(no subject)
Title: Kekka (Result)
Part: ~omake~ + random sentimental note
~omake~
It really was a very, very good day. The sun was shining, but not to the point of it being unbearable; there was a wind over the tennis courts, and Atobe, it seemed, was amenable to them having a shorter practice today. Something about it having been a long weekend for all of them, and Oshitari had raised an eyebrow at the dark circles that shadowed their buchou’s eyes, but considering that Atobe Keigo was the one who’d insisted on playing until he’d literally collapsed on the tennis court those years ago, on that one occasion he’d been sick…
Perhaps the new leniency had something to do with the fact that Jirou, after losing seven to five, had promptly leaped over the net and plastered himself to Atobe-without, Oshitari noted, Atobe even giving the pretense of being even vaguely displeased.
Tacit permission, indeed.
Oshitari grinned his victory, and held out an open hand to a certain fanclub president. “I do believe you owe me something, Mari.”
Mari shook her ponytail behind her shoulder, and raised an eyebrow at him that might have actually succeeded at been insolent-well, if she hadn’t been trying to tug the hem of her skirt downwards. The uniform did suit her much better with the changes that Gakuto’s needle had wrought in the admittedly awful plaid cloth… “I might be wrong, but I said that I would take you out to dinner, not pay you. Besides… shouldn’t you be treating me? ”
He raised an eyebrow back at her. Dear, dear, someone was snippy. “Mari, look at the expression on Jirou’s face. Do you honestly mean to have me believe that they didn’t-”
Oshitari grinned as she sat down with a huff, apparently having given up on the matter of her new, improved, ten-centimetres-shorter hemline. Her legs weren’t quite as fine as Gakuto’s, but they were muscular-rather nice, if the way the non-Regulars were staring was any indication. “I am looking at Jirou’s face. I simply can’t believe that you’re still so dirty-minded as to think that Atobe and Jirou slept together on their first night as a couple. Actually, come to think, I can hardly believe I took your wager.”
Oshitari settled beside her, and leaned back to enjoy the breeze that was nudging at skirts, and the sight of his boyfriend running metaphorical and literal rings around some of the pre-regulars on the court. Now that was a pair of legs to kill for. “Yes, well, the plan working was a given, so we had to wager on something, didn’t we? And besides-not everyone’s as pure-minded as you are, Mari-tan. Especially not if they’re male.”
“Don’t call me Mari-tan,” but it was habit, by now, for her to protest, and it sounded like it when she cocked her head at him, and chuckled, just lightly, a bubble of friendly warmth. “Besides, Oshitari, it’s easy to be pure-minded when I don’t have a boyfriend who seduces me at every opportunity.”
Well, all right, so the sight of Gakuto bending double and looking at him over his shoulder was perhaps just a little distracting. In all the best of ways, maybe, but regardless, Mari was one of the few people around whom it was best to keep his wits… sharper. “You don’t have a boyfriend at all,” he pointed out, “but that’s for lack of trying. And stop trying to sidetrack me.”
There was a gleam in her eyes that looked more than a little like triumph. “I’m not trying to sidetrack you, that’s Gakuto’s doing. It’s not my fault you’re a pervert.” And proud of it, which they both knew, so she wasn’t winning any points with that particular barb. “Besides. I might not be a gay man, even I know that Jirou’s not walking strangely.”
They both looked at each other, then at Jirou. Who promptly tripped and went flailing into Atobe’s back, with the two of them only remaining upright because of a steadying hand that Kabaji reached out towards both their shoulders… and Oshitari had to laugh when she amended, “Well, any more strangely than normal, anyway.”
Ah-hah. In this respect-well, Mari certainly couldn’t claim more than the most rudimentary knowledge in this particular sphere, and even she admitted it. Well, at least, her knowledge was rudimentary compared to anyone else on the team except for perhaps Hiyoshi and only possibly Kabaji. “If Atobe knew what he was doing-and no doubt he’d notify you that he always knows what he’s doing-then Jirou shouldn’t be walking strangely.” Oshitari informed her, smugly. It was true, too. He would know. “There are many ways of doing the horizontal tango.”
