To you, the Reader, who has probably had to put up with a while lot of shit to get here ():
Okay, there's a huge drop in quality from the last chapter to this one, not that there was much quality to begin with, so you have been warned. And I'm shifting to focus off the Mamu and the Momo for a while, a lot of this is buildup that isn't really needed. The others have to start making appearances soon... so... Aargh! Neva mind! Why am I boring you with this?? Just read the story! But the humour has gotten worse.. that much is for real.
Oh yeah, severe OOCness in Sakuno. I was trying to make her more interesting, and you can guess what happened. Don't hold back if you think I made the wrong decision, this an an experimental thing and I'd like to be flamed if you feel I deserve it. (Aaahhh.... Contradiction...)
I won't say please review... but I really appreciate all of them! Expecially to those people who followed the story from the start and also the dude who told me my formatting was fucked. - Arigato!
Ryuuzaki-sensei had a problem.
Normally, this was by no means anything surprising. Ryuuzaki-sensei had had a lot of problems - rheumatism, chronic pains, allegies, cranky days, and cracking wrinkles, to name a few. She was a fifty-going-on-to-sixty year-old crotchety old woman who bore the world a grudge for forcing her to go through menopause, whose one profession and specialty was nagging, and that was what had landed her a job as Seishin Gakuen's tennis coach. She was the object of both jealousy and envy of many other old ladies around the country, because she was able to earn money for nagging, which meant that she had superior nagging skillz (something all old ladies want) and because she was being paid money for doing what all old ladies did, i.e., nag, which was in many old ladies' opinion very unfair. On the flip side, she also had to dress up in a track suit and pretend to know something about tennis, which was quite a strain on an old brain.
But Ryuuzaki-sensei's problem was quite pressing, because it was making her face look like a map of the streets of India, complete with the 'Ganges River' of a wrinkle between her eyes. She was in the Classroom that Just Happened to Overlook the Tennis Courts (some people were of the opinion that the builder had been bribed by his highschool girlfriend to build the classroom where anyone with a window seat could stare as much as they liked at the good-looking tennis players), sneakily spying on the unsuspecting members of her tennis team, a fact of which her whole tennis team was aware of. The fifty-odd "Ryouma-sama!" shouting members of the fangirl club crowded around her might have had something to do with it.
On the courts, four-stories down and twenty mentres away, a spiky-haired boy waved, and a bandana-ed young man hissed. THAT was Ryuuzaki-sensei's problem. And as they say, it might be far away, but one shouldn't put it off.
In her mind, she replayed the match that was now making its way around the gossip columns of the "Ryouma-sama Banzai!" magazine that was, in the edited words of cheesy advertisments of even cheesier products, made by fangirls, for fangirls. She winced, her wrinkles so deep you could have run marbles down them and made bets on which would pop into her mouth first, and glanced at the copy of the magazine she held in her hand, begged and borrowed of her reluctant granddaughter.
Whoever would have thought that Sakuno, her well-mannered, shy-eyed, excessively-humble, disastrously-stupid and devastatingly-ditsy granddaughter would turn out to be a closet yaoi fan? Certainly not her. In Ryuuzaki-sensei's day, 'yaoi,' or boy-boy love, was a very much frowned upon art, and, because of this, the mangas produced about it had been of the highest quality, often relating tragically romantic tales of forbidden love drawn with flowing lines, curves-to-make-models-go-green figures and abudant flowers. Neither Kaidoh Kaoru nor Momoshiro Takeshi fit into those guidelines, and the idea of 'Romeo and Juliet'-esque scenes of romantic candle-lit dinners with chandeliers made of glass-blown snakes and ripe peaches, the chinese symbol of a happy marrige, occuring between the two, with either Momo or Kaidoh swooning dreamily into the other's arms, complete with eyelash-batting and copious amounts of blushing, was a nauseating one. In fact, she distinctly remembered having seen such a scene while hallucinating under the influence of Inui's juice, which had been her explanation for fainting.
So why did the headlines of this week's "Ryouma-sama Banzai!" proclaim in pink-and-orange neon a newfound sexual tension between the top doubles pair, and why did the article go on to state that the agents of the "Ryouma-sama is Suteki n' Muteki" club Intelligence Branch had confirmed a "long-standing rivalry had, at last, turned in to something more, just as we predicted" (and anyway, who said 'predict' when he/she wasn't Inui)? For the sakes of all non-human peaches and all-too-human snakes, what kind of crap was that? And, most of all, why is it that Momo and Kaidoh had only managed to win AFTER they had pulled all their ass-flashing, crotch-groping, penis-wrenching, stunts? And why had those stunts led them to victory?
