Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis.
Warnings: Sakuno takes no prisoners.
Pairings: AtoFujiRyo, SakunoTomoka
Conspire
The assignment is a simple one in theory: write a description of someone else without using their name, a drabble in a foreign script due at the end of the month. Sakuno stares at her desk, somehow more daunted by the familiar but indifferent gaze of her partner rather than her own poor grasp of the English that she will be forced to write in.
Echizen sighs quietly, the only sign that he finds the assignment more tedious than useful. "I'll check it over before we turn it in so you don't need to worry about it," he says.
After three years, she knows he's only trying to help soothe her worries. Sakuno bites her lip; it's not her grammar that she's worried about but she can't explain. She nods instead and evades his eyes.
"I get up at 6:30am," Echizen recounts. She thinks he's lying but doesn't interrupt. "I shower, I eat breakfast, and I walk to school. You know the rest."
She does. They're in the same homeroom class, after all. Even tennis practice is as routine as it was back in junior high, and although Sakuno cannot watch his matches as often as she did back then, she knows he's still one of the strongest players on the team.
"What happens during practice?" she asks.
"Monkey King yells a lot," he waves off boredly. "Kikumaru-senpai bounces around all over the place. Momo-senpai annoys me. The usual," he shortcuts with a snort.
Sakuno pretends to write that down but instead the name 'Atobe' stares back at her from her paper.
"I wake up at 6am to make breakfast," she starts quietly. Three years and she still speaks so softly that she wonders if she'll ever grow out of being shy. "Then I get ready for school, talk to my dad a bit, and walk to school with friends."
She stops there. He knows the rest as well and doesn't write down a single thing.
"What happens after school?" Echizen asks.
Sakuno fidgets. "I go to tennis practice," she answers.
"I meant after practice."
She stares at the space under his chin. His school tie is loosened. For a moment, she fantasizes about choking him with it.
"I go home," she lies.
Echizen writes that down on the paper in front of him. She knows he's mocking her with every stroke of his pencil.
It's only the second day and already it's too much. She wants to pretend she's sick and stay home but obligation forces her through the doorway and into the classroom.
Tomoka is chatting excitedly to the other girls in their class but pauses long enough to greet her, the smile on her face welcoming.
Sakuno takes her seat. Echizen enters the class just before their teacher does - apparently morning practice had run late today.
"Monkey King is an idiot captain," he mutters to her as he takes his seat.
Sakuno smiles wanly and turns to look out the window. The daylight looks cold from where she watches.
"At least this assignment is easy for you," Horio complains at lunch. Sakuno can't tell if the comment is directed at either her or her indifferent seat partner, but it doesn't matter. "You two have barely changed at all since junior high!"
Sakuno laughs lightly, made self-conscious by the observation. Echizen continues eating his lunch, not bothering to rise to the bait.
He wakes up at 6:30am. He showers, he eats breakfast, he goes to school. He goes to class.
He goes to tennis club pratice in the afternoon. His club captain yells at him, his energetic upperclassman plays around, his best friend causes trouble.
"Ryoma-kun," Sakuno looks up from her paper. "This won't do."
Echizen looks it over. The smirk on his lips looks almost hostile. "That's definitely no good," he agrees.
She looks down at his paper. It's practically the same story. Since when were their lives so easily interchangeable?
On Wednesday, Sakuno watches the boys' tennis club practice from the window of her classroom. She'd been assigned to sweep the classroom this week and thus has the excuse of being late to practice, but this is the first time she's taken advantage of it.
Atobe stands as the reliable if pompous figure of Seishun's tennis club captain. His experience as leader of Hyoutei's junior high tennis club has definitely prepared him well for his position as captain of the equally rowdy regulars of Seishun High: Momoshirou and Kikumaru are always ready to get into all kinds of trouble, Yanagi has somehow already acquired a pitcher full of Aozu, and the docile figure of Kabaji was currently draped in a curtain of frightened first years. Echizen is smirking, comfortably smug as Atobe's expression turns from captainly to primadonna.
Sakuno wonders what Tezuka thinks of his former club members, separated from their antics while playing in the pro leagues.
Echizen says something catty when Kikumaru misses a return shot.
