#51: fic: Not a Shounen Manga
Title: Not a Shounen Manga
Characters: Arashi, Ishihara Satomi.
Rating: G
Summary: Nino only joined the table tennis club because the sport took place indoors and didn’t require any body contact. High school table tennis club AU.
Word Count: 2,800~
A/N: This is for lianne29, for the fandom fundraiser on arashi_on. She requested Satomi as Arashi's club manager based on that VS Arashi episode. Thank you for your generous donation, Cath; I hope you enjoy this. ♥ Huge thanks to calerine for doing such a quick and thorough beta job.
1.
“Bad news,” Satomi gasped, almost crashing into Nino and Jun. “We’re not getting the hall today.”
“Wait - what?” asked Jun, grabbing hold of her arm to steady her.
“The drama club,” said Satomi, between deep breaths. “They’re having a full dress today.”
“Again? Very nice,” said Nino irritably, shoving his hands into his pockets. “At this rate, we’ll have no training at all this month.”
Table tennis practice took place twice a week in the dusty school auditorium; Tuesdays they set up two tables on the stage while the basketball team trained using the rest of the hall.
Thursdays, on the other hand, were a mixed bag. Sometimes, they would find themselves doing footwork drills at the back of the hall while the drama club had a rehearsal onstage. Other times it was the choir. And then there was that one memorable afternoon where they had to do sit-ups and multi-ball training to the sound of the school brass band rehearsing the theme of Jurassic Park continuously for three and a half hours.
“The good news is that I spoke to Okumiya-sensei and he said we could take another room,” Satomi told them. “The bad news is…”
“Not the props room again,” Jun groaned. There had been two other occasions in which they had been forced to train in the drama club props room. The first had resulted in Aiba knocking over a shelf of unjustifiably expensive puppets and damaging three; the second had ended when Ohno had been bitten by a very large spider.
Satomi looked so consternated at this that Nino couldn’t help but pat her awkwardly on the shoulder. “We’ll manage,” he said.
“I suppose,” said Jun grudgingly, more for Satomi’s sake than anything else. “Even though the room is too small. And we’ll have the move the tables. And there are stairs, Nino. Stairs.”
“Take it as part of the training and suck it up,” Nino told him. This was somewhat hypocritical considering Nino’s attitude towards table tennis training under normal circumstances.
“Okay? Is it okay?” asked Satomi with great relief.
“Well-” Jun began, but stopped when Nino elbowed him in the ribs.
“Yes,” said Nino. “Though I think you should check with Oh-chan if he doesn’t mind being bitten by a spider again.”
2.
Nino only joined the table tennis club because the sport took place indoors and didn’t require any body contact. This was after Kamenashi had replaced him as the ace pitcher on the school baseball team, and Nino had thus decided that team sports were overrated.
There had been no tryout for the club; all Nino had had to do was lean forward and poke his classmate Matsumoto Jun in the back.
“I’m quitting baseball; can I play table tennis with you lot?” Nino had hissed.
Jun had then tossed a crumpled up piece of paper onto Nino’s table. Scrawled on it was: Stop disturbing me during math it’s integration and I want to listen.
Just like that, Nino was on the team.
Ohno Satoshi from 3-A was team captain, although that wasn’t particularly significant in a club consisting five members. Ohno’s classmate, Sakurai Sho, was vice captain, but had been given the task of attending all the sports captains’ meetings in Ohno’s stead.
And then there was Aiba, who, among them, was the only one who had played table tennis competitively before high school. It was a well-known fact that Aiba had been offered a scholarship place at a better-ranked high school than theirs because of his skill, but he’d turned it down because he wanted to be able to cycle home every evening.
Their school team hadn’t gotten past the second qualifying round of the regional tournaments since 1991. This year, however, Ogura-sensei was planning to change that.
“Okay,” Sho had said, “but I don’t think I can give up English Club for extra training.”
