36 Drabbles

28: Inui-jiru

It was dark in the school, and Sakuno shivered as she stepped out of her homeroom class. It was nearing winter, and Ryoma was still caught up in tennis practice. The teacher had asked her to stay after class to clean up, and Sakuno obliged. Tomoka had to take care of her brothers today, so it wasn't like she had anything to do anyways. The sun was setting earlier than usual as well, and the soft orange glow of the sunlight lit up the hallways in ways Sakuno had never seen before. Smiling a little, Sakuno made her way slowly to the stairs at the end of the hallway, intent of watching Ryoma practicing with Kaidoh-senpai and Momo-senpai before they had to leave.

But mysteriously, one of the doors was open. Sakuno blinked, fairly sure she had seen her sensei lock the door on his way out. The inside of the room was pitch black, and Sakuno peeked in to call out, "hello?" in case anyone was there.

Someone was.

"Ah, Ryuzaki-kouhai."

Sakuno jumped, a little surprised at hearing the voice.

"I-Inui-senpai?"

Seriously, this was starting to get on his nerves just a little bit. Whenever he thought their relationship was the best it had been in a while (or every day of every hour they spent together), she goes off and avoids him for a week or two! Ryoma was a little confused for the first few days she told him to go home without her, but then those days turned into weeks! Ryoma could only think of the worst, watching her run off everyday after school to some unknown part of the school. Ryoma could never follow her, having tennis practice right after class ended. It was a little frustrating, because she didn't say a thing about where she was going (even when he asked), not to mention he hadn't kissed her ever since! The possibilities were endless, but the most prominent one was that she was cheating on him.

'Impossible.' Ryoma thought, sending a particularly strong twist serve to the opponent across from him (Horio).

Sakuno was so sweet, so shy, so innocent and just. She would never cheat on him; it was impossible for her. And yet even as he chanted those phrases over and over in his head, Ryoma still had lingering feelings of doubt left. He was a little disgruntled when Kaidoh-buchou called him out, telling him to go take a break because it needed to cool his head for a bit. Ryoma just grumbled out a quick "yes" before taking off for the water taps. When he arrived, Ryoma was pleasantly surprised to see Sakuno there, bent over the water taps. He could hear the water from the tap rushing into a container, and sneaked up behind her to peek over her shoulder. The water was being poured into one of the flasks from the chemistry room.

"Sakuno." He said, smirking a little when she squealed loudly and jumped about a foot in the air, almost spilling all the water on herself. She turned to look at him with her large, caramel-coloured eyes and flushed cheeks. He noticed her hands were shaking a little, probably from his bout of devilishness. After she calmed herself down, Sakuno glared half-heartedly at her boyfriend.

"Ryoma!" She scolded, whacking him in the shoulder. Ryoma just chuckled, bending over to the running water and taking a quick drink. Then he straightened up, kissing her swiftly on the mouth. Sakuno returned his public display of affection, before pulling away and grabbing the flask of water. Her lips were pursed, like they always were when she was nervous or anxious about something. Ryoma's eyes narrowed. "Ano… I have to go now Ryoma. You can leave without me… again."

And before he could say another word, she turned tail and ran.

Ryoma could hear them, that is, Kaidoh and Tezuka speaking softly a little ways from him. They were discussing his irate behaviour for the past few weeks, contemplating the possibilities. It wasn't long until they looked at each other and nodded, saying "Sakuno." Ryoma just growled when her name was spoken, and the two never spoke about her again through the rest of the little get-together. It was their monthly tennis match, only Ryoma was hell-bent on released every bit of his anger in the sport on all of his senpai. Let's just say Tezuka wasn't too happy about that, and Ryoma was sent to cool off.

Meanwhile, Inui stood in the corner when it wasn't his turn to play, analyzing his fellow teammates like always. He knew the prince of tennis didn't know of his frequent visits to Seigaku, as the data tennis player was very adept at stealth. That, and Sakuno refused to tell him just yet. The two of them had been working in the chemistry lab of Seigaku (because Inui felt more comfortable working there as opposed to the university laboratories), trying to come up with a drink that didn't taste horrible, helped all the tennis players, and didn't make up faint. Needless to say, their work was nowhere near complete.

