FIC: Rewind Forward (D1) 18/63
Title: Rewind Forward (18/63)
Author: Ociwen
Rating: NC17 (eventual)
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all.
Summary: Niou, meet Yagyuu.
Author's Notes: Spoilers for everything.
Fridays out with the regulars for supper become Friday afternoon visits to the hospital when school returns.
Sanada has last class of the day- phys ed- with Niou. Sanada runs the tennis practices and hoards the clubhouse key, not leaving and locking up before the last of the stray freshmen leave.
The regulars take the bus to the hospital, then walk the last ten minutes instead of catching a connection to a closer stop.
“There’s an awesome bakeshop on the way,” Marui tells them. Each and every week, he stops in the small shop, salivating over the displays of strawberry cream cakes and custard buns, fried batter strips coated with sugar and chocolate gateaus.
He must have a endless allowance, Niou thinks as he notices Marui pulling out bills from his pocket for three cakes and a dozen pastries. Niou shoves his hand inside his own pocket. He can feel nothing but a few odd coins- maybe 500 yen in all.
Sanada doesn’t come with them.
But somehow, Sanada is always the first person at the hospital, already waiting inside Yukimura’s room when Yanagi raps on the door and walks in, leading the group of them, all muddy shoes and ruddy faces and bulky winter coats.
Yukimura lies on his bed like the dead. He gets skinnier and skinnier every time Niou sees him. His cheeks start to sink in. His eyelids go a strange yellow-grey colour and his face is tinged with green. On his bad days, he will be hooked up to the ventilator. It hisses and hums, the sounds like fake lungs collapsing and inflating as the air is pumped in through Yukimura’s nose, his mouth. Tubes run all over the room. Yukimura is more metal and plastic than boy sometimes.
On good days, Yukimura breathes on his own. He wiggles his toes. His eyes move around the room, moving from each of them to the next member of the team. What once were alive and dark with determination and authority have now been reduced to lifeless marbles, rolling around in his head.
Niou hates the hospital. He hates visiting Yukimura. And he hates that he can’t fake the smiles as easily as Marui and Kirihara, or even the polite assurances that Yukimura will get better like Yagyuu and Jackal. Yanagi is the same as always- asking nurses if his condition has improved, flagging doctors in from the corridors to ask what the prognosis is.
But Sanada…
Sanada doesn’t sit on the bed’s edge like Marui, Kirihara or Niou. He hovers around Yukimura’s head. He stands too close, really. Niou spends his time, counting the seconds Sanada’s hand will linger on Yukimura’s arm or shoulder. Or how many centimeters too close Sanada’s fingers will be to Yukimura’s hair.
Yanagi must now about this. The way his narrowed eyes shift away from Sanada, the way he will discreetly couch if Kirihara starts to turn, his childish smirk turning into a frown of confusion because Sanada-fukubuchou is way too close to Yukimura than he needs to be.
Niou is fairly certain, too, that he sees Sanada holding Yukimura’s hand under the bed. Yukimura’s hands drape, almost lifeless, from under his sheets. Considering what Niou saw once, it wouldn’t surprise him.
Still, he has to wonder, does Yukimura actually know what is going on? Does he somehow manage to tell Sanada yes or no when Sanada touches him? Isn’t it like molesting a dead person, if Yukimura wanted to say no but was having a bad day?
Maybe Sanada gets off on it.
Niou cringes at the thought. Gross.
There is one Friday, the second Friday, when Yanagi knocks on the door and doesn’t push it open immediately. “Genichirou,” he calls, “we’re all here now.”
Kirihara bounces from foot to foot, a split step on the hallway linoleum. Marui opens his bag for the seventh time and breathes in his cookies, closing his eyes and moaning at the smell of chocolate and wasabi.
Yanagi coughs again, unnaturally loud. Niou looks at him.
If there wasn’t the sound of a second moan, barely disguised by another feigned cough, Niou might have almost believed Yanagi. Something moves on the other side of the doorway, a squeak, then a shuffle, then a rustle of clothing. Kirihara keeps talking, Jackal nodding absently and Yagyuu smiling blandly at him. No one else except Yanagi and Niou pay attention to the flustered Sanada who swings the door open, face all red and sweat at his brow. His hair looks worse than Niou’s in the morning- messed up, flattened on one side, stringy and damp.
They walk inside, that time. Marui chats away about his latest version of his special cake, not as though Yukimura can care in his semi-comatose state. Yanagi reaches under the bed, then hands Sanada his black cap.
Niou doesn’t say a word about it at practice. He never says a word in the showers. He says nothing in phys ed class, he tells no one, he doesn’t mention what he’s seen to Yanagi. He doesn’t know why, but he stays silent.
His dreams become more vivid at night. His knees hurt from growing pains, all the time, but only in his bed does he bother to notice them. His wrists don’t ache as much now. Niou doesn’t get used to the weights, not exactly, but he does stop thinking about the black neoprene that seems permanently moulded to his skin by now.
Sometimes, they feel more real than tennis does when he is awake. He and Yagyuu go to sushi joints. Yagyuu orders sashimi, strips of eel and blood-red tuna. Niou rubs his foot along Yagyuu’s angle, feeling the fabric of Yagyuu’s pants ride up on his calf.
“Niou-kun,” Yagyuu says. “Do you want to play?” Yagyuu takes a slice of tuna with his chopsticks, dropping it down his throat. He licks his lips like Kirihara and his glasses shine, rose-tinted. He chuckles, his low laugh like those of the yakuza in movies.
Niou is hard. He wiggles in his seat, hoping Yagyuu doesn’t notice.
“Are you hard?” Yagyuu asks. He always knows in Niou’s dreams. He can’t escape Yagyuu’s small smirks. He can’t escape that stare, when Yagyuu’s glasses slide down his nose, and then he strikes, faster than his laser beam.
Niou is pinned to the wall of the sushi joint. No one pays notices the dishes shattering on the floor when Yagyuu climbs up on the table, crawling to Niou, licking his lips. “Is this what you want, Niou-kun? To suck c-”
Niou wakes up, hard and clutching himself, his pajama pants damp. He rolls onto his stomach, rubbing against his hand and against his mattress, twice the friction, coming twice as hard. He gasps into his pillow, out of breath and smothered, Yagyuu’s face and those glistening lenses flashing before his eyes.
Sometimes, it is ethereal, a faded game on an unknown court. Yagyuu stands at the baseline, his racket stiff in an underhand grip. His hair billows up without a breeze. He stands up as straight as ever, but his face is a mask.
“Zannen munen…” he says. His lips move again, but Niou can’t read them, he can’t hear Yagyuu’s voice because someone else calls his own name.
“Masaharu! Masaharu! It’s time to get up!”
Lights blind him. Niou groans and mutters, “Puri,”. He tries to cover his eyes with his hand, but his mother pulls his arm back. “Fuck…”
“Don’t use language like that,” she says. “And stop sleeping through your alarm. You’ll miss too many practices with your tennis club and then what will you get into without them?” She sighs heavily, adjusting his glasses before she yanks the curtains open. A harsh winter sun peaks through his window.
Niou tries to roll over again. His mother pulls his sheets back to his feet, leaving Niou a shivering huddle in the middle of his mattress.
Hard, of course.
Hopefully she doesn’t notice that, too.
“Isn’t your special game soon?” she asks. She yanks open a drawer, clicking her tongue. “Can’t you keep your clothes folded? Here. A clean shirt- the last one. I’ll have to do laundry again if you don’t want to smell tomorrow, Masaharu…”
She keeps talking. All Niou remembers is that today is the 22nd.
Time to show that fatass genius wannabe, he thinks, yawning through a tall stretch.
“Go away,” he mumbles when his mother hands him a clean school shirt. She might not have done anything to him, but the throbbing ache between his legs feels transparent through his pajama pants. It’s embarrassing. And private.
