FIC: Rewind Forward (D1) 14/63
Title: Rewind Forward (14/63)
Author: Ociwen
Rating: NC17 (eventual)
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all.
Summary: Niou, meet Yagyuu.
Author's Notes: Spoilers for everything.
It becomes their little secret.
On Fridays, Niou starts to commandeer the seat at the table next to Yagyuu at whatever buffet the team chooses- or rather, whatever buffet Marui chooses. Yagyuu says nothing to the contrary and he doesn’t flinch when Niou slides into the chair, always beside him.
In class, Niou has been used to the winces and grimaces when he sits in class next to a girl with pigtails (easy target for ink dipping or scissors) or anyone, really. This lack of caring on Yagyuu’s part is refreshing in some ways, and in other ways, it makes him feel almost welcome. A part of the team.
Niou asks, “How was practice last night?”
Yagyuu practices with his left hand at home. Against a garden wall maybe, or at a nearby streetcourt. He nods and says, “It’s getting stronger. I did thirty reps last night.”
Only Yanagi notices. He’ll lean towards their conversation, mentally making notes. But he doesn’t ask Yagyuu or Niou what they are talking about, all hushed tones. This secret makes Niou’s stomach flip even more than just being near Yagyuu does.
Niou can’t even be bothered to bother other people. He’s busy at practice and he’s busy on weekends with the team and Yagyuu. His mother smiles at him, saying “I’m so glad you’ve made some friends, Masaharu,” each time he grunts that he’s going out.
Although, slipping an old pair of his sister’s pink underpants into Sanada’s tennisbag one morning was priceless. Sanada turned a red the colour of the maple leaves and sputtered something.
“Do you have something you’re not telling us, Sanada?” Niou asked.
It was worth it, too, to see Yagyuu laugh. He’s not loud like Marui or devious like Kirihara, but his laugh makes butterflies flutter inside Niou, even through Sanada’s hard slap on the side of Niou’s head.
One Saturday in late November, the buffet Marui drags the team to is well to the north of the city. The hills are high, here, studded with manicured plum and tangerine and magnolia trees, mostly bare from the weather. It’s late by the time Niou rolls himself out of the restaurant. It’s a good thing he wore his new jeans, because the waistband is strained enough.
Yagyuu walks beside him. Niou puffs his breath into the night air. The sight of the white plumes is nice. He shoves his hands in his pockets, warm and curling up into himself. His birthday is coming soon. He’s almost fourteen.
Yagyuu doesn’t know his birthday. No one does. It is a Tuesday this year.
“I have to take bus 57 to get home from here,” Yagyuu says.
Niou looks over the bus route schedule posted to the side of the plexiglass bus shelter. The light is dim, too orange and he has to squint to see the information. Three buses pass by his route, by the nearest major intersection to his house.
“Yeah, me too,” he says. Darn.
The temperature has dropped in the past two weeks and Niou thinks that maybe he should listen to his mother about taking a jacket, because standing here in the breeze cuts through his shirt and makes him shiver. But the sleeves of his jacket are too short now and it’s not cool to wear one anyway, not until it’s freezing out.
Yagyuu has a coat, of course. He pulls one glove out of each side pocket and slides his fingers into them. “There’s the bus,” he says.
They have always managed to take separate routes home. Sometimes Yagyuu will take the west-bound train at the stop near their restaurant and Niou will take the bus. Sometimes Niou will catch the south-bound train two stops from their restaurant, a fifteen minute walk away, but it’s the direct line.
At this hour, the bus should be busy, and yet it’s only half-filled with seniors and a couple sleepy children. Yagyuu wanders to the back, then slides into a double-seater. Niou hesitates for a moment, then sits down beside him.
Is he even allowed to do this? Does he have to be friends with Yagyuu for years- like Sanada and Yanagi- before he can sit beside him?
Yagyuu doesn’t look over at him, but he slouches down in his seat. Niou relaxes and lifts his knees, crunching himself between the back of the seat ahead and his own. Conserving his warmth and all, since Yagyuu didn’t choose the seats by the floor heaters.
“If I can play with both hands,” Yagyuu starts to say, “then it might be an advantage on the court with you as a southpaw.”
“We could both be lefties and confuse the other teams,” Niou says.
“Can you play with your right at all?”
Niou nods. “A bit.” He rests his chin against his knees. The side of his body next to Yagyuu is warm. He leans closer, then yawns.
The reflection of Yagyuu in the window smiles.
“What?” Niou asks.
Yagyuu shrugs. “Nothing.”
“Okay.”