"Echizen." Inui said, walking over to the boy genius. Well, he couldn't be considered a "boy" anymore, now could he? Ryoma just glanced up at him, before looking back down and taking a sip of his water bottle. Inui's mouth quirked up a bit in amusement, and Ryoma took another glance at him, the water bottle half way up to his mouth. His eyebrow rose, and he said rudely to his senpai,

"What?"

Inui just pointed to the bottle Ryoma held in his hand.

"That's mine."

Everyone in the tennis courts froze, anticipating Ryoma to keel over and vomit.

"See Inui-senpai? I told you it would work." Sakuno chirped, suddenly appearing out of nowhere. Inui just put his fingers to his chin, rubbing them earnestly as he took out his notebook for notes. He was muttering incoherent formulas under his breath, everyone hearing the word "percent" come out of his mouth more than once. He walked off, intent on getting some peace and quiet to sort out his data. Sakuno sat down beside Ryoma, patting his back as he recovered from choking on the Inui-jiru.

"No wonder it tasted fruity." Ryoma muttered, narrowing his eyes at his girlfriend. She always knew he loved the taste of strawberries (especially when it came from her), so she must have modeled the new and improved (and drinkable) Inui-jiru after fruits. Kikumaru bounded over, snatching the water bottle from Ryoma's hands.

"Let me try!" He shouted, guzzling a large amount. Momoshiro swiped it from the redhead, taking a good gulp of it himself. Soon enough, almost the entire Seigaku team was fighting over who got to try it next (Fuji especially interested because of its edibility). Ryoma just sat there, still dazed from the fact that he drank an Inui-jiru and he was still alive, much less conscious. Sakuno just giggled at him, laying her head on his prone shoulder.

"… so you weren't cheating on me?" Ryoma asked, grimacing a little as Sakuno shot up and gazed at him with wide eyes.

"Ryoma!" Sakuno exclaimed, scandalized. Thankfully their senpai wasn't paying attention to their conversation, too caught up in the business of Inui-jiru being drinkable. She giggled a little, resting one of her hands on his, squeezing it firmly to get his eyes to swivel over to her. "Ryoma, I'm sorry if I kept it a secret from you, but Inui-senpai asked me to, at least until our prototype worked." Ryoma shrugged, trying to seem as if he didn't care.

"Well, whatever. It can't be helped. But when did you get so good at chemistry anyways?" Ryoma asked suddenly, eyes narrowing at her. Sakuno blinked a little at the question, her smile suddenly teasing as she mentally pretended to take offence to that comment. Just because she sucked at English didn't mean he was allowed to take cracks at all her other subjects. This was payback time.

"Oh, I'm not." Sakuno said nonchalantly, turning to look up at the sky with a whimsical twinkle in her eye. "But you would be surprised that even if Inui-senpai and I can't make beautiful music together, we can sure make beautiful Inui-jiru's together."

Ryoma's jaw dropped, and Sakuno could only hold her poker face for about five seconds until she burst out laughing. The tennis star, having caught on her to joke, tackled her with a mischievous gleam in his eye, his fingers ghosting all along her ticklish spots. At this point, all the Seigaku regulars had finished trying the new Inui-jiru, and noticed the commotion going on behind them.

"Nyaa, I wanna join the tickle-fight!" Eiji exclaimed, jumping into the fray and going for Ryoma to save Sakuno from an aching stomach. Momoshiro, at first thinking this was a bit childish, pounced Ryoma too, just to see him break out into laughter. Sakuno just laid there on the ground in hysterics. But then, Fuji pulled her into it by poking her in the ticklish spots Ryoma had once touched, coaxing Kawamura to join and being successful. Ryoma, wanting to save his girlfriend, broke from his senpai's hold and grabbed Sakuno's arm, pulling her up and away from the tickling monsters. Not missing a beat, their senpai took off after them.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in an all-out tickle war, two-against-five.

Strangely enough, Ryoma and Sakuno emerged the winners.

A/N Twenty-eighth drabble out! I figured after the fairly depressing drabble last time, I should give you a drabble that's more silly and fun!

My inspiration for this drabble was mainly Sakuno helping Inui make his juice's edible and not disgusting. As you can see, it worked! I was only to include Ryoma being jealous, but somehow it ended up ending with a tickle war. XD Oh well, I'm happy with it, what about you?

Review for a waffle cone! (With ice cream, if you want)

Snowflake Flower