Nothing that can’t be solved with a hot morning shower and a few pulls at his cock. Niou sighs under the spray of water, hand cupped around his balls, fingers touching the underside of his cock. He thinks about the laser beam, stroking himself, the water rushing over his shoulders and back. Niou thinks about the glimmer he sees in Yagyuu’s eyes sometimes, that almost feral glint and the way Yagyuu stands so straight after his laser that it’s like he’s taken a page out of Sanada’s book and rammed a stick up his ass.
Games are held during afternoon practices. Morning practice feels rushed and too short, as though laps take up the entire session. Yagyuu shoots fast, furious rallies at Niou, who hits them back to the baseline, unreturned, to work on his volleys and Yagyuu’s serves in one fell swoop.
“We’ve got a plan,” Marui announces in the clubhouse. Overlooking all of them are the rows of gold-plated trophies and engraved plaques, all reminders of past glories, glories that each and every one of the team wants to repeat.
Niou grunts. He fumbles with his school tie, then loosens it to try again. Last week he was reprimanded once for a sloppy tie and damned if he’ll be given detention today of all days.
“It’s completely fail-safe,” Marui says, stepping up under Yagyuu’s chin and forcing his way to talk with Yagyuu, to show off his confident grin. “Jackal and I were working on it this weekend.”
“Yes,” Jackal agrees. “Fail-safe.”
Niou tries to ignore Marui, but he messes his tie up again. Clenching his jaw, he tells himself to breathe, to ignore Marui’s popping bubbles and asinine chatter.
The feeling doesn’t shake off in class. Niou’s pencil strays from equations in math, scribbling round circles and stabbing them through the middle with his pencil lead, pretending they are Marui’s bubblegum, or Jackal’s bald head, maybe.
During lunchtime, Niou walks past the cafeteria, knowing that Marui and Kirihara and probably a few others from the team will be eating at the table near the vending machines. Focus, he thinks, unclenching his fist.
The rooftop is cold and completely exposed to the elements. Surrounded by a wash of grey sky, Niou sits on the cold rooftop eating his cold bento lunch. It tastes like cardboard and pickles. Anything from the cafeteria, even the fried chicken mystery delight would taste better than this, but Niou refuses to get up and see for himself what the menu is today.
He picks at the last of his pickles, then throws the entire box off the ledge. He listens to the splatter three stories below, before he settles back against the frigid roof with a juicebox.
In his head, Niou thinks about scenarios. He’ll be at net; Yagyuu will be at the baseline. They could both use their left hands. They could stick to their strong sides. Yagyuu could use the laser beam and Niou could work on the defense. Yagyuu could hit Marui in the head with a shot- that might work.
Niou sees a vision of Marui arcing backward, his hair spilling out pink against sharp green clay of the court, a swollen bruise rising like a bubble from his forehead. Yagyuu would still be standing straight, posing as he smiles and says “My bad.”
Niou chuckles under his breath just as the bell rings for the end of lunch.
Gym class comes the last class of the day. Basketball unit. Niou hates it. He hates the weight of the ball. He hates the orange colour. He hates the stupid sleeveless shirts they are forced to wear over their gym uniforms, gross and smelling of musty sweat. Niou is on the blue team. Across the gymnasium, Yagyuu is on the red.
And Sanada is in the blue too, playing on Niou’s team. He at least has the height for a basketball player, standing more than a foot taller than the shortest boy in the class. Niou hangs out by the sidelines, half-assed walking around the perimeter and pretending to play.
Don’t throw the ball to me! he thinks.
He scans the gym for Yagyuu. Yagyuu dribbles the ball, then passes to a teammate. He’s not bad, no worse than most of the class. And at least he bothers to participate. Niou stares at him, boring his eyes into Yagyuu’s brain, but Yagyuu doesn’t turn around.
“Niou!” Sanada yells.
Niou turns in just enough time to see a flash of orange barreling at his face. He stumbles back, tripping over a bench. “Fuck,” he spits. His nose blooms with pain, tender to the touch. He’s more stunned that hurt. Embarrassed at being hit in the face, Niou mutters, “Puri”, trying as best he can to ignore the flush over his cheeks.
Sanada doesn’t apologize. “Don’t…get careless,” he grumbles. “Lazy ass.”
“Don’t throw basketballs at me,” Niou snaps. “I was busy.”
“We’re in gym class,” Sanada says. “We’re supposed to be playing.”
Niou says nothing to Sanada. Asshole, he thinks. At least he doesn’t cry like Sanada, although his nose still throbs occasionally by the end of class and Niou has to carefully pull his t-shirt over his head to avoid brushing his face with the collar.
Yagyuu is gone before Niou can find him. Niou slams his locker shut, irritated and angry. He stomps off to tennis practice, swings open the door to the regulars’ changing room. “Yagyuu!” he shouts.
Yagyuu’s head peers around a locker. “Yes?” he asks.
Niou nods.
Yagyuu walks over. He is completely and glorious shirtless. Niou can feel his stomach flip-flopping at the sight, seeing Yagyuu’s bellybutton, his nipples, a sort of brownish pink and just barely stiffened in the cooler air of the clubhouse. Yagyuu doesn’t seem to care that he’s holding his uniform t-shirt, not wearing it.
“Niou-kun?”
Niou shuffles his sneaker and shoves his hands into his pockets. He can be as casual as Yagyuu, all while trying to avoid looking at his chest.
“Well,” he starts, but then Niou notices that while he might not be staring at Yagyuu’s belly, his eyes are on the yellow track pants, the wrinkles gathering between Yagyuu’s legs as he stands in front of Niou.
Niou plants his eyes on the ground.
“I think we should use your laser like we did with those Jyousei losers,” Niou says.
“What do you mean?” Yagyuu asks.
“The way you hit that kid,” Niou says. “Do the same thing today.”
Yagyuu is quiet. “Why would I hurt someone on my own team, Niou-kun?” he asks.
It is Niou’s turn to be quiet. He says nothing for so long that Yagyuu gives up waiting and leaves to finish changing.
“I thought you liked hurting people,” Niou mutters. You don’t make any sense sometimes, Yagyuu.
The courts are damp and cold. Niou zips his uniform jacket up the entire way, his throat feeling too encased, but his teeth chatter anyway. He runs his fifty laps, sweating under the nylon uniform. Yagyuu is further back in the groups of players, a half-lap behind Niou. He makes no expressions, nothing except the occasional wipes of sweat from his brow or to push up his glasses.
Sanada grabs Niou by the jacket arm. “Niou,” he says, “you’re playing in the gym. No more pushing back this game.”
“It might rain today,” Yanagi adds, as if Niou couldn’t already see the swirls of dark clouds in the sky or smell the heavy air. Above, the fluorescent floodlights shine across the court as the dim sunlight starts fades to purple in the west.
“Are you ready?” Yagyuu asks. He pushes the gym doors open. For an instant, Niou is blinded by the lights inside.
Niou swallows the lump in his throat down. He forces himself to smirk. “Why wouldn’t I be?” he says. He slings his racket over his shoulder and saunters inside, bouncing on the instep of his feet, telling himself he’s ready. Telling himself that he and Yagyuu can play ten, a hundred times what they did on the weekend against those Jyousei players.
Jackal and Yagyuu stand closest to the net. Niou peels off his uniform jacket- if he’s playing indoors, he won’t need it or his track pants either. Marui does the same, tossing his jacket and pants to the side of the court by the low wooden bench.
“Wait!” Kirihara shouts. His sneakers slap across the gym floor as he barrels into the gym, waving his hands wildly. “Wait, senpais! Sanada-fukubuchou said I get to ref and he told me to tell you guys that whoever wins the game gets to be doubles one next season!”