“Niou-kun, do you think Yukimura-kun will have us playing games soon?” Yagyuu scratches the plastic seat in front of him, making kanji with his fingertips. Niou can’t read them, but they’re just lines and curves. Even in gloves, his fingers are long and cultured, the perfect aristocratic gentleman.
“I dunno,” Niou says.
Yagyuu smells like tempura vegetables and shrimp curry from the buffet. Niou ate the yakisoba, three plate fulls, but never made it to the curry bar. And it isn’t just the curry Niou can smell, but the fire of chilies, too.
Five months ago, he would have never guessed Yagyuu liked spicy food, or bitter vinegar poured over everything. He wouldn’t have looked beyond the perfect part in Yagyuu’s hair and the gleam of glasses.
Except being this close, Niou can see that Yagyuu’s part isn’t as neat as it seems- he has flyaway hairs and the straight line has zigzags, it has shifted. In the light from the bus, Yagyuu’s lenses have smudges and lint all over them.
Niou yawns again. The harsh neon lights of the passing streets, crammed up with signs for several floors, all glittering characters and blinking electric displays, even they don’t stop the droop of his eyelids.
Yagyuu’s shoulder isn’t stiff or unwelcome when Niou’s head droops. It’s not entirely on purpose, but not entirely deliberate, either, the way it lolls onto Yagyuu. The smell of him, this close, his neck right in Niou’s nose makes him sigh inside.
This is nice, he thinks.
Niou isn’t awake enough to be embarrassed, not even when Yagyuu shakes him some time later and says, “I think this is your stop, Niou-kun.”
Niou crawls into his own bed that night half-hard and wishing his pillow was a soft, wool-coated shoulder and that instead of his own shampoo, he could smell Yagyuu’s soap and skin and the curry he ate.
***
Niou refuses to think about it too hard, or to let it be awkward.
Yagyuu doesn’t seem to remember at all.
Practices move into December. The former OBs and seniors stop coming entirely to practice, having disappeared last month into the cesspool of entrance exams to Rikkai University Attached Senior High School.
Yukimura gets even worse.
“Thirty laps! 100 swings! Fifty pushups, you lazy asses!” Yukimura yells and Sanada, always at his right, smacks his fist into his palm, threatening the team.
Niou runs thirty laps, and then two more when Sanada glowers under his cap. Don’t you dare skim laps, he says through his beady black eyes, except Niou doesn’t and wouldn’t, but Sanada the ass would, of course, assume something like that from the panty incident of a few weeks back.
The extra work gives Niou’s muscles new definition. He and Yagyuu work in the weight room together, spotting each other on the leg presses. Niou stands at Yagyuu’s head as Yagyuu bench presses a good twenty reps, then asks for increased weights.
Niou heaves them onto the bar. Yagyuu sweats, his face red and covered in drips, exertion, effort to become the best players in the entire circuit, their whole team. His neck strains as he grunts, up and down the weights come. Niou shifts his own weight from side to side. He’s glad his mother bought the next size of uniform track pants for him, because they’re still a bit baggy and do a decent job of hiding his near-constant erections now.
Besides, it is too cold to wear the shorts. Only Sanada does, and he must be part Buddhist monk because his legs are lobster red in the morning chill. Marui bundles himself up in a wool coat and consumes two or three energy drinks with his disgusting cakes. Niou can see the vapours of the fatass’s Oronamin C a mile away on the courts.
All the extra work and Niou isn’t the only one who notices changes with himself. In the showers, Marui’s pasty flab starts to shrink.
But he’s still a fatass, Niou reminds himself as soon as Marui announces he is going to drag Jackal and Kirihara and anyone else who wants to come to the convenience store for fried chicken and 100-yen bags of candies.
On the very last day of November, a Friday, Niou walks onto afternoon practice at the club. It seems, superficially, like every other practice. He groans inside with the anticipation of Yukimura screaming at them and of having to work his muscles until they scream, too.
Instead, there is a white sheet of paper neatly stapled to the outside of the clubhouse.
Practice matches start Monday.
Love,
Buchou
Niou blinks. Love?
He looks again. No, it is definitely there. The kanji says love.
Behind Niou, he can hear Kirihara breathing through his nose. “Shit, Niou-senpai,” he mutters.
Niou raises an eyebrow.
“Buchou’s gonna make me play Sanada-fukubuchou or something.” Kirihara gulps, and the starting vestiges of his adam’s apple bob. “Crap.”
“Think of it as a Christmas present, or something,” Niou tells him.
Kirihara snorts. Then he narrows his eyes, that devious little look of his tell-tale over his face. “Niou-senpai, maybe buchou will make you and Yagyuu-senpai play Sanada-fukubuchou and Yanagi-senpai pair.”
