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PoT fic: Portions for Foxes (Oshitari/Gakuto, Oshitari/Atobe)
Title: Portions for Foxes
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Pairing: Oshitari/Gakuto, Oshitari/Atobe
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pixxers, as part of The Big Red Challenge.
.
At six years old, Gakuto's best friend is called Maiko-chan. She's a girl with a badly cut bowl-shaped hairstyle, like Gakuto, only her face is heart-shaped so she gets away with it. He adores her, in that purely platonic, totally fickle way children have. They do everything together. In a way, it's bliss because Gakuto doesn't ever have to think about kissing her or pleasing her. If he turns up with jam sandwiches, that seems to do enough.
She moves away when Gakuto is eight years old. He cries for three days.
The day after that, he befriends a girl called Banko-chan. She's like Maiko-chan, but she's cuter. Her mother talks incessantly about how cute she is. She doesn't like Gakuto much because he's a boy, and he's always leading her daughter into muddy scrapes, but it's okay. Gakuto brings a change of socks and an umbrella when his mother nags him to, and that's enough for Banko-chan.
At thirteen, Gakuto doesn't understand how girls got so complicated. How boys got so complicated. How life got so complicated.
It starts with his first proper crush. He and Atobe have watched videos with Ayumi Hamasaki, flat out on Atobe's father's carpet. Atobe has a very big television and Gakuto remembers feeling himself getting all excited and praying to God that Atobe hasn't noticed. Ayumi Hamasaki isn't a proper woman, though. Not like Chieko-san, their history teacher.
She has long hair and dark eyes and a way of carrying herself that makes Gakuto think she should be anything but a teacher of young, unruly kids. Her chin tilts upwards and she wears poloneck jumpers, cropped at the arms, clingy on the chest. Long skirts, but tight, and high heels, too. Atobe is, naturally, completely besotted with her. She has “class”, he says in his uptight accent, clearly suggesting that she and he alone possess the trait and therefore will inevitably fall into one another's arms.
Which is, Gakuto points out, tacky in itself. Besides, Atobe has six girlfriends and a hundred potential wives so Gakuto thinks that he should leave Chieko-san to him. Atobe being as selfless as he is, though, he doesn't, and continues to pester Gakuto about his lack of height and his lack of experience until Gakuto punches him as high up as he can reach. Atobe seems to have a newfound respect for him after that. Gakuto thinks he must be used to it, from Shishido.
Shishido has a girlfriend, too. She isn't as interested in him as in Atobe, but she lets him touch her breasts, which is a fair trade-off. “At least,” he snarls at Gakuto. “I know what a tit feels like.”
Gakuto decides that he has to get a girlfriend. It's a matter of pride.
Unfortunately, the week he decides this is the week his gets his first public erection. Chieko-san doesn't notice but she's the only one – Gakuto discovers that the more you try and get rid of something like that, the more it sticks around. He's flaming with embarrassment by the end of the class and none of the girls will go within three meters of him. He's dubbed 'pervert', which would sound all bad and attractive on Shishido but on him just sounds sad and pathetic, like a man in a mac in the park, or a nerd with an addiction to porno.
“See, she didn't even look down there,” Atobe says, at lunch. “That's class.”
“She's probably not interested in some kid's cock.” Shishido says with a snort and a roll of his eyes. “She wants a real man.”
Gakuto wants to scream. Instead, he tips his orange juice all over Atobe's lunch and stalks off.
Atobe salvages his papers, pushes the tray into the centre of the table and folds his arms. “He isn't being on my tennis team next year. That's it.”
Shishido rolls his eyes. “Stop being a dick.”
“He got orange juice on my shirt!”
“Yeah, so. It's not like anyone thinks we're men. Get real. Our girlfriends think we're pathetic.”
“Not for long,” Atobe says cryptically. “I've been reading magazines.”
“Fuck.” Shishido says, gloomily. “Can I borrow them?”
Atobe thinks for a moment. “Nope,” he says, cheerfully.
At the end of the week, Gakuto gets a date with a transfer student. She's from Osaka and she doesn't know anything about him other than that he's flexible and doesn't get erections in public, and he's keen to keep it that way. He's so pleading and useless with Shishido and Atobe that they swear not to mention it to her, though they snigger behind their hands when he talks about her.
They go on a date to Tokyo Dome, which Shishido always reckons is a good place to take a date because it's easy to lose someone in. Gakuto doesn't want to lose Yuuka, so he psyches himself up and takes her hand. It's easily done and she seems comfortable with it, in a shy and silent sort of way. He tries to think of something to talk about that'll impress her, but he can't think of a single thing. So he asks her about her family.
“My grandparents are back home,” she says. “My parents are dead.”
“Oh.” He says, deflated. “Um. Sorry.”
“It's okay.” She says. But it takes the wind of the sails. He buys her a drink and a packet of candy because he can't afford an ice cream, and she drinks it without saying much.
“So.” He says. “Do you want to go on the rollercoaster?”
“Not so much,” she says. “But the wheel would be okay. The ferris wheel.”
