Through Karupin's Eyes
It was morning again. Not that she actually knew what this so-called morning thingy, it was just a term that she had grown so accustomed to. Oh btw, She loathed it, whatever it was.
She decided to curl closer to the only heat-radiating object in that room, object being a young boy sleeping next to her so peacefully, and rubbed her face to the boy's arm. She didn't know why but it surely gave her a mood boast for the entire day if she did that. A soft moan came from the boy's lip and he absentmindedly took her closer and caress her back for a while, making her purred. Excited with the gentle treatment the other gave her, she decided to show her gratitude.
"Meow.."
"Yeah, Karupin. You're a good girl…" He muttered under his breath without even bothering to look his talking opponent. Suddenly the young tennis prodigy snapped his eyes open and quickly find the only clock in the room, a small green alarm clock, which alarm he soon noticed was not set last night. No wonder he didn't hear that annoying 'pipipipipi' noise this morning.
"Che. I'm late again…"
With that, the half sleepy Echizen Ryoma hesitantly uncover his blanket, causing the pretty Himalayan feline landed herself on the ground, and rushed to the bathroom. See? She loathed morning because around this time of the day, everyday, her master, Ryo-chan, would ditch her like that to meet this person called 'Morning Practice'(1). And they were just going to spend some intimate time together. What a shame..
Yes, she was calling her master by 'Ryo-chan'. She learnt that in this place, people were calling each other's name by their last name so she was supposed to call her master by 'Echizen'. But then again, there were a lot of 'Echizen's in this house which made it kind of stupid to call all of them by 'Echizen' and also it's not like her master would know that she was calling him 'Ryo-chan' now would he? If cats had a complex facial muscle, Karupin would be making a 'smirk' at that thought. Unfortunately, they didn't.
After a lot of cursing and sound of objects falling from their proper place later, her Ryo-chan was neat and cute as ever and ready to dash to school. Hm, sometimes she was curious with what happened beyond the bathroom door and was tempted to take a look inside, her master wouldn't mind anyway she thought evilly, but being a fine bred feline as she was, she was not going to do such thing. Yet.
She ran toward the small opening from the door, luckily Ryo-chan didn't forget to let the door half-opened for her like the other day. She would starve to death if that nanako girl didn't go look for her before she went to school (she noticed that nanako use another term whenever she's referring to her school but it was a difficult word, she couldn't remember what it was(2)). As she aimed for the dining room, she heard a loud 'Ittekimasu' followed by a sound of door cracked.
Well, normally, she would just kill the time by licking herself for hours, scratching that old geezer book until it became small pieces of paper(3) (she was sure that the book had a specific name and she guessed vaguely that it was not really a book since something called 'book' was good while that book tend to drive people crazy, one having that eerie smile on his face whenever he took a look at the book and the other a.k.a. Ryo-chan would yell frantically about some 'hentai oyaji'), or something a normal cat would do like playing with a nekojarashi or messed the half-finished sweater that nanako hid in her room since last winter. But today, she was not going to do something normal. Instead of waiting Ryo-chan for several long painful hours later, she decided to follow her master to school and meet this 'Morning Practice' that had captivated her boy's attention.
She was just about to leave the house when suddenly nanako called her. She swore she would pretend like she didn't hear her if not by the fact that Nanako was saying her most favorite words aside than 'Ryoma', her master's name.
"Karupin. Your food is ready."
Oh well, one could not do anything on an empty stomach. After all, she had already gone to Ryoma's school before because of some 'accident'(4) so it would make things easier for her. And with that, she ran toward the dining room again.
Through Karupin's Eyes
"Stupid morning practice. Why do we have to practice this early in the morning? How come I'm the only one who's late?" Ryoma grumbled as he did his laps around the tennis court. Apparently, Tezuka had caught him late. Again. And he ordered him to do 30 laps. Again. He had been late for two weeks straight now and he had the feeling that Tezuka was not quite pleased about it. He was grumbling as he did the laps in a rather loud voice, which caught the attention of three certain senpais who seemed to be talking about something, which he thought, concerning next month tournament. Buchou would NEVER let them chitchatting in the middle of practice, he thought.
"Ochibi!! You're late again nya?? You never learn did you?? Hoi hoi." Came the cheerful voice of Kikumaru.
"Now now, Eiji. Don't tease my Ryoma-chan like that." Came the sly reply from a certain sadistic senpai who's still smiling gleefully as ever. But Ryoma swore that this certain senpai has something under his sleeve again. He could sense it whenever Fuji was plotting something evil for him.
It was a normal positive sentence. Really. But then after a few seconds, their mind was preoccupied by certain words inside the sentence. Certain words being 'my' and 'Ryoma-chan', preoccupied meaning they were figuring on how those two words actually could go together in one sentence, Fuji's sentence on top of that.
