likeafox's writing journal

Fic: "Six times Makino Tskushi was annoyingly late, and one time she wasn't" HYD

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:15:06 GMT

Fandom: Hana Yori Dango
Pairing: Tsukushi/Tsukasa
Rating: pg-13
Word count: 1846

note: The levels of ridiculous drama in this are pretty stupid. As in, this is so grossly self-indulgent I kind of can't believe myself. It started out as a "random moments in life!" thing and somehow turned into poorly written ~drama~ Can't say I didn't warn you.

1.

"You're late!" Tsukasa yells, standing up from a tiny table spread with tiny desserts on tiny delicate china.

"I had class! You hung up before I could tell you I don’t get out until three!”

“Che, whatever,” Tsukasa says, then roughly pulls out the chair next to him. “Sit down.”

“What is all this?” Tsukushi looks at the table, set with at least seven desserts, with a mix of confusion and hunger. The man across the table gestures for her to try, and she doesn’t need a second invitation.

“These are freaking delicious,” she mutters around some sort of cream puff that was probably too big for one bite, though she is giving it the old college try.

“So, which one would madam like served at the wedding.”

“Wedding?” Tsukushi asks around a mouth full of cream, gesturing to herself. “My… wedding? But I’m not getting married….”

She’s cut off when Tsukasa gets up angrily and storms out of the room, knocking his chair over in the process. A moment too late, she swallows the lump of dessert and realizes, just as she hears the door slam behind him, why Tsukasa would be so riled up.

---

It takes a good hour to convince him to let her into his room, another twenty minutes of shouting before she tackles him onto his bed, sits on his chest, and actually gets him to listen.

“I meant we’re not getting married right now. You threw a tantrum before I could clarify, you big baby.”

“What do you mean, not now,” Tsukasa grows from under the pillow she’s holding over his face.

“I’m only twenty!” She says, pulling the pillow away as he starts to calm down. “I’m still in school! You leave for New York in week, where you’ll be for five months!”

“Oh,” he says.

“Why in the world did you feel the need to start planning our wedding now?”

Instead of answering, he wraps his arms around her, flipping them over until he’s looking down. Tsukushi’s squeak of surprise is cut off when he kisses her, pausing to mutter something against her mouth.

“You what?” she asks, pushing him back to give herself some room to breath.

“I’m just worried we’ll mess it all up again. If it’s not permanent, I mean.”

She pulls him down for another kiss, which she laughs into softly.

“We’ll get married all right. We’ll make it happen. Just… not right this instant.”

“You promise?” he asks, staring down at her. “You really, really promise? No taking it back, all right. I’ll kill you if you do.”

“Yes, all right!” Tsukushi sighs. “Would it make you feel better if we pinky swore?

“…maybe.”

2.

Of all the times for her alarm clock to give out, Tsukushi thinks as she slumps dejectedly into the squeaky airport seat. She had been so excited about visiting Tsukasa too, maybe this time coming away with slightly less… upsetting memories of New York.

“Well, it looks like I owe you some money, Soujiroh.”

Tsukasa looks up to see three familiar figures walking towards her.

“I figured this would happen,” Soujiroh says, grinning.

“And Tsukasa will be so annoying if you don’t make it there,” Akira pipes up from next to him.

“My private jet leaves in fifteen minutes from terminal B,” Hanazawa Rui says with a smile.

“Uh… Thanks, guys.” Tsukushi says with a grin before running off in the right direction.

3.

Tsukushi is getting really tired of always running to important events. She could swear the universe conspires to keep her from anything involving dancing and pretty dresses and Tsukasa. Not that she minds missing the first too terribly much, but Tsukasa is always so petulant when she shows up late and messy and out of breath. He'll probably be even more annoyed when she's tardy to her own wedding.

At least this time she won’t be in a school uniform. She's running down the streets of Tokyo in entirely normal clothes, her dress is safely at the wedding hall, and her shoes are tucked in her bag. They're the reason she's late in the first place, though how the delivery managed to get her house and a temple in Osaka mixed up she'll never understand. The monks had been very confused but very courteous when she showed up earlier in the day.

