Hyoutei Roommates: Coping Methods #6: Bennei (Flattery)
Title: Bennei (Flattery)
Pairing: HiyoMari
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Rating: Pretty much as innocent as innocent could be.
Disclaimer: ...why are my OCs increasing? Well, Hiyoshi's not mine, anyhow.
For: aishuu, I hope you feel better soon and that your surgery goes well!
Notes: More likely than not, happens before Tamatebako (Treasure).
Bennei (Flattery)
Mari didn’t think she’d ever seen a stranger sight than Hiyoshi Takeo strolling into the dojo.
Oh, the resemblance was there, all right, in the smooth nose and the high cheekbones--she couldn't have mistaken the fellow glancing around with smiling fascination for anyone but a Hiyoshi relative. But if Hiyoshi was a crane, and his father was a fox, then his brother was, well… a stork, maybe. Hiyoshi’s father mentioned him, sometimes, and she knew that he was the manager of an online stock portfolio company or something of the sort, but other than the one time she’d asked about what he did for a living, Hiyoshi himself never talked about him.
Well, that wasn’t so unexpected-after all, he no longer lived at home, and Hiyoshi’s focus didn’t extend well to things that weren’t right in front of his nose. Still, it was odd to see what Hiyoshi might have looked like, if he’d been a little taller and a little less athletic. Sure, the upbringing in a kobujutsu dojo still showed, when he moved with a slow, and very deliberate, grace, like a bird whose legs were a little too long for it picking its way across the water… but Takeo’s features weren’t quite as fine and trim as his younger brother’s, and his bronze hair stood in gelled spikes, rather than falling over his face. Besides, unlike Hiyoshi’s golden tennis-tan, he was Japanese-pale, behind a pair of slim, wire-rimmed spectacles.
She covered her smile with one hand. All the tennis and running made the boys slim, to be sure… but Hiyoshi Takeo was skinny. She’d never seen knees so bony that the bumps of them were visible right through the thick white material.
Though she imagined that the fact that Hiyoshi Takeo’s white gi pants just barely passed his calves, and the sleeves of his gi top hit him somewhere in the middle of his forearms wasn’t helping the impression.
“Takeo-oniisan,” to her surprise, Hiyoshi bowed to his brother much the same way she bowed to Oshitari, when she absolutely had to-his body tilting to the perfect angle, but his eyes not leaving those of the person he was bowing to. She knew why she did it-looking away from Oshitari was like looking away from the oh-so-friendly tiger licking its lips in front of you-but what in the world would Hiyoshi Wakashi have to worry about where his family was concerned? “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here for some sparring, of course, Wakashi,” his voice was deeper, too, and that smile… the innocent, and totally unforced smile raised the hair on the back of her neck. Just a little. Just a little prickle. The gods only knew that the Hiyoshi she knew never smiled with such unguarded… amusement.
In the three years she’d been at Hyoutei, she’d learned to be afraid when people were amused.
Hiyoshi’s scowl deepened, and he tapped the butt of his sparring pole on the ground. There was definitely suspicion on his face-not that she could blame him: there was something a bit fishy going on, though she wasn’t quite clear on what. “You don’t do kobujutsu anymore, Takeo-niisan. You haven’t stepped into the shiai-jou in years.” The which actually was patently clear by the fact that Hiyoshi Takeo’s gi probably hadn’t fit him correctly since he’d given up the sport in high school… though, if she was reading him right, perhaps it hadn’t fit him even then. He did smell rather like eau de mothballs. “And I’m busy.”
Well, she had stayed after the advanced beginners class had been dismissed so he could show her some basic self-defense maneuvers with the bo, but it certainly wasn't anything urgent...
Her eyes narrowed just a little when Hiyoshi's brother turned-and grinned at her, that big white flash of… teeth. “So I see. How selfish of you, Wakashi. You’re not going to introduce me to her?”
She wasn’t sure if the glance that Hiyoshi shot her was a warning, or annoyance, or the closest thing that the stubborn idiot could manage to a pleading look. To this day, she really couldn’t tell the difference. “I can introduce myself, thank you,” she stepped forward, and bowed. “I’m Taira Mari-I attend Hyoutei, too, one year above Hiyoshi-kun. It’s very nice to meet you, Hiyoshi-san.”
"Well!" he adjusted his glasses, and grinned, bowing to her at a surprisingly neat angle. “So he got you into his favourite obsession, huh? It’s a rare lady who’ll pick up the sparring sticks, but you look like you would.”
Well, that was certainly a funny thing to say. It probably could have been argued that Hiyoshi had ‘gotten her into’ kobujutsu, but why would he have wanted to? Mari cocked her head-there was definitely something odd going on, but what in the world… “What do you mean?”
