Notes: Multiple chapters today because they're short and because otherwise I'll forget to update. XD

Archive: No.

Reviews: ... I don't know what to write here anymore XD

About Us

Chapter 13

By Miki

"Wait, wait!" Kaneda yelled quickly, next to Akazawa as they both rounded the corner and found themselves face to face with Yuuta.

Or was that… suit to suit. They were all dressed in hired protective outfits; black plastic suits and black boots covered with smeared paint. Evidence that a lot of people had worn these boots before and had been shot out of the game.

Kaneda could only recognise Yuuta by his hair. Their faces were protected by masks and even Mizuki was running around looking a lot like an alien with a poof of curly hair on his head. He'd been eliminated about five minutes into the game when Yuuta refused to sacrifice himself for his manager while he tied up his hair, but then Mizuki had declared the first five minutes 'warm up' and had declared that once you were shot ten times between two people, you were out.

Even Akazawa hadn't really cared about that, since they all figured Mizuki would be easy to catch out anyway. Giving him a bit of leeway at the beginning of the game wasn't going to make a difference.

Now Mizuki was behind Yuuta – they were back to back – and Akazawa watched as Kaneda yelped and suddenly dived behind him.

"O-Oi!" he protested, but Mizuki was on the ball and Akazawa had been caught off guard and he found himself hit rather hard with a huge splotch of purple paint.

He almost wished he'd thought of using Kaneda as a shield first. The team rankings really didn't matter to him at all, but it was more the bruises he was concerned about, because as far as he was concerned, they hurt like hell.

(S)

Yuuta ought to have said no.

He pulled down his boxers and stared in his bathroom mirror, poking one finger uncomfortably at the spot at the lower part of his back. It was turning green already, which was pretty funny considering it had been Nomura who had shot him last night and it was only Saturday afternoon now. There was another bruise forming on his right buttock; the result of one of Atsushi's shots. Weirdly enough, it was the only one of Atsushi's shots to have hit him, though he landed two on Mizuki.

Yuuta wasn't sure if it was his pride or his backside which was more injured.

He wanted to blame Mizuki for the fact that they lost the game to Kaneda and Akazawa, since Mizuki had taken three shots and he'd taken two. But Mizuki had actually taken one paintball for him, so he supposed he couldn't really say it was all Mizuki's fault.

Yanagisawa and Atsushi stuck together too much to be much use as a team, especially when everyone else could hear the 'da ne's coming from around the corner and get ready to spring an attack.

Yuuta wondered why he couldn't have been by himself and forced Nomura to partner with Mizuki instead.

Still, he was glad the whole exercise was over anyway. Mizuki had rambled on a bit about tactics and strategy at the end of the whole thing, but mostly he was busy telling Nomura off for daring to hit his hair with a paintball, so Nomura had quipped that Mizuki ought to have thought strategy himself and brought one of his shower caps.

It was good that Nomura actually had muscles in his body because Mizuki had assigned him an inhumane number of sit-ups.

So he could think things over while he did them.

"Yuuta!" Mizuki called out through the door.

Yuuta jerked, tensing on the spot and imagining – not for the first time – that Mizuki could have eyes that could see through doors.

"I'm still doing it!" he yelled back, frowning at his bruises, pushing his boxers down further so he could turn his head to try and peer at his own backside. It was uncomfortable and put a kink in his neck doing it, but Mizuki had given him some cream he was supposed to apply and he was standing outside the door and probably wouldn't go away until Yuuta told him he'd done it and handed back his stupid pot of cream.

Yuuta wished the noises he made wouldn't echo in the bathroom quite so much.

"Yuuuuuuu-ta-kuuuuun!" Mizuki called out again, rapping his knuckles on the door. "Do you need help?"

Yuuta unscrewed the top of the tub, dipped his fingers into the gooey white mess and slathered it rather liberally on his bruises. Then he pulled back up his boxers and shorts and pulled his shirt back on and hoped he'd put on enough cream to appease Mizuki for the next day at least.

His backside felt kind of slimy now, and it felt as though his boxers were sticking in it. At least he wasn't seeing Atobe today, he figured. He'd have something to say about all of it, Yuuta thought.

Stupid Atobe. Stupid Mizuki. And stupid cream that was making things feel odd.

(S)

"Yuuta!"

Yuuta turned around, looking up from his position on his bed. "What?" he asked, turning his back to his guest and shoving another pair of boxers into his bag. He ticked things off on his fingers; maths text book, English reading book, boxers, shorts, clean shirt, socks, Japanese history workbook…

He didn't think his brother had any plans for the weekend so he might as well try to get ahead in history at least, since he knew he had that Monday morning and his teacher was going to have his head if he wasn't prepared again. Besides, he had an awful feeling it was his turn to answer questions, and having slacked off the week before, if she asked him anything other than what was in the first paragraph of the latest chapter, she'd be getting a whole lot of nothing.

