On the Ninth Day of Fic-mas
On the ninth day of Fic-mas Dria wrote Silver Pair cute-ness for izzyntsherandom and it went on and on and on... I don't know quite how I managed it, but this is the longest Fic-mas fic (4,000+ words) apart from the one KY's getting (but that wasn't specifically written for Fic-mas because it's something I've been working on for ages and ages and finally finished last night because... well, I really don't write smut ^^;)
Anyway. Four thousand words of Christmas cute-ness *nods*
Title: Under Snow
Pairing: Silver Pair (background Oshitari/Gakuto, Atobe-as-a-pillow/Jiroh, some stupid girl who can't see that Oshitari is so obviously not straight/Oshitari)
Requested by: izzntsherandom
Summary: ... I can't summarise this. It's apparently six years since middle school, Ohtori and Shishido don't play together anymore but everyone still seems to be friends and there's probably a lot of factual errors (I've never written Silver Pair before so don't kill me). Just enjoy it!
Ohtori is humming.
It takes Shishido a moment or two to figure out what the tune is and when he realises it’s one of those dreadfully popular sappy Christmas songs that are played on endless repeats in stores this time of year, he has to join in.
Ohtori breaks off to laugh at him because Shishido is slurring the words he can remember and making words up to fill the bits he can’t. Shishido simply frowns at him as he keeps on singing, not loudly, he isn’t drunk enough to think that he sounds any good, but it still counts as singing all the same. After a moment or two more of laughter, Ohtori gives up and joins in for the chorus, cheeks flushing despite the wintry chill but still glad that he forgot his gloves when Shishido’s unstable wavering walk brings the backs of their hands into frequent contact. It’s just a brush of knuckles over cold skin, but when the rest of his friend is buried beneath multiple woollen layers it feels strangely intimate.
Such an idea is ridiculous, even insane, given the place they’ve just left. Atobe’s Annual Christmas Party, now verging on legendry proportions despite only being held twice before, had been heated, crowded and noisy. The alcohol had been flowing generously as had the food and music, all swirling round the friends who’d done their best to keep in touch but somehow hadn’t done a very good job of it.
It was easy for Atobe of course, his job description may simply be “university student” these days but he still had three secretaries to keep his life organised and dispatch frequent missives to his friends that he would occasionally dictate and even more rarely sign. Gakuto had proven to be strangely clingy in that he didn’t let any of his old school friends forget about him because he sent bi-weekly emails and Oshitari must have his phone permanently glued to his ear given how, every time Ohtori did manage to speak to him, he informed Ohtori that yes he had spoken to so-and-so only the other day thank you. Hiyoshi wrote letters, two sides of A5 every other week which read so much like a report the weird bits of humour always threw Ohtori when he received them. Jiroh was fond of exchanging phone calls even if he did fall asleep during them and Kabaji was another punctual correspondent, which just left Shishido who... wasn’t.
Phone calls or emails, occasionally a letter that always began with an apology; Ohtori knew he couldn’t complain when he was just as bad at keeping tabs on his friend and former doubles partner. But it bothered him that of all his former tennis friends, it should be a certain Shishido Ryo who proved the most elusive. It also bothered him that excuses were so easy to make as to why he wasn’t doing a better job of staying in touch with Shishido himself, he didn’t have that many distractions and what was so hard about writing a letter or even an email? Yet somehow it always turned into a chore, the pleasure sucked out of it because procrastination had made him feel guilty. And... and somehow, because he had to explain things that he knew Shishido would have found funny if he’d been there but probably wouldn’t understand because he hadn’t, because he had to reiterate who the people in his life were when they were persons who hadn’t known him half as long or half as well as Shishido had, because it all seemed so terribly dull and unimportant when he actually tried to put words onto a page, somehow he lost the urge to do it and ended up sending something that said nothing and meant even less but which got sent simply to alleviate the guilt.
And then something like this would happen. There’d be some event, some get together, some anniversary that Atobe would decide deserved commemorating or some achievement of somebody’s that Atobe would mark with a dinner, and they’d be together again. Apologies first, every single time, faltering and embarrassed as they both said what idiots they’d been for slipping up. Again. Then they’d laugh, it was inevitable after they’d fumbled around for a little while, both saying the same thing in different ways. They’d laugh, Shishido would say, "Atobe’s got to have something half decent to drink somewhere round here," and that would be it, it would be as though no time had passed between one meeting and the next. Physical changes aside (Shishido’s growth spurt being the most obvious one), the conversation and the ease with which it happened might have placed them back in middle school again rather than six years down the line.
Tonight had been the same. The same conversation, the same drinking and teasing, the same cautiously casual questions about relationships that somehow brought the same dismissive answers, "Do I look like I have time to put up with some girl hanging round my neck the way that brunette chick’s swooning all over Oshitari?" It all made Ohtori feel like he was on reassuringly familiar ground, right down to the way his stomach would unclench a little when Shishido confirmed he was single.
