PoT: Breaking Orbit
first half of the story
Atobe's Hametsu e no Rondo is much stronger than he remembers. Kunimitsu blocks automatically, twisting the racquet to absorb the force of the smash and returning it to the right corner. With every step he takes across this court, every ball he returns, he can feel memory sliding across his skin, through his bones. The memory of effort and determination and focused desperation, and twining through all of it the memory of pain.
Kunimitsu sets his jaw and takes another point, aware of the familiar intensity of Atobe's eyes on him. He has to force himself to lift his arm and serve, unable to escape the feeling that he is playing on borrowed time. Atobe takes the point, and his face twists into a smirk; they are rapidly approaching break point. Kunimitsu takes a deep breath and thinks very deliberately of Seigaku, surprising even himself with the speed of his return ace. Another memory floats to the forefront of his mind as the umpire calls the score: I'll take it from you. I'll take Seigaku's pillar from your hands. And Echizen's face, resolute with the anticipation and determination that had laced the words.
Kunimitsu tightens his grip on his racquet and stares straight ahead across the net, looking into the past. It has been years since his first match against Atobe; this is the Tokyo final and the pain is only memory. He has long since surpassed those limits. Atobe takes the set with a smirk over the net, but Kunimitsu allows himself to smile as he walks back to the bench.
The rest of the team alternates between worried silence and falsely-cheerful encouragement during the break between sets. Tezuka-buchou doesn't say a word, but the expression on his face is calm and determined. Ryoma sits beside him and stares out at the court while the Hyoutei supporters chant for the Monkey King. They are a pocket of silence amidst all the noise from outside the court, and the air feels heavy with anticipation. Ryoma wants to say something, but all the words in his mind feel stupid and pointless so he just breathes out slowly as Tezuka walks away from him for the second set.
For the first few balls it seems as though Atobe has the upper hand still, riding on the momentum of the first set. He takes the first two points, but his third return seems to curve in a perfect arc back to Tezuka's racquet. Ryoma grins, watching the way buchou pivots neatly, slicing the ball into Atobe's dead corner. It takes another three points before he hears the murmurs begin behind him, and it goes without saying that all three are Tezuka's. Atobe looks sulkily infuriated as the umpire calls the score, and pulls out an ace for his own service game. Tezuka catches the second ball, though, as if he has been anticipating it; it curves thin over the net and hits right on the line. Ryoma sits up, pushing his cap back; that's one he hasn't seen before.
Atobe fights hard, but Tezuka-buchou is picking up momentum. The second set turns into a fight over the Zone, with Atobe trying to vary the spin of the ball enough to break Tezuka's control, and pulling out as many vicious serves as he can to win back points. Tezuka stands like a rock through everything that Atobe can throw at him, eyes fixed on the ball and body flexing and pivoting around a single point as though he is the centre of gravity on-court. Ryoma feels his eyes constantly drawn back to Tezuka-buchou with every graceful arc of muscle and bone, and his breath catches as the zero-shiki rolls back to touch the net and take the second set.
There is no longer anything in this game to recall the last. Ryoma grins in pure relief, listening with half an ear to the cheers of the other Regulars from the fence behind him. Tezuka-buchou passes Atobe on his way to the bench, and Ryoma can hear the lazy drawl of the Monkey King's voice, the words too low to make out. He doesn't understand why he feels so stupidly pleased when Tezuka-buchou's expression doesn't change, but Atobe's scowl is enough to make Ryoma throw a smirk in his direction.
Watching the third set is like finally laying ghosts to rest. Ryoma keeps his eyes on the ball, feeling every impact shuddering through his own bones as Tezuka takes point after point after game. Even when Atobe breaks through the Zone it seems as though there is nothing he can do, no shot he can hit that Tezuka cannot throw back at him. Tezuka is burning, and Ryoma cannot look away. Confused and conflicting feelings knot in his chest, crushing his breath and tangling his fingers into bloodless white-knuckled fists; he wants to run, he wants to fly, he wants things he cannot even name and he wants to be facing Tezuka-buchou on that court right now.
He's so caught up in the game that match point comes as a shock. Ryoma stares at the satisfaction in Tezuka's eyes as he walks back to the bench, and unaccountably finds himself flushing. "Here," he mutters, ducking his head and handing over towel and water bottle. Even without contact he can feel the heat of buchou's skin, and he's relieved when the rest of the team piles into the court in a wave of congratulations. Even still, Ryoma is conscious that Fuji-senpai's eyes are laughing at him again.
"Eiji, is that a new necklace?" Fuji-senpai has a peculiar gleam in his eye that matches his mood of the week, strangely subdued but sparking with vicious amusement beneath the surface.
"Eh?! Ah…" Kikumaru-senpai clutches at his throat, so busy staring at Fuji that he trips over his own feet and has to snatch at Ryoma's shoulder to catch himself. "Sorry, sorry Ochibi!"
"Che." Ryoma ducks his head, reaching forward to stretch first one shoulder and then the other. The ring that Kikumaru-senpai is wearing on a chain around his neck is none of his business; absently he wonders why Fuji-senpai is so interested, anyway.
"Hey Echizen!" Momo-senpai yells from the fence, waving a shopping bag wildly over his head. "Wanna come help me carry stuff?" Ryoma blinks, then grins; doing the club shopping is a good excuse to stop off for burgers, and with the Kantou tournament less than a fortnight away every practice seems longer and more intense than the last. He's surprised when Fuji-senpai steps in front of him.
"Momo, do you mind if I come instead? I need to get some things for Yuuta…"
"Ah… sure!" Momo-senpai grins worriedly, rubbing the back of his head, then shrugs. Fuji gives Ryoma an amused look as he leaves the court, and Ryoma sighs, dumping his racquet onto the bench so that he can begin his leg stretches. Kikumaru-senpai at least looks relieved; he attaches himself to Oishi-senpai like a limpet and seems set to stay that way for the rest of practice.
Ryoma's almost done with his warm-ups when a familiar shadow falls over him.
"Where's Fuji?" Tezuka-buchou is frowning, and Ryoma realises that everyone else is already at the nets for practice matches. Everyone else has warm-up partners, he thinks sourly, or at least partners who haven't abandoned them.
"He went with Momo-senpai." Ryoma rises fluidly to his feet, pushing his arms over his head and feeling the easy stretch of muscle.
"Ah." Tezuka-buchou narrows his eyes but doesn’t say anything, and Ryoma wanders off to pick up his racquet, absently bouncing a ball in one hand. When he returns to the court Tezuka is in the middle of stretches and Inui-senpai and Kaidoh-senpai are playing a practice match against the Golden Pair.
Ryoma's eyes are drawn to the sharp, defined curve of Tezuka's back as he bends over his own legs, stretching. Without quite knowing how it happens, he finds himself with his hands on buchou's shoulders, leaning over him to push forward and down.
"Echizen?" Tezuka-buchou sounds startled; Ryoma feels the muscles jump under his fingers and wonders why.
"It's easier with two people," he mutters, glad that Tezuka can't see the way his skin is heating. He can feel buchou's body under his even though they are barely touching, and Ryoma realises in a distant, belated kind of way that this is the first time they have ever been this close. He runs through the rest of the familiar exercises on autopilot, head filled with confused half-thoughts that all add up to one inescapable conclusion: he likes being close to buchou. As Tezuka walks away from him to give orders for practice, Ryoma curls his fingers into fists as though he can hold onto the feel of Tezuka this way, solid and warm and alive in his hands.
When he gets home, much later than usual, Ryoma abandons homework and wanders out to hit balls against the temple wall, trying to lose himself in the repetitive thwack of ball on gut and brick. He's caught up in memories - games and practices and tournaments, and the sensation of Tezuka-buchou's eyes on him that has grown comfortable with familiarity.
"Mrow," Karupin complains from the wall, awakened from his nap by the jarring impact of the ball. Ryoma ignores him, narrowing his focus down to the single stone that he is aiming for, over and over and over. The world blurs around him, light fading slowly as the sun sinks over the temple roof.
"Hey hey, young man, what's eating you?" His father's voice comes as an unpleasant surprise; Ryoma starts and misses the ball as it bounces back to him. Nanjiroh laughs raucously, setting his racquet over his shoulder and tipping his head back.
"Che." Ryoma scowls and scoops up the ball before Karupin can pounce on it; the cat settles for twining around his ankles, purring like a rusty engine. "What do you want, old man?"
"I thought you wanted to play a match." Nanjiroh scratches his head, yawning ostentatiously. "You've been out here long enough - or is something bothering you?"
"None of your business," Ryoma mutters, considering it until he realises that he's hungry - his dinner is probably cooling in the kitchen.
"Ahhhh." His father's expression turns fatuously proud. "So it's a girl, hmm? What's her name? Is she pretty?"
"Eh?" Ryoma stares at him, then sighs and rolls his eyes. "There's no girl, Dad," and even though it's the absolute truth he feels as though Nanjiroh can read the hesitation in him. The strongest of the memories crowd to the surface - buchou's eyes meeting his over the net; the feel of his shoulders under Ryoma's palms…
"Ah, young man, you know you can tell me." His father settles lazy against the wall, grinning. "Is it the old hag's granddaughter? She's not bad…"
"Stupid old man." Ryoma slices the ball in his direction, forcing Nanjiroh to bring his racquet up in a hurry to protect his face. The image of his father drooling over girls in his class is the last thing he needs. "I already told you, there's no girl."
Two nights later, after an awkward practice in which his eyes seem to gravitate to Tezuka like tennis balls in the Zone, Ryoma pulls his birthday presents from the shelf and flops onto his bed. Fuji-senpai's album is heavy with years' worth of pictures; Ryoma pages slowly through the record of his matches from first-year. The photos begin with the celebration after their defeat of Fudoumine and skip straight to the training that had preceded the Tokyo finals against Yamabuki.
Ryoma traces the glossy edge of a photograph, remembering the matches in between, and one in particular. Even now he sometimes hears the sound of trains passing overhead in his dreams. If he forgets every other game he has ever played, Ryoma thinks, he will remember that day - he will want to remember. Down to the way the light caught Tezuka's eyes and outlined his body as he twisted into the zero-shiki, Ryoma will keep this memory in place of pictures and records. Echizen, become the pillar of Seigaku.
He turns a page and is confronted with another familiar image - Tezuka in the midst of his first fight against Atobe, just minutes before his shoulder gave out. Ryoma props his chin on one hand and smiles, remembering last week's rematch and the aching perfection of buchou on court as he rewrote the score. He turns the page, skimming through game after practice after tournament, and the image that jumps out at him most often is of his own eyes, staring after Tezuka.
Setting the album aside, Ryoma runs his fingers over the top of the flag box, tracing Tezuka's precise, delicate handwriting. Genpuku. The implications of that are too bewildering for Ryoma to begin to know what Tezuka meant by the gift; he lifts away the lid and stares down at the folded and refolded fabric. The left-hand corner is uppermost, with buchou's neat writing showing, black ink faded slightly into the cloth. Keep moving forward. Tezuka Kunimitsu. Ryoma traces the kanji with his fingertips until he falls asleep with his head pillowed on the scratchy blue fabric.
Ryoma skims through the first two weeks of Kantou in a blur of team uniforms and vaguely familiar opponents, none of whom offer enough of a challenge to hold his attention. Instead his eyes return again and again to the coach's bench and Tezuka's tall, composed figure. Ryoma feels Tezuka-buchou's gaze during his matches like a physical touch, spreading warmth down the line of his spine. In the evenings he wears himself out playing the usual games with his father, trying to banish dreams of heat and skin and touches that are not impersonal at all.
The semi-finals come as something of a relief, the last hurdle on the road that will take them to Rikkai again, and Nationals. Ryoma takes Singles Two in straight sets to win Seigaku the match, conscious all the time of Tezuka's presence at the side of the court. When Ryoma finally turns to look at him, after he's shaken the opponent's hand and the umpire has declared the date of the final, he feels his muscles turn to lead.
Tezuka-buchou's face is tight, disapproval apparent in his eyes. As Ryoma stumbles towards him, stomach suddenly churning, he rises from the bench and walks out of the court without a word. Ryoma stares after him as the other Regulars jump the fence to pound on his back and rub his head, wondering what he's supposed to think of that - is buchou disappointed that he didn't get to play?
That night is restless; Ryoma dreams in variations on a theme, watching over and over as his graceless hands reach out for Tezuka and are rejected by cold, damning eyes. He sleeps through his alarm and has to sprint all the way to school to make morning practice; buchou gives him laps without even looking at him and Ryoma stares resentfully at the ground as he runs. He doesn't understand what he's done, but the way Tezuka is treating him makes things knot hard and unpleasant under his breastbone. By the time the lunch bell rings all the teachers have assigned him lines for inattention and Horio and Katsuo have given up trying to talk to him.
