EXCITING ELEVEN: Turkey Imposter for Penombrelilas!!
Title: The Bride of the Water God
Author: turkeyimposter
Recipients Name: penombrelilas
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sanada/Niou
Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis is not mine. Neither is the basic idea behind this fic.
Warnings: In-jokes abound. Musely madness. Complete disregard for Japanese culture, whoops :/ Over-abuse of the word “stupid”.
It was the hottest summer Sanada could remember, made worse by drought and Marui's constant comments about how they could probably fry an egg on the pavement. He was getting sick of the constant discussions on global warming on the news and the predictions of cool fronts that never came.
Dam levels at 45%, the electronic sign on the subway read.
“These academics don't know what they're talking about. Forgetting their roots and their gods.” his grandfather said whenever he saw something about the drought. He ignored all the drought rules.
Three minute showers maximum, no draining the bathtub during the day, no rinsing off dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, and only ever turn on the dishwasher or washing machine when there was a full load. Sanada was doing his part in upholding the rules the government were putting in place to try and preserve water, no matter what his grandfather said, by cutting down the after practice showers to nothing more than a quick wash to remove the layer of sweat.
“You've been in there too long.” he said loudly, his voice echoing around the shower area as he hauled some horrified second year out by the arm, his hair still half covered in shampoo. Sanada paid no attention to the pathetic attempts to preserve his modesty, turning off the water in the cubicle and continuing to stomp down the row of showers.
It was only fractionally cooler inside the school than outside, and Sanada was thankful for his next-along-from-the-window seat on the rare days there was a half-decent breeze. He suspected this was why the rest of the regulars gravitated towards his and Yagyuu's classroom for lunch on the slightly cooler days.
“Oh, I will not be here tomorrow for practice, Yukimura-kun.” Yagyuu said halfway through lunch. His statement managed to stop Sanada's conversation with Renji about the new babolat racquet he'd seen in the store, and even made Marui and Jackal look up from whatever they were doing down their end of the group of desks.
“I am going to the airport to pick up a transfer student who is staying with me for a few months.”
Sanada grunted and turned back to his lunch, continuing his conversation with Renji a few minutes later. Yukimura didn't seem to have any objections to the whole idea, nor did he say anything against the transfer student joining the tennis club while he was here.
He didn't think much about it over the weekend.
Saturday was the same as ever, the sweltering heat which seemed slightly less intense than usual, though that could have been his hopeful imagination, the aching muscles, and the numerous empty water bottles by the end of the day. Sunday went by as well, a combination of kendo and homework and a phone call from Yukimura in the evening.
It was only when he saw Yagyuu approach the tennis courts the next morning - 5 minutes late, tarundoru! - accompanied by another person did he think back to the Friday lunchtime announcement.
“Ah, Sanada-kun. This is Niou Masaharu.” Yagyuu seemed to have already introduced the new student to the other regulars.
Sanada gave Niou a once over, his mouth settling into a frown. Bleached hair, bad posture, and an annoying smirk that only seemed to be getting wider the longer Sanada looked.
He grunted in some sort of attempt at a greeting and looked back at Yagyuu. “Hurry up and get on the courts. Twenty laps for being late.”
That being said, he stomped away to go yell at some juniors who were slacking off. Lazy asses. He heard some laughter behind him, accompanied with a “Nice to meet you too!”, but Sanada didn't pay any attention to it.
--
“175 centimeters tall, left handed - that could be interesting - AB blood type...” Renji reported on the bus after school. Sanada was silent, staring out the window and only half listening. He didn't really want to know how Renji managed to get that data in one day... he'd always suspected his friend had rulers in his eyes somehow.
It was too hot for paying full attention to data reciting. Unexpectedly humid as well, which was making him feel like he was melting into the bus seat even more.
“Apparently he has played tennis before. You should see what he's like, Genichirou.”
“Hn?” Well that caught his attention successfully.
“He might be a good asset to the team.”
Sanada was silent like the forest.
“I'll take that as an affirmation that you will play him tomorrow afternoon. Lovely.”
He elbowed Renji out of the way as he stood up to get off at his bus stop. He grunted in reply to Renji's farewell and started on the way home. The humidity brought about a light sprinkling of rain on his way home which passed over too quickly, leaving an unpleasant warm, muggy feeling in the air.
Sanada was thankful he did not live very far from the bus stop.
--
“Niou seems fascinated with you, Sanada.” Yukimura whispered at lunch, making him glance over at said bleached haired boy for the first time that day.
He grunted at the grin on Niou's face and turned back to Yukimura. “We're playing this afternoon. He knows that.” They didn't know anything about Niou's style of tennis. He could be just like Renji and gathering data on Sanada as they spoke.
Now that Yukimura had mentioned it, Sanada became very aware that yes, Niou did stare at him a lot. Throughout all of lunch, except when Yagyuu managed to draw him into a conversation, Niou was staring at him. He could feel eyes on his back during class as well, making his the back of his neck prickle but he resisted the temptation to turn around and glower at the starer. In the locker room it was more obvious, with Niou making comments about his shirt and shorts tan from spending so much time in the sun playing tennis, and asking didn't his jaw hurt from clenching his teeth together so much?
Sanada gritted his teeth and dealt with it, which seemed to only have the effect of making Niou's mouth twitch up and his eyes narrow in amusement.
Yukimura eventually sent him and Niou onto the court, and he kept his face carefully blank until he went to the baseline to serve. Sanada stared hard at Niou across the court. He seemed... comfortable, spinning the racquet in his left hand, wearing what Sanada was going to assume was one of Yagyuu's other tennis uniforms - the shirt looked just a little big and faded.
That was really all he let himself notice before throwing himself into his serve. There was a bit of grim satisfaction at the blink of surprise.
Sanada was as swift like the wind and invaded Niou's court like fire, firing tennis balls down the line, and cross court, right into the corners, leaving Niou running for each winning shot and not being able to quite get there. Even though the match was fast, the back of his shirt was still sticking to him from the sweat and as the match went on, it only seemed to get hotter.
The lazy asses in the tennis club were watching the match and Sanada glared at them as he went up to the net to shake Niou's hand. 6-1.
“Good game.” Sanada mumbled, holding onto Niou's hand for as short a time as possible. It didn't matter that he'd won, the staring had caused too many unforced errors on his half, shots that went just a little wide or a little long, making him grind his teeth in frustration.
Niou fluttered his eyelashes and laughed before walking off the court to talk to Yagyuu.
Sanada snorted in disgust and started on his cool down laps.
--
“Oi, Sanada.” Niou draped one arm over Sanada's shoulders in the change rooms after the regulation time showers. He stiffened and stared at the grey metal of his locker in front of him, his fingers clenching on his tie.
A muscle in his cheek twitched as Niou blew on his neck.
“Get off me.” He shoved Niou away and started tying his tie again.
“Yagyuu was going to take me out to dinner and pay, and I want you to come too. And him.” Niou gestured randomly at Marui who stopped dancing and singing some gross, poppy song in front of his locker to look over in surprise.
Sanada thought there was a very good reason behind the suddenly stony expression on Yagyuu's face, as well as the momentary absence of the normal polite smile. He was actually slightly sympathetic towards the gentleman. Just for a moment.
He was about to say something along the lines of “no, go away, I have absolutely no intentions of going out for dinner with you three”, when Yukimura appeared at his shoulder.
“We could always make it a team outing. With you included of course, Niou.” He did not like the smile on Yukimura's face at all. “We haven't had one of those for quite a while, have we, Renji?”
“Six weeks and 4 days.” the data-man said promptly. Sanada should have known he'd be listening. Flap ears.
Sanada's eyebrow twitched but he didn't say anything.
“It's settled then. We'll go out after this. I hope nobody's busy.”
Of course no one was.
Yagyuu's smile wavered again and Sanada thought he saw Yagyuu's fingers twitch before he turned his attention away to more important things. Such as the fact that there was a bleached haired boy still standing next to him.
“Your uniform is a disgrace. Go fix it.” Sanada grumbled, fixing up the contents of his tennis bag - racquets pushed to one side, spare grip tape in the zip up pocket, water bottle cap screwed on properly - before swinging it onto his back, slamming his locker shut and stomping out of the club house. It was too stuffy in there from the showers.
He could hear the conversation get louder as the rest of the tennis regulars + Niou approached the gate, not long after he did. Sanada ignored a comment from Renji about his locker suffering far too much damage this year and a “Fukubuchou is so grumpy today” from Akaya.
Sanada walked with Yukimura, making sure to keep to the back of the group. Renji seemed rather intent on questioning Niou about everything and anything - adding to his data, obviously. Yagyuu seemed to be the new target for Marui, who was popping bubbles away in his ear and chattering “oohh, Hiroshi, it was so nice for you to offer to pay for dinner, my parents have taken away my allowance this week...” Sanada stopped listening.
Watching paint dry was more interesting.
“Your technique was sloppy today, Sanada.” Yukimura said suddenly. He grunted.
“Those sort of errors won't be tolerated at the Nationals.” Hn. He knew that. He wasn't at all happy with those errors. Niou just got on his nerves and made his concentration waver at important moments with that infuriating staring.
As though he'd heard that thought, Niou looked over his shoulder and winked at Sanada.
“If you're going to let those sorts of things bother you, perhaps you should take up Renji's offer of anger management classes.”
“I won't.” Let those things bother him.
--
“... unexpected shower this evening.” the television said as Sanada pulled off his shoes and put them to the side.
He could hear his grandfather commenting on the unreliability of the weather predictions lately. “All this week was meant to be sunny.” Sanada agreed with him as he shook the rain off his jacket. It was harder to organize practice when there was unpredictable rainfall.
“You're late, Genichirou. We've already had dinner.” His mother said from the kitchen. She was still cleaning up from the sounds of it.
“Went out. Team dinner.”
It had certainly been the strangest team dinner he'd ever experienced, mainly because of the annoying person who'd squashed himself into the practically non-existent space next to him, keeping up a spirited conversation around the table. And no matter what he'd tried to do, Sanada hadn't been able to escape the thigh pressing against his or the elbow that dug into his side too often when Niou sat back from piling more meat onto his plate.
It had started rained while they were inside the restaurant, which had made the walk to the bus stop and then home unpleasant, his socks getting wet and squishing around in his shoes.
At least the yakiniku had been good.
“Go sit in the bath for a while. You're soaking wet.” His mother said, peering around the corner to look at him. “You might catch a cold.”
