![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
PoT fic: Time's The Charm (Atobe/Tezuka, Yukimura/Sanada) Part One.
Title: Time's The Charm
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Pairing: Atobe/Tezuka, Sanada/Yukimura
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pixxers, for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
santa_smex. :)
From: Yukimura Seiichi
To: Atobe Keigo
Subject: A little proposal...
Seeing as Seigaku won the Nationals this year and I'm sure Hyotei are as keen to get them back as Rikkai are, I thought I'd propose a little match. As competitive as the term 'friendly' will allow — I'll have to get this past Sakaki-sensei and Ryuzaki-sensei.
What about a doubles match involving the best players in the district? Two of us from Rikkai taking on you and perhaps Tezuka, of Seigaku? After the close of the tournament, I've been itching to pick up my racket again — and, admittedly, to play Tezuka again. I'm confident that you feel the same way regarding Sanada.
Let me know what you think; I'm sure that Hyotei will be intrigued by this challenge. Unless you've let yourselves go since the quarter-final stage...
Seiichi.
Atobe pushes his chair back from the table and regards the e-mail with the sort of face he normally reserves for spam mail. He'd suspected that Yukimura could outdo him on arrogance but this is something else. A few replies come to mind:
From: Atobe Keigo
To: Yukimura Seiichi
Re: A little proposal...
Unfortunately, no matter how much the French peasants demanded, King Louis XVI would never come down from his throne and meet them.
Atobe.
From: Atobe Keigo
To: Yukimura Seiichi
Re: A little proposal...
If Sanada wants me in his bed that badly, he'll ask himself.
Atobe.
From: Atobe Keigo
To: Yukimura Seiichi
Re: A little proposal...
Stick your team up your ass.
Atobe.
Let's face it, he thinks. Hyotei are Hyotei. They're in tennis to play tennis, not to indulge in charity or soul-bonding with other teams. Junior Senbatsu is different; its a parade of one's own skill, a chance to beat a hundred other players all at once. It has nothing to do with sitting in a circle wearing name badges, clapping hands all in unison. Atobe hates feeling that he should be friends with his rivals, the way Seigaku are. Schooling Ryoma for Tezuka, that was bad enough, but this? He rests his fingers on the keys, trying to word a polite but cold rejection, when Tezuka's name springs up from the e-mail. There are a lot of things that Atobe will do for Tezuka. Put up with cap-wearing brats. Scrape his knee and dirty-up his best gym shorts. Wear impossibly tiny gym shorts in the first place. Whether he's man enough for this is enough question. He taps on the keys, irritably, and then constructs a response.
From: Atobe Keigo
To: Yukimura Seiichi
Re: A little proposal...
Since it's the summer, there's nothing to do and you're not Fudomine, I'll accept your challenge. I would hope that given our performance in America, you won't be placing Sanada and I alongside each other. I am not as enthused with the guy as you seem to think I am — perhaps you're confusing me with yourself.
Let me know further details as they're arranged. I'll contact Sakaki-sensei.
As for 'friendly' — Seiichi, this is Hyotei you're dealing with. Do you want to rethink that a little?
Keigo.
Without tennis as an excuse, he hasn't seen Tezuka for a month. It's irritating. He's made many phone calls, inviting Tezuka on various intellectual pursuits that he thinks he'd enjoy, but Tezuka has a tendency to hang up on him and so he gets nowhere. He wonders how Inui manages it; he saw them together in a book store once, but that could have been a chance meeting. They've played matches here and there as those are the only meetings Tezuka will agree to, but he refuses when Atobe proposes them too often and besides, he has his brat for that sort of thing. No matter how much Atobe grunts and makes sure that his t-shirt rises over his belly, Tezuka never bats an eyelid. It's like he stubbornly refuses to see tennis as sexual. Meaning that Atobe has played all of his aces and is, for once in his life, totally stuck. He hopes fervently that Tezuka agrees to the doubles match. They'll have to get together to arrange strategy, analyse their opponents, practice. Tezuka will finally have to come to his bedroom without having a nose-bleed. A little smirk playing on Atobe's face, he presses send with dignified glee.
--------
From: Yukimura Seiichi
To: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Subject: A little proposal...
Cutting straight to the point (I know that you appreciate the succinct): I haven't been able to get our match out of my head. I would be honoured if you would give me another chance to see you in action. I propose a doubles match between the finest in the region; humbly I propose myself and Sanada Genichirou of Rikkai, Atobe Keigo of Hyotei and yourself. I hear that Echizen is in America, much to my disappointment.
I felt it best to suggest this friendly whilst school is out and to give us all something productive to do in these long months. If your summer studies allow, please do consider this challenge and let me know your thoughts.
Seiichi.
From: Tezuka Kunimitsu
To: Yukimura Seiichi
Re: A little proposal...
Your challenge sounds noble and I would be honoured to participate. Ryuzaki-sensei and I have spoken about it and she agrees that a friendly would build good team relations. Perhaps we could invite members of our respective teams to witness the event? I know that Seigaku are quite curious about it.
I assumed that yourself and Sanada would be playing together after this year's American tournament but let me know the precise arrangement.
Tezuka.
“I,” Yukimura says loftily, collapsing onto his bed. “am a genius.”
Sanada studies him warily, unsure of how he should proceed. “I've always said as much.”
“Better than Niou.”
“Certainly.”
“Better even than The Riddler, from Batman.”
“You...who?”
“Never mind.”
“Ah.”
“They have both accepted.”
Sanada's eyes narrow. “I knew Tezuka would, but Atobe?”
“Yes, Atobe has accepted.”
“He's so stubborn.”
“I find that he's much like you, actually. If you know how to handle him, he's fine.”
Sanada blinks and then casts Yukimura a look. “How do you handle him?”
“There's no need for jealousy, Genichirou. Just making an observation.”
“I...well. Sorry.”
“He responds well to challenge and confrontation. He has pride and he is loathe to go beneath it, unless there's an incentive. He wants to be the best and so arranges his rivals in a stepping-stone fashion; he has made a big stone out of Tezuka. You are similar in that respect.”
“Tezuka is a very good player.”
“Atobe wants to get into his pants.” Yukimura is sliding his own hand into the waistband of Sanada's. Sanada is doing his best not to be thinking or talking about Atobe as he does so.
“I did not need to know that.”
“It's obvious. The way he is around him. He was concerned that you wanted Tezuka, too — that's why he challenged you.”
“This is far, far too much, I think, I, unnfff.”
Yukimura's voice is syrupy as he leans over, wraps a hand around Sanada's cock. “You think unnff?”
“Yes,” Sanada breathes. “It's really the only suitable feeling, at this point.”
Yukimura laughs and the cock in his hand twitches, and this makes Yukimura smirk, harden a little himself. It's pleasing, to be this powerful. Having had quite enough of talking about other people, he raises himself up on hands and knees and crawls over Sanada, dipping his head down for a kiss. Sanada kisses with vulnerability and trepidation and when he warms up and his tongue presses out, it makes Yukimura want to roll him over right there. He's patient because he has to be, but he can't resist a bit of cheek and so he pushes downwards, stretches out and slowly rubs the length of his groin against Sanada's. Their kiss chokes, then, and Sanada's eyes widen and then, then he pushes back and their eyes all close tight. Though he'd be quite content for that to happen again and again and again, Yukimura pulls back because he wants it to be more — he wants to fuck him, and Sanada's eyes say the same. He scrapes fingers around Sanada's waistband and yanks his jogging bottoms down, nibbling his hipbone as he does so — something he knows Sanada would hate from anyone else but loves because it's Yukimura doing it. There's teeth marks when he pulls back and he loves the sight of it, catching Sanada's face in his hands and kissing him until neither of them can breathe. Sanada gets braver gradually, running hands down spine and then, tentatively, onto his ass. This makes Yukimura laugh, the timid suggestion.
“You can top me only when you've learnt to ask for it, Genichirou,” he says wickedly, in Sanada's ear. “Until then...”
Sanada growls at him, forcing the red from his face and grasping his hips tight. He pulls down, none-too-gently, and squares his jaw into Yukimura's steady look.
