Name: Sunshine on a Silver Platter
Author: seizu daioh
Disclaimer: Konomi
Pairing: Ryoma x Sakuno
A/N: Note the summary. Please. --;; I intend to stick to the summary –kidnapping and all. The fact that Sakuno's a journalist and she sleeps with Ryoma is a detail that corresponds with my intended plot. Those two facts don't make up the entire plot. Understand, ne?
- One -
Battle of the Mentally Deranged
"Echizen-san."
Sakuno's victim of the hour – maybe Sakuno was the victim of the hour instead of a previously smirking tennis player, the twenty some year old mused darkly – turned around, staring at the journalist with an angelic – when in the hell, she screeched loudly in her obviously insane mind, did Echizen Ryoma convert to the cult of innocence? – smile gracing his features.
Of course –
He looked –
Good.
Very good.
…
Very, very good.
…
…
Fine, Sakuno scowled.
She wasn't going to lie to herself.
…
Echizen Ryoma resembled a piece of meat to the obviously insane journalist –that and she wouldn't mind having some alone time with the world famous tennis star.
Compromising scenarios bubbled in Sakuno's mind.
Compromising, sexually inclined scenarios.
Compromising, sexually inclined scenarios which involved whipped cream, strawberries – Sakuno had always adored strawberries -, and the Sahara desert bubbled in the irritated woman's mind.
Vehemently, she forced herself to suppress a feline gleam – mew! – from appearing in deceptively innocent – two could play at this game – brown eyes.
Damn it.
…
Damn it!
It wasn't, Sakuno whined inwardly, fair that she had just entertained sexual fantasies – involving her beloved strawberries of all substances; now she couldn't eat a strawberry without reminiscing about Echizen Ryoma and the sex in the Sahara episode – involving him a few seconds ago.
Even if the said figure sitting idly in front of her looked … hm … suited for the you-must-be-worshipped status.
Life wasn't fair.
And –
She reprimanded herself.
Now was not the time to angst over her sexual frustrations.
Sakuno was on a freaking mission.
She wanted to finish – desired, coveted, and would kill for – this rotten, stupid, and why in the hell did she have to do this interview.
…
Silently whining in her insane mind did not relieve Sakuno of her agitation –sexual and non-sexual.
For Sakuno despised Echizen Ryoma.
That bastard.
See, the two of them possessed a sordid past with one another.
No, he didn't sleep with her.
No, she wasn't a jilted lover.
It might have amounted to the same thing.
She had dated – Sakuno swore to herself that it had been the pretty boy theory (fifteen year old Ryoma had looked too adorable to be refused) and the pretty boy theory alone which had prompted her to accept boy wonder's (no longer boy, her mind whispered traitorously to the fuming woman) proposal – the no good, slimy bastard for a month before they had broken up in front of the entire school.
Why did they break up?
Well.
There were many reasons. The ones of Fuji molesting Ryoma and Ryoma enjoying it Sakuno ignored for a moment.
Echizen Ryoma did not prefer his own gender last time she had checked.
However, he enjoyed the fine art of masochism.
Fuji.
And insanity.
Eiji.
He was insane as she was.
…
…
…
How about the top reason for their breakup?
How about the fact that Sakuno, her pigtails flying in the air, had found her boyfriend kissing her best friend in front of the tennis team one Monday afternoon as if the world had just ended and he seriously needed to relieve himself of an overactive limbo?
No one blamed the furious first year high school student for screaming at her boyfriend.
She even used his handy dandy tennis racket.
On his head.
It broke.
Into several pieces.
…
Sakuno never knew tennis rackets could break if you … smacked the utensil, repeatedly, on someone's head in anger.
She had been duly suspended –deported to a school in America.
All for attacking beloved boy wonder.
Echizen Ryoma.
Her interviewee.
Life was not fair.
Really.
"Echizen-san," Sakuno acknowledged, thin-lipped. Her hands were barely able to restrain themselves from choking the smug rich – she hissed softly; Sakuno, her landlady informed her yesterday, was about to be evacuated from her apartment in a week's time unless she could cough up a significant amount of non-existent dough for all the months' rent she had not paid over the last two years – man who slipped his tea, idly, in front of her. "How are you?"
…
Golden eyes sparkled in mischief.
Crap.
The previously angelic smile had dissipated from the tennis star's face. Replacing it, Sakuno noticed with a unsettling pang to her stomach and memories of Ryoma and Fuji's close relationship racing through her mind, was the smile she had seen on a certain tensai's face every day for five long years.
Oh shit.
"Really, pet," sharp teeth glistened in the light –so Sakuno envisioned, "How long have we known each other? Since Middle School, am I right? Call me Ryoma. After all, that's what your grandmother calls me and you know how we have to obey our elders' whims …"
Oh. SHIT!
…
…
…
Calm down.
You're allowing him to get to you.Just –just because Fuji Syuusuke – one of these days, Sakuno planned to storm into the tensai's apartment regardless of Tezuka's nonverbal protests and any embarrassing scenarios she would encounter while there - influenced – more like Fuji, Sakuno grimaced, had taught the former boy wonder all his neat little tricks - the man sitting in front of her today did not mean she would allow Echizen Ryoma to mercilessly taunt her.
Echizen Ryoma could not hurt her.
She knew karate.
And how to paralyze someone in thirteen different ways.
Among other things.
Drugging someone.
…
…
He –he could not hurt her unless she allowed the no good bastard to hurt her and that was that.
Remember that.
…
Kick his ass – though Sakuno would personally prefer to stare at her ex's bum for long periods of time; what? She had unresolved tension … - for all the crap he's burdened her with over the years they've known one another.
She was over him.
Over him!
For nearly a decade.
…
No matter how cute he looked with his …
…
It frustrated Sakuno –the concept of puberty.
It really did.
…
"Are you my elder, Echizen-san?" Sakuno asked as sweetly as possible.
"Does that mean you'll listen me, Sakuno?" countered Ryoma, his hands fiddling with a ring. Not her ring. Not their ring.
Sakuno pretended to ponder the tennis player's words for a minute before chirping loudly, "Am I not listening to you now?"
…
Golden eyes stared at the woman in front of him before turning away to stare at the window –away from her.
…
"So you'll sleep with me?" Ryoma asked, neutrally.
Oh.
Had she just been propositioned by the number one bachelor in her country?
Logic would point out, yes.
But then Sakuno had never been fond of logic.
Nor was Ryoma.