"Anoo… Fuji senpai… when you said 'My Ryoma-chan' you weren't….. ano.. serious, were you??" Momo asked. Stupid question, he knew that but he couldn't help it.
"Nya Fujiii…. Since when do you go out with Ochibi-chan nya?? You owe me an explanation!!" Kikumaru whined with a low voice but was loud enough for Ryoma to hear causing him to fight a blushed for several seconds.
Stupid Fuji with his stupid possessive trait and his stupid sense of surrounding who stupidly announced their relationship to two stupid loud-mouthed senpais who couldn't keep their mouth shuts once they heard some juicy gossips. And he began to wonder who was the stupid one, his lover for doing such stupid act early in the morning or himself for his stupid stupidity to accept the other's feeling two weeks ago. Oh yeah, he was forced to accept Fuji's confession cause the older one would insist, or in his opinion: threatened, giving him flowers and love letters every day until he said 'alright, I will go out with you'. He would ignore Fuji's determination if not because the fact that Fuji kindly sent a sample of flower and love letter he would be giving the younger one before hand, which had Fuji's name in big bold pink letter along with lots of pink hearts that it's impossible for someone not to notice.
So that's why he was having goosebumps few minutes earlier. He was starting to find it natural for Fuji to call him 'Ryoma-chan' that he missed the true intention of Fuji's word.(5)
"Che." He grumbled a little more, pulling down his caps as he quickened his pace. At that time, he just wished that he had the ability to make himself disappear.
A minute later, he was passing the three tennis players again. This time he could hear a loud snicker and found that they are actually directing their eyes toward him. It was as if the trio had found something very amusing and funny or just plain stupid. Ryoma twitched his eyebrows, knowing that it just HAD to be something with Fuji as the subject and him as the object.(6)
"Ryo-chan, how many laps left?"
Oh no.. The 'Ryo-chan' word… He had learnt from his two weeks experience that whenever Fuji called him with that word, he was pretty much doomed. He traced the tensai's face, trying to figure out whether he should answer his lover's question or just let it be a rhetorical sentence. Face seemed cheerful. Evil glint, checked. Dark aura, he closed his eyes for a brief second and shuddered almost instantly definitely checked. It turned out that it was not a rhetorical sentence. He let out a deep sigh as he muttered "Two more." As low as he could, hoping the tensai didn't catch the words.
"He said two more laps Fuji! Hoi hoi!!" At that, Fuji let out an evil chuckle. Lucky for him that he had a friend who could do lip reading. Oh yes, he was going to use his entire asset to annoy Ryoma to death. Ryoma was just too cute when he was annoyed.(7)
"I guess I have to start practicing. Buchou has been looking to this direction quite frequently." Momo stated, cheerful and energetic as ever, as he reached out his racket and went to the other court. He winked at Ryoma before he went and muttered something about "Your secret's save with me." And he chuckled, leaving Ryoma dumbstruck. He didn't even want to think what the sophomore meant, not after whatever Fuji said to him when he was running laps.
"I bet Oishii is going to ask me play a match with him sometime soon. Better go nya" and Kikumaru stared at Fuji seriously for a brief second, saying "Whenever you need my ability, I'll be more than happy to help nya! But you HAVE. TO. GIVE. ME. DETAILS. C-ya Fuji!!"
"Ah, you're so considerate, Eiji." Was the tensai's reply, mentally he noted that he wouldn't secretly followed his friend when he was going to do some male bonding with Oishi this weekend. Not with a camera in his hand anyway (meaning he would still secretly followed them but he will spare them by not taking some photos for memento, or like what others would say, 'blackmailing items'). Sometimes he was amazed of his generosity..
"Play a match with me after you're done."
He nodded. Well, at least there WAS something GOOD in exchange of having Fuji Syuusuke as a lover. Looking back, he was the one who had to beg his senpai to play a match, and failed miserably. "Mada mada da ne."
Fuji couldn't help but let out a small smile. This time, he let out one of his rare sincere smile. Though he doubted Ryoma would know the difference.
Through Karupin's Eyes
These past two weeks she found that her Ryo-chan always came home with this annoying smell. Unlike other smells he usually had, this smell was a lot… stronger. Which meant Ryo-chan was spending a great deal of time with this someone, long enough to make the smell stayed even after he took a shower, which also meant that someone was going to take her Ryo-chan if she didn't do something fast.
She was assuming that this certain someone name was 'Morning Practice'. Geh. Weird name. Even her name was better, and it was only a cat's name. Ryo-chan was never eager to meet this person until two weeks ago. He still groaned about meeting the said person but he had that bright expression on his face, indicating that he actually having fun even though he had to wake up early (something her master was not very fond of, that had to say something).
