Prequel to: but we do not know love
Stories in order:
so we forget what is love
and we pretend this is love
but we do not know love
or we perish with love
000
This is how it starts.
It starts with a confession.
000
Atobe nods at him, unsure how to greet him. "Hiyoshi," he says, and correct himself soon after. "Wakashi."
He isn't sure what to say except return back, "Atobe-san. It's been awhile."
There is the awkward nod again, and another. Atobe is not awkward, Wakashi thinks, or, he was never awkward. Now he is looking into an old teammate and a captain, standing side by side as equals.
Atobe gestures to the front desk. "Are you staying in the hotel?" he inquires.
He gives a small nod. "For a week," he says, "My brother is taking a course here and…" the rest is unspoken, but Atobe nods, quick, as if he can read his trail of thoughts. Or perhaps he is merely tired. His eyes look unfocused.
"Well, then," he says, "We should have dinner. When's a good time?"
He opens his mouth to inform him, well, I will be busy, well, I will be doing this and that. In truth, he does not want to have dinner with his former captain, one whom he had spent a good six years of his torrid school life with, and who had seen him more at his worst than at his best.
He closes his mouth, though, and huffs a small sigh. "Tonight is good," he allows.
Atobe gives him a small smirk. "It's not that easy to fend away your elders, Hiyoshi," he drawls, and with a flick of his fingers, he is gone, with a reservation for four people in the hotel restaurant at six.
He is relieved to know that he will not be alone with his captain, then gives a double take. He asks to see the names, and one name makes his eyes blink and consults it back again.
"Is this the right name?" he asks stupidly, and looks again.
There is another name that he had never expected to see again.
000
"Hiyo-C," Akutagawa greets him, happy and lively, almost squeezing out of his seat, "You're all grown up! Look, Keigo, it's Waka-C Hiyo-C, double Cs!"
Atobe sighs and rubs his eyes. He looks like he needs more wine and the waiter steps forward helpfully. He gingerly takes a seat and gives Akutagawa a dry look. "That's old, Akutagawa-senpai," he says, "And very childish."
"Jiroh!" Akutagawa immediately rebuts, and pouts. His lips are red from the wine already. "It's not childish, it's the name I gave you! Isn't it neat, Ryoma-chan?" He sing-songs this to the boy next to him.
"Hm," Echizen says.
Boy, man, he cannot really tell. What he can tell is that Echizen is not the Echizen he used to know: the tennis driven kid who would have earned the Grand Slam Echizen. This is a subdued boy-man who is playing with his spoon and not touching his bread Echizen.
"Ryoma-chan," Akutagawa says gravely, "That's not an answer."
Echizen sighs and twirls his spoon around the table. "It's very poetic," he says dully, "Very, very innovative. Makes my ears bleed."
"Ryoma," Atobe says.
Echizen gives Atobe a look. It's not a childish look that he was used to seeing: no smirk or sneer in place. It is merely a frown. "I was working," Echizen is now saying, "On my book. These things have a deadline, you know."
Atobe raises an eyebrow. "You don't keep deadlines," he says, and gestures to the bread. "Don't pretend to be a workaholic."
He fidgets in his seat and feels he needs an explanation, but Atobe is not there to provide one and Akutagawa is playing with his name, all happiness and no worries. In the end, he turns to Echizen. "You write?" he asks.
It must have come off as a sneer; he had not intended that, but in dealing with the matters of Echizen and past formulas is difficult. Echizen immediately narrows his eyes.
"Translate," he says, curt, and looks down on his plate.
"Ah." He tries to soften his voice deliberately, neutralize his tone. "What kind of books?"
Echizen shrugs. "Novels, criticism, stuff," he mumbles. He looks desperately tired and calls the waiter for coffee.
Akutagawa does another bounce on his seat. "He's won some translator awards too!" He informs Wakashi, looking happy as if it were him that had won them. "Some of them are really famous ones too, right, Keigo?"
"They don't pay," Echizen cuts in, before Atobe could affirm or denote the notion, "It's just dallying. Stuff." He shrugs and adds milk to his coffee.
Atobe raises an eyebrow but doesn't comment; instead, he turns to him.
"So what are you up to nowadays, Wakashi?" he says, out of politeness or real interest, he still cannot read Atobe's words between the lines. "Not tennis, obviously."
The rest of the dinner is spent on talking about himself and that was strange, he reflects back later in the night, that had been strange. He had never been the one to talk in front of Atobe, who was always too ready to talk only about himself.
