by Kira
It was too beautiful of a day for tennis practice. Laps would be waiting for them in the morning, but stretched out in the grass, hands tucked under his head and Echizen resting alongside him, Momo could not bring himself to care.
He lay with his regulars jacket bunched up beneath his head, propped up enough to see dark hair poking out from beneath the bill of a dirtied cap. The hat was tugged low, the way Ryoma always wore it, like he was trying to shield himself from the world. Sometimes, Momo thought Ryoma really believed that if he tugged down the cap just so and lowered his eyes in a certain way -- poof -- no more Echizen. He would be gone, and in his place, several befuddled younger classmen that had been looking up to him in awe and adoration.
Some mistook the aloof, silent treatment as arrogance. Others thought it was haughty and disdainful, as though he was looking down upon them, and no words of theirs were worth his better spent time. But Momo thought maybe it was just that Ryoma was uncomfortable. There was always a hint of exasperation in his voice when Horio would cackle and crow about how great their Echizen was, and the faint pink tinge of embarrassment when Tomoka shrieked 'Ryoma-sama!' through the stands.
Or maybe it was just those two.
He was surprised Ryoma had come with him. For someone who arrived in classes late and fell asleep during lessons and exams, Ryoma never came late into practice (unless under most drastic circumstances), and never once missed. He was more surprised he had even made the suggestion to Echizen to skip out, but with the sky beaming down on him and the weather cool, spending hours doing drills seemed a waste.
Not that he was accomplishing anything worthwhile with his time now, laying in the sunshine with the freshman, Ryoma claiming his stomach as a pillow.
A bag stuffed full of hamburger wrappers lay beside them, along with tennis bags and school books. Momo had made the offhand suggestion that they skip practice and go out for lunch on their way down the hall. Even though his own classes were on the other side of the school, he somehow always ended up at Echizen's classroom to walk with him to the locker room. It was a ritual for them.
Ryoma shrugged in response, intoned in his low, bored tone that he didn't care, and instead of taking a left to go out the back of the school to the courts, they took a right and walked out through the front entrance.
The hamburgers were settling comfortably in his stomach now, and despite the day being as bright and cheerful as it was, Momo could feel his eyelids drooping. He opened his mouth wide and let an enormous yawn escape him.
"I see a rabbit," he declared suddenly, and more than the sound of his voice, the reverberation of it in his stomach jostled Ryoma from a lazy doze.
"What?"
Lifting a hand, Momo pointed toward the sky. "Rabbit," he repeated. "See, there's the ears, and the tail, and... well, there was a tail." The wind swept through the clouds, and the tuft Momo called a tail disappeared. Ryoma tipped his head back, a hand coming up to push the cap from his eyes.
"It's a cat," he disagreed, and smiling slightly, added, "Karupin."
"Nah." Momo frowned up at the strange creature the cloud was becoming. "Karuzilla. See? He's eating Tokyo."
Ryoma snorted, and the hat came down again, eyes closing lazily.
"Oi, Echizen." Momo reached out a hand to whap the end of the baseball cap. Ryoma ignored him, not even so much as twitching a muscle to lift an arm and swat the hand away.
Momo sighed, but for the moment, let it go. Something about the calm air around them was making his natural urge to fight diminish almost drastically. He doubted that even if the stupid viper showed up, he could have raised his voice to him. The more appealing thing to do at the moment was just what Ryoma was doing -- close his eyes, tip his head back, and fall asleep with the sunshine warming his face.
He didn't know why he suggested skipping practice. Maybe Echizen was more dedicated and obsessed with the sport than he was, but tennis was important to him, too, and since joining the junior high team, he had missed only one practice. And that was only because his mother had damned him to room constraint when he came down with bronchitis. Even then, he had tried to escape out through the window.
Maybe it was just because he wanted to see if Ryoma would agree to go. Echizen, the most socially inept person he knew, lazy in his classes but a brilliant student and admired by his classmates, breaking the rules. It was unthinkable. Inconceivable.
