Chapter 6: Too Little Too Late

It's just too little too late, a little too wrong, and I can't wait,

And you know all the right things to say, you know it's just too little too late,

You say you dream of my face, but you don't like me, you just like the chase,

To be real, it doesn't matter anyway, you know it's just too little too late

Fuji and Momoshiro hurried off in the direction that Ryoma had gone. Looking outside, however, they couldn't find him anywhere. "Echizen! Oi, Echizen, where did you run off to?" yelled Momoshiro.

Fuji frowned. "Where is he? He couldn't have gone far...let's go check the courts at school."

They both sprinted over to their school, expecting to hear the pounding of tennis balls against the wall, but only silence filled the air.

"Where is he?" Momoshiro inquired.

Fuji shrugged. "Let's try his place. He might have gone home."

Momoshiro and Fuji ran over to the bus stop to catch the next ride. Throughout the entire bus ride, they tried to figure out what had gotten him so angry.

"Ryuzaki-chan said that Echizen had forgotten some appointment. Did he have a date with her or something?" Momoshiro mused.

"Probably. And Echizen obviously didn't understand that it was a date, and forgot all about it and came with us to the game yesterday. If he had told us, we obviously wouldn't have persuaded him to go."

"Right." Momoshiro shook his head, sighing sympathetically. "Poor Ryuzaki-chan. She said she had to wait for an hour and a half. And she would have, too-she's crazy about Echizen. It must have broken her heart when the idiot didn't show up."

"He deserved her yelling at him. Sakuno-chan's not the type to get mad if a guy doesn't like her, but obviously anyonewould be angry if the person they like keeps leading them on."

Both boys nodded thoughtfully until Momoshiro paused, having noted something else. "But why'd he get so mad?"

Fuji was silent for a minute. "Hmm...Do you think...he's jealous of...Tezuka?"

Momoshiro snapped his fingers. "Of course! He's jealous of buchou! The idiot actually likes Ryuzaki-chan! But he's way too dense to realize it!"

Fuji smiled slyly. "Then it's up to us to knock some sense into that head of his. It's about time he gets a clue. And Sakuno-chan deserves to be treated better, too."

Momoshiro nodded vigorously in agreement. "Very true. Echizen honestly doesn't know what he's missing."

The bus ride ended, and he and Fuji jumped off. Running over to Ryoma's house, they rang the doorbell, and his father answered.

"What goes on, you two? Here to see Ryoma?" he asked.

"Is he here? Could we talk to him?" Fuji asked.

"Sure. He's out back." He led them inside; Fuji and Momoshiro walked out to Ryoma's tennis court. Sure enough, Ryoma was hitting a tennis ball against the wall, blatantly lacking the control his shots normally contained. His distraction due to the day's events were clearly mitigating his skill. Next to him were about seven empty Ponta cans, and about ten balls were scattered around the court. (A/N: to Ryoma, Ponta = beer apparently...)

"Echizen!" Fuji called. Ryoma turned, raising an eyebrow at his visitors.

"Fuji-senpai? Momo-senpai? What are you guys doing here?"

"To see where you ran off to, idiot," said Momoshiro. "What happened with you and Ryuzaki?"

"Nothing."

"Really, now?" Momoshiro inquired with a smirk. "She yells at you and deliberately hits balls at your face, you don't react, Tezuka-buchou comes back and Ryuzaki gives him a strangely warm welcome-"

"SHUT UP!" Ryoma bellowed suddenly.

Fuji and Momoshiro stared at him in shock. Did Echizen Ryoma just yell at his two best friends?

He, too, realized what he had just done and turned away, pulling his cap down. "Sorry."

"Anyway," said Fuji, giving Momoshiro a pointed look for beginning the conversation the wrong way, "We're just here to see you. What happened?"

"I have no idea." said Ryoma. Fuji noticed that even though his face had its usual blank look, his golden eyes held a strange mixture of anger and pain, though more of the latter.

