Hi everyone! This is the first chapter of Just Be Friends. I hope you like it!
Ch 1: I'm Not Ryoma!
Ryoma Echizen, the prodigy who has won four national tennis tournaments in two years, has just moved from his home in the U.S. to Tokyo, Japan where he will be studying at Seishun Gakuen, better known as Seigaku. Even though he moved halfway across the world, he isn't affected by it at all and just goes on like if nothing happened, which is what brings him to his current situation. Like always, his neighbor comes over every morning to make sure that he wakes up on time to make it to school. It always starts off with her going into his room and poking him for a while. If that doesn't seem to work, she goes on to calling his name while poking him. If it still doesn't wake him up, then she goes to her last resort and drops Karupin on Ryoma's sleeping head.
"Alright, alright, I'm up." Said Ryoma tossing the covers off him and getting up from his bed.
"Good, you really shouldn't be late for the first day of class, especially since it's a new school." Replied his friend, who was smiling happily
"Tsuki-hime…you look like a guy" Ryoma stated bluntly at his friend while rubbing his eyes. He took a better look at her and saw that instead of her usual long black hair held in pigtails by red ribbons, she had short hair that barely reached her shoulders. What made her look even more like a guy was the fact that she was wearing the boy's uniform.
"That doesn't matter. Please hurry up and get ready for school. I'll be waiting outside." Said the girl as she walked out and shut the door behind her. A few seconds passed until Ryoma decided to listen to his friend and get ready for school. He quickly got dressed and met her outside.
"You know, you really do look like a guy. Ryoga wouldn't like that" said Ryoma as he walked to school with his friend.
"It's just hair. It'll grow back. Besides, it doesn't matter to me if Ryoga would like it or not." Yuu said pouting at her friend, a slight blush on her cheeks
"Is that so? Then tell me why you're blushing" replied her friend, smirking
"I am not!" she replied, her face getting redder from his comments. They argued the whole way to school, with him saying she loved Ryoga while she denied everything. When they got to school, they got their class schedules and were happy to find out that they were in the same class. Since there was still time before classes started, they decided to split up and explore the school. Ryoma decided to find paths to the rooftop while Yuu decided to roam around and found herself lost.
"Maybe roaming around by myself wasn't such a good idea. Moving to a different country doesn't change my horrible sense of directions. In all truth, I think it worsens my sense of directions" said Yuu wandering around aimlessly, trying to see if she could run into Ryoma along the way. Before she knew what had happened, a boy collided with her and they found themselves on the floor.
"Aww man, I can't believe I'm this late! Tezuka is going to get mad and he'll assign me an insane amount of laps like always!" said the boy picking up his tennis bag from the floor. He had red hair and wore a bandage on his right cheek. He rushed in getting his tennis bag off the floor and got up, pulling Yuu up from the floor and dusting her off. "Sorry about that little guy. This isn't really the best way to meet a guy, but I'll make it up to you later. Bye, nya!" said the boy as he ran off, leaving Yuu alone
"Did he just nya?" she asked to no one in particular, knowing the boy was already out of sight "I'm such an idiot! I should've asked him for directions!" she yelled after she remembered her current situation. "He was in a hurry though. If I asked for directions, I would've been a bother. I don't want to be a bother to anyone"
"Tsuki-hime…what are you doing?" asked Ryoma walking to the small girl.
"Ryo-chan!" yelled the girl happily, running over to her friend and hugging him tightly.
"Hey, get off. We've only been away for like 5 minutes and I bet you got lost" said Ryoma as he tried to pry his clinging friend off.
"You're so hurtful Ryo-chan" said Yuu as she finally let go of her friend. It wasn't long after that the halls became crowded and the bell rang signaling the first class of the day. Even though they were in a different country, nothing changed in the daily routines of the two. Ryoma spent most of the day half asleep during classes and wouldn't pay much attention. Yuu spent most of the day thinking about cakes and drawing on her notebook, paying just about as much attention to the lecture as Ryoma was. Whenever it seemed like Ryoma would fall asleep in class, Yuu would poke him with a pencil from her seat behind him, effectively waking him up. During lunch, they ate together on the rooftop and had a quick nap afterwards. The day went by quickly and uneventful for the two, until it was after school and Yuu was too caught up in her drawing to notice anything.
