Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis/Tennis no Ohjisama. (I know, how original…)
Notes: Hey all! After a long, long time away, I decided to post a second POT fic! Though after reading this chapter, I thought that it was a lot like the beginning of Remembering, but don't worry, I'll make sure it's different. Hope you have a nice read. Feedback of any sort greatly appreciated.
Title: This Unfinished Dream
Category: Prince of Tennis/Tennis no Ohjisama
Genre(s): Romance/General
Rating: T
Summary: Now a typical American college student, Ryoma is bored, he signs up for a tennis class and finds an unlikely someone that he let slip away…
--Chapter 1--
"…Oi, Ryoma!" a voice cut into his subconscious urgently, somewhere not too far away, "Telephone! Ryoma!" he felt himself being jarred most unpleasantly awake, "No, no, don't call back; I think he's coming around nicely…"
Ryoma Echizen opened one eye, according to the alarm clock he kept by his night table, it was barely seven. To top it off, it was a Saturday and even on days where he had class, he didn't get up this early, "Kevin, shut up and tell whoever it is that I will call back." He murmured sleepily and rolled over. "Hang up if it's a reporter."
"—Not possible." Kevin returned firmly with a smirk, "Unless of course--"
Oh, how he hated those three words. Ryoma rose up on one elbow and jerked the receiver out of the blonde's hands. "You better have a good reason for calling this ea--"
A voice that, even at twenty-two had not quite been able to lose its feminine wont, "Saa, Echizen, is that how you greet your senpai? Oh, and was that Kevin Smith's voice I heard? Are you sleeping together now?" A typical greeting from Fuji Syusuke.
Ryoma sighed, his plans for a quiet Saturday had just been exquisitely ruined from thousands of miles away. "Fuji…senpai." First surprise, then anger. "Sorry if I'm being rude, it's not even seven-o'-clock here. And no, I am NOT sleeping with Kevin Smith. If you tell anyone that I am, I swear that I will kill you."
"It's nice to know I can still unnerve you, even over the phone, with an ocean between us." Fuji laughed, "Not even my precious Kunimitsu?"
"…Pervert." Ryoma shuddered, he could all too easily imagine Fuji smirking,"Especially not buchou." He said fiercely. If Fuji told Tezuka then…well, he could hope for the better that the former tennis captain would only keel over in a permanent coma…On the second thought, maybe not, there was no telling what kind of torture and perversion Fuji was subjecting Tezuka under these days.
"There's not much you can do while stuck in LA, you know." Fuji said, rather smugly, "And stop it with the senpai buchou business, it's been such a long time." For a minute, Ryoma's ex-teammate sounded regretful, but it did not last long, the tensai promptly perked up again, "But of all people, you're sharing a room with Kevin Smith?"
Ryoma sank back against the mountain of pillows, he didn't remind Fuji that it was he that demanded to be called 'senpai' in the first place. "I told you that in my last letter. It wasn't planned, and it's not a room, it's an apartment, with respectively separate bedrooms." He replied, somewhat irritably, "Mada mada dane, I don't see why it's such a big deal for someone like you."
"Someone like me?" Fuji repeated, amused, "Saa, Echizen, are Americans all so rude these days? Or is it just you?"
"Fuji-sen—Fuji, could you just tell me why you called?" Ryoma asked bluntly, suppressing a yawn, "'Cause if there's not anything, I'm going back to sleep."
There was a slight pause at the other end, the next time Fuji spoke, he sounded genuinely hurt, "Ah, well, then I'll be brief and let you get back to your beauty sleep."
Ryoma opened his mouth to respond, but the other rushed on, giving him no chance.
"Anyways, you're still playing in tournaments, aren't you?"
"Some. But since the semester started I haven't been playing that much with the classes and all."
"Have you met anyone yet?"
"…Anyone?" Ryoma blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Anyone—that we know. From Japan." Fuji added helpfully.
"Not recently. " Ryoma thought for a minute, "I might have met Kirihara earlier last year, I don't remember. Why?" The prodigy was much too cunning, not to mentiionsadistic,to ask question just for the sake of asking.
"Oh, it's just...well, never mind, I was just wondering, that's all." Fuji's manner was suddenly unusually brisk. "There's nothing wrong with asking, is there?"
When you were Fuji Syusuke, you didn't ask unless you knew, so yes, everything was wrong with asking. Ryoma shifted the receiver to his other ear. "…I guess not."
