Anything You Can Do…

By: Cedony

Chapter Two

In spite of his brother's incredibly useless directions and his best efforts to prevent him from succeeding, it hadn't taken Syuusuke too long to find the Shape Up Fitness Center.

It was on the second floor of a nondescript building, sandwiched right between a flower shop and a used book store. He would have missed it completely if it weren't for the little banner hanging out one window, which was probably just what Yuuta had been hoping for.

He obviously didn't want his brother to find the place, and he'd been very suspicious about Syuusuke's sudden interest when he'd started asking about the gym's location. To him that was the equivalent of a siren going off, announcing that Syuusuke was up to something that he wouldn't like. It screamed of an Evil, Manipulative Syuusuke Plot. Consequently, all that Yuuta had been willing to tell him was that it was 'somewhere near St. Rudolph', and Syuusuke had had to work ridiculously hard to get even that much.

'Somewhere near St. Rudolph' was a pretty general set of directions that left him too much to work with. But nothing could stop Fuji Syuusuke once he'd set his mind on something; even Yuuta's stubborn uncooperativeness. He was used to that, and could live with it. It really got him going, like the promise of a tall, cold glass of Inui's special juice did to his team mates. So in the end, it was actually a good thing, and in spite of the minor roadblock that his lack of information presented, he'd set out to find the place, determined to do precisely what his brother had tried to dissuade him from the day before.

Yuuta had managed to drag it all out of him. The first question out of his mouth when Syuusuke had begun his subtle information gathering was "What are you up to, Aniki?" There had been a very suspicious, slightly resigned look on his face that he didn't even bother to disguise.

He wanted his older brother to know that he knew something was happening, or was about to happen; something that involved the gym that he frequented, and he was smart enough to know that there was only one thing that his Aniki would find of interest there: a very irritable, very touchy Mizuki Hajime who loathed Syuusuke even more than he did designer knock off clothing and hair gunk that didn't hold up to the test of time.

Syuusuke had tried to give Yuuta the run around, insisting that his questions didn't have anything to do with Mizuki. He only wanted to know about the place where Yuuta spent so much of his time, he had reassured him. But persistence was a Fuji family trait. Yuuta could be every bit as pushy as his bullheaded older brother was, maybe even more so at times, and after some more prodding, Syuusuke finally confessed that he did in fact want to see Mizuki. 'To say hi!' he'd explained, looking suspiciously innocent and wide-eyed, another tell-tale sign that Yuuta shouldn't believe a single word coming out of his mouth.

It was a weak excuse that no one who actually knew the history between Syuusuke and Mizuki would believe for even a second. Yuuta had been horrified by the possibility of an unsupervised meeting between his brother and his sempai. He knew for a fact that Mizuki would say much more than 'hi!' to his brother if he turned up unexpectedly at what his team mate viewed to be his private sanctum.

He should never have told his brother about Mizuki and Taisei. He'd made the mistake of spilling it all out when Syuusuke had revealed that Oishi would also be joining him at the prestigious college, and he'd been regretting the slip up ever since it happened, because since then he'd just been waiting for the shit to hit the proverbial fan. Now it looked like it finally had, and guess who the first one to get well splattered was?

It was time for some damage control. "Why do you want to go see him? You hate him!" He reminded him, just in case Syuusuke had somehow forgotten that minor detail.

"I don't hate him. Hate is too strong a word, and I actually hate very few things. Like…I hate the smell in our locker room. Especially when it's been a hot day. And I definitely hate the way Momo sweats so much. You should see the way that it just rolls off of him, Yuuta! And when he hugs me-"

Yuuta had interrupted his brother before he could go into any further detail about the hugging between sweaty teen boys in the Seigaku locker room. That was not a pretty picture. No. Definitely not, and he just didn't want to know. What they all did in their private time was none of his business. There could be a mini-orgy going on at Seigaku, and he wouldn't care. Really.

Besides, he had recognized his brother's diversion tactic. Syuusuke was bringing up weird things to make him uncomfortable and to send him running. Well it wasn't going to work this time! He'd stopped feeling embarrassed about discussing sexual matters with Syuusuke a long time ago, because he'd recognized that his Aniki only did that when he wanted to steer him away from something, which was what he had been trying to do then.