Niou cuffs Kirihara on the ear before the brat has a change to split-step out of the way. “Puri,” he grumbles. Kirihara slinks off, rubbing his ear and sniffling about it hurting.
“Niou-kun,” Yagyuu’s voice calls out, almost telling him off, almost beckoning. Niou walks away, towards Yagyuu who holds a ball in his hand. “Court D is free right now,” he says. “Do you want to practice that?”
Niou smiles.
Working on his right hand with Yagyuu on his left has been a challenge, not just because they’re both using non-dominant hands, but especially because they haven’t actually played a doubles game yet. Niou knows how Yagyuu will react to the ball machine or a serve from Yukimura now, but under pressure, he doesn’t know.
Still, they have a few months left where they can play around like this before the real work starts with the beginning of the tennis season in April.
Using his right feels weird, but the challenge thrills Niou down all the way to his bones. The racket has a different weight. The grip tape, the grip itself, the way he positions his body and bounces the ball. His control is lessened, a bit like having wrist weights on times two.
And for Yagyuu, it must be the same.
The first few serves they had practiced were crap. Niou’s serve didn’t even make it over the net, but they’ve worked on this maybe a couple weeks now, a half hour per practice. Niou’s comfort with his right increases. In some ways, he can pretend his is Yagyuu, right-handed with a rim-rod straight back and a killer laser shot.
Over the net, Yagyuu bends low mid-court and cocks his head. He blows a strand of hair away from his face and smirks at Niou. I’m ready.
Niou bounces the ball three times, then throws it up as high as he can into the sky, breathing in as he brings his racketface down, hard and fast. The ball whooshes over the net and Yagyuu dashes, holding his racket at an odd and unusual angle.
A left-handed angle.
Niou likes the look of it, like watching Yagyuu in a mirror. Or maybe himself, the way Yagyuu moves and shifts his eyes under his lenses. He leans down, then scoops the ball up, gathering a heavy spin before dragging it up and back at Niou.
The trees rustle around the perimeter of the courts. Niou runs, chasing to catch up to Yagyuu’s shots. He’s fast, he’s better than good at this ambidextrous stuff. He’s practically a natural lefty. He can shift his weight to his left, push from his left leg, and even try a backhand now and then. Niou sticks to straight shots and rallies. They’re easier and with his footwork, he has better control with the basics.
“Hey! Why are you guys doing that?”
Niou groans, grinding his teeth through a volley aimed far at the baseline for Yagyuu. He ignores Marui, trying to keep his eyes and his mind on Yagyuu, whose blank face and lanky legs don’t help much when Niou is trying to predict where he’ll shoot next, and what.
There- cocked head, shoulder dipping to the right side, he’s aiming for Niou’s left side. Niou steps to the side, catching the shot with the edge of his racket. “Fuck,” he hisses, following through too wide and making a fault into the net.
The ball bounces back to him.
“Do you mind?” he snaps. Niou picks up the ball, squeezing it in his fist. It is so tempting to throw it at Marui’s face, to wipe the smile off his chubby cheeks with a well-aimed rubber ball.
Marui shrugs. He blows a large, green bubble then pops it, gobbling the gum back into his mouth and chewing it like an old woman smacking toothless gums on sticky rice. “Just curious why you two are playing with the wrong hands, is all. Don’t be such an ass about it.”
Niou tucks his racket under his arm. He drops the ball and cracks his knuckles. “At least I’m not a fucking fatass,” he says.
“Fuck you- no wonder you got fucking dumped in doubles!” Marui says. He snorts.
Niou lunges with a growl, but someone pulls him back. Yagyuu stares at him, his lenses sliding down his nose. He digs his fingernails into Niou’s arm, his grip tight and his nails sharp. Niou struggles once, twice, then gives up and lets his body and his fist go slack.
Marui laughs. Behind him, Jackal walks up and sighs. “Why do you have to prove him?” he asks Marui.
Marui pops another bubble and grins. “Good luck reining him in, Yagyuu!”
“I fucking hate you!” Niou shouts back, but somehow, his insult has lost its venom from Yagyuu frowning at him.
His stomach twists. Maybe it’s guilt. Niou wants to curl up his tail and slink home. How a megane can do this to him now after years of the exact opposite at home, it only makes Niou even more confused. Feel even more fucked up inside.
“Niou-kun,” Yagyuu says, his tone a bit like Niou’s mother.
Niou hangs his head and stares at his sneakers. The mesh netting at the toes is grey from mud and dirt and scum. He scuffs his shoe on the court. “You can serve now,” he mutters.
