Chapter Four – Double Victory

Champion of all Japan. After years of intensive training, the title was finally mine. Then why wasn't I as happy as I had envisioned myself to be?

'Happy' is what happens when your dreams come true, right?

Wandering around aimlessly under the harsh starlight, I thought back on all the years of grueling practices I'd been through, after I'd been labeled as a tensai. True, I'd wanted this title, the trophy I now held limply at my side, so much that the need for anything else had faded into insignificance.

And now I had my heart's desire. That burning in the pit of my stomach had finally subsided. I'd finally lived up to all my fans' expectations. So what wasn't there to rejoice about?

I'd gotten almost everything I'd wanted while I as still working my way to the present state of things: captaincy of Seigaku's Girls' Tennis Team, a scholarship at Rikkadai High, endless awards and now this final triumph. Everything I'd ever worked hard to get.

Of course, there had been a few things I'd had to let of along the way. A few of my teammates in Seigaku had been less than happy when I'd transferred to Rikkadai and led my new team to victory against my old one.

And Yuushi hadnt been all that crazy about me either; after I'd missed one too many of our private study sessions. I needed those as much as he did t omake up for all the time I'd spent playing tennis. Incidentally, Id missed those sessions because I'd been immersed in my training of said sport.

And...I looked up and discovered with a rush of memories where I'd ended up.

Another, the most obvious thing, that I'd lost was the peace I'd always felt while practicing with Fuji. In fact, I hadn't gone near the place since I'd left Seigaku, thinking it inadvisable for a player from a rival school to be informed of my progress. Especially a player I'd one day have to defeat.

Yet my footsteps' unconscious decision to go to our old court was a mark of how much I still thought of it.

The faint pinging of a tennis ball echoed from my old haunt. I wasn't particularly interested in meeting its occupant, but since I was around...

I had expected certain awkwardness between me and Fuji, given the previous match. But when I went round the corner and came into view of him bouncing a ball in his cheerful gait, it was as though no time had passed since my last visit to the court, the day before I'd started Rikkadai.

The swinging of his racket ceased once I stepped out of the shadows.

"What are you doing here at two in the morning, Fuji?"

"Saa, I thought you might come back. Want to play?" Smile intact and as pleasant as ever, he held out a racket.

For a moment I was taken aback. The reason I had slightly dreaded this encounter with Fuji was because in most cases, defeated players were entitled to a certain degree of bitterness, a privilege that they normally used to the full. While I had long since gotten used to the glares and mental daggers shot at me by my grumbling opponents, so that they now brought about no effect whatsoever, I was beginning to grow tired of their resentment.

He, however, seemed to have mastered the art of selective memory. Either that or the pressure had simply driven him over the edge.

I tossed my trophy aside where it gleamed, lying on its side, on top of the dusty bench, and accepted the racket. It occurred to me how ironic it was that I was casually setting down something I'd longed for, cried and sweated for, and taking up something that was actually of no importance.

Fuji didnt seem to find this at all strange, and simply trotted over to the opposite court, cheerily awaiting my serve. I didn't even bother to put too much power into it.

"Saa, congratulations. You're now the top player of Japan."

"Thanks. And, um, sorry you didnt get it. I mean, to be knocked out in the finals should be really frustrating." Was I sorry? I i was /i because he'd gone through all his training for nothing, but of course I'd much rather i I /i hadn't practiced in vain...

"I reached my purpose."

"Uh, Fuji," I countered his return. "I know I'm not the brightest person around, but even I can tell you didn't bring home the trophy."

Smiling knowingly, he hit the ball. "It doesn't matter. Besides, tennis is your life. You practice a lot more."

His last shot had been particularly fast. Having been tired out from my last match, I simply let him take the point. Running to return it wouldve been too much of a hassle. We both watched it roll away before I thought to pick it up.

"Although..." Fuji's quiet voice pierced the night. "I sometimes wonder if you even care about it any more."

I looked around at him incredulously. "Fuji, I worked day and night to get that." I jerked my thumb at my abandoned trophy.

"Yes, to get that."

His mind set was something of an enigma. "Then how can you say I don't care when--"

"The Misaki I know would never have used that last shot of yours." This simple sentence silenced me abruptly. "She wouldn't have found it exciting enough."

My laugh sounded harsh even to my own ears, but anyone who was that naive deserved the scorn. "You might not have noticed, but that mutation of Atobe's Rondo Towards Destruction helped me win."

"And can you think back on the game, now that you've won, and remember how much you enjoyed it?"

Not something you expect from the average tensai. "I won, Fuji," I reminded him, disregarding the rudeness of the words. "What isn't there to enjoy?"

I was looking into a pair of half opened sapphire eyes. This was nothing new to me, having peered into them during many a game of his, which I had studied from afar. But I was used to seeing stubborn determination lodged inside the bright blue orbs, never this steely glint, and certainly never directed at me.

"You won, I know. And I lost." He said it without batting an eyelid. "But I had fun and reached my purpose all the same."

It was amazing how quickly one guy could use up the stores of patience I had aquired over years of practice. "You lost, Fuji. You lost."

"I didn't come to win. A new award might have been a nice bonus, but I didn't come to win."

Like the touch of frost, his words froze all impatience in me and held back my retort for a moment. What sort of person enters a tournament with no intention of winning? Who goes through all the trouble of getting into the finals without caring about the outcome? This I would never understand. But now I knew, the reason I'd won in the end wasn't because I was necessarily more skilled. I'd won because I was the only one between the two who had actually wanted to.

"I came," his eyes softened and his smile reappeared, "to see how you were doing."

"Excuse me?"

"You stopped coming to our court, Misaki. It was very dreary, spending all my time here alone. And then you practically disappeared. There was no news of you even from Rikkadai. But I knew you'd resurface to enter this tournament, so I decided to meet you in the finals."

There was no way I could suppress the grin that crept up my cheeks. I knew he'd always been a little eccentric, but to do so much just to find me?

"But why did you enter, Misaki? Was it for the matches, or just that trophy?"

Who even thinks about that sort of thing? "Both, of course."

"And yet, now that there are no awards to be won, you allow me to take a point with a shot you could easily have returned."

He had a point.

"You really need to straighten out your priorities, Misaki."

Green clashed with blue as I leveled my gaze with his, matching his glare. Tensai eyes, someone had once said. Whether they were blue or green, their expressions were all the same to everyone else.

"Maybe you need to reassess yours." Electricity all but crackled between us. "You wasted a lot of time just to see how I was doing."

Again the benevolent side of him smoothened out his tiny frown. "It wasn't a waste of. The tournament was fun. And I got you back, didn't I? We're having a match."

I realized I was still clutching the ball in my hand.

"It has been lonely without you, Misaki."

...the most obvious thing that I'd lost, was the peace I'd always felt while practicing with Fuji.

"You could always have found someone else to practice with." I didn't mean it, though. No one like another tensai to keep you company. There was no one I trusted more than Fuji to help me with tennis without regard of what advantage it would bring him, and no one I could rely on more easily to hide my weak side from the world, to keep secret the unfruitful hours I spent trying to master a new move.

There was no one I trusted more, period.

I tossed up the ball and hit it with newfound strength. "It's good to be back." There had never been much need for words or detailed descriptions of emotions between us. We both understood anyway.

His smile was just a little wider than usual. "And it's good to have you here again."

Things might never go back to the way they were; too much time had passed, too much had happened. And there was such a long road ahead of me, so many things to achieve...

But no matter how busy I got, perhaps there would be time--no--there would always be time, for a trip to the tennis courts with Fuji.