Man, it's been a long time since I've posted anything! I would've had this up earlier but between grandparents, college, friends turning every line into porn and general laziness it took a bit longer than I expected. I hope the long wait has made it all the more sweeter. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Prince Of Tennis. It firmly belongs to Takeshi Konomi.

Chapter Six

It had been several days since the Incident (neither Niou nor Marui could think of it as anything else without blushing) but Marui and Niou were finally back on normal speaking-without-stammering terms just in time for Niou to get detention for speaking whilst the teacher was talking.

"Sorry for getting you in trouble, 'Haru." Marui apologised for what had to be the fifteenth time, pushing his slipping glasses up before quickly clinging to Niou's arm again as the Trickster guided him through the crowded hallways to the cafeteria.

"Stop apologising, Maru, I was the one who was talking. I'm just annoyed that I got detention today of all days, puri." Niou sighed with a scowl as he opened the doors into the cafeteria, glaring a group of first years out of the way so he could easily guide Marui.

"Don't worry, 'Haru, since it's Friday the opticians will be open until late. And if worse comes to worse then I can always get my contacts tomorrow." Marui soothed as they arrived at the table the rest of the team were sitting at, Niou helping him to slide on to the bench.

"I know, I just don't want to see you hurt anymore." Niou said as he vaguely gestured at Marui whose entire body had not managed to escape injury. Marui blushed slightly and shyly leaned against Niou.

"Thanks for worrying." He murmured as Akaya sniggered slightly.

"Aww, looks like Niou-senpai isn't so uncaring after all!" Akaya teased. Niou scowled at him over Marui's head.

"That doesn't mean I'm not revengeful, puri." Niou said lowly as he reached behind Marui so he could poke Akaya in the side where he knew the second year had a bruise. The seaweed head yelped and wiggled away from the older two and into Yukimura's arms. "Don't go trying to get 'Mura-buchou to punish me, brat, he heard everything and knows you deserved that poke. And speaking of 'Mura-buchou, I'm not going to be at practice today. I've got detention." Niou rushed the last bit, wanting to get Yukimura's anger over and done with as quickly as possible.

"That's alright." Yukimura said surprisingly calmly. "You can just join Marui tomorrow in making up for all the laps he's missed." Marui winced slightly at the reminder. Niou noticed the flinch and squeezed Marui's hand comfortingly.

"And we call Fukubuchou sadistic." Niou murmured with a wolfish grin into Marui's ear, the smirk turning into a genuine smile as Marui tried to stifle his giggles, laughing along softly with his friend.

"Where's Marui-senpai? Isn't Niou-senpai bringing him here so we can watch him?" Akaya asked, his voice slightly muffled by the shirt he was pulling over his head. He yelped as a button got caught in his hair, struggling violently to get it out and only succeeding in hurting himself more. Yukimura took pity on the boy and gently caught his wrists to stop him struggling and helping to get the shirt off.

"And that's why you always unbutton it first before pulling it off. Marui and Niou's last lesson today is Music and Marui has some theory to catch up on so he's staying there to do it whilst Niou's in detention just a few rooms down. They said they would meet up with us at Whirls after Marui's gotten his new contacts." Yukimura explained as he folded up the shirt and put it in Akaya's bag as the second year dragged on his tennis shirt. "I'm going out now. You might want to hurry up, Akaya. If you miss the warm up laps again then I'll make you run the make up laps with Niou and Marui tomorrow." Yukimura said as he started to walk out, grabbing Sanada's hand on the way. "By the way, that's 300 laps!" He called before the door shut behind him. Akaya paled and quickly scrambled into the rest of his clothes, only just remembering to grab his tennis racket as he ran outside, flattening a couple of first years on the way.

Friday afternoons were always the worse for practice. Not because nobody was paying attention due to the excitement of the weekend. That would've been easy to handle. No, Friday afternoons were the worse because Yukimura, anticipating slacking from a majority of the club members over the weekend, always pushed them twice as hard as usual. It really didn't help that, whilst a lot better than before, Yukimura was still in a snit over what had happened on Tuesday so they were working more like thrice as hard.

"Marui-senpai…and Niou-senpai…are lucky…" Akaya groaned as he collapsed to the ground when Yukimura finally allowed them a break, panting harshly as he flopped on to his back. He quickly inspected the water bottle that Yanagi handed him before nodding gratefully as he began to chug it down.

"Careful, Akaya, if you drink too fast, you'll make yourself sick." Yanagi warned though he was drinking his water just as fast. "If you feel that hard done by then just remember the amount of laps that Niou and Marui will have to do tomorrow. It is highly unlikely that Seiichi will allow them any rests." Akaya winced in sympathy for his senpai.

"By the way, that reminds me, why isn't Marui-senpai taking part in practice? I understand that if we make him go too fast then he trips but I saw him playing when that mean sub forced him and he was okay. Why doesn't he just do drills?" Akaya questioned, hauling himself into a sitting position so he could see Yanagi properly.

