Just a Sunny Day in Seigaku
Fuji Syusuke leans back against the steps, splaying his arms out to support himself. He glances casually over at Tezuka's notebook. "Don't forget to factor in the coefficient." He murmurs, and smirks. With his eyes closed, he can enjoy the spring sun that much better.
Tezuka snarls sub-vocally, his highlighted spikes hanging in his eyes. Pushing his glasses back up irritably, he grabs the eraser with a little more force than necessary.
"You're taking the limit, remember." Fuji adds helpfully, that smugly gleeful smirk still hovering somewhere around his mouth. He raises himself an inch to peer over Tezuka's shoulder. "So no need to simplify that. Just find the asymptote."
"I know." Tezuka says finally after a few really strange, guttural noises and Fuji is impressed at how composed he sounds. Buchou's been working on the same problem ever since tennis practice ended. To be fair, it is a rather annoying problem that manages to combine obscure geometry theorems with derivatives. Fuji did it last night a few minutes before bed.
The familiar and unique smell of sakura blossoms drifts over and Fuji inhales deeply. Ochibi-chan is lying under his pretty cherry tree and napping, as usual. A few petals have fallen on him, and he looks cute and young. Something Fuji might tell him later, just to see his response. His ever-present hat is pulled low over his eyes and his short legs stick straight out. It's a funny contrast to Momo, whose long limbs are splayed out over the grass a few meters away. Fuji can see his chest rise and fall even from here—he tried to run laps with Kaidoh. He failed.
Kaidoh and Inui, of course, are still running. Like clockwork, their legs rise and fall in sync. Judging by the time and their mechanical, unending cycle of exercise and relentless training, Fuji would estimate that they have about fifty more laps to go. Fuji relaxes to the sound of their footfalls and light breaths. He concentrates again on the sunlight, falling through his bangs and hitting his eyelids in interesting, dreamy fractals.
The Golden Pair are nowhere to be seen, and Taka-kun is probably off somewhere with his nonexistent but definitely real girlfriend that no one has seen. It's really more an unquenchable conspiracy that Eiji won't drop, although there was that pretty girl he was hanging out with a few days ago…A breeze blows and Fuji is distracted from thinking about Taka's love life (maybe it's Akutsu?), both by the cool air and Tezuka's shuffling next to him. He opens his eyes and looks over.
"Oh, have you finished?" Brightly, smiling his half-moon smile.
Tezuka's answering stare could be described as maybe emotionless. He flips a page in his workbook, bites his pencil viciously, and starts the next problem. As always, Fuji admires his blandness. There are maybe four Tezuka emotions—happy, annoyed, bored, and pissed off/sadistic. The only difference between them is a few millimeters in the turn of his lips and maybe a subtle glint in his eye when someone's late to practice. Actually, it's kind of funny how similar 'happy' and 'pissed/sadistic' look. Fuji's thoughts float away from his buchou as Ryouma shifts, sitting up. He and Momo exchange words, and Momo gets up, too.
"Oi, Fuji-sempai. Do you know where Eiji-sempai is?"
"Hm? No, did he go home?"
Ignoring Momo's hissed, "I told you so!" Echizen furrows his eyebrows (adorably). Or, Fuji assumes that the eyebrows are furrowed. The cap is covering most of Ryouma's face.
"Hn. What a coward. He promised us dinner."
"Why?" Fuji leans back, soaking in sunlight. He senses more than sees Ryouma's pissed off shrug.
"He bet us…"
Momo noisily shushes his friend, and Fuji's latent curiosity perks up. But the little tensai says nothing, and a few moments later Fuji hears the two leaving on Momo's bike, still arguing. He prepares to take a nap. A slight stiffening in Tezuka's shoulders warns him before a notebook is thrust into his lap.
"Ah, Tezuka-buchou, remember that when you divide by zero…" Fuji begins lightly, assuming the mocking tone of a professor, and then settles down to explaining the problem. It's kind of comical how much trouble Tezuka has with math…Tezuka takes the notebook back to make some notes, still biting his pencil.
