After all this time, Akaya still can't reconcile the conflicting images of Yukimura and Sanada. The more he dwells on it, the more he hates them (but hate is closer to love than anything and they won't ever leave his mind).
Rating: E
Part of the Inception AU verse [restless sleep (dream a little longer)]
for the wonderful angelico-sama who has a birthday today <3
For the amazing amazing curryforever (dear Waku) who made my week with her amazing, amazing artwork (I still can't stop staring at the adorable sketch of baby!Akaya on the front >ww<). Here's some Rikkai with hints of Alpha and YanaKiri!
With a tired sigh, Yanagi rubbed his sweaty hair with the towel. Today had been a long practise, under the unyielding glare of the sun. The sea air had been sluggish, to the point where Yanagi would have preferred to sit and eat shaved ice, instead of run endless amounts of laps. Still, victory was victory, and they had a goal to work towards.
He shut his locker door, towel still slung around his neck, and nodded a goodbye to Sanada, who was still changing, his expression impregnable. Yesterday had been a bad day for Yukimura, and they both were still tired from the night up on the phone with his father and younger sister. Still, life went on for them, even if Yukimura was trapped inside the white walls of his prison.
His heart ached thinking about it and he pushed the bag onto his back with a little more force than necessary. His quietly melancholy mood was pierced by a cry of "SO cool!" from the other side of the changing room. Raising an eyebrow, Yanagi sauntered over to where the other regulars were gathered around a juggling Niou and Jackal. Jackal's face was concentrated, his lip half-bitten as he watched his hands, while Niou looked more relaxed and at ease, his shoulders slumped and easily cracking jokes.
"Niou, you ran away from home two years ago to briefly join a circus, is this what you learnt?" asked Yanagi, dryly, as he adjusted his bag to stand behind Marui and Akaya who were watching with suppressed excitement and Yagyuu, who merely looked interested.
"Among other things." answered Niou, evasively, as he batted the balls up with the back of his hand, briefly, with an easy grace, that came from a lot of practise. Impressive. But Jackal's grip on his balls were lighter than Niou's grip, and if he was to bet on a winner...
Jackal's eyes flickered to Niou's display of confidence and his face hardened a little, in competitive spirit. "Bunta, chuck me a couple more balls." he said, tersely, and Marui obliged, with a slightly nervous look. He cautiously tossed one ball, then another into Jackal's routine. Jackal's pace slowed a little, momentarily, but he quickly resumed his pace and his concentrated look became a little easier. How fascinating. Jackal was used to working with larger amounts of things to juggle, if the easy rhythm he'd gained now was any indication.
Yanagi leant back against the lockers, with an interested look, as he shrugged off his backpack to watch. "Come on, Jackal-senpai, you can do it!" urged on Akaya, as Niou's speed increased until the balls were just a blur. Niou's grin turned almost predatory and Jackal looked like he was set to do something extreme, when Sanada coughed from behind all of them.
Jackal caught all of the balls with the crooks of his elbows and Niou slowed his motion, to a lazy juggling cycle. "Yes, fukubuchou?" asked Jackal, politely.
"I need to lock up the room. Go home." said Sanada, as straightforward as ever. What a pity, it would have been interesting to have seen a winner. Yanagi still thought it would have been Jackal, but he'd have preferred to see it to an end, since Niou so often side-stepped his predictions.
"Aww, fukubuchou, can't you wait a bit?" whined Akaya, but Yanagi placed a hand to Akaya's shoulder, reassuringly, as he picked up his bag from the floor. He knew where Sanada was in a rush to go. They hadn't told the team about last night, to avoid unnecessary concern, but of course, there were other consequences of that decision.
"No. Get going." said Sanada, walking away from their group, his back straight and tall.
With a commiserate smile, Niou slung his backpack over his shoulder and made the balls disappear in an elaborate sweep of his hands. Yanagi suspected they hid inside the folds of his school jacket, but it was impressive slight-of-the-hand, nonetheless. "Another day, man."
"You bet." Jackal said, with a laugh, as he tucked his balls into the front pocket of his racquet bag and stood up as well. "You definitely haven't won."
Niou laughed in return, as he wrapped his arms around Yagyuu's neck, easily. "That's what you think." he said, mysteriously. Yagyuu elbowed Niou, sharply, and they left the locker room, bickering over the homework for their classes, Niou's grip around Yagyuu's neck only tightening.
