-1Title: Serve and Volley or Crime Scene no Ohjisama!!!
Authors: The combined forces of EllipsesBandit…and Microgirl, collectively known as TROZInc.
Disclaimer: Neither CSI, PoT, or any other acronyms in this fic belong to us.
Genre: Mystery/Romance.
Pairings: CSI: GSR
PoT: TezuFuji and some very slight allusions to other pairs.
Summary: The Senbatsu team is touring the United States, bringing them to Las Vegas. A murder throws the team into disarray and only our favorite CSI's can solve the mystery.
Rather obviously, tennis character death is involved, but it's all in fun, so no hard feelings. Minimal angst, we promise. Echizen fans might want to avoid this one.
Author's Notes: So after plugging this fic …umm… many months ago, we finally have a chapter ready! Who knew planning a murder was this difficult? This is why we aren't serial killers. Thank Iruka-chan2 for sending out a search team and making sure we were still working. Someday, we'll even update again ;)
This fic grew out of a combined desire to mix up two OTP's in very different universes. I should mention that for obvious reasons, the tennis boys are in university for this. Fifteen year olds involved in CSI didn't work for us. For further details on the fic's creation, check our bio page. And if you enjoy (or even just participate in both fandoms) drop us a review. Reviews are like Nana Olaf's chocolate white chocolate chip cookies, you always crave more.
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Given a choice, Yuushi Oshitari would elect to play doubles over singles. Doubles, he felt, was a far more intellectually stimulating game of tennis. It required the competitors to predict not one, but three other players, allowing a higher level of both cunning and strategy. It required patience, trust, and a supreme amount of cooperation, all three of which he had yet to experience with his current partner.
Not only was Eiji Kikumaru loud, spastic, and generally annoying, he also didn't seem to care one wit that they were being repeatedly trounced by Atobe and Sanada. It was embarrassing, and Oshitari decided to feign a flare up of his ankle injury rather than continue the farce of a practice match, returning to the locker room ahead of his teammates.
The U.S. tour of the Japanese Senbatsu Tennis Team was supposed to give him a chance to expand his skills, earn some attention, see the world. Instead, he'd spent most of the tour holed up in his hotel room, trying to keep his headaches to a minimum while everyone talked about that upstart Echizen. Oshitari missed Japan. He missed his regular doubles partner. He even missed the rest of the Hyotei regulars. This trip could not possibly get any worse.
He opened the door to the changing stall...
…and screamed.
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"Ryoma Echizen. Eighteen years old from Tokyo, Japan. In Vegas touring with a college tennis team," Captain Jim Brass announced to the arriving crime scene investigators. Gil Grissom took in the surrounding scene: an ordinary locker room of a modest hotel. Off-white linoleum tile, a few rows of foot square lockers, and a row of changing stalls. Nothing out of the ordinary except for the young man's body slumped in the last stall.
"Who discovered the body?" Grissom asked.
"One of his teammates: Yuushi Oshitari. He left practice at 7:30 this morning claiming an injury and found the body here. Kid never showed up for practice, so he was probably attacked early this morning." Brass turned towards the door. "I'm going to go start talking to some of the other team members, see if anyone had a grudge."
The entomologist knelt down, his blue eyes observing the body. "He wasn't killed in the stall."
"What makes you say that?" Sara Sidle, Grissom's fellow investigator, asked. She crouched next to him, her knees brushing against his. Grissom noticed the contact, raising an eyebrow.
"Position of the body. He was thrown into this corner to keep him out of sight."
"Like a piece of trash," Sara muttered, lips tightening in anger. She was fifteen years Grissom's junior, but one of his most trusted investigators in his lab..
Grissom took out his mag-light, running its beam over the victim's neck and highlighting the thin, solid ring of a purple bruise there. "Looks like he was strangled with some sort of wire. Any sign of a murder weapon?"
Sara scanned the stall. "Doesn't appear so, but what's in his hand?"
Grissom followed her eyeline to the hand closest to him to see the fingers curled around what appeared to be a piece of dark blue cloth. He photographed the position, then pried the fingers loose revealing a wristband with a set of Japanese characters stitched in white. "Seishun Gakuen," Grissom stated.
"Subtitles?" Sara asked.
"Youth Academy. Name of his school, perhaps?" Grissom sealed the item in a plastic bag.
"Or his killer's school."
"Or both." He examined the kid's hands and arms. "No bruises or skin under the fingernails. There wasn't much of a struggle." After a few more seconds of observation he said, "Call it."
Sara took a moment to think. "Well, victim was in the locker room alone for an early practice. Killer surprised him from behind, strangled him, then dumped the body in the stall before taking off."
"And
the wristband?"
"The kid pulled it off of his attacker during
the struggle."
"…or the killer left it to prove the better school."
"Let's see who's missing a wristband."
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"Ore-sama demands his cell phone immediately!" shouted a red-faced boy in Brass's face. Brass appeared half amused and half puzzled by the blend of Japanese and English.
"Atobe," stated a calmer boy in a baseball cap from the sofa.
"What?"
"Urusee-yo."
Whatever that meant, it clearly upset the shouting boy, who abandoned Brass to yell at his teammate. "He told him to shut up," Grissom translated as the two investigators approached the police captain.
