Chapter 18

They lost in the end, in no small part because of the restriction to Shishido's movement caused by the injury to his shoulder. Their opponents won both of the first two sets, but Ohtori and Shishido made them work hard for them at 7-5 and 6-4. Ohtori was just as glad they hadn't had to play the third set, because by the end of the second he could see the effort it was taking Shishido to move his arm.

Under other circumstances he might have been drowning in guilt, but as they left the change rooms Ohtori felt like he was walking on air. Loss or no loss, they'd accomplished one of their greater goals today; they'd been approached by a well-known tennis coach who wanted to take them on and train them.

In the end, there was only so much they could do to train on their own. Having a real coach, one specifically experienced in training doubles pairs, would make a huge difference to their success as a team.

"We still need a sponsor, though," Shishido reminded him as they walked through the crowds towards the building exit. "That guy's not going to come cheap, no matter how impressed with us he is. And we need to start looking at the bigger tournaments. It all costs money." Despite his words of caution the older boy had a grin plastered over his face that was just this side of ridiculous. "Maybe I can get Atobe to convince his father to sponsor us. The Atobe Group certainly has the money to spare."

"We'll get a sponsor," Ohtori assured him, still giddy. "If we're already doing this well, think how much better we'll be with coaching. We've placed well in two tournaments now; we might even be seeded in the next. If we don't win that one, I'll eat my racquet." He shook his head, hefting his bag a little higher on his shoulder.

"In the meantime, I'll pay for the coach," he added. When Shishido would have objected, Ohtori just ploughed right on over top of him, blithely ignoring his partner's expected protests. "My family can afford it, and yours can't," he said simply, shrugging. "Just smile and nod for now, Shishido-san. We need this coach, and you know your family can't spare the money. If it bothers you that much, you can pay me back later. I know you're good for it."

"Damn straight I am," Shishido replied, momentarily disgruntled. Shaking his head, he sighed and clapped Ohtori on the shoulder. "You're right, and thank you. I let my pride get in the way of my tennis once; if nothing else, I try not to make the same mistakes twice."

"Good." Glad that he wasn't going to have to spend hours arguing about something they both knew had no other reasonable solution, Ohtori's smile widened. At that moment, he was pretty much on top of the world. He didn't think there was anything that could ruin his good mood.

They hit the exit, and even the weather seemed to be falling in line with his mood. It had been gray and sort of dreary when he'd arrived, but now the clouds were clearing up and the sun was shining through. "We should go get your arm checked out," he said solicitously.

"Will you stop about my arm already?" Shishido asked in exasperation, swatting at him. "It's not a big deal, all right? I'll put an icepack on it when I get home and I'll be fine tomorrow."

"Still." Ohtori couldn't help but worry. He knew what Shishido was refraining from saying; that he'd taken more than one Scud Serve in the past and lived through it, and that was true. That didn't make it any less painful for him to know he was once again responsible for hurting his partner that way.

Before he could continue to press his point, however, the last person he wanted to see at the moment stepped away from the wall of the building and into their path. "Choutarou. I want to talk to you," Amano said flatly, his pale grey eyes giving nothing of his thoughts away.

"Kazuya." Ohtori's voice was no more welcoming than his boyfriend's had been, and he felt Shishido stiffen beside him. Just that quickly his good mood slid away as he was reminded why he had been angry enough to accidentally serve straight into his partner.

"I want to talk to you," Amano repeated, crossing his arms. "In private." He glared at Shishido as if he expected the older boy to object, and Ohtori could see the silent snarl in his partner's eyes.

"Shouldn't you be at the concert?" Ohtori asked before Shishido could snap something in return. His voice remained cool, and his words served as a reminder to his boyfriend that if anyone had the right to be upset at the moment, it wasn't Amano.

"I was hoping to catch you between settings and apologize to you," the pianist said, his eyes flashing briefly with anger before he retreated behind his icy demeanour again. From his tone, Ohtori somehow doubted the other boy was still planning to apologize.

