A/N: Un-beta'd.
From last time...
'Syuusuke,
I understand that stop giving Ryoma news about you is a way to give her freedom so she can have more choices to choose. But at the same time, it is also a proof of cowardliness from you. Son, if you continue to hide from your feelings away from her, than maybe you really don't deserve her.'
Syuusuke froze, unable to think straight. Keigo sighed and stood up from his seat. He walked over to Syuusuke, took the short letter his friend dropped and read it.
"Keigo, I'm going back to Japan," Syuusuke said. Keigo smirked.
"It's about time," the Atobe heir said. He pulled out his cellphone and called for his private jet pilot. They flew back to Japan together.
CHAPTER 81. DSPDDA - Devious Sassy Princy Demon Disguised Angel!
"7 to 5. Game and match. Fuji Syuusuke." Tezuka called.
"Huh? H-How...?" Ryoma asked no one, dropping her racket at her feet.
How come he win? How did he do that? What do he do? And where were her mistakes? But she couldn't find an answer to any of the question. One fact didn't change: he won against her. She had overestimated her skills facing him, a tensai, and underestimated his will to win against her. Very bad move. She cursed herself.
"^\|#]YR%()/*I!$&?!"
Syuusuke simply crossed the court and stood in front of Ryoma.
"I win," he stated. "Do you concede?" Ryoma reluctantly nodded, but refused to look in his eyes. "You remember what we said before starting the game?" Another reluctant nod. Syuusuke reached over to take her left hand. Ryoma jumped when she felt a cold metal slide up her skin. Syuusuke secured the white gold band on her ring finger.
"Heh! What...?" Ryoma asked, looking at the yellow diamond—which she didn't notice it was the same amber color than her eyes—sitting on her finger. "What's that for?"
"This is my condition for winning the game. You are to never remove this band from this finger for the rest of your life. Only I can do it."
"And I won't have move an inch away from your finger," he silently added.
"Huh? WHAT! How come? No way! No! No! NO!"
"Ryoma-chan, remember, you agreed to his terms before starting the game. You cannot refute back," Yukimura calmly told her.
"But..."
"Echizen, it was a fair game," Sanada said.
"And a lose is a lose," Hiroshi fallowed.
"..." Ryoma chewed her lips.
"Echizen," Tezuka simply said. Ryoma lowed her head.
"Hai..."
Tezuka, Yukimura, Sanada and Yagyuu nodded approvingly.
"Oh, and Ryoma, I assure you; you don't want to remove the ring," Syuusuke added with his glittery shining angelic smile. Ryoma shuddered, her mind automatically translated: you remove it and it's a promise of a lot of pains. Ryoma lost her face colors.
"He is still a sadist." She concluded.
They gathered their stuff and left the tennis court. On the way back home, Ryoma still didn't digest that she was tricked into wearing Syuusuke's engagement ring.
"Damn it!"
She was now engaged to him because she lost a game against him! Argh! Who in their right mind would do such a weird proposal? By the way, in this case, the word "proposal" was just doesn't fit. It's blackmail! It's coercion! It' extortion! It's... It's... It's illegal!
"Shouldn't I have my opinion on this ans shouldn't proposal thingy NOT be coerced on the other party?" Ryoma stressed on the NOT word.
"I agree with her," Tezuka thought.
"But this is Fuji Syuusuke we are talking about," Hiroshi followed Tezuka's thinking.
"Once again, let me remind you, Ryoma-chan. You have agreed to my terms before we begin the game without setting out your conditions. I would not have do it if your conditions forbade me to. But since you didn't set them out, only my conditions were valid." Syuusuke said.
"Gawh!" Ryoma dropped her jaw. That meant that she had the power to prevent this... this... this forced upon her engagement! Then why didn't she... "You tricked me!" She knew there was something not right in his conditions. They were just too simple to be normal. Syuusuke just smiled again.
"Once again, Ryoma-chan, as Yagyuu said, a lose is a lose, so just get over it," he said.
"Hmph!" Ryoma crossed her arms, sulking, while Niou and Marui took the joy to remain her of her lose for the rest of the trip.
"Huhuhu!" Yukimura chuckled behind his hand as Tezuka, Atobe and Yagyuu sighed.
