FIC: Quicken to Silver, Ohtori/Shishido, NC17 (38/41)
Title: Quicken to Silver (38/41)
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
They ran back inside after Atobe finished. No one, not even Davide, not even Shishido had anything to say when Atobe won his game and Marui was left on his knees, panting and exhausted and gasping to Kirihara to get him some new gum because he was going to die without any sugar in his system.
Jiroh disappears, too.
The lightning is closer than ever and the peels that crack through the sky dance across the black clouds. Ohtori heaves his tennisbag over his shoulder and follows Shishido through the complex’s hallways. Muddy footprints track through the linoleum floors and rain mists in through the open windows. It’s cool inside, the air conditioning almost freezing against Ohtori’s damp, bare skin. He shivers.
Bags are dumped inside their room and then Shishido closes the door. There’s no one on the courts outside, not even Tezuka, who must have come in with everyone else. The scouts left too, gone off to consult with the coaches to make a list of the Invitational Players in some pow-wow before the names are revealed tonight.
They have almost two hours until supper.
With the window closed in their room, the smell of sweat is stifling. The A/C helps, but it mostly swirls air around the room in cool whirlwinds. Ohtori can hear the rain and the thunder outside. Half-closed curtains don’t hide the flashes of lightning that grow brighter and brighter.
“Is it a typhoon?” Ohtori asks, peering out the window to see the tennis courts, so hot and bright before, now reduced to wet lakes of running water.
Shishido grunts. His hat flies across the room and lands on his bed. With a loud grunt, he flops down on top of it.
Ohtori’s dick hears the sound first, stiffening in his damp shorts, and then his ears follow. He closes the curtains, leaving the room in a semi-dark state and walks over to Shishido, biting his bottom lip as his damp feet squeak on the floor. Ohtori knows they are alone. They have two hours. And Shishido-san is lying there, with his hand on his belly, touching the bare skin exposed where his jersey has ridden up.
He remembers the taste of Shishido on his tongue- as if he could ever forget it, the faint salt of sweat, the scent of Shishido’s soap and herbal shampoo, the smoothness of his stomach and the line of his hips leading down to his cock. Ohtori is hard, swelling, and his own belly is numb with desire and anticipation of touching, of kissing, of being with Shishido-san again.
Until his knee seizes up and refuses to move. Ohtori lurches forward. He hits Shishido with a muffled noise, hard and heavy. Shishido makes a noise, too, something that sounds like a cross between “GerffChtro!” and a groan of pain. Ohtori pushes himself up onto his elbows, apologizing profusely.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, Shishido-san, I-”
Ohtori’s knees are still locked and his calves throb with a dull ache from today’s tennis. But that isn’t what makes him stop all of a sudden, no, it’s feeling the hardness pressed up against his belly that catches his words.
Shishido’s as hard as he is.
Ohtori stares down at Shishido, who looks up at him, his eyes dark and shining before his lips press to Ohtori’s. “Didn’t know you wanted me that bad,” Shishido murmurs. His hands comb through the back of Ohtori’s hair, sending shivers all the way down his spine as Shishido shifts slightly. Ohtori pushes himself further onto the bed and rubs their hips together, gasping when their cocks brush through their shorts. It always feels amazing, and just a bit surreal, to be this close to Shishido-san. Ohtori wants the feeling fluttering around in his chest to never, ever end.
He kisses Shishido back hard, loving the sounds Shishido makes when their tongues tangle. His hands run up the inside of Shishido’s jersey, no longer hesitant the way he might have been earlier. Shishido pushes back against him, mouth open and tongue hot, wet, curling over Ohtori’s as he moans through their lips.
Shishido untangles his hands from Ohtori’s hair. He unhooks his leg from around Ohtori’s waist. He pulls back from their kiss, licking his bottom lip. His eyes are still wide and focused on Ohtori, who can see lust burning in them. Or, what he hopes is lust. Ohtori scrunches up his forehead.
“Shishido-san?”
Shishido pushes Ohtori off him, but not without his palms lingering on Ohtori’s chest. Their cocks brush against each other’s through their dirty shorts, far too long and shiver-inducing to mean anything else. “I stink,” he says.
Ohtori looks at him. Shishido clears his throat and fixes his cap. He’s blushing, Ohtori can feel it.
“I don’t mind,” Ohtori insists. He grabs Shishido’s hand, bringing it to his lips, pressing kisses to the fingertips. But he can feel the grimy clay on Shishido’s hands and he can smell the rubbery grip tape scent from all their tennis. Still, he smiles at Shishido. Keeping his eyes on Shishido’s, Ohtori runs his tongue down the length of his fingers, into the dip where he flicks his tongue, over and over and then over again when Shishido’s eyes flutter shut and his breathing grows heavier. He moans.
“No, I really- Choutarou, god…I really need a shower,” Shishido says. He takes his hand away. The bed creaks as he stands up and stretches his arms over his head. It must be on purpose, because Ohtori can see his pale stomach when the jersey rides up and it only makes him want to tackle Shishido more.
Shishido yanks his shirt down. “I know what you’re thinking,” he says, turning his back to grab one of the towels hanging up on the rack. Glancing over his shoulder, the look Shishido gives him makes Ohtori’s knees completely give out. The cock of his eyebrow, the quirk of his lips, the lust-glazed eyes staring straight into Ohtori’s insides…
“I’ll be back,” Shishido says. He closes the door behind himself.
It’s horribly uncool and lame, but Ohtori grabs the second towel hanging up and fishes around his bag for a bar of soap. If Shishido wants to be clean for him, then Ohtori should do the same. Not that he minded dirty, sweaty, sexy Shishido at all…
Ohtori can feel his face soften and his mouth smile as visions of Shishido dance through his mind, naked and moaning and sweating and panting his name. Clenched around Ohtori so tight and so hot that when Ohtori opens his eyes, he notices his hand cupping his cock through his shorts.
It’s no wonder he’s not going to make the Invitational team, not when Shishido-san is all he thinks about.
***
Ohtori can’t find Shishido in the showers, which is no surprise because the shower locker room is packed with boys in various stages of undress. Sengoku and another player from Yamabuki flick towels at each other’s naked butts as Ohtori walks through the doorway. Akazawa, shirtless, talks to a completely dressed Mizuki, although Mizuki has a towel wrapped around his hair and a mask peeling off of his face.
Mizuki reminds Ohtori a bit of his older sister primping herself up in the bathroom before dates, but Ohtori says nothing, just nods politely to some of the players and finds a spare locker to shove his clothes into. The shower stalls are just as filled and with the closed curtains, Ohtori can’t tell which Shishido is in anyway. He sniffs the air, hoping to smell Shishido’s distinctive shampoo, but there’s nothing, just a lot of muddy footprints on the tile floor and the overriding smell of standard, cheap soap.
He ducks into the first free stall he finds at the end of the row. The cool water is refreshing; Ohtori can feel the muscles in his legs loosen the longer he stands under the spray. Grimy water swirls around at his feet, washing the tennis court from his body and revealing new bruises and marks and fingerprints.
His face feels hot, because he knows the marks on his belly and hips and thighs could only come from one place. Memories of the last two nights flood back, overwhelming his senses with Shishido’s ghost- the kiss of his lips on Ohtori’s hips, the drag of his blunt fingernails over Ohtori’s stomach, the bite of his teeth on Ohtori’s nipple…
Ohtori groans. Hands cupped around his dick, he bites his tongue to keep from groaning as he tugs and twists and jerks himself to completion until come joins the swirls of dirt in the drain by his feet.
He could have waited for Shishido-san back in the room, he knows, but at the same time, Ohtori doesn’t want to walk back out into the changing room with an erection. It was embarrassing the few times it happened in junior high, when he would watch Shishido-san from afar and wish that maybe one day he could run his hands through Shishido’s dark hair, that he could one day kiss the cocky smiles from Shishido’s lips too.
Ohtori takes his time with his soap. He takes his time with his hair, too; in the rush to catch Shishido-san in the showers, he forgot his shampoo. Not that it matters much, so he suds his hair up with the same soap and rinses it out until his hair squeaks and the water runs clear over his legs.
In the changing rooms, Ohtori doesn’t see Shishido either. He stayed in the shower so long himself that his toes and fingers are wrinkled. Most players have cleared out by now to go off and relax in the common rooms or their own dorm rooms. The clock on the wall reads 4:45. Ohtori sighs. There’s still enough time to mess around with-
“Ohtori!”
