Yukimura made a promise to himself to never see the inside of a hospital again.

Illogical perhaps, but considering the events of the past year, he doubts anyone would blame him. Even with that in mind, he doubts he has ever dashed into a hospital as fast as he has now.

The worst thing, though, is hearing it through the grapevine.

Last night, Sanada doesn't return his text. Yukimura shrugs it off, curls up, sleeps. In the morning, it's on the news-the government official and his wife and his father and his son, all in a car crash, none of them surviving and with his son still in the hospital-

(Un)fortunately, the nurses still remember him, and try to ask him how he's been, how he's doing, though he has little time for that. Begging his way into Sanada's room doesn't take much effort (they love him, that much is fortunate), and Yukimura doesn't bother knocking before he's in the room, bag dropped by the door.

He hates hospitals. He hates that they're here in the hospital, that Sanada is in the bed this time-

Yukimura sits down-on the side of the bed, not in the chair next to it. "I tried to call," is all he can manage to say.

Sanada tries to swallow. It doesn't work. Nothing has worked, especially not prayer. He raises his eyes to meet Yukimura's, but somehow even his gaze feels heavy, dragged back down to the floor after a bare second.

There's little he can say. He could say that his phone flew out of his hand when he tried to call for help, before the police arrived, and he'd heard it smash under a passing car's tires.

Except he can't seem to make his voice work any more than he can his eyes.

After a moment so long he hears the clock tick hundreds of seconds away, his voice starts working again, more or less without his permission. "You're here."

It sounds like someone else's voice. Maybe it's the voice of the person who has been answering questions from doctors and paramedics and policemen and a couple reporters who'd muscled their way into his hospital room. At least with Yukimura, he doesn't feel the overwhelming urge to grab him and throw him through the wall. He's pretty sure it's less the fact that it's wrong stopping him, and more the fact that he doesn't want to see that much blood ever again, especially not on the cold white hospital tiles.

"Of course I am." That's a little easier to say, no matter how his voice still catches in his throat. Somehow, it's a lot more difficult dealing with this than it ever was dealing with the possibility of his own death. His own problems are one thing-Sanada's another, the actual finality of death even worse, especially with Sanada's parents.

A slow exhale, and Yukimura gives up, grabs for one of Sanada's hands-carefully avoiding the IV-to squeeze tightly. "I'm sorry I wasn't here earlier." He squeezes tighter still. "They said you're all right." At least there's that.

"Not hurt." They'd called it miraculous. He aches all over, and there's shattered glass in every part of his exposed skin.

The warm hand on his is an anchor, pulling his eyes up with the force of gravity Yukimura always exerts on him. It's enough to let him take what he's pretty sure is his first breath since the truck had run them off the road.

"He was talking about next month." His voice still doesn't sound like his own, but it sounds like it's coming from a live human now, which he supposes is an improvement. "He was going to start taking karate again." Why is he saying things that don't matter?

"Genichirou…" Yukimura gives up again, gives into the urge that he's sure Sanada had felt when their roles were reversed but couldn't act on (wasn't allowed to, not for the first few weeks, and it was agony) and simply curls his legs underneath himself, slides fully onto the bed, and stuffs his face down into the other boy's shoulder as he clings to Sanada's hand. "I'm sorry." Really sorry. I wish i could fix it, I hate it when I can't fix things.

Feeling comes back, and Sanada wishes it hadn't. His throat hurts now instead of feeling numb, and his eyes hurt despite the fact that he's pretty sure he hasn't cried. Yukimura helps him feel like a human again, and Sanada kind of wants to go back.

But Yukimura is here, and that could be worse. Maybe he'll live through this after all. No, of course he will. There's no reason to be melodramatic.

Slowly, he moves voluntarily to wrap an arm around Yukimura's back, pulling him closer than is comfortable with how his bones ache. "Just stay."

Because I'll be gone soon, and I need to hold on to this.

Yukimura doesn't bother nodding. It's understood that of course I'm going to stay, and so he all but streamlines himself against Sanada, to the point that their bodies are plastered together. "… Do you have to be here much longer? If you're fine, then…" He lifts his head, frowning. "Maybe you can leave with me. Maybe you should just stay with my family for awhile." Assuming they'd allow that-or does Sanada have relatives he doesn't know about?

God, I wish I could.

"My brother's on his way. They said I can only leave with family."

No matter that he knows Yukimura, cares about Yukimura, loves Yukimura a dozen times more than anyone he's related to that's still alive. "It'll be hours. You don't have to stay the whole time."

"I'm staying." Yukimura sort of wedges a leg up against Sanada's, throws an arm over his chest, and is pretty sure the only way he could get closer is if he started oozing into Sanada's pores. "I've never met your brother," he murmurs, eyes lidding. "What's he like? Does he live in the same area?"

