Fic for tokyostory, part 2/3
Part One
Atobe spends the entirety of his Saturday hiding in his room and refusing to answer his phone or check his inbox. The maids have come to his door to inform him of calls made to the house four times by mid-afternoon, until Atobe snaps, “Can you please just do your jobs and tell them I’m unavailable?” and locks his bedroom door.
He’s trying to do his homework. His desk is uncomfortable, and so is his bed, and the elegant chaise lounge that is really more for decoration than practical use, so Atobe can only roll his eyes at himself for attempting that one.
His mobile goes off, a song whose violins and sweeping orchestral movements do not translate well to ringtone compression rates. Atobe stares at where it sits on top of his school bag. It cycles through the song twice, then three times; Atobe has disabled his voicemail.
Atobe stomps across the room and flicks the mobile open.
“If someone doesn’t answer the phone after three minutes of solid ringing,” he snarls into the mouthpiece, “it generally means they do not want to answer the phone.”
“Are we on for Sunday or not?” Oshitari asks, wearily. “And turn your phone off if you don’t want to receive calls, oh best and brightest.”
“Sunday? Oh, the museum,” Atobe realizes, sitting down on his bed heavily. “Right, right.”
“If you don’t want to now --”
“I do,” Atobe says, truthfully. “I do, but the timing is --”
Oshitari has very obviously covered the mouthpiece with his hand. Atobe can’t hear what he’s saying.
“Don’t be rude, Yuushi,” he chastises. Oshitari snorts.
“Okay, Mr Can’t Give a Simple Yes or No to a Social Commitment,” Oshitari says lightly. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
“I’ve already said I would go,” Atobe points out. He stands up and walks over to his desk, turning on his computer. “If we go in the morning, there’ll be less crowds. I’ll check the opening times.”
“All right,” Oshitari agrees. “Should I meet you there?”
“Mm,” says Atobe, distractedly. His browser has opened to his email inbox, which shows over three hundred unread messages. The one on the very top has the subject line ‘hyoutei notes: discuss’ and too many ‘re’s for Atobe to count. “Oh for --”
“Are you looking at your email?”
“How many people was this sent to,” Atobe mutters, opening the email despite himself. The sent-to list is undisclosed, but the amount of replies indicates a sizeable chunk of the student body. “Honestly, this is just --”
The latest message in the conversation reads, ‘haha totally not surprised about atobe keigo’s gay fling, u kno?’.
Atobe has never logged out of his email so quickly in his entire life. Oshitari is still talking at him.
“Let’s just go for eleven o’clock,” Atobe cuts in. He presses a hand against his temple. “I have to go.”
Oshitari’s startled good-bye is the last word Atobe hears all day. He doesn’t go down for dinner, and stays up well past midnight, accomplishing nothing of use, and leaving him completely exhausted when he meets Oshitari in front of the museum shortly before eleven the next morning.
“Rough night?” Oshitari asks, brow creased in concern. He reaches for Atobe’s forearm, but Atobe whirls away, striding towards the entrance as quickly as relative politeness permits. “Touchy.”
Oshitari gets out his wallet at the entrance booth, and Atobe stares at him. “I said I’d pay,” Oshitari tells him, slowly.
“It’s fine, you don’t have to,” Atobe replies, fumbling with his wallet and paying with the first bill he can find, which leaves him with a truly absurd amount of change. “I’d feel like a girl if you paid.”
“Sure,” says Oshitari, too casually. “So tell me about Greek art.”
Atobe, relief awash on his face, does.
“And that’s, see, look at the movement, the torsion,” he’s saying, half an hour later while Oshitari trails behind him amusedly. “That’s really emblematic of the Hellenistic period, also --”
“I think you are making these terms up,” Oshitari interrupts, grinning at Atobe. Atobe gapes.
“I most certainly am not, I am very well-read on the topic,” Atobe says, defensively. He’s gone a bit pink, high over his cheekbones. Oshitari nudges his elbow.
“All right, professor, tell me about that one,” he asks, pointing at the male nude to their right. “Describe and denote the significance thereof.”
“Well,” Atobe huffs, “you can see something of a contrapposto in the expression --”
“Okay, hold up,” Oshitari laughs. “Even I know contrapposto’s about posture, not facial expression.”
“I meant in his --”
“In his where?” Oshitari teases, placing his hands on his hips. “Young man, where are you looking?”
“I’m not -- looking, it’s a statue,” Atobe stammers, red and frantic-looking. “I -- it’s not like I’m treating the female nudes any differently, I’m just remarking on -- things.”
Oshitari is staring at him. “This counts as awkward handling, Keigo.”
“You’re the one who brought me to a museum with nude men all about,” Atobe cries, and several schoolgirls turn to gawk at them. “I’m already a spectacle, why would you even -- I am not gay!”
“Woah,” Oshitari says, “Woah. This is insane, even for you.”
“I’m going to look at pottery,” Atobe avows. “You go do something else, let’s meet up later.”
“You don’t want to stick together because looking at male nude statues with your best friend is gay,” Oshitari intones. “Are you even listening to yourself?”
“How dare you, that’s not fair at all!” Atobe turns on his heel, all but tripping as he does so. “I’ll meet you for lunch at noon, don’t follow me.”
Oshitari doesn’t, and Atobe’s expression only grows stormier in the intervening time.
“What the hell is wrong with you,” Atobe snaps, when he and Oshitari have reassembled at the museum’s cafeteria. A grandmother sitting at a table near the entrance peers at them anxiously. Atobe continues, in a lower tone, “Some show of support you’re putting on!”
“Support?” Oshitari parrots, incredulously. Atobe stares him down until Oshitari throws his arms up in the air shortly and heads for the food queue.
“Don’t you walk away from me,” Atobe hisses, following close at Oshitari’s heels and nearly treading on his foot. “You know this is bothering me, and yet you just --”
“What, exactly, would you have me do?” Oshitari interrupts, low and in a tone just shy of angry, which is more than enough to derail Atobe’s reply. “People aren’t exactly trying to gun you down in streets, and god forbid I get too close and set off Atobe Keigo’s Gay Threat Radar!”
“I never said you had to stay away from me,” says Atobe, confused. Oshitari comes up to the drinks cooler and flings the door open in an irritated movement. “I am certain I never said that.”
“It was implied,” Oshitari retorts, snidely, ducking his head out of sight below the door. Atobe moves down the queue instead of answering, blindly picking up some kind of a wrapped pastry and an orange.
They eat in dead silence. Atobe is fiddling with his exhibit brochure and his orange peel by turns when Oshitari speaks.
“Why me,” he asks. “It would piss me off a lot less if it weren’t just me.”