That was true. Which would make tennis practice even worse than usual. A cold on top of the already energy draining training.
He dropped his bags off in his room first, ignored his brother's cheery “Gen-chan~” of a greeting and gathered his pajamas. The routine was familiar, and he found himself relaxing, dwelling less on the various annoyances of the day.
Sanada was settled into the warm bath water, his toes regaining some feeling other than numb, and the rest of his body feeling limp.
He grumbled to himself and shifted in the bath, stretching his legs out and hearing his knees crack. Ah. Just a few more moments passed, Sanada counting the passing seconds in his head. 71... 72... 73... seconds, before he got out of the water and grabbed a towel.
It was then that he paused, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck prickle, and turned around slowly.
Nothing.
His eyebrows drew together but he shrugged. A bit of air from the exhaust fan. Or a ghost, his grandfather would probably say.
Sanada didn't believe in ghosts.
--
The week dragged on, and Sanada was just slightly unnerved with how Niou had so easily slotted himself into the team and into Sanada's daily schedule.
It had gotten easier to ignore the constant feeling of someone watching his every move from across the room, and Sanada didn't really notice it anymore. That was good.
He also ignored the “good morning, sunshine~” greetings he got every morning of the week from Niou when he and Yagyuu showed up for practice.
There were more unexpected showers of rain, but never heavy enough to cause a difference in the dam levels. The weather people were constantly saying how unpredictable the weather was getting.
Discussion on the news turned once again to global warming.
His grandfather snorted.
A cold front was predicted and actually came, making tennis practice more tolerable for the middle of the week before giving way to heat again.
Water restrictions were still the same.
“Yagyuu's busy at cram school tonight.” Niou said conversationally to Sanada one sweaty morning, far too early for light conversations about what Yagyuu was doing. He did not care what Yagyuu Hiroshi did if it didn't involve tennis. Especially not when he was trying to get changed for practice.
Niou didn't seem to mind the fact that he was being ignored. “You should entertain me instead.” Sanada's eye twitched as Niou elbowed him in the side. Pointy elbows, to go along with everything else pointy about Niou, Sanada decided.
“No.”
“Like a date, Niou-senpai?” Trust Akaya to read too deeply into things. Sanada felt his ears grow hot and he glowered at his locker.
Niou should laugh, which he did... and tell Akaya to stop being stupid, which he didn't, instead saying “Something like that.” which only brought about more questions from Akaya.
“It's not a date, and I am not going anywhere with you tonight.” He thought it was best to put an end to the ridiculous line of conversation before it got out of hand.
“Tomorrow, then. Yagyuu can go on a date with Marui.” Judging from the simultaneous spluttering from one side of the room and the throat clearing on the other, they'd both heard Niou's comment.
“No.”
That seemed to be effective, as the conversation stopped and Sanada was able to go back to changing in peace, leaving the clubhouse first to go yell at a few juniors for not running laps like they were meant to.
--
“I heard something about a date.” Renji said, on the way back from the cafeteria at lunch.
The data master had probably already calculated the amount of calories in his cafeteria-bought lunch and how many laps he would have to do during afternoon practice to work them off. Sanada was glad that he brought his lunch from home everyday.
“Niou's being stupid.”
“Aa...” Renji stopped and glanced behind them for a moment before starting to walk again. “Being stupid like now, I suppose?”
Sanada frowned and looked as well, stopping in the middle of the hallway. Poking his highly noticeable head around the corner was of course, Niou Masaharu. Sanada's lips thinned and he stared back.
Niou blinked and cocked his head to the side slightly, a smile curving onto his mouth. Sanada continued staring. His eyes might have narrowed at some point as well.
He heard Renji clear his throat and looked at his friend, glancing back just in time to see Niou disappear behind the corner. Hn.
“He's stupid.” was all Sanada said as they started towards the classroom again. He didn't like the look he was being given by Renji... too calculating, and he could almost see the data being processed in his friend's mind.
--
The rest of the day went by the same as ever, the same classes, nothing strange happening and neither he nor Niou mentioned the incident in the hallway.
It wasn't until he was about to start running the usual afternoon training amount of 20 laps was there a hitch in the usual routine.
“What?” He watched the rest of the club run around the courts.
“I think you should go out with Niou---” Yukimura started to say.
“But--”
“-- to dinner. As friends. Don't interrupt me, Sanada.”
“But--”
That really seemed to be all he could get in before Yukimura cut across him.
“He seems to like you. Moreso than the other regulars. Perhaps it's your shared liking of meat. You were both obvious enough about that the other night.” Of course Yukimura would say something like that. Sanada couldn't help that the yakiniku that night had been extremely nice and Yukimura didn't exactly eat much meat in general.
“Wha--”
“Tonight. I expect to see you walking away from that clubhouse together after practice. Do your job as a vice-captain and make someone feel like they want to stay in the tennis club, for once.”
Sanada gritted his teeth and glowered at a speck of fluff on Yukimura's jersey collar. Yukimura seemed to take that as an agreement because he nodded approvingly. “Good. Now start on those laps.”
“... Fine.”
--
Niou was all smiles after practice while they were changing. Sanada assumed that Yukimura had told Niou about them going out to dinner as friends.
Or at least he hoped Yukimura had added the last bit in.
Niou seemed to bother him less, apart from a few nudges in the side and the usual loud, inappropriate comment in the showers. Maybe he was just getting used to the annoying behaviour.
Yagyuu left first to go to cram school, closely followed by Akaya, Marui and Jackal who from their conversation in the change room, Sanada thought were off to the arcade. Normally he would leave at that point with Renji, letting Yukimura do the final check of everything and lock up the clubhouse, but he had to wait for Niou who was taking forever and a day to do... something.
There are only so many times you can fluff up your hair, thought Sanada. After that, it was just pointless.
He went around the shower area to check that everything was turned off correctly, waiting for Niou to get his ass into gear.
When he returned to the changing area, Niou was still eying himself in the mirror, looking like he was checking up his nose for something. How stupid.
“We're leaving.” he grabbed Niou's bags and shoved them into the other boy's chest, slammed the locker shut and dragged Niou out of the clubhouse, ignoring the squawk of protest.
His actions were highly effective, he thought. It would have been more effective if he'd been able to drag Niou all the way to the gate, but he had to stop and lock up the clubhouse.
It was oddly silent as they walked together, something which Sanada hadn't really associated with Niou. Sanada had been expecting him to start talking about whatever random topics popped into his head like he normally did. Instead he found himself trying to think of something to get rid of the unsettling drippy tension in the air.
Something like... “It's very humid.” No, that was stupid, even if it was the truth. He could feel his shirt sticking to his back.
Maybe... “Tennis is good.” But that was just as stupid. He didn't think he could discuss tennis as easily as he could with someone like Renji. Yukimura just picked at his technique.
He settled with a “We're having bulgogi.”
Him suddenly speaking seemed to have surprised Niou who looked up from staring at the ground to blink at him in confusion for a moment. “Okay...?” Maybe Niou didn't know what bulgogi was.
“It's meat.”
Niou at least seemed to understand that, and out of things to say, they fell back into silence.
It wasn't as awkward when they got to the restaurant, sitting down on either side of the table and starting to lay the meat on the stove. The sizzling sesame seeds helped fill the silence a bit.
There were also the “Those pieces need to be flipped” “Move those over to make more room” “How much rice do you want?” comments that seemed to come naturally.
Niou had never had bulgogi before, Sanada quickly found out, which lead to a few moments of telling him no, that pile of lettuce leaves was not a pathetic salad, it was for eating the meat and rice with. Feeling oddly generous, Sanada also demonstrated how to wrap the lettuce properly.
“It looks like it might rain tonight as well.” Niou said all of a sudden, halfway through the first plate of meat.
“Hn.” Sanada grunted, before swallowing. He should probably say something more than just that... “It was very humid today.” He had somehow ended up saying one of the rejected-as-stupid comments.
In his defense, it had been Niou who had started talking about the weather first.
“Mmm...” Niou piled a bit more rice into his lettuce leaf. “It's good, what with this drought.”
Sanada's eyes narrowed slightly but he didn't say anything for a while, eating a bit more as silence settled again between them. He could hear other people's stoves sizzling around them.
“I don't like the rain.” he said eventually, causing Niou to raise his eyebrows. “Interferes with training.” Of course. And with how badly the weather people were at predicting lately, it was hard booking indoors venues for tennis practice if needed. Somehow though, Yukimura always managed it.
Niou's eyes narrowed in amusement and his mouth quirked up. “How like you, fukubuchou.” Sanada decided right there and then he did not at all like 'fukubuchou' being said in that tone.
Sanada hn-ed. “There needs to be heavy rain.” The light showers were doing nothing for the dam levels. “Over night thunderstorms are best.” For a week, maybe. That way they could still have afternoon training on dry courts.
“You'll have to make the water god happy first.” Niou said with a grin, leaning just a bit more over the table. Just that bit closer to Sanada. He automatically sat back.
“You sound like my grandfather.” Sanada grumbled, turning back to his food.
Niou just laughed.
--
Niou turned out to be right. The afternoon humidity turned into rain well into the evening, which only grew heavier as Sanada went to go to bed. The sound of the rain on the roof kept him awake for most of the night.
When morning came, it was cool and breezy, which made Sanada want to curl up in bed and sleep some more.
“Your dinner seems to have gone well, Sanada.” Yukimura said cheerfully during practice.
“Huh?”
Yukimura glanced over at Niou who was talking animatedly to a still half-asleep Yagyuu. Sanada looked over as well, then back to Yukimura before Niou noticed him looking.
“Hn.”
It had been an enjoyable dinner, he would admit that. He'd told Niou about his family and the dojo, and for some absurd reason, about the koi pond in his backyard.
Niou hadn't offered much information about himself, aside from talking about staying with Yagyuu. “Very neat” “A lot of store-bought food” “I'm sleeping in the guest room” sort of comments. It didn't take long for Sanada to realize Niou didn't give out much personal information.
“Perhaps you should take Niou out every week, then. You seem happier.” Yukimura said, patting him on the arm.
“What? No I don't.” That was ridiculous.
“I'm right. Aren't I, Renji?” Of course Yukimura would turn to Renji for confirmation about what he was saying.
Renji glanced over - ... when had he been standing so close? - and surveyed Sanada for a moment. “There is a 17% increase in the angle of Genichirou's eyebrows. 84% chance that he's in a better mood than normal.”