000
Keigo and Jiroh will later forget about this encounter because it did not mean anything: old chances, old faces, they come and go.
For this, Ryoma would have wryly quoted Stéphane Mallarmé:
A roll of the dice will never abolish chance.
000
The next day, he runs into Echizen alone at the lobby. He is about to check out but his flight has been delayed.
"You write under a pseudonym," he blurts out, before a greeting. Echizen stops and frowns. He was about to ignore Wakashi but now it seems he cannot be ignored.
"Huh," he says.
"I mean," Wakashi stops and frowns too but goes on, "I was searching for your name last night. It comes under a different name."
Echizen looks confused. He is debating whether to shrug or sneer, and that combination makes for a lost look. "I didn't know I warranted searching," he finally manages.
Wakashi does his own half-shrug. "I was bored," he says. "And they have free Internet here, so, why not."
Echizen nods, uncertain. He wouldn't know how to lead a conversation, Wakashi thinks, and seeing Echizen alone in broad daylight makes him look younger. It seems like a good excuse for Wakashi to blurt out, "Do you…do you want to get some coffee?" and he cringes inwards, thinking about how it would be awkward, how they would be awkward together, and that sounded like a terrible pick-up line.
Echizen considers him. His frown evens out and there is even a hint of a little smirk. "Only if you're paying," he says, and does not question the instinctive nature of Wakashi's proposal but follows him to a nearby café and they talk. They talk but they observe more. They observe each other.
Wakashi does not know what Echizen will see in him but he knows what he sees in Echizen: someone who is not-Echizen.
"It's not a pseudonym," Echizen tells him, "I work for that guy. We collaborate. I'm too young to start on a new project yet."
"They're good," he tells him, "I mean, the ones I've read. I read some of the translations by him."
"Yeah?" Echizen looks a bit pleased, or, Wakashi imagines that he looks pleased. "Didn't know you read stuff like that."
"I do," he says, "When I have time."
Echizen shrugs and the conversation falls flat again. Wakashi starts it up.
"I didn't know you would be translating," he says.
Echizen huffs, and doesn't answer immediately. He takes his time with his coffee with a slow sip. "It just happened," he says. His eyes droop and he looks drained. "Stuff."
"Life?"
"Yeah, that. Is this going to be an interrogation?" Echizen raises an eyebrow at him and Wakashi feels exposed. He feels himself blushing.
"No," he says, "No. I mean. This is weird."
"It is," Echizen agrees dryly. "This isn't supposed to happen."
"I." Wakashi gives off a delicate cough. He wonders the logic behind this. He has checked out of the hotel, his flight is not yet due, Echizen is here brimming with answers to a curiosity that he wants resolved. That logic sounds valid, but with Echizen in front of him, he is forced to admit that everything is none of his business and he does not pry into affairs that are not his. He is not Mukahi, after all, he notes grimly.
Echizen gives him a smirk though, and the smirk conveys answers. "I'm hungry," Echizen announces, "Do you think you're up for it?"
Without waiting for an answer, he summons the waiter. He orders food and Wakashi watches him as he tucks in bite after bite, and after awhile he ventures out, "Has Atobe-san been starving you?" just so he could get Echizen to stop eating and actually talk.
Echizen mumbles through the food at how he lost all appetite and it just seems to be coming back, how convenient for him, yeah?
"You said you did news?"Echizen says between bites. Wakashi stirs his cup of coffee and wrinkles his nose.
"Journalism, yes," he says, "But I already said this. Yesterday."
"I was zoning out," Echizen says, a little too cheerfully.
Wakashi gives him a sharp look for that but elaborates. "Yes, news. Mostly reviews, though. I would say we're in similar situations."
"Meaning?"
Wakashi shrugs. "I'm too young to be doing serious reporting," he says, "Not that I'm against that. I agree; I'd need more experience before I become good at it. Subversion should come after mastery."
"Sounds very deep," Echizen mocks. He licks his fork clean and studies Wakashi. His eyes are glassy. "But, just so we're clear, monkey king gave me that job and you worked your way up. Different." He looks pleased for someone who had just debased himself.
Wakashi frowns. Before he can stop himself (or approach in a more roundabout way, as was his original plan) he asks, curt, "Yes, so, why did you stop tennis?"