Which wouldn't look good on his grades.

"We're going to play tennis," Atsushi said.

Yuuta considered.

He pushed the thought of Atobe to the back of his mind. If he weren't busy, they could have met up today at least, but he was doing some stupid family dinner and Yuuta wasn't his family and it wasn't as though Atobe could even help that, but it still ticked Yuuta off to no end.

No, he wasn't going to think about that.

It was only a little after two in the afternoon, so even if he went home now, his brother might be out of the house and, well, everything with Atobe had left Yuuta feeling like he had too much energy for his own good. He pushed his bag aside and got up, looking around on the floor for another pair of socks and where had he put his other shoe? Hadn't it been somewhere around here?

"So is that a yes?" Atsushi asked, watching him.

"It's a yes, da ne," Yanagisawa nodded.

Yuuta rolled his eyes, only a little annoyed Yanagisawa thought he could answer for him. He tossed a dirty shirt his way but Yanagisawa just pushed it aside and it landed on Atsushi instead.

"I heard there's a street tournament on tomorrow, da ne."

Yuuta perked up.

(S)

Tachibana An wasn't the person Yuuta really wanted to see, but she was okay, he supposed. Considering he knew some of his brother's friends sometimes hung out here, he guessed he didn't mind bumping into the Fudoumine guys instead. They weren't so egotistic really, and they weren't about to tell his brother anything weird at school on Monday.

Yuuta grinned in satisfaction as he sent a return flying down the sideline next to Yanagisawa.

"Hey! Why didn't you get that?" Kamio demanded loudly, showing his irritation with his impromptu doubles partner.

"It was fast, da ne!" Yanagisawa protested, having sprinted from the other side of the court to try to catch it. "If you're so fast, why don't you get it next time, huh?"

Kamio looked incensed. "Are you saying I'm slow, huh? What sort of game would this be if I had to cover the whole court for you?"

"I'm saying you can't say anything if you can't get it yourself, da ne!" Yanagisawa insisted, stepping towards Kamio.

Kamio put his hands on his hips, standing up straighter and scowling. "But it's not my job to get that, is it? What would be the point in playing doubles if I had to get everything? You're a doubles player, 'cause you sure can't play singles, so what are you-"

"Who says I can't play singles, da ne? I bet I could beat your any day, you shrimp!"

"Hey…" An drawled, an amused smile on her face. She leaned across the net, distracting her opponents for a moment.

Yanagisawa and Kamio turned to her. "What?" they demanded loudly, annoyed to have been interrupted.

Yuuta smiled a bit awkwardly, stepping up beside An. "Don't you think we could just finish the game?" he asked, shaking his head a little.

Yanagisawa could be really stubborn sometimes but Atsushi was on the other court playing a singles match against Ibu and therefore couldn't interrupt to knock some sense back into his partner.

"If you hadn't decided to play with An, I wouldn't have to play with him!" Kamio said loudly, pointing his finger squarely at Yuuta.

Yuuta's temper flared. "Hey! You can't say that just because you can't hit the stupid ball! You're ju-"

An put her hand on his arm, startling him into shutting up and nearly biting his own tongue in doing so.

"Kamio-kun…"

Kamio glared at the spot where An was touching Yuuta and stomped his foot on the ground. "Hurry up and serve the ball Yanagisawa!" he snapped loudly.

Yuuta pulled his arm back from An's hand quickly, glad for the fact that he had to get back to his position quickly to receive Yanagisawa's serve. An stepped up close to him again when Yanagisawa double faulted, blaming Kamio for distracting him by yelling things while he was trying to concentrate. Kamio blamed Yanagisawa and said that if he wasn't a second-rate player, he wouldn't have to yell instructions in the first place.

An simply sighed but took the opportunity to walk up to Yuuta again. Whatever she said about tactics went right over Yuuta's head as he felt all the blood going to his face instead.

She kept touching him and it was making him feel weird all over and he didn't want her to make him feel like that because it felt wrong. Because it suddenly occurred to him that the only person who had touched him before and made his body feel like that was Atobe. The only thing that saved Yuuta from his embarrassment was the fact that Kamio started yelling again and looked like he was about to vault the net.

Yuuta glared back at him and after Yanagisawa finally managed to serve something that didn't hit the net, Yuuta made sure to smack it straight back at Kamio to shut him up. He was so loud and Yuuta couldn't stand people who were loud like that.

An and Yuuta ended up beating Yanagisawa and Kamio, but only really because they self-destructed. Ibu and Atsushi had a much more civil match, something Yuuta thought might have been due to the fact that Ibu's mumbling was ten decibels quieter than the loud babbling Atsushi was used to.