He shrugged, and spread his hands, smiling that white grin still. "Well, look at you. You're a sturdy little pony amongst all the Hyoutei gazelles, aren't you? I never thought you'd be Wakashi's type, though."
Her mouth dropped open at just about the same moment Hiyoshi's grey eyes squeezed closed. Though, she imagined, his reasons were probably very different from hers-she sincerely doubted that he was suffering from a whole contradictory mess of genuinely wanting to throttle a perfect stranger, and her blood roaring in her ears at the thought that Hiyoshi’s brother thought that she was his type.
He obviously didn’t know his little brother very well.
She wasn't sure which of them started speaking first-her, or Hiyoshi-but she was louder, and her smile was barbed and sweet enough that even Hiyoshi looked askance at her and stopped halfway through whatever sentence he was trying to snarl out. If his brother was like this all the time, she really wasn't surprised about the whole gekokujou thing. "Who exactly are you trying to insult, Hiyoshi-san? Me, or your brother?"
Mari personally thought that she should have been congratulated for not retorting, “Well, excuse me for not having a penis.”
Though it was something that she’d thought, now and again, she couldn’t actually think of a worse way to out poor Hiyoshi… and after all, she didn’t even know if it was true. He'd certainly denied it vehemently enough, and unlike Atobe, he’d never given her reason to doubt it.
Besides she didn’t think that even the fox-god was cruel enough to make her fall for a man who set off her gaydar.
"Insult?" but Hiyoshi Takeo seemed genuinely surprised, blinking eyes that were-thankfully-more Jirou’s warm brown than Hiyoshi’s grey. Smouldering grey, now. "What do you mean? I'm not insulting anyone.” He’d just called her a pony, and that wasn’t supposed to be insulting?! “But I am rather glad you, you know. Have breasts, that's all." And, as if he weren’t sure she’d understand him, he cupped his hands in front of his own skinny chest.
And bobbled them.
She’d come across quite enough in her three years at Hyoutei Gakuen that she’d honestly thought herself immune to being stunned absolutely silent, but apparently there was always going to be something.
He couldn’t have very well meant that the way it had initially sounded to her ears-she really was hanging out with the Regulars entirely too much if a comment about breasts sounded like a comment on how he was thankful she wasn’t male… but the alternative was… possibly weirder. Just by dint of her size, she was better… endowed… than most of her classmates, but she was wearing a gi, and they were just about the most shapeless outfits imaginable… if not for her hair, she probably could have passed as male.
It was just the most bizarre urge ever, though, wanting to cross her arms over her chest and hide where her sports bra peeked from the vee of her gi top for just about the first time in her life.
This time, the sound that Hiyoshi made behind her didn't even count as verbal anymore, unless wolves snapping at each other over a kill was conversational. No wonder Hiyoshi didn’t like talking about his brother-it was like having a nice little chat about Gakuto. Except Gakuto, by her calculation, was nearly a decade younger than Hiyoshi's brother, and knew when he was making people mad enough to chase him around the locker room. He couldn't... he couldn't possibly mean what she thought he...
"Oh, come on, Wakashi. Don’t be like that,” Takeo scoffed, and tugged at the too-short sleeves of his gi. “I’m not blind, you know. At that last tournament of yours, there was so much foreplay going on on those courts that it should have come with some kind of a rating-"
Mari choked, the arms she’d crossed over her chest dropping to her sides.
Forget the gay in the water-there was something really evil in the glasses.
But maybe Hiyoshi Takeo’s mouth and his hands couldn't work at the same time, because when Hiyoshi tossed the bo staff at him with force enough to smack into the palms outraised to catch it, and gritted out, "Mats. Now," his elder brother actually shut up. And still managed to look very cheerful when after a satisfyingly brief sparring interval, Hiyoshi tripped him onto the mats and all but sat on him.
Though he did 'oof' rather satisfyingly when his little brother pinned him down with a knee to the sternum, and wouldn’t let him up until he stopped laughing. And then Hiyoshi pulled him to his feet with a hand up-and knocked him down again.
She’d have been annoyed at the treatment, herself, if she’d been the one on the mats-Hiyoshi was pretty darned capable of beating her hands-down in any sparring match, and his brother was, irksomely, still better than she was, but not by much. It definitely wasn’t a fair fight, when she could see that Hiyoshi’s jaw was clenched right through the line of his neck, and his eyes were silver and steel and just about death. On top of that, they probably all knew that there was really no need to keep sending his brother to the floor like that-it wasn’t like kobujutsu was judo.
Though, somehow, she wasn’t surprised that Hiyoshi’s elder brother knew just how to fall.
