Tennis no Ojou-sama: A Prince of Tennis Fan Fiction

CHAPTER 118: Accidental Kiss

Grumbling, he got out of the bathtub and started drying off. In about ten minutes, he was climbing down the stairs towards the living room, a cotton towel slung casually over one shoulder. He lifted an end of it occasionally and rubbed his wet hair with the fabric.

"Had enough water Mr. Mer-prince?" Nanjiro said upon seeing his son.

"More than enough to drown myself into," Ryoma answered his father's sarcastic question with a rather truthful statement. He left out the sarcasm since he did almost drown in the tub.

"The two of you stop trying to one-up each other and get over here. Dinner's ready," Rinko ordered, her tone sharp. Father and son dragged their feet towards the dinner table obediently.

Karupin ate his dinner by the side of Ryoma's chair and his humans have also started eating peacefully.

"I heard that Seishun Academy's cultural fest just started today. Your school must be quite famous all over the city for me to overhear some store owners talking about it," Nanako commented.

Ryoma chewed on the end of a tempura and nodded. "Seishun's the biggest school around here so yeah," he answered simply.

"What is your class doing for the festival?" Rinko asked eagerly. Her son rarely ever talks about his activities in school and she felt rather detached to him in that area. She's too busy at work to supervise him at home and is feeling that she's rather an irresponsible mother for putting her work before him. He is such a mature child that he never makes any situation for his parents to worry. Rinko doesn't know if she's relieved or saddened by that fact. Sometimes, she wants to see her son acting like a normal teenager and not a twenty-year-old young man trapped inside a twelve-year-old's body.

"Café," Ryoma answered. He lifted his eyes and saw that his three elders are looking rather pissed at his short reply.

"An English-styled Cosplay Café," he elaborated, trying to pacify them. "We're cosplaying characters from the Robin Hood play that we'll be performing on Saturday," he told them rather impulsively.

Suddenly, he began immersing himself with his dinner. He has said a word to many and cursed himself silently. Why did he have to mention the Robin Hood play? Ryouko mentioned it to his old man on the day she visited their house.

Ryoma took a tentative look at his father. Nanjiro just nodded solemnly and crammed two pieces of tempura in his mouth. Good. His father's too dumb to still remember what Ryouko said.

"That sounds wonderful!" Nanako commented, clapping her hands together. "I sure hope the professors will give us extra time before going back to campus. I can invite some friends over and take a look at your class booth."

Rinko reached out an open palm towards her son all of a sudden. Ryoma looked at it questioningly then shifted his eyes at his mother.

"Do you need me to pass you something, Kaa-san?" he asked.

Rinko looked rather cross. "Pictures!" she said, sounding like a child demanding for candy. "You said you cosplayed. You must've taken pictures."

"Right now?" Ryoma said in complaint. "We're having dinner," he added matter-of-factly, sounding more like the adult in the table.

"None of your fussing. Let me see a photo of my son in his costume," Rinko replied.

"I don't have any," Ryoma lied through his teeth.

"Then contact one of your classmates who have one and ask him to send the picture to your messages," Rinko pointed out with an if-there's-a-will-there's-a-way kind of tone.

Ryoma sighed and abandoned the table to fetch his phone. He didn't have to contact anyone to get a photo of him in the Robin Hood costume.

Before working in the class booth, each of the waiters and waitresses had to surrender their mobile phones to Aoki Kurumi in the counter and it seemed like while he was busy working, Aoki snuck his phone out and took countless pictures of him, almost filling up his memory card. He never bothered to place security locks in his phone because he doesn't really care if people try and go through it but now he saw why it was necessary. Some people just have the habit of invading other's privacy.