Summary: It really isn't meant to happen. And yet she still fought for it.

AN: I would like to warn that this story is a bit angsty (if not a little too much), and Sakuno's mentality here is much different from what we see from the canon Sakuno. She's also older, though I don't have a specific age set in mind. Probably 16 or 17…

Segue

by Jiinta Kid

–

Her brunette ringlets glued to her face because of the rain. Such heavy rain. Her grip was slipping, but she wouldn't allow herself to let go of the racquet. There was nothing the weather could do to stop her now. She wouldn't give up. Her knee was bleeding from her slip, but she wouldn't let that deter her spirits.

Because she had to beat Ryoma. She had to beat him, and show him that she was more capable than he could ever acknowledge her to be, because she was great and she knew it. Goddamn it, she was going to make it.

But then, why couldn't she return a single ball from the wall? Why?

It made her choke. It really made her want to just throw all her chips down and cry. That was all she really was, wasn't she? A little girl? What made her think she could amount to what Ryoma was? Wasn't she content just being the normal little girl who came and went every day? The coach's granddaughter?

Her grandmother didn't push her into this. This was all her own fire, her own passion. Her own masochism. Did she like hurting like this? Catching rain on a summer's day, with nothing to accompany her but the sounds of tennis balls bouncing against lonely concrete? The deserted park was just that; there would be no one to come to her and magically grant her all the world's best talent.

So why did she fight so hard?

It was really hard to answer. She didn't know what to say, except that whenever she wondered the same thing, again and again, the same person would cloud her mind's eye. The same, dang person.

Why was it always him? Why couldn't she learn tennis out of her own personal accord? Why did he always have to be the same dang reason for everything?

She couldn't place her words on it.

Nor her touch.

It was a losing battle from the start, she somehow knew from the beginning, and yet she always struggled forward. Why? She wasn't in love. Love couldn't be something so vicious, so vile, and so self-depleting.

Love didn't hurt. This was unhealthy. This wasn't love.

So why did everyone else convince her otherwise? Why did they put so much effort into making her feel better, "Hey, this is just the way things are at the start, they'll get better?" It didn't. Hallucinations were enjoyable, but they never did any good in the end. In the end, it was all what it was: Untrue. Figment of the imagination.

She bended over on the cement, firmly holding her racquet to her forehead. Her head ached, each pulse sending painful waves down her ears. She'd practiced enough. She wouldn't make any more returns. It was time to go home.

The morning after, things changed. Her friend, Tomoka, waved to her from her front seat in class, smiling the biggest, brightest smile, and Sakuno responded with her own big, bright smile. Just the same as always, her inside pain only showing whenever she committed to practice on her own. Her friends were obscured from it, so she did think.

"Your racquet's getting worn," Tomoka noted while later observing Sakuno fiddling with her locker things. The pink racquet in question was losing paint, and scratches adorned the circular equipment. The black grip tape was beginning to unstick from its place.

"Maybe you should get a new one," Tomoka suggested.

But Sakuno couldn't do that. To do that, she would be giving up everything she had worked so hard for. This racquet had been through everything. Every single blood, sweat, tear… It would be like kissing all her toils goodbye.

"I don't want to," she replied softly, and Tomoka silently contemplated Sakuno's queer expression, split between calm and distress.

"Do you want to get a drink?"

Sakuno paused. Was her friend worried? They did usually spend time after classes eating junk before going home, but it was in the way Tomoka had spoken. She didn't want to worry her anymore.

"Yes, please."

They walked home now, sun setting behind them and the sky turning a deep orange. They were passing a park, the same park Sakuno practiced at yesterday. Sakuno stopped in her steps.

"Sakuno?"

Tomoka turned around to face her. Sakuno didn't budge. The tennis bag that contained her worn racquet hung over her shoulder, and the still-pigtailed girl looked across the tennis courts that stretched the open park. Something stirred in her.

I'm wasting my time.

"Sakuno, are you all right? You didn't speak much at the burger shop."

She could see herself there yesterday, on her knees and stressing herself to keep going. Was it ever going to work?

"What are you doing?"

She unzipped her tennis bag, taking with her the pink racquet she'd bought for herself when she was still twelve. It wasn't as pretty as it was before, nor had it seen much success, but it had certainly been a huge part of herself.

She was ready to let go of it now.

She gripped it hard. Her teeth ground on each other. Immense anger sped up her heart. She no longer needed it. She no longer did.

And she swung the racquet far away, the pink apparatus soaring past the tennis courts, past the track fields, over the green forest and beyond. She didn't hear the thud. Tomoka was smiling.

"Are you feeling better now?" she asked.

Sakuno looked back to her friend, and smiled. "Much better," she responded, her smile spreading, and it felt like a million weights had finally ceased to press down on her.

It was never going to happen. She and tennis had never been a proper match to begin with. She recognized that without tennis, she could never hold his attention, and the painstaking practices were there to try and make up for what her sport-less little self couldn't give. And if she had managed to win, she could have rubbed it all in his face, but then—he wouldn't have cared. Because he didn't care. They were never meant to be.

Tomoka visibly froze, staring at something past Sakuno. Sakuno turned and saw what had paralyzed her best friend, but the same person walking towards them couldn't paralyze her anymore.

She was already healing.

"H–Hi, Ryoma-sama," Tomoka greeted him. "W–What a pleasant surprise to run into you, n–now of all times."

Her stuttering was a new feat to him, who raised his eyebrows in question, because he had never heard the loud, obnoxious girl stutter to anyone before. But his curiosity was easily dispelled, as he shrugged and looked about ready to keep going.

She figured Tomoka was concerned about her pain returning, especially after seeing him so soon. But her fingers weren't shaking anymore, and her heart was at ease, and the smile on her face was a genuinely pleasant smile, one that wasn't forced to stick there to trick him into believing that he wasn't hurting her, not at all. And, best of all, she didn't stutter like her best friend.

"Hello, Ryoma-kun."

–

End. I don't know what inspired me to write such an angsty, anti-RyoSaku bit, but, well, here it is. It was rather fun writing it, though.

Thanks for reading.