Broken Strings (Prince of Tennis/ slow burn love story)

Part 9

"Mh. Mmmh mh. Mh mh mmmh." Eiji hums absentmindedly as he doodles on Ryumi's cast with a bright red marker.

Ryumi looks up from her own drawing they are assigned to make for art class so see he is drawing a miniature version of himself on there. "Eiji-kun. Did you finish your assignment yet?" she wonders.

"This is my assignment." he simply states, before starting on another figure that is starting to look a lot like Oishi.

They hear Fuji chuckle from Eiji's other side. "I don't think the teacher will grade that." he says, clearly amused.

"Why not? This is art too. You want to draw something on here too Fujiko?" he offers, leaning back. Fuji shrugs in reply before taking the marker from Eiji and drawing a little angry Ryoma on there and signing it. Ryumi shakes her head in amusement, knowing it will plague her little brother for as long as she still wears the cast.

It's been a few days since the drama occurred in their class and thing have been rather quiet since. It apparently helps to have two respected classmates to have your back, and the three have been a rather close-knit team since. The three of them, despite being so different from each other are just drawn in by each other somehow.

.........

"Huh?" Momoshiro muses, taking a close look at Ryumi's cast that has been drawn full of miniature figures of the regulars, accompanied by a 70% grade mark. She can't believe their sensei actually graded it.

"Hoi hoi!" Eiji grins, giving a thumbs up, satisfied with his work.

"Mada mada dane." Ryoma muses, glaring at the chibi version of himself signed by Fuji before turning to his sister. "Are you staying for practice?" he questions, to which she shrugs.

"Only if it's okay with Tezuka-kun. I don't want to be in the way." she states, looking to the stoic boy for permission. They have some rigorous training to do after all. With Prefectural tournaments around the corner, they have a lot of work on their hands.

Tezuka nods. "It's fine." he agrees, knowing she will not disturb training.

As the regulars step inside the courts, a strong smell suddenly hit Ryumi's nose. "What is that?!" she gasps, quickly pulling her hands over her nose to hide her sense from the stench. She looks horrified at the liquid swishing around in the glass in front of her nose.

"Inui's special vegetable juice." Inui states, stepping back.

"Juice?! As if! I don't think that stuff's approved by any health or food association." she exclaims, seeing him grin creepily before he follows the others onto the court. She wonders what he's going to do with that, though she's almost afraid to find out.

Inui introduces the liquid torture as punishment for who loses on today's training, which consists on one on one's were a point must be made on for the defenders, not to be made within five hits. They can only use a part of the field, making it extra difficult for the attackers to gain that point they need. To make it even harder, they only get a five-rally match to decide the game.

Ryumi is amazed to find out how much the drink motivates everyone, but where there are winners, there are losers....

Kaidoh is first to strike out and the effect the drink seems to have scares Ryumi. Oishi is down next, leaving her to fan the two boys at once, hoping they will recover quickly.

Fuji is next to lose against Tezuka, but while he wanted to drink Inui's juice for some reason, he is disappointed when Tezuka accidentally drinks the juice from Inui's bottle, leaving him out. Surprisingly, the captain stays standing proudly, though Ryumi swore she saw his eye twitch.

Next up are Ryoma and Eiji. They both look very seriously, not wanting to drink the concoction that Inui presented them, as he replaced his Inui special vegetable juice for Golden Power Remix Inui juice. It's an odd brown color that leaves everyone's imagination running wild on what's in it.

Eiji flips his racket, staring Ryoma down. "I will never drink that juice!" he calls to the younger boy who smirks in reply.

"You don't need to be so serious. It looks tasty, Kikumaru-senpai." Ryoma taunts him.

Inui serves the ball for them, hitting it towards Eiji's side of the court. "I just can't lose to our o-chibi!" he shouts, hitting the ball in Ryoma's direction before running towards the net, the place he's most comfortable with.

"Aren't we serious, Kikumaru-senpai!" Ryoma calls, hitting the ball towards the corner. Eiji however dives towards it, hitting it back with relative ease.

Ryoma returns it, again hitting for the corner, since Eiji has moved further away from it, but he returns it by twisting in the air giving him more reach. Ryoma looks a bit startled. He hasn't played against Eiji before.

After the fourth hit on Ryoma's side, he takes a page out of Eiji's book and runs towards the net facing Eiji straight on.

"Oops... I forgot to explain... When the attacker goes for net play, he has to play the entire side of his court!" Inui explains, shocking Ryoma, because this isn't really in his favor.

Eiji however is confident he can end this now. "Like he said. Sorry about that o-chibi-chan!" he says, lobbing the ball over Ryoma and to the far corner.

Ryoma grits his teeth and runs as fast as he can to counter the ball, but Inui is right in his path. Surprisingly he doesn't stop and instead of waltzing right into Inui, he returns the ball by jumping and hitting his racket through his legs. Ryumi can't help but smile, seeing how versatile her little brother is and not afraid to take a risk.

Eiji looks shocked and has to rush to return the ball. He somehow makes it without looking where he's hitting. It will be an easy shot for Ryoma to return, but that is when Eiji calls out, "O-chibi-chan! It's already been five shots!"

Ryoma stares dumbfounded for a second knowing he's lost, but can't help but return the ball towards the now cheering Eiji, hitting him right in the chin. Ryoma really has no respect for his senpais.

"Hey Echizen! What do you think you're doing?! Geez... Inui! Give this kid as much Inui Juice Special or what ever it's called as possible!" Eiji shouts vengefully.

Ryumi cringes as she watches Ryoma drink what could be poisonous before he runs of the court in a hurry, soon hanging over the basins by the taps, hacking everything up again.

"That stuff is really no good." she mutters with a sigh before making her way over and running some cool water over his head until his breathing calms. She hopes that stuff never comes near her again.