"Up in Ibaraki." Away from you, away from all our plans, away from the school we were going to rule together. "It's about five hours by six trains."

He doesn't say much about his brother. It doesn't really matter what he's like when he's five hours by six trains from Yukimura Seiichi.

Yukimura is pretty sure that's the most unacceptable thing he's heard since 'you'll never play tennis again.'

"… No. I don't want that." He sounds like a petulant child for sure. "Your brother should just… there has to be some kind of paperwork he can sign so you can stay here. I can talk to my parents. Or if not then, even if it's someone else on the team…"

Usually, Sanada would refuse any help; it's family, it's a time of need, and even if Hiroto hasn't spoken to the rest of his family in three years, they're still family.

Just now, he's having a hard time finding the strength to not want help.

"I…"

It's still hard to ask, or even agree, so Sanada just nods dumbly. "He won't want me to come. He might agree."

"I'll take care of it," Yukimura says, firmly and resolutely, chilled by the fact that someone might not want Sanada around, let alone the fact that he would be hours and hours away. His parents wouldn't even let him on the damned train to go and see him. Yukimura's hold tightens. "I'm not letting you go."

Sanada buries his head in the soft, wavy fall of Yukimura's hair, unfamiliar from this close. He's wanted to have it brushing his face so many times, and it had always seemed so certain that they would get there after Nationals, that after Nationals everything would make more sense, that after Nationals he'd feel Yukimura's hair on his face and lips on his lips and chest against his chest.

But they hadn't won Nationals, and celebrations had had to wait.

And things had never had a chance to get better.

And now, it doesn't feel like anything ever will. "I don't want to leave." You. I don't want to leave you.

"Then you won't," Yukimura lowly insists, and he nudges his face into Sanada's shoulder, then up into his hair. "I'm serious. I'll hide you underneath my bed." The idea sounds childish at best, but if it came down to it… well, Yukimura isn't sure he wouldn't try. He huffs out a shaky breath and noses against Sanada's cheek, irritated. "I won't have a tennis team without you."

"Don't." At this point Sanada isn't sure what hurts more, not being able to play tennis like they'd planned or the thought of Yukimura not playing. (He still can't think about his parents.)

"I played without you, when I had to. You'll do the same for me."

"That wasn't the same and you know it." Yukimura thinks about biting him. It doesn't sound particularly productive at the moment, not when Sanada is already bruised and banged up. "And the thought of you playing for some other school doesn't sound good either, so the only solution is for you to stay here. Obviously."

Sanada wants it to sound possible. He tries to believe there are things like hope.

Slowly, he extends his hand, squeezing Yukimura's. His father had been going to start karate again next month. His mother was thinking about a new client at work that had been worrying her. They'd been so focused, so driven….he can't give them any less than that. "We don't give up. No matter what."

Yukimura thinks, stupidly, about how he hadn't spoken to Sanada for nearly two weeks after their loss in the Nationals. Now, he wants to kick himself, when he was fairly certain he had been in the right before. Two weeks that I could have been around him again, and now there's a chance he's leaving-

Nope. He's just going to hide him underneath his bed. Definitely.

"You're the one that sounds like he's giving up," Yukimura mutters, giving Sanada's hand a firm squeeze in return before without an ounce of concern, he leans his head up to press a kiss to Sanada's lips. "If I hide you underneath my bed, you can't be too gloomy about it."

It's still a surprise that sometimes, Yukimura's lips are against his. A good surprise, but he always has to mentally re-calibrate to remember that yes, kissing Yukimura isn't just a thing he fantasizes about, but a thing that sometimes happens. "Trying to make the best of a situation isn't giving up," he says quietly. "Your parents would be in trouble."

"Well, we're going to try and do it in a way that no one gets in trouble," Yukimura reminds Sanada as he peers up at him. "But 'making the best' of something isn't beating it. I'd much rather conquer a situation, especially one like this."

"It's not a sickness," Sanada says, a little harshly. "You can't conquer it. They're dead."

"… I'm talking about what I can fix," Yukimura stiffly retorts, though his tone is sobered. "And that's keeping you here. That's all I can do."

Sanada closes his eyes, leaning down into Yukimura. "Don't let them say anything," he says quietly. The idea of it, of walking onto the tennis court and having everyone looking at him, coming up to offer condolences, feeding him empty platitudes-he can't think of anything worse. "If I get to stay."

"I'll make them run until they throw up if they do," Yukimura promises, lifting his hands to wrap them both up into Sanada's hair, pulling his face back down into the crook of his neck.

He's not crying. He's not, because that's the sort of thing a child does, not a grown man of not-quite-15.

He thinks about asking how Yukimura handled it, how he made it through every day of thinking he was going to die, but that's not the same. He knows. He knows Yukimura fought, was determined.

If there was anything he could fight, Sanada might feel like he could win.