Ohtori sets his basket back into the locker cubby. Atobe stands on his side, looking down his nose (as best he can, considering Ohtori has almost 10cm on him) at Ohtori.
Seeing Atobe’s hard look makes Ohtori wince. Maybe things went bad after his match and Atobe wants him off the tennis club for real and…Ohtori’s insides twist and he feels ill, as bile starts to churn in his stomach and burn his throat. “Y-yes?” he manages.
Atobe snorts. Then, his mouth curls into a self-satisfied smirk, which only makes Ohtori even more worried, worried enough to drop his towel. Now, he’s naked and terrified in front of Atobe. His knees start to buck and he’s this close to falling down onto the floor and begging Atobe to let him stay in the tennis club when Atobe waves his hand.
“You play the piano, don’t you?”
Ohtori’s jaw drops to the floor to meet his towel. Atobe raises an eyebrow, waiting for an answer with a tap of his sandal.
“Um…yes,” Ohtori says. “I mean, yes, I can. I play in school and…” Ohtori rambles on, unsure of what Atobe wants until Atobe fingers his charm point and smirks.
“Come with me.”
Ohtori starts to follows Atobe. Atobe stops at the door, his hand on the doorknob. He looks up at Ohtori, then down his body. Ohtori does the same and, with a blush, realizes that he’s trying to follow Atobe naked. His face burns. He mumbles an apology and pads back to put his clothes on as fast as he can, just in case Atobe decides to do or threaten something.
As they walk down the hallway, Ohtori sends a forlorn look in the direction of his dorm room. As much as he wants to be there right this second with Shishido-san, he owes Atobe for everything that’s happened at the Senbatsu. The future of his tennis career with Shishido-san at Hyoutei depends on it.
Ohtori shuffles along to keep the same pace as Atobe, who strides through the corridors, sending pointed glares to a few of the freshmen participants who whisper a little too loud that he was the one who lost to Hiyoshi… They pass the cafeteria where groups mill around, waiting for food- in the far corner, Ohtori can see Oishi and Momoshiro waving their arms around and laughing. Atobe keeps walking, past the weights room too, and several conference rooms. Ohtori can hear voices inside, here laughing, there the booming bass of dance music and then the next room down, something that sounds like…
Drums?!?
Ohtori shakes his head. It might have been thunder instead. For a long moment, he thinks that he should say something instead of lumbering along like Kabaji. He should…make sure Atobe is okay, maybe. It would set his mind at ease.
He takes a deep breath, then says, “Um…Atobe-senpai?”
Atobe doesn’t turn around. “Hn?”
“Um…how is, um…Jiroh-senpai…” Ohtori searches for the words. He doesn’t know what he’s saying, but he wants to check and Atobe stops walking in front of the very last doorway in the hall, the one right across from the stairwell to the second floor.
Atobe ignores him. Hand on the door handle, he starts to push it down as he looks forward through the frosted glass window. Then, in a low voice, he hisses, “Tell Shishido to mind his own business.”
“It wasn’t Shishid-”
“Haven’t you done enough?” Atobe asks.
Ohtori’s heart sinks. He’s doomed. The breath he’s been holding forces it’s way out and he starts to shuffle away, back down the hallway because he might as well tell Shishido-san it’s his fault the both of them will be kicked off the team next week when they get back to Hyoutei and he’s sorry for being so lame and uncool and trying to help, but messing everything up even more.
“Ohtori!” Atobe snaps.
Ohtori turns around, slowly, slowly, because it’s painful to look at Atobe and know that Atobe hates him.
Only…
Atobe isn’t scowling. He isn’t smiling either, but he’s not scowling. “Look,” Atobe says, removing his hand from the door and instead placing it on his hip. “You’ve done enough-”
Ohtori cringes.
“-and whatever else has to be left up to…” Atobe pauses to think, glancing up the stairwell for a moment before he looks straight at Ohtori with a smirk and a glimmer to his eye. “- it will be left up to ore-sama’s natural charm.”
Ohtori exhales. He closes his eyes and breathes again.
Atobe flings the door open with a flourish and announces his presence to the boys inside. “I have brought my piano player,” he says.
Ohtori looks around. What? he thinks. “Senpai?” he asks. He takes a step closer to the room and peers inside the doorway.
Kamio and Shinji are sitting on a couch, both examining a guitar as Shinji mutters something about “liking music too” to Kamio, who looks awfully red ad pinched in the face, as if he’s about to start an argument. Sanada stands awkwardly beside a stack of chairs pushed against the wall, holding a piece of sheet music and looking at it as if he can’t read a single note. There’s Higa’s Kite, too, sitting in a leather deskchair, strumming a sanshin and singing to himself under his breath. Kikumaru looks up from his own set of music and waves to Ohtori.
“You play the piano?” he asks. “Yahoo! We’ve almost got a band together now!” He flings himself at Ohtori with a tackleglomp and a big grin.
Atobe closes the door.
“We- I- still need to find someone to play bass. My show will be the best tonight, of course,” he tells them. Only Sanada bothers to look up at Atobe, and when he does, it’s only to stare and frown.
“You mean our performance,” Sanada grumbles.
Atobe sniffs. “It will be my presence that makes or breaks it, Sanada.”
Sanada snorts.
Atobe’s eye twitches.
Sanada glares from under his cap, his expression stony and unimpressed before he finally says, “Were you aware, Atobe, that there is a bass player here?”
“I could call Kabaji,” Atobe murmurs to himself. He strokes his chin, then he pulls out his palm pilot from his pocket. Charms dangle from it- and once Ohtori peels Kikumaru’s arms off himself, he can see that all the charms are pictures of Atobe, in different poses from school events over the past year.
Sanada coughs.
Atobe starts to type in a number to his phone.
Sanada finally grabs the phone right out of Atobe’s hands and glares. “We have a bass player here, Atobe.”
“Oh do you?” Atobe snaps. “I didn’t know you had any rhythm, Sanada.”
Sanada grinds his teeth. Ohtori still has no idea what exactly is going on, but judging from the music Kikumaru waves in front of him, and the keyboard against the wall with the empty chair in front of it, he can connect the dots.
“Marui happened to bring his bass,” Sanada says. When Atobe’s smirk falls, replaced by a flashing grimace, Sanada starts to smile darkly, as if he has an inkling about some of what went on earlier on the courts.
“Fine,” Atobe says. “Go get him and tell him to get his ass here so we can practice for the talent show.”
Ohtori smacks his hand to his forehead. He should have known there’d be another talent show. All the Senbatsus he’s been to have had them. Only before, he managed to avoid participating and instead happily watched from the audience.
Once Sanada has stomped off to find Marui, Atobe says, “Get practicing.” Ohtori sits down on the chair with a heavy sigh. Slowly, deliberately, Atobe walks by and whispers “And maybe ore-sama will be willing to let certain matters slide…”
Ohtori looks at the sheet music and nods to Kikumaru to start beatboxing along with him.
***
“Where were you?”
Ohtori feels bad, he does when he sees Shishido scowling at him in the cafeteria. His fingers ache- it’s been a long while since he’s practiced that much piano and Atobe drilled them again and again in that conference room, demanding perfection for the talent show. Marui showed up- for whatever reason, whether Sanada bribed him or not- just to see Atobe squirm as he played with them.
“Er…it was the talent show,” Ohtori mumbles. “Atobe-senpai made me. I’m sorry, Shishido-san.”
Shishido huffs and glares at Atobe over his shoulder. Atobe, who has finally taken to sitting at his own table proper and is leaving their group alone to instead tell Tezuka all about his talent show entry, without, of course, saying too much at the same time.
“I will be the winner,” Atobe says loudly.
Tezuka stares over the rim of his glasses. Ohtori can hear his “Aa” across the cafeteria as he sits down.
“Unfortunately, Tezuka, my prowess extends to every dimension of the Senbatsu, talent show included. When I perform, you’ll be awed by my beautiful-”
“It was better when he was all pissy,” Shishido grumbles. “At least he was quieter then.”
Ohtori’s heart leaps in his chest. Shishido’s forgiven him, he must have, if he’s frowning like that and twisting around his cap, fiddling with something to keep himself from being way uncool and actually saying it. Ohtori grins to himself.
“Shishido-san,” he says, once they slide into seats at their table, “are you doing anything for the talent show?”
Shishido snorts. Kaidoh passes the soy sauce from Inui to Kenya. Davide says something to Tachibana about flied lice and Chinese takeaway places in Makuharihongo. It isn’t just any meal being served tonight, no, small grills have been passed around to each table and the cook wanders around the cafeteria, setting heavy clay pots filled with coals on each group’s table. The kitchen girls follow suit, carrying out trays and trays of meat strips.
