Title: Fictional Truth
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: not mine, cool? cool.
It was difficult to see Yagyuu, be around him, play with him. Niou didn't want it to be difficult. He wanted to be OK with it, he really wanted to be OK with everything. It was just so hard when he practiced with Yagyuu six days a week.

Yagyuu, however, was blithely unaware of Niou's feelings. Niou, the trickster of the courts, earned his nickname for a reason. He was very good at putting up a false front and being someone he wasn't. When he next saw the girl waiting by the courts for Yagyuu to finish up and change, he even managed to tease Yagyuu about his "girlfriend". Yagyuu didn't respond; he just smiled indulgently at Niou and hit a laser beam to end the game between them. "Switch courts." Yagyuu's silence on the topic was at once a relief and a torment. Niou wanted to know more about the girl, but he also was thankful that Yagyuu wasn't constantly talking about her like a lovesick puppy.

The week before the prefectural finals, Niou found Sanada and Yanagi arguing inside the clubroom. Neither raised his voice, but both were clearly very set in having their way. He sauntered over to see what the argument was about.

"Why do you want to put Jackal and Marui in singles? You know they're better at doubles." Sanada tugged on his cap, clearly distressed at why the team's dataman seemed to be acting so irrationally.

"They can both play singles - they're both good and you know it. Plus, this is a good change to test their level - you know they're better than anything Hanomiya can ever come up with." Yanagi's gaze never left Sanada's face. It was clear that he was up to something and already had all the data analyzed. It just wasn't clear to anyone else what that data said.

"That not a real reason, Renji, and you know it. Hanomiya shouldn't be able to test any of our Regulars. Even if it is just the prefecturals, it's still a final round, and we should show them some respect by putting forward our best lineup." To some degree, Sanada was correct. People cared more about the final round of a small tournament than the double octofinals of a large tournament, and as returning national champions, Rikkai should demonstrate grace by respecting that. "I still think we should at least have Niou and Yagyuu in doubles one."

Niou stiffened, his hand frozen on the sheet of paper with Yanagi's lineup on it. He immediately understood what the problem was when he saw his name next to Kirihara's on the paper. Marui and Kirihara appeared over his shoulder, and he forced himself to relax. "This looks fine to me - I'd like to try playing with the little devil sometime, and this seems as good a time as any." Niou ruffled Kirihara's hair and the junior responded by sticking his tongue out in annoyance. Kirihara had learned early on that while he made his opponents shake in their sneakers with terror, he would never be able to make his upperclassman bat an eyelash, and so had dropped his antagonistic front around them.

Sanada raised an eyebrow at him. "Akaya's not a doubles player and you know it."

"That's what will make it interesting, fukubuchou." Marui popped his gum as he looked at the lineup. "Plus, playing with different partners helps with growing as individual players, which will help their formation more than continuously playing together."

Sanada sighed and set the lineup down on the desk. "Fine, fine. Just remember, losing is unacceptable."

"You don't really think we'd lose to Hanomiya, do you?" Niou smiled. This was going to be interesting. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Yagyuu looking at them silently. Throughout the whole conversation, Yagyuu had not injected any comment for or against the lineup switching. Niou wondered how Yagyuu felt about it, though he figured his partner was most likely interested in seeing if the switchup really could help their combination.

In retrospect, Yanagi probably realized that pairing Niou and Kirihara in doubles wasn't the best of ideas. They both enjoyed torturing their opponents in the own ways, but together - their opponents never had a chance. Niou didn't even have time to perform his plan before Kirihara finished up the match, six-love. Oh well; he could save it to use at a later tournament.

Despite their appearance and reputations, Yanagi and Yagyuu were no less vicious. Their opponents couldn't return a single of their shots, and the match was over before Niou finished his typical post-match weight training. Marui's match was amicable by comparison, though he still won without letting his opponent score a single point.

The presence of one particular girl in the audience didn't escape Niou's attention, nor did her anxiety during the doubles one match. After they bowed to their opponents, they prepared to head over to the hospital as a team to fill Yukimura in on the details of the match. Even with such apparently flawless victories though, each player knew that his serves could have been faster and his returns more deadly. There was always room for improvement, and Yukimura would doubtlessly remind them of it. The girl joined them as they exited the courts; Yagyuu introduced her to the team as Mizutani Ami. She was tiny when surrounded by the Regulars of the Rikkai tennis club and appeared very fragile. She and Yagyuu were kept busy answering - and sometimes evading - Marui and Kirihara's endless questions about how they met and how far they'd gone. She was quite pretty when she blushed, Niou noticed. He hated that.

"You seemed to take a backseat to Akaya there." Yanagi fell into step next to Niou, who wasn't very interested in watching Yagyuu sigh at Marui's inappropriateness before turning to smile gently down at Mizutani. At least they weren't hold hands or anything disgusting like that.

"Yea, well. I didn't really have time to execute my part before the match was over."

"Ah. Will you be using it at Kantou, then?"

"Maybe. I'd have to arrange it with Yagyuu though - I'm assuming he and I will be partnering in the finals."

"Yes, that would be the best possible scenario. You'd be up against Seigaku's Golden Pair."

"They sound interesting."

"Ah."

They walked in silence for awhile, and Niou glanced up at Yanagi out of the corner of his eye. Yanagi looked like a boy who'd grown into a man in one day - his body was too long and deceptively skinny. He slouched just a little when he walked, and he always held his head high. Yanagi knew everything before it happened, and fed Niou information on opponents so that he could think of a way to strike. Yanagi got more chocolates on Valentine's Day than any geek had a right to - even more than Sanada and Jackal.

Yanagi cared about him, enough to know that Niou was still deeply infatuated with Yagyuu and not care, if it meant they could be together.

Yanagi was pretty damn cool, but at the end of the day, Yanagi was not Yagyuu Hiroshi.


Oh right. Alternate universe and all that. Think if Prince of Tennis were set in high school. And while I may mention tournaments that happened in the storyline, the lineups and such are all off.

The next part should be more interesting...

As usual, comments and the like loved.