Yukimura refuses to accept defeat.

It's second nature to him to be that way. It's why he doesn't hesitate, the moment he finally untangles himself from Sanada, to fish out his phone and excuse him long enough to speak to his parents.

Just because they say no, let him be with his actual family doesn't mean he's going to listen.

Even still, Yukimura doesn't know what to do when Sanada's brother actually comes hours later (hours past when he said he would, at that), and he certainly doesn't know what to do when the sight of Sanada's back is the last thing he sees.

He really doesn't like not knowing what to do. (Being helpless is definitely the worst thing, far worse than losing).

It's only a week before the first day of high school, and so Yukimura refuses to lose focus, no matter how everything they had planned is in tatters. With that in mind, he throws his full focus into what he can do-grab hold of the captaincy of the tennis club, and carve out the empire they should have had. No-will have, once he figures this out.

Yukimura is told his personality suffers because of it, even only a week into school. That's fine. Maybe then, there will be much more enthusiasm regarding retrieving Sanada, and promptly.

Sanada isn't quite prepared for the look of his brother's apartment, up in rural Ibaraki. When he'd told Yukimura that Hiroto lived up North, he still hadn't quite planned for all the rice fields and apple orchards, and the sight of old women with wheelbarows being a more common sight than a building with more than three stories.

The apartment itself is small in the way only rural apartments are, on the ground floor with unnecessarily high ceilings and ample, free places to park his car outside, but a bathroom where he could easily touch all four walls at the same time without trying very hard. The kitchen is a single gas burner on top of a mini fridge, and a sink, all in the hallway he has to turn sideways to walk through. Hiroto says it's good to have him, because he can use the top shelves to store more of his beer.

There's a bedroom with a single futon on the floor, and Hiroto promises they'll get him a futon soon. He sleeps on the floor the first night, and the cold comes up from the ground, chilling him until he has to take a hot shower to unthaw. The hot water runs out after six minutes, and Hiroto slaps him upside the head for using it all.

Hiroto has work in the morning, but he doesn't go. He brings home a girl instead, and kicks Sanada out, telling him to go explore, go make friends. He doesn't hand over a key, and doesn't tell him when he can come home. Sanada hears the lock click shut behind him when he leaves.

"Captain Yukimura," Marui says with all the seriousness one can muster with a mouthful of bubblegum just asking to be blown and popped, "is off the deep end."

He gets a smack on the back of his head for that-light, not nearly as potent as anything that Sanada himself would deal out, and Yukimura pretends, for once, not to hear him or any of the other club's mutterings. He's too distracted (too stressed, too annoyed by upperclassmen that try to challenge him for a minute [he crushes them], too angry with his parents and their inability to see how bad this is).

Sanada is sending him poetry. Poetry. That's how bad it is. Of course, he makes it worse by sending back refusals to toss it all in the river as Sanada requests.

When he asks for the fiftieth time to visit Sanada in Ibaraki and they refuse (he isn't going to collapse, he's just fine now, what do they know about how hard he's worked to be better again when it felt like Sanada was at his side during the hospital more than they were), Yukimura decides to take matters into his own hands.

"Who here is the same height as me?"

It takes some finagling, but someone worthy is chosen, a wig (sort of laughingly) procured, and it doesn't take much effort to shove the slightly worried sub-regular into his bedroom while his parents are away. "It's fine," Yukimura insists, all smiles that don't go to his eyes. "I'll be back tonight before they're even home." Maybe. It's worth getting in trouble for, if he isn't.

He drags Jackal and Marui along, which is for the best in the event something does go wrong (nothing will, he'll make sure of it, and it isn't like either of them can lead practice in his absence like Yanagi or Yagyuu can). The train ride is nearly unbearable, and he almost understands why his parents didn't want him to go. It's fine, though. It's Sanada, and he's going to go where Sanada is even if he can't bring Sanada back to him (yet).

"Wow," Marui remarks, as the last train rolls to a stop at its final destination. "This is definitely the middle of nowhere."

Yukimura levels a stare at him. "Do make sure not to remind Sanada of that." Marui winces, point taken, and Yukimura decides to pretend he didn't bring any sort of protective detail along as he steps off the train, tennis bag thrown over one shoulder.

Sanada stays late after school every day. He has to, if he's going to turn the two singles players he's managed to locate from P.E. class into actual tennis players. They have no doubles, but there are four boys who are impressed enough with the new transfer student from Tokyo that they'll agree to stand there looking stupid during doubles matches. If he can just bring Mitzunari and Kaede up to a passable standard and they have absurdly good luck, they might get to prefecturals. He can't bear not to see Yukimura there, at least.

Hiroto doesn't let him visit Tokyo. He doesn't care, but there's no money for trips when it's all been spent on beer and cigarettes, when he finds out Hiroto's already blown through his entire inheritance by using it in place of a paycheck.

