Way Back Into Love

A Ryoma & Sakuno from The Prince of Tennis romance fanfic

By: Bunny

AN: This story is for fun and entertainment. I hope you get a kick out of reading it.

I don't use much Japanese in my fanfics, but there are a few things that just don't translate well, (including honorifics) so if you aren't familiar with them, here is the brief key:

Mada mada dane – this is Ryoma's catch phrase, though lots of other POT characters use it. The meaning is basically "not yet" "not good enough" or "you still have a ways to go." I think by those three phrases you can get the gist of the meaning of the idea behind the words.

Baka – idiot, dummy, et cetera.

Ano – a commonly used word whisper. The closest translation would be "um."

Mou - a word expressing frustration. Not in a minor cussing way like "damn" but more like saying "bother" or "sheesh."

Honorifics:

Honorifics are an important part of the Japanese language and are used to indicate relationship or status. When addressing someone in Japanese, and honorific usually takes the form of a suffix attached to one's name (example: "Echizen-san," would mean "Mr. Echizen"), or as a title at the end of one's name or in the place of the name itself (example: "Fuji-sempai," would mean "Upperclassman Fuji," or simply "Sempai!" meaning "Upperclassman!"). Honorifics can be expressions of respect or endearment. In an anime and/or manga they give insight into the nature of the relationship between characters.

-san: This is the most common honorific, and is equivalent to Mr., Miss, Ms., Mrs., etc. It is the all-purpose honorific that most will start out with when first meeting someone and until they feel comfortable using another term.

-kun: This suffix is used at the end of boys' names to express familiarity or endearment. It is also sometimes used by men among friends, or when addressing someone younger or of a lower station.

-chan: This is used to express endearment, mostly toward girls. It is also used for little boys, pets, and even among lovers. It gives a sense of childish cuteness.

Sempai: This title suggests that the addressee is one's senior in a group or organization. It is most often used in a school setting, where underclassmen refer to their upperclassmen as "sempai." It can also be used in the workplace, such as when a newer employee addresses and employee who has seniority in the company.

[No honorific: The lack of honorific means that the speaker has permission to address the person in a very intimate way. Usually, only family, spouses, or very close friends have this kind of permission. Known as yobisute, it can be gratifying when someone who has earned the intimacy starts to call one by one's name without an honorific. But when that intimacy hasn't been earned, it can also be very insulting.

Thanks to Del Rey manga publications for the honorifics explanations. This is not exact word for word, but I used their translation as a starting point for my explanations. To learn more about other honorifics and how they are used, I would Google "Japanese honorifics."

Also to be noted in address is that generally speaking a family name or "last name" is used with a suffix before a person's given name, which would denote further familiarity. So by word there is more familiarity from say Ryuzaki-san to Sakuno-san.

Disclaimer: The Prince of Tennis / Tenisu no Ōjisama is copyright Takeshi Konomi/Shueisha.

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Chapter One – A Wish for Something Old

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A twenty-two year old Ryuzaki Sakuno lay out on her queen size bed in her one-bedroom apartment contemplating the ceiling. It was a plain white ceiling with no interesting lamps or lighting or patterns to give it any form of character. When she had first moved into her apartment at eighteen it had been a beautiful dusty pink, she had thought it complimented her feminine room perfectly. It had made her inordinately happy to have a beautiful yet grown-up (in her 18 year old eyes) room in an apartment that was all for herself. She had shown it off to all her friends, her girlfriends, her sempai, her family and everybody had agreed that it suited her well.

That is, everybody except for Echizen Ryoma. Ryoma had complained about being in a girly, frilly room all the time.

After about a year of Ryoma whining about the pink and the lace and the stuffed animals and all the other feminine things she held dear in her room, she had repainted the room and packaged up and/or given away the lace and the animals and all the other girly things.

Not that it made a difference to Ryoma when all was said and done. She sacrificed for him, and he never took note of it. No, he only ever complained about the things he didn't like and never bothered to express the things he did.

Sakuno had reasoned that after dating for three years officially and having the intention to date for four years before that, she needed to accept Ryoma as a permanent part of her life and make the necessary adjustments that came with living with a man. After all, it was only a matter of time before they would be getting married (she had been sure) and then she would need to either make over the whole apartment for him anyways, or put her apartment back on the market to move to his place.

