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Mizuki hadn't meant to join the tennis club, really. It was just that he was painfully bored of table tennis - and Seigaku's table tennis team had the most awful uniforms in any case. Anybody who thought that red, blue, and white in uneven vertical lines made for a uniform that could be produced, let alone worn, needed to have their head examined.
The core of the matter was: he was bored of table tennis. He'd been all the way to Nationals in Elementary School and then invited to join the Japanese U-13 National team and then won some medals and after all that he deserved a retirement. (No, picking up tennis was definitely not something he did on a whim. His leaving a sport he was very good at and had a potentially great future in for one he had only played a single game of in his life was A Rational Decision, if unplanned. He could support this with evidence! More table tennis would have been an affront to his impeccable style!)
Tennis was...fine. Mizuki didn't have as much natural talent in it compared to that other sport but like with most things, if he read the rules and the techniques and translated them into actions correctly, he could become something of a good player with some practice. The Regulars' uniform had nice red piping around the collar and blue sleeves he was rather fond of. Frustratingly, it didn't come in a long-sleeved version but he supposed he could use stronger sunblock when he made the team in his second year.
The heavy racquet and the heat from playing outdoors all the time made his reflexes unbelievably slow but he could train them to become better. Making improvements that corresponded to a predicted trajectory based on calculated exercises was highly satisfying in any case. Mizuki liked gaining that kind of understanding about himself. Being able to chart your own growth with a ruler was satisfying. (Mizuki had not gotten the hang of drawing perfect curves free-hand yet and his mother complained when he used up too much printer toner. Imperfect curves were irksome and made Mizuki shudder. Going after exponential improvements would be silly.)
Those were the alright parts. Now then, there were many annoying things about tennis as well. Many of them were small things: the heat, the humidity, the short sleeves, the irritating inferior seniors who would probably beat up juniors better than them if Mizuki didn't stalk around the place with a video camera all the time, the sentimental club members etc.
Then there were the major annoyances. The one Mizuki noticed most instantly was that there was someone else in the club who played tennis in his style. As First Years, they all ran laps and practiced swings together. Mizuki had kept track of his own statistics (they were coming along quite nicely, thank you) but a few days in, he noticed that Inui Sadaharu (Mizuki made it a point to know everyone's name) was keeping track of everyone else's statistics as in addition to his own. He had all that valuable data from looking upon them all as potential competitors while Mizuki was busy building up his own foundations. How unfair! Plus he had a notebook to keep track of it all in. Why hadn't Mizuki bought one yet?
(A few practices later, Inui tried to peer over Mizuki's shoulder to get data on the type of things Mizuki was likely to write down in notebooks because all data contributed to a person's understanding of another's tennis. Mizuki slammed his book shut and said: "This is a Mathematics class book, not a book I use to collect observations about our tennis club. Anyway even if it was, I did not take that idea from you because collecting data is a lifestyle I have followed since I was born, so you cannot supersede me, as I am older than you despite us sharing the same horoscope. Even though nobody will give me the credibility I deserve because you competed in three inter-school tournaments in Elementary School as part of a successful doubles team with Yanagi Renji who now studies at Rikkai, I know you better than that, Inui Sadaharu."
Inui cracked open his own book and wrote on Mizuki's page: approximately 73.95% worse at lying than previously estimated. has information on Renji.)
The other major annoying thing about tennis didn't make itself apparent until later on. Mizuki and Inui had hedged their predictions on a practice match between their year's best players, Tezuka Kunimitsu and Fuji Syuusuke. Their predictions were usually comparable, but Inui's 72.359% prediction for Tezuka to win was a far cry from Mizuki's rough 70% on Fuji. (Mizuki was better at guessing the number of points and games people should win thank you; his less precise number absolutely did not mean his skill was inferior to Inui's. He'd have guessed the match was Fuji's for the taking, 6-4, even though Tezuka would take more points. Fuji played a lazy game. 40-down Fuji would let the game go, but 40-down Tezuka would fight to break the matchpoint every time.)
The match was completely unpredictable and followed neither Mizuki nor Inui's initial calculations. Both Inui and Mizuki were bewildered and scribbling frenziedly throughout. If both Tezuka and Fuji consistently followed their trajectory of development during the match they would be playing with superhuman powers by Second Year!
The match did, however, end up with Fuji's loss. Inui had as little idea about the outcome of the match as Mizuki by the time they were deep into it but the sly opportunist insisted that Mizuki be his test subject for some disgusting health drink/poison he was developing nonetheless. Those drinks were going to kill people when Inui was done, Mizuki was sure.
As a result of Mizuki's loss, the sight of Fuji Syuusuke lying on the court tired and sated spiked a stronger wave of annoyance in Mizuki than anything in his life - which was saying a lot. (The incident it kicked to second places was when his father had allowed his stupid canary out of its cage. The bird had flitted to Mizuki's room of all the places, and knocked over the plastic cup his father had left there while watering his plants, soaking Mizuki's rose observation diary completely. His father had naïvely thrown the diary out in hopes he wouldn't be caught - which was stupid and cowardly and so very infuriating because Mizuki only ever wrote in ballpoint for casual work. Trading off vibrancy off ink colour for minimal ink smudges on his hands was worth it. That meant that his book would still have been legible with water stains around it. Mizuki had been so furious that he threatened to attend boarding school to get away from home.)
The boy looked like he put in more effort into that match than he had any other thus far, but he had clearly not quite exerted himself, given he could still grip his racquet tight and make contemplative faces. So not only was Fuji Syuusuke phenomenally good at tennis, he had the potential to be phenomenally better. He was a lazy waste of potential that was going to cost Mizuki his life. It made Mizuki's blood boil.
"You should have won that," he blurted to Fuji.
Fuji opened an eye a fraction and looked at him boredly. "Ah Mizuki. Hello. Are you mad because you lost to Inui? I like your confidence in me, but Tezuka was really stronger."
Mizuki scowled. "No he wasn't. You didn't really try."
Fuji shut his eye again, hiding his slight irritation from view. "I believe I did. It was a satisfying game. I applied myself."
