Happy Santa_Smex, theprerogative!
To: theprerogative
From: medieval128
Title: With Silken Lines and Silver Hooks
Recipient's name: theprerogative
Rating: light R
Pairing(s): Oshitari/Atobe
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created by Konomi Takeshi. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author's notes: theprerogative, I had a blast writing this fic, especially taking liberties with your classical music kink. :D I hope this is something you can enjoy. Happy Santa Smex! Also, thanks a million to my beta, the most generous friend ever. Title taken from "The Bait" by John Donne.
The summer school classes at Hyoutei consist of two types of people: underachieving seniors desperate to fulfil their credit requisite, and overachieving seniors never to pass up a chance to beef up their transcript. This year, there is an outrageous number of representatives from both sides. Students threaten to overflow into the hallway from the classrooms. The humidity and incommodiousness make everyone positively bitchy.
The bell rings: liberation from the suicide chamber.
"This sucks," Shishido says. "I hate people with verbal constipation. If they have something to say, they should just spit it out." He is taking Poetry II because he is a couple Literature credits short of the requirement, unlike Oshitari and Atobe, who are taking the class for kicks.
"O inclement being, speak not the language of war; speak of love," Oshitari urges, handing the cashier the money for his lunch.
"Shut up," Shishido says, scowling. "Everyone in that class is like you two."
"The girl that sits behind you aspires to be the next Sylvia Plath," Atobe says. "We, in contrast, do not want to become suicidal then dead."
"You know," Oshitari says, setting down his tray at a round, stone table, "I think I'd like to be a psychiatrist specialising in teenage angst. It is obviously a prevalent issue in our community. Besides, I'd be rich."
Atobe takes the seat opposite him. "Save it for Career Pathways," he says, disgusted. "You can talk about it all you want there. Spare me half an hour of peace. That's all I ask."
It dawns on Shishido belatedly which girl Atobe and Oshitari were referring to. "Was she the one that wrote that 'Death in a Bag' thing?"
"Yes," Oshitari says.
"Yes," Atobe says.
Shishido considers this. "But did you notice? She was..." He mimes breasts that would guarantee a girl kyphosis at best, paralysis to be completely realistic.
Atobe claps him upside the head. "Try someone less prone to scythe-wielding." He thinks the innumerable layers of clothing Grim Reaper wears is a potentially troubling fact, and is only looking out for his Doubles One pair. "Only James Bond would give a shot at her. That is, literally speaking."
"God," Shishido grumbles, rubbing the back of his head. He mumbles something about having sat too close.
"See, prime real estate." Oshitari gestures to his own seat.
"Prime missile-fire zone," Atobe corrects.
After lunch on the way to practice, Grim Reaper approaches them. Atobe is about to ask her to move aside when she looks him up and down, sniffs, turns, and smiles-smiles-at Oshitari. Granted, her smile is of the fanged variety, but this is not as worrying as her display of an actual sign of normality.
He watches as the girl, Keina she introduces herself as, asks Oshitari out for a movie and dinner next Saturday outright, with minimal ado and no flustered stuttering. Her mouth moves quickly, and she speaks with insufferable hubris.
Oshitari accepts her invitation easily and tells her that he is looking forward to her company. Atobe finds himself preferring not to have bought front-row tickets. It is so nauseating that he forgets to feel frightened for Oshitari's safety.
"Well," he says, after Keina floats away, "I think that just made your day somewhat productive."
"No, next Saturday will be productive," Oshitari says, suggestive.
"As long as human-vampire hybrids are not a part of your agenda, do as you please," Atobe says pleasantly.
As summer manifests itself in the presence of fish, lively and merry in the water, Atobe finds himself at the lake more and more often. Despite what Gakuto says, enjoyment of fishing is not a sign that he is growing old and withered and at a loss for real interests.
He fishes at the same lake as Tezuka. On the occasional Friday they bump heads and make small talk. Most of the time it is about tennis; sometimes, it isn't. If Atobe is in a Mood, he will probe and ask Tezuka more personal questions, and push, push, and push until some boundary is broken and he is satisfied.
Today, Atobe is in a Mood.
"Do you ever go on dates, Tezuka?" Oshitari and his date have been at the forefront of his mind.
Tezuka looks at Atobe, sidelong. "That isn't any of your business.”
"I'm curious. Humour me."
"You shouldn't get everything you want. It's bad for your character."
Atobe snorts, amused. "Is that from Good Parenting?"
Tezuka screws his face up a little. He doesn't deign this with a response.
"The advice doesn't seem to be working on Echizen, just so you know," Atobe offers.
Tezuka's left eyebrow twitches.
"Or actually, that isn't really the right joke for Echizen, is it. It's less Good Parenting and more…" Atobe taps his chin, mock-thoughtful. "…Cosmopolitan?"
"Atobe!"
Atobe's laughter rings like a cool, dark room in summer. "I'm sorry," he says, but they both know he isn't.
"It isn't like you're one to talk," Tezuka points out.
Atobe raises an eyebrow. There is light tugging at the end of Tezuka's pole. "Is that so."
Tezuka nods. He begins to reel.
"Don't hedge," Atobe stresses.
"You know what I'm talking about."
"No, I don't," Atobe says. "Enlighten me."
"Seriously?"
"Serious as a heart attack." In all the time he has spent with Tezuka, he hasn't known Tezuka to be the infuriating type. Tezuka has his fun from time to time, but not in the same way Oshitari has his fun.
Tezuka looks at him, a little incredulous. This tickles at Atobe's pride. He takes this as a personal attack on his intelligence, though Tezuka still hasn't even yet spoken a word in reply.
"I think it's best I let you figure it out for yourself. It would be more meaningful." Tezuka draws in his line in front of him, laying the squirming fish, silver and winking with the sun, on his palm. It is small but feisty. "This is a good one."
Atobe stares Tezuka down, hard.
Tezuka plays with his prize. The fish slides into his bucket, smooth like silk.
That weekend, Atobe's father takes him and his mother to the symphony. Atobe is fond of orchestral music, so he goes without protest. Had he known foppish businessmen strangled in suits are to be present, he would have put up a fight. His efforts would have probably proved themselves futile, but it would have been satisfying, at least. His father is intelligent, yes, and appreciative of high culture, a highbrow, but conducting business far out-shadows concert etiquette in his mind.
Half an hour into the concert, Atobe is a balloon stretched thin and on the verge of bursting. He earnestly contemplates telling his father off in the theatre, crowd and manners be damned. His legs itch to stand and his chest is heavy and constricted with iron that presses and then compresses for good measure.
