KitsuneFreak: No don't ask really. It just popped in my head. Sorry if there's OOC-ness. If I messed up on some names, that's because I was half-asleep while I wrote this.

Grand-Disclaimer-That-Is-To-Be-Worshipped-And-4ever-Remembered: If I did, Ryoma and Fuji would totally rule the world with Karupin. And Tezuka would be forever stuck in a locker…oh nevermind.

(Badger, Badger, Badger, Badger, Mushroom, Mushroom…)

"Ok, seriously, umm, got any sixes?" Ryoma asked Fuji both of which were engaged in an epic battle of Go Fish.

"Go Fish," Fuji smiled as Ryoma took another card from the pile.

"Kings?" Fuji asked with the ever present smile, and sure enough Ryoma forked over a king.

"Hey, Fuji, can we try to like raise the stakes?" sighed Ryoma heavily over his temporary loss, "like bet on something?"

A look between confusion and amusement passed through Fuji's face at that moment and Ryoma knew that he should have just kept his mouth shut.

"Sure…" Fuji mouthed slowly.

Ryoma gulped.

"If I win, then you have to… run around the tennis courts in the outfit that the Little Mermaid wears, all day long…"

Ryoma was like O.o?

"You know, red hair, sea shell bras and stuff."

Thinking of a good come back IF he wins, Ryoma said, "and if I win then you have to… umm, erm…" the young prince was getting real desperate for a comeback now, "Wear a frilly, and definitely overkill girly dress complete with high heels!"

And Fuji was like OMFG!

"Yup," grinned Ryoma, thoroughly satisfied with his answer.

"And if we tie, then we both don't have to do anything, right?"

"'Kay."

Silence immediately spread over the area as distant footsteps were heard. The sound of liquid sloshing in a glass cup was heard. Fuji and Ryoma both made quick eye contact and mouthed, 'Inui'. Nodding to each other, they dunked the cards into Ryoma's backpack that happened to be near and Fuji splattered all the school textbooks he had onto the table.

The door opened revealing… Oishi!

"I thought I'd find you here," Oishi said while eyeing the textbooks, "studying?"

"We-well, Fuji and I were, um, trying to see which of us had more, err, homework. Yes." Thankfully, Oishi gave his undivided attention to Ryoma and didn't notice Fuji slapping his forehead.

"Then maybe I shouldn't bother you guys. I'll just drop off these glasses of orange juice then," Oishi said sweetly as he put the orange juice aside.

As Oishi left he closed the door leaving it only slightly open, dialing a number on his cell phone as he went. After the coast was clear, both boys went to re-setup their unfinished game.

"Should we continue, or start a new game because I have no idea where we left off" Ryoma asked.

"Let's just start a new game but before we do…" Fuji pulled out a sheet of paper from one of his notebooks and wrote the stakes on it and signed his name below. "You have to sign this."

"Why?" asked Ryoma his eyebrows going up.

"You might go back on your promise," replied Fuji smugly.

Picking up the pen, Ryoma paused as if an unseen force was holding him still.

"Something wrong? Just sign your name." A thought crossed through his mind. "You can write can you?"

Ryoma looked as though he was gonna have a mental breakdown from all the stress.

"How do you get by if you can't even write?" Fuji asked curiously.

"Well," Ryoma began, "when I was little, Karupin and I used to go to school together, but I always got tired from practicing tennis and fell asleep. Nowadays, Karupin does my homework."

"But Karupin is a cat."

"So?"

"Your cat doesn't come to this school, so how does it do your homework?"

"I dictate, Karupin writes it out."

Shaking his head Fuji thought, "I wonder, how I could get Karupin to come over to my house sometime..."

And so Ryoma proceeded to go into angst mode. Why? We have no clue.

"Fine, fine. Then just make a squiggly line and we'll pretend it's actually your signature."

Brightening up suddenly, Ryoma made a torrent of squiggles on the paper with glee.

