Chapter Text
A beautiful and sunny early spring morning poked through the chill of the previous days, bringing a warmer air to its embrace. Birds were singing, the sound of the city bustled around campus, and for the first time in what had felt like years, it was temperate enough to practice outside.
It was tradition at Shitenhouji for the third years to continue to come to practice, even though they should have been focusing on their future instead. Zaizen had officially been named captain in the months following Nationals and the end of summer, Shiraishi passing the torch for the second time in three years to his trusted underclassman. However, although he was captain in title, it was more akin to a partnership - Shiraishi and Zaizen banding together to absorb any remaining wisdom Shiraishi had to pass on in a strange form of osmosis, and preparing their first years to step into the role of upperclassmen to the class that would be incoming come the beginning of the new school year.
It was the end of an era. This particular tight-knit band of the tennis team had become somewhat local celebrities in the area, what for their success in not just local tournaments, Kansai winners for however many years in a row, but also in the national tournaments where they faced schools such as Rikkaidai and Seigaku. It was all but Shitenhouji’s lot in life to lose to Rikkai in the semi-finals of Nationals, it had been a long running joke since Shitenhouji became competitive enough to hard hit the strongest school for tennis in the nation, but this year in particular with Shiraishi at the helm of the tennis team gave Rikkai a hard fight for the right to advance to finals.
Shiraishi vs. Yukimura had been the highlight match of the semi-finals. Since developing the Star Bible, Shiraishi had grown leaps and bounds beyond what anybody expected of him. His fundamentals were unparalleled, his skills refined, and despite relatively thin arms he had become a hard hitter. It was not a surprise when Yukimura ultimately took the win, but Shiraishi took him to tie break; a pin drop could have been heard in the stadium. For both teams, there was a sense of relief - for Rikkai, that they would proceed to finals, and for Shiten, well, it had been the most perfect closure to the season. For Yukimura and Shiraishi, they simply enjoyed that they had one more opportunity to pit up against one another, in particular when Yukimura announced his retirement from tennis in midst of interviews and scouts from both within the country and abroad in an attempt to recruit him to go pro as soon as it was confirmed that Rikkai had won in finals.
It was never a dull day in the tennis world.
The third years had finally made it over the hurdle of entrance exams, securing their fate one way or another. The most popular exam to take was that of Osaka University. Handai had an exceptional medical program, that being their primary draw for prospective students, but their other programs were just as strong. Of course, those from Osaka tended to be very prideful of their home prefecture, and often didn’t want to leave, either, which certainly fueled students’ sights on Handai.
Shiraishi and Oshitari had both taken the entrance exam - Oshitari because it was an Oshitari tradition that would bring shame to his entire family if he didn’t pursue an education at Handai, and Shiraishi because he wanted to study chemistry and pharmaceuticals to follow in his father’s footsteps. Two Shiten alumni were already at Handai, in their first and second year respectively, and the tennis team was shaping up to become Shiten 2.0.
But the best day came when the acceptance letters were mailed out, the third years having made it through the darkness to get to their top choice school. Oshitari wouldn’t be a black mark on the Oshitari family; Shiraishi’s test scores easily cinched his spot in the chemistry program despite the relatively small percentage of candidates who made it in each year; the others who didn’t pursue Handai were made up of Hitouji and Konjiki who would be attending a local performing arts university and Koishikawa who was pursuing culinary school. Ishida decided to forego university entirely to focus solely on his family responsibility to man the shrine. Chitose had taken his entrance exams months before the others, and had received an early admission to Kyushu University where he and Tachibana would be moving in together after repairing their relationship for good.
Zaizen and Tooyama would of course be left behind as Shiten’s legacy.
The end of an era was nigh, but it wasn’t as though everyone was going to disappear for good. They hadn’t after middle school graduation - what would make high school any different?
That was what Zaizen told himself as they wrapped up their last practice in February, full of laughter and high spirits after a particularly fun day. Shiraishi and Oshitari in particular were being their stupid, ridiculous selves, hanging all over one another and bantering back and forth with their ongoing joke about being “bb married,” whatever the fuck “bb marriage” was. Zaizen didn’t think they actually understood how chat speak worked.
It had been a few weeks since Oshitari’s confession.
Looking back on it, Zaizen should have seen it coming. How many people took another person to the line of trees where the cherry blossoms bloomed every spring to do anything but confess? Even if it was still too early for the blossoms? No one. It was practically tradition much like third years continuing to show their face at practice. It was basically the perfect set up, which made Zaizen a bit mad because that meant that not only had Oshitari been pondering it for a while, and yet somehow slightly missed the mark by confessing before the trees had bloomed, but it probably wasn’t even his idea to begin with. Everyone knew that Oshitari’s cousin Yuushi was the romantic one between them - Kenya wouldn’t know romance if it bit him in the nose.