Okay… so now she had arrived at this school. She wondered where her Ryo-chan was…
Where to start… she thought as she entered the Seishun Gakuen. Seigaku was not that big if you were a human but when you were only a Himalayan cat as her, you would found the whole thing 10x bigger. It's a good thing that all the people were gathering in several rooms or someone would actually stomped her delicate tail, or just made her fur messy by petting her. Yeah, she was pretty and adorable and irresistible to be pet but with her rival around, she had to be on her best condition in case she bumped in to her Ryo-chan unintentionally.
Oh yeah!
A good idea suddenly struck her. Last time she was here, there was this smaller building near the weird green floored place that was surrounded by some iron net, which had Ryo-chan's smell. It should be a good place to start. Oh, Karupin, you were so clever. No wonder Ryo-chan loves you so much!!(8)
So she began walking to that building. As she walked through the green-floored place, she couldn't help but think why someone would be stupid enough to paint white stripes on a green floor. Didn't they know that green and white stripes didn't go well together?? It would be nicer if they just painted some colorful flowers and this place would look more… lively... oh well, back to the main issue. After she reached the building, she found out that the door was locked. Strange. She swore she could hear some voice from inside the building…
Ah.. I see… It was all courtesy of this so-called 'morning practice', trying to separate me from my master… How ungraceful… (8) Karupin's blue eyes were glinting mischievously. Just like her master, Karupin also liked challenges. It seemed that her rival was a worthy opponent. She hadn't met someone who could make her this excited. Whoever you are, you're really good… If cats had a complex cerebral cortex and a complex voice chord, Karupin would chuckle evilly after she said the last word. Unfortunately they also didn't have that. A shame…
She started to look for a window opening, it seemed that she was in luck. There was a small window opening on the back of the building. Looks like you were careless, Morning-chan… So, she quickly leapt over the window and finding her self inside a small dark room.
She walked slowly toward a metal box(9) that had Ryo-chan's smell. She stared at it for a few minutes, wondering if Ryo-chan was inside the metal box. Her mind was abruptly distracted as she heard some weird noise coming from the shower room. She blinked a few times and straightened her ears in hope for a better hearing. The noise was getting louder and she could hear a weird chatter. Unable to resist her curiosity, she ran quietly toward it.
There were definitely two people inside the shower. She could hear some words along with the soft sound of drifting water as she tried to open the shower room's door.
"Se-senpai! We're still in school hours."
Scratch
"I know, but it can't be help. I can't help it. Now, take your clothes off Kaidou"
Another scratch
"S-so.. That's why you suddenly dragged me to the clubroom."
Karupin was becoming more frustrated as the door remained still.
"Not my fault that you bumped in to me when I'm going to the lavatory. After all, it's all your fault. Moaning like that when I accidentally(10) touched your back. Now, Be a good boy and take your clothes off. It shouldn't take long."
Grr… stupid door!! Don't call me Karupin if I can't open you!
"B-but… but.. isn't it going to hurt?"
There was a small cracking voice but the two was too preoccupied in their conversation that they didn't hear it.
"I will be surprised if it doesn't. Come on, Kaidou. Take it like a man.."
Finally!! Karupin waltz her step gracefully and take a look inside.
A gasped
A paused
A sighed
And the conversation continued.
"Or do you wanted me to do it in the infirmary?"
……… What is going on here??
"… Fssh… No. Other people might see us…"
The smaller boy gave a deep sighed before he took off his white shirt while the other one who wore something funny on his face (she believed it was called 'glasses') slowly approaching him from the back.
Eep!!!
If Karupin's face was not covered with dark brown fur, you might found her blushed as she saw the boy's pale skin, she couldn't take her eyes of his beautiful flawless waist skin btw(11), and she absentmindedly let out a loud 'Meow' as the boy reveal almost of his abdomen skin. She mentally slapped herself for the stupid action.
They both quickly turned their face to see the source of the voice. The one with glasses was adjusting his glasses with one hand, his other hand was holding a liquid container and some long white cloth Ryo-chan used to wear when he sprained his ankle, while the other's face was suddenly turned into a deep red.
"Meow." Sorry boys. I thought that my master is in here. You know him right? His name is Echizen Ryoma-chan. Please continue whatever you were doing (not that I'm interested, really), I'm leaving now…
With that, Karupin dashed out the shower room and went out from the window she used earlier.
"Isn't that Echizen's cat?"
"Aa.."
"Oh well. Come on Kaidou. Let me tend your wound. Now tell me, how did you end up with three scratches in your back when your school uniform is still intact?"
