A Marmalade Boy ficlet.
Summary: A look on one of the most underrated Marmalade Boy couples. Spoilers for the first half of the series.
Coupling: Tsutomu Rokutanda/Yayoi Takase.
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He works hard, but is never the winner. Neither in school, nor in the tennis team, and let's not even mention love since the girl he liked loved Matsuura and later chose his cousin Ginta. There's always something that fails in whatever he does, be it something small or big, and he always gets in trouble because of that.
But she doesn't care, and always smiles at him. She giggles at his comments, toleres his childish behavior, tends to his wounds if he's injured while playing tennis, and if he does something wrong she always tells him he'll succeed next time.
She's not the ideal girl, though. She's cute but not beautiful, too shy for her own good, and until she met him she had bad luck in love. Every single guy she confessed her feelings to rejected her...
But he was very sweet and nice to her in the New Years (though he forgot to ask her for more than her name!), offered her his shoulder to cry upon the last time she was rejected (and in Valentines!), and even accepted to eat with her the same chocolate she could never give to the last crush.
Now, they look happy. He arrives to his school, ready to pick her up from class after his practice in tennis club. They meet up in the gates, and after saying hi she gives him a box with the cookies she baked in cooking class. He eats some and keeps the others to eat them later, and they both walk away from school while he tells her what happened today at practice, now more intense and hard since they're getting ready for the Inter-State Tournament...
People turn to look at them, puzzled at why they talk and laugh so loud (it's so untypical in Japan, still!). Some laugh remembering school times, others wonder what the hell she saw in her boyfriend, and two or three think that the childish laughter and lack of worries won't last long...
But Tsutomu and Yayoi, as they walk towards the nearest ice cream parlor, mentally pray their love last for a long, long time.