Yagyuu picks up the ball, bending down in front of Niou. Niou looks over, catching sight of Yagyuu’s uniform pants riding down his back, just an inch or two, but enough for Niou to be able to see the waistband of Yagyuu’s underpants.
A little lower…he thinks.
Yagyuu stands up.
Damn.
The trees keep rustling. Niou can hear the sounds of freshmen and juniors wandering out, talking about something but he can’t pay attention to them because Yagyuu is leaning back and up, his form for his throw as improved as his overall play. Niou bites his lip, cocking his head, ready for Yagyuu’s little habits that make his play readable. That make his play predictable.
There, shoulder-drop.
Niou moves right, his racket out-stretched-
“What are you doing here?” Yanagi asks, his voice loud enough and angry enough that Niou completely misses the shot. It skims his racket, smacking into the court.
Niou doesn’t move. Someone has been watching his tennis. Yagyuu starts a second serve, not noticing that Niou is a statue, frozen to the spot. Niou can’t move. It feels…not right like someone has been watching him this entire time. A shudder runs down his back.
For some reason, he feels dirty. His fun with Yagyuu is being appraised, and not just by Marui.
Yagyuu realizes this before a third shot and Yanagi’s second loud warning to someone in the hedges. He walks over to the chainlink fence and peers through. Niou follows him, watching Yanagi’s yellow uniform charge through the black and crooked trees branches, then stalk behind a stumpy hedge of evergreens.
“What are you doing here?” Yanagi hisses.
By now, the entire tennis club is pressed against the fence. Niou pushes over, close to Yagyuu, to let a freshmen get a peek at what is going on with their resident data master, the boy who almost never raises his voice.
A second figure pops up behind the hedge. A megane, who adjusts his glasses. Yanagi grabs the boy’s notebook, stares at it briefly, then with a disgusted noise, he starts to try to rip it up. The notebook is too thick and Yanagi only manages to dent it before throwing it away.
It flies right into the fence with a clang. Ten feet away, a group of juniors scatter, then reform as the notebook sits placidly on the other side of the fence.
“Sadaharu, go back to Tokyo!” Yanagi snaps. “This behavior could be reported to the junior circuit league organizers- spying on another team!” Yanagi breathes hard and heavy through his nose. His jaw is clenched and his lips pursed.
The other boy smiles slightly, then mutters something like “Iii data”. It sounds a bit like bullshit to Niou, and to Yanagi too because he scoffs and snorts and says,
“That’s why your team loses, Sadaharu. And you just rely too much on data collected but not absorbed. Some things in tennis can’t be calculated.”
“We’ll play again sometime, Renji,” the boy says. He jumps over the hedge with his long legs, then retrieves his notebook, brushing off the cover. Niou can see a distinct Seishun Gakuen school crest on the notebook cover.
The fence gates crash open and a hundred heads all turn as Yukimura stomps over to Yanagi, pushing him aside before looking this Seigaku student up and down with narrowed eyes. “Get out of here,” he says.
The Seigaku boy smiles as he leaves. Whatever he wanted with Rikkai Dai, he has collected it already.
With the display over, the team runs back onto the courts as Yukimura turns around and opens his mouth to shout at them. Sanada, too, stops staring and goes back to leading a small group of freshmen with their serve practice, lumbering around a head higher than the rest of them.
Yanagi and Yukimura walk back through the gate. Yukimura crashes it closed.
“Yanagi-senpai,” Kirihara asks. “Who was that?”
“No one,” Yanagi tells him, but his grip on his racket is white and his lips are drawn even tighter than before.
For some reason, Yukimura takes even longer. Niou hesitates to start his serve with Yagyuu. Someone has been watching him for god knows how long, watching his tennis. His tennis. Niou shakes his head.
The fucker, he thinks.
He wants to chase that Seigaku megane and shred that book of data to pieces. He wants to pat Yanagi on the back for telling him off.
Instead, he watches Yukimura linger at the sidelines. Niou pockets the ball. He can’t serve even if he wanted to.
“Yukimura?” he asks.
Niou steps closer. Yukimura says nothing. He blinks rapidly. His face looks a bit green.
“Are you okay?” he asks, trying again.
Yukimura sniffs. “It’s fine,” he says, looking up and out across the courts. “Just a bit of double vision. Maybe I need glasses like Yagyuu, ne?”
Niou doesn’t laugh. Yukimura sounds more like Kirihara right now, laughing bitterly at his not-funny joke.
Niou says nothing about how Yukimura’s eyes are glazed and unfocused. He might look like he watches the courts, but Niou doesn’t think he can see much for a long minute.
