Prince Of Tennis Fan Fiction ❯ Encounters of Another Kind - Part 2 ❯ Couts and Courtship ( Chapter 3 )

Encounters of Another Kind Part 2

An An and Hiyoshi Story

By Andrea Readwolf [andrea_readwolf @hotmail.com]

Chapter: 3

Rating: PG-13

Pairings: Tachibana An and Wakashi Hiyoshi

Genre: AU, Humor, Romance, Seduction

Warnings: Underage characters situations of self-discovery. Characters are written in character according to author's interpretation.

Spoilers: none to my knowledge

Summary: Another chance encounter between two very antagonistic personalities.

Disclaimer: Tennis no Ohjisama, characters and settings are the property of Konomi Takeshi.

Date Started: August 15, 2004

Status: chapter complete

Revised: November 18, 2004

Word Count: 685

~Courts and Courtship~

An was almost ready to call it a conspiracy when one week later a new face showed up at the street courts.

She had always liked the street tennis courts because of their central location--the park was near both her housing district and school as well as being easily accessible to other schools. The surrounding neighborhood was a decent subdivision of the city, which meant there was usually at least one or two people around to play after school hours. Of course, sometimes, there were a lot more than one or two players.

Originally, the park had been a meeting place for Shinji and Akira. Then Akira had brought An along with him one time, and An had just taken to the area like a duck introduced to water. It was practically her home away from home now--one of her most favorite places to be.

Then Seigaku had started showing up. Not the entire team. No, mostly just Echizen and Momoshiro--and then, seemingly, everyone else started to follow.

Suddenly members from all the rival teams would just seem to pop in occasionally at any given time for no apparent reason. From Hyotei to Saint Rudolph, Joysei to Yamabuchi---and even some members from the teams outside of Tokyo!

The street courts became a meeting place and a hang out area to a hodgepodge of junior high school tennis players.

But An had never seen his face show up here in all that time. Not even that one time when the entire Hyotei tennis team had made a special appearance. At least she didn't remember if he had.

She excused herself from a group of friends. He was looking around at the surroundings like he didn't know what to think of them, and she couldn't help but grin as she approached him. An waited until he'd spotted her before calling out in greeting.

"What's a snotty-nosed rich boy like you doing mingling out here with the masses?"

Hiyoshi froze, frowning at her before forcibly relaxing. "Broadening my perspective of life," he answered, and An laughed.

She held up her racket. "Care to play a game with me?"

"Sounds promising," Hiyoshi replied, smiling just a little as he gave An the once over, up and down look. An returned the gesture, taking her time to get her full look of the young man before her, unconsciously shifting her body into a naturally provocative pose. "Hope you can keep up," she challenged.

"Shouldn't that be my line?" Hiyoshi asked, mildly amused despite himself as An strode purposefully onto one of the free courts.

"I'm not the one who looked like a fool playing Echizen last week," she retorted, throwing a tennis ball up to serve.

"A fool?" Hiyoshi actually sputtered, racing up to the net to meet the ball. With a sweet thwop, he sent it whizzing back into the corner and was surprised when An was there to catch and return it.

"You'll have to play better than that, Wakashi!" she shouted over the net as the small yellow ball bounced away from the Hyotei captain's reach. "I may be a girl," An grinned at him, "But I've been playing tennis all my life."

Hiyoshi shook his head as if to clear it of the cobwebs of surprise. "Just remember that you asked for it," he called back to her, resettling himself into position.

*

It was the third time running into each other at the street courts, after one of their matches, that Hiyoshi managed to work up the gumption to ask, "Would you like some ice cream? My treat."

"You mean, like a date?" An half-laughed, half-gasped for breath as she trotted off the court and snatch up her towel.

"Yes."

An paused in the process of wiping her face and turned to look at him assessing. And then the smile returned to her face and she nodded. "Sure," she answered, turning away to hide her increasing smile. "I'd like that."

"Good," he answered, turning away to hide the tiny smile he couldn't seem to banish from his face.

~~~~*****~~~~~

AN: Short part this time. Gomen.