Beyond: A Tribute (Part 5, Echizen Ryoma part)
© 2008 Gold
Title: Beyond: A Tribute
Part 5
Author: Gold
Rating: K
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-san 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-san or aforesaid entities.
Notes: I need to improve the appalling disorganisation of this story. I’m going to try…currently, I’m still devoting chapters to sifting through the emotions of the boys.
The Story So Far:
The boys of the Prince of Tennis have graduated from high school. Some have gone on to university, some have turned pro on the international tennis circuits and yet others have gone on to choose other paths in life. Each is busy chasing dreams or else trying to find his own place in life. Some have lost contact; other once-close friends have drifted apart and hardly make any effort to keep in touch. Some, of course, still try to keep in touch. It’s the price that’s paid for growing up and growing apart.
In July 2010, though, the lives of some of the boys begin to unravel. Tezuka Kunimitsu is ensnared in a drug/performance-booster scandal that threatens total destruction of his tennis career; Momoshiro Takeshi disappears suddenly on an innocuous varsity camp aimed to help primary school children learn the basics of tennis, and is presumed dead; Yukimura Seiichi collapses before an important match.
This is the story of how the ties of old friendship drew the boys of the Prince of Tennis together and uncovered the truth behind the drug scandal, Momoshiro’s disappearance and Yukimura’s collapse.
Wait for me, Echizen! I’ll be coming soon!
Aa, sempai-I’m going first.
The sky was black as pitch.
Echizen Ryoma stood at the window miserably, hating the ugly colour of the sky. His fingers were wrapped loosely around a can of grape-flavoured Fanta, of the type sold in Japan, and there were distinct purplish stains around and on his lips. But though his fingers kept the can loosely in his grip, the knuckles and joints of his hands were white with tension, as if some very great force was being held back.
What happened, seishounen?
He didn’t know. He couldn’t answer. He didn’t have an answer.
“Echizen Ryoma has made six double faults in a row- what do you think, Simon?”
“I can’t explain it at all, Bill-I’ve never seen him do anything like this before! In fact in all my years as a sports commentator, I’ve really never seen someone self-destruct quite like that...”
“Well, Emmelmann’s playing rather well-”
“-but Echizen’s playing is somewhat unexpected today-”
“-Unexpectedly disastrous. Well, someone’s got to say it-oh, there’s another double fault. I can’t keep count of how many times I’ve said that in this match. Just what kind of tennis does that boy wonder think he's playing?!”
What kind of tennis, indeed? On the courts at one of the most important tennis events on the calendar, he had tripped, stumbled, fallen and generally humiliated himself completely, missing simple shots, occasionally putting up a haphazard show of his normal brilliance and then fading away horrifically, like a volcano eruption that is a mere sputter of the expected Vesuvius or Pompeii-like display. Where were the fire and genius he had shown throughout the last year on the circuit and, before that, on the youth circuit? Suddenly he looked like some awkward, puberty-stricken youth who was yet to come into his own as an adult.
He had walked away after the match, shoulders slumped, tennis bag hoisted over one shoulder-but it was not the scarlet and black tennis bag marked Prince that had become as much of a trademark as his small white cap with its bright red ‘R’. This bag he carried was much smaller, and less professional-looking; it was also faded, though still in excellent shape and condition, and had once been a proud, rich blue colour. Along the side of the bag, the part that faced outward and landed neatly within the scope of every camera lens within sight, was a string of white letters that dwarfed the well-known Yonex logo and meant absolutely nothing to anyone who was familiar with the English language. S-E-I-G-A-K-U. Seigaku. It was not an English word.The fans who had followed his career from the beginning would have recognised the bag as one that had appeared early in his battles on the international youth circuit, and had later given way to the larger, bulkier and admittedly more useful scarlet-and-black Prince bags.
Afterwards, the players in the players’ tunnel leading to the locker rooms would spread the word that they had never seen Echizen Ryoma look so defeated before, his shoulders hunched, the brim of the little white cap casting a shadow that hid his eyes, and the way he walked, marching on without a word to anyone, even his fellow Japanese players.
They would not understand.
He did not understand it himself. It was not as if he did not have good friends-not as if he had never had close friends before.
But this one was... special.
This one was his first friend. This one was the only one he would have liked to call his best friend, perhaps, if he had even thought about such a thing. This one was the first one he had bowed his head to, before all others, and said, Thank you, sempai.
