ten Rikkai drabbles

[fromastudio]

For lysapadin - Yukimura, frost

foreshadowing
He remembers that first winter, when their success was just beginning, and how halfway through December, they raced along sloping avenues lined by hibernating deciduous-skeletons, the early snow fragile beneath their feet. Seiichi halted at the top of a hill, laughing and flushed with cold and victory; the other two barely half a step behind.

Genichirou stared at his friends with a face blown numb by the encroaching wind – at the snowflakes that had snagged themselves on blue hair and refused to melt, then at Renji’s smile, secretive and joyful, and thought: there is nothing we cannot do in this world.


for prillalar - Sanada, Yanagi, coffee

coping strategies
Yukimura drinks six cups on nights before art projects are due, sitting up with easel and coffee machine until the first dawn clouds appear; at club practice he is glassy-eyed, serving his balls with a precision that is entirely automated instinct. Yanagi, who always finishes his assignments a week ahead of time, goes through comparable amounts of tea; study sessions at his home are never without a steaming pot of oolong or jasmine.

Sanada abjures caffeine, always gets seven hours of sleep, drinks boiled water at home and during tennis. His alertness is infamous and unrelenting, dependable as the sunrise.


For _branch_ - Kirihara, Japanese (as in his favourite school subject – and Marui’s)

language police
It started because Niou, in typical aloof fashion, ensconced himself in the locker room one Monday morning and ambitiously set out to write a five-hundred word analysis of Buson’s primary works in the twenty minutes between the end of morning practice and the start of class, whereupon Kirihara leaned across the bench to look, pulled a face unmatched even during Sunday 7am lap training, and said: “Ugh, Niou-sempai, your grammar sucks.”

“Let me see,” Marui said helpfully, “looks like you’ve got the stroke order wrong as well, for that character – and that one - and that.”

Niou snarled; Kirihara and Marui exchanged smiles, eyes gleaming with the realization of shared passion, and once they’d finished butchering Niou’s essay they spent the next several hours dissecting Jackal’s speech patterns, the captions on wall posters, and even the form letter to parents requesting permission for out-of-school practice matches.

After three days of this, Yukimura ordered that all tennis club activities be conducted in English for a week .



Limitations
Rating: G
Notes: Written for 15minuteficlets. Challenge: pinnacle


Where is the pinnacle? Akaya asks, and Renji looks at him through closed eyelids, saying nothing.

Seiichi says that the pinnacle is where you are when you give up, and Renji says that this is wise, but Akaya merely scrunches up his nose, and says but what about Martina Hingis, and Seles, and surely they weren't at their pinnacle when they gave up, they were way past it.

Renji tries to explain that the pinnacle is a state of being, not something tangible like the speed of your serve or the precision of your lobs, but this is too philosophical for Akaya, who wrinkles his nose in disgust, picks up his racquet and begins hitting three balls at once against the side of the building, quick and pinpoint accurate.

Renji stays on the bench, watching Akaya, the lean hunger and feral speed; tie pulled loose, collar undone. On the other side of the courtyard, Seiichi stands, wearing his inscrutable smile.

That smile, he thinks. Renji has little data on Akaya's pinnacle, but he is certain that it will be higher than his own, because Renji does not believe in scaling mountains. He hit a wall a long time ago, a wall high and broad and deep, and he does not think he will ever punch his way through it.



Gundam Tennis
Rating: G
Notes: Written for iron_tennis. The boys do mecha. Like most of my fics, somehow ended up being about Akaya.


"Repairs to the beam cannon?" Yanagi looked up from his computer. "That will be fifteen million yen, thanks."

"Geez Dr. Y," Akaya protested. "You know I can't afford that. Do me a favour and overlook the accounts this time, come on. As an old friend."

Yanagi looked straight at him, and Akaya shuddered. There was no telling what the engineer was thinking, behind those closed eyes.

"Alternately, you could offer me fifteen hundred hours of data-collection time."

"All right, whatever," Akaya grumbled. He was all out of cash, and it wasn't like he hadn't already resigned himself to a lifetime of slavery to Operation Rikkai.

Besides - he looked at Gundam Redeye, sadly in a state of terrrible dilapidation. That Echizen had really done a number on it.

"I must master the SOSA Zero system," he muttered to himself.


Plus a series of one-sentence fics, based on requests here.

Request: Kirihara, Sanada, musketeer by lawnmower_elf

D'Artagnan
Once he had tried to explain to Sanada-san, about this French novel he'd seen a movie version of and it was really cool, and weren't they exactly like that, the three of them and the fourth; but all he'd gotten was a blank stare and two hours' worth of swing practice and at the end of the day, Yanagi-sempai advised him that Genichirou was much better with Japanese literature, and not to hint too much about becoming captain of the guard, or Seiichi would catch on and give him laps for the rest of the summer.


Request: Kirihara, shoelace by dshae

Disorder
Niou knows how to lace shoes so they look perfectly normal until you try to walk in them, and from there it's fifteen paces until something comes loose and you find yourself sprawled on the floor; and Kirihara is torn between really really hating the arrogant prick, and wanting to learn all his troublemaking secrets; except Yagyuu says his capacity for generating disorder is already peerless as it is, which in Yagyuu-speak means that Kirihara is almost as troublesome as Niou, and Kirihara is flattered, almost.



Sanada and Yanagi drabble for _branch_. 100 words. Prompt: names.

calligraphy

Neatness is the setting that he observes, neatness in the placing of bamboo pen and saucer, in the distance between watcher and painter as delicate inkstick grinds against stone. The mixing of powdery black with poured water.

He closes his eyes and sees. Beautiful and terrible, this control of angle and line and stroke, potency in ink: reality and paddy-field and lotus and willow. Cities and spirit, sharpness against red.

There is strength in the hand that guides the brush, tranquility in the paper, solitude in togetherness, certitude in friendship. Rehearsed precision harnesses the danger, buries the tension in peace.


And this, for dshae, featuring Kirihara and Yukimura. 100 words. Prompt: a bet.

short-term goal

One more game, you demand, and the exhaustion in my joints matches the sweat on your brow, the animation of my heartbeat to your breathing, feral and alive.

Bet I’ll win, say you, and the unspoken addition: if not today, then next month or next year. The curve of your mouth, anticipatory - a foretelling of triumph.

Your eyes focus black, glittering, yearning; I do not know whether you are looking at my face or through it.

This I shall bet on, that I shall be staring at your distant back, one day when you have forgotten to look for me.



Finally, for telegraph50free Marui, Eiji.

appointment
A day of sulky weather. Sky choked with grey as you pull out of the driveway; roadside coated with dark drizzle-wet when you enter the carpark. By the time you’ve read two magazines and the door swings open, the gale is flinging rain across the waiting room floor. The vinyl sparkles like the specks of raindrop on his maroon, damp-curled hair.

He’s here for whitening, you for root canal. He tells you about toothpaste, how his sisters forget to screw the cap on and it dries up, solidifies in the mouth of the tube. You lodge a piece of gum between your premolars, talk about artificial sugar.

The water is congealing in the cracks between tiles, when the nurse calls you in.