© Gold 2009

Disclaimer:Prince of Tennis is created by Konomi Takeshi. This work is a piece of fanfiction and no part of it is attributed to Konomi-san or any other entity holding any legal right associated with and arising out of Prince of Tennis. It was written purely out of fanservice and it is not to be used for profit or any false association with Konomi-san or aforesaid entities.

Title: Brand New Days

Series: Meant to be a side-fic to Safe Harbour but morphed into its own story. Read as a stand-alone.

Pairing: Shiny and silver. For the uninitiated, that means Ohtori-Shishido.

Rating: K+ for gay pairing. Safe. I cannot bring myself to write purple prose.

Author's Rambling:

The problem with writing a Silver Pair story is that it is incredibly difficult to break new ground. There are certain incontrovertible facts that form the foundation on which a Silver Pair love story has to be built, unless one chooses to write the story in an alternate universe or an alternate reality. These facts have been documented over and over again, ad infinitum, ad nauseum, in fandom. Regardless, at the end of the day, I hope that I've managed to write something that you can enjoy, for the sheer pleasure of reading about the Silver Pair. – And if you didn't really enjoy it, please accept my apologies and we'll all move on. =p

Summary:

Uh... once upon a time, Ohtori stopped talking to Shishido. We go forth some four years and random months later, to see what's happened.

Warnings:

1. Suspension of disbelief is required. This is, after all, Prince of Tennis.

2. Some creative licence has been taken here, regarding the past history of the Hyoutei regulars. I'm piecing it together as I go along and we'll all ignore the new anime episodes because I've only watched up to episode 2...

3. I kind of cling on to the hope, the end of the manga notwithstanding, that the boys won't up and leave to go become tennis superstars until nearing the end of high school. I think—I really do believe—that kizuna and destiny might keep them where I want them to be, until their wings are strong enough for them to fly high and sky high...

Guest stars: Hyoutei

Rolling credits (i.e. name-dropped): Too many to name.

Notes: I visited Tokyo very briefly last May (to watch the latest Musical Prince of Tennis). Some of my impressions of Tokyo have been recorded here.

Part 1 – After Many Days

It is May. The skies are a brilliant blue, softened by stray wisps of clouds drifting by casually. The wind carries leaf scents and whiffs of tree bark blended with the mixed perfumes of late spring blossoms and early summer blooms. High up on a skyscraper, an electronic signboard proclaims the temperature of the day: 27 degrees Celsius. The sun is bright and warm, but not intolerably so, because the wind still carries with it the faint chill of spring, taking the edge off the heat.

Shishido Ryou absolutely loves it when the weather is as beautiful as this, although it generally happens only after a(nother!) tropical storm or typhoon has whirled through the Sea of Japan. It is perfect weather, after all, for playing tennis.

A schoolbus draws up along the sidewalk opposite Shishido, spilling a group of very small and very noisy primary schoolboys on to the sidewalk. They are all decked out in identical sports jerseys and trousers, with baseball mitts in hand and caps perched jauntily atop their heads. Their coach, a middle-aged man with a heavily-lined face, beams at them and blows his whistle, sounding three little toots that linger in the cool air. The children scramble to obey the signal, falling neatly into two lines. Then, on the count of three from the foremost boy, they march onwards.

…it seems that the weather is also excellent for baseball.

Shishido's gaze is regretful as it follows the baseball team of very small boys until they are out of sight. They bring to mind a time once, many years ago, when he had as little care in the world as those schoolboys. He misses those days more badly than he will ever let on. These days, his world has shrunk to the size of a cramped office cubicle, and too many people around him have forgotten what it feels like to breathe in the freedom of the open air.

Where Shishido works now, in the city, the older buildings loom ponderously upwards from the streets, their dated exteriors comparing unhappily with the sleek, futuristic designs of their newer cousins. The sidewalks are endless, paved over in muted gray, each cemented flagstone so perfectly fitted with the next one that not even a weed can find a crack to squeeze between. Flower boxes and plant pots are laid out in neat rows, demarcating one building complex from the next. They are symmetrically arranged, their contents neatly pruned, and each plant has been discreetly labelled with a little tag and number. The sun is a pale form of its true self in the city, hindered every which way by the shadows of the buildings, and the breezes that carry the snatches of ocean winds inland die a natural death when they collide into the tall skyscrapers.