"Just coincidence? Or maybe more..." the article stated in somewhat self-satified tones (or so it seemed to a certain old lady, who perhaps, in her old age, was beginning to remember fairy tales in which old ladies could speak even in a wolf's stomach, and therefore articles could have voice-tones like SMS voice messagers). Ryuuzaki-sensei did not want to agree with it, and she especially did not want to agree to the claim that Momo and Kaidoh had played well because they'd wanted to end the game fast so that they could have some hot gay sex later. No way. Yes, teenaged hormones were indeed strong, reliable, rechargable batteries, but tapping on that particular energy source was forbidden by law, society, and the teenagers themselves, and she also found it difficult to believe that one could play tennis, a flexible and fast sport, with the inconvienience of a hard-on. No matter if you were peach or snake or little-jailbait-boy.
Having firmly convinced herself of this, she glanced down contentedly in time to see Kaidoh perform a perfect Boomerang Snake that kicked Momo's ass very thoroughly by riocheting straight through his legs, bouncing a point parallel to his crotch, and shooting off in a streak of yellow.
"AAAAAAAHHHH!" A voice shouted the first words to Basara Neki's 'Holy Lonely Night' with a surprising amount of accuracy, considering he had never heard the song before.
Once again, Seigaku's Tennis Club had earned its reptutation as a ball-whacking racket-wielding convention for those unsure of their precise sexual tastes. Unlike most sports clubs in most schools, the Seigaku Tennis Club was open to all, and did not show any sexual discrimination whatsoever. No one had stated this clearly, nor was it written in the club rulebook, but everyone simply assumed that because Oishi and Kikumaru had been allowed to remain in the club, it must be a liberal-minded one.
Momo was currently on the way to proving this with Kaidoh. In fact, he was well on the way to re-writing the whole "we must be in love before we have sex" idea that had been practised by his parents and their parents and their parents before them by screaming in what Ryuuzaki Sakuno privately thought was an exclamation of excruciating pleasure when Kaidoh's Snake streaked between his white pants like a fuzzy yellow comet on a mission.
Watching the game, Sakuno stifled a smile. Kaidoh and Momo were just so perfect together. She'd never noticed before, because her normally traditional attititude towards dating and relationships - she'd thought that Ootori and Shishido shouldn't be together because the uke would be taller than the seme, a definite no-no that she had reconsidered because one of Choutarou's smiles, off-court, had told her he was much more in the captain's seat than Shishido - had prevented her from trully noticing this. Maybe she was going to have to rethink her stand on when you 'did the deed' and why. And then it was time to nudge.
By no means was Sakuno manipulative or cruel. She had no real desire to hurt anybody, but her horrible self-esteem combined with her hormonal urges that came complete, no-questions-asked, with her teenage had long since convinced her that the best thing she could be doing from any guy even remotely interested in her was to set him up with another g.. well, yeah, another guy. If you're as cute as the main character of DN Angel, no matter what kinda personality you have, you WILL be gay.
It was like the Force, or the Ring... you know, "Use the power of the Gay, Momo!" - a completely undeniable and uncontrollable source of great power that came to unwilling heroes like Frodo in LOTR and Himura Kenshin in Samurai X- err... Rurouni Kenshin and had given them intense sexual capacity with the same sex, and the immorality to go with it. (Frodo had gotten it on with EVERYBODY, even like Grimli who was like a posterboy for 'Dwarf and Halfling Midget fantasies!' and Gandalf who was some old fart who just happened to want some halfling homosex.) The girls' would have it no other way. Sakuno had simply followed the tradition.
Oh no, Ryouma was apporaching her. She paused as she gazed demurely at him from under her decidedly not-long and not-silky lashes. What to say now? Well, maybe she'd fall back on an old tactic for this one, one copied directly out of any shoujo-manga, or any manga that featured boys, girls, and romance. No, scratch that - any manga with boys, girls, and more boys or girls as it depended, and romance. Note that no one mentioned what kind of romance. Or who it involved.
