FIC: Rewind Forward (D1) 10/63
Title: Rewind Forward (10/63)
Author: Ociwen
Rating: NC17 (eventual)
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all.
Summary: Niou, meet Yagyuu.
Author's Notes: Spoilers for everything.
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Part 8] [Part 9] [Part 10] [Part 11] [Part 12] [Part 13] [Part 14] [Part 15]
Sunday is the last game of the Nationals, but it might as well be the first. Niou doesn’t know if he has slept in four days. He can barely remember taking the bus home each afternoon: did he fall asleep on the drive from Tokyo to Kanagawa? Did he walk home from school? Did he take the bus?
He must have eaten at some point. Niou checks his tennisbag on the bus in the morning. The side pocket is crammed with chili chips and cold fried chicken and rice in a bento, waterbottles and apple juice boxes, banana cakes and tangerines.
Does she think I’m like that fatty Marui? he thinks about his mother. But he peels a tangerine on the bus, inhaling the citrus smell of the peel scattered on his lap. The tangerine is sweet in his mouth and sates a new-flared hunger.
Nishiki stands up on the expressway, leaning on the bus seats. “Everyone!” he shouts, repeating himself until Yanagi and Yukimura fall silent and Kirihara puts his Nintendo gameboy on mute. “We’ve made it to the finals for the second year in a row. Let’s make it a win!”
“Yes, buchou!” the chorus follows.
Everyone except Yukimura. He sits in the back seat with a smile on his face. Niou watches him, bobbing with the motions of the traffic and the potholes in the roads, until Yukimura’s eyes start to flutter and his head sags forward, before he falls over right onto Sanada’s shoulder.
Sanada stiffens, then his face softens.
Niou leans over the back of the seat and grabs Sanada’s cap, flicking it off his head and messing up his hair in the process.
“Hey!” Sanada shouts.
“Hey!” Yukimura mutters, sitting up straight and pouting at Sanada.
Niou grins. He hands Sanada’s cap back to Yukimura, who sniffs and tosses the cap onto Sanada’s lap before he closes his eyes for a second time, this time deliberately resting his cheek on Sanada’s arm.
Niou settles back in his seat, then he brushes the leftover tangerine peel onto the floor under his feet, making sure to flick the bits backwards toward Sanada’s legs. Sanada says nothing with Yukimura lying on his arm, but he growls under his cap and gives Niou an evil eye.
I’ll get you, he says through his beady black eyes.
Sure thing, Niou mouths back, smiling at Sanada.
The morning is beautiful once the bus arrives in Tokyo, pulling down sidestreets, stopping at streetlights, then driving on into the sports complex parking lot. Niou steps off the bus and stretches his arms out over his head. The yawn feels good and he shakes off the last of his tiredness.
They are playing Makinofuji, who somehow made it to the final rounds. Niou carries his tennisbag and searches the stadium for signs of the other team. But all he can see are the green of Yamabuki players, the yellow and green patterns of Shitenhoji, the white and grey of Hyoutei and the rust of Rokkaku, amongst hundreds of other spectators, minor reporters and school children, a few people in Rikkai school uniforms who have come to cheer the tennis club on. There are parents and families and friends.
Niou sucks in a breath. He scans the crowds quickly for a group of meganes, but there is no sign of his own family. The lump in his stomach dissipates. It is one thing for his mother, one lone family member, to come to the school when he is called to the principal’s, but for people to see his entire family would be something else.
He can breathe a sigh of relief.
His family wouldn’t come to something like this. They are probably spending the day at the Yokohama Museum of Techonology, or something equally as mind-numbingly dorky. Watching chess on tv or doing multiplication squares for fun.
There should be an air of nervousness. The team should be angsting and wringing their hands together, obsessively practicing swings or running laps. Instead, everyone on the team is calm and cool. Niou thinks about his breathing, in and out, in and out. The noises in the stadium rise as crowds fill into the seats and the Rikkai yellow comes out in full-force. There is a single bead of sweat down the middle of Nishiki’s nose, but nothing more.
It might be the heat.
The sky is a brilliant azure, full of fluffy clouds that flat lazily by. Not a bird in sight, not even a cooing pigeon. There are no cicadas to irritate Yanagi here, no snakes to freak Sanada out, nothing but an expanse of green clay and stiff white nets.
It is, in some ways, a battleground. Niou unloads his tennisbag and pulls out his weapon, a Prince More Power racket with dark teal frame. He runs a finger along the side, catching the scratches in the metal with his fingernail.
He exhales.
Nishiki says, “Let’s go” and they file out onto the court, a perfect line of ants. Or maybe a platoon of soldiers, all serious faces with the task to come. Win the Nationals title, or nothing at all.
Makinofuji is from Hyougo in the Kansai region. Niou doesn’t even hear more than their captain say one word before he rolls his eyes. More Kansai bastards, as far as he’s concerned. He shoves his hands in his pockets and crosses his left hand fingers, hoping that they won’t be as annoying as the last team Rikkai played from Kansai was.
Makinofuji, though, is hushed. The team all have wide eyes and the shortest one on the team, Niou is certain that he can see the boy shaking. Another kid swallows, his skinny throat bobbing up and down like a fisher float.
Niou leans forward, tempted to say boo. Kirihara licks his lips, running his tongue over his teeth. The fluttering in Niou’s stomach dissipates as the other team takes it from him. Maybe the finals won’t be as difficult as Shitenhoji was.
Makinofuji form a protective huddle, a tortoise on the edge of the court, with white and red jerseys. Nishiki nods to the team and they do the same, but Rikkai’s huddle is loose and casual, with even Sanada and Yanagi smiling and muttering to each other.
“Makinofuji made it to the finals, but I heard that Shitenhoji slaughtered them in the Kansai regionals,” Nishiki says.
“3-0 it was,” Yanagi adds.
“We’re going to switch it up a bit,” Nishiki says. “Niou, singles three. Kirihara, singles two. Yamada, singles one. Yanagi, you’re in doubles two with me, and I want Sanada and Yukimura in doubles one.”
Yukimura’s mouth drops. “But…I don’t play doubles,” he manages.
“You do today,” Nishiki tells him.
Niou bites back a grin because the expression on Sanada’s face is beyond words. Sanada looks like he has swallowed his tongue, the way his eyes bug out and his face has gone pale. Niou inches closer to him, then pinches his arm. Sanada blinks, yelping. “Hey!”
“Don’t forget about tennis,” Niou reminds him. Don’t spend the game ga-ga over Yukimura.
Sanada’s face reddens nicely under the morning sun.
Niou is up first. And he’s never played singles at this level before, but he doubts it is that hard. He breathes out, then in. He closes his eyes for a brief moment, gathering himself, then he jumps the barrier onto the court as his name is announced over the loud speakers.
He doesn’t have any distractions like Sanada will. He doesn’t have to worry about backing anyone else up, or being backed up himself. It is all up to him. He flicks his hair out of his eyes and glances into the stands, but the glare of the sun is too bright and the shaded stadium canopy too dark for him to make out if Yagyuu is there or not.
Or Marui.
Take that, you fatty wannabe genius, he thinks. Marui might have won the Newcomer’s spot, but Niou has made it to the Nationals first.
Scuffs and shuffles and a cough sounds from the other side of the net. Niou turns around. A quaking, short player stands there, breathing heavily. “Eh….eh….s-smooth or rough?” he squeaks.
Niou smiles. “Rough.”
The racket spins twice, wavering and wobbling before it falls with a clatter. The kid squeezes his shut, then bends down and checks the end. “I-it’s rough,” he says.