In the city, there is no laughter of small children or teenagers as they race to the tennis courts, or to the nearest baseball diamond or sports field. Everyone is an adult. They walk quickly, in short little steps, their faces expressionless as they pass one another. Their suits are sombre, with overcoats or cardigans and sweaters in neutral shades of black, camel, fawn or cream. Some of the younger women add a daring splash of colour with brightly-hued or gaily-patterned blouses or skirts.

In the city, there are rules to follow – a rule for everything, written or unwritten, spoken or unspoken, that dictates a person's every movement.

Shishido dislikes the rules that come with being an adult. Everything is regular, angular and just so exact that he sometimes feels a little cramped. Invisible lines are everywhere: guiding him and boxing him within, in the name of harmony and perfection. Woe betide him if he puts a single toe out of line. Shishido is very grateful that his new job requires him to travel to other countries frequently and thus frees him a little – although there are things that dismay him about some of the places that he has to go to. (Trains in other countries, for example, never seem to arrive or leave on time, and some of the bus transportation systems he has encountered whilst abroad appear to run on a game of chance).

The wind comes by, playfully running through Shishido's short hair. Shishido takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with good, suburban, non-city air.

In the distance, he can see a tall, nay, a very tall figure loping into sight, the tails of his snow-white jacket flapping lazily behind in the breeze.

The look in Shishido's eyes grows sharp and contemplative as he watches the newcomer approach hesitantly.

He used to know Ohtori Choutarou really, really well.

They'd been schoolboys together, once upon a time in Tokyo's posh Hyoutei Gakuen. Shishido was one year ahead of Ohtori and there was almost nothing they had in common. Had they been classmates, there was very little likelihood that they would have bothered to get acquainted. If not for tennis, their paths would never have crossed. As it was, though, both played tennis extraordinarily well – far superior to the vast majority of the other thousand-odd boys in their school – and their paths thus converged inexorably in Hyoutei.

Shishido Ryou was a well-known personality in Hyoutei. He had come up from the affiliated primary school, like nearly two-thirds of the school population. As a freshman in junior high, he managed to survive the gruelling selection rounds for entry into the exclusive and incredibly prestigious Hyoutei boys' tennis club. Shishido proved to be one of the most talented tennis players of his batch, making the pre-regulars by the beginning of his second year, even though he wasn't all that physically imposing. It also didn't hurt that he had dashing good looks, which made him wildly popular with the Hyoutei girls. He had surprisingly fine features and wore his hair long, tied back neatly in a simple style that suited him down to the ground.

Shishido's high visibility in Hyoutei Gakuen also came about in part because, whether he liked it or not, he came to the attention of the most powerful person in all of Hyoutei, one Atobe Keigo.

Atobe Keigo was a schoolboy in the same year as Shishido, and had the privilege of being the scion of the Atobe family. He was also Hyoutei's finest tennis player, and easily ranked within the top five tennis players for his age group (as well as the two age groups above) nationwide. Within Hyoutei itself, not more than a few players could make a game interesting enough for Atobe. One of them, interestingly enough, was Shishido Ryou. (Another was Oshitari Yuushi, who was the only freshman remotely able to take half the games off Atobe in any one set, but that is another story). Shishido thought differently: just because he had somehow become fair target practice for Atobe did not automatically mean that they were best friends. (Besides, Atobe clocked more hours playing against Oshitari). Atobe's interests were all high-brow and totally alien to Shishido, who was happy to count himself as a plebeian. Shishido felt that it was very unfair to label him as a close friend of Atobe Keigo's; he did his best to tear off the label and stick it to Oshitari Yuushi.

But it was Atobe Keigo who stepped in when some jealous tennis club seniors schemed to boot Shishido out of the club through insults and sly physical assaults. Shishido would have answered them with his fists, and it would have cost him his place in the club. If it had been anyone else, Atobe would have left them to it – but Shishido's value to the tennis club could not be ignored. Atobe refused to sacrifice future tennis glory just because of a few short-sighted seniors. So he saw to it, instead, that Shishido took on the errant seniors in tennis matches before the entire tennis club – and defeated them.

Thereafter, nobody touched Shishido Ryou.

When Shishido was in his second year in Hyoutei, three outstanding first-year aspirants to the tennis club made their mark in the spring tryouts. One was Ohtori Choutarou; the other two were Hiyoshi Wakashi and Kabaji Munehiro.

Kabaji doubled as Atobe's personal aide-de-camp, an office in which he served with great distinction. He was also the most silent person in the entire club. Whilst it was true that Hiyoshi and Ohtori proved to be preternaturally quiet folks who hardly spoke unless spoken to, Kabaji took that one step further: he kept his answers limited to a single word ("Usu").

