Another set of inferior players left the court, not looking nearly upset enough at their defeat, and I went to stand by Choutarou as we waited for the next pair of victims to appear. “I thought you said we were waiting for those guys from Fudomine, Choutarou,” I hissed into his ear.

Choutarou looked down at me and smiled that insufferably sweet smile of his, while his eyes looked only mildly apologetic, his entire attitude serene and unworried. “I told you, Kamio-san said he and Ibu-san would be a bit late, Shishido-san. You were getting bored doing nothing but waiting and watching everyone else anyway, weren’t you?”

I grunted in response, turning my attention to the pair of eager, scruffy players approaching the net, apparently looking forward to being horribly crushed, because anything was better than looking into those aggravating brown eyes a second longer. He was right, of course. I had been bored. Who wouldn’t be, watching pair after horrible, crappy pair get their asses kicked by a marginally less crappy pair? Tennis is one of the most boring things in the world when incompetents are playing, but Choutarou never sees it that way. He just enjoys watching it, enjoys playing anyone, even if they suck, although he never gets fired up unless he’s playing someone who’s a real challenge.

It was Choutarou’s fault that we were at the horribly disappointing street courts in the first place. He’d been once before, with Atobe and the rest of the team, although he was unusually vague when I asked him why, not that I cared or anything. Lately, he’d been in contact with members from other schools, too, all in the hope that practising with someone new would help him improve his serve, or something like that, and usually he had the common sense to just shut up about it and not pester me with information on the fact beyond ‘I’m going out to practice’. But then, however he managed to contact all these irritating people, he talked with some guy from Fudomine. Their ‘rhythm nut’ or some shit like that, it wasn’t like I was paying attention when Choutarou started gushing about the chance to play someone else who wasn’t in Hyotei . . . Whatever. This over-hyped speed demon plays doubles with some supposed prodigy, and Choutarou, in his infinite stupidity, saw this as a chance to improve his serve and our doubles play at the same time. Like there was anything wrong with our doubles play . . .

Choutarou asked me when I was in the middle of working on my math homework, and usually he’s all respectful and shit and doesn’t make a sound when I’m working, so I guess he must have really wanted to play this Kamio guy. He squatted down by my chair and put his head on the side of the desk, started talking casually about the way this guy played, then asked, out of nowhere, if I wanted to go to a street tennis court and play doubles against these guys from Fudomine.

Whatever. Anything looks good when you’re doing introductory algebra shit. If Choutarou had given me time to think about it, I would have said no. Definitely.

I blinked as I realized the latest pair were leaving the court. That’s how much these people sucked, I didn’t even have to pay attention to the game to beat them. Another pair was replacing them quickly, so I didn’t have a chance to ask Choutarou if the damn pair from Fudomine had shown up or not, and looked around for myself.

A lot of the idiots who weren’t humiliating the tennis world with their lack of skillwere watching us. Really closely. It was creepy and really fucking annoying. It was one thing to be watched by adoring, if equally annoying, fans while playing in a tournament or something like that. Mindless enthusiasm and cheering is a part of a tournament, it’s possible to channel that to give a player extra energy and confidence, not that I had ever needed that sort of thing, but sometimes Choutarou . . . The idiot cheerleaders were annoying, but at least they never watched you play hoping to see you screw up. That was why all these morons were watching Choutarou and I so closely – they just wanted to see us mess up.

Morons, just setting themselves up for disappointment.

Most of the idiots were watching Choutarou who was, in his usual idiot way, actually trying, even when we were playing against a pair of guys who I wouldn’t have trusted to pick up balls during practice. One of the girls was watching me, though. Every time I turned my head, I’d find her looking at me, smiling. She wasn’t shrieking like the brainless cheerleaders who could deafen a man during tournaments, either. She was watching me, very closely – Choutarou too, but mostly me – as though she understood what was behind each shot, every return, even Ohtori’s serve, and was studying them, dissecting them, like those creepy data men from Seigaku and St. Rudolph.

It was really fucking annoying. “Who’s that girl?” I grunted as I walked past Choutarou. I glared at her. She kept smiling, as if she couldn’t tell that she was pissing me off. Stupid bitch . . .

