Ryota Echizen

There's Two of You?

"Whatever do you mean Kaidoh?"

"Fuji, 30 laps."

"Why Tezuka, I'm only playjng~ You need to loosen up a bit more~"

"..."

"Good boy"

Feeling my eye twitching at my teamates reactions, I shake my head and glance at Ryo.

"How come you're not all shy around them?" I ask curiously.

Shrugging, he glances at me teamates who are oblivious to the conversation."I guess I just got used to them whilst I was here."

We decide to sit down a few seats away from them as they make a commotion. It takes them a while, but they eventually calm down and join us.

Raising an eyebrow at them, I cross my arms. "Done?"

Waiting until they nod, I finally acknowledge their questions.

"Yes, Ryota is my younger brother. I also have an older brother named Ryoga who's in America right now. I never told you guys about them because it never came up. We all play tennis so we're all on the same level-"

"Excuse me?"

Looking at Ryota, I give him a smile. "Alright, some better than others."

Giving me a smile, he nods. "Better"

Rolling my eyes playfully, I nudge him with my elbow. "Anything else you want to add?"

He took his time in thinking of something to add.

"Well, while it's true I do play tennis, I'm not on the tennis team at my school. Although, I can tell you that I could beat them all, including the regulars, without using my dominant hand. I enjoy photography and lots of sweets" he gives them a smile and I nudge him while grinning.

"You gonna tell them about being a prince?" I tease.

This shocked my teamates and they all exclaime at once. "You're royalty?!"

He rolls his eyes and glares and me playfully. "No, I'm not royalty. At school they call me their Prince for some odd reason."

Inui steps foreward whilst writing in his black book. "Excuse me, but would your school happen to be Hyoutei?"

Ryo gives him a bright smile and nods. "Yeah! Wow Inui, you're really smart!"

I was both amused and horrified to see Inui blushing and stuttering "Thank you" after that.

"Wait, you go to Hyoutei? Wouldn't that mean you're better than Atobe and his team?" Oishi asks.

Nodding his head, Ryota smiles weakly. "Yeah, I even had a little encounter with them before."

Furrowing my eyebrows, I reach over and tug on his sleeves. "You never told me about that. What happened?"

I didn't even care that Eiji whispered"Wow, Ochibi must be really protective over his brother" to Momo. All that mattered was taking care of Ryo.

He shrugs and gives me a weak smile. "I didn't want to bother you about it. Some guy had carried me to the courts to meet the team and I guess Atobe didn't know about it at the time. His team wanted to meet me, when Atobe showed up he kept grabbing my shoulders. It wasn't until Akashi showed up that I could leave."

Nodding, I smile. "You're friend keeps coming up whenever we talk, you should invite him to dinner, I'd like to meet him, I'm sure Oyaji too."

He sends me a distrustful look. "No way. I can't trust you guys to meet him. You'll scare him away."

Sighing, I frown. "Come on! How can we be sure that he'll treat you right?"

He rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. "He always treats me right!"

Grinning I copy his posture. "Then introduce him"

"No"

"Yes"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

Momo finally interuptes us as he takes a step foreward smiling.

"How about we let this go and go celebrate our victory with sushi, kay?"

Looking over at each other, we grin and wrap our arms around our shoulders.

"And you'll treat us, right?" We ask in unison.

Momo had a sweat drop. "Sure.....Man that's scary."

We laugh together and make our way to the sushi shop that Kawamura owned and celebrated.