Disclaimer: I don't own Prince of Tennis or its characters, true true.
Warning: You may sometimes feel the uncontrollable urge to squeal in marvel of the cuteness that is about to follow.
As in my other stories, I have made all of them in high school, just to make it a bit more age-realistic. Same school names and stuff, just high school.
Pairings: Obviously since there aren't many girls in PoT, I'm putting in a bunch of my OCs. But Ryoma will always be with my favorite, Sakuno. My love for this pairing is infinite 3
Toshiko: Yaaaay finally starting my series of stories (or maybe just one story with a lot of chapters) about the love adventures of the PoT cast.
Reiko: Hah, took you long enough. Plus, what're you gonna do with your other stories, huh? *glares*
Toshiko: *cries in the corner* You're so harsh. My mind's a complete blank right now. Cut me some slack, will you? Or I'll have to dole out the punishment. Anyhooo don't mind her, here's the beginning of hopefully a great series!
Echizen Ryoma yawned and rubbed his eyes sleepily. He had fallen asleep on top of the roof, where the wind gently swept across his face and there were no annoying fan girls to be found.
The sky above him was perfectly blue, save one or two cottony white clouds in the distance.
Shoot. He looked at his watch and realized with a start that he was late to tennis practice. Tezuka-buchou would have him running laps for that.
Meanwhile, Ryuzaki Sakuno was being dragged unceremoniously across campus to the tennis courts, her thin wrist enclosed in the tight grip of her louder, more obnoxious best friend.
"Sakuno! We're gonna miss Ryoma-sama practicing if you don't hurry up! Ryoma-sama!"
"To-Tomoko-chan..." Sakuno had no choice but to try to keep up.
Secretly she very much enjoyed watching Ryoma practice. He seemed to radiate a confidence and coolness that almost every freshman girl swooned over.
But the tennis prince had never even acknowledged her past the occasional grunt or smirk. He probably has tons of better girls to choose from, she thought with a sigh.
Ryoma's face glistened with a thin layer of sweat; the regulars had been training rigorously for the past hour, hitting balls, practicing special moves, running countless laps. They were being worked exceptionally hard in preparation for the upcoming Prefecturals.
He was about to serve when he heard the loud, nasal voice that he hated, screaming, "Ryoma-sama! Ryoma-sama! You're too cool, Ryoma-sama!"
Inwardly, he groaned. Didn't she have anything better to do... Out of all the girls that swarmed over him, she was by far the worst: the loudest and the most clueless.
The only bit of consolation that he took from her presence was the fact that she was sure to be there too. Ryuzaki Sakuno. He wasn't sure when he first noticed how beautiful she was, with her dainty figure, her big brown eyes, and her -
"Oi! Ochibi! Are you gonna serve now?" Kikumaru Eiji interrupted his daydreaming by shouting at him loudly. The excitable redhead was pouting on the other side of the net. They were supposed to be practicing, reminded Eiji.
Echizen promtly hit the ball, shaking his head in an attempt to rid his mind of thoughts about a certain girl who happened to be standing a few feet away.
So basically, it was impossible.
And there was another nagging thought in the back of his mind, one that kept reminding him what day tomorrow was.
"Ochibi! Ochibi!" Eiji caught up with his kouhai after they had all finished showering and changing. He ruffled Ryoma's hair playfully and pinched his cheeks like a doting grandma.
"Let's go get burgers!" Momo insisted. "We can all go, have one last get together before we're eaten by the chocolate love tomorrow." He shuddered. The regulars happened to be very popular with the girls at Seigaku, with their good looks and charming personalities (well, except for Kaidoh, but even he got a good amount of confessions and gifts).
"Fine."
"Yaaaaay!" Eiji and Momo shouted. They motioned for the other regulars to join them. Kawamura and Tezuka declined, as they both had better things to do.
At the burger shop, however, Ryoma knew that agreeing to go was the worst decision of his life.
