Mizuki comes to see Yuuta play; so does Fuji; a little silent competition ensues.
He’d never really taught Yuuta anything about managing people; he’d never had to.
Fuji
Yuuta plays some with Fuji and they wind up discussing Mizuki.
And Mizuki-san looked at him differently, too, which Yuuta wasn’t going to say because he didn’t know how to describe the difference. At least not so that Aniki wouldn’t have a heart attack.
Tezuka watches his newest warrior and wonders about him.
Kaga would be a good place to see Echizen’s real mettle. Kunimitsu’s mouth tightened.
Echizen’s form was beautiful. Deadly.
And wrong.
The start of the new year gives Fuji some new problems to deal with. Yamato-buchou is his mildly evil self.
Shuusuke regarded the lineups for the first ranking matches of the year as though the board might bite him.
Michael taunts Belial about winning and Lucifer gets involved.
"Hah!" Michael took his opportunity, as the teams filtered past each other on the way out of the stadium, to taunt Mad Hatter. "Told you we’d kick your asses."
A Belial and Fuji moment.
Shuusuke took a precautionary step backwards. "Is there any particular reason I should ignore a friend’s warning in order to talk with you?"
Lucifer passes through Seigaku and Hatter spots Fuji.
When the Lord of Hell and what had to be his strongest supporter appearedat the courts, Kunimitsu took a prompt and firm hold of Fuji’s arm.
Karupin has some issues with Ryouma’s new realm.
Echizen Ryoma had two loves in his life. (Actually, he had three, though he would never admit it, at least not until the said third love stopped playing so damned hard to get.) Anyone from the Seishun Senior High tennis club could tell you the first one: tennis. Any of them could also tell you the second: his cat. So no one said anything when Karupin started to tag along on some of their practice days.
Pet Shop of Horrors crossover. While visiting the US, some of the tennis boys come across an unusual pet shop. This evolves, as such things do, into some strange situations for a few of them.
If anyplace could hold the interest of his senpai when they were determined to play tourist, he’d figured Chinatown would be it. Something was always happening.
Atobe is rather tired of Tezuka brooding, and decides it’s time for another conversation with Fuji to see if the problem is amenable to a swift kick.
He couldn’t believe Fuji had misread Kunimitsu that badly. No, wait, he could believe it; after all, it wasn’t as though he hadn’t known plenty of intelligent, talented individuals who where, nevertheless, gifted with the people skills of dried seaweed. It was just that he expected this kind of thing from Ryou, not from Fuji.
Fuji visits Rikkai, hoping Yukimura can explicate a few things for him.
“Fuji,” Seiichi sighed, running a hand through his hair. Still, he had been trying to wake Fuji up for years, now. Something he suspected Fuji had recalled, too.
Fuji, slowly, learns how to be cared for; fortunately, Tachibana is patient.
“What?” his friend asked. “It’s obvious that you never let your temper go unless someone provokes you intolerably. You certainly never lose it on your own behalf.”
Upon meeting again in the hospital, after Seigaku plays Rikkai, Tachibana decides Fuji could use a friend outside of tennis.
He’d been told before, most notably by his little sister, that he worried too much. But he couldn’t shake off a feeling of responsibility for this injury.
Atobe and Fuji have a chat about possessiveness.
“If you objected I would expect it to be because you thought I was a threat,” Atobe said, elliptically. “And if you thought I was a threat, I would expect you to carve my heart out and never lose that smile while you did it.”
