Setting Straight for Anehan!
Title: Setting Straight
Author: ssumiya
Recipient:anehan
Pairing/Characters: Shishido Ryo/Tachibana An
Rating:PG
Disclaimer: Roses are red, violets are blue. I don't own this fandom, and neither do you.
Summary: Shishido wants a rematch with Tachibana. Which one is debatable.
Notes: A big ’Thank you’ to the wonderful people that helped me out with this one. You’re all awesome.
Shishido Ryou groaned and rolled over. He grabbed his pillow and put it over his head, but had no success in shutting out the world. His nose was running, he couldn’t stop coughing and he was pretty sure he had a fever or something because he was sweating. Apparently training in the rain for two nights straight did that to you, or so the school nurse said. So lame.
Damn, he really needed to change clothes. Shishido hated the sensation of fabric clinging to his body. It was gross and disgusting but changing involved standing up and he had just found that sweet spot on his bed. If he closed his eyes, maybe he could finally take a nap before walking Akio, his dog. The room was hot and the drowsiness was starting to make everything fade to black and…
Shishido groaned again, as his phone started to ring with Gakuto’s ringtone. Perfect fucking timing. He knew he either had to pick up or suffer hours of hearing the phone buzzing and ringing. Gakuto could never accept that you couldn’t answer a call and would keep on calling until you did. Shishido had once counted thirty seven missed calls, until he’d turned the phone off.
Shishido cursed, as he was forced to stand up and find his phone. Where was his bag again? Oh, right. He had kicked it under the desk when he came back from school. Shishido bent over to pick it up, only to hit his head against the edge of the desk. “Fuck!”
The phone seemed to ring even louder as Shishido took it out of the bag and frowned at it. Annoying, impatient, little thing. Just like Gakuto, really. “What do you want?” he snapped at the phone after pressing the green button.
“What the fuck is that tone for, Ryou?!” Shishido winced a little at how loud and how high Gakuto’s voice sounded when he wailed like that. “Not even a hello. Seriously, why am I friends with you?”
Shishido felt his headache becoming two times worse.
“I’m hanging up…”
“Well, then you don’t get to hear who’s training at the street courts near the arcade,” Gakuto said in a singsong voice and Shishido really wished he could just let it go and forget about the bait. He was probably sick and a match right now would make him worse. Choutarou kept on telling him that he would get sick, if he continued pushing his body like this. But if Gakuto was calling him to tell him, it was because it was important, so Choutarou couldn’t really blame him, since he was just being polite, right?
“Alright. Spill it.” Shishido sat down on the chair next to the desk; Gakuto usually chatted for a long time. “Wait, what the heck are you doing in a street court anyway? Why aren’t you at Hyotei?”
“Because Atobe’s painting the courts purple.”
“Are you kidding me?!” Shishido cried out and that sent him into a coughing fit again. The tissue box was at the other side of the room. Great. Gakuto made gagging noises saying it was disgusting and Shishido mentally flipped him off. “Please say you’re lying….” They had endured the pink tennis shoes, but purple courts were too much. What was Atobe thinking?!
“Totally. Yuushi and I got caught making out on one of them at night and got banned for a week…”
That made more sense. Now, Shishido just needed some bleach to erase the mental image. “Dammit, Gakuto! That’s gross! We train there, you fucking moron.”
“It’s not my fault you have the sex drive of a tennis ball.” Shishido could even picture Gakuto sticking his ugly fat tongue out at him, the idiot. “So yeah, whatever. Tachibana is hitting balls against a wall in front of me. Thought you would want to know.”
Shishido was up in a flash. “Don’t let him go, you got that?! Keep him there, ask for a match if he tries to leave or something.”
Gakuto laughed, on the other side of the line. “I’ll make sure to keep Tachibana here so you can win your honor again.”
“Thanks, I owe you one,” Shishido said before hanging up. The adrenaline of having a worthy match and setting things straight with Tachibana kicked Shishido into action. New dry clothes, tennis shoes, racket. He was ready; oh, he was so ready for this.
-♦-
Shishido was out of breath when he reached the street courts. Damnit, that was supposed to have been a fifteen minute run, but he had done it in twenty and his lungs felt like they were on fire. He would worry about that later, however. Now he needed to find the one where Tachibana was, and beat him. Piece of cake. Shishido easily spotted Gakuto’s hair; his friend was sprawled over Oshitari on top of some high benches and Shishido felt like facepalming. Couldn’t they keep their hands to each other and spare other people from the horror? Shit. What if that stupid redhead had let Tachibana escape? Shishido ran towards them.
“Gakuto!,” Shishido cried out and smacked the other’s head as soon as he was in reach. “What happened with keeping Tachibana here? Can’t see him anywhere.”
“What happened to you? You look like shit.” Gakuto was always so smooth, really. He would look like crap if he was feeling like Shishido did.
“I’m imitating your style,” Shishido snapped back, looking past them into the other courts. Nothing. “Seriously, where’s…”
“Ah. It has been raining in the evenings as of late, isn’t it? Shishido usually trains after school. He’s probably on his way to get sick, Gakuto.” Oshitari’s drawl made Shishido to look back at them.
“What if I have?” Shishido huffed, feeling annoyed at Oshitari’s useless input. Missing a few days of training because of something as trivial as rain was totally lame. “I’m not here for you, anyway. Where is he?” He eyed the different courts. All of them were occupied but he couldn’t find Tachibana on them.
Gakuto looked way too smug while holding back the secret and Shishido wanted to kick him. Gakuto untangled himself from Oshitari so he could stand up and make Shishido to turn around. “Tachibana is there.”
“Where?” There was just a little girl playing against the wall. “That’s not Tachibana. That’s a girl.”
Shishido might have spoken too loud because the girl turned around and glared at them. Or maybe it was because Gakuto started to piss himself with laughter. Either way, Shishido was wasting his time. Would Choutarou be available for a match, if Shishido called? He was already in the street courts, anyway.
“She is Tachibana An, she’s his sister,” Gakuto said, gasping for breath before collapsing into laughter again.
“What?! Then why the fuck did you call me and tell me Tachibana Kippei was here, you fucking idiot?!”
Gakuto stopped laughing enough to manage a somewhat understandable comment. “No, I told you Tachibana was here. You assumed I meant Kippei.”
Shishido was too dumbstruck for words. Or too fucking pissed off. He wasn’t really sure. It was probably a mixture of both. Oshitari sighed and buried his head in a book.
“Now, go on. Go have your redeeming match~”Gakuto said and Shishido wanted to punch him right there.
“Fuck you,” Shishido said instead, before pushing Gakuto away and turning to leave. Gakuto had called him, made him run because Shishido had been expecting to finally have the match he’d been yearning for, just for the idiot to prank him like this. Gakuto was either suicidal or bored to death. Shishido couldn’t bring himself to give a damn; he would deal with it when he felt better and could hit that fucking redhead harder.
“My brother isn’t the only one that plays, you know.” The girl, Tachibana, said from inside the cage.
Shishido stopped. “I don’t play girls.”
“Why? Gender doesn’t define talent. Or what? Are you one of those dumb boys that won’t play against girls because their manly-pride will be hurt if they lose against a girl?” Tachibana said looking rather mad. Shishido couldn’t blame her, but Shishido’s grudge was against her brother, not her. There wasn’t a real reason for a match against her.
“I thought I was going to play your brother, okay? I’m not going to crush a little girl to prove something or anything. Not my style.”
A ball hit the fence just missing where Shishido’s head was. “I’m not a little girl and guess what, Hyotei cap-boy? You’re not good enough to win against me.”
Gakuto jeered loudly and Shishido growled as he tightened the grip on his racket.
“You’re on.”
-♦-
Shishido lost 4-6.
A string of his racket had broken and he also got caught in the rain on his way home (again) and got sicker. Shishido was sent home the next day, after a check up by one of the Hyotei doctors with a bag full of medicine. At least, that prevented him from getting being told off by Atobe about losing to girls on public street courts.
