by Kelsey
Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis is MINE! MINE! ...Okay, so it isn't.
Warnings: Boy smooching, Momo's weird inner monologues.
Notes: This is primarily told in third person limited, except for the first three lines and the final two. Momo's POV, and I do hope it sounds like a typical guy. Happy happy (a little belated) birthday to the WONDERFUL Anino.
--
"Tomo-chan, I've never seen all these manga titles before... Ooh, what's this?"
"Huh. What kind of a name is 'CLAMP'?"
"It looks pretty. I'm going to buy it."
He noticed the giggling first. As perseverant as the chirping of birds, and either melodious or irritating, depending on his mood. Girlish laughter seemed to follow his friend everywhere--not that Echizen ever noticed it. Not that he would have cared if he ever did. But regardless, the constant giggling was weird. Echizen had some crazy fangirls, but they didn't stand off in the corner and laugh to themselves.
There really were a lot more girls than usual hanging around the tennis courts. Standing in bunches, ooh-ing and ahh-ing over... what? He could understand being impressed by really great serves and stuff, but they didn't even seem to be there to watch tennis! And they would point and whisper and giggle some more, clutching what looked like magazines to their chests. The sunlight glared off the covers, making it impossible to see what had them so enthralled.
Momo finally decided to brush it off as the entire tennis team acquiring crazed fangirls. Now he could understand how Oishi-senpai felt. Embarrassing, having girls squeak about you like that. He wondered how Echizen coped. Well, probably by just not noticing. He could be dense sometimes.
Coming from Momo, that meant something.
Still, curiousity got the better of him and he resolved to have a closer look at one of those magazines. Or were they manga? Whatever they were, he was going to find out.
And that's when all hell broke loose.
"You're drawing DOUJINSHI about Echizen and... and BUCHOU? TOGETHER?!"
Osakada Tomoka, known to Momo only as Crazy Echizen Fangirl #2 (rapidly becoming Public Enemy #1), nodded, her pigtails bobbing with the motion. "Mm-hmm! Have you seen the looks they've been giving each other? And Ryoma-sama needs someone who can truly understand him!" Tomoka straightened, one hand going over her heart. Momo thought that he could almost see flowers and colorful bubbles hovering in the background.
"Plus they make SUCH a pretty picture!" exclaimed one of Tomoka's compatriots, expression earnest. "They're just meant to be..."
Momo tried to process this.
Echizen. Buchou. Echizen and buchou. Echizen and buchou... together? What? Bratty, off-putting Echizen together with stoic, reserved buchou? What? Dating? Dating where, the tennis court? What?
"What?" he managed at last, poking his aching head to see if it was still securely on his neck. The girls giggled at him (naturally) and then walked off, no doubt to pair some other hapless tennis club members together.
Crazy Echizen Fangirl #2 (AKA Public Enemy #1) had some skill when it came to drawing, he had to admit. But somehow that made it even worse, seeing Echizen all wrapped up in Tezuka-buchou's arms, smug and contented as a cat. Even with all the hearts and spangles and sparkles everywhere, she'd captured both perfectly. Captured both in such a way that it was almost... believable, with a lot of time and slow development of the relationship. It was uncomfortable, horribly so, a sinking feeling in his stomach every time as he stared at the last page of the doujinshi, the kissing scene.
"Whatcha reading, Momo-senpai?"
"AUGH! NOTHING!!"
Echizen cocked an eyebrow at him, obviously suspicious at the way Momo shoved the offending doujinshi into his school bag, praying that he hadn't seen the cover, which featured both boys shirtless and gazing at each other in a manner that could only be called lovey-dovey. He was sure that Echizen hadn't noticed all the other doujinshi floating around, because he was never one to pay attention to girls. Right?
Never one to pay attention to girls.
Oh God, what was he thinking? There was no way Echizen and buchou were together, absolutely no way whatsoever, even if Ryoma did have a disconcerting habit of winning people over despite his snarky ways and Tezuka-buchou was charismatic despite his aloof nature, but the point was this! There was simply NO WAY that they were together! Period! Exclamation point! Whatever other grammar, certainly not a question mark! No question about it, Echizen and buchou did NOT have feelings for each other.
He hoped.
"We going to get burgers today?" Echizen asked around a yawn, lifting his arms over his head to stretch them.
"Eh?" Momo asked, snapped out of the rationalization process. "Oh, um, burgers. Right. Let's eat!" At the prospect of good food, he cheered up enormously. Good food and a good friend, all he ever really wanted from life. Certainly nothing so complicated as the idea that your best friend might be in love with your much-respected tennis team captain. But no, no, the idea was absurd and impossible and unrealistic and he was never going to think of it again! Ever!