Hiyoshi, who had an intense stare and a very firm set to his mouth, distinguished himself within his first week in the tennis club by his somewhat manic devotion to the perfection of his game. It was no secret that he intended to earn his way through sheer blood, sweat and grit, to the top of the Hyoutei pantheon of tennis gods.

As for Ohtori, he stood head and shoulders above almost everyone in Hyoutei. He was quiet and tactful, overpoweringly tall but delightfully unassuming, and he loved music (he was one of Sakaki Tarou's star music pupils in that respect). Everyone liked him. Hyoutei's basketball club was absolutely desperate to recruit him – but Ohtori wanted to play tennis, and Atobe ruled the school.

There was no indication then that he and Shishido would become more than just team-mates.

When Shishido Ryou lost to Tachibana Kippei in the prefectural tournament the following year, many people in Hyoutei thought that that was the end. There were many who celebrated partly because they hoped to take Shishido's place – and largely because Shishido had rubbed too many people the wrong way. In a school such as Hyoutei, where courtesy was the order of the day, however false and forced, and subtlety was prized, Shishido's straight-talking ways and blunt disregard for the feelings of his fellow students gave him a reputation for arrogance. It was not altogether undeserved; he was, after all, a Hyoutei boy.

Contrary to expectations from the hoi-polloi, Sakaki-kantoku did not choose a new regular to replace Shishido. There was some grumbling in the rank-and-file, but nobody dared to complain. Furthermore, Atobe Keigo apparently saw nothing wrong with the coach's decision.

Just two weeks after being written off for dead by Hyoutei's entire tennis club, Shishido Ryou thrashed Taki Haginosuke in a dramatic match during club practice. The time-honoured tradition of the Hyoutei Gakuen tennis club demanded that Shishido replace Taki on the regular line-up. Strangely enough, Sakaki-kantoku broke with custom once more and flatly refused to reinstate Shishido.

What happened next kept Hyoutei Gakuen abuzz and agog with amazement and disbelief. Eventually it morphed into an enduring urban legend of Hyoutei Gakuen, with varying accounts. No official version was ever released, which only served to enshrine this urban legend in the annals of Hyoutei's tennis history.

That day, Shishido Ryou swallowed his pride and went down on his knees before his formidable coach to beg for a place on the team. And then, to everyone's horror, he produced a pair of scissors out of thin air, and began methodically snipping away at his long hair.

For the members of the Hyoutei Gakuen boys' tennis club who were watching with bated breath from the bleachers in the distance as they tried to decipher what was happening, it was a decidedly surreal experience.

All told, it was a horribly awkward situation. –And Ohtori Choutarou, all unasked, then added his own bit to the drama by offering up his position on the team.

It was at this juncture that Atobe Keigo took matters firmly in hand and moved forward, placing himself physically between the coach, and Shishido and Ohtori. He faced the coach and what he said that day, in the distance, nobody in the bleachers could hear. But everyone saw the coach incline his head briefly.

It was more than enough.

And Shishido Ryou joined the regulars' line-up during club practice the following day.

For Shishido, his return to the regular line-up did not mean that he could continue playing singles, as had been his place previously. Atobe made this very clear. Shishido had a specific role to play in Atobe's game plan for Hyoutei's path to the Nationals title. As Shishido eventually learned, one of the many reasons why Sakaki-kantoku had not immediately sought for a replacement in the wake of Shishido's dismissal was because he was searching for a competent doubles pair, something which the Hyoutei tennis club lacked severely. The coach's dilemma was not surprising, since forming a competent doubles pair required people who were willing to accommodate each other, and Hyoutei's tennis club was stuffed with too many selfish egos for that.

At that time, Hyoutei already had a magnificent first-choice doubles combination in Oshitari Yuushi and Mukahi Gakuto, who had complementary playing styles and, miraculously, liked each other sufficiently to co-operate. However, each school was required to send in two doubles teams for each match-up and it was strategically stupid to rely on the only doubles pair that was up to the mark. Other doubles combinations that the coach had experimented with had not fared adequately against both internal and external competition. In the grand scheme of things, therefore, a doubles pair of exceptional standard was absolutely essential if Hyoutei wanted to win the Nationals.

This was where Shishido fitted in… with Ohtori.

Atobe had been aware for some time that Shishido had been meeting with Ohtori for gruelling practice sessions outside club hours.

