Femininity

By: Dyaoka

Disclaimer: I don’t own the Prince of Tennis.

Notes/Warnings: Weird. And random. This is what happens when you’ve been up in the clouds all day. Literally. I don’t write funny fics, I write pointless fics. (I wrote this because I’m sort of having writers block on the other fics…)

Part One of Three

Ryoma was going to kill someone. Someone that went by the name of Momoshiro Takeshi. Well, he should also consider killing Inui, since he was the person who made those stupid juices. But it was Momo who gave him the goddamned juice.

Golden eyes glared heatedly at everyone in his path. Everyone made a run for it.

Ryoma had considered about not going to school earlier in the morning, but his mother had told him that he had to—there was no excuse not to, seeing his health was perfectly fine. His father had been a different matter entirely. The old monk just laughed and laughed and laughed until Nanako told him to be quiet. God, did Ryoma wanted to find Momo just to strangle him…! He could almost feel it, Momo’s neck in his death grip…

“Hoi! Ochibi! G’morning!” came an overenthusiastic voice. Then came the glomp that was sure to happen. 

“Kikumaru-sempai” the annoyed tone of the small freshmen said it all. But Eiji wasn't one to take threats, least of all from a freshman.

“You seem kind of different, nya” the red head said, suddenly realizing something. Was it just him…or was Ochibi suddenly…even shorter?

“I’m the same,” Ryoma snapped, getting out of his upperclassman’s grasp. “There’s nothing different about me.”

Eiji only stared as the freshman walked off to class.

“There’s something wrong with Echizen” Fuji said, appearing out of nowhere, causing Eiji to jump.

“Y-yah…”

~*~

“Oi! Echizen!” came a loud brash voice. Ryoma looked up to see his unibrow classmate, Horio.

“What do you want?” Ryoma had nearly snapped at the other boy.

“We’re going to be late for practice!” Horio exclaimed, completely ignoring what Ryoma said. “Come on, come on!” But Ryoma did nothing to hurry his pace in the halls. He continued his normal pace. Horio frowned. “Hurry up! You don’t want to run laps, do you?!” He grabbed onto Ryoma’s arm, but Ryoma wrenched his arm from Horio’s grip.

“I’m not going!” Ryoma yelled, his golden eyes flashing.

“You’re not going? Why not?” came a voice from behind the two freshmen. Ryoma looked over his shoulder and saw that it was Momo. With Fuji and Oishi behind him. Ryoma gritted his teeth; he didn’t need to have Fuji to know what was going on. For all he knew, Fuji could have weird rumors started the very next day!

“Nothing. I’m not feeling well” Ryoma lied. “I’m going home.”

“Well, you do seem a bit…off today. Maybe you should go home” Oishi said. “Momo, you never should have given him that juice yesterday. We all know how those Inui Juices are.”

“Yes, but he seems energetic enough” Fuji said, azure eyes twinkling brightly in Ryoma’s direction. It seemed that the tennis genius knew that something was up. “I’m sure you can play today, can’t you?”

Ryoma wanted a hole to open up in the floor directly underneath him. There was no escaping now.

~*~

Ryoma just stood there, not doing anything, but staring at his hands.

“Echizen, are you alright? You’re not sick, are you?” Oishi asked as he pulled on his Seigaku Regular’s shirt. Everyone else was changing, except Ryoma, who just stood there in the corner. All eyes turned to their smallest and youngest member of the Seigaku Regular team. Ryoma looked up and leveled an icy glare at all of them before lowering his head again. Oh…how he wished he could strangle Momo right then and there. But then he’d probably never succeed, since Oishi was obviously not going to let him kill someone.

“Inui-sempai, what did you put in that juice?!” Momo exclaimed, seeming to trace everything from Ryoma’s brooding mood to Inui’s Juice that was given to Ryoma yesterday.

“It was a vegetable juice” Inui huffed indignantly. “I doubt there was anything in there that did any harm.” A familiar green notebook appeared. Inui fixed his glasses and then reached for the pencil that was tucked behind his ear. “Hm…but Echizen in a bad mood, this would be good data…”

Ryoma growled. He was going to kill Momo and Inui.

“Ochibi! Did you just growl, nya?!”

“Shut up.”

“Someone’s having a case of PMS” Momo retorted rather loudly.

“I am not!” Everyone all blinked in surprise at Ryoma. “What? I’m not” Ryoma said coolly.

“Right. Now, changing the subject back to what it originally was,” Momo said as he placed his school clothes into his locker. He had finished changing and was rummaging around for his racket. “Echizen, are you sick?”

“Yes I am. I’m going home” Ryoma snapped, grabbing his things and leaving…Only to walk into the wall.

~*~

Ryoma awoke to the sound of tennis balls being hit on the courts. Golden eyes tried to focus themselves, but wouldn’t. Ryoma rubbed his eyes and then sighed. He was lying on the bench outside of the changing room. With a small groan, Ryoma pushed himself up off the bench. His head seriously hurt!

“Unya! Ochibi!”

“Echizen! You’re awake?”

Ryoma looked up to see his red headed upperclassman tackle him, with a grinning Momo behind him. With a surprised yelp, Ryoma had leapt to his feet, causing Eiji to wrap his arms around his waist and tackle him to the ground. “That hurt!” Ryoma snapped, pushing Eiji off of him. But the red head only stared at him with a sort of blank expression.

“Ochibi’s a girl!” Eiji had just about screamed before backing away to the wall of the locker room. Momo just stared at his upperclassman and back to Ryoma, who was hastily pulling his messed up shirt down. Though Ryoma wore a tank top underneath his shirt, Ryoma was pretty sure he knew what Eiji had seen. Momo screamed when he noticed the…change in Ryoma.

“What seems to be the problem?” Tezuka asked, coming from the courts with his stern expression. The rest of the club members had stopped whatever they were doing and seemed to be staring at their captain and the scene before them. Momo stood there with a shocked expression on his face, his jaw having gone slack. Eiji was against the wall of the locker room, on his knees, since his legs gave out for some odd reason.

Magically, the two suddenly snapped out of their stupor and Eiji immediately tackled Ryoma again. “Ochibi!” Eiji squealed before looking up at his captain who was regarding them all with a stern glare.

“Echizen! You should have just told us! But…when did you…I could have sworn you weren’t…”

Ryoma turned a beat red before pointing at Inui, who seemed to be taking notes on the whole incident not far behind Tezuka. “It was his fault!” then he pointed at Momo. “But it was your fault the most!”

“Whaaaat?! What did I do?!” Momo exclaimed. 

“Ne, ne!” Eiji squealed, running up to Tezuka. “Ochibi’s a girl!”

Silence was left in his wake.