Glass 7: Happy Birthday Davide?
The Rokkaku team members assembled for one of their non-beach practices. Each team member had brought a wrapped box or item and an assortment of party items with which they were obviously going to have a party. The freshman captain, Kentaroh, seeing this as the perfect chance to test out the juice Inui had given him, had volunteered to bring the juice.
"Um… Kentaroh, your juice smells strange. Are you sure it's safe to drink?" Saeki asked skeptically.
"Why does it smell weird? How come that bird fell out of the tree? Ne Saeki, why do we have party stuff with us? Is it someone's birthday? Whose birthday is it?" Itsuki asked spontaneously.
"Well it's obviously Davi-"Saeki started, but he was interrupted by the (noisy) arrival of Davide and Kurobane aka Bane. Of course the regulars that were already there heard them coming and had hidden their presents, decorations, and themselves.
"Huh? I could've sworn I heard someone speaking over heard a few second ago…" Bane muttered and he glanced around the area. He quickly spotted Kentaroh hiding in a bush and said loudly, "I spy with my sharp eyes something… red."
Davide, not catching on, gave Bane a weird look and said, " Is it your shirt or do you shampoo with Pert?"
Bane twitched angrily and kicked Davide's head, well almost. Then he remembered it was Davide's birthday and kept his foot down, grudgingly. After all, he was a sensible person… sort of.
"No, Davide. That's not what I spotted. It was Kentaroh. There's Saeki in that tree, Ryoh behind the same tree, and a pile of… What is that?!" Bane shouted.
But really, it wasn't anything too bad. It was all the presents stuffed in a bag, shoved under a pile of leaves, where Itsuki was hiding, and covered be a light blue tarp that stood out like a sore thumb.
Eventually the other jumped/walked out from behind their various hiding places (behind trees, in the tennis court playing tennis, that sort of thing) and greeted him relatively cheerfully, with wishes of a happy birthday and stuff. They hung up the decorations, shoved the presents into Davide's arms and sat down, waiting for him to open them.
"Now that everyone is present, it's time to open the presents. Pfth!" Davide chuckled. This time Bane kicked him in the shoulder because even an idiot could tell that the joke wasn't funny.
Saeki gave him a book titled "Jokes for Dummies", Ryoh and Bane teamed up to give him volumes 1 and 2 of "When Jokes Go Bad", Itsuki gave him a book on why the sky is blue, and Kentaroh gave him a volleyball. Shundo tried to give him some sea activity related stuff, but once again everyone seemed to have forgotten about him. Poor fellow.
"I guess you guys don't appreciate the awesome power of laughter?" Davide muttered.
"No one ever laughs at your jokes, Davide," Bane pointed out. Davide looked hurt. So much of his best friend that liked to kick people, err him.
"Well you could have told me nicely!" Davide grumbled. He was really grumbling cause no one caught onto his Shaman King reference, but no one noticed and no one cared.
"Most of them are lame," Bane stated.
"They make me kinda sleepy, sometimes," Saeki said apologetically.
"Why doesn't anyone remember me anymore?" Shundo asked sadly.
"We remember you! You're the one that drank the Sardine Water first in that volleyball tournament!" Kentaroh said cheerfully. The other regulars shrugged and agreed with Kentaroh because he was their first year captain, whom they liked to pick on while doing things like training at the beach or playing fun sea activities.
After much celebrating, head whacking, cake eating, and thinking of sea activities, the regulars all got bored.
"Hey Kentaroh, where'd the juice you brought go?" Shundo asked. Yes, he was still there despite the fact that the other regulars didn't seem to remember him.
"It's in the blue cooler, under the bench back there," Kentaroh replied. He secretly grinned. Now his plan to take over… err, gain proper control of the team, could be set into motion! As long as Shundo didn't make too much noise… Shundo fell with a loud Thud! So much for Kentaroh's plan. Kentaroh frowned. 'He just had to fall with a loud, clearly audible thud didn't he? Curses!' Kentaroh thought unhappily.
"Hey guys anyone know what that thudding noise was?" Saeki asked. He sometimes worried about the sanity of his teammates.
The regulars found Shundo laying facedown with a spilt cup of the juice Kentaroh brought.
"D-did someone kill him?" Itsuki asked fearfully.
"Of course not!" Bane snapped. He eyed the juice suspiciously and turned towards Kentaroh.
