A/N: As all my faithful readers know, I don't do tennis!Ryoma often, but this is one of them.

/

Sixteen is a young age, Keigo thinks.

He had once perceived sixteen as the age when he would rule over his fortune and become legal. It was the magic age: a number spoken in languid summer nights with foreign boys with blue eyes, after a match of deathly tennis, when all were beyond exhaustion and Keigo was offered a hand afterwards ("That was a good one," his opponent said gruffly, and Keigo had taken the hand with a small smugness he felt he earned) as they sat circled around the grassy tennis courts. English summers were balmy and wet, he remembers. He was ten, while at most his peers were thirteen and Keigo had thought of them awfully grown up with their lankier knees and freckles. All of them could not wait to be sixteen.

"That's when we become men," one had interjected, and those trite words are what Keigo replays over his mind now.

Echizen is sixteen; it is his last night in Tokyo, and he is about to go play in Wimbledon. Those are facts that have been replaying over in his mind ever since Echizen had said those words with a half-smirk, "I'm going to your homeland, monkey king" and since then Keigo has a hard time imagining Echizen within the context of London red buses and grassy countryside hills, the windy Wales and the cobblestones of smaller towns. He continues to repeat those cold facts to himself sternly whenever he sees Echizen, consciously ignoring the countdown days, ignoring the other voices inside his head as they walk around downtown Shinjuku or the larger streets of Ginza or the day trip down to Osaka. He does not think about how it would be years from now when they would next walk together tranquilly, nor does he read the newspapers that promote the next national sports star. Echizen is young and blazing, at sixteen, his height grown and his jaws set, his eyes glittering, cold and harsh.

Last night is without fanfare; Echizen had leaked a false date to the press, so no paparazzi cameramen follow them around fugitively, and they are left to their own devices. They are upon an empty road a few hours from Tokyo and had missed the last bus. Echizen had laughed; Keigo had balked and wanted to call his driver. Echizen snatched his phone away and demanded a walk down the empty road.

And so this is where they are: an empty countryside road without lamplight and only the moon above them; Echizen is a shadow and a rhythm of scuffling feet. They have been walking for almost an hour without talking.

"What's England like?" Echizen broke the silence first, and Keigo momentarily loses his walking pace as he contemplates the question.

"Quiet," he chooses, "quieter than Tokyo. But my school was in the countryside. You'll be somewhere different."

"Do you think I'll like it?"

"Perhaps," Keigo says. He doesn't know the answers to the questions Echizen is asking, nor is he certain that those are the questions that Echizen actually wants to ask. He directs his concerns to more practical ones. "Your flight tomorrow is at ten."

"I know."

"We are stranded in the middle of nowhere."

"Obviously."

"We have no way of getting back until morning."

"Brilliant insight as always, monkey king."

"Have you even packed?"

"Keigo," Echizen says, his voice carrying the full weight of irritation in the night air, "Shut up and don't be a nag."

Keigo frowns and is about to retort in what would have been a start of one of their many childish feuds. But he chooses a different route. "I wouldn't be a nag if you tell me things ahead of time," he points of sensibly. "Like this plan to get lost, for one."

"Or," Echizen drawls, "Me telling you about Wimbledon beforehand, for another."

"That too," Keigo concedes. His throat is suddenly tight and he doesn't know how he could find the right words to conclude tonight.

"Sorry about that."

"You're not sorry."

"I am." Echizen pauses. "A little, maybe. It was out of the blue for me too."

"I know." Keigo sighs and reaches his hand out. His eyes have now adjusted well enough that he can see the contours of Echizen's body and head; he hits Echizen's head lightly and rests his palm against the soft mat of Echizen's hair. "It was better this way, somewhat," he says.

Echizen doesn't slap his hand away, as Keigo expected him to. He stands still, his awkward limbs still, his face obscured by the night.

"I don't know anything about England," Echizen says, his voice smaller.

Keigo contemplates this sentence and deems it trivial and stupid. "You lived in America and came to Japan when you were even younger," he points out, "England is an extension of that. Think of it that way."

"But it's different," Echizen insists.

Keigo sighs. "Are you having second thoughts?"

"No," came the immediate reply. "I think I'm ready."

"You are," Keigo agrees. "Although you shouldn't say that until after your first win."

"Heh," Echizen says, and Keigo detects the smirk in the boy's words, "Are you teaching me about social etiquette now?"

"Since no one seems to want to curb your arrogance these days, yes," Keigo says, "You could lose spectacularly, you know. The Japanese media are idiots."

"They are," Echizen agrees cheerfully, "But. I'll still win, though."