“It’s not just you,” says Atobe, exasperated. He tosses his brochure on the table. Oshitari picks it up and begins to fold and unfold it, smaller and smaller. “That’s annoying, d’you mind.”
“Everything I do is wrong,” Oshitari growls, chucking the now-crumpled brochure at Atobe’s chest. “Splendid.”
“Since when’ve you had a persecution complex? You’re being ridiculous.”
“And you’re being a massive dick,” shoots Oshitari, evenly. “Pinning it on me is only making that fact more apparent.”
“Thanks, Yuushi,” Atobe intones, ripping the peel in his hands into small pieces. “I’m glad we could resolve our differences in this way, this has been really productive.”
Oshitari opens his mouth, then shuts it. He looks away. Atobe rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands, frustrated, and curses under his breath when the citrus residue on them causes him to tear up.
“None of this is helping.”
“I’m not actually crying, you knob. But no, it isn’t,” Atobe agrees, hiding the remnants of orange peel under a napkin on his tray with an irritated huff. “I still want to do a quick tour of the regular exhibits.”
“Yeah, all right.” Oshitari nudges Atobe’s foot underneath the small table. “Don’t use art terms anymore, though. I’ll have to make your life difficult if you do.”
“I know my art terms, Oshitari Yuushi,” Atobe exclaims, indignant, as they rise and gather the wrappers and stray napkins from their meal. “Maybe you should learn about what you don’t understand instead of mocking it!”
“Maybe, but that would be much less fun,” reasons Oshitari. “And besides, you really don’t know your terms for shit.”
* * *
Monday is overcast and chilled, and Atobe still can’t manage to sleep in. He comes to school early, intending to take a run around the courts.
Hiyoshi is already there, hitting balls against the back wall of A-court. There are keys clipped on to the waist of his shorts. Atobe’s scowl is murderous, and Hiyoshi sees it even at a distance, and catches the next ball that returns to him.
“Where did you get those keys,” Atobe snaps, when he’s close enough to be properly intimidating. Hiyoshi meets his eye, defiantly.
“From Kantoku,” he answer readily. “Since you wouldn’t lend me them.”
“Because there was no need,” hisses Atobe, holding out his hand for the objects in question. “You could have simply brought supplies from home, I know you’re not impoverished when it comes to tennis equipment.”
“Why, when everything’s already in the clubhouse?” Hiyoshi says, handing over the keys slowly. “That’s stupid.”
“I’m returning these to Sakaki,” Atobe tells him, lowly. “You’re not going to do this again.”
“What, practice?” Atobe’s answering look is enough to cause Hiyoshi to avert his gaze. “Atobe-buchou.”
“Don’t even,” snaps Atobe, marching over to the clubhouse in order to unlock and open the door. “Put everything away, and don’t you dare forget to close the door properly when you leave.”
“I can close a door,” Hiyoshi mutters, and Atobe is too furious to do anything but walk away from him.
His warpath to Sakaki’s office is interrupted by the unmistakable sound of Shishido’s furious yelling. Atobe leaves the keys with a teacher heading in the proper direction, and backtracks towards what could only be referred to as the scene of the crime.
“I mean,” Shishido is laughing, hysterically, “it’s not like they don’t have a point?”
He’s staring at the wall and at Ohtori, by turns. When Atobe approaches, Jiroh tugs at his arm and points at a note written on white cardstock in a heavy font.
“’Ohtori Choutarou should give up tennis and focus on his real talent with music --’” Atobe reads aloud, under his breath. He closes his eyes. “Shishido, Ohtori --”
“It’s okay!” Shishido bellows, in clear tones of not-okay. “Choutarou’s already struggling to make practice, look at him, he’s exhausted, it’s not fair --”
Ohtori’s expression is far more anguished than it is exhausted. Atobe watches them both, carefully.
“I’m not coming to practice tomorrow,” Shishido announces. He turns to Ohtori, panicked. “That’s probably --”
“Shishido-san, we talked about this last week,” Ohtori begins, tightly, “and I promised that I’d do doubles with you --”
“You don’t know what’s right for you,” interrupts Shishido, sputtering. Atobe rolls his eyes.
“And some anonymous idiot does?” he asks. “I am not going to entertain this notion.”
“Yuushi and I could be doubles one,” volunteers Mukahi, from behind Atobe. “You’re replaceable, Shishido,” he singsongs.
“Not helping,” Atobe tells him angrily, and Mukahi smiles angelically. He turns back to Shishido and Ohtori. “Ohtori, I’ll see you at practice tomorrow, and Shishido, if you want to come study the history material with Yuushi and I afterschool --”
“I’m going home,” Shishido erupts, face red and limbs shaking. He takes off like a shot, and even Ohtori’s movement to stop him is seconds too late.
“Atobe-buchou,” says Ohtori, and Atobe shakes his head.
“No,” he says, conviction burning through his words. “I am not dealing with a disintegrating team, on top of everything.”
Ohtori nods.
“Go to class,” Atobe tells him, not unkindly. “And Mukahi, get out of here and involve yourself in someone else’s business inappropriately, yeah?”
“Am I out of the study group this afternoon,” Mukahi pouts, letting Atobe shove him out of his face.
“Just a bit,” Atobe growls. When Oshitari greets him in the next hallway, Atobe can only glare.
* * *
“So,” Atobe says, tone light and manner casual. “Any reason you’d have to write that note about Ohtori?”
“Oh for god’s sake,” groans Oshitari, dropping his head onto the stack of books. “Not again!”
“Yes, again,” insists Atobe, snagging a book from the middle of Oshitari’s stack and causing his head to slip and hit the table with a quiet thunk. “As many times until you tell the truth, in fact.”
“How much time do you think I have in a day, Keigo?” Oshitari sighs, unmoving from his sprawl on the desk. His glasses were askew. “Between tennis and violin and trying to complete high school successfully?”
“You would make time,” Atobe snorts. “You can’t blame me for asking --”
“Yes, I can,” interrupts Oshitari, rebelliously. Atobe waves a hand at him, hurriedly.
“A lot of factors point to you: the chosen target, the possible motivation,” Atobe lists. “You say you don’t have time, but I’ve noticed you’re yawning during the day more, and what’s to keep me from suspecting that’s the result of late nights, plotting and scheming --”
“You’re a real piece of work,” Oshitari cuts in. “My motivation? What might that be, Keigo?”
“Well,” hedges Atobe. “It’s complex.”