Mari raised both eyebrows at him-and her gaze slanted sideways as the faint edge of a smile faded from the corners of her lips. “Ah. Hello, boss. Good game?”
Hm. Perhaps this was what being set up felt like. He wasn’t sure he liked it.
“Excellent.” Atobe cocked his head at both of them, even as Oshitari felt his neck creak when he swiveled to face his team captain. “I believe Jirou and I spent most of the night vertical. If you two really insist on discussing Jirou’s and my private time, do get it right.”
He… really could have sworn that Atobe and Jirou were headed towards the clubroom-not the bleachers. He… really could have sworn that those were words that he hadn’t thought he’d ever hear coming out of his team captain’s mouth, and only partially because of Atobe’s immense river of denial.
There was only a vague and distant pleasure to be had in the fact that Mari’s mouth was fluttering open and closed like the wings of a butterfly at rest, apparently rendered just as speechless as he was.
But Jirou was tugging on Atobe’s elbow before either he (nor Mari, who looked like she’d swallowed a large yellow frog) worked up something relatively coherent to say that didn’t resemble, ‘eeep.’ “A-to-be, come on. You said that we could get new DDR pads today. The right arrow’s squishy already.”
Atobe merely rolled his eyes-but Oshitari didn’t think even the densest pre-regular could have missed the way his fingers were gentle when they rolled gently across the curls just above Jirou’s right ear, or the way he didn’t try to extract his elbow from the grip of those small, grasping fingers. “That’s because you insisted on using them until dawn. Very well, Jirou. Call Kabaji, and we’ll go.”
There was nothing particularly uncomfortable about sitting with Mari in utter silence-he understood why Hiyoshi put up with the girl, considering that she didn’t natter on about inconsequentials-but he couldn’t think of the last time that it had happened for the pure and simple reason that both of them were too dumbfounded to think of anything to say.
Actually, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so dumbfounded that he’d been left speechless. Of course, his own hush was entirely because he was trying to evict a certain rather unpleasantly vivid image from his head, because honestly, as much as Atobe and Jirou were amusing, he just did not want to think about them having-
Damn it, if he had to think about it, he’d make certain Mari suffered with him.
“Atobe did him on the DDR pads? That’s-” certainly not what Oshitari had expected, really, but, well, Atobe and Jirou really were two very strange, strange boys… it was fitting in its own way, he supposed…
Mari’s open-handed slap took him across the back of the head, hard enough to knock him forwards and almost onto his tennis bag, but laughter shook her voice. “For one of the most intelligent people I know, Oshitari, you really do suffer from the tennis team curse of single-mindedness. I’m certain they didn’t have sex, but I suggest we call it a tie.”
O-ho. “I hardly think so. The evidence is rather clear.” Printed on Jirou’s happy little face. And on the shallow, bruise-coloured ring, high on Jirou’s hip that had showed itself after a particularly exuberant jump. Oshitari was at least fairly certain that moles did not come in the shape of a bite-marks. He was quite familiar with the variants of hickeys, in all their glorious range. “I can’t think why else their DDR pad would have been… well-used, shall we say?”
Mari was staring at him as if he’d grown a new nose. In an inconvenient location. He hadn’t thought her slim, tilted eyes got that wide. “…maybe because they were playing DDR?”
…ah. That… ah. “Atobe doesn’t play DDR,” he pointed out. Actually, the image of their perfectionist team captain bouncing up and down a-la-Gakuto was… right, he was never going to think of Atobe, Gakuto, and bouncing up and down in the same sentence again.
“Atobe didn’t own a Playstation, either, until Jirou moved in with him,” she wrinkled her nose-well, Mari didn’t much care for video games, either. “Jirou tells me he’s gotten quite good at Kingdom Hearts. Really, come on, now, look how innocent our sweet Jirou is.”
To Oshitari’s eyes, Jirou’s victory dance at Atobe’s side looked rather like something he might have learned from Gakuto. There was certainly a great deal of… wiggling… to it. “Are we talking about the same little blonde boy?” he smirked. “Ribbon Bondage Jirou?”