“Eh?” Choutarou sounded surprised and turned as another pair made their way onto the court. “The one with the purple jacket, Shishido-san?”

I nodded, eyeing the pair across from us with disinterest. If the Fudomine idiots didn’t show up soon, I was going to go back to school, even if it meant that Choutarou would spend the next few days being sad and disappointed at me whenever the opportunity presented itself. Damn him . . . “She looks familiar,” I said by way of explanation, knowing that Choutarou would not be overly sympathetic to sentiments like ‘She’s watching me and it’s really pissing me off’.

“I think she’s the younger sister of Fudomine’s Tachibana-san, Shishido-san,” Choutarou said, pausing to duck his head in acknowledgement of the girl’s presence. He smiled at her, too, that smile he always pulls on people, like he has no idea what kind of damage it does, how it can make people do anything he wants them to . . . He turned to smile at me, innocent and clueless as always. “She seems very interested in the game, doesn’t she?” he said, stating the blindingly obvious before setting up his serve.

I grunted in response. Fucking Fudomine’s fucking Tachibana. That was why she looked familiar. She would have been watching that match then . . . I wondered if she was remembering how horribly I lost to her damn brother, if that was why she was smiling at me. How she’d even recognized me after I cut my hair, though, and there were probably dozens of guys her brother had publicly humiliated with tennis besides me . . . Fuck. Maybe she was like the creepy data men and hung around here all the time, just to check out potential rivals for Fudomine. Waste of time, though, it’s not like we were going to be playing Fudomine again any time soon, except for this stupid casual match against the rhythm freak and that other guy, if they actually showed up . . .

I swore under my breath, softly, because I didn’t want Choutarou or the morons we were playing to hear me, as another ball flew past my head before I could get it. That fucking bitch had completely thrown my game off with her stupid stalker-like staring. I gripped my racket tighter, ignored the worried puppy look Choutarou was fixing on me, and turned my head to see if the bitch was still watching me.

She wasn’t. All her attention was now on some blonde guy in jeans and a t-shirt that she was talking to. He wasn’t dressed for tennis but there was something naggingly familiar about him, in the same way the bitch had looked familiar before Choutarou told me who she was.

I slipped back as Choutarou’s scud serve flew past me. “Is that Fudomine’s Kamio?” I muttered to him. If it was, we could play him and his partner next, and then we could leave this little piece of hell and go back to the dorms.

Choutarou turned in the direction I was looking in, and I watched his face as surprise flashed across it. “No,” he said, laughing a bit, beginning to look more pleased than surprised. A lot more pleased.

I scowled. “Ibu, then?”

Choutarou shook his head gently, looking happier than I’d seen him look in a while, and returned his attention to the game, sending his serve off, only to have it hit the net.

I sighed. He’d been doing really well with his accuracy today, too. I’d been paying enough attention to the game to notice that, at least. That and the stunned looks on the face of the opposition as they encountered the scud serve for the first time. At least Choutarou had enough sense to use these pointless matches as an excuse to practice his serve. I went to the net, picking the ball up with the edge of my racket, bouncing it a few times before tossing it to Choutarou.

This was something Choutarou was used to, but instead of catching it he hit the ball without blinking, sending it over the net in a smooth arc. It landed on the other side and rolled to a stop between the pair of idiots, who stared down at it nervously, like they suspected Choutarou of having magically turned it into a bomb or some shit like that.

Choutarou smiled at the pair and bowed to them. “I’m afraid we have to concede defeat and I’m extremely sorry that we cannot complete the match.”

What the fuck? The two guys, who we could have beaten in a couple of minutes if the bitch from Fudomine hadn’t kept staring at me, nodded stupidly and Choutarou walked off the court and over to his bag. I scowled and followed him, crouching down and shoving my racket into the bag. “Was that really necessary?” I asked, glaring at my tennis bag instead of at him.

“Mm?” Choutarou murmured as he stood up, slinging his bag over his shoulder. He didn’t sound upset, just distracted.

I scowled and stood up slowly. “Your accuracy up until now was the best I’ve ever seen it. Why quit now? Just because you screwed up once?”