“I can parse it, actually,” Oshitari informs him. He’s sitting up now, hand on his chin and affecting the very picture of academic thought. “My motivation is to shack up with you, of course, and also cause Shishido, he-who-causes-you-pain, to explode with murderous rage, possibly taking out several other individuals I may or may not want dead in the process. I also want to ensure that I can have the sound of Ohtori’s violin serenading me on the classical music station which I so happen to tune in to whilst vacationing naked with you on some luxury yacht in the Bahamas?”
“When you put it that way,” Atobe retorts, scowling at the far wall. Oshitari exhales heavily, and flips open the first book on his pile. “It doesn’t mean my suspicions are wrong!”
“Your suspicions are wrong, anyways,” says Oshitari, not meanly. He clicks his pen open, hovers it over his notebook, glances up at Atobe, and drops it. “Even if I were some criminal mastermind, why on earth would I launch a vendetta against Shishido? He’s already convinced his dog is plotting against him, it wouldn’t even be sporting.”
“Sporting or not, it’s happened,” says Atobe. He heaves his bag onto the table, fluttering the pages of Oshitari’s notebook. “And god knows he won’t let it go for the next thousand years.”
“That’s our boy,” grins Oshitari, picking up his pen and scribbling a word that fades out by the third stroke. “Damn. Got another pen I could borrow?”
“You only have one pen?”
“Well,” Oshitari drawls, folding his hands neatly on his lap, “It’s all those notes I’ve been writing, I just can’t keep up with the demand.”
Atobe glares. “You are not allowed to turn this into a joke.”
“I’ll agree to that if you agree to stop turning this into the Spanish Inquisition,” says Oshitari, amiably. “I’ve had two interrogations at your paranoid hands so far, and I think the thrill has rather worn off.”
“Fine -- fine,” Atobe concedes, at Oshitari’s dubious look. “I’ll just ignore all my base instincts --”
“Keigo --”
“I’ll ignore them, and you’ll stop getting off on the shitstorm this entire debacle is causing. Deal?”
“I’m not getting off on it,” frowns Oshitari. He crosses his arms. “I don’t want that included in our entente.”
“It’s a verbal agreeme--” Atobe stops himself the second the corner of Oshitari’s mouth begins to turn up, a suppressed grin. “Deal, you bastard. I am now going to read twenty pages of this and I expect your co-operative silence.”
Oshitari makes a grandiose gesture of concession, and Atobe tosses a spare pen onto the desk before dropping his gaze back to his open text. He writes ‘page 70 -- timeline, to memorize’, reads said page over two more times, and sucks on the inside of his cheek.
“What,” Oshitari asks blandly. He’s written down nothing. Atobe tilts his chair back on two legs, back and forth. “Out with it.”
“Can I perhaps borrow your history notes when you’re done with them,” Atobe asks. Oshitari raises his eyebrow, and picks up his notebook to better show Atobe the page, blank save for the aborted scribble he’d made earlier. “Oh.”
“You’re fixating,” Oshitari tells him. His tone is didactic. “That’s really bad timing; the test on Thursday isn’t going to move just so you can speculate and theorize to your heart’s content, you know.”
“I know that,” Atobe snaps. “It’s only Monday, anyways. As for my theories --”
“I think your new theory, if it’s similar to mine, is absolutely correct,” interjects Oshitari. “Put on your buchou-hat and go have fun confronting him. I’ll be here, slaving away --”
“I’m not confronting anyone without good grounds to do so,” protests Atobe. “Don’t look at me like that!”
“I think it was Hiyoshi.” Atobe blinks at Oshitari, who looks at him matter-of-factly and adds, “Don’t you?”
“Well.”
“You just wished it was me,” notes Oshitari. He tucks Atobe’s pen behind his ear. “I’m easier to deal with, aren’t I?”
“You are both thoroughly impossible in completely opposite ways,” Atobe shoots back. “I expect better of Hiyoshi.”
“That’s hurtful,” Oshitari sighs. He reaches over casually and pushes Atobe’s bag, books, and notebook onto the floor, a cascade of paper and texts.
“What the hell, Yuushi!” Atobe snarls, bending over to collect his things. The librarian appears at the end of a stack, brow furrowed. “Sorry, it was an accident,” he calls out, in a distinctly unremorseful tone.
“Off with you,” says Oshitari. “Be cruel to someone else for a change.”
“Will you come off it,” mutters Atobe, shoving his notebook into his bag. “Will you deal with my books?”
“I live to serve, my liege.” Oshitari’s grin is lopsided as he readjusts his glasses needlessly. He crosses his legs over the seat Atobe has just vacated. “But you can do it yourself, when you come back.”
Atobe hisses, “I will find every reason to assign you extra laps tomorrow morning, Oshitari Yuushi,” and stomps off as quietly as one can stomp while leaving a library.
He passes Sakaki’s office on the way to the courts. The door is half open; when Atobe knocks, it swings in all the way.
“Is Hiyoshi on the courts,” he says, without preamble. Sakaki pauses in his paperwork, looking up calmly. “You let him in this morning. I’m right to ask.”
“He is, and I did,” Sakaki replies, meeting Atobe’s eye and leaning back in his chair. “I wasn’t aware you were uncomfortable with your recent habit of blaming me for your failure to solve your team’s issues.”
Atobe stiffens, and nods curtly before turning on his heel and closing the door behind him.
Hiyoshi isn’t on the courts proper, but the clubhouse door is unlocked. There is the sound of a single shower running. Atobe sits down on the bench in front of Hiyoshi’s locker, puts his school bag next to himself, and waits.
“Atobe-buchou,” says Hiyoshi when he emerges, towel slung around his waist. “What are you doing here?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Atobe snaps. He pulls the note that’s sat neatly pressed between his textbooks all day out of his bag. He holds it in the air, written side facing Hiyoshi. "Your definition of gekokujou is expanding in a direction I'm not really liking, Wakashi."
“What?” Hiyoshi says, dumbly. He’s gone perfectly still. “Why do you have that?”
“It’s public property, isn’t it?” Atobe replies, turning the note so he can read the contents aloud, quietly and half under his breath. He shakes his head, theatrically. “I didn’t think you’d stoop this low.”
“I did not write that,” Hiyoshi declaims, as firmly as one can with a face white as a sheet.
“I am seriously,” Atobe says, standing, “tired of people denying things today. I know you did, and now we’re going to have a chat about it.”
There is a short silence, before Hiyoshi says, “I didn’t do it for attention, if that’s what Oshitari-senpai thinks.”
“Who says I discussed it with him,” retorts Atobe, amused. Hiyoshi stares at him disbelievingly. “But that’s besides the point. I don’t think you did it for attention; you’re a first-year regular on a team comprised on first and second-year regulars. The only way to get more attention --”
“Would be to be you,” Hiyoshi interrupts, sullenly. Atobe snorts.