"You did not! At this point I'm not even sure you know what applying yourself means!"
"Have you ever applied yourself?" Fuji asked. He sounded so genuinely curious that Mizuki felt that there must have been a joke at his expense somewhere that he didn't get.
"I've only been playing for a month," Mizuki said with a glare, upset that he was made to admit to such a weakness. "I'm still getting accustomed to the basic techniques. Sometimes I forget to lock my wrist and the racquet is so heavy my wrist aches afterwards. I don't think I'm in any condition to apply myself in a proper game yet."
"But anywhere else in life?"
"Of course I have!" There was the last time he brought back the table tennis gold. He had focused so hard that he had a headache for days afterwards, and his eyes crossed. But it happened less than Mizuki cared to admit. His mother said it was because he was a Gemini and his mind was always split in two. His father said his blood didn't run hot enough for a little boy. (Ugh.) Anyway, Mizuki found that constant improvements raised your average performance more dependably than any burst of psychological strength. If Fuji decidated his life to training, his strength and accuracy would improve without a doubt. Given Fuji paid so little attention to his fundamentals, he was far from reaching his full potential. Already, his ability to evolve mid-game made him a formidable tennis player. If he worked hard to diminish those shortcomings...well, Mizuki had an idea of how good he could get, but Fuji being Fuji could be depended on to exceed them. Fuji didn't need to apply himself to his fullest to be great, what Fuji needed was training.
"How did it feel?" Fuji asked, because apparently he was the type to get hung upon such trivial questions.
"Don't focus on the unimportant things, Fuji Syuusuke who shares my blood type. I want to make you a great player."
In retrospect, the look Fuji gave him was very judgemental and very offensive. Mizuki had to remember to take offense one day. He didn't deserve that look! But that significant deviation from his normal look of congenial neutrality was noteworthy...
---
Mizuki survived his ordeal with Inui's juice, if only barely. The juice was disgusting enough to make people puke. (In fact, Mizuki did throw up after the first glass, but he preferred to believe that such unsanitary actions had nothing to do with himself.) That mixture of salty and bitter and that smell and the dubious gritty texture...eugh. Not to mention it glowed a luminous fuchsia and came in a jelly-like blob in the mug that moved. Ughhhhhh.
There was a single perk to being dragged into a gastronomic life-and-death situation (and even that was a point of contention): Inui had managed to drag Kikumaru Eiji into his immoral human experimentation trial. Kikumaru had grown slightly clingy after their shared traumatic ordeal as nobody else they knew had ever braved through a moving globular drink. The only ones who could properly empathise with either of them were one another. So Mizuki might have made a new friend. It was nice to know people still followed him around. People didn't gravitate towards him quite so easily in this tennis team. There were too many big characters in Seigaku.
Kikumaru Eiji only had one single flaw, but it was almost a dealbreaker in their friendship from Mizuki's perspective.
"Hajime-chan! You're so small and cute!" he would say while giving Mizuki a hug and ruffling his perfect hair.
"My father is 178 centimetres tall," Mizuki would respond darkly. "I'll outgrow you one day."
"Nah, my mum's reeeeeaaaalllly teeny but my sisters are all tall. I'm going to be tall too!" Kikumaru would say cheerfully. Then to make matters worse: "Hajime, you're the smallest and cutest in our year. You're even smaller than Fujiko-chan!"
Okay whatever, that friendship was definitely not worth the poison juice ordeal.
---
Mizuki took to following Fuji around. Fuji didn't seem to like it when Mizuki popped out from behind vending machines, but he was sufficiently impressed by Mizuki's ability to come up from under shrubs without a single bit of dirt on him. Fuji's curiosity wouldn't get him anywhere though; Mizuki would guard the secret to that with his life.
"You could have returned that ball with sufficient strength if you did thirty reps of arm exercises daily for three months," Mizuki would tell Fuji. Or, "with two weeks of reflex training, you will be able to return an identical shot." Or, "if you bothered to train your legs for just a month, you could have caught up with the ball and pulled off a directional change that would catch him by surprise unless he engages in at least seventy-seven days of reflex exercises. Isn't training tempting?"
Fuji turned a blind eye to him because he was playing tennis perfectly fine thank you, and it wasn't like anyone ever saw Mizuki training. He apparently had a whole array of strange, time-consuming hobbies when out of school, and yet he maintained eight hours of beauty sleep a day and supposedly practiced as much as he preached. Well, he must have. Mizuki made improvements with every week. (Said improvements were very predictable and could have been plotted on a linear graph.) But in between singing opera and organising his clothes by colour and studying his roses and persuading the school to start a choir and undusting his spotless pure white walls and holding extravagant single-party tea sessions and reorganising his notes and doing his homework and learning four languages and evading Kikumaru and hounding the hell out of Fuji, nobody could have seen how he managed.
Fuji's amazing capacity for apathy was not to be underestimated, however. Mizuki relentlessly suggested training ideas to Fuji and Fuji relentlessly pretended he did not exist. Mizuki thought this was very unfair. After all, Fuji's best friend was Kikumaru Eiji and all he every did was follow people and tell them things they didn't like to hear!
Oh.
---
Wait, by that logic, shouldn't Mizuki be Fuji Syuusuke's best friend too?
---
Fuji played another practice match against Tezuka seven weeks later. Surprisingly, both Inui and Mizuki hedged the exact same bets as the previous time, down to the percentages and the games won, even though the previous match ought to have completely obliterated their expectations.
Somewhere at the third game, Mizuki admitted to Inui that Fuji had probably practised less than he needed to meet Mizuki's expectations. "There was a 62.7 percent chance that you would admit to that before the fourth game," Inui said with a smirk. Mizuki felt uncomfortably as though he were playing into Inui's hands. His data analysis with regards to tennis needed serious work - people were supposed to play into his hands, not the other way round. It was all Fuji's fault.
Fuji lost again, 6-3 this time. Being let down by Fuji was awfully tiring. Mizuki looked at the Inui's smug, sadistic expression as he held up an empty mug. "Wednesday," Inui said threateningly. Mizuki knew it was wrong of him, but he hoped that Kikumaru would cross Inui's lines some time before Wednesday.