He walked slowly to the school gates, with the worst headache of his life, when he felt someone taking his bag off his right shoulder and another person taking his tennis equipment from the other, without saying a word.
“You could have said something about you not feeling well yesterday, you know,” Gakuto grumbled, trying to adjust the tennis bag with the rest of his stuff. “And that would have been okay too.”
“Playing sick is not fun, Ryou!” Jirou chirped happily, as he balanced both tennis bags over one shoulder and they reached the gates. “Ara? I don’t see your dad’s car. Were you planning to walk home?”
Shishido shrugged. His house was not really that far away and he was used to walking or running home as extra training anyway.
“You are really stupid,” Gakuto rolled his eyes before pointing at the black limo already waiting for them. “You are part of a team remember? There’s no way Atobe is letting you go on foot and alone when you’re like this. Not for any of us, really.”
Shishido totally blamed being sick for feeling choked up right then.
-♦-
“Play me.”
Shishido had almost forgotten about losing to Tachibana An two weeks ago. Okay, there was a snowballs chance in hell that he would forget about it, but he hadn’t really expected her to show up at Hyotei out of the blue and ask for a match. “What?”
“A match,” she said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“No,” Shishido cut her off and tried to walk away, but she planted herself in front of him again.
“I wanna play against you again,” she said, with a defiant look on her face.
“I don’t. And why are you here anyway? You should go.” Shishido had to admit she had some guts to plant herself there, in a school that held a reputation of being hostile to people that didn’t belong to it, and challenge a regular of the famous tennis team.
“You didn’t return to the courts and I knew I could find you here.” Tachibana shrugged and adjusted her bag. Some people were starting to stop to look and stare at them. Shishido glared at them in return. The Fudomine blue sailor-like uniform stood out too much from the more westernized Hyotei uniform, so they were attracting attention. “I knew you were sick when I kicked your butt and I really want to face you when you’re in your best shape.”
“Eh?”
“I’m not stupid.” She rolled her eyes at him. “You didn’t look okay that day but you were being a jerk and I wanted to show you a lesson. I had fun, though. The guys I hang around with usually go easy on me and I can’t really play fully that way. I really wanted to try my full strength but I kept on getting thwarted, because they were too nice and worried about me getting hurt.”
Shishido wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or that he was being called an insensitive ass.
“Anyway, this is my number.” Tachibana grabbed his hand and wrote down a number with permanent black marker on it. Dammit, it looked like was getting a love confession or something and some of the tennis cheerleaders were starting to shoot daggers at Tachibana. “Call me if you want a real match, okay?”
And just like that, she turned around and dashed away, out of sight. Shishido was left feeling rather embarrassed about… well, everything. Specially the looks he was getting. “What the fuck are you looking at?!” He bellowed at the crowd and it quickly dispelled. Shishido frowned at the number on his hand.
“Who was that, Shishido-san?” Choutarou’s voice sounded curious, if a bit apprehensive.
“Nobody. Let’s go. It’s almost time for practice.”
-♦-
“Hello?”
Shishido froze at the sound of the voice on the other side of the line. He knew he was calling a girl, then why was he surprised of hearing a girl answering? Lame.
“Hello?”
“I want to be over with this.” Shishido tried to say confidently as he nodded. He had been trying to forget the fact he had lost to an entire family and trying to resist the temptation to challenge Tachibana to a match (either of them). The permanent marker had been hard to rub off and the feeling of wanting to win had been even harder to erase. But Shishido had made up his mind.
Tachibana An needed to know he didn’t want another match and that that was not going to happen (and Shishido really needed to convince himself of that too, by voicing out loud) and then he could move on from it. It shouldn’t have been too hard, he had let down girls that had confessed to him before, without much fuss.
“Excuse me?” Tachibana answered sounding confused. Why was so hard to talk to girls? Were all of them like this?
“Yeah, our match.” Shishido frowned and fixed his cap.
“Who are you?”
Shishido choked on his own spit and coughed a few times. Yeah, how was she supposed to know who was calling? The fact that he’d been thinking about calling her didn’t mean that she’d been doing the same. Somehow, that annoyed Shishido. He growled, “Hyotei’s Shishido!”
“Ah! Hyotei cap-boy!”
“Don’t call me that!”
“So you want us to have a match then? Cool. We could do it tomorrow-”
“No, that’s not--”
“Or this afternoon if you want, I’m free at… five”
“That is--”
“Perfect! I’ll see you then!”
And then she hung up. She fucking hung up. Shishido stared at nothing in particular for a long time before banging his head on his desk. Several times. This had not been what was supposed to have happened.
-♦-
Shishido won 6-3, 6-3 and 6-2, before he decided they needed to stop because he was actually getting worried about something happening to Tachibana if they keep on going. She was sweating too much, gasping for breath and looked exhausted to the bone. Shishido wondered if this was what Choutarou had felt like when they had trained together to make him a regular again.
The first (kind of) forced match had been what he had expected it to be, but Shishido had felt that he needed to give her the chance to try to beat him again. He hadn’t been expecting to actually have fun with it and willingly propose a third match. Tachibana had been too tired by then and that had made her movements lousy and weak. But Shishido could see that she had potential and was actually learning from their matches. It was kind of cool.
Tachibana forcibly shoved her racket into her bag before sitting on the bench and putting a towel on her head.
“Hey… um… are you okay?” Shishido asked before he sat next to her and drank some water.
“You annihilated me. Are you going to mock me now, Hyotei?” Her voice sounded funny and even if Shishido wasn’t good with the ‘reading-the-opposite-sex’ thing, she looked like she was upset. Damn, this was why he didn’t play girls. What if she started crying? Shit. What if her brother thought he had made cry over tennis in revenge or something?
“Che. That would be really lame. And unsportsmanlike,” Shishido blurted out before he could stop himself. Oh well, it was the truth anyway.
“You have the right to do it, I lost.”
“I don’t know what made you think I’m like that, but I’m not that kind of guy,” Shishido said hotly. Seriously, he knew Hyotei was considered to be a bunch of entitled assholes but stereotyping all of them as that was rude and unfair. “And you’re good. You can’t beat me with your level but you would probably give some of our pre-regulars a run for their money. Just don’t tell anyone that I said that. Conspiring with the enemy and all that.”
Shishido didn’t get a reply, so he turned to see if she had left. Tachibana had taken the towel of and was staring at him, like she hadn’t taken a good look at him before.
“What?”
“You’re weird.”
“Geez.” Shishido snorted and turned to look away, finishing his water bottle. Why was it so hot out of the sudden?
-♦-
Somewhere along the way, Shishido ended up playing Tachibana weekly at the street courts. Tachibana's skills got better every week and his games against her got more and more familiar, like his games against Choutarou, except Shishido was pretty sure that Tachibana wasn't as talented in doubles. She had a brash-nature and tendency to dominate the court, which didn't mesh well with doubles.
Honestly, Shishido saw a lot of his old playstyle in her, without the arrogance he used to have. So maybe she wasn't a hopeless doubles player.
Finally, after a whole month of playing her weekly, when they were both panting over a bench, gulping down their water, Shishido glanced down at the lukewarm water in his bottle, failing to cool him up. The unexpected heat of the autumn season was burning at his skin and he felt like he was going to die.
"Hey, you want to get some ice-cream? My treat?" he asked lazily, before realizing that it wasn't Choutarou or Gakuto or even Wakashi. It was Tachibana from Fudomine. Well, that wasn’t completely right. She had become An-chan after the third week, after all.
An-chan looked up at him with surprise, her damp hair slowly unsticking from the side of her neck as she stared at him with an unreadable expression. Finally, she grinned and nodded, "Why not, cap-boy?"
"Don't call me that," Shishido snapped and stuffed his water bottle into his bag with a slight scowl. "You ought to be calling me senpai, you know. I'm a year older than you."
"Cap-boy," she said with a smug smirk as she swung the bag over his shoulders, which showed off an ample amount of collarbone, that Shishido hadn't really noticed before. Were collarbones supposed to be that pretty? He flushed and shoved his hands into his pockets, muttering darkly as they walked towards the ice-cream truck parked a few metres away from the street courts.