Keigo smiles. He doesn't doubt that. But what he also does not doubt is that after his first win, and the next, each win would make Echizen harder to return to this life that was familiar to both of them, a life devoid of simple conversation and quiet summer nights, of barbs and secret jokes between them. It would be the feeling of meeting Echizen years later in the airport with an awkward smile and commenting about their respective careers, an encounter that would end painfully, and they would never see each other again because that meeting would establish that they have grown and changed.

"Oi," Echizen says, and this time, Echizen does slap away Keigo's hand. "You're brooding."

"I am not," Keigo immediately says.

"You've become quiet. You never become quiet."

"I," Keigo says, and stops. He tries again. "It's the heat," he says, "The buzzing. This road is disastrous. My hair is ruined."

"You're so urban," Echizen jeers, laughing.

"Forgive me for failing to see the merits of getting lost," Keigo counters dryly.

"You can still come and see me, you know," Echizen says, and it would be just like the boy to read Keigo's mind and interpret everything the wrong way.

"I could," Keigo agrees, "That's not the same thing as actually executing the deed."

"Don't make everything so difficult."

"I'm not," Keigo says, and it comes out a bit colder than he expected, "All I'm saying is that, well. You have your goals in life as I have mine."

Here Echizen pauses and Keigo stops along with him.

"Sure," Echizen says the words slowly, as if he is worrying about Keigo's inability to register words and meanings, "And we live in the age of airplanes and Skype sessions. Did I mention that you're a multi-millionaire?"

"That's hardly the point—"

"Oh, sorry, billions." Echizen's sarcasm is biting. "Billions. That doesn't change the fact that you're an idiot for treating tonight as some send-away. Stop being so emotional over stupid things."

"You're full of gusto."

"I am being practical," Echizen declares, and Keigo is left laughing incredulously and swatting the boy's shoulder, arm, back. Echizen retaliates with a yelp and soon that amounts to holding off each other's hands to fend off a blow.

"You're so immature sometimes," Echizen grumbles.

"Not as much as you."

"Come again?" But Keigo can hear small wheezes, and it's a rare sound. It makes Keigo smile, forget about the coming morning.

"I can't promise anything," Keigo says quietly.

"I know that." Echizen's voice still has traces of his laughter that leaves Keigo to press the point again.

"You're right, we can call and I could go to London to see you, but it won't be the same anymore. It's not—"

"Keigo," Echizen says, and his name sounds older in Echizen's voice; Keigo is aware, suddenly, at how Echizen had been a prodigy since he could walk and now that he was older he could become the next household name in Japan, "I could come see you too, you know."

Keigo stops. He breathes and tries to recompose his thought. It wasn't what he was expecting, the words that promised something. But he cannot think of a suitable reply to such a vacant vow. In the end he offers, "I wish you wouldn't cut me off. It's very irritating."

"You were acting hysterical."

"I was not," Keigo says without bite, and sighs. "That wasn't my point anyhow."

"Sure it was," Echizen says, and the laughter was back. "I won't forget you even if I become famous."

"That's hardly what I was implying. Also," Keigo feels the need to add, "We went over this. You could still lose."

"Stop being such a worrywart." Echizen's voice sounds smug. "We know I won't."

Keigo smiles despite himself. "Unfortunately, we do."

"You'll see my matches."

"Perhaps."

"You'll have a harddrive full of my matches soon," Echizen says confidently.

"You're mistaking me for one of your fans," Keigo retorts, "Not that you have them now."

Echizen shrugs off Keigo's hold and pokes him with his newly freed hand. "Stop being so practical."

"I'm just being—" Keigo stops, laughs. "Fine, then. I'll see your matches and tell you how horrible you are with your serves."

"And you'll come see me."

"And, yes, I'll come to see you."

"So there's no reason to worry." Echizen's voice grows demanding, childish. It's almost cute.

"There isn't," Keigo agrees.

"Good." Echizen's shadow lurches upon him suddenly. It's only a few centimeters between them, but Keigo still stumbles backwards a few steps back when Echizen comes towards him and his arms are full of a lanky limbs and sweat. His arms encircle the boy's torso and Echizen's hands surround him, foreign fingers gripping his damp shirt tightly. They stand like that for a while.

"Ryoma," he says; it comes out in a whisper; he didn't mean it to be, but. "You're heavy."

"Don't ruin the moment, idiot." There is muffled laughter that vibrates near Keigo's neck. He looks out the flat horizon ahead of him. He smells sweat and grass, Echizen.

"What's in a moment?" he murmurs.

"Sentiment," Echizen says.

Involuntarily Keigo's hands clench tighter against Ryoma's back. He presses Echizen closer to him, until they almost merge together.

"I'll miss you," he says. "Would that be better?"

There is no answer this time, and they relish the last moments of the night's silence.