Chapter 6

Weeks passed with the nine Seigaku regulars playing their "angel" parts, whether they liked it or not. Fuji amused himself greatly during this period by finding ways to torment and blackmail anyone who wanted to bail out. It was a nice little way to satisfy that sadistic side of his. Of course, this only happened when it absolutely needed to, because there were always Inui's new creations (when Inui's creativity reached its peak, the senior was cranking out a new invention every three days) in which he had the satisfaction of watching work its magic on everyone every single time.

Of course, it was quite dampening to the spirits when Tezuka was in no way affected by any single one of the concoctions. There was the occasional twitching of the hands, however, with some of the juices, so Fuji supposed it wasn't a total waste of time when he tagged behind Inui to ask about his latest innovation and offer suggestions to the ingredients of them.

Gradually, the weeks lengthened into months and Tokyo, Japan entered the month of December, the month of snow and cold and a general festivity with the oncoming holidays. While Christmas wasn't as revered as it was in other places, it was still celebrated as a time to enjoy spending quality time with family. Small gifts were exchanged and occasionally a young couple sometimes found themselves under random bunches of mistletoe, which meant kisses for them.

The tennis season was over, but that didn't mean that the Seigaku regulars didn't still practice. While they no longer practiced in the school courts or the street tennis courts (the nets there had been taken down already), they did manage to secure a pass to the local gym from Ryuzaki-sensei, meaning that they still went every week there to train. That was their secret for staying in shape until the spring came and they could once again practice on the outdoor courts.

Come December, Seigaku also had a steady tradition of getting ready to put on drama productions. Each grade was split into two groups, with each group putting on a different play. This gave a total of six plays by the time Christmas came.

It was just the senior regulars' luck that they were in the same group.

They would also be putting on a play with the strangest, cheesiest, and utterly heart-wrenching (quoted from their teacher) plot ever.

In simpler words, they would be performing something along the lines of romance. No one seemed thrilled at the prospect.

The gym was where their group was holding their first meeting in order to assign parts. While the vast majority of the group didn't know what the plot of the play was about (and could care less about it, anyway) there were some who deathly wanted to have either the smallest role possible or the main one. Eiji glanced around curiously for Fuji or any of the other seniors, before finding them huddled in a circle near the back. Instantly, he was rushing over there in a whirlwind of activity, causing a few yelps from other students as he went. "Nya! Oishi!" he wailed, launching himself onto his doubles partner. Poor Oishi was sent backwards, crashing into Inui and creating a domino affect around the circle.

It was not surprising at all for Tezuka to be the only one unaffected by this. He was stoic as ever, sitting there Indian style on the floor, arms crossed over his chest, frown ever present on his face.

"Oishi!" Eiji continued in his mock wailing as the mother of Seigaku pushed himself back into a sitting position. "I can't believe we're doing a romance piece!"

A twitch from his partner was his only answer, while Fuji smiled brightly. "Saa, Eiji," he chided gently. "It will be fun." Instantly, all of the members minus Tezuka shivered. Fuji cocked his head to the side, puzzled. "What?" he asked, feigning innocence.

"Never mind."

"We'll begin now," announced the teacher who was in charge of the group. "All parts have been picked at random by drawing names from a hat." Snickers rippled through the gym, which were silenced by a rough glare from said teacher.

"The fist part is that of the King," continued the teacher. "The King is an overall very kind person, stern when he needs to be, which is rarely, and is surprisingly gentle. This part will be played by Tezuka Kunimitsu-kun!" There was a moment of stunned silence, then Eiji and Fuji burst out laughing. Tezuka as a gentle king? Their Tezuka? The chance was simply too rare to pass up. When Tezuka retrieved his part, he fixed the two with an almost murderous glare. It was official; they would be running laps very, very soon, regardless of the cold, snow, or ice.

"Next, the King's brother, the multi-personality Count. The Count possesses a certain degree of sadism," here, everyone gave Fuji a knowing (if slightly fearful) look, while Fuji just carried on smiling innocently, "but also has the strange skills of a seemingly mad scientist." Their gazes now shifted from Fuji to Inui, who simply pushed his glasses into a more firm position on the bridge of his nose with his finger, muttering something with percentages. "This part will be played jointly by Inui Sadahara-kun and Kawamura Takeshi-kun."

"I don't know…" Taka-san trailed off, nervously rubbing the back of his head. "I wonder if I'll be able to do well." Fuji held out Taka-san's racket (goodness knows where he got it). "I don't need my racket, Fuji," he said, but the tensai insisted, so he took it. "Oh, all right," he murmured. He was still for a few seconds, then leaped up with a twitch of his eyebrows. "I'm BURNING!" he roared, pumping his fist (with the racket) into the air as he leaped toward the teacher to receive his part, "This play is nothing to me!" The rest of his teammates could have sworn that the teacher cowered back from the fiery boy with the racket.

