23You're Mine
Written by: SyrinxSilenus
Chapter 1: Ryoma has a fiancee?
Sakuno couldn't believe that it had been three years since she and Ryoma had started dating. Sometimes she couldn't help but still questioned herself if everything that had happened was real or she had been trapped in a very realistic dream for so long.
Who would even think that Ryuzaki Sakuno, a plain, clumsy, and directionally challenged girl would have the Prince of Tennis, Echizen Ryoma's interest?
Four years ago…
She couldn't understand the significance of Ryoma giving her his red tennis racket before he left for America in their first year in middle school.
Sakuno had been confused because she knew the racket was precious to Ryoma and that he didn't just let anyone touch it. At the same time, she felt exhilarated, like wild butterflies were fluttering inside her belly.
Sending Ryoma off to America for the second time hadn't lessened the ache in her heart, but Sakuno knew that the world needed to discover Ryoma's tennis. She believed with all her heart that he would be number one.
Sakuno was still depressed even a week after Ryoma's departure. Not seeing him in the court felt as if a big part of her had been ripped off. So imagine her surprise when she had suddenly received a letter from Ryoma containing his current address in America.
Overwhelmed with happiness, Sakuno had squealed and jumped in delight and muttered about things that she wanted to write to him in a daze.
She had sent him letters every week since then. Informing him of everything that happened to the senpais and her life. To her surprise, Ryoma actually wrote back whenever he could. Although his letters were short and direct to the point, Sakuno didn't care at all. She was just happy that he had bothered to reply.
Exchanging letters with him made her feel like he hadn't really left and that they finally had some sort of connection. A year passed by so quickly and she was finally entering her final year in middle school. That was when he returned.
One morning, when she was hurrying out of the house to go to school, she almost had a heart attack when she saw him leaning casually beside their door with his hands tucked inside his pockets. A tennis bag on his shoulder and his signature fila hat on his head.
Sakuno had gaped at him like he had grown three heads before he finally looked at her.
"Yo, Ryuzaki," he had greeted her as if he hadn't been gone for more than a year.
She didn't know what possessed her, but the next thing she knew, she was already wrapping her arms around his neck as she cried happy tears. She hadn't imagined that from then on, the two of them would be inseparable.
She couldn't remember how it started, but they slowly transitioned from mere acquaintance to close friends.
She, a dense idiot like no other, hadn't thought much of it until one of their schoolmates tried to ask her out on a date and Ryoma had launched a deadly twist serve towards the boy's face.
He spat out a spew of angry words that she couldn't remember aside from: "She's mine. Don't touch her."
Utterly flabbergasted, Sakuno just stood there, mouth wide open like a fish out of the water until Ryoma grabbed her hand and dragged her to the rooftop.
When she came to, Ryoma had already trapped her with her back on the wall, his arms on either side of her head as he leaned his forehead on hers, demanding her to go out with him.
Still reeling from everything that happened, all Sakuno could do was to nod frantically with her eyes as wide as dinner plates.
She squeaked a high-pitched, "Yes!" and Ryoma smirked in satisfaction.
It took her the whole day before everything sank through her and she ran inside her grandmother's room to scream, "Ryoma-kun asked me to go out with him! And I said, yes! Hoeeee!"
Sumire laughed at her, saying, "Took you long enough to realize that? You're staring at Ryoma in a daze since the tennis practice started and he even walked you home, holding hands."
Sakuno let out another squeak, sounding like a dying rat as her face shifted to different shades of red. That night she hadn't had much sleep as Ryoma invaded her thoughts until morning came.
That confession happened three years ago.
Now, here she was, staring at the blackboard as their homeroom teacher blabbered about a transfer student from America.
Sakuno blinked as Tomoka kicked her desk lightly, pulling her out of the memory lane.
"Psst, Sakuno, Nami said that she saw a blonde girl in the registration office earlier and that she's so pretty like a supermodel. Looks like she's our new classmate," Tomoka whispered beside her.
Blinking twice in confusion, Sakuno tilted her head to the side, "We have a transfer student?"
Tomoka looked at her in disbelief just as someone started chuckling behind her.
Sakuno blushed in embarrassment and Tomoka rolled her eyes while the person behind her lightly tugged one of her braids.
"Neh, off to dreamland again?" She could practically hear his smirk.
She ducked her head to hide her flustered expression. "Mou, stop teasing me, Ryoma-kun."
"Heh, whatever do you mean, Sakuno?" Ryoma replied, amusement was clear in his voice while he continued to twirl her braid in his hand.
