Maybe You’ll Be the One

Chapter Two

Ohtori had fallen asleep as soon as he was somewhere more comfortable than the tennis court. It didn’t surprise Shishido in the least.

Oh, the tall junior had tried to stay awake; they both had homework, after all. In fact, Shishido wasn’t even sure why he was here, in Ohtori’s dorm room. When he should have been in his own dorm room, deciphering the madness that was geometry proofs.

It was likely one of those situations that Ohtori had unwittingly wrangled him into. Rather like how they had started to practice tennis.

Shishido had never asked for his help, of course. He did not ask for help, not with tennis. But he’d gotten it all the same. Ohtori was determined that way.

At first, he had come back to the tennis courts well after dark, after all his work was done. But he must have realized, Shishido mused, that his senpai wasn’t doing the same.

Shishido never left the courts after practice. Period. It was that important to him.

Apparently, Shishido thought as he looked down at Ohtori with an almost smile, it was that important to his junior too.

He resisted the urge to brush his fingers over Ohtori’s short mop of silver hair. He was kind of cute when he was sleeping.

Actually, corrected Shishido to himself, Ohtori was always cute. It was rather disconcerting that such a tall person could be so adorable. He’d always associated that kind of cuteness with small things, until he had met Ohtori.

There was just something guileless and innocent about the silver-haired player, something that was incredibly rare in the modern world. He was emotionally and mentally strong as well; he defied most people’s expectations about who and what he was quietly.

Ohtori seemed to be able to shatter a lot of Shishido’s preconceptions without a great deal of fanfare, as well.

He’d thought of Ohtori as a player with a rather silly crush before, and had mostly ignored the junior regular. Ohtori’s regard was gratifying, to be sure, but Shishido preferred to associate with the more obviously talented players.

He really had been conceited, he thought with a self-deprecating smirk. With a weakness like that, he would have fallen as a player eventually, even if Tachibana hadn’t defeated him in that match.

Somehow Shishido was sure that Ohtori would have been there to help him up then, too.

Ohtori had managed to teach him how to trust people again, and he’d done it in less than a week. Shishido had grown used to depending only on himself, to needing only himself. It had seemed weak to depend on others, he thought, but Ohtori had taught him that depending on friends took a strength all its own.

Hyoutei’s mostly unobtrusive junior doubles expert was really quite amazing, Shishido thought. Even if he didn’t look it.

Ohtori shifted into another, more comfortable position, but didn’t stir otherwise. He looked exhausted, Shishido noted a little guiltily.

He might not have asked for Ohtori’s assistance, but he also knew he would continue to receive it. And Ohtori would consider his own needs and responsibilities to be secondary.

Including his schoolwork, apparently. Shishido’s sharp eyes caught sight of the wrinkled page Ohtori had collapsed on top of. It was a history essay question, with some vague notes scribbled on it.

The junior was certainly not in any shape to write it tonight, Shishido thought with a sigh. And history was one of his better subjects.

He picked up a pen and pulled Ohtori’s textbook towards himself.

Ohtori was always doing things for him. Maybe it was time to do something for Ohtori.

***

It took Shishido less than an hour to finish Ohtori’s history essay – he’d written the same one the year before, as he recalled, which was just testament to the teacher’s lack of imagination.

But it made his job easier, so he wasn’t going to complain.

After he finished it, he dropped the pen and flexed his fingers. Writing longhand for long periods of time always made his hand sore; Shishido was too used to writing his papers on the computer his parents had bought him when he’d first started junior high.

Ohtori was still asleep, and he didn’t look like he was planning to wake up anytime soon.

Shishido had absolutely no intention of dragging the junior into the bedroom, especially since the beds were bunked.

Still…his partner was going to be stiff if he slept all night bent over the low table in his front room. Shishido sighed, and stood up, rounding the table.

He really hoped that Ohtori appreciated his efforts, he thought as he grabbed the silver-haired player by the shoulders and pulled him backwards. Because he was certainly not a lightweight.

The boy in question snorted slightly in his sleep as Shishido pulled him onto his back, and the senior’s lips twitched.

