FIC: Quicken to Silver, Ohtori/Shishido, NC17 (25/41)
Title: Quicken to Silver (25/41)
Author: Ociwen
Rating: NC17
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all.
Summary: In which time passes and people change and drift, but there is always tennis. Ohtori/Shishido
With his only hope failed, Ohtori steels himself for the worst and on Friday, after eating ramen with Shishido- the guilt having made Ohtori offer to pay, too- he walks to the pharmacy. His wallet weighs heavy in his pocket. His face is on fire before he even so much as steps inside.
He ignores the salesgirl who smiles at him as he enters and walks straight to the last aisle, ducking his head and trying to maintain a low profile, which is hard when he is easily the tallest person in the store, and taller than the shelving.
No one is around. Ohtori sucks in a breath and steps down that last frontier.
A shelf full of boxes of condoms. His eyes go wide at them. “So many,” he mouths to himself.
Grab and go. Grab and go.
Ohtori reaches out for a black box, right in the middle of the display. It will do. Regular, lubricated, whatever sounds good, he just wants to get out of here before someone sees him.
Grab and-
“Ohtori.”
He would recognize that throaty chuckle anywhere. Ohtori holds onto the small box with a clammy hand and starts to turn around. His heart pounds in his chest, his throat burns with acid, his insides twist and plummet to the floor.
Atobe stands in front of him with a wide smirk on his face and his hands on his hips. He raises an eyebrow and nods to the box. “Don’t you think you’re overestimating Shishido with those?” Atobe snaps his fingers and Kabaji looms over his shoulder. Ohtori feels his insides wither. He wants to crawl deeper inside his skin and never emerge. It’s bad that Atobe has found him here, and even worse that Kabaji is with him.
Atobe frowns and flips his hair back, his eyes wandering lazily over the row of boxes. He picks up a box, then tosses it at Ohtori. It falls to the floor of the pharmacy. Kabaji leans over and picks it up.
“I think those will be a little more fitting for Shishido,” Atobe says. “Na, Kabaji?”
Kabaji nods. “Usu.”
“O-okay,” Ohtori says. He feels tongue-tied and light-headed and his face burns because Atobe-senpai just stands there with a smirk and he knows what Ohtori is doing and he’s corrected Ohtori and he knows without looking down that Atobe has picked out something small. Ohtori doesn’t think Shishido-san tiny or anything that Atobe might claim. He’s felt Shishido, he’s average, maybe, probably. Just right for whatever stuff they might do together.
But Ohtori mostly just wants to escape.
“Aa, thank you for your help, Atobe-san,” Ohtori says in a rush. He tries to tiptoe past Kabaji, but Kabaji sticks his arm out and traps him before he can break into a run.
“Ore-sama tries to take care of his teammates,” Atobe drawls. “It’s my prerogative, along with winning.”
Kabaji nods again. He steps aside to let Ohtori past them. Ohtori starts to walk towards the cashier and stare at his feet and pretend that this isn’t his first time buying these. Hopefully she won’t think too much of the too-tall teenage boy, red-faced and fumbling with his wallet.
Outside, Atobe and Kabaji follow Ohtori for a few blocks. Ohtori stops at a crosswalk to wait for the light. He notices the little brown bag Kabaji carries, along with Atobe-senpai’s tennis bag.
“Atobe-senpai,” he asks, “what were you doing there?”
Atobe blinks, then a pink blush stains his face. He looks down for a moment and chuckles. A stream of traffic zooms by, all honking horns and the rush of speed, and he mumbles something that Ohtori can’t hear. Atobe waves his hand. “I’ll see you at practice tomorrow,” he says.
Ohtori can’t help but wonder about the brown bag, and why it was so similarly shaped to the one he holds in his own hand.
***
They have practice Saturday afternoon, but the rainy season is in full swing and the courts have become one giant puddle, several inches deep. Swing practice is taken into the school gyms and laps are run around the perimeter, but the weather is so hot and muggy than even when Atobe insists the air conditioner blast the air into freezer-like conditions, no one wants to stay very long.
