PoT: Calling
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Pairing: Tezuka/Ryoma
Rating: PG13
Continuity: Manga, no spoilers
Notes: Nominally for pillarchallenge. This is really weird. Also it is a hell of a random spin off the challenge. I do that a lot. Nothing whatsoever to do with extraterrestrials, sadly.
Calling
In the spring of Ryoma's second year at Seigaku High, his mother is sent off to a conference in New York - something to do with international compliance and legal procedure; Ryoma doesn't understand and isn't bothered. What concerns him is that Nanjiroh immediately invites himself along, attracted by the prospect of two weeks of room service and pay-per-view porn. At that point, Ryoma makes up his mind to stay home; a fortnight without the idiot old man and his constant taunts and annoyances is worth the bother of having to cook his own meals. And Western food always tastes wrong; they overcook the fish and put weird things in the rice.
He tells his mother that someone has to look after Karupin.
His father laughs on his way out of the door, and claims that Ryoma will be desperate for a decent opponent within a week. Ryoma suffers through his mother's hugs and worries and repeated reminders that the hotel phone number is on the fridge and Nanako-san will be by twice a week to check on him, and wonders why the idiot still has such a high opinion of himself. Ryoma can beat him one time in three, now. By the time they're finally gone he's late for morning practice and has to run all the way to school.
It doesn't get really weird until the second day. Ryoma wanders home after practice and spends an hour or so playing with Karupin, who's bored and sulky after a day of abandonment. Eventually, though, his fingers start to itch for his racquet grip, and the prospect of hitting balls against the temple wall isn't interesting at all.
The street courts are floodlit and busy. Ryoma recognises a few of the players in a vague kind of way; he's never been good at names or faces, and none of them are good enough to stand out in his memory. There aren't many challenges left at junior level, but his mother's one insistence is that he graduate high school before he goes pro. It annoys Nanjiroh enough that Ryoma hasn't bothered to argue. Besides, he's still annoyingly short, and the idea of trying to adjust to a growth spurt on the pro circuit doesn't appeal. Ryoma's mother has told him more than once that he is a late bloomer, a phrase that he hates because it always makes him think of flowers. Flowers are for girls, with their fragile petals and quickly fading beauty; Ryoma is stronger than that.
Ryoma watches the activity on the courts for a while, absently shifting from foot to foot as he stretches out his muscles. Two guys he doesn't recognise are flattening all comers at doubles, and people are muttering. Power tennis, Ryoma thinks, rotating his shoulders as he watches ball after ball slam into the court. The sun is just setting behind the trees, red and gold glinting off buildings in the distance.
"Too easy!" the bigger of the guys mocks as the latest opponents collapse breathless and humiliated at the side of the courts. "Anyone else think they're good enough to take us on?"
"Bastards," someone mutters, but no one steps forward. The other guy laughs like a donkey.
"Should've known there's nothing but weaklings here, Fushin!"
"Heh." Ryoma shoulders his racquet and tugs down his cap to hide his grin as he saunters forward. "I'll play."
"You?" Fushin or whatever his name is throws back his head and laughs. "I could squash you with one hand, chibi."
"Better hope we don't step on you by accident," donkey-guy chimes in; both of them seem to find this hilarious, but whispers are running through the crowd, and Ryoma can hear his name. He tips his head back, smirking across the net.
"Mada mada dane." That shuts them up. Donkey-guy glares at him.
"Where's your partner, brat? You think you can play us by yourself you'll be going home in an ambulance."
"I don't play with anyone." Ryoma tosses his racquet from hand to hand, bouncing on his toes at the service line. He's done this before, against Momo-senpai and Kaidoh-senpai, and against the Golden Pair last year. These guys aren't that good. "You can serve." He already knows that while this will be a workout, it won't be much of a challenge.
That night, Ryoma sleeps restlessly, drifting in and out of fragments of dream that are full of the sound of empty rooms. He wakes more than once to the sensation of Karupin's light paws on his back, and struggles up to see the cat curled into a tight, sleeping ball of fluff at the foot of his bed. Ryoma drowses through morning practice, and when he falls asleep in English class no one bothers to wake him and he almost misses lunch.
After school, he plays hunt-the-tennis-ball until Karupin gets overexcited and almost bites his fingers. Ryoma wanders the house restlessly until his phone vibrates with a smugly superior message from his father: Are you missing me yet? Scowling, Ryoma erases it summarily and dials the number before he can think about it. It rings twice, as always.