Ohtori’s stomach growls. As the first strips of beef hit table five’s grill and fill the air with the scent of BBQing meat, he realizes just how hungry he is and how delicious the rice looks mixed with Korean vegetables and mushrooms and Shishido is brushing his right elbow and asking if that’s corn and onion slices that some of the girls have because Choutarou, they’re awesome on the grill too.
Ann brings their trays of meat and food over to grill. She sets them down and Tachibana says, “Thanks”. Ann salutes him and tells them all to enjoy and that there’s extra in the kitchen if they want anymore. She runs off to another table and sidles into the end seat that Momoshiro squashes over to make room for.
Atobe sits across from Ann, Ohtori can see. Jiroh is at the opposite end, sitting beside Hiyoshi. The one person Ohtori doesn’t see there is Marui. He looks again, thinking he must have somehow missed Marui’s pink hair in the plumes of fire and smoke flaring up from the grill at group two’s table, but no, he really isn’t around there.
Atobe wouldn’t have done something, would he…?
Atobe isn’t smiling, not exactly. Instead, he’s got his arms crossed over his chest as he tells Tezuka, “Tezuka, grill,” and curls his lip up. Tezuka sighs and puts another slice of meat on the grill, but whatever he’s doing, it must not be good enough for Atobe because he scoffs at the meat Tezuka tries to flip over with the metal tongs.
Ohtori turns away before he can hear Atobe tell his team all about his cooking prowess. Out of the corner of his eye, though, Jiroh reaches across the table, over several plates to hand Atobe a little dish with strips of beef on it.
“Here,” he says.
Ohtori bites his lip. For a moment he can’t breathe as Atobe hesitates to accept the plate, but when he does, his eyes seem to glitter for a split-second in the fluorescent lighting.
There’s hope. Just maybe. Because then Ohtori turns to look for Marui and he prays that Atobe didn’t knock Marui over the head with a baseball bat after their talent show practice and stash his body somewhere outside.
“You want some kalbi, Choutarou?” Shishido-san asks.
Ohtori nods vaguely. “Yeah, sure, thanks, Shishido-san,” he mumbles as his eyes scan the crowds of the cafeteria. In the corner by the tray conveyour, Shitenhoji’s Shiraishi and Hitouji and Gin have constructed what looks like a nagashi somen ramp with stacks of cafeteria trays and a couple garbage cans piled up on top of each other. No Marui with them.
It’s worrying. Ohtori racks his brain, trying to remember exactly how much time there was between the end of talent show practice and supper: maybe five, ten minutes. And Atobe was the last to leave the room, Ohtori knows, because he himself was one of the first. So if Atobe stayed late and Marui was putting away his bass then…
Ohtori’s stomach churns. Under the table, he clutches his sides and tries to push down the rising acid inside. Atobe wouldn’t have offed Marui, would he? He wouldn’t have gone that far…
“-good thing I brought Madeleine, then.”
He blinks. That loud, self-concerned and self-pleased voice sounded like Marui. Ohtori whips his head over in the direction of group one. They sit by the windows and Sengoku has three kitchen helpers crowded on his end of the table, one of the girls practically on his lap.
Sure enough, Marui is sitting beside his friend, helping himself to Jackal’s plate of grilled beef and talking with his mouth open.
“Madeleine?” Jackal asks.
“You know,” Marui says. He picks at his front teeth with a fingernail, then he grabs another beef strip and dunks it into a dish of sauce before he liberally sprinkles salt all over it.
Across the table, Oishi yells “NO THAT’S NOT HOW YOU EAT IT! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK THE BEEF’S OWN JUICES ARE FOR, YOU MORON?”
Ohtori winces. The last time a big group of them ate yakiniku, there were disastrous consequences. He sticks his leg to the side, just enough to feel Shishido’s warm ankle with his own and make sure Shishido isn’t passed out in parking lot again.
“My bass,” Marui tells Jackal. “Madeleine, my bass guitar. Apparently some group needed my musical genius for the talent show.”
“Are you aware,” Jackal asks, having joined Marui in ignoring Oishi entirely and not noticing Oishi’s fluttering hair fangs and scarlet face when he dips his beef in one type of sauce after another, “that there are such things as Madeleine cakes? Did you name your bass after food?”
Ohtori doesn’t hear Marui’s response, because Shishido pokes his arm with a pair of tongs. “Are you gonna eat them or not?” Shishido asks.
Ohtori looks down. Shishido reaches over to the grill to flip a couple pieces of beef over. A plate has been set in front of him with sizzling beef pieces, calling out to his growling stomach. Knowing that Marui isn’t a corpse buried under hydrangea bushes soothes Ohtori’s nerves. He smiles at Shishido, who stuffs a couple slices into his own mouth.
“Thanks,” he says.
“Didn’t know whether you wanted sauce or salt,” Shishido says. Sauce dribbles down the side of his mouth. Ohtori has the momentary thought of lick it off, it’d be hot, but he shakes his head. Not in public. That would be beyond uncool, even if Shishido does look kinda cute and hot with his pink tongue straining to lick all the dribbling sauce from his lips…
Kaidoh hisses across the grill. “Salt is better,” he grumbles.
Tachibana nods his head and passes the salt over to Kaidoh. Inui, beside Kaidoh, frowns slightly and discretely tries to slide one of the sauce dishes from Kirihara to himself.
“STOP WITH THE SALT!!” Oishi shouts, somewhere on the other side of the cafeteria, “STOP WITH THE SAUCE!!”
Ohtori waves his hand when Inui tries to fob the sauce off on him. He really doesn’t care if he has any or not. “It’s fine like this,” he says, to no one in particular.
Davide goes for the vegetables, making quick work of the onions and carrots, laying them down in concentric circles until Kirihara accidentally bumps into his hair reaching back for the sauce and sends the bamboo shoots and cabbage flying to the edge of the grill. “Oops,” he says, laughing to himself.
When Kirihara shoves a piece of chicken into the middle of the grill, flames shoot up. His eyes light up, the flames dancing in his pupils. Ohtori inches back.
“Give those to me, Akaya,” Kirihara’s senior senpai says. He snatches the tongs away before Kirihara can do anything more. Davide grabs them back for himself and holds a bamboo shoot in front of Kenya’s face.
“Take some the take?” he asks.
Kenya groans through his teeth. “God, do you never stop?”
Davide drops the bamboo shoot on Kenya’s plate with a bemused smirk.
“I’ll eat it, senpai,” Zaizen says. He goes to grab the bamboo with his chopsticks, but Kenya gets to it first and gobbles it up with a shrug.
“I like vegetables,” Kenya says, spitting food out onto the table as he speaks.
Zaizen sighs. He grabs one of the cabbage leaves instead. Ohtori chews on his own pieces of beef, cooked pretty well by Shishido, if a little charred on the one end of the one piece. He savours the sweet-spicy marinade and the tenderness of the meat, rolling off his tongue and down his throat. It’s been a while since he’s had yakiniku and at this rate, he feels as though he could eat it for hours, especially since Shishido-san is the one dropping fresh-grilled pieces down on his plate.
“Pork?” Shishido asks.
Ohtori swallows the beef and nods his head. “Yes, please.” This time, he uses the salt with the meat since Kaidoh seems to be glaring every time the sauce dishes are passed around. He hisses and sprinkles, but when Ohtori smiles at him politely and asks, Kaidoh’s features soften.
“At least you have taste,” he says under his breath.
“Nice pun!” Davide says. He holds his hand up for a high-five, but Kaidoh glares instead and goes back to grilling another piece of meat for himself.
All of a sudden, though, Zaizen falls face-first into a sauce dish. The cabbage he’d been holding, dripping spicy sauce all over his face, clatters to the ground along with his chopsticks.
Ohtori gasps. Shishido drops the beef strip he was holding. Kenya’s mouth hangs open.
But Zaizen stays unconscious.
“What the hell’s with him?” Kirihara asks. He stabs Zaizen in the cheek with his chopsticks.
Zaizen remains unconscious.
Ohtori looks around. Zaizen’s sauce dish seems different from Shishido-san’s: it isn’t as dark and there is an odd reddish pearlescence on top. Then, something brushes Ohtori’s legs under the table, for far too long and far too solid to just be Shishido playing footsies again.