She leaned up on her tiptoes to peer over the counter of the truck to order and Shishido was surprised. She was even shorter than Gakuto, wasn't she? Honestly, it was weird to see girls so short - most of the girls at Hyotei had long legs, cool gazes, and coiffed hair. With her haphazard short hair sticking to her neck, short legs and her ruffled and sweaty tennis uniform clinging to her, An-chan was the complete opposite of that. Still, it was nice. Someone who appreciated tennis beyond the cheering on the sidelines was nice. Even better.
And what the hell was he thinking? He quickly paid the money for her ice-cream and his lolly stick, and they started to wander up to the park, away from the street courts, in a tired quiet.
An-chan seemed content to lick away at her ice-cream quite passionately and Shishido was definitely a pervert for looking so much. He could feel his face growing redder and redder and he started to beat himself up for it, but he wondered. Oshitari was always talking some crap about people who tied cherry stems being good kissers. Did he ever say something about ice-cream?
And why was he thinking about kissing this infuriating girl? Yeah she was kind of cool and all but he didn't like her all that much. Right? Kicking himself internally, he scowled and bit down on his lolly stick, and winced as the cold went up to his brain.
“Shit!”
An-chan giggled at him, with a wide grin. "Stupid, you aren't supposed to bite it like that. Lick it, like this," she said, demonstrating, quite proficiently-
"YES, I CAN SEE THAT THANK YOU,” Shishido stuttered, looking away from her, his face going even redder at being an idiot and at An-chan laughing at him, and the sight of her tongue. He needed a long long shower when he got home, and if anyone asked, it was because of the tennis.
-♦-
“Shishido-san, please stop moving so much,” Choutarou said, in that worried voice that made Shishido’s gut twist with guilt, a voice that made him as still as he could be. The alcohol stung on his open wounds and even the slight pressure applied over his soon-to-be black eye hurt. That, of course, didn’t compare to the pain caused by the look on Choutarou’s face as he helped clean the blood from Shishido’s skin. Shishido sighed and stay silent as his doubles partner kept working on him. This had become familiar after they had trained together, to get Shishido back into the regulars again but what had brought him to Choutarou’s house that afternoon was not tennis related.
No, that was wrong. It was totally related to tennis.
It had been a very good match. Shishido had been just about to break An-chan’s serve and win 6-4 when she started to glow. And not that fairy-like glowing that appeared in shoujo manga but like seriously glowing. An-chan’s next serve had been a killer and Shishido stared in awe how the ball passed him before he could even react. Her speed and strength had increased dramatically. He returned the one after that, but only barely. Then he saw her eyes looking vacant as she returned his smash with a perfect volley aimed to the baseline. Shit.
Muga no Kyochi.
It was absolutely stunning. The tennis, of course, he meant the tennis. She won and Shishido, for once, accepted defeat without protesting and shouting. Every ball, every counter, every volley had been amazing. He saw her smiling, a tiny but prideful smile and he couldn’t stop himself from smiling back.
And then she fainted.
Shishido jumped over the net to try and catch her but didn’t reach her on time. “An-chan, An-chan!” He shooked her but she didn’t respond. Shishido started to panic. What the fuck was he supposed to do?! Shishido was about to shout for help when he heard her snoring. He chuckled, amusedly.
Shishido carried her to the bench and waited patiently for her to wake up. Well, his patience started running thin after half an hour passed. By an hour, he realized she wasn’t going to wake up until the next day. Fucking great. Also, she drooled and kicked in her sleep. Which was kinda of cute but his jersey was all covered in drool and they were getting some weird looks from the other tennis players nearby. And Shishido kept on picking up the jacket from the floor to cover her legs up, like every two minutes or so. Shishido couldn’t just leave her there. He growled annoyed and fumbled with her bag to find her cell phone. An-chan definitely had to have her brother’s number, right?
‘Tachibana? I left your sister unconscious, can you pick her up?’ Did his conscience sound like Gakuto’s voice just now, really? Maybe because it was terrible idea. There was no other thing to do, than to take her home, or so he thought. She had pointed out her house once before and it wasn’t far away from the street courts.
With resignation, Shishido did just that. An-chan was heavy as he piggybacked her all the way home. Her body felt hot against his back and it was an odd sensation. Now if only his hormones would calm down because it was getting really uncomfortable to walk. Shishido tried to ignore it the best he could, but it was hard. Damn.
Thankfully, An-chan’s apartment was just a flight of stairs away. Each step was harder than the last one but they managed to reach her door without much problem. Then, out of the sudden there was this high-pitched hissed and Shishido felt a freaking cat run past his legs making him lose his balance. Some potted plants came crashing down as he tried to find something to get a hold on but it wasn’t enough and Shishido hit his shoulder on the cold floor as they fell. An-chan ended up on top of him and her face just a few centimetres away from his, her lips were half parted and… Yes, he needed to move away. Just as he untangled himself from under her, carefully using an arm to pillow her head, he heard the sound of a door opening nearby. Shishido looked up.
“Get off her, you fucker!”
Shishido thought that calling An-chan's brother to pick her up had been a bad idea. He didn't think that by trying to avoid that situation, he would be facing down half of Fudomine's tennis team and by the looks of it, they were assuming just what Shishido thought they were.
“There. I’m done, Shishido-san. Are you sure this is alright? I think we should report this,” Choutarou said, putting the first aid kit away. Shishido hadn’t know where else to go to fix his face before returning home and Choutarou’s house had been nearby.
“It was just a misunderstanding, Choutarou. I’m okay, promise.” Shishido tried to smile, but he only managed a grimace because his jaw hurt. “Told you, I would have done the same if I thought some of you guys were in danger or something. I just wish they would have let me explain. Shit, what is Tachibana gonna think of me…”
“Is that your biggest concern now, Shishido-san? I mean, you were seriously beaten up.” Choutarou asked, sounding worried and slightly mad and Shishido only managed to nod in response.“You really like her, isn’t it?”
Shishido bit his lip and winced because that hurt too, before nodding again.
-♦-
“Ikkyuu nyuu kon!” Choutarou served, fast and deadly as always, and Shishido saw Wakashi run across the court to return the ball. Shishido was already in position for Wakashi’s shot. The ball’s impact was hard and powerful against his racket, but nothing he hadn’t faced before. They were playing a match against Gakuto and Wakashi to try and make them good at doubles. Shishido thought that they were slowly becoming a good doubles pair, but there was room for improvement with their stamina issues and how much bitched at each other. It was fun to play against them, though. Around them, the rest of the regulars were playing practice matches, while the pre-regulars were cheering from the sidelines.
Practices were really demanding even with the tournaments over and it helped Shishido to focus his mind on tennis and keep his head clear from other things. Like not-really-ice-cream-dates and snarky girls with pretty hair, who called him stupid nicknames and how it had been nearly two weeks since he had played a match against her. Not that he missed that or anything.
“Shit! Sorry, Choutarou!” Shishido called across the net and adjusted his cap. He had missed that point rather miserably. He needed to put his shit together and to keep his head in the game. Stubbornly, his head had different plans, like replaying every single match he played against An-chan and how awesome that last one had been. His brain then provided the most detailed memories of how her skirt went up when she served and how her hair flew when she moved. It was fucking distracting. Shishido shook his head and prepared for Gakuto’s Moon Salute, returning it perfectly and starting another rally.
Seriously, it wasn’t like he was worried for An-chan; Muga No Kyochi was just weird,not dangerous. So she was totally okay. They hadn’t met since then, because he had busy with school and shit and not because he had gone to the street courts on several occasions since the incident and never found her or anything.
Except the latter was the truth and it was so, so lame.
No, it had to be something else. An-chan was alright. Maybe Shishido couldn’t concentrate because he couldn’t really sleep at night, with the vivid dreams. They weren’t bad at all, though. Damn, they were even worth being awfully uncomfortable in the morni--
“Fuck!” Shishido cried out as pain exploded from his head were a ball had hit him.
