Tennis no Ouji-sama © Konomi Takeshi, Shuheisha, Inc.
- Act IX -
[ The Regulars ]
There was an old saying that 'good shoes take you to good places', and Hikari somewhat believed that. Though she was separated only for a few hours from her favourite shoes, she was glad that she got to wear them again. The shoes were like a part of her body; her soul mate that made her feet feel like they had pair of wings on them.
She made turns every now and then, tip-toeing as if she was on her ballet shoes while closing her eyes, not realising that there was a slope before her that she lost her balance. She squeaked at the contact but fortunately for her, she never got onto the asphalt because of the strong arm that caught her on her waist. The strong arm belonged to her favourite person.
"Thank you," she muttered.
"How many times have I told you to never let your guard down, Hikari?" her brother stoically said as he helped her straightened her position.
"I'm sorry, Onii-chan. I couldn't help it! I'm so excited because it's been a while since we've walked together like this," she happily said as she clung to her right arm. He fixed his glasses' position without saying anything in response as they made their way into a cozy café down the road.
A smile cracked upon her lips as the wonderful smell of coffee roamed her nose, although the cheesecake was her main reason for coming into the café because her childhood friend mentioned it was a must-try.
Putting his tennis bag down on the seat near the window, he politely took the menu from the blushing waitress and ordered two glasses of water. Hikari observed her surroundings and noticed the females were all looking at her brother like he was a public figure.
Her brother never attempted to become popular, but he always did, especially since his physical features, brain, and muscles were all equally perfect. He was the 'perfect son' every Japanese parent ever wished and that burdened her because her left brain instantly collapsed whenever it encountered numbers and equations.
"Hikari, what do you want to order?"
"Ah, uh…" she quickly scanned the menu, "strawberry cheesecake, please," she told the waitress.
"Okay, I'll be right back with your order," said the waitress who wasn't the one who gave them the menu. She glanced at the girl who was shyly looking at her brother behind the bar.
Her brother extracted several papers from his bag and unknowingly brushed his bang like a model, making several girls around her squeal in excitement. Hikari rolled her eyes at this. But when she heard someone murmuring something like 'is she his girlfriend?' she couldn't help but eavesdrop on what they were saying.
"No way! She's pretty but there's no way she could attract someone like him. Not with that flat-chest! I bet he only babysits her around," one of them whispered, but loud enough for her to hear as if they really meant it to be heard by her.
"What did you say?!" Hikari stood up straight while slamming her hands against the table. She glared at the girls who were gossiping about them, who quickly broke the eye contact and pretended like they were busy with their drinks. Hikari was about to approach them when her brother held her arm.
"Hikari, don't," he said.
"B-but—"
"Don't let anyone control your emotions." He pressed his tone while motioning her to sit, so she did. She clenched her fists when she heard them saying how savage she was, how unfitting she was to her brother, and how she must be seducing her brother. It wasn't like she ever expected to be a couple with her own brother but the woman kept saying things as if she had known her her whole life. Hikari gritted her teeth then clenched her fists to bottled her emotions but it seemed that the topic was the last straw of her brother. He took his tennis bag and motioned her to follow him, so she did.
He stopped before their table and said, "I can see your poor characters very well from the way you make your own conclusions regarding people around you, even when you don't know them. Please stop doing that for your own sake." How satisfying it was to see the girl widened her eyes at this then bowed in shame. "If you'll excuse me." Her brother bowed at her.
Hikari followed and leant a bit to the woman and said, "I'm his sister, by the way." That seemed to be successfully making the woman felt downright awkward.
After asking the waitress to pack their orders, they decided to sit at the public park, her eating her cheesecake and her brother eating his sandwich. But instead of eating her cake, she only played with her fork, thinking about the mean things they said about her. Did she look like someone who loved to seduce?
"As I said, Hikari. Don't let anyone control your emotions like this," her brother said.
Hikari nodded, pinning the strawberry with her fork but didn't bring it to her mouth. "I wonder why people love saying bad things about people they don't know… I mean… We don't even know each other so why?"
"They just want to feel better than others," her brother simply said.
"Doesn't that makes me the same with them? I mean… Don't we always want to be better in what we are doing?" she asked as she made circles with her left toe.
"This is very different from the concept of rivalry, Hikari. In rivalry, you're training hard to be better than someone you deem very good. But talking about something unrelated behind their back is showing your incompetence."
"I… think I did that a lot of times too." Hikari lowered her head in shame.
"At least you now know that isn't a good thing to do. But, in your case… you were talking right in front of them, not behind their back," her brother corrected her.
She chuckled at this. Even though he didn't mean it as a joke, it did make her feel better. Hikari rested her head on his arm, only to realise how much she missed his presence. "Thank you, Onii-chan…"
Hikari could see how he smiled through his eyes at her. He was the best brother anyone could ever dream of and she couldn't imagine anyone better than him. Suddenly, a question popped in her head and she felt like she had to ask.
"You know, I wonder if you have anyone you consider a rival, Onii-chan," she said. "I really can't imagine a better player than you are."
There was a long pause before he fixed his glasses. He was looking far away as if he was thinking about someone he wanted to settle things with. "I do."