Oishi blinked in numb shock. "F-fuji," he started nervously, "how on earth did you have Taka-san's racket?" It wasn't uncommon for the genius to give Seigaku's best power player his racket when he needed it (or didn't need it), but for him to have it in the gymnasium was a bit… strange. Even for Fuji.

Fuji's head tipped to the side again, and an overly innocent smile graced his face. "Well, since Taka-san is prone to these bouts of low self-esteem, I thought that such an event as the announcement of parts needed the racket." He flashed a sunny smile. "And that's why I have Taka-san's racket. Or, had, at least, since Taka-san has it now."

Oishi sighed in defeat. Trust the genius to come up with an excuse like that. Heaving another sigh, he shook his head (egg-head, as Eiji affectionately called him) and rubbed his forehead tiredly with a hand.

***

"Ah… the selection of parts is finally over. What a relief," Fuji said lightly as he stretched his slender arms over his head.

"I don't see why you're so relieved," Eiji muttered, a childishly sour look on his face. "You are the prince, after all."

"Ah… that's true," was his friend's good-natured reply. "Although it's a pity the princess dropped out." He chuckled lightly and turned his head to the silent girl walking behind him.

She sulked and frowned up at his smiling face. "I really couldn't do it," she mumbled. It wasn't so much the acting (although she honestly didn't want to do that, either) but the fact that the final date of the performance was one that was of a… inconvenience to her. "But besides," she said brightly, "being a part of the stage crew is great, too! I get to see the whole play!"

"You can also see it if you perform as the princess," Eiji complained, crossing his arms over his chest. She flushed crimson, but never got the chance to answer him.

"Yo, Aa-chan! Why are you walking so slowly?"

Three heads turned towards the source of the voice, which belonged to a middle-aged man with messy dark hair and a pair of glasses almost exactly like Tezuka's. He was leaning against the side of a dark blue car, dressed snugly in a winter coat with a scarf wound around his neck. Okaa-san must have made him wear it. Her father hated scarves with a passion.

"Don't run; you'll fall and hit your head," he teased when they got closer, and she scowled in response. There wasn't even any snow yet on the ground, although the weather forecast predicted that a blizzard would assault Tokyo that night.

"Ne, he seems to know you very well," Fuji commented.

"Such is the duty of a father."

The man flashed a grin in response. "Good afternoon. I'm Ijuuin Ayumu; Asa's father. It's a pleasure to meet you…?"

"Fuji Syusuke," Fuji offered, holding out his hand. The man shook it warmly. "And this is my friend Kikumaru Eiji." He shook hands with Eiji, as well, the acrobat's head bobbing up and down brightly.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Fuji-kun, Kikumaru-kun."

"You, too, Ijuuin-san," was their polite answer.

He chuckled, but then turned serious. "I must thank you for watching over Aa-chan," he said slowly, playing around with the words in his head before speaking them. "I hope she hasn't caused too much trouble with her condition. And making you walk her to and from school, too, Fuji-kun." At this, Eiji turned to stare at him with wide eyes. Fuji's response was simply his customary smile, if not a bit wider than usual.

"Iie. I offered to do it myself, since I passed your house in the mornings when there was still morning practice and she usually stayed after school at the computer lab," Fuji explained. "I guess it's become a habit, now, ne?"

The man smiled in relief. "All the same… thank you," he said graciously. "C'mon, Aa-chan. We're late. You had an appointment scheduled, didn't you?"

"Hai!" Asa turned to face Fuji and Eiji. "I'll see you two tomorrow, then," she said brightly. They nodded and she slid into the passenger seat of her father's car while he bid the two boys farewell. Throwing her schoolbag into the back seat, she heaved a sigh and buckled herself in. Once we get through December, she thought ruefully, only six more months to go. She wondered if she should have felt relieved at this, for that stupid surgery could finally be completed. Or perhaps she should have been disappointed, since it was to be taking place right before summer vacation, so she would be spending the majority of her summer in the hospital for rehabilitation. She heaved another sigh and shook her head sadly, almost in the pitiful way a puppy did to soften one's heart, and her father glanced her way.

"Something bothering you?" he asked bluntly, turning his eyes back to the road. The traffic light at the intersection turned red, so he braked the car, and there were a few minutes of total and complete silence in the vehicle until it turned green and he started forward again.

"Betsuni." No, nothing was wrong with her. Why on earth would he think that?

He snorted, almost as if he had read her thoughts, which she thought that there was a good chance in him actually doing it. But he didn't push the subject; the two of them simply lapsed off into a comfortable silence again. Father and daughter rarely exchanged many words on car trips, but it was alright with the two of them. They just liked it better that way, the way each of them could think their own thoughts without interruption.

