Disclaimer: Even if I would conquer the world, this would still belong to Konomi-sensei.

Warning: Grammar/spelling mistakes, missing words/letters. Characters are probably going to be OOC. Possible yaoi in the future, bad language and maybe fighting scenes or places were one is beaten up or there are people hurting themselves.

Beta-ed by Deaths. Last. Prayer.

I Cry For The Last Time

Chapter Nine: Slowly It Starts To Move.

Tezuka sat in his room, seemingly engrossed in that particular book he had found earlier and sipping the semi-warm tea from time to time. Today was one of the few days that he could spend on his own, since his past-time entertainments (meaning: sex buddies) were all busy for the whole day. And really, Tezuka was not that horny to go at it every single day.

He just tended to get bored fast and needed something to get his mind off of things. Unpleasant things mostly, like Echizen and Atobe for example.

Tezuka sighed and allowed his eyes to wander away from the book that turned out to be boring as hell, and stop at the dark spot on the wall next to him. The tea had long since dried out and left that spot there and even some of the remains of his cup could still be seen lying on the wooden floor. It wasn't that Tezuka was lazy and didn't want to clean that up… It was just that he couldn't quite bring himself to care about that.

The soft melody of his ringtone brought Tezuka out of the daze he had gotten himself into, without knowing it himself, and made the bespectacled man look away from that one spot and get up from his chair, the book falling down on the floor as he did that. And yet, once again, Tezuka didn't care.

"Yes?" he didn't look at the caller ID before picking up. He never really did that.

There was a chuckle on the other end of the line: "And here I thought you would be busy Tezuka. Oh how wrong I was." Fuji faked the surprise in his voice.

"Fuji." Tezuka acknowledged the caller with a bored voice and went back to his chair, stepping on the forgotten book on his way, "What do you want now?"

"How mean. You think so low of me Tezuka." Fuji sounded as if he was sulking now, which he really wasn't doing, "I just wanted to ask you something, that's all, but you already assumed that I want something from you."

Tezuka suppressed a sigh and leaned back in the chair. "Just tell me what you want."

"Really… you are always so edgy when horny. Anyway, you do know about Inui and Renji's birthday party, right?" Fuji waited for a moment, but when he didn't receive any answer he continued, sounding a bit let down, "I was thinking about inviting Echizen to it too."

Tezuka furrowed his eyebrows and sat up straighter. His voice held some interest when he spoke, "Why? There is no point in pretending that he is somebody we want to see and associate ourselves with. What's the point?"

"Now you are dense too." Fuji simply said and sighed, sounding like a mother that was explaining the simplest things to her child, "If we get him there, in front of all those people who know him and make him look like a bad guy I'm sure that there will probably be no one left that would believe him. What do you think?"

"I see… That is perfect." Tezuka smirked to himself and once again leaned back into the chair, "But, in that case, we need him to come to it, and I don't think he will."

Fuji chuckled again, "If he doesn't come then that will just mean the he is avoiding us and actually did use and betray us, like we said. He will be on the losing end either way, whether he wants it or not."

"You really did think this through Fuji." Tezuka didn't let the smirk disappear from his lips. This was in all ways a perfect chance to destroy what little good reputation and bearable life in this town that Echizen had left.

"Don't I always? I already sent the invitation to him, so now we just have to wait. Now then, I have to go now; Kojirou is waiting for me. Bye, bye Tezuka!" Fuji said his goodbyes and ended the call, leaving only the soft beeps of the dial tone behind.

Tezuka shut his phone and slid it in the pocket of his pants, his eyes once again wandering over to the dried tea on his wall. Perhaps, he will manage to end this before university starts again and won't have to worry about Echizen ever coming back again.

Well, he did hope for this summer to be at least somewhat interesting, didn't he?

"Atobe, so you finally decided to show up for one of our meetings?" Gakuto placed his racked on his right shoulder, "What made you change your mind again? Two days ago you suddenly decided to ditch again."

Keigo just raised one of his elegant eyebrows. "I didn't decide to ditch, as you put it. Some urgent things just came up, that is all." He answered the red-head and walked to where Oshitari stood, watching the game between Hiyoshi and Shishido.

"Hello there Atobe." Oshitari greeted the rich man without looking away from the match. "I see that you actually came today, though, without any tennis gear and sportswear."

"Because, I came to see them play, not play myself. Besides, you wanted information, did you not?" Keigo leaned against the chained fence next to the former tensai of Hyotei.

Oshitari smirked and pushed his glasses up a bit. "Yes, that I did. But are you sure that this is the right place for talking? There are so many ears that might hear and so many people that are not meant to hear." He nonchalantly looked to his right.

Keigo followed with his eyes to where Oshitari was now looking and surpassed a frown, keeping his face straight and composed. Niou and Marui, two of the ex-regulars from Riakkai Dai Fuzoku, entered the Hyotei middle school's tennis courts.

"I see what you mean Yuushi." Keigo quietly said to the other and straightened up, but didn't leave the place where he stood. He was a king; if they needed him that much, then they should be the ones to come to him, not the other way around.

When the two got closer did Oshitari step away from the fence he was also leaning on, just like Keigo, and stand next to his friend, his arms crossed in front of him. "Hello you two. It's not every day that ex-Rikkai Dais come here." He greeted the two newcomers.

By this time the whole tennis club and the old regulars of Hyotei had noticed the two and were waiting for whatever will happen next, the curiosity getting the best of them. Though, one look from Keigo and they all went back to their matches and trainings, still glancing in the foursomes' direction from time to time.