Tsukushi reaches down and pats the box reassuringly. Well, she would have. Had there been something there.

"Um," she says, and looks down to where nothing is currently taking up space in the satchel slung over her shoulder. "Oh bother," she mutters as she looks up at the wedding hall she has just arrived at, remembering the odd tug at her bag she had felt at the start of her train ride, two hours ago.

"Where are your shoes?" Tsukasa growls as soon as she stops next to him at the end of the aisle.

"You're the one who said you liked short wedding dresses!" she hisses back, petulantly.

"They look good on you, stupid" he says back, angrily. The official coughs pointedly, and they both snap to attention with a humph.

"It does look good on you," Tsukasa mutters under his breath halfway through the ceremony. "You, uh, look really great. Even without shoes."

Tsukushi chances a look over at him, before muttering back "I love you too, idiot."

Unfortunately, Tsukasa is wearing shoes (with impressive heals, none-the-less, which he feels give him a regal air) so he has to hoist Tsukushi up in the air if he wants to follow orders and now kiss the bride.

4.

“If you hadn’t been late, we’d be on the plane right now,” Tsukasa says, brushing a snowflake off his sleeve with precision.

“Oh shut it,” Tsukushi replies and kicks absentmindedly at her suitcase. “I mean… well…” She pauses as Tsukasa looks at her expectantly.

“I’m sorry…” “It’s not a big deal…” they say at the same time.

“I know,” Tsukasa says, standing up resolutely. “We’ll have a pretend vacation in Hawaii. So what if weather grounded our plane, we can just buy palm trees or something.”

“Where are you going to buy palm trees?” Tsukushi says, but she’s smiling just as it starts to hail.

5.

"Oh god..." She thinks, and shakes the stick again. If she shakes it enough it'll say it was mistaken and apologize for all the trouble, right? She was late, yes, but that doesn't always mean....

"Hey, what are you doing in there for so long?" Tsukasa yells with smug amusement from outside the door. "You trying to give birth or something?” Well, he says the last bit in English, and it actually ends up "you trying to kiss bus" but Tsukushi is well versed in Domyouji-babble these days.

"Sooo..." she says, opening the door, looking anywhere but at Tsukasa.

---

"Is it not right?"

"What do you mean not right?"

"You know, deformed? Does it have three arms?" Tsukasa says, horrified, staring at Tsukushi's midsection.

"What?" she gasps. "No! It's not deformed! It's too early to tell anyway!"

"Well," Tsukasa says, horror changing to a wide-eyed anguish Tsukushi hadn't seen on him in years. "Is it... is it Rui's?"

"WHAT. NO. WHY WOULD IT BE HANAZAWA RUI'S?" Tsukushi shrieks, and throws the pregnancy test at Tsukasa.

"Ow," he says, dejectedly rubbing where it had bounced off his nose. "Well, you looked so upset, and I couldn't think of another reason why you would be."

"You're not... mad?"

"Why would I be mad, stupid," he says with a grin before picking Tsukushi up and swinging her wildly around. He doesn't stop laughing until her shrieks of annoyance turn to laughter too.

6.

She weighs twenty-eight ounces, and is wrapped in a tiny, tiny pink blanket, behind the clear plastic where he can't even hold her. So he's stuck, slumped in this stupid plastic chair in the stupid, endless quiet, just watching and waiting. It's been twelve hours now, and he's run through the entire list of people he could punch or things he could buy to fix this, and he's still coming up short. Halfway into a second run through of all the doctors he could try kicking (so far he still doesn't see how that will solve anything, but if he keeps thinking he might figure out a way) he feels a hand on his shoulder.

He jerks his head around to where Tsukushi is standing just behind him, looking tired and small in a fluffy blue dressing robe.

"You shouldn't be out of bed, stupid," he says. He says it quietly, too, though it takes more self-control than he really has.