But tonight had also been different and Ohtori had yet to decide how good or bad the change was. Atobe had, naturally, been the key catalyst. Unlike previous occasions this one betrayed Atobe’s relatively new found love of dancing and so the music had been loud, clashing and all-encompassing, swallowing most of the rooms the party had spread to and so devouring Ohtori and Shishido in the process. Gakuto had been the one to actually command them to dance before dragging Ohtori further into the noisy beast made up of fast paced pop and dance music. He’d thrown a look over his shoulder to Shishido, Shishido who was leaning against a wall between the bar and a couple making out enthusiastically. Shishido who was dressed in jeans and an open necked shirt, the collar of which was being tickled by his hair as it slowly tried to reach its former length without him noticing. Ohtori had given him an unashamedly pleading look that had provoked a quick grin before Shishido had kicked himself away from the wall and followed, his half-finished drink remaining behind him on the bar.
Of course, once Gakuto had got them into the noisiest, busiest room Atobe had constructed, he’d completely vanished, leaving the former doubles pair stranded in unfamiliar territory. Given the amount of alcohol in their respective blood streams and the annoying addictive quality of the music, dancing had been more or less inevitable and as the surrounding crush made an alternative impossible, Ohtori had found himself with a hand on Shishido’s arm and something warm squeezing his waist.
The lights had flashed, the DJ had made incomprehensible announcements and the music had simply grown louder and faster. Quite what he’d been doing or had thought he was doing, Ohtori couldn’t now remember, presumably it had made sense at the time but now his memory was dominated by the feel of both Shishido’s hands resting possessively against the small of his back, his friend’s breath warm on his throat and the whisper of thin cloth running between his fingers as he’d held onto Shishido’s collar because he didn’t dare touch the loose strands of hair. Whatever movement had brought them to that position, it then held them there in some kind of bizarre, moving embrace that made knee to shoulder contact mandatory and brought Ohtori’s fingers finally into a tangled mess with Shishido’s hair as his arms had somehow coiled themselves round Shishido’s neck. He’d felt Shishido swallow, felt the movement in his friend’s throat because it was pressed against his shoulder and his own shirt wasn’t that thick either. Shishido’s hands had moved, sliding further round him till he really did feel like he was in an embrace and Ohtori had had to shiver when...
It had been at that moment, that annoyingly wonderful moment when Shishido’s breath had stopped warming Ohtori’s ear because he’d begun to pull back and Ohtori knew what would happen next, what had to happen next because if it didn’t he’d explode... that was when the power had failed, when the music had stopped and the lights had disappeared and there’d been shouting and people trying to take charge and as one of the few people who actually knew where anything was in the Atobe house, Shishido had been one of them. There hadn’t been time for a look, a silent exchange of desires before a shared kiss that Ohtori really hadn’t been dreaming about since middle school. Instead Shishido had gone, vanishing into the crowd as though he’d never been, though Ohtori had still been able to hear him yelling at people to get out of his way.
Naturally the crisis hadn’t been that serious, power had been restored after a minute of waiting and everyone had apologised to everyone else apart from Atobe who apologised to no one. But when the music had started up again, Ohtori had found himself incapable of dancing, too aware of something having been spoiled to enjoy himself. Shishido hadn’t returned either, so Ohtori had worked himself free of the crowd, despite one or two people doing their best to persuade him to stay. He’d made it to the bar where he and Shishido had started their evening more or less in one piece to find a drink being placed down in front of him before he could open his mouth to order anything.
Holding the glass had been Shishido and the apologetic smile on his face had seemed like enough then to smooth away any feelings of uncomfortableness Ohtori had been afraid of. It was as though they’d decided to not mention their disastrous attempt at dancing and while it was nice to go back to simply talking to his friend, Ohtori had still held onto that memory of warm skin and warmer breath and wondered if Shishido was doing the same. But whatever Shishido was thinking or remembering it seemed he’d now decided to make as big a dent in the Atobe finances as he could through exploiting the free drinks on offer. Ohtori had joined in with growing enthusiasm, relaxing even when they’d found a free corner sofa to squash themselves into, Shishido’s arm falling onto the back of the cushion so that the cuff of his sleeve tickled the back of Ohtori’s neck, their thighs pressed against one another and feet practically entangled on the floor.
The end of the party had seen them still there, talking and teasing as the space emptied and Oshitari fell onto the couch opposite them, Gakuto asleep in his arms just as Jiroh was completely unconscious on Atobe’s lap nearby. Naturally Atobe had offered them all the use of the spare bedrooms upstairs if they didn’t feel like travelling home and Oshitari had taken one look at the limpet clinging to him and announced he’d have to take him up on that. Jiroh was, of course, conveniently out of it and Hiyoshi politely declined. Ohtori had given an uncommitted shrug, half-watching Shishido and half not because Shishido never stayed and Ohtori always did and he always ended up kicking himself the next morning for not changing one of those habits. Shishido had yawned, thanked Atobe and then, unusually, turned to Ohtori. ‘I fancy walking home, how about it? It’s stopped snowing,’ he’d added as though this was going to make all the difference.
He never asked, never had done on any previous occasion because then Ohtori had been put on the spot before Shishido had and had had to accept the invitation while Shishido always declined. But that night he’d asked and as if recognising the importance of that, the others had fallen silent so making Ohtori flush when he’d said, ‘I live quite a way away, Shishido.’
‘Hence my invitation,’ announced Atobe, trying to sound like he wasn’t on the verge of yawning. ‘Just accept it too for once, would you Ryo?’
‘Nope,’ Shishido had shaken his head stubbornly. ‘I need that walk home to sober me up seeing as I’ve got to be at work tomorrow unlike some of you. Come on, Choutarou, you can crash at mine tonight and then head over to the station in the morning, I’ll be going that way anyway.’