"and now I'm…done!" Yuu said happily as she finished her drawing "Ryo-chan, look! It's the best drawing of Karupin!" she yelled, looking up from her paper only to be greeted by the empty room. "Oh, that's right, Ryo-chan did say something about checking out the tennis courts…but he left his tennis stuff here. Might as well take his stuff to him" Yuu packed up her books and drawings, took Ryoma's tennis bag and ran off to find him. Unfortunately for her, just as she was turning a corner, she collided with another person and found herself sitting on the ground for the second time that day.
"I can't believe this…late two times in one day." Said the boy getting up off the ground. "Oh hey I know you. The guy from this morning. Sorry about bumping into you again" said the red-head getting his tennis bag and slinging it over his shoulder. He took note of the other tennis bag on the floor and stared at the 'boy' sitting on the ground. "Hmmm…tennis bag…black hair…golden eyes…short…you must be the rumored new guy from America! I can't believe I found you like this! I hear you're really good, so I promised myself that I'd challenge you to a match when I saw you. Come on, let's go!" the boy said excitedly, not letting Yuu respond to anything. He got the other tennis bag, slung it over his other shoulder, grabbed Yuu's wrist and dragged her off towards the tennis courts. What surprised Yuu the most was that instead of stopping at the tennis courts, they went into the tennis club room. As the boy barged into the club room dragging Yuu along with him, she quickly started to pull away from him once she saw that some of the boys were changing. Unfortunately, that only made him tighten his grip on her and pull her more.
"Eiji, where were you? This is the second time you've come in late" asked a dark-haired boy with two short bangs.
"Oishii, I know I came in late, but look who I brought! It's the American tennis guy everyone was talking about! We're going to have a match" said the red-head happily dragging Yuu further into the club room.
"So this is the rumored Echizen Ryoma? The tennis prodigy from America? The one that won four national junior tournaments in two years?" asked a boy with dark spiky hair, his face close to Yuu's. "He doesn't look like much to me. I know he's a first year, but he can at least be a bit taller. Plus he looks kind of sick." Said the boy inching closer to Yuu, seeing 'his' face redden at the proximity. Him inching closer just made Yuu step back and bump into another boy who had his shirt off.
"Are you alright? You look a bit red. No need to be shy, we're all guys here" said the shirtless boy with a calm, soft, soothing voice. He was smiling a gracefully, his eyes closed lightly with his brown hair framing his face beautifully. If it wasn't for the fact that he was shirtless and in the boy's tennis club, Yuu might have mistaken him for a girl. Seeing him shirtless only made Yuu look down and step back quickly, only to stop when she felt her back pushed up against something. She slowly looked up, tilting her head back, and saw a tall brown-haired boy with glasses. From her position, she could see that he also wasn't wearing a shirt, which made her blush even more than before. She found herself unable to move her gaze from his serious face and his eyes. She finally got out of her trance-like state when he raised a questioning eyebrow. She stepped to the side, only to trip on a basket full of tennis balls, scattering them all over the club room's floor.
"I'm really sorry!" yelled Yuu as she picked up the tennis balls that were scattered across the room. The whole room fell silent upon hearing the words that came out of 'his' mouth, wondering why it sounded more like a girl. Her eyes were starting to become watery, feeling embarrassed at the fact that she had been mistaken for a boy, saw the guys shirtless, and was probably messing up their schedule by being her clumsy self again. If it were Ryoma, she knew that he wouldn't have any kind of problem in this situation.
"What's going on here?" came a voice from the open door. Everyone in the room turned their heads to see a short boy with dark hair and golden eyes. The small boy glanced around the room to see most of the boys shirtless and his friend on the floor picking up tennis balls. Her face was beet red and her eyes were starting to look watery. He couldn't help but wonder how she got into this mess, or how they were able to stay friends for so long seeing as how all she did was just bring trouble to him. His first day at Seigaku was definitely going to be memorable…unfortunately not in a good way.
Well that's the end of the first chapter. I hope it wasn't too long and boring for you guys to read. Please keep an eye out for chapter two of the story. I apologize if the story seems to be going slow. It's definitely a TezukaXOCXFuji...just need to get through with the introductions. I really do hope you enjoyed reading this though. Since I'm horrible at describing things (and people), if you haven't seen it already, I have drawings of Yuu on my deviantart to help people see what she looks like. My username is Lone-Wolf-Kai01. Well, until next time, jya ne!