Rotten Watermelon

Seishun Gakuen

The day was normal, or as normal as the Seishun boys tennis club can be. Though there was an addition of a super rookie to the regulars of eight, it was other wise the same.

"Fuuuji!!" a certain redhead yelled. "Fujiko! Guess what guess what!"

"Chicken butt?" one passing by Ryoma said.

"Unyaa~ Ochibi! Shut up! Fujiiii Ochibis being mean again."

"Saa, it happens. Eiji, whats up?"

"Well you see- " Unfortunately, the said statement was cut off.

"What are you all doing? 20 laps all of you!" Tezuka shouted.

"Ehh?"

"Kikumaru! Add another 10!"

Thus, the morning practice began for the tennis players.

--

After some harsh practice, the regulars were getting ready for school in the clubroom, which was filled with groans, moans, complaints, and mada mada danes. However, amazingly Eiji didn't utter a single word.

"Whats wrong Eiji-senpai? You're not like your usual self." Momo asked worriedly.

Silence.

"Eiji-senpai?" By now, the remaining regulars stopped their conversation and stared at the two of them.

"Eiji?" "Senpai?" "Eiji?" "Eiji, are you alright? Were you hit in the head? We should-"

"Oishi." A stern voice stopped the vice captains rant. But even Tezukas eyes were evident with worry towards the redhead. Then, one brunette placed his hand on Eijis shoulder.

"Eiji."

Flinching, Eiji suddenly spun around to see eight pairs of curious eyes staring back at him. "Fuji? Wait, why is everyone staring at me?"

"One, you haven't responded even when Momo yelled at you. Two, you blanked out. Three, you were swaying a little." Ryoma said indifferently.

"Hey! I didn't yell!"

"Fsshhhh you're yelling right now."

"Looking for a fight?"

Leaving Oishi and Kawamura to stop the two rivals, Fuji, Tezuka, Ryoma, and Inui questioned Eiji.

"Are you alright?" Fuji asked, his hand still on his shoulder.

"Eh? I'm fine. oh! Fuji I wa- "Again, Eiji was cut off, but by the school bell.

Oh craps filled the room this time as everyone rushed off to their respective classes. While running towards the third-year wing, Eiji tried again. "Ne, Fuji, you might find me weird saying this but-"

"Fuji! Kikumaru! You're late to class!" Shinohara-sensei called out from the classroom. "Hurry up, or I'm giving out detention!" With that, they both sped up and were in their seats in record time.

---

During class, Eiji tried passing notes to him, despite the fact that they were sitting next to each other. However, the teacher caught Eiji just as he was sliding it over.

"Kikumaru! What is this nonsense? First you're late to class, and now you're passing notes? Meet me after-"

"Sensei, the note wasn't from Eiji." Fuji intervened. "Here, you can see it yourself." He said, casually taking out one of the many fan letters he received daily, whilst hiding Eiji's note under his book. Shinohara-sensei opened it and immediately blushed, and handed it back to him. Though there was no name, it was crystal clear that it was written by a girl; judging by the big characters written in pink pen on a flowery note.

As the class went on, Fuji tried looking at the note secretly without being noticed. Just as he was about to open the second to last fold, the bell interrupted him. Not that he really cared, he went on opening the last fold but this time, Sakurada, a classmate, stopped him. Quickly hiding the note, he put on his smile and faced the boy.

--

Eiji, nonetheless, was frustrated. He had tried to get Fuji's attention since morning and nothing worked, he had seen Sakurada interrupt him. He had also seen someone running into Fuji, making him drop his stuff, as well as the note. The said note being thrown away from the same guy. Letting out an irritated sigh, he leaned against a tree with his half-eaten bento on his lap.

"Eiji, whats up? You seem annoyed." Fuji said, startling the said redhead.

"Fuji, I-I'm not even going to bother. Someones coming." And said person, Oishi, did come into view.

"Hi guys, you don't mind me if I join you do you?" Oishi spoke. Neither wanting to be rude, they nodded their heads, though wanting more than anything for Oishi to leave.

It was basically a casual conversation about the upcoming match, nothing serious. But to Eiji, he felt somewhat uncomfortable talking about his favorite sport for some reason, and Fuji seemed more tensed than usual.

--

During science, as everyone in their classroom was getting ready with their lab partners, Okamoto-sensei (in Japan, the teachers move to classes) suddenly announced that she was going to switch people up a bit. Thus, Eiji's plan of telling Fuji over the lab failed. Eiji's talk to Fuji would have to wait until afternoon practice. Eiji's partner was a quiet girl with glasses named Iwaizumi Yuzuna, whereas Fuji's partner was the schools ace soccer player, Hitomi Yuuto. Their labs weren't that bad, with an exception of Eiji messing up a few times and Yuzuna helping him, and Yuuto mostly talking about soccer while Fuji did most of the work.

Towards the end of class, Yuzuna asked, "Kikumaru-kun, do you mind if I ask something? Its more of saying but-"

"Eh? I don't mind, ask away!" Eiji felt kind of stressed, and if this was another confession, he wasn't sure how to deal with it.

"Well, its not a confession, er, sort of is-" Sigh. I knew it. "-but not in the romantic sense." Wow, thats a first. "Do you sense anything in Fuji-kun? I know its really weird, but theres something different about him these days-" At the moment, Eiji was at a loss of words. Yuzuna noticed his reaction and stopped.

"Iwai- can I call you Yuzuna-chan? Iwaizumi sounds too long." Without waiting for a reply, Eiji kept going. "I'm glad, I thought I was the only one who thought that. So it wasn't just me. Yuzuna-chan, out of curiosity, what exactly do you sense? I mean, I don't really know myself but I feel...um... ...dunno. Can't say it."

"Kikumaru-kun, I-"

"Call me Eiji. Everyone else does."

"Eiji-kun, then. Well-"

"Alright, class! Bells gonna ring soon, hurry and start cleaning up! Whoever finishes first gets candy!" Okamoto-sensei yelled. As if giving out candy would motivate soon-to-be Highschoolers, Yuzuna thought. She thought wrong.

"Yuzuna- Yuzu-chan hurry up! We have to get the candy!" Eiji spoke a little louder than usual. But if you look down, his hands were going at an inhuman speed to clean the lab equipments. Nonetheless, Yuzuna also cleaned up, making sure that the beakers didn't break and the pipettes were clean.

This was one of the few times she ever associated with Kikumaru Eiji, and each time, she seemed to forget his personality along with her experience from before.

--

A/N yay first chapter done! I'm really not sure how this is going to turn out, since I tend to ramble a lot in real life...Maybe Eiji was a bit OOC, but please don't think too deep about it. Also, this is NOT an EijixOC pairing and also not a dream pair pairing. But if yaoi fans are reading this, use your imagination. Its meant to be a dream friendship, though. Reviews would be nice, but if there aren't any, well, I will still intend to finish this...

If noone likes it, then, well, I'll take it off after I'm done :/

There's not much plot yet, 'cause this is still the intro. I was going to label this as a certain genre, which would describe this story well, almost too well, so this is going to be a friendship story...you all probably figured it out by now from reading above though. .

It's not going to be a very long story, I don't think, so the story may go pretty quickly.

P.S. If you want to correct me on things, feel free to PM me or leave a review, I'd appreciate it. English is my second language and I'm not that great with it. Thanks!

~SND~

P.P.S. first person to figure out the meaning of the title gets...I havent decided yet. I will once someone does.