Disclaimer: Tennis no Ohjisama is the property of Konomi Takeshi.
Author's Notes: This is written for katana28.
Cues
By CalicoKitten
The tiny restaurant sat between two obscure little shops of no name. Like the others, it had no name, but that was nearly irrelevant due to the brightly flashing neon banner across the top of the door. It alerted everyone in the general vicinity to its presence. Of course, the banner was blank and nameless as well. This helped add anonymity to the entire row of shops it sat with.
Atobe wasted thirty minutes of Shishido's time outside of the door grumbling about the décor of the diner. Every five minutes or so, his feet would wander to the front steps, but as soon as they did, he would backpedal, returning to the same spot almost immediately.
"And you call me a loser. Seriously, just because you don't want anyone to see you at this mid-class restaurant...," Shishido said, practically dragging Atobe through the room by his sleeve. "We're not even eating here."
Atobe sniffed haughtily. "But we don't need to be here. I have a billiards room at my house. We should just go there."
"I like this place," Shishido countered. "Deal with it."
He tugged him past the red velvet curtains separating this room from the next. It surprised Atobe – just slightly, of course, for he was the Atobe – that the place could afford such rich fabric. It was real, too, and not simply a cheap decoration. He knew this because he himself had the nicest purple ones at home.
Passing through the pretty curtains, Atobe frowned. They looked newer than his own at home. So did the billiards tables – five of them in all – that sat in the hidden room. Perhaps this restaurant wasn't as cheap as he'd originally thought. It was that, or the owner liked billiards a bit too much.
He didn't have time to ponder the question before Shishido said – rather loudly and straight into his ear – "Oi!" and went off to greet someone. A billiards buddy, possibly. Atobe didn't really care, but he did care about being ditched, so he followed Shishido, leaned against the table, and regarded the familiar person coolly. He kicked Shishido in the shin for good measure, too.
Fuji glanced back at him and smiled. Atobe would have considered it a cute smile if he were more naïve. Really, tennis circles everywhere – and there were a lot of them – spoke of the smiling tennis prodigy with the evil, sadistic streak that crackled through his body and would strike you down at any second if you weren't prepared. In reality, it was quite frightening. But other than that, he really would deem the smile as cute. ...Barring its ominous nature, obviously.
Shishido kicked him back. He'd almost forgotten about that.
"You don't mind if Fuji joins us, do you?"
He frowned, his tongue working to say no, and said, "Okay. But how do we play with three people then?"
"Well," Shishido answered, and shared mild eye contact with Fuji. "Fuji is an absolutely horrible player – sorry for saying it so bluntly – that you guys can be on one team. Two turns versus my one. Fair?"
Atobe frowned at the words "absolutely horrible". He didn't like losing. But he was the Atobe, you know, so he couldn't possibly lose to Shishido. Those other times in the past were simply flukes.
"Who wants to break?"
Fuji took the offer. And by "took", it simply implied that he went to break. It didn't actually mean that he would. The little white ball decided to choose the path of least resistance, and it traveled slowly – but steadily, and a steady path is most often the sign of good fortune – across the green table and proudly into the empty pocket to the left.
"Looks like we skip your turn, Atobe," Shishido told him. He smoothly struck the multicolored balls, scattering them across the table; the pockets avoided the striped balls and instead invited two of the solid colored ones in. This meant that Shishido had another turn.
He cleanly sunk another ball before he 'accidentally' tripped on Atobe's stick.
"Bitch," Shishido said.
"Takes one to know one," Atobe replied.
He looked over at Fuji. Now, an obvious sign of someone who knows nothing of the sport at hand would be – or in this case, has been – the remarkable demonstration of causing some sort of penalty for one's team, aka Atobe's lost turn. But the most obvious sign is the use of instrumentation, of technique. More precisely, if one is holding it the wrong way.
"You're holding it the wrong way," Atobe told him.
Perhaps that was why Fuji had missed the first shot.
"Am I?" Fuji asked. He turned it around in his hands. "Better now?"
"You suck, Fuji," Shishido said. An unnatural glint to his eye momentarily blinded Atobe. He dismissed it immediately – Shishido didn't seem like the type to gleam about anything. Only Atobe could gleam so brilliantly, you know. You don't often go around and meet people like him easily.
"Here. Let me show you how to grip it."
He situated himself behind the brown-haired boy and took his left hand into his own. He put it into position, placed the tip of the stick between the knuckles to guide it, and moved Fuji's left hand to the end of the stick. It was done fluidly and without much thought. He deserved praise for that.
