Deafening Silence ( prince of tennis) (#wattys2016)

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Rikkaidai Fuzoku School Library

February 14th.

The most dreaded day of the year for the Rikkaidai Fuzoku regulars, because it meant three things: confessions, tidal waves of candy, and fan girls.

Lots, and lots of fan girls.

So it became a sort of tradition at Rikkaidai to cancel tennis practice on that one day, which came into effect after Yukimura, Sanada and Yanagi's first attempt at tennis practice during February 14th when they were all freshmen.

Needless to say there was no tennis of any kind done that day, and so the tradition had stood for two years now, and Yanagi could not be more thankful of it. Obviously the fan girls had skipped their various clubs too, which was also a sort of tradition at Rikkaidai, and so if you looked out into the corridors you'd see armies of fan girls patrolling the corridors like packs of wolves.

And that was why he was currently hiding in the library, the rest of the team scattered in various places. Yanagi had hoped the day would be normal, but of course it was Valentine's Day and no such thing would happen, and he hadn't even made it to the gates before an army of fan girls were after him, and if it wasn't for his increased training regimen he may have collapsed in his mad sprint away from the fan girls and fallen prey to them.

They had assembled for a brief meeting before hand, and Yanagi frowned as he recalled it.

The air was thick with tension as the regulars sat on the rooftop. Kirihara was twitching and glancing at the door occasionally in paranoia of rabid fan girls, Marui was twitching, not even blowing his usual apple gum. Jackal was doing the same, Niou was frowning at the ground, Yagyuu was as calm and collected as usual, except for pushing his glasses up his face every ten seconds. Sanada frowned even deeper than usual, his arms folded stoically, and Echizen...

Echizen didn't appear to care; since he was a freshman he had no idea of the horrors that would await him.

"Now that we're here" Yanagi began, "We need a plan"

"I think we should all just skip school and go home" Kirihara proclaimed, and everyone frowned at him.

"A good suggestion" Yanagi stated, "But I doubt we'll take a step out of school before the fan girls are upon us"

"So what are we going to do?" Niou asked, and Yanagi frowned.

"The first step is that during tennis practice and lunch we cannot split up, we need a rendezvous point, but it cannot be obvious either, so the sakura tree and the rooftop are off-limits" he stated.

"The clubhouse?" Marui suggested.

"Too obvious, they'll be watching the tennis courts at all times" Yanagi countered, and the team frowned.

"The library?" Jackal suggested.

"Also too obvious, we need somewhere quiet and secluded where they wouldn't think the tennis regulars to be" Yanagi deadpanned. They all shared a long period of silence, in which the regulars frowned in contemplation. Yanagi then noticed something out of the corner of his eye, and he looked up and noted Echizen was making signs, and Yanagi turned to Sanada expectantly.

"He says we will meet outside the music building by the small tree" Sanada declared, and everyone turned to Echizen curiously.

"Why there?" Marui asked, but Echizen simply ignored him, standing up, taking his bag and walking away.

"Oi Echizen, where are you going?" Kirihara called, but Echizen didn't turn back, moving to the door, opening it and closing it behind him. The group shared another silence as they watched the door incredulously.