PoT Fic: "Rikkaidai’s Special Team Bonding Day" (NC-17) - Yukimura/Sanada
Title: "Rikkaidai’s Special Team Bonding Punishment Day" 
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Pairing: Yukimura/Sanada
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 6,656
Spoilers/Warnings: Yukimura with a vengeance.
Summary: Yukimura punishes Rikkaidai for losing at Regionals spends a day out with all his friends. Sanada is too smitten to care which option is true.
Notes: Written for the prompt “And that’s why we’re never going shopping together again.” at writing_fest here.
Rikkaidai’s Special Team Bonding Punishment Day
by Kantayra
The morning after Yukimura got his signed note from his rehab therapist saying it was okay to return to practice, he was on the tennis courts, bright and early before Sanada even arrived.
“Sanada!” Yukimura waved at him cheerfully when he showed up to unlock the clubhouse. “Come rally with me!”
At this point, Sanada experienced a certain, almost-Pavlovian dysfunction that he suffered from. It went like this: Yukimura pretty! Yukimura smiling! Quick, say yes to whatever it is! “Sure,” Sanada sighed dreamily, even though it was only six in the morning and practice wouldn’t start for hours yet.
“Whee!” Yukimura beamed at him even more brightly. “You can serve first. I need to practice my returns.”
It was Yukimura’s first day back from rehab, and Sanada had no clue what sort of physical condition he was in, so Sanada hit a firm but straightforward serve a bit more to the center than he usually would.
Yukimura’s return was so fast and deadly that Sanada didn’t even have a chance to see it before the tennis ball collided squarely with the center of his forehead, and he was lying down on his back in the middle of the court, stunned.
“What kind of pathetic serve was that?” Yukimura sneered at him. “Honestly, it’s no wonder you lost so miserably at Regionals.”
Sanada sighed dreamily for the second time that morning. That was the Yukimura he knew and loved, not that false pretender who’d been constrained to his hospital bed. Sanada got to his feet and prepared to serve again. This time he gave it everything he had.
Again, the return was almost too quick to see. This time the ball whizzed by Sanada’s ear, only a hairsbreadth away.
“I suppose that will have to do,” Yukimura sighed like he was incredibly disappointed in Sanada. “Keep them coming.”
Sanada had never been more in love.
***
The rest of the team showed up two hours later to find Sanada sprawled out on his face next to the net, panting with exhaustion. Yukimura was poking Sanada hopefully with the end of his racket.
“Sanada?” Yukimura poked him some more. “Come on, get up. Only three more sets left!”
Sanada was so tired that he was pretty sure that some of his major organ groups were shutting down. He tried to open his mouth to explain this, but somehow even his face was too tired to move. He settled for wheezing desperately and flailing a bit on the clay court.
Yukimura pouted. “You’re no fun at all.” Then, however, he spotted the rest of the regulars, and a beatific smile lit up his face once more. “Hi, everybody! Over here!” He waved to them happily.
“The captain’s back!” Kirihara grinned and waved back.
Marui gulped. “Oh god, no…”
Kuwahara’s eyes widened. “Is the vice-captain…dead?”
“Unlikely,” Yanagi replied. “Seiichi needs him alive for Nationals.”
Marui and Kuwahara exchanged a nervous look.
“Renji, Akaya?” Yukimura fluttered his eyelashes. “Why don’t you two play a practice match with me? Bunta and Jackal did such an excellent job with their match in Regionals; I want them to keep working on that combination.”
Mari and Kuwahara breathed a sigh of relief. Victory at Regionals apparently meant reprieve from the newly-returned Yukimura’s wrath. They hustled off to D-Court before Yukimura could change his mind.
“This is perfect!” Kirihara boasted and bounded over to the court. “I’ll finally be able to defeat you now and take my place as Rikkaidai’s number-one player!”
Yanagi blinked at him, unconvinced. “In any case, your match will provide me with excellent data for determining your training regimen for-”
“Oh no, Renji,” Yukimura said in his softest, most polite voice. “You’re playing, too.”
Kirihara frowned. “But how does that make any sense?” He poked Sanada with his racket, too, for good measure. “I don’t think the vice-captain is up for a round of doubles right now.”
“No,” Yukimura said slowly, “you and Renji are playing me. Two-on-one.” His teeth gleamed in the sunlight, and a butterfly fluttered by.
Yanagi’s eyes widened, and for the first time in his life, he knew true terror.
“Now, don’t dawdle,” Yukimura said brightly. He took a quick practice swing and managed to sever the butterfly in half. “Just drag Sanada over to the coach’s bench, will you?”
Sanada let out a gurgle from the ground.
Kirihara and Yanagi didn’t even try to object, although Kirihara may have banged Sanada’s head against the ground on purpose once or twice. After they were gone, Sanada lay back on the bench and waited for his senses to return to him. The first thing he heard was the sound of Yukimura’s beautiful voice, and an infatuated smile curved his lips.
“How on Earth did you get so slow?” Yukimura snarled viciously. “Honestly, you’re worse than the girls’ team! You play like old women!”
Sanada sighed longingly and managed to turn his head just enough to watch the match in progress. Yukimura was fast, furious, brutal. He made it look as though he were the two, and Yanagi and Kirihara the one. Sanada fell in love all over again.
“You call this tennis?” Yukimura snapped and delivered a malicious slice to Yanagi’s backhand.
Yanagi was too frozen up by Yukimura’s previous barrage to even move. Sweat beaded his brow as he tried to force his muscles to respond, but he was already pushed past all human limits.
Kirihara dove wildly for the ball, missed it by mere inches, and felt flat on his face across the court. He panted frantically on the ground for a few seconds, trying to force himself to move. “Please, captain,” he whimpered at last. “Mercy!”
Yukimura blinked at him. “Mercy? Why ever would I grant that after you two lost my Regionals medal?” He moved to serve again but then noticed Sanada’s eyes were open. “Sanada!” he beamed, suddenly light and cheerful once more. “I was wondering if, as an extra special favor to me, you could take over the first-year practice today?” Yukimura fluttered his eyelashes. “It’s just that I haven’t been able to play in so long, and tennis is so much fun! Tee-hee!”
Yukimura pretty; Yukimura smiling; say yes! Sanada’s Pavlovian response went off like clockwork. “Of course,” he agreed and forced himself to get up.
“Come on, you two,” Yukimura teased Yanagi and Kirihara and lined up for his next serve. “That was only the first game. 1-0, here I go, whee!”
Sanada lurched over to the court where the first-years were waiting. Actually, as punishments went, Sanada lucked out. It wasn’t such a bad day. Only 90% of the balls went flying wildly over the fence; for first-years, that was practically Wimbledon.
***
“Today was a great practice, team!” Yukimura smiled sweetly once the entire team, from the regulars right on down to the ball boys, was passed out on the ground, gasping for air. “I really feel like we’ve moved past Regionals.”
Several hopeful eyes opened in Yukimura’s direction.
“So, let’s do twenty more laps, and then hit the showers!” Yukimura concluded cheerfully.
No one even dared to groan, lest the number of laps suddenly double.
When Sanada took position at the head of the group and began the first lap, however, he did hear several mumbles of “sadist” from behind him. He was too tired to turn around to see who it was, though; really, “masochist” was more like it. So, in the end, he just shouted over his shoulder, “That’s five additional laps, Nioh!”
Nioh groaned but didn’t protest. It seemed Sanada had guessed right.
After the first two laps, Sanada realized that he had a very pretty, very smiling jogging buddy to his right. He tripped over his own feet and barely managed to stumble out of it in time to keep his pace.
“Your footwork is atrocious,” Yukimura said snidely, then smiled once more. Sanada would have sworn there were actual sparklies around Yukimura’s head.
“Yes,” Sanada agreed automatically. “Absolutely horrible.”
Behind him, he heard a snicker and a muttered “whipped.”
“Five more laps, Nioh,” Sanada growled.
“Hey!” Nioh protested. “That was Yagyu.”
“What?” Yagyu said. “And I’m Nioh anyway!”
“No, I am!”
“Ten more laps for both of you,” Sanada snarled at them. That shut them both up immediately. Sanada turned to look at Yukimura hopefully.
Yukimura giggled, and Sanada felt his knees turn to jelly. Somehow, he managed to keep running, though.
“Anyway,” Yukimura continued to chat merrily, like they were all seated in a cozy café and not running still more laps after a grueling practice, “I’ve been thinking…”
The rest of the regulars tensed up in automatic recoil. Sanada just nodded eagerly.
“All work and no play, and all that,” Yukimura continued lightly. “I haven’t been able to do anything with you all in, oh, so long. So I think we should hang out for some fun time. You know, all those things I couldn’t do in the hospital, even though I wanted to so much…” A melodramatic shadow seemed to darken his face for a moment, but he tried so hard to smile bravely past it.
Yukimura pretty; Yukimura smiling; say yes! “Anything you want,” Sanada breathed, completely smitten.
“Yay!” Yukimura said excitedly. “We’ll all have so, so much fun together, you’ll see!”
The rest of the team gulped.
Sanada finally did trip over his own feet and, as a result, was assigned an extra ten minutes of drills for “shoddy footwork.”
***
That weekend, bright and early, the Rikkaidai regulars met up at the train station. That is, most of the Rikkaidai regulars met up bright and early; Nioh was late.
Yukimura pouted and checked his watch. “And I so wanted an early start for our big team outing!” he pouted.
Sanada glared at Yagyu, who was frantically talking into the phone, warning Nioh that he better not make them miss the first train or else.
