Prince Of Tennis Fan Fiction ❯ Rikkaidai Doubles ❯ Chapter 5

"Rikkaidai Doubles"

A _Price of Tennis_ Fanfiction

By Andrea Readwolf [andrea_readwolf @hotmail.com]

Part 5/?

Rating: R

Pairings: Yagyuu, Niou, Jackal, & Marui

Genre: Angst, Smut

Warnings: NCS, angst, group sex

Spoilers: D1

Summary: Marui has a slight problem with homosexuality and the others have some highly unorthodox ideas to help him 'get over it' >.<

Disclaimer: Tennis no Ohjisama, characters and settings are the property of Konomi Takeshi.

Started: July 7, 2004

Status: in progress

Revised: September 10, 2004

Words counted: 2141

Notes: the boys are in high school, by the way.

"I can't believe you left Jackal's house without eating something," Niou growled shoving Marui into a seat.

"I had other stuff on my mind," the redhead defended himself grumpily.

"You nearly passed out back there!" Niou reeled, shrugging his bags onto the seat next to Marui. "If you think I'm going to catch you if you fall, well, don't. When was the last time you ate, anyway?" he continued, digging for his change wallet. "Stay here."

"'m not really hungry."

"I don't care."

Niou stepped up to the register and smiled at the two girls behind the counter. It was several minutes later before he remembered Marui at the table still waiting for him, and he placed his order.

"Here," the taller teen said, sliding the food-heavy tray across the table towards the redhead.

"How can you just *do* that?" Marui snapped, glaring at the other teen and pointedly *not* reaching for any of the burgers, potato wedges, milk shake or soda.

Niou blinked, honestly clueless as to what Marui was in a snit about as he slid into the opposite seat and snatched a chicken burger off the tray. "Do what?" he asked.

"You just flirted with those girls," the redhead nodded his chin towards the counter where the two register girls were twittering and looking their way.

"Yeah? So?"

"'So'?" Marui repeated, sputtering. "But--What about Yagyuu?"

There was something he still had to be missing, Niou thought, reaching for a soda, too. "What about him?"

"Aren't you two dating?" Marui asked aggrieved.

Niou thought about that question. It was a very good question, after all-- Dating? Him and Yagyuu?-- After another moment, he replied, "We're together, but we're not dating or anything."

Marui's jaw flapped several times before he found his voice. "What are you talking about?"

"Eat," Niou reminded him, wadding up the left over tomato in the chicken wrapper. He should have asked for no tomato, but usually Yagyuu ate them, and he'd eat Yagyuu's pickles.

Only when Marui grudgingly bit into one of the hapless cheeseburgers did Niou even try to explain the complexities surrounding his relationship with Yagyuu.

" Yagyuu and I are partners, like you and Jackal," he said, reaching for a potato wedge. "We play tennis together, and help each other out with homework, and we have sex."

"I--Jackal and I-- we don't--"

"Not yet," Niou cut in with a grin, delighting in the fiery glow staining Marui's cheeks that clashed so poorly with his hair. "But you want to. So what's stopping you?"

"You--you can't just--jump into bed with someone," Marui protested.

"Sure you can," Niou barked. "Why do you think Japan has love hotels all over the place? People do it all the time."

"But--we're not even dating!"

"So?" Niou looked Marui straight in the eye. "Bunta, you've known Jackal since junior high school. You guys hang out together, sometimes, right? And you have fun together, and you think he's hot, and he obviously digs you, too, so there shouldn't be a problem. So why aren't you two shaking up together already, huh?"

"Why aren't you and Yagyuu shaking up?" the redhead returned with a furious blush of embarrassment and annoyance.

"You know..." Niou stared down at his soda and then looked out the window. "Yagyuu wasn't my first time."

"Huh?"

"I'd had sex before Yagyuu and I even became a pair." He shrugged, shooting a sheepish grin back at the other teen. "I guess that makes me a little strange, but.... Hiroshi's isn't even the first guy I've had sex with."

