Chapter Eleven:
Head Injury

Summary: Ryoma picks a fight, as usual, but this time Momoshiro is the one who gets hurt.

"True friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation." - George Washington

Tezuka had his arm in a vice grip, which was the only thing holding him back. "I will handle this," he said in a voice tight with constraint. "Go back and wait for the ambulance."

Wrenching free, Ryoma glared past his captain to the coward responsible for all this. He stood with his teammates, face creased with panic. He was worse than a bully, worse than a braggart. "I tripped" – those were the words that had come out of his lying mouth, but Ryoma knew what really happened.

He'd been taking a jog to warm up for their approaching match with Ginka Junior High when he happened across one of their seniors hitting a tennis ball against a wall and laughing. Every shot just barely missed his nervous audience, a group of younger students whose only defense was to shuffle closer to one another, looking intimidated.

Ryoma stopped mid-stride and headed over to the gathering, one hand shoved in his pocket. With the other, he picked up a stone and took aim. The rock hit just as the ball rebounded, sending it rolling down a long flight of stairs. The Ginka player, who Ryoma vaguely remembered was named Suzuki or something like that, whirled around to face him.

His eyes widened. "You again."

"Me again," Ryoma agreed, gratified to see how the older boy's face paled. He did like to make an impression.

One of the youngsters giggled, and Suzuki snarled at them to get lost. While the kids beat a hasty retreat, stumbling down the stairs to the park's lower level, he turned to Ryoma and demanded, "Why can't you just stay out of people's business?"

"Moronic behavior attracts my attention," Ryoma said. "But that's how you operate, isn't it? Throwing your weight around, picking on girls and little kids. It's too bad you don't have the skill to back it up. Today's match is going to prove it, too. That is, unless your team comes down with another tummy ache."

The reminder that Ginka had backed out of their last scheduled match was meant to be insulting, and it definitely hit home. "We had food poisoning," Suzuki muttered.

"Whatever," Ryoma said, putting forth zero effort to conceal his contempt.

Suzuki's shoulders sunk with shame, and the same harassed look he usually dispensed began creeping into his eyes. Good, thought Ryoma. He could still remember Sakuno's frightened face as she faced the Ginka team in search of her lost tennis ball. This guy and his friends had purposefully humiliated her. If anyone deserved to come down a peg, it was him and his teammates.

"You're a real jerk, you know that," Suzuki said in a sullen undertone.

"Better a jerk than a coward," Ryoma said.

Before things had a chance to devolve any further, Momoshiro came jogging up to them on the path. Undoubtedly, he'd been in the middle of his own circuit when he saw what was going on, and now he joined them with a wary look in his eye. One glance was all he needed to understand what was going on. "Geez, Echizen," he said. "Do you have to pick a fight everywhere we go?"

Ryoma knew the timing today was particularly bad. Off-court confrontation between rival players could result in disqualification, and Tezuka would kill him it Ryoma let that happened. He needed to walk away. The problem was that Ryoma couldn't let it go completely. He didn't stop smirking, and that was what finally pushed Suzuki over the edge.

"Wipe that sneer off your face, you arrogant shrimp!" he shouted.

Momo frowned. "Listen, whoever you are," he said sternly. "Why don't you save it for the match."

Ryoma couldn't help himself. "Don't waste your time, Senpai. If he has to scare a bunch of kids to feel big, then he doesn't have any higher sensibilities to appeal to."

That was when Suzuki lunged at him. He actually got one hand on Ryoma, fingers clawing at the front of his shirt, before Momoshiro intervened. What none of them counted on was Suzuki's reckless rage. He wasn't thinking anymore, certainly not about disqualification or his team or anything else, and when Momo got hold of him, he turned and shoved as hard as he could.

Ryoma had forgotten that they were at the top of a flight of stairs. Long, concrete steps with a metal railing. Momo caught the edge with one heel; the other found empty space. First there were sounds, like a sandbag being dropped. Then nothing, not even birdsong. A bystander called for help, but Ryoma was frozen. Suzuki wasn't even there. He'd run away.

Footsteps converged. "Momo!" Eiji screamed. Ryoma didn't look. Before he realized what he was doing, he moved toward the Ginka team, who were gathering to the side. That was when Tezuka had intervened.

"He pushed him," Ryoma hissed his accusation to make sure his captain knew.

Tezuka answered, "Understood."

