Last Chances 11:

AN: After such a long long long long time, I have finally finished a chapter. –collapses- I am so sorry to all you wonderful readers who are bothering to follow this fic, and THANK YOU SO MUCH for the support. I hope my writing style hasn’t changed too much since I first started writing this fic; I’ve tried to keep it more or less the same, but let me know if there’s anything…weird. XD

Reviews will be much appreciated, as well as constructive criticism. Thank you once again!

Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis.

Last Chances

Chapter 11: Epiphany

Yukimura stared at him in poorly disguised incredulity. Sanada felt his throat tighten, felt anger pulling at the reins, threatening to take over his mind. The strong set to Yukimura’s jaw took on a bitter edge, the slight upward curl to normally soft lips was tinged with mocking resentment.

“You can’t be serious.”

Sanada closed his eyes, and forced himself to calm down. Deep breaths were the basics to meditation, and to the attainment of tranquillity. Not that he could ever hope to attain anything remotely resembling peace with Yukimura there, with remembering everything and with not getting any of the answers that he would die for.

“But I am.”

There was no answer, and Sanada opened his eyes a moment later, and found Yukimura staring into his garden, the glow of the setting sun highlighting some of his features yet casting dark shadows across others, making it difficult for Sanada to read his expression.

Not that Sanada was ever proficient at that, either.

Yukimura appeared calm, nonchalance etched firmly into his placid frame. In contrast, Sanada’s stance was tense, his usual rigid self held even more so to create a defensive aloofness. The small physical proximity between them belied the growing emotional chasm. Sanada took in the darkened sapphire eyes, twin agates in a face of stone, and steeled his own features.

This was a familiar moment. He could remember in an instant now, their many arguments, their restrained facades, their thinly veiled insults, and Yukimura always calm, always nonchalant, always coming on top.

He had always wondered why he tolerated Seiichi, and this time was no exception.

He had always failed to notice Yukimura’s subtle expression of frustration, the slight trembling of normally relaxed hands, the too-bright clearness in beautiful eyes, and this time was no exception.

“So you don’t know why I killed myself.”

The Rikkai captain’s deceptively soft words were laced with bitter disappointment. Sanada was torn between wanting to kill his friend, and wanting to question, keep questioning until he had his answers.

“I expected to have to explain anything, Genichirou, but this. To explain why I chose that moment to drop my sword, perhaps, but I cannot explain this. Never this.”

Sanada’s mind reeled, from disbelief or hurt, he wasn’t entirely sure.

But despite the passing of countless centuries he cannot, will not forgive Yukimura’s talent for manipulation. If he should be feeling anything, it would rightfully be resentment.

“Why am I expected to know? Why should I know why you chose to use me? Did you do it on purpose, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to-“

He cut himself short, his voice suddenly hoarse.

After so many years, centuries of unconscious longing and hidden desire, he still couldn’t bring himself to admit his feelings.

After Yukimura’s death he spent nights lying in the futon they had shared, burying his face in Yukimura’s robes and wishing that he had been the one to drop the sword first, to die by those smooth soothing white hands.

If Yukimura heard now, or even suspected the existence of the unspoken, the boy gave no inclination of it. Instead, a slight smile, calm, almost detached, had imprinted itself across the captain’s face, and his voice blended into a sarcastic mixture of taunt and feigned ignorance.

“You wouldn’t be able to what? Do tell me, Genichirou, or if you would rather, how about you tell me how you came to die so unhappily?”

Sanada paled.

“It’s none of your business-“

Yukimura tilted his head to one side, as if in polite disagreement.

“Oh, but I feel that it relates perfectly to our topic at hand.”

He would have argued further, but Yukimura raised a hand to stop him from interrupting.

“You killed yourself, didn’t you?”

There was no answer save for the terse silence that followed.

Yukimura’s eyes narrowed.

“So you threw away your life for nothing.”

“That’s not true! You don’t understand what I felt when-“

“What we suffered back then may have been very different, but our feelings were essentially the same. Foolish, Genichirou. I did what I did so that you wouldn’t have to.” Yukimura’s voice became firmer, and carried with it a hint of bitter melancholy, as if he was remembering a painful memory from the past.

