PoT Fic: "Outtakes from the Junior Invitational Selection Camp" 1/5 (PG-13) - All-Cast Ensemble
Title: "Outtakes from the Junior Invitational Selection Camp" 1/5 
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Pairing: All-Cast Ensemble, mostly gen with a few slashy overtones.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4,914, for this chapter.
Spoilers/Warnings: Boys in dorms. Lots of them. No spoilers unless the Selection Camp arc from the anime still counts.
Summary: Behind the scenes in all the dorms of the Junior Invitational Selection Camp.
Notes: This was originally written for writing_fest, in response to 25 of the prompts. I wanted to explore writing some of the characters I usually forget to write about, so I decided to do a bunch of short (~1000 word) ficlets about each of the different groups: A, B, C, the coaches, and the first-year aides. Each 'chapter' of this larger fic contains one scene from each of the five groups. Some eventually develop into larger plots and some...don't. Whatever. This was more of a writing experiment for me than anything else. :P
Notes 2: The scenes in this chapter use the prompts: "It all started with a bang", 'dancing', "Why do you keep doing this to me?", 'a swimming pool', and 'werewolves'.
Outtakes from the Junior Invitational Selection Camp
by Kantayra
Chapter One
***
The Legend of Sakuno the Brave: The Legend Begins
It all started with a bang, then a crash, then some tinkling sounds, and finally a very loud curse word uttered by lips far too young to know such language.
The dorms for Hanamura’s group happened to be closest to the kitchen, and four doors flew open in response. Oshitari and Amane’s door would have flown open, too, but the epic snores emitting from that vicinity had clearly shielded the room’s occupants from any outside disturbance.
“Did something just explode?” Atsushi asked blearily.
Behind him, Ryo yawned.
“Unless the building is on fire, I’m going back to bed,” Wakato grumbled and slammed his door shut again.
“I require exactly 8.23 hours of uninterrupted sleep to operate at peak efficiency,” Shinjoh announced. “My REM cycle has been disrupted.” No one cared.
“Is it anything serious?” Ibu wondered. “If it was something serious, I would expect the explosions to continue. It seems like it was only a single incident. In that case, I should just go back to bed. But what if someone was injured? They could be lying on the floor, bleeding and unconscious. Someone should really check. On the other hand, I-”
“Oh, be quiet,” Atobe cut him off, wearily pulling the sleep mask off his head and tightening the sash of his damson, velvet robe. “Kabaji?”
“Y-awn,” Kabaji half agreed.
They headed in the direction of the kitchen, where the bangs had originated. Everyone else grunted and went straight back to bed.
A light could be seen under the kitchen doors. Atobe could hear arguing from within and stormed in with a flourish, froze, and - for a moment - could do nothing but gape.
“Horio, you idiot!” Tomoka was yelling at the top of her lungs. “Look what you’ve done!”
“It wasn’t - ow! - my fault! Hey! It just - ouch! - collapsed on its own!” Horio insisted between getting swatted over the head with Tomoka’s spatula.
“Uh…Tomo?” Sakuno offered very weakly.
Tomoka couldn’t possibly hear her between her yelling at Horio and the regular ‘thwap!’ of the spatula on Horio’s head.
Atobe took in the scene, pressed weary fingers against his temples, and said patiently, “Kabaji?”
“Yes,” Kabaji agreed in his usual gruff rumble. And then: “Everyone, be quiet!” His shout was powerful enough to set all the pots and pans in the kitchen rattling.
Tomoka and Horio, shocked to discover that they’d picked up an audience, froze mid-swat.
“What,” Atobe sighed wearily, “is going on here, pray tell? It better be important to interrupt my beauty sleep.” He ran frustrated fingers through his bed-mussed hair.
The three children gulped.
“I-It was all Horio’s fault!” Tomoka squeaked. Atobe had been intimidating enough in his match against Tezuka, and that had been when they’d had Tezuka, all the rest of the Seigaku regulars, and a crowd of witnesses present. Atobe then didn’t even begin to compare in scariness to Atobe now, when he had them cornered all alone and was furious specifically at them.
“I didn’t ask whose fault it was,” Atobe drawled, flashing teeth in a not-at-all-friendly smile. “I asked what is going on.”
More gulps followed.
And then a very, very hesitant voice managed, “Th-The pots have rusted through, Atobe-san.”
All eyes turned to stare, shocked, at Sakuno.
Sakuno ‘eep’ed and worried her apron in front of her.
“Oh,” Atobe said. “Is that all? Kabaji?”
“Yes.” Kabaji dug around in his yellow-ducky-pajama pockets and, against the merciless logic of the universe itself, managed to procure a cell phone from inside.
The children blinked at that. Who on Earth slept with a cell phone and, more importantly, why?
“I need an industrial-sized kitchen set delivered to the Invitational Training Camp grounds in time to prepare breakfast by six,” Atobe said into the phone without even so much as a ‘hello’ beforehand. “See that it’s taken care of.” He hung up the phone with a snap. “I trust someone here has the common sense not to soak the pans through a second time?” He cast a disdainful look over Horio and Tomoka before fixing his stare on Sakuno.
Sakuno blushed. “Y-Yes, Atobe-san,” she agreed.
Atobe shrugged, apparently satisfied. “Come then, Kabaji. Let’s go back to bed.” He strolled back out.
“Yes,” Kabaji agreed on his heels.
Horio, Tomoka, and Sakuno held their breath for a minute, waiting until they were gone, and then:
“Wow, Sakuno!” Tomoka hugged her. “You were like a superhero!”
Sakuno let out a choking noise when Tomoka squeezed her neck a bit too hard. “Ack… Tomo?”
“Wait until we tell the others!” Tomoka enthused. “They won’t believe it!”
“Can’t…breathe…”
“Whatever,” Horio humphed. “I was just about to kick his ass, anyway.”
That was finally enough to distract Tomoka from inadvertently strangling Sakuno. “Liar!” she retorted. “You practically wet yourself when he looked at you!”
“I did not!” Horio insisted. “I could’ve taken them both, any day.”
“Oh, yeah?” Tomoka snorted in disbelief. “Then why didn’t you?”
“Because I am - Ow! Ow ow ow ow ow!” Horio exclaimed when Tomoka began swatting him over the head with the spatula again.
Sakuno just returned to chopping up the vegetables. It was actually easier and more productive to cook when the two of them were fighting like this. At least this way, they couldn’t mess anything else up.
***
The Kirihara/Kamio Wars: Dance, Dance Devolution (Or: ‘Dunce, Dunce Revolution’)
“Hey! I think I’m starting to get the hang of this,” Sengoku announced in delight, bouncing inanely in time to the flashing colors on the screen in front of him.
On the platform next to him, Kikumaru leapt up high, did a quick spin in mid-air, and landed with feet in perfect position. The TV screen before them bestowed the move with an “Okay.”
“Aww,” Kikumaru pouted.
“You have to work on your timing,” Kajimoto advised him.
“The stunt was really cool, though, Eiji,” Oishi encouraged.
“Triple perfect score!” Sengoku pumped his fist in the air. “Lucky!”
Kamio glared at where Sengoku was getting dangerously close to his high score.
“So this is what losers do to console themselves after getting thrashed on the courts, huh?” Kirihara sulked in the corner. “I don’t know why I’m surprised.”
Kamio glowered over at him. “You’re just jealous because I beat you.”
“Hey, hey,” Ohtori wrung his hands nervously. “Let’s not fight.”
Shishido just shook his head; Ohtori really should’ve known better by now.
Kirihara snorted. “Oh, I’m incredibly jealous,” he drawled sarcastically. “You should quit tennis and devote all your time to jumping up and down like an idiot. Although, really, that’s pretty much all you do on the courts, anyway…”
“What did you say?” Kamio snarled.