"Why do you want to talk to him, Aniki?" He had persisted. He'd raised his voice to drown out Syuusuke's story of a sweaty Kikumaru and sweaty Echizen talcum powdering each other. He raised it again even higher once Syuusuke got to the part about Kikumaru pulling Echizen's pants down just a little, so that he could get at the 'smooth, baby fine skin at the small of Echizen's back, right where the buttocks began to swell and curve.' In the very off chance that his brother failed to succeed in tennis, it was good to know that Syuusuke could at least always fall back on writing soft porn novels set in the boy's locker room. "Are you going to try to force him into not going to Taisei?"

He had stopped talking about the secret goings on within the Seigaku tennis club just long enough to answer. "I think he's more likely to do that than I am," he had pointed out. And Yuuta had had to admit that he was probably right. Syuusuke was more likely to wear a person down into doing what he wanted than he was actually forcing someone into it. A show of force was really more Mizuki's style. Syuusuke's was constant needling, wearing down and manipulation, which Mizuki himself resorted to at times, but only when he was bored and felt like he needed some fun.

After that, Yuuta had kept his mouth shut and refused to give Syuusuke any more information about the gym's whereabouts. Then he had spent the whole night begging his brother not to do anything mean or upsetting to Mizuki, which Syuusuke had hurried to reassure him he wouldn't.

He was a much nicer person than his brother gave him credit for, and he had no intention of complicating matters between him and Mizuki, but Yuuta hadn't trusted him in spite of his sincerity. It was clear on his expression. He refused to believe that Syuusuke could forget about years of hostility in an instant.

What he couldn't understand was that all bad feeling that Syuusuke had had for Mizuki had faded a long time ago, once he'd seen the way that he begun to take care of Yuuta.

Their little spats since the change was—on his part at least—nothing more than a bit of friendly verbal sparring, something that he found amusing and fun, because Mizuki was a witty, very opinionated guy who had no qualms about letting his feelings be known. He had made a mistake in thinking that Mizuki wouldn't take things that had been said and done to heart. The guy was obviously far too much of a drama queen for that. Now that he understood that, he was just going to have to be much more careful about what he said and did.

He was going to make things right, and as it turned out, luck was on his side and his lack of directions wasn't that much of a set back. All he'd had to do was google "The Shape Up Fitness Center". It had taken him a while to find the actual building that housed the gym because it was so out of the way, but once he'd asked a couple of buff looking guys in St. Rudolph uniforms where the gym was, he was easily able to find it going by what they told him.

He paid the cute lady manning the front desk the gym fee upon entering, reassured her that he wouldn't be needing a membership because this was a one time visit when she asked, and proceeded inside. As an afterthought, he retraced his steps and politely hung back until the reception lady had finished her conversation with a beefy looking man. Syuusuke only approached the desk once the man had gone away and the girl flashed him a friendly smile, her signal to approach.

"Hi again!" she chirped, setting aside the piece of paper that she had been scribbling on.

"Hi." He smiled at her, "I'm actually just looking for a…friend of mine, and I was wondering if you could tell me where he might be at.". The gym was far bigger than it had looked from the outside; it occupied two stories of the building with many different rooms and long, maze-like corridors. He didn't want to waste any time, and thought it would be far easier to ask, just in case she did know. Mizuki and Yuuta were regulars here, so this girl must have seen them plenty of times before and must know who they were. "His name's Mizuki Hajime. Maybe you know him? He comes here everyday."

He mentally began to come up with some sort of physical description of Mizuki, just in case the girl couldn't place his name. Snotty, prissy looking, all dolled up like a catholic school boy gone bad (which in a way, Syuusuke guessed he was) and a face that looked as though he'd just sucked on a lemon. Hmm…he couldn't say that. He was supposed to be a friend of Mizuki's. He had to think of something nice…

After a bit more consideration, he realized that he didn't even know whether the mental image that he had of the guy was up to date. It had been several months since Syuusuke had last seen him. The picture of Mizuki that he had in his head couldn't be that reliable anymore if Mizuki was as mercurial about his looks as Yuuta claimed he was.

