PAIRINGS DECISION: Okay everyone, I've finally decided whether or not this story will have any pairings in it. My final decision sadly, is no. This story will NOT have any pairings at all, however there may be some hints to certain pairings, but that's all(depends on how i write the later chapters). Sorry if that disappointing or what not, but I want this story to mainly focus on the friendship between Ryoma and the Seigaku regulars, hence no pairings. However, I may put up a sequel to this story once I finsh it that might include pairings, but that all depends on a couple of things. 1. whether or not I can think of a decent story to write 2. how many reviews I get, the more people that review the beigger incentive i have to write more. so review ppl.

UPDATES: I'm grateful to all of youthat you're reading my story and you really like it. I'm ecstatic, that I've had over 1300 hits to my story thus far. I've mentioned this on my profile page as well, updates will be on average, about every 5 days or so. It's the best I can do at the moment. Sorry about that. I will also be posting any other updates regarding this story and any of my other stories on my profile page as well. Generally, if it hasn;t been posted in like 4 or 5 days than i'll try and post a message there just to let all of you know.

Now, with all that said, onto the story...


Chapter 4

"What's this?" she asks me as she looks down on all of the coloured squares that litter the box.

"Call it…. A new and improved version of Inui's cone training."

"Heh…Omoshiro" I hear her say as we both walk onto the courts boxes in hand.

Everyone notes are entrance and all the regular's curiosity is piqued at the site of sensei and me carrying boxes. "Ochibi" of course he's the first one to remark, "What's in those boxes?" I don't answer him though as Ryuuzaki-sensei's loud and booming voice asks for all the regulars to gather round. They all look at me, ready for me to explain.

"All of you remember Inui's cone and colour training correct?" As they all nod and remember how tiring it was. "This will be something similar to that. In this box, there are small squares colored red, blue and yellow, about the size of a tennis ball. If you press the center of the square an electronic voice will emit stating the colour of the square. What all of you will be doing is hitting the ball to it's corresponding square. However, you lose if the square doesn't state the colour of the square or if you hit the wrong square. You'll have 30 balls each and weights as well." As I finished explaining I look upon them to see their comedic reactions

"Eh?" said Momo-senpai. "So that means we have to hit it dead center. That's hard."

"Fshh…So does that mean you can't do it?" said Kaido-senpai, provoking Momo-senpai.

"What did you say Mamushi?" Not this again, I'm not in the mood to hear one of their arguments.

"ENOUGH!" I shout, getting all of their attentions. They were all surprised to hear me so authoritative.

"Let's move on. Ryuuzaki-sensei will be the one helping me with this and Kachiro and Katsuo…" I said as I pointed to them and everyone looked, just noticing that the two freshmen were standing there "…will also be helping me."

"Now let's see, here are the results of our little game..." I said as I walked up the tired players.

"Buchou, of course you had got every single one of them, as expected. Inui, Fuji, You both failed to hit the correct square twice. Oishi ,Taka and Kaido, both of you failed to hit 3 squares and hit the incorrect square 4 times as well. Then there are you two." I say with clear disappointment written all over my face.

"Hehe" chuckled Momo-senpai nervously. "It's not my fault. It was tiring. You set it up so we would fail."

I look at him with a raised eyebrow and say "not your fault eh. So I supposed it's the ball's fault for moving in the wrong direction, or maybe the racket, better yet, it's the square's fault for not making any sound. Momo-senpai you missed the square 5 times and failed to hit the correct square 6 times" I said as Kikumaru-senpai started chuckling at Momo-senpai's expense. I glare at him and his chuckling soon ceases.

"Kikumaru-senpai, you didn't do that much better than Momo-senpai so I don't think you should be laughing at his expense. You missed the square 5 times as well and you failed to hit the correct square 5 times, just one less than Momo-senpai. Now that I finished telling you the results, here's your punishment. You'll be running laps."

As I told them their punishment, the look on confusion was set on their faces. They really thought that was all huh? "Eh? That's it!" Exclaimed Momo-senpai "We run laps every practice what's the big deal about that. "I'm not done. Yes. You'll be running laps, but the amount of laps is dependent on who performed the worst. For every square you failed to hit you'll run twenty laps and for every square you hit incorrectly, you'll run 10 laps."

"Seriously?!" exclaimed both Kikumaru-senpai and Momo-senpai.

"Yes. And…." But before I could tell them the rest, Momo interrupted me yet again shocked at how sadistic I could be.

"If you'll let me finish…and you'll all be wearing these power bars on top of the ones you're already wearing. You'll have 15 minutes to finish your laps, If you don't finish your laps on time, then you'll have another special treat courtesy of Inui-senpai." As the words escape my mouth I can see the dread over come them at the thought of drinking another one of Inui's "special" drinks.

"Now if my calculations are correct, Momo-senpai was the worst, so thanks to him you'll all be running 160 laps." I say as Momo receives a bunch of glares from the remaining regulars. "I believe I finished" I look down at each of them signaling them to start their laps.

As the others set off on their laps, Ryuuzaki-sensei approaches me and says. "Interesting. Where'd you come up with it?" She asks, partly disappointed that she hadn't come up with anything like it.