“Let’s work harder with the time we already have,” Ogura-sensei had continued, in his heavy Akita accent. “Let’s chase our dreams together.”
It was a very inspiring speech, up to the point when Ogura-sensei said, “Let’s aim for Nationals.”
Nino had sprayed his juice out of his nose in incredulity at that point.
This was already inherently embarrassing, but twice as much so because Satomi had been sitting beside him.
“Yes,” Nino had said, after attempting to wipe juice off Satomi’s clipboard with the corner of his shirt while telling himself that this would be funny on hindsight. “We’re aiming for Nationals.”
3.
The problem with aiming for Nationals was that unlike in a shounen manga, they weren’t particularly talented at table tennis. They did have the inspiring coach and the underdog factor, but it just wasn’t the same.
“We do have Aiba,” said Jun.
“We also have a cute manager who makes us onigiri,” said Ohno, picking one up off the plate and taking a big bite. “Ah. Salmon.”
“Lucky,” said Aiba. “I got umeboshi. Want to trade?”
“Ew,” Nino told him, “you’ve already bitten into it.”
“No I didn’t!” Aiba protested. “I broke it apart with my fingers!”
“Your grubby fingers!” said Nino, pointing at Aiba’s hands. “You didn’t wash your hands!”
It was, perhaps, a testament to the success Satomi’s effort to promote good hygiene that the others’ first response was to take up the cry of, “SATOMI-CHAN, AIBA DIDN’T WASH HIS HANDS.”
(Alternatively, it could just have been that they wanted to rat Aiba out. He had just trashed all of them soundly in an informal mini-tournament, after all.)
Either way, it resulted in Satomi coming over to send Aiba slinking off to the taps. Satomi was cute when she frowned, Nino noticed. Maybe that was why they teased her all the time.
4.
Sho got to cycle home with Satomi and Ohno after trainings in the evening; all Nino had was Aiba, who was more than decent company unless he was talking about iguanas. (Jun took a bus back because his house was the furthest from school. Also, he’d sustained minor injuries in a slightly traumatic downhill bicycle accident as a small child, and had never been quite as confident on a bicycle as the others.)
It was tiring cycling home with Aiba, though, primarily because he insisted on sustaining a shouted conversation during the full fifteen minutes from school to his house. And whenever they had a race, it would inevitably end up with Aiba somehow veering off into a bush. The last time had not been pretty.
During the last stretch of his journey (after he’d dropped Aiba off), Nino liked to imagine what the journey home with Sho, Satomi and Ohno would be like. It was probably quiet and serene, because Ohno was quiet and Satomi was good at silences. Sho probably looked out for cars and things on all their behalves. There would be no breathless Aiba-whoops of glee or random stops to look at licheny stones. There would certainly be no almost-accidents involving old ladies or peoples’ dogs.
Nino wasn’t sure if he’d like a quiet journey home, after all.
On the other hand, cycling home together would mean that he could invite Satomi over to play games on his Nintendo whenever he wanted to. He didn’t even know if she liked playing games, but it was a nice thought. A small part of him hoped she did. A larger part of him was wondered why he was even considering this.
“Are you listening to what I’m saying at all?” Aiba demanded. Except that they were speeding by the side of the highway at this point, and his voice came as a frenzied yell.
“I can’t hear you!” Nino called, deliberately speeding up.
“WHAT?” bellowed Aiba, attempting to crane his head around and wobbling quite dangerously as he did so.
“I CAN’T HEAR YOU,” Nino shouted.
“WHAT?”
“I CAN’T-” Nino began to repeat, but he trailed off, deciding it was futile. Instead, he said, “I THINK I MIGHT LIKE SATOMI-CHAN.”
Nino’s bicycle almost flipped in the effort to break in time as Aiba skidded to a halt.
“You what?” asked Aiba.
“Nothing,” said Nino.
“No, you definitely said something,” said Aiba.