The lunch his mother has packed doesn't seem appetising at all. Ryoma forces down a few mouthfuls of rice that seem to stick in his throat, then gives up and tosses it into the trash, wandering up through the school to the roof. It's dark enough in the stairwell that the rush of light when he opens the door brings water to his eyes, but before he's taken three uncertain steps Ryoma knows he's not alone.
Light-blinded and blinking he stares up at Tezuka, leaning arms-folded against the fence opposite the door as though he has been waiting. "Buchou?" It comes out somewhere between a croak and a whisper, as though he has been holding his voice back for too long. Ryoma wants to scrub the brightness-tears from his eyes, but he refuses to draw attention to weakness; instead he tilts his head back and looks up at Tezuka stubbornly.
"Echizen." Tezuka-buchou's eyes are calm and still disapproving; Ryoma feels like a defiant child and doesn't like it. "Why did you come back to Seigaku, if you weren't going to play your best?"
The question blindsides him utterly. Ryoma feels his eyes going wide with the uncomfortable knowledge that he has been distracted. It's been weeks since he's been able to lose himself in a game, and while it's technically true that he hasn't needed to… Ryoma knows too well that half his mind has been on Tezuka, even on the court.
Buchou, you hold back all the time! The protest wells up in Ryoma's throat but is strangled into a barely audible sound by the remote ice of Tezuka's eyes.
"Focus on the opponent before you," Tezuka-buchou tells him evenly. "I shouldn't have to tell you twice." The rebuke in that stings; Ryoma ducks his head beneath his cap, hunching his shoulders and feeling more than seeing Tezuka walk past him to the door. All he can seem to remember is the smile in buchou's eyes after the last match they'd played, and the way Tezuka's respect and pride had felt warmer than the sunset around them. More than anything, Ryoma wants that back.
Echizen's eyes do not waver from his back as he walks away. Kunimitsu is uncomfortably aware that he is doing this more and more often, yet at the same time he knows that it is what Echizen needs. He has only a few months more, now, to try to teach Echizen to be more than his father could make of him; only a few more months to be his captain, and yet it is longer than he had thought he would have. For years he has been preparing himself to let Echizen go; Kunimitsu knows better than anyone that part of growing up means outgrowing old attachments.
The crowd are cheering for Rikkai. Ryoma takes a deep breath and doesn't look back as he walks onto the court. Yukimura is waiting for him at the net, still deceptively fragile-looking; Ryoma is distantly surprised to realise that there are only ten centimetres between them now.
"So how much have you grown, Echizen-kun?" Yukimura asks quietly as they shake hands and the umpire announces the start of the match.
Ryoma smirks at him, adjusting his cap. "You'll see."
It's Ryoma's serve; he bounces the ball on the baseline, considering, then shrugs to himself and puts so much spin on the Twist Serve that it bounces straight up and Yukimura has to dash forward to return it. Ryoma is already in position; there is no way that he can take this opponent lightly. Slice to the back-court, and he needs his Split Step to turn Yukimura's lob into a smash that comes right back at him and almost takes his cap off. Ryoma throws himself backwards to catch the ball, twisting mid-air and adding backspin to send it curving out to the line, raising a puff of dust as it impacts and bounces out.
Ryoma already knows that in this game the first point will mean nothing. Yukimura was strong three years ago and is stronger now; it's there in the precise angle of every shot, the way his seemingly-delicate body pivots behind the ball. Ryoma smirks, narrowing his focus until it feels like he is trying to pin down Yukimura with his eyes. There is nothing outside of the court and the fight; even the cries of the spectators seem to fade as Ryoma returns shot after shot, struggling for control of the game.
He takes the first set seven games to five, and the look in Yukimura's eyes foretells a vicious fight to come. Ryoma sits on the end of the bench during the break, absently sipping water as he stares at the court; he's grateful when the umpire calls for resumption after only a few minutes. The second set is harder fought; Yukimura hits him with power shot after power shot and only seems to gain energy. Ryoma grits his teeth and forces him into tie-break with double-handed slice returns and a succession of his favourite drive volleys, holding back the temptation to pull out the first of the set when Yukimura beats him nine points to seven with a double feint and lob. He doesn't like losing at the best of times, and in this time and place it is unthinkable.
The third set is vicious and dizzying; Ryoma forces himself past exhaustion and aching muscles into that place where his body reacts on instinct, fuelled by the memory of every shot he has ever played. He forgets teams, tournaments, friends, trophies; forgets everything but the tingling impact of ball on gut and the white heat of this game as it flows through his bones. Every shot returned, every point scored, feels like flying. Ryoma focuses his world down to Yukimura as though his life depends on this match, and refuses absolutely to give ground.
He knows he's won before the ball even impacts the court; the dull thud of the second bounce falls into a stunned silence that seems to fill the stadium, timeless and familiar. Six games to four, Ryoma thinks, and then the crowd is drowning out the umpire's voice as he announces the victory. Ryoma's victory, but Yukimura's face over the net as they shake hands again, both of them shaking a little with over-exercised muscles, is satisfied as well as resigned.
"As expected of Echizen-kun," he acknowledges in his usual quiet voice. "I'll look forward to the Nationals." He doesn't need to say that Rikkai are planning to win the Nationals; it's there in his eyes as he turns to walk back to his team. Ryoma grins in satisfaction and tugs his cap down as he trudges off the court.
Stepping over the white line sends a curious tugging feeling into the pit of his stomach. Ryoma looks up into Tezuka-buchou's eyes and feels the world drop out from under him.
Since the moment he'd stepped onto the court, Ryoma hadn't allowed himself to think of Tezuka at all; defeating Yukimura had required every bit of focus and concentration he could scrape together. Now, with the match won and exhaustion settling into his bones, he has no defences at all. Tezuka's eyes are bright with pride and satisfaction and something that Ryoma cannot quite recognise, and there's no way he can look away. His entire body aches with wanting, with the need to reach out and feel buchou's skin against his; he stands frozen and helpless with the force of the invisible everything that fills the air between them.
"Good game." Buchou's voice, low and smooth, is enough to sway Ryoma forward onto his toes; it takes him a long, heavy moment to realise that Tezuka is holding out a water bottle. Ryoma takes it automatically, the stares of the other Regulars beginning to filter past the white noise in his mind.
"Aa," he mutters, all the thanks he can manage as he ducks his head and slumps onto the bench. Fuji-senpai is smiling in a way that makes Ryoma's face heat with the certainty that he is utterly transparent to anyone who cares to look. He feels eyes on him all through the presentation ceremony, and the sensation doesn't stop until they all pile into Kawamura Sushi for the victory party. Ryoma finds himself a comfortable corner and a plate of his own, and carefully doesn't look at Tezuka at all for the rest of the evening.
The countryside is quiet at night. Ryoma tilts his head back and stares up at the bright sparks of a million stars that are invisible in Tokyo, stretching out his arms slowly. He can still feel the concentrated ache of a full day's training in his shoulders and back, legacy of a five-set match against Inui-senpai that had pushed him to the ragged edges of his stamina. The real thrill, though, had been watching Fuji-senpai play Tezuka-buchou afterwards - the kind of tennis that should last forever, and Ryoma wishes it could have been him. He will play Fuji tomorrow, but it won't be the same at all.
Even so, this week feels like a gift. Amano-sensei's family must be pretty well off with a place like this; Ryoma steps out onto the veranda, ignoring the noise from inside that promises another pillow fight. The moon is low and half-full in the western sky, almost dipping behind the mountains, and there is enough light for Ryoma to see Tezuka-buchou sitting cross-legged in the corner, a book in his lap. It's enough of a surprise that he freezes for a moment, but he already knows that Tezuka is aware of his presence; he can't run, and senpai are making too much of a racket indoors anyway.
"You'll ruin your eyes, buchou," Ryoma observes quietly, sliding the shoji shut behind him. Tezuka looks up at him, moonlight limning the frames of his glasses as he marks his page with a finger.
"It's too late for that," he says wryly, eyes dark and calm in the strange monochrome dimness. "Did you want something, Echizen?" His voice is quiet and curious; outside the tennis court, here, he doesn't sound quite like a captain.
Ryoma shrugs one shoulder, dropping down onto the edge of the veranda and swinging his legs just because he can. "It's too noisy in there. Your game today was good, buchou." He tips his head back again, staring up at the sky as cicadas hum in the trees and Tezuka turns the pages of his book. "Buchou?"
"Yes?" Tezuka looks up at him again; Ryoma can feel it, and he turns his head to meet his eyes, leaning back on one hand.
"Can I have Singles Two for the Nationals?"
This time, Tezuka doesn't question the request; Ryoma feels obscurely grateful, unsure exactly why he's asking this now. "You've already beaten Yukimura," is all he says, face calm in the moon-shadows. Ryoma brings one leg up, resting his head on his knee without looking away from Tezuka-buchou. "He's one of the strongest you're likely to face."
"He's not as strong as the old man," Ryoma finds himself saying, and it's so like a dream out here in the quiet night that he can't bring himself to care.
"You still want to defeat him." Tezuka's voice is calm and resigned; he shifts, setting his book aside and rising easily to his feet. Ryoma has to crane his neck to look up at him; it feels uncomfortable so he looks away, out at the dark garden and the faint glow of the white lines that border the courts in the distance.
"The idiot's not going to give me any peace until I beat him flat." It's as much for himself as for his father's sake, though; payback for years of mockery and annoyance and getting in the way. Ryoma deliberately and intentionally forgets that if not for Nanjiroh he might never have picked up a racquet; tennis is his, or it should be.
"And what will you do then?" buchou asks quietly, voice low and serious. "What will you do when you have no one left to beat?"
Ryoma stares out into the depths of the sky, unable to think of a single response beyond the words that crowd, unspoken, into his throat: Hold on to you.
The moonlight reflects in Echizen's eyes, glossing their gold with a silver sheen. Kunimitsu cannot keep himself from staring, but to walk away now would be unforgivably rude. All week he has been watching Echizen, absorbing the knowledge that it is different now. The way Echizen looks at him is different, no longer confined to the simple territory of tennis captain and kohai. It opens up a whole new realm of possibilities, things that he has been pushing out of his mind for a long time but can no longer avoid.
Starlight catches in the dark shock of Echizen's hair as he tips his head back, staring wide-eyed at the sky. Kunimitsu remembers another time, the first time he'd been aware that Echizen's eyes on him had changed. A few simple words, I will take Seigaku's pillar from your hands, and suddenly buchou meant more than it ever had and Kunimitsu had been unable to escape the deeply inappropriate certainty that respect was the least of what he wanted from Echizen.
He remembers the recent night-time helplessness of watching Echizen settle himself on the neighbouring futon, and the way his fingers had itched to reach out and tug the covers higher around still-slender shoulders. Subsequent nights have not made the startling proximity any easier; Kunimitsu finds himself waking in the small hours and turning his head to look at Echizen - to watch Ryoma sleeping, huddled into a tight bundle even in the summer warmth. During practice and training he is too aware of Ryoma's presence, of the need to touch and the fact that being the captain makes no difference at all, now, in the face of Ryoma's voice cracking over the title.
Last night he had opened his eyes to find Ryoma staring back at him, serious and a little lost-looking. Kunimitsu had turned over and stared at the blurry shadows the moonlight made on the wall, too aware of being watched to sleep.
The slight grating of the shoji being pulled back is a welcome relief from the too-narrow space between them. Kunimitsu turns away from Ryoma and ignores the knowing smile on Fuji's face as he glances between them.
"Ah, Tezuka, here you are - Oishi asked me to find you, Momo and Kaidoh are fighting again…" It's enough to remind Kunimitsu of duty, that he needs to be the captain now; he doesn’t look back as he strides off to sort out the latest quarrel, but later that night he finds his abandoned book waiting neatly by his pillow.
Nationals arrives with all the usual pointless fuss. After the third time Tezuka glares at him for yawning during the speeches, Ryoma gets the hint and keeps his eyes fixed on buchou's back. The lines of Tezuka's body are clearly visible beneath the blue-and-white club uniform; Ryoma's fingers tingle with the desire to reach out and touch, to run his hands over buchou's skin and feel the warmth of him.
As a seeded team, Seigaku automatically pass the first round; it all seems very familiar and Ryoma feels as though he is walking in the footprints of his younger self. Their first opponents are a team from some school in Hokkaido that Ryoma has never even heard of, but they're strong enough to be a challenge and the Singles Two match runs to second-set tie-break. After that it's Shitenhouji High in the quarter-finals and Tezuka puts Ryoma into Singles One against Chitose. The match is breathtakingly intense; Ryoma remembers watching Tezuka-buchou's game three years ago, trembling with exhaustion and still unable to look away, and wonders if Tezuka watches his tennis in the same way.
Chitose laughs when Ryoma slams the final ball past him, and wishes him luck in his professional career. Afterwards, the annoying Kansai kid dashes up and demands a match, and the fact that he's a good five centimetres taller than Ryoma now is annoying enough that he refuses automatically, shrugging into his jacket as he turns to follow his senpai back to the bus. The satisfaction in Tezuka's eyes as he reminds everyone of the semi-final details is enough to bring a tiny smile to the corner of Ryoma's mouth.