Sakuno remembers that her grandmother still has Tezuka's phone number.
On Thursday, Sakuno hands Echizen the short work she has managed to put to paper the night before. She thinks she feels inspired now but the feeling quickly dies under Echizen's bored eyes as they move across the paper.
Echizen takes up his pen and underlines one sentence with a snort. He's a liar when he speaks but he's honest with his body.
"Is that a sex joke?" he asks.
Sakuno blushes like she's thirteen again and Echizen starts laughing.
Sakuno sees the fallout on Friday morning. Momoshirou is sulking and there's three Kikumaru's running around the court in skitterish bursts. Echizen is running laps with a dark look on his face as Atobe watches with frustrated eyes.
"Ryoma-kun is in a bad mood," Kachirou explains nervously once everyone is in homeroom. Ryoma enters their classroom with a scowl, a flurry of rage with no direction. He takes his seat without a word to her.
Sakuno opens her notes and writes down Tezuka on the same line as Atobe.
"You're a bitch," he spits at her angrily when they're alone.
Sakuno doesn't defend herself. She wonders if it's strange that she finds solace in the insult rather than discomfort.
"I should tell her," he says.
Sakuno wishes he would. It would be a petty thing to do and she wants him to be that pitiful.
"Why are you angry at me?" she asks instead.
Echizen freezes, turns to glare at her, then starts laughing bitterly.
"I won't tell her a damn thing," he swears.
Saturday afternoon practice is cancelled because of the overhanging threat of rain. She's on her way home when she runs into Kaidoh jogging. He's still as serious as ever, always training under Inui's diligent eyes; they'll be tough opponents for Seishun's team once the district tournaments were under way.
Kaidoh paused when he caught sight of her, uncharacteristically ignoring Inui's quiet warning.
"Kaidoh-senpai," she greets demurely. "Did you hear about Echizen?"
Kaidoh's expression sours. She's said the right thing, she judges internally. Inui is quiet behind his underclassman.
"I thought you and Echizen were friends," he says after a moment.
Sakuno keeps her eyes to the ground. A spider scurries past her feet and she steps on it.
"We are friends," she replies.
Echizen doesn't show up for school on Monday. Atobe is furious, a storm of concentrated rage as he corners Kikumaru for answers. Sakuno hears only the beginning as Kikumaru finally caves before she turns the corner.
Tomoka's smile greets her as she enters their classroom. Her heart twists and turns brittle. She steps through the doorway.
Echizen is at his desk on Tuesday morning. Sakuno heard from her friends that he came in Atobe's limo earlier in the morning and the idea of what could have happened intrigues her.
"I wrote something new for our assignment, Ryoma-kun," she says as she takes her seat next to him.
He straightens a bit when she addresses him. For a moment, his fists clench but he instead opens his notebook.
"I did too," he mutters. He hands her the paper torn messily from the wire coils.
She's absolute scum. It's the only thing written on the page.
She places her own paper on his desk, neat and crisp. A former teammate means too much to him.
Echizen takes the paper and shoves it into his bookbag.
She had hoped Fuji would be left out of the loop, but that was an inexplicable hope - even if Tezuka wanted to hide what he had wrought, it would never evade Fuji's attention for long.
The blue-eyed senior is flipping through his photographs. He is the photography club's star member these days, the pictures he takes on constant display.
"Your English class assignment," he starts candidly. His tone is sweet and gentle, and he still appears to be sorting through his photos. "Have you written anything for it?"
Sakuno doesn't have her notebook with her. She'd left it behind in the classroom, just like her friends.
"Yes," she answers stiffly.
Fuji hums noncommittally. "And Echizen? Has he written something for you yet? He waits until the last minute if you let him," he says.
"Ryoma-kun is a hard worker," she returns swiftly.
Fuji chuckles. "Was that a sex joke?" he teases lightly.
She doesn't reply.
Fuji hands her a picture of Tomoka as she cheers on Sakuno in tennis club practice, all glittering smiles and messy twin tails.
"This could end badly for everyone," he advises her.
She takes the warning graciously.
She finds Echizen alone on the roof. He doesn't eat lunch in the classroom when she's there and their friends have noticed. Tomoka isn't smiling very often anymore.
