Title: Respect (and the Lack of it)
By: AtobeLover
Summary: Momoshiro and Tezuka, and their relationship through thirty drabbles.
Rated: T
Disclaimer: I'm getting tired of typing this part repeatedly, but NO, I don't own Prince of Tennis.
A/N: Okay, this one, and not Assumptions, is my last fic before I leave for reasons for a long time (let me sit in a corner and cry). I promised Ciel I would write this one, and with some Royal in it, so here it is! I hope you like it, and I hope you decide to review it. Withdrawal symptoms have set in already, but I have to suck it up. I'll miss this world, badly. I hope it's only a fortnight or so before I can come back, but it just as easily might take a month or five for me to return. Will you wait for me?
Well, have a good time reading this! I can't believe I wrote this much.
1. Time
Momoshiro doesn't know what the value of time is until Tezuka tells him he's leaving for Germany, Doitsu, a really far-off place which takes too long to reach (Momo looked it up in an atlas). He has a headache after he goes back home from Tezuka telling him what he told him, because he doesn't know why Tezuka really has to go, he's his buchou, he's his lover and he just can't up and leave, and there's just two more days to go until Momoshiro dies of Tezuka-deficiency and it just hurts.
Two more days that Momoshiro won't look at Tezuka and stab himself metaphorically. He's just so confused whether to cry all day or go and kiss Tezuka until he can't anymore. Ryoma tells him he knows how it feels. "Keigo's going to England, I won't be able to see him anymore."
"But England's not as far from Japan as Germany is!"
Ryoma stares at Momo like Momo's an idiot (he probably is) and says, "I was trying to tell you you're not alone, senpai, but your stupidity's getting in the way."
Momo ignores him and wonders what to do in the little time he has left.
2. Cherry Blossoms
Momoshiro wonders whether it's possible to send flowers in the mail to Germany, Doitsu (it sounds so weird but cool).
He tries it. It's the season of sakura, and they're in full bloom, and when Momoshiro completes his tennis practice for the day, he climbs a tree and plucks the 'freshest' flowers to send to his beloved buchou.
Ryoma offers some advice. Momo listens to it, though he knows he won't follow it if he deems it stupid. Ryoma knows this, but he can't watch Momo wreck himself every day.
"Press the flowers and send them to Buchou."
"How do you know I'm sending them to him?"
"Who else we know lives in Germany?"
"Doitsu."
"I saw that envelope addressed to Buchou's rehab centre."
"I could be sending them to Atobe-kun," Momo waggles his eyebrows at Ryoma, who replies, "Yeah, because Keigo's not in England at all, and is with Buchou helping him recover."
"Who knows," Momo shrugs, saying it because he has nothing to say (he lost the argument) but prompting a phone call to the Hyotei captain from a jealous and insecure brat that evening.
He presses the flowers in the end and pastes them to a card and mails it to Germany.
A few days later he gets a tennis ball and a roll of German grip tape by post, and a handwritten letter in which Tezuka thankfully doesn't write Yudan sezu ni ikou but writes Looking forward to seeing you again which makes Momoshiro so happy because it means Tezuka's coming back.
3. Story
Tezuka can know when people lie to him. Momoshiro thinks it's a superpower, because Tezuka has always, always caught him out on his lies. Except that one time where Momo went to eat burgers with Echizen but told Tezuka he was sick and then Tezuka spotted him in the cafe - that was pure luck. He got fifty laps for lying. Later, in the locker room when nobody was there, Tezuka pinned him to the wall and kissed him senseless, leaving him breathless, making him promise not to lie again.
Momo still tells tales every now and then, just so Tezuka will kiss him into submission, because Tezuka hates being lied to and Momo loves being kissed by Tezuka.
4. Rain
On a very rainy day, Momoshiro is unfortunately assigned classroom cleaning duties, all alone. He tries wheedling Kaidoh into helping him, but stupid Mamushi just hisses at him and walks away.
So Momoshiro has to do it by himself. He sighs to himself, feeling very lonely, because it's raining, and everybody in the tennis club's probably gone home and the school is empty but the homeroom teacher will kill him if he finds anything out of place the next day.