"Are you all right, Momo-senpai?" Echizen asked, frowning at him. "You're not rambling on about stupid things like usual."
"I'm fi--HEY! I don't ramble, and what I talk about isn't STUPID!"
A smirk. "Yes, you do, and yes, it is."
"Do you have any respect for your elders at all?"
"Forgive me, O Ancient One."
Momo made a face at the jibe and responded with one of his own. "You're welcome, Short Stuff."
"Shut up, you behemoth."
He blinked, confused for the second time that day. "What?"
"Sorry, I forgot your limited vocabulary."
"HEY!"
They continued bickering all the way to the fast food place, and Momo finally began to relax, to feel as though things were normal again. Echizen was his usual bratty self, baiting Momo and then laughing at him when he couldn't think of a comeback, and Momo liked to see Echizen laugh like that, the way he almost never did anywhere else, so he'd always take the bait. Everything was how it should be. So what if a weird freshman girl had some preposterous ideas? And her friends were crazy enough to believe her? Not to mention the girls in higher grades, who normally didn't pay any attention whatsoever to the lowly freshmen...
Two hands smaller than his slammed down on the table. "Momo-senpai! You're doing it again!" Echizen scowled at him, leaning across the table to rest a cool hand against his forehead. "Are you sick?"
"No..." Geez, Echizen was awfully close. Momo didn't think he'd ever been so close, except the times when they fell asleep on each other, nestled together like puppies after a long day's play. But that had been different somehow, even though both kinds of being close were kind of... nice, actually. And as annoyed as Echizen acted, he was really concerned, and that was nice, too.
He grinned, trying to ignore the sudden light feeling in his chest, exactly like sunshine, if sunshine were a sensation, which arguably it was, but anyway! Back at the ranch. "Worried about me, Echizen?"
The response was immediate and predictable. Echizen withdrew (much to Momo's private disappointment) and glared at him, unwilling to betray any sort of human emotion. (Though really, what other kind of emotion was there to betray? An alien emotion? Echizen from space! ...Momo decided at this point to just stop thinking.)
"If you're not sick, you don't have an excuse to be so spacey," the other boy snapped.
Momo went back to his food in order to hide his grin.
He started watching the two of them, Echizen especially. For one thing, the kid was around more often. For another, he needed looking after. Superior tennis skill wouldn't save him if a six-foot upperclassman decided he didn't like his attitude and wanted to pound him into the ground for impertinence. Really, it was a miracle that Echizen hadn't gotten himself flattened by now.
He memorized little things, the most minute of details. The way Echizen tied his shoes, the way he came out of the house every morning with his hair still sleep-mussed. The way he only laughed with his eyes at school, the way he never seemed to relax except when alone with Momo, like he always had to be tensed for a challenge at other times. There was also the way that he treated Tezuka-buchou with such respect, if not any real warmth. But that was just Echizen's way, so distant you could never guess whether he cared or not. Momo certainly couldn't.
Try as he might, he couldn't forget the stupid doujinshi, either. Couldn't stop looking just to make sure that there weren't any long, significant looks being exchanged. And the fangirls! He couldn't stand the way they ogled those two, vultures hovering over hapless prey. Turning their every gesture into something that it wasn't.
Right?
It wasn't ask if he could ask Echizen about it, either. The thought of walking up to him and going, So, do you have a thing for buchou? was laughable. And laugh Echizen would, at the very idea. Hopefully. Maybe, said a voice in the back of Momo's mind, he just didn't want to find out that it just might be true. And maybe, an even dimmer voice went on to say, if he doesn't like boys--you don't want to know that, either.
A tennis ball crashed into his head, silencing the voices.
The tennis court went into immediate pandemonium as he slumped to the ground. Oishi-senpai's voice rose above the chaos, trying to instill some calm, and suddenly Echizen was there, more upset than Momo had ever seen him before.
"STUPID! What are you thinking of, looking around like that in the middle of a game! You weren't thinking at ALL! STUPID!" Momo groaned; the last thing he needed was a lecture. But why was Echizen so upset over a little bump on the head? All right, so the world was spinning, but he'd be just fine in a few minutes.
"'m fine," he muttered, pulling himself into a rather unsteady sitting position. The horizon seemed to be wobbling, reminding him absurdly of Jell-O. And Echizen's face was now very near and for some odd reason in focus, standing out against the quaking world with perfect clarity.
