Notes: Okay, so... the other day I was poking around old fic exchanges on Livejournal, and I rediscovered this. I was surprised that it's actually pretty good for something I wrote ten years ago? There are a couple cringy instances of fangirl Japanese, and the ending is a bit ham-fisted, and I've been out of the fandom far too long to accurately judge the characterization, but... look, I had fun reading it, so maybe you will too?! And since I can't guarantee I'll be able to update anything for my current fandoms before December (because of NaNoWriMo), I might as well post this!

So, here it is: the fic I wrote for LJ user takewing in the Spring Fluff exchange. The pairing is a ~MYSTERY~, and the warnings I gave in 2007 are as follows: "Dorky!Seigaku, excessive italics, silliness that may border on slight crack, invasion of Ryoma's privacy by pretty much the entire world. Also, unbetaed." (Don't worry, 20-year-old me; 31-year-old you has the betaing covered!)

Please enjoy the only Prince of Tennis fanfic I will ever post here.

And Violets are Blue

The rose was a soft milky white, its delicate petals molded into a perfect shape, as if it wasn't even real. But it was quite real—its sweet aroma was evidence enough.

It had no place in a locker in the Seigaku tennis clubroom, but apparently that didn't discourage it in the least.

Ryoma stood rooted where he was for a moment, just staring at it, his face betraying no surprise over just what the hell a rose was doing in his locker. He thought briefly that he should probably get rid of it, but that would involve touching it, which would involve accepting that the rose did, in fact, exist. And that it was in his locker. Being a rose.

What the hell.

Finally, he turned to leave the clubroom, as morning practice was about to start and some stupid rose in his locker wasn't going to prevent him from playing tennis.

"Oh? What's this, Echizen?"

On the other hand, maybe leaving it there wasn't the best idea, either.

"Fuji-sempai," he said, turning back to see the smiling boy inspecting the flower carefully. "What is it?"

Cocking his head, Fuji lightly fingered the white petals. "Why, it looks like you've completely overlooked this gift in your locker. I wonder what it could be?"

Ryoma was about to snatch the rose out of Fuji's grasp and throw it in the nearest trash bin when somebody else grabbed it.

"Ohh, what's this, Fuji-sempai?" Momoshiro said in mock wonder, eyeing the rose suspiciously. "Has ickle Echizen got a secret admirer? The little stud!"

"Momo-sempai." Ryoma grabbed the rose as Momoshiro cackled. "Shut up."

By this time, most of the others present had taken notice and were gathering around.

"Ehh?" Kikumaru wrapped his arms tightly around Ryoma's shoulders, grinning cheekily. "Ochibi has an admirer? How cute!"

Oishi sighed as he pulled Kikumaru off of their poor super rookie. "Everyone, let's not get too excited about this. Echizen does have a fanclub, after all, so it shouldn't be too strange..."

"Maybe it's the Ryuuzaki girl?" Kawamura mused.

"That's it, Taka-san!" Momoshiro exclaimed. "I bet it was her! Ahh, young love..."

Inui tapped his pen on his open notebook, frowning slightly. "Considering her nature, I'd estimate there's only a three percent chance of that..."

Ryoma, meanwhile, had pulled his hat down and left his sempai to chatter among themselves. "Che. Mada mada dane."

Opening the clubroom door, he was stopped in his tracks as he saw their team captain waiting outside. He didn't look too happy, but then again, he didn't usually.

The chatter died off as Tezuka glared down his team, evaluating the situation. Finally, he said, "What is the meaning of this?"

Pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, Inui offered an explanation. "Tezuka. Approximately 6.3 minutes ago Echizen found a white rose in his locker, from a secret admirer, it would seem. This is most unusual, as I'm sure you're aware, so we were merely discussing and sharing our hypotheses. It is a matter of utmost importance, you see."

Tezuka was silent for a moment, taking in the information. Finally, he spoke.

"Twenty laps, all of you. Now."

In the following days, Ryoma continued to find roses in his locker. Sometimes they were white, sometimes pink, sometimes the gaudiest shade of purple known to man. (The purple ones, Inui later noted, found themselves in the garbage bin 68.4% sooner than the others.) Pulling a rose out of his locker always resulted in a chorus of snickers from his teammates, but after a week they had more or less died down, the novelty of the situation spent.