"You coming with us to the buffet place, Akaya, Renji?" asked Marui, as they too left the locker room, past the impatiently waiting Sanada, hand on his hat.
"No, Akaya needs to work on his english project." said Yanagi, with a pointed look at the almost-daydreaming boy. At those words, Akaya abruptly deflated and he pouted at Yanagi. "But seennnppaaaiiii." he whined. "I passed this time!"
"With a 55%." said Yanagi, dryly. "That's horrendous. I want you up to a B, at least. Is this any behaviour for a future captain?" He neglected to mention Yukimura's hopeless grades in Chemistry and Physics; at least Yukimura easily accepted his and Sanada's help with the books. Akaya's pride made tutoring him difficult sometimes.
Akaya just let out a devastated sigh and stalked ahead of Yanagi, with a petulant expression etched on his childish face. Yanagi tossed an apologetic look to Jackal and Marui, who didn't seem to mind too much, as they walked away from the school, chattering idly. Sanada locked up the doors and turned to Yanagi, with a courteous nod.
"Tell Seiichi I say hi." said Yanagi, idly, as he turned away to follow Akaya.
His only response was a grunt and the sound of steps fading away towards the school gates. He paused a little, to glance up at the sun, still fairly high in the evening sky. The sluggish feeling hadn't really left the air, and his body felt heavy. Yanagi didn't feel much like studying himself, but if he was to improve Akaya's grades, he had to take every chance to drill the material into his head.
He walked after Akaya, until he'd caught up with the younger boy's smaller strides. He looked in a better mood already, playing with a stray cat outside the gates, that was following him amicably. The cat turned an uncaring head to Yanagi, who just backed away in return. He had nothing against cats, but he wasn't too fond of pets himself. The cat walked away, looking snubbed, and Akaya straightened up, with a yawn. "I don't want to, senpai. What use is english, anyway?"
"You want to be a pro." stated Yanagi, easily, as he stuck his hands in his pockets. "It's useless to pretend that tennis is anything but european dominated. And inside that, the main language spoken is english. Know it well, if you're planning on being a pro. They will look down on you if you cannot speak english well." he explained. "It may seem useless now, but it might be one of the only useful things to you, outside of tennis practise. Not to mention, you cannot be captain next year, not with grades like this. I will not be here next year to help keep up your grades. You need to take responsibility for your own existence."
Akaya groaned, but he didn't protest, obviously recognizing the sensibility in that request. "It's difficult though."
Yanagi didn't retort to that, as they reached his his apartment. They climbed the stairs and he unlocked the door, shuffling inside with a little annoyance at how messy his place always was. Akaya, for his messy nature, had a very efficient housekeeper which made his house look very organized. The benefits of being quite wealthy, he supposed. "Go set up in my room, I'll make some food." said Yanagi, as he handed his bag to Akaya and went to go make them both some tea.
When he returned, Akaya had scrunched up three pieces of paper and was attempting to juggle them, and dropping them quite frequently. Yanagi placed down the tray of small sandwiches and cups of tea, with an amused look. "Juggling is hard, isn't it?" he said, quietly. "But you keep trying it again, even when you don't get it right, don't you? Why?"
"Because it's cool." said Akaya, with a shrug, as he unscrumpled the papers, to reveal his answer sheet for his english test and Yanagi suppressed an internal sigh at that sight.
"Why isn't english cool to you, Akaya? Is it because it is taught in class? Isn't the fact that you can now speak with 1.8 billion more people than you could have done so before, cool? What part of speaking english is less cool than juggling?" asked Yanagi, sharply. "Because I know that you are very talented when you put your mind to something, Akaya. Your scores in maths and science clearly show that. So what makes english less cool?"
Akaya was quiet, as he picked up his cup. "My teacher's a bitch." he said, with a scowl, finally. "How are you supposed to like something when they constantly tell you off for existing in that class?"
Well, that was definitely a reason, more than Yanagi had known before. Akaya could be close-lipped about issues that troubled him. "The teacher's conduct shouldn't affect your grades. You don't need to pay attention in class, when Yagyuu and I tutor you substantially outside of class." said Yanagi, quietly, as he opened up his notebook. "So we both know it's something beyond that." Akaya's face was mutinous and Yanagi sighed, softly.
"Just try with me?" he asked, reaching forward to grasp Akaya's hand. "That's all I'm asking. Try."
Akaya just flipped his book open and showed Yanagi his vocabulary list for the week. Yanagi picked up his pen and started to work on drilling them into Akaya's head in as creative a way as he could.
