"Oy, Echizen, you look like you've seen a ghost!" Momoshiro slings an arm around Echizen's neck and wags his finger in his face. "You haven't, have you? Is Viper hissing hard enough to make ghosts now?"

Echizen shrugs him off. "Che. Don't be stupid."

"Don't be like that," Momoshiro says, mouth turned down at the corners. "Tell your senpai all your problems, okay?"

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

Momoshiro kicks out, foot landing squarely on Echizen's ass. There's a dirty footprint stretching across the white fabric now. "Yeahhhh! Do it. I'll buy you ramen."

"Che." Echizen tugs down his cap, just as Momo throws his arm around his shoulders again. "It's weird."

"So? There's no problem Momo-chan can't solve! Remember that time those Fudomine idiots were trying to decide what flavor ice cream to get, and I told them to just get all of them, and they did? I have skills, Echizen. Mad ones."

Echizen shakes his head. "They had to have their stomachs pumped, Momo-senpai."

"Details, details. C'mon, tell me what's wrong."

Echizen sighs and tugs Momo's wrist, pulling him toward the clubhouse. "Fine, come on. But be quiet."

There's a small crowd forming by the door, all sorts of second years and first years crowding about and whispering insistently to one another. All of them look pretty traumatized, and Momo wonders if someone has been killed in there. Murder in the clubhouse! Scandal for the Seigaku Tennis Club! Oh, they'd have to disband, and then they'd never go to Nationals, and then Momoshiro would never get to be captain. He could see it all now.

"So much for keeping quiet," Echizen mutters next to him. "Hey, Kaidoh-senpai."

Kaidoh hisses his greeting, hands jammed deep into his pockets. He looks even angrier and uglier than usual, the dumbass snake.

"What crawled up your ass and died?" Momo asks cheerfully.

Kaidoh slugs his arm, hard, and walks away without saying a word. "I guess he saw, too," Echizen says as he shoves his teammates aside and reaches for the door handle.

"Don't go in there, Ryoma-kun!" Kachirou exclaims, grabbing Echizen's jacket sleeve. "It's horrible!"

Echizen opens the door anyway. "It is not. It's just weird. Come on, Momo-senpai."

Momo is filled with dread, just filled with it, as Echizen drags him down the short hallway and into the locker room. And with good reason, too: When they get inside, Momo's eyes are assaulted by the sight of Inui-senpai dressed as Santa Claus and Fuji-senpai dressed as...a human reindeer is the best way to put it. He has on antlers and fuzzy brown fur and a collar and wrist cuffs that, even though Momo isn't too familiar with reindeer, don't seem like they're regulation. They have studs. Oh, and Inui-senpai and Fuji-senpai are kissing heavily, tongues visible and all. It really says a lot about what Momo sees when that's just about the last thing he notices.

It's not even Christmas. It's not even December. It's fricking July, and two of his senpai -- two of his BOY senpai -- are making out in kinky costumes. Fuji-senpai, Momo notices suddenly, has a tail.

"What-- how-- why--?" Momo splutters.

Fuji and Inui, Fuji's arms around Inui's neck, turn to look at their new arrivals. They both look completely unsurprised by the interruption. "Christmas in July," Inui-senpai says, as though that's supposed to explain everything, even though it explains nothing, nothing at all. Momo starts to feel a little faint as Inui and Fuji start making out again. Next to him, Echizen mutters, "Told you it was weird." But he doesn't walk away; Momo gets that -- his feet feel glued to the floor.

"Inui! Fuji!" someone barks, and even though Momo usually jumps to attention at that voice, instead his shoulders sag with relief. It's Tezuka-buchou. Buchou will put a stop to all this, and everything will go back to normal. A sleigh bell somewhere rings, and it's not coming from Fuji-senpai or Inui-senpai or their sleigh. Terrified, Momo turns around. "You got careless and started without me."

Tezuka, for all his stick-up-the-assedness, looks pretty good in antlers. But Momo still feels faint.

"We've still got a long way," Fuji-senpai says, licking the side of Inui-senpai's neck.

Inui-senpai chuckles in that low voice of his, making a shiver race its way up Momo's spine. "Won't you ride my sleigh, Tezuka?"

"What about you two?" Fuji asks.

"I guess so. If Buchou's staying," Echizen says. "Momo-senpai?"

Momo shrugs. When in Rome...

"Excellent," Inui-senpai says. "I even have a spare reindeer costume, just in case someone felt inclined to join us. This isn't precisely the scenario my data indicated, but Momoshiro, you are approximately Kaidoh's size, so..."

Momo balks. "I am not. I'm much bigger than that idiot viper!"

Fuji-senpai smiles, sharp as a knife, and rings Inui's sleigh bell, once. "Really, Momo? Then prove it. ^_^"

And Momoshiro proved something, though what it had to do with Kaidoh's relative size is a story for another time, with more costumes and more participants. But, needless to say, they all had a very merry Christmas (in July) indeed.

END.