Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. Konomi Takeshi does. I'm merely playing with them for the moment.

A/N: Don't ask.

Atobe, According to Oshitari

The thing with Atobe, Oshitari mused, was that you never truly knew what was his true face. Of course, even thinking this was quite hypocritical from someone like Oshitari, who specialized in hiding his emotions, but then Atobe didn't even do that. He was always showing his feelings, making them very clear to those around him because of course everyone would bend to the great ore-sama's whim and will, yet it never seemed to quite… fit. There were just so many different faces, it was impossible to tell which one was the real one. There was the strict buchou, making them push themselves to the limit, yet always making sure he worked even harder for himself. There was the great king, charming everyone who as much as set an eye on him, every gesture of his leading the crowds to a chorus of ohs and ahhs, and the respected head of the student council, rarely speaking or actually doing anything from what Oshitari had heard yet perfectly capable of swaying the council his way nevertheless. There was the arrogant snob, the bastard who would make a love-struck girl cry just because he didn't feel like being nice at the moment, yet the very same man could turn around and be the most caring of friends. He was as indulgent on his friends as he was on himself, and just as harsh on them if the wind happened to blow that way, and most of those who had been granted the chance to see beyond his public image had long since given up trying to figure him out.

He was, Oshitari believed, the last one of the team who even tried. Hiyoshi only saw Atobe as someone to be surpassed, and to Jirou he was just as awesome and magnificent as everything cool was to Jirou, and the rest of the team had just decided that Atobe was Atobe and that was all the definition they needed. Kabaji had never even joined their occasional discussions, but then Oshitari suspected Kabaji was one of the few who truly understood Atobe. However, despite the others' attitudes, Oshitari just couldn't let go. He knew he could sometimes drive Atobe crazy with his manner of concealing his true self; however, the same held true the other way around, too. Just because Atobe's mask was as swift and ever-changing as Oshitari's own was steady and reliable didn't make it any less irritating.

At one time, he had believed he had glimpsed the true Atobe. He had looked at the man playing on the tennis courts, teasing his opponent like a cat tickling a mouse, letting the game drag on just because he knew he could handle it anyway. It had seemed so typical of Atobe, the smug superiority of it all, the absolute certainty in his own victory.

And then Atobe had turned right around and peeled off yet another layer of mystery, revealed yet another side of himself, and Oshitari had been torn between begrudging fascination and a vague sense of betrayal at having once again been deceived. Of course it couldn't have been that easy. Of course Atobe couldn't even play tennis the way that was most natural to him. And however perfect the other style had seemed for the King, however apt the teasing and taunting had been, there was a raw beauty to the rarely seen aggressive side that might have taken Oshitari's breath away had he been a character in those silly romance novels he held his guilty pleasure. As he was not a character but a real human instead, however, he had simply been overwhelmed, driven to the ground underneath the pressure of the pure power of Atobe's attacks when he'd first played well enough Atobe had decided to step up his game against Oshitari. He probably should have felt flattered that he would merit such attention, yet flattened might have been a more appropriate term, and he might have felt the urge to compare Atobe's triumphant eyes to the blue sky stretching over them except the game had dragged on to the dusk and besides sweat had been getting into his eyes.

It was definitely a part of Atobe, that almost bloodthirsty delight as he ground his opponent to the ground, whether it be by tiring them out or pounding them to the surface of the court, just as it was so very much Atobe to bark orders at a club of two hundred and have every single pair of ears listen. It was insanity, Oshitari sometimes thought, to even think of managing a club of that size without even a vice-captain, but then again nobody would ever dare seriously tell Atobe he couldn't do something and besides there was always Kabaji to pick up any duties Atobe was too busy for. Despite all this he remained convinced there was a gentler side to the great captain, too, the side that laughed as he wrestled with his mop of a dog on the ground with little care to whether his clothes got dirty, the side that Oshitari could always count on to help him with exchange students who didn't quite feel they fit in. He supposed it was some kind of sympathy, in the case of exchange students, yet at the same time he suspected Atobe had never had to feel he didn't fit in, of course that was never a concern, if Atobe Keigo didn't fit somewhere the flaw was in his surroundings and they had better accommodate. From the very first day he had been at Hyoutei he had been the King, first through everyone's awe at his family's wealth, noteworthy even in a place like Hyoutei, but soon at the sheer aura of dominance he seemed to carry around as effortlessly as most people handled a jacket. Atobe didn't need any fanfares to announce his arrival anywhere; eyes were simply drawn to him as naturally as chips of iron would fly to a magnet, beckoned by his very presence. It was a stupid habit Oshitari had once vowed never to fall into, yet he found himself breaking his vow again and again. Atobe just had that effect on everyone.

