11. Hope when you take that jump, you don't fear the fall
The grey clouds had seemed to promise heavy rain but, as practice started, the sky was clean and bright. A classic early April weather.
"We'll have a practice match this Friday", Morimura announced, after the warming up had started, and all the regular players had gathered around the Captain, waiting for instructions.
"All the new team recruits will get to play", he continued. "That's the main purpose of these matches. We did that every year".
"And, like every year, Hyoutei will send all their regulars with the sole purpose to crush us", Asou added, then smiled. "Happened to me, last year".
"But then", Morimura reprised, "he had won against the very same player during the Kantou Tournament".
"So, here's the lesson", Hongo said, "first get kicked, then plot revenge".
"So, here's the lesson", Morimura spoke louder. "You're gonna do your best, and get a taste of a real match. Most of you have already played on official competitions before. These ones aren't gonna be the same. We're asking you to raise your bar. We're asking you to cross the line".
"You've really browsed a lot through WikiQuote yesterday, Caps", Minami said. On another guy's lips, those words would've been a lame joke. Coming from him? They definitely sounded like an insult.
Morimura's cheeks got a shade of pink, but he didn't reply. "Niou", he said instead, "you're gonna play singles. Sanada and Hirose", he looked at them, "I'd like to see you in doubles. The other match-ups will be decided between the next hours. Needles to say", his gaze wandered around the small group, "everyone must be there".
"I will", Hongo said, "their Manager owes me a date".
Sanada kept quiet, as the small group separated and everyone took their way to their scheduled practice. A real match finally, and against Hyoutei, nothing less. As Rikkai, predictably, Hyoutei Gakuen's high school team was as strong and as famous as the middle school's. Facing them, facing their regulars, would be a real challenge, a real task on the battlefield, and Sanada could only look forward to it. If only.
He got a grip on his racket. The idea of playing doubles wasn't appealing to him, but the idea of playing doubles with Hirose - even less.
He wasn't surprised when he saw that, out of all his previous teammates, only Niou had also made the cut and gained the chance to practice with the team. But when he saw that the third person was Hirose Tomoaki - well, Sanada thought, you can call that a surprise.
He remembered him very well, as one could remember a plain, personality-less player that lingered at the corner of your sight for two full years.
Hirose was a year older than them, and, as Sanada could remember, he had always tried to gain a place in the team, without getting even closer to succeed.
Sanada recalled to have played him once, and Hirose had barely scored a point. It hadn't been all Sanada's merit: Hirose had been actually bad. He couldn't recall all the details, but he clearly remembered he had asked him why he had thought he could even had a mere chance to compete from the team. That would've never been the case, for him, despite all the hours of practice, all the effort, all the hard training.
He looked at him. Who knew if he remembered that, too.
He honestly thought he'd quit, or chosen to pursue a different career after Junior High; and yet, here he was again. He made him think of Kirihara, constantly throwing himself towards a brick wall. But unlike Hirose, Kirihara had a undeniable talent. He didn't remember seeing in Hirose a single drop of the potential the younger boy had showed since his first day at the club.
Either way, things had drastically changed during the last year, or Morimura had made a huge mistake in choosing him for the team.
The team itself, to Sanada's eyes, looked like a huge mistake.
Out of all the regular players, Morimura and Asou seemed the exception and not the rule. Sanada's opinion on the Captain - that may have been biased at the beginning - had changed as the days had passed. It was a fact - Morimura was hardly any similar to Yukimura, but he had his own attitude that Sanada appreciated a lot. He was always the first to show up at practice, and the last to leave. He was strict about the training schedule, and towards his teammates.
Quite sadly, however, this often went wasted towards the other members of the team. Sanada didn't forget that, safe for Asou and Hongo, he had had yet to see any other member of the team before the ranking matches. If it had been up to him, they could have kept their trend and avoid to show up at all.
In the end, however, they all joined regular practice.
Hongo was a quite good player, for what Sanada had seen of him. He left only one game to Yagyuu during their match. Just by seeing him in practice, Sanada could at least guess why.
His attitude was deprecable. He had a very low stamina, and seemed to do little to nothing to improve it. Nevertheless, his style of play allowed him to win his matches in the shortest amount of time possible.
"He's an analyst", Yanagi had said. It happened to see him more and more often on the bleachers, next to the school manager, rather than at practice among the rest of the club. "He has got a quite all-round game, and fast reflexes. That allows him to potentially be anyone's worst enemy, on court".
And Sanada's worst enemy, off-court.
He barely followed any practice schedule, spending most of the time on the bench, eyes on his phone. Saanda had pointed it out to Morimura, once. "If you think you'll be able to make him run more than two laps, Sanada-kun", the Captain had said, "I'll be glad to welcome your suggestions".
