For Once

Prince of Tennis is owned by Konomi Takeshi. This fanfiction is post-anime and takes place in the "Evidentual" setting/universe. Post-anime.

Chapter One; Ketsuya

- - -

I don't remember when I suddenly inherited this sense of dry humor; I know it's definitely not from my brother. For the longest time, I've always had an opinion. It wasn't always bad, but it was an opinion.

I was halfway through high school when I decided that I couldn't possibly pursue tennis. For one, my interest in the game didn't amount to my lack of interest in brutality. That's about all I saw in my days of watching my brother playing tennis.

Once, I wrote an editorial for the Journalism Club about the sentimentality of men and their less-than-amusing interests in playing sports to prove themselves. My brother, Kepei, laughed and told me it was entertaining. The president of the club totally digged the article; he loved it when people were criticized upon his presence.

It was funny because I wasn't even in the Journalism Club in school. Never had I even thought about writing to burn the time. I was always playing tennis. One would think that it's more entertaining for me to sit on a tennis court, staring at people passing balls back at force on a rectangle. Me, sitting in front of a computer, typing? That was crazy talk.

I'm Tachibana An. Tachibana An. An-chan. Tachibana-san. Whatever. The day I wrote my name down for the Journalism Club signup-sheet, I stared at my name for the longest time. Tachibana An sounded so foreign; I stared and wondered if the name even suited me.

So tennis season came and pass and I found myself in the club room more than the courts I swore to be loyal to. When collage application time came, I didn't go for a tennis scholarship. Instead, I put tennis down as an extra curricular activity on my resume and send it off to Tokyo U's Journalism Department.

My brother didn't have much to say about it. For once, I didn't think he was entitled to commenting. He didn't pursue tennis either; he focused on education and is now a teacher. I personally think it job suits him.

This, in turn, landed me where I am now. Tachibana An, an intern for the Tokyo Post. I never thought I'd make a living by writing semi-cynical articles for a magazine. Then the opportunity came for me to work there, and I snagged it up before anyone would notice that I might not be good enough for it.

I guess that's really my biggest problem. I'm not worried about being out of date. I'd die if one day, my boss woke up and realized that he's actually paying me to write down what I'd usually tell my friends over the phone. I imagine he'd freak, reread all of my articles over, and realize it's mostly, if not all, about the misuse of cliché phrases intended for the last century, people's lack of awareness towards the controversial subject of the media, random moments that profession tennis players seem to be high and slash or how women are making Japan a materialistic country by these fake sediments.

These thoughts came to me about five minutes ago, standing in front of the coffee machine in the hallway.

Sakura, my self-proclaimed inspirational co-worker, blinked at me before taking a seat on the lounge's sofa. "So the Sport's Department's in frenzy, as I hear."

If you must know, the Sports Department usually publishes articles involving gossip about soccer players and their trophy wives, etc. It's really not much about the sport compared to what the real fans want to hear. Of course, I don't tell her that. "Oh, yeah. They don't have anything prepared for next month, do they?"

"Yep." Sakura leans back, sipping onto her coffee mug. "There's some guy they've been attempting to interview, but he keeps on turning them down."

"Maybe he doesn't want his picture blown up on the gossip page." Did I actually say that out loud?

She laughs. "Yeah, true."

"I agree also." Another voice speaks up behind me. I blinked before turning around, staring.

It's Tanaka, the chief of the Sports Department. Tanaka has powers; not the ones where he has laser beans coming out of his eye --although that would be extremely cool--, but he can magically appear when it's least expected. "Sneak", as I verb it.

The man steps out from behind my sofa, leaning in front of the water machine. "But I guess that's what happens when you assign a pack of women to work on sports." Tanaka is probably the only man in his department besides the janitor; I'd feel bad for him if he wasn't so full of himself.

"Is there any chance you could get an interview out of him by assigning someone of another department?" Sakura suggests, blinking.

"Actually, he agreed for an interview a few days ago. The condition is that we send someone with an actual background of tennis; he's a tennis player." Tanaka smirks slowly.

"Hey, An used to play tennis, right?" Sakura turns towards my directions.

I paused. The guy is obvious a lunatic that no one really wants to be near, but me being an intern makes me inclined to take the incentives. So of course, evil, evil An snags the chance to be promoted. "I was in the tennis club, and I played tennis."

