November 3, 2000

Rikkaidai Pre-season Match

XXX


Six bloody matches to one? Was he seeing right?

Kamio felt as though he were watching a parody of a tennis match, or else that the whole thing was set up as a ruse, for how could it be, two weeks later, that Fudomine was whipping Rikkaidai as though they were a nameless unseeded school? The blur of black and yellow uniforms on the court brought a sickly sense of déjà vu to Kamio, so he felt as though he were watching a film that he had already seen, but that someone had tampered with since the last time he had watched it and now he didn't know how it was going to end.

"God, they suck, don't they?" Momoshiro eloquently put it. His voice was thick as he jammed a handful of sunflower seeds into his mouth, while somehow managing to simultaneously spit out the shells of the previous bunch from the corner of his mouth. However simple his words, they seemed to have hit the nail right on the head.

"Wanna keep your mouth shut when you're eating?" An said mock-angrily, hitting him on the arm as she sidled over to where Kamio was standing as well. Fudomine's break times were like little party sessions; supposedly only Kamio was supposed to be allowed near the captain's bench, but since it was a relatively unimportant match, everyone crowded around to talk nonchalantly. There were hardly any spectators at all aside from the referee and a few random people who seemed to have just been passing. Anyway, the match was in an out-of-district court, so the turnout was even worse. Momoshiro was only present because he was hanging out with An, and, it seemed, to add little comments at the end of every play. It wouldn't be so bad, except that he kept spraying everyone with sunflower seeds.

"I don't see what you're so surprised about. We've been training like hell, it makes sense to me," Ishida said shrugging, unperturbed.

"It's not that…" Kamio said, frowning as he looked over at the other team. Had Fudomine really improved that much?

"Upset that you won't get to play?" An smiled, seeing how Kamio looked worried. "Does that trash months of planning or something?"

"No…" Kamio looked down.

Across the courts, the losing team had just trooped back to get towels. They were chatting unconcernedly with one another. That was it, Kamio realized. The thing that was weird, the thing that was really weird, and that was making him feel so uneasy was that no one from Rikkaidai seemed to really care that they were losing. Well, no one except for the captain Kirihara, who had been sitting with his head in his hands since halfway through the first match. It was sort of pitiful to watch.

And here Kamio had been worried that things were going to be tense because of last year's rivalry. But the tensions seemed to have totally slackened on both sides of the rope. Rikkaidai as a team was hardly recognizable. Not only because Kirihara was the only remaining original member, but also because the whole new team had a very different aura to it. In truth, they now had an air much more reminiscent of Yamabuki.

Whatever it was, it took the fun right out of the game. Kamio, brooding on his stolen opponents, watched Kirihara who seemed to be in the midst of a desperate internal struggle on how to control his team. He didn't fit in the position of a captain. Kirihara belonged as a little kid on the side.

Kamio thought everyone was a little relieved when the match ended (landslide victory) and they could all shake hands again and go home. Kirihara hadn't met Kamio's eyes before the game, and nor did he now.

It had been so…anti climactic. The referee almost immediately left after the match and all that was left was to sort out the courts a little and pack up stray belongings before leaving.

Kamio noticed that Rikkaidai seemed to have no sort of schedule: half the team left immediately after shaking hands; the rest followed in five minutes, and Kirihara didn't move at all. He just sat there on the benches. After finishing to pack the equipment on the bus, Kamio shot a final glance back to see whether Kirihara had moved or not. He hadn't. Crouched over and staring at his knees, he looked like a gargoyle statue on a gothic church.

Kamio debated for a full two minutes whether Kirihara was actually upset over something or simply being weird and if his captain-ly duty compelled him to go ask about it. In any case, he concluded that it would be bad form to simply leave the guy there without saying a single word to him.

Leaving his bag with Shinji and telling them he would only be a moment, he jogged over, slowing to a walk once he got within range.

"Hey." Kamio announced his presence, suspecting that Kirihara wouldn't realize it otherwise. He was still looking at his knees.

Slowly, Kirihara lifted his head to look at Kamio and Kamio was surprised to see how much Kirihara reminded him of himself, that time in the hospital so many months ago. Mostly bland, but vaguely annoyed at the interruption of whatever thoughts were flying through his head.

