FIC: Indirect Route (SanaYuki, PG13)
Title: Indirect Route
Author: Ociwen
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 2800
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all, except for Pointillism and Pisarro.
Summary: Yukimura takes a detour back home.
Author's Notes: Art historical references are dangerous. As is Kirihara coaching small children. Written for Valentine's 2011.
They lose his luggage on the direct flight from Amsterdam to Narita. He sits by the Lost Luggage desk-his coach is MIA, the toilet maybe. His cell is out of juice. He reaches into his wallet, but the ten euro yen note won't fit into the coin slot of a Japanese payphone.
He scowls. He flicks his hair from his eyes-it's still sweaty and dank from the flight. Ten hours next to a kid who'd been upgraded to business. His temple pounds.
Yukimura can't remember the last time he was here. When has he heard Japanese spoken by airport attendants? Or from the lady across the desk, apologizing on behalf of an airline she doesn't even work for. For a moment, he closes his eyes and absorbs the sounds. He nods once, and tries not to think about those new rackets he'll need next week at the 500s in Memphis.
It's midnight inside, and dawn here. The vacant rice paddies are covered in a brittle golden light. The train rumbles. His eyes sink heavy.
Direct over the Atlantic would have been better.
***
The back page of the newspaper has the international sports section. A photo in monochrome grins from the bottom right corner. Sanada snorts. Germany's revenge in Rotterdam.
He starts to read. A name catches in his throat. He swallows, and folds the paper over. The subway PA announces his stop. Sanada leaves the paper on the window ledge, and rushes onto the platform.
At the escalator, he stops. Sharpness cuts through his knee. A cold draft meanders through the station. He takes a deep breath, then pushes his leg forward. It's been aching since he woke up this morning.
Above the bare trees lining the street, the sun mellows into a translucent sky. An OL in heels clicks past. Sanada inhales, walks a little faster. She's lost into the city before he reaches the cross walk.
He scowls.
The office is empty at this hour. Neither the manager nor the intern from university have shown up. His key rattles. He flicks on the fluorescent lights. The cold seeps through his shoes. His toes creak.
The door clicks behind him. Mai says good morning. "I'll have the report from the conservationists by ten," she says.
"Will they be done?"
Mai keeps smiling. "Yes with the ceramics, no with the prints. The ink…" She bats her lashes, and chews on her lip.
He grunts.
"Ne," she says.
He shifts his eyes toward her. Sharpness stabs through his knee. Shivers rush down his arms.
Mai just bobs her head. She's wearing three layers of sweaters.
***
The floor-to-ceiling windows facing east over the harbour were a great idea when he bought the apartment.
He groans. Then he pulls the blanket over his face. Light seeps through the weave. He squeezes his eyes shut. Moves onto his other side, away from the window. The heater creaks and rattles. He listens to himself huff, and sigh, and rustle the sheet again. His limbs ache. His mind races.
At noon, he flings the blankets off. He pulls on the old tracksuit in the closet with a yawn. On the street, he looks north, then south. He jogs toward the park, wedged between Chinatown and the hospital. Greasy smells waft from the restaurants. He turns sharp at the next street corner. His stomach churns. Winter whips through his hair, chaps his lips. He dodges the salarymen who file like ants westward to the food. Yukimura purses his lips a little thinner. Under his jacket, he's melting.
A building blocks the end of the street, along a perpendicular road. The western-style red bricks stick out from the concrete high-rises all around. He jogs past the iron fence. At the entrance is a sign for the museum.
It's got nothing on the Orsay, he thinks. It was two years ago that he slipped away from practice, the day before the qualifying rounds in Paris. Two hours with Manet's picnic, and watery lilies. Pisarro's suburbs drifting through snow, and the pointillist faces without expression. He'd been alone in a crowd of thousands, pushed at from all sides by loud tourists and the blinding flashes of cameras.
But on the upper level, in the far rooms filled with fin-de-siècle accoutrements, there was nothing except the din in his ears. He walked between the cloisonné vases and Japoniste screens before leaving. Memories clouded the silence, and he turned on his cellphone to the fifteen angry voicemails from the coach.
There is a noise behind him. A syllable spoken from a deep voice. His shoulders stiffen, and the cold catches up with his perspiring skin.
His mouth hangs.