She widened her eyes. "Really? Who is it?"
"He's—"
The sound of something falling hard to the ground startled her. She looked at her back only to see three familiar faces, two wearing Seigaku's regular jersey and one wearing a red shirt and jeans—all of them fell on top of one another behind the big cedar tree in the park.
"Y-yo, Buchō!" said the one with spiky hair. "Nice to meet you!"
"Fssh… Get away from me, Momoshiro! Do you want to die?!" said the one with a green bandana.
"Shut up you, Mamushi! I'm trying to! Oi, Echizen! Move away from me!"
"You still have a long way to go, senpais," the cat-eyed boy responded.
"This isn't the right time to pull that line, bastard! Move!"
"Uhm… are they your teammates, Onii-chan?" Hikari asked.
Her brother sighed in response. "Yes…" He then craned his head back to them. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh, nothing much, Buchō!" The spiky-haired guy scratched the back of his head as he pushed the guy with the bandana. "W-we're going now then. We don't want to disturb your quality time with your girlfriend."
"My girlfriend?" her brother repeated.
She couldn't help but giggle at this. However, she wouldn't want to miss the chance to tease them. She wrapped her arms around her brother's and said, "Don't worry, you're not disturbing our date. You're welcome to join us if you want. Right?" she coquettishly said.
"Uuh… we b-b-better not," the guy with the green bandana coyly said with a reddened face.
"I don't mind following as long as I get treated," the shortest guy said.
"Shut up, Echizen! It's no longer a date if you're joining in! You can't do that! You can't!"
But her brother responded to her with a disapproving look. "Stop teasing them, Hikari."
She puffed her cheek. "You're no fun, Onii-chan. Why can't you just play along?"
"Onii-chan?!" they screamed.
"How could you hide the fact that you have a sibling all this time, Buchō?! We've known you for almost five years! Five! You can't normally do that! You can't!" screamed the spiky-haired guy.
"Actually, if it's Tezuka-Buchō, he can normally do that," Ryoma muttered.
"This is my sister, Hikari," her brother said with a sigh. "Hikari, they are the Seigaku's regulars—Momoshiro Takeshi and Kaido Kaoru. And this is Echizen Ryoma, he's in the same year with you so he's still yet to join the team."
"My name is Tezuka Hikari. It's nice to meet you all!" Hikari bowed at them.
"Usu," Ryoma coolly answered.
"Nice to meet you too," Kaoru politely responded.
"Same here, Hikari-chan. Do you mind if we call you that? Since calling you Tezuka will be…" Takeshi glanced at her brother, "…hard, since both of you are Tezuka."
"Of course, I don't mind," she said. "Nobody dares to call my brother by his given name anyway." She giggled, especially since she got another disapproving look from her brother.
"I can see why," Ryoma added.
"Anyway, we're on our way to join the other senpais in WacDonald. Do you want to join us?" Takeshi said.
Her brother glanced at her and she nodded in response. "Sure, we'd love to join!"
Thus she met the full-team of Seigaku's regulars that day. The only two who had known her for a while were Ōishi Shūichirō and Fuji Shūsuke, while it was her first time meeting Kikumaru Eiji, Kawamura Takashi, and Inui Sadaharu. Together, they were truly a team with colourful personalities and she was glad that her brother had a lot of great friends.
"According to my calculation, your personality is 97.867% Tezuka's opposite so no wonder it's very hard for people to see you as siblings," Sadaharu said while jotting something on his notebook.
"I kind of agree with Inui," Takashi added with a kind smile.
"Is that so?" She tilted her head slightly to her right. Hikari was amused to the fact that Sadaharu was like a living Wikipedia that told her random facts she never knew. "People always said that our faces look similar though."
"Really, nyaa? I still can't see how similar you are to Tezuka." Eiji observing her face, then her brother, then back to her. His red hair spoke his outgoing personality aloud and she could see how he couldn't stand still in one spot because he had moved from one seat to another for more than ten times just so he could speak to anyone.
"I think you look more like your mother, Hikari-chan," Shūichirō said. "While the resemblance between Tezuka, your father, and grandfather is uncanny."
"Even their personalities are the same." Shūsuke's gentle smile never failed to make her heart fluttered.
Hikari used to have a crush on Shūsuke as an elementary student because of his gentleness and maturity. But that was until she witnessed how he dressed his brother in many weird costumes without mercy with an angelic smile, just because he thought Yuuta was cute in those dresses. She was afraid of him ever since he told her that she was cute—afraid that she might become his next victim.
"Tezuka must've missed your voice when you were in Germany. The house was really quiet without you, Hikari-chan."
"I bet he was." She playfully put her fries in her mouth when she sensed something vibrating in her bag. She took her phone out and smiled when a message from him displayed on her screen, asking her what was she doing that day. It had been three days since their first encounter but she felt like she had known him for a while.
However, she had still yet to learn his name.
Glancing at the 'Prince Charming' name displayed on her screen, her mind traveled back to two days ago when he brought her to his mansion.
"Uh, are you okay?" she asked, waving her hand in front of his face. He was staring at nowhere after she talked about her brother as if he was hit by realisation.
