fic
So...I posted this to tenipuri a few weeks ago, and figured I should probably post it here. It was supposed to be your average 20 things fic, but then it developed plot, and said plot demanded to be resolved. So now I don't know what it is.
1. He doesn't like grapes. It took a vending machine with nothing else in it to get him to try grape Ponta.
2. At night, when Ryoma can't sleep, he sometimes wonders what would have happened if he had never moved back to Japan. Never gone to Seigaku, never been brought to his knees on a ratty, dirt-covered court under the train tracks (by a kid, just a kid only a few years older than him, he'd beaten them before why couldn't he now what was wrong with him and why was the other boy looking at him like that), never learned how to fight for a victory, to throw everything and more into a game until he was flying, flying and nothing mattered but to just keep breathing and moving and not backing down. What would have happened if his tennis had only been sly smiles and mocking laughter and endless frustration.
It scares him more than he's willing to admit.
3. After the desperate, blistering rush of Kantou Daikai and Nationals that is his first year of middle school, his second year is saved only by the fact that Kaidoh-senpai and Momo-senpai do manage to get the club to Nationals, where there are at least the remnants of last years teams to give him a challenge. Ryoma's third year is marked only by endless amounts of paperwork and solid boredom. He itches for weekends when he can usually manage to drag members of his team (his real team, his proper team, not the idiots he's leading who barely know one end of the racket from the other) out to the street courts for a few matches so he doesn't lose his edge.
4. He's not quite sure when they became 'his' team.
5. Ryoma doesn't go pro right after middle school, which comes as quite a shock to everyone around him. He tells his parents (his father, numerous times) and his freshman friends that there's no point when he can't enter any of the serious tournaments until he turns sixteen. When he comes home his second week of school with a Seigaku High regulars jersey tucked under one arm and a grin that he can't seem to hide despite years of perfecting his detached expressions, his mother arches one eyebrow and he realizes he's not fooling anyone.
6. When he's standing with his team (and they are his, they are, even if he doesn't know why that's so important or when it started), ready to walk onto the court for the first regional match of the year, with Momo-senpai on one side, and Fuji-senpai on the other, and Buchou in front of him, and the roar of Kawamura-senpai's cheering ringing in his ears, breathless with anticipation and the beginnings of a familiar fiery stubbornness, he knows he made the right choice.
7. It takes a month before he realizes that high school tennis, despite the familiarity of the opponents, is nonetheless not quite the same as middle school. He realizes this after overhearing part of a conversation between Dan Taichi from Yamabuki and Rikkai-dai's Yanagi Renji :
"Your doubles players are sleeping together?" Dan yelped.
"Yours aren't?" Yanagi asked, amused. "No wonder you lost so badly."
It's cemented by following golden pair after one of their wins and seeing Oishi-senpai push Eiji-senpai up against a wall (he made a hasty retreat as soon as that happened - they could damn well wait for their water, no matter what Momo-senpai said). He firmly decides that it is none of his business if his senpai all want to go mad, he doesn't see the point of it, and it's not like he plays doubles anyways.
8. Three weeks later, as he's walking up to the net after a particularly exhilarating loss to Tezuka, he finds himself wondering what would happen if instead of a handshake, he reached up and pulled his Buchou down for a kiss.
9. He spends the rest of the afternoon and evening in a state of quiet panic (not because Tezuka-buchou's a boy, he's always been fairly open-minded and anyway girls squeal to much, but because it's his Buchou, dammit) and it is only the thought of how much trouble he would be in if he skipped that makes him attend practice the next day.
10. Later in the week he wakes up sweating and shaking and panting as though he just did thirty laps and all he can remember is Buchou's eyes and voice and Ryoma wonders vaguely if he's going insane, because this never happened in middle school.
11. Ryoma thinks there are two types of tennis players. There are those who play because it's fun, or because they want to win, or because they're good at it, or for any number of reasons. They just play. And then there are those like Buchou. or Yukimura. The ones that could no more stop playing then they could stop breathing.
He thinks sometimes he'd count himself in the second group, and then realizes what that means and stops thinking about it.
12. They take nationals again that year, facing old and new opponents and meeting Rikkai-dai for the finals in a match that blurs time in a most disconcerting way and makes Ryoma wish he had a headache to explain why he keeps seeing three year old matches layered over the current ones.
13. He sulks for a week prior to finals because Buchou puts him in singles two.
14. It's worth it when every second of Buchou's match with Yukimura leaves him gripping the bench and gasping for air and wishing wishing to be in Yukimura's spot, in Tezuka's place, on that court anywhere because he's never seen either of them play like this and oh how he wants it.
15. After the games are done and the bows are over, Yukimura catches his eye and smiles slightly and his eyes say See you in the pro circuit and Ryoma grins back, feral and determined and thinks Yes. Yes you will.
