Consecration
I got the idea for this, believe it or not, from the song Black Velvet.
Title: Consecration
Rating: G
Characters: Echizen Ryoma, Tezuka Kunimitsu
Disclaimer: Still saving up the yen. I mean, a girl can dream, right?
Consecration
The sun shimmers in the humid August evening. Red light filters through the train tracks to trace patterns on the clay court. The heat of the day has already peaked, but Echizen can feel it radiating off the ground, through his soles and socks and climbing up his legs. He wipes his wrist band across his brow, but it is all too damp to do much good.
He breathes in.
He breathes out.
Tezuka serves and Echizen rushes to return.
It would be a drug if it was not what it already was; this game that had never been just that. Wordless conversation. Communion. Each pok of the ball against racket, against ground, is a prayer. Neither player wants to leave a single one unanswered.
The smell of summer and tennis, of clay and sweat and a newly opened can of balls, encircles them, incense swaying to and fro and to and fro, from one side of the court to the other. It hypnotizes and consumes and is liable to leave one drunk if they partake of this sacrament for too long. A train passing by blows its horn and the clattering overhead disappears along with the surrounding world until it is just Tezuka, Echizen and Tennis -- which is always so much more than what it had been until that very moment.
It is an act of creation. An act of sacrifice and rebirth and celebration. An act of redemption and sanctification.
The cadence breaks and the tennis ball clangs and rattles against the metal fence: 6 games all.
Echizen smirks.
Tezuka bows to receive.
The serve: toss and smack; supplication. The return: a direct reply; affirmation and benediction. The cadence resumes, a tune of heavy breaths and thwocks and grunts and footsteps and sighs rising through the sunset-painted summer sky.
Together, they worship.
Together, they become gods.