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saso2016_r12016-06-26 12:19 pm
Main Round 1 Entry: Team Tennis no Ouji-sama
TITLE: Execution
SERIES: Tennis no Ouji-sama
SHIP: Fuji Syuusuke/Niou Masaharu
RATING: T
CHARACTERS: Fuji Syuusuke, Niou Masaharu, Kabaji Munehiro, Atobe Keigo
SIDE PAIRINGS: hinted past Fuji Syuusuke/Tezuka Kunimitsu
MAJOR TAGS: Eating habits, Identity dysphoria
ADDITIONAL TAGS: Minor injury
SUMMARY: It's a little grating to realize that he'll only ever play his best when he isn’t playing himself at all.
WORK COUNT: 3996, 3 images
SCRIPT: Image List: docs.google.com/document/d/1Z4cwZOkmjMKR_c0eyWlgBWH04h8lItqmbArvE5Fmq-o/edit
NOTES: While this takes place during New Prince of Tennis, no prior knowledge of it is needed outside of the fact they're all at a tennis training camp. That, a little suspension of disbelief, and you're golden ^^v
They say the lifespan of the human body is seven years. That its cells shrivel and shrink, turn over again and again until they birth new limbs, a new skin, a new heart.
Niou tracks the changes every time he drags his hand through his hair to rinse out brown dye. Much as he tries to shed them along with the glasses, some mannerisms stick: a stiffer jaw when he's not paying attention, a certain rigidity to his steps. He flicks his racket up absently in the evening, catalogues the weight in his palm. Tezuka doesn't use this, he thinks, swinging once, and the breeze cuts over his arms like a hundred tiny reproaches: more spin, more power.
Perhaps he should switch to a Mizuno.
-
Some people are easy to fool - people like Kikumaru, who startles when Niou taps him on the shoulder and looms over him with Tezuka's patented Old Man Look(TM). "W-When did you get back from Germany?"
Niou takes advantage of his shock to order a series of increasingly humiliating stretches, all within view of Seigaku's vice captain. "Don't let your guard down!" he booms, as Kikumaru is about to collapse under the aptly-named Easy Plow (ver. Niou).
Oishi hasn't called him out yet either, but Niou suspects he may be preoccupied with the straining lines of Kikumaru's calves. He's halfway to patting himself on the back for a job well done when Fuji Syuusuke walks over with those deceptively closed eyes of his. Niou's seen enough of Yanagi's squinty gaze to know exactly where Fuji is looking right now.
"What's going on here?"
Still, he's not giving up without a fight. "Syuusuke," he murmurs, dropping his voice another octave. He’ll probably have a sore throat tomorrow, but if Yanagi’s information is correct, the use of Fuji’s first name should turn him to tokoroten. "Kikumaru needs to work on his flexibility."
Even Oishi raises an eyebrow at that - Kikumaru's flexibility is one of his greatest strengths.
“The sharpest swords must still be polished,” Niou blusters, hoping all captains share that annoying tendency to speak as if they’re going to war. “An arsenal of average horses is oft vanquished by a single skilled rider.” As an afterthought, he adds, “Syuusuke.”
"There's no point using my first name if I know it's not Tezuka saying it," Fuji comments. He leans over and yanks on a strand of brown hair, ignoring Niou's yelp of pain, and the dye flakes off under his touch - cheap spray-on from the convenience store, but Niou can't afford better; he's not Atobe.
Fuji wipes his fingers on Niou's collar.
"You should imitate somebody simpler,” he continues. “Atobe, for instance.”
In spite of his outrage - that dye sticks to clothes a dozen times better than it does hair - Niou laughs. “Been there, done that. Stole his entourage, while I was at it.”
“You’re a homewrecker,” Fuji says. His eyes are closed, but his smile is bright, dancing.
Niou takes it as a challenge.
-
The room he shares with Kabaji is a shrine of odds and ends, slim needles scattered across one end, a dozen skin-toned palettes lined up along the other. It’s the sort of room more suited to theatre than athletics - Niou has to remind himself, at times, that they are actually at this training camp to play tennis.
