Disclaimer: I do not own the anime/manga "Prince of Tennis" in any way... That is why this is called a fan fic... hehe... And this applies to all chapters of this fan fiction.

Italics: character thoughts if within apostrophes; pronounced with emphasis if in dialogue; or if neither, I just want the word/s to be emphasized

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Romaji meanings: (as advised by Hiyoshi-kun is Awesome xD and redjello-04)

'Ore-sama' - what Atobe so arrogantly calls himself xD

'Buchou' - Captain

'Gomen!' - Sorry!

Chapter One: 'Stained' Impressions

It was a fine Saturday morning of August, the sun was high up and at ten-thirty, raven-haired Tsukushi Meiko was already wandering the streets of Tokyo.

'I can't believe I arrived earlier than him, we were supposed to meet thirty minutes ago,' she muttered to herself as she looked at the time on her phone. She was sitting on a swing and rocking it back and forth; suddenly, a nearby ice cream stand caught her eye. 'Just what I need,' she happily thought.

After buying her ice cream, she absentmindedly walked back to the swing and kept on looking around to see if he had already arrived. Wrong move. Because as she came near the swing, she suddenly bumped onto a wall, which turned out to be an arrogant, narcissistic guy suffering from a 'bad hair day.'

"Ah!" she exclaimed, almost falling from the impact. Luckily, someone grabbed her upper arm, preventing her from falling on her back.

"Are you okay, miss?" the blue-haired tensai sexily asked, looking at her through his spectacles.

Meiko, who was also wearing glasses, looked up at him and nodded. Then, she snatched back her arm.

"You have ruined Ore-sama's jersey, what do you plan to do now?" an arrogant voice suddenly spoke, surprising her.

"I don't know what you're talking—," Meiko, who was caught surprised by the impact, confusedly answered while raising her eyes to look at the boy in front of her. "A-Ahh! Gomen!" she exclaimed, realizing what she had accidentally done. In front of her was a white and blue-grey jersey with the print 'Hyoutei Gakuen.' It was stained with cookies and cream- and double dutch-flavored ice cream, and the owner of that jersey was not very happy about it.

"I'm really sorry," she embarrassedly said when Atobe Keigo, the owner of that jersey, just stared at her.

Atobe had dozens of the same shirt but he was not about to let her off easily, especially since he was having a bad hair day and she just ruined his shirt.

"Ore-sama is asking you what you plan to do now that you have ruined his jersey," the boy with curly grey-purple hair pompously asked her while looking down at her (since their height differed by seven inches).

Meiko rolled her eyes. "Don't you think you're quite exaggerating?" she asked, now in a more aggressive tone. She already apologized, what else did he want? "It's not exactly ruined, it's just a little stained," she added, emphasizing her point.

"A little?" Atobe repeated, his right eyebrow twitching slightly. "Ore-sama must tell you that being ruined and being a little stained is just the same for him, ne Kabaji?"

"Usu."

"Buchou—," a light gray-haired guy hesitantly began, feeling the tension building up as the two glared at each other.

"Don't bother, Choutarou. You know him—he won't listen," a guy with trimmed dark brown hair interrupted him, looking bored and uninterested.

"Look, I already apologized. Is that not enough? Besides, my ice cream's also wasted, now it's inedible," she reasoned out, her eyes glancing on the ice cream on his shirt.

"Ore-sama will not accept a simple apology. What do you plan to do to atone for your crime, you little slob?" he replied mockingly, eyeing her not-so-tidy appearance. She was wearing a simple shirt and straight cut pants. Her hair was held high by a simple clamp and she was wearing no accessories or make up whatsoever. She didn't really look like trash or anything of the sort, but for someone as narcissistic and arrogant as Atobe who was already having a bad hair day, he simply felt like calling her that.

Meiko raised her eyebrow in contempt. "Slob?" She turned her eyes towards the print on his jersey, and then glared back at him. "Hyoutei Gakuen," she slowly pronounced with mock. "The school of divas and drama queens—no wonder you're such an arrogant spoiled brat," she told him sharply while smiling sadistically. "Ne?"

Atobe's eyebrow twitched. How dare such a girl insult him and his school? His teammates were also offended by her words—Shishido smirked then said, "Watch your mouth," to which Meiko responded with a sarcastic smile; Ohtori showed a look of surprise; Oshitari adjusted his glasses; Hiyoshi narrowed his eyes; Taki glared at her; Kabaji, well, remained as Kabaji; and Gakuto…

"What did you say?" Gakuto challenged, advancing a step towards her.

"I don't remember talking to you," she turned her eyes at him, her head tilting a bit.

"You—!"

"Gakuto, don't butt in," Atobe said, his face wearing a very serious look.

"But she just insulted—," Gakuto stopped as he felt Oshitari's hand grip his shoulder as if telling 'Let Atobe handle this'.

"Oi," Atobe slowly began, Meiko's eyes switched back to him. "Do you know who you're talking to?"

Meiko just stared at him for a moment. "Let me see. Hmmm… Am I not talking to…Anata-sama?" she sarcastically answered, a mischievous smile curving on her lips.