As they drew to a close, the sun outside of Yanagi's window was setting. The orange rays trickled through his windows, but the lazy feeling hadn't quite left Yanagi's room, and while Akaya had certainly been trying a little, he'd often been distracted, his pen tapping on his face as he gazed off into nothing, unless Yanagi frequently berated him. It was difficult enough to teach without this sort of weather hindering his progress further.
With a soft sigh, Yanagi got up as Akaya did some exercises and opened the window, to stick his face out of the window and let a little air into the room. There was no sea-air breeze, not yet, but he could taste the salt in the air, and Yanagi knew instinctively that the breeze was coming. His hand drifted to the small pot-plant that Yukimura had gifted him, before he'd been admitted into the hospital. Yanagi had followed Yukimura's instructions to a T, but the plant still didn't look as healthy without Yukimura's vitality.
Yanagi couldn't blame it. None of them were quite okay with Yukimura's soothing and motivating influence. Akaya's english grades had never been this bad when Yukimura had been around. His eyes fluttered shut, as he tasted the salt on the breeze. He'd never really appreciated the sea more than he had in that moment.
"Hey, Yanagi-senpai, something happened to Yukimura-buchou, didn't it?" asked Akaya, quietly. Yanagi's eyes opened quickly and his breath hitched a little. Not audibly, but enough to be unsettling to Yanagi. Akaya was very sharp when he wanted to be, something most people tended to gloss over when they spoke about their ace. It was moments like this that made Yanagi intrinsically disappointed when Akaya failed at other, more simple topics.
"Have you finished those exercises?" asked Yanagi, dryly, as he turned away from the window and took his seat back next to the sprawled-out Akaya. "To be staring off into space like that?"
"No." said Akaya, honestly and a little sheepishly, but his expression was still frank. "But something did happen, didn't it? That's why Sanada-fukubuchou was in such a snit and you're all melalcroly!" he insisted, jabbing his finger at Yanagi.
"Yes." said Yanagi, quietly. "His condition worsened rapidly last night." He didn't lie to his teammates, not when directly asked. And he could never directly lie to Akaya, not when Akaya was demanding truth like this. Sometimes he spoke white lies, like whether Santa could be coming this year, but never had he lied directly to Akaya's face about something important. "It's nothing that he will not recover from."
"You're scared." said Akaya and Yanagi just nodded. If he said no, that wouldn't even be a possibility of a white lie. Akaya's bottom lip pushed out, as he stared down at his paper.
"It's just not fair..." he murmured. Yanagi disliked Akaya's temper on most days, and often found himself almost disgusted by something like the Demon Mode. But one thing that was even more intrinsically repulsive than that, was seeing Akaya sad. It didn't happen often, not like the frequent annoyance of not winning a high score or being called names by Niou. The real sadness, that came from his disappointment in himself and his worry for other people, was scarcely seen, and when it was seen, was unbearable. Someone as alive as Akaya didn't belong inside the realm of the quiet sadness that Yanagi occupied. He just didn't fit.
"Life's not fair." Yanagi said, calmly, as he picked up the crumpled test paper answers and scrumpled them up, again. The sound made Akaya look up from his lap, and Yanagi smirked at him, conspiratorially. "Like the fact that I can juggle better than Jackal and Niou combined."
He tossed the six paper balls up in the air and easily, and deftly juggled them at high speed, careful to make sure that his fingers didn't ruin the rhythm he was establishing. Akaya laughed, freely and widely.
"Okay, you have to teach me how to do that." said Akaya, eagerly, with a determined light in his eyes, as he leant forward and tilted his head, to create the adorable smile that all of Yanagi's classmates loved.
"Only if your grades increase to a solid B." said Yanagi, coolly, as he caught all of the paper balls and placed them on the floor in front of them. "Try in English, and I will be sufficiently impressed with your effort levels to teach you something as intensive as juggling." Akaya looked fit to cut in, but Yanagi held up a hand. "Before you say something, I will be talking to Jackal and Niou to tell them not to teach you how to juggle before I say so. English first."
Akaya's nose wrinkled up and he picked up one of Yanagi's paper balls and threw it at him. "You suck, senpai." But there was a reluctant smile tugging at his lips and Yanagi returned it, along with the paper ball.
-
Yanagi did not receive the opportunity to teach Akaya how to juggle until four months after Nationals, and by that point, they spent their time inside Yanagi's empty house doing something far more interesting.