He tries singing a song out of an anime he saw the night before, but he's so off-key even he realizes it and stops.
Then he tries dancing along with the mopping. He's so engrossed in this, with his back to the classroom door, that he doesn't realize he's being watched, until Tezuka sneezes. Momoshiro whirls around like someone just slapped his ass and says, wide-eyed, "Buchou, it's not what you're thinking -" and then pauses, because dancing with a mop isn't exactly cheating on his buchou, but -
"I wanted to know why you didn't come to practice today, and Kaidoh told me you were here," Tezuka says. Momoshiro has nothing to say. Tezuka just caught him in a very embarrassing situation. Dancing with a mop. Humming an out-of-tune waltz. Generally being an idiot. Momo won't blame him if he breaks up with him.
"Should I help?"
Momo still doesn't say anything. There's a really red blush covering his face. Tezuka's staring at him. Then he comes over, to Momoshiro, and takes the mop from his hands. Momo says, "Buchou, you really shouldn't do this, it's my job -"
Tezuka turns his face towards Momoshiro and kisses him square on the mouth, chastely, but with an emotion Momo definitely recognizes.
"You were adorable, dancing back then."
Tezuka does the rest of the work, and pushes his spectacles up his nose, and they run home, holding hands in the rain.
5. Sword
Momo loves gripping rackets. In a completely non-sexual way. Really. He's not talking about Tezuka-buchou's - shut up Momo - although he knows how much Tezuka-buchou likes it - shut up Momo.
No, but as a power player, Momo has to keep the string tension such that the strings don't snap. He takes care of his rackets, because he is ten times better than Mamushi as a tennis player. Maybe eleven times. Maybe one thousand.
In his hands, the racket is like a sword - cutting down his opponents. Momoshiro calls himself the Lone Swordsman for a while until Ryoma brings him back to earth.
Tezuka-buchou doesn't say anything when Momoshiro calls himself that, because Tezuka-buchou is cool and awesome and his boyfriend and Momoshiro knows he loves Momo. He loves buchou too.
6. Iris
Tezuka often notices how purple Momo's eyes are. When he's lying beside Momo and they're looking into each other's eyes while Momo's talking away about something, he just looks at the purple in Momo's eyes, looks at his reflection in those eyes, and can't help kiss him.
When those eyes look up at him, look up from below at him, Tezuka sometimes thinks that he doesn't deserve any of the feelings Momoshiro evokes in him.
7. Bamboo
"Did you know pandas love bamboo?"
"Everybody knows that, Momoshiro."
"But, Buchou, did you know that bamboo is the fastest growing plant on this planet?"
Tezuka decides to humor his lover. "No."
Momoshiro looks proud at knowing something his straight-A nerdy-but-supercool boyfriend doesn't. "And bamboos were the first plant to re-green after Hiroshima."
Tezuka is nice to Momo again. "I didn't know that."
"See, you learned two new things today!" Momo grins widely.
Tezuka smiles at him. He's doing it more and more around Momo.
8. Moon
Momo one day decides he wants to learn Oishi-senpai's Moon Volley.
Echizen decides to prank him in revenge for all the times he has had to suffer Momo's noogies, and tells him that he needs to go to Mt. Fuji in Shizuoka and on a full moon's night he needs to stand at the crater at the top, naked in a barrel of dead worms holding a racket strung with a pony's tail hair, swinging it a thousand times.
Momo isn't so gullible as to believe it.
(He knows it's not true because he asked Tezuka about it, so yeah.)
(Tezuka needs an aspirin every day for this sort of thing, but he knows Momoshiro's worth every headache.)
9. Shooting Star
Eiji-senpai invents this really, really cool, kakkoi move in tennis practice, and doesn't know what to name it. The first person he asks is Momo, with all his experience in naming shots. He's actually the only person around who thinks Momo's good at naming.
"Name it..." Momo trails off, sunk in thought. He goes over to where Tezuka's standing, and says, "What should I name it?"
Tezuka looks at him. "Twenty laps if you don't resume practice."
"That's not a good name, Kunimitsu," Momo frowns, completely not getting it.
