untitled cyberpunk!au part one [Prince of Tennis, Rikkai]
title: (Untitled), Part One.
fandom: Prince of Tennis
characters: Rikkai ensemble minus Yagyuu and Kirihara thus far.
summary: This is a memory he cannot recall; knows not where it comes from.
notes: So I intended to take a dip into writing cyberpunk or something like it, but I think my plot is running away with me and I don't know precisely what genre I'd call it now. 2115 Words.
*
A sunny day; the warmth of the sun's rays glides across bared skin as though pulling him into an embrace. That wasn't the thought at the time, but he sees it both from the mind's eye of his four year old self, as well as through the dreaming eyes of himself now, at fifteen. His bare feet on the pedals of the tricycle, red and yellow. The plastic digs into the skin on his feet but he has to push hard or he'll never go anywhere.
He wants to go everywhere. Follow the garden path round, past the weeds choking the life out of any flower that dares hope to claim life in their backyard. He tries to push the wheels onto the dried mud, but it's harder still than the paving and he falters.
No matter. He tries; he can't say he never tried. Drops his feet onto the mud and feels the ground worm its way between his toes as he wiggles them. Dust and dirt on his skin. His mother will chide him later, sigh and hoist him up under her arm to the bath.
He likes baths. Wet and clean, full of bubbles and toys to play with as she pours water over his head. Lots of splashing to do.
This is a memory he cannot recall; knows not where it comes from. The garden he wakes up to every morning has never been desolate; there are cherry trees and rose bushes, the kind his mother loves. He does not know how to ride a bike, has never sat in any kind of saddle. It simply does not interest him.
Though he knows he is watching, and yet not. Yukimura tries to stumble forward towards the self he knows is him, but not. Standing over his tricycle, feet in the mud, smiling triumphantly. He reaches out a hand, opens his mouth to say a word, his lips form a shape-
His dreams never play out to completion.
*
"Another tournament will begin today." Yukimura says, and the smart ones actually attempt to smother their groans. Yanagi is the only one to have seen this coming, the one who draws up the match assignments in a beautiful tree chart, tapering down from over fifty matches to one final one, names blank but one already known.
Yukimura is always in the final. He always comes out the utimate winner.
"Those who lose in the first round, don't bother coming back." He says. Sits on a bench, picks at his nails as he speaks. People without the talent and the passion to win do not interest him.
His match is always the last, and whoever faces him in the first round often leaves before it can begin. The whole tournament does not follow this pattern, but every member of the team knows how difficult Yukimura is to please.
Tournaments always take place on a weekend day, and every match is played. The winner will be declared before anyone may leave. Members who have been around a while have learnt to bring three meals along with them to eat between matches.
Though if you and your next opponent are both through, it is wise to play your match as soon as possible, no matter how tired you are. Especially if you wish to be home before midnight. Not all parents are like Yukimura's; mother busy in her garden, singing songs to the flowers to encourage them to grow. Father at work all hours of the day, shifts that tack onto the end of previous shifts.
They won't notice him gone.
*
Alone on the bench, Yukimura's thoughts suddenly turn to the dream that cut off before he could interrupt it by waking. He has always suffered dreams, moreso than anyone else he knows, but as he gets older, they become even more frequent.
At school they learnt that dreams are pure invention of the mind to deal with events of the day, masked so thoroughly you aren't even aware you are dealing with them. The mind hiding from the mind, encasing thoughts you are not ready to face so deeply that you never have to be hurt.
Yukimura wonders if he is so full of fear, or otherwise just crazy. The questions he does not dare ask, his teachers still manage to field answers for with scienctific and technological explanations.
"You look tired." Yanagi says, sitting down beside him, and Yukimura knows he does not at all, but it is Yanagi's way of saying he knows the pattern. He knows Yukimura's sleep has been distorted.
"I'm fine." He replies, still refusing to watch the matches on the tennis courts.
"It might affect your game." Yanagi says, and he knows that isn't true either. The only thing a lack of sleep, if it were to happen, and possible brooding won't affect is his tennis. It is spoken to accentuate the contrast. To Yanagi, the 'everything else' is just as important as tennis.
