A/N: Hello again! I'm sorry it's been such a long time, but I promised that I would finish all my works in progress so here I am!

I do have my writings all down but I tend to write my fics in fragments and scenes, instead of a chronological order (you do NOT want to see my word documents...) so I was having a bit of a fit piecing them all together. I hope to upload them bit by bit as I go along.

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Next morning: he wakes up and remembers he had a bad dream. Vaguely, he recalls Tezuka hovering over him with his glinting glasses with a rulebook in his hand. The image of Tezuka as an angel of Justice unnerves him. He is left brooding and picking on his toast and eggs while Ryoma savors his own dish of rice and fish. Ryoma is oblivious to his mind-wrecking state.

"Will you stop being a glutton?" he says over the table, "How you can stuff yourself at this time in the morning?"

Ryoma frowns with his mouth full and looks like a hamster. To his credit, he swallows his food before hurling his insults. "It's too early for you to be acting moody," he says, "I would have given it at least noon."

"I have no schedule of moodiness," Keigo snaps, his fork piling his eggs at the edge of his plate. "Pray don't try to categorize me. You won't succeed."

"You're moody when you don't have coffee," Ryoma points out, "And you haven't had one yet. Get a cup, stop being all hysterical on me."

"What would you know about hysteria and drama," Keigo mutters. Then he changes his mind. He does, he does. If Tezuka comes into their lives, there would soon be a play about great tragedy and woe.

Ryoma seems to be following his trail of thoughts, as he taps his finger on the table, in mock thought. "Are we talking about glorified hysteria or a diagnosed one?"

"I loathe the day when you could read my mind," Keigo says dryly. "Finish your food and go away."

After Ryoma leaves, he remembers that his dream also had Ryoma perched next to Tezuka, his hazel eyes dazzling bright and shining, not even sparing a look at Keigo.

Damn him.

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After his morning class, he buys himself a cup of coffee, and glumly, concedes that the caffeine did him some good. He is at least, not willing to snarl upon everyone who dared to tread upon his path.

That is, until Tezuka stops him.

"Ah," he says, covering his surprise, and added, somewhat grudgingly, "Tezuka."

Tezuka gives him a small half-smile, a smile that is at once nervous and stiff. He looks awkward around the confinements of a university, or perhaps, he has never envisioned Tezuka within such a setting. No setting at all save the courts.

"Atobe," he says. Keigo wonders whether they will ever get past that brief silence beyond the already stilted name-calling. Or perhaps, their conversations will merely consist of drawling out their respective surnames and smile at each other like idiots. He doesn't want such agony to befall him. He asks the most obvious question.

"What are you doing here?"

Tezuka blinks, and he adjusts his glasses. His response is careful. "I was looking for you, actually," he says, "I had the day off, and Echizen did mention you had classes here."

"Yes?" He would kill Ryoma. Echizen. Whichever he felt like killing. "How…considerate of him."

Tezuka gives him another odd twitch of a smile that does not look appealing. "You talk as if you two are strangers," he says. "There's no need for my benefit."

They're not for yours, Keigo thinks darkly. Aloud he says, "I don't know what you're talking about. Echizen is still a brat and I talk to him as such."

Tezuka nods, looking confused and polite. "I….see." He doesn't. He has also furrowed his eyes when Keigo pronounced Echizen, the surname rough on his own tongue. "I was waiting for you, actually. I forgot to return this book to Echizen." He waves a book, half-heartedly, in Keigo's eye range, and added, "Of course, I didn't it would be appropriate to see him alone about that. I thought you might disapprove."

"Disapprove?" Keigo echoes. "Why would I? Did Echizen say that?" It's a stupid book, he thinks. He's acting stupid over a stupid issue. But Tezuka was the farthest thing from being stupid. Perhaps all these years Tezuka had been secretly stupid. He wouldn't be surprised.

But Tezuka gives him a small smile again, albeit a more uncomfortable one. "You seemed to indicate as such," he says, "Over our brunch the other day. If it makes you uncomfortable, you could join us for lunch today."