Then there is a patting at his knee. He looks over at his mother. She is smiling encouragingly, and with her smile, she speaks a million words. Atobe sits tightly in his seat for the remainder of the concert. He thinks of last year's trip to Aruba, and the trip before that, to France. It doesn't help much, but it is what he has.
Post concert, his father and company go to dinner and insist that Atobe is present, though he is not again addressed for the next ninety minutes. He sits and stares at the whipped cream rose, a beauty whose soul existence is based on sitting prettily and uselessly, while determinedly eating his food. He refuses to sulk like a child.
The postprandial conversation is somewhat lively. The wife of Bald Penguin Sr. inserts some words. She is like all the other class acts. Her verbal shtick is phrasing all of her sentences like questions, as if she is afraid not to speak with conviction once in a great while.
"The children are developing quite nicely, aren't they?" She smiles at Atobe, and he smiles back. "They all have their many talents. Atobe-kun plays the piano quite well, doesn’t he?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Atobe sees his mother open her mouth to answer yes, yes he does, thank you, but his father beats her there.
"Music isn't his talent. It's just a hobby," he says. "Nothing to rely upon."
Atobe tightens beside him.
"One can say the same for athletics," his father continues. "Sports are single-moment glories. The fever will pass."
He knows Atobe hears him and takes every word to heart. That is why he says them.
"It isn't as simple as you write them off to be," Atobe interjects. He speaks quickly, and every word pushes into the last. "The arts are about expression, athletics discipline."
His father shoots him a look and declares the conversation too mature for his comprehension.
Atobe says nothing to this. He picks up his fork and scrapes the cream rose off its dish and sets it on his plate. He cuts it into two, placing one half in his mouth. The sugar is acid against his tongue. It burns.
On the way home, Atobe and his father have a small tête-à-tête. When his father is dissatisfied, his eyes flare open wide, and they drill, like bullets, holes into whoever dares to contravene his statute laws. His mother doesn't say a word, maybe because there is nothing for her to say.
"My father wants me dead," Atobe states.
There is a soft strum of strings as Oshitari places his violin on his chair. "Is he hiring assassins, or…?"
"No, he's doing a fine job of it himself. He doesn't need hired help." Atobe cradles the phone against his shoulder as he stacks his textbooks for the upcoming semester in two piles: Chemistry, Multivariable Calculus, and Economics in one stack; European Literature II, World History, and Latin VI in the other. He flops back on his bed.
"Did you offer you donkey at dinner again?"
"No, he doesn't play the same card twice." Atobe shoots daggers at the Beethoven bust in his room.
"What this time?"
"He wants me to impress him."
"He's capable of being impressed, huh. Headline news."
"He has a personal vendetta against my music and tennis. He's planning on making an appearance at my next piano concert. If he isn't catapulted out the roof, then..." Atobe breathes, long, and it fills in the blanks. "Ditto for tennis."
"Well." Oshitari says.
"Any suggestions?"
"You could employ hired help," Oshitari says.
"I should have called Shishido."
"I was trying to be helpful," Oshitari says. "Kindness is becoming very underrated."
Atobe laughs, sitting up. He swings his legs under the bed like a little kid whose toes don't quite reach the floor. "Pragmatism is the new kindness, didn't you know?"
"I don't live in your house, remember."
Atobe winces.
"Oh," Oshitari says. He finds words in Atobe's silence. "Was that very low. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It's patronising."
"Keigo..."
Atobe decides that changing the topic is safest. "Are you still coming over on Monday?"
"Mm."
It is neutral enough for Atobe to press the matter. "Mm?"
"My sister is taking me to the Renoir Exhibit at the museum," Oshitari says. "The tour starts at five, so if I went over to your place, I wouldn't be able to stay long."
"You have time to take tours?"
"The same way you have time to fish with Tezuka," Oshitari says.
Atobe can see Oshitari shrug as he says this. His tone is flat and doesn't allow room for much speculation. Oshitari isn't the type to pry or take any particular care in other people's lives, so this comment takes Atobe off-guard. "How did you know?"
"I pass by that lake on the way to my violin lesson," Oshitari replies.
"I wasn't fishing with Tezuka. We just happened to meet," Atobe says, all in a rush. This isn't Oshitari's business, but Atobe feels like he owes him an explanation all the same. He tries to convince himself that this isn't entirely ridiculous.
"That's fine," Oshitari says.
His indifference pricks at Atobe irritatingly. "So. Monday. Are you coming or not?"
"I think I am. I want to."
This isn't a definite affirmative, nor is it a definite rejection. Atobe hates that but doesn't want to sound needy, so he lets up. "Fine. I'll see you in class, then."
"Good night, Keigo."
They both wait for the other to hang up. This is a silent war that has raged since second year of junior high school. So far, Oshitari is ahead because Atobe lacks the patience to wait out Oshitari and has better things to do than linger around to hear a dial tone. The only thing that keeps him in the competition is the fact that Oshitari is the competitor, and that it's a competition.
Tonight, Atobe takes to bed a win. This, he thinks, is one of the upsides to calling Oshitari in the middle of violin practice. Oshitari has something to return to.
Choosing seats in Literature class is like finding concert seats, but in reverse. Everyone scurries for the back row. Saki-sensei's class is infamous for its rain, and everyone wants to remain as dry as possible. Atobe takes a seat behind Oshitari, who hates sitting next to walls. It induces claustrophobia in him, he says.
Today, they are studying 19th century poetry. Coleridge doesn't strike any fancy for Atobe, but the way Shishido keeps slouching in his seat and pretending to die of iambic-pentameter suffocation is amusing. It is also quite in keeping with the plot of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", albeit death through different means.
"Someone should be taking pictures," Oshitari says, turning back in his seat. His hair moves in waves of blue against his neck. Waves crashing into shore.
Atobe smirks, half-hearted. "And make trading cards, right?"
"Exactly," Oshitari says. "It would be like the second generation of Pokémon. Ryou would be thrilled." His eyebrows move when he talks. Seagulls flying level with the horizon.
The CD Saki-sensei puts on as background noise spins to a stop, and he looks up, scanning the crowd of students trying to make themselves invisible. By poor karmic distribution, he calls on Shishido to read the next five stanzas. Shishido turns colours.
"'Water, water everywhere, and all the boards did shrink...'" He sounds seasick.
Oshitari has turned back around, nodding at Shishido as he reads. This will not help with the nausea.