Kite slithers out from under the table. Only Ohtori and Kaidoh notice, being at the end of the table. Kite looks shifty and tucks a bottle of hot sauce under his jersey before he saunters back off to his own table. Kaidoh hisses and Ohtori is about to say something to stop Kite, even though he’s sitting and staring and he doesn’t want to because, well, Kite is kinda creepy with his Okinawa accent and the looks he’ll give people, like he’s about to slip them poison, or something. Anything to get his way.
The Yamabuki coach, instead, stops Kite in his tracks. Kite’s sneakers squeak and his long pants drag on the floor. The coach has red splotches all over his face, worse than usual and Ohtori wonders if maybe the coaches had a post-meeting drink to celebrate their picks.
“Just what do you think you were doing?” the coach asks Kite.
Ohtori chews his beef, extra slow, so he can hear better over Kenya’s squawking about his kouhai.
Kite looks at the coach over the rim of his glasses, but he has to look up because he’s shorter than the coach. Still, he holds his chin high and his little smirk is downright scary when he says, “Do you like gouya sauce, sensei?”
The coach scrunches his brow and in the process, his neck gets even thicker. “This isn’t a yakiniku contest,” he tells Kite.
Ohtori swallows his bite. Tongs clank on his plate as Shishido serves him more beef. Kite just walks off to his table and smiles darkly.
It’s the coach who has the last laugh, though. It’s not long after that the coaches take the stage, standing in a line with their coach at Hyoutei flanked in the centre, of course. He holds the list.
The last few strips of meat are taken off the grills. The last few voices fall to silence. Ohtori turns in his seat to get a better view on the make-shift stage that has been rigged up in preparation for tonight’s talent show.
The coach starts with a spiel about how they have persevered through the challenges at the Senbatsu, that they have completed the entire schedule with dedication and hard work, but that some extraordinary players have shone above the rest of them. Ohtori takes a deep breath. He’s heard it all before with Kantoku in junior high. He knows what to expect. Of the four games today, he lost two and won only one. It’s not the best performance. It didn’t feel like his best performance either.
But, feeling the warmth from Shishido-san sitting beside him makes it all worth the effort. He never came here in the expectation of making the Invitational team in the first place. Ohtori might be uncool and a bit naïve sometimes, but he’s not dumb.
“Eight members have been chosen for the Invitational team,” the coach says. “I will now announce those names.”
Something warm and slightly sweaty wiggles its way between Ohtori’s palms. Shishido weaves his fingers through Ohtori’s and squeezes softly. He doesn’t turn around to look at Ohtori, but Ohtori doesn’t need to see Shishido’s face to know what he’s feeling. The warmth spreads from their hands through Ohtori’s body. He squeezes back. No one else can see their entwined hands under the table anyway.
The coach pauses for a second, added drama. Then, he says:
“Rikkai Dai Fuzoku 2nd year, Yukimura Seiichi.”
Ohtori whips his head over to Yukimura’s table. A sweet smile has spread over Yukimura’s mouth, although his curt nod and narrowed eyes suggests that he’s been expecting this honour all year. Hearing the words only confirm it.
“Rikkai Dai Fuzoku 2nd year, Sanada Genichirou.”
When Sanada’s name is announced next, Yukimura’s eyes soften on his teammate. His lips move, but Ohtori can’t hear what he must be whispering to Sanada. For a second, Sanada seems to blush, although his expression doesn’t change as he stares at the coach intensely.
“Hyoutei Gakuen 2nd year, Atobe Keigo.”
Atobe doesn’t make a sound either, but his eyes are narrowed in determination. He looks from Sanada to Yukimura, then back to Tezuka and leans back in his seat.
“Well we knew those three would make it,” Shishido murmurs. “Surprise, surprise.”
Ohtori holds back a clap for Atobe, though. A wave of relief washes through his body because Atobe made it, even with all the messed up games he’s had this year at the Senbatsu. He deserves it most of all, as far as Ohtori is concerned. He smiles and exhales.
At least one thing has gone right, he thinks.
The next two members announced are Rikkai’s Yanagi and Kirihara. Kirihara, who had been chewing on a stray piece of meat left on his senpai’s plate, spits the beef out and gapes before he grins from ear to ear and pumps his fist. “Yes!” he shouts. “Senpais, we made it!”
Yukimura laughs. Yanagi’s mouth quirks. Sanada, though, just frowns at Kirihara.
The Hyoutei coach goes on.
Tezuka is a shoe-in. Atobe politely golf-claps at that, then he looks back to Sanada’s table. A sort of three-way rivalry exists between them, Ohtori knows all about this, but now as opposed to when he was at the junior high Senbatsu with them, all three of them will play on the same team.
Chitose is an obvious choice, too. When his name is called, he looks up from the nagashi somen stand some of the Shitenhoji players constructed. He must have been holding it up with his hand because he takes a step back in surprise, blinking, and the entire trough falls down, splashing water and noodles all over Shiraishi and Ishida Gin.
“That was not ecstasy,” Kenya says, smirking at his teammates.
Davide snorts, laughing at the joke, which only makes Kenya snicker more.
“The last member of the team is…”
Ohtori squeezes Shishido’s hand harder. Shishido’s fingers are sweatier than ever and his grip falters. Not a noise sounds in the room apart from the faint tapping of rain outside the windows. No one breathes.
“…Kenya Oshitari.”
Dead silence.
A cricket chirps. It must have crawled through an open window near group one’s table.
Ohtori blinks. Ever so slowly, he joins every other participant in the room in looking at Kenya with blank faced confusion.
Kenya looks up from poking Zaizen- who is still unconscious- in the side. “Eh?”
Even the Hyoutei coach seems flustered. He checks his paper again and coughs. “Kenya Oshitari, you are the final member of this year’s Invitational team.”
The room erupts into noise as the eight members all stand up in their seats and the coaches nod. Kenya, finally understanding, suddenly jumps on top of the table and pumps his fists in the air. He points to Shiraishi, busy picking noodles off his arms, and shouts, “Bible of tennis my ass, Shiraishi! HAH! I MADE IT! HAH HAH!” Kenya dances around, kicking off the salt shaker by mistake and hitting Kaidoh in the chest with it.
Kaidoh growls; he stands up with his fists bared when Inui pulls him back down.
“I DID it!” Kenya shrieks. “I made it!” Unlike Oshitari-senpai, his cousin is loud and brash and in no way subtle and laid-back. Kenay’s face is a huge grin and he’s pointing at his Osaka teammates, laughing, because he’s beat them in the big league.
Davide is the one to break Kenya’s victory dance, though. He taps Kenya on the knee.
“Canya do it, Kenya?” he asks. “Canya really do it?”
Kenya falls off the table and lands in a heap on the cafeteria floor just as Zaizen starts to wake up, asking what’s going on. Somewhere across the cafeteria, Ohtori can hear Rokkaku’s Bane laughing loud and clear.
Ohtori claps for all of the members, because they deserve it and they are the best players, especially Atobe. A burden has been lifted off with Atobe on the team for sure and everything righted in the world. Just for Atobe, when he smirks and tosses one of the kitchen helpers his Senbatsu jacket, Ohtori claps as loud as he possibly can.
Do your best, Atobe-senpai!
“Why’d they pick him?” Shishido asks, nodding to Kenya, sitting on the floor and brushing scum off his arms. “Half the people here are way better.” Shishido snorts and mutters, “Lame.”
Ohtori won’t be rude and say anything with Kenya just three feet away, although he can’t deny that he’s wondering the same thing himself. Seigaku’s Fuji and Tachibana, Shiraishi, Rikkai’s Yagyuu and Yamabuki’s Sengoku, even the Higa players and St. Valerius’ Akazawa are probably stronger players than Kenya.
But, it wasn’t his decision. He’s a mediocre player at the Senbatsu himself and fine with that.
The coaches shout for there to be a moment of quiet before they announce the talent show officially.
“It begins at eight,” the Yamabuki coach says, stepping up to the edge of the stage. “Anyone who wants to volunteer and help with the lighting, please come see me in conference room 1D.”
Ohtori checks his watch. Less than an hour until showtime. Atobe is already summoning the group to his table to go off for some last-minute practicing. “The winners will be us,” he says, his voice carrying over the milling participants. “Ohtori! Kamio!”
Ohtori climbs out of his seat and Shishido lets go of his hand. “Will you watch?” he asks, hoping Shishido will be there to support him. I do my best with you at my back, Shishido-san, he pleads with his eyes.
Shishido scratches the back of his neck, trying to look cool when he says, “Yeah, I guess.” He looks away, but it doesn’t hide the pink spots on his cheeks.