Sakuno tripped. As usual, she managed to whip the magazine into her pocket with an experienced flick of the wrist (who said those lessons hadn't worked?) and tangle up her legs so that she gave Ryouma a crystal clear view of her panties when she went down. If he had a shred of decency, she knew, he'd blush and leave. However, if he had a shred of sense, he'd run like she'd waved a glassful of Penal Tea at him with a sign saying "Drink or Die." (She'd always thought that it was Inui's lustful pervy grin that had scared people off, being more inclined to the Gay Groove, so to speak, but had later been dismayed to find out that the tea had, in fact, been poisonous. Inui had put stuff like her grandma's underwear and Tomoka's perfume in it, apparently.)
But this time, Ryouma was really determined. Oh by the fucking God of fucking Cherry-flavoured Ponta, what to do now? She disliked talking to guys she hadn't matchmade yet, because it tended to leave her stammering awkwardly as she tried frantically to discern uke or seme, what type of guy, open to teasing or not (Ryouma, Kikumaru, Oishi, Tezuka), open to sex or not(Fuji, Kikumaru), willing to let her watch sex or not(Nobody)... etc etc. It tended to give her a headache as powerful as any of Tezuka's glares.
"Ryuuzaki."
"Ryouma-kun?"
What to say what to say what to say? He wasn't with Tezuka, they broke up last year when Ryouma tried to Twist Serve the aeroplane Tezuka had been on... He wasn't with Fuji, he'd somehow discovered how Fuji liked to ring photos of his little brother in hearts and put in cute, innuendo-laced captions like 'Me Staying Up All Night with Yuuta To Train His Passes'... How was she supposed to show her FACE to this guy? It was soooooo embarrassing!
"Ryuuzaki."
"Ryouma-kun?"
Aargh.. 'Fangirl' was a title, and honour, a dignity one was to wear with pride and a harsh, blaring scream/shriek of joyous irritatingness! And to think that she, Ryuuzaki Sakuno, had failed so miserably at a task too easy, to even contemplate that Tomoka - idiot strait-laced bitch that she was, wanting to BE with the guys instead of seeing them with each other, the absurdity of it - might be doing better than her, might actually end up with Ryouma... God, that would wreck her dreams, her grand design, all that she had bet her life and her existence in the Prince of Tennis universe on...
"Ryuuzaki."
"Ryouma-kun?"
...... World War III went by, Armageddon came and went, Satan returned and then left...
"Ryuuzaki."
"Ryoum-"
"Can I buy a copy of your magazine?"
....World War IV went by, Armageddon came and went, Satan returned and then left...
"Ummm.. okay."
Sakuno's hand went into her pocket, bypassing the six kilotonnes of PoT yaoi doujinishi she was currently reviewing under a penname, the cute plushies of Akutsu and Dan kissing, the further sixteen kilotonnes of fan-drawn yaoi hentai, and the five crates of Kleenex with which to stem nosebleeds and wipe bodily fluids with, and grasped the magazine. By this time, her hand looked like a some kinda pasta, or maybe the solution to one of those 'The MOST DIFFICULT Maze of All Time' books, it was so wriggly, but hey, anime physics sometimes actually so some good. It is, after all, not all about whacking people into the next stratosphere and seeing girl's panties every three seconds, never mind that fan-service shot just now. She pulled it out, smoothed it awkwardly, and noted with an inaudiable sigh of relief that only her fuzzy tennis ball with Ryouma's face drawn on it had fallen out. Lady Luck truly did smile on fangirls... hmm.. maybe she was a yaoi fan too...
"How much?"
"No need... It's.. free."
"Hn." Ryouma turned into Tezuka in order to shorten his the length of the conversation, Tezuka was past master cutting people off and sounding cool and not like some boring dude who can't even sustain a conversation of more than three lines. (Does he actually sustain a conversation that long? Email me if he does. And he can't say 'Hn' because that's grunting, like some kinda pig, and generally unaccepted in polite society.)
"But.. why?" Some girls, like those in Kanon or Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, would have made this question a searching, insightful statement used to ponder the delicacies of the universe or whether the nerdy loser next door liked them or not. It would be delivered through the batting of long lashes, with silky hair all a-flowing without getting tangled, and the backdrop of pink stars and yellow hexagons would be enough to make Barney get a toothache. However, Tennis no Oujisama was a very practical series, and the question simply made Sakuno sound like a total wimp.
Sakuno, for the benefit of the story, reduced the following situation to an equation. You can use this to test your maths, or simply your sanity, if you want to look at it that way.
[Let k stand for kawaii!!screechblushfaint.
Ryouma = k
Blush = 2(k of ...blusher?)