"Great, then." Tanaka smiles slowly. This is when I start to get a bad feeling about this. "I'll fax you Kirihara Akaya's address and number."

- - -

Kirihara Akaya isn't really much of a foreign name to me anymore. I haven't personally seen him since my Junior High School days, and even then it was all about competition and tennis. Now, I see him everyday on television.

The guy, as devilish as he may be, somehow ended up as a professional tennis player. I used to wonder how he got into the business while all those good players were MIA, but I'm over it now. There's a lot of talk revolving Kirihara these days, so I couldn't blame the department from wanting an interview from him.

It's just that I think I would be more suited for the job if only I didn't want to waltz over there and kick in from behind. Or just cause a minor injury involving a tennis racket. You know, same difference.

I was trying to pick out an outfit when Kamio called. This suddenly made me guilty, and I decided that Kirihara Akaya wasn't even worth my time of picking out cloth. I was going to wear T-shirt and jeans to his house.

Kirihara didn't own a mansion like I expected. His house was three-stories tall with a pool and tennis court. I wondered if he didn't have that much money, or just didn't feel like hiring maids.

I parked my car out the front, walked into his yard, and rung the doorbell. It opens a few seconds later, and I look down to see crystal blue eyes staring up at me. I secretly note that those are probably the prettiest greenish-blue eyes I have ever seen.

"We don't want to buy anything." The kid is about five years old. Messy black hair and pale skin, he's definitely Kirihara's kid.

I remember reading a few articles about Kirihara's son, but I pushed it aside as tabloid. I mean, I work for the media, I should know what's real and what's not. Apparently, I was wrong.

"Ketsuya, close the door." Speaking of the devil, he comes out into the hall, yawning in his black t-shirt and faded jeans. He took one look at my side-way messenger bag before stepping aside. "Oh, you're with magazine. Come in."

Kirihara's house was more western than oriental. He had curtains, sofas, carpeting and furniture. He took a seat on the coach in the living room, nodding for me to sit down in front of him.

I opened my bag, taking out a notebook and setting the audio recorder on the coffee table.

"Kirihara-san." I look pointedly at him. "Before we begin, I'd like to ask exactly why you agreed for the interview. There was a chance than no one in the department knew anything about tennis, and you had always ignored us before."

He doesn't really reply. I stared as he got up and walking into the kitchen. He comes back, drinking out of a water bottle.

He doesn't offer me anything to drink, as I noted. Somehow, I'm actually glad that I'm allowed to write negative comments.

"You look familiar."

I blink. "Kirihara-san. While I haven't personally attended one of your games, it's easy to mistake people after seeing thousands in the stadium."

"No." He keeps on staring at me. This is making me fidget. "Your hair grew."

"Uh..." I'll be damned if he actually remembered that I had short hair and used to be obsessed with hair-clips. My soft brown hair is still straight, falling onto my shoulder.

I considered running out of the door, but the kid chose that second to storm into the room and jump onto the coffee table. "I'm hungry." The kid's voice is pretty sharp.

"Go back to watching TV, Ketsuya." Kirihara waves him off without turning towards his direction, still staring at me. And get this, the Kid actually grins and listens.

I decided on the idea of fleeing and was about to get up when he finally sat down.

"You're the psycho girl that pushed me down the stairs during tennis camp." He replied, shrugging. "Tachibana Imotou."

"You're delirious." I lie. "I don't know who you're talking about." I thought he was gonna call me a liar and kick me out of the house. In fact, I believe it so much that I'm satisfied with something bad to write about him.

He doesn't.

"Whatever." Kirihara smirks, pointing a shallow scar on right left elbow; I think he's about to hit me. He doesn't, of course. "I had nightmares about girls in tennis skirts, running up and pushing me down the stairs, hill, bridge, and countless other tall objects for weeks."

My curiosity overcomes me. "That's very sad."

"No, actually." He smiles at me, crossing his legs. "My teammates thought it was an attempt to destroy our team before the Nationals. They didn't believe me when I told them it was a girl; we ended up calling a bunch of Seigaku people to confirm it wasn't really a conspiracy."

"Oh, because Seigaku never lies." I roll my eyes.

"No." Kirihara replies semi-seriously. "The doubles pair told Buchou that evil bunnies threw giant hair clips at me and I tripped down the stairs. They got the point and let it drop."

I laughed slightly. I stopped wearing hair clips a long time ago. "I never really apologized, did I?"

