Work Text:
Walking into the glasses shop was a well practiced routine. The three of them had never planned to frequent the same optometrist, nor did they plan to come at the same time, but Oshitari could hardly be surprised that it happened. Their schedules were, after all, quite similar, and this was the very best optometrist in the region. Few things were more important to an athlete who needed corrective lenses than making sure they were properly tightened and adjusted at all times. That meant weekly adjustments with an expert.
His own glasses were flat glass, of course -- purely for fashion -- but even fashion demanded that one's glasses stay put on one's face, without slipping or skewing. They were meant to make him look intelligent, not ridiculous.
"Good afternoon," he said to Tezuka with a nod as Seigaku's captain approached from the other direction.
Tezuka nodded in return. It was Inui, crossing the street to finish their trio who said, "I hope the trip wasn't too long, Oshitari."
"Well, a man needs to take the best care of his glasses."
"Shall we?" Tezuka asked. Not that there was any chance of them changing their minds. Inui stepped aside to hold the door for his captain, Oshitari strolled in behind, and to the tune of the jingling bell on the door, they walked in perfect synch to the counter, taking the three seats like a single, well-oiled machine.
It wasn't that they practiced, or intended to. Honestly. The reason was simply that their strides were all such a similar length. And as long as you were nearly matching... well, why not? It grated on Oshitari's musical sense to have something be almost but not quite in time, personally. He wasn't sure why the Seigaku boys did the same, but he hardly meant to complain.
The shopkeeper, Kawano, picked up Oshitari's glasses first. With no prescription, they were the easiest to check. He returned them, sparkling and tightly fitted, with his usual deft touch -- but no sooner had he collected Inui's glasses than the incident began.
Even the innocent chiming of bells on the door sounded heavier. The three of them turned to look, including Inui, who couldn't see for the moment. Three toughs in loud suits and dark sunglasses walked through the door, checking out their own snarls in the optometrist's mirrors like vain dogs while their boss leaned on the counter to flip through a magazine.
Despite the fact that they were clearly bad news and Kawano's hands were shaking, he finished adjusting Inui's glasses to perfection. He was the best, no doubt about that.
"I beg your pardon, Tezuka-kun. These gentlemen called earlier with some very urgent business, and my son... isn't available... you see."
So, no one else to man the counter? The store must've fallen on hard times. That explained the muscle hanging out with the boss -- who was, given the circumstances, probably a loan shark.
With a silent nod, Tezuka accepted the old man's apology. The boss followed Kawano into the back room. The toughs followed the boss. Oshitari wasn't an idiot. Whatever business they had wasn't about anyone getting an eye exam. For one thing, Oshitari was in a unique position to be an expert on fashion eyewear, and he could tell that every one of those toughs had no prescription on his sunglasses from the way the light reflected, nor did they seem to have any interest in looking intelligent.
Once they were gone, Inui pulled out a wireless receiver and stuck an earbud in his ear. It was hard to pinpoint the exact day when he stopped being surprised that Inui had every damn place in the world bugged for surveillance, but it just wasn't that shocking anymore.
"Hmm..." The Seigaku player's mouth pinched shut. "As I thought, Kawano-san appears to be in debt. His visitors financed his son's operation for a head injury, and for ongoing rehab sessions, but he hasn't been able to make his most recent payment. It sounds like they plan to take the store as collateral."
With a click of his tongue, Oshitari answered, "I don't like the sound of that."
"We've got to do something," Inui said. The way he looked at Tezuka and they shared a nod told Oshitari that unfortunately that "something" probably wasn't going to involve taking a recording of the loan shark's threats to the police to initiate a legal solution. "Tezuka, I assume you have the arrangements in hand?"
"Yes. I'll leave the details to you and Oshitari."
Before Oshitari could ask what the hell they were talking about, Tezuka was gone, which was not to say he'd gotten up and left the store. He blipped out of existence like someone deleting a layer on a Photoshop file. But he seemed to know what he was doing, and it wasn't as if a person disappearing was the most outrageous thing he'd seen in his middle school tennis career.
"What details, Inui-san?" he asked.
"I believe you have a three-layer cravat and a velvet suit you can have in hand by tomorrow?"
"Well, yes, but..." Oshitari stopped short of questioning how Inui knew the contents of the secret costume closet Atobe had built into a hidden room behind the leopard print sofa in the Hyoutei locker room. No good could ever come of asking how Inui knew anything. He revised his question to, "But what would I need it for?"
"We should have something in our wardrobes as well that's close enough to match."
"We're matching?"
"For the benefit concert," Tezuka said. He'd reappeared on his stool at some point. "We'll be performing at the Zepp Tokyo tonight, proceeds to benefit Kawano-san's establishment."