For some reason, sleeping Ohtori reminded him eerily of Jiroh.

It would, Shishido reflected as he tossed a blanket over the other player’s prone body, give him something to tease the boy about the next day.

Until then, he had his own homework to do.

Or not, he thought with a faint smirk, as he opened the door. Considering the person who was standing on the other side.

“Atobe,” he said. “Up late tonight?”

Atobe Keigo raised a supercilious eyebrow. “I could say the same to you, Shishido. Corrupting the youth, are you?” He smirked, indicating Ohtori’s room. “I’d rather you didn’t exert your influence over my junior players.”

Shishido’s eyebrow twitched. The captain was always better at most things, he reflected. That included knowing which buttons to push to elicit exactly the reaction he was aiming for. “Bite me, Atobe.”

The captain of Hyoutei shook his head. “What do you think you’re going to accomplish with all this?” he asked, waving his arm. “A regular spot isn’t regained once it’s been lost. You know that. Your efforts are amusing, but pointless.”

Shishido glared at Atobe for a moment, before letting a thin smile spread across his face. “It might be pointless,” he agreed with a nod. He noted with some satisfaction that his response had surprised the captain. “If that’s the case, Atobe, then you should just allow yourself to be amused at my expense.

“But I’ll just keep doing what I’ve been doing, and I will eventually win. Remember that.” He flicked his tail of dark hair behind him, and his brown eyes gleamed. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I still have homework to do tonight.”

Atobe watched as his former number three singles player sauntered down the hall with his back straight and his head held high. Shishido was still very proud, he thought. But different than he’d been before, in some indefinable way.

He wondered what, exactly, had wrought this slight personality change. It wasn’t that Shishido was completely different from who he had been before – in many ways, he was the same. But there was something…an elusive strength that hadn’t been present before.

Atobe might have to take a trip out to the tennis courts some night soon.

***

When he woke the next day, Ohtori felt a little disoriented. Usually, his eyes opened when the morning sunlight streamed through the window. But it was still dark. And there was a rather insistent prodding sensation on his left side.

Yunokawa was poking him.

Ohtori cracked open his eyes and blinked blearily at his roommate. “Eh?” he said. He was a master of coherence in the morning.

“If you don’t get up now, you’re going to be late for practice,” Yunokawa informed him. “What were you doing out here, anyway? Didn’t you even go to bed last night?”

Ohtori sat up, yawning, and running a hand through his unruly hair. “No,” he said. “Had to do my homework.”

His roommate stared at him for a minute. “Shouldn’t you do that before you go back out to the courts?”

Ohtori got to his feet and shuffled into the bedroom. “In theory,” he said with another yawn.

The history essay wasn’t done, he recalled abruptly. He’d have to see if he could get the deadline extended. Or maybe he could get it done during lunch.

He was in the process of knotting his tie when Yunokawa came back in their room.

“Don’t you have club to go to?” he asked. His roommate was in the track club, and their morning practices started even earlier than the tennis club’s did.

Ohtori only knew this because Yunokawa had complained, extensively, about his captain’s sadistic tendencies.

“I’m being a considerate roommate,” Yunokawa replied. “Here are your books and papers,” he said. “And here’s your essay for history class. Looks a lot better than mine, and I spent three days working on it. I’m jealous.”

Ohtori took the paper Yunokawa handed to him and stared at it as if it was some sort of mystical object. Which it was, in a way.

The junior tennis player knew perfectly well that he hadn’t gotten further than “In the year 1583” on the thing.

Shishido-san must have done it, he thought. His face blushed pink at the thought, and a half-smile lit his face.

“I’m not going to ask why you’re smiling,” said his roommate. “Mostly because I’m running late now, and don’t have the time.”

That was probably just as well, as Ohtori probably couldn’t explain exactly why his senpai’s help would have caused that particular reaction.

He quickly stuffed the essay in question in his bag and headed out the door. Maybe he’d be able to ask Shishido-san about it at practice.

***

The chance never presented itself, which really shouldn’t have surprised Ohtori. The consolation matches were that coming weekend, and Hyoutei would win the fifth place in the prefectural tournament. There was no real question.

