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There's a roaring between his ears. And cold sweat running down his spine. Rather painfully reminiscent of how it was the very first time knowing what the squirming knot high-up under his ribs meant.
Five years should have been long enough. For it to stop, that is. Or lessen. Or something -anything, really. They haven't been and Ohtori now wonders how he managed to convince himself they ever would be. Not that he thinks that for the knot to go away would be a solution. Just that it would be sort of nice to get on with his life, because this surely isn't doing anybody any good anymore. Least of all himself. And he thought he had.
Then again, if he'd moved on with his life -or past the knot, he wouldn't have been here, would he?
The sound of tennis brings back an instinctive response in his body. The impact of the balls on the strings, the scent of clay and sweat. The sounds. That voice.
It makes Ohtori feel like he's a teenager again, barely fourteen years old, feeling the blood rush to his cheeks in the changing rooms. The confusion at first, the dawning realization, the dreams. The long years of being hopelessly in love after.
Being in love isn't even remotely romantic. Ohtori never understood how people thought it was. To him it was one haze of confusion and second-guessing and hours spend daydreaming up one unlikely scenario after the other knowing it would never happen. Which, he supposes, is bad enough by itself had it been a girl.
But Shishido-san is hardly a girl.
Why is he here again?
Down below on the courts the tension is mounting. Ohtori watches them battle it out with his heart pounding against the back of his teeth. He wishes one of them would score already, only to break the pressure hanging like a stifling cloud over the stadium.
Shishido still doesn't look like a girl. In fact, he's never looked as different from the boy with the long ponytail as he does now. He's not skinny anymore. His build is unmistakingly that of an athlete. When he leans his weight on his right foot and then pushes off to run down a volley, Ohtori can see the swell of thigh strain under his shorts even from where he's sitting. He's quiet, too. He never used to be- all noise and curses, throaty growls. Sometimes he may utter a 'hah!' when he gets a tricky return, but he's almost eerily quiet the rest of the time. Dignified.
Not hard to guess how that happened. At the sidelines Atobe stands, shoulders squared and rigid, in a severe suit despite the heat. He appears fixated on Shishido, as though willing him to conquer that first point by sheer force of will.
Which he does.
Around him the audience surges to its feet, cheering. Ohtori is out of his plastic seat as well, before he remembers himself. He sits down again, only to feel immensely awkward between the forest of clamoring people still standing up. When they subside again, all he can see from Shishido's reaction is the slow, triumphant curling of a fist. Atobe hasn't moved a muscle.
A serve is set up and the game begins again.
Shishido is a different person.
Ohtori is a different person.
But sitting there, badly disguised on a hard seat in the middle of a sea of strangers and watching Shishido play tennis -singles, at that-, he feels like nothing has changed at all.
*
A lot of it was stolen touches.
Resting a hand on his shoulder. Accidentally shifting his leg so their knees bumped. Handing a bottle of water exactly so that their fingers would touch. Picking nonexistent lint of his clothing. Which had been easy, too. Shishido was rather tactile. He was like that with everybody. Even though Ohtori tried not to fool himself into believing it was different with him, it still felt like it.
They'd been so close.
And sometimes when Shishido touched him, he would swear that it meant more. Like something he knew down into his bones. They'd lain on a bed together, talking for hours, close enough to breathe each other in. Shishido had slept against Ohtori's side, leaning on him. He'd massaged Ohtori's shoulder, which had ached for a long time after he'd injured it against the Golden Pair -surprisingly gentle and patient and thorough. They'd spend hours talking on the phone together, way into the night, the last few hours often just listening to one another breathe.
And they'd been so. close.
Which had been the worst part of it. The knowing and understanding of each other, being so attuned how to move and even breathe in tandem that it was hard at times to properly separate himself from his senpai. It had been more than being best friends. This is something he knows he did not imagine.
But despite that, despite Shishido resting a warm hand on the back of his neck, Shishido smiling that special crooked smile at him, Shishido looking at him as though he was staring straight into Ohtori's heart, despite it being too much to be just friendship- Shishido still had gotten a girlfriend in his first year of high school.
One day she'd just been there. Shishido didn't tell him straight away. For some reason Atobe knew and, naturally, he told Kabaji. And Kabaji being Kabaji (that is unfailingly kind and protective) had walked home with Ohtori after school one day and gently told him. Ohtori doesn't remember much else from that day, or that night. Or much right up until Shishido had stood before his door two days later and told him face-to-face. Granted, it had been sort of garbled and spluttered, and Shishido had been wringing his cap until it had been near unrecognizable.
