Title: Serendipity
Genre: Fluffy Romance, (a bit of) Humor
Beta: pinksnow1986 and hakkaisensei
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Pairing: Dirty Pair (Oshitari/Gakuto) -- the entire Hyotei ensemble appear prominently in the story, though
Disclaimers: I own them... but only in my dreams. In reality, they belong to each other and to Konomi-sensei. Was not made rich by this, so don't sue!
Rating: T (PG-13) mostly for swearing...
Summary: Teammates who like to assume things about you and your doubles partner, a best friend who likes to keep you guessing, a summer training camp in a luxurious private resort, mind games, DDR tournaments, and sappy chick flicks... Aaaahh! The perfect recipe for a fun summer!
Author's Notes: written for decollement in the recently concluded potbth fic exchange on LJ. Prompts/kinks taken up for this particular writing project: watching movies to escape the heat, playing DDR in Atobe's mansion, Hyotei regulars turning up at inappropriate moments, witty exchanges, confessions, first kisses.

Note: (1) In Japan, liking sweets is often deemed a very unmanly trait. Most yaoi novels even make use of this fact to give their characters a clear and definitive "uke indicator".

(2) Movie: Wimbledon (2004) starring Kirsten Dunst and Bettany Paul. A romantic comedy about a washed-up old pro and an up-and-coming tennis star during the Wimbledon championships.

Serendipity

If anything, I'd say it was an accident. I certainly didn't mean for it to turn out this way, but it did. I'm not complaining; I'm actually glad that things turned out the way they did, but I'll be damned if I were to admit that I didn't know exactly what the heck was going on until it was staring me in the face…

Wait… I think I just lost you, didn't I? Well then, let me try to explain. I'll backtrack a little and let you see that it was all Yuushi's fault… It's always Yuushi's fault.

It had been a very typical tennis club afternoon with most of the first years generally running around, the juniors and seniors paired up and intent on practicing to eventually wrestle a spot from a regular (as if!), Yuushi overseeing the swinging practice of some of the more promising freshmen, Hiyoshi and Taki on a practice match against Ohtori and Shishido, Atobe sitting as prettily as you please in a shaded corner with Kabaji waiting on him, Jirou sleeping through practically everything, and myself flitting about, causing mild mayhem and coordinated chaos here and there. Yup, all was right in the Hyotei Gakuen tennis club.

All was right until we came to the end of afternoon practices. And then it began…

Ohtori came up to me with that sunny smile firmly plastered on his face. He was absent-mindedly rubbing the sweat off him with a towel as he made innocent small talk. At least it was innocent to him.

"Ne, Mukahi-senpai, will you be walking home with Oshitari-senpai again today?"

I tried unsuccessfully to bite back the grimace that came to my face when I heard some of the muted snickering that went on around me, but I didn't say anything to Ohtori's question.

That was a bad move, as he seemed to have taken my silence as an invitation to continue on with his idea of friendly chatter. "Will you guys be dropping by that place that sells those wonderful crêpes? I've always wanted to try their crêpes! Are they any good, senpai?"

The attempts at tamping down the snickering were a whole lot less successful this time around and I could've sworn I heard a snort mixed in there somewhere.

I've never had the best control on my temper and I must shamefully admit that that particular afternoon had been no different. Without thought, I waspishly snapped, "How the hell should I know?!" at Ohtori.

That was a very bad move.

Ohtori looked taken aback and he clamped his mouth shut, his eyes growing as wide as they would go and I can almost see him mentally grasping for the proper words to apologize for whatever it was he said that set me off. One of the most tedious things about Ohtori apologizing is trying to get him to stop—if he had his way, he'd be bowing in apology to me until the following week. And the other tedious thing about that would be…

"Hey! Stop taking out your PMS-induced bitching on Choutaro, mop-top!" Shishido practically hissed at me as he fell into place beside his doubles partner.

I rolled my eyes and bit back the scathing retort that was burning the tip of my tongue to the slight against my hair. For all that I blow my fuse over every little thing, when it comes to Ohtori, Shishido was worse than I could ever hope to be.

I held onto my silence as Shishido continued his ranting in defense of his precious kouhai, "The only reason he thought to ask you was because he saw you and Oshitari on a date in there last Friday."

My brow furrowed as I thought back to the day in question and things clicked into place. "That was not a date, you friggin' moron!"

"Sure," Shishido scoffed at me.

"Yuushi and I aren't like that! Just because YOU are dating your doubles partner doesn't mean I'm dating mine," I sneered at Shishido. I got a whole lot of satisfaction when the older half of the Silver Pair got that slightly panicked look as he furtively glanced around to make sure that no one outside of the tennis club members heard my declaration about his and Ohtori's dating status.