The day after being dropped from the regulars, Shishido began showing up to school with bruises, scrapes and cuts. He looked extremely disreputable and the dangerous glint in his eye, coupled with his fall from the regulars, meant that the rest of the students stayed well out of his way. Fresh bruises were seen on Shishido every day. Several bruises were extremely large and indicated that a fair-sized object was involved, and other marks looked as if they were the direct result of having been burnt into Shishido's skin.

Atobe had the matter swiftly investigated and, once he learned the truth, made random visits to Hyotei's tennis courts at night, to see exactly how Shishido inflicted on himself his own unique form of torture. Although Atobe was not pleased by the fact that Ohtori had omitted to inform him of this, he had to own himself impressed. Clearly these two had an excellent working partnership. In fact, Atobe thought that they were perfect candidates for a doubles combination.

The foundation of any doubles pair is the ability to work well together; the magical ingredient in a successful doubles pair is the ability to fit each other perfectly, like a lock that has found its only key. (That this sentimental proposition had originated from one Oshitari Yuushi, who had delivered this pronouncement as part of his ideal definition of soulmates, did not disturb Atobe in the least). Atobe was of the view that he had found not just any old doubles pair, but a successful one.

The coach was duly informed. Thereafter, it was simply a matter of time – and perhaps fate. Everything depended on whether Shishido could stage his comeback in time, or if the coach would find a new doubles pair first. That Atobe eventually voiced his support for Shishido's return was a strong affirmation to the coach that Shishido was ready – and that Hyoutei could begin in earnest to train a new doubles combination. Atobe made it resoundingly clear to Shishido that he had to fall in with the team strategy, or else he would have to involuntarily drop out of the regular line-up.

Shishido saw red. Although he was stung at not being able to play singles, he was even angrier with the fact that Atobe was forcing Ohtori into doubles. Everybody knew that big servers like Ohtori were best-suited for singles. The most intimidating thing about Ohtori – apart from the way he towered over most people – was his serve, which clocked well over 200 km per hour at its fastest and 160 km per hour on average. Ohtori was a classic big server in the style of Mark Philippoussis and Goran Ivanisevic – a clear singles player, if ever there was one. How could anyone in their right minds ask Ohtori, possessor of the fastest serve across the junior-high and senior-high age groups nationwide, to play doubles?! It defied common sense and logic, and it was totally and completely unfair to Ohtori. Shishido didn't bother mincing his words when he railed at Atobe.

"If he's willing to give up his regular spot for someone like you, he might as well play doubles," Atobe had responded coolly.

It was a low blow. (To be fair, Ohtori was the one who had offered himself up like the proverbial sacrificial lamb, so there was no fault to speak of where Shishido was concerned. Atobe, on the other hand, was certainly not above making use of Shishido's mixed feelings of guilt and gratitude towards Ohtori, so long as it got Shishido where Atobe wanted him).

Shishido would eventually forgive Atobe once he had gotten over the way Atobe had outwitted, out-plotted and out-manoeuvred both him and Ohtori. After all, this sort of thing happened all the time in Hyoutei. Besides, he owed Atobe for putting him back on the team. But Shishido privately swore that he would not forget, and the end result was that Shishido retained, throughout his life, a curious complex that made him extremely sensitive about anything that involved Ohtori.

In Hyoutei, Shishido and Ohtori worked slavishly together on their doubles combination. Neither of them intended to waste Shishido's second chance. Shishido was also quite determined that if Ohtori had to give up a chance at a singles slot, then they were damned well going to be the doubles pair to watch. In time, the Shishido-Ohtori pair became Hyoutei's best and most reliable doubles combination, eclipsing even the Oshitari-Gakuto pair, and vindicating Atobe's Insight.

It was not just a doubles combination – it was also a best-friendship. The depth and intensity of their bond somehow transcended the gulf between their respective personalities and interests, and wrought interesting changes in them. Over time, the mellower side of Shishido's nature surfaced with increasing frequency, particularly around Ohtori, and Ohtori somehow became the bridge between Shishido and those of the tennis club members who cared. Ohtori, in his turn, found his eyes becoming keener when it came to reading the hidden nature and intentions of others – something which he learnt, quite unconsciously, at Shishido's elbow. A side effect was that Ohtori also grew a fairly respectable backbone, which came in very useful at times.

