ritenudo slow down at once
When Light is fourteen, he wins the national tennis tournament for junior high students for the second year in a row.
His mother beams her approval at him, and he's too excited to take much note of the hint of reserve in her eyes. He grins and clutches his trophy as they make their way back home, reliving the best moments of the tournament in his head: his first point and his final one, the expressions on his opponents' faces when he beat them. Some of them had looked upset, or disbelieving; some of them, remembering him from last year, had seemed resigned.
Sachiko puts the trophy on a high shelf next to the previous year's, and sends him off to shower and finish the weekend's homework, which he's neglected until now in favor of preparing for the tournament. He hurries to do so, feeling his mother's gaze on his back.
Still exhilarated, he finishes his homework quickly and starts down the stairs, intending to look at his trophy for a while, but then he stops, hearing his parents' voices in the living room. He wants to run and greet his father, receive his congratulations, but something in his parents' quiet, almost furtive voices suggests he'll be better served by staying here than by making his presence known. So, restraining himself, he sits on the stairs and listens.
"...concerned," Soichiro is saying. "With his talent, with his mind, he should be focusing on school."
"His grades are perfect, dear," Sachiko says. "There's no sign that he's letting his studies lapse." There's a note of censure in her voice, but Light can hear also a degree of hesitation, as though she isn't sure whether to agree with Soichiro or not.
"But think what he could accomplish," Soichiro insists. "If he would just give up playing games. Imagine what he could do, Sachiko."
"I don't know," she says, sounding unsure. "If his grades are good... It's not that I don't agree with you. It's only that I feel like he should be allowed to do what he wants, at least for now. He's a child."
"He's too brilliant to be wasting his life on sports," Soichiro says, stubborn, and after a moment, Sachiko sighs.
"You're right, dear. But what am I going to do about it? I can hardly tell him to quit, not when he's just..."
Light doesn't hear the rest of her sentence. Stunned, he stumbles back to his room, where he leans against the door and blinks back tears he's too old to shed, pierced by a hurt he's far too old to feel.
Well, he thinks. That's that.
Four days later, he announces calmly to his mother that he plans to quit tennis once he enters high school. She looks concerned, and asks him why, but there's a glimmer of relief as well that he can't miss, now that he's looking for it. Good, he thinks.
His father should be pleased, too, once he hears.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This idea is blatantly and mostly shamelessly stolen from Vashtijoy, even more than most of the rest of this fic. I have permission, at least?