It's obvious by now right?

A stoic looking Ryoma was standing right in front of her open drawer, his hands hovering over her underwear.

If there truly was a kami-sama, she would like to die now.

Was his expression one of guilt? He looked guilty, didn't he? Ryoma carefully tried to school his features into one of nonchalance. This took a tremendous amount of effort on his part considering he was seconds away from turning into a raving lunatic. He hoped his nose was not bleeding from the endorphin rush he was getting, like how those anime characters on screen did when they were in a 'hentai' situation. And usually, in such 'hentai' situations, it involved the outraged female (read: Sakuno) kicking the incriminating male character (read: Ryoma) into space. Kami-sama, he hoped he did not look guilty.

Sakuno felt like she was a stereotypical heroine in a badly written shoujo manga. Before, she had planned on politely informing Ryoma that he had mistakenly judged her room to be his, after which she was hoping to have an adult conversation where they would set up some rules due to their unusual living situation. Apparently Ryoma had cottoned up to the fact that he was apparently in her room by himself. Of all potential scenarios, she did not expect that he would find out in such an...unusual and disturbing manner. Why was he not saying anything? Could he not even have the decency to step away or at least close the stupid drawer? She had a feeling that she was going to rupture a blood vessel somewhere from all the blushing that was going on.

"Anou...Echizen-san...What are you doing..?"

The girl had raised an excellent question. What in Hades was he doing? He should step away or at least have the decency to close the damn drawer. Morbidly, his eyes flitted again to her set of panties before meeting her eyes. He tried not look below her neck, something told him that a whole lot of imagining would occur if he started to venture below there. Ryuzaki, in racket spotted underwear. Yare yare, not going there Ryoma, he strictly imposed on himself.

This was not his fault. He did not even want to come here in the first place. He was supposed to be a renowned and accomplished tennis player by now, skilled and feared by his opponents. He was supposed to climbing up the international tennis rankings, become the second Japanese player in the world to achieve the coveted number 1 status. More importantly, he was supposed to be at home, with his cat meowing in his ear, his mother coddling him and his father haranguing his every move.

Unexpectedly, Ryoma found himself starting to focus his rising anger at Sakuno instead. Who was she to look at him as if he was some common thief? Always acting the part of an innocent, pristine divination, holier than common mortals. She was practically condescending at him right now, blatantly accusing eyes focusing on his every move, practically brandishing her healthy, normal, abled tennis playing body at him. While he, the one with the skills, the knowledge, could not even hold his racket correctly for ten straight minutes without feeling as if someone had taken a bat to him. It was unfair. Life was unfair. The one who wanted to play most could not.

"You don't have to act the part of an outraged old maid, you already look like one," Ryoma coolly inflicted. He calmly shut the now mocking drawer and stepped away from it. "I apologise for coming into your room, I did not realise it was yours. Someone has stupidly misplaced my boxes here. "

Ryoma was angry at her. Sakuno felt like she was watching the scene from outside of her body, the whole scene seemed so dreamlike somehow. One moment she had caught him sneaking glances at her underwear, then suddenly his eyes had turned cold and he had started to speak in that horrible tone. This further cemented something that she knew she could now never ignore. Ryoma did not like and could not have possibly liked her. A memory of a handwritten letter from so long ago flashed through her mind but she resolutely banished it. So this was how it felt to be numb...

"Ah...It's okay Echizen-san. Anyone would have made such a mistake,"

He continued to glare at her.

"Anou...Do you...need help moving your things?"

"Yes," Ryoma grated out.

"Saa... Well, um, I'll just be...um...Where do you want these?" Sakuno pointed to the pile of clothes on the bed.

"In the box,"

She gave him an overly enthusiastic nod and set about with her delegated task. She noticed that her hands were shaking. Calming her jumbled emotions, she slowly folded his clothes and placed them neatly in one of the opened boxes. In a matter of minutes she was done. Ryoma was leaning against the doorframe, the same expression on his face as before. What was she doing wrong?

"Where's my room?"

"Oh...Why don't I show you..?"

She was about to cart the box containing his clothes out of the room when she realized how heavy it was. Helplessly she glanced at Ryoma, who merely cocked an eyebrow at her. Evil, sadistic, bastard.Drawing on the irritation that came from nowhere, she harnessed it as a source of energy and began dragging and pushing the box to another bare room that was just across hers. She had actually slept in this room the yesterday night as someone had went ahead and claimed her own comfy bed as his own. Although this room was equipped with a reasonably comfortable bed, it was also dusty due to its infrequent usage. She had actually wanted to offer her services to clean his room. That offer had banished along with her mindset of wanting to be nice to him.

She tried walking normally back into her room to drag his other box out but it was as if her arms and legs had grown to heavy proportions, walking seemed to be an awkward feat. Wonderful, not only did Ryoma seem to hate her but she kept turning into the warbling idiot of the east whenever he was around. The day seemed liked it could not get any worse. Sakuno placed her hands on the other box and started to drag it when her head bumped painfully into the desk nearby. She cursed softly and rubbed her head while straightening up, only to find Ryoma suddenly standing very, very close to her. When had he moved?

"Leave that box. I'll move it later,"

"Anou… are you sure you can-"

"Leave it."