And so he’d agreed, which was why the two of them were now walking down empty, lamp lit streets, not quite hand-in-hand but so close to one another that they might as well be. Ohtori’s trousers were soaked at the ends, the material drinking up the moisture of the snow that covered the pavement, but the rest of him was dry and warm, the air was still and the cloud’s overhead were holding back their promised contents for a few more hours.
As they crossed one road and turned down another, Shishido stopped his singing to take a deep breath and announce to the world in general, ‘Atobe means well, but if I’d stayed in that over the top mansion of his another hour I’d have thrown up.’
Ohtori pretended to look round for imaginary traffic when instead his gaze didn’t move past Shishido. ‘You didn’t say you were feeling sick.’
‘Not drunk-sick, just... worn-out sick. That many people and that much noise... I’m getting old, Choutarou!’
For a moment Ohtori thought Shishido was still talking about the party and the people and the press of noise that had, he was willing to admit, been a bit unbearable at times. But then he looked up and noticed what had caught Shishido’s drifting, drunken attention and suddenly Ohtori felt very old too.
Whether it had been deliberate or accidental, regardless of whether Shishido had ever noticed the street courts on the far side of the road sandwiched between a hospital and a bank before, there they were. Surrounded by a wire mesh fence and almost unrecognisable under their protective white blanket, the sight somehow both calmed Ohtori and made his heart beat faster at the same time in a way it hadn’t since he and Shishido had been wrapped round one another on Atobe’s dance floor.
‘Come on,’ Shishido’s voice was a little hoarse in desperation and he grabbed Ohtori’s hand out of the cold air into a warm slide of fingers before pulling him across the deserted road to the far pavement and the fence.
It wasn’t much of a barrier, but with the gate locked it was an effective one. The fingers of Shishido’s free hand gripped the wire so hard Ohtori thought he’d have to warn his friend not to cut himself, but in the next moment he doubted whether he’d be able to get the words out of his throat and it wasn’t because Shishido was still holding his hand.
There was no similarity, that was the stupid thing, there was no feature or structure to make the four courts beyond the fence look even remotely like their old grounds back at Hyotei Gakuen. This place was a little shabby and probably quite run down when it wasn’t covered in snow, the gate was held fast by a thick padlock and only the metal posts sticking out of the uneven layer of white betrayed the true purpose of the space when the nets had been rolled up and stored somewhere.
But there was something about it, something about the memories it awakened combined with the lingering alcohol in his system and the nostalgia Ohtori felt like he’d been indulging in all night.
...Just like when they were back at school... just like they’d never left... just like they’d never slipped apart...
‘Been a while. For me anyway,’ Shishido was saying softly, his voice bringing Ohtori back to reality and driving away his mental image of the Hyotei courts in blazing summer when the trees sheltered only half the courts and they’d fought amongst themselves about who’d practice where. ‘Bet you’re still playing though, aren’t you?’
Ohtori shook his head, catching the twist in Shishido’s attention and turning to meet the curious gaze directed at him. ‘I just didn’t have the time anymore,’ he explained, ignoring the obvious point that he’d always had time when he’d had Shishido to play with. ‘You know how it is.’
Shishido nodded once. ‘No one worth picking up a racket to play against either,’ he added after a pause, his fingers twitching against Ohtori’s.
It felt a little like he was trying not to run his thumb over the back of Ohtori’s hand.
Ohtori looked back at the court again, trying to think about tennis and not about how warm his palm felt now it was pressed against Shishido’s. ‘Shame we can’t get in. I know it sounds stupid, we don’t even have rackets and there’s all that snow… but it’d be nice just to stand on a court again.’ He hadn’t meant his voice to sound so wistful, hadn’t really meant to say the words aloud except that something had been required to fill the silence and nothing else had seemed quite appropriate.
His comment provoked a reaction in Shishido though. Looking from side to side for a minute he suddenly pointed off to their right and said, ‘That tree looks like it’ll do.’
‘Do for what?’ but Shishido was already tugging him over towards it. Ohtori got his answer when Shishido dropped his hand in favour of grabbing one of the branches and with a stretch of a few muscles, began hauling himself up off the pavement into the branches.
‘Come on, you said you wanted to stand on a tennis court. Consider this my Christmas present to you.’ Shishido reached down a hand to help Ohtori up the first bit and after a bit of scrambling they dropped down on the other side of the fence onto the untrammelled snow.
It felt somehow colder on this side of the fence, quieter too and Ohtori hugged himself briefly as he followed Shishido, matching him footstep for footstep into the middle of the courts. If this had been Hyotei, their movements would have triggered floodlights and they’d have been swamped with light. But this wasn’t Hyotei and the only light came from the streetlamps that lined the pavement and turned the snow yellow and Shishido’s skin grey. Ohtori shivered once as he looked round, eventually saying, ‘Nothing like Hyotei is it?’
‘Nothing is. Or was,’ Shishido corrected himself with a frown that suggested he wasn’t entirely sure which tense he should be using. ‘But you know...’ there was another pause and then, ‘Just because we’re not in a club anymore doesn’t mean we can’t play tennis together.’