"This is Tezuka." There's no background noise, which is good.
"Buchou." Ryoma frowns into the phone and tries to breathe deeply. "Can you come over?"
"Echizen?" Tezuka sounds surprised, in a quiet way. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Ryoma mutters. "…I just want to play a match."
There's silence for a moment. "Now?"
"Aa."
"I can meet you at the clay courts…" Tezuka begins; he sounds resigned, the way he so often does when he talks to Ryoma. Ryoma sighs in something that's not quite relief.
"We've got a court here."
"Your family -"
"They're away." Ryoma shrugs one shoulder, then remembers that buchou can't see him. "New York."
"Ah." Ryoma doesn't like the understanding in Tezuka's voice, though he's used to it. "Expect me in an hour and a half."
"Yes, buchou." Ryoma grins in satisfaction, already anticipating this.
Tezuka-buchou looks different outside of Ryoma's memory - taller, more remote, more adult. Looking up at him on the doorstep, Ryoma feels as though they are getting further apart each time they meet, further from team practices and tournaments and National victories. He ducks his head and mutters "Come in," without much grace.
They warm up on the court after Ryoma has carefully shut Karupin into the house. The sound of the ball on the gut of buchou's racquet is distinctive; Ryoma feels his shoulders settle, muscles untensing for the first time in days.
"One set match?" Tezuka-buchou looks at him calmly over the net, evening sunlight sparking golden off the rims of his glasses and hiding his eyes.
"Three." Ryoma grins, sandy ground familiar underfoot as he walks back to the line. "You can serve, buchou."
Right from the start, it's a challenge. It's Tezuka. Ryoma attacks the game with everything he has; it's a strange kind of relief to be able to stretch himself, finally. Tezuka takes the first set seven to five before Ryoma can break through the Zone; it feels like breathing after too long stifled, and Ryoma takes great gulps of the cool spring air, feeling the burn through his whole body. Everything seems to come into focus, centred on Tezuka-buchou's face on the other side of the net. He takes the second set six-four and the third in tie-break, and sits panting next to Tezuka on the bench under the temple bell as the sun sets.
"Don't get careless," Tezuka-buchou tells him as he leaves. "Keep challenging yourself." Ryoma watches him walk down the path, a straight-backed shadow in the gathering dusk, and tries to understand the confused, conflicting feelings that roll like waves through his body and mind. When Karupin twines around his ankles with a hungry mew, he wanders back into the house and makes them both dinner out of the fridge.
Ryoma sleeps like the dead and dreams things which he doesn't remember, things which leave him gasping himself awake in the dim hours of dawn, sticky and humiliated and shaking with an irrational wash of fear that he doesn't understand. He rips the sheets off his bed with vicious, trembling hands and stuffs them into the washing machine, then stands under the shower until the water runs cold, icy on skin reddened from the heat and force of the spray. At practice he plays so aggressively that Momo-senpai tells him to run laps until he gets it out of his system; Ryoma stretches his legs and lungs into the run, feet pounding the clay pathways in angry cadence with his heartbeat. Afterwards, he practices against Kaidoh-senpai until he's exhausted and the street lamps are beginning to flicker alight, then trudges home to an affectionate Karupin and a pile of homework that he falls asleep in the middle of.
Saturday practice is boring. Ryoma hits balls against the clubhouse wall until Momo-senpai throws a towel at him and tells him to go home already. He calls Tezuka as soon as he gets in the door, obscurely relieved when buchou's voice is as normal as ever.
"Echizen?"
Ryoma wonders whether Tezuka has been expecting his call. "Can we play another match, buchou?"
"I'm not your captain any more." It sounds like Tezuka sighs, but it's so faint over the phone that Ryoma can barely hear it. "The buses aren't running late tonight, since tomorrow is a holiday."
"There's no one else to play. You can stay over." That way, Ryoma thinks, they can play again tomorrow before buchou leaves. The idea leaves a curious warmth spreading through his chest and stomach, which he ignores. He already knows that Tezuka would do a lot for a game with him - has done a lot, more than once.