"They're called 'sets'," he sighed, raking his free hand through his hair. "And we're not allowed to talk to... oh, never mind," he interrupted himself. Amano wasn't there for Ohtori to remind him again about the rules and terms of tennis. "Fine, we can talk. We might as well do it now as later. Shishido-san, will you excuse me, please?"

"Yeah." Shishido looked reluctant, but Ohtori was grateful that he agreed without protest. "I'll go, uh, wait by the driveway. We've got a while before the next train in our direction gets here."

"Thank you," Ohtori said, and watched him head off for a moment before turning to his boyfriend. "Not here," he said when Amano seemed perfectly willing to start talking the moment Shishido was out of earshot. "It's too public. Come on."

He led the way back around the corner of the building Amano had been leaning on, heading for the small building that housed the machinery that kept the huge air dome over the courts until summer came. The air pumps and fans were relatively noisy, and nobody but maintenance people ever came back here, so they were safe enough to talk without a curious reporter overhearing them.

"What the hell was that all about?" Amano burst out the moment Ohtori turned towards him. "That was about the least platonic-looking thing I've ever seen anybody participate in while fully clothed and in public."

"What?" Caught off guard by the totally unexpected attack, Ohtori just stared at him. "Kazuya, what on earth are you talking about? You've seen me play tennis before."

"I'm not talking about the game, Choutarou," Amano snapped back. "I'm talking about the five minutes you two spent gazing adoringly into each other's eyes. Do you have any idea what people were whispering about the two of you?"

Oh, right. That. As intent as he'd become on the match, Ohtori had honestly almost forgotten about how Shishido had forced him to focus. It probably had looked odd to anyone watching, he had to admit. And, well... it had been a rather intimate moment, though not quite in the way Amano was trying to imply. A light flush suffused his cheeks.

"It's not..." he started to protest. Abruptly he cut himself off, shaking his head. "No, you know what? That's not relevant here. I'm not going to let you distract me from what happened this morning, Kazuya. What the hell was your father talking about? You knew I'd sold my ticket."

"I got another one," Amano said, as if it were perfectly logical for him to have done so.

"Why?" Ohtori demanded. "For what possible reason could you have done that? You knew I had a game today, and I told you that it was likely to go too long for it to be worth it for me to try to get to the concert afterwards. That's why I sold my ticket in the first place! And I was right, it is late, and we only even played two sets. Why would you do that?"

"Because you're wasting your time here," Amano said, eyes narrowing as his face tightened in anger. "Damn it, we should have been at that concert today. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and you were crazy to throw it away like that!"

"I was not 'wasting my time'. This was the semifinals of a very important tournament!" Ohtori replied, his own voice freezing over as he started to become truly angry again. "If we'd dropped out so I could go to a concert, there is no way anyone would ever have been willing to sponsor or coach us! They wouldn't take us seriously. There will be other concerts."

"There will be other tournaments," Amano countered, his voice chilling as well. "Look around you, Choutarou!" He swept his arm out in a gesture that encompassed the dome over the courts. "Tennis is your hobby. Music is your life. It's great that you enjoy sports and that you're good at them, and it's probably good for you to be so active. Fine. But you're letting it interfere with what's really important, and you're losing your focus! You're going to regret it in a couple of years when other people start pulling ahead of you because you haven't practiced enough."

"You..." Ohtori stared at him in disbelief. The suspicion had been there, but some part of him had still wanted to believe that the whole thing had been a mix-up. "You didn't set the alarm on purpose, didn't you? You did know that if I missed registration we'd have to forfeit the match. And you were planning to console me by surprising me with the extra ticket you'd bought just in case."

Amano didn't need to confirm it; Ohtori could read it in the angry set of his eyes. Most other people wouldn't have been able to see past the chilled expression, but Ohtori was far too familiar with using coldness as a defence not to be able to see through it in someone else. Especially someone he knew this well.

