October 21, 2000
XXX
A Day in the Life
"Unbelievable."
Kamio dropped the newspaper back onto his dining room table and just sat still, looking down at the thin headline in the corner of the page. As a matter of habit, he always scanned the local articles, but he never actually expected to see a familiar name….though now that he thought about it, he probably saw the name 'Echizen' in writing more often than he saw his own—
"Hey, I'm hungry."
His thoughts were interrupted by his younger brother, who was slumped in a chair across the room, tightening his shoelaces with clumsy fingers, backpack at his feet.
"I packed some junk for you. It's in the kitchen, go get it," Kamio said automatically, still fingering the corner of the paper bemusedly and trying to bury a twinge of jealousy that was poking him in the chest. This wasn't the time to be thinking about it. They had to get to school and his mother had already left for the day…
Abandoning the newspaper, Kamio hurried up the small flight of steps, as usual forgetting the last one and stumbling on midair before entering his room and grabbing his own backpack and calling out for his other brother to hurry up. Two steps to cross the room, oh there's my comb, damn my backpack's ripping and why does my sock itch is there something inside and oh great we're going to be late again.
He hated the mornings, he really did.
Public transportation was the one thing that saved Kamio on mornings like these. He only had to pack off the kids to the bus stop a couple streets away, but they always left the house five minutes too late, meaning that they practically had to run to make it. Which, incidentally, happened to be the secret of Kamio's speed. Then Kamio the great captain had the privilege of sprinting to school so that he would have enough time to set up some things for the afternoon tennis practice.
Now that he was captain and all it was embarrassing to show up like this each day, but in truth, Ishida, the new vice captain, took care of most of the morning affairs. This left Kamio feeling guilty since he knew that he hadn't been that helpful to Tachibana last year. However, it would soon be time to gear up for the new tennis season meaning that ready or not, the court time was going to sharply increase. In fact, the pre-season friendly matches would be starting shortly and they were expecting to meet a great deal of their seasonal opponents.
In theory, at least. Kamio hadn't actually seen or heard from anyone from Fudomine's rivaling teams for over four months--the summer had been excruciatingly long. Kamio was a bit strange: summer was actually his least favorite time of the year. He appreciated the good weather and the certain level of calm that came from having no school obligations, but the fact was that without school there to bother him, Kamio just started brooding on the things he couldn't change and making himself sick by worrying. Not to mention it had been more than enough work between watching his younger brothers all summer and trying to come up with an inspiring speech at every meeting. Fudomine practiced all summer since most of the students didn't go on vacation. All in all, returning to school had been a relief.
Kamio got onto the campus at his regular time, and immediately headed over to the tennis courts to check the situation.
"Hey," he said breathlessly, pushing his way into the athletic office and finding Ishida already there and waiting as he had expected. "Sorry about the wait."
"Did you hear about Echizen?" Ishida asked by way of greeting, holding up his hand at Kamio's apology, since he was so used to his lateness. "It was in the news this morning."
"Yeah!" Kamio shook his head. "I couldn't believe it. I mean, I didn't read the whole article or anything, but didn't it say he had won an overseas scholarship or something?"
"It's not that surprising if you think about it," Ishida shrugged. "He basically owned the National championships last year, this was bound to happen. What'd you expect?"
"I expect you to keep your feet off the goddamn desk," Kamio responded, noticing it for the first time, to which Ishida groaned good naturedly, and slowly let his gangly legs drop off the grubby red wood.
"Think he'll really take it then?" Kamio asked, opening drawers and closing them pointlessly as he looked for something with only half a mind as to what it was. "I thought he was kind of your all-Japanese specimen."
"He wasn't raised in a petri dish as far as I know," Ishida said. "But it's an offer from America to play and study. Who the hell would refuse?"
"It's totally expense covered?"
"I would assume that's what 'scholarship' means," said Ishida in the bland voice that he used whenever cutting up. And when Kamio rolled his eyes, he added, "well, you can ask Momoshiro about it if you're so skeptical. After all, if An has anything to say about it, he should be around some time today—"
"Oh, shut up." Kamio blushed. He still wasn't sure he had quite accepted An and Momoshiro it's-not-dating, but his team mates still tried to get a rise out of him concerning it whenever they could. "They're not even technically going out."