Fuji was lying on the court again. It was like nothing had changed, except Mizuki felt too disheartened to yell at him and Fuji looked cross. That was a new expression. Mizuki's fingers itched to jot down the occurrence of a new Fuji expression in his notebook.
"You're going to tell me that I could have somehow hit that cross shot in the match point if I worked harder aren't you?" Fuji asked with his eyes open.
"Well...no actually," Mizuki said reluctantly.
"So I could not have hit that shot?" Fuji's gaze was fixed on Mizuki. After months of the cold shoulder, it was disconcerting, even to him.
"You couldn't. I have finally incorporated your reluctance to improve via physical training into your data," Mizuki told him. He didn't mean it cruelly for once. The truth just sounded bad.
Fuji sat up and glared at him. "Unincorporate it. I hate losing."
"I can't unincorporate it unless you change your mind about training," Mizuki snapped irritably. Didn't Fuji know how these things worked? Mizuki was going to have to suffer the juice because of him again and he seemed wholly unsympathetic.
"I am changing my mind about training," Fuji said, and shut his eyes again. He looked like his usual self again, which was infuriating because he'd just dropped this on Mizuki and Mizuki had not seen it coming once again.
"Why?" was all Mizuki could think to say.
"I hate losing," Fuji said simply.
Well, Mizuki didn't know where that was coming from because he seemed perfectly content to let Tezuka win the last time. Plus Fuji seemed to be offering to be trained. It seemed like a fever dream.
"To clarify, you intend to be trained by me?"
Fuji frowned. "You don't have to say it like that. It makes you sound good. My sister just wouldn't approve of Inui training me."
Fuji's sister sounded like a wonderful wise person.
"I mean," Fuji continued, "Inui's obviously correct more often than you are, but my sister won't like if I trained with someone who doesn't believe in me enough to take my side, even if your beliefs were all wrong."
Mizuki scowled at roundabout insult. "You just don't let me win properly."
Fuji smiled at him.
---
Inui had dirt on both Kikumaru and Oishi Syuichiroh that time around! Commiserating was beneficial to society. Mizuki didn't think he could have suffered the after-effects alone.
Oishi had seemingly evaded Inui's advances for the couple of months they had tennis together. While having fewer traumatic memories was usually considered a good thing, it appeared that Mizuki and Kikumaru had built up some form of resistance to toxins during their previous encounter with the juice. While they both had to dash to the toilet because the juice refused to stay swallowed (and Mizuki swore he blacked out for a few seconds), poor Oishi had spasms for many long minutes before he belched the horrible concoction up and fainted. Kikumaru and Mizuki had to lug him home together. He thought they grew much closer that day. Mizuki wasn't one for that much sentimentality, but there were events people couldn't go through together without forming strong bonds.
When Oishi came to, he blabbered a bit about going to Nationals with Tezuka then demanded that someone shave his head and refused to take no for an answer. Shaving Oishi's head was a traumatic experience in itself - Oishi winded up looking exactly like an egg. Kikumaru looked as shell-shocked by the evolution as Mizuki felt, but he elbowed Mizuki before he accidentally said something that made Oishi feel bad. Still, people who looked like eggs instead of people offended Mizuki's delicate sensitivities. It made his eyes ache. Maybe he and Oishi weren't friends after all. Besides, if he had gone through more trauma with Kikumaru, then Kikumaru was he best friend wasn't he? Mizuki needed more reading material on friendship. He would have to go to the library some time between writing his mother a tea brewing manual and sending his father out of the house so he could practice singing in peace. Adapting to his breaking voice was an immense challenge. He didn't need an adult who sang well to sit around at home to make judgements! Oh, and he had to train Fuji too.
---
Training Fuji was weird. He did all the reps he was supposed to, but his mind always seemed about one-fifth gone. Sometimes he even did more than Mizuki asked of him - and Mizuki asked a lot of him. Fuji wasn't slacking off at all, but if you asked Mizuki whether Fuji was finally trying his best, he would honestly be unable to say yes.
Well, honestly Fuji didn't have to get into that state of absolute focus to become great. It was just strange that he didn't seem to be able to get into that state, especially since he wanted so much to improve.
He told Fuji his observations one day anyway. Fuji gave him a sad look in response. "I know I can't get serious. It's kind of sad isn't it? I'm almost sure I could be doing better but I don't know how to get there."
"You've made significant improvement in any case," Mizuki informed Fuji.
"Ah, I guess I'll have to settle for that." His expression brightened then. He looked like...well, not the Sun, Mizuki hated to be imprecise, but at least a small table lamp. "Mizuki, I've told you about my little brother, haven't I?"
What else did Fuji ever tell Mizuki about?
"Yuuta's always so focused. And he always works so hard. And he's so cute! I think you'd like training him a whole lot."
"Is he as good as you?" Mizuki asked, the gears clearly turning quickly in his head. He was probably building some sort of unrealistic dream team right there and then.
"Not right now," Fuji said delicately. "But he'll show that kind of steady improvement you like so much. I don't think he plays worse because of how he feels on a day."
"I look forward to meeting him in the next school year," Mizuki decided.
"I wouldn't trust you with Yuuta."
"B-but- Don't dangle things I want in front of me and snatch them away Fuji!"
"Yuuta isn't a thing," Fuji said dangerously.
Mizuki never seemed to have a proper amount of fear for Fuji though. Instead, he put that expression down as a 3.5/5 on the Fuji Syuusuke Scale of Anger in his notebook. Only Yuuta seemed to be able to trigger anger higher than 2 on the Fuji Syuusuke Scale of Anger. All the more reason to meet him.
"I never said Yuuta was a thing," Mizuki said smoothly. "The thing in reference was a his talent for tennis, hopefully filled with endless potential, and his latent skill I hope to bring out with my techniques. I'll even make him beat you."
"I'd be happy if Yuuta beat me, I think... But you can't train him. You tried to teach me that serve that would injure me in the long run." Hmm Fuji was a 1/5 on the Fuji Syuusuke Scale of Grudge Holding that day. Unusual. He didn't press the 'thing' issue.
