FIC: Rewind Forward (D1) 11/63
Title: Rewind Forward (11/63)
Author: Ociwen
Rating: NC17 (eventual)
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all.
Summary: Niou, meet Yagyuu.
Author's Notes: Spoilers for everything.
True to form, Yukimura is the first person at practice on Tuesday morning, as though nothing has happened, as though he has not missed a day.
He nods to Niou. Niou nods back.
Sanada doesn’t seem quite as pissy. As they pull on t-shirts and uniform shorts, Yukimura lunges, grabs Sanada’s cap off his head and ruffles his hair, laughing the whole while.
Sanada almost smiles, then he must remember that he’s an ass because he grabs his cap back, shoves it squarely on his head and scowls.
“Things change starting today,” Yukimura says. Niou’s locker is closest to Sanada and Yukimura’s, so the conversations of the three seniors are muffled with Yanagi standing in the way. All Niou can hear is Yukimura start to tell Sanada and Yanagi about things changing and they can’t get lazy, because tennis is everything, even more than life itself.
Sometimes, Niou thinks that Yukimura needs another hobby. Once he heard Yanagi talk about planting a bush in his mother’s garden and Yukimura grunted something about mulch, but if he gardens, Yukimura doesn’t garden much at all. He lives and breathes tennis.
Niou shoves his right hand into his pocket, grabs his racket with his left, and starts to walk out of the clubhouse. But, someone grabs his collar and tugs hard on it.
“Just wait, Niou,” Yukimura says, letting go roughly. “We’re not going out to the regulars’ courts today.”
Niou raises an eyebrow.
Kirihara raises two.
“Yes we are,” Nishiki says. “That’s where we practice, in case you forgot?”
Yukimura sniffs, then he smiles, a sweet innocent smile. But his eyes are dark, narrowed, revealing their sly depths. “You seniors can practice their all you like. You’re OBs now. Go away.”
“Uh, what did you just say?” Yamada asks. He takes a step towards Yukimura. Yukimura might be in the middle of a growth spurt, but Yamada has filled out. Yukimura is all gangly limbs and girlish hair.
“I said, Go. Away.”
Behind the door, there is the sound of a bubble popping. Niou shoves the door open and Marui shouts, “Ow!”
Niou closes the door again.
But Nishiki, Yamada and Kawasaki storm out of the regulars’ changing room, shouting behind their backs that they’re going to tell the coach on Yukimura and “you little asshole, you’re not the captain yet!”
Yukimura just folds his arms over his chest. His uniform jacket hands over his shoulders, fluttering back like the wings of an angel.
Or a monster.
“Twenty laps, everyone,” is the first thing that Yukimura says when he steps onto the main courts.
No one disputes him.
The seniors slink back to the regulars’ courts with frowns on their faces. The coach is nowhere to be seen, but then, most days he sits in his air-conditioned office playing solitaire on his computer instead of sweating in the hot weather with the tennis club members.
None of the regulars who are left- the three, Niou and Kirihara- are used to practicing with the rest of the team. Gone are the courts where they had exclusive use, now they jostle for space with freshmen and juniors and a few odd seniors who remain. Niou barely has enough room to throw a ball up and swing his racket. Too many freshmen, too many shabby swings, too many rogue balls flying around.
“This is shit,” Kirihara moans. “Why do we have to practice with everyone else?”
“Discipline,” Yanagi says.
“Don’t be a lazy ass!” Sanada tells Kirihara. “How many swings have you done today?”
Kirihara mutters a number.
Yukimura shakes his head. “You’ve got to try harder, Akaya,” but he avoids Kirihara’s real question completely.
They stick together, though. A pathway more or less opens up on the last court in the block and the five of them rally balls back and forth. Niou notices pink out of the side of his eye. On the closest adjacent court, Marui flashes and poses and rallies with Jackal. They are good, even, at their play.
Oddly, Niou also notices that where Marui had once been a sweating mess of red-faced wheezing, now his stamina is something else. He doesn’t pant. He doesn’t gasp. He keeps up with Jackal the whole rally, and then, he smashes the ball with a grin on his face.
“We weren’t playing a game,” Jackal says.
“My genius can’t contain itself sometimes,” Marui announces.
And there is Yagyuu, too.
Niou doesn’t see him as often, though he looks. Yagyuu moves all around the court, a veritable floater, rallying with freshmen and working on swings with groups of juniors. Maybe it is because he didn’t join at the beginning of a season, but showed up a couple weeks ago. He has no long-known acquaintances here. He doesn’t know the structure of practice. And he wanders onto their court Wednesday afternoon.
“Are you looking for something?” Niou asks.
Yagyuu pushes his glasses up his nose. “Pardon me, I had thought this court was public to all members of the club.”
“You’re in the club, Yagyuu-senpai?” Kirihara asks.
“I didn’t think he was,” Niou adds.
Yagyuu excuses himself. As always, he seems to dissolve into the crowds of other players. Instantly, Niou kicks himself inside for saying what he did. He hadn’t meant to be mean, exactly, it had just slipped out. And it was the truth. So far as Niou knew, Yagyuu was and is still a member of the golf club and he is no more than an interloper, maybe a visitor, of the tennis club.
Although he has an awesome laser shot.
On Thursday, Yukimura stands in the middle of the courts as the clock ticks for practice to begin. The club stands around him in a massed circle, but with a wide berth given to Yukimura. Sanada and Yanagi stand with him.
“Everyone,” Yukimura shouts. No one speaks when he does, not a peep from even the leftover seniors. Niou shifts his weight onto his left side, waiting for Yukimura to go on.
“From today on, things will change. I am your buchou now-”
Niou glances at Kirihara. “I won,” he mouths.
Kirihara shakes his head, mouthing something back, but he’s too fast and Niou can’t understand him. Niou nods anyway, pretending. Kirihara pouts.
“-and Sanada will be your fukubuchou. I expect you all to run twenty laps at the beginning of every practice.”
Niou groans inside. The faces of the club reflect his same sentiments, rolls of eyes and heavy sighs. Twenty laps?!