"I talked to Fuji-senpai yesterday," she says as the door shuts behind her. "You told him?"
Echizen's stare is dead as it rests on her. "I never told anyone," he responds after a long moment.
Of course not. He'd thought he'd found a kindred spirit, not a thorn in his side.
"How was Sunday night?" she asks, switching tracks just to see some emotion in his face.
"I'm going to punch you," he bites out.
Sakuno looks at her nails; unlike Tomoka's, they were trimmed short. It made it easier for tennis.
"What would Tezuka say if he heard you say that?" she muses aloud. "Or will it matter, since worse things have been through that mouth?"
Echizen doesn't reply. She only watches as he curls in on himself, trying to hide his tears from her eyes.
Sakuno looks away. She's made a mistake.
Tomoka avoids her the next day. Horio and Katsuo try to distract her, but the attention is more grating than comforting. She wants to be alone but Echizen has taken over the roof and she knows that if she tries to go up the stairs, a member from the boys' tennis club will stop her. For the first time since starting high school, Sakuno begins to understand what it means when others complain that Atobe is more the general of an army than captain of a school club.
"Maybe Tomo-chan is- you know," one of the girls in their class suggests. The others agree, quick to latch on to an excuse that doesn't upset the status quo.
Sakuno thinks about Tomoka skipping lunch just to escape her, thinks about how she ruined their friendship because hormones had ruined her first.
She works on her English assignment during break. She doesn't get further than writing Fuji's name next to Tezuka's on that same piece of paper.
Momoshirou runs into her in the hallway, holding five sandwiches in his arms as he tries to make his way down the corridor.
Sakuno greets him politely but Momoshirou only answers awkwardly. She watches him fumble his words for a bit longer as the sandwiches balance precariously in his grip. She hasn't had an appetite all week and envies him.
"I didn't do anything bad," she says, her words cutting through his chatter.
Momoshirou looks at her, really looks - his normally amiable expression turning into something stern. "You should have gone about it in a different way," he returns, less messy, less unsure. Her envy hits again a hundredfold.
Sakuno's stare moves from his face to the collar of his uniform. "You already knew," she realizes.
Momoshirou smiles wanly. "I'm his best friend," he points out.
She wants know what he means by that but the words are stuck in her throat.
"Why not Momo-senpai?" she asks Echizen the next day. Here in homeroom, he can't escape; they're stuck together and now they were both miserable.
Echizen's eyes look tired. She wonders if he's still crying when he's alone up on the rooftop. She glances over to where Tomoka is talking to her seat partner and studiously avoiding looking in Sakuno's direction.
"You should know that isn't how it works," he finally says. He's lost the rage so there's no edge to his words.
"Tezuka was the worst choice," she agrees.
Echizen pulls out the homework due once class starts. "Just as bad as Osakada?" he asks.
Sakuno forgot to do the assignment, so she just unzips her pencil case to look busy.
"Yes," she says. "But Tomo-chan wasn't the bad choice, I just wasn't the right person to choose."
Sakuno is sitting on her bed and looking at her nails, half listening to her mother downstairs bustling around as she makes dinner. She would only need to paint them and apply a few brushes of color to her eyes and cheeks before she left, but she's even more uncomfortable in her skin nowadays than she was last winter. The make-up wouldn't make her feel anything, which was perhaps the scariest part.
She moves over to her desk and opens the drawer, picking up the used tube of red lipstick. She remembers the color vividly after she'd left that lipstick imprint on skin.
Her bedroom door opens and Tomoka walks in. Her best friend looks wary, concerned, and very sad. "Please," Tomoka starts haltingly. "Please talk to me."
Sakuno doesn't want to, so she turns around and pulls out a handheld mirror from that same open drawer. She applies the lipstick carefully and her lips darken with the color.
Sakuno can't tell if she looks pretty or ridiculous. She tells Tomoka nothing important but is never called out on it.
They had seen each other by chance. Shinjuku's second ward had been bustling that one winter night and Sakuno should have blended into its crowds easily, but familiar faces had a way of catching and Echizen had spotted her as they passed.
The man with his arm wrapped around the boy's shoulders had looked amused as Echizen froze, and Sakuno still didn't know what the woman next to her had looked like when the boy greeted her awkwardly.