“Sure,” he says, taking her hand. He can protect her from the fear she'll feel, being up so high. He can be manly and impress her with his muscles, rather than his brain.
Unfortunately he takes the impressing part a bit far, and kisses her on the mouth. At which point she slaps him for being impulsive. He makes a mental note that nowhere, nowhere is more awkward for a failed first kiss than being trapped in a small cage 100 meters off the ground.
Gakuto decides that girls aren't much important, after all, after that.
“Wow,” Shishido is laughing. “That really takes the biscuit. And I thought I was pathetic.”
Atobe looks at him. “You are pathetic. She offered to sleep with you and you said 'no'?”
“She offered to sleep with me and you.” Shishido enunciates. “Of course I said 'no'.”
Atobe considers this. “To be fair, I wouldn't sleep with her either.”
Shishido kicks him under the table. “It isn't like we have a whole lot of choice.”
“Yeah,” Gakuto can agree with that. “Girls are shit.”
“Au contraire,” Atobe says, smirking. “My magazines are paying off.”
“Got laid yet?” Shishido says, eyes narrowed.
Atobe raises his chin. “Almost.”
“Not the same thing.” Gakuto says.
“I'd advise you to be quiet, kid,” Atobe says, eyes flashing at him. “In your situation.”
“He's right, though,” Shishido argues. “It isn't the same.”
“Any day now,” Atobe says, stubbornly. “I'm closer than either of you two!”
“Hey, my girlfriend offered.” Shishido says. “I'm way ahead of you.”
“You said 'no'!”
“Doesn't matter. Someone wants to have sex with me.”
Atobe is indignant. “Someone wants to have sex with me!”
“Sure,” Shishido says, lazily, picking up Atobe's orange juice. “She just...isn't.”
“Can we stop talking about girls,” Gakuto says, depressed. “Please.”
Shishido groans. “Oh, fuck, he's only going to move on and talk about-”
“Bet you're not going anywhere as nice as Morocco this holiday,” Atobe says, grinning widely.
Gakuto wishes he was in Morocco. He's heard that girls sunbathe naked there. He thinks that's the only reason Atobe wants to accompany his father on a trip, for once. Everything, everything is about sex. Junior High School isn't a school. It's a sex academy. It's evolution. It's hundreds of guys hunkering to get their cocks out and plant the nearest available female. Survival of the fittest.
He's 5 foot 2. If he were alone, he'd cry.
The biggest problem, though, is one that's been thus far eclipsed by his women troubles. In a weird way, it's less disturbing than his lack of prowess with women because he's not being marked or judged on it. Nobody knows about it, so it's a blissful little secret. It embarrasses only him. He's starting to think, has been starting to think for some time, that he likes guys as well as girls. It's possibly just that all the women he wants don't want him and he's sex-crazed so turning to whatever's left. Possibly. That could be all it is. But then he finds himself gazing at Shishido's thighs and he wonders.
There are only two final examinations involved in graduating this year of Junior High. One of them is to know what a tit feels like. The other is to stop finding the thighs of people like Shishido attractive.
Three months before the end of the year, Oshitari Yuushi joins the school. He's a transfer student from Osaka, so a humiliated Gakuto ignores the teacher's announcement. He's doodling on his notepad. He only looks up when Atobe clears his throat, and then he looks at Atobe first. Who is wearing a look of absolute thunder. The girls have all shifted an inch forwards, their eyes pricking with interest. Gakuto turns his eyes to the front of the classroom and has to work to keep his jaw closed.
Oshitari Yuushi is tall and lithe, with thick black hair and big, dark eyes. He is pretty, in a sleek sort of feline way Atobe can't manage. He looks like he hasn't put much effort into it, which is why Atobe can't manage it. He has plump lips and a naughty look on his face and Gakuto likes him immediately.
The only problem is his track record with Kansai transfers. And that Oshitari Yuushi is a 'he'.
“I can't fucking believe it,” Atobe is saying. “This school will let anybody in.”
Shishido munches on an apple and raises an eyebrow. “Huh? We don't even know this guy. What are you on?”
“He's common. You can tell just by looking at him. I thought this was supposed to be an elite sort of place.”
Gakuto rolls his eyes. “You're just upset because the girls think he's pretty.”
“I couldn't care less.” Atobe sniffs. “What the girls think.”
“Sure you can,” Gakuto reasons. “It's survival of the fittest.”
“He is not prettier than me.” Atobe says, a bit affronted.
“This conversation has officially become gay.” Shishido groans.
“He's prettier than you.” Gakuto grins. “Way prettier.”
“I don't know whether to clap you on the back for trying to piss him off,” Shishido says. “Or whether to accuse you of being a total pussy for what you just said.”
“If he was a girl, you'd have your tongue out for him. Her. Er.” Gakuto shrugs. “You know you would.”
“He isn't a girl.” Shishido says.
“He looks like one.” Atobe mutters, darkly.
“Enough!” Shishido says, slamming his hands on the table. “Gakuto's being gay and you're being an insecure tit. I can't cope with both at once. One of you, stop it.”