This is not so for Yukimura.
*
A week later, which is far more frequent than he is used to, he dreams of sitting at the dining table. But this table is in the kitchen, not in a separate room, covered with a patched cloth instead of lace, and his feet are too short to reach the floor so he swings his legs in time to his mother's humming as she stirs the dinner.
The television is on in the other room, and he knows his sister is watching this one certain program she always 'just has to watch!' before dinner. The idea of his sister only watching one television show is foreign to his dreaming self, because she is quite honestly a TV addict these days, pausing only for toilet breaks and school. Sometimes he drifts off to sleep hearing the constant sound of channel hopping; one line of dialogue, an advert, a peel of laughter.
A moment of lucidity makes him decide it is this nightly ritual that has led him to such dreams. He looks at the sheet of paper in front of him, looks at the crayon in a wobbly fist. He draws the kitchen table with himself, his mother, and his sister, but he leaves out his father who is out looking for a job, 'yet again' he can recall his mother saying in hushed but highly impatient tones. As if overseeing his drawing, she begins to tap her foot on the floor as she stirs. Perhaps she is just doing it in time to her humming.
His sister yells that the program is nearly over and she's ready for dinner. His mother calls something back before sighing and taking away his drawing, swapping it with a place mat and cutlery. She sticks it to the fridge by a magnet without even looking at it, and he thinks perhaps his sister is about to walk in, but the dream cuts out before he can think about how foreign the idea is, of his mother being so disinterested in something he has done.
*
"Make everyone but the Regulars run laps." Yukimura says to Sanada at practice the next day. Only now is he reflecting upon the woman who looked like his mother, and sounded like his mother, but acted like a demon. "They can have practice matches. Put Niou against Jackal first."
Sanada nods curtly, seems to know better than to affirm the instructions with words. Yukimura knows he gives away too much in his voice, but everyone is disciplined enough not to press him regardless of that fact. He can still smell the dinner cooking in the pot if he just closes his eyes and lets it swim over him again.
"You get kind of mean when you can't sleep." Niou says, flopping down next to Yukimura with a sigh. It feels like he has only shut his eyes to think for a moment, but what with Jackal's infuriating way of keeping anyone from gaining a point, it is probably more likely to have been about half an hour. "He slaughtered me out there!"
"Train harder then." Yukimura replies without opening his eyes. He gauges where Niou is sitting from the strength of his voice and swats at his leg blindly. "Start now. Run some laps."
"You said everyone but the Regulars!" Niou protests. "And I just played a bloody match."
"And you just lost. And now you run laps." Yukimura says. Niou pulls a face at him, he knows, but sighs and accepts his fate. If they didn't listen to Yukimura, none of them would improve.
He does get kind of mean when he has restless sleep, Yukimura supposes to himself. And smiles.
*
He is eight years old and crawling through undergrowth with skinned knees that itch everytime he squashes flowers beneath them. Sometimes if he pauses too much Yanagi catches him up and his breath falls on Yukimura's neck. It tickles.
The sun shines in spates; in places the foliage is thicker than in others. Sometimes they pause and listen out for movement, running feet chasing after them.
"Hide and seek is for losers." Sanada had said, but that was only because he was the worst hider, and the worst finder ever. He had no imagination.
He could however, run like the wind, and when he spotted someone, the chase was on. Suddenly, Yukimura hears it, and shrinks back against Yanagi, both holding their breaths as they hear Marui laughing triumphantly, and Sanada yelling at him to slow down and be caught because his hiding place was discovered. The steps pass them both by, but until they are out of hearing, neither Yukimura or Yanagi moves an inch.
"We need a better place to hide." Yukimura whispers even though they know it's okay to speak normally. Yanagi nods.
Together, they slip out from under the bushes and run in the opposite direction. Yukimura sees chain link fence and thinks of the tennis courts first. It screams familiarity and safety to him, and he neglects to look at the danger signs pinned to the locked door.
"Cheaters!" They hear from behind, and Marui comes running up behind Sanada.
