Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of tennis or any character used in this story

~O~O~O~

"Saaa….I do have one idea…but I'm not sure it's entirely legal." Fuji smiled cunningly.

After Fuji's comment, the tennis club members had brought their voices down to a low whisper, too quiet for the purple haired stalker to hear. After standing behind his pillar trying to listen in without much success, Mr. Stalker finally decided to give up and go to the practice rooms to prepare for Monday's 'Italian Opera' quiz.

"Let me get this straight, you want to borrow members from our sister school, Tokyo University of Culinary Arts?" Shishido whispered hesitantly, looking at Fuji like he had he had grown a second head.

"Yes, I know Eiji is attending that school and more than willing to join our team if it means he gets to play doubles. And when I talked to him over the phone yesterday, he told me Marui also attends there." Fuji informed with his typical serene smile plastered on his face.

"Marui said he would become the best pastry chef in Japan!" Sanada stated bluntly, although it wasn't really relevant to what they were talking about.

The teammates sat in silence. One more member… where would they fine one more member?

"I also heard Tachibana was seriously looking into attending that school." Sanada finally added.

"But, I also heard from a very reputable source (read: Yanagi Renji) that Tachibana ended up choosing a different school (a.k.a. failed the cooking entrance exam after giving all of the judges food poisoning) (1)." Yukimura stated solemnly.

"Jirou is also attending that Culinary school, I think. I'm not sure." Shishido spoke up. He didn't really pay attention to where people decided to go after high school.

"This is great, that makes exactly 7 members!" Yukimura clapped his hands together in delight. Finally, they would be able to become an official team!

"Wait, hold on, we can't just take people from other schools, it's not legal!" Sanada emphasized, appalled at his new almost-teammate's actions.

"That's—" Sanada started.

"Yes, yes… we know Tarundoru." Yukimura said patting Sanada sympathetically on the back.

"Ah. Don't worry, Sanada, no one will ever know after I make the fake school IDs for our new members" Fuji added. Still smiling like nothing was wrong. They definitely weren't about to commit a felony or anything.

Some would call him traditional, others maybe even a 'goody-two shoes.' Sanada considered himself a very noble and honorable man, something like a modern Samurai of sorts. He worked hard everyday to uphold the integrity of the Sanada family. Sanada had never even ridden in a car without first buckling his seatbelt! The horror! And this plan… it was illegal, mischievous, went against his honor, the list could go on and on.

Yukimura obviously wanted this tennis team more than anyone and as soon as possible. However, Sanada was his very good and precious friend. After seeing Sanada's obvious discomfort, and how Sanada's eyes looked like they were going to pop right out of their sockets, Yukimura decided they should come up with a new, more legal plan.

"Ah, Fuji, how about something more…legal?" Yukimura lightly suggested.

"hmm? Such as?" Fuji questioned.

"I was thinking…"

~O~O~O~

Yukimura's plan was straightforward. He proposed to simply ask the administrator in charge of club activities if they could merge with their sister school "Tokyo University of Culinary Arts" for sports events. The reasoning was that, since they were only mere fine arts majors, 'none of them were very good at tennis' and otherwise they would have no chance to win a game against opposing schools.

Come Monday morning, Yukimura did just that, in his meeting with the school club coordinator Yukimura went on and on about the 'poor, poor tennis club' with not enough members and 'no chance' at winning a single game. Sanada was convinced that it would never work and that no one would believe in this fantasyland where Yukimura wasn't very good at tennis. Yukimura was, after all, The Child of God and very famous in the tennis realm. But contrary to Sanada's expectations, the school's club coordinator took the bait. [Obviously he never read or watched the news about junior high or high school sports! What a loser.] The club coordinator felt sorry for the tennis team, as it would be the university's very first sports club ever. The very next day, the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and the Tokyo University of Culinary Arts signed an agreement that when it came to sports related events their students could merge together to form a team.

~O~O~O~

Monday morning, as Shishido was walking by the practice rooms to his Music Theory 101 class, he heard one the most beautiful, melodic voices he had ever heard in his life (besides Ootori's of course). Suddenly, a familiar purple blob of hair emerged from the practice room with the harmonious voice.

"Shishido? Former Hyotei student right? fufufu I have stumbled across something interesting!" The familiar person talked to him, but he couldn't quite remember who it was or where he knew them from.

"Yes...that's me…" Shishido said awkwardly, trying to escape to his theory class.