“I’ll serve,” Niou says. If he can take the pace at the start of the game, he can end it sooner in his favour. Niou pulls a ball from his pocket. It is a little fuzzy and worn, but it will do just fine. He throws it up in the air, leans back and slams his full weight into his serve.
The hollow sound of the ball bouncing at the baseline, unreturned, is beautiful.
Niou serves again, and only then does the Makinofuji kid start to play, but his returns are weak, too high and easy to smash, the way they arc above Niou’s head in the yellow sun, all Niou has to do is step back, pull back and slam his racket down.
Game 1-0, Rikkai Dai.
When the Makinofuji player serves, the impact of playing singles hits Niou. The court feels big, empty and a bit lonely. He runs left, hitting a low shot with a rise, sliding the ball over his racket to pick up speed and get the game going. The other player gasps, grabs his racket with two hands and hurls the ball back to Niou.
It isn’t a very powerful shot, the kid is skinny and barely caught the ball with his racket. Knowing Yagyuu must be watching, Niou stands up tall, he stretches his arm back as far as he can, and burns the ball with his racket. It slices through the court, as straight and narrow as a laser.
The Makinofuji player stumbles backwards, then trips over his feet.
The ball hits the edge of the court, smashing into the paper advertisement, and then the cement wall. It drops to the clay ground, leaving a blackened hole in the middle of an ad for cameras.
The swish of the Rikkai cheerleaders’ pompoms lifts Niou even more. Thrill rises in his chest, burning through his ribs like a laser. He can’t hold back now, Niou throws himself into laser shots and smashes. He jumps and lobs and poaches. He runs to the baseline, rallying a few rounds, before he runs back to the net and uses a drop shot, just because it is fun to see the little Makinofuji player’s face fall more and more as he loses point after point after point.
Niou doesn’t need to play doubles, he controls this game completely. At match point, he holds back from a laser, instead favouring a split-step, then swinging back for an easy kill.
The cheers rise in the crowds.
Game 6-0. Rikkai Dai wins the set.
As Yanagi walks onto the court to start his match, Niou bumps into him, raising his hand into the air. Yanagi takes a moment to realize it, then he slaps Niou’s hand. “Nice win,” he says.
“It wasn’t bad,” Niou agrees.
Yanagi-Nishiki pair faces a pair of Makinofuji seniors, but neither one are very tall or very strong looking. They have the build of Yukimura, scrawny and scraggly and uncomfortably in the middle of puberty. But, unlike Niou’s opponent, they don’t shake in their shoes. They pull up their chins and puff out their chests.
“Let’s have a good game,” one drawls, the thick accent audible across the stadium.
Yanagi, though, doesn’t seem fazed. Instead, he smiles that creepy little smirk as though he knows the answers to the universe and he just nods. But to Niou, Yanagi is easy to read. In some ways, he is as transparent as Sanada, just nowhere near as outwardly aggressive.
Makinofuji serves first.
Nishiki returns the ball, a straight, fast rally in the making.
One of the Makinofuji doubles runs forward, the other running backward. The net player returns the shot. Australian formation. How nice, Niou thinks. How easy.
Yanagi breaks the formation up. He hits a shot, precise and neat to the sideline, right between the two players, right in the centre of the court. The Makinofuji pair scatters and Nishiki comes in for the win, smashing the ball right onto the other side of the net before the other team can reach it.
Yanagi, unlike Nishiki, isn’t a good doubles player. He is territorial, stepping in front of Nishiki if Nishiki so much as steps into his section of the court. Yanagi will run for the ball first, as if in competition with Nishiki, not on the same team. Yanagi takes over the court and Nishiki falls back to the sideline, near the baseline, but not in Yanagi’s way. Yanagi plays baseline and he plays it well. He knows where and when to hit the balls to make Makinofuji run and shaken up.
And it is Yanagi who wins the game. Nishiki shakes the hands of the Makinofuji players afterwards, but they don’t look at him. They stare at Yanagi as they limp hands fall from Nishiki’s grasp.
Yanagi walks off the court, tall and confident as he passes the reigns to Kirihara.
“Win it for us, Akaya,” he says.
When Niou sees Yanagi sit down on the bench, there isn’t a red flush to his face at all. And he’s barely broken a sweat, just a scattered splatter of tiny sweatdrops along his forehead, but nothing more.
Kirihara ducks his head against his chest, his eyes glittering through the tangled mess of his hair. Niou can see his teeth as white as his eyes, and flashing just as much.
Something tugs inside Niou, and he almost feels bad for the Makinofuji senior waiting on the court for Kirihara. He doesn’t stand a chance.
Kirihara won’t be undone by Yanagi’s play, or Niou’s win. Niou knows the wonderchibi well enough to know that. Kirihara plants his feet, swaying from side to side and he means business from the get-go of the first serve.
Straight off, Kirihara starts with a vicious twist serve. Niou watches as the ball is returned to him, then Kirihara shoots straight towards the Makinofuji kid’s foot, just to the side of his right foot. Again, Kirihara slams the ball there. The other player keeps stepping left to avoid it until he is boxed into a corner at the baseline.
And Kirihara laughs, his childish voice rising with glee. “Is this all you have?” Kirihara shouts. “Aren’t you even going to try?”
The Makinofuji senior sneers, he steps forward and straight into Kirihara’s trap, straight into the path of the ball that smacks into his ankle. He yelps and jumps aside, but Niou has been hit by enough stray balls to know it smarts like hell.
Kirihara just rubs his chin, examining his handiwork over his shoulder. The other player stumbles to his feet, but he’s shaky now, he’s unsure and he stumbles on his shots. He stumbles on his serves. Kirihara takes the points, he takes the games. One, two, three games in five minutes flat.
But, as the players change courts and Kirihara walks with a swagger across the court, the Makinofuji player stops at his bench, speaking with his coach for a moment and grabbing a drink from a waterbottle. He turns around, a half-glance towards Kirihara, then he walks back to his side of the net.
Niou leans forward. Kirihara doesn’t seem to notice, he’s too busy being pleased with himself and smiling as the cheerleaders on the Rikkai Dai bleachers shout his name and the school cheers.
The Makinofuji senior stands at the centre of the court.
“Don’t get hurt,” Kirihara yells as he throws up the ball.
“You, too!” he calls back.
Kirihara frowns, hitting the ball with a strong serve, one that swings to the side of the court, then curves back towards the baseline. The other player makes a run for it and he manages to save the shot, sliding on the clay ground, digging up dust that clouds above him. Niou winces. He can hear the grind of scraped skin on the court, raw and red.
Kirihara laughs.
But the ball is returned and it isn’t what Kirihara thinks. It isn’t what Niou expects either, no, whatever the Makinofuji player has done, maybe a snap of his wrist or the angle of his racket grinding into the ground, the ball arcs high above, a beautiful parabola that looms closer and closer to the net.
Kirihara runs for it, his legs pumping. He doesn’t watch where he is going, he just follows the ball, determined to return it and take the game.
A second cloud of dust blooms. A silence descends as the grains settle back down onto the court. Kirihara lies sprawled on his stomach, curled up beside the side post of the net. A pool of blood lies under his face and when he lifts his head, half of his face dark with blood and dirt and pain.
Kirihara’s heavy breathing is the only sound. And then the grunting and groans as he stands up, pushing himself up on his knees.
The idiot, Niou thinks.
“Game, forfeit!” the referee calls. “Doubles one please report to the court. Doubles one report to the court.”