When Shishido graduated from junior high, he managed a decent placing in his final-year examinations and successfully moved on to the senior high division of Hyoutei Gakuen. A year later, Ohtori joined him in the tennis club there. They would make Hyoutei tennis history by being the first ever freshman-sophomore doubles combination to be part of the regular line-up representing Hyoutei (senior high division) at the Nationals. As usual, it was Atobe's indomitable will that carried the day over the objections of their seniors.

Outside club practice, despite the fierce demands that the senior high school curriculum made on them, Hyoutei's Silver Pair (an affectionate moniker bestowed upon them by their enthusiastic Hyoutei fanclub) squeezed out whatever time they could for each other.

Shishido liked nothing better than to spend his spare time in Ohtori's company or, at the very least, somewhere within Ohtori's vicinity. His profile on the tennis club webpage listed one of his favourite activities as "hanging out with Choutarou". (The only other favourite activity listed there was, of course, tennis). It became a well-known fact that anyone who wanted something out of Ohtori invariably ended up having to go through Shishido first. While Ohtori was by no means a pushover, Shishido liked to make it his mission to weed out people who tried to take advantage of Ohtori's thoughtful, pleasant nature. Their Hyoutei fangirls happily called them "married", which always made Ohtori blush furiously, but Shishido never put his mind to what people said, and therefore couldn't care less.

It helped that Atobe insisted on maintaining his tight little inner circle and rode roughshod over all objections. Atobe, as usual, was their centre, with Kabaji at his side; there was Taki Haginosuke, who was fiercely loyal to Atobe and had made his peace with Shishido in the intervening years; Oshitari, who reigned as Hyoutei's Prince of Hearts (Atobe was the King); Gakuto, who had recently suffered a minor growth spurt and was still trying to adjust to it; Akutagawa Jirou, who was making a firm effort to stay awake more often now that he was in senior high school; Hiyoshi, who was Ohtori's closest friend after Shishido; and, of course, Shishido and Ohtori.

In his third year, Shishido was faced with the looming spectre of university entrance examinations. Hyoutei's final examinations – which served as entrance examinations into the affiliated Hyoutei University – were notorious for chewing up students and spitting them out in little pieces, one bone fragment at a time. Like many other students, Shishido had an overwhelming desire to keep in as whole a piece as possible, or at least minimise the damage. He spent more time with fellow final-year students such as Oshitari, Jirou, Taki and Gakuto as they crammed, parsed and analysed beyond an inch of their lives. Oshitari and Taki did a lot of parsing and analysing; the rest, having no ambitious leanings towards the finest universities either in Japan or abroad, contented themselves with cramming.

Atobe was not amongst them. He had been allowed to graduate a full semester earlier, and had promptly taken off for Germany, where he intended to train and subsequently break into the international pro tennis circuits within half a year. He was not the only one; with him were Kabaji (who would complete his high school education abroad), and sundry others still – Seishun Gakuen's Tezuka Kunimitsu and Rikkaidai's Yukimura Seiichi and Sanada Genichirou.

Those dark months leading up to the final examinations have left their mark in Shishido, rousing in him a feeling akin to cold horror at the mere memory. Those were long days of wretched toil over reams of practice papers and textbooks, cramped fingers struggling in vain to hold his pen, weary aches in his shoulders and back, and endless nights at cram school that ended in the wee hours of early dawn.

But there is another memory much more painful than those – a memory that Shishido has determinedly shied away from thinking about these few years. It is the memory of Ohtori's calculated disappearance from his life.

To Shishido, friendship will never be able to sufficiently describe the relationship that he has with Ohtori. Family comes close; but there is much more to it than that. What it really is has never been something that Shishido needed to think about.

Then, one day, Ohtori just wasn't there. Shishido doesn't know what happened. Ohtori simply stopped taking his telephone calls, remained cool to him when Shishido ran into him in school, brushed him off sharply when he tried to talk to him during club practice – and even had a very public one-sided row with him. Shishido was the only one shouting while Ohtori ignored him to infuriating extremes, so that Shishido had never felt more stupid or more frustrated in his entire life. Atobe, the only one within their little circle who might have been able to set things to rights, was not there. The rest largely kept silent, believing that it was best to let them sort it out between themselves, particularly after Hiyoshi Wakashi had been so badly rebuffed in his mediation efforts that hemaintained an insulted distance from Shishido and Ohtori for several weeks.

Shishido was not the sort of person who confided his troubles to others – save, perhaps, to Ohtori. So whatever Shishido said or thought or felt died on his lips and stayed buried like poison in his heart, because Ohtori would no longer listen.

