Warning! : I haven't actually watched all 178 episodes, OVAs, musicals, etc. or read all 42 volumes of POT, so the characterizations in this fic are likely quite off. Anyone who has a problem with that, as well as gripes with grammatical errors (including perhaps ill used Japanese terms – I don't speak Japanese :P) and such, should probably proceed to another fanfic at this point. That having been said, I'd appreciate if you gave this humble piece a chance, and hope above all that you enjoy reading it. Now then, on with the fic and unlikely meetings ;)
Caps
When Miyuki finally found the "Lost and Found" booth (A/N: pun not intended), it was closed. 'Out to lunch,' the sign said, 'Back in an hour'.
Miyuki sighed and looked around for a place to sit and wait. There was a bench just next to the booth, so she sat down and tried to think of something to do with the 45 minutes she had to kill.
She'd come up with four possible options; (1) find Senri and the rest of the team, (2) find a snack vendor and get something to eat, (3) wander around aimlessly, and (4) take a nap, but she was feeling too lazy to do any of them, except the fourth option which she was currently trying to carry out, when a boy walked up to the booth.
She watched him curiously as he read the sign, looking all serious and somewhat frightening. Miyuki considered going someplace else with more people, seeing as how it was just the two them now which wasn't very safe on her side, but before she could make a move, the boy turned to look at her, and she realized that she'd been staring.
Smiling sheepishly, she did what she could to make the best of the situation.
"Ne, Nii-san, did you lose something too? You could wait with me in the meantime," Miyuki offered politely, hoping that he wouldn't accept the offer.
Unfortunately for her, the boy proceeded to take a sit next to her on the bench without a word. In fact, the two of them sat there in silence for about 5 minutes, with Miyuki feeling extremely uncomfortable and trying to keep from fidgeting, and the boy simply sitting with his arms crossed and staring ahead.
Finally, Miyuki couldn't take it and blurted out without thinking.
"So, what did you lose?"
She immediately regretted opening her mouth as soon as she heard the words escape her lips, but surprisingly, she received an answer.
"My cap."
"Really? So did I! I mean, I didn't lose your cap, but I have a cap too, and I lost it."
The boy turned to look at her and he looked so stern that Miyuki almost fell off the bench under the force of his gaze.
"Unacceptable. We must have slacked off. How could we have lost such important possessions?"
"Well, my brother says that accidents happen and I shouldn't worry too much about it, but I really do hope I find my cap. My brother gave it to me and it has a really cool pattern and everything. What does you cap look like?"
"Plain. Dark blue."
Not too many of the tennis players wore caps, and Miyuki always noticed their caps when they did, and an image came to mind at the mention of the color "dark blue".
"You mean like the vice-captain of Rikkai Dai? What's his name again?"
The boy looked at her oddly then, but supplied her with an answer.
"Sanada Genichirou."
"Yeah, that's right."
Miyuki wondered about the odd expression the boy had, then she noticed what he was wearing; tennis attire – complete with tennis bag which she hadn't noticed earlier due to her pre-occupation with trying to avoid ending up alone with the boy, obviously failing at any attempt to do so – and not just any tennis attire. He was wearing the Rikkai Dai uniform. Everything fell into place.
"And you would be him, wouldn't you?"
"Ah," Sanada answered simply.
Miyuki did a mental face-palm, but couldn't help making an observation.
"Say, you should use that cap less often, you don't look half bad without it."
Sanada chose to ignore the mischievous grin the girl had and decided to ask her some questions of his own.
"And who might you be?"
There was a pause as Miyuki contemplated the prudence of revealing her identity to someone she didn't really know.
'Well, a stranger's just a friend you haven't met after all, and he's the Vice-Captain of Rikkai for crying out loud.'
"I'm Chitose Miyuki, but you can call me Miyuki, 'cause most everyone calls my brother Chitose and it can get confusing."
"And I presume you brother is Chitose Senri."
"Yupp," Miyuki answered proudly.
"That explains a lot," Sanada quipped flatly.
Miyuki was about to question what Sanada meant by that, when they were interrupted.
"Oiy, Sanada. Isn't she too young for you?"
Sanada's eye twitched. He knew a double entendre when he heard one.
"First of all, Echizen Ryoma: I. Am. NOT. Old. And secondly, I just met her. You can have her if you want. You're her age anyway."
"Che, touchy-touchy," Ryoma replied, reading the sign and then looking at his watch. "Well, looks like we've got half an hour to spend together."
Having said that, Ryoma walked over to the bench and promptly sat between Sanada and Miyuki. He then stretched out his legs and looked like he was about to fall asleep, but Miyuki broke the silence.
"Wait a minute, are you guys calling me a KID?! I'll have you know I'm 10 years-old this year, and way more mature than my older brother!"
"I'm 13. You're still younger than me," Ryoma said, dozing off.
"Your older brother is Senri. A toddler would be more mature than him," Sanada said very seriously.
Miyuki glared at the both of them, and made a mental note to do the same to Sen-nii later. How was she supposed to defend her brother's awesomeness if people didn't take him seriously, especially because he himself didn't carry himself seriously?
