Part 4

Finally the practice came to an end and Kamio dismissed everyone, heading to the changeroom to change back into his uniform.

Akaya glanced at Kamio as most of the players headed in to change, and gave him a cheeky grin and a flippant salute. Then he set his racquet aside and went to go help the first years gather balls, much to their shock and the delight of a few of them.

As he'd expected, they pestered him with questions about what it was like to play on a team, in a big tournament. These were the kids who looked up to the Regulars with a sort of frightened awe, and they would never dare bug them with similar questions. But Akaya was a non-regular, one of them, and therefore at least somewhat safe to bother.

He answered their questions easily enough, and asked a few of his own. By the time they had all the balls gathered, he'd accomplished both of his objectives; the Regulars had all finished changing and were leaving the club room, and he knew the names of each of the kids who were doing the grunt work.

Kamio found himself lingering in the changeroom, wondering where Kirihara was as it slowly emptied of second years. Finally he moved to the door, peeking out, and was amazed to see the former Rikkai picking up balls.

Now I have to ask, he thought to himself, moving to finish packing up his gear and then sitting down on one of the benches to wait.

It hadn't escaped Akaya that Kamio hadn't yet left the clubroom, even though Ibu had gone out with the rest of his teammates. Grinning to himself, he scooped up his racquet again and headed to the change room. His grin widened when he saw several of the first years trying to copy his casual pose with the racquet, their arms not yet long enough to drape over the head easily.

Was I ever that small? he wondered to himself in amusement. He was still fairly short for his age, but most of these kids barely came up to his chest. Well, there was definitely something to be said for teenage growth spurts.

"Yo," he greeted Kamio as he walked in and saw the redhead sitting on the bench. The rest of the kids with him squeaked and fell silent at the sight of their captain waiting alone in the room.

"Yo," Kamio replied, rising to his feet. He flashed a friendly grin at one of the kids, who reddened nervously and hurried to start getting changed. His mp3 player was still hanging around his neck and his tennis bag and backpack were between his feet on the floor. "Hurry up and get changed, Kirihara. I want to talk to you, so I figured I'd walk you home."

"Here I was hoping you were hanging around wanting to play a game," Akaya laughed. Some small part of him had hoped that, when Kamio didn't emerge from the clubhouse right away, but when he'd come in to find the redhead changed into street clothes he knew that wasn't the reason.

Well, all in good time. He doubted Kamio - or the others, for that matter - would be able to resist challenging him for long. Until then he'd just have to make do with solo practice like what he'd been doing the night before.

At the moment, Akaya felt pretty damn good. He'd been accepted by the team, he wasn't going to have to fight to keep playing. Kamio was listening to him about training the kids for next year. Even his inner demon had been relatively quiet today, with no opportunities being presented for it to escape his control.

The captain laughed, folding his arms and leaning back against his locker. "Maybe soon," he said. "I gotta play sometime." Suddenly he was regretting having changed. A solo game with Kirihara would have been...fun. Particularly since he'd been so busy helping the new players he hadn't had a chance to swing his own racquet yet, except outside of regular practice sessions.

Quickly Akaya went over how much money he had on him, and then suggested, "You up for grabbing dinner? I'm starving, hardly got a chance to eat lunch with all those girls chattering at me. I knew there was a reason I didn't often bother being nice." He laughed again. Having dinner would give him a chance to talk to Kamio about the training, and keep the boy away from his house. He didn't intend to subject anyone to his family if he could help it.

Kamio shrugged. "Okay, sure," he said with a smile. The anger he'd felt over Kirihara's behaviour in class seemed to have evaporated, and he wasn't entirely sure why. He flapped a hand at the other boy. "So hurry up and get ready, I'm starving."

Grinning, Akaya went to the small space on the shelf he'd claimed as 'his'. Only the Regulars got lockers, everyone else had to make do with a set of cubbyholes. Which wasn't all that different from Rikkai's system, the lockers there were just much nicer. And now that he was looking around, Akaya could tell that the tennis club weren't the only ones who used this room.

He hesitated over his Rikkaidai track pants and warm-up jacket, but he was feeling too good to want to antagonize Kamio at the moment. He could always change into them after the restaraunt, since he had every intention of going back to that lonely little court again afterwards. Instead he quickly put his school uniform back on, ran a brush briefly through his wild curls in a futile attempt to make them come to some sort of order. He hadn't worked up much of a sweat during the practice, so he didn't bother with showering.