"I see how well that's working," Brass commented as the two tennis players continued the argument, one shouting, the other quietly muttering comebacks. The investigators stepped out of earshot of the feud.
"So, what do we know about this … tournament?" Sara asked.
"Goodwill games," Brass answered. "Japan's top eight college tennis stars touring the country to play against the U.S.'s top college tennis stars. Four universities represented."
"How many players from Seishun Academy?" Grissom asked.
"Three," Brass replied without questioning how Grissom knew one of the schools. "Including the vic. And one of the coaches would make four." Brass pointed to two players huddled on the couch opposite the shouting match. "Those two over there." Brass glanced at his notes, frowning at the names before slowly sounding out, "Ee-ji Ki-ku-ma-ru and Sai-you-su-ke Fuji." One of them, the one Brass identified as Fuji, was whispering soothingly to the other, a red-haired boy who looked like he'd recently finished crying. All of the players milling about the room were dressed in the same red and white warm-ups that the victim had been found in.
Sara turned to the captain. "And how many from other schools?"
"You're really going to make me pronounce the rest of these names?"
Grissom took the paper from the captain. With perfect pronunciation, the CSI recited, "Five more players. Kiyosumi Sengoku, Akaya Kirihara, Genichiroh Sanada, Yuushi Oshitari, and Keigo Atobe. And that last one is pronounced Syusuke -- Shi-yu-su-ke"
"Show off," Brass muttered.
Meanwhile, the shouting boy, whom Brass identified as Atobe, continued ranting at his teammate, now slipping between English and Japanese at an alarming rate. "Ore-sama does not expect a peasant like you to understand the importance of personal security! Ore-sama would not be surprised if someone from your peasant school was involved in a crime such as this!"
Another boy, this one with curly black hair, leapt between them at this point, shouting something threatening in Japanese that made Atobe take a few steps back before snapping back, "Ore-sama will not waste his breath on common delinquents like you!"
"What does 'ore-sama' mean?" Sara whispered to her colleague.
Grissom pondered the word for a moment. "It's hard to translate. Loosely speaking it'd be something like 'the lord that is me.'"
"You've got to be kidding," Brass grumbled, "The kid's like 20 years old."
"Akaya," the first boy said. The name appeared to be something of an order that caused the shorter tennis player to sit down in a huff. Atobe, apparently having enough of that argument, turned back to yell at Brass.
"As ore-sama was saying before he was so rudely interrupted, ore-sama demands to be able to contact his father. And what sort of security precautions are you people taking anyway? The killer could be anywhere and you …"
Grissom tapped the open-mouthed Brass on the shoulder. "We're going to go investigate the vic's room. Catherine and Greg are on their way to help you collect statements. Try not to offend his lordship in the meantime." Atobe did not appear to be listening to a word the CSI's said, continuing his rant.
Brass rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'll make sure ory-sama is taken care of."
"O-re-sama believes you mispronounced that," Grissom deadpanned. He and Sara slipped away towards the elevator, the sounds of the young tennis players' argument receding behind them.
"Egos seem to be developing younger and younger these days," Sara sighed as she hit the up button.
"If he is who I think he is, he could certainly justify it to himself," Grissom said. "I seem to remember an Atobe family that was something like the 5th richest in Asia. International trade."
"And you know this how?"
"I spent a month there studying the mating habits of Kabuto beetles. They were in the news a lot -- the family, not the beetles. Tabloids, mostly."
The elevator doors opened and the two stepped inside. "At least you don't start referring to yourself as grand high master of entomology."
"Ore-sama doesn't need to remind people of his vast knowledge," Grissom replied, leaning over Sara's shoulder to hit the fourth floor button. He didn't lean back completely once he'd finished, allowing her shoulder to rest against his. Sara permitted herself a small smile as the doors closed on them.
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Kikumaru had finally gotten himself to stop crying about ten minutes ago. Now that the initial shock had worn off, he found himself numbly pondering exactly what kind of a person could do something like this to a kid like Ryoma. He had no enemies that Eiji had been aware of, at least no more than tennis rivals. But they all had rivals. He refused to believe that someone in the tennis club could be responsible for something like this.
"Ne, Eiji, can I ask you a favor?" Fuji whispered quietly as the two waited for Atobe to stop yelling at the police captain.
"Huh? What?"
"Make sure you tell them I was in our room last night." Fuji's eyes had an uncommon sense of urgency to them.
Eiji tilted his head. Fuji usually snuck out after hours for one reason or another, but surely no one would suspect him. Fuji never hurt anyone. Well, except that guy from St. Rudolph's after he picked on Fuji's brother. And that senior that injured Tezuka's arm. And Kirihara after he nearly shattered Ryoma's knee cap during that practice match. But Fuji always had a good reason, and he always used tennis.
"Eiji?"
"Huh? Oh, of course Fuji. I mean, as long as you're not in trouble or anything."
"Of course not," Fuji laughed, patting Eiji on the shoulder, "I just don't want to make this situation more complicated then it already is. We'll just let the police do their jobs."
Eiji nodded. He and Fuji had been friends since middle school, and Fuji had never gotten him in trouble before. In fact, Fuji was usually the person to get him out of trouble. If his friend needed his help, Eiji trusted him enough to give it…
… even if the request was a little unsettling under the circumstances.