He blinks. "It doesn't really matter. I took it in as a lesson on the dangerous impact of the female population." He paused. "You're not gonna quote me on that, are you?"

We both turn towards the audio recorder; the red button's on, meaning it's been recording everything.

"If I have space to fill, I will." I flip my notebook open. Before I came, Tanaka gave me a bunch of questions to ask him. I secretly considered throwing them away, but decided not to after seeing that most of them were tennis-related. "What's your opinion of the last Austrian Open?"

Kirihara paused. "I don't really have much of an opinion on the Opening as opposed to the players. The people were mediocre, and the tennis was easy. It never really became hard until the last match."

"What do you think of Echizen Ryoma's performance in the finals, then?" This wasn't one of the questions.

Kirihara smirks. "The last time I saw the kid, he was two feet shorter than me and wore that weird hat of his. Then I get to the Openings, and he's there. So I'm just like, dazed."

"You can't possibly suggest that you've never read about his success in America?" I blinked.

"You work for the Magazine; you should know that the Newspapers are all biased. I don't really believe all that I read." He shrugs, taking another sip of his water bottle.

"Speaking of the media." I close my notebook and set it aside; we were completely off topic now, there's was no point to keep up. "What do you think of their mental image of you? Positive or Negative?"

"I usually don't ask people for their opinion of me. You work for them, you tell me."

"Alright." I pause. "I didn't believe in the articles about-"

"Ketsuya, right?" He shrugs again. "If I wasn't in the media, they really wouldn't care. But because I play tennis and all that, they take it upon themselves to make everything more far fetched than it really is. I was eighteen, it was legal sex."

I used to imagine writing an article about my experience after being abducted by aliens. Now, Sitting in Kirihara Akaya's living room and talking about sex somehow seemed more sci-fi to me.

"You know." I lose the reporter attitude. "I don't believe in the whole sex and marriage deal, but have you never thought that he'd be happier if he was with his mother?"

"If she was here, he wouldn't be allowed to eat 29 popicles a day or touch fastfood." Kirihara turns to look at the kitchen, where Ketsuya is currently mircowaving a pizza. "This might sound totally shallow on men's point of view, but I always thought it'd be better for him to be free. I can't be a tennis player forever, but he'll get the point and won't dwell upon materialistic things that his mother would spoil him of."

I make a mental note to not ask about the kid's mother.

"Don't you think it's a bad image that forciable tennis might have on you? For him?" I suggest. "He could grow up and developed a strong phobia to tennis after seeing you clobber so many poor by-standers into the ground and never want to touch a tennis ball."

"Well, I have a mental image right now." He laughs, tabbing on his head. "It involves you, sitting in front of the television and avoiding any channels that might be broadcasting one of my games like plague." He's actually right. "Because I lost in interest in making people suffer a long time ago."

"I see. And it involves the mental trauma of having a psycho girl push you down the stairs every time you hurt someone, right?" I guessed.

"You can past for my psychiatrist." He smirks at me.

"That doesn't sound like much of a compliment."

"It probably wasn't." Kirihara smiles at me.

"Right. I shall not ask about that, then." I turn back to the closed notebook, trying to focus on questions. "When should a child start playing tennis if she wants to be professional?"

He ignores my question overall. "You said 'she'."

"Is that against the law?"

"No, but I have developed the idea that you're a sexist in the fifteen minutes that you've been sitting in front of me." He smirks, green eyes flashing. "Is that a positive image you people from the media worry so much?"

For a moment, I'm appalled that he just insulted me. "It depends on what image you already have of my publisher. If we're already bias as you consider, then I really don't care about your personal expectations of me."

"I don't know. I started playing tennis around seven or eight." He either ignores me or has decided that my answer was good enough. "I mean, what could be more fun than hitting a ball back and forth, right? For weeks, I just randomly aimed at the net or the fences. People though I had no talent. Then I got mad and started aiming at them, and it worked."

Somehow, his story actually sounds rational. "Do you do this a lot? Tell people all these stuff doing interviews?" I know this probably ruined the whole mood, but some part of my brain reminded me that this might be exactly what I want. I'm upset at myself because I'm feeling so comfortable around Kirihara Akaya.

He gives me a farcical look. I can't tell if he's attempting to be serious or not. "No. But I'm usually prone to sharing more stuff with people I've had experience with. Our wonderful experience involves you pushing me down a flight of stairs and me surviving to tell the tale."

