Feel the Beat
Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis nor any of the characters.
If Shinji thought about it a little more, he might have decided that yes, he was jealous of a machine. But for the moment, he was merely annoyed - by the way Kamio lovingly touched the buttons, stroked the frame, and then the music began and Kamio began to move. Shinji got distracted then, because Kamio moving was always a thing of awe, and anyway, he wanted to try to follow the arrows. But he was still irate, because lately, Kamio had been paying more attention to DDR than to him, and he was supposed to be Kamio's best friend.
"I don't get what's so great about it anyway; I mean, so you can follow the arrows, that's not such a big deal - we do stuff like that at tennis practice all the time, and tennis is better than it, and now I get what Ann-chan meant when she said you were making love to the machine all night." Here, there was a brief burst of protesting and, if Shinji looked closer, a hint of red on Kamio's cheeks. "Haven't you been doing the same song over and over? That's so boring - it already says you got an A on it..."
"Because you can get a higher score, and I am not making love to the machine! It's called dancing. I'll even let you try it after I beat this song." Kamio hit start again, and the same pop tune restarted, Kamio swinging his hips a little to the beat.
Right, left, right, up down up, right left down left... Shinji decided it was more interesting to follow Kamio's hips instead, swivel this way, swing that way, and really, Kamio wasn't like most of the people he saw at the arcade, not stiff movements but all fluidity. Kamio really did dance on the machine; if Shinji were a betting man he would have guessed Kamio had memorized the steps a long time ago. He didn't realize the song had ended until Kamio was asking him, "Oi, do you want to play?"
He considered it a moment, because Kamio was asking him, and then: "Why would I want to play? You're the one who's so into rhythm, and I don't dance, anyway. Can we play tennis already? You've been at that the whole day, and now that song's going to be stuck in my head, and you normally listen to horrible music already; I don't need more-"
"Shinji!" But then Kamio grinned, moved to put away the game equipment. "All right, sorry, we'll go play tennis. But afterward, I'm going to make you play DDR. Deal?"
"Beat me in tennis first before you talk, but that's unfair because you're probably tired, and I've only been sitting, and-"
"Shinji! Akira! You're still in here? C'mon, already, I want you to play a match with me." Ann's voice, on the other side of the wall, and Kamio yelled back a quick "We're coming!" through the door before turning back to him.
"So? You'll play, right?"
He really didn't like that machine...