Together on the Courts

Chapter Four:

Meeting Him

"I'm home!" Sakuno called out as she removed her shoes by the door, a satisfied smile on her face.

Earlier after she had signed up for tennis, Ohtori-san had offered to take her out for dinner seeing how late he had kept her. However, she gently refused saying that her Obaa-chan had wanted her to go home right after the tour that day. What surprised her though was how Ohtori-san nodded, saying that it was all right and also that he hoped he, one day, could properly meet her Obaa-chan. When she had asked why, Ohtori-san simply said, with a light blush touching his cheeks as he laughed slightly, a hand behind his head, "We're friends after all, aren't we, Sakuno-chan?"

Her lips twitched upwards slightly, glad that she had already made a friend at Hyoutei, and moved to walk to the living room. "Obaa-chan, What's for..."

"Hello, Sakuno," a deep voice answered instead of her grandmother. She flinched inwardly at the sudden lack of honorifics to her name before taking a small step back while eyeing the man—no, boy who sat in their living room smiling.

"W—Who are you?" she asked recognizing the uniform as Hyoutei's. She forced herself to calm down before taking a step forward and eyeing him a bit more. The uniform flattered the other tall somewhat pale boy greatly, seeing as it hugged and remained loose at the right parts while a unique charm seem to be radiating from him which was almost intimidating. His dark green eyes shone and glinted amusingly at her before he brushed away his light brown hair which reach the length of his chin, seemingly about the same length as Fuji-sempai.

"Sorry," he said, standing up and bowing, "I forgot to introduce myself."

"Eh?" she answered just before her obaa-chan came in.

"Sorry for making you wait, Kouno-kun!" her obaa-chan announced, smiling warmly at the young boy. "It's tricky trying to squeeze the oranges—Ah, Sakuno, did you just get back?"

Under her obaa-chan's warm gaze, Sakuno felt a little less shocked about a random high school boy being in her room and nodded. However, as her obaa-chan placed a cup of freshly squeezed orange juice before the boy, Sakuno had edged towards her obaa-chan, almost hiding behind the elder woman.

"Hmm," her obaa-chan continued, not noticing how close Sakuno had became. "Did you want anything else Kouno-kun?"

"No, thank you," he said, smiling. Despite speaking to her obaa-chan, his eyes had never left Sakuno's leaving her feeling wary as she stared back.

"Really? That's good—Eh? Sakuno, what are you doing?" noticing how Sakuno was now behind her completely, her obaa-chan turned away slightly causing her hiding spot to be ruined.

"Um," she said, pursing her lips as she stared away from the two of them, her cheeks flushing, "I—I was getting a hair off your shirt."

"Really..." her obaa-chan asked, probably knowing she was lying but decided not to speak of it in front of a guest. "I'll go and prepare dinner, treat our guest nicely, all right?"

Sakuno nodded, watching her obaa-chan walk away with a frown before turning to face the other occupant in the room. She bowed—although it was reluctant—as she muttered, "sorry, for my rudeness."

"No," he said with a soft shake of his head before smiling at her. Her cheeks flushed again, feeling awkward as she vaguely wondered how a boy could be so beautiful. "I still haven't had a chance to introduce myself to you yet," he continued, taking a few steps towards her.

"I see," she said, forcing herself to keep eye contact with him although the gaze he returned back to her made her feel like she should look away and never look back.

He paused, a few feet before her and bent down, his hand grasping hers on the way. "Kouno Kai," he said, his lips pressing lightly against her hand, his eyes closed. Suddenly, she felt a strong need to pull her hand away and slap him but his eyes opened before meeting hers and she sucked in a breath, noticing how his eyes were more darker than she had first noticed. "Nice to meet you," he said, his tone calm as he stood back up with a smile.

She opened her mouth to speak but then noticed how his hand still clutched hers and was forced to nod, buying time as she tried to gain her voice back. "N—Nice to meet you, Kouno-kun," she said, shakily after her voice returned as he dropped her hand.

"Please call me Kai," he said, leaning forward a bit and smiling, "after all I was the one who got you into Hyoutei."

"Eh!" Sakuno exclaimed, her eyes wide. "I—I don't think I understand..."

He smiled again and stood up straight while his eyes began eyeing the opening that separated the kitchen and living room. "I'll tell you later," he whispered, looking at her from the corner of his eyes and winking, "promise."

"I still don't—" she tried again, feeling frustrated now at the lack of answers.

He raised a finger to her lips as the shuffling of her obaa-chan's feet coming closer echoed in her ears while she swallowed, looking away from the older boy's eyes. "When we're alone, I'll explain," he continued, his finger ghosting along her cheek before he welcomed her obaa-chan by complimenting on how wonderful the food was smelling.

- -

The next day, Sakuno had pulled Tomo-chan away whispering that it had something to do with Hyoutei. However, Tomo-chan had nodding eagerly and walked off before appearing a moment later, an annoyed Ryoma-kun by her side. Biting her lip, Sakuno gave a tired sigh before asking the two of them if they could meet her on the rooftop for lunch and she'd explain things there.

