Some background information on Coming Round:

According to the manga, Ryoma left Japan when he was 12 to pursue his tennis further in America. For Coming Round, I am assuming that Ryoma did not come back to rejoin the regulars for the Nationals. Instead, he rejoins the scene when he is 17.

I have had some questions about the regulars. Did some research on the Japanese schooling system, in which high school is within the ages of 16-18. According to this, only Momo and Kaidoh would be in the same school as Ryoma.The rest of the regulars would likely be in university. As to whether they'll be making appearances, I'm not sure at the moment.I don't want to crash the story with too many characters, but Momo and Kaidoh will be slinking in every once in a while.

That being said, this is basically a RyoSaku centred story. It starts and ends with them. I think it's going to be slow, still working out kinks, but I think stories with a slow build-up are always worth it in the end, ne?


His alarm spiked even further when he noticed that tears were trailing down her cheeks. He actually scooted back slightly when she made a movement, only to take off her glasses and wipe at her eyes. When she raised her head to look at him, he was stupefied to see teary brown eyes making contact with his own.

"Ryoma…" She choked out.

He stopped breathing altogether when she launched herself at him, arms wrapping themselves around his neck while she cried.


Ryuzaki could sure cry a lot, Ryoma thought. Even though her tears had soaked through his left shoulder, he had a feeling that she still had a long way to go. At this rate, he hoped he didn't end up with a dried prune clinging to him. Again, he awkwardly patted her shoulder as how one would when touching a rabid animal. Girls could be really mental sometimes. When his senses had finally deigned to pick up that there was an actual girl hugging him, his first impulse was to shove her away. Which he did, albeit gently of course. He would have succeeded in freeing himself except that Ryuzaki had merely strengthened her hold on him while making piteous mewling sounds. How was he supposed to push that away?

Instead, Ryoma found himself trying to quietly comfort her while praying that nobody would walk in and witness such an embarrassing scene. If the old coach caught wind of such an event, he would count himself lucky if he could still reproduce in future. He peeped down at her. All he could make out were her braids, though they were now mussed up from all the running they had done to evade his fans. Naturally, he was a gifted runner but with Ryuzaki tagging along on his arm, he couldn't run with his usual speed. Kami-sama, he thought he was done for when an overzealous fan nearly trampled him down. He shuddered at the thought.

This was a wrong move apparently as the movement caused Ryuzaki to shift from crying into his shoulder to burying herself in his neck instead. If he was his father, he would see this as the best opportunity to wring his way into Ryuzaki's pants. Luckily, he had nerves made of steel and was a righteous young man, well versed in propriety. His mother had seen to that. Yep, those nerves of steel were working all right.

And maybe if he kept repeating that mantra over and over again, his body would fall for it hook, line and sinker. As it was, he had pleasurable sensations that he had no right to feel owing to the fact that it was elicited by the coach's granddaughter. He felt like he was one giant hormone, highly on edge and waiting to explode. Did Ryuzaki know nothing about teenage boys? What the heck was wrong with her? As he felt her soft breaths wafting down his neck, he gave up breathing and tried to kill himself through loss of air. With any luck, it would be over in about 15 to 20 minutes. This would have been successful, if he was not a giant lump of hormone that was easily distracted by hair of the female variety.

Ryuzaki had a lot of hair. All shiny and brown, with beguiling long tendrils that had loosened from her braids. Perhaps he was slightly deranged due to the decrease of air intake but Ryoma had the most compelling urge to investigate what her hair smelled like. He battled the urge for about two seconds. Then, hoping she didn't notice, he tentatively bent down to take a sniff and was warmed by the heady scent of strawberries. Arrested by it, he bent his head further and took in a deeper breath. So involved was he in the act that he failed to notice the stiffening of Sakuno's small build.

"Anou...Ryoma...?" Sakuno whispered falteringly.

"Hm..?"

"Are you...smelling my hair?"

"Hm..."

"You're...you...you're smelling my hair…"

It was at this point when Sakuno angled her head backwards to give him a dumbfounded look that he realized what he had been caught doing. Ryoma was divided between two choices. To pretend that he knew nothing, or to trick himself into knowing nothing.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ryoma mumbled, all the while wishing desperately for a cap to cover his eyes and alarmingly heated face.

"You were! I felt it!" Sakuno persisted.

"I was...finding bugs." If there was a hole somewhere, Ryoma would have given anything to crawl inside it and die. Bugs?

"You were finding bugs?" She parroted dumbly.

Ryuzaki was giving him a Look, one that his mother had perfected and presented to his father whenever she thought he was an idiot. That was when it clicked into his brain.

"You called me Ryoma." He stated.

That really was an interesting shade of red on Ryuzaki. He watched a myriad of expressions play across her features before she finally settled on indignation.

"Tha...that...that's not the...don't change the subject!" To stress on this, she resolved to poke at his chest. He wondered whether he should return the favour. Perhaps another time.

"You said, 'Ryoma...' And then," He paused ominously. "You molested me." Why this would give him a strange sense of happiness, he refused to ponder. All that was important at that moment was to keep that attractive shade of red on Ryuzaki.

