Listening to the phone ring its third time was nerve-wracking, his fingers twisting around the cord, twitching to hang it back in its cradle and forget the whole thing. The fifth ring, he was beginning to feel vaguely annoyed, and at the same time almost relieved -- if it never picked up, then he could say he had at least tried. It was at the seventh ring that there was no relief at all, only annoyance at having wasted his time with a long-distance call to Japan, and wondering whether or not he would still be charged the enormous prices even if it never connceted.
On the eighth ring, a cheerful, albeit it somewhat lacking breath voice, picked up. His fingers tightened unconsciously around the phone cord.
"Hi."
"Hi?" On the other end, there was a chuckle. "Sorry, don't recognize the voice--"
"It's me, Momo-senpai." It felt strange, to say 'senpai' after so long. It seemed to have no place between them now. But he knew that he would be able to recognize him that way, if he said 'Momo-senpai' even after so long and all the years since their junior high days.
"Echizen?" Dumbfounded silence for a moment, and then another chuckle, this time almost strained. "Hey, Echizen, how you been? Heh, sorry, you kinda caught me out of the blue -- I was about to head to class."
"Sorry. Forgot about the time difference."
"S'all right, I can stand to miss a few classes. How's America?"
"It's... okay. How's university?"
"It's great!" He sounded the same. Lively and animated as he always had been; he could practically see the smile stretching from ear to ear. "Eiji's going here, too, but he's trying to make the grades to transfer to the same place Oishi's going to. He's been trying to be as good as Oishi ever since junior high, it feels like." A soft sigh. "I think he's getting there, though."
"That's good."
"Oh, you want to hear something crazy? You'll never believe this -- you remember Horio, right?"
"'course."
"And Tomo-chan, that girl Ryuzaki-sensei's grandddaughter was always hanging around with? Get this -- they're engaged."
Had they been looking at each other, one might have seen a raised eyebrow in slight surprise.
"Really."
"Yeah, got the invitation last week. I'll probably go... I haven't really seen any of the guys for awhile now. After high school... kinda just forgot to keep in touch, you know?"
"Yeah." He knew.
"What about you? You're going to college now, aren't you?"
"First year."
"How is it?"
"... big."
Another chuckle, not so strained this time. "Yeah, it's definitely a big change... high school never felt that different because everyone was still there." He paused. "Well, most of us were."
"I wasn't."
"Nope... it's too bad, if you'd been able to stay for another year, you definitely would have been made captain of the team. Are you still playing?"
"Yeah." Tennis was about all he ever did anymore. Nothing else made him feel normal. There was no one to drag him to fast food after matches, no one to tease him about his still perpetually short height, no one to push him harder and harder to become the best player he could.
Playing tennis made all that disappear.
"Doubles?" The question held a knowing smirk in it.
"No. I never was any good at it..."
"Heh, me neither."
"You and Kaidoh-senpai..."
"He was always better with Inui-senpai. Inui doesn't play anymore."
"Why?"
There was the sound of movement; a shrug of shoulders. "It didn't mean as much to him, I guess. It started to become second place to all the science degrees he's studying for, until after awhile, he just stopped playing. But sometimes Kaidoh gets him to come to the street tennis places."
"Do you still play?"
"Yup. I'm on the team here. But... it's really different..."
"How?"
He was quiet a moment, silently considering his words. "It's like... nobody's on the same wavelength, you know? When we all used to play together, we understood each other. Here, it's not like that. A lot of the time when I'm playing, I'm just trying to get through it as fast as I can so I can go with Fuji and Eiji and them to the park to play a few games."
"Oh."
"I miss those days a lot." He laughed to disarm his words, but the impact was still there.
"... so do I. Sometimes..."
"I miss going out for burgers all the time and sleeping between classes. You remember?"
He remembered. He remembered a few glasses skipped when the two of them would call it quits for the day, too tired for math and science, they would proclaim, and sneak away to 'their place.' How it became theirs, he never knew, but that was what they always called it. Theirs.
He remembered sitting under that tree, sometimes talking about tennis, sometimes arguing about who would play singles or who was better at it, or whose fault it was that their doubles duo failed so miserably.
Other times, they would fall asleep, stretched out in the sunshine and snoring peacefully until someone would have to send Taka-san to find them. There were more than a handful of practices both had shown up to looking groggy and disheleved, earning many raised eyebrows, and a flogging from Eiji.
"Things change, Momo-senpai."
"But not always for the better, na..."
"Maybe not."
Silence then.
"You ever coming back to the homeland, Echizen?"
"Don't know... maybe."
"You should. Come visit, I mean. I want to see if you can meet my eyes without standing on tiptoes yet."
A soft snort. "I'll never be able to meet your eyes, Momo-senpai."
Somehow there seemed to be more to his words than what was on the surface.
"You will. Someday." He paused and then laughed softly. "When we go and buy you some really big combat boots or something."
"Maybe."
"Yeah, maybe... listen... I gotta go. I probably really shouldn't miss the class, and you're probably going to run up the phone bill--"
"Yeah."
"Right... it was good hearing from you, though."
"You too."
Both were silent, neither making a move to hang up the phone on either end.
"Echizen?"
"Aa?"
"I miss more than those times."
"Momo-senpai--"
"I miss you."
He didn't say anything.
"Okay... I'm really going now. Really. I'll talk to you some other time."
"Okay."
"Bye."
He hung up without waiting for an answer.