's because you're eating too much!"

"Seriously!" Ayashi pouted at the fukubuchou, after a split second, turned at Inui, "Did you just say… Minami Kenichi?" she asked in a rather alarmed tone.

"Yes. I haven't gotten any data-"

"Of course you couldn't." Emiko frowned, "Shinichi told me that there was this Minami Kenichi was raised in Spain, and trained with some of the best tennis players in the world!"

Tezuka lifted his head, "Did he win the last Euro Tennis Cup(1) with the use of… pelota muerte (2)?"

Ayashi, Mariko, Jun and Emiko nodded in unison.

"He's amazing—"

"—never seen anyone do something like that—"

"—he's not human—"

"—he's a demon from hell." Emiko snarled, "He's a nice boy when he's not on the court, but I abhor his tennis style… if that's what you call style!"

Atsuyo whispered to the rest, "Only our senpai-tachi had seen him, we—" she pointed at Tatsue, Mai and herself "—had never seen the boy."

"—that brat—"

"You haven't?" asked Oishi. Mai nodded.

Emiko was now poring over her pink notes and was scribbling furiously at them.

"Buchou was really surprised when she got the news that you were going to have a practice game with Kinimoto Gakuen." Said Tatsue, "She said that it was going to be a disaster…"

Seigaku looked at each other.

"How so?" asked Kawamura.

"I dunno. I haven't met them." Said Tatsue, "I've only heard a little from our senpai-tachi."

"—I'm going to kill that brat!" Mariko grimaced a little.

"How?" asked Ayashi, "You're not allowed to kill."

"I know."

"…"

"I hate you, Ayashi."

"Mmm… me too. Let's just continue eating, ok? I'm still starving." Ayashi then continued on wolfing down the food served; Mariko glared at her buchou in sheer annoyance, but sighed in defeat after a couple of minutes of shooting glare daggers at Ayashi who seemed to be unperturbed by it.

They continued on eating happily; a mixture of confusion, bewilderment, annoyance, and irritation erupted on Seigaku's minds. It was just then that they realized of how much they lost against Kinigaku; not only that, it also seemed that Daigaku didn't give a damn about it.

Seigaku exchanged shifty looks at each other. It seemed that the Daigaku hadn't been exactly honest with them.

After eating, washing the dishes (yes, washing the dishes) and other miscellaneous stuff to be done, they went back into practicing. However, the talk about Minami Kenichi seemed to affect most of the people, it was only then that Fuji stepped up and asked.

"How did you know about him?" Fuji asked suspiciously.

It was Ayashi, Mariko, Jun and Emiko's turn to look at each other alarmingly.

It was Jun who retorted back.

"Oh simple." She said with calmness and blithe that it was sounding a little scary. A horrible smile crept on her lips, "Minami Kenichi is the only brother of our then-captain, Minami Itsuki."

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– obviously, this one was made up. Any connection of sorts with the real world is purely coincidence.

Pelota means "tennis-sized ball", muerte means "death"

A/N: I'd probably, just PROBABLY, not post any fanfictions in the next two weeks since there's this OotP movie I'll be seeing, and the TDH... But don't worry, I'll continue writing at home. :) Even if HPaTDH will end up with OBHWF... and no Luna... noooo

THANK YOU TO THOSE WHO HAD REVIEWED, PUT ON THE "FAVORITES" AND "ALERTS" THE FIC SO FAR!! I LOVE YOU GUYS! MWWWWWAAAAAAAH!!!