Sanada glared at the man before him, a haunting vision from the past. The sun had long set, and in the traditional settings of the house as well as the lanterns lit on the corridor, an upholding of ritual, all he saw was the beautiful stubborn young lord that he allowed into his life out of his own folly.

“You’re wrong,” he spat out, trying and failing to sound neutral, “You don’t understand what you did. You didn’t have to live as some…some instrument of death! I didn’t leave you after using you to fulfil some unfathomable purpose!” His voice shook slightly with rage, and Sanada forced his hands down, willing himself not to hit Yukimura for his sheer selfishness.

Yukimura sighed, and Sanada wondered if he imagined the fleeting look of condescension that passed on his beloved’s face.

“Please give me more credit. I wasn’t trying to kill myself just so I could fulfil some twisted plot to make you die from loneliness and pining.” He gave a mirthless chuckle, and Sanada clenched his teeth to prevent himself from shouting at his captain.

Yukimura had no right, no right to belittle the pain that Sanada had felt at the hands of his captain’s death.

“If I wanted to kill you, I would never have dropped my sword.”

For Yukimura to drop his sword was a breach of virtue, a taint on his family’s honour. And yet, knowing this, Sanada still didn’t know what to believe; to put Yukimura past deceit was far too naïve, it was hard to hold to the notion that honour and virtue still held a place in the man’s heart. Sanada was tired; he no longer knew what to believe.

Not wanting to meet Yukmura’s frigid gaze, Sanada lowered his eyes onto his lap as he asked another question that ate at him persistently.

“Why me? Why did you make me-“

His breath and his words caught in his throat. Long slender fingers brushed softly against his forehead, willing him to look up. Yukimura’s flawless face was a sudden mere inches from his own, warm breath fluttering gently against his cheek.

“You fool,” Yukimura whispered, his voice now a heartbreaking softness and something else, something that Sanada wanted desperately to understand but found that he could not. He would have opened his mouth to reply, some half-hearted self-defence, but warm lips pressed themselves against his own, before abandoning him just as quickly.

He had long forgotten the taste of bitterness.

Yukimura rose to his feet, his shoulders slumped with fatigue and resignation. Still, he held his head upright, reminiscent of the proud young lord that he had been, and would continue to be. Sanada watched him move towards the open doorway, where he paused, as though grounding his resolve.

“I thought you would understand, but clearly I’ve made a mistake.”

He made no move to stop Yukimura; there were no words, or gestures, that could help him keep Seiichi, anymore.

He’d always been at a loss, whether it had been in the past when his feelings were directed to the young rival lord, or in the present, when Yukimura had come to mean more than a captain or a friend to him.

The paper door drew shut. The smooth sound of polish wood sliding against the frame rang sharply in Sanada’s ears, and he listened, a strange numbness taking over his body, as soft hasty footfalls slowly faded into the distance.

“Jiroh…why did you call me out?”

Marui stared in exasperation at the dozing figure by his side. They were sitting at a street tennis court, the orange tinge to the sky hinting that the sun was setting.

In response, the figure next to him rolled over and sighed.

This was…pointless. If Jiroh wanted to nap, he could have done it in the comfort of his own home, and Marui could go do whatever it was he spent most of his free time doing.

He stood up, and stretched, preparing to return to his mundane existence. Deceptively slender fingers wrapped themselves strongly around his wrist, and Marui looked down in surprise. Jiroh’s eyes were wide open, his mouth drawn into a tight frown, foreign on his usually carefree face.

“Will you leave me again, Marui-kun?”

Shock.

“What are you-“

“Don’t lie to me. I hate it when you lie.”

Jiroh wasn’t supposed to know, to remember, and Marui, well, Marui was supposed to be allowed to continue loving him from a distance, as he had done in the past, right up to when Atobe Keigo waltzes in to steal Jiroh from him, again.

The bubblegum was long since flavourless in Marui’s mouth. It was now dry, and Marui could taste bile rising in the back of his throat.

