(OshiGaku) Worth It (Sequel to Peacock’s Thighs and Moonlit Balconies) Part 1/3
© 2006 Gold
Title: The Blame It On Atobe Series, or In The Name of Love 2016
Otherwise Known As: Worth It (Sequel to Peacock’s Thighs) Part 1/3
Author: Gold
Pairing: Oshitari/Gakuto. There is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it hint of the Silver Pair.
Rating: PG.
Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis is created by Konomi Takeshi. This work is a piece of fanfiction and no part of it is attributed to Konomi-sama or any other entity holding any legal right associated with and arising out of Prince of Tennis . It was written purely out of fanservice and it is not to be used for profit or any false association with Konomi-sama or aforesaid entities.
Summary: Sequel to Of Peacock’s Thighs and Moonlit Balconies. Set two years later, in 2016. This part is Gakuto-centric, with guest appearances from Oshitari, Atobe and Shishido. Ohtori is name-dropped in passing.
Notes: The writing style here is more sparse and direct, and the change from the style in Peacock's Thighs is deliberate.
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It is already well past one in the morning.
Mukahi Gakuto, comfortably buried up to his nose under his favourite duvet, turns over and cracks open a single, bright eye.
The alarm clock sitting on the mahogany dresser within arm’s reach tells Gakuto that it is exactly one-thirty-three and sixteen seconds into the morning. Already, Gakuto muses happily, it is the next day.
There is a small, secret smile on Gakuto’s face that grows wider as he reaches out one spindly arm from underneath the warm covers of his bed. The dresser is well within reach; Gakuto’s fingers drop nearly to the carpet as they hook themselves around the intricately carved handlebar of the lowest drawer of the dresser. The drawer opens with a little exertion of strength; the fingers feel their way across, sliding under mounds of silk, satin and cotton boxers and briefs (and maybe a thong or two). Gakuto’s fingers are quick to locate the tiny box that is stashed away in the furthest corner of the drawer, under Gakuto’s favourite cranberry-red-and-black silk-and-net boxer shorts.
Gakuto presses the tiny, velvet-covered box to his cheek. Inside the box, nestled in satin, is a handsome, broad platinum band, set with a brilliant, square-cut solitaire diamond. It is an extremely expensive ring, purchased from one of the world’s best-known luxury jewellers, and it has cost Gakuto almost all the pay he has received for the last eight months, but it is worth it… if Yuushi says yes.
Gakuto’s eyes are very dark and dreamy.
He has known Yuushi for a long time… more than a decade, to be honest. They had met in junior high as schoolboys, when Oshitari Yuushi was the tall, dark and very handsome outsider from Kansai who had come all the way to Tokyo to attend his father’s alma mater, Hyoutei.
Natives of Kansai are not exactly welcomed as part of upper-crust Tokyo. Yet Oshitari Yuushi’s arrival at Hyoutei earned him legions of Hyoutei fangirls overnight, catapulting him into the Number Two ranking on the Hyoutei slate of eligible bachelors, right after the school prima donna, Atobe Keigo. Oshitari Yuushi’s best selling point turned out to be his voice, once you got past the fact that he was tall, dark and utterly gorgeous. His voice had been charmingly mellow when it broke; when it was done with puberty, it had ripened into the smoothest, deepest, warmest baritone in Hyoutei. Paired with his Kansai accent, Oshitari Yuushi’s voice was softened into a deliciously seductive drawl that nearly (but not quite) garnered him more satin-ribboned boxes of chocolates than Atobe Keigo for at least a couple of Valentine’s Days.
Gakuto’s very first conversation with Yuushi was, of course, on the courts of Hyoutei.
It had been a beautiful day in May then, just a month after school had begun, and Atobe Keigo had been playing with the first-team regulars, just because he could. For the rest of the plebeian (non-regular, non-Atobe) population of the tennis club, club time and therefore tennis practice was officially over for the day. Gakuto had remained in the stands, however, long after the courts (save for the ones being used by the regulars and Atobe) had been cleared.
