Its Own Movement
Sanada, Yanagi, Yukimura. G. Gen.
Because everything is different doesn’t mean anything has changed.
2005 | 920 words
-
Just because everything is different doesn’t mean anything has changed.
- Irene Peter
The first year they met, Sanada, Yukimura and Yanagi found out that one of the many things they had in common was that their families didn’t celebrate foreign holidays like Christmas. And, because of that, their winter breaks were usually boring - while everyone else was spending time with their family, they played videogames or studied for the next term. The three of them agreed that at least it was a day off they had to get some extra studying done.
On Christmas Eve, a few weeks later, Yukimura showed up at their doorsteps early in the morning, smiling bright and saying he didn’t really have anything left to study. Sanada and Yanagi didn’t argue as they let themselves be dragged to the nearest street court for a few friendly matches.
They played for hours that day, Sanada and Yanagi winning and losing to each other about the same number of times, but neither of them managing to get more than a few games out of Yukimura. They stopped only a few times to get some collective rest or snack, and once for the taller two to chase Yukimura -who’d started hitting them with snowballs while they tried to finish a game that had been dragging out for too long- and join him in a snowball fight that ended with the three of them soaked and freezing even under their coats, and too tired to keep playing. They’d all been down in bed with fevers the whole week after that, and Sanada was still sneezing when classes re-started after New Year’s, but they still thought that had been the best dull Christmas ever.
- - -
The next year, Genichiro and Renji hadn’t been surprised at all when Seiichi showed up by their doorsteps, but Renji did ask him if it was really okay to wear the regular jersey out of school or official competitions like that. Seiichi only smiled and said he’d make Genichiro look it up in the regulations, which earned them an indignant look from Genichiro himself and some grumbling about how the day he became captain he’d make both of them suffer. They reached the courts with Seiichi rambling that Marui-kun would make the best captain out of all second years because he’d bring them cake every day, Genichiro cursing under his breath that the drizzle was making his hair sticky even under the cap, and Renji watching the consistency of the snow and calculating how fast he could get to it before the other two noticed and had time to dodge.
The holidays that year had ended with no games at all taken from Seiichi, an aggravated-looking snowman wearing Genichiro’s cap, a small rip in the hem of Seiichi’s regular jersey that he’d have to smile his out of trouble for when the captain asked where he’d got it, and Renji in bed with a cold for two weeks from being dunked in the snow after getting at least a couple advantage hits on his friends. He’d have to take a few other variables into account next time, like the extra speed Genichiro seemed to be fueled with after getting a snowball square in the face.
When classes started, neither of them had got any extra study done, but when people asked what they’d done in the holidays, they chuckled and just answered that it had been a pretty tedious Christmas too.
- - -
On Christmas Eve of the third year since they’d first met, Seiichi didn’t show up at their doorstep. And even though Genichiro knew he wasn’t coming, he sat by the porch and waited for an hour, two, three, looking down the street and hoping that things would somehow sort themselves out and let him have his dull holidays back. By ten in the morning, Genichiro accepted that this year, there wouldn’t be tennis, or snowball fights, or people in bed, except for the one among them who shouldn’t be in one. By eleven thirty, around the time Seiichi would have already beaten him and Renji twice in other years, Genichiro’s mobile flashed with a text message, saying simply, “bored”.
Finding Renji in the courts, sitting in the snow by himself, didn’t surprise him. Seeing what he was doing did. Genichiro sat beside him and watched the three little snowmen Renji was making on top of a tray - one was wearing a scarf, another a yellow headband, the last one a black cap, everything looking stolen off Renji’s sister’s old dolls. Genichiro couldn’t help a little grin.
“Aren’t they going to melt down on the way?” he asked.
Renji shook his head, and asked if they looked fine. Genichiro took a branch, cracked two small pieces and gave his snowman angrier eyebrows. Now they looked perfect. Renji opened his bag and showed him the rest of the program: Seiichi’s jersey, tapes of the team’s latest matches and homework. He packed everything back up while Genichiro called Seiichi telling him to stay awake, they’d be there in a few minutes. Seiichi scolded him and said they both should go spend the holidays with their family. Genichiro told him that was exactly what they were doing and hung up, glancing at his watch. By this time, the snowball war would be just about starting.
That year ended with no wet coats, no snow in their ears, no study geting done again; and when Genichiro and Renji went back to class a week later and Niou asked them if the holidays had sucked again, they both shrugged and said that this one had actually been pretty nice.
Filed under Tennis no Ohjisama |