Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis was created by Konomi Takeshi. Not me. Please don't sue.

AN: The RyoSaku site Beriath and I created just keeps getting better and better. If you haven't checked it out, what are you waiting for? See our bios for the link.

About my works, thank you so much for your reviews. Comments, criticisms, when you take the time to point out a particular point you enjoyed or thought I needed to improve upon, it means so much to me. Thank you.

Enjoy.

Masquerade

By Cinpii

Chapter 3: Not in Kansas

"Damn," Ryoma muttered as he walked home after practice. He slipped his hands in his pockets and ambled along, eyes gazing at the ground but not really registering anything. His sneaker-clad feet ate up the distance with the speed of a koala.

Echizen Ryoma was thinking. And he was in a bind.

He should have never agreed to that stupid bet. What was he smoking? He didn't want a girlfriend. That's why he turned them all down.

But if Ryuzaki confessed, would you have turned her down?

Shut up, he told himself. He blinked and stopped walking.

Oh great, now he was talking to himself. No, not just talking to himself, debating. All because of a girl. Ryoma tilted his head back and closed his eyes. He let out a sigh.

For the umpteenth time that afternoon, the tennis prodigy cursed his quick tongue and hasty temper. That bastard senpai of his tricked him. Taunted his ego, triggered his mouth into saying something incredibly stupid. Ryoma could feel the tingles of irritation coming over him, and clenched his fists. Just thinking of how he'd been duped pissed him off. He was going to thrash Momo good on the courts tomorrow, but the thought did little to appease his current anger.

Ryoma grit his teeth. He couldn't take it back. No, he was too prideful for that. Echizen Ryoma never ran away from an opponent or a match, and he wasn't going to run away here. Never mind that Sakuno wasn't exactly his opponent, and that this wasn't a match per se. It was comparable, and the tennis-minded boy saw the terms as such. He was going to treat this as a match, he was going to prevail and win.

But just how the hell was he going to do that?

Sheer determination and will counted for something, but Ryoma realized that he didn't have the necessary skill set to ensure victory. He said he'd make Sakuno his by the end of the week, but again the pesky question reared its head, antagonizing him. How the hell was he going to do that? The boy frowned grumpily and resisted pulling his hair out. Such displays of frustration were beneath a player of his caliber anyways. Besides, he'd need to look good if Sakuno turned out to be the vain type.

Not that he thought she was. His thoughts turned towards the girl. Ruefully, he realized he didn't know much about Ryuzaki Sakuno at all. They've been attending the same school for months now, socialized together for months now, and still there wasn't one concrete fact about her he could honestly say he gleamed. Aside that she was the coach's granddaughter and a first year like himself, Ryoma had to admit, he knew very little about her. For all their interactions, he had walked away with nothing. She was a virtual stranger, and Momo-senpai wanted her to be his girlfriend?

Oh wait, he was wrong. With a fist hitting his palm, Ryoma's neurons fired off, working overtime to recall long buried recollections about the girl. He knew some things about her after all.

She sucked at tennis.

Yup, that was true. He almost forgot about that.

After a moment, more adjectives came to mind. Ryoma nodded, ticking off on his fingers everything he knew about her. Knowledge was power right? Besides, it made him feel a little better attacking the problem from an analytical viewpoint.

One, she was shy. Two, she was clumsy. Three, she had a horrible sense of direction. The boy chewed at his bottom lip, thinking hard about her other traits. The wind blew by, ruffling his unadorned head of hair, and the birds chirped, filling the silence with their musical cacophony.

One agonizing minute crept by.

Ryoma blinked.

Another minute crawled along.

His mind drew a blank. He scratched at his scalp in thought. Crap. He only knew three other things about her? Looking down at his palm, the facts stated so clearly in black and white, Ryoma sweat-dropped.

Three extended digits. Three. Three might be a lucky number, but this was ridiculous.

These couldn't possibly be the only things he knew about her, could it? He was only on his ring finger for crying out loud.

What did she like? What did she not like? And most importantly, would she say yes if he asked her out? The first year prodigy of the Seigaku tennis team stood there, stumped, staring off into space.

What did he get himself into?