Disclaimer: Takeshi Konomi owns Prince of Tennis, and Cambridge owns their dictionary definitions.
AN: Sorry for the long wait! Third part up, Sanada Genichirou.
3: Obsession
The Problem with Quadratics
Even since Sanada was a child, he had been taught the ways of the traditional family. He had been brought up to be their heir, treated like one and respected like one. To some children, this might have been very head-swelling, but Genichirou was a serious, quiet, and unassuming child. All he wanted to do was fulfill his duties as a son, a future clan head, and a future husband.
When he first entered Rikkai, he noticed Yukimura immediately. It seemed like everyone did. Sanada didn't care to hang out with him, he wasn't sure if he liked Yukimura, so he refrained from approaching the boy, and stayed clear of the crowd that was always surrounding Yukimura's table. It wasn't difficult for Sanada to avoid him; they weren't in the same class in the first place.
They were, however, in the same tennis club.
It was in tennis that Sanada first learnt about Yukimura's unpredictability. The slender boy was undecipherable almost to the point of defiance. Sanada had joined the tennis club aiming for a regulars position in his first year. He had wanted the captaincy too, thus the long grueling hours of training, hard work and maximal effort. He spent weeks cultivating the FuuRinKaaZan, and his attention on Yukimura increased exponentially when the boy crushed his creation with an almost insulting ease. Yukimura, to him, existed outside the norm, and he was confused. Confused by Yukimura's deceptiveness, his disarming smile, and the way his eyes dismissed your worth after he beat you into the ground.
If Sanada spent time thinking of metaphors, he would say that Yukimura was a quadratic equation. Unfortunately, Sanada's forte was History. He did, however, pay attention during math class, and learnt that there were three ways to solve a quadratic equation. But Yukimura wasn't one to be solved by perfect squares, you needed perfection to do that, and Sanada was convinced that despite everything he appeared to be, Yukimura wasn't perfect; the invisible flaws tugged at his mind, yet he couldn't pin them down. Then there was completing the squares, but Yukimura was in no way a person Sanada could take apart mentally and piece together to form the ultimate picture of sense and reason. The whole idea was absurd, but it would be easier if Sanada could just understand.
Then there was formula. Sanada did not need a PhD to realize that Yukimura's constants and derivatives could hell be anything.
Yukimura was a bloody minded question. Sanada always thought the exam papers were too short.
By second year, Sanada's tennis had improved by leaps and bounds, but all techniques and methods were still futile against the miracles weaved by his vice captain. He had, however, come up with a new viewpoint on Yukimura. FuuRinKaaZan was applicable in kendo, tennis, and even shogi, but it would be perfectly useless in calligraphy. FuuRinKaaZan worked against an opponent that played against you, not with you. And that was how Sanada came to feel every time he played a match with Yukimura. It felt exactly like calligraphy, except that it was Yukimura holding the brush, toying with him, making Sanada run according to his design as he ultimately painted the word Victory, while making his opponent spell Defeat.
Sometimes, Sanada felt that after so much wrong calculations and useless working, he was about to hit upon the answer, when Yukimura would walk away and he would lose it again.
There was a word that Sanada could bring up to mind, whenever he thought of Yukimura. He could admit it; things would be so much easier. Sanada could own up his interest in Yukimura. And Yukimura would tell him. In detail, exactly what that interest was. These are things Sanada knew, but refused to acknowledge. Acknowledgement would mean acceptance to things Sanada could not bring himself to admit yet.
Once, when Renji calmly remarked about their new captain's growing attractiveness, Sanada bit back the sharp comments that were threatening to spill over. He knew that feeling; resentment, apprehension, bitterness, but talking about it would make it even more real.
He knew, then, that he was afraid, because Renji's math had always been better than his.
Sanada, in his well provided for life, had never had the opportunity to taste jealousy. But what worried him, were reasons. Reasons for his jealousy; he wasn't sure if he wanted to know what that feeling was.
