Prince Of Tennis Fan Fiction ❯ Prince of Tennis: The Weekend ❯ Trip to the Store ( Chapter 2 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

Hey. Wake up.”


I suddenly felt my head throb, and I moaned, “Hrrn…leave me alone…”


“Wake up. Oishi-senpai, the bus is here already.”


“Atchi e ike, watashi wa nemutte iru...”


“Oishi-senpai! Wake up!”


I felt my body shake something awful. At last my eyes flutter open and I see Momo in view. His body was leaning towards me, and his hands were gripping my shoulders. He had this concerned look on his face that made me think that Momo was thinking something was wrong with me.


I made this guttural sound as I rubbed the tiredness out of my eyes. “What time is it?” I yawned.


Momo knew that I was the only one with a watch. So he took the arm with the watch on and looked at the time. “It’s almost six, Oishi-senpai.” He said.


“What happened?”


“You fell asleep. I didn’t want to disturb you.”


I nodded and was about to get up when I felt someone on my shoulder. I turned. It was Kaidoh, who was still asleep. He was snoring, too. I gave Momo a questionable look.


“I didn’t want to disturb him, either,” Momo said quickly. “You know how Kaidoh is. He’ll beat me up if I touch him.”


I told him, “I’ll catch up with you.” The second year nodded and left us. I turned to Kaidoh, who was still sleeping – and snoring – and gently shook him.


“Hey. Kaidoh,” I said, “Wake up. The bus stopped.” Kaidoh snorted and opened his eyes. He got off me and stretched his arms, yawning as he did so. Then his body curved over and Kaidoh rubbed his eyes.


“Where are we?” he mumbled tiredly.


I turned to look out the window. “I think we are at the local city district, Kaidoh.”


“Which one?”


“Osaka, I think.”


“Oh.”


I got up from my seat. “You feel alright?”


Kaidoh was still sitting down, rubbing his tired eyes. “Yeah, just…” he yawned, “…tired…”


“What time did you go to sleep last night, Kaidoh?” I asked him.


“I don’t know. I don’t have a clock in my room.”


I started to get concerned, since Kaidoh wasn’t one to act like this. But I shoved my hands into my pockets and kept quiet about it, while I waited for him to readjust himself. I knew that Momo was waiting nearby outside the bus; I gave him the hint that I would be out in a minute.


Soon Kaidoh got up and gave me the signal by nudging me in the side. I nodded at him and made my way out of the bus. I didn’t forget to pay the bus fare, though. I took out a 1000 yen bill, three 8 yen coins, and the numbered ticket I had with me out of my pocket and deposited them all into the small machine near the bus driver.


“Have a nice evening,” said the bus driver.


I gave him a questionable look, but I greeted him back nonetheless, “Okay. Have a nice evening.”


We dropped out of the bus, where I noticed right away that the sky was getting dark. I must have been sleeping in the bus for almost two hours. As the bus drove away behind us, Momo came up to us. He had been waiting at a bus stop nearby.


“Took you guys long enough,” he said. He sounded almost cheeky.


Kaidoh growled at the second year, but I put my arm in front of him to prevent any quarreling. “Hey Momo, be nice,” I said, my brows furrowing.


Momo shrugged flippantly and put his hands behind his bushy head. “Sorry. Anyway,” he said to us, “I think we’re in the Osaka district…”


“Hmm…”


I looked around in my surroundings. There were tall, and large buildings all over and there were advertisements being displayed in columns suspended over doors. They must have been advertising for businesses or something. The streets were alive and bustling with people, mostly those in our age or older. It was Friday, so it made sense that many of Osaka’s population were mostly teenagers; school must have ended at this time of day. People were walking on the sidewalks or crossing the roads, where vehicles of all kinds traveled from city to city, leaving a light trail behind. Because it was getting dark, some buildings decided to light themselves up so people can see through the darkness.


I said, “My parents sometimes go here…”


“They do?” Momo asked me.


“Yeah,” I replied. “This district is nearest to Seigaku… My parents often go here for shopping and other things…”


Momo took a brief look-around of Osaka and nodded. “I understand. I remember my parents took me here a few times.” He sighed.