Momoshiro caught Kamio by the shirt. “Watch yourself,” he glared at Kirihara.
“Why should I listen to you?” Kirihara snapped. “Don’t you just sit out as alternate most of the time anyway?”
Momoshiro smiled a very cold smile. “Hey, everyone,” he suggested with false brightness. “Let’s watch some tennis.”
Echizen, always willing to incite further conflict, suggested, “How about Kirihara’s Regionals match against Fuji?”
Momoshiro grinned back at him.
Kirihara’s hands clenched into fists, and he moved to lunge, but then a finger tapped him pointedly on the shoulder.
“Hey,” Kajimoto warned him. “Cool down.”
Across the room, Momoshiro was getting similar treatment.
“You’re here representing Seigaku,” Oishi chided him. “We all have to behave ourselves.”
Momoshiro grumbled out something that might have been an apology.
Kirihara grunted something back, and then, “Whatever. I’m going to the courts to practice.”
“Uh, it’s ten o’clock at night,” Kajimoto pointed out.
“So? There are floodlights.” Kirihara stalked off.
Kajimoto sighed and went after him.
“Aw, man!” Sengoku complained, completely oblivious to what was happening behind him. “Only forty points off Kamio’s high score. Unlucky, I guess…”
Kamio’s attention turned fully back to the game in alarm. “What?” he exclaimed in horror. “That close?”
Kikumaru’s shoulders slumped at his own score. “And I thought that flip was so cool, too…”
Shishido rolled his eyes. “How many times do we have to tell you? It can’t see your acrobatics. It’s all about timing.”
Kikumaru hopped off the platform. “Well, if you’re so good, you do it.” He stuck out his tongue at Shishido.
Shishido’s eyes widened in alarm. “Oh, hell no.”
“Oh, come on,” Ohtori encouraged him. “You haven’t gone yet.”
“And I’m not going to go,” Shishido crossed his arms over his chest.
“You can do it,” Ohtori insisted. “It’s fun!”
Shishido opened his mouth, undoubtedly to say something very rude, then saw the earnest look on Ohtori’s face and shut it again. “No,” he said simply instead.
“Yeah, yeah!” Kikumaru cheered him on. “You should dance.” He did a little shimmy for no particular reason.
“No,” Shishido repeated, looking increasingly panicked.
“You know who else hasn’t gone yet?” Momoshiro teased.
Echizen covertly started inching toward the exit.
“Oh no, you don’t.” Momoshiro caught his arm. “You’re dancing.”
“Don’t wanna.” Echizen sulked.
“Too bad,” Momoshiro retorted.
Kikumaru snickered. “Echizen vs. Shishido? Man, this is going to be brilliant!”
“This is lame,” Shishido complained, but he forced himself to step onto the platform at Ohtori’s hopeful smile.
“Whatever.” Echizen dug his heels in and made Momoshiro and Kikumaru push him onto the platform. “I’m not doing it.”
“Then you’re going to lose,” Sengoku snickered. “To Shishido. In dancing.”
Echizen blinked in alarm, just now realizing how embarrassing that would be.
Shishido stood in the direct center of his platform, arms crossed over his chest sullenly, sulking. “Can we just get this over with?”
Kamio tapped the controls using Echizen’s platform. “I’ll give you guys an easy song, okay?”
Echizen muttered something under his breath.
“Ready?” Kamio announced. He hit start and stepped back off the platform.
Echizen blinked like a large cat waking up from its nap as a manic beat started playing and flashing arrows appeared before him.
“It’s like an automatic seizure machine,” Shishido grumbled and tapped the red arrow.
“Bad!” the screen scolded him.
“Hey!” he complained, face flushing red. He tapped the yellow arrow twice.
“Okay!”
“I’ll ‘okay’ you!” Shishido’s feet began skidding around wildly, with no sense of order or rhythm, trying to track down the right colors.
Next to him, Echizen was still blinking at the screen in awe. It was flashing warnings at him that he was about to die.
“You have to step on the right arrows!” Sengoku shouted at him.
Echizen shook his head and poked the right arrow with his toe.
“No, not that kind of right. Right as in ‘correct’,” Oishi added helpfully. “The same color as the screen.”
Echizen hit the red arrow about ten times in a row.
“No, it says green! Now blue! Blue, green, red, red, yellow!” Kikumaru started shouting out.
“Gah!” Echizen flailed a little, trying to follow Kikumaru’s instructions.
In the meantime, Shishido was stomping on the platform so hard the floor was shaking.
“Okay!” the machine informed him peppily.
“Die!” Shishido continued stomping on it more.
“Shishido, calm down,” Ohtori tried to soothe him in vain.
“Oh, god…” Kamio buried his face in his hands. “They’re killing it!”
“Red, red, blue, yellow, green, green, red!” Kikumaru and Oishi were now chanting in unison.
“Hey, hey!” Echizen complained. “Slow down.”
Momoshiro stood in the center of the room, bent over at the waist, laughing so hard his sides hurt.
“I can hear that, Momo!” Echizen looked over his shoulder to glare at him.
“Look at the screen! Look at the screen!” Kikumaru and Oishi exclaimed in unison. “Red, green, re-oh no!”
Echizen turned back around to see that he was dead.
In the meantime, Shishido was jumping up and down on the platform violently.
“You don’t have to hit it that hard,” Ohtori winced.
“Hey, stop breaking my game!” Kamio complained.
“Yeah!” Sengoku agreed. “I still need to beat his high score!”
Kamio glared at him. Sengoku glared back.
In the meantime, Shishido finally died. Ohtori tugged him, still snarling, away from the platform. “Maybe we should go play tennis instead,” he suggested.
Shishido perked up at that. “Now you’re talking sense.”
Ohtori gave Kamio an apologetic shrug and shoved Shishido out the door toward the tennis courts and safety.
“Hey,” Echizen blinked, “I wanna play tennis, too.”
“It’s the middle of the night,” Oishi said worriedly. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Hyotei did it,” Echizen pointed. “And Rikkaidai.”
Kikumaru made a face. “Hey, yeah, Oishi! We don’t want them to get in more practice hours than we do.”
Echizen nudged Momoshiro with the toe of his shoe, where Momoshiro was rolling on the floor laughing at him. “Hey, Momo, we’re playing tennis. I’m going to kick your ass.”
Momoshiro was still snickering, but he managed to get to his feet and follow them out.
Kamio snorted. “They just don’t understand the true art of dance!”
“I bet I can beat your high score,” Sengoku challenged him.
Kamio smirked back at him. “It is on!”
***
Do the Roommate Shuffle: First Movement
“Why do you keep doing this to me?” Oshitari drawled wearily.
“Because you snore.” Atobe grinned evilly and slammed the door to his and Kabaji’s room behind him. Clearly, the matter wasn’t up for discussion.
Oshitari frowned at the shut door for a moment and then turned around to consider his options. With Atobe and Kabaji rooming together, Oshitari was going to have to - heaven forfend - room with someone outside Hyotei. “How about you?” He pointed to the nearest person who didn’t look like a total psychopath. This just happened to be Kisarazu Ryo.
“I’m rooming with Atsushi,” Ryo insisted.
“And I’m rooming with Ryo,” Atsushi declared almost simultaneously.
With some kind of hive mind, they both headed for the second door on the left together.
“Good thing the rooms all have twin beds,” Amane ribbed Shinjoh in the side and chuckled at his own joke.
Shinjoh stared straight in front of him and kept blinking in perfect, regular rhythm.
Amane frowned at this. “Aren’t you even going to twinge?” he added hopefully.
“I have no involuntary, repulsed reaction at this time,” Shinjoh informed him.
Everyone inched away from Shinjoh slowly.
“So,” Oshitari drawled, scanning over the available options that most certainly were not Shinjoh, “one of you three.”
