Happy Birthday To: Minami Kentarou, July 3rd.

Word Count: 753

Rating: K+

Genre: Romance

Warnings: Shounen-ai. Not beta'd.

Notes: Right. It's been about a month. And I still procrastinated. Not my fault, my muse left completely for two weeks. Then, when he came back, he wanted to focus on Bones, Hodgela in particular. So if you like the show and like that pairing, expect some of it. Anyway, no ending author's note this chapter, so please review. They feed my soul. Next up: Sakurai Masaya. When?: July 18th.


Minami Kentarou looked around frantically. Practice was starting in five minutes and he and his doubles partner, Higashitaka Masami, were supposed to play a practice match against two of their senpai.

Turning a corner, he scanned the current hall. No sign of the other boy. Sighing slightly, he continued his fast pace down the hall and through a set of doors. He took a right, a left, another left, hoping in vain to find the other half of their pair. Though he would never admit it, he was worried. Masami was never late to practice – at least, not from what Minami could remember.

Finally, after rounding one last corner, Minami found him. But instead of the relief that he had expected would fill him, he felt sick.

There was his doubles partner, pushed up against a wall with some… some guy from the art club. Hoping he was mistaken, he shut his eyes and opened them again. Yet, there they were. Higashitaka Masami and Yamato Akemi (he remembered the other boy's name now; they were in the same lunch hour and had briefly met a few weeks back), pressed against a wall, mouthing each other. Then the pair broke apart, presumably for air, and Minami bolted.


Half an hour later Minami Kentarou found himself home alone, locked in his room and lying on his bed. He didn't remember leaving the hallway, didn't remember grabbing his stuff from practice, and didn't remember the trip home at all. The only thing he remembered was Masami and Yamato against that wall.

Minami knew it shouldn't have bothered him, knew that he shouldn't have minded.

But he did.

The feeling he had gotten when he had seen the pair was sharp, intense, and honestly unlike anything he had felt before. Yet… it wasn't disgust. He had felt disgusted before; this feeling was nothing like that. No, this was… it was jealousy.

He hadn't wanted to admit it. Not to himself, not to the world. But there had always been something about his doubles partner that had captivated him – something that kept him playing doubles on those days when he wished he could just quit the team and hand it over to Sengoku. (After all, everyone had thought that the orange-haired boy was captain. Even his own team mates occasionally got confused.)

Minami sighed, pressing his palms into his eyes. Somehow he knew that Masami had seen him bolt. Which meant that tomorrow would be that much harder.


The morning went smooth. This year, he and Masami weren't in the same class so he didn't even have to worry about seeing the boy before lunch – which he spent doing extra class clean up. No, it wasn't until afternoon practice finally rolled around that he began to panic. Still, when he saw Masami standing outside of the classroom door like he always did, he began to hope that perhaps everything was fine; that perhaps the other boy hadn't seen him yesterday.

Judging from the silence between them, however, Masami definitely had.

Yet, they changed their shoes and headed to practice. When they arrived the club house was empty; they were early.

So, they sat. On the benches, side by side, the tension steadily growing in the awkward silence.

"Kentarou." Masami broke the silence abruptly. Minami looked at his feet.

"Listen… yesterday…" Masami lapsed back into silence for a moment. "I- I'm not quite sure what happened. It just… it just did."

Now Minami looked up, and immediately began to regret it. The look in Masami's eyes – the begging of forgiveness – was almost too much. But he kept a grip on reality, and thought the situation. It seemed that there was only one real way to solve this. And that was by taking drastic measures.

Moments later, he had taken a risk so huge that, had someone told him he would be doing this yesterday, he would have told them it wouldn't have happened in a million years. Yet, he had. He had pushed his lips to Masami's, kissing him. And, much to Minami's surprize, Masami kissed back.

When they broke apart moments later, Minami studied Masami's face. The shock was evident, but he couldn't read anything else – no anger, no annoyance, no pleasure. So, he waited. Moments later, Masami broke out in a small grin.

And the relief that he had expected to show up yesterday had finally appeared.

OWARI