"Hai…"

Sakuno began to grow even more nervous. Ryoma was so near, looking down at her with that inscrutable expression of his. She was desperate to move away, but was afraid to accidentally touch him. He really seemed quite demented at the moment; the same intense look from years ago when he was playing against Tezuka-buchou in the mother of all matches. She tried to appear unaffected by all the tension brimming around the room despite the obviousness of it. She realized that she was still mindlessly rubbing at the painful spot on her head only when she felt Ryoma suddenly joining in her ministration. Silently, he began moving and massaging at the now growing bump at her head, his hand somewhat joined with hers while he was doing so.

Outside, the world's inhabitants carried on with life's usual dictations. Distant notes of a piano being played whispered into the house, a daily occurrence as a pianist lived 4 houses away from the Ryuzakis. A cool breeze flickered and teased; the wind chimes in the room softly tinkled their song. From somewhere, a light bump registered through the wooden floor planks, creating a mild vibration.

Everything fell away as Sakuno and Ryoma stared at each other. Pausing now, he gently brought her hand down, eyes never straying from hers. The stinging pain on her head from before had now dulled, Sakuno noted dumbly. The warmth emanating from his hand evoked a familiar curious sensation inside her stomach, a feeling usually derived from whenever Ryoma was around during her days at junior high. Right now though, an older and more mature Ryoma stood before her, holding her hand as his thumb stroked against the skin in an unhurried motion. He opened his mouth and was about to speak, when a sudden cacophony of voices from nearby alerted them. Ryoma immediately dropped her hand and stepped back as the coach came into the room. The person who followed a second after had him narrowing his eyes.

"Buchou…?"

As Sumire disappeared into the kitchen to make some tea, Tezuka settled himself into the sofa. He had walked into an odd situation just now. Though he harboured no expectations on what it would have been like to meet his former kouhai, he admitted he did not picture Echizen to be glaring at him quite so mutinously. He was still doing it, Tezuka noticed. He stoically met it head on though he was slightly amused by the fierceness of it.Echizen had never dared to show even the slightest hint of disrespect to him before.

"Buchou," Ryoma grated out. Tezuka did not change his countenance.

"What are you doing here?"

"Sumire-san called me asking for assistance. As she is a much respected friend, I could not reject her plea."

"So…you know then."

"About your hand?"

"Ah,"

Tezuka wordlessly nodded his head. Shame burned throughout Ryoma's entire being. It was pathetic. The former pillar of Seigaku reduced to such a demoralising state. He clenched his useless left hand; it slowly turned red from all the pressure he was inserting. The anger at seeing Buchou unprepared died away into grim reality.

"….The doctor said I can't play anymore. One of the nerves or something, strained too tight and just snapped."

"It is mending though, is it not?"

"Hai… but very slowly. No idea on how long it'll take. Could be months, could be years. No training in the meantime,"

"Why not?"

"Saa…it'll worsen the injury. Doesn't matter, I'm never going to play again anyway."

"Mada mada dane."

Ryoma stilled. Did Buchou just….?

"The Echizen I knew from years before would never let anything as debilitating as a slightly damaged nerve stop him." From his seat, Tezuka leaned forward slightly and spoke again in a more commanding tone.

"Mada mada dane, Echizen."

Huh. Sakuno never really notice how pristinely clean her ceiling was. Until today. It really was a nice shade of white. Did the colour white even have shades? No matter, hers did. Yep sirree, she was the luckiest girl in the world to have such clean white ceilings. She wondered if Ryoma's new room had such a clean ceiling? She started to giggle. Despite the tight clenching in her heart, she was still able to laugh. That was a good thing wasn't it?

She began to run through what happened when her grandmother and Teuzka-buchou stepped into the room. They had taken in the awkward tension in the room and exchanged questioning glances at each other. Tezuka asked to speak to Ryoma, and they had both excused themselves to talk in the living room. Grandmother gave her an assessing look, but did not say anything. Perhaps she noticed how close to tears her granddaughter was. Sakuno had smiled tremulously at her and asked for privacy so that she could do some studying.

Some fifty minutes later, Sakuno was lying on her bed, driven by thoughts as insane as ceilings. She was clutching her stuffed cat that was given to her years ago by Tomo-chan. Her neck began to ache again from staring at the ceiling too long. She removed her glasses and placed them on the nearby desk. Lying on her stomach to take the pressure off the back of her neck, she closed her eyes and sighed, slowly sinking into oblivion.

It seemed only seconds later when she felt someone shaking her. Her eyes shot open and she jerked awake. Hazily, she registered that Ryoma was sitting on her bed and speaking to her. "Wha…?"

"We need to talk,"

"Mou…Ryo-, Echizen-san, you're on my bed," Her cheeks began to heat at the implication.

Ryoma merely waved her concerns away, intent on something else entirely.

"We…I…" He trailed off, unsure of how to continue. This was not supposed to be so hard. People did this all the time.

"I'm sorry."

He watched as Sakuno tilted her head. He could see her features more clearly now, no longer obscured by the thick glasses.Since when was she this…attractive?

"What are you sorry for?" she asked confusedly. Somehow, seeing her behaving like a ditz now made him smirk.

"For…being rude. Before."

"Souka…" Sakuno nodded her head, and looked away from him. Was that it?

He held out his hand to her.

"Friends?"

She froze for a moment. As the seconds ticked by, Ryoma began to feel slightly irked as she did nothing to acknowledge his peaceful gesture. He was about to snap at her when he felt her dainty fingers enveloping his.

"Friends."

I had time.

Okay, I could not sleep and this was bugging me.