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When Atobe called them over to spend the summer with him, the whole team had concluded that it would be an all-expenses paid trip to some nice vacation house or resort—quite literally anything owned by Atobe’s family.
They wanted it preferably by the beach with fruit smoothies, ice cream, or as Oshitari offered, an alcoholic version of Atobe’s beloved non-alcoholic champagne that he drinks often. (“So you want us to do underaged drinking?” Taki clarified. Oshitari just smiled.) They talked about catching crabs by the beachside and eating a feast of seafood, then when the night would fall, they’d play around with sparklers and sleep on futons that would hug them fully after a bath.
After all, it was their first time getting together since the seniors graduated in March. It was only what they deserved.
Atobe does end up bringing them to a vacation house by the beach (“WOW!” Jirou gawked, waking from his nap at the realization that they are going to a beach), but to no one’s surprise and to everyone’s exasperation, it was so that they could play tennis (“Dude, what the fuck,” from Gakuto upon hearing the news).
There isn’t anything wrong about it—Choutarou personally believes that their former captain is secretly still butthurt about their loss against Rikkai in the exhibition match a few months ago, and there’s also the nerve-wracking fact that the tournament season is drawing near—but it would’ve been nice to place their racquets down for once and relax. Summer had just begun and a single week off wouldn’t hurt anyone.
Atobe goes on and on about how as the only three players from last year’s regulars, they have to be prepared for everything and improve on their skill set. The current third years know better than to rely on what they’re already good at and to expand themselves until they’ve conquered the last of their flaws.
Until they’ve won Nationals.
Hiyoshi takes this personally, thinking that despite the awe elicited from his unfinished technique displayed in his match against Kirihara, the fact that it was unfinished leading to his loss was rather embarrassing for him. He has his ever-present obsession with overthrowing, and after playing Kirihara as much as he has already, Hiyoshi had gained some kind of obsession with the boy as well.
Kabaji, on the other hand, listens as he always does. Since the matches, he gained a newfound confidence that surges throughout his whole six feet body instead of merely the strength in his innate mimicry ability. It’s also an improvement that he’s been able to separate himself from Atobe enough to be able to navigate their first term of their third year with ease—something Choutarou thinks highly of.
Now, Choutarou knows that his scud serve can go faster than it already is but other than that, he’s simply a player that is rendered useless unless given a new partner to play doubles with. It’s pathetic, he also knows that, and he can’t technically call himself a doubles specialist if he can only play well with one person. That would make him a forgotten sock that lost its pair and who would use a single sock without its pair? It’s a stupid analogy (Hiyoshi had told him) but he already feels stupid as is.
When he thinks about Shishido, his heart starts to cave in. He thinks that’s just how it’s supposed to feel when you’re in love with someone. He still doesn’t understand it all and he tries not to think about its intricacies because it’s a new thing that they both decided to, for once in both their lives, take slow.
Choutarou was still processing everything. He had to go through the terrifying and equally embarrassing ordeal of confessing during Shishido’s graduation a few months ago. Then there’s the fact that his confession got accepted. This whole thing was a foreign concept but Shishido is familiar and nothing really changed between them besides all the makeouts behind their friends’ backs even though they’re obvious.
Right now, he doesn’t know why he’s worried when they’ve moved past the complications and progressed from only being friends and tennis partners to what they are now. So instead Choutarou has narrowed out this new form of anxiety into how he’s never going to have a doubles partner who melds into him the way he does. That scares him. That could explain his heart being consumed by his stomach.
The worst part is that Shishido was oddly calm about the whole graduating thing, about leaving him and the pair they’ve been cemented as. But Choutarou gets it. He tries to. Tennis is not technically this permanent thing unless you’re born at the peak of it like that Echizen kid. Choutarou thinks he’s somewhere around the lakes where the mountains sit. Shishido had always been a climber and he’s as stubborn as a tree, but he mellowed out and talked about growing out his hair again.
His ambition, though, never strays and he’s still prone to arguing when the time calls for it… like now:
“Atobe, this is bullshit,” Shishido says, standing in his swimming trunks and a thin white shirt with his hands gripped on his tennis racquet. He had his cap on but his hair was tied in a short ponytail akin to, what Gakuto called it, a small turd. “You know this is bullshit.”
“Perhaps you should talk to me with your racquet rather than with your words, Shishido,” Atobe bounces the ball against the sand. It’s hard to play tennis on this terrain and that’s the point of why they’re doing this in the first place.
