Hi guys and gals! AGAIN, sorry for my super late update. I've been handling some stuff lately and my brain's getting fried; what with the pressure of finding a job and what not. Anyway, I've been on a writing spree and cleaning spree lately so here's chapter 16 for you. I've been reading loads of yaoi manga lately but it happily didn't affect my brain as much as I expected it.
Special thanks to the following people who gave this fic time and even went through the trouble of reviewing it ^_^. My heartfelt thanks to all of you.
Ixxxmissxxxu- I'm trying to consider your suggestion. I have one in mind but I'm still working it out in my head.
Aisian lover- no biggie. Thanks for reading and reviewing.
Angel's angel- stoicness is great for Tezuka but I want to imagine some other emotions in him.
Dhione26- yep romance is needed. But let's wait and see how everything turns out kay? Hehehe
Dove tree- thanks! Continue to read and review this fic please ^_^ hehehe
Invisible-gurl- of course nanjirou's always expected to screw things up. I've never written a love letter before but I could just imagine how Tezuka looked when he read something as blunt as that. Ehehehe.
Coco96- yeah, hopefully they all turn out happy. ^_^
Midori-emmi- you're a new reader! Thanks for reading my fic and thanks for reviewing.
Okay, chapter 17 is already halfway finished, expecting it to be up and posted either by Saturday 10pm (Manila time) or Sunday afternoon (again, Manila time). This is one unusual chapter, hope you like it.
Disclaimer- Well, clearly Prince of tennis isn't mine. If I owned it, YAOI will happen.
Chapter 16 – Photos and worrisome events
It was already Monday and the Photography club was having a meeting inside their clubroom. All in all there are only twelve members in the club, three of which are officers and seniors respectively. Since Seishuun Gakuen is a lot more popular for their tennis and other sports clubs, students tend to direct their attention to those clubs more. Clubs like Photography, Ikebana, English Literature and other non-sport related clubs have fewer members since majority of the school population favor joining sport-related clubs.
"All right, another part of today's agenda, we would now be discussing about this year's Photography club participation for the school festival. In lieu of our first plan, which is to have a coffee table book made, we will be having a photo exhibit and a photo essay competition," Fuji explained. There were excited sounds heard from the room.
"For the photo exhibit, everyone will be participating. You will all select three photos each from your portfolio or from your artworks, then you will have them all printed in a big board. The sizes are still undecided but we will choose sizes that won't get too cramped," said the club's treasurer.
"That's right. The sizes of the board will depend on how big the venue will be. Plus, it will also depend on how many pictures will be posted. As for the photo essay competition, you can all join but only five will be chosen for the exhibit during the festival. In short, those five will be the top competitors. We won't be saying what's in store for the winner first, but shachou is already talking to a big sponsor for the prices," Tenshi explained.
"Won't it be too costly, shachou?" asked one of the second years.
"My sister runs a photography shop down town and she's promised to give us a fifty-percent discount if we have all of our photos printed there. The club will cover the payment for the exhibit, but participants of the competition will have to pay for their entries on their own," said Fuji.
"Would there be a theme for the photo essay competition?" Yumi raised her hand.
"Of course, but the theme will only be announced on Wednesday after our club meeting. Submission of entries would be on Saturday during our practice for black and white photography," said Tenshi.
"All right, if there's nothing else, I'll see all of you on Wednesday. Please remember to bring your sample macro shots on that day too. We'll be doing our critiquing for the last activity by then," said Fuji.
After the meeting ended, the rest of the members began leaving the club room. Meetings for the photography club are held before classes began, unlike most of the other clubs, since most members are also members of other extracurricular clubs in the school; like Yumi and Fuji for example. The time of their club meeting is pretty convenient, considering that meetings are usually held at seven in the morning until eight and tennis practice begins at eight and ends around nine since they only really do drills. Most of the actual tennis games begin in the afternoon around three thirty until it ends around five to six in the evening; depending on the training menu that gets decided by Tezuka, Ryuuzaki-sensei, and in this case Inui, since he's not in the regulars and he stands as the team trainer.
