Prince Of Tennis Fan Fiction ❯ What if ❯ chapter 20-last chapter ( Chapter 20 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: jgal 
Anime/Manga: Prince Of Tennis Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 03.25.2005 | Pages: 1 | Words: 3.0K | Visits: 598 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Prince Of Tennis Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 03.25.2005 | Pages: 1 | Words: 3.0K | Visits: 598 | Status: Completed
Last time
"Anyway, another player which I knew is Carl Harrison. Carl Harrison was ranked just slightly below Ryoma back then, I would say he's about the standard of Jirou and Kirihara. As for his play style... I can't exactly define it since he adopted different play against different opponent, he's usually a combination of Momoshiro, Atobe-senpai when it comes to smashing and usually against Ryoma. When he played against me, he would opted for style like Kirihara Akaya or even Kevin Smith, at times even adopting Ryoma's play style. He knew Ryoma style well-enough to pass off as his own, since he'd first been introduced to Tennis by Ryoma back in America. They used to be the best of friends, until Ryoma moved to Japan abandoning him to his own device. They played each other just yesterday during our family annual gathering, the final game count had been 7-5 with Ryoma defeating him yet again for the tenth time in the past ten years." Hiroshi smirked at the mere memory of Carl's maddening look when Ryoma refused him for another game after his loss the first time round.
Leaving the rest of the members to absorb the information provided, he left for the court to proceed on with the match Kabaji had promised him before he was ordered to provide information to the club by Atobe.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
What If- Chapter 20
Echizen Ryoma was irritated, he couldn't understand what was the motive behind his mother sudden decision of hosting a friendly match over at Rikaidai for various schools to attend. He knew Rikaidai had always arrange matches between themselves with other schools from other countries before, but they'd never extend the invitation to other schools before. However, this time around Seigaku and Hyotei were invited to join in their friendly match as well. 'They'd never done it before, so why do it now?' Ryoma thought to himself, then he was suddenly hit by another thought 'Well... mother probably thought it would be better if we were to settle everything else on the court where witnesses were present, instead of challenging each other in privacy which will only ended up contributing more conflicts... That must be it, Hyotei was invited because Hiroshi had some scores to settle with James...'
Been confident of his own reasoning, Ryoma headed back home determined to challenge Hiroshi into a game if the latter's home from dining with Jirou's family. Ryoma entered the house to find himself stunned by the number of people in his house, he was about to back away when he felt someone pulling him into the house.
"What the..." Ryoma muttered as he was pulled into the house un-willingly.
"A-ra... Ryoma-kun, Welcome home..." Nanako Meino greeted her cousin absently as her attention was on Kirihara Akaya who's trying to get his hands upon some cupcakes reserved for Marui, since it did belongs to his senior after all. Ryoma took in all the yellow jerseys wandering about his house freely, he then noted his father's absence and instantly knew that his mother had once again banned his father from coming into the house with the excuse of contaminating youngster's mindset.
He scanned the room for his mother's presence and finally found her sitting with Sanada Genichiro and Yukimura Seiichi at their dining table, going over various strategy on their up-coming match with St. Mary. He was just about to resign himself to the idea of not attaining any peace that very evening when his mother suddenly called upon his attention. "Ryoma, think you can bring the boxes containing all your previous official and unofficial games tapes with Carl and James from your room downstairs for Jackal over there?" Rinko directed her request at Ryoma without raising her head from the scattered pile of papers on the table.
Ryoma looked at his mother for a moment before letting out a sigh and said politely "Sure, Mom..." Dragging his feet as he made his way up to his room, he entered his room and sank himself down on his bed dejectedly. Releasing a groan filled with pent- up frustration he reach under his bed to pull out a large box and carried it downstairs, dumping it uncerementiously in front of Jackal who thanked him and started digging through them with Yanagi. He watched as Yanagi took out his notebook and pencil and began taking notes, he muttered "Another Inui senpai in the making..." under his breath.
