notes ... so hi i'm back! ish! i've had the idea for an idea of this fic (an idea of an idea. how poetic) for a really long time now! and then the elements added themselves in recently and i knew i was screwed so i ended up cranking something out. i'm kind of wary about posting this because what if i'm satisfied and then i don't finish it (like all of my other crap)?! lol. in any case. please enjoy this nonsense. (for those of you that are waiting for angst, it will come! in this fic! eventually! by eventually i mean if i ever reach the end. but that's okay, one step at a time!)
warning unedited, unbeta'd, i-just-really-needed-to-get-this-out-of-my-system fic, etc, etc. title taken from the beginning lines of "London" by Samuel Johnson, which is an imitation of Juvenal's third satire.
Praise the hermit, regret the friend;
When his sister comes home squealing about The Amazing Fuji Syuusuke-kun, Naoto's first reaction is to roll his eyes and throw his pillow over his eyes. Are you listening, his sister asks. No, he thinks but does not say; he has learned early on that women can be dangerous.
"Nii-chan," she is gushing. Moe's cheeks are flushed and she's doing that thing where her arms are crossed over her chest and her palms dig into her armpits. He's told her so many times how unladylike she looks when she does that. "He's gorgeous," she rambles on. "He's in second year. He plays tennis. Fuji-kun is like, a dream come true."
"That's great," Naoto says dryly. "Can you tell I don't care, or do I need to make it more obvious?"
"Can you do something using your senpai authority?" Moe insists. "I want an excuse to talk to him."
"Uh no," Naoto snorts. "If he's in his second year, then I probably won't ever run into him. I don't even know what he looks like. Aren't you too young to be thinking about boys?"
"You're fourteen and you're already thinking about girls," she counters. "And if you'd actually walked around school with me today you'd have noticed him! He's beautiful."
Ooh. Naoto leans forward. "If you can introduce me to a girl that's equally beautiful as you say he is then I'll think about it."
"Yes," she says, hopping up and down excitedly. "Yes yes yes."
She hums all through dinner and plays obnoxiously loud love songs on her music player before she sleeps. At one point in the middle of the night, Naoto finds himself awake at two in the morning listening to J-pop through the walls.
He's happy for her, kind of. He's happy that she's excited. At the age of twelve, Moe is spirited, fun, and friendly. He's gone from watching her poop in her pants to holding a microphone in her hands on a stage at her elementary graduation event. When Moe was ten, Naoto was twelve, and it had come up in conversation that their parents were thinking about moving, he'd yelled at her for being a crybaby. Her fists were small as she bat at him, crying endlessly because you don't even care about me, you don't even care how I feel, don't you try to understand my feelings.
Naoto screws his eyes shut, thinks about this Amazing Fuji Syuusuke, and wonders if he can make her happy.
.
His argument for not wanting to go to school is that he didn't want to be The Third Year Transfer Student, which, according to his parents, is not a very good argument. Naoto watches crowds of students walk through the gates and scowls, shuffling his feet back and forth. After a while, he looks at his watch; he has fifteen minutes until classes begin. Moe's already run off, having run into a friend, and is probably discussing more Fuji Syuusuke-esque things about Fuji Syuusuke.
A loud yell across the gate sounds and a large bus pulls up to the front of the school with a loud honk. Naoto turns, alarmed. There's a small group of students dressed head to toe in athletic attire making their way over. What is this, Naoto thinks, Seigaku's own limousine? Is Seigaku even known for their athletics department? Is Seigaku known for anything at all?
It looks like it, in any case. The voices near, and in an attempt to get out of their way, Naoto takes a few steps backward so they can pass by. As they do, something small falls drops from one of the bags and lands on the ground in front of him. Naoto picks it up, curious.
"Ah, sorry, that's mine."
Naoto's gaze flickers up at the sound of a rather feminine voice. A shorter boy is jogging back towards him. Naoto looks back down at the item he's holding. It's a tennis ball keychain.
The boy stops in front of him, smiling kindly. "I must have dropped it. Thank you for picking it up." His hand reaches out.
Naoto hands it to him, blinking slowly. "No problem," he says. He looks towards the bus, where there's already a crowd gathering. "Is that… are you part of that?"
The boy chuckles. "Well, yes. There's a tennis tournament today. We're meant to play."
"Well yeah, of course, but…" The crowd behind them is loud, and Naoto looks towards them, wincing as a camera flashes in his eyes. "Are they—is this usually what happens?"
"I suppose," he chuckles, still smiling. "It can get a little out of hand, but it's usually better when you think about them as support."
"That's fair," Naoto says. From a distance, he catches sight of his sister, flushed and bright-eyed. She's looking over here too, and Naoto can't remember the last time he's seen her this excited for something not about her. But—oh. Right, tennis. Purely and merely out of curiosity, Naoto says, "Say, this is the tennis club, right, so you wouldn't happen to know a—"
A calm hand placed on his shoulder silences Naoto immediately. The boy in front of him smiles apologetically and is it just him or did the crowd get a little louder—wow, this guy looks a little like a girl from this angle—
"—apologise, but I really need to be going. My team is waiting for me. I'll see you around."
Naoto nods, raising a hand as the boy makes his way through the crowd and onto the bus. It drives away with a loud roar and out of sight, just as the school bell rings. And as soon as it had come together, the crowd disperses, people scattering around to attend to their own schedules.
Moe finds him in a daze still by the school gate and kicks him in the ankle as hard as she can.
"Ow!"
"You didn't tell me you already knew him, nii-chan!" She kicks him again.
"Ow! What, what! Know who?"
"Fuji Syuusuke! You were just talking to him, weren't you! I saw you!"
"I—what?"
Moe's eyebrows furrow. "The guy you were just talking to. You don't know?"
Fuji Syuusuke? Him? "I just picked something up for him. I had no idea who he was. He didn't even tell me his name." But. Now he knows.
Moe's shoulders droop. "Oh."
Naoto smiles a little. He's about to pat her shoulder when she perks right back up, hands automatically coming up to clasp his arm in her excitement.
"You saw him though, didn't you? Isn't he stunning? The atmosphere around him, it's like… like he's a celebrity or something!"
"Yeah," Naoto says, blinking. "Sure. I guess?"
Moe huffs a little. "You wouldn't understand, nii-chan, do you know how many people would love to just have a conversation with him? I bet everyone was jealous of you just now."
Naoto thinks about Fuji Syuusuke's smile. "I'm sure he's not that difficult to talk to. He looked pretty friendly to me."
"Wait until you watch him play tennis! He's pretty amazing."
Naoto turns his head in the way the bus had left. It had gone for a while now, though somehow Naoto felt as though he'd been pacified by his presence. Now that he'd actually met Fuji Syuusuke, he could see why so many people were fascinated by him.
And at the same time, knowing this—would be his downfall.
.
.
.
tbc