"You deliberately exhausted me last night so I'd sleep in," he continued, certainty growing in him with every word. "And then you didn't set the alarm. Just what the hell do you think gives you the right to dictate what is and is not important in my life?" Now it was his turn for his eyes to flash dangerously. He was a full head taller than the pianist, and he used it to his advantage now, looming over the smaller boy.

"For your information," he hissed out, beyond furious, "I haven't decided yet whether music or tennis is going to be my career path. I've been delaying the decision as long as possible. It's just as likely that it is going to be music that ends up as my hobby, not the other way around."

"What?" Amano looked shocked and dismayed. Under other circumstances it might have been funny to see the pianist so alarmed, but Ohtori wasn't laughing. "Choutarou, you can't do that! You have a talent, a gift. You're one of the best violinists I've ever played with. You have the potential to make a name for yourself as a soloist, and that's not something many people will ever be able to do. You have a responsibility not to throw that gift away!"

"I have a gift for tennis too, Kazuya," Ohtori said, voice low and dangerous. "One of Japan's top doubles coaches approached Shishido-san and I today and offered to train us. With his help, and if we keep playing the way we have been, we're going to start getting invitations to the really serious matches. By the time we're done high school we could go pro, or maybe even to the Olympics. How is it any less my responsibility to make the most of that gift?"

"Oh, great, so now you're going to spend even more time training with him," Amano growled. "Am I even going to get to see you anymore?"

"Not if you keep this up," Ohtori said warningly. "Don't you bring Shishido-san into this, damn it. This is not about him, this is about you trying to railroad me into making the decisions you think are best for me!"

"I'm not bringing him into this," Amano replied, tone scathing. "I don't need to. He never left. This has always been about you and him. I've never been anything more than a substitute, have I?" When Ohtori just stared at him again, he continued bitterly, "Someone showed me a picture of him today, from before you were partners. Is that why you always ask me to wear my hair up? So you can pretend I'm him?"

Completely shocked at the accusation, Ohtori was left grasping for words for a long moment. "Excuse me?" he finally managed, the ice cracking again under the sheer force of his fury. "Kazuya, we're Japanese. You cannot possibly hold the fact that you and Shishido-san both had long, dark hair against me! Damn it, I ask you to wear your hair that way because I think it looks hot! I barely even knew Shishido-san when he had long hair, you do not remind me of him."

"Oh, don't give me that," Amano retorted. "You were on the same tennis team for a year before he cut his hair."

"No, actually, we really weren't," Ohtori said, recovering some of the ice as his poise returned to him. "You don't understand how the Hyoutei tennis club works. I was a Regular, he was a sub-Regular. He was a singles player and I was in doubles. We didn't talk to each other, practice together, or even use the same clubhouse. And before I made the Regulars he was a sub-Regular and I was just a freshman, completely beneath his notice."

He snorted, remembering the few encounters he'd had with Shishido before he'd agreed to help the senior train to regain his spot on the team. "Frankly, what little I did know of him I didn't think much of. He was as spoiled and arrogant as Atobe-san, with none of Atobe-san's redeeming qualities. It wasn't until he was dropped that I saw there was more to him than the vain peacock, and shortly after that he cut his hair. When I picture him I have a hard time remembering what he used to look like; I have to look two or three times to find him in old team photos."

"Right, and I suppose the soul-gazing back in there was just something every doubles team does to help them focus," Amano said sarcastically. "Give me credit for a little intelligence, Choutarou. And you wonder why I don't trust you with him!"

There was absolutely nothing he could say that was going to get through to his boyfriend, Ohtori realized with a sort of weary resignation. Later it would hurt, and hurt badly, but right now he was just emotionally overloaded. In the end, nothing he had done had made a dent in Amano's distrust of him when it came to Shishido. And in all honesty, Ohtori couldn't even entirely blame him.