Nioh ran for the platform just as the train arrived. He scrambled on after the rest of the team, huffing and puffing.
Yukimura frowned at him. “Five extra laps at practice on Monday.”
“What?” Nioh protested between pants. “It’s our day off!”
“If you ran more laps, then you wouldn’t be so exhausted and you would have arrived at the platform sooner,” Yukimura explained. “You almost ruined our special team bonding day.”
Nioh grimaced but didn’t complain further.
“Oh god…” Marui whimpered.
“The captain’s going to kill us, isn’t he?” Kuwahara gulped.
“In any case,” Yukimura continued brightly, “I’m glad Nioh made it in time, because I just know he’s going to have super fun at our first team activity.”
“Then we are going to the video arcade?” Kirihara asked hopefully.
Yanagi gave him a hopeless look.
“No, silly.” Yukimura batted Kirihara lightly on the shoulder. “We’re going to the art gallery!”
Everyone groaned. Even Sanada.
Yukimura sniffled piteously. “I read about this new exhibit in the newspaper while I was in the hospital,” he said wistfully, “and I thought to myself: Will I ever be able to see it? Will I ever be able to walk again? Will I even survive the surgery?”
The regulars all exchanged guilty looks.
“Hey, it could be, uh, fun,” Kuwahara finally said with a false smile.
“I just love, er, museums,” Marui added.
“It could be educational,” Yanagi considered.
“I have no objections,” Yagyu conceded.
“Yes, anything you want, Yukimura,” Sanada sighed dreamily yet again. Yukimura flashed him a brave little smile that would melt even the coldest of hearts…and hearts didn’t come much colder than Sanada’s.
Nioh made gagging noises.
“Does this mean we’re not going to the arcade?” Kirihara asked in disappointment, completely oblivious to all forms of emotional blackmail, as usual.
“Five laps,” Sanada informed him wearily, “for Monday.”
Kirihara scowled at him. “I don’t think we should have to do laps. Isn’t today supposed to be fun?”
“But, Akaya,” Yukimura blinked at him in disbelief, “everything is more fun with laps!”
Yanagi clapped a hand over Kirihara’s mouth before he could dig himself in even deeper.
It was only a few more stops after that before Yukimura was ushering them off the train. Yukimura skipped into the gallery, humming to himself. Sanada followed right behind him, gazing longingly at Yukimura’s behind the whole time. The rest of the team stalked in after them, with various degrees of distaste on their faces.
“Let’s see the new exhibit first!” Yukimura announced brightly and herded them all in the appropriate direction.
“What is this?” Marui blinked once they entered the gallery.
“Ah,” Yanagi blinked his eyes open, “it appears to be modern art.”
“Damn,” Kuwahara complained, “I was hoping there would at least be statues of naked chicks.”
“But there are!” Yukimura said excitedly. “Here’s one.” He gestured to a ceramic jug with a plastic onion plugging up the top.
Kuwahara blinked in disbelief.
“I like the male nude better, though,” Yukimura said critically. “It really says something about the human condition, don’t you think?”
The ‘male nude’ was a plastic stalk of celery on a plate.
“Tee-hee!” Yukimura said to the collective horrified looks of the team.
While Marui and Kuwahara went to gape in disbelief at a painting that was just a white canvas with a tiny red dot in the center, Sanada sidled up to Yukimura.
“I’m afraid I just don’t understand modern art,” Sanada said hopefully. “Can you explain it to me?”
Nioh started gagging again just behind him.
Yukimura looked over his shoulder at Nioh. “If you’re still so sick from the run to the platform that you’re feeling nauseous…” he began.
“Yes?” Nioh looked hopeful. It hadn’t occurred to him to play sick to escape this outing, but whatever worked…
“…Then you clearly need to run more laps,” Yukimura concluded with a helpful smile.
Nioh immediately stopped gagging. “I’m fine. Really.”
“Glad to hear it,” Yukimura waved him off. “Now, go play with Yagyu.” His hand slipped around Sanada’s bicep to guide him to the first display. “Sanada needs some help understanding the art.”
Sanada had been about to explain that Nioh and Yagyu off together around expensive things was a bad idea, but then there was Yukimura’s hand, and it was so warm, and Sanada officially had no higher brain functions left.
Yukimura finally stopped in front of one of the pieces. “The trick to understanding most modern art,” he explained to Sanada, “is that art isn’t created. Art is inherent in everything around us, only most people don’t see it. The artist is the person who points out the inherent art in the world to those who don’t see.”
The way Yukimura was grabbing Sanada’s arm forced Sanada to stand slightly behind him. As a result, Sanada’s hipbone was pressed up against Yukimura’s tight butt. It felt nice.
“Everything is filled with whimsy and beauty,” Yukimura instructed him. “Open your eyes with that thought in mind, and see the world as the artist does.”
Sanada looked at the ‘art.’ It was a nail stuck through a piece of rope and hammered into the wall. Yukimura’s hair, on the other hand, smelled like lemon soap. “Beautiful…” Sanada murmured in a daze.
“See?” Yukimura smiled at him brightly. “It’s easy.” He turned to face Sanada, and Sanada was sort of leaning in because he wanted to smell Yukimura’s hair more. The result brought their faces a little too close together.
For one dizzying moment, Sanada was torn between his propriety and Yukimura’s long, flowing hair and porcelain skin and tender lips. Then, Nioh made a farting noise that could be heard all the way across the gallery. Sanada would never admit it, but he was grateful; no Sanada should ever have to make a choice that impossible.
Yukimura pulled away from him to glare at Nioh. Sanada stumbled forward a little into the thin air Yukimura had just occupied. “That’s another twenty laps,” Yukimura hissed.
Several of the other patrons of the gallery seemed to think so, as well.
“Honestly,” an old battleaxe yelled at Nioh, “don’t the young have respect for anything these days?”
“When I was a kid,” an old man chimed in, “the young were actually worked properly. Not like these frivolous boys today.”
“Guard!” The old woman had Nioh by the ear now. “This boy was leaning on the glass case!”
“Ow, ow, ow, ow!” Nioh whimpered as he was dragged forcibly to the front desk.
“Well, that’s what he gets,” Yukimura concluded smoothly. “You just don’t mess with museums.”
Sanada nodded over to Marui and Kuwahara.
“It’s just a picture of a giant can of soup!” Kuwahara complained, tilting his head to one side. “I could have done that!”
“Jackal?” Marui said wistfully.
“Yeah?”
“Suddenly, I feel…hungry.” Marui stared deep into the soul of the soup can. The soup can stared back.
Kuwahara rolled his eyes and finally caught Sanada’s signal. “Come on, we’re leaving.”
“It’s just as well,” Yukimura concluded once the team gathered together outside around the freshly-banned Nioh. “We still have lots of fun to get to today!”
“Video arcade?” Kirihara, whom Yanagi had wisely sneaked outside earlier with a GameBoy, asked hopefully.
“Even better,” Yukimura beamed.
Everyone else gulped.
***
“Oh god, no…” Yanagi breathed in horror when they arrived at their next destination.
“Isn’t this the best?” Yukimura agreed as he stepped off the bus. “I get to spend time with my friends and family both. Plus, there’s tennis. Everyone wins!”
“No, no, no, no, no!” Kuwahara shook his head in disbelief.
Kirihara scratched his head. “I don’t get it. How are we going to play with all those little kids on the court?”
One of those ‘little kids’ emerged from the crowd at that moment and waved at them excitedly. She had wavy blue hair, a dimpled smile, and a heavenly chorus seemed to follow her around. Clearly, it was genetic.
Yukimura smiled and waved back. “I’ve been so busy with rehab that I haven’t gotten much time to spend with my sister, either. So I volunteered us all to help coach her beginner tennis class for the rest of the morning. Won’t that be fun?”
Marui sputtered.
Yanagi quickly calculated any potential escape routes.
Yagyu turned a sickly puce color.
Nioh didn’t even bother to look and just bolted; unfortunately for him, Sanada had instinctively grabbed the back of his shirt to prevent any escape.
“You mean, we have to play with little girls?” Kirihara screeched in horror.
“Well,” Yukimura considered, “since you all lost like little girls, I thought it would be fitting, yes?” He beamed.
Yukimura pretty; Yukimura smiling; say yes! “Absolutely,” Sanada agreed with a sigh.
The rest of the team just glared at him for his betrayal.
“Seiichi, Seiichi!” Yukimura’s sister beamed and dashed up to them.
“Seiko!” Yukimura beamed back.
“Do you want to play doubles?” Yukimura’s sister displayed a weapon even more unholy than her brother’s: dimples.
“Yay, won’t that be fun?” Yukimura asked the team very rhetorically. “I know. We can play Kirihara and Yanagi.”
Kirihara and Yanagi, who still hadn’t fully recovered from playing against Yukimura alone, tried to back away.
Sanada caught them by the scruff of the neck, too.
“Yay!” Seiko agreed and skipped off to the court.
“You saw her,” Yanagi pleaded with Sanada. “She’s evil!”
Seiko pretty; Seiko smiling; say yes! Sanada’s brain unhelpfully provided. “You’re playing,” Sanada growled and shoved them both onto the court.
“The rest of you can help with the others,” Yukimura instructed and took the spare racket his sister offered him.
With the sort of inhuman sense that only children had, swarms of pint-sized little girls instantly leapt upon everyone who regularly avoided children as a matter of sanity.
“This isn’t so bad,” Marui announced cheerfully and led a merry bunch of children over to D-Court.
