Sorry I'm late in posting this—school starting and everything—it could really drive a woman mad :DDDDD
Thank you for all the reviews—I really love you all!
Note: There is a sequel to this part, and no this is not the end, since I did promise lemon in this story, only that won't be today. I have the plot yes, but right now I'm a bit lazy to plan it all out. XDDDD
--
He blinks at you, and his hands loosen from his cat, which almost makes the creature fall to the floor. He catches it just in time and he still stares at you. "Monkey King."
You scowl, something you haven't done in a long time, and you will not admit it being good, the freedom to express how you felt. "Don't call me that."
Echizen doesn't answer back at that request, his face is a mixture of surprise and more surprise, and those two surprises are a different kind. You don't know how to interpret either one.
"How did you know?" he finally utters, as if he couldn't believe you were actually there.
"Tezuka," you say simply, and Echizen nods slowly. He is wearing a simple T-shirt and jeans with no trace of his trademark cap on his head, comfortable enough for his long flight. You are wearing your school uniform, as it was a last minute decision in coming here.
The silence is a stifling one in the middle of a bustling airport. You are here in favor of school, something you have never done before since school was something that was always the top priority in your life, including tennis, but Echizen seemed to put you in a position doing things that has never been done by you before.
This silence was a different one from all the others because the air between them was silent as well, and there is no communication between them. Echizen looks awkward, almost like the time inside the helicopter, as if he isn't sure how to interpret you being there. You choose to break this.
"Congratulations," you say to him then, your voice an even tone, "On your win in the finals."
Echizen allows a smirk at this and he inclines his head. "Hm."
You have to roll your eyes at his arrogance, but it doesn't bother you anymore, not like it used to; it was a part of him after all, something you couldn't change, something you wouldn't dream of changing. "Perhaps I could understand what Tezuka saw in you back then."
"Took you a long time to find out, huh?" His smirk grows bigger; he crouches down and sets his cat on the ground, his eyes still not leaving yours. "You should have accepted my challenge. At the street courts. It would have saved us the trouble."
You raise an eyebrow at that. "You're still not all that good though," you feel it is your duty to inform him of this, although this is not the truth, not really. "You still have lots to work on."
His eyes are full of laughter, yet you don't feel as if they're laughing at you. "Do I?"
"Ahn." You return his gaze and there and then, you want to say so many things to him, things that could not be expressed in words, but you try to anyways. You hold out your hand.
They are not equals, but you could pretend to be.
His smirk falls off and his eyes take on the shocked look again. Then it is gone, as he recovers and gives out a small laugh, taking your hand, clasping it with his own. You touch his hand and it gives you the thrill, the fire from that day, from that match. You have never touched him before. It was your eyes, always your eyes trailing him, and touching him feels like something to be savored, like a good Latin book, not wanting to go to the very last page because it'll end soon. Only that what they have between them, this something, will not end. You will not allow that.
"Our match," is what he says, and here he pauses, feeling the words of our match roll off his tongue, then he is laughing in a breathless laugh, "Our match. You could have won it."
You tilt your head and observe him silently, wondering what has made him suddenly so modest and speak that up. It was something you knew, something you both knew. It was something that didn't need to be said, yet this boy was here, saying it right now, a sentence that would have been more suitable had it come out of Tezuka's lips. A second later you also know that this was far from modesty, that Echizen would never be modest, he was just speaking the truth; it was a match that pushed them over to the best of their limits, it was tennis, pure and simple. You had tasted the feel of tennis, and this you both know as well.
"Next time," you stare intently into those eyes and they are hazel, only that to you they will always look like gold, the color he had used to hate as a child, because it looked very untouchable, "Next time, I will win it." You are saying this to reassure that there will be a next time. He confirms it by not letting go of your hand; their grip tightens painfully but you don't care.
" Next time, " and his eyes are taking on a promise, that he will give you this feeling again, and he promises you the prospect of a challenge, " Next time, it would be my win, fair and square." He lets go, but his eyes are not, as if he is trying to remember who you might be to him, and you feel strange yet you are doing the same to him, absorbing him in; they had never studied each other so openly before, not since their match, always a fleeting of a glance or a curve of a smirk, and something is there, something, but this was a something you cannot comprehend.
"Atobe."
Your name sounds smooth on his lips and you snap back to reality; he breaks the eye-contact, he is already turning away. It is the first time he calls you by your name.