‘You mean that?’ Ohtori turned suddenly to look at his friend properly. Somehow, despite all the apologies uttered and promises made that had then been broken, somehow tennis had never been mentioned between them, not since they’d separated as a doubles pair. Tennis had been tied up with memories of school and time’s that were long since over, and didn’t or couldn’t feature in their plans for what was to come next. Maybe that was why he and Shishido had found it so difficult to stay in touch, not because all they had in common was tennis, but because tennis was the foundation on which everything else had been built and without it…
Shishido’s shrug was automatic and soon replaced by a decisive nod. ‘No one worth picking up a racket to play against,’ he repeated. ‘No one else worth picking up a racket to play with either.’
‘...Shishido...’ Ohtori swallowed whatever emotion was trying to stop him talking before continuing, ‘We’re going to be really out of practice you know.’
‘Did it once, didn’t we?’ Shishido was almost grinning. Almost. There was still an uncertain element to it, something that he wasn’t quite sure about and Ohtori wondered why he too felt so nervous when he’d just been offered what he’d been wanting and missing for so long.
The seconds stretched out as they looked at each other, the silence measured in heartbeats before Shishido’s grin turned teasing and he patted Ohtori awkwardly on the shoulder. ‘So... you got a tennis court for Christmas, what do I get?’ he asked.
Ohtori laughed a little, ‘Now that’s not fair, you didn’t give me any warning.’
‘You mean you didn’t expect something? But you know my generous nature so well!’ Shishido’s hand was still on Ohtori’s arm, although it had slipped a little to just above the elbow, the weight barely felt through the layers of wool and synthetic fibres Ohtori was swathed in.
It remained there as they began walking back to their awkwardly made entrance, leaving two trails of footprints in the snow where before there had been only one messy track of footprints on top of footprints.
‘Shishido...’ began Ohtori but he was cut off by an appeal from his friend.
‘Please, drop the family name okay? It’s Ryo or nothing from now on. I’m not your senpai anymore.’
‘Okay,’ Ohtori nodded, trying not to smile and wishing his heart would stop thudding quite so loudly. ‘What I was going to say was you’re beginning to sound like Atobe.’
‘So definitely no Christmas present then?’ Shishido’s sweetly hopeful expression was marred by the wink that accompanied it
They came to a stop beneath the tree, the branches hanging directly over head in such a way that the artificial light falling from the streetlamps looked almost pretty, Ohtori paused before he could give another negative. Without stopping to think because that would have just got in the way, he leaned in and did what he’d wanted to do back at the party but somehow hadn’t had the courage to do despite the noise and the way he and Shishido had been pushed together.
One short kiss was pressed to Shishido’s mouth along with the words, ‘Merry Christmas... Ryo.’
Shishido had closed his eyes at some point because he opened them now, fixing Ohtori with a very familiar, warmly determined stare that if they were in the middle of a match six years ago would have told him that his partner had found a weakness to exploit and they were going to win. ‘I’m going to have to find deserted tennis courts more often aren’t I?’ he said eventually, the corners of his mouth twitching a little.
Ohtori smiled a little to match, trying not to grin when it felt like he was floating about two inches off the ground, all nervousness finally gone and replaced with something warm and comfortable that didn’t make any sense because in reality it had been such a tiny gesture.
Oh well, logic’s overrated anyway.
‘There isn’t any mistletoe in that tree that I forgot to notice, is there?’ asked Shishido after another pause.
Ohtori glanced up, even though he knew there wasn’t, and was about to say so when something warm pressed against his jaw near his ear. ‘Like you said, Merry Christmas Choutarou,’ Shishido had closed the brief distance between them while Ohtori had been distracted, his hand back on Ohtori’s arm and his breath warm against Ohtori’s cool skin.
Ohtori looked at his partner for a moment, wondering what Shishido was so clearly waiting for before giving a little sigh and saying, ‘I’m not going to break you know.’
Shishido only had time to blink before Ohtori’s mouth was pressing firmly against his. A hand found its way to the back of his neck and the feel of cold fingers slipping beneath his scarf made Shishido shiver as the tip of Ohtori’s tongue brushed against his lips. Both Shishido’s hands gripped on tight to Ohtori’s arms as the kiss lengthened, the contact deepening and becoming more sweetly intimate as Shishido dared himself to return the caresses Ohtori was bestowing on him. Tilting his head a little to one side, Ohtori shifted his stance so that despite the layers of winter clothing they both wore, he was as wrapped up in Shishido as he could possibly be. Firm and determined now, Shishido was trying to take control, trying to prove that his minute advantage of a handful of months over Ohtori was worth something and that just because Ohtori had taken him by surprise didn’t mean he was incompetent. Whether it was working or not was impossible to say, they both drew groans from the other at the exact same time, both paused to pull apart again in the same second and both grinned in a way that made nerves and anxiety nothing more than dim memories.
They spoke in the same moment too, Ohtori beginning with ‘We should have done this earlier’ while Shishido said ‘Still want to play tennis with me?’
Shishido recovered first from the laughter that followed, looking so pleased with himself Ohtori couldn’t stop grinning too, ‘So... I know this makes me sound like that perv Oshitari, but... shall we go back to mine?’
Ohtori ducked his head a little by way of a nod, ‘We need to arrange times when we can start training again.’
There was an enforced pause while Shishido hauled himself up onto the first branch before, ‘Err... Choutarou?’
‘Yes Ryo?’
‘We’ll talk tennis in the morning, okay?’