Sanada scowled, which only made Renji consider him more.
“Hmm... 76% chance Genichirou is now embarrassed about being found out and is trying to prove my data wrong.”
“10 laps, Renji.”
“Increase that previous percentage to 93%” Renji laughed softly to himself as he started on the laps.
“Make that 20 laps.” he shouted at Renji's retreating back.
--
Sunday went by without seeing Niou, though he did get a text from an unknown number with “;D” as the message. Sanada deleted it.
Monday, Niou annoyed him.
Tuesday, Niou annoyed him.
By Wednesday, Sanada was getting the feeling that Niou just seemed to enjoy generally getting on his nerves.
The clubhouse seemed to be his favourite place in which to put plan Irritate Sanada Genichirou As Much As Possible Before He Gets Dressed And Leaves into action.
“So hey, you have a lot of underwear.”
Sanada raised an eyebrow at Niou's conversation starter, though it did make him pull up his school pants just that bit faster.
“You wear a different colour every day. And briefs under your tennis uniform.” He did not want to know why Niou noticed the colour of his underwear everyday. Or that he changed them for tennis. Or even why Niou was looking down there in the first place.
“Stop looking at me while I get changed.”
Some people just asked for attention while they were getting changed. As demonstrated by Marui singing something about nodding his head and moving his hips in extremely bad English while wiggling around the room in his boxers.
Sanada couldn't look away fast enough when he caught an accidental eyeful.
It was much better to keep everything hidden under the towel. For everyone's sake.
“Why do you have so much underwear?” Sanada gritted his teeth together and shut his eyes, hoping Niou would just go away if he pretended he wasn't there.
“Are they bribes to try get you to join a company and endorse their products?”
His tactic wasn't working.
“No.”
“Are you already in a company and endorsing their products, then?”
Sanada stopped and glowered at Niou. “Stop being stupid.” He would have maintained eye contact for a few moments before turning away continuing with getting dressed, but Niou didn't stare back at him, his eyes wandering down instead. And that succeeded very well at making Sanada feel uncomfortable.
He grumbled to himself a bit. Stupid Niou, thinking up ridiculous things. He just had a lot of underwear, that was it.
“Are you an underwear model?”
Why was he the only one subjected to Niou's ridiculous line of questioning? And why wasn't anyone interrupting and changing the topic conversation?
He glanced over at Yukimura who was just looked back at him with a highly amused expression.
... That would explain it.
“Maybe you model in Korea...”
“... What?”
“I'm right!” Niou exclaimed, which just made Sanada even more confused. And slightly more annoyed. His eyebrow twitched at the light slap to his arm. “You can't hide your secrets from me, Sanada Genichirou.”
Thankfully Sanada was saved from having to think of some sort of reply - how would someone even reply to that in the first place? - by finishing doing up his shirt. He ignored doing up his tie in favour of grabbing his bags and leaving the clubhouse as fast as possible.
That didn't stop him from hearing the “I'll be searching through Korean underwear sites tonight, Sanada!” that followed him out, unfortunately.
--
For some unexplainable reason, he somehow ended up going out to dinner every Friday night with Niou.
He'd always say no when Niou asked about it in the morning after his daily greeting that had somehow changed to “Good morning, fukubuchou~”. Sanada couldn't figure out if he was more or less annoyed at the change.
He'd always say no during the day when the other regulars would ask about it, but he still found himself leaving the clubhouse last with Niou in tow after practice.
The next week they went for larb - Niou's suggestion - the second week out for yakiniku again, and the third week found them sitting in a small restaurant, waiting for the same meal.
Man-sized sirloin. Rare.
“A bride must have been sacrificed.” Niou said suddenly, in the middle of an extremely strange discussion over the shape of the breadsticks.
Sanada didn't know when he'd started being able to talk about ridiculous topics with Niou. He probably would have smacked Renji round the head if he'd tried to discuss something like breadsticks with him.
The sudden change in topic took Sanada by surprise and he was silent for a bit before answering.
“... What?”
“To the water god. You know, to make it rain so much.”
Sanada eyebrows drew together and he frowned at Niou. “I told you to stop sounding like my grandfather.” Well, he hadn't exactly told Niou as such, but he had thought that had been obvious. And even if it wasn't... Niou knew now.
Though, Niou did have a point. It had been raining a lot more in the past few weeks, a sudden appearance of the late wet season of the year. It was making tennis practice difficult, with the courts still wet from an overnight shower or a light drizzle still falling in the morning.
He knew Yukimura was just an annoyed about it as he was.
Which would explain why the club had been running more laps than normal.
Sanada fell silent for a few minutes, an awkward silence in which Niou picked at the bread and fiddled with the cutlery, making Sanada's eyebrow twitch.
He stopped though, once the meals came - two very large plates with basically equally sized portions of steak.
Their conversation restarted, comparing the rareness of their meals, general comments about how nice it was and... at Niou's insistence, seeing if there was any actual difference in taste and tenderness between the two cuts.
Niou concluded his own was better.
Sanada found himself telling Niou about his childhood to fill the silence. Playing in the mud with his brother, kendo, his horse plushie, nearly drowning in the koi pond...
The last story made Niou look at him thoughtfully for a moment. “I'd like to see this koi pond.” he said with a grin. “The koi pond that nearly took down the mighty Sanada Genichirou.”
Niou laughed, probably in response to the scowl on his face.
The meal lasted longer than any of the others, probably due to the fact that they were eating a much larger meal than the other three times. When they finished, Sanada's stomach felt like it was going to burst and he was glad to get up and leave. Try walk off some of the food he'd eaten or something.
He would have to train very hard over the weekend to try and compensate for his heavy eating.
For some reason, Niou insisted on walking instead of catching the bus like he normally did. Sanada shrugged, not really paying much attention to him as he walked.
It was a nice night. Cool for summer, a light breeze, not too humid.
“You know, if Yukimura hadn't said anything, I don't think you would have agreed to the first dinner.” Niou said, his pace slowing down slightly. “Or the second one... or the third one...”
He wondered where on earth Niou was going with this.
“He must be very persuasive to convince you.” Niou laughed, starting to walk faster again.
Sanada grunted.
They walked in silence for a few blocks, and Sanada tried to ignore the tension in the air that was far too reminiscent of the first dinner they'd gone to. He glanced at Niou a few times, but didn't say anything.
“Hey Sanada...” Niou stopped walking and Sanada stopped as well. “Will you do something for me?”
That was surprising. He had been thinking Niou just took whatever he wanted. Sanada turned around to look at Niou, raising his eyebrows slightly.
Niou took a step closer. Sanada was immovable like a mountain and stood his ground, though his eyes narrowed and he watched Niou closely.
The only thing he noticed was that Niou had a strange expression on his face, and that he was suddenly too close after another step forward. Sanada would have taken a step back, but the hand placed on his arm made him freeze.
“... What is it?” Since Niou didn't seem to be saying anything anytime soon. He kept his voice calm, regardless of the fact that he felt a twist of nervousness in his stomach. He shouldn't have eaten so much for dinner.
The hairs on his arms stood up as the hand slid up, and Sanada was suddenly aware that the street was far too deserted.
Niou's fingers dug into his shoulder, Niou took a step closer, Niou pulled him down slightly... Sanada's eyes widened... Niou's mouth was too close to his... Niou Niou Niou.
“... Be my bride?”
Before Sanada could say anything - which would probably most likely be “... what?” or some variation of that - Niou pressed their lips together.
It took him a few moments to process exactly what was happening, oh gods, I'm kissing another boy.
Sanada shoved Niou away, wiping his mouth on his wrist band before bringing his hand back and smacking Niou across the face.
“Stop being stupid, Niou.”
His palm was tingling, and he could hear his heart thumping loudly in his chest and the blood in his ears. The usual smirk was gone from Niou's face, replaced with... something. Sanada didn't pay any attention to it, turning around and starting to stomp away. There wasn't really much else he could, or felt like doing in the current situation.
He didn't dwell on the lack of final words that usually followed when he walked away from Niou.
--
The cool weather from earlier was gone by the time he got home, hot enough for his mother to get the two standing fans out from the cupboard.
He sweated his way through the night, the cool wet cloth draped over his face to try and ward off the heat, turning warm too soon.
Opening the window just made the heat worse.
The morning was the same. His cold shower lasted just a bit longer than normal as did his breakfast, sitting in front of the whirring fan in the kitchen.
Tennis practice was just as bad as he'd suspected, and Sanada spent as little time as possible within the swelteringly hot clubhouse, which stank of sweaty teenage boys, even worse than usual.
Yukimura opened up all the windows and the door to try and air it out during practice.
The only person who seemed unaffected by the heat was Niou, who stared at him for a moment before leaving him alone. Sanada was thankful for the lack of bothering that morning, as well as being able to avoid thinking about what had happened the night before.
He dragged himself through the hot day, which dragged into a hot week where the evenings were just as hot as during the day. Even Yukimura seemed affected by the heat, glaring at the people who pulled out of the laps during practice, but collapsing in the pitiful shade of a tree once he was done with his and forgetting to yell at the slackers.
The humidity increased dramatically on Friday and Sanada had to unstick himself from his chair after every class. He felt the back of his neck prickle a few times through out the day, but he mostly ignored it, glancing behind him once in between classes only to see Niou in a conversation with Yagyuu.
As the bell rang for the end of the day, he stood up and went straight to the back of the classroom where Yagyuu and Niou were.
“Ah, Sanada-kun.” Yagyuu said, cutting off his conversation with Niou.
“Go to practice, Yagyuu.”
Yagyuu looked confused and stared at him for a few moments before glancing at Niou and back at him. Sanada couldn't help but glance at Niou, whose face had settled into another odd expression, directed at the wall past Yagyuu.
His fuku-buchou glare must have been effective, as Yagyuu shrugged and started gathering his things together.
“I will see you both at practice then.”
“Walk slowly, Yagyuu. I won't be here long.” Niou said casually, raising an eyebrow at Sanada as though waiting for him to contradict him.
Sanada said nothing.
It didn't get any easier to say something to Niou once Yagyuu had left the room, and he found himself staring silently at Niou. The snappy “What do you want, Sanada?” didn't help either.
“Niou...” he started, before trailing off.
What was he meant to say? “Sorry for slapping you across the face”? But he really wasn't. Niou had been completely out of line when he had done that. “Were you serious about what you asked”? Of course Niou hadn't been serious. Just another one of Niou's ridiculous conversations.
