A/N: Sorry for not updating, but was down for anyone else as well? I kept getting a 503 error. Anyways. So the last chapter was more of a character development chapter, so we'll be continuing the plot line in this one. I'd like to remind everyone that this story is going to be very long, so most of the Riko/Akaya action will be gradual. Also, I think people really want to see Riko play some tennis so… yeah. Obviously not everything will be the same as the manga or anime, I mean this is a fanfiction.
Thanks to everyone who followed, favourited, or reviewed! Especially those who did all three! The encouragement is really motivating:)
Enjoy this chapter~
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
"Ughhhh Kirihara get the alarm..."
"God dammit no you get it."
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
"I wanna sleep, turn it off!"
"No, come on Echizen..."
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEE-
The alarm immediately silenced as Riko grabbed a tennis ball next to her and tossed it towards the clock. With that, they both went back to sleep.
9:13 AM:
"Ah shit get up Echizen we're latee!"
Kirihara jumped out of his bed and tossed a random shirt from his suitcase on (backwards). "Echizen, if you don't get up we'll entirely miss first period!"
With that, Riko sat up, yawning and stretching. "Huh? Ohayou.."
"Echizen get out of bed, we gotta go!"
"Ah gotcha gotcha... Oh crap yeah we're really late..."
Three minutes later they were both sprinting down the hall towards their respective classrooms, which happened to be next door to each other.
Riko walked casually into her classroom and nodded to the teacher.
The teacher gave her a long, scrutinizing gaze (as did the rest of the class) before saying, "It's nice of you to join us. Would you mind explaining exactly why you are more than an hour late for my class?"
"...I fell down the stairs."
"For an hour? Must have been a very long fall."
"No, I fell and went back to my room because I missed the orientation and didn't know where the infirmary was."
"Alright, but I expect you to be on time tomorrow. I'll let you off with a warning today. Please take a seat next to Choutarou. Choutarou, raise your hand."
A silver-headed boy with a cross necklace quickly thrust his hand into the air, smiling and waving shyly. Riko sat down next to him. The teacher continued her explanation on a series of wars in Russia. 15 minutes from the end of class, she assigned 3 in-class worksheets, but came up to Riko and said, "Choutarou will take you into the adjacent study room and go over the previous part of the lesson you missed."
"Hi, um my name is Choutarou, I'm a first year. Yoroshiku!"
"Echizen Riko. Yoroshiku. So what house are you in?"
"Ah Hyotei. You?"
"Rikkaidai. So what did I miss?"
"Not much really, here, you can borrow my notes if you want?"
For the remaining time of class, Riko quickly scanned Choutarou's notes, finding that they were extremely neat and well written. Then they engaged in brief conversation, where she found out that he played tennis as well.
He did certainly have a good build, being extremely tall in opposition to her short stature. When the bell rang, signaling the end of first period (honestly Riko was only present for around 30 minutes anyways), she and Choutarou had become pretty good buddies. "Yeah I'm eating lunch with some second years and their friends, you can join us," he offered.
Riko nodded and grinned. "You're joining the tennis club aren't you? Rikkai's going to kick your butt."
"Hyotei won't lose!" Choutarou declared as he left, forming a fist with his right hand. They decided to meet in front of Riko's second class because Choutarou's friend also had class on the second floor.
Her second period was English. Riko remembered taking the acceleration test to have her put into the second years' honors class. But she didn't remember anyone telling her if she passed. Oh well. She's just assume. Honestly she was pretty sure the English lessons would be relatively easy, being from America after all. As she entered the class, she noticed quite a few of the Rikkai tennis regulars were in her class.
"Hello Riko, do you happen to need something?" An angelic voice that could only belong to Yukimura said.
[if gte mso 10] style /* Style Definitions */ {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} /style ![endif]
StartFragment
"Actually this is my classroom, senpai."
"Ah yes, you moved from America, correct?"
Before she could answer, another soft voice chimed in. "Is this your new friend, Yukimura?"
"Good morning Fuji. And yes, this is Echizen Riko. She is rooming with Akaya."
"Hello, Echizen-chan. You are a first year, are you not?" She turned to find a smiling boy with honey brown hair. But before she could answer, someone else interrupted.
"Ahn, there is a first year in ore-sama's class?" Riko found a tall boy sitting in the seat next to hers. He looked disdainful. "This is unacceptable, ore-sama does not believe a mere first year can qualify for this accelerated course!"