Ohtori bobs his head. His fist tightens with resolve as he runs off to join Atobe.
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
They ran back inside after Atobe finished. No one, not even Davide, not even Shishido had anything to say when Atobe won his game and Marui was left on his knees, panting and exhausted and gasping to Kirihara to get him some new gum because he was going to die without any sugar in his system.
Jiroh disappears, too.
The lightning is closer than ever and the peels that crack through the sky dance across the black clouds. Ohtori heaves his tennisbag over his shoulder and follows Shishido through the complex’s hallways. Muddy footprints track through the linoleum floors and rain mists in through the open windows. It’s cool inside, the air conditioning almost freezing against Ohtori’s damp, bare skin. He shivers.
Bags are dumped inside their room and then Shishido closes the door. There’s no one on the courts outside, not even Tezuka, who must have come in with everyone else. The scouts left too, gone off to consult with the coaches to make a list of the Invitational Players in some pow-wow before the names are revealed tonight.
They have almost two hours until supper.
With the window closed in their room, the smell of sweat is stifling. The A/C helps, but it mostly swirls air around the room in cool whirlwinds. Ohtori can hear the rain and the thunder outside. Half-closed curtains don’t hide the flashes of lightning that grow brighter and brighter.
“Is it a typhoon?” Ohtori asks, peering out the window to see the tennis courts, so hot and bright before, now reduced to wet lakes of running water.
Shishido grunts. His hat flies across the room and lands on his bed. With a loud grunt, he flops down on top of it.
Ohtori’s dick hears the sound first, stiffening in his damp shorts, and then his ears follow. He closes the curtains, leaving the room in a semi-dark state and walks over to Shishido, biting his bottom lip as his damp feet squeak on the floor. Ohtori knows they are alone. They have two hours. And Shishido-san is lying there, with his hand on his belly, touching the bare skin exposed where his jersey has ridden up.
He remembers the taste of Shishido on his tongue- as if he could ever forget it, the faint salt of sweat, the scent of Shishido’s soap and herbal shampoo, the smoothness of his stomach and the line of his hips leading down to his cock. Ohtori is hard, swelling, and his own belly is numb with desire and anticipation of touching, of kissing, of being with Shishido-san again.
Until his knee seizes up and refuses to move. Ohtori lurches forward. He hits Shishido with a muffled noise, hard and heavy. Shishido makes a noise, too, something that sounds like a cross between “GerffChtro!” and a groan of pain. Ohtori pushes himself up onto his elbows, apologizing profusely.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, Shishido-san, I-”
Ohtori’s knees are still locked and his calves throb with a dull ache from today’s tennis. But that isn’t what makes him stop all of a sudden, no, it’s feeling the hardness pressed up against his belly that catches his words.
Shishido’s as hard as he is.
Ohtori stares down at Shishido, who looks up at him, his eyes dark and shining before his lips press to Ohtori’s. “Didn’t know you wanted me that bad,” Shishido murmurs. His hands comb through the back of Ohtori’s hair, sending shivers all the way down his spine as Shishido shifts slightly. Ohtori pushes himself further onto the bed and rubs their hips together, gasping when their cocks brush through their shorts. It always feels amazing, and just a bit surreal, to be this close to Shishido-san. Ohtori wants the feeling fluttering around in his chest to never, ever end.
He kisses Shishido back hard, loving the sounds Shishido makes when their tongues tangle. His hands run up the inside of Shishido’s jersey, no longer hesitant the way he might have been earlier. Shishido pushes back against him, mouth open and tongue hot, wet, curling over Ohtori’s as he moans through their lips.
Shishido untangles his hands from Ohtori’s hair. He unhooks his leg from around Ohtori’s waist. He pulls back from their kiss, licking his bottom lip. His eyes are still wide and focused on Ohtori, who can see lust burning in them. Or, what he hopes is lust. Ohtori scrunches up his forehead.
“Shishido-san?”
Shishido pushes Ohtori off him, but not without his palms lingering on Ohtori’s chest. Their cocks brush against each other’s through their dirty shorts, far too long and shiver-inducing to mean anything else. “I stink,” he says.
Ohtori looks at him. Shishido clears his throat and fixes his cap. He’s blushing, Ohtori can feel it.
“I don’t mind,” Ohtori insists. He grabs Shishido’s hand, bringing it to his lips, pressing kisses to the fingertips. But he can feel the grimy clay on Shishido’s hands and he can smell the rubbery grip tape scent from all their tennis. Still, he smiles at Shishido. Keeping his eyes on Shishido’s, Ohtori runs his tongue down the length of his fingers, into the dip where he flicks his tongue, over and over and then over again when Shishido’s eyes flutter shut and his breathing grows heavier. He moans.
“No, I really- Choutarou, god…I really need a shower,” Shishido says. He takes his hand away. The bed creaks as he stands up and stretches his arms over his head. It must be on purpose, because Ohtori can see his pale stomach when the jersey rides up and it only makes him want to tackle Shishido more.
Shishido yanks his shirt down. “I know what you’re thinking,” he says, turning his back to grab one of the towels hanging up on the rack. Glancing over his shoulder, the look Shishido gives him makes Ohtori’s knees completely give out. The cock of his eyebrow, the quirk of his lips, the lust-glazed eyes staring straight into Ohtori’s insides…
“I’ll be back,” Shishido says. He closes the door behind himself.
It’s horribly uncool and lame, but Ohtori grabs the second towel hanging up and fishes around his bag for a bar of soap. If Shishido wants to be clean for him, then Ohtori should do the same. Not that he minded dirty, sweaty, sexy Shishido at all…
Ohtori can feel his face soften and his mouth smile as visions of Shishido dance through his mind, naked and moaning and sweating and panting his name. Clenched around Ohtori so tight and so hot that when Ohtori opens his eyes, he notices his hand cupping his cock through his shorts.
It’s no wonder he’s not going to make the Invitational team, not when Shishido-san is all he thinks about.
***
Ohtori can’t find Shishido in the showers, which is no surprise because the shower locker room is packed with boys in various stages of undress. Sengoku and another player from Yamabuki flick towels at each other’s naked butts as Ohtori walks through the doorway. Akazawa, shirtless, talks to a completely dressed Mizuki, although Mizuki has a towel wrapped around his hair and a mask peeling off of his face.
Mizuki reminds Ohtori a bit of his older sister primping herself up in the bathroom before dates, but Ohtori says nothing, just nods politely to some of the players and finds a spare locker to shove his clothes into. The shower stalls are just as filled and with the closed curtains, Ohtori can’t tell which Shishido is in anyway. He sniffs the air, hoping to smell Shishido’s distinctive shampoo, but there’s nothing, just a lot of muddy footprints on the tile floor and the overriding smell of standard, cheap soap.
He ducks into the first free stall he finds at the end of the row. The cool water is refreshing; Ohtori can feel the muscles in his legs loosen the longer he stands under the spray. Grimy water swirls around at his feet, washing the tennis court from his body and revealing new bruises and marks and fingerprints.
His face feels hot, because he knows the marks on his belly and hips and thighs could only come from one place. Memories of the last two nights flood back, overwhelming his senses with Shishido’s ghost- the kiss of his lips on Ohtori’s hips, the drag of his blunt fingernails over Ohtori’s stomach, the bite of his teeth on Ohtori’s nipple…
Ohtori groans. Hands cupped around his dick, he bites his tongue to keep from groaning as he tugs and twists and jerks himself to completion until come joins the swirls of dirt in the drain by his feet.
He could have waited for Shishido-san back in the room, he knows, but at the same time, Ohtori doesn’t want to walk back out into the changing room with an erection. It was embarrassing the few times it happened in junior high, when he would watch Shishido-san from afar and wish that maybe one day he could run his hands through Shishido’s dark hair, that he could one day kiss the cocky smiles from Shishido’s lips too.
Ohtori takes his time with his soap. He takes his time with his hair, too; in the rush to catch Shishido-san in the showers, he forgot his shampoo. Not that it matters much, so he suds his hair up with the same soap and rinses it out until his hair squeaks and the water runs clear over his legs.
In the changing rooms, Ohtori doesn’t see Shishido either. He stayed in the shower so long himself that his toes and fingers are wrinkled. Most players have cleared out by now to go off and relax in the common rooms or their own dorm rooms. The clock on the wall reads 4:45. Ohtori sighs. There’s still enough time to mess around with-
“Ohtori!”
Ohtori sets his basket back into the locker cubby. Atobe stands on his side, looking down his nose (as best he can, considering Ohtori has almost 10cm on him) at Ohtori.