The silence stretched out, mingling with the ever-present awkwardness.
“This is such a waste of time.” Niou said finally, pushing past Sanada. He heard the door open, then close, followed by a “Wait up, Yagyuu!”. Sanada gritted his teeth together, grabbed his bag and headed off to practice as well.
Stupid Niou.
--
He found himself walking away from the clubhouse after afternoon practice with Yukimura, who had held him back with a quiet “Hang on, Sanada” when he made to leave first. They watched the exhausted team leave, before locking up and leaving themselves.
There were a few comments as they walked. “Your serve's form was looking sloppy today”, “The heat is really bad, isn't it?”, “How is Kamechirou?”, “The new unit in maths is difficult.” that took them to Yukimura's bus stop. Just a few minutes to wait.
“Niou left with Yagyuu this afternoon.” Yukimura said casually, looking down the road for any sign of the bus.
Sanada grunted.
“I thought you two were going out to dinner every Friday...?” Another grunt.
“He's been looking quite unhappy lately, you know, Sanada.”
It was too humid and hot to be having this sort of conversation. Actually it was never really a good time to be having a conversation like this.
“As have you.”
That made Sanada pay more attention to the conversation and he turned to frown at Yukimura. “I have not been looking unhappy lately.”
“Genichirou has been assigning an average of 3.29 more laps onto every punishment this week and there has been a 32% increase of grunting instead of answering...” Yukimura said with a smile.
“That's a bad imitation of Renji.” Sanada grumbled.
“I can ring him if you want the proper data.”
He didn't bother replying to that. Yukimura knew he would say no.
Sanada was silent, feigning great interest in the neat row of houses on the other side of the road and trying to ignore the feeling of Yukimura's stare. It was... unnerving. Still no bus.
“What happened, Sanada?” Yukimura asked eventually, making Sanada's teeth grind together.
Aside from the fact that he didn't want to think about it at all, what could he say to Yukimura? “Niou kissed me”, “Niou was being his usual ridiculous self and annoyed me”...
“Something unpleasant” summed up his feelings towards the entire thing well.
Yukimura stared hard at him for a few more moments. Sanada's fingers tightened on the strap of his tennis bag. His shirt felt like it was glued to his back, but that wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as feeling like he was being x-rayed by Yukimura's gaze.
“Fix it, Sanada.”
He turned to look at Yukimura, frowning. “But--”
“I don't care how, but I expect you two to have kissed and made up by the end of next week. It's getting tiresome.”
“But--”
“No complaints.” Yukimura brightened up as he looked past Sanada, and he turned around to see what was so interesting. Ah, the bus.
...Why couldn't it have come a few seconds earlier?
“See you tomorrow at practice.” Sanada grunted at Yukimura's words, grumbling a “bye” that Yukimura probably didn't hear before starting on his way home.
--
The biggest problem Sanada realized very quickly was that Niou didn't exactly seem like he wanted to give Sanada the chance to make up. Leaving the classroom as soon as possible or just outright ignoring him when he was there... the same went for when they were in the clubroom, though Sanada wasn't really complaining about the lack of random chattering in his ear.
Saturday held no chances to try and talk to Niou. He showed up late, practised on the other side of the tennis courts and bothered Yagyuu with a “I feel like icecream today” after.
An awkward conversation after kendo training on Sunday with his grandfather brought about a “If your opponent is avoiding you, sometimes you must strike like lightning and cut them down before their reason for not attacking you no longer applies.”
Sanada didn't think that was very helpful for his situation with Niou, but he thanked his grandfather anyway.
His mother told him to “write a nice letter to your friend” while she was making dinner. That wasn't very helpful either.
His brother just laughed and said “Awww, little Gen-chan's growing up.” He should have known even thinking about asking his brother for advice was a bad idea.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday... Yukimura gave him a serious look on a sweltering Thursday morning, which Sanada took as a reminder that he still had to talk properly to Niou.
Sanada spent most of the day's classes considering the different possibilities, dwelling maybe a bit too much on what had happened, made worse by the feeling of Niou staring at him from the back of the classroom again.
He settled on what he was going to do during afternoon practice laps and dropped two games to Akaya because he was thinking about it too much.
Tarundoru.
Sanada showered and got dressed as fast as possible, talking to Renji for a few moments, “you need to get your racquets restrung soon, Genichirou” before he noticed Niou getting ready to leave.
He cut off his conversation with Renji, elbowed Yagyuu out of the way, grabbed Niou by the arm and dragged him out of the clubhouse. Strike like lightning.
Sanada ignored the “what the fuck, Sanada?”, “get your meaty hand off my arm”, the stream of swear words, the bag of books that whacked him in the side once or twice, responding only by tightening his grip and walking faster.
They might have gotten some strange looks from other people on the street, but Sanada ignored them too.
He introduced a sulky Niou to his mother as he was taking his shoes off in the entrance. The “It's nice to see Genichirou has made new friends.” was unnecessary though.
Sanada took Niou to the garden, finally letting go of his arm.
“I think you might have dislocated my arm.”
“Don't be stupid, Niou.” How many times had he said that to Niou...?
Sanada glowered for a few moments before gesturing behind Niou. “There's the koi pond you wanted to see.” And that was lame. Niou raised an eyebrow at him, but turned around and headed over to it.
The same sentences as last time they'd been alone and trying to talk went through his head as he followed Niou to the koi pond. And a week on, they still sounded bad in his mind and just as pointless.
They were silent in front of the koi pond, looking down at the fish swimming lazily around in the water. He could hear the sound of his grandfather yelling at some incompetent person in the dojo for slacking off.
It got more awkward as the seconds stretched out and part of Sanada was waiting for the “this is a waste of time” from Niou before he walked off and left Sanada to try and think of some other way to follow Yukimura's order.
He poked Niou on the arm to get his attention, not entirely sure what he was going to do.
For some completely unknown reason, Sanada found himself leaning closer to Niou as he turned around, only vaguely aware of the raised eyebrows and his heart going thump thump thump against his chest.
The brim of his cap hit Niou's forehead, making Sanada stop and pull back, looking away awkwardly. Well that was weird.
Niou rubbed his forehead in confusion for a bit before poking Sanada in the calf with his foot. “What was that about?”
“... I don't know.” Being honest was the best thing to do in the given situation.
He was aware of Niou staring at him, but kept his eyes firmly looking in the opposite direction. He didn't say anything until he saw Niou's hand grab the front of his cap and pull it off.
“Niou.” Sanada turned and frowned at him.
“You should try again.”
“I said I don't know what I was doing.”
“Sanada.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Niou.”
It was like a repeat of that night. Niou was too close, it was too empty in the garden, there was the heat from Niou's hands on his shoulder and the back of his neck... the really weird feeling of Niou's lips on his.
There was also the same oh gods, I'm being kissed by a boy going through his head, but he found himself touching Niou's hip, side, back, not really sure what else to do.
A loud “I'm home!” made them jump apart and Sanada felt his face heat up slightly, taking his cap back from Niou and putting it back on.
He noticed an odd expression on Niou's face before he concentrated on frowning across the garden at his brother.
“... You didn't hit me this time.”
Sanada was distracted from his staring contest and turned around, ignoring the loud whoop of victory. “What?”
“You didn't hit me.” Niou's expression turned even more unreadable and Sanada's frown deepened.
“Hn.” He tugged his cap down just a bit more and went back to looking at the koi pond. Much more interesting.
There was a long silence, which made Sanada's stomach curl in on itself and once again go through possible things to say. “You didn't say weird things about marriage”, “Why did you do that?”, “... It wasn't that bad”
“... Do you want to see the rest of the house?” he asked finally.
Niou seemed surprised, but nodded and followed Sanada around his house.
It was a bit unnerving, how silent Niou was being as they looked around his home. No looking closer at the things in the bathroom, or exclamations over the numerous photos around the house of the Sanada family throughout the years, and no poking around in his wardrobe when they finally got the Sanada's room.
He did however poke the battered horse plushie on his bookshelf. Sanada scowled and Niou grinned back at him.
--
It was evening when Sanada decided that Niou had to be escorted back to Yagyuu's house. Or at least partway. Niou was surprisingly polite as he thanked Sanada's parents and grandfather as they left.
A few blocks away, Niou insisted on linking arms while they walked. Sanada had taken a look around the empty street, sighed and let Niou cling.
“One day I want show you my home too.” Niou said, tightening his grip on Sanada's arm.
Sanada hn-ed and kept walking. He tried to remember if he'd ever been told where Niou was from. He didn't think Renji had ever managed to find out, probably much to the data master's frustration.
“... Where are you from?”
The moment he had said it, Sanada thought that it was rude to ask something like that, considering they were meant to be... would he define them as friends? But Niou didn't seem to mind too much.
“It has lots of names.” That didn't help very much. “Some people call it Suguk.” Niou shrugged.
Suguk? That name seemed familiar, and Sanada was silent as they continued walking, trying to think where he'd heard it.
From his grandfather, most likely.
Sanada's frown deepened and surprisingly Niou didn't interrupt his train of thought.
Suguk.
...
...
The water kingdom?
It had been something similar to that during the stories of the gods that his grandfather used to tell him when he was younger.
“Stop being stupid, Niou.” Sanada grumbled belatedly.
Niou grinned at him. “Masaharu.”
... What? Was Niou telling him to call him by his first name?
“... No.”
There was no reply from Niou, and Sanada was about to ask him something - even if he didn't exactly know what that something would be - when he felt Niou's warm hand hold onto his. The street was still too empty.
“I know my way back to Yagyuu's from here.” That didn't explain the hand squeezing his.
“Fine.” It seemed best to just ignore it.
He should have expected it really, what with the empty street and Niou's sudden closeness, but the lips against his still took him by surprise. Niou's hand tightened around his though, and Sanada stayed still.
There was Niou's other hand on his shoulder and they shouldn't be kissing in the middle of the street, even if it was empty. Very bad social responsibility!
Still...
Niou pulled away first and Sanada glanced up and down the street. Ah, he could see a bus and some pedestrians. Still very far away though.
His fingers twitched as Niou let go and Sanada hesitated before clapping Niou on the shoulder.
“You owe me a dinner out, by the way.” Niou said with a grin, fixing up his bags before turning away. “See you tomorrow, Sanada.”
He ignored the dinner comment. “... Wake Yagyuu up early and be at training on time.” That counted as a sort of goodbye in his mind.
Niou seemed to take it as one and he waved and laughed as he started walking away.