Then Ryoma began to receive three roses at a time, and the teasing started up again full-force.

Then he started getting tags on the roses, and while that seemed such an insignificant factor to him, that was when his sempai seemed to become obsessed with finding out the source of the flowers.

"They're giving us hints now!" Kikumaru had said, bouncing on his heels in excitement. "It'll be fun, like a detective story! We can be Akechi Kogorou or Sherlock Holmes or something!"

Except Sherlock Holmes had never had to deal with something as trite as junior high love confessions, Ryoma thought as he peeked into his locker on the twelfth day. Sighing, he took the three roses—pink, this time—and absently held them older his shoulder for someone to take. He'd more or less resigned himself to letting his sempai play their little detective game for a few minutes before trashing the roses on the way out to run laps for dawdling.

"Thank you, Echizen," Inui said as he took the roses. "I actually was brainstorming last night and thought of a way to possibly identify further clues."

"Good for you," Ryoma muttered as he changed into his jersey, but it went unheard as his teammates were much more interested in what Inui had to say.

Inui tugged the tag off the roses, inspecting it carefully; it was addressed to Ryoma in grandiose calligraphy, but unsigned, as per usual. "Hmm..."

"What is it, Sempai?" Kaidou asked, and Ryoma also cocked an eyebrow in curiosity.

Inui stared at the tag for a moment longer before announcing, "This tag seems to be made of high-quality paper imported from Thailand."

"Thailand?" Ryoma repeated. He didn't even know Thailand was particularly renowned for its paper. It was also strange that Inui could tell just by looking, but, well... Inui was pretty strange.

"Whoever is leaving you these roses must care for you a lot, if they're using such high-quality paper."

Ryoma was skeptical. Seriously, who put that much thought into those things?

All his sempai seemed to buy it, though. He struggled to change into his tennis uniform as Kikumaru and Momoshiro pounced on him and ruffled his hair, congratulating him on his engagement to Anonymous-san (since when did expensive paper equal engagement?).

Predictably, they were all late to practice, much to Tezuka's irritation.

"I've considered the circumstances," Inui reported at lunch that day, "and there is approximately a 34% chance that Echizen's roses are from an individual not attending Seigaku."

The other third-years nodded intently.

"How did you reach that conclusion?" Fuji asked.

"I've been checking in on the clubroom at various points during the day, and the roses never appear before it's locked up for the night. If Echizen's admirer were a student here, they'd have plenty of opportunities to deliver the roses during the school day." He adjusted his glasses before continuing. "That isn't to say that a Seigaku student would definitely leave the roses during that time, of course, and during the school day or not, there's no question that the campus is more accessible to Seigaku students, which is why there's still a 66% chance that it's one of our schoolmates." He paused, and then added, "Of that 66%, there is a 30% chance that the perpetrator is one Oishi Shuuichirou."

"Me?!" Oishi's face turned bright red, and Kikumaru let out an indignant 'nya!' "Why me?!"

Inui was stone-faced as he said simply, "You're the one with the clubroom keys."

"It's not me, though." Oishi frowned defiantly. "I don't know why you would even think that."

"I didn't, actually. I was just joking."

There was a collective groan.

Inui flipped to a page in his notebook and went on. "After all, my data says that of all the individuals on the team, Oishi scores as one of the lowest on the Echizen attraction meter."

Everyone lunged to take a peek at the notebook but Inui snapped it shut just in time.

"Now, hold on," Oishi said after recovering from Inui's rather unfunny joke. "If I'm the one locking up the clubroom, and the roses aren't there before then, then how is whoever it is getting in?" For good measure, he added, "And it's not me."

"Breaking and entering, most likely," Fuji responded with a smile.

Oishi balked at that information. "And is no one concerned over that?"

"But they're just leaving flowers, Oishi!" Kikumaru grinned. "It's not hurting anything!"

"At least there's no damage to the door or windows?" Kawamura added helpfully.