"All right, lets go," he said as he came back to where Kamio was, noting that they were now the only ones left in the room. As fast as he'd been, the first years had been faster, probably not wanting to be left alone with their captain and the somewhat scary new player.

Kamio nodded and led the way towards the door. "Thanks for today," he said awkwardly, not sure he knew exactly how to say what he meant without looking stupid. "I mean, the last bit of it. I think things are really going to work out."

"It went a hell of a lot better than I expected it to," Akaya admitted wryly as he waited for Kamio to lock up. "Hell, everything the last couple of days has gone better than I expected it to. I was pretty sure you weren't gonna do anything but punch me out when I showed up at your office."

"I was tempted," Kamio admitted, shoving his keys in his pocket and then following them with his hands as a cool wind ruffled their hair. He tossed his head once, getting his hair out of his face, but it fell immediately back into his eyes again as he turned to glance at Kirihara. "So what am I going to do with you?" he asked frankly. "You're not a regular yet, but there's no way I can make you do stupid drills every day."

Opening his mouth to answer, Akaya shut it again almost immediately. If he were the type to blush, he would have, but thankfully that was not something he did easily. Spending the last two hours watching over the new players had put him back into 'captain' mode, and he'd been about to start issuing orders rather than making suggestions.

HE'S the captain, you're a nobody, he reminded himself harshly. Some of his good mood dropped away, and he struggled to hang on to the rest of it.

"Honestly, your best bet would probably be to put me in charge of training the rookies, and that way you can spend most of your time with the Regulars where you should be," he finally managed to word what he wanted to say so it didn't come out like a command. "If you think the other Regulars will accept that."

Kamio cocked his head thoughtfully. "Hey..." he said. "You know, that's a really great idea." His face brightened and he turned an excited grin towards Kirihara. "That would solve ALL of my problems. You'd be able to train the new people without making it look like I'm treating you like an outsider, and without me having to just consult you when no one can hear me. You wouldn't have to do stupid drills, but you also wouldn't end up being treated like the other regulars, which might piss them off. AND I'd get to PLAY."

"Some of your teammates might resent me getting that kind of power, though," Akaya pointed out, though his eyes gleamed with amusement at Kamio's obvious excitement. "I haven't earned a place there, as far as they're concerned. Might give you some authority issues, depends on how much they trust you."

"I think it'll be OK," Kamio said slowly. "It'd be better to have you do the training - especially if it were pretty obvious you were keeping me in the loop - then for you to be included with the rest of the regulars right now. They'd resent that more."

"Oh hell yeah," Akaya agreed fervently. There was no doubt in his mind that the rest of the team would riot if Kamio tried to make him a Regular now. If he was careful, if he could control the monster within and his own instinctive tendency to use sarcasm and destructiveness as a shield, they might be ready to accept him by spring. But it was going to take some hard work.

Might as well start now. "All right, then if I'm in charge of them, do you want to hear what I've concluded so far?"

"That's why I wanted to walk you home - or, well, to the restaurant, at least," Kamio replied, still smiling. "But maybe we should talk about something else until we get there. I want to take notes..."

Shrugging, Akaya nodded. "Your call. What do you want to talk about?" He turned curious green eyes on the redhead. He was frankly surprised Kamio was being so friendly after all the angry vibes he'd been so fiercely projecting at Akaya all during class. He couldn't quite figure Kamio out, couldn't predict him, and it made him interesting.

Of course, since Kirihara had asked the question, Kamio instantly had no idea what to say. He had a sudden, wild urge to tell him what Shinji had said in class, and just the thought of saying "Shinji thinks you like me" had him turning bright scarlet and looking away quickly. "I dunno," he said, trying to hide the blush in his hair as he racked his brain. "Do you have any ideas?"

"Not particularly, my mind is sort of engaged with the whole training thing," Akaya admitted, watching Kamio go bright red in fascination. "You're blushing again. You never did this around me at the invitational camp. What the hell?"

Kamio immediately sputtered. "W-what makes you think it has anything to do with you!?" he exclaimed, though he knew it had EVERYTHING to do with Kirihara. "It's just something Shinji said today, which was completely ridiculous, that's all."