He was about to head back to his room to brood on his messed-up life, when the front door opened with Hiroshi entering with a hyperactive Jirou trailing behind. "Oh great... another guest to brighten up the house." Ryoma mumbled incoherently under his breath, as he took his racket out from his bag and called out to Hiroshi impatiently. "Hiroshi, a game with you at the court in ten minutes time." Ryoma called out as he exited through the front door and headed towards the temple at the back of the house. Hiroshi merely lifted his eyebrow slightly before taking in the surrounding, he took in the presence of the Rikaidai players and sighed knowing Ryoma probably wanted to escape from such crowd. He shot an apologetic look at Jirou and shot a glance at Marui telling Jirou to occupy his time by mixing around with Marui. He then reached into his bag for his racket and jogged after Ryoma, Jirou just smiled at Hiroshi with reassurance as he headed towards Marui without a word.
"Hey Marui, don't mind if I join you?" Jirou asked as he took a seat beside the redhead of Rikaidai without waiting for the latter's acknowledgement. Marui Bunta looked up at Jirou before smiling brightly and said "No, feel free to do so... after all, this is not my home. You don't need my permission for such things, I knew you often come over as well... judging from your relationship with that Hiroshi." "Oh... you knew already?" Jirou seemed stunned for a moment, but recovered when he remembered Marui had a boyfriend from Seigaku, the fact that Hiroshi lived with Echizen Ryoma from Seigaku would explained Marui knowing his relationship with Hiroshi. Not to mention Marui's boyfriend just happened to be the gossip king of Seigaku tennis club and a good friend of Ryoma's boyfriend, Fuji Syusuke.
Two hours later, Hiroshi and Ryoma entered the house looking half- dead causing everyone in the house to stare at them in shock. They were drenched throughly with perspiration, the rest of them watched as Rinko takes in Hiroshi's and Ryoma's appearance with a sigh and asked "Two hours... who won this time?" Ryoma replied curtly "Me." Rinko raised her eyebrow slightly and asked "Last week it's Hiroshi, this week is Ryoma... so what's the final score?"
"7-6, honestly do you need to ask it everytime?" Ryoma uttered in annoyance.
"Well... so another game which ended in tie-break huh?" Rinko stated, before dismissing Ryoma and Hiroshi for their well-deserved bath. "Jirou, answer me this... did Hiroshi played anyone else earlier?" Rinko asked Jirou the moment the two boys were out of earshot. Jirou answered candidly "Yes, Hiroshi played Kabaji earlier during practice." Rinko seemed to ponder for a second before stating simply "I thought so too... Hiroshi will never lost to Ryoma if he were to play Ryoma at full-strength. Since Ryoma had a tendency to play recklessly when he's irritated, whereas Hiroshi would remain calm and reserved throughout the whole game. Then again, Hiroshi never allowed people to see through his weak points hence Ryoma always grumbled about Hiroshi taking lessons from Fuji."
"Well... I guess I shall see you guys tomorrow at practice. Jackal, keep the tapes if you need to... Ryoma had no use for it anyway. Besides, Hiroshi had another supply in his possession as well... Yanagi, don't worry about Inui... he will get the information he needed as well. After all, Hyotei won't be needing these tapes... so Seigaku can get them from Hiroshi." Rinko reassured Yanagi and Jackal as they were send on their way home by Rinko personally. Turning back to Jirou, she directed Jirou to the guest room and said "I'd been informed by Hiroshi earlier on, he mentioned that you'll be staying over today. This is his room, cause' he never did had his own room here in Japan unless you counted the one which belongs to his grandfather, also my father's but since my parents are dead it's given to Hiroshi's grandparents. In case you had no idea, Hiroshi's mother and I were cousins. Hence, the family relations is too complicated to explain... therefore, I usually just refered the estate as their grandparent's house. "
"Oh..." Jirou appeared to be puzzled by the complicated relations in Hiroshi's family, but kept his opinion to himself. "Don't understand it, it's fine. I doubt no one ever did understand the true extent of our family background, even Inui had been confused at some point of time... but since he dug into every players family background he found the linkage eventually by comparing their family trees." Rinko smiled warmly at Jirou as she left Jirou to his own device outside Hiroshi's door.