Atobe is staring straight ahead at a blue, blue sea.
Water, water everywhere...
In Career Pathways, their teacher hands out an assessment and a printout for their final project, job shadowing. Atobe isn't sure what to be more aggravated over: that their teacher has such unbelievable timing, or that Oshitari keeps looking over at him, as if to make sure that he has not combusted in fury.
The assessment is novel-length, with over a hundred questions that the class does not hesitate to make fun of.
"'How do you plan to finance college?'" reads the captain of the football team. "This is Hyoutei. What type of question is that?"
"'Do you perform better in humid or arid climates?'" reads a member of the school newspaper. He snorts and waggles his eyebrows. "Depends of what type of performance."
"'Do you feel more energetic in the morning or at night?'" reads the vice captain of the swim team. "This is retarded."
The uproar of agreement does not wean away until their teacher takes out her grade book and threatens to fail everyone.
Then, there is silence.
On the last page of the test, questions 153-162 ask the students to rank A) agriculture, B) arts, C) construction, D) business and administration, E) law, F) athletics, G) government, H) health and medicine, and I) education, in order of personal interest.
Atobe stares at this question, long and hard. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Oshitari and Shishido and Gakuto hand in their assessments. This question is not at all difficult or thought-provoking, but he feels as though he needs two sets of answers. He isn't so quixotic or dramatic as to think that this one question will determine his fate (or something equally Hollywood-esque), but he does want to see what he would miss.
Next to 153, he bubbles in the letter D, making his mark heavy and dark.
"Is that Atobe?" Shishido peers over Oshitari's shoulder, out the window.
Oshitari nods.
"It's raining," Shishido says.
"He's been at it for a while." Oshitari sets his bowl down on the blacktop lab table. When weather fails, the team congregates in one of the Biology labs to eat lunch, the main cafeteria having been deemed Unacceptable long ago by Atobe.
Shishido's eyes follow the path of the ball Atobe is beating against the practice wall. Atobe is slow, catching some balls barely before the second bounce. "What got his royal panties all in a twist?"
"His father took him out on Saturday."
"What? And didn't kiss him goodnight?"
"Something like that."
Shishido raises his eyebrows, barely sympathetic. "And he always has to be a moron at school. Tell him to stop being a flashy moron."
"He's not trying to be one. Not this time, at least." Oshitari stirs his rice thoughtfully. "Do you remember Le Morte D'Arthur from ninth grade?"
Shishido pauses to think back. "The one dictionary thing? With the pervert king?"
"He was only a pervert on special occasions," Oshitari says, stirring his rice. Outside, Atobe misses a serve. Atobe never misses serves.
Shishido eyes Oshitari's food. "Are you going to eat that or stir at it all day?"
"Here, have it. I'm not hungry." Oshitari slides his bowl across the table. "Do you remember Guinevere?"
"The spoiled slutty princess?"
"She wasn't-yes, that one."
"What about her?"
Oshitari tilts his head toward the window.
Shishido makes a face. "He is a princess, I'll give you that much. But he isn't going to look hot in a dress. Tight short-shorts are different from corsets and shit."
"Right. Of course." Stunning as Atobe is, Oshitari cannot imagine him crossdressing either. "But it's like...I think life with his father, the cooperate dinners, the obligations, are his Arthur. If he were to fulfil his 'filial duties', he would remain faithful to that life. But there's something he wants more-tennis, music, pretending to be pissed off when we kidnap him and coerce him into playing Apples to Apples1. This stuff, they're his Lancelot."
Shishido frowns, his comprehension of Oshitari's words undeveloped figures. The metaphors throw him off kilter. "Is that a nicer way of saying that he's gay with tennis?"
The door yawns open, and Gakuto, Hiyoshi, and Ohtori walk in.
"Who's gay with tennis?" Gakuto asks.
"Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder," Oshitari responds before Shishido has a chance to answer. "If they played, it would be eternal love."
It takes a beat for the joke to sink in. Gakuto snorts and shoves Oshitari on the shoulder. "God. Where'd you read that?" he says.
"Where's Atobe-buchou?" Ohtori looks around.
"Out there," Shishido says helpfully, jabbing a thumb at the window. "Yuushi says he's pulling a slutty bitch."
Questioning glances are cast Oshitari's way.
"I never said he was a slutty princess," Oshitari explains. "I meant the Guinevere thing on metaphoric terms." He makes a note to commiserate with Atobe's suffering the next time Shishido's denseness is the subject of Atobe's complaint.
Gakuto sticks his head out the window, a little like a dog. "I don't see him," he says.
"He was out there a second ago," Shishido says just as the door opens again. This time, it slams against the wall, hard.
Atobe enters and drops his racket onto the first table on his left. It lands and jumps and makes the sound of a million fists. He has a limp in his right foot as he trudges to the table and presses his food down, which doesn't make any more pleasant a noise. He stabs his chicken and begins eating without a word to anyone.
"I bet Guinevere wouldn't eat like that," Shishido whispers to Oshitari.
"What's this deal with Guinevere?" Gakuto asked. "Is she the new girl or something?"
Atobe looks up and stares at him, looking unreasonably stung. His eyes are the colour of the edge of winter. "What."
"Ryou misunderstood something I said," Oshitari says. "It's not significant."
"What," Atob repeats.
"It's nothing. Forget it."
"Tell me."
"It's not what you think."
"You're telling me what I think?"
"I'm not the one you're angry with, Keigo. Don't take this out on me," says Oshitari.
"Why is telling me something you fucking said about me so hard?"
"You don't need to hear it."
"And you know what I need," says Atobe.
"You're twisting my words."
Atobe narrows his eyes. "If it's not a big deal like you said, then why can't you just stop being a dick and tell me?"
"Because it isn't-"
The lab doors open a third time, and Kabaji comes in with Jirou slung over his shoulder. "I found him," he says.
Atobe glances at Jirou, and then back at Oshitari. The sky of winter is angel white and torn in two by lightning. He thanks Kabaji and eats his lunch in silence. Rain hits the windowpane like clear stones.
Gakuto elbows Hiyoshi in the ribs. "Hey, how long do you think they're going to keep that up?" He looks over at Oshitari and Atobe, who sit on opposite sides of the same bench.
Hiyoshi scowls. He thinks Oshitari and Atobe look like a couple on a break. "Who cares?"
"Awhile," Shishido says, poking his head into the conversation.
"No one asked you, bastard. You started it," Gakuto says.
"I didn't know they'd be prissy about it," Shishido defends.