“Shishido-san!” Choutarou was next to him, in no time, and looked at him with his big, brown eyes wide open in worry. Shishido gently pushed Choutarou away before coming to the net with a murderous intent. “Shishido-san, wai--!”
“What the fuck was that for, Wakashi?!” Shishido jumped over the net and grabbed the jerk by his jersey. Shishido was so going to erase that smug grin from his face.
“You were the one that wasn’t paying attention to the match, Shishido-senp--”
“Ne, Ryou… isn’t that Tachibana?” Gakuto’s voice snapped Shishido out of the urge to throttle the little shit he called a kohai and made him turn to look at where a small commotion was happening over in the stands.
An-chan was there and all the fuss was because she was wearing the Fudomine’s girls tennis team jersey. “Shit. What the hell is she thinking?” Shishido growled, before shoving Wakashi away and dashing over to where some girls were already eying her like vultures spying prey.
Shishido heard Choutarou and Gakuto calling his name, and some weird-ass mumbling from Wakashi, but he didn’t stop in his tracks. He jumped over the stands and without a word, grabbed An-chan’s hand and dragged her away from vicious rich girls. And the pre-regulars, they couldn’t be trusted near anything.
A good thing about Hyotei Gakuen was its size and Shishido had known the school for his whole life, so escaping from the prying eyes of the tennis mob was fairly easy. They reached an empty corridor that led to one of the lesser known exits in record time. An-chan was out of breath and Shishido’s heart was beating hard, fast and threatened to break out of his ribcage. He had carried An-chan before on his back but he never had taken her hand like this. Shishido flushed darkly, before letting go.
Remembering how and why they had come there, Shishido scowled at her. “What were you thinking, showing up like this with your tennis uniform? This is Hyotei! If you haven’t noticed, some people are like you think they are. Geez. Well, you’re safe now.”
“Are you saying you saved me?” Wow, why did she sound so angry all of a sudden? It wasn’t like Shishido was asking for something in exchange for his services, or anything. An-chan put a hand on her hip and somehow Shishido knew that he wasn’t going to like where this was heading. “First and most importantly, nobody asked you to save me because I don’t need anyone to save me from a bunch of stupid wannabe idols. I can do that myself, thank you very much. They weren’t even a threat to me! Second, what the hell happened?!”
Shishido tried to speak, but was silenced by a killer glare coming from An-chan before she continued. “No, you’re going to listen because I don’t have a clue of what’s going on and I want some answers. The last thing I remember, we were playing a match and I was about to win and then I woke up in my bed the next day. Then, everyone, and I mean everyone started acting super weird and never left me alone for more than a minute! You know how infuriating that was?! Shinji kept muttering about ‘Hyotei bastards’, all the time. First, I thought it was the whole team, which would make more sense but then he actually started naming you, after I mentioned that I wanted them gone so I could go and play some actual tennis. And everyone got a little crazier after that. That was totally weird because they wouldn’t have a reason to hate you, at all. If anything, they would feel sorry for you because my brother did kick your butt that time but…”
Shit. This was going from bad to worse. Shishido gritted his teeth, resisting the urge to hit his head on the wall in front of him.
“…and then I stopped hearing from you completely. I messaged you a couple of times but the texts never got sent, like if you had blocked me or something. I thought we were friends.”
Or maybe Shishido could ask the Earth to swallow him whol---what?
“I didn’t block you!” Shishido cried out, “Why would I even block you anyway? I like playing against you---wait, did you just say we’re friends?” Shishido felt like was on the top of a rollercoaster and had just taken a peak down.
An-chan shrugged, “You don’t want us to be?”
“No! Yes!” Shishido mentally smacked himself. “I mean, it would be cool.”
“Then, friends don’t block each other!” An-chan stomped angrily on the ground and Shishido almost expected a slap but luckily, that never came. “That’s totally not cool.”
“I told you! I didn’t block you!” Shishido started again, tiredly, before pulling his phone from of his shorts’ pockets and showing An-chan her own number there. There was nothing out of place.
“Then…” An-chan’s narrowed her eyes before reaching inside her bag and taking out her own phone and looking for Shishido’s number. Shishido came closer to take a look, only to find out that it was saved with the name ‘Cap-boy’ and had the worst possible photo of him, after one of their matches, all sweaty-looking, like a complete loser. Just great.
With closer attention to the screen, there was a little pink lock on the right top of the contact info.
“It seems like you blocked me,” Shishido said quietly, before tapping the screen.
“Oh. I… I’m sorry,” An-chan said as her face slowly started to turn a kind of cute shade of pink. “But I didn’t block you! And if I didn’t…” She narrowed her eyes, looking rather mad before hissing, “Those idiots. I’m going to kill them.”
For a moment, Shishido thought of letting those guys burn over it, and damn that would feel nice, after how sore his jaw had been, for days after the incident. But even Shishido could see that they had been trying to do the right thing, and someday truth would need to come up anyway. Shishido pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
“Okay, look. About that last match we had? You freaking pulled Muga No Kyochi in the middle of it and passed out on me. I took you home, we tripped and fell to the floor. Your friends found us and weren’t too happy about what they saw.” Shishido adjusted his cap and crossed his arms over his chest. “They overreacted, probably, but then again, I'd have done the same in their place. Explanation enough for you? I would have told you all of that if you'd let me speak the first time".
“Oh. Oh.” An-chan’s eyes were wide as realization hit her. “I am so very sorry,” she said before bowing profusely. “I apologize for whatever they did, as well. They’re very impulsive sometimes but I promise they are good boys.”
Shishido waved it off and hurried to help An-chan to straight herself. “No need. Told you, I can understand why they acted up. So we’re cool now, isn’t it? I was a little worried about you thinking I was some kind of a creep, or something like that. And I didn’t know if they told you about it.”
“Oh no, you’re pretty harmless!” An-chan said and Shishido cringed at the thought of that, but An-chan was smiling and that made it better. Actually, she seemed very happy and Shishido found himself returning the grin before he stopped himself. “Ah, this explains a lot. Like how they were running like forever, nii-san hates people fighting. Did he stop the fight?”
Shishido nodded and looked away. Geez, why he did he have to make the wrong impression on Tachibana Kippei, every single time? The guy probably thought the worst of him already. An-chan didn’t seem to mind, though.
“Ah! Did they let you explain what happened to Kippei? I bet they didn’t, the idiots. Oh well, I’m sure he probably knew what happened anyway. I mean you took my tennis equipment with you, because it was next to my stuff, the next day.” An-chan continued. At least it was a comfort that Tachibana didn’t hate his guts. “Nii-san might be a little freaked out by the Muga No Kyochi, with Senri-san being so weird about it and all but I’m sure if you had stayed a little longer he might have even invited you to dinner or something.”
“I don’t think that--”
“So it’s really true?” An-chan said interrupting Shishido. “Did it really happen? Muga no Kyochi?”
Why did she change subjects all of the sudden?! Shishido wanted to groan in frustration. She was worse than Gakuto in that matter, not that that was any consolation.
“Yeah, it was cool.” Shishido grumbled.
“Cool? I’m awesome!” An-chan said with her head up and a smug smile before breaking down into squealing and flailing. Tsk. Girls.
“Whatever. I’m going to practice now. Don’t come here with that uniform, some girls are kind of crazy.” Shishido grunted and turned to leave.
“No, no! Wait!” An-chan caught up with him and grabbed his arm. “Thank you for helping me with tennis and taking care of me, Shishido-san,” she said quietly before tiptoeing to place a small kiss on his cheek.
Shishido’s heart skipped a beat.
“Ah.” Was all Shishido managed to say before nodding. Somehow he forced his legs to walk again, but for all he knew and cared, he was floating. When he reached the corridor’s corner, he turned back to see if she was still there.
“I look forward for our next match, Cap-boy!” An-chan’s voice came from the other side of the corridor, with a defiant look on her face that sent Shishido her silent challenge. Shishido grinned, in anticipation.
“Yeah. I look forw-Oi! I’ve told you not to call me that!”
