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Sanada watches Akaya serve another ball, and reaches up to adjust his hat, glancing at the watch hanging from his tennis bag. "It's time to go," he calls out. The sound of balls ricocheting off the hard floor is no competition to his voice--Sanada has had lots of practice shouting over tennis play.
Akaya pauses for an instant, his arm still cocked back, ready to serve. "Just a little bit more," he says. He looks straight at Sanada, and there's something in his eyes that makes Sanada pause as well. "Just a little." His voice is loud--it rings clear across the room, and it wavers.
Sanada hasn't heard him speak with that tone of voice in a long time, not since middle school. He re-adjusts his hat again and crosses his legs, and waits.
Akaya's serves are good. His form is off, but he makes up for it with an almost electric energy that gives the ball a life of its own. Yukimura's serves are fantastic, and Sanada never gets tired of seeing them knock back an opponent, but Akaya's serves are like him--wild, unpredictable, unapologetically impish. Sanada thinks that he likes Akaya's serves too.
When Akaya finishes, he goes to the bench and sits down next to Sanada. Sanada watches as he puts his racket away. Then Akaya tilts his head back to take a drink of water from his bottle, and Sanada watches that, too. He can see the bob of Akaya's throat as he downs the water, and for some odd reason, this fascinates him. He looks away after a while.
"Yuuko-chan broke up with me today." Akaya says it suddenly. He sounds quiet and lost.
Sanada looks over at Akaya, whose eyes are glaring doggedly at his water bottle. He doesn't know how to respond to this. He doesn't know why Akaya is telling him this, because there's nothing he can do or say, is there? He doesn't even have a girlfriend, and he's not Renji, who most likely has a solution to everything.
He settles for just nodding.
"I..." Akaya continues, "I really liked her." He ducks his head and lets out a soft, confused laugh, as if he's presenting some sort of paradox.
"You'll find someone better." Sanada winces inwardly. Why did he say that? Why did he say anything at all? He is truly very bad at this.
Akaya glances up at him. He looks young.
"She says I'm too much of a kid."
That's not entirely baseless
, Sanada thinks, but that is not the thing to say.
After a while, Akaya lets out another short little laugh. "Wow," he says, then smiles a small, surprised smile.
"What?" Sanada asks, intrigued. What has suddenly cheered Akaya up?
The second year grins full-out at him. "Just... I was kicking myself for blurting it out to you in the first place, Sanada-fukubuchou." He chuckles. "I thought you'd ignore it and tell me my form sucked, or something."
"It did," Sanada offers, relieved that Akaya seems okay now. He hits Akaya with his tennis bag. "Go pick up the balls," he orders. "It's past time."
Kiriahara bounds off the bench to pick up balls, and Sanada watches him kick them up and catch them, one by one. 'He sure is easily cheered.'
After a while, Sanada gets off the bench and helps Akaya finish putting all the balls back into the basket.
-----
They are walking together on the path towards the bus stops when Akaya stops him.
"Sanada-fukubuchou," he says.
"Aa," Sanada answers, half-turning.
"Want to come over and play Samurai Showdown with me?" Akaya's face is hopeful.
It's almost dinner time, and he hasn't called his parents, and Akaya might talk to him about that girl again, and when was the last time Akaya invited him over anyway?
But I've never played Samurai Showdown
, he tells himself.
"Okay."
Akaya smiles, and the lost look disappears completely from his eyes.
----
"Please, Yanagi-senpai!" Sanada hears as he sets his lunch onto the desk. Akaya's voice. It has a desperate edge to it. "If I don't pass this history test, I might not be able to play on the team!"
"I want to help, Akaya, but I'm not good at history," Renji replies quietly. Sanada looks over at them. Renji seems amused, and a bit dismayed. He must have caught some movement on Sanada's part, because his eyes shift. Sanada looks away. That is undoubtedly the expression Renji gets when he's stumbled upon an idea.
"You should ask Genichirou," Renji goes on, confirming Sanada's fears. "He's always received good marks in history."
---------------
"Okay," Sanada says, closing the textbook. "Review the notes you took tonight, and again tomorrow morning. You should at least be able to manage a passing grade."