In anyone else, she’d have said that Hiyoshi was being a bully-as it was, she still winced when one of Hiyoshi’s swings was sharp enough that she saw rather knobbly ankles in the air before his brother hit the mat.
But even after six helpings of this, Hiyoshi Takeo, she thought grimly, was still looking entirely too entertained. And while she’d never thought she had a particularly bloodthirsty streak, it was a little disconcerting that, rather than sneaking out before this all ended in tears, she found herself watching and hoping that Hiyoshi maybe might hit him again.
And, for one blessed once, it actually wasn’t because of how gorgeous Hiyoshi looked when he was moving on the mats.
Though perhaps Takeo actually could learn, because when Hiyoshi looked like he was somewhat less likely to commit fratricide and finally let his brother up, eyeing him warily over the slanted line of the bo staff, Takeo nodded, and looked distinctly… pleased, dipping into a low, gracious bow. Though the depth of it might have been from the fact that his shoulders were heaving, underneath the heavy white cloth. “‘Tousan must be… really proud of you. He always… wanted a son… who was into… the art.” He raised his head, and grinned, right through the fact that he was panting. “You have… gotten… really good.”
Hiyoshi didn’t blush-she didn’t think he knew how-but the wind flopped from his annoyed sails like a fan had been turned off, and his wrist dropped to rest one end of the staff on the floor again. And when he bowed, it was the perfect, crisp angle… the very respectful effect somewhat ruined by the fact that he still wasn’t taking his eyes off his brother. “I know. Thank you, oniisan.”
Mari raised a hand to cover her half-smile-it just so figured that he wouldn’t bother to deny just how good he was. And damn it all, there was nothing sexy about that arrogance, nope, not a bit. Or the fact that he wasn’t so much as winded by multiple iterations of taking down a guy who had another three inches on him and a staff in hand.
She couldn’t really blame him for his wariness, though-she stiffened, herself, when Takeo turned to her, and chirruped, “So what’s it like… when he knocks you down?”
Mari bared her teeth in something that maybe might have been a smile. If she’d worked at it a little harder. Maybe. “I try not to deserve it.” Oops. Had she really said that aloud?
He smiled at her, perfectly pleasant, his brown eyes atwinkle. "Really? That’s not what I hear.” She blinked-and opened her mouth-and closed it. Oh, gods, she didn’t even want to know what that meant. “Well. It was a very pleasant to meet you, Mari-chan."
She smiled back-warily. It took every last drop of her willpower not to retort, "Speak for yourself, and don't you dare call me Mari-chan," but maybe some of it was in her gritted teeth, because he promptly turned away from her and towards his brother.
“And you, Wakashi… thank you for the sparring.” He dipped into a low, startlingly Western bow, sweeping a hand over one extended leg as if he were carrying a hat. “It was fun. I’ll have to drop by and see my little brother more often!”
She doubted, however, that her expression could be any more quelling than Hiyoshi's. He could have knocked down a stout-hearted fangirl with that. Even Atobe, she thought, would have taken a step back from a look that, if bottled, could have been poured through crenulations onto invading troops. "No. Don’t. Oniisan, it’s not a weekend. Why are you even here?"
"Well,” he scratched his nose before tugging on his too-short gi sleeves again, putting the twisted and crumpled cloth to rights, “Otousan said your girlfriend took afternoon classes on the weekdays, and since I was in the area I thought I'd come and meet her.” He winked. At both of them. “Martial arts girls are hot in bed… but I guess you know that. You've got my approval, little brother!"
Was it actually possible for one's jaw to dislocate from having dropped so many times in one day? No, no, it probably wasn't. And it was in no way because the sudden spur of images in her head involved the way Hiyoshi might look with his hands sliding through the knot of his black belt, gi slipping off his smooth, golden shoulders with sunlight gathering on his collarbone and-damn it, she didn’t need a mental flyswatter, she needed an industrial-strength insect extermination service!
But the devil in the short white gi was wandering out of the room before they could do much more than stare at him and burst out into an incoherent red-faced mess of "Not his girlfriend" "Not my girlfriend" and a general consensus of "What the Hell is wrong with you?!"
Hiyoshi Takeo, she remembered thinking, grimly, was very lucky that neither of them had had any weapons to hand-and she really couldn’t blame Hiyoshi for taking one abortive step towards the scythes hanging on the wall.
Though there was something just bizarrely fascinating about the fact that yes, in fact, Hiyoshi Wakashi could blush-right through the incredibly foul-tempered glare and the gritted teeth.