They play five sets, two of which run on into tie-break. Ryoma breaks the Zone three times and laughs when Tezuka slams the final point past him to take the match. Tennis at least is comfortable and easy, worlds away from the alien, hot-cold confusion of feelings that he doesn't understand.
At night, Ryoma halts in the middle of laying out the futon his mother keeps for guests, staring across the room at the sight of Tezuka-buchou in his bed. Without his glasses he looks like a different person, less severe and somehow knowing as the lamplight washes across his half-focused eyes. Ryoma only realises he's dropped the futon when he's climbing into bed next to Tezuka, his own heartbeat sharp and painful in his ears.
Tezuka freezes as Ryoma settles beside him, although there's room enough in the bed for both of them. "What -"
"Good night, buchou," Ryoma mumbles, kicking out at the light switch with one foot and plunging the room into abrupt darkness. Tezuka-buchou is as still as a statue, but when Ryoma curls up against him, head pillowed on his chest, he can hear the muffled beat of buchou's heart echoing through them both. He breathes with the rhythm of it as it slows, sliding easily into sleep.
When he wakes, drowsy and well rested and hungry for breakfast, Tezuka-buchou is still as unmoving as stone, chest rising only a little with shallow breath. Ryoma stares into his blank face for a long moment, suddenly awkward and miserable, then scrambles out of bed and bolts for the bathroom. By the time he emerges, sulky and damp from the shower, Tezuka is sitting fully-dressed in the kitchen, drinking tea while some shrill-voiced woman reads the news on the radio. Ryoma can't ever recall seeing him look tired before, not like this with his eyes bruised and shadowed and his expression heavy. He fetches himself a bowl of rice from the cooker in silence, and forgets to drink his milk until buchou reminds him in a quiet, too-calm voice.
It's almost a relief when a key jangles in the front door and Nanako lets herself in with a cheery greeting to Karupin. Ryoma scowls and pushes his bowl away, slouching in his chair as she comes through into the kitchen and exclaims at seeing Tezuka there. She always smiles too much at buchou, and it makes Ryoma's chest hurt.
Tezuka-buchou bows and says polite things, then glances over at Ryoma. "I should be going."
Ryoma's stomach clenches; he'd been hoping for another game, something to ease the nameless and awkward uncertainty roiling inside him. He pushes himself to his feet, ducking his head as he passes his cousin, and feels Tezuka's eyes on his back as he leads the way to the door. Nanako follows them, chattering.
"It's very good of you to keep an eye on Ryoma-san like this, Tezuka-san, especially now that you've graduated."
"It's nothing." Tezuka looks back, once, as he walks down the path to the gate, eyes meeting Ryoma's in a way that only makes his stomach churn more. Ryoma feels as though he is being pulled in a dozen directions by things he cannot see, as though he is about to fly apart at any second. He avoids Nanako's too-kind eyes and heads out back to hit balls against stones until his head goes quiet again.
It's two days before Ryoma recovers enough of his usual equanimity to call Tezuka again. He spends them wandering around the local sports shops and street courts, trying and failing to find an opponent whose play can hold his attention. Lack of tennis makes him irritable and jumpy, and when Tezuka tells him that he has a family engagement and cannot play tonight Ryoma almost hangs up on him.
"Tomorrow?" he asks eventually, reluctantly. Maybe he'll call Momo-senpai after dinner and take out his frustrations on him. Momo usually forgives him even the most embarrassing defeats if Ryoma pays for the food.
"Possibly. I'll let you know," Tezuka-buchou says, and that seems to be all. Ryoma can't think of anything else to say, so he mumbles a vague agreement and puts the phone down, wandering back out to find Karupin. When the doorbell chimes while he's eating dinner, he's surprised to hear Fuji-senpai's voice over the intercom.
Fuji-senpai, at least, looks much the same as Ryoma remembers him - only a few centimetres taller than him, and wearing his old Seigaku tennis clothes and an amused smile.
"It's been a while, hmm? Do you want to play a match, Echizen-kun?"
Ryoma blinks at him, falling automatically back into his accustomed smirk. Fuji-senpai is a challenge as well, but usually because it takes work to get him playing seriously. It's not an opportunity he'll pass up. "The court's out back, senpai."
"In the temple grounds?" Fuji-senpai looks up at the steps leading up into the complex. "Isn't that bad luck?"
