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Satisfaction
Chapter 7
By Miki
Yuuta opened his eyes slowly.
Something was making noise.
It was still dark in his room, but he had no idea what time it was – his alarm clock was still broken and broken alarm clocks didn't tell the time.
He rolled over, willing the noise to stop, but then he realised that his pillow was vibrating and he blinked.
Someone was calling him.
He'd stuck his phone under his pillow so he didn't have to reach out of bed to his bedside table, but now he was wondering why he didn't just turn it off because the only sorts of people who ever rang in the middle of the night were weird people. And Yuuta liked to avoid weird people.
He knew enough of them already.
"Hello?"
"Yuuta."
"Aniki," Yuuta frowned, sitting up in bed and looking across to the wall in the dark. "Why are you calling?"
'Why are you bugging me in the middle of the night?' was what he really wanted to ask, but weird people did weird things, and Aniki always gave weird answers that made no sense, so he didn't ask.
"Because I wanted to talk to you, of course."
Yuuta yawned again, blinking and then sinking back down into his bed. "Why now?" he grumbled. "Couldn't you have waited until morning?"
Fuji was quiet for a moment. "But it is morning."
"Later in the morning."
"Mizuki told me you were out. I thought I should check up on you."
Yuuta opened his mouth to reply.
Nothing came out.
What was Mizuki doing talking to Aniki?
It was the boxers. Definitely the boxers. Oh. Yuuta could see it now.
He wanted to bury himself in a hole.
"Yuuta," came Fuji's voice again, and Yuuta cringed.
"Let's go on a date this weekend."
"Huh?"
It wasn't the boxers.
"We could go to Disneyland and go on the rides together. Wouldn't that be fun, Yuuta?"
Yuuta didn't actually think so, but something told him that if Aniki was ringing in the middle of the night to ask him to go on a date, he'd better say yes.
(S)
When Yuuta next opened his eyes, it was bright in his room, and he wished he hadn't been so lazy in pulling his curtains shut the night before.
He shut his eyes again and stuck his head under the covers where it was dark still, trying to remember why he felt so tired.
A moment later, he heard the noise of the corridor outside and realised someone had opened his bedroom door.
"Yuuta!" came Mizuki's voice, and Yuuta stuck his head out from under the blankets, feeling really sorry that he hadn't bought a new alarm clock yet.
When he bought one, he'd remember he didn't want it to talk.
Or give advice.
"Oof! Mizuki!"
Or sit on him.
(S)
Atobe smiled a little as he sipped his coffee.
He looked around the empty dining room and was glad he'd sent the servants off for breakfast. Despite the fact that one could have an ever present shadow, it didn't necessarily mean that one wanted such a thing. There were of course, times when he preferred to do things for himself.
Nothing strenuous though.
Atobe liked to draw the line at pouring his own coffee.
Seeing the newspaper strategically placed to his right, he picked it up and put it on the table, pushing his empty plate aside so he could flick through the pages quickly.
There was nothing, as usual.
The business pages were full of acquisitions, buyouts, advice of sorts and there was nothing interesting in the news or sports sections.
He frowned and pushed the paper aside, and for a moment, he wondered what Yuuta was doing.
He supposed Yuuta was eating breakfast at the dormitory.
Cereal probably – something easily distributed on a large scale at seven in the morning. Proper Japanese meals would probably be too much to ask every day, and boarders often seemed happy enough to settle for second-rate food anyway.
Most people ate second-rate food most of the time.
Atobe ran his finger around the rim of his coffee cup absentmindedly as he pondered.
It had only just occurred to him that it was strange that Yuuta would board at St Rudolph when Fuji lived at home and attended Seigaku.
For some reason, it had never before crossed his mind to ask why.
The Kisarazu twins came to mind, and he remembered the rumours about Mizuki's recruitment of players – poaching, as it were – from other schools.
Surely he couldn't have gone out of his way to recruit someone like Yuuta. There was nothing that stood out about him, was there?
Certainly not compared to Fuji Syuusuke.
Atobe frowned and put his fingers to his forehead.
Was there something about Fuji Yuuta that Mizuki could see and he couldn't?
He blinked as he felt something hot on his finger and looked down in surprise to see his finger had slipped from the rim of his coffee into the cup itself.
Atobe pulled his finger out of his coffee, stared at it in disgust for a moment and then picked up the nearest napkin, wiping off the warm liquid.
He felt somewhat irked that such a trivial matter should matter at all. Really, Ore-sama didn't have time to bother with other people.
He hardly had time for himself sometimes.
So with a slight sigh, he got up from his chair, flicked his hair and looked around impatiently for a servant to attend to him.
Where was a half-decent butler when you wanted your jacket put on? Huh?
(S)
Yuuta wasn't always the perfect student in class.
But he wasn't usually this bad either.
His English text book was opened up to page sixty, and his note book sat in front of him, duly opened at a clean page. The date was written on the top and next to it, the topic title: Uses of verb tenses.
Unfortunately for Yuuta, scribbles of Mizuki, Kisarazu, Yanagisawa and a whole heap of flying tennis balls were not categorised as verbs.
His English teacher made a point of telling him so, and added that she wouldn't mind seeing more of his artwork.
In her offce.
After school.
(S)
Atobe examined a nail.
