Everything is Possible in a Story

Ayumi Nazu/Author's Note: As always, I hope you enjoy this chapter! Have fun reading~

Credits: Thank you Kiwi and Mizuetani a million times for editing my story!

Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis belongs to Konomi Takeshi.

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Shooting Star: My Wish

Chapter 4

“I’ll see you on the courts,” I whispered and then took my leave.

     I was dreaming of the tennis courts at school and the desolate displeasure that swelled up in my chest when I couldn't return any of the sailing yellow balls that were shot towards me. In my dream, I heard this whispering voice telling me something, but the message was blurred and incoherent. The sound was unclear, yet I knew that it was a male voice. The voice sounded so familiar, I was sure I heard him once before. As I was spreading butter on a piece of toast, all I could think about was that mysterious voice in my dream.

     I haven’t been to school since the time I collapsed two days ago. I’ve been resting easy and I tried to dismiss my insecure doubts to focus on my recovery. As I was about to take a bite of my breakfast, I caught my aunt looking at me with a weird grin spread on her face from across the table.

     “Aunty, you’ve been acting strange lately. Did something happen?”

     Her smile grew wider like the Cheshire cat (Note: The Cheshire cat’s in Alice in wonderland if you didn’t know.), “Well, would you like to see what kind of pictures I took for my newest photo album?”

     I nodded, feeling anxious and slightly afraid as I watched her leave to get her photo album. Photography is a hobby that my aunty really loves. I know for a fact she has a whole room dedicated to her photography. The walls are plastered with her best shots and a wall-to-wall shelf for her photo albums. My aunty is quite the mysterious photographer because I could never guess where and when she takes her pictures.

     Coming back with a thick album, she opened it up to the first page and I immediately choked on my buttered toast!

     “Ayumi-chan, are you alright?!” my aunt put down the album to rub my back and help me stop coughing from that piece of toast stuck in my throat.

     “Aunty, since when did you know how to use Photoshop?!”

     “These photos aren’t digitally edited Ayumi-chan. And isn’t he just so romantic? Going through all that trouble of visiting his adorable little girlfriend when she’s sick, isn’t that what a sweet boyfriend would do?”

     He was ‘romantic’? He, the one who told me to quit tennis, seemed like a ’sweet boyfriend’? That just sounded so wrong! That one phrase just literally blew my mind! Was my aunt running a fever or something? And seriously, did he even look like the type that would possibly be something more than a friend to me?

     “Aunty, I don’t have a boyfriend! This is just some guy from my class!” I told her in a tone much more harsh than expected.

     My face wasn’t flushing red out of anger, but was blushing bright pink out of pure embarrassment! Those discomforting shots were still in front of my face!

     “Ara, I suppose a ‘normal’ guy friend from your class wouldn’t come by for a visit and just leave you his notes on your table now would he? Especially after leaning so closely to your face~” she giggled teasingly, her right hand covered her mouth signifying suspicion while looking at me from the corner of her eye.

     My face felt even hotter than before. I quickly ran up stairs to my room, there really were two note books on my table that I didn’t even realize were there. Both the science and the math note books had the name Echizen Ryoma written on the corner of its cover page.

     He really came.

     I woke up early the next morning so that I wouldn’t miss morning tennis practice. Before I left the house, I made sure to put the two notebooks in my bag. I decided to walk to school instead of taking the bus. It’d be good exercise for my legs that barely moved the past few days.

     When I saw the familiar figure carrying a dark blue tennis bag and wearing a white cap walking directly ahead of me, I ran to him as quickly as I could. I thought of many ways to thank him for the notes, but neither of them came out of my mouth when I had finally caught up to him.

     “Anou, good morning!” I sounded like a hyperactive moron trying to catch her breath after only running half a block.

     He looked utterly confused and was obviously speechless by the way I approached him. Trying to ignore his expression, I carefully took out the notebooks, hoping that I hadn’t folded or creased its pages in any way.

     “Thank you so much for the notes!” I exclaimed, offering his notebooks to him.

     He coldly snatched it from my hands and without any further comments. He haphazardly stuffed his notes into his bag and continued to walk to school. I wasn’t sure if I saw it correctly, but the smallest of smiles appeared on his lips as he put the note books into his tennis bag. I wondered to myself as I followed behind, was he really smiling?

     When we got to the school’s tennis courts, many friendly tennis regulars welcomed me back. Even though I wasn’t playing my greatest ever since I became tennis regular, everyone greeted me warmly. I felt like I really did belong with them. Chisame and Yui ran up and gave me a huge hug that might have killed anyone else who wasn’t used to their hugs. Kanako stood right behind them and mumbled a simple ‘Welcome back’.

     The freshman regular was about to take his leave to the boys’ tennis lockers.

     “Hey, shouldn’t you apologize to Nazu-chan?!” Chisame shouted while abruptly pointing at the guy.

     He turned around, glaring at her, “I have nothing to say,” and walked away.

     As I thought, the smile back there was my imagination.

     Chisame had the typical angered anime expression, a full package of blazing red eyes sparkling with utmost fury, “He’s so rude!” Chisame turned to me and gave me a sad smile, “It’s ok, and you can just ignore him. I feel so bad for you though, being his doubles partner and all!”