“There will be no tryouts in April for the regular positions…” Yukimura smiles as the club members exchange looks with each other, “…because I have already chosen my team and we will win the Nationals again. There will be no losses. That is the law of Rikkai Dai from now on.”
In his mind, Niou can already hear Sanada grinding this new law into their heads, day after day after day. “That is the law of Rikkai Dai! That is the law of Rikkai Dai!” His temple throbs in anticipation.
“Niou, Kirihara, come here!”
Niou steps into the centre of the circle, sidling up to Sanada.
“Jackal, Marui!”
Jackal walks forward from the back of the crowd, squeezing through a gap. Marui elbows his way through, grinning from ear to ear.
“Yagyuu!”
The silent crowd gets even quieter, if that is possible. Brows furrow and even Niou scratches his head. Yagyuu? He barely knows the game!
“This will be our winning team,” Yukimura says finally. He claps his hands. “Twenty laps everyone!”
“Hurry up, you lazy asses!” Sanada echoes.
“You seven, come with me.”
Yukimura leads them to the clubhouse, where, by the doorway, sits a brown box. Yukimura opens the box, and starts to toss items out. Black masses fly through the air, one, two to Jackal. One, two to Marui. One, two to Kirihara. Two for each. Niou catches his in cupped hands, which droop when he realizes the weight of these things. He looks down at them.
“Wrist weights,” Yukimura says. “You will wear those every day, every minute of the day.”
Kirihara says, “Eh?”
Yagyuu says nothing.
Sanada is the first one to fasten them to his wrists. Niou’s own wrists feel unnaturally heavy and awkward and within minutes the sweat has started to buildup underneath them.
“The weights should provide us with additional power once we get to used to them,” Yanagi explains. “Other schools do the same, but not on a continual basis or for the entire roster of regulars.”
“We will win next season,” Yukimura says. “Nothing will stop Rikkai Dai.”
***
Halfway through afternoon practice, Yukimura lingers as Niou grabs his waterbottle from the place he left it under the bench.
“Niou?” Yukimura asks.
Niou looks up. His wrists are itchy and hot. He should have taken them off because they are a pain, but, at the same time, wearing them gives him some sort of pride that doesn’t seem rational. Even when no one in his class knew what was wrapped around his wrists, just wearing them made Niou feel a bit warm and tingly and pleased with himself inside.
“Since Yagyuu has come to the club on your request, you’ll be doubles partners with him.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” Yukimura hisses. “Doubles partners. You have some golf club kid come to our club in the middle of the season and don’t think you’re going to get away with doing shit like that. This year we all have roles. And your role will be in doubles unless I say otherwise.” Yukimura pauses. “Got that?”
***
Fucking
Megane
Dork
Yagyuu can do a laser beam on the tennis court, but not much more.
A week of trying to practice with Yagyuu has left Niou with bad black roots and a constant headache. He rubs his temple and tries to breathe, tries to stay calm.
“You can’t twist your wrist like that,” Niou says. “And you’re following through too much! Your balls are all angled wrong.” Niou tosses the ball up, then hits a slow shot across the net. Yagyuu runs for the ball, swinging his racket back and-
“Stop stop stop!” Niou shouts. “You’re doing it again! What is it, some golf habit?”
Yagyuu tucks his racket under his arm, then fixes his glasses. “What do you mean, ‘golf habit’?”
Niou groans. “I mean, you can’t just hit the ball like a golf swing.”
“No! I wanna see a golf swing!” Marui calls from the next court over. “Let’s see what that would do. Maybe you could use it in tennis, like my genius moves.”
Jackal makes a noise. “How is your plan coming?”
Marui waves his hand. “I’m testing the next batch tonight after I bake them.”
Niou doesn’t want to know. Neither does he want to see any sort of golf swing.
“Do you mind if I try, Niou-kun?” Yagyuu asks, always the eternal, polite, prim and proper gentleman.
“Whatever,” Niou mutters. Stupid Marui would have convinced Yagyuu to do it anyway. He walks off the court and slumps down onto the nearest bench, crossing his arms over his chest.
Marui steps up to the baseline and hits a ball towards Yagyuu. Again, Yagyuu runs up to the ball, swinging his arm back, but this time, he uses both hands, twists to reach the ball on a side angle and then…
…Niou loses sight of the ball, arcing across the chainlink fence, over the treetops. The sun swallows the ball up.
Niou thinks he hears the sound of a ball land on the school roof.
“Man, you roofed it!” Marui says.
“I don’t think that’s a shot we should use in tennis,” Jackal says.
Yukimura’s dark glare across the tennis courts validates Jackal. And Niou.
“Maybe you should just use the ball machines for a while,” Niou suggests. He’s been wasting a week of practices hitting low, slow balls for Yagyuu to return, watching Yagyuu every minute and trying to think of ways he can improve himself, but Niou has never been good at tutoring or teaching anyone. He can absorb the information for himself, but he can’t help others.
“No,” Yukimura’s voice carries over the courts, “you will practice with Yagyuu on the courts, Niou.”
Niou snorts. “Puri.” Ass, he thinks.
Another week takes them into September. The flyers have come to the club announcing the Newcomer’s Tournament and the Junior Senbatsu. Yukimura pockets both fliers, saying nothing to the coach, and smiles at Kirihara.
Yagyuu works on his backhand.
It’s just as awful.
Niou can feel his skills wasting along with his muscles. He’s sick of standing around and giving Yagyuu suggests. Yagyuu nods and says “Thank you” every time Niou stops him in the middle of a swing, but he doesn’t take in the suggestions. It’s like Yagyuu’s bland, agreeing face is pasted onto a cement statue.
Yagyuu roofs another ball.
Niou throws his racket on the ground.
Yagyuu stares at him. “Niou-kun?”
I’m not your friend! he wants to scream. Instead, Niou says, “Come with me.”
Niou walks off the courts, opens the latch on the fence and holds the door open for Yagyuu. He can play the gentleman, too, when he feels like it. Yagyuu blinks at him, stumbles over a thank you, and walks through the gate, unsure of where to go.
Niou walks around the side of the main school building and turns the corner. An expansive brick wall looms overhead, punctured with neat rows of windows further down the school.