Kaidou cringed as he felt the sharp sting from Inui's antiseptic liquid (he developed it along with his veggie juice) and his face was turning red again. Half because the antiseptic stung like hell, half because he was about to tell something really stupid. "Fsshh… This morning.. jogging… cute cat…"
"Ah.. I see…" (12)
And they both fell silent for about five minutes before they walk back toward their respective classes.
Karupin had arrived at the back part of the school. Now, if Karupin was tall enough, she should have noticed that she was walking passed her Ryo-chan who was at that time yawning sleepily and was in no way, shape or form would notice the astray Karupin outside the window. Hence, Karupin then leaped to the small window opening just one room besides Ryoma's class. Again, Karupin was astonished at how stupid a human could be, why didn't they locked the window if they planned to leave the room empty? Forget the window, they didn't even lock the door. Anyway, thanks to their stupidity, she was able to enter this building.
When she entered the room, she could see lots of cloth lying on the table. The black cloth looked like the cloth Ryo-chan wore every day to school so she was assuming that black cloth was called 'uniform', there was also one more group of cloth she never saw before. Wonder what it's called. Oh well.. she had been wondering for two hours now and she's feeling a little sleepy. Jumping toward the nearest table, he began to curl in one of the black cloth. It had a different smell from her Ryo-chan's but it will do. As the wind slowly blew from the window, she was drifted to sleep.
a/n:
hahaha, It seems like Karupin is the cat version of Fuji… Since you have reached this part, I am assuming that you know the pair already. It is a FujiRyo fic and yeah, Fuji is pretty much one-sided in this chapter but I'm sure Ryoma will love him back.. Author's intuition.. :P for the mean time I'm not thinking of making other pair in this fic. In other words, everyone else beside Fuji and Ryoma is SINGLE and STRAIGHT (at least until the mood struck me). I am just giving you 'thoughts'… aren't I evil.. haha XD
I might do LOTS of grammar error and OOCnes (especially Karupin .) just bear it with me…. I'm trying to fix it but the more I try the more confused I became so… oh well…
Japanese terms (in case you don't know the meaning):
Ittekimasu: I'm off
Nekojarashi: Karupin's toy, you know, the yellow one. I believe some called it 'dog's tail'
Hentai oyaji: Pervert old man. Oyaji could also be translated in to 'father' but Ryoma never called Nanjirou by 'dad' so I think Ryoma meant 'old man' when he called him 'Oyaji'
Senpai: Senior (or something similar). Btw, in Japanese if the 'n' were followed by 'b' or 'p' the pronunciation would be 'm' instead. So the word 'Senpai' is pronounced 'Sempai'. The same goes to 'Ganbatte' (it is pronounced 'Gambatte)
Oh yeah, about Fuji's name. In Romanji, his name should be spelled 'Fuji Shyuusuke' or 'Fuji Shuusuke' but I find that 'Syuusuke' is cuter.. hehe :)
(1) Why does Karupin think that 'Morning Practice' is a human being? Because she is a cat of course!! If someone says something over and over again, animals tend to think that it is some kind of a name. Just like how they learn what their name is.
(2) I am referring to 'University'. I don't know whether Nanako has gone to college or not but seeing that she has plenty of time around the house, she should be around University age…
(3) Nanjirou: AAAHH!!! So YOU'RE the culprit? Karupin, BAD GIRL!!
Karupin//snort// Whatever, pervert.
(4) It's when Ryoma 'accidentally' brought Karupin's Nekojarashi to school…
(5) Fufufufu… you should never let your guard down whenever Fuji's around, Ryoma-kun… //smirk//
(6) Aahh… what are they talking about anyway?? Fufu.. maybe something about the reason why Ryoma always late for the past two weeks, ne?
(7) What can I say… Fuji loves seeing people's suffering, the more he likes someone the more he will tort- //cough// I mean, shows his affection toward them
(8) …. You're being delusional, Karupin…
(9) a.k.a. Ryoma's locker
(10) hohoho.. You sure it was only an accident, inui-chan??
(11) Now now, Karupin… I never know that you are a pervert… //evil glint//
Karupin//snort// at least I'm not the one drooling over Kaidou's half-naked body
Am NOT//wipe the drool off// I like fuji's better!
Ryoma: Eeeehh???!! Fuji's MINE!!! Back off woman!!
Saa, Ryoma darling… in this fic, I ruled. Better not making me angry… //evil chuckle//
Ryoma//shuddered// Jesus Christ!! You were worst than Fuji!!
Ohohohohoho….
(12) You might notice that Inui doesn't mention anything about odds or being such a smart ass. He doesn't even bring his notebook. But, they are still in school hours and I don't think Inui is freak enough to bring his notebook when he goes to lavatory. Also, Inui does like talking about odds and stuff but he doesn't talk about the odds ALL THE TIME.
One more thing…
DISCLAIMER: Prince of Tennis is NOT MINE. Never was and never will be.