Gakuto goes quiet. Atobe does, too. A sullen sort of quiet. Shishido steals his orange juice and quietly says, “oh, for fuck's sake.”
Oshitari Yuushi, it turns out, is a very lonely sort of person as well as a terribly attractive one. Gakuto offers to let him sit next to him, which makes Shishido snort and Atobe glower. Oshitari seems to appreciate it and talks in a low voice about his family back home and the school he used to be it, and how cold Tokyo is.
“Your parents aren't dead, are they?” Gakuto asks.
“No,” Oshitari says, looking surprised. “Are many people's parents here dead?”
“No,” Gakuto says. “This girl is also from Osaka and her parents are dead.”
“No mighty force in Osaka was wiping out parents when I was there last,” Oshitari says. “Is the girl in your class? I'd like to meet her. People here don't seem to like us much.”
“It's the accent,” Gakuto shrugs. “They think it's funny. It's a joke.”
Oshitari thinks about this. “I'm not sure what's funny about it.”
“Me neither,” Gakuto agrees. “The girls like it. It's sort of...y'know. Stuff.”
“I've been told before that my accent is stuff.” Oshitari agrees mildly. “Very, very stuff.”
“Shut up.” Gakuto says.
“No.” Oshitari says.
They smile at each other. Gakuto thinks he's in love. Which is why he takes Oshitari to lunch with him.
“You realise that you're going to have to attend elocution lessons?” Atobe says, pointedly. “If you want to fit in here.”
“I'm planning to win people over by charm, actually,” Oshitari says. “But thanks for the tip.”
“He's very charming.” Gakuto says.
“Shut up, gnome.” Shishido says.
“The girls seem to like you.” Atobe sniffs. “So you might do alright there.”
“I'm sworn off girls,” Oshitari shrugs. “They're trouble.”
Shishido quirks an eyebrow. “How far have you got?”
“Ryou,” Atobe says. “Don't be crass.”
Oshitari gives him a knowing look that says 'you don't fool me - you're just as bad'. Atobe narrows his eyes at it, then returns to peeling his apple, smirking a little. Oshitari shrugs, biting into his apple. “Some,” he says. “I came here to concentrate on my studies. Girls, they're trouble.”
“So you're just here to study, and that's it?” Shishido looks at him with disbelief.
“No, actually.” Oshitari swallows. “Do you guys know where I can sign up for the tennis team?”
Atobe chokes on his juice.
“I was just beginning to like him.” He says, later, tearing his school shirt off. “Just. You know with that look. He sees people. He's clever. But, no, fuck, that's it. He wants the fucking captaincy on top of everything else.”
“You don't know that,” Gakuto says, rolling his eyes. “He's nice.”
“He's suspicious, is what he is.” Atobe says.
“Don't mind him, Keigo,” Shishido says. “He's protective of his boyfriend.”
“He's not my boyfriend.” Gakuto says. “I just like him. Alright?”
“Sure thing, homo.” Shishido says, swinging his racket over his shoulder. “You coming?”
Oshitari Yuushi is so good at tennis that Atobe is practically spitting teeth by the end of practice. So good that Atobe stomps up to him and spits, “good game” at him as if it's an insult.
“Thanks,” Oshitari says mildly. “Yours, too.”
“You're out for the captaincy, aren't you. You can be honest. It isn't like you stand a chance.”
Oshitari looks at him seriously. “Then why do you care?”
“I like to know where I stand. I've been preparing myself for it for the past 18 months. It's mine.”
“You were the kid who couldn't share, right?” Oshitari chuckles. “I'm not out for the captaincy. I just want to play tennis, alright? I used to play back home. Doubles, mostly. I don't care about your glory or your trophies.” His face turns, a bit. “I just want to fit in here. That's all.”
There's silence in the changing rooms, afterwards. Atobe has the face of a wounded tiger and Gakuto, as much as he tries to help it, can't stop staring at the line of Oshitari's back. It seems to go on forever. He has long legs and better thighs than Shishido. He's doomed.
After everyone is gone, Gakuto looks at Oshitari, now reassuringly clothed. “You wanna go get a burger?” he says.
“Is everyone that hostile,” Oshitari asks, heatedly. “At Hyotei?”
“Yes,” Gakuto says. Then, “no. Mostly it's Atobe. You're in his territory so he's pissing all over it. He'll calm down. He's just. His father's really rich and he has these issues and, just, it'll be fine. I think you're great.” Inside, he slaps himself. “I mean. I'll be your friend.”
“Thank you,” Oshitari says, more appreciative of the gesture than amused by it, which surprises Gakuto. “I miss my friends back home. It's difficult. I didn't think people would be like this.”
“It'll be okay,” Gakuto says, chewing on a fry. “They're just getting used to you. The girls like you.”
“Hah, they're trouble, like I said.” Oshitari nods. “Everyone is kinda...keen to get to them, here.”
“Everything's competition at Hyotei,” Gakuto says. “Tennis, school, girls. First to get there wins.”