"Ah, so you're blushing at the same thing you were blushing at earlier, I get it," Akaya nodded with a glint of evil amusement in his expression. He couldn't help himself; was it his fault Kamio was so damn easy to tease, and so damn adorable when flustered? He practically begged for it. "Must have been something pretty spectacular to get this much of a rise out of you twice. But it had nothing to do with me."

"I...uh...well," Kamio squeezed the bridge of his nose, then shook his head violently, trying to get a grip on himself. "Well, okay, it DID have something to do with you. I just don't know where you get off assuming that it had to do with you." And then, because continuing to build up the suspense would only make things worse, he muttered, "He said you like me."

About to reply that the only reason he'd assumed it had something to do with him was because it so obviously had, Akaya was caught off guard by Kamio's sudden admission.

He blinked, stared, blinked again, and then started laughing. "Holy shit, for a guy who never shuts up he sure is observant," he laughed. "Most people assume I don't like you. I thought only the rest of the Rikkaidai team knew me that well."

Kamio stopped dead and his jaw nearly hit the pavement. He whirled to stare directly at Kirihara. "W-What?!" he choked. "You don't exactly ACT like you like me! You make fun of me all the time. And you don't flirt with me, or say any of the stuff you were saying to those girls in class today!"

Slowly, subtly, the amused look in Akaya's eyes shifted to something very dark and dangerous. His smile became something that was more about teeth than mirth. "Trust me, Kamio, if I disliked you, you'd know it."

Then he shrugged, and some of the darkness slid away again. "And if I just didn't like you, I'd ignore you. Who said anything about flirting, anyway?" The rest of the darkness vanished and was replaced by sly teasing as he added, "Are you jealous? I'll be happy to flirt with you if it'll make you happy."

Kamio turned scarlet again and he started walking, a little faster than before. "No, no, that's fine. Forget I said anything. I'm just being an idiot, as usual." I'm so stupid, of course Shinji just meant 'like'. He didn't mean 'like like'! And even if he did, so what? Doesn't mean he's right, or that I need to CARE.

Laughing again, Akaya followed him as he turned and entered a restaraunt. It looked like a burger place, which he was glad to see as they tended to be cheap. It also smelled damn good to his starved stomach.

Definitely going to have to start flirting with him, he decided as he watched the flaming blush on the other boy's face slowly fade. Damn but he's cute when he's angry. How could anybody NOT like him and want to tease him? He's just so entertaining.

Kamio had managed to regain his composure - such as it was, for the volitile boy - by the time they reached the restaurant. He sat down in a booth, shoving his stuff to the side, and pulled out a notebook, placing it on top of his menu. He already knew what he wanted anyway. "Okay," he said, with just a little hesitation. "I'm ready now."

"What, for me to start flirting with you?" Akaya couldn't resist, it was too perfect an opening. "That was fast. I think I'm flattered." He half closed his eyes and lowered his voice on the last words, nearly purring.

"K-Kirihara!" Kamio sputtered, reddening again. "Stop teasing me! I meant the training stuff for the new players." He glared down at his notebook again, as annoyed with himself for getting riled up and telling Kirihara what Shinji had said as he was with Kirihara for making fun of him.

"Aw, but you're so much fun to tease," Akaya mock-pouted. Then, in one of the mercurial mood changes he'd been known for at Rikkaidai, he was suddenly serious again and focused on the practice.

"First of all, I changed my mind about the selection system," he said, leaning forward intently. "You just don't have enough people to do it Seigaku's way. The point of what they do is that they have some control over who makes the team, by placing certain combinations together in a block. For you, it just doesn't make sense. You'll probably have to do a round-robin tournament for rankings instead, maybe double elimination just to make sure you don't end up with two of your best people playing right at the beginning."

Kamio nodded slowly, scribbling in his book. "Yeah, I guess you're right," he said. "I'm pretty sure Seigaku doesn't put all of their best people in the same block together." He frowned faintly. "Isn't that a little pointless, though? I mean... I already know who's going to be the regulars. Unless you or someone has a REALLY bad day..."

"Yeah, but there's still the alternate position to fill," Akaya pointed out. "And frankly, you can't afford to look like you're playing favourites. What you start here is what will continue as a Fudoumine tradition, assuming the club manages to stay alive. You want something that's going to work later, too."