"It still wasn't your business. You shouldn't have brought it up," Jirou joins in, yawning.
"You weren't even there!" Shishido rolls his eyes, but his conscience pricks at him, a little. "Team up on me, why don't you."
"You don't really think Atobe-buchou and Oshitari-san would keep on fighting, right?" Ohtori asks.
"They aren't fighting." Gakuto looks over at them. "I think that's the problem."
"Atobe-buchou says he's being manly about it," Hiyoshi says.
"Maybe we should organise a team-bonding party," Gakuto muses. "And whoever brought Apples to Apples last time could bring it again."
"Apples to Apples was lame," Shishido says.
"What do you suggest? That we get Piyo to commit seppuku with a tennis racket and bond at his funeral?"
Hiyoshi grumbles something vaguely gekokujyou-like.
The no-give predicament between Atobe and Oshitari leaves the Hyoutei regulars in situations that are strained at best and straight-up awkward at worst. It is not that Atobe and Oshitari fight or even make the effort to avoid each other-that would be easier. They both claim they are mature enough to coexist civilly, a notion that leaves practice and lunch strained circumstances, at best.
Jirou proposes running a bet for who would crack first and when. All the regulars, though some sheepishly, take part readily.
By the time the weekend rolls around, Oshitari and Atobe's match of tug-of-war plays on. Whoever said that time is a remedy is gravely mistaken. Time, in their case, only seemed to exacerbate the problem. Now, the Hyoutei regulars have divided into two bands reminiscent of the Axis and Ally Powers, hyperbolically speaking.
Shishido is smug that Gakuto, Kabaji, and Ohtori have already lost bet one of two. At this rate, he seems likely to emerge the victor.
On Saturday, Shishido winds up doing pre-date sacraments with Oshitari. This is okay because it isn't awfully time-consuming and there is much food involved. Oshitari claims that eating joins him with his inner Zen.
"So...uh, how is this girl?" Shishido asks. He'd rather make awkward conversation than listen to another note of Vivaldi. He shuts off Oshitari's radio, an antique from the eighties. "Fuck, what's with the screeching..."
"Keina isn't the screeching type, I don't think," Oshitari says. "But I wouldn't mind, personally."
Shishido sputters. "I meant the Vivaldi thing!"
"I don't think Vivaldi screeched much either. He was no Beethoven. Now, Beethoven was wild."
"The shaky, screeching sound!"
"Ah, that," Oshitari says. "The semiquaver note. You know how artists have their own thing? That was Vivaldi's."
"Oh," Shishido says, because he does not actually care about the semiquaver note at all.
Oshitari chews his cookie thoughtfully. "Do you think I should have just told Keigo about the whole Guinevere analogy?" he asks.
Shishido shrugs. "Why didn't you?"
Having suddenly thought better than to discuss this, Oshitari makes a noncommittal noise and pretends that it isn't particularly significant a question. But his eyes say something different. Shishido isn't fooled.
"Don't be a girl."
"It wasn't really that I didn't want him to know about it."
"Then why did you blow a bomb out your-"
"I just didn't like him taking it out on me. I...didn't deal with it as well as I should have." Oshitari picks at a loose thread on the tablecloth, and for a moment looks like a child.
Shishido knows that between Oshitari and Atobe, there is a certain degree of interdependence, despite that they are hopelessly prideful people, and he knows that fine lines, silken strings, bind them to each other. These tiny fibres snap easily and often, sure, but there are millions, billions, of them.
This is a far cry from the nexuses that tie Shishido to Oshitari and Atobe. He is connected to people by long, thick ropes. Once it's finished, it's finished. But he hopes that this rope is sturdy, because he can do much worse than Hyoutei.
"Then you should call him and apologise," Shishido says.
Oshitari is doubtful. "If he tells me to 1-800-GO2-HELL?"
"Then you tell him that the number's out of service," Shishido says.
"And it wouldn't seem..." He waves a hand.
"Like you're being a clingy jackass? No." Shishido snorts. "You and Atobe maybe able to recite stuff from obscure dead-people books, but you have the social IQ of plastic spoons."
"Actually, the spoons on Beauty and the Beast seem quite capable of social interactions. It's how they learn their dance steps," Oshitari says.
Shishido stares like Oshitari has developed a skin abnormality at the opening of his left nostril.
"This is the part where you tell me that you are torn between being horrified at my thorough understanding of Beauty and the Beast and being irritated with my inability to make a proficient argument without the involvement of articles of Disney fiction," Oshitari says.
Shishido makes a face. "God, call Atobe already. And go spout that crap at him," he says.
"I will, I will," Oshitari says and his eyes soften. "Thank you."
Shishido shifts, uncomfortable. But before he has a chance to kick Oshitari out of his own room, Oshitari's sister does the job for him. He has seven minutes to drag his ass out the door and to the bus station, she says. She will personally castrate a brother who makes girls stand out under the Tokyo sun to bake.
Because his sister sounds menacing and at least 30 percent likely in carrying out her threat, Oshitari is tugging on his shoes and rearranging his hair, simultaneously and ungracefully, and out the door in two minutes. A personal record. He snags a cookie and says goodbye to Shishido on the way out.
In a few hours, Shishido is sure, Oshitari will call Atobe, and they will stop being ordinary plasticware begin again as promenading silverware. This means that Shishido will lose. But he doesn't see it this way.
Atobe and Oshitari met as children once, in Osaka. It was a day after Atobe's seventh birthday, so long ago they would not remember now.
Atobe, as a child, was a misfit. Incongruous with his peers, he was scrawnier than all the other kids at his school, spoke with too much air, and never shared his toys. It wasn't that he intended to be difficult or tyrannical, but having just learned of pride, his image of it was distorted and inchoate. He was insufferable the weeks preceding his birthday. He had planned for a great Foofaraw.
His father had a more educational approach in mind. On the day of his birthday, he found himself trapped in grandiosely embellished buildings, holding hands with someone he had only met a day earlier at the airport. At dusk, he was glad to be lying on his stomach on the beach, leafing through a book he could not yet read.
"Muse, speak to me now of that re-source-ful man," Atobe read aloud to himself, "who wandered far and wide after…" He frowned. "…something the sacred...something of Troy."
"Muse, speak to me now of that resourceful man who wandered far and wide after ravaging the sacred citadel of Troy," a voice read, from over his shoulder. Atobe jumped, knocking into the kid who had snuck up on him.
He looked the boy, dark all over, up and down. "Who are you?" he asked.