"I wouldn't do that to your brother! You're always around, and you'd kill me for it in an instant."
Fuji gave him a disbelieving look - and fine, Mizuki might have made an attempt if he thought it'd make Yuuta better, but what were the odds that that serve would suit Yuuta's playing style anyway?
"I have something to ask you," Fuji said suddenly. That was unusual as well. Fuji had never asked Mizuki a personal question before (except the first time they spoke, and Fuji wanted to know if he'd ever been serious before). Fuji might need to have his temperature checked. Fuji never even bothered with a 'how are you' when he saw Mizuki. How rude.
"Go on," Mizuki said while he wrote his notes.
"Why don't you ever do your extra training when I'm doing it? After all you spend quite a lot of time in the gym with me."
Mizuki sniffed. Figures when Fuji had a question if was an obvious and inane one. "I prefer not to sweat unnecessarily in front of an audience," Mizuki stated plainly. What other reason was Fuji even expecting?
Fuji looked inexplicably amused. "Ah is that it. You're a funnier person than I thought, Mizuki."
Mizuki could feel the vein in his forehead throb. The irony of being called 'funny' by a person who preferred prickly old cacti to roses. "Speak for yourself Fuji-kun," he groused.
---
Sometimes major annoyances become minor annoyances, and sometimes minor annoyances grew like unmedicated infectious rashes.
Fuji became an acceptable sort of annoyance once he developed the ability to carry out proper conversations with people who were Mizuki. Kikumaru was just an acceptable sort of annoyance in general. Oishi's strange head became more acceptable once he grew back those tails that hung over his forehead, because it reminded Mizuki that the black patch on his head was hair, not strange patch distribution on a spotty egg. The only thing that made Inui the acceptable sort of annoying was the thought of vengeance. Mizuki would have it one day, and the thought made go 'heh heh heh' a little bit sinisterly in his head. (Or maybe not in his head, unless Oishi was a mind-reader. Oishi's concern didn't matter as people who made themselves look like eggs are not in the right place to worry about others before themselves.)
His...friends were okay. He could tolerate them on the days he didn't like them.
But the irritating inferior seniors who would probably beat up juniors better than them if Mizuki didn't stalk around the place with a video camera all the time? They got worse and worse.
There was this person who went by Minami Touko. His name was merely a useless bit of trivia, as the boy was so unpleasant Mizuki took a leaf out of Fuji's book and pretended not to know it.
Fuji must have been making marked improvement (oh of course he was. Mizuki could even use a ruler to plot his progress instead of printing out curves that sometimes pointed downwards on weeks that First Years didn't have practice matches. Consistent hard work did things like that.) as Minami and his cronies started paying as much attention to him as they did Tezuka. They liked to come over and talk at first years working on their swings, probably because their seniors defeated them too quickly and they had free time. The weakest Regular on the team only ever played Doubles, and he still took 6-4 matches from Minami in Singles. Well that sounded worse than the actual situation...that Regular also had a perfect win record against Minami. Ah, that's more convincing. Statistics lose their purpose when not handled convincingly. None of Minami's cronies were better that Minami, so their tennis was really rather dire.
"Does the little genius think he's going to make it to the team next year?" Minami sneered at Fuji when they were at swing 107. "Kids like you never learn any respect. You know how many seniors we have on the team? Five. That's one place for each of us and one for one of you babies to fight out. Maybe Tezuka could be a regular but you can't." His cronies cackled in agreement.
"That's not what you said last week," Mizuki interjected, because he hated inaccuracy. The best lies were all truths, were they not? Or omitted truths. Truths had to be involved.
Minami's head swivelled as though he couldn't believe someone would interrupt his tirade, then his lip curled as he recognised Mizuki.
Mizuki took his notebook out of his pocket and flipped to an earlier page. "Ah see, transcript of video recording from six days ago! Minami: "Look who's here, it is Tezuka Kunimitsu, probably thinks he's going to make team captain. Ha ha ha, well you might think you're good but you're too snotty to make it anywhere. Someone will beat your guts out before you do. [furtive glance at camera on ledge] You just be grateful I'm too kind to handle you myself, shrimp." Tezuka: ...Well, see, I transcripted Tezuka's part as three ellipses and a serious looking illustration of his face. It's not that easy to read out."
Fuji peeped over Mizuki's shoulder and giggled. "My Mizuki, I didn't know your doodles were so artistic."
"Aren't they?" Mizuki preened.
"Mm! They really captured all the important details. I like how the light only reflected a little. Ooh his jaw could cut ice."
"Inui's glasses aren't see through at all in my pictures, obviously," Mizuki said proudly. He flipped to another transcripted page, this time of Minami and Inui. Mizuki only drew Inui's head but somehow it looked like a tall person's head. Fuji giggled again.
"This one's great too!"
Minami looked bewildered at the direction the conversation went for some moments. Then it caught up with him that he was supposed to be terrorising his juniors, so he snatched Mizuki's wonderful treasure away from him and tore some pages out.
"Well this is going to be useless because you're not joining the Regulars any time, so you should just go home and cry to your daddy," Minami said with an ugly sneer. Everything he said rubbed Mizuki the wrong way. He shivered - he would never cry to his 'daddy' when his mother was around! And he hadn't cried since the third year of Elementary School. His father said it was because he was like a strange machine, didn't have enough feelings to be a man, etc etc. Said man didn't have enough empathy to fill a raindrop so he didn't deserve to speak.
"That wasn't yours," Fuji said icily, dragging Mizuki out of his thoughts. It sonded like a 4.5/5 on the Fuji scale of anger - my my, a rarity! Minami ought to run for his life.
"S-so what!" Minami stammered. "It's true isn't it? You shouldn't go around him either. Can't even hold a racket right, he's a bad influence on you! That's good! You'll both not become Regulars!" Minami's cronies were frozen and couldn't jeer aside him. Mizuki had to expand the range of the Fuji scale of anger to make way for that new expression. He was also very, very thankful that it wasn't levelled at him.