***
He was the last person Sanada expected to see on the museum grounds. His lunch drops to the yellowed grass. The pickles tumble out. He opens his mouth, but the name sticks on his tongue. His face burns.
Sweat darkens patches under Yukimura's arms, and along his collar. He lifts his head higher. Sanada takes a deep breath. His nostrils flare.
In a thin voice, Yukimura says, "What are you doing here?" His eyes flick down to Sanada's legs, then back up.
Numbness prickles his knee. There are a hundred things he could say now. There are a hundred things maybe he wants to say. But instead, he opens his mouth and says, "Your parents will be glad to see you."
He waits. Yukimura wipes at his forehead. He wipes at his upper lip where the beads of sweat collected. He shifts his weight to his other leg. Sanada doesn't move. There is a crow on the roof of the museum.
Winter soughs through the dormant shrubs along the fence.
Yukimura leaves.
Sanada crouches down. He hisses through his teeth. He picks up the remains of his bento with shaking hands, and goes for ramen in Chinatown.
***
"Haven't seen him in ages," Marui says. He blows smoke across the table, then picks up his beer. It sloshes down his hand. "Yagyuu might still talk with him, but I dunno. Haven't seen him in a couple years either."
Yukimura takes a gulp of beer. He hums. His body sways to the side, leaden. He reaches for the dish of edamame. His fingers slip. The bowl tips over the table. Marui just laughs.
His face is flushed. It’s not even half-past eight.
"Now, Jackal, on the other hand," Marui says. He waves his beer into the air. "He should be here in…" He glances down to his cell. He furrows his brow. Yukimura looks at his own cell-the screen blurs.
"Sometime!" Marui shouts. He clinks his glass with Yukimura's. Beer splashes. The tight ball of tension in his gut twists. He can taste acrid bile on his tongue. Marui keeps talking. Yukimura doesn't hear the words. He glances around the bar. The walls ripple: concave, convex. They press down and around. He touches his collar, where his shirt digs into his throat.
Marui raises his beer again. Jackal sits down, perpendicular to Yukimura. He says, "It was a great match! You coulda totally creamed Murray the way Atobe did in the finals!"
Yukimura tries to lift his head. Instead, he slips forward across the table.
***
He can hear the rhythmic sounds from the dojo below. The slapping of the bamboo shinai sticks. He snorts under his breath. Beginners. There is a single shout. Sanada swallows, glances out his window. A skeletal branch raps at his window.
He lays on his futon. His heart won't stop fluttering, ten hours later. He can hear the words in his mind. Still.
A cellphone sits on the tatami by his head. Sanada rolls over. He scrolls through the contact list. It's been four, five, six different phones since. He starts to type in those numbers. It's a memory of the flesh.
Then he stops. He shakes his head. Calls himself a fool, and an idiot. The number won't be the same. A voice would answer hello-the wrong one-and he would hang up. His face would burn hotter than it does now.
The red filament of his kerosene heater glows. He wiggles his toes. His knees throb with a lingering ache. His fingers brush the waistband of his pajamas.
Sanada sucks in a breath. Then he pulls his hand away.
***
There was a knock on his window. Not a coin, or a stone. It was a thwomp that bounced back.
He opened the window. Yukimura stood ten feet below. There was a tennis ball in his hand, and a feline grin spread across his face.
"It's midnight!" Sanada hissed.
Yukimura was silent. He might have raised his eyebrows. It was too dark to make out. Sanada's insides twisted up. As he crept down the stairs, he held his breath. It wasn't until they were down the driveway and past the gate that he exhaled. The tension in his shoulders slackened. Yukimura touched his arm.
It burned under his coat.
"Good way to work on our reflexes," Yukimura said. "Renji even said so."
Sanada rolled his eyes. "But he didn't recommend it."
Yukimura's mouth twitched. His breath clouded in the air.
Sanada snorted. "There's no lights on the streetcourts now."
"Your vision going?"
He shook his head. Yukimura bumped into his side again. The twist in his guts from before was tighter, and spreading below his waistband. Sanada burrowed his face into his scarf to hide the flush.
The balls echoed on the court. The nets were slack. Sanada squinted into the darkness. Yukimura's sneakers pounded the frozen clay. Sanada followed their sound. He anticipated the ball right. It zoomed past his elbow, on the left.
"Focus!" Yukimura shouted.