“That was as much Shishido’s and Ootori’s idea as anyone else’s,” she objected, but her tone of voice made it clear that not even she believed that. “Besides. Are you saying that Atobe can’t control his desires enough to wait until sometime more… special…? Or, er, appropriate?”
“Are you joking?” Oshitari waggled both eyebrows at her, and smiled, slowly, over the rim of his glasses. “Lacking denial, Atobe would pound Jirou into the mattress in a Chinese heartbeat. ” And thank the gods for that, too. Four years of enforced celibacy, a good deal of it in a shared bed, and Mari was considering ‘appropriateness?’ Well, she was a girl, but…
She was, rather unfortunately, a smirking girl. “Oshitari?”
“Hm?” He never really liked it when Mari smirked, as attractive as some of the tennis club non-Regulars found the deep dimple at the corner of her full mouth. Girls were simply not allowed to be as smart as he was. It wasn’t… fair, somehow.
The dimple deepened, slightly. “Atobe’s tennis bag is right next to your left foot.”
Ah. He’d been wondering what that little spot of icicle burning a hole through the base of his spine was. “And he’s come back for it, hasn’t he, Mari-tan,” Oshitari sighed.
“I would have mentioned it earlier, you know,” she grinned, and waggled the tips of her fingers at him, easily, abandoning the drifting hemline of her skirt for a moment, “but by then he was close enough to have heard me. It’s nothing personal.”
…there were times when he almost wished Taira Mari had a boyfriend that he could torture her about, really.
“Oshitari,” the icicle behind him said his name in a voice that rather resembled, he thought, Hokkaido on a bad, bad day. Brrrr. “Twenty laps. Now. ”
Of course, Atobe was buchou of Hyoutei’s high school team. He’d hoped the days of these fruitless laps were over, but… Oshitari went, legs pushing in an automatic, smooth jog, because Atobe was still their Fearless Leader.
But then again, Oshitari grinned to himself, maybe he went because he could hear the chuckle, like a murmur of sunshine just underneath Atobe’s stern, cold tone.
It really was a very, very, very good day.
~owari~
Introduction and Conclusion Rewrite: July 2, 2005-July 3, 2005
Now, you might wonder exactly what happened to this story. It had a very different introduction, and for a long time, a very incomplete conclusion. The introduction suffered from a good deal of mental constipation, and the conclusion… well, suffered from my thesis. I was just planning to post it as-was, but yesterday, I sat down, said, “damn it, this story deserves better,” and… wrote something, for the first time in a very, very long time. I’m not claiming it’s any better-but it certainly felt good.
It’s an odd feeling, working on this story and knowing that I’m never going to write another in the series. For those of you who were around a year and a half ago, Jirou’s and Atobe’s story was the very first in the now-monstrous Hyotei Roommates arc-just a silly little one-shot I wrote on becchan’s urging. If I recall, I’d seen the Hyoutei part of the series all of once, hated Atobe with a passion, and was still firmly convinced that Jirou’s eyes were blue.
How things change.
It’s a full-circle feeling, I guess-not even writing the obligatory graduation story did that to me. The series went on a lot longer than anyone (including me, especially) ever imagined… and, heck, somehow managed to spawn a Mary Sue and her own series. (I am SO sorry for that!) I certainly identify more with Shishido than any other character I’ve written, but Atobe and Jirou hold a very special little place in my heart-I might not write fanfiction anymore, or even really read it, but the last time I was in Japan, I still spent an obscene amount of time dragging my (poor, horrified, incredibly tolerant) boyfriend around Mandarake, searching for that rare elusive AtoJi doujinshi. And I spent far, far more hours on AIM with typhoid_mary, weaving plotlines and smutlines which never quite evolved, discussing the terrible two, than perhaps was healthy.
Well, screw ‘healthy’-it was fun.
So thank you guys, for reading, for laughing, for supporting, for beating my head in-for making Atobe and Jirou, Shishido and Ootori, Oshitari and Gakuto, and yes, even poor misguided Mari and Hiyoshi, alive for me, and hopefully, for you, too.