Niou pulls a ball from his pocket and bounces it on the cement pavement. He hits the ball and it bounces against the wall. “Hit the ball,” he tells Yagyuu.
Yagyuu hits the ball. He’s barely ten feet from the wall. He can’t screw up the shot too badly.
Niou hits the ball on the return.
“Hit it again,” he says.
And Yagyuu understands the game.
It feels a bit like he’s dealing with a child, because even the wonderchibi can do more than hit a ball against a wall, but Yagyuu doesn’t roof anymore balls during practice. He doesn’t have enough room to manouevre and swing back too far because Niou keeps close to his side, making sure Yagyuu’s form is better, straighter.
“Maybe you should work on that at home, or something,” Niou suggests. “Good practice and all.”
Yagyuu nods.
Kirihara is chosen for the Newcomer’s Tournament and no one is surprised. Yukimura doesn’t announce it at practice in front of anyone, he waits until the regulars are in the changing room after afternoon practice.
“Here, Akaya,” he says, handing Kirihara the dog-eared pamphlet. “Have a good weekend.”
Kirihara’s eyes go wide and a grin breaks out over his face. He drops his sweaty t-shirt and launches himself at Yukimura, so hard that Yukimura crashes backwards into the locker as Kirihara says, “Thank you, Yukimura-buchou! You’re the nest buchou ever!”
Yukimura smiles and wrenches Kirihara’s arms off his body. “You’re welcome, Akaya,” he says. “Everyone?”
Niou looks up. When Yukimura says that, it can never be a good thing.
“Next week on Thursday Sanada, Yanagi and I are going to the Junior Senbatsu. You’ll be in charge of practice-”
Inwardly, Niou sighs with relief. Finally a moment’s rest from having to work with the useless megane dork who can’t do anything except laser beams and golf.
“-Jackal. Make sure that Niou works with Yagyuu on his offense and that the underclassmen do their swing practice and laps as I’ve assigned.”
Jackal closes his eyes and sighs. “Yes, Yukimura,” he says.
“How come you three get to go?” Marui asks. He blows a large green bubble and pops it right in Niou’s ear.
“There were very few juniors asked to the Senbatsu,” Yanagi says. He counts on his fingers, naming them all. “The three of us,” index, middle and ring finger, “Atobe from Hyoutei,” little finger, “Seigaku’s Tezuka declined so someone from Yamabuki took his place.” Thumb.
“No Chitose from Shishigaku?” Yukimura asks.
Yanagi shakes his head, “I’m not sure why he wasn’t asked. He might be out with an injury. I heard that Shitenhoji’s Kuranosuke was out too.”
Sanada grunts.
“It would have been nice to see them. All the more fun to beat them, ne Sanada?” Yukimura says, poking Sanada in the side.
Sanada grunts again.
With Kirihara gone on the weekend, Jackal seems much happier. Whatever Marui has been up to, Niou doesn’t care, and yet at the same time, he can’t help but wonder if maybe one of Yagyuu’s awful golf swings bonked the fatty in the head because he walks up to Sanada, mid-practice, and says.
“Hey, Sanada, want a game?”
“Based on your previous games with Sanada, you have little chance of winning a game, Marui,” Yanagi says. He had been working on smashes with Sanada, the two of them almost always partnering up for practices when Yukimura works with the freshmen on their footwork.
“I’ve been working on something,” Marui says loudly. He pulls something from his pocket and unwraps the plastic from it. Niou can smell it across the court. Whatever it is, it smells like gasoline, chocolate and possibly an energy drink and dirty socks.
Marui shoves it into his mouth within two bites. He jumps from foot to foot. “Let’s play, lazy ass!” he shouts.
“I’ll ref,” Jackal offers.
“I’ll watch,” Niou says. He settles down on the bench and grins. This is gonna be good.
Except Yagyuu sits down right next to him. The bench is big enough for four people, five the size of Yukimura, but Yagyuu has to sit down right next to Yagyuu, close enough that Niou feels the heat from Yagyuu’s body. It makes him uncomfortable, too close and too warm for this late summer weather.
Niou shuffles over to the edge of the bench.
Marui serves first. How he expects some half-rotten snack to help him is a mystery.
“He loses his stamina pretty fast,” Niou says absently. Yagyuu shifts in his spot, brushing his shorts off. “He gets all sweaty and tired because he’s such a fat ass.”
Niou smirks.
Yagyuu doesn’t.
Two games in and Marui has wowed a rogue group of freshmen with a metal post ball and a tightrope walking ball, both of which took games off Sanada. He runs around twice as much as Sanada and breaks half the sweat. Niou scratches his head.
“What was in that cake?” he whispers.
“Marui-kun said he made it with a special game-improving recipe,” Yagyuu says.
So now Marui is telling Yagyuu more things than the rest of us. Niou rolls his eyes.
Marui takes a third game.
But Sanada takes the remainder. Marui’s energy doesn’t slag, but Sanada’s patience does. He starts to play the net and uses his techniques, immoveable like a mountain, that create a barrier Marui’s volleys don’t break.
“Game, Sanada, 6-3!” Jackall announces.
“You’ve improved,” Sanada says. Neither offers to shake on the game.
“It’s in my genius-like nature,” Marui tells him. It’s not a win at all, but Marui acts like it is, grinning and posing for some freshmen who ask him after practice how he managed to win games off Sanada.
“I did this” Marui swings his racket, “and since Sanada is such a bear, I know that if I aimed for that place by the pole, I could fool him with my genius.”
“Wow, Marui-san!” they chorus.
Why can’t Marui go to the Senbatsu too? At least then Niou wouldn’t have to deal with him for a few precious days.
***
Still, without the big three, practice seems empty even though the team is only missing three out of more than a hundred players.
Jackal doesn’t make a very imposing stand-in for Yukimura. He stands silent and stoic as the team runs their laps.
Niou runs his second lap, then runs back into the changing rooms. Jackal sighs, but doesn’t say anything to stop him.
Niou runs back out, runs up to Jackal, shoves the green headband on his shiny bald head and finishes his third lap without missing a beat. Jackal closes his eyes and pushes the headband up his forehead.
“Did you enjoy that?” Jackal asks him afterwards.
Niou grins. “Of course.”