“It was merely a convenient point to break away, Shishido-san,” Choutarou answered serenely. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, and his expressive face really was devoid of any sign of annoyance or frustration. He was horrible at hiding that kind of thing. “Besides,” he continued, smiling down at me, slouching as we began walking away from the courts, “your game seemed off, Shishido-san. I thought maybe you were getting tired, and it does not seem like Kamio-san and Ibu-san will be coming after all. We’ve waited over an hour for them.” He sighed, briefly, before brightening up again for no reason I could see.

I grunted at his comment on my game, shrugged my shoulders at him, dismissing his pointless concern, and shoved my hands into my pockets. “Let’s go back, then. It’s a long walk. We shouldn’t have come all the way out here in the first place.”

“Walking is good exercise, and much less tedious than running laps all the time, Shishido-san,” Choutarou remarked calmly, stating the blatantly, irritatingly obvious, pissing me off even more.

I didn’t bother to respond and stared at the ground, letting Choutarou lead the way. Just as we were nearing salvation from the tedious hell, I heard voices, and realized Choutarou was leading us right past the bench where the Fudomine bitch was. Probably felt like he had some kind of obligation to say hi to her, after he acknowledged her presence before.

“It was wonderful to talk with you, Ann-chan. You’ve been most helpful. I hope you aren’t going to be late meeting your brother because of me, I’d feel terribly guilty if you were.” I lifted my eyes from the ground, stared at the guy talking to the Fudomine stalker girl, and suppressed a snort. Even I could tell that the guy was hitting on her, and laying it on pretty thick, too. Moron . . .

He stood up and so did she, tossing her bag over one shoulder, and tapped the guy’s nose with one finger. “It’s fine, Koutarou-kun. Oniichan’s used to waiting for me. He’ll understand.” I snorted. Stupid girl was eating his bullshit up. She began searching in her bag, and quickly produced a pen and a scrap of paper, on which she scribbled something before shoving it into the guy’s hand. “Call me if you need any more help.” She leaned over, kissed the guy’s cheek, and pulled back, laughing. She turned to go and caught sight of me and Choutarou, standing there and watching the pair of them like a couple of idiots. She smiled at us both and waved. “Ohtori-kun, Shishido-kun,” she said, fixing her smile on me in what seemed a very pointed fashion before turning and jogging away.

I watched her go, feeling slightly less pissed when she was finally out of sight, and adjusted my cap absently. “Come on, Choutarou,” I grunted, turning back to my partner, “let’s get back to school . . .” I trailed off, and suppressed the urge to gape, scowling intensely instead to cover the feeling.

Ohtori Choutarou had engulfed the guy, who was in the process of pocketing the paper the bitch had given him, in one of the effusive hugs he had on occasion tried to trap me with. The guy didn’t look annoyed at all. In fact, he looked irritatingly pleased about being ruthlessly hugged, in public, by Choutarou.

Choutarou was a nice, quiet guy, so of course there were rumours going around school about him, especially after he became a regular on the tennis team, but I never really believed . . .

The guy carefully extracted one arm from Choutarou’s death hug, and reached up to ruffle his hair. “Hey, Choutarou,” he said lazily, and looked at me. I glared at him furiously, and he began to grin.

I cleared my throat roughly. “You know this guy, Choutarou?” I asked, knowing as soon as the words left my mouth that it was the dumbest thing I had ever said. Even Choutarou, no matter how affectionate he could be, didn’t go around hugging complete strangers. At least no one else from the team was around to see me make a complete ass of myself.

Choutarou released the guy reluctantly, laughing and blushing, but he apparently hadn’t heard a damn word I said because he kept smiling stupidly at the guy. “What are you doing here? Don’t tell me you’ve started playing tennis. You should ask me to help you train if you’ve started playing, I’d love to play against you . . .”

The guy laughed, reaching up to ruffle Choutarou’s hair again. I glared. He was watching me out of the corner of his eye while he spoke. “No, I haven’t started playing tennis, Choutarou, and if I did, I swear I’d tell you so you could have the chance to pelt balls at my head.” Choutarou blushed. “I just happened to be in the area. The old man’s looking into buying out this stupid health food store and sent me to talk to them. Didn’t take very long, so I decided to walk home, and this place was on the way. There was this really cute girl, too, and she was sitting all by herself . . .”

“So you decided to come and keep her company.” Choutarou smiled and shook his head softly.