"I see why you say he works with computers," she murmured, later, over a cup of tea that Hiyoshi had insisted they both needed. In the garden, since the Terrible Two were confabulating in the kitchen. A nice cup of tea by himself seemed to be his cure for most everything. She could have done without the close quarters, though-the tiny stone bench they were sitting on meant that she could feel the rasp of his gi pants against hers whenever either of them so much as twitched… and with him so close, she was twitching quite a lot. But it was either that or get grass stains on very, very, very white cloth… and she was willing to bet that he didn’t have to do the laundry. "And you’re right-he definitely doesn't work with people.”
Considering his family, she really was beginning to understand why Hiyoshi had such a fondness for nice, solitary, people-less nature… and she was willing to believe that he drank a lot of tea. Though now she was really curious about his mother, because didn’t there have to be one spot of sanity in every bloodline?
Hiyoshi muttered something vaguely and nonverbally uncomplimentary, and if she hadn't known better, she'd have sworn that he was hiding behind his bangs. And maybe his cylindrical, blue-glazed teacup.
“Does he start off every conversation with girls by comparing them to animals, by the way?" she continued, glancing over at him curiously.
"I’m… it’s… he’s…" he finally muttered into his chest, a few blessedly silent moments later. And considering that he didn't even apologise to opponents he'd hit just a little too hard, the grudging almost-apology must have come really, really painfully. "He shouldn’t have said that. He's... very inappropriate."
That was quite possibly the understatement of the century… though it was almost kind of funny that Hiyoshi considered the farm animal comparison more inappropriate than the inference that they were having sex. Though, if she was lucky, it’d flown right over his incredibly dense head in the indignance that his brother would even assume they were together. "I’ll say,” she replied, wryly. With role models like that, it wasn’t really a surprise anymore that Hiyoshi himself had ended up so insultingly proper. “Wonder what he’d call Kabaji’s girlfriend?”
He winced, almost invisibly, just the tiniest jerk of his teacup downwards and the sudden lines of tension gathering across the tendons in his neck. “Mari-san…”
“Okay, okay, I’ll stop,” she chuckled. Well, she'd certainly been furious at the moment-it was bad enough that she knew how she looked in a mirror; having a perfect stranger cheerfully point it out to her face wasn't exactly her idea of a good time. But when she'd thought about it-with the help of the warm tea in her hand and the look of utter and total horror that had crossed Hiyoshi's face the moment his brother had opened his mouth... "Don’t worry about it. I don't mind… much, anyway. He's right, after all-I guess I am more pony than gazelle."
His brows crinkled upwards and together when he met her eyes, and she almost smiled--he was quite possibly the only person who'd genuinely be puzzled. "But, Mari..."
She looked at him over the edge of her mug, held in both hands. "Do you think there's any chance you could get him onto the dojo floor again? Maybe in a few months, or something?"
His grimace made it very clear just what he thought of that brilliant idea. "Why?"
Well, at least he hadn’t said, “And after I went through all that trouble to get him to quit?” The image in her mind wasn’t a gleeful little boy torturing his long-suffering older brother with his brand-new sparring sticks, anymore-it was a long-suffering miniature Hiyoshi whacking at his gleeful older brother out of the sheer desire for self-preservation.
"Because, Hiyoshi-kun,” she smiled, and lowered her mug to rest it on her knee. “Gazelles seem pretty fragile, to me. Don’t you think?"
He blinked at her for one long moment-before she saw the slow gleam of understanding start building in his eyes, and the start of his answering smile over the edge of his own cup when he raised it for a sip. “You’ll have to train hard,” he warned. “He hasn’t lost all of his edge.”
She knew there had to be a reason she was still crazy in love with him. "I’m fine with that,” she agreed, grinning back despite herself. “Besides. Gazelles break their own legs. Ponies break other people's."
But later, when he reached out to take her cup from her to take it inside, she blinked, a little-for some odd reason, he was still smiling. At… and she almost looked around, but of course there wasn’t anyone around them, and while it wasn’t beyond him to smile at a flower in bloom, there weren’t any flowers in the garden. So it stood to reason that he was smiling at her.
If he wanted her to wreak havoc on his older brother’s head that badly… well, she really was going to have to train hard.
Mari raised her eyebrows at him, and shrugged. He cocked his head at her for a moment, his bangs tilting sideways, before he shrugged back, and headed back through the rice paper doors, cups and teapot balanced on his big hands.
This time, though, when the talking started in the kitchen… Mari sent a silent apology his way… and carefully tiptoed out the garden’s back door.
~owari~
Start: May 17, 2007
End: June 12, 2007
*sheepish* I know, I know, it's really silly crack, and probably shouldn't go anywhere near the Coping Methods "canon," as it were. ^^; But, oddly... I had a lot of fun writing it, and I don't think they've ever had kind of a Moment before. ^^ The idea originally came from a certain Anonymous requester who wanted a drabble with Hiyoshi, Mari, the dojo, and a member of Hiyoshi's family. Er... I guess 3500 words isn't a drabble anymore.