Author: ssumiya
Recipient:anehan
Pairing/Characters: Shishido Ryo/Tachibana An
Rating:PG
Disclaimer: Roses are red, violets are blue. I don't own this fandom, and neither do you.
Summary: Shishido wants a rematch with Tachibana. Which one is debatable.
Notes: A big ’Thank you’ to the wonderful people that helped me out with this one. You’re all awesome.
Shishido Ryou groaned and rolled over. He grabbed his pillow and put it over his head, but had no success in shutting out the world. His nose was running, he couldn’t stop coughing and he was pretty sure he had a fever or something because he was sweating. Apparently training in the rain for two nights straight did that to you, or so the school nurse said. So lame.
Damn, he really needed to change clothes. Shishido hated the sensation of fabric clinging to his body. It was gross and disgusting but changing involved standing up and he had just found that sweet spot on his bed. If he closed his eyes, maybe he could finally take a nap before walking Akio, his dog. The room was hot and the drowsiness was starting to make everything fade to black and…
Shishido groaned again, as his phone started to ring with Gakuto’s ringtone. Perfect fucking timing. He knew he either had to pick up or suffer hours of hearing the phone buzzing and ringing. Gakuto could never accept that you couldn’t answer a call and would keep on calling until you did. Shishido had once counted thirty seven missed calls, until he’d turned the phone off.
Shishido cursed, as he was forced to stand up and find his phone. Where was his bag again? Oh, right. He had kicked it under the desk when he came back from school. Shishido bent over to pick it up, only to hit his head against the edge of the desk. “Fuck!”
The phone seemed to ring even louder as Shishido took it out of the bag and frowned at it. Annoying, impatient, little thing. Just like Gakuto, really. “What do you want?” he snapped at the phone after pressing the green button.
“What the fuck is that tone for, Ryou?!” Shishido winced a little at how loud and how high Gakuto’s voice sounded when he wailed like that. “Not even a hello. Seriously, why am I friends with you?”
Shishido felt his headache becoming two times worse.
“I’m hanging up…”
“Well, then you don’t get to hear who’s training at the street courts near the arcade,” Gakuto said in a singsong voice and Shishido really wished he could just let it go and forget about the bait. He was probably sick and a match right now would make him worse. Choutarou kept on telling him that he would get sick, if he continued pushing his body like this. But if Gakuto was calling him to tell him, it was because it was important, so Choutarou couldn’t really blame him, since he was just being polite, right?
“Alright. Spill it.” Shishido sat down on the chair next to the desk; Gakuto usually chatted for a long time. “Wait, what the heck are you doing in a street court anyway? Why aren’t you at Hyotei?”
“Because Atobe’s painting the courts purple.”
“Are you kidding me?!” Shishido cried out and that sent him into a coughing fit again. The tissue box was at the other side of the room. Great. Gakuto made gagging noises saying it was disgusting and Shishido mentally flipped him off. “Please say you’re lying….” They had endured the pink tennis shoes, but purple courts were too much. What was Atobe thinking?!
“Totally. Yuushi and I got caught making out on one of them at night and got banned for a week…”
That made more sense. Now, Shishido just needed some bleach to erase the mental image. “Dammit, Gakuto! That’s gross! We train there, you fucking moron.”
“It’s not my fault you have the sex drive of a tennis ball.” Shishido could even picture Gakuto sticking his ugly fat tongue out at him, the idiot. “So yeah, whatever. Tachibana is hitting balls against a wall in front of me. Thought you would want to know.”
Shishido was up in a flash. “Don’t let him go, you got that?! Keep him there, ask for a match if he tries to leave or something.”
Gakuto laughed, on the other side of the line. “I’ll make sure to keep Tachibana here so you can win your honor again.”
“Thanks, I owe you one,” Shishido said before hanging up. The adrenaline of having a worthy match and setting things straight with Tachibana kicked Shishido into action. New dry clothes, tennis shoes, racket. He was ready; oh, he was so ready for this.
-♦-
Shishido was out of breath when he reached the street courts. Damnit, that was supposed to have been a fifteen minute run, but he had done it in twenty and his lungs felt like they were on fire. He would worry about that later, however. Now he needed to find the one where Tachibana was, and beat him. Piece of cake. Shishido easily spotted Gakuto’s hair; his friend was sprawled over Oshitari on top of some high benches and Shishido felt like facepalming. Couldn’t they keep their hands to each other and spare other people from the horror? Shit. What if that stupid redhead had let Tachibana escape? Shishido ran towards them.
“Gakuto!,” Shishido cried out and smacked the other’s head as soon as he was in reach. “What happened with keeping Tachibana here? Can’t see him anywhere.”
“What happened to you? You look like shit.” Gakuto was always so smooth, really. He would look like crap if he was feeling like Shishido did.
“I’m imitating your style,” Shishido snapped back, looking past them into the other courts. Nothing. “Seriously, where’s…”
“Ah. It has been raining in the evenings as of late, isn’t it? Shishido usually trains after school. He’s probably on his way to get sick, Gakuto.” Oshitari’s drawl made Shishido to look back at them.
“What if I have?” Shishido huffed, feeling annoyed at Oshitari’s useless input. Missing a few days of training because of something as trivial as rain was totally lame. “I’m not here for you, anyway. Where is he?” He eyed the different courts. All of them were occupied but he couldn’t find Tachibana on them.
Gakuto looked way too smug while holding back the secret and Shishido wanted to kick him. Gakuto untangled himself from Oshitari so he could stand up and make Shishido to turn around. “Tachibana is there.”
“Where?” There was just a little girl playing against the wall. “That’s not Tachibana. That’s a girl.”
Shishido might have spoken too loud because the girl turned around and glared at them. Or maybe it was because Gakuto started to piss himself with laughter. Either way, Shishido was wasting his time. Would Choutarou be available for a match, if Shishido called? He was already in the street courts, anyway.
“She is Tachibana An, she’s his sister,” Gakuto said, gasping for breath before collapsing into laughter again.
“What?! Then why the fuck did you call me and tell me Tachibana Kippei was here, you fucking idiot?!”
Gakuto stopped laughing enough to manage a somewhat understandable comment. “No, I told you Tachibana was here. You assumed I meant Kippei.”
Shishido was too dumbstruck for words. Or too fucking pissed off. He wasn’t really sure. It was probably a mixture of both. Oshitari sighed and buried his head in a book.
“Now, go on. Go have your redeeming match~”Gakuto said and Shishido wanted to punch him right there.
“Fuck you,” Shishido said instead, before pushing Gakuto away and turning to leave. Gakuto had called him, made him run because Shishido had been expecting to finally have the match he’d been yearning for, just for the idiot to prank him like this. Gakuto was either suicidal or bored to death. Shishido couldn’t bring himself to give a damn; he would deal with it when he felt better and could hit that fucking redhead harder.
“My brother isn’t the only one that plays, you know.” The girl, Tachibana, said from inside the cage.
Shishido stopped. “I don’t play girls.”
“Why? Gender doesn’t define talent. Or what? Are you one of those dumb boys that won’t play against girls because their manly-pride will be hurt if they lose against a girl?” Tachibana said looking rather mad. Shishido couldn’t blame her, but Shishido’s grudge was against her brother, not her. There wasn’t a real reason for a match against her.
“I thought I was going to play your brother, okay? I’m not going to crush a little girl to prove something or anything. Not my style.”
A ball hit the fence just missing where Shishido’s head was. “I’m not a little girl and guess what, Hyotei cap-boy? You’re not good enough to win against me.”
Gakuto jeered loudly and Shishido growled as he tightened the grip on his racket.
“You’re on.”
-♦-
Shishido lost 4-6.
A string of his racket had broken and he also got caught in the rain on his way home (again) and got sicker. Shishido was sent home the next day, after a check up by one of the Hyotei doctors with a bag full of medicine. At least, that prevented him from getting being told off by Atobe about losing to girls on public street courts.
