Tramlines - Yuki's tale
Yuki's version of the TezukaxOC story 'Tiebreaker' - the more I thought about her as a character, the more I realised that no one was really going to realise how 'deep' she is...haha...but I assure you, she's more than just your average pro tennis player ;) teehee :p I just really want her to get her side of the story told, since she knows a lot more about 'how things work' around the tennis club, and a lot about how Tezuka's life progresses through the series than he realises ;) Woop! :P
Enjoy getting to know Yuki :D
Chapter Song: Never alone - Barlow girl
Chapter 1: Rain on my pillow
The girl sat on the edge of her bed; her knees were drawn up to just underneath her chin, which rested on them; her eyes were staring, unfocused, accross the room to the cherry red wall opposite her. Her toes were hanging off the bed, painted only earlier that day in a bright shade of turquoise, much to her distaste, by her close friend, and fellow buchou 'Mitsu. The guy had been pretty high in the clouds about his win at a big national tornament, and had decided she needed a relaxing day off.
She had not relaxed one bit, dispite the man's big efforts to help her. He had done the works, made her her favorite strawberry and banana smooties, painted all of her nails; dispite the fact that the colours didn't match in the slightest, and he had gotten more on her skin than her nails (which had had to be painstakingly washed off), and they had both gone back to his house to go swimming - or rather, to lounge on the lilos which he had bought for 'relaxing' on.
She had, of course, humoured him, and laughed with him all day long; not letting her irritation with the man show until he had left. She loved him, she really did, he was like a bit, hyperactive, cuddly, sweet brother. Today, however, she was stressed, and needed to think.
Two long papers on the importance of sport in society lay unfinished on the girl's desk; she hadn't been able to concentrate on her work today, even though she was very focused and ambitious usually. She was home schooled by a local American teacher. She didn't have time to go to school while she worked at Temple - or T-international, as it was known as to outsiders.
Her phone, which she had held in her hand since she had gotten back home, suddenly started to vibrate, lighting up, the first notes of a much played tune ringing out of it's speakers. She recognised the caller instantly.
The girl flipped open the phone, and brought it to her ear quickly, "Moshi Moshi" she answered, the way she always greeted her Japanese companions.
"Yu-chan" came the low male voice from the other end of the line. She could never get over how close he sounded in conversations like this, when really he was the other side of the world; almost.
"Hai" she answered finally; her thoughts had been cut by the ringing of her phone, but she had only just managed to form a coherent word.
"You've been thinking again"
"Hai, why did you call?" these rare phone calls always ended quickly between them. She didn't know when she'd become unsociable towards him, but sadly, it had happened.
"I have some information you might like; a new player making his way to you in the none to distant future". This sparked her interest, the man almost never took any interest in new players these days; despite the way he had when he had been in America. The way being enthusiastic.
"And I would want to know why?"
"Because he's hot Yu-chan!" the man giggled down the line. She felt the big inclanation to shut the phone on him.
"Be serious; you wouln't tell me these things without reason."
The man was quiet for a moment, ceasing his giggles no doubt. He was childish over such matters; he always had been.
"He's good Yu-chan, you'll want him on your team, I'll tell you that for free". She almost laughed; that was untrue.
"You never tell me anything for free" she informed him.
"Ah, but I tell you now"
"Name?" she asked.
"Echizen Nanjiro" he replied, she could hear the smile in his voice.
"I didn't mean yours"
"You're no fun these days Yu-chan"
"Perhaps it's the company I'm keeping"
"Harsh Yu-chan, harsh."
Neither of them spoke for a few moments.
"So?" she finally asked, the information had wet her interest afterall; Nanjiro was not normally the one to point out a good player. Unless it was Ryoma.
"Tezuka Kunimitsu"
"I'll look out for him then, Goodbye Nanjiro". She hung up on him.
She pulled her knees up to her chin again, wrapping her arms around her legs; her eyes finding the wall for moments before once again, her eyes became unfocused as her thoughts over took her.
The phone fell from her hands and to the floor whith a clatter.
No one noticed.
The boy sitting beside her had left long ago; probably around the fourth video that she had watched. She had fifteen in total; she had been told that she was lucky to have so many; the contact she had managed to scrounge them off had informed her that two of the games had been unknowingly taped.
She wasn't surprised that Yataka-san had gotten bored, she should have asked Kevin to sit through the videos with her. She had no idea where the kid was now though; also, he might have talked more than Dai had. At least he had been almost silent. He understood that she needed the quiet to think.
He had said that the boy was a good player, phenomenal for a middleschooler; he should already have a manager. He had said that the boy was, regretably, better than he was after the second video.
Aside from that, he hadn't talked; it wasn't as if she would answer.
When he had left, he'd bent down and kissed her on the cheek, wishing her good luck; he was going to play tennis.