A voice coming from behind her almost made Miyuki jump up in surprise.
"Hey, is there anymore space for one more?"
Ryoma opened an eye to regard the newcomer. It was Hyotei's Shishido Ryou, sans his trademark cap.
"Nope," he answered, closing back his eye. 'He must have lost his cap too,' Ryoma thought to himself, dozing off again.
"Gaki," Shishido muttered under his breath.
Sanada smirked and looked at his watch.
"If you've lost something, you've only got 20 minutes to wait before the booth reopens. I'm sure you can stand it out."
"I'd rather not," Shishido replied, picking up Miyuki – the logical choice due to her being the smallest one on the bench – and unceremoniously dumped her on Sanada.
"Hey!" Miyuki cried jumping off Sanada intending to give Shishido a piece of her mind, but Sanada held her back.
"I'll deal with him later," he said forebodingly, pointedly glaring at Shishido.
Shishido repayed Sanada's earlier smirk with one of his own.
"I'll be looking forward to it."
"Would you all just shut up already? I need to rest before my match later," Ryoma suddenly interjected.
"Brat," Shishido called him again, this time very audibly.
"Whatever…Loser," Ryoma countered flawlessly.
"And just where am I supposed to wait?" Miyuki piped in.
Sanada could feel his eye beginning to twitch in exasperation again and wished he could give the three of them laps. Maybe he should just do it anyway…but he really couldn't, so he compromised.
"Shut up, the both of you," he ordered Ryoma and Shishido, at the same time picking up Miyuki and letting her sit on his lap, but not without a suitable /threat/ condition, "And you; if you tell anyone about this, I'll kill you."
Miyuki was surprised by his gesture, but she quickly recovered and gave him a "peace" with a wink.
"Sure thing, Gen-nii!"
"My, aren't you two cute," Ryoma teased.
"Didn't you say you wanted to sleep," Sanada snapped.
"I actually agree with the brat on that one," Shishido added.
"You are so DEAD," Sanada declared.
"Excuse me, but he's a little too old for me," Miyuki objected.
"I am NOT old," Sanada reiterated.
And that was the sight that greeted the "Lost and Found" booth attendant when he finally chose to return from his lunch break – an unlikely group of students bickering amongst themselves.
The attendant nervously slipped past them, not wanting to draw their attention and potential wrath, but they had obviously been waiting for him, so he drew in a brave breath and called out to them.
"Sumimasen, but did you all lose something?"
"MY CAP!" they replied simultaneously.
The attendant sweatdropped, but quickly produced a small box. There were four caps inside.
"Ah, what a coincidence; these were all turned in just before I left for my lunch break just now."
The four youngsters quickly reclaimed their rightful possessions and turned to go their own way.
"Wait a minute!" Miyuki suddenly called out.
"What?" the three boys looked at her impatiently but expectantly.
She walked calmly over to Shishido and looked up at him for a moment while he looked down at her. Then, very swiftly, she punched him in the arm and quickly ran over to Ryoma and smacked him on the back of the head while they were all still too shocked to react.
"Hey, ow!" Shishide cried.
"What the-?!" Ryoma started.
Sanada quickly took out his racquet in self-defense when Miyuki started walking towards him.
"Put that thing away, Gen-nii," she ordered, and Sanada inexplicably found himself complying.
Without warning, Miyuki gave him a tight hug around his waist, which was as far as she could reach.
"Thanks for the seat, Gen-nii."
Then, with a final squeeze, she released Sanada and made to run off, but not before shouting back to the three of them, "All the best for your matches!"
She gave them a wink, and then she was gone, leaving a shocked Sanada, a bewildered Ryoma and a wincing Shishido.
"I still can't imagine how you managed to pull this off," Yagyuu mused out loud.
Beside him, Niou – the architect of the whole incident they'd just witnessed – was practically rolling on the ground with laughter.
"Please tell me someone got a shot of Sanada. I swear that girl made him blush."
"Done," Yanagi reassured, holding up his digital camera.
Meanwhile, the objects of their entertainment – Sanada, Ryoma and Shishido – finally pulled themselves together and left, too preoccupied to notice the rustling bushes across the bench.
Standard disclaimers apply
Notes:
1. I know there are other cap-wearing characters that I could have used, but these are the ones I know the best. I hope I did them justice.
2. I'm not sure where an encounter like this would fit in the timeline (besides never :P), but it'd probably be during the Nationals, or possibly in the live-action movie-verse, when the teams these particular characters are with (Miyuki through Senri of course) were present (remember that scene in the movie near the end when the other teams were /glaring at/ observing the Seigaku team? Creepy…:P) Oh, and this is supposed to indicate a /strikethrough/
3. I ended up doing this when I totally should have been working on my assignments – no regrets – and my point is this (actually, the proceeding statement doesn't really have anything to do with the former one): This fic was born out of a desire to read more Miyuki fics, i.e. I couldn't find much, so I wrote my own, so let me just say (or plead); to avoid having to endure anymore of my attempts, to all POT fanfic writers out there, PLEASE WRITE MORE MIYUKI x ANYONE. Thank you very much in advance! X)
4. Thank you for reading this. GoDspeed :)