-Monnie
Part: ~omake~ + random sentimental note
~omake~
It really was a very, very good day. The sun was shining, but not to the point of it being unbearable; there was a wind over the tennis courts, and Atobe, it seemed, was amenable to them having a shorter practice today. Something about it having been a long weekend for all of them, and Oshitari had raised an eyebrow at the dark circles that shadowed their buchou’s eyes, but considering that Atobe Keigo was the one who’d insisted on playing until he’d literally collapsed on the tennis court those years ago, on that one occasion he’d been sick…
Perhaps the new leniency had something to do with the fact that Jirou, after losing seven to five, had promptly leaped over the net and plastered himself to Atobe-without, Oshitari noted, Atobe even giving the pretense of being even vaguely displeased.
Tacit permission, indeed.
Oshitari grinned his victory, and held out an open hand to a certain fanclub president. “I do believe you owe me something, Mari.”
Mari shook her ponytail behind her shoulder, and raised an eyebrow at him that might have actually succeeded at been insolent-well, if she hadn’t been trying to tug the hem of her skirt downwards. The uniform did suit her much better with the changes that Gakuto’s needle had wrought in the admittedly awful plaid cloth… “I might be wrong, but I said that I would take you out to dinner, not pay you. Besides… shouldn’t you be treating me? ”
He raised an eyebrow back at her. Dear, dear, someone was snippy. “Mari, look at the expression on Jirou’s face. Do you honestly mean to have me believe that they didn’t-”
Oshitari grinned as she sat down with a huff, apparently having given up on the matter of her new, improved, ten-centimetres-shorter hemline. Her legs weren’t quite as fine as Gakuto’s, but they were muscular-rather nice, if the way the non-Regulars were staring was any indication. “I am looking at Jirou’s face. I simply can’t believe that you’re still so dirty-minded as to think that Atobe and Jirou slept together on their first night as a couple. Actually, come to think, I can hardly believe I took your wager.”
Oshitari settled beside her, and leaned back to enjoy the breeze that was nudging at skirts, and the sight of his boyfriend running metaphorical and literal rings around some of the pre-regulars on the court. Now that was a pair of legs to kill for. “Yes, well, the plan working was a given, so we had to wager on something, didn’t we? And besides-not everyone’s as pure-minded as you are, Mari-tan. Especially not if they’re male.”
“Don’t call me Mari-tan,” but it was habit, by now, for her to protest, and it sounded like it when she cocked her head at him, and chuckled, just lightly, a bubble of friendly warmth. “Besides, Oshitari, it’s easy to be pure-minded when I don’t have a boyfriend who seduces me at every opportunity.”
Well, all right, so the sight of Gakuto bending double and looking at him over his shoulder was perhaps just a little distracting. In all the best of ways, maybe, but regardless, Mari was one of the few people around whom it was best to keep his wits… sharper. “You don’t have a boyfriend at all,” he pointed out, “but that’s for lack of trying. And stop trying to sidetrack me.”
There was a gleam in her eyes that looked more than a little like triumph. “I’m not trying to sidetrack you, that’s Gakuto’s doing. It’s not my fault you’re a pervert.” And proud of it, which they both knew, so she wasn’t winning any points with that particular barb. “Besides. I might not be a gay man, even I know that Jirou’s not walking strangely.”
They both looked at each other, then at Jirou. Who promptly tripped and went flailing into Atobe’s back, with the two of them only remaining upright because of a steadying hand that Kabaji reached out towards both their shoulders… and Oshitari had to laugh when she amended, “Well, any more strangely than normal, anyway.”
Ah-hah. In this respect-well, Mari certainly couldn’t claim more than the most rudimentary knowledge in this particular sphere, and even she admitted it. Well, at least, her knowledge was rudimentary compared to anyone else on the team except for perhaps Hiyoshi and only possibly Kabaji. “If Atobe knew what he was doing-and no doubt he’d notify you that he always knows what he’s doing-then Jirou shouldn’t be walking strangely.” Oshitari informed her, smugly. It was true, too. He would know. “There are many ways of doing the horizontal tango.”