End
The next fic will be Two Steps Forward, it'll go up on Wednesday and it will contain TxN porn *blushes bright red* Until then I'll be in Liverpool. Happy New Year everyone! ♥
Anyway. Four thousand words of Christmas cute-ness *nods*
Title: Under Snow
Pairing: Silver Pair (background Oshitari/Gakuto, Atobe-as-a-pillow/Jiroh, some stupid girl who can't see that Oshitari is so obviously not straight/Oshitari)
Requested by: izzntsherandom
Summary: ... I can't summarise this. It's apparently six years since middle school, Ohtori and Shishido don't play together anymore but everyone still seems to be friends and there's probably a lot of factual errors (I've never written Silver Pair before so don't kill me). Just enjoy it!
Ohtori is humming.
It takes Shishido a moment or two to figure out what the tune is and when he realises it’s one of those dreadfully popular sappy Christmas songs that are played on endless repeats in stores this time of year, he has to join in.
Ohtori breaks off to laugh at him because Shishido is slurring the words he can remember and making words up to fill the bits he can’t. Shishido simply frowns at him as he keeps on singing, not loudly, he isn’t drunk enough to think that he sounds any good, but it still counts as singing all the same. After a moment or two more of laughter, Ohtori gives up and joins in for the chorus, cheeks flushing despite the wintry chill but still glad that he forgot his gloves when Shishido’s unstable wavering walk brings the backs of their hands into frequent contact. It’s just a brush of knuckles over cold skin, but when the rest of his friend is buried beneath multiple woollen layers it feels strangely intimate.
Such an idea is ridiculous, even insane, given the place they’ve just left. Atobe’s Annual Christmas Party, now verging on legendry proportions despite only being held twice before, had been heated, crowded and noisy. The alcohol had been flowing generously as had the food and music, all swirling round the friends who’d done their best to keep in touch but somehow hadn’t done a very good job of it.
It was easy for Atobe of course, his job description may simply be “university student” these days but he still had three secretaries to keep his life organised and dispatch frequent missives to his friends that he would occasionally dictate and even more rarely sign. Gakuto had proven to be strangely clingy in that he didn’t let any of his old school friends forget about him because he sent bi-weekly emails and Oshitari must have his phone permanently glued to his ear given how, every time Ohtori did manage to speak to him, he informed Ohtori that yes he had spoken to so-and-so only the other day thank you. Hiyoshi wrote letters, two sides of A5 every other week which read so much like a report the weird bits of humour always threw Ohtori when he received them. Jiroh was fond of exchanging phone calls even if he did fall asleep during them and Kabaji was another punctual correspondent, which just left Shishido who... wasn’t.
Phone calls or emails, occasionally a letter that always began with an apology; Ohtori knew he couldn’t complain when he was just as bad at keeping tabs on his friend and former doubles partner. But it bothered him that of all his former tennis friends, it should be a certain Shishido Ryo who proved the most elusive. It also bothered him that excuses were so easy to make as to why he wasn’t doing a better job of staying in touch with Shishido himself, he didn’t have that many distractions and what was so hard about writing a letter or even an email? Yet somehow it always turned into a chore, the pleasure sucked out of it because procrastination had made him feel guilty. And... and somehow, because he had to explain things that he knew Shishido would have found funny if he’d been there but probably wouldn’t understand because he hadn’t, because he had to reiterate who the people in his life were when they were persons who hadn’t known him half as long or half as well as Shishido had, because it all seemed so terribly dull and unimportant when he actually tried to put words onto a page, somehow he lost the urge to do it and ended up sending something that said nothing and meant even less but which got sent simply to alleviate the guilt.
And then something like this would happen. There’d be some event, some get together, some anniversary that Atobe would decide deserved commemorating or some achievement of somebody’s that Atobe would mark with a dinner, and they’d be together again. Apologies first, every single time, faltering and embarrassed as they both said what idiots they’d been for slipping up. Again. Then they’d laugh, it was inevitable after they’d fumbled around for a little while, both saying the same thing in different ways. They’d laugh, Shishido would say, "Atobe’s got to have something half decent to drink somewhere round here," and that would be it, it would be as though no time had passed between one meeting and the next. Physical changes aside (Shishido’s growth spurt being the most obvious one), the conversation and the ease with which it happened might have placed them back in middle school again rather than six years down the line.
Tonight had been the same. The same conversation, the same drinking and teasing, the same cautiously casual questions about relationships that somehow brought the same dismissive answers, "Do I look like I have time to put up with some girl hanging round my neck the way that brunette chick’s swooning all over Oshitari?" It all made Ohtori feel like he was on reassuringly familiar ground, right down to the way his stomach would unclench a little when Shishido confirmed he was single.
But tonight had also been different and Ohtori had yet to decide how good or bad the change was. Atobe had, naturally, been the key catalyst. Unlike previous occasions this one betrayed Atobe’s relatively new found love of dancing and so the music had been loud, clashing and all-encompassing, swallowing most of the rooms the party had spread to and so devouring Ohtori and Shishido in the process. Gakuto had been the one to actually command them to dance before dragging Ohtori further into the noisy beast made up of fast paced pop and dance music. He’d thrown a look over his shoulder to Shishido, Shishido who was leaning against a wall between the bar and a couple making out enthusiastically. Shishido who was dressed in jeans and an open necked shirt, the collar of which was being tickled by his hair as it slowly tried to reach its former length without him noticing. Ohtori had given him an unashamedly pleading look that had provoked a quick grin before Shishido had kicked himself away from the wall and followed, his half-finished drink remaining behind him on the bar.