"Thanks."
For the match. For the challenge. For the things that existed between us. For the match. For the memory.
This he does not say and you do not ask. You know why he is saying this to you, and you know what you want to say back to him, but you push this all down in the back of your mind. Someday, you will tell him. Someday, and now would not be the time. You look at his retreating back and you think—
There are some things that cannot even be said, even in your mind.
You shake your head in exasperation, and your hand goes to feel your hair. "You better win," is what you tell him last; sometimes, it was just better to say it.
He doesn't look back at you, but you know he is smirking as he walks away.
--
High school is nothing like middle school. You are still the arrogant boy that everyone respects you to be. You are the captain of your tennis team again. You are a favorite candidate for the school president next year. You ace in all your studies and your father is observing your successes almost proudly, saying that you'll be a fine CEO one day. Your mother's glances are growing frequent now, and you are always reading.
Yet you also turn on the TV everyday and watch him play in the US Open, and you stare intently at the screen hours after it all ends. You see him through this and you rewind it over and over again, and you think of all the things you could have been, what he could have been—what they could have both been together. It is not middle school where you think Tezuka is the only worth opponent beating, and that someone loses their value when they are once defeated, yourself included. You are older now, and you still see him, tennis, and you think that the world is not that easy, it is not just a boundary between two things.
I want you. And I will have you.
--
When you are about to go up to your final year in high school, one winter day, your phone is buzzing during practice. You frown and pick it up and the frown disappears abruptly and your eyes widen.
'Monkey King. Let's have a match.'
It does not say who it is from, but only one person would be so arrogant and bold to dare lower your presence. Your face carves into a smile, something you haven't done for a long time.
--
He is there, by the street courts where you first met each other. You make your strides look casual, but inside, inside you are just a bundle of anticipation, the chance to see him, up close, and this is when he turns around and sees you.
He does not say anything and neither do you. But the way you both positions your rackets and the way you both try to drown each other with your eyes, it is enough.
He hands you the ball, and you serve.
--
It would be much later that you will act on this wild impulse to kiss him, and it would be much, much later when you will bed him, but when their fingers brush against each other after the match, you think you might be able to foresee this moment. Echizen catches your eye and he doesn't let the smirk waver, but his eyes are holding the same passion inside, the passion you always loved to see, fire.
This is what you have right now, and it would have to be enough.
Fin ( for now!)
:DDDD There IS a next part to this, because this story was suppose to have all the main events in high school, only I got a little carried away. Oh , joy.
I'm not sure when that next part will be posted, because I'm working on a different story right now—the one I'll be posting next time.
Just a little preview:
He first meets him in the hallway.
There's nothing to observe out of the boy; he looks like all the freshmen milling around the corridor, with his white shirt uniform tucked inside his trousers, his Hyotei tie hanging loosely around his neck and his bag hung over his shoulders. He looks like himself, and he was about to ask the boy what class he was in, if only to point out that the boy looked like an idiot standing in the middle of the hallway, when their eyes meet.
The words he were about to say fly out of his mind. The boy's eyes are the color of gold.
--
"Let's play a match." Keigo challenges him into a stare. Ryoma doesn't seem to be affected by this, raising an eyebrow as he takes out his math book for the next class.
"No," Ryoma says simply, and Keigo could tell that he was serious, with no trace of his usual smirk. Keigo grits his teeth.
"Play me."
"No."
Keigo snatches the math book out of Ryoma's hands. Ryoma doesn't react to it, but he still won't meet his eyes.
"Today. Play me." He knows his voice is a harsh tone, and he knows he might be acting like a spoiled child, but he needed to play Ryoma, because Ryoma was the only one worth playing in the tennis club and he was the only one who was the same level as Keigo, and there could be no equals, not inside this tennis club.
Ryoma knows this, and perhaps this is the reason why those hazel eyes look colder.
--
This is an AU, where Ryoma is the same age as Keigo and they're both attending Hyotei middle school, with Keigo form England and Ryoma from America.
Oh, didn't I say that this is my secret kink:D I want them to speak in English together and I want them to snark at each other in a more comfortable atmosphere. Not to mention Konomi sensei wanted this scene, I swear, otherwise why would he say that Atobe went to a school in ENGLAND!
Me and my imaginations :D