This is my first fanfic and I am a beginning writer so please be kind.
This story has just been bugging me in the back of my head forever so I decided to write it down.
I don't have a beta reader and don't know any so if someone could recommend one that would be awesome.
Disclaimer: Yeah, I don't own Prince of Tennis, obviously...
Edit 9/2/13: I am rewriting this, kinda...more like fixing all the shitty mistakes. Ugh, that was not okay. I can't believe I let something like that stay online for that long. But everything is pretty much the same, just a little fixing and adding here and there.
Chapter 1
A sullen girl with a black baseball cap pulled down to hide her eyes sulked in the back seat of a taxi. A second girl sat next to her and looked at her twin in concern. "You know that it'll do you good to come here." The first girl just grunted and turned away from her sister, irritation rolling off her in waves. The second girl sighed in defeat and sent out a silent plea to the friend they were on their way to see, I hope you can help her, Chibi..
The taxi pulled up in front of the gates of the Seishun Gakuen. It was after classes and only the after school clubs and the late studiers were still at the school. The second girl pulled her still sulking sister out of the cab and paid the driver. After the cab drove off, the second girl started dragging the first through the school gates in search of a specific sports team.
The first girl had one hand steadying her cap and the other was held captive by her older twin, who was dragging her through the Seishun Gakuen campus. The first dreaded meeting who they were going to meet. She hadn't seen him for nearly three months ever since he left the States and moved to Japan. She didn't relish the thought of facing him again after these months apart. She was sure both of them had changed too much.
"Bethany, I really don't want to do this," the younger twin pleaded, but was ignored. "Please don't make me." Her voice was on the verge of begging and she saw her sister's face scrunch up in the effort it took her not to listen.
"You need it, Brenna. Don't pull that 'I don't want to' shit with me. I'm your twin and I say that it's high time you got over your fears." Bethany's heart clenched when she said this. She knew the trauma that her precious twin had gone through and the cause of her fear, but she couldn't let her sister go through life and turn her back on what she loved to do. As a twin, she wouldn't allow that. With that determination, she had told their parents of her plans and carted Brenna off to Japan.
Bethany pulled her to a pair of girls, one had long brown hair tied in braids down her back and were tied with ribbons. The other had shorter hair and barrettes holding her some of her hair back. "Hey, can you point us towards the boy's tennis team?"
The girl with braids blushed slightly and the one with barrettes nodded enthusiastically, "Sure! Follow us, we were going there just now anyways!" She grabbed her friend's hand and cheerfully skipped away.
Brenna looked at her sister in annoyance and Bethany sighed, "You're going to have to deal with it for now." She began pulling Brenna after her again.
The twins followed the pair of younger girls around to the back of the school. When Brenna saw the high fences of the tennis court come into view she dug her heels in and yanked her arm to bring Bethany to a stop. "Please, don't make me do this." She pleaded once again.
Bethany looked at her twin and saw that she about to cry. Her heart clenched painfully again and Bethany really wanted to give her twin what she wanted, but she knew she had to stick with her decision. "I'm sorry, Brenna, but you have to." She turned away from her sister's frozen face because she couldn't face her. "Sorry," she muttered again.
Brenna dragged her feet as Bethany pulled her towards the courts. There was a group of nine boys who were separated from the others and Bethany assumed they were the regulars from they way they dressed and way they acted. Bethany looked around until she saw the person she was looking for. She wore a purple track suit and had her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She stood a ways away from the other boys, watching them with a proud gaze.
"Ryuzaki-sensei!" Brenna yelled as she dragged her sister over to the coach of the Seishun Gakuen boy's tennis team. "We're here!" She smiled warmly at the elder woman.
Ryuzaki turned to the twins with a smile, "Ah! Hello Brenna and Bethany! It's good to see you again." Ryuzaki was the former coach of their dad's friend, Nanjiro Echizen; the two of them had met when Nanjiro moved to the States to compete and had been close ever since. Their children had grown up playing tennis with each other even though Brenna and Bethany were two years older than Ryoma.
