More Than Just Valentines Day
By Shangrila
Start Date: Thursday Feb 3, 2007
Date Posted : Wednesday Feb 14, 2007
Pairing: Silver Pair! In honor Ohtori Choutarou's birthday today, who's birthday I also happen to share.
Notes: Hmm, what can I say? I've been hopelessly drawn in to the alluring and sexy fandom of Prince of Tennis. Even though Fuji's my favorite character, Brand New Days, a site dedicated to the Silver Pair inspired me to write this. There is one author, Monnie from Brand New Days, I hope he/she is reading this, it was their fanfics that really made me go "wow, I'm going to keep on writing until I can write like that". Enjoy this chapter, I'll have more up soon!
Story is also dedicated to my friend Shino Watabe, a friend of mine who introduced Prince of Tennis to me 5 years ago. To which I just laughed and called a manga about tennis stupid, I so take back my words now. Good luck on your way to becoming a voice actor!
Disclaimer: In my sick and twisted TeniPuri world, Fuji would be my sex slave. Mwuahaha. Sadly, that's not happening. Prince of Tennis belongs to Takeshi Konomi, may he and the rest of the crew get the OVA out as soon as possible.
It was the beginning of February and it was cold. The skies darkened too early and the wind bit fiercely into exposed flesh. These conditions should have deterred even the most willing and hard working from playing tennis, let alone outside. Except we're talking about the Hyoutei Tennis Club here, with over 200 cut-throat members all aiming for the Regulars spot, everyone was subjected to the harsh training outside.
Despite the bitter cold and the fact that he could not feel anything below his hips, Shishido Ryou was having the time of his life. How can one be so happy when they are slowly being turned into human icicles one may ask? His gaze was directed onto his usual doubles partner, Ohtori Choutarou who was playing a singles match against the resident tensai, Oshitari Yuushi.
Every time Ohtori served his famous Scud Serve, every time he mumbled his famous line "one shot to the soul", his Hyoutei tennis polo would rise up and reveal his creamy white abs. Shishido's eyes would then be automatically drawn to the image of a well defined six pack tightening before his arm would follow through with the serve and that gorgeous piece of flesh would once again be covered.
Shishido really appreciated the winter weather. The coldness made Ohtori's cheeks flush red like someone had just molested him. Damn, molesting Ohtori sounds like a great idea right now, too bad Ohtori himself would probably mind. Shishido could picture it already, the blush, then stammering some excuse and finally running away. There would probably be some awkward interactions for a couple days before it got cleared up and it would definitely affect their tennis game too. Atobe wouldn't like that. Ohtori wouldn't like that.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
Shishido didn't think that naïve Ohtori didn't swing that way. Or in his experience, Ohtori has never shown anything more than the friendly attitude towards anyone, boy or girl. All the fangirls and even some fanboys have all been gently but firmly rejected. Shishido doesn't know what he'd do if in the near future, that also happened to him.
Damn.
This is extremely bad news for Shishido. He knew that he was crazy in love with his doubles partner, the friend who risked his own Regulars spot to help Shishido get back on the team, his Ohtori Choutarou. Yes, his Choutarou. That shouldn't right.
Shishido had a crush on his kohai, and sometimes, it seems like it's even deeper than a crush. It would be real love, not that he would know. This is the first time he had felt something deep for another human being. Like school, and like tennis, when Shishido was determined to get something, he usually got it through hard work and perseverance. Right now, Shishido wasn't going to settle for anything less than being Choutarou's boyfriend.
Today is the beginning of Feburary, the month of love. More importantly, it also meant that Valentine's Day is in exactly two weeks. And even more important than Valentine's Day, February 14th also happened to be Ohtori's birthday. Shishido's eyes gleamed, two weeks to make Ohtori his.
After practice that day, most people had finished changing. In the Regular's clubhouse, the only people left was Ohtori, Oshitari and his doubles partner Mukahi Gakuto and Shishido himself. He frowned, bad time to start on his plan. He didn't have to worry about Oshitari since being the genius he is, he probably figured out that Shishido liked Ohtori already, it was Mukahi and his big mouth that he had to watch out for. Oh well, hope for the best, here goes nothing.
Shishido took a deep breath in, steeled himself and opened his mouth. " Hey Choutarou, wanna go grab a hot chocolate or something?"
He heard a gag behind him that sounded suspiciously like Mukahi, but ignored it and shifted his focus back to the team mate that made just turned around.
"Huh?" Ohtori turned around, halfway into changing gout of his soaked tennis shirt into a plain light green polo. Hmm, that shirt really blends nicely with his silver hair. "Oh I'm sorry Shishido-sempai; I have to work on a music project with people in my class." With a flash of a soft apologetic smile, Shishido could only nod.