"Are you ready, Yumi-chan?" asked Fuji.
"Hai, senpai," said Yumi. She waited until Fuji finished stacking all of the new photographs in his desk drawer before they headed for morning practice.
"Are you going to join the photo essay contest?" asked Fuji.
"I might. It depends if I can maneuver my way well with the theme," said Yumi.
"Well, it would be a delight to see one of your works there, Yumi-chan. You may not be as good in sports but you excel pretty well when it comes to photography," said Fuji.
"Mou, senpai, I don't really know if I should take that as a compliment or an insult to my bodily-kinesthetic intelligence," said Yumi.
"Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, hmm, you read a lot of stuff about Howard Gardner, Yumi-chan. That's part of his Multiple Intelligences theory right?" said Fuji.
"I was thinking that it might explain a bit of why I'm so physically challenged when it comes to sports. Plus reading ten books about him made the librarian so happy I got the Book worm award last week," said Yumi.
"You get free coffee from the café down the road then. I'm really serious, though, Yumi-chan. You should really try and join that competition. The festival is still a good three weeks away, I'm pretty sure you can come up with something," said Fuji.
"I don't know, Fuji-senpai," said Yumi.
"You know, if ever you win, you can use the price to buy your brother a gift for his birthday. Today's only the thirteenth of the month. You have a lot of time. I mean, it isn't like the tennis club's maid and butler café would be too much to handle, right?" said Fuji.
"I'll think about it," said Yumi.
"All right then, come on. We better get going before your brother assigns laps," said Fuji.
When they came to the tennis courts, they sensed that something was amiss. Yes, there were no laps being assigned and there were club members doing their routine activities such as drills and warm ups, but aside from that there was certainly something odd going on near one of the tennis courts. Two familiar figures seemed to be talking, or arguing rather, whilst in front of the other regulars.
"Please continue with your warms up. I'll go and change first then, Fuji-senpai," said Yumi as she walked towards the nearest girls' lavatory.
"We should do that, rather quickly too. I think your brother's arguing with a girl," said Fuji.
"I should hurry then," said Yumi as she walked faster.
When she came out, Ryuuzaki-sensei and the other regulars were around the two who were arguing. It was Tezuka and, to Yumi's surprise, Mizuno Tenshi, her closest female senpai. She had to quickly step in to find out what was happening.
"What's wrong onii-chan?" Yumi asked as she approached her brother.
"Your senpai here is breaking the rules," said Tezuka.
"I certainly did nothing of the sort. I'm not disturbing any of you. Sure, I entered your courts without permission, but I was merely taking pictures of players," said Tenshi, raising an eyebrow.
"You said it yourself, you entered without permission. We are in the middle of training, and you, Mizuno-san are interrupting," said Tezuka, his voice still quite calm
"Please calm down, both of you. I understand your passion with photography, senpai, but you were a bit out of line there. Firstly, non-members of the team are not allowed to come inside the courts unless you are given proper permission to do so. It's not just because you're not a member but it's a safety precaution. It would be bad if you or your camera were hit by one of the balls and I should warn you, the weight of each ball that gets hit by the regulars are very different than usual players who just do it for fun," Yumi explained.
"Yumi-chan's our manager nya! So she knows quite well about them," said Kikumaru.
"Also, if I may add, before you take photos of people, Mizuno-chan, you have to get their permission first. Otherwise what you're doing can be classified as stalking, you know," said Fuji, as he joined.
"Considering that I've confessed to this wooden blockhead of a captain of yours, I guess you could say that yes, I might as well be a stalker. But as of the moment I'm merely taking photos for the upcoming exhibit," Tenshi said boldly.
It certainly got the reaction it deserved. A few rackets and tennis balls were dropped, and almost all of the other tennis club members have stopped doing drills and came to look. There were other onlookers by then too.
"That's a rather bold confession, Mizuno-san," said Fuji.
"I should say so. Come along then, Mizuno-san. If you want to get permission, you'd have to sign a few papers. You can do your picture taking thing that you're doing, this afternoon," said Ryuuzaki-sensei.