Kirihara plows into the wooden bench, tripping onto his knees. Brushing them off, he stands up as straight and as tall as he can, which is just enough to be able to look Marui in the eye. “Senpais?”
Niou says, “Yeah, we heard you.”
Jackal holds his racket up, frame against the floor. He looks at Yagyuu. “Which?”
Yagyuu glances back to Niou, who shrugs. Pick whatever, he thinks.
“Rough,” Yagyuu says.
Jackal twists his hand to start the spin, but Kirihara interrupts him with a “Can I do it?”
Jackal rolls his eyes. He twists his hand further back, fingers flexing on the frame. “No,” he says.
The racket spins, a whirlwind of spinning strings and fiberglass frame. It clatters on the ground. Yagyuu bends down- the handle is closest to him. Kirihara gets a look, too.
“You may serve first,” Yagyuu says.
In the tone of his voice, Niou recognizes the slick sweetness, the too-polite-to-be-real choice of words. Yagyuu walks to the baseline, passing Niou as he walks up to the net, and Yagyuu flashes the sharpest and fastest of grins.
Niou shivers.
Kirihara plunks himself down on the wooden bench, shoving aside the jumble of track pants and jackets and tennis bags and waterbottles. The wristweights on Niou’s arms itch and his fingers twitch, wanting to take them off, but no one else has and he doesn’t want to be seen as weak.
He holds his right arm stiff at his side. His left hand clenches his racket handle.
They are going to play, no delays today.
Except for Marui shouting “Shit!” before he runs so fast across the court he slides into the bench, knocking Kirihara backwards.
“Ow!” Kirihara shouts, rubbing his head full of messy curls.
“I almost forgot,” Marui mutters to himself. It is the smell that Niou notices first: chocolate and rotting socks and coffee, along with something like red bull and orange juice and maybe pungent fish sauce.
Bile rises in his throat, burning his chest.
Marui crinkles the clingfilm up in his hand. Brown crumbs crust the sides of his mouth, which he wipes off with the collar of his uniform. “There,” he announces. “I’m ready to start. Hey- Kirihara! Watch my serve and be awed at my prowess.”
Kirihara’s brow furrows.
Niou recognizes the words, too, but he can’t place them. Or be bothered to care. Marui is full of crap and he has always been.
Behind his back, Niou makes the sign of a two. Or victory. Jackal’s hand is behind his back, too, probably making his own word signals to Marui. Niou keeps his eyes firm on Marui, who instead of checking out Jackal’s message, focuses more on watching the ball bounce in and out of his hand.
Jackal breathes heavily through his nose. Marui throws the ball up high, too high, almost high enough to touch the ceiling of the gymnasium. For such a tubby ass, he’s got strength in his arms and legs, probably close to what Sanada has.
Focus.
Niou narrows his eyes.
Marui’s serve comes flying at Niou, aimed towards the mid-court. Niou ducks right, Yagyuu moves up, step step then hitting the ball with the sharp pong sound, distinctive of a forehand volley.
Jackal flies in front of the net like a brown wraith, eyes glowing an unnatural white as he slams back a shot. Yagyuu rushes for it, catching it on the tip of his racket, but it lobs and the angle is all wrong. Niou moves fast, trying to keep under the path in case it doesn’t go over all the way, but it does, just barely.
Enough for Jackal to smash it back to the far left of the net.
Niou wouldn’t have made it.
“Puri,” he whispers, blowing the word out onto a strand of hair over his eyes.
Kirihara lets the ball roll across the length of the gym, over towards the ball machines, lying placid and on stand-by underneath a recoiled basketball net. “15-0, Marui-Jackal pair,” he yells.
The sound of Marui and Jackal’s high five, the slap of their hands together in sync, grates Niou’s ears. He clenches his jaw and closes his eyes.
Yagyuu is silent. Niou doesn’t turn around to try to figure out what he might be thinking.
Marui’s second serve is to the back of the court, again. Niou knows his style, more or less. Marui favours volleys, and very short rallies. He runs around the court, grinning his head off and returning Yagyuu’s shots with an energy that Niou assumes can only from those disgusting cakes he eats before he plays.
I hope you get indigestion, you fat loser, Niou thinks. He guards the net, swaying and shifting his weight from side to side. Jackal guards the other side of the net, but he tries to stay at a diagonal from Niou. Niou moves to try to trip Jackal up, in case they both get a chance to play, but for now, Marui and Yagyuu are having their turn.
Yagyuu hasn’t pulled that out yet.
Niou doesn’t know why Yagyuu wouldn’t want to change the pace.
Bending low, Marui aims his next shot high and uses the power in his thighs to slam the ball behind Niou. Niou bristles, feeling the whoosh the ball as it zooms past his ear.
Yagyuu must have missed the shot because Kirihara calls out, “Marui-Jackal pair, thirty-love.”
Niou turns around, widening his eyes. He jerks his head, making sure that Yagyuu knows what he is asking: What the hell are you doing?
Yagyuu sniffs, but his eyes glitter behind those lenses, the dark pupils containing that same glow he’s had before. The same look that sends a cold chill down Niou’s back, a shock that settles between his legs.
Not now, Niou tells his cock. Not. Now.
It only makes it worse. He can feel himself swelling in his shorts the more he wishes it would stop. His face feels hot, and not just from the loss of two consecutive points.
Marui’s play is easy to read. He bends low, squatting almost to the ground in the same position as a rising, for his specialist volley shots. Niou doesn’t think they are that special. But then he isn’t returning any balls.
Marui angles his racket every time Yagyuu returns a volley with a volley. Niou curls his fingers behind his back. He’s slicing.
Yagyuu slides the ball across the face of his racket, gathering his own spin to the ball to counteract Marui’s play. With two hands, he practically throws the ball back to Marui and Jackal. Jackal and Marui both run for the ball, both running towards the centre of the court, mid-range.
Marui grunts loud, then swings wide to avoid Jackal. The ball barely makes the shot.
Niou is too busy thinking to even realize that Yagyuu won’t make it to the sideline in time to save the point.
So that’s it.
Niou grins.
“What are you smiling about, stupid?” Marui shouts. “You just lost a point again!”
Niou curls his lips even more. That’s it.
He doesn’t say anything to Yagyuu with words; he wants to test his insight the next point. Niou lets Yagyuu take the shots. Yagyuu seems to get it when Niou cocks his head and moves his fingers, motioning to Yagyuu to step up a bit closer to the middle of the court. Jackal watches Niou, but he watches Yagyuu, too, so his attention is half what it should be.
Yagyuu can’t play singles against a doubles team. They lose the game, a no touch ace game for Marui.
It feeds his ego.
The fatass practically skips when they change courts.
But now Niou knows exactly what he needs to.
He nods for Yagyuu, unwilling to actually reach out and grab Yagyuu by the arm, as much as he might want to. “Niou-kun,” Yagyuu murmurs. “Have you figured things out?”
Niou smiles. He can’t help that, either. Playing with Yagyuu makes his heart pound just a bit more than it does when he talks with Yagyuu in the locker room, or in a restaurant. And during the match, he can forget about the fact he’s got an erection straining in his shorts because he is too busy trying to outsmart that genius wannabe.
“If we draw out the game, I don’t think Marui-kun’s energy will keep up,” Yagyuu says, keeping his voice low.
Niou huddles closer. He can smell the sweat on Yagyuu’s body and his fruity shampoo, too. “It’s not just that,” he says. Niou drums his finger on the rim of his racket. “But they’ve divided the court between them. Right down the centre line. Marui’s got the back half and Jackal has the front. If we keep are shots to the middle of their court, their plan will get messed.”
“Is that our game plan?” Yagyuu asks.