"So Kentaroh, are you going to tell us where you got this juice?" Bane asked pleasantly
Ryoh picked up a glass of the juice and sniffed it. "Weird. This juice smells like vinegar. Let me guess, it called Aozu, right Kentaroh?"
Kentaroh twitched and opted out of the awkward situation. He grabbed a glass of the juice and drank it. Then, blinking in surprise, he said, "You now it wasn't really that bad."
"So… You gonna tell us anytime soon?" Bane asked again.
"I got it from Inui yesterday, alright? He said it would improve our tennis skills!" Kentaroh said then pouted. Then he twitched violently and fainted.
"I knew it! He's not immune," Ryoh smirked.
"Wait so, are you saying you are?" Bane said angrily.
This started up one of those rare Rokkaku arguments. To prove they were awesome and had skillz, each of the remaining people conscious had to drink a cup of Aozu. They pulled straws to see who went first and Davide was the unlucky candidate.
"Remind me how I ended up having to drink this," Davide said hesitantly. He eyed the glass in his hand wearily and looked back at the regulars.
"If you're a chicken you can decide not drink it," Bane teased. Saeki watched all of this calmly. He thought it was kind of stupid, but he wanted to see how bad the juice was. As they say curiosity killed the cat.
"Okay, if you guys promise you're not just trying to get me to drink it…" Davide sighed as he picked up his glass. He drank it in record time, which means faster than Kentaroh, then kinda just stood there, waiting for something to happen.
"So… When am I supposed to faint dramatically?"
"Any second now, unless you've got skillz," Bane muttered. And they waited… and waited… and screamed when Kentaroh slowly go up and went all zombie on them. Ryoh drank his juice then and there just because and fainted as well.
Saeki decided that he had better thing to do then drink Aozu, but was caught by zombie-Kentaroh and forced to drink it. He also fainted. Davide ran and grabbed his long tennis racket. Before being captured by zombie-Kentaroh and zombie-Shundo, Bane shouted, "Okay. I admit it, Davide. You've got skillz!"
Itsuki glanced at his cup, then at his teammate and the zombiefied duo, then back at his cup.
"You're not going to go zombie on me are you?" Itsuki and Davide asked simultaneously.
"No," they both replied hastily.
"Stop doing that!" Davide shouted. Then he realized the Itsuki wasn't copying him anymore and looked in the same direction as him. His jaw swung open because coming towards the two was everyone that drank the Aozu. And they all seemed to be coming for Itsuki.
"Run Itsuki! Forget the juice, just run!!" Davide shouted. He whipped out a few tennis balls and smashed them into his zombie-ish teammates' faces.
"Sorry Saeki, Bane, Shundo. Where are you going, Ryoh? Stop right there, Kentaroh!" he shouted as each ball made contact. This angered them, the zombie regulars not the tennis balls and the tennis balls whacking the zombie regulars not his shouting, so they began chasing Davide. By that time he had run after Itsuki and was getting away, which made them even angrier.
Zombie-Bane pointed to some bikes and they tried, and failed miserably, to catch up with Davide and Itsuki.
Meanwhile, Davide caught up to Itsuki and saw the glass of Aozu was still in his hands.
"Why do you still have that?" Davide asked.
"I don't want to drink it!" Itsuki shouted. The bus arrived and the two hopped on in hopes of finding a safe haven at either Ryoma's or Tezuka's house.
"Ara? Aren't you guys Rokkaku's Davide and Itsuki? What are you guys doing on this bus? Don't you live close to your school?" a deep voice asked in a surprised tone.
"Ah! You're…. Oshitari Yuushi from Hyoutei and…. Oshitari Kenya from… that school that Seigaku beat…" Itsuki pointed out.
"Eheh… We don't like to mention that, Itsuki-kun. So what are you guys doing on this bus?" Kenya asked.
"We're running away from our zombified teammates," they said calmly as if it was normal to do that sort of thing.
"Hn? So it happened to you guys too, huh?" A not so deep but equally surprised voice asked.
"Hm? Yakkaina Rikkai's Niou Masaharu, right?" Davide asked.
Niou frowned and said, "We are not troublesome, puri! And yes, Niou Masaharu, that's me."
"What is this?" Davide asked.
"We've started an Anti-Inui Juice club. It's strictly confidential so we can't say much about it, but lately Inui, sometime with the help of we're not sure who, has been testing Aozu and some other Inui juices on rival team aka us. Most of the time bad things happen, like my team going zombie and attacking Yukimura-bucho and myself," Niou stated.