I cleared my throat again, rather louder than necessary, and made to brush past them. At the noise, they both turned their heads to look at me, and I found myself being stared at by two pairs of warm brown eyes, one amused, the other embarrassed. I stepped back and glared at Choutarou. “Who is this guy?”

Very slowly, Choutarou blinked, and then he began to blush again. He always blushes over the dumbest things. He let go of the guy and turned to face me, bowing. “Sorry, Shishido-san,” he murmured, genuinely sorry.

I glared at the guy, then looked down at Choutarou. I rolled my eyes and grabbed his shoulder, pulling him up. “Don’t do that,” I mumbled, looking to the side, not making eye contact. “It’s embarrassing.”

Choutarou rubbed the back of his head, still blushing, and looked between me and the guy. “Sorry, Shishido-san,” he repeated, like a broken record or badly trained parrot. “It was rude of me not to introduce you immediately. This is my older brother, Koutarou.”

Brother . . . that made sense, of course, I should have known there wasn’t any truth in the rumours the stupid bitches at school spread around. There never was. But Choutarou had never mentioned a brother of any kind. Never really talked about his family at all. I kept glaring at the guy, wishing he’d just disappear.

“Aniki,” Choutarou continued, his blush finally dying down, “this is Shishido Ryou, my parnter.”

That guy, who’d been looking at me in a way that was more annoying than the way the Fudomine bitch had been, all smirking and smug and mocking, suddenly straightened. His eyes narrowed as he looked at me, and his smile seemed to be frozen in place. He was suddenly really creepy and didn’t look like Choutarou at all.

I glared at Choutarou and hurried to fill in the stupid gap he had left in his thoughtless introduction. “I’m his doubles partner. In tennis.”

“You’re Choutarou’s roommate,” he said, and his smile began to widen in a way that made my skin crawl. He walked past Choutarou, very politely, gently patting Choutarou’s shoulder as he went, and held his hand out to me. We were about the same height, and he didn’t look very tough, but I would have been more comfortable if he’d been holding a knife out to me. But this was Choutarou’s brother . . . Reluctantly, I took his hand and shook it. “A pleasure to meet you at last, Shishido-kun,” he said, still smiling that stupid smile.

“Likewise, Koutarou-san,” I said. I could see Choutarou flinch slightly at the blatant lie out of the corner of one eye. I tugged lightly at my hand, trying to pull it away, without any success. That guy had a really tight grip. Shit. I glared at him pointedly and gave it another tug. He smiled in that creepy way and looked over at Choutarou, letting go of my hand as he did so. I staggered back for a couple steps, swearing, before I regained my balance, stretching my hand and straightening like nothing had happened. “Koutarou-san,” I said flatly, glaring at him, “while I hate to be rude . . .” I trialed off as Choutarou began to have a coughing fit.

“You okay, Choutarou?” I asked at the same time he did. We both paused to look at each other, glaring, his insufferable smile finally disappearing.

Choutarou straightened, coughing into his fist, his eyes looking a bit watery. “Fine, Shishido-san, aniki. Something just went down the wrong way.” He lowered his hand and smiled at both of us, the picture of innocence.

If it had been anyone else pulling a stunt like that, I would have been really suspicious. But I’ve never seen Choutarou show sign of there being a dishonest bone in his entire body. That kind of thing isn’t his style, and if he were to try it, it would be an obvious, laughable attempt, kind of like the few attempts he’s made at lying. I shook my head and shrugged so he knew I believed him, and returned my attention to the current problem. “I don’t mean to be rude, Koutarou-san, but Choutarou and I should be getting back to school. It’s a long walk and we have things to do.”

“But it’s Sunday, Shishido-san,” Choutarou said, sounding puzzled.

“We have homework,” I said flatly, glaring at the bastard.

His irritating smile returned as he looked at me with one eyebrow raised. “What a shame, Shishido-kun. I suppose I’ll have to make a point of visiting Hyotei in the near future, when you and Choutarou have a bit more free time.” As he spoke in a slow, lazy voice, he began to move closer to me, until he was way closer than I liked anyone to be except for Choutarou, sometimes. I shuddered as he leaned forward to whisper in my ear, his breath hot on my skin: “You like my little brother, don’t you?”