“I can live with it, I guess,” Yagyu considered and corrected one girl's grip.
“Piece of cake,” Nioh agreed and then someone pulled his rattail. “Ow!”
“Get them off!” Kuwahara screamed. “For the love of god, get them off!”
Sanada found himself similarly awash in waist-high pigtails.
“Why are wearing that stupid cap?” a voice cheeped from the crowd.
“It’s not stupid,” Sanada scowled in the general direction the voice came from. “And it keeps the sun out of my eyes.”
“But it’s cloudy, dummy.”
Sanada’s cheeks flushed. “Ten laps!” he ordered instinctively.
“What’s a lap?”
Sanada fought the urge to sob. This was clearly hell. He figured, however, that if he was going to die, he wanted to see Yukimura’s smiling face while he viciously slaughtered his opponent one last time. Slowly, Sanada waded his way through the children over to where the match was being held.
“Yay!” Seiko was clapping. “Our point again!”
Yanagi was panting and glaring at Yukimura.
Kirihara seemed to be having some sort of mental breakdown. “I-I can’t… Lose to a girl!”
“Here, Seiko!” Yukimura handed her the ball. “You try serving now.”
Seiko tossed the ball high in the air and smashed it with her racket. It flew across the net and hit Kirihara right in the crotch. “Oops!” she gave him an apologetic little smile. “Sorry, my control’s not very good yet.”
Kirihara rolled on the ground in agony.
“Try again,” Yukimura instructed her patiently.
Yanagi surreptitiously dropped his racket so that it covered his more vital areas.
No, Sanada reconsidered, he wasn’t in hell, even if the swarm had followed him. What Yanagi and Kirihara were experiencing? That was hell.
***
At noon, the little girls’ tennis class from hell finally ended, and Seiko left Yukimura with a hug and a smile.
“Isn’t she an angel?” Yukimura said wistfully.
Kirihara was still walking funny. Yanagi pressed the ice pack over his left eye.
Yukimuras pretty; Yukimuras smiling; say yes! “She’s wonderful,” Sanada agreed.
“Already she’s humiliating all her classmates on a daily basis,” Yukimura informed him proudly. “Soon, she’ll be ready to make all the competition cry at junior tournaments.”
“Oh, god,” Kuwahara whimpered. “There’s two of them!”
Yukimura checked his watch. “There’s lots we still have to do, but let’s break for lunch now, okay?”
Marui perked up at that. “Food?”
“Food!” Yukimura agreed brightly. “Come on, I know a great place just a couple of blocks away.”
Marui followed him almost happily until he saw where they were going. “Oh, no…” His eyes widened in horror.
“I thought that maybe the reason you all lost was because you weren’t in good enough shape,” Yukimura explained merrily. “So I figured we should all eat extra healthy today. This place is all vegetarian, all healthy, low fat, low sodium, and no sugars whatsoever. We need lots of vitamins and none of those nasty additives.”
Marui whimpered. “Do they have cake?”
“They have steamed sprouts!” Yukimura said.
“There is no god!” Marui screamed in anguish as Sanada shoved him inside, although even Sanada had to admit the food was shockingly tasteless.
***
Kirihara scowled down at the pasty-white beans on his plate. He poked one with his fork. It didn’t budge. Kirihara was still pretty sure it was actually a maggot in disguise, however. “Can we go somewhere that doesn’t suck now?” he grumbled.
Sanada bitchsmacked him across the back of the head, just for good measure.
“Sanada, there’s no need to be violent,” Yukimura chided him softly.
Sanada slumped.
Kirihara smirked at him.
“In any case, I’m sure Akaya will just love our next team activity.” Yukimura patted him on the head.
Sanada grimaced; anything that Kirihara liked couldn’t be good. (And, also, why didn’t Yukimura ever pat him on the head like that? Not that Sanada wanted him to. It was undignified or…something.)
“Ooh!” Kirihara’s eyes widened hopefully. “What is it? What is it?”
“It’s a surprise,” Yukimura teased him.
“What is it? What is it?”
Yukimura pretended to consider for a moment and then relented. “Well, there’s a movie I wanted to see…”
Kirihara breathed a sigh of relief as if he, too, had feared something horrible in his heart of hearts. “Which was is it? Anime? Kung-fu? What?”
“It’s a foreign film,” Yukimura evaded.
Everyone but Kirihara seemed to realize that this foretold doom.
“A foreign film?” Kirihara scratched his head, before his eyes widened in understanding. “Oh, like one of those American movies with cowboys and pirates and Spiderman?”
“Well, not quite…”
Sanada and Yanagi exchanged nervous looks. It wasn’t until they arrived at the theater, however, that they realized how bad it was.
“I…have never heard of this,” Yanagi frowned at his ticket blankly.
“It’s very indie,” Yukimura explained. “It was made by this new Swedish director who films everything north of the Arctic Circle during the winter, so there’s no daylight. All his films are about people coming to terms with things. Usually depression.”
Nioh looked like he was about to pass out, and the movie hadn’t even started yet.
“Come on!” Yukimura said brightly. “My art teacher said it was wonderful.”
“Your art teacher,” Yanagi concluded, “is a loony.”
Kirihara stared at Yukimura with a look of abject horror on his face. “No cowboys?”
“No,” Yukimura explained, “only depressed Swedes.”
“No pirates?”
“And lots of interesting camera angles of the interior of their cabin, expressing their despair and confinement…”
“No Spiderman?”
“Well,” Yukimura considered, “maybe there’s Spiderman. My teacher didn’t say anything about that.”
“Oh, boy!” Kirihara said and practically ran into the theater.
“Seiichi, that was cruel,” Yanagi sighed wearily.
“Well, then, he should have beat Fuji,” Yukimura scowled.
Yanagi didn’t try to argue further.
“Come on, everyone,” Yukimura hustled them all inside. “It’s only three-and-a-half hours.”
“Only?” Nioh whimpered.
“Sanada can sit by me!” Yukimura insisted proudly and tugged Sanada into the seat beside him.
It was the only saving grace of the entire movie, but in a way, it was also a curse. Everyone else was asleep within the first twenty minutes. However, every time Sanada tried to doze off, Yukimura poked him awake again, eyes fixed rapturously on the screen the whole time.
By the end of the movie, Sanada wanted to commit suicide, and he’d only watched the damned movie.
And, for the record, Spiderman never did show up.
***
“Can we go home now?” Kuwahara pleaded.
“We’ll never, ever lose again,” Marui promised.
“I’ll even be good and not prank the first-years for a whole week. Scout’s honor,” Nioh swore. He crossed his fingers behind his back.
“Technically,” Yagyu tried to bargain, “we didn’t even lose. It was all singles.”
Yukimura blinked at them, and his face fell. “You mean you’re not having fun?” He sniffled. “And I just wanted to spend some time out with my friends after I was sick for so long and I thought I might die…”
Sanada reached out to rest a comforting hand on his shoulder and glared at the two doubles pairs.
“N-No!” Kuwahara backtracked. “Today’s been great, really!”
“Yeah,” Yagyu agreed in a weirdly forced tone, “it’s been so much fun.”
“Oh, it’s been a blast.” Nioh rolled his eyes.
“We’re just, uh, tired is all,” Marui lied. “That, and we want to get back to tennis, which is more important. Right, Jackal?”
“Oh, um, right. We miss tennis. We want to practice more, so we’ll slaughter everyone at Nationals.”
Yukimura bit his lip and considered this. “Okay,” he agreed with a smile.
“Really?” everyone said in hopeful unison.
“Fun is fun,” Yukimura conceded, “but you’re right. Tennis is more important.”
Sighs of relief followed all around.
“There’s just one more place I want to go before we hit the train station,” Yukimura added.
A sea full of tight smiles followed this pronouncement.
“I just need to get a few things,” Yukimura promised. “It’ll be really quick.”
They followed him warily for a couple of blocks…and groaned aloud when he stepped into the gardening store.
“That’s it,” Nioh insisted. “I can’t take anymore. We’ll be here all night before he gets done.”
“Technically,” Yagyu considered, “the store will close before then.”
“Yeah?” Kuwahara said suspiciously. “When does it close?”
They checked the sign and discovered the answer was 9PM.
“You know he’s going to stay in there until then,” Marui insisted. “I say we all bolt.”
“Do you have any idea how many laps that would get us?” Kirihara worried.
“By my calculations, a hundred apiece,” Yanagi provided.
Sanada felt the anger building inside him until it finally burst free. “Slackers! Seiichi just wanted to have a nice team day, and you’re all ruining it! Now, get in there and have fun!”
They all gaped at him.
“That’s an order.”
Six very dejected Rikkaidai regulars slunk into the gardening store.
“Everyone, everyone!” Yukimura said brightly. “They have trowels!”
Everyone glared at Sanada in unison.
Sanada pulled his cap down over his eyes and tried desperately to come up with nice things to say about the new gardening trowel Yukimura presented to them all.
***
It turned out that Yukimura didn’t stay in the gardening store until closing. In the end, four hours in a gardening store was too much even for Yukimura to manage; he could only drag it out for an hour and a half.
“You all really have to go?” Yukimura pouted once they’d all finally escaped.
“I need to go do squats,” Marui insisted. “Tons of squats.”
“You said it yourself,” Kuwahara agreed. “My form is terrible. I’d better go do footwork right now.”
“Swing practice,” Yagyu said abruptly when Yukimura looked at him.
“I’ve gathered all the videos of Seigaku at Prefecturals,” Yanagi explained. “I want to review them to prepare our battle plan for next time.”
