Shadows and Shades, a prince of tennis fanfic

Title: Shadows and Shades
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Character(s) or Pairing: Yanagi, Sanada (hints of SanaYana), rest of the Rikkai regulars, the Yanagi family
Rating: PG
Warnings: Improbability
Word Count: 3100
Summary: It's more than just living in a world without color.
A/N: This was originally written for a monthly prompt challenge, using the prompt "Black and white" and the pairing "Sanada/Yanagi." Re-written from a much, much shorter version (a verison that will go up eventually).

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The doctors frown and murmur numbers and statistics, and it is Yanagi Renji's first introduction into the world of data, at the age of three. He listens, and doesn't understand at first, but he realizes enough to know that everyone can fit into a group, into numbers. Five in a hundred have that and one in ten processes this.

And he learns that people can break data, and that it's often troublesome. At three, he doesn't know why and doesn't begin to comprehend the world he's seeing, because he's frightened and wants nothing more than to cling to the leg of his mother, bury his face in her clothing, be comforted by her soothing words and gentle hand.

Sometimes, when Yanagi is older and knows people who break his data at every turn, he thinks back to his first experiences with information, and smiles, and adjusts for it, easier than the doctors he remembers. Until its habit, and he learns to write in progress, potential, and any possibilities he can foresee into his data. The data he writes, the journals he keeps: they aren't notes of progress but graphs of potential.

Kirihara's is nothing less than amazing; each chart he makes, he is adjusting later to account for the progress and the potential written into the spin of each serve he makes, the rallies he plays, the speed he has on the courts. Kirihara's got his own journal, and it's not the first; he predicts so much progress that is constantly being broken that Yanagi wonders if it is pointless to even attempt.

He doesn't stop though, and doesn't think back, except with a vague form of pity, and picks up a new journal from the stationary store, to continue charting the progress and rising potential of Rikkai's ace.

The only person he doesn't attempt to chart is Yukimura, because any data he's ever had on Yukimura is pointless; it's broken the next minute, and the next day is entirely new. Yanagi wonders, only briefly, if the doctors viewed him like he views Yukimura, but rejects that idea just as quickly. He's more flexible, or tries to be; the doctors he remembers never were.

Planning for progress is hard, and it's often broken, but he's spent so long with it, that even watching his teammates is worth it; it's when Kirihara flashes a grin across the court, or Niou laughs. They keep him on his toes, when his mind threatens to drown with the weight of everything else.

In a world of black and white, it wouldn't be so hard; but he doesn't live in a world of black and white, but of color, and that makes things a little more difficult.

When it first becomes apparent that something was wrong, the doctors ran him through test after test; red and blues and yellows and oranges flash before his eyes but none register. No one believes it, and he goes through it again, until they get direct answers from him. That one looks duller grey, this one almost white, the next one almost black.

It's hard to understand what they mean, especially in the beginning: he's been surrounded by blacks and whites and shades of grey all his life and he is too young to know that there are differences in the world. But he grows quickly in the time from the start of those tests, learns that he's expected to see different colors, a world of vibrant shades, or so he assumes from the way they speak.

He doesn't understand it, and wonders if he ever will.

They send him home, with more appointments scheduled, with different specialists and a new set of doctors. And even though it's only been a short time since these tests started, Yanagi has a feeling that there will be more murmurs and frowns and numbers spoken over his head and to his parents, while they pretend he doesn't exist or can't understand.

When they walk home from the doctor's office, his hand curls into his mother's and squeezes, just to feel the pressure and reassurance of her hand, so he knows he's not alone in the world, because that's how it feels.

Sanada suggests precision shots, target practice, and the others agree; they're all great - better than great; they're the top team in the nation - but its practice that makes them great and practice that keeps them great. And not all practice can be done in matches.

"How are we going to do this?" Marui asks, looking around at the small group gathered in the locker room, after everyone else had left. It's just the team, not the club, and they are growing increasingly used to that, with Yukimura gone and Sanada in charge. Increased practices, more laps, the seven of them left in the locker rooms after hours. It's not necessarily comfortable, or enjoyable, but they've adjusted.

From the corner of his eyes, Yanagi watches as Niou plants a fake spider in Kirihara's locker, and doesn't let his lips twitch as he turns back to Sanada, studying his friend, waiting for the drill he wants to practice. It's not odd for Sanada to announce drills, but Yanagi has heard nothing about this, and that is unusual: with Yukimura gone, Yanagi has become Sanada's right-hand man, just as he was the one to provide training menus when Yukimura was there, with them.

"Seigaku had this method where they painted balls and cones to match each other and everyone had to hit the colored ball to the correct cone," Sanada says, although he glances at Yanagi from the corner of his eyes. And for once Yanagi can't read that look, although he knows Sanada better than most, because his mind is on greater things.