"That Psychology elective Yuushi is taking this term is messing with his brain—and mine too." I continued with my explanation, "He was going on and on about this supposed complex I'm developing because of some supposed 'masculinity issues' I'm dealing with. He says I react too much to things that I deem may lower my sense of masculinity. And I told him that was a load of bull. So he dared me to go into that crêpe shop and order the sweetest thing they had on the menu(1). That's all there was to it!"

"So you still went ahead and bought a crêpe from that shop." Shishido pointed out with a brow raised at me, "Then why didn't you just answer Choutaro's question about how good the crêpe was?"

The conversation was getting ridiculously mind-numbing and I can't believe it revolved around some stupid crêpes! Damned Yuushi and his Psychology class! "How the hell should I know? I've never had a sweet tooth, and eating something as insanely sweet as that crêpe I was forced to order would have given me a headache, so I gave the stupid thing to Yuushi and watched as I forced him to eat it!"

"Aaaawww! Feeding each other crêpes now, are we?" Atobe drawled out mockingly as he strutted past us on his way into the club room. "How very sweet. Sickeningly cliché, but still sweet."

It was at that point that I lost it and started shrieking out expletives at Atobe's back at a pitch that would have done credit to the banshee that Shishido swears is in my ancestry.

"That was very well done of you," Yuushi's deep, even baritone reached my ears as he fell into step beside me. After the spectacle I made of myself during that afternoon's after-practice, all I wanted was to go home and I seriously did not want to deal with Yuushi right then. I continued my silent sulking and pretended to ignore him.

But I forget that Yuushi has always been immune to my sulking and my ignoring. A hand clapped against my shoulder and pulled me towards my doubles partner in a loose kind of half-hug. "I think you handled that quite well," he drawled out in that accent of his that sometimes keep me guessing if he's being sarcastic or not.

I made a face at myself when I remembered the sardonic laughter I got from Atobe after I hurled out aspersions on the legitimacy of the circumstances of his birth as well as that of his mother's.

"That was all your fault, you know."

"Of course, it is," Yuushi immediately agreed in amused resignation. He's way too used to these blamestorming sessions.

"You and that Psychology class of yours!"

"Mmm-hmm," he hummed in agreement.

"And while we're talking," here, Yuushi's brow rose at my use of the word 'talking', "why do you never say anything when those annoying pricks start in on the Oshitari-and-Gakuto-are-together thing?!"

"What is there to say? I can declare all the denials I can think of until my face turns the same color as my hair, and they'll still say whatever they feel like saying anyway," Yuushi countered.

Geh! He had a point. I hate it when Yuushi comes up with a valid argument! "But still," I plowed on—I always had to have the last word, for all the good that does me with Yuushi, "you're my best friend! My doubles partner! You're supposed to have my back!"

I really should have gotten a clue from the almost feral smile Yuushi gave me when I said that.

Thinking too much about stuff is not something that I do. I don't like looking at myself, trying to find things that are wrong. I usually prefer to look at others and pick apart their imperfections rather than look inward and focus on my own. But I couldn't deny that what happened earlier this afternoon had gotten to me. It's not so much that argument about the stupid crêpe that got to me; it wasn't even about Atobe and his teeth-gnashingly annoying condescension, because he's always been a condescending bastard. No, it was the persistent teasing that Yuushi and I got all the time that was scraping my nerves raw.

Why do people keep hinting that Yuushi and I are more than just friends?

Edgily, I bounced over to my dresser mirror and examined my face. I regarded my child-like dark blue eyes fringed with short, thick lashes, and narrowed my eyes into slits; I was hoping that doing so would make them look a bit less child-like—I gave it up when I realized that doing so only made me look more like a sulky kid than anything else. Next, I surveyed my lips and made a moue of distaste; they were a disgustingly pretty shade of pink and were delicately shaped—the kind of lips that girls my age would probably kill to have. My pert nose and winged eyebrows weren't spared from my self-disparaging inspection. Moodily, I tugged at a lock of hair by the side of my face, 'Hmmm… Maybe I should get a haircut…?'

The problem, the way I saw it, was that I looked way too girly! Maybe if I lost the angular bob and chugged down gallons of milk like there was no tomorrow in order to gain a few more inches, I'd probably get those annoying jerks off my case about Yuushi.

… Or maybe I won't.

The frustration was getting to me, so I picked up the phone and called up my favorite stress reliever. He picked up on the second ring.

"Mukahi-senpai? It's almost 11 o'clo—"

"I know, Hiyoshi," I said, rudely cutting him off. He's used to this from me so he kept quiet and waited for what I wanted to say so badly that it couldn't wait until the following day. "I just heard something that I thought you might want to know."

"Huh? Uh… What is it?" Hiyoshi asked hesitantly. He has good reason to be wary of me, after all.

"I heard that Taki has a thing for you, and that he's planning to confess to you before school lets out for the summer."

Of course, it wasn't true… or at least, I thought it wasn't. But the spluttering and the flustered squawking I heard on the other end of the line made me feel so much better. I let out a wicked cackle before I killed the connection.