Of course, once Gakuto had got them into the noisiest, busiest room Atobe had constructed, he’d completely vanished, leaving the former doubles pair stranded in unfamiliar territory. Given the amount of alcohol in their respective blood streams and the annoying addictive quality of the music, dancing had been more or less inevitable and as the surrounding crush made an alternative impossible, Ohtori had found himself with a hand on Shishido’s arm and something warm squeezing his waist.
The lights had flashed, the DJ had made incomprehensible announcements and the music had simply grown louder and faster. Quite what he’d been doing or had thought he was doing, Ohtori couldn’t now remember, presumably it had made sense at the time but now his memory was dominated by the feel of both Shishido’s hands resting possessively against the small of his back, his friend’s breath warm on his throat and the whisper of thin cloth running between his fingers as he’d held onto Shishido’s collar because he didn’t dare touch the loose strands of hair. Whatever movement had brought them to that position, it then held them there in some kind of bizarre, moving embrace that made knee to shoulder contact mandatory and brought Ohtori’s fingers finally into a tangled mess with Shishido’s hair as his arms had somehow coiled themselves round Shishido’s neck. He’d felt Shishido swallow, felt the movement in his friend’s throat because it was pressed against his shoulder and his own shirt wasn’t that thick either. Shishido’s hands had moved, sliding further round him till he really did feel like he was in an embrace and Ohtori had had to shiver when...
It had been at that moment, that annoyingly wonderful moment when Shishido’s breath had stopped warming Ohtori’s ear because he’d begun to pull back and Ohtori knew what would happen next, what had to happen next because if it didn’t he’d explode... that was when the power had failed, when the music had stopped and the lights had disappeared and there’d been shouting and people trying to take charge and as one of the few people who actually knew where anything was in the Atobe house, Shishido had been one of them. There hadn’t been time for a look, a silent exchange of desires before a shared kiss that Ohtori really hadn’t been dreaming about since middle school. Instead Shishido had gone, vanishing into the crowd as though he’d never been, though Ohtori had still been able to hear him yelling at people to get out of his way.
Naturally the crisis hadn’t been that serious, power had been restored after a minute of waiting and everyone had apologised to everyone else apart from Atobe who apologised to no one. But when the music had started up again, Ohtori had found himself incapable of dancing, too aware of something having been spoiled to enjoy himself. Shishido hadn’t returned either, so Ohtori had worked himself free of the crowd, despite one or two people doing their best to persuade him to stay. He’d made it to the bar where he and Shishido had started their evening more or less in one piece to find a drink being placed down in front of him before he could open his mouth to order anything.
Holding the glass had been Shishido and the apologetic smile on his face had seemed like enough then to smooth away any feelings of uncomfortableness Ohtori had been afraid of. It was as though they’d decided to not mention their disastrous attempt at dancing and while it was nice to go back to simply talking to his friend, Ohtori had still held onto that memory of warm skin and warmer breath and wondered if Shishido was doing the same. But whatever Shishido was thinking or remembering it seemed he’d now decided to make as big a dent in the Atobe finances as he could through exploiting the free drinks on offer. Ohtori had joined in with growing enthusiasm, relaxing even when they’d found a free corner sofa to squash themselves into, Shishido’s arm falling onto the back of the cushion so that the cuff of his sleeve tickled the back of Ohtori’s neck, their thighs pressed against one another and feet practically entangled on the floor.
The end of the party had seen them still there, talking and teasing as the space emptied and Oshitari fell onto the couch opposite them, Gakuto asleep in his arms just as Jiroh was completely unconscious on Atobe’s lap nearby. Naturally Atobe had offered them all the use of the spare bedrooms upstairs if they didn’t feel like travelling home and Oshitari had taken one look at the limpet clinging to him and announced he’d have to take him up on that. Jiroh was, of course, conveniently out of it and Hiyoshi politely declined. Ohtori had given an uncommitted shrug, half-watching Shishido and half not because Shishido never stayed and Ohtori always did and he always ended up kicking himself the next morning for not changing one of those habits. Shishido had yawned, thanked Atobe and then, unusually, turned to Ohtori. ‘I fancy walking home, how about it? It’s stopped snowing,’ he’d added as though this was going to make all the difference.
He never asked, never had done on any previous occasion because then Ohtori had been put on the spot before Shishido had and had had to accept the invitation while Shishido always declined. But that night he’d asked and as if recognising the importance of that, the others had fallen silent so making Ohtori flush when he’d said, ‘I live quite a way away, Shishido.’
‘Hence my invitation,’ announced Atobe, trying to sound like he wasn’t on the verge of yawning. ‘Just accept it too for once, would you Ryo?’
‘Nope,’ Shishido had shaken his head stubbornly. ‘I need that walk home to sober me up seeing as I’ve got to be at work tomorrow unlike some of you. Come on, Choutarou, you can crash at mine tonight and then head over to the station in the morning, I’ll be going that way anyway.’
