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bookwyrmlingPuberty
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters mentioned in this story. Prince of Tennis storyline and characters belongs to Takeshi Konomi.
Notes: This story is based off of the anime, not the manga. Post-US Open. Pillar pair, pre-relationship. Matchmaker!
Puberty
Summary: He blamed it completely on his last trip to
~~~~
He blamed it completely on his last trip to America. There was simply no other explanation for what had happened.
The culture was open enough about everything, especially his hometown of Los Angeles and his most recent destination of New York.
The shows on television weren’t as family friendly as Samurai Warrior or First Kiss either (Echizen would have rather slipped the Live Action Detective Conan movie into the DVD player when the latter came on, but his old man happened to have a crush on Mio despite the girl’s lack of endowment and his mother and cousin loved the drama and romance).
Echizen grabbed the bundle of sheets and boxers and stealthily slinked down the stairs, hoping against all hope that his mother and cousin were still asleep. He definitely did not need them asking questions; this entire situation was embarrassing enough. His prayers were answered and the boy quickly got the pile of dirty laundry into the washing machine.
He found the greater of two evils, however, when he stepped out of the laundry room to find his old man smirking at him. Echizen knew he was busted.
The two males, father and son, sat down at the kitchen table, one silent in anticipation the other silent in embarrassment.
Echizen remembered his father following him that time he had taken Ryuzaki to get her racquet restrung; he had thought it was a date.
Echizen also remembered his father thinking he had gone out on another date with the quiet girl. Well, it was a date, kind of, but it had only been about tennis and the other person had been anything but female…but Echizen did not want to think about that because that led to dangerous things and Echizen looked down at his hands and blushed.
“So,” the older man began, taking his son’s fire engine red face as the green light, “Was it the old bag’s granddaughter?” The automatic face of disgust let the man know otherwise.
“Then the loud girl?” he asked with a squinched face, “I didn’t know she was your type, but-”
“No! No way! Don’t even suggest that old man! That’s disgusting!” Echizen immediately interrupted.
The hallway light turned on and soft footsteps came down the stairs.
“What are you two doing up so early?” Rinko asked blearily as she walked over to the stove and began to warm water for tea. Nanako shortly followed, slightly more awake, and slightly more surprised at seeing her cousin awake, than her aunt. Nanjiroh smirked at his son and the boy felt dread settle in his stomach.
“Rinko-chan!” the man cried out cheerily as he pulled his wife to the table, leaving the tea to steep, “Our little boy is becoming a man! This morning, I saw him sneaking downstairs with his bed sheets!” The older man seemed to take too much joy out of this. Echizen scowled and sunk lower into his seat as the red reached the tips of his ears. Rinko looked back and forth between the two men as a giggling, blushing Nanako went to make sure her cousin had set the machine properly.
Rinko, finally awake and able to understand the situation, gave a motherly smile to her son. “Oh dear,” she began with a slight laugh, “Ryoma, it’s nothing to worry or feel embarrassed about. This is a normal part of growing up. I’m sure all of your teammates have those dreams, too.”
Echizen highly doubted it.
“Your mother’s right boy,” Nanjiroh said with a Cheshire grin, “And if you need any help, I can lend you a maga-”
“Don’t listen to your father!” his mother interrupted, “You don’t need to be looking at that kind of stuff, especially at your age.”
“When do I ever pay attention to that perverted old man?” Echizen managed to smirk, leaving his father looking more like a large mouthed bass he had once seen on television: gaping mouth, bulging eyes.
“Good,” Rinko smiled back, “Go on and take a shower and get dressed for school; I’ll start breakfast.” The boy nodded, feeling better for the moment and went to do as his mother asked.
“Japanese?” he questioned as he left the kitchen.
“Of course,” the woman replied, “We have to celebrate your being awake so early somehow.” Echizen pouted as Nanjiroh cracked up.
The boy couldn’t help but smirk, however, as his father’s complaints reached his ears at the top of the landing. His mom was making the old man put new sheets on his bed.
After quickly getting ready for school, Echizen battled his way through embarrassment from his father’s jokes during breakfast. He was ready to go fifteen minutes before Momoshiro was supposed to show.
Echizen decided to wait outside for the upperclassman.
