Since I was already at it, here's the fourth chapter. Please enjoy.

Akira POV

Tying up my white laces, I hummed a small tune as the white sneakers snuggled up to my feet. The evening summer air still clung to my clothes, the sun still shining bright, and I could feel a slight breeze caress my cheeks as I got up. I pulled down my cap, blocking the sunlight from my eyes, and kept humming as I walked over to the south exit of the schoolyard. Supposedly the tennis courts are there, and if the courts are there, I bet my money that Sakuno's there.

It's obvious that Sakuno likes Ryoma, but I doubt the boy even cares. He's way more focussed in the curves of a racquet than the curves of a girl.

I sighed, putting my hands in my pockets, "I'm so bored… I wonder what I should do…Sakuno's probably going to take a while too."

As I turned the corner, I saw the group of girls from the window I was in just minutes ago, ogling heart-shaped eyes at the court filled with the guys. I got some-what closer and saw that, indeed, Ryoma was playing a game with…

What was his name again…Kaideh? Kaidoh?

Well Ryoma was playing with the guy with a bandana and weird habit of going 'ssshhhh' okay?

Anyway, as I got closer to the courts, I called out to Sakuno with a wave, "Hey Ura-chan, when are we going to leave?"

I saw the brunette with braids freeze, a glare hardening into my skull as I smirked. Sakuno stormed up to me with the rage of a woman in the making, "How many times have I told you to not ever call me by that!" she pouted in that cute puppy-dog way, which just made me laugh out loud.

I patted her on the head, like I would to any dog, "Sorry Sakuno, just had to tease you a bit," I smiled, "Come on, it's not that bad of a nickname. I mean you even have the puppy eyes to go along with the tails!" I held out her braids as her frown deepened. She scoffed before walking off, going back to the other googly-heart-eyed girls near court D.

What do they see in that guy? I mentally exasperated.

Soon I heard an all too familiar voice call to me, "Hey Chibi-chan!"

Turning my head to find a wine-red haired, smiley faced Eiji-senpai in front of me, I heard him cry out; "You came back Chibi-chan!"

I winced at the new nickname he gave me the morning we first played, "Eiji-senpai, please, isn't Ryoma already called by that?"

Suddenly Momoshiro popped out of nowhere, scaring the daylights out of me, almost making me scream.

"No, he's called Ochibi not Chibi. There is a difference!" Momoshiro concluded with a nod of his spiky head.

"I seriously don't get you guys," I mirrored Momoshiro's nod, a smile pressing through my lips, "Anyway, what are you guys doing? Shouldn't you be practicing?"

The two shook their heads, Eiji being the one who spoke up, "Nah, not today. Turns out courts A and B are to be taken over by the other members of the Tennis club. Only court C is left since Ryoma and Kaidoh are playing it off while Fuji and Oishi are playing on the other side."

I raised an eyebrow, "So why don't you use court C?"

They looked at me like I was insane and it made me (some-what) annoyed, "What!"

"We can't use it because the white lines," Momoshiro pointed towards the lily-white paint, "were freshly painted today. It's not that we won't use it. It's just that we can't use it."

I gave them the eye-roll, "Seriously? That's it?"

This time it was Eiji's turn to raise an eyebrow, "That's it? Of course that's it! We can't use it or else we'll – sooner or later – step on the paint as we play, and we may even get the tennis balls covered in paint! Not to mention our shoes," he paused, narrowing his gaze, "What? Do you need a better explanation?"

I let out a deep breath in frustration, "Why don't you just step over the dang lines as you play and direct the dang ball so that it won't hit them!"

I seriously felt like I was talking to a five-year old.

"We could, but some of us don't have great accuracy and some can't control the ball."

I turned around to find myself face-to-face with grandma Sumire, and that captain (Tezuka?) behind her.

A dumbfounded look most likely crossed my face, "You are kidding right? They consider themselves regulars and they can't control the ball?"

And they're supposed to be the 'best?'

Tezuka shook his head, "No, they can control the ball but you can never know the course of the ball after it's been bounced. Sure, we can direct the ball and it can hit any target, but what comes after the target?" he paused, "The ball can easily be blown by the wind and hit the lines."

Ah, hello captain guy, there is no freaking wind today!

The old hag then stepped in, "And during a game, anyone can easily step onto the paint while trying to get to the ball, and that could be hazardous since someone could easily slip and fall if they step onto the paint, and then they won't be able to enter this week's tournament. Plus," she smirked, "the painter of the lines will be angry if we ruin his work. I mean there are only a few of us who could keep all those rules in check while playing, but right now, only Tezuka and Inui can play out of the four I've mentioned."

I tilted my head to the side, "Why can't Momoshiro play?" I saw Momoshiro scratch his neck sheepishly as grandma Sumire answered.