“Is that what this is about? A stupid inferiority complex? Because we can have a match right now, if it’d help solidify things --”
“It has nothing to do with you,” snarls Hiyoshi, suddenly. Atobe narrows his eyes. “I’m thinking of the team.”
“And that has nothing to do with me, how?” Atobe hisses. Hiyoshi stares at the far wall, his cheeks staining increasingly pink. “How, exactly, does you fucking with my best doubles pair not have anything to do with me? I’m intrigued.”
“Ohtori is going to leave the team anyways,” Hiyoshi blurts out, face red. “He can’t even make practices, it’s not fair to the rest of us --”
“Shut up,” Atobe says, matter-of-factly. “You want the responsibility of this? Fine. We’ll see how fair it is when we lose at regionals because Shishido’s too wound up to see straight and Ohtori’s a massive ball of anxiety. We’ll see how fair it is when Ohtori leaves the regulars not because he’s losing matches, but because he, what, got bullied out of it?”
Hiyoshi’s hands are clenched at his sides. There is a puddle of water around him from the dripping of his still-wet hair.
“You want that responsibility? Really?”
Hiyoshi’s answer is a mumble, too low for Atobe to hear.
“Speak up or don’t bother talking,” Atobe snaps.
“I don’t,” Hiyoshi repeats, eyes boring into the floor.
“Then don’t go after something you can’t handle,” hisses Atobe.
“I handled it last year,” says Hiyoshi, quietly. Atobe exhales heavily, and crosses his arms.
“Yes,” he allows, “but this isn’t last year, and as far as I know, you weren’t being insane then, either.”
“I’m not --”
“Or too ambitious for anyone’s good,” Atobe corrects, letting a wry grin spread across his face. “And you really thought I wouldn’t figure out it was you?”
Hiyoshi shuffles his bare feet abashedly. “Am I off the team.”
“And again, how would this help,” Atobe sighs. “No, you get to tell Shishido that you wrote that note. And you get to tell him in person.”
Atobe closes the distance between them, picks up Hiyoshi’s hand, and deposits the infamous note in his open palm. Hiyoshi looks up and meets Atobe’s eyes, stricken.
“Can I be off the team?”
“Your leader has spoken,” Atobe says, solemnly. He turns to pick up his bag. “Get changed and go home. And towel up the floor, you’ve dripped.”
“Yes, Atobe-buchou,” says Hiyoshi, dropping his head down in a bow.
“That tactic,” Atobe notes, from the doorway, “won’t help you with Shishido.”
Hiyoshi doesn’t reply or lift his head. Atobe goes home.
* * *
“--trying to fucking sabotage us, is that it? You fucking fucker, you fuck,” Shishido is howling, his coherence dropping even as Atobe hastens his pace towards the open door of the clubhouse. All the subregulars are littered about the courts already, hitting balls and holding conversations and otherwise pretending that every inch of their attention isn’t glued on Atobe and the scene he’s about to throw himself into.
Oshitari comes to the door, reaching for the handle, and his voice is very low when he speaks to Atobe. They don’t greet each other beyond making eye contact.
“First thing this morning,” Oshitari begins. “None of us were here for it, I don’t even know how Shishido hasn’t gone hoarse yet.”
“Who else knows --” Atobe stops himself. “Everyone knows.”
“Everyone got here before you, so yes,” replies Oshitari. There’s no accusation in his tone, but there doesn’t need to be. “I kicked everyone but the regulars out when I got here.”
“Thank you,” Atobe breathes, stepping past Oshitari. Their shoulders brush, slowly. Oshitari shuts the door with a firm clack behind them.
“Next year’s our last chance,” Hiyoshi says, hands balled at his sides. He looks infinitely more upset than he had with Atobe the day prior, but also infinitely more angry. “I’m thinking of the team, and if you can’t understand that, if Ohtori can’t understand that, I don’t really care, but I’m --”
“Enough,” Atobe cuts in. Every head in the room swivels to look at him, save Oshitari’s, whose gaze stays trained on Shishido and Hiyoshi and the tiny space between them. Ohtori is stood about a foot behind Shishido, tight-lipped and white in the face.
“Atobe, fucking --” Shishido can’t even finish, the word ending in a guttural snarl.
“I know,” Atobe snaps. “And I also know that the matter is closed.”
“What,” Shishido says, quietly. His gaze bores in Atobe’s. “That’s it? That’s your great captainly consensus?”
“I told Hiyoshi to tell you,” says Atobe. He glances at Hiyoshi, and then at Ohtori. “I’d hoped the situation would have gone over more smoothly.”
“Ace judgement call, really,” Shishido laughs. It sounds hysterical. Kabaji has moved right up behind Hiyoshi, and the only noise comes from the subregulars’ pretence at practice outside. “Thanks, Atobe, really, you’re always thinking of me --”
“The matter is closed,” Atobe barks. “Whatever you choose to do with this information, you do not -- neither of you -- bring it to the rest of the team, understand?”
It is not the most pacifying speech Atobe has ever given. It takes even Kabaji significant effort to pull Shishido off Hiyoshi.
“You don’t want to fight me,” Hiyoshi tells Shishido, voice shaking. “I know martial arts.”
“And I want to kill you,” Shishido bellows, and Oshitari laughs. Atobe looks at him.
“That’s melodramatic even for you,” Oshitari remarks, blithely. “Well, I’m going to practice my return. Anyone want to practice their serve against me?”
Hiyoshi opens his mouth, and then closes it. Shishido’s breathing is deafening.
“Anyone? Keigo?” Oshitari laughs, and picks up his racket. “Of course not. See you all out there.”
“I’ll serve,” Jiroh says, with uncanny cheerfulness. “I need to tie my shoes, though. What court?”
“B, I was hoping --”
“Aw, Jiroh, what the hell,” Mukahi whines, throwing his hands up in the air. “You said we’d have a match! Thanks!”
“I’m sorry!” Jiroh squeaks, tying his shoes hurriedly. “Maybe play Piyo?”
Just as quickly as it was dispelled, the silence returns.
“I’ll play you,” says Ohtori. “Shall we go, then?”
Shishido makes a small, indescribable sound. Atobe streaks over to the door and flings it open, yelling, “OUT,” in the most authoritative voice he can muster.
It works. Atobe follows his team out to the courts, his stride exhausted.
During his last class, there’s a call for him to go to Sakaki’s office after school.
Sakaki only asks him, “Is this going to continue to be an issue?”
Atobe says, “I don’t know,” and is dismissed. His limo ride home is long, and Atobe rests his head against the glass the whole way.