The semis are held in the packed stadium court, which seems to glitter with camera-flashes. Ryoma picks out Rikkai's ugly yellow jackets from the crowd of school uniforms; they will play Hyoutei tomorrow for their place in the finals, which means the Monkey King is probably around somewhere too. The other team, Shokurinchi, are all in black and purple; Ryoma eyes them over the net and wonders why their captain looks so familiar - tall and imperious with slicked-back hair and narrow rectangular glasses. The look on Tezuka's face as the guy glares at him advises against asking, and Ryoma spends Singles Three and Doubles Two watching buchou stare straight ahead at the court.
The answer doesn't occur to him until he's walking onto the court for Singles Two, facing some ridiculously tall guy who smirks down at him as though he thinks he's already won. Shokurinchi's captain is that Kite guy from before, the one whose team had beaten on the old guy from Rokkaku. The one who'd thought he could beat Tezuka-buchou with speed and violence; Ryoma can remember that match as though it was yesterday, but every image in his memory centres on Tezuka's side of the net.
It's obvious that the Kite guy is here for revenge; Ryoma pauses on his way back to the baseline, looking over to Tezuka-buchou. If he wins this game, Seigaku will take the match and buchou will not play at all. Ryoma remembers sunny rooftops and stinging words: Why did you come back to Seigaku, if you weren't going to play your best? It doesn't matter whether buchou wants to play; the path of the match was mapped out the moment Ryoma stepped onto the court. He nods to Tezuka and turns neatly on the baseline to grin at the opponent, then serves with everything he has.
Practice the next day is more intense even than the semi-final matches. After lunch Oishi-senpai and Inui-senpai go off to watch the Rikkai-Hyoutei games, and Kikumaru bounces onto the court to drape himself over Fuji.
"C'mon, Fuji, let's play Momo and Kaidoh!"
"Kikumaru-senpai!" Ryoma protests; he's five games up to three in their practice set and doesn’t appreciate having his opponent stolen from under his nose.
"Ah, it's all right, Echizen." Fuji-senpai extricates himself and smile apologetically at Ryoma. "I need to leave soon anyway - Taka-san's expecting me."
"Fuji, no fair!" Kikumaru-senpai pouts and sets his hands on his hips. "Fine then, Ochibi! Come and play doubles!"
Ryoma backs hastily away before his senpai can catch hold of him. "No way. Go play them by yourself." The only thing worse than doubles is doubles against Momo-senpai and Kaidoh-senpai when they're fighting - and they've been at each other's throats all morning. For once the low-level wrangling is actually a relief; ever since the training camp the two of them have been staying out of each other's way in a suspicious mutual silence, and there's just something vaguely wrong about tennis club without fighting second-years.
Leaving his senpai to work it out for themselves, Ryoma shoulders his racquet and wanders off the courts in search of Ponta. To his annoyance the machine between the science block and the main building is out of grape flavour and he has to settle for the tasteless fizz of orange. He's so absorbed in glaring into the half-empty can that he almost walks right into Tezuka-buchou on the way back and has to catch himself with a hand on the captain's arm. Ponta spills unheeded onto the ground, darkening the path for a moment before the sun fades the moisture.
"Sorry, buchou." Ryoma looks up into Tezuka's face and has to remind himself to remove his hand; he curls his fingers tight around the lingering sensation of buchou's skin under his palm as though he can keep it forever.
"It's nothing." Tezuka looks down at him for a long moment, then turns his attention back to the court where Kikumaru is bouncing from side to side to intercept Momo and Kaidoh's attacks. Ryoma glances over long enough to see him flick back a Boomerang Snake and backflip into an attacking position, then looks back to Tezuka. They are very close, here; close enough that Ryoma imagines he can feel the heat of Tezuka's body permeating his skin.
"Buchou?" he asks, before he quite knows what he's going to say. "Are you happy?" Tezuka looks away from the game, glasses reflecting sunlight into Ryoma's eyes. "That we're in the final, I mean," Ryoma amends, absently twisting his racquet from rough to smooth and back.
Tezuka just looks at him. "We still have a match to play, Echizen; we can't be careless now."
"Aa." Both of them know that Rikkai won't go down easily - but both of them know that they can win this, too. Nationals; it's always been Tezuka's dream for Seigaku. Ryoma wonders if he's ever had a dream like that - somehow he knows that beating his father doesn't count. Besides, he hasn't achieved that one yet. "It's the draw for the Under-Eighteen Singles soon, isn't it?"
"Thursday of next week." Tezuka-buchou looks away, focusing on the activity on-court. Ryoma smirks up at him anyway, leaning against the fence with a rattle of wire links and tucking his racquet under his arm.
"I'm going to win, buchou." At fifteen he is finally old enough to participate, and the team Nationals have already guaranteed him a place in the draw. "I'll take the tournament from you." Tezuka has been the national champion two years running, and Ryoma has already decided that this year will be his turn.
"I won't be playing." Tezuka's voice is cold and remote, and Ryoma feels his breath stop sudden and painful at the words.
"…buchou?" It feels as though the world is crumbling around him, and Tezuka is standing there like a statue, the pillar of Seigaku in form as well as function, looking away from him.
"I won't be participating," Tezuka-buchou repeats as though Ryoma is a child or stupid.
"But - you have to…" Ryoma trails off, clenching his hands into impotent fists. Buchou doesn't have to do anything, and he knows it. But it feels as his life has been wrenched painfully off its track; even more than the team Nationals he has been waiting for this tournament, precisely because he will get to play Tezuka.
Buchou's face is set in stone, and his words settle between them like an unbreachable wall. "The tournament dates clash with the entrance exams for Tokyo University." There's an electronic cheep and Tezuka fishes his phone out of his pocket; Oishi-senpai is calling from the stadium with a match report. Ryoma sets his jaw and turns to walk away without a word, disappointed fury writhing like a living creature in his chest.
Ryoma spends the rest of the week avoiding Tezuka as much as he can, torn between anger and betrayal and the desperate desire to grab hold of buchou and never let go. Momo-senpai and Kikumaru-senpai tease him for sulking and make jokes about growing pains until Ryoma just wishes everyone would shut up and go away; the final on Saturday comes as both an anti-climax and a relief.
Everyone is expecting this match to go all the way to Singles One, and with Sanada and Yanagi in doubles Ryoma already knows that it will. He feels Tezuka-buchou's eyes on his back as he walks onto the court to face Kirihara, but doesn't turn; if this is the last of his matches that buchou is going to see then Ryoma will give him something to watch. A spiteful, childish part of him wants Tezuka to know exactly what he's giving up, and he returns Kirihara's opening serve as though this is a Grand Slam instead of a high school tournament.
Kirihara has grown a lot in the two years since their last match, but all Ryoma can think is that this is not Tezuka. He wants to be playing buchou, and he goes into the match as though he is, pulling out every skill he possesses and still never quite finding what he's looking for. Two six-four sets are not the result he wants, and Ryoma ignores Kirihara's exhausted fury over the net as they shake hands amidst a whirlwind of cheering.
Tezuka-buchou gives him a long, steady look as he trudges head-down back to the bench; Ryoma turns his face away and goes to slump against the boundary fence, absently biting the straw of his water bottle as he watches Oishi and Kikumaru losing to Sanada and Yanagi. It's a narrow enough victory that the rest of the Regulars cheer anyway; Kikumaru-senpai flashes them a grin and leans into Oishi-senpai's arm around him as Tezuka-buchou picks up his racquet to warm up. Ryoma ducks his head and turns away, wandering off in search of juice.
Watching Tezuka-buchou play Yukimura in Singles One hurts. Ryoma scowls and settles himself into a tense huddle on the bench, eyes intent on the court. The crowd is almost silent in the background and his senpai exchange hushed whispers about skill and power; Ryoma ignores everything but the tall, graceful figure of his captain. Even with the weight of anger in his stomach, buchou's tennis can take his breath away.
It takes Yukimura five games to break the Zone, and as his backspin slice curves out beyond Tezuka's racquet it is as though Tezuka comes into focus. The rest of the set is a battle of skill and subtlety and ball control; Ryoma's breath aches in his chest as he watches. The idea that this could be the last time he will ever watch Tezuka-buchou on the court is heavy and abhorrent, and he shivers with the desire to be out there, to face Tezuka over the net one more time. As the set runs into tie-break, Ryoma traces the flowing lines of Tezuka-buchou's body with his eyes and wishes that games could last forever.
Kunimitsu is painfully conscious of Echizen's gaze on him as he steps forward to accept the trophy on behalf of his team. When he turns, lifting the heavy cup to the cheers of the crowd, Ryoma's face is resentful but his eyes are lost and confused. Kunimitsu swallows the useless words that rise in his throat; there is nothing he can say now, and he knows that one day Ryoma will be grateful for this. The time for guidance is over, and now Ryoma must make his own path. Don't look back, Kunimitsu thinks as he leads the team out of the stadium at the head of the procession, fingers white-knuckled around the handles of the cup. He's no longer Ryoma's captain, and he won't hold him back.
The only people who seem surprised by Ryoma's progress through the Under-Eighteen Singles are the reporters. After the semi-finals the sports papers are full of Youngest Finalist Ever! headlines and reissued photos from his years in the Under-Sixteens, which Ryoma ignores. When someone connects the names and runs a retrospective on his stupid father's brief career he considers ripping up the pages but ultimately can't be bothered. The old man isn't worth it, and he'd only take it as a challenge in any case. Nothing could be further from Ryoma's mind; the whole tournament is a bitter disappointment, and he wanders the house so aimlessly on the day before the final that his mother calls Momoshiro out and sends them both down to the street courts.
Playing his senpai is both exhausting and weirdly relaxing. Everyone on the team knows Ryoma's tennis so well that even with the difference in skill he has to work for his points. Ryoma's wrists are still aching from returning Momo-senpai's Dunk Smash when they finally yield the court to a group of elementary-school kids, collapsing onto the concrete steps.
"Eh, you don't go easy on me at all!" Momo-senpai collapses back and grins at the sky; Ryoma leans against the wall and slants his eyes at him.
"I never thought I'd see you using Kaidoh-senpai's Snake, Momo-senpai."
Momo-senpai just laughs. "Stupid Viper isn't here anyway - don't tell him!" he adds hastily, turning to stare beseechingly at Ryoma.
Ryoma smirks. "You just don't want him finding out how much you don’t hate him, senpai."
"Echizen!" Momo-senpai turns tomato-red and glares at the ground as though Kaidoh-senpai is standing on it. Ryoma shrugs and pulls his bag towards him, slotting his racquet neatly away.
"Whatever. Are you going to watch tomorrow?"
"Wouldn't miss it!" Momo cheers up, grinning at him. "That arrogant bastard'll probably have his cheering squad there; everyone's coming along to watch you kick his ass - well, except buchou…" He frowns, and Ryoma pretends he can't see the way Momo's watching him sideways.
"Yeah, I know." He shrugs and pushes himself to his feet, suddenly not liking the way the conversation's going. "Senpai, didn't you say you'd pay for burgers?"
"I did?" Momo-senpai glares at him, but it's enough of a distraction. "You little scrounger - only if you beat me to the restaurant!"
"No fair, senpai!" Ryoma yells as Momoshiro dashes for his bike with an evil laugh, but the bickering is familiar enough that tomorrow fades back into the distant future.
Atobe smirks at him over the net as they shake hands. "Have you beaten Tezuka yet, Echizen? It's a pity he can't be here to defend his title…"
"Che." Ryoma pulls his hand away as soon as Atobe lets go, tipping the brim of his cap back. "You'll have to do instead." The look on Atobe's face at that brightens the day a little; it's always fun to needle the Monkey King. It doesn't ease the sting of it, though; this is not the match Ryoma wants to play. The fact that Atobe very obviously wants to be facing Tezuka as well just makes him more annoying.
Some of the irritation dissolves once Ryoma gets into the match; Atobe is a dangerous opponent with a solid foundation of skill beneath the flashiness. It takes concentration and focus to keep from being distracted by the theatrics, but that has never been a problem for Ryoma. Halfway into the first set, he blocks Atobe's Stupid Name Smash by changing hands and realises that he's stopped playing against Tezuka in his head.
Ryoma takes the first set six games to four, and as they pass at the net during the break Atobe laughs with a toss of his head, as though he's posing for a photo shoot. Absently, Ryoma wonders whether he practices that in the mirror every morning.
"Let's give Tezuka something to watch, hmm?"
"He's not here." Ryoma ducks his head under his cap and wanders back to the bench, ignoring Atobe's reaction.