Since he had left, the only actions she had made were to rub off the feel of his lips, and to change the videos.
When the last one had finished playing, she pressed the stop button and rewound it; pausing on a full body shot of the guy; twisted to hit a shot. She stared for a few moments, her toes curling around the edge of the chair; she was pulled up into her 'thinking position' as some of her close friends, namely Mitsu and Dai, had dubbed it. Her knees under her chin; one hand around, biting the skin of her thumb in thought.
She pressed the 'off' button on the remote; the television suddenly blaring out at her; a colourful scene hit her eyes, whilst the sound of thousands cheering in a crowed hit her ears. Mitsu's game was being replayed for all the world to see. She hit the 'off' button on the television remote. She closed her eyes to think.
She sat there for hours more than she had when she had watched the videos; firstly thinking over the many tennis matches she had just watched, then she started to strategise and plan. Her forte; this was why she was a tennis captain.
She didn't know when her mind had shut off and she had fallen to sleep; all she knew was that in the morning, she woke up to light spilling through her window, she was tucked into her own bed. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and took in her room; a pile of videos was stacked on her desk, almong with the rest of her work.
Then she panicked, before turning so fast she cricked her neck to her bedside table. Her whole body relaxing when she saw the phone sitting on the desk.
Mitsu...
He was the only person who would know she needed it so close.
Her thoughts gradually drifted back to the night before, and she suddenly remembered, with a pang, what her last thought had been.
She wanted to strangle the guy known as 'Atobe Keigo'
She shivered at the thought; she had not had many thoughts like this in her life, the idea of death in generall frightened her to her core...to think of killing...
But, to her surprise, she felt that killing such talent was far, far worse.
It had been three weeks since she had watched the boy's vidoes. Three weeks of planning, strategising, and hard, hard practicing on the courts.
She was now standing in Shou-Ryouichi's office, togeather with a very frantic Secutary, Natsuki Shiori; who was sure they would be discovered, and that she would lose her job. However, she couldn't turn Yuki's request down; the payment was too good.
Yuki had known she wouldn't; her strategies were far too good to be butchered by a grown up fangirl.
She was searching through Shou Ryouichi's records, trying to find the ones she needed to complete her plan. She chucked a peice of paper at the woman who was dithering around the office like mad. "Go and phone this number" and get lost, she thought to herself, "tell them that Shou Ryouichi wants to take up the matches that Ume Tsubame's team backed out of last week. I don't care what you do, or what you tell them; just get the matches arranged, got it?"
The woman had then dithered out of the office; finally leaving her in peace. Five minutes later, after a lot of digging around, she finally found the information that she needed. She could have, of course, just asked the secutary; instead of going the long way round; however, she didn't want anyone to pick up on her plan. She knew that Shou Ryouichi would know what had happened; but she didn't care; there was going to be no evidence that others would believe. Even Tsubame wasn't going to know - at least not until after.
She waited for the woman to finish speaking with the team on the phone; listening through the door to their conversation; which ended well, so it sounded. She then shoved all of Shou Ryouichi's things back into place, and walked out of the door, looking cross.
"Will that be all, Yuzuki-sama?" the woman muttered, looking towards the floor.
"Hai", the she answered. "Not that it matters, the bastard took the files with him", she lied.
"I see", said the woman, sounding a bit happier now that she knew Yuki hadn't got what she wanted. Yuki started to walk towards the door.
"Oh", she said, without turning around. "You should tell Shou Ryouichi that you arranged those matches, he'll think that they are going to take on his team over ours; you'll be in his good books." Then she left.
She smirked when she got into the corridor. It was pouring with rain outside; she had noone to play tennis with, since everyone was currently away at matches, or at home, and she hadn't eaten or slept in over twenty four hours, because she had been planning.
None of it mattered to her however, because she had gotten her information.
Tezuka Kunimitsu was arriving in 48 hours.
On the day that the new arrival was coming to meet the man he expected to be his new manager, Shou Ryouichi, Yuki got up at six. She showered and then went for breakfast and training with Yataka Daisuke.
She went back up to her room at twelve, to shower and change, telling Daisuke to do the same, before meeting her downstairs at Tsubame's office. She told him to bring his tennis racket for later, and to wear his sponsors kit. He had raised an eyebrow at her, but gone to to what she had said.
She walked back downstairs at quartre to one, walking straight to Shou Ryouichi's office, she peeked inside to see a tall boy, with longish brown hair staring out of the window. He was wearing a tracksuit, and looking avidly out of the window at the rain. Without him noticing, she turned to look at the secutary, who was sitting behind the desk and oggling at the guy. She got it; this was Tezuka Kunimitsu.