“Marui-kun?”

No. He didn’t want to look up, didn’t want to see Jiroh’s concern. It wasn’t fair, it never was fair. Why couldn’t Jiroh just leave him be, for once?

“Why did you leave?”

The simple heartbreak in Jiroh’s voice forced Marui’s chin up, forced him to once again meet the boy he loved to death face to face. And if he was bitter, it was Jiroh’s own fault. And Atobe’s. Definitely Atobe’s.

“Why do you care?”

Marui knew he sounded callous, he could tell when Jiroh flinched, but, perhaps, he didn’t give a damn about Jiroh’s feelings anymore.

“You know I cared. We were friends, I begged you not to-“

“So you wanted me to stay and see you pine after him, knowing he would never ever love you like I did?” Like I do, he wanted to say, but couldn’t quite bring himself to.

There was anguish in Jiroh’s brilliant eyes, heightened by the piercing reflection of the sunset. To Marui, the sight was blinding.

“He did love me, he does, he told me he did when I…”

Marui dropped his eyes. He didn’t want, shouldn’t need to hear this.

“What, Jiroh? When you what?” Perhaps when you let him warm your bed, convenient a page boy that you were, and beautiful…far too beautiful for the likes of Atobe Keigo…

The silence stretched, a long metaphorical eon preceding the softest of whispers that Marui had to strain disbelieving ears to catch.

“When I killed him, Marui-kun.”

“Are you angry, Seiichi?”

There was an oppressive silence on the other end of the line, followed by a shuddering intake of breath. Renji set down his pen and lay back in his chair. Slivers of onyx peered through lowered lashes as he gazed onto the clinical whiteness of his ceiling.

“Should you be angry?”

A heavy sigh was the immediate reply, and Renji was made to wait a fraction longer for an answer.

“I should. With you.”

A frown.

“I’m charitable enough not to say the same back.”

“You knew why I allowed Genichirou to kill me.”

“…I do now.”

Renji could hear his captain’s disgruntled grumbling.

“Then you’re a sight more intelligent than he ever will be. Why didn’t you stop him?”

Tempting as it was to feign ignorance towards Yukimura’s question, Renji knew that his friend would persist in asking until he had his answers. At the end of the day, Yukimura would get what he called for; Renji could choose to give in gracefully or with the added bonus of enough laps to impress even Seigaku’s captain.

“When has Genichirou ever listened to anyone but you? Don’t talk about the present; the entire Rikkai bows to your every whim. But even back then, Seiichi, he betrayed his mother for you-“

“Conniving bitch that she was-“

“Even so. What did you expect him to do after you died? And you wanted me to stop him from what? Being depressed?’

Yukimura fell silent. The pause in the flow of the argument was so prolonged that Renji double checked the receiver to make sure he hadn’t hung up by accident.

“Seiichi?”

“I thought…he could learn to be happy.” Yukimura’s voice was wistful, but not without a hint of the characteristic stubbornness that Rikkai had long since learnt to relent to.

Renji brought a hand up to his temples. Clearly, Sanada wasn’t the only fool amongst his friends.

“Would you like the percentage probability of Genichirou ever being happy without you, whether in this lifetime, or the previous? Because it’s not zero, but it’s very, very close.”

A sullen harrumph travelled across the phone, before Yukimura muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, ‘a thousand laps with weights on both ankles ought to cheer you up’.

Renji didn’t think Yukimura would carry out that threat, but he wasn’t one to take unnecessary risks. Sitting upright in his chair, his tone took on a kinder softness.

“Look, it’s been centuries. Whatever happened, Seiichi, it’s all past now.”

“What, just let it go?” Yukimura sounded doubtful, and Renji quickly overrode his reservations by interjecting.

“Let it all go. It’s over. And who knows? You may even be happy. You both may be.”

Hearing Yukimura’s faint affirmation followed by quiet laughter, Renji relaxed and allowed a slight smile to tug at his lips.

Perhaps, now, it was time to practice what he just preached.

Akaya should not be kept waiting any longer.