"He caught me, I'm it too now!" He informs them. Yukimura swings a leg over the top of the fence and reaches a hand down to help Yanagi up faster. Sanada is almost within reach of grabbing Yanagi's leg.
They fall down together on the other side, run round a corner, but there is nowhere else to go. Sanada and Marui catch up with them, all out of breath and ready to admit defeat.
Yukimura feels a hand clamp onto his shoulder, and a voice tells him he's caught, but it fades to a whisper, doesn't matter to him so much. He reaches out to touch a part of the fence that doesn't exist, and blacks out.
Yukimura wakes up suddenly like he never has before, and the thing that scares him most isn't that this dream has played itself out to the end.
It's that he remembers that day. This dream is no dream; it happened.
*
"We're not having a practice today." Yukimura says, and he narrows his eyes until ever the most curious looks are wiped from Niou's and Marui's faces, and Yanagi's mouth shuts again. "Tell everyone to go home. Or practice on their own, whatever."
"This has to be important for him to cancel practice." Yanagi murmurs in an aside to Sanada. Yukimura pretends he hasn't heard. "Are you feeling unwell, Seiichi?"
"We have to go somewhere." He replies. "Just us. I have to... Check something."
No-one questions his ambiguous words, but Niou and Marui discuss it barely out of his hearing all the way down the street. Yanagi watches him out of critical eyes, and Sanada stays within his personal space, obviously worried. They have good reason; he's never this focused or one-track minded about anything that isn't tennis.
The roads haven't changed, but everything else has. Yukimura pauses and has to close his eyes and picture in his mind the way things were so that he can find his way back where he needs to be. All his memories are from kneeling in the grass and hiding behind plants, he can't remember how it looked from the outside.
"Forget it." He says, and doesn't know how long it's been this time, but from the relieved sighs he figures it has been a while. Niou is gone before anyone can count to ten, and Sanada makes his polite excuses to leave right after.
Yukimura makes sure he is next to go before anyone, especially Yanagi, can ask questions. He knows what he is looking for, now he just has to find it.
*
fandom: Prince of Tennis
characters: Rikkai ensemble minus Yagyuu and Kirihara thus far.
summary: This is a memory he cannot recall; knows not where it comes from.
notes: So I intended to take a dip into writing cyberpunk or something like it, but I think my plot is running away with me and I don't know precisely what genre I'd call it now. 2115 Words.
*
A sunny day; the warmth of the sun's rays glides across bared skin as though pulling him into an embrace. That wasn't the thought at the time, but he sees it both from the mind's eye of his four year old self, as well as through the dreaming eyes of himself now, at fifteen. His bare feet on the pedals of the tricycle, red and yellow. The plastic digs into the skin on his feet but he has to push hard or he'll never go anywhere.
He wants to go everywhere. Follow the garden path round, past the weeds choking the life out of any flower that dares hope to claim life in their backyard. He tries to push the wheels onto the dried mud, but it's harder still than the paving and he falters.
No matter. He tries; he can't say he never tried. Drops his feet onto the mud and feels the ground worm its way between his toes as he wiggles them. Dust and dirt on his skin. His mother will chide him later, sigh and hoist him up under her arm to the bath.
He likes baths. Wet and clean, full of bubbles and toys to play with as she pours water over his head. Lots of splashing to do.
This is a memory he cannot recall; knows not where it comes from. The garden he wakes up to every morning has never been desolate; there are cherry trees and rose bushes, the kind his mother loves. He does not know how to ride a bike, has never sat in any kind of saddle. It simply does not interest him.
Though he knows he is watching, and yet not. Yukimura tries to stumble forward towards the self he knows is him, but not. Standing over his tricycle, feet in the mud, smiling triumphantly. He reaches out a hand, opens his mouth to say a word, his lips form a shape-
His dreams never play out to completion.
*
"Another tournament will begin today." Yukimura says, and the smart ones actually attempt to smother their groans. Yanagi is the only one to have seen this coming, the one who draws up the match assignments in a beautiful tree chart, tapering down from over fifty matches to one final one, names blank but one already known.