Pairing: HiyoMari
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Rating: Pretty much as innocent as innocent could be.
Disclaimer: ...why are my OCs increasing? Well, Hiyoshi's not mine, anyhow.
For: aishuu, I hope you feel better soon and that your surgery goes well!
Notes: More likely than not, happens before Tamatebako (Treasure).
Bennei (Flattery)
Mari didn’t think she’d ever seen a stranger sight than Hiyoshi Takeo strolling into the dojo.
Oh, the resemblance was there, all right, in the smooth nose and the high cheekbones--she couldn't have mistaken the fellow glancing around with smiling fascination for anyone but a Hiyoshi relative. But if Hiyoshi was a crane, and his father was a fox, then his brother was, well… a stork, maybe. Hiyoshi’s father mentioned him, sometimes, and she knew that he was the manager of an online stock portfolio company or something of the sort, but other than the one time she’d asked about what he did for a living, Hiyoshi himself never talked about him.
Well, that wasn’t so unexpected-after all, he no longer lived at home, and Hiyoshi’s focus didn’t extend well to things that weren’t right in front of his nose. Still, it was odd to see what Hiyoshi might have looked like, if he’d been a little taller and a little less athletic. Sure, the upbringing in a kobujutsu dojo still showed, when he moved with a slow, and very deliberate, grace, like a bird whose legs were a little too long for it picking its way across the water… but Takeo’s features weren’t quite as fine and trim as his younger brother’s, and his bronze hair stood in gelled spikes, rather than falling over his face. Besides, unlike Hiyoshi’s golden tennis-tan, he was Japanese-pale, behind a pair of slim, wire-rimmed spectacles.
She covered her smile with one hand. All the tennis and running made the boys slim, to be sure… but Hiyoshi Takeo was skinny. She’d never seen knees so bony that the bumps of them were visible right through the thick white material.
Though she imagined that the fact that Hiyoshi Takeo’s white gi pants just barely passed his calves, and the sleeves of his gi top hit him somewhere in the middle of his forearms wasn’t helping the impression.
“Takeo-oniisan,” to her surprise, Hiyoshi bowed to his brother much the same way she bowed to Oshitari, when she absolutely had to-his body tilting to the perfect angle, but his eyes not leaving those of the person he was bowing to. She knew why she did it-looking away from Oshitari was like looking away from the oh-so-friendly tiger licking its lips in front of you-but what in the world would Hiyoshi Wakashi have to worry about where his family was concerned? “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here for some sparring, of course, Wakashi,” his voice was deeper, too, and that smile… the innocent, and totally unforced smile raised the hair on the back of her neck. Just a little. Just a little prickle. The gods only knew that the Hiyoshi she knew never smiled with such unguarded… amusement.
In the three years she’d been at Hyoutei, she’d learned to be afraid when people were amused.
Hiyoshi’s scowl deepened, and he tapped the butt of his sparring pole on the ground. There was definitely suspicion on his face-not that she could blame him: there was something a bit fishy going on, though she wasn’t quite clear on what. “You don’t do kobujutsu anymore, Takeo-niisan. You haven’t stepped into the shiai-jou in years.” The which actually was patently clear by the fact that Hiyoshi Takeo’s gi probably hadn’t fit him correctly since he’d given up the sport in high school… though, if she was reading him right, perhaps it hadn’t fit him even then. He did smell rather like eau de mothballs. “And I’m busy.”
Well, she had stayed after the advanced beginners class had been dismissed so he could show her some basic self-defense maneuvers with the bo, but it certainly wasn't anything urgent...
Her eyes narrowed just a little when Hiyoshi's brother turned-and grinned at her, that big white flash of… teeth. “So I see. How selfish of you, Wakashi. You’re not going to introduce me to her?”
She wasn’t sure if the glance that Hiyoshi shot her was a warning, or annoyance, or the closest thing that the stubborn idiot could manage to a pleading look. To this day, she really couldn’t tell the difference. “I can introduce myself, thank you,” she stepped forward, and bowed. “I’m Taira Mari-I attend Hyoutei, too, one year above Hiyoshi-kun. It’s very nice to meet you, Hiyoshi-san.”
"Well!" he adjusted his glasses, and grinned, bowing to her at a surprisingly neat angle. “So he got you into his favourite obsession, huh? It’s a rare lady who’ll pick up the sparring sticks, but you look like you would.”
Well, that was certainly a funny thing to say. It probably could have been argued that Hiyoshi had ‘gotten her into’ kobujutsu, but why would he have wanted to? Mari cocked her head-there was definitely something odd going on, but what in the world… “What do you mean?”
