Lucky Charm
A Prince of Tennis one-shot
Echizen Ryoma and Ryuuzaki Sakuno
Author's note: I like this pairing, but I find them tricky to write. What can I expect; when it comes to Ryoma, he runs at snail speed in the romance department.

Standard disclaimer: Prince of Tennis and its characters aren't mine.

The girl had long hair. Really long hair. And it had been that way since Ryoma remembered, back at their first year at Seigaku Junior High. Two long braids extending out of the nape of her neck. And when she was at tennis practice, her braids swung as if they had a mind of their own. Two impractical extremities. Do they not get in the way of normal tasks?

Oh, and her tennis was another matter completely. He knew she was a little clumsy (not a lot of emphasis on "little") but that was something regular practice could cure. After years of observation (not very close observation, mind you), he noticed that her aim improved slightly. She was able to hit the ball most of the time, but give her a hard shot on left side court and that was it. Her form was not exactly model material; her hips still did that wobbly thing (why yes, he did notice, from a tennis player's perspective and only that) and that hair... those brown ropes that cascaded down her back.

They looked troublesome to maintain, but they always looked so neatly knotted without frays or out of place strands. And they looked kind of soft too...

Ryoma shook his head. He turned away from the girl sitting at the desk two chairs forward, one row to the right and glanced to the chalk board. A sentence structure in English was laid out, underlining the different type of verbs. Ryoma yawned, book laid out in front of him. Beside him, Horio scratchced his head, puzzled by the teacher's explanations.

Ryoma blinked. When he opened his eyes again, that girl was fiddling with her left braid. She did that when she was nervous, he noticed. Guess English was not her strongest subject.

--

English was not her strong point, at all. History was a more comfortable zone. But conjugating English verb tenses, understanding sentence structures (subject, verb, all adjectives in front of nouns) drove her mind in a spin faster than Ryoma's twist serve.

Ryoma... just saying his name in her mind cause an acute case of redden cheeks (and not a lot of emphasis on "acute"). She turned to the window, watching a plane release a stream of exhaust into the sky. She noticed some slight movement at her left peripheral. Ryoma cradled his head on one hand...

Wait. Was he staring at her?

No, no. That could not be it. However, she could not help but glance back. He blinked momentarily and his eyes returned to her. Was there something on the back of her head? Her hand moved over the nape of her neck before feeling the length down the left braid. No gum, paper, or anything foreign in her hair. However, she felt this prickly sensation crawling up her back; the feeling she got when she was being watched.

Carefully, she turned her head slightly, just enough to introduce Ryoma into view. He was propping his head up with one hand, eyes fully closed. Sakuno turned around, now her full attention to the chalk board. Maybe she was just imagining things. After all, that adolescent crush was not showing signs of disappearing anytime soon. Maybe it was just wishful thinking...

In any case, she should have focused on the schoolwork at hand because the teacher had volunteered Sakuno to read.

--

The ball flew off the wall and steered left. Sakuno did not have time to catch it, he could tell. Her attempt to chase after it resulted in her tripping over her own feet.

"Mou!" she exclaimed, looking skyward.

Ryoma pulled the bill of his cap lower. Mada mada dane.

He was not stalking her, he was not. He was heading over to practice when he heard the sound of a tennis ball pounding against cement. He traced the sound to the side of the gymnasium; it was clear that girl still needed to work on her aim. Her backhand was not that great, either. He was observing, not stalking. Behind a tree. Not on purpose. He just happened to stop at that particular point behind the tree, thank you very much. He watched her run around, pigtails making a dancing trail behind her.

Sakuno approached the tree that was serving at Ryoma's (hiding) viewing spot. She let out another sigh of frustration, fell on her knees and laid down on the soft grass. Her pigtails flew behind her, and they laid sprawled above her lying head. The ends of her pigtails came into view... into Ryoma's reach.

Something caused his hand to move (it was the gods of curiosity... or the gods of hair) and before he knew it, Ryoma was holding onto the end of her left braid, feeling its end fan against his thumb. It was just as he thought; her hair was soft. Really soft. Like rice. Not sticky, though. Wait... it was more like Karupin's fur. Ah, that made more sense.

Suddenly, her braid pulled and she sat up. "What?" came Sakuno's voice, followed by an "Oh!"

Ryoma looked down at his hand and found a thin red elastic. The very elastic that previously tied Sakuno's left brain together. So, Ryoma did what he thought was best: he bolted. Fast.

Momo-senpai was on the approach.

--

Sakuno was a little frustrated. First, she just could not hit the ball at the same point in the wall, and then her braid unraveled on its own. She was lying on the grass right outside the gym when it occurred. When she moved to sit up, she felt a slight tug. Soon after that, her hair untwisted.

She looked around. Where was her hairtie? A red elastic in the green grass should be easy to spot, right? "What should I do?" she asked out loud.

"What's wrong?" came a voice behind her.

She turned to see her upperclassman, Momoshiro. "Momo-senpai!"

"You're crawling around on your hands and knees. What's up?"

"My hairtie is missing."

