Decisions
By: Bunny
Rated: T
Genre: Romance / Friendship
Summary: Sakuno had been ready to give it all away to make her aging grandmother happy until she found out who else was involved. Ryoma simply didn't take rejection well. Or maybe there was more to it than that. RyoSaku.
Disclaimer: The Prince of Tennis / Tenisu no Ĺjisama is copyright Takeshi Konomi/Shueisha.
Oh and I MUST give a big shout out to Cookie, my beta reader, who began beta reading for me with this fanfic! I hope you all enjoy the improvements to having her help!
Chapter Twenty-One
Ryuzaki Sakuno was vaguely aware that she wasn't alone. She was sleeping...or at least she thought she was sleeping. It seemed like she was sleeping, but she couldn't really remember her dreams, and she always remembered her dreams, so maybe she wasn't sleeping? Was she hurt? Had she been knocked out in an accident or something and now she was in a hospital and this other presence she could feel was a nurse or something? She tried to move, but her body refused...
Wait.
Something had happened. She was sure of it, now that she was...waking up? Something big had happened to her. It was something really important...right? What was it? What had happened?
A flash of something sparkly came to mind, a flash of something small and baby blue...and hazel eyes...
OH!
Sakuno shot out of her bed, gasping.
Ryoma-kun had said he loved her!
As she frantically looked around, she was met with a shocked look from her grandmother. Oh, so it was Grandma who was in the room...
Sakuno paused and looked at Ryuzaki Sumire with a suspicious look, "Grandma?"
"Yes, Sakuno?" She replied calmly.
"Was...was Ryoma-kun here?"
The older woman approached her and wrapping an arm around her back, she eased the young woman to sit back down on her bed. Taking Sakuno's right hand into both of her own, she opened up Sakuno's still clenched fingers, revealing a baby blue box.
Sakuno's eyes widened as she took in the sight of the sparkling contents.
It..it...it was...the ring.
All those things really happened.
All those things really happened.
All those things really happened.
All those things really happened.
All those things really happened.
Sakuno's eyes searched over her mattress until she found the envelope with her plane ticket laying innocently against the wall. She grabbed for it and pulled it out, looking at it closely.
"He told me to tell you to go meet him," Sumire said.
Sakuno closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. Then out of nowhere, she burst into tears.
Startled, Sumire rubbed her granddaughter's back. Wishing she knew what in the world was going on with the young couple. Nothing made sense to her anymore. Back in her day...the whole love and marriage thing...it was so much simpler...
Or was it?
That afternoon, Sakuno was still mulling over her life while sitting in her bedroom. She gazed out of her bedroom window into the city beyond, wondering what she would do now.
Well, he loved her, right?
So everything would be okay, wouldn't it?
She could marry him now and they could go on the ATP in April like Ryoma-kun had said they would and it would be a wonderful grand life they would have together...
It wasn't really realistic though, was it? She wasn't some princess in some fairy tale where the prince appears, sweeps the princess off of her feet and away they ride off into the sunset living happily ever after...
Ryoma-kun may indeed be a prince, but last time she checked, she was no princess. Even Ryoma-kun himself described her as "pretty enough" and "not annoying." That was hardly happily ever after princess material, right?
She looked down at her hand and admired the ring on her ring finger for the millionth time that day. It was all too wonderful for her...it was all too...
With a sigh, Sakuno turned to her nightstand and grabbed the marriage document she'd been holding hostage for the past three and a half weeks. She rose up, grabbed a pen from her drawer, and filled out all her information. Finally, she retrieved her stamp and stamped the document. Folding it up, she placed it aside on her desk.
It would be valid on her eighteenth birthday which was in two days on Saturday. It was a huge deal. She still couldn't believe she'd just signed and stamped away the rest of her life...her forever...
When Ryoma-kun got back from Australia, she would give it to him and the final decision could be his on if he'd mail it in to the registry. For now...as far as she was concerned it was done...though he still had a way out if he suddenly snapped to his senses and realized that there were much better females out there for him than her.
And that, was that.
Sakuno woke up early the morning after Ryoma left for Australia and prepared herself to go back to school. She'd skipped all day yesterday, which wasn't too big of a deal right after winter break, but not exactly the smartest move she'd ever made either. Still...she glanced at the beautiful ring shining on her finger. It was just that she'd needed some time to process the wondrousness of it all. Really, her life had just gone from humble and ordinary to super fantastic and the world was her oyster.
