Beyond: A Tribute (PG-13, Interlude: Rikkaidai no Hashira)

[potreminisces]

© 2004 AlseGold
Title: Beyond: A Tribute
Author: AlseGold 
Rating: PG-13.
Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis is created by Konomi Takeshi. This work is a piece of fanfiction and no part of it is attributed to Konomi-sama or any other entity holding any legal right associated with and arising out of Prince of Tennis . It was written purely out of fanservice and it is not to be used for profit or any false association with Konomi-sama or aforesaid entities.

Interlude: Rikkaidai no Hashira

“I won’t do this anymore!”

The harsh floodlights came on suddenly, one by one in quick succession, and the hard green courts became a spectacular centre for these makeshift spotlights, throwing the shadows into sharp relief and casting everything else just outside the fencing into an inky blackness, almost a semblance of a separation of worlds, and at the centre, frozen in the middle of the pool of blinding white light, were the stars of the night.

One was a youth, barely a man, with an untidy head of very dark, wavy hair and a tangled fringe of hair that threw his eyes into shadow under the bright, white lights. He stood very still, his head bent low enough for his chin to nearly meet his collarbone, and the lines of his figure were taut with a strange tension. A tiny, neon yellow ball dropped from the sky and rolled into the shadows at his feet.

The very pale, tall young man across the net from the untidy youth stood very still. He was just a little older than the first youth, with an ethereal, almost elusive beauty about him. There was a delicacy about the shape of his face, particularly the chin, and his features were fine and sharp-boned, lit by a mouth that seemed to be eternally set in a guileless smile, and tempered with cool blue eyes that were darkly, thickly lashed, and that tipped up at the corners, just short of being tilted upwards like a cat’s. Like his untidy compatriot, he had a tennis racket in one hand and his entire body was poised ready to return a ball-indeed, had remained poised as such, even in the face of the sudden outburst from his opponent.

Something in the shadows moved, abruptly, and then stilled.

Across the net, the untidy-looking youth bent to pick up the tiny yellow ball, and as he straightened, his fingers dug into the tiny neon yellow ball to hide the trembling he felt in every nerve fibre and the yellow plush on the ball sank deep under his fingertips. “I’m not doing this anymore, buchou. I can’t and I don’t want to-and you shouldn’t either.” The tone of his voice was surprisingly chill, if deeply respectful, but underneath the messy tangle of hair, his dark eyes were sharp with fear and something else. “You have to stop this now.”

The one addressed as buchou watched his untidy opponent, his eternal smile never dimming, although the steel in the cool blue eyes grew flintier with each second that passed.

“Akaya.”

The third voice was hard and unyielding, and it came from deep in the shadows, which seemed to be shedding their inky blackness to reveal the third star of the night.

The young man who emerged was a good half head taller than the other two, who were approximately of the same height bar a centimetre or two, and he was broad-shouldered, with a strong, athletic frame and powerful wrists bound with black wristbands that seemed a little larger and thicker than normal. He wore a completely black cap that seemed to blend in perfectly with his short, black hair, and the peak of the cap was unusually long, throwing most of the upper half of his face into shadow so that one could just barely make out the lower part of the very straight nose and the stern set of the mouth that joined together with a very firm jaw to make a handsome, if iron-grim profile.

It was clear that he was addressing the untidy youth, even though his gaze clung to the pale young man.

The untidy youth thus addressed as Akaya let the ball he was holding drop to the ground. A breeze stirred, and the leaves on the trees and bushes nearby rustled in response. The boy lifted his head and his eyes were twice as brilliant as the bright glare of the floodlights, and the flint in them was icier than anything that cool blue eyes could ever conjure.

“So you can see it too.” The one called Akaya gave a short, sharp, bark of laughter, plainly directed at the black-capped newcomer. “He’s sick, isn’t he? It’s the same thing he had-the Guinea Pig Syndrome-and he’s still going to play you in the quarter-finals.” Dark green eyes gleamed through the tangled fringe of hair, and there was a sudden gleam of scarlet in outer rims of the irises.

This scarlet was mirrored in the sudden, dark flush that burned the cheeks of the hitherto iron-grim young man with the black cap.

But it was the pale-faced young man, instead, who responded with a light, thin laugh, laced with amusement... and a little contempt. “It is not called the Guinea Pig Syndrome, Akaya, although in terms of treatment, you may be more accurate than you imagine. But-” here he made a sharp, imperious movement that spoke of mixed disdain and impatience-“stop this foolishness. I don’t wish to waste any more time here. I have only two hours to practice-”

“Foolishness?” cried the boy named Akaya, and he seemed suddenly consumed with a fit of silent laughter, his shoulders shaking.

The young man in the black cap lifted his chin sharply, eyes narrowed and watchful. He shot a quick, alarmed glance at his pale compatriot, but the other simply watched the third member of their little trio with pure disinterest.

The laughing boy stopped as abruptly as he had begun, breaking off in a sort of choked gasp. “I’m not young and stupid anymore.” He breathed heavily and coarsely ran an arm across his forehead, pushing back the damp curls. “You could have fooled me all those years ago, but don’t forget-” he pointed his racket at the pale-faced young man he had addressed as buchou-“I’m not thirteen years old anymore. I know.”

“Akaya, leave alone the matters you do not understand.” The voice of the young man with the black cap was very low and deep, rumbling from somewhere deep within his chest, and it had all the warning connotations of iron and blood.