The girl beamed at him as she clapped her hands together. "Ah! You're a friend of Mizuki-kun's!" Her apparent glee at the mere mention of Mizuki Hajime completely baffled Syuusuke, who just smiled and nodded, seeing no other way that he could respond. "He has such a lot of cute friends!" she gushed, giving Syuusuke that strange, half-lidded 'I'm checking you out, even though I'm really not supposed to' look that he got a lot from older women who had a thing for younger, barely-legal 'men'.

He let her look. There was no harm in that. Better warn Yuuta to watch out for this woman, though. "Yes. Ah…Mizuki-kun. He's a senior at St. Rudolph High School," he elaborated. This girl seemed to like Mizuki Hajime. A lot.

"Oh, I know that!" She reassured him hurriedly. She leaned forward, unintentionally, or maybe intentionally, giving Fuji a good view of her chest in her low cut tank top. "I saw him coming in today. He had the cutest new hairstyle! And I'm going to see if I can get my boyfriend to get his hair cut the same way. Anyway, just go down the hall over there and into the last door. Mizuki-kun likes working out there, since there are less people. That's your best bet!"

He thanked her, making his way down the hallway that she'd indicated. He put a little bit more into his walk than he usually did, and when he looked back, it was to see the girl still watching him avidly, proving that women were just as bad as men when it came to objectifying the opposite sex.

Laughing softly to himself, Fuji strolled down the hallway, occasionally looking into rooms just to see what the layout to the place was. It was really sort of funny how he'd gone for months without even thinking of Mizuki Hajime, to him now having this irresistible urge to see him.

Yuuta telling him not to do something had always had this sort of effect on him. It just made him want to do whatever it was even more, but not out of spite. He was really not a spiteful person, but more of a closet control freak. He chose to not listen to him to show Yuuta that his big brother knew what he was up to. It was his way of driving in the point that big brother knew best. Which he did, Syuusuke reassured himself as he stepped into the room that the reception girl had told him to look in. He was only doing what he had to do so that his time at Taisei would be as comfortable and fun as possible.

His baby brother meant more to him than anyone else in the world, and anything that was important to Yuuta was also important to Syuusuke, because that's how things were supposed to be when you loved someone.

Mizuji Hajime, for reasons unbeknownst and not clearly evident to Syuusuke, had become one of Yuuta's important people. It was clear from the way that his brother talked of him, and how he'd been so defensive on Mizuki's behalf when he'd been trying to keep what he thought of as an uncomfortable confrontation between the two of them from happening.

It made him wonder if Yuuta would ever defend him like that against anyone. Knowing his big hearted little brother, he probably would, but it still made him feel mildly jealous that anyone else could figure so largely in Yuuta's life.

Syuusuke stood by the doorway as he surveyed the room. The girl was right; there were very few people in there. There was only a young couple off to one side using a seated leg press machine. The guy, rather handsome in an over muscled sort of way, was spotting the girl as she whined through her exercise in a high, breathy voice.

With little effort he was able to find Mizuki, who'd positioned himself right next to a mirror lined wall, no doubt so that he could watch himself as he exercised. He was bent over backwards on a large silver body ball doing ab crunches, and his Taisei jacket was spread out on the ground beside him.

In spite of his position, with his back arched and his head pointing towards the floor, his hair still managed to defy the laws of gravity as he slowly worked his trunk upwards. It had been cut in a many layered style with side swept bangs, and Mizuki had flattened the hair to the sides of his head with rows of crossed bobby pins that were the same lime green as his workout pants, then styled what had been left free so that they stuck out in seemingly random directions

The end result was cute; it made him look like an anime character brought to life, but what was the point in fixing up your hair like that when you were just going to school and the gym? Mizuki's hairstyle was about as practical for working out as using a ping-pong paddle in a match against Tezuka would have been. It was all useless, really. Mizuki should stop wasting his time bothering with things like that. He wasn't bad to look at, even without all the trimmings…

And I can't believe that I just thought that…But even as this crossed Syuusuke's mind, his eyes had already begun to rake over Mizuki's flat, perfectly toned but not too overdeveloped stomach. His shirt had hiked up, exposing quite an eyeful; and he was not too bad to look at at all.