Pretty soon, he pulled up into the hospital parking lot, shutting down the engine and pulling his keys out. She opened the door and got out quietly, him following suit. There wasn't really much of a difference between hospitals, Asa thought to herself as she climbed the short flight of steps (five steps in total) to the sliding glass doors. They parted and she stepped into the lobby, the warmth immediately washing over her chilled body, painting her cheeks with a nice shade of pink. They all seem to have the same smiling staff of nurses, the same doctors who try to sound all positive and happy. In no way whatsoever was she implying that she was a pessimist, or that all the doctors and nurses were extreme optimists, it was just that…

The thought suddenly struck her as funny, and she couldn't explain herself. She couldn't even begin to find the words to explain why she thought this was so funny. It just… was.

My logic needs no proof to make sense to me, she argued with herself, although she wondered why she did, because her logic made nearly no sense to her, either. I'm a lost cause.

"You're late." Her doctor's voice drifted over to her ears as she looked up to find the man striding towards her in his long, white jacket. "I hope it wasn't my nephew holding you up," he said sternly, although his green eyes were twinkling.

"Of course not!" she said hastily, waving her hands in front of her in a vague little expression. "I'm sure Oishi-san would never do anything like that. Oishi-san is a very responsible person." What on earth was she saying? She was sounding like an idiot. Hospitals and their staff of doctors and nurses had their way of doing that.

He chuckled lightly. "Ah, that's good to hear," he stated. "Come. We'll begin your checkup. Nothing special or overly fancy to be done today; it's just a regular one." She let out a relieved breath and trotted dutifully after the doctor while her father found himself a seat in the lobby's waiting area. She had to smirk slightly when she saw him tear the scarf away from his neck with an expression of disgust as if it were some kind of poisonous snake as soon as he was properly sitting down.

She was ushered into one of the rooms and bade to sit down on a chair. She perched there as he rummaged through a pile of papers, marking off a few things before pulling out a stethoscope. He motioned for her to turn around so that her back faced him, which she did, and shortly afterwards she felt the cold circle on her back. "Breathe in," came his voice, soft and gentle, and she sucked in a large breath of air. "Good. Now breathe out." She let it out in a gentle whoosh. The process was repeated four more times before the disk left her back and he returned to his paperwork.

A few seconds later, she was holding out her right arm as he wrapped a cuff snuggly around the slim appendage. When that was securely in place, he slid the stethoscope's disk under the cuff and started to pump air into it. She felt the familiar squeeze around her arm as it tightened so that he could take her blood pressure, and stayed sill, listening to the squeaking little pumps as the air was pumped in, and then the shrill whistle as it was being let out. The tightness lessened, and then the cuff was removed from her arm as she rubbed it absentmindedly with her other hand.

Twenty minutes later, her checkup was done. Asides from the usual problems (her eyesight was slowly getting a bit worse, she shouldn't stay up late at night studying or playing with her cat when she should be sleeping) she was pretty much in the norm for junior high girls. Her doctor ambled off to talk to her father, so she took a seat at one of the rows of benches and leafed through a magazine placed on the small table at one end of it. It was a magazine featuring pets, so she immersed herself with browsing through the photographs of well-groomed dogs, fluffy hamsters, and sophisticated looking cats. There was even a bonus page in the cat section with tips for the average cat owner. She reread the section three times in order to ensure that she remembered it all.

There would still be a good chance that she would forget it the moment she walked into her front door. Shutting the magazine with a rustle of the glossy pages and other sigh, she set the thin book down and stood. Her father was finishing his conversation, and soon he started walking to the door. She hurried to meet him and the two of them got into the car.

"Nothing new?" he asked.

She shook her head, reaching for the seat belt. "My eyesight is getting a bit off. He just cautioned me that I shouldn't stay up too late."

Her father nodded fiercely. "Yes, you do that," he mumbled, frowning over his shoulder as he backed the car out of the parking space. "Also, don't sit too close to the screen when you watch those movies of yours." She huffed, but couldn't find the words to make a comeback.

"Tadaima!" she called out when she entered the house. Rich smells came from the kitchen as she padded upstairs, depositing her schoolbag on her bed and then going back downstairs. She sidestepped a heap of colored pencils and a cat in their midst (if Seika went upstairs with rainbow streaks in her fur from the colored pencils, it would mean an hour's worth of bath for her, although goodness knows how colored pencils could stain fur) and headed into the kitchen. "Hi, Okaa-san," she said.

Her mother gestured to one of the bubbling pots and handed her a ladle, so she lifted the lid to stir whatever its contents were. "I thought we'd have curry tonight. You don't mind?" Asa shook her head as she dipped the ladle into the pot and stirred in gentle movements. Her mother sighed, continuing to immerse herself with the business of making rice. "Narumi likes her rice plain; Kurumi likes it spicy. That makes it all the more difficult…" she trailed off and Asa giggled slightly. Soon her mother joined in, and then they were laughing.

The twins popped their heads in to see what was so funny, and then picked up plates to set the table. Neither of the two older women could help but notice that Kurumi's cheeks were flushed pink with delight.

"Ne, Kurumi. You seem very happy tonight."

Kurumi nodded happily, and then announced the cause of her happiness. "Syusuke-onii-chan agreed to take me on another date!" she squealed happily.

"EH?!"