"Echizen, why didn't you tell us that you had a date with Ryuzaki?" Momoshiro asked, more seriously.

"It wasn't a date!"

"Sure it wasn't," Momoshiro smirked, but got a nudge in the ribs as Fuji silenced him with a look again.

"The point is, Echizen, why didn't you tell us? We wouldn't have forced you to go the game otherwise." said Fuji.

"I forgot," mumbled Ryoma, a hint of shame in his voice.

"How could you forget something that important?" The two inquired together.

"Look, it was an accident, OK?"

"She doesn't seem to think so!" said Momoshiro indignantly. "Ryuzaki's probably the most patient person on earth and you've managed to annoy even her. You always do this to her. That girl is crazy about you and you break her heart just about every time she tries to make a move. In fact, you've done this so often that I'm not at all surprised she thought you stood her up on purpose. Even if you don't like her back, you don't need make her think you do!"

"I do not act like I like her! It's not my fault she completely misinterprets my offers to help her with tennis. It's not even my fault I don't like her back!"

"Maybe not," said Fuji quietly, anger simmering beneath his words. "But it is your fault that she got mad at you. She got angry because you forgot about the date, not because she thinks you don't return her feelings. I don't blame her at all for getting angry-I would have done the exact same thing. Don't you realize how devastated she must have been? She looked so pale today-like she hadn't slept a wink. You obviously don't realize it, but you're playing with her feelings. It's despicable."

Ryoma was silent. What could he say to that? Fuji sensed his surfacing guilt and decided to drive home the final blow.

"You're a great tennis player, Echizen, but when it comes to other people's feelings, you're completely clueless. And unless you fix that, you're going to be miserable for the rest of your life." With that, Fuji motioned to Momoshiro to leave. Momoshiro nodded, and giving Echizen a final hard glance, he followed Fuji out of Ryoma's residence.

Back at the tennis club, Sakuno had just put her racket away and gotten out her water bottle. Hitting balls hard enough to smack someone in the face was pretty tiring. Taking a long drink, she heaved a sigh, thinking about Ryoma's walking away. What have I done? I shouldn't have been so hard on him!

"Ryuzaki-chan?" She looked up to find Oishi and Kikumaru standing in front of her and giving her friendly smiles, which she returned half-heartedly.

"Hello, Oishi-senpai, Kikumaru-senpai. Is something wrong?"

"That's what we were going to ask you." said Oishi. "What happened with you and Echizen?"

Sakuno hesitated. "Ano...I..."

Kikumaru put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't tell us if you don't want to. We just wanted to make sure you were OK. You looked really tired and frustrated today."

"I guess." Sakuno sighed. "He was supposed to help me with tennis yesterday. When he didn't show up at first, I thought he was going to be a bit late, so I waited for a bit. But then an hour and a half passed and he still wasn't there." she said. "I wish he would stop offering to help and then treating me like I don't exist, but I don't think I should have yelled at him that much. Or hit him in his face."

Oishi shook his head. "No, I don't blame you. Nothing you did was wrong, Ryuzaki-chan. Echizen really needs to learn his lesson."

"I still feel like I shouldn't have yelled at him in front of all of you...he's probably really mad at me..."

"If he's mad at you, which he has no right to be, then he's an idiot, Sakuno-chan." Kikumaru said gently.

"Should I go apologize? I think he might have misunderstood the situation when I went and hugged Tezuka-senpai. I don't like him that way-Tezuka-senpai's like a big brother to me. Like-" Sakuno began to panic, when Oishi interrupted to stop her from blaming herself.

"Go ahead and explain that if you want, but don't apologize. Like I said, you did nothing wrong. Don't worry yourself about it, Ryuzaki-chan." Oishi smiled at her warmly.

"Arigato, Oishi-senpai, Kikumaru-senpai. I'll be OK." As convincing as she tried to sound, Sakuno clearly looked no better than she did before the conversation. If anything, she looked even worse. She picked up her bag. "Well, I have to go." With a polite nod and bow, she walked out the exit door.