The woman who'd done his manicure a few days ago had pushed his cuticle back too far and he'd snapped at her for it, but it wasn't as though she could undo what she'd just done, so he'd have to put up with it. It felt a little sensitive though, and she hadn't been as careful with his hands as she ought to have been.
He frowned, and tapped the tips of his fingers on the table beside him.
"Kabaji."
"Usu."
"Hypothetically speaking," Atobe said, pausing and giving Kabaji a look, "if you gave your card to someone, when would you expect a phonecall in return?"
Kabaji hesitated in replying.
"Is it really too much to ask for people to be prompt?" Atobe complained, tapping his fingers on the tabletop again.
He watched the Hyotei regulars practising on the courts, and made sure to give some of the first years a stare that sent them scurrying. They shouldn't have been staring anyway.
Of course, most people couldn't help but stare at him, and he knew that. But they shouldn't be doing it when they had swings to practise and push-ups to do. Atobe wouldn't give people a chance to say that Hyotei slacked off.
"There might be such a thing as being too prompt," Oshitari said, surprising Atobe as he joined the group.
Atobe took a sip of his drink and frowned. "Of course not. Commoners just have no manners whatsoever," he grumbled, one hand fumbling to check his phone in his pocket. "People should know better than to keep me waiting, na, Kabaji?"
"Usu."
Oshitari smirked, finding amusement in his captain's apparent bad mood.
"Whose call are you expecting?"
Atobe frowned. "I'm not expecting a call. Like I said, it was a hypothe-"
"Atobe," Jirou bounded over, racquet clasped in one hand. "I'm finished already!"
Atobe looked up and, sure enough, it looked as though Choutarou and Shishido had finished their training as well.
Sakaki wasn't around, and quite frankly, Atobe was ready to go home.
Perhaps he should have played a match.
It would have taken his mind off… things.
"-be… Atobe…"
"Hm?" He looked up, raising an eyebrow. "What?"
Jirou gave him a troubled look, and he realised his team mates were waiting for him to instruct them.
He put his fingers to his temple, frowning.
"Are you okay, Atobe?" Jirou blurted out quickly, rocking forward and back on his heels as he looked at the boy with concern.
"Fine," Atobe said, waving his hand, trying to get his thoughts in order.
He was getting distracted.
He didn't have time right now to be thinking about these sorts of trifling matters; Hyotei had a practise session and they were wasting time right now, and Oshitari was giving him that look again.
And now his phone was ringing.
What timing, he thought, cursing whoever it was.
Then it hit him.
His phone was ringing.
He waved his team mates away with his arm and hurriedly pulled his phone out of his pocket, brushing down his shirt as though to compose himself before he answered the call.
"Atobe."
(S)
"Girl problems," Oshitari announced, adjusting his glasses and watching Atobe out of the corner of his eyes.
"I think it's the cheese," Jirou whispered, and Oshitari gave him a bemused smile.
"What cheese?"
"Oh," Jirou said, and looked around with wide, innocent eyes. "He didn't tell you about the cheese?"
"No, he didn't," Oshitari replied carefully, and Jirou suddenly thought that perhaps he shouldn't say anything else.
"Oh," he said, and grinned. "It's a secret then."
(S)
"Business?" Oshitari enquired as Atobe wrapped up his phone call and sat pressing buttons.
"None of yours."
"Oh? Jirou said something about cheese. I didn't know you were into that sort of thing."
Atobe blinked, looking up at Oshitari and narrowing his eyes.
Halfway through programming Yuuta's number, he let his fingers sit idle on the key pad for a moment.
"Isn't that a funny sort of fetish to have?" Oshitari continued, a smile on his lips.
It wasn't often that one found anything to tease Atobe Keigo about, and he could do with the entertainment.
Atobe rolled his eyes, failing to think of a verbal retort.
"Yu-uu…" came a voice from behind his head, and he stood up from his chair quickly, spinning around to glare at Mukahi Gakuto who'd apparently been reading his phone's screen.
"Yuu? Sounds like a girl," he teased, arms stretched behind his head. "I didn't think you were into that sort of thing."
Oshitari smirked, noting Mukahi's imitation of his words.
"Yuu-chan," Ootori blinked, slinging an arm around Shishido and joining in the staring at their captain.
Atobe twitched.
"Yuu-chan?" Jirou repeated, smiling at Atobe. "It's a nice name, isn't it?"
"Indeed," Atobe commented dryly. "You can think about it while you run."
"Run?"
Choutarou grasped Shishido's arm and began dragging him off.
If there was one thing he'd learned about Atobe, it was that there was nothing to know that wasn't already known.
That, and he'd learnt he didn't like laps.
(S)
Atobe lay on his back on his bed, holding his phone above him as he stared at his address book, thumbs idly pressing the up and down buttons alternately.
Yuuta's name sat at the bottom of his address book, still under the name 'Yuu', because that was as far as he'd gotten before Mukahi interrupted.
There was a knock at the door, and a moment later, the butler entered.
He placed a silver tray on the table, and waited for Atobe to sit up and wave his hand lazily before disappearing again and closing the door behind him.
If he was surprised at seeing his master lazing around uncharacteristically on the bed, he didn't say anything.
Atobe eyed the tray for a moment, and then flopped back onto his bed, turning his head to stare toward the window.
Yuuta had said he was free on Tuesday, and Atobe once again counted the days until then.
Too many.
He realised his chest felt funny again, and he sat up quickly, putting the back of his hand to his forehead.
He felt sick.
.tbc.