"Jirou... are you still coming in?" Hiroshi prompted as he held the door opened for Jirou's entrance, gaining attention from Jirou who had been spacing out earlier trying to figure out Hiroshi's family background.
"Yeah... sure..." Jirou replied in a daze, apparently still at a loss from the aftermath of trying to figure out the complication behind the family relations of his boyfriend.
~Far across in another part of the district~
"Carl, James... I want the two of you to listen up. This is going to be the final time I'm going to say this to you...Do you get it? I arranged this friendly match with Rinko specifically and she had actually went through the trouble to negotiate with Hyotei and Seigaku just to arrange the match. Hence, I wanted you two to settle whatever disputes and differences between you guys with Ryoma and Hiroshi on the court itself once and for all. After this, you are to focus on your own training and not on defeating them in a match. Do you understand me? Also, you guys had better comes to term with the idea that none of them are actually going to go back to America with us, hence you will not try to force them to do so. They'd moved back here to their hometown, and are now a member of their respective school teams and that they'd their own lives to live now. They used to be our team mates, but it's in the past. They're now our rivals on the court, so get this information firmly imprinted in your mind. If you still had the idea of them coming to your rescue each time, then you'd better get them out of your system. I don't want any more whining after the game if you guys had lost to them. Whatever is the results, I want you two to take it in stride and with pride." Mr. Carmen, the coach of St. Mary Academy Tennis Club stated firmly with a stern expression on his face.
"Yes Sir!" Both James and Carl answered loud and clear, after the talk with Hiroshi and Ryoma earlier on over the weekend they'd finally settle their differences but that was only outside of the court. They still had to settle certain things on the court itself, especially matters dealing with their pride hence they made a promise to themselves that they'll be doing their best on court during the up-coming game and take it in stride despite what the final outcome might be. It's time for them to outgrown their silly game of cat and mouse.
A look was shared between James and Carl in understanding, reaching for their racket from their bags. They headed for the court immediately and approached their fellow team mates for a game, they really need to stop playing each other and started playing others otherwise they will never improved. They knew that much through their conversation with both Ryoma and Hiroshi. Both of them had finally understood the reason behind Ryoma and Hiroshi departure from the states, Ryoma for Japan directly while Hiroshi made a detour to United Kingdom to play some tennis matches with the other players from the Europe before heading over to Japan to meet up with Ryoma, only to join the two different school teams and ended up playing and meeting off each other as rivals on court.
~Tennis Park in Central area of Tokyo~
The captain of Seigaku and Hyotei had met up for their usual date of playing tennis, when Atobe suddenly asked "Ne, Tezuka..." Tezuka Kunimitsu paused in his serve and looked at Atobe questionally, Atobe then asked "Do you really think it's a good idea for you to play me using your left hand? The last time you did that, I nearly destroyed your shoulder..."
Knowing what Atobe was thinking about, Tezuka replied assuredly "I'm sure, it's fine... How am I going to play Fuji during the school ranking match tomorrow if I don't used it now? I can't defeat Fuji using my right hand... so I'm making use of this match as a warm-up before the actual game tomorrow..." "But..." Atobe started only to be silence by Tezuka's stern expression, Tezuka knew what his boyfriend was worrying about after all, it had been a sore subject in their relationship. They had gotten together instantly after their second year of their Junior High education, Atobe was always feeling guilty after their match in the Kantou tournament... Tezuka could still remember how Atobe had apologize to him profusely through the phone after their game. After Tezuka went to Germany for treatment, Atobe had always contacted him every now and then and even agreed to the request of playing Ryoma at only 80% of his true strength just to spark off the fighting spirit in Ryoma at Tezuka request of arranging a practice match between Hyotei and Seigaku during their one week training camp before the face off with Rikaidai.
Determined to keep Atobe's attention on the game itself, Tezuka served his quick serve scoring a point directly from Atobe without giving the latter time to prepare. Atobe knew Tezuka intention, hence had forced himself to push his concern all the way back into the very behind of his mind and thus focusing his full concentration on the game itself.