“Oh yeah?” Shishido grits his teeth. Atobe hits a sweet spot that makes his serve go fast enough to fight against wind resistance but Shishido is prideful and he likes to see Atobe eating his own words so he receives the ball effortlessly, fighting his own way against the sand with his dashing.
Naturally, Shishido loses to Atobe who seemed to have more experience playing tennis on the sand than any of them initially thought. In their miscalculation, Oshitari makes a comment that Hiyoshi should find a data tennis player they lacked in their batch to which Hiyoshi scoffs but visibly takes a mental note of it.
Shishido gravitates to Choutarou’s side, patting off the sand that stuck onto him during the game. He mutters under his breath about how he almost had Atobe if it weren’t for the stupid sand and the stupid wind.
“You’ll get him next time,” Choutarou assures, dusting off the sand on Shishido’s hat.
“I totally will,” Shishido rubs off the sand on his nose, “but it’s been a while since I played singles anyway. I gotta get more practice in if I wanna make it into the tennis team again.”
Right, there was that. There was a tennis team in high school which was recently refined by the now-graduate Ochi Tsukimitsu. That’s a lot to live up to. And even if they just transferred to Hyotei’s high school division that’s a building away, it was still a different team with different people and different dynamics.
Shishido has always been a good singles player, no matter what he says or prefers otherwise. He’s a climber. He grows past things in higher lengths. His hands are coarse and his eyes are sharp. He is beyond this.
Choutarou wonders if doubles is just going to be a junior high thing for him—or if they’re just going to be a junior high thing.
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Later into the day after fruit smoothies, lunch, and spending too much time tossing each other into the sea, they are forced back into tennis and they pull straws to play matches against each other.
Atobe is onto something when he says they’re only doing singles matches today—tiebreaker style. Choutarou finds himself against Taki who he defeats but it doesn’t make him feel any form of satisfaction. He beats Gakuto next before struggling against Hiyoshi who only loses when Choutarou’s serve ends up being in favor of the wind. He knows that if it were any regular match out of the sand, he would’ve lost but he takes the win as it is and Hiyoshi actually looks impressed by him.
He then gets demolished by Jirou who had been recently refreshed by an extra sugary fruit smoothie from Gakuto like it was some kind of sneaky revenge scheme.
Choutarou sits out the remainder of his games much to Oshitari’s dismay, since he was his next match. His legs are sore and his arms are burning from the sun. He retreats under a large umbrella pierced into the sand.
“Jirou drank everything. That Marui guy is rubbing off on him,” then came a presence and a clementine beside him. Shishido sits cross legged. “They were gonna make another fruit shake but there wasn’t enough so I just got you this orange.”
“It’s a clementine, Shishido-s—er, Shishido, but thank you,” Choutarou says but reaches his hand out for it anyway. Shishido holds the clementine over the other’s palm; it looks unbearably tiny in comparison. It makes Shishido laugh. Choutarou watches him laugh at such a trivial thing.
“Whatever,” he shrugs but he doesn’t give it to him. Instead, he starts peeling it on his own then places the peeled clementine in Choutarou’s extended hand. “Eat it. I think it can hydrate you or something.”
“Hm,” Choutarou looks at it then splits it, giving the other half to Shishido even if it’s too small to split between two growing boys. “Oshitari-san is right. We need some kind of data tennis player.”
“Those guys are freaks,” Shishido mumbles, eating his half of the clementine in one go while Choutarou eats his one by one despite the small portions. “You guys are going to be fine.”
“Yeah right,” and he didn’t mean for it to come out so bitterly but it did despite his mouth tasting tangy, summery, and possibly like Shishido if he could only kiss him right now while no one in their team was looking.
The temptation almost gets to him but the other speaks again.
“I mean it, Choutarou,” Shishido is stubborn. He always has been. Incredibly so. Choutarou wishes he could keep him here by the beach forever where they’d eat clementines and feel warmth radiated from each other, not from the sun.
“You might even be better without us,” Shishido says. And he’s never been that good with words. Choutarou has understood that better than anyone. He’s memorized Shishido in a certain way, but it’s still difficult to hear even when he’s rationalizing that statement with his inner Shishido dictionary of implications and ‘what he really means by that’s.
He then pops the rest of the clementine into his mouth. He stands up, dusting the sand off of him. “Let’s play a match. Me against you.”
“Hell yeah,” Shishido grins, pushing himself up with the help of Choutarou’s arm reaching out for him. “I’m winning this one.”