And that was why Ryoma was with him now, curled up in the tall, soft grass, and dozing lightly.
Sometimes he thought he had the boy puzzled out, and that was always when Echizen threw him for another loop.
He glanced down at Ryoma, nose just barely peeking out from beneath the ridiculously oversized baseball cap. He had never thought of it before, but the thing looked like it had seen far better days. The trim was worn, tearing around the band, and there were dark stains like those on an old pair of tennis shoes, more noticeable now in the bright light than usual. There were so many times he had reached out a hand to smack down that cap or take it from the freshman's head, but he had never noticed the wear.
"Oi, Echizen," he tried again, and this time the boy answered with a small, barely audible grunt.
"Where'd you get that thing? Your hat, I mean."
"Don't remember," Ryoma said automatically, and subject closed, he settled back into his dozing. Momo gave his shoulder a light push.
"Looks about fifty years old."
"Nine," Ryoma corrected. He paused. "Maybe eight."
Momo had tennis shoes that had only lasted a month. A baseball cap lasting for almost ten years was absurd. "Geez."
Echizen shrugged. To him, it did not seem so remarkable.
"Where'd you get it?" Momo pressed.
"Don't remember," Ryoma repeated. "Think my mom gave it to me."
"Said you'd grow into it?" Momo asked, suppressing a laugh. Echizen was not growing at all, no matter how many glasses of milk Inui-senpai commanded him to drink, and no matter how many fruits and vegetables were in his diet. Maybe in two years or so, he would gain some height. Probably spring up over night and none of them would know what had happened, but Momo thought he would always be small.
Again, Ryoma shrugged. "Guess so."
Mothers did that kind of thing, Momo thought. His own had done the same, buying him clothes entirely too big for him when he was smaller, with the promise that he could grow into them. He did, eventually, but like he suspected Echizen to, it happened over night. One summer he was short, the next tall, and his mother complained constantly about the amount of money he was costing her in clothing, shoes, and tennis equipment alone. Not to mention, of course, the food and shelter.
"Your mom's never around when I'm over," Momo intoned, offhand. "It's usually just you and your cousin."
"She's on all these council things," Ryoma replied, deeming this enough information for the moment, and letting it go. Momo had introduced him to his own mother, and by default, the two hell raisers he was ashamed to call his siblings. He was almost positive that they had terrified Echizen; he had never seen quite an expression of pure, boggled terror on his face before.
But it was strange, that all he knew of Ryoma's family was his cousin, and he spent almost every weekend at the Echizen household.
"What about your dad?"
Ryoma dragged down the bill lower and mumbled, "Don't know."
Momo let it go, but not before reaching out to push up the cap slightly. Ryoma winced against the sudden flood of light into his eyes, and turned his head just slightly to scowl at his senpai. An amused grin flashed back at him.
It didn't really matter anyway. Maybe Echizen was more quiet and reserved than he was, by nature and with family and friends, but it didn't bother him. He never expected anything of Ryoma, and sometimes, he thought that was what made them friends. Most people looked at Ryoma and saw a brilliant tennis player, a prodigy at his young age, some would have said, and some had said. But beyond tennis, what more was there? Few people ever looked deeper.
Momo looked at him and saw the brilliant tennis player he was, and the sensation he would become, but he didn't care. Echizen was someone he dragged to eat hamburgers after practice, forced out of his home on the weekends and to the street tennis courts, and convinced to skip practice to lay out in the sunshine under the sky.
To everyone else, Echizen was a teammate and a player, but for Momo, he was just his friend.
"Hey, Echizen." Another poke in the shoulder. Ryoma grunted.
"Who do you think is gonna be captain next year?"
Ryoma was quiet a moment, and Momo thought maybe he was reflecting on his question. It wasn't like the other casual, passing questions he asked, and Ryoma disregarded as nothing. It was something else, and Momo wanted his answer.