She wondered what kind of obsession Ryoma had with her hair when he told her a long time ago that it was too long. Also, he loved to bury his nose on the crook of her neck or the top of her head. He was so weird sometimes.
She heard Tomoka giggling beside her and she pouted.
"Yu-san, please come in and introduce yourself."
Their attention was brought back to the front as a beautiful girl entered their class. Her straight blond hair danced gracefully as she walked with model-like strides. The beauty smiled charmingly, earning murmurs from the class
'So pretty…' Sakuno thought as she observed the new transfer student.
The girl had a pair of beautiful forest green eyes, a cute pointed nose, and red lips – obviously painted with lipstick. Her eyelashes weren't as long as Sakuno's, but they were long enough to enhance her big eyes. Her eyeliner was thick and obvious, but they made the green in her eyes even more prominent. Her school uniform looked so fitting that her beautiful curves were shown so clearly along with her perfectly shaped legs.
Sakuno squashed the sudden urge to check her own legs.
'Tomo-chan said mine are to die for, but she's probably just trying to cheer me up. Mou…'
Sakuno liked to observe beautiful girls in general, not because she was envious, but it was because of Tomoka's habit of pointing out their looks. Though in Sakuno's part, she focused more on the beauty they tried to conceal or seemed unnoticed by others.
She had always been down to earth, always looking for the best in people. That was why Tomoka always scolded her for her naivety, but she couldn't just change her views in one night. So it was a shock to her when she suddenly felt a twinge of envy towards the transfer student.
"Oh my god, Sakuno! She's staring at Ryoma-sama!"
Especially when Tomoka hissed that beside her.
Ryoma continued to twirl Sakuno's braids as their homeroom teacher rambled on and on. His girlfriend's attention was back to the front but his mind was elsewhere. He just wanted for lunch break to come faster so that he could spend a private moment with Sakuno.
He was getting bored again and sleep was starting to draw him in. He yawned as he rested his cheek on his desk, putting one of Sakuno's braids on his nose like a mustache for him to smell.
'Strawberry.' He really liked Sakuno's shampoo, although it lacked another one of her natural scent – vanilla – it still didn't fail to lull him to sleep all the time.
'Is homeroom not over yet?' A yawn escaped his lips for the second time.
'It's so quiet here...wait, quiet? Since when did my classmates learn to shut up?'
Suddenly awake, he slowly lifted his head to check his surroundings only to find all of his classmates staring at him.
Ryoma raised an eyebrow as they started murmuring while flickering their gazes from him and to the blackboard.
Utterly irritated, he followed their gazes only to blink in confusion as an unfamiliar girl stared back at him with so much intensity Ryoma was tempted to glare back at her.
"Psst, Echizen, do you know this chick?" Horio whispered beside him.
"No," Ryoma smoothly replied with his forehead creasing.
"She's looking so intensely at you, as if she's stripping you off your clothes," Horio added, snickering.
Ryoma glared. "Shut up."
"Umm, Yu-san. You have to introduce yourself," Ms. Kanagawa reluctantly stated, shifting her eyes nervously between her and Ryoma.
The girl eyed their homeroom teacher for a second before she returned her gaze back at him, fluttering her eyelashes.
Ryoma cringed internally. He hated girls like that.
"I'm Yu Reina, 17 years old. I'm a Japanese-American and we just moved here from Los Angeles yesterday. Please take care of me," the girl introduced herself, bowing politely.
'Yu Reina? Why did that sound familiar?' Ryoma thought as he scratched his head. The girl was still staring at him which unnerved him so he laid back his head on the desk and put Sakuno's braid on his closed eyes.
"Why did you move to Japan?" Ryoma heard one of his male classmates asked.
"I returned here to claim my fiancé since it's due time we meet each other again."
Gasps echoed around the room, but Ryoma was back to being sleepy.
'Sakuno's hair really smells so good.'
"Is your fiancé here in our class?"
'What bento did Sakuno cook for us today?'
"Of course."
Ryoma could vaguely hear the murmurings intensifying around him, but he was so close to succumbing to unconsciousness that he just ignored them.
"WHO IS HE!" Horio's annoying voice jolted him out of his drowsiness and Ryoma raised his head to glare at his loud teammate.
He lifted his foot to kick Horio's desk when someone suddenly stood in front of him, blocking his view of Horio.
Annoyed, Ryoma glared at the person who interrupted his little revenge when the smiling face of the transfer student greeted him.
Ryoma glared at her. "Oi, move out of the way," he demanded but the girl appeared not to hear him as she just continued to smile at him.
The classroom turned eerily quiet. Ryoma shifted his gaze to his girlfriend only to find her staring at the transferee in disbelief.