"Yo, Atobe, Oshitari." Marui raised one hand up as a greeting sign, eying the rich man carefully. "We're here on Yuki-sans orders. Not because we wanted to, just so you know." He looked around and narrowed his eyes after saying that.

Keigo merely nodded. "Jiroh is not here today, if you are looking for him." After watching the sugar addictive red-head sigh, he crossed his arms in front of his chest, just like Oshitari had done before and asked, "What orders, if I may ask?"

"You really aren't friendly towards us, are you Monkey Lord." Niou leaned on his left leg and pushed his hands in the pockets of his knee-length, army-themed pants. "Puri." He added then, just for the sake of annoying Keigo.

Keigo made a face, but then quickly allowed the uncaring expression settle on his face again. "As if that would be something new, you should be used to it already." He said in a bored voice, as if that was something so painfully oblivious to anyone there.

"Anyway, putting Atobe aside," Oshitari decided to join the conversation now, for the sake of preventing a verbal fight between the trickster and king. "Did you say that Yukimura sent you two? The curiosity is almost killing me." He smiled that strange smile of his.

Marui blinked once and then started to search for something in the red plastic bag in his hands. He rolled up the sleeves of his red hoodie and murmured something to himself as he dug through what seemed to be envelopes. "You explain." He glanced at Niou and resumed his search of whatever he was searching.

"Hai, hai… Jeez." Niou balanced his weight on both of his feet once again, hands still in pockets and smirked. "As you know, both Renji's and Inui's birthdays are coming up, so we and Fuji and Co. got together to throw a b-day bash for them. So, we invite you all to it, once Bunta here finds the right invitations that is." He finished and glanced down at his friend.

Oshitari looked interested. "Oh my, so that means that probably most of the tennis teams ex-regulars, from when we were still in middle school, will be there, right?" he glanced at Keigo, but then quickly returned to the two visitors.

"Yeah, something like that. There will probably be some of their other friends that we don't know of, but.. damn it! The others should all be from the tennis teams, yeah." Marui huffed and pulled out a couple of invitations, tied together with a red string and gave them to Keigo. "Hope to see you there."

"Thank you." Keigo took the envelopes from Marui and looked at them. "I will free my time for the party, but as for the others…" he looked at the few Hyotei ex-regulars that were here and then back at Marui and Niou, "I cannot be sure about them."

Niou waved his hand in the air, as if saying to 'don't worry'. "Don't sweat it Monkey Lord, if they come they come, if not.. well, too bad, puri." He stuck his tongue out when he spotted the annoyed look Keigo hand and spun on his heel.

"We should be going now." Marui shook his head at Niou's behavior and, after saying his goodbyes, left too, following the silver-haired man out of the Hyotei middle school's territory.

"Now that was interesting." Oshitari peeked at the envelopes in Keigo's hands. "When are they holding that party?" he pulled one of the envelopes out of the small pile and turned it over, so that the name for whom it was meant, could be seen.

Keigo threw Oshitari an annoyed look and pushed the envelopes in the tensai's hands, sliding the one with his name on it in the pack pocket of his pants. He then took another look at the current Hyotei middle school students and the old ones, before heading in the direction of the school building.

"Where are you going, Atobe?" Oshitari asked, even though his voice told that he already had a pretty good idea of Keigo's plans.

The used-to-be captain didn't bother to look back at his friend. "You wanted to know about my meeting with that guy, did you not?" he laughed after that.

Oshitari just pushed up his fake glasses and after throwing the envelopes, with invitations in them, to Gakuto, followed the rich man. "You really are one over-confident bastard, aren't you?" Oshitari said after he caught up with Keigo.

"Whatever makes you think that Yuushi? I am only a human, so I cannot be overly-confident all the time. Though, I can sure as hell see that something will happen at that party." Keigo sounded a bit tired as he said that last part.

Akutsu was annoyed as hell. No really, if he could, he would kill whoever had the decency to freaking deny his precious hours of sleep right now. Even if it was the middle of the day, that didn't mean that it wasn't allowed to enjoy the wonders of air conditioned and quiet apartment.

Well, there was the brat at the other room, but since he was probably sleeping as well, it didn't count.

"Who the fuck is-" Akutsu stopped in mid sentence when he came face to face with Marui after opening his front door. "The hell are you doing here?" he grumpily asked, though he didn't quite manage to hide the surprise in his voice.

Marui smiled and leaned closer to the grumpy man he called his boyfriend. "Don't worry, I won't be here long."

Akutsu sighed and stepped aside, silently asking Marui inside his messy apartment. "That's not what I meant, idiot. I'll just warn you, the brat is still here, so no quickies."

"I didn't come for that, asshole." Marui glared a mock glare and dug out a small piece of paper from the front pocket of his hoodie. "This is for the brat. Give it to him once you can, `k?"

Akutsu didn't have the chance to agree, or maybe refuse, when someone else joined their conversation. "To give me what? By the way, I won't stop you from having your sexy time; just warn me beforehand, please, so that I can leave while I still can." Ryoma got his ponta from the fridge and opened it.

A/N: Eeeto… This hasn't been beta-ed yet. I think that my beta is very busy, so I kind of allowed myself to put this up before she has seen it. –is hoping that she will not be scolded later-

And I did mention that Marui is Akutsu's boyfriend, did I not? So, it shouldn't have been that much of a surprise, surprise. Right? And, like I said, the updating won't be as often as it was (but it was never that often to begin with though -.-).

That is all. Enjoy the summer people! I know I will! :D

P.S. ONE MORE WEEK!