At that moment the waitress came to take their orders, and they paused until she'd gone again. As she walked away, Akaya said, "That's not all, though. Your main priority at the moment is twofold; convincing some of those kids they want this bad enough to do anything for it, and then giving them the training they need. There's some potential out there, it's not as bad as I thought it'd be."

"I think the roundrobin will be pretty fair. What if the new people with potential don't think they can do it?" Kamio asked, feeling relieved at Kirihara's assessment. He sighed, running a hand through his bangs. "I know I shouldn't coddle them, you're right about that. But I just see us getting to the end of this year without a single player to carry on the team, because none of them have a chance in hell of being a regular and they get sick of it."

"That's why you're going to adopt part of the Rikkaidai system," Akaya informed him with a sly grin. "You're going to create a pre-Regulars group. They'll get to train with the Regulars sometimes, and they're the ones we'll want to take to non-school related tournaments to get them some experience. That gives you something to reward the hard-working ones with, get them ready for being Regulars, even though there's no way in hell they'll make the team this year."

Kamio blinked at that, then brightened considerably. "You know, I'm really glad you transferred," he said, before it occurred to him that Kirihara really might not agree.

"Well, I'm glad someone is happy about it," Akaya replied dryly, not taking offense as he recognized Kamio meant it as a compliment. "I can't say I'm thrilled, and if you believed me if I did I'd have to wonder if you got hit in the head with a tennis ball one too many times. But it's not as bad as I thought it'd be."

His smile faltering, Kamio nodded, though he was glad that Kirihara hadn't gotten upset. "I...hope you get to like it at Fudoumine," he said sincerely, his tone awkward again. "Maybe you'll start to like the idea of building a team from the ground up, ne? You seem to be pretty good at it."

"It's your team, not mine," Akaya reminded him, Kamio's words stinging even though he knew they'd been meant as a sort of peace offering. "I'm just the trainer. Don't worry about it," he added as Kamio opened his mouth to reply, looking even more uncomfortable. "You're just going to dig yourself deeper."

Flushing slightly, Kamio closed his mouth and looked down at his notebook in consternation. He was honestly coming to believe that Kirihara's presence was not the headache that it had first seemed, but more of a windfall for Fudoumine. He felt bad that Kirihara didn't see it the same way.

At that moment, the waitress returned with large baskets full of their burgers and as many french fries as could fit around them. Kamio was glad to shove his notebook aside and focus on eating. "Oh good," he said. "I'm starving!"

"Food!" Akaya agreed happily. As far as he knew, this was one thing that every teenage boy anywhere, no matter what their grievances, could agree on. Food trumped everything.

When he'd devoured half his burger and most of his fries and felt a little more sated, he asked, "Do you want me to keep going? I'm not done yet."

Nodding, Kamio pulled the notebook a little closer, leaving a couple of grease stains on the page. He held his burger in one hand and his pen in the other, chewing busily. "Go ahead," he said through a mouthful.

"All right." Akaya gestured with a fry. "First, at the end of practice tomorrow, announce that you're going to be holding morning practices from now on. I don't know why you aren't," he added with a disapproving look. "But make it clear that the morning practices are voluntary only, and there will be no penalty for not attending." He grinned. "I guarantee you at least three quarters of the ones you're going to want in the pre-Regulars group will show up."

Kamio coloured slightly. "Okay," he said. All of the regulars had always simply practiced in the mornings on their own, so it was never necessary to hold morning practices. It hadn't occurred to him to start the extra practices, particularly given the time of year. "Then what?"

"Then you keep an eye on the troublemakers, because they're going to start being jealous of the privileged ones, and you of all people know where that can end up," Akaya warned. "They won't come to morning practice, or at least they won't last, because those are going to be brutal. But the kids who do keep up with it will do it because it gets them the pre-Regulars privileges.

"Don't advertise that, by the way," he added as an afterthought. "Let the others figure out for themselves why those kids are getting special treatment. It'll make them think about why that merits them privileges."

Nodding again, Kamio scribbled a few more notes in his notebook, then rescued a pickle that was sliding out of his burger. "Because if I advertise it, everyone will start showing up," he said. "At least, for a while. And they'll make trouble."