Jackal says nothing. Instead, he reaches into his jacket pocket, flips his cellphone open and then Yukimura’s shrill voice yells through the phone: “Niou! Get to work with Yagyuu now!”
Niou rolls his eyes.
Yagyuu’s serve looks better and his handling of the ball on an attempted slice is good, in theory, but he roofs two more balls within the hour.
***
With Yukimura, Yanagi and Sanada still gone on Saturday, at three o’clock, Jackal stands in the middle of the court with a louderspeaker.
“Everyone! Practice is finished now!”
“Eh?” Marui says.
Niou looks at Jackal.
Jackal’s cheeks turn pink, although with his brown skin, it might just be the light.
“Jackal-kun, did you check with Yukimura about this?” Yagyuu asks in the changeroom.
Jackal looks shifty. He pulls his t-shirt over his head to avoid Yagyuu’s question.
“I won’t tell anyone, Jackal-senpai,” Kirihara says, then he chuckles, that devious little noise that can only mean bad things, “if you play a game with me at the streetcourts today.”
This is the first Saturday in ages that Niou has had part of the afternoon free to himself. He feels at a bit of a loss. He has three hours until supper and nothing to do with himself. The weather is nice, with the first hint of crisp autumn in the air, but he doesn’t want to stay out.
No, Niou waits at the bus stop and catches the wrong bus home.
On purpose.
It takes him an hour and a half before he recognizes the streets, but the overpass is the same. The billboards have changed advertisements, now they are for a new sushi restaurant and an anti-wrinkle cream made from algae. But the streets are familiar enough, the crowds even more so, and once Niou steps foot into the arcade, he smiles to himself.
The arcade is packed. Niou can barely move around the whack-a-moles and the race-car driving machines, especially with his tennisbag sticking out so far behind him. Change jingles in his pocket, waiting to be used up. Niou’s fingers itch with the anticipation of holding a dart, of aiming, of throwing into a bullseye.
He shoves past a portly middle-aged man blocking the aisle as he plays a blinking machine. Everywhere there is light and electronic music, the clink of coins pushed into machine slots, the cheers of winners, the scoffs of losers and the laughter, the talking, the noise.
Niou inches towards the back of the arcade with what feels like infinite slowness. Move! he thinks, trying to get closer, trying to push through crowds of teenage girls and primary school boys, university students with too much time on their hands and even a foreigner, with pale, pasty skin and frizzy hair.
The sound of clapping rises and Niou is so close he can taste the metal of the dart point on his tongue. His skin prickles. He can’t wait to throw his tennisbag on the floor, off his sweaty back and just play a game.
He stops mid-step, however.
The crowds have thinned at the back of the arcade, yes, but…
…there is someone playing darts.
Niou clenches his jaw. Fine. He can wait. It’s not a big deal. He leans against a narrow blank space of wall between a Frogger machine and a Pokemon Packman. He counts to ten, then backwards to negative ten. He taps his foot. He checks his watch, but only forty-nine seconds have passed.
The crowd around the darts player is almost all girls, maybe four of them, all about Niou’s age, all flaky things who smell of pineapples and cheap Ralph Lauren perfume. The one with the pigtails jumps up and down, her little breasts bouncing.
Niou shudders. Yuck. Girls.
“Hiroshi-kun! You’re so good at them!” she shrieks.
Her voice grates Niou’s ears. She balls her fists and when this Hiroshi makes another shot (Niou can’t see how good his aim is because there are too many girls in the way), the entire group of girls break into a fit of squeals and giggles. Pigtails flap and their purses, too.
Niou groans. He pushes himself off the wall, pushes the girls aside and grabs the boy by the shoulder. He’s about Niou’s height. Niou catches him off guard.
Hiroshi turns.
And Niou freezes.
Yagyuu stares straight at Niou. His eyes are wide and dark behind his glasses, his eyelashes long and his pupils, they reflect Niou’s open mouth.
“Niou-kun?”
For the longest time, Niou can’t move, and then he remembers that his muscles work and that his mind works besides the fact that Yagyuu plays darts and has friends and he plays darts at MY arcade?!
Niou yanks his hand away, his palm burning as hot as his face. He steps back, straight into one of the girls, who calls him an “ass” as he rushes out of the arcade, pushing through the crowds of players, pushing through the revolving doors with the bell that jingles, pushing through the crowds of shoppers on the street sidewalks.
Niou only stops when he reaches the bus stop. He glances around. No Yagyuu in sight. No megane-wearing brown-haired dork of thirteen.
***
Maybe his brain implodes from the image.
Maybe he just can’t process the idea.
Yagyuu Hiroshi is supposed to be a megane dork. He is supposed to be boring and bland and proper. He isn’t supposed to be playing darts with girls in Niou’s arcade halfway across the city.
He just isn’t.
Niou closes his eyes. Everything is dark, but he can’t sleep tonight. Not with Yagyuu saying “Niou-kun?” over and over again in his mind.
And what’s worse, he’s hard, too. It’s been a while since Niou has actively thought about masturbating, mostly he’s too tired from practice and homework and he only manages to jerk himself off in the shower in the morning when he isn’t thinking and the reaction is more natural than necessary.
Niou shakes his head. This is fucked up. This is fucked up.
He slips his hand under his pajama pants, tugging them down to his knees to have more room. Hand clenched around his cock, he tugs and moves his hand up and down, pulling harder and harder. The rush of pleasure in his cock is intense, too long left ignored and forgotten. He shakes. He spreads his legs wider and squeezes his hand, trying to get the friction as hard and as fast as he can.
But he can’t stop seeing Yagyuu’s face in front of his eyes. And he can’t stop hearing Yagyuu’s voice.
“Niou-kun?”
Niou bites his lip. No-
He groans, he shudders, his mattress makes a noise as he gasps, arching his back, but he can still hear Yagyuu speak his name.
His hand is sticky. His belly, too, but mostly Niou lies awake and feels gross all over. He didn’t just jerk off and think about the megane dork. He didn’t.
A lone car rattles by on the street below, outside Niou’s window. “Niou-kun” hangs in the air as it revs by, the lights shining through the slats in Niou’s window blinds, then fading to black.
