"Hard to say"
Summary: Watanabe explains to Shiraishi why he doesn't call Shiraishi by his first name.
Written in: October 7-12, 2008
A list of all the regular's names was written in Shiraishi's notebook and he was underlining them viciously.
"What are you doing?" Kenya finally asked when his friend actually ripped the page out and scrunched it up. "That will leave a permanent mark on your book.
After having borrowed one of Shiraishi's books to copy his notes, Kenya discovered that his friend disliked having his books damaged since the others had assigned him extra laps due to having spilt coke onto the cover.
"Who cares!" Shiraishi muttered as he threw the paper toward the direction of the bin before he shoved the book into his bag.
"Hey, what is this?" Chitose asked since he ended up being in the way of the paper's journey to the bin.
"What is wrong with Shiraishi?" Chitose muttered as he unfolded the paper, since their friend marched out of the room in a very bad mood. "Isn't this Shiraishi's writing? Why are every name other then my first name and his first name underlined?"
"How would I know? Maybe he was planning the orders for the next game and got mad when he couldn't get something to work." Kenya said.
With a shrug, Chitose threw the re-scrunched up ball of paper into the direction of the bin, but it seemed that this piece of paper was not destined to go there as it landed on Watanabe's desk instead.
Human nature was a curious about too much stuff. Upon seeing the ball of paper on his desk, Watanabe immediately unfolded it just as Chitose did.
But unlike his student, he clearly had some knowledge about the meaning of this hseet of paper as he took out a ruler and began to flatten the paper.
"Foolish boy." He whispered to himself with a smile. "Wise in all areas saved in this aspect."
No doubt this was caused by that incident two days ago.
"Oshitari, let's have a game!" Chitose had suggested.
"That feels really weird." Kenya laughed out as he agreed by taking his racquet. "Most people just call me Kenya."
"It's because you have this 'Don't call me by my last name as I don't want people to get me confused with my cousin.'" Shiraishi said. "Why don't we have a doubles game? Gin is free."
"So you want me to call you by your first name?" Chitose asked. "You don't mind? I only know you guys for a few weeks."
"We often use one another's first name or use it now and then." Kenya assured him. "Koharu, Yuuji, Gin and I along with Kintarou hardly have our last name used. Shiraishi and Zaizen occasionally get their first name used."
"It's because of our coach." Gin explained. "He usually calls us by our first name once we reached our second year, instead of only sometimes using it in our first year. We ended up doing the same thing ourselves. Zaizen is only in his second year so I think our coach will start now. Same with you."
"And Kin-chan just gets called by his first name for some reason." Shiraishi added.
"What about you?" Chitose asked curiously.
"'His first name is too much a mouthful.'" Kenya and Gin both quoted out at the same time.
A lie that was finally detected, Watanabe thought grimly as he continued watching Shiraishi practise.
As usual, Shiraishi stayed behind at practise while his coach remained in his office to do work, which included keeping an eye on him.
But Watanabe felt that he had to go out and interfere when he saw a tennis ball being hit onto the fence- a rather bad and rare mistake.
"You must not be emotional when you play, Shiraishi." He chided gently as he went to stand right next to him.
This time, the ball wasn't even served properly.
"What is it?" Watanabe asked.
Surely it couldn't be because of that…
"Why am I still that to you?" Shiraishi demanded angrily. "I would have thought that it would be me, not Kenya who you address by the first name first. True, we've both been in the team ever since our first year but I am the one who became the captain in my second year! If you ask anyone then I bet they will give you the same answer."
"Does that matter so much to you?" he shouldn't really be shocked since that piece of paper revealed Shiraishi's true feelings.
"Yes." The boy said without any hesitation. "You know why!"
"And that is why I can't call you by your first name. Fifteen years old is not old enough."
"Not old enough for what?"
"Well, I suppose I will make today an exception in order to explain this." Upon saying so, he kissed his student on the lips without any warning.
"Fifteen years old is not old enough for me to do this without being prosecuted by the law." Watanabe said when he finally pulled away from the kiss. "Do you understand now? I can't call you by the first name because this is what Kuranosuke is to me."
"How…how old do I have to be then?" Shiraishi asked, grabbing Watanabe's hand with both his hands.
"Sixteen at the very least." His coach said with clear regret in his voice while he used his free hand to stroke the boy's cheek.
"Then give that to me when I am sixteen." Shiraishi said with full certainty. "Let that be my sixteen year old birthday present."