"Che don't be arrogant, monkey king."
"What did you just call ore-sama?"
"Saru no taishou!" She sang, smirking at his scowl.
"Class is beginning. Please take your seats. You my dear, you can sit right here next to Jirou-kun. Echizen Riko, correct? I believe the class roster was not updated correctly, but your textbook will arrive very soon. Meanwhile, you can share with Jirou-kun."
"...Hai."
"Jirou, please raise your hand. Jirou-kun. Jirou!"
Jirou, a cute blonde with sleepy looking eyes, looked up, grinned sheepishly, and waved at her.
Within 5 minutes of class starting, her eyes were already drooping shut, and by the time the clock hit 10 minutes into class, she was already fast asleep, dreaming about Karupin.
Something uncomfortable prodded her. She ignored it, but it keep poking and prodding until she jumped up, glaring. "What the hell is disturbing my sleep?"
And then she realized that she had yelled it out loud, the thing that was poking her had been the teacher's ruler, and everyone was staring at her. "What? Che stop staring." With that, she sat down again and pretended like nothing happened.
"Please do not disturb class." The teacher scolded her.
Riko completely ignored her, the only sign she gave of even having heard the remark was a slow, bored "Haiiiii..."
"Ok now we will be engaging in team jeopardy. Your seat mate will be your partner, and the team with the most points will win a prize."
"Ore-sama will win regardless of who he is paired with."
"Oi monkey king you better be ready because you're going down." Riko taunted.
"You brat, that should be ore-sama's line!"
"Ok class come up with your team name and write it on the board please."
In the end, Fuji and Yukimura were the "Sadistic team", Mukahi and Oishitari called themselves the "Dirty team", and everyone else paired off quickly. Jirou suggested calling their team the "Sleeping team", and Riko had no objections. However, she soon found a few other girls shooting her looks of jealousy and admiration but she ignored them. They probably just woke up on the wrong side of the bed. The jeopardy went something like this:
Question 1:
Riko: "We'll take Grammar 500."
Atobe: "Che brat feeling confident, huh?"
Question 2:
Atobe: "Vocabulary 500."
Riko: "I hope you get it wrong monkey king."
And so on. By the end of class, Riko had achieved two things: 1. She and Jirou had become quick friends 2. She was ahead of monkey king by 300 points.
"Ore-sama cannot believe that a little brat like you won."
"Really? But Riko-chan is so smart, her English is great!" Jirou cheered.
Atobe scoffed.
Exiting her second class, Riko waited near the door until Choutarou showed up.
"Hi! Wait you're in the same class as Mukahi-senpai, Atobe-buchou, and Oishitari-senpai? Oh and Jirou-senpai is in your class too?"
"You mean your one of monkey king's subjects? Funny, you don't look much like a monkey." Riko tilted her head to the side, feigning innocence.
While Choutarou looked confused, Atobe looked livid and Oishitari and Mukahi snickered quietly in the corner.
"Choutarou, please do not tell ore-sama you mean for this... Plebian to eat lunch with us," Atobe sniffed, looking down at Riko with evident disdain.
"Ah...well-"
"OI ECHIZEN! Come on!" With a grunt, she staggered as Kirihara jumped on top of her back. "Are you going to eat lunch with us? We're eating with Seigaku and Hyotei regulars in the back of the school. You coming? Come on, buchou told me to grab youuu!"
"Ah perfect. Kirihara-kun, we were just heading over as well. Why don't you bring Echizen-chan with us," Oishitari suggested as he adjusted the messenger bag on his shoulder.
"YAY! Come on, Echizen!"
Immediately, Riko tried to back away. "I'm..uh... I gotta.. Go..."
"Don't be silly! Come on." With that, Kirihara grabbed Riko's arm and began dragging her down the hall, whining about what his teacher did to him since he was late. "She let me off with a warning, but threatened to implement more severe consequences if it ever happened again! Do you understand how horrible this is?" he wailed.
"Wakata, wakata (1). Same thing happened to me."
"Really?" At this, he immediately seemed to look brighter. "Yoshi, let's go!"
Five minutes later, Riko found herself behind the school in a pleasant grove of trees, along with the Rikkai regulars and two other groups of people that she didn't recognize.
"Etto.. Kirihara-san, who is this?" A guy wearing a blue and white jersey asked, looking confused.
"This is my roommate Echizen Riko. She's from America and I heard she plays tennis really well!"
