It was Yanagi who started it, unsurprisingly. He liked to start things and see where they ended up. Most often, they ended up where he predicted they would. This was one such case.
It had been easy enough to tilt his glasses up so that she reflected the light of the weights room and set himself as Niou's spotter. Easier still to glance Hiroshi's way and tap his pen against his lip as Niou grunted his way up another chin-lift.
"Yagyuu-kun has been acting slightly strange lately, have you noticed? I wonder if he has fallen in love with someone."
The velocity of Niou's lifts increased exactly how Yagyuu had predicted they would. One small checkmark on the list, one small feeling of satisfaction.
"That fucker is too tight-assed to fall in love," Niou snarled at him, dropping down and heading straight for the bench-press, despite the need for a five-minute cool-down. Yanagi smiled behind his clipboard and followed him, completely aware of the knowing look his captain was sending his way.
By the second day Niou was throwing punches left right and center as the reality of Yanagi's off-hand statement struck home. Of course Niou had spent all his waking moments validating the comment and by the end of the second day he had come to grudgingly agree. Yanagi saw all of this. It was, after all, obvious to someone who was looking for it. Yagyuu was extremely distracted, daydreamed often, spent less time with the team outside of practices, came up with silly excuses for his sudden sleeplessness, and had his phone on at all hours.
On the third day Yanagi was going to mention something to Yagyuu-kun, but Niou beat him to it.
"What the fuck is up with you, Yagyuu? Did some girl finally propose her love to you?"
Yanagi watched carefully for the response. No one was better at getting one from their gentleman. The changing room was silent around them as everyone else decided to watch the doubles drama as well. Yagyuu coloured and turned his back on his teammate, a sure sign of guilt. Yanagi had observed a distinct inability of Hiroshi's to lie to his doubles partner, even though he did so well with everyone else.
"There is no girl, Niou-kun. I have no idea where you got the idea."
At this, he gave Yanagi a steely glare that made Yanagi chuckle under his breath. Oh yes, his predictions were exactly on the mark.
"Fuck off, Yagyuu, you think I'm going to believe that?"
"Drop it, Niou."
And so for the next two days an icy silence rested between the D1 pair. Niou made loud comments to Gakuto guessing which girl it was and what she looked like all while looking he would kill the girl once he found her. He laid more traps and pulled more pranks than ever, and since Yagyuu refused to intervene the teachers had to go to Yukimura instead, who promised to do something, but was secretly enjoying the show too much to let it end like that. However, when it started interfering with tennis it was going too far.
"Hiroshi. Masaharu. Here, now."
Even their captain's order was almost not enough to make the two of them walk towards each other at this point. Yanagi had found a good vantage point and could see even from a distance that very little held back the boiling passion underneath Yagyuu's fragile facade of calm and that Niou was on the verge of a breakdown at the threat of loosing his partner.
They glowered at each other and Yukimura glowered at them both, his presence overshadowing anything else.
"Go into the locker rooms right now and sort this out. I will not have our undefeated doubles one ruined by a stupid fight like this. If you refuse to sort it out like adults then I will simply resolve it myself. Understood?"
There was a silence that Yukimura took for assent, so he pushed them both off towards the low building. Yanagi immediately slipped off to watch through a window, Yukimura's eyes following him all the way out of sight.
Inside the building there was a long silence Yagyuu sat on the bench and Niou paced. They both exploded at once.
"Who do you think you-"
"What kind of-"
Another silence, and then Niou spoke first.
"You can't deny it, can you? You're acting like a fucking idiot, everyone knows it."
"That isn't any of your concern."
That was a weak argument at the best of times and Yagyuu knew it. His head was bowed as if he was simply waiting for the last strike. Niou obliged him.
"Who is it?"
There was a long, tense silence as all the fight seemed to blow out of Yagyuu and he crumpled even smaller than he had been before. He took off his glasses and closed his eyes, looking down at the floor.
"You."
Yanagi made an internal cheer and made another mental checkmark towards his predictions. He loved it when he understood something well enough to predict such an inheirantly flawed thing as this relationship.
Meanwhile, Niou had stopped pacing and was staring down at the crown of Yagyuu's head.
"What?" he whispered, voice broken. He licked his lips and tried to smile, failing, as his shocked eyes betrayed his real feelings. "Nice joke, bastard. As if you would really..."
But Niou's attempts to convince himself of Yagyuu's new-found sense of humour failed when Yagyuu's eyes met his and he realized how close Yagyuu was to breaking down over this. Just as close as he was, in fact.
He fell to his knees in front of Yagyuu and placed one hand on the side of his head, pressing his forehead against his chest slowly.
"You're an idiot. We're both idiots," he mumbled as he blushed bright red. Hiroshi didn't need any more than that to start blushing as well, a smile twitching at the corners of his lips.
"Yes, we most definitely are," he whispered back and wrapped his arms around Niou, for the first time realizing that this body was his to hold.
The next morning when Yanagi crept into the locker rooms early to gather the tapes from the day before he found that the cables had been cut just after things started heating up. Letting out a sigh as he watched the tape go to grey fuzz Yanagi realized that all along Niou had known that Yanagi was watching them in the changing room and how kinky that really was. Perhaps if he was suitably conniving they would consider a threesome - once they had settled into their relationship, of course...