"By the way, you know there's a tournament on tomorrow?" An asked, brushing down her shirt.

Yuuta glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes.

"Ah, yeah…" he answered vaguely.

He wasn't going anywhere tomorrow. He was going to go home and watch movies and he knew exactly the one he wanted to watch, though he wasn't about to tell anyone else if they asked. Even his brother sometimes paid him out about watching kids' movies, but Yuuta found them comforting and who cared if mice didn't really talk in English? They didn't talk in Japanese either, but that wasn't the point. Some movies were just classics.

"So are you coming?" An asked, smiling at him.

"No… I'm going home," Yuuta mumbled, looking at Atsushi.

He didn't save him though, and neither did Yanagisawa, because he was too busy glaring at Kamio to pay any attention to Yuuta.

"Well there should be some good mixed doubles matches tomorrow if you want to play," An hinted.

"An-chan! Why can't I play with you?" Kamio whined, looking offended.

"Isn't it obvious? It must have something to do with Fuji-kun's body since I'm sure An's been staring at him a lot today. I mean, she stares at you normally but it's a different kind of stare like when you're being stupid or when you're with Tachibana-san, or like the other day when we were having ice cream and you put too much in your mouth and froze your teeth and your mouth started going numb," Ibu supplied helpfully. "I think it's the same sort of stare that she gives to those boys at the basketball courts, don't you-"

"Shinji," Kamio glowered.

"See, da ne," Yanagisawa smirked, rubbing salt into the wound. "Even Ibu says it, da ne. Yuuta's way better than you are, da ne. He has to be, doesn't he, since even At-"

Atsushi hit Yanagisawa's arm abruptly.

An gave Yanagisawa an interested look, having ignored the spiel that had just come out of Ibu's mouth. She glanced at Yuuta and he looked away, unaware that Yanagisawa had been about to blurt out anything.

He was too busy willing his face not to turn bright red when he thought about An looking at him funny. He thought he ought to hurry up and go home before he got stuck with the peak hour traffic on the trains.

(S)

Yumiko stepped into the café, glancing left and right at the tables near the doorway. She assumed Atobe wouldn't be at any of those; he'd be more likely to have a table at the back where there were less people walking past or at the sides where the views of the street were still reasonable but where the in and out traffic of the door didn't get in the way.

She was right; she spotted him sitting at a table by the window facing towards her though he didn't seem to notice her. He was too busy looking out the window, apparently having decided that she was five minutes late and that he couldn't wait to order himself something to drink.

"Atobe-kun."

He looked up at her quickly as she sat down.

"Fuji-san," he returned.

He traced his finger around the base of his glass for a moment, trying to remember how he'd envisaged starting this conversation. Yumiko beat him to it though.

"I see you went ahead and ordered without me," she smiled. "I hope that doesn't mean you were waiting for me for a long time."

"No, not at all," Atobe lied. Truthfully, the timing was a little awkward for him so he'd ended up coming straight from training and spending twenty minutes by himself. Kabaji wasn't required and it would take a whole lot of explaining to him if he did come, though Atobe did intend to tell him sooner or later…

Seeing Yumiko made him feel a little more settled though, as odd as it was. He'd have preferred to see Yuuta, but maybe it wasn't such a bad thing to get this meeting with his sister out of the way first.

"So," he prompted, "why is it that Yuuta can't be told about this?"

Yumiko picked up the menu on the table, opening it and ignoring Atobe's question for a moment. "What's the coffee like here?" she asked, flicking the page.

Atobe frowned. "It's… fine," he answered, wanting to get back to his question. "I'd recommend the tea rather than the coffee, but that's besides the point-"

Yumiko smiled, making him suddenly feel wary. "And what is the point, Atobe-kun?"

Atobe sat back in his chair, crossing his legs. He could only just do it under the height of the table and it felt awkward. Uncrossing his legs though would have been more awkward, so he put up with it. "I just wonder why you don't think Yuuta has the right to know that we're meeting today."

Yumiko laughed. "Oh, he has the right; I didn't say he didn't. I just told you not to tell him."

Atobe uncrossed his legs and sat forwards, staring intently at Yumiko, trying to understand what she was thinking.

"You know, I think I'll try out the crème brulée, since we're here," Yumiko said, calling over the waiter. "Are you having anything, Atobe?"

He shook his head. He'd be lying to say he didn't have an appetite, but he didn't really feel like eating with Yumiko. He could save it for later when he got home. He felt more than a little guilty about meeting her like this, and he kept wondering exactly what Yuuta was doing right now. Was he with Mizuki? Or was he by himself? Was he annoyed about not being able to meet up? It wasn't all his fault but Atobe was irked by the fact that he had to sit here with Yumiko, not knowing at all what she was thinking or why she'd asked him to come, while he could have been seeing Yuuta instead.