Meanwhile, back in the Echizen's household... Ryoma was on the phone with Fuji since the latter had threaten to come over to Ryoma if he'd refused to talk to the latter through phone conversation. Next door in Hiroshi's room, Jirou and Hiroshi were sleeping peacefully in each other arms. Down the corridor at the very end of it, Nanako Meino was frowning over her university assignment given to her by her professor in school at the same time looking at the various companies which she's supposed to be on attachment during the up-coming vacation. She briefly wondered why she'd taken up Law Management as the core subject when she wasn't keen on the idea, 'oh yeah... it's the Meino's family business...' hence the decision of doing Law Management in the University.
Rinko was downstairs in the study room, typing away on her labtop as she composed an email with regards to the up-coming match to the various respective coaches of the schools involved. Echizen Nanjirou was busy occupying himself with his latest H-magazine he'd bought from the magazine stall near their neighbourhood. Karupin, their resident pet was busy napping in the basket placed at the foot of Ryoma's bed while Ryoma was laying on his stomach on the bed itself with the cordless phone in hand, thinking of various ideas to get Fuji to hang up the phone. Unknowingly, Fuji on the other hand of the phone was thinking up ways to further tortured his boyfriend in the up-coming valentine day.
~ Completed ~
A/N: Finally, this is the end to "What If"... My brain cells was on the verge of dying if this fic still doesn't end. Hence, this is it... the ending of this fic... As for those wondering about the outcome of the match, not to worry. The match itself will be covered at a later point of time through a one-shot side story, I will make the announcement when it comes down to it. There might be a sequel to this fic, but it's not confirmed yet. However, the match will be released in a one shot side story... that much is confirmed. In the meantime, please enjoy this very last chapter of "What If". I'll see you soon, Good Bye for now!
Also, I do not own prince of tennis... but characters like Hiroshi(Main character) , Hikoichi(appeared in chapter 16), Carl(from chapter 13 onwards), James(chapter 13 onwards), Melissa(Chapter 16 onwards), Mizuki(Chapter 17 onwards), Soujirou(appeared in the beginning and mentioned at the end), Rin(mentioned casually in chapter 17, appeared slightly but unnamed in chapter 8), Kenji (appeared and mentioned in chapter 15, Eiji's cousin) are mine.
Date completed: 17/03/05
"Anyway, another player which I knew is Carl Harrison. Carl Harrison was ranked just slightly below Ryoma back then, I would say he's about the standard of Jirou and Kirihara. As for his play style... I can't exactly define it since he adopted different play against different opponent, he's usually a combination of Momoshiro, Atobe-senpai when it comes to smashing and usually against Ryoma. When he played against me, he would opted for style like Kirihara Akaya or even Kevin Smith, at times even adopting Ryoma's play style. He knew Ryoma style well-enough to pass off as his own, since he'd first been introduced to Tennis by Ryoma back in America. They used to be the best of friends, until Ryoma moved to Japan abandoning him to his own device. They played each other just yesterday during our family annual gathering, the final game count had been 7-5 with Ryoma defeating him yet again for the tenth time in the past ten years." Hiroshi smirked at the mere memory of Carl's maddening look when Ryoma refused him for another game after his loss the first time round.
Leaving the rest of the members to absorb the information provided, he left for the court to proceed on with the match Kabaji had promised him before he was ordered to provide information to the club by Atobe.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
What If- Chapter 20
Echizen Ryoma was irritated, he couldn't understand what was the motive behind his mother sudden decision of hosting a friendly match over at Rikaidai for various schools to attend. He knew Rikaidai had always arrange matches between themselves with other schools from other countries before, but they'd never extend the invitation to other schools before. However, this time around Seigaku and Hyotei were invited to join in their friendly match as well. 'They'd never done it before, so why do it now?' Ryoma thought to himself, then he was suddenly hit by another thought 'Well... mother probably thought it would be better if we were to settle everything else on the court where witnesses were present, instead of challenging each other in privacy which will only ended up contributing more conflicts... That must be it, Hyotei was invited because Hiroshi had some scores to settle with James...'