“I think we should determine who’s stuck with Shinjoh first,” Wakato suggested.
Oshitari blinked at him. “You are. Because you’re on his team.”
“What?” Wakato sputtered. “That’s not fair!”
“It seems fair to me,” Ibu muttered to himself. “While this is an individual competition, it remains important to maintain team solidarity. Or at least that’s what Tachibana keeps texting me. I suppose he’s texting Kamio, too. Although, technically, I don’t know that. It wouldn’t be right for me to say so, since I don’t know it for a fact. However, it seems a reasonable extrapolation. Perhaps I should consult with one of the data-collectors. They should know if…”
Oshitari tuned him out, and Ibu’s ramble turned into background noise, much like the buzzing of the overhead lights or the sounds of Kirihara and Kamio trying to kill each other the next dorm over.
“Doesn’t he ever stop?” Wakato sighed. Now that he had a dorm room with Shinjoh to look forward to, he was more than eager to hang out in the hallway.
Shinjoh selected a room for them, went inside, and immediately began doing sit-ups.
Wakato shuddered.
“I can’t believe it’s not mutter!” Amane snorted.
Oshitari looked at him, horrified. Then he looked back at Ibu, who was still muttering to himself. These were his options. Mentally, he cursed Atobe.
“All right,” he sighed wearily, “I’ll room with Ibu.” Since Ibu was from Fudomine, Oshitari calculated that this was the best way he could piss off Atobe at the moment.
“I suppose inter-school unity is also important,” Ibu’s stream of consciousness continued. “It’s not like I have a choice, anyway. There’s no one from my team in this group…”
“I’m all alone, then?” Amane chuckled to himself. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was because I wasn’t very punny!”
Oshitari shuddered delicately and retreated to his newly selected room.
Ibu followed on his heels, mumbling to himself all the while.
However, at midnight, when Oshitari was treated to, “Why do we park on driveways and drive on parkways? It doesn’t make any sense,” with no signs of abating, Oshitari groaned and finally couldn’t take it anymore.
“Will you just be quiet?” he growled.
Ibu was silent for a second. Then, “I could try, but technically I am still breathing, which produces noise. In addition, my heartbeat, while nearly inaudible, is still technically sound. I suppose that means that it would be impossible for anyone to be truly ‘quiet.’ Maybe if I was dead… Of course, then the chemical reactions of my body decomposing would…”
Oshitari grabbed his blanket and pillow and stalked out into the hallway. He banged loudly on Atobe’s door.
“Bwuh?” Atobe finally opened it, bleary-eyed, his sleep mask still pulled half down over one eye.
“Fudomine won’t shut up,” Oshitari pleaded. “Can I sleep on your floor?”
Atobe yawned. “No, you snore,” he reminded Oshitari, and slammed the door in his face for the second time that evening.
Oshitari glared, set his blanket and pillow down right outside Atobe’s door, lay down on his back and opened his mouth wide. Let it never be said that revenge wasn’t sweet.
***
The High Life: Motivational Speakers
The sun baked down overhead, heating up the tiles around the pool until they were almost unbearable without sandals. The water lapped at the edges of the pool, a cool, artificial blue. The scent of suntan lotion and chlorine was thick in the air. Beside the pool, three beach umbrellas were set up, each carefully shading a pool chair. On what was shaping up to be the hottest day of the summer, it was unquestionably one of the most pleasant places to be in the whole country.
“So,” Hanamura sipped at her champagne - only the finest and most expensive, which Sakaki had received as a gift from Hyotei’s headmaster for pushing the team all the way to Nationals the previous season, “how did you get rid of your students for the day?”
Ryuzaki, to whom the question had been addressed, chuckled to herself and rolled over onto her stomach so that she was in a more comfortable position. “I told them it was a ‘free practice.’ Instantly, Shishido and Ohtori challenged Oishi and Kikumaru to a doubles match. And Kamio and Kirihara started yelling at each other a lot. I figure that should keep them distracted all morning, and some time around noon, Momoshiro and Echizen will get bored, so they’ll challenge each other. That gives me the afternoon off, too.” Ryuzaki took a sip of her own champagne.
“A dangerous game,” Sakaki drawled from the third pool chair, daintily biting a strawberry he’d taken from the bowl between them. “It depends entirely too much on unpredictable factors.”
Ryuzaki snorted and looked at him. “So how’d you pull it off?” she demanded.
“I sent them on an eight-mile run,” Sakaki said simply.
Hanamura frowned at him. “Even in this weather, that will hardly take them all day. They’ll be coming around to look for you sooner or later.”
Sakaki smirked secretly to himself. “I left Sanada in charge,” he concluded smugly.
“Oh…” Ryuzaki and Hanamura breathed in unison. That automatically doubled the distance, and Sanada no doubt would be thoroughly dissatisfied with everyone’s performance, so he’d have them running drills until suppertime.
“That’s cheating, though,” Hanamura concluded. “You just got lucky and drew Sanada in your group. You couldn’t have pulled something like that off with either of our groups.”
“Oh, no?” Sakaki raised one elegant eyebrow.
“The only real leader I’ve got in my group is Atobe,” Hanamura insisted. “And you must know how impossible he is to control.”
Sakaki took another sip of his champagne. “I have my ways.”
“Of course,” Hanamura agreed, “but you can’t expect him to just do all your work for you, like Sanada does.”
“That, at least, is true,” Sakaki conceded. “How are you handling him?”
“I have my ways, too,” Hanamura retorted mysteriously. She stole a strawberry from the bowl.
“Oh, I have to hear this,” Ryuzaki flipped lazily over onto her back again. “What’s your team doing today?”
“Coordination,” Hanamura answered simply. She took a bite out of the strawberry.
Sakaki blinked at her. “Atobe agreed to that?”
Hanamura shrugged gracefully. “I just explained to him how a rigorously-structured training program would perfect his tennis.”
Sakaki and Ryuzaki gave her skeptical looks.
“And then, when he refused to listen to me, I told him his butt looked fat in his tennis shorts, and that he needed to spend the rest of the day in the weight room. The others fell into line easily enough once he was gone.”
“Ah…” Sakaki and Ryuzaki said in sudden understanding.
“It sounds like we’ve done it, then,” Ryuzaki sighed contentedly. “The pool is ours for the whole day.” She let out an epic stretch.
“Quite,” Sakaki agreed. He flipped open his book and set it comfortably in his lap to read.
“This is what being a coach is all about,” Hanamura sighed and reclined her chair for a good, long nap.
And that was when a very nervous cough interrupted them. They all looked up in surprise to see Kachiro there.
“Uh, we’ve finished sweeping the courts, cleaning the common rooms, and preparing dinner. So what should-?”
“Ooh!” Horio cut in. “Hey, guys, we have a pool!”
“A pool?” Instantly, Katsuo, Dan, Ann, Tomoka, and Sakuno popped out of the woodwork. And somehow, in that way that only children could manage, they all had swimsuits on under their clothes.
“I wanna play pool volleyball!”
“Ann, I’ll race you!”
“Marco! Marco!”
“Hey, no cannonballs!”
“Grandma, grandma, look at what I’m doing!”
Ryuzaki, Sakaki, and Hanamura stared at the hyperactive, screaming, splashing spectacle in front of them in horror.
“Ladies,” Sakaki said wearily, “I think there’s a flaw in our master plan.”
Ryuzaki and Hanamura groaned in agreement.
***
The Five Trials of Sanada Genichiro: Tall Tales and Other Nonsense
“Ahem. Once upon a time, there was a man named…er, Fuji…agi, um, Seiichi. Yes, Fujiagi Seiichi.”
Yuta started snickering.
“Try to make it more obvious you’re making this up on the spot, Genichiro,” Yanagi cut in.