He walked slowly to the school gates, with the worst headache of his life, when he felt someone taking his bag off his right shoulder and another person taking his tennis equipment from the other, without saying a word.
“You could have said something about you not feeling well yesterday, you know,” Gakuto grumbled, trying to adjust the tennis bag with the rest of his stuff. “And that would have been okay too.”
“Playing sick is not fun, Ryou!” Jirou chirped happily, as he balanced both tennis bags over one shoulder and they reached the gates. “Ara? I don’t see your dad’s car. Were you planning to walk home?”
Shishido shrugged. His house was not really that far away and he was used to walking or running home as extra training anyway.
“You are really stupid,” Gakuto rolled his eyes before pointing at the black limo already waiting for them. “You are part of a team remember? There’s no way Atobe is letting you go on foot and alone when you’re like this. Not for any of us, really.”
Shishido totally blamed being sick for feeling choked up right then.
-♦-
“Play me.”
Shishido had almost forgotten about losing to Tachibana An two weeks ago. Okay, there was a snowballs chance in hell that he would forget about it, but he hadn’t really expected her to show up at Hyotei out of the blue and ask for a match. “What?”
“A match,” she said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“No,” Shishido cut her off and tried to walk away, but she planted herself in front of him again.
“I wanna play against you again,” she said, with a defiant look on her face.
“I don’t. And why are you here anyway? You should go.” Shishido had to admit she had some guts to plant herself there, in a school that held a reputation of being hostile to people that didn’t belong to it, and challenge a regular of the famous tennis team.
“You didn’t return to the courts and I knew I could find you here.” Tachibana shrugged and adjusted her bag. Some people were starting to stop to look and stare at them. Shishido glared at them in return. The Fudomine blue sailor-like uniform stood out too much from the more westernized Hyotei uniform, so they were attracting attention. “I knew you were sick when I kicked your butt and I really want to face you when you’re in your best shape.”
“Eh?”
“I’m not stupid.” She rolled her eyes at him. “You didn’t look okay that day but you were being a jerk and I wanted to show you a lesson. I had fun, though. The guys I hang around with usually go easy on me and I can’t really play fully that way. I really wanted to try my full strength but I kept on getting thwarted, because they were too nice and worried about me getting hurt.”
Shishido wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or that he was being called an insensitive ass.
“Anyway, this is my number.” Tachibana grabbed his hand and wrote down a number with permanent black marker on it. Dammit, it looked like was getting a love confession or something and some of the tennis cheerleaders were starting to shoot daggers at Tachibana. “Call me if you want a real match, okay?”
And just like that, she turned around and dashed away, out of sight. Shishido was left feeling rather embarrassed about… well, everything. Specially the looks he was getting. “What the fuck are you looking at?!” He bellowed at the crowd and it quickly dispelled. Shishido frowned at the number on his hand.
“Who was that, Shishido-san?” Choutarou’s voice sounded curious, if a bit apprehensive.
“Nobody. Let’s go. It’s almost time for practice.”
-♦-
“Hello?”
Shishido froze at the sound of the voice on the other side of the line. He knew he was calling a girl, then why was he surprised of hearing a girl answering? Lame.
“Hello?”
“I want to be over with this.” Shishido tried to say confidently as he nodded. He had been trying to forget the fact he had lost to an entire family and trying to resist the temptation to challenge Tachibana to a match (either of them). The permanent marker had been hard to rub off and the feeling of wanting to win had been even harder to erase. But Shishido had made up his mind.
Tachibana An needed to know he didn’t want another match and that that was not going to happen (and Shishido really needed to convince himself of that too, by voicing out loud) and then he could move on from it. It shouldn’t have been too hard, he had let down girls that had confessed to him before, without much fuss.
“Excuse me?” Tachibana answered sounding confused. Why was so hard to talk to girls? Were all of them like this?
“Yeah, our match.” Shishido frowned and fixed his cap.
“Who are you?”
Shishido choked on his own spit and coughed a few times. Yeah, how was she supposed to know who was calling? The fact that he’d been thinking about calling her didn’t mean that she’d been doing the same. Somehow, that annoyed Shishido. He growled, “Hyotei’s Shishido!”
“Ah! Hyotei cap-boy!”
“Don’t call me that!”
“So you want us to have a match then? Cool. We could do it tomorrow-”
“No, that’s not--”
“Or this afternoon if you want, I’m free at… five”
“That is--”
“Perfect! I’ll see you then!”
And then she hung up. She fucking hung up. Shishido stared at nothing in particular for a long time before banging his head on his desk. Several times. This had not been what was supposed to have happened.
-♦-
Shishido won 6-3, 6-3 and 6-2, before he decided they needed to stop because he was actually getting worried about something happening to Tachibana if they keep on going. She was sweating too much, gasping for breath and looked exhausted to the bone. Shishido wondered if this was what Choutarou had felt like when they had trained together to make him a regular again.
The first (kind of) forced match had been what he had expected it to be, but Shishido had felt that he needed to give her the chance to try to beat him again. He hadn’t been expecting to actually have fun with it and willingly propose a third match. Tachibana had been too tired by then and that had made her movements lousy and weak. But Shishido could see that she had potential and was actually learning from their matches. It was kind of cool.
Tachibana forcibly shoved her racket into her bag before sitting on the bench and putting a towel on her head.
“Hey… um… are you okay?” Shishido asked before he sat next to her and drank some water.
“You annihilated me. Are you going to mock me now, Hyotei?” Her voice sounded funny and even if Shishido wasn’t good with the ‘reading-the-opposite-sex’ thing, she looked like she was upset. Damn, this was why he didn’t play girls. What if she started crying? Shit. What if her brother thought he had made cry over tennis in revenge or something?
“Che. That would be really lame. And unsportsmanlike,” Shishido blurted out before he could stop himself. Oh well, it was the truth anyway.
“You have the right to do it, I lost.”
“I don’t know what made you think I’m like that, but I’m not that kind of guy,” Shishido said hotly. Seriously, he knew Hyotei was considered to be a bunch of entitled assholes but stereotyping all of them as that was rude and unfair. “And you’re good. You can’t beat me with your level but you would probably give some of our pre-regulars a run for their money. Just don’t tell anyone that I said that. Conspiring with the enemy and all that.”
Shishido didn’t get a reply, so he turned to see if she had left. Tachibana had taken the towel of and was staring at him, like she hadn’t taken a good look at him before.
“What?”
“You’re weird.”
“Geez.” Shishido snorted and turned to look away, finishing his water bottle. Why was it so hot out of the sudden?
-♦-
Somewhere along the way, Shishido ended up playing Tachibana weekly at the street courts. Tachibana's skills got better every week and his games against her got more and more familiar, like his games against Choutarou, except Shishido was pretty sure that Tachibana wasn't as talented in doubles. She had a brash-nature and tendency to dominate the court, which didn't mesh well with doubles.
Honestly, Shishido saw a lot of his old playstyle in her, without the arrogance he used to have. So maybe she wasn't a hopeless doubles player.
Finally, after a whole month of playing her weekly, when they were both panting over a bench, gulping down their water, Shishido glanced down at the lukewarm water in his bottle, failing to cool him up. The unexpected heat of the autumn season was burning at his skin and he felt like he was going to die.
"Hey, you want to get some ice-cream? My treat?" he asked lazily, before realizing that it wasn't Choutarou or Gakuto or even Wakashi. It was Tachibana from Fudomine. Well, that wasn’t completely right. She had become An-chan after the third week, after all.
An-chan looked up at him with surprise, her damp hair slowly unsticking from the side of her neck as she stared at him with an unreadable expression. Finally, she grinned and nodded, "Why not, cap-boy?"
"Don't call me that," Shishido snapped and stuffed his water bottle into his bag with a slight scowl. "You ought to be calling me senpai, you know. I'm a year older than you."
"Cap-boy," she said with a smug smirk as she swung the bag over his shoulders, which showed off an ample amount of collarbone, that Shishido hadn't really noticed before. Were collarbones supposed to be that pretty? He flushed and shoved his hands into his pockets, muttering darkly as they walked towards the ice-cream truck parked a few metres away from the street courts.