"You're going to regret saying that next year," Fuji vowed. His eyes blazed like an Arsenic flame. Minami and his gang finally dropped the book and hightailed it.
"We are both going too be Regulars next year," Fuji vowed.
Mizuki cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Unfortunately, I'm not going to overtake Minami in tennis until the time of Regionals next year. But with Minami on the team, I have doubts Seigaku will make it there easily."
"You could train more," Fuji said pointedly.
"I...yes I could, but there comes a certain point where training more becomes counterproductive. I could target the end of Prefecturals at the most."
Fuji looked annoyed but thoughtful. "I'll help you do it," he said after a while.
"Did you listen to anything I said?"
"We'll do it anyway. Maybe you should start playing tennis my way."
Mizuki felt very doubtful and was sure to express it fully on his face. Fuji ignored this.
"All of us First Years will have to keep Minami out of the Regulars. We can't just become Regulars, we have to keep him out of it too. Mizuki, you can't make things easy for him."
Mizuki sighed. "No, I will not make things easy for Mitani."
Fuji rolled his eyes. "That's not how pretending not to know his name works. You don't have to do it when he's not around."
Ah. Mizuki hadn't known. He pondered over the logic of this as Fuji bent down to pick up the torn pages.
"Here. I don't know how you're going to stick the pages back on a ringed notebook, but they're mostly not damaged."
Mizuki took the pieces of paper Fuji held out and studied them. There was some dirt on them now - ugh - but it was otherwise fine. Sticking them back was more trouble than it was worth though...
"That's alright Fuji-kun. I have a spare copy in my bag anyway."
"Of the whole notebook?" Fuji asked, slightly bewildered.
"Yes of course! I'm not going to carry my only copy around when I'm practising outdoors - I may sweat. It's not nice to carry things you need when you're sweating. I'll show you my other one when we go back to the locker room."
Fuji started laughing for no good reason that Mizuki could see. "Oh Mizuki, I'm quite glad that you're so strange. Nobody else has forty hours in a day to do these things."
That was a lie (Mizuki had twenty-four), but Fuji seemed to think he was giving a sincere compliment. Ah well. The corners of Mizuki's mouth tilted up into a smile.
---
Unfortunately, blocking Minami from making it into the Regulars involved Inui. "Inui's one of the best Singles players," Fuji pointed out. As if Mizuki didn't already know but ugh. "We need him to stop Minami."
Mizuki muttered under his breath. He needed Inui for nothing at all, thank you very much. (Unless Inui could blackmail adults who liked singing and criticising their sons into drinking juice somehow. That would be nice.)
The other first years were all very receptive to the idea when Fuji brought it up to them a few days later.
"This is a great opportunity for us to help each other through our strengths and weaknesses!" Oishi said.
"We're going to show Minami what's what!" Kikumaru said.
"Erm...wow this is great, I'd really like to learn from you guys!" Kawamura Takashi said. (Mizuki didn't think he'd thought about him much before...well, he was sturdy guy with hairy eyebrows.)
"Let's not let our guard down," Tezuka said.
"Yes, yes...I would like to work with all of you. I have ideas about how each of us could train, and I would like to have some feedback. Especially from you, Fuji - my data is a little lacking," said Inui.
"You will NOT poach Fuji from my guidance, Inui Sadaharu. Fuji is mine - er, to train," said Mizuki.
"I'm glad we're all getting along," said Fuji with a serene smile.
---
After school, Mizuki and Fuji made their way to the public courts for some leisurely rallies. Mizuki had aways opined that leisure and productivity were mutually exclusive, but Fuji insisted it was necessary for Mizuki to change his training methods in order to induce an improbable acceleration in his tennis improvement. Mizuki didn't know how to work towards 'improbable' anything, so Fuji was grudgingly allowed to take the reins on his training.
Thus far, the leisurely training sessions hadn't produced the results they hoped to see. Mizuki was honestly cynical that the results would ever be produced at all. He only went along with it because...well, if he stopped to think, he would have concluded that it out of blind faith and trust in Fuji. As it was, Mizuki saw it as one of the very few senseless exceptions he allowed himself.
Rallying wasn't torturous at least, so Mizuki never could find a strong enough reason to dissuade Fuji from his wasteful efforts to get him into the Regulars by the start of their second year. Oftentimes, Mizuki went so far as to enjoy their leisure training. Fuji was perpetually casual, and it usually wasn't even a front he put on. The positive aspect of Fuji's inability to 'get serious' was he was mostly a laid-back person. It was comforting to periodically pencil in a session into his schedule that he could rely on to not cause him any stress at all.
Of course, an unwritten rule of nature was: if one subconsciously thinks too many positive thoughts of Fuji Syuusuke, Fuji Syuusuke will hit you from your blind spot and make you wonder why you thought to compliment him in the first place. Poor Mizuki had forgotten all about this when they strolled to their places on the courts. He thought he was in for a good time.
"You were very protective of my training back in school this morning Mizuki," Fuji said with a pleasant smile as he hit the first ball over. "Do you have a crush on me?"
Mizuki was so aghast, so indignant, that he fainted. Fifteen-love to Fuji - what a cheater.
---
Mizuki awoke to a pair of brown eyes hovering above his face.
He blinked and the rest of the world came into focus. The aforementioned pair of eyes belonged to a bright looking young thing, handsome in the wholesome sort of way. Mizuki guessed his classmates probably daydreamed about having cute stable relationships with him. He'd grow up to be introduced to all his girlfriends’ parents. (Unless he didn't date girls, of course. Boys were less likely to introduce their boyfriends to their parents, no matter how wholesome said boyfriends were, because boys were stupid. Mizuki wouldn't introduce anyone to his father if he could help it.) He looked like the sweet and simple type. His vices probably extended as far as minor procrastination and junk food addiction or something equally banal. The scar on his forehead was charming in its own way; it lent some intrigue to his straightforward face.
"Aniki, he's alive!" The boy called out sounding relieved.