"You see Momoshiro can play accurate," she sighed, "But whenever he goes all out, and he uses his Dunk Smash, no one can know the course of the aftermath of the smash. Since smashes can bounce anywhere during a game, he may accidentally hit a line," grandma Sumire then glared at him, "Like last time."

Momoshiro backed away from the coach's glare.

"So just get Inui and Tezuka to play. It's not like Momo-chan could have played anyway," I shrugged and pulled my hands to my pockets.

"Hey! I can play just fine!" Momoshiro narrowed his eyes within the shout, suddenly appearing again.

I snorted, "Yeah, but with who? Kikumaru-senpai can't play against you," walking over to the one in question, I bent down towards his feet, looking up at the red-head, "You still have to rest up your ankle right? I'd say four-no maybe five days?"

"H-how'd you know? I never told any-," I broke him off.

"Remember? I played against you, and one has to be able to read his and/or her opponent to win a game. You obviously favoured your right more than your left leg," I concluded with a nod.

The other people watching were surprised. To think this little kid knew how to read an opponent that fast, especially in a quick game. Oishi had probably explained to them earlier about my little rally with Eiji, so their blinking stares didn't surprise me. With yet another sigh I stood up, supporting my weight onto my knees as I straightened. Looking over at grandma Sumire I asked, "Well? Where's Four-Eyes-senpai anyway?"

The lady coach smiled, "He's running late today because he needs to make our next practise sequence ready. He won't be able to play today."

"Or analyze us sneakily," Momoshiro added in undertones.

Suddenly, Sumire-obaa-san perked up, "Hey, why don't you play in the court Akira? It'll be just like yesterd-," I quickly broke her off with a swift "No."

She creased her eyebrows, a pout forming on her wrinkled face, "Why not? You played against Eiji, and you played Ryoma too!"

"Yeah," I grunted, "but that's because you bribed me. Now that I think about it, why did I even take that bet? I got the cap I wanted anyway so I should've just left."

Grandma Sumire sighed, "You were so cute back then when you did like tennis with your heart and soul."

"What are you talking about? I still like tennis."

She kept her head down, and I couldn't read her face, "You do?"

"Yeah of course! Who doesn't like the exhilaration of running, the accurate thrusting of…," my smile turned upside-down, "I mean no, I don't like tennis at all anymore. I'd much rather join the track club or visit the art room," I tried to cover up my outburst from before, but I don't think anyone believed me.

Grandma Sumire sighed, murmuring something intelligible before a smile broke out, "Okay, how about you play a game with captain Tezuka here?"

I almost fell to the ground, "Are you goin deaf on me Obaa-san? I just told you that I don't want to play tennis."

She smiled, turning over to Tezuka, "So how about it? Want to play a game with Aki-chan?"

My annoyance turned to anger at the old name, "I said I don't want to play."

"Sure, I don't mind one rally," was the captain's reply.

"Are you all deaf! Can't you see I'm reluctant?" I basically shouted.

"Hmmm interesting game," Eiji broke into a smile, "Why don't you try it Chibi-chan-no, wait, Aki-chan sounds better. That's it! I'll call you Aki-chan!"

I face-palmed.

Momoshiro nodded, "Yeah this is going to be pretty interesting. I mean, if Ryuzaki-kun can play on par with Ryoma, maybe, just maybe he can hold on to captain Tezuka."

I seriously had the urge to ram my head into the nearest pole.

{*}

So here I am, being led (by force) into court C with Tezuka ahead. Grandma had given me a white t-shirt with red edges and one pair of maroon-red shorts before saying, "You've just got to try the tennis uniform! I may never see you in it again!" before shoving me into the changing rooms.

I sighed, again, muttering to myself, "I just had to get into this?"

As we strolled into the big court, I could smell a gas-like scent coming from the fresh white paint. I wrinkled my nose, "Man, this place stinks!"

I was about to take off my cap, thinking to myself. I don't want this smell to stick to my brand new cap! When I froze, remembering my 'new' haircut and groaned, "Why didn't I cut it all before school started!"

Normal POV

"Get what cut?" Momoshiro asked, more to himself than others.

Eiji watched on the side lines, also some-what confused about Akira's outburst, "Dunno what the heck that meant."

Inside the Court

Ryuzaki-sensei walked in behind the two opponents. She decided to be the referee for this match, slightly intrigued of what the outcome may be. She smiled as she walked over to the high-chair at the net-line, climbing up and sitting down at the top as she watched Tezuka and Akira get into positions. She took out her whistle, nodding her head to the two of them before blowing and signalling to start.

"Game begin!"

Akira threw the ball up and slammed down with his left hand, managing to make a swift ace out of it right from the start.