"You know, Atobe-kun, I'm only going to say this to you once."

Atobe looked at Yumiko.

"Yuuta is my little brother," she smiled. "If you hurt him, I think he'd probably forgive you but I certainly wouldn't. I just want you to be sure of what you're doing before you do it."

Atobe frowned. Did she think he'd just decided to date Yuuta on impulse? Did she think he didn't understand the implications it would have for both their families if they found out? Did she not understand that he, even more so than Yuuta, had everything to lose if the wrong people found out about it?

"I understand your concern," he started, "but I…"

He blinked as he saw a pair of familiar faces at the door of the café.

(S)

"I don't know why we were trying to follow Fuji-kun anyway. I don't think An knows either and I think Akira's about to lose his head since he looks red in the face, though I guess he often looks red in the face whenever An's around. I guess she notices though she hasn't said anything, but isn't it funny that Fuji-kun turned red today as well? I wonder why it doesn't happen to me when I stand next to An-chan and I wonder what Tachibana-san would say if he knew that An-chan liked Fuji-kun, though I don't suppose he'd have a problem with Fuji-kun. It's not like he's Atobe after all, or even…"

Ibu trailed off as Kamio glared at him.

"Do you mind?" he snapped, his face nearly matching the colour of his hair.

"By the way, we're not following anyone anymore anyway," An said, sighing. "I think we lost them a while ago."

Kamio groaned. "Where are we anyway? I don't know this part of town."

An shook her head, looking around. "I don't know… I think…"

She hesitated, unsure whether to head in the direction they were going or turn around and try to retrace their steps. "I guess we could ask someone, or else try to find some landmarks?"

"I vote for landmarks," Kamio said loudly.

An gave him a dirty look.

"What's wrong with asking someone?" she questioned, grabbing his arm and dragging him up the street and around the corner.

"Oh, look at those people over there," Ibu muttered. "Don't they realise they're leaving marks all over the windows? Don't they realise that someone has to clean those marks off and the more marks they leave on the windows, the more they have to pay for their food next time they go out because-"

"Shinji," Kamio said warningly, though he sounded less cranky than before because An was still holding his arm.

Ibu ignored him and continued on his tangent. "People like that don't appreciate the money that goes into cleaning. See, if you have to spend time cleaning the windows and nothing is free, then those people have to be paid to clean windows so that contributes to the cost that goes into making coffee so then the coffee costs more the more marks there are on the windows…"

"Shinji. I don't think a few marks on the windows are going to make a big difference to the price of coffee," An said, trying to get him to be quiet. "Besides, who are you talking about?"

Ibu raised a finger, pointing across the road and behind them. "On second though, those people don't look very old, do they? Actually the short one looks familiar, doesn't he? He has the same sort of hair as Akira, only I bet he can actually see out of his hair because I often wonder how Akira manages to see the tennis balls when he has hair in the way. It's just-"

"Aren't they Oshitari and Mukahi from Hyoutei?" An blurted out, stopping.

Kamio would have kept walking but for the fact that An yanked his arm and he yelped. "Does it matter?" he sulked.

"We can ask them for directions," An exclaimed, looking for the best spot to cross the road.

"That's embarrassing, An-chan…" Kamio complained, but let himself be dragged anyway. "I bet they don't even know and even if they did, they wouldn't tell us because they're all up themselves at Hyoutei, just like that stupid Atobe."

An cringed at the mention of Atobe's name, but it didn't deter her from dragging Kamio across the road and back down the street.

"Hi," she announced loudly, interrupting Oshitari and Gakuto.

The two of them jumped, Gakuto glaring as he recovered from the surprise.

An smiled. "Did we interrupt something?" she asked, recognising the look of guilt that crossed Gakuto's face.

He crossed his arms, suddenly taciturn. "What makes you think that?"

An glanced through the window where they'd been staring just a moment before. She stepped back a little as she recognised Atobe; the memories of her experience with him just a little fresh in her mind.

"You're not exactly being subtle if you're trying to spy on him, you know," she pointed out, trying to rid herself of the feeling that Atobe could just glance at them any moment. She almost wished Ibu hadn't spotted these two here.

Gakuto snorted. "What we do is our business. Don't go sticking your nose into it, Tachibana An."

An smiled. "Oh, so you remember me?"

Gakuto rolled his eyes. "Of course. You're the person Atobe liked before he liked…" he stopped, frowning and glancing in the window again.

"Hey, do you think he's seen us, Yuushi?"

Oshitari snapped to attention as Atobe glanced at them.

Gakuto wasn't looking through the window at that moment, so he shrugged and pushed his glasses back up his nose. "Probably not."

.tbc.