"Exactly," Akaya nodded and munched on the fry he'd been waving about. "Now, here's the important thing; the pre-Regulars can not have any special consideration when it comes to ranking matches. Not only will it make everyone else resent and pick on them, but you're shooting yourself in the foot by possibly missing a really good non-pre-Regular. Their special treatment starts and ends with the extra training."

"Right," Kamio said. He thought for a moment. "What if we picked the lineup for the ranking tournament in a draw? It's a double elimination, so I wouldn't have to play favourites by putting people together in specific ways, but at the same time, good people will be able to stay in, even if my two best get paired together first? And no one could say it wasn't fair, unless they decide to accuse me of rigging it or something."

"Which some resentful little fuck will eventually do, but there's nothing you can do about that," Akaya agreed. "Yeah, that's probably best. Seed the current Regulars so they won't all face each other early, but everyone else is paired by random draw. Just like they decide the play order for the tournaments."

A stray thought occurred to him. "Here's another thing you might want to think about, though you probably don't have the people for it right now; holding separate matches for doubles. It depends on if you'd rather train your doubles pairs together and use the strength of long practice together, or whether you prefer the flexibility of being able to assign different doubles combinations for each tournament."

Kamio thought about that for a few moments. "Well..." he said, chewing on a fry. "I think we'd be safe keeping it all together for now. I mean, all six of us can play doubles. We have two regular pairs, and Shinji and I also work well as doubles pairs. So given how few people we have, and the fact that we're making up a ton of new stuff already, even if by SOME chance Ishida loses his tournament or something, we'll always have enough experienced doubles pairs to fill in."

"Right, flexibility it is." At that moment, Akaya realized he was in something of a conflict of interests. "Shit," he said aloud without meaning to, scowling.

Kamio blinked and looked up at him. "What?"

With a dismayed look, Akaya shook his head. "I just realized that I know all the details of Rikkaidai's training program... including a lot of stuff you could use to help you beat them. I don't know for sure that Marui'll use all of it in my absence, but he helped me brainstorm a lot of it, so he probably will. And I don't want to tell you, damn it. It's not fair to them. But I feel like I'm cheating you guys."

The redhead was quiet for a few moments. "I guess it depends on whether Rikkaidai is your team or Fudoumine is," he said quietly. "I won't ask you to betray them, though," he added, a bit briskly. "It's a little different then sneaking over to their school to spy on them or something. And you've only been at Fudoumine a day."

Akaya nodded, a little gratefully, and decided to keep the details of Rikkaidai's unconventional doubles training to himself. He'd given Kamio a hint already, and if the redhead wanted to pursue a different course that was his business. "Okay, then I think that about covers it for now," he said. "It's enough to get us started, anyway. Anything else you can think of?"

Despite his words, Kamio had scribbled down a few notes about holding separate doubles matches. It was a GOOD idea, just not one he thought they could support - yet. He'd see how the first ranking tournament went, and then go from there. He set down his pen and finished off his burger while he thought. "Well, unless there's anything specific I need to know about the new kids," he said.

"Here..." Akaya reached out and stole the pen and paper long enough to scribble down two lists of names on a fresh page. "These are the ones I think have some potential," he said, tapping the first list, which included all the ones who'd swept the courts and picked up balls. Then he pointed at the second. "These are the potential troublemakers. Keep an eye on them, they think they deserve to be Regulars, to be special, just because they want to be. And they'll be pissy as all hell when things don't go their way." Most of the names in the second list were second-year students. Few freshmen were arrogant enough to assume they 'deserved' something above and beyond their other senpai.

Kamio took the notebook back and perused the list. He was able to put most of the names to faces, though not all yet. "You sure?" he asked. "You can tell that from just watching them swing a racquet around a little?" A few of them, he definitely agreed with, but he was amazed that Kirihara could tell so quickly.

"It's how they swing the racquet, and I'm not just talking about their technique," Akaya said with a grin. "And also watching who jumps to do the little extra stuff, and who does everything they can to avoid being asked to do it. I may not have everyone I need on those lists, and I might be wrong about some of them, but yeah, that's all I really need to see."

Nodding, Kamio took another long look at the list. "That makes sense," he said. "I know what you mean about the people who hang back and let other people do stuff. I'd noticed a few of the older ones doing that kind of thing."