Yukimura is always in the final. He always comes out the utimate winner.
"Those who lose in the first round, don't bother coming back." He says. Sits on a bench, picks at his nails as he speaks. People without the talent and the passion to win do not interest him.
His match is always the last, and whoever faces him in the first round often leaves before it can begin. The whole tournament does not follow this pattern, but every member of the team knows how difficult Yukimura is to please.
Tournaments always take place on a weekend day, and every match is played. The winner will be declared before anyone may leave. Members who have been around a while have learnt to bring three meals along with them to eat between matches.
Though if you and your next opponent are both through, it is wise to play your match as soon as possible, no matter how tired you are. Especially if you wish to be home before midnight. Not all parents are like Yukimura's; mother busy in her garden, singing songs to the flowers to encourage them to grow. Father at work all hours of the day, shifts that tack onto the end of previous shifts.
They won't notice him gone.
*
Alone on the bench, Yukimura's thoughts suddenly turn to the dream that cut off before he could interrupt it by waking. He has always suffered dreams, moreso than anyone else he knows, but as he gets older, they become even more frequent.
At school they learnt that dreams are pure invention of the mind to deal with events of the day, masked so thoroughly you aren't even aware you are dealing with them. The mind hiding from the mind, encasing thoughts you are not ready to face so deeply that you never have to be hurt.
Yukimura wonders if he is so full of fear, or otherwise just crazy. The questions he does not dare ask, his teachers still manage to field answers for with scienctific and technological explanations.
"You look tired." Yanagi says, sitting down beside him, and Yukimura knows he does not at all, but it is Yanagi's way of saying he knows the pattern. He knows Yukimura's sleep has been distorted.
"I'm fine." He replies, still refusing to watch the matches on the tennis courts.
"It might affect your game." Yanagi says, and he knows that isn't true either. The only thing a lack of sleep, if it were to happen, and possible brooding won't affect is his tennis. It is spoken to accentuate the contrast. To Yanagi, the 'everything else' is just as important as tennis.
This is not so for Yukimura.
*
A week later, which is far more frequent than he is used to, he dreams of sitting at the dining table. But this table is in the kitchen, not in a separate room, covered with a patched cloth instead of lace, and his feet are too short to reach the floor so he swings his legs in time to his mother's humming as she stirs the dinner.
The television is on in the other room, and he knows his sister is watching this one certain program she always 'just has to watch!' before dinner. The idea of his sister only watching one television show is foreign to his dreaming self, because she is quite honestly a TV addict these days, pausing only for toilet breaks and school. Sometimes he drifts off to sleep hearing the constant sound of channel hopping; one line of dialogue, an advert, a peel of laughter.
A moment of lucidity makes him decide it is this nightly ritual that has led him to such dreams. He looks at the sheet of paper in front of him, looks at the crayon in a wobbly fist. He draws the kitchen table with himself, his mother, and his sister, but he leaves out his father who is out looking for a job, 'yet again' he can recall his mother saying in hushed but highly impatient tones. As if overseeing his drawing, she begins to tap her foot on the floor as she stirs. Perhaps she is just doing it in time to her humming.
His sister yells that the program is nearly over and she's ready for dinner. His mother calls something back before sighing and taking away his drawing, swapping it with a place mat and cutlery. She sticks it to the fridge by a magnet without even looking at it, and he thinks perhaps his sister is about to walk in, but the dream cuts out before he can think about how foreign the idea is, of his mother being so disinterested in something he has done.
*
"Make everyone but the Regulars run laps." Yukimura says to Sanada at practice the next day. Only now is he reflecting upon the woman who looked like his mother, and sounded like his mother, but acted like a demon. "They can have practice matches. Put Niou against Jackal first."
Sanada nods curtly, seems to know better than to affirm the instructions with words. Yukimura knows he gives away too much in his voice, but everyone is disciplined enough not to press him regardless of that fact. He can still smell the dinner cooking in the pot if he just closes his eyes and lets it swim over him again.
