A/N: Dedicated to LilBossom- san


Bring Your Math Book Along

Maybe it wasn't the most obvious induction but it certainly wasn't chaste.

Between a placid smile and puppy- eyed innocence, nothing but scholarly interest in the slim textbooks propped somewhat lazily onto the dew- moist grass in the shaded corner of the soccer field, showed in their faces.

Syuusuke Fuji, blue- eyed senior and resident tennis genius of Seigaku High peered calmly down into his text, as tranquil as a bottomless lake. His copper fringe swayed amicably in the light afternoon breeze as the leaves of the Camphor tree rustled a lull before the storm. And when the suggestion of blue peeked from the veil of fair, tender lids, any animal possessing the natural gift of extrasensory, predatory danger detection would have bolted.

And in a sense, Echizen Ryoma, the dark- haired tennis prodigy junior beside him, was such an animal, or more precisely from Fuji's point of view, prey. Hazel puppy eyes peered up quite carefully from his half- hearted browsing of mathematical equations and met the slivers of a penetrative icy blue gaze that pinned him in his grassy patch.

"Fuji . . . sempai . . .?" Ryoma hazarded, round puppy eyes desperately attempting to mask squirming apprehension with polite curiosity.

"Mn. What are you reading?" Fuji smiled, leaning over his junior for a better look . . . at the book, of course.

Ryoma subconsciously raised the textbook protectively over his lap and by roughly convincing coincidence, its neighbouring areas. Fuji's gaze moved accordingly, now having a legitimate reason to stare. Before Ryoma could hurl the book away his senior had deftly pressed his right hand into the page. Ryoma blanched and then quickly flushed.

"Fuji- sempai!" Ryoma protested, starting to squirm and stopping because the movement made it worse, or worse because it felt better.

"Mathematics?" Fuji murmured pleasantly, quite unconcerned and ran his palm over the page with firm pressure.

"Brings back so many memories and . . . feelings," Fuji whispered directly into Ryoma's ear in a tone with the near- invisible subtlety of a single strand of cobweb that had its ends sharpened to a formidable needle- point.

Ryoma watched his senior's hand stroking that p- part of the book . . . th- that so very slim vo- volume of mathematical th- theories . . .

"I- er- are they g-good fe- fee- feelings?" Ryoma mumbled shakily, unable to stop himself.

It was a perfectly pleasant smile by all physical evidence. Ryoma didn't know why he felt threatened by it, and more disturbingly, thrilled. His eyes were now hypnotised by the stroking motions of that hand. Brushing up, and running down, kneading to the top of the page and dragging back to the bottom.

Ryoma had given up talking which disappointed Fuji a little since he liked his prey to beg, but the slack- jawed breathlessness accompanied by the wild and increasingly unfocused and bright puppy eyes was a wonderful compensation. In fact those lashes looked a little damp and Fuji was willing to make a very educated guess that those wouldn't be the only site of dampness. All in all it was a most pleasurable sight.

The older youth knew that he had grasped the root and stem for that matter of the problem. But in Fuji- like placid cruelty decided he'd rather not solve it. Not just yet.

"But sadly I wasn't very good at maths," Fuji lamented with only a fine crease in his brows indicating gentle and dauntingly unconvincing regret as he withdraw his hand from the now rumpled page.

Ryoma gaped, hair matted to his forehead and panting as if he'd been through sixteen rounds round the tennis court. The tennis prodigy somehow managed to effortlessly exude sexual attractiveness with his feverishly- bright and unfocused eyes and the shivering sheen of sweat on his flushing face. He also exuded bewilderment and a definite sense of loss and longing.

Somewhere inside him, Fuji resisted the urge to tenderly crush his junior with sheer adoration. Fuji would slowly squeeze the air from the dark- haired boy's chest and watch him part blood- red lips in a futile struggle to draw air. Their starched uniforms would rustle in untidy creases as their chests strove against each other and the thrashing Ryoma would be doomed to lose under his senior's bursting affection. The freshman would manage a weak gurgle as the brilliance in his brown eyes faded . . . flickered . . . and died. His beautiful boy lying silently in a tight, loving, cradling embrace. Only he would have merely passed out; Fuji couldn't possibly be satisfied with just one . . . encounter . . . with his precious boy. They would have to do it again, with a little variation this next time.

It made Fuji's sharp blue eyes flash with excitement.

The school bell, indicating that only five minutes remained of the rest period, trilled rather inconveniently over the happy sounds of play of high school scholars, interrupting various unspeakable activities in dark corners of the school. Those who felt that the ride was going too fast to jump off now promptly ignored it.

Fuji, however, got to his feet and dusted himself, brushing off random blades of grass that had had the rare pleasure of admiring his much-coveted rear with a proximity no living human can brag about, back to the fields. He turned a polite smile to his dizzy junior and offered his hand.

Ryoma blinked and gingerly stretched forth his own to grasp it but did not pull on it. Instead he blinked and blinked again. Fuji found himself thinking of the uncertain blinking as trailing dots, each too nervous to stand too close or too far from each other but each too determined to go off and hide.

" . . . Fu . . . Fuji- sempai . . . do you think . . . you could . . . coach me in maths . . . sometime?" Ryoma spoke tremulously at last.

Fuji's grin did not shift an inch but the atmosphere had suddenly gone . . . electric.

"Why of course Ryoma- kun. Anytime you like. Just bring your . . . book . . . along."

Ryoma blushed and attempted to hide it by dipping his head, his free hand fumbling clumsily for the book. Unnoticed to Ryoma, Fuji's eyes, the sharp blue dorsal fin of a bearing predator surfaced ever so slightly.

Hidden by the dip and unnoticed to Fuji, the tips of Ryoma's lips curled up to reveal ever so slightly, the glint of incisors.

The End


Porticulis, 2005