"You're unbelievable," she hisses back, reassuringly indignant.

"Well," he splutters, moving to stand up before he gets a better idea. "At least sit down." He pulls her towards him, maneuvering her (gently, and he has to be really deliberate about that) into his lap. "Who let you walk around, anyway. You should be asleep."

"I wanted to see her, you idiot," Tsukushi says, tucking her head into his shoulder. "Don't tell me what to do."

They're quiet for a bit, just the hush of monitors and oxygen machines breaking the silence.

"She'll be okay," Tsukasa says with more bluster than he feels. "Obviously she'll be okay. She's not some common baby, after all."

Tsukushi lifts an eyebrow, but nods into his shoulder anyway. "Yes," she murmurs, "she's a tough weed too."

7.

"You're late! How can you be late to your own daughter’s birthday party?"

"Because someone forgot to ask for the cake to be delivered!" Tsukushi yells back, smacking Tsukasa on the head on her way past to set the box on the table. "I had to go pick it up myself. And it's not actually her birthday."

"It's been two months since the day she was born," he smirks, "birthday, see?"

"Your logic... the mind boggles. Hello!" Tsukushi stops to smile at Rui, leaning pensively against the wall, baby carefully resting against his chest. "She fell back asleep?"

Rui smiles and smoothes down a messy fluff of black hair. "Yes, after she ate. I think she inherited your appetite, by the way."

"And I could swear she inherited his bizarre perm," Tsukushi replies with a look at Tsukasa, currently adjusting a curl in the mirror.

"What's bizarre?" Tsukasa says, looking up, but doesn't wait for an answer. "We've figured it out, by the way."

"Figured what out?" Tsukushi asks.

"The godfather thing."

"Oh," Tsukushi says, and cocks her head at a still smiling Rui. "So it's you, huh. How did you win that?"

"Rui gets her," Tsukasa says with a magnanimous smile. "Akira gets the next, and Soujirouh is for the third."

"The... the... the third?" Tsukushi stutters, before collecting herself, eyes blazing. Rui sways gently, humming a lullaby and still smiling, as the two race down the hall to Tsukushi's shouts of "YOU CAN BE PREGNANT WITH THE NEXT ONE IF YOU WANT IT THAT MUCH."

Fic: "Possibilities" Bleach, Ichigo/Rukia/Renji

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 06:57:53 GMT

Fandom: Bleach
Pairing: Ichigo/Rukia/Renji
Rating: R
Word count: 1444
Summary: Ichigo hits puberty, Renji wants to hit something, and Rukia hits the jackpot.

Possibilities

1. Ichigo didn’t think he wanted anyone.

To Ichigo, the only thing more terrifying than seeing a girl completely naked, was seeing a guy completely naked. Which was why he shrieked –not like a girl, thank you very much, just a little… higher pitched than normal– when he walked into his bathroom one day to find a dripping wet and very, very naked Abarai Renji toweling off one leg.

Toweling off in a rather exposed way.

Ichigo shrieked again and, okay, maybe this one was a little girly, but that was one very naked shinigami. Renji struggled to move the towel haphazardly in an attempt to cover the –ahem- important bits, and at least had the courtesy to look embarrassed as he explained “Urahara’s shower is broken and I got this thing all dirty.” He gestured down at his artificial body, then blushed.

Ichigo leapt out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. The truly horrifying thing, however, was that it wasn’t just horror he felt. As Ichigo flopped down in bed, he sternly told his nether regions that this was not an appropriate reaction.

For a relatively normal teenage boy (ignoring that whole accidental death god thing) Ichigo had always been pretty lucky in the inappropriate erection department. Lucky in that he never got them. Well, at least up until today.

Still, even though naked people in general embarrassed the hell out of him, and before now had never really done anything for him, he always sort of assumed he was straight as a matter of course. As he lay there, trying to forget the water dripping in lazy rivulets down Renji’s chest, he felt that this aspect of puberty chose a very unlucky moment to hit him hard. He also worried he might be having a sexual identity crisis.