"Oh that's good," came the lilting voice of one Fuji Syuusuke who remained outside of Mizuki's field of vision - which made this boy Yuuta. Oh Yuuta, left-handed little Yuuta with oodles of tennis potential waiting to be cultivated. Mizuki had no idea why Yuuta was there (okay, they were at the public courts) but this was a prime opportunity to begin his training early. Ah yes, it was a little unfortunate that he had to be lying on a bench when they met but he would have to make do. Mizuki pushed himself to a sitting position and used his most convincing voice.
"You must be Yuuta-kun. I've heard marvellous things about your tennis ability. I think you have immense potential to become an incredible player. Yuuta-kun, I would like to pre-emptively begin your training, if you would permit it."
Yuuta blinked in surprise. His pupils darted back and forth like he was anxious. It wasn't the reaction Mizuki was going for at all. Mizuki spared a thought for the situation they were in and realised that going into recruitment mode right after waking from a faint wasn't quite the done thing. It was the timing thing again. Mizuki's mother had told him about his tendency to speak at inappropriate times now and then, and Mizuki was learning to identify them. It was a struggle at first, but he ws getting better at it. At the rate he was going, he would be adept at running his words through his mind before speaking them by...well, before he made the Regulars, probably. He really didn't have very much natural talent for tennis. Filtering his words was a piece of cake in comparison.
"Are you okay? Aniki, you're sure he didn't hit his head right?" Yuuta asked with concern. How adorable - a kind soul!
"He only scraped his elbows."
"Pardon me for my hastiness, Yuuta-kun, I lost myself in the excitement of finally meeting you. I'm a friend of your brother. I hope that you'll understand that I am completely sincere in my offer to train you. Please give what I've said some consideration."
Yuuta turned to Fuji wide-eyed and unsure. "Aniki...does he have a crush on me?" He asked this in a hushed tone of voice that implied he couldn't really believe what he was saying. The peals of giggles the usually unflappable Fuji burst into confused and frightened him further.
Mizuki couldn't believe his ears. He glared up at Yuuta from the bench - and Yuuta should be glad that he was on a bench because if he fainted from shock again and injured himself, he would absolutely press charges or something. These Fuji brothers were insufferable and presumptuous! As if Mizuki went around developing...crushes...so randomly. And curse Fuji Syuusuke for acting like it wasn't a big deal. Mizuki had enough for a day.
"I'm going home now," Mizuki said with a dark, sharp glare directed at both Fuji brothers so they'd know exactly how he felt.
"Are you sure he's alright?" he overheard Yuuta ask as he left.
"Ah...I hope so," Fuju said.
---
Singing was usually a great distraction, but it wasn't all that it used to be. The cracks in his voice were getting worse and he also had to be more careful about practising, lest he damage his voice. Growing up was such a pain. There was the matter of all his precious clothes getting too small, and crushes (that he absolutely did not have, thank you!), and his voice...his voice.
"Your head voice is getting disconnected from the rest of your voice," Mizuki's father sighed with an imitation of sympathy and pain.
"It's because I'm growing up," Mizuki said tightly. "It's not something I'd expect you to understand."
Mizuki's father tutted disapprovingly. "Now now, that's not nice. If you're talking about my voice being perfectly connected, you're right! But you don't have to say it like that. Jealousy is an ugly look on you."
Mizuki snarled at him in a moment of unguarded annoyance and chucked a book at him. It struck right in the chest - his aim was improving. His father pouted and left him alone. It was the exact result he wanted. Family was always so much more predictable than strangers were.
Because Mizuki hated disorder, he got up to retrieve his book. (He wouldn't have thrown one of his important books; those stayed safely on his shelf shielded from dust with a lacy purple cloth.)
He had no idea what his voice would be like once it stopped changing but he hoped really hard that it would be better than his father's. That would give that old show-off what he deserved.
---
"Yuuta was really worried about you," Fuji said at morning training the next day. Mizuki felt conflicted. He didn't really want to talk to Fuji, but the thought of Yuuta feeling worried was all sorts of adorable. The kid didn't seem to use his brain (a crush!) but he had a good heart.
Fuji didn't. Mizuki hardened his resolve and decided not to respond. He'd search Yuuta out himself to thank him for his concern if need be.
"Yuuta wanted me to make sure you knew he didn't mean to offend you. He said that you had to acknowledge his apology, though I don't think he had to apologise."
"Did Yuuta really say that I had to acknowledge you or was that something you made up?" Mizuki asked sceptically. Darn it, he was supposed to hold his words back. He glared at Fuji in annoyance.
He was rewarded with an infuriating, meaningless Fuji smile. "Would I ever put words into Yuuta's mouth?" he asked innocently. In Mizuki's opinion he would, so he said as much. Fuji's smile didn't falter at all. "Ah well, Yuuta truly was concerned."
"Thank him on my behalf," Mizuki said, conceding that avoiding a conversation with Fuji was a battle he had lost. "You seem to have a good relationship with your brother," he commented.
"Ah well...sometimes it's not so easy, but we care for each other very much."
"It's better than me and my sisters at any rate. We live in the same house but sometimes I forget they exist. I don't think I've seen them in weeks, honestly."
There was the loud clang of a racket falling to the floor made them jump. Both Mizuki and Fuji turned to face the source of the sound, and found Inui there to their surprise. His face was drained white, jaw slack in shock.
"You have sisters?" he questioned, like he had discovered a fundamental fact of the universe and couldn't believe he'd never known. Well, it was a pretty obvious thing to be missing from his data collection. Inui probably knew everything about everyone else - he professed to know the measurement of the circumference of Mizuki's thigh once! Mizuki hadn't known the circumference of his own thigh until Inui told him and he measured to make sure he was correct. (He was, drat.) Who knew what else Inui wrote down. "I can't believe...I never knew..." Inui murmured as he staggered backwards. There was muffled sound as Inui fainted and fell back against the fence. Mizuki blinked at him in surprise for several moments before he burst out laughing. Oh, revenge was sweetest when it was unintentional. They dragged Inui to the sick bay in the highest of spirits.