On the way back, the ex-regulars were curious at how the tensai could brush up his skills in such a short time to win against Japan number tennis player.
"The game you play was awesome, Fuji-senpai! How did you do that? Where you secretly training while you where in England and not tell anyone? It must be because it it impossible to win against her otherwise!" Kirihara said, adding more salt on Ryoma's wound.
"Huhuhu," Syuusuke chuckled while looking at the still sulking petite form walking next to him. She still refused to look at him, but since she accepted him walking next to her, he considered it as an improvement.
"Let say I had help." Syuusuke said, extending his arms to pull her against him. She was about to jump away but he kept a firm hand her shoulders. So she pouted (and sulked) for the rest of the trip back home.
It was true he didn't seriously play tennis while he was at Cambridge. However, before facing Ryoma, he played against Ryoga and Nanjirou. There was too little time for him to re-polish his rusted skills before confronting her. Thus, the only way to have a fast and efficient tennis update was playing against tennis players who Ryoma was still struggling against to win. When he presented his request for help to the two Echizen men, he expected to be chewed by them, but he was ready for anything just to win against Ryoma. Surprisingly, they simply told him to change clothes and joined them on the court.
Flashback
"I need your help," was the first thing Syuusuke said when Ryoaga opened him the door. Ryoga and Nanjirou only smirked and invited him inside.
Exactly as Seri and Sennosuke had predicted, Syuusuke came to them. Both parents had talked to the two Echizen men into convincing them to help their son to win against Ryoma. They were absolutely sure that Syuusuke would come to the Echizen men to brush up his sleeping skills.
"Just aim at his weakest points and I promise you will have a fare share of fun," Sennosuke said. The two Echizen men grinned. They would never let go of a promising challenge.
"I advise you to look at this," Seri said, putting a DVD on the table. "It's the record of Syuusuke latest games before leaving for Great Britain."
Ryoga grabbed the DVD and shoved it inside the VCR. The men watched the games while the women while the women had women talk (Seri and Rinko), serving tea and sweet (Miyabi) or cooing over a giggling little baby girl (Nanako).
Thus, when Syuusuke showed up, Ryoga and Nanjirou didn't wast time to wake up the tensai's sleeping tennis skills. Under their guidance, he was ready to face Ryoma.
End flashback
The other boys returned back to their place while Hiroshi and Syuusuke escorted Ryoma back home. As Ryoma opened the entrance door, Syuusuke saw his parents' shoes.
"So, otousan and okasan are already here."
It seemed like his father's intuition worked again, so he didn't have to tell the news twice. Syuusuke silently chuckled. His parents were just making thing easier for him to handle.
"Ryoma-chan, you're back! And with Syuusuke-kun and Hiroshi-kun too! Okaeri!" Nanako excitedly greeted them.
"Tadaima," Ryoma gave out an exhausted sigh. It had been a long day for her.
Everyone in the household turned over when they heard the tired sigh. Then, they saw the yellow glittery piece of jewellery sitting on Ryoma's left hand. They oh-ed, their hand in front of their oh-ed mouth. Illumination came upon them.
"She is engaged," they concluded.
Usually, such a discovery—such a happy news—should be something to rejoice about. However, the gloomy state Ryoma was in told them it was not the time to rejoice. Yet.
"And she lost against him," was the second conclusion illuminating them.
But they will rejoice later. For sure. Karupin, Kurin and Mii also read their mistress' mood. They didn't jump on her to greet her back home like they always do. They stood where they were, watching the depressed white soul hanging on the top of their mistress's head. Only the Fuji family members found the situation at their advantage. They chuckled softly. As for the Yuuji-Echizen family members, they silently watched Ryoma walked—dragged herself—up stair.
"Really, it has been a very long day." Ryoma sighed again.
Meanwhile, down stair, some people demanded some explanations.
"So, Syuusuke-kun, how did you manage to have her wear your ring? She hates wearing any piece of jewellery on her." Ryoga asked.
"She accepted the condition of the game before we started, without having the slightest idea of the consequence of doing so. I won the game and the price I asked was to have her wear my ring," Syuusuke simply said.
"Really? You asked her?" Seri repeated after him, her left eye brow raised doubtfully. Sennosuke smiled behind her tea cup, also having the same thinking lines than his wife.