--
There was a thunderstorm that night.
Author: turkeyimposter
Recipients Name: penombrelilas
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sanada/Niou
Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis is not mine. Neither is the basic idea behind this fic.
Warnings: In-jokes abound. Musely madness. Complete disregard for Japanese culture, whoops :/ Over-abuse of the word “stupid”.
It was the hottest summer Sanada could remember, made worse by drought and Marui's constant comments about how they could probably fry an egg on the pavement. He was getting sick of the constant discussions on global warming on the news and the predictions of cool fronts that never came.
Dam levels at 45%, the electronic sign on the subway read.
“These academics don't know what they're talking about. Forgetting their roots and their gods.” his grandfather said whenever he saw something about the drought. He ignored all the drought rules.
Three minute showers maximum, no draining the bathtub during the day, no rinsing off dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, and only ever turn on the dishwasher or washing machine when there was a full load. Sanada was doing his part in upholding the rules the government were putting in place to try and preserve water, no matter what his grandfather said, by cutting down the after practice showers to nothing more than a quick wash to remove the layer of sweat.
“You've been in there too long.” he said loudly, his voice echoing around the shower area as he hauled some horrified second year out by the arm, his hair still half covered in shampoo. Sanada paid no attention to the pathetic attempts to preserve his modesty, turning off the water in the cubicle and continuing to stomp down the row of showers.
It was only fractionally cooler inside the school than outside, and Sanada was thankful for his next-along-from-the-window seat on the rare days there was a half-decent breeze. He suspected this was why the rest of the regulars gravitated towards his and Yagyuu's classroom for lunch on the slightly cooler days.
“Oh, I will not be here tomorrow for practice, Yukimura-kun.” Yagyuu said halfway through lunch. His statement managed to stop Sanada's conversation with Renji about the new babolat racquet he'd seen in the store, and even made Marui and Jackal look up from whatever they were doing down their end of the group of desks.
“I am going to the airport to pick up a transfer student who is staying with me for a few months.”
Sanada grunted and turned back to his lunch, continuing his conversation with Renji a few minutes later. Yukimura didn't seem to have any objections to the whole idea, nor did he say anything against the transfer student joining the tennis club while he was here.
He didn't think much about it over the weekend.
Saturday was the same as ever, the sweltering heat which seemed slightly less intense than usual, though that could have been his hopeful imagination, the aching muscles, and the numerous empty water bottles by the end of the day. Sunday went by as well, a combination of kendo and homework and a phone call from Yukimura in the evening.
It was only when he saw Yagyuu approach the tennis courts the next morning - 5 minutes late, tarundoru! - accompanied by another person did he think back to the Friday lunchtime announcement.
“Ah, Sanada-kun. This is Niou Masaharu.” Yagyuu seemed to have already introduced the new student to the other regulars.
Sanada gave Niou a once over, his mouth settling into a frown. Bleached hair, bad posture, and an annoying smirk that only seemed to be getting wider the longer Sanada looked.
He grunted in some sort of attempt at a greeting and looked back at Yagyuu. “Hurry up and get on the courts. Twenty laps for being late.”
That being said, he stomped away to go yell at some juniors who were slacking off. Lazy asses. He heard some laughter behind him, accompanied with a “Nice to meet you too!”, but Sanada didn't pay any attention to it.
--
“175 centimeters tall, left handed - that could be interesting - AB blood type...” Renji reported on the bus after school. Sanada was silent, staring out the window and only half listening. He didn't really want to know how Renji managed to get that data in one day... he'd always suspected his friend had rulers in his eyes somehow.
It was too hot for paying full attention to data reciting. Unexpectedly humid as well, which was making him feel like he was melting into the bus seat even more.
“Apparently he has played tennis before. You should see what he's like, Genichirou.”
“Hn?” Well that caught his attention successfully.
“He might be a good asset to the team.”
Sanada was silent like the forest.
“I'll take that as an affirmation that you will play him tomorrow afternoon. Lovely.”
He elbowed Renji out of the way as he stood up to get off at his bus stop. He grunted in reply to Renji's farewell and started on the way home. The humidity brought about a light sprinkling of rain on his way home which passed over too quickly, leaving an unpleasant warm, muggy feeling in the air.
Sanada was thankful he did not live very far from the bus stop.
--
“Niou seems fascinated with you, Sanada.” Yukimura whispered at lunch, making him glance over at said bleached haired boy for the first time that day.
He grunted at the grin on Niou's face and turned back to Yukimura. “We're playing this afternoon. He knows that.” They didn't know anything about Niou's style of tennis. He could be just like Renji and gathering data on Sanada as they spoke.
Now that Yukimura had mentioned it, Sanada became very aware that yes, Niou did stare at him a lot. Throughout all of lunch, except when Yagyuu managed to draw him into a conversation, Niou was staring at him. He could feel eyes on his back during class as well, making his the back of his neck prickle but he resisted the temptation to turn around and glower at the starer. In the locker room it was more obvious, with Niou making comments about his shirt and shorts tan from spending so much time in the sun playing tennis, and asking didn't his jaw hurt from clenching his teeth together so much?
Sanada gritted his teeth and dealt with it, which seemed to only have the effect of making Niou's mouth twitch up and his eyes narrow in amusement.
Yukimura eventually sent him and Niou onto the court, and he kept his face carefully blank until he went to the baseline to serve. Sanada stared hard at Niou across the court. He seemed... comfortable, spinning the racquet in his left hand, wearing what Sanada was going to assume was one of Yagyuu's other tennis uniforms - the shirt looked just a little big and faded.
That was really all he let himself notice before throwing himself into his serve. There was a bit of grim satisfaction at the blink of surprise.
Sanada was as swift like the wind and invaded Niou's court like fire, firing tennis balls down the line, and cross court, right into the corners, leaving Niou running for each winning shot and not being able to quite get there. Even though the match was fast, the back of his shirt was still sticking to him from the sweat and as the match went on, it only seemed to get hotter.
The lazy asses in the tennis club were watching the match and Sanada glared at them as he went up to the net to shake Niou's hand. 6-1.
“Good game.” Sanada mumbled, holding onto Niou's hand for as short a time as possible. It didn't matter that he'd won, the staring had caused too many unforced errors on his half, shots that went just a little wide or a little long, making him grind his teeth in frustration.
Niou fluttered his eyelashes and laughed before walking off the court to talk to Yagyuu.
Sanada snorted in disgust and started on his cool down laps.
--
“Oi, Sanada.” Niou draped one arm over Sanada's shoulders in the change rooms after the regulation time showers. He stiffened and stared at the grey metal of his locker in front of him, his fingers clenching on his tie.
A muscle in his cheek twitched as Niou blew on his neck.
“Get off me.” He shoved Niou away and started tying his tie again.
“Yagyuu was going to take me out to dinner and pay, and I want you to come too. And him.” Niou gestured randomly at Marui who stopped dancing and singing some gross, poppy song in front of his locker to look over in surprise.
Sanada thought there was a very good reason behind the suddenly stony expression on Yagyuu's face, as well as the momentary absence of the normal polite smile. He was actually slightly sympathetic towards the gentleman. Just for a moment.
He was about to say something along the lines of “no, go away, I have absolutely no intentions of going out for dinner with you three”, when Yukimura appeared at his shoulder.
“We could always make it a team outing. With you included of course, Niou.” He did not like the smile on Yukimura's face at all. “We haven't had one of those for quite a while, have we, Renji?”
“Six weeks and 4 days.” the data-man said promptly. Sanada should have known he'd be listening. Flap ears.
Sanada's eyebrow twitched but he didn't say anything.
“It's settled then. We'll go out after this. I hope nobody's busy.”
Of course no one was.
Yagyuu's smile wavered again and Sanada thought he saw Yagyuu's fingers twitch before he turned his attention away to more important things. Such as the fact that there was a bleached haired boy still standing next to him.
“Your uniform is a disgrace. Go fix it.” Sanada grumbled, fixing up the contents of his tennis bag - racquets pushed to one side, spare grip tape in the zip up pocket, water bottle cap screwed on properly - before swinging it onto his back, slamming his locker shut and stomping out of the club house. It was too stuffy in there from the showers.
He could hear the conversation get louder as the rest of the tennis regulars + Niou approached the gate, not long after he did. Sanada ignored a comment from Renji about his locker suffering far too much damage this year and a “Fukubuchou is so grumpy today” from Akaya.
Sanada walked with Yukimura, making sure to keep to the back of the group. Renji seemed rather intent on questioning Niou about everything and anything - adding to his data, obviously. Yagyuu seemed to be the new target for Marui, who was popping bubbles away in his ear and chattering “oohh, Hiroshi, it was so nice for you to offer to pay for dinner, my parents have taken away my allowance this week...” Sanada stopped listening.
Watching paint dry was more interesting.
“Your technique was sloppy today, Sanada.” Yukimura said suddenly. He grunted.
“Those sort of errors won't be tolerated at the Nationals.” Hn. He knew that. He wasn't at all happy with those errors. Niou just got on his nerves and made his concentration waver at important moments with that infuriating staring.
As though he'd heard that thought, Niou looked over his shoulder and winked at Sanada.
“If you're going to let those sorts of things bother you, perhaps you should take up Renji's offer of anger management classes.”
“I won't.” Let those things bother him.
--
“... unexpected shower this evening.” the television said as Sanada pulled off his shoes and put them to the side.
He could hear his grandfather commenting on the unreliability of the weather predictions lately. “All this week was meant to be sunny.” Sanada agreed with him as he shook the rain off his jacket. It was harder to organize practice when there was unpredictable rainfall.
“You're late, Genichirou. We've already had dinner.” His mother said from the kitchen. She was still cleaning up from the sounds of it.
“Went out. Team dinner.”
It had certainly been the strangest team dinner he'd ever experienced, mainly because of the annoying person who'd squashed himself into the practically non-existent space next to him, keeping up a spirited conversation around the table. And no matter what he'd tried to do, Sanada hadn't been able to escape the thigh pressing against his or the elbow that dug into his side too often when Niou sat back from piling more meat onto his plate.
It had started rained while they were inside the restaurant, which had made the walk to the bus stop and then home unpleasant, his socks getting wet and squishing around in his shoes.
At least the yakiniku had been good.
“Go sit in the bath for a while. You're soaking wet.” His mother said, peering around the corner to look at him. “You might catch a cold.”
That was true. Which would make tennis practice even worse than usual. A cold on top of the already energy draining training.