16. The bus ride back is quiet, and he can't figure out why until he realizes that this is it. This is the end of the Seigaku Regulars, the end of his team, and suddenly it's all he can do not to stand up and shout for the bus to turn around, to go back, because he doesn't want it to be over.
17. Ryoma will never admit to respecting Atobe Keigo, just a little. Never never never.
He also will never forgive the other boy for deliberately injuring Tezuka's shoulder all those years ago.
18. The celebration party at Kawamura Sushi (because even after all these years the parties are still at Kawamura Sushi, Kawamura-sempai's lack of team status notwithstanding) is just as loud and noisy and random as every other party that involves more than five members of the tennis circuit. Hyoutei has been there for an hour already, Shitenhouji had arrived half an hour before them, the majority of Fudomine and various members of other Kantou teams have been in the restaurant since the beginning and half of Rikkaidai just walked in trailed by the entirety of the Higa High team- which didn't make any sense because since when did Higa players spend time with Rikkaidai players and why weren't they on the plane back to Okinawa yet and why does every party always end up like this? Sooner or later Kawamura-sempai and his father are going to run out of food and space and they may well be breaking the fire codes already.
So when Ryoma catches a glimpse of Tezuka slipping out a side door, he makes like a good little kohai and follows him.
It absolutely has nothing to do with the fact that he gets claustrophobic when there are more then five people within a two feet radius.
19. Tezuka is leaning against the wall a little ways down from the door when Ryoma finally manages to worm his way out of the room. He shoves his hands in his pockets and walks over to stand in front of his Buchou. Tezuka watches him, eyes calm behind his glasses. He doesn't speak. The door finally slides shut, cutting off the noise of the party and leaving Ryoma and Tezuka in near total silence.
Something in Ryoma snaps then, and everything, everything from the day just hits him at once - Tezuka's game with Yukimura, winning nationals, realizing that this is it, its over, his childhood is over, he's going pro, oh god what if he's not ready and all of a sudden he's reaching up and grabbing onto Tezuka's collar and pulling down and then pressing his lips to his Buchou's like he's wanted to do for weeks and please please please but Tezuka is frozen, stiff and not moving and so he pulls away and starts to let go and maybe it's a good thing it's over
and then an arm goes around his waist and he's pulled hard against a solid body and Tezuka's mouth is on his hot and fierce and Ryoma's arms go back up around his Buchou's neck and he clings and it's like Muga no Kyouchi all he can do is feel and react except its better - better than any match he's ever played, better than any match he will play and he never ever ever wants it to end.
20. What scares him more than anything else in the world is the idea that after everything that happened his freshman years of middle and high school, the pro-tennis circuit will be boring.
1. He doesn't like grapes. It took a vending machine with nothing else in it to get him to try grape Ponta.
2. At night, when Ryoma can't sleep, he sometimes wonders what would have happened if he had never moved back to Japan. Never gone to Seigaku, never been brought to his knees on a ratty, dirt-covered court under the train tracks (by a kid, just a kid only a few years older than him, he'd beaten them before why couldn't he now what was wrong with him and why was the other boy looking at him like that), never learned how to fight for a victory, to throw everything and more into a game until he was flying, flying and nothing mattered but to just keep breathing and moving and not backing down. What would have happened if his tennis had only been sly smiles and mocking laughter and endless frustration.
It scares him more than he's willing to admit.
3. After the desperate, blistering rush of Kantou Daikai and Nationals that is his first year of middle school, his second year is saved only by the fact that Kaidoh-senpai and Momo-senpai do manage to get the club to Nationals, where there are at least the remnants of last years teams to give him a challenge. Ryoma's third year is marked only by endless amounts of paperwork and solid boredom. He itches for weekends when he can usually manage to drag members of his team (his real team, his proper team, not the idiots he's leading who barely know one end of the racket from the other) out to the street courts for a few matches so he doesn't lose his edge.
4. He's not quite sure when they became 'his' team.
5. Ryoma doesn't go pro right after middle school, which comes as quite a shock to everyone around him. He tells his parents (his father, numerous times) and his freshman friends that there's no point when he can't enter any of the serious tournaments until he turns sixteen. When he comes home his second week of school with a Seigaku High regulars jersey tucked under one arm and a grin that he can't seem to hide despite years of perfecting his detached expressions, his mother arches one eyebrow and he realizes he's not fooling anyone.
6. When he's standing with his team (and they are his, they are, even if he doesn't know why that's so important or when it started), ready to walk onto the court for the first regional match of the year, with Momo-senpai on one side, and Fuji-senpai on the other, and Buchou in front of him, and the roar of Kawamura-senpai's cheering ringing in his ears, breathless with anticipation and the beginnings of a familiar fiery stubbornness, he knows he made the right choice.
7. It takes a month before he realizes that high school tennis, despite the familiarity of the opponents, is nonetheless not quite the same as middle school. He realizes this after overhearing part of a conversation between Dan Taichi from Yamabuki and Rikkai-dai's Yanagi Renji :
"Your doubles players are sleeping together?" Dan yelped.