"Hi," he said after what felt like a very long pause. It was as if he had forgotten what the word meant.

"Good match," Kamio said awkwardly, holding out his hand though mentally cringing. Why did being captain give him so many awkward responsibilities? Why?

Kirihara looked at the hand but didn't take it. "Not so good. But it will be, later this year." His voice had a sort of forced-arrogance sound to it. It seemed like he didn't want to talk.

"I'm sure." Kamio pocketed his hand, shrugging, and casting about for something else to say. "But you guys don't even have a head coach. Must be difficult, teaching alone. How do you teach, anyhow?"

The words sounded corny even as they left his mouth, but he couldn't pull back the question now that it was hanging in air.

Kirihara looked like he wondered why Kamio was talking to him. Kamio wondered why he was talking to him.

"Got a new head coach this year. He takes care of a lot of the stuff. And there's a new office." Kirihara finally replied.

"Oh." At least he had said something. Kamio nodded. "Sounds interesting."

"Yeah…" Kirihara trailed off vaguely. "It's not."

After a brief pause, Kamio sort of laughed, dryly as possible, and turned to go. Yeah, Kirihara was definitely acting weird, but it wasn't really Kamio's concern. He had done his duty. "I have to catch my bus. I'll see you around."

"Later."

Kamio started to retreat, but out of the corner of his eye he could see that Kirihara was still just sitting there, not moving. Kamio cursed the uncharacteristic nagging of nosiness that wouldn't leave him alone.

"Aren't you leaving?" he asked, once he had made it almost ten paces away, spinning around.

Kirihara looked over, like he was surprised that Kamio was still there. "Bus's gone," he said.

Kamio stared at him, shaking his head. Of course, there was no point asking why Kirihara hadn't taken his bus with the rest of the team; in fact, it seemed like he had missed it on purpose…

"Did you have a plan on getting back?" Kamio asked, feeling irritated that he had to drag every piece of information out of Kirihara with a set of pliers.

Kirihara paused. He shrugged.

Kamio sighed, rubbing the top of his head. He glanced over at the Fudomine bus where Shinji was waiting for him and then back at Kirihara.

"…come on."

He beckoned, before turning again and walking back to the bus.

He didn't wait to see if Kirihara actually was following or not: if that guy wanted to spend the night on this tennis court, then Kamio had no business getting in the way of that. All he knew was that it looked bad to leave a peer, teammate or not, on an out-of-district court after a match. Even if that peer was a ex-dumb bastard. Kamio wasn't sure what Kirihara was now.

Kamio climbed the dusty steps of the vibrating bus, hearing Kirihara's footsteps following his somewhat belatedly. The bus was mostly empty, really. The Fudomine team only took up eight seats of the thirty or so available. Kamio walked to the back where everyone was loaded and dropped himself into a seat, getting his bag back from Shinji. None of his teammates greeted him. They were all too busy staring at Kirihara as he followed and took a seat at a short distance away from the rest of the team.

"What the hell's he doing here?" Ishida leaned over and muttered into Kamio's ear, though just looking confused.

"He's just getting a ride with us," Kamio said in a loud enough voice for everyone to hear. He hated in when people whispered in the presence of others. "By the way," he turned to Kirihara, who looked incredibly awkward and somehow small in the peeling blue seat. "This isn't a ride all the way home or anything. You can just come with us to Fudomine."

"I can get picked up from there," Kirihara said, nodding. He hadn't pulled or said anything nasty, at least not yet. It was difficult to tell if he was grateful for the ride or not. He didn't seem particularly gracious, but on the other hand, it seemed like he was being careful of his behavior. Of course, Kamio had to wonder how he himself would behave were he on a Rikkadai bus. Then again, Kamio would never allow himself to get into a position like that. He probably would have walked home before he would accept a ride from Kirihara.