“That's not topping me,” Yukimura says, lightly. “I could wriggle on you so hard you'd come on my thigh. Here, lube,” Leaning into the bedside table, he rests the tube on Sanada's tummy. “Let me see you.”
Sanada is pissed off, horny-pissed off, and rougher with himself than he normally is. Yukimura finds that especially delicious and to spur Sanada on, gives his cock a few indulgent strokes, his mouth a few indulgent gasps. Yukimura takes the tube from him, finds a condom, lubes up and wishes it didn't feel quite so dangerously good. Takes a few breaths leaning over him, kissing and nibbling the line from ear to jaw. Sanada's hands are at his shoulder blades, they slide down to his hips and they're tugging, and Yukimura can't resist the last call. Stroking Sanada's thighs apart he slides between them with the elegance of a cat and he puts his hands down on either side of him. The first cry is strangled, because he never manages to remember the intensity that the first push gives him, and Sanada always sounds strangled then, too. He has to force himself to stop and give him time because all of his instincts are going to be painful for Sanada, and he distracts himself by suckling hard on the spot beneath his collarbone until it's painted bright red. Sanada has a hand in his hair, then, and his hips are starting to move and so Yukimura moves and then they're making strangled sounds again. Hanging onto each other, their voices are gritty and needy and good.
Yukimura always gets carried away while he's having sex, Sanada has noticed. It's the same when he plays; he slips into a state somewhere that carries him away and makes him bigger and better and perfect, and it's the same in sex. He finds his rhythm and his passion and his eyes glaze and he's just achingly perfect. Sanada likes to watch him find that state, as easy as he finds the spot in Sanada that makes his toes curl up with every thrust. It doesn't take long — soon he's into that rhythm they like and his eyes lid, and there, he's consumed by it all. His hands yank on the sheets before they find Sanada's and before he knows it, they're pressing his hands down onto the bed. It changes the angle, slightly, makes everything feel a little helpless to him, and he loves it. Yukimura dips his head into the curve of his neck where Sanada can feel all of his breath and his restraint and he kisses there, rough, biting kisses that betray need and fervour. He pushes back against him, curling his legs around the small of his back, urging him deeper and harder and hotter. He uses his chin to lift Yukimura's head up and then he kisses him, hard, on the lips. They look at each other for a moment as Yukimura lets out the first cry and then the game is on — they make more noise than the zoo when they're in the mood. Sanada's quieter but only because Yukimura drowns him out. His hands start to skitter on Sanada's, fluttering because he's close and soon the nails come out and that's all Sanada needs, really. His body goes taut and his mind whitens of everything and then he shouts, just once, and Yukimura's chin taps his jaw and his breath fill his ear. Yukimura doesn't shout, it's not him. He makes a sound that's like winning a match, that victory cry, and if Sanada could come again he would. Then, there's only breath until their heads stop pounding and the world stops spinning and the room comes back into focus.
Yukimura collapses on top of him because he's vulnerable after an orgasm the way he is nowhere else. Sanada takes advantage of the moment and loops his arms around his back.
“Don't make me play with anyone else,” he breathes.
“What do you think I am?” Yukimura laughs, turning his head and resting it, sweat-soaked, on Sanada's shoulder. “Stupid?”
--------
From: Atobe Keigo
To: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Hahahahaha, finally, FINALLY, you have to go somewhere with me, YES, this day, it is mine, oh glorious glorious day, what has Oresama done to deserve this?
Prepare to have your ass yoi'd.
Keigo.
It is the sixteenth e-mail that Atobe has written and not sent, and he is getting desperate. At least this one is honest. He quibbles over the usage of 'ass' (too gay?) before he deletes the lot. The idea of Tezuka calling him Oresama makes him feel sick. It was a title created in a moment of madness with Sakaki-sensei, and neither of them had banked on the effect it'd have on the sub-regulars. Not to mention Atobe's female peers. Everywhere he goes, there's another simpering little girl cooing 'Oresama, Oresama!' at him and he wonders, what's wrong with his name? Even his father doesn't use his first name, and he gave it to him. As he's grown up, Atobe has realised that even he hasn't enough money to make circumstances less pathetic than they are. He's lucky to have his friends; the Ryou that swears at him when he's being theatrical, the Yuushi that complains about the Atobe family dinners, who insists that haute cuisine isn't proper eating. The Gakuto who takes him to places where he's considered wearing trainers, he's so afraid of putting his shoes on the floor. Perhaps this is why he likes Tezuka — because Tezuka is one of those real people who doesn't care about money, doesn't care about notoriety. He has to earn Tezuka's respect, and it isn't done with money. He doesn't know too many people like that and it's refreshing. Eventually, grunting frustration, he taps out a simple three lines and sends it before he's had a chance to change his mind.
From: Atobe Keigo
To: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Subject: The tennis friendly.
I thought that we might meet up and talk strategy — you have played Yukimura, I Sanada. Risking sounding like your data man, we should analyse the data. I promise that it won't include dinner or anything that might offend your delicate sensibilities. Coffee, then?
Keigo.
Tezuka reads the e-mail and narrows his eyes. It takes him twenty-five minutes to come up with a reply, and he doesn't know why it should take so much longer than his other e-mails.
From: Tezuka Kunimitsu
To: Atobe Keigo
Re: The tennis friendly.
Coffee sounds fine. We should put in practice afterwards. Dinner would not be appropriate — we should probably not indulge with the match so close. 2pm tomorrow?
Kunimitsu.
From: Atobe Keigo
To: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Re: The tennis friendly.
2pm is fine. I'll meet you at our grounds; you remember the way?
Was the suggestion of dinner carelessness on my part? Did I let my guard down?
Keigo.
There is no reply. “Fuck,” Atobe says, with feeling. It's two jokes too many for Tezuka, apparently.
--------
When he's sitting in Hyotei's nearby coffee shop with his notes, Atobe can't remember feeling this nervous. Not even when he watched his first girlfriend remove her skirt and then her bra, in his bedroom when he was fourteen. Tezuka looks utterly transfixed, studying the scribbles on the page and comparing them with his own thoughts. Atobe taps with his fingers and stirs his tea, wondering what he has to do to make it clear to Tezuka that this is more than tennis, to him. Tezuka hasn't said anything about the jokes and Atobe supposes that he just doesn't understand — Tezuka can be spectacularly obtuse in social situations. It's good, because he's spectacularly competent everywhere else and perfection would make Atobe irritable. He watches as Tezuka makes little circles with his pen and draws all sorts of lines, and wants to grab the paper from him and write:
Tezuka -----------> Atobe's bed ^__________^
He cranes his neck over, and what Tezuka's actually written isn't even close. He's written something about Yukimura and Sanada's harmony being the main problem to combat, and written GP in big letters in the margin. He's probably thinking of bringing Oishi into it. Atobe doesn't mind Oishi, but he isn't conducive to his great mission, and so, feeling idiotic, he asks Tezuka what he's devised.
“Well,” Tezuka says, as if preparing himself to say a lot of words at once, “The biggest problem is that they're on the same team and know each other very well, and we-”
“Could get to know each other very well, ahhnn?”
“Yes, but we need to be realistic about the fact that they'll have natural harmony that is difficult to create in a short space of time. I was thinking that Ootori-san and Shishido-san on your side, and our Golden Pair might be useful sources of information to tap into-”
“Yes, true,” Atobe says, contemplating how anything can go so wrong in such a short space of time. “I think it might be useful to get out there and practice. With two strong singles players, often the best course is to let them work out their own harmony. I heard that your Echizen and Momoshiro-”
“That isn't something I'd like us to use as inspiration.”
“Oh, come on. I thought the 'Ah-Un' pair were quite innovative.”
“Hm,” Tezuka says, taking a sip of his tea. “Not against Yukimura and Sanada.”
“Well, you talk to your doubles teams, get some tips, but mine forged a way to work together after lots of practice and I believe that it's the best way. I am committed to put in as much time as is necessary.” He flashes him a brilliant smile, leaving nothing to the imagination. Tezuka looks slightly taken-aback but nods, warmly, and makes a couple more circles on his page. It's not much, but it's a start. By the end of the day, Atobe is thankful for it. It's the one thing that will stop him throwing himself out of the window.
