"Correcting a mistake"

Summary: Ashita comes to find Shiraishi and her words make him wonder about his attitude in regard to winning, and then receive help from Kenya. More of a Shiraishi and Kenya friendship fic.

Author's Note: When I watched snippets of the Shitenhouji musical I immediately had a desire to write a one shot related to Shiraishi. My initial idea is to have Ashita cheering Shiraishi when Fuji made his come back, telling Shiraishi that he can do it.

Note: This is very important. Oshitari Kenya is the fukubuchou in my story.

Warning- this story has a very long author's note. I know some people really don't like this but then I leave it at the very end, so you can just stop as soon as you finish the story.

Complete: April 18-29, 2009

"The one who wins is the winner."

This was their motto- implying that the most important thing was the victory, the eventual result, not the actual detail. Therefore, he should be happy as he won, which meant that he was one step closer to his goal of letting Shitenhouji be in the finals.

Yet Shiraishi found it very hard to celebrate as he walked back to the cheering team and club mates. Their cheering was loud enough to make his ears sore, yet not enough to cover the other side's comments.

He liked to think of himself as being quite sporting, but the whispers of how his opponent might have win really hurt him, as they implied that he only won due to luck. If he could easily have lost, then why did he bother playing perfect tennis?

Would he have lost though?

He was sure he knew how to deal with the upgraded triple counters as they were not that different from the original, so he only had to modify the original solution.

"Why aren't you happy?"

The very familiar voice made him halt and turn to that direction even though this must be a mistake…

…but she was there, standing by the entrance to the seats.

"Ashita?" he muttered. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to watch your game." She said bluntly. "And I am very confused. You told me that your main concern is to win every one of you games and since you have achieved that, why aren't you happy?"

"Why are you asking me this?" he asked back.

At that moment, one of the Seigaku club members- either Arai or the ever busy first year trio, made the mistake of being a bit too loud in his attempt of cheering Fuji up.

"But it was so close! If that lost shot landed instead of being out then the victory would have been ours."

Shiraishi saw Ashita narrowing her eyes at this and her gaze became very cold. He was suddenly reminded of the first time they met: she had looked like that just before she punched the delinquent who harassed them.

"You, aren't you going to do anything?" she demanded to Shiraishi angrily.

But to this, he merely said: "Why?"

His answer obviously angered her as she gave him a rather hard slap and being slap by her was no light matter, since her constant training in karate meant that she was actually quite strong. Obviously, it wouldn't be hard enough to cause a trip to the hospital, but the swollen bit was very sore.

Ignoring everyone else, Ashita jumped straight to her next victim.

"Are you really in the tennis club?" she snapped at the direction of the Seigaku member who made the offensive comment. "Even I know that you need to be two points ahead of the rival in order to win in tie-break! Which means that Kuranosuke would only lose the chance of winning if that last shot didn't go out. So he didn't get it that time but how do you know he wouldn't get it the next time? But no matter what happened with the last shot, that would not have let you guys win.

"And you," she said as she turned back to Shiraishi, "What is wrong with you? Why do you let them get away with saying that?"

"Because I cannot be bothered." He told her with a shrug. "It doesn't matter anyway, the most important thing for me is to win and I did."

"You don't look like it!" she shot back.

"Ashita…then I ask you again: why are you here?"Why are you watching my game and being concerned and in dignified on my behalf?"

He didn't expect an answer, the reason he asked her that was to ignore answering the questions he could not answer.

"Because I am an idiot." She said softly. "Watanabe-sensei gave me a ticket and I took it because I want to see your game. It is silly, but I hope that you get to have what you want. I know how much you want it, so I want to see you getting it."

At this, Shiraishi smiled rather bitterly. "Wanting it does not mean that you will get it, otherwise there will be gold medals for everyone who came here.

"I…I don't know anything any more." Shiraishi admitted softly so that only she could hear him. "You are right, I should be happy but I am not. It is not enough to win if I will win like this. To have it be attributed as luck. I am glad that I win and I accept the win, but it is not something that I like.

"No, I do know one thing." He said as he grabbed Ashita and pulled her into a tight embrace. "I am sorry. Regardless of whether I am right or wrong, I own you an apology. Even if this is right for the team, I still did something wrong as I ended up hurting you.

"However, I will not make a different decision because I feel that this is what I should have done."

Titling her head up, she nodded, accepting his apology.

The events after the singles 3 of the semi-final did cause some tongues gossiping although the more important subject was still Seigaku going to challenge the legendary Rikkai. Besides, Shiraishi explained what happened in a very logical way: he broke up with his girlfriend due to wanting to focus on tennis.

This would only be strange if people realise that he did not need to and how extreme his choice was.

Besides, they were young, so breaking up about such a matter was not seen as a big deal. In addition, what did that matter when people were still debating whether Tezuka has actually recovered from his injuries due to what he did in the match with Atobe?

Kenya found his friend sitting outside their lodging with his cell phone in his hand, pressing the up and down button very often in order to re-read the message. Upon seeing Kenya, who took a seat beside him without saying anything, Shiraishi considered for a while before he handed the phone to his close friend.

"One of the guys in the karate club actually told me that he like me and my instinct reaction was to tell him: 'I like someone else' and then admit that it is you who I am thinking of.