"Oh no, that's fine. Go ahead, some other time maybe." Damn. Only thirteen more days left to make his move. Shishido sighed and left the clubhouse to find Oshitari and Mukahi outside with smirks on their faces. This does not bode well.
"We know what or rather who you want" drawled the tensai in his kansai dialect as if mocking him.
Mukahi however was jumping up and down gleefully shouting" Shishido loves Ohtoi! Shishido loves- Eep!" and was abruptly cut off when Shishido fiercely slammed his hand in front of his mouth.
"Shut up! Ohtori's still in there! Besides, he's still too dense to figure out that his sempai might like him." The last part was said almost bitterly and Shishido let his gaze drop, feeling like an idiot.
He looked up when he felt Oshitari and Gakuto each take his arm and drag him away. Their cheerful response of "Come on, we'll help." just made him think, Damn I'm screwed.
He opted for a stare that he hoped looked serious, "I'm not quite sure if I can trust something this important to you Mukahi."
The latter just gave Shishido his best wounded animal look and continued dragging him out the school gate. "Yuushi's a tensai, he'll help too. Besides, I think you and little Ohtori-kun will be cute together."
After they settled in the shadowy back corner of a well-known patisserie located in the general vicinity of the school, the interrogation began.
"How long have you liked him?"
"When do you plan on telling him?"
"Does he like you back at all?"
"Since he's bigger than you, does that make you the uke?"
"Gakuto!" Now it was Shishido who was blushing red as a tomato.
Yuushi pushed his glasses up and said slowly" When do you want him by?"
Shishido's eyebrows shot up, and frowned. "Don't say it like that. You make him sound like a dirty toy, like Mukahi here. All I want is for him to like me back. I don't want him for the sex like you two."
Gakuto's jaw dropped. "You actually sound like a decent person!"
This earned him a scowl from Shishido.
Oshitari frowned, "let's get back on track here. Ohtori-kun is the type of person who will remain oblivious to your feelings unless you tell him straight out that you like him."
"I know! But what if he is too surprised? What if he never thought about males that way? Then I'll freak him out and probably make him hate me and avoid me for the rest of our life. Then it wouldn't even matter anymore because Atobe-buchou would kill me for wrecking our doubles coordination." The crease in Shishdio's forehead increased.
Oshitari continued to look amused. "Then make him think about it. Drop off hints that you swing that way. Put some male erotica magazines in his locker. That'll get the point across straight enough."
Mukahi who had been noisily slurping his milkshake at that point stopped and froze, his eyes dilating very wide.
Following his gaze, Shishido met a sight that felt as if someone had just sucked all the air out of his lungs.
A tall, silvered haired boy just walked into through door, unmistakably Ohtori Choutarou. But what was surprising was the tall, rather pretty girl that was hanging off his arm.
"Ohtori himself was wary, he felt eyes on him as soon as he entered the busy café. Having a girl who was cheerfully touching him did not really help. "Why are we here again?"
The girl in fact was a close friend of his, Morino Haruhi so he didn't mind the touching, at least not too much. "Because I spent all last week finishing our music project and I deserve osme reward." She pouted and looked up at him, stretching her neck since he was so much taller.
There really was nothing Ohtori would say to that. She did manage to finish the whole music project by herself. But it wasn't his fault that he didn't do much. He was just so busy with tennis practice and couldn't find time to get together with her. Now he really felt bad. He wasn't the type of guy who would just let his partner do all the work. "I'm so sorry, I thought we could work on it today and I never expected for you to finish it. I know we were supposed to meet on Tuesday, but practice ran late and Atobe-buchou wouldn't let us leave…" Ohtori stammered.
"It's ok, really. I didn't mind doing the work. My workload this week was pretty light anyways." Haruhi just gave him a soft smile and Ohtori couldn't help but smile back at her.
A waiter approached them, "What would you two like today? We have a Valentines special, an apple pie topped with strawberry, watermelon and cherry ice cream accompanied with two mugs of white hot chocolates."
"Haruhi flashed him another smile with a wicked glint in her eyes that Ohtori missed, "I don't mind that, do you?"
To that he could only nod.
"So let's talk. With my student council meetings, planning the upcoming school fair and your tennis practices; we haven't really had the time lately."
Unknown to everyone else, Haruhi and Choutarou were actually close friends. The classic "parents know each other so they were pushed together at as many functions as possible" and often found themselves babysat together, gone to etiquette school together and attended the same fancy prep school together. They even applied to Hyoutei Gakuen together and celebrated getting in together. But with each other in different classes during the first year, and participating in different clubs the second year, meeting during school had became rare and passing.