Part Three
Atobe spends the entirety of his Saturday hiding in his room and refusing to answer his phone or check his inbox. The maids have come to his door to inform him of calls made to the house four times by mid-afternoon, until Atobe snaps, “Can you please just do your jobs and tell them I’m unavailable?” and locks his bedroom door.
He’s trying to do his homework. His desk is uncomfortable, and so is his bed, and the elegant chaise lounge that is really more for decoration than practical use, so Atobe can only roll his eyes at himself for attempting that one.
His mobile goes off, a song whose violins and sweeping orchestral movements do not translate well to ringtone compression rates. Atobe stares at where it sits on top of his school bag. It cycles through the song twice, then three times; Atobe has disabled his voicemail.
Atobe stomps across the room and flicks the mobile open.
“If someone doesn’t answer the phone after three minutes of solid ringing,” he snarls into the mouthpiece, “it generally means they do not want to answer the phone.”
“Are we on for Sunday or not?” Oshitari asks, wearily. “And turn your phone off if you don’t want to receive calls, oh best and brightest.”
“Sunday? Oh, the museum,” Atobe realizes, sitting down on his bed heavily. “Right, right.”
“If you don’t want to now --”
“I do,” Atobe says, truthfully. “I do, but the timing is --”
Oshitari has very obviously covered the mouthpiece with his hand. Atobe can’t hear what he’s saying.
“Don’t be rude, Yuushi,” he chastises. Oshitari snorts.
“Okay, Mr Can’t Give a Simple Yes or No to a Social Commitment,” Oshitari says lightly. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
“I’ve already said I would go,” Atobe points out. He stands up and walks over to his desk, turning on his computer. “If we go in the morning, there’ll be less crowds. I’ll check the opening times.”
“All right,” Oshitari agrees. “Should I meet you there?”
“Mm,” says Atobe, distractedly. His browser has opened to his email inbox, which shows over three hundred unread messages. The one on the very top has the subject line ‘hyoutei notes: discuss’ and too many ‘re’s for Atobe to count. “Oh for --”
“Are you looking at your email?”
“How many people was this sent to,” Atobe mutters, opening the email despite himself. The sent-to list is undisclosed, but the amount of replies indicates a sizeable chunk of the student body. “Honestly, this is just --”
The latest message in the conversation reads, ‘haha totally not surprised about atobe keigo’s gay fling, u kno?’.
Atobe has never logged out of his email so quickly in his entire life. Oshitari is still talking at him.
“Let’s just go for eleven o’clock,” Atobe cuts in. He presses a hand against his temple. “I have to go.”
Oshitari’s startled good-bye is the last word Atobe hears all day. He doesn’t go down for dinner, and stays up well past midnight, accomplishing nothing of use, and leaving him completely exhausted when he meets Oshitari in front of the museum shortly before eleven the next morning.
“Rough night?” Oshitari asks, brow creased in concern. He reaches for Atobe’s forearm, but Atobe whirls away, striding towards the entrance as quickly as relative politeness permits. “Touchy.”
Oshitari gets out his wallet at the entrance booth, and Atobe stares at him. “I said I’d pay,” Oshitari tells him, slowly.
“It’s fine, you don’t have to,” Atobe replies, fumbling with his wallet and paying with the first bill he can find, which leaves him with a truly absurd amount of change. “I’d feel like a girl if you paid.”
“Sure,” says Oshitari, too casually. “So tell me about Greek art.”
Atobe, relief awash on his face, does.
“And that’s, see, look at the movement, the torsion,” he’s saying, half an hour later while Oshitari trails behind him amusedly. “That’s really emblematic of the Hellenistic period, also --”
“I think you are making these terms up,” Oshitari interrupts, grinning at Atobe. Atobe gapes.
“I most certainly am not, I am very well-read on the topic,” Atobe says, defensively. He’s gone a bit pink, high over his cheekbones. Oshitari nudges his elbow.
“All right, professor, tell me about that one,” he asks, pointing at the male nude to their right. “Describe and denote the significance thereof.”
“Well,” Atobe huffs, “you can see something of a contrapposto in the expression --”
“Okay, hold up,” Oshitari laughs. “Even I know contrapposto’s about posture, not facial expression.”
“I meant in his --”
“In his where?” Oshitari teases, placing his hands on his hips. “Young man, where are you looking?”
“I’m not -- looking, it’s a statue,” Atobe stammers, red and frantic-looking. “I -- it’s not like I’m treating the female nudes any differently, I’m just remarking on -- things.”
Oshitari is staring at him. “This counts as awkward handling, Keigo.”
“You’re the one who brought me to a museum with nude men all about,” Atobe cries, and several schoolgirls turn to gawk at them. “I’m already a spectacle, why would you even -- I am not gay!”
“Woah,” Oshitari says, “Woah. This is insane, even for you.”
“I’m going to look at pottery,” Atobe avows. “You go do something else, let’s meet up later.”
“You don’t want to stick together because looking at male nude statues with your best friend is gay,” Oshitari intones. “Are you even listening to yourself?”
“How dare you, that’s not fair at all!” Atobe turns on his heel, all but tripping as he does so. “I’ll meet you for lunch at noon, don’t follow me.”
Oshitari doesn’t, and Atobe’s expression only grows stormier in the intervening time.
“What the hell is wrong with you,” Atobe snaps, when he and Oshitari have reassembled at the museum’s cafeteria. A grandmother sitting at a table near the entrance peers at them anxiously. Atobe continues, in a lower tone, “Some show of support you’re putting on!”
“Support?” Oshitari parrots, incredulously. Atobe stares him down until Oshitari throws his arms up in the air shortly and heads for the food queue.
“Don’t you walk away from me,” Atobe hisses, following close at Oshitari’s heels and nearly treading on his foot. “You know this is bothering me, and yet you just --”
“What, exactly, would you have me do?” Oshitari interrupts, low and in a tone just shy of angry, which is more than enough to derail Atobe’s reply. “People aren’t exactly trying to gun you down in streets, and god forbid I get too close and set off Atobe Keigo’s Gay Threat Radar!”
“I never said you had to stay away from me,” says Atobe, confused. Oshitari comes up to the drinks cooler and flings the door open in an irritated movement. “I am certain I never said that.”
“It was implied,” Oshitari retorts, snidely, ducking his head out of sight below the door. Atobe moves down the queue instead of answering, blindly picking up some kind of a wrapped pastry and an orange.
They eat in dead silence. Atobe is fiddling with his exhibit brochure and his orange peel by turns when Oshitari speaks.
“Why me,” he asks. “It would piss me off a lot less if it weren’t just me.”