"Thirty laps." Kunimitsu? In public? Tezuka doesn't mind, but he sometimes wishes Momo would show him more respect in front of others, even if they're, you know, boyfriends.
"Not that one, either. Kunimitsu, you're no good at naming shots."
Tezuka says, "I'm not helping you name them, I'm assigning you laps."
Momo freezes, getting it. He sheepishly looks up at Tezuka, apologizes and goes to run his thirty laps.
Eiji names it "Shooting Star" to match Oishi's "Moon Volley" without Momo's help in the end, anyway.
Later, when Momo and Tezuka are at the latter's house, Momo tells him, "You should show some favoritism to me, Kunimitsu."
"I would be careless as a captain if I did that."
"But..."
Tezuka looks at him with a stare that warms him up and ices him at the same time.
"Just because I love you doesn't mean I can go easy on you."
Momo doesn't care anymore. He heard three certain words in the beginning and forgot everything else.
10. Rice
It's Momoshiro's first time making onigiri. And they're not turning out well.
"Why won't it just make itself?" He's furious, really furious. He's getting late for school and he promised Tezuka he'd make him a bento so don't bring your own okay and now Tezuka was going to go hungry with him because he wasn't able to make fucking onigiri.
How hard can it really be? It's just rice and seaweed.
In the end Momoshiro makes little unsightly balls without seaweed and packs them haphazardly into a box and runs for school.
In lunch period, they meet at the terrace, ignore Ryoma snoring away in a corner, and sit down to eat. Momoshiro says, "I couldn't make a bento properly, Buchou."
Tezuka says nothing. His warmth is seeping into Momo and maybe he'll still love him after eating the tasteless rice Momo cooked and shaped. Maybe. "I just made rice balls." He takes the box out and hands it to Tezuka. Let him eat them all. Starvation is going to be Momo's punishment.
Tezuka silently eats all of them, to Momo's surprise. And then takes out his own bento and gives it to Momo. "I made this for you, because you made one for me." Momo opens the box to see a perfect lunch, with a couple of chopsticks placed to the side. He looks at Tezuka - Tezuka looks back at him - and kisses him.
A few metres away, Ryoma wakes up, takes a look at both of them, and grimaces. Seeing his buchou making out with Momoshiro, his best friend isn't something he really wants to do in this life (or any other), because it just reminds him of Keigo, who's in fucking England for another month. Will he even come back?
11. Wind Chimes
Whenever Tezuka comes over to Momo's house, he's greeted first by two wind chimes hung just behind the door, which make a sound every time someone opens the door.
Momoshiro always runs down the stairs with a big-ass smile and pulls him up them again, shutting themselves into his room, and hugging him. "Hi, Buchou."
"Kunimitsu when we're alone."
"Whatever."
Tezuka always lets Momo have his way. It's the first time he's been loved this intensely, and he would rather like for it to be the last time, too, because now he really can't imagine his future without Momoshiro Takeshi.
The wind chimes tinkle again as he leaves, hours later, and Tezuka knows he'll hear them again, and again.
12. Glass
Momo breaks one. A glass, that is.
He cuts his fingers up, and wonders if they'll heal in twelve hours, because there is no way he wants to show this sort of wound to his captain.
He hopes in vain.
When Tezuka sees them, the bandaged fingers, a flicker of something passes through his eyes and Momo knows he's done for. Banned from practice until his fingers heal, and no touching a racket.
Momo groans inwardly. Why. Whyyyyy.
Later, when he's in the locker room, sitting there just so he can have some connection with tennis, Tezuka comes in and sits beside him, taking his wounded hand into his and stroking it lightly. "You shouldn't have gotten careless, Takeshi." He takes off the soiled bandages, looks at the half-healed cuts.
Momoshiro swallows imperceptibly as Tezuka takes those fingers into his mouth, licking and sucking gently. He kisses the tips of the fingers and practically lavishes them with care and love and his mouth, bringing up reactions in Momo that he doesn't know if he wants to have in the locker room.
Tezuka admits later that he was worried. Momo wonders if he should get hurt elsewhere.