Clearly, there was only one thing to do, because Ichigo had to solve this now. Fishing under his bed, Ichigo cursed under his breath until he connected with what he was looking for. Kiego had given him the magazine for his last birthday, and it had nearly given Ichigo a heart attack before he managed to throw it under his bed. The woman on the cover’s bathing suit was falling off, for god’s sake.

He flipped it open to a random page. This woman’s bathing suit had already fallen off. Also, her breasts appeared to defy the laws of physics. Ichigo blushed furiously, but it was an honest relief when his body didn’t protest the sight at all.

So he did like women. He had just most unfortunately been staring at a naked Abarai Renji when he decided to start finding people attractive. It could happen to anyone, and was probably because Renji was so damn girly, what with the ponytail and all. Ichigo pointedly ignored the fact that Renji was very near the top of the list of the least girly people he knew, right behind Zaraki Kenpachi. Instead, he sighed in relief and started picturing naked girls in his head. After all, anything was better than mentally tracing the tattoos that streaked across Renji’s well-defined chest and then headed… down. Yes, naked woman were far preferable, with their breasts, soft curves, dark hair….

The horror returned when Rukia danced nakedly and seductively through Ichigo’s brain.

2. Renji thought he only wanted one person.

Renji was straight. He knew this because, for all of his relatively long life, he had only ever been attracted to women.

All right, his entire life he’d only ever been attracted to one woman, but that still qualified as straight. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t dated other women along the way. He’d dated plenty, one petite, dark-haired girl after another, though recently he’d sort of given up trying. They’d all come close to being perfect, but if he was really, truly honest with himself, none of them had been who he really wanted.

Renji had realized a long time ago that Rukia and only Rukia was able to get his full attention and attraction. Not that he would do anything about it, though. Because Rukia was a friend, and Rukia was… not innocent, but something remarkable similar. A guy just didn’t ruin things like that with thoughts of sex or whatever, unless that guy was some sort of awful pervert. Renji had too much pride to be that kind of guy, like that Kyouraku-taicho, singing stupidly to Nanao-chan.

So Renji forced inappropriate thoughts of Rukia away, settling for dating the occasional woman who never quite measured up and jerking off listlessly to half-formed thoughts of small girls with dark hair and sort of blurry faces. Though he was pretty sure he wasn’t even fooling himself at this point.

This status quo kept up for a remarkably long time, considering, until that day. Trust Ichigo to throw things into chaos. Again.

Three days after the unfortunate baring of his naked ass to the accidental shinigami, Renji’s lingering embarrassment had finally been outstripped by his growing smell. Urahara’s shower was still broken –at this point Renji wondered how the hell they kept clean—and if Renji didn’t bathe soon he was worried he would get kicked out of the house altogether. So he finally sucked it up and headed over to Ichigo’s place.

The redhead’s face almost matched his hair when Renji asked about using the shower again, and Renji stored that fact away to tease him about later. Ichigo had gotten an eyeful, sure, but it wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before, after all, and Ichigo’s embarrassment was sort of hilariously over-the-top.

Ichigo managed to mumble out a “yes”, however, and Renji headed off to the bathroom.

It was only after he finished that Renji realized he had forgotten a clean shirt. He slung his towel around his waist and went to find Ichigo’s room to ask if there was one he could borrow.

Out in the hall, Renji realized he wasn’t sure which room was Ichigo’s, but one door was open a crack and from the sound of it, it was the only one with a person inside it. Renji almost barged right in, but luckily for his desire to not die of embarrassment, he paused outside just long enough to realize that the noises coming from the room were sort of strange.

Strange and Ichigo-esk, though the closest Renji had come to hearing the redhead sound like that was in the middle of a difficult fight. Even then, it still didn’t sound quite the same. These noises definitely sounded a bit more….