Once they had sat down with their food, Fuji immediately turned to him and said, "So, Echizen. How are you going to profess your love for Ryuzaki?"
Ryoma almost choked on the fries he had just eaten.
Oishi looked up curiously. "Echizen likes... Ryuzaki-sensei? Isn't she a bit old for you?" Question marks appeared over his head.
"Nani? No, I meant Ryuzaki-chan. The adorable girl that Echizen has been staring at for the past couple weeks."
The boy pulled his cap down over his face and said nothing.
Eiji looked like he was about to explode with excitement and exclaimed, "Ochibiiiiiiii! You never told your favorite senpai about this! We need to figure out how to get her to accept your feelings, seeing as you're so cold to her all the time, she probably hates you by now!"
At that comment, Ryoma jerked his head up in surprise. "She... hates me?" Although he didn't mean for it to show, the devastated look on his face was impossible to hide.
"Ahhhh! I knew it! See, I told you guys I could get him to admit he looooveeesss her!" Eiji laughed.
"Baka senpai." Ryoma scowled.
He didn't deny it, all the regulars thought. Inui furiously scribbled notes in his notebook. Fuji merely smiled. Oishi was still confused, and Momo and Eiji were smirking evilly. They had a plan.
True, he had always had a soft spot for the quiet, kind girl, ever since middle school. He never knew what to say, though, so most of the time he just didn't say anything around her. But he definitely liked her. Wait, what?
Fuji interrupted his thoughts by saying, "Echizen. We'll help you finally tell her how you feel, since we are your senpais, after all."
Ryoma's brow twitched. Knowing his upperclassmen friends, the "help" they were offering certainly wasn't too tempting. But he hadn't been able to tell Sakuno how he felt for a long time, and the only instances where he had managed to get close to saying those words, he ended up just telling her that her hair was too long.
Oishi finally got it. "Ohhhh, Ryuzaki-chan!"
The rest of the regulars sweatdropped.
"Okay, Ochibi, remember the plan?" Eiji whispered in his ear.
"Senpai, you're too loud." Ryoma protested. They had kept him up all night, explaining their intricate plan in detail, then woke him up early the next day to buy the necessary "materials."
Chocolates, flowers, a stuffed teddy bear that said "I love you" when it was squeezed (that one was Fuji's idea), and enough candy hearts to feed a small army of sugar deprived children.
It was as if Valentine's Day barfed all over his bed.
The crew all stood in his bedroom, looking at the pile. "Perfect!" Momo cried. "And plus, today's a weekend, so you'll have all day!"
They cheered. Ryoma looked horrified.
Sakuno wondered why Ryoma had wanted her to meet him at the park. They usually didn't do things together like that. Come to think of it, they hadn't even had a proper conversation before.
On top of that, it was Valentine's Day.
Steeling herself, she walked out the door with a small bag of multiflavored chocolate squared clutched tightly in her hand, tied with a blue ribbon that said, "For: Ryoma-kun."
Ryoma was sitting on the swings, idly swaying and drinking his favorite, Ponta. His senpais, he knew, were lurking behind the trees, observing his every move. He could even see the tips of Eiji's bright red hair and the gleam of Inui's glasses. Idiots.
"A-ano... Ryoma-kun?" Sakuno stood in front of Ryoma with a puzzled expression on her petite face.
Without saying anything, he thrust out a small box, tied daintily with a pink ribbon. She slowly took it from him, her expression unchanged.
"Chocolates," he grunted.
Ryoma-kun... got me chocolates? Sakuno thought in bewilderment. What was he thinking, doing something like that?
"Th-thank you, Ryoma-kun." Her face was bright red, but her mouth had eased into a happy smile, to Ryoma's satisfaction. He had worried about if she would accept his gift.
They sat there in silence for a couple of minutes, wondering what to say to each other.
Behind the trees, Momo hissed, "That idiot. Does he even know what to say to a girl?"