He served in the darkness. His fingers, frigid on the racket, vibrated with the slap of the ball on the racketstrings. Yukimura's footsteps echoed: one, two, threefourfive. Sanada ran left. Then there was a grinding from the other side. Yukimura switched directions. Sanada looked around. The ball was nowhere. He turned, he moved, and his knee didn't follow with the rest of his body.
***
Yukimura came to the hospital wearing a white mask. Sanada wouldn't be able to see the clench of his jaw behind it. He lay on the bed. His leg was strung up, hidden under a layer of bandages. He opened his eyes.
Yukimura's mouth was filled with acid. He thought of the email from Renji. He squeezed his eyes shut. He tried to take a breath. The hospital reeked of chemicals, and his fingers were going numb.
"Two months?" he said.
The words hang.
Sanada looked up. His eyes burned into Yukimura's. Yukimura looked to the window. The first plum blossoms were almost out.
Yukimura shook his head. "The season starts April 1st."
Sanada's voice caught. "That's all you care about?" He snorted once, then twice. He shook his head, too, and released the ball of sheets from his hand. "Of all people, Yukimura!"
Yukimura's mouth dropped. "'Yukimura'?" he shouted. His hands shook. Inside, he burned. "Since when do you call me that?!"
Sanada's knuckles cracked. He lunged on the bed. There was a scream of pain as he recoiled. A nurse rushed in and pulled at Yukimura.
"You need to leave," she told him.
Yukimura looked to Sanada. Sanada didn't look back.
He never came back to the hospital.
And Sanada never came back to the tennis club.
***
He sits at his narrow desk. Mai shuffles paper on the other side of the divider. Aoki types, clack clack. Clack clack. There is a pause, followed by more frenetic clacking. Sanada stares at his computer screen. He glances down to the report. The numbers blur together.
Fool, he thinks. Under the desk, his fingers brush his kneecap. He sucks in a breath.
Sanada stands up. Mai raises her head.
"I'm leaving," Sanada says.
Aoki turns, too. Mai furrows her brow. Her makeup cracks along her hairline.
"Are you coming back?" she asks. Her lip sticks out a little too much.
Sanada lifts his chin toward the window. "I'll see you tomorrow morning."
The racket tape melts into his hand. Years of neglect form into peeling little pills. He weighs the Babolat. Over his shoulder, the crowds in the arena are cheering for Rikkai, ten years after the win. He glances to his right.
The barren zelkova stirs in the wind. There's no one there. Sanada purses his lips.
He bounces the ball with his left. The felt feels the same. He squeezes into the rubber. Kirihara probably still uses knuckle balls with students. Sanada snorts. Of all the people to coach…
The retaining wall slopes, convex near the bottom. Sanada tosses the ball straight ahead. He opens the racket with his wrist, and swings his arm back.
He steps. He stiffens. He starts to bend down.
The cartilage grinds.
He falls to the ground. Calls himself an idiot. He's pathetic. The light shifts, and the weak sun dissolves into a greying cloud. His knee throbs, but he shifts his weight. Sanada grits his teeth.
He gets onto his feet. With his legs straight, he hits the ball against the wall. It rebounds back to his racket in a slow arc.
His pocket vibrates. The ball flies past his shoulder. He drops his racket, and flips his cell open. The number is unknown. With a sigh, he thinks, What does she want now?
It isn't Mai's female lilt on the other end.
"It's me," he says.
The cell joins the racket at Sanada's feet.
***
The subway station pipes a remix Valentine's Kiss through the corridors. Yukimura shoves his hands deeper into his pockets. He glances toward a vending machine. A hot coffee milk sounds about right. He reaches for his wallet.
A university-aged kid in a backpack shoves in front. Music blasts from his earbuds. He bops his head.
The last can of coffee milk rolls into the dispenser.
Yukimura narrows his eyes.
He walks up the east exit stairs, then down the street. He walks past the cafes and coffee chains that have been here for ten, fifteen years. The sun hangs low on the horizon behind him. The shadows undulate ahead, growing and decreasing as the traffic rushes past. He stuffs his face into his scarf.
The park by the harbour is nearly empty. A middle-aged man walks a dog. A lone oil tanker prowls the slate water. Yukimura takes a deep breath. Cold, salty air swells his lungs. He coughs.
