Focus

Taki-senpai really needs to learn how to focus.

Hiyoshi gritted his teeth and lunged at the punch bag, moments later; it sat in a sorry state in the corner of the room. Hiyoshi was going to need to get Dad to put it back up again. In the meantime, he may as well get his stupid, gay little project done.

The family dojo was quiet, very quiet.

I can only focus when it's quiet, like it is now. Dad's gone off to hospital to visit his friend, Mom's visiting a friend for a girly coffee or something and she never comes in the dojo anyway, and Kobayashi's sitting on his fat ass playing his Xbox as usual. He never comes in here either.

It's nice and late so the dojo's shut to the public, just me and that bat that made himself comfy on one of the ceiling crossbeams. I can focus here. I can focus at school; too, my class is quiet. Ish.

I focus in tennis as well, I have to otherwise I'll never overthrow Buchou. I focus in every aspect of my life and in that respect, I am unstoppable.

Taki-senpai just calls me stubborn, then pinches my cheeks and says I'm cute. Does he have to work at being that gay or does it just come naturally to him?!

No matter how much he focused and worked, Hiyoshi could never understand his girly senpai. He just didn't get it, how could a boy be such a convincing girl? How could a boy spend half of tennis practice painting his nails?

Well, Hiyoshi was actually very good with manicures himself. His mother had taught him to do it and he frequently gave Atobe that extra little homo-sparkle. He didn't do it in his free time though, and if he got any of the gay-in-a-bottle on his own fingernails he feared having a wicked witch moment and melting into a little puddle of gekokujou.

Thinking about it, Taki-senpai can actually be incredibly focused. Maybe in class or in tennis he's always off with the fairies (pft) but he's completely lost in what he's doing when he's, oh, waxing his legs or something. When he's concentrating, he always sticks his tongue out a little.

Again, gay.

And maybe a little cute.

He can focus perfectly well when he feels like it, he just never feels like it.

Hiyoshi took pride in his focus, in his plan to gekokujou Atobe, and in his ability to earn good grades on top of his tennis. Granted, he was never going to be like Ootori, but he was proud of how well he did.

Ootori needs to focus more, too, as Oshitari-senpai says 'he's recently given in to teenage hormones and realised the advantages to playing in the back'. I don't get it, but then, I don't get doubles. Doubles is gay and playing with Mukahi-senpai when all he did was whinge about wanting to play with his gay boyfriend was gay. Gay meaning crap. Doubles is crap. And gay.

Taki-senpai used to play doubles with Ootori, did he play in the back, or did Ootori? Did Taki-senpai ever get bored during a game and just waste time watching Ootori's ass?

Yeah, that sounds like something he'd do, because it's gay, and Taki-senpai is gay.

Hiyoshi paused and counted the number of times he'd written the word 'gay' before frowning. He was definitely from the Hyoutei tennis team alright, he was gonna need to start wearing a mask soon to stop himself getting infected by gay.

Who else needs to focus? Not Mom, she's very focused, she cooks a lot and she's always so lost in it she wouldn't notice if there was an earthquake.

Not Dad, he's an Enbu master, you have to be focused to master something.

Aa, Kobayashi could stand focusing more. His grades are crap and he just plays his Xbox all day. He's 18 and he's never had a girlfriend ever, he says he'll get a girlfriend when Lara Croft accepts his advances.

My brother is sick sometimes.

"Waka-chan? I brought you food, you need food"
Hiyoshi grunted and refused to look at the door. "Go away, Fatass"

"Don't be so mean to your big brother, I paused my game just to get you some freaking calories. Remember calories, Waka-chan? Yummy yummy, in your tummy, eat them up or I'll put you out the window. Remember when I put you out the window? You cried." The taller boy, hair wild and unbrushed, dressed in a pair of tatty pyjamas, waved a pile of jam sandwiches at his baby brother.

"No I didn't, I came back inside, picked up your fat ass and put you out the window, now go away, I hate jam."

Kobayashi shrugged and put the sandwiches down "fine, be a brat, I've got a date with the lovely Lara"

Damn, he's learning. I love jam.