Niou looks over his shoulder. Marui is hopping from foot to foot, like one of those theatrical characters, pantomiming Niou’s split step. Niou grinds his teeth, then tells Yagyuu, “Yeah, that’s our plan.”
It is Niou’s serve and their weakest formation next up. Niou knows that Yagyuu prefers the baseline. Yagyuu needs the room to manouvre, especially if he wants to shoot a laser. Kirihara sits on the bench, watching with wide and eager eyes.
Niou can’t resist.
He winks at Kirihara, then switches to his right hand.
Jackal raises an eyebrow.
Marui rolls his eyes. “Yeah, whatever,” he says. “You suck at that ambidextry stuff.”
“Au contraire,” Niou whispers, trying to do his best impression of Yagyuu’s voice, the clear syllables and the polite rudeness of tone.
Niou throws the ball up, then he throws himself into a twist serve.
They might have a weak formation, but he won’t start with a weak shot. It has no aim, barreling towards the net, and Jackal returns the ball easily, but Yagyuu handles it with an underhand shot.
Yes! Niou thinks.
Outward, Niou whistles. Nice play, Yagyuu. He tosses his racket back to his left, taking the next return with a two-handed rising to counter Jackal’s weightily slices. His wrists burn from the impact, but seeing Jackal’s eyes go big and round with surprise is worth the momentary shock of impact on his own body.
His blood pumps. His heart races. From the baseline, Niou can watch Yagyuu in action this time. Yagyuu’s hair ruffles, his glasses gleam, he pants and he grunts and he sweats as much as Niou and his sneakers are loud and so are his shots. Yagyuu’s knees are bent, the shadows and the muscles constantly shifting. He doesn’t turn around to see how he should be playing, he just gets it.
Yagyuu is better at aim. Niou is better at, well, he doesn’t know what, perception maybe. And he can do a decent split step to help Yagyuu and himself keep their pace. Marui scores a point; Yagyuu scores two more with well-placed shots at the mid-line. Jackal takes a point from Niou with a smash to the baseline, too far right for Niou to reach, but Niou gets his revenge with fast-paced footwork and a smash of his own.
Still no laser.
The match continues, back and forth like ping pong. Game, Niou and Yagyuu. Game, Marui and Jackal. Kirihara stops talking between matches and his concentration is completely on the game. Sometimes, he forgets to announce points.
No one forgets the score, though.
6-6.
Yagyuu has tried to draw the game out. Niou has tried to aim his own shots, too, for the middle of Marui and Jackal’s court. Niou’s back is soaked-through with sweat. Jackal leans against the metal post, trying to catch his breath before the next game. Yagyuu takes long, deep breaths of his own, taking a moment to sit on the bench beside Kirihara, but neither say a word.
And Marui.
Marui is spread-eagled on the court, gasping for breath and moaning, “I’m gonna die here.”
Niou wants to laugh himself, but his lungs burn. He just won’t admit it. He might be flushed, too, but he’s not the beet-red colour Marui is, a perfect complement to his awful pin hair.
“We can’t lose,” Jackal says through his teeth. “Do you want to lose to them?”
“We’re not losing either,” Niou snaps. “Puri,” he says under his breath. Over my dead body, fatass.
Yagyuu checks his wristwatch and frowns. “Practice ended a half hour ago,” he says.
Ironically, the gym door swings open hardly more than a beat later and Yanagi and Sanada walk inside.
“Who won?” Sanada asks.
Yanagi shakes his head. “They’re still playing, Genichirou,” he says.
Sanada grunts. Niou is almost certain he hears a muttered “tarundoru”, too.
“It’s a tiebreaker now,” Kirihara says. Yagyuu stands up from the bench, Yanagi and Sanada sit down to either side of Kirihara.
Everyone waits for Marui.
Marui sucks in one last breath, then clambers up. First, onto his knees, then slowly onto his feet. He leans over, resting on his racket. “Okay, I’m good now,” he says between wheezes.
“Don’t you have any more cake?” Jackal hisses.
Niou leans over the net. “Like he needs any more cake with the size of his ass,” he says.
Marui flashes Niou the finger. “Fuck you, Niou. We’ll serve first, ne?”
Niou rolls his eyes. He bends down low, racket cradled in anticipation of the shot to come. Marui’s serve is slow and sluggish- he’s lost energy, but not a burning drive in his eyes, the same look all four of them have right now.
Niou returns the shot, following-through with a steep angle to throw things off. Jackal makes a noise in the back of his mouth, then swings a shot back just as wide. Yagyuu takes the baseline, hitting low, trying to keep things aimed to the middle of the opposite court.
Marui, though, he just chuckles. Instead of running into Jackal, or fumbling a shot, the low drop-shot of Yagyuu’s seems to be exactly what he wants. Niou can see Marui’s right shoulder rise along with his smile, but he hasn’t seen this reaction out of Marui yet the entire match.
It is cliché to think it, but watching the ball move now is like watching a film in slow-motion. Niou sees the tennis ball bright and yellow in the unnatural light of the gymnasium, moving up, circling around itself. It’s too low, it’s perfect, the point will be theirs because Marui’s shot hits the net.
Niou’s stomach flips up with excitement. They only need one more point to-
Except the slow-motion lurches to a complete stop. No one moves. Not even to breath. Niou can see the ball, perfectly balanced on top of the net, starting to roll across the net. He swallows his tongue, his throat gone thick and dry with the fear of the ball actually going over the net.
It does.
Onto the wrong side.
“Damn,” Marui says. “I thought my genius had perfected that shot.” He gasps again like a dying fish.
Jackal closes his eyes. “Don’t let the next one mess up,” he mutters.
Yagyuu picks up the next ball from the basket. “Your serve,” Niou says.
He stands in front of Yagyuu’s way just a moment too long. It takes all the courage inside him, but Niou swallows his pride and touches his fingers to the back of Yagyuu’s right hand, lingering the touch. Yagyuu’s skin is warm and clammy and sweaty and Niou wants to take that hand and clench it in his own shaking one, but instead he says in his quietest voice, “Please use that shot.”
Yagyuu lifts his eyes to Niou, widening them, everything flashing across them, the lights of the gym, the net, the game.
“Yagyuu to serve!” Kirihara yells and the look is broken. Niou doesn’t have the time to be nervous because now he needs to win.
Yagyuu serves fast, bouncing the ball once, then flying through his shot. Always ready at the net, Jackal rebounds with a gathering spin. Through the air, the ball wiggles and wobbles, changing its pace and its course. Niou takes the shot with a two-handed return. He wants Sanada and Yanagi to see their game. He wants two of the monsters to see that he belongs on this team.
He wants that doubles one spot for Yagyuu and him.
Sweat beads on Niou’s forehead and dribbles down his nose, itchy but he ignores it and refuses to lose concentration. He refuses to let his aim be off this time. With trepidation, he watches the ball whoosh through the air. When it starts a downward turn to the middle of the other court, everything stops inside his body.
He’s done it.
He’s aimed just right.
“No!” Marui yells. Out of nowhere it seems, Marui launches himself at the ball, diving to make the shot that the rest of the game he’s missed, he’s messed up. His sneakers squeal on the flooring. His grunting and noises blend in with the sound of the ball impacting something, but Niou can see it’s too late.
Marui returns the shot.
Niou is the fool now, about ready to celebrate and now, with a ball coming too far to the edge of his own court, the point will be lost. He tries to move, but his feet are glued to the floor. He can’t lift his hand, his racket, and his wrist feels the burden of the whole game, all compressed into this instant and unforgiving pressure.
There is a moment of silence.
And then the sight of a flash of yellow, so fast and so bright that Niou squints. The ball zooms without a noise until it smashes into the back wall of the gymnasium and rattles one of the ball machines.
And Yagyuu, directly behind Niou, stands motionless with his arm pulled back and his back up straight.
