Tender is the Night

Disclaimer: I don't own SD boys, Inoue does. The events that follow are not included in the original plot but enjoy anyway.

Summary: There's a reason to pretend when your sentiments aren't trusted and sometimes, there's a need to go on pretending. Miya-Aya. Non-yaoi. One shot.

A/N: Title's taken from the great (also the author of 'The Great Gatsby', my favorite!) F. Scott Fitzgerald's jazzy novel 'Tender is the Night'. Duh.

-

Desire urges us to possess, to go to something; loathing urges us to abandon, to go from something-James Joyce, 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man'

He passes somewhere out of daylight's sanity, looking here, there and anywhere else where everything's an ordinary hokum. That's what he calls useless but necessary escapist habit. Last year, the same thing happened with so much excitement in it only to turn flat out. Valentine's Day does come with so many Cupid hanging around and expect that it's really 'cupidic' when it gets there. A lot of miracles are happening; in the comfort rooms' cubicles, around the bushes, at the back of the school building, in some remote school yards and even under the school teachers' desk! That's the day when everyone gets ribald and rarely does someone get dumped. And of all frigging lame positions he had to be 'rare' for a day. Ha! Rare things don't happen twice but not so likely with Ryota Miyagi, especially when there's the glamorous manager involved. And will he be refused tomorrow as he was last year? He almost fell off his rockers then and is only too sure he doesn't want that replayed. Some things don't want to change, really; if not for the worse, that is.

'Oh! I knew it.' He concludes even before it starts and there enters the moments that go prior to the real conflict. 'Why, I can't be like that tomorrow again—Oh Ryota, give me one good reason why I should dine with you today.' He mimics Ayako's words and recalls her uncaring, unknowing brown eyes as he reaches their front gate. Venereal Disease Day, February 14 seems to be the ONLY acceptable date on the calendar this month. Shi-at. And it's going to be tomorrow and there's going to be a lot of talk about who went out with whom and where they smacked and what time they hooked up and every goddamn near sex experience that took place. And whoa, isn't he just going to be ostracized from that circle for being refused? He hates it because every pain has to be a mouth to be listened to and every sight to be watched. Fuckever.

He rolls his eyes and ensconces himself on their sofa bed. Even the ceiling's looking in love with the flies that come treading upside down on its immaculate surface. For a moment, he wishes to be that fly and Ayako that welcoming ceiling. Oh dear, if she won't be going out with him tomorrow then all the point of that special day's existence is just, well, nonexistent. He ought to have thought of that last year when she ignored his flexible insistence and the consequent attitude of hers toward him in all the time that would come. Always indifferently negligent of his feelings; it's so typical of her.

Miyagi breathes loudly and turns on the tube in maximum volume, hoping to cover the ugly reality that the silence bares.

So what are you waiting for? Key in VJ Karel space date space Valentine's Day space your address space your name and send in to 2366 to have a chance to date the cutest VJ in town-

The TV says. Another stupid thing to help deluded people get more delusional. What's new? Valentine's Day is harping on him; even that cheap music channel keeps on reminding him.

'I better not go to school tomorrow. I better get sick now or else…else, I'd be taking the brunt of it.' Or her rejection, which is plain of course. Miyagi thinks as cowardice makes its first choice who happens to be him, the proverbial chicken. 'I'd better not make a sequel out of it.' He tells himself with finality, his decisiveness growing in extremis as much as his self-contempt does.

-

February 14.

'Where's Sakuragi?'

'Wild goose chasing, captain.'

'What do you mean?'

'Heart's Day syndrome, i.e., chasing girls around and getting big scarlet-apple cheeks in the name of euphoria.'

'Get his bedamned ass here.' Akagi snarls at the freshman and turns to the players, 'Okay boys, team up!'

The boys scramble to their feet and get to their respective line up, prepared by their manager.

'Wait a second, there should be 5 of you,' Akagi curiously glances at Team White whose line up stands lacking one figure like a set of teeth with one tooth pulled out. 'Where's the other one gone?'

'Miyagi didn't attend classes today. I was thinking that he would at least go to practice. I'm not sure why he didn't go, captain.' Ayako frowns as she informs Akagi.