“Well, you didn’t hear it,” Nino told him adamantly. “If I did say anything, even. That truck was too loud.”
“You’re blushing!” cried Aiba.
“It’s called physical exertion, Aiba,” said Nino. It came out sharper than he intended.
“Don’t worry,” said Aiba, giving Nino a look that managed to be both smug and mysterious at the same time. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“There’s no secret,” said Nino, angry at himself for even saying anything in the first place. “Now are we cycling home or what? I’m really hungry.”
5.
To Aiba’s credit, he didn’t appear to have told anyone about the incident. He did, however, keep attempting to give Nino conspiratorial looks during their next training. He continued to grate on Nino’s nerves until Sho noticed and made Aiba stop. Even so, Nino spent the rest of the afternoon in a foul mood.
It did not help at all that they were rope-skipping that day; Nino was not at all good at this. Ohno beside him seemed to have entered some other zone of athletic serenity, appearing almost to be hovering over the rope rather than actually jumping it. Nino had tripped numerous times over the rope and was now proceeding at a rather cautious speed.
“Pick up the pace, Ninomiya,” called Ogura-sensei, from where he had set up a makeshift office next to the stage.
Satomi, who was placing baskets of table tennis balls at the tables, paused to give Nino a thumbs-up.
In a shounen manga, Nino would have immediately skipped faster, fervour renewed and burning with fiery shounen passion. In reality, Nino tripped on his rope again and almost fell off the stage.
6.
“I can train with you, if you like,” said Satomi, that evening. “Train extra, I mean.”
Nino stared at her for a long moment.
“I mean it,” said Satomi. “I’m not bad at table tennis. Just ask Ohno-sempai or Sakurai-sempai. If they had a girls’ table tennis club, I’d be the first one to join. I bet we’d win all the time, too.”
Twenty minutes into their first practice, Nino realised that Satomi wasn’t lying. She had a killer topspin and a knack for returning even the most difficult of serves.
“You know,” said Nino, when they were done and had finished putting away all the equipment, “you should be on the team instead of me. I’ll make the onigiri and wash the polo shirts.”
Satomi laughed. “Be my guest,” she said delightedly.
He liked her like this, with her hair tied back into a ponytail and a towel around her neck. The extra team polo shirt looked good on her. He liked the way she beamed and clapped her hands when she won.
He should ask her, he thought. About the Nintendo. He was sure she would say yes. She liked him, after all - at least enough to stay behind on a Friday to train with him.
Just at that point, however, Satomi glanced at her watch and made a face of mock horror.
“I really need to run,” she told Nino.
“Okay,” said Nino, doing a valiant job of hiding his disappointment.
“Keep working hard!” Satomi told him brightly, gathering up her things with startling alacrity and making for the side door of the auditorium.
The way she turned around to beam at him one final time before heading out made Nino smile and hope. Another time, he thought - maybe another time, he’d ask.
7.
There was a glitch in Nino’s plan, however, in that Sho asked Satomi first.
Sho didn’t just ask Satomi to come over to play Nintendo at his house. Sho asked Satomi if she liked him back and if she wanted to be his girlfriend.
Satomi didn’t say no.
8.
Fortunately, she didn’t say yes, either.
“She said to ask her again after Nationals,” said Sho, in tones of distress. “Is that a yes or a no?”
“Maybe it’s a maybe,” said Jun, not sounding particularly sympathetic.
“I feel really stupid,” Sho groaned, burying his face in his hands while Aiba patted him comfortingly on the back.
“Satomi-chan just wants all of us to work hard for Nationals,” said Aiba. He glanced over at Nino as he said this.
“Stop moping, Sho-kun,” Nino said, shuffling over to him and delivering a swift kick to his shin.
“What was that for?” Sho yelped, clutching at his leg.
Nino shrugged. “Want to come over and play Nintendo?”
9.