Thankfully the Boyfriend approached Mizuki then, leaving his girlfriend sitting on the machine that she'd been working out on and snapping Syuusuke out of his appreciative appraisal of his long time 'enemy'.

Mizuki sat up on the ball as Boyfriend squatted down beside him so that he could be at eye level with him; he even smiled up at his visitor, so obviously they knew each other pretty well.

Syuusuke had never seen him do that before. The closest that Mizuki had ever gotten to smiling around him was that evil smirk that he got on his face whenever he was up to something, or was scribbling away in his data notebook. Seeing that was almost as strange as he imagined seeing Echizen in his fangirl's cheerleading outfit would have been. Not that he'd ever tried to picture that in his mind, of course. That one time had been a weird, weird day dream caused by Momoshiro's comments.

Boyfriend patted the body ball, and Mizuki nodded, before launching into a long, involved speech about…something. Syuusuke couldn't hear anything from where he was standing. Mizuki talked some more, demonstrated a couple of exercises on the ball, and then said something to make Boyfriend laugh.

Interesting. When not around—or aware of—his presence, Mizuki appeared calm, approachable. Almost…charming. This just wreaked havoc on all the impressions that Syuusuke had of the guy. It intrigued him. Did he really piss Mizuki off that much? He had to, in able to cause such drastic behavioral changes with his mere presence. Finally Boyfriend patted Mizuki on the shoulder, before going back to the girl.

The whole interchange had taken less than five minutes, but it entirely altered Syuusuke's view point of his brother's friend. He needed to investigate this, and so he approached Mizuki, who'd already gone back to doing his exercises.

Mizuki didn't notice him until he actually spoke. Syuusuke picked up the jacket, holding it up before him. "Hey! That's funny. I have one of these too!" He exclaimed as if surprised.

Mizuki looked up at the sound of the voice. Lots of St. Rudolph students went to the Shape Up Fitness Center because it was more well equipped than their school gym and was the closest one around campus. It wasn't uncommon for someone that he vaguely recognized from school to come up and ask him about what exercises they should be doing to work out a particular muscle group; he was considered an expert on such things. Naturally, since this had already happened so many times in the past, he assumed that whoever had just approached him was just someone looking for advice. Instead, he locked eyes with the person that he least expected to see standing over him in his gym.

With an outraged gasp, Mizuki struggled to sit up, which wasn't a good idea. As he did so, the ball rolled out from right under him, sending him flat on his tail bone with a loud yell. The thin mat cushioning the floor did little to soften his fall.

Fuji was on him immediately, leaning over him so that his light brown hair dangled limply over Mizuki's face. "Are you all right?"

"Yes!" Mizuki snapped. He slapped away the hand that Fuji automatically offered him as he shifted to a more comfortable position for his aching ass. He soon found that there was none, and just sat still. This was not the way that he wanted a meeting with Fuji to start at all. After that marvelous first reaction to his unannounced visit, he felt infuriatingly out of control of the situation, as though he'd given Fuji the upper hand somehow, and he hated that. So to compensate, he was just going to have to be as obnoxious as humanly possible.

Mizuki shoved the body ball away, sending it rolling across the room away from him. For a while he'd considered throwing it at Fuji's head, but the ball was filled with air. It couldn't do that much damage. Where were the heavy weights? He took a deep breath, counted to three, and once assured that he'd regained his composure, looked up to give Fuji the benefit of his most malevolent glare. "Can you tell me what the hell you're doing here?"

"I was looking for you."

"Well, Yuuta's not here. He's at practice and-" Wait. Did he just say 'I was looking for you'? That didn't make any sense at all. Fuji should be looking for his brother. After a pause he asked, "You were looking for me?" Just to make sure that he wasn't beginning to hear things.