"Yoroshiku onegaishimasu." Once again, everyone sweat-dropped at her mechanical greeting.
She was quickly introduced to the Seigaku and Hyotei members. Everyone was rather diplomatic, until..
"Che who is the brat? Ore-sama could defeat her in mere seconds."
"Please don't be so arrogant Atobe. Although, based on her build, I estimate her power to only be around 63% of Fuji's. Her ability stats seem a bit better, lying at around 78% compared to the Seigaku team average. Hm, this is interesting, her speed seems to exceed the team average by-"
"Oi, you stupid megane (2), I could take you down without you taking even 3 matches from me," Riko snapped, starting to lose her temper.
"Whoa there, come on Riko, just-" Bunta's attempts at calming his friend's fiery temper were completely ignored.
"Fshhhhh, how can a little female freshman like you insult Inui-senpai? Fshhh, let me deal with this."
"Come at me, Mamushi (3)," Riko spat, feeling irritated. "One set match. You can serve."
Kaidoh hissed and glared in response.
As they entered the courts, there was a stare-off between Riko and Kaidoh, which resulted in Kaidoh turning and walking away.
"You better watch out for that Viper," Momoshiro warned.
Seconds later, everyone was gathered around the tennis courts, watching the face-off between Riko and Kaidoh. Oishi sat high in the chair, looking slightly concerned.
"Uh.. One set match. Kaidoh to serve. Tezuka, should we really let them do this?"
"This will be an interesting skills assessment. I'll allow it to continue."
"Wow, that freshman is playing Kaidoh! And he's a regular!"
"Rough or smooth?" Kaidoh snarled.
"I already told you. You can serve. It's fine." Kaidoh immediately scowled.
"Fine fine. Smooth. Don't complain about this later when you lose."
The racquet spun and ended up smooth.
"Ah ok. Nevermind. One set match. Echizen to serve."
Riko served her signature move: the twist serve. Kaidoh dodged to the side as the tennis ball flew towards his face. They rallied back and forth for awhile. Kaidoh hit a lob, and Riko smashed it using only 50% of her strength. No point revealing anything at this point. Kaidoh managed to hit the ball, but it clipped the net. Everyone watched breathlessly, wondering whose side it would fall on. Riko lost her cap as she came down from her smash, but the ball landed on Kaidoh's side of the court.
"15-Love."
They continued their rallying until suddenly, Kaidoh shifted into a very weird position.
"Ah, so he's going to use that now.." Momoshiro muttered.
"Echizen pulled it out of him rather quickly though, don't you think?" Fuji smiled as he turned to Tezuka questioningly.
"It simply means that Kaidoh is starting to get serious." Tezuka kept up his stoic expression and pushed his glasses up slightly.
Kaidoh hit an odd shot. Riko darted to the side, but missed the ball as it unexpectedly curved sharply towards her left.
While on the outside she seemed to be shocked, she wasn't. On the inside, she was already carefully taking in information about the serve- it's trajectory, speed, power, and spin.
She wouldn't be caught off guard again. The next time Kaidoh served, she easily returned it with a rather light shot. It was best not to reveal all the tricks up her sleeve right now. She smirked and switched the racquet to her left hand.
"Mada mada dane."
"That Ochibi plays with his left hand?! Wow, nya~"
"Hm… what do you think, Inui?" Fuji turned to his left, smiling in his usual manner.
"While Eiji does have a point in that his being ambidextirous is rather impressive, I believe that this should not be a difficult fight for Kaidoh. Given the current stats, the freshman does not have enough power or agility to overcome such an opponent. Not to mention, his snake shot leads to his real goal, which is…"
"….to tire his opponents and drain their stamina."
"Wow, Riko's sweating quite a bit. The day seems to be really warm too," Akaya commented.
"Hm. It seems he's fallen into Kaidoh's trap," Yukimura murmured, watching the freshman girl dart back and forth, returning all of Kaidoh's shots.
Akaya frowned. The match was becoming pretty intense. But even in the short time he had known his roommate, he could tell that she wasn't the type to give up easily.
What will you do now, Riko?
A/N: So technically this doesn't end on a cliffy because if you've watched the anime you know what happens next. I'm sick with a cold, but I didn't want to miss the first two days of school, so I went anyways. Now I think I'll probably be bedridden. Life sucks sometimes :P I'll stop now because you guys probably don't want to hear anymore about my lack of a life :D