Cruising Together

Chapter Two

The same day, Poseidon’s Grace, third floor rooms, section A, room 306, ’s room, 10:48 a.m.

As stepped out of the shower, her cell phone rang. She quickly put on her robe and went to answer her phone.

“Good morning honey.”

“Morning otou-san,” replied with a smile.

“How is your week coming along?” he asked.

“Not too bad. I have been meeting with the other passengers that you have invited. Mainly the tennis teams,” she informed.

“That is good. I am sorry that I am not there to entertain them myself. I will be there next week so don’t worry. Work has been crazy. One of my lawyers pointed a very important problem and we had to fix it immediately,” apologized.

“It’s alright otou-san. I am having fun here,” his daughter said.

“I promise you, I will treat you to a huge shopping spree once I get there. I have another surprise for you,” said.

“What is it?” asked in a suspicious tone.

“I have invited another guest to the ship. I will not tell you who he is or else it would ruin the surprise,” her father said mysteriously.

groaned.

“You’re not trying to set me up with ANOTHER one of your business partner’s sons are you, otou-san?”

“That has nothing to do with the surprise guest that should have arrived today. While we ARE on the subject, did you see anybody that interests you?” asked curiously.

smacked her forehead. This was just like her father, trying to find out who his future son-in-law would be.

“Otou-san…” mumbled.

“Well, I should let you go. I have another meeting in a few minutes. I will call back later. Have fun!”

“Damn him…” she growled. She could almost picture her father with a cheeky smile on his face when he hung up.

“Should I be curious or scared to death?” she questioned herself as she looked through her closet. She picked out a basic black halter top and a pair of white cargo capris. She paired it off with a pair of black flip-flops. She tied her hair into a ponytail with a few strands of hair covering her face. She smiled and grabbed her cell phone and left the room.

~~~

The same day, Poseidon’s Grace, first floor, arcades, 10:48 a.m.

“Che, why did chibisuke have to be so tired for?”

Echizen Ryouga grumbled as he walked around the arcade room to see what games were offered. He really wanted to spend some time with his little brother since they haven’t seen each other after the incident with Sakurafubuki’s cruise ship.

“Come on chibisuke! Aren’t you glad that your older brother is here to see you?” Ryoga teased.

“Not really,” Ryoma yawned.

“Eh?? Come on now! I want to spend some time with you! Let’s go to the arcades and play something!” Ryoga persisted.

“I’m tired. I had a rough morning,” Ryoma replied as he lay down on his bed.

Ryoga scowled.

“Lazy. A little practice took this much out of you? How the hell did I lose to you?”

“He really did have a rough morning, Echizen-san,” Oishi insisted.

Ryoga rolled his eyes.

“Whatever chibisuke. I’ll see you later then,” he waved his hand and walked out of the room.

“O well. The arcade will make me feel better!” Ryoga said cheerfully as the glass doors automatically opened leading to the arcade. The loud sounds that were emitted by the individual games made Ryoga smile. He felt right at home as he walked around to see what games interested him. He suddenly stopped. It wasn’t a game that caught his eye; it was somebody that looked very familiar. He grinned and slowly crept behind them.

~~~

The same day, Poseidon’s Grace, second upper deck, pool side, 1:38 p.m.

“Dang! Old people are crazy! I almost lost an arm!” Gakuto panted.

“You would think that they would be patient enough to wait for the waiters to refill the food, but no! They just jump the waiters before they even reach the serving tables!” Shishido agreed.

The Hyoutei boys had just finished getting their food from the buffet line. They went during the lunch rush and met with the older generation who took up most of the space in the restaurants. The weather was really nice so the boys decided to take their food outside and sit by the pool. It seemed that everybody had the same idea when the Hyoutei boys arrived at the pool side, Seigaku and Rikkai Dai were already eating their lunch on their individual pool seats or on the tables. Marui was eating and chatting happily with Kikumaru. Yanagi, Niou and Yagyuu were sitting at the table with Inui and Fuji. Inui and Yanagi were reminiscing some of their past games together while Fuji and Yagyuu listened to Niou talk about the past pranks that he had done. The three second year students, Kirihara, Momoshiro, and Kaidoh, with Kawamura and Jackal sat on a different table. Kirihara has already gotten friendly with Momoshiro as the two teamed up and made fun of Kaidoh. The two older students sat beside each other with hopeless looks on their faces as Kaidoh got bombarded with ridiculous comments such as, “Neh Kaidoh! What’s with that face? You know you can’t get girls that way!” Tezuka and Sanada both sat on the pool chairs and were eating their lunch in silence.

