InsaneJournal

PsyDai: NanoWriMo Project
Title: NaNoWriMo Project

Part: 9

Author: Me

Fandom: Prince of Tennis

Series: PsyDai

Summary: After tennis practice, the boys go into the shower. Much Shishido abuse.

Word Count: 3,488 out of total 24,619

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“What a waste of ore-sama’s time,” Atobe complained later as he walked into the showers with the rest of the first years who had been saddled with cleanup duty on the courts after tennis practice.

When the final bell of the day had struck from the school clock tower and Hashimoto-sensei had blew his whistle to signal the end of practice, the upper classmen and practically took to running off the courts and rushing to the changing rooms, presumably to stake out the best shower heads in the communal showering stalls. As the first years stared on, Hashimoto-sensei had barked out an order for the newly initiated to hurry up and start picking up the wayward tennis balls. His glare implied that they wouldn’t be leaving until the last ball was deposited in the ball cart.

Atobe had promptly went into a long spiel on the indignities of cleaning up after upper classmen but quickly shut up when Hashimoto-sensei pulled out the cleaning schedule, delineating the second years being responsible for clean up next week. The others, having seen the Hyoutei diva stopped voicing oppositions, had proceeded to collect balls with little complaint.

While the others hunched over the mass of balls strewn every which way over the courts, Atobe snorted at the backbreaking labor and proceeded to scoop up the balls with the tip of his racquet and hitting them into the nearby carts with careless precision. With a steady rhythm, Atobe scooped and hit, scooped and hit, working his way methodically down the side of the court and turned with a sharp right angle and continued along the perimeter.

The others looked on with a sense of amused disgust at the blatant display of tennis showmanship even when the only audiences around had been the rest of the first years.

It was with a startled surprise when they heard a second rhythmic thwack of balls against the racquet strings join Atobe’s own and the freshmen looked to the other side where Tezuka, who had previously been kneeling and picking up balls, had joined Atobe in his innovation at ball collection.

There was an unsuspected tension as the two former buchous began a silent contest, each waiting for the other to first miss a hit. The rest seemed to have forgotten their cleaning duties and took an interest in the impromptu competition, wondering who was going to first fault.

The rhythm continued at a steady pace, neither speeding up to increase the challenge nor slowing down to ensure his own success. Instead, the two looked away from the ball on their racquets to stare at each other in a silent duel of will across the diagonal of the tennis courts, slowly circling each other as though two territorial predators. Then, with a small smirk of understanding, Atobe suddenly added an extra backhand bounce to the process, changing the rhythm minutely.

With the changed angle, the twang of the ball rose in pitch, adding a short staccato peak to the dual baritone thuds of the forehand grip. Catching on to Atobe’s game, Tezuka leisurely switched to bouncing the ball slightly off of the sweet spot, just enough to add a high pitched ping to the duet of tennis percussion. As they continued, still circling along the perimeter but slowly moving in due to the lack of balls now outside of the baselines, their competition had rose in stakes from a simple echo to a symphony of string vibrations.

Suddenly a metallic cacophony shattered the smooth chorus of racquet strings. Stopping simultaneously, the two competitors looked towards the source of the sound to see a tennis ball lodged firmly in the metal wiring of the courts’ fence. Turning to look the other way, they saw an impatient Sanada holding his own racquet and scowling.

“Quit the games and let’s finish up,” he demanded before putting his racquet down and resumed picking up the balls by hand.

Giving Tezuka a helpless shrug, Atobe yelled back, “Learn to have some fun, Sanada. Besides, bending over like that can’t be good for your back.” Then, as Sanada froze at Atobe’s word choice and glowered from under the brim of his black cap, Atobe scooped up another ball and hit it towards Sanada.

With lightening fast reflexes, Sanada grabbed his abandoned racquet and deflected the ball, bouncing it off of the rim in a wide angle. As Sanada lowered his racquet to glower some more at Atobe, the bounced ball flew towards an unsuspecting Oishi and lodged firmly in his back.

It was unfortunate that Oishi at the time was also hunched over picking balls and proceed to tip over as his center of gravity had been hanging precariously in the balance, knocking over his nearby doubles partner as he somersaulted to avoid breaking his neck. Kikumaru, who had always depended on Oishi to warn him of incoming projectiles during non-tennis hours, was promptly tipped over by the flailing limbs of his partner and fell unceremoniously towards the by standing Saeki.

