"Kurobane-nii-chan!"

Bane blinked. The voice was unfamiliar, but the suffix wasn't. Only one person had ever called him that. He turned around to see a boy striding through a gaggle of new first years towards him, one hand in the air in a wave.

"Amane!" Bane exclaimed after seven seconds of searching his memory. He hadn't seen the kid in three months, after all. "You got in?"

Amane adjusted the collar of his gakuran. "Yep. Am thinking of joining the tennis club." He looked down at Bane, who realised rather belatedly that the kid now stood half a head taller than him. How depressing.

"Good," he replied cheerfully instead. "The club could do with more people." It wasn't that there wasn't enough, but hey, having more members always meant more fun. "Have you ever played tennis before?"

Amane shrugged, a quick rise and fall of one shoulder. "I play a bit here and there," he said, then smiled slightly. "If I join, it means you'd be my senpai, right?"

Bane blinked again. "Uh, I'm already your senpai. Same school, remember?" It really wasn't right that this guy was a year younger and yet so much taller than him. "Anyway. We're having tryouts tomorrow afternoon, so come, ok?" He grinned up at the kid. "I'll play against you for a bit."

Amane's smile brightened a little before sliding away as the bell rang to end lunch period, and he nodded. "I'll see you there." Then, as suddenly as he had arrived, he left. Bane raised an eyebrow at Amane's departing silhouette, then finished his juice and went back to class.

The next day, as Bane and the twins were finishing a few warm-up laps of the grounds, they noticed a few tryout matches being played. Bane jogged to a stop to see if Amane's was one of them, but the distinct red hair was nowhere in sight.

"Looking for someone in particular?" Atsushi asked, hopping a little on the spot to cool down and readjusting his hair tie.

"Tall kid with red hair," Bane answered absently, scanning the entire area. Amane, a tennis bag slung across his shoulder, was just walking in through the gates to the courts, and Bane watched and sipped at his water as the kid wrote his name down on the clipboard provided, and went to change for the tryouts.

Ryou walked over. "Cute kid," he observed. "Could do with a good smile or two, but cute anyway. Weird hair, though."

"Certainly is original," Bane retorted, and Ryou touched his own hair, tied in the same style as Atsushi's, and blew Bane a raspberry. "Come on, I wanna get a few games in before sunset."

The three rotated a few games of two-on-one for a bit, but stopped when the audience in the surrounding courts fell silent. Bane looked up from his loose shoelace to see Amane smash a ball so hard past Saeki that it was barely a blur of neon yellow.

Saeki, who hadn't even had a chance to move, straightened and nodded. "You're definitely in," he told the redhead, and walked forward to stick his hand out across the net with a smile. "Welcome to the team! I'll take your particulars down later." He turned to the shocked, whispering crowd of first years waiting by the club room. "Next?"

Bane jogged over to Amane. "A bit here and there?" he asked incredulously. "That was amazing!" He jerked his thumb back across his shoulder. "Come on, play one against me."

The twins were wearing identical grins as he headed back to the court, but Bane ignored them and gestured to the umpire chair. "Make your smarmy selves useful," he told them. "One set match?" he asked Amane, who did that slight shrug again and nodded.

The match was close, and when it ended, Bane heard a slow 'hmm' and turned to see Ojii perched on the bench. "Ahh! Ojii!" he exclaimed. "When did you get here?"

"A while ago," Ojii replied, and turned to look at Amane. "Hmm," he repeated, and then told the first year, "You need a new racket. I think I know what to give you."

Bane's jaw dropped, and he heard Atsushi make an incredulous sound from the umpire's seat. Only chosen regulars got Ojii-made rackets, and usually people who dropped out of the regulars or the team would stop using their wooden racket out of respect. To hear Ojii say something like that...

"There's no need to make such a racket," Amane calmly said to the other first years, who were beyond the whispering stage and now openly exclaiming - they knew how important an Ojii-racket was, from spending months as elementary school kids observing the junior high team. Then, to everyone's surprise, Amane turned his head to the side and made a weird 'pfft' noise.

Bane twitched.

Amane waited for a second, then frowned. "Didn't anyone get that? Ojii offered to make me a racket, and I sa--"

Bane threw a ball at his head.

And was startled when Amane turned to him and grinned, wider than he'd seen thus far. Ryou was right - it made him look rather... well, cute. "I knew you'd get it, Kurobane-nii-chan!"

Bane glared at Atsushi, who just sniggered some more at him, then returned his attention to Amane, who was obviously waiting for some kind of response. "It wasn't funny, idiot," he said to the redhead, who just continued to grin at him. "Stop making those stupid puns."

"No," Amane assured him happily. "I like them." He then bowed to Ojii, who hummed cheerfully at him. "Pleased to meet you."

"So!" Ryou said, coming over to sling an arm over Bane's shoulders. "Kurobane-nii-chan, huh?"

"Very nice ring to it," Atsushi added, sliding down from the chair and trotting over to Bane's other side. "Makes you sound like a dirty old man, but cute anyway."

Bane hit them both.