"Depends which side you play." Ryoma rolls his shoulders, bouncing on his toes as Fuji-senpai gets out his racquet. Karupin is sleeping on the rail of the bell turret, but he knows better than to come into the court by now. "Do you want the serve, senpai?"
Fuji smiles half-lidded across the net at him. "Oh, I'll let you. Best of three sets."
"Whatever." Ryoma stretches, pivots, and opens with the Twist Serve and a grin.
Afterwards, Fuji-senpai wanders off towards the temple a little way, trailing his fingers over the bushes that border the grounds. "You've been seeing a lot of Tezuka recently, hmm?"
Ryoma shrugs uncomfortably, aware that there's some kind of insinuation buried beneath Fuji's words but not wanting to dig deep enough to unearth it. "Not really."
"Aa. Well." Fuji looks over at him from the corner of his eyes, blue and penetrating. "Sometimes it's better not to think too much about things, you know? It's easier to go with it."
"Senpai, you're not making any sense." Fuji rarely does, in Ryoma's opinion; even on the court he's almost impossible to read.
"Have you ever played against an opponent who pushes you to a higher level?" Fuji asks, turning to look straight at Ryoma although he must know the answer to that. "It's like that. Just let it happen."
Ryoma still doesn't quite understand, but he feels as though he is standing on the edge of something new, something huge and alien that he cannot quite feel the shape of. He ducks his head beneath his cap, studying his shoes and relieved when Karupin comes to demand petting and Fuji-senpai begins telling him news of the rest of the team.
When Tezuka-buchou arrives at the door in the middle of the week, all the confusion seems to solidify into a rough-edged lump that settles beneath Ryoma's breastbone and refuses to be dislodged. Despite the ache of it, the game that they play feels as much like flying as tennis with Tezuka ever has. They push each other to new heights with every ball, every shot. It's laughter and breathlessness and need and everything that Ryoma has ever wanted from the game. Afterwards, as they sit on the temple steps, watching the sunset in silence, he realises with a sudden understanding that it isn't everything he wants from life. Not any more. That night, when Ryoma climbs into bed beside him, curling up against his warmth, Tezuka wraps a careful arm around him and pulls him closer. The fluttering edges of uncertainty in Ryoma's stomach settle into comfort.
Pairing: Tezuka/Ryoma
Rating: PG13
Continuity: Manga, no spoilers
Notes: Nominally for pillarchallenge. This is really weird. Also it is a hell of a random spin off the challenge. I do that a lot. Nothing whatsoever to do with extraterrestrials, sadly.
Calling
In the spring of Ryoma's second year at Seigaku High, his mother is sent off to a conference in New York - something to do with international compliance and legal procedure; Ryoma doesn't understand and isn't bothered. What concerns him is that Nanjiroh immediately invites himself along, attracted by the prospect of two weeks of room service and pay-per-view porn. At that point, Ryoma makes up his mind to stay home; a fortnight without the idiot old man and his constant taunts and annoyances is worth the bother of having to cook his own meals. And Western food always tastes wrong; they overcook the fish and put weird things in the rice.
He tells his mother that someone has to look after Karupin.
His father laughs on his way out of the door, and claims that Ryoma will be desperate for a decent opponent within a week. Ryoma suffers through his mother's hugs and worries and repeated reminders that the hotel phone number is on the fridge and Nanako-san will be by twice a week to check on him, and wonders why the idiot still has such a high opinion of himself. Ryoma can beat him one time in three, now. By the time they're finally gone he's late for morning practice and has to run all the way to school.
It doesn't get really weird until the second day. Ryoma wanders home after practice and spends an hour or so playing with Karupin, who's bored and sulky after a day of abandonment. Eventually, though, his fingers start to itch for his racquet grip, and the prospect of hitting balls against the temple wall isn't interesting at all.
The street courts are floodlit and busy. Ryoma recognises a few of the players in a vague kind of way; he's never been good at names or faces, and none of them are good enough to stand out in his memory. There aren't many challenges left at junior level, but his mother's one insistence is that he graduate high school before he goes pro. It annoys Nanjiroh enough that Ryoma hasn't bothered to argue. Besides, he's still annoyingly short, and the idea of trying to adjust to a growth spurt on the pro circuit doesn't appeal. Ryoma's mother has told him more than once that he is a late bloomer, a phrase that he hates because it always makes him think of flowers. Flowers are for girls, with their fragile petals and quickly fading beauty; Ryoma is stronger than that.