"Why are you reading that?" the boy gestured to the book.
"Because I can read Greek," Atobe said loftily, even though this wasn't quite the truth. Not yet, anyway. By his next birthday, he expected to be fluent, so there was no harm in making claims ahead of time.
"Okay," the boy said, not looking the least bit impressed.
"And I can play piano," Atobe added.
"I play violin," said the boy.
"My father says he's going to let me have my own car when I grow up," Atobe said.
"Me too," the boy said.
"And my own dog."
"Me too."
"And my mother has real gold jewellery."
"Me too."
"And I'm seven."
"Me too," the boy said. "Except I'm six."
Atobe raised an eyebrow, trying not to laugh. He was glad he wasn't the only one trying to fit in.
It wasn't until Atobe visited the playground of the boy's neighbourhood that he discovered that his newfound friend wasn't someone who struggled to find a good niche for himself at all. Atobe felt betrayed and refused to talk to him all afternoon. When his driver came to pick him up, he slid into the leather seats without a goodbye.
He was on the plane, halfway home, when he realised that he didn't even know the boy's name. Then he remembered the way the kids encircled him and listened to him speak in easy, lazy tones, and he thought that it was just as well.
Sakaki doesn't say anything as he watches Atobe tear through staccatoed crescendos. He sits aside and checks the form of Atobe's hand occasionally. When he is content that there is room for an egg between the keys and the palm of Atobe's hands, he takes a sip of his tea and continues to listen.
With fingers as long and slim as Atobe's, movement should have been as easy as breathing, as wind over water. But every passage Atobe plays is laboured, as if there isn't enough air to swap for carbon dioxide, as if he is trying to skip a boulder across the surface of a frozen pond. Atobe hears the ticking of the metronome, but he isn't listening. He speeds recklessly in his own lane. His music feels like there isn't time to care for articulation or phrasing, like there is someone racing him to the finish and if he doesn't hurry, he will lose.
This type of rush doesn't surprise Sakaki. Rich brats are not as unique as they like to think. Sakaki only raises an eyebrow when Atobe suddenly stops, releasing the pedal with a thunk. The cost of a Yamaha grand means nothing to him.
Sakaki rises from his seat. "That's fine for today," he says. Atobe is watching him exit the auditorium; his gaze is ponderous. He turns in his step and regards Atobe. "Prepare well, and don't play John Cage. That is all."
Atobe thinks it might be interesting, and certainly different to perform the piece that entailed pushing three grand pianos off the stage. His phone buzzes in his pocket. After he checks the caller ID and sees that it is Oshitari, he considers briefly chucking it up toward the catwalk. He dismisses this thought when it occurs to him that he might miss and the phone might come crashing back down.
"Hello." The greeting is a wire stretched tight and flat.
"Keigo," Oshitari says, his voice a flashlight, a firefly, in the dim auditorium.
Because of this and only this, Atobe doesn't hang up on him. "What do you want?" His own voice, he thinks, blends well into the darkness.
"Right now, where are you?" Oshitari asks.
"Practice auditorium," Atobe answers, "C721," because he doesn't expect Oshitari to find his way to the narrow and obscure hallway where he can practise with limited commercial interruption.
"Am I intruding on your lesson?" Oshitari asks.
"No," Atobe says. "Sakaki left early."
"Did you affront the empress?"
Atobe smiles wryly. "Yes."
"What audacity," Oshitari says.
"What the empress feels does not affect me," Atobe says.
"But Her Majesty's metronome!" Oshitari has an aghast expression on his face, Atobe knows it. Their conversation doesn't give telling signs of any break in their friendship, and Atobe supposes that's because even after you cut a knot of lotus in two, strings still cling. "The sixteenth-note ticking has to be torture at its best. Or worst."
"Well." Atobe stares down the black and white keys. "I think I'm strong enough to persevere through three weeks bum-chik-chik-chik, et cetera."
Pause. "You don't know that it's just three weeks."
"I know my father."
"It isn't some type of Faustian bargain, Keigo. Stop thinking it."
"Isn't it?"
"You're not going to give up."
"Of course not."
It is only after he finishes speaking that he realises that he has heard two voices. Or one voice from two sources, rather. When he looks up, Oshitari's frame stretches, lean and long, along the doorframe. Their eyes meet. Oshitari's eyes challenge him to look away, which only serves to rivet his gaze in place.
"Then just prepare. From this point on you will speak no evil, hear no evil, and see no evil." Oshitari shuts his phone.
Atobe shuts his. "Did you just hang up on me?"
Oshitari doesn't say anything to this, just takes a seat beside Atobe on the piano bench. He is bordering light and brimming darkness. His face is all shadows and he is difficult to read.
"Have you picked your pieces?"
"I'm about to." Atobe gestures to the CD player by the piano. "Offer me an ear?"
Oshitari cracks a smile, and this makes all the difference. "If you need a third," he agrees.
As Atobe squats down to fidget with the CD player, he asks, "You just came back from your date, right? How was it?"
Oshitari straddles the bench and swings back and forth, making a face Atobe doesn't need eyes to see. "Are you sure you're interested?"
"Impress me. How did you woo the ghoul?" The first track starts up.
"There..." Oshitari looks thoughtful. "...wasn't much wooing to be done."
Atobe raises an eyebrow. "So she..." He waves a hand.
"…kept her legs so close and airtight her thighs could be used as floatation devices in case of emergency landing."
"Really." Atobe chokes a little.
Oshitari laughs. "...to be completely lying. No. Keina was a lot of fun."
Atobe rolls his eyes. "And you squelch when Ryou says something rude about a girl." The brusque strains of baroque triads fill the blanks. "Are you going to see her again?"
"Not as a date, no," Oshitari says.
"Why not?" Atobe asks. "Are you pursuing the life of an escape artist?"
"No...it's not that."
"Then...?"
Oshitari frowns and looks ill at ease, a blue-moon occurrence. He mumbles something.
"You're being ridiculous. Stop being ridiculous," Atobe says. "Speak up. I don't have the hearing of a bat."
Oshitari's eyes narrow, and he halts the conversation for seconds of contrary silence.
"Spit it out, you drama queen."
"Friend material," he says at last, spectacularly dejected, as if he has just given his life to priesthood. "I was deemed 'friend material'. There, are you happy how that you have strangled the light from my days?"
Atobe snorts. "You," he says, "are retarded in addition to ridiculous."
"Allow me to play the spurned lover in peace, Keigo," Oshitari says, looking downright pathetic. "You have no sympathy for the broken-hearted."