He doesn’t have it in him to level his competitiveness. If Shishido notices that, he thankfully doesn’t press on, deciding to let their racquets do all the talking as what Atobe had demanded earlier. Choutarou knows that that doesn’t mean he’s going to be let off the hook. Shishido has also memorized him enough to notice the obvious lies behind the subtle intonations of his polite words. It’s what doubles partners do.
They don’t talk again for the whole afternoon but Shishido gives him a piece of his mind by absolutely demolishing him during their match between them—and Choutarou knows that the way he couldn’t even score a single point despite being perfectly capable to was already telling enough that no, he is not going to be fine. At all.
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“A lot of people are quitting tennis for high school.”
That’s the topic for dinner. They’re all seated on their own zabuton around a grand low table with all the seafood they could imagine. This is what heaven probably smells like but Choutarou smells a shiny black card more than anything else. Still they all dig in gratefully. It’s the most relaxed they’ve been the whole trip, even Atobe’s shoulders are eased back.
“Many of Seigaku will,” Oshitari states. Of course that’s the first team they talk about.
“Kawamura leaving is already obvious,” Gakuto responds, mouth full, “and Oishi too.”
“Ah yes, the sushi chef and the doctor.”
“But Kikumaru is still going to play even if Oishi’s retiring,” Shishido adds.
Kikumaru is still playing even after Oishi’s retirement, Choutarou echoes in his mind. For a moment, he wants to ask about it and how that could be possible. But he goes to eat more shrimp instead.
“So what? He’s going to play singles now?” Hiyoshi casually asks from beside him. Choutarou turns to look at him then receives a knowing grin and another shrimp shoved into his mouth. He almost feels bad that his best friend still thinks he’s pathetically pining over his now-graduated senior.
“I don’t think so,” Oshitari hums, “He might get assigned to someone else but I doubt they’d ever be up to par to whatever he and Oishi were.”
“That’s sad,” Jirou ponders, surprisingly buzzing with energy tonight. It’s all of the sugary fruit shakes. “Like playing but knowing your potential can’t be at its fullest.”
“I don’t think a lot of us are that serious about tennis anymore though,” Taki asserts, “all the good competition died down. What’s the point?”
“The point is beating the ones that are still there while we still can,” Shishido points a crab stick at him accusingly. “And Kikumaru did pretty well in his singles match in Nationals.”
“It was alright,” Gakuto recalls, still bitter about his acrobatic peer getting over his stamina problem that easily.
“No, it’s interesting,” Atobe then goes to add, “he’s staying in Seigaku with Fuji who’s still playing. They’re both retiring after high school.”
“Then that’s two to look out for,” Gakuto grumbles. He keeps a pointed look at Atobe. “Tezuka has fully moved to Germany.”
“Like I care,” Atobe sips on his drink but his grip on it is concerning enough to possibly break the glass.
“You do,” Kabaji merely says.
“Only to a degree that doesn’t matter.”
There were a lot of people from junior high school to talk about. After Seigaku, they moved onto a more sensitive topic which was Rikkai. Jirou is enthusiastic about it, telling everyone about Marui’s plans in culinary, which went on to how, in his pursuit for foreign culinary knowledge, he’s considering to follow Jackal to Brazil. Choutarou thinks that perhaps doubles pairs post-tennis can still persist, then they talk about how Yagyuu apparently returned to playing golf and how no one really knows what Niou has been up to these days.
They don’t talk about Yukimura or Sanada because they already knew what was going on with them—it’s always on the news. Monthly Tennis Pro never fails to deliver the biggest events in the tennis world and those two never fail to be the one to beat. The third demon Yanagi, on the other hand, has decidedly put tennis on the last of his priorities, placing his academics above all else like his counterpart Inui.
It’s weird to talk about all of these things. This tennis circuit used to be the center of their world and now with the majority of the key players involved in high school, it’s losing itself. Choutarou wonders what would happen to him or to Kabaji and Hiyoshi or to the rest of the current third years after this last run.
What’s going to happen to him and Shishido?
“How about you guys?” Choutarou finds himself asking before he could stop himself. The whole table turns to look at him at the sudden question. Their conversation about Shitenhouji is now long forgotten.
“Us?” Atobe raises an eyebrow, intrigued. It’s already some kind of miracle that they all stayed in Hyotei, even Atobe, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were going to stay in tennis.
“I’m playing for high school,” Oshitari simply discloses. It’s not a surprise. He was regarded to be one of the geniuses. “But that’s it for me.”