“Uh…good, tennis-related stuff,” Nioh said unconvincingly.
“And I’m going to play video games until I can’t see straight!” Kirihara concluded happily.
Sanada glared at him.
Kirihara stuck out his tongue.
“Oh,” Yukimura said sadly. “I guess it’s okay. I just really needed to do some shopping, but if you’re all busy…” He turned hopeful eyes to Sanada and smiled weakly.
Yukimura pretty; Yukimura smiling; say yes! “I’d be happy to go with you,” Sanada’s stupid libido answered.
Everyone else looked at him like he was crazy, and then Sanada realized what he’d just agreed to in horror.
“Hooray!” Yukimura beamed and hugged him. “Genichiro is the bestest vice-captain ever, isn’t he, guys?”
Yukimura hugging me! Yukimura calling me Genichiro! Must say yes to everything forever! Sanada’s impulses suddenly got a hell of a lot more disturbing.
“Well, we’ve got to go,” Kuwahara insisted. “Train to catch.”
Yanagi gave Sanada a critical look. “Are you sure you’re okay this?”
“Yes,” Sanada said dopily. He should still smell the lingering scent of Yukimura’s hair from the hug.
Yanagi shrugged, “your funeral,” and escaped with the others.
“It’s just that all my old clothes remind me of the hospital,” Yukimura explained as he slid his arm through Sanada’s and led him in the direction of the nearest youth-oriented clothing store. “You understand, right?”
“Yes, absolutely,” Sanada sighed.
“And while we’re at it, maybe we can get some fun things for you, too,” Yukimura giggled.
Sanada just nodded. Stockholm Syndrome was truly a wonderful thing.
The store was absolutely filled with giggling girls, all of whom instantly made moon eyes at Yukimura the minute he walked in. Sanada tried to scowl at them, but it was rather hard when Yukimura’s fingers were still tangled with his, pulling him along. If anything, the girls flocked closer when they noticed the hand-holding. Sanada had long ago figured out that girls made no sense, though, so this didn’t bother him in the slightest.
“Ooh!” Yukimura said excitedly. “Don’t you think this is cute?” He held up a fishnet top. “Or maybe this one?” The second shirt had strategic geometric shapes cut into it. “Which one do you like better, Genichiro?”
Sanada found himself with a painful hard-on at the thought of Yukimura in either of those tops. He shrugged hopelessly.
“And then there’s leather…” Yukimura considered a skintight red pleather shirt that zipped right up the font. “Although that might be a bit much with leather pants, too. And leather pants are definitely necessary, don’t you think?” Yukimura fished through the sizes and pulled out two that he guessed were close.
Sanada nodded numbly and decided this was the best store ever.
“We’ll start with you trying on these, and if they’re no good, we’ll come back for more,” Yukimura decided.
It was right around then that Sanada’s happy fantasy bubble popped. “Huh?”
“Go on.” Yukimura handed him the clothes and pulled him over to the changing rooms. “Right over here.”
Sanada’s face paled as he looked down at the clothes in his arms. “These are for me?” he sputtered in disbelief.
“Of course, silly,” Yukimura batted him playfully on the shoulder and shoved him into an open changing room. “Go on, try them on. I bet they’ll look so yummy on you.”
Sanada opened his mouth to object and then closed it. Yukimura thinks I’m yummy? the stupid part of his brain provided. Yukimura slammed the changing room door shut in his face, and Sanada was left to ponder his predicament.
In the end, Sanada’s dignity never really had a chance against that stupid, stupid voice in the back of his head. Sanada sighed and decided it couldn’t hurt to at least try things on in the privacy of the changing room.
“Be sure to model everything for me once you’ve got it on!” Yukimura’s voice called from outside.
Sanada blushed, but…that was okay, too, he guessed. Yukimura could see him however he wanted. Sanada stripped and then began the arduous process of squeezing into a pair of leather pants only millimeters larger than he was. The calves weren’t so bad, but the thighs were a nightmare, and Sanada dreaded the thought of zipping up until he realized with relief that the designer had considered that problem and provided a little extra space in the crotch. It wasn’t comfortable, per se, but at least Sanada didn’t massacre anything vital when he closed the zipper. Compared to that, the fishnet top was nothing.
Sanada stared at himself in the mirror afterward, completely baffled as to what he was doing. Only a knock on the door jolted him from his stunned stupor. He took a moment to compose himself and opened it.
Giggles sounded from everywhere. Sanada noticed with alarm that the fangirls had followed them and were hovering around the entrance to the changing rooms hopefully. Sanada blushed bright red and tried to pull his cap down over his eyes, only of course he’d had to take off his cap when he changed, so he didn’t have its comforting protection now.
Yukimura studied him critically from head to toe. “Hmm, something’s missing,” he concluded.
Sanada thought that it was probably his sanity, either that or his sense of self-respect.
“But I know what it is!” Yukimura added brightly. “Tada!” He pulled, from behind his back, what looked like a dog collar, one of those black leather ones with little metal spikes.
Sanada blinked.
“Here,” Yukimura said and slipped in so close Sanada could feel hot breath against his cheek, “allow me.”
Sanada just stood there, like a total whipped idiot, while Yukimura put the dog collar around his neck.
“There! All done.” Yukimura stepped back to study the effect. “Hmm, maybe the leather shirt, after all? With some ripped jeans, maybe?” Yukimura had apparently found a pair of those while Sanada was changing, too.
Sanada whimpered at the thought of having to get out of these constraining leather pants and in to a pair of jeans that were just as tight.
“Do you need help with that?” Yukimura asked lightly.
Yukimura pretty; Yukimura smiling; say yes! It was the only time Sanada had had that response and, immediately after agreeing, had praised that part of his brain as sheer genius. Because now Sanada was locked in a changing room with Yukimura, and Yukimura was unfastening his leather pants and shimmying them down his legs, and they were so close.
“You know,” Yukimura said thoughtfully, “today was supposed to be a team punishment.”
“I, ah, noticed,” Sanada agreed. Yukimura’s hand was only inches away from Sanada, Jr., and Sanada was exceptionally proud of the fact that he was able to speak in such circumstances.
“They were all things I wanted to do,” Yukimura conceded, “but that wasn’t the main point.”
“I think the main point got across loud and clear,” Sanada assured him, and Sanada’s main point accidentally brushed up against Yukimura’s thigh when Yukimura shifted.
“There’s something else I’ve wanted to do,” Yukimura continued in a soft whisper. “However, I don’t really think it would qualify as a punishment…”
“Oh?” Sanada’s voice squeaked in a way that it hadn’t since it first changed.
“Some might even see it as a reward,” Yukimura pouted. “You see my dilemma.”
Sanada nodded vigorously.
“What to do, what to do…” Yukimura pondered and tapped his fingers on the changing-room wall inches from Sanada’s naked hip.
“This isn’t punishment, too?” Sanada whimpered when he finally couldn’t wait anymore.
Yukimura smiled at him, a slow, wicked, shark-like smile that was a lot more like what Yukimura’s usual smile should look like. “I guess so,” Yukimura agreed and kissed him.
At that point, only that stupid part of Sanada’s brain continued to function; the rest of it turned into complete mush. Yukimura mouth! Yukimura hands! Yukimura putting my hand…where? Oh. Oh!
“God, Genichiro,” Yukimura breathed against his cheek when Sanada’s fingers finally closed hesitantly around his cock. “Harder.”
Sanada was more than happy to agree to that. He jerked Yukimura off as hard and fast as he dared, and then ever further still when Yukimura’s fingers dug deep into the muscles of his ass, urging him on. His own cock rubbed sloppily against Yukimura’s thigh, desperate for heat, contact, friction.
A distant portion of Sanada’s brain was scowling at the fact that Sanada was having sex, and he and Yukimura had only just kissed for the first time, and none of this was proper, damn it! Oh, shut up! Sanada’s sex drive shut that one down right away.
“Ah, ah!” Yukimura started to let out little gasps right against Sanada’s ear, and it was the sexiest thing Sanada had ever heard. And then Yukimura threw his head back in ecstasy, and he came all over Sanada’s hand.
Sanada gaped in awe at the sight. And to think that he’d once thought Yukimura just smiling was the prettiest thing in the world…
“Mmm,” Yukimura sidled back up close and pressed a sloppy kiss to Sanada’s lips, full of heat and tongue and desire, “Genichiro…”
“S-Seiichi,” Sanada agreed hesitantly. His own frustrated cock rubbed up against Yukimura’s thigh.
Yukimura shook his head and stepped back. “Ah, yes. Right. Well, you’d better change back into your street clothes. As much as I’d love to buy the rest for you, I doubt either of us has the money.” Yukimura studied Sanada one last time. “Except for the collar. We’re buying that.”
Sanada didn’t really regret the loss of the tight pants. He did, however, regret the loss of Yukimura’s hot, sexy body. His erection ached, and he let out a piteous little whimper.
Yukimura did up his pants once more and ran a straightening hand through his hair. “I trust you’ve learned your lesson today?”
Sanada whimpered again and nodded.
“Good.” Yukimura beamed at him. “Then maybe next time I won’t have to leave you hanging.” He reached for the door.
“Seiichi?” Sanada said nervously.
Yukimura paused and turned to look at him.
“I think you could make me learn to love shopping,” Sanada informed him seriously.
“Of course,” Yukimura agreed lightly, and then a steely glint entered his eye, and Sanada knew what he was about to say and fell in love with him all over again for saying it. “And that’s why we’re never going shopping together again.”