On Sunday afternoon, Nino cycled over to Ohno’s house. Ohno was sitting in the kitchen eating natto by himself when Nino leaned in through the window.
“Nino-chan,” said Ohno when he saw Nino, not in the least perturbed by his appearance.
“Taste good?” asked Nino.
Ohno blinked, looking down at the long strings of natto that were rapidly being blown from his chopsticks to the front of his shirt. “It could do with more mustard.” He glanced up at Nino. “Try some?”
“Okay,” said Nino, resting his elbows against the window sill as Ohno came over with the bowl and an extra pair of chopsticks.
They were down to the last few mouthfuls when Nino finally said, “Hey, Leader.”
“Yes?” Ohno asked.
“I was thinking of working on my backhand,” Nino said.
“Okay,” said Ohno. “Do you want to train?”
This was how they ended up training on a Sunday afternoon. The school was blessedly empty and they could use the auditorium undisturbed. Somehow, Sho had also been alerted of this impromptu training and came along with Aiba and Jun in tow. And then Satomi arrived an hour later, having cycled madly from her grandmother’s house after their weekly family lunch.
This, Nino thought, would be a good place to insert a shounen anime training montage. Except that they always made it look so easy when it was actually really tough: working hard and having a goal that they had to achieve.
Satomi was there, though, always on hand to feed them balls during multi-ball practice and to point out when their form was off. She also managed, at the same time, to keep the water bottles filled and produce a plate of delicious onigiri when they were done for the day.
“We’ve all worked hard today,” said Satomi, when they were all settled down after the cool-down jog.
“You’re magic,” said Aiba gratefully.
“No, she’s not,” said Jun. “She’s Satomi-chan.”
10.
This was how it would have ended, if this were a shounen manga. Against all odds, they would have advanced to the finals in a tremendous flurry of surprise wins and face-offs with honourable opponents. Sho might have suddenly developed some sort of Flying Dragon bottom spin that he would employ to great effect. Aiba might have even sustained a dramatic injury at some point in the semi-finals, but in true shounen manga fashion he would play through the pain towards success.
And after countless inspirational speeches from Ogura-sensei and a teary one from Ohno, they would emerge as unexpected champions of the National Tournament.
And maybe, just maybe, Nino would ask Satomi if she liked him back, and if she wanted to be his girlfriend.
And maybe - probably, if this were a shounen manga - Satomi would say yes.
11.
Unfortunately for Nino (and fortunately for Aiba), it didn’t happen like a shounen manga. Instead, they played a number of rather strong games up until the regional semi-finals, where they lost to last year’s second runner-ups. Ohno did give a teary speech and Ogura-sensei persisted in being inspiring, but winning Nationals was clearly a battle for another year.
They were stock taking the balls and equipment two weeks later when Nino finally worked up the courage to ask.
“Satomi-chan,” said Nino, trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice.
“Yes?” asked Satomi, in the middle of re-counting the number of table tennis balls in basket B.
“I was wondering,” Nino begin. “Um.”
Satomi turned towards him curiously. “Ninomiya-kun?”
Nino took a deep breath. “Would you like to come over and play Nintendo?”
“Nintendo?” Satomi repeated curiously.
“Yes,” said Nino. “I was wondering if you’d like to.”
Satomi laughed. “I’d be so bad at it,” she said.
“I could teach you,” Nino told her.
Satomi looked at him, tilting her head to one side. “Are you sure?” she asked. “You won’t get tired of me?”
“I’ll be a good teacher,” said Nino.
“Okay,” said Satomi.
“Okay?” asked Nino. “This afternoon?”
Satomi shrugged. “Why not?” she said, before returning to basket C.
And maybe it wasn’t at all like a shounen manga, thought Nino, trying not to smile too creepily and delightedly into his own basket of table tennis balls (Jun once said that he looked like a serial killer when he smiled like that). Maybe he’d asked a different question, and maybe there was heartbreak waiting for him in the distant future. But this was okay.
