Crybaby
Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis in any way, shape, or form except for in my random daydreams.
To me, my little brother wasn't a little devil, or whatever he was called. He was 'Crybaby Aka'. Every day, something would happen and Aka would start crying over it. Only when the divorce happened and dad and me left Kanagawa for Osaka did mom tell me that Aka stopped crying all the time. I wasn't sure to be happy or sad, but the coming pressure of starting middle school drove my eight-year-old brother out of my mind.
Every summer, I would head over to Kanagawa for a week or so to spend time with my little bro. The first three years, it was great, just like old times. The only real difference was that I was more into soccer now since I played for our school team. Aka didn't notice; he was just happy that things were sort-of normal. Then, I entered high school, Aka entered junior high. Rikkai Dai was the school my baby brother went to, an elite school that basically won in everything. Just like when the divorce happened, I was focused on starting a new school instead of wishing Aka good luck when he said he would challenge the 'Three Demons' of his school.
Once on the phone, about half-way through both of our first years, Aka told me he finally got one game off of one of the 'Three Demons'. I had no idea what he was talking about, but judging by the elated tone of his voice, it was something good so I congratulated him. He then said he had to go because it was time for his practice to begin. It was around then I started wondering who exactly my brother was. Osaka was far enough away for me to not have heard the whispers of his dangerous playing style or his demonic red eyes. I still saw him as Crybaby Aka, even if my mom said he never cried anymore.
Then another year began. I was told that I could go pro. Frankly, I found that I didn't care. I was more preoccupied with the fact that my brother was apparently hurting people every time he played tennis; I had seen him do it that summer. My own game slipped, and we almost lost our own standing in the spring games. We didn't though, and went to Tokyo for the finals. Coincidently, my finals were just a few days after Aka's, so I came a little earlier to watch my baby brother play, hoping that he had changed even a little bit.
What I saw didn't surprise me for some reason. There had always been a small voice in the back of my head telling me that a crybaby would either stay a crybaby forever or he would grow to make others cry. When mom told me Aka stopped crying, I guessed he was taking the latter path. As his older sibling, I wondered vaguely, watching as he made a taller and older boy bleed, if I should have done something to stop this monster. I knew that his captain, the one in the hospital, had been the one along with the rest of the team, to create this thing, and that Aka had been fully aware of what they were doing, even if it was subconsciously.
My baby brother was a little demon, or devil to some – especially considering what that one girl around his age had told me – but for some reason, I saw him as Crybaby Aka. To me, Kirihara Akaya was a little boy who didn't want to be the victim anymore. He wanted to be the bully.
A/N – Random burst of something again. I was wondering what Akaya's older sister thought of her little brother. And this follows the manga, so there wasn't a Camp and Akaya didn't change.