I will throw away all my dignity by admitting that I still like you so much despite everything/ but yet…even if we somehow get together (and do not see this as a sign of me begging! I am merely presenting a what if scenario), I will still feel paranoid."

"I am not an expert like my cousin…not that I think these films really help him." Kenya muttered. "But she must want to reconcile with you."

"Do I deserve that?" Shiraishi asked bluntly.

"You know…I am starting to think that you are slightly 'M'." Kenya said and even though his tone was blunt, it was not really unkind.

"I am not! I don't enjoying pain! Kenya, all I am doing is what I should be doing as the buchou." Shiraishi protested rather indignantly. "It is not as if I am risking getting my arm injured."

"But to break up with Tanako-kun due to that? I realised something about you now that we have become good friends." Kenya announced. "You don't like correcting people when it comes to you, even though what they say does bother you. You have this attitude of: 'let them gossip and talk, as long as I know the truth then I don't care'. I mean, when I accused you of being a genius you could have just told me about how much your practice."

"Would you have listened?"

"And later on, at one of the club meetings, didn't the buchou of the baseball club say that we shouldn't have so much funds…"

"I told him that we have every right to the amount of fund we receive."

"I know that! I was referring to what he said about you.

"Well, I don't think he would have listened, besides, other people know that…"

"That is exactly what I mean! But Shiraishi, do you think that we would be happy that you break up with your girlfriend in order to concentrate on us? You know…I had quite a shock when Chitose's ball hit Tachibna's eye. I can understand Tachibana's logic but I think that is a weird logic. Personally I will be freaked out in Chitose's situation."

"Kenya…that is a totally different matter."

"The principal is the same! What I am trying to say is this: thanks for doing all that, but you don't have to! The team is important, right? Every team member is important, so why should the buchou be less or more important? I see no reason for only the buchou having to make a sacrifice and let everyone profit at his expense. In fact why are you so special by being the only one to make these secret sacrifices? Why is it that you have a right to do what you don't want us to do?"

Kenya suddenly stopped talking when he realised that his friend was looking at him in a very strange way.

"Hey…are you really Kenya?"

This time, Kenya let action speak as well as words. Rolling his eyes, he knocked his friend gently on the head.

"Hey, I am the fukubuchou! Don't forget that the fukubuchou is responsible for helping the team as well. Most importantly," Kenya added, "he is responsible for correcting the buchous' mistake or point out that the buchou is being an idiot."

Author's Note: As mentioned, Chapters is sort of individual oneshots that might even deviate from the main story- "Sacrifice" as this is about the alternative reconciliation of Ashita and Shiraishi. In the original story, they actually reconciled right after his game.

I enjoyed writing this story as one of the main reason is that I get to rant about an issue that really irritate me: people saying Fuji would have win if the hakuryuu did not go out. Initially I thought the same too but after I learnt about the tennis system I realised, no, this can't happen. Because what happened is that Fuji merely prevented Shiraishi from playing. In tennis (at least not the older set of rules that prince of tennis use- as there are some new rules) there is no situation where a point can let both of you win. In tie break you have to win if you are two point ahead (or if you get 7 first). But presuming Fuji and Shiraishi was at the case of 9-8 to Shiraishi, Shiraishi scoring the next score will bring it to 10-8 so he can win, but if Fuji score it then it will just make it 9 all, it just prevented Shiraishi from winning. Fuji will actually need to score another two point in order to win by 9-11. A lot of people probably wouldn't understand that cause we don't know tennis (like me) but you would think that the people in the tennis club would know.

That is just something that really annoys me. but another thing that I enjoy discussing is Shiraishi's attitude toward winning. To a certain extent I think it is a slight parallel, I think despite having made a decision he is still a bit confused, not sure if he made the right choice.

Ashita's character…I think I have been affected by my AU, as I've been talking about the more cynical aspect of Ashita's character.

In regard to Ashita slapping him, this is not because she is really violent anything, but I think it is because she just got really frustrated at him, the fact that he is actually letting others criticise him and to an extent dismissing his skills. She is really mad because what they say is not true at all. A sense of: "Why do you let them say that when this is not the truth?" Despite what she says, she does still really care for him.

One of my favourite bit of the story is when Shiraishi says the following: "Wanting it does not mean that you will get it, otherwise there will be gold medals for everyone who came here." Because I feel that this is perfectly true. As I have said so many times, everyone of these boys want to win so why should Seigaku be so special? Why is it that they can win it just because they really want it, as everyone else wants it too.

M and S relate to Masochism and sadism and as they are common ideas in many Japanese manga, I guess this phrase would be widely known by many. I am not saying that Shiraishi is mascochist but it is just an example that Kenya use to tell Shiraishi to share what is bothering him with the rest of them as well.

Finally the idea of sacrifice- I mean, does your team mate really want you to get a permanent injury due to you? I really think they would rather lose instead of winning, if the price of winning meant you risking a permanent injury. I think the idea of Chitose and Tachibana is a pretty good example even though it is not quite the same. But honourable as Tachibana is, I don't think Chitose would think: "Okay, now we are even." Surely anyone would feel really bad if they caused their friend to have a permanent injury, even if it is their friend's own fault.