He allowed time to pass, not realizing that he wasn't the only one waiting.
When Yukimura first collapsed on court, Sanada's only thought was that, he could perceive the flaws now. And it wasn't what he wanted to see. Sometimes, Sanada hated his upbringing. He never had the chance to learn about sorrow either, or helplessness.
Seeing Yukimura confined to a hospital bed, paler than the bleak walls surrounding him, seemed to trigger Sanada's memory of Yukimura's vibrancy in the past. Renji could have told anyone Yukimura's eyes were blue. Sanada could have told them that Yukimura's eyes shone. He spent so much time by the hospital bed that he soon learnt that Yukimura's eyes were more than colour. They burned and seared with his anger, fire in the disguise of ice, and once, when Sanada visited alone, the stunning sapphires gave way to pearls, when Yukimura gave way to his despair.
Sanada spent many afternoons watching his captain sleep. In his mind, he kept thinking, when you're well again, I'll ask you.
Sanada spent many evenings trading arguments back and forth with his captain. Sanada had a terrible temper, and he hated it when Yukimura's terrible frustration made him feel even more useless. Yukimura's anger could floor Sanada's anytime, and what used to be the epitome of gentleness in Rikkai's eyes, was slowly becoming anger and dissatisfaction, which needed an outlet.
During one of their more vicious arguments, Sanada found himself momentarily distracted when Yukimura stood with his back to the sunset, and his face slightly flushed from cold fury, instead of the pallor Sanada was getting accustomed to seeing daily. He could not stop staring at the other boy's lips, parted a little to let a sigh escape, and it was easier than returning the gaze of those eyes, frozen into agates. He had reached out then, unthinkingly, to brush back the stray lock of hair that fell against Yukimura's cheek in a soft caress.
The immediate knowing smirk that curled up the edge of Yukimura's lips just provided further discomfort for him.
During the match against Echizen, Sanada's sole focus was on Yukimura's eyes, in his last visit. They had changed from all shades of blue to a mournful shade of grey. Grey had been one of Sanada's favourite colours, but now, it was a colour he never wanted to look at again.
He lost, 7-6.
Sanada couldn't put a colour to Yukimura's eyes, as he watched him train secretly to get back his stamina and strength and tennis. But that was because he didn't know the colour of determination.
When Yukimura beat Echizen Ryoma in Singles One in the Nationals Finals, Sanada saw that his eyes were the colour of the sky.
They studied for entrance exams together, Sanada, Yukimura and Renji. One afternoon, when Renji was hammering Akaya's grammar back into a semblance of correctness, preferably so that their junior could pull enough wool over his teacher's eyes to pass, it was just the two of them in the locker room, and Sanada was tackling his least favourite topic. Yukimura leaned over and peered at the cross-outs all over Sanada's writing paper.
"If you can't use perfect squares or completing the square, then sub in negative 'b' times positive or negative square-root of 'b' squared minus four 'a' times 'c', then divide the whole thing by two 'a'. You should get two answers."
Sanada stared at the neat working on his paper, then at his captain who was half out of the door. Yukimura threw a glace back at his stunned face and laughed.
"Should I have said it slower? There's nothing easier than quadratics, Sanada."
Years later, he asked Yukimura if he knew what Sanada had been going through all those years from Junior High to University.
"Of course," had been the reply.
So Sanada asked him again, what that was, because he promised himself that he would once Yukimura had recovered; the question was long overdue already.
Yukimura moved closer, a smile ghosting across his delicate features. The miles between them were reduced to mere inches, and Sanada could see something new in Yukimura's eyes. He wondered if they mirrored his own.
"Infatuation, Genichirou," was Yukimura's reply, before he pressed their lips together.
AN: DONE. Ahahah, sorry, was having a "Finally!" kind of feeling. Tell me what you think about this chapter, thanks! Next up, should be Yukimura. No idea what I'm going to do for that one. Eheh, will come up with something!