“Marui! Whatcha eating?” Jirou asked as he ran toward his favorite tennis player. Marui and Kikumaru stopped their conversation and greeted the usually sleeping player with a smile. Jirou took a seat beside Kikumaru as the three started a new topic to talk about. Gakuto scowled when he saw that Jirou was happily talking to his acrobatic opponent. Oshitari patted him on the shoulder and started to walk toward an empty table beside Fuji’s group. Atobe gave a small sigh as he took a seat next to Sanada while the rest of the Hyoutei players sat with Oshitari.

“Have you guys seen Oishi and Echizen?” Fuji asked the neighboring table.

“Yeah we have, but it was a few hours ago. They were going back to their rooms,” Ohtori informed.

“I’m surprised that Echizen hasn’t starved to death yet!” Momoshiro laughed.

“He did look very tired, did something happen earlier this morning?” Oshitari asked with a curious look on his face. Fuji replied with his angelic smile and turned back to his table. Oshitari raised an eyebrow and shrugged his shoulders as he took a bite of his salad.

“I wonder if Echizen’s alright,” Kawamura wondered out loud as he poked at his mashed potatoes. He suddenly felt everybody’s eyes on him. He looked up to see that everybody’s eyes were indeed locked at him. ‘O crap’ he thought.

“So something DID happen to him,” Shishido commented. Kawamura sweat dropped. They were found out.

“It is not really anybody’s business,” Kaidoh sneered.

“Yeah! You guys are too nosy,” Momoshiro agreed.

“Che, Echizen got injured before the tournaments? He is really too carefree,” said Kirihara.

“It was an accident! Besides, it was all Inui-senpai’s fault!” Momoshiro defended. His face suddenly paled when he saw Inui’s head turned to look at him.

“Sadaharu? What did you do this time?” Yanagi asked his friend. He was not surprised that somebody in the Seigaku team was injured by his old friend.

Inui adjusted his glasses and whipped out his infamous green data book.

“The probability of Echizen drowning was a mere 3%, but I forgot to add Kikumaru and Momoshiro to the equation. Ii data…” Inui mumbled as he flipped through the pages.

Yanagi nodded in understanding while the rest of the players could only feel sorry for the first year player.

“Oy Tezuka. Should you really be letting your players fool around before the tournament?” Atobe asked.

Tezuka kept silent as he chewed on his baked salmon. Sanada also didn’t say anything and took a stab at his chicken. Atobe smirked and scooped some rice from his plate.

“Hey look! It’s Kuroban-san! Hoi! Kuroban-san!” Kikumaru yelled and waved his hand to the girl. She had just stepped out of the restaurant, with a plateful of food. She was looking around for a place to sit. She saw Kikumaru’s hand and smiled. She was quite far away from the team and slowly made her way through the crowd.

“Oh? You know her too?” Marui asked in surprise.

“Yeah nya! She was the one that saved ochibi from drowning!” Kikumaru replied.

“Echizen almost drowned?!” Jirou shouted. After hearing this, the entire Rikkai Dai and Hyoutei team looked at Inui. Inui ignored their eyes and continued to eat his plate full of different kinds of vegetables and making notes.

“So she saved Echizen. She also saved Kirihara,” Yagyuu said as he broke his stare from Inui.

“What happened to Kirihara?” Fuji asked with his eyes opened.

“Stupid kid almost died from a piece of cheesecake,” Niou said causing Kirihara to scowl. Momoshiro and Kaidoh laughed out loud after hearing this and making Kirihara flushes with embarrassment.

“Heh… that it is different with us. Kuroban-san was saved by Atobe,” Oshitari commented.

“Atobe-san actually helped somebody?!” Kirihara, Momoshiro and Kaidoh exclaimed in unison.

“No way! We missed it too!” Marui whined.

“Did any of you document it?” Inui asked.

“It would provide us with excellent data,” Yanagi added.

“It WAS a rare sight to see. Maybe you can ask the captain of the ship to give you a copy of the security camera that is in the gym,” Oshitari suggested and smirked.

Sanada and Tezuka were equally surprised, but neither one of them showed any sign of it. Atobe’s facial expression showed annoyance and frustration but held it down as arrived at the scene and greeted them with a bow.

“Eh? You boys know each other?” asked with an astonished look on her face.

The boys' sweats dropped.

“Kuroban-san… we are from rival schools. All of us play tennis competitively,” Kawamura explained patiently.

“Ah I forgot! I remember otou-san telling-err I mean, I heard Mishima-san talking about you guys! Ahahaha!” quickly said. She caught herself just before revealing her relationship with .

“Yes, that is how we all meet. Well, we all meet during different tournaments,” said Yagyuu.

“I see. That is a great way of meeting people, neh?” said with a smile. The boys gave her a confused look, then turned to their opponents with the same expression. They didn’t think that they would actually become friends after all those encounters of good and bad.

“I was actually looking for my friends. Has any of you seen them?” she turned to the three captains.

“No. We did not see them after Echizen’s accident,” Tezuka replied. Sanada nodded no.