Tezuka gives him laps, because he thought that out loud. And also because Momo doesn't need to get hurt there for Tezuka to, you know... oh, forget it.
13. Far Away
"Germany, Doitsu."
"Mada mada dane, Momo-senpai."
"Ich liebe Dich."
"Not me, senpai," Ryoma sighs, reminded of the fact that Keigo speaks German, too, and that he was the reason Ryoma learned the language.
"Konnichiwa."
"That's just Japanese, and stop being so half-assed about this."
"Fraulein Ryoma."
"Go to hell. What part of me's a girl?"
"Ich liebe -"
"Is that all you're going to tell Buchou when you get there?"
"Si, si."
Ryoma gives up on trying to teach Momo the German language.
14. Butterfly
There is a secret that Momoshiro has, and he has kept it to himself for fear of losing his manliness. The secret is that when he was a kindergartener, he had been a butterfly in a stage play. Pretty cute, too.
He doesn't tell anyone, but of course his mother's out to ruin his social life. She shows the pictures to Tezuka the first time he comes to Momoshiro's house.
Momo is too late when he runs to the two of them and swipes the pictures away.
Tezuka, who actually doesn't care what insect Momoshiro was in any play, asks him, "Do you want to associate 'butterfly' with 'butterfly kisses', Takeshi?"
Momo agrees immediately, grinning at the cheesy line (but Tezuka has no experience with flirting, and he's said it a thousand times).
15. Wings
Tezuka Kunimitsu. The object of Momo's love and affection and lust and desire and passion and love and some more love.
He spurs Momo to play better than ever before. Momo plays his best tennis around Tezuka. Momo is on his best behavior around Tezuka.
Basically, Tezuka brings out the best in Momoshiro.
He sometimes feels like he's flying when he's kissing Buchou and Buchou's letting him and they're standing so close Momo can move just this much and they'd be touching everywhere. Tezuka gives him wings.
16. Past
Everyone except Momoshiro has a past because of which they were spurred to get better.
Him, he just has contests with Mamushi as his memories.
Tezuka has the saddest past out of them all, and sometimes, when Tezuka thinks Momoshiro isn't looking, he presses his shoulder to relieve the pain, just a bit.
The next time Tezuka grasps his shoulder, Momo just goes and embraces him because there are tears in his eyes and everything hurts because his boyfriend who deserves the world is hurt.
17. Snow
So Tezuka and Momoshiro were talking about tennis techniques in the locker room when snow started falling. They didn't realize it, really, talking and talking and talking (on Momoshiro's side, anyway) until they couldn't open the door, because they were now officially snowed in.
"What are we going to do?" Momo freaks out. Tezuka flips open his cellphone and calls Oishi. Momo calms down immediately. Tezuka's his stress-reliever in a sense.
Oishi says help would come as soon as possible, so just sit and wait.
They sit and wait.
Momoshiro's cold. Really cold. He tries not to shiver.
After five minutes, Tezuka turns to Momoshiro - Momo wonders why - and kisses his neck. And then his jaw. Then his lips, and suddenly Momo's having the most passionate kiss of his life, every other kiss counted. Tezuka is unusually frisky, and Momo's just seriously heating up -
Ohhhh. He gets it. He pulls back to give Tezuka a grin. "You care about me so much, Buchou."
"Don't let your guard down," Tezuka replies, adjusting his spectacles.
18. Night
Momoshiro has never seen Tezuka at night. Except when they climbed a mountain on Oishi's request, and that time Fuji had been hanging around Tezuka too much for Momo to not get jealous and to not ignore Tezuka.
So when Tezuka calls him out, Momo's shocked, really. Tezuka would never do it. He goes to the street tennis courts (Tezuka goes to street tennis courts!?) and finds him waiting there.
They play a bit, but the actual reason for Tezuka wanting to meet him is discovered by Momo soon enough when Tezuka pushes him up against an alleywall and proceeds to kiss him till his mouth is red. Tezuka's glasses stab his cheek, but Momo doesn't really care, just losing himself in Tezuka's embrace and Tezuka asking him breathlessly, "Why do I love you so much?"
Momo wishes they could have more nights like this.