She leaned up on her tiptoes to peer over the counter of the truck to order and Shishido was surprised. She was even shorter than Gakuto, wasn't she? Honestly, it was weird to see girls so short - most of the girls at Hyotei had long legs, cool gazes, and coiffed hair. With her haphazard short hair sticking to her neck, short legs and her ruffled and sweaty tennis uniform clinging to her, An-chan was the complete opposite of that. Still, it was nice. Someone who appreciated tennis beyond the cheering on the sidelines was nice. Even better.
And what the hell was he thinking? He quickly paid the money for her ice-cream and his lolly stick, and they started to wander up to the park, away from the street courts, in a tired quiet.
An-chan seemed content to lick away at her ice-cream quite passionately and Shishido was definitely a pervert for looking so much. He could feel his face growing redder and redder and he started to beat himself up for it, but he wondered. Oshitari was always talking some crap about people who tied cherry stems being good kissers. Did he ever say something about ice-cream?
And why was he thinking about kissing this infuriating girl? Yeah she was kind of cool and all but he didn't like her all that much. Right? Kicking himself internally, he scowled and bit down on his lolly stick, and winced as the cold went up to his brain.
“Shit!”
An-chan giggled at him, with a wide grin. "Stupid, you aren't supposed to bite it like that. Lick it, like this," she said, demonstrating, quite proficiently-
"YES, I CAN SEE THAT THANK YOU,” Shishido stuttered, looking away from her, his face going even redder at being an idiot and at An-chan laughing at him, and the sight of her tongue. He needed a long long shower when he got home, and if anyone asked, it was because of the tennis.
-♦-
“Shishido-san, please stop moving so much,” Choutarou said, in that worried voice that made Shishido’s gut twist with guilt, a voice that made him as still as he could be. The alcohol stung on his open wounds and even the slight pressure applied over his soon-to-be black eye hurt. That, of course, didn’t compare to the pain caused by the look on Choutarou’s face as he helped clean the blood from Shishido’s skin. Shishido sighed and stay silent as his doubles partner kept working on him. This had become familiar after they had trained together, to get Shishido back into the regulars again but what had brought him to Choutarou’s house that afternoon was not tennis related.
No, that was wrong. It was totally related to tennis.
It had been a very good match. Shishido had been just about to break An-chan’s serve and win 6-4 when she started to glow. And not that fairy-like glowing that appeared in shoujo manga but like seriously glowing. An-chan’s next serve had been a killer and Shishido stared in awe how the ball passed him before he could even react. Her speed and strength had increased dramatically. He returned the one after that, but only barely. Then he saw her eyes looking vacant as she returned his smash with a perfect volley aimed to the baseline. Shit.
Muga no Kyochi.
It was absolutely stunning. The tennis, of course, he meant the tennis. She won and Shishido, for once, accepted defeat without protesting and shouting. Every ball, every counter, every volley had been amazing. He saw her smiling, a tiny but prideful smile and he couldn’t stop himself from smiling back.
And then she fainted.
Shishido jumped over the net to try and catch her but didn’t reach her on time. “An-chan, An-chan!” He shooked her but she didn’t respond. Shishido started to panic. What the fuck was he supposed to do?! Shishido was about to shout for help when he heard her snoring. He chuckled, amusedly.
Shishido carried her to the bench and waited patiently for her to wake up. Well, his patience started running thin after half an hour passed. By an hour, he realized she wasn’t going to wake up until the next day. Fucking great. Also, she drooled and kicked in her sleep. Which was kinda of cute but his jersey was all covered in drool and they were getting some weird looks from the other tennis players nearby. And Shishido kept on picking up the jacket from the floor to cover her legs up, like every two minutes or so. Shishido couldn’t just leave her there. He growled annoyed and fumbled with her bag to find her cell phone. An-chan definitely had to have her brother’s number, right?
‘Tachibana? I left your sister unconscious, can you pick her up?’ Did his conscience sound like Gakuto’s voice just now, really? Maybe because it was terrible idea. There was no other thing to do, than to take her home, or so he thought. She had pointed out her house once before and it wasn’t far away from the street courts.
With resignation, Shishido did just that. An-chan was heavy as he piggybacked her all the way home. Her body felt hot against his back and it was an odd sensation. Now if only his hormones would calm down because it was getting really uncomfortable to walk. Shishido tried to ignore it the best he could, but it was hard. Damn.
Thankfully, An-chan’s apartment was just a flight of stairs away. Each step was harder than the last one but they managed to reach her door without much problem. Then, out of the sudden there was this high-pitched hissed and Shishido felt a freaking cat run past his legs making him lose his balance. Some potted plants came crashing down as he tried to find something to get a hold on but it wasn’t enough and Shishido hit his shoulder on the cold floor as they fell. An-chan ended up on top of him and her face just a few centimetres away from his, her lips were half parted and… Yes, he needed to move away. Just as he untangled himself from under her, carefully using an arm to pillow her head, he heard the sound of a door opening nearby. Shishido looked up.
“Get off her, you fucker!”
Shishido thought that calling An-chan's brother to pick her up had been a bad idea. He didn't think that by trying to avoid that situation, he would be facing down half of Fudomine's tennis team and by the looks of it, they were assuming just what Shishido thought they were.
“There. I’m done, Shishido-san. Are you sure this is alright? I think we should report this,” Choutarou said, putting the first aid kit away. Shishido hadn’t know where else to go to fix his face before returning home and Choutarou’s house had been nearby.
“It was just a misunderstanding, Choutarou. I’m okay, promise.” Shishido tried to smile, but he only managed a grimace because his jaw hurt. “Told you, I would have done the same if I thought some of you guys were in danger or something. I just wish they would have let me explain. Shit, what is Tachibana gonna think of me…”
“Is that your biggest concern now, Shishido-san? I mean, you were seriously beaten up.” Choutarou asked, sounding worried and slightly mad and Shishido only managed to nod in response.“You really like her, isn’t it?”
Shishido bit his lip and winced because that hurt too, before nodding again.
-♦-
“Ikkyuu nyuu kon!” Choutarou served, fast and deadly as always, and Shishido saw Wakashi run across the court to return the ball. Shishido was already in position for Wakashi’s shot. The ball’s impact was hard and powerful against his racket, but nothing he hadn’t faced before. They were playing a match against Gakuto and Wakashi to try and make them good at doubles. Shishido thought that they were slowly becoming a good doubles pair, but there was room for improvement with their stamina issues and how much bitched at each other. It was fun to play against them, though. Around them, the rest of the regulars were playing practice matches, while the pre-regulars were cheering from the sidelines.
Practices were really demanding even with the tournaments over and it helped Shishido to focus his mind on tennis and keep his head clear from other things. Like not-really-ice-cream-dates and snarky girls with pretty hair, who called him stupid nicknames and how it had been nearly two weeks since he had played a match against her. Not that he missed that or anything.
“Shit! Sorry, Choutarou!” Shishido called across the net and adjusted his cap. He had missed that point rather miserably. He needed to put his shit together and to keep his head in the game. Stubbornly, his head had different plans, like replaying every single match he played against An-chan and how awesome that last one had been. His brain then provided the most detailed memories of how her skirt went up when she served and how her hair flew when she moved. It was fucking distracting. Shishido shook his head and prepared for Gakuto’s Moon Salute, returning it perfectly and starting another rally.
Seriously, it wasn’t like he was worried for An-chan; Muga No Kyochi was just weird,not dangerous. So she was totally okay. They hadn’t met since then, because he had busy with school and shit and not because he had gone to the street courts on several occasions since the incident and never found her or anything.
Except the latter was the truth and it was so, so lame.
No, it had to be something else. An-chan was alright. Maybe Shishido couldn’t concentrate because he couldn’t really sleep at night, with the vivid dreams. They weren’t bad at all, though. Damn, they were even worth being awfully uncomfortable in the morni--
“Fuck!” Shishido cried out as pain exploded from his head were a ball had hit him.