Hands dragged him to his feet, and suddenly he was aware of a smaller body tucked underneath his arm, supporting him. "Big idiot. I'll take you to the nurse's. You'd trip over your own feet going by yourself."
Momo opened his mouth to protest, but then he caught the look on Oishi-senpai's face. Some people were way too nice to worry unnecessarily, and besides, Echizen's hand clamped around his wrist was like iron. The kid had unnaturally strong hands, but what else could you expect from a tennis player? "I'll be okay," he muttered in one final act of defiance, then submitted to being forcibly lead to the nurse's office.
It didn't take long for the nurse to determine he wasn't concussed, and then she handed him an ice pack with instructions to take the day off, and take the next few off if he felt dizzy at all. Echizen stayed with him the whole time with the exception of a single disappearance to go get their bags. After his return, he started working on his homework, textbook balanced on his knees. Momo almost asked him why he hadn't gone back to practice, but decided he didn't want Echizen to leave, anyway. Kind of nice, sitting next to each other, not even really talking, just together.
Come to think of it, when was the last time he'd done something by himself?
"Ne, Momo-senpai," Echizen began, interrupting his thought process like usual. "You should get your homework done, too. While your head is still attached to its shoulders." The younger boy smirked up at him, obviously enjoying his little jibe. Well, good for him.
Momo rummaged through his school bag, hunting for his English textbook. The little brat made a good tutor despite what it took to actually ask him for help, and his grades in English were finally beginning to pick up, now that he had Echizen laughing at his mispronunciations and then attempting to show him how to use lips and tongue to shape the more complicated English syllables.
Momo blinked.
...Right, English textbook.
What was that? he asked himself, agitated at the memory of having to concentrate hard on the way Echizen's mouth moved--and by the uncomfortable fluttering in his stomach. He finally found the stupid book and yanked it out, asking, "So, Echizen, feel like helping me out?"
Echizen was too busy staring at the magazine that Momo had also pulled out to answer.
"IT'S NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE!" Momo yelped, waving his arms around, yet somehow unable to fling the offending doujinshi away and into the trash. The icebag slipped off his head and landed with a cold plop on his knee, and a sudden wave of dizziness forced Momo to calm down somewhat, though nothing could quell his racing heartbeat. "I mean, it's not like you can be interested in buchou! It's impossible! I don't know why I still even have the thing still in my bag, must've forgotten to put it in the trash, where it belongs!" He couldn't seem to stop babbling out excuses.
Then, to his surprise, Echizen began to laugh.
And laugh.
Laugh...
"Momo-senpai," Echizen managed to get out between snickers, "is that what's been bothering you?"
Momo did a double take. "You KNEW about these?!"
"How could I miss them?" The other boy's expression abruptly sobered, missing its usual smirk. It wasn't the seriousness of the tennis court, though, the do-or-die expression. More like the time he'd returned Karupin, the kind of seriousness that meant something good. "I asked her to stop, though."
"H-How come?" Momo asked, then kicked himself. Of course Echizen wouldn't want weird fangirl imaginings about him spread around.
"I told her I already had someone else in mind."
The world froze.
No way was what was going through his head right, and anyway, when did he start thinking about Echizen that way? Momo stared at Echizen, extremely disquieted by the grin on the kid's face, kind of knowing and kind of meaningful and kind of something else that made him really nervous even though it wasn't necessarily a bad feeling. "You, um, Sakuno...?"
"Stupid."
Somehow all their books wound up on the floor, scattered in a messy heap, and Echizen was kissing him, nothing fancy, pressure on his lips, and one of the younger boy's hands, braced on his knee, was awfully uncomfortable, but he really didn't care, just leaned down to meet him halfway, which was, after all, how their relationship worked for everything, talking and tennis and now this--and it all made sense, some great kind of wonderful sense.
Much to his regret, it wasn't a long kiss, either, as the nurse could walk back in at any second. Echizen pulled away to go gather up their books with a smirky little question about just how hard Momo had been hit on the head, anyway, and Momo replied that he was perfectly capable of doing his homework by himself, didn't need the company of any mouthy little underclassmen.
Echizen retrieved the icebag, which had also fallen to the ground, and handed it to Momo, who pressed it against the bump on his head as he opened his English textbook, both settling down to really work on their homework this time around.
And outside the door, Osakada Tomoka and Ryuzaki Sakuno looked at one another, then high-fived.
Once you go fangirl, you can never go back.