If there was one word to describe the Rikkaidai boy's tennis regulars right now, it would be bored. They loved tennis to no end, each in their own way, but nothing interesting had happened in a while. They needed something to spice up their life. That was why, for the first time ever, when there were whispers on the courts that the vice-captain of the girl's team and a new prospect showed up, they went. It hadn't happened before; they were too afraid of more fangirls, but at this moment, all they wanted was some excitement. A challenge.

"I bet you ten dollars that Sanada-fukubuchou will yell at them to get off the courts," said Kirihara Akaya. He carried his racket under his arm and turned his head back to see Marui Bunta. Masaharu Nio answered him instead.

"Aw, little Akaya is taking it awfully safe today." Though he was the trickster, he typically only dealt verbal abuse to his opponents-and to Akaya. It was just too easy to tease him. The boy in question scoffed.

Akaya rolled his eyes, a clear disrespect to his elder, but one they were accustomed to. He never did it in the presence of the three monsters, so there was nothing to fear. "Fine, Masaharu, what do you bet?"

Nio twirled his silver rattail and looked ahead thoughtfully. A smile curved on his face. "I bet that one of them ends up playing a match with one of the boys that aren't a regular. Ten dollars." Bunta let out a long whistle after he popped the bubble gum he was chewing. It was always entertaining to watch these bets, but typically whatever Masaharu bet on ended up happening. Akaya didn't believe him.

"I bet ten dollars that won't happen," Akaya declared, foolishly thinking he would win, though he lost his allowance and lunch money to his fellow regular on almost a daily basis. Thinking better of it, he amended his statement. He was stupid at times, but he wasn't that foolish. Most of the time, at least. "Make that five dollars, and cancel the other one that I bet on."

It was a good choice, too, because when he looked in the vice-captain's direction, he realized that it was very likely for the newcomer to play a match with somebody. Genichiro's silent fire in his eyes had not burned out, like it so frequently did when the girl's vice captain brought new recruits over, like it did when he met people off the courts, in things not involving tennis. The girl gazed back at him with a gaze just as strong, but to Bunta, it felt rather empty, and he shivered a little.

What the girl was doing should be considered an act of blatant defiance, yet nobody made a move to stop it. Genichiro continued to stare at her, even when she pulled her eyes away, and acted demure by tucking a wisp of hair behind her ear. "I can play, but I'm afraid that I'm not exactly up to Rikkaidai's standards."

Finally, the other girl intervened. "Don't listen to her, Sanada-kun, she's just being modest. She's a great player, really, she could manage all of the ball machines we have at full speed. I brought her over here for you to convince her to join the tennis team. It's always good to have strong new blood on the team."

"Who is she," Marui almost whispered. It was as if she had done a complete one-eighty in the span of milliseconds, changing from a strong girl who didn't back down to the epitome of a demure lady. All of the presence she had was gone, and the air felt like there was something missing. Although the vice captain of the girl's team was foolish at times, and she brought over players whenever she wanted, sometimes on a whim, it seemed like this time, she had a genuine reason. She wanted the girl to be on the tennis team, probably for good reason, seeing as if their team didn't win soon, they would be ostracized.

Hiroshi Yagyuu looked at the girl, thinking for a moment before placing her. "Mitsuwa Akemi, of class 3-A. She is the Student Council Treasurer." The girl who sent Nakamura Yumiko out the door crying, slipping into her spot as easy as could be. She caused so little trouble and did her job quickly and efficiently during their afternoon meetings, but the only reason he had paid attention to her was because Genichiro broke social status and called her with the prefix -san instead of none at all. It was very infrequent for him to do that, and the first time he heard his vice-captain call her that, he wondered what about her made him respect her so.

Even though she slipped in so easily, Yagyuu could not shake the feeling that she did not belong at Rikkaidai. She abided by the social expectations- did everything to cookie cutter perfection, paid attention to every line, and actually did her job- but she didn't fit. He couldn't place what made her different, but now he thought that the personality she showed for the majority of the time wasn't the one she knew best. Just now, when she was staring with a bit of a smile up at Genichiro- that seemed to be her comfort zone, and as soon as she began to stare downwards, everything about her was so wrong.