Sakuno supposed it shouldn't have been that odd. The bar was one of the few willing to serve minors despite the law.
She hadn't said anything afterwards and neither had Echizen.
In class on Friday, Sakuno walks in and is greeted cheerfully by Tomoka. Their friends look relieved that the tension between them is over and Sakuno wonders how they can be so willfully blind.
She looks over to see Echizen writing in his notebook.
Oh. Right.
Sakuno hears that Tezuka is back in town on a short holiday. Echizen looks sick in class all day and Kachirou is close to tears by the time they have to head to club practice.
"Don't worry, Ryoma-kun, you've gotten a lot stronger!" he tries to comfort uselessly.
Sakuno hopes Atobe knows better.
She has to agree with Echizen's earlier assessment - Atobe is an idiot captain.
He hadn't invited Tezuka - he'd practically kidnapped him. He'd also managed to wrangle in some kind of joint practice so that nearly all of their friends from the tennis circuit were present.
She remembers hearing that idiots thrive on hope. Sakuno hopes Atobe reaches the pinnacle of that idea and gains the perfect vantage point to watch all of it implode.
"Things look pretty heated down there," her classmate observes after tracking her gaze.
They watch as Echizen and Tezuka's private conversation at the side of the courts devolves until the first year is yelling "Well too fucking bad because it turns out I really fucking love cock!" before he turns and storms away.
Her classmate doesn't understand the English. Tezuka does and is left frozen at the sidelines as the scattered members of the tennis circuit turn gawking looks on him at the first year's uncharacteristic outburst.
Sakuno laughs until she cries.
"You really fucked up."
Fuji's tone is still sweet. Sakuno wants to vomit.
"Tezuka is worthless," she says through clenched teeth. They're alone in the photography clubroom and Sakuno wishes they weren't. She hopes Echizen's anger has returned to the true source of his resentment and that he's prowling the halls looking for her. At least he would be quick; Fuji took things too slow, enjoyed the sweetness of the agony too strongly.
"Tezuka isn't the problem. The problem is your approach," Fuji counters. He's disassembled a camera to clean its parts, a mechanical massacre laid bare before him.
"Tomo-chan won't bring it up," Sakuno points out, a quick switchover pulled out of desperation. Without Tomoka's rejection, what did Fuji have to hang above her head?
Fuji's fingers slide from the desk to sweep the bangs out of his open eyes. "Do you really think it's you I'll hurt if this doesn't end favorably?"
Sakuno concedes his point.
Horio scarcely believes what he has heard but he shares it just the same. Sakuno thinks that if they all survive this month; it's going to be that certain part of their lives no one would dare to bring up.
Momoshirou and Tezuka had been in a fistfight.
That had been the highlight of the weekend, as the top ranked players in Japan's high school tennis circuit held joint practice. Echizen was involved, of course, however peripheral it was - the boy was starting to sound more like a curse than a person now.
"Who won?" Sakuno asks.
Horio looks confused by the question.
No one, then.
"Ryoma-kun," Sakuno starts quietly once the boy has taken his seat. He's lost the dark circles under his eyes at last, and she wonders if that's because he can never hear the undeserved contempt from strangers when his friends are always hollering and laughing around him. "Don't you think you're really loved?"
Her notebook is open. It's her ninth attempt at finishing their English assignment.
"I don't know what you want from me," Echizen says.
"A good ending," she admits.
Kawamura, as it turns out, is nearly fluent in English. This surprises Sakuno and, in retrospect, she doesn't know why.
"When it comes to Echizen, sometimes even Tezuka can get carried away," the sushi chef-in-training says. "I couldn't hear what they were saying but I think Tezuka said some things out of line. I know he feels bad about it now."
Sakuno wonders how the senior defines 'out of hand' because she's dead certain that by now, everyone present for Echizen's meltdown has translated his parting statement.
"Do you think he'll go to club practice today?" she asks.
Kawamura smiles thinly. "Well, I have it on good authority that if Echizen's on campus, all club members are under strict orders to drag him there."
Atobe was getting out of hand.
It's been a week. Echizen is present every day despite his best efforts and Sakuno supposes that Momoshirou had been right. She'd gone about this the wrong way.
