Never Forgotten

A RyoSaku romance fanfic by Bunny

Chapter Two – Savior

She was my savior. She was a beautiful, long twin braided little slip of a girl and she saved me.

From what? Well, myself for one. I was lonely. I was always lonely. My only real friend was Karupin, my cat. Pathetic, I know. At the time, I didn't really care though. All the people around me, the people that swore that they loved me and cared about me and only wanted what was best for me…they didn't really. They only wanted me to be a world class tennis star.

It was for this purpose that I was born into this world. Since I was a baby, I was holding a tennis racquet, and to this day, I still am. It's a blessing, it's a curse, and it is definitely my fate. To be a lonely star set adrift on the world scene of those that have a special gift or talent. Always knowing that I was only valued in the eyes of those around me for what I could do for them. Make them rich; give them glory, a fantasy, power. Don't misunderstand. I love tennis, it is my life. It is also, however, all I've ever really known.

That is, until I met her. Although, in retrospect, "met her" is actually not a very accurate way of putting it. I didn't even walk away that day with a name. Just a picture of her in my head and a sweet memory of a cute girl my age that seemed to actually care about me. And by me, I mean the person that I am, not the skills I have, or the looks I have or any of the other things I have that throw people into my path and my life. She saw me. I'm not sure how I knew, but I did. I just knew she saw me.

It wasn't until later on though, that I really realized what I had lost. At the time, I was just using her because she was there and she was the only person that seemed to give a damn. But later, when I thought about it, when I saw her concerned face in my memory and her worried eyes looking over me, I realized it. She cared about me.

It was during the semi-finals at my second Wimbledon. I was 15 and at the beginning of that year I had finally taken my first title at the Australian Open. Finally, I had won a title. It took my third world tournament to get it, but I had made it to the top. Now Wimbledon was next and then the US Open and I'd hit the Grand Slam title that my old man had been pushing me towards since before I could talk.

My opponent in the semi-finals that year had a very interesting technique. By continuously alternating between topspin and slice shots, he was able to make my muscles continuously contract and freeze up for an instant; stopping me from returning a shot. It was so brief that those with an untrained eye could miss it. It got me. It got me over and over and as I tried to figure out how to overcome it, it continued to get me. Not like that was enough to stop me. I was not only going to overcome his "spot" technique as he liked to call it, but I was also going to master it myself. I picked up everybody's special techniques; I only needed to see them a few times, though I usually did stick with my few favorites that never failed me.

So here I was, in the midst of a vicious Wimbledon semi-final match with a guy that could get my body to freeze up on me and fail me when it happened. I was spinning around to return the ball when I found myself in the "spot" and found that while in the "spot' one would also lose their grip. I watched in shocked horror as my racquet slipped from my hand and sailed full speed into the net's pole. It shattered upon impact and the broken handle bounced back towards me. Before I could move to avoid it, the ridged edge of the broken handle flew into my left eye and all I could see was red.

Red.

Red.

Red.

I grasped my hand over my eye as I fell onto my knees in the shortly clipped grass of the court and my right eye watched the blood drip onto the grass. Drip, splash, splosh, oh God, there was blood everywhere; I could feel it running down my hand before it hit the grass. The pain in my eye was so intense I didn't know what else to do but stare at the dripping blood in horror. A million thoughts ran through my shocked head. How could this be? How had this happened to me? Had I just been blinded? What about my match? Could I finish the match like this?

And that's when I heard her voice, breaking the silence of the stadium; she was calling out to me.

"Are you okay?"

Huh?

"Are you all right?"

Was that…Japanese?

"Let me go! He's injured!"

What? As if they would understand her.

"Only players are allowed on the court!"

Is that girl yelling in Japanese trying to get on the court?

"He's bleeding; he needs help, let me go! Are you okay?"

My curiosity getting the better of me, I finally looked up to see what the commotion was all about. And my one working eye was met with two concerned brown eyes, completely focused on me with obvious worry.

…who?

Who is this girl?

What is she doing trying to get on the court? Is she stupid? Obviously, she didn't understand the English, but what tennis fan didn't know tennis etiquette? And if she didn't know it, what was she doing at Wimbledon?

I'd never been so embarrassed and yet, somewhat touched in my whole life. I was hurt, and she wasn't screaming about how it would ruin my game, or yelling at me to "get up" or "shake it off," but she was worried about me. When everyone had been silent and seeing what I would do, she was rushing to help me. She was trying desperately to communicate her concern, even though nobody else seemed to understand her.

I watched in fascination as she somehow wriggled past the ball boys trying to hold her back and she rushed to my side. I blushed as I got a flash of her panties when she stopped short and squatted down in front of me. She put one hand on my shoulder and started to look at where my hand was covering my bleeding eye.

"Are you okay?" she asked, softly.

"Get off the court," I commanded in Japanese figuring she hadn't understood the ball boys' English.

She recoiled; moving her hand off of me she rose and took a step back, looking crushed.

What? Didn't she know she was breaking the rules and embarrassing me? It wasn't personal; stupid girl.

"But-" she began, only to be cut off by the referee.

