Chapter Two

"I'll make a deal with you Akira," Tachibana-san said, very casually giving me absolutely no indication of the monumental bet he was actually going to make with me.

"A deal? Why? What about?"

"Why? Because I'm sick and tired of your moping and don't even get me started on the particular brand of tension that's been your speciality lately. What about? Shinji."

"Shinji?" I admit it, I didn't manage to stay casual. I blushed. I couldn't meet his eyes. My voice was at least an octave higher than normal. It was all very smooth and subtle.

Tachibana-san barely managed to avoid laughing, "Yes. Shinji. Now don't play dumb. You've got love sick puppy stamped all over you."

"Excuse me? Love sick puppy??" Lets make that two octaves now and I'm relatively sure my face is literally scarlet.

"Yes. Love sick puppy," Tachibana-san repeated firmly, eyes twinkling evilly as he enjoyed my obvious embarrassment.

For the record, I had not been acting like a love sick puppy. That implies the sickening behaviour of a teenage girl with a short term crush on some guy she hardly even knows. Shinji is my best friend. It just so happened that I'd come to view him as slightly more than that. I'd realised that over a year ago and apart from the first week afterwards, it had not affected me or my behaviour in the slightest. Me and Shinji had been an inseparable double act since the day we met so its not like I could possibly have spent any more time with him, nor was there any need to try and get to know him better, we'd been the best of friends for years I knew absolutely everything there was to know about him. At least, I thought I did. Regardless, there had been absolutely no love sick puppy type behaviour.

Tachibana-san laughed as it became obvious I was no longer capable of coherent speech, "Don't worry. I'm the only one it's totally obvious to. Oh, and An."

"Oh," I managed to reply in something approaching my normal voice, "So what's this deal? Why are we talking about this now?"

"Because I reckoned you'd be less likely to explode and punch me if you'd had at least one drink."

"I'm in shock. If I wasn't you'd be bleeding."

"Oh I doubt it, you'd never get near me," and he smiled, the smile which once made Shinji comment on how he thought Tachibana-san had been a piranha in a previous life, "Anyway," he continued, slipping back into friendly captain mode, "back to the deal. Like I said, I'm tired of your moping…"

"I've not been moping!"

Again, for the record, I really hadn't. Aside from some wistful staring and sulking silences when Shinji favoured anyone with more attention than he directed at me, there had been absolutely no moping.

"Whatever. I can't take it anymore. So, I'll make a deal with you. I'll let you play music in training and let you choose the music on all the journeys to and from tournaments if you tell Shinji how you feel about him and ask him out, before the end of the summer."

I almost felt the colour drain from my face, "Out…as in out? As in, going out, as in the thing people do with their girlfriends and boyfriends?"

"Yes Akira. Out. A date."

"Oh fucking hell! No way!"

"Oh come on. Not even for the music?"

"Not even for all the friggin' tea in friggin' China!"

"You wimp."

"Yes! Yes I am. A big wimp. A wimp with a sense of self preservation. Do you really think Shinji is going to take kindly to a confession of love from his best friend? His male best friend. I'm not about to alienate him just because you're getting frustrated!"

"If you don't keep your voice down he'll be finding out if you choose to tell him or not," Tachibana-san remained cool in the face of my angry rant, he never was at all bothered by my angry outbursts.

I glared, "I really want to hit you right now."

"Well don't. Look. This is Shinji we're talking about. He has conversations with himself and can't tell the difference between thinking and talking out loud, do you really think he's going to be that close minded?"

"Those are two totally different things," I replied stubbornly.

He rolled his eyes, "Ok. How about this. I'm not even his best friend, I've only known him for a year and even I can tell that he's not the type of person who's going to freak out over something like this. He's far too level headed. You're his best friend, you've know him for…for a very long time…you should be able to make a pretty good guess at his reaction."

"No. I can't. I've never seen someone confess that they love him before."

"You stubborn little wimp!"

"Shut up!" I snapped preparing to stand up and find someone slightly less crazy to talk to.

Tachibana-san sighed and rolled his eyes, "What if I told you he stares at you almost as much as you stare at him."

With uncanny skill, he'd hit on one of the very few things that would have stopped me in my tracks. I froze, sat back down again and tried not to look too eager, "Really?"

"Yes. Really. And, he talks about you a lot."

"He talks to you about me?"

"Not exactly. But when he's mumbling, your name comes up a lot."

Ok. I admit it. Just by giving me the hope that Shinji might have feelings that were even slightly similar to mine Tachibana-san had pretty much decided things. If there was even the slightest possibility that we could be more than friends (Now. Next week. Next month. Next year. Ten years from now.) then I was going to chase that possibility to the end of time.

"Really?" I asked, just to make sure.

"Yes. Really. Come on! What do you really have to use?"

"My best friend. The person I'm closest to in this entire world."

"And we just agreed that Shinji isn't like that and wouldn't abandon you as a friend just because you love him in a less than platonic way."

"You agreed. I'm still wallowing in healthy levels of doubt."

"Wallowing is right! In doubt. In self pity…"

I think he fully deserved to be tackled. Really. I'd put up with quite a few insults from him the conversation, I'd put up with a lot! The whole conversation was just wrong. So I do not regret launching myself at him and trying to get my hands round his neck so I could throttle him until he took back the self pity thing…and the love sick puppy thing…and just everything!

It wasn't really a fight. My initial attack might have taken Tachibana-san off guard, but I wasn't really trying to hurt him so he gained the upper hand fairly quickly, pinning me to the floor with his knees and securing my hands in his to take away any chance I had of launching a counter attack. He was laughing the whole time, which was infuriating to start with and then just annoying as I struggled to move and discovered that it was totally impossible to escape.