The scarlet in those dark green irises flashed again, then dimmed. “You’re wrong there, Sa-na-da-fu-ku-bu-chou. You’re the one who doesn’t understand the matters here-or maybe you’re too afraid to face it.” There was a curious, twisted look about his mouth as he spoke. “I understand, Sanada-fukubuchou, that you’re this close to killing... him.”

The dark flush faded from the face of the youth called Sanada and the tan on his face whitened, as if the bright, white floodlights had touched his face and bleached the skin in an instant.

“Akaya, stay out of this.” The voice of the very pale young man slashed sharply through the silence, keener than the edge of a finely honed blade and twice as riddled with danger. “This is my decision, Akaya.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Yu-ki-mu-ra-bu-chou,” drawled the other, half-mockingly, swinging his racket in a steady rhythm back and forth, his manner curiously sinister. His head was bent, chin lowered, and it was difficult to decipher his eyes through the tangle of hair covering them. “Don’t forget, bu-chou-there’s someone else across the net. If it’s just you playing, I grant you, buchou, you’ve every right in the world to tell me that it’s your decision. But-” Akaya’s voice rose, shrill and shaken-“now you’re just using Sanada-fukubuchou-and you know it-and-”

The ball was fast and furious, and it smashed straight into his racket and tore it out of his hand, the backlash slamming his arm to the side wildly and sending him stumbling backwards.

The pale-faced young man’s blue eyes were cooler than fjords and the racket in his hand was poised perfectly for the return serve-if there had been one. “Play, Akaya, or get out. This is your last chance. I won’t miss again.”

The youth called Akaya snarled at the pale youth, regaining his balance with difficulty. “No, this is your last chance!” His face was flushed and he clutched his injured elbow tightly. “You know it! I won’t see this happen again, I swear I won’t! You were like that too, that time, and we all thought you were okay, and you told us that the doctors said you were okay, and Yanagi-sempai told me you had gone to six doctors and they all couldn’t find anything wrong and said you were just tired out from the ’flu and we thought it was just the ’flu that made you different when you played tennis-but it wasn’t, it wasn’t! And now it’s happening all over again! I won’t forget what it was like-I’m not a fool, buchou, so stop lying to me!”

“Akaya!” The grim young man called Sanada gripped his racket tightly, almost threateningly.

A tanned hand shoved back the tangled fringe of hair to reveal fierce, dark green eyes. “Why?! I’m telling the truth, aren’t I? Buchou’s not fit to play tomorrow-”

The tall, grim young man gritted his teeth. “Yukimura is fine,” he bit out harshly. Stop your nonsense. The doctors have certified that he is perfectly fit to go through the match tomorrow-”

“And you believed them! You, of all people-you know buchou hasn’t been well for weeks and it’s not ’flu because he hasn’t got ’flu this time-how can you forget what it was like that time and we thought-we thought he was going to die!”

A tremor ran through the tall, broad-shouldered frame of the dark young man in the black cap and he seemed to hesitate a little. “I...”

“You know Yanagi-sempai would tell you the same thing if you were here-Sanada-fukubuchou, can’t you see...?”

The boy with head of messy curls broke off suddenly and doubled up abruptly, clutching his stomach. His knees buckled and he crumpled to the ground, a sharp hiss of agony spilling from his lips. A tiny, neon yellow tennis ball rolled a little way from his feet.

The tall young man with the black cap was very still.

Behind him, the pale-faced young man rested blazing, cool blue eyes on the prostrate youth on the court. “Enough.” He ran slender fingers along the strings of his tennis racket. “Come, Genichirou. It’s already almost eight and I have only managed to get in two balls today. We have an hour-and-a-half left. Let’s put it to good use.”

Still the young man with the black cap did not move.

The pale-faced young man turned to look at him curiously. “Genichirou?”

The young man called Genichirou bent his head a little lower. “Yukimura...”

“Hmm?”

“Are you... feeling all right?”

Cool blue eyes flashed. “I’m in very good health. Our doctors say so and I’d rather not argue with them if I don’t hold a medical qualification. Genichirou-” He moved three steps forward and one step to the left.

The young man called Genichirou blinked, taken aback.

Yukimura’s cool white hand had reached up and cradled itself against the iron-grim jawline.

“Play your best against me tomorrow, Genichirou, or I will never forgive you.”

Face hidden in his arms, his body curled and crumpled, Kirihara Akaya’s eyes were open and blank, and tears leaked from them, trickling down his dirty cheeks and landing on the hard green court beneath him. Overhead, the sounds of the tennis balls passing over him, dangerously close, continued for another hour.

Sempai...

“... Akaya?”

Yanagi Renji woke with a start.

He was in his bed.

A dream, he realised-he had thought he had heard an old team-mate calling his name in a sobbing whisper, but that team-mate was thousands of miles away, across a couple of oceans or so.

Yanagi squinted sleepily at the alarm clock, raising one arm to block out the harsh sunlight as it poured in through the open window.

Ten-oh-five a.m.

Yanagi turned over and burrowed deeply under the blankets.

Too early. He wrinkled his brow as a noisy flock of crows flew by his window, cawing loudly and importantly.

Only a dream...

Outside, on the shoe rack beside the front door, the shoelaces on Yanagi Renji’s best tennis shoes snapped.