Without thinking, Renji leaned back enough to peer through the gap in the door. He nearly fell down in a big, towely mess. Yes, that was definitely not an enemy Ichigo was wrestling with in there.

Renji flushed so deeply it felt like his face would burst from the blood pressure. Renji felt like he should be feeling a lot more disgusted right now and a lot less whatever he was feeling. He was about to slowly slink off and try to forget Ichigo’s harsh breaths as his hand traveled over a well-defined stomach and lower, when he heard Ichigo mutter “Rukia” just loud enough that Renji knew he hadn’t heard it wrong.

Suddenly the embarrassment was gone, replaced with an overwhelming desire to hit something very hard. How dare Ichigo be thinking of her while he… while he did…

“Renji….”

He snapped out of his thoughts of pounding Ichigo into a very small shape and without thinking peered back into the room. Had he really just heard… but yes. Renji knew he had heard what he heard. The desire to hit things was still there, but now it mixed with some rather interesting images of Rukia tangled with Ichigo flush against Renji wrapped around Rukia.

Jealousy was rather quickly replaced with something that felt a lot more like lust, and Renji found himself practically running back into the shower. He threw the water back on, and fell forward, letting his burning face rest against the cool wall of the shower.

This was new, and a little terrifying, but Renji was a man of action, and he had waited far too long already. Something had to be done about this new development.

Right after he, uh, finished.

3. Rukia was just glad she didn’t have to make up her mind.

As Rukia lay there, absently tracing a finger along the dark line that snaked down Renji’s thigh, listening to Ichigo snore softly, his head in her lap, she thought that not choosing was the best decision she’d ever made.

Fic: "Wimbledon" Prince of Tennis, Tezuka/Ryoma

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 06:51:11 GMT

Title: Wimbledon
Author: likeafox
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Pairing: Tezuka/Ryoma
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2627
Summary: Challenge #18 Echizen would do things on his own time, and for once Tezuka was content to let that happen.

Originally posted at likeafox.
Much thanks to my lovely confidant and beta abbers44, who sat through me blabbering on about this fic at all hours of the night and did a fantastic beta at 3 am when I really wanted to post this. (So I could properly enjoy the revelry of the fourth, something which Abbers graciously understood.)

Ryoma walks out on to the court, his racket clutched tightly in his left hand. The hard spring of the ground below his feet is refreshing. He’s always enjoyed playing on grass courts; there’s just something about the feel of it, like he can almost dig his toes in through his tennis shoes.

The sun is bright overhead, in a blue sky dotted with clouds. Perfect tennis weather. Ryoma shields his eyes against the sun with the hand not holding his racket, and scans the crowd until he finds a familiar group of people. He feels a bit shocked to see Nanjiroh sitting in the stands; Ryoma thought the old man might not bother to watch. Nanjiroh came for the free vacation, and has spent the entire tournament so far watching the Ladies’ matches and making rude remarks whenever he sees Ryoma about the wonders a strong breeze can do. Nanjiroh is currently blabbering on about something to Fuji, who is sitting his right. Fuji has that smile on his face that has always managed to creep Ryoma out, and the combination of Fuji and Nanjiroh is far too disturbing for Ryoma to linger on.

Ryoma looks farther down, at the rest of the old Seigaku team. There’s Oishi, who had said none of them would miss this match for the world. Apparently he’d spoken truthfully, because even Taka, who hasn’t played tennis since middle school, is there. Kikumaru’s bright hair stands out in the crowd, and Ryoma can tell he’s being held in his seat by the arm Oishi has draped over his shoulder. Next to them, Momoshiro and Kaidoh seem to have gotten into another argument, and Inui… yes, Ryoma is pretty sure that’s a notebook.

Some things never change, and for a moment Ryoma feels like he’s back at Seigaku, a strange feeling he finds both comforting and unsettling.

Ryoma smoothes down his stark white shorts (damn dress code, he started wearing a new, blue pair about a year ago, and he much prefers them now), then he runs a hand over the familiar lump from the extra ball in his pocket. Like he said, some things don’t change.