“Did they?” I asked him.


“They don’t go here anymore, that’s the thing. They prefer the one near where we live. They prefer the plaza nearest to Seigaku.”


“Oh, I see-”


Suddenly I jumped when the sound of a car horn blared right behind me. The three of us looked to see who did it, and sure enough we saw a car rumbling behind me…and a very impatient driver.


“Hey! You over there!” the driver was shouting at us. The driver was a middle-aged man and obviously dressed for office work. I suddenly realized that by the tone of his voice, the man wasn’t happy about something.


“Who, us?” I said to the driver. I had to shout because of the noise outside in the streets.


“Yeah, you!” the angry driver shouted back.


“What do you want?” I asked the driver. The driver was shouting so loudly that it was causing a commotion. I immediately starting hearing voices in my head, and I saw that some people had stopped to stare at us. Momo and Kaidoh were feeling uneasy already.


“Well what are you doing in the middle of the road, baka?!” said the driver. “You’re causing traffic holdup!” I leaned past the driver and saw to my surprise a long line of cars, with drivers looking outside their windows and craning their necks to see what was going on.


I didn’t know I was standing in the middle of the road then. I looked down, and saw my feet were not on the sidewalk as I thought them to be. I apologized quickly and made a run for it. I was panting when I saw Momo and Kaidoh next to me. They had run, too.


“Smart,” Kaidoh was murmuring, “real smart.” He was annoyed that I had gotten the three of us into that mix-up, which was completely unintentional.


“Shut up, Kaidoh,” Momo hissed.


“Fshuuuu!”


“He y come on, you two, cut it out,” I said once I caught my breath. “Since we’re here in Osaka, I think we can go get something while there’s still time.” I decided to check my watch. It was about 6 pm. Maybe even past it. “I think we can try to get home before our parents notice we’ve been out too long.”


“Why do you say that, Oishi-senpai?” Momo asked me.


I fell silent. I remembered my parents discussing a trip to go to China, to visit some relatives. If I went back to their house and they saw me… I summed up my thoughts into two words:


“Nothing, Momo.”


We started walking, but on the sidewalk this time. The traffic on the road started going again, now that the three of us were out of the way. We were silent the whole way. We didn’t get far when I started stumbling, fingers pressed to both sides of my head. I felt dizzy all of the sudden. A lot of voices were swarming in my head. The immediate shock was so much; I would have kissed concrete if it hadn’t been for a pair of arms that caught me midway.


It was Momo. “Are you alright, Oishi-senpai?” he asked me. I looked him, then at Kaidoh. They both looked concerned for my well being, although Kaidoh was trying not to show it.


I managed to stand up with Momo's help, but my legs were shaking and I felt sweat trickle down my forehead. I groaned and covered my eyes with my left hand. “I’m alright,” I murmured. “It’s the city noise; too much outside.” I was about to fall again when I was caught. It wasn’t Momo, but Kaidoh.


“Fshuuuu,” Kaidoh hissed, “you don’t look alright.” He slung my left arm over his shoulders and he served as my support as the three of us walked down the streets. I’ve never known Kaidoh to do that. Maybe he was returning the favor for being kind to him.


“You look like you need a doctor,” Momo pointed out. It was true. I was sweating a lot, and my body was starting to shake. I was not weak enough to not walk, thank goodness for that.


“I… don’t… need… one…” my voice strained. “Get me…out of here…”


Too late. Everything turned black.



I don’t know what happened after that. I didn’t even know what was going on around me. But while I was drifting in darkness, somehow the voices and the noises… their numbers lessened. It seemed quieter… There were conversations I heard, but I didn’t know who was holding them. But two distinct voices… They were so familiar; I had recognized them at once…


“You shouldn’t have taken him here.”


“This is the nearest place we can go, Momo. What do you think?”


“This is a store, stupid! How can Oishi-senpai recover in here?!”


“Baka! There are lesser people inside! Have you been paying attention?”


“No…”


“Besides, if we decided to get a doctor, Oishi-senpai would get even worse.”