I wish he would stop bringing that up. "Technically, I didn't push you. I went up to slap you and-"

"Yeah, yeah." He cut me off. "I took a step up and tripped myself. Yada, yada. We've all heard of it. Another reporter once asked me about the scar."

I froze. Some part of me hoped that he was too sarcastic to tell them the truth; but it wouldn't really hurt me much. I hope his manager isn't power-hungry and wants to sue me.

The kid chose this exact moment to aim a tennis ball at us. It zooms past the coffee table and hits a vase off the shelf. It falls off and breaks, of course. Kirihara stares it for a second before turning around, pretending not to notice it.

"Where's your housekeeper?" It just accorded to me that no way in hell is Kirihara himself actually keeping his house clean as this.

"She's on her honeymoon." He replies quickly, as if it's an all-nature question people ask him all the time.

"How old is your sister?" I concluded.

"I can't tell if you're psychic, or it's just those powers that reporters have." He looks disturbed, but in an amused way. At least it looks like he's amused.

"Lecher." I declare. "Why can't men just hire a maid instead of using their own family as potential slaves?"

"Are you assigned to ask this question?" Kirihara blinks.

The kid walks up in between us and takes a seat next to his dad. His dad. Just saying this sounds weird. Kirihara Akaya, the insane tennis player who is my age, with a five year old. He looks more like a kid himself.

"No." I got back on topic. "But since we've have such a pleasant past-experience, I'm entitled to ask you that." I made all this up on the spot, of course.

"I have problems with people." He shrugged.

"How's that?"

"Sometimes, it's like-" He stops midway. This is the moment of realization when he finally sobers up and realizes that he shouldn't even be telling me all that. But of course, he's not drunk, and he doesn't say it out loud. "Never mind. Don't quote me on that."

"It's a magazine, Kirihara."

"Magazine's are boring." Kirihara Jr. offers his insightful comments. Kirihara himself laughs.

"Can you read?"

"I'm six, not stupid." He folds his arm like I have just offended him. I guess, in a way, I have. "How old are you?" I wonder what the heck Kirihara is teaching this kid.

"Mmmmmm." I paused. The rational answer would be 'same age as your dad'. But I'm not rational. "Older than you."

"What's your name?" The kid looks up sharply at me. Kirihara pretends he's not there, although I doubt that he knows my name either.

"Tachibana."

"Tachibana is the name of my youth group consoler." He chips.

This is when we both turn to stare at him. Me doing so because I just realized that my brother teaches the kid, and Kirihara is staring at him because... I don't know, he's upset that his kid is being subject to a positive influence? I'm horrible, I know. It's the Journalism.

"I don't like him. He's neat and makes us take naps." Ketsuya shrugs in the exactly same manner his dad does, and I realize that he's only a smaller version of the guy himself. "I don't take naps."

Kirihara is satisfied that his kid is rebelling against my brother, typical.

"Do you play tennis?" I try to make the questions short and interesting to the kid. Unconscious, I find that people probably want to read a little about Kirihara's son as well.

"Yeah." Ketsuya paused. "Do you?"

"Yes. Do you like answering people with questions?" The last part wasn't meant to come out. I mean, if Ketsuya was ten or fifteen, then sure. But I'm asking a rhetorical question to a five year-old, and that makes me sad.

"I like confusing people." The kid declares rather randomly. "Play tennis with me? Our court is in the backyard."

"Uh." I wonder if Kirihara doesn't play tennis with his own kid, or maybe he's afraid he'll hurt Ketsuya sense of pride by winning? "Sorry. Not right now, I don't have time. "

"The next time you come over?" The kid looks hopefully, and it makes me sad. Kirihara and I both know what I'll never come here again, because I'm Tachibana An. Even if he personally invited me over, I would never come. Just because, he's Kirihara Akaya and I'm Tachibana An.

- - -

Tanaka is unhappy I didn't use his question. Tanaka is also thrilled that I managed to get so much stuff out of Kirihara. Quite frankly, I really don't care about what Tanaka thinks.

"Good news." I met Sakura next to the coffee machine again. It's our thing, meeting at the coffee machine and discussing random stuff.

"Uh-huh." I nod, waiting for her to continue.

"They're renewing our internship next week. We're both gonna get appointment to departments soon." She's practically radiating a glow of happiness. I wonder if I should as well.