Kuroba Jun looked like a middle-schooler, but his game did not. He was a net player, like Marui, but ten times better than Marui. Sanada had watched him play with the ball machine once; his reflexes were beyond average, but more than that, he was fast. He wouldn't have believed that someone that short could cover all court that way, but he did.
As for Minami Akito, he could only spoke about his venom tongue, because in fact he had never seen him seriously play before. During practice, he often stayed still, and observed. Multiple times Sanada had had his annoying gaze upon himself, but when he looked at him directly in the eyes, the guy would just smirk, without even blinking, and kept staring at him.
It was even more annoying than Hongo.
He faced Hirose during the ranking matches, and won the match only after the tie-break. "I've been lucky", Hirose had told Sanada, with half a smile, when he had asked about the match. "Minami slipped, and I could get the break back to save the match point and get to the tie-break. I didn't had any more big chances after that".
Reaching the tie-break against a regular player wasn't included in Sanada's definition of "luck", so either Hirose had definitely changed during the last year, or Minami was really the weakest branch of the tree.
The Kitamura twins were the ones that annihilated Marui and Jackal during ranking matches. They often practiced together, and Sanada heavily suspected they would be completely useless outside doubles, as well as playing with different partners. They'd probably been playing together since grade school, or that was the impressione he'd had.
And Mouri-
Mouri was an old acquaintance.
"Let's start", Morimura said. "Niou-kun, you're gonna face Hongo".
"Can I go home when I'm done?", Hongo asked.
Morimura ignored him. "Sanada-kun, Hirose-kun", he continued. "You're gonna face Kuroba and Mouri".
Sanada frowned, and he glanced towards the Kitamura twins, that were already heading towards one of the courts. They were the number one doubles team in Rikkai. Why were they facing someone else?
Morimura followed his gaze, and smiled. "It's too early for that. I wanna see how you work in doubles for now. I'm gonna watch you from the bleachers. Niou-kun, Hongo", he gestured, "you go first".
"Let's have a good match", Hirose told him.
As predictably, Niou lost to Hongo in less than half an hour. Sanada had forced himself to watch carefully, but his mind was elsewhere. He had never played doubles with anyone but Yanagi and Yukimura, and never again after the previous year's Kanto tournament. He had always been focusing to singles, and never had the chance to play doubles with someone he didn't know almost anything about.
"Is there anything you're particularly comfortable with, Sanada-kun?", Hirose asked. "I have to admit I'm not particularly experienced in doubles, but let's do our best".
Sanada couldn't help but despise that kind of optimism. What did it mean "do our best", when your best wasn't nearly enough?
Even worse, how could you do your best, when you knew so little about the person you were teaming up with? Sanada didn't understand where Morimura thought he was going with that, he just wished he did know what he was doing, that time.
They took position on the court. On the other side, Kuroba stood behind the net; on the baseline, Mouri was ready to serve.
They were the last ones to leave. After they miserably lost their matches, Morimura sent all three of them to cleaning duties. When they were finally done, it was almost dusk.
Niou had already left as soon as he had been done. Hirose and Sanada walked together towards the locker room. No-one was on campus anymore, all the non-regulars players had already finished their training session, cleaned and left. Morimura was still closed in his office, the light on.
"Well", Hirose said, as he changed into his uniform. "Guess it could've been worse".
Sanada didn't reply. Their performance had been tragic. They couldn't build a strategy to save their lives. On the other side of the net, Kuroba and Mouri were a well-built pair. Kuroba definitely knew how to cover the net, and Mouri, as Sanada recalled very well, could be very dangerous from the baseline.
The only thing Sanada and Hirose could do was covering their respective side of the court, trying their best to not getting into each other's feet. But that was a survival strategy, not nearly a winning one. They lost 6-2. They had even been lucky to had won those two games.
"So", Morimura had asked them, "what do you think?"
Sanada couldn't avoid to sound bitter when he had replied he had considered the match only a waste of time.
"Do you think so?", Morimura had asked, not seeming bothered. "Haven't you learnt anything about your partner during this match?"
Sanada didn't reply, as Morimura invited the three of them to think it over, and sent them back to their scheduled practice.
Sanada closed his locker, and grabbed his bag to leave. He politely waited Hirose to finish as well, and they left the campus together.
Outside, it was almost completely dark.
Sanada and Hirose walked together through the desert campus, towards the bus stop. The evening was cold, now that the sun had set. Hirose squeezed into his coat, covering his neck with the scarf.
"So, Sanada", he asked, "what did you learn from today?"
Sanada snorted. "I learnt that maybe the Captain doesn't know what he's doing, after all".
Hirose giggled. "You should've met captain Shibata", he said.
"He was the previous Captain", Sanada said. Yanagi had mentioned him once.
Hirose nodded. "He was like, you know", he shrugged. "A son of a bitch".
Sanada frowned. "He was your Captain", he replied.
"Yeah", Hirose said. "And also a son of a bitch. One thing doesn't exclude the other".
