This story was written on the spur of the moment while I was listening to this super good Japanese song. I used to have this fanfic 'Love Thy Neighbour' which I deleted because I hated it and I decided I wanted a better story written with my improved writing skill and thicker plot. In summary, this story idea was evolved from that old fanfic.

Could you maybe give it a try?

I apologize if this sucks.

Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis.

I'm Not That Girl by SavageTrickster

Prologue

I was only seven when I moved from Tokyo to Osaka with my mom and became Shiraishi Kuranosuke's neighbour. And the first thing I realized about him was that he was everything I was not.

He was a little boy loved by the adults including my own mom and our classmates in the class we shared in elementary school.

Even as a seven year old, he was wise, sporty and carried an alluring aura that drew people to him, like a moth to a flame. As if these qualities weren't enough, he also has that sharp-looking pair of honey brown eyes and soft smiles that adorned his face. He was a handsome young boy with a seemingly promising future – if his good, no, perfect grades on his report cards weren't enough to prove that, what will?

How about me?

Well…there isn't really anything I can boast about my seven year old self. Really.

Compared to Mr. Perfect I talked about, I was just an ordinary, if not, less than average little girl back then.

I was a chubby little girl who has auburn-red wavy (more like messy!) hair and boring brown eyes. The metallic silver braces on my teeth was the first thing people see when I smiled and I have to say, they weren't very flattering to look at.

And my grades…well, I was not very good with my studies. They were inconsistent, like a rollercoaster, they went up and down. Again unlike Mr. Perfect, I wasn't very popular with my peers either especially the girls. They seemed to find my so-called 'larger' body disgusting and find it a great fun to make fun of me.

But there was one thing they had envied me about…Okay, technically, there was a lot more than one thing.

I, Miss Less-Than-Average, was friends with Mr. Perfect. A friend who also happened to be his neighbour.

To them, it was strange for a popular guy like him to choose to play with someone like me during recess over 'small' girls like them. I didn't blame them; I'd wondered about that myself at times.

I have never dared to ask him why, afraid that my self-esteem would sink if he confessed that he had pitied me.

But when we were in fifth grade, my friendship with Mr. Perfect grew weaker as he turned more popular with his new regular status on the school's popular tennis team, drifting further and further away from me until I couldn't see him anymore.

The teasing I had received grew as well. They were horrible, but it was a treatment I had grown used to. Rumours that he had grown tired of pitying me and decided to ditch me flew everywhere and eventually, to me. And the thing was, I believed it.

I didn't want anything to do with someone who gave me friendship because he pitied me.

Ever since then, I had made every effort to avoid him. Ignoring him in school was easy since we were no longer classmates, but trying to avoid him while staying in the house next to his was not easy. Whenever he came to visit my mum with his, I would hide in my room or be out of the house. Whenever I needed to go to school, I will be up early so that I could make it there safely without bumping into him in front of our houses.

And thankfully, after a tough year of life ignoring his existence, my dad (my parents were divorced) had invited me to stay with him in Tokyo.

I was sick of being teased and looked down on. Sick of this pathetic, depressing life of mine.

I was eager and determined to start afresh there, promising myself that I, Okuda Shizue, will no longer be 'Miss Less-Than-Average' but someone people looks up to.

It was my chance to escape the choking hold life in Osaka had on me and so of course, I grabbed it.

A/N: I hope you liked this little prologue. I would be back in a few days to upload Chapter One so if you're interested, please stay tune. But it would be great if you leave me some reviews about this while waiting; I'm really curious about my reckless attempt at this. If not, I'll just forget about this fanfic.