Atobe was the kind of person who could turn even a defeat into a victory, as Oshitari had come to see. Certainly, Echizen had won as points went, yet Oshitari was certain Atobe was the one who had won the greater respect and awe of everyone in the audience. He certainly had captivated Oshitari, completely transfixing the tensai for a moment. Sure, he had shaken it off almost immediately, and one of the foremost thoughts on his mind had been that someone should have told Atobe what a stupid idiot he was being, but the fact had remained that for a moment, he had found himself staring at his captain like some icky first year student completely awestruck at the King's pigheadedness. He supposed Atobe would have preferred some other word, perseverance perhaps, or maybe he would have just called it a firm resolve, Atobe always had a great deal of words at hand no matter what the situation, yet Oshitari insisted, at least inside his own mind, that it was nothing but a form of stubbornness stretched on well beyond just admirable right into the realm of stupid. Determination was all fine and well, as was pushing yourself to the very limits, but dragging on the match to a point where neither could stay conscious was nothing short of idiotic. It might have still been admirable, nobody could claim otherwise, but that didn't make it any less idiotic.

Being Atobe, of course, Atobe didn't exactly show it in the next practice. Even though his body had to be screaming after such a beating, Atobe still showed up as usual slightly late for the morning practice, taking charge of the proceedings as though nothing had happened. Certainly, he was training lighter today, but then so were all the regulars who had played, none of them exactly fancying straining their bodies to the point of an injury. Oshitari was almost certain he spied a wince or two at some point, and some stiffness in the way Atobe moved, yet he couldn't exactly pinpoint anything special in his overall manner. Yet another face of Atobe Keigo, the silent martyr. Oshitari might have expected him to make a bigger deal of it to draw attention to exactly how far beyond anyone else's his match had dragged on, but then he supposed it would have just served as a reminder of his loss. As though the haircut wasn't bad enough. Atobe didn't make any mention of it, and nobody else dared to make one either. They hardly even dared look towards Atobe in fear of angering him, which of course was made somewhat more tricky by the fact that Atobe tended to get annoyed if people didn't look at him when he was talking to them. Oshitari had to admit he thought it looked… kind of nice, actually. It was certainly neater than Shishido's hair, perhaps because Shishido's hair was just one thick bush of brown, the kind one might have trimmed with hedge clippers rather than scissors, yet Atobe's managed to appear as a mass of individual, silky strands even as they all stuck up just as Shishido's did.

The apparent fineness of Atobe's hair might have almost invited Oshitari to attempt to stroke it except he wasn't feeling quite that suicidal just yet. Therefore he simply continued his observation of Atobe, the indications of his much-suffered body and the hair that looked so very soft neatly marked into his mental notebook on the mystery that was Atobe Keigo. He kept looking, tracing the tiny hints and gestures, all the way until afternoon practice had ended and everyone had changed and headed for home. Gakuto was practically dragging him by the hand but Oshitari told him he had left something in the clubroom, it wasn't even entirely untrue, he had left a book in his locker except that had been on purpose so he would have something at hand to read if he got the chance but then it was just an excuse anyway.

The clubroom was eerily quiet when he walked in. He was surprised to realize even Kabaji had left, Kabaji wasn't supposed to ever be separate from Atobe yet he had left, everyone else had left yet here was Atobe sitting in front of his locker, head hanging. Oshitari gave him a brief sideways glance before heading to his own locker, murmuring some half-hearted excuse before starting to more or less randomly rummage through the clutter he had managed to gather in the locker. It hadn't been emptied properly ever since he had become a regular, and he had been a regular for quite some time.

"You left your memory stick on your computer," Atobe's cool voice broke the silence. "You took both your wallet and cell phone, you never keep schoolbooks here, and I don't need Insight to tell you really have no reason to be here."

"There's all sorts of reasons," Oshitari replied, closing the locker and turning towards Atobe, leaning back against his locker. "How're you?"

"Oh, just peachy," Atobe replied dryly. He didn't look like it. His whole body was tense and his eyes were downcast in a manner Oshitari couldn't entirely attribute to the fact he seemed to be massaging his calves. "What do you think?"

"I think," Oshitari said, few would have dared to but then it was practically in his job description as the cool tensai to confront the captain every now and then, "I think you're physically far from being over the strain of the match, and mentally and emotionally you're a wreck."

Atobe didn't answer, slender fingers still working on his legs, pressing into the impossibly smooth skin. For a boy of almost fifteen, especially one with some Western ancestry, Atobe certainly had very little body hair. Oshitari suspected some form of cheating was involved.

