Erm, just because I never wrote these two idiots at the first stages of their relationship. I don't think? And I just want them to act like idiots. Also, I just watched Haikyuu yesterday and I am beginning to ship tsukikage. Gaaawwwww. Someone write about those two idiots.
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Keigo starts most mornings with a very bleary thought: I am an idiot.
It isn't the most productive phase of his life. He has school, college applications to finish (or most likely trying to convince his pestering grandfather that yes, he would be happy in Japan for another year attending Tokyo Uni before he could actually move back to London), and his last nationals to worry about. None of them are very happy, fulfilling thoughts, but Keigo has preserved and survived other horrid events in his life before all this.
But he wakes up, stretches his arms and washes his face, with those four tiny words etched inside his mind. He wonders if saying them allowed would null the power of their idiocy. He tried them out. "I am an idiot."
"Master Keigo?" Michael is as prompt as ever, his silvery head peeking out from Keigo's bedroom entrance. "Is everything alright?"
Keigo sighs. The words still sound idiotic, and he is talking to himself. "Fine," he says, and gets ready for class.
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Echizen has grown, but he is still a head shorter than Keigo. He is still wearing his atrocious cap from his middle school days. What changed? Keigo thinks, irritated at himself. There is nothing that should have changed.
Except that, well. They're in a relationship. He thinks. At least, that's what all their impromptu matches and their taunting words have lead up to. At least, that's what he assumes has happened when Echizen had looked at him one day after another rally in a ratty street court and he had looked back at him across the net with the most awkward silence that Keigo had broken by announcing, "We should go out."
There were no forthcoming warnings inside his head. He had just blurted the words, very uncouth of him, very, very rash. (He could afford to be even more so then, once he had spilled the milk.) He didn't wait for Echizen's reply. "Obviously, you should be flattered, but it seems as if I find your company…tolerable."
"Tolerable," Echizen repeated dryly after a stunned silence, "Monkey king, most people don't say tolerable when you're trying to woo them."
Keigo frowned. "I'm not trying to woo you," he said impatiently, "I'm announcing the facts. We find each other…tolerable, I should think."
"Do I find you tolerable?" Echizen was playing with his words, his smirk a little awkward around the edges, but he managed it. "Heh, I didn't know that you used your insight on something other than tennis."
"My insight is a psychological tool," Keigo scoffed, "Of course it's used outside tennis. Does everything have to do with tennis with you?"
"Yes," Echizen said immediately, "Also. You're not really helping the issue."
Keigo reminded himself, spilled milk. You are an idiot. "I don't feel like thwacking you on the head with a racket anymore," he said reasonably, "I think that would count as a huge improvement on my part."
"You wanted to hit me with a racket before?"
"Sometimes," Keigo said. Echizen was having a funny look on his face, as if he wasn't sure whether to scowl or laugh at the sheer insanity of where this conversation was going.
"That's…flattering," Echizen said slowly, "I think. But I don't see why—"
"I want to kiss you," Keigo snapped, and he thought, well, there goes my wonderfully accumulated self-poise and coolness that I have garnered for the past nineteen years. Spilled milk, broken cup, etc. "There. Does that make it better?"
Echizen just stared at him some more, until Keigo was sure that the small blush that has risen up Echizen's cheeks weren't from the glow of the sunset. He stared back at the younger boy, almost glares at him with defiance, until Echizen finally sighs a little and kicks at the ground. "Che," he said. "That wasn't what I was expecting."
Now, Keigo is mulling over the scene like a broken record and thinking, good god, what did that even mean? Is that a yes? Is Echizen Ryoma severely lacking in ways to express himself? (And once, when he was younger, he had sworn he would never date a girl who was ill bred in literature and the arts. Echizen was both things he had once shunned.) But Echizen hadn't run away. They had texted after that. They played matches.
Nothing has changed.
"I am an idiot," he says aloud to himself. Perhaps it should be his mantra until he snaps out of his Echizen-phase and he could go back to admiring pretty, docile girls instead.
"Erm," Shishido says next to him. "Wow, that's really humble of you and everything, Atobe, but save that for later, maybe? We need to head off you practice."
Keigo ignores him and rubs his hands against his face. He can hear Shishido groan and say, "Oshitari, our captain is having another crisis again."
"I'm not," he says, his words muffled against the palm of his hands, "having a crisis. Don't be an idiot and go away, Shishido."
Kabaji ends up dragging him to the courts.
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"So," Echizen says after a pause. Keigo ignores him and viciously walks forward.
It's the weekend. He had not brought out his racket and Echizen had brought out his; when Echizen looked confused at his empty hands, he had said, "I could lend you mine," and that had irritated Keigo to no end because—well. "We're not going to play tennis today," he had said shortly and turned his nose up at the blue and white Seigaku tennis bag Echizen had slung over his narrowed shoulders. Echizen raised an eyebrow at that, but to his surprise, had not nagged Keigo about it. And followed him somewhat faithfully behind while Keigo stomped all over the pedestrian streets of Ginza to ward off his unreasonable ire.
"Are you actually headed somewhere?" Echizen tries again, "Or are you just going to go all Godzilla until you're tired?"
At that Keigo whirls around and points his finger at Echizen, his ire finally taking on a solid form of attack. "You, he snarls, and changes his tactics, because already Echizen is looking at him with a wary expression and clutching his tennis bag with one hand a little too tightly, "You have terrible etiquette, you know," he says instead, "You could ask nicely without insulting people."
Echizen blinks at him. He looks honestly confused. "I didn't," he says patiently, "I asked where we were going."
"You shouldn't call me barbaric nicknames," he amends.