As she finished getting ready for her day, she went back into her bedroom to retrieve her school bag. With a sigh, she took her ring off and placed it back in the Tiffany's box and headed off to school.
It just had to wait...
Sakuno had continued to go to school the rest of the week and then stayed at home watching coverage of the Australian Open on the television through the weekend. Since the tournament started on her eighteenth birthday on Saturday she'd enjoyed staying inside from the cold and watching all the media coverage. There were interviews and all sorts of fun montages of the players from past years that were featured. Sakuno watched for every single glimpse she could get of Ryoma, even though every time she saw him a part of her heart twisted in pain that she knew he wanted her there with him and she'd disobeyed him and not gone.
It was just...too soon...after he'd said...such a thing...and if she went there...it would be like...and that meant...
Really, it was for Ryoma-kun's own good. She didn't want to be a distraction or a bother when he was at such an important tournament.
Besides...it gave her some time to process and get used to the idea...
Ryoma-kun loved her.
On paper...they were married.
Hopefully it wasn't too good to be true.
It was on Monday after school, that Sakuno received the shock of her life. She'd really thought nothing else could ever happen to her to scare her so badly, but in retrospect, she'd had no idea.
After school, she'd gone out to the cafe with her best friend forever Tomoka. They'd discussed their winter break activities and talked a little bit about being back at school and caught up on the latest gossip. Tomoka had been away for a family vacation for the whole break. Sakuno shared her favorite books she'd read with Tomoka. At one point Tomoka had brought up Ryoma, but Sakuno had remained silent at Tomoka's subtle inquiries. So it was when Tomoka finally brought up Fuji that Sakuno filled in her best friend that she had canceled the miai with their former senpai as well.
It was safe to say then that Sakuno was in good spirits from visiting with her best friend as she entered her home in the late afternoon.
"I'm home," She called out to the dwelling as she kicked her shoes off. She began removing layers of clothing, her gloves, her hat, her coat, her scarf, her sweater. The weather had been progressively getting colder and Sakuno had already found herself longing for spring. On more than one occasion she'd considered getting on that plane and going to the summer weather in Australia that Ryoma had tempted her with just to escape from the cold.
Hearing no greeting back, she ran up the stairs in her socked feet and did the first thing she'd been doing all last week as soon as she got home. She grabbed her wedding ring from its box, and placed it back on her finger. She stared at it with a glow about her for a few moments, before she realized she could hear murmuring coming from her grandmother's bedroom.
She made her way out of her room and down the hallway, pausing at the open bedroom door. Her grandmother had her back to her as she spoke on the phone in low tones.
"So you don't know exactly what happened to him?" She heard her ask quietly.
There was a pause as whomever she was speaking with replied and then, "Nanjiro. You're sure he was admitted into the hospital?"
Sakuno's eyes widened. She grabbed at her chest as her heart stopped for a moment before beating more furiously in a panic like no other she had ever experienced before in her whole life.
"So he told them Sakuno was his closest relative? Really?"
Sakuno's eyes bugged out of their sockets and then before she heard even another word, she spun on her heel and rushed down the hallway. Grabbing her plane ticket and her passport from her bedroom, she flew down the stairs, stuffed her feet halfway into her shoes and left the house without even bothering to put on her sweater, her scarf, her coat, her hat, or her gloves.
Ryoma needed her! Ryoma was hurt! Ryoma was..!
Within an hour Sakuno was at the airport frantically making arrangements for her open plane ticket to be validated for the next available flight to Australia.
With a dreadful pain in her heart, and clinging to hope that somehow she hadn't already lost her husband, Sakuno settled into her comfortable first class seat.
Ryoma...hold on...I'm coming!
Back at the Ryuzaki residence, Ryuzaki Sumire puzzled at the lack of appearance after school of her granddaughter. She'd tried to call her cell phone, but was dismayed to find the phone had been left in the house. After much research she found that Sakuno's shoes, passport, plane ticket and ring were all missing and with that, she figured Sakuno must have decided to go to Australia. Why hadn't she bothered to say anything first though? Why hadn't she packed anything? And why oh why in the world would she have forgotten her cell phone?
And more importantly, did her granddaughter even know Ryoma was in the hospital?