This is beyond fucked up.
Author: Ociwen
Rating: NC17 (eventual)
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all.
Summary: Niou, meet Yagyuu.
Author's Notes: Spoilers for everything.
True to form, Yukimura is the first person at practice on Tuesday morning, as though nothing has happened, as though he has not missed a day.
He nods to Niou. Niou nods back.
Sanada doesn’t seem quite as pissy. As they pull on t-shirts and uniform shorts, Yukimura lunges, grabs Sanada’s cap off his head and ruffles his hair, laughing the whole while.
Sanada almost smiles, then he must remember that he’s an ass because he grabs his cap back, shoves it squarely on his head and scowls.
“Things change starting today,” Yukimura says. Niou’s locker is closest to Sanada and Yukimura’s, so the conversations of the three seniors are muffled with Yanagi standing in the way. All Niou can hear is Yukimura start to tell Sanada and Yanagi about things changing and they can’t get lazy, because tennis is everything, even more than life itself.
Sometimes, Niou thinks that Yukimura needs another hobby. Once he heard Yanagi talk about planting a bush in his mother’s garden and Yukimura grunted something about mulch, but if he gardens, Yukimura doesn’t garden much at all. He lives and breathes tennis.
Niou shoves his right hand into his pocket, grabs his racket with his left, and starts to walk out of the clubhouse. But, someone grabs his collar and tugs hard on it.
“Just wait, Niou,” Yukimura says, letting go roughly. “We’re not going out to the regulars’ courts today.”
Niou raises an eyebrow.
Kirihara raises two.
“Yes we are,” Nishiki says. “That’s where we practice, in case you forgot?”
Yukimura sniffs, then he smiles, a sweet innocent smile. But his eyes are dark, narrowed, revealing their sly depths. “You seniors can practice their all you like. You’re OBs now. Go away.”
“Uh, what did you just say?” Yamada asks. He takes a step towards Yukimura. Yukimura might be in the middle of a growth spurt, but Yamada has filled out. Yukimura is all gangly limbs and girlish hair.
“I said, Go. Away.”
Behind the door, there is the sound of a bubble popping. Niou shoves the door open and Marui shouts, “Ow!”
Niou closes the door again.
But Nishiki, Yamada and Kawasaki storm out of the regulars’ changing room, shouting behind their backs that they’re going to tell the coach on Yukimura and “you little asshole, you’re not the captain yet!”
Yukimura just folds his arms over his chest. His uniform jacket hands over his shoulders, fluttering back like the wings of an angel.
Or a monster.
“Twenty laps, everyone,” is the first thing that Yukimura says when he steps onto the main courts.
No one disputes him.
The seniors slink back to the regulars’ courts with frowns on their faces. The coach is nowhere to be seen, but then, most days he sits in his air-conditioned office playing solitaire on his computer instead of sweating in the hot weather with the tennis club members.
None of the regulars who are left- the three, Niou and Kirihara- are used to practicing with the rest of the team. Gone are the courts where they had exclusive use, now they jostle for space with freshmen and juniors and a few odd seniors who remain. Niou barely has enough room to throw a ball up and swing his racket. Too many freshmen, too many shabby swings, too many rogue balls flying around.
“This is shit,” Kirihara moans. “Why do we have to practice with everyone else?”
“Discipline,” Yanagi says.
“Don’t be a lazy ass!” Sanada tells Kirihara. “How many swings have you done today?”
Kirihara mutters a number.
Yukimura shakes his head. “You’ve got to try harder, Akaya,” but he avoids Kirihara’s real question completely.
They stick together, though. A pathway more or less opens up on the last court in the block and the five of them rally balls back and forth. Niou notices pink out of the side of his eye. On the closest adjacent court, Marui flashes and poses and rallies with Jackal. They are good, even, at their play.
Oddly, Niou also notices that where Marui had once been a sweating mess of red-faced wheezing, now his stamina is something else. He doesn’t pant. He doesn’t gasp. He keeps up with Jackal the whole rally, and then, he smashes the ball with a grin on his face.
“We weren’t playing a game,” Jackal says.
“My genius can’t contain itself sometimes,” Marui announces.
And there is Yagyuu, too.
Niou doesn’t see him as often, though he looks. Yagyuu moves all around the court, a veritable floater, rallying with freshmen and working on swings with groups of juniors. Maybe it is because he didn’t join at the beginning of a season, but showed up a couple weeks ago. He has no long-known acquaintances here. He doesn’t know the structure of practice. And he wanders onto their court Wednesday afternoon.
“Are you looking for something?” Niou asks.
Yagyuu pushes his glasses up his nose. “Pardon me, I had thought this court was public to all members of the club.”
“You’re in the club, Yagyuu-senpai?” Kirihara asks.
“I didn’t think he was,” Niou adds.
Yagyuu excuses himself. As always, he seems to dissolve into the crowds of other players. Instantly, Niou kicks himself inside for saying what he did. He hadn’t meant to be mean, exactly, it had just slipped out. And it was the truth. So far as Niou knew, Yagyuu was and is still a member of the golf club and he is no more than an interloper, maybe a visitor, of the tennis club.
Although he has an awesome laser shot.
On Thursday, Yukimura stands in the middle of the courts as the clock ticks for practice to begin. The club stands around him in a massed circle, but with a wide berth given to Yukimura. Sanada and Yanagi stand with him.
“Everyone,” Yukimura shouts. No one speaks when he does, not a peep from even the leftover seniors. Niou shifts his weight onto his left side, waiting for Yukimura to go on.
“From today on, things will change. I am your buchou now-”
Niou glances at Kirihara. “I won,” he mouths.
Kirihara shakes his head, mouthing something back, but he’s too fast and Niou can’t understand him. Niou nods anyway, pretending. Kirihara pouts.
“-and Sanada will be your fukubuchou. I expect you all to run twenty laps at the beginning of every practice.”
Niou groans inside. The faces of the club reflect his same sentiments, rolls of eyes and heavy sighs. Twenty laps?!
“There will be no tryouts in April for the regular positions…” Yukimura smiles as the club members exchange looks with each other, “…because I have already chosen my team and we will win the Nationals again. There will be no losses. That is the law of Rikkai Dai from now on.”