"Yours aren't?" Yanagi asked, amused. "No wonder you lost so badly."
It's cemented by following golden pair after one of their wins and seeing Oishi-senpai push Eiji-senpai up against a wall (he made a hasty retreat as soon as that happened - they could damn well wait for their water, no matter what Momo-senpai said). He firmly decides that it is none of his business if his senpai all want to go mad, he doesn't see the point of it, and it's not like he plays doubles anyways.
8. Three weeks later, as he's walking up to the net after a particularly exhilarating loss to Tezuka, he finds himself wondering what would happen if instead of a handshake, he reached up and pulled his Buchou down for a kiss.
9. He spends the rest of the afternoon and evening in a state of quiet panic (not because Tezuka-buchou's a boy, he's always been fairly open-minded and anyway girls squeal to much, but because it's his Buchou, dammit) and it is only the thought of how much trouble he would be in if he skipped that makes him attend practice the next day.
10. Later in the week he wakes up sweating and shaking and panting as though he just did thirty laps and all he can remember is Buchou's eyes and voice and Ryoma wonders vaguely if he's going insane, because this never happened in middle school.
11. Ryoma thinks there are two types of tennis players. There are those who play because it's fun, or because they want to win, or because they're good at it, or for any number of reasons. They just play. And then there are those like Buchou. or Yukimura. The ones that could no more stop playing then they could stop breathing.
He thinks sometimes he'd count himself in the second group, and then realizes what that means and stops thinking about it.
12. They take nationals again that year, facing old and new opponents and meeting Rikkai-dai for the finals in a match that blurs time in a most disconcerting way and makes Ryoma wish he had a headache to explain why he keeps seeing three year old matches layered over the current ones.
13. He sulks for a week prior to finals because Buchou puts him in singles two.
14. It's worth it when every second of Buchou's match with Yukimura leaves him gripping the bench and gasping for air and wishing wishing to be in Yukimura's spot, in Tezuka's place, on that court anywhere because he's never seen either of them play like this and oh how he wants it.
15. After the games are done and the bows are over, Yukimura catches his eye and smiles slightly and his eyes say See you in the pro circuit and Ryoma grins back, feral and determined and thinks Yes. Yes you will.
16. The bus ride back is quiet, and he can't figure out why until he realizes that this is it. This is the end of the Seigaku Regulars, the end of his team, and suddenly it's all he can do not to stand up and shout for the bus to turn around, to go back, because he doesn't want it to be over.
17. Ryoma will never admit to respecting Atobe Keigo, just a little. Never never never.
He also will never forgive the other boy for deliberately injuring Tezuka's shoulder all those years ago.
18. The celebration party at Kawamura Sushi (because even after all these years the parties are still at Kawamura Sushi, Kawamura-sempai's lack of team status notwithstanding) is just as loud and noisy and random as every other party that involves more than five members of the tennis circuit. Hyoutei has been there for an hour already, Shitenhouji had arrived half an hour before them, the majority of Fudomine and various members of other Kantou teams have been in the restaurant since the beginning and half of Rikkaidai just walked in trailed by the entirety of the Higa High team- which didn't make any sense because since when did Higa players spend time with Rikkaidai players and why weren't they on the plane back to Okinawa yet and why does every party always end up like this? Sooner or later Kawamura-sempai and his father are going to run out of food and space and they may well be breaking the fire codes already.
So when Ryoma catches a glimpse of Tezuka slipping out a side door, he makes like a good little kohai and follows him.
It absolutely has nothing to do with the fact that he gets claustrophobic when there are more then five people within a two feet radius.
19. Tezuka is leaning against the wall a little ways down from the door when Ryoma finally manages to worm his way out of the room. He shoves his hands in his pockets and walks over to stand in front of his Buchou. Tezuka watches him, eyes calm behind his glasses. He doesn't speak. The door finally slides shut, cutting off the noise of the party and leaving Ryoma and Tezuka in near total silence.
Something in Ryoma snaps then, and everything, everything from the day just hits him at once - Tezuka's game with Yukimura, winning nationals, realizing that this is it, its over, his childhood is over, he's going pro, oh god what if he's not ready and all of a sudden he's reaching up and grabbing onto Tezuka's collar and pulling down and then pressing his lips to his Buchou's like he's wanted to do for weeks and please please please but Tezuka is frozen, stiff and not moving and so he pulls away and starts to let go and maybe it's a good thing it's over
and then an arm goes around his waist and he's pulled hard against a solid body and Tezuka's mouth is on his hot and fierce and Ryoma's arms go back up around his Buchou's neck and he clings and it's like Muga no Kyouchi all he can do is feel and react except its better - better than any match he's ever played, better than any match he will play and he never ever ever wants it to end.
20. What scares him more than anything else in the world is the idea that after everything that happened his freshman years of middle and high school, the pro-tennis circuit will be boring.