Sanada glared at him, pulled the cap lower over his eyes, and angled the flashlight up under his chin once more. “So this man, Fujiagi Seiichi,” Yuta started snickering again, and this time Fuji started going off, too, “he was a very…bad…man.” Sanada’s cheeks flushed.
Saeki blinked. “Seriously? Maybe we should let Inui tell another ghost story…”
Inui’s glasses gleamed out of the darkness.
“N-No,” Kaidoh shivered at the thought. “I like this story. Let Sanada continue.” He left off the “because it’s not scary at all.”
Sanada nodded in approval at Kaidoh. “This bad man, Fujiagi Seiichi was out late one night, slacking off.”
Mizuki gasped in mock-horror and returned to buffing his nails. Yuta was snickering again.
“He was slacking off like a drunken lout,” Sanada repeated, proud that he’d added in this brilliant embellishment, “so he heading home late at night.” He paused.
Everyone blinked.
“Oh, um,” Kawamura finally cut in politely. “And then?”
“And he was bitten,” Sanada said, like it should be obvious.
“Uh…oh.” Kawamura scratched his head.
“By a werewolf?” Sanada clarified.
“How…surprising.” Fuji smiled and patted Yuta on the back where he was now snickering so hard he was having a hard time breathing.
“Because it was the full moon,” Sanada reminded them.
“It was?” Kaidoh asked.
“Yes,” Sanada insisted. “I specifically told you that earlier. Try to pay attention.”
“That,” Mizuki sighed wearily, “would take superhuman powers of concentration.”
Sanada glared at him. “Why you…” He lunged, fist clenched and primed for bitch-slappin’.
Yanagi’s hand held him back. “We’re doing this to promote group solidarity,” he reminded Sanada. “Please, refrain from striking anyone.”
“Ah, sorry.” Sanada sat back down. “He just looks so much like Kirihara.”
“I understand,” Yanagi agreed.
“Hey, keep going,” Kawamura encouraged him. “That started to get a little bit scary there.”
“Ah, yes.” Sanada cleared his throat again. “It was the full moon, so he was bitten by a vampire.”
“You said it was a werewolf,” Saeki corrected him.
“Of course! A vampire…werewolf.”
Everyone blinked at him.
“That was a ghost.”
More blinking.
“A whole pack of vampire werewolves that were ghosts!” Sanada amended.
“Sadaharu,” Yanagi suggested, “perhaps you should take another turn.”
“I like this story!” Kaidoh cut in reflexively.
“I could always tell one,” Fuji suggested with a smile.
“No!” Kaidoh’s voice came out as a squeak.
Fuji considered this. “Well, I suppose I could just read the phone book…”
Kaidoh almost said yes. That didn’t sound so bad…
“No!” Yuta screeched in sudden horror. “You’re never, ever allowed to read the phone book again! Mom made you promise!” He began shivering convulsively and curled up against Mizuki for protection.
“While I will admit that Fuji is a magnificent eternal rival,” Mizuki accepted this turn of events with more than a little satisfaction, “how could he possibly make reading the phone book scary?” He gave Yuta, then Fuji, a quizzical look.
“I’m sorry,” Fuji beamed, “what was your name again?”
Mizuki scowled at him.
“No, I want to know now,” Saeki cut in. “Come on, Shusuke, do it!”
“No!” Yuta insisted, shaking his head vigorously.
“I confess to being intrigued,” Yanagi cocked his head to one side.
“Good data,” Inui moaned in ecstasy.
“This sounds like a bad idea.” Kaidoh was one of the few who maintained their sanity. “A bad, bad idea…”
“Slackers, be quiet!” Sanada shouted suddenly, unknowingly saving them all from a fate worse than death. “I’m telling the story!”
“Hey, that was good,” Kawamura encouraged him with a broad smile. “That’s the scariest you’ve been so far.”
“Ah, hmm, yes. Oral epics are an ancient and time-honored tradition. For the future of the Sanada clan, it was my duty to succeed in this noble endeavor.”
“Oh, dear god…” Mizuki’s face paled. “This really is getting scary!”
Sanada tried to lunge for him again. This time it took Yanagi, Inui, and Kawamura to hold him back.
“Just finish your story,” Yanagi requested.
“Of course,” Sanada settled down with the flashlight once more, although he continued to glare Mizuki’s way. “So this man, er…”
“Yukimura Rensuke, wasn’t it?” Saeki provided.
“No, it was Takagi Seiichi,” Yuta corrected him.
“I thought it was Fujiagi?” Inui consulted his notes.
“Whoever,” Sanada growled. “He was attacked by a werewolf.”
“A vampire werewolf,” Kawamura provided helpfully.
“A vampire werewolf that was a ghost,” Yanagi added.
“A whole pack of them,” Mizuki smirked.
Yuta started snickering again.
“Yes,” Sanada agreed. “And then he died.”
“I…see…” Kawamura tried to smile encouragingly.
“And?” Saeki pressed.
“That’s it.” Sanada crossed his arms over his chest. “The end.”
Silence followed, and then:
“That’s the best ghost story I’ve ever heard,” Kaidoh breathed a sigh of relief.
“It certainly was, um, different,” Kawamura agreed.
“I liked the part where the dripping blood crept into the younger brother’s room while he was sleeping,” Fuji agreed pleasantly.
Yuta paled. “What? That never happened?” His eyes darted around nervously.
“It looked black in the dark, so he couldn’t see it until it filled his nose and mouth, choking him slowly,” Fuji added helpfully.
“Knock it off, Shusuke!” Yuta whimpered.
“No, none of that happened,” Sanada said forcefully. “Only what I told you.”
“Oh, I can tell it’s a true story,” Mizuki agreed breezily. “Because no one could make up something that lame.”
Sanada sputtered.
Yanagi, despite years of hard-earned self-control, snickered.
Sanada glared at him.
That set Yuta off snickering, too. Which set off Fuji again, and Mizuki and Saeki. Then Inui started in, although only because Renji said, “Just like Phosphofructokinase!” which made sense to absolutely no one but the two of them.
Sanada’s face turned red. “Shut up!” he snarled at them. “Slackers! Fifty laps!”
“Ah, Genichiro,” Yanagi managed to calm himself down. “This isn’t Rikkaidai.”
Sanada crossed his arms over his chest sullenly. “Well, it should be,” he grumped.
“Okay, so,” Kawamura cut in cheerfully, “whose turn is it next?”
“I’ll go!” Fuji volunteered.
“Not Shusuke!” Yuta said at the exact same time.
“Not Inui!” Kaidoh said in the second of silence that followed.
“Well, I just went before Sanada,” Saeki considered.
“Renji hasn’t gone yet,” Inui pointed out.
Everyone exchanged nods. This seemed reasonable.
Yanagi held out his hand to Sanada for the flashlight. Sanada grudgingly turned it over. Yanagi flicked the light onto his chin, so that his face with illuminated with a demonic aura. “Last month,” he began in a deep, mysterious voice, “I was alone in the Rikkaidai locker rooms.”
Kaidoh immediately started shivering again.
“Around this time every year, I have a certain routine that I do,” Yanagi continued. “Nothing complicated, but it always keeps the rest of the team far away from the clubhouse, so I’m all by myself.”
Sanada’s eyes widened when he realized what Yanagi was getting at. “No… Renji, I don’t want to hear this!”
“Yes,” Yanagi agreed slowly and evilly, “it’s Rikkaidai’s annual spring cleaning, when I clean out everything that’s fallen behind the lockers from the past year. And here is a complete inventory of what I found this year…”
Approximately forty seconds later, screams sounded throughout the room as the terrified listeners who just couldn’t take anymore fled from the common room back to their dorms. Needless to say, none of them slept a wink for the rest of that night.