Solitary roses cling to the bushes. Yukimura walks between them. He runs his finger along the branches. Thorns catch his gloves. The bushes need to be pruned.
He sits down on a bench, behind the roses. The light dims by the minute. He runs his fingers along the edge of his cellphone. Yukimura shakes his head. This is stupid, he thinks.
A flake of snow lands on his arm. It dissolves into his coat.
A voice says his name. Yukimura.
He lifts his head.
Standing against the dying sky is Sanada.
***
For a long moment, Yukimura stares up at him. A lump in his throat bobs, and disappears under his scarf. Sanada doesn't move.
Yukimura closes his eyes. A plume of breath hangs between them. He opens his mouth. Only a choked "I…" emerges.
Sanada's ribs press into his heart. He can't breathe. Above their heads, a gull makes lazy circles on an updrift.
The bench creaks under his weight Sanada he sits. His knee creaks, too.
Yukimura doesn't inch away. Instead, he turns. His eyes are black in the dimming light. They match Sanada's gaze.
"We…there's a lot to catch up on," Yukimura says. His voice is thick.
Sanada nods. He swallows. His throat is thick. His tongue is wool. He clears his throat, and feels the temperature rise on his face. "There's a place down the road. Where we used to go after practice."
Yukimura blinks. "Starbucks?"
Sanada almost laughs.
***
Yukimura lifts his head from Sanada's chest. His pulse pounds in his ears. Sweat slides down his temple, and drips onto Sanada's nipple. He runs his tongue across Sanada's collar. "This isn't coffee," he murmurs.
Below, bamboo shinai sticks slap. The walls rattle. The kerosene heater reflects the shine of Sanada's hair, hanging over his eyes. Yukimura reaches up. His fingertips brush across Sanada's forehead. Sanada sighs into his ear, and the shivers run down Yukimura's spine.
The windows of Sanada's bedroom are fogging over.
Sanada digs his hand into Yukimura's hair. Yukimura arches back. His hips thrust against Sanada's thigh. "We have a lot…" He pulls Yukimura's mouth to his. Yukimura kisses hard. He moans. Sanada's groan vibrates through his mouth.
"We have a lot to catch up on," Sanada says.
Author: Ociwen
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 2800
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all, except for Pointillism and Pisarro.
Summary: Yukimura takes a detour back home.
Author's Notes: Art historical references are dangerous. As is Kirihara coaching small children. Written for Valentine's 2011.
They lose his luggage on the direct flight from Amsterdam to Narita. He sits by the Lost Luggage desk-his coach is MIA, the toilet maybe. His cell is out of juice. He reaches into his wallet, but the ten euro yen note won't fit into the coin slot of a Japanese payphone.
He scowls. He flicks his hair from his eyes-it's still sweaty and dank from the flight. Ten hours next to a kid who'd been upgraded to business. His temple pounds.
Yukimura can't remember the last time he was here. When has he heard Japanese spoken by airport attendants? Or from the lady across the desk, apologizing on behalf of an airline she doesn't even work for. For a moment, he closes his eyes and absorbs the sounds. He nods once, and tries not to think about those new rackets he'll need next week at the 500s in Memphis.
It's midnight inside, and dawn here. The vacant rice paddies are covered in a brittle golden light. The train rumbles. His eyes sink heavy.
Direct over the Atlantic would have been better.
***
The back page of the newspaper has the international sports section. A photo in monochrome grins from the bottom right corner. Sanada snorts. Germany's revenge in Rotterdam.
He starts to read. A name catches in his throat. He swallows, and folds the paper over. The subway PA announces his stop. Sanada leaves the paper on the window ledge, and rushes onto the platform.
At the escalator, he stops. Sharpness cuts through his knee. A cold draft meanders through the station. He takes a deep breath, then pushes his leg forward. It's been aching since he woke up this morning.
Above the bare trees lining the street, the sun mellows into a translucent sky. An OL in heels clicks past. Sanada inhales, walks a little faster. She's lost into the city before he reaches the cross walk.
He scowls.
The office is empty at this hour. Neither the manager nor the intern from university have shown up. His key rattles. He flicks on the fluorescent lights. The cold seeps through his shoes. His toes creak.
The door clicks behind him. Mai says good morning. "I'll have the report from the conservationists by ten," she says.