Rural schools don't care if the students have after school jobs, something prohibited at the good schools in Kanagawa. Sanada starts picking cabbages in the field after tennis practice. The owner, Sato-san, says he's never met a more industrious boy.

It takes Hiroto almost two weeks to find where Sanada hides his meager paycheck. It disappears. Sanada changes his hiding place, not an easy thing to do in such a small apartment. It disappears again. After two months, he digs a hole at nighttime, in Sato-san's field. Neither he nor Hiroto ever mention it again.

He leaves each morning at six am, when Hiroto comes home from the town's only "snack bar," the closest thing they have to a hostess club. He uses the time to run twelve kilometers to school instead of waiting for the bus. It keeps him toned, and keeps him focused. He showers at the school gym, and changes into his uniform with enough time to spare that he locks himself in the calligraphy classroom for half an hour. The teachers love him, and don't mind that he uses all the ink and paper, carefully smoothing his thoughts into elegant strokes of the brush.

They're never perfect, his ruminations on the trees outside his window. They all turn into Yukimura somehow.

He sends them, because there's a hole inside him where someone he loves used to be. He begs Yukimura to throw them in the river, because they aren't perfect.

Not yet.

"This is his school?"

Yukimura nearly snaps at Marui to start running laps around it right then and there. The tension from that urge is palpable, and Marui doesn't say anything again, not even when Yukimura lets himself onto the grounds and immediately finds the tennis courts like it's his sixth sense-if one can even call the 'courts' courts, and the 'club' is… well…

"Sanada." It's sort of the only greeting Yukimura need offer.

Sanada's racket slips a few inches, almost hitting the ground before he catches it. His body goes stiff, breath catching, and only someone who knows him like Yukimura would be able to tell.

"Ten laps." His voice is brusque, businesslike, but even the doubles players don't argue. Maybe it's the look on his face. The six other players take off around the court, and Sanada turns very slowly to confirm what he knows, what he's certain of with every pound of his heart.

"Yukimura."

That's at least acceptable, and he isn't whispering, Seiichi, and running forward to bury his face in Yukimura's neck.

Except he is taking a few strides forward, and his arms are around Yukimura's slim form, and he's pretty sure he is murmuring, "Seiichi," into Yukimura's neck, and Yukimura's feet are probably not touching the ground.

All of the tension from the hours and hours of the train and days and weeks without dissolves in an instant, and Yukimura shudders out a breath, his bag slinking off his shoulder with a thump and his arms tossed around Sanada's neck for a long, firm squeeze. "Genichirou," he murmurs, and wiggles his toes in his shoes that definitely are hovering. "You got taller. Stop that."

Sanada takes the stop that as a literal command, and gently sets his captain (current, not former, no matter what school he's playing for) on the ground. He finally tears his eyes away, and gives Marui and Jackal a grateful nod. "Thanks."

"Course." Jackal nods back, and they exchange a firm hand grip.

Sanada cares enough to give Marui a clap on the shoulder, then turns back to Yukimura, drawn there as if by an unstoppable force. He doesn't bother to say I missed you, because that's sort of pathetic and his poems have said that, besides. "How long will you stay?"

"We're gonna go eat things," Marui puts in with a firm nod, saluting Sanada once before grabbing Jackal's arm and praying to god that his phone gets enough reception to let some of his food-finding apps work.

Yukimura thusly beams up at Sanada, looking entirely too proud of himself. "How long am I allowed to stay?"

"Food is that way," Sanada says, not looking away from Yukimura (as if he could) when he waves towards a convenience store a block or so away from the school. Then he takes Yukimura's hand, tugging him into the empty sports shed by the court, rusty and dusty like they'd never have allowed at Rikkai.

He's not sure when he snaps, lifting Yukimura again and sealing their lips together, pressing the clean white back of Yukimura's jacket against a smudged, aged wooden door that keeps trying to drop cobwebs on both of them.

A low, eager groan is all Yukimura offers when his hands claw up the back of Sanada's neck, cheerfully knocking his hat off to better fist his fingers into his hair. "Missed you," he mumbles, really not minding that Sanada can lift him as easily as a rag doll, or that he's going to be smudged and mussed and you know, maybe that's for the best when Sanada kisses him like he's hungry and there's not much else he can do but do the same right back.

"Missed you." It's a groaned admission, torn from Sanada's chest, and he forgets to be nervous. Yukimura usually makes him nervous when they start kissing, or when he sidles closer with a look in his eyes like he wants something. Maybe it's because he looks fitter now, skin starting to tan from time in the sun instead of being sickly-pale from the hospital, more muscular, and above all, grabbing at him.

He shoves away the thought that Yukimura is going to leave again, and grabs onto the man that's here, kissing him so thoroughly his bones shake.