This was more than okay.
The End
Characters: Arashi, Ishihara Satomi.
Rating: G
Summary: Nino only joined the table tennis club because the sport took place indoors and didn’t require any body contact. High school table tennis club AU.
Word Count: 2,800~
A/N: This is for lianne29, for the fandom fundraiser on arashi_on. She requested Satomi as Arashi's club manager based on that VS Arashi episode. Thank you for your generous donation, Cath; I hope you enjoy this. ♥ Huge thanks to calerine for doing such a quick and thorough beta job.
1.
“Bad news,” Satomi gasped, almost crashing into Nino and Jun. “We’re not getting the hall today.”
“Wait - what?” asked Jun, grabbing hold of her arm to steady her.
“The drama club,” said Satomi, between deep breaths. “They’re having a full dress today.”
“Again? Very nice,” said Nino irritably, shoving his hands into his pockets. “At this rate, we’ll have no training at all this month.”
Table tennis practice took place twice a week in the dusty school auditorium; Tuesdays they set up two tables on the stage while the basketball team trained using the rest of the hall.
Thursdays, on the other hand, were a mixed bag. Sometimes, they would find themselves doing footwork drills at the back of the hall while the drama club had a rehearsal onstage. Other times it was the choir. And then there was that one memorable afternoon where they had to do sit-ups and multi-ball training to the sound of the school brass band rehearsing the theme of Jurassic Park continuously for three and a half hours.
“The good news is that I spoke to Okumiya-sensei and he said we could take another room,” Satomi told them. “The bad news is…”
“Not the props room again,” Jun groaned. There had been two other occasions in which they had been forced to train in the drama club props room. The first had resulted in Aiba knocking over a shelf of unjustifiably expensive puppets and damaging three; the second had ended when Ohno had been bitten by a very large spider.
Satomi looked so consternated at this that Nino couldn’t help but pat her awkwardly on the shoulder. “We’ll manage,” he said.
“I suppose,” said Jun grudgingly, more for Satomi’s sake than anything else. “Even though the room is too small. And we’ll have the move the tables. And there are stairs, Nino. Stairs.”
“Take it as part of the training and suck it up,” Nino told him. This was somewhat hypocritical considering Nino’s attitude towards table tennis training under normal circumstances.
“Okay? Is it okay?” asked Satomi with great relief.
“Well-” Jun began, but stopped when Nino elbowed him in the ribs.
“Yes,” said Nino. “Though I think you should check with Oh-chan if he doesn’t mind being bitten by a spider again.”
2.
Nino only joined the table tennis club because the sport took place indoors and didn’t require any body contact. This was after Kamenashi had replaced him as the ace pitcher on the school baseball team, and Nino had thus decided that team sports were overrated.
There had been no tryout for the club; all Nino had had to do was lean forward and poke his classmate Matsumoto Jun in the back.
“I’m quitting baseball; can I play table tennis with you lot?” Nino had hissed.
Jun had then tossed a crumpled up piece of paper onto Nino’s table. Scrawled on it was: Stop disturbing me during math it’s integration and I want to listen.
Just like that, Nino was on the team.
Ohno Satoshi from 3-A was team captain, although that wasn’t particularly significant in a club consisting five members. Ohno’s classmate, Sakurai Sho, was vice captain, but had been given the task of attending all the sports captains’ meetings in Ohno’s stead.
And then there was Aiba, who, among them, was the only one who had played table tennis competitively before high school. It was a well-known fact that Aiba had been offered a scholarship place at a better-ranked high school than theirs because of his skill, but he’d turned it down because he wanted to be able to cycle home every evening.
Their school team hadn’t gotten past the second qualifying round of the regional tournaments since 1991. This year, however, Ogura-sensei was planning to change that.
“Okay,” Sho had said, “but I don’t think I can give up English Club for extra training.”