Ryoma watches the activity on the courts for a while, absently shifting from foot to foot as he stretches out his muscles. Two guys he doesn't recognise are flattening all comers at doubles, and people are muttering. Power tennis, Ryoma thinks, rotating his shoulders as he watches ball after ball slam into the court. The sun is just setting behind the trees, red and gold glinting off buildings in the distance.
"Too easy!" the bigger of the guys mocks as the latest opponents collapse breathless and humiliated at the side of the courts. "Anyone else think they're good enough to take us on?"
"Bastards," someone mutters, but no one steps forward. The other guy laughs like a donkey.
"Should've known there's nothing but weaklings here, Fushin!"
"Heh." Ryoma shoulders his racquet and tugs down his cap to hide his grin as he saunters forward. "I'll play."
"You?" Fushin or whatever his name is throws back his head and laughs. "I could squash you with one hand, chibi."
"Better hope we don't step on you by accident," donkey-guy chimes in; both of them seem to find this hilarious, but whispers are running through the crowd, and Ryoma can hear his name. He tips his head back, smirking across the net.
"Mada mada dane." That shuts them up. Donkey-guy glares at him.
"Where's your partner, brat? You think you can play us by yourself you'll be going home in an ambulance."
"I don't play with anyone." Ryoma tosses his racquet from hand to hand, bouncing on his toes at the service line. He's done this before, against Momo-senpai and Kaidoh-senpai, and against the Golden Pair last year. These guys aren't that good. "You can serve." He already knows that while this will be a workout, it won't be much of a challenge.
That night, Ryoma sleeps restlessly, drifting in and out of fragments of dream that are full of the sound of empty rooms. He wakes more than once to the sensation of Karupin's light paws on his back, and struggles up to see the cat curled into a tight, sleeping ball of fluff at the foot of his bed. Ryoma drowses through morning practice, and when he falls asleep in English class no one bothers to wake him and he almost misses lunch.
After school, he plays hunt-the-tennis-ball until Karupin gets overexcited and almost bites his fingers. Ryoma wanders the house restlessly until his phone vibrates with a smugly superior message from his father: Are you missing me yet? Scowling, Ryoma erases it summarily and dials the number before he can think about it. It rings twice, as always.
"This is Tezuka." There's no background noise, which is good.
"Buchou." Ryoma frowns into the phone and tries to breathe deeply. "Can you come over?"
"Echizen?" Tezuka sounds surprised, in a quiet way. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," Ryoma mutters. "…I just want to play a match."
There's silence for a moment. "Now?"
"Aa."
"I can meet you at the clay courts…" Tezuka begins; he sounds resigned, the way he so often does when he talks to Ryoma. Ryoma sighs in something that's not quite relief.
"We've got a court here."
"Your family -"
"They're away." Ryoma shrugs one shoulder, then remembers that buchou can't see him. "New York."
"Ah." Ryoma doesn't like the understanding in Tezuka's voice, though he's used to it. "Expect me in an hour and a half."
"Yes, buchou." Ryoma grins in satisfaction, already anticipating this.
Tezuka-buchou looks different outside of Ryoma's memory - taller, more remote, more adult. Looking up at him on the doorstep, Ryoma feels as though they are getting further apart each time they meet, further from team practices and tournaments and National victories. He ducks his head and mutters "Come in," without much grace.
They warm up on the court after Ryoma has carefully shut Karupin into the house. The sound of the ball on the gut of buchou's racquet is distinctive; Ryoma feels his shoulders settle, muscles untensing for the first time in days.
"One set match?" Tezuka-buchou looks at him calmly over the net, evening sunlight sparking golden off the rims of his glasses and hiding his eyes.
"Three." Ryoma grins, sandy ground familiar underfoot as he walks back to the line. "You can serve, buchou."
Right from the start, it's a challenge. It's Tezuka. Ryoma attacks the game with everything he has; it's a strange kind of relief to be able to stretch himself, finally. Tezuka takes the first set seven to five before Ryoma can break through the Zone; it feels like breathing after too long stifled, and Ryoma takes great gulps of the cool spring air, feeling the burn through his whole body. Everything seems to come into focus, centred on Tezuka-buchou's face on the other side of the net. He takes the second set six-four and the third in tie-break, and sits panting next to Tezuka on the bench under the temple bell as the sun sets.