Ishida made a soft noise of laughter.
"It's true! Ask An, she said that he never asked her out and they're just hanging around—okay, why did I even come in here?"
Kamio suddenly straightened up, realizing that he had been shuffling through the desk for several minutes without knowing what he was looking for. "What am I supposed to be doing right now?"
"Looking for this?" Ishida delicately pulled a folded paper out of his pocket and smiled sweetly.
"When did that come? I've been waiting for the roster for ages!" Kamio said, making a motion to take it, though Ishida withheld it.
"Relax, it just came in yesterday when you had to leave early. And I know it wasn't your fault," Ishida soothed, since Kamio was now looking wild eyed that he had missed something as important as that. "And anyway, I would have told you about it eventually. I mean, you know, if you were interested."
Kamio snatched the paper from Ishida, shaking his head and half-smiling. "You're the worst vice captain ever."
"And yet I'm still better than you were."
Kamio hit him with the envelope before carefully opening it and pulling out its treasured contents: the roster for seeded teams in the preliminary matches.
"We don't have much time now," Ishida said in a rare display of seriousness as Kamio carefully read over the placements. "Our first game is in less than two weeks. It's friendly, but still..."
Kamio wasn't listening. He looked over the list, and an incredulous smile was curling up the corners of his mouth.
"Rikkaidai's only fifth this year?"
"Well, yeah, everyone's gone. Actually, I'm surprised they're even in the running, a situation like that." Ishida said, idly rolling a strip of notebook paper around his pen before blowing the tendril onto the floor, an infuriating habit that Kamio hadn't been able to snap him out of, despite their first few months working together. He glanced up at the captain when Kamio didn't reply. "Are you disappointed or something?"
"Well…I thought they would be our number-one competitors," Kamio admitted uncertainly, still not sure he was reading the paper right. But he had to be, for Seigaku the legendary hotshots were in first place where they belonged and Hyoutei wasn't far behind.
"Wasn't Yukimura the only person who could hold that team together?" Ishida put forward thoughtfully. "Rikkaidai must be like we were last year. Completely fresh blood."
"I guess." Kamio shrugged. "Kirihara must be having a difficult time starting with a completely new team. How to motivate them and all, you know?"
"Oh yeah, about that!" Ishida's eyes suddenly lit up and a twisted grin crept onto his face. "What are you planning to pull for this year's show?"
"What the hell are you talking about?" Kamio asked, only half listening as he let the paper flutter back down and land on the desk. Most of the time when Ishida talked, it was to make some dumb joke.
"You know! Tachibana had to change the way the administration looks at tennis for people to respect him enough to play for him! You're going to have to pull something too!"
"Ah. I was hoping I could just run on the steam of Tachibana revolutionizing underclassmen tennis at Fudomine," Kamio replied blandly.
"Well, I have some ideas if you want to see—"
"Are you guys going to finish this little party anytime soon? Class starts in ten minutes." Mori poked his head into the office and Kamio jumped and turned, seeing that a few of the other team members had arrived and were waiting outside.
"Yeah, right now," Kamio said hastily, shooting a look at Ishida as Mori backed out. "We're not doing anything important."
They left the office and hastily set up of the tennis nets and pulled out the crate of tennis balls for the afternoon before splitting for classes.
Kamio was a little troubled by the news of Rikkaidai, really. In his mind, he had consecrated them as the ultimate opponents, even though Seigaku had come out as number one last year. They were supposed to be the delicious challengers that Kamio knew they could conquer—but now it looked like they might not even give Fudomine a run for their money.
XxX
First period math, the only subject he semi-paid attention to although he wouldn't say that he strictly liked it—it was just interesting. And once the rest of his teachers got to speaking, most of the morning would pass in a dream. Kamio always woke up sometime around two o'clock when it was time to start the afternoon practice. Walking out onto the courts and seeing the team assemble was like a resurrection.
