💌 Chapter 5: “Date Me, You Absolute Emotional Wreck”
Ryoma Echizen was Not Having Feelings.
He wasn’t.
He was simply… responding to stimuli. Strategizing. Executing a mission. A game plan, if you will. Something tennis-related and non-romantic and definitely NOT a full-blown mental breakdown in a stylish jacket.
OPERATION: MAKE THE HUMAN EMBODIMENT OF SOCIAL ANXIETY UNDERSTAND THAT SHE IS THE REASON THE SUN SHINES.
Codename: Secretly In Love But Would Rather Die Than Admit It Out Loud.
And it all began at their usual battlefield: the Seigaku tennis courts.
Sunny afternoon. Slight breeze. He didn’t plan for the breeze but now it was working overtime to blow Sakuno’s cardigan like it was a Studio Ghibli wind tunnel, so fine. Bonus points.
“Let’s rally,” Ryoma, the literal tennis prodigy, said, bouncing a ball like it had wronged him. “You hit ten returns in a row… I owe you anything.”
Sakuno blinked at him like he just proposed a blood pact. “A-anything?”
He nodded. “Even if it’s stupid.”
She visibly short-circuited. Blushed like she got caught shoplifting a crush. But she stepped forward. Grip steady. Breath uneven. Cheeks red.
And she hit the first ball.
Then the second.
Then the third.
Ryoma raised a brow.
By the seventh shot, his smirk had evaporated.
By the tenth, his soul had ascended from the literal cuteness of her unbalanced form. Did he totally purposely let her win so he can continue his plan? Absolutely yes. But was he gonna let HER find out? Absolutely not.
The last return landed with a satisfying thwack.
“…Ten,” she whispered, cheeks burning, sweat dripping. “I… I did it?”
Ryoma just stood there, blinking, trying not to smile. “Yeah.”
She looked up. Smiled. That small, shy, gut-punch of a smile that made him forget what oxygen was.
“I want you to surprise me.”
.
🎨 Part Two: Surprise, You’re Soft
Because of COURSE Ryoma knows secret spots. Of COURSE he finds the cherry blossom park behind the practice courts. Of COURSE there’s a bench. Of COURSE petals are falling like emotionally manipulative glitter bombs.
Petals falling like pastel confetti. The kind of setting that made soundtracks appear in the background.
They sat on a bench.
Yes. That bench.
Sakuno tucked her cardigan tighter around her, a little flustered, a little curious.
And then Ryoma reached into his bag.
Pulled something out.
Something… pink.
Joy. The diary. Her soul in sticker form. That he absolutely DID NOT steal from her locker cause he wanted to read more. (Spoiler Alert : He totally did)
Sakuno’s eyes widened. “Wha — ”
“I read it,” he said. “All of it.”
She. Froze. Entire nervous system? Shut down.
He rubbed the back of his neck like this wasn’t mortifying for both of them. “Even the red page.”
Joy, if she had legs, would’ve drop-kicked him into the sun.
“I… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. I just — what you wrote. It wasn’t dumb. It wasn’t drama. It — ” He exhaled. “It mattered. Because you matter.”
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Sakuno’s eyes glossed over like she was one deep breath away from shoujo crying.
But then.
THEN.
He added, like a smug little punk:
“…Also, you called me ‘cutie-patootie tennis goblin’ in one of your poems. I have questions.”
AND THAT WAS IT. THAT WAS THE END. HER SOUL LEFT THE CHAT.
“OH MY GOD,” she squeaked. “You saw that one?!”
He nodded. Smirking again. Of course.
“But…” he said, softer now. “My favorite part wasn’t even about me.”
She blinked. “Huh?”
He looked down at Joy, flipping to a dog-eared, glitter-stained page.
“You called Joy your girlfriend. You said you loved her because she listened. Because she understood. Because she let you be the full version of you.”
He looked up.
“That made sense to me. Because you deserve someone who listens. Someone who sees you. All of you.”
Sakuno.exe crashed. Again. Completely.
And just as she tried to breathe through this atomic bomb of validation:
“…About that red page,” she muttered.
He tilted his head. “Yeah?”
“I, uh… I wrote that last year. When I was on my period.”
Ryoma’s brain: [BUFFERING]
“You’re — what — ???”
“Yeah. Cramps. And I spilled tea on my math homework. I was, like, peak Shakespearean tragedy. So I wrote a monologue about how the universe hated me.”
Ryoma: Dead.
Ryoma’s pride: Also dead.
“YOU MADE ME CRY OVER PMS POETRY?!”
She just giggled. Like a Disney princess with a dark sense of humor, but still somehow looking like that familiar shy cottagecore queen she was. “Awwww… You cried?”
Ryoma turned red. Like emergency fire hydrant red. “Shut up.”
And then.
In a moment where she herself didn't know what on Earth she was thinking.
She leaned in.
Soft. Gentle. Like punctuation at the end of an essay titled “THIS IS WHAT LOVE LOOKS LIKE.”
She kissed his cheek.
A spark. A pause. A blush so deep it needed its own weather report.
“Thanks for caring,” she whispered, struggling to even maintain eye-contact, “cutie-patootie tennis goblin.”
And that was the moment Ryoma decided:
Yeah. He was in love.
Deep, dangerous, no-coming-back love.
Now if only he could survive it.