Kirihara starts to shout something, but his voice is strangled. The coach grabs his arm, staring to lead him off the court, but Kirihara pushes him away. “I’m fine!” he insists, wiping a hand across his face. “I can still play!”
The coach shakes his head. “You might be able to, but the other player can’t.”
The Makinofuji coach leads the other player off the court, who wobbles on his good ankle, his other leg dragging behind.
“We’ll take it from here, Akaya,” Yukimura announces. “Come on, Sanada.”
And the two of the worst monsters have their chance for glory.
Yukimura, though, seems glued to the bench. Sanada has already stood up, racket in hand, but Yukimura, always so quick to report to the court for a game, just fiddles with the strings on his racket. He leans forward, shifting his weight onto his feet, then sits straight back again.
“Yukimura?” Sanada asks.
Niou touches a piece of his hair. Something is going on.
Yukimura’s brow furrows. His headband slides down his face. “It- my leg’s asleep Sanada. Just give me a minute.”
Sanada nods, and waits, true to Yukimura’s request.
Yukimura grunts, then leans forward again, this time standing up with a wry smile. “Sorry for the…trouble,” he says.
“It’s okay,” Sanada says.
Niou has to wonder how long Sanada has waited for this formation, how long Sanada has been silently cursing Nishiki and the coach for always pairing him up with someone else- Yanagi, Kirihara, a senpai- rather than Yukimura.
But it isn’t hard to see why Yukimura almost never plays doubles.
If Sanada and Yanagi play doubles as two singles players, then Sanada and Yukimura play doubles as something even more polar. Sanada tries formations with Yukimura, standing along the baseline with him. In theory, Niou assumes it would trip the Makinofuji doubles one team up. After all, the Makinofuji doubles play decently well- keeping in formation, alternating who hits the ball, backing each other up during a play: one to rally, the other to smash.
But Yukimura will have none of it. He glares at Sanada, sending Sanada slinking back to the net. He plays defense and offense at the same time, switching from forward shots to backhands, side to side, faster than Niou can blink. Occasionally, a shot will stray near enough to Sanada that he’ll hit it.
Yukimura owns the game.
Fourteen minutes flat and the last shot, a beautiful smash from a smiling Yukimura, is delivered to the centre baseline of the Makinofuji court.
Yukimura brushes off his shorts, still smiling as the cheers explode in the bleachers. Niou stands up with everyone else, clapping so hard his hands tingle. They’ve won. They’ve won the Nationals for a second year in a row.
Yanagi is the first to jump the barrier, then Kirihara, then Niou and the senpais. They stream out onto the court, running into each other and Yukimura and Sanada, a tight-packed huddle of tossed up hats and jackets, with yellow streaming up into the air along with the first bangs and pops of light and colour above them.
The fireworks light up the blue sky with green and red and the brightest gold gold gold for Rikkai Dai.
It is not only the regulars who rush out onto the court, but the entire team, dozens and dozens of whooping and grinning faces, arms raised and ready to lift Yukimura and Sanada onto shoulders, passing them around as though they have the Midas touch, having fulfilled Yukimura’s goal two years in a row now.
Niou grabs Sanada’s ankle, pushing him higher, with all his strength, but the combined effort of the team makes him seem weightless, and Yukimura even more. He can’t stop grinning, he can’t stop the bubbling elation inside that bursts with even more laughter and disbelief that the medal soon to be hung around his neck will be real.
Niou is lost in the crowd and he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care if his joy is as open and foolish and ecstatic as everyone else, especially Kirihara, who hugs Yanagi so tight Niou thinks for a split second that Yanagi will burst, too.
Niou feels someone against his back, but it isn’t just the crowd jostling into his every part, this touch is deliberate. He shivers, involuntary, and manages to wrench his head to look.
Yagyuu is pressed against the side of Niou’s ribs. His glasses are halfway down his nose, but there cannot be enough room for Yagyuu to fix them. Niou can smell the sweet candy on his breath- probably given to him by Marui.
“Congratulations, Niou-kun!” Yagyuu shouts, but his voice is lost in the crowd as soon as he has spoken and Niou can’t answer back. Yagyuu is gone as soon as he squeezed into the mass, sucked into the whirlpool of cheering yellow t-shirts and sweat teenage boys, the smells of gunpowder from fireworks stinging the air.
Niou’s heart leaps up even higher in his chest and this time, the high of winning the Nationals doesn’t explain the feeling.
***
“Let’s go for sushi,” Nishiki says.
“It’ll be on the team,” the coach announces. “We’ve got more than enough in the budget.”
Niou fingers the medal hanging around his neck. The weight is much heavier than the Kansai regionals medal- now hanging on his bedroom wall- and the details finer, the calligraphic inscribed words, National Champion 2001.
Something pricks in Niou’s eyes.
Something must prick Yukimura’s eyes, too, because he sniffles and kisses his medal, fondling it as if nothing more could matter in the world. And in this moment, Niou agrees. He wants to jump off the top of the stadium cover and scream his lungs out. His hands shake too much to call home and tell his parents.
Besides, they probably would just smile and nod and go back to reading their newspapers and working on sudoku squares.
The afternoon sun hangs low in the sky, matching their jerseys and their bright moods. The bus has long been abandoned and their teammates have gone back to Kanagawa to celebrate with a party at the clubhouse, but the eight regulars are left with the coach, who trails behind them with a satisfied smirk at a job well done this year.
The stadium is near a district of winding shop-lined streets, no trees or flora in site except for the almost alive glow of greenish neon signs and pink and blue, framing the buildings everywhere. Niou ducks his head and walks around the crowds of people, around the signs hanging in the air like multicoloured clouds. As the sun dips lower and lower, the lights become brighter. No one can stop talking about the matches, but it is mostly about the losses of the other teams.
“Did you see that shot the Makinofuji doubles two player made? Wasn’t it poor form?”
“Remember that Hyoutei player? He was practically asleep on the court, that’s why he lost! What an idiot!”
Kirihara is silent during this, rubbing his head gingerly. He sports a white patch on the side of his forehead that is dark in the centre with dried blood. Niou sighs heavily and slings an arm over Kirihara’s shoulder, leaning heavily onto the kid and making him sag.
“Hey!” Kirihara shouts, trying to pull Niou’s armlock off him.
“That was some play,” Niou says. “You know,” he adds, chewing on his lip as he thinks about it, “you’re almost like that little Tasmanian devil guy, you spin around and around and froth at the mouth-”
“-I do not!”
“-and then you plow into things.”
Niou slides his arm off Kirihara. “Thousand yen says Yukimura will insist we make it a threepeat, ne?”
Kirihara frowns. “You just want my money. Duh he’s gonna say that. And I heard Sanada-senpai tell Yanagi-senpai that Yukimura-senpai will be buchou at the end of the week.”
Niou looks ahead, where Nishiki and Yamada lead their pack, constantly fingering their medals like touchstones, shining them into the eyes of pedestrians as they pass by. Niou dodges a lady with wide shopping bags and falls back in step beside Kirihara.
Yukimura, Sanada and Yanagi walk three across, their feet in perfect unison and there voices, too. “We have to work on our serves,” Yukimura tells them. “I’ve heard Hyoutei has some upcoming players with strong serves and they should be a force to reckon with next year.”
“We should increase the training menu with the weights,” Sanada says.
Niou groans inside. Serves, fine, but not more weights.
“For the best start on the next season, we should have our team in place by week’s end,” Yanagi says. “Seigaku does constant rotations of regular players, but that inconsistency could cause tensions and we would have to rework the lineups to accommodate new players.”
