A/N: small changes as per the advice of my reviewers, so this is for all of you ) no, u don't have to read it again … it's the same thing, really

This world needs More RyoSaku fics! I'm working on a longer one, but before that, lemme just quickly scribble out this one for my own peace of mind )

Ryoma's PoV

That morning, Momo senpai said I suffer from SEDS – Severe Emotion Defiency Syndrome, according to him. I was suitably annoyed and decided to ignore him for the rest of the day. That meant that I had to walk home instead of hitching ride on his bike, but I was fine with walking. The twenty-minute walk was kind of like cooling down after tennis practice.

At the traffic junction halfway to home, I spotted movement behind the bushes at the roadside. Curiosity had me walking nearer and peeking over the hedge, but I certainly wasn't expecting the scene that revealed itself to me.

Ryuuzaki – the granddaughter, not the Obaasan – was hunched over something on the ground. Her back was facing me, but the long braids and the school uniform were easy to recognize.

Don't tell anyone what I'm about to tell you, but I have found that I would always know when she was near me. Maybe it was a built-in mechanism to avoid trouble. Ever since the day she gave me the wrong directions to a tournament, this is how I (privately) spell her name, T-R-O-U-B-L-E. Three years along, she had never given any indication that she was otherwise.

Anyway, I knew at once that it was that pig-tailed girl on the other side of that hedge. She had kept that hairstyle for as long as I have known her. I'm used to it, but I sometimes wonder how the new friends that she had made in high school thought about a girl in her late teens running around trailing two long (flying) braids.

While experience told me to quietly back away, my instincts were to approach her and find out what she was doing hiding there at the roadside. I shoved my way through the hedge noisily, causing her to look back at me.

The first thing I noticed was that she was crying, and when I shifted my line of sight uncomfortably from her reddened eyes, I saw why she was so upset.

There was a small kitten lying on the grass, and it looked to be dead. Judging from the wounds on its middle, it was probably run over by a vehicle and thrown behind these bushes to camouflage somebody's crime.

My eyes widened. I couldn't help but stare in morbid fascination at the feline carcass. It was most probably run over by an inattentive driver, its back legs looked mangled enough. What a gory scene.

Dead cat, imagine that. The thought of my Karupin suffering an indignity like this crossed my mind. I resolved to ensure that Karupin never wander onto the roads. Who knew what dire fate he would meet with on the streets? He was getting on in years too, and there was a high possibility that he would end up like this.

I am definitely going to give Karupin an account of this incident tonight, when he's curled up with me at bedtime. Him having nightmares for a couple of nights would be worth the lesson learned.

I've always had a soft spot for felines, even before Oyaji gave me the young and cute Karupin as a present. In spite of what Momo senpai termed as SEDS, I AM able to feel human emotions other than those I usually display. If I looked bored most of the time, it is because senpai-tachi were boring. And they usually were, especially when they weren't on the courts. If I looked smug some of the time, it was because I have good reason to. It still felt good to beat the senpai-tachi in tennis, even though I do that practically everyday. Now I understand how the Baka Oyaji felt when he tortured me daily with his poor playing attitude and still won.

No matter how many times you have beaten them, you still get a kick from each new victory. And that just put a smile on my face. Of course, if you blinked, all you would have been able to observe is a slight twitch at my lips.

I do smile, and quite often too. I would not be held accountable for people who liked to blink at the crucial moments.

Back to the kitten incident: I felt sad seeing the kitten, but only I need to know that. Ryuuzaki was still crying, and I mused that she was such an open book with her emotions. I guess that's one of the things I liked about her. I just needed to look at her face to know how she felt and what she was thinking.

Some females could be quite difficult in that department. My mum, for example. I could never figure out what she was thinking. How could a Japanese native prefer western food so much, to the extent that she forced western cuisine on her poor pro-Japanese-food son everyday? In fact, let's start back in the beginning: what did she see in that baka Oyaji in the first place?

"R-Ryoma – kun …" her soft whisper caught my attention. I realized I had forgotten about the girl while I was caught up in my own thoughts. I took in her face, still bathed in hot tears. I summoned my inner strength and resisted the urge to turn tail and escape from the uncomfortable situation. If I did walk away, I just knew that Momo-senpai would suddenly pop up and start one of his lengthy lectures on some strange incomprehensible topics involving girls in general.