"Just because he was strict-"
"No-no-no", Hirose interrupted him. "He wasn't strict. He was a jerk. Try to ask Morimura about him. He could tell you lots".
They crossed the street just after the bus passed them. They'd need to wait for the next one.
"Shibata brought the team to the Nationals", Sanada replied. "That's what matters to me". He didn't add that he could hardly think about Rikkai's current team achieving the same result. It looked self-explanatory to him.
"Shibata didn't bring them anywhere". Hirose wasn't smiling anymore. "The team reached the Nationals because they were good. Morimura won a match against a guy who then reached the quarterfinals of the singles Winter Invitationals. The third year members", he grimaced, "they were absolute monsters". He glanced up. "Well, you know something about that, nay, Sanada-kun?"
Sanada didn't reply.
"Well", Hirose sat on the bench at the bus stop, "with such a team, you can have a mannequin as Captain, and you'd be good anyway. Yeah, he was strict, and yeah, he had authority, he was firm in his choices, good at keeping the team together", he fixed his scarf, "but he never listened. To anyone. If you ask me, he didn't even care. And a Captain that doesn't listen to his team", he shrugged, "he's doomed to make the wrong choices".
Sanada checked the timetable. The next bus would be there in ten minutes. "Did he make the wrong choices?", he asked.
"Well", Hirose sighed, "maybe I'm not the right person to judge-"
"Didn't seem to me that you've had any issues with that until now", Sanada said, dryly.
Hirose glanced up, looking amused. "Yeah. That wasn't the same. There were some things that everyone knew, in the club. Other things were more like", he scratched his forehead, "rumors, I guess".
"I don't usually believe in rumors", Sanada said. Then he recalled what Yanagi used to tell them. "But most times, rumors exist for a reason". How was that again? "And they could tell as much as facts do".
Hirose giggled. "Well, as I said, there were rumors", he said. "But there had been a big fight after the Nationals, last year. After we lost in the quarters". He coughed. "Both Morimura and Asou were in the team, but none of them played. There were strifes between the teams". He hesitated. "And the Captain privileged old rivalries in spite of a good strategy, they said". He glanced up. "Morimura was livid after the loss. We all thought he'd be kicked out from the team".
"They fought. Mouri heard them. Well", he smiled, "he eavesdropped, to be fair. Morimura was mad, he said that Asou and him should've been in the team. He accused Shibata to have preferred his own ego to the team. Shibata said that Morimura and Asou would've probably been crushed even worse. Then, he nominated him as the next Captain". He shrugged. "It was a logical decision, I think. Morimura was experienced - more than Asou - and had already been a regular for a year. But we didn't know what to expect. Shibata hated Morimura, and he never made it a secret. And the feeling was reciprocate", he smiled. "I don't think Shibata made him Captain out of respect. I don't even think it was meant as any sort of prize".
"Being Captain is a responsibility", Sanada said, "not a privilege".
"That's your point of view, Sanada-kun", Hirose said. "But some doesn't see it the same way. For some, it was a burden. For others", he stretched his back, "just a game to play".
"And what you'd say Morimura thinks?", Sanada asked, since Hirose seemed to have many opinions to share.
"For him", he replied, "I think it is a challenge".
Sanada nodded.
"More than that, I'd see no-one else more suited than he is", Hirose continued. "He's probably not the strongest. I think Hongo can beat him. Asou too, in his good days. But I think a Captain needs something else than mere strength. He needs motivation".
"And you?", Sanada asked, after a moment. "What motivates you?"
Hirose hesitated, He bit his lip. "You don't understand", he eventually said, "don't you?"
Sanada frowned. "What do you mean?"
"It's the way you look at me. Like you're wasting your time". He smiled. "Also, you've already told me to quit. Twice".
Sanada didn't blink. "So you recall".
"How could I forget?", Hirose said. "I had like", he shook his head, "put everything I had in that match, back in Junior High. Everything", he breathed. "And you crushed me".
Sanada glanced at him. "I won't apologize".
"I didn't ask you to", Hirose said. "That wouldn't make sense. You did nothing wrong. I simply was not", he sighed, "enough".
"That's true", Sanada said.
Hirose laughed, without any trace of amusement. "You didn't change, huh, Sanada-kun?", he stood up, as the bus approached. "Well", he walked through the open doors, "I did".
Sanada followed him inside, and didn't reply.
They sat apart from each other, and didn't exchange any more words as the bus drove into the night.
Thanks to everyone who's still reading this, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and, guess what, another Original Character, I'm not even sorry. Next chapter will hopefully come sooner. Sad thing is, I perfectly know what to write next, what I don't know is how to write it. But I think I'm getting to this now.
See you soon!
Fanny
Prince of Tennis belongs to Konomi Takeshi
Hope when you take that jump, you don't fear the fall [OneRepublic, I lived]