“Let’s work harder with the time we already have,” Ogura-sensei had continued, in his heavy Akita accent. “Let’s chase our dreams together.”
It was a very inspiring speech, up to the point when Ogura-sensei said, “Let’s aim for Nationals.”
Nino had sprayed his juice out of his nose in incredulity at that point.
This was already inherently embarrassing, but twice as much so because Satomi had been sitting beside him.
“Yes,” Nino had said, after attempting to wipe juice off Satomi’s clipboard with the corner of his shirt while telling himself that this would be funny on hindsight. “We’re aiming for Nationals.”
3.
The problem with aiming for Nationals was that unlike in a shounen manga, they weren’t particularly talented at table tennis. They did have the inspiring coach and the underdog factor, but it just wasn’t the same.
“We do have Aiba,” said Jun.
“We also have a cute manager who makes us onigiri,” said Ohno, picking one up off the plate and taking a big bite. “Ah. Salmon.”
“Lucky,” said Aiba. “I got umeboshi. Want to trade?”
“Ew,” Nino told him, “you’ve already bitten into it.”
“No I didn’t!” Aiba protested. “I broke it apart with my fingers!”
“Your grubby fingers!” said Nino, pointing at Aiba’s hands. “You didn’t wash your hands!”
It was, perhaps, a testament to the success Satomi’s effort to promote good hygiene that the others’ first response was to take up the cry of, “SATOMI-CHAN, AIBA DIDN’T WASH HIS HANDS.”
(Alternatively, it could just have been that they wanted to rat Aiba out. He had just trashed all of them soundly in an informal mini-tournament, after all.)
Either way, it resulted in Satomi coming over to send Aiba slinking off to the taps. Satomi was cute when she frowned, Nino noticed. Maybe that was why they teased her all the time.
4.
Sho got to cycle home with Satomi and Ohno after trainings in the evening; all Nino had was Aiba, who was more than decent company unless he was talking about iguanas. (Jun took a bus back because his house was the furthest from school. Also, he’d sustained minor injuries in a slightly traumatic downhill bicycle accident as a small child, and had never been quite as confident on a bicycle as the others.)
It was tiring cycling home with Aiba, though, primarily because he insisted on sustaining a shouted conversation during the full fifteen minutes from school to his house. And whenever they had a race, it would inevitably end up with Aiba somehow veering off into a bush. The last time had not been pretty.
During the last stretch of his journey (after he’d dropped Aiba off), Nino liked to imagine what the journey home with Sho, Satomi and Ohno would be like. It was probably quiet and serene, because Ohno was quiet and Satomi was good at silences. Sho probably looked out for cars and things on all their behalves. There would be no breathless Aiba-whoops of glee or random stops to look at licheny stones. There would certainly be no almost-accidents involving old ladies or peoples’ dogs.
Nino wasn’t sure if he’d like a quiet journey home, after all.
On the other hand, cycling home together would mean that he could invite Satomi over to play games on his Nintendo whenever he wanted to. He didn’t even know if she liked playing games, but it was a nice thought. A small part of him hoped she did. A larger part of him was wondered why he was even considering this.
“Are you listening to what I’m saying at all?” Aiba demanded. Except that they were speeding by the side of the highway at this point, and his voice came as a frenzied yell.
“I can’t hear you!” Nino called, deliberately speeding up.
“WHAT?” bellowed Aiba, attempting to crane his head around and wobbling quite dangerously as he did so.
“I CAN’T HEAR YOU,” Nino shouted.
“WHAT?”
“I CAN’T-” Nino began to repeat, but he trailed off, deciding it was futile. Instead, he said, “I THINK I MIGHT LIKE SATOMI-CHAN.”
Nino’s bicycle almost flipped in the effort to break in time as Aiba skidded to a halt.
“You what?” asked Aiba.
“Nothing,” said Nino.
“No, you definitely said something,” said Aiba.