And so he’d agreed, which was why the two of them were now walking down empty, lamp lit streets, not quite hand-in-hand but so close to one another that they might as well be. Ohtori’s trousers were soaked at the ends, the material drinking up the moisture of the snow that covered the pavement, but the rest of him was dry and warm, the air was still and the cloud’s overhead were holding back their promised contents for a few more hours.
As they crossed one road and turned down another, Shishido stopped his singing to take a deep breath and announce to the world in general, ‘Atobe means well, but if I’d stayed in that over the top mansion of his another hour I’d have thrown up.’
Ohtori pretended to look round for imaginary traffic when instead his gaze didn’t move past Shishido. ‘You didn’t say you were feeling sick.’
‘Not drunk-sick, just... worn-out sick. That many people and that much noise... I’m getting old, Choutarou!’
For a moment Ohtori thought Shishido was still talking about the party and the people and the press of noise that had, he was willing to admit, been a bit unbearable at times. But then he looked up and noticed what had caught Shishido’s drifting, drunken attention and suddenly Ohtori felt very old too.
Whether it had been deliberate or accidental, regardless of whether Shishido had ever noticed the street courts on the far side of the road sandwiched between a hospital and a bank before, there they were. Surrounded by a wire mesh fence and almost unrecognisable under their protective white blanket, the sight somehow both calmed Ohtori and made his heart beat faster at the same time in a way it hadn’t since he and Shishido had been wrapped round one another on Atobe’s dance floor.
‘Come on,’ Shishido’s voice was a little hoarse in desperation and he grabbed Ohtori’s hand out of the cold air into a warm slide of fingers before pulling him across the deserted road to the far pavement and the fence.
It wasn’t much of a barrier, but with the gate locked it was an effective one. The fingers of Shishido’s free hand gripped the wire so hard Ohtori thought he’d have to warn his friend not to cut himself, but in the next moment he doubted whether he’d be able to get the words out of his throat and it wasn’t because Shishido was still holding his hand.
There was no similarity, that was the stupid thing, there was no feature or structure to make the four courts beyond the fence look even remotely like their old grounds back at Hyotei Gakuen. This place was a little shabby and probably quite run down when it wasn’t covered in snow, the gate was held fast by a thick padlock and only the metal posts sticking out of the uneven layer of white betrayed the true purpose of the space when the nets had been rolled up and stored somewhere.
But there was something about it, something about the memories it awakened combined with the lingering alcohol in his system and the nostalgia Ohtori felt like he’d been indulging in all night.
...Just like when they were back at school... just like they’d never left... just like they’d never slipped apart...
‘Been a while. For me anyway,’ Shishido was saying softly, his voice bringing Ohtori back to reality and driving away his mental image of the Hyotei courts in blazing summer when the trees sheltered only half the courts and they’d fought amongst themselves about who’d practice where. ‘Bet you’re still playing though, aren’t you?’
Ohtori shook his head, catching the twist in Shishido’s attention and turning to meet the curious gaze directed at him. ‘I just didn’t have the time anymore,’ he explained, ignoring the obvious point that he’d always had time when he’d had Shishido to play with. ‘You know how it is.’
Shishido nodded once. ‘No one worth picking up a racket to play against either,’ he added after a pause, his fingers twitching against Ohtori’s.
It felt a little like he was trying not to run his thumb over the back of Ohtori’s hand.
Ohtori looked back at the court again, trying to think about tennis and not about how warm his palm felt now it was pressed against Shishido’s. ‘Shame we can’t get in. I know it sounds stupid, we don’t even have rackets and there’s all that snow… but it’d be nice just to stand on a court again.’ He hadn’t meant his voice to sound so wistful, hadn’t really meant to say the words aloud except that something had been required to fill the silence and nothing else had seemed quite appropriate.
His comment provoked a reaction in Shishido though. Looking from side to side for a minute he suddenly pointed off to their right and said, ‘That tree looks like it’ll do.’
‘Do for what?’ but Shishido was already tugging him over towards it. Ohtori got his answer when Shishido dropped his hand in favour of grabbing one of the branches and with a stretch of a few muscles, began hauling himself up off the pavement into the branches.
‘Come on, you said you wanted to stand on a tennis court. Consider this my Christmas present to you.’ Shishido reached down a hand to help Ohtori up the first bit and after a bit of scrambling they dropped down on the other side of the fence onto the untrammelled snow.
It felt somehow colder on this side of the fence, quieter too and Ohtori hugged himself briefly as he followed Shishido, matching him footstep for footstep into the middle of the courts. If this had been Hyotei, their movements would have triggered floodlights and they’d have been swamped with light. But this wasn’t Hyotei and the only light came from the streetlamps that lined the pavement and turned the snow yellow and Shishido’s skin grey. Ohtori shivered once as he looked round, eventually saying, ‘Nothing like Hyotei is it?’
‘Nothing is. Or was,’ Shishido corrected himself with a frown that suggested he wasn’t entirely sure which tense he should be using. ‘But you know...’ there was another pause and then, ‘Just because we’re not in a club anymore doesn’t mean we can’t play tennis together.’
