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About Us

Chapter 11

By Miki

Atobe couldn't put his finger on it. It was an odd feeling to say the least; the feeling that something wasn't quite right but he had no idea exactly what it was or why it wasn't right.

He pulled his knees up to his chest and shivered a little. The water in the bath tub was starting to cool down even though he didn't feel as though he'd been in there a long time. The wrinkles on his fingers suggested otherwise though.

He closed his eyes, thinking over his list of things to do and adding more items to it as he remembered things Sakaki had mentioned and things Kabaji had reminded him of.

He opened his eyes and stared at his hands, wondering if he should call Yuuta tonight or not. It was already Tuesday again, and the longer he left it, the worse he felt. Besides, he had a feeling Yuuta wasn't about to call him first.

(S)

Yanagisawa's feet felt just a little bit sore. Mizuki had assigned he and Atsushi fifty shuttle runs each, but Yanagisawa's attention had been more focused on staring at Yuuta than staring at where he'd been going, and he'd ended up falling over a rock that had strayed onto the ground in front of him. Atsushi had pointed out that it wasn't a 'stray' rock, since it wasn't as though there were rules as to where rocks were allowed to go or not allowed to go.

Yanagisawa secretly thought he was just being annoying because he was just as annoyed about running like this. The court they'd been playing on had been overtaken by Akazawa, Mizuki, Yuuta and Nomura and Kaneda was playing a doubles match with some of the other second year students.

"I still think it's weird, da ne. What do you think about it, da ne? I mean, it's Atobe we're talking about, da ne. Isn't he a bit annoying, da ne?"

Atsushi shot him a look as they ran side by side. Sometimes he wondered if Yanagisawa didn't get a good work out just running and talking to himself.

"I thought it was weird enough that Yuuta even liked Atobe at all, but it's different if they're actually together, da ne…"

Atsushi ignored the monologue going on beside him. It wasn't that he was any less surprised about what Mizuki had said, but he didn't need to stick his nose into other people's business… Besides, he wasn't as close to Yuuta as Mizuki was, and if Mizuki didn't even know everything – and it looked as though no one did, really – then Atsushi wasn't exactly expecting Yuuta to tell him anything either. It didn't mean he wasn't curious though.

"I just don't get it, da ne," Yanagisawa continued. "I just… I mean, they're both guys. It's not like Yuuta's even good-looking like his brother, da ne. And he's always grumpy da ne."

Yanagisawa was still going on about it as they warmed down ten minutes later when Atsushi finally snapped.

He couldn't understand Yuuta liking Atobe, and he had no idea what Atobe must have been on when he even conceived the idea of dating Yuuta, and he was still wondering if Mizuki had made it all up because Mizuki managed to make up a lot of other things, but if it was true, then it was true and it was none of their business to judge Yuuta or Atobe or anything they did.

He knew Yanagisawa didn't mean badly, but the fact that he'd been rambling about it almost incessantly since this morning was unnerving Atsushi, and he wasn't sure that some of the other players weren't listening in to what Yanagisawa was blurting out.

"Is there something wrong with girls, da ne?" Yanagisawa questioned, looking genuinely lost. He looked exasperated even.

Atsushi suspected he was just digging himself further into a hole, so he turned Yanagisawa to face him, clasped his shoulders with his hands and told him to shut up. "Da ne."

Looking at Yanagisawa's expression, he wondered if he hadn't just been waiting for it anyway.

(S)

Yuuta stared at Yanagisawa. "Huh?" he asked, rubbing at his hair awkwardly. "What did you say?"

Yanagisawa gave him a funny look.

"Since we're going anyway, don't you want to come with us?" Atsushi asked, peering past his doubles partner, looking into Yuuta's room.

Yuuta shifted a little, stepping in front of Atsushi so he couldn't see the mess. Or at least… some of it. It was kind of hard to hide a week's worth of dirty underwear and school shirts though, and on top of that – or rather… underneath it – there were also all the books Yuuta still hadn't given back to Atobe.

He'd been going through the books an hour before but he'd left them in a mess over the floor instead of stacking them, and then Mizuki had walked in and declared that Yuuta was about to miss the washing collection for the week and suddenly socks and boxers and shorts had joined the mess on the floor, and now the room was looking something akin to a nuclear waste dump.

Yuuta's washing collection bag was still somewhere under his bed too, and he hadn't found that either. Sometimes he wondered if it wasn't a downside that everything in the dorm was labelled so clearly. It meant he couldn't just go and take Kaneda's washing bag and hope he didn't notice for a while.