"Because we're going with the rule better safe than sorry." Yukimura answered. Akaya immediately jumped up and hid behind Yanagi, making Yukimura laugh. "Don't worry, Akaya, I won't punish you for taking a break on my order." Akaya slumped in relief as he came out from behind Yanagi. "Come on, it's not that bad, is it?"

"You're only saying that because you can feel your legs. And I still don't understand why Marui-senpai can't do any drills. We're all here to look after him so he would safer than around school and the only thing that he would be in danger from would be getting accidentally hit by tennis balls, which we're all in danger of." Akaya pointed out.

"Do you resent him getting out of practice that much?" Yukimura asked. Akaya shook his head.

"I don't resent him, I just find it a little unfair since you usually barely let us off when we have injuries or are ill and stuff." Akaya explained.

"Oh, that's because of…" Yukimura trailed off uncertainly.

"Because of?" Akaya prompted. Yanagi sighed.

"Just tell him, Seiichi. It's not that bad and Akaya can handle it." He said. Yukimura sighed as well.

"I know. I just don't like remembering how mean I was to Marui back then." He admitted, smiling slightly when Akaya's eyes widened disbelievingly. He knew the bluenette was sadistic but he usually only mean to bullies and kind to everyone on the team. "Okay, it's not like it's a big secret anyway so I might as well tell. You know how Marui has a small scar on the bridge of his nose? You assumed it to be a chicken pox scar since you have a similar looking one on your stomach but it isn't. He got it when he was pushed down some stairs." Akaya's gasp was ignored as Yanagi picked up the story.

"Marui had recently gotten some new glasses that fitted his face properly so he wasn't as clumsy as before. Whilst some like Niou were glad since it meant he didn't fall and get hurt quite so much, a majority missed their 'clumsy clown' and so took to tripping him and pushing him to get their laughs again. One day, somebody pushed him hard, not realising how close to the stairs they were. Marui was unable to regain his balance in time and fell down them. One of the lenses in his glasses got smashed, causing the scar on his nose, but nobody really cared about that since they were more worried about the fact that he had hit his head on the steps and then on the floor and wasn't moving. He regained consciousness several hours later in the hospital with nothing more than a headache and a sore nose. The person that had pushed him had whipped themselves up into such a frenzy that they were actually worse off than Marui."

"After that, Marui got contacts since his mother was worried about his glasses breaking again and hurting his eyes as well as just his nose. Since he no longer had no glasses to slip and bother him, his balance improved and for months afterwards everybody offered to carry any books that didn't fit in his bag just in case he fell on the stairs again so he could protect himself and some still check his shoelaces whenever they see him." Yukimura finished. "Basically, because of what happened in our first year, everybody is so worried of a repeat incident that they're reluctant to even let him walk by himself. If I let him play tennis then I would probably have half the year hunting me down." Akaya slowly nodded as he took all the information in.

"Okay, that makes sense. It also explains why you were so angry at me when I laughed when he fell down the library steps. Good thing he's getting new contacts today before he could seriously hurt himself." Akaya said as he drained the last of his water before standing up to go and refill his bottle.

"Careful, you don't want to jinx him. And after you've refilled your bottle, we're starting practice again." Yukimura said, laughing as Akaya groaned and near collapsed again. Forget about what he thought before, Yukimura wasn't kind, he was a slave driver!

Marui put his pencil down and stretched with a groan of relief as he finished his work, glancing quickly at the clock. There were only five minutes left until Niou's detention so he could just wait but Marui was feeling bored and restless.

'I've got enough time to drop this off at the Music office.' He decided, grabbing his bag and slinging it on to his shoulder as he stood before picking up his work, leaving the classroom and heading towards the stairs. The Music department was strange in the fact that whilst all the classrooms were on one floor, the office was on the floor above. Marui was a bit wary of using the stairs without one of his friends but there was hardly anybody left in the school so he knew he would be safe enough if he just kept a hold on the hand railing. Everybody else in the world could do it so so could he!

Niou felt like jumping for joy when the teacher let him out of detention early. It was only a couple of minutes but he would take what he could. Niou quickly started to make his way to the Music classroom but stopped when he saw Marui coming down the stairs at the end of the hall.

"Marui? I thought I told you to wait for me in the classroom!" Niou called out, cursing when he caused the redhead to jump. Even though Marui's hand went for the hand rail a moment later, it was too late. The damage had already been done. In that moment of surprise, Marui's feet had managed to cross themselves and he was falling forwards.

Marui gasped, closing his eyes and covering his head as the floor got way too close for comfort.

"Bunta!"

Marui opened his eyes in surprise as instead smacking into the cold and hard lino floor, he fell into warm and kind of squishy. The thing gave way underneath him but protected him as they both fell to the floor. As Marui regained his bearings, he realised the squishy thing was Niou.