Been confident of his own reasoning, Ryoma headed back home determined to challenge Hiroshi into a game if the latter's home from dining with Jirou's family. Ryoma entered the house to find himself stunned by the number of people in his house, he was about to back away when he felt someone pulling him into the house.
"What the..." Ryoma muttered as he was pulled into the house un-willingly.
"A-ra... Ryoma-kun, Welcome home..." Nanako Meino greeted her cousin absently as her attention was on Kirihara Akaya who's trying to get his hands upon some cupcakes reserved for Marui, since it did belongs to his senior after all. Ryoma took in all the yellow jerseys wandering about his house freely, he then noted his father's absence and instantly knew that his mother had once again banned his father from coming into the house with the excuse of contaminating youngster's mindset.
He scanned the room for his mother's presence and finally found her sitting with Sanada Genichiro and Yukimura Seiichi at their dining table, going over various strategy on their up-coming match with St. Mary. He was just about to resign himself to the idea of not attaining any peace that very evening when his mother suddenly called upon his attention. "Ryoma, think you can bring the boxes containing all your previous official and unofficial games tapes with Carl and James from your room downstairs for Jackal over there?" Rinko directed her request at Ryoma without raising her head from the scattered pile of papers on the table.
Ryoma looked at his mother for a moment before letting out a sigh and said politely "Sure, Mom..." Dragging his feet as he made his way up to his room, he entered his room and sank himself down on his bed dejectedly. Releasing a groan filled with pent- up frustration he reach under his bed to pull out a large box and carried it downstairs, dumping it uncerementiously in front of Jackal who thanked him and started digging through them with Yanagi. He watched as Yanagi took out his notebook and pencil and began taking notes, he muttered "Another Inui senpai in the making..." under his breath.
He was about to head back to his room to brood on his messed-up life, when the front door opened with Hiroshi entering with a hyperactive Jirou trailing behind. "Oh great... another guest to brighten up the house." Ryoma mumbled incoherently under his breath, as he took his racket out from his bag and called out to Hiroshi impatiently. "Hiroshi, a game with you at the court in ten minutes time." Ryoma called out as he exited through the front door and headed towards the temple at the back of the house. Hiroshi merely lifted his eyebrow slightly before taking in the surrounding, he took in the presence of the Rikaidai players and sighed knowing Ryoma probably wanted to escape from such crowd. He shot an apologetic look at Jirou and shot a glance at Marui telling Jirou to occupy his time by mixing around with Marui. He then reached into his bag for his racket and jogged after Ryoma, Jirou just smiled at Hiroshi with reassurance as he headed towards Marui without a word.
"Hey Marui, don't mind if I join you?" Jirou asked as he took a seat beside the redhead of Rikaidai without waiting for the latter's acknowledgement. Marui Bunta looked up at Jirou before smiling brightly and said "No, feel free to do so... after all, this is not my home. You don't need my permission for such things, I knew you often come over as well... judging from your relationship with that Hiroshi." "Oh... you knew already?" Jirou seemed stunned for a moment, but recovered when he remembered Marui had a boyfriend from Seigaku, the fact that Hiroshi lived with Echizen Ryoma from Seigaku would explained Marui knowing his relationship with Hiroshi. Not to mention Marui's boyfriend just happened to be the gossip king of Seigaku tennis club and a good friend of Ryoma's boyfriend, Fuji Syusuke.
Two hours later, Hiroshi and Ryoma entered the house looking half- dead causing everyone in the house to stare at them in shock. They were drenched throughly with perspiration, the rest of them watched as Rinko takes in Hiroshi's and Ryoma's appearance with a sigh and asked "Two hours... who won this time?" Ryoma replied curtly "Me." Rinko raised her eyebrow slightly and asked "Last week it's Hiroshi, this week is Ryoma... so what's the final score?"
"7-6, honestly do you need to ask it everytime?" Ryoma uttered in annoyance.