Akagi abandons his temper in silence. Somebody's mocking voice is heard.

'That says something if he doesn't show up. Actually it says a lot…that he has no plan to take Ayako out or…'

'Mitsui!' Ayako snaps and blushes as a result.

'I'm just conjecturing in the most reasonable way. It's not like he would ever miss this day.' Mitsui says. 'Oh, we can do without him. The team has me.'

'Dream on.'

The voice is Sakuragi's, apparently just in the point of making an entrance. He stands at the portal, full of hot air, in his complete basketball get-up. The freshman, who went to fetch him, pants heavily with clutches on his knees.

'Oh, the prodigious son has returned after dallying a fat lot outside! Let's get started, red ape, and don't go explaining your bluster which only a retard can have an excuse for. No more shit from you.' Mitsui seethes.

In no time, the team commences its practice game…without Miyagi.

The practice ends at 6 in the afternoon.

'Tell Miyagi off first thing in the morning. I can't have Shohoku's next team captain missing out on games for no apprehensible reason. Better not make a point of telling me that he'd just gone off girl chasing.' Akagi tells Ayako who feels to have received the full blast of his remonstrance.

'That's likely.' Says the rambling Sakuragi from behind.

'I'll tell him as soon as I can, sir.' Ayako assures him and sweeps away expressionlessly.

Ayako saunters down the pavement, receiving the heraldic winds of the blue afternoon. Her route requires her to take that which leads to the gloomy Mulberry Street; that road whose benches nobody bothers with they might as well be labeled 'purposeless'. She wonders why the mayor took pains of placing light posts there when no one…

She stops dead. Someone's there, sitting languidly and almost sadly. He has his head straight up and he wears that expression which he must've been when alone. And Ayako knows plainly who it is; she doesn't need to look twice, longer, or more intently to make sure. She remains at a pause, not knowing how to step. She wants to turn back and take the other more winding pass but the space objects to her charge as she lingers there hesitantly. The person eventually catches sight of her while she feels his stare as if it were a blow on her head. But she's not even sure why she's feeling like this. Finally, she steps forward, aiming to sit by Miyagi, to which she is obliged to make with sweat and just couldn't but fight shy of.

'You weren't in a while ago in the practice. I thought you might be sick …' Ayako says, discontented.

'I wasn't, but I'm not well either.' Miyagi says stoically. He expects her to say nothing in return, apologize (because it's late), and go. But she doesn't. Instead,

'That's a little bit shallow. Mitsui sempai goes to practice even if his knees are throbbing, Rukawa goes even if he's short of sleep, Sakuragi even if he's just come off fresh from a street brawl and you—I don't know what to make of you.' Ayako goes on with her derisive comparison of pathetic situations.

'Yeah, I thought of that too. But what does that matter?' Miyagi says blankly, speaking more to himself than to the person beside him.

'Well, Akagi says he wouldn't want a lounging captain for Shohoku next year. I suppose you know you're reserved for that position.'

'Of course I knew that. But would it really hurt the team seriously if I miss a 2 hour long session? You've been saying that for so long I'm starting to believe its luxuriant hints. Whew, I didn't know I was THAT important.'

Ayako feels his sarcasm but doesn't bring it up.

'You're seeing the view in the wrong end of the telescope. What I mean is that, you could go repeating it for all we know. And you're supposed to be setting a good example.'

'To hell with good examples. Who gives a solitary damn about them, neh? Let me get rid of them as fast as I can, the sooner the better.' Ryota says with an air, and without prudence to restrain his speech.

'Oh, that's nice, Ryota.' Ayako says stiffly. 'I wonder if you really mean it.' This time, it's she who's being sarcastic.

Then a silence pervades the dead air, the kind that seems to start before it does and ends after it does; so big it seems too big for both of them to bear. The trouble of it continues inside Miyagi, feeding more on his restlessness. Of course, he doesn't mean it; basketball is all to him…well, only next to her, if he's being conscious. His heart begins to beat faster as if to be visible on his chest, and the drumming gets louder, overriding the crickets' nocturnal chirping.

'I don't know. Maybe I'll mean it later on if it doesn't live up to the excitement you're injecting to me.'

'Ryota! What are you saying?'