"Anyways, I'm sorry I woke you. But it's nice to hear our home-grown pillar's managing." Sometimes, the other tended to be a little more nostalgic than he liked, the 'pillar' business was nearly two years to a decade old. Fuji sighed, "Kunimitsu and the others say hello." A pause, "I do wish you'd call more often, or visit. Lettersand emailsaren't the same, you know. We all miss you, here and I'm sure that I'd speak for all of us."
Ryoma knew, probably a lot more than Fuji realized. "Mada mada dane. Tell them hi for me too."
"Well, later, then. Kunimitsu wants me."
He had his doubts about that, if anything, it should have been the other way around, but for very good reasons, Ryoma wasn't about to argue, "…Then I, uh, won't keep you, bye."
Heput the receiver carefully beside him on the pillow, and lay down, though for obvious reasons, sleep did not come.
The dark olive-haired boy rolled over after a minute or two, reaching for a blanket that had fallen, and spotted a catalogue of the semester's classes. The lazily scrawled signature on the cover told him it was Kevin's. His former rival/current colleague had an almost curious obsession with signatures in general.
Ryoma sprawled out on his stomach and idly flipped to the Physical Education section and found tennis. The Advanced Tennis class metonce a weekevery Saturday from two to four-thirty.
Maybe it was time for a change of pace. It'd be stress-relieving, to say the last, to play without worrying about the scoreboard all the time. Not that Ryoma didn't like competitions, he did; but they did take a lot out of him. "Hey, Kevin?"
Kevin promptly materialized at the doorway, blocking the strip of sunlight that otherwise spilled into his room. "Yeah?" he'd been in the shower, his clothes were slightly damp, and his hair was wrapped up in a towel. "…Still mad that I woke you?" he asked challengingly.
If Ryoma had to pick one characteristic worth admiring in a Smith, it would have been their promptness. How prompt they were when holding a grudge, how prompt they were giving in to their tempers.
He turned back to the catalogue. "No, I wasn't mad. A bit ticked, but not mad." He looked from the page to Kevin and back to the page again, "How many classes are you taking this semester?"
"Four. They're not that heavy, though." Kevin answered readily. "What's up?"
"You want to take Advanced Tennis with me? Only on Saturdays from two to four-thirty?"
Kevin tilted his head to one side, resting against the doorframe, his eyes closed. He stood still for a long moment and said, "Well, sure, but I doubt it'd be much a challenge for us. I mean, we do play in professional tournaments." He stopped abruptly and fixed Ryoma with a hard stare, "Any particular reason?"
"Just bored." Ryoma returned nonchalantly.
Kevin seemed to believe him. "Fine, whatever." He shrugged, "Come eat, the coffee's getting cold."
Saturday came, and when Ryoma, along with Kevin made their way down to the university tennis courts, he wondered if he'd made a mistake.
For one thing, Ryoma regretted not inquiring about the general level of the class before signing on. The teacher, whoever he was, seemed to have allowed prospective students to warm up or something. To be perfectlyblunt, they were more than pathetic.
At last, the teacher, a blurred figure standing at the other end of the courts whistled loudly for attention.
"Should we drop?" Kevin asked. "I mean...I thought it'd be bad, but not...this bad."
"…Mada mada, I'm thinking about it." Ryoma returned out of the corners of his mouth.
"They all suck." his friend declared, "I bet we could have beaten them back in grade school."
"...Probably."
Kevin wasn't been exactly quiet, either, a couple of seniors (or so they looked) turned to glare at him, "Excuse me?" one asked threateningly.
"You can have fun with them, then." Ryoma tapped his racket lightly against his palm. "Just like you used to."
"Ryo-ma! I was a kid then."
"Che."
The teacher was talking. "—And though Ore-sama wishes it were otherwise, I'm stuck with you helpless bastards for the next two hours and a half--"
Ryoma thought he went on to say something else too, but he didn't hear.
Ore-sama…?
It couldn't be…
Yet there was only one person in the whole of this galaxy who would…
"Ryoma?"
Kevin. Ryoma turned, "What?"
"He's calling roll. Your name should be coming up soon. Pay attention."
"...Oh."
"Christiansen, Sarah."
"Present."
Derek, Jack."
"Here."
Dillon, Andrew."
"Here."
Pause.
Absolute silence.
"Echizen…Ryoma?"
Hehe, Cliffy! I'm evil…