He shrugged, and spread his hands, smiling that white grin still. "Well, look at you. You're a sturdy little pony amongst all the Hyoutei gazelles, aren't you? I never thought you'd be Wakashi's type, though."
Her mouth dropped open at just about the same moment Hiyoshi's grey eyes squeezed closed. Though, she imagined, his reasons were probably very different from hers-she sincerely doubted that he was suffering from a whole contradictory mess of genuinely wanting to throttle a perfect stranger, and her blood roaring in her ears at the thought that Hiyoshi’s brother thought that she was his type.
He obviously didn’t know his little brother very well.
She wasn't sure which of them started speaking first-her, or Hiyoshi-but she was louder, and her smile was barbed and sweet enough that even Hiyoshi looked askance at her and stopped halfway through whatever sentence he was trying to snarl out. If his brother was like this all the time, she really wasn't surprised about the whole gekokujou thing. "Who exactly are you trying to insult, Hiyoshi-san? Me, or your brother?"
Mari personally thought that she should have been congratulated for not retorting, “Well, excuse me for not having a penis.”
Though it was something that she’d thought, now and again, she couldn’t actually think of a worse way to out poor Hiyoshi… and after all, she didn’t even know if it was true. He'd certainly denied it vehemently enough, and unlike Atobe, he’d never given her reason to doubt it.
Besides she didn’t think that even the fox-god was cruel enough to make her fall for a man who set off her gaydar.
"Insult?" but Hiyoshi Takeo seemed genuinely surprised, blinking eyes that were-thankfully-more Jirou’s warm brown than Hiyoshi’s grey. Smouldering grey, now. "What do you mean? I'm not insulting anyone.” He’d just called her a pony, and that wasn’t supposed to be insulting?! “But I am rather glad you, you know. Have breasts, that's all." And, as if he weren’t sure she’d understand him, he cupped his hands in front of his own skinny chest.
And bobbled them.
She’d come across quite enough in her three years at Hyoutei Gakuen that she’d honestly thought herself immune to being stunned absolutely silent, but apparently there was always going to be something.
He couldn’t have very well meant that the way it had initially sounded to her ears-she really was hanging out with the Regulars entirely too much if a comment about breasts sounded like a comment on how he was thankful she wasn’t male… but the alternative was… possibly weirder. Just by dint of her size, she was better… endowed… than most of her classmates, but she was wearing a gi, and they were just about the most shapeless outfits imaginable… if not for her hair, she probably could have passed as male.
It was just the most bizarre urge ever, though, wanting to cross her arms over her chest and hide where her sports bra peeked from the vee of her gi top for just about the first time in her life.
This time, the sound that Hiyoshi made behind her didn't even count as verbal anymore, unless wolves snapping at each other over a kill was conversational. No wonder Hiyoshi didn’t like talking about his brother-it was like having a nice little chat about Gakuto. Except Gakuto, by her calculation, was nearly a decade younger than Hiyoshi's brother, and knew when he was making people mad enough to chase him around the locker room. He couldn't... he couldn't possibly mean what she thought he...
"Oh, come on, Wakashi. Don’t be like that,” Takeo scoffed, and tugged at the too-short sleeves of his gi. “I’m not blind, you know. At that last tournament of yours, there was so much foreplay going on on those courts that it should have come with some kind of a rating-"
Mari choked, the arms she’d crossed over her chest dropping to her sides.
Forget the gay in the water-there was something really evil in the glasses.
But maybe Hiyoshi Takeo’s mouth and his hands couldn't work at the same time, because when Hiyoshi tossed the bo staff at him with force enough to smack into the palms outraised to catch it, and gritted out, "Mats. Now," his elder brother actually shut up. And still managed to look very cheerful when after a satisfyingly brief sparring interval, Hiyoshi tripped him onto the mats and all but sat on him.
Though he did 'oof' rather satisfyingly when his little brother pinned him down with a knee to the sternum, and wouldn’t let him up until he stopped laughing. And then Hiyoshi pulled him to his feet with a hand up-and knocked him down again.
She’d have been annoyed at the treatment, herself, if she’d been the one on the mats-Hiyoshi was pretty darned capable of beating her hands-down in any sparring match, and his brother was, irksomely, still better than she was, but not by much. It definitely wasn’t a fair fight, when she could see that Hiyoshi’s jaw was clenched right through the line of his neck, and his eyes were silver and steel and just about death. On top of that, they probably all knew that there was really no need to keep sending his brother to the floor like that-it wasn’t like kobujutsu was judo.
Though, somehow, she wasn’t surprised that Hiyoshi’s elder brother knew just how to fall.
In anyone else, she’d have said that Hiyoshi was being a bully-as it was, she still winced when one of Hiyoshi’s swings was sharp enough that she saw rather knobbly ankles in the air before his brother hit the mat.