By the time his eyes found her figure again, Genichiro had paired her off with a random third year in the club, an extravagance he usually didn't grant to the girl's club. He didn't let the vice-captain of the girl's team stay, and yelled at the regulars to get back to work.

Same-old-Genichiro.

#

"Hello, it's nice to meet you. My name is Mitsuwa Akemi, from class 3-A." Judging from the pounding of a match he just finished, and the sweat dripping down his face, Akemi had no doubt in her mind that Genichiro had paired her up with one of the weaker boys. It was only natural, seeing as she was not even sure if she would end up remaining in the girl's tennis club. Most likely, the only reason why she was privileged with having a match was because the two of them got along fairly well.

Fairly well by Rikkaidai's standards, at least; both of them had respect for each other, and in a place where the weak were not tolerated, respect was a thing one could never be in short supply of. Respect was worth a hundred fangirls, fifty lovers, twenty friends. Most of all, it was hard to come by, especially considering the fact that she was a transfer student, one that hadn't picked a club at that.

The boy opposite her wiped off his sweat with a towel on the bench, baked to dryness by the sun above them. It scratched his face, and Akemi thought he would have been better off wiping it off with the back of his forearm. "Chien Akira, class 3-C." He eyed her, judging her by her Physical Education uniform, her reed-thin arms, and her short height. Even for him, there would be no challenge. It was Rikkaidai, after all. So, in an act that exemplified his superiority, Akira said, "I'll let you serve first."

She did not want to serve first. She barely remembered how to hit the ball back, and she was sure that her serves would not be accurate, strong, or fast. The only reason she was able to return the balls from the machine was because she had a good sense of timing, rhythm, a good flow. Serving was creating your own rhythm, making your own game plans. Her eyes drifted over to the next court, finding two boys dressed in the regular's uniform. The one with wavy black hair and green eyes served, and she almost shivered. Akemi would not be able to do that serve; it had been foolish of her looking over to the regulars for guidance on normal serving form.

Pretending to fix her shoelaces, she looked at another court, and this time, the players who stood on it were not regulars. When the first one served, her eyes burned the stance and posture into her mind. She looked over at another court, saw another serve, compared it with the last one. This time, the person threw the ball up in the air once, but let it come back down, unsatisfied. They were looking for the right place to hit the ball before hitting it around the center of their racket.

From the other side of the court, the boy smirked, sure of his victory. Akemi was sure that he would win as well, but there was no reason why she couldn't try now. She was too far in to quit anyways.

She bounced the neon-yellow ball on the courts, and at the same time it felt good and sturdy in her hands, it felt so wrong. It bounced once. It bounced twice. She thre it up to the sky and let her eyes follow it before it fell back down to the earth, into her hand.

She bounced it again, threw it, and locked her eye on the box diagonal to her. It hit the net. "Fault," Akira called, dubious that the girl would even be able to get a serve over now. Though he was sure he would win, he wanted somebody who would at least put up a fight, if not challenge him. He liked the thrill of challenge, and if she didn't, then there was no point in him even laying her, even if Genichiro had commanded it.

Down and up, down and up. Again, she threw the ball towards the heavens, and unlike last time, she did not let it fall back down to the earth and restart. The moment the racket touched the ball, her instincts told her that the ball would make it over the net, would make it into the box diagonal her. The few tennis lessons from years ago rushed back to her, but playing this game still felt wrong. It was still like what she had felt when she was younger; awkwardness, the feeling of being incomplete, no definitive urge to continue.

The ball made it in, but it was so weak that it's bounce barely made the ball pass the middle of the court. Akira had not been expecting that, though he should have. Complacency was ever his enemy, laziness, even more so. He sighed, deeply disappointed, but not invigorated with the thought of challenge. It had not been the girl's intention to hit such a shot, but it was still his fault for not returning it. He did not call out the score.

This time, when she served, it hit the net before going in, and Akira called, "fault," again. She did it again, but this time the ball was slightly out of the box, though the speed was slightly faster. Akira did not bother to call out the fact that he just earned a point.

