Hello! It's Henzie (tennis-player). This is a tribute for Zaizen Hikaru's birthday on July 20, 2010. Includes abuse, violence and OC character death. Constructive criticism is welcomed. Don't like, don't read, that simple. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy ^^
I do not own Prince of Tennis in any way, shape or form.
A loud bang sounded throughout the house as a body slammed against the wall, sliding to the floor with a light 'thud'.
"You are so useless!" a high, contorted voice screeched. "I can't believe I gave birth to a thing like you!"
The body, belonging to a young, dark haired boy, tried to stand, only to wince as his legs gave out underneath him.
"Hikaru!" a man's voice sounded. "Are you okay?"
The man ran over to the junior high student. "Okaa-san!" he scolded. "What are you doing?"
"Who the… fuck are you…?"the woman slurred, stumbling drunkenly and pointing a shaking finger.
The man sighed. "I'm your son, remember?"
The woman stared at him for a long moment. "Oh, you," she spat. "Why the hell are you here? Go back to your stinking apartment, Kyoya."
'Kyoya' stood from his knees and pulled the smaller boy with him.
"Go get ready for school, Hikaru," Kyoya said. "You have morning practice today, don't you?"
The little punk-like boy spared one more glance at his mother before running up the stairs to his room. His mother made a move to go after him, but Kyoya stood in her way.
"Have you taken your pills yet, Okaa-san?" Kyoya asked.
Kyoya's mother shook her head. "I don't need those phony drugs!" he exclaimed.
Kyoya stepped forward, holding out the little packet of pills. "Here, take one. They'll make you feel better."
Glaringly, his mother took the packet and swallowed a pill without water. Her eyes slowly lost the glare and she stumbled back t her room.
Not even a moment later, Zaizen came down the stairs, dressed in his uniform.
"Sorry, Hikaru," Zaizen Kyoya said, smiling at his younger brother.
"Don't worry about it, Kyo-nii," Zaizen replied. "I got to get going, though," he nodded, and left the house.
Kyoya sighed at the closing door. "Have a nice day."
Oshitari Kenya sat on his porch, waiting for his kohai, who was getting late. At this rate, Koharu would catch them!
"Kenya-san," came the monotonic call from aforementioned kohai.
"It's about time you got here!" Kenya exclaimed. "What took ya so long?"
"I slept in," Zaizen lied.
Kenya sighed. "Whatever, let's just get you to the clubroom before Koharu does. I'm sure you don't want to change with him around," he winked.
Zaizen shuddered, causing Kenya to laugh. "It's not funny!" Zaizen shot.
Kenya smiled. "Sure, sure, let's just get going."
To Zaizen's relief, the two arrived inside before his creepiest sempai did.
"Good morning, Shiraishi," Kenya called, walking into the clubroom with Zaizen in tow.
"Morning, Kenya, Zaizen," their captain greeted. "You two are later than usual."
"That's because Hikaru-chan here slept in," Oshitari said, thumping his kohai's head lightly.
Zaizen twitched at the new nickname, causing Shiraishi and Kenya to laugh.
"What's so funny?" a new voice called.
The three turned to see Chitose standing by the door, already in his tennis jersey, as was as their poor, unpopular fukubuchou – Koishikawa Kenjirou ( poor, unpopular Koishikawa).
"Chitose!" Shiraishi smiled, decidedly ignoring the poor, unpopular fukubuchou :(.
"Hey, Shiraishi," Chitose smiled back. "What's up?"
"Not much," Shiraishi replied, signaling for the two by the door to come in.
Eager to oblige, Chitose walked over and sat next to Shiraishi on the bench, seated awfully close.
Noticing the sudden 'lovey-dovey' atmosphere, Zaizen and Kenya took it upon themselves to start changing.
"Ne, Kenya-san?" Zaizen asked.
"What?" Kenya replied.
"…"
"…?"
"Never mind."
Kenya raised an eyebrow at his kohai. "Then why ask?"
"No reason."
After the Shitenhouji regulars were all arrived and ready, they headed out onto the courts.
"Alright," Shiraishi called out. "We're going to play practice matched first. On court 1, Zaizen vs. Gin, court 2 Kenya vs. Kin-chan and court 3 Koharu vs. Chitose. The rest of us," he said, signaling to himself, Hitouji and Koishikawa, "will supervise the 1st years and normal club members."
"All right!" the regulars chorused in reply.
"We'll be switching regularly," Shiraishi added, before walking off towards the first years, who were doing their swing practice.
"Doryaa!"
"Yosh!"
"Shikushou!"