The practice is not good. This is how he will describe it to Sakaki-sensei later, leaving out the part where 'not good' means 'worse than Gakuto and Oshitari'. It's a repeat of the American tournament
all over again — Tezuka is a dogged singles player. It's difficult for each of them to step back and let the other take a shot, and as a result, two of Hyotei's sub-regulars pulvarise them and Atobe dies a little inside. They look at each other in the changing rooms, afterwards, and Atobe thinks that if he could just reach out and kiss him, it wouldn't be a day wasted, only Tezuka stands a little way away when he has his shirt off. He's awkward, half-naked. Still growing into himself.
“We need to practice more,” Atobe says, for once thinking about what'll happen if they lose 6:0.
“Yes,” Tezuka says, firmly. His voice is solid where he isn't. It's the secret to his success. “It will get better. We need to try hard and find the knack.”
There are places where that sounds fun to Atobe, only Tezuka doesn't seem to be thinking of them.
“Tomorrow, we might take on someone from Seigaku?”
“I could give Oishi a call. He's offered his-”
“Yes, that sounds fine.” Atobe is clipped, not wanting to know about what, exactly, Oishi has offered. Tezuka doesn't notice because he's folding his shirt away and he folds shirts with more care than he shows when he talks to people. Frustrated and feeling like a bear with a sore head, Atobe simply says, “Give me a call later and tell me what the arrangements are.” He'll have a shower in his room, he thinks, so he just leaves. Tezuka notices that, he feels the eyes on his back, but Tezuka doesn't know what to make of it. It's no surprise to Atobe that nobody follows him out.
--------
The following day is worse. Tezuka regards him with frostiness and Atobe supposes that's deserved. He feels like he's being a petulant child, and Tezuka an overly-responsible adult. Atobe has enough responsibility in his life without dealing with Tezuka's morals on top of it all. He supposes that a large part of him is rebelling against nothing; against a brick wall, Tezuka's brick wall. All in all, it makes him feel shitty and Tezuka doesn't look too happy, either. They play a terrible match against Oishi and Eiji, the former of whom looks concerned throughout and almost gives himself a mouth ulcer chewing on his lip. Tezuka dismisses it with some sort of soft instruction that Atobe watches, feels a pang for, and they leave at the end — Oishi politely telling Atobe that it's been nice to see him. Eiji waves with just enough cheek that it reminds Atobe of Gakuto. He smiles, despite himself.
“That was not good,” Tezuka says, and it snaps him out of it. “We must practice more.”
“It won't help,” Atobe says, logically, “if it's just going to happen this way, again and again. Look, let's go and get a drink or something. I think we can sort it out.”
Tezuka looks reluctant to leave the court, unsure how anything not involving tennis will help. Atobe looks him straight in the eye. “Look, Sanada and I worked this out mid-game. I know how to do it. Come with me. If you want to win this match, come with me.”
Tezuka does, and Atobe is slightly pissed. He shouldn't have added the condition. The only place open near Seigaku is a dreadful burger restaurant that Momo apparently frequents and they perch on stools, sucking soft drinks.
“Right,” Atobe says. “The problem is that we're two singles players.”
Tezuka gives him a really?! face. Only he does it without moving much and Atobe finds it sort of wondrous, forcing the smile from his face.
“We're playing like two singles players. I don't like the idea of just dividing the court in two. I think it works if you've not got time to sort something else out, but I think we're better than that. We're good singles players. We could be great at doubles. We just have to work out where we're different.”
“Where your specialty is, and where mine is.”
“Exactly.”
They sit in silence for a while. “We're both all-rounders,” Atobe says, dismally.
“Yes.”
“You play with both hands?”
“Yes. Primarily my left.” Tezuka rattles his paper cup and the ice clunks.
“I play with my right.”
“That's...something.”
“Something.”
More silence. “Perhaps the drawing the line down the court thing might work, after all.” Atobe says.
“No,” Tezuka says, determined in the face of the puzzle. “There must be something.”
“If we haven't thought of anything in the next, say, two days, we go with dividing the court?”
Tezuka nods, seriously. Atobe feels the brevity of it — losing doesn't sit well with him, and he'd optimistically believed that once they'd spent time together, harmony wouldn't be long waiting on them. Ironically, it seems that they're too similar. They both move for the same shots at the same time, in the same way. They overlap like two pieces of film footage, one playing a millisecond behind the other. Nothing wrong with either but together, it's a mess. They spend the first day working on their separate games. On the second day, they are as bad as they've ever been before. Hyotei's sub-regulars are starting to laugh at Atobe. He can't concentrate in class. Thoughts of bedding Tezuka are far from his mind — he's starting to think that if tennis is this bad, sex would be even worse. Apparently, they can only create sparks from opposite sides of the court. Together, they are diabolical. This probably means that they'd only have good sex if each of them were dating other people. When he goes to bed that night, dismally resigned to dividing the court in two, Atobe decides that he is an utter failure. It's a feeling he won't abide, so he 'phones Tezuka up and shouts at him.
He goes to bed again, feeling like an utter failure with an anger management problem. Burrowing his head under the pillow, he makes a sound like dying camel. An utter failure of a dying camel, with an anger management problem.
To: Atobe Keigo
From: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Subject: Tonight.
I don't think there was any need for your behaviour tonight. We are both trying and I am frustrated as you are.
Don't think that I haven't noticed that you're flirting with me. Sanada and Yukimura's situation works for them. I'm not going to sleep with you just to make the tennis better. You're bored by who I am and you're looking for a quick way to win this — I'm not a goal, I'm not a...method. I wish that you would stop it. I wish that you would find a reason to want me, another reason — so I could accept it, without feeling like you want me for
Tezuka sighs and deletes the lot with snap of his finger. He sits with his chin propped in his hand, thinking. Then, because it's easier and because he's cowardly, he sends:
To: Atobe Keigo
From: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Subject: Tonight.
I don't think there was any need for your behaviour tonight. We are both trying and I am frustrated as you are.
Let's meet up tomorrow at 2pm to talk further.
Kunimitsu.
--------
Atobe gives Oshitari a withering look. “It is not worse than the time you and Gakuto played the Golden Pair.”
“The data does not lie.” He is smirking now and twirling noodles around between his chopsticks. They are having some sort of weekday brunch (Oshitari believes, to the contrary of the experts, that he may die if he goes longer than three hours without food and Atobe is too exhausted to argue with him) and Oshitari is ever so slightly crowing.
“What am I going to do? They're already laughing at me, Yuushi. I can't lose.”
“Is it too late to change sides?”
“Yuushi.”
“What? Tennis is more important to you than Tezuka, no?”
“Please don't put my pride and my libido up against each other. The results can only be disastrous.”
“Well, you solved my Gakuto problem by removing Gakuto. Which one of you is the problem — you or him?”
“Both of us. We're too similar. We go for everything at the same time and in the same way.”
“Stylistically-”
“Almost no difference. We're both all-round singles players. We have techniques to deal with all kinds of shots and we resent having to give them up.”
Oshitari pauses in flirting with a cute waitress to fill up their drinks, and thinks. Atobe can feel him thinking, that's the kind of thinking Oshitari does. He's going to make an excellent lawyer. “I see two solutions. One, you shag him senseless in the morning so he's too submissive to care about the court, and will respond happily to any 'naa, Kabaji?' behaviour you want to throw at him.”
Atobe gives him a look.
“Or, you want him play one of your regulars and get him to watch you playing one of your regulars. Each of you watch the other playing singles. You've done that for your opponents, why not each other? You might learn something.”
“Hmm. That's not a bad idea.”
“Of course it isn't. Tensai, remember?” Oshitari sticks out his tongue and narrows his eyes at Atobe's bowl. “Are you done with those?”