In his mind, Niou can already hear Sanada grinding this new law into their heads, day after day after day. “That is the law of Rikkai Dai! That is the law of Rikkai Dai!” His temple throbs in anticipation.
“Niou, Kirihara, come here!”
Niou steps into the centre of the circle, sidling up to Sanada.
“Jackal, Marui!”
Jackal walks forward from the back of the crowd, squeezing through a gap. Marui elbows his way through, grinning from ear to ear.
“Yagyuu!”
The silent crowd gets even quieter, if that is possible. Brows furrow and even Niou scratches his head. Yagyuu? He barely knows the game!
“This will be our winning team,” Yukimura says finally. He claps his hands. “Twenty laps everyone!”
“Hurry up, you lazy asses!” Sanada echoes.
“You seven, come with me.”
Yukimura leads them to the clubhouse, where, by the doorway, sits a brown box. Yukimura opens the box, and starts to toss items out. Black masses fly through the air, one, two to Jackal. One, two to Marui. One, two to Kirihara. Two for each. Niou catches his in cupped hands, which droop when he realizes the weight of these things. He looks down at them.
“Wrist weights,” Yukimura says. “You will wear those every day, every minute of the day.”
Kirihara says, “Eh?”
Yagyuu says nothing.
Sanada is the first one to fasten them to his wrists. Niou’s own wrists feel unnaturally heavy and awkward and within minutes the sweat has started to buildup underneath them.
“The weights should provide us with additional power once we get to used to them,” Yanagi explains. “Other schools do the same, but not on a continual basis or for the entire roster of regulars.”
“We will win next season,” Yukimura says. “Nothing will stop Rikkai Dai.”
***
Halfway through afternoon practice, Yukimura lingers as Niou grabs his waterbottle from the place he left it under the bench.
“Niou?” Yukimura asks.
Niou looks up. His wrists are itchy and hot. He should have taken them off because they are a pain, but, at the same time, wearing them gives him some sort of pride that doesn’t seem rational. Even when no one in his class knew what was wrapped around his wrists, just wearing them made Niou feel a bit warm and tingly and pleased with himself inside.
“Since Yagyuu has come to the club on your request, you’ll be doubles partners with him.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” Yukimura hisses. “Doubles partners. You have some golf club kid come to our club in the middle of the season and don’t think you’re going to get away with doing shit like that. This year we all have roles. And your role will be in doubles unless I say otherwise.” Yukimura pauses. “Got that?”
***
Fucking
Megane
Dork
Yagyuu can do a laser beam on the tennis court, but not much more.
A week of trying to practice with Yagyuu has left Niou with bad black roots and a constant headache. He rubs his temple and tries to breathe, tries to stay calm.
“You can’t twist your wrist like that,” Niou says. “And you’re following through too much! Your balls are all angled wrong.” Niou tosses the ball up, then hits a slow shot across the net. Yagyuu runs for the ball, swinging his racket back and-
“Stop stop stop!” Niou shouts. “You’re doing it again! What is it, some golf habit?”
Yagyuu tucks his racket under his arm, then fixes his glasses. “What do you mean, ‘golf habit’?”
Niou groans. “I mean, you can’t just hit the ball like a golf swing.”
“No! I wanna see a golf swing!” Marui calls from the next court over. “Let’s see what that would do. Maybe you could use it in tennis, like my genius moves.”
Jackal makes a noise. “How is your plan coming?”
Marui waves his hand. “I’m testing the next batch tonight after I bake them.”
Niou doesn’t want to know. Neither does he want to see any sort of golf swing.
“Do you mind if I try, Niou-kun?” Yagyuu asks, always the eternal, polite, prim and proper gentleman.
“Whatever,” Niou mutters. Stupid Marui would have convinced Yagyuu to do it anyway. He walks off the court and slumps down onto the nearest bench, crossing his arms over his chest.
Marui steps up to the baseline and hits a ball towards Yagyuu. Again, Yagyuu runs up to the ball, swinging his arm back, but this time, he uses both hands, twists to reach the ball on a side angle and then…
…Niou loses sight of the ball, arcing across the chainlink fence, over the treetops. The sun swallows the ball up.
Niou thinks he hears the sound of a ball land on the school roof.
“Man, you roofed it!” Marui says.
“I don’t think that’s a shot we should use in tennis,” Jackal says.
Yukimura’s dark glare across the tennis courts validates Jackal. And Niou.
“Maybe you should just use the ball machines for a while,” Niou suggests. He’s been wasting a week of practices hitting low, slow balls for Yagyuu to return, watching Yagyuu every minute and trying to think of ways he can improve himself, but Niou has never been good at tutoring or teaching anyone. He can absorb the information for himself, but he can’t help others.
“No,” Yukimura’s voice carries over the courts, “you will practice with Yagyuu on the courts, Niou.”
Niou snorts. “Puri.” Ass, he thinks.
Another week takes them into September. The flyers have come to the club announcing the Newcomer’s Tournament and the Junior Senbatsu. Yukimura pockets both fliers, saying nothing to the coach, and smiles at Kirihara.
Yagyuu works on his backhand.
It’s just as awful.
Niou can feel his skills wasting along with his muscles. He’s sick of standing around and giving Yagyuu suggests. Yagyuu nods and says “Thank you” every time Niou stops him in the middle of a swing, but he doesn’t take in the suggestions. It’s like Yagyuu’s bland, agreeing face is pasted onto a cement statue.
Yagyuu roofs another ball.
Niou throws his racket on the ground.
Yagyuu stares at him. “Niou-kun?”
I’m not your friend! he wants to scream. Instead, Niou says, “Come with me.”
Niou walks off the courts, opens the latch on the fence and holds the door open for Yagyuu. He can play the gentleman, too, when he feels like it. Yagyuu blinks at him, stumbles over a thank you, and walks through the gate, unsure of where to go.
Niou walks around the side of the main school building and turns the corner. An expansive brick wall looms overhead, punctured with neat rows of windows further down the school.
Niou pulls a ball from his pocket and bounces it on the cement pavement. He hits the ball and it bounces against the wall. “Hit the ball,” he tells Yagyuu.