'Oh, don't pretend. Everybody knows I joined the team because of you.'

'So? That doesn't relieve you of your obligation, does it?'

The argumentative moment prolongs longer than the slipping through of nightly darkness as it grows more calculating of time, drowsing to infinity. There's a large uncertainty in Miyagi's lips that doesn't want to be revealed, and he keeps quiet like a rebuked child. Ayako goes on.

'Well if that's your terra firma in reasoning with me, I guess you're making a complicated thing out of your job. It's as easy as attending practices, being responsible; can't you do that? Well, if you can't…you can think of resigning too.'

'Hahaha.' Miyagi gives out a little laugh. 'Well, you don't mean that, do you?'

'Oh, no. Of course I don't.' Ayako says without reluctance. 'We'll be damned like what happened in the Ryonan practice game.'

'That's a utilitarian perspective. You only care for basketball, don't you, Ayako?'

'Don't state the obvious. But hey, it's not just for me; it's for Shohoku.'

And then there's another pause of consternation, one that says that if awkwardness should come; it has to go this way at this instant. And it does, until Ayako speaks first to break the mute duologue.

'Please don't tell me I'm the reason why you weren't in earlier.'

'Then don't ask when the answer's gaping before you.'

'Alright Ryota, just because it's Valentine's-'

'Oh, so you do have the heart to know that it's Valentine's Day.'

'Oh yeah, and it's not really anybody's business if I chose not to remember, is it?'

'No, it's not.' Ryota screws up his face before making himself look solemn. 'Ayako,'

She looks at him.

'Don't deprive me of something even before I get it. You've been doing it since the word go and, well, it sucks.' Ryota says, exerting weak control over his voice.

'I know.' Ayako says absently as if those two words mean the least in her vocabulary.

'So you're just being cruel?'

'I'm being honest, that's it.' Ayako says with a little look of expiation no matter how firmly she resolves to break it to him.

'But brutally.'

'Last year I was, because I barely knew you.' She protests.

'Yes, I understand that. But you know me now. Are you still going to be as stony as before?'

'If you want to put it that way.' She answers compendiously.

Miyagi straightens up.

'So that means 'no' again?' He says, striving to look composed and deep inside, wishing for that which he's less likely to hear.

'Huh? Is that what you come here for?'

'Yesterday afternoon I was sure I could stand not seeing you for today.' Miyagi starts with a feeling that if he speaks it in front of her, there's a danger that she'll not understand. 'But it was tough, as always, as it is now and ever will be. So now, I'm here.' He finishes with difficulty as if there's fishbone tormenting his throat.

'…'

Miyagi senses the impossibility of further remaining in the scene and says,

'So, it's a 'no' then?'

So what if it's a 'no'? It's been like that since and getting the same thing again will hardly make a difference. The first time rotted my appetite but the succeeding ones have become habituated that…

'Ryota!' She gasps. 'How dare you…think like that?'

Miyagi looks at her, ready to admit that apocalyptic and regular 'no', to accept that life resembles trash and that he stinks in God's nose too; at that time when reminding him is always a tough thing…He smiles and says,

'What? I'm just being practical, knowing you. So, miss, it's a 'no'? Oh, what the hell am I asking you for? I could play back what you'd say even before-'

'Of course not.' Ayako says and stares seriously at Miyagi. 'Why, if that's all you ask…well, just to have a nice time tonight,' she breathes in. 'It's fine, Ryota. I don't mind saying 'yes' to you tonight.'

Miyagi gapes at her.

'You're always getting these ideas about me, those presumptions, usually incorrect ones. I feel like you're seeing me like everybody else. Jesus.' And then she gives him a smile. 'Oh come on.' She grabs Miyagi's hand and leads him to dine somewhere for the first time.

END

A/N: Oh, don't mind me; I now always end my sapcrap like this. Actually, I'm just trying to refrain from the lousy endings I always make for my one shot fics; I mean, that (yaoi) he-kissed-him-and-says-yes-after-all-the-crap-he's-been-through-with-him kinda ending. It may not seem obvious but this is one of my most favorite pairings here, though it's been nearly three years since I wrote anything about them (Kanagawa Blues, that's the fic). Anyhow, thanks for reading. Have a nice day.