Kabaji grunts a soft greeting when Niou flops down at the desk. The trailing cloth at his side shifts at the sound, a rather charitable reproduction of Atobe in a bathrobe. Kabaji’s skills have evolved since he met Oni at camp; Niou thinks there might be a Mandelbrot set hidden in the fine silk of Atobe’s iris.
While Kabaji stabs his needle into Atobe’s eyelashes, Niou sets to work recreating Tezuka. He dabs at his mole, the black bleeding through his concealer, and loses himself in the mundane task of reapplying dye to his hair. By the time he’s done, the first shuffling sets of feet are on their way to the dining hall for dinner. Niou breaks the silence with a yawn. “Let’s go.”
Kabaji drops his materials halfway through a pleated stitch. Niou keeps his hand up near his face, familiar enough to remind Kabaji of his old master, and Kabaji heaves himself off the chair into the corridor.
Atobe is too easy.
Watching his roommate lumber slowly away, Niou has an idea. "Tezuka Zone," he whispers, snapping his fingers, and Kabaji turns, ambles back to him. Wow, Niou thinks. Score.
In the dining hall, Niou successfully utilises Tezuka Phantom to ward off Konjiki Koharu, and to save his plate of curry from Akutagawa Jirou’s wandering fingers. If Tezuka can live his whole life this way, it’s no wonder he’s achieved a zen-like state of stoicism. There is literally nothing that can touch him without his permission.
Niou gets himself in the Zone for first dibs on dessert.
-
His first use of the Illusion at camp comes out of spite as much as anything else, the desire to win burning in his chest. He flares up in a practice match against Akutagawa, fires drop after drop until his shoulder aches and his feet feel chewed out through the soles, but it’s the quickest win he’s ever had.
It's a little grating to realize that he'll only ever play his best when he isn’t playing himself at all.
-
He makes a habit of circling past Room 201 before he goes jogging. Yukimura and Shiraishi like to frequent the gym in the evenings, leaving Fuji to tend to the plants and stare fondly at his brother’s baby photos, or whatever he does when he’s alone. Sadly, Niou has never caught him in the act.
“I’m going for a run,” he announces, twirling to show off his freshly-dyed roots.
Fuji’s lips spasm. “Tezuka doesn’t do up his top button when he runs.” A pause. “Anymore, that is.”
“You’re the foundation to my pillar,” Niou cooes, releasing the offending button. His throat immediately relaxes into the new space. “If that’s all...”
“Keep your back straight when you turn the corner. Pillars don’t lean.”
He’s been watching.
Niou stops with his hand on the doorknob. “You could join me,” he offers casually. Tezuka’s strides are longer than his, more forceful, but they shorten when he leads his team during warm-ups. Niou’s only after the winning Tezuka, so he doesn’t necessarily need to know how Tezuka runs in private, but -
Just for completion’s sake.
Fuji smiles beatifically, gesturing at a blob of spikes in the corner. “Haru would get lonely.”
The blob sits unmoving in its pot. “You’re letting your guard down,” Niou says, relishing the authority within those words. “You can’t afford to get distracted by a plant.”
“And you’re slipping into Sanada mode again,” Fuji tells him. “Tezuka likes plants. He cuts bonsai trees in his spare time.”
Niou hadn’t realised Tezuka had hobbies outside of tennis, though he probably should have suspected. Sanada likes to slice modified tree trunks in his spare time too. Perhaps the secret to becoming a truly great tennis player has less to do with hitting balls and more to do with how much wood one touches. It would certainly explain a few of the things Niou’s seen around camp. “Those who work hard will reap their reward,” he says, figuring Tezuka must be more of a flowery-language, inspirational type. “If you want to defeat me, come.”
He doesn’t wait for Fuji’s reply before waltzing out the door - Atobe really does come too easy; he needs to stop before he makes a habit out of it - and the spin he puts on the doorknob as he leaves forces it shut with all the flair of a cross-court winner.