Akemi bounced the ball on her racket for a few moments, finding that she only liked the feeling and sound when the ball hit a certain area of the racket. The sweet spot, she vaguely remembered. Glancing over at the court the regulars were playing on, she was envious of the beautiful sound that their rackets were able to make, and when the green eyed boy hit another serve, she longed to be able to recreate that sound.

She tried to copy his form, and she hit the ball harder this time. It created a better sound than it did the other times she served, but again, it hit the net. Then, she felt eyes on her, and she was certain that the green-eyed boy from the regulars team was looking her way. She turned and bounced the ball, seeing that Genichiro was also watching. For a moment, everything was different, and she was not standing on a tennis court, she was not standing with a racket in one hand, a ball in her other, and she was not underneath the beating sun.

Her heart quivered, and for a moment, three people saw a little flicker in unfocused eyes. It was brief, so brief, but it was enough to inspire a change. When she served this time, she did not try to copy the players she had been watching and let her body do what it wanted to. When she served, Akira thought she looked like she was coming down from the skies to grace him with her presence. Ther serve was an ace, not because it was extraordinarily fast, or impossible to hit, but because he was entranced. This time, he called out the score. "30-15, Mitsuwa leads." It was his shame that she was beating him, even if he was taking it easy, even if he wasn't trying at all. He didn't feel the shame.

Perhaps she hit her stride that game, because within her next four attempts at serving, two of them had been aces. "Game, Mitsuwa, 1-0."

Now, when Akira served, he was ruthless. The time for games was not now, not here, not ever in Rikkaidai. It was fast, but not incredibly so. Still, Akemi was unable to hit it back. He served again, and she move faster, handed down athleticism from her parents finally being used. She met the ball and swung, hitting the sweet spot, making a satisfying, but not-satisfying sound. It landed in the doubles alley. Now, she returned the favor, and called out the score. "Chien leads, 30-0."

When he served the next one, he double faulted, cursed, and berated himself for being careless. This was one of the main reasons why he was among the weakest in the club; not for lack of potential but for lack of accuracy, lack of perseverance. He served again, and she hit it back in the center of the court, right in front of him. It was an easy return, and he hit the ball softly.

In that game, she discovered that the way to make the racket emit the best sound was to hit the ball hard and in the center. Whenever she was able to catch up to the ball, she did just that, and it was hitting against the ball machines all over again. It was satisfying, but it was not enough to bring her back to the dazed state, where her eyes glazed over, and the only one there was herself. Tennis was not enough for that.

Forty minutes later, the game ended in Akira's favor, 6 games to 2. It was a marginal win, but by no means a respectable one. Anybody watching would have realized that the girl quickly evolved throughout the game, and clearly did not have much experience playing. The fact that she got two games on Akira meant that he was weaker than Genichiro expected. A pity, but for the strong to survive, there must be the weak to pick on. He was nothing more than fodder for the regulars, and he suspected that if the girl did continue with tennis, within a month's time, she would be able to reverse that score.

Akira and Akemi shook hands before she walked off. Akemi bowed to Genichiro and thanked him for letting her play, for letting her use the boy's courts. She didn't speak of coming back to try again and neither did he. When she left, practice continued as usual, and Akaya got extra laps for not paying attention during his match with Bunta.

#

"Genichiro, who was that girl you let play on the courts today?" Yukimura Seiichi was curious, but not concerned. Curious, but not so interested that he would track down the girl himself. She had potential, and for a moment, he saw a spark, but she was less than the worst on the boys team, and the difference between the worst and the best, was the difference between a mountain and a child's doll, buried under six feet of dirt.

Placing one of his rackets away, Genichiro didn't look up as he answered the question. "Mitsuwa Akemi. She's from my class, and she's on the Student Council."

On the Student Council? That did remind him… He should start going to those meetings, but he had a tennis club to run, and his own health to worry about. Besides, the principal cleared him from going to meetings until he felt up to it, and nobody begrudge Yukimura Seiichi, because that would be blasphemous. He was the Child of God, higher than Rikkaidai's social hierarchy, standing on top of it, never having any competition. He tapped his index on his finger twice before stopping, not wanting anybody to notice that he was fidgeting. He needed to fidget, to make sure he could still feel.