Yagyuu hits the ball. He’s barely ten feet from the wall. He can’t screw up the shot too badly.
Niou hits the ball on the return.
“Hit it again,” he says.
And Yagyuu understands the game.
It feels a bit like he’s dealing with a child, because even the wonderchibi can do more than hit a ball against a wall, but Yagyuu doesn’t roof anymore balls during practice. He doesn’t have enough room to manouevre and swing back too far because Niou keeps close to his side, making sure Yagyuu’s form is better, straighter.
“Maybe you should work on that at home, or something,” Niou suggests. “Good practice and all.”
Yagyuu nods.
Kirihara is chosen for the Newcomer’s Tournament and no one is surprised. Yukimura doesn’t announce it at practice in front of anyone, he waits until the regulars are in the changing room after afternoon practice.
“Here, Akaya,” he says, handing Kirihara the dog-eared pamphlet. “Have a good weekend.”
Kirihara’s eyes go wide and a grin breaks out over his face. He drops his sweaty t-shirt and launches himself at Yukimura, so hard that Yukimura crashes backwards into the locker as Kirihara says, “Thank you, Yukimura-buchou! You’re the nest buchou ever!”
Yukimura smiles and wrenches Kirihara’s arms off his body. “You’re welcome, Akaya,” he says. “Everyone?”
Niou looks up. When Yukimura says that, it can never be a good thing.
“Next week on Thursday Sanada, Yanagi and I are going to the Junior Senbatsu. You’ll be in charge of practice-”
Inwardly, Niou sighs with relief. Finally a moment’s rest from having to work with the useless megane dork who can’t do anything except laser beams and golf.
“-Jackal. Make sure that Niou works with Yagyuu on his offense and that the underclassmen do their swing practice and laps as I’ve assigned.”
Jackal closes his eyes and sighs. “Yes, Yukimura,” he says.
“How come you three get to go?” Marui asks. He blows a large green bubble and pops it right in Niou’s ear.
“There were very few juniors asked to the Senbatsu,” Yanagi says. He counts on his fingers, naming them all. “The three of us,” index, middle and ring finger, “Atobe from Hyoutei,” little finger, “Seigaku’s Tezuka declined so someone from Yamabuki took his place.” Thumb.
“No Chitose from Shishigaku?” Yukimura asks.
Yanagi shakes his head, “I’m not sure why he wasn’t asked. He might be out with an injury. I heard that Shitenhoji’s Kuranosuke was out too.”
Sanada grunts.
“It would have been nice to see them. All the more fun to beat them, ne Sanada?” Yukimura says, poking Sanada in the side.
Sanada grunts again.
With Kirihara gone on the weekend, Jackal seems much happier. Whatever Marui has been up to, Niou doesn’t care, and yet at the same time, he can’t help but wonder if maybe one of Yagyuu’s awful golf swings bonked the fatty in the head because he walks up to Sanada, mid-practice, and says.
“Hey, Sanada, want a game?”
“Based on your previous games with Sanada, you have little chance of winning a game, Marui,” Yanagi says. He had been working on smashes with Sanada, the two of them almost always partnering up for practices when Yukimura works with the freshmen on their footwork.
“I’ve been working on something,” Marui says loudly. He pulls something from his pocket and unwraps the plastic from it. Niou can smell it across the court. Whatever it is, it smells like gasoline, chocolate and possibly an energy drink and dirty socks.
Marui shoves it into his mouth within two bites. He jumps from foot to foot. “Let’s play, lazy ass!” he shouts.
“I’ll ref,” Jackal offers.
“I’ll watch,” Niou says. He settles down on the bench and grins. This is gonna be good.
Except Yagyuu sits down right next to him. The bench is big enough for four people, five the size of Yukimura, but Yagyuu has to sit down right next to Yagyuu, close enough that Niou feels the heat from Yagyuu’s body. It makes him uncomfortable, too close and too warm for this late summer weather.
Niou shuffles over to the edge of the bench.
Marui serves first. How he expects some half-rotten snack to help him is a mystery.
“He loses his stamina pretty fast,” Niou says absently. Yagyuu shifts in his spot, brushing his shorts off. “He gets all sweaty and tired because he’s such a fat ass.”
Niou smirks.
Yagyuu doesn’t.
Two games in and Marui has wowed a rogue group of freshmen with a metal post ball and a tightrope walking ball, both of which took games off Sanada. He runs around twice as much as Sanada and breaks half the sweat. Niou scratches his head.
“What was in that cake?” he whispers.
“Marui-kun said he made it with a special game-improving recipe,” Yagyuu says.
So now Marui is telling Yagyuu more things than the rest of us. Niou rolls his eyes.
Marui takes a third game.
But Sanada takes the remainder. Marui’s energy doesn’t slag, but Sanada’s patience does. He starts to play the net and uses his techniques, immoveable like a mountain, that create a barrier Marui’s volleys don’t break.
“Game, Sanada, 6-3!” Jackall announces.
“You’ve improved,” Sanada says. Neither offers to shake on the game.
“It’s in my genius-like nature,” Marui tells him. It’s not a win at all, but Marui acts like it is, grinning and posing for some freshmen who ask him after practice how he managed to win games off Sanada.
“I did this” Marui swings his racket, “and since Sanada is such a bear, I know that if I aimed for that place by the pole, I could fool him with my genius.”
“Wow, Marui-san!” they chorus.
Why can’t Marui go to the Senbatsu too? At least then Niou wouldn’t have to deal with him for a few precious days.
***
Still, without the big three, practice seems empty even though the team is only missing three out of more than a hundred players.
Jackal doesn’t make a very imposing stand-in for Yukimura. He stands silent and stoic as the team runs their laps.
Niou runs his second lap, then runs back into the changing rooms. Jackal sighs, but doesn’t say anything to stop him.
Niou runs back out, runs up to Jackal, shoves the green headband on his shiny bald head and finishes his third lap without missing a beat. Jackal closes his eyes and pushes the headband up his forehead.
“Did you enjoy that?” Jackal asks him afterwards.
Niou grins. “Of course.”