Then – oh god, where did the time go? – it’s time for the match to start. Ryoma pulls a ball out of his pocket, lets it roll across his fingers, bounces it once, twice, and on the third time looks across the court. His eyes narrow and he feels the familiar sensation of everything in the world narrowing to this one court, this one match, this one opponent.

The yellow ball glints against the bright blue sky, and as Ryoma whips his racket through for the serve he thinks this is going to be fun.

~~~~~~

When Tezuka is nineteen he goes pro. Echizen, much to Nanjiroh's annoyance, the newspapers' questions, and Tezuka's slight confusion, does not. Instead, he goes to California for six months to train with the best coaches money can buy. This might make sense for any other player, but Tezuka knows Echizen is ready. When he tries to speak to him about it, though, Ryoma's eyes blaze and Tezuka doesn’t mention it again. Echizen will do things on his own time, and for once Tezuka is content to let that happen.

When Echizen shows up in October, fresh off his plane from America, he waits on a bench outside the courts where Tezuka practices, drinking a Ponta and waiting for Tezuka to finish working with his trainer. Tezuka tries to ignore Echizen for the rest of practice, but his coach's remarks about it being the best showing Tezuka has had in a while effectively proves he failed.

Tezuka packs up his bag slowly, then walks towards Echizen. They are silent for a moment before Echizen tells Tezuka that he really missed Ponta while in the States. Echizen taps once on the can, then asks if he can train with Tezuka.

Tezuka pauses, looks down at Ryoma's upturned eyes peering at him from below the brim of his white cap. Tezuka doesn't know why he agrees, but after today's practice he's sure his coach won't mind.

~~~

Ryoma works with Tezuka from then on, and Tezuka's coach praises him daily on how well he's doing. He goes into the Australian Open at the top of his game. Ryoma travels with him, an arrangement that happens naturally, and with little surprise for Tezuka. They share a hotel room - Tezuka tries not to sigh too loudly at the mess Ryoma leaves - and they play a match the night before the tournament starts.

It's the first they play since Ryoma left for America. Tezuka wins 6-4, and goes on to take his first Grand Slam tournament, a nineteen-year-old newcomer shocking the world of tennis.

Amid an avalanche of press reports and magazine articles they head back to Japan and Ryoma still doesn't say a word about going pro.

~~~

Ryoma stocks up on Ponta before they leave for the French Open. He says he missed it too much in Australia, and Tezuka tries not to roll his eyes when he notices Ryoma has filled his suitcase half full with cans.

They share a hotel room again. Tezuka has now gotten used to the way Ryoma murmurs “Karupin” in his sleep, so it only makes sense.

Ryoma doesn’t challenge Tezuka to a match this time, and Tezuka doesn’t raise the issue himself. He does catch a glimpse of Ryoma’s white hat in the stands, right before the final match. Tezuka wins his second consecutive Grand Slam tournament, and the world of tennis is once again thrown into a tizzy at this Japanese player who can switch court types so easily. Ryoma just smirks at all the astonished newspaper articles. Buchou overcame that glitch in the Tezuka Zone his first year of high school.

As they fly back to Japan, Tezuka contemplates the difference between hard and clay courts while Ryoma sleeps on his shoulder. The heat of his small body is comforting against the phantom ache Tezuka still feels sometimes. Tezuka has a strange feeling that change is in the air.

~~~

When they arrive in London, Tezuka discovers Ryoma has gotten himself registered in the Junior Wimbledon tournament. Tezuka vacillates between hiding his shock and hiding his amusement as Ryoma drags him to the registration desk.

Ryoma’s ID photo turns out terrible. (They made him take off the hat, and Tezuka didn’t manage to flatten the stray hair before Ryoma marched off in a huff.) Ryoma narrows his eyes and shoves the ID into his back pocket. “They offered me a hotel room, but if it’s okay I’d rather stay with you.”

Tezuka nods, and they go back to the hotel he booked.