~~~~
There was an overall silence in the clubhouse before morning practice as people tried to stay out of the angry first year’s path. The regulars watched with worried eyes as the boy walked over to his locker space and just stopped, glaring at the floor in front of him.
“What’s wrong with Ochibi, nya?” the red-headed acrobat whispered to the gathered group. The almost visible black cloud around the boy made even the happy-go-lucky Kikumaru nervous.
“I don’t know,” Momoshiro replied, “But he was in a weird mood when I picked him up, too.”
“Fsh, he’s awake,” the snake continued; he had never seen the boy this conscious until practice had started – he usually managed to shake himself into the present during laps.
“He was even waiting outside for me when I came to pick him up,” the other second year replied, “He’s usually not even dressed.”
Fuji smiled as he looked over to the first year, “Saa, so something happened to wake him up at least an hour early and put him into a near distressed mood.”
“Distressed?” Oishi asked worriedly.
“He fidgets and twitches his hands every 37.8 seconds,” Inui said from behind the group. “I also noted his face is two shades more red than usual. Putting all this data together and making some inferences based on his age, I have come to only one conclusion,” the data master continued with a smirk as his glasses flashed. He made note of Echizen’s now rigid frame.
“What? What? What is it, Inui?” Kikumaru asked excitedly, “What’s making Ochibi act like this?” Inui’s smirk widened as he and Fuji nodded to each other.
Echizen turned in fear.
“Puberty,” Fuji replied clearly.
Echizen’s face drained white.
“Eh?!” the red-head exclaimed, “Ochibi’s growing up?” The first year turned to his locker to hide his blush.
“So that’s all?” Momoshiro laughed as Kaido hissed and blushed before turning to grab his racquet out of his bag. Echizen pulled his practice clothes out of his locker and began changing.
“Aw, don’t worry about it, Echizen!” Momoshiro called as he slipped his jersey jacket on, “We’ve all gone through the same thing.”
“I somehow doubt that,” the first year stated darkly as he pulled his tennis racquet out of the bag.
“Echizen, it really is nothing to mind,” Oishi said, a bit embarrassed.
“I’m sure everyone felt the exact same the first time we had one of those dreams,” Fuji added.
“I felt a little dirty when I woke up,” Momoshiro offered, “I didn’t believe I could even think like that about some of those people. I even snuck around washing my own sheets the first couple times.” Kaido hissed and nodded; he had done the same.
“Really?” Echizen asked a bit more openly and curiously, “Everyone has?” Awkward nods and silence with embarrassed smiles momentarily filled the room.
“I bet even our esteemed captain has had dreams of that nature,” Fuji said with a sly smile. The entire team turned with curiosity to the teen in question.
“Tezuka?” the prodigy prodded and the teen glared at his teammates before clearing his throat.
“It is a body’s normal response to the increased levels of testosterone,” he said evenly before picking up his racquet and heading towards the clubhouse door, “Club starts in five minutes. I expect everyone to be on time and for this subject to be dropped.”
Only Inui and Fuji noticed the pink tinge to the captain’s face. Only Fuji noticed the red underneath Echizen’s hat.
“Well, just hope you don’t run into the girl from your dream when you’re like this,” Momoshiro said jokingly.
Echizen’s shoulders sunk.
“Yeah,” he replied dully.
Echizen sat on the school rooftop at lunch and waited. This was not his first time up here, although it was one of the few, as access was technically restricted from students and the first year found the time better spent sleeping or eating. This was an important, however embarrassing, meeting, though. Fuji sat down next to him.
“You wanted to talk to me?” The boy nodded once.
He would rather not talk to Fuji-senpai about this, but it was his best option. Momoshiro would freak out, Kaido would blush and become flustered, telling Kikumaru or Kawamura was the same as telling everyone on the team, he was petrified with what Inui might do with his new data, and for some reason telling Oishi felt like telling his mom and that just made him squirm. He also had reasons, beyond the obvious, as to why he could not talk to the captain.
That left Fuji.
“I’m guessing this has something to do with the conversation this morning?” the third year asked with a soft smile. Echizen blushed but nodded, his eyes refusing to meet his senior’s face.
“More specifically, the dream you had last night?” The first year froze, his back rigid, his face turned away.