"Well... so another game which ended in tie-break huh?" Rinko stated, before dismissing Ryoma and Hiroshi for their well-deserved bath. "Jirou, answer me this... did Hiroshi played anyone else earlier?" Rinko asked Jirou the moment the two boys were out of earshot. Jirou answered candidly "Yes, Hiroshi played Kabaji earlier during practice." Rinko seemed to ponder for a second before stating simply "I thought so too... Hiroshi will never lost to Ryoma if he were to play Ryoma at full-strength. Since Ryoma had a tendency to play recklessly when he's irritated, whereas Hiroshi would remain calm and reserved throughout the whole game. Then again, Hiroshi never allowed people to see through his weak points hence Ryoma always grumbled about Hiroshi taking lessons from Fuji."
"Well... I guess I shall see you guys tomorrow at practice. Jackal, keep the tapes if you need to... Ryoma had no use for it anyway. Besides, Hiroshi had another supply in his possession as well... Yanagi, don't worry about Inui... he will get the information he needed as well. After all, Hyotei won't be needing these tapes... so Seigaku can get them from Hiroshi." Rinko reassured Yanagi and Jackal as they were send on their way home by Rinko personally. Turning back to Jirou, she directed Jirou to the guest room and said "I'd been informed by Hiroshi earlier on, he mentioned that you'll be staying over today. This is his room, cause' he never did had his own room here in Japan unless you counted the one which belongs to his grandfather, also my father's but since my parents are dead it's given to Hiroshi's grandparents. In case you had no idea, Hiroshi's mother and I were cousins. Hence, the family relations is too complicated to explain... therefore, I usually just refered the estate as their grandparent's house. "
"Oh..." Jirou appeared to be puzzled by the complicated relations in Hiroshi's family, but kept his opinion to himself. "Don't understand it, it's fine. I doubt no one ever did understand the true extent of our family background, even Inui had been confused at some point of time... but since he dug into every players family background he found the linkage eventually by comparing their family trees." Rinko smiled warmly at Jirou as she left Jirou to his own device outside Hiroshi's door.
"Jirou... are you still coming in?" Hiroshi prompted as he held the door opened for Jirou's entrance, gaining attention from Jirou who had been spacing out earlier trying to figure out Hiroshi's family background.
"Yeah... sure..." Jirou replied in a daze, apparently still at a loss from the aftermath of trying to figure out the complication behind the family relations of his boyfriend.
~Far across in another part of the district~
"Carl, James... I want the two of you to listen up. This is going to be the final time I'm going to say this to you...Do you get it? I arranged this friendly match with Rinko specifically and she had actually went through the trouble to negotiate with Hyotei and Seigaku just to arrange the match. Hence, I wanted you two to settle whatever disputes and differences between you guys with Ryoma and Hiroshi on the court itself once and for all. After this, you are to focus on your own training and not on defeating them in a match. Do you understand me? Also, you guys had better comes to term with the idea that none of them are actually going to go back to America with us, hence you will not try to force them to do so. They'd moved back here to their hometown, and are now a member of their respective school teams and that they'd their own lives to live now. They used to be our team mates, but it's in the past. They're now our rivals on the court, so get this information firmly imprinted in your mind. If you still had the idea of them coming to your rescue each time, then you'd better get them out of your system. I don't want any more whining after the game if you guys had lost to them. Whatever is the results, I want you two to take it in stride and with pride." Mr. Carmen, the coach of St. Mary Academy Tennis Club stated firmly with a stern expression on his face.
"Yes Sir!" Both James and Carl answered loud and clear, after the talk with Hiroshi and Ryoma earlier on over the weekend they'd finally settle their differences but that was only outside of the court. They still had to settle certain things on the court itself, especially matters dealing with their pride hence they made a promise to themselves that they'll be doing their best on court during the up-coming game and take it in stride despite what the final outcome might be. It's time for them to outgrown their silly game of cat and mouse.
A look was shared between James and Carl in understanding, reaching for their racket from their bags. They headed for the court immediately and approached their fellow team mates for a game, they really need to stop playing each other and started playing others otherwise they will never improved. They knew that much through their conversation with both Ryoma and Hiroshi. Both of them had finally understood the reason behind Ryoma and Hiroshi departure from the states, Ryoma for Japan directly while Hiroshi made a detour to United Kingdom to play some tennis matches with the other players from the Europe before heading over to Japan to meet up with Ryoma, only to join the two different school teams and ended up playing and meeting off each other as rivals on court.