“But what if Oishi-senpai doesn’t get better?”


“Fshuuuu… I think he wanted someplace that’s quiet…”


“What makes you say that?


“He said to get him out of the streets…”


“Oh…”


I moved my head in the direction of the familiar conversation. “Momo…” I muttered, “Kaidoh…” I drifted towards the source, wanting to see them again. All I saw was darkness, still.


“How long is Oishi-senpai going to wake up? It’s almost 6: 30.”


“I don’t know.”


“You’re the one who brought him here!”


“I’m not intelligent like Inui-senpai! Blackouts last indefinitely!”


“What do you think ’indefinitely’ means?!”


“I don’t know, Momo…! I don’t know if Oishi-senpai is ever going to wake up…”


Even though all I saw was darkness and I, I heard the worried and concerned tones of Momo and Kaidoh. I wanted to see them so badly… “Momo! Kaidoh!” I cried. My voice echoed multiple times – the darkness was trying to mock me. But I refused to be let down. I kept on going, until I saw a burst of light nearby. My face lit up, and I hurried to it until I was engulfed by the light…


I woke up. I found myself inside what looked like a food store. The ceiling lights above were so bright I had to shield my opening eyes. Two blurred figures were standing over me. But as my vision got better, I saw two boys my age: One with a bushy head, and the other with a green bandana.


“Momo?” I was murmuring, “Kaidoh?”


Suddenly I was pounced on by surprise. “Oishi-senpai!” Momo was crying, “You’re alive!” He was hugging me, too, oblivious to the few people that were staring at us.


I was so light-headed that I blinked and said, “Am I in heaven?”


I heard a slapping sound as Kaidoh slapped his own face in disbelief.


“No,” said Momo. He let go of me. “You’re in one of Osaka’s food stores.”


“Really?” I said. I rubbed my eyes and felt how cold and numb my rear end was. I looked around and found I was sitting on the floor in a less populated area of the “food store” place I ended up in. “I haven’t noticed yet.”


“You were out for at least, thirty minutes.” Kaidoh spoke at last.


“Â kamisama…” I found myself mumbling as I got myself up.


I wiped the seat of my jeans and gave the store a look-around. The atmosphere was different from outside of Osaka’s streets. Outside there was so much things going on and it was very noisy, because of the vehicles and the people. Here inside the store…, it was calmer and time was much slower. There were aisles of shelves lining up in parallel lines like domino rows, displaying everything from food, to household items, to other things.


“So this is where you guys took me?” I asked Momo and Kaidoh, turning to them.


The two second years looked at each other and nodded at me.


“It was Kaidoh’s idea…” Momo said, wringing his neck. “I suggested we go to the doctor, but Kaidoh said no.”


Kaidoh cleared his throat, “I refused because I honestly didn’t have no idea Osaka had a doctor. I’ve never been here before.”


“You’ve never been here before?!” Momo said in disbelief.


“No, I haven’t! I’m sorry!” Kaidoh shouted back.


“Well, if you haven’t been to Osaka before, why didn’t you just shout for someone to call the doctor?!”


“There were too much people!”


“But Oishi-senpai could have died!”


I rushed in between the two rivals before that argument descended into an argument of fists. “Please, please, stop this fighting,” I said as calmly as I could, “I’m alive, and that’s a good thing. Now if Kaidoh had not been to Osaka, Momo, it’s okay. Don’t make a big deal out of it. I’m sure there’s a reason behind everything, right?”


Momo and Kaidoh looked at each other. I can feel feelings of strife toward one another, but my talking had lessened them. They turned to me and nodded.


I continued. “But since you guys thought of my safety, I wouldn’t be standing right now if either of you didn’t.” I felt my head with two fingers. The pain was almost no more. No more voices for me to hear. Well, almost no voices.


“I’ll go look around,” I said afterwards.


“Where are you going?” asked Momo.


“Medicine,” I replied, “for Inui’s flu.”


