Disclaimer: I do not own The Prince of Tennis
Sweet Cookies Made With All Her Heart
Early Saturday morning, Sakuno woke up to prepare for the party at 6. Of course she had not forgotten the request from her senpai.
'Bring muffins and sweet stuff that you made.' She remembered and she was thinking of what to make. She was still lying in her bed when she remembered that she had to cook breakfast. She got up, went to the bathroom and washed her face and brushed her teeth.
She went to the kitchen and rummaged through the fridge until she found some eggs and bacon. "Western breakfast" she said and she proceeded into cooking.
'What should I make Marui-senpai?' she thought as she placed the plates at the table. She pulled the dish whatchamacallit and she saw a cookie cutter in there. Then a very bright idea came to her, 'I'll make shaped cookies!' She thought of all the ingredients that she will need as she climbed the stairs to call her Baa-san.
When she finished eating, she got ready to do the groceries. In the grocery store, she bumped into Jackal and Yukimura who were shopping for the party later on.
"Yukimura-senpai and Jackal-senpai, I didn't know that you were here." She bowed and Yukimura patted her head.
"I'll have Marui take you to Sanada's house later. You can just meet at school." He smiled and she nodded. They said their good bye to each other and Sakuno quickly went home so as to finish her cookies and set them to cool.
As she was making her chocolate-chip cookie dough she was humming a certain song. Her grandmother heard her and commented that she seemed so happy being in Rikkai and it's enough to make her Baa-san happy as well. She smiled and continued to hum.
'Where have I heard this song?' she just continued humming as she searched in her memory. "I remember now!" she blushed as she remembered Kirihara who sang the song, during lunch break yesterday. She shook her head trying to put it away and returned to what she was doing.
She laid out the dough and cut it using different shapes of cutters. Then she put it in the oven and waited around 15 minutes or so. As she waited, she drifted of, thinking about her senpai's question.
As she remembered she blushed and looked like a tomato by the color of her face.
"Whom do you prefer, Marui or Kirihara-kun?" the question rung inside her head, like an echo. She came back to the real world when she remembered something very important.
"Oh no! I forgot about them!" she rushed to the oven and wore mittens then took out her cookies that were perfectly fine. She was relieved; she wouldn't want her senpai to eat burnt cookies. She scraped the cookies off from the tray and put them on a plate and set it to cool.
It was almost 6 and the regulars were at Sanada's house playing cards.
"I win!" Marui said happily as he smudged some char on the losers' faces. If this wasn't a party, they would have been running for their lives as Sanada chased them with his katana unsheathed.
"Can't we use powder? It's easier to remove!" Niou whined as Marui was exacting the punishment on him.
"Don't worry! You all look great!" he looked at the other players who all had smudged char in their faces. Everyone who was playing cards was thinking that Marui was possibly cheating.
"Marui-senpai, you're cheating aren't you!?" Kirihara scowled at his senpai who was taking his time putting char on his face. Then Marui's face suddenly contorted, ready to give a laugh. "What's wrong!?" Of course Kirihara does not know how that smudged char on his face looks like, he looked at everybody and they started laughing. He turned to his Yagyu-senpai and used his glasses as mirrors. He then saw a very ridiculous face almost covered with char.
"Marui-senpai!!" he growled and chased his senpai around the koi pond while the others laughed.
"It's best that we stop this game." Sanada said calmly but deep inside he wants to kill his teammates for adding such a rule to the game. He glared at Renji who had his eyes half-closed and who was smiling mischievously. 'I'll give you 100 laps for this, I swear!' Everyone started to wipe off the char in their faces and the two came back after their lengthy chase. Kirihara went to the bathroom to wash his face because it was full of it and the others did so too.
"You'd better get going Marui." Yukimura told him as he panted from running. "Sakuno must be waiting at the school gates now." Marui replied with an I-almost-forgot face. He took his tennis bag. Yukimura was perplexed and so, he asked, "Why are you bringing your bag, Marui?"
And then he answered, "I don't know. I just feel like it." Then he rushed outside to get to the school and take Sakuno to Sanada's house.
When he was nearing the school gates, he heard female voices that seemed to be arguing with each other. He just shrugged it off since he thought he does not need to interfere with them. But when he got closer and closer, the voices became louder. He heard what they were talking about and rushed into the scene.
******
"If it isn't the new student." one of the girls that were around her, said. They all had threatening looks. "You've been here for only five days and you got extremely chummy with the boy's tennis team." Apparently, this girl is the leader of the group.
"What is it that you want?" she spoke timidly as she held to her chest a paper bag.
"What is it that we want?" she grabbed her friend's water bottle and threw its contents on Sakuno. "I hope that will teach you a lesson to not near Marui-sama or anybody from the team."
As she threw the water at the meek girl, Sakuno protected the bag from getting wet. The water dripped from her head and shoulders and she looked at the bag. Upon seeing it dry, she was relieved. "What are you being relieved about!?" the other girl snapped and took a knife out of somewhere. "Are you scared now?" the knife shone as the sun's rays hit it.
Sakuno trembled. A knife is a different thing from water. "W-What are you going to d-do?" she fell back a few steps. But the other girls stopped her from running away.
"I'm going to teach you to stay away from them!" and then she lunged forward, with a stabbing motion. Sakuno was able to evade the first attempt and she fell on the ground, still holding on to the bag. Then she closed in to Sakuno who quickly stood up. "You're so weak." She continued on attacking her but she just evaded all of it.