Fuji nodded. "How are you, Mizuki-san? Can I sit here?" He pointed to the floor right in front of Mizuki. The expression alone on the guy's face was worth the commute. He looked floored by what was coming out of Fuji's mouth, but seemed to recover from his shock when Fuji made a move to sit without his consent.

He pointed to the other side of the room, towards the doorway. "It'd actually be easier for me to ignore you if you're over there. Better yet, you could always just leave." He suggested hopefully.

"But what would be the fun in that?" Fuji smilingly returned. He sat down, watching Mizuki closely for his reaction. The St. Rudolph student scowled, but said and did nothing else about it. He had to admit that he was just a little bit curious about Fuji Syuusuke's unexpected appearance.

"You didn't come all the way here just to ask me how I am." He would die of shock if that was actually the only thing that Fuji had in his mind. There had to be something else; some dark, evil purpose to this visit. "Just get to the point. I want to go back to my exercises soon." He scooted backwards until he was leaning against the mirrored wall. His proximity to his friend's brother was making him uncomfortable; he wanted to put as much distance between them as he could, without appearing to be running away. Thankfully his unexpected visitor made no move to close the gap between them.

He thought back on the last couple of weeks, wondering if he'd done anything particularly bad to Yuuta that would cause his fanatical older brother to go after him. But he'd been very nice to him lately. He'd even bought him a Happy Meal the day before! Sure, he'd grabbed the small plastic panda toy that had come with it because it was cute and he'd paid for it, hadn't he? But Yuuta wouldn't send his brother after him for that!

…or would he?

"Is this about the panda?" Mizuki blurted out, not knowing what else it could be. It was a ridiculous thought, but he'd known Fuji Syuusuke to do crazy things on his brother's behalf before.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Fuji replied after a short pause to think the question over. He gave Mizuki a strange look. "I just came to congratulate you! I heard about Taisei from Yuuta."

And what the hell was Yuuta doing telling his brother about that? Mizuki wondered. What possible interest could Fuji Syuusuke have in where he went to college? He didn't think Fuji needed to break the silence between them just to congratulate him. They weren't even friends! Hell, they weren't even on speaking terms most of the time, which was what made this so bizarre.

Then, after the initial shock of finding out that Fuji knew and even cared for some reason, Mizuki got angry. He felt betrayed by Yuuta. He knew that the younger boy felt a certain sense of loyalty to him, but obviously his ties with his brother were a lot stronger, and meant more to him. "He had no business talking to you about me!" He complained. Yuuta was going to have a lot of explaining to do. He was heading straight for the younger boy's dorm room once he got back on campus.

Once he realized that he'd gotten Mizuki mad at his brother, Fuji attempted to explain. "He didn't do it on purpose. He just let it slip accidentally."

That made Mizuki feel slightly better, because to him that meant that Yuuta wasn't trying to hurt him on purpose when he'd told Fuji his news. He should have expected this from him. He knew the kid. There wasn't a single malicious bone in his body, and he was a great guy, but when it came to standing up against his older brother, Yuuta had the back bone of a one week old fetus. Syuusuke must have forced it out of him somehow. But why the sudden interest in him? That was what he couldn't understand.

I have one of these too…

Fuji had been holding his Taisei jacket when he'd said that, but he couldn't possibly mean that. No. That was such an ugly prospect. He had to ask, so that he could relax once he found out that he was only being paranoid. "You're graduating too," he noted, "Where are you going?"

"Same place as you," Fuji revealed, his smile gone sickeningly sweet, his eyes surprisingly warm. He acted as though that actually pleased him. Like hell. He leaned forward towards Mizuki, his body language oozing friendliness that had to be fake. Then he was patting him on the knee which was just disturbing. He couldn't even get himself together enough to tell Fuji to cut it out with the touching. "That's why I thought I should get to know you."

The patting stopped without Mizuki having to resort to violent means. Thankfully. He was still trying to wrap his mind around the idea of Fuji Syuusuke in the same tennis team as him, because this guy was obviously going to be joining, and he had no intention of giving tennis up either. How was that going to work when they couldn't even stay in the same street court with some sort of argument brewing between the two of them?