Akaya lets out a huge, exaggerated sigh. "Finally!" he moans, reaching up to stretch his arms as if he'd just finished a rally with Yukimura himself. Sanada is amused despite himself, and has to squash a smile before Akaya can see it.
"We've only been at this for an hour, Akaya," he comments.
The younger boy lowers his arms and tilts his head to look at Sanada. He pouts. "That's a long time," he tells Sanada. "But at least with you it's a bit fun."
Sanada blinks.
Akaya laughs. "You should see your face when we went over the Sengoku period. You were all excited."
"It's an interesting part of our history," Sanada argues, feeling completely uncool despite himself.
"Hai hai, Sanada-fukubuchou," Akaya agrees, obviously to placate him. Then he grins. "Want to play a game with me now?"
------
There's something refreshing about playing video games with Akaya, something that he's not altogether sure he should like so much. Akaya is like a big kid--one who takes a lot of joy out of beating Sanada at virtual tennis. Sanada supposes that's something. Akaya still hasn't managed to take match from him on the real court, though he's come close to it.
"SMASH!" Akaya yells as his character scores the match point on screen. Sanada finds himself smiling.
--------
Sanada doesn't know why Akaya insists on inviting himself over now that he's passed his history test, but he doesn't mind having Akaya there. And Akaya is there a lot.
Today they are doing their homework together again. It's a lot more relaxing than trying to cram information into Akaya's often-distracted brain. Sanada finishes another math calculation and glances over at the younger boy's notebook to see him drawing sharp, jagged zig-zags along the edges, teeth worrying his lower lip. It reminds Sanada of a rabbit he saw through the pet store window once, and the idea is so preposterous he almost snorts aloud in amusement. "What is it?" he asks.
Akaya blinks and meets his gaze. "Mayumi-chan from class 2B asked me out today," he says, "and I don't know if I should say yes or not."
"Why not?" Sanada asks. His stomach feels funny. "You seemed like you enjoyed having a girlfriend.
"I did," Akaya confirms. "Even if kissing is sort of wet and gross," he makes a face, "it feels really nice, too." He says it in a matter-of-fact way, and there's no reason for Sanada's heart to start beating as fast as it is. But the thought of Akaya kissing someone...a wet kiss...
"Well, then, what's the problem?" he says, not sure if he's asking Akaya or himself. His stomach
still
feels funny, and the feeling isn't going away.
Akaya furrows his eyebrows, and bites his lip again. Sanada tries really hard not to stare at his mouth, because it just makes his heart beat faster. Instead, he focuses on his math homework again. His stomach feels like he's just had something bad to eat and now it wants to crawl its way back out through his mouth, and Akaya still hasn't told him what's wrong with Mayumi-chan from 2B. And that shouldn't matter at all.
-------
"Akaya's got a new girlfriend, huh?" Yukimura comments, tone amused. They are eating lunch on the roof, the three of them. Sanada looks through the fence at the sidewalk down below and sees the girl taking Akaya's hand.
Her looks are not anything extraordinary, he thinks. She's short, even for Akaya. And she clings to him. Maybe she's the needy sort? His eyes widen when Akaya reaches up to touch her cheek, then leans in to--
He looks back at his lunch and takes a big bite of onigiri, so big that he he has to puff up his cheeks to chew all of it. The grains of rice taste bland and too-sour all at once.
There is a light chuckle from Renji. "She looks like a nice, affectionate girl." He pauses; Sanada can feel his eyes on him. "What do you think, Genichirou? Has he told you anything about her?"
"She's not good enough for him," Sanada blurts through his mouth-full of rice. He does it without thinking, and only notices that he's said something out of the ordinary when silence greets him. He looks up to see Yukimura and Renji both staring at him, twin looks of dawning comprehension on their faces. "What?"
Yukimura chuckles, and is about to answer when the bell rings, signaling the end of lunch.
As he walks back to class, Sanada wonders what possessed him to say anything about Akaya's girlfriend in the first place.
------
He is studying history with Renji when Akaya knocks on his bedroom door, math homework in hand.