     Ryuzaki-sensei came over to us, “Everyone, get on the courts! Nazu-san, please come with me.”

     I followed Ryuzaki-sensei to her office, worried that maybe she’d kick me off the team because I was missing too many days of tennis practice. She sat down on a comfy rolling chair while I awkwardly stood in front of her.

     “I’m sorry for Echizen’s attitude towards you. Tezuka and I didn’t expect pairing him with a girl could have turned out so badly.”

     “No, no, it was my fault for playing so horribly,” I waved my hands left to right repeatedly. It wasn’t his fault. I put all the blame on myself.

     “If you paid close attention to what Echizen did, you would have realized that he isn’t as bad as you may think he is. For example, though he was in a bad mood and was being really harsh that day while testing you, he was playing with his right hand. Echizen is a south paw.”

     The news had shocked me, I hadn’t realized that! I would have never realized it if she hadn’t told me. And yet, my partner himself didn’t say anything. How could I have been so blind?! There were so many other little details I completely missed!

     He never said ‘Quit tennis’, he just said to quit the team. Was he just trying to stop me from humiliating myself with my lack of tennis skills? Or maybe he really did mean what he said, that perhaps he didn’t want to play doubles with a useless girl like me. Nonetheless, now that I knew what was happening, I feel as though I had totally misunderstood everything that had happened between us.

     Silence fell upon the room as I thought about all this. I was taking things too literally and had completely misinterpreted his good intentions, if that was what it was. Though he could have said all that in a nicer way, I still feel as though I’m the one at fault.

     “Nazu-san, if you’d like, we can try to replace you with someone else and—”

     I cut her off, “No, I think I’m going to continue being his partner for now… Thank you for telling me this sensei!” I bowed and left to find him.

     He wasn’t on any of the courts, so I tried looking somewhere else. I asked the other members of the tennis club if they knew where the young freshman regular was, but no one seemed to know.

Where could he have gone? And how was I going to find him? Gosh, this was so stressful!

     "Are you looking for Echizen-kun?" I turned around to see one of the male tennis regulars behind me. He was a brunette and probably the second shortest of his team. What I found was the most interesting about him was that his eyes were closed and that he smiled a lot.

     Wait a minute, were his eyes always closed like that?!

     He continued to smile at me, "Yes, I've always been like this. With my eyes closed."

     How on earth did he know what I was thinking?!

     I brushed the thought aside, "Senpai, do you know where I can find Echizen-san?"

     "Well," he began and I anxiously waited for him to continue. "I have no idea," he concluded with a smile.

     If I were in an anime, I would have fallen back in a comedic style.

     "But I have a hunch that Echizen-kun is at the back of the school," he nodded.

     I bowed to my senpai, "Thank you so very much", and ran towards the mentioned area.

     "Saa~ she’s a cute girl." He chuckled and headed towards one of the tennis courts.

     After running out of stamina from hurrying to the back of the school, I had finally found him. He was hitting a tennis ball on the wall and aimed it repeatedly in the exact same spot which created a dent.

     I couldn’t help but be awed by his accuracy, “Wow.”

     My voice broke his concentration. He stopped and caught the ball with his right hand, holding his racket was in his left. So he really was a south paw.

     “What do you want?” The way he said it reminded me of the way he said those harsh words a few days back, it made me tremble in fear. He might not want to hear what I had to say, but I took the chance anyway. I brought my head low with a bow, “Please teach me tennis!”

     I closed my eyes, would he refuse? If he does, I’d probably have to leave the tennis team. What good was I if I couldn’t play the sport that I loved so dearly? If I was going to be rejected, I wouldn’t be able to play with my friends on the tennis courts. I would have let my friends down for leaving them because I wasn’t good enough for Echizen! I was enormously fretful to hear his response. The seconds felt so much longer than usual. This was my last hope to stay in the tennis team as an honorable player. I peeked a slight moment at him and caught him opening his mouth to say something. I instantaneously closed my eyes again, here it comes!

     A pat on my head made reopen my eyes, “Fine.”

     Did I hear that properly? Did he just-?! I looked up to see his piercing eyes as a confirmation. I almost jumped up for joy! The soft spring breeze cooled down my fast beating heart and time started ticking normally again, if not faster than before. It was as though a heavy burdening stone had finally been lifted from my chest.

     “Umm… Is it alright if I call you Ryoma-kun? Since calling you Echizen-san sounds funny because we’re the same age,” as I asked the question, I worried if it was too much to ask for.

     He signed. The sigh gave me the impression of an ‘Okay’. I smiled a real smile of pure delight. It made Ryoma look at me funny, he probably thought that there wasn’t anything to be happy about. But he was wrong. He just didn’t see things from my point of view. The fact that Ryoma seemed to be kinder to me, it made me feel tingly on the inside. I never knew kindness from a boy could have been so uplifting! Compared to how rough our beginning had been, I felt more comfortable around him now.

     He started to walk away without me. I started feeling left out again.

     “Where are you going?”

     “Practicing for doubles,” he answered with his back facing me.

     “I’m coming too!” I shouted with another boost of happiness rushing through me as sprinted to catch up to him.

Echizen Ryoma, maybe he wasn’t that bad of a person after all…

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