It All Started With a Bet

My Dear Friend

Hye! I am back again… tee hee hee… how is your life people? I am sorry for the delay guys… I hope that you are not upset with it… anyway… I hope you like this chapter? I hope?

DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Prince of Tennis. Capiche?

Chapter 3: My Dear Friend

Chapter Summary: She found herself a friend in his personality. He couldn't speak but he gave her the words that she needed to hear.

'In the end I pretended not to notice
I knew but you didn't say anything
The beginning is still not decided

You were always playing with me, pretending to be fickle
But I understood, it was for the sake of making my dream come true...
I want to tell you the most important thing
At that place by the blooming sakura…'

~ Dear My Friend – Junko Minagawa (Ryoma Echizen) ~

She breathed deeply as she concentrated on the target. After gripping the ball for a few seconds, she started dribbling it and hit it to the wall then she hit the ball right on the same spot.

Just like what Kanata instructed her.

Her face enlightened when she did that. She turned around and showed him her smile, "D-did you see that, Kanata-kun? I hit it! I hit the target!"

Kanata smiled at her and clapped his hands for several times. He gave her a sign that she should continue hitting the same target.

Sakuno understood what he was trying to tell her. She nodded as she looked back to the wall and tried to hit the same target.

Just like how she witnessed Kanata for the first time two weeks ago, she was hitting the litter 'I' from the capitalized word 'WIN'. It was hard for she was doing it for two weeks. But then Kanata was helping her doing it.

…Her new friend that she met in that court two weeks ago.

She was only looking for a court to practice but she also found Kanata, a person who couldn't speak but good at playing tennis. She didn't know but she could get along with him at their first meeting. That was how their friendship started.

Staring at the target, she dribbled the ball once again and started hitting the ball on the wall.

Next Day:

"Mou! Why Obaa-chan didn't wake me up today?" Sakuno said as she tried to catch up for her first class. She overslept because she practiced all night in the court near their home. Sumire had given her the permission to stay until ten in the evening for she knew the location of the court.

The court was long abandoned and no one seemed to be playing in that area. Sakuno was shocked about the information. She told her grandmother about Kanata and to her surprise, her grandmother knew about him.

Why didn't she know about Kanata before?

She learned the information from Kanata himself that he didn't want to mingle with others so he preferred to stay in that court and play by himself.

Kanata was an introverted type of a person and it was lucky of her that he let her enter his closed space.

She quickly made her way to the locker room but before she could get there, she was almost bumped to a person.

"Hey! Watch where you are going!"

"G-gomen." She apologized at the sound of a girl's voice as she looked up.

…Only to be shocked.

It was Ryoma and Honoka who seemed to be shocked of seeing her as well. Honoka was the first one to recover;