That day before class, Sayomi was talking to Kome, as usual.
"Good morning, Sayomi-chan!"
"Good morning, Kome-chan!"
"Hey, can you do me a
favour?"
"Sure, what do you need?"
"Can you
teach me some english?"
"Why do you want to learn english all of a sudden?"
"Just so I can say that I speak english."
Sayomi sighed, then laughed.
"You're so random, Kome-chan..." she muttered in english.
"That was english, right? What did you say?"
Kome got out her notebook and a pen, ready to write down the phrase.
"I just said you're so random, Kome-chan." she translated.
"One more thing."
"What?"
"How
do I write english words?"
Sayomi laughed again and wrote down the phrase in Kome's book in english, then translated into japanese. As she was writing, a tennis ball rolled toward her feet, with a note pinned to it.
"Sayomi,
You left this at my house yesterday. Don't forget about what it says!
-Ryoma"
The note was written in english, and Kome was curious as to what it said.
"Tell me, tell me! Please?"
Sayomi laughed and scribbled something on the bottom of the note.
"Ooh, you're writing something back? What's that say? Who was it from anyway?"
"God, Kome, you're hyper today!"
"I'm not hyper, I'm curious!"
Sayomi rolled the ball back over to Ryoma.
After class, Kome was still asking about the note.
"Please tell me?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No!"
"Please?"
"Don't
you think I would have told you if I wanted to?"
As Ryoma headed for the tennis courts, Kato and Mizuno buzzed around him like mosquitoes.
"Echizen, is it
true?!"
"Is what true?"
"Is it true you got
beat by a girl?!"
"Yeah, yeah, Sayomi beat me a couple of days ago."
"Wait, Sayomi?"
"That cute girl in our class Sayomi?"
"Sayomi Shihobu?"
"Yeah."
"So Horio was actually telling the truth about that?!"
"Yeah."
"So how'd it
happen?"
"I hit the ball out and she won. No big deal."
Ryoma shrugged and continued walking, hoping that was the last of Kato and Mizuno's questions. However, the two still followed Ryoma, continuing to ask him questions.
"Horio said you were
playing for prizes! What would you have won?"
"Sayomi
would have had to cut her hair short."
Kato and Mizuno gasped. They too knew how Sayomi loved her knee legnth hair and how long it took her to grow it out.
"But Echizen, that's
just..."
"That's just mean!"
"Why? I think she'd look better with short hair."
"So what did she
win?"
"Yeah, what prize was she playing for?"
"A date."
"With
who?"
"Me."
"What?!"
"She won, and I went on a date with her."
After hearing this, Kato and Mizuno were suddenly very interested in Ryoma's personal life.
"Where'd you
go?"
"What'd you do?"
"Are you going on
another date with her?"
"Did you kiss
her?"
"Are you going to kiss her?"
"Do you
like her?"
Kato and Mizuno asked a barrage of questions, one after the other.
"My house, talked, no, no, no, no."
Although most of his answers were truthful, Ryoma calmly lied about a few things. While he was being interrogated by his friends, Sayomi's seemed to have heard about the date as well.
"So tell us about it Sayomi!"
"Yeah, Kome said you
beat Ryoma 2 days ago, so spill!"
"Oh, yeah, I did."
"Tell us about it!"
"It was a close
match. He used his twist serve and-"
"He used his twist
serve?! Did you hit it?"
"Tomo-chan, will you shut up?!
You're interrupting Sayomi!"
"Sorry Sayomi, keep going!"
"As I was saying, he used his twist serve and I managed to hit it, but it barely got over the net. And then Ryoma hit it way to the back of the court, but it went out."
"And Kome said you
played for prizes!"
"So what'd you win?"
"I went out with him..."
"Went out?!"
"Like
a date?!"
"Yeah..."
Sayomi laughed nervously as Sakuno and Tomoka gasped, then giggled in excitement.
"So what did you
do?"
"Where did you go?"
"Isn't he just so
amazing?"