Kamio had to run after them all throughout warm ups, nipping at their heels to get them to keep up the pace. He still got a kick out of giving people instructions and watching them being followed, because it felt funny. Like Kamio was only playing captain and pretty soon Tachibana was going to pop out from behind a tree and take over like usual.
After finishing the laps and several sets of what the team fondly referred to as "time wasters" but Kamio called plyos, the team could finally begin and Kamio found himself having little to say to each of them since he was focusing mostly on his own performance. Knowing that their first, and imminent, match was against Rikkaidai had put him in a strange mood, jumpy and over-adrenalinated. He played nervously, leaving the rest of the team to their own devices which they were fairly used to since the period last year when Tachibana had been hospitalized.
Practice passed quietly--An didn't show up all the afternoon, which slightly disappointed Kamio who was hoping to ask Momoshiro about Echizen, but other than that it was okay. They were ready to wrap up by five o'clock and as usual Kamio had to cut it a little early so as to ensure that there would be a reasonable amount of time between getting home and oh god, oh god having to help make dinner since his mom would be exhausted. That was one of the worst parts.
The walk home was always contrastingly slow compared to the rush in the morning. He kept hoping that someone on the other side of the street would suddenly recognize him and hail him so that there would be a digression to slow the progress of returning. But as usual, he ended up rounding the corner of his neighborhood at only half past five and his thoughts danced over the random aspects of his day, not wanting to accept the hardest part.
Four steps forward, one back, there's change on the ground. Mori's got to fix that backhand, I don't know how he got through two years without it. Why does he wear that cap all the time anyway? It's too hot even with red hair and he seems fine…why are there tennis shoes hanging from that telephone wire? There better be bread at home, I'm hungry…Seven cracked steps, turn left, and jog here if you like. Are they both home already? Who left a cooking pot on the front lawn, have they been playing around or something? I'll kill them if there's crayon on the walls—
Kamio practically shouldered the front door to his house open although he wasn't eager to see what was inside. Since his mother didn't come home until at least seven, it was technically Kamio's responsibility to make sure that everything was in order and the boys were watched--and conversely, if anything had gone wrong, it was automatically Kamio's fault. He didn't resent his mother for the extra responsibility, for he knew how much she needed the help, but it was still frustrating. He had become a part-time baby sitter, handyman, and cook for the family.
At least the walls were blissfully white and blank as always when Kamio entered the foyer area, but noises from the living room drew him and he entered to find one of his brothers sitting calmly on the sofa before the television, eating something crispy covered with plenty of salt.
"Where's Hiro?" Kamio asked warily.
Before he could answer, the second youngest one came toppling down the stairs, as if on cue, clad in a soaking wet underclothes.
Kamio sighed and rubbed his eyes, although he had come home to worse before. "What's wrong with you?"
"Let's just say the shower isn't working," Hiro responded, rubbing at his hair and getting water all over the floor, to which Kamio winced.
"I'll take a look at it. Just go put on some clothes, you're going to get sick. And when are you going to get over Pikachu?" he added, to which Hiro frowned down at his boxers and stuck out his tongue. However, he started to obediently mount the stairs with awkward little steps and Kamio collapsed on the arm of the sofa next to Yaso, the youngest. He hoped there wasn't anything seriously wrong with the shower because that would mean another hour spent playing plumber when he had five thousand other things to start on...
"Oh, I found that paper on the doorstep," Yaso said without moving his eyes from the screen, pointing to something muddy near the shoe rack with a salty finger. "I think it's old but I didn't throw it away. Do you want to read it?"
Kamio laughed dryly, burying his head into the back cushion of the seat. "I think I'll pass."
XXX
Arg. Sorry this kind of took a while, but I'm working on it as fast as I can without spewing nonsense (I think) and I've had a rough week. Not to mention that writing this chapter specifically was pretty painful. Well, at least it's out now and we can move on. In case you didn't guess, tennis is not my area of expertise and I wish I could avoid writing about it. But it's proving difficult to avoid tennis scenes.
ps I know I've skipped over quite a few things, but they'll get addressed-ish later.
