Secret
Summary: Tale of Kamio and Kirihara and their comings of age. Eventual KiriharaxKamio.
Rated: T

XxX

April 14, 2000

The First Match

In retrospect, Kirihara kind of wished that he had been in a more refined position when he first saw him.

Not that he had done anything seriously wrong or anything—it was just a little lemon juice in Sanada's water bottle—but still, he later concluded, maybe he should have waited until after the game to pull something like that. Sanada flew off the handle, not just because he had had to spit out a mouthful of lemon water all over the courts, but because he felt that Kirihara wasn't taking this match seriously. He had smacked Kirihara full-on in the face, rather harder than Kirihara was expecting, causing the younger boy to stagger backwards a few steps under the glare of his vice captain.

"If you spent half as much time on your technique as you do on stupid jokes—" Sanada was shouting, while Yagyuu and Niou cheerily waved at Kirihara from behind Sanada's back. Kirihara frowned and rubbed his abused cheek with his left hand.

"Geez, it wasn't that big of a deal—" he muttered.

"It's about respect!" Sanada cut him off forcefully. "Not just to me, but to the other team. You don't go shitting around before a semi-finals match!"

"We're gonna cream them anyway," Kirihara said ruefully, staring defiantly back at Sanada. "There's no way we'll lose here—"

In response to that, Sanada hit him again, on the same cheek. "Just keep your head down," he growled. "And quit screwing around. Rikkaidai has class." He stormed off angrily.

Kirihara tenderly touched his cheek, and when it burned like hell, he trooped over to the captain's bench and collapsed on it, away from the rest of the team. What the hell did Sanada know anyway? Fudomine was a joke. They hadn't done anything to earn Kirihara's respect. This whole match was pointless; it would be a cakewalk, just a waste of time, and here Kirihara was getting beaten up for fooling around before the match…

Now feeling personally angry at Fudomine, as if it had been the other team's fault, Kirihara looked over at the opposite end of the court, still holding the side of his face. The other team was just coming onto the court, and Kirihara glared at each of them. He ran his eyes over the opponents; he only knew Tachibana, as that was who he would be playing. A boy with shoulder length blue hair and a tall guy with a bandana were the first to arrive. Kirihara gazed on, silently hating them all for indirectly getting him in trouble. Then another boy walked out onto the court. He was a skinny, gangly thing with dark red hair and a carelessly graceful gait. He ambled over to the blue haired boy at a languid, comfortable pace, like he had all the time in the goddamn world or something, and tossed him a bag before sitting down next to him and putting in headphones.

Kirihara didn't know what it was, but he couldn't take his eyes off the boy. He was pretty sure he felt pissed off, but then again, he could never be sure with himself. The boy was too damn…calm. That was it. He was sitting and listening to music as if a complete and utter defeat wasn't in his very near future. Kirihara smirked, imagining the fate of the whole team within three games. That ought to get the kid moving. No more lazing on the bench for that guy.

Perhaps Kirihara's eyes actually did have laser powers or something, but after about thirty seconds, the redhead seemed to suddenly feel his stare and looked up at him. At first his gaze was blank, but it turned subtly hostile as Kirihara didn't look away, only widened his cruel, feral grin. Kirihara dropped his hand from his still slightly-red cheek. The redhead stared back, mouth in a sharp line, looking slightly annoyed for another few seconds before looking away.

Kirihara rubbed his hands together and stood up when he heard Sanada calling him to warm up with the rest of the team. Surprisingly, he headed over to meet them; usually Kirihara would sulk for at least fifteen minutes after being berated before returning in submission. But his mood had improved, somehow. This was going to be a fun game.

At the net, Kirihara was just one over from shaking hands with the redhead before the match. He still smirked over at the confident looking boy, hoping to disconcert him.

The boy gave Kirihara a smoldering look of distaste in response. Marui, who was actually shaking hands with him, sniggered out loud at the silent interaction. He cocked an eyebrow at Kirihara as they trooped back to the sidelines, clearly asking what the hell was up with that, but Kirihara didn't say anything. Marui didn't deserve to know. Anyway, he was first up now, playing doubles with Jackal against Fudomine's pair. It was finally time to see what the school was made of.

XxXxXxXxX

His name was Kamio Akira, and he could run like the goddamn wind. These were the first things that Kirihara learned about the boy. He got almost dizzy, trying to follow Kamio's movements across the court, jerky and hurried like an insect buzzing from leaf to leaf. He definitely moved well and played seamlessly with his partner. Kirihara noticed that his arm movements were a little strange sometimes: like he didn't lift his left arm all the way in serving and he always kept it tucked by his side as he ran, but overall it wasn't very noticeable. His partner had a few special techniques hidden up his sleeve, it seemed—not that they were much use in the match—and his style was similarly aggressive. All in all, their teamwork was quite perfect: like teammembers in a relay race, it was difficult to tell where one's territory ended and the other one's began.

