A/N: Heyos all. Sorry that this chapter is really late. Well, considering that I've been updating once a week for the past few chaps, this is a late one. Anyways, last two weeks have been total hell week for me! All the assignments are due during that period and my film project needed to be shot and edited. Film editing is fun but sooo extremely tiring =(
And yes, the exams are in like 2+ weeks time so don't expect much from me. The most I can promise is at least one more chapter before my first exam paper (14th April). However, look out for goodies once I'm done with my exams INCLUDING the first story in the Suki, Ai? couples spin-off, Honey Hearts, the story of Tezuka and his wife, Kokoro.
Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis does not belong to me. I am eagerly waiting for the next chapter of Shin Prince of Tennis though. *cringes at the totally uncreative name*
Title: Suki, Ai?
Chapter 4: "What are you doing here in Hawaii?"
"The flight will be landing soon. Will all passengers please return to you seats and fasten your seat belts. Thank you for flying with us."
Ryoma stretched himself a bit, looking forward to getting back on stable ground. He then shook his manager awake before strapping on his own seat belts. The landing was nice and smooth, unsurprising given the cool and balmy weather outside.
Due to the hard work of the tournament organisers, they had managed to somehow keep Ryoma's presence a secret. Thus, Ryoma was able to get through customs and retrieve his luggage with minimum fuss, zero media presence and best of all, zero fan girl presence. Ryoma could only sigh in relief at the rare peacefulness of it all. They then took a cab to the hotel that the tournament participants are all registered to stay in.
"Right my boy, once check-in is done, we'll go up to our rooms and rest up. Let's meet again for dinner at 7? Hotel restaurant," Roger clarified.
"Sounds good. See ya later," Ryoma responded as he picked his luggage once his check-in has been processed. Feeling slightly tired, he walked on straight; his focus was only on getting to his room. He was so unaware of his surroundings that he did not even notice walking pass a group of Japanese women, all of whom he was very familiar with.
The group of eight women chattered excitedly, unaware of the tennis star that had just passed them by. Although the women as a group were staying at a different resort, the two tournament participants had to come down to the same hotel to finalise their registration in the tournament. Since that was done, they were looking forward to spending the day together, having fun. Thus, they could hardly care about who was walking pass them. They looked at the hotel's tourism information booth, trying to figure out their plans for the day.
"Hey, since we are saving our spa trip to the second last day, let's do all those touristy stuff now! Look at this! I heard that it's a very popular attraction," Risa said, practically shouting in her excitement.
"Oh yes, there's a hula dance class being held at our resort tomorrow evening. Wanna go," Chiaki asked, just as enthusiastic.
"Oh sure! Definitely," six voices replied in return.
"Hai, hai. I understand that we are all excited. Let's see, why don't we just explore the area today? We don't have a lot of time since we are meeting Momoshiro-kun and Inui-kun for dinner," Kokoro said, easily falling into her usual role as the "calmer."
"Right, the boys said that they'll meet us here at 7pm," An confirmed.
"Yup, and its 3.30 now. Leaves us with about three hours to explore. What do you say?"
"Yay!"
"Sounds good."
"Cool."
"Let's go!!"
The excitement of the group was palpable as they made their way towards the hotel entrance.
"Hello! You girls looked like you had fun," Momoshiro Takeshi said as he bent down to give his fiancée a kiss hello.
"Judging from how happy they look, I'd say that there is a 100% chance that they had fun Momoshiro," Inui said, nudging his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
"Hello Sadaharu. Please no mention of statistics and data. I'm too tired to entertain it," Yukino said playfully chiding her cousin.
"Well, Yuki-san, this is Inui-senpai we're talking about. I doubt he'd ever be able to stop spouting data," Momoshiro said only half joking. "Anyway, let's go for dinner. We've managed to reserve a table for ten." Tired and hungry, the eight women happily allowed themselves to be herded into the restaurant.
It was only after they had all settled down that Ami first noticed the head of black-green hair sitting three tables diagonally away from them. Feeling a bit of a shock and wondering what she should do, she discreetly nudged the neighbour on her left, Chiaki to point the person out to her. Chiaki was a lot less discreet. In her eagerness to inform her friend, she actually kicked her childhood friend HARD under the table.
"Itai! Chiaki, what?"
"Oops. Sorry Take-kun. Didn't mean to kick you," she said out loud belatedly realising the unwanted attention they were getting. Moving closer to him, she whispered in Momoshiro's ear, "Look at 11 o'clock, three tables away from us. Familiar?"