If it hadn't been for Kabaji, Ohtori believes he'd have done something that would've destroyed their friendship right there and then. Instead he had managed to choke out a hoarse form of congratulations or something close enough like it, because Shishido's muscles had relaxed and his face had smoothed out and he'd looked relieved and happy.
Happy. In a way Ohtori hadn't seen him before.
Part of him had never wanted to meet, let alone see the girl.
Especially when he heard that she was very pretty and Shishido-san was not-so-secretly proud and yet dazed that she'd picked him, and even Oshitari had been saying that despite all her virtues there ought to be something dreadfully wrong with the girl to have picked Shishido, of all people.
Ohtori knew why.
And when she turned out to be exactly that when he did first meet her, it had been as though someone was lovingly squeezing his heart. She'd been pretty and smart and funny and sort of tomboyish and utterly perfect.
When Shishido looked at her, his heart was in his eyes. He'd loved her and Ohtori had watched him love her. It had given him solace in the worst way ever. Seeing Shishido be in love with her had sort of helped, in way, because even if it hurt as though his flanks were splitting under the pain of his emotions, he'd been happy. There'd never been any doubt about how Shishido felt when he'd seen him touch her. Kiss her. He was all rough and protective gentleness with her, fierce and intense even when they were sitting at other ends of a room.
Ohtori was his best friend. To Shishido's credit, he'd never put him aside for her. They still hung out and not much changed between them. Shishido still touched him. Only that Ohtori now knew there wasn't more in his gesture than fondness and affection and perhaps love, but of an entirely different order. After a while of seeing how careful Shishido was, making sure Ohtori knew he was his best friend and that even a girl he loved could not destroy that, Ohtori occasionally told him to bring her along.
It had been okay, somehow. There is nothing wrong with helplessly loving someone even if they don't love you back. As long as they're worth it.
And Shishido had been.
Still is.
Ohtori almost wishes he wasn't.
*
They've been playing for hours.
Shishido's shirt is dark with sweat.
Yet it is obvious that his stamina has doubled, if not tripled since high school. And he plays differently, too. Has to, Ohtori supposes, if he wants to make it in singles. Out of practice himself for years makes it that Ohtori is hesitant to judge, but he thinks he's about as good as Atobe was during their last year as a team together. Granted, it took Shishido nearly a decade to achieve such a level of skill -while Atobe had oozed it naturally out of every pore.
Even though he's only ahead by a small margin, Ohtori can tell he is dominating the court. While he has to wring every point off the other, he still keeps taking them steadily. The other is frustrated. Shishido is still eerily calm. One thing that has not changed is his intensity. He still has that look. He's not looking anywhere else but at his opponent, but Ohtori can feel the steady invasive burn of it. Aggressive. Frank. Demanding.
He'd looked at her, that way, too.
Knowing it will hurt like hell doesn't stop him from scanning the stands for the familiar outline of her body. But there's a lot of slender, dark-haired people present and he can't locate her.
Likely if he searched the internet he'd be able to find out whether they've married by now. The man on the court below could even be a father. Of more than one, if the predictions of team were correct.
*
The first to be married, they joked. With two kids and a dog right after. A house. A steady job.
Ohtori never stayed to find out.
When Shishido left after high school, Ohtori allowed him to leave his life, too. He saw him occasionally in the beginning, and less after time passed. Ohtori didn't call him, didn't visit him. One day he stopped returning his calls.
It was a sort of gift to himself. The chance to move on. Find someone else. Not stand on the sidelines secretly coveting someone else's love.
Not that it had been easy. He'd cried in the ugliest way ever -tears streaming and nose running and mouth open on sobs when he couldn't get any air. More than once. He cried the first time he turned Shishido down for a game of tennis -after, when he was safe under his blankets. And he cried the first time Shishido's name appeared on the screen and decided not to pick up -ever again. He cried when he realized Shishido at long last had stopped trying.
And he cried plenty in-between, too, for no other reason that he wanted it to stop hurting. Crying is stupid and absolutely useless and solved nothing at all. He knows this. Didn't make it any easier, though.
Sex was wonderful. He liked someone else to hold him, someone warm and sweating underneath, the taste of skin and lips. He'd been with other people. They all found him remote and too compliant and it never lasted. Ohtori thinks he knows why.