19. Day
Momoshiro sees Tezuka all day, every day. Except that one time where he didn't make it as a regular and skipped practice for three days straight.
Oh, god, that was a horrible three days that he'd spent, unable to face Tezuka.
And Tezuka didn't talk to him for a week after that, just saying his name the bare minimum needed to keep practice normal.
The day Tezuka forgave him was the day they finally got close enough, and Momo's first time is make up sex. What are the odds.
20. Color
If anyone asks, Tezuka's favorite color is purple. He won't give a reason.
If anyone asks, Momo's favorite color is Buchou's eyes and hair (sic). Reasons are unnecessary.
21. Note
Momo cosplays. Everybody knows about it. He regularly takes part in cosplaying competitions in Seigaku, and wins most of the time.
This year, there's another contest, and Momo's taking part, of course, duh.
But this time it's a contest for pairs only. Momo, reading the contest requirements, immediately falls into the Abyss of Despair. Who would cosplay with him? Ryoma refuses to do it outright. Eiji doesn't want to be the Renji to his Byakuya, because he knows they'd suck. Mamushi... he doesn't even bother asking Mamushi. Inui asks if they can cosplay as tennis players from other schools. Momo tells him no. Inui's out, too.
Who else? Not Oishi, nor Kawamura, not any of the Freshmen Trio (although Horio would be a good ... forget it), who would cosplay with him?
He gets the nerves to ask his boyfriend (he still can't believe it) Tezuka.
Tezuka looks at him, and Momo just turns away with "Thank you, anyway, Buchou" and tries walking off. Tezuka stops him and agrees to partner him.
They (Momo) spend a lot of time brainstorming over what characters to play, and they (Momo) go buy costumes.
In the contest, Tezuka isn't much of an actor, but he can say I am Kira considerably well. Momo just sucks his thumb and eats cakes.
They win by popular choice even if Light Yagami never wore glasses and Lawliet wasn't muscly.
22. Fire
Tezuka's always around to get Momoshiro out of trouble. Momoshiro shamelessly exploits this.
Momoshiro's mom would've killed him long ago for causing the fire in his bedroom but Tezuka stands up and apologizes and takes resposibilty and generally makes Momo feel guilty for trying to cook marshmallows for him and -
Tezuka glares at Momo. Momo shrinks away from Tezuka, cradling his burnt hand.
"How will you treat the burn on your hand?"
"Ice."
"Don't let your guard down, Takeshi."
"Yes, Bu -"
"I have a name."
"Kunimitsu."
Tezuka won't lick this one, will he? But Tezuka takes his arm and applies burn cream onto it tenderly, not allowing his mom to do it, and bandaging the arm so gently Momo feels like there's nothing wrong at all, and Momo's mom can now see her son's feelings right there, in the open, in the way he stares at the nice boy who said sorry. She smiles and leaves her son up to him.
23. Path
Everybody goes their separate ways after high school. Tezuka, Inui, and Fuji go to some fancy university, Kawamura continues his father's legacy, Ryoma goes pro with Atobe who is his secret-but-everybody-knows boyfriend, and Oishi's training to be a doctor. Momo, Eiji, and Kaidoh still meet up and play tennis sometimes, and Eiji's the only person who can give Momoshiro news about Tezuka, because Tezuka, in a grand display of supposed caring, broke up with Momo (abandoned is the word to use, actually).
Momo can live without Tezuka. He just can't live well.
When Momo turns twenty-five, a twenty-six year old Tezuka Kunimitsu finds him at a bar, and seven years of being deserted make Momo unable to say a word, and Tezuka has only apologies left, and their paths rejoin. When they go to his apartment to fuck/make love, Momoshiro cries.
24. Symbol
Momo draws a peach on Tezuka's Seigaku jersey one day.
Tezuka notices, but doesn't say anything about it (because secretly he knows it just means property of Momoshiro Takeshi and he's not going to complain about that).
Momoshiro then goes and etches peaches on Tezuka's sweatbands.
Tezuka still doesn't say anything, although he notices Eiji and Ryoma snickering at him all day.
But he's forced to cross the line when Momo draws a peach on the butt part of Tezuka's shorts.