The second set is harder fought. Atobe pulls out that fancy serve of his in the tie-break; Ryoma can never remember what it's called, but it's annoying enough that he glares at the ball and doesn't waste effort trying to return it. One set all, and Ryoma knows Atobe will fight to the last. He paces behind the bench during the break, stretching out his legs as he works through the muscle memory of all his drive volleys, one after the other.
Ryoma hits the third set like a tidal wave and doesn't give Atobe a chance to breathe. Even a series of aces in his service games can't make an impact, and only seem to exhaust him. Ryoma flicks the final Drive E neatly past him to claim the set six-three, feeling vaguely let down. He has just become the number one junior player in Japan, and the only thought that really occurs as he accepts the trophy is that there is nothing right about this.
As soon as Ryoma sets foot in the door that evening his father appears, as smug-faced as if it had been his victory. Something crystallises in Ryoma's mind; he snatches a racquet out of his bag and shoves his feet back into his shoes. "Come on, old man."
"Eh?" Nanjiroh blinks at him, an unopened beer bottle forgotten in his hand.
"One set match." Ryoma walks out, heading for the court without bothering to check whether the idiot's following him. If he can't play his favourite opponent then he'll play his oldest; the old man isn't much of a father but he's still a challenge.
"Oi oi!" Nanjiroh appears on the other side of the court as he always does, tossing his ancient racquet from hand to hand. "What's this about, young man?"
"Nothing." Ryoma squeezes the ball in his hand, then bounces it perfunctorily and serves. Nanjiroh returns with the ease of long practice and it's easy, then, for Ryoma to lose himself in the familiar tug and stretch of muscle, the glowing arc of the ball against the dimming late-summer sky. He stops thinking, reacting on instinct as he trades points with his father, slice and backspin and drive and smash and everything that is tennis, everything that has always been his life. It's a choking, numbing shock to watch the zero-shiki settle into the net and realise that the set is tied at six games to six.
"Tie-break," his father says after a long pause, and he sounds as though he doesn't believe it either. For the first time in his life, Ryoma realises, he is about to beat his father at tennis, and it means nothing to him. His racquet hits the court with a dull, dusty smack, and Ryoma flees the temple grounds as fast as his legs can carry him.
When Kunimitsu arrives home from the library his mother hurries out of the living room to tell him that his kouhai from the tennis club is here waiting for him. It's not at all a surprise to open his bedroom door and find Echizen Ryoma sitting round-shouldered and uncomfortable in his desk chair. Kunimitsu sighs and sets his books carefully onto his bed, looking down at Ryoma's unhappy expression.
"Echizen." It's harder, here, to be the captain, but Ryoma seems so caught up in whatever is bothering him that they might as well be on the Seigaku courts.
"I - my father. We tied," Ryoma mutters, not looking up. "Six-all." His hands on his knees are white-knuckled; Kunimitsu stamps firmly on the urge to reach out and uncurl them.
"You didn't play the tie-break?" Ryoma is still in his tennis clothes, hair lank with sweat; Kunimitsu wonders if he has run all the way here.
"I couldn't. I - I'd have beaten him, and it wouldn't have mattered." Ryoma looks up at him, finally, eyes full of confusion. "It's not supposed to be this way, buchou!"
That hits home. Kunimitsu closes his eyes, taking a deep breath and reminding himself again of everything that lies between them. "No one can predict the future." The words taste trite and meaningless in his mouth; Ryoma looks down at his knees again.
"Are you quitting tennis, buchou?"
"No." The word slips out without thought, instinct and reflex overriding conscious decision. Kunimitsu sighs and sits down carefully on the edge of his bed, watching the way Ryoma's eyes light, finally, with relief. He doesn't mention that the Olympics will be held in China in three years, or that he expects to go professional after university; the simple reassurance seems to be all that Ryoma needs.
"I'm going pro next year." Ryoma's eyes make Kunimitsu ache with so many things that he cannot say; he swallows the irrational lump that rises in his throat and nods decisively.
"I expected you to. You need to keep moving forward - there are stronger players than your father out there."
"Aa." Ryoma ducks his head but doesn't look away, and Kunimitsu cannot find the words to tell him not to hold back.
It's raining again outside. Ryoma sits and looks at his phone for a long time before flipping it open and dialling the number. It rings twice, and then a familiar voice comes on the line.
"This is Tezuka."
"Buchou." Ryoma straightens his back automatically, even though there is no one to see. "Do you have plans for tomorrow?"
"Echizen?" Tezuka-buchou sounds startled. "Ah, no -"
"Good." Ryoma relaxes a little, satisfied. "I'll come by at one."
"What?" Ryoma can hear voices in the background, and wonders where buchou is.
"You're busy. I'll see you then." He rings off in the middle of Tezuka's demand for an explanation, knowing that buchou is probably more than a little exasperated with him right now and not really caring. Sometimes Ryoma would rather be a pest than be ignored, and it's been too long since he's had more of Tezuka than a brief nod as they pass in the halls. This birthday present is as much about him as it is about buchou, really.
Tezuka answers the door on the second knock, already wearing tennis gear. Ryoma blinks at him, wondering just how transparent he is, then grins. "Happy birthday, buchou."
Tezuka inclines his head in a silent acknowledgement, then frowns at him, glancing out at the grey sky. "Don't you have a coat? It's going to rain."
Ryoma shrugs, shifting impatiently from foot to foot as Tezuka gathers his racquet bag and coat. "I booked the covered court over by the gasworks. We can get the bus."
"Aa." They walk down the street to the bus stop in a comfortable sort of silence that Ryoma doesn't see any need to break. The tiny part of him that isn't already anticipating the game is self-consciously aware that it would only take a small movement to reach out and touch; Ryoma ignores it.
The rain is coming down in round, fat drops by the time they reach the court. It splatters on the thin plastic roof and puddles outside the gate; Ryoma ducks into the locker room quickly before his cap gets soaked through and fumbles for the switch to turn on the court lights. The sudden blaze of illumination makes him blink, fuzzy afterimages invading his vision, and when he turns to see Tezuka getting out his racquet a fierce thrill of happiness runs through him. He's been waiting too long for this.
They meet at the net, shoes scuffing on the freshly-swept clay court. Ryoma reaches over to spin his racquet without looking away from Tezuka's face, knowing that his eyes are wide and bright with anticipation. "Which?"
"Smooth." Tezuka-buchou doesn't turn away. His face is calm and composed as ever, but the floodlights strike sparks from the rims of his glasses that seem to invade his eyes.
The racquet lands rough; Ryoma eyes it in surprise then shrugs, reaching down to pick it up. "You can serve, buchou. Best of three sets."
They start slowly. Ryoma returns Tezuka's serve with a backhand slice, feeling his muscles beginning to loosen as he leaps to catch the next ball. The sound of the rain on the roof is just familiar enough to bring back memories of their first match; Ryoma feels as though he's come full circle as he slides a backspin volley past Tezuka's racquet to take the first game. They trade points, neither of them needing an umpire's voice to keep score as they flow across the court. As the first set continues, all drive and topspin and exquisite ball control, Ryoma feels his face settling into a grin. This is the way it should be, he thinks in satisfaction as he returns a slice with enough extra spin that it bounces free of the Tezuka Zone. This is the way they should be, always.
Kunimitsu stretches to reach Ryoma's Drive B before it hits the top of its arc, smashing it into the backcourt and watching Ryoma all but materialise to catch it with a neat and vicious slice, taking the point. It is his serve again; he moves into the rhythm of the game without thought, eyes fixed as always on the darting form of the boy on the other side of the net. Ryoma is unquestionably the best opponent he has ever had; the tennis they play together is breathtaking enough that he aches with it.
Ryoma returns with a topspin lob that curves out towards the line; Kunimitsu throws himself back to catch it without taking his eyes off the way Ryoma moves into position, all definite grace and determination. There is nothing in the world but this game, this court, the two of them fighting each other with everything they have.
Kunimitsu remembers his words beneath the tracks three years ago, and the way they have echoed in his mind ever since, reminding him of who and what he is supposed to be. This thing between them, this tennis, goes beyond roles and proprieties and what is supposed to be; every time they step onto the court they build something new out of the game. Kunimitsu's muscles slide into the familiar form of the zero-shiki and he watches Ryoma dive for the net to try and volley, body hitting the court with a jarring impact that he doesn’t seem to feel at all. His grin as he pushes himself up for his service game is every bit as enthralling as the way he spins the ball in the air, and Kunimitsu breathes deeply, needlessly reminding himself to focus on the game.
Ryoma's serve is something he has never seen before, a variation on his usual Twist that adds enough backspin to make the ball bounce backwards. Kunimitsu feels his eyes widen, then narrow; he's ready when Ryoma serves again, moving forwards into the serve and returning it as an overslice that doubles the topspin and makes Ryoma dash to catch it, grinning.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Kunimitsu knows that this is the best game he has ever played. It's in the subtlety, and the power behind it; in the strength of the way Ryoma faces him. Both of them are playing all-out, flying and burning and pushing each other higher. As Ryoma returns his backspin lob with a twist smash that impacts the clay of the court with a resounding crack, Kunimitsu feels his mind fall utterly silent with the conscious realisation of something that he has known for years: he can't hold Ryoma back.
Every step of these last three years, Ryoma has been there - watching, waiting, challenging him with every word and glance. This tennis, this glorious, soaring game that makes his heart pound in his throat and his body sing with tension - it belongs to both of them. It always has. Kunimitsu feels his mouth curving into a smile as Ryoma puts a neat slice inches beyond his reach, and for once he doesn't bother to suppress it.
Ryoma feels as though he never wants this game to end. For every shot he hits, buchou is there across the net to counter him, deadly and perfect and everything he has ever wanted from tennis. Points and games and sets go by as if in a dream; the world is reduced to the impact of ball on gut and the ache in his muscles and the look in Tezuka-buchou's eyes over the net as neither one of them gives an inch. It's glorious and exhausting and the final tie-break would be disappointing if Ryoma could look away long enough to think.
Twelve points stretches to twenty and thirty and by the time Ryoma's final smash raises chalk dust from the service line he's trembling with the tension of it. He stumbles to meet Tezuka-buchou at the net, the sound of his breath drowning the words that crowd unspoken under his tongue. Tezuka is breathing just as hard, the rise and fall of his chest rhythmic and pronounced as he looks down across the suddenly-narrow gap between them. Ryoma stares up at him, all thoughts of handshakes or thanks lost in the warm brown of Tezuka's eyes, and then he's doubly breathless as Tezuka's hand reaches out over the net. A fleeting, gentle touch to the side of his head that seems as inevitable as the winter's snow and Ryoma leans into it, swaying forward and up without thought as Tezuka leans down to kiss him.
Their mouths are clumsy and unsure, sliding together soft-wet-hot, but there is no uncertainty in Ryoma at all as he wraps his arms around buchou's shoulders and presses into the kiss. Their tongues tangle, lips parted breathy and impatient and everything he has ever wanted in that instant, and all Ryoma can think is that buchou is so very warm against him. The sudden uncomfortable pressure of the net cord against his stomach as he tries to move forward is an unwelcome distraction; Ryoma surfaces blurrily from the kiss, staring into Tezuka's eyes, wide and dark behind the so-close sheen of his glasses as they breathe together.
"We should leave," Tezuka-buchou says after a long moment, and though his voice is matter-of-fact the tone of it is soft and new. "The next players will arrive soon."
"Aa." Ryoma knows he's right, but it takes effort to step back; his hand lingers on Tezuka's neck, fingers falling away regretfully in a slow caress. The way Tezuka shivers makes desire uncoil in the pit of his stomach; Ryoma turns away deliberately and picks up his racquet before heading to the locker room.
The water in the showers is hot enough to soothe the ache from tired muscles. Tezuka takes the first turn, and doesn't look surprised when Ryoma slides into the cubicle to wrap slippery-wet arms around his shoulders and pull him down for a kiss. Without his glasses his eyes are unguarded and hazy; Ryoma smirks up at him, fingers tracing the contours of muscle and bone as he arches into Tezuka's possessive hands on his back. The world spirals down to water and tile and slippery bodies sliding against each other, lips and tongues and teeth and slick, certain hands building a perfection that surpasses anything he has felt on court. Ryoma gasps "Buchou" into the brief, warm spaces between them, and gives himself up to the heady, dizzying wonder of Tezuka's skin and hands and mouth.
Kunimitsu can still feel the tingling heat of Ryoma on his skin as they walk down the street in search of food in the early evening, the reddening sun showing ragged through the patchy cloud on the horizon. There's a new and aching kind of wonder in this that keeps his eyes constantly drawn back to Ryoma, walking by his side with his hair rough-towelled and still glinting with droplets. He should be suspicious of this silence between them, Kunimitsu thinks, but instead it is comfortable and familiar; there are no words he needs to say.
"Look, buchou." Ryoma takes his hand, interlacing their fingers as he points to a ramen stand on the corner past the bus stop. Kunimitsu looks down into his eyes, wide and golden and utterly certain as they smile up at him, and doesn't let go.