Following the confession, the first few days had been awkward. Oshitari had all but steered clear of Zaizen - not that he was deliberately ignoring him or anything, but for obvious reasons their interactions had left Oshitari feeling a bit cagey, and Zaizen wasn’t about to call him out on it. Zaizen was the one who turned him down. It left for some interesting interactions for Zaizen assumed that not many people on the team knew what had transpired between them, and it was quite unlike Oshitari to be avoiding someone. It was not so unusual for Zaizen himself to not be directly engaged with the regular shenanigans at practice, but Oshitari was usually in the middle of it all.
“Did something happen with Kenya-kun, Hi~ka~ru?” Konjiki’s question was posed while he was all but clinging to Zaizen’s arm, batting false eyelashes in his face.
“Yeah, I guess.” The expression on Zaizen’s face must have spoken volumes, for Konjiki abandoned Zaizen to cling to Shiraishi instead. Shiraishi, much to Zaizen’s relief, didn’t perpetuate any of it.
“I’m sure Kenya will tell us when he’s ready,” Shiraishi assured Konjiki with a patient smile on his face, ever the calm and steady one. There was no way that Oshitari hadn’t gone to Shiraishi to tell him everything that happened, they were best friends, but if Shiraishi felt one way or another about the situation, he didn’t let on to it.
“Koharu~” It took all but one call from Hitouji to send Konjiki running back toward him, with a gait not so unlike a stereotypical school girl running to her crush in the epilogue of a shoujo manga. “Are you leaving me?”
“Oh, Yuu-kun, I could never,” Konjiki cooed, wrapping both of his arms around one of Hitouji’s, and then the interaction with Zaizen was promptly forgotten.
“Let’s get back to practice, everyone.” Shiraishi’s calm voice was light and airy, and did well to keep everyone in line for they collected back together, and practice continued without Zaizen having to go into any further detail.
Fortunately, just when Zaizen was starting to wonder if somehow this was going to forever affect their friendship, things started to return to normal. Oshitari was ever so full of smiles, jovial and poking fun at Zaizen just as he always did, and it was as though none of it had ever happened.
It didn’t come back up once for the remainder of the school year.
Graduation of the third years came and went, full of laughter and tears, just as it always was between them.
As an honour to his upperclassmen, Zaizen was nominated to give the second year speech, just as he had in his second year of middle school. It was a tradition of the tennis club, for it was the club that had the most notoriety in the school, and everyone loved the graduating third year class, so of course it could only be their underclassman to take the torch.
Although Zaizen was lacking much of the same humour as his teammates, he had the entire school in an uproar as he described what the last five years with his upperclassmen had been like. No one was safe from Zaizen’s words, either. He had commentary for each and every one of them, even Koishikawa and Ishida who were otherwise perfectly normal members of the Shitenhouji tennis club, and delighted cheers ended the speech on a high note that left Zaizen feeling like he might actually be able to escape the day without feeling the sadness of saying goodbye to those he cared for.
He didn’t consider himself a particularly emotional person. At his core, he was sensitive, but it was never in such a way that made him easy to be teased and left with hurt feelings like Oshitari; it manifested in ways like he was having a bad day and all he wanted was the bunny-shaped mochi his mom used to make him as a child, and she was out of town when he really, really wanted it, and subsequently had a meltdown because no one could make it like his mother could. He was passionate in his own stoic way, and went to great lengths to support the causes that were important to him. But he wasn’t comfortable having strong emotions.
There were a lot of things that Zaizen wanted to say to the idiots who had been the source of so many happy memories.
And it wasn’t like they were moving to the moon, or moving to a foreign country never to be reachable again. With only one person leaving Osaka at all, the majority would still be there to have parties with, and hang out with when they weren’t too busy with their new university schedules. Zaizen felt that he was going to be just fine, even without them on the court in the coming year.
All that meant was that he was going to be hounding Kirihara and Hiyoshi more often over LINE.
Despite Zaizen’s resolve to not break during graduation, his wishes did not come true, for both Shiraishi and Oshitari cornered him in the same stretch of sidewalk of the confession, with the rows of cherry blossom trees blossoming despite how it was still a couple weeks too early for full bloom in Osaka.