"You mean broken-egoed," Atobe corrects.
"That too."
"What'd she say was wrong with you?"
"Nothing is wrong with me," Oshitari says, defensive. "She just said it was...you know, too hard to get under my skin. She says she would go bald if she dated me."
"She has a point, you realise."
"I'm detrimental to hair growth?"
"Case in point," he says. "You're insufferable and infuriatingly insouciant. This grates."
"I thought it was my selling point," Oshitari says. "Must I reassess and redirect?"
Atobe looks at him, sidelong. "Hm. Well," he considers, slowly. "Sometimes it isn't so bad."
This hangs and weighs in the air between them, like rain that heavy the clouds, but is not quite ready to fall. The agony of anticipation is great. It is even greater when you wait and wait, and nothing ever comes of a hope you mistake as fruituous.
"These are all piano-violin duets," Oshitari points out. "Did you grab the wrong CD?"
Atobe shakes his head. "No. I wanted to play the arrangement."
"Sakaki is going to murder you," Oshitari says.
"I know," Atobe says, and looks mighty proud of himself.
"Then play 'Venus'." Oshitari is excited. His eyes shine like the bright beams of lighthouses, casting hope into uncertainty. Or maybe sapphires. Jewels are just rocks put under extreme pressure, something beautiful and extraordinary hiding where no one would think to look. "'Venus' is worth being run over by four dozen wild horses. Barber of Seville, too, for that matter."
"I'll consider it," Atobe says, running a finger down the row of keys, and Oshitari knows he will see Holst and Rossini in Atobe's program. "It's getting late. I'm calling it a wrap and getting dinner."
"May I invite myself?"
"There's no point in asking if you already have," Atobe says, standing and gathering his materials.
"You're an amazing friend," Oshitari says.
"And you're an amazing leech," Atobe says, dragging his right foot down the stage steps.
"Is that still from that other day?" Oshitari asks. He frowns.
"You being a leech? No, you're always leeching. In case you weren't told off on that."
"Kindness is underrated," Oshitari says dramatically, an echo of himself from two weeks previous. "I hope you didn't climb up the stairs."
"It's my ankle that's twisted," Atobe says, "not my brain."
"Just checking," Oshitari says. "You know, Keigo, being kind and being an Atobe aren't mutually exclusive. One won't get jealous if you're the other once in a while."
Atobe considers repeating his answer the last time they had this discussion, but finds that they don't apply anymore. Not really. Because this isn't about pragmatism and his father. Oshitari wants to talk about him and how he always wants the last word and finds it so damn hard to lose.
"I could stand to be kinder," Atobe agrees, "but I can't stand to be inferior."
"Because it's really so important to you that your intelligence and superiority is at the forefront of their minds," Oshitari says. "Because wit is of paramount importance."
"Do you like people looking at you like you're a moron?"
"No one thinks you're a moron," Oshitari says. "But they do think you're intimidating. And that there should be German subtitles floating below your chin whenever you open your mouth."
"You can't say you don't have the same pride," Atobe points out. "You have to be a smartass all the time."
The elevator elicits a funky buzzer sound. Oshitari prods the down button again, this time with more caution, the way one would approach a possible explosive. "I'm not a smartass at the expense of other people's good intentions," he says. "It's all about the timing, you know?"
"Who died and made you Margaret Edson?"
Oshitari stares at Atobe for a long while. Deliberately. Pointedly.
And this is all it takes to deflate Atobe's balloon. The air of self-righteousness dissipates, and Atobe inches into himself, the way he does when he isn't comfortable in his skin. "Maybe." Atobe knows how to lose graciously, but egos are not programmed to concede in peace.
Oshitari nods and makes a neutral sound. He doesn't need to say any more.
Atobe clears his throat. "I think the elevator is broken."
The red number above the doors has not changed in the past three minutes. The elevator makes another demonic sound, this one louder and more startling than the last. Eloquence is apparently the elevator's rewarding quality.
"Huh. I guess you do weigh 1200 pounds."
"Remind me, who was talking about playing nice?" Atobe raises an eyebrow.
"Time and place," he repeats and takes Atobe's arm. They descend down the stairs together, one step at a time.
The results of the career assessment test come in the next day in class. Office addresses and occupations of all calibres buzz. Before announcements even end, Gakuto collects everyone's job shadowing data. It is up to debate whether he has spent too much time at Seigaku or Rikkai.
Hyoutei has the money and strings to send students off anywhere short of the Prime Minister of Japan. Out of the regulars, Oshitari is the only one going to the National Training Centre. The office of the Fujiokawa Enterprise director is printed in bold at the top of Atobe's file folder. The address pries with fingers stiff and resolute at Atobe's cool.
"I'm stuck with fucking sharks," says Shishido, slinging himself over his chair. "This blows."
Atobe agrees. "No one got what they wanted."
"I beg to differ," Oshitari says.
"You can beg all you want," Atobe snaps.
Oshitari blinks. "I thought you agreed to work on the nice?"
Before Atobe has a chance to fire Oshitari's "time and place" nonsense back at him, Shishido snorts, loud and obnoxious. "Yeah, the sky is purple, flowers can talk, and I have a pet sheep."
Poking his head into the conversation, Gakuto raises an eyebrow at Shishido. "What you do in your own time..."
Shishido turns geranium red and leaps between Oshitari and Atobe to get to Gakuto, who ducks. Shishido catches his hair. Howling, the two stumble across the room. Their homeroom teacher does her crossword puzzle in blissful obliviousness.
When they crash into the board, Oshitari winces. "Staged without a stunt crew."
Atobe shrugs and slides the career file into his bag.
Oshitari's eyes follow Atobe's hands. "If you can't stand it, stare at the secretary's legs."
"What if she's wearing a pant suit?"
"Then you imagine that she's not."
Atobe smiles, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes.
The senior class meets out by the flagpole at 5:30 to be chauffeured to their job shadowing locations. Stars still hang high up above, all winky and cheerful against their dark canvas. The moon has not yet lost its foothold in the sky. Everyone is bitchy and irritable.
By the time the last student boards, snores boom heavy as hammers against the walls of the bus.
Atobe is perhaps the only one wide awake. He is surveying his surroundings for signs of foreboding. Behind the bushes as the bus pulls away. In the pattern of Oshitari's coat. Between lines of text printed on his student code of conduct form. There is no convincing evidence, and he gives in. He leans his head against the window, seeing first his reflection, and then the sky. There is a gap in the great constellation, the place where a star used to be.2
They sit in Atobe's room. Homework and other miscellaneous paperwork is all that stretches for miles and miles. This is, of course, on hyperbolic terms, but it seems true. One paper, two paper, red paper, blue paper. The mind-boggling thing is that by Friday they all need to be completed papers.