“I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me,” the third year said before falling into silence. He pulled a half-sandwich slice out of his bento and began to eat.
“Is it weird?” the first year began once Fuji had finished his sandwich, “If there wasn’t a girl, that is.” Fuji smiled at this.
“Well,” he said, “Tezuka was right. It’s a natural reaction to the increased levels of testosterone in your body. If you didn’t really see a person in your dream, I wouldn’t be too surprised. Your focus is on tennis, not women. Your subconscious doesn’t have any longings of that nature, so they don’t appear in your dreams.” Echizen looked like he was about to say something, so Fuji waited.
“It’s not…” the boy began before breaking off. He looked to the third year beside him, took a deep breath, and began again, “It’s not that there wasn’t anyone in it. There just weren’t any girls.”
Ah, so now they were getting down to it. “You had an erotic dream with another guy in it, you mean?” Echizen flinched and Fuji turned his complete and undivided attention on the boy.
“It wasn’t me, was it?” the senior asked curiously.
“No!” the first year adamantly denied, “Of course not!”
“To deny it so fervently; I’m hurt,” Fuji replied jocularly, “I guess I’m just not Echizen-kun’s type…” The first year blanched.
“So I really am?” he questioned quietly, fearfully, “I really am…like that?” Fuji sighed as he dropped the teasing and became the serious upper classman his kouhai needed.
“Dreams are the way our minds process our daily experiences,” the third year began, “Not a window into our subconscious. Just because you dream of shooting a person doesn’t mean you want them dead; it doesn’t even mean you dislike them. The same can be said of an erotic dream. Erotic dreams occur when you hold strong emotions for a person – it doesn’t specifically have to be lust. Was the person in the dream someone you have a strong feeling or regard for?”
Echizen thought a moment before nodding his head.
Fuji continued: “Also, as dreams are a form of processing things that happened in the day, you are more likely to see people in dreams that you dealt with earlier. Echizen-kun, you don’t interact with many girls do you?”
The first year shrugged. “They don’t play tennis well enough,” he replied. Fuji smirked, “Of course.”
“So that’s it?” Echizen then asked nervously, “It didn’t mean anything?”
“It can easily be explained as a normal dream about a person you connect strong emotions towards that finally triggered your body’s reaction. If you did look up to a girl, it could’ve just as easily been her.” The younger boy sighed, the tension running out of his body. “Thank God,” he exclaimed in English, his relief causing him to slip back into his speech habits he had used in America.
When he looked back at the third year, his usual smirk was back in place. “Thanks senpai,” he said, “I think I’ll head back to class now. I’m about ready for a nap and I have English next.” Fuji nodded as the boy stood and brushed off his pants.
“Echizen?’ he called out with a smile and suppressed chuckle when the boy reached the door to the stairwell. “This doesn’t mean you aren’t attracted to that person. You might still be…like that,” he couldn’t help but say teasingly. The door slammed and Fuji smiled out over the school as someone else came to take the first year’s spot.
“Did you have to tease him?” the person asked in what Fuji considered to be thinly veiled exasperation.
“Who’s teasing?” Fuji asked mysteriously, his blue eyes open wide and sparkling.
“What exactly did you want to meet me up here for, Fuji?” the captain’s commanding baritone questioned as a change of subject.
“You heard, right?” Fuji asked lightly in response. Tezuka nodded that he had.
The two sat in silence for a minute, Fuji calm and Tezuka tense, before Tezuka began to stand. “That doesn’t mean it was me,” he finally said sharply as he began to walk toward the stairwell door.
Fuji smiled brightly and let out a small laugh after he heard the door close behind his friend. Nothing was better than his own, private drama – except maybe his sister’s cutlet sandwiches, he decided as he took a bite of another slice.
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Date: 2009-09-19 01:01 pm (UTC)And when I read to the end, I thought there would be more! Would there be? =D
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Date: 2009-09-19 06:41 pm (UTC)It is a pretty open-ended ending, but I do not currently have any plans for a sequel. Sorry.
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Date: 2009-09-21 06:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-21 04:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-19 07:03 pm (UTC)It was also nice that Ryouma was, er, concerned about his dream and what it might mean. You don't see that that much in fanfics.