He dropped his bags off in his room first, ignored his brother's cheery “Gen-chan~” of a greeting and gathered his pajamas. The routine was familiar, and he found himself relaxing, dwelling less on the various annoyances of the day.
Sanada was settled into the warm bath water, his toes regaining some feeling other than numb, and the rest of his body feeling limp.
He grumbled to himself and shifted in the bath, stretching his legs out and hearing his knees crack. Ah. Just a few more moments passed, Sanada counting the passing seconds in his head. 71... 72... 73... seconds, before he got out of the water and grabbed a towel.
It was then that he paused, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck prickle, and turned around slowly.
Nothing.
His eyebrows drew together but he shrugged. A bit of air from the exhaust fan. Or a ghost, his grandfather would probably say.
Sanada didn't believe in ghosts.
--
The week dragged on, and Sanada was just slightly unnerved with how Niou had so easily slotted himself into the team and into Sanada's daily schedule.
It had gotten easier to ignore the constant feeling of someone watching his every move from across the room, and Sanada didn't really notice it anymore. That was good.
He also ignored the “good morning, sunshine~” greetings he got every morning of the week from Niou when he and Yagyuu showed up for practice.
There were more unexpected showers of rain, but never heavy enough to cause a difference in the dam levels. The weather people were constantly saying how unpredictable the weather was getting.
Discussion on the news turned once again to global warming.
His grandfather snorted.
A cold front was predicted and actually came, making tennis practice more tolerable for the middle of the week before giving way to heat again.
Water restrictions were still the same.
“Yagyuu's busy at cram school tonight.” Niou said conversationally to Sanada one sweaty morning, far too early for light conversations about what Yagyuu was doing. He did not care what Yagyuu Hiroshi did if it didn't involve tennis. Especially not when he was trying to get changed for practice.
Niou didn't seem to mind the fact that he was being ignored. “You should entertain me instead.” Sanada's eye twitched as Niou elbowed him in the side. Pointy elbows, to go along with everything else pointy about Niou, Sanada decided.
“No.”
“Like a date, Niou-senpai?” Trust Akaya to read too deeply into things. Sanada felt his ears grow hot and he glowered at his locker.
Niou should laugh, which he did... and tell Akaya to stop being stupid, which he didn't, instead saying “Something like that.” which only brought about more questions from Akaya.
“It's not a date, and I am not going anywhere with you tonight.” He thought it was best to put an end to the ridiculous line of conversation before it got out of hand.
“Tomorrow, then. Yagyuu can go on a date with Marui.” Judging from the simultaneous spluttering from one side of the room and the throat clearing on the other, they'd both heard Niou's comment.
“No.”
That seemed to be effective, as the conversation stopped and Sanada was able to go back to changing in peace, leaving the clubhouse first to go yell at a few juniors for not running laps like they were meant to.
--
“I heard something about a date.” Renji said, on the way back from the cafeteria at lunch.
The data master had probably already calculated the amount of calories in his cafeteria-bought lunch and how many laps he would have to do during afternoon practice to work them off. Sanada was glad that he brought his lunch from home everyday.
“Niou's being stupid.”
“Aa...” Renji stopped and glanced behind them for a moment before starting to walk again. “Being stupid like now, I suppose?”
Sanada frowned and looked as well, stopping in the middle of the hallway. Poking his highly noticeable head around the corner was of course, Niou Masaharu. Sanada's lips thinned and he stared back.
Niou blinked and cocked his head to the side slightly, a smile curving onto his mouth. Sanada continued staring. His eyes might have narrowed at some point as well.
He heard Renji clear his throat and looked at his friend, glancing back just in time to see Niou disappear behind the corner. Hn.
“He's stupid.” was all Sanada said as they started towards the classroom again. He didn't like the look he was being given by Renji... too calculating, and he could almost see the data being processed in his friend's mind.
--
The rest of the day went by the same as ever, the same classes, nothing strange happening and neither he nor Niou mentioned the incident in the hallway.
It wasn't until he was about to start running the usual afternoon training amount of 20 laps was there a hitch in the usual routine.
“What?” He watched the rest of the club run around the courts.
“I think you should go out with Niou---” Yukimura started to say.
“But--”
“-- to dinner. As friends. Don't interrupt me, Sanada.”
“But--”
That really seemed to be all he could get in before Yukimura cut across him.
“He seems to like you. Moreso than the other regulars. Perhaps it's your shared liking of meat. You were both obvious enough about that the other night.” Of course Yukimura would say something like that. Sanada couldn't help that the yakiniku that night had been extremely nice and Yukimura didn't exactly eat much meat in general.
“Wha--”
“Tonight. I expect to see you walking away from that clubhouse together after practice. Do your job as a vice-captain and make someone feel like they want to stay in the tennis club, for once.”
Sanada gritted his teeth and glowered at a speck of fluff on Yukimura's jersey collar. Yukimura seemed to take that as an agreement because he nodded approvingly. “Good. Now start on those laps.”
“... Fine.”
--
Niou was all smiles after practice while they were changing. Sanada assumed that Yukimura had told Niou about them going out to dinner as friends.
Or at least he hoped Yukimura had added the last bit in.
Niou seemed to bother him less, apart from a few nudges in the side and the usual loud, inappropriate comment in the showers. Maybe he was just getting used to the annoying behaviour.
Yagyuu left first to go to cram school, closely followed by Akaya, Marui and Jackal who from their conversation in the change room, Sanada thought were off to the arcade. Normally he would leave at that point with Renji, letting Yukimura do the final check of everything and lock up the clubhouse, but he had to wait for Niou who was taking forever and a day to do... something.
There are only so many times you can fluff up your hair, thought Sanada. After that, it was just pointless.
He went around the shower area to check that everything was turned off correctly, waiting for Niou to get his ass into gear.
When he returned to the changing area, Niou was still eying himself in the mirror, looking like he was checking up his nose for something. How stupid.
“We're leaving.” he grabbed Niou's bags and shoved them into the other boy's chest, slammed the locker shut and dragged Niou out of the clubhouse, ignoring the squawk of protest.
His actions were highly effective, he thought. It would have been more effective if he'd been able to drag Niou all the way to the gate, but he had to stop and lock up the clubhouse.
It was oddly silent as they walked together, something which Sanada hadn't really associated with Niou. Sanada had been expecting him to start talking about whatever random topics popped into his head like he normally did. Instead he found himself trying to think of something to get rid of the unsettling drippy tension in the air.
Something like... “It's very humid.” No, that was stupid, even if it was the truth. He could feel his shirt sticking to his back.
Maybe... “Tennis is good.” But that was just as stupid. He didn't think he could discuss tennis as easily as he could with someone like Renji. Yukimura just picked at his technique.
He settled with a “We're having bulgogi.”
Him suddenly speaking seemed to have surprised Niou who looked up from staring at the ground to blink at him in confusion for a moment. “Okay...?” Maybe Niou didn't know what bulgogi was.
“It's meat.”
Niou at least seemed to understand that, and out of things to say, they fell back into silence.
It wasn't as awkward when they got to the restaurant, sitting down on either side of the table and starting to lay the meat on the stove. The sizzling sesame seeds helped fill the silence a bit.
There were also the “Those pieces need to be flipped” “Move those over to make more room” “How much rice do you want?” comments that seemed to come naturally.
Niou had never had bulgogi before, Sanada quickly found out, which lead to a few moments of telling him no, that pile of lettuce leaves was not a pathetic salad, it was for eating the meat and rice with. Feeling oddly generous, Sanada also demonstrated how to wrap the lettuce properly.
“It looks like it might rain tonight as well.” Niou said all of a sudden, halfway through the first plate of meat.
“Hn.” Sanada grunted, before swallowing. He should probably say something more than just that... “It was very humid today.” He had somehow ended up saying one of the rejected-as-stupid comments.
In his defense, it had been Niou who had started talking about the weather first.
“Mmm...” Niou piled a bit more rice into his lettuce leaf. “It's good, what with this drought.”
Sanada's eyes narrowed slightly but he didn't say anything for a while, eating a bit more as silence settled again between them. He could hear other people's stoves sizzling around them.
“I don't like the rain.” he said eventually, causing Niou to raise his eyebrows. “Interferes with training.” Of course. And with how badly the weather people were at predicting lately, it was hard booking indoors venues for tennis practice if needed. Somehow though, Yukimura always managed it.
Niou's eyes narrowed in amusement and his mouth quirked up. “How like you, fukubuchou.” Sanada decided right there and then he did not at all like 'fukubuchou' being said in that tone.
Sanada hn-ed. “There needs to be heavy rain.” The light showers were doing nothing for the dam levels. “Over night thunderstorms are best.” For a week, maybe. That way they could still have afternoon training on dry courts.
“You'll have to make the water god happy first.” Niou said with a grin, leaning just a bit more over the table. Just that bit closer to Sanada. He automatically sat back.
“You sound like my grandfather.” Sanada grumbled, turning back to his food.
Niou just laughed.
--
Niou turned out to be right. The afternoon humidity turned into rain well into the evening, which only grew heavier as Sanada went to go to bed. The sound of the rain on the roof kept him awake for most of the night.
When morning came, it was cool and breezy, which made Sanada want to curl up in bed and sleep some more.
“Your dinner seems to have gone well, Sanada.” Yukimura said cheerfully during practice.
“Huh?”
Yukimura glanced over at Niou who was talking animatedly to a still half-asleep Yagyuu. Sanada looked over as well, then back to Yukimura before Niou noticed him looking.
“Hn.”
It had been an enjoyable dinner, he would admit that. He'd told Niou about his family and the dojo, and for some absurd reason, about the koi pond in his backyard.
Niou hadn't offered much information about himself, aside from talking about staying with Yagyuu. “Very neat” “A lot of store-bought food” “I'm sleeping in the guest room” sort of comments. It didn't take long for Sanada to realize Niou didn't give out much personal information.
“Perhaps you should take Niou out every week, then. You seem happier.” Yukimura said, patting him on the arm.
“What? No I don't.” That was ridiculous.
“I'm right. Aren't I, Renji?” Of course Yukimura would turn to Renji for confirmation about what he was saying.
Renji glanced over - ... when had he been standing so close? - and surveyed Sanada for a moment. “There is a 17% increase in the angle of Genichirou's eyebrows. 84% chance that he's in a better mood than normal.”
Sanada scowled, which only made Renji consider him more.