Nobody at tennis knows what I like to eat, they don't know anything about me, it's not something I need to tell people, I'm too focused on tennis while everyone else is cooing over Ootori, despite the fact that Kabaji and I are the same age as Ootori. He's the sweet one who follows Shishido like a lost puppy and makes a face liked a kicked kitten whenever I call Shishido an asshole. I hate that face, it makes me want to apologise to Shishido. I can't say he's not entirely focused, he's a master at his music, and he gets good grades, and he plays good tennis, but he really needs to stop making those faces at Shishido. They're really gay faces.

All pink and smiley.

Pink is gay.

Except jam. Jam is pink and the crotch of the first person to call jam gay gets a date with my foot.

Hiyoshi couldn't remember when he first started liking jam; it had to be a moment of weakness, when he'd stopped focusing.

Oh yes, it was that time Taki-senpai brought his home ec project to practice. Tiny spherical biscuits that, when opened, were full of hot, almost liquid jam. They were gorgeous, though Hiyoshi would never say so. Taki-senpai spent most of practice sitting about eating them, idly licking jam off his fingers.

That was gross, Hiyoshi had thought, shuddering and putting on some hand sanitizer to get rid of the icky feeling. At the same time, it gave Hiyoshi the sudden urge to try eating jam again. He picked up a sandwich and started to eat.

His phone rang.

"Hiiiiii!" he sighed, there went his focus. Taki-senpai did that to him. "I need your help, Hiyoshi-kun! My sisters are having a sleepover and I need help"

He hung up before Hiyoshi even had time to answer. But, he already knew what he had to do. With eight teenage girls and one Taki in that house, there were a lot of sleepovers, and Hiyoshi knew his role.

He grabbed his Hyoutei sleepover manicure box and left the house, book under his arm.

---

"Wheee! Hiyoshi-chan, your manicures are so awesome!"

He gritted his teeth again, and ignored the millionth girl who was cooing over her shiny new nails. Hiyoshi had given up on remembering which girls were related to Taki-senpai and which ones were guests; normally it was easy to tell because all Taki-senpai's sisters looked exactly like him, but tonight they all looked the same!

Girls need to focus more. All of them. I hate girls.

Quite often, Taki would be left out of sleepover proceedings for the dire sin of being male. Incredibly camp, but male and thus excluded. However if Hiyoshi and his magical manicures were added to the equation, he was allowed. The second year loathed sleepovers, because he loathed girls. Girls were stupid and interacting with girls was stupid. The huge Hyoutei sleepovers were just like interacting with girls, too, but he had to go to those, or Atobe might kick him off the team or something. He never missed his manicures.

Hiyoshi eventually finished polishing up the fingernails of every girl in the house, all twenty or so of them, and Taki-senpai's mother. The two boys went off to Taki-senpai's room to escape drowning in the oestrogen pool.

…Taki-senpai says he decorated his entire bedroom himself. He chose all the furniture and customised it and painted the walls all himself, even all the fiddly stencilled parts. He can focus when he feels like it.

The room was so…purple. Purple and white with a pink border, and all the furniture had been painted and sewn and made to fit the bill, too. It was a nice room, for a girl. But it was Taki-senpai's room and Taki-senpai's work, and Hiyoshi had to appreciate it when Taki-senpai actually did any work.

"Give me a manicure, too?" Taki giggled, sitting cross legged on his bed, "Then I wanna try giving you one. You can always redo them later if I screw up, and don't you want to gekokujou Atobe with nice nails?"

So, Hiyoshi ended up giving Taki-senpai the works, too, one hand being polished to perfection while the other rooted around in Hiyoshi's bag. He seemed interested in the sparkly sequin letters but then, they were gay, so of course he would. Then Taki-senpai had a go; he was actually quite good, though Hiyoshi did not enjoy the baby blue nail polish. At least he hadn't chosen pink. Taki carefully stuck a little letter or shape on each nail. Hiyoshi fanned out his fingers.

I-heart-L-I-K-E-heart-Y-O-U

If I had been more focused I would have been able to find something to say in this situation.