“Hikaru!” Oshitari was the first to greet him, jumping on his back as though Hikaru was ten centimetres taller than he actually was. “Don’t try to run away before we can talk to you.”
“Kenya, you’re going to knock him over,” Shiraishi said with a laugh, dragging Kenya off Zaizen’s shoulders with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Hikaru. Someone’s just a little too excited to be done with high school.”
It didn’t dissuade Oshitari, for he continued to linger just a little too close to Zaizen, putting a hand to his shoulder to balance himself as Shiraishi pulled at him. “Obviously - but he also thought he was gonna get away without saying anything!”
“I was just going for a walk. Calm down.” Zaizen leveled Oshitari with a flat look, shrugging a shoulder. “Or maybe it was just you I was trying to get away from.”
“Nah,” Oshitari said cheerfully, removing his hand from Zaizen’s shoulder just to give him a half-effort punch in the shoulder. “You don’t wanna get away from your favorite senpai. You’re gonna miss us.”
That was the biggest understatement of the century, but Zaizen wasn’t about to correct him. He did have an image that he needed to uphold - it wouldn’t be cool or edgy if he was so open about his emotions.
“It’s a bit weird,” Shiraishi admitted, folding his arms over his chest. “To think that we’re not going to come here again as students.”
Shiraishi had been the constant in Zaizen’s life that he was certain would never leave. More than just his captain or mentor for the past five years, their friendship had only continued to flourish. In so many different ways, Zaizen looked up to Shiraishi, to the point where often he was teased by his friends for the way he always seemed to snap to attention whenever Shiraishi spoke. His calm demeanor was a good balance to Zaizen’s taciturn personality, but even more importantly than that Shiraishi never made Zaizen feel like he had to be anything he was not. Even in the times when he ran off at the mouth and needed to be put in his place, Shiraishi did so with a kindness that had been really critical to Zaizen learning how to actually function as a human being in a world where he needed to be kind to others.
Although it was a thought mostly in jest, Zaizen did feel like Shiraishi would make the perfect husband one day. And somewhere in Zaizen’s thirteen year old heart, there was a kid who was desperately trying to catch his attention, crushing, and hoping that maybe there could be something more between them. When it became painfully clear that Shiraishi’s attention was elsewhere, Zaizen let it fade into nothing more than a crush, but it really only served to make their friendship stronger - especially when Zaizen vowed personally to himself that he would help Shiraishi in a way that Shiraishi had always helped him.
“It will be a little weird,” Zaizen admittedly quietly, much to the bemusement of Oshitari. “But you guys won’t care in like… a day.”
Shiraishi’s laugh was light. “I don’t know about that,” he said confidently, now being the one to put a fond hand to Zaizen’s shoulder. “It just might be in a different way.”
Oshitari looked between them, confusion clearly written on his face as though he was unable to follow the conversation. Zaizen wasn’t sure why he was so confused, but that did seem to be Oshitari’s thing sometimes. Which meant that there really was only one thing to do, and that was snap Oshitari out of it. “Kenya-san?”
“Huh?”
“Kenya, are you okay?” Shiraishi looked sympathetic, hand moving from Zaizen’s shoulder to affix to Oshitari’s instead. Typical Shiraishi. “I know today’s been a bit overwhelming, but…”
“Oh, no, yeah - don’t worry, I’m fine,” Kenya reassured them, smiling first at Shiraishi and then to Zaizen. “I just got lost in my thoughts.”
Was that truly becoming lost in his thoughts? Or did Oshitari just not want to admit that he was a space case?
“Your thoughts made a stupid look on your face.” Zaizen couldn’t help the fondness that reflected in his eyes, though his lips remained in a straight line in his usual passive way.
“Hey, I don’t make stupid looks,” Oshitari rebutted.
“I mean… I kinda have to agree with Hikaru on this one…” Shiraishi had that thoughtful look on his face, the one that always meant he was going to join Zaizen in giving Oshitari a hard time. “Especially on graduation day…”
“Especially not on graduation day,” Oshitari said with a laugh, shoving both of them. “Stop ganging up on me.”
“Shiraishi-san’s on my side,” Zaizen said, allowing a small smirk and triumphancy to taint his voice. “It’s two against one.”
Newly eighteen and a fresh coat of bleach on what was natural chestnut brown hair, Oshitari pouted - the sort of pout that would result in a whine, not too dissimilar to when he didn’t get his way. “You should be nicer to me on my graduation day.”
“I’m never nice,” was the immediate, appropriate response. It wasn’t true, Zaizen could be very kind hearted at times, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to say that.