“It’s not just you,” says Atobe, exasperated. He tosses his brochure on the table. Oshitari picks it up and begins to fold and unfold it, smaller and smaller. “That’s annoying, d’you mind.”
“Everything I do is wrong,” Oshitari growls, chucking the now-crumpled brochure at Atobe’s chest. “Splendid.”
“Since when’ve you had a persecution complex? You’re being ridiculous.”
“And you’re being a massive dick,” shoots Oshitari, evenly. “Pinning it on me is only making that fact more apparent.”
“Thanks, Yuushi,” Atobe intones, ripping the peel in his hands into small pieces. “I’m glad we could resolve our differences in this way, this has been really productive.”
Oshitari opens his mouth, then shuts it. He looks away. Atobe rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands, frustrated, and curses under his breath when the citrus residue on them causes him to tear up.
“None of this is helping.”
“I’m not actually crying, you knob. But no, it isn’t,” Atobe agrees, hiding the remnants of orange peel under a napkin on his tray with an irritated huff. “I still want to do a quick tour of the regular exhibits.”
“Yeah, all right.” Oshitari nudges Atobe’s foot underneath the small table. “Don’t use art terms anymore, though. I’ll have to make your life difficult if you do.”
“I know my art terms, Oshitari Yuushi,” Atobe exclaims, indignant, as they rise and gather the wrappers and stray napkins from their meal. “Maybe you should learn about what you don’t understand instead of mocking it!”
“Maybe, but that would be much less fun,” reasons Oshitari. “And besides, you really don’t know your terms for shit.”
* * *
Monday is overcast and chilled, and Atobe still can’t manage to sleep in. He comes to school early, intending to take a run around the courts.
Hiyoshi is already there, hitting balls against the back wall of A-court. There are keys clipped on to the waist of his shorts. Atobe’s scowl is murderous, and Hiyoshi sees it even at a distance, and catches the next ball that returns to him.
“Where did you get those keys,” Atobe snaps, when he’s close enough to be properly intimidating. Hiyoshi meets his eye, defiantly.
“From Kantoku,” he answer readily. “Since you wouldn’t lend me them.”
“Because there was no need,” hisses Atobe, holding out his hand for the objects in question. “You could have simply brought supplies from home, I know you’re not impoverished when it comes to tennis equipment.”
“Why, when everything’s already in the clubhouse?” Hiyoshi says, handing over the keys slowly. “That’s stupid.”
“I’m returning these to Sakaki,” Atobe tells him, lowly. “You’re not going to do this again.”
“What, practice?” Atobe’s answering look is enough to cause Hiyoshi to avert his gaze. “Atobe-buchou.”
“Don’t even,” snaps Atobe, marching over to the clubhouse in order to unlock and open the door. “Put everything away, and don’t you dare forget to close the door properly when you leave.”
“I can close a door,” Hiyoshi mutters, and Atobe is too furious to do anything but walk away from him.
His warpath to Sakaki’s office is interrupted by the unmistakable sound of Shishido’s furious yelling. Atobe leaves the keys with a teacher heading in the proper direction, and backtracks towards what could only be referred to as the scene of the crime.
“I mean,” Shishido is laughing, hysterically, “it’s not like they don’t have a point?”
He’s staring at the wall and at Ohtori, by turns. When Atobe approaches, Jiroh tugs at his arm and points at a note written on white cardstock in a heavy font.
“’Ohtori Choutarou should give up tennis and focus on his real talent with music --’” Atobe reads aloud, under his breath. He closes his eyes. “Shishido, Ohtori --”
“It’s okay!” Shishido bellows, in clear tones of not-okay. “Choutarou’s already struggling to make practice, look at him, he’s exhausted, it’s not fair --”
Ohtori’s expression is far more anguished than it is exhausted. Atobe watches them both, carefully.
“I’m not coming to practice tomorrow,” Shishido announces. He turns to Ohtori, panicked. “That’s probably --”
“Shishido-san, we talked about this last week,” Ohtori begins, tightly, “and I promised that I’d do doubles with you --”
“You don’t know what’s right for you,” interrupts Shishido, sputtering. Atobe rolls his eyes.
“And some anonymous idiot does?” he asks. “I am not going to entertain this notion.”
“Yuushi and I could be doubles one,” volunteers Mukahi, from behind Atobe. “You’re replaceable, Shishido,” he singsongs.
“Not helping,” Atobe tells him angrily, and Mukahi smiles angelically. He turns back to Shishido and Ohtori. “Ohtori, I’ll see you at practice tomorrow, and Shishido, if you want to come study the history material with Yuushi and I afterschool --”
“I’m going home,” Shishido erupts, face red and limbs shaking. He takes off like a shot, and even Ohtori’s movement to stop him is seconds too late.
“Atobe-buchou,” says Ohtori, and Atobe shakes his head.
“No,” he says, conviction burning through his words. “I am not dealing with a disintegrating team, on top of everything.”
Ohtori nods.
“Go to class,” Atobe tells him, not unkindly. “And Mukahi, get out of here and involve yourself in someone else’s business inappropriately, yeah?”
“Am I out of the study group this afternoon,” Mukahi pouts, letting Atobe shove him out of his face.
“Just a bit,” Atobe growls. When Oshitari greets him in the next hallway, Atobe can only glare.
* * *
“So,” Atobe says, tone light and manner casual. “Any reason you’d have to write that note about Ohtori?”
“Oh for god’s sake,” groans Oshitari, dropping his head onto the stack of books. “Not again!”
“Yes, again,” insists Atobe, snagging a book from the middle of Oshitari’s stack and causing his head to slip and hit the table with a quiet thunk. “As many times until you tell the truth, in fact.”
“How much time do you think I have in a day, Keigo?” Oshitari sighs, unmoving from his sprawl on the desk. His glasses were askew. “Between tennis and violin and trying to complete high school successfully?”
“You would make time,” Atobe snorts. “You can’t blame me for asking --”
“Yes, I can,” interrupts Oshitari, rebelliously. Atobe waves a hand at him, hurriedly.
“A lot of factors point to you: the chosen target, the possible motivation,” Atobe lists. “You say you don’t have time, but I’ve noticed you’re yawning during the day more, and what’s to keep me from suspecting that’s the result of late nights, plotting and scheming --”
“You’re a real piece of work,” Oshitari cuts in. “My motivation? What might that be, Keigo?”
“Well,” hedges Atobe. “It’s complex.”