Atobe's Hametsu e no Rondo is much stronger than he remembers. Kunimitsu blocks automatically, twisting the racquet to absorb the force of the smash and returning it to the right corner. With every step he takes across this court, every ball he returns, he can feel memory sliding across his skin, through his bones. The memory of effort and determination and focused desperation, and twining through all of it the memory of pain.
Kunimitsu sets his jaw and takes another point, aware of the familiar intensity of Atobe's eyes on him. He has to force himself to lift his arm and serve, unable to escape the feeling that he is playing on borrowed time. Atobe takes the point, and his face twists into a smirk; they are rapidly approaching break point. Kunimitsu takes a deep breath and thinks very deliberately of Seigaku, surprising even himself with the speed of his return ace. Another memory floats to the forefront of his mind as the umpire calls the score: I'll take it from you. I'll take Seigaku's pillar from your hands. And Echizen's face, resolute with the anticipation and determination that had laced the words.
Kunimitsu tightens his grip on his racquet and stares straight ahead across the net, looking into the past. It has been years since his first match against Atobe; this is the Tokyo final and the pain is only memory. He has long since surpassed those limits. Atobe takes the set with a smirk over the net, but Kunimitsu allows himself to smile as he walks back to the bench.
The rest of the team alternates between worried silence and falsely-cheerful encouragement during the break between sets. Tezuka-buchou doesn't say a word, but the expression on his face is calm and determined. Ryoma sits beside him and stares out at the court while the Hyoutei supporters chant for the Monkey King. They are a pocket of silence amidst all the noise from outside the court, and the air feels heavy with anticipation. Ryoma wants to say something, but all the words in his mind feel stupid and pointless so he just breathes out slowly as Tezuka walks away from him for the second set.
For the first few balls it seems as though Atobe has the upper hand still, riding on the momentum of the first set. He takes the first two points, but his third return seems to curve in a perfect arc back to Tezuka's racquet. Ryoma grins, watching the way buchou pivots neatly, slicing the ball into Atobe's dead corner. It takes another three points before he hears the murmurs begin behind him, and it goes without saying that all three are Tezuka's. Atobe looks sulkily infuriated as the umpire calls the score, and pulls out an ace for his own service game. Tezuka catches the second ball, though, as if he has been anticipating it; it curves thin over the net and hits right on the line. Ryoma sits up, pushing his cap back; that's one he hasn't seen before.
Atobe fights hard, but Tezuka-buchou is picking up momentum. The second set turns into a fight over the Zone, with Atobe trying to vary the spin of the ball enough to break Tezuka's control, and pulling out as many vicious serves as he can to win back points. Tezuka stands like a rock through everything that Atobe can throw at him, eyes fixed on the ball and body flexing and pivoting around a single point as though he is the centre of gravity on-court. Ryoma feels his eyes constantly drawn back to Tezuka-buchou with every graceful arc of muscle and bone, and his breath catches as the zero-shiki rolls back to touch the net and take the second set.
There is no longer anything in this game to recall the last. Ryoma grins in pure relief, listening with half an ear to the cheers of the other Regulars from the fence behind him. Tezuka-buchou passes Atobe on his way to the bench, and Ryoma can hear the lazy drawl of the Monkey King's voice, the words too low to make out. He doesn't understand why he feels so stupidly pleased when Tezuka-buchou's expression doesn't change, but Atobe's scowl is enough to make Ryoma throw a smirk in his direction.
Watching the third set is like finally laying ghosts to rest. Ryoma keeps his eyes on the ball, feeling every impact shuddering through his own bones as Tezuka takes point after point after game. Even when Atobe breaks through the Zone it seems as though there is nothing he can do, no shot he can hit that Tezuka cannot throw back at him. Tezuka is burning, and Ryoma cannot look away. Confused and conflicting feelings knot in his chest, crushing his breath and tangling his fingers into bloodless white-knuckled fists; he wants to run, he wants to fly, he wants things he cannot even name and he wants to be facing Tezuka-buchou on that court right now.
He's so caught up in the game that match point comes as a shock. Ryoma stares at the satisfaction in Tezuka's eyes as he walks back to the bench, and unaccountably finds himself flushing. "Here," he mutters, ducking his head and handing over towel and water bottle. Even without contact he can feel the heat of buchou's skin, and he's relieved when the rest of the team piles into the court in a wave of congratulations. Even still, Ryoma is conscious that Fuji-senpai's eyes are laughing at him again.
"Eiji, is that a new necklace?" Fuji-senpai has a peculiar gleam in his eye that matches his mood of the week, strangely subdued but sparking with vicious amusement beneath the surface.
"Eh?! Ah…" Kikumaru-senpai clutches at his throat, so busy staring at Fuji that he trips over his own feet and has to snatch at Ryoma's shoulder to catch himself. "Sorry, sorry Ochibi!"
"Che." Ryoma ducks his head, reaching forward to stretch first one shoulder and then the other. The ring that Kikumaru-senpai is wearing on a chain around his neck is none of his business; absently he wonders why Fuji-senpai is so interested, anyway.
"Hey Echizen!" Momo-senpai yells from the fence, waving a shopping bag wildly over his head. "Wanna come help me carry stuff?" Ryoma blinks, then grins; doing the club shopping is a good excuse to stop off for burgers, and with the Kantou tournament less than a fortnight away every practice seems longer and more intense than the last. He's surprised when Fuji-senpai steps in front of him.
"Momo, do you mind if I come instead? I need to get some things for Yuuta…"
"Ah… sure!" Momo-senpai grins worriedly, rubbing the back of his head, then shrugs. Fuji gives Ryoma an amused look as he leaves the court, and Ryoma sighs, dumping his racquet onto the bench so that he can begin his leg stretches. Kikumaru-senpai at least looks relieved; he attaches himself to Oishi-senpai like a limpet and seems set to stay that way for the rest of practice.
Ryoma's almost done with his warm-ups when a familiar shadow falls over him.
"Where's Fuji?" Tezuka-buchou is frowning, and Ryoma realises that everyone else is already at the nets for practice matches. Everyone else has warm-up partners, he thinks sourly, or at least partners who haven't abandoned them.
"He went with Momo-senpai." Ryoma rises fluidly to his feet, pushing his arms over his head and feeling the easy stretch of muscle.
"Ah." Tezuka-buchou narrows his eyes but doesn’t say anything, and Ryoma wanders off to pick up his racquet, absently bouncing a ball in one hand. When he returns to the court Tezuka is in the middle of stretches and Inui-senpai and Kaidoh-senpai are playing a practice match against the Golden Pair.
Ryoma's eyes are drawn to the sharp, defined curve of Tezuka's back as he bends over his own legs, stretching. Without quite knowing how it happens, he finds himself with his hands on buchou's shoulders, leaning over him to push forward and down.
"Echizen?" Tezuka-buchou sounds startled; Ryoma feels the muscles jump under his fingers and wonders why.
"It's easier with two people," he mutters, glad that Tezuka can't see the way his skin is heating. He can feel buchou's body under his even though they are barely touching, and Ryoma realises in a distant, belated kind of way that this is the first time they have ever been this close. He runs through the rest of the familiar exercises on autopilot, head filled with confused half-thoughts that all add up to one inescapable conclusion: he likes being close to buchou. As Tezuka walks away from him to give orders for practice, Ryoma curls his fingers into fists as though he can hold onto the feel of Tezuka this way, solid and warm and alive in his hands.
When he gets home, much later than usual, Ryoma abandons homework and wanders out to hit balls against the temple wall, trying to lose himself in the repetitive thwack of ball on gut and brick. He's caught up in memories - games and practices and tournaments, and the sensation of Tezuka-buchou's eyes on him that has grown comfortable with familiarity.
"Mrow," Karupin complains from the wall, awakened from his nap by the jarring impact of the ball. Ryoma ignores him, narrowing his focus down to the single stone that he is aiming for, over and over and over. The world blurs around him, light fading slowly as the sun sinks over the temple roof.
"Hey hey, young man, what's eating you?" His father's voice comes as an unpleasant surprise; Ryoma starts and misses the ball as it bounces back to him. Nanjiroh laughs raucously, setting his racquet over his shoulder and tipping his head back.
"Che." Ryoma scowls and scoops up the ball before Karupin can pounce on it; the cat settles for twining around his ankles, purring like a rusty engine. "What do you want, old man?"
"I thought you wanted to play a match." Nanjiroh scratches his head, yawning ostentatiously. "You've been out here long enough - or is something bothering you?"
"None of your business," Ryoma mutters, considering it until he realises that he's hungry - his dinner is probably cooling in the kitchen.
"Ahhhh." His father's expression turns fatuously proud. "So it's a girl, hmm? What's her name? Is she pretty?"
"Eh?" Ryoma stares at him, then sighs and rolls his eyes. "There's no girl, Dad," and even though it's the absolute truth he feels as though Nanjiroh can read the hesitation in him. The strongest of the memories crowd to the surface - buchou's eyes meeting his over the net; the feel of his shoulders under Ryoma's palms…
"Ah, young man, you know you can tell me." His father settles lazy against the wall, grinning. "Is it the old hag's granddaughter? She's not bad…"
"Stupid old man." Ryoma slices the ball in his direction, forcing Nanjiroh to bring his racquet up in a hurry to protect his face. The image of his father drooling over girls in his class is the last thing he needs. "I already told you, there's no girl."
Two nights later, after an awkward practice in which his eyes seem to gravitate to Tezuka like tennis balls in the Zone, Ryoma pulls his birthday presents from the shelf and flops onto his bed. Fuji-senpai's album is heavy with years' worth of pictures; Ryoma pages slowly through the record of his matches from first-year. The photos begin with the celebration after their defeat of Fudoumine and skip straight to the training that had preceded the Tokyo finals against Yamabuki.
Ryoma traces the glossy edge of a photograph, remembering the matches in between, and one in particular. Even now he sometimes hears the sound of trains passing overhead in his dreams. If he forgets every other game he has ever played, Ryoma thinks, he will remember that day - he will want to remember. Down to the way the light caught Tezuka's eyes and outlined his body as he twisted into the zero-shiki, Ryoma will keep this memory in place of pictures and records. Echizen, become the pillar of Seigaku.
He turns a page and is confronted with another familiar image - Tezuka in the midst of his first fight against Atobe, just minutes before his shoulder gave out. Ryoma props his chin on one hand and smiles, remembering last week's rematch and the aching perfection of buchou on court as he rewrote the score. He turns the page, skimming through game after practice after tournament, and the image that jumps out at him most often is of his own eyes, staring after Tezuka.
Setting the album aside, Ryoma runs his fingers over the top of the flag box, tracing Tezuka's precise, delicate handwriting. Genpuku. The implications of that are too bewildering for Ryoma to begin to know what Tezuka meant by the gift; he lifts away the lid and stares down at the folded and refolded fabric. The left-hand corner is uppermost, with buchou's neat writing showing, black ink faded slightly into the cloth. Keep moving forward. Tezuka Kunimitsu. Ryoma traces the kanji with his fingertips until he falls asleep with his head pillowed on the scratchy blue fabric.
Ryoma skims through the first two weeks of Kantou in a blur of team uniforms and vaguely familiar opponents, none of whom offer enough of a challenge to hold his attention. Instead his eyes return again and again to the coach's bench and Tezuka's tall, composed figure. Ryoma feels Tezuka-buchou's gaze during his matches like a physical touch, spreading warmth down the line of his spine. In the evenings he wears himself out playing the usual games with his father, trying to banish dreams of heat and skin and touches that are not impersonal at all.
The semi-finals come as something of a relief, the last hurdle on the road that will take them to Rikkai again, and Nationals. Ryoma takes Singles Two in straight sets to win Seigaku the match, conscious all the time of Tezuka's presence at the side of the court. When Ryoma finally turns to look at him, after he's shaken the opponent's hand and the umpire has declared the date of the final, he feels his muscles turn to lead.
Tezuka-buchou's face is tight, disapproval apparent in his eyes. As Ryoma stumbles towards him, stomach suddenly churning, he rises from the bench and walks out of the court without a word. Ryoma stares after him as the other Regulars jump the fence to pound on his back and rub his head, wondering what he's supposed to think of that - is buchou disappointed that he didn't get to play?
That night is restless; Ryoma dreams in variations on a theme, watching over and over as his graceless hands reach out for Tezuka and are rejected by cold, damning eyes. He sleeps through his alarm and has to sprint all the way to school to make morning practice; buchou gives him laps without even looking at him and Ryoma stares resentfully at the ground as he runs. He doesn't understand what he's done, but the way Tezuka is treating him makes things knot hard and unpleasant under his breastbone. By the time the lunch bell rings all the teachers have assigned him lines for inattention and Horio and Katsuo have given up trying to talk to him.