"Sensei?" Tezuka asked.
"Yes, I'm giving her permission. She'd have a limit of an hour of course," said Ryuuzaki-sensei.
"I refuse to participate in any of this that she plans on doing. You may take photos of the regulars and other members but do not include me in any of this," said Tezuka, before walking back inside the courts.
"Che, such a killjoy, Tezuka. Well, you heard the man, right? You'd have to make do with all the others," said Ryuuzaki-sensei.
Yumi followed her brother of course, quietly asking if what her senpai said were true. But Tezuka was a bit on edge and in a bad mood to answer her right now. He didn't even notice that she was following him inside the courts if it weren't for the fact that she tripped on a ball that was dropped earlier. He was ridden with guilt when he saw her knee but it was overtaken by his bad mood.
"Yumi-chan, daijobu?" asked Kikumaru.
"Hai, senpai. I'll go and patch it up in the clubroom," said Yumi, wincing a bit.
"Come on, Yumi-chan, I'll help you with it," said Oishi as he escorted the slightly limping Yumi out of the courts.
"What's wrong Tezuka?" asked Fuji.
"Nothing," he muttered.
"Have you taken a liking to Mizuno-san? You were quick to forget about other confessions to you but this time it seemed to irk you a lot," said Fuji.
"Continue doing your drills," Tezuka barked out at the others.
"Don't be so grumpy, Tezuka," said Fuji.
"I am not," said Tezuka.
"Then why are you so upset about all of this?" asked Fuji.
"Get back to practice, Fuji," said Tezuka before walking out of the courts.
The others were still squabbling about what they just heard, in the middle of training of course, but they can certainly multitask. While waiting for their turn in a drill Inui was making them do, Ryoma, Fuji and Momo were chatting about how Tezuka reacted. It was quite new, to see their blockhead of a captain show another form of emotion aside from his stoic and icy ones.
"This is the first time, isn't it senpai? Even back then when I was a ball fetcher, I never saw him react any other way," said Momo.
"Looks like it. Oishi might know more since Tezuka talks to Oishi a lot more than he does with me. But more or less I'd say he's affected by this one," said Fuji.
"But isn't she the girl that Yumi-chan invited for that fashion thing she got invited to?" asked Ryoma.
"I think I did hear that from Yumi-chan," said Fuji.
"Speaking of which, how do you think Yumi-chan's taking it?" asked Momo, who looked at their club manager as she was monitoring training.
"She seems…indifferent, at the moment. Or maybe she wants them to get together," said Fuji.
"Not sure," said Ryoma.
"They're quite close you know, Yumi and Mizuno I mean. They spend most of the time together during meetings and workshops," said Fuji.
"Which makes her look up to Mizuno as someone ideal for her brother," said Momo.
"Fat chance, senpai. Yumi's not the type to mess with stuff like this," said Ryoma.
"Let's just keep an eye on them for now. I feel like something's about to happen. I should ask onee-san to read her tarots tonight," said Fuji.
Lunch time
Usually, Tezuka was a calm, stoic, and unfazed person, that is, until Mizuno Tenshi wrote him a love letter; if you could even call it that. He would've wanted to concentrate on some very important student council work for the time being but a certain petite girl with a dazzling smile and doe eyes just had to follow him to the student council room. He hoped that by ignoring her it would be obvious that he didn't want to be disturbed but this girl was either too thick-headed or simply too persistent for her own good.
"Oh look, Mizuno-senpai's still waiting for him. She's so persistent," the secretary murmured to his assistant. A lot of people have been whispering around him lately, and it certainly gave him a headache.
"Mizuno-san, I'm busy with council work. If you have anything to say please speak up already, I have very little time to spare at the moment," he said directly, after rereading the same sentence from an information sheet ten times.
"Oh? Wouldn't you like to come and eat lunch first? I made you a bentou you know," said Tenshi as she placed a lunch pack on the table, which incited more murmurings.
"Thank you, but I have my own bentou prepared by my imouto. Now, if there's nothing else, you may leave," said Tezuka.