-
In the morning, he swings his racket so the air current pulls half his wardrobe to him.
“Usu,” grunts Kabaji, which is his equivalent of saying somebody’s in a good mood today.
“Pretty transparent, huh.”
Tezuka’s glasses fit snugly over his nose. They’re flat lenses, which can’t be helped, but unless it’s Yanagi looking, Niou should be safe. The coaches have doubles practice booked for the next few sessions, and this persona isn’t known for his doubles. It’ll be a good test of ability, with some room for error.
He garners a couple of curious looks when he steps onto the court, mainly from high schoolers who haven’t figured out the Illusion yet. The list of names that Coach Saitou rattles off over the speakers is white noise until his ears perk up at Yagyuu’s - which is, outrageously, not followed by his own. He’s disappointed, but not as much as he would be were he playing as himself.
“Niou Masaharu/Fuji Syuusuke pair, playing the Oshitari Yuushi/Marui Bunta pair. Best of three sets...”
Niou’s disappointment backpedals faster than Yagyuu’s Laser. “Seigaku Fight,” he murmurs.
“Traitor,” Fuji whispers back, and Niou’s jaw falls open in manufactured rage.
“I am your captain.”
Fuji looks up with a mischievous grin. He’s alight with the excitement that comes before playing a match, glowing so fierce Niou struggles to breathe in the face of it, and for a moment -
A moment. “We just had a moment.”
“No, we didn’t.”
“We did,” Niou insists. “We just had - ”
“I don’t have moments,” Fuji says loftily, though Niou has heard him singing about shutter chances in the showers.
“We definitely - ”
“You’re quite stubborn, aren’t you?”
“I’m Tezuka, not Quite,” Niou replies, snapping his fingers with a cheesy grin. It doesn’t come off half as well as normal when he’s trying to work within the constraints of Tezuka’s stiff masticators.
But Fuji laughs, loud and shocking. Different to his usual hushed chuckles, and after a beat, Niou finds himself coming loose too.
-
Despite his best efforts, Room 201 remains a dry well for blackmail material. Rather, Fuji seems to have a knack for knowing when he’s about to turn the knob, and Niou pushes the door open to an almost predatory smile. Under normal circumstances, that would be his cue to run.
Tezuka doesn’t run. “Syuusuke,” he says, aiming for deep and suave.
The look Fuji shoots him at that would wither cacti.
“Sorry.” He coughs, shifts his posture. Tries again in a respectfully Captain voice. “Fuji.”
This time, it’s different. He knows he’s struck home when Fuji seizes up, smile stiffening before coming back plastic. “Yes, Tezuka?”
And, well, Niou hadn’t actually planned on getting this far. “I, uh.” He’s probably ruined it, but Fuji’s response means that Niou’s Illusion had been - if just for a moment - impeccable. He loses his voice, finds Tezuka’s. “I just wanted to say your name.”
Loses his mind, evidently. Fuji pauses, eyebrows arching high into his fringe. When he speaks, there’s a faint air of wonder about his words. “By all means, then.”
It’s surprisingly difficult to force the words out when he knows they’re expected. Niou pretends not to notice the hint of colour on Fuji’s cheeks; Fuji says nothing about the tremor in the voice that says Fuji, whispers Syuusuke.
-
The best thing about playing the perfect Tezuka, Niou thinks, is that people are attracted to him, even without the Zone.
The worst thing, naturally, is that he knows they’re not there for him.
Under normal circumstances, this would be a matter of syntax. All these boys in the one sports series - it’s not too hard to merge a stray him here or there. But it matters with Fuji.
It matters when Fuji turns to him after a particularly vicious Zero Shiki and for the tiniest fraction of a second, Niou sees the light of hope blaze in his eyes before reality brushes it away. It matters when Niou’s hairstyle collapses under the sweat of the game, cheap dye leaching into his collar. It matters when Fuji’s passive mask sways in response, when Niou messes up his topspin and the ball bounces half a metre out of range.