“Fine!” Atobe shouts at a group of freshmen, including Hiyoshi. “Go home! See if I care!” He stomps off toward the direction of the regulars’ changing rooms. Ohtori can hear the clang of metal weights as he changes in the club house. Atobe must be doing twenty reps, or thirty, or maybe more, because the sound is a constant clatter.
“What crawled up his ass today?” Shishido mutters. “Atobe’s pissy today.”
“Yeah, who died and made him buchou?” Mukahi echoes. “Not as though he’s not going to the Senbatsu.”
Oshitari-senpai hums in vague agreement with Mukahi.
“At least someone’s happy to be going,” Shishido says, nodding behind himself. Ohtori notices that Jiroh-senpai is oddly upbeat, smiling to himself as he packs his tennis racket on the bench near Shishido-san and then bounces off to the bus stop.
He and Shishido-san walk to the bus stop slowly. The dampness makes Ohtori’s shirt cling to his back, that sticky feeling of residue all over his skin. Shishido-san holds his umbrella over the two of them. He strains to hold it high and Ohtori hunches low to keep under it.
“I put in a request with the coach so we can share a room,” Shishido-san says. “Because I thought, I guess, it might be nice and all…with you, and not Atobe and-”
“H-hai, Shishido-san,” Ohtori says. He grins madly, unable to stop himself. Shishido snorts and shakes his head, but he smiles, too. He doesn’t move away when Ohtori brushes his knuckles over the back of Shishido’s hand which holds the umbrella. Shishido only flushes and coughs.
“So maybe we can…do stuff,” Shishido says. He stares out at the road, his eyes reflecting the oily puddles, shimmering with emeralds and fuschias, the rims moving constantly, shaking from the traffic that zooms through them. “I’ll see you Monday, Choutarou.” Shishido folds his umbrella down and steps onto his bus. Ohtori waves as it pulls away from the curb. His wave isn’t returned. Shishido is lost in a crowd of people, all standing on the bus.
Ohtori pulls an old physics notebook from the bottom of his tennisbag and holds it over his head as he walks home. The rain dribbles down the sides, splashing all over his back and his hair and his face. He’s more wet than dry when he reaches his home and slips off his muddy running shoes.
“Did you have a good practice?” his mother asks when she hands him a plate of cucumbers to snack on. Ohtori nods. She raises an eyebrow and only then does he realize he’s still grinning, that foolish, ridiculous warmth inside unable to dissipate.
He wants to do more than just stuff with Shishido-san. He has no intentions of returning from the Senbatsu a blushing virgin. They’ve touched each other, just a little, and Ohtori knows that he wants more than that. He wants it all. He wants to peel the Senbatsu uniform off Shishido and to see him spread out naked and panting on those narrow bed. He wants Shishido to wrap his legs around his hips, and he wants to kiss Shishido-san all over, to see his body, every bit. He wants to not have to be sneaky and hide from Shishido-san’s brother, or fumble around in the dark of a spare room in Atobe’s mansion.
He spends the evening locked in the bathroom, a last-minute refresher of his sister’s magazines, all the techniques he knows he’ll forget in the moment, all the pointers he won’t remember. Shishido-san is not a girl, and Ohtori doesn’t think the positions will work because they don’t fit together that. He doesn’t know how they really fit together. And maybe Shishido-san won’t want to be the girl. Ohtori doesn’t think it matters. He’s taller, yes, but he’s the kouhai. He respects Shishido-san. Whatever Shishido-san wants, he wants too.
The rain stops by morning. The bus is due to come tomorrow at eight o’clock. The information sheet the coach passed around says he is to be at the tennis clubhouse by seven thirty. He has hours left, hours! Ohtori’s entire body buzzes with anticipation. He hums songs to himself all afternoon as he packs. Beethoven’s Ode to Joy and Verdi, too. He wants to open his window and scream out at the birds how much he can’t wait. Instead, he sits inside by the cool air of his rattling fan and rolls up his t-shirts and his shorts and his socks and underpants. He arranges everything in his suitcase, neat and tidy and inconspicuous. The condoms are hidden between layers of underpants and the little bottle of lube is stashed inside a sock. For measure, Ohtori takes one of his sister’s magazines and stuffs it at the very, very bottom. He needs to be prepared.
