I love the ending songfor the OVAs 'Dear Prince'! Every time I hear it I get nostalgic. *sniff* Anyway, I don't know if you guys know this or not, but there's a hidden message in the song lyrics. You take the two letters after every 'Dear Prince's and 'Ready, Go's you'll get the words 'Arigato kimi' and 'Arigato Tenipuri'. Isn't that sweet? n_n
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"The prince and princess were bound in joyous matrimony, and they live happily ever after," Ryuzaki Sakuno recited softly as she perused the open book in her hands. Russet eyes half lidded when a dreamy guise flitted onto her visage, but moments later, a contradictory sigh escaped her lips.
"What's with that sigh? Normally, people don't sigh after reading a happy ending, you know," her best friend Osakada Tomoka interjected.
"It's nothing," she brushed off lightly and set the book aside, leaning back on her bed and sinking herself into her pillow.
"Hmm..." Tomoka hummed, tapping a finger on her chin contemplatively. "Let me guess. This has something to do with one Echizen Ryoma."
A wistful smile curved the edges of Sakuno's lips, and she hugged a tennis ball plushie close to her chest. "I was just thinking... The prince always ends up with the princess, and then it's happily ever after for them."
"And?" Tomoka prodded on.
"Ryoma-kun is a prince," Sakuno continued.
"...And?"
Sakuno sighed miserably. She tossed the plushie aside and plopped face-first into her pillow. The answer only came minutes later.
"I'm not a princess."
Tomoka could barely distinguish her words since they were muffled by the pillow, but the pillow did nothing to mute the gloom in those words. She scooted up beside Sakuno and lied down.
"Sakuno... You're being an idiot," she chided gently. "Real life is not an ideal fairytale."
Sakuno turned her head slightly to peek at Tomoka. "I know, but there are dozens of girls out there who are better than me. Ryoma-kun is perfect in every way, how can I ever match up to him?"
"Sure, Ryoma-sama is amazing. He's incredibly good-looking, super talented in tennis, speaks fluent English and Japanese and an assortment of other languages that he's too humble to admit to, is a top student, famous worldwide, unbelievably cool, irresistibly adorable, cold on the outside but caring on the inside, daring and doesn't boast like Horio even with all these attributes! Oh, and did I mention that he's so cute?" Tomoka gushed, practically starry-eyed as she clasped her hand together in admiration.
The expression on Sakuno's face effectively silenced her, however. She coughed. "The point is, Ryoma-sama doesn't care if you're a princess or not. If he likes you, he likes you."
"Exactly. He doesn't like me," Sakuno remarked.
"Are you kidding, Sakuno? Have you ever seen him listen to another girl like he listens to you? When that loudmouth was masquerading as Ryoma-sama and went around bragging about his nonexistent twist serve, Ryoma-sama was going to extort a month's worth of juice from him – which, I may add, serves him right – but as soon as you told him not to, he immediately stopped!"
"That is because he listens to reason."
"How about the time he saved you from those Ginka idiots? You don't see him running around doing errands for anyone else, do you?"
"That is because he dislikes injustice."
"Then how do you explain why he's always teasing you about your braids?"
Sakuno swatted Tomoka lightly on the head with her plushie. "I don't think that's a sign of him having a crush on me, Tomo-chan."
Tomo yanked the pillow from under Sakuno's head and whacked it on a startled Sakuno. "Sakuno, you don't know a good thing when you have it," Tomoka said with atypical solemnity. "I would die of happiness if Ryoma-sama ever mocks my ponytails. Hmm... Now that I think of it, perhaps I should change to braids..."
Sakuno rolled her eyes. Wherever Ryoma was concerned, Tomoka tended to get sidetracked in her thoughts. She rolled onto her back and stared at the nondescript ceiling above her, involuntarily pouting as she ran Tomoka's words over in her mind. If only, oh if only...
Except if only's existed exclusively in fairytales.
*
*
*
The sound of recess bell reverberated throughout Seishun Gakuen, and Sakuno was extracting her lunchbox from her drawer when she noticed from the corner of her eyes that Tomoka was approaching Ryoma. This in itself was no bizarre phenomenon, as Tomoka habitually clung onto Ryoma as frequent as possible, but what was glaringly different today was that Tomoka was actually whispering to him, instead of screaming his name on top of her lungs like she used to.
After a moment or so, Ryoma seemed to turn around and glance at her, and she instantly lowered her head, embarrassed to be caught red-handed while staring at him. Much to her surprise, he got up from his chair and began swanning – only Ryoma was able to make the dusty floors of the classroom appear like a red carpet to him – towards her. Sakuno could practically hear her heartbeat resounding with every step he took.
"Come with me," said he in that low breathy tone of his.
"W-What?" Sakuno's brain was currently incapacitated to process Japanese – or any language in general.
The tennis prince did not reiterate his request. Instead, he grasped Sakuno by the wrist and led her out of the classroom, the latter struggling to keep up with his tennis-honed pace. When they eventually halted, Sakuno found herself standing under a sakura tree with him.
Sakura blossoms... She still recalled very well that it was during the season of burgeoning sakura when she met Ryoma. He had saved her from being walloped by a tennis racket when she had been too timid to speak up, and already she had troubled him more than once minutes after they met. She had sent him to the wrong direction, caused him to be disqualified, tried to compensate by buying him a drink but ended up on the being-treated side, and boosted the animosity between him and Sasabe. Really, she was nothing but a wellspring of inconvenience.
"Ne, do you know what a princess is?" an alto broke into her reverie.
"What?" Oh great, she was sounding so dumb. In front of him too. Actually, she mostly sounded so dumb only in front of him.
"What's your definition of a princess?" Ryoma inquired again. Princess... She now had a faint inkling what Tomoka was whispering about earlier on.
"A princess is someone who is gentle and pretty, and everyone loves her," she replied with a blush.
"What else?"
She cocked her head to one side, wondering what exactly he was driving at. Was he trying to point out that she had nothing in common with a princess? Well, he needn't have to. She acknowledged it very well herself.
"Um, she's perfect in everything?"
Sakuno searched for gestures and motions on the countenance to see if he agreed, but the poker face remained as poker-faced as always.
"Go on."
"A princess always has a prince who loves her," she finished off, pretty sure by now that her cheeks were a fiery scarlet by now.
"And which of those don't you have?"
Sakuno gasped in surprise. "Huh?"
"A princess is someone who is someone who is gentle and pretty, and everyone loves her," Ryoma repeated verbatim, taking a step towards her as she instinctively backtracked. "Aren't you like that?"
Sakuno didn't answer; she was presently too occupied with being mesmerized by the glowing golden orbs. How on earth did a human possess irises like the sun?
"A princess is perfect in everything. No necessarily. If she were perfect in everything, she wouldn't need her prince now, would she?" Ryoma took another step forward, and she found herself sandwiched between a tree bark and an athletic torso.
Still she didn't reply.
"A princess always has a prince who loves her," Ryoma murmured, and leaned forwards tantalisingly. "You have me."
Auburn depths broadened inordinately at those words. He didn't... He...
"You know what I think a princess is?" Ryoma whispered, his warm breath heating up her nose and general vicinity of her head. Mustering whatever sanity she had left, she shook her head slowly, amber eyes never leaving hazel ones.
"A princess is someone who forever stays by her prince's side." With that said, a shock of tousled blackish emerald hair fluttered as boy wonder swooped down and captured her lips, and Sakuno let herself melt under the assault of a set of soft silken lips. The leaves rustled, and sakura buds rained down all the more.
Words were needed no more, for the princess had found her prince.
I killed myself writing this. X_X It was so... sappy... XD