A/N: Okay, be nice! This is my first story, so creative criticism is welcomed!

So basically, this story is about Eiji and an OC meeting and falling in love with each other. Well then, let's see how that turns out, eh?

Kumiko's POV

Sakamoto Kumiko was the captain of the Seigaku Female Tennis Team. She was the undefeated woman's champion and had lead her team to the Nationals many times before. She used to have dark brown hair, but dyed it a rather electric blue colour and had pink streaks of hair around her head. She used to wear glasses, but adopted coloured contacts. The colour of the contacts usually depended on her mood.

That day, she deceided to wear purple contacts.

She had a sharp nose, and a rather full but sweet-looking mouth, that when turned into a smile (sadistic or happy, no one cared) could light up a room. She was popular with the guys, got good grades, and was probably one of the most outgoing and well-liked people in the school. So why couldn't she just admit her feelings to that guy?

Kumiko has had a crush on Eiji Kikumaru since the day she had accidentally spilled sauce onto that 2nd year, Uchiro Tetsuya.

(Flashback)

Sakamoto Kumiko was the new girl in Seishun Gakuen, only a freshman and had only been there for two weeks. Sadly, she still didn't have any friends, as she was a rather mousey girl and had never any knack for talking to people.

She had just ordered her food and set her tray on the table when a group of rowdy 2nd years pushed past her, causing her to crash into her tray and cause a little bowl of sauce to splat onto the back of the 2nd year behind her.

The back of the 2nd year stiffened, and a hand reached back to touch the substance on his back and see what it was. When he realised it was soy sause, his entire face transformed into a face full of anger and annoyance.

Turning around, he stood up and asked in a booming voice, "Who dared to throw soy sauce onto me, Uchiro Tetsuya's, t-shirt?" Kumiko raised her hand timidly and shrank back a little when Tetsuya's gaze hit her.

Upon realising that it was the new girl that hit him, he leaned down and asked her menacingly, "Do you know what you have done?" Kumiko was too scared to answer, and only nodded. "Well then, what are you going to do about it?" He continued. Kumiko bowed, a little shakily and stuttered, "Go-gomen nasai!".

"Bitch, do you think by saying 'gomen' I will forgive you?" Tetsuya raised his voice. Kumiko shrank back more, the backs of her legs touching the table behind her. "Do you?!" Kumiko shook her head 'no' and closed her eyes.

"Well then, I guess that settles it," Tetsuya said with a smirk."You're going to give me 5000yen and pay for the dry-cleaning, as well as wash my tennis uniform everyday after school for the next month!"

Kumiko gasped, and for one short moment she felt a blast of fire within her, and she looked Uchiro Tetsuya in the eye and said, "What if I don't want to? Huh? What then?" Then realising what she had said, she covered her mouth in complete shock.

Tetsuya was stunned for a moment, and then realised that she had talked back to him. His face contorted with anger, he raised his hand, ready to slap her when a hand grabbed his arm and said, "Stop it Tetsuya-senpai. You don't want Yudai-buchou to kick you off the regulars for that, right?"

Kumiko looked at the person who had stopped Tetsuya and saw a red-headed first year holding on to Tetsuya's arm."Eiji, don't fuck with me right now. I'm very upset." Tetsuya warned the red-head and turned back to Kumiko.

"Now, is that the kind of language you're supposed to use in front of a lady?" Came another voice. 'Saved – again.' Kumiko thought wiith relief. Tetsuya paled and looked behind him. "Y-Yudai-buchou!" Next to the red-head now stood a tall, black haired guy that had a rather powerful aura about him.

Yamato smiled at Kumiko, and then looked at Tetsuya and said sternly, "Tetsuya apologise to her now." Tetsuya reluctantly turned to Kumiko and said sorry to her. "Now go and run 20 laps around the courts. "Hai, buchou." Tetsuya turned and started to run when he heard Kumiko call his name.

"What?!" Tetsuya turned to look at her irritably. Kumiko said, rather bravely, "Give me your shirt after school and let me wash it. It's the least I could do since I dirtied it first." Tetsuya looked surprised and choked out a weak "Hai" and started to the courts in a rather dazed manner.