“We have not seen them either after the gym,” Atobe shrugged.

“I see… well I guess I have to eat without them,” sighed.

“Kuroban-san, would you like to sit with us?” Ohtori offered and pulled a seat beside him.

“Really? Thank you! By the way, I don’t think I caught your name,” said with an embarrassed smile.

“Ohtori Choutarou. Nice to meet you,” Ohtori extended his hand and shook hers, “This is Shishido Ryou. He is my tennis doubles partner.”

“Nice to meet you both,” greeted as she took the seat that Ohtori pulled.

“Likewise,” Shishido replied.

“Where did you get that shish kebob?!” Gakuto immediately asked when placed her plate on the table.

“This one? Umm… I really can’t remember. It was all a blur. I just grabbed whatever I could before the older guests saw. Would you like to have it?” offered.

Gakuto nodded and took the stick happily from her. Oshitari shook his head and gave an apologetic smile, who replied back with a chuckle as she took a bite out of her pasta.

“So what is your relation with -san, Kuroban-san?” Yanagi asked causing her to cough while chewing. She looked at the other table where Yanagi was sitting.

“Well…” she trailed off as she tried to remember what had described her background earlier.

“ !”

A kiss was placed on her cheek and two strong arms hugged her from behind before she could turn around to look.

“What the?!” she exclaimed. Her face showed a sign of discomfort as she tried to wiggle her way out of the stranger’s grasp. The Hyoutei regulars on the table looked confused, while the other tables turned to see what the disturbance was all about. When they saw that somebody was harassing their new friend, they immediately looked at their captains. The three captains, in respose, quickly stood up and walked toward the struggling girl. Ohtori and Kabaji, who sat on either side of , looked at Atobe as if waiting for the go to jump upon the girl’s attacker.

“How’s my girl doing?” the voice asked. ’s eyes widened. She finally recognized the voice and stopped struggling. The stranger’s arms slowly released as turned around to see an older boy with green hair, grinning from cheek to cheek.

“Echizen-san!” cried and hugged her assailant. The Seigaku regulars froze in their tracks and looked at each other, while the Rikkai Dai regulars continued to walk toward the Hyoutei table.

“Now, you know there is no need to be so formal around me.”

The Hyoutei regulars and the Rikkai Dai regulars also froze upon hearing the boy’s name.

“Echizen?” Kirihara said.

“Oy, is he related to Ryoma?” Marui asked.

“I didn’t expect Echizen to have an older brother,” Oshitari added.

Yanagi looked at Inui who nodded.

“Echizen has a long distance relationship with his brother, Echizen Ryoga. We also just found that recently during another trip. A very strong tennis player,” Inui informed.

Echizen Ryoga stood in front of them with in front of him. He had his arms around her shoulder and was chatting happily. smiled and laughed often at what he was talking about. She suddenly realized that more than a dozen pair of eyes was watching her and Ryoga.

“Oh! Everybody, this is Echizen Ryoga. He is my-”

“Boyfriend,” Ryoga interrupted and saluted to the boys.

Not expecting his reply, the boys and gave Ryoga an astonished look as he continued to smile.

“Wait Echi-”

“Oh there you are!”

was interrupted by as she walked toward them with beside her. glared at the two. She had a feeling that they have talked Ryoga into joining their little game.

“Ah! -chan! I found her! And she is as cute as ever!” Ryoga said as he hugged again but with a tighter squeeze.

giggled as tried to claw her way out of Ryoga’s deadly hug. She was immediately silenced with the older girl’s ice cold glare. , who was obviously unaffected by ’s reaction, turned her attention to the other boys who looked dumfounded by the new couple.

“Well, I see that you already started lunch without us,” she commented.

Finally, released by Ryoga, immediately stomped toward , grabbed her roughly by the wrist, and dragged her to the other side of the pool.

“What the HELL were you thinking?!” hissed, after letting go of ’s wrist.

“My my, aren’t we a little rough,” said, while rubbing her wrist, which had turned red from ’s grip.

“Why are you making my life a living hell? I mean, come on! Echizen-san? My boyfriend?! That’s just… just… ARGH!” continued as she tried to restrain herself from drowning her best friend.

“Well,” shrugged, “It was getting a little boring around here so I wanted to make things a little interesting.”

“When you mean boring, as in the guys that you like are not that interested in you?” suggested. She received a dangerous look from . raised her hands to show a sign that she did not want to get rough with her.

“As I was saying,” continued, “To make things interesting, there must be drama, surprise guest! Lo and behold! Echizen Ryoga happened to bump into and myself when we walked past the arcades. And the rest was history.”

shook her head in disbelief.

“ …”

gave an evil grin. sighed. 

“This may just be more fun than I have expected.”

~~~

Babybel

Edited by Anon