Praise, too, for ignoring the soft skin beneath his hands. Fuji may be inherently evil, but there was no denying that this wicked, wicked person had extremely soft hands. Too nice for one who played tennis. Atobe would have been jealous if he weren't so attracted to them.
He moved closer for exactly that reason. He placed his head in the crook of space between Fuji's neck and left shoulder, felt the pale hand draw back to strike the ball, nestled further while squashing all bubbles of personal space, and saw the ball hit the eight ball, spinning it towards the pocket, round and round and round...
Atobe frowned. He kicked the leg of the table closest to him.
"Cheater," Shishido accused and was perfectly validated in his claim when the eight ball just barely scraped the edge and rolled away.
He replied innocently, "What?"
"I didn't see anything," Fuji added. He seemed unconcerned that Atobe was still draped over him like a blanket on a chair. It certainly didn't look like the most comfortable of positions, but nobody could tell by just one glance.
Shishido, in the meantime, was currently exacting revenge by sinking several balls in rapid succession. Nobody tried to stop him. After all, Atobe was attempting to flirt with Fuji. It was physical flirtation, and everyone knew that the 'touchy-feely' kind was a lot stronger than mere words. Needless to say, there was also a much higher chance of failure, not to mention a possibility of physical violence in return.
But Fuji was either A) under the spell of Atobe's charmingly charming charms, B) flirting back in the subtle-yet-not way that was Fuji's persona, or C) amazingly and stupidly unaware of the laws of physical flirtation, which stated that contact had to be returned with contact, be it a kiss or a punch. To solve this, you simply needed to know that Fuji was far from stupid, and it appeared that he, not Atobe, had ensnared a fly in his web. Therefore, he was B, subtly flirting back.
A pool stick shoved its way between them before anything else could happen. Shishido always had impeccable timing.
"What?" Atobe frowned.
"It's your turn."
He sounded decidedly embittered. Atobe figured he probably missed an easy shot. He reluctantly pulled himself away from the Seigaku prodigy and took up his own stick while Fuji leaned against the pool table and batted impossibly long lashes at him. Or something like that. It was probably just his imagination.
Crack!
Atobe was particularly pleased that on his first shot, he'd managed to get one in. Never mind the fact that there were a lot more solid colored balls than there were stripes, or that he'd only shot in a straight line. It was simply because he was the Atobe. No more, no less.
His next cue ball went spectacularly nowhere. Quite a good example of that 'no less' statement, one might say, minus the 'no'. Truthfully, it was definitely a 'less' instance. The white ball bounced off three sides – one of them twice – and hit absolutely nothing.
Atobe frowned again at this and said, "It's your turn, Fuji..."
...Who had already taken his turn. The white ball rolled slowly, ever so slowly, and stopped, teetering on the edge of one of the side pockets.
Now, Atobe really was quite attracted to Fuji. It was quite hard not to be – the prettiness and the tennis skill just went hand in hand. Personality, too, but that broached a rather weird and awkward subject he didn't like to think about. He knew he hated losing, though. He supposed he could always take it out on Shishido on the courts, but...well, he'd never actually won a billiards game off of Shishido. Even in his own billiards room.
Anyway, it distressed Atobe to learn, after looking down at the green tabletop, that there remained no more solid colored balls in play.
Damn that Shishido.
"Eight ball, that pocket," Shishido announced and pointed at said pocket.
He hit the ball, it smacked against the black and white one, Atobe allowed a rare scowl to grace his ever-gorgeous face, Fuji put a hand in front of the hole, and the eight ball bounced off and away.
"Hey! Fuji!"
"I'm not allowed to do that?"
"No!"
"Oops. Sorry."
"...I hate you."
Shishido sounded resigned and resentful. It gave Atobe a sliver of hope, and he quickly sank the rest of the striped balls on the table, leaving only the eight ball. There were only two striped balls left, so Atobe had to hurry before Shishido realized what was wrong.
"Hey..."
"What?"
"Weren't there more...?"
"I already put them in."
"..."
"What do I do now?" Fuji asked brightly. He seemed oblivious to the wary glances Shishido kept throwing at the innocent table.
"Sink the black one," Atobe replied. "That's all."
"Call out the pocket first," Shishido grumbled unhappily while staring daggers into the green surface.
"And if I miss?"
"Then Shishido goes. But..." Atobe answered, an impious – well, perhaps it was more devious than impious – expression passing fleetingly across his face. "If you make it in and win the game for us, we can take this to my house."
He neglected to clarify the 'this' being taken to his house, or to add the word 'big' in front of the word 'house'. Or to plainly state that it was more of a mansion than a 'house' house. People were often thrown off guard by his immense wealth, and since he liked to think about modesty once in a while, he preferred to address his residence as a 'house' than a 'mansion', or an extremely, extremely substantial household.