"I don't want anything to do with this." He wanted to get that out there right from the very beginning. His plans to out-obnoxious Fuji Syuusuke had failed because there was just no topping him in that department.

How could he just waltz in here after years of crap and announce that he 'wanted to get to know him'? That was just plain stupid. Did he expect Mizuki to launch himself into his arms, crying about how he'd been waiting for this opportunity for the longest time? That wasn't going to happen.

They weren't going to suddenly become best friends just because Fuji wanted them to be. Maybe things like that happened in Fuji's happy little world where everyone worshipped him and let him pretty much walk all over them like so much tennis court turf beneath his precious, Nike clad feet, but Mizuki was not about to help his little delusion along.

He refused to be Astroturf.

"I congratulated you. Aren't you going to congratulate me?" Fuji prodded. "I wonder why Yuuta didn't tell you about my Taisei scholarship. He kept on talking about how he wanted the two of us to get on with each other, now that we're going to be attending the same school. You'd think he'd at least mention it to you or give you the same speeches that he gave to me!"

It was obvious to Mizuki why Yuuta had left that important bit of information out, and he didn't know whether he should be touched that the younger boy had considered his feelings, or be mad at him for keeping this from him.

Yuuta didn't tell him about the Taisei scholarship because he'd known that it would take away from his happiness over his own acceptance. There was nothing like knowing that your old rival had one upped you once again to spoil the happiness that you felt over your own success. Yuuta had understood that, and had wanted to give him at least a little while to be completely and utterly happy. But he was still pissed at the kid in spite of the fact that he knew Yuuta had had good intentions behind what he'd done. He hated being thrown out of the loop.

He used to be so good at keeping an eye on what went on with everyone involved in the district tennis circuit, but he'd really let his information gathering skills go over the last few months so that he could focus on school. That had obviously been a bad idea.

"Are you going to be trying out for the team?"

Mizuki opened his mouth to reply, but afraid that his voice would give away how upset and off balance he really felt, he simply nodded.

If Fuji noticed that anything was bothering him, then he wasn't making it obvious. At least he wasn't showing any outward signs of being pleased by Mizuki's discomfort. "I thought you would. I'm only asking because I noticed that you weren't around any of the competitions this semester. Yuuta told me you'd quit temporarily."

"Apparently Yuuta tells you a lot of things," Mizuki muttered. He wasn't very happy about that at all, and he was going to have a lot to say to the younger boy once he got back to school.

"I guess we're going to be seeing a lot of each other now," Fuji remarked, steering the conversation away from his younger brother as soon as he could. Yuuta was probably already deep in Mizuki's shit list. He didn't want to make things any worse for his brother than they already were.

"I guess so." He sounded as enthusiastic about the idea as a person planning the details to his own funeral.

"Yuuta said that we might as well get used to each other already."

"I'd really rather not."

"I don't mind either way," Fuji said generously. "It'd be hard for us to ignore each other if we're on the same tennis team. We might even end up attending the same classes. What course are you taking?"

"Fashion design." Mizuki said, his tone defiant. Some guys might think that career choice strange, but he had nothing to be ashamed of. He was proud of it. He watched Fuji's face closely, waiting for him to say something, for some sort of reaction, but he saw none. That was a big disappointment, since he was just waiting for Fuji to do anything, say anything, that would give him a reason to punch him or to start an argument. He waited a bit more, then asked impatiently "Well, aren't you going to start laughing now?"

"Why should I?" Fuji asked, looking genuinely puzzled.

Mizuki was surprised and thrown off balance by Fuji passing up the opportunity to make fun of him, as some others had. He'd been expecting some sort of comment, and felt cheated by Fuji's refusal to follow the expected set of behavior that Mizuki had for him. He really wanted an argument, and for some reason, Fuji was going out of the way to keep things between them at least moderately civil.

"Are you going to be going to the orientation tomorrow?" Fuji asked as the silence dragged on. The next day was a Saturday and Taisei was having an open day for all of the incoming freshmen so that they could check the facilities out and orient themselves somewhat before registration week began.