Voices sounded out as practice continued.
"Aa, we're going to be all sweaty when we go to class," a random second year whined.
"Hey, you!" Koishikawa scolded. "You shouldn't be in the club if all you're going to do is complain."
"Che," the offender muttered. "Whatever."
"Is there a problem?" asked a voice from nowhere.
"Eh?" the second year asked, looking for the source of the voice.
Randomly, Osamu materialized from this air.
"Is there something wrong, Sohma-kun?" he asked with a smile.
"N-No! Nothing at all!" the boy replied, turning to take off.
Osamu laughed. "Look at that sucker run," he smiled.
Koishikawa smiled back. "Aa."
Shiraishi's voice sounded across the courts.
"Yuuji! Switch with Zaizen. Koishikawa! Switch with Kenya. Koharu, you switch with me," he said.
"Hai!" Hitouji called, walking over to take Zaizen's place, facing his opponent, Ishida.
"OK," Koishikawa replied, walking to face Tooyama from across the courts.
"Alrighty~!" Koharu cheered, walking off the courts for Shiraishi.
Shiraishi smiled. "One of you will go watch the first years do swings while the other two will supervise as the second and third years do lines and laps, alight?"
"I'm with Kenya-san!" Zaizen called out immediately, moving as far as he could from Koharu.
"Aww, don't be like that, Hikaru-chan!" Koharu whined.
Zaizen shuddered, while Shiraishi and Kenya laughed.
"Fine by me," Shiraishi smiled. "Is that alright, Kenya?"
Kenya made a phony puzzled look. "I don't know," he said, shaking his head. "For some reason, I really want to supervise some first years…"
"Kenya-san!" Zaizen glared.
Kenya laughed. "Yes, yes."
Koharu pouted. "Phooey!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~After Morning Practice~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Zaizen walked towards his classroom with a yawn. He was tired from all of last nights and this morning's events. 'I wonder how Kyo-nii and Okaa-san are doing…'
Shaking his head inwardly, he opened the door and walked into his first class, look calm and uncaring as always.
"Oi, Hikaru!" a classmate called out to him. "Can I borrow your Science notes?"
Zaizen gave him an uncaring look. "What for?"
"For the test, of course," his classmate replied.
Zaizen didn't reply.
"Oi, don't tell me you forgot!"
"Well, if it's Hikaru, he'd ace it even without studying," another student added.
The others laughed. "True enough."
Zaizen sighed. "What about your notes, Yasushiro?"
'Yasushiro' laughed. "My notes are crap compared to yours!"
"Naturally," Zaizen said, walking over to his seat. "And I'm not lending them to you."
Their teacher walked in and clapped impatiently. "Science books away, this is math class. Study in your break."
Groans of protest erupted from the class, but the teacher would hear none of it and started his lesson.
Zaizen stared out the window, tuning out the sounds around him. 'Maybe I'll go sleep in the library during break…' he thought lazily.
"Zaizen-kun! At least open your test book and pretend to pay attention," the teacher scolded.
"But I don't need to," he replied. "I already know all this."
"That doesn't mean…" their teacher tried before sighing. "Fine, do as you please…"
"Aww, how come only Zaizen gets to zone out?" someone asked.
"Continuing with lesson," the teacher continued, ignoring the student."
Zaizen tuned out to look through the window once more. The trees rustled in a gentle breeze and some sempai-tachi on free period sat on a bench outside, joking and laughing.
At lunch break, Zaizen went to the library, as planned, and sat at the table furthest back, far from the circulation desk, and fell asleep. He slept for a good 20 minutes, too, until he was roughly shaken awake.
"Oi, Zaizen!" growled a clearly annoyed voice. "Wake up already!"
Opening one eye to look at the offender, Kenya's face loomed over his, looking relieved as his kohai finally awoke.
"It's about time," he muttered. "What are you doing? We've been looking for you everywhere!"
"We…?" Zaizen echoed.
"Me, Shiraishi and Chitose," Kenya replied.
"Why were you looking for me?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Why wouldn't we be?" Kenya asked, also raising an eyebrow.
Zaizen stood and shrugged, resigning to follow Kenya to wherever they were headed.
Zaizen let his eyes wander along the halls, looking for anything that might be considered out of place to relieve his boredom.
Before he had even realized it, he was in an empty classroom with Shiraishi, Chitose and Kenya.
"You found him?" Chitose smiled, "Took ya long enough!"
Kenya shrugged. "Did it?"
"Why were you even looking?" Zaizen asked again.
Shiraishi shrugged. "We just wanted to eat lunch with one of the few sane teammates we had, is that so wrong?"