"You can't handle losing," he continued quietly on voicing his very own line of speculation. "You think you can, but it's not that easy. You gave your all and it wasn't enough, and you betrayed not only yourself but the entire team. You betrayed everyone."

There was still no answer. Atobe's fingers didn't even once pause in their apparently ceaseless motion.

"You have no idea how to solve this. You can't possibly blame not training enough, because everyone knows you trained yourself to the utmost. You can't blame not being stubborn enough, since you stood up even as you were practically unconscious. You can't even blame yourself for not trying hard enough, since it's obvious you went as far as you could without injuring yourself."

"Much good it did me," Atobe murmured, breaking his personal silence again. "Much good it did anyone." He raised his head, looking at Oshitari. To his great shock Oshitari realized he seemed to be on the verge of tears. In all these years, he'd never seen Atobe quite this… vulnerable.

"…You know," he finally said, after a long pause, "after that match with Momoshiro, I felt… excited."

"Yes," replied Atobe simply, nodding. "I know." Of course he knew. He was Atobe bloody Keigo. He was about one step short of omniscient, or at least he probably didn't mind too much if people thought he was.

"When I watched your match," Oshitari said slowly, pondering on each word, "after you… released yourself… I, well, I… felt much the same."

At first, Atobe blinked, as though surprised at his confession, thus pretty much demolishing the notion of omniscience. Then he… smiled. It was a honest to goodness smile, not one of the usual smug or condescending smirks, it might have been just a flicker but it was there and Oshitari caught it before it disappeared with the sound of, "I'm glad." It was the gentle side of Atobe, for the fleeting moment that it was there, and he might have felt affronted at being placed in the same category as a shaggy dog and that curvy blonde suffering from homesickness except he was fairly sure Atobe loved his dog and the girl had been pretty and at least Atobe didn't look like he was about to cry anymore. A crying Atobe was not something he was sure he could handle.

"Don't think it's only because of you," Oshitari said nevertheless, not exactly wanting to get all mushy all of a sudden. "Echizen played rather impressively as well. Really, you have a lot to learn from him."

"The only thing I want to learn is what he looks like with his head shaved," Atobe murmured wryly, then reached up his hand. It was not a request or a question, not even a command; Atobe would not bother to command something that he simply expected to happen. Much though he might have liked to disagree Oshitari grasped on his hand nevertheless, pulling the captain up to his feet. For a moment, their eyes met at a relatively close distance, and while Oshitari still wasn't sure there would be no tears involved whatsoever, at least he was fairly confident Atobe would get over it eventually. Something as trivial as this could not bring down the great Atobe Keigo. "…I hope you realize that this means Seigaku must beat Rikkai again."

"There's still other teams they have to face," Oshitari couldn't help pointing out, then smirked as Atobe raised his eyebrow. "But no matter. I'm sure someone who beat you won't lose to anyone else."

"He'd damn well better not." Atobe just nodded as though this were a simple fact instead of something that sounded like a line right out of a sports manga or something. He then ran a hand through his short hair, made a face, and glanced at Oshitari. "…You satisfied enough with my wellbeing yet?"

"I never doubted it," Oshitari lied simply, actually daring to reach a hand to pat Atobe on the shoulder. "You ready to face the world yet, o great and mighty captain?"

"When am I not?" asked Atobe, and his usual smirk was right back. Oshitari was relieved. He most certainly didn't want to deal with a sad Atobe. That was just… against the laws of nature.

"…I'm never going to figure you out, am I?" he asked as they walked out of the clubroom. He hadn't meant to; the words slipped out very much on their own, urged on by this new addition to the many sides of Atobe he had come to see before. To his surprise, though, Atobe seemed to actually pause to consider his question.

"No," said Atobe finally, an almost teasing tone to his voice. "No, you're not." Then, with an even brighter smirk, he added, "Nobody could possibly truly fathom the grand mystery that is ore-sama."

"Then pardon me if I'll just keep trying." There were so many faces of Atobe, so many things he could not comprehend, and at the end of the day he still couldn't tell which Atobe was the real one. Certainly, even the infuriating smirk felt preferable to the Atobe that was on the verge of tears, but that didn't make it any more the true Atobe.

But perhaps, Oshitari found himself thinking as he walked along with Atobe, perhaps that surprisingly young boy who actually knew how to cry and hadn't even turned fifteen yet however adult-like he sometimes appeared could provide him with some insight into how the other faces all linked together. He was a part of it, after all, as was the one who sat quietly and tried to coax his overly strained muscles back into cooperation, they were all parts of it like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and perhaps the ultimate answer wasn't any individual piece but rather the image they formed together.

Nobody was impossible to understand, after all. Not even the great Atobe Keigo.

But he certainly provided a nice challenge.