"Thank you so much for helping me out just now!" Kumiko turned around and bowed at the two tennis players. "It's no problem." Yamato replied. "Don't mind, don't mind!" Answered a preppy Eiji. Kumiko looked at her tray and her uniform before sighing and picked up her ruined food to throw into a bin.

Noticing this, Eiji said, "If you have no more food, you could come join me and my friends at our table! We'll share!" Eiji smiled and gestured to a table filled with more first years to emphasise his point. Kumiko was a little frightened by this point, and shook her head.

Eiji chose to ignore it and grabbed her arm to pull her towards his friends. While doing this, he asked her what was her name ("Sakamoto Kumiko" Kumiko answered timidly, to which Eiji smiled broadly and said, "Eiji Kikumaru!")

Everyone at the table looked up when they noticed Eiji pulling a rather mousey-looking girl with a dirty uniform towards their table.

" 'Miko-chan," Eiji said, gesturing to his friends, "This is Tezuka Kunimitsu, Oishi Shuichiro ("My doubles partner", Eiji later whispered to her), Fuji Syuusuke, Kawamura Takashi and Inui Sadaharu". As he said the names of his friends, each looked up and said "hi" to Kumiko.

After school, Eiji even walked Kumiko home, and by that time, Kumiko had already started falling for Eiji. Through out the whole walk home, Eiji had been talking about tennis and how fun it was to play it. That was what spurred her on to try out for the girl's tennis team.

Two years later, she became the captain.

(End flashback)

Even though she and Eiji still remained close friends after that (treating each other to burgers and such), she still couldn't gather up enough nerve to tell him that she liked him. Sometimes, when she had gathered the nerve to do so, something would happen that would distract Eiji and leave her standing alone.

But, Kumiko was going to do it.

She was going to tell him today whether he liked her or not.

Eiji's POV

Eiji Kikumaru sighed and scratched his head, feeling very tired after the practice match he had with Taka-san earlier, so now he had 15 minutes to himself to recuperate. He deceided to walk around the school, maybe visit the girl's tennis courts?

His mind then wandered over to a certain blue and pink-haired girl. His mouth turned up in a soft smile. He and Kumiko still shared a close relationship, even after that incident in the freshman year.

His smile grew wider at the thought of the incident. It was the first time he had ever walked a girl home. And not the last. After that he and Kumiko walked home several times, and he couldn't deny that he enjoyed walking home with her.

She was funny, and always so outgoing and acted like a child when they were together. She even played pranks on him and with him. She was, by far, the nicest and most perfect girl for him he had ever met.

'And I have liked her since I saw her talk back to Tetsuya.' Added Eiji to himself, blushing a little. He rounded the corner and stood in front of the girl's tennis courts. He spotted Echizen's girlfriend practicing at the side.

'Sakuno, was it?' Eiji thought absentmindedly. He was searching for Kumiko. Eiji deceided that she needed to know his feelings towards her, whether she felt the same way about him or not. She just needed to know, you know?

Not long after, he heard her voice, "EVERYONE GO HAVE A 10 MINUTE BREAK. COME BACK ON YOUR OWN, I EXPECT YOU ALL TO BE INDEPENDANT ENOUGH TO COME BACK ON TIME. DISMISSED." "HAI, BUCHOU!" Came the reply, and almost immediately everyone started talking to each other.

When he was sure no one was looking, he creeped over to Kumiko and jumped onto her back, all the while greeting her with a loud, "Hoi hoi!". Laughing, Kumiko greeted him back, "Hoi yourself!" He let go of her and she let him down, turning to him.

"Well, what do you need, 'Maru-kun?" She asked, tilting her head a little to the left, causing Eiji to blush little at how cute she looked. "N-Nothing," he replied, getting a little flustered. Kumiko just looked at him quzzically and touched his forehead, then feeling no fever she asked him if he was okay.

Eiji swallowed a little nervously and said, "Come meet me on the rooftop after your practice ends and then I'll tell you." Kumiko just answered "Sure." with a smile, but a hint of concern was still visible in her eyes.