Lucky for Saeki, he had been slacking off at clean up and had watched the entire exchange with amused interest, and thus was able to dodge out of Kikumaru’s falling trajectory by jumping away at the strategic moment. However, his avoidance was for naught as he promptly stepped on the still kneeling Niou’s foot, lost his balance and fell, crushing both Niou and Yagyuu under him.

Yagyuu, whose hand had been steadying a cart for their section of the court, lost his grip on the wheeled vehicle as he collapsed under Saeki’s weight. The cart, once freed of Yagyuu’s control, careened across the court, directly towards a laughing Mukahi who had been watching the entire exchange with glee. So hard was he cackling that he failed to notice when the cart full of tennis balls sped toward him and had to be pushed out of harm's way at the last moment by a harried Oshitari who yelled a distressed “Gakuto!” as he dove for his partner.

As the two tumbled out of the careening cart’s way, the cart continued forward at full speed, heading straight for the unsuspecting Shishido, who had his back to the entire dramatic display of chaos. With almost a sense of doom, the rest of the court watched in hopelessness as the cart slammed in the hunched Shishido and flipped over, dumping its entire contents onto the brunet boy.

Silence reigned the courts once again as everyone watched with baited breath as the cart covered figure stood slowly, tennis balls bouncing away from him in every which way.

“What. The. Hell?” he asked as he threw the cart off in a metallic clatter. Shishido glared around him for an explanation.

No one responded to the question.

Slowly, a faint rumbling could be heard and a minute shaking began underground, slowly gaining magnitude as the seconds ticked by. Sensing Shishido was about to throw one of his spectacular fits that involved cracking of glass and possibly breaking of more school property, Atobe yelled at Tezuka, “Do something!”

The rumbling stopped.

Shishido huffed as he felt the switch to his destructive aura flipped to neutral. With one last glare around the courts, he turned back to picking the balls without any more displays of temper. The others, taking the cue, scrambled to finish their own jobs, except for Yagyuu and Niou who had been sent by those in their vicinity to fetch the wayward cart and its corresponding tennis balls.

After that event, the clean up of the courts went on without further interruption. But it wasn’t until the sun had set and the court lights came on before all the balls had been collected and the freshmen group was finally able to trudge into the showers and get ready for their evening activities.

Which also happened to be when Atobe made his complaint of wasting time.

It was once again Sanada who responded to the diva’s whining. As he pulled off his shirt and stripped down for the shower, he snorted through the fabric covering his face, “What the hell are you complaining about? You’re the reason we took this long to clean to begin with.”

“Nonsense,” Atobe retorted as he stepped into the stream of one of the many showerheads, dipping his sweat-soaked hair under the spray. “Ore-sama’s method would have completed the task far more efficiently then crawling about on one’s knees and chasing after little yellow balls.”

“Oh shut up Atobe,” Shishido snapped at him. In the showers, stripped of the protective layering of his jersey, the rest of the first years had a clear view of the marks left over from his close encounter of the four-wheeled kind. Checkered bruises were already forming along his back where the cart had slammed into him and Shishido hissed as the abused muscle was pounded by the heated water.

Adjusting to the temperature and pressure, Shishido continued, “Just because you never picked up after the seniors in high school because they were afraid of you doesn’t mean you can make our lives hell over it now.”

“Nani? Atobe’s never picked up after seniors?” A curious Kikumaru suddenly popped up in front of Shishido, startling him enough that he’d leapt back from the encroachment of his personal space with a yelp. As he landed, his foot stepped on a wayward soap and proceeded to skid along the slippery surface, falling on his behind with a loud slap.

“Oh ow fuck! What the hell’s wrong with you?” Shishido complained as he tried to climb back on his feet, wondering at the abnormal amount of unintentional physical abuses he’d been receiving.

Instead of Kikumaru’s voice, it was Fuji who spoke up. “Thank you, Shishido-kun, for finding my soap for me. I’d wondered where it went,” he called out from where he’d caught the soap, which had flew out in a large arc from under Shishido when he’d fallen.

“According to my data, Atobe-kun’s correct,” Inui picked up from where Shishido had interrupted, consulting his data book while water pounded his back. “Atobe’s method would have effectively eliminated the need to bend and rise, with a net decrease in time of .2 seconds per ball picked. By hitting the balls to the carts instead of carrying armloads of balls to them, there is a net difference of .1 second per ball on the courts.”

“A low end estimate, there would be at least ten thousand balls on the courts at the beginning of clean up,” Yanagi took over the conversation from under a head of shampoo suds, making him look like a very tall mushroom. “That would have minimally decreased our cleanup time by 3000 seconds, or 50 minutes.”