That night, Ryoma drinks a good portion of his Ponta stash and watches television while Tezuka tries not to dwell on the motivation for Ryoma’s actions. That almost always leads Tezuka to a headache and no closer to the truth.

When the tournament starts, Ryoma blazes through the Juniors competition. He doesn’t drop a set until the semi-finals, and only his opponent in the finals could claim membership to those Ryoma Echizen has played seriously in tennis.

Ryoma drops a zero-shiki to take match point and the tournament. He finds Tezuka in the stands and mouths “mada mada dane” as the crowd explodes in cheers. Tezuka is left with a strange, happy feeling in his stomach, but also feeling more confused than ever.

That night they have barely escaped from the crowd of newly Echizen-obsessed reporters and back to the hotel room when Ryoma challenges Tezuka to a match.

Tezuka pauses, meets Ryoma’s eyes, then agrees.

Ryoma pushes Tezuka to tiebreak, nearly gets swallowed by the zone, then finds his crack. As the ball rolls away from Tezuka, he looks up at Ryoma across the court. Ryoma’s hat has fallen off, and his eyes are big, full of confidence and delight and understanding, but no surprise.

For the first time Ryoma has beaten his buchou, and when they meet at the net Tezuka, for the first time, kisses Ryoma.

Ryoma falls into the hot lips against his own, shivers as Tezuka’s hands clutch at his back. He’s never done this before, not just kissing Tezuka, but kissing in general, and he fumbles a bit but gets the hang of it pretty quickly. Ryoma’s always been a fast learner.

They spend a considerable amount of time on the bench by the practice courts that night, and the next, and despite the blazing sun, Ryoma keeps his tennis jacket zipped up all the way as he watches Tezuka steal Wimbledon from Federer.

~~~

His overwhelming win at Wimbledon Juniors starts up to rumor mill about Ryoma again. He’s showing up in newspapers and magazines once more, side-by-side with photos from Tezuka’s final match. Inoue calls every other day for a month until he takes the hint from Ryoma’s short, verging on rude responses to his questions, and stops trying.

Tezuka thinks that maybe now Ryoma, fresh off the grass of Wimbledon, will make up his mind to finally join him, but in the lead-up to the US Open they just train together as usual. The only difference is that now Ryoma tends to do something akin to tackling Tezuka as they walk home from the courts in the evening.

Every day, Tezuka has been arriving home later and later.

They head to New York, and Tezuka feels that Ryoma might challenge him again. He anticipates a match that doesn’t come, though. Instead Ryoma drags Tezuka around the city for a few days. Tezuka feels frustrated going into the opening rounds, though he won’t admit to himself it’s because he wanted to play Echizen. Instead, he thinks back on Ryoma’s cocky instructions to “not get careless, Buchou,” and vents his frustration on his opponents.

Tezuka finds Ryoma in the crowd moments before serving match point and goes on to win a Grand Slam in his first four major tournaments. Ryoma was smiling, is all Tezuka thinks about as he silently enjoys the accolades of being the world’s newest hero.

Girls scream as Tezuka leaves the court, looking everywhere for Ryoma. He doesn’t see him until they’re back at the hotel room, though, where Ryoma congratulates Tezuka in an even more enjoyable –and frustrating- way than any cup or fan or interviewer ever could.

~~~

When the Australian Open comes again, Ryoma doesn’t travel with Tezuka.

The empty plane seat next to him on the trip over gives Tezuka an odd feeling that lasts through the first round of the tournament. He drops the first set to an unseeded opponent.

Shaking himself for his carelessness, Tezuka proceeds to take the next three sets 6-0, 6-1, 6-0. It isn’t until Tezuka returns to find Ryoma sitting on his hotel bed, Ponta in hand, that Tezuka understands.

Ryoma sets down the drink and looks up at Tezuka, who is still standing in the doorway holding his tennis bag. There’s a lost look in Ryoma’s eyes, and his body – knees tucked into his chest and back against Tezuka’s pillow – looks small. Smaller than usual, that is. It frightens Tezuka.