Seeing Atobe’s hard look makes Ohtori wince. Maybe things went bad after his match and Atobe wants him off the tennis club for real and…Ohtori’s insides twist and he feels ill, as bile starts to churn in his stomach and burn his throat. “Y-yes?” he manages.
Atobe snorts. Then, his mouth curls into a self-satisfied smirk, which only makes Ohtori even more worried, worried enough to drop his towel. Now, he’s naked and terrified in front of Atobe. His knees start to buck and he’s this close to falling down onto the floor and begging Atobe to let him stay in the tennis club when Atobe waves his hand.
“You play the piano, don’t you?”
Ohtori’s jaw drops to the floor to meet his towel. Atobe raises an eyebrow, waiting for an answer with a tap of his sandal.
“Um…yes,” Ohtori says. “I mean, yes, I can. I play in school and…” Ohtori rambles on, unsure of what Atobe wants until Atobe fingers his charm point and smirks.
“Come with me.”
Ohtori starts to follows Atobe. Atobe stops at the door, his hand on the doorknob. He looks up at Ohtori, then down his body. Ohtori does the same and, with a blush, realizes that he’s trying to follow Atobe naked. His face burns. He mumbles an apology and pads back to put his clothes on as fast as he can, just in case Atobe decides to do or threaten something.
As they walk down the hallway, Ohtori sends a forlorn look in the direction of his dorm room. As much as he wants to be there right this second with Shishido-san, he owes Atobe for everything that’s happened at the Senbatsu. The future of his tennis career with Shishido-san at Hyoutei depends on it.
Ohtori shuffles along to keep the same pace as Atobe, who strides through the corridors, sending pointed glares to a few of the freshmen participants who whisper a little too loud that he was the one who lost to Hiyoshi… They pass the cafeteria where groups mill around, waiting for food- in the far corner, Ohtori can see Oishi and Momoshiro waving their arms around and laughing. Atobe keeps walking, past the weights room too, and several conference rooms. Ohtori can hear voices inside, here laughing, there the booming bass of dance music and then the next room down, something that sounds like…
Drums?!?
Ohtori shakes his head. It might have been thunder instead. For a long moment, he thinks that he should say something instead of lumbering along like Kabaji. He should…make sure Atobe is okay, maybe. It would set his mind at ease.
He takes a deep breath, then says, “Um…Atobe-senpai?”
Atobe doesn’t turn around. “Hn?”
“Um…how is, um…Jiroh-senpai…” Ohtori searches for the words. He doesn’t know what he’s saying, but he wants to check and Atobe stops walking in front of the very last doorway in the hall, the one right across from the stairwell to the second floor.
Atobe ignores him. Hand on the door handle, he starts to push it down as he looks forward through the frosted glass window. Then, in a low voice, he hisses, “Tell Shishido to mind his own business.”
“It wasn’t Shishid-”
“Haven’t you done enough?” Atobe asks.
Ohtori’s heart sinks. He’s doomed. The breath he’s been holding forces it’s way out and he starts to shuffle away, back down the hallway because he might as well tell Shishido-san it’s his fault the both of them will be kicked off the team next week when they get back to Hyoutei and he’s sorry for being so lame and uncool and trying to help, but messing everything up even more.
“Ohtori!” Atobe snaps.
Ohtori turns around, slowly, slowly, because it’s painful to look at Atobe and know that Atobe hates him.
Only…
Atobe isn’t scowling. He isn’t smiling either, but he’s not scowling. “Look,” Atobe says, removing his hand from the door and instead placing it on his hip. “You’ve done enough-”
Ohtori cringes.
“-and whatever else has to be left up to…” Atobe pauses to think, glancing up the stairwell for a moment before he looks straight at Ohtori with a smirk and a glimmer to his eye. “- it will be left up to ore-sama’s natural charm.”
Ohtori exhales. He closes his eyes and breathes again.
Atobe flings the door open with a flourish and announces his presence to the boys inside. “I have brought my piano player,” he says.
Ohtori looks around. What? he thinks. “Senpai?” he asks. He takes a step closer to the room and peers inside the doorway.
Kamio and Shinji are sitting on a couch, both examining a guitar as Shinji mutters something about “liking music too” to Kamio, who looks awfully red ad pinched in the face, as if he’s about to start an argument. Sanada stands awkwardly beside a stack of chairs pushed against the wall, holding a piece of sheet music and looking at it as if he can’t read a single note. There’s Higa’s Kite, too, sitting in a leather deskchair, strumming a sanshin and singing to himself under his breath. Kikumaru looks up from his own set of music and waves to Ohtori.
“You play the piano?” he asks. “Yahoo! We’ve almost got a band together now!” He flings himself at Ohtori with a tackleglomp and a big grin.
Atobe closes the door.
“We- I- still need to find someone to play bass. My show will be the best tonight, of course,” he tells them. Only Sanada bothers to look up at Atobe, and when he does, it’s only to stare and frown.
“You mean our performance,” Sanada grumbles.
Atobe sniffs. “It will be my presence that makes or breaks it, Sanada.”
Sanada snorts.
Atobe’s eye twitches.
Sanada glares from under his cap, his expression stony and unimpressed before he finally says, “Were you aware, Atobe, that there is a bass player here?”
“I could call Kabaji,” Atobe murmurs to himself. He strokes his chin, then he pulls out his palm pilot from his pocket. Charms dangle from it- and once Ohtori peels Kikumaru’s arms off himself, he can see that all the charms are pictures of Atobe, in different poses from school events over the past year.
Sanada coughs.
Atobe starts to type in a number to his phone.
Sanada finally grabs the phone right out of Atobe’s hands and glares. “We have a bass player here, Atobe.”
“Oh do you?” Atobe snaps. “I didn’t know you had any rhythm, Sanada.”
Sanada grinds his teeth. Ohtori still has no idea what exactly is going on, but judging from the music Kikumaru waves in front of him, and the keyboard against the wall with the empty chair in front of it, he can connect the dots.
“Marui happened to bring his bass,” Sanada says. When Atobe’s smirk falls, replaced by a flashing grimace, Sanada starts to smile darkly, as if he has an inkling about some of what went on earlier on the courts.
“Fine,” Atobe says. “Go get him and tell him to get his ass here so we can practice for the talent show.”
Ohtori smacks his hand to his forehead. He should have known there’d be another talent show. All the Senbatsus he’s been to have had them. Only before, he managed to avoid participating and instead happily watched from the audience.
Once Sanada has stomped off to find Marui, Atobe says, “Get practicing.” Ohtori sits down on the chair with a heavy sigh. Slowly, deliberately, Atobe walks by and whispers “And maybe ore-sama will be willing to let certain matters slide…”
Ohtori looks at the sheet music and nods to Kikumaru to start beatboxing along with him.
***
“Where were you?”
Ohtori feels bad, he does when he sees Shishido scowling at him in the cafeteria. His fingers ache- it’s been a long while since he’s practiced that much piano and Atobe drilled them again and again in that conference room, demanding perfection for the talent show. Marui showed up- for whatever reason, whether Sanada bribed him or not- just to see Atobe squirm as he played with them.
“Er…it was the talent show,” Ohtori mumbles. “Atobe-senpai made me. I’m sorry, Shishido-san.”
Shishido huffs and glares at Atobe over his shoulder. Atobe, who has finally taken to sitting at his own table proper and is leaving their group alone to instead tell Tezuka all about his talent show entry, without, of course, saying too much at the same time.
“I will be the winner,” Atobe says loudly.
Tezuka stares over the rim of his glasses. Ohtori can hear his “Aa” across the cafeteria as he sits down.
“Unfortunately, Tezuka, my prowess extends to every dimension of the Senbatsu, talent show included. When I perform, you’ll be awed by my beautiful-”
“It was better when he was all pissy,” Shishido grumbles. “At least he was quieter then.”
Ohtori’s heart leaps in his chest. Shishido’s forgiven him, he must have, if he’s frowning like that and twisting around his cap, fiddling with something to keep himself from being way uncool and actually saying it. Ohtori grins to himself.
“Shishido-san,” he says, once they slide into seats at their table, “are you doing anything for the talent show?”
Shishido snorts. Kaidoh passes the soy sauce from Inui to Kenya. Davide says something to Tachibana about flied lice and Chinese takeaway places in Makuharihongo. It isn’t just any meal being served tonight, no, small grills have been passed around to each table and the cook wanders around the cafeteria, setting heavy clay pots filled with coals on each group’s table. The kitchen girls follow suit, carrying out trays and trays of meat strips.