His tennis racket lies on top, along with two canisters of tennis balls. Maybe Shishido will want to practice tennis during their freetime. Maybe Shishido won’t want to lounge around in bed all night.
Ohtori can hardly sit still during dinner. Countdown, less than twelve hours. He pushes the food around his plate with his chopsticks. He bounces his knee under the table. The cat pokes his thigh, demanding a piece of grilled beef. He wiggles and fidgets and can’t eat.
“Excited for tomorrow?” his grandmother asks.
Ohtori nods. “Yes, Obaa-san!”
“I remember being young once,” she says, smiling fondly at him. She pats his head when she stands up and starts to walk with her cane towards the back doorway. When Ohtori is the last at the table, he gives up trying to eat and instead dumps the beef on the floor for the cat and slides vegetables off his plate into the garbage. He ought to feel worse than he does for wasting good food, but he can’t wait! Besides, everything he has read- what little he has in the months since he crashed his computer- all talk about being clean. If he eats a lot, then…
Ohtori cringes at the thought. “Yuck,” he mutters.
His cellphone buzzes as he’s brushing his teeth for bed. It’s early, just ten, but his mother told him he needs to go to bed early tonight, not later. “Your father can give you a ride to the school, if you want, Choutarou,” she tells him.
Toothpaste foam sluices down his chin as he flips his cell and presses ok. He sputters hello and Shishido starts to talk. “What are you doing, Choutarou?” he asks.
Ohtori swallows the toothpaste. “Ah, getting ready for bed. Brushing my teeth.”
“Okay,” Shishido-san says. “Saa, Choutarou?”
“Yes?”
“I just wanted to say…I’ll see you tomorrow,” Shishido-san says.
Ohtori bites his lip not to laugh. For all Shishido-san wants to be cool, when he calls to say that, it makes Ohtori question him. Just a little. He lowers his head and leans against his shoulder, speaking softly as he says, “I’ll bring the balls, Shishido-san.”
Maybe Shishido won’t know he’s being both serious and not, but it doesn’t matter because tomorrow Ohtori has a feeling, a gut-twisting, slightly nauseously nervous feeling, that things will change. And he’s excited.
Author: Ociwen
Rating: NC17
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all.
Summary: In which time passes and people change and drift, but there is always tennis. Ohtori/Shishido
With his only hope failed, Ohtori steels himself for the worst and on Friday, after eating ramen with Shishido- the guilt having made Ohtori offer to pay, too- he walks to the pharmacy. His wallet weighs heavy in his pocket. His face is on fire before he even so much as steps inside.
He ignores the salesgirl who smiles at him as he enters and walks straight to the last aisle, ducking his head and trying to maintain a low profile, which is hard when he is easily the tallest person in the store, and taller than the shelving.
No one is around. Ohtori sucks in a breath and steps down that last frontier.
A shelf full of boxes of condoms. His eyes go wide at them. “So many,” he mouths to himself.
Grab and go. Grab and go.
Ohtori reaches out for a black box, right in the middle of the display. It will do. Regular, lubricated, whatever sounds good, he just wants to get out of here before someone sees him.
Grab and-
“Ohtori.”
He would recognize that throaty chuckle anywhere. Ohtori holds onto the small box with a clammy hand and starts to turn around. His heart pounds in his chest, his throat burns with acid, his insides twist and plummet to the floor.
Atobe stands in front of him with a wide smirk on his face and his hands on his hips. He raises an eyebrow and nods to the box. “Don’t you think you’re overestimating Shishido with those?” Atobe snaps his fingers and Kabaji looms over his shoulder. Ohtori feels his insides wither. He wants to crawl deeper inside his skin and never emerge. It’s bad that Atobe has found him here, and even worse that Kabaji is with him.
Atobe frowns and flips his hair back, his eyes wandering lazily over the row of boxes. He picks up a box, then tosses it at Ohtori. It falls to the floor of the pharmacy. Kabaji leans over and picks it up.
“I think those will be a little more fitting for Shishido,” Atobe says. “Na, Kabaji?”
Kabaji nods. “Usu.”