"You're a difficult one. You should be thankful other people gave time to do something for you," said Tenshi.
"Thank you that you did but this is completely unnecessary," said Tezuka.
"Fine then, I'll go share it with your sister," said Tenshi.
"Leave my sister out of this," he said sternly.
"Oh, right, I did hear that you have this complex regarding your little sister. I'm pretty close to your sister you know," said Tenshi.
"If you're planning on involving my sister consider yourself ignored. I've no intentions in associating myself with opportunists," said Tezuka as he finally seemed to have gotten better concentration now.
"What makes you think I'll use her to get to you? Ah, well anyway, I'll just leave you for now. I seem to have pissed you quite a bit since this morning. See you later," said Tenshi as she left the council room.
Tezuka sighed and unconsciously rubbed his temples. He was developing a mild headache and he was pretty sure he'd have to take some aspirins later. Distractions are inevitable but he really doesn't have time for any at the moment, especially with some things that's been happening around Yumi lately. He's already got his hands full with the council and the tennis club, but lately there've been odd occurrences that have gone unnoticed by his little sister.
It started with something simple, like pebbles in her outdoor school shoes. That time, he was just heading towards the staff office near the shoe cubbies when he noticed some pebbles on the floor. He thought of just putting it back outside when he noticed that amongst all the shoes in the cubbies, his sister's shoes was facing the opposite direction. When checked, there were about ten pebbles on each shoe. A week later, Yumi and a classmate was assigned to get books in the library for reading class. Tezuka was doing the same for theirs and happened to sight a sudden shadow reach for the step ladder and replace it with the rickety and broke one. He didn't see who it was, just a blur of colors. When he saw Yumi reach for the broken step ladder, he immediately approached her and insisted on not using it. Overtook by fear, he took her list and looked for the books himself; not wanting to risk his sister an injury of any sort.
Whoever is doing this to Yumi, he has to find out fast. He or she hasn't done anything else recently, but Tezuka's being extra cautious just to make sure. He's not sure if Yumi already noticed it but she seems to be a bit secretive nowadays. It worries him that whoever this hater is, he or she might do something really bad to her. Thinking about it again just made his growing headache worse.
Afternoon tennis practice was quite tiring, what with Tenshi as another distraction for the players. Tezuka was in a very bad mood at the moment. He was eaten by guilt after seeing Yumi's patched-up knee and at the same time annoyed that even though Tenshi is not taking his photos, the said girl is still sticking close to him every single time she gets the chance.
"You guys sure she isn't just another fan girl?" asked Taka-san.
"Fshuuu, she does seem like one," said Kaidoh.
"How can you be sure, Mamushi? It's not like you have that much fan girls," said Momo.
"Do you want a fight? Baka Momoshiro!" said Kaidoh.
"Ah, but to answer your query Momoshiro, Kaidoh does have fan girls. Eighty percent of them see him as someone very adorable," Inui popped out suddenly, causing Kikumaru to jump.
"Hoooooooooooiiiiiiii!" said Kikumaru.
"Inui! You shouldn't be sneaking up on people like that! It isn't good for the heart," said Oishi.
"A new record, Kikumaru. Congratulations," said Inui, ignoring Oishi pointedly.
"Ah, but Taka-san's quite right, ne? If you look at it in someone else's point of view, she just seems like a fan girl of Tezuka's," said Fuji.
"But she's not like the over obsessed fan girls," Ryoma pointed out.
"You're nya, ochibi. She looks like someone who just wants to make friends or something nya," said Kikumaru.
"Maybe she likes buchou genuinely," said Momoshiro.
"I haven't accumulated enough data on her yet so it's still too early to tell," said Inui.
"Mada mada dane, Inui-senpai," said Ryoma.
"Doushite, ochibi?" asked Kikumaru.
"There's something Inui-senpai doesn't know how to get data of. I'm pretty sure of that," said Ryoma.
"What are you all doing? Get back to practice," Tezuka barked out at their little groupie.