The others were unsure how to continue after that revelation, though some were staring at Data Pair as though they’d grown an extra head between the two of them. Finally, it was Kawamura, who had re-entered tennis after a 3-year hiatus for training as a sushi chef under his father’s tutelage, who had spoke up.

“Ano,” he began, timid even in the shower, a wet towel wrapped around his waist in modesty. “Inui, don’t your notes get wet if you bring them into the shower.”

“Ah, not to worry, Taka-san,” Inui responded as reassuringly as it was possible for him, which was not much at all. “My notebooks are made from specialized waterproof paper and taken down with waterproof ink. I believe I can be assured of its qualities as it was material the United States’ government had spent nearly two million US dollars on to develop.”

His inner nerd getting the better of him, Oshitari asked, “The pen that could write in zero gravity? I’ve heard reports on it. How did you manage to get your hands on those materials?”

“Himitsu,” Inui replied as his glasses glared in the shower lights. When earlier Jackal had, out of concern, reminded Inui his glasses were still on, Inui had responded that due to his nearsightedness, he couldn’t do without his glasses if he wished to continue data collection during the showers. Those who had heard the response had promptly edged to the other side of the showering area.

The avoidance of one form of freakish data gathering had not saved them from another. Which was how Marui found himself looking rather warily at the curly haired boy who had bore more than a likely resemblance to their own kouhai, Kirihara, and feeling a shiver of fear creep down his spine, much as he believed stalked prey must feel.

“What are you staring at,” Marui asked as he finally snapped under the awkward scrutiny by his showering neighbor.

“Nfufufufu, I see that my projections had been correct,” Mizuki chuckled as his gaze wandered lazily down the length of the redhead’s body then travel back up to leer into the horrified eyes. “Marui-kun, you truly do have the highest BMI of the entire Rikkai regulars team. And to think my predictions were based on one view I had glimpsed back in third year in Junior High.”

Not understanding a word coming out of this Mizuki’s mouth, Marui jerked uncomfortably as the blatant visual appraisal continued. Finally unable to stand the traveling eyes any longer, not a little disturbed by the weird twitching of tentacle like fingers, Marui hopped behind the much put upon Jackal, using him as a human shield from Mizuki’s unsettling gaze.

“Look at him,” Marui suggested as he pushed Jackal towards Mizuki in offering sacrifice. “He’s Brazilian, he won’t mind.”

“What the…Bunta!” Jackal craned his head around to glare at his smaller doubles partner of 6 years.

“Well, it’s true,” Marui defended as he continued to cower behind the dark boy’s larger physique.

“How the hell did you figure that?”

“Don’t you have those naked beaches in Brazil?”

“I think you’re thinking of France, Bunta,” Jackal corrected with a sigh of exasperation.

“Same difference. They’re all in Africa somewhere,” Marui replied blithely, keeping a wary watch on Mizuki who was still drunk on his perceived superior intelligence.

“Geez, did you fail high school geography or something? How did you get into Japanese lit?” a bratty voice interjected into the conversation.

Marui turned to narrow his eyes at another redhead, who’s hair was hanging in wet tendrils around his face and a towel slung over one shoulder.

“What’s it to you?” Marui shot back as his attention was distracted from Mizuki’s twitching fingers and refocused on the snotty boy in front of him. When all he got was a shrug, Marui couldn’t help but throw out, “I know you. You’re that acrobatic player that lost to Kikumaru.”

That was seemed to be enough to rile Mukahi, who hissed a little at the mention of his loathed roommate and rival. “I am ten times better than that sorry excuse of a …”

Mukahi didn’t get a chance to finish his tirade as suddenly the third redhead in their year appeared in their midst with veins popping and growling, “What was that, Mukahi, you stiff-legged frog?”

“Shove it, Kikumaru. Aren’t you afraid your mommy’ll wash your dirty mouth out?” Mukahi jeered, forgetting Marui’s affront and went head to head with Kikumaru instead.

“I’ll was your dirty mouth first,” Kikumaru muttered as he made a grab for a bar of nearby soap. It only so happened he’d grabbed Marui’s favored apple soap and suddenly found himself pinned under a heap of angry Bunta who was ordering “Keep my soap out of this!”

“Soap fight!” called Saeki, who had only seen a pile of wet redheads fighting over the soap and completely unaware of the conflict in between. He quickly grabbed his soap and dashed it towards his nearest victim, who happened to be the newly standing Shishido.