When Ryoma-kun had frowned, saying that he didn't want to go Sakuno had hastily added that she had another obento for him, hoping Tomo-chan wouldn't start on a speech about how Ryoma-kun needed to be more nicer to his friends. She had done this once before, when Sakuno had trouble turning down someone who gave her, her first confession. Ryoma-kun, at the time, had merely told her to just end it and stop complaining while Tomo-chan argued back saying that it was too heartless and to think of how awful Sakuno would feel.

In the end, however, the three of them ended up on the rooftop with Ryoma-kun eating her obento while Tomo-chan edged her on, wanting to hear what the news was about. Feeling a bit awkward under Ryoma-kun's stare and Tomo-chan's impatient comments she decided for the better news. "I'm going to continue tennis there," she said, watching as Tomo-chan raised her eyebrow and Ryoma-kun merely smirked.

"That's it?" Tomo-chan asked, crossing her arms, "I thought you met some cute guy or that you weren't going to Hyoutei!"

"Actually..." Sakuno began, looking down at her hands.

"Eh? What? Actually what?" Tomo-chan asked, gripping onto Sakuno's arm excitedly, "You're not going to Hyoutei?"

"No, that's not it..." Sakuno said slowly, looking up to meet her friend's disappointed eyes. However, Tomo-chan soon recovered with a laugh.

"You met a cute guy?" she tried again, nudging Ryoma-kun who frowned at Tomo-chan, "Ne, Ryoma-sama, jealous?"

"Not really," Ryoma-kun answered, sipping from his drink and avoiding Sakuno's eye when she had looked at him.

"But there's a problem," Sakuno said, her hands fiddling slightly in her lap. "He said something weird—"

"Eh?" Tomo-chan responded. "Did he do some—"

"No!" Sakuno cut in before blushing lightly and muttering an apology to Tomo-chan. "No, he didn't do anything to me..."

"When we're alone, I'll explain..."

Her blush deepened as the feeling of Kouno-kun's finger still seem to linger on her cheeks causing it to tingle slightly. Swallowing, she opened to explain the rest but Ryoma-kun cut in.

"If he didn't do anything," he drawled, placing down his chopsticks and the obento while looking her in the eye, "tell us what happened then." Sakuno nodded, not being able to pry her eyes away from Ryoma-kun's as she spoke, somehow gaining more confidence from him.

"He didn't do anything but..." she trailed off, wrapping her arms around herself while finally looking away from Ryoma-kun. "I feel like I can't do anything around him, it's almost like I'm holding my breath just waiting for him to say something. Then, when he does something or says something to me I can barely speak and when I do its hard to keep my voice steady or even keep looking him in the eye—"

"So," Ryoma-kun said, interrupting her with a frown, "he's a bad guy."

"Eh, what are you talking about Ryoma-sama?" Tomo-chan asked but Sakuno merely looked down, wondering if he was right. "Ignore him, Sakuno. What else happened?"

"Uh, he said that he's the reason for I'm going to Hyoutei—" Once again, Sakuno was interrupted but this time by Tomo-chan's shocked gasp.

"He is a bad guy!" she exclaimed before covering her mouth shortly after. "Sorry, Sakuno, I..." but Tomo-chan never finished, instead she walked off.

"Tomo-chan!" Sakuno shouted after her, moving to get up when Ryoma-kun grabbed her arm.

"She's probably not use to you going to another school yet," he explained, watching as the roof door swung closed. He looked at her a moment later, his hand leaving her arm. "How is he the reason you're going to Hyoutei?"

Sakuno pursed her lips, a light pink was still on her cheeks from when Ryoma-kun had touched her. "I—I don't know," she muttered, "he said he'd tell me when we're alone."

It was silent again and Sakuno wondered for a moment if Ryoma-kun had even heard her, seeing as his eyes were trained over to the fence that traced around the roof. However, Ryoma-kun answered to her statement, slowly and quietly.

"When you meet up with him," he said, turning his head to look at her, "I want to go."

"Huh?" she answered, shocked. "Why?"

He smirked a bit, his head tilting towards the ground a bit. "I'm curious that's all," he said, packing up the lunch and standing, "let's go."

"Um..." she said, catching his attention. However when Ryoma-kun looked at her, she shook her head as a faint pink touched her cheeks. For some reason, she dreaded Ryoma-kun and Kouno-kun meeting but it didn't seem right to say out loud.

End

Chapter Four

Author's Note: I love the name Kouno (I don't know why but), its been in most of my stories as an OC character a lot. Hehe. Ah, hope this was a good chapter, Ryo-chan and Sakuno-kun seem to be a bit OOC in this one... I really hope not! If so though, SORRY!

But as always, thank you for reading!

Ryoma: ...

Won-ting: Something wrong, Ryo-chan?

Ryoma: Don't call me that...

Won-ting: Hai, hai, whatever you say... Ryo-chan

Ryoma (ignores last comment): Don't you think it's stupid to not explain why or who the hell this guy is?

Sakuno: D--Don't be rude, Ryoma-kun...

Ryoma: ...che...