Mari raised both eyebrows at him-and her gaze slanted sideways as the faint edge of a smile faded from the corners of her lips. “Ah. Hello, boss. Good game?”
Hm. Perhaps this was what being set up felt like. He wasn’t sure he liked it.
“Excellent.” Atobe cocked his head at both of them, even as Oshitari felt his neck creak when he swiveled to face his team captain. “I believe Jirou and I spent most of the night vertical. If you two really insist on discussing Jirou’s and my private time, do get it right.”
He… really could have sworn that Atobe and Jirou were headed towards the clubroom-not the bleachers. He… really could have sworn that those were words that he hadn’t thought he’d ever hear coming out of his team captain’s mouth, and only partially because of Atobe’s immense river of denial.
There was only a vague and distant pleasure to be had in the fact that Mari’s mouth was fluttering open and closed like the wings of a butterfly at rest, apparently rendered just as speechless as he was.
But Jirou was tugging on Atobe’s elbow before either he (nor Mari, who looked like she’d swallowed a large yellow frog) worked up something relatively coherent to say that didn’t resemble, ‘eeep.’ “A-to-be, come on. You said that we could get new DDR pads today. The right arrow’s squishy already.”
Atobe merely rolled his eyes-but Oshitari didn’t think even the densest pre-regular could have missed the way his fingers were gentle when they rolled gently across the curls just above Jirou’s right ear, or the way he didn’t try to extract his elbow from the grip of those small, grasping fingers. “That’s because you insisted on using them until dawn. Very well, Jirou. Call Kabaji, and we’ll go.”
There was nothing particularly uncomfortable about sitting with Mari in utter silence-he understood why Hiyoshi put up with the girl, considering that she didn’t natter on about inconsequentials-but he couldn’t think of the last time that it had happened for the pure and simple reason that both of them were too dumbfounded to think of anything to say.
Actually, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so dumbfounded that he’d been left speechless. Of course, his own hush was entirely because he was trying to evict a certain rather unpleasantly vivid image from his head, because honestly, as much as Atobe and Jirou were amusing, he just did not want to think about them having-
Damn it, if he had to think about it, he’d make certain Mari suffered with him.
“Atobe did him on the DDR pads? That’s-” certainly not what Oshitari had expected, really, but, well, Atobe and Jirou really were two very strange, strange boys… it was fitting in its own way, he supposed…
Mari’s open-handed slap took him across the back of the head, hard enough to knock him forwards and almost onto his tennis bag, but laughter shook her voice. “For one of the most intelligent people I know, Oshitari, you really do suffer from the tennis team curse of single-mindedness. I’m certain they didn’t have sex, but I suggest we call it a tie.”
O-ho. “I hardly think so. The evidence is rather clear.” Printed on Jirou’s happy little face. And on the shallow, bruise-coloured ring, high on Jirou’s hip that had showed itself after a particularly exuberant jump. Oshitari was at least fairly certain that moles did not come in the shape of a bite-marks. He was quite familiar with the variants of hickeys, in all their glorious range. “I can’t think why else their DDR pad would have been… well-used, shall we say?”
Mari was staring at him as if he’d grown a new nose. In an inconvenient location. He hadn’t thought her slim, tilted eyes got that wide. “…maybe because they were playing DDR?”
…ah. That… ah. “Atobe doesn’t play DDR,” he pointed out. Actually, the image of their perfectionist team captain bouncing up and down a-la-Gakuto was… right, he was never going to think of Atobe, Gakuto, and bouncing up and down in the same sentence again.
“Atobe didn’t own a Playstation, either, until Jirou moved in with him,” she wrinkled her nose-well, Mari didn’t much care for video games, either. “Jirou tells me he’s gotten quite good at Kingdom Hearts. Really, come on, now, look how innocent our sweet Jirou is.”
To Oshitari’s eyes, Jirou’s victory dance at Atobe’s side looked rather like something he might have learned from Gakuto. There was certainly a great deal of… wiggling… to it. “Are we talking about the same little blonde boy?” he smirked. “Ribbon Bondage Jirou?”
