Title: Girl Talk
Fandom: Prince of Tennis: Fudomine Chuugaku
Characters: An, Tomoka, Sengoku, Kirihara
Prompt: 005 - Outsides
Word Count: 643
Date finished: 05/01/2007
Rating: G
Summary: An gets to know one of Ryoma's cheerleaders.
Author's Notes: Yep, another from the Crack Generator (that thing is absolutely addictive!): An/Tomoka - Camp. So it takes place during the Junior Selection camp, because I'm lame and can't think of any other camp where they'd actually run into each other!
Disclaimer: Characters are owned by Konomi Takeshi, and whoever did the anime. At any rate, it's not me.

Tachibana An had never really gotten to know Osakada Tomoka like she had Ryuzaki Sakuno until the Junior Selection Camp.

Certainly she knew who the girl was; she was hard to miss at any of the Seigaku matches, rooting for Echizen and snubbing the reporter, Shiba-san. An generally steered clear of the reporters, except the one time she'd spoken to Inoue-san about her brother's team.

She found the girl to be as loud in her private life as she was on the sidelines of the courts; it was strange, but An found she liked the girl anyway.

In some ways, it was like hanging around Shinji, which was familiar if nothing else, because she just talked. Incessantly. Mostly about Ryoma. Shinji had had his monologues about the freshman player as well, but the Fudomine player rarely had good to say. Well, that wasn't exactly true.

At any rate, it wasn't hard to listen to the girl go on and on and on; the only time she didn't talk about him was when Sakuno was with them, and that was only because she tried to get Sakuno to talk about him.

An was much more comfortable around Sakuno, but in general, the three of them hung out a lot. It was a lot of fun, actually, to be around girls instead of always boys - even if half the time they were dodging away from Horio Satoshi and his boasts.

They could hear him coming, speaking loudly to the two that always followed him - although An was never sure why. Tomo groaned. "Again? Does he follow us or something?" she muttered, grabbed An's arm, and pulled her down the next hallway.

"It's probably not me," An said with a grin as she followed Tomo - the girl was bossy, and that was probably why Sakuno hid nearly as much from her while they were here. "If he tried anything, he'd get a couple of very irate boys down on him."

Tomo sighed. "It must be nice," she said as they slipped down the stairs to the next floor. "Ryoma-sama doesn't do anything to keep people from bugging me."

An snorted softly. "It's not," she said. "It gets frustrating, because they seem to think I can't take care of myself."

Tomo turned to her. "Really? I've always wanted an older brother. Mine are so much younger that I usually feel like nothing more than an unpaid babysitter."

She hadn't thought of that. "That must be hard," she said as they passed by Kirihara, who was trying to get in his room. "I'm the youngest, so I guess that's how my brother probably felt, even if there is only one year between us."

Tomo nodded, uncharacteristically silent, until they were back in the main hall. Then she shuddered. "I don't like him," she said softly. "He hurt Fuji-senpai."

An nodded. "Yeah. He's good at that." But that wasn't what she wanted to talk about, either. "I guess this is like a vacation for you, then, right?" she teased lightly as they headed outside and the round-about way to the kitchen.

Tomo laughed. "Oh, yeah. Taking care of the big kids instead of the little ones."

"Who are you calling big kids?" a gruff voice asked, and they both started and turned around.

"You," An said archly, grinning at Sengoku Kiyosumi. "All of you boys."

He chuckled, and then cleared his throat. "Well, that didn't work," he said in a more normal tone. "I'm looking for Kirihara-kun - have you seen him?"

"He was trying to get into his room a moment ago," Tomo said, sounding quite subdued. An rolled her eyes.

"All right. See you ladies later." He sauntered off, and An let out a chuckle.

"That one is going to be trouble in a few years," she said softly.

Tomo laughed. "He already is." An had to agree.

Fudomine Table | Challenge Main

Home | Stories | Links | Contact me