"Will they be done?"
Mai keeps smiling. "Yes with the ceramics, no with the prints. The ink…" She bats her lashes, and chews on her lip.
He grunts.
"Ne," she says.
He shifts his eyes toward her. Sharpness stabs through his knee. Shivers rush down his arms.
Mai just bobs her head. She's wearing three layers of sweaters.
***
The floor-to-ceiling windows facing east over the harbour were a great idea when he bought the apartment.
He groans. Then he pulls the blanket over his face. Light seeps through the weave. He squeezes his eyes shut. Moves onto his other side, away from the window. The heater creaks and rattles. He listens to himself huff, and sigh, and rustle the sheet again. His limbs ache. His mind races.
At noon, he flings the blankets off. He pulls on the old tracksuit in the closet with a yawn. On the street, he looks north, then south. He jogs toward the park, wedged between Chinatown and the hospital. Greasy smells waft from the restaurants. He turns sharp at the next street corner. His stomach churns. Winter whips through his hair, chaps his lips. He dodges the salarymen who file like ants westward to the food. Yukimura purses his lips a little thinner. Under his jacket, he's melting.
A building blocks the end of the street, along a perpendicular road. The western-style red bricks stick out from the concrete high-rises all around. He jogs past the iron fence. At the entrance is a sign for the museum.
It's got nothing on the Orsay, he thinks. It was two years ago that he slipped away from practice, the day before the qualifying rounds in Paris. Two hours with Manet's picnic, and watery lilies. Pisarro's suburbs drifting through snow, and the pointillist faces without expression. He'd been alone in a crowd of thousands, pushed at from all sides by loud tourists and the blinding flashes of cameras.
But on the upper level, in the far rooms filled with fin-de-siècle accoutrements, there was nothing except the din in his ears. He walked between the cloisonné vases and Japoniste screens before leaving. Memories clouded the silence, and he turned on his cellphone to the fifteen angry voicemails from the coach.
There is a noise behind him. A syllable spoken from a deep voice. His shoulders stiffen, and the cold catches up with his perspiring skin.
His mouth hangs.
***
He was the last person Sanada expected to see on the museum grounds. His lunch drops to the yellowed grass. The pickles tumble out. He opens his mouth, but the name sticks on his tongue. His face burns.
Sweat darkens patches under Yukimura's arms, and along his collar. He lifts his head higher. Sanada takes a deep breath. His nostrils flare.
In a thin voice, Yukimura says, "What are you doing here?" His eyes flick down to Sanada's legs, then back up.
Numbness prickles his knee. There are a hundred things he could say now. There are a hundred things maybe he wants to say. But instead, he opens his mouth and says, "Your parents will be glad to see you."
He waits. Yukimura wipes at his forehead. He wipes at his upper lip where the beads of sweat collected. He shifts his weight to his other leg. Sanada doesn't move. There is a crow on the roof of the museum.
Winter soughs through the dormant shrubs along the fence.
Yukimura leaves.
Sanada crouches down. He hisses through his teeth. He picks up the remains of his bento with shaking hands, and goes for ramen in Chinatown.
***
"Haven't seen him in ages," Marui says. He blows smoke across the table, then picks up his beer. It sloshes down his hand. "Yagyuu might still talk with him, but I dunno. Haven't seen him in a couple years either."
Yukimura takes a gulp of beer. He hums. His body sways to the side, leaden. He reaches for the dish of edamame. His fingers slip. The bowl tips over the table. Marui just laughs.
His face is flushed. It’s not even half-past eight.
"Now, Jackal, on the other hand," Marui says. He waves his beer into the air. "He should be here in…" He glances down to his cell. He furrows his brow. Yukimura looks at his own cell-the screen blurs.
"Sometime!" Marui shouts. He clinks his glass with Yukimura's. Beer splashes. The tight ball of tension in his gut twists. He can taste acrid bile on his tongue. Marui keeps talking. Yukimura doesn't hear the words. He glances around the bar. The walls ripple: concave, convex. They press down and around. He touches his collar, where his shirt digs into his throat.
Marui raises his beer again. Jackal sits down, perpendicular to Yukimura. He says, "It was a great match! You coulda totally creamed Murray the way Atobe did in the finals!"
Yukimura tries to lift his head. Instead, he slips forward across the table.