Quiet Ryuuzaki vs. Noisy Senpai. She won hands down.

I thought that, perhaps, if I did something for the kitten, then she would stop watering the grass. Hmm, grass. There were dead leaves littered all over it. Maybe if I took those leaves and …

But first, I asked if she was alright. She shook her head and kept on pouring buckets of tears. I sighed inwardly and patted my pockets for a handkerchief to offer her. Well, no one can blame me that I don't carry handkerchiefs, and in these modern times, what kind of teen would carry hankies anyway?

No hankies. But there was a veritable waterfall to stem. What to do? My genius mind came up with the idea of offering my sleeves. My shirt was going into the wash once I got home anyway. At least that's where I think my clothes go to; I generally leave my dirty stuff on the bedroom floor, they had a good track record of disappearing and coming back fresh and clean in a couple of days.

Haven't you heard of the phrase "a shoulder to cry on"? Must have been invented by some other genius that also did not have the odd, and girly, habit of carrying hankies.

With my genius mind made up, I knelt down beside her and gently leaned her head on my shoulder. She held on, her hands fisted in the material of my shirt while she wailed even more loudly. Five minutes later, she was still at it. Maybe I should warn her about dehydration, where did all that water come from anyway?

She was probably quite comfortable, using me for a support. I, on the other hand, was feeling less than that. I was starting to get a crick in the neck from trying to look far off into the distance. It was not an option to stare at the girl crying on my shoulder. I already know how she looked like.

To encourage her to stop her useless show of emotions, I tried giving her small pats on the back. I have seen mothers do this to comfort noisy crying babies. My version could be described as "gingerly". Why? Because I have seen how babies sometimes puke out icky stuff when they were like this.

I can admit it here, that I made up my mind to push Ryuuzaki far away if she even made ONE sign of puking. And now I thoroughly regret not doing this as soon as I thought it. No, she didn't puke like a baby. Something worse happened next.

There was a sudden rustling in the hedges next to us. My arms tightened around the girl without conscious thought. What can I say? I am a gentleman at heart. And while in this position, who should pop in on us through those hedges, but nosy tennis players? Our school's nosy tennis players, to be exact.

The whole team was there, one by one they poked their heads through the hedge. I saw something give off a glare of light above me and, when I looked, I shivered from the scary shadowed façade of the tallest player on our team, only his glasses stood out, glinting evilly in the sunlight.

They were all giving me that accusing look, and I wondered why for the space of a split second.

The Girl. Opps.

What we must have looked like to them, hiding behind some bushes, and Ryuuzaki crying her heart out. My senpai-tachi could come up with a full front-page story even if they just saw me saying Ohayo to the coach's granddaughter. Precisely why I only nod to her in the corridors. Senpai-tachi must have been having a field day.

My ears started turning red, although I didn't understand why I was embarrassed; I didn't do anything to Ryuuzaki after all. But still, the tips of my ears burned. Now you know why I liked to wear a cap. I knew precisely how to arrange my hair so that my ears wouldn't be so obvious.

I managed to stutter (yes, but Don't ask me why) out the reason we were there. And enlisted senpai-tachi to help in covering the kitten with leaves and twigs as some form of burial.

I have never seen Kaidoh-senpai look so sad. At least not since Momo-senpai announced in the clubroom one afternoon that he was officially dating Tachibana's younger sister.

Did I mention that the whole time they were poking around for natural debris, I was still holding the girl? Again, Don't ask me why. At least she had stopped crying when senpai-tachi turned up, and instead was trying to hide her face in my now-wet shoulder. I had no problem with that, just that I would rather NOT have senpai-tachi there with us. They were so noisy and tended to say embarrassing things.

At least, they left pretty quickly after the small task, and the bigger one of demanding that I walk Ryuuzaki home the rest of the way. Last to leave was Momo-senpai. He gave me a horrible grin, and said in a secretive voice that he had found the cure for SEDS.

Baka Senpai.

A/N: I started this maybe a month ago, and suddenly came upon it again. Strange that it hasn't been uploaded yet… Maybe ffnet was down when I tried, and I forgot about it afterwards?

Very rambling piece, one of those that each word comes to me just as my fingers hit the keyboard.