"Right, now while you're busy doing that I'll shuffle," Fuji said eying the paper warily.

Within a span of a minute they were deep into Go Fish, The Epic Battle Part II. Unbeknownst to the two duelists, outside their door, all the Seigaku regulars were outside listening. Oishi had phoned them all to come and watch this mêlée between the great tennis prodigy Syuusuke Fuji and the prince of tennis Ryoma Echizen. Currently, they were betting cash and other assorted items. Here's how the bet went:

Oishi B Ryoma – 10 yen

Kikumaru E Ryoma – Pocky

Momo T Fuji – Ryoma's Twist Serve

Inui T Fuji – can of V8

Taka-san I Ryoma – manly apron

Kaidoh N Fuji – a stress relief guide

Tezuka G Fuji – Eiji's teddy bear

(Look at the big picture!)

And so, 52 cards, and 35 passes later a loser was decided! Drum roll please. Oh what the heck. Let's just tell you what happened the next day…

THE NEXT DAY:

"Hey, Horio, what do you supposed Fuji-senpai and Ryoma are doing over there? They've been whispering to each other for the past 15 minutes already," asked Sakuno.

"Who knows, but I heard that a whole bunch of tennis regulars are coming over to visit. It's probably because of our awesome team! I just hope Eiji-senpai will get out of the bathroom soon," Horio answered quickly.

"Is he not feeling well?"

"Beats me, but he's been in their all morning, Oishi-senpai's been trying to get him out since."

On the other side of the tennis courts were various regulars from the nearby schools.

"What do you think my brother is doing over there?" Yuuta suddenly asked trying to look over, and failing miserably at, Fuji's shoulder.

"From here it almost looks like he's fixing up Echizen's jacket for him. Odd, like he can't do it himself," said Mizuki, also attempting to look over his shoulder.

"Atobe, quick! Stop staring at yourself in the pocket mirror and look at this," Gakuto said pointing at the aforementioned pair.

"Somehow his jacket seems too puffed up," Tachibana commented.

"No duh, I can even see the oddness through my bangs, and that's saying something," Kamio murmured.

Back onto the Seigaku side we zoom in on the regulars. Thankfully, Kikumaru had kindly offered them his presence.

"If that's the way it has to be then I'll do it," Eiji said to Tezuka who was showing no emotion whatsoever.

"If you can pull it off that is…" whispered Tezuka.

"It's time," Fuji called walking away slowly with Ryoma following closely behind. Fuji branched off to the water fountain while Ryoma went to the bathroom.

Going back again to the other side of the tennis courts, we are met with more regulars.

"They left," said a surprised Atobe, "you stopped me from looking at myself for nothing."

"My tingly senses are telling me that something creepy is gonna happen today," Hiyoshi mentally told himself.

As everyone turned the other way, a body collapsed to the ground. Looking back onto the ground they saw Yukimura lying there as if in shock. Aiming their eyes at a location higher than the ground they saw a red haired figure hopping as fast as it could around the tennis courts. And, OH MY, it was coming their way!

"Oh dear, is that…Echizen?" Atobe said to no one in particular clasping his hands to his mouth.

"I think he's gender-confused…" Sakurai remarked.

"No, I think the spirit of happy Disney movies must have gotten soaked into his system, no pun intended," Shisido rubbed his eyes even harder.

And for the first time ever, Kabaji and Akutsu both grew wide-eyed, screamed like little girls, and attempted to climb on top of each other to get away from the red haired 'mermaid'.

Meanwhile the reactions of the Seigaku tennis group was a mix of amusement, horror, data-taking, and one could hear the constant snapping of a camera in action.

"Hey Fuji what was the bet on anyway?" Eiji asked curiously.

"If he lost, he'd do what he is currently performing all day long."

"And if you lost?"

"I'd have to wear a frilly dress with high heels. Like that could ever happen," Fuji waved his hand confidently.

