Characters: Echizen Ryoga, Echizen Ryoma
Universe: Movie 1: The Two Samurai
Warnings: Mild Ryocest, spoilers for movie 1
At first, when his old man boss tells him that Ryoma's coming, Ryoga's fingers shoot up to his neck and clench the little charm there. Not that he's going to admit that it's a clasp of one of Ryoma's old caps.
It's the next day when Ryoga hears a very wet spluttering for air from his spot at the highest deck by the main office, and he looks down to find a capped person being shoved into a pool. Ryoga would have snickered. The German student that Sakurafubuki hired snickers for him instead.
Ryoma is taller now, as tall as Ryoga was when he left.
It's also the day when Ryoga finds out that Ryoma's been forced into the same situation as him, Ryoma's teammates forced into the same situation as his, and it would have been only a few seconds away from Ryoga deciding he would beg for Sakurafubuki to stop when Ryoma is shoved in front of him. The guard hisses menacingly when Ryoma stops and turns to look at his older brother, and Ryoga almost drops the orange he's been tossing.
The only words they've exchanged are empty; on Ryoga's part, at least. If you didn't know, you wouldn't be able to tell that they were from the same family at all, and Ryoga hates to admit that they're basically strangers now. But neither of them can help it. Maybe.
(Tennis allows you to see a grand dream, in a grand world... huh?)
This particular orange in his hand, notwithstanding its leathery skin and green stub of a stem, weighs like a tennis ball.
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Ryoga tosses the ball. It's in the salty, sea breeze, and it sways slightly to the right and covers the sun's sphere against the sky.
It looks like an orange, is Ryoga's first thought, and he turns to his little brother to see that his eyes are nowhere and unfocused. Ryoga wonders if the other is thinking the same thing. Hey, no hurt in asking, right?
"Hey, Chibisuke, remember the first time," Ryoga says, and Ryoma's eyes narrow. "The first time I," Ryoga serves high, but it's a few inches off where he wants it to be. "I stole your orange? Remember?"
The ball is up in the sky, somewhere on the seventeenth row of seats at its highest, before it dips down. Ryoma returns the shot easily.
Ryoga lobs the ball again, and this time he smiles as it flies up past all the rows of seats and up to the upper deck. But it has to go higher. "Don't tell me you've forgotten!"
The ball doesn't go in front of the sun's light just as easily as earlier, and Ryoga curses. Will they even be able to make it in time..?
It's all too sudden when the lamplights flicker to life as the ball flies in front of them, and the both of them immediately think, It's like an orange.
A smirk worms its way on Ryoma's face, just like Ryoga's seen many times before, but it seems so... different, seeing it in person; different than those videos. Lively, even.
(There's a smile on Ryoga's face, Ryoma notes. It's infectious.) "I see."
Ryoma lobs the ball in the air, and it hits the sun's silhouette. It glints in the air, and against the bright blue of the sky, it looks like an orange on a tree, swaying in the wind.
Words: 569
A/N: I'm not even going to try to explain what happened in the ending. It made me go WTF? Seriously, lay off the effects :/.