"Lunch." He should stop echoing everything, or Tezuka would think him wanting.

"After school," Tezuka clarifies, "I asked him to join me for lunch and a match." There is nothing more Keigo needs to say, or can say.

"Lovely," he says, "Should I keep score?"

Another blank stare, and Keigo knows instinctively, that this look was a fake, concealed glaze. "Score?" Tezuka asks.

Oh Tezuka, Keigo thinks, almost, almost amused.

"You mentioned you were having a match," he says nicely.

"Oh." Tezuka blinks, falters. Keigo's sordid amusement grows and thrashes inside him. "I...If you don't mind. But I wouldn't want to inconvenience you, of course—"

"Spare me," Keigo interrupts, and he even adds in a small laugh, "I was joking, Tezuka. I wouldn't dream of getting between your tennis."

He meets Tezuka's eyes for a minute—and so there are other things you should not stick your hands in, he conveys—before breaking off with a smirk. A faux smirk, one that Tezuka could easily see as a pretense. "Echizen's been getting cocky lately over his serves," he says instead, "Do show him how it's done in Germany, ahn?"

He leaves before he could hear another awkward reply.

0

Lunch is horridly amusing.

"Buchou," Echizen says (back to the last name again, or perhaps he should be forever renamed the Repulsive Brat) and gives Tezuka a half-smile (of all the things to learn from him) and ignores him. Keigo assures himself that he is not bothered in the least. "How long are you staying?"

Tezuka's face morphs. He only knows because he had grown up reading people and he had, during he illustrious middle school career, learnt to read Tezuka's moods and changes and shifts in the name of tennis. So he knows that while Echizen wouldn't catch the more subtle tones of Teazuka's softness, he most assuredly can. He doesn't like what he sees.

"About a week," he answers, and Keigo also notes that the tone that he uses with Echizen is genuinely quiet and calm, instead of the polite and aloof tone he uses with Keigo. He stirs his coffee spoon and wonders if it would be impolite to excuse himself and kick Echizen under the table. It would upset the table, at the very least. He barely refrains.

"That's not long," Echizen comments.

Keigo rolls his eyes. "Honestly, Echizen, haven't you been listening to Tezuka's talk the other day? He's staying for his grandfather's birthday and going straight back to practice."

"I heard." Immediately Echizen's small smile twists into a scowl as he turns over to look at Keigo. Finally. But it's not a look Keigo really fancy seeing on the younger boy's face. "I was asking the specifics, monkey king. Don't treat me like an idiot."

"I treat things as how I see it," Keigo mutters, low only for his ears. Echizen hears his words though, and under the table he receives a sharp kick. He hisses.

"Echizen," Tezuka rebukes sternly. All at once Echizen's scowl turns guilty, and Keigo hates him a little more for it.

"There's no need, Tezuka," he says, and he is surprised at his voice is cool and sharp, dismissive. He is surprised at how he let Tezuka under his skin, after all these years. He wonders about the nagging insecurity he has now. "I can fend for myself."

He stands up and is about to excuse himself to go to the restroom (if only to sneak out after paying the bill, so that he can at least, deny Echizen the last word) when Echizen snags his wrist. He starts.

"Where are you going?" Echizen looks at him, no longer annoyance in his eyes, but a contemplating look, one that Keigo has seen from time to time, when Echizen tries to read him. Most of the time, Echizen is surprisingly good at it: reading between Keigo's gestures and tones, laughs. He can differentiate between Keigo's laughter and façade, his word choices and his moods. Not even Yuushi had caught as quickly as this Seigaku brat had. Keigo shudders at such accomplishments. He wishes now was not one of those times.

"Restroom," he says, schooling his face into a blank. "Am I not allowed to go without your consent?"

Echizen holds his eyes and breaks it off deliberately a moment later. "Don't be dumb, Keigo," he says, and Keigo starts at the name, as does Tezuka. From the corner of his eyes, he sees Tezuka stiffen, and adjust his hands that were playing with his teacup.

"I try not to be," he replies, nonchalant, and goes off, a lighter step than before.