“That was as much Shishido’s and Ootori’s idea as anyone else’s,” she objected, but her tone of voice made it clear that not even she believed that. “Besides. Are you saying that Atobe can’t control his desires enough to wait until sometime more… special…? Or, er, appropriate?”
“Are you joking?” Oshitari waggled both eyebrows at her, and smiled, slowly, over the rim of his glasses. “Lacking denial, Atobe would pound Jirou into the mattress in a Chinese heartbeat. ” And thank the gods for that, too. Four years of enforced celibacy, a good deal of it in a shared bed, and Mari was considering ‘appropriateness?’ Well, she was a girl, but…
She was, rather unfortunately, a smirking girl. “Oshitari?”
“Hm?” He never really liked it when Mari smirked, as attractive as some of the tennis club non-Regulars found the deep dimple at the corner of her full mouth. Girls were simply not allowed to be as smart as he was. It wasn’t… fair, somehow.
The dimple deepened, slightly. “Atobe’s tennis bag is right next to your left foot.”
Ah. He’d been wondering what that little spot of icicle burning a hole through the base of his spine was. “And he’s come back for it, hasn’t he, Mari-tan,” Oshitari sighed.
“I would have mentioned it earlier, you know,” she grinned, and waggled the tips of her fingers at him, easily, abandoning the drifting hemline of her skirt for a moment, “but by then he was close enough to have heard me. It’s nothing personal.”
…there were times when he almost wished Taira Mari had a boyfriend that he could torture her about, really.
“Oshitari,” the icicle behind him said his name in a voice that rather resembled, he thought, Hokkaido on a bad, bad day. Brrrr. “Twenty laps. Now. ”
Of course, Atobe was buchou of Hyoutei’s high school team. He’d hoped the days of these fruitless laps were over, but… Oshitari went, legs pushing in an automatic, smooth jog, because Atobe was still their Fearless Leader.
But then again, Oshitari grinned to himself, maybe he went because he could hear the chuckle, like a murmur of sunshine just underneath Atobe’s stern, cold tone.
It really was a very, very, very good day.
~owari~
Introduction and Conclusion Rewrite: July 2, 2005-July 3, 2005
Now, you might wonder exactly what happened to this story. It had a very different introduction, and for a long time, a very incomplete conclusion. The introduction suffered from a good deal of mental constipation, and the conclusion… well, suffered from my thesis. I was just planning to post it as-was, but yesterday, I sat down, said, “damn it, this story deserves better,” and… wrote something, for the first time in a very, very long time. I’m not claiming it’s any better-but it certainly felt good.
It’s an odd feeling, working on this story and knowing that I’m never going to write another in the series. For those of you who were around a year and a half ago, Jirou’s and Atobe’s story was the very first in the now-monstrous Hyotei Roommates arc-just a silly little one-shot I wrote on becchan’s urging. If I recall, I’d seen the Hyoutei part of the series all of once, hated Atobe with a passion, and was still firmly convinced that Jirou’s eyes were blue.
How things change.
It’s a full-circle feeling, I guess-not even writing the obligatory graduation story did that to me. The series went on a lot longer than anyone (including me, especially) ever imagined… and, heck, somehow managed to spawn a Mary Sue and her own series. (I am SO sorry for that!) I certainly identify more with Shishido than any other character I’ve written, but Atobe and Jirou hold a very special little place in my heart-I might not write fanfiction anymore, or even really read it, but the last time I was in Japan, I still spent an obscene amount of time dragging my (poor, horrified, incredibly tolerant) boyfriend around Mandarake, searching for that rare elusive AtoJi doujinshi. And I spent far, far more hours on AIM with typhoid_mary, weaving plotlines and smutlines which never quite evolved, discussing the terrible two, than perhaps was healthy.
Well, screw ‘healthy’-it was fun.
So thank you guys, for reading, for laughing, for supporting, for beating my head in-for making Atobe and Jirou, Shishido and Ootori, Oshitari and Gakuto, and yes, even poor misguided Mari and Hiyoshi, alive for me, and hopefully, for you, too.
-Monnie