The last time that Shishido saw Ohtori was at the latter's high school graduation ceremony at Hyoutei Gakuen. Shishido, Oshitari, Jirou and Gakuto had been there, to watch Hiyoshi and Ohtori graduate. When Ohtori left for further studies abroad, Shishido heard about it from someone else. Unlike the others, he was not at the airport to see Ohtori off. He had not been asked; he had not been told; he figured, grimly and quite correctly, that he had no reason to see or be seen.

Until today, when Ohtori Choutarou stands before Shishido Ryou, a little windblown, but none the worse for wear.

Some part of Shishido silently notes the small but distinctive changes that growing up has made to Ohtori. But Shishido isn't looking for the man in the person standing before him, only the boy who was his best friend and doubles partner during the best years of his life.

Choutarou is still ridiculously tall and handsome, just the way Shishido remembers him to be, and he still wears the same quiet, slightly diffident air about him that so effectively masks the underlying streak of tenacity in his pleasant nature. Choutarou's mouth and shoulders, however, are not relaxed; both are set in a manner that Shishido is used to seeing only when Choutarou is serious and gearing up for something. It's that expression that makes Shishido's eyes narrow slightly as his brain snaps back to the present. If he and Ohtori are thinking about the same thing – which is more likely than not, provided that they haven't lost the ability to read each other over the years – Shishido thinks that it's about time.

Shishido doesn't intend to beat about the bush – he wants to know, and enough years have passed so that he is no longer that burnt from Choutarou's coolness and refusal to talk. Time has applied a salve, so even though Shishido's still a walking wounded, he's willing to mend whatever fences that he may have inadvertently broken, or whatever sensitivities he may have accidentally treaded on. Shishido knows that he isn't the most tactful of persons, and Choutarou, despite his excellent disposition, can on occasion take umbrage to certain slights, perceived or otherwise. Shishido draws strength from his personal belief that he hasn't done anything wrong, but he is determined to clear the air. Their relationship, Shishido thinks, is worth a lot more than his own self-righteous feelings.

There is another, more sombre reason why Shishido is doing this. It's the same reason why Ohtori is now in Tokyo, and also the reason that has pushed Shishido to impulsively summon Ohtori for a little tête-à-tête.

Six days ago, Mukahi Gakuto was knocked down by a mysterious black saloon in a typical hit-and-run. Since then, Gakuto has remained in a state of coma. On Atobe's orders, Gakuto has been moved into the best hospital that money can buy in Japan. Atobe takes care of his own, Shishido notes silently, and they are all his own.

But that is little comfort to Gakuto's family and friends, who do not understand how a medical prognosis can consist of so many possibilities and probabilities. They fear that Gakuto will never wake, or that he will remain simply in a vegetative state even after he wakes, or that even after he regains consciousness and self-awareness, the injuries he suffered in the accident will have impacted him physically and/or mentally to the point where they will not be able to recognise him any longer.

The lesson is very clear. Life, Shishido understands, is too short for regrets, so he intends to grasp today with both hands.

"Oi – Choutarou –"

"Shishido-san –"

They start speaking at the same time; they stop speaking at the same time. Ohtori looks slightly nervous; Shishido's eyes are very, very narrow. He distinctly remembers twisting Ohtori's arm to make him drop the honorific years ago and telling him he had more than earned the right to drop the –san and the –sempai, and just call him by his first name. Not that it ever worked. Shishido scowls up at Ohtori. Still so tall that it gives him a crick in the neck to look up, even after all these years.

Ohtori smiles a little, meeting Shishido's glance briefly and then glancing away quickly. More than four years apart, Shishido reflects wryly, is enough to make Ohtori regress into a semi-permanent state of half-reserve, half-shyness, even in his presence. But Shishido himself is aware that he, too, feels awkward. It is not as if they can simply fall back into the old ways right away – their friendship, after all, is rusty from many years of disuse.

Shishido's eyes light on the familiar row of shops nearby and an idea strikes him suddenly. Perhaps it will be better, Shishido muses, pursing his lips thoughtfully, if they start their conversation in a language they both understand, one that may not need words at all.

Nearly ten minutes later, Ohtori Choutarou cuts a bemused figure in a newly-purchased tennis outfit as he stands outside a sports equipment shop, a brand new tennis racquet in his hands. Beside him, similarly-clad but looking inordinately satisfied, is Shishido Ryou, balancing his brand new tennis racquet carefully on the tip of his right index finger, an unopened canister of tennis balls tucked securely under his left arm.

Shishido takes a look at the bright blue sky above.

"Let's play."