Ohtori’s stomach growls. As the first strips of beef hit table five’s grill and fill the air with the scent of BBQing meat, he realizes just how hungry he is and how delicious the rice looks mixed with Korean vegetables and mushrooms and Shishido is brushing his right elbow and asking if that’s corn and onion slices that some of the girls have because Choutarou, they’re awesome on the grill too.
Ann brings their trays of meat and food over to grill. She sets them down and Tachibana says, “Thanks”. Ann salutes him and tells them all to enjoy and that there’s extra in the kitchen if they want anymore. She runs off to another table and sidles into the end seat that Momoshiro squashes over to make room for.
Atobe sits across from Ann, Ohtori can see. Jiroh is at the opposite end, sitting beside Hiyoshi. The one person Ohtori doesn’t see there is Marui. He looks again, thinking he must have somehow missed Marui’s pink hair in the plumes of fire and smoke flaring up from the grill at group two’s table, but no, he really isn’t around there.
Atobe wouldn’t have done something, would he…?
Atobe isn’t smiling, not exactly. Instead, he’s got his arms crossed over his chest as he tells Tezuka, “Tezuka, grill,” and curls his lip up. Tezuka sighs and puts another slice of meat on the grill, but whatever he’s doing, it must not be good enough for Atobe because he scoffs at the meat Tezuka tries to flip over with the metal tongs.
Ohtori turns away before he can hear Atobe tell his team all about his cooking prowess. Out of the corner of his eye, though, Jiroh reaches across the table, over several plates to hand Atobe a little dish with strips of beef on it.
“Here,” he says.
Ohtori bites his lip. For a moment he can’t breathe as Atobe hesitates to accept the plate, but when he does, his eyes seem to glitter for a split-second in the fluorescent lighting.
There’s hope. Just maybe. Because then Ohtori turns to look for Marui and he prays that Atobe didn’t knock Marui over the head with a baseball bat after their talent show practice and stash his body somewhere outside.
“You want some kalbi, Choutarou?” Shishido-san asks.
Ohtori nods vaguely. “Yeah, sure, thanks, Shishido-san,” he mumbles as his eyes scan the crowds of the cafeteria. In the corner by the tray conveyour, Shitenhoji’s Shiraishi and Hitouji and Gin have constructed what looks like a nagashi somen ramp with stacks of cafeteria trays and a couple garbage cans piled up on top of each other. No Marui with them.
It’s worrying. Ohtori racks his brain, trying to remember exactly how much time there was between the end of talent show practice and supper: maybe five, ten minutes. And Atobe was the last to leave the room, Ohtori knows, because he himself was one of the first. So if Atobe stayed late and Marui was putting away his bass then…
Ohtori’s stomach churns. Under the table, he clutches his sides and tries to push down the rising acid inside. Atobe wouldn’t have offed Marui, would he? He wouldn’t have gone that far…
“-good thing I brought Madeleine, then.”
He blinks. That loud, self-concerned and self-pleased voice sounded like Marui. Ohtori whips his head over in the direction of group one. They sit by the windows and Sengoku has three kitchen helpers crowded on his end of the table, one of the girls practically on his lap.
Sure enough, Marui is sitting beside his friend, helping himself to Jackal’s plate of grilled beef and talking with his mouth open.
“Madeleine?” Jackal asks.
“You know,” Marui says. He picks at his front teeth with a fingernail, then he grabs another beef strip and dunks it into a dish of sauce before he liberally sprinkles salt all over it.
Across the table, Oishi yells “NO THAT’S NOT HOW YOU EAT IT! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK THE BEEF’S OWN JUICES ARE FOR, YOU MORON?”
Ohtori winces. The last time a big group of them ate yakiniku, there were disastrous consequences. He sticks his leg to the side, just enough to feel Shishido’s warm ankle with his own and make sure Shishido isn’t passed out in parking lot again.
“My bass,” Marui tells Jackal. “Madeleine, my bass guitar. Apparently some group needed my musical genius for the talent show.”
“Are you aware,” Jackal asks, having joined Marui in ignoring Oishi entirely and not noticing Oishi’s fluttering hair fangs and scarlet face when he dips his beef in one type of sauce after another, “that there are such things as Madeleine cakes? Did you name your bass after food?”
Ohtori doesn’t hear Marui’s response, because Shishido pokes his arm with a pair of tongs. “Are you gonna eat them or not?” Shishido asks.
Ohtori looks down. Shishido reaches over to the grill to flip a couple pieces of beef over. A plate has been set in front of him with sizzling beef pieces, calling out to his growling stomach. Knowing that Marui isn’t a corpse buried under hydrangea bushes soothes Ohtori’s nerves. He smiles at Shishido, who stuffs a couple slices into his own mouth.
“Thanks,” he says.
“Didn’t know whether you wanted sauce or salt,” Shishido says. Sauce dribbles down the side of his mouth. Ohtori has the momentary thought of lick it off, it’d be hot, but he shakes his head. Not in public. That would be beyond uncool, even if Shishido does look kinda cute and hot with his pink tongue straining to lick all the dribbling sauce from his lips…
Kaidoh hisses across the grill. “Salt is better,” he grumbles.
Tachibana nods his head and passes the salt over to Kaidoh. Inui, beside Kaidoh, frowns slightly and discretely tries to slide one of the sauce dishes from Kirihara to himself.
“STOP WITH THE SALT!!” Oishi shouts, somewhere on the other side of the cafeteria, “STOP WITH THE SAUCE!!”
Ohtori waves his hand when Inui tries to fob the sauce off on him. He really doesn’t care if he has any or not. “It’s fine like this,” he says, to no one in particular.
Davide goes for the vegetables, making quick work of the onions and carrots, laying them down in concentric circles until Kirihara accidentally bumps into his hair reaching back for the sauce and sends the bamboo shoots and cabbage flying to the edge of the grill. “Oops,” he says, laughing to himself.
When Kirihara shoves a piece of chicken into the middle of the grill, flames shoot up. His eyes light up, the flames dancing in his pupils. Ohtori inches back.
“Give those to me, Akaya,” Kirihara’s senior senpai says. He snatches the tongs away before Kirihara can do anything more. Davide grabs them back for himself and holds a bamboo shoot in front of Kenya’s face.
“Take some the take?” he asks.
Kenya groans through his teeth. “God, do you never stop?”
Davide drops the bamboo shoot on Kenya’s plate with a bemused smirk.
“I’ll eat it, senpai,” Zaizen says. He goes to grab the bamboo with his chopsticks, but Kenya gets to it first and gobbles it up with a shrug.
“I like vegetables,” Kenya says, spitting food out onto the table as he speaks.
Zaizen sighs. He grabs one of the cabbage leaves instead. Ohtori chews on his own pieces of beef, cooked pretty well by Shishido, if a little charred on the one end of the one piece. He savours the sweet-spicy marinade and the tenderness of the meat, rolling off his tongue and down his throat. It’s been a while since he’s had yakiniku and at this rate, he feels as though he could eat it for hours, especially since Shishido-san is the one dropping fresh-grilled pieces down on his plate.
“Pork?” Shishido asks.
Ohtori swallows the beef and nods his head. “Yes, please.” This time, he uses the salt with the meat since Kaidoh seems to be glaring every time the sauce dishes are passed around. He hisses and sprinkles, but when Ohtori smiles at him politely and asks, Kaidoh’s features soften.
“At least you have taste,” he says under his breath.
“Nice pun!” Davide says. He holds his hand up for a high-five, but Kaidoh glares instead and goes back to grilling another piece of meat for himself.
All of a sudden, though, Zaizen falls face-first into a sauce dish. The cabbage he’d been holding, dripping spicy sauce all over his face, clatters to the ground along with his chopsticks.
Ohtori gasps. Shishido drops the beef strip he was holding. Kenya’s mouth hangs open.
But Zaizen stays unconscious.
“What the hell’s with him?” Kirihara asks. He stabs Zaizen in the cheek with his chopsticks.
Zaizen remains unconscious.
Ohtori looks around. Zaizen’s sauce dish seems different from Shishido-san’s: it isn’t as dark and there is an odd reddish pearlescence on top. Then, something brushes Ohtori’s legs under the table, for far too long and far too solid to just be Shishido playing footsies again.