"No problem. See you tomorrow!" Kikumaru waved enthusiastically at Sakuno's retreating figure.

He looked at Oishi when Sakuno was out of earshot. "Ochibi's really missing out. He's too dense to see what a nice girl Ryuzaki-chan is!"

"Yeah," said Oishi, "but it's up to him to understand that."

"I wouldn't say that, Oishi!" said Kikumaru with a grin.

"What do you mean?"

Kikumaru grinned mischievously. "Let's go! We've got some work to do!"

"What work?"

"You will see!" Kikumaru pulled a very confused Oishi out of the tennis club, grinning to himself all the while.


"Hey, Tezuka," Inui called.

"Inui. I was looking for you." Tezuka turned and faced the data collector.

"Were you also wondering what happened to those two?" said Kawamura.

"Hmm. Rather, I wanted a favor from you all." Tezuka replied.

All three third-years raised an eyebrow. Tezuka asking for favors? This had to be good...

"If we can help, we will," said Inui. "What do you need from us?"

"It appears that Echizen missed a practice with her. Naturally, she would have thought that he missed it intentionally, and probably got fed up and...you know the rest."

"Oh, so that's what happened." Inui rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Is Ryuzaki-chan OK?"
"I'm worried about Sakuno-san...or rather," he corrected himself, "I'm miffed by Echizen's treatment of her."

"Well, based on his reaction when he saw Ryuzaki-chan hugging you, there's a 50% chance Echizen also likes Ryuzaki, 25% chance it was from a long time ago, a 100% chance he was jealous..." Inui appeared to have something else to say, but Tezuka cut him off before he started seeing data instead of stars.

"What if he simply dislikes being yelled at in public?"

"Well," Inui cleared his throat. If you hadn't interrupted me that's what I would've said..."There is also the 99.9% chance that Echizen does not know himself."

Tezuka gave him a blank look for a few moments before replying, "You mean he's so dense that he doesn't realize it?"

Kawamura chuckled. "Considering the fact that his desk is buried in piles of tennis equipment and magazines as tall as he is, I wouldn't exactly be surprised..."

Kaidoh spoke up as well. "With all due respect, Buchou, Echizen never gets embarrassed. He doesn't really care about anything other than tennis. You would know that best. He definitely did not run away in embarrassment."

Tezuka looked at his teammates before heaving a sigh of defeat. "So he was jealous, huh?"

"Absolutely." The three nodded their heads vigorously.

"..."

"..."

The four stared at each other in silence.

"So..." Kawamura laughed uneasily again. "Now what?"

"Clearly, unless Echizen gets a clue, Ryuzaki doesn't stand a chance. But obviously he's way too dense to get that clue. Therefore, Ryuzaki needs help." Inui said, taking command.

Tezuka nodded. "Now that everything's been cleared up, I agree. And this was the favor I wanted from you guys."

"To help Sakuno-chan?" Kawamura asked in surprise.

Kaidoh turned to Tezuka. "Buchou, why?"

Their captain sighed. I knew they were going to ask this..."She's like a younger sister to me. Sometimes when Coach Ryuzaki is off in America for business, I stay with her and take care of her. So in a sense, I've 'adopted' her as the sibling I've never had."

Mumbles of "oh..." were shared by his audience of three.

So cheesy...Kaidoh could not help but smile at his captain's rare show of emotion.

I didn't know Tezuka could have any sort of emotion. Kawamura was not one to judge people, but for all the years he had known the guy, Tezuka never displayed this type of affection for anyone. Or perhaps, he just chose not to.

Inui, on the other hand, whipped out his notebook and scribbled something down. The other three looked at him warily, and he pushed up his glasses, the light flashing across the lenses. "Good data," he grinned mischievously.

Tezuka resisted the urge to facepalm, and after making sure that Inui put his notebook away, the four continued to discuss their "battle plan."