"Ryo-kun, it's been a long time," the unknown girl said.
Ryoma narrowed his eyes. "Who the hell are you?"
The girl giggled. "Don't be like that. We spent a lot of time together when we were little, you can't possibly have forgotten about me."
His annoyance increased. "No. I seriously don't know you. Now move out of the way," he demanded.
"Ryoma-kun…" he heard Sakuno murmur. There was something in her voice, something that he didn't like and made him feel alarmed.
"Sakuno?" He asked and was about to touch her shoulder when Sakuno's loud-mouthed best friend suddenly stood up.
"Are you saying that Ryoma-sama is your fiancé!? Don't kid us! Ryoma-sama is already dating someone!" Osakada screamed, looking red in anger.
His eyes grew three sizes larger and he immediately backed away from the girl as if she was carrying a deadly contagious disease.
The transferee frowned. "That can't be right Ryo-kun. Our engagement has long been arranged. You can't have any other girl but me," she said, staring at him in accusation.
He didn't like the way she was looking at him. No, it's not just that. He simply didn't like her ever since he saw her earlier.
"Shut up. I don't know you nor am I engaged to anyone yet," Ryoma stated firmly, eyeing Sakuno who was staring down at her lap.
"But Ryo-kun, I'm not lying! We were always together when we were kids–"
"Tennis," he interjected, making the girl stop in her sentence.
"Tennis is what I have done since I was a kid. I didn't have time to play around with toddlers so quit your nonsense."
"No! I'm your fiancé! Ask your parents! They know about it," the girl insisted.
Ryoma was about to spat something nasty when their homeroom teacher cleared her throat.
"Yu-chan, Echizen-kun. You should talk about personal matters after school. We should all calm down and sit now."
The transfer student stared at him in frustration before she huffed and crossed her arms.
"We're not done yet," she declared before she marched towards the empty seat in front.
Ms. Kanagawa cleared her throat again. "I'll be checking your attendance now," she said as she started calling out names.
Ryoma barely paid attention to her. He was focused on his girlfriend who was facing the front, neither looking nor saying anything to him.
Somehow, Ryoma was engulfed with a sudden feeling of fear. He didn't do anything wrong, but with what happened, he was worried that Sakuno would…
He suddenly stood up. "Sakuno's not feeling well, Ms. Kanagawa. Let me bring her to the clinic."
Sakuno jolted. "W-What?" she blurted out, blinking at him in confusion.
Ms. Kanagawa gazed at Sakuno worriedly. "You look pale, Ryuzaki-chan. Very well Echizen-kun, make sure she doesn't collapse on your way there," she said as she pushed her eyeglasses up her nose.
Ryoma inclined his head before he gripped Sakuno's hand and stared hard at her, demanding her to just go with the flow.
His girlfriend sighed as she stood up and let him guide her out of the class. He could feel everyone's eyes staring at their backs, but Ryoma couldn't care less.
Sakuno was quiet as they walked, even when he guided her to the opposite direction of the clinic and led her to the rooftop instead. Ryoma squeezed her hand as he felt his heart start to beat faster.
'Is she mad?'
He and Sakuno rarely argued since they started dating. She was always so understanding that sometimes, he was the one who felt guilty whenever he did something wrong.
The only time she got mad at him was when he stubbornly insisted to attend tennis practice even though he had a fever. It was the first time Sakuno yelled at him. Ryoma hadn't felt that kind of fear since his mother caught him skipping classes with Momo and Kikumaru-senpai once.
Since then, he was cautious of making Sakuno mad, but she was too kind that she would just stay quiet and let him scold her whenever they had a disagreement.
Now though, this was a different matter. Ryoma knew that Sakuno had low self-esteem and was extremely selfless, so he was afraid that she would...break up with him just because some girl claimed to be his childhood sweetheart. He was afraid that Sakuno wouldn't fight for him and just surrender to the other girl.
He shut the door of the rooftop as they arrived and faced his still quiet girlfriend who was looking down on her feet.
"Sakuno…" He didn't know what to say.
He was getting frustrated when his phone rang and he answered it without looking at the caller's ID.
"What?" he spat out.
"Oooh, you don't sound so happy seishounen." His perverted father's singsong voice greeted him, making
his irritation skyrocketed.
He eyed Sakuno, not letting go of her hand as he answered his father. "Oyaji, what do you want? I'm busy–"
"This is about Yu Reina, you brat! She might go to your school to–"
"Too late, she's here. She invaded my class and caused me a lot of trouble. What is she spouting about, some stupid engagement?" He noticed Sakuno looked up at him. Their eyes met.