Yukimura huffs against his mouth, eyes fluttering shut and his teeth biting, scraping at Sanada's lower lip when he can't help but want to nibble and taste after so long. There's so much that's familiar there and so much that isn't, like how he's taller and broader even in such a short period of time, like how he smells of earth far more than anything Yukimura would associate with tennis-

An aching surge of heat makes Yukimura grab tighter, dragging his hands down Sanada's back and into his shirt as he wriggles against him. "You feel good."

This is farther than they've ever gone, somehow far beyond slow kisses and gentle touches to faces, hands, and hair. Sanada's sure he should be nervous, should be caring more about where they are, but those emotions aren't coming. All that's in his mind is the heat of Yukimura under his fingers, warm and strong and alive and here, not in the hospital, not in Tokyo, but grabbing him, kissing him.

Sanada's going to lose his mind.

His hands steal down, trying to readjust them, and wind up on the outsides of Yukimura's thighs. That makes it easier to pick him up, stepping forward between his thighs, and his breath catches at the warmth, the promise there. "Let me," he mumbles against Yukimura's lips, and he'll apologize later for his impertinence in acting like this, maybe.

Yukimura's face goes a little hot in spite of himself, though it's not embarrassment, more in the way he's held, the way Sanada is between his thighs and hot and hard and just shifting a bit makes his own breath come faster. "Why wouldn't I?" he half-laughs, and he takes that as full permission to squirm and squeeze his thighs about Sanada's hips, groaning at the way it feels to let his cock rub against something as warm as he is. He nips at Sanada's mouth again. "If I bite your neck and leave marks, how upset are you going to be?"

"Don't care."

He'll care later, probably, but right now all he can think about is that Yukimura wants him more. They'd been close to this, once. Yukimura had made a move while they were kissing, letting a hand trail downwards, and Sanada had-panicked isn't quite the right word, but he hadn't let it go any farther, either.

They're older now.

They're older, and he likes the way it feels when he presses forward and feels Yukimura's cock, hard and rubbing against him, and he had been so sure they weren't ever going to get back here. His mouth is rough on Yukimura's lips, and he yanks his school uniform open, baring his neck for what Yukimura apparently wants.

Maybe he's a little too eager, but Yukimura doesn't care because the taste of Sanada is hot underneath his mouth, the thud of his pulse rapid beneath his tongue, and he groans as he bites down, sucking on the skin as he clings to Sanada's back, keeping him close as he ruts up, letting his hips roll in slow, languid circles. Even that is almost too much, and Yukimura feels his eyes roll back. "Genichirou," he rasps, choosing another spot to bite and suck at a second later, all as his back arches and his cock aches.

Sanada has never in his life felt the need to serve like he does now. He wants Yukimura to say his name like that again, to say it like that all the time; if he knew how to make it happen, it's all he'd do.

He's sure his own voice isn't the same, doesn't make the blood rush south the way Yukimura's does moaning his name, but he groans out, "Seiichi," anyway. He groans, and tries to move against him, feeling like it's all too-fast and forbidden and something he'll cling to with teeth and nails.

Those teeth and nails are in his neck and back, and that's enough to make Sanada rock-hard. He wants to say, Let me touch you, but Yukimura is letting him, will probably let him touch anything he wants-he's just not sure where and how.

So he keeps moving slowly, letting Yukimura grind on him, strangely aroused to the point of pain from that alone.

Yukimura shudders at the twinge of heat that jerks down his spine, the odd, trembly little thrill of arousal that doesn't happen when he's alone and just thinking of Sanada. It has everything to do with the surprisingly breathy, rumbling way that Sanada says his name, and what else is there to do but groan against his neck in response, leaving another bite mark that he sucks on slowly, and ah, yep, that's definitely one of his shoes falling off and to the dusty floor what with how his toes curl so tightly.

"This is much better… than when I'm by myself," he mumbles, breath hiccuping as he claws a hand down, possessively raking his nails down Sanada's lower back to grab at the curve of his rear. Yukimura has no regrets about squeezing either, not when his cock throbs and he pants out each breath hot and eager into Sanada's neck. "You're going to make us both a mess." Don't you dare stop.

Thinking of Yukimura doing this alone is nearly too much. He can't help it. The thought of Yukimura, laying back in his bed, hair spilling on the pillow as he wraps a hand around himself-

Sanada swallows hard, and he lurches forward without meaning to, liking the way Yukimura grabs him a lot more than he wants to. "How?" he breathes, suddenly needing to know. "Facedown? Bathtub?" His hands dig into Yukimura's thighs, and he groans. "Do you think about…" If Yukimura says yes, his cock is going to explode.