Smiling like a winner.
Author: Ociwen
Rating: NC17 (eventual)
Disclaimer: Konomi owns all.
Summary: Niou, meet Yagyuu.
Author's Notes: Spoilers for everything.
Fridays out with the regulars for supper become Friday afternoon visits to the hospital when school returns.
Sanada has last class of the day- phys ed- with Niou. Sanada runs the tennis practices and hoards the clubhouse key, not leaving and locking up before the last of the stray freshmen leave.
The regulars take the bus to the hospital, then walk the last ten minutes instead of catching a connection to a closer stop.
“There’s an awesome bakeshop on the way,” Marui tells them. Each and every week, he stops in the small shop, salivating over the displays of strawberry cream cakes and custard buns, fried batter strips coated with sugar and chocolate gateaus.
He must have a endless allowance, Niou thinks as he notices Marui pulling out bills from his pocket for three cakes and a dozen pastries. Niou shoves his hand inside his own pocket. He can feel nothing but a few odd coins- maybe 500 yen in all.
Sanada doesn’t come with them.
But somehow, Sanada is always the first person at the hospital, already waiting inside Yukimura’s room when Yanagi raps on the door and walks in, leading the group of them, all muddy shoes and ruddy faces and bulky winter coats.
Yukimura lies on his bed like the dead. He gets skinnier and skinnier every time Niou sees him. His cheeks start to sink in. His eyelids go a strange yellow-grey colour and his face is tinged with green. On his bad days, he will be hooked up to the ventilator. It hisses and hums, the sounds like fake lungs collapsing and inflating as the air is pumped in through Yukimura’s nose, his mouth. Tubes run all over the room. Yukimura is more metal and plastic than boy sometimes.
On good days, Yukimura breathes on his own. He wiggles his toes. His eyes move around the room, moving from each of them to the next member of the team. What once were alive and dark with determination and authority have now been reduced to lifeless marbles, rolling around in his head.
Niou hates the hospital. He hates visiting Yukimura. And he hates that he can’t fake the smiles as easily as Marui and Kirihara, or even the polite assurances that Yukimura will get better like Yagyuu and Jackal. Yanagi is the same as always- asking nurses if his condition has improved, flagging doctors in from the corridors to ask what the prognosis is.
But Sanada…
Sanada doesn’t sit on the bed’s edge like Marui, Kirihara or Niou. He hovers around Yukimura’s head. He stands too close, really. Niou spends his time, counting the seconds Sanada’s hand will linger on Yukimura’s arm or shoulder. Or how many centimeters too close Sanada’s fingers will be to Yukimura’s hair.
Yanagi must now about this. The way his narrowed eyes shift away from Sanada, the way he will discreetly couch if Kirihara starts to turn, his childish smirk turning into a frown of confusion because Sanada-fukubuchou is way too close to Yukimura than he needs to be.
Niou is fairly certain, too, that he sees Sanada holding Yukimura’s hand under the bed. Yukimura’s hands drape, almost lifeless, from under his sheets. Considering what Niou saw once, it wouldn’t surprise him.
Still, he has to wonder, does Yukimura actually know what is going on? Does he somehow manage to tell Sanada yes or no when Sanada touches him? Isn’t it like molesting a dead person, if Yukimura wanted to say no but was having a bad day?
Maybe Sanada gets off on it.
Niou cringes at the thought. Gross.
There is one Friday, the second Friday, when Yanagi knocks on the door and doesn’t push it open immediately. “Genichirou,” he calls, “we’re all here now.”
Kirihara bounces from foot to foot, a split step on the hallway linoleum. Marui opens his bag for the seventh time and breathes in his cookies, closing his eyes and moaning at the smell of chocolate and wasabi.
Yanagi coughs again, unnaturally loud. Niou looks at him.
If there wasn’t the sound of a second moan, barely disguised by another feigned cough, Niou might have almost believed Yanagi. Something moves on the other side of the doorway, a squeak, then a shuffle, then a rustle of clothing. Kirihara keeps talking, Jackal nodding absently and Yagyuu smiling blandly at him. No one else except Yanagi and Niou pay attention to the flustered Sanada who swings the door open, face all red and sweat at his brow. His hair looks worse than Niou’s in the morning- messed up, flattened on one side, stringy and damp.
They walk inside, that time. Marui chats away about his latest version of his special cake, not as though Yukimura can care in his semi-comatose state. Yanagi reaches under the bed, then hands Sanada his black cap.
Niou doesn’t say a word about it at practice. He never says a word in the showers. He says nothing in phys ed class, he tells no one, he doesn’t mention what he’s seen to Yanagi. He doesn’t know why, but he stays silent.
His dreams become more vivid at night. His knees hurt from growing pains, all the time, but only in his bed does he bother to notice them. His wrists don’t ache as much now. Niou doesn’t get used to the weights, not exactly, but he does stop thinking about the black neoprene that seems permanently moulded to his skin by now.
Sometimes, they feel more real than tennis does when he is awake. He and Yagyuu go to sushi joints. Yagyuu orders sashimi, strips of eel and blood-red tuna. Niou rubs his foot along Yagyuu’s angle, feeling the fabric of Yagyuu’s pants ride up on his calf.
“Niou-kun,” Yagyuu says. “Do you want to play?” Yagyuu takes a slice of tuna with his chopsticks, dropping it down his throat. He licks his lips like Kirihara and his glasses shine, rose-tinted. He chuckles, his low laugh like those of the yakuza in movies.
Niou is hard. He wiggles in his seat, hoping Yagyuu doesn’t notice.
“Are you hard?” Yagyuu asks. He always knows in Niou’s dreams. He can’t escape Yagyuu’s small smirks. He can’t escape that stare, when Yagyuu’s glasses slide down his nose, and then he strikes, faster than his laser beam.
Niou is pinned to the wall of the sushi joint. No one pays notices the dishes shattering on the floor when Yagyuu climbs up on the table, crawling to Niou, licking his lips. “Is this what you want, Niou-kun? To suck c-”
Niou wakes up, hard and clutching himself, his pajama pants damp. He rolls onto his stomach, rubbing against his hand and against his mattress, twice the friction, coming twice as hard. He gasps into his pillow, out of breath and smothered, Yagyuu’s face and those glistening lenses flashing before his eyes.
Sometimes, it is ethereal, a faded game on an unknown court. Yagyuu stands at the baseline, his racket stiff in an underhand grip. His hair billows up without a breeze. He stands up as straight as ever, but his face is a mask.
“Zannen munen…” he says. His lips move again, but Niou can’t read them, he can’t hear Yagyuu’s voice because someone else calls his own name.
“Masaharu! Masaharu! It’s time to get up!”
Lights blind him. Niou groans and mutters, “Puri,”. He tries to cover his eyes with his hand, but his mother pulls his arm back. “Fuck…”
“Don’t use language like that,” she says. “And stop sleeping through your alarm. You’ll miss too many practices with your tennis club and then what will you get into without them?” She sighs heavily, adjusting his glasses before she yanks the curtains open. A harsh winter sun peaks through his window.
Niou tries to roll over again. His mother pulls his sheets back to his feet, leaving Niou a shivering huddle in the middle of his mattress.
Hard, of course.
Hopefully she doesn’t notice that, too.
“Isn’t your special game soon?” she asks. She yanks open a drawer, clicking her tongue. “Can’t you keep your clothes folded? Here. A clean shirt- the last one. I’ll have to do laundry again if you don’t want to smell tomorrow, Masaharu…”
She keeps talking. All Niou remembers is that today is the 22nd.
Time to show that fatass genius wannabe, he thinks, yawning through a tall stretch.
“Go away,” he mumbles when his mother hands him a clean school shirt. She might not have done anything to him, but the throbbing ache between his legs feels transparent through his pajama pants. It’s embarrassing. And private.