He squeezed her hand one more time before he shifted the phone to loudspeaker.
"Ah… that. It happened when you were still four. Mr. Yu and I are buddies, y'know. So we joked around about marrying you and Reina-chan together since she was always following you around, and ah...we were kinda drunk and things just happened..."
"And?" Ryoma prompted, his temper rising by a minute.
"So...we signed a written agreement..."
Ryoma heard his father's nervous laugh on the other line and his grip on the phone tightened.
"So you drunkenly set me up with some girl when I was four!? How can you be so crazy oyaji—Oi, Sakuno! D-Don't cry." He frantically let go of her hand and wrapped his arm around his girlfriend, rubbing her back as tears started rolling down her cheeks.
"Oops, so Sakuno-chan's there. Hehe, sorry seishounen. I think there's a misunderstanding about this agreement so you should bring Sakuno-chan here and we can discuss this properly later. For now, you should...comfort your girlfriend or you'll end up being sing–"
Ryoma dropped the call and returned his phone to his pocket as he lifted Sakuno's face up to meet his eyes. Her nose was turning red now; he hated it when she cried.
"Sakuno, I–"
"A-Are you g-going to b-b-break up–" He didn't let her finish her stupid question as he abruptly claimed her mouth in a searing kiss.
Sakuno clutched on his uniform as he gripped her hips tightly, backing her up to the wall.
"R-Ryoma," she murmured against his lips as he heatedly kissed her, making her whimper. Reluctantly, he moved away from her to gaze deeply into her brown eyes.
"Don't start spouting nonsense. We're not breaking up. You hear me?" Ryoma firmly stated, eyes never wavering from Sakuno's.
"B-But what about y-your engagement? Nanjiroh-san said that they signed an agreement and–"
Ryoma shushed her frantic mumblings with another kiss that ended in three seconds. Kissing her was the best way to shut her up whenever she started to babble.
"Don't worry about unimportant things. I'll have my idiot father fix his own stupidity. There's something wrong with that agreement. If you're going to insist about that stupid engagement, I'm hauling you to Hong Kong to get married," he seriously said, causing Sakuno's cheeks to redden.
"Mou, Ryoma-kun, stop joking about something like this, I–"
"I'm not joking," he scowled at her, feeling insulted, "I will definitely marry you if they force me to be with that girl, and not even Ryuzaki-sensei can stop me."
Sakuno blinked at him in surprise as her grip tightened on his shirt. "Y-You won't leave me f-for her?"
Ryoma leaned his forehead against her, looking straight at her brown eyes. "Never."
A single tear rolled down her cheeks and he wiped it with his thumb as he slowly descended to kiss her again. Gentler this time. The familiar fluttering in his stomach returned full force as Sakuno's soft lips brought him to a sea of explicable sensations that made his instinct take over his body.
'Like hell we're breaking up!' Ryoma was a selfish person. He was aware of that all this time. If he wanted something, he would have it. Ryuzaki Sakuno was no exception. 'She's mine!'
His hand expertly unbraided her hair, letting it cascade like a waterfall on her back as he weaved his fingers through her silky strands.
His mind shut down as the smell of vanilla and strawberry invaded his senses, making him forget about their problem, where they were, or his own name.
He softly nipped on her lower lip before slowly releasing them, panting slightly while his fingers ran down her side. He felt her shudder from his touch as her grip tightened around his neck, but her fingers on his hair were gentle, lightly combing through his dark tresses.
"W-What are we going to do n-now?" Sakuno muttered, looking straight into his eyes with a worried frown on her cute face.
The redness on her cheeks looked darker than before and her eyes looked a bit glassy. She was definitely quite frazzled. It was a wonder she still managed to ask him a question.
Ryoma rested his forehead on her as he let out a deep sigh. "We need to talk with my father first."
His girlfriend nodded slowly. "I-I don't want to get back to class," she murmured.
He grinned and chuckled a little in response.
"What?" She asked with a pout.
"This is the first time I hear you suggest we skip class," he said between chuckles.
Sakuno hit him lightly on the chest. "It's not funny! It's just...just–"
Ryoma buried his face in the hollow between her neck and shoulder whispering, "Okay" under his breath.
He sat down and leaned his back on the wall with Sakuno sitting on his lap, resting her head on his chest as he placed his cheek on top of her head.
The wind blew softly, rustling their clothes and Sakuno's hair as the smell of vanilla and strawberry wafted through the air, lulling Ryoma to sleep as his arms tightened around her petite body.
That was where they spent their time until lunch arrived.
To Be Continued...
Thank you to all my beta readers!
Black angel in love and OkaAyamo
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SyrinxSilenus