--------
When Atobe meets with Tezuka at 2pm, Tezuka is frostier than he's ever been before. There's a barrier wrapped over him; his eyes are not warm, his body is not responsive, and he uses fewer words than normal. He responds to Atobe's proposal with a thin nod and then looks out onto the court at the sub-regular that's been found. Who is sarcastically crossing himself. Tezuka's face says something like Hyotei(!) but he says nothing, merely adjusts his wristband and walks out onto the court. Atobe takes his place by the side of the court, a cross look on his face, and watches. He realises early on that it's a mistake to have chosen a sub-regular, because Tezuka has only improved since he last saw him play. After the first game, Tezuka realises it, too, and drops his game down a notch. It's subtle, but Atobe notices it. He notices other things, too. He notices things he never did when they played; the lines of Tezuka's body as he lines up his serve, the movement as he pulls back and forward with the ball, waiting for it to come to him and then turning it into whatever he needs at the time. The Tezuka Zone is all the more impressive when you're not trying to overcome it. The way he moves his feet is pure poetry. And before he feels like too much of a romantic, Atobe gets up and has a word with Tezuka's opponent. He hasn't seen any of Tezuka's other moves; Tezuka simply hasn't needed them.
“Score is 6:1,” he says, bluntly. The sub-regular all but spits on him. “I want to see more. I'll take some games back. Fight me.”
Tezuka looks at him and suddenly, there's fire, at last. Atobe smirks. “I don't need to throw my coat in the air, Tezuka. Serve.”
After a gruelling forty minutes, Atobe has pulled back 5 games, because he is fresh and Tezuka has been playing longer and because Atobe has improved, too. In the final game, Tezuka shows his full potential and Atobe watches it, pinpoints it, finds a spot to focus on in the midst of the white light that descends when he plays. It dawns on him as he lunges into another jack-knife, that Tezuka is a defensive player. It's subtle; he's not defensive like Oishi is defensive, or like Oshitari was defensive with Gakuto. He is defensive in the sense that he is a submissive player. He plays tennis like he would martial arts; he lets the ball come to him, let's his opponent's strength come to him, and then he uses both against them. It is a talented mental game that it being played. Tezuka's Zone allows him to pull any ball back towards him. His Zero Shiki brings the ball back towards him; it does not attack the opponent the way Atobe's Rondo does. Even the Muga no Kyouchi he's only heard about focuses on Tezuka's own strength rather than any aggressive assault on the other player. Tezuka is in sport as he is in life; always chasing self-development, always bettering himself on a path towards self-actualization and being a good pillar or whatever it is that keeps him up at night these days. Tezuka could win many matches and he would not be a good player — a good person — if he won them in a bad way. Atobe has won many matches in bad ways and it never bothered him until Tezuka.
Where Tezuka pulls back, he rushes forward. There's the Rondo, of course (Tezuka has long gotten used to this one and now moves his hand out of the way without thinking), but also the Tannhauser, which he refuses to use in friendlies because frankly, it makes him feel like his whole body's in bits the next day. Both are aggressive, both flamboyant — they both involve hard, fast serves and spins that distract the opponent. He uses Insight and Koori no Sekai to pinpoint weakness and to exploit it, as brutally and as throughly as he can. In art as in life; Atobe scrutinizes people for flaws and works hard at them to reveal themselves to him. He pushes where others pull back. His flamboyancy distracts those only interested in his surface, and those who see underneath it can overcome him. Tezuka can overcome him. The passive player can beat the aggressive one, merely by turning his tricks to suit himself. Tezuka neatly avoids the Rondo and destroys Koori no Sekai with his Tezuka Zone. Tannhauser is too intensive to use often, if much at all. Tezuka's skill lies in deflecting what comes at him, pulling back for safety and manipulating assaults to advantage him. It's no wonder he's been turning Atobe down for weeks. Perhaps he hasn't yet worked out a way to deflect that sort of assault. It makes Atobe smile, the thought.
“A draw,” he says. “You must be exhausted.”
Tezuka says nothing, but leans with his hands on his knees and then sits on the court, his body gratefully limp. Atobe comes over and sits beside him, leaning back on his hands. The sky is very, very blue and he feels cheerful for the first time in days.
“Did it work?” Tezuka asks.
“Did what work?”
“Your plan to see more.”
“Yes,” Atobe says, carefully. “We play very differently.”
“Only on opposite sides of the court.”
“No — our styles are different. Yours is defensive, mine offensive. You turn other people's tennis around to your advantage, whereas I attempt to destroy other people with my tennis. I'm always on the attack, where you're...you overcome everything they throw at you. You have a move that answers everything. Your skill is in beating everything they have and then...they're defeated. My skill is in not giving them a chance to try.”
Tezuka absorbs this and nods, slowly. He had never given it much thought — playing an honorable game has always come naturally to him. “On the same side of the court, you don't give me much of a chance to try, either.”
“You're too slow.”
“Or you're too fast.”
They look at each other, competitive smiles on their faces. Atobe is the first to speak.
“We need to work out a strategy based on this. On you...defeating their onslaught, and me finishing them off, quickly. It'll be a long game, so if you can knock down their defenses one by one, I can finish it.”
“That makes sense,” Tezuka says. “We need to play more doubles matches. We need to know...what the other is doing, all of the time. We're too singles — we focus on ourselves too much. We need to learn the knack of concentrating on someone else.”
“You know, you could just have sex with me.”
Tezuka looks at Atobe, startled. Atobe sort of looks at himself, startled. He's sure that he wasn't intending to say that. He can't have been. It doesn't help that he wants to laugh at Tezuka's response, or that he does laugh. Once his mouth has been let off the leash, it's hard to get it back again.
“What has that got to do with tennis?”
Tezuka looks stung when he's laughed at — he isn't used to it and it's one of the wiggly social things he doesn't really understand, like high-fives and friendship pacts and saying nice things to a friend in a crisis.
“It has nothing to do with tennis,” Atobe says guiltily, trying to patch things up. “Forget about it.”
Tezuka blinks, and for a moment, he looks lost. Atobe wants to bottle it up and keep it. He's such an idiot. He has everything he's needed right there, right there, and he has to go and ruin it.
“Do you want to-”
Tezuka's question is suddenly unbearable. “No!” he says, for his own protection more than anything else, and Tezuka looks even more stung. Atobe sort of wishes he was dead, or in his father's office, anywhere but here.
There is a very long silence, wherein Atobe could swear that the prayer has been answered and he's actually dying.
“We could meet up tomorrow, then, and play some doubles.” Tezuka's voice has returned to steel.
“Fine. Mine, or yours?”
“Seigaku.”
“Fine.”
They depart and Atobe bashes his head against his door for a bit, because it might knock the tiny granules of remaining sense out of it — just in case he ever decides to do such a stupid thing as try to patch things up with Tezuka. It doesn't work, because three hours and two beers later, he's typing out an e-mail.
To: Tezuka Kunimitsu
From: Atobe Keigo
Subject: Today.
I'm sorry. I said a lot of stupid things and kept saying them because I wasn't sure how you'd take them. I'm not normally this crass (or this stupid). If you want to say no more about it, then I understand. If you want the truth of the matter then...you only need ask.
I might be an idiot, but at least I'm an honest idiot.
Alternatively, if this is making everything worse, this e-mail doesn't exist.
See you tomorrow.
Keigo.
To: Atobe Keigo
From: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Subject: To an honest idiot.
You are the most confusing person I have ever met.
Kunimitsu.
To: Tezuka Kunimitsu
From: Atobe Keigo
Subject: Re: To an honest idiot.
Is that a compliment, ahhnn? Are you yoi'd by my confusing prowess?
Keigo.
To: Atobe Keigo
From: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Subject: It is impossible to be impressed by confusion.
Not particularly. Mostly, I'm just confused.
Kunimitsu.
To: Tezuka Kunimitsu
From: Atobe Keigo
Subject: Ore-sama is crushed.
You have a cold, cold heart, Kunimitsu.
Keigo.
To: Atobe Keigo
From: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Subject: ...
No, just intolerance for stupidity.
Kunimitsu.
To: Tezuka Kunimitsu
From: Atobe Keigo
Subject: Ore-sama is dead.
I am not stupid. I want you, after all.
Keigo.
To: Oshitari Yuushi
From: Atobe Keigo
Subject: FUCK. FUCK FUCK BOLLOCKING SHIT.
A non-reply to 'I want you' isn't good, is it? Fuck this, I'm going to bed.
Keigo.
To: Atobe Keigo
From: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Subject: -
Maybe we can talk about that. I'd...like to talk about that.
If you're being serious?
Kunimitsu.
He waits for half an hour, then an hour, and there is no response. Then, he shuts the computer down and goes to bed, wondering when everything in his life became so difficult.