Tezuka jumped over the white line, standing on his toes, as he received the yellow-blur with ease. Swinging his right hand's racquet and slicing it through to the other side, he watched with calculating eyes as to where the ball will go to next.

Akira, managing to jump over the middle white-line, leaped over for the ball and reflected it back to Tezuka, just missing the edge of the left-end line by a hair.

Tezuka rallied it back from where he was standing, his dark-hazel hair slightly shadowing his face from the sun.

The game kept going back and forth, both of them able to keep up to par with the other as the game progressed, and neither of them had touched the white lines yet.

The score was 5-5 when suddenly, Akira noticed something, his eyes catching onto the curving yellow blur of a ball.

A smile broke out, "Hey captain Tezuka," Akira froze in mid-step, letting the ball swerve right past him.

"Advantage point Tezuka!" grandma called out.

The captain looked over the net to the smiling rookie, Akira catching his full attention now. He straightened up, lowering his racquet and tilted his head slightly to the left, as if asking, 'what?'

Akira's grin broadened, "Let's make a bet. If I can get the ball past you in the next ten minutes, we'll end the game in my favour. But if I can't, or if you get the ball past me in that time, you win and we can just end this. Oh! And, even though it's kind of a given, whoever steps on the paint – even by a hair or if the ball gets paint on it – will get an automatic forfeit."

Tezuka raised an eyebrow, "You seem to be in a hurry."

"Well duh. This is my new cap and if I stay here any longer, the smell's going to stay in this for like..." Akira paused, "…months…probably."

The entire audience almost fell.

He cares more about his cap then about trying to battle it out with the best player in Seigaku! Momoshiro groaned inwardly.

Tezuka nodded, "Sure. I don't mind."

Momoshiro tripped. And he doesn't even care!

Akira grinned, adjusting his watch to timer, and setting it to go off in ten minutes.

"Oh, one more thing," Akira narrowed his gaze onto Tezuka, his smile now evaporated, "Play seriously."

Akira forcefully slammed the ball with his left hand, but somehow, it seemed to have tripled the speed as it zipped into Tezuka's right box.

"Nice," Ryuzaki-sensei smirked on the umpire's chair.

Tezuka – almost caught off guard – actually had to move from his standing point to the side to receive the ball, just managing to flat-hand it back.

Akira, his usual smiley face now wiped off, watched in apathetic regard, volleying the ball back with his backhand.

Instantly – surprise drained from his face – Tezuka returned to his usual state, slowly heading back to the edge of the deuce court (the right-side court) to stand between the two boxes after each rally. Once he reached the middle, everyone on the sidelines finally realized what he was doing.

He was going to do the Tezuka Zone.

It's a good thing his arm had healed now, so the stress wouldn't be as bad. After two more volleys (four minutes have now passed), he began curving the ball at incomprehensible rotations so that it would always come back to him, whereas Akira had to keep running back and forth between each rally.

Akira sighed, "You're doing that again?"

Outside the Court

Eiji grinned as the yellow blur kept going back and forth, Momoshiro watched with intensity, and soon they both heard their fellow regular players shout out to them.

"Hey Momo-chan! Eiji!"

The both turned, finding Oishi with a grin on his face while Fuji smiled; Kaidoh and Ryoma trailed in behind the tall seniors, racquets still in their hands.

Eiji high-fived Oishi and said, "Hey partner!" he paused, realization dawning onto his face, "Why aren't you all playing your games?"

Fuji looked over to the court beside them, his usual smiling demeanour still in full throttle, "Inui told us we had to watch this game."

Ryoma looked up at his senpai with a sharp gaze, "We were having a great game, until Inui-senpai stopped our match to watch this, saying it was important." Ryoma didn't seem to be too pleased.

"But it doesn't look like it was worth the game. Look at the kid, he looks like he's going to collapse," Kaidoh watched the game with disappointment.

"Y'know Tezuka-senpai, it's not fun when this is all I get when I ask you to play serious."

Everyone looked over to Akira, who's face that seemed to be contorted into a mass of exhaustion, was actually the façade to hide his boredom, "I really wanted to just go home – I mean Sakuno's home – and take the rest of the day off to laze around, but you just had to ruin my wonderful dream, didn't ya? So I decided to enjoy what I got, made a lil' bet with ya, and now look at it. I've stalled about six or seven minutes, just to give the game a little pressure, but looks like it wasn't worth it."

Tezuka raised an eyebrow, hitting the ball back over to Akira, "So what are you going to do? You can't seem to get out of my Tezuka Zone right now."

Akira smiled, wiping off the last bit of boredom from his face as he rallied the ball back, "Kay~ I got an idea. Let's say I do get out of your…'Zone Thingy' and the game gets more interesting."

"Mmhmm," Tezuka nodded, not seeing where this was going as he received the ball.