"Is there something you two want to tell us?" a voice came from somewhere out of my field of vision. An's voice. I wriggled harder, the insinuation was dangerously close to the conversation I'd just been having with her brother. Considering I'd attacked him to avoid it I did not want my cunning plan getting turned against me.

"I don't think Akira likes that," Shinji observed, appearing in my field of vision, studying my face, "I think you should let him go."

"I agree with Shinji," I growled, kicking out, totally in vain of course.

Tachibana-san let me go, keeping a perfectly straight face as I scrabbled away, probably looking totally ridiculous, "You shouldn't have tried to strangle me then should you."

"Why were you trying to strangle Tachibana-san?" Shinji asked curiously.

"We were having a little talk about-"

Well I just had to tackle him again didn't I? I had no idea how he was planning on finishing that sentence and I just couldn't risk him blurting it out right then. Looking back, I think he knew exactly what I would do if he said that and really was just trying to wind me up. However, at the time I was not prepared to take any chances. My attack wasn't any more successful this time than it was the first time, except this time Tachibana-san simply fended me off until Shinji succeeded in pulling me away. Having his arms round me as he mumbled in concerned tones about the possible reasons for my outbursts had a very claming effect on me.

"You can let go of me now Shinji," I said, after he'd been restraining me for several minutes, "I won't attack him again."

"I certainly hope not," Tachibana-san said, climbing to his feet and attempting to rub grass stains from his clothes.

"So what exactly was going on?" An asked.

"It doesn't matter," I answered quickly, glaring at Tachibana-san as she looked at him for conformation.

He nodded, "We were just having a talk."

"The only thing that can get Akira worked up like that is tennis. Tachibana-san must have told him something about the tennis team that he didn't like. I wonder what it was but I won't ask because I don't want to get them fighting again. Tachibana-san has been holding back but he might start getting annoyed and I wouldn't want Akira to get hurt."

For the first time in a long while I took proper note of Shinji's mumbles and applied a critical and analytical approach to it. (my literature teacher would be proud!) Firstly, Shinji had looked at it all from my perspective; my feelings had been his first concern. Secondly, he was worried about my safety, not Tachibana-san, and crucially he hadn't tagged on anything that suggested that is concern was in any way linked to my ability to play tennis. Maybe Tachibana-san was right. There was hope and Shinji did reciprocate my feelings, at least to an extent.

"I wouldn't hurt Akira," Tachibana-san replied lightly, "He's far too important to the team."

For some reason, Tachibana-san's choice of phrasing made me think that he'd noticed the significance of Shinji's mumble as well. It reinforced my thoughts and my hope and well, it sealed the deal. I'd decided to give it a go the minute Tachibana-san had given me hope, but his reinforcement had persuaded me to accept Tachibana-san's time scale.

We set off home and I hung back with Tachibana-san, letting Shinji and An go in front, "I accept your deal. I'll tell him how I feel before the end of the summer."

"Well that's great! There's only one problem."

"Which is?"

"Deals changed."

"What? Why?"

"You attacked me! You tackled me to the floor! Twice! I can't let that go mate."

"So, what's changed?"

"The time. You have two weeks."

"What???"

He nodded, absolutely no hint of amusement in his face this time, "In two weeks time I want evidence of you having had a little talk with Shinji."

"Evidence? How the hell am I going to get evidence?"

Tachibana-san rolled his eyes, "Well either I'm going to get a phone call from him asking me for my advice on this situation, you're going to end up with a black eye or the two of you will be a couple. Whatever happens, I'm sure there'll be evidence."

"That is so…twisted."

"Two weeks Akira. The clock is ticking."

We'd reached my house at this point, rolling my eyes at the overly dramatic farewell I waved goodbye to the group and went inside. I had a lot to think about and once I'd reached my room I lay down on my bed my mp3 player blaring music at full volume into my ears and tried to make sense of exactly what Tachibana-san had challenged me to do.

Shinji was an absolutely amazing person, as far as I was concerned anyway. He was extremely intelligent, easy to talk to, he was interesting and not like anyone else I knew. Shinji could never really be compared with anyone, even if you ignored the talking to himself thing. He was quiet, he was thoughtful…well, you get the idea, and as far as I was concerned he was perfect. It's soppy and clichéd but its true. Considering all that I don't think its surprising that I found myself starting to image what it would be like if we were closer than we were, closer than friends. Those thoughts terrified me at first I can tell you, I acted like a total idiot, snapping at him like making him stay away would stop the utter weirdness of me falling for him. I came to terms with it though, I realised it was never going to happen, I realised that I should settle for the next best thing and just be friends with him. It was a solution. I was happy. Ok, there was still a slight longing that he would one day turn around and say something about how he loved me, but that was wishful thinking and idle dreaming.

Then along came Tachibana-san.

How dare he destroy the little rut of self-sacrifice I had dug myself into? How dare he jump in and say something that gave me hope that my idle dream was a possibility. Really it just wasn't acceptable, let's face it, you just don't do that. You certainly don't try and match-make for members of your tennis team. Never mind if you're totally spot on in your assumption, you should just let it takes it course and not make ridiculous deals with confused love-sick teenagers. Not that I'm love-sick or anything. Nope.

Oh bloody hell! How on earth was I going to do this? I rolled over and beat my head into the pillow in frustration. This. Was. Just. Not. Fair! I sighed, two weeks. I had two weeks to confess that I loved my best friend. This was going to take some serious planning. It was going to take me at least a week to build up the courage. Tachibana-san was right to be over dramatic. It already felt like I was running out of time.

Hope you liked it!