full disclosure: i did not proofread this at all. i apologize.
Valerie fluffed her hair once more, wanting to prove without doubt that she had been more than capable thus far of taking care of herself. When the call started, however, she wasn't ready for the serious tone it quickly took.
It had begun normally, the kind of courtesy questions that people often asked others they cared about, "How are you?" and "Are you getting along alright?" Valerie had cheerily answered them all and returned them to boot, happy to see her parents and happy that she and Quinn really were doing alright for themselves. In fact, she was so happy that Valerie almost didn't notice that her father was looking rather thin in the face, and a little pale, too.
"Dad?" Valerie stopped suddenly, "Are you okay?"
His voice sounded a little thicker. "We really are happy to talk to you, Valerie, but we did not call without reason." Valerie felt herself tear up at his tone, and her mother left the frame, apparently unable to control her emotions.
Whatever she'd thought the first day of work would be like, this wasn't it. She was nearing the end of a five hour shift, and while five hours hadn't seemed that long when she'd walked in the door, now Quinn was wondering how she had survived. She tucked a stray bit of hair behind her ear, took a deep breath, and stepped back out on the floor from the bathroom, the five minutes of respite not close to enough.
When she had come in for the interview, Quinn had thought it had been fabulous. There had been a homey atmosphere, and on that Monday evening business had been steady, but not overwhelming. The current situation on a weekend afternoon was completely different. Quinn was fighting back tears of frustration already, and there were months left of waiting on people she could hardly understand and who could hardly understand her, never sure when making jokes with customers was appropriate and when it wasn't. Still, it was money, and it was better than having no job at all.
Quinn wiped the sweat from her forehead, and let both her elbows rest on the table. The café wasn't closing up yet for the evening, but her shift was over. Her boss, a kindly (and very pregnant) woman who appeared to speak no English whatsoever, brought the American a cup of tea during a lull in business.
"Thank you, Ayakawa-san," Quinn said, and took a sip. The older woman nodded and smiled softly, waddling back to the kitchen, taking care to be kind to her large, round belly. Quinn smiled fondly after her. With all the hectic stress of the shift behind her, the American didn't feel too bad.
Quinn pulled out her phone, absently playing on it, before it vibrated in her hand. A very large message from Eiji came through, simply titled, "Highlights from tennis practice, Quinn-chan!" with several pictures attached.
Echizen taking a drink of some abominable-looking concoction.
Fuji drinking something similar, smiling as always.
A boy Quinn vaguely remembered being called Oishi laying on the ground in pain.
Eiji taking a selfie, flashing a victory sign, with the bodies of what appeared to be victims of the juice scattered all around him.
Quinn wasn't sure to laugh or shudder, and she was fairly sure she did both. Briefly, she wondered if it would be cruel, funny, or uncomfortably similar to a stalker to make the picture of Eiji with his teammates all about him her phone wallpaper. She decided against it, waved goodbye to her boss and the rest of the crew and started the walk home.
It wasn't far, and she was thankful for it. Walking was quite a good way to have homesickness take over, because she was alone, and Quinn missed home the most when she was alone. Even having Valerie around to chatter to was a comfort, Airi was always around if she needed someone else to talk to, and Eiji and Fuji were good for a word or two as well. Not that Eiji could ever stop at a word or two, of course, but that was beside the point.
Quinn sighed and slapped a smile on, walking through the door to their apartment only to find Valerie crumpled up like a discarded piece of paper, sobbing quietly with her knees pulled up to her chest. Ripley was on all fours, nuzzling against Valerie's side, trying to get her attention. The smile that Quinn had faked fell apart immediately, and she rushed to Valerie's side, gripping both of her shoulders. Ripley mewed in protest. "Val? Val, what's wrong?"
"My dad, Quinn. My dad's dying." Valerie could barely choke the words out before she dissolved into tears again, and Quinn wrapped her arms around the girl, holding her as tight as she could. "I don't know what to do, Quinn. He forbade me to come home. He said," Valerie fought back a sob, "that he knew how hard I'd worked to come here and that it wouldn't help anything if I was there."
Speechless for once in her life, Quinn stayed silent, stroking Valerie's hair as she wept. "Can we go do something? Please?" Valerie sounded desperate, and Quinn had never heard the wealthy girl use that tone before.
Quinn nodded enthusiastically, gluing back the smile that had fallen off. "Okay, it's your treat, but if you insist."
Valerie chuckled a little at that, but she looked tired, and Quinn wondered how long she had been crying. "Let me grab a jacket and put some makeup back on. And let's not talk about it. It'll only make it worse."