"Are you going to go out with him again?"
"Is he a good
kisser?"
"We talked at his house, I don't know if we'll
go out again and I didn't kiss him."
"What?! You didn't kiss him?!"
"So what did you talk about?"
"The match..."
"You say that like there's a secret!"
"Tell us, tell us!"
"I can't."
Sayomi got up and walked away, Sakuno and Tomoka still following her.
"How about this: if you can get Ryoma to tell you, you'll know."
"But Ryoma will never
tell us!"
"That's the point. What we talk about isn't
any of your buisness."
"Well then...what would Ryoma have won?"
Sayomi stroked her har and ran a few fingers through it. Sakuno and Tomoko gasped and looked at each other.
"Don't tell
me..."
"He was going to make you cut your hair short?!"
Sayomi looked down at her hair and almost cried.
"I was so scared I'd have to cut it..."
"But no worries, you won and got to go out with Ryoma!"
"Hey, we should go over to te tennis courts and see if he'll go out with you again!"
Sakuno and Tomoka excitedly dragged Sayomi to the tennis courts.
"Hi, Ryoma!"
"...Who
are you?"
"I'm Tomoka, remember? I'm a friend of Sakuno and Sayomi!"
"So what do you want?"
"You should go out with Sayomi again!"
Knowing that his friends, as well as Sayomi's, were around, he graciously declined.
"The date yesterday wasn't exactly of my free will."
"But you can go on another date with her that is of your free will!"
Tomoko continued pestering him until he finally gave in.
"If I go out with her again, will you shut up?"
"Yes!"
"Fine."
Ryoma sighed and began speaking english with Sayomi.
"Where do you want to go? Your house this time?"
"No way, my parents would try and find every flaw in you and tell me why I shouldn't date you."
"But nowhere public. I don't want to risk anyone seeing us."
"Yeah. The regulars probably wouldn't let you hear the end of it."
"Especially Eiji-senpai."
"He's the redhead that acts like a cat, right?" Sayomi laughed.
"That's him."
"I think it's kind of cute." she smiled.
"In my opinion, it's a little bit weird."
"Weird. But in a cute way."
"I get it, you think Eiji-senpai's cute too."
"And Fuji, the way he's always smiling. Kinda makes you want to smile too." she immitated Fuji's smile.
"We still need to figure out where to go."
"Oh, yeah, that's
right."
"I guess we could go to my house again. We never
did get to play a proper match."
"But don't hold back
this time."
"Same goes for you, Sayomi-chan."
Sayomi turned to walk away, but Sakuno and Tomoka prevented her from taking even a step farther.
"So, where are you
going?"
"What are you going to do?"
"When-"
"Will
you two shut up? My personal life isn't exactly your buisness you
know." she laughed.
"We can't help but be nosy, we're your friends!"
"Okay, well we're going to his house again and we're going to play a real tennis match." she explained in english.
"We don't speak
english!"
"Hey, you never said I had to tell you in
japanese!"
After pestering her quite a bit, Sakuno and Tomoka finally decided to let Sayomi leave. She decided to wait for Ryoma as he gathered his things.
"What's the matter, got something to tell me?"
"Sorta."
"What is it?"
"When's
the next time the regulars will be at the courts? I haven't seen them
in a while."
"Heh heh, you like my teammates?"
"I never said
that!"
"Or is it just one?"
"I never said
that!"
"Which one is it? Tezuka-senpai? Eiji-senpai? Fuji-senpai? Or maybe-"
"Ryoma-kun, stop that!"
"Sorry. So why do you want to know when the regulars will be at the courts?"
"Well everyone's always anxious to watch them play...and they're just so...cool." she sighed heavily.
"Heh, and I thought
you were different."
"What do you mean by that?!"
"You were dreaming about the regulars."
"Oh be quiet!"
Sayomi abruptly turned around and stormed off.
"Oops, looks like I upset her...oh well."
Ryoma shrugged and began walking home, wondering what had made Sayomi so angry.
