Chapter One – Familiar Stranger

I wonder how long he's going to be at it this time. Watching him enter the court, I wondered this.

We had never spoken, never made eye contact, and yet we knew the greatest secret of the other. A secret I knew I could trust with him, because he had trusted me with the exact same one. A secret only we could fully understand.

I slammed my racket as hard as I could onto the ball, training hard because I and my teammates expected me to. Their hopes, my hopes, of a girl being able to defeat Tezuka, Akaya, Atobe...it all rested with me.

The tensai of Seigaku. Not female tensai, just tensai. It got really confusing sometimes, figuring out if people meant me or him when they said that, but he was never called the male tensai, so why the indication of sex in my title?

As both he and I knew, we prodigies weren't born with the skills, just the potential. Potential we both stretched to the full every day at this same tennis court. Funnily enough, the rest of the world seemed to think we were born with the knowledge of how to use stuff like Tsubame Gaeshi. Don't ask me why.

I hit another serve, watching him out of the corner of my eye, something I had been doing in increasing amounts those days. The easygoing smile that lingered on his face during matches had gone, replaced by a frustrated frown as he tried and failed to use a new move. My expression couldn't have been much different, preplexed as I was as to why my serve still seemed so slow. He let out an impatient sigh, not bothering to fake calmness in front of me, knowing that I was going through the same thing.

It was almost laughable. We probably spent more time together than with our own families. Countless nights had passed when we'd be there until dawn, training. We understood each other so well. But if asked about him, the only piece of solid information I could give was his name.

He seemed a god at school, always so detached and unfazed, with that permanent grin plastered on his face, melting the hearts of so many girls. I liked him better on our secret court, with his crystal blue eyes opened and narrowed. It made him look more human.

It was going to be another all-nighter. We both needed our new serves for matches on the next day. I watched as the sun, weary of our endless swinging of rackets, set beneath the mountains, its golden rays replaced by the pale beams of light that flooded the court after dusk.

"Oh god, I'm tired." I collapsed onto a bench, gasping for breath. My hand searched for my water bottle in the bag next to me. Gulping it down, I noticed that he had stopped too and was all but turning his bag upside down, looking for something. He was licking his lips a lot and appeared to be very dry at the mouth. Hey, tensais need to drink like everyone else.

Seeing as it would be very bad for Seigaku's boys' tennis club if its second best player died of thirst, I threw my bottle over. He looked around just in time to stop it from hitting him on the nose. I observed him swallowing the water as though he hadn't touched liquid in a month.

"Thank you," he panted, handing it back to me. Sitting down as well, he waited alongside me for his body to recover. Clothes soaking and sweat dripping off the tips of our noses, we were two very defeated looking tennis players.

I couldn't rest for long, I told myself. If I was going to win all three of the best players around before everyone graduated from school and started work, I needed to practice. But what was the point? I didn't know what I was doing wrong anyway

"Misaki," he suddenly said when I weakly took up my racket again. He picked his up too. And I knew exactly what he was thinking.

"Fuji." I grinned in anticipation.

This could be interesting.