"Do you have sushi?"
"Of course. Comes with the sushi chef."
"Wasabi?"
"Yes. Comes with the sushi."
"Excellent."
Shishido glared at them. "Just go already."
"Patience is a virtue, Shishido."
"Shut the fuck up."
"Fine, fine."
Fuji bent over the table, and the confidence in the way he held the pool stick should have sent an immediate signal to Atobe, like a banana peel on the ground in front of a hasty person would have. But Atobe was too busy staring at slender body poised before him. Even if an earthquake split the world in half and tore his precious mansion to scraps of paper, he wouldn't have noticed or felt anything besides admiration for the khakis that the other boy wore today. It made him regret not doing anything rash when he had shown the other boy how to position the stick between his hands.
One of Fuji's eyes closed. They were almost always closed, but details don't really matter as much as some people liked to think they did. His eye shut supposedly to help his aim, but no one ever knew why Fuji did what he did. It could merely be that it fit the look he was going for, or that he had something in his eye.
"That one," he said, and gestured with the point of the stick.
Now, the pocket he'd pointed at was nowhere in the vicinity of where he was aiming. This in itself should have sent lightning crashing down to hit Atobe in order to shock his numbed senses into blessed realization (with remarkable accuracy, too), but no. Nothing could faze the impaired senses of the Atobe.
The white ball shot off the end of Fuji's stick like a pinball coming into play. It whirled sideways to hit the left end, ricocheted in an arc, and smashed into the eight ball. The black ball, in turn, hit dangerously close to the wrong pocket, rebounded to hit the opposite end, and gradually and leisurely wobbled back. It dropped into the called pocket like an old lady falling down a flight of steps.
Shishido frowned.
Atobe thanked his lucky stars.
Fuji smiled.
Shishido ignored Atobe.
Atobe gloated.
Fuji frowned...in the upside down manner.
He glinted, too, but it's terribly hard to explain how he did that. It's much easier to make one's eye sparkle mischievously, but a whole body twinkle is a great deal more difficult. It takes skill and time in perfecting. You need the right form before you can handle it.
"A spectacular shot, Fuji!" Atobe declared happily. In a very conspicuous manner, his arm went around the boy's shoulder in an apparently congratulatory motion.
"It was just luck," Fuji said modestly. He glinted again, very blindingly.
Shishido gave him a look that was lost in the spectacular light emanating from him. "Heh. More than luck."
Atobe reached out and flicked him once on the nose. "Of course. Since I'm here, our victory was guaranteed from the onset."
"Yeah, right," scoffed Shishido, and kicked him.
"Well," said Atobe as he tried to ignore the throbbing in his lower leg. "Why don't we head on over to my house, Fuji? I'll be glad to teach you more on the rules of billiards."
Fuji smiled and shrugged in affirmation. His teeth shone unnaturally. He could have been in a toothpaste commercial if he smiled using his teeth more often.
"Are you ditching me?" Shishido accused, and planted a harsher kick to Atobe's uninjured leg.
Atobe wobbled a little at the impact. Actually, scratch that. The correct term was steadied himself, because Atobe did not wobble – never did, and never will, and do you know why? It's because he is the Atobe, no more, no less.
"Yes."
"...I hate you."
"I know. You can tell me that later. I have to call my chauffeur now."
xxx
Shishido frowned at the doorway. Atobe had gone outside to make the call because his cell phone didn't have a signal inside, and he didn't want to touch the payphone. Actually, he jeered at the thought of putting money into it like 'one of those poor people'. The payphone also, in Atobe's opinion, accumulated the 'germs' of people he would rather not associate with. He might catch some sort of paranormal disease from handling the device, after all.
It was paranoia, not the paranormal, Shishido decided. Rich, arrogant bastards were always afraid that someone would steal what they had. He supposed they were slightly justified in it. After all, because of their arrogance, it made more people dislike them and plot their untimely downfalls – or demises, in most cases. And this, of course, added fuel to the paranoia of wealthy idiots.
He looked back at the billiards table. Fuji was sinking balls quickly and efficiently.
"I hope you're happy."
Fuji glanced up at him and smiled.
"Yep. Our bet's done with. Thanks for helping me out."
"...Whatever. I lost the last game; you called me on it. No biggie. You have a weird way of getting someone to ask you out, you know that? And when are you going to tell Atobe you're actually really good at pool?"
The funny light-that-was-Fuji shined into his eyes. He looked away quickly, as nobody liked staring into something threateningly naughty unless they were into masochism.
"When I kick his ass at it tonight. After we make out a little, of course."
Shishido blinked.
"Oh. Duh."