"Don't get careless," Tezuka-buchou tells him as he leaves. "Keep challenging yourself." Ryoma watches him walk down the path, a straight-backed shadow in the gathering dusk, and tries to understand the confused, conflicting feelings that roll like waves through his body and mind. When Karupin twines around his ankles with a hungry mew, he wanders back into the house and makes them both dinner out of the fridge.
Ryoma sleeps like the dead and dreams things which he doesn't remember, things which leave him gasping himself awake in the dim hours of dawn, sticky and humiliated and shaking with an irrational wash of fear that he doesn't understand. He rips the sheets off his bed with vicious, trembling hands and stuffs them into the washing machine, then stands under the shower until the water runs cold, icy on skin reddened from the heat and force of the spray. At practice he plays so aggressively that Momo-senpai tells him to run laps until he gets it out of his system; Ryoma stretches his legs and lungs into the run, feet pounding the clay pathways in angry cadence with his heartbeat. Afterwards, he practices against Kaidoh-senpai until he's exhausted and the street lamps are beginning to flicker alight, then trudges home to an affectionate Karupin and a pile of homework that he falls asleep in the middle of.
Saturday practice is boring. Ryoma hits balls against the clubhouse wall until Momo-senpai throws a towel at him and tells him to go home already. He calls Tezuka as soon as he gets in the door, obscurely relieved when buchou's voice is as normal as ever.
"Echizen?"
Ryoma wonders whether Tezuka has been expecting his call. "Can we play another match, buchou?"
"I'm not your captain any more." It sounds like Tezuka sighs, but it's so faint over the phone that Ryoma can barely hear it. "The buses aren't running late tonight, since tomorrow is a holiday."
"There's no one else to play. You can stay over." That way, Ryoma thinks, they can play again tomorrow before buchou leaves. The idea leaves a curious warmth spreading through his chest and stomach, which he ignores. He already knows that Tezuka would do a lot for a game with him - has done a lot, more than once.
They play five sets, two of which run on into tie-break. Ryoma breaks the Zone three times and laughs when Tezuka slams the final point past him to take the match. Tennis at least is comfortable and easy, worlds away from the alien, hot-cold confusion of feelings that he doesn't understand.
At night, Ryoma halts in the middle of laying out the futon his mother keeps for guests, staring across the room at the sight of Tezuka-buchou in his bed. Without his glasses he looks like a different person, less severe and somehow knowing as the lamplight washes across his half-focused eyes. Ryoma only realises he's dropped the futon when he's climbing into bed next to Tezuka, his own heartbeat sharp and painful in his ears.
Tezuka freezes as Ryoma settles beside him, although there's room enough in the bed for both of them. "What -"
"Good night, buchou," Ryoma mumbles, kicking out at the light switch with one foot and plunging the room into abrupt darkness. Tezuka-buchou is as still as a statue, but when Ryoma curls up against him, head pillowed on his chest, he can hear the muffled beat of buchou's heart echoing through them both. He breathes with the rhythm of it as it slows, sliding easily into sleep.
When he wakes, drowsy and well rested and hungry for breakfast, Tezuka-buchou is still as unmoving as stone, chest rising only a little with shallow breath. Ryoma stares into his blank face for a long moment, suddenly awkward and miserable, then scrambles out of bed and bolts for the bathroom. By the time he emerges, sulky and damp from the shower, Tezuka is sitting fully-dressed in the kitchen, drinking tea while some shrill-voiced woman reads the news on the radio. Ryoma can't ever recall seeing him look tired before, not like this with his eyes bruised and shadowed and his expression heavy. He fetches himself a bowl of rice from the cooker in silence, and forgets to drink his milk until buchou reminds him in a quiet, too-calm voice.
It's almost a relief when a key jangles in the front door and Nanako lets herself in with a cheery greeting to Karupin. Ryoma scowls and pushes his bowl away, slouching in his chair as she comes through into the kitchen and exclaims at seeing Tezuka there. She always smiles too much at buchou, and it makes Ryoma's chest hurt.
Tezuka-buchou bows and says polite things, then glances over at Ryoma. "I should be going."