I shoved my hands into my pockets again, and went my separate path. I examined the aisles as I passed by them, eyeing the displayed merchandise. Most of the things I’ve noticed were food packages, and either dried or canned goods. I heard a growling noise and immediately touched my stomach. ‘Huh,’ I thought to myself, ‘I haven’t eaten for a while. I’ll go get something to eat soon.’


Despite my hunger, I passed the other aisles, looking for what I needed. ‘Hmm… I wonder if grocery stores have medicine on stock.’ After passing what seemed to be the seventeenth aisle, I looked up at the aisle bar. It was labeled ‘MEDICINE’ in black bold print. There was a number written in Japanese kanji next to it. I understood Japanese, so I understood that the kanji stood for ‘18’. Then I looked down. There were bottles and small boxes of medicine lining the shelves of said aisle with said label categorizing it. A satisfied smile crossed my lips. I had found what I was looking for.


‘Inui would be better in no time once he gets his medicine,’ I thought to myself. No, I wasn’t thinking of the juices Inui made. Although funny, I was beginning to think that it would not work at all. I walked into the aisle, browsing through everything with my eyes. Most of the medicine shown here were mostly for coughs and colds, like Tylenol while there were others for heart problems like Lipitor. Looking through all of those, I doubted they were fit for Inui’s flu. Maybe for something light if Inui ever got sick like Momo had told me on the bus, but definitely not for the flu.


‘Nope… nope… nope…’ I looked at and rejected every obvious choice. I stopped, though, at a peculiar looking box with an orange color, with touches of red. I inspected it thoroughly and discovered that it was more Tylenol cold medicine. I didn’t even care if the box had a little bottle in it, possibly carrying nasty-tasting liquid that cured colds. I put it back where I got it on the shelves.


‘Nope…’


I felt dejected. In a way, I even felt sorry for Inui, who had to lie in bed all day and night while his parents try their best to cure him. What depressed me even more was I was imagining all the medicine Inui’s parents had was the juices their son made for Seigaku’s tennis program. To my own surprise, I started to wish Inui would just get better quickly. Although I hated his juices, I suddenly felt a growing hole in my heart because of his absence. If one regular is absent in some way, and then it affects the rest of us as a whole.


‘So much for all the Inui-related inside jokes…’ I thought to myself.


My spirits lifted a little at once, however, when I found a red bottle that was out of place with the other medicine that was on stock. To my joy, it turned out to be a bottle holding pills – flu pills! “Yatta, I found it!” I cheered and proceeded to leave the medicine aisle. I was so happy that when I turned a corner to my left, I suddenly crashed into someone, and then I saw things clatter to the floor. They were mostly cans and packages of food, and the thing that were cans rolled across the floor.


I gasped, “Nantekotta!” and soon I instinctively dropped to the cold floor. The AC must have been running. “I’m so sorry! Let me help you!”


“It’s alright, nya~,” said the person I bumped into a few seconds ago. “I got it.”


But I had started picking cans and packages by the dozen. They held all sorts of things, like clam chowder and Vienna sausages. One of the packages I’ve picked up felt very cold as if it was frozen. Not wanting to look at it, though, I just pretty much assumed that it was frozen chicken – a whole frozen chicken. I didn’t want to be prodded into asking the stranger and offend him in the process. But whatever that was, I was pretty suspicious I felt something slightly greasy on my fingers.


‘Ew…,’ I thought.


“Where’s your grocery bag?” I then asked the stranger, not wanting to think about what I touched.


“I have two with me, nya~” said he. By the voice, I can tell it was a male, but it was too young-sounding to be a man. Maybe a teenager, perhaps?


I snapped to reality when I saw a brown paper bag in front of me. The stranger must have handed me one. I poured all that I had in my arms into that bag, not hesitating. I also used that same bag to pick up the last of the dropped items, because I have noticed the stranger had gotten more than half of the mess. I got myself up, picking up the bag by its paper handles.


“Here’s your ba-” I spoke when I caught sight of the stranger’s face. The stranger’s face was incredibly boyish with wide, energetic eyes, and red hair that was combed down to a downing outward curve on both sides of his face. There was also a single band-aid pasted on the right side of his face, on his lower spot of his right cheek. He still wore the Seigaku uniform from yesterday – jacket, pants and all; all blue and white.