Nothing that can’t be solved with a hot morning shower and a few pulls at his cock. Niou sighs under the spray of water, hand cupped around his balls, fingers touching the underside of his cock. He thinks about the laser beam, stroking himself, the water rushing over his shoulders and back. Niou thinks about the glimmer he sees in Yagyuu’s eyes sometimes, that almost feral glint and the way Yagyuu stands so straight after his laser that it’s like he’s taken a page out of Sanada’s book and rammed a stick up his ass.
Games are held during afternoon practices. Morning practice feels rushed and too short, as though laps take up the entire session. Yagyuu shoots fast, furious rallies at Niou, who hits them back to the baseline, unreturned, to work on his volleys and Yagyuu’s serves in one fell swoop.
“We’ve got a plan,” Marui announces in the clubhouse. Overlooking all of them are the rows of gold-plated trophies and engraved plaques, all reminders of past glories, glories that each and every one of the team wants to repeat.
Niou grunts. He fumbles with his school tie, then loosens it to try again. Last week he was reprimanded once for a sloppy tie and damned if he’ll be given detention today of all days.
“It’s completely fail-safe,” Marui says, stepping up under Yagyuu’s chin and forcing his way to talk with Yagyuu, to show off his confident grin. “Jackal and I were working on it this weekend.”
“Yes,” Jackal agrees. “Fail-safe.”
Niou tries to ignore Marui, but he messes his tie up again. Clenching his jaw, he tells himself to breathe, to ignore Marui’s popping bubbles and asinine chatter.
The feeling doesn’t shake off in class. Niou’s pencil strays from equations in math, scribbling round circles and stabbing them through the middle with his pencil lead, pretending they are Marui’s bubblegum, or Jackal’s bald head, maybe.
During lunchtime, Niou walks past the cafeteria, knowing that Marui and Kirihara and probably a few others from the team will be eating at the table near the vending machines. Focus, he thinks, unclenching his fist.
The rooftop is cold and completely exposed to the elements. Surrounded by a wash of grey sky, Niou sits on the cold rooftop eating his cold bento lunch. It tastes like cardboard and pickles. Anything from the cafeteria, even the fried chicken mystery delight would taste better than this, but Niou refuses to get up and see for himself what the menu is today.
He picks at the last of his pickles, then throws the entire box off the ledge. He listens to the splatter three stories below, before he settles back against the frigid roof with a juicebox.
In his head, Niou thinks about scenarios. He’ll be at net; Yagyuu will be at the baseline. They could both use their left hands. They could stick to their strong sides. Yagyuu could use the laser beam and Niou could work on the defense. Yagyuu could hit Marui in the head with a shot- that might work.
Niou sees a vision of Marui arcing backward, his hair spilling out pink against sharp green clay of the court, a swollen bruise rising like a bubble from his forehead. Yagyuu would still be standing straight, posing as he smiles and says “My bad.”
Niou chuckles under his breath just as the bell rings for the end of lunch.
Gym class comes the last class of the day. Basketball unit. Niou hates it. He hates the weight of the ball. He hates the orange colour. He hates the stupid sleeveless shirts they are forced to wear over their gym uniforms, gross and smelling of musty sweat. Niou is on the blue team. Across the gymnasium, Yagyuu is on the red.
And Sanada is in the blue too, playing on Niou’s team. He at least has the height for a basketball player, standing more than a foot taller than the shortest boy in the class. Niou hangs out by the sidelines, half-assed walking around the perimeter and pretending to play.
Don’t throw the ball to me! he thinks.
He scans the gym for Yagyuu. Yagyuu dribbles the ball, then passes to a teammate. He’s not bad, no worse than most of the class. And at least he bothers to participate. Niou stares at him, boring his eyes into Yagyuu’s brain, but Yagyuu doesn’t turn around.
“Niou!” Sanada yells.
Niou turns in just enough time to see a flash of orange barreling at his face. He stumbles back, tripping over a bench. “Fuck,” he spits. His nose blooms with pain, tender to the touch. He’s more stunned that hurt. Embarrassed at being hit in the face, Niou mutters, “Puri”, trying as best he can to ignore the flush over his cheeks.
Sanada doesn’t apologize. “Don’t…get careless,” he grumbles. “Lazy ass.”
“Don’t throw basketballs at me,” Niou snaps. “I was busy.”
“We’re in gym class,” Sanada says. “We’re supposed to be playing.”
Niou says nothing to Sanada. Asshole, he thinks. At least he doesn’t cry like Sanada, although his nose still throbs occasionally by the end of class and Niou has to carefully pull his t-shirt over his head to avoid brushing his face with the collar.
Yagyuu is gone before Niou can find him. Niou slams his locker shut, irritated and angry. He stomps off to tennis practice, swings open the door to the regulars’ changing room. “Yagyuu!” he shouts.
Yagyuu’s head peers around a locker. “Yes?” he asks.
Niou nods.
Yagyuu walks over. He is completely and glorious shirtless. Niou can feel his stomach flip-flopping at the sight, seeing Yagyuu’s bellybutton, his nipples, a sort of brownish pink and just barely stiffened in the cooler air of the clubhouse. Yagyuu doesn’t seem to care that he’s holding his uniform t-shirt, not wearing it.
“Niou-kun?”
Niou shuffles his sneaker and shoves his hands into his pockets. He can be as casual as Yagyuu, all while trying to avoid looking at his chest.
“Well,” he starts, but then Niou notices that while he might not be staring at Yagyuu’s belly, his eyes are on the yellow track pants, the wrinkles gathering between Yagyuu’s legs as he stands in front of Niou.
Niou plants his eyes on the ground.
“I think we should use your laser like we did with those Jyousei losers,” Niou says.
“What do you mean?” Yagyuu asks.
“The way you hit that kid,” Niou says. “Do the same thing today.”
Yagyuu is quiet. “Why would I hurt someone on my own team, Niou-kun?” he asks.
It is Niou’s turn to be quiet. He says nothing for so long that Yagyuu gives up waiting and leaves to finish changing.
“I thought you liked hurting people,” Niou mutters. You don’t make any sense sometimes, Yagyuu.
The courts are damp and cold. Niou zips his uniform jacket up the entire way, his throat feeling too encased, but his teeth chatter anyway. He runs his fifty laps, sweating under the nylon uniform. Yagyuu is further back in the groups of players, a half-lap behind Niou. He makes no expressions, nothing except the occasional wipes of sweat from his brow or to push up his glasses.
Sanada grabs Niou by the jacket arm. “Niou,” he says, “you’re playing in the gym. No more pushing back this game.”
“It might rain today,” Yanagi adds, as if Niou couldn’t already see the swirls of dark clouds in the sky or smell the heavy air. Above, the fluorescent floodlights shine across the court as the dim sunlight starts fades to purple in the west.
“Are you ready?” Yagyuu asks. He pushes the gym doors open. For an instant, Niou is blinded by the lights inside.
Niou swallows the lump in his throat down. He forces himself to smirk. “Why wouldn’t I be?” he says. He slings his racket over his shoulder and saunters inside, bouncing on the instep of his feet, telling himself he’s ready. Telling himself that he and Yagyuu can play ten, a hundred times what they did on the weekend against those Jyousei players.
Jackal and Yagyuu stand closest to the net. Niou peels off his uniform jacket- if he’s playing indoors, he won’t need it or his track pants either. Marui does the same, tossing his jacket and pants to the side of the court by the low wooden bench.
“Wait!” Kirihara shouts. His sneakers slap across the gym floor as he barrels into the gym, waving his hands wildly. “Wait, senpais! Sanada-fukubuchou said I get to ref and he told me to tell you guys that whoever wins the game gets to be doubles one next season!”