--------
Continue to Part Two.
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Pairing: Atobe/Tezuka, Sanada/Yukimura
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Written for
pixxers, for santa_smex. :)From: Yukimura Seiichi
To: Atobe Keigo
Subject: A little proposal...
Seeing as Seigaku won the Nationals this year and I'm sure Hyotei are as keen to get them back as Rikkai are, I thought I'd propose a little match. As competitive as the term 'friendly' will allow — I'll have to get this past Sakaki-sensei and Ryuzaki-sensei.
What about a doubles match involving the best players in the district? Two of us from Rikkai taking on you and perhaps Tezuka, of Seigaku? After the close of the tournament, I've been itching to pick up my racket again — and, admittedly, to play Tezuka again. I'm confident that you feel the same way regarding Sanada.
Let me know what you think; I'm sure that Hyotei will be intrigued by this challenge. Unless you've let yourselves go since the quarter-final stage...
Seiichi.
Atobe pushes his chair back from the table and regards the e-mail with the sort of face he normally reserves for spam mail. He'd suspected that Yukimura could outdo him on arrogance but this is something else. A few replies come to mind:
From: Atobe Keigo
To: Yukimura Seiichi
Re: A little proposal...
Unfortunately, no matter how much the French peasants demanded, King Louis XVI would never come down from his throne and meet them.
Atobe.
From: Atobe Keigo
To: Yukimura Seiichi
Re: A little proposal...
If Sanada wants me in his bed that badly, he'll ask himself.
Atobe.
From: Atobe Keigo
To: Yukimura Seiichi
Re: A little proposal...
Stick your team up your ass.
Atobe.
Let's face it, he thinks. Hyotei are Hyotei. They're in tennis to play tennis, not to indulge in charity or soul-bonding with other teams. Junior Senbatsu is different; its a parade of one's own skill, a chance to beat a hundred other players all at once. It has nothing to do with sitting in a circle wearing name badges, clapping hands all in unison. Atobe hates feeling that he should be friends with his rivals, the way Seigaku are. Schooling Ryoma for Tezuka, that was bad enough, but this? He rests his fingers on the keys, trying to word a polite but cold rejection, when Tezuka's name springs up from the e-mail. There are a lot of things that Atobe will do for Tezuka. Put up with cap-wearing brats. Scrape his knee and dirty-up his best gym shorts. Wear impossibly tiny gym shorts in the first place. Whether he's man enough for this is enough question. He taps on the keys, irritably, and then constructs a response.
From: Atobe Keigo
To: Yukimura Seiichi
Re: A little proposal...
Since it's the summer, there's nothing to do and you're not Fudomine, I'll accept your challenge. I would hope that given our performance in America, you won't be placing Sanada and I alongside each other. I am not as enthused with the guy as you seem to think I am — perhaps you're confusing me with yourself.
Let me know further details as they're arranged. I'll contact Sakaki-sensei.
As for 'friendly' — Seiichi, this is Hyotei you're dealing with. Do you want to rethink that a little?
Keigo.
Without tennis as an excuse, he hasn't seen Tezuka for a month. It's irritating. He's made many phone calls, inviting Tezuka on various intellectual pursuits that he thinks he'd enjoy, but Tezuka has a tendency to hang up on him and so he gets nowhere. He wonders how Inui manages it; he saw them together in a book store once, but that could have been a chance meeting. They've played matches here and there as those are the only meetings Tezuka will agree to, but he refuses when Atobe proposes them too often and besides, he has his brat for that sort of thing. No matter how much Atobe grunts and makes sure that his t-shirt rises over his belly, Tezuka never bats an eyelid. It's like he stubbornly refuses to see tennis as sexual. Meaning that Atobe has played all of his aces and is, for once in his life, totally stuck. He hopes fervently that Tezuka agrees to the doubles match. They'll have to get together to arrange strategy, analyse their opponents, practice. Tezuka will finally have to come to his bedroom without having a nose-bleed. A little smirk playing on Atobe's face, he presses send with dignified glee.
From: Yukimura Seiichi
To: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Subject: A little proposal...
Cutting straight to the point (I know that you appreciate the succinct): I haven't been able to get our match out of my head. I would be honoured if you would give me another chance to see you in action. I propose a doubles match between the finest in the region; humbly I propose myself and Sanada Genichirou of Rikkai, Atobe Keigo of Hyotei and yourself. I hear that Echizen is in America, much to my disappointment.
I felt it best to suggest this friendly whilst school is out and to give us all something productive to do in these long months. If your summer studies allow, please do consider this challenge and let me know your thoughts.
Seiichi.
From: Tezuka Kunimitsu
To: Yukimura Seiichi
Re: A little proposal...
Your challenge sounds noble and I would be honoured to participate. Ryuzaki-sensei and I have spoken about it and she agrees that a friendly would build good team relations. Perhaps we could invite members of our respective teams to witness the event? I know that Seigaku are quite curious about it.
I assumed that yourself and Sanada would be playing together after this year's American tournament but let me know the precise arrangement.
Tezuka.
“I,” Yukimura says loftily, collapsing onto his bed. “am a genius.”
Sanada studies him warily, unsure of how he should proceed. “I've always said as much.”
“Better than Niou.”
“Certainly.”
“Better even than The Riddler, from Batman.”
“You...who?”
“Never mind.”
“Ah.”
“They have both accepted.”
Sanada's eyes narrow. “I knew Tezuka would, but Atobe?”
“Yes, Atobe has accepted.”
“He's so stubborn.”
“I find that he's much like you, actually. If you know how to handle him, he's fine.”
Sanada blinks and then casts Yukimura a look. “How do you handle him?”
“There's no need for jealousy, Genichirou. Just making an observation.”
“I...well. Sorry.”
“He responds well to challenge and confrontation. He has pride and he is loathe to go beneath it, unless there's an incentive. He wants to be the best and so arranges his rivals in a stepping-stone fashion; he has made a big stone out of Tezuka. You are similar in that respect.”
“Tezuka is a very good player.”
“Atobe wants to get into his pants.” Yukimura is sliding his own hand into the waistband of Sanada's. Sanada is doing his best not to be thinking or talking about Atobe as he does so.
“I did not need to know that.”
“It's obvious. The way he is around him. He was concerned that you wanted Tezuka, too — that's why he challenged you.”
“This is far, far too much, I think, I, unnfff.”
Yukimura's voice is syrupy as he leans over, wraps a hand around Sanada's cock. “You think unnff?”
“Yes,” Sanada breathes. “It's really the only suitable feeling, at this point.”
Yukimura laughs and the cock in his hand twitches, and this makes Yukimura smirk, harden a little himself. It's pleasing, to be this powerful. Having had quite enough of talking about other people, he raises himself up on hands and knees and crawls over Sanada, dipping his head down for a kiss. Sanada kisses with vulnerability and trepidation and when he warms up and his tongue presses out, it makes Yukimura want to roll him over right there. He's patient because he has to be, but he can't resist a bit of cheek and so he pushes downwards, stretches out and slowly rubs the length of his groin against Sanada's. Their kiss chokes, then, and Sanada's eyes widen and then, then he pushes back and their eyes all close tight. Though he'd be quite content for that to happen again and again and again, Yukimura pulls back because he wants it to be more — he wants to fuck him, and Sanada's eyes say the same. He scrapes fingers around Sanada's waistband and yanks his jogging bottoms down, nibbling his hipbone as he does so — something he knows Sanada would hate from anyone else but loves because it's Yukimura doing it. There's teeth marks when he pulls back and he loves the sight of it, catching Sanada's face in his hands and kissing him until neither of them can breathe. Sanada gets braver gradually, running hands down spine and then, tentatively, onto his ass. This makes Yukimura laugh, the timid suggestion.
“You can top me only when you've learnt to ask for it, Genichirou,” he says wickedly, in Sanada's ear. “Until then...”
Sanada growls at him, forcing the red from his face and grasping his hips tight. He pulls down, none-too-gently, and squares his jaw into Yukimura's steady look.
“That's not topping me,” Yukimura says, lightly. “I could wriggle on you so hard you'd come on my thigh. Here, lube,” Leaning into the bedside table, he rests the tube on Sanada's tummy. “Let me see you.”
