Title: Lessons of Loving

Author: DnKS – giRLs

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: RyoFuji

Disclaimers: … (fill it yourself!)

Warning: you know it's sappy yet you still come so far to this chapter… should we warn you?

Chapter 9 – Epilogue

Fuji hummed softly as he dressed. He was so happy that morning because his job had finally been done and Ryoma had agreed to have a lunch together with him after he finished his tennis practice. With a swish he ran his fingers through his hair. He thought of tying his hair up in a ponytail to protect it from the harsh wind that was blowing outside. And when he was just about to tie his hair up, the rubber band slipped from his fingers and fell somewhere underneath the bed. With a soft curse he dropped to his knees and reached his hand forward.

He frowned when his hand touched some flat, hard object. He did not expect to find anything else that his innocent piece of rubber band under the bed and yet he felt something. Feeling curious, Fuji then extended his hand more and grabbed the hard object…

… Which soon appeared to be a paper bag filled to the top with some kind of books.

Fuji remembered it was the bag that Ryoma had brought home some previous days back, something he called as his 'resources' though he did not know what was the meaning of it. Thinking that it would do no harm, Fuji took one of those books filling the bag and casually flipped through the pages. His eyes widened at the realization of what the book actually was and he blushed a little. The smile plastered on his face was something that could not be described whether as amused or evil when he said in a breathy voice.

"Oh my God, Ryoma…"

Echizen Ryoma walked to the tennis court with a satisfied smirk on his face. His mind was unconsciously replaying the events that took place on the previous night between him and Fuji. He wondered if that lamp was still 'flickering like mad' now but again, why did he care? When night came, he wouldn't have time to look for the lamp if he had Fuji sleeping beside him…

But how could he see Fuji if there was no light source, he mused.

When he was still in his musing, he bumped to something. There was a crash and a string of soft curses spoken in Japanese and Ryoma in confusion finally took notice of his surroundings. He found out that he was sitting on the cold cement floor with so many books scattered around him and a fuming girl in front of him.

"Lucy?" he addressed the girl.

"Next time you're walking, Echizen Ryoma," Lucy said in annoyance. "Could you please use your eyes to see and your brain to process what you're seeing?"

"Sorry," Ryoma said as he helped the girl to stand and then collected the scattered books around them. "My mind was wandering off."

"I can see that," the girl said with a smirk. "So, how did it feel?"

"Huh?"

"You did it with him last night, right? So, how did it feel?" Lucy asked him casually which made his eyes widened.

"You know?" he said. "Don't tell me you have installed a camera in my room only to see us together!"

"Ryoma, sorry to say this, but you have such a poor imagination," she sighed. "Well, at least you're better than Kevin. Oh, and by the way, he wanted me to tell you to meet him up in the court as soon as possible or he would burn your house down."

"Tell him I don't have any house, just a borrowed apartment room," Ryoma said. "And what are you doing here? School is having holiday now, right?"

"Well, to congratulate you, of course…" Lucy said.

"Are you sure you did not install any camera in my room?" Ryoma asked suspiciously.

"Stop flattering yourself, young man," Lucy said. "I just come for these books. And you better go because I don't want you to be a homeless guy though you said you did not have one."

"Ah, right," Ryoma smirked. "Kevin is so dense that he doesn't know the differences between a house and an apartment room."

"Exactly," Lucy said with a smile as she walked away.

Ryoma only snorted as he too walked away to the opposite direction from the girl. His feet brought him to the tennis court where one fuming vice captain was waiting for him. It seemed that Kevin almost could not stop himself from running to him and beat him senseless though Ryoma could not understand why.

"You're late!" Kevin said when Ryoma was already standing in front of him. "I've told you that starting from today on, we would have practice started at seven!"

"Ah," Ryoma said. "I forgot."

"You forgot!" Kevin screeched. "I bet you too forgot that you're supposed to have a special training to master that serve our coach had told you to do."

"Ah," Ryoma said. "I did."

"You did!" Kevin screamed. "You did forget and bloody hell, Ryoma, I bet you did it with him last night so that you can easily forget!"

"Ah," Ryoma said then his face turned white as the meaning of those words Kevin had spoken hit him full force. With wide eyes he screamed, "How the hell could you possibly know?"

That was something akin to wonder in Ryoma's mind. How come Kevin, someone who was so stupid that he even could not distinguish the differences between a house and an apartment room, know about his and Fuji's nighttime activities? He was not that transparent, Ryoma thought, right…

Kevin only snickered, "Lucy told me."

"When?" Ryoma demanded.

"Before you came," Kevin said. "That girl said she had a strong premonition that you had done it yester night…"

"Is she a seer or what?" Ryoma grumbled and that time, their coach finally took notice of the two of them chatting like carefree guys on the side of the court and shouted at them. Ryoma and Kevin winced and without further words marched to the court. They then began their session of practicing though Ryoma kept having his mind distracted so that he could not master the serve that his coach had just shown him some preceding days back.

That seemed to put Kevin on the edge of his patience because he was Ryoma's partner at that time being and he had had enough share of being hit by those tennis balls. When, once again, Ryoma hit him with his umpteenth miscalculated ball, he fumed and did nothing but screaming at Ryoma to just serve right already.

Ryoma was not a bit happy hearing and seeing Kevin fumed at him. He just could not seem to accept the fact that Lucy and Kevin had already known about his… well, accomplishment before he told them. He could not be that easy to guess, right?

Kevin screamed again when a ball flew really close to his face, though Ryoma guaranteed he aimed the open space in front of Kevin's feet, and swore. Ryoma gritted his teeth. That was the end of his wit. He thought if Kevin really hated having those balls passing so close to his face, why did he not just hit that smug face of his partner, anyway?

He corrected his stance and served the next ball, aiming right to Kevin's face. But the ball miraculously curved and landed in a perfect twist on a perfect place. He blinked and that time, they both heard their coach's ecstatic voice shrieking, "Oh my God, you did it!"

Ryoma dropped his racket and his face went white. He stared wide-eyed at the happy face of their coach and he needed a full minute to realize that the 'you did it' his coach had said was meant for his successful attempt at the new serving technique and not for his successful attempt at bedding Fuji.

Meanwhile in a faraway country called Japan, one Tezuka Kunimitsu was having an afternoon tea with his newfound boyfriend named Atobe Keigo when suddenly he remembered something.

"Fuji called me today," he informed the man in front of him.

Arobe frowned and placed his cup of tea back to the table. "For what purpose?"

"He just wanted to inform me… and you, about the fact that he is seeing someone right now," Tezuka said.

"Hmmm…" Atobe said with his smug smile. "I knew it."

Tezuka frowned and so Atobe continued, "My insight is strong and never missed…"

"So you also know about the fact that he's seeing our Echizen Ryoma?" Tezuka questioned.

"Ah," Atobe smirked as she sipped his tea yet again. "I knew it that they belong to each other…"

"And the fact that Echizen took the dominant role?" Tezuka tried again and that time he only had a little moment to grab some sheets of tissue from the box on the table before Atobe spurted his tea in a very graceless manner. He watched in calm satisfaction at his proud boyfriend's face that revealed pure shock and smirked.

"That…" he said as he helped Atobe wiping the hot liquid from his face with the tissues he grabbed earlier. "… was my reaction exactly…"

- the end -

(A/N: it's done! And oh my God, we love torturing Ryoma till the end of the story…we're thinking of making a sequel of this fic, and we planned to make drabbles for the sequel, but please be patient to wait for it, because we have several projects ahead from this fic's sequel. Anyway, we hope that you enjoy this fic as well as we do, and please don't forget to review! Thank you for reading this fic!)