“I wouldn’t touch their system with a ten foot pole,” Yukimura says, his voice loud and clear over the din of shoppers, the honking of car horns, the dull roar of buses driving by. “The only decent player they have is Tezuka. He’d be fun to play next year, right Sanada?”
“Less than a week,” Niou tells Kirihara.
“Ah! Yukimura!” Sanada stops in the middle of the sidewalk. Kirihara plows into his back, Niou plows into a shop front window and the rest of the team keeps walking ahead, until Yukimura realizes that Sanada isn’t moving anymore.
“This sushi bar! It looks good,” Sanada starts with a loud voice, then it falls to a grumble as Nishiki turns around and Sanada just seems like a big, giant dork for stopping them in the middle of the street like this.
Yanagi reads the menu, taped to the window. Niou leans back against the ledge, resting his feet. They must have been wandering around the district for an hour, maybe more, he can’t remember when they left the stadium after the fireworks finished and the medals were handed out.
Yukimura shrugs. “Here?”
Nishiki looks at Yamada, the Kawasaki, then the coach. “This okay, sensei?”
The coach shrugs too. “Whatever you guys want.”
Why Sanada insists on this particular sushi bar, Niou doesn’t know. The walls are plastered with kitschy American posters of sitcom stars and movie celebrities, hugging a chef in white apron who must work here. Niou dumps his tennisbag into the pile the team creates at the far end of the bar, peels his shoes off and sits down at one of the low toes. He stretches his legs out and cracks his toes. His socks are damp and stink like everyone else’s.
The sushi itself comes on black lacquer plates chipped at the edges. Niou has had better, but it isn’t bad. He much prefers BBQ beef over sushi. Sanada and Yanagi, though, order tray after tray off the cart: baby octopuses on top of rice balls, tuna sushi, blood red meat against the white rice and green seaweed. Yukimura orders salmon and lobster and eel. Kirihara eats everything his senpais do, picking off the trays like a vulture. The seniors snap their fingers for one of the serving girls.
“Can we have three kirin lagers?” Nishiki asks her.
The girl looks from the seniors, to the coach, who looks up and shakes his head. “Nice try, boys,” he says. “But you can get me an Asahi black and another order of prawn sushi.”
Kirihara drinks a pitcher of coca cola and before Yukimura has polished off the whitefish, Kirihara is crawling up the walls, wired on the sugar and fizz. “Yukimura-senpai,” he shrieks, “look at me!”
Yukimura looks at Kirihara, who has managed to stand on his head, albeit so haphazardly that his legs fall backwards as soon as he gets the up over his head. He rolls over onto Nishiki’s lap and grins up at him. “Are you ready to retire, yet, Niskiki-buchou?” Kirihara asks.
Nishiki whacks Kirihara in the ear.
Kirihara swigs another glass of coke.
Niou drinks a bubble tea, slurping up the tapioca balls with relish and rolling them over his tongue. The sweetness of the coconut milk and papaya in his mouth mixes a little unpleasantly with the fishy aftertaste of the sushi.
With food in their stomachs, lethargy sets in. Niou’s stomach presses against the waistband of his shorts and he rolls onto the floor, clutching his sides and wondering if he really did need that last swiped lobster sushi roll from Yukimura or not. His feet ache, too. And his face feels a bit tight, the skin a bit raw and maybe he’s had too much sun today. He feels hot and full and stuffed.
“Anyone want to go for karaoke?” Kawasaki offers, standing up with a loud yawn and a tall stretch.
Yanagi makes a hopeful face, but as he starts to stand up, he grimaces.
“I’m soooo full,” Nishiki moans.
“So am I!” Kirihara agrees, groaning in tandem.
“We have to meet the bus within a half hour,” the coach announces. “Or we won’t make it back to Kanagawa tonight.” As the coach stands, he sways unsteady on his feet. Niou notices that his face is red, and not from the sun.
“You’re not driving are you, sensei?” Niou asks. He snorts when the coach narrows his eyes.
Yukimura nods firmly. “Good, sensei, because we need to be in top shape for next season.”
Had Niou known that Yukimura was secretly psychic, he might have said something to warn the team. Instead, he follows the rest of the regulars in shoving his feet into his sneakers without bothering to tie them up, and they leave the sushi bar to meet the bus driver in a nearby shopping centre parking lot.
***
His night is spent pasted to the toilet seat, groaning and clutching his sides as he shits out everything in his system. Niou moans and flushes the toilet, starting to pull up his underpants to crawl back into his bed, when his insides will growl and shudder and he’ll sit right back down before he has any accidents.
As a kid, that would have been horrific. And as a teenager, even more. Niou won’t risk it, not with the constant lurching inside his intestines.
A soft knock on the door and his mother’s voice whispers, “Are you all right, Masaharu?”
Niou squeezes his eyes shut and bends down, his clammy forehead touching his knees to help with the spasms of pain. “Stupid Sanada…stupid sushi…”
Niou finally does manage to shuffle into his bedroom, but his ass hurts so much that when Niou lies on side, the pain still doesn’t stop throbbing.
***
Monday morning Niou carefully shuffles into the tennis clubhouse, yawning and droopy-eyed.
Sanada shuffles in behind him, and Yanagi. Sanada’s eyes are glazed over and Yanagi looks a bit green.
Nishiki, Yamada and Kawasaki walk carefully across the tennis courts, slow and steady steps.
Kirihara rushes into the bathroom as soon as tennis practice starts.
“I take it you guys had a rough night too?” Nishiki asks, forcing a laugh to lighten the mood.
“Buchou, should we start practice?” a freshman calls. Nishiki waves him off. “Fifteen laps! Don’t bother us!”
The freshman ducks his head, muttering something under his breath. The tennis club starts like a well-oiled train engine, moving from zero to sixty in seconds, a hundred slapping sneakers on the damp morning courts.
Sanada is the first to ask. Or maybe the first to care. “Where’s Yukimura?”
Yanagi looks over his shoulder, then shrugs with a wince. “Have you tried calling him?”
Sanada pulls a cellphone from his tennisbag, punching the numbers so hard that Niou wonders how often the crybaby goes through mobiles. With each ring, Sanada’s face hardens into a grimace. “No answer. Should I call his home, too?”
Yanagi starts to say something, then blanches and races to the clubhouse, faster than the club members doing laps around the court.
“You do realize this is your fault,” Niou tells Sanada. “Your sushi place gave us all food poisoning. What if you killed Yukimura?”
Sanada drops his cellphone mid-call and before it has clattered to the ground, Niou lands on the ground himself, stunned and confused and sprawled on his back.
“Fuck you,” Sanada says through his teeth. His hand is raised, unmoved from the same position he backhanded Niou with.
Niou breathes, the sting of the slap taking a moment to settle into his cheek. It hurts like hell, hot and angry, where Sanada hit him. He doesn’t touch the spot. He can already feel his skin swelling up, bruises imminent.
He spits a wad onto the court, close to Sanada’s sneaker. His aim is off.
Niou stands up, clenching his jaw. He says nothing to Sanada. Fucking asshole, he thinks.
Yanagi returns to the court with Kirihara, both looking visibly relieved. In more than one way. “Genichirou?” Yanagi asks.
“His mother says he’s got food poisoning and he isn’t coming to school today,” Sanada says. His bottom lip looks a bit shaky. Niou snorts, making Sanada glare. Niou snorts again and turns his back on Sanada. The bastard.
“I’m sure we’ll survive without him,” Yanagi says, patting Sanada on the shoulder.