That becomes the general consensus between most of the now high school freshmen. It’s high school then nothing, but it wasn’t going to be this main thing. Taki says he’ll try for the team but if he doesn’t make the cut he doesn’t mind. Jirou still wants to play but he knows his sleeping tendencies aren’t going to be tolerated the way it was before. Gakuto doesn’t know what he wants yet so he doesn’t say much.
Then there’s Shishido. Choutarou turns to look at him.
“I’m going to play as much as I want,” is all he says. It’s admirable. Choutarou feels his heart twist the way it usually does when he thinks of the other. “Then I’m going to get my shit together. Grow up, I guess.”
Shishido has this look in his eyes that makes him look softer. Choutarou tries to come up with reasons that would have prompted that yielding reaction. Shishido has decided not to pursue something he used to be so hellbent about. He’s ready to let go of that soon and so easily—that thing that they both met through and strengthened their bond within.
“And I shall quit after high school as well,” Atobe then declares. The table falls silent, snapping their necks at the boy sitting at the head of the table. Everyone’s faces are a mix of shock, amusement, and almost hurt at the news. Choutarou thought that at least one of them would represent their team as the legends of their tennis circuit (and more deranged ones about the sport) went pro—and he knew that everyone believed it was going to be Atobe.
“Seriously?” Oshitari manages to ask.
Atobe merely sips on his drink in response, an uncharacteristically taciturn smile on his lips.
Choutarou spares a glance at Shishido in the midst of the storm of questions Atobe has created. It’s returned with a shrug, and Choutarou thinks about how he doesn’t want to let this all go yet.
What are they going to be without what made them?
He isn’t sure he’s ready to brave whatever is going to happen to them until then.
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“There you are,” Shishido sits down right beside him on the engawa, getting comfortable on the firm bamboo in just his pajamas. Choutarou starts to feel guilty but in his attempt to take the zabuton he was sitting on to give it to Shishido, the latter stops him with a strong grip keeping him sat down.
“I’m fine,” Shishido says, letting go of him. “They brought the sparklers out.”
“Did they?” Choutarou hadn’t noticed everyone huddling around in the sand in front of him and the vacation house. They were fighting to claim their own sparkler as Atobe holds the lighter like it was a scepter of power and makes the mistake of lighting Gakuto’s first. He begins to have a fake wizarding wand battle with Hiyoshi who surprisingly plays along after having his lighted next.
It’s childish to watch. They’re growing into their later teens and soon they’re going to be worried about applications, but they haven’t seen each other in a while so they dropped all pretenses of maturity and strength to opt to be stupid and messy. No one is going to admit it, not unless they take up Oshitari’s suggestion of underaged drinking, but in their reluctant prideful way, they miss each other.
“I miss you.”
Choutarou’s eyes fall back to Shishido who is staring at their team in front of them. The light of the sparklers faintly illuminates his face.
“That’s fucking lame to say,” he then adds thereafter, “forget about it.”
“I’m just right here though,” Choutarou laughs and it comes out nervously. He suddenly feels like he’s at a loss of the right words. Has he done something wrong to make Shishido feel like this?
“Yeah,” Shishido waves him off. “That’s why I said to forget about it.”
“Oh,” Choutarou’s eyes go downcast. Now he’s done something wrong.
Shishido scoffs, standing up to walk over to everyone. Choutarou was about to follow in suit until he saw him take two sparklers while the others were all distracted. He ignites both of them before running back to Choutarou at record speed. Shishido holds one out without saying anything. He sits back down beside him and they watch as the sparkler slowly runs itself out.
Choutarou’s sparkler dies out first. Shishido then speaks again after his dies out next.
“Okay,” he tosses the used sparkler behind him. “I’m done pretending like there’s nothing going on with you. You say you’re just right here but it doesn’t feel like it.”
“What do you mean?” Choutarou knows it’s useless but he tries to pass it off with a smile anyway.
“Don’t do that,” he warns, “look, you know you can tell me anything, and if you don’t want to, then tell me that you don’t want to talk about it or that… it’s not me because,” he sighs, “I’ll think about it, especially since—yeah.”
It takes a few long moments for it to settle into Choutarou’s mind as to what the other was trying to say. His fingers turn a bit ashy from how much he was fumbling with the burnt out sparkler then he places it carefully right beside him. Then within his disarrayed mind and pent-up worries, he catches the soft look on Shishido’s face like the one from earlier at dinner, which was yielding and persevering, but when he focused a bit more, he was equally unsure.
Shishido thought he had been the one to do something wrong.