Sanada is pissed off, horny-pissed off, and rougher with himself than he normally is. Yukimura finds that especially delicious and to spur Sanada on, gives his cock a few indulgent strokes, his mouth a few indulgent gasps. Yukimura takes the tube from him, finds a condom, lubes up and wishes it didn't feel quite so dangerously good. Takes a few breaths leaning over him, kissing and nibbling the line from ear to jaw. Sanada's hands are at his shoulder blades, they slide down to his hips and they're tugging, and Yukimura can't resist the last call. Stroking Sanada's thighs apart he slides between them with the elegance of a cat and he puts his hands down on either side of him. The first cry is strangled, because he never manages to remember the intensity that the first push gives him, and Sanada always sounds strangled then, too. He has to force himself to stop and give him time because all of his instincts are going to be painful for Sanada, and he distracts himself by suckling hard on the spot beneath his collarbone until it's painted bright red. Sanada has a hand in his hair, then, and his hips are starting to move and so Yukimura moves and then they're making strangled sounds again. Hanging onto each other, their voices are gritty and needy and good.
Yukimura always gets carried away while he's having sex, Sanada has noticed. It's the same when he plays; he slips into a state somewhere that carries him away and makes him bigger and better and perfect, and it's the same in sex. He finds his rhythm and his passion and his eyes glaze and he's just achingly perfect. Sanada likes to watch him find that state, as easy as he finds the spot in Sanada that makes his toes curl up with every thrust. It doesn't take long — soon he's into that rhythm they like and his eyes lid, and there, he's consumed by it all. His hands yank on the sheets before they find Sanada's and before he knows it, they're pressing his hands down onto the bed. It changes the angle, slightly, makes everything feel a little helpless to him, and he loves it. Yukimura dips his head into the curve of his neck where Sanada can feel all of his breath and his restraint and he kisses there, rough, biting kisses that betray need and fervour. He pushes back against him, curling his legs around the small of his back, urging him deeper and harder and hotter. He uses his chin to lift Yukimura's head up and then he kisses him, hard, on the lips. They look at each other for a moment as Yukimura lets out the first cry and then the game is on — they make more noise than the zoo when they're in the mood. Sanada's quieter but only because Yukimura drowns him out. His hands start to skitter on Sanada's, fluttering because he's close and soon the nails come out and that's all Sanada needs, really. His body goes taut and his mind whitens of everything and then he shouts, just once, and Yukimura's chin taps his jaw and his breath fill his ear. Yukimura doesn't shout, it's not him. He makes a sound that's like winning a match, that victory cry, and if Sanada could come again he would. Then, there's only breath until their heads stop pounding and the world stops spinning and the room comes back into focus.
Yukimura collapses on top of him because he's vulnerable after an orgasm the way he is nowhere else. Sanada takes advantage of the moment and loops his arms around his back.
“Don't make me play with anyone else,” he breathes.
“What do you think I am?” Yukimura laughs, turning his head and resting it, sweat-soaked, on Sanada's shoulder. “Stupid?”
From: Atobe Keigo
To: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Hahahahaha, finally, FINALLY, you have to go somewhere with me, YES, this day, it is mine, oh glorious glorious day, what has Oresama done to deserve this?
Prepare to have your ass yoi'd.
Keigo.
It is the sixteenth e-mail that Atobe has written and not sent, and he is getting desperate. At least this one is honest. He quibbles over the usage of 'ass' (too gay?) before he deletes the lot. The idea of Tezuka calling him Oresama makes him feel sick. It was a title created in a moment of madness with Sakaki-sensei, and neither of them had banked on the effect it'd have on the sub-regulars. Not to mention Atobe's female peers. Everywhere he goes, there's another simpering little girl cooing 'Oresama, Oresama!' at him and he wonders, what's wrong with his name? Even his father doesn't use his first name, and he gave it to him. As he's grown up, Atobe has realised that even he hasn't enough money to make circumstances less pathetic than they are. He's lucky to have his friends; the Ryou that swears at him when he's being theatrical, the Yuushi that complains about the Atobe family dinners, who insists that haute cuisine isn't proper eating. The Gakuto who takes him to places where he's considered wearing trainers, he's so afraid of putting his shoes on the floor. Perhaps this is why he likes Tezuka — because Tezuka is one of those real people who doesn't care about money, doesn't care about notoriety. He has to earn Tezuka's respect, and it isn't done with money. He doesn't know too many people like that and it's refreshing. Eventually, grunting frustration, he taps out a simple three lines and sends it before he's had a chance to change his mind.
From: Atobe Keigo
To: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Subject: The tennis friendly.
I thought that we might meet up and talk strategy — you have played Yukimura, I Sanada. Risking sounding like your data man, we should analyse the data. I promise that it won't include dinner or anything that might offend your delicate sensibilities. Coffee, then?
Keigo.
Tezuka reads the e-mail and narrows his eyes. It takes him twenty-five minutes to come up with a reply, and he doesn't know why it should take so much longer than his other e-mails.
From: Tezuka Kunimitsu
To: Atobe Keigo
Re: The tennis friendly.
Coffee sounds fine. We should put in practice afterwards. Dinner would not be appropriate — we should probably not indulge with the match so close. 2pm tomorrow?
Kunimitsu.
From: Atobe Keigo
To: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Re: The tennis friendly.
2pm is fine. I'll meet you at our grounds; you remember the way?
Was the suggestion of dinner carelessness on my part? Did I let my guard down?
Keigo.
There is no reply. “Fuck,” Atobe says, with feeling. It's two jokes too many for Tezuka, apparently.
When he's sitting in Hyotei's nearby coffee shop with his notes, Atobe can't remember feeling this nervous. Not even when he watched his first girlfriend remove her skirt and then her bra, in his bedroom when he was fourteen. Tezuka looks utterly transfixed, studying the scribbles on the page and comparing them with his own thoughts. Atobe taps with his fingers and stirs his tea, wondering what he has to do to make it clear to Tezuka that this is more than tennis, to him. Tezuka hasn't said anything about the jokes and Atobe supposes that he just doesn't understand — Tezuka can be spectacularly obtuse in social situations. It's good, because he's spectacularly competent everywhere else and perfection would make Atobe irritable. He watches as Tezuka makes little circles with his pen and draws all sorts of lines, and wants to grab the paper from him and write:
Tezuka -----------> Atobe's bed ^__________^
He cranes his neck over, and what Tezuka's actually written isn't even close. He's written something about Yukimura and Sanada's harmony being the main problem to combat, and written GP in big letters in the margin. He's probably thinking of bringing Oishi into it. Atobe doesn't mind Oishi, but he isn't conducive to his great mission, and so, feeling idiotic, he asks Tezuka what he's devised.
“Well,” Tezuka says, as if preparing himself to say a lot of words at once, “The biggest problem is that they're on the same team and know each other very well, and we-”
“Could get to know each other very well, ahhnn?”
“Yes, but we need to be realistic about the fact that they'll have natural harmony that is difficult to create in a short space of time. I was thinking that Ootori-san and Shishido-san on your side, and our Golden Pair might be useful sources of information to tap into-”
“Yes, true,” Atobe says, contemplating how anything can go so wrong in such a short space of time. “I think it might be useful to get out there and practice. With two strong singles players, often the best course is to let them work out their own harmony. I heard that your Echizen and Momoshiro-”
“That isn't something I'd like us to use as inspiration.”
“Oh, come on. I thought the 'Ah-Un' pair were quite innovative.”
“Hm,” Tezuka says, taking a sip of his tea. “Not against Yukimura and Sanada.”
“Well, you talk to your doubles teams, get some tips, but mine forged a way to work together after lots of practice and I believe that it's the best way. I am committed to put in as much time as is necessary.” He flashes him a brilliant smile, leaving nothing to the imagination. Tezuka looks slightly taken-aback but nods, warmly, and makes a couple more circles on his page. It's not much, but it's a start. By the end of the day, Atobe is thankful for it. It's the one thing that will stop him throwing himself out of the window.