"Y-yeah, I'm fine." He combed his bangs, glancing down, and up. "I just recalled something that I must do."
"Oh, okay. I'll go home now then." Just when she was about to leave the court, he caught her by her wrist and turned her around so she fully faced him. In his eyes, she saw something she couldn't translate. Was it longing? Confusion? Rage?
"When can I see you again?" he asked with hidden desperation in his tone.
Hikari blinked in surprise at his question because it somehow gave her the impression of a boy afraid of being left alone. The more she looked at him, the more she realised how he actually wasn't as big and as grand as she thought.
"I'll… come to the court every day if you're okay with that…" A part of her regretted saying that remembering how she had told her brother that yesterday was the last time. However, she couldn't pull her words back, not especially when he looked relieved.
"Of course. As I said, you're always welcomed here." He took out his phone from his pocket. "May I have your e-mail?"
Hikari bit her bottom lip, rolling her eyes to the side when she recalled how her brother emphasised the importance of keeping her contact information from strangers.
"You don't believe me?" he asked, disappointment evident in his voice.
Could she not listen to her brother just for once?
When she finally told him her e-mail address, he looked so happy — just like a boy who had been asking for a lollipop and finally got it. However, she didn't hold back in showing how she was disgusted with his e-mail address.
"Oresama wa kingu (my magnificent self is a king)?" she read it aloud, all the while cringing her nose.
He chortled. "You have an amusing e-mail address yourself, Princess." He showed her 'pigbuster' username on his phone. "Do you like pigs?"
"I do. They're both cute and delicious," she flatly said, pursing her lips when he laughed as she expected. "So… we've been talking long enough without introducing ourselves. May I know your—"
"Just call me Prince Charming, Cinderella," he said as he kissed her knuckle.
"W-wha—" Hikari couldn't help but blush at his princely introduction, but that wasn't the main point. "No, I mean your real name!"
"You'll find out when the time comes. Meanwhile, let's just stay like this." He put his arm around her shoulder, slightly massaging it. After that, he sent her home with his car, though he didn't stop right in front of her house.
And that was how they were messaging each other as Prince Charming and Cinderella—from dawn to dusk. Hikari didn't understand why he had to keep his name a secret from her, also the reason why he told her that she would find out at the right time.
"So, which school are you going to enroll? Are you going to Seigaku like us?" Ryoma's question suddenly made her resurface from her train of thoughts.
"Uh… I only have two options since I'm pursuing ballet so… it's between St. Anne and Hyotei Academy for me."
"Hyotei?!" they screamed at the same time, startling her that she dropped her soda, which was quickly caught by her brother.
"You can't attend that horrible school, Hikari-chan! You can't!" screamed Takeshi as if she would go straight to hell if she entered the school.
"I agree with Momo. I wouldn't recommend you enrolling in Hyotei," Fuji added with a serious look.
"Fssh…"
"You're 99.9987% going to be ruined if you join the school."
"It's the Monkey King's kingdom so you'd turn into one of his monkeys if you go there." Ryoma sipped his grape flavoured Fonta.
"Oi, that's not the point, Midget!" Eiji nudged Ryoma.
"Hey, guys! I think it's up to Hikari-chan to decide. So let's stop pushing her like—" Takeshi put a racket on Takashi's hand and suddenly, the gentle guy's expression transitioned. "Dorya! Burning! Don't you even think about joining the accursed school! You hear that?!"
"S-stop swinging the racket here, Kawamura!" Shūichirō quickly took the racket from his hand, and the man transitioned back into his gentle state, blinking. "Stop doing that, Momo! That's very dangerous!"
At this point, Hikari had wrapped her arms around her brother's who silently sat there like he was completely unaffected by all the noises his teammates created.
"But are you really going to let her join Hyotei, Buchō?! You can't be serious, right?" Takeshi said.
Her brother took a deep breath, glancing at Hikari once before his teammates. "I've told her my opinion but I believe the decision is up to her."
"I… don't think Hyotei is that bad though," Hikari said. "I've met a bunch of helpful people and most importantly," she smiled to herself when she recalled the janitor who came to her rescue when she was almost hit by the ball, "I've… met someone wonderful in that school."
An eerie silence fell in the entire group. She glanced at each one of their horrific expression as if she just told them that the doomsday was going to be tomorrow, until her eyes fell on her brother. Her heart was sinking down to her stomach the moment she recalled how he was against her talking about romance, and that was visible through the way he widened his eyes.
As if something he wished never happened…
Had finally happened.
AN:So, I hope I can express my apology for a long hiatus through Seigaku regulars' appearance and a longer chapter. LOL~ XD
As you can see, Keigo isn't letting her go just because he learns about her being Kunimitsu's sister. But what would he do to get her into his school? Please tell me what do you think and how do you like Seigaku regulars' appearance in this chapter!
Favorite, follow, and most importantly—review are gold for me! As I mentioned in the previous chapter, the story is also posted in Wattpad. Since the site allows me to post videos and images, I might be able to pamper your eyes there. Check my account in ReikaNanatsuki!
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Thank you for reading and have a nice day!