As always, comments are most appreciated.
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Pairing: Yukimura/Sanada
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 6,656
Spoilers/Warnings: Yukimura with a vengeance.
Summary: Yukimura punishes Rikkaidai for losing at Regionals spends a day out with all his friends. Sanada is too smitten to care which option is true.
Notes: Written for the prompt “And that’s why we’re never going shopping together again.” at writing_fest here.
Rikkaidai’s Special Team Bonding Punishment Day
by Kantayra
The morning after Yukimura got his signed note from his rehab therapist saying it was okay to return to practice, he was on the tennis courts, bright and early before Sanada even arrived.
“Sanada!” Yukimura waved at him cheerfully when he showed up to unlock the clubhouse. “Come rally with me!”
At this point, Sanada experienced a certain, almost-Pavlovian dysfunction that he suffered from. It went like this: Yukimura pretty! Yukimura smiling! Quick, say yes to whatever it is! “Sure,” Sanada sighed dreamily, even though it was only six in the morning and practice wouldn’t start for hours yet.
“Whee!” Yukimura beamed at him even more brightly. “You can serve first. I need to practice my returns.”
It was Yukimura’s first day back from rehab, and Sanada had no clue what sort of physical condition he was in, so Sanada hit a firm but straightforward serve a bit more to the center than he usually would.
Yukimura’s return was so fast and deadly that Sanada didn’t even have a chance to see it before the tennis ball collided squarely with the center of his forehead, and he was lying down on his back in the middle of the court, stunned.
“What kind of pathetic serve was that?” Yukimura sneered at him. “Honestly, it’s no wonder you lost so miserably at Regionals.”
Sanada sighed dreamily for the second time that morning. That was the Yukimura he knew and loved, not that false pretender who’d been constrained to his hospital bed. Sanada got to his feet and prepared to serve again. This time he gave it everything he had.
Again, the return was almost too quick to see. This time the ball whizzed by Sanada’s ear, only a hairsbreadth away.
“I suppose that will have to do,” Yukimura sighed like he was incredibly disappointed in Sanada. “Keep them coming.”
Sanada had never been more in love.
***
The rest of the team showed up two hours later to find Sanada sprawled out on his face next to the net, panting with exhaustion. Yukimura was poking Sanada hopefully with the end of his racket.
“Sanada?” Yukimura poked him some more. “Come on, get up. Only three more sets left!”
Sanada was so tired that he was pretty sure that some of his major organ groups were shutting down. He tried to open his mouth to explain this, but somehow even his face was too tired to move. He settled for wheezing desperately and flailing a bit on the clay court.
Yukimura pouted. “You’re no fun at all.” Then, however, he spotted the rest of the regulars, and a beatific smile lit up his face once more. “Hi, everybody! Over here!” He waved to them happily.
“The captain’s back!” Kirihara grinned and waved back.
Marui gulped. “Oh god, no…”
Kuwahara’s eyes widened. “Is the vice-captain…dead?”
“Unlikely,” Yanagi replied. “Seiichi needs him alive for Nationals.”
Marui and Kuwahara exchanged a nervous look.
“Renji, Akaya?” Yukimura fluttered his eyelashes. “Why don’t you two play a practice match with me? Bunta and Jackal did such an excellent job with their match in Regionals; I want them to keep working on that combination.”
Mari and Kuwahara breathed a sigh of relief. Victory at Regionals apparently meant reprieve from the newly-returned Yukimura’s wrath. They hustled off to D-Court before Yukimura could change his mind.
“This is perfect!” Kirihara boasted and bounded over to the court. “I’ll finally be able to defeat you now and take my place as Rikkaidai’s number-one player!”
Yanagi blinked at him, unconvinced. “In any case, your match will provide me with excellent data for determining your training regimen for-”
“Oh no, Renji,” Yukimura said in his softest, most polite voice. “You’re playing, too.”
Kirihara frowned. “But how does that make any sense?” He poked Sanada with his racket, too, for good measure. “I don’t think the vice-captain is up for a round of doubles right now.”
“No,” Yukimura said slowly, “you and Renji are playing me. Two-on-one.” His teeth gleamed in the sunlight, and a butterfly fluttered by.
Yanagi’s eyes widened, and for the first time in his life, he knew true terror.
“Now, don’t dawdle,” Yukimura said brightly. He took a quick practice swing and managed to sever the butterfly in half. “Just drag Sanada over to the coach’s bench, will you?”
Sanada let out a gurgle from the ground.
Kirihara and Yanagi didn’t even try to object, although Kirihara may have banged Sanada’s head against the ground on purpose once or twice. After they were gone, Sanada lay back on the bench and waited for his senses to return to him. The first thing he heard was the sound of Yukimura’s beautiful voice, and an infatuated smile curved his lips.
“How on Earth did you get so slow?” Yukimura snarled viciously. “Honestly, you’re worse than the girls’ team! You play like old women!”
Sanada sighed longingly and managed to turn his head just enough to watch the match in progress. Yukimura was fast, furious, brutal. He made it look as though he were the two, and Yanagi and Kirihara the one. Sanada fell in love all over again.
“You call this tennis?” Yukimura snapped and delivered a malicious slice to Yanagi’s backhand.
Yanagi was too frozen up by Yukimura’s previous barrage to even move. Sweat beaded his brow as he tried to force his muscles to respond, but he was already pushed past all human limits.
Kirihara dove wildly for the ball, missed it by mere inches, and felt flat on his face across the court. He panted frantically on the ground for a few seconds, trying to force himself to move. “Please, captain,” he whimpered at last. “Mercy!”
Yukimura blinked at him. “Mercy? Why ever would I grant that after you two lost my Regionals medal?” He moved to serve again but then noticed Sanada’s eyes were open. “Sanada!” he beamed, suddenly light and cheerful once more. “I was wondering if, as an extra special favor to me, you could take over the first-year practice today?” Yukimura fluttered his eyelashes. “It’s just that I haven’t been able to play in so long, and tennis is so much fun! Tee-hee!”
Yukimura pretty; Yukimura smiling; say yes! Sanada’s Pavlovian response went off like clockwork. “Of course,” he agreed and forced himself to get up.
“Come on, you two,” Yukimura teased Yanagi and Kirihara and lined up for his next serve. “That was only the first game. 1-0, here I go, whee!”
Sanada lurched over to the court where the first-years were waiting. Actually, as punishments went, Sanada lucked out. It wasn’t such a bad day. Only 90% of the balls went flying wildly over the fence; for first-years, that was practically Wimbledon.
***
“Today was a great practice, team!” Yukimura smiled sweetly once the entire team, from the regulars right on down to the ball boys, was passed out on the ground, gasping for air. “I really feel like we’ve moved past Regionals.”
Several hopeful eyes opened in Yukimura’s direction.
“So, let’s do twenty more laps, and then hit the showers!” Yukimura concluded cheerfully.
No one even dared to groan, lest the number of laps suddenly double.
When Sanada took position at the head of the group and began the first lap, however, he did hear several mumbles of “sadist” from behind him. He was too tired to turn around to see who it was, though; really, “masochist” was more like it. So, in the end, he just shouted over his shoulder, “That’s five additional laps, Nioh!”
Nioh groaned but didn’t protest. It seemed Sanada had guessed right.
After the first two laps, Sanada realized that he had a very pretty, very smiling jogging buddy to his right. He tripped over his own feet and barely managed to stumble out of it in time to keep his pace.
“Your footwork is atrocious,” Yukimura said snidely, then smiled once more. Sanada would have sworn there were actual sparklies around Yukimura’s head.
“Yes,” Sanada agreed automatically. “Absolutely horrible.”
Behind him, he heard a snicker and a muttered “whipped.”
“Five more laps, Nioh,” Sanada growled.
“Hey!” Nioh protested. “That was Yagyu.”
“What?” Yagyu said. “And I’m Nioh anyway!”
“No, I am!”
“Ten more laps for both of you,” Sanada snarled at them. That shut them both up immediately. Sanada turned to look at Yukimura hopefully.
Yukimura giggled, and Sanada felt his knees turn to jelly. Somehow, he managed to keep running, though.
“Anyway,” Yukimura continued to chat merrily, like they were all seated in a cozy café and not running still more laps after a grueling practice, “I’ve been thinking…”
The rest of the regulars tensed up in automatic recoil. Sanada just nodded eagerly.
“All work and no play, and all that,” Yukimura continued lightly. “I haven’t been able to do anything with you all in, oh, so long. So I think we should hang out for some fun time. You know, all those things I couldn’t do in the hospital, even though I wanted to so much…” A melodramatic shadow seemed to darken his face for a moment, but he tried so hard to smile bravely past it.
Yukimura pretty; Yukimura smiling; say yes! “Anything you want,” Sanada breathed, completely smitten.
“Yay!” Yukimura said excitedly. “We’ll all have so, so much fun together, you’ll see!”
The rest of the team gulped.
Sanada finally did trip over his own feet and, as a result, was assigned an extra ten minutes of drills for “shoddy footwork.”
***
That weekend, bright and early, the Rikkaidai regulars met up at the train station. That is, most of the Rikkaidai regulars met up bright and early; Nioh was late.
Yukimura pouted and checked his watch. “And I so wanted an early start for our big team outing!” he pouted.
Sanada glared at Yagyu, who was frantically talking into the phone, warning Nioh that he better not make them miss the first train or else.
Nioh ran for the platform just as the train arrived. He scrambled on after the rest of the team, huffing and puffing.