"You," Yukimura groans in return, shoving his face down into Sanada's neck when he can't even think to bite anymore, not when his cock is this hard and he can feel Sanada against him and smell him and ah, god, Sanada is so hard, too, when he rubs against him and grabs at him so tightly that even his fingers hurt. "Think about you-bath, sometimes, or again, afterwards, in bed, I-god, Genichirou-"

They really are going to be a mess, but that's fine, Yukimura doesn't care, not when he stifles a broken, throaty whine into Sanada's shoulder as he comes with a hard shudder, hips an insistent, needy grind against him.

Some odd masculine surge of pride is grateful that Yukimura came first-but most of Sanada doesn't care, he's so overwhelmed by the idea that Yukimura just came because of me.

He can't think of his school uniform, hips rutting up shamelessly against Yukimura's, feeling the slick wetness and knowing that was me, he did that because of me, perfect Captain Yukimura is a mess and making those noises because of me-

And then it's not just Yukimura, but both of them, and he can't remember anything. They sag to the ground when his legs won't hold them up anymore, tangled in dust and cobwebs and dirt and each other, panting out slow, needing, open-mouthed kisses against Yukimura's cheeks and lips.

Yukimura sort of headbutts his face against Sanada's helplessly, groaning out a sigh and mouthing a wet, sloppy kiss against the side of Sanada's mouth as he sags back bonelessly. Both of them are sticky and it's already starting to chafe a bit, but Yukimura can think of a dozen more pressing things at the moment. For one-"I kept all of them," he dazedly informs the other boy. "I have an album. I'm not throwing them away."

"River," Sanada insists automatically, but there's approximately zero fight in the words. He's sort of floating, confused and happy and more relieved than he's been in months. This isn't cold or difficult or frustrating, and Sanada's just now remembering that those aren't the only emotions he's ever felt. "I'll make better ones. For you." As if that weren't implied.

"I don't want to throw them in the river," Yukimura happily, petulantly replies, and he hooks his chin over Sanada's shoulder, his arms flopping loosely around his back. "I'll keep all of them that you make. I like reading them when I get home from practice."

"They're not very good." Sanada refuses to be embarrassed. He can do better, that's all. "Mm, I bet they're finished with laps by now. If I don't tell them not to, they'll just leave." He doesn't move.

Yukimura scrunches his nose up in disapproval at that, even as he lets the subject of poems drop. "It's difficult to find good work ethic. Are any of them any good?"

"No." It's the truth. "One of them would have been good if he'd come to it young. One more is a hard worker with enough athletic talent to get him through. The others are useless and know it." He butts his head against Yukimura's, gently. "Tell me everything about home."

A long, thoughtful sigh follows that, and Yukimura rubs his nose against Sanada's cheek. "Frustrating," he admits after another moment. "The upperclassmen were reluctant and then resentful during tryouts. It's difficult to form a team when some of them still won't recognize me as captain. Yanagi is no help because he's too relenting, Marui and Jackal just try to be friends with everyone, and Yagyuu and Niou… are what they are and ugh," he finishes, dropping his face into Sanada's shoulder again. "It's very difficult ruling without an emperor, you know."

"Even for a demigod?"

He understands, though. His voice is gentle, and he moves, brushing Yukimura's hair back from his face with a feather-light touch of his fingers. "I'm going to get to Kantou. No matter what I have to do. Because you'll be there."

"I'm going to have you back before then." Yukimura leans his head into Sanada's hand, tilting his head just enough to peer up at him. "I already had your jacket made. I brought it with me, so you can have it in the meantime."

Sanada's mouth closes abruptly, and his eyes start to sting. "I haven't earned it yet. I abandoned you."

Yukimura gently pinches his side. "Far from willingly. Either way, you're not allowed to say no; it even rode next to my jacket the whole way here."

That, as far as Sanada is concerned, is that. He nods, not as stiffly as he wants to, suddenly aware of his own intense weariness. "How's Kirihara?" he asks, changing the subject so he doesn't have to demur again.

"Bearing with the transition." Yukimura tries not to laugh at that, actually-and manages it, when he shifts and remembers with a wince what a mess they both are. He flops his weight back against the wall, sighing. "Niou went and spied on him a few times. Apparently, he tries to wear his jacket on his shoulders now. It falls off quite often."

Sanada keeps from rolling his eyes-barely. "He needs to learn humility," he says in a voice not unlike that of a weary parent. "But that is hardly new." With a fastidious grimace, he fetches a packet of tissues out of one pocket, handing half of the package to Yukimura.

"He needs to learn a lot of things," Yukimura agrees, gratefully accepting the tissues and unfolding himself enough to clean up as best he can. "Either way, he's on track to win, I think. He calls me for advice sometimes, which is fine. He asks about you."

Sanada probably shouldn't watch as closely as he does. It's embarrassing, to get so much of a thrill from watching Yukimura clean himself up, soft as he is. He hides that by cleaning himself just as thoroughly, tucking the soiled tissues behind an old trash can. It isn't as if anyone ever comes in here, anyway. "You didn't say how long you were staying."