"E-e-Echi-" Momoshiro sputtered out before getting another kick from Chiaki. It was then his turn to whisper to his childhood friend. " Is that Echizen? What is he doing here? And what with Sakuno-chan here too."
"How would I know? He's your best friend isn't he? Didn't he tell you anything?"
"We haven't had a chance to talk in about two months! There was no time for him to tell me anything," Momoshiro replied indignantly.
"What are the two of you whispering about?" The two friends jerked back in shock at An's question. Without them realising it, their whispered conversation had been getting a lot of attention from the rest of their group. Basically, everybody was looking at them.
"Haha. Erm, nothing really," Momoshiro replied sheepishly, all the while trying to silently appeal to his fiancée to drop the subject. However, their efforts at secrecy failed when somebody with a little less tact notice that same head of black-green hair.
"Eh? Isn't that Echizen? According to my calculations, he should be preparing for Wimbledon now and not here eating dinner in Hawaii."
Three cries of "Inui-san," "Inui-kun" and "Inui-senpai was heard from Chiaki, Ami and Momoshiro.
"Huh? Nani?"
"Well, erm," Momoshiro said trying to explain to Inui.
"Don't worry, Inui-senpai. I believe they were just worried for me," Sakuno suddenly said.
"Ah, yes. You and erm… Echizen. Yes, yes," Inui commented awkwardly.
"Momoshiro-senpai. Why don't you go over and ask Ryoma-kun and Belden-san if they want to join us? I know most of you guys haven't seen him in months and I'm sure you'd like to see him now. So, go ahead. Unanimous looks of shocks greeted Sakuno's comment. Everybody remembered how hard it had been for her back when he first left. While the girls knew that they had finally met again recently, it still shocked them at how fine she seemed to be at the idea of him joining them for dinner.
Momo was especially shocked at the whole thing. "Sakuno-chan," he asked uncertainly.
"What? This is not my first meeting with Ryoma-kun in five years. I met him at the French Open last month. And besides, everything between us happened such a long time ago. It's about time I get over it. So go. I know everybody wants to meet up and chat with him," Sakuno explained. Momoshiro however, still looked rather uncertain. It was only after a nod from both his fiancée and Tomoka, signalling that he should just go already, that he started moving. All eyes at the table followed him.
"Yo, Echizen! What are you doing here in Hawaii?" Ryoma, who was sitting in the direction facing away from them, coughed in shock at the greeting from the man who was both his senpai and best friend. He took a second to compose himself before turning around to greet his senpai. Really, what is it with people and sneaking up on him? First it was Sakuno last month and Momo-senpai today.
"Momo-senpai, domo," he said.
"Nice to see you. It's been like what? Two months since we last talked? Man, it's been awhile. Oh yes, nice to see you too Belden-san."
"Hello Momoshiro-kun. What are you doing here in Hawaii?"
"Oh, I'm with that huge party over there," Momoshiro replied gesturing towards his table. "Some of us are here for the amateur tennis tournament. The girls are all here on holiday. So erm, do you wanna join us? Everyone is eager to meet you two. Except, erm, well… Sakuno-chan is there with us too."
"Saku… oh you mean Ryuzaki-san? Erm, is she—" Roger said before being interrupted by Ryoma.
"Let's go. I haven't seen Inui-senpai, Ami-senpai and all the others for quite a while too. "
"Ryoma?"
"If he's here means that she's fine with it right? I have no reason to say no to hanging out with my friends," Ryoma replied his manager almost indignantly. With that, they signalled to a nearby waiter to allow Ryoma and Roger to be moved to their table.
On the walk back to the table, Momoshiro whispered to Roger, "I really have no idea what's going on with those two but she was the one who asked me to invite you guys over."
Ryoma's arrival at their table was greeted with a lot of joy and affection. Even Risa, who was the 'newest' addition to their group had known Ryoma for the past six years. On the other hand, Momoshiro, Inui, An, Tomoka, Ami and Sakuno have already known Ryoma for over 12 years. So, they were a group of friends who were pretty much comfortable with each other, comfortable enough that the awkwardness around Sakuno and Ryoma can sort-of be buried.
"So Echizen, you haven't replied me yet. Why are you here in Hawaii? What about Wimbledon?"
"An exhibition match with the winner from your amateur tournament. I'm taking a break from the majors," he replied nonchalantly.