Kite slithers out from under the table. Only Ohtori and Kaidoh notice, being at the end of the table. Kite looks shifty and tucks a bottle of hot sauce under his jersey before he saunters back off to his own table. Kaidoh hisses and Ohtori is about to say something to stop Kite, even though he’s sitting and staring and he doesn’t want to because, well, Kite is kinda creepy with his Okinawa accent and the looks he’ll give people, like he’s about to slip them poison, or something. Anything to get his way.
The Yamabuki coach, instead, stops Kite in his tracks. Kite’s sneakers squeak and his long pants drag on the floor. The coach has red splotches all over his face, worse than usual and Ohtori wonders if maybe the coaches had a post-meeting drink to celebrate their picks.
“Just what do you think you were doing?” the coach asks Kite.
Ohtori chews his beef, extra slow, so he can hear better over Kenya’s squawking about his kouhai.
Kite looks at the coach over the rim of his glasses, but he has to look up because he’s shorter than the coach. Still, he holds his chin high and his little smirk is downright scary when he says, “Do you like gouya sauce, sensei?”
The coach scrunches his brow and in the process, his neck gets even thicker. “This isn’t a yakiniku contest,” he tells Kite.
Ohtori swallows his bite. Tongs clank on his plate as Shishido serves him more beef. Kite just walks off to his table and smiles darkly.
It’s the coach who has the last laugh, though. It’s not long after that the coaches take the stage, standing in a line with their coach at Hyoutei flanked in the centre, of course. He holds the list.
The last few strips of meat are taken off the grills. The last few voices fall to silence. Ohtori turns in his seat to get a better view on the make-shift stage that has been rigged up in preparation for tonight’s talent show.
The coach starts with a spiel about how they have persevered through the challenges at the Senbatsu, that they have completed the entire schedule with dedication and hard work, but that some extraordinary players have shone above the rest of them. Ohtori takes a deep breath. He’s heard it all before with Kantoku in junior high. He knows what to expect. Of the four games today, he lost two and won only one. It’s not the best performance. It didn’t feel like his best performance either.
But, feeling the warmth from Shishido-san sitting beside him makes it all worth the effort. He never came here in the expectation of making the Invitational team in the first place. Ohtori might be uncool and a bit naïve sometimes, but he’s not dumb.
“Eight members have been chosen for the Invitational team,” the coach says. “I will now announce those names.”
Something warm and slightly sweaty wiggles its way between Ohtori’s palms. Shishido weaves his fingers through Ohtori’s and squeezes softly. He doesn’t turn around to look at Ohtori, but Ohtori doesn’t need to see Shishido’s face to know what he’s feeling. The warmth spreads from their hands through Ohtori’s body. He squeezes back. No one else can see their entwined hands under the table anyway.
The coach pauses for a second, added drama. Then, he says:
“Rikkai Dai Fuzoku 2nd year, Yukimura Seiichi.”
Ohtori whips his head over to Yukimura’s table. A sweet smile has spread over Yukimura’s mouth, although his curt nod and narrowed eyes suggests that he’s been expecting this honour all year. Hearing the words only confirm it.
“Rikkai Dai Fuzoku 2nd year, Sanada Genichirou.”
When Sanada’s name is announced next, Yukimura’s eyes soften on his teammate. His lips move, but Ohtori can’t hear what he must be whispering to Sanada. For a second, Sanada seems to blush, although his expression doesn’t change as he stares at the coach intensely.
“Hyoutei Gakuen 2nd year, Atobe Keigo.”
Atobe doesn’t make a sound either, but his eyes are narrowed in determination. He looks from Sanada to Yukimura, then back to Tezuka and leans back in his seat.
“Well we knew those three would make it,” Shishido murmurs. “Surprise, surprise.”
Ohtori holds back a clap for Atobe, though. A wave of relief washes through his body because Atobe made it, even with all the messed up games he’s had this year at the Senbatsu. He deserves it most of all, as far as Ohtori is concerned. He smiles and exhales.
At least one thing has gone right, he thinks.
The next two members announced are Rikkai’s Yanagi and Kirihara. Kirihara, who had been chewing on a stray piece of meat left on his senpai’s plate, spits the beef out and gapes before he grins from ear to ear and pumps his fist. “Yes!” he shouts. “Senpais, we made it!”
Yukimura laughs. Yanagi’s mouth quirks. Sanada, though, just frowns at Kirihara.
The Hyoutei coach goes on.
Tezuka is a shoe-in. Atobe politely golf-claps at that, then he looks back to Sanada’s table. A sort of three-way rivalry exists between them, Ohtori knows all about this, but now as opposed to when he was at the junior high Senbatsu with them, all three of them will play on the same team.
Chitose is an obvious choice, too. When his name is called, he looks up from the nagashi somen stand some of the Shitenhoji players constructed. He must have been holding it up with his hand because he takes a step back in surprise, blinking, and the entire trough falls down, splashing water and noodles all over Shiraishi and Ishida Gin.
“That was not ecstasy,” Kenya says, smirking at his teammates.
Davide snorts, laughing at the joke, which only makes Kenya snicker more.
“The last member of the team is…”
Ohtori squeezes Shishido’s hand harder. Shishido’s fingers are sweatier than ever and his grip falters. Not a noise sounds in the room apart from the faint tapping of rain outside the windows. No one breathes.
“…Kenya Oshitari.”
Dead silence.
A cricket chirps. It must have crawled through an open window near group one’s table.
Ohtori blinks. Ever so slowly, he joins every other participant in the room in looking at Kenya with blank faced confusion.
Kenya looks up from poking Zaizen- who is still unconscious- in the side. “Eh?”
Even the Hyoutei coach seems flustered. He checks his paper again and coughs. “Kenya Oshitari, you are the final member of this year’s Invitational team.”
The room erupts into noise as the eight members all stand up in their seats and the coaches nod. Kenya, finally understanding, suddenly jumps on top of the table and pumps his fists in the air. He points to Shiraishi, busy picking noodles off his arms, and shouts, “Bible of tennis my ass, Shiraishi! HAH! I MADE IT! HAH HAH!” Kenya dances around, kicking off the salt shaker by mistake and hitting Kaidoh in the chest with it.
Kaidoh growls; he stands up with his fists bared when Inui pulls him back down.
“I DID it!” Kenya shrieks. “I made it!” Unlike Oshitari-senpai, his cousin is loud and brash and in no way subtle and laid-back. Kenay’s face is a huge grin and he’s pointing at his Osaka teammates, laughing, because he’s beat them in the big league.
Davide is the one to break Kenya’s victory dance, though. He taps Kenya on the knee.
“Canya do it, Kenya?” he asks. “Canya really do it?”
Kenya falls off the table and lands in a heap on the cafeteria floor just as Zaizen starts to wake up, asking what’s going on. Somewhere across the cafeteria, Ohtori can hear Rokkaku’s Bane laughing loud and clear.
Ohtori claps for all of the members, because they deserve it and they are the best players, especially Atobe. A burden has been lifted off with Atobe on the team for sure and everything righted in the world. Just for Atobe, when he smirks and tosses one of the kitchen helpers his Senbatsu jacket, Ohtori claps as loud as he possibly can.
Do your best, Atobe-senpai!
“Why’d they pick him?” Shishido asks, nodding to Kenya, sitting on the floor and brushing scum off his arms. “Half the people here are way better.” Shishido snorts and mutters, “Lame.”
Ohtori won’t be rude and say anything with Kenya just three feet away, although he can’t deny that he’s wondering the same thing himself. Seigaku’s Fuji and Tachibana, Shiraishi, Rikkai’s Yagyuu and Yamabuki’s Sengoku, even the Higa players and St. Valerius’ Akazawa are probably stronger players than Kenya.
But, it wasn’t his decision. He’s a mediocre player at the Senbatsu himself and fine with that.
The coaches shout for there to be a moment of quiet before they announce the talent show officially.
“It begins at eight,” the Yamabuki coach says, stepping up to the edge of the stage. “Anyone who wants to volunteer and help with the lighting, please come see me in conference room 1D.”
Ohtori checks his watch. Less than an hour until showtime. Atobe is already summoning the group to his table to go off for some last-minute practicing. “The winners will be us,” he says, his voice carrying over the milling participants. “Ohtori! Kamio!”
Ohtori climbs out of his seat and Shishido lets go of his hand. “Will you watch?” he asks, hoping Shishido will be there to support him. I do my best with you at my back, Shishido-san, he pleads with his eyes.
Shishido scratches the back of his neck, trying to look cool when he says, “Yeah, I guess.” He looks away, but it doesn’t hide the pink spots on his cheeks.
Ohtori bobs his head. His fist tightens with resolve as he runs off to join Atobe.