“E-Eiji?” I almost stammered in surprise.


“Oishi?!” The person said Eiji replied, dropping his bag on the floor with a crash. He was lucky the bag didn’t tear and spill over.


I was standing in shock. I couldn’t believe it. My friend… my partner… I ran to Eiji and hugged him like no other could, almost to the point where I cried. I felt a pair of arms wrap around my waist tightly, and I heard Eiji beating me to it, crying first. No wonder my shirt felt so damp.


“Oishi!” Eiji was saying in my chest – I was taller than him. “I cannot believe you’re here!”


“I can’t believe it, either,” my voice almost whispered, broken from so much happiness. After hugging each other long enough, we let go and stood at arm’s length. Eiji, ever being the hyperactive, outgoing person, put my hands on my shoulders, jumping up and down on the floor.


“Nya~, I didn’t except you here, Oishi! How did you get here?” Eiji was saying excitingly.


I explained, “Momo told me you were out shopping. And I came here with Kaidoh and Momo by bus.”


“Oh,” Eiji drawled. He stopped jumping. “So Momo told you…”


“Yeah, basically…yeah. Did you really?”


Eiji wrung his neck, “I did go out, but the local grocery store in the local plaza near Seigaku had closed down. So I had to go to Osaka, which was near where I live.”


“What did you have to do?” I asked my friend.


Then Eiji grinned, “I had to buy groceries, nya~! Large family, you know!”


I knew Eiji had a large family. I had been his friend since kindergarten, and by then I had known he had a large family. “Isn’t one of your siblings in college?”


“Both my oldest brother and my oldest sister, nya~. They were considering studying abroad, but my mother didn’t want them so far away. So they had to go local instead.”


“Your mother didn’t want them to be jeopardized?”


Eiji nodded. “That…, and money. Mom’s touchy about safety, though, nya~!”


I chuckled, but not at Eiji’s last sentence. Eiji has mannerisms of a cat, even going far as adding ‘Nya~’ to almost anything he says. He was a bit eccentric, for a friend, considering the fact. But who can blame him? If Eiji had cat ears it would have been more amusing.


“So what are you doing here?” Eiji asked me.


“Getting medicine,” I replied. When he showed signs of confusion, I added quickly, “For Inui.”


“Medicine?!” Eiji exclaimed, “But Inui never gets sick!”


“He did a few times, Eiji. Remember?”


I kind of half expected the shorter boy to remember, but the times where Inui got sick were so far in between that Eiji couldn’t remember. Frankly, I couldn’t remember, either. But I did remember this time where I, Eiji, Tezuka, Kawamura, and Inui were second years. Inui had been writing down data analysis on the subject of human touch for a psychology class assignment.

I had to tell you, it was crazy. Inui was going around campus hugging everyone just to write down their reactions. Then it all stopped when Inui hugged this new second year named Kaoru Kaidoh. Kaidoh didn’t like it, but what Inui didn’t know was the person in question was sick with a cold. But what he also didn’t know was that it was possible to get a cold. So the cold, unknowingly, got passed on to Inui, and sure enough the regulars got a call that he was sick. It wasn’t Kaidoh’s fault; it was just that someone forgot to warn Inui about it. For shame, really.


“So Oishi, what did Inui get?” asked Eiji.


“The flu,” I said.


“The flu?!”


Eiji tended to be touchy about things. Or maybe that’s just me.


“Yup. Momo told me so on the bus earlier.”


Eiji began to wring his neck again. He was feeling sympathetic, at the least. “Gee, I hope he gets better. I thought he had medicine at his house, nya~!”


I didn’t bother to tell my friend what I had imagined as medicine. “Maybe he did,” I said. “But I’m just buying some flu medicine, just to be nice.”


Eiji nodded. “That’s good.”


“Well, let’s go look for Kaidoh and Momo, then,” I suggested.


“Momo and Kaidoh are here, Oishi-senpai?”


“Yup.”


“ What about O-chibi?”


