Disclaimer: I don't own death note.

Chapter 13

The Tennis Championships

The next two qualifying tennis matches went by in a rush and now that she didn't have to worry about Lawliet's birthday gift anymore she found it much easier to concentrate on the game. She found that without the forced concentration that she had maintained through the first two games, that she really liked tennis.

The finals were the next day and it was already eleven at night, she and Lawliet were both in the finals, and though he would never admit it, Yumi knew that her friend enjoyed the game. The other two finalists were the noodle boy and a girl who looked like she could break through walls of stop freight trains.

In spite of the match that day Yumi and Lawliet had stayed up all night working on a case, they were just finishing the final sentence on the capture instructions when Lawliet excluded car thefts from the small list of cases he would still solve.

Yumi sighed and folded the envelope closed, she was beginning to lose track of what cases he wouldn't work on, focusing instead on the three or four types that he still considered worth his time.

Midnight hit and the grandfather clock in the main hall began to dong with a slow deep chiming. Yumi knew the sound well, she handed the case file to Lawliet who sat across from her pushing his mouth around to weird angles with his thumb.

He took the case file with the hand he wasn't using to play with his face, and set it on the table carefully. Yumi yawned, she wasn't tired at all it had just become a habit she performed when she heard the clock chime.

Lawliet had been looking at her at the time, he knew it was coming because she did it every night. Still he couldn't turn away fast enough to avoid yawning as well, which made Yumi yawn again, they yawned back and forth unable to stop until Lawliet finally broke the cycle by looking away while Yumi yawned.

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Yumi stood up and walked to the door.

"I think I'll try to get some sleep." she said as she walked out of the room closing the door behind her.

"Alright, good night then." but she was already gone.

Yumi didn't need to sleep at all but decided to try just incase it would improve her game. Though she had been lucky enough not to have a game against Lawliet in the preliminaries she knew that they would have to play a game in the finals, there could only be one champion.

She lay in bed as she usually did at this hour and stared at the ceiling, she had memorized the blank white paint of the ceiling by now but she refused to lay on her side, she didn't like having people behind her, so laying facing the wall and away from the door was out, also there was the paranoia that someone would come out of the wall if she lay facing the door.

She slipped into unconsciousness as the clock rang one in the morning, when the sun was up she woke herself by sneezing into the blankets, she didn't normally wake this way which meant that Lawliet was near, and he had the rackets.

That may not seem related at all, but Yumi was always sneezing around the racket covers which were magnets for dust. Of course her hunch was right, she opened her eyes to see Lawliet sitting on the end of her bed, by her feet, and staring at her with black eyes.

He didn't seem to grasp that staring was rude, but Yumi didn't mind anymore. Also he was holding the tennis rackets behind his back, he probably tried to hide them so she wouldn't know he was looking forward to the match, but his attempt was interrupted by her awakening.

Now he was trying to demonstrate how comfortable sitting on two tennis rackets could be, Yumi didn't buy it and undermined his attempt by making a show of yawning and stretching herself out under the covers, secretly trying to unbalance his act.

It worked and he tumbled over onto the floor, the rackets didn't exactly help his landing. His removal from her bed made it easier to get up, Yumi rose to her feet and helped her friend up. They both walked down the stairs, and Yumi used a black umbrella to fend of the rubber bats and spiders left over from Halloween. The second floor children still insisted on throwing them around.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs Yumi put the umbrella in the hallway coatrack, then they both went out to the black car that took them to the park.

At the park they played a few practice games, they were a few hours early again, then the matches started.

Lawliet played first, he was against the noodle boy. The boy was fast, but Lawliet was faster and after a few returns he sent the ball into the fence, winning the match.

Yumi played the freight train girl, the girl had strength but was very slow, she caught the ball on the racket the first two or three times but after that the running became too hard and Yumi won with a ball in the fence.

Then came the moment Yumi had been dreading: her match with Lawliet. They were the last two finalists and whoever won this match would be junior tennis champion.

Yumi took a stance to defend even though she was going to serve, and bounced the ball on the ground a few times before tossing it into the air, she slammed the racket into the yellow tennis ball and sent it over the net, Lawliet was waiting though and smacked it right back to her.

He could have easily aimed to the left or right of her so she would have had to chase the ball to hit it, but his shot was directed right at her, this made it easy to repel, which was probably the point.

Lawliet hadn't counted on the ferocity of her return she had slammed the ball back and it was aimed to the left, which was his right, which was a mistake. But who can tell directions backwards? Lawliet was right handed so she had aimed for his good side.

Lawliet countered and Yumi had to sprint across the width of the court in order to save the ball. She returned it but her swing was weak from haste, and was sent right back again, the game went on with both players running back and fourth across their sides of the court.

It got to a point when Lawliet had to really apply himself to the game, and Yumi had to take off her shoes in mid stride to reach the ball in time.

Yumi returned the ball to Lawliet who also removed his shoes, and sent the ball back with more force then was really needed. Yumi swung hard and barely managed to return the ball in time, but the swing had thrown her off balance, so when the ball came flying back to her left, she had to turn at an unnatural angle and dive to the ground for it.

In mid dive Yumi felt her ankle bend strangely, a stab of pain shot up her leg, and she screamed at it's suddenness, she lost her grip on the racket as her dive turned to a fall and the tennis ball bounced on the ground a few inches from her fingers as she hit the ground and skidded to a rough stop.

I was the momentum of her leap that made it hurt so much, so when the shock of the landing wore off Yumi was surprised to find that her left side and right ankle still stabbed with pain. Several people ran over to her and tried to help her up but it was Mr. Wammy who finally pulled her off the ground.

She had twisted her ankle and skinned her left arm and leg deeply, blood trickled down her left side and she was given a few towels to wipe it off with. She had soaked through one towel already when Lawliet walked over and sat down next to her.

"Are you ok?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm fine, can you get me another towel?" she answered.

Lawliet had sat to her right so he was as far away from her bloody side as he could be while still being close enough to speak with her.

Yumi hadn't thought much about his reasoning for this, so when she handed him the blood soaked towel, she was surprised to see him turn a sickly pale and take a series of deep breaths before excepting it.

He didn't want to touch her blood on the white towel, so he held it between his thumb and first finger almost like it was going to bite him.

He was gone for only a moment before he returned to the bench with a fresh towel, and an expression that suggested the other one had been burned. He held the new towel like he had held the other one, though she hadn't touched it yet and there was no way that there was blood on it.

After several minutes of waiting on the bench with a pale Lawliet and a growing pile of bloody towels which he refused to touch, the two children got in the car with a large gold painted trophy for winning the British Junior Championships.

When they got back to Wammy's Yumi was sent to the main office, there was no nurse, because the genius residents of the house shouldn't need full time health care. She received a spray that burned the wounds for a few minutes and a gauze wrap for her ankle. When she returned to her room Lawliet was nowhere to be seen and Yumi assumed he was hiding from blood and towels.

She lay on her right side in bed, it hurt too much to lay on her back or on her left, and fell asleep.

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author's note: thanks for reading this far and thanks for the review. Writing the yawning thing at the beginning made me tiered so I'm going to lay in bed now. Thanks again!