"Was it a Roman carnival?" Oshitari asks.
"His secretary was wearing stilettos. Red stilettos."
Oshitari nods. "See, I don't know if I'd want to be near a woman that can use her shoe as a weapon. Or at the very least, I certainly wouldn't want to cross her. My head can do without craters."
"What would your dream woman be wearing then, pray tell?" Atobe asks.
"Something tall, maybe. But not sharp. I guess, just...something comfortable." He shrugs.
"You would say something like that," Atobe says, without bite. He scribbles something he will have to erase and rewrite later. "So. How did it go? For you."
Oshitari thinks about this, his favourite act of drama, these long, pensive silences. But as it turns out, this time, it isn't an act. "It was amazing." His eyes sparkle, like the first rays of day hitting clear waters. "It was everything we'd dreamed of since...I don't know. The first time we picked up a racket and returned something. You would have loved it, Keigo."
Something in Atobe clenches and his face stings, like he has been slapped. Oshitari is right, and it hurts that he's right. Atobe would have loved it, seeing the best training, the best equipment, the best athletes. All he can say is "oh."
"You haven't missed your chance," Oshitari says, with an odd emphasis.
You haven't missed your chance.
You haven't missed your chance.
You haven't missed your chance.
The broken record plays on until Atobe isn't sure anymore what Oshitari had said.
The next three weeks turn pas de bourrees by like a ballerina on methamphetamine. Sleep, tennis, test; lather, rinse, repeat. If the time that passes here is likened to any method of death, it would be death by hurling yourself into one of Ithaca's infamous suicide gorges. Fast and painless. The pain comes the night before the Day, capital intentional and necessary.
"It," Atobe says, as if his piano recital is a terrifying monster whose name is unfit to be spoken aloud, "is in eight hundred hours, Yuushi. It isn't supposed to be in eighteen hundred hours. In eight hundred hours I must understand my pieces, pretend that they are anything close to being prepared, and find the Chapstick you stole from me yesterday after practice."
"Warm greeting," Oshitari notes, taking off his coat and handing it to the maid. He smiles at her and thanks her. She is young, in her early-twenties, so she blushes and giggles. It is only when Atobe glares icicles at her that she scurries away. Oshitari sighs and slings an arm around Atobe, amicably. His hand, when it comes into contact with Atobe's face, is cold. "To begin with, you can drop the military time. You aren't raging war."
"Not true." Atobe frowns.
"Don't tell me I have to be the rational one. I hate being the rational one."
"I'm not asking you to be the rational one. I'm consulting your knowledge of time travel. How hard would it be to bring Holst into the future? I am in dire need of his assistance."
They enter Atobe's room, and Oshitari takes the door behind him. "You're being dramatic," he says. "That's my thing. Don't steal my thing."
Atobe thinks about this, and he fights a smile. "That was unfortunate phrasing."
"It was," Oshitari agrees. "But now you want to smile. Syntax does not mind falling sacrifice from time to time."
Atobe is silent.
"You're ready. You've never been so ready it's frightening."
"Yeah." He is sitting on the floor, leaning back on his hands.
"And you understand your pieces like you understand language. Every note is a word, beautiful words, with flow." The look in Oshitari's eyes is like moons rising like second suns over water, raining fragments of their beauty and painting imperfect but beautiful concentric circles on the surface. "You've got this."
"Yes," Atobe says. This time, with feeling.
Oshitari grins, like a jolly idiot. Atobe likes Santa.
That night, after Oshitari leaves, Atobe lies in his bed staring up at the ceiling, trying to find rhyme and reason in the pattern up above. If he cocks his head to the left, there is a tulip. If he squints and strains his neck backwards into his pillow, some semblance of a dragon emerges. There are billions of shapes and configurations that appear and vanish on his ceiling. Psychologists would have a field day analysing what they mean in respect to his state of mind (i.e. whether he is a raging lunatic, or simply an average teenager on the brink of adulthood).
But Atobe doesn't care about what the figures he sees mean because when he closes his eyes, all that he sees is water. Sparkling waters, deep hues of blue, unfathomable depths. And when his mind's eye paints this image of a universe of water, he hears a voice accentuating all the wrong words; he smells a dark scent, absurd cheery shampoo intermingled with spice; he feels the touch of a hand, the only part of this being conjured by his imagination that is always cold, ghosting down his torso, leaving a five-fingered trail of fire.
Atobe follows his hand, until no further guidance is needed, until his hands are firm around his cock. His overwhelming response isn't to his own hands, but to the thought of another looming impossibly close. He comes in eighteen seconds.
Atobe's program is the opening act. His heart is in his throat, leaping. Math problems come to mind: his heart jumps three centimetres every second, but slides down two every minute.
Fifteen minutes before the concert is scheduled to begin, he calls Tezuka.
"You were right," he says.
"Atobe...I'm in the middle of dinner. If you wouldn't mind..." Tezuka says. In the background, someone calls Tezuka's name. A voice that is distinctly prepubescent and not unfamiliar to Atobe's ears.
"Is that Echizen?"
"No," Tezuka says.
"Am I interrupting?"
"No," Tezuka stresses.
"I was right, too," Atobe says.
"I am hanging up now," Tezuka warns, and before Atobe can think to call him out of his bluff, he hears dial tone.
Tucking his phone back into his pocket, he smiles to himself. He walks to the edge of the stage, peeking past the curtains like a child at his first school play. He searches the sea of people.
In the stands of the music hall, the most prominent sound is Shishido yakking away, without punctuation, about sharks. Gakuto is ready to shove him into the aisle to be trampled by the hordes of parents and music teachers that have gathered to hear Atobe, among other students of Sakaki, play. The only reason that he hasn't yet is because he doesn't put it past Shishido not to drag someone, namely his aggressor, down with him.
"If we were still in kindergarten, they would be pulling each other's hair, wouldn't they," Oshitari muses, to no one in particular. With a minute left before the recital begins, they only have time to make small talk, and he thinks it is better to converse awkwardly than to sit in silence. Atobe would disagree.