“Shishido-san!” Choutarou was next to him, in no time, and looked at him with his big, brown eyes wide open in worry. Shishido gently pushed Choutarou away before coming to the net with a murderous intent. “Shishido-san, wai--!”
“What the fuck was that for, Wakashi?!” Shishido jumped over the net and grabbed the jerk by his jersey. Shishido was so going to erase that smug grin from his face.
“You were the one that wasn’t paying attention to the match, Shishido-senp--”
“Ne, Ryou… isn’t that Tachibana?” Gakuto’s voice snapped Shishido out of the urge to throttle the little shit he called a kohai and made him turn to look at where a small commotion was happening over in the stands.
An-chan was there and all the fuss was because she was wearing the Fudomine’s girls tennis team jersey. “Shit. What the hell is she thinking?” Shishido growled, before shoving Wakashi away and dashing over to where some girls were already eying her like vultures spying prey.
Shishido heard Choutarou and Gakuto calling his name, and some weird-ass mumbling from Wakashi, but he didn’t stop in his tracks. He jumped over the stands and without a word, grabbed An-chan’s hand and dragged her away from vicious rich girls. And the pre-regulars, they couldn’t be trusted near anything.
A good thing about Hyotei Gakuen was its size and Shishido had known the school for his whole life, so escaping from the prying eyes of the tennis mob was fairly easy. They reached an empty corridor that led to one of the lesser known exits in record time. An-chan was out of breath and Shishido’s heart was beating hard, fast and threatened to break out of his ribcage. He had carried An-chan before on his back but he never had taken her hand like this. Shishido flushed darkly, before letting go.
Remembering how and why they had come there, Shishido scowled at her. “What were you thinking, showing up like this with your tennis uniform? This is Hyotei! If you haven’t noticed, some people are like you think they are. Geez. Well, you’re safe now.”
“Are you saying you saved me?” Wow, why did she sound so angry all of a sudden? It wasn’t like Shishido was asking for something in exchange for his services, or anything. An-chan put a hand on her hip and somehow Shishido knew that he wasn’t going to like where this was heading. “First and most importantly, nobody asked you to save me because I don’t need anyone to save me from a bunch of stupid wannabe idols. I can do that myself, thank you very much. They weren’t even a threat to me! Second, what the hell happened?!”
Shishido tried to speak, but was silenced by a killer glare coming from An-chan before she continued. “No, you’re going to listen because I don’t have a clue of what’s going on and I want some answers. The last thing I remember, we were playing a match and I was about to win and then I woke up in my bed the next day. Then, everyone, and I mean everyone started acting super weird and never left me alone for more than a minute! You know how infuriating that was?! Shinji kept muttering about ‘Hyotei bastards’, all the time. First, I thought it was the whole team, which would make more sense but then he actually started naming you, after I mentioned that I wanted them gone so I could go and play some actual tennis. And everyone got a little crazier after that. That was totally weird because they wouldn’t have a reason to hate you, at all. If anything, they would feel sorry for you because my brother did kick your butt that time but…”
Shit. This was going from bad to worse. Shishido gritted his teeth, resisting the urge to hit his head on the wall in front of him.
“…and then I stopped hearing from you completely. I messaged you a couple of times but the texts never got sent, like if you had blocked me or something. I thought we were friends.”
Or maybe Shishido could ask the Earth to swallow him whol---what?
“I didn’t block you!” Shishido cried out, “Why would I even block you anyway? I like playing against you---wait, did you just say we’re friends?” Shishido felt like was on the top of a rollercoaster and had just taken a peak down.
An-chan shrugged, “You don’t want us to be?”
“No! Yes!” Shishido mentally smacked himself. “I mean, it would be cool.”
“Then, friends don’t block each other!” An-chan stomped angrily on the ground and Shishido almost expected a slap but luckily, that never came. “That’s totally not cool.”
“I told you! I didn’t block you!” Shishido started again, tiredly, before pulling his phone from of his shorts’ pockets and showing An-chan her own number there. There was nothing out of place.
“Then…” An-chan’s narrowed her eyes before reaching inside her bag and taking out her own phone and looking for Shishido’s number. Shishido came closer to take a look, only to find out that it was saved with the name ‘Cap-boy’ and had the worst possible photo of him, after one of their matches, all sweaty-looking, like a complete loser. Just great.
With closer attention to the screen, there was a little pink lock on the right top of the contact info.
“It seems like you blocked me,” Shishido said quietly, before tapping the screen.
“Oh. I… I’m sorry,” An-chan said as her face slowly started to turn a kind of cute shade of pink. “But I didn’t block you! And if I didn’t…” She narrowed her eyes, looking rather mad before hissing, “Those idiots. I’m going to kill them.”
For a moment, Shishido thought of letting those guys burn over it, and damn that would feel nice, after how sore his jaw had been, for days after the incident. But even Shishido could see that they had been trying to do the right thing, and someday truth would need to come up anyway. Shishido pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
“Okay, look. About that last match we had? You freaking pulled Muga No Kyochi in the middle of it and passed out on me. I took you home, we tripped and fell to the floor. Your friends found us and weren’t too happy about what they saw.” Shishido adjusted his cap and crossed his arms over his chest. “They overreacted, probably, but then again, I'd have done the same in their place. Explanation enough for you? I would have told you all of that if you'd let me speak the first time".
“Oh. Oh.” An-chan’s eyes were wide as realization hit her. “I am so very sorry,” she said before bowing profusely. “I apologize for whatever they did, as well. They’re very impulsive sometimes but I promise they are good boys.”
Shishido waved it off and hurried to help An-chan to straight herself. “No need. Told you, I can understand why they acted up. So we’re cool now, isn’t it? I was a little worried about you thinking I was some kind of a creep, or something like that. And I didn’t know if they told you about it.”
“Oh no, you’re pretty harmless!” An-chan said and Shishido cringed at the thought of that, but An-chan was smiling and that made it better. Actually, she seemed very happy and Shishido found himself returning the grin before he stopped himself. “Ah, this explains a lot. Like how they were running like forever, nii-san hates people fighting. Did he stop the fight?”
Shishido nodded and looked away. Geez, why he did he have to make the wrong impression on Tachibana Kippei, every single time? The guy probably thought the worst of him already. An-chan didn’t seem to mind, though.
“Ah! Did they let you explain what happened to Kippei? I bet they didn’t, the idiots. Oh well, I’m sure he probably knew what happened anyway. I mean you took my tennis equipment with you, because it was next to my stuff, the next day.” An-chan continued. At least it was a comfort that Tachibana didn’t hate his guts. “Nii-san might be a little freaked out by the Muga No Kyochi, with Senri-san being so weird about it and all but I’m sure if you had stayed a little longer he might have even invited you to dinner or something.”
“I don’t think that--”
“So it’s really true?” An-chan said interrupting Shishido. “Did it really happen? Muga no Kyochi?”
Why did she change subjects all of the sudden?! Shishido wanted to groan in frustration. She was worse than Gakuto in that matter, not that that was any consolation.
“Yeah, it was cool.” Shishido grumbled.
“Cool? I’m awesome!” An-chan said with her head up and a smug smile before breaking down into squealing and flailing. Tsk. Girls.
“Whatever. I’m going to practice now. Don’t come here with that uniform, some girls are kind of crazy.” Shishido grunted and turned to leave.
“No, no! Wait!” An-chan caught up with him and grabbed his arm. “Thank you for helping me with tennis and taking care of me, Shishido-san,” she said quietly before tiptoeing to place a small kiss on his cheek.
Shishido’s heart skipped a beat.
“Ah.” Was all Shishido managed to say before nodding. Somehow he forced his legs to walk again, but for all he knew and cared, he was floating. When he reached the corridor’s corner, he turned back to see if she was still there.
“I look forward for our next match, Cap-boy!” An-chan’s voice came from the other side of the corridor, with a defiant look on her face that sent Shishido her silent challenge. Shishido grinned, in anticipation.
“Yeah. I look forw-Oi! I’ve told you not to call me that!”