"Hum," Syuuske pretended thinking, a finger on his chin. "Maybe I have forced her to accept my ring and insisted that she doesn't want to remove the ring on her own," he said, smiling his usual smile.
"She doesn't want to remove the ring?" Sennosuke insisted for more explanations.
"It's a promise that I will make her so happy that she would never want to remove it," Syuusuke smiled. But Sennosuke knew him better.
"And did she understand these words as they are? Knowing Ryoma-chan, I would say that she must have hear some threat in them," his father said.
"Hum... It serves at my advantage to make her believe there is a threat underneath, but she doesn't need to know it," the tensai supplied.
"So you admit you have somehow threat her?" Ryoga asked.
"Hum, maybe I did something like that," Syuusuke said innocently, cocking his head.
"He said it in the way that she heard a threat underneath. While knowing she is bad with them, he played a game of words against her. Again," Hiroshi concluded and sipped in the tea cup Miyabi just served him.
"Hahahaha!" Besides the two Echizen men, everybody in the room laughed, including baby Nadeshiko, thought she doesn't know why. She just knew that it must be something fun so she wanted to have fun too. As for Nanjirou and Ryoga, they were rolling on the floor, their hands clutching their aching stomach.
"Wuahahaha!" the two Echizen men laughed. It was a devious scheme, but it was an efficient scheme.
"I like really you," Nanjirou said, hitting Syuusuke in the shoulder.
"You're good for her," Ryouga added, wiping a tear from his eyes. He laughed so hard that he was crying.
"And Seri, that was so evil from you sending that picture to Syuusuke," Sennosuke said. "If I didn't send that short notice to him to call him back, he might went crazy."
"Huhuhu!" Seri and Rinko giggled. "But it works. He came back and took the necessary measures to win back Ryoma," Seri replied.
Really, deviousness ran in the family.
Meanwhile, in her room, Ryoma... was sulking. She looked at the... at the... at the thingy thing encircling the fourth finger of her left hand. She now realized she fell straight into his trap. She should have set her own conditions of the limit of thing the winner had the right to do. She should have doubt about something unusual. She should have detect the abnormality of his condition. But she was blind by her own anger and didn't see the trap. And now... Now, she was stuck with the yellow thingy on her hand. And for the rest of her life.
"Devious sassy princy demon disguised angel..." she mumbled.
Yet, her lips couldn't help but stretched into a small smile. The moon reflect on the stone sitting on her finger. She brought her right hand to touch the surface of the polish yellow diamond. It was very smooth.
"Syuusuke..." his name escaped from her lips without asking her opinion. Her cheeks took a soft pinky tint before she surrendered herself into a smile.
"Oh well, as Hiroshi-nii-sama said, a lose is a lose. As well get over it!"
She stood up and went down to join the people who where rejoicing themselves downstairs.
"Ah, Ryoma-chan! I was about to call you. Please help me with these!" Miyabi said, her stand carrying a tray of sweet.
"Hai, nee-chan!"
Syuusuke stood up to come over her. She was about to back off, but he pulled her in his arm and kissed her on the temple. Ryoma hissed like a cat. Sennosuke, Seri, Rinko chuckled while Miyabi and Nanako giggled at the scene. Hiroshi kept nursing impassively his tea cup, not bothered by anything happening around him. Next, Syuusuke pulled Ryoma to sit beside him. Then, he took giggling little baby Nadeshiko to put her in Ryoma's arms. Nadeshiko immediately squealed out of joy. She was back into her favorite aunt's arms. Nadeshiko's squeal send Ryoma's soul flying straight out into the sky.
From his mother's letter, Syuusuke knew about Ryoma's reaction to the baby, but he wanted to watch life his fantasy of Ryoma with little Nadeshiko. The new happily engaged fiancé concluded that really, seeing his fantasy life was wayyy better than only on a snap shot! And baby Nadeshiko was far from complaining, judging from her numerous happy gurgles and babbles. Syuusuke smiled, making a mental note to dote more often on baby Nadeshiko's joy...
For his own fantasy...
Until he had his own child to dote on.
With his (stubborn) new (still, but not for long) (un)happily engaged fiancée.
And it won't be long before he have his own child to dote on.
And children.
OWARI
THE END
Updated on Tuesday January 1, 2013. Unbeta'd.