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A/N: In the universe of Punishable Puns, a future fic telling the story of Kaidoh and Amane's son Yoshirou. Each year gets exactly 100 words.


Years of Yoshirou


Yoshirou first went running with his parents before he was even old enough to crawl. Of course, this was done safely carried on his Papa's back, sleeping peacefully with his tiny bandana-clad head rested against the muscular back, a pacifier stuck firmly into his mouth. He even had tiny shorts just like his Papa's.

Their various relatives and family friends tended to make fun of this, saying little Yoshirou would learn to run before he even learnt to walk. His parents ignored this, confident he would learn both all in due time.

First of all, though, he learnt to swim.


When Yoshirou was one, he already had a kitten of his own. Of course he couldn't really take care of her, but he treated her gently and carefully unlike almost any kid his age. His proud fathers took this as a clear sign he had a natural talent for caring for animals.

It would have been a wonder if he hadn't, growing up as he did, surrounded by animals from his birth. This was, to him, the most natural way of life.

His parents were still arguing with his grandparents whether 'meow' could be counted as a proper first word.


When Yoshirou turned two, he received his first proper tennis racquet. It was a gift from Ojii, carefully hand-crafter to fit perfectly into his little hands. Seeing him waving it around with glee his parents smiled, glad he would apparently follow in their footsteps.

The first time Yoshirou tried playing, he fell down each time he tried to return the ball and didn't get it over the net even once. As he still pushed himself up and demanded with a big grin, "Play more, play more!" his Papa and Daddy concluded with no little relief he hadn't been entirely discouraged.


On his third birthday, Yoshirou's new racquet was a little bigger, he fell over a little less, and got a little more balls over the net. He also insisted he wanted to start running, too, and even if he couldn't run very far yet, he started to improve quite fast.

His Daddy managed to convince his Papa there was no point in teaching him the Snake before he had mastered the normal straight shot. In return Papa convinced his Daddy that if Daddy looked better without hair wax, their three-year-old definitely didn't need it.

All in all, Yoshirou was learning.


"Papa! Daddy!" A cheerful voice called out to them. "Listen to me, listen to me!"

"What is it, Yoshi-chan?" his Daddy asked happily, reaching out his arms to take the four-year-old boy into his lap. "Did you have something to tell us?"

"When will we go see great-grandpa?" The grin on the boy's face told them there was more to come. "I want to see the sea!"

"That's my boy!" Daddy laughed, patting him happily on the head.

"Heavens spare me," Papa muttered. "Two jokers in the family."

Yoshirou and Daddy smiled. "You love us anyway," they said in unison.


By the time he was five, Yoshirou could already beat an average adult in tennis as long as it didn't come down to strength. Not that he was lacking in that, having inherited is Daddy's power, but still, a five-year-old was always weaker than an adult no matter how strong he was. This frustrated Yoshirou, who couldn't wait to hit puberty and start gaining muscle mass.

Until then, he could only take satisfaction in the fact that no average adult could play at the pace he could for two hours straight and walk out of the courts on their own.


Around the time Yoshirou turned six, his parents had to face the question of his schooling. His Daddy's school was out of the question because they didn't want to move from Tokyo. When Yoshirou's opinion was asked, he told them he'd be fine with any school with a good tennis club.

Of course, relatives and friends all offered their own suggestions. Many of them were overjoyed when they heard Yoshirou would be enrolled to his Papa's old elementary school.

The look on Momoshiro's face when he saw Yoshirou in Hyoutei's uniform instead of Seigaku's, like he had expected, was priceless.


While the offsprings of his parents' old friends from other schools were spread far and wide, the children of the old Hyoutei players tended to follow in their parents' footsteps. Thus it was no surprise that Yoshirou's class contained people like Atobe Daiki and Oshitari Yasu. By the time Yoshirou was seven, his parents were quite used to the fact most of his classmates coming to play would arrive in a limo.

Given their parents' ambitions, it was also little surprise that the one game the children all loved most was tennis.

Daiki-kun preferring doubles, though, was indeed somewhat surprising.


Both of Yoshirou's parents had liked tennis from an early age but had not really participated in any tournaments before middle school. Thus they were if not surprised then at least not expecting Yoshirou to gain something of a reputation in Hyoutei's elementary school tennis team. To see such strength and stamina in an eight-year-old, his coach told them, was truly a rare treat. And the special shots! And to imagine there were so many others like him in the same class!

As the team advanced in tournaments, most players' family names were familiar. Yoshirou played doubles with Atobe Daiki.


As his parents' old teammates came over for visits, they usually brought their own kids along to play with Yoshirou. Most of them were surprised on their first visit as the "snobby rich kid" turned out to be an open, social boy who loved telling jokes and having fun.

The prejudice was somewhat absurd anyway, Kaoru-papa pointed out, considering that none of the other kids were exactly poor, either. Just because Yoshirou attended Hyoutei didn't make him any more of a rich kid.

Eiji-oji-chan pointed out that none of the other kids were invited to Atobe Daiki's ninth birthday party.


Yoshirou's parents weren't sure what to think of their son's friendship with Atobe Keigo's one and only heir. Kaoru-papa sometimes muttered that he didn't want to see Yoshirou following Daiki around saying nothing but "usu" all the time, to which Hikaru-daddy responded with his claim that not even an Atobe could make Yoshirou shut up for longer than a minute.

Yoshirou mentioned that if "usu" would let him marry the amount of money Munehiro-oji-chan had, it was worth consideration.

Once Kaoru-papa calmed down, they all agreed it had been the worst joke of all times and should not be repeated.


Yoshirou was no more than eleven as he first began to question his sexuality. Long discussions with his parents and then Hazue-oji-san and Aoi-oji-chan brought him to the conclusion that he might actually like girls. The adults all reminded him this was perfectly normal and his preference might still change with time.

Some time later Yoshirou announced he was most likely bi. This announcement was happily accepted by his whole family.

Some might have felt somewhat differently if they'd known exactly how big a part Atobe Daiki's dissatisfied pout and habit of tossing his hair around played in this conclusion.


In a way Yoshirou's parents had always half-expected he would follow his Papa so far that he would transfer to Seigaku after elementary school. Once the time came, though, Yoshirou refused adamantly, intent on following his classmates into Hyoutei's middle school and becoming a regular. His parents never disagreed, respecting his choice.

Atobe Daiki was the first person in the school's history to become the captain of Hyoutei's tennis club on his first year, having defeated the former captain humiliatingly. Following his example six out of the eight regulars were soon first-years.

Yoshirou became the vice-captain and Daiki's doubles partner.


Given that they had easily made it to victory of the Nationals the year before, nobody was surprised to see Hyoutei in the finals again. Their old rival Seigaku, dropped humiliatingly in Kantou the previous year due to the injuries of their strongest players, was now against them. Most of the Seigaku regulars were children of the Amanes' family friends.

Yoshirou and Daiki took the victory of Doubles One from Kikumaru Minoru and Inui Yuuma after a close struggle. Pouting, Minoru-kun accused Yoshirou of "disloyalty to his roots".

Pointing out that one of Yuuma-kun's parents had attended Rikkaidai silenced him.


By the time they were in their third year of middle school, nobody doubted Daiki and Yoshirou's capability of leading their team to their third straight Nationals title. Kaoru-papa and Hikaru-daddy were extremely proud of their son who displayed a perfect combination of the strengths of his fathers, an excellent singles player and even better at doubles.

They were so proud, even, that they allowed old prejudices to come to rest when Yoshirou announced that if it were up to him, Daiki and he would play doubles together forever and ever, and neither Daiki nor his fathers seemed to disagree.