“Hmm... 76% chance Genichirou is now embarrassed about being found out and is trying to prove my data wrong.”
“10 laps, Renji.”
“Increase that previous percentage to 93%” Renji laughed softly to himself as he started on the laps.
“Make that 20 laps.” he shouted at Renji's retreating back.
--
Sunday went by without seeing Niou, though he did get a text from an unknown number with “;D” as the message. Sanada deleted it.
Monday, Niou annoyed him.
Tuesday, Niou annoyed him.
By Wednesday, Sanada was getting the feeling that Niou just seemed to enjoy generally getting on his nerves.
The clubhouse seemed to be his favourite place in which to put plan Irritate Sanada Genichirou As Much As Possible Before He Gets Dressed And Leaves into action.
“So hey, you have a lot of underwear.”
Sanada raised an eyebrow at Niou's conversation starter, though it did make him pull up his school pants just that bit faster.
“You wear a different colour every day. And briefs under your tennis uniform.” He did not want to know why Niou noticed the colour of his underwear everyday. Or that he changed them for tennis. Or even why Niou was looking down there in the first place.
“Stop looking at me while I get changed.”
Some people just asked for attention while they were getting changed. As demonstrated by Marui singing something about nodding his head and moving his hips in extremely bad English while wiggling around the room in his boxers.
Sanada couldn't look away fast enough when he caught an accidental eyeful.
It was much better to keep everything hidden under the towel. For everyone's sake.
“Why do you have so much underwear?” Sanada gritted his teeth together and shut his eyes, hoping Niou would just go away if he pretended he wasn't there.
“Are they bribes to try get you to join a company and endorse their products?”
His tactic wasn't working.
“No.”
“Are you already in a company and endorsing their products, then?”
Sanada stopped and glowered at Niou. “Stop being stupid.” He would have maintained eye contact for a few moments before turning away continuing with getting dressed, but Niou didn't stare back at him, his eyes wandering down instead. And that succeeded very well at making Sanada feel uncomfortable.
He grumbled to himself a bit. Stupid Niou, thinking up ridiculous things. He just had a lot of underwear, that was it.
“Are you an underwear model?”
Why was he the only one subjected to Niou's ridiculous line of questioning? And why wasn't anyone interrupting and changing the topic conversation?
He glanced over at Yukimura who was just looked back at him with a highly amused expression.
... That would explain it.
“Maybe you model in Korea...”
“... What?”
“I'm right!” Niou exclaimed, which just made Sanada even more confused. And slightly more annoyed. His eyebrow twitched at the light slap to his arm. “You can't hide your secrets from me, Sanada Genichirou.”
Thankfully Sanada was saved from having to think of some sort of reply - how would someone even reply to that in the first place? - by finishing doing up his shirt. He ignored doing up his tie in favour of grabbing his bags and leaving the clubhouse as fast as possible.
That didn't stop him from hearing the “I'll be searching through Korean underwear sites tonight, Sanada!” that followed him out, unfortunately.
--
For some unexplainable reason, he somehow ended up going out to dinner every Friday night with Niou.
He'd always say no when Niou asked about it in the morning after his daily greeting that had somehow changed to “Good morning, fukubuchou~”. Sanada couldn't figure out if he was more or less annoyed at the change.
He'd always say no during the day when the other regulars would ask about it, but he still found himself leaving the clubhouse last with Niou in tow after practice.
The next week they went for larb - Niou's suggestion - the second week out for yakiniku again, and the third week found them sitting in a small restaurant, waiting for the same meal.
Man-sized sirloin. Rare.
“A bride must have been sacrificed.” Niou said suddenly, in the middle of an extremely strange discussion over the shape of the breadsticks.
Sanada didn't know when he'd started being able to talk about ridiculous topics with Niou. He probably would have smacked Renji round the head if he'd tried to discuss something like breadsticks with him.
The sudden change in topic took Sanada by surprise and he was silent for a bit before answering.
“... What?”
“To the water god. You know, to make it rain so much.”
Sanada eyebrows drew together and he frowned at Niou. “I told you to stop sounding like my grandfather.” Well, he hadn't exactly told Niou as such, but he had thought that had been obvious. And even if it wasn't... Niou knew now.
Though, Niou did have a point. It had been raining a lot more in the past few weeks, a sudden appearance of the late wet season of the year. It was making tennis practice difficult, with the courts still wet from an overnight shower or a light drizzle still falling in the morning.
He knew Yukimura was just an annoyed about it as he was.
Which would explain why the club had been running more laps than normal.
Sanada fell silent for a few minutes, an awkward silence in which Niou picked at the bread and fiddled with the cutlery, making Sanada's eyebrow twitch.
He stopped though, once the meals came - two very large plates with basically equally sized portions of steak.
Their conversation restarted, comparing the rareness of their meals, general comments about how nice it was and... at Niou's insistence, seeing if there was any actual difference in taste and tenderness between the two cuts.
Niou concluded his own was better.
Sanada found himself telling Niou about his childhood to fill the silence. Playing in the mud with his brother, kendo, his horse plushie, nearly drowning in the koi pond...
The last story made Niou look at him thoughtfully for a moment. “I'd like to see this koi pond.” he said with a grin. “The koi pond that nearly took down the mighty Sanada Genichirou.”
Niou laughed, probably in response to the scowl on his face.
The meal lasted longer than any of the others, probably due to the fact that they were eating a much larger meal than the other three times. When they finished, Sanada's stomach felt like it was going to burst and he was glad to get up and leave. Try walk off some of the food he'd eaten or something.
He would have to train very hard over the weekend to try and compensate for his heavy eating.
For some reason, Niou insisted on walking instead of catching the bus like he normally did. Sanada shrugged, not really paying much attention to him as he walked.
It was a nice night. Cool for summer, a light breeze, not too humid.
“You know, if Yukimura hadn't said anything, I don't think you would have agreed to the first dinner.” Niou said, his pace slowing down slightly. “Or the second one... or the third one...”
He wondered where on earth Niou was going with this.
“He must be very persuasive to convince you.” Niou laughed, starting to walk faster again.
Sanada grunted.
They walked in silence for a few blocks, and Sanada tried to ignore the tension in the air that was far too reminiscent of the first dinner they'd gone to. He glanced at Niou a few times, but didn't say anything.
“Hey Sanada...” Niou stopped walking and Sanada stopped as well. “Will you do something for me?”
That was surprising. He had been thinking Niou just took whatever he wanted. Sanada turned around to look at Niou, raising his eyebrows slightly.
Niou took a step closer. Sanada was immovable like a mountain and stood his ground, though his eyes narrowed and he watched Niou closely.
The only thing he noticed was that Niou had a strange expression on his face, and that he was suddenly too close after another step forward. Sanada would have taken a step back, but the hand placed on his arm made him freeze.
“... What is it?” Since Niou didn't seem to be saying anything anytime soon. He kept his voice calm, regardless of the fact that he felt a twist of nervousness in his stomach. He shouldn't have eaten so much for dinner.
The hairs on his arms stood up as the hand slid up, and Sanada was suddenly aware that the street was far too deserted.
Niou's fingers dug into his shoulder, Niou took a step closer, Niou pulled him down slightly... Sanada's eyes widened... Niou's mouth was too close to his... Niou Niou Niou.
“... Be my bride?”
Before Sanada could say anything - which would probably most likely be “... what?” or some variation of that - Niou pressed their lips together.
It took him a few moments to process exactly what was happening, oh gods, I'm kissing another boy.
Sanada shoved Niou away, wiping his mouth on his wrist band before bringing his hand back and smacking Niou across the face.
“Stop being stupid, Niou.”
His palm was tingling, and he could hear his heart thumping loudly in his chest and the blood in his ears. The usual smirk was gone from Niou's face, replaced with... something. Sanada didn't pay any attention to it, turning around and starting to stomp away. There wasn't really much else he could, or felt like doing in the current situation.
He didn't dwell on the lack of final words that usually followed when he walked away from Niou.
--
The cool weather from earlier was gone by the time he got home, hot enough for his mother to get the two standing fans out from the cupboard.
He sweated his way through the night, the cool wet cloth draped over his face to try and ward off the heat, turning warm too soon.
Opening the window just made the heat worse.
The morning was the same. His cold shower lasted just a bit longer than normal as did his breakfast, sitting in front of the whirring fan in the kitchen.
Tennis practice was just as bad as he'd suspected, and Sanada spent as little time as possible within the swelteringly hot clubhouse, which stank of sweaty teenage boys, even worse than usual.
Yukimura opened up all the windows and the door to try and air it out during practice.
The only person who seemed unaffected by the heat was Niou, who stared at him for a moment before leaving him alone. Sanada was thankful for the lack of bothering that morning, as well as being able to avoid thinking about what had happened the night before.
He dragged himself through the hot day, which dragged into a hot week where the evenings were just as hot as during the day. Even Yukimura seemed affected by the heat, glaring at the people who pulled out of the laps during practice, but collapsing in the pitiful shade of a tree once he was done with his and forgetting to yell at the slackers.
The humidity increased dramatically on Friday and Sanada had to unstick himself from his chair after every class. He felt the back of his neck prickle a few times through out the day, but he mostly ignored it, glancing behind him once in between classes only to see Niou in a conversation with Yagyuu.
As the bell rang for the end of the day, he stood up and went straight to the back of the classroom where Yagyuu and Niou were.
“Ah, Sanada-kun.” Yagyuu said, cutting off his conversation with Niou.
“Go to practice, Yagyuu.”
Yagyuu looked confused and stared at him for a few moments before glancing at Niou and back at him. Sanada couldn't help but glance at Niou, whose face had settled into another odd expression, directed at the wall past Yagyuu.
His fuku-buchou glare must have been effective, as Yagyuu shrugged and started gathering his things together.
“I will see you both at practice then.”
“Walk slowly, Yagyuu. I won't be here long.” Niou said casually, raising an eyebrow at Sanada as though waiting for him to contradict him.
Sanada said nothing.
It didn't get any easier to say something to Niou once Yagyuu had left the room, and he found himself staring silently at Niou. The snappy “What do you want, Sanada?” didn't help either.
“Niou...” he started, before trailing off.
What was he meant to say? “Sorry for slapping you across the face”? But he really wasn't. Niou had been completely out of line when he had done that. “Were you serious about what you asked”? Of course Niou hadn't been serious. Just another one of Niou's ridiculous conversations.
The silence stretched out, mingling with the ever-present awkwardness.