"Well, I'd better go back to my practice, see you later, nyaa!" Finished Eiji and he dashed off before Kumiko could say anything about it.

When Eiji disappeared, Kumiko just shrugged and thought to herself, 'At least I can confess to him without anyone looking.'

Eiji spent the rest of the practice pondering as to how he was going to confess to her. He was troubled, and Oishi could sense it. All of a sudden, Eiji asked Oishi, "Nyaa~Oishi, how would you confess to someone?"

Oishi, taken aback by that question, merely replied "We-well, I would tell her all the things I like about her and then look her in the eyes and tell her that I love her." Eiji seemed satisfied with that answer and went about whistling to himself and basically acting three times as cheery as he normally acted.

Echizen had overheard their conversation and told Momo, who in turn told Fuji, and Fuji being the sadist that he is, told everyone else. It was all deceided. They were going to follow Eiji after practice to try and figure out who he wanted to confess to.

They couldn't wait.

Finally, practice was over, and all the regulars waited in anticipation to follow Eiji to see if they would be able to figure out who was the special girl he wanted to confess to.

After saying their goodbyes and going their seperate ways, only to meet again behind a bush, they followed Eiji. They followed him to the staircase, they followed him past the classrooms, they followed him to another staircase, and finally to the door to the roof.

Eiji was well aware, of course, that all his team members were following him, but he didn't say anything. Besides, they were going to know one way or another, right? So he just kept on walking to the roof without so much as a sound and opened the roof door, making sure to leave it open a crack.

Kumiko was already there, having dismissed her tennis practice a little earlier to get ready to meet Eiji. If she was going to confess, she was going to do it in the best possible form. She looked up when Eiji opened the door, and closed the book she had been reading to greet him.

The regulars behind the door were, to say the least, not surprised to see that it was Kumiko. They knew it was going to happen. So without further comment, they sat back to watch the show.

Eiji opened his mouth and took a deep breath, and Kumiko just smiled at him. Both looked rather awkwardly at each other, shuffling feet, twiling hair, etc.

Finally, Eiji opened his mouth again and said, "Hoi, Kumiko." Kumiko squeaked out a 'hoi' back at Eiji, and both fell silent again. Then, almost immediately, both started speaking at the same time. Realising what they had done, both started laughing, and the tension in the air was lifted.

Eiji stopped laughing just as Kumiko did, and then he swiftly walked towards her, took her face in his hands, and kissed her. Kumiko was stunned, and just did what her mind told her to do, 'close your eyes, hold him tight, and relax'

They stayed like that for a moment, and then let each other go, faint blushes on both their cheeks. "Kumiko," Eiji started, "I have liked you so much; your courage, your willingness to try new things, and just about everything about you! I've liked you since the day I saw Tetsuya threaten you, and you talked back to him, I've liked you since the day we both discovered that we both liked cats.

"I even liked you when you were mad at me cos I made fun of your kitten's name and you wouldn't forgive me until I bought you your favourite chocolates and gave you lillies. Just to summarise it all, I like you, Kumiko. Always have, always will."

Kumiko, upon hearing this, had tears come into her eyes. She grabbed Eiji by the neck and gave him a crushing hug, before whispering into his ear, "I like you too, 'Maru-kun. I like you a lot."

Eiji beamed, and Kumiko found herself temporarily airbourne, before falling into his arms again, both giggling madly at the sheer bliss of it all. The regulars behind the door deceided to make themselves known, and charged out from behind the door, surrounding Eiji and Kumiko, asking questions like "When's the marraige?" and "Who'll be the godfather?" with Inui in the background furiously scribbling into his notebook, a small, sadistic smile on his face.

Echizen was obviously going "Mada mada dane" for no reason at all.

Eiji and Kumiko, standing in the midst of it all, just laughed along with the rest of the group, knowing that their relationship was probably going to be a long and fruitful one. Now all they needed to do was find a way to steal Inui's notebook to see what he had written about them before they exploded with curiousity.

END

A/N: So, how'd you like it? Remember, flames are not tolerated. Creative criticism please! And tell me if you want a sequel to this, I'll gladly oblige!

Bel