The key is standing on the court below, sun catching on the drops of sweat covering his brow.
*
He has kissed Shishido.
Once.
Sort of.
It sort of remains frozen in painful clarity in his mind. The laughter of the rest of the team walking ahead of them -Oshitari had been singing, rather off-key. The hot, stifling rain that flooded the streets day after day. Sodden fabric had clung to his skin, his shirt soaked to the point of transparency. The droplets had made a sparkling haze in the halo of the street lights and Ohtori had looked up at the night sky, finding it brilliant with stars. Cloudless. He'd been wondering where the rain was coming from when there were no clouds when Shishido had leaped up behind him, wrapping both arms playfully around his shoulders and nearly making Ohtori trip.
After steadying him Shishido had given him that smile, lop-sided and brazen, only to fall into step with him.
They'd walked in silence behind the rest, sharing a wry look when both Gakuto and Jiroh joined Oshitari's song about dancing bananas.
Ohtori remembers the rain. He hadn't been cold. But when Shishido put an arm around his waist -easy, affectionate- he'd hissed at the unexpected heat of him. It had felt as if he'd touched Ohtori's bare skin and his chest had felt so full, too full and straining for this person next to him that he'd dropped his head and kissed Shishido's forehead.
It hadn't felt weird or inappropriate. Shishido hadn't moved away, hadn't said anything. His fingers had curled a bit in the soaked fabric of Ohtori's shirt. They'd just walked on, Shishido's arm around his middle.
Often Ohtori curses the fact that it had been raining. Shishido had been just as thoroughly drenched as he was and he hadn't tasted like anything but rain. Or rather, when Ohtori licked his lips right after, there'd only been a mineral tang.
The rest of the night is rather hazy.
But he remembers that moment.
The bright winks of the rain flying through the beams of light, his sodden clothing, the warm body and the arm around his waist. The wet tickle of hair against his upper lip. The full contact of touching someone else's body with his mouth. The heavy weight in his chest.
Shishido.
*
The plastic edge of the seat bites painfully into his behind. Ohtori has scooted so far forward that if he moves one more millimeter he'll fall right off.
Determination.
That's what Shishido is, down there on the courts. He can still see the spontaneity, his natural impulsiveness in his wild and reckless returns -but even that has been honed to perfection. Atobe didn't mold him into something he wasn't. He took what was there and improved on it. Atobe still stands there at the sidelines, never moving but to hand Shishido a towel or a water bottle. It's not like he doesn't dare to look away in fear of Shishido messing up. But his whole back, his body is one flex of ill-suppressed of tennis, like Ohtori's is: muscles fighting as though he's standing right behind Shishido once again together on the court. Atobe is there with him, too, staring on at the side while all the rest of him -heart, mind and soul- is with Shishido.
Shishido isn't the favorite. The other player is. Shishido is a sudden wild card in the tournaments, steadily on the rise since last season.
They've been battling it out for hours. Ohtori can tell Shishido is starting to tire. And he's not sure, but he think he can detect the old gleam of terror that he'll lose, and lose for everybody to see, lose right before Atobe's eyes, lose when he believed nothing could take him down.
C'mon, Ohtori wills at him. You can do this. I know you can. Don't you dare lose the first time I see you after five years.
Even through the other player has the advantage of experience on his side, as well as the favor of most of the audience, Shishido doesn't snap. Instead he suddenly switches from a stable defense into sudden, ferocious offense.
He makes a low, deep noise, not as much as a sound as a harsh exhalation as he dashes up to the net and uses a rising and Ohtori nearly closes his eyes against how familiar that looks, even as he sits there smiling.
That's right.
The other player is taken aback, but he not so that he fumbles the return.
Sweat flies in a glittering arc off the ends of Shishido's hair
Ohtori bites his lip until he tastes blood.
And then, suddenly, it is game set and match, 7-6, Shishido.
There's a shocked pause. Even Shishido himself is motionless, his racket still up over his left-shoulder, legs braced. And then crowd becomes one massive roar of noise, something that can be felt in the bones. Dazed, Ohtori rises, too, a beat after.
Below Shishido is shaking hands. The other player accepts his defeat admirably, allowing a smile. His lips move. Shishido answers back. If he was feeling strained a moment ago, nothing shows of it now. He seems to crackle with energy, from the way his hair stands crazily on end to his eyes, which seem bright even when they are black. The sun gleams on his skin; he's soaked.
