Magnet
Inspired by nithila's In Continuous Circles
Give it a read.
My fiction is nowhere near as angsty or as brilliantly written; however, I was inspired by the idea of Ryoma being a shut-in and Atobe taking care of him. Credit should always be given when it's due.
In which Ryoma is a shut-in loner with prodigious tennis skills, and Atobe spends a majority of the fiction musing over the fact that Ryoma somehow within a duration of a few months managed to incite the love and compassion of several prestigious tennis teams. AKA Ryoma does absolutely nothing and somehow has the whole world wrapped around his pinky finger. Royal Pair (Atobe/ Ryoma)
i.
It wasn't that Atobe Keigo was a man of negligence nor a man blind to his surroundings; on the contrary, his life was so full of complexity and fast paces not his own, it wouldn't be exaggeration to proclaim that the simple act of blinking during an inopportune moment could cause his downfall. Maybe it was exactly because of those erratic paces always different yet never truly changing that he rarely thought too hard about the simpler parts of his routine.
Maybe, he mused, peering across the cramped up room full of well known tennis players, he really should have given it more thought.
To any other person, the situation might have seemed ridiculous, absurd even. However, for all the years he's had the pleasure of being in Ryoma Echizen's presence, he had found that such occurrences were actually quite common- disturbingly so. Ryoma had this way about him. Despite his more overwhelming traits of arrogance and general indifference, he was like a magnet that seemed to have the exact pole needed to attract every person possible.
Therefore, he shouldn't have felt as shocked as he had when he returned home from his business excursion abroad and stopped by to visit. Of course, he had been expecting an antisocial brat, hands out and ready for souvenirs with his usual look of nonchalance, completely belying his actions- instead, he had been faced with an incredible amount of people in Ryoma's living space. Within a short duration of months, Ryoma had somehow attained himself a harem of sorts.
Atobe wasn't quite sure how he felt about that fact.
Then there was another thought lingering in mind.
That maybe the place he once (with much denial at first) called his home away from home was slowly starting to disappear.
With little work, he could describe his feelings as an inelegant cross between being bemused and resigned. With a deeper venture into his own psyche, he might even encounter an ignored pit of possessiveness and well hidden uncertainty.
However, as a king like himself with a silver platter full of work and a blatant absence of the time to even worry about the more trivial matters of his life, he would never admit to feeling such petty emotions- especially for a brat like Ryoma.
Leaning against the doorway, he gazed around the room with his trained looked of easy authority, gathering in all who was here and absentmindedly noting some of the more famous names among the diverse crowd- there were Regulars from Rikkaidai, Seigaku, Fudomine... and to his own personal shock, people of his own team, Hyotei.
He sighed quietly.
Only Ryoma would be able gather so many of this prestige in one room without purpose nor reason.
He frowned- himself included.
He had known Ryoma since they were just children, starting out in tennis and still wholly naive to the world and its ways.
Maybe, he muses, he was just the start of a long chain.