"Just a thought. Always been wanting to try it on someone." I tell her, it was actually the truth. As I stand there resting and drinking a can of ponta, (How I got it you ask? I always carry a can of ponta around nowadays) my cell phone rings, it's my mother calling. I wonder what she wants; she knows I'm training the team.

"Ryoma"

"Hai Okaasan"

"I've got a surprise for you!" Ugh I groan and roll my eyes at the thought, her surprises are never good and usually involve embarrassing me in some way.

"Don't act like that! It's a good thing I promise and don't roll your eyes." How did—never mind, let's just chalk it up to motherly instincts.

"Fine. What is it Okaasan" I ask her

"I've entered you into a competition." She says, I can picture her smiling from ear to ear right now. "A Musical Concourse. I thought you might enjoy it" So she says, but really she thinks and I quote 'Oyaji had his turn with tennis to do whatever he likes, now it's my turn' I guess she wants music. I'm not surprised by this anymore, after all, Oyaji entered me into things all the time without my consultation or knowledge, I'd usually find out when it was too late to do anything about it. So I just sigh and agree. Get it over with, there's no use in protesting now, not with my mother. No one says no to her in our family.

"Fine." I say with clear disdain laced in my voice "When is it?"

"Oh. It's this Saturday! Hope you have fun I have to go now and deal with business. I'll be there to watch you though. Ja." She says as she hangs up the phone

"What?!" I shout but it's too late and everyone seems to have heard me scream and look my way. "1 more minute" I say glancing down at my watch.

"Burning!" shouts kawamura-senpai as he holds his racket and clears a path for everyone else behind him.

They've all made it to the finish line on time, as they all collapse to the ground breathless.

When they finally catch their breath Oishi asks me "Echizen? Are you okay? Are you sick? Who was on the phone?" while feeling my forehead to see if I have a fever.

"Oishi-senpai" I say, "everything's fine, that was just my mother." I tell him, hoping that they don't try and ask for any more details.

"Is everything alright? Is someone hurt? Is someone you know in the hospital? Do you…" He started rambling again non stop.

"OISHI-SENPAI!" I shout, interrupting his questioning. "It's fine. Everyone's fine. No-one's in a hospital."

"So why'd you scream like that Ochibi?" asked Kikumaru-senpai. Damn nosey senpais.

"She just had to tell me of some plans that she scheduled this weekend." Please I hope they don't ask anymore, but I have a feeling that God's not on my side.

"Saa Echizen, what kind of plans? What kind of plans would you have that would make you scream out like that?" Of course, of course him, the tensai has to find out. What was I thinking, it's a little mystery that he wants to solve, both him and Inui feel like they have to know everything that goes on in everyone's life.

"Nothing important." I tell him, hoping that will satisfy him but as he's about to speak up, telling me basically that he wants to know more, Ryuuzaki-sensei interrupts.

"So I guess that was your mother Echizen, informing you about this Saturday?" How the hell did she know? Damn them, always plotting things behind my back.

"Your mother told me about it last week, seems she came across someone she knew who organized the whole thing and apparently they had an open spot so she decided to sign you up for it." She's saying too much information, at the rate this is going; they're going to figure everything out. Damn. How do I stop her? Oh no, it's already too late as I can see the gears working in Inui and Fuji-senpai's heads.

"Saa Echizen, you're entering a competition, what kind. I doubt its tennis because I haven't heard of any tennis competitions being held on Saturday." said Fuji-senpai with a smile and closed eyes.

"Competition on Saturday... hmmm..." said Inui-senpai as everyone turned their heads realizing he knew something.

"Nya. Inui. It's not nice to keep secrets. Come on! Tell us! Tell us what Ochibi's hiding from us." said an excited jumping Kikumaru-senpai.

"If it's a competition this Saturday, the only one being held is... the districts Musical Concourse. Echizen, I didn't know you played an Instrument." said Inui-senpai looming over his notebook scribbling furiously, my guess is about the new information about music and me.

"Nya Ochibi! You play an instrument? Which? Which? Where's the competition? Can we come and watch you play? Can we? Can we?" said Kikumaru-senpai, sounding like an excited child who was just promised ice cream. This is exactly why I didn't want them to find out.

"No you can't come" I tell them all in a very blunt response as I hear a slight chuckle in the background. It's Ryuuzaki-sensei...she's still here?

"Ryuuzaki-sensei," says Kawamura-senpai "you know where Echizen is playing?"

"Yes. Of course, in fact, I'll be going on Saturday to see him play."

"ba-san, you have to take us, you have to." pleads Momo-senpai.

"Yadda" I say hoping she'll do me a favor and not tell them where it is, wait, I don't even know where it is, but the smile on her face tells me otherwise.

"Of course you can come, well just meet at the gates Saturday morning and we'll all go straight there," she tells them all.


A/N:

I Hope all of you loved the story. Please Review, I want to know what all of you think of it. I was skimming through this, and realized that maybe I should be putting in some Japanese-English translations to the Japanese words I've used, I've only uses common words that I've seen in animes, but if you don't know feel free to ask. And if any of you do ask, then I'll try my best to put them in in other chapters.

Ta-Ta for now, see all of you in a week or so. :D