***
He can hear the rhythmic sounds from the dojo below. The slapping of the bamboo shinai sticks. He snorts under his breath. Beginners. There is a single shout. Sanada swallows, glances out his window. A skeletal branch raps at his window.
He lays on his futon. His heart won't stop fluttering, ten hours later. He can hear the words in his mind. Still.
A cellphone sits on the tatami by his head. Sanada rolls over. He scrolls through the contact list. It's been four, five, six different phones since. He starts to type in those numbers. It's a memory of the flesh.
Then he stops. He shakes his head. Calls himself a fool, and an idiot. The number won't be the same. A voice would answer hello-the wrong one-and he would hang up. His face would burn hotter than it does now.
The red filament of his kerosene heater glows. He wiggles his toes. His knees throb with a lingering ache. His fingers brush the waistband of his pajamas.
Sanada sucks in a breath. Then he pulls his hand away.
***
There was a knock on his window. Not a coin, or a stone. It was a thwomp that bounced back.
He opened the window. Yukimura stood ten feet below. There was a tennis ball in his hand, and a feline grin spread across his face.
"It's midnight!" Sanada hissed.
Yukimura was silent. He might have raised his eyebrows. It was too dark to make out. Sanada's insides twisted up. As he crept down the stairs, he held his breath. It wasn't until they were down the driveway and past the gate that he exhaled. The tension in his shoulders slackened. Yukimura touched his arm.
It burned under his coat.
"Good way to work on our reflexes," Yukimura said. "Renji even said so."
Sanada rolled his eyes. "But he didn't recommend it."
Yukimura's mouth twitched. His breath clouded in the air.
Sanada snorted. "There's no lights on the streetcourts now."
"Your vision going?"
He shook his head. Yukimura bumped into his side again. The twist in his guts from before was tighter, and spreading below his waistband. Sanada burrowed his face into his scarf to hide the flush.
The balls echoed on the court. The nets were slack. Sanada squinted into the darkness. Yukimura's sneakers pounded the frozen clay. Sanada followed their sound. He anticipated the ball right. It zoomed past his elbow, on the left.
"Focus!" Yukimura shouted.
He served in the darkness. His fingers, frigid on the racket, vibrated with the slap of the ball on the racketstrings. Yukimura's footsteps echoed: one, two, threefourfive. Sanada ran left. Then there was a grinding from the other side. Yukimura switched directions. Sanada looked around. The ball was nowhere. He turned, he moved, and his knee didn't follow with the rest of his body.
***
Yukimura came to the hospital wearing a white mask. Sanada wouldn't be able to see the clench of his jaw behind it. He lay on the bed. His leg was strung up, hidden under a layer of bandages. He opened his eyes.
Yukimura's mouth was filled with acid. He thought of the email from Renji. He squeezed his eyes shut. He tried to take a breath. The hospital reeked of chemicals, and his fingers were going numb.
"Two months?" he said.
The words hang.
Sanada looked up. His eyes burned into Yukimura's. Yukimura looked to the window. The first plum blossoms were almost out.
Yukimura shook his head. "The season starts April 1st."
Sanada's voice caught. "That's all you care about?" He snorted once, then twice. He shook his head, too, and released the ball of sheets from his hand. "Of all people, Yukimura!"
Yukimura's mouth dropped. "'Yukimura'?" he shouted. His hands shook. Inside, he burned. "Since when do you call me that?!"
Sanada's knuckles cracked. He lunged on the bed. There was a scream of pain as he recoiled. A nurse rushed in and pulled at Yukimura.
"You need to leave," she told him.
Yukimura looked to Sanada. Sanada didn't look back.
He never came back to the hospital.
And Sanada never came back to the tennis club.
***
He sits at his narrow desk. Mai shuffles paper on the other side of the divider. Aoki types, clack clack. Clack clack. There is a pause, followed by more frenetic clacking. Sanada stares at his computer screen. He glances down to the report. The numbers blur together.
Fool, he thinks. Under the desk, his fingers brush his kneecap. He sucks in a breath.
Sanada stands up. Mai raises her head.
"I'm leaving," Sanada says.
Aoki turns, too. Mai furrows her brow. Her makeup cracks along her hairline.
"Are you coming back?" she asks. Her lip sticks out a little too much.
Sanada lifts his chin toward the window. "I'll see you tomorrow morning."