“No,” Choutarou immediately blurts out, “no, it’s not as bad as you think it is—well, it’s…”
“But it is about me,” Shishido points out before the other could scrabble around for anything else to say.
Choutarou gives in. There was really no use trying to hide anything from someone who knew him better than his own self.
“Sorry,” he softly offers.
“First sorry of the day, it’s a new record,” he retaliates lightly, and it helps. Choutarou lets out a small chuckle at it and he feels less tense than before.
In front of them, Jirou has finally fallen asleep on the sand. His head is resting on Kabaji’s shoulder who sat down right beside him just for that reason. The pack of sparklers were empty already, being swept up by the wind until Taki catches it at the last second. Atobe stands by idly, watching Gakuto and Hiyoshi fight for the last sparkler that Oshitari holds up out of their reach. Then Gakuto jumps for it and wins.
“It’s not going to be the same anymore,” he finally admits, keeping his gaze in front of him and not at Shishido’s intense stare, “and Atobe-san isn’t even going to pursue tennis.”
“Who even cares about what Atobe is going to do?” Shishido grumbles, more to himself.
“And you’re so—” he feels his hands grip against the edges of the engawa, “you’re so calm about this, and I don’t know how to take it.”
“Am I not supposed to be?” Shishido asks plainly.
Choutarou feels like wants to crawl into a ball, but for all its worth of being completely honest and a bit too lanky, he doesn’t. “I don’t know.”
“So what?” Shishido laughs—actually laughs, “You think I’m going to wake up one day and realize that I don’t like you anymore because I’m some cool high schooler now? That’s stupid.”
Choutarou breathed out, completely worked up.
“Wait, you seriously believe that?” Shishido’s shoulders slump in the slightest. He sounded angry for the most part and hurt. “You’re not something I’ll grow out of, Choutarou, like you’re another stepping stone in the journey.”
“I know but—”
“No, you don’t know!” Shishido fumes, “You’re gonna go to high school. We’ll play doubles again then we’ll graduate, go to college if you want to, then we’ll live in a crappy apartment to piss your parents off,” then he strongly adds with a firm, sure nod, “and we’re going to have a dog.”
“A dog,” Choutarou repeats.
“Yeah, no objections,” he affirms, then he breathes out the rest of his anger, scooting in closer. Choutarou feels the warmth of the sun radiating off of him. “I can’t believe this is something we have to talk about.”
Choutarou opens his mouth. Shishido beats him to it, “and you’re sorry about it, yeah, I get it. It’s just—well, I thought it was obvious that we’re…”
Shishido sighs, stopping himself mid-sentence. He goes to lean against him. Choutarou already understands what he wants to say through this. Now he’s unable to argue anymore, so he reciprocates by leaning against him as well, close enough that he could rest his chin on top of Shishido’s head. He can’t seem to care about what they look like right now—the sea and the sparklers still have everyone too preoccupied.
“Sorry,” he couldn’t help it and earned a scoff in response. He takes it all in—the sea, the smell of tennis balls, the faint taste of citrus on his tongue, and his last year of junior high school. “I mean, we are okay.”
Shishido merely grunts in response.
“And fine, maybe I’m not,” Choutarou admits, “we’re all connected by this one thing, you know? It’s hard to think about all of us—me and you—without it.”
“Worrying about it is useless,” Shishido says, “we’re gonna grow up anyway.”
Choutarou feels Shishido completely relax against him as if telling him that he’s here and he’s not going to go anywhere despite all odds. It would take a mountain collapsing in itself and lakes going dry for their paths to merely be threatened to diverge, and he feels it in the way Shishido trusts him to hold the full weight of his body falling into him as they sit down in the engawa.
He starts to feel, in a lack of a better word, lame for even worrying in the first place and for making Shishido sense doubt in the stubborn, forgiving bond they have.
On the tip of his tongue sits another apology but before he could get himself to say it and receive another grumble from Shishido, he decides to lean down, placing his hand on the other’s cheek to move his face to the side so they can meet lips. It feels easy, familiar, so warm, and he’s going to be killed by Shishido for initiating this where they could get caught but he feels himself get pulled closer, making the kiss go deeper and—
“I fucking knew you two were together already!” Gakuto squwaks from a distance, practically rattling the whole beach. The two of them jump in surprise. Jirou wakes up and Kabaji glances over his shoulder. Taki scoffs while Hiyoshi looks at Choutarou betrayed. Both Oshitari and Atobe look knowingly at each other. Then, they talk about who owes who what. Of course, they all made a bet.
And now, Shishido looks like he wants to kill.