I froze, horrified. I couldn’t see Choutarou, but I was sure he was watching us with one of his confused puppy looks. As long as he hadn’t heard this moron it would be okay. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I hissed out of the corner of my mouth.

“If you hurt him, Shishido-kun,” he whispered, “I’ll kill you.”

Cocky bastard. I couldn’t think of an appropriate response – what do you say when a guy asks you if you like his little brother and then threatens to kill you? – so I moved to push him away, to get him as far away from me as possible. Before I could shove him back, I saw him pull his arm back like he was stretching and then, without warning, his fist flew up, slamming into my nose.

I stumbled back, lifting a hand to my nose. “Fuck,” I mumbled. The guy wasn’t really tough, it didn’t hurt that much, but who the hell did he think he was, pulling stupid shit like that? I crossed my eyes and pulled my hand away. Blood. I swore more quietly and covered my nose again.

At some point, Choutarou had let out a chastising “Aniki!” because I guess even someone as stupid and kind as Choutarou can’t turn a blind eye to his older brother beating on his doubles partner. He was in front of me now, his tennis bag dropped at my feet, and he took my free hand, tugging me to the ground and making me sit. I mumbled vague obscenities in the direction of his stupid brother as he zipped his bag open and pulled out a bottle of disinfectant and some gauze. Like he had been prepared for this, or something, the idiot. We were just supposed to have been playing tennis, after all. I winced slightly as Choutarou pressed the dampened gauze against my sore nose.

That bastard wandered over to us and looked down, shaking his fist and grimacing in slightly pain. “Oi, Shishido-kun, you’ve got a pretty hard head.”

“Aniki,” Choutarou sighed, sounding resigned as he took my hand and guided it to the gauze. Apparently he wasn’t planning on sitting there holding stuff to my nose himself until the bleeding stopped. Good. He looked like an idiot doing that, anyway.

“I must have stumbled,” the bastard said, so innocently that if it hadn’t been for the throbbing pain in my nose, I might have believed him. He sounded kind of like Choutarou when he said it. Bastard.

Choutarou looked over his shoulder to stare at the bastard and sighed again. “Aniki . . .”

“Sorry, Shishido-kun,” the bastard said, not sounding sorry at all.

“You could have really hurt Shishido-san, aniki! He’s younger than you!” Choutarou glared at the bastard for a minute, once more stating the blindingly obvious as he reached up and grabbed the bastard by the wrist, tugging him down to crouch on the ground next to us. He looked rather surprised, but he didn’t resist. Choutarou could flatten him easily if he tried.

I shifted back as best I could without drawing Choutarou’s attention and dabbed at my nose a bit, watching the idiot out of the corner of my eye. He looked at me with a dangerous glint in his eye that I was more used to seeing in the eyes of an opponent. Shit. “Of course, Choutarou,” he murmured, carefully trying to pull his wrist free from Choutarou’s grasp, like a moron.

“You could have really hurt yourself, too, aniki,” Choutarou said, apparently dismissing the fact that I was the one who had been attacked. Stupid fucker.

“Yeah, I guess – Ouch!” He flinched as Choutarou put antiseptic on his knuckles way more gently than he deserved and I sniggered. “Choutarou, it’s fine, honest,” he protested, looking completely humiliated as Choutarou lightly wrapped his hand with gauze, tying the ends off neatly. Hah. That’s what you get, bastard.

“Just in case, aniki,” Choutarou replied, once more calm and serene and acting like nothing at all had happened now that he’d tended to the wounds of the stupidly injured like some kind of damn nurse. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“I know it’ll be fine. Just because I can’t make tennis balls practically burst into flames when I hit them doesn’t mean I’m fragile or anything.” Yeah right, pretty boy. “You should be more worried about poor Shishido-kun.” He looked at me, grinning unpleasantly. “I’ll have to come by Hyotei some time and make it up to you, Shishido-kun.”

“No need,” I snapped, getting to my feet and pulling the gauze away from my nose once I was sure the bleeding was done. I wadded the gauze into a ball and threw it at the bastard’s head, but he caught it, grimacing in distaste. I ignored Choutarou’s quiet, reproachful “Shishido-san” and picked up his bag.

Choutarou quickly followed my example, although he helped his idiot brother up, still looking concerned. “Do you need to call a taxi or anything, aniki?”