It matters when he’s constantly reminded that he’s not yet there.
Oshitari (the fast one) slugs him a hard one - Niou skids back and catches it in the gut of his racket. He barely has enough time to wrench his arm around before it’s bounded back to the other side, and the shift kills his follow through, tugs painfully on his elbow.
The pain isn’t anything new, but it’s bad, enough that he doesn’t make it to the return. Fuji barely picks it up, lobbing it high to the back court for a classic counter. Then he’s striding over to Niou, seizing his arm.
He stares at it like it’s his first time seeing it, and then an utterly different expression crosses his face, and now he’s seen far too much. “You’re overdoing it.”
Niou jerks back, cradles his arm protectively. He knows he’s sweating. “Listen, Fuji - ”
“You’re overdoing it,” Fuji grits, his fingers digging deeper. “I’m not going to let you ruin your entire career - it’s not worth it. Come on.”
He tugs, expecting Niou to follow. He can’t.
He’s worked too hard for this. He’s gone all the way to Germany to chase his dream of becoming the strongest, and Niou needs to be at his best just to stay competitive within this training camp. He’s finally found a way to do that, and he needs - Fuji needs to let him play his best.
“Fuji,” he says, and it’s iron, the voice of Seigaku’s unshakeable pillar. “Let go.”
The sight of Fuji turning away hurts more than the searing burn through his elbow, but the score is 15-0, 30-0.
At forty-love Fuji turns and points his racket at him. “You can copy whoever you like,” he snaps, “but you will never be as good as the real thing.”
Maybe, Niou thinks, as the final ball curves away from him and out to the next court across, but this way I can be good enough to win.
-
Kabaji’s waiting for him back in the room. He’s still hunched over that extravagant rendition of Atobe Keigo, thread on silk (20XX), and Niou nudges him, congratulates him on his win. The move sends sharp pangs up his arm, and he isn’t able to force down his reaction fast enough. It’ll heal, he tells himself firmly. He’ll wrap a brace around it, stretch out the swelling.
The chair squeaks. Kabaji lays aside his needles and towers over Niou. “Jog? ...I’ll come.”
“Later,” Niou promises, a little surprised. He and Kabaji generally leave one another to their own devices. Niou orders him around, mainly to rub their new friendship in Atobe’s face, but Kabaji has only ever asked him the occasional question: which bunk do you want; tan thread or yellow flax?
“Usu.”
Disquieted, Niou lasts a mere half hour before he caves and pulls on his sneakers. “Let’s go.” He’s sure to stomp past Atobe’s room on their way down, though he skips Room 201. Fuji would probably say something barbed and passive-aggressive, or have Yukimura hiding in wait behind the door.
The street lamps cast long shadows as they ready themselves outside. Niou reclaims his sports bag from Kabaji, swings it gingerly over his shoulder. As he’s about to set off, Kabaji pulls him back.
He crouches down and rescues a struggling ant from a puddle of congealed soda near Niou’s feet. It wobbles back to its people, and Kabaji keeps a firm hold on Niou’s shirt until it vanishes into the dark. “Even a tiny insect has half a soul.”
Sanada slips them calligraphy, but it only ever says things like ‘ABSOLUTE VICTORY’ or ‘MAXIMUM EFFORT’. The phrase isn’t familiar to Niou. “Don’t let your guard down,” he counters sagely. If they’re swapping sayings, he has a few up his sleeve.
Kabaji regards him for a moment before grunting noncommittally. “I like small things,” he says, halting. “Hard to see...but they bite hard.” He holds out his finger, and Niou sees the outline of a welt beginning to form. When he looks back up, Kabaji’s eyes are fixed on his elbow.
Niou recoils as if he’s the one bitten. “Be awed by my prowess,” he attempts, searching for distraction, but Kabaji’s eyes remain, even when Niou snaps his fingers in a flawless Hyoutei call.
“I like you,” Kabaji says, the most monotone confession Niou has ever received. And he remembers.