Kirihara plows into the wooden bench, tripping onto his knees. Brushing them off, he stands up as straight and as tall as he can, which is just enough to be able to look Marui in the eye. “Senpais?”
Niou says, “Yeah, we heard you.”
Jackal holds his racket up, frame against the floor. He looks at Yagyuu. “Which?”
Yagyuu glances back to Niou, who shrugs. Pick whatever, he thinks.
“Rough,” Yagyuu says.
Jackal twists his hand to start the spin, but Kirihara interrupts him with a “Can I do it?”
Jackal rolls his eyes. He twists his hand further back, fingers flexing on the frame. “No,” he says.
The racket spins, a whirlwind of spinning strings and fiberglass frame. It clatters on the ground. Yagyuu bends down- the handle is closest to him. Kirihara gets a look, too.
“You may serve first,” Yagyuu says.
In the tone of his voice, Niou recognizes the slick sweetness, the too-polite-to-be-real choice of words. Yagyuu walks to the baseline, passing Niou as he walks up to the net, and Yagyuu flashes the sharpest and fastest of grins.
Niou shivers.
Kirihara plunks himself down on the wooden bench, shoving aside the jumble of track pants and jackets and tennis bags and waterbottles. The wristweights on Niou’s arms itch and his fingers twitch, wanting to take them off, but no one else has and he doesn’t want to be seen as weak.
He holds his right arm stiff at his side. His left hand clenches his racket handle.
They are going to play, no delays today.
Except for Marui shouting “Shit!” before he runs so fast across the court he slides into the bench, knocking Kirihara backwards.
“Ow!” Kirihara shouts, rubbing his head full of messy curls.
“I almost forgot,” Marui mutters to himself. It is the smell that Niou notices first: chocolate and rotting socks and coffee, along with something like red bull and orange juice and maybe pungent fish sauce.
Bile rises in his throat, burning his chest.
Marui crinkles the clingfilm up in his hand. Brown crumbs crust the sides of his mouth, which he wipes off with the collar of his uniform. “There,” he announces. “I’m ready to start. Hey- Kirihara! Watch my serve and be awed at my prowess.”
Kirihara’s brow furrows.
Niou recognizes the words, too, but he can’t place them. Or be bothered to care. Marui is full of crap and he has always been.
Behind his back, Niou makes the sign of a two. Or victory. Jackal’s hand is behind his back, too, probably making his own word signals to Marui. Niou keeps his eyes firm on Marui, who instead of checking out Jackal’s message, focuses more on watching the ball bounce in and out of his hand.
Jackal breathes heavily through his nose. Marui throws the ball up high, too high, almost high enough to touch the ceiling of the gymnasium. For such a tubby ass, he’s got strength in his arms and legs, probably close to what Sanada has.
Focus.
Niou narrows his eyes.
Marui’s serve comes flying at Niou, aimed towards the mid-court. Niou ducks right, Yagyuu moves up, step step then hitting the ball with the sharp pong sound, distinctive of a forehand volley.
Jackal flies in front of the net like a brown wraith, eyes glowing an unnatural white as he slams back a shot. Yagyuu rushes for it, catching it on the tip of his racket, but it lobs and the angle is all wrong. Niou moves fast, trying to keep under the path in case it doesn’t go over all the way, but it does, just barely.
Enough for Jackal to smash it back to the far left of the net.
Niou wouldn’t have made it.
“Puri,” he whispers, blowing the word out onto a strand of hair over his eyes.
Kirihara lets the ball roll across the length of the gym, over towards the ball machines, lying placid and on stand-by underneath a recoiled basketball net. “15-0, Marui-Jackal pair,” he yells.
The sound of Marui and Jackal’s high five, the slap of their hands together in sync, grates Niou’s ears. He clenches his jaw and closes his eyes.
Yagyuu is silent. Niou doesn’t turn around to try to figure out what he might be thinking.
Marui’s second serve is to the back of the court, again. Niou knows his style, more or less. Marui favours volleys, and very short rallies. He runs around the court, grinning his head off and returning Yagyuu’s shots with an energy that Niou assumes can only from those disgusting cakes he eats before he plays.
I hope you get indigestion, you fat loser, Niou thinks. He guards the net, swaying and shifting his weight from side to side. Jackal guards the other side of the net, but he tries to stay at a diagonal from Niou. Niou moves to try to trip Jackal up, in case they both get a chance to play, but for now, Marui and Yagyuu are having their turn.
Yagyuu hasn’t pulled that out yet.
Niou doesn’t know why Yagyuu wouldn’t want to change the pace.
Bending low, Marui aims his next shot high and uses the power in his thighs to slam the ball behind Niou. Niou bristles, feeling the whoosh the ball as it zooms past his ear.
Yagyuu must have missed the shot because Kirihara calls out, “Marui-Jackal pair, thirty-love.”
Niou turns around, widening his eyes. He jerks his head, making sure that Yagyuu knows what he is asking: What the hell are you doing?
Yagyuu sniffs, but his eyes glitter behind those lenses, the dark pupils containing that same glow he’s had before. The same look that sends a cold chill down Niou’s back, a shock that settles between his legs.
Not now, Niou tells his cock. Not. Now.
It only makes it worse. He can feel himself swelling in his shorts the more he wishes it would stop. His face feels hot, and not just from the loss of two consecutive points.
Marui’s play is easy to read. He bends low, squatting almost to the ground in the same position as a rising, for his specialist volley shots. Niou doesn’t think they are that special. But then he isn’t returning any balls.
Marui angles his racket every time Yagyuu returns a volley with a volley. Niou curls his fingers behind his back. He’s slicing.
Yagyuu slides the ball across the face of his racket, gathering his own spin to the ball to counteract Marui’s play. With two hands, he practically throws the ball back to Marui and Jackal. Jackal and Marui both run for the ball, both running towards the centre of the court, mid-range.
Marui grunts loud, then swings wide to avoid Jackal. The ball barely makes the shot.
Niou is too busy thinking to even realize that Yagyuu won’t make it to the sideline in time to save the point.
So that’s it.
Niou grins.
“What are you smiling about, stupid?” Marui shouts. “You just lost a point again!”
Niou curls his lips even more. That’s it.
He doesn’t say anything to Yagyuu with words; he wants to test his insight the next point. Niou lets Yagyuu take the shots. Yagyuu seems to get it when Niou cocks his head and moves his fingers, motioning to Yagyuu to step up a bit closer to the middle of the court. Jackal watches Niou, but he watches Yagyuu, too, so his attention is half what it should be.
Yagyuu can’t play singles against a doubles team. They lose the game, a no touch ace game for Marui.
It feeds his ego.
The fatass practically skips when they change courts.
But now Niou knows exactly what he needs to.
He nods for Yagyuu, unwilling to actually reach out and grab Yagyuu by the arm, as much as he might want to. “Niou-kun,” Yagyuu murmurs. “Have you figured things out?”
Niou smiles. He can’t help that, either. Playing with Yagyuu makes his heart pound just a bit more than it does when he talks with Yagyuu in the locker room, or in a restaurant. And during the match, he can forget about the fact he’s got an erection straining in his shorts because he is too busy trying to outsmart that genius wannabe.
“If we draw out the game, I don’t think Marui-kun’s energy will keep up,” Yagyuu says, keeping his voice low.
Niou huddles closer. He can smell the sweat on Yagyuu’s body and his fruity shampoo, too. “It’s not just that,” he says. Niou drums his finger on the rim of his racket. “But they’ve divided the court between them. Right down the centre line. Marui’s got the back half and Jackal has the front. If we keep are shots to the middle of their court, their plan will get messed.”
“Is that our game plan?” Yagyuu asks.