The lunch his mother has packed doesn't seem appetising at all. Ryoma forces down a few mouthfuls of rice that seem to stick in his throat, then gives up and tosses it into the trash, wandering up through the school to the roof. It's dark enough in the stairwell that the rush of light when he opens the door brings water to his eyes, but before he's taken three uncertain steps Ryoma knows he's not alone.
Light-blinded and blinking he stares up at Tezuka, leaning arms-folded against the fence opposite the door as though he has been waiting. "Buchou?" It comes out somewhere between a croak and a whisper, as though he has been holding his voice back for too long. Ryoma wants to scrub the brightness-tears from his eyes, but he refuses to draw attention to weakness; instead he tilts his head back and looks up at Tezuka stubbornly.
"Echizen." Tezuka-buchou's eyes are calm and still disapproving; Ryoma feels like a defiant child and doesn't like it. "Why did you come back to Seigaku, if you weren't going to play your best?"
The question blindsides him utterly. Ryoma feels his eyes going wide with the uncomfortable knowledge that he has been distracted. It's been weeks since he's been able to lose himself in a game, and while it's technically true that he hasn't needed to… Ryoma knows too well that half his mind has been on Tezuka, even on the court.
Buchou, you hold back all the time! The protest wells up in Ryoma's throat but is strangled into a barely audible sound by the remote ice of Tezuka's eyes.
"Focus on the opponent before you," Tezuka-buchou tells him evenly. "I shouldn't have to tell you twice." The rebuke in that stings; Ryoma ducks his head beneath his cap, hunching his shoulders and feeling more than seeing Tezuka walk past him to the door. All he can seem to remember is the smile in buchou's eyes after the last match they'd played, and the way Tezuka's respect and pride had felt warmer than the sunset around them. More than anything, Ryoma wants that back.
Echizen's eyes do not waver from his back as he walks away. Kunimitsu is uncomfortably aware that he is doing this more and more often, yet at the same time he knows that it is what Echizen needs. He has only a few months more, now, to try to teach Echizen to be more than his father could make of him; only a few more months to be his captain, and yet it is longer than he had thought he would have. For years he has been preparing himself to let Echizen go; Kunimitsu knows better than anyone that part of growing up means outgrowing old attachments.
The crowd are cheering for Rikkai. Ryoma takes a deep breath and doesn't look back as he walks onto the court. Yukimura is waiting for him at the net, still deceptively fragile-looking; Ryoma is distantly surprised to realise that there are only ten centimetres between them now.
"So how much have you grown, Echizen-kun?" Yukimura asks quietly as they shake hands and the umpire announces the start of the match.
Ryoma smirks at him, adjusting his cap. "You'll see."
It's Ryoma's serve; he bounces the ball on the baseline, considering, then shrugs to himself and puts so much spin on the Twist Serve that it bounces straight up and Yukimura has to dash forward to return it. Ryoma is already in position; there is no way that he can take this opponent lightly. Slice to the back-court, and he needs his Split Step to turn Yukimura's lob into a smash that comes right back at him and almost takes his cap off. Ryoma throws himself backwards to catch the ball, twisting mid-air and adding backspin to send it curving out to the line, raising a puff of dust as it impacts and bounces out.
Ryoma already knows that in this game the first point will mean nothing. Yukimura was strong three years ago and is stronger now; it's there in the precise angle of every shot, the way his seemingly-delicate body pivots behind the ball. Ryoma smirks, narrowing his focus until it feels like he is trying to pin down Yukimura with his eyes. There is nothing outside of the court and the fight; even the cries of the spectators seem to fade as Ryoma returns shot after shot, struggling for control of the game.
He takes the first set seven games to five, and the look in Yukimura's eyes foretells a vicious fight to come. Ryoma sits on the end of the bench during the break, absently sipping water as he stares at the court; he's grateful when the umpire calls for resumption after only a few minutes. The second set is harder fought; Yukimura hits him with power shot after power shot and only seems to gain energy. Ryoma grits his teeth and forces him into tie-break with double-handed slice returns and a succession of his favourite drive volleys, holding back the temptation to pull out the first of the set when Yukimura beats him nine points to seven with a double feint and lob. He doesn't like losing at the best of times, and in this time and place it is unthinkable.
The third set is vicious and dizzying; Ryoma forces himself past exhaustion and aching muscles into that place where his body reacts on instinct, fuelled by the memory of every shot he has ever played. He forgets teams, tournaments, friends, trophies; forgets everything but the tingling impact of ball on gut and the white heat of this game as it flows through his bones. Every shot returned, every point scored, feels like flying. Ryoma focuses his world down to Yukimura as though his life depends on this match, and refuses absolutely to give ground.
He knows he's won before the ball even impacts the court; the dull thud of the second bounce falls into a stunned silence that seems to fill the stadium, timeless and familiar. Six games to four, Ryoma thinks, and then the crowd is drowning out the umpire's voice as he announces the victory. Ryoma's victory, but Yukimura's face over the net as they shake hands again, both of them shaking a little with over-exercised muscles, is satisfied as well as resigned.
"As expected of Echizen-kun," he acknowledges in his usual quiet voice. "I'll look forward to the Nationals." He doesn't need to say that Rikkai are planning to win the Nationals; it's there in his eyes as he turns to walk back to his team. Ryoma grins in satisfaction and tugs his cap down as he trudges off the court.
Stepping over the white line sends a curious tugging feeling into the pit of his stomach. Ryoma looks up into Tezuka-buchou's eyes and feels the world drop out from under him.
Since the moment he'd stepped onto the court, Ryoma hadn't allowed himself to think of Tezuka at all; defeating Yukimura had required every bit of focus and concentration he could scrape together. Now, with the match won and exhaustion settling into his bones, he has no defences at all. Tezuka's eyes are bright with pride and satisfaction and something that Ryoma cannot quite recognise, and there's no way he can look away. His entire body aches with wanting, with the need to reach out and feel buchou's skin against his; he stands frozen and helpless with the force of the invisible everything that fills the air between them.
"Good game." Buchou's voice, low and smooth, is enough to sway Ryoma forward onto his toes; it takes him a long, heavy moment to realise that Tezuka is holding out a water bottle. Ryoma takes it automatically, the stares of the other Regulars beginning to filter past the white noise in his mind.
"Aa," he mutters, all the thanks he can manage as he ducks his head and slumps onto the bench. Fuji-senpai is smiling in a way that makes Ryoma's face heat with the certainty that he is utterly transparent to anyone who cares to look. He feels eyes on him all through the presentation ceremony, and the sensation doesn't stop until they all pile into Kawamura Sushi for the victory party. Ryoma finds himself a comfortable corner and a plate of his own, and carefully doesn't look at Tezuka at all for the rest of the evening.
The countryside is quiet at night. Ryoma tilts his head back and stares up at the bright sparks of a million stars that are invisible in Tokyo, stretching out his arms slowly. He can still feel the concentrated ache of a full day's training in his shoulders and back, legacy of a five-set match against Inui-senpai that had pushed him to the ragged edges of his stamina. The real thrill, though, had been watching Fuji-senpai play Tezuka-buchou afterwards - the kind of tennis that should last forever, and Ryoma wishes it could have been him. He will play Fuji tomorrow, but it won't be the same at all.
Even so, this week feels like a gift. Amano-sensei's family must be pretty well off with a place like this; Ryoma steps out onto the veranda, ignoring the noise from inside that promises another pillow fight. The moon is low and half-full in the western sky, almost dipping behind the mountains, and there is enough light for Ryoma to see Tezuka-buchou sitting cross-legged in the corner, a book in his lap. It's enough of a surprise that he freezes for a moment, but he already knows that Tezuka is aware of his presence; he can't run, and senpai are making too much of a racket indoors anyway.
"You'll ruin your eyes, buchou," Ryoma observes quietly, sliding the shoji shut behind him. Tezuka looks up at him, moonlight limning the frames of his glasses as he marks his page with a finger.
"It's too late for that," he says wryly, eyes dark and calm in the strange monochrome dimness. "Did you want something, Echizen?" His voice is quiet and curious; outside the tennis court, here, he doesn't sound quite like a captain.
Ryoma shrugs one shoulder, dropping down onto the edge of the veranda and swinging his legs just because he can. "It's too noisy in there. Your game today was good, buchou." He tips his head back again, staring up at the sky as cicadas hum in the trees and Tezuka turns the pages of his book. "Buchou?"
"Yes?" Tezuka looks up at him again; Ryoma can feel it, and he turns his head to meet his eyes, leaning back on one hand.
"Can I have Singles Two for the Nationals?"
This time, Tezuka doesn't question the request; Ryoma feels obscurely grateful, unsure exactly why he's asking this now. "You've already beaten Yukimura," is all he says, face calm in the moon-shadows. Ryoma brings one leg up, resting his head on his knee without looking away from Tezuka-buchou. "He's one of the strongest you're likely to face."
"He's not as strong as the old man," Ryoma finds himself saying, and it's so like a dream out here in the quiet night that he can't bring himself to care.
"You still want to defeat him." Tezuka's voice is calm and resigned; he shifts, setting his book aside and rising easily to his feet. Ryoma has to crane his neck to look up at him; it feels uncomfortable so he looks away, out at the dark garden and the faint glow of the white lines that border the courts in the distance.
"The idiot's not going to give me any peace until I beat him flat." It's as much for himself as for his father's sake, though; payback for years of mockery and annoyance and getting in the way. Ryoma deliberately and intentionally forgets that if not for Nanjiroh he might never have picked up a racquet; tennis is his, or it should be.
"And what will you do then?" buchou asks quietly, voice low and serious. "What will you do when you have no one left to beat?"
Ryoma stares out into the depths of the sky, unable to think of a single response beyond the words that crowd, unspoken, into his throat: Hold on to you.
The moonlight reflects in Echizen's eyes, glossing their gold with a silver sheen. Kunimitsu cannot keep himself from staring, but to walk away now would be unforgivably rude. All week he has been watching Echizen, absorbing the knowledge that it is different now. The way Echizen looks at him is different, no longer confined to the simple territory of tennis captain and kohai. It opens up a whole new realm of possibilities, things that he has been pushing out of his mind for a long time but can no longer avoid.
Starlight catches in the dark shock of Echizen's hair as he tips his head back, staring wide-eyed at the sky. Kunimitsu remembers another time, the first time he'd been aware that Echizen's eyes on him had changed. A few simple words, I will take Seigaku's pillar from your hands, and suddenly buchou meant more than it ever had and Kunimitsu had been unable to escape the deeply inappropriate certainty that respect was the least of what he wanted from Echizen.
He remembers the recent night-time helplessness of watching Echizen settle himself on the neighbouring futon, and the way his fingers had itched to reach out and tug the covers higher around still-slender shoulders. Subsequent nights have not made the startling proximity any easier; Kunimitsu finds himself waking in the small hours and turning his head to look at Echizen - to watch Ryoma sleeping, huddled into a tight bundle even in the summer warmth. During practice and training he is too aware of Ryoma's presence, of the need to touch and the fact that being the captain makes no difference at all, now, in the face of Ryoma's voice cracking over the title.
Last night he had opened his eyes to find Ryoma staring back at him, serious and a little lost-looking. Kunimitsu had turned over and stared at the blurry shadows the moonlight made on the wall, too aware of being watched to sleep.
The slight grating of the shoji being pulled back is a welcome relief from the too-narrow space between them. Kunimitsu turns away from Ryoma and ignores the knowing smile on Fuji's face as he glances between them.
"Ah, Tezuka, here you are - Oishi asked me to find you, Momo and Kaidoh are fighting again…" It's enough to remind Kunimitsu of duty, that he needs to be the captain now; he doesn’t look back as he strides off to sort out the latest quarrel, but later that night he finds his abandoned book waiting neatly by his pillow.
Nationals arrives with all the usual pointless fuss. After the third time Tezuka glares at him for yawning during the speeches, Ryoma gets the hint and keeps his eyes fixed on buchou's back. The lines of Tezuka's body are clearly visible beneath the blue-and-white club uniform; Ryoma's fingers tingle with the desire to reach out and touch, to run his hands over buchou's skin and feel the warmth of him.
As a seeded team, Seigaku automatically pass the first round; it all seems very familiar and Ryoma feels as though he is walking in the footprints of his younger self. Their first opponents are a team from some school in Hokkaido that Ryoma has never even heard of, but they're strong enough to be a challenge and the Singles Two match runs to second-set tie-break. After that it's Shitenhouji High in the quarter-finals and Tezuka puts Ryoma into Singles One against Chitose. The match is breathtakingly intense; Ryoma remembers watching Tezuka-buchou's game three years ago, trembling with exhaustion and still unable to look away, and wonders if Tezuka watches his tennis in the same way.
Chitose laughs when Ryoma slams the final ball past him, and wishes him luck in his professional career. Afterwards, the annoying Kansai kid dashes up and demands a match, and the fact that he's a good five centimetres taller than Ryoma now is annoying enough that he refuses automatically, shrugging into his jacket as he turns to follow his senpai back to the bus. The satisfaction in Tezuka's eyes as he reminds everyone of the semi-final details is enough to bring a tiny smile to the corner of Ryoma's mouth.