"Hello, Ryuzaki-sensei! We just got here this morning, but we went to the hotel to sleep. Jet lag sucks." Brenna hugged the older coach.
"Yes, it sure does, but I'm glad you got here safely," Ryuzaki answered, hugging the girl back. She straightened and looked at Brenna and then down at Bethany.
Bethany saw the older coach's concerned look and turned to Bethany. "Do you think that your team will be able to help her?" She asked, looking at her sister and the uncomfortable air she held around her.
Ryuzaki looked over the younger twin. Brenna wore a light purple t-shirt with Mickey Mouse on the front under a light zip-up gray sweatshirt. She wore basketball shorts that reached just above her knees and sneakers. Long midnight blue-black hair was pulled into a single braid down the middle of her back and her face was hidden by the baseball cap that was pulled down. A crimson scarf wrapped around her neck once and the ends trailed to her waist. Ryuzaki remembered Brenna Starr as an independent, full of confidence and bright girl. The girl she saw now was hardly recognizable; the look of misery on her face, the apprehension in her eyes as they darted here and there, and probably the most shocking, was the slight flinch every time the dull thwack of a racket hitting a tennis ball was heard.
"Hello, Brenna," Ryuzaki said softly to the girl in front of her. Brenna didn't answer, just tugged the cap down farther and lowered her head to stare at the ground. Bethany and Ryuzaki looked at each and Bethany shrugged and shook her head. "Alright, I'll introduce you to the team." She walked towards the courts and called to the regulars, "Line up! I have some people that I would like you to meet!" The regulars stopped their practice and lined up quickly.
Ryuzaki called the twins in and said, "These two young girls are from the United States and they will be us for a while. The one with the scarf is the younger twin, Brenna Starr," she indicated Brenna, "and the other girl is her older twin, Bethany Starr. Please introduce yourselves."
Brenna kept her head down and her eyes fixed on the green courts. She refused to look up as she listened to the regulars introduce themselves. Despite the fact that she looked as if she wasn't paying attention, Brenna was attentively listening to the voices of the regulars, memorizing them and looking for the one she knew. It was the last voice, "Echizen Ryoma," that made her head snap up and she looked at him from under her hat.
Ryoma tugged on the brim of his white hat and avoided directly looking at the twins. "Trying to pretend you don't know us? So not cool," Bethany drawled. She put a hand on her hip and tilted her head to stare at him, a smirk playing on the corners of her lips.
Brenna smirked under her hat as she watched Ryoma try not to smile. "Hiya, Echizen," she said. Ryoma looked at Brenna with and quickly swiped the smile from his face to replace it with a sour look.
"What are you doing here?" Ryoma asked, almost demanded.
"We came to see you, brat," Bethany retorted. The three of them had spent their childhood years playing with each other and Ryoma had always looked up to the twins.
"Okay…I doubt that, but what do you want?" Ryoma's voice was cautious. After spending nearly his entire life so far in the company of these two devious twins, he had learned to be suspicious of everything they did; even if it seemed innocent enough.
Bethany sighed, "A favor from you." Ryoma winced, he knew there was something fishy. The last time he did a favor for the twins, he ended up dressed in a girl's frilly dress with a huge lollipop, posing for a photo shoot for Brenna's school photography class. She said it was because he had the most girly face she knew. At the time, he had been relatively naïve in his thinking and had unknowingly stumbled into the trap.
"It doesn't involve camera or costumes or candy on sticks, does it?" Ryoma asked suspiciously, he didn't want a repeat of what happened last time.
Bethany grinned while Brenna laughed out loud. She fell to her knees and hit the ground with her palm. Everyone looked on with interest at the laughing idiot on the ground. Bethany looked at her sister in surprise and relief. It had been almost two months since Brenna had shown any kind of amusement. She smiled to herself, knowing she made the right decision in bring her to Japan and Ryoma.
When Brenna had composed herself from her laughing fit; she stood up and wiped away her stray tears, chuckles still coming out of her. Bethany, much more composed than her sister, answered Ryoma's original question, "No, I want you," when she said 'you' she indicated all the regulars standing there, "to help Brenna play tennis again."