Some people are easy, not quite to fool, but to persuade to play along. It’s hard for him to pick them out, sometimes, and the problem there is that they’re never secured; he never knows when the thread will snap.
Kabaji’s expression doesn’t change, his eyes as soft and flat as ever. His fingers, though. Deft enough to weave the finest threads of hair into a pattern, strong enough to hit six hundred individual techniques. They come to rest on Niou’s shoulders, sinking down like they can physically force the words into him.
“No more. You’re...not...Atobe.”
Niou closes his eyes. “No,” he agrees; that had never been his goal. “I’m Tezuka.”
-
In the dead of the night, Niou Kingdom has been utterly ransacked.
That is to say, his bed and belongings are intact, and his clothes have been folded neatly in color-coordinated piles, but the adorable scores of stuffed toys and tapestries-in-progress have been whisked away to unknown lands, and there’s at least a cubic metre more air space than there was the previous day.
He sees Atobe across the dining hall that evening, nibbling strips of meat straight from the ends of Kabaji’s chopsticks.
That would explain it. At least Niou is a functional adult who can eat without having to be fed; he can peel his own grapes, thank you. He grabs a tray and strides past the table, attempting not to look at the poor display of stunted growth there.
“You are completely transparent,” Atobe chides, glaring. He’s talking with his mouth full - it’s a little detrimental to whatever pearls of wisdom he thinks he can impart on a commoner like Niou. “I see right through you,” Atobe continues, waving his hand in front of his face. Niou knows from experience it does absolutely nothing to improve his vision. “A change of hairstyle might be enough to fool most, but I see down to your very bones.”
“It’s because he’s too skinny,” Fuji comments, appearing by his side. “He’s lost two kilos over the past week.”
Tezuka is four centimetres taller, four kilograms lighter, and somehow still manages to hit balls with more than four times the spin Niou usually does. If Tezuka can survive at that weight, Niou can afford to eat a little less. He sucks in his stomach to make sure it doesn’t growl.
Fuji smirks when it fails. “I’ll be spotting for the others at the gym tonight. You could come.”
“Haru’s not going to get lonely?”
The look Fuji sends him is a little too meaningful for his liking. “He probably is.”
Niou shakes his head. “I’ll have to decline.” He has a routine, after all, and he isn’t going to change it just because everyone else is changing theirs.
The evening air stings more than usual, the starlit wind less welcoming somehow, so he cuts himself off early and heads back to the room, shivering. Niou’s not small, but he doesn’t have a lot of muscle bulk. He gets cold easy. Before, Kabaji would be there at a snap of his fingers, a thick knobbly blanket clutched in his arms. Niou can’t expect to be pampered anymore.
But Kabaji has left one thing behind, Niou finds, pulling back his covers. There’s a thin quilt covering hidden low on the mattress, a mosaic of gold and tan rearranged to form a face. It looks vaguely like Impressionistic art. Tezuka might not comprehend it - Niou has never seen him react to a similar piece. He draws it up to his chin anyway and tucks his feet under, melting into the preserved warmth.
What Tezuka doesn’t know, Niou will fill in for him.
They say nothing ever really disappears, that every molecule in this world has been present since the beginning of time. Niou looks at himself in the mirror, mouth pulled straight just the way Tezuka does it, but he can still see the powder dusting his jaw where he's had to cover his mole, the outline of his own eyes behind the make-up.
At morning warmups, he and Fuji rally with Shiraishi and Marui. “Tezuka doesn’t wear a brace,” Fuji says, when he catches sight of him.
Niou makes a face. “He should.”
The brace around his arm feels too tight at times, a gentle pressure reminding him not to swing so hard where he knows he could, but it works. At one point the ball comes to him in a path he’s seen a hundred times before, and his arm flips out, spins it back in a blur of sickly green. It taps the net, travels along the edge - ‘that’s mine,’ Marui hisses - but when it falls to the court, it doesn’t bounce.
“Nah.” Niou smirks. “Not yours.”