Weird.
Author: Ociwen
Rating: NC17 (eventual)
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all.
Summary: Niou, meet Yagyuu.
Author's Notes: Spoilers for everything.
It becomes their little secret.
On Fridays, Niou starts to commandeer the seat at the table next to Yagyuu at whatever buffet the team chooses- or rather, whatever buffet Marui chooses. Yagyuu says nothing to the contrary and he doesn’t flinch when Niou slides into the chair, always beside him.
In class, Niou has been used to the winces and grimaces when he sits in class next to a girl with pigtails (easy target for ink dipping or scissors) or anyone, really. This lack of caring on Yagyuu’s part is refreshing in some ways, and in other ways, it makes him feel almost welcome. A part of the team.
Niou asks, “How was practice last night?”
Yagyuu practices with his left hand at home. Against a garden wall maybe, or at a nearby streetcourt. He nods and says, “It’s getting stronger. I did thirty reps last night.”
Only Yanagi notices. He’ll lean towards their conversation, mentally making notes. But he doesn’t ask Yagyuu or Niou what they are talking about, all hushed tones. This secret makes Niou’s stomach flip even more than just being near Yagyuu does.
Niou can’t even be bothered to bother other people. He’s busy at practice and he’s busy on weekends with the team and Yagyuu. His mother smiles at him, saying “I’m so glad you’ve made some friends, Masaharu,” each time he grunts that he’s going out.
Although, slipping an old pair of his sister’s pink underpants into Sanada’s tennisbag one morning was priceless. Sanada turned a red the colour of the maple leaves and sputtered something.
“Do you have something you’re not telling us, Sanada?” Niou asked.
It was worth it, too, to see Yagyuu laugh. He’s not loud like Marui or devious like Kirihara, but his laugh makes butterflies flutter inside Niou, even through Sanada’s hard slap on the side of Niou’s head.
One Saturday in late November, the buffet Marui drags the team to is well to the north of the city. The hills are high, here, studded with manicured plum and tangerine and magnolia trees, mostly bare from the weather. It’s late by the time Niou rolls himself out of the restaurant. It’s a good thing he wore his new jeans, because the waistband is strained enough.
Yagyuu walks beside him. Niou puffs his breath into the night air. The sight of the white plumes is nice. He shoves his hands in his pockets, warm and curling up into himself. His birthday is coming soon. He’s almost fourteen.
Yagyuu doesn’t know his birthday. No one does. It is a Tuesday this year.
“I have to take bus 57 to get home from here,” Yagyuu says.
Niou looks over the bus route schedule posted to the side of the plexiglass bus shelter. The light is dim, too orange and he has to squint to see the information. Three buses pass by his route, by the nearest major intersection to his house.
“Yeah, me too,” he says. Darn.
The temperature has dropped in the past two weeks and Niou thinks that maybe he should listen to his mother about taking a jacket, because standing here in the breeze cuts through his shirt and makes him shiver. But the sleeves of his jacket are too short now and it’s not cool to wear one anyway, not until it’s freezing out.
Yagyuu has a coat, of course. He pulls one glove out of each side pocket and slides his fingers into them. “There’s the bus,” he says.
They have always managed to take separate routes home. Sometimes Yagyuu will take the west-bound train at the stop near their restaurant and Niou will take the bus. Sometimes Niou will catch the south-bound train two stops from their restaurant, a fifteen minute walk away, but it’s the direct line.
At this hour, the bus should be busy, and yet it’s only half-filled with seniors and a couple sleepy children. Yagyuu wanders to the back, then slides into a double-seater. Niou hesitates for a moment, then sits down beside him.
Is he even allowed to do this? Does he have to be friends with Yagyuu for years- like Sanada and Yanagi- before he can sit beside him?
Yagyuu doesn’t look over at him, but he slouches down in his seat. Niou relaxes and lifts his knees, crunching himself between the back of the seat ahead and his own. Conserving his warmth and all, since Yagyuu didn’t choose the seats by the floor heaters.
“If I can play with both hands,” Yagyuu starts to say, “then it might be an advantage on the court with you as a southpaw.”
“We could both be lefties and confuse the other teams,” Niou says.
“Can you play with your right at all?”
Niou nods. “A bit.” He rests his chin against his knees. The side of his body next to Yagyuu is warm. He leans closer, then yawns.
The reflection of Yagyuu in the window smiles.
“What?” Niou asks.
Yagyuu shrugs. “Nothing.”
“Okay.”