The practice is not good. This is how he will describe it to Sakaki-sensei later, leaving out the part where 'not good' means 'worse than Gakuto and Oshitari'. It's a repeat of the American tournament
all over again — Tezuka is a dogged singles player. It's difficult for each of them to step back and let the other take a shot, and as a result, two of Hyotei's sub-regulars pulvarise them and Atobe dies a little inside. They look at each other in the changing rooms, afterwards, and Atobe thinks that if he could just reach out and kiss him, it wouldn't be a day wasted, only Tezuka stands a little way away when he has his shirt off. He's awkward, half-naked. Still growing into himself.
“We need to practice more,” Atobe says, for once thinking about what'll happen if they lose 6:0.
“Yes,” Tezuka says, firmly. His voice is solid where he isn't. It's the secret to his success. “It will get better. We need to try hard and find the knack.”
There are places where that sounds fun to Atobe, only Tezuka doesn't seem to be thinking of them.
“Tomorrow, we might take on someone from Seigaku?”
“I could give Oishi a call. He's offered his-”
“Yes, that sounds fine.” Atobe is clipped, not wanting to know about what, exactly, Oishi has offered. Tezuka doesn't notice because he's folding his shirt away and he folds shirts with more care than he shows when he talks to people. Frustrated and feeling like a bear with a sore head, Atobe simply says, “Give me a call later and tell me what the arrangements are.” He'll have a shower in his room, he thinks, so he just leaves. Tezuka notices that, he feels the eyes on his back, but Tezuka doesn't know what to make of it. It's no surprise to Atobe that nobody follows him out.
The following day is worse. Tezuka regards him with frostiness and Atobe supposes that's deserved. He feels like he's being a petulant child, and Tezuka an overly-responsible adult. Atobe has enough responsibility in his life without dealing with Tezuka's morals on top of it all. He supposes that a large part of him is rebelling against nothing; against a brick wall, Tezuka's brick wall. All in all, it makes him feel shitty and Tezuka doesn't look too happy, either. They play a terrible match against Oishi and Eiji, the former of whom looks concerned throughout and almost gives himself a mouth ulcer chewing on his lip. Tezuka dismisses it with some sort of soft instruction that Atobe watches, feels a pang for, and they leave at the end — Oishi politely telling Atobe that it's been nice to see him. Eiji waves with just enough cheek that it reminds Atobe of Gakuto. He smiles, despite himself.
“That was not good,” Tezuka says, and it snaps him out of it. “We must practice more.”
“It won't help,” Atobe says, logically, “if it's just going to happen this way, again and again. Look, let's go and get a drink or something. I think we can sort it out.”
Tezuka looks reluctant to leave the court, unsure how anything not involving tennis will help. Atobe looks him straight in the eye. “Look, Sanada and I worked this out mid-game. I know how to do it. Come with me. If you want to win this match, come with me.”
Tezuka does, and Atobe is slightly pissed. He shouldn't have added the condition. The only place open near Seigaku is a dreadful burger restaurant that Momo apparently frequents and they perch on stools, sucking soft drinks.
“Right,” Atobe says. “The problem is that we're two singles players.”
Tezuka gives him a really?! face. Only he does it without moving much and Atobe finds it sort of wondrous, forcing the smile from his face.
“We're playing like two singles players. I don't like the idea of just dividing the court in two. I think it works if you've not got time to sort something else out, but I think we're better than that. We're good singles players. We could be great at doubles. We just have to work out where we're different.”
“Where your specialty is, and where mine is.”
“Exactly.”
They sit in silence for a while. “We're both all-rounders,” Atobe says, dismally.
“Yes.”
“You play with both hands?”
“Yes. Primarily my left.” Tezuka rattles his paper cup and the ice clunks.
“I play with my right.”
“That's...something.”
“Something.”
More silence. “Perhaps the drawing the line down the court thing might work, after all.” Atobe says.
“No,” Tezuka says, determined in the face of the puzzle. “There must be something.”
“If we haven't thought of anything in the next, say, two days, we go with dividing the court?”
Tezuka nods, seriously. Atobe feels the brevity of it — losing doesn't sit well with him, and he'd optimistically believed that once they'd spent time together, harmony wouldn't be long waiting on them. Ironically, it seems that they're too similar. They both move for the same shots at the same time, in the same way. They overlap like two pieces of film footage, one playing a millisecond behind the other. Nothing wrong with either but together, it's a mess. They spend the first day working on their separate games. On the second day, they are as bad as they've ever been before. Hyotei's sub-regulars are starting to laugh at Atobe. He can't concentrate in class. Thoughts of bedding Tezuka are far from his mind — he's starting to think that if tennis is this bad, sex would be even worse. Apparently, they can only create sparks from opposite sides of the court. Together, they are diabolical. This probably means that they'd only have good sex if each of them were dating other people. When he goes to bed that night, dismally resigned to dividing the court in two, Atobe decides that he is an utter failure. It's a feeling he won't abide, so he 'phones Tezuka up and shouts at him.
He goes to bed again, feeling like an utter failure with an anger management problem. Burrowing his head under the pillow, he makes a sound like dying camel. An utter failure of a dying camel, with an anger management problem.
To: Atobe Keigo
From: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Subject: Tonight.
I don't think there was any need for your behaviour tonight. We are both trying and I am frustrated as you are.
Don't think that I haven't noticed that you're flirting with me. Sanada and Yukimura's situation works for them. I'm not going to sleep with you just to make the tennis better. You're bored by who I am and you're looking for a quick way to win this — I'm not a goal, I'm not a...method. I wish that you would stop it. I wish that you would find a reason to want me, another reason — so I could accept it, without feeling like you want me for
Tezuka sighs and deletes the lot with snap of his finger. He sits with his chin propped in his hand, thinking. Then, because it's easier and because he's cowardly, he sends:
To: Atobe Keigo
From: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Subject: Tonight.
I don't think there was any need for your behaviour tonight. We are both trying and I am frustrated as you are.
Let's meet up tomorrow at 2pm to talk further.
Kunimitsu.
Atobe gives Oshitari a withering look. “It is not worse than the time you and Gakuto played the Golden Pair.”
“The data does not lie.” He is smirking now and twirling noodles around between his chopsticks. They are having some sort of weekday brunch (Oshitari believes, to the contrary of the experts, that he may die if he goes longer than three hours without food and Atobe is too exhausted to argue with him) and Oshitari is ever so slightly crowing.
“What am I going to do? They're already laughing at me, Yuushi. I can't lose.”
“Is it too late to change sides?”
“Yuushi.”
“What? Tennis is more important to you than Tezuka, no?”
“Please don't put my pride and my libido up against each other. The results can only be disastrous.”
“Well, you solved my Gakuto problem by removing Gakuto. Which one of you is the problem — you or him?”
“Both of us. We're too similar. We go for everything at the same time and in the same way.”
“Stylistically-”
“Almost no difference. We're both all-round singles players. We have techniques to deal with all kinds of shots and we resent having to give them up.”
Oshitari pauses in flirting with a cute waitress to fill up their drinks, and thinks. Atobe can feel him thinking, that's the kind of thinking Oshitari does. He's going to make an excellent lawyer. “I see two solutions. One, you shag him senseless in the morning so he's too submissive to care about the court, and will respond happily to any 'naa, Kabaji?' behaviour you want to throw at him.”
Atobe gives him a look.
“Or, you want him play one of your regulars and get him to watch you playing one of your regulars. Each of you watch the other playing singles. You've done that for your opponents, why not each other? You might learn something.”
“Hmm. That's not a bad idea.”
“Of course it isn't. Tensai, remember?” Oshitari sticks out his tongue and narrows his eyes at Atobe's bowl. “Are you done with those?”
When Atobe meets with Tezuka at 2pm, Tezuka is frostier than he's ever been before. There's a barrier wrapped over him; his eyes are not warm, his body is not responsive, and he uses fewer words than normal. He responds to Atobe's proposal with a thin nod and then looks out onto the court at the sub-regular that's been found. Who is sarcastically crossing himself. Tezuka's face says something like Hyotei(!) but he says nothing, merely adjusts his wristband and walks out onto the court. Atobe takes his place by the side of the court, a cross look on his face, and watches. He realises early on that it's a mistake to have chosen a sub-regular, because Tezuka has only improved since he last saw him play. After the first game, Tezuka realises it, too, and drops his game down a notch. It's subtle, but Atobe notices it. He notices other things, too. He notices things he never did when they played; the lines of Tezuka's body as he lines up his serve, the movement as he pulls back and forward with the ball, waiting for it to come to him and then turning it into whatever he needs at the time. The Tezuka Zone is all the more impressive when you're not trying to overcome it. The way he moves his feet is pure poetry. And before he feels like too much of a romantic, Atobe gets up and has a word with Tezuka's opponent. He hasn't seen any of Tezuka's other moves; Tezuka simply hasn't needed them.