Why Sanada doesn’t backhand Yanagi in the face for that comment, Niou would love to know.
Author: Ociwen
Rating: NC17 (eventual)
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all.
Summary: Niou, meet Yagyuu.
Author's Notes: Spoilers for everything.
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Part 8] [Part 9] [Part 10] [Part 11] [Part 12] [Part 13] [Part 14] [Part 15]
Sunday is the last game of the Nationals, but it might as well be the first. Niou doesn’t know if he has slept in four days. He can barely remember taking the bus home each afternoon: did he fall asleep on the drive from Tokyo to Kanagawa? Did he walk home from school? Did he take the bus?
He must have eaten at some point. Niou checks his tennisbag on the bus in the morning. The side pocket is crammed with chili chips and cold fried chicken and rice in a bento, waterbottles and apple juice boxes, banana cakes and tangerines.
Does she think I’m like that fatty Marui? he thinks about his mother. But he peels a tangerine on the bus, inhaling the citrus smell of the peel scattered on his lap. The tangerine is sweet in his mouth and sates a new-flared hunger.
Nishiki stands up on the expressway, leaning on the bus seats. “Everyone!” he shouts, repeating himself until Yanagi and Yukimura fall silent and Kirihara puts his Nintendo gameboy on mute. “We’ve made it to the finals for the second year in a row. Let’s make it a win!”
“Yes, buchou!” the chorus follows.
Everyone except Yukimura. He sits in the back seat with a smile on his face. Niou watches him, bobbing with the motions of the traffic and the potholes in the roads, until Yukimura’s eyes start to flutter and his head sags forward, before he falls over right onto Sanada’s shoulder.
Sanada stiffens, then his face softens.
Niou leans over the back of the seat and grabs Sanada’s cap, flicking it off his head and messing up his hair in the process.
“Hey!” Sanada shouts.
“Hey!” Yukimura mutters, sitting up straight and pouting at Sanada.
Niou grins. He hands Sanada’s cap back to Yukimura, who sniffs and tosses the cap onto Sanada’s lap before he closes his eyes for a second time, this time deliberately resting his cheek on Sanada’s arm.
Niou settles back in his seat, then he brushes the leftover tangerine peel onto the floor under his feet, making sure to flick the bits backwards toward Sanada’s legs. Sanada says nothing with Yukimura lying on his arm, but he growls under his cap and gives Niou an evil eye.
I’ll get you, he says through his beady black eyes.
Sure thing, Niou mouths back, smiling at Sanada.
The morning is beautiful once the bus arrives in Tokyo, pulling down sidestreets, stopping at streetlights, then driving on into the sports complex parking lot. Niou steps off the bus and stretches his arms out over his head. The yawn feels good and he shakes off the last of his tiredness.
They are playing Makinofuji, who somehow made it to the final rounds. Niou carries his tennisbag and searches the stadium for signs of the other team. But all he can see are the green of Yamabuki players, the yellow and green patterns of Shitenhoji, the white and grey of Hyoutei and the rust of Rokkaku, amongst hundreds of other spectators, minor reporters and school children, a few people in Rikkai school uniforms who have come to cheer the tennis club on. There are parents and families and friends.
Niou sucks in a breath. He scans the crowds quickly for a group of meganes, but there is no sign of his own family. The lump in his stomach dissipates. It is one thing for his mother, one lone family member, to come to the school when he is called to the principal’s, but for people to see his entire family would be something else.
He can breathe a sigh of relief.
His family wouldn’t come to something like this. They are probably spending the day at the Yokohama Museum of Techonology, or something equally as mind-numbingly dorky. Watching chess on tv or doing multiplication squares for fun.
There should be an air of nervousness. The team should be angsting and wringing their hands together, obsessively practicing swings or running laps. Instead, everyone on the team is calm and cool. Niou thinks about his breathing, in and out, in and out. The noises in the stadium rise as crowds fill into the seats and the Rikkai yellow comes out in full-force. There is a single bead of sweat down the middle of Nishiki’s nose, but nothing more.
It might be the heat.
The sky is a brilliant azure, full of fluffy clouds that flat lazily by. Not a bird in sight, not even a cooing pigeon. There are no cicadas to irritate Yanagi here, no snakes to freak Sanada out, nothing but an expanse of green clay and stiff white nets.
It is, in some ways, a battleground. Niou unloads his tennisbag and pulls out his weapon, a Prince More Power racket with dark teal frame. He runs a finger along the side, catching the scratches in the metal with his fingernail.
He exhales.
Nishiki says, “Let’s go” and they file out onto the court, a perfect line of ants. Or maybe a platoon of soldiers, all serious faces with the task to come. Win the Nationals title, or nothing at all.
Makinofuji is from Hyougo in the Kansai region. Niou doesn’t even hear more than their captain say one word before he rolls his eyes. More Kansai bastards, as far as he’s concerned. He shoves his hands in his pockets and crosses his left hand fingers, hoping that they won’t be as annoying as the last team Rikkai played from Kansai was.
Makinofuji, though, is hushed. The team all have wide eyes and the shortest one on the team, Niou is certain that he can see the boy shaking. Another kid swallows, his skinny throat bobbing up and down like a fisher float.
Niou leans forward, tempted to say boo. Kirihara licks his lips, running his tongue over his teeth. The fluttering in Niou’s stomach dissipates as the other team takes it from him. Maybe the finals won’t be as difficult as Shitenhoji was.
Makinofuji form a protective huddle, a tortoise on the edge of the court, with white and red jerseys. Nishiki nods to the team and they do the same, but Rikkai’s huddle is loose and casual, with even Sanada and Yanagi smiling and muttering to each other.
“Makinofuji made it to the finals, but I heard that Shitenhoji slaughtered them in the Kansai regionals,” Nishiki says.
“3-0 it was,” Yanagi adds.
“We’re going to switch it up a bit,” Nishiki says. “Niou, singles three. Kirihara, singles two. Yamada, singles one. Yanagi, you’re in doubles two with me, and I want Sanada and Yukimura in doubles one.”
Yukimura’s mouth drops. “But…I don’t play doubles,” he manages.
“You do today,” Nishiki tells him.
Niou bites back a grin because the expression on Sanada’s face is beyond words. Sanada looks like he has swallowed his tongue, the way his eyes bug out and his face has gone pale. Niou inches closer to him, then pinches his arm. Sanada blinks, yelping. “Hey!”
“Don’t forget about tennis,” Niou reminds him. Don’t spend the game ga-ga over Yukimura.
Sanada’s face reddens nicely under the morning sun.
Niou is up first. And he’s never played singles at this level before, but he doubts it is that hard. He breathes out, then in. He closes his eyes for a brief moment, gathering himself, then he jumps the barrier onto the court as his name is announced over the loud speakers.
He doesn’t have any distractions like Sanada will. He doesn’t have to worry about backing anyone else up, or being backed up himself. It is all up to him. He flicks his hair out of his eyes and glances into the stands, but the glare of the sun is too bright and the shaded stadium canopy too dark for him to make out if Yagyuu is there or not.
Or Marui.
Take that, you fatty wannabe genius, he thinks. Marui might have won the Newcomer’s spot, but Niou has made it to the Nationals first.
Scuffs and shuffles and a cough sounds from the other side of the net. Niou turns around. A quaking, short player stands there, breathing heavily. “Eh….eh….s-smooth or rough?” he squeaks.
Niou smiles. “Rough.”
The racket spins twice, wavering and wobbling before it falls with a clatter. The kid squeezes his shut, then bends down and checks the end. “I-it’s rough,” he says.