“I can parse it, actually,” Oshitari informs him. He’s sitting up now, hand on his chin and affecting the very picture of academic thought. “My motivation is to shack up with you, of course, and also cause Shishido, he-who-causes-you-pain, to explode with murderous rage, possibly taking out several other individuals I may or may not want dead in the process. I also want to ensure that I can have the sound of Ohtori’s violin serenading me on the classical music station which I so happen to tune in to whilst vacationing naked with you on some luxury yacht in the Bahamas?”
“When you put it that way,” Atobe retorts, scowling at the far wall. Oshitari exhales heavily, and flips open the first book on his pile. “It doesn’t mean my suspicions are wrong!”
“Your suspicions are wrong, anyways,” says Oshitari, not meanly. He clicks his pen open, hovers it over his notebook, glances up at Atobe, and drops it. “Even if I were some criminal mastermind, why on earth would I launch a vendetta against Shishido? He’s already convinced his dog is plotting against him, it wouldn’t even be sporting.”
“Sporting or not, it’s happened,” says Atobe. He heaves his bag onto the table, fluttering the pages of Oshitari’s notebook. “And god knows he won’t let it go for the next thousand years.”
“That’s our boy,” grins Oshitari, picking up his pen and scribbling a word that fades out by the third stroke. “Damn. Got another pen I could borrow?”
“You only have one pen?”
“Well,” Oshitari drawls, folding his hands neatly on his lap, “It’s all those notes I’ve been writing, I just can’t keep up with the demand.”
Atobe glares. “You are not allowed to turn this into a joke.”
“I’ll agree to that if you agree to stop turning this into the Spanish Inquisition,” says Oshitari, amiably. “I’ve had two interrogations at your paranoid hands so far, and I think the thrill has rather worn off.”
“Fine -- fine,” Atobe concedes, at Oshitari’s dubious look. “I’ll just ignore all my base instincts --”
“Keigo --”
“I’ll ignore them, and you’ll stop getting off on the shitstorm this entire debacle is causing. Deal?”
“I’m not getting off on it,” frowns Oshitari. He crosses his arms. “I don’t want that included in our entente.”
“It’s a verbal agreeme--” Atobe stops himself the second the corner of Oshitari’s mouth begins to turn up, a suppressed grin. “Deal, you bastard. I am now going to read twenty pages of this and I expect your co-operative silence.”
Oshitari makes a grandiose gesture of concession, and Atobe tosses a spare pen onto the desk before dropping his gaze back to his open text. He writes ‘page 70 -- timeline, to memorize’, reads said page over two more times, and sucks on the inside of his cheek.
“What,” Oshitari asks blandly. He’s written down nothing. Atobe tilts his chair back on two legs, back and forth. “Out with it.”
“Can I perhaps borrow your history notes when you’re done with them,” Atobe asks. Oshitari raises his eyebrow, and picks up his notebook to better show Atobe the page, blank save for the aborted scribble he’d made earlier. “Oh.”
“You’re fixating,” Oshitari tells him. His tone is didactic. “That’s really bad timing; the test on Thursday isn’t going to move just so you can speculate and theorize to your heart’s content, you know.”
“I know that,” Atobe snaps. “It’s only Monday, anyways. As for my theories --”
“I think your new theory, if it’s similar to mine, is absolutely correct,” interjects Oshitari. “Put on your buchou-hat and go have fun confronting him. I’ll be here, slaving away --”
“I’m not confronting anyone without good grounds to do so,” protests Atobe. “Don’t look at me like that!”
“I think it was Hiyoshi.” Atobe blinks at Oshitari, who looks at him matter-of-factly and adds, “Don’t you?”
“Well.”
“You just wished it was me,” notes Oshitari. He tucks Atobe’s pen behind his ear. “I’m easier to deal with, aren’t I?”
“You are both thoroughly impossible in completely opposite ways,” Atobe shoots back. “I expect better of Hiyoshi.”
“That’s hurtful,” Oshitari sighs. He reaches over casually and pushes Atobe’s bag, books, and notebook onto the floor, a cascade of paper and texts.
“What the hell, Yuushi!” Atobe snarls, bending over to collect his things. The librarian appears at the end of a stack, brow furrowed. “Sorry, it was an accident,” he calls out, in a distinctly unremorseful tone.
“Off with you,” says Oshitari. “Be cruel to someone else for a change.”
“Will you come off it,” mutters Atobe, shoving his notebook into his bag. “Will you deal with my books?”
“I live to serve, my liege.” Oshitari’s grin is lopsided as he readjusts his glasses needlessly. He crosses his legs over the seat Atobe has just vacated. “But you can do it yourself, when you come back.”
Atobe hisses, “I will find every reason to assign you extra laps tomorrow morning, Oshitari Yuushi,” and stomps off as quietly as one can stomp while leaving a library.
He passes Sakaki’s office on the way to the courts. The door is half open; when Atobe knocks, it swings in all the way.
“Is Hiyoshi on the courts,” he says, without preamble. Sakaki pauses in his paperwork, looking up calmly. “You let him in this morning. I’m right to ask.”
“He is, and I did,” Sakaki replies, meeting Atobe’s eye and leaning back in his chair. “I wasn’t aware you were uncomfortable with your recent habit of blaming me for your failure to solve your team’s issues.”
Atobe stiffens, and nods curtly before turning on his heel and closing the door behind him.
Hiyoshi isn’t on the courts proper, but the clubhouse door is unlocked. There is the sound of a single shower running. Atobe sits down on the bench in front of Hiyoshi’s locker, puts his school bag next to himself, and waits.
“Atobe-buchou,” says Hiyoshi when he emerges, towel slung around his waist. “What are you doing here?”
“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Atobe snaps. He pulls the note that’s sat neatly pressed between his textbooks all day out of his bag. He holds it in the air, written side facing Hiyoshi. "Your definition of gekokujou is expanding in a direction I'm not really liking, Wakashi."
“What?” Hiyoshi says, dumbly. He’s gone perfectly still. “Why do you have that?”
“It’s public property, isn’t it?” Atobe replies, turning the note so he can read the contents aloud, quietly and half under his breath. He shakes his head, theatrically. “I didn’t think you’d stoop this low.”
“I did not write that,” Hiyoshi declaims, as firmly as one can with a face white as a sheet.
“I am seriously,” Atobe says, standing, “tired of people denying things today. I know you did, and now we’re going to have a chat about it.”
There is a short silence, before Hiyoshi says, “I didn’t do it for attention, if that’s what Oshitari-senpai thinks.”
“Who says I discussed it with him,” retorts Atobe, amused. Hiyoshi stares at him disbelievingly. “But that’s besides the point. I don’t think you did it for attention; you’re a first-year regular on a team comprised on first and second-year regulars. The only way to get more attention --”
“Would be to be you,” Hiyoshi interrupts, sullenly. Atobe snorts.