So she takes Tomoka by the wrist and drags her up to the roof during lunch. She's unsurprised to find both Atobe and Fuji there with Echizen.
"You shouldn't be up here," Atobe sneers.
Sakuno doesn't answer him. Echizen is sat between the two seniors and she nearly pities him; in a way, it was frightening being so loved.
"Tomo-chan, Fuji-senpai told you the truth," Sakuno says instead, turning to address her friend. "I am in love with you. I have been in love with you since junior high."
Tomoka is staring at her with very wide eyes. Sakuno doesn't look away.
"I don't know how he might have twisted those words, but he did so because he was angry that I told Tezuka about Echizen going to Shinjuku's gay district on weekends," she continues. "Fuji-senpai was also the one that started the plan of getting Echizen to stop going there, because it's dangerous and Fuji-senpai is jealous."
She didn't look behind her to where the three boys still were sitting but it was very quiet. Tomoka appears to still be struggling over Sakuno's first confession, which honestly makes Sakuno's stomach churn with frayed nerves and has her hands turn clammy with sweat.
Good. It was relieving to know that Tomoka's inevitable rejection of her was more terrible than whatever vengeance Fuji would surely dole out.
"Atobe suggested this English assignment to our teacher so that I would be able to spend more time with Ryoma to convince him not to go anymore, all because I had stopped going myself," Sakuno explains. "But I'd only been there once after you started dating Itou-kun back in April. I never returned. Ryoma was there because he actually likes the atmosphere and that seems to be something none of the idiots who love him understand."
Someone had stood up very suddenly behind her. She hoped it was Echizen and not one of the older boys rushing to choke her.
"I got Tezuka involved because he was the only person Ryoma actually listened to and I assumed he'd at least tell him not to be so careless. I didn't know he'd react like that, and now it's all snowballed and I've ruined everything and I'm so sorry."
"So all of this happened," Ryoma chokes out. "Because you guys wanted to fuck me?"
"They want to date you," Sakuno corrects instantly. It was so much easier to talk when she didn't have to look at their faces.
Tomoka is still looking at her like she'd just started spouting off Italian.
Ryoma is clearly blindsided, especially as neither Atobe nor Fuji refute the statement.
No one says anything for a minute. Ryoma passes by her silently, slamming the rooftop door behind him as he leaves.
Tomoka doesn't wait long after; she grabs Sakuno's hand and follows their classmate's retreating footsteps hastily. Sakuno's heart is in her throat as she jogs to keep up with their quick pace. The view of Tomoka's back feels bittersweet.
"I need to think," Tomoka says, once they'd reached their classroom. Their classmates' attention is on Echizen, however, as he stuffs his belongings into his schoolbag.
"Okay," Sakuno agrees quietly. She doesn't know what that means.
After a moment of watching Echizen brush off his concerned classmates with a harsh glare, Tomoka speaks up. "You should probably follow him. Once he leaves... Well, you didn't see their faces."
Sakuno wants to point out that Atobe definitely has the resources to make location a moot point, but she agrees again and hurries to gather her things and follow Echizen. Even if he's angry, he'd only hurt her physically.
Echizen pauses at the door, glancing between Sakuno and Tomoka before turning to Kachirou. "Tell Fuji-senpai and the Monkey King to leave these two alone, or else."
It was a kindness Sakuno knew she didn't deserve.
Echizen takes her to a burger joint and orders only a soda. Sakuno sits across from him, eyes on her hands that rest atop the table.
"What did Tezuka say to you?" she finally asks.
Echizen pushes the drink into her hands. "That it's an unhealthy lifestyle and I should concentrate on my tennis or my studies. Or I should be like other normal boys and get a girlfriend."
Sakuno takes a sip. The soda is harsh with sweetness against her tongue.
"What did Osakada say to you?" Echizen asks.
She pushes the drink back in his direction. "Nothing."
Echizen takes her to his house. She never knew that he had been so acutely aware of his former teammate's threatening abilities. She'd been under the impression that Echizen was always safe from Fuji's creeping power.
Then again, Echizen was not an idiot.
His father looks shocked at seeing her but doesn't say anything as she follows the boy upstairs to his room. She wonders if the man is already aware of his son's preferences or supportive in an entirely different way.