No, he couldn't blame him... but that didn't mean he was just going to sit back and accept it, either. "Kazuya, I can't go through this again. I thought I'd finally managed to convince you that I would never, ever cheat on you. But if you can't even respect me enough to trust me after all this time, then there's no point to continuing to try." Looking deep into those angry, wounded silver eyes, Ohtori said the words he suspected had been coming for far too long. "It's over, Kazuya."

"Wh-what?" The pianist was startled, as if that was the last thing he'd expected Ohtori to say. "You... you can't mean that. Choutarou, you're upset. Fine, we'll talk about this later when we're both feeling more rational."

"No." Ohtori's voice was soft, but implacable. "I can't, Kazuya. You don't trust me, and I can't convince you, and we're tearing ourselves to pieces over it. It's hurting you, and it's killing me, and I just can't handle it any more. It's over."

They stared at each other for a long moment, neither quite sure what to say. Ohtori knew that most of the blame for this lay squarely on his shoulders. He'd made a lot of mistakes over the last seven or eight months, some of which he would probably regret for the rest of his life. Somehow, he knew this wasn't one of them. As much as it was going to hurt when the anger wore off, it was the only way to keep them from destroying each other.

As realization sank in that Ohtori was utterly serious and would not be swayed, fury crept into Amano's expression. Ohtori braced himself, half expecting the smaller boy to swing at him. Instead Amano's attack was entirely verbal, but when he spoke Ohtori wasn't sure he wouldn't have preferred the punch. "So that's it? What'd it take for him to convince you to break up with me? Better yet, how long are you planning to wait before you run to his arms? A week? An hour? Or are you just going to turn around and drag him to the nearest secluded spot?"

Ohtori stiffened in renewed anger at the accusations, twice as hurtful for the grain of truth to them. He couldn't deny that, once free of his relationship with Amano, chances were extremely good he and Shishido would end up together in fairly short order. They'd been dancing around each other for almost a year now, and once there was nothing between them any more he doubted either of them would be resist the next time temptation presented itself.

The fact that I'm even thinking about it in terms of 'freedom' should tell me I'm doing the right thing, Ohtori thought painfully. "I can't deny that he's one of my reasons for doing this, but he's not the main one," he said stiffly. "The main reason is that I will not put up with anyone trying to run my life for me. Not by physical things like not setting the alarm, and not by emotional things like trying to restrict my friendships with other people so that you're always front and center in my life!"

"Oh please." Amano's eyes glinted with pain and anger to match Ohtori's own. Ohtori knew the other boy was hurt and lashing out, but he couldn't help but react to his tone. Amano knew his weak spots far too well not to be effective when trying to hurt him. "Hell, at this point it wouldn't surprise me if there wasn't even any waiting involved. Is that why you keep putting me off? Have you been screwing him, and didn't want me to see any evidence of it?"

Given half a second longer, Ohtori would have hit the other boy for daring to even suggest such a thing. Damn it, maybe he'd made a lot of the mistakes in their relationship, but he had not cheated! As tempted as he'd been, he'd never given in, and he couldn't believe Amano could think that of him even in the midst of this much anger.

He never got the chance to throw the punch, however. Before he could do more than take a step forward Amano had been slammed up against the wall of the machinery house, Shishido's hands clamped over his shoulders and pinning him in place. The older boy was beyond merely furious, his blue eyes almost black with rage and his face contorted into a snarl.

"Don't you ever fucking talk about Choutarou like that again!" his partner hissed, pulling away and slamming Amano back into the wall again for emphasis. "If I ever again hear you say something that dirty about him again, I will tear your guts out and string my racquet with them, you hear me? You fucking take that back!"

Choking, Amano struggled against his hold as Ohtori looked on in disbelief. Where the hell had Shishido come from? How long had he been lurking around the corner, listening? Long enough, apparently. "Shishido-san..."

"Haven't we had this discussion before, Shishido?" Amano croaked out, clearly not cowed by the violence. "You're still acting like you're suffering from a guilty conscience. How long did it take you to seduce him back to you? At least I know I fucked him first..."