Yukimura frowned at him. “Five extra laps at practice on Monday.”
“What?” Nioh protested between pants. “It’s our day off!”
“If you ran more laps, then you wouldn’t be so exhausted and you would have arrived at the platform sooner,” Yukimura explained. “You almost ruined our special team bonding day.”
Nioh grimaced but didn’t complain further.
“Oh god…” Marui whimpered.
“The captain’s going to kill us, isn’t he?” Kuwahara gulped.
“In any case,” Yukimura continued brightly, “I’m glad Nioh made it in time, because I just know he’s going to have super fun at our first team activity.”
“Then we are going to the video arcade?” Kirihara asked hopefully.
Yanagi gave him a hopeless look.
“No, silly.” Yukimura batted Kirihara lightly on the shoulder. “We’re going to the art gallery!”
Everyone groaned. Even Sanada.
Yukimura sniffled piteously. “I read about this new exhibit in the newspaper while I was in the hospital,” he said wistfully, “and I thought to myself: Will I ever be able to see it? Will I ever be able to walk again? Will I even survive the surgery?”
The regulars all exchanged guilty looks.
“Hey, it could be, uh, fun,” Kuwahara finally said with a false smile.
“I just love, er, museums,” Marui added.
“It could be educational,” Yanagi considered.
“I have no objections,” Yagyu conceded.
“Yes, anything you want, Yukimura,” Sanada sighed dreamily yet again. Yukimura flashed him a brave little smile that would melt even the coldest of hearts…and hearts didn’t come much colder than Sanada’s.
Nioh made gagging noises.
“Does this mean we’re not going to the arcade?” Kirihara asked in disappointment, completely oblivious to all forms of emotional blackmail, as usual.
“Five laps,” Sanada informed him wearily, “for Monday.”
Kirihara scowled at him. “I don’t think we should have to do laps. Isn’t today supposed to be fun?”
“But, Akaya,” Yukimura blinked at him in disbelief, “everything is more fun with laps!”
Yanagi clapped a hand over Kirihara’s mouth before he could dig himself in even deeper.
It was only a few more stops after that before Yukimura was ushering them off the train. Yukimura skipped into the gallery, humming to himself. Sanada followed right behind him, gazing longingly at Yukimura’s behind the whole time. The rest of the team stalked in after them, with various degrees of distaste on their faces.
“Let’s see the new exhibit first!” Yukimura announced brightly and herded them all in the appropriate direction.
“What is this?” Marui blinked once they entered the gallery.
“Ah,” Yanagi blinked his eyes open, “it appears to be modern art.”
“Damn,” Kuwahara complained, “I was hoping there would at least be statues of naked chicks.”
“But there are!” Yukimura said excitedly. “Here’s one.” He gestured to a ceramic jug with a plastic onion plugging up the top.
Kuwahara blinked in disbelief.
“I like the male nude better, though,” Yukimura said critically. “It really says something about the human condition, don’t you think?”
The ‘male nude’ was a plastic stalk of celery on a plate.
“Tee-hee!” Yukimura said to the collective horrified looks of the team.
While Marui and Kuwahara went to gape in disbelief at a painting that was just a white canvas with a tiny red dot in the center, Sanada sidled up to Yukimura.
“I’m afraid I just don’t understand modern art,” Sanada said hopefully. “Can you explain it to me?”
Nioh started gagging again just behind him.
Yukimura looked over his shoulder at Nioh. “If you’re still so sick from the run to the platform that you’re feeling nauseous…” he began.
“Yes?” Nioh looked hopeful. It hadn’t occurred to him to play sick to escape this outing, but whatever worked…
“…Then you clearly need to run more laps,” Yukimura concluded with a helpful smile.
Nioh immediately stopped gagging. “I’m fine. Really.”
“Glad to hear it,” Yukimura waved him off. “Now, go play with Yagyu.” His hand slipped around Sanada’s bicep to guide him to the first display. “Sanada needs some help understanding the art.”
Sanada had been about to explain that Nioh and Yagyu off together around expensive things was a bad idea, but then there was Yukimura’s hand, and it was so warm, and Sanada officially had no higher brain functions left.
Yukimura finally stopped in front of one of the pieces. “The trick to understanding most modern art,” he explained to Sanada, “is that art isn’t created. Art is inherent in everything around us, only most people don’t see it. The artist is the person who points out the inherent art in the world to those who don’t see.”
The way Yukimura was grabbing Sanada’s arm forced Sanada to stand slightly behind him. As a result, Sanada’s hipbone was pressed up against Yukimura’s tight butt. It felt nice.
“Everything is filled with whimsy and beauty,” Yukimura instructed him. “Open your eyes with that thought in mind, and see the world as the artist does.”
Sanada looked at the ‘art.’ It was a nail stuck through a piece of rope and hammered into the wall. Yukimura’s hair, on the other hand, smelled like lemon soap. “Beautiful…” Sanada murmured in a daze.
“See?” Yukimura smiled at him brightly. “It’s easy.” He turned to face Sanada, and Sanada was sort of leaning in because he wanted to smell Yukimura’s hair more. The result brought their faces a little too close together.
For one dizzying moment, Sanada was torn between his propriety and Yukimura’s long, flowing hair and porcelain skin and tender lips. Then, Nioh made a farting noise that could be heard all the way across the gallery. Sanada would never admit it, but he was grateful; no Sanada should ever have to make a choice that impossible.
Yukimura pulled away from him to glare at Nioh. Sanada stumbled forward a little into the thin air Yukimura had just occupied. “That’s another twenty laps,” Yukimura hissed.
Several of the other patrons of the gallery seemed to think so, as well.
“Honestly,” an old battleaxe yelled at Nioh, “don’t the young have respect for anything these days?”
“When I was a kid,” an old man chimed in, “the young were actually worked properly. Not like these frivolous boys today.”
“Guard!” The old woman had Nioh by the ear now. “This boy was leaning on the glass case!”
“Ow, ow, ow, ow!” Nioh whimpered as he was dragged forcibly to the front desk.
“Well, that’s what he gets,” Yukimura concluded smoothly. “You just don’t mess with museums.”
Sanada nodded over to Marui and Kuwahara.
“It’s just a picture of a giant can of soup!” Kuwahara complained, tilting his head to one side. “I could have done that!”
“Jackal?” Marui said wistfully.
“Yeah?”
“Suddenly, I feel…hungry.” Marui stared deep into the soul of the soup can. The soup can stared back.
Kuwahara rolled his eyes and finally caught Sanada’s signal. “Come on, we’re leaving.”
“It’s just as well,” Yukimura concluded once the team gathered together outside around the freshly-banned Nioh. “We still have lots of fun to get to today!”
“Video arcade?” Kirihara, whom Yanagi had wisely sneaked outside earlier with a GameBoy, asked hopefully.
“Even better,” Yukimura beamed.
Everyone else gulped.
***
“Oh god, no…” Yanagi breathed in horror when they arrived at their next destination.
“Isn’t this the best?” Yukimura agreed as he stepped off the bus. “I get to spend time with my friends and family both. Plus, there’s tennis. Everyone wins!”
“No, no, no, no, no!” Kuwahara shook his head in disbelief.
Kirihara scratched his head. “I don’t get it. How are we going to play with all those little kids on the court?”
One of those ‘little kids’ emerged from the crowd at that moment and waved at them excitedly. She had wavy blue hair, a dimpled smile, and a heavenly chorus seemed to follow her around. Clearly, it was genetic.
Yukimura smiled and waved back. “I’ve been so busy with rehab that I haven’t gotten much time to spend with my sister, either. So I volunteered us all to help coach her beginner tennis class for the rest of the morning. Won’t that be fun?”
Marui sputtered.
Yanagi quickly calculated any potential escape routes.
Yagyu turned a sickly puce color.
Nioh didn’t even bother to look and just bolted; unfortunately for him, Sanada had instinctively grabbed the back of his shirt to prevent any escape.
“You mean, we have to play with little girls?” Kirihara screeched in horror.
“Well,” Yukimura considered, “since you all lost like little girls, I thought it would be fitting, yes?” He beamed.
Yukimura pretty; Yukimura smiling; say yes! “Absolutely,” Sanada agreed with a sigh.
The rest of the team just glared at him for his betrayal.
“Seiichi, Seiichi!” Yukimura’s sister beamed and dashed up to them.
“Seiko!” Yukimura beamed back.
“Do you want to play doubles?” Yukimura’s sister displayed a weapon even more unholy than her brother’s: dimples.
“Yay, won’t that be fun?” Yukimura asked the team very rhetorically. “I know. We can play Kirihara and Yanagi.”
Kirihara and Yanagi, who still hadn’t fully recovered from playing against Yukimura alone, tried to back away.
Sanada caught them by the scruff of the neck, too.
“Yay!” Seiko agreed and skipped off to the court.
“You saw her,” Yanagi pleaded with Sanada. “She’s evil!”
Seiko pretty; Seiko smiling; say yes! Sanada’s brain unhelpfully provided. “You’re playing,” Sanada growled and shoved them both onto the court.
“The rest of you can help with the others,” Yukimura instructed and took the spare racket his sister offered him.
With the sort of inhuman sense that only children had, swarms of pint-sized little girls instantly leapt upon everyone who regularly avoided children as a matter of sanity.
“This isn’t so bad,” Marui announced cheerfully and led a merry bunch of children over to D-Court.
“I can live with it, I guess,” Yagyu considered and corrected one girl's grip.