And, yes, I am aware that, if Sanada were a real person, he'd totally kill me. :P As always, comments are most appreciated.
Chapter Two
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Pairing: All-Cast Ensemble, mostly gen with a few slashy overtones.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4,914, for this chapter.
Spoilers/Warnings: Boys in dorms. Lots of them. No spoilers unless the Selection Camp arc from the anime still counts.
Summary: Behind the scenes in all the dorms of the Junior Invitational Selection Camp.
Notes: This was originally written for writing_fest, in response to 25 of the prompts. I wanted to explore writing some of the characters I usually forget to write about, so I decided to do a bunch of short (~1000 word) ficlets about each of the different groups: A, B, C, the coaches, and the first-year aides. Each 'chapter' of this larger fic contains one scene from each of the five groups. Some eventually develop into larger plots and some...don't. Whatever. This was more of a writing experiment for me than anything else. :P
Notes 2: The scenes in this chapter use the prompts: "It all started with a bang", 'dancing', "Why do you keep doing this to me?", 'a swimming pool', and 'werewolves'.
Outtakes from the Junior Invitational Selection Camp
by Kantayra
Chapter One
***
The Legend of Sakuno the Brave: The Legend Begins
It all started with a bang, then a crash, then some tinkling sounds, and finally a very loud curse word uttered by lips far too young to know such language.
The dorms for Hanamura’s group happened to be closest to the kitchen, and four doors flew open in response. Oshitari and Amane’s door would have flown open, too, but the epic snores emitting from that vicinity had clearly shielded the room’s occupants from any outside disturbance.
“Did something just explode?” Atsushi asked blearily.
Behind him, Ryo yawned.
“Unless the building is on fire, I’m going back to bed,” Wakato grumbled and slammed his door shut again.
“I require exactly 8.23 hours of uninterrupted sleep to operate at peak efficiency,” Shinjoh announced. “My REM cycle has been disrupted.” No one cared.
“Is it anything serious?” Ibu wondered. “If it was something serious, I would expect the explosions to continue. It seems like it was only a single incident. In that case, I should just go back to bed. But what if someone was injured? They could be lying on the floor, bleeding and unconscious. Someone should really check. On the other hand, I-”
“Oh, be quiet,” Atobe cut him off, wearily pulling the sleep mask off his head and tightening the sash of his damson, velvet robe. “Kabaji?”
“Y-awn,” Kabaji half agreed.
They headed in the direction of the kitchen, where the bangs had originated. Everyone else grunted and went straight back to bed.
A light could be seen under the kitchen doors. Atobe could hear arguing from within and stormed in with a flourish, froze, and - for a moment - could do nothing but gape.
“Horio, you idiot!” Tomoka was yelling at the top of her lungs. “Look what you’ve done!”
“It wasn’t - ow! - my fault! Hey! It just - ouch! - collapsed on its own!” Horio insisted between getting swatted over the head with Tomoka’s spatula.
“Uh…Tomo?” Sakuno offered very weakly.
Tomoka couldn’t possibly hear her between her yelling at Horio and the regular ‘thwap!’ of the spatula on Horio’s head.
Atobe took in the scene, pressed weary fingers against his temples, and said patiently, “Kabaji?”
“Yes,” Kabaji agreed in his usual gruff rumble. And then: “Everyone, be quiet!” His shout was powerful enough to set all the pots and pans in the kitchen rattling.
Tomoka and Horio, shocked to discover that they’d picked up an audience, froze mid-swat.
“What,” Atobe sighed wearily, “is going on here, pray tell? It better be important to interrupt my beauty sleep.” He ran frustrated fingers through his bed-mussed hair.
The three children gulped.
“I-It was all Horio’s fault!” Tomoka squeaked. Atobe had been intimidating enough in his match against Tezuka, and that had been when they’d had Tezuka, all the rest of the Seigaku regulars, and a crowd of witnesses present. Atobe then didn’t even begin to compare in scariness to Atobe now, when he had them cornered all alone and was furious specifically at them.
“I didn’t ask whose fault it was,” Atobe drawled, flashing teeth in a not-at-all-friendly smile. “I asked what is going on.”
More gulps followed.
And then a very, very hesitant voice managed, “Th-The pots have rusted through, Atobe-san.”
All eyes turned to stare, shocked, at Sakuno.
Sakuno ‘eep’ed and worried her apron in front of her.
“Oh,” Atobe said. “Is that all? Kabaji?”
“Yes.” Kabaji dug around in his yellow-ducky-pajama pockets and, against the merciless logic of the universe itself, managed to procure a cell phone from inside.
The children blinked at that. Who on Earth slept with a cell phone and, more importantly, why?
“I need an industrial-sized kitchen set delivered to the Invitational Training Camp grounds in time to prepare breakfast by six,” Atobe said into the phone without even so much as a ‘hello’ beforehand. “See that it’s taken care of.” He hung up the phone with a snap. “I trust someone here has the common sense not to soak the pans through a second time?” He cast a disdainful look over Horio and Tomoka before fixing his stare on Sakuno.
Sakuno blushed. “Y-Yes, Atobe-san,” she agreed.
Atobe shrugged, apparently satisfied. “Come then, Kabaji. Let’s go back to bed.” He strolled back out.
“Yes,” Kabaji agreed on his heels.
Horio, Tomoka, and Sakuno held their breath for a minute, waiting until they were gone, and then:
“Wow, Sakuno!” Tomoka hugged her. “You were like a superhero!”
Sakuno let out a choking noise when Tomoka squeezed her neck a bit too hard. “Ack… Tomo?”
“Wait until we tell the others!” Tomoka enthused. “They won’t believe it!”
“Can’t…breathe…”
“Whatever,” Horio humphed. “I was just about to kick his ass, anyway.”
That was finally enough to distract Tomoka from inadvertently strangling Sakuno. “Liar!” she retorted. “You practically wet yourself when he looked at you!”
“I did not!” Horio insisted. “I could’ve taken them both, any day.”
“Oh, yeah?” Tomoka snorted in disbelief. “Then why didn’t you?”
“Because I am - Ow! Ow ow ow ow ow!” Horio exclaimed when Tomoka began swatting him over the head with the spatula again.
Sakuno just returned to chopping up the vegetables. It was actually easier and more productive to cook when the two of them were fighting like this. At least this way, they couldn’t mess anything else up.
***
The Kirihara/Kamio Wars: Dance, Dance Devolution (Or: ‘Dunce, Dunce Revolution’)
“Hey! I think I’m starting to get the hang of this,” Sengoku announced in delight, bouncing inanely in time to the flashing colors on the screen in front of him.
On the platform next to him, Kikumaru leapt up high, did a quick spin in mid-air, and landed with feet in perfect position. The TV screen before them bestowed the move with an “Okay.”
“Aww,” Kikumaru pouted.
“You have to work on your timing,” Kajimoto advised him.
“The stunt was really cool, though, Eiji,” Oishi encouraged.
“Triple perfect score!” Sengoku pumped his fist in the air. “Lucky!”
Kamio glared at where Sengoku was getting dangerously close to his high score.
“So this is what losers do to console themselves after getting thrashed on the courts, huh?” Kirihara sulked in the corner. “I don’t know why I’m surprised.”
Kamio glowered over at him. “You’re just jealous because I beat you.”
“Hey, hey,” Ohtori wrung his hands nervously. “Let’s not fight.”
Shishido just shook his head; Ohtori really should’ve known better by now.
Kirihara snorted. “Oh, I’m incredibly jealous,” he drawled sarcastically. “You should quit tennis and devote all your time to jumping up and down like an idiot. Although, really, that’s pretty much all you do on the courts, anyway…”
“What did you say?” Kamio snarled.
Momoshiro caught Kamio by the shirt. “Watch yourself,” he glared at Kirihara.