Atobe strides up to him and for a moment Ohtori thinks he's about to leap joyfully into Shishido's arms. Instead, he sort of presses Shishido's hand at first, but after a moment, they embrace.
And then.
Shishido puts his arms around Atobe and rests his chin on his shoulder. Looks up. Right at where Ohtori is standing, not cheering, not applauding, not whistling, but watching.
He sits down, ducks his head. Tugs at the brim of the cap he's wearing, feels for the sunglasses. Checks his cross, tucked into the pocket of his pants. When he finally dares to rise up and peek, Shishido has long since moved on. Some reporter has shoved a mic under his nose and is undoubtedly doing the usual spiel of post-victory questions. Atobe hovers nearby, undoubtedly anticipating do damage control before long.
Ohtori looks down, not applauding, not doing anything but watching. His eyes burn, the center of his being burns.
Five years.
Congratulations.
*
People become one single minded mass when they're with as many as they are now. Obediently they all troop towards the exits. Confusion erupts when they spill into the main reception area, where others are already lining up for drinks or snacks or are nattering away on their cell phone. In the middle is Ohtori, shuffling along as swiftly as he can, wanting to be gone already.
Why am I here again?
Before his eyes, Shishido flies over the courts. A man. An athlete. A husband. A father. His best friend. A boy when Ohtori feel in love with him, but he finds that even after five years of nothing, of complete absence, he still feels sad and fond and angry, and as stupidly, uselessly in love when he was a child.
He wishes he hadn't come.
He wishes he hand't seen the announcement in the paper.
He wishes he were stronger.
And he is so damn happy he came and saw him play, saw him win.
Yes. It's worth it.
Ohtori stands before the wall of flesh, of people crammed together as they shove and push and complain their ways towards the exit. As he waits, snatches of the match and of old memories dart before his eyes. It was a good match. The cap itches as his hair underneath is starting to curl up in response to the heat, wet with sweat. He wants a shower. And then, bed. He feels utterly drained, even if he sat down all afternoon and did nothing at all but torment himself mentally.
Someone grabs his shoulder, hard and impolite. Ohtori turns to look, pulling away-
Shishido glares up at him. "You," he says. "Come with me."
All around them people are beginning to turn their heads. Shishido on the courts is different from Shishido right this moment -dressed in dry, nondescript clothing and no tennis racket anywhere in sight. Nobody seems sure how to react, whether the person standing right there is the athlete who just dragged in a phenomenal victory. Some move, some even begin to feverishly rummage for a camera, but before anybody is sure enough to do anything at all, Shishido is bodily towing Ohtori away and back towards where he came from.
Ohtori, at least, has no doubt whose hand is clamped like a hostile vice on his wrist.
It almost surprises him when he realizes Shishido is still smaller than him, how the t-shirt seems to eat up his frame even as the muscles in his forearm roll like iron cables under his skin.
The further they retraced Ohtori's steps, the more the crowd dissipates, until at last there's a deserted concrete stretch of hallway with nothing in it but the two of them. Shishido lets go, as though he cannot bear to touch Ohtori any longer. For a moment they stand there, suspended, an echo of the crowd's roar still imprinted on the whole stadium. Shishido is turned away from him. The nape of his neck is tanned and slick with sweat. Ohtori feels as though he's about to choke one something, his heart or his own stupidity, he's not sure.
"You bastard," Shishido says, voice shaking and hoarse. Then he turns around, unwillingly. His jaw is set.
He looks terribly young.
Only twenty-three, Ohtori reminds himself. But Shishido looks younger than that, as though the last five years have never happened, completely stripped away. When Shishido lifts a violent hand towards his face, he doesn't flinch. The cap is snatched away, his hair tugs in protesting snarls when it leaves his head.
"Why?" Shishido asks him, looking angry and lost and uncomprehending.
Taking the sunglasses of himself, Ohtori folds them before sliding them into the other pocket of his pants. The bridge of his nose crawls painfully -he's not used to wearing glasses of any sort.
"WHY?" Shishido demands, throwing the cap to the ground distainfully. "Answer me, you stupid asshole."
Ohtori doesn't know what he wants. An apology? Why what in the first place? That Shishido is angry he understands, but his old friends seems to be unraveling, leaving no evidence of the strong, independent individual on the courts. Instead he's uncomfortably human and hurt and Ohtori knows it's him who caused it and he has no idea what to do.