"Che, copying from Seigaku," Kirihara mutters. "Why should we do that?"

"It will improve hand-eye coordination and test your reflexes." It's Yagyuu who speaks up, but Yanagi sees Sanada nod, and there's something in his stomach that sinks. It knots there; not butterflies but something solid. It's not an feeling he hasn't experienced before, but never in the context of tennis and he wonders how he'll manage this and what skipping out will mean.

It takes months for the doctors to come to a decision, and by that time, Yanagi hates the practice of medicine more than he has ever hated anything in his short life. He's not even four: he should hate green vegetables and the trees that howl in the night, but after months spent in and out of doctor's offices and labs and once a hospital room over night, for a simple observation on his eyes and brain, nothing is quite as bad. He looks at the doctors and pretends shyness so he doesn't have to speak, lets his mother talk for him - they respect his parents, after all, and treat him as if he doesn't understand.

He uses that to his advantage, the opinions of doctors and what they say and how they act. And learns more and more about how impressions can be formed, how people can be false in words. But data rarely lies.

They've understood since the beginning, Yanagi knows, because he hears them speak. Words like colorblindness and color deficiency and monochromasy and trichromasy and deuteranomaly and so many others, they start to blend together in his mind. They know, but they can't believe it; too rare they say, not possible. And subject him to even more tests, and threaten him when they think he's lying, until his mother gets upset and sweeps him away and his father insists they are done with the doctors.

One doctor holds up two lollipops and tells him he can have the red one. Yanagi stares at him and stares, and refuses both. He walks to a store the next afternoon with his sister, and studies the candy, so long that the lady at the counter watches his every movement and warns him not to steal.

I'm not going to steal, he tells her. I'm just looking.

His sister, done with her shopping, offers to buy him something, and he looks over the candy section one more time, and then shakes his head.

The doctor and his demand still echo in his head.

"Red, blue, and green," Sanada says, setting each tube of paint down as he speaks, in order, and Yanagi thinks he knows. He's never told anyone, other than his family who knew simply because they were there with him, going through it, and Inui picked up on it. His teammates though, have no idea, or so he thinks - Yukimura might know, in that all-knowing way he has; even if Yanagi is a close friend and understands Yukimura better than most, his captain still mystifies and defies him, at times. But for the others, there should be no indication. Yanagi has learned to pick up on subtle undertones and read gossip better than most people. He knows Niou's hair is bleached blonde and Marui has bottles of red hair dye stashed away and it's not hard to tell that Jackal's skin is darker than most.

He wonders what people would say if they knew. Outside of tennis, it would be a amusing factor. But factor in tennis, and Yanagi can't predict anything; a rarity for him. If Rikkai is great, it is because they all strive to be the best, and the best can have no faults. That's, Yanagi thinks, the biggest fault of the team he so loves. He knows it's not true, especially with their captain in the hospital; with all of them, even. Sanada's arrogance and Kirihara's wildness, things that need to be tamed; Marui's lack of stamina, Jackal's amazing defense but poor offensive skills. Niou and the fact that he plays best only when performing mind games; take that away and he is left to struggle. Yagyuu and the sometimes rage that builds until he can't see past it.

But knowing and understanding are two very different things. And that is on him. He doesn't lose sleep over it, because color has never been an important part of tennis - he knows the balls are yellow, the courts green, and that's all he's needed to know. It's different now.

If Sanada knows and is not saying anything, and is in fact helping him - understanding might not be so foreign. Even if it goes against his pride to accept help, something all of Rikkai has in abundance, nothing is spoken, and Yanagi can accept that without hesitation.

Many people, even those on the team but not the Regulars themselves, underestimate Sanada, write him off as Yukimura's lackey and a temperamental bully who does not understand as well as others do. But Yanagi's been friends with him long enough to know the truth and the truth aren't those thoughts.

"How many of each color should we paint?" he asks, reaching for a tennis ball and a paint brush. The paints are bright; if he studies them long enough, he thinks he'll be able to memorize the different tones.

He learns to work with different tones and shades; has his mother point out blues to him and memorizes that shade, but it's not as easy as he thinks it would be; different colors mimic the same shades, with little to distinguish them. It's those differences Yanagi learns to look for, spends a day studying three different shades of red and comparing them to similar shades of blue, and tries to figure them out. It's a long process and by the end of the day, he's left exhausted and wanting nothing more than to give this up. His eyes are strained and it feels as though nothing will ever work out. But in time, he can pick out blue and red, eight times out of ten; never different shades of the same color, because that bothers his eyes even more.

His mother buys his clothes, simple things that match everything else in his closet; blacks and grays and whites and the occasional red and blue and green, but never too many of those colors, just so he can't get confused. And in elementary school, when given assignments to color - if the colors aren't written on the sides of the crayons, his sister picks them out for him.