“Why should I listen to you?” Kirihara snapped. “Don’t you just sit out as alternate most of the time anyway?”
Momoshiro smiled a very cold smile. “Hey, everyone,” he suggested with false brightness. “Let’s watch some tennis.”
Echizen, always willing to incite further conflict, suggested, “How about Kirihara’s Regionals match against Fuji?”
Momoshiro grinned back at him.
Kirihara’s hands clenched into fists, and he moved to lunge, but then a finger tapped him pointedly on the shoulder.
“Hey,” Kajimoto warned him. “Cool down.”
Across the room, Momoshiro was getting similar treatment.
“You’re here representing Seigaku,” Oishi chided him. “We all have to behave ourselves.”
Momoshiro grumbled out something that might have been an apology.
Kirihara grunted something back, and then, “Whatever. I’m going to the courts to practice.”
“Uh, it’s ten o’clock at night,” Kajimoto pointed out.
“So? There are floodlights.” Kirihara stalked off.
Kajimoto sighed and went after him.
“Aw, man!” Sengoku complained, completely oblivious to what was happening behind him. “Only forty points off Kamio’s high score. Unlucky, I guess…”
Kamio’s attention turned fully back to the game in alarm. “What?” he exclaimed in horror. “That close?”
Kikumaru’s shoulders slumped at his own score. “And I thought that flip was so cool, too…”
Shishido rolled his eyes. “How many times do we have to tell you? It can’t see your acrobatics. It’s all about timing.”
Kikumaru hopped off the platform. “Well, if you’re so good, you do it.” He stuck out his tongue at Shishido.
Shishido’s eyes widened in alarm. “Oh, hell no.”
“Oh, come on,” Ohtori encouraged him. “You haven’t gone yet.”
“And I’m not going to go,” Shishido crossed his arms over his chest.
“You can do it,” Ohtori insisted. “It’s fun!”
Shishido opened his mouth, undoubtedly to say something very rude, then saw the earnest look on Ohtori’s face and shut it again. “No,” he said simply instead.
“Yeah, yeah!” Kikumaru cheered him on. “You should dance.” He did a little shimmy for no particular reason.
“No,” Shishido repeated, looking increasingly panicked.
“You know who else hasn’t gone yet?” Momoshiro teased.
Echizen covertly started inching toward the exit.
“Oh no, you don’t.” Momoshiro caught his arm. “You’re dancing.”
“Don’t wanna.” Echizen sulked.
“Too bad,” Momoshiro retorted.
Kikumaru snickered. “Echizen vs. Shishido? Man, this is going to be brilliant!”
“This is lame,” Shishido complained, but he forced himself to step onto the platform at Ohtori’s hopeful smile.
“Whatever.” Echizen dug his heels in and made Momoshiro and Kikumaru push him onto the platform. “I’m not doing it.”
“Then you’re going to lose,” Sengoku snickered. “To Shishido. In dancing.”
Echizen blinked in alarm, just now realizing how embarrassing that would be.
Shishido stood in the direct center of his platform, arms crossed over his chest sullenly, sulking. “Can we just get this over with?”
Kamio tapped the controls using Echizen’s platform. “I’ll give you guys an easy song, okay?”
Echizen muttered something under his breath.
“Ready?” Kamio announced. He hit start and stepped back off the platform.
Echizen blinked like a large cat waking up from its nap as a manic beat started playing and flashing arrows appeared before him.
“It’s like an automatic seizure machine,” Shishido grumbled and tapped the red arrow.
“Bad!” the screen scolded him.
“Hey!” he complained, face flushing red. He tapped the yellow arrow twice.
“Okay!”
“I’ll ‘okay’ you!” Shishido’s feet began skidding around wildly, with no sense of order or rhythm, trying to track down the right colors.
Next to him, Echizen was still blinking at the screen in awe. It was flashing warnings at him that he was about to die.
“You have to step on the right arrows!” Sengoku shouted at him.
Echizen shook his head and poked the right arrow with his toe.
“No, not that kind of right. Right as in ‘correct’,” Oishi added helpfully. “The same color as the screen.”
Echizen hit the red arrow about ten times in a row.
“No, it says green! Now blue! Blue, green, red, red, yellow!” Kikumaru started shouting out.
“Gah!” Echizen flailed a little, trying to follow Kikumaru’s instructions.
In the meantime, Shishido was stomping on the platform so hard the floor was shaking.
“Okay!” the machine informed him peppily.
“Die!” Shishido continued stomping on it more.
“Shishido, calm down,” Ohtori tried to soothe him in vain.
“Oh, god…” Kamio buried his face in his hands. “They’re killing it!”
“Red, red, blue, yellow, green, green, red!” Kikumaru and Oishi were now chanting in unison.
“Hey, hey!” Echizen complained. “Slow down.”
Momoshiro stood in the center of the room, bent over at the waist, laughing so hard his sides hurt.
“I can hear that, Momo!” Echizen looked over his shoulder to glare at him.
“Look at the screen! Look at the screen!” Kikumaru and Oishi exclaimed in unison. “Red, green, re-oh no!”
Echizen turned back around to see that he was dead.
In the meantime, Shishido was jumping up and down on the platform violently.
“You don’t have to hit it that hard,” Ohtori winced.
“Hey, stop breaking my game!” Kamio complained.
“Yeah!” Sengoku agreed. “I still need to beat his high score!”
Kamio glared at him. Sengoku glared back.
In the meantime, Shishido finally died. Ohtori tugged him, still snarling, away from the platform. “Maybe we should go play tennis instead,” he suggested.
Shishido perked up at that. “Now you’re talking sense.”
Ohtori gave Kamio an apologetic shrug and shoved Shishido out the door toward the tennis courts and safety.
“Hey,” Echizen blinked, “I wanna play tennis, too.”
“It’s the middle of the night,” Oishi said worriedly. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Hyotei did it,” Echizen pointed. “And Rikkaidai.”
Kikumaru made a face. “Hey, yeah, Oishi! We don’t want them to get in more practice hours than we do.”
Echizen nudged Momoshiro with the toe of his shoe, where Momoshiro was rolling on the floor laughing at him. “Hey, Momo, we’re playing tennis. I’m going to kick your ass.”
Momoshiro was still snickering, but he managed to get to his feet and follow them out.
Kamio snorted. “They just don’t understand the true art of dance!”
“I bet I can beat your high score,” Sengoku challenged him.
Kamio smirked back at him. “It is on!”
***
Do the Roommate Shuffle: First Movement
“Why do you keep doing this to me?” Oshitari drawled wearily.
“Because you snore.” Atobe grinned evilly and slammed the door to his and Kabaji’s room behind him. Clearly, the matter wasn’t up for discussion.
Oshitari frowned at the shut door for a moment and then turned around to consider his options. With Atobe and Kabaji rooming together, Oshitari was going to have to - heaven forfend - room with someone outside Hyotei. “How about you?” He pointed to the nearest person who didn’t look like a total psychopath. This just happened to be Kisarazu Ryo.
“I’m rooming with Atsushi,” Ryo insisted.
“And I’m rooming with Ryo,” Atsushi declared almost simultaneously.
With some kind of hive mind, they both headed for the second door on the left together.
“Good thing the rooms all have twin beds,” Amane ribbed Shinjoh in the side and chuckled at his own joke.
Shinjoh stared straight in front of him and kept blinking in perfect, regular rhythm.
Amane frowned at this. “Aren’t you even going to twinge?” he added hopefully.
“I have no involuntary, repulsed reaction at this time,” Shinjoh informed him.
Everyone inched away from Shinjoh slowly.
“So,” Oshitari drawled, scanning over the available options that most certainly were not Shinjoh, “one of you three.”
“I think we should determine who’s stuck with Shinjoh first,” Wakato suggested.
