*NOTE* Alternate Universe wherein I shamelessly borrowed/altered ideas from various media sources and even threw in some of my own. If anything is canon here, it's probably an accident. Some chapters contain corporal punishment.
Changechildren (Prince of Tennis)
Part 48
By Haruka (email: haruka at ymail dot com)
Sumire had joined the other adults at the pool. She poured tea and passed it around.
"I'm sorry if I did the wrong thing, Nanjiroh," she said sincerely. "I thought Ryoma's teammates would be well-equipped to help him through this. That's why I told them."
"Ehh, you're probably right. I'm not mad." Nanjiroh swallowed some tea and frowned. "I just hope he doesn't find out why she didn't say goodbye."
"It IS rather odd," Aoi commented. "Despite the problems you and she may have had, as his mother, it shouldn't have had anything to do with Ryoma."
"There's where you're wrong." He gave her a grim look. "It had everything to do with him." He lowered his gaze to the tea cup and turned it around in his hands. "Rinko never wanted children. Ryoma was an accident, and with her business career taking off, she wasn't interested in motherhood." He smiled a little ruefully. "It wasn't a plan I had mapped out, either, but as soon as I knew, I wanted him. I gave up my tennis career to raise him so Rinko could keep working, and we were both happy for a while."
"What went wrong?" Tarou asked.
Nanjiroh shrugged. "I'm still not sure that it was any one thing." He glanced toward Sumire. "You know the way I am, and even though she knew about my lecherous ways when we married, I think she thought I'd grow out of it. Between that and her jealousy over sharing me with Ryoma –" He shook his head. "I guess my moving us in here was the final straw."
"So in your opinion, does she or does she not love Ryoma?" Aoi asked.
He looked thoughtful. "I'd say she's fond of him, and there have been moments when she may have loved him, but not like you'd expect from a devoted mother. Not enough for her to reassure him before she left, obviously." He gave Tarou and Aoi a glance. "At least you two didn't have any children hurt by your divorce, huh?"
The two looked at each other. "Well …," Tarou began slowly.
"Um …," Aoi hedged.
"Oh?" Sumire raised an eyebrow. "But if you do have a child, who's taking care of it while you're both here?"
Aoi sighed resignedly. "We are, and so are you two."
Mizuki was shaking his head. "I still can't believe it," he admitted.
Takahisa had a wry look on his handsome face. "I guess I can't blame you. We've all been very careful up until today, but I forgot my invisible boyfriend might be nearby at any time."
Mizuki pouted. "Hey, I _said_ it was an accident, and I haven't told anyone. I just don't get why it's such a big secret."
"There were a few reasons why we did it." The Jyousei Captain leaned back against the wall. "When I started at Jyousei, both my parents decided I should begin a reputation on my own merit, not as 'rich Sakaki Tarou's son.' To help distance myself, I decided to use my paternal grandmother's maiden name for my last. Kaasan was just taking over the tennis team at Jyousei that year, too, and in case I made it as a member, it seemed like a doubly good reason to hide my connection. She was still using her own name by choice, too, so no one suspected our relationship. The twins started a year later, and for the same reasons began using our maternal grandmother's maiden name." He smiled ruefully. "Probably by my senior year and their junior, there was no reason to hide it anymore. Everyone knew we deserved our positions on the team. But it's hard to stop a deception like this once it's in motion, and everyone knows you as someone other than who you really are."
"I suppose it is," Mizuki nodded slowly.
"There's something else, too," Takahisa admitted. "Tousan has never been happy about the fact that we didn't go to Hyotei. He thinks it reflects badly on him somehow." He shrugged. "So he was fine with no one knowing we were his kids."
The St. Rudolph manager stared at him. "I know Sakaki-san comes off as rather cold, but he can't really be so petty with his own children … can he?"
"He didn't force us to do the name-change. Neither did Kaasan. They just put forward the idea, and I tried it out. When it worked for me, the twins did it the next year. When the divorce happened, it sort of made things easier, anyway." He played with Mizuki's hair gently and smiled. "Don't look so upset. It doesn't bother us."
"Well, it SHOULD!" Mizuki said passionately. "You're a wonderful person, and I daresay a good son! Divorce or not, they're both still your parents. It's time to put an end to this charade, especially with all of you living here together."
"It IS over," came a voice from the doorway. Takahisa and Mizuki turned toward a grim-looking Youhei and Kouhei.
"We can hear them from here." Kouhei folded his arms. "Kaasan and Tousan just spilled the beans to Echizen and Ryuzaki."
"And speaking of Echizen," Youhei added with a frown, "it looks like Ryoma has found out how crummy it can be to have his parents break up."
Nanjiroh gave Tarou and Aoi reproving looks after hearing their explanations. "How could you two all but disown your own kids? Shame on you!"
"Nanjiroh!" Sumire exclaimed. "How many times have you pretended to be someone else when Ryoma was present?"
"That's different!" Nanjiroh protested. "When I do it, it's cute! Besides, I don't want my past career to affect how people look at Ryoma."
"Not to mention Ryoma prefers you deny your identity because you embarrass him," Tarou said dryly.
Nanjiroh snickered. "Yeah, well, that's cute, too."
"We did what we thought was best at the time." Aoi said with a shrug. "After all, WE knew about our children's exceptional talents, but others might not have given them due credit and instead accused them of riding our coattails. You said it yourself, Nanjiroh – you didn't want your past to influence people where Ryoma was concerned."