Jackal says nothing. Instead, he reaches into his jacket pocket, flips his cellphone open and then Yukimura’s shrill voice yells through the phone: “Niou! Get to work with Yagyuu now!”
Niou rolls his eyes.
Yagyuu’s serve looks better and his handling of the ball on an attempted slice is good, in theory, but he roofs two more balls within the hour.
***
With Yukimura, Yanagi and Sanada still gone on Saturday, at three o’clock, Jackal stands in the middle of the court with a louderspeaker.
“Everyone! Practice is finished now!”
“Eh?” Marui says.
Niou looks at Jackal.
Jackal’s cheeks turn pink, although with his brown skin, it might just be the light.
“Jackal-kun, did you check with Yukimura about this?” Yagyuu asks in the changeroom.
Jackal looks shifty. He pulls his t-shirt over his head to avoid Yagyuu’s question.
“I won’t tell anyone, Jackal-senpai,” Kirihara says, then he chuckles, that devious little noise that can only mean bad things, “if you play a game with me at the streetcourts today.”
This is the first Saturday in ages that Niou has had part of the afternoon free to himself. He feels at a bit of a loss. He has three hours until supper and nothing to do with himself. The weather is nice, with the first hint of crisp autumn in the air, but he doesn’t want to stay out.
No, Niou waits at the bus stop and catches the wrong bus home.
On purpose.
It takes him an hour and a half before he recognizes the streets, but the overpass is the same. The billboards have changed advertisements, now they are for a new sushi restaurant and an anti-wrinkle cream made from algae. But the streets are familiar enough, the crowds even more so, and once Niou steps foot into the arcade, he smiles to himself.
The arcade is packed. Niou can barely move around the whack-a-moles and the race-car driving machines, especially with his tennisbag sticking out so far behind him. Change jingles in his pocket, waiting to be used up. Niou’s fingers itch with the anticipation of holding a dart, of aiming, of throwing into a bullseye.
He shoves past a portly middle-aged man blocking the aisle as he plays a blinking machine. Everywhere there is light and electronic music, the clink of coins pushed into machine slots, the cheers of winners, the scoffs of losers and the laughter, the talking, the noise.
Niou inches towards the back of the arcade with what feels like infinite slowness. Move! he thinks, trying to get closer, trying to push through crowds of teenage girls and primary school boys, university students with too much time on their hands and even a foreigner, with pale, pasty skin and frizzy hair.
The sound of clapping rises and Niou is so close he can taste the metal of the dart point on his tongue. His skin prickles. He can’t wait to throw his tennisbag on the floor, off his sweaty back and just play a game.
He stops mid-step, however.
The crowds have thinned at the back of the arcade, yes, but…
…there is someone playing darts.
Niou clenches his jaw. Fine. He can wait. It’s not a big deal. He leans against a narrow blank space of wall between a Frogger machine and a Pokemon Packman. He counts to ten, then backwards to negative ten. He taps his foot. He checks his watch, but only forty-nine seconds have passed.
The crowd around the darts player is almost all girls, maybe four of them, all about Niou’s age, all flaky things who smell of pineapples and cheap Ralph Lauren perfume. The one with the pigtails jumps up and down, her little breasts bouncing.
Niou shudders. Yuck. Girls.
“Hiroshi-kun! You’re so good at them!” she shrieks.
Her voice grates Niou’s ears. She balls her fists and when this Hiroshi makes another shot (Niou can’t see how good his aim is because there are too many girls in the way), the entire group of girls break into a fit of squeals and giggles. Pigtails flap and their purses, too.
Niou groans. He pushes himself off the wall, pushes the girls aside and grabs the boy by the shoulder. He’s about Niou’s height. Niou catches him off guard.
Hiroshi turns.
And Niou freezes.
Yagyuu stares straight at Niou. His eyes are wide and dark behind his glasses, his eyelashes long and his pupils, they reflect Niou’s open mouth.
“Niou-kun?”
For the longest time, Niou can’t move, and then he remembers that his muscles work and that his mind works besides the fact that Yagyuu plays darts and has friends and he plays darts at MY arcade?!
Niou yanks his hand away, his palm burning as hot as his face. He steps back, straight into one of the girls, who calls him an “ass” as he rushes out of the arcade, pushing through the crowds of players, pushing through the revolving doors with the bell that jingles, pushing through the crowds of shoppers on the street sidewalks.
Niou only stops when he reaches the bus stop. He glances around. No Yagyuu in sight. No megane-wearing brown-haired dork of thirteen.
***
Maybe his brain implodes from the image.
Maybe he just can’t process the idea.
Yagyuu Hiroshi is supposed to be a megane dork. He is supposed to be boring and bland and proper. He isn’t supposed to be playing darts with girls in Niou’s arcade halfway across the city.
He just isn’t.
Niou closes his eyes. Everything is dark, but he can’t sleep tonight. Not with Yagyuu saying “Niou-kun?” over and over again in his mind.
And what’s worse, he’s hard, too. It’s been a while since Niou has actively thought about masturbating, mostly he’s too tired from practice and homework and he only manages to jerk himself off in the shower in the morning when he isn’t thinking and the reaction is more natural than necessary.
Niou shakes his head. This is fucked up. This is fucked up.
He slips his hand under his pajama pants, tugging them down to his knees to have more room. Hand clenched around his cock, he tugs and moves his hand up and down, pulling harder and harder. The rush of pleasure in his cock is intense, too long left ignored and forgotten. He shakes. He spreads his legs wider and squeezes his hand, trying to get the friction as hard and as fast as he can.
But he can’t stop seeing Yagyuu’s face in front of his eyes. And he can’t stop hearing Yagyuu’s voice.
“Niou-kun?”
Niou bites his lip. No-
He groans, he shudders, his mattress makes a noise as he gasps, arching his back, but he can still hear Yagyuu speak his name.
His hand is sticky. His belly, too, but mostly Niou lies awake and feels gross all over. He didn’t just jerk off and think about the megane dork. He didn’t.
A lone car rattles by on the street below, outside Niou’s window. “Niou-kun” hangs in the air as it revs by, the lights shining through the slats in Niou’s window blinds, then fading to black.
This is beyond fucked up.