"98 percent chance he doesn't." Inui informed him.
"Baka!" Eiji growled.
Suddenly, Ryoma turned towards Sakuno and said, "Ryuzaki. Do you hate me?"
She started to giggle.
"O-of course not! I could never hate Ryoma-kun! I li-" She clapped her hands over her mouth, mortified that the phrase "I like you" had almost slipped out.
"Good. Then it's not weird for me to give you this as well." He held out the flowers, a small bouquet of white roses, that Kaidoh had picked out. Strangely, he seemed to have a knack for those kinds of things.
The brown haired girl was even more confused. "Eh?"
"And these." Ryoma dumped the gifts his senpais had bought into her lap.
Sakuno just sat on her swing, frozen.
"A-ano... I co-couldn't accept all this!" She shook her head politely.
"No, keep it." Ryoma insisted firmly.
"Th-then at least le-let me gi-give you this." A cute bag of multiflavored chocolate squares was gently dropped into his palms.
He smirked.
"So, Ryuzaki has been hiding these from me for all this time?" He teased her. He had gotten up and came to stand in front of her.
"N-no..." Sakuno stammered and turned bright pink again as the cat eyed boy with a devious smirk took another step towards her. Now they were so close that she could feel the heat emanating from his lean body.
Ryoma opened the bag, taking one square out. It was a dark, rich looking brown with what appeared to be caramel dripping out the sides, as the chocolates had melted a bit.
He bit off half. "Thanks, Ryuzaki." He whispered. The melted bit of caramel had fallen onto his bottom lip, and Sakuno instinctively reached out to wipe it off gently with her thumb.
The pair locked eyes, and Sakuno blushed madly while Ryoma just smirked. Things were going his way, he thought.
Now behind the bushes, Momo and Eiji were bright eyed in anticipation.
"Come on, ochibi, come on, kiss her!" Eiji chanted under his breath.
They waited for the big moment.
Ryoma looked down at Sakuno. Her big brown eyes, illuminated by the fading sun behind him, had never looked at him with anything but kindness and concern. She had always been there for him, and he didn't even have to say anything to keep her by his side.
He realized he loved her. She was the one who needed some convincing.
So he gave into the growing urge that had plagued him for a couple of years now. Ryoma lowered his face towards hers and gently pressed his lips against her soft, pink ones in a sweet but passionate kiss.
Their first kiss.
After a couple of seconds that felt like years, Ryoma pulled back a few centimeters and breathed, "I love you, Sakuno."
She promptly fainted and fell off the swing.
"EH?"
The regulars came rushing out from behind the trees and the bushes and ran towards the girl that was sprawled on the ground. Ryoma was looking dazed.
"Wow, Ochibi! Never thought you had it in you to make a girl faint just with your lips!" Eiji nodded in approval.
Oishi looked at Sakuno-chan in worry. "Shouldn't we do something...?"
His and Ryoma's worries were quickly dispelled when she woke up suddenly. She was confused, understandably. Ryoma had kissed her and professed his love and now there were 7 other people standing in a circle around her.
When her eyes came to rest on Ryoma, she blushed. "A-ano... Ryoma-kun... did y-you mean wha-what you said?"
"Yeah." Ryoma bent down with a smirk on his face. "Wanna be my girlfriend, Ryuzaki?"
The regulars sweatdropped. Echizen had his own special way of making everything less romantic.
Sakuno smiled, realizing what he had just said. Wiping away a tear, she whispered, "Of course, you big idiot."
Toshiko: Wow that was like the longest chapter ever. Don't worry, the other chapters aren't gonna be so long. W-what? Reiko-chan?
Reiko: *sitting in a corner clutching a pillow and sobbing* All the feels... sniff sniff.
Toshiko: *pats Reiko in a motherly way* There, there, child. Let it all out. The sappiness of this story is off the charts. But I hope you enjoyed it. Next, an unexpected boy in love!