Slowly, Ryoma glanced up at his senpai, the pushed up cap no longer shielding his face from view.
"Kaidou-senpai," he answered, and almost like he was preparing for the verbal onslaught to follow, Momo could feel his shoulder muscles tensing.
But instead of blowing up at him, Momo nodded, tipping his head back up to watch the clouds. Karuzilla was gone, replaced with a dragon shooting fire from its nose. "Yeah, I think so, too."
He fell silent then, expecting Ryoma to say nothing, and not wanting to speak himself. Ryoma was quiet, too; so quiet, Momo was sure he had fallen asleep, and he would have to carry the boy home. But as he was slowly beginning to ease himself up, Ryoma turned his face toward him.
"I'll tell you where I got the cap if you tell me why you don't think you'll be captain."
Momo blinked down at him. What kind of a deal was that? It seemed like Echizen was getting the better end of the stick.
But still... "Okay," Momo conceded. "Where'd the stupid hat come from?"
"Not stupid," Ryoma muttered automatically, reaching up to tug down the bill self-consciously. "It was my dad's."
"Your dad?" He had dismissed the question so easily earlier when Momo asked about his father, the older boy was surprised Ryoma brought the man up.
Echizen nodded. "Yeah. He said it was his lucky hat."
"Why?"
"Because whenever Mom wore it to his tennis matches, he always won."
The younger boy snorted softly then, and Momo could almost see his eyes rolling beneath the cap. Superstitions, Momo thought. Echizen probably didn't believe in them. No, he definitely didn't believe in them, if the offhand, disdainful snort meant anything.
But he was still wearing the cap.
"I got it when he retired," Ryoma concluded, shrugging slightly. Then without missing a beat, "Why won't you be captain?"
Momo considered the question. It was not so much he thought he would never be captain... he knew he wouldn't be. To be the captain of the tennis team, especially one with the reputation and sheer amount of students Seigaku had, required a sense of responsibility and dedication he knew he didn't have. Tezuka and Kaidou had that sense of responsibility and dedication. He didn't.
"Nobody wants a goofball for captain," he answered after a moment. "I'd just tell everybody to run however many laps they wanted to, and I'd never be able to schedule matches right."
He shrugged slightly. "Anyway... I don't like it, but that stupid snake'll do a better job."
Maybe he had liked pretending once that he was the invincible Momo-chan-senpai, and no one could compare to him, on and off the court... but being dropped from the regulars had shot him down from that high horse. He still had a long way to go before he could be equal to Tezuka... and equal to Inui-senpai.
Being second to the mamushi was going to be a pain in the ass, though.
Ryoma stood up suddenly, shaking Momo from his scattered thoughts. The younger boy stood above him, and a dark shadow from the bill of the cap hid his eyes and nose from view, but the amused, smirking grin was all too obvious.
"Mada mada dane, Momo-senpai."
You have a long way to go.
Ryoma held out his hand to him, and scowling through his smile, Momo took the smaller hand in his own and let Echizen pull him up.
Slinging their bags over their shoulders and gathering up the hamburger wrappers, Momo asked cheerfully, "How many laps?"
"Thirty," Ryoma answered.
"Nah. Definitely gonna be fifty."
"Fifty for you, thirty for me."
"That's not fair!"
Ryoma shrugged. "Yep."
"You want to do this again sometime?"
"... sure."
Grinning, Momo slung an arm around the shoulders of the younger boy, the other coming up to whap down the baseball cap. It really was too beautiful of a day for tennis practice. Fifty laps was a small price to pay.
"Mada mada dane," Ryoma muttered, scowling and rolling his eyes. "Definitely mada mada dane."
"You're right," Momo agreed, and he snatched the cap from Echizen's head, plopping it down on his own.
He definitely had a long way to go, but he knew Echizen would be there to help him on the way.