In fact, it seemed like Kirihara was already regretting having accepted the ride. He looked highly uncomfortable and out-of-character, sitting there, semi-turned towards the others, but with a distracted enough look about him so as not to be mistaken for someone interested in their conversation. It seemed like everyone else felt strange too, but as the bus started to pull away, people gradually stopped shooting looks at him and began quietly speaking amongst themselves. Kirihara lingered in an awkward angle in his seat, as if not sure about whether or not he was supposed to be social.

"I almost bought those," Shinji suddenly said, breaking the silence near Kamio's side of the bus by down pointing at Kirihara's shoes. "I saw them at this corner shop a couple weeks ago but they only had the kind with red stars and I thought those look dumb so I decided to wait it out and see if they get a new order. They have good grip and they're light, though. The sales guy said." Shinji rattled all this off in a deadpan voice.

"…I know." Kirihara said. He didn't seem to know what else to say to Shinji, especially considering that the last time he had been in such close proximity was when they had almost had a bedside brawl in the hospital.

"Can you really feel the difference in performance though?" Shinji continued, still staring at the shoes, undeterred and fearless as always. "I didn't know whether to trust them or not. Sales people'll say anything to make you buy stuff."

"Well, they're not a miracle or anything," Kirihara shrugged, his shoulders relaxing a little, figuring that he could hold up this conversation as long as the questions were simple. "I just needed some for the new season and they work pretty well. They had a huge selection near where I live. Did you check…"

Kamio leaned back a little, seeing that Kirihara and Shinji seemed to be able to have a semi-normal conversation. Although no one in their right mind would describe Shinji as socially skilled, it was definitely true that he was so oblivious to social convention that he found it easy to talk to everyone. Kirihara looked a little uneasy whenever Shinji's sentences exceeded thirty seconds in length, and kept trying to politely interrupt. Kamio couldn't help but smile a little, recognizing the way that he himself had behaved upon first meeting Shinji….

"Well look, when it comes down to it, it's a freaking pair of shoes, isn't it?" Kirihara was now saying, drumming his fingers restlessly against his bag as he found a neat opportunity to put in a word. "And gear doesn't make the player. I don't think these shoes really helped me that much today, for example." He tried to say it casually, but it came out sounding a little bitter.

"You guys played okay," Shinji shrugged, not noticing Kirihara's tone. "I liked that twisty thing that the underclassman was doing—what was it? That twist—"

"You mean the smash?" Kirihara sounded amused as he cut off Shinji, who was distorting his arm around, trying to demonstrate.

"Sure. It was neat. Could you show me that sometime?"

"Yeah, I guess. It's not really that hard…"

Wait a minute. Kamio sat up straighter and spun around as he realized that he had been idly half-listening to Shinji and Kirihara, who were now making…weekend plans? Had he just heard right?

"I mean, if it's all right with Kamio. Don't want to be polluting his teams' tactics," Kirihara looked over for permission, but with low-cast eyelids, in a very unctuous manner, making Kamio feel as though he were really making fun of him.

Oh no. This was not something that Kamio had bargained for. Were Shinji and Kirihara being friendly? The thought made him gulp as Kamio imagined Shinji dragging him all over town to meet Kirihara and play matches. Of course, the whole thing was sort of funny in a way, because Kamio was fairly sure that Kirihara had only agreed because he wasn't in a position to refuse Fudomine a favor and Kamio was certain that Shinji just didn't realize how awkward it was to ask an ex-enemy for help with something like that.

Kamio silently cursed Shinji's big mouth the rest of the way home, though he had to admit that it made the time pass faster and relieved him of the effort of making conversation. Kirihara seemed to noticeably relax during the trip, which only added to Kamio's confusion.

Kamio almost leapt off the bus the moment they arrived back at Fudomine. Kirihara followed at a more languid pace, muttering an offhand thanks that almost got lost on everyone else's shouting and lighting off somewhere fast, leaving Kamio wondering what had just happened. And now it seemed Shinji had made an appointment to see him in a few days. Kirihara clearly had no clue what he had just gotten himself into.


A/N

Err...yeah. I don't really know what to say concerning this chapter. I know it's been ages since I updated; I've sort of...gone through an upheaval in the last month. I'm not really that into fanfiction anymore, but I'm continuing this story because I like it as an original work. Um...have a good week, everyone?