"They think it's beneath them," Akaya explained. "And if they think that's beneath them, then they probably are gonna regard boring things like racquet drills the same way. They're not there to learn, they're there to show off, and cleaning up or swinging a racquet doesn't let them do that."

"Yeah, I think you're right," Kamio said with an emphatic nod. "They're just the kind of assholes who ruined this team in the first place, when we first joined. They just want in because we did well and they think they'll get glory." His expression darkened. "Hopefully they won't make too much trouble."

"Oh, they'll try," Akaya said, shaking his head. "We just won't let them get away with it. The only thing that worries me is that there's so many of them; there aren't usually more than two or three of them each year in Rikkaidai, but that's because everyone knows how brutal our practices are." He tapped another fry thoughtfully against the side of the basket. "If we're lucky, they'll just drop it as a bad cause once the practices start getting really tough. But we'll need to watch and make sure they aren't picking on the others, especially the pre-Regulars."

Kamio nodded, chewing on another fry. “At least this time the pre-Regulars will have the real Regulars to keep an eye out for them. We didn’t have that before, until Tachibana came. Fudoumine isn’t a bad school, but we probably have more rough kids than Rikkaidai does,” he said, giving Kirihara a look laced with irony. After all, arguably the roughest kid at Rikkaidai was sitting across from him right now, a Fudoumine student.

He finished off the fry and looked up, flashing Kirihara a grin. “Do you want to get out of here?” he asked. He was itching to play, and while he was a little leery of playing Kirihara, he figured as Captain, he was obligated to try him out first. He couldn’t sic Kirihara on his teammates without being able to shoulder the risk himself, after all.

"If you think I'm bad now, you should have seen me before Yukimura got ahold of me," Akaya informed him cheerfully, not the least bit repentant. "I was a regular little monster. Which just goes to show that some of those troublemakers may yet turn out to be our best players, if we handle them right." Of course he and Kamio combined still had only the barest fraction of Yukimura's charisma and ability to take a lump of coal and make a diamond out if it - and a fanatically devoted diamond at that. He shoved the last of his burger in his mouth and stood, indicating that he was ready to go.

Jumping to his feet and grabbing his back, Kamio aimed a smile at Kirihara that was a little less confident. “Well, we’ll just have to do our best, I guess,” he said. “We might get lucky and decide that they like tennis for itself after all. Or at least a few of them might.” He pulled out his wallet and dropped a couple of bills on the table, then hesitated for a moment before quickly adding a few more – enough to cover Kirihara’s portion of the meal. Grinning at him, he gestured. “Payment for giving me a hand with the training,” he said lightly. “Come on, let’s play a little.”

Anger immediately darkened Akaya's green eyes, and he scowled. "I don't need your fucking charity, Kamio," he snapped, and dropped enough money on the table to cover his portion. "Either I'm part of this team, or I'm not." With that he turned on his heel and stalked out, thoroughly pissed off. Kamio could take his money back or not, he didn't care.

He was tempted to leave it at that and just go home, but the prospect of getting to play again was a little too appealing. So he shortened his stride enough that Kamio would easily be able to catch up, though his stiff movements proclaimed to the world that he was still angry as hell.

Kamio stood for a moment, stunned. Scooping up the extra money he hurried after Kirihara. “Wait! Kirihara…” He caught up quickly. “I didn’t mean it like that!” he exclaimed. “I treat Shinji all the time, and he treats me. It’s just…what friends do.” But we aren’t friends, are we? Kamio’s traitorous mind whispered. He still held the yen in his hands, not holding it out to Kirihara, but not putting it away, either. He was afraid that if he offered it to the other boy, he’d get even more angry.

"Then you didn't have to say that about paying me for helping!" Akaya snapped back, eyes narrowed. They burst out into the cold air, the sun already vanishing beneath the horizon. Automatically, he turned towards the single court he'd been playing at the night before. There was a small public washroom in the park nearby, they could change there.

Abruptly he stopped walking, squeezing his eyes shut and pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to regulate his breathing into something more calm. He couldn't play while he was angry like this, he didn't dare. Especially not if his opponent was Kamio.