When Ryoma reached the bottom of the steps, his team was already gathered around Momoshiro, who was being supported by Oishi and a man in a yellow vest. The onsite medic was holding a pressure bandage beneath Momo's head, but it didn't seem to be working. The concrete was dark with blood.

"They don't want to move his neck," Eiji explained with a voice that cracked as he spoke. His auburn hair was a mess, tangled by nervous fingers.

"He'll be alright," Fuji insisted with steely composure.

Ryoma saw the looks on more knowing faces. Very quietly, Oisihi murmured, "Can you tell?"

"Not here," the paramedic answered.

Then Momoshiro moved, his fingers twitching. Behind scrapped and crusted lids, his eyes moved. The medic leaned closer. "Stay still, son. We don't know how badly you're hurt, but help is on the way."

His words didn't seem to register, because Momoshiro kept twitching, trying to manipulate uncoordinated fingers. Somehow, he gagged out a few syllables. "E-echi –"

"Echizen is here," Oishi answered, calm even in the middle of a crisis. He tugged Ryoma closer, but Ryoma felt like his voice was sealed.

"Say something," Kaidoh hissed at his back.

Finally, the grip on his throat loosened. "Momo-senpai?" he whispered. It was barely a sound, but even with his head broken open at the bottom of a flight of stairs, Momoshiro must have recognized it because one tiny slit opened. And because he knew exactly what question must be rattling around in that idiot head, Ryoma drew a congested breath and said, "I'm okay."

The paramedic sighed in relief. "He's more relaxed now."

The ambulance had been directed to them, and it pulled right up to the curb. Serious looking professionals piled out and stretched a collar around Momo's neck. As they began loading him, one asked, "Anyone riding along?"

Oishi put a hand on Ryoma's shoulder, but Ryoma asked, "Shouldn't you go with him?" After all, Oishi planned to be a doctor.

Their vice captain answered, "We'll meet you at the hospital. I'm going to call his parents."

Ryoma hesitated a moment longer, looking at Momo laid out on the stretcher. Then he stepped forward and allowed himself to be helped into the back of the vehicle.

Ryoma was sitting outside the hospital when Tezuka arrived. "They suspended Suzuki," he said. "The match has been postponed indefinitely, investigation pending. Their coach will almost certainly forfeit."

The information was presented so factually that it shouldn't have had such an emotional impact, yet Ryoma felt his hands closing into fists. Suspended? That was all?

Tezuka ducked his head, acknowledging what Ryoma had not said. However, it seemed he had something else on his mind. "There's something else we need to discuss."

Ryoma went rigid. "Oh?"

"You provoked that other player, didn't you?"

The guilt was so great it was like struggling in deep waters. Every time Ryoma breathed, he choked. Still, he tried to explain. "He was harassing a bunch of kids."

Tezuka looked at him as though he could read the entire encounter without being told. "So you decided to give him a taste of his own medicine."

His own medicine. The words stung. Begrudgingly, Ryoma answered, "Yes."

There was a moment in which neither of them spoke. Ryoma's silence was tinged with regret, but Tezuka's was thoughtful. Finally, the older boy spoke. "It's not wrong to have a strong sense of justice, but if you're not careful, you'll seek out confrontation for confrontation's sake."

Ryoma wanted to deny the accusation. Long ago, he had learned to accept his nature. When he found no acceptance from his peers, he had come to accept himself. The result wasn't always pretty, but he'd never considered what he did wrong.

Tezuka remarked, "Bullying a bully doesn't make it acceptable, Echizen."

Ryoma ran his hand though his bangs, but when the words he needed to speak failed, he found others instead. "Will you suspend me, too?"

Tezuka's next statement made no mystery of how he felt, and fortunately that incendiary tone was not directed at Ryoma. "You didn't push Momoshiro down a flight of stairs." He glanced up at the building. "How is he?"

"Concussion. A gash that needed stitches. Scrapes and bruises. He was asking about pudding when I last saw him."

"That sounds like our Momoshiro," Tezuka commented, and shrouded as it was there was no mistaking the fondness. Momo, it seemed, had gotten through even Tezuka-bucho's thick skin.

"He stood up for me," Ryoma said suddenly. "That's the reason Suzuki pushed him."

"He'll always stand up for you," Tezuka replied. He adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose and looked Ryoma straight in the eye. "Something to think about next time."

Ryoma gazed right back. There wouldn't be a next time, not like this.

Next Chapter: Ryoma is determined to get Momoshiro ready for the international tennis scene, even if that means resorting to singing dinosaurs.