Overall disclaimer: I do not own the characters in theses letters. I am just using them for fun. No profit is being made from these.

Author's Notes: These are being written for the 10letters challenge on Livejournal. They are going to tell the story of Shinji and Ryoma's growing relationship through a series of letters, not through traditional narrative. It's different, yes, but I'm having fun with it, and so I want to share it!

Title: Starting Out
Rating: G
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Character: Ibu Shinji/Echizen Ryoma
Author's Notes: First letter, from Shinji to Ryoma.

Echizen,

I hope you don't mind my writing to you like this, but that one sempai of yours…Fuji, you know, the creepy one that never opens his eyes, was handing out your address saying that you were terribly homesick, which seems weird to me, because weren't you from America in the first place, but I suppose your sempai wouldn't be handing out your address if it weren't true, so since you seem to need to hear from people, I guess I can write you. It might be interesting, too, writing to someone in a different country. I've never done that before.

How is the tennis over there? After Nationals, I can't see how it could be terribly challenging to you, but since I never played tennis over there, I guess I wouldn't know, but I guess it could be challenging, though I doubt it since you don't seem to find too much challenging, it's really a shame, because you might be cute if you weren't so cocky.

Tachibana-san was just reading this over my shoulder, which I think is rude, but since it's Tachibana-san, I can forgive him. He said I'm doing this wrong, but I do not understand that, because I'm not sure if there is a wrong way to write a letter, but Tachibana-san seems to think there is. Do you think this letter is wrong, Echizen? Of course, to answer that you're going to have to write me back. But isn't that what you're supposed to do with a letter, respond to it? It'd be rude to not, but you can be rude, so maybe….

Tachibana-san says that's enough. So I'm going to end this now.

--Ibu Shinji

P.S.: What's the grip tape like in America?