“Niou-kun, do you think Yukimura-kun will have us playing games soon?” Yagyuu scratches the plastic seat in front of him, making kanji with his fingertips. Niou can’t read them, but they’re just lines and curves. Even in gloves, his fingers are long and cultured, the perfect aristocratic gentleman.
“I dunno,” Niou says.
Yagyuu smells like tempura vegetables and shrimp curry from the buffet. Niou ate the yakisoba, three plate fulls, but never made it to the curry bar. And it isn’t just the curry Niou can smell, but the fire of chilies, too.
Five months ago, he would have never guessed Yagyuu liked spicy food, or bitter vinegar poured over everything. He wouldn’t have looked beyond the perfect part in Yagyuu’s hair and the gleam of glasses.
Except being this close, Niou can see that Yagyuu’s part isn’t as neat as it seems- he has flyaway hairs and the straight line has zigzags, it has shifted. In the light from the bus, Yagyuu’s lenses have smudges and lint all over them.
Niou yawns again. The harsh neon lights of the passing streets, crammed up with signs for several floors, all glittering characters and blinking electric displays, even they don’t stop the droop of his eyelids.
Yagyuu’s shoulder isn’t stiff or unwelcome when Niou’s head droops. It’s not entirely on purpose, but not entirely deliberate, either, the way it lolls onto Yagyuu. The smell of him, this close, his neck right in Niou’s nose makes him sigh inside.
This is nice, he thinks.
Niou isn’t awake enough to be embarrassed, not even when Yagyuu shakes him some time later and says, “I think this is your stop, Niou-kun.”
Niou crawls into his own bed that night half-hard and wishing his pillow was a soft, wool-coated shoulder and that instead of his own shampoo, he could smell Yagyuu’s soap and skin and the curry he ate.
***
Niou refuses to think about it too hard, or to let it be awkward.
Yagyuu doesn’t seem to remember at all.
Practices move into December. The former OBs and seniors stop coming entirely to practice, having disappeared last month into the cesspool of entrance exams to Rikkai University Attached Senior High School.
Yukimura gets even worse.
“Thirty laps! 100 swings! Fifty pushups, you lazy asses!” Yukimura yells and Sanada, always at his right, smacks his fist into his palm, threatening the team.
Niou runs thirty laps, and then two more when Sanada glowers under his cap. Don’t you dare skim laps, he says through his beady black eyes, except Niou doesn’t and wouldn’t, but Sanada the ass would, of course, assume something like that from the panty incident of a few weeks back.
The extra work gives Niou’s muscles new definition. He and Yagyuu work in the weight room together, spotting each other on the leg presses. Niou stands at Yagyuu’s head as Yagyuu bench presses a good twenty reps, then asks for increased weights.
Niou heaves them onto the bar. Yagyuu sweats, his face red and covered in drips, exertion, effort to become the best players in the entire circuit, their whole team. His neck strains as he grunts, up and down the weights come. Niou shifts his own weight from side to side. He’s glad his mother bought the next size of uniform track pants for him, because they’re still a bit baggy and do a decent job of hiding his near-constant erections now.
Besides, it is too cold to wear the shorts. Only Sanada does, and he must be part Buddhist monk because his legs are lobster red in the morning chill. Marui bundles himself up in a wool coat and consumes two or three energy drinks with his disgusting cakes. Niou can see the vapours of the fatass’s Oronamin C a mile away on the courts.
All the extra work and Niou isn’t the only one who notices changes with himself. In the showers, Marui’s pasty flab starts to shrink.
But he’s still a fatass, Niou reminds himself as soon as Marui announces he is going to drag Jackal and Kirihara and anyone else who wants to come to the convenience store for fried chicken and 100-yen bags of candies.
On the very last day of November, a Friday, Niou walks onto afternoon practice at the club. It seems, superficially, like every other practice. He groans inside with the anticipation of Yukimura screaming at them and of having to work his muscles until they scream, too.
Instead, there is a white sheet of paper neatly stapled to the outside of the clubhouse.
Practice matches start Monday.
Love,
Buchou
Niou blinks. Love?
He looks again. No, it is definitely there. The kanji says love.
Behind Niou, he can hear Kirihara breathing through his nose. “Shit, Niou-senpai,” he mutters.
Niou raises an eyebrow.
“Buchou’s gonna make me play Sanada-fukubuchou or something.” Kirihara gulps, and the starting vestiges of his adam’s apple bob. “Crap.”
“Think of it as a Christmas present, or something,” Niou tells him.
Kirihara snorts. Then he narrows his eyes, that devious little look of his tell-tale over his face. “Niou-senpai, maybe buchou will make you and Yagyuu-senpai play Sanada-fukubuchou and Yanagi-senpai pair.”