“Well, you didn’t hear it,” Nino told him adamantly. “If I did say anything, even. That truck was too loud.”
“You’re blushing!” cried Aiba.
“It’s called physical exertion, Aiba,” said Nino. It came out sharper than he intended.
“Don’t worry,” said Aiba, giving Nino a look that managed to be both smug and mysterious at the same time. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“There’s no secret,” said Nino, angry at himself for even saying anything in the first place. “Now are we cycling home or what? I’m really hungry.”
5.
To Aiba’s credit, he didn’t appear to have told anyone about the incident. He did, however, keep attempting to give Nino conspiratorial looks during their next training. He continued to grate on Nino’s nerves until Sho noticed and made Aiba stop. Even so, Nino spent the rest of the afternoon in a foul mood.
It did not help at all that they were rope-skipping that day; Nino was not at all good at this. Ohno beside him seemed to have entered some other zone of athletic serenity, appearing almost to be hovering over the rope rather than actually jumping it. Nino had tripped numerous times over the rope and was now proceeding at a rather cautious speed.
“Pick up the pace, Ninomiya,” called Ogura-sensei, from where he had set up a makeshift office next to the stage.
Satomi, who was placing baskets of table tennis balls at the tables, paused to give Nino a thumbs-up.
In a shounen manga, Nino would have immediately skipped faster, fervour renewed and burning with fiery shounen passion. In reality, Nino tripped on his rope again and almost fell off the stage.
6.
“I can train with you, if you like,” said Satomi, that evening. “Train extra, I mean.”
Nino stared at her for a long moment.
“I mean it,” said Satomi. “I’m not bad at table tennis. Just ask Ohno-sempai or Sakurai-sempai. If they had a girls’ table tennis club, I’d be the first one to join. I bet we’d win all the time, too.”
Twenty minutes into their first practice, Nino realised that Satomi wasn’t lying. She had a killer topspin and a knack for returning even the most difficult of serves.
“You know,” said Nino, when they were done and had finished putting away all the equipment, “you should be on the team instead of me. I’ll make the onigiri and wash the polo shirts.”
Satomi laughed. “Be my guest,” she said delightedly.
He liked her like this, with her hair tied back into a ponytail and a towel around her neck. The extra team polo shirt looked good on her. He liked the way she beamed and clapped her hands when she won.
He should ask her, he thought. About the Nintendo. He was sure she would say yes. She liked him, after all - at least enough to stay behind on a Friday to train with him.
Just at that point, however, Satomi glanced at her watch and made a face of mock horror.
“I really need to run,” she told Nino.
“Okay,” said Nino, doing a valiant job of hiding his disappointment.
“Keep working hard!” Satomi told him brightly, gathering up her things with startling alacrity and making for the side door of the auditorium.
The way she turned around to beam at him one final time before heading out made Nino smile and hope. Another time, he thought - maybe another time, he’d ask.
7.
There was a glitch in Nino’s plan, however, in that Sho asked Satomi first.
Sho didn’t just ask Satomi to come over to play Nintendo at his house. Sho asked Satomi if she liked him back and if she wanted to be his girlfriend.
Satomi didn’t say no.
8.
Fortunately, she didn’t say yes, either.
“She said to ask her again after Nationals,” said Sho, in tones of distress. “Is that a yes or a no?”
“Maybe it’s a maybe,” said Jun, not sounding particularly sympathetic.
“I feel really stupid,” Sho groaned, burying his face in his hands while Aiba patted him comfortingly on the back.
“Satomi-chan just wants all of us to work hard for Nationals,” said Aiba. He glanced over at Nino as he said this.
“Stop moping, Sho-kun,” Nino said, shuffling over to him and delivering a swift kick to his shin.
“What was that for?” Sho yelped, clutching at his leg.
Nino shrugged. “Want to come over and play Nintendo?”
9.
On Sunday afternoon, Nino cycled over to Ohno’s house. Ohno was sitting in the kitchen eating natto by himself when Nino leaned in through the window.