"Our assignment is due soon," Echizen says as she takes a seat on his bed. "Let's finish this."
Sakuno stays at home the next day. She's convinced her mother she's ill despite the fact that she doesn't show any symptoms, but then again, why would Sakuno lie? She's always been the honest type.
The day passes quietly. A few friends from class have messaged her but with nothing serious, just well-wishes.
Tomoka turns up in the afternoon with apples. They eat them together in her room; Tomoka is smiling and talking as always and for the first time, Sakuno isn't satisfied with it.
The month has been too long, this love sickness burned into her too deep to be glossed over twice.
Sakuno wants an answer but finds the words to demand so have escaped her grasp. Instead tears start to brim her eyes, and slowly Tomoka's chatter ceases.
"It's cruel, Tomo-chan," Sakuno finally manages out. Nothing could cut her more than false kindness now.
Tomoka looks at the half-eaten apple in her hand. It's already started to brown from where she had bitten in. Sakuno didn't think it was possible to empathize with a fruit but now here she was, starting to feel like everything she touched was starting to wither.
"I didn't want to find out about something so important in such a horrible way, you know," Tomoka starts softly. "But since it's you... Well, Sakuno-chan, it's you."
Sakuno knows she can take that in many different ways, but then Tomoka leans forward. Their lips meet quickly, a mere brush of flesh that lacks pressure but sends a jolt down Sakuno's frame.
That can be taken only one way. She starts to cry, and Tomoka tangles her fingers into her hair to bring her into a hug.
By the time school rolls around the following week, it's to see Echizen on the tennis courts in the afternoon with a 4-2 lead on Kirihara. It's difficult to tell who looks angrier.
Tomoka's eyes skim the court with grim satisfaction. "They're all idiots," she decides sagely. "Except for Ryoma."
Both Atobe and Fuji are sporting black eyes and Tezuka's healing bruises are a welcome sight to the girl. Sakuno wonders when her mild-mannered disposition had turned so vindictive.
The match ends in the first year's victory. Kirihara stomps off the court in a foul mood as Atobe calls for the next pair to enter. Echizen takes the water bottle Fuji holds out for him with a low thanks.
At the end of the month, they turn in their first attempt of the assignment as the final work. Their teacher is unimpressed by their lack of creativity and gives them both only 15 points, if only because they did have excellent grammar.
Echizen holds his graded paper with a smirk. "We should have written about Ni-Chome," he says.
"So Fuji-senpai can turn it into a hitlist?" Sakuno mutters.
"Monkey King is worse," Echizen parries. "He actually follows me there and sits with me."
Sakuno folds her assignment up to better shove it into the folds of her notebook. "That's only worse for you, Ryoma-kun. I think the general populace is actually safer that way."
Echizen shrugs uncaringly. No one has ever been able to wipe the arrogancr out of him completely.
Tomoka pulls a chair up next to their paired desks during break with a daunting grin, grabbing Sakuno's hand to hold.
Five years down the road and they have moved into their own place, having outed themselves to their families to mixed reactions.
Echizen sometimes crashes at their place after fights with his boyfriends; Sakuno couldn't explain his relationship in any adequate way but he's happy more than he's not so she supposes it's worked out for him as well.
Fuji was still rather possessive and Ryoma was always willing to challenge them, but Atobe was dramatic enough for all three of them that the fights they had were more often over petty things like the appropriate furnishings for the bedroom or the number of cacti Fuji should keep in the house without it being described as 'overrun with these thorny motherfuckers, damnit, Syuusuke!'
Sakuno enters her apartment to the sound of Tomoka's off-key singing as she prepares dinner. She misses the high note and chokes on the next line when Sakuno calls out a greeting as she walks into the kitchen.
"Welcome home!" Tomoka returns cheerfully, just before she stubs her toe on the corner of the cabinet and erupts into a slew of curses.
Sakuno is dizzyingly happy. She knows she will wake up the next day entwined with the love of her life, hands clutched together the same way they'd been the first time Tomoka had said she loved her back.
A/N: I don't know why, but I like writing relationships (platonic or otherwise) that are more...erratic and almost hostile as opposed to fluffy.