"Gakuto and Atobe's hair got changed different colors," Oshitari stated.
"I'm in 'cause Yuushi is in… I hope he doesn't get to my team. Kin-chan would end up destroying something…" Kenya shrugged.
"We do need more members though. So far, we've got Hyotei, Shitenhouji, and Rikkaidai on our side. Seigaku has been suffering under Inui's evil juice rein the longest so we're going to try to convince them. Then, there's St. Rudolph, Fudomine, Yamabuki, and your team. If we can get another 2 or three teams on our side we could form and organization, hopefully with Sakaki-sensei and Ryuuzaki-sensei on our side," Yagyuu said.
"Oh my- Since when were you there?!" Davide shouted.
"After your team recovers I'm quite sure you guys will join, am I right?" Renji asked.
"Who else is on this bus?" asked a freaked out Itsuki.
"95 percent chance you were going to say that. It's just Yukimura and us. So where are you guys headed?" Renji said.
"We were going to hide out at either Ryoma or Tezuka's house. Unless there's a place closer by to hang out?" Itsuki stated
And so the entire group went off and encroached on Ryoma's household. When Ryoma opened his door and saw the crowd of rival player he slammed the door shut and jogged to his room, but a few minutes later his da let them come inside because he's insane like that.
"Ne Ryoma-kun, it's not nice to close doors in people's faces. Puri!" Niou said in a falsely cheerfully tone.
"Niou, we don't need anymore zombies," Yukimura chuckled. He was probably still mad that Ryoma beat him, but hey. The past is the past, and there's nothing you can do to change it, right?
"Aw, but-"
"Wait… What's this about zombies?" Ryoma asked.
The sound of a cell phone stopped anyone in the group from answering.
"That's mine sorry. Moshi moshi? Hello Bane. Uh… Right. Itsuki is over here with me. Yeah… I didn't do anything, I swear! You're the ones who chased us, besides it was your idea to have that stupid contest!" Davide said in a sort of hushed but still clearly audible tone. The two argued back and forth and Davide got shoved out of Ryoma's room.
"It's still kinda crowded in here," Ryoma muttered.
"Puri, let's see… There are…. 8 of us in here. It's not crowded." Niou snapped back.
"Tell that to Karupin. He's up there," Ryoma grumbled. Karupin jumped off his perch on the cabinet and attacked the person in front of the cabinet, which just happened to be Renji.
"…Wow. That cat is vicious. Should we help Renji?" Niou asked.
"Renji-kun, do you need assistance?" Yagyuu called.
"Could someone stop this cat? 85 percent chance he's trying to claw my eye's out." Renji said nervously.
"I'll take that as a yes," Yagyuu stated and he went to help poor Renji with Kenya as his back up.
"Careful! That's my cat you're manhandling!" Ryoma grumbled.
"Yes, and it's my face he's clawing!" Renji snapped.
"Alright guys Itsuki and I are going back to Rokkaku now that's it's safe. Bye," Davide said with a wave and they left.
"I told you it was too crowded," Ryoma stated.
"Ah, we were just leaving…" Kenya said and he dragged Yuushi away with him.
"So, now it's just you and us. Yukimura should we get revenge for Renji's face and losing the national title?" Niou commented.
"My face is fine," Renji insisted even though Yagyuu was currently playing nurse and bandaging his face. He also decided to tape Niou's mouth shut; Yagyuu not Renji.
Niou twitched violently because somehow Yukimura had managed to tie his hands together as well without him noticing.
"No revenge. It's bad for your health," Yukimura stated simply. Then to Ryoma, "Sorry for bothering you and Karupin. And stealing some bandages, string, and duct tape. I'll see if Oshitari-kun-" Yukimura was interrupted by Ryoma question.
"Which one?"
"I'll see if Yuushi can call you later and tell you why we visited," Yukimura said cheerfully.
"Ok…" Ryoma muttered. But in the end they didn't call Ryoma for several months. Three days before Yuuta's birthday…
紳士 Gentleman = Yagyuu Hiroshi
Geez, this fic is way behind regular time… It's stuck way back on Davide's birthday as you can see from reading this chapter. Perhaps we should have a time skip of several months in which Inui is inactive… In other words the next chapter will fast forward to the day before Yuuta's birthday. Our other fanfiction will be updated eventually. Those teachers are having fun piling homework on us.