They would, after all, be playing with their first team, something that generally wasn’t bothered with until Kanto. Ohtori didn’t imagine that St. Rudolph would stand a chance.

Nonetheless, Sakaki-sensei and Atobe were taking no chances – the regulars were being driven hard in both the morning and the afternoon practices. And that meant that there was no chance of seeing non-regular members, at least not long enough to have anything resembling a conversation.

So Ohtori didn’t see Shishido, not until lunch.

They sat under the tree on the school grounds where they had first eaten lunch a few days before; Ohtori was beginning to think of it as their tree. Not that he would have ever said anything like that to his senpai; Shishido probably would have snickered at him.

They were halfway through the meal when Ohtori finally brought up the history essay.

“Uh, Shishido-san,” he began. “Thanks for doing my paper last night.”

He was embarrassed by it; not only had he fallen asleep in front of Shishido-san, but it had been patently obvious that he wasn’t keeping up with all his commitments.

Ohtori wasn’t sure what Shishido’s reaction to that was going to be. A week ago, it wouldn’t have mattered to the senior, but a week ago Shishido never would have accepted help, no matter what the circumstances were.

Many things had changed in the past few days.

Shishido slid his gaze over to Ohtori. The junior was blushing again, and he looked apprehensive. It was cute.

He wondered, idly, whether his sudden inclination to attribute “cute” to most of Ohtori’s personality quirks meant something.

“It wasn’t difficult, Choutarou,” he said carelessly.

“But,” he added, and the expression in his eyes was serious and intense. “Don’t let helping me be the most important thing in your life. I shouldn’t be your top priority.”

Ohtori sighed. “Yes, Shishido-san. I’ll try to concentrate more.”

He didn’t suppose he could really tell Shishido that he was Ohtori’s top priority, his most important thing.

“Good,” said Shishido as he wiped his fingers and gathered up the remains of his lunch. He pulled himself to his feet, brushing loose grass off his brown plaid pants.

He turned to his junior and opened his mouth, intending to tell Ohtori to come out to the courts after he finished studying.

There was a glint in the other tennis player’s eyes that told Shishido that Ohtori would be at the courts at the same time he always was, regardless.

Sometimes, he really wondered which of the two of them was more stubborn.

Shishido huffed out a breath. “Tonight,” he said, “meet me at the library. We’ll study for an hour, then go practice.”

Ohtori gave him a quizzical look. “Shishido-san? Why?”

“Because, Choutarou,” Shishido said as he dumped his garbage in a nearby can, “if I tell you to do your homework before you come back out to the courts, you’ll promise to do that, and then you’ll show up at the same time as always, whether you have your studying done or not.

“This way, I can make sure you do actually do as you promise.” He glanced over his shoulder at the tall junior, still seated under the pear tree where they’d eaten lunch and smirked. “We can’t have you going on academic probation now, can we?”

Ohtori flushed again. “No, Shishido-san,” he replied.

The corner of Shishido’s mouth lifted in a small smile. “Then meet me at the library at seven,” he said. “And then we’ll go play tennis at eight.”

Ohtori nodded.

“And you’d better get going,” continued the senior as he started to walk back towards the junior high school. “You’ll be late turning in my history essay.”

Ohtori’s eyes widened and he hopped up, racing a little to catch up to the shorter tennis player.

He dumped the remains of his lunch unceremoniously in the garbage can. “Shishido-san!” he said.

Shishido turned his head, and lifted his eyebrows in the slightly imperious manner that Ohtori knew so well. “Yes, Choutarou?”

“Thank you,” the junior said.

Shishido just looked up at his partner for a long moment, and his little half-smile bloomed into something fuller and sweeter.

“It’s not always about me, Choutarou. Sometimes it should be about you, too.” The senior brushed a stray strand of dark hair behind him, and turned to walk back towards his class.

“Remember,” he called back, “seven o’ clock.”

Ohtori simply stood and watched as Shishido walked down the hall, not moving even when the senior had completely disappeared into the crowd.

It was times like these, he mused, when he wondered if he would ever stop falling in love with Shishido Ryoh.

He hoped not. He always wanted it to be like this.