“I…” Kamio sighed, Kirihara was half right, at least from his perspective. He swallowed back his own rising frustration. Why was Kirihara making this so hard on them both? It was just innocent. “I wasn’t sure if you thought of me as a friend,” he said quietly. “I thought you’d take it better if I was paying you back for something you did. I guess I was wrong, and I’m sorry.”

Swallowing, Akaya nodded, getting his anger back under control. "Sorry," he said shortly, moving towards the court again at a more normal walking pace. "You managed to hit two sore spots at once. Keep it," he added, nodding at the money Kamio was still holding. "I... can't afford to treat you in turn, so it's better if I just pay for myself." It was a bitter admission and he hated having to make it. He wasn't used to having to worry about money beyond 'how much do I have on me right now?', and it sat like acid in his chest.

Kamio hesitated. The fact that Kirihara couldn’t afford the meal they’d just had only made him want to help more. He wanted to give Kirihara the money, but he could tell that the other boy’s pride wouldn’t allow it. “All right,” he said, shoving the money back into his pocket. “Anyway, I didn’t mean to hit sore spots.” He offered Kirihara an uncertain grin. “Let’s just forget it and play some tennis, okay?”

Akaya nodded, and turned at the next corner to bring them into the park. "We can change there," he said, pointing at the washroom that was just one step up from an outhouse. Slowly his enthusiasm for the promised game was returning to him, lightening his mood. He realized Kamio probably didn't have anything to wear other than his Fudoumine Regulars uniform, and Akaya had every intention of wearing his Rikkai uniform as he always did now when practicing. "Good thing there isn't anyone else around, this match would be a hell of a show..."

Kamio grinned. “I’ve been wanting to play you for a long time,” he said, making for the bathroom at a trot, already starting the warm up process. Given the cold, it was even more important for him to stretch his legs and warm up well. Otherwise he could easily pull a muscle with the speed at which he moved around the court. He dove into the washroom first and stripped out of his clothes, shivering as he put on his regulars outfit.

"I thought you had to listen to your music for a while before you could play, to get in the beat or whatever it was," Akaya called through the wall as he leaned against it to start his own stretches. He couldn't do much in the restrictive school uniform, but there was no point in just standing around waiting for his turn to change. "I hope you're prepared to have your ass handed to you!"

“I’m going to listen to my music in a minute,” Kamio called back. “While you’re changing. It doesn’t take me long to get my rhythm now, anyway. And I hope YOU’RE prepared to have your ass handed to you, Kirihara. I’m not the wuss you think I am.” He wasn’t nearly as confident as he was pretending to be, but it wasn’t like he was going to TELL Kirihara he was afraid he was going to lose. Besides, this was a friendly match.

"You're about a hundred years too early to even be able to touch my ass, let alone hand it to me," Akaya snorted with mirth. Then he let a leer creep into his tone. "Unless you're not talking about tennis, of course, but I thought you didn't want me flirting with you?" Ah, psychological warfare. Akaya's favourite tactic. Who needed to do physical damage when you could shake your opponent up in other ways before hand?

“Asshole,” Kamio sputtered, going deeply red again and cursing himself for letting Kirihara get to him. He quickly zipped up his jacket and stepped out of the bathroom, aiming a glare at Kirihara but unable to totally repress a smile. “I’ll see you on the court, slowpoke,” he said, trotting over to the court and already putting his headphones on. He started to stretch and warm up, tapping his fingers in time to the beat.

Laughing at the deep red tone to Kamio's face as he headed to the courts, Akaya slipped into the bathroom and quickly pulled out his own tennis clothes. The familiar gold was reassuring as he stripped out of his uniform and scrambled into first the shorts and jersey, then the pants and jacket. I'll have to stop wearing these soon, he thought to himself with a pang of sadness. What he'd said to Kamio in the restaraunt was true... either he was part of Fudoumine's team, or he wasn't. He couldn't cling to Rikkaidai forever, however much he wanted to.

But for today, maybe for one last time, he was going to go out there and play as Kirihara Akaya, Rikkaidai second year ace and captain. In an odd way, he felt like Kamio deserved the chance to confront this personal demon one last time before being forced to accept Akaya as an ally.

|Prologue| |Part 1| |Part 2| |Part 3| |Part 4| |Part 5| |Part 6| |Part 7| |Part 8| |Part 9| |Part 10| |Part 11|

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