"It certainly isn't easy to manage that," Fuji finished.

Oishi wasn't comforted, even if he ignored Fuji. "But it's the principle of the matter! Whoever it is is trespassing, and that's not right!"

"Speaking of trespassing, why are all of you crowded around my desk?"

All eyes turned to Tezuka, who looked none too pleased as he tried to enjoy, or at least mildly tolerate, his lunch.

Inui opened his mouth to speak, but Tezuka held up a hand, silencing him. "Thirty laps at afternoon practice. All of you."

After three weeks, Ryoma started receiving full bouquets of a dozen roses. The tags were printed with messages that everyone was certain were soppy French love poems, but they couldn't be sure because none of them knew French.

Tezuka, after confirming that no, he did not know French, assigned fifty laps.

"Ryoma-sama!"

Ryoma groaned and lifted his head off his desk. He was tired from running so many laps for something that wasn't his fault; he didn't need people coming in and making a ruckus at him for no reason. "What?" he asked irritably, glaring at that loud girl with the beauty mark who Ryuuzaki was friends with—damned if he could remember her name.

"Ryoma-sama, I heard that you've been getting roses in your locker for the past few weeks!" she said, looking none too pleased. "iWhat/i is this about? I haven't given anyone clearance to access your locker!"

"It's not your place to be giving clearance to access my locker in the first place," Ryoma responded flatly.

The girl sniffed haughtily, standing up straight. "Of course it is! I'm president of your fan club, so these things have to go through me first!"

How stupid.

"If there was anything I could do about it, I would have already," Ryoma sighed, resting his head on his arms again. "Go back to your own class, homeroom is almost over."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her pout before turning on her heel and leaving the room. Stupid beauty mark girl.

...Beauty mark...?

Ryoma was pretty certain of the identity of his "secret admirer," but when he entered the clubroom on the twentieth day to find himself knee-deep in red roses, he swore that he'd give up tennis forever if it turned out to be anyone else. There was only one person who was rich enough and mental enough to do something so outrageous.

Probably. Unless he had some rich, mental stalker that he didn't even know.

...So maybe he'd give up tennis for a few days if he turned out to be wrong.

Still, he was certain enough to skip afternoon practice in favor of making a trip to Hyotei Gakuen. And Ryoma found that even in a gaggle of two hundred club members plus what seemed like a million shrieking fangirls on the sidelines, it was fairly easy to find who he was looking for, since he practically radiated with what he probably thought was Awesome but was really just Mada Mada Dane.

Ryoma stared up at him. He stared down at Ryoma. Then, after a few moments of intense staring action, Ryoma threw his tennis bag between then, overflowing with red roses. "Atobe. What the hell."

"Ahhn?" Atobe cradled his chin between his thumb and forefinger (trying to look cool or something), a smug grin plastered across his face. "You didn't like the gifts I have so selflessly bestowed upon you?"

"I have no use for roses."

"They aren't meant to be useful, they're meant to convey meaning," Atobe declared.

Ryoma only raised an eyebrow. "So what are they supposed to mean?"

Atobe didn't answer, he only smirked and did that weird hand-face thing and stared at Ryoma.

"Hey." Ryoma looked over his shoulder to see that guy with the blue baseball cap addressing him. "What do you think red roses are supposed to mean? Seriously, Atobe has been fawning over you for forever and it's been so lame."

"Shishido speaks nonsense," Atobe said dismissively as he lowered his hand.

"Oh don't try to deny it, Atobe!"

Atobe frowned sternly. "This has nothing to do with you. Please go back to practicing with Ootori."

Huffing indignantly, Shishido turned around and retreated back to where his doubles partner was waiting.

Ryoma looked back at Atobe incredulously. "Seriously? Is that what all this was about?"

Atobe didn't confirm or deny it, he only chuckled and said, "So have you been awed by my prowess?"

"Absolutely not," came the immediate answer. After a moment of thought, however, Ryoma added, "But if you shower me in Ponta instead of roses I might consider it."

Ryoma returned to his own tennis practice soon after, with fifty-some cans of Ponta in his tennis bag.

Tezuka ordered him to run a hundred laps.