Right now, I'm just submitting articles to the editor. If they're good enough, he'll add them in our weekly editions under whatever topic they might belong. The thought of finally getting assigned to a department is overwhelming, it's like my freedom has just been stolen.

But then again, if they finally assign me, I'll actually be working. I'll be getting paid.

Getting paid is good. Getting paid means I'll have money.

True enough, a few days later, I'm called into the Editor's office. Renoku, that's his name. We call him "Ren". I used to have a stuffed elephant named "Ren"; he laughed when I first told him that. Ren's cool. He's a few years older than me and in control of the whole printing press.

"I enjoyed your last article about Kirihara Akaya." He nodded towards the pile of paper on his desk. This means my article will probably be featured in the next weekly edition. Only deserving manuscripts takes up space on his desk.

"Anyway." He continues. "Let's talk about your internship. You've been here for how long now? Six month?"

I nod.

"That's quite a long time." He adds on. "I want to add you to the Sports Department."

"I only did one article for the Sports." I decided that if I don't speak up now, I'll be stuck with it for the rest of my journalism career. Then I'd have to find another job, and that's too much work. "What about International News, Health Issues, Planting?" Because, you know, everything is better than Sports.

"I think you'll do well there." Ren continues. "They need a lot of recreation. Our Sports Department is not as up-to-date as I'd like it to be. I think assigning you there will do well."

"I think I'll stick with the internship, thank you."

"How about this?" He leans foreword; Ren always leans foreword on his desk when he thinks he's proposing something big. "You'll be the executive chief of the Sports Department. Try to reform it. And if a few months later, you still hate it, then we'll talk about switching."

I agreed, of course. It's not because he offered me the second-to-best position right off the bat, of course not. The truth is that I'd also like to see what I can do about the Sports Department. How can I call myself a tennis player without evening trying, anyway?

- - -

The next day, I show up at the new department. I am directed towards my personally office and handed a sheet of supplies. Next to each line, there's a little box to file for whatever I need.

"Get everything." Tanaka says to me. "They'll give you stuff as long as you're new. A week after, you'll have to wait three months for a pack of stables. And believe me; it doesn't matter if you're the head of any department. Ren likes that."

I take his advice and check everything.

I took the liberty of decorating my new office. It's pretty small, but big enough. I make a mental note of bringing something's for the walls; they're too white and plain.

I was left to ponder on what I'm supposed to do when there's a knock on my door. Tanaka doesn't wait for me to open it before he does so himself, poking his head in. "I'm leaving early today; you can take care of stuff, right?"

"Sure."

"I have an interview with a new intern around three." He held out a folder. "Here's her resume, look it over. It's your decision if you want her or not."

I feel powerful. "I'll take care of it."

"Cool." Tanaka leaves.

Osakada Tomoka showed up at my office that afternoon. It took me a few minutes to recognize her as the truly psychotic girl who used to stalk Echizen Ryoma's everywhere. Her resume wasn't very impressive, but her columns were fun to read.

She sits in front of me, silently fidgeting

I put down her folder. She freezes as if I'm about to decided the path of her life. "Osakada-san? This is random, but do you remember me?"

She blinks. "Not really." She's upset that this would jeopardize her chance.

I laughed. "That's too bad. We worked for the Tennis Camp together."

She lightens up. "Tachibana-san! I remember." She paused. "But I was told to meet a Tanaka Hirokeu here?"

"He left early." I explained. "I'm the executive-chief of the department; I have to pick up his slacks. It's funny, though. I've been seeing a lot of tennis-related people lately."

"Huh?"

"Nevermind." I smiled, turning towards her application. "An internship would be promising for you. Come tomorrow morning and Tanaka will discuss your first assignment."

Osakada brightens up, thanking me before leaving my office.

Osakada was a promising individual. The truth was also that I remembered something else. She is the best-friend of Ryuzaki Sakuno. Besides Kirihara, Echizen Ryoma is also a big name in the Tennis World. Ryuzaki Sakuno happens to be the mother of his twins.

Some people believe it to be tabloids, but I could take a chance with this.

I'm horrible, I know. It's journalism.

TBC

Imoutou- younger sister. I remember how Momo always called An by that instead of her name.

Ketsuya- I wanted to name him 'Katsuya' at first, but I decided 'Ketsuya' was a little better.

The thing about Sakuno is… Well. Take note that this takes place in the Evidentual universe. And of course, if you want to read that, it's on as well.

.Chiharu