“O-okay,” Ohtori says. He feels tongue-tied and light-headed and his face burns because Atobe-senpai just stands there with a smirk and he knows what Ohtori is doing and he’s corrected Ohtori and he knows without looking down that Atobe has picked out something small. Ohtori doesn’t think Shishido-san tiny or anything that Atobe might claim. He’s felt Shishido, he’s average, maybe, probably. Just right for whatever stuff they might do together.
But Ohtori mostly just wants to escape.
“Aa, thank you for your help, Atobe-san,” Ohtori says in a rush. He tries to tiptoe past Kabaji, but Kabaji sticks his arm out and traps him before he can break into a run.
“Ore-sama tries to take care of his teammates,” Atobe drawls. “It’s my prerogative, along with winning.”
Kabaji nods again. He steps aside to let Ohtori past them. Ohtori starts to walk towards the cashier and stare at his feet and pretend that this isn’t his first time buying these. Hopefully she won’t think too much of the too-tall teenage boy, red-faced and fumbling with his wallet.
Outside, Atobe and Kabaji follow Ohtori for a few blocks. Ohtori stops at a crosswalk to wait for the light. He notices the little brown bag Kabaji carries, along with Atobe-senpai’s tennis bag.
“Atobe-senpai,” he asks, “what were you doing there?”
Atobe blinks, then a pink blush stains his face. He looks down for a moment and chuckles. A stream of traffic zooms by, all honking horns and the rush of speed, and he mumbles something that Ohtori can’t hear. Atobe waves his hand. “I’ll see you at practice tomorrow,” he says.
Ohtori can’t help but wonder about the brown bag, and why it was so similarly shaped to the one he holds in his own hand.
***
They have practice Saturday afternoon, but the rainy season is in full swing and the courts have become one giant puddle, several inches deep. Swing practice is taken into the school gyms and laps are run around the perimeter, but the weather is so hot and muggy than even when Atobe insists the air conditioner blast the air into freezer-like conditions, no one wants to stay very long.
“Fine!” Atobe shouts at a group of freshmen, including Hiyoshi. “Go home! See if I care!” He stomps off toward the direction of the regulars’ changing rooms. Ohtori can hear the clang of metal weights as he changes in the club house. Atobe must be doing twenty reps, or thirty, or maybe more, because the sound is a constant clatter.
“What crawled up his ass today?” Shishido mutters. “Atobe’s pissy today.”
“Yeah, who died and made him buchou?” Mukahi echoes. “Not as though he’s not going to the Senbatsu.”
Oshitari-senpai hums in vague agreement with Mukahi.
“At least someone’s happy to be going,” Shishido says, nodding behind himself. Ohtori notices that Jiroh-senpai is oddly upbeat, smiling to himself as he packs his tennis racket on the bench near Shishido-san and then bounces off to the bus stop.
He and Shishido-san walk to the bus stop slowly. The dampness makes Ohtori’s shirt cling to his back, that sticky feeling of residue all over his skin. Shishido-san holds his umbrella over the two of them. He strains to hold it high and Ohtori hunches low to keep under it.
“I put in a request with the coach so we can share a room,” Shishido-san says. “Because I thought, I guess, it might be nice and all…with you, and not Atobe and-”
“H-hai, Shishido-san,” Ohtori says. He grins madly, unable to stop himself. Shishido snorts and shakes his head, but he smiles, too. He doesn’t move away when Ohtori brushes his knuckles over the back of Shishido’s hand which holds the umbrella. Shishido only flushes and coughs.
“So maybe we can…do stuff,” Shishido says. He stares out at the road, his eyes reflecting the oily puddles, shimmering with emeralds and fuschias, the rims moving constantly, shaking from the traffic that zooms through them. “I’ll see you Monday, Choutarou.” Shishido folds his umbrella down and steps onto his bus. Ohtori waves as it pulls away from the curb. His wave isn’t returned. Shishido is lost in a crowd of people, all standing on the bus.
Ohtori pulls an old physics notebook from the bottom of his tennisbag and holds it over his head as he walks home. The rain dribbles down the sides, splashing all over his back and his hair and his face. He’s more wet than dry when he reaches his home and slips off his muddy running shoes.