“Nino-chan,” said Ohno when he saw Nino, not in the least perturbed by his appearance.
“Taste good?” asked Nino.
Ohno blinked, looking down at the long strings of natto that were rapidly being blown from his chopsticks to the front of his shirt. “It could do with more mustard.” He glanced up at Nino. “Try some?”
“Okay,” said Nino, resting his elbows against the window sill as Ohno came over with the bowl and an extra pair of chopsticks.
They were down to the last few mouthfuls when Nino finally said, “Hey, Leader.”
“Yes?” Ohno asked.
“I was thinking of working on my backhand,” Nino said.
“Okay,” said Ohno. “Do you want to train?”
This was how they ended up training on a Sunday afternoon. The school was blessedly empty and they could use the auditorium undisturbed. Somehow, Sho had also been alerted of this impromptu training and came along with Aiba and Jun in tow. And then Satomi arrived an hour later, having cycled madly from her grandmother’s house after their weekly family lunch.
This, Nino thought, would be a good place to insert a shounen anime training montage. Except that they always made it look so easy when it was actually really tough: working hard and having a goal that they had to achieve.
Satomi was there, though, always on hand to feed them balls during multi-ball practice and to point out when their form was off. She also managed, at the same time, to keep the water bottles filled and produce a plate of delicious onigiri when they were done for the day.
“We’ve all worked hard today,” said Satomi, when they were all settled down after the cool-down jog.
“You’re magic,” said Aiba gratefully.
“No, she’s not,” said Jun. “She’s Satomi-chan.”
10.
This was how it would have ended, if this were a shounen manga. Against all odds, they would have advanced to the finals in a tremendous flurry of surprise wins and face-offs with honourable opponents. Sho might have suddenly developed some sort of Flying Dragon bottom spin that he would employ to great effect. Aiba might have even sustained a dramatic injury at some point in the semi-finals, but in true shounen manga fashion he would play through the pain towards success.
And after countless inspirational speeches from Ogura-sensei and a teary one from Ohno, they would emerge as unexpected champions of the National Tournament.
And maybe, just maybe, Nino would ask Satomi if she liked him back, and if she wanted to be his girlfriend.
And maybe - probably, if this were a shounen manga - Satomi would say yes.
11.
Unfortunately for Nino (and fortunately for Aiba), it didn’t happen like a shounen manga. Instead, they played a number of rather strong games up until the regional semi-finals, where they lost to last year’s second runner-ups. Ohno did give a teary speech and Ogura-sensei persisted in being inspiring, but winning Nationals was clearly a battle for another year.
They were stock taking the balls and equipment two weeks later when Nino finally worked up the courage to ask.
“Satomi-chan,” said Nino, trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice.
“Yes?” asked Satomi, in the middle of re-counting the number of table tennis balls in basket B.
“I was wondering,” Nino begin. “Um.”
Satomi turned towards him curiously. “Ninomiya-kun?”
Nino took a deep breath. “Would you like to come over and play Nintendo?”
“Nintendo?” Satomi repeated curiously.
“Yes,” said Nino. “I was wondering if you’d like to.”
Satomi laughed. “I’d be so bad at it,” she said.
“I could teach you,” Nino told her.
Satomi looked at him, tilting her head to one side. “Are you sure?” she asked. “You won’t get tired of me?”
“I’ll be a good teacher,” said Nino.
“Okay,” said Satomi.
“Okay?” asked Nino. “This afternoon?”
Satomi shrugged. “Why not?” she said, before returning to basket C.
And maybe it wasn’t at all like a shounen manga, thought Nino, trying not to smile too creepily and delightedly into his own basket of table tennis balls (Jun once said that he looked like a serial killer when he smiled like that). Maybe he’d asked a different question, and maybe there was heartbreak waiting for him in the distant future. But this was okay.
This was more than okay.
The End