Wow! It's been a while, huh? This story is dedicated to The runt Duchess, who asked for it almost a year ago. Sorry it took so long, dear!
Disclaimer: I don't own The Prince of Tennis, anymore than I did the last time I published an SI drabble. (Any bets on how much the actual writers would be horrified by how I portray their characters?)
Regular
Momoshiro Takeshi is the "normal" one of Seigaku; the one that, though he likes tennis, doesn't shape his world around the game. He has a life- a girl he likes, friends that don't live and breath tennis, a large and happy family. Of all of Seigaku, he is the one the most dismissed. After all, any one so ordinary could never be part of the tennis world's madness.
But he is, and while he has the title of "regular"- regular player, regular guy- he came to Seigaku for a reason.
The only sign he is not the cheerful, token "normal" tennis regular are his fights with Kaido. The vicious, fiercely hateful rivalry turns bright smiles to teeth baring snarls. and lights a cold fire in his violet eyes-eyes, that when one looks closely, normally have an empty glaze.
Takeshi knows what he looks like from the outside. He takes pride in it- after all, it took him a long time to learn how to be a regular teenager.
He wasn't always so good.
Momo learned a long time ago that he was... different. Weird. Wrong. He didn't act like he should, think like he was supposed to, or feel the same as the others. When the other kids would laugh or cry, he would simply continue on with a blank, empty face, uncaring and cold.
At first, he didn't realize that this was strange, until his peers informed him of it- flying fists and spitting words told him exactly how wrong he was, but it was the whispered worries of his parents that he wasn't supposed to hear that made him decide to change it. Flat expressions gave way to rictus grins, bright and blinding enough that no one saw the still dull eyes. He laughed and joked, smiled and grinned and pretended until he could almost believe his own lie- until the happy-go-lucky Momo-chan he created nearly became his reality. Nearly. Almost. But not quite.
And then he found Seigaku- and Seigaku gave a name to what he'd been his whole life.
Insane.
At first, he keeps his walls up and his smiles bright, and ignores the way he feels dead inside; after all, regular people aren't, and so he mustn't be either.
Takeshi is very good at lying.
But the Seigaku regulars are even better at seeing the truth, and slowly but surely, they bring their newest into the fold.
The first time Momo picks up a tennis racket, it's on a whim- something that might be fun, and help keep up his "regular" image.
It's not until he deals his first crushing loss out that he realizes it; tennis makes him feel alive. Winning makes him feel- darkly happy pride at his win, an even darker glee at their loss, and above all, a dangerous delight that he could do that; extinguish the light in his opponents' eyes until they are as empty as his own.
Takeshi is the "happy" one, as normal as anyone can be- or so he pretends. He is Seigaku's. the same as the rest of them. (He finds it ironic that they go by the title "regular", for all of them are anything but).
He has a "life"- but it is just surviving. It is only on the court, letting his darkest desires fly free, that he lives.
At Seigaku, he is a regular, and regular enough- after all, Seigaku is insane.
...I think I made Momo a sociopath. This one is a little further off the beaten track than SI is used to, and in a different style to boot- I blame it on a combo of Momo (who is the most normal of Seigaku, really, and is thus that much harder to portray as insane) and spending nearly a year away from PoT (my writing style's changed and developed over the past year, so...)
I hope you enjoyed, and please tell me what you thought1
-Sa'Kage