Of Tennis and Ice Prince
Chapter 21: Rivalry
"Wait. What?!" Sora widened her eyes and stared at Mouri, who kept on grinning the entire time without avoiding her gaze. "Stop joking around." Sora soon said while laughing, pretty convinced that his grin was a mischievous "joking" one.
"I'm not joking. I really like you, Sora. I've liked you since we were in middle school."
Sora's mouth gapped open. Mouri liked her? How? How did she not notice it? Was this guy being serious? Since middle school, that's almost four, no five years! While she sat there, gaping at his face, Mouri let out a chuckle and stared at her lovingly. "Your face right now is really cute." Now that she knew his true intentions, everything he did and said seemed to come to her in a different light.
"I know you don't see me as more than just a kouhai, but I'll make you change your mind." Mouri said as he grabbed his empty plates and stood up. "And don't think about avoiding me! I won't accept that. Then see you during the match, Sora!"
He walked away after his big confession, leaving baffled Sora at her table; Sora's mind was busily working by then. 'Wait. Did he just drop the honorifics? He just called me by my name. That brat! Why—oh. Mouri… likes me. This is so weird. But then again… arrrgh! Now that I know he likes me, everything he did in the past makes sense! But I like…' Kazuya walked over to her table and sat down in front of her.
"What are you spacing out for?" He asked.
"O-Oh." She snapped out. Her cheeks heated up just a bit upon seeing him after a particular trail of thought. "I-It's nothing."
Kazuya stared at her which made her slightly uncomfortable. It seemed like the tension has loosened between them, a perfect timing for the two to make up.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry."
They said simultaneously. The two stared at each other and broke out into chuckles. "No, I'm more at fault. I'm sorry." Kazuya said. "I was just under a lot of stress and I ended up venting it out on you." With his sincere apology Sora brightened up; what felt like has been weighing down her feet were now all gone. Kazuya was a great guy after all.
"It's all good." She gave him a toothy grin and grabbed her empty plates, standing up. "Alright then! Let's go win it."
"Yeah."
The two walked back to the room to get their gears ready for a big match. While she was packing, she suddenly thought of Mouri's confessions from back at the dining hall. 'I still can't believe it… that Mouri? Liking me? Why does he like me?'
"…Sora?"
"Huh?"
"What are you all spacing out for? You scared?"
"What! Like hell I'm scared! I'm so ready to go kick their asses!" She fisted the air and Kazuya chuckled at the sight, putting his big hand over the top of her head.
"Don't go hurting yourself again, especially when going against that Duke guy."
"No worries. Onigiri-head ain't got nothin' on me."
Kazuya was walking down the empty hallway of the building after retrieving his freshly-strung rackets. The building was completely empty because everyone was either participating in or watching the match between the first and second stringers. Then, as he turned the corner, he ran into a person—or a thing, rather—it was the redhead that he disliked so much. He stopped and a frown overcame is expression almost instantaneously upon seeing him.
"Ah! Sora's roommate-san." He greeted almost too nonchalantly and it ticked off Kazuya more than it should have. Not seeing the need to confront him, Kazuya brushed past him— "I confessed to Sora."
At that Kazuya's feet froze in spot. He what? To Sora? He shot around, looking at him. Mouri turned around as well, facing him with a rather hostile smile. And this guy just addressed his upperclassman first name with no honorifics or whatsoever.
"Let me be straightforward. You know she's a girl, right?" Mouri asked. Kazuya didn't say anything; he just glared at the boy. "Well, judging by how you're not surprised, I assume you know already. But you know she's really desperate in hiding the fact, right?"
"Don't you lay a finger on her." Kazuya warned menacingly with a low growl.
"Hey, come on. Like I'd do anything that'll hurt someone I like. And plus, what are you to her? You guys are just friends, no more or no less. She doesn't know that you know her identity." Kazuya clenched his fists, annoyed at how sly and annoying this thing in front of him sounded. He was going all-out in taunting him.
"What's the point of you telling me all this?" Kazuya asked. He would love to know the true intentions behind his taunts. "You think you can just show up out of nowhere and just tell her that you like her just to take her away from me? If you haven't noticed, we got along the best in this camp since last year."
"Technically speaking, I knew her longer than you have. I've known her since middle school." Mouri shrugged his shoulders and laughed. "You like her too, don't you?"
Kazuya gritted his teeth. As much as he hated confessing the fact to someone, especially this redhead, before actually telling Sora, it was inevitable in the moment. "What if I do?"
"It's not what if, though. You do like her." Mouri said. "I'm just letting you know, so that Sora doesn't hold any resentment when she actually does come to like me. You know, it'd be sad if you go accusing me of "stealing her away" because I didn't know that you liked her."
"Like hell she'd choose you over me."
The playful grin on Mouri's face disappeared and was overcome with a serious, icy gaze. "Please. You're the one that's getting in the way." The two glared at each other for the longest time. "And plus, she doesn't even know that you like her, yet alone the fact that you're aware of her being a girl."
Tokugawa's eyebrows twitched. He was right. Realistically speaking, Tokugawa was just a good friend and a roommate. That was it. With a victorious smirk Mouri walked away from the scene. Tokugawa walked over to the courts as well and realized that he was about to go up against a very important match.
"Yo! Why are you so bummed out?" Sora came hopping over and said. "You better get ready for Hoho-san or else he'll cream your ass again."
"L-Like I'd let that happen. I'm fine." Tokugawa blurted out.
The match between them began and the middle schoolers went up against the doubles players, one by one. Mouri and his partner, Ochi Tsukimitsu, went up against Atobe and Niou. Mouri's skills in tennis surprised Sora. He had improved a lot more than she could ever have imagined. He'd be a good person to play against.
