Remaining Chapter 9: Epilogue, a prince of tennis fanfic

Yesss, finally! It's the epilogue! I'm so glad that I can finally post this up. Enjoy the finale of Remaining!!

Disclaimer: I do not own.

I'll come back as soon as I can… and when I do, I'll say what's on that note, out loud, to for the entire world to hear.

And then suddenly, she tripped over.

"Kyaaa…" the auburn haired girl slowly opened her eyes to the daylight as she rubbed her forehead, pained from the impact of rolling off her bed. She mentally scolded herself for falling off, and then finally stood up to greet the morning.

It was that dream again.

She'd had that dream quite a number of times now, it made sure that she could never forget the valuable words once said to her. Every time she woke up after dreaming of the tennis-star-who's-somewhere-far-away-playing-tennis, she would always feel refreshed and happy. It was almost like he was inspiring her not only daily when she read about him or thought about him, but also when she's sleeping. He's forever her icon of inspiration (and maybe something else), and every time she saw a tennis court or someone playing tennis, she couldn't help but think about him-- how many miracles he's brought upon everyone around him.

He was truly amazing, and he still is.

It was already a year since Ryoma had suddenly arrived in Tokyo and located himself in the fast food store Sakuno worked in. Sakuno was now the manager of the store after her boss had seen through her capabilities. She was proud of herself and also at the same time, very happy that she had such great friends around her.

Most of all, she was proud of knowing the Echizen Ryoma. Sometimes, she would sit down wondering when she would next see him in person again, or whether or not she would ever actually see him ever again. Most of the time, she brushed out some of the thoughts about him from her mind because it was too difficult to think about him as something other than inspiration, without rushing to conclude that maybe he just wouldn't come back.

Maybe he just wouldn't come back.

Maybe she should just sit and stare at the piece of note paper he gave her before he departed forever and be sad…

… But sometimes, maybe life wasn't as cruel as some make it out to be.

Two weeks passed by and Sakuno never had that same dream again. She hadn't dreamt of Ryoma for two whole weeks and she was starting to worry about her brain. Was there something wrong with it that was stopping these dreams from coming? She contemplated the matter to herself as she quietly sat on an empty seat on the train. She was heading to Seigaku to yet another strange gathering with the old Seigaku regulars and her best friends from her middle school and high school.

She got out of the train, no trippings, no mistakes, nothing embarrassing. What a safe trip. Tomoka had phoned her in the morning to arrange a meeting time at one of the pillars in the train station. Sakuno stood there waiting.

After a while, she realised that her best friend was actually running late. Frowning and sighing as she checked her watch again, she wondered what it was that could possibly affect her friend's punctuality. Tomoka's younger brothers long grew out of the age where they needed baby-sitting. The former head of the Echizen Ryoma fan club had been talking about this reunion ever since she found out there was one.

So how could she possibly be late?

"Mou…" Sakuno muttered quietly.

It was an extremely rare occasion that her best friend would turn up late for something she had been raving about with so much energy for weeks. And whenever this did happen, in its one in a few thousand chances, something was incredibly wrong. Something had definitely changed; Sakuno put herself on alert right after she figured that much.

Was it April fool's day? She thought as she checked her watch again. Frowning and realising that said date had just passed (Sakuno did not get away without being fooled), she lowered her head a little and sighed in resignation of the situation.

I'll just wait, like I always do.

A shadow slowly approached Sakuno's slumped figure; with a smile of anticipation curling up onto his lips, he took a few large strides and was within two metres behind Sakuno before he cleared his throat.

It was a weird hunch sort of thing. To be honest, until this day, Sakuno still had no idea why she had decided to lift her head from her misery at that exact moment.

Her eyes widened, her breath was caught in her lungs, and she started taken to inhale these short breaths as though she couldn't control herself at all (which was sadly what it was).

"Ne, do you know how to get to Seishun Gakuen?"

Oh, this voice, this familiar…

The moment that she had looked up matched the moment that he approached her exactly. The timing of when their gazes met was perfect. She could still remember her surprise and sudden gush of happiness back then.

"Ryoma-ku…" Her voice faded out. The 'O' shape of her mouth suddenly broke into a large smile.

"Ryoma-kun!"

Back then, she just flew into his arms without a single thought, murmuring his name over and over again in a muffled voice (speaking into his clothes). She had decided to let everything go, allow her emotions to take control, and then regret later.

It was a good decision. There was nothing to lose.

With his arms still around Sakuno, "Oi," he finally said, "If we don't stop now, we're going to be late for the reunion."

Sakuno looked up at Ryoma, surprised, "You're going?" and then somehow, something in her brain clicked, "Then that means Tomo-chan—"

"Yup, it was a set up."

"Am I the last to know that you're back?"

