Some Notes:
Since I don't know the names of Jirou's family, I just made some up.
And because I don't want you to be confused, I made a list with so you'll be able to see who is who:
- Jirou's younger sister: Miyabi
- Jirou's older brother: Haruki
- Jirou's cousins: Meiko
- Jirou's cousin's baby: Rin
Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis or any of the characters.
Sleeping Love
The telephone was ringing and a young boy picked up the phone.
"Hello. This is the Akutagawa residence." The boy said.
"Ah, Jirou." There was the voice of an older woman. "It's me Meiko. Is your mother home?"
"Yes, she is." Jirou answered. And He went to call his mother.
"Hello, Meiko-chan? What's wrong?" His mother asked after taking the phone.
"I actually called to ask for a favour." Meiko said. "I have something important going on tomorrow and I need someone to look out for Rin."
"I'm sorry, but I need to go to work and so does your uncle and Haruki. And Miyabi already has plans with her friends."
"What about Jirou?" Meiko asked.
"I don't think that would be a good idea."
"Yeah, I guess so. Then could you help me find someone. It's really hard to search for someone the day before."
"Of course we'll help. I'll call you later today, whether I found someone or not."
"Okay, thanks."
"What did Meiko-neesan want?" Miyabi asked her mother.
"She asked if someone could baby-sit Rin tomorrow."
"I'm going to meet some friends now, so I could ask them if they can do it."
"That would be a great help."
"Well, I'll be going then." Miyabi said. And she left the house on her way to her meet her friends.
"Miyabi-cha~n"
Miyabi looked around to see who called her. She saw an orange haired boy walking towards her.
"Ah, Sengoku-san."
"Where are you going?" Sengoku asked her.
"I was going to meet my friends." She told him.
"You already have plans? And I thought I could ask you on a date today."
"Please don't joke around, Sengoku-san."
"It's not a joke. I mean it."
"Then if you baby-sit on my cousin's daughter tomorrow, I will go on a date with you."
"Really? That's all?" Sengoku asked.
"What do you mean with 'that's all'? It's a one-year old baby you need to baby-sit, you know."
"Don't worry. I'm really good with children."
"Then if you don't mess things up tomorrow, I'll go on a date with you…"
"Okay, it's a promise."
Miyabi took out her mobile phone and called home. She told her mother about Sengoku.
She hang her phone up.
"Okay, you can come to my home at 11 in the morning tomorrow." She took a piece of paper and pen out of her bag and wrote something on it. "This is my address and make sure you're not late."
She gave the piece of paper to Sengoku.
"Then I'll see you tomorrow."
"Yes. And now I'll be going again. Bye."
Miyabi walked off.
Sengoku didn't move for a while. He had this feeling he forgot something. He then remembered.
"Ah!! Tomorrow's my birthday…" But Miyabi already left.
The next day
"It's almost time. I need to hurry." Sengoku said to himself after looking at the clock. And he left his home.
After arrived at the Akutagawa's house just a few minutes before 11 am.
"You're on time." Miyabi said. "Come in."
"Eh…Miyabi-chan…"
"What is it?"
"Until when do I need to baby-sit?"
"Until Haru-nii returns from his part-time job, which should be between six and seven pm. Why?"
"Well, actually today is my birthday…"
"What?! Why didn't you say so yesterday?"
"I guess, I forgot…"
"How could you forget something like that?"
"It's okay, I didn't really have any plans anyway."
"If you say so."
The two of them entered the house.
"Okaasan, Meiko-neesan." Miyabi called. "Sengoku-san arrived."
"Welcome, Sengoku-san." Jirou's mother welcomed Sengoku. "Feel free to act like you're home."
"Thank you." Sengoku said, trying to sound polite.
"Thank you so much for agreeing to baby-sit Rin." Meiko said.
"It's nothing, really." Sengoku replied. "I was free, anyway."
"This is Rin." Meiko showed her baby to Sengoku.
"Ah, good morning." Jirou entered the room.
"Jirou-nii, you're slow." Miyabi said. "This is Sengoku-san."
She then turned to Sengoku. "This is my brother Jirou. He will be staying home, too."
"Eh? Then why did you ask me to baby-sit?"
"Because Jirou-nii tends to fall asleep a lot. And sometimes he just doesn't want to wake up."
"Do you have experience with baby-sitting, Sengoku-san?" Meiko asked.
"Not really, but I get along with children really well."
"Hmm…I see." Meiko explained things to Sengoku. And told him what Rin likes, and what not. When she should be fed.
"Then I should be going. I'm counting on you, Sengoku-san. And you too, Jirou." She finally said.
They said goodbye and Meiko left.
"Then I should be going, too." Jirou's mother said.
And Jirou's mother left. Not long after that, Miyabi left too.
There was a silence.
"So, now we're alone." Sengoku then said.
"Yeah, we are." Jirou said. He was still tired. So he lay on the couch. Not long after that he fell asleep.
Sengoku looked at him for a while. And he too started to feel tired.
He decided to just ignore Jirou and play with the baby.
After a while Rin started to get tired. Sengoku gave her some milk and she fell asleep.
"Hmm…What to do?" Sengoku thought to himself. "Maybe watch TV?" But there was nothing interesting to watch.
"What a boring birthday this is." He said to himself.
"Eh? It's you're birthday?" Someone suddenly said.
Sengoku turned around. "Oh, you're awake." He saw Jirou trying to sit up. "Yeah, it's my birthday."
Sengoku went to sit next to Jirou.
"Then why did you come?"
"So I could go on a date with Miyabi-chan."
"Eh? So you like Miyabi?"
"I don't know her well enough to say that I like her, I just think she's really cute."
"Yeah, lots of boys do. I think she already has a boyfriend, though."