I knew who Eiji was referring to. ‘O-chibi’ was the nickname given to our first year regular, Echizen Ryoma, by Eiji. I once asked him about that, and Eiji said Ryoma looked adorable. I didn’t ask anymore.


“Hmm… I don’t know about him; if there’s anyone who knows him better, it should be Momo. And I doubt Echizen would be out spending time somewhere except playing tennis or spending time at home with his mom and dad.”


Eiji made a pouty face, “Aw…”


I started sensing disappointment, so I tried to cheer him up by saying, “I’m sure we’ll meet him during the weekend. Come on.”


I started walking again. I heard Eiji pick up his grocery bags and hurry up to follow me. I was walking on the other side of the store, where I was between the aisles and those strange refrigerators that kept food and drinks chilled at a certain degree. I was looking in between the aisles to see if Momo and Kaidoh were in one of them. Eiji was silent the whole time, disappointed that Echizen, his favorite regular, wasn’t here in Osaka.


It kind of was a bit rare to have the usually bouncy third year that quiet. He usually acts like he had sugar three times a day, even though he’s a swell guy to keep around with you. To people who had just met him, it seemed that Eiji had a never-ending happiness. I get along with him well, but the only time Eiji was that quiet was the time where he made insensitive jokes, after Momo had unexpectedly left the team. Eiji had been acting so flippant about it he caused me to punch him. We didn’t speak for days until Momo came back.


After several minutes, I finally found Kaidoh in one of the aisles that was close to the store doors, browsing in what looked to be an aisle full of things related to pets. He was trying to get a can of pet food that was placed in a shelf too high to reach. I walked up to him, careful not to startle him.


“Hey, Kaidoh,” I greeted the second year.


Kaidoh stopped reaching and looked at me and Eiji. “Oishi-senpai,” he said almost tersely.


I brushed off the tone in his voice. “Eiji’s with me,” I said.


Kaidoh took a second look at Eiji, who was standing behind me. He waved briefly at him and went back to trying to get what he wanted. “That’s nice,” was what I heard from the second year.


“What are you doing?” I heard Eiji ask Kaidoh.


“Trying to get some cat food.”


He jumped up to reach for the canned pet food, but ended up being short of it. He landed on his feet, looking disappointed.


“What is the cat food for?” Eiji asked. All he got was an annoyed hiss from Kaidoh – “Fshuuuu.” –, and an elbow nudge from me.


“Don’t push his buttons,” I whispered to my friend. Kaidoh either didn’t hear me, or heard but pretended not to listen. I turned to Kaidoh.


I asked, “Do you need help?”


“No,” replied said person.


Even if I didn’t know I could, I heard him:


‘I want to do this on my own. I don’t want any help from anyone.’


I at once realized that he didn’t want the attention right now. Even though that, obviously, Kaidoh was still having some trouble trying to reach the high shelf. So I nudged Eiji on the side again, and said, “I’ll catch up with you.”


It served a cue for Eiji to leave first. I watched Kaidoh try a few times again to reach for the high shelf by jumping, before leaving, too. I wished that Kaidoh would let me help, had he been in a more relenting mood, but I knew how he was.


I took one more look at him as he jumped again, hand reaching for the pet food he wanted, but again ending up falling short. I left him to his own devices and walked out of the aisle, shoving my hands into my side pockets. Then, midway into the open hallway between the store windows where the door was and the aisles, I began to develop this feeling that I was missing something. I rummaged my pockets, and in my left one I only felt my money. Then I took out my hands and felt my back pockets for anything else. Nothing.


‘Hmm…I feel like I’m supposed to be getting something…’ I thought to myself.


But then, suddenly I remembered:


“Uh-oh…”


InuiR 17;s flu medicine!


I ran back to the medicine aisle, where I found the red bottle. I began pushing boxes and bottles out of the way, inspecting every part of the shelves, and digging through other things to see if I had forgotten it. “Nope, nope, nope…,” I muttered. Despite repeated searches, the red bottle wasn’t there. I also began searching for a replacement – another one like the red bottle. But it turned out there was only one red bottle.