"You didn't say how long I was allowed to." Yukimura sighs, sagging back into the wall again. "My parents don't know I'm here," he finally admits. "They wouldn't let me come. Why they still think I'm going to collapse waiting for trains is beyond me."

Because you did, Sanada wants to say, and it was the second-worst day of my life. "So you have to go back tonight?"

He can be forgiven for only focusing on how long he gets to keep Yukimura, he thinks.

"In theory," Yukimura hedges. "Though… if the substitute does his job well and feigns being pathetic properly, I could maybe stay longer."

"You'll worry your parents." Sanada tries not to lecture, when he knows it means Yukimura will be gone sooner if he succeeds. "You'd….you'd have to get a hotel room, you can't stay in my apartment." There's no room for him, and Sanada would be ashamed to bring him there among the empty beer cans and scattered cigarette butts and broken gaming systems anyway.

Yukimura has no qualms about pouting at him, even though he, too, is very aware that staying longer simply won't work. "I don't take up much room, you know."

"I can't bring you home. I don't have permission." The look on Sanada's face is close to panic. He mentally tallies up what he's earned, picking cabbages. "I can rent you a hotel room, there's a place not too far from here, if you want to stay."

Calmly, Yukimura flattens his hand over Sanada's mouth before he can as much as finish that sentence. "It's fine," he gently says, even if it isn't fine, far from it, and he isn't happy at all with how stressed Sanada seems about the idea of bringing him home. "I'll just come back this weekend instead, earlier. I don't mind the train rides."

That's about a thousand times better, and Sanada relaxes, sagging slightly into Yukimura's touch. He wonders if anyone else in the world could have read those emotions on his face-probably not. Definitely not. "It's not right to leave your team for so long," he mutters instead, sagging forward now onto Yukimura's shoulder. "You're supposed to be leading them for both of us."

"You're part of my team." Yukimura pulls him down, draping an arm around Sanada's neck as he reaches for his hat, seemingly long-forgotten. "Either way," he announces, setting the hat onto his own head, "I'm keeping this."

Sanada blinks, then frowns. "That's-"

But Yukimura knows what that hat is, and what it means to him. And honestly, it'll definitely be safer with him.

Instead of protesting, Sanada reaches out and plucks the headband off of Yukimura's head, settling it onto his own. "You can't wear both. It won't fit."

There's no containing the snort that escapes. "You look ridiculous," Yukimura immediately teases, peering up from underneath the hat's brim. "Also, that thing is gross and sweaty, you definitely don't want it."

Sanada scowls, jamming the headband further onto his head. "That's going to slip down into your eyes," he points out. The band is already fairly snug around his own head. "I definitely want this. It's a fair trade."

"I'm not going to wear it all the time, that'd be silly. I'll just keep it very safe," Yukimura hums, thinking of a few choice locations already. "Anyway, you can have that thing, I guess. I should have known you were that lewd."

"L-lewd?" Sanada stammers, face flushing. "It's just a fair trade!" Not that he can argue against lewdness now, while both of them still have their uniforms open.

"That's why it's lewd." Yukimura smiles slowly, his eyes lidding. "When I say I'll keep your hat in 'safe places', I mean private ones. If it's a fair trade, then you'll have my headband in private, too, right, Genichirou?"

Sanada's not quite sure why that makes his cock twitch. Worse still, he has a suspicion that Yukimura is sure, and knows quite well. "It's just a hat," he mumbles, with little conviction. Yukimura can make socks attractive.

"Your hat," Yukimura points out sweetly. "And I'll be very thorough in taking care of it, don't worry."

One day, Sanada will probably be able to talk to his best friend without the constant threat of erections. One day, in the long-distant future. "Ah...yeah."

Yukimura gives his head an amused, affectionate pat before he shifts away, fixes his pants and untucks his shirt to at least attempt to be modest, and slowly hauls himself to his feet. "If I'm not allowed back at your apartment, we can play a set, or let me treat you to dinner-or both, if you've the time."

"Both." He doesn't have the time, but that's unimportant. "Let me change, I'll lend you a spare set of P.E. clothes. I know where they keep them."

"Perfect. And you're trying on your jacket," Yukimura firmly says, swiftly moving to snatch up the long-forgotten tennis bag to fish it out. "I'm still getting used to the new colors," he admits with a laugh, pulling out the neatly folded thing of white and blue. "But being understated is nice in a way, I think."

"It makes it all the more rewarding when you beat your opponents, hmm?" Sanada hazards a guess. "You always like being underestimated."

He moves to put the jacket on, and it fits like only his Rikkai jersey ever has. There's no mirror, but he doesn't need one. He knows he looks good.