"That wouldn't surprise me."
The telephone then started to ring. Jirou went to take it.
"Hello?" He answered.
"Oh, you're awake." A male voice said. "It's me Shishido."
"Shishido? Why are you calling?"
"To make sure you're not sleeping, and to remind you that we have a test tomorrow."
"A test?"
"I knew you forgot. We have a math test tomorrow. And you completely ruined the previous one."
"Oh right."
"And you weren't allowed to participate in club activities for a month. Which made Atobe totally pissed. Which resulted in the whole tennis club getting a lecture of an hour."
"Eh…yeah. I'm going to start studying now."
"Good, then I'll see you tomorrow."
And Shishido hang up.
"A classmate?" Sengoku asked.
"Yeah, he reminded me of a test I have tomorrow. I'll be right back."
Jirou went to get his study books.
"What subject is it?" Sengoku then asked.
"Maths, but I don't really understand it. Especially when they ask about those…eh…what's it called again? That thing when with the chance you can actually get a red marble out of a vase, or something."
Sengoku sighed. "Those are called probabilities. An luckily for you, I'm good at those stuff."
Jirou opened his book and showed Sengoku the things he didn't understand. Sengoku quickly looked through it and started explaining which took some time. Jirou had this tendency to keep falling asleep.
An hour or so passed.
"Oh, now I understand." Jirou said. "This isn't hard."
Rin then woke up and started to cry. Which shocked both of the boys.
Sengoku stood up and walked towards Rin and tried to make her stop crying.
"What's wrong, Rin-chan?" He asked her. "Are you hungry? Or do you need to change you're diaper?"
He decided to change her diaper, but she still cried. Thus, he tried to feed her. But this didn't help either.
"Do you have any idea what she wants?" He asked Jirou.
"Maybe she wants her mother." Jirou suggested.
"Do you want your mother Rin-chan? But she won't come for a while, so please be patient. Okay?"
Rin just wouldn't stop crying.
"Look, Jirou-niisan is trying to study." Sengoku pointed at the books. "You want him to get a good grade, right?"
Rin started to cry louder.
"A-Apparently, you don't." Sengoku was starting to freak out.
Jirou stood up and try to help Sengoku, but nothing helped.
Finally after an hour, Rin stopped crying. She then fell asleep again.
"Finally." Sengoku said. And they both sat down.
Jirou then suddenly fell on Sengoku's lap.
"O-Oi, what are you doing?" Sengoku asked. But there was no reply. He took a look at Jirou's face and saw that he was fast asleep.
"You really sleep a lot, don't you?"
Sengoku kind of felt uncomfortable. It was the first a boy actually slept on his lap. He looked at Jirou's face again. His hair looked soft. And before he knew it, he actually stroked Jirou's hair.
"What am I doing?" He thought to himself. "But he looks cute, when he's asleep."
Sengoku started to blush. How could he think such things about a boy? This just wasn't right. But he just couldn't stop stroking through Jirou's hair. After a while he, too, fell asleep.
Jirou felt a warm hand on his head. He opened his eyes to look and saw it was Sengoku's. He tried to sit up slowly, so Sengoku wouldn't wake up. He looked at Sengoku's face and started to blush. He slowly made Sengoku lie on the couch and went to get a blanket for him.
After looking Sengoku sleeping so peaceful, Jirou got tired again. And he fell asleep next to Sengoku.
Sengoku started to feel something warm and really close to him. He opened his eyes to see that Jirou was lying next him. "Now he's lying so close to me, almost to the point that he's on me?!" He thought by himself. He tried to convince himself that it was annoying. He tried to get away from, but didn't want to make him fall. After a minute or two, he gave up and accepted the thought that he actually liked it. He took out an arm to put it around Jirou. He never lay like that with a boy, but it didn't feel bad to lie like that with Jirou. And he fell asleep again.
There was a sound of keys. Sengoku opened his eyes and looked at the time, 4 pm. No one is supposed to come, yet. Then the front door was opening.
"Shit!" He thought. And he pushed Jirou of the couch and sat up straight. Pretending to look into Jirou's study books.
Jirou woke up. "What happened?" He asked.
"Eh? Nothing." Sengoku tried to be as normal as he could.
"Ah? Haru-nii."
Sengoku looked at the entrance of the room and saw a tall boy standing.
"So you're the baby-sitter." The boy said. "I'm Haruki, Jirou's brother."
"Sengoku Kiyosumi." Sengoku replied.
"Thanks for taking care of my younger brother and Rin."
"No, it was nothing. But you're back early."
"Yeah, Miyabi asked if I could leave work earlier since it's you're birthday."
"I told her it was okay."
"You seemed kind of bored, though. You even started to read study books."
"Ah, I forgot." Jirou then suddenly said. "I still need to study."
"You understood the stuff I explained, so I'm sure you'll be okay."
"Thanks, but I don't know if I still remember everything."
Sengoku sighed. "I guess I could explain it to you again, if you do forgot."
"Why don't the two of you go to your room to study." Haruki told Jirou. "I'll take care of Rin."
"Okay." Jirou replied. He got his books together and walked to his room together with Sengoku. There Jirou studied again and Sengoku helped.
"I think I understand it now, thank you." Jirou said after a few hours.
"Okay, then I should get going."
Somehow Jirou didn't like the idea of Sengoku going. He actually had fun with him today, even though he slept most of the time.
Sengoku wanted to leave the room.
"Wait." Jirou stopped him. "I forgot something."
Sengoku looked at him with surprised face. And saw that Jirou was turning red.
Jirou got closer to Sengoku's face and said "Happy Birthday."
He then kissed the birthday boy on the cheek.
"Thank you." Sengoku said softly while turning red.
