Chapter Text
The first encounter is when they’re only children. Gakuto and his family holiday in Osaka over springtime. Gakuto’s mother has longed to see the famous plum blossoms flower for years and his father has family there, so once they manage to wrestle Gakuto onto the Shinkansen, they head off.
His initial horror at having to contend with sitting still for more than five minutes quickly fades when his mother relents and lets him sit by the window. He spends the entire ride with his face pressed up against the window watching the city fade into rolling green mountains and then back into a bustling metropolis again.
They’re staying with cousins of his father; Gakuto dislikes the eldest son almost immediately when the kid mocks his hairstyle. In retaliation he stamps hard on his foot and then feigns complete ignorance when the boy starts screaming. He escapes into the expansive back garden and wanders around for what seems like hours.
There’s a twisted old willow in the corner of the garden beside a pool with fat koi carp swimming lazily about in it. The branches hang down like curtains and he slowly pushes them aside, letting them sweep gently across his skin. The trunk extends far above his head, leaning on the sun-bleached fence that marks the perimeter of the garden. A laugh filters through the dappled, green shade and Gakuto’s instantly curious. He glances down at the expensive clothes his mother insists on having him wear, shrugs and grasps the lowest branch.
The bark’s rough under his hands, but the size of it is pretty similar to that of the bars he practices on at gymnastics. It’s easy enough to flip up onto it, and even easier to climb the rest of it. By the time he peeks over the top of the fence, he’s only got green stains on the knee of his jeans and a snag in his sweater.
The garden on the other side of the other fence is even more sprawling than the one he’s in; a huge pond takes up most of the centre with a stream winding down from behind a canopy of bamboo. Faintly, Gakuto hears the gentle splashing of a waterfall, hidden somewhere in the garden. It’s not as manicured as his family’s, but somehow he likes it better.
“Hey.” A voice filters up from below and he jumps, closing a hand around the top of the fence to stop himself from overbalancing. There’s a boy, around his age, Gakuto thinks, standing below him. He’s holding a tennis racquet in one hand and a yellow and red practice ball in the other. “How’d you get up there?” His accent is so thick that Gakuto has to think for a second before answering.
“I climbed.” He replies, playing with the willow’s thin leaves. The boy laughs, eyes creasing behind his ridiculously big glasses.
“Well I guessed that. Unless you’ve got wings.” Idly he starts bouncing the ball in the air with the frame of the racquet. Gakuto’s impressed, but doesn’t let it show on his face. “I’m Yuushi. Oshitari Yuushi. Who’re you?”
“I’m Gakuto. My family’s on holiday here from Tokyo. This is my dad’s cousin’s house.” Gakuto replies.
“Well, Gakuto-from-Tokyo,” Yuushi grins. “Do you like tennis? I haven’t got anyone to play with; my cousin’s too cross that I keep beating him so he won’t play me.” He hits the ball up to Gakuto, who lets it fall into the cup of his palms.
Gakuto considers for a minute. “I’ve never played tennis, I do gymnastics. How d’you think I climbed so high?” Yuushi shrugs, the sun glinting off his glasses. Gakuto opens his mouth to speak again, because, now that he thinks about it, he does want to play.
Mostly because he wants to make friends with this strange boy who won’t stop smiling at him.
But then his mother’s voice calls for him across the garden and he glances over his shoulder. Usually he’d just ignore her, only she sounds cross and Gakuto really doesn’t want to get told off. At least not yet.
“I’m sorry, I need to go.” He says, apologetically.
Yuushi’s smile doesn’t waver, but Gakuto already regrets choosing to leave. “Don’t worry; I’ll be around, Gakuto.” The way he says Gakuto’s name makes him, even at such a young age, blush furiously. There’s something about the way he shapes his mouth around the syllables and how it rolls off his tongue.
His mother’s voice is getting closer and angrier. “U-um, yeah. It was nice meeting you.” He does an awkward wave and then jumps down to the floor. Just as he’s pushing through the willow branches he hears Yuushi’s voice again.
“I hope we meet again, Gakuto. I’d really like to play tennis with you.”
Gakuto’s distracted all evening, barely registering his mother’s scolding for muddying his clothes, nor does he protest when she makes him change into his hated jinbei and sandals. “Whatever’s the matter with you, my love?” She asks, perturbed by his sudden silence, even when she buys him melon kakigori.
Gakuto stirs the ice quietly for a while before answering. “Is it possible to fall in love with someone when you’ve only talked to them for five minutes?” He asks. His mother looks like she wants to laugh but there must be something in his expression that stops her. She strokes his hair.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” she says, leaning in close until the silken screen of her hair hides both of their faces. “I fell in love with you father the very instant I saw him. As did your grandma when she met your grandpa. We Himuras, we know what we want.” Gakuto stares contemplatively at his green, half-melted ice. “And don’t you let anyone stand in the way of you loving who you want to love.”
Gakuto would repeat these very words back to her, not ten years later, but the circumstances would be entirely different. For now, he crunches another spoonful of ice, satisfied. He doesn’t get to see Yuushi again for the rest of their holiday in Osaka, but he realises as they’re packing to leave that he never got to give the boy his tennis ball back. He debates giving it to his dad’s cousin so he can return it, but decides to hold onto it.
“I’ll give it back to him when I see him.” He decides, rolling it in between his hands, stroking the coarse fuzz of its surface.
They’re halfway home when his surprised both of his parents. “Can I try tennis? I think it’d be fun to play.” And now I have someone I want to, no, need to play against.