Three years later, Sakuno was still unmarried and didn't even have the pink ceiling as consolation for her not-going-anywhere-soon relationship.

She didn't get it. It wasn't like Ryoma was commitment phobic. He didn't even look at other girls, and he'd had a relationship with her for the past ten years. He seemed to enjoy her company, well, that is when they weren't fighting about marriage these days. He paid more attention to her then anybody else in his life…that meant something, right? But despite trying every single tried and true tactic in the book of "how to snag a man" Ryuzaki Sakuno was still alone, single, and in a not-going-anywhere-she-wanted-it-to-go relationship with Echizen Ryoma.

Oh, she was happy to have him in her life. Make no mistake in that. She would be absolutely devastated if he were to suddenly disappear from her life, or take up with a new girl or anything of that sort. But that wasn't her problem. Her problem was that they weren't married yet and it was way overdue. Why the hold up? It was obvious they would always be together, why not cement that in marriage and cut their costs by living together?

But Ryoma didn't want any of it. He wanted her all right, but he didn't want the distraction or the responsibility of a family. Even if the family was just a wife, it was too much for him. He was still 99 tennis and 1 to the rest of his life and Sakuno was sick and tired of being treated like she wasn't important and didn't matter! She mattered, ALL RIGHT!

She heaved a heartbroken sigh and wistfully recalled the old days. The good old days when they were twelve and had just met. Back then, Ryoma was her hero and he could do no wrong in her eyes. He'd generally ignored her back then, but she hadn't cared. To simply be in his presence and try to get his attention was enough for her back then. She was especially shy back then anyways, so it worked for them.

"Life was so much easier at twelve," she whispered to the white ceiling. She rolled to her side and flipped the lamp on her nightstand off. Burrowing under the covers, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. Her last thoughts being of a wish to be twelve and innocent again, to a time when there were no grown-up concerns, just Ryoma and tennis and trying desperately to get the attention of her prince.

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Sakuno woke to the feeling of having a hand soothing her hair down her back. 'Whaaaa?' her half awake, half asleep mind had just barely registered that she wasn't alone in bed.

"Grandma?" she heard her half-awake voice murmur in confusion.

There was a husky, definitely male chuckle above her and Sakuno's eyes flew open as she rolled onto her back in shock. Before she could identify the male intruder on her personal sanctuary – that is, her bedroom – she found herself being kissed. 'What? Who is kissing me?' her mind reeled in shock. Finding herself again, Sakuno pushed violently at the large form above her, trying desperately to disengage her lips from the strange man sticking his tongue in her mouth.

After a few seconds of struggle, the man seemed to get the hint and pulled back from her a bit, but before she had the chance to identify him he had stood up from the bed and walked to the doorway. "I guess you're still mad at me," she heard him comment.

"Still mad?" Sakuno echoed in confusion as she sat up, her eyes following the shadow making its way out of the room. Wait a minute, since when was her carpet cream colored? And since when was her door across from her bed like that? And since when did she have such a big bed? Scared, Sakuno jumped out of the bed only to be hit with another shock of her life. Since when was she so big? She scurried across the bed to the other side of the room where two large mirrors covered the sliding doors of what she could only imagine was a closest. She took a moment to examine herself in the mirror. She was still thin, but she was about a foot taller then last night before she went to bed, and what was this skimpy red practically see-through nightgown she was wearing? Sakuno lifted up a corner of the skirt in awe of it as she tried to figure out what she would be doing wearing such a thing. Before she could finish her examination, the strange man appeared in the doorway asking, "Are you going to stare at yourself in the mirror all day, Sakuno?"

Shocked by being in a foreign room with a bigger body, Sakuno didn't even have the capacity to consider her modesty as she turned her head to the man and blinked. He was tall and athletic with dark hair hanging over his cat-shaped hazel eyes and a knowing smirk on his face. He looked older, for sure, but there was no mistaking that face and that look. She dropped the corner of her skirt and questioned, "Ryoma-kun?"

Ryoma-kun? Ryoma took a step back and furrowed his eyebrow in puzzlement. Why did she look so unsettled? "Are you okay?" he asked.

Sakuno slowly shook her head as large tears began to form in her big brown eyes. What in the world had happened to her?

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End Chapter One