She took the corridor at a run down to Tsubame's office; outside of which Daisuke was waiting with the woman herself; she only had fifteen minutes to get her plan down; and it was lucky that the boy had arrived early.
She quickly explained to Tsubame that Shou Ryouichi's team were the ones who had 'booked over' their team for the matches which would have taken place the day before. And stood back and watched, as the woman went storming off down the hallway. She stood and smirked at Daisuke for a moment, before taking off after the woman at a slower pace. They arrived in time to see the secuatary trying, and failing, to hold the woman back as she tried to force herself into the office, in search of Ryouichi.
She saw the boy, Tezuka Kunimitsu, looking upon the scene in confusion; firstly seeing Tsubame strom into the office, and then looking over to see she and Daisuke standing, watching, in the door way.
Yuki couldn't help but laugh as her manager somehow managed to force her way into Ryouichi's office, spouting about how she was going to 'kill him', before coming out and very weakly announcing that the man was not acctually there after all.
Of course he wasn't. Ryouichi wouldn't be there until one o clock that day; Tezuka Kunimitsu was his first appointment; as if he would come in early.
Despite having some choice words up her sleeve to use in case she needed to convince Tsubame that taking Tezuka away to convince him to let her be his manager, Tsubame managed to make her proud, by coming up with that plan on her own. On the way down the corridor, she explained to Daisuke who this boy was, and what was happening. He looked a little worried about it, in all honesty.
In the end, Yuki only had to help out with the operation a little, by backing up Tsubame in her words to the boy. In the end, Yuki's plan had been a total success; Tezuka Kunimitsu was now 'on the team', and if she had her way, that was the way it was going to stay.
For a long, long time.
She'd liked Tezuka Kunimitsu from the moment she had met him. He was reliable, and he was like an older versian of Ryoma, her childhood friend.
Childhood friend, part time enemy, part time non-paying student.
Both boys were about as emotional as a rock, both had also grown up to be very handsome. Tezuka was tall with messy brown hair, and deep brown eyes. He wore glasses, and had quiet a pointed face. She could also tell, despite the tracksuit, that underneath, he was probably very, very toned. Tennis did this to people.
She expect, however, that in a few years, Ryoma would be quite a threat to him, looks wise. But judging by his personality; it was doubtful he would care.
She had had to leave him in Daisuke's care as soon as she had introduced herself, however, as she had arranged to meet up with Kevin. Damned brat number two; Ryoma won first place hands down.
It was raining, however, so they would have to start a match at one of the indoor courts, and hope that eveyone inside was sensible enough to get out of the way and watch.
She had returned about five minutes later however, because she had forgotten her practice racket; both she and Daisuke had put them down when they entered; she guessed that he had forgotten his to, and decided to take it away with her, she would give it to him later.
She didn't bother to knock as she entered Tsubame's office, she knew that the woman had no appointments sceduleded for that day; even if she did, Tsubame would probably have made an excuse for Yuki's rude intrusion, she was always doing it.
When she entered, the woman was sitting behind her desk going over some papers - presumably Tezuka's, she supposed she would have the job of going and giving him those later on in the day.
The woman looked up at her and smiled at her as she walked in. Yuki gestured towards the two rackets at the back of the room, going over and picking them both up; hers was a head racket, recently restrung, she tucked Daisuke's under her arm and played with the strings as she started to walk out.
"Where did you hear about that kid?" a voice came from behind her.
"Hmmm?"
"That guy, Tezuka Kunimitsu, did you hear about him from one of your contacts?"
"Maybe" she replied, there was no way in hell she was going to admit that she was still talking to Nanjiro - the man had left without giving anyone besides his closest aquantances his phone number.
"You'll tell me eventually Yuki", the woman threatened as she walked out of the door.
"Ah" she replied, as the door swung closed behind her.
"You're late" were the next words she heard, spewing from the mouth of the superbrat as she entered the indoor complex as at a run, shaking out her umbrella as she did so, water spilling all over the floor. She shoved it to the side of the hall.
"And you're an idiot, but you don't hear me complaining"
"Acctually", the boy replied, his lips curling into a smirk, "I hear you complaining all the time".
She just walked past him, realising, with a pang, that he was now a bit taller than her, she wouldn't be able to call him a brat for much longer. She assumed 'tall brat' would be the next insult on her list.
The two proceeded towards the tennis courts, greeting the people they knew as they went. Before they turned the last corner, Yuki caught a glimpse of her favorite photograph.
It was a photograph of her, Nanjiro, and Ryoma. Ryoma was glaring at Nanjiro, who was hiding porn magazine behind his back, whilst she'd jumped up behind them and made rude signs behind their heads - although people who had not lived in America all their lives probably wouldn't realise the fact that holding up victory signs behind people's head was rude. She'd also decided to go cross eyed, and stick out her tongue for the shot. Added hilarity, she'd told the photographer, Rinko, later.