They left the chattering and resumed practice right away. It wasn't good to make Tezuka even madder than he is now. Doing that would only cause them to do more laps later and something even nastier, which of course included another round of Penal-tea from Inui's concoctions. It's still a mystery how Fuji survives those.
"Itai!" they all heard a scream.
"Yumi-chan! Daijobu ka?" they all heard Horio yell out from the other courts, prompting all the others to stop training.
"Get the first aid kit quick!" they all heard Arai call out to one of the freshmen.
The regulars thought Yumi tripped on another ball again. They paled after seeing more blood after the members gave way for Katsuo to pass to get the first aid kit inside the club room. Yumi's palm was bleeding rather badly and it alarmed the regulars, especially Tezuka.
"What happened?" asked Tezuka as he approached Yumi and looked at the bleeding hand.
"Onii-chan," she whimpered, her tears building up from the pain.
"What happened here, Arai?" asked Momo.
"I'm not sure myself. She was just standing there a minute ago and then she picked that racket up. After than she just yelped and we saw her hand bleeding," said Arai as he pointed to a black colored racket lying on the ground.
"Who owns this?"asked Taka-san as he picked it up carefully to inspect it.
"Tezuka!" Oishi called out and pointed at the handle and saw a sharp looking piece of blade embedded on the grip tape. It was still bloodied.
"Senpai, here's the first aid kit!" Katsuo called out and opened the box right away.
"Who would do such a thing?" said Arai, gritting his teeth madly.
"It's odd though," said Kachiro.
"What do you mean?" asked Tezuka.
"That racket wasn't there earlier, senpai. There was no extra racket on the courts earlier because Katsuo-kun and I cleaned this court earlier before practice. It was only when Yumi-chan came in and a group of people passed by when that racket showed up," Kachiro explained.
Seeing how the others were thinking about it, Oishi worked on getting the wound to stop bleeding. It wasn't very deep but it was deep enough to cause a lot of bleeding. The cut was pretty long too. It would be hard for Yumi to write and eat with chopsticks for quite a while. Once it seized bleeding, Oishi put some medicine on the wound then wrapped Yumi's hand with gauze.
"It's obviously set up," said Fuji bluntly.
"But who would do such a thing? And to Yumi-chan too?" asked Taka-san.
"We'll have to figure it out later. Kawamura, could you wrap that up with something so no one else gets hurt. We'll have to keep that as evidence for later," said Tezuka.
"Ah, I will," said Taka-san as he and Kaidoh went to wrap it up.
"Let's talk about this in the clubroom," said Oishi, sensing that there's something else going on.
When they got to the clubroom, Tezuka started to tell them of what he's noticed so far. Everyone was alarmed. Without them noticing it, trouble was brewing badly near Yumi. Kachiro's statement made it clear that the blade on the racket was intended for Yumi. If it were otherwise then why was it that the racket was only seen after Yumi entered the courts? Someone, possibly from the group that passed the courts, planted that blade on the grip tape and dropped it on purpose so Yumi would get it and get injured in the process.
"If this has been going on then why didn't you tell us right away, Tezuka?" asked Oishi.
"I wanted to make sure first. But right now it is clear that someone is targeting Yumi," said Tezuka.
"This is dangerous. Are we even sure the person is from Seigaku?" said Fuji.
"I don't know. But first, Yumi, you have to tell me honestly, are there other occurrences like this that happened to you? You've been acting very oddly these past few days, as if you're hiding something," said Tezuka, while looking at Yumi.
"I...ah.." she stuttered.
"Don't be scared, nya, Yumi-chan. You're our aka-chan here so you can be honest with us, nya," said Kikumaru.
"Are my hunches correct, Yumi?" Tezuka asked.
"There were three other incidents. The first two were not as bothersome, but the third was," said Yumi.
"What happened in all three incidents, Yumi-chan? You have to tell us everything that happened," said Fuji.
"It was after that tournament with Fudomine. I thought I've been getting forgetful and misplacing things but in the end I found out someone was actually taking my things. So far I've lost five things already." Yumi explained
"What are those things Yumi-chan?" asked Taka-san.