---
It was the start of one of the days where occurrences don't happen according to statistical likelihood at all. Inui's ignorance of something as common as a team mate's immediate family was one of those occurrences. Kawamura's racket flying out of his hand into the remainder of Inui's juice was another, and Inui's juice drenching Minami and knocking him out was a third. (Fainting in itself wasn't unlikely in this tennis club it seemed, but fainting by accidental skin contact with Inui juice was.) In general, nothing was going according to plan, and Mizuki was having a great day. Inui probably wasn't but that wasn't Mizuki's business.
Strange things continued to happen throughout the day:
During Mathematics class, after both Mizuki and Oishi had completed their class assignments for the day, Oishi pulled out a magazine and showed it to Mizuki with great excitement. In a hushed voice so that they wouldn't disturb the rest of their classmates, he asked: "Mizuki, what do you think about this hairstyle? I know I already changed my hair for this year but don't you think this is cool?" The magazine had a picture of a pop star on the cover with shiny black hair swept over one eye. Half of the hair on his head was shorn short as Oishi's hair. It was fairly ridiculous. Mizuki was torn between disgust and amusement.
"It's certainly interesting," he said as he added a doodle to Oishi's page. He drew in a star on his cheek for the effect, and shaded the fringe quite realistically. Hmm hideous might be the only word for it, but Mizuki was in the process learning the shutting up thing so that thought needn't have occured to him. Ballpoint ink was tragically unsuitable for realistic shading. "I drew you a mock-up," he whispered, and passed the notebook across the aisle. (Oishi was one of the few people who could be depended on not to flip the pages. His respect for others's privacy when he perceived they wanted it was one of his exploitable weaknesses.)
Oishi's eyes shone when he saw it. "This is great Mizuki! Wow, I'm tempted to change my hairstyle now...but I got this as a sign of determination to work for Nationals one day. I made a promise to Tezuka that we'd make it happen together, no matter who tries to get in our way. Oh Mizuki, I think I might break my tradition of changing my hairstyle every year until we win Nationals."
"That's a charming sentiment." Use bigger words Hajime, you'll sound more eloquent if you use them right, his mother adviced a few days ago.
"But I do want that hairstyle," Oishi said mournfully and shut the notebook to stop tempting himself further.
"It's probably better that you don't change your hair," Mizuki said, giving a rare, frank, bit of advice. Because there weren't many things less palatable than the egg head, but this was one of the exceptions.
Oishi sighed. "You're right. I shouldn't undermine my determination to do well; it doesn't bode well for our future. I must have a belief as strong as Tezuka's to bring us to our victory. I can't be selfish, I have to learn the meaning of true responsibility! Mizuki, I must learn to think of the team before myself!"
"You already do that," Mizuki pointed out. It was one if the things he wrote hovering between Oishi's 'strengths' and 'weaknesses' columns.
"But more. I'm going to be Seigaku's father one day."
Mizuki cringed by reflex. "From personal experience, mothers make far more reliable parental figures than fathers. Fathers merely spend their days singing and suffering retrenchment. They never appreciate the proper value of being multilingual either."
"Seigaku's mum then. I'm going to become Seigaku's mum." Oishi sat up straight with the renewed strength of a new dream in sight. Mizuki wrote a note in and drew an apron at the side. Not that his own mother had ever worn an apron, but it was the stereotype that counted in symbolism.
Well, that one such strange thing. Another was that their Biology teacher dropped the skeleton and fainted (really, how often did people faint in this school?) because he had a dormant fear of icons of the dead - his own words.
Then there was another two strange occurrence at recess:
The first was that Mizuki's eldest sister (bless her soul, icon of vengence) broke the accidental year of texting silence thing they had on to tell him that the pressed flowers he'd asked his aunt to send had arrived a week early, and that they turned out very nice. Mizuki was delighted! (Well, Mizuki had 'accidentally' left them there when they were vacationing, as the duration of their stay wasn't sufficient for the flowers to be pressed properly and Mizuki wasn't able to bring his relatives's phone book home. He wasn't about to risk staining the pages of any of his own books either. He recently informed his relatives about the flowers he'd 'forgotten', and they promised to mail them to him.)
>hajime ur flowers here ヾ(@^▽^@)ノ i looked, v nice!!!!sry i let the bf use ur room last jul ( ≧Д≦) were hiding fr dad ;;;----;;;;; sflr i 4got ur msg haha ><"
Mizuki would reply that one day. Probably.
Then there was the other thing.
Mizuki spent all his recesses with Oishi because they were the only tennis club members in class 1-5. By luck, they also had seats across the aisle from one another. On days their recesses coincided with 1-6's, Kikumaru would come to class to sit with Oishi. (For people who had different opinions about most things, two had an oddly constructive relationship.) Fuji usually came along, by virtue of being Kikumaru's best friend in class and they had a miniature tennis club gathering. It was nice, Mizuki supposed. Recesses were livelier that way.
Now then, one might guess that Fuji was involved in this incident. One would be correct. A Fuji involvement in an incident tended to imply a heightened element of strangeness. In typical Fuji fashion, his behavior's impact on its surroundings followed the usual trend when the rest of the day was all about bucking them. Ergo, it was the beginning of the strangest series of events of the day.
They sat around Oishi's table, each of the four of them taking a side. Mizuki always took the side to Oishi's right as it was the one nearest to his own seat. Kikumaru tended to take the side facing Oishi, probably because they talked the most, and the instinctively sociable Kikumaru realised on a subconscious level that the two most chatty people couldn't sit right next to one another if a company of four were to keep the conversation alive. (Mizuki's alternative theory was that Kikumaru just took the seat because he was lazy to drag chairs across the aisle.)
That day, Kikumaru took the seat to Oishi's left, as he attempted to snatch Oishi's English worksheet to copy from and Oishi insisted on explaining his work.
"You're not going to learn anything from blind copying Eiji."
"But Oishii, there isn't any time left! English is the next block and everyone already handed in this thing yesterday."