That being said, they were absolutely no match for Sanada and Yanagi, whose tactics were vastly superior, even if their teamwork was not nearly as good. Kamio and his partner, who Kirihara had learned was called Ibu Shinji collapsed after losing six matches, though they had won two.

That means it's my turn, Kirihara thought, smirking even more happily to himself, thinking about his upcoming match. They weren't bad, Fudomine, he had to admit, but it was still amusing to crush them. And now he, Kirihara, was taking on their captain and would destroy him.

Kirihara strutted onto the court and exchanged the normal pleasantries with his opponent, who looked unnerved, before taking his stance. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kamio and Ibu leaving the court, probably to go cool down somewhere or get a drink. For some reason, it pissed Kirihara off. He wasn't sure why, but he wanted them to be here, witnessing the defeat from beginning to end, and knowing that it was Kirihara who had done it. Especially that Kamio.

The match went quickly. Kirihara thought he might have slightly overdone it, out of temper. He got increasingly annoyed with each point he took that the doubles pair wasn't there to see. They finally turned up, when Kirihara had already won four games and Tachibana had taken only one. In a fury, partly that Tachibana had won one round, and partly because they had missed his brilliance, Kirihara got a terrible idea and aimed repeatedly at Tachibana's knee. It was surprisingly easy, he found, to bring the captain down once he let go to his cruel instincts. Tachibana was soon rendered incapacitated and the match was called to a halt.

Since Tachibana couldn't play anymore, Kirihara was announced the winner, though they hadn't finished. Kirihara didn't care. He'd done what he'd come to do. He just made sure he flashed a charming-bastard smile at Kamio, who was gazing in shock upon his fallen hero. Maybe that would teach him to pick his idols more carefully…

Kirihara swaggered back to his team with his racquet over his shoulder, but he didn't get much of a hero's welcome.

"What's happening?" Kirihara asked. "That Tachibana's getting more love from his teammates than I am..." he said, only half-sarcastically, glancing over his shoulder irately at the crowd around Fudomine's captain.

Niou just scoffed. "When'd you go psycho, Boy?"

Sanada didn't scold Kirihara, but he didn't say anything else either. He just instructed the rest of the team to pack up.

The closing ceremonies were cut short because of the injury. Most of Fudomine left with their captain to escort him to the hospital, so Rikkaidai was alone on the courts with no one to shake hands with. Not that the Fudomine boys didn't get in their fair share of glares before leaving. Each seemed to hate Kirihara now, which was fine by him, he decided. Now they were just up to date. Kamio had run out to the court once his captain had collapsed, pale as snow. Kirihara couldn't hear from where he was standing, but Kamio's eyes filled with compassion for his fallen role model and his mouth moved to words of comfort that Kirihara couldn't hear. Just before they took him away, Kamio looked back at Kirihara. It was clear that he somehow suspected that Kirihara's violence towards Tachibana was connected to him. He didn't even glare at Kirihara—just looked at him with wide, blank eyes as if he were not seeing just Kirihara's body, but was seeing straight through him, a thousand years into the future. He looked away.

The bus came to pick them up and Kirihara sat by himself, ignoring Marui's poking and half-hearted attempts to get Kirihara to join the fun. Kirihara stared out the window, feeling both pleased and a little disconcerted.

"Worried that team might come after you?" Niou joked, guessing at Kirihara's silence. "Don't blame you…Fudomine's hardcore."

"What do you mean?" Kirihara said suspiciously.

"Have you ever seen Fudomine? Do you know the area?" Yanagi asked patiently, guessing where this was going.

"What do you mea—"

"They're from the slums, kid," Niou explained, yanking on a lock of Kirihara's hair (none too gently, either), the way he always did when he was trying to make a point or he wanted Kirihara to feel stupid. "They aren't like us. They don't talk things out. To them, dealing with a problem is like this…"

Niou held up two fingers and his thumb in a gun gesture, pointed at Kirihara's forehead, and said, "pow!" Then he and Yagyuu started laughing.

Kirihara's eyebrows knitted together as he tried to imagine the redhead he'd seen today holding a gun. Kamio had looked too fragile to survive a good punch in the face. He snorted, shaking his head. "I'll take that chance," he retorted, leaning back in his seat again.

It was a little early to start worrying, he figured. Things like this always happened when you were a top-notch tennis star anyway. Jealousy, blame, hate. Yukimura had probably dealt with it all the time. If the team wanted revenge, it would come all in good time and he, Kirihara, would be ready. He was currently more concerned about how to explain the flecks of blood on his uniform to his mother.

A/N:

KiriKami is my obsession...I finally cracked and decided I had to write an epic for them.