"Oh. Sorry," the younger boy mumbles, eyes taking in the notebooks and papers strewn across Sanada's desk. "I came to study, but I guess there's no room." He sounds disappointed, almost dejected. Sanada doesn't understand why he'd want to come here anyway, when he has his girlfriend to spend time with, but he doesn't say anything, just lets Renji usher Akaya in and moves his things over to make room, even as his stomach knots up into a big lump.
Akaya sits on the other side of Renji, and for the next hour all three of them study in silence. The lump in his stomach just gets bigger and bigger, and Sanada can hardly concentrate on his notes. He wonders if Akaya can tell, and that's why he's not talking either. He doesn't know what there is to tell.
When it's time for dinner, and Akaya has left looking somewhat dejected, Renji grabs the doorframe before Sanada can close the door. "I think you should tell him, Genichirou."
His heart beats faster, and he blinks. "Tell him what?"
"You know."
--------------
He's still lying in bed asking himself what it is Renji wants him to tell Akaya, when his phone beeps.
Can I come over?
the message reads. It's from Akaya. Something pounds in his chest. The cell phone's keys are slippery as he punches in the answer.
It's 11 p.m.
He presses the send button, sets the phone onto his desk, and sits down on the bed. He can't seem to take his eyes away from the cell phone.
It takes five minutes for it to beep again. Another text message. He moves to check it, moves as fast as he does to hit tennis balls in games against Yukimura.
I just got off the bus.
----
As he softly closes the door behind him, Sanada thinks that he must be crazy to sneak out of the house this late at night, and to meet Akaya. Akaya who already has a girlfriend, who's not even in his year, who is not anywhere near as good as Yukimura is at tennis. For some strange reason, none of that matters. He wonders if it was the milk he drank for breakfast; maybe it was bad and he didn't notice, and now it's affecting his brain.
A few meters away from the bus stop, he sees Akaya sitting on the side walk, head down, staring at his own feet.
"I broke up with Mayumi-chan," Akaya tells him when he draws nearer. There's a twinge in his chest, but it's a happy, elated twinge.
"Why are you telling me this?" he asks, voice careful and a little raspy and why does he sound like this? If Akaya was expecting sympathy from him...
"I like you!" Akaya practically shouts at him. Sanada's heart almost stops at those words. It's unexpected, and out of nowhere, and so very much like Akaya.
He has no idea what to say. None whatsoever. His hands are sweaty, and he's not wearing his hat, and he feels completely naked.
And it's probably not even what Akaya meant. It can't be.
"I'd rather be with you than going on dates. I'd rather play games and study history and do homework with you. I don't even
like
studying." Akaya is glaring at him, but it's not an accusing glare, just an intense one. Sanada has never noticed how completely green his eyes are.
"That doesn't mean you like me," Sanada starts to say when he's pulled his eyes
away
from Akaya's very green eyes. He tries to sound calm. "There are certain kinds of like, and--"
"--I want to hug you!" Akaya blurts out again, and then he gets very, very, very red.
Sanada is sure that he's blushing too. He can feel it burning on his cheeks. "Oh," he says.
"Yeah." Akaya sounds miserable, and it makes Sanada feel horrible inside--even more horrible than seeing Akaya with another girl made him. And suddenly, suddenly, he gets what Renji was trying to tell him.
He sits down next to Akaya on the sidewalk and scoots over, enough so that their thighs are touching. Then he slips an arm around Akaya's shoulders and pulls him in for a hug.
Akaya makes a small, surprised sound, but he doesn't pull away, just lets Sanada hold him. After a few moments of silence during which Sanada feels like the silliest idiot in the world, Akaya finally speaks.
"You're hugging me," he says, a touch of awe in his voice.
Sanada doesn't know whether to laugh or to shake his head at Akaya's statement of the obvious. "I am," he murmurs, wondering vaguely if Akaya can hear his heart beating rapidly in its cage. "You said you wanted it."
Akaya twists his body and scrambles closer, throwing his arms around Sanada's waist. "I do, I do!" he exclaims. Then pulls back and looks at Sanada with huge eyes. "Do
you?
" he asks, voice soft.
Sanada reaches up to touch Akaya's curls, and nods.