The racket tape melts into his hand. Years of neglect form into peeling little pills. He weighs the Babolat. Over his shoulder, the crowds in the arena are cheering for Rikkai, ten years after the win. He glances to his right.
The barren zelkova stirs in the wind. There's no one there. Sanada purses his lips.
He bounces the ball with his left. The felt feels the same. He squeezes into the rubber. Kirihara probably still uses knuckle balls with students. Sanada snorts. Of all the people to coach…
The retaining wall slopes, convex near the bottom. Sanada tosses the ball straight ahead. He opens the racket with his wrist, and swings his arm back.
He steps. He stiffens. He starts to bend down.
The cartilage grinds.
He falls to the ground. Calls himself an idiot. He's pathetic. The light shifts, and the weak sun dissolves into a greying cloud. His knee throbs, but he shifts his weight. Sanada grits his teeth.
He gets onto his feet. With his legs straight, he hits the ball against the wall. It rebounds back to his racket in a slow arc.
His pocket vibrates. The ball flies past his shoulder. He drops his racket, and flips his cell open. The number is unknown. With a sigh, he thinks, What does she want now?
It isn't Mai's female lilt on the other end.
"It's me," he says.
The cell joins the racket at Sanada's feet.
***
The subway station pipes a remix Valentine's Kiss through the corridors. Yukimura shoves his hands deeper into his pockets. He glances toward a vending machine. A hot coffee milk sounds about right. He reaches for his wallet.
A university-aged kid in a backpack shoves in front. Music blasts from his earbuds. He bops his head.
The last can of coffee milk rolls into the dispenser.
Yukimura narrows his eyes.
He walks up the east exit stairs, then down the street. He walks past the cafes and coffee chains that have been here for ten, fifteen years. The sun hangs low on the horizon behind him. The shadows undulate ahead, growing and decreasing as the traffic rushes past. He stuffs his face into his scarf.
The park by the harbour is nearly empty. A middle-aged man walks a dog. A lone oil tanker prowls the slate water. Yukimura takes a deep breath. Cold, salty air swells his lungs. He coughs.
Solitary roses cling to the bushes. Yukimura walks between them. He runs his finger along the branches. Thorns catch his gloves. The bushes need to be pruned.
He sits down on a bench, behind the roses. The light dims by the minute. He runs his fingers along the edge of his cellphone. Yukimura shakes his head. This is stupid, he thinks.
A flake of snow lands on his arm. It dissolves into his coat.
A voice says his name. Yukimura.
He lifts his head.
Standing against the dying sky is Sanada.
***
For a long moment, Yukimura stares up at him. A lump in his throat bobs, and disappears under his scarf. Sanada doesn't move.
Yukimura closes his eyes. A plume of breath hangs between them. He opens his mouth. Only a choked "I…" emerges.
Sanada's ribs press into his heart. He can't breathe. Above their heads, a gull makes lazy circles on an updrift.
The bench creaks under his weight Sanada he sits. His knee creaks, too.
Yukimura doesn't inch away. Instead, he turns. His eyes are black in the dimming light. They match Sanada's gaze.
"We…there's a lot to catch up on," Yukimura says. His voice is thick.
Sanada nods. He swallows. His throat is thick. His tongue is wool. He clears his throat, and feels the temperature rise on his face. "There's a place down the road. Where we used to go after practice."
Yukimura blinks. "Starbucks?"
Sanada almost laughs.
***
Yukimura lifts his head from Sanada's chest. His pulse pounds in his ears. Sweat slides down his temple, and drips onto Sanada's nipple. He runs his tongue across Sanada's collar. "This isn't coffee," he murmurs.
Below, bamboo shinai sticks slap. The walls rattle. The kerosene heater reflects the shine of Sanada's hair, hanging over his eyes. Yukimura reaches up. His fingertips brush across Sanada's forehead. Sanada sighs into his ear, and the shivers run down Yukimura's spine.
The windows of Sanada's bedroom are fogging over.
Sanada digs his hand into Yukimura's hair. Yukimura arches back. His hips thrust against Sanada's thigh. "We have a lot…" He pulls Yukimura's mouth to his. Yukimura kisses hard. He moans. Sanada's groan vibrates through his mouth.
"We have a lot to catch up on," Sanada says.