“I’ll serve,” Niou says. If he can take the pace at the start of the game, he can end it sooner in his favour. Niou pulls a ball from his pocket. It is a little fuzzy and worn, but it will do just fine. He throws it up in the air, leans back and slams his full weight into his serve.
The hollow sound of the ball bouncing at the baseline, unreturned, is beautiful.
Niou serves again, and only then does the Makinofuji kid start to play, but his returns are weak, too high and easy to smash, the way they arc above Niou’s head in the yellow sun, all Niou has to do is step back, pull back and slam his racket down.
Game 1-0, Rikkai Dai.
When the Makinofuji player serves, the impact of playing singles hits Niou. The court feels big, empty and a bit lonely. He runs left, hitting a low shot with a rise, sliding the ball over his racket to pick up speed and get the game going. The other player gasps, grabs his racket with two hands and hurls the ball back to Niou.
It isn’t a very powerful shot, the kid is skinny and barely caught the ball with his racket. Knowing Yagyuu must be watching, Niou stands up tall, he stretches his arm back as far as he can, and burns the ball with his racket. It slices through the court, as straight and narrow as a laser.
The Makinofuji player stumbles backwards, then trips over his feet.
The ball hits the edge of the court, smashing into the paper advertisement, and then the cement wall. It drops to the clay ground, leaving a blackened hole in the middle of an ad for cameras.
The swish of the Rikkai cheerleaders’ pompoms lifts Niou even more. Thrill rises in his chest, burning through his ribs like a laser. He can’t hold back now, Niou throws himself into laser shots and smashes. He jumps and lobs and poaches. He runs to the baseline, rallying a few rounds, before he runs back to the net and uses a drop shot, just because it is fun to see the little Makinofuji player’s face fall more and more as he loses point after point after point.
Niou doesn’t need to play doubles, he controls this game completely. At match point, he holds back from a laser, instead favouring a split-step, then swinging back for an easy kill.
The cheers rise in the crowds.
Game 6-0. Rikkai Dai wins the set.
As Yanagi walks onto the court to start his match, Niou bumps into him, raising his hand into the air. Yanagi takes a moment to realize it, then he slaps Niou’s hand. “Nice win,” he says.
“It wasn’t bad,” Niou agrees.
Yanagi-Nishiki pair faces a pair of Makinofuji seniors, but neither one are very tall or very strong looking. They have the build of Yukimura, scrawny and scraggly and uncomfortably in the middle of puberty. But, unlike Niou’s opponent, they don’t shake in their shoes. They pull up their chins and puff out their chests.
“Let’s have a good game,” one drawls, the thick accent audible across the stadium.
Yanagi, though, doesn’t seem fazed. Instead, he smiles that creepy little smirk as though he knows the answers to the universe and he just nods. But to Niou, Yanagi is easy to read. In some ways, he is as transparent as Sanada, just nowhere near as outwardly aggressive.
Makinofuji serves first.
Nishiki returns the ball, a straight, fast rally in the making.
One of the Makinofuji doubles runs forward, the other running backward. The net player returns the shot. Australian formation. How nice, Niou thinks. How easy.
Yanagi breaks the formation up. He hits a shot, precise and neat to the sideline, right between the two players, right in the centre of the court. The Makinofuji pair scatters and Nishiki comes in for the win, smashing the ball right onto the other side of the net before the other team can reach it.
Yanagi, unlike Nishiki, isn’t a good doubles player. He is territorial, stepping in front of Nishiki if Nishiki so much as steps into his section of the court. Yanagi will run for the ball first, as if in competition with Nishiki, not on the same team. Yanagi takes over the court and Nishiki falls back to the sideline, near the baseline, but not in Yanagi’s way. Yanagi plays baseline and he plays it well. He knows where and when to hit the balls to make Makinofuji run and shaken up.
And it is Yanagi who wins the game. Nishiki shakes the hands of the Makinofuji players afterwards, but they don’t look at him. They stare at Yanagi as they limp hands fall from Nishiki’s grasp.
Yanagi walks off the court, tall and confident as he passes the reigns to Kirihara.
“Win it for us, Akaya,” he says.
When Niou sees Yanagi sit down on the bench, there isn’t a red flush to his face at all. And he’s barely broken a sweat, just a scattered splatter of tiny sweatdrops along his forehead, but nothing more.
Kirihara ducks his head against his chest, his eyes glittering through the tangled mess of his hair. Niou can see his teeth as white as his eyes, and flashing just as much.
Something tugs inside Niou, and he almost feels bad for the Makinofuji senior waiting on the court for Kirihara. He doesn’t stand a chance.
Kirihara won’t be undone by Yanagi’s play, or Niou’s win. Niou knows the wonderchibi well enough to know that. Kirihara plants his feet, swaying from side to side and he means business from the get-go of the first serve.
Straight off, Kirihara starts with a vicious twist serve. Niou watches as the ball is returned to him, then Kirihara shoots straight towards the Makinofuji kid’s foot, just to the side of his right foot. Again, Kirihara slams the ball there. The other player keeps stepping left to avoid it until he is boxed into a corner at the baseline.
And Kirihara laughs, his childish voice rising with glee. “Is this all you have?” Kirihara shouts. “Aren’t you even going to try?”
The Makinofuji senior sneers, he steps forward and straight into Kirihara’s trap, straight into the path of the ball that smacks into his ankle. He yelps and jumps aside, but Niou has been hit by enough stray balls to know it smarts like hell.
Kirihara just rubs his chin, examining his handiwork over his shoulder. The other player stumbles to his feet, but he’s shaky now, he’s unsure and he stumbles on his shots. He stumbles on his serves. Kirihara takes the points, he takes the games. One, two, three games in five minutes flat.
But, as the players change courts and Kirihara walks with a swagger across the court, the Makinofuji player stops at his bench, speaking with his coach for a moment and grabbing a drink from a waterbottle. He turns around, a half-glance towards Kirihara, then he walks back to his side of the net.
Niou leans forward. Kirihara doesn’t seem to notice, he’s too busy being pleased with himself and smiling as the cheerleaders on the Rikkai Dai bleachers shout his name and the school cheers.
The Makinofuji senior stands at the centre of the court.
“Don’t get hurt,” Kirihara yells as he throws up the ball.
“You, too!” he calls back.
Kirihara frowns, hitting the ball with a strong serve, one that swings to the side of the court, then curves back towards the baseline. The other player makes a run for it and he manages to save the shot, sliding on the clay ground, digging up dust that clouds above him. Niou winces. He can hear the grind of scraped skin on the court, raw and red.
Kirihara laughs.
But the ball is returned and it isn’t what Kirihara thinks. It isn’t what Niou expects either, no, whatever the Makinofuji player has done, maybe a snap of his wrist or the angle of his racket grinding into the ground, the ball arcs high above, a beautiful parabola that looms closer and closer to the net.
Kirihara runs for it, his legs pumping. He doesn’t watch where he is going, he just follows the ball, determined to return it and take the game.
A second cloud of dust blooms. A silence descends as the grains settle back down onto the court. Kirihara lies sprawled on his stomach, curled up beside the side post of the net. A pool of blood lies under his face and when he lifts his head, half of his face dark with blood and dirt and pain.
Kirihara’s heavy breathing is the only sound. And then the grunting and groans as he stands up, pushing himself up on his knees.
The idiot, Niou thinks.
“Game, forfeit!” the referee calls. “Doubles one please report to the court. Doubles one report to the court.”