Echizen furrows his eyebrows. "What, Godzilla?" Keigo nods. "Monkey King?" Keigo nods again. "But I always call you that and you never minded."
Always. That's the word. Always—always had, before. Nothing has changed. Why did he change over this brat? Keigo berates himself. "Tolerated," he says stiffly. "Really, I think this is one of those times when I really do want to hit you over the head with a racket." At this Echizen narrows his eyes.
"You're flouncing over the streets in a place where they only sell women's jewelry and handbags," Echizen says. He sounds a little sour. "It's Saturday. You woke me up at nine and it's noon now, and you've been ignoring me for the past two hours. I think I'd like to throttle you with a racket, if that's what it takes."
Keigo stares at him. Echizen shifts his bag and suddenly the gesture looks a little threatening. "Don't be so uncouth, Echizen," Keigo says with a wave of his hand. He lowers his pointing hand and snaps his fingers. "We can have lunch, if that's what you're asking. Where to?" Lunch, he thinks, that sounds like something different. He mentally nods to himself.
They end up in a small sushi place and Echizen is still semi-sulking and orders a plate of the lunch special that costs far more than Echizen alone would handle. When Keigo points this out, Echizen looks at him with wide, innocent eyes and says sweetly, "But aren't you treating me, Atobe-san?" and the name sounds very insulting and it makes Keigo feel a bit old. So he frowns and crosses his arms. "Don't call me that."
"What?" Echizen is searching for the chopsticks and looks more irritated that Keigo thinks is warranted.
"Atobe-san."
"Oh my god." Echizen says this in actual English, full of American disdain and exasperation. "What should I call you then? It's your name, monkey king."
"I said—"
"Until you stop sulking and actually tell me," Echizen says, "I am going to call you monkey king. Be glad I'm so nice and you're not just a monkey."
Atobe snaps his mouth and glares at him. Echizen glares back. That glare really shouldn't do things for Keigo's stomach.
They end up eating lunch in hostile silence.
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"Keigo-chan," Oshitari croons at him. Keigo wants to hit someone.
"Could you not call me that," Keigo says over the cover of his textbook, "You disgust me. You don't have the privilege of saying my name, so stuff it, Oshitari."
Next to them, Mukahi sighs and flops his messy redhead against the desk. "I really don't like studying with you two," he complains, "You gross me out."
"You mean your doubles partner grosses you out, Mukahi, stop grouping me with this abominable flirt."
Oshitari doesn't look one bit abashed at this, merely adjusting his glasses and giving Keigo a knowing smirk. "Atobe," he amends, only the lingering croon is still there, "You've been staring at the page where Juliet is poisoning herself. That's not even on our English exam tomorrow."
"No?" Keigo mutters, "In case my genius has escaped your notice, I have already read this when I was thirteen. I am rereading this masterpiece and you can shove your conjectures to yourself."
"You're moping, Atobe."
"I am not!—" Keigo composes himself and starts again. "I am not," he says more calmly, "moping. I am studying while you are sticking your glasses into where they don't belong."
Later at night, he recalls Oshitari's croon and has goosebumps all over again (and yes, what an utter genius Oshitari was, knowing just what sort of effect it would have on Keigo, he would make Oshitari run laps tomorrow until he is dehydrated). He throws Romeo and Juliet across his room and scowls, rubbing his arms with his hands. He paces across his room. He taps his chin.
He finally makes the call.
"Hello?" The voice isn't sleeping, but it's quieter and more tired than the one that Keigo is usually used to hearing.
"Keigo," Keigo says, without fanfare or a greeting, "I'd like you to call me Keigo."
"…..Oh." Keigo can hear shuffling on the other line; he imagines that Echizen is sitting up from his bed. "It's you."
Keigo frowns. "Don't you have my number?" he asks testily. He begins to pace back and forth again. The movement calms him.
"I don't have this one, I don't think," the answer comes dryly, "You have about six phones, you know."
"Seven," Keigo correct him, "I bought a new one yesterday for—" he stops. He bought one for the exclusive purposes of one Echizen Ryoma, but Echizen isn't to know about that. "Well, never mind. This is the new one, so be sure you save it."
"Sure." Echizen is silent on the line. "So…that's it, then? Save your number, call you by your name—"
"And stop calling he detestable nicknames."
"Those are said in the greatest of affections," Echizen says with such utter sincerity that Keigo is sure Echizen must be smirking, "But okay." There is another pause. "Does that mean you'll stop calling me Echizen, then?"
"Oh." Keigo hadn't thought of that, but it made sense. He continues to pace up and down and back and forth again. Echizen waits. "I—yes. I suppose so. If you want."
"Doesn't matter." Keigo hears a yawn. "I'm not that fussy about stuff like that. Unlike some people."
"How convenient," Keigo says. "That's it then, I think. You can go to bed now," he adds in, "I'm sorry if I woke up."
"It's nice that I have your approval." Echizen—Ryoma—doesn't sound aggravated about that, though, so Keigo is assuming that he can order about Ryoma in the near future as well over little trifles. "Fine, then. Goodnight." There is a different sort of pause. "Keigo."
Keigo is sure that he is smiling. He feels his lips lift and he makes sure that his voice is very flat but affectionate enough as he replies, "Ahn. Goodnight, Ryoma."
I am an idiot. He repeats to himself as he hangs up. Somehow, that mantra doesn't seem as cursed as it did before.
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A/N: I wanted to write about them holding hands, but urgh, I feel they would spend weeks trying to compromise on names. Holding hands will come later. Next time when I feel like writing fluff and teenager-like romance instead of dark/twisted/powerplay fics, lol.