"Then I have a request. No, not a bet, a request," Akira hesitated, as if to add a dramatic pause as he hit the ball, "If I do get past your 'Tezuka Zone'…could you actually go all out on me? For the last few minutes at least."

"But I have been going hard on you," Tezuka replied, swinging his right hand racquet.

"Fine! Be that way," Akira's annoyed face reappeared as he slammed the ball.

It was odd. As Akira swung the racquet, Eiji's and Ryoma's sharp eyes noticed a slight change in the motion. At the last moment, Akira twisted his wrist and flicked, as if the racquet was a giant spoon and was scooping a small yellow pea, bouncing it off in an irregular rotation. It kept flying through the air, still swirling differently, but not too crooked to be noticed.

Eiji bit back a cry as it got closer to Tezuka, about to say the ball's rotation is different. But, a silent rule in tennis, one that almost everyone knows but won't say, tells to never provide information to an opposing side during a game.

So Eiji just watched with silent discontent before a thought burst through his mind.

But this is Tezuka. The Tezuka, the one known as the best in Seigaku.

And Tezuka did notice, but only at the moment he hit the curve ball. As it twirled across to him, he noticed it was slightly off from the old rallies, and as it hit his racquet, he was sure.

If his arm hadn't just been healed, he wouldn't have noticed the slight – ever so slight – change of rotation of the ball. Because his arm's former fractured bone inside, it was now quite sensitive to all vibrations, and the ball's rotation had a different vibration than his first few receives from Akira. So if he was one of the other regulars, they wouldn't have noticed this slight change without a very keen eyesight like Eiji.

So Tezuka twisted his wrist (in the opposite direction of Akira's exchange) and returned the ball in time, hitting it right into Akira's deuce court, his eyes checking movement from both the ball and Akira in case Akira charged back to receive.

He didn't.

Tezuka noticed Akira suppressing a split-second smile, one of gratification, satisfaction...

And melancholy.

The ball slammed down right past Akira, who seemed to have been trying to get to the ball in time as it forced itself into the edge of the deuce court. But Tezuka – and a suspicious, hawk-eyed Ryoma – knew better. Eiji may have noticed too, but he was blinking at the time, and didn't see it during that split-second.

"5-6. Tezuka wins!" Ryuzaki-sensei shouted, blowing her whistle.

Akira POV

I sighed as the ball kept bouncing across the court before hitting the fence, where a crowd cheered abruptly. I turned to find all those people around court D now at the gates of court C. I was shocked, I scanned the audience and found Sakuno there, her eyes revealing something only the two of us know. I sighed again, dropping the racquet I was using in the process. Great…I turned to Sakuno and gave her a short nod before she responded with the same inclination.

The crowd was still congratulating Tezuka behind the green fence when I began walking over to grab the yellow tennis ball from the ground.

A hand caught onto my shoulder and I found myself looking up at Tezuka.

"Why did you let the ball go?" he asked, not too loud so the audience wouldn't be able to hear over their own cheering.

I let my mouth slip upwards to a smile, "What are you talking about?"

"Why did you freeze at the last second? You could have won, I saw it."

I turned around, and looked into his brown-eyes, "I told you, I won't play serious game if you don't play either."

"I have been playing serious," he replied, even though he was holding his racquet in his right hand.

I smiled, but I knew it didn't even look all too hearty, "Y'know, I really don't like liars."

Picking up the neon-yellow ball, I threw it over to Tezuka, who caught it immediately with one hand. A sigh escaped my lips, "But truly," I paused, looking over at the captain, a smile pressing through, "that means I'd hate myself as well."

Waving over to obaa-san, I called out, "I'm going with Sakuno!" before running over to the gate doors where Sakuno waited.

She smiled at me, the kind of smile that completely contrasted to the one that I shined at Tezuka, "Wanna go now?"

I quickly nodded, about to say something when I heard the girls around Sakuno scream, "Oh my word, he's so hawt!" before running like wolves to easy meat (me). I grabbed Sakuno and threw her over my shoulder, even though she probably weighed more than me – and ran like the devil was chasing me as the girls got closer, Sakuno's braids dangling behind like a whip.

Normal POV

Ryoma walked over to Tezuka as he watched Akira run off with Sakuno from those girls. Looking back on it now, it's kind of weird watching your fan-club from just moments ago (even though he himself didn't want one) scream after another guy in the blink of an eye.

Tezuka spoke up, "Ryoma, remember the bet Akira made during the last half?"

Ryoma looked up at the captain, and nodded.

The captain bent down slightly and showed Ryoma the yellow tennis ball Akira threw to him just moments ago.

He looked over at Tezuka's hand, his eyes slightly widening.

There was a small streak of pure-white paint contrasting against the chartreuse coloured tennis ball, the length of two and a half centimetres, and the width of two hairs.