Thank you for the times you dragged me out.
Thank you for the burger-eating contests.
Thank you for picking me up every day.
Thank you for finding Karupin.
Thank you for grounding my nose into the dirt when you decided I was getting too cocky for my own good.
Thank you for backing me up every time.
Thank you for all the things you’ve done for me and I’ve never thanked you for.
They should have stayed best friends. If he was looking for someone to blame for that, well, the buck stopped right at him.
He was far too young and hungry-he’d always been too young and too hungry-and he had forgotten what it was like to have the time for anything except tennis, so it was always the boy who had been his best friend and favourite sempai who called and sometimes sent one-liner e-mails that went straight to the point: Oi, Echizen, how are you? Pick up my ‘phone call next time-you can’t go around ignoring your sempai like that, it’s not right, not right at all!
He had never answered the emails. It always felt funny having to write down what he thought. He would much rather have said it out loud-but then again, he wasn’t fond of saying too much, since he didn’t really know how to say things that had no relation to tennis whatsoever. Heck, they were boys, not mushy girls, and they didn’t need to gush. He had once heard his mother say, in exasperation, that men had a silent language that was all their own.
But of course he sometimes answered the ’phone calls-once in a while, that is, when he wasn’t training or eating or sleeping.
Oi, Echizen, how are you? You didn’t answer my last email again!
I’m fine. I’m not like some people who spend all their time eating burgers, Momo-sempai.
Oi, oi-you still have the guts to call me sempai after insulting me like that?
Mada mada da ne-it isn’t an insult if it’s true, Momo-sempai.
Ch’! You haven’t changed a bit, Echizen. You’re not cute, not cute at all.
... I have to go, it’s time for practice.
Their conversations were always very short. He never really had the time to talk-and anyway, he had always felt that it never truly mattered, because it was just Momo-sempai, and even if he didn’t pick up this time, he could take the call the next time, or the next time after that, or the next next time after that. No problems there. Momo-sempai might just bellow a little bit louder the next time he did take the call, but Echizen knew that he could always hold the ’phone a little further away from his ear.
Echizen hadn’t noticed, though, how the pattern of their communication changed. The ’phone calls got shorter. The e-mails stopped coming. Then the ’phone calls turned into ’phone messages.
Oi, Echizen, the newspapers said you beat mamushi. Tell him I said that he’s embarrassing your sempai-tachi!
Oi, Echizen, call when you can.
Oi, Echizen, ha, realised today how far America is from Japan.
Oi, Echizen... ah, never mind.
He wished that he had saved those ’phone messages. He wished that he had picked up the call that had come in on his mobile phone that day-but he had ignored it, because he had another practice match in fifteen minutes and he wanted to practice a new shot he thought might work against Tezuka-buchou’s infamous Black Hole (which was what they were now calling the new, improved Tezuka Zone Version 12-Echizen had broken the first eleven versions, but Tezuka just kept raising his Zone to new levels, which was usually something that was supposed to happen only in virtual reality games... and not in real life).
Echizen wished and wished that he could have done some things differently-he always thought Momo-sempai would be there next time, every time-he had never imagined that there could be no next time. Cyclones could come and go, tsunami could make broken matchsticks of luxurious cruise ships, dinosaurs could be wiped from the face of the earth... but his Momo-sempai would always be there, lurking in that corner of the globe that was the only place Echizen would ever truly call home-nestled in that corner of his heart that he kept for special things that made him remember home. Maybe this was a punishment for him, sent by the gods, to remind him that he should not have taken things for granted.
For it was just two mornings ago, exactly four hours before Echizen Ryoma’s match against Jan Emmelmann, that Kevin Smith had said out of the blue: “That guy!!”
They had been in a middle of a light practice rally, so Echizen had been rather annoyed. He disliked it when Kevin started chattering in the middle of practice, even if it was a simple, no-brainer of a practice rally. Kevin had some very bad habits sometimes. “Don’t get distracted.”
Kevin had rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever.”
“If you’re talking about buchou, he’ll get through this,” Echizen had responded, narrowing his eyes and turning what should have been a light return into a powerful 150km-per-hour serve so that Kevin was forced to add some speed in order to retrieve it.
Predictably enough, Kevin had been forced to throw himself to the other side of the court and lunge like a first-time ballet dancer in order to hit the ball back-and had missed with spectacular non-precision. “Not that stone-faced captain of yours- the other guy! Your best friend in Japan, that weird guy-I forgot his name! You know who!”