"You're not doing anything with anyone else, da ne. Are you, da ne?" Yanagisawa asked loudly, frowning a bit.

Yuuta blinked, racking his brains to remember what day it was and why he would be going anywhere else. He shook his head in response. "Why would I?"

He'd only put in one or two leave slips in the past week, and it wasn't even as though he'd gone anywhere important. It was times like these that he wondered why he even bothered keeping a diary, except to remember to write in homework on the odd occasion to fill up the space. Yanagisawa and Atsushi often went out to the street courts or to the movies by themselves, so Yuuta couldn't quite make up his mind why they were asking him now. He wasn't sure he could put up with the 'da ne's today anyway.

Yanagisawa was silent though, pursing his lips instead of answering Yuuta's question. He looked a little odd being so serious, though Yuuta didn't think they'd had any run-ins at training lately, so it couldn't have been something he'd done. He hadn't even smacked any tennis balls Yanagisawa's way that morning and they'd been assigned to different activities anyway.

Maybe Yanagisawa just wasn't feeling himself so that's why Atsushi was asking him for extra company, Yuuta thought.

"Anyway," Atsushi said loudly, "want me to put in a form for you? We're leaving in twenty minutes if you're coming."

Yuuta stared sideways at the grain of the wooden door frame, unable to decide either way. He could go to the movies with them and it would pass two hours, though that would mean he'd probably be in Mizuki's bad books for not sticking around to be here at dinner time…

Alternately, he could actually clean up his room, do his homework and turn up to dinner in time to not be stuck with the servings of leftover peas no one wanted to eat.

"Okay, I'll come," he agreed. "You can fill in my form, can't you?"

Atsushi nodded. "Sure. We'll meet downstairs in twenty minutes then," he said, and put his hands on Yanagisawa's shoulders, steering him out of Yuuta's doorway so he could close the door.

Yuuta stared after the two of them. Then he closed the door and leaned against it, staring at the mess strewn across his floor. He really hated cleaning his room, but the less often he cleaned it, the more times he was scolded by Mizuki and the more times he got stupid yellow slips stuck on his door by Hanashima.

Sometimes it really sucked living in a dorm. Especially when you couldn't find your stupid laundry bag and you were about to run out of clean underwear.

(S)

"Wait, I just want to go in here for a minute," Atsushi called out, grabbing Yanagisawa's arm and yanking him backwards.

Yanagisawa stumbled back, waving his spare arm around and grabbing Yuuta before he could step out of the way.

He ended up stumbling backwards too, only saved from falling over by himself by the fact that he banged into Yanagisawa, who banged into Atsushi, who was pushed into the shop door right before it slid open, sending the three of them sprawling in a very undignified manner right into the middle of the shop.

Yuuta felt that sinking feeling in his stomach as he realised it was the same store Mizuki had dragged him to the other day, and he almost wanted to ask if he couldn't just walk back to the dormitory first by himself.

He glanced around the store, but luckily there were no Hyoutei uniforms in sight today. It hardly made him feel any better though.

The movie they'd just seen already forgotten, he fiddled with a sweat band absentmindedly as Yanagisawa tried to convince Atsushi of the merits of buying a red wrist band to match his ribbon.

It was nearly a week since he'd last spoken to Atobe, wasn't it? Or did it just feel that long? Walking back over to the shoe section where he'd been with Mizuki the other day, he counted the steps to the spot where Gakuto and Oshitari had been standing. Then he walked back and did it again.

He pulled his phone from his pocket, half-tuned into the squabbling now coming from Atsushi and Yanagisawa's direction. His phone's call history said Atobe had called him on Thursday night, and there was no way his phone could by lying. He closed it for a moment, and then opened it and checked it again.

There was a new message sitting there in his inbox; something he hadn't noticed when he'd turned his phone back on after the movie. His thumb hovered above the green button for a moment before he finally clicked it, watching the animation of the message opening on screen.

It was from Atobe. Yuuta scanned it quickly, disappointed when he scrolled down and realised there were only two lines to Atobe's message.

Are you free tomorrow night? I've made reservations for dinner.

Yuuta frowned at it, biting back the annoyance he felt. Who did Atobe think he was to not call him for half a week and totally ignore him and then send something so… so…

Yuuta rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. He frowned, annoyed at Atobe and annoyed at himself and annoyed because Atobe was obviously acting as though he hadn't done anything wrong. He could at least give a half-arsed apology or something, not that Atobe ever apologised.

Yuuta checked his call history again. It definitely said Thursday.