"Oh you know, ever since I made Regulars, tennis has kept me pretty busy. Captain Atobe's been giving us killer training sessions ever since we lost to Seigaku at Kanto. And we have Nationals coming too, there's tons of awesome players there." There was a gleam in Ohtori's eyes whenever he talked about tennis.
Haruhi frowned. "You should tell that captain of yours to cut you some slack. You did win your game at Kanto."
Choutarou just laughed. "You don't know Atobe Buchou, he's bound for revenge on Seigaku since we lost to them. And yes, even though Shishido-sempain and I won, the team overall didn't do as well as we did."
"Speaking of Shishido-san, he's hot. Used to be really sexy with all that long hair, now he's going for the scruffy bad kid look, really cute." Haruhi commented casually, looking closely at Choutarou to see his reaction.
To her delight, Choutarou did not disappoint. As slow warm blush had spread across his cheeks and now looked really embarrassed. "Haruhi-chan!"
Thank god, the arrival of their food interrupted anymore conversation downt that path. All his discomfort had been put away to make room for the food. But what she had said kind of did hit Ohtori. Oh well, time to just enjoy pastries and hot chocolate.
However, not all was well on Shishido's side. "What is he doing here! With a girl too! He told me he had to work on a music project. Oh my god, why did he lie to me? Does he not want me to know that he's spending time with a girl? He doesn't trust me! He has a girlfriend. What do I do now? I can't go out with someone who's already taken. Or they could be engaged too! Ahhhhh, why didn't he tell me about his fiancée?"
"Are you done jumping to conclusions?"
Shishdio did no calm down. " But you saw him! With her!"
"There are lots of reasonable explanations for this situation you know." The tensai did not seem fazed.
"Yah! He could be madly in love with her and not want you to know cause then you would go after with a sharp knife." Mukahi loved teasing Shishido to the point where he almost signed his death wish. If it wasn't for his quick thinking in using Yuushi as a shield, then he would probably have a black eye right now.
"You're really not helping…." Oshitari said dryly.
"Just look! They're looking at each other!" cried Shishido indignantly.
"Of course they're looking at each other, they're holding a conversation. Maintaining eye contact is the polite thing to do. It also might help for the fact that they are sitting across from each other."
"He gave her a smile!"
"Oh I didn't realize that there was a quota on Ohtori-kun's smile and who can receive them." Oshitari sounded like he was having fun with this.
"He's laughing at something she said now. He's happy." How Shishido looked purely horrified.
"Well duh. He probably wouldn't be here with her if they were mortal enemies. Despite Ohtori-kun being the nice guy, he does have his limits. Not to mention, he laughs with you too."
"Yeah…But he's blushing now!" The look in Shishido's eyes at that moment was pure killing intent. And all of it was aimed at the pretty girl sitting across from his Choutarou, laughing with him and making him blush.
As if it wasn't horribly enough, Mukahi just had to point it out that htye got the couple's special. A heart shaped cake with blobs of red ice cream and hot chocolate in matching heart mugs. "Sorry Shishido, looks like you're screwed on this one."
It was decided that nothing more was going to get accomplished by sitting here with a hysterical Shishido and a Mukahi who's just trying to make things worse. With a sigh, Oshitari dragged them out the back exit to not disturb the "happy couple".
"Snap out if Shishido. This doesn't change a thing. Atobe is seen with girls al the time, and everyone knows he's with Seigaku's tensai Fuji Shusuke." Ohshitari said firmly, looking straight into Shishido's eyes.
"Yea, but this is Ohtori, he just doesn't go out with girls. Much less lie to me about it."
Mukahi bounced over. "Don't be selfish, just because he's your doubles partner doesn't mean he's not allowed to go out with other girls for fun."
"Bye he…" Shishido all of a suddenly looked very shy.
"Shishido, you've defied all rules of the universe. You made it back to regulars when you got dropped and nobody has been able to do that in Hyoutei history. You got where you are by trying your hardest. Now you're going to pull yourself together and find a way to get Ohtori-kun to like you back.
Shocked at the ferociousness of Oshitari's words, Shishido could only nod.
As if in a trance, Shishido managed to get on his train, walk him, all the while feeling strangely detached from the world as if a law of nature had been broken. After taking a shower and heating up some leftover udon that he found in the fridge, Shishido went to bed. That night, he dreamed of faeries.
To be continued…
So ends the first chapter, the next part will reveal Shishido's plot to try to get Ohtori to notice/like him. Should be up in a week or two? Should be a three-part.
Reviews will go feed my poor little Fuji bunny. He needs food, so please review. Flames will be used to cook wasabi sushi and chicken curry for Fuji bunny. So please review. XD
Shangrila