Sensing more than seeing, again, Fuji hears the giggles. In retrospect, he assumes there must have been giggles. Eiji Kikumaru couldn't keep quiet if his life depended on it. There's a whistling in the air, he knew he heard that. Kaidoh and Inui have just finished their laps, and are coming over, probably to talk to Tezuka. Is that what made him on edge? No…
There's another giggle, definite this time, and Fuji instinctively tilts his head. It's this two millimeter movement that prevents him from getting hit with Inui's veggie drink
Unfortunately, caught up in the intricacies of mathematics, Tezuka is not so quick. He gets a faceful of Inui special. In slow motion, it's almost comical how Kaidoh's eyes twitch and Inui winces. Tezuka's yell, full of surprise, loud and pained, echoes through the empty yard. The juice got in his eye, apparently. The little giggles explode into laughter, and Oishi, embarrassed partner of mischief, rises from the bushes. Eiji rolls out, still cackling madly.
There's an embarrassed sort of silence.
"Uh…Tezuka-buchou, you know we meant to hit Fuji, right? Erm. Gomen. Gomenasai. Sumimasen!"
Tezuka Kunimitsu is not listening to Eiji's nervous apology, because he is too busy scrubbing Inui's Special Vegetable Extract Juice out of his eyes. Apparently it's pretty corrosive, to judge by his monotone cursing. How, exactly did they manage to get hold of that, anyway? After that last incident, Fuji thought Inui would have locked the stuff up. He feels a little guilty, but mostly relieved as he absent-mindedly wipes a few drops off his jersey and licks his fingers.
Wordlessly, Inui hands over his bottle of water, and Tezuka splashes it liberally in his face. He pours the rest in his hair, and the stuff that runs down his neck and shirt is…disgusting looking. Even to Fuji. Wordlessly, Kaidoh and Inui continue on to the changing room. They have seen nothing. And when the Golden Pair is absent from practice tomorrow, they will know nothing.
Helpfully, Fuji grabs Tezuka's glasses and the bottom of Eiji's shirt and cleans off the lenses. He gives the glasses back, and Tezuka jams them onto his nose. Eiji is too shocked to complain.
The damage is done.
Tezuka's careful, neat math homework is now a mass of smeared ink and wet paper. When buchou sees what's become of the past two hours hard work and pain, he flushes visibly. The red is obvious even beneath the gray-green veggie stuff running down his cheeks. It's actually kind of cute. In a pathetic, latent rage, homicidal sort of way.
Slowly, he stands. "I'm going to get changed." He enunciates clearly, balling what used to be his homework up in his fists. Water/vegetable juice/math pulp leaks out from between his fingers. He drops the entire lump off in the trashcan and wipes his fingers delicately on his pants.
Halfway to the locker room, Tezuka pauses. He doesn't turn around, but his slightly shaking voice is all too audible. So is the rather terrifying growl that precedes his decree. "Oishi…Eiji…show up to practice early tomorrow. 150 laps."
Fuji can see the trembling in his buchou's shoulders from here. He smiles sunnily at a pale Eiji. "Oops. That broke a record, didn't it."
Oishi winces again. "I hope you're up for a lot of running, Eiji-kun." He says flatly. And then, as an afterthought, "Poor Tezuka."
When he's quite sure Tezuka's out of hearing range, Eiji allows a little grin to grow. "Momo and Ochibi-chan said I couldn't piss one of you off. They owe me dinner."
Fuji can only shake his head and smile. The sunset is starting. "I'm going home." He tells Eiji, simply, opening his eyes to emphasize the seriousness of his next statement. "When they find your corpse, I won't know what happened."
Eiji's distress is actually comical. "He won't kill me! Tezuka still has to make me run laps."
Oishi's voice is bland with long practice. "You don't think he can kill you after?"
"Oh, no!"