Momo crouched down and began to survey the surroundings. "Ah... that's too bad..." He looked towards her, specifically at her other braid. "It looks like that, right?" he asked, pointing to the red elastic with a yellow plastic ball on it.

"Uh-huh. It's identical."

"Hm..." he began to help her look but she called his name, interrupting his search.

"I'm thankful you're helping, but don't you have practice?"

Realization slowly crawled in Momo's mind. "I'm late!" he exclaimed. he jumped on his feet and sped-walked away. "I hope you find it!" he called over his shoulder. After that, he was gone.

Sakuno sighed and pulled the right hairtie out, letting her full hair unravel. She continued her fruitless search.

--

"Horio! Practice swings with the freshmen! Regulars, start some matches!" The captain instructed. "Kaidoh and Echizen first!"

"Fssh..." Kaidoh hissed.

Momo snickered.

"Alright," Ryoma sat up from the bench, leaving his bottle where he previously sat. The match went by quickly in Ryoma's favor. Ryoma smirked to himself and kept it hidden underneath his cap. For the minutes following, he jogged around the courts for his cool-down. He returned to the bench where his water-bottle was; the same bench where Kaidoh an Momo were arguing... again.

After a long sip, he paused, spotting movement at the corner of his eye. Ryoma had to do a double-take. It was that girl, minus the obnoxious pigtails; her hair was tumbling down her back. Her hair was wavy, down, loose... not constricted to those impractical braids. Ryoma watched as she walked beside the tennis courts, heading to the girls' locker room.

"ECHIZEN!" Momo's face came in full view of Ryoma, obstructing his view of the girl.

"Hn?" Ryoma said, acknowledging his presence.

"I've been calling you!" Momo declared loudly, justifying his fit.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing! I wanted to ask you why you dropped this!" Momo opened his palm, revealing the found treasure: a red elastic with a plastic yellow ball at the end.

Ryoma swallowed. Crap, he thought. "That's not mine."

"No kidding, Echizen. I know whose: Ryuuzaki-chan's."

Double crap.

"And I watched it fall out of your pocket right before your match earlier with Kaidoh."

Triple crap. Momo's face erupted in a grin that spanned from east to west, complete with a firm pat on the shoulder. "So young... so very young..."

Ryoma watched with narrow eyes.

"If you want to go out with her, stealing her elastic isn't the way to go."

And he was talking from experience? Ryoma mused. Wasn't he the one who got hot and bothered when Tachibana's sister was in a twenty-meter radius?

"All kidding aside, Echizen, you should return that to her," Momo's face momentarily resembled a stern father. Not Echizen's father, though. That man was no where near stern... no where near sane for that matter. "She looked really concerned when she was looking for it earlier."

"Che," Ryoma pulled the bill of his cap lower. Noting that the coach was gone, he snatched the elastic and his water-bottle.

"Oi! Echizen! Where are you going?" Momo watched him head to the fence door.

"Refill my bottle," Ryoma said, lifting up his empty bottle so it was in view.

"Good luck!" came a very happy ecstatic voice from Momo-senpai. Ryoma did not turn around. He knew Momo-senpai was smiling that huge, stupid grin of his. He deserved a twist serve right up the butt.

--

Sakuno changed back into her uniform after her quest for her missing hairtie. She could not quite understand how it could suddenly disappear. It was there when she lay down but when she sat up, it was gone.

She tried to think. When she sat up, it felt as if her braid was caught for a second... Perhaps her hair was caught in the grass. Still, she searched the area for about half an hour and retraced her steps. Soon, she gave up. Hairties just don't disappear out of thin air, not the last time she checked.

Sakuno ran a brush down her locks before finally exiting the girls' locker room. She saw something in her left peripheral and turned towards it; Ryoma was standing there, looking straight at her. "Ry-Ryoma-kun?"

Immediately, he pulled out his hand and revealed into view her missing treasure: a red hair elastic with a yellow ball hanging off its loop. Her mouth opened and gaped like a fish, completely in shock. "Um... how...?"

"Momo-senpai said you were looking for it," he said.

"Uh... I was..." Sakuno was still too shocked. How did he find it?

"Can I have it?" he asked suddenly when she made no move to retrieve it.

Again, Sakuno was too shocked for words. What on earth would he use an elastic for? But before she could ask, she only meekly nodded.

"Thanks," he turned on his heels and walked off.

Her hand flew to where her left braid would have been. Why on earth would he want her hairtie? She doubted that he would actually wear it. Perhaps to... shoot someone with it? Gosh, she hoped not. Still, she could not help but wonder what he was going to do with it.

--

Weeks later when Sakuno watched Seigaku's next match, she noticed a tiny yellow ball peeking out from under Ryoma's sweatband. She blinked. No, still there. She was positive, especially during time-out when Ryoma took a drink of his bottle and then re-adjusted his wristband, concealing the yellow ball.

And it wasn't just one match. Every match after that; Sakuno spotted a red elastic hairtie and a yellow ball slipping from underneath his wristband. And each time, a smile grew on her face.