I stood up and took deep breaths, running my right hand through my very short hair and what little traces of bangs I got. ‘Oh man… did I lose it?’ I wondered. Sighing dejectedly, I turned and walked to the other end of the medicine aisle, where I turned a left… and remembered again:


‘Wait a minute… When I bumped into Eiji, I was carrying the red bottle…’


It was then I realized that I had must have left the red bottle in one of Eiji’s grocery bags by mistake. I turned around and ran back the way I came from, but this time I turned to the right, and back near the entrance of the store, where there were about three checkup points where people buy their things. There weren’t many people left since it was almost late, but I scanned the checkup points for Eiji, wondering which one he is in. Something beeped, and one of the lines moved. I stood on my tippy toes and narrowed my eyes toward that line. I saw a flash of red hair…


“Eiji!” I called.


Some people looked in my direction, but I didn’t care who heard me. A redhead immediately popped out, and his face beamed up when he saw me.


“Nya~! Hoi, hoi, Oishi!” Eiji called back, waving one of his arms. I glanced at the moving checkup runway where people put their groceries on, and I recognized one of Eiji’s groceries.


“Eiji, can I ask you something?” I asked.


“Sure,” my friend replied when he noticed how anxious I looked, “Is something wrong Oishi?”


I walked up to the line where Eiji was standing and said, “Actually, I’m looking for something. It’s Inui’s flu medicine.”


“Flu medicine, huh?” Eiji asked me. I nodded.


“It’s in a small red bottle, about this big.” I put out my hands in front of me and cupped them around some empty space, so Eiji can get some clue. Said person began to rub his chin thoughtfully.


“I think I did see you carrying it, Oishi,” said Eiji. “But you were running so fast I didn’t know…”


Suddenly someone shouted rather rudely, “Hey, you there! You’re holding up the line!”  We both turned and saw a small line of impatient people behind Eiji waiting to get a move on.


“Who said that?” I wondered out loud.


“I did!” said a middle-aged man, wearing casual clothes and a ratty-looking sweater, “Now hurry up!”


Eiji threw at the man a rather insolent raspberry and turned away, walking forward up to discuss prices with a nice young-looking lady working as one of the cashiers. I turned away in silence, for it was the second time I had been yelled at. I decided to wait aside until Eiji was done with buying what he needed.


‘Kids these days…,’ I heard the man think in a grumpy mood, ‘…They have no respect for elders…’


I sighed again, letting my mood drop a little low while I shoved only one hand in a pocket. I decided to watch Eiji pack his groceries up and have the cashier accept payment in yen. Several minutes later, the redhead took his groceries and bounded over to where I was standing.


“That guy was rude,” he muttered.


I nodded in understanding. Then, “Do you think the flu medicine is in either of your bags?”


“I don’t know…,” Eiji replied. “Let me check.”

Before he could go do anything else, though, we heard a noise that sounded like a crash. Eiji and I turned our heads to the aisles, because it seemed to have come from there, and saw what looked like a pile of boxes spilling Styrofoam and other things from them. Several people turned their heads and I heard a few gasp.


“Cleanup on aisle twelve,” said a voice from the intercom, “cleanup on aisle twelve!”


“Eh?” I heard Eiji wonder, “That sounded like something fell.”


I turned back to Eiji. “Do you think something might have caused it?”


Eiji moved to a different standing place and stood on his tippy toes. “I don’t know,” he said, but then, “Hey Oishi, is that Kaidoh over there?”


“Kaidoh?” I wondered and turned in his direction. I moved to where my friend was standing and sure enough, I saw something green. I gasped, “That is Kaidoh!”


I started on my feet towards the aisles, Eiji following me not far behind, though he had to take his groceries with him. Poor guy. We soon arrived at the aisle numbered “twelve” and I suddenly realized that “twelve” was the pet aisle! What surprised me even more was the mess in the place – Styrofoam and tennis balls all over the place; dog bones rolling pell-mell on the floor; cardboard either dented or crushed.


We looked down at the floor and sure enough, I saw that Eiji was right; Kaidoh was here. He was lying on the ground on his stomach, body half buried in store merchandise, boxes…, and Styrofoam. Couldn’t have enough Styrofoam. “Kaidoh,” I said to said person on the ground, “you alright there?”