The semis are held in the packed stadium court, which seems to glitter with camera-flashes. Ryoma picks out Rikkai's ugly yellow jackets from the crowd of school uniforms; they will play Hyoutei tomorrow for their place in the finals, which means the Monkey King is probably around somewhere too. The other team, Shokurinchi, are all in black and purple; Ryoma eyes them over the net and wonders why their captain looks so familiar - tall and imperious with slicked-back hair and narrow rectangular glasses. The look on Tezuka's face as the guy glares at him advises against asking, and Ryoma spends Singles Three and Doubles Two watching buchou stare straight ahead at the court.
The answer doesn't occur to him until he's walking onto the court for Singles Two, facing some ridiculously tall guy who smirks down at him as though he thinks he's already won. Shokurinchi's captain is that Kite guy from before, the one whose team had beaten on the old guy from Rokkaku. The one who'd thought he could beat Tezuka-buchou with speed and violence; Ryoma can remember that match as though it was yesterday, but every image in his memory centres on Tezuka's side of the net.
It's obvious that the Kite guy is here for revenge; Ryoma pauses on his way back to the baseline, looking over to Tezuka-buchou. If he wins this game, Seigaku will take the match and buchou will not play at all. Ryoma remembers sunny rooftops and stinging words: Why did you come back to Seigaku, if you weren't going to play your best? It doesn't matter whether buchou wants to play; the path of the match was mapped out the moment Ryoma stepped onto the court. He nods to Tezuka and turns neatly on the baseline to grin at the opponent, then serves with everything he has.
Practice the next day is more intense even than the semi-final matches. After lunch Oishi-senpai and Inui-senpai go off to watch the Rikkai-Hyoutei games, and Kikumaru bounces onto the court to drape himself over Fuji.
"C'mon, Fuji, let's play Momo and Kaidoh!"
"Kikumaru-senpai!" Ryoma protests; he's five games up to three in their practice set and doesn’t appreciate having his opponent stolen from under his nose.
"Ah, it's all right, Echizen." Fuji-senpai extricates himself and smile apologetically at Ryoma. "I need to leave soon anyway - Taka-san's expecting me."
"Fuji, no fair!" Kikumaru-senpai pouts and sets his hands on his hips. "Fine then, Ochibi! Come and play doubles!"
Ryoma backs hastily away before his senpai can catch hold of him. "No way. Go play them by yourself." The only thing worse than doubles is doubles against Momo-senpai and Kaidoh-senpai when they're fighting - and they've been at each other's throats all morning. For once the low-level wrangling is actually a relief; ever since the training camp the two of them have been staying out of each other's way in a suspicious mutual silence, and there's just something vaguely wrong about tennis club without fighting second-years.
Leaving his senpai to work it out for themselves, Ryoma shoulders his racquet and wanders off the courts in search of Ponta. To his annoyance the machine between the science block and the main building is out of grape flavour and he has to settle for the tasteless fizz of orange. He's so absorbed in glaring into the half-empty can that he almost walks right into Tezuka-buchou on the way back and has to catch himself with a hand on the captain's arm. Ponta spills unheeded onto the ground, darkening the path for a moment before the sun fades the moisture.
"Sorry, buchou." Ryoma looks up into Tezuka's face and has to remind himself to remove his hand; he curls his fingers tight around the lingering sensation of buchou's skin under his palm as though he can keep it forever.
"It's nothing." Tezuka looks down at him for a long moment, then turns his attention back to the court where Kikumaru is bouncing from side to side to intercept Momo and Kaidoh's attacks. Ryoma glances over long enough to see him flick back a Boomerang Snake and backflip into an attacking position, then looks back to Tezuka. They are very close, here; close enough that Ryoma imagines he can feel the heat of Tezuka's body permeating his skin.
"Buchou?" he asks, before he quite knows what he's going to say. "Are you happy?" Tezuka looks away from the game, glasses reflecting sunlight into Ryoma's eyes. "That we're in the final, I mean," Ryoma amends, absently twisting his racquet from rough to smooth and back.
Tezuka just looks at him. "We still have a match to play, Echizen; we can't be careless now."
"Aa." Both of them know that Rikkai won't go down easily - but both of them know that they can win this, too. Nationals; it's always been Tezuka's dream for Seigaku. Ryoma wonders if he's ever had a dream like that - somehow he knows that beating his father doesn't count. Besides, he hasn't achieved that one yet. "It's the draw for the Under-Eighteen Singles soon, isn't it?"
"Thursday of next week." Tezuka-buchou looks away, focusing on the activity on-court. Ryoma smirks up at him anyway, leaning against the fence with a rattle of wire links and tucking his racquet under his arm.
"I'm going to win, buchou." At fifteen he is finally old enough to participate, and the team Nationals have already guaranteed him a place in the draw. "I'll take the tournament from you." Tezuka has been the national champion two years running, and Ryoma has already decided that this year will be his turn.
"I won't be playing." Tezuka's voice is cold and remote, and Ryoma feels his breath stop sudden and painful at the words.
"…buchou?" It feels as though the world is crumbling around him, and Tezuka is standing there like a statue, the pillar of Seigaku in form as well as function, looking away from him.
"I won't be participating," Tezuka-buchou repeats as though Ryoma is a child or stupid.
"But - you have to…" Ryoma trails off, clenching his hands into impotent fists. Buchou doesn't have to do anything, and he knows it. But it feels as his life has been wrenched painfully off its track; even more than the team Nationals he has been waiting for this tournament, precisely because he will get to play Tezuka.
Buchou's face is set in stone, and his words settle between them like an unbreachable wall. "The tournament dates clash with the entrance exams for Tokyo University." There's an electronic cheep and Tezuka fishes his phone out of his pocket; Oishi-senpai is calling from the stadium with a match report. Ryoma sets his jaw and turns to walk away without a word, disappointed fury writhing like a living creature in his chest.
Ryoma spends the rest of the week avoiding Tezuka as much as he can, torn between anger and betrayal and the desperate desire to grab hold of buchou and never let go. Momo-senpai and Kikumaru-senpai tease him for sulking and make jokes about growing pains until Ryoma just wishes everyone would shut up and go away; the final on Saturday comes as both an anti-climax and a relief.
Everyone is expecting this match to go all the way to Singles One, and with Sanada and Yanagi in doubles Ryoma already knows that it will. He feels Tezuka-buchou's eyes on his back as he walks onto the court to face Kirihara, but doesn't turn; if this is the last of his matches that buchou is going to see then Ryoma will give him something to watch. A spiteful, childish part of him wants Tezuka to know exactly what he's giving up, and he returns Kirihara's opening serve as though this is a Grand Slam instead of a high school tournament.
Kirihara has grown a lot in the two years since their last match, but all Ryoma can think is that this is not Tezuka. He wants to be playing buchou, and he goes into the match as though he is, pulling out every skill he possesses and still never quite finding what he's looking for. Two six-four sets are not the result he wants, and Ryoma ignores Kirihara's exhausted fury over the net as they shake hands amidst a whirlwind of cheering.
Tezuka-buchou gives him a long, steady look as he trudges head-down back to the bench; Ryoma turns his face away and goes to slump against the boundary fence, absently biting the straw of his water bottle as he watches Oishi and Kikumaru losing to Sanada and Yanagi. It's a narrow enough victory that the rest of the Regulars cheer anyway; Kikumaru-senpai flashes them a grin and leans into Oishi-senpai's arm around him as Tezuka-buchou picks up his racquet to warm up. Ryoma ducks his head and turns away, wandering off in search of juice.
Watching Tezuka-buchou play Yukimura in Singles One hurts. Ryoma scowls and settles himself into a tense huddle on the bench, eyes intent on the court. The crowd is almost silent in the background and his senpai exchange hushed whispers about skill and power; Ryoma ignores everything but the tall, graceful figure of his captain. Even with the weight of anger in his stomach, buchou's tennis can take his breath away.
It takes Yukimura five games to break the Zone, and as his backspin slice curves out beyond Tezuka's racquet it is as though Tezuka comes into focus. The rest of the set is a battle of skill and subtlety and ball control; Ryoma's breath aches in his chest as he watches. The idea that this could be the last time he will ever watch Tezuka-buchou on the court is heavy and abhorrent, and he shivers with the desire to be out there, to face Tezuka over the net one more time. As the set runs into tie-break, Ryoma traces the flowing lines of Tezuka-buchou's body with his eyes and wishes that games could last forever.
Kunimitsu is painfully conscious of Echizen's gaze on him as he steps forward to accept the trophy on behalf of his team. When he turns, lifting the heavy cup to the cheers of the crowd, Ryoma's face is resentful but his eyes are lost and confused. Kunimitsu swallows the useless words that rise in his throat; there is nothing he can say now, and he knows that one day Ryoma will be grateful for this. The time for guidance is over, and now Ryoma must make his own path. Don't look back, Kunimitsu thinks as he leads the team out of the stadium at the head of the procession, fingers white-knuckled around the handles of the cup. He's no longer Ryoma's captain, and he won't hold him back.
The only people who seem surprised by Ryoma's progress through the Under-Eighteen Singles are the reporters. After the semi-finals the sports papers are full of Youngest Finalist Ever! headlines and reissued photos from his years in the Under-Sixteens, which Ryoma ignores. When someone connects the names and runs a retrospective on his stupid father's brief career he considers ripping up the pages but ultimately can't be bothered. The old man isn't worth it, and he'd only take it as a challenge in any case. Nothing could be further from Ryoma's mind; the whole tournament is a bitter disappointment, and he wanders the house so aimlessly on the day before the final that his mother calls Momoshiro out and sends them both down to the street courts.
Playing his senpai is both exhausting and weirdly relaxing. Everyone on the team knows Ryoma's tennis so well that even with the difference in skill he has to work for his points. Ryoma's wrists are still aching from returning Momo-senpai's Dunk Smash when they finally yield the court to a group of elementary-school kids, collapsing onto the concrete steps.
"Eh, you don't go easy on me at all!" Momo-senpai collapses back and grins at the sky; Ryoma leans against the wall and slants his eyes at him.
"I never thought I'd see you using Kaidoh-senpai's Snake, Momo-senpai."
Momo-senpai just laughs. "Stupid Viper isn't here anyway - don't tell him!" he adds hastily, turning to stare beseechingly at Ryoma.
Ryoma smirks. "You just don't want him finding out how much you don’t hate him, senpai."
"Echizen!" Momo-senpai turns tomato-red and glares at the ground as though Kaidoh-senpai is standing on it. Ryoma shrugs and pulls his bag towards him, slotting his racquet neatly away.
"Whatever. Are you going to watch tomorrow?"
"Wouldn't miss it!" Momo cheers up, grinning at him. "That arrogant bastard'll probably have his cheering squad there; everyone's coming along to watch you kick his ass - well, except buchou…" He frowns, and Ryoma pretends he can't see the way Momo's watching him sideways.
"Yeah, I know." He shrugs and pushes himself to his feet, suddenly not liking the way the conversation's going. "Senpai, didn't you say you'd pay for burgers?"
"I did?" Momo-senpai glares at him, but it's enough of a distraction. "You little scrounger - only if you beat me to the restaurant!"
"No fair, senpai!" Ryoma yells as Momoshiro dashes for his bike with an evil laugh, but the bickering is familiar enough that tomorrow fades back into the distant future.
Atobe smirks at him over the net as they shake hands. "Have you beaten Tezuka yet, Echizen? It's a pity he can't be here to defend his title…"
"Che." Ryoma pulls his hand away as soon as Atobe lets go, tipping the brim of his cap back. "You'll have to do instead." The look on Atobe's face at that brightens the day a little; it's always fun to needle the Monkey King. It doesn't ease the sting of it, though; this is not the match Ryoma wants to play. The fact that Atobe very obviously wants to be facing Tezuka as well just makes him more annoying.
Some of the irritation dissolves once Ryoma gets into the match; Atobe is a dangerous opponent with a solid foundation of skill beneath the flashiness. It takes concentration and focus to keep from being distracted by the theatrics, but that has never been a problem for Ryoma. Halfway into the first set, he blocks Atobe's Stupid Name Smash by changing hands and realises that he's stopped playing against Tezuka in his head.
Ryoma takes the first set six games to four, and as they pass at the net during the break Atobe laughs with a toss of his head, as though he's posing for a photo shoot. Absently, Ryoma wonders whether he practices that in the mirror every morning.
"Let's give Tezuka something to watch, hmm?"
"He's not here." Ryoma ducks his head under his cap and wanders back to the bench, ignoring Atobe's reaction.