Niou cuffs Kirihara on the ear before the brat has a change to split-step out of the way. “Puri,” he grumbles. Kirihara slinks off, rubbing his ear and sniffling about it hurting.
“Niou-kun,” Yagyuu’s voice calls out, almost telling him off, almost beckoning. Niou walks away, towards Yagyuu who holds a ball in his hand. “Court D is free right now,” he says. “Do you want to practice that?”
Niou smiles.
Working on his right hand with Yagyuu on his left has been a challenge, not just because they’re both using non-dominant hands, but especially because they haven’t actually played a doubles game yet. Niou knows how Yagyuu will react to the ball machine or a serve from Yukimura now, but under pressure, he doesn’t know.
Still, they have a few months left where they can play around like this before the real work starts with the beginning of the tennis season in April.
Using his right feels weird, but the challenge thrills Niou down all the way to his bones. The racket has a different weight. The grip tape, the grip itself, the way he positions his body and bounces the ball. His control is lessened, a bit like having wrist weights on times two.
And for Yagyuu, it must be the same.
The first few serves they had practiced were crap. Niou’s serve didn’t even make it over the net, but they’ve worked on this maybe a couple weeks now, a half hour per practice. Niou’s comfort with his right increases. In some ways, he can pretend his is Yagyuu, right-handed with a rim-rod straight back and a killer laser shot.
Over the net, Yagyuu bends low mid-court and cocks his head. He blows a strand of hair away from his face and smirks at Niou. I’m ready.
Niou bounces the ball three times, then throws it up as high as he can into the sky, breathing in as he brings his racketface down, hard and fast. The ball whooshes over the net and Yagyuu dashes, holding his racket at an odd and unusual angle.
A left-handed angle.
Niou likes the look of it, like watching Yagyuu in a mirror. Or maybe himself, the way Yagyuu moves and shifts his eyes under his lenses. He leans down, then scoops the ball up, gathering a heavy spin before dragging it up and back at Niou.
The trees rustle around the perimeter of the courts. Niou runs, chasing to catch up to Yagyuu’s shots. He’s fast, he’s better than good at this ambidextrous stuff. He’s practically a natural lefty. He can shift his weight to his left, push from his left leg, and even try a backhand now and then. Niou sticks to straight shots and rallies. They’re easier and with his footwork, he has better control with the basics.
“Hey! Why are you guys doing that?”
Niou groans, grinding his teeth through a volley aimed far at the baseline for Yagyuu. He ignores Marui, trying to keep his eyes and his mind on Yagyuu, whose blank face and lanky legs don’t help much when Niou is trying to predict where he’ll shoot next, and what.
There- cocked head, shoulder dipping to the right side, he’s aiming for Niou’s left side. Niou steps to the side, catching the shot with the edge of his racket. “Fuck,” he hisses, following through too wide and making a fault into the net.
The ball bounces back to him.
“Do you mind?” he snaps. Niou picks up the ball, squeezing it in his fist. It is so tempting to throw it at Marui’s face, to wipe the smile off his chubby cheeks with a well-aimed rubber ball.
Marui shrugs. He blows a large, green bubble then pops it, gobbling the gum back into his mouth and chewing it like an old woman smacking toothless gums on sticky rice. “Just curious why you two are playing with the wrong hands, is all. Don’t be such an ass about it.”
Niou tucks his racket under his arm. He drops the ball and cracks his knuckles. “At least I’m not a fucking fatass,” he says.
“Fuck you- no wonder you got fucking dumped in doubles!” Marui says. He snorts.
Niou lunges with a growl, but someone pulls him back. Yagyuu stares at him, his lenses sliding down his nose. He digs his fingernails into Niou’s arm, his grip tight and his nails sharp. Niou struggles once, twice, then gives up and lets his body and his fist go slack.
Marui laughs. Behind him, Jackal walks up and sighs. “Why do you have to prove him?” he asks Marui.
Marui pops another bubble and grins. “Good luck reining him in, Yagyuu!”
“I fucking hate you!” Niou shouts back, but somehow, his insult has lost its venom from Yagyuu frowning at him.
His stomach twists. Maybe it’s guilt. Niou wants to curl up his tail and slink home. How a megane can do this to him now after years of the exact opposite at home, it only makes Niou even more confused. Feel even more fucked up inside.
“Niou-kun,” Yagyuu says, his tone a bit like Niou’s mother.
Niou hangs his head and stares at his sneakers. The mesh netting at the toes is grey from mud and dirt and scum. He scuffs his shoe on the court. “You can serve now,” he mutters.