Echizen had blinked, frowning slightly as he served a fresh ball, lobbing it higher into the air than he had expected.
“What the-Ryoma, this is a rally, not a match!! What are you doing?!” Kevin had roared angrily as he leapt into the air to take the shot.
Echizen paid no attention. Something seemed to be niggling at the back of his mind. “… which weird guy?” he asked finally. All his friends were bizarre. Buchou had a face like carved granite; Fuji-sempai smiled so continuously that Echizen sometimes wondered when that upturned mouth would fall off; Inui-sempai was going to commit murder with his Inui Jiru one of these days, mild-mannered Kawamura-sempai had a roaring alter-ego that emerged every time he held a tennis racquet, Kaidoh-sempai insisted on wearing a forest-green headscarf that made him look like a pirate-wannabe all day...
“The one… with… violet… eyes!!” Kevin’s racket smashed the ball into the ground with such force that it stayed there for perhaps two seconds, spinning, before bouncing back up.
Violet eyes… violet eyes...? Momo-sempai…?
“What do you mean?” He had to use both hands to deliver a return-Kevin was, as always, one of the strongest players on the tour.
“Your cousin, Nanako-chan, told me he’s disappeared!” Kevin shouted back, hitting the ball sharply across the net. “What, now you’ve sudden amnesia, Ryoma? Oh, and by the way, you do remember how to play tennis, right? You know what a double-fault is, right?”
Disappeared?
“… what are you talking about?”
Now it was Kevin’s turn to blink as his racket connected with the ball, sending it sailing high into the air. “You really didn’t know?!”
“Know what?” Echizen narrowed his eyes, judging the precise path of the ball. Insult me like that, will you? Amnesia? Hah!
“Uh… maybe it’s better you don’t know...” Kevin’s face had begun to look somewhat anxious, although Echizen couldn’t really tell.
“Tell me, or I’ll tell my mother just what you were really doing out late last night.” He waited for the ball to come down a little lower. A little bit more…c’mon, ball...
“You wouldn’t!” Kevin had somehow developed an unholy terror of Echizen’s mother... it might have something to do with the fact that he had once seen her chase her husband around the house with the biggest frying pan he had ever seen...
“Yeah?” Echizen had leapt into the air, a tiny smile curving the corners of his mouth. That ball was going to be perfect. Just wait till he did a Super Great-o Momoshiro Special Dunk-u Smash-u right back at Kevin.
“Fine! He’s been missing for a week. Went for some camp, got lost and no one can find him. They’ve been carrying out searches with dogs and everything.”
For the briefest of moments, Echizen had frozen. A week? Missing?
The ball had connected solidly with Echizen’s racket and missed Kevin’s head by exactly five centimetres or so. The blond teenager had screamed blue murder and hurled accusations about attempted homicide, but Echizen hadn’t really been bothered. All of a sudden, he had an insane urge to drop everything, to run, catch the first plane that he could find, and fly back to Tokyo… because he knew that he could find him. But he had a tournament to play. And he had more than a sneaking suspicion that Momoshiro Takeshi would have killed him if he had left just like that. TheAssociation of World Men's Tennis Professionalswould likely have suspended him. Nowhere in the rules did it provide for compassionate leave to find a missing friend. That sort of excuse was manifestly inadequate and anyway, there were hundreds of players who had played through personal grief and devastating loss. What price his situation as compared to theirs?
But he was afraid. He was frightened beyond belief, of the something unspoken of out there, of the words missing and dogs and search.
He needed to go.
There would always be some things that were far more important than tennis and getting through the fourth round of a tournament. He could always try again next year, because the Masters tournaments would always be there, whereas nothing would matter if he didn’t go back right away to look for Momo-sempai. It was as if a little part of his heart had been broken off right there and then. He couldn’t stay on for the sake of some mouldy old trophy, and then go back to look for Momo-sempai after the tournament was done. Something would have to give and Echizen was very clear on what would have to go, because there was no medicine in this world that could cure regret.
You promised you would come, Momo-sempai. Now I’m going to have to make you keep your promise.
The distance between them spanned more than half a world, more than a couple of ocean between, more than mountain ranges, more than the clear blue skies of over a dozen different countries, and-more than half a lifetime-
Wait for me, Momo-sempai. I’m coming soon.