The second set is harder fought. Atobe pulls out that fancy serve of his in the tie-break; Ryoma can never remember what it's called, but it's annoying enough that he glares at the ball and doesn't waste effort trying to return it. One set all, and Ryoma knows Atobe will fight to the last. He paces behind the bench during the break, stretching out his legs as he works through the muscle memory of all his drive volleys, one after the other.
Ryoma hits the third set like a tidal wave and doesn't give Atobe a chance to breathe. Even a series of aces in his service games can't make an impact, and only seem to exhaust him. Ryoma flicks the final Drive E neatly past him to claim the set six-three, feeling vaguely let down. He has just become the number one junior player in Japan, and the only thought that really occurs as he accepts the trophy is that there is nothing right about this.
As soon as Ryoma sets foot in the door that evening his father appears, as smug-faced as if it had been his victory. Something crystallises in Ryoma's mind; he snatches a racquet out of his bag and shoves his feet back into his shoes. "Come on, old man."
"Eh?" Nanjiroh blinks at him, an unopened beer bottle forgotten in his hand.
"One set match." Ryoma walks out, heading for the court without bothering to check whether the idiot's following him. If he can't play his favourite opponent then he'll play his oldest; the old man isn't much of a father but he's still a challenge.
"Oi oi!" Nanjiroh appears on the other side of the court as he always does, tossing his ancient racquet from hand to hand. "What's this about, young man?"
"Nothing." Ryoma squeezes the ball in his hand, then bounces it perfunctorily and serves. Nanjiroh returns with the ease of long practice and it's easy, then, for Ryoma to lose himself in the familiar tug and stretch of muscle, the glowing arc of the ball against the dimming late-summer sky. He stops thinking, reacting on instinct as he trades points with his father, slice and backspin and drive and smash and everything that is tennis, everything that has always been his life. It's a choking, numbing shock to watch the zero-shiki settle into the net and realise that the set is tied at six games to six.
"Tie-break," his father says after a long pause, and he sounds as though he doesn't believe it either. For the first time in his life, Ryoma realises, he is about to beat his father at tennis, and it means nothing to him. His racquet hits the court with a dull, dusty smack, and Ryoma flees the temple grounds as fast as his legs can carry him.
When Kunimitsu arrives home from the library his mother hurries out of the living room to tell him that his kouhai from the tennis club is here waiting for him. It's not at all a surprise to open his bedroom door and find Echizen Ryoma sitting round-shouldered and uncomfortable in his desk chair. Kunimitsu sighs and sets his books carefully onto his bed, looking down at Ryoma's unhappy expression.
"Echizen." It's harder, here, to be the captain, but Ryoma seems so caught up in whatever is bothering him that they might as well be on the Seigaku courts.
"I - my father. We tied," Ryoma mutters, not looking up. "Six-all." His hands on his knees are white-knuckled; Kunimitsu stamps firmly on the urge to reach out and uncurl them.
"You didn't play the tie-break?" Ryoma is still in his tennis clothes, hair lank with sweat; Kunimitsu wonders if he has run all the way here.
"I couldn't. I - I'd have beaten him, and it wouldn't have mattered." Ryoma looks up at him, finally, eyes full of confusion. "It's not supposed to be this way, buchou!"
That hits home. Kunimitsu closes his eyes, taking a deep breath and reminding himself again of everything that lies between them. "No one can predict the future." The words taste trite and meaningless in his mouth; Ryoma looks down at his knees again.
"Are you quitting tennis, buchou?"
"No." The word slips out without thought, instinct and reflex overriding conscious decision. Kunimitsu sighs and sits down carefully on the edge of his bed, watching the way Ryoma's eyes light, finally, with relief. He doesn't mention that the Olympics will be held in China in three years, or that he expects to go professional after university; the simple reassurance seems to be all that Ryoma needs.
"I'm going pro next year." Ryoma's eyes make Kunimitsu ache with so many things that he cannot say; he swallows the irrational lump that rises in his throat and nods decisively.
"I expected you to. You need to keep moving forward - there are stronger players than your father out there."
"Aa." Ryoma ducks his head but doesn't look away, and Kunimitsu cannot find the words to tell him not to hold back.
It's raining again outside. Ryoma sits and looks at his phone for a long time before flipping it open and dialling the number. It rings twice, and then a familiar voice comes on the line.
"This is Tezuka."
"Buchou." Ryoma straightens his back automatically, even though there is no one to see. "Do you have plans for tomorrow?"
"Echizen?" Tezuka-buchou sounds startled. "Ah, no -"
"Good." Ryoma relaxes a little, satisfied. "I'll come by at one."
"What?" Ryoma can hear voices in the background, and wonders where buchou is.
"You're busy. I'll see you then." He rings off in the middle of Tezuka's demand for an explanation, knowing that buchou is probably more than a little exasperated with him right now and not really caring. Sometimes Ryoma would rather be a pest than be ignored, and it's been too long since he's had more of Tezuka than a brief nod as they pass in the halls. This birthday present is as much about him as it is about buchou, really.
Tezuka answers the door on the second knock, already wearing tennis gear. Ryoma blinks at him, wondering just how transparent he is, then grins. "Happy birthday, buchou."
Tezuka inclines his head in a silent acknowledgement, then frowns at him, glancing out at the grey sky. "Don't you have a coat? It's going to rain."
Ryoma shrugs, shifting impatiently from foot to foot as Tezuka gathers his racquet bag and coat. "I booked the covered court over by the gasworks. We can get the bus."
"Aa." They walk down the street to the bus stop in a comfortable sort of silence that Ryoma doesn't see any need to break. The tiny part of him that isn't already anticipating the game is self-consciously aware that it would only take a small movement to reach out and touch; Ryoma ignores it.
The rain is coming down in round, fat drops by the time they reach the court. It splatters on the thin plastic roof and puddles outside the gate; Ryoma ducks into the locker room quickly before his cap gets soaked through and fumbles for the switch to turn on the court lights. The sudden blaze of illumination makes him blink, fuzzy afterimages invading his vision, and when he turns to see Tezuka getting out his racquet a fierce thrill of happiness runs through him. He's been waiting too long for this.
They meet at the net, shoes scuffing on the freshly-swept clay court. Ryoma reaches over to spin his racquet without looking away from Tezuka's face, knowing that his eyes are wide and bright with anticipation. "Which?"
"Smooth." Tezuka-buchou doesn't turn away. His face is calm and composed as ever, but the floodlights strike sparks from the rims of his glasses that seem to invade his eyes.
The racquet lands rough; Ryoma eyes it in surprise then shrugs, reaching down to pick it up. "You can serve, buchou. Best of three sets."
They start slowly. Ryoma returns Tezuka's serve with a backhand slice, feeling his muscles beginning to loosen as he leaps to catch the next ball. The sound of the rain on the roof is just familiar enough to bring back memories of their first match; Ryoma feels as though he's come full circle as he slides a backspin volley past Tezuka's racquet to take the first game. They trade points, neither of them needing an umpire's voice to keep score as they flow across the court. As the first set continues, all drive and topspin and exquisite ball control, Ryoma feels his face settling into a grin. This is the way it should be, he thinks in satisfaction as he returns a slice with enough extra spin that it bounces free of the Tezuka Zone. This is the way they should be, always.
Kunimitsu stretches to reach Ryoma's Drive B before it hits the top of its arc, smashing it into the backcourt and watching Ryoma all but materialise to catch it with a neat and vicious slice, taking the point. It is his serve again; he moves into the rhythm of the game without thought, eyes fixed as always on the darting form of the boy on the other side of the net. Ryoma is unquestionably the best opponent he has ever had; the tennis they play together is breathtaking enough that he aches with it.
Ryoma returns with a topspin lob that curves out towards the line; Kunimitsu throws himself back to catch it without taking his eyes off the way Ryoma moves into position, all definite grace and determination. There is nothing in the world but this game, this court, the two of them fighting each other with everything they have.
Kunimitsu remembers his words beneath the tracks three years ago, and the way they have echoed in his mind ever since, reminding him of who and what he is supposed to be. This thing between them, this tennis, goes beyond roles and proprieties and what is supposed to be; every time they step onto the court they build something new out of the game. Kunimitsu's muscles slide into the familiar form of the zero-shiki and he watches Ryoma dive for the net to try and volley, body hitting the court with a jarring impact that he doesn’t seem to feel at all. His grin as he pushes himself up for his service game is every bit as enthralling as the way he spins the ball in the air, and Kunimitsu breathes deeply, needlessly reminding himself to focus on the game.
Ryoma's serve is something he has never seen before, a variation on his usual Twist that adds enough backspin to make the ball bounce backwards. Kunimitsu feels his eyes widen, then narrow; he's ready when Ryoma serves again, moving forwards into the serve and returning it as an overslice that doubles the topspin and makes Ryoma dash to catch it, grinning.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Kunimitsu knows that this is the best game he has ever played. It's in the subtlety, and the power behind it; in the strength of the way Ryoma faces him. Both of them are playing all-out, flying and burning and pushing each other higher. As Ryoma returns his backspin lob with a twist smash that impacts the clay of the court with a resounding crack, Kunimitsu feels his mind fall utterly silent with the conscious realisation of something that he has known for years: he can't hold Ryoma back.
Every step of these last three years, Ryoma has been there - watching, waiting, challenging him with every word and glance. This tennis, this glorious, soaring game that makes his heart pound in his throat and his body sing with tension - it belongs to both of them. It always has. Kunimitsu feels his mouth curving into a smile as Ryoma puts a neat slice inches beyond his reach, and for once he doesn't bother to suppress it.
Ryoma feels as though he never wants this game to end. For every shot he hits, buchou is there across the net to counter him, deadly and perfect and everything he has ever wanted from tennis. Points and games and sets go by as if in a dream; the world is reduced to the impact of ball on gut and the ache in his muscles and the look in Tezuka-buchou's eyes over the net as neither one of them gives an inch. It's glorious and exhausting and the final tie-break would be disappointing if Ryoma could look away long enough to think.
Twelve points stretches to twenty and thirty and by the time Ryoma's final smash raises chalk dust from the service line he's trembling with the tension of it. He stumbles to meet Tezuka-buchou at the net, the sound of his breath drowning the words that crowd unspoken under his tongue. Tezuka is breathing just as hard, the rise and fall of his chest rhythmic and pronounced as he looks down across the suddenly-narrow gap between them. Ryoma stares up at him, all thoughts of handshakes or thanks lost in the warm brown of Tezuka's eyes, and then he's doubly breathless as Tezuka's hand reaches out over the net. A fleeting, gentle touch to the side of his head that seems as inevitable as the winter's snow and Ryoma leans into it, swaying forward and up without thought as Tezuka leans down to kiss him.
Their mouths are clumsy and unsure, sliding together soft-wet-hot, but there is no uncertainty in Ryoma at all as he wraps his arms around buchou's shoulders and presses into the kiss. Their tongues tangle, lips parted breathy and impatient and everything he has ever wanted in that instant, and all Ryoma can think is that buchou is so very warm against him. The sudden uncomfortable pressure of the net cord against his stomach as he tries to move forward is an unwelcome distraction; Ryoma surfaces blurrily from the kiss, staring into Tezuka's eyes, wide and dark behind the so-close sheen of his glasses as they breathe together.
"We should leave," Tezuka-buchou says after a long moment, and though his voice is matter-of-fact the tone of it is soft and new. "The next players will arrive soon."
"Aa." Ryoma knows he's right, but it takes effort to step back; his hand lingers on Tezuka's neck, fingers falling away regretfully in a slow caress. The way Tezuka shivers makes desire uncoil in the pit of his stomach; Ryoma turns away deliberately and picks up his racquet before heading to the locker room.
The water in the showers is hot enough to soothe the ache from tired muscles. Tezuka takes the first turn, and doesn't look surprised when Ryoma slides into the cubicle to wrap slippery-wet arms around his shoulders and pull him down for a kiss. Without his glasses his eyes are unguarded and hazy; Ryoma smirks up at him, fingers tracing the contours of muscle and bone as he arches into Tezuka's possessive hands on his back. The world spirals down to water and tile and slippery bodies sliding against each other, lips and tongues and teeth and slick, certain hands building a perfection that surpasses anything he has felt on court. Ryoma gasps "Buchou" into the brief, warm spaces between them, and gives himself up to the heady, dizzying wonder of Tezuka's skin and hands and mouth.
Kunimitsu can still feel the tingling heat of Ryoma on his skin as they walk down the street in search of food in the early evening, the reddening sun showing ragged through the patchy cloud on the horizon. There's a new and aching kind of wonder in this that keeps his eyes constantly drawn back to Ryoma, walking by his side with his hair rough-towelled and still glinting with droplets. He should be suspicious of this silence between them, Kunimitsu thinks, but instead it is comfortable and familiar; there are no words he needs to say.
"Look, buchou." Ryoma takes his hand, interlacing their fingers as he points to a ramen stand on the corner past the bus stop. Kunimitsu looks down into his eyes, wide and golden and utterly certain as they smile up at him, and doesn't let go.