"That Niou is really something." Sora said while sitting next to Marui and Kirihara. They looked over and gave her a puzzled look. "He might be a lot more skilled than you think… perhaps a lot more than Atobe?"
"Haaah?" The two gave her a crazy look.
"Think about it." Sora said much simply. "He's perfectly mastered copying Tezuka on top of Ryoma and Kabaji. That kind of power and technique doesn't show up out of nowhere."
"Huh…" The two cocked their heads, somewhat convinced.
"See? That serve isn't something anyone can pull off just by imitating." Sora commented as Tezuka (Niou disguised as Tezuka) served another zero-shiki serve, earning a service ace.
"Man, so Niou-senpai was actually really strong!" Kirihara marveled.
"Well, that's true now that I think about it… that guy, he always goes off independently so we never realized that he was always training up until now." Marui said.
"Yeah, I saw him jogging past the dining hall the other day. It was pretty late too, around 11 o'clock?" Sora said. "I'm pretty sure he had ankle weights too."
"Huh. Wait, what were you doing in the dining hall that late?" Kirihara asked.
"Eating, of course." Sora said. "They recently released a new menu for the desserts section so I was trying them out."
"Oh, I know I know! The raspberry one and the crème brûlée, right?!"
"YEAH! My god that crème brûlée is just a piece of art I swear."
"The perfect crispiness of the glazed sugar coat… mm~!"
"You know your desserts well, Bunta!"
The two laughed and Kazuya just chuckled inwardly at how closely they resembled two teenage girls talking about their favorite desserts.
The match came to a close game and Atobe and Niou won miraculously on a deuce point of the very last set. Although Mouri had lost, she had to admit that he had become a far stronger player than she had imagined him to be.
Marui then stood up, grabbing his racket. He headed over to the court to play with Kite and the opponents coming to the courts as well.
"Bunta and that tan dude…" Sora trailed off. "What a weird ass pair."
"I know right?!" Kirihara exclaimed. "He's the last person I expected Marui-senpai to pair up with!"
"Well, that guy and Bunta's old partner have a resemblance." Sora said, thinking. At that, Kirihara cocked his head sideways in confusion. Jackal and Kite? A resemblance?"
"Jackal-senpai?"
"Yeah. They're both brown."
"Pfft." Kirihara broke out into a chuckle as the players shook hands at the net and went over to the baseline to get ready.
"Sora-senpaaaaai~!" Sora then flinched as she heard a very familiar voice calling her name out in a very familiar way.
"Oh dear."
Within seconds, the redhead was in front of her with an extremely happy face. "Did you see me play?"
"Yeah, I was watching the whole time."
"How did I do?"
"Pretty well." She answered. "Although you ended up losing." Then she teased.
"Aw come on…"
"I'm just kidding. You've improved, I'm impressed." She broke out into a chuckle upon seeing his saddened face and said. At that, Mouri's face brightened up almost immediately. Meanwhile, Kazuya, who was sitting just a few inches away, was silently scowling at the redhead while glaring at him.
"Kazuya?"
"Ah, sorry, Kanata." Kazuya snapped out as Irie called him, catching his attention after about a third time of trying to get his attention. "What did you say?"
"I was just wondering if you knew that guy talking to Sora right now." Irie whispered a bit.
"Ah, that guy?" Kazuya's face darkened almost immediately upon mentioning of the redhead. "He's apparently Sora's kouhai from Rikkaidai." He answered, and then went back to glaring at the guy who was chirping much to happily next to Sora.
'Hm…' Irie carefully studied Kazuya's face as he continued to scowl at the redhead. It was way too obvious that he didn't like the redhead beside his roommate. 'It has to be.'
Sorry it took so long to update! I have so much stuff to do on top of acacdemics, especially after getting a part-time job.
****IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ! NO MORE PRINCE OF TENNIS STORIES AFTER THESE******
Because Shin PoT is far from being over and I'm pretty sure that I won't have enough patience or time to continue this story with the same pace as the actual manga, I'm going to limit this story and end it before it gets to chapter 25, plus minus a few chapters. Also, I've been losing interest in the PoT fandom, so after I (try to) wrap up any stories that are ongoing right now, I don't think I'll be coming up with any new ones.
I'm still deep into the Haikyuu fandom though, but it doesn't seem like the Haikyuu fandom is the type of fandoms that are active on that much.
TL;DR
No more PoT stories for me after I finish the current ones I'm working on. I might change my mind later, but it is very unlikely since life is picking up the pace on me. I might still write Haikyuu fics though, since I'm pretty darn into that manga right now.
LOOKING FOR ANOTHER AUTHOR TO ADOPT Tezuka Kunimitsu, Revamped!
I apologize to all the readers who expected a continuation of the series, but I simply cannot write another 20-chapter story, with the exact same canon from the manga, since I already sorta did that in Lucifer of Rikkaidai. I'm open to adoptions though, so if anyone wants to adopt this story, please refer to these guidelines:
1. PM me. No exceptions on this. Only PM's allowed, no public reviews. Please do not cross the thin line between casual and outright carefree. I want the writer to show some care and professionality.
2. If you inquire me with adoption, I will give you a short prompt in which you will write a ~300-word passage/story that will reflect a prompt that I give you. I will look for grammar, vocabulary, eloquence, etc. I will let you know within no more than 3~5 days, depending on how many inquiries I get.
3. The rights of the story is both with me and the adopter. I will still take credit for the previous chapters I have written. Any chapters after that, the rights are all yours.
4. You will take off from where I left off. Meaning, you cannot re-write the chapters I wrote, because that's just re-making the story, not adopting. If you have further questions regarding this, then this must be discussed over PM.
5. Please be respectful about rules and crediting. As much as you wouldn't want anyone stealing your credits, I do not either.