Dependency is a horrible thing; by the time he reaches middle school, crayons and coloring books are a thing of the past and he doesn't bother with video games where he has to match up colors, when he does play video games.

His mother still picks out his clothes, however.

It affects him in other ways too, the lack of color in his world; the poetry his mother reads, the stories she tells; any mentions of colors and he is confused. What's green? he asks at night. Why is a fire red-hot? There's no explanation his mother can give, and his father doesn't try. He watches a fire burning on TV, one afternoon, and tries to understand what they mean by red-hot, but the shades mingle too much for him to spot a difference, until the flames are just a grey inferno.

The more frustrated he gets with the lack of comprehension with the world around him and the colors that dominate it, the more withdrawn he grows: seeking solace in his own world, where everything is black and white but nothing is, and in the end, it's easiest to keep his eyes closed rather than watch everything around him.

Haikus are the hardest, Yanagi thinks, when they talk about colors. How does one analyze a poem when one doesn't even know what the color symbolizes? Rust is just a word, just a syllable that makes a sound in the back of his throat and holds no meaning. The product of oxidation, which he understands, the combination of ferric hydroxide and ferric oxide, leaving a coating behind.

But there is more to it. He knows there has to be more; the feelings the color of rust invokes, the sense of autumn. Yanagi understands what autumn is, enjoys it as much as anyone else, but only because he can see it in his own way.

The first gift he bought for anyone, family or friends, was a shirt for his mother, picked out for her birthday after months of saving his allowance and raking yards in autumn, when the leaves showered the dying lawns.

He wraps it carefully, fastidiously; the edges of the paper around the box are perfect and the ribbons neatly curled, tied into a pretty bow. Yanagi hands it to her before he leaves for school, the rest of the family already gone, and thinks that it is good they've already left: he's the only one to see her strained smile and hear the faked sounds of happiness she puts into her voice.

He's seen her wear it once, and only once.

"Happy birthday, Genichirou," Yanagi says, and passes his friend a small hardbound journal, ideal for calligraphy writing with thick pages, as well as a brand new bottle of ink, and a small box of brushes. He's confident in his choice of presents - he knows Sanada well, knows he needs the supplies, and is sure he will like the color of the book, of the ink. Ink is hard to guess, unless it is some bright and gaudy color, so this has the color written on the side. But the journal is black, Yanagi is sure of it. Black is not the color he is most sure of, knows he can pick out each time no matter what, but black is a color he understands and knows. The blackness of night, the shadows - those are metaphors he comprehends, simply because of what his eyes see.

Sanada is the easiest person to pick out gifts for, one of the few who Yanagi does not stick to simple - tennis equipment or gift cards - or practical - paper or, again, tennis equipment - for. Inui was easy as well, but even with Inui, there were the different colored chemicals he had to guess between, the oddly shaded instruments. Sanada is simple; blacks and grays and white, tradition layered upon classical.

"Thank you," Sanada says, after unwrapping the journal and the brushes and the ink. His fingers slide over the cover of the dark green journal - a color he does not care for - but he says nothing.

"Candy, Yanagi-sempai?" Kirihara asks, holding up a fistful of small hard candies, American lettering on the front and Yanagi wonders how much of it Kirihara understands or if his lack of comprehension in English is simply because of lack of interest. But then Kirihara is holding out his palm, waving it beneath Yanagi's nose, as if they have a smell that can reach beyond the plastic wrapper. "The red one is really good."

"Akaya's only saying that because he doesn't like cherry and wants to pawn it off on you," Marui says, and grabs a candy off the palm of Kirihara's hand. "Apple's the best."

Yanagi stares down at the handful of candy Kirihara is offering, and then shakes his head. "I'm not a fan," he says. It doesn't matter though, because Kirihara shoves the candies at him and takes off at Marui, yelling.

Next to him, Sanada frowns after the pair. "Marui, stop tormenting Akaya. Akaya, stop running." But he doesn't raise his voice, and doesn't attempt to physically stop them. If they listen, they listen, and if they don't, then laps the following day works as a punishment.

Yanagi's concentrating on the candies in his hands, so he doesn't hear the replies of either of his teammates. He's wondering what he should do with them, give them back or eat them, and ignore it if he likes any of the small candies. This is the first time since he was four that he's actually been tempted by any candies, and it's only because they are in such close proximity to him that he can't help but wonder what tasting them would be like.

Sanada solves the problem though, reaching across and rearranging the candies on his hand. "Grape, lemon, strawberry, apple, and watermelon," he tells Yanagi. "Marui grabbed the apple, but it doesn't matter. Watermelon's the best."

Yanagi lines them up carefully, memorizing the order, on the bottom of his locker, and picks them up just as carefully after he changes back into his school uniform, each one going into a different pocket, so he can remember later.

The watermelon one he eats first.