"Oh really? Then be prepared to meet me my boy," Momoshiro said.
"Huh. No worries Echizen, you'll probably meet me in the match. Then I'll just use all my data to finally beat you," Inui said in return.
"Oh shut up you guys," Chiaki said. "We have no time to listen to your bragging." But she was too late. Now that the topic of tennis has been brought up, it became the main topic of conversation with the four tournament participants heavily debating about their competition.
Eventually, the topic of their conversation changed to the upcoming Wimbledon where three of their friends were participating in. With Ryoma out of the picture, the whole group was debating how successful Tezuka Kunimitsu, Fuji Syuusuke and Kaidoh Kaoru would do.
In the midst of all the chaos, Sakuno – who was done eating – left the table, hoping to get some time alone. She may look fine with the whole hanging out with Ryoma thing, but it actually still hurts her quote a bit to be so near him. However, her peace was not meant to be when she heard somebody call out her name.
"Ryoma-kun, why are you here?" Sakuno's weary tone just further emphasised her sense of tiredness.
"You didn't stop him when he came to find me."
"How can I? You saw how happy they were to see you." Not wanting to talk him anymore, she walked away.
"Sakuno," Ryoma called out as he grabbed her wrist. It was the first time in five years that she had felt his touch and she found that it both thrilled and annoyed her. Yes, it was only on the wrist but it was just so familiar and brought back memories of tennis lessons, holding hands and how he had stopped her the first time they had an argument. They have been in each other's life for at least 7 years; three years of friendship and four sweet years—Snap out of it Sakuno. You don't want to go down that road again.
"Sorry Ryoma-kun. I'm tired and my first match starts tomorrow. Tell everybody I'm going back to the resort first," she said as she shook of his arm and really walked away.
"Argh. I'm ready to join Saku-chan and go to bed," Risa announced. "I know its early but we hardly had any rest since we touched down this morning."
"Hmmm, alright then. I've got some data to run through before going to bed early myself," Inui said. "Momoshiro?"
"I've got a match tomorrow. But, I don't wanna sleep yet," answered Momshiro. Not wanting to disturb either his fiancée or his childhood friend who looked ready for bed, he just turned to Ryoma instead. "Echizen, wanna hang out for about an hour more? We haven't really had the chance to catch up."
"Sure." With their night all planned, the cheque was called for and the dinner bill paid. Everybody then rose for their seats and went their separate ways. The girls went back to their resort, Inui and Roger went back to their rooms while Momoshiro and Ryoma headed on to the hotel bar.
"So… Exactly who are the people playing in the tournament? I was a bit surprised to hear Sakuno said that she's playing," Ryoma suddenly asked. At the look of incredulity on Momoshiro's face, he continued, "No, not because of her tennis skills. I know she's good. It's just that, she plays amateur tennis?"
"An, Sakuno-chan, Inui-senpai and myself are all playing Singles. Sakuno-chan and Inui-senpai usually play mixed doubles too but they are not this time round," Momoshiro explained. "What, we never told you that Sakuno-chan's one of the top female players in the Japanese amateur tennis scene?"
Ryoma just glared in reply.
"Anyway, you chased after her just now. What happened?"
"Nothing," Ryoma replied. "Just, nothing."
"Well, the important question now would be, why did you chase after her?"
"I wish I can answer you. I just don't know."
"Well, my friend. I think it's about time you two work things out. Just for that, I'm glad that the two of you have finally met up again."
Silence settled over the two friends as Ryoma tried to digest Momoshiro's words.
A/N: So, yes. We get to meet Momo and Inui this chapter! I'm actually not as happy with this chapter as I should be coz I consider it kinda boring but oh wells, the boring parts will always exist. Anyways, expect the next chapter to be about the same pace as this one and with ZERO RyoSaku interactions. But do look out for the (RyoSaku) climax of this arc which should be in the next next chapter. Thanks so much for reading my story and do leave a review please!
cheers,
cityangelz.
Extra ramblings: OMG! Somebody should just give an award to the creators of the Bleach anime for creating the most useless, lame-ass filler arc ever! The current filler arc which started with this week's episode cannot get any stupider. I fast-forwarded throughout the whole episode and actually only watched the Arrancar encyclopedia at the end. How can it be that the little section at the end is a lot more entertaining than the whole episode? Man, it is seriously hitting a whole new low. I'm really disappointed coz I thought at least the previous filler arcs were pretty cool. But this? bleahs