Ryoma's stomach clenches; he'd been hoping for another game, something to ease the nameless and awkward uncertainty roiling inside him. He pushes himself to his feet, ducking his head as he passes his cousin, and feels Tezuka's eyes on his back as he leads the way to the door. Nanako follows them, chattering.
"It's very good of you to keep an eye on Ryoma-san like this, Tezuka-san, especially now that you've graduated."
"It's nothing." Tezuka looks back, once, as he walks down the path to the gate, eyes meeting Ryoma's in a way that only makes his stomach churn more. Ryoma feels as though he is being pulled in a dozen directions by things he cannot see, as though he is about to fly apart at any second. He avoids Nanako's too-kind eyes and heads out back to hit balls against stones until his head goes quiet again.
It's two days before Ryoma recovers enough of his usual equanimity to call Tezuka again. He spends them wandering around the local sports shops and street courts, trying and failing to find an opponent whose play can hold his attention. Lack of tennis makes him irritable and jumpy, and when Tezuka tells him that he has a family engagement and cannot play tonight Ryoma almost hangs up on him.
"Tomorrow?" he asks eventually, reluctantly. Maybe he'll call Momo-senpai after dinner and take out his frustrations on him. Momo usually forgives him even the most embarrassing defeats if Ryoma pays for the food.
"Possibly. I'll let you know," Tezuka-buchou says, and that seems to be all. Ryoma can't think of anything else to say, so he mumbles a vague agreement and puts the phone down, wandering back out to find Karupin. When the doorbell chimes while he's eating dinner, he's surprised to hear Fuji-senpai's voice over the intercom.
Fuji-senpai, at least, looks much the same as Ryoma remembers him - only a few centimetres taller than him, and wearing his old Seigaku tennis clothes and an amused smile.
"It's been a while, hmm? Do you want to play a match, Echizen-kun?"
Ryoma blinks at him, falling automatically back into his accustomed smirk. Fuji-senpai is a challenge as well, but usually because it takes work to get him playing seriously. It's not an opportunity he'll pass up. "The court's out back, senpai."
"In the temple grounds?" Fuji-senpai looks up at the steps leading up into the complex. "Isn't that bad luck?"
"Depends which side you play." Ryoma rolls his shoulders, bouncing on his toes as Fuji-senpai gets out his racquet. Karupin is sleeping on the rail of the bell turret, but he knows better than to come into the court by now. "Do you want the serve, senpai?"
Fuji smiles half-lidded across the net at him. "Oh, I'll let you. Best of three sets."
"Whatever." Ryoma stretches, pivots, and opens with the Twist Serve and a grin.
Afterwards, Fuji-senpai wanders off towards the temple a little way, trailing his fingers over the bushes that border the grounds. "You've been seeing a lot of Tezuka recently, hmm?"
Ryoma shrugs uncomfortably, aware that there's some kind of insinuation buried beneath Fuji's words but not wanting to dig deep enough to unearth it. "Not really."
"Aa. Well." Fuji looks over at him from the corner of his eyes, blue and penetrating. "Sometimes it's better not to think too much about things, you know? It's easier to go with it."
"Senpai, you're not making any sense." Fuji rarely does, in Ryoma's opinion; even on the court he's almost impossible to read.
"Have you ever played against an opponent who pushes you to a higher level?" Fuji asks, turning to look straight at Ryoma although he must know the answer to that. "It's like that. Just let it happen."
Ryoma still doesn't quite understand, but he feels as though he is standing on the edge of something new, something huge and alien that he cannot quite feel the shape of. He ducks his head beneath his cap, studying his shoes and relieved when Karupin comes to demand petting and Fuji-senpai begins telling him news of the rest of the team.
When Tezuka-buchou arrives at the door in the middle of the week, all the confusion seems to solidify into a rough-edged lump that settles beneath Ryoma's breastbone and refuses to be dislodged. Despite the ache of it, the game that they play feels as much like flying as tennis with Tezuka ever has. They push each other to new heights with every ball, every shot. It's laughter and breathlessness and need and everything that Ryoma has ever wanted from the game. Afterwards, as they sit on the temple steps, watching the sunset in silence, he realises with a sudden understanding that it isn't everything he wants from life. Not any more. That night, when Ryoma climbs into bed beside him, curling up against his warmth, Tezuka wraps a careful arm around him and pulls him closer. The fluttering edges of uncertainty in Ryoma's stomach settle into comfort.