"I see your points," Sumire remarked. "I wouldn't have done the same, but you are more on the … eccentric side than I am." She looked from one to the other. "However, I'd say they're pretty well established in their own right now. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to claim them as your own again?"
"What about our situation here?" Tarou mentioned. "Won't the other kids make accusations of favoritism toward our three with both their parents living here?"
"Personally, I think they'd more likely see it as a handicap," Nanjiroh chuckled.
"Maybe in YOUR case," Tarou snorted.
"No, Nanjiroh is right," Sumire said. "The rest of the kids have a false sense of freedom by being away from their parents, but yours won't."
"I guess that IS true," Aoi admitted and glanced at Tarou. "I've missed hearing them call me Kaasan."
"I'd still have to explain why they chose Jyousei over Hyotei." Tarou frowned.
Aoi shrugged. "Who wouldn't?"
"Aoi!" Tarou growled.
She put up her hands. "Sorry, sorry."
"I think you two are worrying too much over inconsequential things," Sumire said frankly. "You may even have done your kids a disservice with this. By trying to hide their identity, doesn't it make their positions look even MORE suspect?"
Aoi looked distressed. "Then we shouldn't have said anything to you at all!"
Nanjiroh chuckled. "There you go again! Aoi, kids are going to have tough problems to work out in life; you can't coddle them forever. Tell the truth, state it proudly and you'll see how much more accepting people will be."
"Oh?" Tarou asked. "And does this mean you're going to start telling people you're Ryoma's father when you meet instead of lying or wearing disguises?"
"Are you kidding?" Nanjiroh laughed. "The boy would kill me!"
"Sooo …," Youhei interrupted the adults, who turned toward the voice. He and his brothers stood a few feet away, regarding them with curiosity. "Now we ARE telling people?"
Their parents shared a look. "I guess it's been long enough," Tarou said and Aoi nodded.
Takahisa scowled. "We're not going to make any big, tacky announcement about it, are we?"
"Not if you don't want to," Aoi assured him. "You've done it our way all this time, you can decide how to handle it."
Kouhei shrugged. "It's going to leak out, anyway, now that outsiders know."
"You mean Mizuki," Youhei said under his breath.
"Hey!" Takahisa snapped. "He asked me about it – he didn't blab."
"Either way, if we're going to let it out, we'll let it out everywhere," Youhei said decisively. "I don't mean announcements, but no more hiding it. Even at school."
"Be prepared to answer the same questions over and over," Tarou warned.
"But that will only go on for a few days," Aoi added quickly. "Then it'll be business as usual."
Nanjiroh looked thoughtful as he watched the 'reunited' family. It wouldn't exactly be 'business as usual' for he and Ryoma for a while, but he vowed to make their new 'usual' an even better one for his son regardless.
The redhead blew a bubble with his gum and popped it, staring at his younger teammate. "I hope I heard you wrong there, Akaya. Yukimura and Sanada would both kick your ass if they found out."
"Well, they won't find out, will they?" Kirihara glared at Bunta. "I told you because I know you won't snitch. Don't make me regret it."
"But what's the point in infiltrating the Changechildren mansion, anyway?" Bunta asked and started tying his shoe. "Don't tell me you're still thinking about that skinny-dipping party they had. The one you busted them for that nothing came out of."
"Yeah, that sucked. I still don't know why, but it seemed like none of them got punished for it." Kirihara sighed and twirled his tennis racquet around in his hand. "Next time I have anything juicy on them, I'll tell a different adult."
"So why ARE you going? To find that something 'juicy'?"
"That would be a perk, but really it's just to see who's doing what with their powers," the Rikkaidai Sophomore replied. "Make sure they aren't cheating in tennis matches, find out who all exactly is in there now – stuff like that." He grinned. "Of course, being there might lend itself to spontaneous opportunities."
"The 'who is there' isn't a secret," Bunta pointed out. "You can find that out easily enough."
"Yeah, but still, I want to see them using their powers up close." Kirihara looked thoughtful. "The question is, who should I possess in order to do it?" He smiled evilly. "I know who I WANT to use."
Bunta gave a short laugh and shut his locker. "So do I, and it would be suicide. Pick someone else."
Kirihara shot him an annoyed glance. "Why is everyone so afraid of Fuji Syuusuke?"
"Because he's frightening! And he'd get you back in a bad way. You should know that better than anyone."
"Yeah," Kirihara said slowly. Bunta was right, much as he was loathe to admit it. Interfering further in Fuji's life was asking for more trouble than he was willing to take on.
Bunta popped another bubble. "Two things. First, you'll have to wait until the weekend to really do this right, so you can spend a couple of days there. After Friday's game, we've got nothing going on with the team, and I'll cover for you with your folks. You can say you're spending it with me. Second, if you really want to go through with this, make it someone who'll be easy to manipulate."
He was answered with a snort. "Once I'm inside the body, they're ALL easy to manipulate. All they can do is watch and listen helplessly as I control them completely."
"You know," his teammate pointed out, "you smile in a really scary way when you say that."
"Do I?" Kirihara looked at him, and the feral smile broadened. "Well, mine is a scary power. Now, let's see how much fun I can have with my fellow Changechildren, shall we?"
End of Part 48
(2006)
Prince of Tennis belongs to Konomi Takeshi.
This fic is not to be re-posted.