"Shishido-san!" Ohtori barely managed to grab the fist Shishido had drawn back to smash into Amano's face. He held on with all his strength, knowing if he let go there was going to be bloodshed. "Shishido-san, stop it. He's just trying to hurt me! It's not worth it. Stop!"

"If you think I'm going to stand here and let someone shit-talk you like that, Choutarou, you seriously need to think again," Shishido growled. "Let go, damn it, I'm going to pound some manners into this little bastard!"

"No," Ohtori said firmly, tugging at the hand he held captive. "No, Shishido. Don't you dare. If you hit him I will never forgive you, do you hear me? I'll never play with you again!"

Disbelieving, Shishido stared at him, momentarily diverted from his anger at Amano. Ohtori looked back at him steadily, wordlessly promising that he wasn't bluffing. "You dropped the 'san'," Shishido finally observed somewhat nonsensically.

"Oh, for..." Exasperated, Ohtori hauled at him again, trying to get him to back off. "If I call you 'Ryou', will you let him go?"

"For that? Yeah," Shishido agreed, releasing Amano at last. He backed up a step at Ohtori's continued urging, but didn't let up on his angry glare at the pianist. "But if I ever hear about you harassing Choutarou, I will be the one to make your life a living hell. Got me?"

Dusting himself off, Amano traded him glare for glare. "Have fun," he sneered. "Enjoy it while it lasts. Given his track record so far, I'm sure it won't be long before he starts looking around for someone else again."

Ohtori was glad he hadn't yet released Shishido's hand, because otherwise Amano would have been going to the hospital. "Get the hell out of here," Ohtori snapped at Amano. "I'm only going to save you from a broken nose so many times. Next time I let him hit you."

For once choosing the wise course of action, Amano stalked off without saying another word. Ohtori hung on to Shishido until the pianist was out of sight around the corner before he released him with an exhausted sigh. His emotions were finally catching up to him, anger and sorrow and hurt crashing down on him all at once. He leaned back against the wall Shishido had pinned Amano to, not sure his legs would hold him up otherwise.

"Arrogant and spoiled as Atobe, huh?" Shishido asked after a moment, prompting a laugh that was half sob from Ohtori. "Choutarou? Fuck, are you okay?" The older boy was clearly concerned, eyeing him with worry replacing the anger in his eyes. "You're crying..."

"Am I?" Ohtori was surprised, but when he touched a shaking hand to his face, he discovered that his partner was right. There were tears on his cheeks, and more flowing down with every moment. Actually, that probably explained why it was so difficult to see.

Furious at himself now, angry that he would lose control in public like this, Ohtori sniffed and scrubbed at his face, trying to rub away the tears. "Gods," he choked out when they kept coming despite his best efforts. "Maybe I really did love him. It hurts..."

Not as much as it had hurt when Shishido had cut him out after his confession, but it was still a dull ache that seemed to take up all the space in his chest, pushing everything else aside until it threatened to swallow the beat of his heart. It still felt like it had been the right thing to do, but that didn't stop it from hurting.

"Hey," Shishido's voice was uncharacteristically soft, and he wiped a missed teardrop from the side of Ohtori's chin. "It's all right, you know. You guys were going out for, what, seven months? Of course it hurts. You must've cared about him to stay with him that long."

"I just..." To his horror Ohtori realized he was starting to sob, his loss of control complete. Shishido tugged him down into an awkward embrace, and he leaned on his partner's shoulder and cried himself out.

"I tried so hard," he whispered when he thought he could be coherent again. "After everything he did for me, I just wanted to be worthy of his feelings for me. I thought I was over you, I really did. Especially after what you did after your birthday party. But..."

"But nothing," Shishido interrupted him, rubbing his back gently. "Choutarou, sometimes it just doesn't work out. You gave it your best shot, but it was the wrong time, the wrong circumstances. I know the way you are, you would have put everything you had into saving it. It just wasn't meant to be."