"Probably," Ohtori says, throwing the two quick glances. Having apparently at last reached his limit, Gakuto yanks a handful of Shishido's hair. Passersby stare, aghast, and then shuffle along as to pretend not to have seen two man-children brawl. "Thank goodness they haven't regressed to that," he adds. "Do you think we should go break them up?"
Oshitari shrugs. "We're not ones to begrudge others their chosen discomforts, are we. They'll sort it out, eventually. This might be the most interesting piece of the evening."
Ohtori is about to say something, but then he closes his mouth and stares, wide-eyed, at something at a one-o'clock angle behind Oshitari. "You wouldn't want Atobe to hear you," he says.
"I would. That's the point."
The melodic line swerves at intermittent intervals in and out of Atobe's music, but the funny thing is, everyone hears what he doesn't play all the same. This can neither be attributed to coincidence nor mere plays of the ear. Atobe drives himself to defy the countless limits people impose on him, and he isn't afraid to take risks in doing so. He is like this on the courts, too. He will shove and thrash until he knows his opponent is breaking, and he knows he's breaking himself. He thinks of himself like one set of muscle. The only way to build and be stronger and better is to tear and tear mercilessly.
As he segues into his next piece, he does just that.
After he exits, stage right, he dashes.
Navigating cumbersomely around a pregnant woman presumably in her third trimester, Oshitari is on his heel. The puzzled looks cast his way blend and blur into the background with Shishido hissing, "What're you doing? It's not over until the fat lady sings. Atobe didn't sing." Parents around them tut..
Oshitari follows the sound of determined footsteps into a cramped and low-ceilinged hallway, the end of which opened to a one-stall restroom. As the door appears in sight, it shuts.
"Keigo." He knocks on the door.
No response.
"You're in there."
"So?" Atobe sounds out of breath but calm. Not suicidal, at least. You can never be sure with artistically-inclined individuals what their next move is.
"If you wanted a grand exit, you should have pushed the piano off the stage. Hiding in the restroom isn't very godly of you."
"I should have," Atobe says. "I should have played John Cage and pushed three of them off the stage."
"That would have been fun," Oshitari admits. "Not that your program wasn't impressive."
"It wasn't," Atobe says.
"No need to be modest."
"Are you sure you play music?" Atobe sounds exasperated.
"I do. And you do too."
"That was a nightmare. It was all your fault."
"Should I have woken you up?"
"No," Atobe says. "I was playing piano-violin duets."
"Yes, I pointed that out to you."
"The point of a duet is that there is supposed to be two people playing."
It dawns on Oshitari. "And you say I am ridiculous and grossly romantic," he says. "Earth to Keigo, we don't live in a Disney feature film."
"Well, I thought I made it clear what I was doing," Atobe protests. "I asked you what I should play so that you would know what to prepare for."
Oshitari leans against the doorframe. "I am very flattered you thought so highly of my musicianship."
"And I thought too highly of your intelligence," Atobe remarks.
"Then come out, and let me deliver a proper apology."
"It's fine," Atobe says. "Leave. I'm fine."
"Prove it."
"I'm not twelve."
"Point?"
"You can't win with the 'prove it' trick anymore."
"Fine. Then you're a deceiving little shit. And not a very convincing one either."
Atobe sputters and yanks the door open. "I am very convincing, thank you," he says haughtily, and they both can't help but laugh. Atobe has grown much since their first encounter, at age twelve, back when he was all pride. Now, he still holds his pride above his head, but now, humanity is up there, too.
"See? I'm fine," he insists, once their laughter fades.
"You don't look fine," Oshitari counters, even though he does.
"Then stop looking," Atobe says.
Oshitari wants to say something.
"You're rooting through your arsenal of cheesy movie quotes," Atobe accuses. "Stop that."
"Not movie quotes," Oshitari says.
"Who's the lying shit now?"
Oshitari hums a tune.
Atobe frowns. "What?"
"'Lovely...Never, ever change. Keep that breathless charm. Won't you please arrange it? 'Cause I love you...Just the way you look tonight'," Oshitari says, in verse. It is different when there are words. "Saki-sensei played it in class a few weeks back, remember?"
He does remember. The same way he remembers first realising how dark Oshitari's eyes are; how there aren't any spikes in his irises the way there are in his own; how much Oshitari smells like burning leaves in late fall, but, more than anything, remind him of the sea in summertime; and how much he wants to stamp through salty waters and claim them all as his own.
So he does.
Time and place be damned, he leans up and kisses Oshitari on the mouth. He presses himself so close that any boundaries bend into bindings, silken lines that are much stronger than they seem. They fold and stretch, and then finally, come together.
Kissing someone after a long, gruelling wait is a collective conscious. Everyone knows, in the recesses of their mind, the feeling of gratification, the feeling of finding the perfect fit after trying to make two unmatched pieces to fit for so long. It is like lying on your back inches from the ocean, hoping that you never have to return to this familiar place because you hope never to leave in the first place.
Atobe slides against the wall, half-perching on the sink. His legs are still shaking, and he wishes that they would stop. Oshitari doesn't need ego boosts, despite the goings-on at his last date.
Knocking at the door.
Oshitari and Atobe blink at each other. Oshitari finds words first.
"Shit," he says.
"Shhh."
"Whoever's in there, it's rude to leave a pregnant woman with a full bladder waiting," an irritated voice says.
"Shit," Oshitari repeats. "It's that woman."
"You know her?" Atobe hisses.
"No, not really. But I passed her on the way to find you. Third trimester."
"Fuck," Atobe agrees and wishes he were James Bond.
After much awkward manoeuvring, they escape from the restroom, their names untarnished. In the foyer, they bump into Atobe's father. Every muscle in Atobe's body visibly goes taut. Atobe's father looks at them, but doesn't meet their eyes. He clears his throat and walks on. This is how Atobe knows that he has won.
When he turns to smile at Oshitari, he finds that Oshitari is already smiling back.
The sun, emerging from the lucid waves,
Ascended now the brazen vault with light
For the inhabitants of earth and heav’n,
When in their bark at Pylus they arrived,
City of Neleus. On the shore they found
The people sacrificing; bulls they slew
Black without spot, to Neptune azure-hair’d.
On ranges nine of seats they sat; each range
Received five hundred, and to each they made
Allotment equal of nine sable bulls.3
1See this article. In essence, you are trying your best to suit the tastes of the judge. For example, if the judge likes girls, you would not want to put down a red noun card with "James Bond" when the green adjective card is "irresistible".
2Quoted material from "Submergence" by D.H. Lawrence.
3Quoted material from The Odyssey by Homer.
Art by Kakushiazi