"You there, everyone has to leave the court except the players," he yelled pointing to her.

Understanding somehow that she was being told to leave by the referee too, she huffed, "Fine!"

Before I knew it she had taken my free hand and begun dragging me off the court towards the bench.

"My racquet is broken," I commented, looking back at it forlornly.

"You should be more worried about your eye right now!" she scolded as she pushed me down onto the bench.

I gave her an irritated look. She just didn't get it, did she?

She ignored my look as she retrieved the first aid kit set aside for such things and came back to kneel in front of me. She gently took my hand away from my eye and dabbed at it with a large bandage, trying to soak up the blood running from my eye.

"It looks like it's just the top of your eyelid," she murmured softly.

"Hn."

"Can you open your eye?" she asked as she pulled the bandage away briefly.

I opened my eye, and was immediately relieved that I hadn't lost my vision. That would have been an inconvenience. She was there, only a few inches from my face, and for the first time, I saw her with both of my eyes. I took a second to take in her appearance better. I noticed a purple clip in her hair, long braids flowing down her back all the way to the floor, big, brown, worried eyes, and an obvious frown before my eye was once again covered with a large bandage. I finished taking her in with my right eye. She was wearing a short tennis skirt and top, not unusual for any of the girls present at a tennis match. Her bare legs were bent to support her and I immediately blocked the memory of her flashing me before dragging me off the court. What the hell was I thinking about? I suppressed a blush from forming once again.

"It's bleeding like crazy," she commented.

"Hn." No kidding? Did you get a degree in medicine to figure that out? The girl had an amazing grasp on the obvious. Okay, I admit it, I was really cranky about getting injured and I was taking it out on her.

She sighed.

"What do you want to do?" she asked softly.

I looked at her as she continued to change bandages; soaking up the blood coming out of my eyelid and wondered again what she was doing there and why she was helping me.

"Echizen-san?" she questioned when I didn't answer.

"I want to finish my match," I offered.

"I think you need to go to the hospital," she looked sorry telling me that and I tilted my head slightly in question.

"I know that this is really important to you, and that you definitely want to win this year, but I don't know how you can do it with your eye like this," she explained.

What's this? She doesn't think I can beat this guy? Okay, so maybe I was getting a little discouraged, and getting injured had taken me by surprise, but there was NO WAY I was losing. Nobody beats me at tennis. This girl needs to understand. I moved her hand with the bandage out of the way and wiped my eye on the sleeve of my t-shirt.

"There, all better," I said.

A moment later, I closed my eye again as blood started dripping into it.

Damn.

She smirked at me, "Mada mada dane."

WHAT? Did this girl just…?

I narrowed my one working eye at her in obvious irritation.

"Okay, I'll make you a deal," she said.

A deal? As if I have to listen to this stupid girl in the first place? The hell? Fine, what?

Taking my silence as her queue to continue she did, "Can you play with just one eye? I can bandage up this one and cover it so the bleeding will be controlled."

Now we're talking. Okay, so maybe this girl wasn't so bad after all. I looked at her in wonderment as she put my hand over the bandage to hold it in place and used both hands to rummage through the first aid kit. Did she really get it?

"Hey girl – I can play with both of my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back and still beat this guy," I told her.

She looked up at me with a soft smile, admiration and trust shining out of her eyes, "I'm sure you can."

Bragging…had never felt so good. She really believed in me. Wow. I'm so pumped up. This guy is going to leave the courts today crying I'm going to beat him so hard.

I smirked at her and she pulled the bloody bandage out of my hand and started wrapping my eye up, taping the bandages around my face so it would stay put.

"I'll give you ten minutes to beat him, Ryoma-kun and if you don't beat him by then, you have to promise me you will forfeit and get this treated at the hospital," she said with a stern look. It took me a few days before I remembered how she changed her address of me to an affectionate one – that would later keep me up late at night thinking about her.

I glanced with my good eye at the time clock on the wall above the court and looked back at her, "No problem."

"Well, then, do your best," she said as she stood and wiped the grass off her bare knees. I watched for a moment in fascination. I would later wonder what the hell I had been hit with to be so focused on a girl's bare legs.

"Thanks," I replied.

And then…as quickly as she had appeared, she disappeared.

I did win that game in less than 10 minutes, but after all that, I didn't see the girl again at Wimbledon. If it wasn't for the live video they had taped of the whole thing, and being able to watch the whole scene play out over and over again on the recordings I would have long ago concluded that she had been imagined. She was real though. She was my savior. She was the only person that ever really understood and really cared. She didn't seem to care if I won or lost, but she supported my desire to win. She told me to do my best and she believed in me. It was all I ever needed.

However, she was gone. I had no name, no way of contacting her, no way of knowing if I would ever see her again. She didn't seem to be your typical tennis fan. She had saved me when I unknowingly had really needed someone there for me and after realizing all this, I finally understood what it really meant to be lonely. I had to find her again. I needed to see her again. Somehow, somehow, someway I would see her again. We were connected, I knew that much. From that point forward, whenever I played, I played for her. Are you watching me, long braided haired girl with the big brown eyes?