One Nil to You (A Prince of Tennis Fanfiction)

Chapter 18

Note: This chapter has some scenes from the Prince of Tennis anime OVA series Episodes 14-19: The Nationals Semifinal Arc episode 18-19.

September 14, 2012

Forest of Arenas Park — Morning

Ryoma pressed a button in the vending machine as he ordered a grape flavored Ponta Soda.

"Ryoma-kun, you won, didn't you?" Sakuno asked, as she approached Ryoma with her hands at her back.

"There's no way I'd lose." Ryoma replied a matter-of-factly.

"I-I guess that's true." Sakuno stammered. Asking a question like that seemed ridiculous to someone like Ryoma.

"What is it?" he asked.

"U-Um..." she put her hands forward and held out a small pink lunch container. "I made some rice balls."

Ryoma took one of the three and ate it.

"How is it?" Sakuno asked, her face blushing red. "Is it tasty?"

"Isn't it pretty hard to make bad rice balls?" Ryoma asked instead while opening his can of Ponta Soda.

Sakuno felt bummed out. "Y-You're right." She put down the first container on the bench and took out another one.

"That stupid ochibi!" Kikumaru said with gritted teeth, having watched and heard the conversation. He was with Momoshiro and Inui behind the bushes not too far from the two freshmen.

"He isn't honest at all." Momoshiro said.

"Success rate in love: zero percent." Inui wrote down on his notebook.

"Ryoma-kun, I have these too." Sakuno opened the second container, revealing tennis ball shaped rice balls.

On one of the branches of the tree above them, Toyama Kintaro, a boy of Ryoma's age and Shitehoji's only freshman regular, was starting to wake up from his nap when he smelled something.

"What smells so good?" he mumbled. When he shifted, he fell off the tree.

"AAAHH!" Sakuno screamed.

The rice balls flew and landed on Kintaro's hands and the container on his head.

"The yummy things were about to fall on the ground," he said. Quickly, he placed the rice balls back inside the container and gave it back to Sakuno.

"T-Thank you." Sakuno stammered.

Ryoma put down his can of soda, upon seeing Kintaro. They had met some time at the covered court arena for the finals. He was that "weird guy" with red hair and black-tinted brown eyes, only this time, he was wearing a jersey above his animal print sleeveless shirt.

"You're Koshimae!" Kintaro exclaimed, misreading the kanji of Ryoma's family name.

Suddenly, a woman screamed. "A-A thief! Someone catch him!"

"Get moving brats!" the thief hollered, as he roller-skated pass Ryoma and Kintaro who dropped Sakuno's lunch container.

"Bastard...!" Ryoma cursed. He took out a ball from his pocket and hit it past the trees.

"Sweet, ochibi!" Eiji commented. "A sidespin added to avoid being hindered by the shrubbery."

The thief's eyes went wide as a ball popped out from the bush, knocking him out along with the ball behind him.

"Gotcha!" Kintaro exclaimed.

Inui was surprised like the two. "From the backside..."

"He broke through the shrubbery?" Momoshiro couldn't believe it as well.