"There's a great place that that friend of mine always goes for burgers," Quinn yelled after her, pulling out her phone and shooting off a text as Valerie walked away. "Let's go there then we can go for a walk or something? Maybe we can see a movie."
To: Kikumaru Eiji, Fuji Syusuke
Meet me at the burger place with the name I can never pronounce in ten minutes. Act surprised to see me. Also act happy to see me. As if you're ever not happy to see me. Please come. I'll owe you one. Except I already owe you like seven favors, Fuji-kun, so I guess I'll owe you eight.
Quinn
They were in line for burgers by the time Eiji showed up, and he bounded over to them quickly, wrapping his arms around Quinn's neck like his life depended on it. Valerie chuckled demurely, and Quinn sighed in relief. She didn't seem to suspect that Quinn had invited others to try to keep her mind off Valerie's immediate troubles.
"What are you doing here, Quinn-chan?" Eiji was as energetic as ever, and immediately after that question launched into the next. "And who's this? I'm Kikumaru Eiji, but you can just call me Eiji. Everyone does."
Valerie laughed a little shyly. "Majumdar Valerie. Y-you can call me Valerie-chan if you want." The girl wasn't really particularly quiet, but speaking Japanese made her slightly so. If Eiji noticed, he didn't make any deal out of it whatsoever.
"Oh, you must be Quinn-chan's roommate. We've heard lots about you? You go to Hyotei, right?"
Valerie nodded in answer. "I heard you're pretty good at tennis. People at Hyotei are talking about tennis all the time. I never realized it was so popular."
Eiji was chattering now, and Quinn knew better than anyone that once he got started it was too difficult to even try stopping him. Somewhere after Eiji announced that he had the "number one reflexes in Seigaku!" Quinn made eye contact with Fuji, who had appeared just outside the window. She mouthed "thank you" to the brown-haired boy, who simply nodded and smiled a little more in response. Quinn owed them quite an explanation at some point soon, but for now, she was thankful they had come to help distract Valerie. When Fuji came in to introduce himself, Quinn even saw a little bit of a blush rise to Valerie's cheeks, and the blonde smiled. Even if it was because of a superficial crush on the prettiest boy in her class, Quinn was just glad to see the girl smile.
Quinn smiled thankfully at Fuji when she arrived at school the following Monday. She had left on an earlier bus to try to get there before Eiji did, hoping to explain to each of the boys individually why she had needed them so suddenly. Surprisingly, Fuji was already there.
"What are you doing here so early, Fuji-kun?" Quinn came to a standstill in front of the brown-haired boy's desk.
"I could ask you the same question, Palmer-chan."
"Uh," Quinn started, and a blush tinged her cheeks. "I was hoping to talk to you before things got busy in here today." The American swapped to English, noticing a few others already in the classroom. "I wanted to thank you for showing up the other day. Valerie got some really bad news, and I was just trying to keep her mind off of it."
"Is she okay now?" Fuji switched to English as easily as she did.
"Ahh…" Quinn sighed softly, and absently scratched at the back of her arm. "Not really. She found out that her dad is really sick, and her parents don't want her to come home because they know how much Valerie wanted this opportunity." The blonde ran a hand through her hair. "Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks, Syusuke. You and Eiji helped a lot."
His smile didn't move from its place, but she was treated to bright blue eyes. "It's no problem, Quinn. I do have a question for you, though. I guess it's maybe better called a favor, even though it's not for me." Quinn cocked her head to the side, and he continued. "There's a tournament in a few weeks. My brother and I both play in it, and my sister would like to come, but told me she would be more comfortable if she had someone to go with. Yumiko doesn't know I'm asking."
Quinn smiled gently. "I'll be there." Briefly, she was struck by how lovely Fuji's eyes were, and Quinn continued, "You know, I kind of see what all those girls see in you. You're an alright kind of guy, Syusuke."
Fuji looked a little startled at that, but he recovered quickly from the blunt comment. He looked almost like he was about to say something, but even if he had, Quinn wouldn't have heard it, because Eiji came barreling through the door, a force of nature that nearly knocked Quinn to the ground. "Quinn-chan!" He shouted before looking around to make sure the teacher wasn't in the room. "Quinn-chan," Eiji started again, a little quieter, "We have district preliminaries this weekend, and you said you owed me one, so you have to come!"
Quinn sighed, but it was hard to be annoyed with him. "Can Valerie come?"
"Anybody can come! Besides, she was nice, and she knew more about tennis than you!"