“Did you have a good practice?” his mother asks when she hands him a plate of cucumbers to snack on. Ohtori nods. She raises an eyebrow and only then does he realize he’s still grinning, that foolish, ridiculous warmth inside unable to dissipate.
He wants to do more than just stuff with Shishido-san. He has no intentions of returning from the Senbatsu a blushing virgin. They’ve touched each other, just a little, and Ohtori knows that he wants more than that. He wants it all. He wants to peel the Senbatsu uniform off Shishido and to see him spread out naked and panting on those narrow bed. He wants Shishido to wrap his legs around his hips, and he wants to kiss Shishido-san all over, to see his body, every bit. He wants to not have to be sneaky and hide from Shishido-san’s brother, or fumble around in the dark of a spare room in Atobe’s mansion.
He spends the evening locked in the bathroom, a last-minute refresher of his sister’s magazines, all the techniques he knows he’ll forget in the moment, all the pointers he won’t remember. Shishido-san is not a girl, and Ohtori doesn’t think the positions will work because they don’t fit together that. He doesn’t know how they really fit together. And maybe Shishido-san won’t want to be the girl. Ohtori doesn’t think it matters. He’s taller, yes, but he’s the kouhai. He respects Shishido-san. Whatever Shishido-san wants, he wants too.
The rain stops by morning. The bus is due to come tomorrow at eight o’clock. The information sheet the coach passed around says he is to be at the tennis clubhouse by seven thirty. He has hours left, hours! Ohtori’s entire body buzzes with anticipation. He hums songs to himself all afternoon as he packs. Beethoven’s Ode to Joy and Verdi, too. He wants to open his window and scream out at the birds how much he can’t wait. Instead, he sits inside by the cool air of his rattling fan and rolls up his t-shirts and his shorts and his socks and underpants. He arranges everything in his suitcase, neat and tidy and inconspicuous. The condoms are hidden between layers of underpants and the little bottle of lube is stashed inside a sock. For measure, Ohtori takes one of his sister’s magazines and stuffs it at the very, very bottom. He needs to be prepared.
His tennis racket lies on top, along with two canisters of tennis balls. Maybe Shishido will want to practice tennis during their freetime. Maybe Shishido won’t want to lounge around in bed all night.
Ohtori can hardly sit still during dinner. Countdown, less than twelve hours. He pushes the food around his plate with his chopsticks. He bounces his knee under the table. The cat pokes his thigh, demanding a piece of grilled beef. He wiggles and fidgets and can’t eat.
“Excited for tomorrow?” his grandmother asks.
Ohtori nods. “Yes, Obaa-san!”
“I remember being young once,” she says, smiling fondly at him. She pats his head when she stands up and starts to walk with her cane towards the back doorway. When Ohtori is the last at the table, he gives up trying to eat and instead dumps the beef on the floor for the cat and slides vegetables off his plate into the garbage. He ought to feel worse than he does for wasting good food, but he can’t wait! Besides, everything he has read- what little he has in the months since he crashed his computer- all talk about being clean. If he eats a lot, then…
Ohtori cringes at the thought. “Yuck,” he mutters.
His cellphone buzzes as he’s brushing his teeth for bed. It’s early, just ten, but his mother told him he needs to go to bed early tonight, not later. “Your father can give you a ride to the school, if you want, Choutarou,” she tells him.
Toothpaste foam sluices down his chin as he flips his cell and presses ok. He sputters hello and Shishido starts to talk. “What are you doing, Choutarou?” he asks.
Ohtori swallows the toothpaste. “Ah, getting ready for bed. Brushing my teeth.”
“Okay,” Shishido-san says. “Saa, Choutarou?”
“Yes?”
“I just wanted to say…I’ll see you tomorrow,” Shishido-san says.
Ohtori bites his lip not to laugh. For all Shishido-san wants to be cool, when he calls to say that, it makes Ohtori question him. Just a little. He lowers his head and leans against his shoulder, speaking softly as he says, “I’ll bring the balls, Shishido-san.”
Maybe Shishido won’t know he’s being both serious and not, but it doesn’t matter because tomorrow Ohtori has a feeling, a gut-twisting, slightly nauseously nervous feeling, that things will change. And he’s excited.