But even after six helpings of this, Hiyoshi Takeo, she thought grimly, was still looking entirely too entertained. And while she’d never thought she had a particularly bloodthirsty streak, it was a little disconcerting that, rather than sneaking out before this all ended in tears, she found herself watching and hoping that Hiyoshi maybe might hit him again.
And, for one blessed once, it actually wasn’t because of how gorgeous Hiyoshi looked when he was moving on the mats.
Though perhaps Takeo actually could learn, because when Hiyoshi looked like he was somewhat less likely to commit fratricide and finally let his brother up, eyeing him warily over the slanted line of the bo staff, Takeo nodded, and looked distinctly… pleased, dipping into a low, gracious bow. Though the depth of it might have been from the fact that his shoulders were heaving, underneath the heavy white cloth. “‘Tousan must be… really proud of you. He always… wanted a son… who was into… the art.” He raised his head, and grinned, right through the fact that he was panting. “You have… gotten… really good.”
Hiyoshi didn’t blush-she didn’t think he knew how-but the wind flopped from his annoyed sails like a fan had been turned off, and his wrist dropped to rest one end of the staff on the floor again. And when he bowed, it was the perfect, crisp angle… the very respectful effect somewhat ruined by the fact that he still wasn’t taking his eyes off his brother. “I know. Thank you, oniisan.”
Mari raised a hand to cover her half-smile-it just so figured that he wouldn’t bother to deny just how good he was. And damn it all, there was nothing sexy about that arrogance, nope, not a bit. Or the fact that he wasn’t so much as winded by multiple iterations of taking down a guy who had another three inches on him and a staff in hand.
She couldn’t really blame him for his wariness, though-she stiffened, herself, when Takeo turned to her, and chirruped, “So what’s it like… when he knocks you down?”
Mari bared her teeth in something that maybe might have been a smile. If she’d worked at it a little harder. Maybe. “I try not to deserve it.” Oops. Had she really said that aloud?
He smiled at her, perfectly pleasant, his brown eyes atwinkle. "Really? That’s not what I hear.” She blinked-and opened her mouth-and closed it. Oh, gods, she didn’t even want to know what that meant. “Well. It was a very pleasant to meet you, Mari-chan."
She smiled back-warily. It took every last drop of her willpower not to retort, "Speak for yourself, and don't you dare call me Mari-chan," but maybe some of it was in her gritted teeth, because he promptly turned away from her and towards his brother.
“And you, Wakashi… thank you for the sparring.” He dipped into a low, startlingly Western bow, sweeping a hand over one extended leg as if he were carrying a hat. “It was fun. I’ll have to drop by and see my little brother more often!”
She doubted, however, that her expression could be any more quelling than Hiyoshi's. He could have knocked down a stout-hearted fangirl with that. Even Atobe, she thought, would have taken a step back from a look that, if bottled, could have been poured through crenulations onto invading troops. "No. Don’t. Oniisan, it’s not a weekend. Why are you even here?"
"Well,” he scratched his nose before tugging on his too-short gi sleeves again, putting the twisted and crumpled cloth to rights, “Otousan said your girlfriend took afternoon classes on the weekdays, and since I was in the area I thought I'd come and meet her.” He winked. At both of them. “Martial arts girls are hot in bed… but I guess you know that. You've got my approval, little brother!"
Was it actually possible for one's jaw to dislocate from having dropped so many times in one day? No, no, it probably wasn't. And it was in no way because the sudden spur of images in her head involved the way Hiyoshi might look with his hands sliding through the knot of his black belt, gi slipping off his smooth, golden shoulders with sunlight gathering on his collarbone and-damn it, she didn’t need a mental flyswatter, she needed an industrial-strength insect extermination service!
But the devil in the short white gi was wandering out of the room before they could do much more than stare at him and burst out into an incoherent red-faced mess of "Not his girlfriend" "Not my girlfriend" and a general consensus of "What the Hell is wrong with you?!"
Hiyoshi Takeo, she remembered thinking, grimly, was very lucky that neither of them had had any weapons to hand-and she really couldn’t blame Hiyoshi for taking one abortive step towards the scythes hanging on the wall.
Though there was something just bizarrely fascinating about the fact that yes, in fact, Hiyoshi Wakashi could blush-right through the incredibly foul-tempered glare and the gritted teeth.
"I see why you say he works with computers," she murmured, later, over a cup of tea that Hiyoshi had insisted they both needed. In the garden, since the Terrible Two were confabulating in the kitchen. A nice cup of tea by himself seemed to be his cure for most everything. She could have done without the close quarters, though-the tiny stone bench they were sitting on meant that she could feel the rasp of his gi pants against hers whenever either of them so much as twitched… and with him so close, she was twitching quite a lot. But it was either that or get grass stains on very, very, very white cloth… and she was willing to bet that he didn’t have to do the laundry. "And you’re right-he definitely doesn't work with people.”