A month ago, he started having feelings of numbness, and the only way to prevent them was to be constantly moving in small ways. But the Child of God was not supposed to fidget, so he was very careful about when he stretched out his fingers or arms. "Going home, Genichiro?"

"Yes." He stood back up and looked at Seiichi. They did not bid one another goodbye, and seiichi twisted and turned once he was gone, sure that there was nobody else who would stop by the club room. It was weakness, he knew, to succumb to not being able to feel in a match. It was death. The only way to fix his problem was to practice on his own, when nobody would look at him expectantly, needing him to play his best. Playing against the wall, Seiichi found that the street that had been continually piling up every day was lessened every time he successfully hit the ball against the concrete wall.

The subtle nuances of his form changing with every stroke, morphing to fit it, could be considered nothing less than an art form. Overhead, the lights turned on, and he was mildly surprised. He didn't think that they were programmed to go on now, when most of its inhabitants left an hour ago. Everybody left by sunset, and now, the moon had risen into the sky.

He would stop now, but he couldn't find it in him to go home, not yet. At home, he was reminded that there was something wrong with him nearly every moment. He would gaze at something he dropped unwillingly, something that slipped out of his grasp. He would feel his sister's eyes on him, watching his move like she knew something was wrong too. He would sense his parent's sympathy, as if they knew something he didn't. He didn't want to go home to be surrounded full of emotions like that. Instead, he would rather stay at the empty school, and look at the little things that he never had the time to, not when he was busy being the Child of God. It was a full time job, after all, and only now, when nobody was here, was he allowed any kind of a reprieve.

Seiichi stopped at the gardens, relishing how the moonlight cast an ethereal look about them, dewdrops glistening in the dim light. He was pleased that they had been watered, seeing as it was not very often he had the time to water them themselves. Last year, he had been able to, but this year, he couldn't. And the more he did, the more scared he got that he would fail.

At night, the hallways that were filled with waves of animosity, thinly veiled threats, and a constant battle to the top, felt too empty. The silence was nice, but perhaps too unnatural. Pondering for a moment, Seiichi thought that as long as he was here, he might as well take a look at what responsibilities he had as the President of the Beatification Committee. People thought it was a rather silly committee at first, but once they hear his name, all doubts had been cleared away. No, he was not really President of the Beatification Committee; he didn't have time for that. He might as well have been, seeing that for the past two years, he had taken care of the majority of the paperwork. It was only because he had given up those responsibilities for captainship.

When he opened the door, he expected to be alone. The hallway was silent; there was no light coming from under the door, nor were there any sounds. He was wrong. Sitting with he brack to the window, the girl who had played a match on the boys courts sat there with a stack of papers. She had three piles in front of her; one whose top paper was stamped with red, another that was stamped with back-significantly smaller- and a third one that she took a paper from now. It was as if she didn't even know he was there. Somehow, this room was more peaceful than the empty hallways. He reached into one of the cabinets and pulled out a folder that said 'Beatification Committee' in black, bold type.

It was only when he closed the door, sat down, and had taken up a pen himself that she acknowledged him. "Hello," she said, still not looking up from her work, now scribbling furiously on a paper, making many notes in the margin.

"Hello," he said in reply. He set his gaze on her for a few moments, wondering if it was pure luck that the girl was enveloped by the rays of the moon, or if she had strategically sat there. He smiled a little bit; though nobody would outright tease him, he could imagine people chuckling because he had such an imaginative mind. It was the mind of a painter, after all, and this would be a pretty picture, even if the majority of her face was covered in small shadows, and her face held no emotion on it.

The Beatification Committee did not have very much work. It was a total of ten pages, but he worked slowly, looking up at the girl across from him every now and then. If he didn't know any better, he would say that the silence between them was strained since neither of them introduced each other. But he was Yukimura Seiichi, and he was fairly sure that she knew of him and thought the silence was too precious to break. He knew her as well, and if she was smart enough to be on the Student Council, he guessed that she was also intelligent enough to realize that a Rikkaidai captain always knows exactly who is on their courts at all times, and what they are doing there.