“Hmm.”
Gakuto had glanced at the tall, dark form in the stands about five feet from him. It was the new boy from Kansai, with the pleasant, mellow voice and the dark good looks that the girls in their class liked so much. Gakuto noticed that this boy held his tennis racket the same way that Atobe Keigo did-with an ease and familiarity that made it seem as if he and the racket flowed as one.
The boy had then pushed up his glasses with one hand and his lips had curved into a slow, deep, and surprisingly warm smile. “Mukahi-san.”
“Oshitari-san.” Gakuto had tossed a quick nod at the tall boy from beneath his bangs.
There was a long silence as they watched Atobe Keigo coolly take two games in a row from Hyoutei’s third-ranked singles player.
“So, how long have you been playing tennis?” Oshitari had then asked, casually breaking the silence.
Startled by the sudden question, Gakuto had answered without thinking: “Five years.” He had stopped speaking just as abruptly, and had shot a lightning-quick glance at Oshitari. This boy could tell that he played tennis. Not to be outdone, Gakuto had lifted his chin. “How long have you been playing tennis?”
Oshitari’s smile had remained steady. “Three years.”
With that kind of tennis form?!
Gakuto had stared at him. “What are you, a tensai?” he had blurted out.
Oshitari had blinked. Then he had quirked his eyebrows and his smile had broadened. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, duh, you hold your racket like Atobe-san,” Gakuto had sniffed. Like any idiot couldn’t tell.
Oshitari had tilted his head slightly. “Really? How so?”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Gakuto had snorted, rolling his eyes. “It’s not as if I can describe it in words. You just look it. If you can hold the racket like Atobe-san, you probably can play just as well as he can. Not everybody can hold it like that, you know. Plus you know what I mean, so stop pretending to be stupid, ’cause you’re not. It’s stupid to pretend to be stupid!”
Oshitari had actually looked like he was considering that statement seriously, which had made Gakuto decide then and there that not only was Oshitari Yuushi annoying, he was also a real dork. Very uncool. The girls in the school must have been blind to fall for this guy. This was it, Gakuto was going off. He didn’t want to be seen in the company of a dork. Gakuto was very particular about whom he wanted to be seen with!
“You know, Mukahi-san…”
Gakuto had picked up his tennis bag, slung it over his shoulder, and decided to ignore Oshitari Yuushi. Especially when the Kansai boy was using a bedroom voice like that!
“… would you like to play a game or two?”
Gakuto had halted. Without looking over his shoulder, he had raised his voice. “In case you didn’t notice, Oshitari-san, there are no tennis courts here that we are allowed to play on.” He didn’t care if kantoku heard it, or Atobe. It was true.
“But there are street tennis courts.”
“No balls can bounce off that kind of surface, the way they treat it,” Gakuto had retorted, beginning to walk on. Was Oshitari joking? Street tennis courts were so badly maintained that there was barely any surface to play on!
“Mukahi-san-”
“You two over there, shut up!” someone had roared.
Gakuto had whirled around. “Shut up yourself!”
Gakuto absolutely hated being told what to do, particularly when the person mouthing him off was Shishido Ryou, whose prima donna-ness rivalled only Atobe Keigo. Shishido had been young and hasty then, and Gakuto would always remember that it was Shishido who fired the first ball then.
The tennis ball flew, swift and golden, and Gakuto had whipped out his trusty racket to hit it back.
However, someone else had been faster than him.
A tall, dark, lanky someone, with dark, clever eyes behind a pair of oval-framed glasses, and a quick, very quick interception.
Gakuto’s snarl of irritation had nearly bitten his tongue into two. “What the-!”
“Missed!” Shishido Ryou had crowed from his end, whacking the ball back.
But Gakuto had been prepared. With a roar of “Mine!” he did a quick flip and a one-hand somersault, then smashed the ball in Shishido’s direction.