"It's me! Mizuki Hajime! Former manager of St. Rudolph's tennis club." Mizuki waved his arms up and down, seeming somewhat distressed that Shishido didn't remember him.

Right…that guy "Look I've got to get to class" Shishido again tried to escape down the hallway.

"I know all about your secret tennis team. Fufufu." Mizuki chuckled evilly, nonchalantly twirling a strand of hair around his right index finger.

"Yeah…it's no secret. There are posters all over campus advertising the club!" Shishido rolled his eyes, walking away.

"I heard you guys are hurting for members." Mizuki said haughtily, still twirling that strand of hair around his index finger.

"Actually, I think we got it figured out, Yukimura should be finalizing things with the school administrator right about now" Shishido informed Mizuki, turning towards the direction of his classroom.

What? Saturday they only had 4 members! How could they have possibly found 3 members in less than a day? This goes completely against my calculations. By this point they should have been practically begging me to join the team!

"You-you better let me on that team, or else! Or else… I'm going to tell everyone you're little secret with Ootori!" Mizuki threatened.

"What? What 'secret'?" Shishido sighed. "If you want to join the team, talk to Yukimura, not me. I'm sure he'll be happy to let you join. But don't think I'm telling you this because of my so-called 'secret with Choutarou.' We don't have any secrets, alright?" Shishido clarified, stalking off to this theory class.

~O~O~O~

Time: Tuesday afternoon, 4:00

Location: Kahlo Commons, corner booth

Now the tennis team consisted of 7 members, Yukimura, Sanada, Fuji, Shishido, Marui, Jirou, and Eiji. 7 college aged boys were probably too many people to squeeze into one of the Kahlo Commons booths, but according to Yukimura the corner booth was 'their spot,' so they did so anyways. Yukimura, Sanada, and Marui (or the ex-Rikkai gang) sat on the right hand side of the booth, while Jirou, Eiji, and Fuji sat on the left hand side. Shishido was smart enough to pull up a chair from another table and sit at the end of the booth.

Unfortunately for Fuji and Eiji, Jirou was sprawled out asleep and taking up about 2/3 of the bench space, leaving only a small 1/3 bench of space for Eiji and Fuji to share. Fuji sat wedged in the middle of Jirou and Eiji (who was nearly falling on the floor). Fuji was slightly tempted to 'accidentally' push Eiji off the bench and claim the remaining 1/3 bench space for himself. But, Eiji was his good friend, so he didn't do this. That annoying Shishido Ryou had also taken the last free chair in the Kahlo Commons for himself, so Fuji and Eiji had no other options but to patiently wait for this (pointless) meeting to be over with.

"Okay, everyone, I have two big announcements!" Yukimura declared cheerfully. "First, the school administrator accepted our proposal to merge with the students of The Tokyo University of Culinary Arts for sporting events. So, we are officially a team!"

At this everyone cheered.

"Second, we have a new member of the team. Everyone please welcome Mizuki Hajime!"

As if rehearsed, Mizuki made his grand entrance by gracefully walking out from behind a random large pillar. He was dressed in a bright flashy purple outfit that complimented his hair nicely.

Mostly everyone, except for Fuji, Shishido and Yukimura, just stared in shock at who the new teammate was.

Fuji was not impressed. Keeping his calm, serene, smile plastered on his face Fuji remarked, "Ah. Mizuki? Why? We already have 7 members." Besides the fact that he was uncomfortably crammed in between two college boys, Fuji did not display any signs of discomfort or annoyance. However, inside his head he was thinking We don't need him! Kick him off the team!

"This is bad…" Eiji whispered.

"It's good to have at least 8 members. If someone gets sick or hurt we'll need a replacement. In fact, I would be happy if even more people joined the team!" Yukimura beamed.

"But, I'm afraid there's not anymore room for him here…" Fuji solemnly remarked, gesturing to the little sixth of a bench of space under his butt.

The only comforting thing about this situation was, since there were no more empty seats, Mizuki had to awkwardly stand throughout the duration of the meeting.

~O~O~O~

(1): It is stated in the databooks that one of Tachibana's special skills is cooking. This is contradicted by the fact that once Kamio was afraid to eat Tachibana's cooking. Perhaps, Tachibana's hobby is cooking, but he's not very good at it? Not sure.

(2): My reasoning for choosing these specific characters (excluding Shishido) is based on information found in the databooks. Yes, Mizuki is apparently actually skilled in opera. 0.0 I guess it suits him.