I awoke with to a startling noise. I bolted up in my bed and looked down. My hand was covered in slobber. The culprit: My sister's dog, Kara. I jumped out of bed and chased the infernal mutt out of my room. I slammed the door and proceeded to go get ready for school. As I stepped out the door I heard my dad call for me again.
"What?" I asked lazily, yawning.
"Do you have anything going on this afternoon?" he asked, peeking his head around the corner.
"Yes…I have to help train Ryuzaki-sensei's granddaughter" I replied, slipping my shoes on and walking out the front door.
"A date?" he asked, walking to the front door.
"No…." I replied, slamming the door in his face.
AT SCHOOL
I sat at the lunch table, lazily nibbling on my cookie. I yawned and went back to nibbling my cookie. It was so boring….This day wasn't going as well as I thought it would. I chewed the last bit of my cookie as Eiji and Oishi sat next to me.
"You look mad…Are you alright, Kiddo?" asked Eiji, sitting right next to me.
"Not mad…bored…" I replied, taking my tray to the trash can and sitting back at the table.
"Yeah…School's pretty boring…." Said Eiji, taking a huge bite out of his cookie.
"Don't say that Eiji! You want to encourage people to be in school!" spoke up Oishi.
"I'm not saying that he should leave, I'm saying that it's just a boring day!" replied Eiji, taking a drink of his chocolate milk.
I stood up, waved goodbye to my senpai's and headed off to the most boring class of the day, English.
AFTER SCHOOL
The bell rang. FINALLY! I walked out the door and headed to the Tennis courts. As I made my way to the courts I met up with Ryuzaki-san.
"You ready? I'm not going to go easy on you!" I replied, suddenly fired up.
"I don't expect you too Ryoma-kun! I will learn a lot more if you don't go easy on me!" she replied, setting her bag down on the bench. We readied ourselves. In moments after the game started, Block D practice courts exploded with the sound of Tennis balls hitting the raquets of the 2 players.
"Like this?" She asked as she hit my serve back with excellent form.
"No…Loosen up a little more, your still a little tense" I replied, hitting the ball back to her. Again she hit it back, this time, flawlessly. I was so amazed at how fast she had learned that she had gotten the ball past me.
"Was that loose enough…Ryoma-kun?" she asked, stretching out her arms.
I walked over to the tennis ball, picked it up and served it. She fumbled for her raquet, but missed the ball.
"Yes…but now your concentration needs to be worked on! You can never lower your guard! No matter what!" I said, taking my stance at the baseline.
"Got it! Ryoma-kun!" she replied, serving the ball to me.
The ball, although a good serve, was extremely high and went over the fence.
"Oops…S..Sorry…R..Ryoma-kun!" she apologized, running out of the field.
I ran after her.
"It's fine..Let's just go look for it so that we can practice" I said, keeping pace with her perfectly. As soon as we reached the bush it landed in, I saw the ball disappear. I dove in the bushes and to my horror found my sister's dog with the ball in its mouth. I clenched my fists.
"GIVE IT BACK YOU MONGREL!" I chased the dog until she lead me to someone's feet. I looked up and saw my sister, looking down at me.
"What are you doing, Ryoma-niichan?" She asked, ruffling my hair.
"Your dog took our only practice tennis ball…" I said, scowling at my sister.
"Don't look at me that way! It wasn't her fault! I was practicing and I lost my ball too so I told Kara to go fetch and so she probably thought that your ball was mine" she explained.
"Yeah, Yeah…Just give me the ball" I demanded.
I served at him, hitting him on the forehead.
"Go, fetch Kara!" she exclaimed. The dog bolted and I chased her down once more. After 10 mins of chasing her, I walked back to where Ryuzaki was to call off the practice only to see the dog, sitting by Ryuzaki-san. She was petting it. This made me furious! But I didn't let it show. I walked coldly up to the dog, grabbed the tennis ball from its mouth and made a shooing jesture. The dog sprinted out of the tennis court and went back to her place. At my sisters feet.
"What's wrong, Ryoma-kun? Who's dog was that?" asked Ryuzaki-san.
"My sisters…" I replied, glaring at my sister.
"Really? You have a sister?" she asked.
I nodded.
"What's wrong? Do you not get along with her?" she asked once more.
I shook my head.
"We get along just fine. It's just her dog I can't stand!" I replied, putting my raquet away and packing the slobbercovered tennis ball into my ball pocket.
"Well, I want to meet her. Do you think it would be ok?" she asked.
I nodded and we made our way over to my sister.
"Hello! My name is…"she began.
"Ryuzaki Sakuno…right?" my sister was still a smart-aleck like always.
Sakuno stood there, stunned.
"Don't look so surprised! Ryoma told me about you! It's nice to finally meet a girl that Ryoma gets along with" she said.
"Ryoma and I are actually good friends!" spoke up Sakuno.
"That's good! I'm glad my little brother has a girlfriend now!" she said, winking at me. I turned around, blushing.
"G..Girlfriend?" asked Sakuno, her face bright red.
"It's nothing..Let's go Ryuzaki-san!" I shouted, walking in the direction of her house.
She ran to my side and waved goodbye to my ever so kind sister.
"What did she m..mean by g…girlfriend?" asked Sakuno.
"I'll tell you later…Quite frankly…I'm too "dog-gone" tired to explain anything right now!" I sighed. Sakuno giggled to herself as we headed off into the horizon, towards her house.