“Piece of cake,” Nioh agreed and then someone pulled his rattail. “Ow!”
“Get them off!” Kuwahara screamed. “For the love of god, get them off!”
Sanada found himself similarly awash in waist-high pigtails.
“Why are wearing that stupid cap?” a voice cheeped from the crowd.
“It’s not stupid,” Sanada scowled in the general direction the voice came from. “And it keeps the sun out of my eyes.”
“But it’s cloudy, dummy.”
Sanada’s cheeks flushed. “Ten laps!” he ordered instinctively.
“What’s a lap?”
Sanada fought the urge to sob. This was clearly hell. He figured, however, that if he was going to die, he wanted to see Yukimura’s smiling face while he viciously slaughtered his opponent one last time. Slowly, Sanada waded his way through the children over to where the match was being held.
“Yay!” Seiko was clapping. “Our point again!”
Yanagi was panting and glaring at Yukimura.
Kirihara seemed to be having some sort of mental breakdown. “I-I can’t… Lose to a girl!”
“Here, Seiko!” Yukimura handed her the ball. “You try serving now.”
Seiko tossed the ball high in the air and smashed it with her racket. It flew across the net and hit Kirihara right in the crotch. “Oops!” she gave him an apologetic little smile. “Sorry, my control’s not very good yet.”
Kirihara rolled on the ground in agony.
“Try again,” Yukimura instructed her patiently.
Yanagi surreptitiously dropped his racket so that it covered his more vital areas.
No, Sanada reconsidered, he wasn’t in hell, even if the swarm had followed him. What Yanagi and Kirihara were experiencing? That was hell.
***
At noon, the little girls’ tennis class from hell finally ended, and Seiko left Yukimura with a hug and a smile.
“Isn’t she an angel?” Yukimura said wistfully.
Kirihara was still walking funny. Yanagi pressed the ice pack over his left eye.
Yukimuras pretty; Yukimuras smiling; say yes! “She’s wonderful,” Sanada agreed.
“Already she’s humiliating all her classmates on a daily basis,” Yukimura informed him proudly. “Soon, she’ll be ready to make all the competition cry at junior tournaments.”
“Oh, god,” Kuwahara whimpered. “There’s two of them!”
Yukimura checked his watch. “There’s lots we still have to do, but let’s break for lunch now, okay?”
Marui perked up at that. “Food?”
“Food!” Yukimura agreed brightly. “Come on, I know a great place just a couple of blocks away.”
Marui followed him almost happily until he saw where they were going. “Oh, no…” His eyes widened in horror.
“I thought that maybe the reason you all lost was because you weren’t in good enough shape,” Yukimura explained merrily. “So I figured we should all eat extra healthy today. This place is all vegetarian, all healthy, low fat, low sodium, and no sugars whatsoever. We need lots of vitamins and none of those nasty additives.”
Marui whimpered. “Do they have cake?”
“They have steamed sprouts!” Yukimura said.
“There is no god!” Marui screamed in anguish as Sanada shoved him inside, although even Sanada had to admit the food was shockingly tasteless.
***
Kirihara scowled down at the pasty-white beans on his plate. He poked one with his fork. It didn’t budge. Kirihara was still pretty sure it was actually a maggot in disguise, however. “Can we go somewhere that doesn’t suck now?” he grumbled.
Sanada bitchsmacked him across the back of the head, just for good measure.
“Sanada, there’s no need to be violent,” Yukimura chided him softly.
Sanada slumped.
Kirihara smirked at him.
“In any case, I’m sure Akaya will just love our next team activity.” Yukimura patted him on the head.
Sanada grimaced; anything that Kirihara liked couldn’t be good. (And, also, why didn’t Yukimura ever pat him on the head like that? Not that Sanada wanted him to. It was undignified or…something.)
“Ooh!” Kirihara’s eyes widened hopefully. “What is it? What is it?”
“It’s a surprise,” Yukimura teased him.
“What is it? What is it?”
Yukimura pretended to consider for a moment and then relented. “Well, there’s a movie I wanted to see…”
Kirihara breathed a sigh of relief as if he, too, had feared something horrible in his heart of hearts. “Which was is it? Anime? Kung-fu? What?”
“It’s a foreign film,” Yukimura evaded.
Everyone but Kirihara seemed to realize that this foretold doom.
“A foreign film?” Kirihara scratched his head, before his eyes widened in understanding. “Oh, like one of those American movies with cowboys and pirates and Spiderman?”
“Well, not quite…”
Sanada and Yanagi exchanged nervous looks. It wasn’t until they arrived at the theater, however, that they realized how bad it was.
“I…have never heard of this,” Yanagi frowned at his ticket blankly.
“It’s very indie,” Yukimura explained. “It was made by this new Swedish director who films everything north of the Arctic Circle during the winter, so there’s no daylight. All his films are about people coming to terms with things. Usually depression.”
Nioh looked like he was about to pass out, and the movie hadn’t even started yet.
“Come on!” Yukimura said brightly. “My art teacher said it was wonderful.”
“Your art teacher,” Yanagi concluded, “is a loony.”
Kirihara stared at Yukimura with a look of abject horror on his face. “No cowboys?”
“No,” Yukimura explained, “only depressed Swedes.”
“No pirates?”
“And lots of interesting camera angles of the interior of their cabin, expressing their despair and confinement…”
“No Spiderman?”
“Well,” Yukimura considered, “maybe there’s Spiderman. My teacher didn’t say anything about that.”
“Oh, boy!” Kirihara said and practically ran into the theater.
“Seiichi, that was cruel,” Yanagi sighed wearily.
“Well, then, he should have beat Fuji,” Yukimura scowled.
Yanagi didn’t try to argue further.
“Come on, everyone,” Yukimura hustled them all inside. “It’s only three-and-a-half hours.”
“Only?” Nioh whimpered.
“Sanada can sit by me!” Yukimura insisted proudly and tugged Sanada into the seat beside him.
It was the only saving grace of the entire movie, but in a way, it was also a curse. Everyone else was asleep within the first twenty minutes. However, every time Sanada tried to doze off, Yukimura poked him awake again, eyes fixed rapturously on the screen the whole time.
By the end of the movie, Sanada wanted to commit suicide, and he’d only watched the damned movie.
And, for the record, Spiderman never did show up.
***
“Can we go home now?” Kuwahara pleaded.
“We’ll never, ever lose again,” Marui promised.
“I’ll even be good and not prank the first-years for a whole week. Scout’s honor,” Nioh swore. He crossed his fingers behind his back.
“Technically,” Yagyu tried to bargain, “we didn’t even lose. It was all singles.”
Yukimura blinked at them, and his face fell. “You mean you’re not having fun?” He sniffled. “And I just wanted to spend some time out with my friends after I was sick for so long and I thought I might die…”
Sanada reached out to rest a comforting hand on his shoulder and glared at the two doubles pairs.
“N-No!” Kuwahara backtracked. “Today’s been great, really!”
“Yeah,” Yagyu agreed in a weirdly forced tone, “it’s been so much fun.”
“Oh, it’s been a blast.” Nioh rolled his eyes.
“We’re just, uh, tired is all,” Marui lied. “That, and we want to get back to tennis, which is more important. Right, Jackal?”
“Oh, um, right. We miss tennis. We want to practice more, so we’ll slaughter everyone at Nationals.”
Yukimura bit his lip and considered this. “Okay,” he agreed with a smile.
“Really?” everyone said in hopeful unison.
“Fun is fun,” Yukimura conceded, “but you’re right. Tennis is more important.”
Sighs of relief followed all around.
“There’s just one more place I want to go before we hit the train station,” Yukimura added.
A sea full of tight smiles followed this pronouncement.
“I just need to get a few things,” Yukimura promised. “It’ll be really quick.”
They followed him warily for a couple of blocks…and groaned aloud when he stepped into the gardening store.
“That’s it,” Nioh insisted. “I can’t take anymore. We’ll be here all night before he gets done.”
“Technically,” Yagyu considered, “the store will close before then.”
“Yeah?” Kuwahara said suspiciously. “When does it close?”
They checked the sign and discovered the answer was 9PM.
“You know he’s going to stay in there until then,” Marui insisted. “I say we all bolt.”
“Do you have any idea how many laps that would get us?” Kirihara worried.
“By my calculations, a hundred apiece,” Yanagi provided.
Sanada felt the anger building inside him until it finally burst free. “Slackers! Seiichi just wanted to have a nice team day, and you’re all ruining it! Now, get in there and have fun!”
They all gaped at him.
“That’s an order.”
Six very dejected Rikkaidai regulars slunk into the gardening store.
“Everyone, everyone!” Yukimura said brightly. “They have trowels!”
Everyone glared at Sanada in unison.
Sanada pulled his cap down over his eyes and tried desperately to come up with nice things to say about the new gardening trowel Yukimura presented to them all.
***
It turned out that Yukimura didn’t stay in the gardening store until closing. In the end, four hours in a gardening store was too much even for Yukimura to manage; he could only drag it out for an hour and a half.
“You all really have to go?” Yukimura pouted once they’d all finally escaped.
“I need to go do squats,” Marui insisted. “Tons of squats.”
“You said it yourself,” Kuwahara agreed. “My form is terrible. I’d better go do footwork right now.”
“Swing practice,” Yagyu said abruptly when Yukimura looked at him.
“I’ve gathered all the videos of Seigaku at Prefecturals,” Yanagi explained. “I want to review them to prepare our battle plan for next time.”
