Prince Of Tennis Fan Fiction ❯ Yagyuu - Rikkaidai ❯ Chapter 1

Yagyuu--

Yagyuu Hiroshi was a man of paradoxes.

For some strange reason people liked him. He didn't know why. He certainly didn't like them. In fact, Yagyuu hated most people. He couldn't stand them, loathed having to share space, breathe air with them.

Yagyuu didn't like people. He held most of the human race in contempt, and those he had to interact with, with acute disdain. Not that they seemed to realize that.

There were very few people Yagyuu could actually stand being around--namely, his teammates.

Maybe fore this reason, Yagyuu was a very possessive person.

from the beginning, Masaharu had been different.

Niou--who would help just as easily as he would trick you into making a fool of yourself.

He had first met the Trickster in junior high school. Niou had been so annoying, pestering him to join the tennis team. He still wasn't sure why he'd joined, but suddenly, he found himself there, attending practices...

Yagyuu found himself looking at other people through Masaharu's eyes---and finding a reason to laugh instead of sneer. A new reason, even, to enjoy himself... and even more peculiar, a reason to care.

And then Yagyuu found himself in another strange relationship--playing doubles. With not one partner, but three.

It was really a crazy idea.

It never should have worked.

But then, Yukimura had said they would be and team and that was it. They were. Because what Yukimura said was law.

Niou had one teasingly referred to their captain as their god.

"We're all members of the Church of Yukimura. Worship services will be held everyday after school from four to six thirty on the school tennis courts. Anyone who is late will have to run twenty laps around the track--"

The think about it was, Yukimura was a possessive man. He was... a collector of lost souls, perhaps. Misfits. Taking them in, giving them a home, given them his protection. They were... a family.

It was a strange situation for Yagyuu--he suddenly found himself caring about someone else. At first, it was only Niou, because apparently everyone had decided he was Niou's keeper or something. As if Niou really needed a keeper. Then it was Yukimura, because you couldn't be in that man's presence for long and *not* come to care for him. And then Kirihara... and Bunta... and Jackal... and even occasionally, eventually, Sanada and Yanagi.

And once he started caring, he found he couldn't stop. He tried to stop. He tried to distance himself, but it just wasn't possible. When Yukimura had gotten sick, they'd all needed one another. To help cope. To help deal with the pain and the fear and the hatred that threaten to rip their lives apart. And everyone depended on Yagyuu to be the levelheaded on in doubles. The unflappable one, steadying both Niou's craziness and Bunta's recklessness. But who was there to help keep him stable?

Jackal couldn't because he needed to watch over Akaya most of the time, usually because Sanada or Yanagi couldn't be bothered to do it, and Gods forbid they let the younger boy off the leash.

Everything had started to calm down, though, after Yukimura began recovering. It was like a thick smog had been swept away, and they could all breathe easier again.

And that's when Yagyuu noticed it. Maybe it was always there--a bound between the three singles players--and he just never realized it before. But now it was blatant, practically shoved in his face.

Yukimura had always been a tactile person, as if, with a single touch he was proclaiming his possession.

Nothing really risqué.

Except...

He seemed to find more reasons to seemingly casually touch his team members. Even Yagyuu. But especially Sanada and Yanagi.

And... hesitantly at first, and then more assuredly--they began to respond, returning Yukimura's casual touches as if an affirmation. Or, worse, they would actively seek his touch, like Kirihara.

'You are mine.'

'Yes. I am yours...'

He hadn't meant to see them there, during that last week of junior high school, standing like a human cocoon in each other's arms, but Yagyuu couldn't seem to banish the image. It was burned into his mind...

He hadn't expect Niou to lean over and kiss him--sloppily, smashing lips and tongues together--the night of their graduating ceremony, either.

"What are you doing!" Yagyuu demanded, throwing Niou off of him.