"Eto, the bag charm from Fuji-senpai, the foldable fan from Eiji-senpai, my new Usa-chan pen from Oishi senpai, the new notebook Inui-senpai gave me, and the new water bottle you gave me last week, senpai," Yumi answered Taka-san's question.
"Now that's certainly odd," said Fuji.
"Yeah, it's like the culprit is only after the things that we gave Yumi-chan, nya. What other things happened Yumi-chan?" said Eiji.
"My shoe cubby always has pebbles and trash now and someone ripped my head cap for swim class," said Yumi.
"Is that all there is?" asked Tezuka.
Everyone caught Yumi mumble something but it wasn't very clear. She was looking at her bandaged up hand on her lap blinking as if she was trying to stop her tears from falling. Her other hand reached for her book bag and took out a crumpled piece of paper from the outer pocket. There were numerous scribbles, and a much smaller crumpled piece of paper inside. Oishi took it and smoothed both papers out to see what was written.
"Tezuka!" Oishi gasped as he turned the paper so everyone could read what was written:
"Get lost filthy scum! Get away from the regulars unless you want something bad to happen to you. We know something you're not telling,"
"WAAAAAAAAAAH~!" yelled Eiji.
"Who would do this?" asked Momoshiro.
"Someone who's no good obviously, fshuuuuuuuu…" Kaidoh hissed.
"This isn't good Tezuka. Even if this is just a student, whatever happened today proved that he or she is capable of something more than just mere pebbles in Yumi's shoes and threat notes," said Oishi.
"If it was this bad, why didn't you tell me right away, Yumi?" asked Tezuka as he stood in front of his sister.
"Demo, I didn't want to cause you any trouble," said Yumi.
"Daijobu, Yumi-chan, we'll figure something out," said Taka-san.
"That's right, nya! We'll come to protect you! Ne, ne, Ochibi?" said Kikumaru as he pulled Ryoma into one of his death hugs.
"K-kikumaru-senpai!" Ryoma struggled.
"For the time being, Echizen, you're the one who spends more time with Yumi in school, make sure to keep an eye on her at all times," said Fuji.
"Hai, senpai," said Ryoma.
"And you, Yumi-chan, you have to take good care of yourself. We won't be able to keep track of everyone who gets close to you so you have to be careful yourself. Inui will look into this of course," said Oishi.
"Ah, I'll make sure to collect more data. But right now, the best we could do is wait, and let things unfold on its own," said Inui.
Tezuka knew Yumi wouldn't talk unless he asked more about what happened personally. But she already had a lot to deal with that afternoon, and it didn't look fair if he just bombarded her with questions even if she was already having a hard time. Aside from that, he also had some problems to deal with on his own. Mizuno Tenshi is a very persistent being, too persistent if he had a say on it. What bothers Tezuka is that Tenshi's confession and his confusion just had to come at the wrong time at once. It's hard enough that he's busy with school and club responsibilities, now he has to deal with other problems too.
Once they got home, Ayana was frantic upon seeing her daughter's bandaged hand. Of course, Yumi and Tezuka explained that there was just an accident at school; which wasn't a lie. They evaded all other questions by saying that Yumi was pretty exhausted and had their dinner brought up to Yumi's room instead. There, the two got the chance to talk better.
"Gomen ne, nii-chan. I knew I should've told you earlier," Yumi whispered.
"I understand that you didn't want to cause me any trouble. But you know, Yumi, you'll be causing me a bigger problem if you went on and hid everything like that," said Tezuka.
"Demo, you're so busy with the student council work and the club. And now, Tenshi-senpai seems to be getting on your nerves; I really didn't want to add more to your problems," Yumi explained.
"But if you continue keeping it from me, I wouldn't know what to do in case anything bad happens. I can always go back to doing council and club works, but I can't turn back time to protect you," said Tezuka as he helped cut up a piece of chicken for Yumi.
"Gomen ne, nii-chan," said Yumi.
"Ah, it's all right now. Come on, eat," said Tezuka as he began eating his own food.