Considering his family, she really was beginning to understand why Hiyoshi had such a fondness for nice, solitary, people-less nature… and she was willing to believe that he drank a lot of tea. Though now she was really curious about his mother, because didn’t there have to be one spot of sanity in every bloodline?
Hiyoshi muttered something vaguely and nonverbally uncomplimentary, and if she hadn't known better, she'd have sworn that he was hiding behind his bangs. And maybe his cylindrical, blue-glazed teacup.
“Does he start off every conversation with girls by comparing them to animals, by the way?" she continued, glancing over at him curiously.
"I’m… it’s… he’s…" he finally muttered into his chest, a few blessedly silent moments later. And considering that he didn't even apologise to opponents he'd hit just a little too hard, the grudging almost-apology must have come really, really painfully. "He shouldn’t have said that. He's... very inappropriate."
That was quite possibly the understatement of the century… though it was almost kind of funny that Hiyoshi considered the farm animal comparison more inappropriate than the inference that they were having sex. Though, if she was lucky, it’d flown right over his incredibly dense head in the indignance that his brother would even assume they were together. "I’ll say,” she replied, wryly. With role models like that, it wasn’t really a surprise anymore that Hiyoshi himself had ended up so insultingly proper. “Wonder what he’d call Kabaji’s girlfriend?”
He winced, almost invisibly, just the tiniest jerk of his teacup downwards and the sudden lines of tension gathering across the tendons in his neck. “Mari-san…”
“Okay, okay, I’ll stop,” she chuckled. Well, she'd certainly been furious at the moment-it was bad enough that she knew how she looked in a mirror; having a perfect stranger cheerfully point it out to her face wasn't exactly her idea of a good time. But when she'd thought about it-with the help of the warm tea in her hand and the look of utter and total horror that had crossed Hiyoshi's face the moment his brother had opened his mouth... "Don’t worry about it. I don't mind… much, anyway. He's right, after all-I guess I am more pony than gazelle."
His brows crinkled upwards and together when he met her eyes, and she almost smiled--he was quite possibly the only person who'd genuinely be puzzled. "But, Mari..."
She looked at him over the edge of her mug, held in both hands. "Do you think there's any chance you could get him onto the dojo floor again? Maybe in a few months, or something?"
His grimace made it very clear just what he thought of that brilliant idea. "Why?"
Well, at least he hadn’t said, “And after I went through all that trouble to get him to quit?” The image in her mind wasn’t a gleeful little boy torturing his long-suffering older brother with his brand-new sparring sticks, anymore-it was a long-suffering miniature Hiyoshi whacking at his gleeful older brother out of the sheer desire for self-preservation.
"Because, Hiyoshi-kun,” she smiled, and lowered her mug to rest it on her knee. “Gazelles seem pretty fragile, to me. Don’t you think?"
He blinked at her for one long moment-before she saw the slow gleam of understanding start building in his eyes, and the start of his answering smile over the edge of his own cup when he raised it for a sip. “You’ll have to train hard,” he warned. “He hasn’t lost all of his edge.”
She knew there had to be a reason she was still crazy in love with him. "I’m fine with that,” she agreed, grinning back despite herself. “Besides. Gazelles break their own legs. Ponies break other people's."
But later, when he reached out to take her cup from her to take it inside, she blinked, a little-for some odd reason, he was still smiling. At… and she almost looked around, but of course there wasn’t anyone around them, and while it wasn’t beyond him to smile at a flower in bloom, there weren’t any flowers in the garden. So it stood to reason that he was smiling at her.
If he wanted her to wreak havoc on his older brother’s head that badly… well, she really was going to have to train hard.
Mari raised her eyebrows at him, and shrugged. He cocked his head at her for a moment, his bangs tilting sideways, before he shrugged back, and headed back through the rice paper doors, cups and teapot balanced on his big hands.
This time, though, when the talking started in the kitchen… Mari sent a silent apology his way… and carefully tiptoed out the garden’s back door.
~owari~
Start: May 17, 2007
End: June 12, 2007
*sheepish* I know, I know, it's really silly crack, and probably shouldn't go anywhere near the Coping Methods "canon," as it were. ^^; But, oddly... I had a lot of fun writing it, and I don't think they've ever had kind of a Moment before. ^^ The idea originally came from a certain Anonymous requester who wanted a drabble with Hiyoshi, Mari, the dojo, and a member of Hiyoshi's family. Er... I guess 3500 words isn't a drabble anymore.