“I'm in Atobe's territory again.”
“You got it.”
“Huh.” Oshitari nods. “Well, I don't know. I don't want a girlfriend and I don't want the captaincy. I just want to play doubles and make some friends and...you know, fit in. Like I said.”
“Doubles?” Gakuto is surprised. Oshitari seems such a good singles player. “I'm a doubles player, too.”
“Yeah?” Oshitari smiles. “We should practice together.”
Later, the thought drifts through Gakuto's mind when he's doing homework. The things he and Oshitari could practice together. On girls. On each other. He imagines his lips, bee stung and wet, on his stomach, on his hips, on his cock. He drops his pen and tries to breathe. Imagines Oshitari's hair beneath his fingers, all thick and wavy and good to tug. He licks one palm and undoes his fly with the other, checking over his shoulder at the door. It's locked.
He runs his wet hand over his cock, which twitches, and closes his eyes. Oshitari's mouth would be cavernous and warm and his tongue all soft, all perfect, right in the places Gakuto likes it when it's his hand. Oshitari would have the kind of prowess he has on the court. He'd hold Gakuto's hips down with one hand as he sucked, he'd have a mouth like a Dyson, like a cyclone. Gakuto would impress him with his ability to hold off, but it'd all be too much, like it is in the cold bedroom, like it is on the cold chair, and Gakuto comes all over his own hand in a rush. His knees are shaking and he's sticky, but the images are still burned onto his retinas.
This is not good progress, he tells himself. Not in the least.
The day Atobe scores with his girlfriend is the worst Gakuto can remember. He's so smug and big-headed that he's surprised that the roof is still on. His girlfriend is also there, all the time, and Gakuto can't find a minute to talk to anyone about the huge problem he's having with his erection being wired up only to work with Oshitari Yuushi.
Shishido is sulking, too, which makes it easier. They walk home from school together and Gakuto lets Shishido moan through a cigarette, about how it's all so unfair and how he wishes he'd taken his ex up on her offer, even if it'd meant going to bed with Atobe, because it would have been worth it to beat him. He doesn't think he'll get another chance.
“Now he's got some, girls will think he's good,” he concludes, despondently. “It'll only get worse.”
“If a girl offered me sex, but only if I went to bed with Oshitari,” Gakuto begins. “I'd do it.”
Shishido chuckles. “I know you would.”
“I'd do it without the girl, Ryou.”
Shishido bursts out laughing, so Gakuto stops him by the forearms and turns him around to face him.
“I'm serious.”
“You think you're...really? Seriously?”
“No,” Gakuto says. “No. I don't think so. It's just something about him.”
Shishido considers that. “He has a weird presence.”
“It's not weird. It's...we click. We have this...thing together.”
“Then tell him. Can't go any worse than the rest of your dates.”
“Fuck off,” Gakuto says. But it's a thought.
Gakuto realises, too late, that one place worse for a failed kiss is the place where the person you really like, doesn't like you.
Oshitari pulls back and his face is shocked. Not unkindly, just surprised. “Mukahi,” he says, he breathes.
It's so much worse than anything that's ever happened to Gakuto before. Maiko-chan leaving. The kiss on the ferris wheel. Even Atobe getting laid before the rest of them. “I am,” he says. “Going to die of humiliation. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'll...fuck. I'll go.”
“No,” Oshitari says. “Listen. I'm just...you're a friend to me. I know this conversation sucks, but I'm being honest. You're my best friend right now. I don't want that to end. I want to play tennis with you and hit the arcades after school. I want us to be able to talk. I just can't do this.”
Gakuto looks at him. It isn't a rejection, said like that. So he brushes himself down and takes a deep breath.
“It's not because of me?”
Oshitari looks at him, seriously. “No, of course not. I just – you're my friend. You're my best friend. Don't worry about the getting laid and the catching up stuff. It's all bullshit. You're great the way you are. Just tell Atobe where to stick it.”
“You like Atobe, don't you?” Gakuto says, and it's a relief. That he hasn't just kissed a straight guy. That Oshitari just likes someone else. That it isn't revulsion. Just taste.
Oshitari considers this. “I don't know, yet.”
Gakuto nods. “I had that problem.”
“What did you do?”
“I looked at your thighs a lot.”
“Did it help?”
“Of course not, you idiot. Why would it?”
“I don't know,” Oshitari says, plainly. “I have really good thighs.”
Gakuto wants to punch him in the face. But also to kiss him, again. So he settles for neither, swallows down the feelings, and gets on with his complicated, stupid life.
They finish the year. Shishido catches up with Atobe. Atobe has only had one more girlfriend, under pressure from end-of-term exams. Gakuto knows what a tit feels like. And he knows that people like Shishido deserve to have their thighs looked at.
Atobe gets the captaincy. Gakuto and Oshitari start playing doubles together. Things change, but for the better. Everything settles down. Girls are, as Oshitari always said, trouble.
Atobe's latest girlfriend tells him that she'll have sex with him if he brings Oshitari along. Atobe slants his eyes across the room, and doesn't say anything, for quite a while.