Tug cap = (k of ...blusher?)²
Therefore, Ryouma blush tug cap = 2k²
Therefore, Ryouma blush tug cap
= kawaii!!screechblushfaintkawaii!!screechblushfaint kawaii!!screechblushfaint kawaii!!screechblushfaint]
Got it? Kudos for your stamina and the stamina of whichever fangirl managed to perform that stunt.
Sakuno stared at him. She felt a little dizzy after all that fainting and blushing.
"The articles are true right?" he asked in that cutely-badass way of his. CardCaptor Sakura might be the Jailbait model of the year, but no one could sound even half as spoilt as Ryouma Echizen did when he wanted something important - like Ponta, or Ponta, or maybe even Ponta.
"Ummm..." (Of course not you fool! We're horny fangirls for a reason!) "Yes... at least.. I think, so."
Ryouma glanced through the magazine, then paused for a all-too-brief second at one article, which means that even though the moment lasted a second, it was panned from four different angles for about five seconds each angle. If you want to know, they panned Ryouma's eyes, then the article, then the indivual words of the article, then the important words of the article, and then Ryouma's eyes, slightly wider, which was supposed to show that he was surprised but in truth made him look like a rare breed of Ponta-drinking, tennis-playing cat rendered extinct because of bizarre mating habits.
Luckily, Sakuno had gotten top marks at the 'How to Spot Illicit Sexual Attraction Between Boys' test, and she stealthily sneaked a peek at the magazine and tripped in an equally stealthy manner, if that was possible. She went down with a crash that probably caused Ryouma's cap to move 3 millimeters to the left. This is a very big deal, because Ryouma's cap only falls off in dire situations like when a) he is fighting opponents who turn golden, b) he has turned golden, or c) he has no Ponta. Therefore, it was a very important fall, because it actually caused Ryouma's cap to move, which is something not even the winds of the desert and the thunderstorm where he and Fuji flirted with each other and ogled each other's bodies could do. Sakuno felt a moment of pride.
Ryouma, inkeeping with his image, did not try to help her up. It was have stated that he was heterosexual, and that might have gotten him booted straight out of the tennis club and into some stupid hentai series that had no appreciation for his adorable looks. Sakuno lay trembling on the floor, and her good friend Tomoka ran over to help her. Sakuno closed her eyes - she did not want to see Tomoka in a singlet, in fact, she did not want to see Tomoka in anything less than a full astrounaut's uniform - and tried to stop trembling. Listening to her friend's exclamations, which involved "Ryouma" "cool" "Horio" and "wimp" once in every other word, she ran over the article in her mind's eye.
It was definite. Completely definite.
"It seems like Momoshiro Takeshi and Kaidoh Kaoru have finally admitted to something between them for many years... the simmering passion of rivalry... turned into something more... a long-distance relationship... perhaps they feel that now that Inui is out of the way... they can be honest with each other..."
Ryouma had paused there. THAT article.
"Ryouma Echizen seems to support this... perceptively pointed Momoshiro in he correct direction ... well-spoken advice to use the Australian Formation..."
And there, his eyes had widened. No, not in trademark cheeky atisfaction, not in surprise. He had worn no smirk, he tugged no cap, had sipped no Ponta. His lips had not even been touched by the ghost of a hahaha-I-have-set-you-up-smile, no satisfaction had glinted in his tennis-ball-yellow eyes. In horror, those eyes had stared.
Sakuno stifled decidedly OOC maniacal laughter in favour of looking at Tomoka from out under her lashes. "Tomoka... you wanted to give his magazine to Seigaku's rivals, once?"
"Yup! So that everyone can know of Ryouma-sama's greatness!"
"Tomoka... I don't think we should..."
"No way! Sakuno, we have to do this! We have a duty to Ryouma-sama to fulfill!"
By the next match, the article would have reached everyone. Sakuno souldn't wait. And Ryouma... she would keep quiet about this for now, but an interesting love triangle was shaping up.
I decided to actually start talking over here. How strange. reminds self to book mental checkup I am actually a little out of ideas... So I might
a) shift the focus off these two, thereby rendering the title hopelessly off-topic
b) just write and see what happens
c) do something else
or
d) commit suicide by drinking 20 gallons of Ponta.
Suggestions will be appreciated, but becuae I prize creativity, they might not be used. Yike! That sounded like I was trying to make Inui Juice, not write a story! Never mind, both are toxic, mine is just LESS toxic.