Kirihara starts to shout something, but his voice is strangled. The coach grabs his arm, staring to lead him off the court, but Kirihara pushes him away. “I’m fine!” he insists, wiping a hand across his face. “I can still play!”
The coach shakes his head. “You might be able to, but the other player can’t.”
The Makinofuji coach leads the other player off the court, who wobbles on his good ankle, his other leg dragging behind.
“We’ll take it from here, Akaya,” Yukimura announces. “Come on, Sanada.”
And the two of the worst monsters have their chance for glory.
Yukimura, though, seems glued to the bench. Sanada has already stood up, racket in hand, but Yukimura, always so quick to report to the court for a game, just fiddles with the strings on his racket. He leans forward, shifting his weight onto his feet, then sits straight back again.
“Yukimura?” Sanada asks.
Niou touches a piece of his hair. Something is going on.
Yukimura’s brow furrows. His headband slides down his face. “It- my leg’s asleep Sanada. Just give me a minute.”
Sanada nods, and waits, true to Yukimura’s request.
Yukimura grunts, then leans forward again, this time standing up with a wry smile. “Sorry for the…trouble,” he says.
“It’s okay,” Sanada says.
Niou has to wonder how long Sanada has waited for this formation, how long Sanada has been silently cursing Nishiki and the coach for always pairing him up with someone else- Yanagi, Kirihara, a senpai- rather than Yukimura.
But it isn’t hard to see why Yukimura almost never plays doubles.
If Sanada and Yanagi play doubles as two singles players, then Sanada and Yukimura play doubles as something even more polar. Sanada tries formations with Yukimura, standing along the baseline with him. In theory, Niou assumes it would trip the Makinofuji doubles one team up. After all, the Makinofuji doubles play decently well- keeping in formation, alternating who hits the ball, backing each other up during a play: one to rally, the other to smash.
But Yukimura will have none of it. He glares at Sanada, sending Sanada slinking back to the net. He plays defense and offense at the same time, switching from forward shots to backhands, side to side, faster than Niou can blink. Occasionally, a shot will stray near enough to Sanada that he’ll hit it.
Yukimura owns the game.
Fourteen minutes flat and the last shot, a beautiful smash from a smiling Yukimura, is delivered to the centre baseline of the Makinofuji court.
Yukimura brushes off his shorts, still smiling as the cheers explode in the bleachers. Niou stands up with everyone else, clapping so hard his hands tingle. They’ve won. They’ve won the Nationals for a second year in a row.
Yanagi is the first to jump the barrier, then Kirihara, then Niou and the senpais. They stream out onto the court, running into each other and Yukimura and Sanada, a tight-packed huddle of tossed up hats and jackets, with yellow streaming up into the air along with the first bangs and pops of light and colour above them.
The fireworks light up the blue sky with green and red and the brightest gold gold gold for Rikkai Dai.
It is not only the regulars who rush out onto the court, but the entire team, dozens and dozens of whooping and grinning faces, arms raised and ready to lift Yukimura and Sanada onto shoulders, passing them around as though they have the Midas touch, having fulfilled Yukimura’s goal two years in a row now.
Niou grabs Sanada’s ankle, pushing him higher, with all his strength, but the combined effort of the team makes him seem weightless, and Yukimura even more. He can’t stop grinning, he can’t stop the bubbling elation inside that bursts with even more laughter and disbelief that the medal soon to be hung around his neck will be real.
Niou is lost in the crowd and he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care if his joy is as open and foolish and ecstatic as everyone else, especially Kirihara, who hugs Yanagi so tight Niou thinks for a split second that Yanagi will burst, too.
Niou feels someone against his back, but it isn’t just the crowd jostling into his every part, this touch is deliberate. He shivers, involuntary, and manages to wrench his head to look.
Yagyuu is pressed against the side of Niou’s ribs. His glasses are halfway down his nose, but there cannot be enough room for Yagyuu to fix them. Niou can smell the sweet candy on his breath- probably given to him by Marui.
“Congratulations, Niou-kun!” Yagyuu shouts, but his voice is lost in the crowd as soon as he has spoken and Niou can’t answer back. Yagyuu is gone as soon as he squeezed into the mass, sucked into the whirlpool of cheering yellow t-shirts and sweat teenage boys, the smells of gunpowder from fireworks stinging the air.
Niou’s heart leaps up even higher in his chest and this time, the high of winning the Nationals doesn’t explain the feeling.
***
“Let’s go for sushi,” Nishiki says.
“It’ll be on the team,” the coach announces. “We’ve got more than enough in the budget.”
Niou fingers the medal hanging around his neck. The weight is much heavier than the Kansai regionals medal- now hanging on his bedroom wall- and the details finer, the calligraphic inscribed words, National Champion 2001.
Something pricks in Niou’s eyes.
Something must prick Yukimura’s eyes, too, because he sniffles and kisses his medal, fondling it as if nothing more could matter in the world. And in this moment, Niou agrees. He wants to jump off the top of the stadium cover and scream his lungs out. His hands shake too much to call home and tell his parents.
Besides, they probably would just smile and nod and go back to reading their newspapers and working on sudoku squares.
The afternoon sun hangs low in the sky, matching their jerseys and their bright moods. The bus has long been abandoned and their teammates have gone back to Kanagawa to celebrate with a party at the clubhouse, but the eight regulars are left with the coach, who trails behind them with a satisfied smirk at a job well done this year.
The stadium is near a district of winding shop-lined streets, no trees or flora in site except for the almost alive glow of greenish neon signs and pink and blue, framing the buildings everywhere. Niou ducks his head and walks around the crowds of people, around the signs hanging in the air like multicoloured clouds. As the sun dips lower and lower, the lights become brighter. No one can stop talking about the matches, but it is mostly about the losses of the other teams.
“Did you see that shot the Makinofuji doubles two player made? Wasn’t it poor form?”
“Remember that Hyoutei player? He was practically asleep on the court, that’s why he lost! What an idiot!”
Kirihara is silent during this, rubbing his head gingerly. He sports a white patch on the side of his forehead that is dark in the centre with dried blood. Niou sighs heavily and slings an arm over Kirihara’s shoulder, leaning heavily onto the kid and making him sag.
“Hey!” Kirihara shouts, trying to pull Niou’s armlock off him.
“That was some play,” Niou says. “You know,” he adds, chewing on his lip as he thinks about it, “you’re almost like that little Tasmanian devil guy, you spin around and around and froth at the mouth-”
“-I do not!”
“-and then you plow into things.”
Niou slides his arm off Kirihara. “Thousand yen says Yukimura will insist we make it a threepeat, ne?”
Kirihara frowns. “You just want my money. Duh he’s gonna say that. And I heard Sanada-senpai tell Yanagi-senpai that Yukimura-senpai will be buchou at the end of the week.”
Niou looks ahead, where Nishiki and Yamada lead their pack, constantly fingering their medals like touchstones, shining them into the eyes of pedestrians as they pass by. Niou dodges a lady with wide shopping bags and falls back in step beside Kirihara.
Yukimura, Sanada and Yanagi walk three across, their feet in perfect unison and there voices, too. “We have to work on our serves,” Yukimura tells them. “I’ve heard Hyoutei has some upcoming players with strong serves and they should be a force to reckon with next year.”
“We should increase the training menu with the weights,” Sanada says.
Niou groans inside. Serves, fine, but not more weights.
“For the best start on the next season, we should have our team in place by week’s end,” Yanagi says. “Seigaku does constant rotations of regular players, but that inconsistency could cause tensions and we would have to rework the lineups to accommodate new players.”