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Pairing: Oshitari/Gakuto, Oshitari/Atobe
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Written for
pixxers, as part of The Big Red Challenge..
At six years old, Gakuto's best friend is called Maiko-chan. She's a girl with a badly cut bowl-shaped hairstyle, like Gakuto, only her face is heart-shaped so she gets away with it. He adores her, in that purely platonic, totally fickle way children have. They do everything together. In a way, it's bliss because Gakuto doesn't ever have to think about kissing her or pleasing her. If he turns up with jam sandwiches, that seems to do enough.
She moves away when Gakuto is eight years old. He cries for three days.
The day after that, he befriends a girl called Banko-chan. She's like Maiko-chan, but she's cuter. Her mother talks incessantly about how cute she is. She doesn't like Gakuto much because he's a boy, and he's always leading her daughter into muddy scrapes, but it's okay. Gakuto brings a change of socks and an umbrella when his mother nags him to, and that's enough for Banko-chan.
At thirteen, Gakuto doesn't understand how girls got so complicated. How boys got so complicated. How life got so complicated.
It starts with his first proper crush. He and Atobe have watched videos with Ayumi Hamasaki, flat out on Atobe's father's carpet. Atobe has a very big television and Gakuto remembers feeling himself getting all excited and praying to God that Atobe hasn't noticed. Ayumi Hamasaki isn't a proper woman, though. Not like Chieko-san, their history teacher.
She has long hair and dark eyes and a way of carrying herself that makes Gakuto think she should be anything but a teacher of young, unruly kids. Her chin tilts upwards and she wears poloneck jumpers, cropped at the arms, clingy on the chest. Long skirts, but tight, and high heels, too. Atobe is, naturally, completely besotted with her. She has “class”, he says in his uptight accent, clearly suggesting that she and he alone possess the trait and therefore will inevitably fall into one another's arms.
Which is, Gakuto points out, tacky in itself. Besides, Atobe has six girlfriends and a hundred potential wives so Gakuto thinks that he should leave Chieko-san to him. Atobe being as selfless as he is, though, he doesn't, and continues to pester Gakuto about his lack of height and his lack of experience until Gakuto punches him as high up as he can reach. Atobe seems to have a newfound respect for him after that. Gakuto thinks he must be used to it, from Shishido.
Shishido has a girlfriend, too. She isn't as interested in him as in Atobe, but she lets him touch her breasts, which is a fair trade-off. “At least,” he snarls at Gakuto. “I know what a tit feels like.”
Gakuto decides that he has to get a girlfriend. It's a matter of pride.
Unfortunately, the week he decides this is the week his gets his first public erection. Chieko-san doesn't notice but she's the only one – Gakuto discovers that the more you try and get rid of something like that, the more it sticks around. He's flaming with embarrassment by the end of the class and none of the girls will go within three meters of him. He's dubbed 'pervert', which would sound all bad and attractive on Shishido but on him just sounds sad and pathetic, like a man in a mac in the park, or a nerd with an addiction to porno.
“See, she didn't even look down there,” Atobe says, at lunch. “That's class.”
“She's probably not interested in some kid's cock.” Shishido says with a snort and a roll of his eyes. “She wants a real man.”
Gakuto wants to scream. Instead, he tips his orange juice all over Atobe's lunch and stalks off.
Atobe salvages his papers, pushes the tray into the centre of the table and folds his arms. “He isn't being on my tennis team next year. That's it.”
Shishido rolls his eyes. “Stop being a dick.”
“He got orange juice on my shirt!”
“Yeah, so. It's not like anyone thinks we're men. Get real. Our girlfriends think we're pathetic.”
“Not for long,” Atobe says cryptically. “I've been reading magazines.”
“Fuck.” Shishido says, gloomily. “Can I borrow them?”
Atobe thinks for a moment. “Nope,” he says, cheerfully.
At the end of the week, Gakuto gets a date with a transfer student. She's from Osaka and she doesn't know anything about him other than that he's flexible and doesn't get erections in public, and he's keen to keep it that way. He's so pleading and useless with Shishido and Atobe that they swear not to mention it to her, though they snigger behind their hands when he talks about her.
They go on a date to Tokyo Dome, which Shishido always reckons is a good place to take a date because it's easy to lose someone in. Gakuto doesn't want to lose Yuuka, so he psyches himself up and takes her hand. It's easily done and she seems comfortable with it, in a shy and silent sort of way. He tries to think of something to talk about that'll impress her, but he can't think of a single thing. So he asks her about her family.
“My grandparents are back home,” she says. “My parents are dead.”
“Oh.” He says, deflated. “Um. Sorry.”
“It's okay.” She says. But it takes the wind of the sails. He buys her a drink and a packet of candy because he can't afford an ice cream, and she drinks it without saying much.
“So.” He says. “Do you want to go on the rollercoaster?”
“Not so much,” she says. “But the wheel would be okay. The ferris wheel.”
