Disclaimer: I so very much wish I did, but I don't.

Chapter 24

He spent quite some time trying to decide how best to carry out his plans. The "getting her alone" part was proving very difficult to handle. It would have been tough when she was ignoring him like the week before. But it got worse.

When he got to school on Monday, Sakuno was still keeping quiet but she had started to take on a hostile air around him. She was still not talking, but more of making a point not to speak to him than simply ignoring him.

He felt himself sink deeper into the grave he dug, and was completely at a lost what to do. He didn't even dare approach her, what with the anger he could see bristling in her every move. He knew, because he couldn't stop watching her in class.

He still hadn't formed a feasible plan to get her alone, so he could drop the apology at her feet. And the way things were going, it would be a very long time before he could find one and implement it.

Ryoma was one miserable teenager.

Sakuno had a lot of time to think over the week following that scene on her doorstep. Just to prove she could, she did everything she could remember he asked of her: not talk to classmates, not talk to people in the corridor, not talk to Sengoku-san and not talk to Fuji-senpai. All that "not talking" gave her a lot of time on her own to think through the problems she was facing.

And almost as soon as she got over her sorrow at Ryoma thinking that poorly of her, she doubly resented at being called a girl of "loose morals". That was almost as traumatizing as being called a trollop, differing only by scant degrees. A girl's virtue was her most important possession. Shading doubt on her virtue was equivalent to casting her to the lowest ranks in society.

And if that was an insult to Ryuuzaki Sakuno the student, it was many more times as grave an insult to Ryuuzaki Sakuno the witch.

Her talking to her friends rendered her as that? She was only appreciating the freedom of making new friends! She had dropped the STAND OUT test on herself very long ago, when she realized that STANDING OUT helped, but was not everything when it came to forming relationships. These days, she was just happy that she could freely offer and accept friendship from people; because she wasn't going to go away, she could commit to friends.

And didn't he notice she made a lot of female friends as well? And who was he to complain? Who was the one who had half the school population, the female half of course, as a personal fan following since age twelve?

The more time she had to think, the angrier she got.

Ryoma no baka!

-Midweek, in the Tennis club locker room-

"What's wrong with Ochibi-chan nya? He's been looking sad and distracted for such a long time. Ne, Fuji? Do you know what happened to him?"

"Saa ……"

"Data shows that there is a 100 per cent chance he will recover on Friday."

"Nani, Inui? Friday? Why Friday? Nya, Fujiko, do you know? Why Friday?"

"Saa ……"

The tensai's smile widened; light reflected off the data tennis player's glasses ominously. Kikumaru got a chill up his spine and quickly ran from the locker room to find his doubles partner. Maybe Oishi would know what was going on.

Friday came and a chain of fateful events unfolded.