"Not everything," Ohtori confessed miserably. "No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop thinking about you in the end. You were right before, Shishido-san. I wasn't being fair to either of you, and now I've managed to hurt everyone involved."

"Wait a minute," Shishido protested lightly, obviously trying to distract him. "I let him go because you promised to call me 'Ryou'! Why are we back to 'Shishido-san'?"

Despite himself, Ohtori gave a watery laugh. "I never said I would keep calling you that," he said. "You should have stipulated that as part of the bargain."

When he forced himself to straighten, he saw that Shishido was giving him a wry smile. "I guess I'll just have to keep finding ways to get you to bribe me with it, until it becomes automatic. I like hearing you say my name."

Ohtori started to say something in reply, but his breath caught in his throat and all the words flew out of his head as Shishido reached up and cupped his cheek. There was a heated look in the older boy's eyes that hadn't been there a moment before, but Ohtori was suddenly excruciatingly aware of the way they were standing pressed together. What had been intended for comfort had turned into something else entirely.

"Choutarou," Shishido murmured, his expression intent. "Gods, I feel like I've waited forever for this..."

He's going to kiss me, Ohtori realized, feeling dazed as Shishido stretched up towards him. He's really going to...

Unbidden, Amano's hateful words from earlier rang in his ears. 'How long will it take before you run to his arms?'

"No," Ohtori gasped, rearing up to his full height and putting himself out of reach unless Shishido went right up on tiptoe. "Gods, Shi... Ryou. We can't."

"What?" Shishido looked both frustrated and elated - presumably the latter was for the fact that Ohtori had called him by given name. It wasn't hard to guess what the frustration was for. "Why the hell not?"

"Because I won't prove him right, damn it," Ohtori replied, anguished. "I won't give him cause to be able to point and say 'I knew it'. And because he deserves better than that."

Blowing out a long breath, Shishido shook his head and took a step back. "I know one of the things I like about you is your sense of integrity, but right now I could wish you were just a bit less... integrated?"

Snorting with laughter, Ohtori gave him a rueful smile. "Please, Ryou. We've screwed up so many times with each other; I don't want to give myself something else to doubt or regret. It doesn't feel right to just turn away from him and straight to you. I feel like I'm vindicating every jealous moment he ever had."

"All right, all right," Shishido agreed with a grimace. "You can have as much time as you need, Choutarou. Hells, I've waited this long. And you're right, the last thing we need is more fuck-ups between the two of us."

"Thank you," Ohtori said softly, ducking his head to hide his eyes with his bangs. He bit his lip, trying not to start sniffling again. This had been a far too emotional day for him, and he was starting to feel utterly exhausted by it all. He needed to go crawl into bed, pull the covers over his head, and pretend the rest of the world didn't exist until he got it all sorted out inside his own mind.

"We should go," he said, bending to pick up his bag. "We've already missed one train, I'm sure. We shouldn't miss the next."

"Choutarou."

When Ohtori turned to look back at his partner quizzically, he found his shirt caught in a tight fist as he was dragged down into a passionate kiss. While he was more than a little shocked, he also couldn't keep himself from responding. Moaning into the kiss, he dropped his bag again and wrapped his arms around Shishido, kissing back for everything he was worth.

In many ways it was really no different than kissing Amano had been, which surprised Ohtori a bit. And yet it was on another level entirely, his body aching almost instantly with the force of the pent-up passion behind it.

Shishido finally broke the kiss and stepped away, looking up at him. Ohtori just stared back at him, too dazed to think of anything to say. "Just so we know what we're waiting for," the older boy told him with a cheeky grin. His voice betrayed him, though, coming out husky and half an octave lower than usual. Ohtori shivered at the sound of it, and had to turn away so he wouldn't be tempted to grab his partner and try that again.

"It's worth it," he said, his own voice a bit rougher than normal. "It's definitely worth it."

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