“Sure,” he says, taking her hand. He can protect her from the fear she'll feel, being up so high. He can be manly and impress her with his muscles, rather than his brain.
Unfortunately he takes the impressing part a bit far, and kisses her on the mouth. At which point she slaps him for being impulsive. He makes a mental note that nowhere, nowhere is more awkward for a failed first kiss than being trapped in a small cage 100 meters off the ground.
Gakuto decides that girls aren't much important, after all, after that.
“Wow,” Shishido is laughing. “That really takes the biscuit. And I thought I was pathetic.”
Atobe looks at him. “You are pathetic. She offered to sleep with you and you said 'no'?”
“She offered to sleep with me and you.” Shishido enunciates. “Of course I said 'no'.”
Atobe considers this. “To be fair, I wouldn't sleep with her either.”
Shishido kicks him under the table. “It isn't like we have a whole lot of choice.”
“Yeah,” Gakuto can agree with that. “Girls are shit.”
“Au contraire,” Atobe says, smirking. “My magazines are paying off.”
“Got laid yet?” Shishido says, eyes narrowed.
Atobe raises his chin. “Almost.”
“Not the same thing.” Gakuto says.
“I'd advise you to be quiet, kid,” Atobe says, eyes flashing at him. “In your situation.”
“He's right, though,” Shishido argues. “It isn't the same.”
“Any day now,” Atobe says, stubbornly. “I'm closer than either of you two!”
“Hey, my girlfriend offered.” Shishido says. “I'm way ahead of you.”
“You said 'no'!”
“Doesn't matter. Someone wants to have sex with me.”
Atobe is indignant. “Someone wants to have sex with me!”
“Sure,” Shishido says, lazily, picking up Atobe's orange juice. “She just...isn't.”
“Can we stop talking about girls,” Gakuto says, depressed. “Please.”
Shishido groans. “Oh, fuck, he's only going to move on and talk about-”
“Bet you're not going anywhere as nice as Morocco this holiday,” Atobe says, grinning widely.
Gakuto wishes he was in Morocco. He's heard that girls sunbathe naked there. He thinks that's the only reason Atobe wants to accompany his father on a trip, for once. Everything, everything is about sex. Junior High School isn't a school. It's a sex academy. It's evolution. It's hundreds of guys hunkering to get their cocks out and plant the nearest available female. Survival of the fittest.
He's 5 foot 2. If he were alone, he'd cry.
The biggest problem, though, is one that's been thus far eclipsed by his women troubles. In a weird way, it's less disturbing than his lack of prowess with women because he's not being marked or judged on it. Nobody knows about it, so it's a blissful little secret. It embarrasses only him. He's starting to think, has been starting to think for some time, that he likes guys as well as girls. It's possibly just that all the women he wants don't want him and he's sex-crazed so turning to whatever's left. Possibly. That could be all it is. But then he finds himself gazing at Shishido's thighs and he wonders.
There are only two final examinations involved in graduating this year of Junior High. One of them is to know what a tit feels like. The other is to stop finding the thighs of people like Shishido attractive.
Three months before the end of the year, Oshitari Yuushi joins the school. He's a transfer student from Osaka, so a humiliated Gakuto ignores the teacher's announcement. He's doodling on his notepad. He only looks up when Atobe clears his throat, and then he looks at Atobe first. Who is wearing a look of absolute thunder. The girls have all shifted an inch forwards, their eyes pricking with interest. Gakuto turns his eyes to the front of the classroom and has to work to keep his jaw closed.
Oshitari Yuushi is tall and lithe, with thick black hair and big, dark eyes. He is pretty, in a sleek sort of feline way Atobe can't manage. He looks like he hasn't put much effort into it, which is why Atobe can't manage it. He has plump lips and a naughty look on his face and Gakuto likes him immediately.
The only problem is his track record with Kansai transfers. And that Oshitari Yuushi is a 'he'.
“I can't fucking believe it,” Atobe is saying. “This school will let anybody in.”
Shishido munches on an apple and raises an eyebrow. “Huh? We don't even know this guy. What are you on?”
“He's common. You can tell just by looking at him. I thought this was supposed to be an elite sort of place.”
Gakuto rolls his eyes. “You're just upset because the girls think he's pretty.”
“I couldn't care less.” Atobe sniffs. “What the girls think.”
“Sure you can,” Gakuto reasons. “It's survival of the fittest.”
“He is not prettier than me.” Atobe says, a bit affronted.
“This conversation has officially become gay.” Shishido groans.
“He's prettier than you.” Gakuto grins. “Way prettier.”
“I don't know whether to clap you on the back for trying to piss him off,” Shishido says. “Or whether to accuse you of being a total pussy for what you just said.”
“If he was a girl, you'd have your tongue out for him. Her. Er.” Gakuto shrugs. “You know you would.”
“He isn't a girl.” Shishido says.
“He looks like one.” Atobe mutters, darkly.
“Enough!” Shishido says, slamming his hands on the table. “Gakuto's being gay and you're being an insecure tit. I can't cope with both at once. One of you, stop it.”