Niou looks over his shoulder. Marui is hopping from foot to foot, like one of those theatrical characters, pantomiming Niou’s split step. Niou grinds his teeth, then tells Yagyuu, “Yeah, that’s our plan.”
It is Niou’s serve and their weakest formation next up. Niou knows that Yagyuu prefers the baseline. Yagyuu needs the room to manouvre, especially if he wants to shoot a laser. Kirihara sits on the bench, watching with wide and eager eyes.
Niou can’t resist.
He winks at Kirihara, then switches to his right hand.
Jackal raises an eyebrow.
Marui rolls his eyes. “Yeah, whatever,” he says. “You suck at that ambidextry stuff.”
“Au contraire,” Niou whispers, trying to do his best impression of Yagyuu’s voice, the clear syllables and the polite rudeness of tone.
Niou throws the ball up, then he throws himself into a twist serve.
They might have a weak formation, but he won’t start with a weak shot. It has no aim, barreling towards the net, and Jackal returns the ball easily, but Yagyuu handles it with an underhand shot.
Yes! Niou thinks.
Outward, Niou whistles. Nice play, Yagyuu. He tosses his racket back to his left, taking the next return with a two-handed rising to counter Jackal’s weightily slices. His wrists burn from the impact, but seeing Jackal’s eyes go big and round with surprise is worth the momentary shock of impact on his own body.
His blood pumps. His heart races. From the baseline, Niou can watch Yagyuu in action this time. Yagyuu’s hair ruffles, his glasses gleam, he pants and he grunts and he sweats as much as Niou and his sneakers are loud and so are his shots. Yagyuu’s knees are bent, the shadows and the muscles constantly shifting. He doesn’t turn around to see how he should be playing, he just gets it.
Yagyuu is better at aim. Niou is better at, well, he doesn’t know what, perception maybe. And he can do a decent split step to help Yagyuu and himself keep their pace. Marui scores a point; Yagyuu scores two more with well-placed shots at the mid-line. Jackal takes a point from Niou with a smash to the baseline, too far right for Niou to reach, but Niou gets his revenge with fast-paced footwork and a smash of his own.
Still no laser.
The match continues, back and forth like ping pong. Game, Niou and Yagyuu. Game, Marui and Jackal. Kirihara stops talking between matches and his concentration is completely on the game. Sometimes, he forgets to announce points.
No one forgets the score, though.
6-6.
Yagyuu has tried to draw the game out. Niou has tried to aim his own shots, too, for the middle of Marui and Jackal’s court. Niou’s back is soaked-through with sweat. Jackal leans against the metal post, trying to catch his breath before the next game. Yagyuu takes long, deep breaths of his own, taking a moment to sit on the bench beside Kirihara, but neither say a word.
And Marui.
Marui is spread-eagled on the court, gasping for breath and moaning, “I’m gonna die here.”
Niou wants to laugh himself, but his lungs burn. He just won’t admit it. He might be flushed, too, but he’s not the beet-red colour Marui is, a perfect complement to his awful pin hair.
“We can’t lose,” Jackal says through his teeth. “Do you want to lose to them?”
“We’re not losing either,” Niou snaps. “Puri,” he says under his breath. Over my dead body, fatass.
Yagyuu checks his wristwatch and frowns. “Practice ended a half hour ago,” he says.
Ironically, the gym door swings open hardly more than a beat later and Yanagi and Sanada walk inside.
“Who won?” Sanada asks.
Yanagi shakes his head. “They’re still playing, Genichirou,” he says.
Sanada grunts. Niou is almost certain he hears a muttered “tarundoru”, too.
“It’s a tiebreaker now,” Kirihara says. Yagyuu stands up from the bench, Yanagi and Sanada sit down to either side of Kirihara.
Everyone waits for Marui.
Marui sucks in one last breath, then clambers up. First, onto his knees, then slowly onto his feet. He leans over, resting on his racket. “Okay, I’m good now,” he says between wheezes.
“Don’t you have any more cake?” Jackal hisses.
Niou leans over the net. “Like he needs any more cake with the size of his ass,” he says.
Marui flashes Niou the finger. “Fuck you, Niou. We’ll serve first, ne?”
Niou rolls his eyes. He bends down low, racket cradled in anticipation of the shot to come. Marui’s serve is slow and sluggish- he’s lost energy, but not a burning drive in his eyes, the same look all four of them have right now.
Niou returns the shot, following-through with a steep angle to throw things off. Jackal makes a noise in the back of his mouth, then swings a shot back just as wide. Yagyuu takes the baseline, hitting low, trying to keep things aimed to the middle of the opposite court.
Marui, though, he just chuckles. Instead of running into Jackal, or fumbling a shot, the low drop-shot of Yagyuu’s seems to be exactly what he wants. Niou can see Marui’s right shoulder rise along with his smile, but he hasn’t seen this reaction out of Marui yet the entire match.
It is cliché to think it, but watching the ball move now is like watching a film in slow-motion. Niou sees the tennis ball bright and yellow in the unnatural light of the gymnasium, moving up, circling around itself. It’s too low, it’s perfect, the point will be theirs because Marui’s shot hits the net.
Niou’s stomach flips up with excitement. They only need one more point to-
Except the slow-motion lurches to a complete stop. No one moves. Not even to breath. Niou can see the ball, perfectly balanced on top of the net, starting to roll across the net. He swallows his tongue, his throat gone thick and dry with the fear of the ball actually going over the net.
It does.
Onto the wrong side.
“Damn,” Marui says. “I thought my genius had perfected that shot.” He gasps again like a dying fish.
Jackal closes his eyes. “Don’t let the next one mess up,” he mutters.
Yagyuu picks up the next ball from the basket. “Your serve,” Niou says.
He stands in front of Yagyuu’s way just a moment too long. It takes all the courage inside him, but Niou swallows his pride and touches his fingers to the back of Yagyuu’s right hand, lingering the touch. Yagyuu’s skin is warm and clammy and sweaty and Niou wants to take that hand and clench it in his own shaking one, but instead he says in his quietest voice, “Please use that shot.”
Yagyuu lifts his eyes to Niou, widening them, everything flashing across them, the lights of the gym, the net, the game.
“Yagyuu to serve!” Kirihara yells and the look is broken. Niou doesn’t have the time to be nervous because now he needs to win.
Yagyuu serves fast, bouncing the ball once, then flying through his shot. Always ready at the net, Jackal rebounds with a gathering spin. Through the air, the ball wiggles and wobbles, changing its pace and its course. Niou takes the shot with a two-handed return. He wants Sanada and Yanagi to see their game. He wants two of the monsters to see that he belongs on this team.
He wants that doubles one spot for Yagyuu and him.
Sweat beads on Niou’s forehead and dribbles down his nose, itchy but he ignores it and refuses to lose concentration. He refuses to let his aim be off this time. With trepidation, he watches the ball whoosh through the air. When it starts a downward turn to the middle of the other court, everything stops inside his body.
He’s done it.
He’s aimed just right.
“No!” Marui yells. Out of nowhere it seems, Marui launches himself at the ball, diving to make the shot that the rest of the game he’s missed, he’s messed up. His sneakers squeal on the flooring. His grunting and noises blend in with the sound of the ball impacting something, but Niou can see it’s too late.
Marui returns the shot.
Niou is the fool now, about ready to celebrate and now, with a ball coming too far to the edge of his own court, the point will be lost. He tries to move, but his feet are glued to the floor. He can’t lift his hand, his racket, and his wrist feels the burden of the whole game, all compressed into this instant and unforgiving pressure.
There is a moment of silence.
And then the sight of a flash of yellow, so fast and so bright that Niou squints. The ball zooms without a noise until it smashes into the back wall of the gymnasium and rattles one of the ball machines.
And Yagyuu, directly behind Niou, stands motionless with his arm pulled back and his back up straight.
Smiling like a winner.