Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. Konomi Takeshi does. I'm merely playing with them for the moment.
A/N: Ever since the 1st of December, I have been posting one fic/update a day over at my LJ, lumelle. These updates have been in series of five fics sharing a theme.
The second series of five are set in a future RyoDan universe loosely based on the LJ-based RPG TeniCamp.
This fic takes place in their last year of middle school when they're still at the Camp -- a boarding school on Hokkaido designed specifically to train future tennis professionals.
Amazement
"You're still playing with that thing?" Ryoma raised his eyebrows as he walked into the room his boyfriend shared with Yukimura. Dan was sitting at the window, a small, precisely cut piece of clear glass held in his hand. Dan was fiddling with the small object, turning it this way and that in his hand.
"Why wouldn't I?" Dan asked, blinking at him in apparent confusion. "It's fascinating, isn't it?" He held the perfectly shaped prism up for inspection. Ryoma gave it hardly a glance; he'd seen it more than often enough in the last few days. It had been neat enough when Dan first showed it to him, but he'd gotten quite enough excitement out of it already.
"What's fascinating is how you still have the patience to fiddle with it. I'd have thought you'd run out of interest ages ago." Ryoma flopped down on Dan's bed. It wasn't bad, but it would've been better with Dan in it.
"You simply have no sense of wonder, Ryoma-kun." Dan huffed, though he didn't appear to be actually annoyed. His eyes were still on the prism and the way it refracted light. "Don't you think it's amazing how it can even break light apart?"
"I simply don't see the appeal of playing with a bit of glass for hours on end. But if it makes you happy, by all means, do carry on." Dan looked kinda cute when he was concentrating on something like this, Ryoma noted. That little focused frown between his brows, the intent gaze in his eyes, the way he worried his lower lips just so as he turned the prism around, trying to make it catch light in that precisely right way... well. It rather reminded him of why he was dating the guy in the first place. As far as data players went, Dan was pretty much the cutest there was.
As he lay watching, Dan got up from where he had been sitting, going over to his desk. After some rummaging through the assorted notebooks and other papers he had all mixed up on the desk, he finally took out a drawing pad. Ryoma recognized that drawing pad; it was the very same one Dan had often used for drawing him. Now turning to a clean page, Dan moved to the window once again, the white pad of paper in one hand and the prism in the other.
Ryoma pushed himself up to sit on the bed to see better just what Dan was up to. As he watched, Dan moved the prism around in the sunlight coming in through the window, seeking the right position until finally, he managed to find it. The light caught in the prism refracted on the other side, casting a brilliant rainbow of colour on the white paper.
"Look at this, Ryoma-kun!" Dan beamed, his eyes locked on the neatly arranged colours. It was a pretty little rainbow, yes, but hardly worth quite that much of a fuss. "Isn't it just amazing?"
"...Yeah," Ryoma replied, his eyes straying from the proffered spectre to the wide chocolate eyes that shone brightly with amazement, to the excited, almost childish smile on Dan's face as he admired the blending colours. "Yes, it really is amazing."