~Tennis Park in Central area of Tokyo~
The captain of Seigaku and Hyotei had met up for their usual date of playing tennis, when Atobe suddenly asked "Ne, Tezuka..." Tezuka Kunimitsu paused in his serve and looked at Atobe questionally, Atobe then asked "Do you really think it's a good idea for you to play me using your left hand? The last time you did that, I nearly destroyed your shoulder..."
Knowing what Atobe was thinking about, Tezuka replied assuredly "I'm sure, it's fine... How am I going to play Fuji during the school ranking match tomorrow if I don't used it now? I can't defeat Fuji using my right hand... so I'm making use of this match as a warm-up before the actual game tomorrow..." "But..." Atobe started only to be silence by Tezuka's stern expression, Tezuka knew what his boyfriend was worrying about after all, it had been a sore subject in their relationship. They had gotten together instantly after their second year of their Junior High education, Atobe was always feeling guilty after their match in the Kantou tournament... Tezuka could still remember how Atobe had apologize to him profusely through the phone after their game. After Tezuka went to Germany for treatment, Atobe had always contacted him every now and then and even agreed to the request of playing Ryoma at only 80% of his true strength just to spark off the fighting spirit in Ryoma at Tezuka request of arranging a practice match between Hyotei and Seigaku during their one week training camp before the face off with Rikaidai.
Determined to keep Atobe's attention on the game itself, Tezuka served his quick serve scoring a point directly from Atobe without giving the latter time to prepare. Atobe knew Tezuka intention, hence had forced himself to push his concern all the way back into the very behind of his mind and thus focusing his full concentration on the game itself.
Meanwhile, back in the Echizen's household... Ryoma was on the phone with Fuji since the latter had threaten to come over to Ryoma if he'd refused to talk to the latter through phone conversation. Next door in Hiroshi's room, Jirou and Hiroshi were sleeping peacefully in each other arms. Down the corridor at the very end of it, Nanako Meino was frowning over her university assignment given to her by her professor in school at the same time looking at the various companies which she's supposed to be on attachment during the up-coming vacation. She briefly wondered why she'd taken up Law Management as the core subject when she wasn't keen on the idea, 'oh yeah... it's the Meino's family business...' hence the decision of doing Law Management in the University.
Rinko was downstairs in the study room, typing away on her labtop as she composed an email with regards to the up-coming match to the various respective coaches of the schools involved. Echizen Nanjirou was busy occupying himself with his latest H-magazine he'd bought from the magazine stall near their neighbourhood. Karupin, their resident pet was busy napping in the basket placed at the foot of Ryoma's bed while Ryoma was laying on his stomach on the bed itself with the cordless phone in hand, thinking of various ideas to get Fuji to hang up the phone. Unknowingly, Fuji on the other hand of the phone was thinking up ways to further tortured his boyfriend in the up-coming valentine day.
~ Completed ~
A/N: Finally, this is the end to "What If"... My brain cells was on the verge of dying if this fic still doesn't end. Hence, this is it... the ending of this fic... As for those wondering about the outcome of the match, not to worry. The match itself will be covered at a later point of time through a one-shot side story, I will make the announcement when it comes down to it. There might be a sequel to this fic, but it's not confirmed yet. However, the match will be released in a one shot side story... that much is confirmed. In the meantime, please enjoy this very last chapter of "What If". I'll see you soon, Good Bye for now!
Also, I do not own prince of tennis... but characters like Hiroshi(Main character) , Hikoichi(appeared in chapter 16), Carl(from chapter 13 onwards), James(chapter 13 onwards), Melissa(Chapter 16 onwards), Mizuki(Chapter 17 onwards), Soujirou(appeared in the beginning and mentioned at the end), Rin(mentioned casually in chapter 17, appeared slightly but unnamed in chapter 8), Kenji (appeared and mentioned in chapter 15, Eiji's cousin) are mine.
Date completed: 17/03/05