Oshitari blinked at him. “You are. Because you’re on his team.”
“What?” Wakato sputtered. “That’s not fair!”
“It seems fair to me,” Ibu muttered to himself. “While this is an individual competition, it remains important to maintain team solidarity. Or at least that’s what Tachibana keeps texting me. I suppose he’s texting Kamio, too. Although, technically, I don’t know that. It wouldn’t be right for me to say so, since I don’t know it for a fact. However, it seems a reasonable extrapolation. Perhaps I should consult with one of the data-collectors. They should know if…”
Oshitari tuned him out, and Ibu’s ramble turned into background noise, much like the buzzing of the overhead lights or the sounds of Kirihara and Kamio trying to kill each other the next dorm over.
“Doesn’t he ever stop?” Wakato sighed. Now that he had a dorm room with Shinjoh to look forward to, he was more than eager to hang out in the hallway.
Shinjoh selected a room for them, went inside, and immediately began doing sit-ups.
Wakato shuddered.
“I can’t believe it’s not mutter!” Amane snorted.
Oshitari looked at him, horrified. Then he looked back at Ibu, who was still muttering to himself. These were his options. Mentally, he cursed Atobe.
“All right,” he sighed wearily, “I’ll room with Ibu.” Since Ibu was from Fudomine, Oshitari calculated that this was the best way he could piss off Atobe at the moment.
“I suppose inter-school unity is also important,” Ibu’s stream of consciousness continued. “It’s not like I have a choice, anyway. There’s no one from my team in this group…”
“I’m all alone, then?” Amane chuckled to himself. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was because I wasn’t very punny!”
Oshitari shuddered delicately and retreated to his newly selected room.
Ibu followed on his heels, mumbling to himself all the while.
However, at midnight, when Oshitari was treated to, “Why do we park on driveways and drive on parkways? It doesn’t make any sense,” with no signs of abating, Oshitari groaned and finally couldn’t take it anymore.
“Will you just be quiet?” he growled.
Ibu was silent for a second. Then, “I could try, but technically I am still breathing, which produces noise. In addition, my heartbeat, while nearly inaudible, is still technically sound. I suppose that means that it would be impossible for anyone to be truly ‘quiet.’ Maybe if I was dead… Of course, then the chemical reactions of my body decomposing would…”
Oshitari grabbed his blanket and pillow and stalked out into the hallway. He banged loudly on Atobe’s door.
“Bwuh?” Atobe finally opened it, bleary-eyed, his sleep mask still pulled half down over one eye.
“Fudomine won’t shut up,” Oshitari pleaded. “Can I sleep on your floor?”
Atobe yawned. “No, you snore,” he reminded Oshitari, and slammed the door in his face for the second time that evening.
Oshitari glared, set his blanket and pillow down right outside Atobe’s door, lay down on his back and opened his mouth wide. Let it never be said that revenge wasn’t sweet.
***
The High Life: Motivational Speakers
The sun baked down overhead, heating up the tiles around the pool until they were almost unbearable without sandals. The water lapped at the edges of the pool, a cool, artificial blue. The scent of suntan lotion and chlorine was thick in the air. Beside the pool, three beach umbrellas were set up, each carefully shading a pool chair. On what was shaping up to be the hottest day of the summer, it was unquestionably one of the most pleasant places to be in the whole country.
“So,” Hanamura sipped at her champagne - only the finest and most expensive, which Sakaki had received as a gift from Hyotei’s headmaster for pushing the team all the way to Nationals the previous season, “how did you get rid of your students for the day?”
Ryuzaki, to whom the question had been addressed, chuckled to herself and rolled over onto her stomach so that she was in a more comfortable position. “I told them it was a ‘free practice.’ Instantly, Shishido and Ohtori challenged Oishi and Kikumaru to a doubles match. And Kamio and Kirihara started yelling at each other a lot. I figure that should keep them distracted all morning, and some time around noon, Momoshiro and Echizen will get bored, so they’ll challenge each other. That gives me the afternoon off, too.” Ryuzaki took a sip of her own champagne.
“A dangerous game,” Sakaki drawled from the third pool chair, daintily biting a strawberry he’d taken from the bowl between them. “It depends entirely too much on unpredictable factors.”
Ryuzaki snorted and looked at him. “So how’d you pull it off?” she demanded.
“I sent them on an eight-mile run,” Sakaki said simply.
Hanamura frowned at him. “Even in this weather, that will hardly take them all day. They’ll be coming around to look for you sooner or later.”
Sakaki smirked secretly to himself. “I left Sanada in charge,” he concluded smugly.
“Oh…” Ryuzaki and Hanamura breathed in unison. That automatically doubled the distance, and Sanada no doubt would be thoroughly dissatisfied with everyone’s performance, so he’d have them running drills until suppertime.
“That’s cheating, though,” Hanamura concluded. “You just got lucky and drew Sanada in your group. You couldn’t have pulled something like that off with either of our groups.”
“Oh, no?” Sakaki raised one elegant eyebrow.
“The only real leader I’ve got in my group is Atobe,” Hanamura insisted. “And you must know how impossible he is to control.”
Sakaki took another sip of his champagne. “I have my ways.”
“Of course,” Hanamura agreed, “but you can’t expect him to just do all your work for you, like Sanada does.”
“That, at least, is true,” Sakaki conceded. “How are you handling him?”
“I have my ways, too,” Hanamura retorted mysteriously. She stole a strawberry from the bowl.
“Oh, I have to hear this,” Ryuzaki flipped lazily over onto her back again. “What’s your team doing today?”
“Coordination,” Hanamura answered simply. She took a bite out of the strawberry.
Sakaki blinked at her. “Atobe agreed to that?”
Hanamura shrugged gracefully. “I just explained to him how a rigorously-structured training program would perfect his tennis.”
Sakaki and Ryuzaki gave her skeptical looks.
“And then, when he refused to listen to me, I told him his butt looked fat in his tennis shorts, and that he needed to spend the rest of the day in the weight room. The others fell into line easily enough once he was gone.”
“Ah…” Sakaki and Ryuzaki said in sudden understanding.
“It sounds like we’ve done it, then,” Ryuzaki sighed contentedly. “The pool is ours for the whole day.” She let out an epic stretch.
“Quite,” Sakaki agreed. He flipped open his book and set it comfortably in his lap to read.
“This is what being a coach is all about,” Hanamura sighed and reclined her chair for a good, long nap.
And that was when a very nervous cough interrupted them. They all looked up in surprise to see Kachiro there.
“Uh, we’ve finished sweeping the courts, cleaning the common rooms, and preparing dinner. So what should-?”
“Ooh!” Horio cut in. “Hey, guys, we have a pool!”
“A pool?” Instantly, Katsuo, Dan, Ann, Tomoka, and Sakuno popped out of the woodwork. And somehow, in that way that only children could manage, they all had swimsuits on under their clothes.
“I wanna play pool volleyball!”
“Ann, I’ll race you!”
“Marco! Marco!”
“Hey, no cannonballs!”
“Grandma, grandma, look at what I’m doing!”
Ryuzaki, Sakaki, and Hanamura stared at the hyperactive, screaming, splashing spectacle in front of them in horror.
“Ladies,” Sakaki said wearily, “I think there’s a flaw in our master plan.”
Ryuzaki and Hanamura groaned in agreement.
***
The Five Trials of Sanada Genichiro: Tall Tales and Other Nonsense
“Ahem. Once upon a time, there was a man named…er, Fuji…agi, um, Seiichi. Yes, Fujiagi Seiichi.”
Yuta started snickering.
“Try to make it more obvious you’re making this up on the spot, Genichiro,” Yanagi cut in.