"I did not molest you!"

"You're on my lap." Ryoma calmly pointed out.

Confusion gave way to pure horror. She scuttled off his lap and curled herself into a ball at the furthest end of the corner where they were hiding, clearly trying to make herself invisible. He heard her muttering to herself, probably throwing thinly veiled obscenities his way and he inwardly smiled. Stretching out his legs, he asked her a question he had been wondering about for the past 30 minutes.

"Ryuzaki." He said without looking at her. He heard a muffled sound from her corner.

"Why were you crying?"


Sakuno was beyond mortified. She had practically raped Ryoma. Disgust and humiliation welled to such huge proportions inside of her that it took a few minutes for Ryoma's question to finally sink in. Why had she cried? It seemed absurd, now that she had a clear head to think with. But then she recalled Ryoma's face when he pleaded with her to not tell anyone about his secret. Ryoma pleaded with her.

It had caused such a chain reaction on her emotions, knowing that Echizen Ryoma, the proud cocky tennis player of her dreams was so worried about upsetting his former team-mates, that he was actually pleading with her. He would kill her if he knew she cried because she felt so badly hurt for him. Hurt because no matter what, he was Seigaku's pillar and upholding that responsibility was probably draining him inside.

When he repeated his question she kept mum, knowing that he would not appreciate her answer. Likely, he would construct it as pity which was the last thing that she felt concerning him. In truth, all she wanted to do was to mother him silly and keep him safe, away from prying questions and burdening responsibilities so he could just heal, damnit.

Oh no. Was he actually coming closer? She curled into a tighter ball and visualised herself in her room, all alone. The illusion was momentarily shaken when she felt his fingers curling into her own, but she merely shut her eyes and ignored him. Ryoma was adamant that she pay attention to him however, because he scooted nearer and settled himself more firmly beside her. Sakuno shivered from the warmth gained from the close contact of his body but refused to lift her face, frightened of what she would see if she looked at him. She made a tiny moue of frustration.

Everything crumpled to dust when Ryoma brought out a most effective weapon. A strange sense of awareness suddenly creeped over her. Without seeing him, she could actually feel Ryoma leaning into her, invading her already diminishing personal space. Soft strands of his hair were brushing across her arm, his fingers clutched hers tighter. Softly, he spoke.

"Sakuno..."

Stunned, her eyes immediately met his. Ryoma stoically looked back at her. How he managed to show no emotion while holding her hand, she had no idea. More importantly, he had said her name. Why would he do that? Why would he hold her hand? And why was he moving closer? Something was screaming at Sakuno from all directions but she batted it all away with an imaginary hand.

Sakuno closed her eyes and let whatever it was that would happen, to happen. Kami-sama then chose the strangest time to intervene.

"Echizen?!" Two voices merged out simultaneously.

Momo-senpai and Kaido-senpai had finally heard that their kouhai was back. Sakuno could have sworn she heard a growl from Ryoma.


He wished the mamushi would desist with the hissing. Would he never grow out of that phase? Momoshiro was very tempted to smack the stuffing out of Kaido, buchou or not. The importance of presenting a united front in front of Echizen was the only thing that prevented him from doing so. Kuso, it would do the mamushi good to shut up though. As it was, Echizen was looking at them like they were all strangers.

"So," He tried again, while glaring at Kaido. "When did you arrive?"

"Nearly a month ago." Echizen's curt response sure was encouraging, Momo thought sarcastically.

He nodded at Kaido to ask the next question. The mamushi just gave an irritated grunt and folded his arms while looking elsewhere. Momo glowered at Kaido, giving him all sorts of inspiring names in his head. When there was still no response, he rolled up his right sleeve and was about to knock some sense into the current buchou when Ryoma interrupted the beginnings of what would have been a very interesting fight.

"Are we done?" Ryoma intoned.

"No!" Both Momo and Kaido jumped out of their seats while shooting intimidating looks at the younger man in front of them. It did not work a whit as Ryoma merely raised an eyebrow at their antics and slouched further in his seat. The bored air emanating from Ryoma finally pushed Kaido over the edge.

"Why didn't you tell us?"

Ryoma tapped his fingers on his knee and looked at his watch pointedly.

"Why didn't you tell us about your injur-"

"Kaido!"

The comment finally caught Ryoma's attention. When he first saw them, he had at first felt a comforting sense of familiarity.Finally, he had thought. People he liked. He mistakenly thought that they would like slide into an easy camaraderie, fostered by the strong bonds that they had shared. Once he had tuned in to their nervousness around him though, he had stopped himself from reaching out. Now he knew why.

So it had all come down to this. How could they have known? The old coach would never tell. So would Tezuka-buchou. Despite being an idiot, his father would also never betray him in such a confidential matter. His mind narrowed on the one person who could have spilled it out.

Ryuzaki Sakuno.


Uh. Oh.

Actually I was stuck at the first paragraph. Ryoma would not cooperate, so I had to wheedle him into it. I realize he might be a tad ooc, but I fault it on his hormones.Or more accurately, his huge lump of hormone.

Did anyone else catch that double entendre?