"'Haru… Wait, why did you catch me? You could've gotten really hurt! Are you hurt? You haven't broken anything, have you?" Marui continued to fuss over Niou until the Trickster stopped him with a furious glare.

"What about you? You could've died, Bunta! I told you to stay away from stairs, puri." Niou blazed angrily. Marui's gaze slid to the side guiltily and Niou sighed, calming down a little as he pulled Marui into a tight embrace. "I know you want to be independent, Bunta, but you need to think and be more careful."

"I know, I'm sorry. It's just that…everybody else can use stairs by themselves and my balance is a lot better than two years ago so I thought, since there was nobody to trip me up, that I could…" Marui mumbled ashamedly.

"There might be no one to trip you but that also means there's no one to get help if you do get hurt. And you can use the stairs, you were perfectly fine on them until I called out but, whilst your balance is better, you still can't recover it as quickly as most people so you end up in situations like this. There's never any guarantee that they'll be nothing to distract you so at least tell someone, okay Bunta?" Niou said softly. Marui nodded slowly, suddenly glad that Niou was holding him so close since it meant his face was hidden.

"Okay… But-"

"But nothing! I don't want to see you hurt, Bunta!" Niou yelled, pushing Marui away so he could look at him furiously. His furious look turned into one of confusion when he saw that Marui was blushing brightly.

"I know that and I understand. I was just wondering why you were calling me by my first name." Marui murmured as he tried to hide his face by ducking his head. It was Niou's turn to blush and he turned his head to the side in embarrassment.

"A-ah, th-that…" Marui looked up at the stuttering and had to giggle slightly. It was so rare to see the normally cool Trickster so flustered that he had to take this amusement whilst he could. Niou heard the soft laugh and looked up resentfully. He opened his mouth to protest before quickly closing it as a calculating look passed over his face. Marui looked at him in confusion over the sudden change of expression before eeping as Niou suddenly surged forward and kissed him. Niou stayed there for several long moments before slowly pulling back, smirking when he saw that, not only was Marui twice as flushed as before, he was looking slightly dazed. "One: that's how to properly thank somebody. Two: that's also why I'm calling you by your first name. Now shouldn't we be going to get your contacts, Bunta?" Marui could only nod as Niou pulled him to his feet and began leading him away.

Whirls Café

"Mou, what's taking Marui-senpai and Niou-senpai so long?" Akaya complained as he sulkily sipped his milkshake. He wanted to see his redheaded senpai able to walk by himself and able to play tennis again. Yukimura soothingly patted his hair, smiling patiently at the second year who'd been asking the exact same question every minute for the past ten minutes.

"I'm sure they'll be here soon. You don't want them to rush, not put the contacts in properly and then Marui get hurt as a result, now do you?" Yukimura pointed out for the eleventh time. Akaya shook his head.

"No." He agreed with a sigh. Yukimura patted his head one last time before turning to have a sip from his own drink only to have it spill all over the table as Akaya suddenly jumped to his feet, waving his arms about madly. As Yukimura turned to get some serviettes, he looked over to see what all the fuss was about. He saw Niou and a glasses-less Marui walking towards the group, though he was surprised to see that Marui was holding Niou's hand.

"Hey guys." Marui greeted as he and Niou sat down, the duo still holding hands. "What happened here?" He asked as he looked at pool of orange juice on the table. Yukimura opened his mouth to answer but Akaya jumped in before he could make a sound.

"That's not important! What is is why Marui-senpai is still holding Niou-senpai's hand? Did you break your glasses in jubilation only to find out that they still didn't have you contacts or something?" Akaya asked. Marui blushed and shook his head as Niou smirked and took his hand from Marui's and instead put it round the tensai's waist. Yukimura blinked at the gesture before his eyes widened in realisation and he grinned.

"I'm going to get some more serviettes. I'll get some celebratory cake while I'm at it." Yukimura said as he squeezed out of the booth and made his way to the counter, unsurprised when he heard footsteps behind him. He placed the order before turning to Yanagi. "Go ahead and say it."

"I told you the 'a little birdie' story would hurry them along." Yanagi said as he grabbed some serviettes and handed them to his friend.

"Of course, you're always right. At least we didn't have to resort to waxing the stairs." Yanagi stayed suspiciously quiet at this. Yukimura looked at him sharply. "Renji!"

"Marui came out unhurt and, whilst 'a little birdie' certainly did hurry them along, this is what they needed to confess to each other before middle school ended." Yanagi said, holding his hands up defensively. Yukimura glared at him before sighing as he looked back over at the table, smiling when he saw Niou kiss Marui on the cheek.

"I suppose…" He agreed reluctantly, picking up his order and going back to the table with Yanagi on his heels. "By the way, Renji, at practice tomorrow…"

"Yes?"

"300 laps."

The End

A/N: And that's all folks! I hope you enjoyed it. It's personally not my favourite chapter but that might be because my friends managed to turn every line into something pornographic so now I just cringe. What are friends for, eh? Anyway, I hope you enjoyed Megane-chan! See ya!