25. Lightning
Momo is in Tezuka's bedroom when the rainstorm starts. There's thunder and lightning, but he is so not scared of lightning. Pshh, lightning, ha ha, whatever.
He jumps into Tezuka's arms when he sees the flash.
Tezuka puts him back onto the bed, and pats his head like he's a child.
"I'm not scared," Momo defends himself. "I just wanted to hug you, Buchou."
Tezuka turns Momo around so that his back is to the windows, and takes him into his arms without saying a word, and lets Momo be not-scared all he wants.
26. Silk
Momo thinks Kunimitsu's hair is like silk. Kunimitsu's skin is like silk.
He runs his fingers through Kunimitsu's hair every chance he gets, because sooner or later touching Kunimitsu Tezuka this much is going to become a crime.
Tezuka lets him. Whenever he's studying, or just lying on the bed with his eyes closed, Momoshiro takes advantage of Tezuka letting his guard down and touches him as much as possible without seeming like a perv.
Tezuka lets him touch him when Momo's being a perv, too, but that's a different story.
27. Waterfall
The day Momo returns Inui's Waterfall serve is the day his wrist breaks.
Momo gets hurt a lot, doesn't he? He feels slightly (very, very) guilty, because he knows the effect his wounds have on Tezuka, who never shows it but is always fifty parts worried, twenty-one parts angry and twenty-nine parts blank.
He can't help it, he moans as Tezuka pushes him onto the bed. He gets hurt but then Tezuka gets physical with him and he doesn't know whether to make Kunimitsu angry or keep him happy, because both times Momoshiro gets the good stuff and all the love.
28. Memories
Momoshiro wants to make many memories with Tezuka.
He wants to grow old and look back at them with Tezuka.
The day his life turns out to be worth it is when Tezuka, who has already become a pro, comes back to Japan, finds him, and tells him that he shares his dreams.
29. Sleep
Insomnia is the worst thing that has plagued Momoshiro since his wrist broke. When he tells Ryoma, yawning in practice, Ryoma tells him to ask Buchou to sleep beside him.
"Would that work?"
"Keigo has insomnia, too, but he sleeps normally when I'm beside him, so I suppose it works," Ryoma shrugs.
Momoshiro doesn't know how to ask it. It's embarrassing, okay? Notwithstanding all the things they've done so far.
The next worst thing that happens is that he falls asleep (finally) - but in the showers, with the water running. He gets a bad cold, and his skin's all wrinkly when his teammates find him in there.
"I have insomnia," he tells Tezuka weakly, as the Seigaku captain dries him off. "I'm sorry, Buchou."
"You're a valuable player for the team, Momoshiro. Why do I have to tell you so many times to take care of yourself?" Tezuka towels Momoshiro's hair as he says this. He doesn't know why he's doing it for Momoshiro. The idiot can do it himself. But Tezuka-in-love does anything for Momo.
"Sorry, Buchou." Momo's really guilty this time. Really and truthfully and honestly and genuinely.
Tezuka says nothing, just finishes what he's doing and then sits down beside Momo.
"You're very valuable for me, too."
"Sorry, Kunimitsu."
Momo falls asleep with his head resting on Tezuka's shoulder.
30. Chance
Momoshiro jumps on every chance he gets to kiss Tezuka.
Whether it's in the showers where he creeps up on Tezuka to stick his tongue in his mouth, or when it's practice where he looks across the courts to Tezuka, who's obviously watching him (of course) to blow him a kiss (and watch Tezuka look away, not-obviously blushing).
Tezuka doesn't mind. Not at all.
But he slightly rues the fact that he doesn't get enough respect from Momo anymore. Maybe rues it.
The kisses are always hot, sweet, amazing, and Momo just can't get enough of Tezuka's never-been-kissed-by-anyone-except-Momo-and-it-sta ys-that-way mouth, and Tezuka can't get enough of Momo's wandering hands and caresses and the feel of calloused fingers touching places nobody else has ever touched.
Most of all, they both can't get enough of each other's love.
They're fine with it.
Tell me which ones you liked! Hope you enjoyed reading this.