“This is such a waste of time.” Niou said finally, pushing past Sanada. He heard the door open, then close, followed by a “Wait up, Yagyuu!”. Sanada gritted his teeth together, grabbed his bag and headed off to practice as well.
Stupid Niou.
--
He found himself walking away from the clubhouse after afternoon practice with Yukimura, who had held him back with a quiet “Hang on, Sanada” when he made to leave first. They watched the exhausted team leave, before locking up and leaving themselves.
There were a few comments as they walked. “Your serve's form was looking sloppy today”, “The heat is really bad, isn't it?”, “How is Kamechirou?”, “The new unit in maths is difficult.” that took them to Yukimura's bus stop. Just a few minutes to wait.
“Niou left with Yagyuu this afternoon.” Yukimura said casually, looking down the road for any sign of the bus.
Sanada grunted.
“I thought you two were going out to dinner every Friday...?” Another grunt.
“He's been looking quite unhappy lately, you know, Sanada.”
It was too humid and hot to be having this sort of conversation. Actually it was never really a good time to be having a conversation like this.
“As have you.”
That made Sanada pay more attention to the conversation and he turned to frown at Yukimura. “I have not been looking unhappy lately.”
“Genichirou has been assigning an average of 3.29 more laps onto every punishment this week and there has been a 32% increase of grunting instead of answering...” Yukimura said with a smile.
“That's a bad imitation of Renji.” Sanada grumbled.
“I can ring him if you want the proper data.”
He didn't bother replying to that. Yukimura knew he would say no.
Sanada was silent, feigning great interest in the neat row of houses on the other side of the road and trying to ignore the feeling of Yukimura's stare. It was... unnerving. Still no bus.
“What happened, Sanada?” Yukimura asked eventually, making Sanada's teeth grind together.
Aside from the fact that he didn't want to think about it at all, what could he say to Yukimura? “Niou kissed me”, “Niou was being his usual ridiculous self and annoyed me”...
“Something unpleasant” summed up his feelings towards the entire thing well.
Yukimura stared hard at him for a few more moments. Sanada's fingers tightened on the strap of his tennis bag. His shirt felt like it was glued to his back, but that wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as feeling like he was being x-rayed by Yukimura's gaze.
“Fix it, Sanada.”
He turned to look at Yukimura, frowning. “But--”
“I don't care how, but I expect you two to have kissed and made up by the end of next week. It's getting tiresome.”
“But--”
“No complaints.” Yukimura brightened up as he looked past Sanada, and he turned around to see what was so interesting. Ah, the bus.
...Why couldn't it have come a few seconds earlier?
“See you tomorrow at practice.” Sanada grunted at Yukimura's words, grumbling a “bye” that Yukimura probably didn't hear before starting on his way home.
--
The biggest problem Sanada realized very quickly was that Niou didn't exactly seem like he wanted to give Sanada the chance to make up. Leaving the classroom as soon as possible or just outright ignoring him when he was there... the same went for when they were in the clubroom, though Sanada wasn't really complaining about the lack of random chattering in his ear.
Saturday held no chances to try and talk to Niou. He showed up late, practised on the other side of the tennis courts and bothered Yagyuu with a “I feel like icecream today” after.
An awkward conversation after kendo training on Sunday with his grandfather brought about a “If your opponent is avoiding you, sometimes you must strike like lightning and cut them down before their reason for not attacking you no longer applies.”
Sanada didn't think that was very helpful for his situation with Niou, but he thanked his grandfather anyway.
His mother told him to “write a nice letter to your friend” while she was making dinner. That wasn't very helpful either.
His brother just laughed and said “Awww, little Gen-chan's growing up.” He should have known even thinking about asking his brother for advice was a bad idea.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday... Yukimura gave him a serious look on a sweltering Thursday morning, which Sanada took as a reminder that he still had to talk properly to Niou.
Sanada spent most of the day's classes considering the different possibilities, dwelling maybe a bit too much on what had happened, made worse by the feeling of Niou staring at him from the back of the classroom again.
He settled on what he was going to do during afternoon practice laps and dropped two games to Akaya because he was thinking about it too much.
Tarundoru.
Sanada showered and got dressed as fast as possible, talking to Renji for a few moments, “you need to get your racquets restrung soon, Genichirou” before he noticed Niou getting ready to leave.
He cut off his conversation with Renji, elbowed Yagyuu out of the way, grabbed Niou by the arm and dragged him out of the clubhouse. Strike like lightning.
Sanada ignored the “what the fuck, Sanada?”, “get your meaty hand off my arm”, the stream of swear words, the bag of books that whacked him in the side once or twice, responding only by tightening his grip and walking faster.
They might have gotten some strange looks from other people on the street, but Sanada ignored them too.
He introduced a sulky Niou to his mother as he was taking his shoes off in the entrance. The “It's nice to see Genichirou has made new friends.” was unnecessary though.
Sanada took Niou to the garden, finally letting go of his arm.
“I think you might have dislocated my arm.”
“Don't be stupid, Niou.” How many times had he said that to Niou...?
Sanada glowered for a few moments before gesturing behind Niou. “There's the koi pond you wanted to see.” And that was lame. Niou raised an eyebrow at him, but turned around and headed over to it.
The same sentences as last time they'd been alone and trying to talk went through his head as he followed Niou to the koi pond. And a week on, they still sounded bad in his mind and just as pointless.
They were silent in front of the koi pond, looking down at the fish swimming lazily around in the water. He could hear the sound of his grandfather yelling at some incompetent person in the dojo for slacking off.
It got more awkward as the seconds stretched out and part of Sanada was waiting for the “this is a waste of time” from Niou before he walked off and left Sanada to try and think of some other way to follow Yukimura's order.
He poked Niou on the arm to get his attention, not entirely sure what he was going to do.
For some completely unknown reason, Sanada found himself leaning closer to Niou as he turned around, only vaguely aware of the raised eyebrows and his heart going thump thump thump against his chest.
The brim of his cap hit Niou's forehead, making Sanada stop and pull back, looking away awkwardly. Well that was weird.
Niou rubbed his forehead in confusion for a bit before poking Sanada in the calf with his foot. “What was that about?”
“... I don't know.” Being honest was the best thing to do in the given situation.
He was aware of Niou staring at him, but kept his eyes firmly looking in the opposite direction. He didn't say anything until he saw Niou's hand grab the front of his cap and pull it off.
“Niou.” Sanada turned and frowned at him.
“You should try again.”
“I said I don't know what I was doing.”
“Sanada.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Niou.”
It was like a repeat of that night. Niou was too close, it was too empty in the garden, there was the heat from Niou's hands on his shoulder and the back of his neck... the really weird feeling of Niou's lips on his.
There was also the same oh gods, I'm being kissed by a boy going through his head, but he found himself touching Niou's hip, side, back, not really sure what else to do.
A loud “I'm home!” made them jump apart and Sanada felt his face heat up slightly, taking his cap back from Niou and putting it back on.
He noticed an odd expression on Niou's face before he concentrated on frowning across the garden at his brother.
“... You didn't hit me this time.”
Sanada was distracted from his staring contest and turned around, ignoring the loud whoop of victory. “What?”
“You didn't hit me.” Niou's expression turned even more unreadable and Sanada's frown deepened.
“Hn.” He tugged his cap down just a bit more and went back to looking at the koi pond. Much more interesting.
There was a long silence, which made Sanada's stomach curl in on itself and once again go through possible things to say. “You didn't say weird things about marriage”, “Why did you do that?”, “... It wasn't that bad”
“... Do you want to see the rest of the house?” he asked finally.
Niou seemed surprised, but nodded and followed Sanada around his house.
It was a bit unnerving, how silent Niou was being as they looked around his home. No looking closer at the things in the bathroom, or exclamations over the numerous photos around the house of the Sanada family throughout the years, and no poking around in his wardrobe when they finally got the Sanada's room.
He did however poke the battered horse plushie on his bookshelf. Sanada scowled and Niou grinned back at him.
--
It was evening when Sanada decided that Niou had to be escorted back to Yagyuu's house. Or at least partway. Niou was surprisingly polite as he thanked Sanada's parents and grandfather as they left.
A few blocks away, Niou insisted on linking arms while they walked. Sanada had taken a look around the empty street, sighed and let Niou cling.
“One day I want show you my home too.” Niou said, tightening his grip on Sanada's arm.
Sanada hn-ed and kept walking. He tried to remember if he'd ever been told where Niou was from. He didn't think Renji had ever managed to find out, probably much to the data master's frustration.
“... Where are you from?”
The moment he had said it, Sanada thought that it was rude to ask something like that, considering they were meant to be... would he define them as friends? But Niou didn't seem to mind too much.
“It has lots of names.” That didn't help very much. “Some people call it Suguk.” Niou shrugged.
Suguk? That name seemed familiar, and Sanada was silent as they continued walking, trying to think where he'd heard it.
From his grandfather, most likely.
Sanada's frown deepened and surprisingly Niou didn't interrupt his train of thought.
Suguk.
...
...
The water kingdom?
It had been something similar to that during the stories of the gods that his grandfather used to tell him when he was younger.
“Stop being stupid, Niou.” Sanada grumbled belatedly.
Niou grinned at him. “Masaharu.”
... What? Was Niou telling him to call him by his first name?
“... No.”
There was no reply from Niou, and Sanada was about to ask him something - even if he didn't exactly know what that something would be - when he felt Niou's warm hand hold onto his. The street was still too empty.
“I know my way back to Yagyuu's from here.” That didn't explain the hand squeezing his.
“Fine.” It seemed best to just ignore it.
He should have expected it really, what with the empty street and Niou's sudden closeness, but the lips against his still took him by surprise. Niou's hand tightened around his though, and Sanada stayed still.
There was Niou's other hand on his shoulder and they shouldn't be kissing in the middle of the street, even if it was empty. Very bad social responsibility!
Still...
Niou pulled away first and Sanada glanced up and down the street. Ah, he could see a bus and some pedestrians. Still very far away though.
His fingers twitched as Niou let go and Sanada hesitated before clapping Niou on the shoulder.
“You owe me a dinner out, by the way.” Niou said with a grin, fixing up his bags before turning away. “See you tomorrow, Sanada.”
He ignored the dinner comment. “... Wake Yagyuu up early and be at training on time.” That counted as a sort of goodbye in his mind.
Niou seemed to take it as one and he waved and laughed as he started walking away.
--
There was a thunderstorm that night.