Quinn fought back the very, very strong urge to roll her eyes. "She is lovely, isn't she? I'll be there, and I'll bring Valerie with me if she doesn't have anything else going on."
"Kikumaru-san. Palmer-san." She hadn't noticed it, but everyone else in the class appeared to have filed into the room, the teacher, who was speaking now, included. "If you could please take your seats, I'd like to begin today's lessons."
Quinn felt like her face was on fire, but Eiji just responded with a thumbs-up and a, "Yes, sensei!" before dragging the blonde along with him back to their seats.
Quinn had followed the map all the way there, and it had taken some nagging and a promise to buy her dinner, but the blonde had even managed to drag Valerie out of the apartment as well.
"Oh come on, it'll be fun," Quinn had whined, and Valerie had thrown a pillow out from the make-shift blanket fort she had wormed herself into. Quinn pretended she didn't notice the smudged mascara all over the pillowcase. "Please! Eiji sounded really excited to see you again, and I'll even buy you dinner if you want? Okay, dinner, plus a new dress the next time we go out shopping?"
That had piqued Valerie's interest, and Quinn saw a bit of Valerie's dark hair peek out over the blankets. Quinn took that as a sign of encouragement to flip the lights on, and the action was met with a shriek by the other girl. "Fine, fine! Just let me shower, damn you!"
An hour later and there they were, trying to navigate their way around tennis courts and mobs of people that the both of them had trouble understanding even if they worked together. Quinn's eyes latched onto a pretty girl with braids, and before Valerie even had a say in the matter they were marching towards her.
"Sakuno-chan!" The freshman jumped at that before smiling as she recognized who it was.
"A-ah, senpai. I didn't know you'd be here."
"Sakuno-chan, this is my roommate." Quinn introduced Valerie briefly and the two exchanged names. "Now," Quinn continued, "Those jackets look familiar to me, so I bet they're playing over there!"
Quinn's thought was right, and as they walked forward, her favorite redhead noticed them and bounded over. "Quinn-chan! You're just in time. Fujiko-chan and Taka-san just started playing. It was too bad you could only make it to the finals. What would have happened if we had lost before we got here?"
"Kikumaru-senpai," said a dark-haired freshman that Quinn hadn't noticed before that, one of three, "Why did Ryuzaki-sensei put Fuji-senpai in second doubles?"
"Eh…" Eiji pressed a finger to his lip, and turned. "Oishi! Why do we have Fujiko-chan in doubles?"
"It's about flow, Eiji," Oishi said, and Quinn waved at him. The vice-captain smiled back, and continued, "They expected Fuji to play singles, and our second doubles is always a wildcard. This way, Echizen and Kaidoh both get to play singles, while they're intimidated before they even get around to playing singles themselves."
To Quinn it looked even, and she said as much to Valerie, but the freshman boy from the other day (the one that Quinn had so unceremoniously scolded for hurting Sakuno) thought otherwise. "Fudomine are unseeded. Kawamura-senpai and Fuji-senpai shouldn't be pushed so hard by players from an unseeded school."
Quinn looked at the boy, who seemed to be looking sheepishly from her to Sakuno, wondering if he had put himself right in the middle of a place he didn't want to be. The American's eyes softened. "Hey, kid," she said, and the boy looked at her. "Sorry for snapping at you a while ago. I was just worried about Sakuno-chan."
The grin that split the boy's face nearly melted Quinn's heart, and Quinn smiled back in response. She saw movement from the corner of her eye, and Quinn's attention went back to the game, where Fuji had just returned a ball so that it didn't even bounce when it hit the ground. Quinn's eyes widened.
"What was that?" she asked, more to herself than anyone. She hadn't even noticed Eiji and Oishi's departure, but Valerie had.
"Um, hi?" Valerie said, a little questioningly, to the boy in glasses who had taken Eiji and Oishi's place.
"That is one of Fuji's triple counters." The boy didn't look up from the notebook where he was scribbling notes. "We call it the swallow return."
"Swallow return…" Quinn repeated softly, and turned to the much taller boy. "Who are you?"
"Ah. Apologies. Inui Sadaharu." Quinn opened her mouth to introduce herself, but was interrupted rather quickly. "A pleasure to meet you, Palmer-san."
"Why do you know her when she doesn't know you?" Valerie asked the obvious question, and Quinn nodded curiously, thinking that there was not much more to be said.
The one freshman boy (Horio? Quinn vaguely remembered him being called something like that) said, "Inui-senpai knows everything about everyone."
"Almost true," Inui didn't appear to be humble, "I have never been able to read Fuji's data."