“Uh…good, tennis-related stuff,” Nioh said unconvincingly.
“And I’m going to play video games until I can’t see straight!” Kirihara concluded happily.
Sanada glared at him.
Kirihara stuck out his tongue.
“Oh,” Yukimura said sadly. “I guess it’s okay. I just really needed to do some shopping, but if you’re all busy…” He turned hopeful eyes to Sanada and smiled weakly.
Yukimura pretty; Yukimura smiling; say yes! “I’d be happy to go with you,” Sanada’s stupid libido answered.
Everyone else looked at him like he was crazy, and then Sanada realized what he’d just agreed to in horror.
“Hooray!” Yukimura beamed and hugged him. “Genichiro is the bestest vice-captain ever, isn’t he, guys?”
Yukimura hugging me! Yukimura calling me Genichiro! Must say yes to everything forever! Sanada’s impulses suddenly got a hell of a lot more disturbing.
“Well, we’ve got to go,” Kuwahara insisted. “Train to catch.”
Yanagi gave Sanada a critical look. “Are you sure you’re okay this?”
“Yes,” Sanada said dopily. He should still smell the lingering scent of Yukimura’s hair from the hug.
Yanagi shrugged, “your funeral,” and escaped with the others.
“It’s just that all my old clothes remind me of the hospital,” Yukimura explained as he slid his arm through Sanada’s and led him in the direction of the nearest youth-oriented clothing store. “You understand, right?”
“Yes, absolutely,” Sanada sighed.
“And while we’re at it, maybe we can get some fun things for you, too,” Yukimura giggled.
Sanada just nodded. Stockholm Syndrome was truly a wonderful thing.
The store was absolutely filled with giggling girls, all of whom instantly made moon eyes at Yukimura the minute he walked in. Sanada tried to scowl at them, but it was rather hard when Yukimura’s fingers were still tangled with his, pulling him along. If anything, the girls flocked closer when they noticed the hand-holding. Sanada had long ago figured out that girls made no sense, though, so this didn’t bother him in the slightest.
“Ooh!” Yukimura said excitedly. “Don’t you think this is cute?” He held up a fishnet top. “Or maybe this one?” The second shirt had strategic geometric shapes cut into it. “Which one do you like better, Genichiro?”
Sanada found himself with a painful hard-on at the thought of Yukimura in either of those tops. He shrugged hopelessly.
“And then there’s leather…” Yukimura considered a skintight red pleather shirt that zipped right up the font. “Although that might be a bit much with leather pants, too. And leather pants are definitely necessary, don’t you think?” Yukimura fished through the sizes and pulled out two that he guessed were close.
Sanada nodded numbly and decided this was the best store ever.
“We’ll start with you trying on these, and if they’re no good, we’ll come back for more,” Yukimura decided.
It was right around then that Sanada’s happy fantasy bubble popped. “Huh?”
“Go on.” Yukimura handed him the clothes and pulled him over to the changing rooms. “Right over here.”
Sanada’s face paled as he looked down at the clothes in his arms. “These are for me?” he sputtered in disbelief.
“Of course, silly,” Yukimura batted him playfully on the shoulder and shoved him into an open changing room. “Go on, try them on. I bet they’ll look so yummy on you.”
Sanada opened his mouth to object and then closed it. Yukimura thinks I’m yummy? the stupid part of his brain provided. Yukimura slammed the changing room door shut in his face, and Sanada was left to ponder his predicament.
In the end, Sanada’s dignity never really had a chance against that stupid, stupid voice in the back of his head. Sanada sighed and decided it couldn’t hurt to at least try things on in the privacy of the changing room.
“Be sure to model everything for me once you’ve got it on!” Yukimura’s voice called from outside.
Sanada blushed, but…that was okay, too, he guessed. Yukimura could see him however he wanted. Sanada stripped and then began the arduous process of squeezing into a pair of leather pants only millimeters larger than he was. The calves weren’t so bad, but the thighs were a nightmare, and Sanada dreaded the thought of zipping up until he realized with relief that the designer had considered that problem and provided a little extra space in the crotch. It wasn’t comfortable, per se, but at least Sanada didn’t massacre anything vital when he closed the zipper. Compared to that, the fishnet top was nothing.
Sanada stared at himself in the mirror afterward, completely baffled as to what he was doing. Only a knock on the door jolted him from his stunned stupor. He took a moment to compose himself and opened it.
Giggles sounded from everywhere. Sanada noticed with alarm that the fangirls had followed them and were hovering around the entrance to the changing rooms hopefully. Sanada blushed bright red and tried to pull his cap down over his eyes, only of course he’d had to take off his cap when he changed, so he didn’t have its comforting protection now.
Yukimura studied him critically from head to toe. “Hmm, something’s missing,” he concluded.
Sanada thought that it was probably his sanity, either that or his sense of self-respect.
“But I know what it is!” Yukimura added brightly. “Tada!” He pulled, from behind his back, what looked like a dog collar, one of those black leather ones with little metal spikes.
Sanada blinked.
“Here,” Yukimura said and slipped in so close Sanada could feel hot breath against his cheek, “allow me.”
Sanada just stood there, like a total whipped idiot, while Yukimura put the dog collar around his neck.
“There! All done.” Yukimura stepped back to study the effect. “Hmm, maybe the leather shirt, after all? With some ripped jeans, maybe?” Yukimura had apparently found a pair of those while Sanada was changing, too.
Sanada whimpered at the thought of having to get out of these constraining leather pants and in to a pair of jeans that were just as tight.
“Do you need help with that?” Yukimura asked lightly.
Yukimura pretty; Yukimura smiling; say yes! It was the only time Sanada had had that response and, immediately after agreeing, had praised that part of his brain as sheer genius. Because now Sanada was locked in a changing room with Yukimura, and Yukimura was unfastening his leather pants and shimmying them down his legs, and they were so close.
“You know,” Yukimura said thoughtfully, “today was supposed to be a team punishment.”
“I, ah, noticed,” Sanada agreed. Yukimura’s hand was only inches away from Sanada, Jr., and Sanada was exceptionally proud of the fact that he was able to speak in such circumstances.
“They were all things I wanted to do,” Yukimura conceded, “but that wasn’t the main point.”
“I think the main point got across loud and clear,” Sanada assured him, and Sanada’s main point accidentally brushed up against Yukimura’s thigh when Yukimura shifted.
“There’s something else I’ve wanted to do,” Yukimura continued in a soft whisper. “However, I don’t really think it would qualify as a punishment…”
“Oh?” Sanada’s voice squeaked in a way that it hadn’t since it first changed.
“Some might even see it as a reward,” Yukimura pouted. “You see my dilemma.”
Sanada nodded vigorously.
“What to do, what to do…” Yukimura pondered and tapped his fingers on the changing-room wall inches from Sanada’s naked hip.
“This isn’t punishment, too?” Sanada whimpered when he finally couldn’t wait anymore.
Yukimura smiled at him, a slow, wicked, shark-like smile that was a lot more like what Yukimura’s usual smile should look like. “I guess so,” Yukimura agreed and kissed him.
At that point, only that stupid part of Sanada’s brain continued to function; the rest of it turned into complete mush. Yukimura mouth! Yukimura hands! Yukimura putting my hand…where? Oh. Oh!
“God, Genichiro,” Yukimura breathed against his cheek when Sanada’s fingers finally closed hesitantly around his cock. “Harder.”
Sanada was more than happy to agree to that. He jerked Yukimura off as hard and fast as he dared, and then ever further still when Yukimura’s fingers dug deep into the muscles of his ass, urging him on. His own cock rubbed sloppily against Yukimura’s thigh, desperate for heat, contact, friction.
A distant portion of Sanada’s brain was scowling at the fact that Sanada was having sex, and he and Yukimura had only just kissed for the first time, and none of this was proper, damn it! Oh, shut up! Sanada’s sex drive shut that one down right away.
“Ah, ah!” Yukimura started to let out little gasps right against Sanada’s ear, and it was the sexiest thing Sanada had ever heard. And then Yukimura threw his head back in ecstasy, and he came all over Sanada’s hand.
Sanada gaped in awe at the sight. And to think that he’d once thought Yukimura just smiling was the prettiest thing in the world…
“Mmm,” Yukimura sidled back up close and pressed a sloppy kiss to Sanada’s lips, full of heat and tongue and desire, “Genichiro…”
“S-Seiichi,” Sanada agreed hesitantly. His own frustrated cock rubbed up against Yukimura’s thigh.
Yukimura shook his head and stepped back. “Ah, yes. Right. Well, you’d better change back into your street clothes. As much as I’d love to buy the rest for you, I doubt either of us has the money.” Yukimura studied Sanada one last time. “Except for the collar. We’re buying that.”
Sanada didn’t really regret the loss of the tight pants. He did, however, regret the loss of Yukimura’s hot, sexy body. His erection ached, and he let out a piteous little whimper.
Yukimura did up his pants once more and ran a straightening hand through his hair. “I trust you’ve learned your lesson today?”
Sanada whimpered again and nodded.
“Good.” Yukimura beamed at him. “Then maybe next time I won’t have to leave you hanging.” He reached for the door.
“Seiichi?” Sanada said nervously.
Yukimura paused and turned to look at him.
“I think you could make me learn to love shopping,” Sanada informed him seriously.
“Of course,” Yukimura agreed lightly, and then a steely glint entered his eye, and Sanada knew what he was about to say and fell in love with him all over again for saying it. “And that’s why we’re never going shopping together again.”
As always, comments are most appreciated.