Yukimura doesn't say anything for a moment, and settles instead on breathing, because that's a thing he can definitely do when his chest is suddenly tight and he wonders why he can't try and fit Sanada into his tennis bag and bring him back home immediately. "… I won't let anyone else be my vice captain," he eventually says, and reaches out, absently straightening Sanada's collar. "So I have to get you back soon."

"Any news?" Sanada hates himself for asking. Of course there's nothing Yukimura can do. It's childlike, to hope he's wrong, and he'll be able to go back to a proper life in a proper city with Yukimura, but he doesn't feel very adult right now.

He wants to go home.

"As soon as I hear something, I'll tell you." That sounds a little bit better than a 'no', but not much. Yukimura sighs, letting his hand drift away. "I'm trying. I'm thinking about holding a competition-the first person in the club to come up with an idea that works gets to play singles one."

Sanada privately thinks that would work a lot better in a club of lawyers than high school boys, but it's something. He straightens up, grabbing Yukimura's bag and his own absently and slinging it over his shoulder as a force of habit, leading the way out to the court. "One set match?"

"Mmhm. Don't wear my headband, you'll sweat too much playing me and that'll ruin it."

Sanada gives him a thin smile, pulling off the headband and tucking it in his pocket. "Mm. Then it won't smell like you. Rough or smooth?"

Yukimura declines to compliment Sanada on that comeback, and chooses to bask in it instead. "Rough," is his cheerful reply.

It's rough, of course. Sanada gives Yukimura a sour grin, and takes his place on the court. "Twenty minutes before they close up. I'll try to make this quick."

"You'll make it quick?" In a way, it's a relief that it's so easy to fall back into old banter and habits and everything. In another way, it's the worst, because there's the knowledge that he'll be without again in just a number of hours. Yukimura sucks in a deep breath, shoves that out of his mind, and serves.

Tennis, at least, makes sense.

Twenty minutes isn't anywhere near enough for one of their games, let alone the ones that they enjoy playing. The score is a pleasant 2-1 when they're forced to go, with Sanada edging up on making it 2-2 and Yukimura intensely annoyed that they have to leave at all. "After-hours practices are a thing," he grumbles to Sanada underneath his breath. "I don't like your school, can you fit into my tennis bag so I can bring you home?"

"You said yourself, I got taller." Sanada gives a pained shrug. Going home sounds even less appealing than usual, and usually he drags his feet as if going to an execution. "Ah, I forgot. The last train for Mito leaves in half an hour, you'll have to go now if you want to be home tonight." His chest constricts in a way that has nothing to do with losing (as usual) at tennis.

"Please stop growing." Yukimura bites his lip, seriously considering (not for the first time) his options regarding staying for the night. There aren't many, and he's not going to stop being upset about it. "Marui and Jackal are probably already at the station," he relents. "We'll do a real dinner this weekend, but at least let me treat you at the convenience store right now." This weekend, Marui and Jackal definitely don't need to come, no matter how everyone insists on making sure he has an entourage. It isn't like he's allergic to trains.

Sanada doesn't care how bad the bentos are at the convenience store. There's inoffensive udon, at least, and the clerks microwave it while Yukimura's paying. It's a far cry from the daikon stew over rice he's had for the last three weeks, and at least he doesn't have to prepare this one himself.

And it's Yukimura that bought it for him, so it's a thousand times more delicious. Not that he's in love.

He finishes quickly, tossing the plastic into the garbage can. "I'm walking you to the station," he says, as if there's ever been any doubt. It isn't like he'll ever let Yukimura on a train platform alone, if he can help it.

"Good."

Yukimura isn't 100% happy with it, but how can he be when it means he's leaving? Again, he tries to think of ways to make this work-it can't be that difficult to kidnap someone and hide them, can it? God, he's turning into a delinquent-only to come up empty and frustrated and with a lump in his throat that won't quite go away when he briefly leans his head against Sanada's shoulder. "Just a little while longer," he quietly promises. "I don't care what I have to do."

Sanada starts to say something very vulnerable-I have had to rethink how independent I am, and I have come to the conclusion that I don't want to be anything but by your side-but stops, because that's the sort of thing that's only acceptable in a poem. Maybe he won't tell Yukimura to throw this one in the river.

His head bows, and he doesn't care that there are other people on the platform. Rebelliously, he doesn't care if every person in this tiny insignificant town think he's a homo for wrapping his arms around Yukimura, lifting him a little. There's little hope, he knows. "See you this weekend. And at prefecturals," he promises gravely.

"If it takes that long, I'll order an upperclassman to transfer here for you," Yukimura very seriously returns, content to let himself dangle for a moment. He refrains from kissing Sanada-only for Sanada's sake, because at this point, there's little care in his own mind. "See you this weekend," he quietly adds, giving Sanada's neck a gentle squeeze.