So even if they never did have a formal introduction, they knew each other.

She worked quickly, he noticed, and he wondered how she could be here for so long when he presumed she worked at a constant pace. More ruthless than the last treasurer, for the forms she was refusing could only be requests from clubs. More sensible than the last treasurer, who accepted every proposal and squandered Rikkaidai's funds. Most likely, this girl had to save because there was nothing more to spend.

After half an hour, she was finally done, and he pretended that he had not finished ages ago and shuffled his papers away briefly before she got up to put hers away. His eyes followed where she put the piles, and he found that there was a much larger stack she placed them on top before weighing them down with a rather large paperweight. There were too many of them to fit into the cubby hole that treasury had.

Seiichi held the door for her on her way out, and she gave him a slight bow before they walked side by side down the hallways. Only then, did she seem to realize that it was Yukimura Seiichi that had been in the room with her. After he made it out of the door too, she bowed deeply and apologized. "My apologies, Yukimura-" she looked him in the eye and broke off, seeing something fragile there, something vulnerable. He was the child of God, and despite his greatness, he was still a child. He had wisdom, more so than many their age, but less than an adult would. She reworded her sentence. "I'm sorry, Yukimura-san," she said, settling on a lesser suffix than she originally decided on.

"Sorry for what?" In that room, everything felt right, but now that they were out in the halls, it felt as though social rules applied. In that room, he had just been Seiichi, and she had been his equal. It was no longer the case. At least, he noticed, that she refrained from calling him Yukimura-sama, like so many others did. After a while, it became uncomfortable. He almost shook his head- it shouldn't have been uncomfortable, and he should be upset at this girl for not calling him with the proper suffix. He could not bring himself to, not when he felt so comfortable walking by her side. Her stride was not overly ambitious or purposeful, nor was it meek. She walked similarly to him when he was alone, and he found that slowing his pace down a little made him feel better, see clearer, feel more firm in his steps.

In his conflicting emotions, his tone came out a little malicious, but he did not mind; he wanted to see how she would react. They walked for a few more steps before she answered. "For not introducing myself to you. My name is Mitsuwa Akemi, and I am from class 3-A."

It was not what she apologized for; she apologized for not noticing hi, the Child of God, the captain of the boy's national tennis team, the pinnacle of Rikkaidai. He knew that, but with her response, he let her go. Still feeling some sort of obligation to hold to what he was perceived as in school, he smiled at her and said, "It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Yukimura Seiichi from 3-C."

They walked for a little while longer, and Seiichi found it odd that the girl did not converse with him, but seeing that she was a transfer, he could only guess that this was normal for her. He was lying to himself, of course, because he knew quite a lot about the transfer student; news got around quickly, and gossip spread like wildfire. Apparently, she followed all of the social rules of Rikkaidai, and did not make a mistake yet. She knew her place, conversed when she was expected to, and fell right into place. It was like she belonged, but was an for a moment, she said, "Excuse me."

She walked into the technical room and flipped off some switches. The lights outside went off. Akemi turned on the lights because she saw him there, and now that he was no longer out there, they were unnecessary. The action did not go unnoticed by Seiichi, but he did not comment on it.

Parting ways at the gate, Seiichi was certain that she purposely walked the opposite direction of him. It looked like she was going to go right, but then she stopped, bowed, said goodbye, and waited for him to leave before going to the left. When he got home, Yukimura felt unusual, and stared up at the moon for a long time.

Neither he nor Akemi got any sleep that night, though it was for vastly different reasons.

RIP finals

If Akemi seems OP in tennis(which I tried not to do) just blame it on the fact that she's naturally athetic and that her parents made her play sports that may be beneficial later on(as well as doing other activities befitting of a young lady)

Got any questions, shoot me a review or a PM and I'll try to get back to you.

Otherwise, reviews, favorites, and follows brighten up my gloomy mood(love ya grades)