"Yes."

"Good. I'll see you then, Mizuki san. I'll be going with Oishi, but if you'd like, we can all check out the tennis courts together."

Unsettled by the whole business and the invitation, Mizuki got to his feet, wanting only to get away from Fuji. He walked over to the nearby exercise bikes and sat himself down on one, thinking that Fuji's visit was already done with. He needed to clear his mind and just space out for a while. Exercise always did that for him. He didn't expect Fuji to actually follow him, but he did. He'd thought their conversation was over, but Fuji took the bike right next to Mizuki.

Mizuki glared at him, chose not to say anything, and then began to pedal. He closed his eyes. He was going to relax. He was going to focus on his exercise, on his breathing, on setting up a nice, steady pace. Beside him Fuji did the same.

"This is nice. I haven't been on one of these for a while…" The whirring of the wheels increased. Mizuki looked over to see Fuji's feet working madly on the pedals.

Trying to show off again? Not about to be beaten by Mr. Perfect, Mizuki also increased his pace so that he was going faster than Fuji. When he'd gotten to a very good speed, he caught Fuji's eye and flashed him a triumphant smirk. Beat that, the expression on his face clearly challenged.

Fuji smiled back serenely. "You're in such good shape, Mizuki-san!" He commented. Then he pedaled faster, which led to Mizuki following suit.

This went on back and forth until the two boy's legs were fairly flying on the pedals and there was no sound in the room but that of their heavy breathing and the whirring of the wheels.

You're going down, Fuji Syuusuke…Mizuki thought to himself as he scrounged up every last bit of energy left in him for one last bit of mad pedaling to show Fuji that there was no beating him.

…or maybe not…

An hour later and they were still at it. Sweat was rolling off Mizuki's body, and he was starting to get lightheaded. Thankfully he wasn't the only one showing signs of wear. Fuji was getting frightfully red in the face. He was beginning to look like a tomato with a thatch of light brown hair.

Mizuki didn't know how much longer he was going to be able to keep it up 'but he'd wear last season's fashions and shave all of his hair off first before he'd admit to that.

"Mizuki-san, I'll make you a deal," Fuji said in between his panting. "Let's stop this both at the same time, all right? That way, no one loses."

"We're…not…competing. I'm just exercising here…"

"We both know you're not going to stop until I do," Fuji retorted.

"Then why don't you just stop?" Mizuki suggested. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the sound of the wheels "You don't mind stopping before I do, do you, Fuji-san?" He asked with exaggerated politeness.

"I can go on with this indefinitely, you know?"

"You wouldn't be making deals with me if you weren't already tired." Mizuki retorted.

"I'm not tired."

"Good. Neither am I." And so saying, Mizuki began pedaling even faster, in spite of his aching muscles.

"I wonder where Mizuki-sempai is…" Yuuta murmured. At this time of the night, Mizuki would normally have been back from the gym for dinner in the St. Rudolph cafeteria, but there was still no sign of him, and Yuuta was beginning to get worried. Mizuki was a stickler for routine, and it was unusual for him to break his schedule like this.

"Didn't you hear? Mizuki met up with some guy at the gym that pissed him off. He's still back there. Last I heard they were seeing who could bench press the highest weight." Midori, a classmate of Yuuta's informed him. He then winced, as if someone had just kicked him on the shin, and he glared at the boy sitting next to him.

That sounded ominous. There was a sick feeling to Yuuta's stomach as he pushed away his loaded plate. "Please tell me that it isn't my brother…" he pleaded.

Silence. Yuuta looked around the table at the shifty-eyed faces surrounding him. "Is that why you all disappeared a couple of hours ago? So that you could watch my brother torturing Mizuki-sempai?"

No answer again.

Yuuta grabbed his tray and jumped to his feet. He'd just finish his dinner in his room. Mizuki was going to be raging mad once he got back on campus and he didn't have to be a genius to figure out who all that fury would be directed at. He better go start barricading his dorm room door and stockpiling food, he decided, as he grabbed the sandwich that Midori was about to bite into.

He might have to hide out for a while.