"Nah, no one was supposed to know, except your friend there sort of found out."

Sakuno smiled. She stepped away from Ryoma and then began to walk off. Ryoma followed.

Such a fluent flow in the conversation, it was as though they had been speaking to each other every single day in the past year. It felt as though they understood each other more than ever.

"By the way, I've been meaning to ask," Sakuno turned to look at Ryoma who gave her a quick glance to show that he was listening, "Was that supposed to resemble our first meeting?"

Ryoma pursed his lips in the way of a small child who'd gotten caught doing something bad.

"You weren't supposed to point that out until the end," he said in a low voice.

"That means you'll have to buy me a drink and beat up a bad guy too, right?"

Ryoma turned to look at Sakuno properly, "Err," he paused, "Did I do that back then?" Ryoma said with a confused frown.

"You can't even remember, and you're doing this," Sakuno sighed. It was just like him. His efforts, however, made her feel so happy that she could float on the clouds if she wanted to.

Years from then, Sakuno'd always recall the things that had happened between her and Ryoma. Sometimes, she would think that if she wrote her life into a script and sold it to movie companies, she'd make a fortune.

But then again, keeping your love life to yourself was probably a good choice too. That didn't stop her from dreaming about it though. She had decided that the most important scene in the entire movie would be when Ryoma finally said what he wrote in his little notepaper before he left Japan again.

There was something about their relationship and notepapers. These notes seemed to have played a large role in pulling them together.

Sakuno opened a drawer and took out the piece of notepaper, the one that would be featured in her dream movie. Smiling as she read it, the scenes from the actual day flooded back into her mind. She felt herself blush even just thinking about it.

It was nothing romantic, actually. Sure, what he said was so soppy that even the soppiest dramas would probably fail to show without the actors gagging half way through, but all that was missing to complete the drama was a romantic setting—something like… on a beach; during the end-of-year countdown; Christmas Eve; high-class restaurant… But no, of all things…

Sakuno stirred the soup while making sure that the egg wasn't over-cooked yet. She wanted fried egg with a pop-able yolk; she didn't want it to cook too well.

Sakuno spared two seconds just to sigh at her appearance. The egg told her that something strange was going to happen today. The first one cracked all over her. The second one had its shell fall into the bowl. The third one was the one that really ended up in the frying pan right now.

She turned off the fire for the soup, smiling and nodding in approval of the state of it. At least something went smoothly.

"Ryuzaki?"

Ryoma had dropped by all of a sudden in the morning. Sakuno asked politely if he would stay for lunch and he agreed. She was a little surprised and curious about the reason, but she didn't ask.

"Sorry, Ryoma-kun, I'm trying to make a perfect egg," she excused herself.

"Sakuno."

And she froze for a few seconds.

"Yes, Ryoma-kun?" She turned back to her egg.

Thinking that he had gotten her attention, "I," he cleared his throat and took a deep breath; Sakuno froze again.

Slowly, she turned around in realisation.

Everything was a blur. It seemed that Sakuno missed the most important part of his speech, all she could manage was to utter out a small, almost inaudible, "… Ryoma… kun."

Behind Sakuno was an egg that was still in the middle of its frying process and some perfectly boiled soup. Sakuno was covered in food and was slightly sticky here and there.

When she snapped out of her reverie, she caught the second part of his well-memorised speech.

"…more than anything in this world," he fished out something small from his pocket and went down on one knee, "Will you marry me?" And then he revealed the ring he had prepared.

"Ryoma-kun!"

Sakuno didn't know whether she should smile or not but her head had already began on a nodding motion which implied a 'yes'. Before she knew it, the ring was already slid on her finger and there was no turning back. Even though she didn't hear what Ryoma said completely, she could already guess because he had basically read off the script he wrote a year or so ago. Although she hadn't heard it properly herself, the words echoed in her mind anyway, endlessly, gently.

Meanwhile, the egg on the frying pan continued to simmer, the yolk completely cooked.

And there she had gone thinking that he had improved with all the fancy notepaper stuff. In fact, he was the same dense idiot she knew years and years back, what high hopes she had to think that he would be romantic just for once.

Sakuno, I love you more than anything in this world, will you marry me?

But then again, that was one of the things she loved so much about him.

--End--

Sorry, no omake. XD I had an idea for one a moment back except I suddenly forgot it so now there's no omake.

Just wanna say to all of you who have read from the beginning to the end, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I love you all and can't ever thank you enough for your support because without you I would never have finished this fic that I started from scratch with a random hunch one fateful day.

Actually, that's true because I just randomly started the first chapter without putting any thought into it, but then it seemed like it could be continued so I started thinking about what should happen... now this is what it has become of.

Again, thank you very much, I hope you all have a nice day and continue loving Ryoma and Sakuno!