He never intended to speak to Shishido again.
He never intended to see him again.
Or know what he was doing, what his life was without him.
But he came to this match and he should've known that five years wouldn't be enough. Not for him. And not for Shishido.
Despite everything, they never stopped being close. Too close.
"You think I wouldn't know?" Shishido asks him, gesturing wildly. "You think I wouldn't know it was you?"
Ohtori knows that his silence isn't helping. But his throat seems to be twice the size it ought to be and his lips are dry and painful and his eyes hurt and Shishido-san is there, standing before him. They haven't talked in five years. All he's got left for Shishido-san are three words he'll never say.
"Answer me!" Shishido shouts and he surges forward, fury etched into every line of his body. He slams both fists into Ohtori's chest, no mercy, no kindness, not anything but anger and confusion. "How dare you? You ruined everything. You stupid coward."
Once more he lifts his fists and brings them down, full-force. The third time he sort of wilts half-way and his curled hands press weakly down. His head tips forward. The top of his head is right under Ohtori's chin -exactly as Ohtori remembers it. His hair is nearly black, his lashes unforgiving on his cheekbones. His lips are white.
"Go away," he snarls. "Just leave. I- Why? Why are you here, looking like this. I hate that you can still do this."
Ohtori looks down at the dark crown of his head, speechless.
"I hate it," Shishido snarls and he looks up. His teeth are bared. "I hate that you can still- you ruined everything. Damn you."
And then the slack hands on Ohtori's chest become vicious clamps that haul him forward and down. Shishido kisses him.
The salts of on his lips -from his match, from his anger- stings Ohtori's mouth like white-hot acid. He's furious and warm and moist, a different entity compared to how remote Ohtori suddenly feels. Shishido doesn't stay long. There's the punishment of his mouth, a sudden thawing, lips soft and remembering and then his breath shuddering a retreat.
Ohtori stares down at him. For the first time he notices he couldn't have pulled back even if he wanted to. Shishido is stronger than him, shorter, slighter, but stronger. The muscles stand out like ropes in his arms and along his neck. Even though Ohtori is entirely at his mercy, Shishido stares up at him, dark eyes wide -searching his face as though he is looking for something.
"Damn you," he says again, lowering his eyes. Suddenly lifeless, Shishido's hands drop away.
They stand there. Ohtori doesn't know what it is he feels. It hurts like hell and more than anything else he wants it to stop. He doesn't know this Shishido. He can't breathe.
Shishido doesn't look at him again, instead he breathes in, closes his eyes. Then he turns and leaves. Ohtori can't even bring himself to watch his retreating back. His eyes are on the crumpled cap on the ground. His mouth hurts. When his tongue circles his lips they taste of blood and sweat that isn't his.
Shishido kissed him.
Ohtori mops at his cheeks, but there isn't anything to dry. His cross feels like a mountain of lead in his pocket.
Shishido kissed him.
The hallway is empty. Ohtori swivels his neck left and right, unsure where they came from, unsure where to go. Before he understands what he doing, his feet are moving, walking, jogging, sprinting.
The concrete hallways all look the same. Ever so often they branch off -showing a glimpse of the stadium. A stitch develops in his side. He hasn't participated in any form of exercise or sport for years.
Five, to be exact.
Years, that is.
His head swims as he hurtles heedlessly through the bowels of the stadium. Everything is gray and empty and cold and Ohtori is starting to panic, and his heart is straining under the sudden surge of blood and he's having trouble breathing and just as he stumbles to a halt, hiccuping for air, he sees Atobe.
Even there it is like those five years never happened. Atobe is a man, he's married and he's moved on to a life Ohtori couldn't ever hope to understand. But when he stands there, arms crosses and regarding him, utterly unimpressed, he's Ohtori's captain all over again.
Atobe's eyes are pale and uncommonly blue. His mouth is white as Shishido's was when he turned away. He stares at Ohtori, down his nose even when he's taller than him by a head.
This is the part where he is supposed to say something, but for the life of him, Ohtori can't. He stands there mute and shaking and breathless.
Fixing his eyes on one of the many doors of the hallway Ohtori finds himself in, he jerks his chin at it.
In there.
Ohtori bows his head and moves towards it. There's a key on the door. Hesitantly, Ohtori checks it. It's unlocked.
He opens the door.
-fin-