Atobe continued to glare at her. "You must know that you are talking to no other than the mighty Atobe Keigo-sama," Atobe introduced himself in such a pompous way that made Meiko feel like throwing up.

"Atobe, ne?" she repeated, trying to recall where the heck she heard that ugly name before. Suddenly, it hit her. "Ah. So you're the dirty, arrogant jerk who tried to destroy Tezuka-senpai's arm during a game more than a month ago. Hm. I can't believe I didn't recognize you earlier," she said.

Atobe narrowed his eyes. "You know Tezuka?"

"I more than know him," she replied quickly.

He smirked. "Ore-sama pities Tezuka, being surrounded by girls like you. You must be his fan girl?" he said in a sarcastic, insulting fashion.

Meiko smirked in return. "I'm no fan girl of anyone, excuse me," she replied sharply, feeling annoyed.

Her cellular phone suddenly rang. She looked down at it, pulled it from her bag, glared at Atobe before muttering "Excuse me," and turned sideways. Atobe's eyebrows twitched and his teammates also showed signs of annoyance.

"Where are you?" Meiko demandingly asked to whomever it was she was speaking with. "You're where? At the playground at the other side of the park? Ahh, I can't believe I'm lost again… Okay, okay; I'll go there right away. Ja!" she said to the other side of the phone before closing it.

"I'm quite in a hurry," she said aloud. "So, can we please settle this up quickly?" she said, her voice was softer but still reprimanding.

"Ore-sama doesn't think you're in a position to—,"

"Could you just remove your jersey?" Meiko interjected.

There was a short pause wherein everyone was awaiting Atobe's response. Meiko resolved that she would rather spend one whole hour watching a turtle and a snail competitively race on a sunny beach than to spend a mere second looking at the arrogant guy staring down at her.

"Very well," Atobe sternly said with a smirk on his lips. "Ore-sama will give you this jersey now and you must hand it to Ore-sama on Monday—,"

"How about Tuesday?" she cut in.

"Fine, Tuesday afternoon it is," Atobe agreed after pondering over it for some seconds.

"And how am I supposed to find—?" But to Meiko's surprise and annoyance, Atobe was already heading towards a nearby locker room to change.

'How disrespectful and arrogant can one get?' she inwardly muttered.

Somehow, the atmosphere surrounding them seemed to loosen a bit.

"Don't worry, miss. If you arrive at our school before five-thirty, you'll surely find Atobe at the tennis courts," the blue-haired tensai told her kindly.

"I see. Thanks," she replied as she lowered her head in a small bow.

Atobe arrived a minute later wearing a similar Hyoutei Tennis Club regular's uniform. He threw his 'ruined' jersey to her with a mocking smile.

She stared at him a bit before speaking. "See you on Tuesday then."

"Of course, that is, unless you choose to keep Ore-sama's jersey instead," he arrogantly said.

Meiko acted as if she wanted to throw up. "You can be rest assured that I'm not a desperate-Hyotei-Gakuen-Tennis-Club-Regular-fan-girl, if it's not obvious yet," she spat in one breath, rolling her eyes. "Since it's settled, I'll get going now. Ja!" Meiko bade indifferently, and she left without another word.

"What an impolite girl," Atobe muttered aloud.

Oshitari chuckled. "It's your fault, Atobe."

Atobe glanced at him with an annoyed look on his face.

--

"Meiko-chan," a happy voice called her as she was walking towards a nearby park with a fountain in the middle.

She turned and saw a certain brown-haired tensai smiling as usual.

"Syusuke-kun! Guess what, I just had an encounter with the 'Monkey King,'" she automatically told him.

"Monkey King?" Fuji asked, thinking for a few seconds. "You mean Atobe?" He was obviously interested.

"Ah. At first, I didn't recognize him—since I only saw him in the 'Monthly Pro Tennis' magazine or whatever it's called. But when he all-mightily said that his name was Atobe, that was when it slowly came to me," she said. "I remember Echizen calling him 'Monkey King' once or twice," she added insignificantly.

"Saa… I gather that you didn't have a very nice encounter with him?" Fuji asked, seeing her pissed off look.

"Eh," Meiko affirmed. "Look—," she pulled out a jersey from her body bag. "I kinda bumped into him and stained his jersey with my ice cream—and I was craving to eat that ice cream!" she whined at the memory of her wasted ice cream. Of course, it was more important to her than his jersey.

"If that's the case, then I'll just buy you another one. I discovered a great ice cream parlor nearby, you'll love it there," Fuji warmly suggested, finally understanding the cause of her disappointment. Meiko loved ice cream and her day would never be complete without eating at least a scoop or two.

"Really? Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!" she cheerfully replied, successfully getting over her wasted ice cream.

"Ah," Fuji replied as Meiko took his arm and they started walking towards the nearby ice cream parlor.

05/18/08, 8:47 PM (Pacific Time, West)

Author's notes: Hi! Hope you liked this first chapter! I promise that the story will be more interesting in the next chapters to come. Thanks for reading and please continue doing so! Thanks a lot! Please review! GOD BLESS!!

Fuji seemed to be close with our female protagonist here... What could be the reason? Hmmm... You won't find out soon, but I promise you'll find out why eventually... xD