Suddenly, just like that, they were playing ball. In the stands of grand old Hyoutei’s tennis courts, no less. Never mind that kantoku would later give them pick-up duties (pick up balls, clear tennis court, etc. after-club clean-up duties) for the rest of the year. After that, the great Atobe Keigo deigned to take notice of them, and added them to his exclusive list of opponents. And thereafter, there existed a sort of armed neutrality between Shishido and Gakuto, at least until the next time they decided to butt heads and compete for bigger mouths. That little incident also led to the strangest of all relationships-a grudgingly respectful friendship between Mukahi Gakuto and Oshitari Yuushi that would ripen over time and spawn one of most unbelievable and most successful doubles partnerships in the history of the Hyoutei boys’ tennis club.
The Oshitari-Mukahi doubles pairing of the early twenty-first century has been responsible for much of the silverware and glittering gold-plated medals that thronged the trophy cases of the Hyoutei boys’ tennis club. It was a pairing that had been put together, so rumour had it, because kantoku was bored one day and decided to have some fun. People said kantoku was mad the day he put the Oshitari-Mukahi pairing together; after they won their first match against an older, more experienced doubles pair in a love set, people started calling kantoku a genius and a sly strategist. The real story behind it is known only to Oshitari and Gakuto, and witnesses have sworn that their faces have been seen to go an interesting shade of green whenever this is mentioned.
Oshitari Yuushi and Mukahi Gakuto had exceedingly different styles of play. For one thing, Oshitari was a superb singles player. Gakuto, whilst being a tennis player excellent enough to easily rank within the top twelve in the two-hundred-strong tennis club by his second year, was nowhere near Oshitari’s standard (Oshitari ranked within the top five by the end of his first year). For another, Oshitari’s style of play was akin to that of a seventeenth-century English gentleman of leisure-elegant, stylish and equipped with deliberately understated brilliance. Gakuto, on the other hand, was an exhibitionist of the flashiest kind, and girls and boys alike thronged the stands when he played, just to catch a glimpse of his famous acrobatic style.
They were poles apart in terms of style, but together, Oshitari Yuushi and Mukahi Gakuto were unstoppable. Somehow, Oshitari’s laid-back style translated into a natural tendency to remain at the baseline and provide all-round support that allowed Gakuto to launch stunning attacks in his inimitable acrobatic style. Gakuto was the frontline, blinding their opponents with his sassy play and unusual moves; Oshitari was the silent, deadly ambush that lay in wait for their opponents, destroying them with devastating final blows after Gakuto’s initial blitz. Gakuto was the first line of attack; Oshitari, the final line of defence.
Of course, it didn’t mean that Oshitari didn’t play singles; it meant simply that he played singles less often. Gakuto had never felt any dreadful guilt about it; if Yuushi was so grumpy about playing doubles, he could jolly well go and see kantoku about it. Besides, Gakuto had to play singles too; he needed the practice to keep his place on the first team, after all.
Someone has been known to say that it was probably the water in Tokyo, because Oshitari Yuushi and Mukahi Gakuto are not the first same-sex, tennis-playing doubles duo from a Tokyo school to progress from schoolboys to kissing gourami.
But it has taken Oshitari and Gakuto years before they went beyond being friends. There have been a lot of girlfriends in between, both casual ones (for Gakuto, who felt himself too young to commit) and serious ones (for Oshitari, who was an awful romantic), and even a double date or two. Gakuto’s favourite girlfriends are always the ones who are tall and gorgeous, with a kind of elegant air about them. He has always been easily bored with the cutesy, fragile-flower types. Oshitari’s chosen girlfriends, on the other hand, have always been the vibrant, talkative, slightly spoilt type-exactly the kind of girl Gakuto hates, because he always ends up quarrelling with the girl and spoiling their double dates. Gakuto has always broken up with his girlfriends; Oshitari’s girlfriends have always initiated their break-ups. Nobody has ever told either Oshitari or Gakuto that perhaps it’s because their girlfriends have seen what neither of them recognizes-that they’re looking for each other’s replacement.