Yagyuu picks up the ball, bending down in front of Niou. Niou looks over, catching sight of Yagyuu’s uniform pants riding down his back, just an inch or two, but enough for Niou to be able to see the waistband of Yagyuu’s underpants.
A little lower…he thinks.
Yagyuu stands up.
Damn.
The trees keep rustling. Niou can hear the sounds of freshmen and juniors wandering out, talking about something but he can’t pay attention to them because Yagyuu is leaning back and up, his form for his throw as improved as his overall play. Niou bites his lip, cocking his head, ready for Yagyuu’s little habits that make his play readable. That make his play predictable.
There, shoulder-drop.
Niou moves right, his racket out-stretched-
“What are you doing here?” Yanagi asks, his voice loud enough and angry enough that Niou completely misses the shot. It skims his racket, smacking into the court.
Niou doesn’t move. Someone has been watching his tennis. Yagyuu starts a second serve, not noticing that Niou is a statue, frozen to the spot. Niou can’t move. It feels…not right like someone has been watching him this entire time. A shudder runs down his back.
For some reason, he feels dirty. His fun with Yagyuu is being appraised, and not just by Marui.
Yagyuu realizes this before a third shot and Yanagi’s second loud warning to someone in the hedges. He walks over to the chainlink fence and peers through. Niou follows him, watching Yanagi’s yellow uniform charge through the black and crooked trees branches, then stalk behind a stumpy hedge of evergreens.
“What are you doing here?” Yanagi hisses.
By now, the entire tennis club is pressed against the fence. Niou pushes over, close to Yagyuu, to let a freshmen get a peek at what is going on with their resident data master, the boy who almost never raises his voice.
A second figure pops up behind the hedge. A megane, who adjusts his glasses. Yanagi grabs the boy’s notebook, stares at it briefly, then with a disgusted noise, he starts to try to rip it up. The notebook is too thick and Yanagi only manages to dent it before throwing it away.
It flies right into the fence with a clang. Ten feet away, a group of juniors scatter, then reform as the notebook sits placidly on the other side of the fence.
“Sadaharu, go back to Tokyo!” Yanagi snaps. “This behavior could be reported to the junior circuit league organizers- spying on another team!” Yanagi breathes hard and heavy through his nose. His jaw is clenched and his lips pursed.
The other boy smiles slightly, then mutters something like “Iii data”. It sounds a bit like bullshit to Niou, and to Yanagi too because he scoffs and snorts and says,
“That’s why your team loses, Sadaharu. And you just rely too much on data collected but not absorbed. Some things in tennis can’t be calculated.”
“We’ll play again sometime, Renji,” the boy says. He jumps over the hedge with his long legs, then retrieves his notebook, brushing off the cover. Niou can see a distinct Seishun Gakuen school crest on the notebook cover.
The fence gates crash open and a hundred heads all turn as Yukimura stomps over to Yanagi, pushing him aside before looking this Seigaku student up and down with narrowed eyes. “Get out of here,” he says.
The Seigaku boy smiles as he leaves. Whatever he wanted with Rikkai Dai, he has collected it already.
With the display over, the team runs back onto the courts as Yukimura turns around and opens his mouth to shout at them. Sanada, too, stops staring and goes back to leading a small group of freshmen with their serve practice, lumbering around a head higher than the rest of them.
Yanagi and Yukimura walk back through the gate. Yukimura crashes it closed.
“Yanagi-senpai,” Kirihara asks. “Who was that?”
“No one,” Yanagi tells him, but his grip on his racket is white and his lips are drawn even tighter than before.
For some reason, Yukimura takes even longer. Niou hesitates to start his serve with Yagyuu. Someone has been watching him for god knows how long, watching his tennis. His tennis. Niou shakes his head.
The fucker, he thinks.
He wants to chase that Seigaku megane and shred that book of data to pieces. He wants to pat Yanagi on the back for telling him off.
Instead, he watches Yukimura linger at the sidelines. Niou pockets the ball. He can’t serve even if he wanted to.
“Yukimura?” he asks.
Niou steps closer. Yukimura says nothing. He blinks rapidly. His face looks a bit green.
“Are you okay?” he asks, trying again.
Yukimura sniffs. “It’s fine,” he says, looking up and out across the courts. “Just a bit of double vision. Maybe I need glasses like Yagyuu, ne?”
Niou doesn’t laugh. Yukimura sounds more like Kirihara right now, laughing bitterly at his not-funny joke.
Niou says nothing about how Yukimura’s eyes are glazed and unfocused. He might look like he watches the courts, but Niou doesn’t think he can see much for a long minute.
Weird.