“Score is 6:1,” he says, bluntly. The sub-regular all but spits on him. “I want to see more. I'll take some games back. Fight me.”
Tezuka looks at him and suddenly, there's fire, at last. Atobe smirks. “I don't need to throw my coat in the air, Tezuka. Serve.”
After a gruelling forty minutes, Atobe has pulled back 5 games, because he is fresh and Tezuka has been playing longer and because Atobe has improved, too. In the final game, Tezuka shows his full potential and Atobe watches it, pinpoints it, finds a spot to focus on in the midst of the white light that descends when he plays. It dawns on him as he lunges into another jack-knife, that Tezuka is a defensive player. It's subtle; he's not defensive like Oishi is defensive, or like Oshitari was defensive with Gakuto. He is defensive in the sense that he is a submissive player. He plays tennis like he would martial arts; he lets the ball come to him, let's his opponent's strength come to him, and then he uses both against them. It is a talented mental game that it being played. Tezuka's Zone allows him to pull any ball back towards him. His Zero Shiki brings the ball back towards him; it does not attack the opponent the way Atobe's Rondo does. Even the Muga no Kyouchi he's only heard about focuses on Tezuka's own strength rather than any aggressive assault on the other player. Tezuka is in sport as he is in life; always chasing self-development, always bettering himself on a path towards self-actualization and being a good pillar or whatever it is that keeps him up at night these days. Tezuka could win many matches and he would not be a good player — a good person — if he won them in a bad way. Atobe has won many matches in bad ways and it never bothered him until Tezuka.
Where Tezuka pulls back, he rushes forward. There's the Rondo, of course (Tezuka has long gotten used to this one and now moves his hand out of the way without thinking), but also the Tannhauser, which he refuses to use in friendlies because frankly, it makes him feel like his whole body's in bits the next day. Both are aggressive, both flamboyant — they both involve hard, fast serves and spins that distract the opponent. He uses Insight and Koori no Sekai to pinpoint weakness and to exploit it, as brutally and as throughly as he can. In art as in life; Atobe scrutinizes people for flaws and works hard at them to reveal themselves to him. He pushes where others pull back. His flamboyancy distracts those only interested in his surface, and those who see underneath it can overcome him. Tezuka can overcome him. The passive player can beat the aggressive one, merely by turning his tricks to suit himself. Tezuka neatly avoids the Rondo and destroys Koori no Sekai with his Tezuka Zone. Tannhauser is too intensive to use often, if much at all. Tezuka's skill lies in deflecting what comes at him, pulling back for safety and manipulating assaults to advantage him. It's no wonder he's been turning Atobe down for weeks. Perhaps he hasn't yet worked out a way to deflect that sort of assault. It makes Atobe smile, the thought.
“A draw,” he says. “You must be exhausted.”
Tezuka says nothing, but leans with his hands on his knees and then sits on the court, his body gratefully limp. Atobe comes over and sits beside him, leaning back on his hands. The sky is very, very blue and he feels cheerful for the first time in days.
“Did it work?” Tezuka asks.
“Did what work?”
“Your plan to see more.”
“Yes,” Atobe says, carefully. “We play very differently.”
“Only on opposite sides of the court.”
“No — our styles are different. Yours is defensive, mine offensive. You turn other people's tennis around to your advantage, whereas I attempt to destroy other people with my tennis. I'm always on the attack, where you're...you overcome everything they throw at you. You have a move that answers everything. Your skill is in beating everything they have and then...they're defeated. My skill is in not giving them a chance to try.”
Tezuka absorbs this and nods, slowly. He had never given it much thought — playing an honorable game has always come naturally to him. “On the same side of the court, you don't give me much of a chance to try, either.”
“You're too slow.”
“Or you're too fast.”
They look at each other, competitive smiles on their faces. Atobe is the first to speak.
“We need to work out a strategy based on this. On you...defeating their onslaught, and me finishing them off, quickly. It'll be a long game, so if you can knock down their defenses one by one, I can finish it.”
“That makes sense,” Tezuka says. “We need to play more doubles matches. We need to know...what the other is doing, all of the time. We're too singles — we focus on ourselves too much. We need to learn the knack of concentrating on someone else.”
“You know, you could just have sex with me.”
Tezuka looks at Atobe, startled. Atobe sort of looks at himself, startled. He's sure that he wasn't intending to say that. He can't have been. It doesn't help that he wants to laugh at Tezuka's response, or that he does laugh. Once his mouth has been let off the leash, it's hard to get it back again.
“What has that got to do with tennis?”
Tezuka looks stung when he's laughed at — he isn't used to it and it's one of the wiggly social things he doesn't really understand, like high-fives and friendship pacts and saying nice things to a friend in a crisis.
“It has nothing to do with tennis,” Atobe says guiltily, trying to patch things up. “Forget about it.”
Tezuka blinks, and for a moment, he looks lost. Atobe wants to bottle it up and keep it. He's such an idiot. He has everything he's needed right there, right there, and he has to go and ruin it.
“Do you want to-”
Tezuka's question is suddenly unbearable. “No!” he says, for his own protection more than anything else, and Tezuka looks even more stung. Atobe sort of wishes he was dead, or in his father's office, anywhere but here.
There is a very long silence, wherein Atobe could swear that the prayer has been answered and he's actually dying.
“We could meet up tomorrow, then, and play some doubles.” Tezuka's voice has returned to steel.
“Fine. Mine, or yours?”
“Seigaku.”
“Fine.”
They depart and Atobe bashes his head against his door for a bit, because it might knock the tiny granules of remaining sense out of it — just in case he ever decides to do such a stupid thing as try to patch things up with Tezuka. It doesn't work, because three hours and two beers later, he's typing out an e-mail.
To: Tezuka Kunimitsu
From: Atobe Keigo
Subject: Today.
I'm sorry. I said a lot of stupid things and kept saying them because I wasn't sure how you'd take them. I'm not normally this crass (or this stupid). If you want to say no more about it, then I understand. If you want the truth of the matter then...you only need ask.
I might be an idiot, but at least I'm an honest idiot.
Alternatively, if this is making everything worse, this e-mail doesn't exist.
See you tomorrow.
Keigo.
To: Atobe Keigo
From: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Subject: To an honest idiot.
You are the most confusing person I have ever met.
Kunimitsu.
To: Tezuka Kunimitsu
From: Atobe Keigo
Subject: Re: To an honest idiot.
Is that a compliment, ahhnn? Are you yoi'd by my confusing prowess?
Keigo.
To: Atobe Keigo
From: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Subject: It is impossible to be impressed by confusion.
Not particularly. Mostly, I'm just confused.
Kunimitsu.
To: Tezuka Kunimitsu
From: Atobe Keigo
Subject: Ore-sama is crushed.
You have a cold, cold heart, Kunimitsu.
Keigo.
To: Atobe Keigo
From: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Subject: ...
No, just intolerance for stupidity.
Kunimitsu.
To: Tezuka Kunimitsu
From: Atobe Keigo
Subject: Ore-sama is dead.
I am not stupid. I want you, after all.
Keigo.
To: Oshitari Yuushi
From: Atobe Keigo
Subject: FUCK. FUCK FUCK BOLLOCKING SHIT.
A non-reply to 'I want you' isn't good, is it? Fuck this, I'm going to bed.
Keigo.
To: Atobe Keigo
From: Tezuka Kunimitsu
Subject: -
Maybe we can talk about that. I'd...like to talk about that.
If you're being serious?
Kunimitsu.
He waits for half an hour, then an hour, and there is no response. Then, he shuts the computer down and goes to bed, wondering when everything in his life became so difficult.