Disclaimer: If I owned The Prince of Tennis, I wouldn't be on
AN: For those of you following my other fic, Wedding Blues, sorry for working on something else! I tried to focus, honest! But this just wouldn't leave me alone. This was inspired by the cover picture. Actually, this has been sitting unfinished on my computer along with one or two other fics since before I even started getting ideas for Wedding Blues. There is another chapter to this that is almost finished, but this fic shouldn't extend beyond that.
Ryoma inwardly groaned. That girl was sitting in that spot by the window again. She was seated at the single coffee table in the shop, barely large enough for two people, completely engrossed in whatever she was reading. She had been like that for the past two hours. The only regular customer - presently, the only customer at all - refused to buy a single book. Poor old Haritatsu would be so disappointed if he knew how much of his binding went to waste - not that Ryoma was actually going to tell him.
Ryoma readjusted his rectangular, red, plastic frames as he stood behind the check-out counter to try to distinguish the title of whatever poem or romantic novella she was studying across the room. He suppressed another groan when he found that he couldn't. It was time to visit the optometrist again.
He hadn't always worn glasses. At the start of high school, his vision had been perfect. In middle school, it had been better than perfect. However, by the time he entered college, all that reading in low light had added up. He took time away from tennis and having fun to be a good student, and this was how the fates repaid him. They took away his sight. He'd tried contacts during his senior year of high school, but they proved useless when his cat kept eating them.
No matter that the title of the work she held in her hands was blurred, he could still make out the animated nuances in her expressions. He saw fear, laughter, sorrow, and enchantment dance behind the twitches of her petal pink lips as he watched her at the other end of the aisle of books lining his pathway to her.
Books.
That was how it all started. There were so many of them - old, gold-trimmed, leather-bound hardbacks that smelled deliciously of decay and fresh paperbacks with pure white pages ready to unfold new tales of untold adventure. Ryoma had always enjoyed them while volunteering in his school library, but only recently had he discovered their true glory. They consumed him as he consumed them - a dollop of dystopia, a sprinkle of suspense, a rubbing of romance, bathed in action, luring him into whirlpools of words. The girl at the other side of the shop had her nose buried deeply within a rather large, white paperback. Her nut brown hair cascaded over her shoulder, gathered carelessly into thick twin braids that glinted maple red in the skylight, adorned with small flowers, until the waterfall ended in loose ringlets.
Finding his resolve, his navy Converse began to shuffle around the counter towards her. He had one palm on the round-topped birch, but she still didn't look up. Her thin fingers didn't quiver in their grip of the novel as he focused on her.
"Hey," he smirked down at her, "do you ever plan on actually buying a book?"
Finally, she looked up. She placed her book down, spine up for view on the table. He saw bewildered redwood eyes behind oversized, yellow-framed lenses. Her small mouth opened, but only air rushed out as Ryoma stared at her expectantly. Very quickly, a brilliant flush overtook her features.
"I-I didn't realize," she struggled.
"It's fine," Ryoma sighed, taking the seat across from her. Honestly, he wasn't a predator. She didn't have to look that much like a deer caught in the headlights. She probably wasn't more than a couple years younger than him. Beneath the minute table, his jean-clad legs were forced to brush against her bare knees. He eyed the book laying face down across from him. "You like Marukami?"
"Um, so far," she replied nervously, the color under her cheeks slowly fading away. She took off her glasses and hung them from her collar.
"Yeah, he's pretty cool," Ryoma said nonchalantly. Then he pointed at the book. "You know, you shouldn't put the book down like that. It kills the spine."
"S-sorry-"
And then he was up and away. He returned from behind the counter a few moments later with a strip of paper in his hand and a paper bag with the logo, "Haritatsu's." He snatched up the book, put the paper between her saved pages, and placed the book inside the bag.
"Here," he said, thrusting the bag in her face, "use a bookmark from now on."
"B-but I can't! I don't have any money," she said, frantically pushing the bag away.
Ryoma sighed again. "You still have a ways to go," he said. Before she could blink, the bag was in her arms, and the boy from behind the counter was pulling her out of her chair and pushing her out the store. She briefly glanced at his nametag - Ryoma...
Later in the comfort of her own apartment, she closely examined the strip of paper the bookkeeper had stuck between her pages. On it, she confirmed his name. Scribbled beside it in blue pen were a phone number and a mischievous "I won't tell if you won't."
"Hey, Sakuno, who's Ryoma?" asked a high-pitched voice behind her. Sakuno yelped as her roommate placed a hand on her shoulder from behind their shared sofa.
"Tomoka, don't sneak up behind me like that! You scared me," Sakuno whined. Tomoka laughed enthusiastically.
"Sorry," she said between chuckles. She walked around to sit beside Sakuno on the couch.
"When did you get home from work anyway?" Sakuno asked after recovering from having the living daylights scared out of her. Tomoka was currently at the same university as Sakuno studying law, but due to the fact that she came from a family that had to support three other children, she was forced to work part-time to pay for her education.
"Just now," Tomoka replied as she sat down. Then she took the paper in Sakuno's hand to hold it up to the light despite her roommate's protests. "'I won't tell if you won't'? I won't tell what if you won't?"
"Hey Tomo, give it back," Sakuno said, trying to wrestle back her bookmark.
"Oh my gosh, you met a guy? Did something happen?" Tomoka questioned eagerly, still grasping the paper above her head despite her friend's pleas.
"Nothing at all," Sakuno answered as she recalled the boy's sharp golden eyes peering down at her from behind red frames, "just give it back!"
"No way! You think you can wrestle down a hot yoga master?" Tomoka teased, unaffected by the struggle while Sakuno had already begun panting. It really wasn't fair. Tomoka had always been naturally athletic, but this job had put her in super-shape. She was still in her workout clothes. Sakuno, on the other hand, had always been clumsy when it came to anything somewhat physical despite having a tennis coach for a grandmother.
"Ow, that's my hair! Fine," Sakuno conceded, going back to her original position sitting on the sofa, "but nothing happened. He just gave me a book."
"Who?" Tomoka feigned innocence.
"Ryoma, of course," Sakuno cried, and then blushed. She looked down as Tomoka returned the bookmark with a knowing grin, wider than a Cheshire cat's.
Tomoka scooted closer to her long-time friend to give her a zealous pat on the back. "And here I was worried that you'd be forever alone, and we'd never go on double dates together! Judging from that blush you've got, he must've been hot."
"Tomoka, I'm not calling him," Sakuno deadpanned.
"What?!" Tomoka practically shrieked. She grabbed tightly onto Sakuno's shoulders and shook them. "But you have to call him," she whined.
"I'm not doing it. It's crazy."
"C'mon Sakuno, do something crazy for once. You're young," she coaxed. "What's the worst that could happen?"
"He could be a crazed serial killer, and he could trace my call to find out where we live to murder the both of us," she rambled meekly.
"Sakuno, call."
"Now?"
"No, not now," Tomoka shrieked. "You have to wait at least until tomorrow, so he doesn't think you're a crazy stalker!"
"Oh, fine," Sakuno finally relented.
AN: Dude, HIPSTERS!