This could have gone better. He could have bought the younger man more food and when he was sated, asked about Seigaku, or the old members, at least, made fun of Atobe for a bit, and then breach the topic. He could have first asked about the nature of Atobe and Echizen's relationship (which he was beginning to suspect) and where, if anywhere, Akutagawa came into all this. But in the end, that was all it mattered.
Echizen isn't as perturbed as Wakashi feared. He shrugs. "Why didn't you?" he says. "You were all for being Hyotei's number one."
"I…people from Hyotei don't go pro," he says, stiff. "Well. I mean, naturally."
"Naturally," Echizen drawls, his lips twisting, "I don't think they go do journalism either."
"I used to write for the school newspaper," Wakashi counters, and frowns. Why were they coming back to him? "I liked it, so I decided to do more."
"Heeeh." But Echizen doesn't offer anymore. He plays with his fork, letting it dangle between his fingertips.
Wakashi doesn't know how to probe answers. He leans back into his seat, suddenly exhausted. He's not willing to have another try at something he is only thinking, it would have made a good story for an hour, and it that would have been all. Don't work up yourself about it.
But he is. He is curious, like the time he had been morbidly curiously with UFOs and where they might have come from. It was a morbid mystery, and he liked morbid mysteries, and this boy, sitting across from him, with his glazed look and twitch, seemed to be a bleak mystery in the part of a tangled relationship.
Echizen looks at him and his twitch becomes a small, tired smirk. "I quit, that's all," he says, "Not the first time in human history."
"You could have become a legend," he says, "In Japan. You'd have beat off your father's—"
He stops and looks down. The silence is heavy upon them.
"Oh," he says, "Yes. I. I'm sorry about your loss."
How silly of him to forget. How positively inane of him.
He hears Echizen give a sigh. "It's been two years," he says, sharp, "Whatever. It doesn't matter."
"I suppose it does," he replies without looking up. "I mean, I thought the media did."
"The fucking news would make connections to anything. But, if that explanation satisfies you, sure."
Echizen sounds curiously detached form his own proceedings. Wakashi sees Echizen's fingers move over the rim of his cup.
"It might explain some things," Wakashi mumbles.
"That's what the reporters said when I wasn't going pro."
"And that wasn't the reason?"
This time, a sigh that sounds more like a laugh is heard. "Didn't you hear me say no?"
Wakashi slowly lets his eyes surface back to the crook of Echizen's armrest and his eyes gradually meets Echizen's face again.
Echizen is watching him. He looks amused, but the amusement is not evil. It is merely an indulging amusement. He is indulging him, and Wakashi realizes, he would not be the first one (nor the last) to ask a question that Echizen has been carefully formulating over the last few years. The words Echizen are saying are a method and they are not real words.
He gives a small cough. "Yes," he says. "Yes. You're right. Let's drop the topic, then."
Echizen gives a small frown. "So you're not going to ask the reason?"
"No," Wakashi says and shakes his head for emphasis. "No. It was rude of me to badger you with it in the first place anyhow. My apologies."
Echizen looks taken aback. His eyes narrow at him and the frown intensifies. "Huh," he says, "I didn't know that you could be so charming."
He shrugs. "You've only seen me play tennis," he says, "That's not particularly a time to be practicing my mannerism."
Echizen watches him pick up his cup of coffee and finish it. After a moment of silence he says, "My dad's death just came at a really convenient time. I wanted to give it all up before that."
It is a dry, flat statement and the tone makes him sound cruel, but when Wakashi looks up, Echizen's eyes waver.
Wakashi nods. He calls the waiter and settles the bill.
000
Before they part, Wakashi does something peculiar. Later, he would mull over it in the plane and seek out an explanation. It was Echizen's reluctance to tell the story, and Wakashi does like a story, when there are so few and far in-between. It might have been because of his old fascination of everything having to do with Atobe Keigo. Perhaps it was just the exotic setting and an exotic boy.
He asks Echizen for his phone and gives him a number.
"I'm staying in London for awhile," he says, as Echizen takes hi phone back, a new contact added, his eyes obscure. "Just…just in case we might run into each other."
Echizen studies his screen and looks up. His smile is sharp. "Digging potential murk?" he says, "Monkey king was right about you—you are a Hyoteian."
Wakashi is about to protest, but he sees the look on Echizen's face and deems it safe to shrug and allow a small smirk of his own. "When opportunity arises," he says, and bids his farewell.
He would think later, it was the wavering of the eyes. They made Echizen a vulnerable wreck.