“Is that what this is about? A stupid inferiority complex? Because we can have a match right now, if it’d help solidify things --”
“It has nothing to do with you,” snarls Hiyoshi, suddenly. Atobe narrows his eyes. “I’m thinking of the team.”
“And that has nothing to do with me, how?” Atobe hisses. Hiyoshi stares at the far wall, his cheeks staining increasingly pink. “How, exactly, does you fucking with my best doubles pair not have anything to do with me? I’m intrigued.”
“Ohtori is going to leave the team anyways,” Hiyoshi blurts out, face red. “He can’t even make practices, it’s not fair to the rest of us --”
“Shut up,” Atobe says, matter-of-factly. “You want the responsibility of this? Fine. We’ll see how fair it is when we lose at regionals because Shishido’s too wound up to see straight and Ohtori’s a massive ball of anxiety. We’ll see how fair it is when Ohtori leaves the regulars not because he’s losing matches, but because he, what, got bullied out of it?”
Hiyoshi’s hands are clenched at his sides. There is a puddle of water around him from the dripping of his still-wet hair.
“You want that responsibility? Really?”
Hiyoshi’s answer is a mumble, too low for Atobe to hear.
“Speak up or don’t bother talking,” Atobe snaps.
“I don’t,” Hiyoshi repeats, eyes boring into the floor.
“Then don’t go after something you can’t handle,” hisses Atobe.
“I handled it last year,” says Hiyoshi, quietly. Atobe exhales heavily, and crosses his arms.
“Yes,” he allows, “but this isn’t last year, and as far as I know, you weren’t being insane then, either.”
“I’m not --”
“Or too ambitious for anyone’s good,” Atobe corrects, letting a wry grin spread across his face. “And you really thought I wouldn’t figure out it was you?”
Hiyoshi shuffles his bare feet abashedly. “Am I off the team.”
“And again, how would this help,” Atobe sighs. “No, you get to tell Shishido that you wrote that note. And you get to tell him in person.”
Atobe closes the distance between them, picks up Hiyoshi’s hand, and deposits the infamous note in his open palm. Hiyoshi looks up and meets Atobe’s eyes, stricken.
“Can I be off the team?”
“Your leader has spoken,” Atobe says, solemnly. He turns to pick up his bag. “Get changed and go home. And towel up the floor, you’ve dripped.”
“Yes, Atobe-buchou,” says Hiyoshi, dropping his head down in a bow.
“That tactic,” Atobe notes, from the doorway, “won’t help you with Shishido.”
Hiyoshi doesn’t reply or lift his head. Atobe goes home.
* * *
“--trying to fucking sabotage us, is that it? You fucking fucker, you fuck,” Shishido is howling, his coherence dropping even as Atobe hastens his pace towards the open door of the clubhouse. All the subregulars are littered about the courts already, hitting balls and holding conversations and otherwise pretending that every inch of their attention isn’t glued on Atobe and the scene he’s about to throw himself into.
Oshitari comes to the door, reaching for the handle, and his voice is very low when he speaks to Atobe. They don’t greet each other beyond making eye contact.
“First thing this morning,” Oshitari begins. “None of us were here for it, I don’t even know how Shishido hasn’t gone hoarse yet.”
“Who else knows --” Atobe stops himself. “Everyone knows.”
“Everyone got here before you, so yes,” replies Oshitari. There’s no accusation in his tone, but there doesn’t need to be. “I kicked everyone but the regulars out when I got here.”
“Thank you,” Atobe breathes, stepping past Oshitari. Their shoulders brush, slowly. Oshitari shuts the door with a firm clack behind them.
“Next year’s our last chance,” Hiyoshi says, hands balled at his sides. He looks infinitely more upset than he had with Atobe the day prior, but also infinitely more angry. “I’m thinking of the team, and if you can’t understand that, if Ohtori can’t understand that, I don’t really care, but I’m --”
“Enough,” Atobe cuts in. Every head in the room swivels to look at him, save Oshitari’s, whose gaze stays trained on Shishido and Hiyoshi and the tiny space between them. Ohtori is stood about a foot behind Shishido, tight-lipped and white in the face.
“Atobe, fucking --” Shishido can’t even finish, the word ending in a guttural snarl.
“I know,” Atobe snaps. “And I also know that the matter is closed.”
“What,” Shishido says, quietly. His gaze bores in Atobe’s. “That’s it? That’s your great captainly consensus?”
“I told Hiyoshi to tell you,” says Atobe. He glances at Hiyoshi, and then at Ohtori. “I’d hoped the situation would have gone over more smoothly.”
“Ace judgement call, really,” Shishido laughs. It sounds hysterical. Kabaji has moved right up behind Hiyoshi, and the only noise comes from the subregulars’ pretence at practice outside. “Thanks, Atobe, really, you’re always thinking of me --”
“The matter is closed,” Atobe barks. “Whatever you choose to do with this information, you do not -- neither of you -- bring it to the rest of the team, understand?”
It is not the most pacifying speech Atobe has ever given. It takes even Kabaji significant effort to pull Shishido off Hiyoshi.
“You don’t want to fight me,” Hiyoshi tells Shishido, voice shaking. “I know martial arts.”
“And I want to kill you,” Shishido bellows, and Oshitari laughs. Atobe looks at him.
“That’s melodramatic even for you,” Oshitari remarks, blithely. “Well, I’m going to practice my return. Anyone want to practice their serve against me?”
Hiyoshi opens his mouth, and then closes it. Shishido’s breathing is deafening.
“Anyone? Keigo?” Oshitari laughs, and picks up his racket. “Of course not. See you all out there.”
“I’ll serve,” Jiroh says, with uncanny cheerfulness. “I need to tie my shoes, though. What court?”
“B, I was hoping --”
“Aw, Jiroh, what the hell,” Mukahi whines, throwing his hands up in the air. “You said we’d have a match! Thanks!”
“I’m sorry!” Jiroh squeaks, tying his shoes hurriedly. “Maybe play Piyo?”
Just as quickly as it was dispelled, the silence returns.
“I’ll play you,” says Ohtori. “Shall we go, then?”
Shishido makes a small, indescribable sound. Atobe streaks over to the door and flings it open, yelling, “OUT,” in the most authoritative voice he can muster.
It works. Atobe follows his team out to the courts, his stride exhausted.
During his last class, there’s a call for him to go to Sakaki’s office after school.
Sakaki only asks him, “Is this going to continue to be an issue?”
Atobe says, “I don’t know,” and is dismissed. His limo ride home is long, and Atobe rests his head against the glass the whole way.
Part Three