Marui was sure his brain was going to melt and ooze out of his ears. He was not here. He was not hearing this. He was not--

"Well, aren't you going to ask me who?" Niou asked tauntingly.

"I'm not sure I want to know," Marui replied faintly.

"It was Seiichi."

Milk shake splattered across the table and Marui choked and coughed. A few restaurant patrons looked their way. Niou just casually used some napkins to wipe up the mess.

"Buchou?" Marui hissed once he got his windpipe and vocal cords straightened out.

Niou looked at him with some amusement. "It's not *that* hard to believe, is it? It was only once. Near the end of junior high. You know what he said to me afterwards?"

Marui shook his head, too mind numb to even remember he had a voice.

"I should allow any fears or doubts to hold me back from who or what I wanted." Niou gulped some more soda down, nodding thoughtfully to himself. "It took me nearly three months to work up the courage to just kiss Yagyuu. Strange, huh? At first I just wanted to see how far he'd let me go before he stopped me."

"And?"

Niou looked at Marui---and then looked back out the window again. At what, the redhead wasn't sure and didn't care, too riveted on what his friend was telling him.

"And he didn't stop me," Niou answered.

Marui blinked. "Excuse me?"

Niou's lips turned up in another grin, but there was something... off, Marui decided, about the other boy's smile.

"He didn't stop me," Niou repeated. "The first night we kissed was the first night we had sex. In our defense, we were both a little intoxicated, but, still...

"It wasn't exactly a great experience," Niou confessed, sneaking another potato wedge and chewing thoughtfully. "I--well, I hadn't planned on really getting to do more than a little kissing or maybe some touching if I was lucky, and, you know, Yagyuu didn't try to kill me out right, so, I didn't have anything to make it easier, and, well, Yagyuu wasn't experienced, either, so, frankly, it was a horribly nightmarish mess. And, yet, somehow, it was still good."

"It's sex; it's supposed to feel good," Marui mumbled, remembering Jackal's words from earlier.

"It was more than just that," Niou said with a shake of his head. "It was because it was Yagyuu-- so it was good. We got better, with practice. A lot better," he added with a wolfish grin. "But..." Niou shrugged.

"But what?" Marui pressed.

"I don't know," he answered again with another grin as he filched another potato wedge. "That's it. We got better. Together. We don't date, but we're still together. And, well, if I want to sleep with somebody else, there's nothing or no one who will stop me. But that's just it," Niou added with another shrug. "I don't want to sleep with anyone else but Yagyuu. Well, except for, well, maybe..."

"Except for whom?" Marui demanded. "Maybe what?"

"Well, except for maybe you and Jackal," Niou answered--when he was sure the other boy wasn't swallowing.

Marui still choked.

"M-m-me? But why?"

Niou grinned. "Well, cause you're our partners, and you're cute. Yagyuu thinks so, too."

"That's why--is that why he--"

"Yesterday?" Niou finished for the redhead. "Yeah, kinda, sort of," he admitted with a sigh. "I love him, but sometimes he does some pretty stupid shit. And people have the audacity to say *I'm* the crazy one...."

"Do you really?" Marui asked curiously.

"Really what?"

"Love Yagyuu," Marui clarified. "You just said you loved him."

Niou blinked. He hadn't meant to say that; he'd said it unconsciously, but... "Yeah," he grinned lopsidedly. "I guess I must, huh? Saa--but it doesn't really matter."

Marui frowned. "Why not?"

"Well, because we're only seventeen years old," Niou answered matter-of-factly. "It's not like we'll be spending the rest of our lives together or anything."

"That's a rather pessimistic thought," Marui scowled.

"It's realism for you," Niou returned with a smirk. "Frankly, I'm surprised any of us managed to withstand each other's company for this long."

"You're right," Marui snapped. "Six years is more than enough time having to deal with you."

"Hey, that's--"

"Looks good," a new voice cut in and both teens froze. "But it looks like you ordered too much to eat. Do you mind if I join you both?"

Marui was blushing to match his hair color again, remembering what Niou had just told him just a short while ago, but Niou was grinning.

