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Though it was not a sentiment echoed throughout most of the first stringers, Mouri was abuzz with excitement at the prospect of potentially playing one of his underclassmen, Rikkai’s “three demons.” When they had been in the same division at Rikkai they had not been on terribly good terms - back then Mouri had not seen much need for practice (he was already at the top of the game, after all), so he relied on his natural athleticism and the fact that he was stronger than anyone on the team other than said demons to keep his spot on the starting lineup and on the team. A year older and wiser, he chalked it up to a combination of rebelling against his parents’ move from Kobe to Kanagawa and being a shithead pre-teen with nowhere else to focus his energy.
There also may have been, however slight, some influence from his doubles partner Ochi Tsukimitsu, a third year Hyoutei student who was known for dominating the court with his mental game. Mouri had seen one glance from him ruin someone’s day, he couldn’t even imagine what it would be like if Ochi were to open his mouth and tell his opponents what he was thinking when he glared like that. That was to say he could imagine the kinds of things that Ochi might tell his opponents, but he couldn’t imagine Ochi opening his mouth and saying them.
Mouri’s excitement and the unusual enthusiasm of his doubles partner to stay up late training before their match against their middle school challengers led to fatigue and aching muscles. When they were on the court, time had flown by as they practiced and strategized in anticipation of what awaited them in the morning. They did not part ways for the evening until Ochi pointed out that it was after midnight. The words opened the floodgates and all at once Mouri’s basic bodily functions desperately needed to be addressed - he was hungry, had to pee, was exhausted, and the pleasant soreness of the workout was turning into unpleasant soreness of tired muscles.
Once fed, Mouri made his way to the bath to relax before bed. As expected of the hour of night, the bath was devoid of anyone other than Ochi rinsing off. He was seated on the same stools that everyone else would use to bathe, using the same sprayer everyone else used, but his legs were contorted in what looked like an uncomfortable angle to sit on the stool and the sprayer cord wasn’t long enough for him to properly rinse his back. His hair which usually had volume and movement to keep it from obscuring his entire face was plastered to his cheeks and chin. The water trickling down his back and into the drain was the same bright blue as his hair - the natural result of a recent dye job - and looked like it might be staining patches of his skin blue.
Mouri silently took up a seat next to Ochi and began rinsing off his body as well. The relief was instant - between being cooped up on a long plane ride from the US (where they picked up another disagreeable teammate) and returning to conditioning and practice after they had not really been doing much else than just match play, the warm water was a welcome reprise from aching muscles. He leaned forward to spray water down his back and chanced another look to Ochi who was spraying down the top of his head which hid most of the blue highlights under his bleached platinum hair. Mouri had never really thought to check for himself, but he assumed with a fair degree of certainty that Ochi’s natural hair color was not white-blonde.
Nope, he thought, unable to stop his eyes from drifting over Ochi. It was a long glance but not because his eyes lingered - taking in all seven and a half feet of Ochi Tsukimitsu just took a while. He was clearly physically strong, but the muscle was just spread farther for a leaner look and… well, no matter how strong he was, he was just always going to look tall and skinny.
Ochi tilted his head back, using the water flow to push all of his hair off his face, slicked back over his head. He turned off the water flow and grabbed a white towel sitting beside him to begin drying off his skin and hair. Once more Mouri found his eyes drifting over to watch his doubles partner with the towel that was slowly but surely turning blue between the drips of blue water down Ochi’s back and the blue that was lifting from his hair. After a few washes his hair wouldn’t bleed blue everywhere anymore, but the poor towel was toast.
“Tsuki-san,” Mouri said softly, grinning at the older boy beside him. “You’re turning the towel completely blue.” Ochi paused and pulled some of the towel over his shoulder to get a look at it, taking in its pale blue color wordlessly. Mouri also stopped his shower head and grabbed his towel, quickly rubbing down his scalp to get as much moisture out of his hair as he could. “You aren’t gonna be able to go in the bath like that, you know.” The last thing they needed was to turn the U17 facility bath water blue - Mouri could just guess the sort of uproar it would cause with his underclassmen from Rikkai (and Shitenhouji for that matter). Niou would be mad he didn’t think of it first.
The thing that Ochi’s opponents feared the most was his mental strength on court and it was true that it took little more than a glance from him to unnerve most opponents. His gaze was piercing, cold, and seemed to hit his target right in the chest sharper than any stab wound. Having Ochi’s eyes on Mouri was not something he had traditionally strove toward (or, you know, had actively avoided for a long time), but his body had a completely different reaction (and for a completely different reason), this time that Ochi looked at him. He could see his eyes framed by the towel resting over his head.
Ochi’s eyes were the same color as the bright blue of his hair, which was frankly impossible. Eyes like that should have been outlawed long ago, for one, and Ochi was supposedly Japanese and should not have had blue eyes for another. There was nothing menacing about how he looked at Mouri - quite the opposite, there was a gentle fondness to his face. He was not smiling in the true sense, but his eyes were a bit wider and sparkling in a way that would have perfectly matched a curve of the lips. He was amused by Mouri’s observation - he was showing about as much mirth as Mouri had ever seen.
Somehow, it still brought Mouri’s hands to a stop. His feet were glued to the floor, his lips held tightly together to keep from dropping his jaw. A rock dropped heavily in his stomach but it was not the pit of terror that he should have felt looking Ochi in the eyes, it was the feeling of standing on the edge of a cliff knowing you are about to jump off into the water below - the rush of exhilaration moments before something terrifying, but pleasurable, was going to happen. He could feel the blush spreading across his cheeks like a slow burn that extended down his neck and continued through his body in a tugging sensation in his stomach and lower. He felt very naked under Ochi’s gaze and gleefully unable to decide if he was better or worse off for it.
So that was what it meant to be the top mental player in Japan.
It was a relief to have Ochi turn his eyes from him as he pulled the towel fully over his head to dry his hair further. “I won’t dunk my head,” he assured Mouri, none of the warmth that had been in his expression translating to his voice.
Mouri wasn’t sure when his tongue had been replaced with a flopping trout, but it was making it hard to form words that weren’t just, “blrahg blif blarff” in his effort to respond. “Okay, but I’m blaming you if the bath is blue,” he managed to get out with a wicked grin. He felt anything but self-assured on the inside - the room was still spinning. Was this what it was like to be pulled into Ochi’s pace on the tennis courts?
Ochi stood - something that was truly humbling to experience - and made his way over to the bath where he had a much easier time becoming comfortable. He was able to stretch out his limbs in the large, public style bath and didn’t have to cram his body into a space meant for someone much smaller than him. No matter how deep he sank into the water, it seemed like all of him couldn’t really disappear under the surface even if he tried - he wasn’t actually going to turn the water blue.
Desperate to stop thinking about his eyes, Mouri slid into the water with a tactful change of subject. “We’re gonna win tomorrow.” He grinned at Ochi like a cat who got the cream.
“Naturally.” Ochi’s eyes were no longer visible under his hair, but Mouri could see the brush of dark eyelashes against his cheeks.
“Naturally,” he echoed with a smile, content to let Ochi sleep.