The photograph had been taken the day before the Echizen family had returned to Japan; three years ago. They had been having a 'last day party' for the three of them, although many people, including Yuki herself, had accompanied them to the airport, to see the three of them off.
The photograph portrayed the three of their personalities perfectly.
She herself had put up the photograph as soon as she had got it printed, to be a lasting memory. Noone had removed it; she had told several people who enjoyed gossiping that it was her who had put it there; and so, although the rest of the complex staff did not know whether this was true or not, they hadn't been able to remove it, for fear of upsetting her.
It wasn't as if it was replacing anything good or something like that; the photograph behind it was of Ryoma holding a cup in one hand, and a tennis racket in the other, glaring at the cameraman - the poor sod, she often thought, she wouldn't like to have to take the grumpiest tennis player in history's photograph; even if he had just won his fourth consecutive title.
A few moments later, she and Kevin entered the courts, and immeadiatly took to the middle, ignoring all of the other people, and started a match; although they were careful to avoid hitting anyone. Soon after, however, people chose to move; they wern't stupid after all, and it was obvious that the two of them having a match was something to watch. Some of her students from the past were there, they were the ones who remained closest to the action; including a boy called Daniel, who was now thirteen; he was a good kid, English, she hoped that he would make it as a pro someday - not only so she could take some of the credit.
The game they played was a good one. Kevin grinned at her from across the court every time he managed to hit a shot past her. She grinned back at him; he was hitting more past her than usual nowadays.
Since the boy had met Echizen Ryoma in Japan, he had been training harder, and since he had met him in America again, he had trained almost doubly hard, spending all of his time at Temple. He no longer went to his father's training grounds. He never went back home these days.
He had lived, as she had, for a long time in the dorms, before moving out when he was old enough, to a house outside of Temple; his sponsors had funded him. He had some very good sponsors overall.
Now as he played against her, hitting slices, topspins, lobs, smashes, dropshots, and others against her, to a professional level, she was reminded of how much the boy had grown since he had stood before her for the first time, demanding that she taught him Echizen Ryoma's moves.
She had refused; she had only taught him since he, and his rediculous band of misfits, returned, empty handed, struck from loss, and had asked her for guidence. She'd agreed; since then, they'd become almost as close as she had been with the Echizens, back when they were living in the US.
She wondered as she watched him play, whether the boy had managed to get a girlfriend yet; these days he was far more aimiable. When they had first met, he had never smiled; since then he had really come out of his shell. The brat had a really nice smile after all.
She won the game, overall, before being gushed at by older women, whose children she taught. She quickly got rid of them; not because she didnt like them, but because the attention made her blush. She was about to walk over and congratulate Kevin on getting in more shots than usual when she spotted him. Shou Ryouichi, making a beeline straight for her. She almost laughed; it seemed he had worked out what happened to Tezuka Kunimitsu already. Well, she thought to herself, he was no fun.
She waited patiently for the man to reach her. His face, she noticed with an internal smirk, was red with anger. His fists were clenched, and his jaw was shaking slightly.
He came up to her and asked her immeadiatly what had happened to his client.
"Lost him, have you?" came her smart-ass reply.
It was then that he slapped her; she moved her head with his hand so as to lesson the force of the blow to her face; she didn't particuly want to damage her face too much.
She barely heard him cussing at her; she wasn't really listening. She was more interested in the fact that Kevin was running towards her, appearing extremely angry. She almost smiled at him when he ripped the other man away from her. Again, even in the heat of the moment, she wondered if he had a girlfriend. Protectiveness was attractive.
MasaKazu, bless him, had also come to stand beside her; it was cute really, the way her students took care of her. She listened while the dreaded Shou went on at her about the 'stealing' of Tezuka Kunimitsu. Then she told him what she thought on the subject.
Basically, in not so many words, she told him where to stick it.
She did think it was a bit rich of the man to accuse Tsubame of being a cradle snatcher; especially when he had one of the youngest players at Temple training under him.
She also couldn't resist showing off her 'latest toy' as the man had put it. This was when her smile had finally broken free; telling Tezuka Kunimitsu to introduce him to the man who wanted to be his manager. It was perfect; the man had shown himself at his worst in front of the guy; slapping a girl, yelling rude things, and overall, being the ass that he was. Tezuka would never want him as a manager now.
She had almost laughed as the guy sneered at Tezuka and stormed off out of the complex, but she had managed to control herself; instead, engaging the others in some light conversation over what had just happened.
It wasn't exactly unusual after all. Only Tezuka looked put out.
Haha, hope I'm not ruining the other story by posting this...but it is taking up valuble space, so Ima post it anyways...reviewwwwssss? x x x x