Walking over to Inui he asked quietly, "Can I have some of that Aozu juice that you made last time?"

"Sure, if you at least don't mind the latest version of it. Why?" Inui stopped in mid- data-taking and stared at Eiji.

"Fuji."

"Ah. I'll give it to you at lunch." A glint passed through Inui's all seeing glasses.

A LITTLE AFTER LUNCH:

The winner of last night's card game was just strolling about aimlessly when he met up with the bubbly Eiji. Loudly yawning, "It's such a tiring day, today" he did a short stretch. But cool and calm Fuji just smiled.

"You know you should drink some vitamin water," handing an open bottle over to Fuji.

"No thanks," he waved.

"But you didn't drink all day, and, and you'll dehydrate! If you don't I'll call Oishi over!" Eiji whined.

"Fine, but only a little bit," taking the bottle he eyed it's contents. Clear. Then he sniffed the bottle of liquid. Smelled watery. Shrugging, Fuji took a gulp of it before passing out. Looking left and right Eiji dragged the body into the bathroom remembering at the same time to empty the bottle's contents into the plants nearby…

SOMEWHERE ELSE ON CAMPUS:

"Phew! Thank god that Ryuuzaki-sensei finally had the sense to pull Echizen away from human eyes," Gakuto said.

"No kidding. If he was hopping around any longer then I'd probably be scarred for an entire lifetime," Kirihara stated.

"My tingly senses aren't finished tingling yet. There must be more scary occurrences yet to come." Hiyoshi's eyes darted around.

"Hey Mizuki, what are you staring at?" Yuuta asked.

"Not too sure, but I'm taking quite a bit of pleasure in just seeing it," snickered Mizuki.

Yuuta and the other boys then squinted hard to see what he was seeing.

Yukimura fainted.

Akutsu and Kabaji screamed and climbed on top of each other.

Atobe clasped his hands over his mouth.

Hiyoshi congratulated himself.

Shishido rubbed his eyes.

Yuuta denied.

And the rest just stared.

Meters in front of them they could see Eiji sprinting towards the tennis courts with a person wearing a frilly dress in hot pursuit. As the law of human nature is proven by the boys' actions, they, too, followed, if only just to get a closer look. And what they saw officially scarred them.

As they neared the destination (aka – tennis courts) they saw who the person in the frilly dress - complete with high heels and gloves - was. It was none other than tennis prodigy Syuusuke Fuji, looking severely P.O.'ed. Panting heavily, he reached his hand out towards Eiji who was clutching a bundle that appeared to be his clothes.

"Give. Them. Back." Fuji glared. "Now."

Behind him Mizuki let out a whistle.

Without turning around, Fuji grabbed three tennis balls and threw it at Mizuki who was too busy snickering to dodge. A loud thud followed.

While he was busy murdering Mizuki, tennis style, Eiji clung to Tezuka. "See, see? Now can I have teddy back? PLEASE?"

Silence.

"You're saying that I suffered all of this because of a teddy bear." Fuji stated flatly.

Cowering back in fear, Eiji whimpered "But, it's my teddy bear. And Tezuka got it when I lost the bet! He said he'd give it to me if I made you do what you were supposed to do if you had lost."

"Wait a sec, what bet?"

The Seigaku regulars looked at each other and then to Fuji and gulped. With an emotionless face Tezuka said only one thing, "If you value your lives, run."

(Badger, Badger, Badger, Badger, Mushroom, Mushroom…)

KitsuneFreak: Wow, this turned out longer than I had thought.

Ryoma: Why make us suffer?

KitsuneFreak: Actually the only person suffering initially was you but I just had to do something about Fuji in a dress. It was just too tempting.

Kaidoh: -spotlight- Angst makes the world go round.

O.o

KitsuneFreak: Read and Review people! If you hadn't known the end, who would you have voted for? Just wondering.

Plz R&R!