Yuuta huffed for a moment, once again annoyed about Gakuto and Oshitari and Atobe and every stupid Hyoutei student on the planet. He was sick of not knowing where he stood with Atobe and it didn't help that he couldn't ask anyone for help either. His brother was out of the question, as was his sister, and it wasn't as though he could just… just tell things to Mizuki.

Then he scrolled across the screen to his dialled numbers and flicked down the list. Not seeing Atobe's number, he scrolled further down the list, past Kaneda's number and Mizuki's number, past Yumiko's and Syuusuke's and his father's and his home telephone number… And he realised that the last time he'd called Atobe's number was actually… a week and a half ago.

He bit the inside of his lip suddenly, not knowing what to think. Hadn't he called Atobe during the week? He tried to remember if he ever had, but when he thought about it, all the times he'd fiddled with his phone or scrolled through his address book, he'd ended up not calling at all…

All he'd done was to change his wallpaper about ten times, write useless messages to his brother, change his colour scheme and the order of his speed dial numbers and generally… not get anywhere with the calling Atobe part.

"Yuuta," Atsushi said loudly, startling him as he pulled his phone away from him. "Are you okay?"

Yuuta panicked, his heart in his throat until he snatched his phone back and snapped it shut. He shoved it as far into his pocket as it would go and gave Atsushi an annoyed look. "Fine," he answered.

"Just asking," Atsushi said in his defence, giving a slight smile. "I thought you were…"

Yuuta frowned. "Thought I was what?"

Yanagisawa rolled his eyes at Atsushi, and Yuuta realised then that they were keeping something from him. He didn't have a chance to find out what it was though, since Yanagisawa wanted to hear his opinion on Atsushi's choice of wristbands. The red ones looked orange and they wouldn't match his ribbon properly and the black ones just weren't right somehow. The white ones were too cheap and the blue ones wouldn't match their uniforms when they played, da ne.

Yuuta pulled the bunch from Yanagisawa's hands, shoving all of them but the white one onto one of the shelves behind him. He handed the white one back to Atsushi and wondered why it hadn't occurred to him before.

He felt stupid. He honestly felt stupid. "I'm just going to wait outside, okay?" he said.

Neither Yanagisawa nor Atsushi really gave him a response, going back to their discussion about wristbands.

"But don't you think the white one is boring, da ne?"

Atsushi sighed. "Well then, what's wrong with the red one?"

Yanagisawa shook his head. "You'd have to stick the white one into the wash a lot too, since you sweat so much."

Atsushi looked insulted. "I do not!" he retorted quickly, snatching back the wristband. "There's nothing wrong with white on me."

Yanagisawa snatched it back. "You do too! You sweat more than me, da ne!"

Atsushi snatched the band back. "And why do you care anyway?"

Yanagisawa reached for the band again but Atsushi held it above his head, frowning. "Because if you don't wash it all the time, then it will be yellow before you know it and then you might as well buy a yellow one, da ne."

Yuuta pulled a face as he walked out of the store. Honestly, he thought sometimes that they acted like they were in a bubble. They didn't notice people around them and they argued like idiots. Sometimes he wondered how they could stand each other, but it wasn't as though they didn't make up for their arguments. Besides, if Atsushi didn't put up with the 'da ne's all the time, who else would?

Yuuta pulled his phone out of his pocket again, re-reading Atobe's message. Yumiko had told him once he ought to think before he acted. She'd told him a lot of other things too, though for the most part, he discarded whatever she said because… well… Listening to his big sister was annoying. Still…

Yuuta exited Atobe's message and scrolled back down his inbox, looking for one that Atobe had sent a while ago. He found it quickly. Most of the messages from Syuusuke were the ones he deleted first, so Atobe's messages sat in clumps, only broken by the occasional one from Mizuki or from his sister. The one Atobe had sent him the night before Yuuta had gone to his house was still in his inbox; the last of their odd conversation for the night. Yuuta read it once and snapped his phone shut.

Gakuto and Oshitari's words were still stuck in his head, and he knew he wasn't going to feel better about them until he actually talked to Atobe, but he was going to talk to Atobe.

Atsushi and Yanagisawa came out of the sports store then and the three of them walked back to St Rudolph together.

"Did something happen?" Atsushi asked him as they walked.

Yuuta shook his head quickly. "Why?" he asked quickly.

Atsushi shrugged. "No reason."

Yuuta returned his shrug. He'd been worrying over nothing. Or at least, he hoped he'd been worrying over nothing.

.tbc.