They squabbled about it. Nobody was going to win that argument easily, so equally balanced they were. Ultimately, Oishi would probably allow Kikumaru to copy his work when there were ten minutes left to recess and he knew he wouldn't be able to explain his work in time. Oishi's heart was too soft. It was a weakness Mizuki may one day recommend he work on if his research determined it would harm the team, but the likelihood of that was unlikely, given his softness was accompanied by a responsible, nurturing streak. However with the way the day was going, Mizuki knew better than to make assumptions based on probability.
Fuji took his place at the last remaining seat and looked somewhat pleased with it. "Hello Mizuki, how has your day been going?"
"Quite well thank you. It's been quite an exceptional day. I'm pleased."
"Sometimes it's good when unexpected things happen, isn't it?" Fuji asked pleasantly. It showed no where on Fuji's face, but Mizuki could detect the insufferable undercurrent of smugness that made it less easy to be agreeable with Fuji.
"It can be," Mizuki said because he couldn't refute it. "I always felt better when things went like I thought they would, but good surprises can be...nice."
"Even bad surprises aren't always bad, I think. Life would be boring if we always knew what was going to happen."
Mizuki would have rushed to argue that in the past, but Fuji was right more often that he expected. Still, there was merit in making things go according to plan, and making plans that you could realistically fulfill. Mizuki's eventual plans for his education included acing all the national examinations and studying somewhere prestigious, preferably overseas and far from home. If that failed, his father would breathe down his neck until he was an adult. Bad surprises couldn't really be anything but bad in some situations, really.
"Ah, you don't agree," Fuji said perceptively.
"I think that statement is wrong more often than it's right."
"I think so too. But sometimes you don't see the best things that ever happen to you coming."
I didn't see you coming. The thought came to Mizuki unbidded. If he had known what was to come he might have run from tennis as fast as he could, for Fuji came with shattered expectations and strange feelings. Fuji reminded Mizuki about the things he could never know and made him fear. In the midst of Mizuki's silence, Fuji continued,
"You know, my sister can tell the future. She's really special. But she said that before Yuuta was born, she couldn't tell anything about him at all. Yuuta's the best sort of surprise I can think of."
Mizuki...would probably have been alright with a surprise like Yuuta. "But he wasn't a bad surprise. He was a good one," he argued, picking at the holes in Fuji's logic.
"My sister said she was jealous at first though," Fuji said with wistful smile. "I don't think she was happy to know he was going to be born. You should try feeling jealous of Yuuta, Mizuki. I think he'll become more confident."
"Why are you jumping between subjects?" Mizuki asked in confusion.
Fuji shook his head lightly and took a bite of his...something that was more wasabi than rice. Mizuki watched him outof the corner of his eye for a moment and went back to his own food. "Oishiiiiii just let me see question four please?" Kikumaru pleaded from the side. Oishi hid his worksheet with a pained expression.
"Mizuki," Fuji said again, initiating yet another conversation. Mizuki hummed for him to continue. "There was something else I wanted to tell you this morning, but we were distracted."
("Oishiiiiiiiiiiiii please? I'll get you a goldfish if you do.")
"Well, go ahead."
("No, Eiji, it's for your own good! Just let me explain how the tenses work.")
Fuji tilted his head and smiled. "I'll tell you later." He had on the sort of expression people gave their dogs when they refused to give them treats until they performed tricks. A secretive, indulgent sort of look, maybe a bit patronising. When Mizuki put the hints together, he guessed Yuuta had some jealousy issues with regard to Fuji. Fuji probably didn't make those faces on purpose but if you were constantly living under his shadow, they'd be difficult to bear. Any moment of doubt Yuuta had about Fuji's intentions were likely to be exemplified by the irritating expressions he had, hence the lack of confidence. Fuji probably ought to sort his demeanour out while Yuuta still liked him, or their relationship may one day become difficult to repair. Mizuki would have to determine a tactful mentod of telling him that one day.
"You're being infuriating," Mizuki complained.
("But Oishi, it's late and I can't go to the aquarium with you if I have detention.")
"Was I? I'm sorry. Would you be able to meet privately after school? My house is fine if you don't mind, unless you'd prefer to go to yours?"
("Eiji, please. I want you to pass English at the end of the year.")
Mizuki thought about Fuji coming over and winced. Better case scenario: his father would ignore the fact that Fuji was in the Seigaku boys's uniform and assume Fuji was a girl. He would leave them alone after loudly questioning what a member of the fairer sex could possibly see in his troublesome son. At worse, his father would stick around and make fun of Fuji for being a prettier boy than his own offspring. Mizuki imagined it would go just great. To top it all off, the younger of his older sisters seemed more alive than usual that day, and might emerge from her den to threaten Fuji into modelling for her school's fashion club. Whichever way it went, both of them would suffer. (It was possible his father wouldn't be home, but his unpredictable employment schedule made it unlikely.) "I'd prefer to visit your place," Mizuki said carefully. He'd rather die than let Fuji become a victim of his home life, and hide the reality of his father's personality as long as he lived.
("Just this once? I promise I'll study on my own when I get home! Please Oishi? Please please please?")
"Alright, I'll lead you there after school."
As though he had a radar for completed conversations, Kikumaru picked that exact moment to intrude. (He couldn't possibly have been listening, right? He and Oishi were being so noisy.) "Mizukiiiiiiii lend me your English work please? Oishi's being a meanie."
Mizuki was saved from taking sides by Fuji. "Eiji you don't have to bother Mizuki, I left my worksheet at home yesterday so I haven't turned it in yet. I have it right now," he said.
"Wha- Fujiko-chan! You could have said so earlier! I've been complaining for hours."
"Ah sorry, sorry," Fuji said sheepish smile. "It's just fun to watch you argue with Oishi. You're cute together." He rummaged through his file and passed Kikumaru his worksheet, written entirely in sky blue gel ink in teeny tiny handwriting. He drew circles on top of his 'I's and 'J's. Mizuki hated handwriting like that. Oishi tried to snatch it away in vain. His reflexes were a little slow eh? That wouldn't do against Minami. It could be remedied to an extent with some training with the ball machine though...
As he scribbled down possible training plans for Oishi, Mizuki wondered what could be important enough for Fuji to go through the trouble of manipulating his friends to tell him. A few hours seemed like too long a wait to find out.