Sanada glared at him, pulled the cap lower over his eyes, and angled the flashlight up under his chin once more. “So this man, Fujiagi Seiichi,” Yuta started snickering again, and this time Fuji started going off, too, “he was a very…bad…man.” Sanada’s cheeks flushed.
Saeki blinked. “Seriously? Maybe we should let Inui tell another ghost story…”
Inui’s glasses gleamed out of the darkness.
“N-No,” Kaidoh shivered at the thought. “I like this story. Let Sanada continue.” He left off the “because it’s not scary at all.”
Sanada nodded in approval at Kaidoh. “This bad man, Fujiagi Seiichi was out late one night, slacking off.”
Mizuki gasped in mock-horror and returned to buffing his nails. Yuta was snickering again.
“He was slacking off like a drunken lout,” Sanada repeated, proud that he’d added in this brilliant embellishment, “so he heading home late at night.” He paused.
Everyone blinked.
“Oh, um,” Kawamura finally cut in politely. “And then?”
“And he was bitten,” Sanada said, like it should be obvious.
“Uh…oh.” Kawamura scratched his head.
“By a werewolf?” Sanada clarified.
“How…surprising.” Fuji smiled and patted Yuta on the back where he was now snickering so hard he was having a hard time breathing.
“Because it was the full moon,” Sanada reminded them.
“It was?” Kaidoh asked.
“Yes,” Sanada insisted. “I specifically told you that earlier. Try to pay attention.”
“That,” Mizuki sighed wearily, “would take superhuman powers of concentration.”
Sanada glared at him. “Why you…” He lunged, fist clenched and primed for bitch-slappin’.
Yanagi’s hand held him back. “We’re doing this to promote group solidarity,” he reminded Sanada. “Please, refrain from striking anyone.”
“Ah, sorry.” Sanada sat back down. “He just looks so much like Kirihara.”
“I understand,” Yanagi agreed.
“Hey, keep going,” Kawamura encouraged him. “That started to get a little bit scary there.”
“Ah, yes.” Sanada cleared his throat again. “It was the full moon, so he was bitten by a vampire.”
“You said it was a werewolf,” Saeki corrected him.
“Of course! A vampire…werewolf.”
Everyone blinked at him.
“That was a ghost.”
More blinking.
“A whole pack of vampire werewolves that were ghosts!” Sanada amended.
“Sadaharu,” Yanagi suggested, “perhaps you should take another turn.”
“I like this story!” Kaidoh cut in reflexively.
“I could always tell one,” Fuji suggested with a smile.
“No!” Kaidoh’s voice came out as a squeak.
Fuji considered this. “Well, I suppose I could just read the phone book…”
Kaidoh almost said yes. That didn’t sound so bad…
“No!” Yuta screeched in sudden horror. “You’re never, ever allowed to read the phone book again! Mom made you promise!” He began shivering convulsively and curled up against Mizuki for protection.
“While I will admit that Fuji is a magnificent eternal rival,” Mizuki accepted this turn of events with more than a little satisfaction, “how could he possibly make reading the phone book scary?” He gave Yuta, then Fuji, a quizzical look.
“I’m sorry,” Fuji beamed, “what was your name again?”
Mizuki scowled at him.
“No, I want to know now,” Saeki cut in. “Come on, Shusuke, do it!”
“No!” Yuta insisted, shaking his head vigorously.
“I confess to being intrigued,” Yanagi cocked his head to one side.
“Good data,” Inui moaned in ecstasy.
“This sounds like a bad idea.” Kaidoh was one of the few who maintained their sanity. “A bad, bad idea…”
“Slackers, be quiet!” Sanada shouted suddenly, unknowingly saving them all from a fate worse than death. “I’m telling the story!”
“Hey, that was good,” Kawamura encouraged him with a broad smile. “That’s the scariest you’ve been so far.”
“Ah, hmm, yes. Oral epics are an ancient and time-honored tradition. For the future of the Sanada clan, it was my duty to succeed in this noble endeavor.”
“Oh, dear god…” Mizuki’s face paled. “This really is getting scary!”
Sanada tried to lunge for him again. This time it took Yanagi, Inui, and Kawamura to hold him back.
“Just finish your story,” Yanagi requested.
“Of course,” Sanada settled down with the flashlight once more, although he continued to glare Mizuki’s way. “So this man, er…”
“Yukimura Rensuke, wasn’t it?” Saeki provided.
“No, it was Takagi Seiichi,” Yuta corrected him.
“I thought it was Fujiagi?” Inui consulted his notes.
“Whoever,” Sanada growled. “He was attacked by a werewolf.”
“A vampire werewolf,” Kawamura provided helpfully.
“A vampire werewolf that was a ghost,” Yanagi added.
“A whole pack of them,” Mizuki smirked.
Yuta started snickering again.
“Yes,” Sanada agreed. “And then he died.”
“I…see…” Kawamura tried to smile encouragingly.
“And?” Saeki pressed.
“That’s it.” Sanada crossed his arms over his chest. “The end.”
Silence followed, and then:
“That’s the best ghost story I’ve ever heard,” Kaidoh breathed a sigh of relief.
“It certainly was, um, different,” Kawamura agreed.
“I liked the part where the dripping blood crept into the younger brother’s room while he was sleeping,” Fuji agreed pleasantly.
Yuta paled. “What? That never happened?” His eyes darted around nervously.
“It looked black in the dark, so he couldn’t see it until it filled his nose and mouth, choking him slowly,” Fuji added helpfully.
“Knock it off, Shusuke!” Yuta whimpered.
“No, none of that happened,” Sanada said forcefully. “Only what I told you.”
“Oh, I can tell it’s a true story,” Mizuki agreed breezily. “Because no one could make up something that lame.”
Sanada sputtered.
Yanagi, despite years of hard-earned self-control, snickered.
Sanada glared at him.
That set Yuta off snickering, too. Which set off Fuji again, and Mizuki and Saeki. Then Inui started in, although only because Renji said, “Just like Phosphofructokinase!” which made sense to absolutely no one but the two of them.
Sanada’s face turned red. “Shut up!” he snarled at them. “Slackers! Fifty laps!”
“Ah, Genichiro,” Yanagi managed to calm himself down. “This isn’t Rikkaidai.”
Sanada crossed his arms over his chest sullenly. “Well, it should be,” he grumped.
“Okay, so,” Kawamura cut in cheerfully, “whose turn is it next?”
“I’ll go!” Fuji volunteered.
“Not Shusuke!” Yuta said at the exact same time.
“Not Inui!” Kaidoh said in the second of silence that followed.
“Well, I just went before Sanada,” Saeki considered.
“Renji hasn’t gone yet,” Inui pointed out.
Everyone exchanged nods. This seemed reasonable.
Yanagi held out his hand to Sanada for the flashlight. Sanada grudgingly turned it over. Yanagi flicked the light onto his chin, so that his face with illuminated with a demonic aura. “Last month,” he began in a deep, mysterious voice, “I was alone in the Rikkaidai locker rooms.”
Kaidoh immediately started shivering again.
“Around this time every year, I have a certain routine that I do,” Yanagi continued. “Nothing complicated, but it always keeps the rest of the team far away from the clubhouse, so I’m all by myself.”
Sanada’s eyes widened when he realized what Yanagi was getting at. “No… Renji, I don’t want to hear this!”
“Yes,” Yanagi agreed slowly and evilly, “it’s Rikkaidai’s annual spring cleaning, when I clean out everything that’s fallen behind the lockers from the past year. And here is a complete inventory of what I found this year…”
Approximately forty seconds later, screams sounded throughout the room as the terrified listeners who just couldn’t take anymore fled from the common room back to their dorms. Needless to say, none of them slept a wink for the rest of that night.
And, yes, I am aware that, if Sanada were a real person, he'd totally kill me. :P As always, comments are most appreciated.
Chapter Two