The bastard rolled his eyes at Choutarou’s display of concern, heartless bastard, and ruffled Choutarou’s hair one final time. “Go back to school, Choutarou. Later, Shishido-kun,” he smiled at me, threw the ball of bloody gauze back at me, and wandered away, whistling to himself.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Shishido-san?” Choutarou asked for what was quite possibly the fiftieth time.

I sighed, turned a page in my history text book, and rolled over so that my back was to Choutarou, so I wouldn’t have to look at his damn worried face any more. “I’m fine, Choutarou.” I turned the page again, without really looking at any of the words. “Your brother punches like a girl, anyway.”

Sitting across the room at his desk, I thought I heard Choutarou choke. I ignored it, and flipped pointlessly through three pages before he finally asked: “Are you mad?”

I snorted. “About your brother nearly breaking my nose? No, Choutarou, I’m not mad. I told you, it’s fine.”

“Do you want me to get you an ice pack?”

I resisted the urge to throw my text book at his head. “No.”

“Okay,” he murmured, and went back to his homework.

The only sound in the room was his pen scratching across paper and one of his CDs playing quietly. I turned another page and actually looked at it for the first time the entire night. I had managed to go through twenty pages without noticing a thing. Fuck. I rolled onto my back, dropping the book on the floor.

Choutarou jumped as the too-fucking-big textbook hit the floor with a muted thud and looked over his shoulder, stupid puppy-dog eyes round. “Shishido-san . . .”

“What kind of lazy teacher assigns a fifty page reading for a junior high student, anyway? I have better things to do than read that crap.” I put my hands behind my head and stared at the ceiling, watching out of the corner of my eye to see if Choutarou would obsessively pick my textbook up. He didn’t. “You never told me you had a brother.”

Choutarou turned around in his chair so he could rest his arms along the back, and his chin on his arms. I tilted my head just a bit so I could get a better look at him, figure out what was going through his head. He licked his lips, started to say something, stopped, and tried again. “He’s my half-brother, really,” he said, like that explained everything.

I didn’t say anything. I’d gotten to know Choutarou well enough, especially since we became partners, that I knew he’d just keep talking to fill in the silence, until he ran out of things to say.

“His mother divorced our father a few months after he was born . . . Around the time Father met Mother . . . I’ve known him my whole life” He frowned, staring down at the floor. “I don’t want you to mention to this to anyone else, Shishido-san. Please.”

Not very likely that I’d waste breath telling anyone in the school anything, but I nodded without saying anything.

After a few minutes of silence, in which his CD came to an end, he explained, “Because aniki went to a lot of trouble to keep people from connecting me with our family when I entered Hyotei, he said it would be better for me, and I’d hate for all that hard work he did to have been in vain.”

One of my eyebrows rose of it’s own volition. This bastard was sounding weirder the more Choutarou said. I really didn’t want to find out how screwed up Choutarou’s home life was. There are some things you’re happier not knowing. I was not going to be dragged into some fucking melodrama, not even for Choutarou. “Sure, Choutarou, whatever you want. My lips are sealed” I reached down, picking my book off the floor. I opened it again without looking at him. I could feel him staring at me, waiting for something. I sighed. “Is there anything else?”

“No, Shishido-san . . . Nothing important. Thanks for listening.”

“No problem, Choutarou.”

“Right,” he said, and slowly turned back to his homework.

“Choutarou?”

“What is it, Shishido-san?”

“Your brother . . .” I frowned at my book as I heard Choutarou turn to stare at me.

“Yes?”

“He’s an asshole.”

It was a mean thing to say, something said to annoy him, to see how he’d respond, to make him stop staring at me with those worried eyes of his and let me work. It was also completely true, but Choutarou would never be able to see that, because he’s an idiot about a lot of things.

“Shishido-san . . .” Choutarou said, disapproval heavy in his voice.

“Yes?”

“Do your history reading,” he said, and got up to change the CD.

Kakinouchi Koutarou belongs to Kinoshita Sakura. Used without permission, for absolutely no profit, and I’m very sorry about it. The cracked out relationship between Koutarou and Choutarou is the fault of a Japanese fanartist, a late night, and Meia. Happy birthday, dear.