Unaware of the new assault, Shishido stepped back into the spray from his prior fall and once again collapsed as he stepped on the newly landed soap bar, and fell forward on his knee. This time, instead of hollering at the guilty Saeki, who had made quick way to remove himself from Shishido’s vicinity, Shishido merely collapsed face first into the tiles, muttering about the injustices of the world.

Those around him continued on as though nothing had happened and Atobe even began humming a song under his breath as he soaped up. Finally it was Oishi who had approached the fallen Shishido to help pull him up, not forgetting to add, “Shishido-kun, you must be more careful. What if you’d caught a cold, we wouldn’t know how that would affect you. And considering the destructiveness…”

Oishi trailed off as Shishido shook himself, pelting the other boy with undiscernible droplets. Pushing his hair out of his face, Shishido asked as he resumed washing off, “Doesn’t it strike you as weird that everyone here is a registered psychic?”

“What do you mean?” Atobe asked as though Shishido hadn’t just yelled at him a few moments ago.

“Well, everyone here, even those in my lit club, they’re all registered psychics. Isn’t that kind of more than a coincidence that they’ll all choose PsyDai instead of other more established schools? I mean, it’s kind of weird that you’re here, Atobe.”

Atobe huffed indignantly and was about to reply when Oishi beat him to the punch.

“Ah, you’re right, Shishido-kun! This gathering couldn’t possibly have been just coincidental. Could it be that the government is rounding us up for extermination?” Oishi hypothesized as his eyes glazed with horrifying possibility. Atobe rolled his eyes as the ex-fukubuchou continued in his histrionics. “What if we’re being brainwashed? Or being trained for a special psychic army? Or we’re being molded to further the government’s insidious plans to take over the world?”

The last supposition echoed in the suddenly silent shower common and caused even the quarreling redheads to stop and consider.

“Nobody’s taking over the world,” Atobe snapped in irritation as the suppositions became more and more unrealistic. “With the world population there’s no political structure that can efficiently run 6 billion people in a cohesive unit without stirring up discontent. It’s not even possible in theory.”

“What about hypothetically?” Oshitari interjected, his glasses, which he’d refused to take off as he proclaimed it did not make him look cool, gleamed with a foggy light in the steam of the shower room.

A bar of soap came flying from the other side of the shower room and conked Oshitari on the side of his head. A yell followed.

“Damnit Yuushi, you’ve been infecting him with your dorky movies!”

That was enough to break the brooding atmosphere as everyone suddenly joined in on the previously aborted soap fight and slippery bars of lather flew in every direction, forcing those who had refused to join in to duck every so often to avoid being brained by the flying projectiles.

Making a noise of disgust at the juvenile behavior, Atobe rinsed off and quickly stepped out of the war zone, slipping quietly and wetly into the changing rooms for his towel. As he neared his locker, he found an already showered and glassless Tezuka standing by the bench drying his hair.

“You didn’t wear your glasses into the shower,” Atobe observed with some surprise, considering how many people on the team had.

Tezuka looked back at him with nearsighted exasperation.

Ignoring Tezuka’s look, Atobe grabbed a fluffy looking towel and began drying off. As he rubbed at his hair, he could hear through the thick cloth Tezuka’s flat voice informing him, “Atobe, that’s Kikumaru’s Karupin towel.”

Atobe peered from under the thick fluff to look at Tezuka through his wet bangs. “And your point…”

“Karupin is Echizen’s cat.”

There was a pause in action as Atobe allowed the information to sink in before he violently flung the towel to the other side of the bench.

“Tezuka, why didn’t you tell ore-sama earlier? That thing is probably diseased! Ore-sama probably has cat disease in ore-sama’s hair! Oh some one will pay!”

Calmly, Tezuka pulled another white towel from his own bag and dropped it on the still complaining Atobe’s head. Giving the wet hair a good rub, Tezuka turned to find his glasses, advising, “If we hurry, we’ll get to the dining commons before the others finish and possibly eat in peace.”

“I highly doubt that,” Atobe snorted as he dried himself off with Tezuka’s towel. Grabbing his clothes and pulling them on with economic speed, he added brightly, “Do you think they’ll serve cat? Maybe Echizen’s cat?”

“No, cat tastes bad when not properly prepared,” Tezuka informed him as Atobe donned on the last of his clothing and turned to leave.

“You are a fund of scary trivia, Tezuka,” Atobe said as he caught up. “But still, that does explain a lot about the cooking quality of the cafeteria…”

The two left, closing the doors just as a pile of freshly showered tennis club members piled into the changing rooms.