Ryoma doesn’t even say hello, just challenges Tezuka to a match. Tezuka agrees. He’s got the second round tomorrow, and a late night match with someone as tough as Echizen is probably a horrible idea, but this is Ryoma so of course he agrees. It’s raining, so Tezuka pulls out a big black umbrella Ryoma bought him at the French Open last year, and they both huddle under it as they hurry off to a nearby covered court.

They start, and Ryoma has to be jet-lagged as hell, but his play doesn’t show it. Tezuka takes the match 7-6 with a zero-shiki Ryoma just reaches, but knocks into the net. Tezuka is a bit shocked to see relief in Ryoma’s eyes.

When they meet in the middle, instead of shaking hands Ryoma smiles and says, “I beat the old man.”

“Nanjiroh?” Tezuka breathes.

The lost look Tezuka saw earlier in the hotel room flickers across Ryoma’s face for a moment, but then he nods and it disappears quickly, replaced by the familiar smirk Tezuka dreams about sometimes.

“I’m going to beat you at Wimbledon,” Ryoma says in English, and Tezuka can’t stop the smile that appears on his own face.

They kiss, rackets clattering to the court, sticky fingers scrambling to clench sweaty shirts. Back in the hotel room that night they have sex for the first time, Ryoma falling asleep in Tezuka’s arms. Tezuka wins the Australian Open for the second time that week, but as he holds the trophy and cameras flash in his face, all he can think of is Wimbledon.

~~~~~~

Ryoma aces his first serve, and smirks across the court, but Tezuka remains stoically Tezuka as fifteen-love is announced. Tezuka aces his return next, making it fifteen-all, and they’re off.

They fly, trading points, games, sets, at an equal yet unmatched tempo. The yellow ball is a streak between them as they force each other higher and higher, and Ryoma can’t distinguish between the roar of the crowd and the roar of his heart, pounding in his ears.

It’s just this game, and both are giving everything as point by point they fight towards a conclusion.

As Tezuka rockets a forehand past him, Ryoma remembers falling to his knees once, on a tennis court by the train tracks, when things changed for the first time. He remembers a long array of match points – of wins against junior high and high school opponents, and losses to Nanjiroh – as he gains advantage, falls to deuce, to advantage for Tezuka, then back again.

The tie-break stretches on as the sun crawls across the sky, and Ryoma remembers a covered court in the dead of night in the throws of Wimbledon. He drops a volley right behind Tezuka, and now it’s match point, Ryoma is serving, and he finally stops remembering.

Ryoma feels the ball in his hand, tosses it up into the sky, then sends a twist serve across the net that, even as Tezuka dives, he knows he won’t reach.

Ryoma watches as Tezuka remains on the grass for a moment, then picks himself up. As they walk towards the net and each other, the world opens up again. Ryoma can hear the roar of the crowd now, can feel the sweat dripping down his back, and can realize that seven of his friends and his father have just watched him win.

His opponents will push themselves higher soon, some are already out for Tezuka’s blood, and Ryoma knows that they both will rise to meet them. But for now, Ryoma has finally shown Tezuka his tennis, has realized for himself why he will continue to play the game, and now it’s time to show the world.

When they meet at the net, Ryoma smirks, then tells Tezuka he might want to turn away from the cameras a bit. Then he grabs a handful of Tezuka’s shirt, right in the middle of his chest, pulls him towards the net, and kisses him.

Ryoma knows that this game is about the challenges you face, the matches you take, and the surprises you meet head on, and that is why he plays.

Ryoma feels Tezuka’s hand sliding down his back. He jumps, and they finally break apart. Ryoma sees Tezuka’s eyes flashing, and the very beginnings of a smile creeping onto his lips.

“I’m beating you at the US Open, Echizen.”

Ryoma smirks. Tennis, he thinks, is about the game. And possibly being felt up by your boyfriend on Center Court, Wimbledon.