It takes Gakuto’s unbridled temper, an Eve of New Year’s Eve party, a call from Oshitari’s then-girlfriend, and interference from one Atobe Keigo (the busybody, Gakuto thinks crossly), for both of them to change the way they look at each other.
After that, everything has been like a dream. A really good sort of dream, the kind laced with All Things Good. Yuushi is just the finest sort of person (Gakuto blushes to use the word ‘lover’ and ‘boyfriend’ is way too juvenile) ever-and a romantic sap to the ends of his fingertips, which pleases Gakuto, although he’s never going to admit it to Yuushi. Gakuto famously hates fuss and feathers and syrupy sweetness, but it isn’t because it’s cavity-inducing that he hates it-he hates it because he’s embarrassed to have to whisper sweet and honeyed nothings to someone. Gakuto likes being direct and thinks that words dressed-up are just that and nothing more. Anybody with a good dictionary, an excellent Japanese translation of Shakespeare’s love sonnets or access to the Internet can come up with cloying phrases of love. But it’s different when Yuushi says it, even if it comes with a sappy bouquet of roses and lilies, because there’s something in those dark, clever eyes… something warm and special, for-Gakuto-only, that makes Gakuto’s heart stop and then start again, all a-flutter.
Tomorrow will be their second anniversary. Just for that, Gakuto is going to put aside his no-sap policy. But he is also going to do more than just that and the platinum ring that weighs heavy in the little velvet box can attest to it.
Gakuto slides out of bed with a light thump, and pads quietly out of his room, slippers shuffling against the cold wooden parquet flooring.
Outside, the living room is completely dark, except for the glow of the tiny lights from the heater, and Gakuto can just barely make out Oshitari’s lanky form curled up on the cream leather sofa.
“Yuushi?”
“I thought you were asleep.” Oshitari’s smile is surprised and sleepy, and he shifts slightly before patting the space next to him invitingly. “Hush… Shishido will kill us if we talk too loudly.”
Gakuto plops himself on to the sofa and snorts. “Let him try.” He represses a yawn and presses himself closer to Oshitari. “You’re awfully tired, Yuushi. Why aren’t you in bed?”
Oshitari gives a small shrug of his shoulders. “Just wanted to sit here for a little while. It’s… quiet.” He threads his fingers through Gakuto’s and gives Gakuto’s hand a squeeze.
It is quiet indeed. The entire place is still, wrapped in the midnight gloom of the night and dotted with tiny points of the street lights and starlight that filter through the curtains.
Then again, it’s probably about two in the morning by now. Gakuto’s eyes wander to the grandfather clock in the corner. It has an elegant casing made of cherry wood, fearfully and wonderfully carved. Shishido Ryou, who is one of their apartment-mates, brought it with him from home, because it had stopped telling time, and his mother was going to throw it out. There’s some sentimental value that Shishido attaches to it, and it’s related to Ohtori Choutarou somehow, although Gakuto isn’t quite sure just how.
Something shifts against Gakuto, and it tickles, taking his attention away from the clock.
Yuushi is fast asleep, his head tucked neatly in the warm nook between Gakuto’s shoulder and chin, while the rest of him sprawls out, half-on the sofa, half off it.
Gakuto moves very, very slowly, so as not to wake Yuushi. It takes him eight whole minutes to re-adjust their position so that Yuushi is now comfortably laid out, full length stretched out all along the sofa as if it is his bed, and his head is resting in Gakuto’s lap. Gakuto himself is ensconced quite snugly on the sofa, his back resting against the cream leather, and his feet propped up on the coffee table, and he’s absently running his fingers through Yuushi’s hair.
Tomorrow morning, when they wake up, Gakuto knows his legs will be dead asleep. But that’s okay, because Yuushi is worth it. Gakuto smiles to himself as he closes his eyes and prepares to sleep.
Tomorrow will come soon.