Fuji turns to him sharply, but Niou flicks his arm out again, swings his racket without a hint of pain, and something tight gives way in Fuji’s expression.
He savours that fifteen for the rest of the match. Between Shiraishi’s newly erratic play style and Marui’s subsequent onslaught of drops, it’s hard. At 5-4 against, one set each, Niou nearly gives in, fingers skating across the velcro on his brace. Immediately, Fuji’s at his side, squeezing his fingers tight before dropping back with a warning glare.
He leaves it on.
They grind out the crucial points, survive to a tie-break. Fuji breaks serve at three-all, and when Niou hits a surprise Laser to close it out he’s able to think, vindictively, that Tezuka couldn’t have played this match. That Tezuka wouldn’t have chosen the same shots, would have missed some of Niou’s most impressive winners.
Told like that, it’s easier to ignore the ones Niou missed instead, the passing shots he could have spun out had he Tezuka’s foresight and arm strength.
He still regrets them, flips through them on replay while they shake good game, but the final call slides down his throat sweet as honey.
-
Too many people come up to him after - Yanagi, saying it’s good to see you again, Kabaji, offering his verbal stamp of approval. Yagyuu hovers by his side before they part, tells him I’m glad without any context whatsoever. By the time Niou escapes the crowd, pride slightly bruised, Fuji’s gone.
Niou turns the thought over in his mind as he leaves the courts. His feet turn towards the gym, belatedly taking up Fuji’s offer from the previous night, and his instincts are proven right when he sees Fuji idly spinning a pen in one of the study rooms beside it.
He can’t resist sneaking closer, leaning his elbows against the windowsill. Fuji flicks the pen up into the air, and Niou snatches it, holds it up high before letting it fall back into the waiting hand.
“You looked lonely,” he offers, a concession of sorts, then undermines the whole thing by leering horribly. “Puri.”
Fuji’s smile lightens. “That look doesn’t suit you.”
True.
There's something intimate about dropping an Illusion, as swift as he does it, one hand carding through perfectly-styled hair. He flicks the glasses from his nose and dangles them from a finger.
“Does this suit me better?” he asks in his regular voice. Adds, just because he can, “Syuusuke.”
He’s not expecting Fuji’s smile to falter, his eyes to fly wide in shock. Niou doesn’t know what to do with the faint pink dusting Fuji’s cheeks - he couldn’t replicate it with all the powders in his make-up kit.
“It worked.”
Fuji laughs, soft and rueful. “Because I know it’s you saying it.”
When Niou reaches out with shaking hands, his elbow quirks. His fingers curl like Atobe’s, head tilting in the manner of a million people before him.
But this moment is his.
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i really liked this. the way niou's incorporated random parts of the ppl he's copied, how easy atobe is to impersonate lol, his friendship with kabaji, all the ppl happy for him at the end, it was so nice seeing him change and grow and finally manage to fluster fuji as himself
and having the last image in color after the previous b&w ones really makes it feel like he's found himself <3
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rubs my face on this, it's so nice to read some good tennis
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First off, you made me love Niou, a character I have not been ... charitable towards in the past. What an amazing dig down into his character. I will never look at him the same way again. And I loved the focus on the physical aspects of his impersonations. Thank you so much for that look into his relationship with Kabaji! I've been so intrigued by the hints we get in canon and this is such a great take. Niou Kingdom. <3 And the perfect choice of character for the Duality theme.
And the way you sketch in Fuji's relationship with Tezuka in the things that aren't quite said. I'm still angry at Tezuka for leaving and the way Fuji shifts away from someone who clearly didn't open himself up enough to someone who will is so lovely.
The bonus Atobe was the icing on the cake. :)
The images are so lovely, the mirror scene especially.
I can't say enough good things about this. I feel like it's ten years ago and I'm wrapped tight in the fandom that I love so very much. Honestly, this gave me feelings I didn't even know I was missing and that made me cry.
The soul of tenipuri fandom lives. xoxoxoxox to all of you.
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