Then she stopped for a minute to spout things that she hated about Sakuno, "You already had caught Kirihara's attention and you still want Marui-sama's? You just keep on flirting with the both of them, you slut!" She tried to stab Sakuno again; the other successfully evaded it yet fell on the ground once more. She stood up and as she did so, the other girls grabbed her arms (she's still holding the bag with one of her hands).
As the knife neared her, Sakuno closed her eyes. A scar on the face is not so bad, but she did not want to die. She prayed.
******
Marui saw a glint of light and identified it as a knife. He ran as quickly as he can to save his kohai. 'Damn it! Think!' then he thought of something; he unzipped his bag and took out his racket immediately and stretched it out in front of him as if trying to hit a ball that bounced too far from him. Then the girl's small hand went through the neck of the racket.
'Great!' he struck the opposite side of the elbow which made the girl's arm bend. He quickly grabbed the head of the racket and twisted it towards his left which also coiled the arm that was stuck on it. "Sakuno!"
******
"Sakuno!" then she heard a familiar voice. She opened her eyes and found that she was not hurt or anything. She found her senpai grappling the girl who was holding the knife with his tennis racket. The girl dropped the knife as she winced in pain as her arm was being twisted behind her back.
The other girls let go of her and stood in shock because one of the regulars came to save Sakuno from her destruction.
"Ouch! It hurts let go of me!" the girl grimaced. Then she turned her head to see who it was. She was surprised that it was the tennis genius Marui Bunta. He tried to twist the racket more to his left and the girl winced once more.
"Let go of her, senpai!" Sakuno pleaded which astonished Marui. Then he turned to the girl whom he was grappling.
"You're lucky that she is kind. I could have called the police and reported you." Then he removed the hand of the girl form the neck of his racket and said, "If I ever see your faces again, I'm sure that that next time would be the last time that you'll be in Rikkai." He glared at the girl who kneeled and looked back at him with teary eyes. Then he glowered at her, "You don't have the right to cry, you bitch!" he held his racket high and he was about to hit her with all of his rage.
Sakuno held his hand and said, her eyes were full of tears and still trembling, "Marui-senpai, please… sob… stop it." Marui looked at her who was now crying out of fear; she got afraid of his anger. Then the girls ran away.
He turned to her, who was crying and brushed away strands of hair that was over her eyes. He noticed that her hair was wet and so were her clothes. "You're soaked." Then he quickly gave her his jacket and put it on her shoulders. He wiped the tears from her eyes and said, "They wouldn't want to see you sad." He paused, "And I'm sorry I scared you." When he finished, Sakuno cried more. "Oh no!"
Sakuno hugged him, she was afraid; she thought that she was about to die and her senpai was about to hurt somebody. Marui blushed and he hugged back. "It's okay now. Don't worry." He said as he rubbed her back and her sobs slowly died away. "We'd better go now, or they'll think I took you somewhere else." Then, Sakuno pulled back and they walked side by side, the red haired boy placed his arm over the girl's shoulders.
She held her arms tightly, wrapping herself with her own arms as she held the bag between them. She felt cold from her wet hair and clothes. Finally they arrived at Sanada's house. Everybody came out to the gates to welcome them; only to find out something terrible happened to their sweet friend.
"What happened, Ryuzaki-san?" Jackal was the first one to speak from shock. "You should get inside, or you'll catch a cold!" then he led her inside, taking her from his friend's care.
"Eh? It seems like you took good care of her, though you slipped a little." Niou said with a slight teasing. But Marui just ignored him, his face still flushed. He walked inside which was brow-raising. "What's wrong with him?" he asked the others and they proceeded inside. As Marui paced through the house, two emerald eyes closely followed his moves.
Sanada's mother lent her a yukata which she refused to wear. Sakuno finally gave in since she needed to cook and she didn't have a choice. She appeared after a short while where the guys were and they stared at her with great awe. Jackal offered to help cooking and was accepted while the others who offered weren't.
As she was cooking, she remembered something very important so she told her Jackal-senpai to watch over what she was cooking and gave him instructions.
Marui sat outside the house near the koi pond; his heart still beating furiously. He put his hand over his chest and said to his self, "Will you give it a break?" But his heart still went on beating hard. He sighed and felt somebody sit beside him and he turned his head only to see Sakuno holding something.
"You've been holding that all that time." He said staring at the pond.
"I-I wanted to g-give this to y-you. I made them." She stuttered as she handed him the bag. He opened it and to his surprise, it contained his favorite food (or maybe because they were sweet and full of sugary delight).
"Sakuno, you made these for me!?" he squealed in delight. He didn't know that Sakuno was looking at him as he enjoyed the scent of the cookies. He turned his head and as he did so, his lips brushed against Sakuno's. They both let the moment linger for a few seconds, but Sakuno pulled away and quickly retreated to the kitchen and left her senpai there in dreamland.
She touched her lips, 'I just got kissed.'
Jackal sensed that Sakuno was spacing out, so he waved his hand in front of Sakuno's face. "Ryuzaki-san, are you alright?" then she was back to the real world and realized that she has been spacing out. She returned to cooking or else everyone would get hungry because she was too slow.
He let his fingers slide over his lips and thought, 'It felt… nice, like I can do it forever.' And he went back to his daydreaming, his heart now thumping harder than before.
Mushy, ne? This one's a real pain in the ass and it's too long as well. I might not be able to update this weekend because I shall return to my hometown to see my family. Studying at a college kilometers away from your home is hard. well, see ya!