Title: Understanding
Fandom: Prince of Tennis: Fudomine Chuugaku
Characters: Tachibana An, Kisarazu Atsushi, Uchimura Kyosuke
Prompt: 025 - Strangers
Word Count: 947
Date finished: 08/07/2007
Rating: G
Summary: An notices a strange boy watching her team, and goes to investigate.
Author's Notes: Third installment of the trilogy involving Kisarazu Atsushi; he didn't come up in the crack generator again. This one is: Kisarazu Atsushi/Tachibana An - Tiptoe. It turned out pretty good, I think. The first two are: Heartbreak and Follow-up.
Disclaimer: Characters are owned by Konomi Takeshi, and whoever did the anime. At any rate, it's not me.

On closer examination, though, it seemed to be Tatsunori and Kyosuke he was watching - no, she realized when Tatsunori left for a drink, just Kyosuke.

She'd noticed something wrong with Kyosuke the last few weeks; they'd tiptoed around him lately because his moods were so erratic. He'd gone off on Tetsu earlier that week for merely looking at him curiously, and the next afternoon, Masaya had snipped and snipped at him, trying to get a reaction, and he hadn't responded. At all. It was weird.

Only at the tournaments did he seem… normal - and this was the third weekend she'd seen the kid from St. Rudolf's watching Kyosuke. She leaned over to tell Akira where she was going, and then got up and started toward him.

"Excuse me," she said, sitting next to him, and he started so badly he nearly fell off his seat.

"Uh… hi?" he responded.

"Tachibana An," she introduced herself. "You are?"

"Kisarazu Atsushi," he said, and the formalities seemed to steady him. "How can I help you?"

"Why are you watching Uchimura Kyosuke?" No reason not to be perfectly blunt about it.

His brow furrowed under the ribbon. "Who?"

An regarded him silently for a moment. He didn't have the arrogance she'd seen in Hyotei's Atobe Keigo - maybe his confusion was real. "The Fudomine player with the black cap."

His confusion cleared immediately. "I didn't know his name," he admitted.

An was glad she was right. "So, why are you watching him?"

Color flooded his cheeks. "I, uh, saw something I'm sure…." He hesitated. "Sorry. I'm not sure I should tell you, either."

She stared at him. "Why not?" Either? Was there someone else he couldn't tell?

"I just…. It wouldn't be fair to have something like that used against him, just to win a tennis match."

An smiled, impressed in spite of herself. "Oh," she said. "See that blonde boy?" She pointed down at their bench, where her brother sat next to Akira, watching Shinji play. "That's our captain. And my brother. Kyosuke hasn't said anything, but he's been acting really strange."

Kisarazu looked at her, down at Kippei, then back at her. "Okay," he said finally. "He confessed to a girl a few weeks ago, or so I guessed, and it didn't go so well. He looked miserable, and he doesn't seem to be getting any better."

An stared at him. "Just after the first week of the Preliminaries?" she asked.

"Yes."

She looked down at Kyosuke and sighed. "Thanks."

"Uh… sure," Kisarazu said, sounding confused.

An watched her brother's team practice and decided today was the best chance she'd had so far to get to talk to Kysuke. He seemed… almost happy - or, at least, less likely to take her head off.

Taking a deep breath, An approached Kyosuke when he was alone - sometimes difficult to accomplish with this team, even now that the former Regulars left them alone. A little school pride - since they'd been winning and had gotten into the Nationals Tournament - went a long way to pressure the older boys to leave the team alone. "Kyo, got a minute?"

He looked at her warily. "Sure."

They began to walk off the court. "You've been acting strange lately."

"Strange how?" he asked.

"I'm sure I don't need to tell you how," she told him.

He sighed. "No."

"I understand you confessed to Tamura Nanami." It had been relatively easy to figure out, and then putting together some of the things she'd heard that hadn't made sense at the time… figuring out who the girl was hadn't been hard.

Kyosuke stiffened. "How…?"

"Someone saw it," she said. "He's kept it quiet from people who would use it against you." She might have killed that manager from St. Rudolf's if she'd found out that way, and once again thanked the kami that Kisarazu had the sense to keep it quiet. "What happened."

Kyosuke shrugged, carefully casual. "She wasn't interested."

"You've been rejected before," An said softly. "You didn't react like this then."

He shook his head. "Not like this," he said. "We were friends, you know? So she knew…." He paused and took a deep breath. "Anyway, she said there was no chance ever, and I should just drop it, and now she won't even look at me."

It had been worse, she knew it. From the sounds of it, a lot worse. "I'm sorry," she offered. "I wish it had turned out better."

He shrugged. "Yeah, well…. It didn't, and I just sorta have to get past it."

"Kyo… What did she say that was so difficult?"

Kyosuke's shoulders hunched. "That I must have read into things, and the team doing so well must have gone to my head. Just because I was a 'hotshot', there was no reason to think she would fall at my feet." He peeked at An from under his cap. "Do I act like a hotshot?"

The expression on his face matched his tone: plaintive and sad. An shook her head. "No," she said. "None of you have shown any arrogance."

"I didn't think so," he said. "So it must have been something else."

"Whatever it was, Kyo, its her loss." She believed it, too, no matter what anyone else said. The girl was an idiot.

"It doesn't feel like it," he told her softly.

An gave him a quick hug, seething inwardly. "I know.

Because there was nothing else she could say.

Fudomine Table | Challenge Main

Home | Stories | Links | Contact me