Gakuto goes quiet. Atobe does, too. A sullen sort of quiet. Shishido steals his orange juice and quietly says, “oh, for fuck's sake.”
Oshitari Yuushi, it turns out, is a very lonely sort of person as well as a terribly attractive one. Gakuto offers to let him sit next to him, which makes Shishido snort and Atobe glower. Oshitari seems to appreciate it and talks in a low voice about his family back home and the school he used to be it, and how cold Tokyo is.
“Your parents aren't dead, are they?” Gakuto asks.
“No,” Oshitari says, looking surprised. “Are many people's parents here dead?”
“No,” Gakuto says. “This girl is also from Osaka and her parents are dead.”
“No mighty force in Osaka was wiping out parents when I was there last,” Oshitari says. “Is the girl in your class? I'd like to meet her. People here don't seem to like us much.”
“It's the accent,” Gakuto shrugs. “They think it's funny. It's a joke.”
Oshitari thinks about this. “I'm not sure what's funny about it.”
“Me neither,” Gakuto agrees. “The girls like it. It's sort of...y'know. Stuff.”
“I've been told before that my accent is stuff.” Oshitari agrees mildly. “Very, very stuff.”
“Shut up.” Gakuto says.
“No.” Oshitari says.
They smile at each other. Gakuto thinks he's in love. Which is why he takes Oshitari to lunch with him.
“You realise that you're going to have to attend elocution lessons?” Atobe says, pointedly. “If you want to fit in here.”
“I'm planning to win people over by charm, actually,” Oshitari says. “But thanks for the tip.”
“He's very charming.” Gakuto says.
“Shut up, gnome.” Shishido says.
“The girls seem to like you.” Atobe sniffs. “So you might do alright there.”
“I'm sworn off girls,” Oshitari shrugs. “They're trouble.”
Shishido quirks an eyebrow. “How far have you got?”
“Ryou,” Atobe says. “Don't be crass.”
Oshitari gives him a knowing look that says 'you don't fool me - you're just as bad'. Atobe narrows his eyes at it, then returns to peeling his apple, smirking a little. Oshitari shrugs, biting into his apple. “Some,” he says. “I came here to concentrate on my studies. Girls, they're trouble.”
“So you're just here to study, and that's it?” Shishido looks at him with disbelief.
“No, actually.” Oshitari swallows. “Do you guys know where I can sign up for the tennis team?”
Atobe chokes on his juice.
“I was just beginning to like him.” He says, later, tearing his school shirt off. “Just. You know with that look. He sees people. He's clever. But, no, fuck, that's it. He wants the fucking captaincy on top of everything else.”
“You don't know that,” Gakuto says, rolling his eyes. “He's nice.”
“He's suspicious, is what he is.” Atobe says.
“Don't mind him, Keigo,” Shishido says. “He's protective of his boyfriend.”
“He's not my boyfriend.” Gakuto says. “I just like him. Alright?”
“Sure thing, homo.” Shishido says, swinging his racket over his shoulder. “You coming?”
Oshitari Yuushi is so good at tennis that Atobe is practically spitting teeth by the end of practice. So good that Atobe stomps up to him and spits, “good game” at him as if it's an insult.
“Thanks,” Oshitari says mildly. “Yours, too.”
“You're out for the captaincy, aren't you. You can be honest. It isn't like you stand a chance.”
Oshitari looks at him seriously. “Then why do you care?”
“I like to know where I stand. I've been preparing myself for it for the past 18 months. It's mine.”
“You were the kid who couldn't share, right?” Oshitari chuckles. “I'm not out for the captaincy. I just want to play tennis, alright? I used to play back home. Doubles, mostly. I don't care about your glory or your trophies.” His face turns, a bit. “I just want to fit in here. That's all.”
There's silence in the changing rooms, afterwards. Atobe has the face of a wounded tiger and Gakuto, as much as he tries to help it, can't stop staring at the line of Oshitari's back. It seems to go on forever. He has long legs and better thighs than Shishido. He's doomed.
After everyone is gone, Gakuto looks at Oshitari, now reassuringly clothed. “You wanna go get a burger?” he says.
“Is everyone that hostile,” Oshitari asks, heatedly. “At Hyotei?”
“Yes,” Gakuto says. Then, “no. Mostly it's Atobe. You're in his territory so he's pissing all over it. He'll calm down. He's just. His father's really rich and he has these issues and, just, it'll be fine. I think you're great.” Inside, he slaps himself. “I mean. I'll be your friend.”
“Thank you,” Oshitari says, more appreciative of the gesture than amused by it, which surprises Gakuto. “I miss my friends back home. It's difficult. I didn't think people would be like this.”
“It'll be okay,” Gakuto says, chewing on a fry. “They're just getting used to you. The girls like you.”
“Hah, they're trouble, like I said.” Oshitari nods. “Everyone is kinda...keen to get to them, here.”
“Everything's competition at Hyotei,” Gakuto says. “Tennis, school, girls. First to get there wins.”
“I'm in Atobe's territory again.”