Quinn quirked an eyebrow. "All anyone ever talks about is how great he is. Is he bad at anything?"
"Not bad to look at," Val remarked offhandedly. Quinn rolled her eyes, and Val shrugged. "What? It's the truth."
The action ramped up, and Quinn was suddenly very thankful for the three freshman boys, particularly Horio. It had already been established that she didn't know much of anything about the sport, and Horio was a willing teacher, if not the most knowledgeable and if only to hear his own voice. Top-spins, slices, lobs, and even that ridiculous scoring system; Quinn got the crash course in tennis vocabulary, eyes following the ball that had been bouncing back and forth between teams.
"Kawamura-san is really strong," she mumbled to Valerie, "and it's kind of cute how he uses English. Like actually really cute." Valerie chuckled and nodded in response, and then it was like the crowd went still as the player-coach from Fudomine gave a signal to one of his players on the court.
The tall boy from Fudomine gave his captain a grin, and took on a stance that seemed only to intensify Fuji's gaze. If Quinn didn't know better, she would say that she heard Inui gasp slightly.
The power that came off the ball after the boy from Fudomine hit it was indescribable, and as Fuji braced himself to return it, Quinn found herself tensing in turn. "Ah…" It was like it was happening in slow motion. "Ah, Horio-kun? Does Fuji-kun know something I don't know? Because I don't foresee him having the power to-"
Before she could even finish the sentence, Kawamura had intercepted it and returned it, and if things had gone in slow-motion before, they were in fast forward now. Quinn flinched as racket met ball, and found herself with her fingers laced in the fence in worry before a wide grin spread across her face. "Talk about flow…" she murmured, Horio and Valerie similarly ecstatic, the girl even sweeping the freshman up in a hug that spread a blush across his cheeks.
And then –
Fuji said something quietly to Kawamura, who was fired up even more now than before, and Quinn saw her friend's eyes narrow. He grasped Kawamura's wrist gently, and the taller boy screeched out in pain. Still serious, Fuji turned to the official, and said somberly, "We must forfeit this match."
And Kawamura, dejected and disappointed, surveyed his team before falling to his knees and apologizing, nearly breaking Quinn's heart in the process. She caught Fuji looking her way, and smiled gently. His blue eyes lingered on her shortly, and Quinn nodded to him in encouragement, not that he needed it.
"Uh, when you're done staring into his baby blues," Valerie flipped her hair over her shoulder and flicked Quinn in the ear. "Where's the nearest vending machine?"
"How're you feeling, Taka-san?" Quinn chuckled to herself as she heard Valerie ask him how he was feeling. "It looked like you sprained it pretty badly."
"A-ah, it's not so bad," he replied sheepishly. The shy boy was more mouse than monster without a racket in his hand, but he had insisted that Valerie and Quinn call him Taka-san. Valerie crushed on pretty much everything that moved (after all, a few hours ago, all she could talk about was how cute Fuji was), but her concern for him seemed genuine, and Quinn cracked a smile at them from where she was walking with Fuji. More than anything, she was just happy that the girl had forgotten about her family troubles, at least for the time being. Helping to keep her mind off of it was all Quinn could hope to do.
Eiji and Oishi had won their match decisively, followed by a junior named Kaidoh besting a Fudomine player who was faster than anyone Quinn had ever seen. Echizen had gotten hurt even worse than Kawamura-san in his match, and the team's coach and Sakuno had taken him to the hospital to get his eye fixed up before he joined the festivities. The Americans had been invited along to the party afterwards, if for no other reason than that Eiji had pitched a fit and begged Takashi to let them come as well.
"I enjoyed watching you play today, Fuji-kun. You were great."
"Saa… You're too kind, Palmer-chan. Thank you for watching."
"You should hear the way everyone talks about you. All I ever hear is how wonderful you are."
He chuckled. "You should hear how people talk about you, Palmer-chan."
Someone else called out his name, and they all entered the Kawamura sushi restaurant together, Quinn trailing a little behind him and slightly ahead of Takashi and Valerie, who were still chatting animatedly. They left the street behind for the warm interior of the restaurant, but Quinn couldn't quite shake the blush on her cheeks, and when anyone asked, she said she was just feeling a little warm.
jeepers sorry for the wait! thanks so much to MythologyBookworm and magicdemi-god223 for their reviews, you get my kisses and hugs and everything else! i hope you enjoyed this as much as i enjoyed writing it. i've worked a little more this week than i thought i would so that's my only excuse for why it was a few days' longer wait! i have a date i have to go start getting around for, so please tell me what you think in a review! thanks for reading my loves!
-syrasha