"You get kind of mean when you can't sleep." Niou says, flopping down next to Yukimura with a sigh. It feels like he has only shut his eyes to think for a moment, but what with Jackal's infuriating way of keeping anyone from gaining a point, it is probably more likely to have been about half an hour. "He slaughtered me out there!"
"Train harder then." Yukimura replies without opening his eyes. He gauges where Niou is sitting from the strength of his voice and swats at his leg blindly. "Start now. Run some laps."
"You said everyone but the Regulars!" Niou protests. "And I just played a bloody match."
"And you just lost. And now you run laps." Yukimura says. Niou pulls a face at him, he knows, but sighs and accepts his fate. If they didn't listen to Yukimura, none of them would improve.
He does get kind of mean when he has restless sleep, Yukimura supposes to himself. And smiles.
*
He is eight years old and crawling through undergrowth with skinned knees that itch everytime he squashes flowers beneath them. Sometimes if he pauses too much Yanagi catches him up and his breath falls on Yukimura's neck. It tickles.
The sun shines in spates; in places the foliage is thicker than in others. Sometimes they pause and listen out for movement, running feet chasing after them.
"Hide and seek is for losers." Sanada had said, but that was only because he was the worst hider, and the worst finder ever. He had no imagination.
He could however, run like the wind, and when he spotted someone, the chase was on. Suddenly, Yukimura hears it, and shrinks back against Yanagi, both holding their breaths as they hear Marui laughing triumphantly, and Sanada yelling at him to slow down and be caught because his hiding place was discovered. The steps pass them both by, but until they are out of hearing, neither Yukimura or Yanagi moves an inch.
"We need a better place to hide." Yukimura whispers even though they know it's okay to speak normally. Yanagi nods.
Together, they slip out from under the bushes and run in the opposite direction. Yukimura sees chain link fence and thinks of the tennis courts first. It screams familiarity and safety to him, and he neglects to look at the danger signs pinned to the locked door.
"Cheaters!" They hear from behind, and Marui comes running up behind Sanada.
"He caught me, I'm it too now!" He informs them. Yukimura swings a leg over the top of the fence and reaches a hand down to help Yanagi up faster. Sanada is almost within reach of grabbing Yanagi's leg.
They fall down together on the other side, run round a corner, but there is nowhere else to go. Sanada and Marui catch up with them, all out of breath and ready to admit defeat.
Yukimura feels a hand clamp onto his shoulder, and a voice tells him he's caught, but it fades to a whisper, doesn't matter to him so much. He reaches out to touch a part of the fence that doesn't exist, and blacks out.
Yukimura wakes up suddenly like he never has before, and the thing that scares him most isn't that this dream has played itself out to the end.
It's that he remembers that day. This dream is no dream; it happened.
*
"We're not having a practice today." Yukimura says, and he narrows his eyes until ever the most curious looks are wiped from Niou's and Marui's faces, and Yanagi's mouth shuts again. "Tell everyone to go home. Or practice on their own, whatever."
"This has to be important for him to cancel practice." Yanagi murmurs in an aside to Sanada. Yukimura pretends he hasn't heard. "Are you feeling unwell, Seiichi?"
"We have to go somewhere." He replies. "Just us. I have to... Check something."
No-one questions his ambiguous words, but Niou and Marui discuss it barely out of his hearing all the way down the street. Yanagi watches him out of critical eyes, and Sanada stays within his personal space, obviously worried. They have good reason; he's never this focused or one-track minded about anything that isn't tennis.
The roads haven't changed, but everything else has. Yukimura pauses and has to close his eyes and picture in his mind the way things were so that he can find his way back where he needs to be. All his memories are from kneeling in the grass and hiding behind plants, he can't remember how it looked from the outside.
"Forget it." He says, and doesn't know how long it's been this time, but from the relieved sighs he figures it has been a while. Niou is gone before anyone can count to ten, and Sanada makes his polite excuses to leave right after.
Yukimura makes sure he is next to go before anyone, especially Yanagi, can ask questions. He knows what he is looking for, now he just has to find it.
*