[drabble] Art of Losing (TezuRyo)
Drabble! TezuRyo (stfu stfu stfu stfu). I'm just going to post it here until I figure out what I want to do with it. :|
There is one thing in Tezuka’s world, and that is tennis. He supposes he must have picked up a tennis racquet when he was younger, felt the way his hand fit perfectly around it, and then watched as slowly everything in his life began to gravitate toward that one moment when racquet strikes tennis ball, though he doesn’t remember it. For all he knows, he was born with tennis balls in his eyes because tennis has always been there, at the center of everything.
The same is true of Ryoma. Tezuka remembers first seeing him, the short freshmen who shocked the entire Seigaku tennis club, but at the same time it’s like there never was a first time at all: he was always there, the boy in the brick wall of the school who hit the tennis ball back when no one wanted to play with Tezuka.
And he could say now that there are two things in his world-tennis and Ryoma-but he doesn’t. Because in Tezuka’s world, Ryoma is tennis and tennis is Ryoma. They are the same, indistinguishable from one another, the single point that everything keeps coming back to: the ultimate Tezuka Zone.
By the time that he says “Please let me play against Echizen,” all Tezuka can think of is tennis (Ryoma). Every footfall is the thwack of a racquet (Ryoma’s) and every period in his English homework is a tennis ball (Ryoma’s). When he dreams, he dreams of Ryoma, his skin smooth and his muscles hard and his mouth hot and wet, and it is like the purest game of tennis Tezuka has ever played.
When he scores the final point against Ryoma, in the newly renovated court in Haruno University, he sees Ryoma’s eyes narrow and glow with determination, and suddenly Tezuka knows what he is. He is a stepping stone, and Ryoma will tread on him once and then be gone, leaping from stone to stone up the river until he is at the top.
In Tezuka’s mind, Ryoma loses and loses and loses.
There is one thing in Tezuka’s world, and that is tennis. He supposes he must have picked up a tennis racquet when he was younger, felt the way his hand fit perfectly around it, and then watched as slowly everything in his life began to gravitate toward that one moment when racquet strikes tennis ball, though he doesn’t remember it. For all he knows, he was born with tennis balls in his eyes because tennis has always been there, at the center of everything.
The same is true of Ryoma. Tezuka remembers first seeing him, the short freshmen who shocked the entire Seigaku tennis club, but at the same time it’s like there never was a first time at all: he was always there, the boy in the brick wall of the school who hit the tennis ball back when no one wanted to play with Tezuka.
And he could say now that there are two things in his world-tennis and Ryoma-but he doesn’t. Because in Tezuka’s world, Ryoma is tennis and tennis is Ryoma. They are the same, indistinguishable from one another, the single point that everything keeps coming back to: the ultimate Tezuka Zone.
By the time that he says “Please let me play against Echizen,” all Tezuka can think of is tennis (Ryoma). Every footfall is the thwack of a racquet (Ryoma’s) and every period in his English homework is a tennis ball (Ryoma’s). When he dreams, he dreams of Ryoma, his skin smooth and his muscles hard and his mouth hot and wet, and it is like the purest game of tennis Tezuka has ever played.
When he scores the final point against Ryoma, in the newly renovated court in Haruno University, he sees Ryoma’s eyes narrow and glow with determination, and suddenly Tezuka knows what he is. He is a stepping stone, and Ryoma will tread on him once and then be gone, leaping from stone to stone up the river until he is at the top.
In Tezuka’s mind, Ryoma loses and loses and loses.