"Not at all, buchou. Help yourself."

Yukimura smiled pleasantly. "Thank you. I hope you don't mind. I saw you two in the window and I thought I'd check to see how Bunta was feeling." He turned to the redhead. "You missed practice and school today."

And the way he said it, both tennis players knew which was the more grievous of absences in their captain's opinion.

"Ah, sorry," Marui mumbled, still unable to look at Yukimura directly. "I wasn't feeling very well."

"Mmmn." The captain frowned. "You do look a bit colored. Are you running a fever?" Yukimura reached out to feel for Marui's forehead.

"Um, no, I don't think so," the redhead hastened to answer, moving away a bit before Yukimura's hand could touch him. "I, uh, didn't eat anything since last night, so Niou..." He turned pleading blue-grey eyes to his doubles partner.

"So, buchou, where are you body guards?" Niou asked, offering Yukimura some of his soda.

"If you're referring to Genichirou and Renji," the other replied with twitching lips. "They've taken Akaya into Tokyo to ay a visit to Seishun High School."

"Oh?" why didn't we get to go?" Niou pasted on a hurt pout and Yukimura laughed as was expected.

"You know as well as I do that teams who might face each other at Kantou are not supposed to play outside of formal matches," Yukimura told him.

Niou grinned back. "Ah, but that's never really stopped anyone before."

"No," Yukimura agreed. "And I somehow doubt that will stop anyone this year, either. However--" His smile turned less jovial and more stern in a matter of a second as Yukimura looked at both boys. "I don't think Rikkaidai's Doubles team is ready to face any outside challenges just yet."

And with that, the captain stood. "Please be sure that this matter is well taken care of before the official matches do begin," he added, and then looked to Niou, smile sweetly returned. "May I have another hamburger?"

The light-haired teen looked over to see the ashen face of his doubles partner, and had to swallow a scowl and curse. "Sure. Go 'head. I don't think Bunta's going to eat anymore anyway."

"Thank you, Masaharu. Bunta?" Yukimura waited until the strawberry haired teen forced himself to look at the captain. "I'll see you at school and practice tomorrow. Take care."

Niou and Marui sat in silence; Niou was playing with an empty chicken burger wrapper. Marui was just staring at the Formica tabletop. Finally, Niou let out a huffed breath.

"You know, one day I'm going to figure out how the hell he knows everything."

~~~****~~~

There wasn't much point in hanging around the hamburger joint once it was established that neither of them would be eating anymore. They bagged up their leftover meals and Niou walked Marui home.

The redhead protested that he didn't need a babysitter and he could walk his own damned self home, but Niou just told him to shut up and start walking.

Hence, they walked the majority of the way with silence stretching between them. It was not normal and was uncomfortable.

"You know," Niou said finally as they grew closer to Marui's house. "Yukimura-buchou is right. We need to clear this up between all of us before tennis season really starts. After all, we're the doubles team."

"What do you want me to say, Niou?" Bunta asked tiredly. "What do you want me to do?"

"What do you want to do?" Niou returned the question and Bunta felt so frustrated he thought he might cry.

"I don't know," he answered instead.

"Well, figure it out," Niou grumbled, "Cause none of us will be about to move on till you do. The ball's on your side of the net, Bunta. It's your serve."

"Hey, where are you going?" he called after the other teen when Niou turned at the crosswalk.

"Home," the taller teen called back, not bothering to look back. "Catch you at school tomorrow."

Marui watch him for a full minute before continuing the rest of the way home. Alone.

It was up to him to decide what happened next, but he didn't know what he wanted.

<i>We're only seventeen, </i> Niou said. <i> It's foolish to believe that this will last forever. </i>

<i> Rikkaidai Doubles must first take care of the challenges within. Please hurry up. </i>

But what was the right way? What was the best way? And how was he supposed to figure it out?

<i> I want to touch you... I want you to touch me, too.... I want... </i>

"I want..." Bunta whispered. "I want...."

~~~*****~~~

tbc.