‘You mean that?’ Ohtori turned suddenly to look at his friend properly. Somehow, despite all the apologies uttered and promises made that had then been broken, somehow tennis had never been mentioned between them, not since they’d separated as a doubles pair. Tennis had been tied up with memories of school and time’s that were long since over, and didn’t or couldn’t feature in their plans for what was to come next. Maybe that was why he and Shishido had found it so difficult to stay in touch, not because all they had in common was tennis, but because tennis was the foundation on which everything else had been built and without it…
Shishido’s shrug was automatic and soon replaced by a decisive nod. ‘No one worth picking up a racket to play against,’ he repeated. ‘No one else worth picking up a racket to play with either.’
‘...Shishido...’ Ohtori swallowed whatever emotion was trying to stop him talking before continuing, ‘We’re going to be really out of practice you know.’
‘Did it once, didn’t we?’ Shishido was almost grinning. Almost. There was still an uncertain element to it, something that he wasn’t quite sure about and Ohtori wondered why he too felt so nervous when he’d just been offered what he’d been wanting and missing for so long.
The seconds stretched out as they looked at each other, the silence measured in heartbeats before Shishido’s grin turned teasing and he patted Ohtori awkwardly on the shoulder. ‘So... you got a tennis court for Christmas, what do I get?’ he asked.
Ohtori laughed a little, ‘Now that’s not fair, you didn’t give me any warning.’
‘You mean you didn’t expect something? But you know my generous nature so well!’ Shishido’s hand was still on Ohtori’s arm, although it had slipped a little to just above the elbow, the weight barely felt through the layers of wool and synthetic fibres Ohtori was swathed in.
It remained there as they began walking back to their awkwardly made entrance, leaving two trails of footprints in the snow where before there had been only one messy track of footprints on top of footprints.
‘Shishido...’ began Ohtori but he was cut off by an appeal from his friend.
‘Please, drop the family name okay? It’s Ryo or nothing from now on. I’m not your senpai anymore.’
‘Okay,’ Ohtori nodded, trying not to smile and wishing his heart would stop thudding quite so loudly. ‘What I was going to say was you’re beginning to sound like Atobe.’
‘So definitely no Christmas present then?’ Shishido’s sweetly hopeful expression was marred by the wink that accompanied it
They came to a stop beneath the tree, the branches hanging directly over head in such a way that the artificial light falling from the streetlamps looked almost pretty, Ohtori paused before he could give another negative. Without stopping to think because that would have just got in the way, he leaned in and did what he’d wanted to do back at the party but somehow hadn’t had the courage to do despite the noise and the way he and Shishido had been pushed together.
One short kiss was pressed to Shishido’s mouth along with the words, ‘Merry Christmas... Ryo.’
Shishido had closed his eyes at some point because he opened them now, fixing Ohtori with a very familiar, warmly determined stare that if they were in the middle of a match six years ago would have told him that his partner had found a weakness to exploit and they were going to win. ‘I’m going to have to find deserted tennis courts more often aren’t I?’ he said eventually, the corners of his mouth twitching a little.
Ohtori smiled a little to match, trying not to grin when it felt like he was floating about two inches off the ground, all nervousness finally gone and replaced with something warm and comfortable that didn’t make any sense because in reality it had been such a tiny gesture.
Oh well, logic’s overrated anyway.
‘There isn’t any mistletoe in that tree that I forgot to notice, is there?’ asked Shishido after another pause.
Ohtori glanced up, even though he knew there wasn’t, and was about to say so when something warm pressed against his jaw near his ear. ‘Like you said, Merry Christmas Choutarou,’ Shishido had closed the brief distance between them while Ohtori had been distracted, his hand back on Ohtori’s arm and his breath warm against Ohtori’s cool skin.
Ohtori looked at his partner for a moment, wondering what Shishido was so clearly waiting for before giving a little sigh and saying, ‘I’m not going to break you know.’
Shishido only had time to blink before Ohtori’s mouth was pressing firmly against his. A hand found its way to the back of his neck and the feel of cold fingers slipping beneath his scarf made Shishido shiver as the tip of Ohtori’s tongue brushed against his lips. Both Shishido’s hands gripped on tight to Ohtori’s arms as the kiss lengthened, the contact deepening and becoming more sweetly intimate as Shishido dared himself to return the caresses Ohtori was bestowing on him. Tilting his head a little to one side, Ohtori shifted his stance so that despite the layers of winter clothing they both wore, he was as wrapped up in Shishido as he could possibly be. Firm and determined now, Shishido was trying to take control, trying to prove that his minute advantage of a handful of months over Ohtori was worth something and that just because Ohtori had taken him by surprise didn’t mean he was incompetent. Whether it was working or not was impossible to say, they both drew groans from the other at the exact same time, both paused to pull apart again in the same second and both grinned in a way that made nerves and anxiety nothing more than dim memories.
They spoke in the same moment too, Ohtori beginning with ‘We should have done this earlier’ while Shishido said ‘Still want to play tennis with me?’
Shishido recovered first from the laughter that followed, looking so pleased with himself Ohtori couldn’t stop grinning too, ‘So... I know this makes me sound like that perv Oshitari, but... shall we go back to mine?’
Ohtori ducked his head a little by way of a nod, ‘We need to arrange times when we can start training again.’
There was an enforced pause while Shishido hauled himself up onto the first branch before, ‘Err... Choutarou?’
‘Yes Ryo?’
‘We’ll talk tennis in the morning, okay?’
End
The next fic will be Two Steps Forward, it'll go up on Wednesday and it will contain TxN porn *blushes bright red* Until then I'll be in Liverpool. Happy New Year everyone! ♥