Kaidoh lifted an arm and planted his hand on the ground, serving as his support as he tried – at least – to get up himself. “Fshuuuu,” he hissed at us.


I looked at Eiji and he looked at me. I turned to the mess and I began helping the second year by going to his side and tossing boxes to the side. “Can you help me, Eiji?” I asked of my friend.


“Sure.”


I heard him drop his groceries on the floor, again, and he rushed to help me. We picked up the falling things by the dozen, throwing them to the side; the boxes were a bit hard to carry because they felt heavy with all the things in there once we picked them up. Once that was done, I rushed to Kaidoh’s side and helped him stand by pulling him up. I grunted with effort while doing so. Oh god was he heavy!


Eiji saw me and helped me with that as well, and soon we had Kaidoh standing on his feet again…albeit in a wobbled way. The second year kind of stumbled into the shelves behind him, and hands grabbed onto the shelves to serve as supports. I walked up to him.


“Are you alright, Kaidoh?” I asked him.


“Fshuuuu,” Kaidoh hissed again when he flinched in pain, applying a hand to his head, “Â kamisama, my head…”


“What happened to him?” Eiji asked me.


I was spared from responding because I was going to ask Kaidoh the same thing, and he had answered, “I had been trying to get the cat food on the shelf, but I couldn’t because it was too high. After you guys left, I found some boxes and I tried stacking them. But when I climbed them the boxes became unstable and I fell.”


I cringed at his current misfortune. “And you hit your head,” I added.


Kaidoh fell silent. ‘Yes,’ I heard him think.


I turned to Eiji, whose face bore concern. “It’s not your fault,” I said back to Kaidoh. Then I asked, “Where did you find the boxes?”


The second year turned to the other end of aisle twelve and then, to our surprise, a red two-wheeled hand cart wheeled in by itself. I raised a brow at that, but I supposed that that was where Kaidoh got the boxes from. “I got them from there,” said he, proving my suspicions.


I sighed and turned to the mess, running my fingers through my short hair. “Alright, let’s clean up this mess before some employees see us and think we caused it,” I said.


----++++++----


A/N: Hey, Oru here – first timer at MediaMiner. Sorry if I hadn’t included notes on the last chapter, since I’m new and site had a broken rating system ‘til now (still clueless about the editing system here!). But hey, I’ll assure you that things will be better once I get settled.

I wasn’t much of an anime lover because of its widespread popularity and pretty much mostly almost everyone was doing anime. And since I was born an artist rather than a writer, I wanted to be different. I was introduced to anime Prince of Tennis last year in 2010 when I saw my mom watch it, since she used to be a tennis player in her school days and it brought her so much nostalgia. At first I was “Pfft. Whatever.”, but soon I had to admit Prince of Tennis was a good (if not goofy) series.

I wanted to write a story about them, soon enough, and I had this very good book I got from Borders called The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester. I love good stories, especially about kids with special abilities, and I thought it would be good for an anime whose main cast consists of teenaged tennis players, and there were a lot of concepts that would fit the plot. Maybe you could say I kind of jumped the bandwagon.  (^__^)

Sorry if the characters in this story are acting a bit OOC in this and the last chapter. Constructive criticism is always welcome. I will not welcome flames though!

---

And also, if you had been wondering what the Japanese words in this chapter and the last one meant, here they are:

Atchi e ike, watashi wa nemutte iru... – “Go away, I’m sleeping…”

Baka – “Idiot”, whichever you prefer.

 kamisama – “Oh god.”

Nantekotta! – same as above, but in exclamation mode

Yatta! – rough translation is “I did it!” or “Yes!”. It is mainly an exclamation of triumph when you did something good.

Chotto – “Hey.”

Hai – “Yes.” I’m sure most of you know this by now.

Watashi ni kiite kudasai – “Listen to me.”

Sore wa hijô ni zan'nenda… - rough translation is “That is very bad…

Converting /tmp/phpDzyz0D to /dev/stdout