Zaizen sighed. "I suppose not."
Zaizen spent the rest of his lunch hour with his sempai-tachi, enjoying himself and temporarily forgetting the worries that kept him up at night. A beautiful getaway. Relaxation. Happiness. Everything he wanted. Everything he needed.
It didn't last long, though. The lunch bell rang an his sempai-tachi left for their classes.
Sighing, Zaizen stood and started making his way to the classroom. The third period teacher wasn't as nice as the first and wouldn't hear of him being late.
Arriving with seconds to spare, Zaizen took his favorite seat by the window, which his classmates had learned to leave empty for him.
Class continued, the teacher calling on Zaizen multiple times to keep him from drifting off, until an announcement on the intercom distracted everyone.
"Takanari-sensei, would you please send Zaizen Hikaru to the office? And please send a friend down with him. I repeat, would you please send Zaizen Hikaru down the office? And please send a friend down with him. Thank you," the voice said.
The teacher looked over to Zaizen and he nodded, standing and walking over to the door, ignoring the multiple "Oooo…"'s that followed as he left.
"Zaizen-kun, please take a friend with you," Takanari-senei said.
Zaizen looked up. "I'll stop by Kenya-san's class and take him," he replied.
His teacher nodded. "Make sure you do, then."
Zaizen made his way to Kenya's classroom and knocked on the door.
"Come in," the teacher called.
Zaizen opened the door. "The principal would like to see me and Kenya-san," he said looking over to Kenya's seat.
The teacher nodded.
"Oshitari-kun, you are free to go," he said, and continued with his lesson.
Zaizen and Kenya walked down the halls towards the office.
"Why does the principal want to see us?" Kenya asked.
Zaizen shrugged. "I don't know, but we'll see soon enough."
When the two arrived at the office, they were ushered into the principal's room by the secretary and sat in the chairs in front of the principals desk.
"What did you call us here for, kouchou?" Zaizen asked.
Their principal sighed. "Zaizen-kun, you're mother and brother, they…"
Zaizen's eyes widened. "Okaa-san and Kyo-nii? What happened?"
Their school's principal sighed again. "They got in an accident. Zaizen-kun, they're dead..."
Zaizen went rigid, and he stared directly at the desk, but seeing nothing. "Wh-… Kyo-nii and Okaa-san are…?"
He nodded. "We have a car in the front of the school to take you to the hospital if you'd like."
It was Zaizen's turn to nod.
The principal looked at Kenya. "Would you like to go with him?"
Kenya nodded. "Yes, please kouchou."
The two of them sat in silence in the hospital room, where the two beds were taken up, one by Zaizen's mother, the other by his brother. Kenya watched as Zaizen's body was racked with the effort it took not to cry.
Kenya slipped his arm around Zaizen's shoulder and pulled him close.
"It's alright…" he soothed. "You can cry if you need to…"
Zaizen curled inside of Kenya's arms and whimpered lightly.
Kenya held onto him tighter, and they stayed like that. Two hours later, after Zaizen had long finished crying and sat up on his own, the other regulars entered.
"Are you alright?" came a voice as the door slammed open, causing both Kenya and Zaizen to jump.
Chitose put a hand on Shiraishi's shoulder to calm him down. "Are you feeling alright now, Zaizen?"
Zaizen nodded slowly. "I feel… better," he replied.
Tooyama walked up and sat on the floor near Zaizen and Kenya.
"Were you sad…?" he asked.
"No," Zaizen said.
"Yes," Kenya said at the same time.
"Eh?" Hitouji asked with a raised eyebrow.
"You were so sad, liar!" Kenya shot at Zaizen, who pouted (very) lightly.
"I suppose…" Zaizen muttered.
Shiraishi walked over and patted Zaizen on his head. "Don't worry, we'll get through this."
Zaizen nodded. "Only, I would have to go to an orphanage, or…"
"You can move in with me," Kenya said immediately.
"Huh?" Zaizen asked, looking up in shock.
"Move in with me and my family and you can keep going to Shitenhouji and everything," Kenya said.
"… can I really do that?" Zaizen asked.
"Of course! My parents will let you, I'm sure."
Shiraishi nodded. "Kenya's parents are very nice."
Chitose laughed. "Then, you two will be living together? Don't do anything improper," he chuckled with a wink.
Koishikawa (the poor, unpopular fukubuchou) thumped Chitose on the back of the head.
A/N: I am Thinking of making this a two-shot, what do ya think? The next chapter will be more romance that this one, so look forward to it, kay?
~Henzie ;)