Checking a text on his phone, Inui added, "Publicity numbers look good. We should have an excellent turnout."
Zepp Tokyo? Publicity numbers? Wardrobes? Something wasn't right here. Oshitari held up both his hands, which might have been useful to stop Atobe grandstanding if he'd been here, but in this case only brought questioning looks from the two silent Seigaku players. "Just... hold on a second. You know people who can book and fill a top shelf venue on no notice? Are you two telling me that you're also secretly pop stars? I thought that was just Hyoutei!"
Inui shrugged. "The tennis team was banned from holding bake sales after a few freshmen may or may not have had have had hallucinations as a result of certain unnamed ingredients that I may or may not have included in my own special recipe for muscle-building rice krispie bars."
"May or may not?"
"The official records have been sealed. However, after that incident, the tennis team was forced to find an alternate means of funding for jerseys, bus rentals, and training materials. We took a vote, and pop music won out over car washing. It's been quite lucrative, actually, I was able to build a--"
Oshitari waved him off. "So, the gist is, we're singing tonight. Fine. I can sing to earn a little money for the old man. So I guess we should pick some songs." But even as he said it, Oshitari sensed the haze of a melody forming in his head. A memory he could have sworn he didn't have two seconds ago was suddenly telling him he'd received a set list with sheet music to learn two weeks ago from the songwriter hired by...
The Meganes? The three of them hadn't been a band before this afternoon, so how could...
He narrowed his eyes at Seigaku's captain, whose stony visage dared him to question what had just happened. Well, fuck that. He was born to dare. "Tezuka-san. What did you do?"
"I made arrangements," he answered.
"But how?!"
Inui put away his surveillance equipment as the mobsters and the shop owner came out of the back room. One of them was muttering about why they even bothered coming when they knew the man had a benefit concert tonight, so he'd be good for the money tomorrow. There was no fucking way any of this was possible, and Oshitari had learned to take a lot of things that should've been impossible in stride. It was the only way to survive life with Atobe anywhere nearby.
Heading over to meet Kawano at the other end of the store, Tezuka murmured, "Tell him, Inui."
"Tezuka..."
One stern glance from his captain quieted his objection, and Oshitari raised an eyebrow at Inui to let him know he was waiting.
"I've warned him about making this information public," Inui sighed. "But I suppose you deserve to know. There's a little known side effect of activating the Tezuka Zone--"
"You don't mean..."
"Ah, I see you guessed."
"His pinpoint control over targeted gravitational forces and spin momentum allows him to generate a controlled, localized slingshot effect?!"
Unbelievable. If it weren't for the fact that he'd memorized an entire concert's worth of songs about glasses two weeks ago for a show they'd planned just now, but managed to schedule with Zepp Tokyo's offices several months in advance, he would've called it a lie, but there was Inui, acting like nothing was out of the ordinary.
"Well, not always fully controlled. There was an incident with the dinosaurs once. Tragic. Kaidou's pet triceratops suddenly had never existed. But those were particularly dire circumstances."
... So Tezuka could time travel at will. You'd think, in that case, he'd be able to go back and--
Inui interrupted his thoughts to say, "That would cause a paradox."
"You have no idea what I was about to ask."
"You want to know why he wouldn't prevent the other players from injuring his elbow during his freshman year. It would cause a paradox for him to undo an event that had already been done. He can only add events, not subtract them, hence the problem with Kaidou's pet triceratops. Every once in a while, I can still remember her feathers... Very pretty animal."
"Actually, I was wondering why he didn't go back and pay the boy's hospital bill to begin with and keep the loan sharks from ever getting involved, but I suppose you've answered my question all the same."
"Oh, no, that's actually because the currency didn't exist at--"
Oshitari silenced his friend with a single finger in the air while he dropped his face into his other palm and sighed. "Don't. Explain. I'm happier not knowing. Between this and Kikumaru-san's habit of making two of himself, I'm just glad I didn't go to Seigaku. Your practices must be a physicist's worst nightmare, I swear on everything that is rational."
And yet, there was something beautiful about the cheering crowds when they took to the Zepp Tokyo stage, body mics carefully placed in their velvet suits by the staff during sound checks. The stage lights flashed, their glasses sparkling as they raised their hands in perfect unison.
"I'm Inui Sadaharu."
"I'm Oshitari Yuushi."
"I'm Tezuka Kunimitsu -- and, by the way, in my third year of middle school."
"We are... The Meganes!"
It was true. The cheers were worth it all. And so, of course, was the money to pay off their optometrist's debts. But next time, provided this wasn't their last team up, he was writing the songs.