“You got it.”
“Huh.” Oshitari nods. “Well, I don't know. I don't want a girlfriend and I don't want the captaincy. I just want to play doubles and make some friends and...you know, fit in. Like I said.”
“Doubles?” Gakuto is surprised. Oshitari seems such a good singles player. “I'm a doubles player, too.”
“Yeah?” Oshitari smiles. “We should practice together.”
Later, the thought drifts through Gakuto's mind when he's doing homework. The things he and Oshitari could practice together. On girls. On each other. He imagines his lips, bee stung and wet, on his stomach, on his hips, on his cock. He drops his pen and tries to breathe. Imagines Oshitari's hair beneath his fingers, all thick and wavy and good to tug. He licks one palm and undoes his fly with the other, checking over his shoulder at the door. It's locked.
He runs his wet hand over his cock, which twitches, and closes his eyes. Oshitari's mouth would be cavernous and warm and his tongue all soft, all perfect, right in the places Gakuto likes it when it's his hand. Oshitari would have the kind of prowess he has on the court. He'd hold Gakuto's hips down with one hand as he sucked, he'd have a mouth like a Dyson, like a cyclone. Gakuto would impress him with his ability to hold off, but it'd all be too much, like it is in the cold bedroom, like it is on the cold chair, and Gakuto comes all over his own hand in a rush. His knees are shaking and he's sticky, but the images are still burned onto his retinas.
This is not good progress, he tells himself. Not in the least.
The day Atobe scores with his girlfriend is the worst Gakuto can remember. He's so smug and big-headed that he's surprised that the roof is still on. His girlfriend is also there, all the time, and Gakuto can't find a minute to talk to anyone about the huge problem he's having with his erection being wired up only to work with Oshitari Yuushi.
Shishido is sulking, too, which makes it easier. They walk home from school together and Gakuto lets Shishido moan through a cigarette, about how it's all so unfair and how he wishes he'd taken his ex up on her offer, even if it'd meant going to bed with Atobe, because it would have been worth it to beat him. He doesn't think he'll get another chance.
“Now he's got some, girls will think he's good,” he concludes, despondently. “It'll only get worse.”
“If a girl offered me sex, but only if I went to bed with Oshitari,” Gakuto begins. “I'd do it.”
Shishido chuckles. “I know you would.”
“I'd do it without the girl, Ryou.”
Shishido bursts out laughing, so Gakuto stops him by the forearms and turns him around to face him.
“I'm serious.”
“You think you're...really? Seriously?”
“No,” Gakuto says. “No. I don't think so. It's just something about him.”
Shishido considers that. “He has a weird presence.”
“It's not weird. It's...we click. We have this...thing together.”
“Then tell him. Can't go any worse than the rest of your dates.”
“Fuck off,” Gakuto says. But it's a thought.
Gakuto realises, too late, that one place worse for a failed kiss is the place where the person you really like, doesn't like you.
Oshitari pulls back and his face is shocked. Not unkindly, just surprised. “Mukahi,” he says, he breathes.
It's so much worse than anything that's ever happened to Gakuto before. Maiko-chan leaving. The kiss on the ferris wheel. Even Atobe getting laid before the rest of them. “I am,” he says. “Going to die of humiliation. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'll...fuck. I'll go.”
“No,” Oshitari says. “Listen. I'm just...you're a friend to me. I know this conversation sucks, but I'm being honest. You're my best friend right now. I don't want that to end. I want to play tennis with you and hit the arcades after school. I want us to be able to talk. I just can't do this.”
Gakuto looks at him. It isn't a rejection, said like that. So he brushes himself down and takes a deep breath.
“It's not because of me?”
Oshitari looks at him, seriously. “No, of course not. I just – you're my friend. You're my best friend. Don't worry about the getting laid and the catching up stuff. It's all bullshit. You're great the way you are. Just tell Atobe where to stick it.”
“You like Atobe, don't you?” Gakuto says, and it's a relief. That he hasn't just kissed a straight guy. That Oshitari just likes someone else. That it isn't revulsion. Just taste.
Oshitari considers this. “I don't know, yet.”
Gakuto nods. “I had that problem.”
“What did you do?”
“I looked at your thighs a lot.”
“Did it help?”
“Of course not, you idiot. Why would it?”
“I don't know,” Oshitari says, plainly. “I have really good thighs.”
Gakuto wants to punch him in the face. But also to kiss him, again. So he settles for neither, swallows down the feelings, and gets on with his complicated, stupid life.
They finish the year. Shishido catches up with Atobe. Atobe has only had one more girlfriend, under pressure from end-of-term exams. Gakuto knows what a tit feels like. And he knows that people like Shishido deserve to have their thighs looked at.
Atobe gets the captaincy. Gakuto and Oshitari start playing doubles together. Things change, but for the better. Everything settles down. Girls are, as Oshitari always said, trouble.
Atobe's latest girlfriend tells him that she'll have sex with him if he brings Oshitari along. Atobe slants his eyes across the room, and doesn't say anything, for quite a while.