“I wouldn’t touch their system with a ten foot pole,” Yukimura says, his voice loud and clear over the din of shoppers, the honking of car horns, the dull roar of buses driving by. “The only decent player they have is Tezuka. He’d be fun to play next year, right Sanada?”
“Less than a week,” Niou tells Kirihara.
“Ah! Yukimura!” Sanada stops in the middle of the sidewalk. Kirihara plows into his back, Niou plows into a shop front window and the rest of the team keeps walking ahead, until Yukimura realizes that Sanada isn’t moving anymore.
“This sushi bar! It looks good,” Sanada starts with a loud voice, then it falls to a grumble as Nishiki turns around and Sanada just seems like a big, giant dork for stopping them in the middle of the street like this.
Yanagi reads the menu, taped to the window. Niou leans back against the ledge, resting his feet. They must have been wandering around the district for an hour, maybe more, he can’t remember when they left the stadium after the fireworks finished and the medals were handed out.
Yukimura shrugs. “Here?”
Nishiki looks at Yamada, the Kawasaki, then the coach. “This okay, sensei?”
The coach shrugs too. “Whatever you guys want.”
Why Sanada insists on this particular sushi bar, Niou doesn’t know. The walls are plastered with kitschy American posters of sitcom stars and movie celebrities, hugging a chef in white apron who must work here. Niou dumps his tennisbag into the pile the team creates at the far end of the bar, peels his shoes off and sits down at one of the low toes. He stretches his legs out and cracks his toes. His socks are damp and stink like everyone else’s.
The sushi itself comes on black lacquer plates chipped at the edges. Niou has had better, but it isn’t bad. He much prefers BBQ beef over sushi. Sanada and Yanagi, though, order tray after tray off the cart: baby octopuses on top of rice balls, tuna sushi, blood red meat against the white rice and green seaweed. Yukimura orders salmon and lobster and eel. Kirihara eats everything his senpais do, picking off the trays like a vulture. The seniors snap their fingers for one of the serving girls.
“Can we have three kirin lagers?” Nishiki asks her.
The girl looks from the seniors, to the coach, who looks up and shakes his head. “Nice try, boys,” he says. “But you can get me an Asahi black and another order of prawn sushi.”
Kirihara drinks a pitcher of coca cola and before Yukimura has polished off the whitefish, Kirihara is crawling up the walls, wired on the sugar and fizz. “Yukimura-senpai,” he shrieks, “look at me!”
Yukimura looks at Kirihara, who has managed to stand on his head, albeit so haphazardly that his legs fall backwards as soon as he gets the up over his head. He rolls over onto Nishiki’s lap and grins up at him. “Are you ready to retire, yet, Niskiki-buchou?” Kirihara asks.
Nishiki whacks Kirihara in the ear.
Kirihara swigs another glass of coke.
Niou drinks a bubble tea, slurping up the tapioca balls with relish and rolling them over his tongue. The sweetness of the coconut milk and papaya in his mouth mixes a little unpleasantly with the fishy aftertaste of the sushi.
With food in their stomachs, lethargy sets in. Niou’s stomach presses against the waistband of his shorts and he rolls onto the floor, clutching his sides and wondering if he really did need that last swiped lobster sushi roll from Yukimura or not. His feet ache, too. And his face feels a bit tight, the skin a bit raw and maybe he’s had too much sun today. He feels hot and full and stuffed.
“Anyone want to go for karaoke?” Kawasaki offers, standing up with a loud yawn and a tall stretch.
Yanagi makes a hopeful face, but as he starts to stand up, he grimaces.
“I’m soooo full,” Nishiki moans.
“So am I!” Kirihara agrees, groaning in tandem.
“We have to meet the bus within a half hour,” the coach announces. “Or we won’t make it back to Kanagawa tonight.” As the coach stands, he sways unsteady on his feet. Niou notices that his face is red, and not from the sun.
“You’re not driving are you, sensei?” Niou asks. He snorts when the coach narrows his eyes.
Yukimura nods firmly. “Good, sensei, because we need to be in top shape for next season.”
Had Niou known that Yukimura was secretly psychic, he might have said something to warn the team. Instead, he follows the rest of the regulars in shoving his feet into his sneakers without bothering to tie them up, and they leave the sushi bar to meet the bus driver in a nearby shopping centre parking lot.
***
His night is spent pasted to the toilet seat, groaning and clutching his sides as he shits out everything in his system. Niou moans and flushes the toilet, starting to pull up his underpants to crawl back into his bed, when his insides will growl and shudder and he’ll sit right back down before he has any accidents.
As a kid, that would have been horrific. And as a teenager, even more. Niou won’t risk it, not with the constant lurching inside his intestines.
A soft knock on the door and his mother’s voice whispers, “Are you all right, Masaharu?”
Niou squeezes his eyes shut and bends down, his clammy forehead touching his knees to help with the spasms of pain. “Stupid Sanada…stupid sushi…”
Niou finally does manage to shuffle into his bedroom, but his ass hurts so much that when Niou lies on side, the pain still doesn’t stop throbbing.
***
Monday morning Niou carefully shuffles into the tennis clubhouse, yawning and droopy-eyed.
Sanada shuffles in behind him, and Yanagi. Sanada’s eyes are glazed over and Yanagi looks a bit green.
Nishiki, Yamada and Kawasaki walk carefully across the tennis courts, slow and steady steps.
Kirihara rushes into the bathroom as soon as tennis practice starts.
“I take it you guys had a rough night too?” Nishiki asks, forcing a laugh to lighten the mood.
“Buchou, should we start practice?” a freshman calls. Nishiki waves him off. “Fifteen laps! Don’t bother us!”
The freshman ducks his head, muttering something under his breath. The tennis club starts like a well-oiled train engine, moving from zero to sixty in seconds, a hundred slapping sneakers on the damp morning courts.
Sanada is the first to ask. Or maybe the first to care. “Where’s Yukimura?”
Yanagi looks over his shoulder, then shrugs with a wince. “Have you tried calling him?”
Sanada pulls a cellphone from his tennisbag, punching the numbers so hard that Niou wonders how often the crybaby goes through mobiles. With each ring, Sanada’s face hardens into a grimace. “No answer. Should I call his home, too?”
Yanagi starts to say something, then blanches and races to the clubhouse, faster than the club members doing laps around the court.
“You do realize this is your fault,” Niou tells Sanada. “Your sushi place gave us all food poisoning. What if you killed Yukimura?”
Sanada drops his cellphone mid-call and before it has clattered to the ground, Niou lands on the ground himself, stunned and confused and sprawled on his back.
“Fuck you,” Sanada says through his teeth. His hand is raised, unmoved from the same position he backhanded Niou with.
Niou breathes, the sting of the slap taking a moment to settle into his cheek. It hurts like hell, hot and angry, where Sanada hit him. He doesn’t touch the spot. He can already feel his skin swelling up, bruises imminent.
He spits a wad onto the court, close to Sanada’s sneaker. His aim is off.
Niou stands up, clenching his jaw. He says nothing to Sanada. Fucking asshole, he thinks.
Yanagi returns to the court with Kirihara, both looking visibly relieved. In more than one way. “Genichirou?” Yanagi asks.
“His mother says he’s got food poisoning and he isn’t coming to school today,” Sanada says. His bottom lip looks a bit shaky. Niou snorts, making Sanada glare. Niou snorts again and turns his back on Sanada. The bastard.
“I’m sure we’ll survive without him,” Yanagi says, patting Sanada on the shoulder.
Why Sanada doesn’t backhand Yanagi in the face for that comment, Niou would love to know.