AN: It is strange that my favorite pairing caused me this much grief. XD I made several starts, all of which failed, and finally came up with this piece of...weirdness, which began life as a script. (PS. For the beta, so many thanks once again to Claire, who knows much more about comedic timing than I'd given her credit for)

It was spring. The music club was practicing in the building across the way, and faint strains of tuning could be heard every few moments.

Such are the happy accidents of life.

"Sanada, I would like to speak to you," said Yukimura. A gust of wind blew cherry blossoms across the court, and someone opened a door--a strain of violins momentarily swelled and then was cut off. The wind died down.

The Regulars, however, stood in awe.

Akaya shifted from foot to foot. "I wasn't the only one who heard that, right?"

"Heard what?" asked Sanada.

Marui had been clutching his stomach unhappily. "Ooh, I knew I shouldn't have had that milk... It was only a little warm... Now I'm hallucinating, augh--" He blinked as the door of the music room was opened again and another strain escaped. "What? Yes, I hear it too."

"What music?"

Yukimura didn't let himself twitch. It had been so difficult to arrange for the music club to play in the closest building to the tennis courts, but he'd thought it would be worth it to see his team's faces when the wind blew and faint notes drifted across the courts--it wasn't easy being the loveliest buchou in the land, after all. "You don't hear the music?" he demanded.

"There's music?" asked Sanada.

Yukimura turned away and rubbed his forehead wearily. All this work, and yet at the end of the day, Sanada was still the biggest idiot on the team. He glared at the ground, adjusted his voice for mournfulness, and said, "You really don't hear any?"

"I'm sorry, buchou," Sanada said immediately.

"No, it's fine. It's nothing." There was a moment of silence, in which Akaya and Marui dug their fingernails into each other's elbows, and Jackal started to pray.

Sanada offered, "Would it help if the team ran laps?"

Yagyuu rubbed his temples, and Niou rolled his eyes.

Yukimura, ever manipulative, sniffed once. "I don't know..."

Sanada turned on his heel and bellowed that the team was to run twenty laps after practice.

"Thirty," Yukimura said quietly.

"You heard the captain! Thirty laps!"

Laps always made Yukimura's day just a little bit brighter. "Forty," he breathed, beginning to smile again as the frustration ebbed away.

"Forty!"

Yanagi sidled up to the buchou. "Genichirou has not realized your feelings," he commented. Behind them, Sanada was tacking on a lecture to Jackal and Akaya about... Well, something or other. Probably how Akaya should act in public places. Yukimura certainly didn't care.

"Yeah," said Yukimura, the smile sliding back off his face. "I know."

Niou came up on his other side. "You want we should shut the two of you in a closet?"

"No thank you, Niou-kun."

"It worked when you did it to me and Yagyuu."

"There would be a better chance of him getting a clue, provided you didn't make the first move, Seiichi," added Yanagi.

"He wouldn't," said Yagyuu.

"I wouldn't," Yukimura agreed.

"You could cook for him," Marui said. "You know what they say."

"They say a lot of things," said Yanagi. "Which are we talking about?

"That the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, of course," Marui said, putting a hand to his heart and closing his eyes blissfully. "So true!"

"I don't think he'd get it then either," said Niou.

"Why are you pestering Yukimura?" demanded Sanada, suddenly looming over the group. "Back to practice!"

To the distress and distraction of all surrounding, Yukimura hung his head as another breeze blew, twining through his hair; some music club member opened the door again. They wondered, blearily, how Yukimura timed it.

But Sanada was still looming. "Diversion," Jackal hissed at Akaya, "Diversion!"

Like Christmas, Akaya's face lit up. "Okay!" He scampered away, cackling under his breath as he went.

"Add another ten laps," Sanada said to the group. They sighed heavily and began to go, slowly. The music building door opened again. "Yukimura, I have something to tell you," said Sanada as a few sweet bars of tune floated out.

The team stopped walking and strained to listen.

"In private," Sanada added.

"This is private enough," Yukimura said darkly.

The team tensed with hope. Sanada paused, took a deep breath, and looked Yukimura in the eye. Marui dug his fingernails into Jackal's elbow.

Sanada said, "I have a slight cold." The music was interrupted by a loud crash, the sound of shattering glass, followed by a distant, distinctly Akaya shriek and a string of expletives. The team slumped, once again disappointed. "And what was that?"

"Akaya."

Sanada clenched his teeth and turned red, then stormed off, presumably to retrieve Akaya before he could blow anything else up. Yukimura looked after him sorrowfully as the team clustered around him again. Marui hugged him.

"I contacted Sadaharu just now," said Yanagi. "He calculated that there is an seventy-six percent chance he would be receptive to a first move from you."

"What's the other twenty-four percent?" Marui asked.

Yanagi read off the back of his hand, where he'd scrawled the calculations, "Twenty percent chance he'd still be oblivious, three percent he'd avoid you for a day while he worked out exactly how he felt, and a point-seventy-three percent chance he'd distance himself slightly from you, and--"
"And?"

"And only a point-twenty-six chance he'd never speak to you again."

The Regulars glared at Yanagi. "You aren't helping," said Niou.

Sanada returned, dragging Akaya by his collar. He dumped their kouhai on the ground and demanded, "Tell them what you told me."

"I, um," said Akaya.

"What did you say, Kirihara-kun?" asked Yagyuu.

Akaya took a deep breath. "I told him that I exploded the vending machines because Yukimura-buchou is in love with him don't hurt me!"

Sanada nodded. Avoiding Yukimura's eyes, he asked, "Is that true?"

"Is what true?" asked Yukimura.

"That you had Jackal send him to blow up the vending machines."

Yukimura gave him the smile of someone about to relay useful information. "I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't hear anything," he said sunnily.

Niou began rubbing Yagyuu's temples for him, as the rest of the team sighed heavily and began wandering off again.

"It's never going to go anywhere, is it?" Niou sighed.

"No," said Yagyuu.

"That was rhetorical?"

Sanada had paused, but now he said "Ah."

"Where are you going?" asked Jackal as the vice-captain dragged their struggling kouhai away.

"To punish Kirihara for lying. He oughtn't."

"It wasn't my idea!" Akaya shrieked. "Damn you, buchou! I'll crush you for this!" The team watched silently as Akaya was dragged away.

Jackal, being susceptible to these things, was the first to show guilt. "Yes, we told him to! It's our fault!" he called, running after Sanada.

The floodgates broke.

"Seiichi is in love with you, it's true!"

"Finally," whispered Yagyuu, then added loudly, "It is true, actually."

"He wants your ass!" Niou bawled.

"And to cook for you!"

Yukimura turned to them in sudden fury as a cloud passed over the sun. "Laps for the rest of your lives," he whispered. A window of the music building was slammed open, and the drums that followed sounded more like a roll of thunder.

("How does he do that?" Niou asked his partner in a low voice.)

Meanwhile, Sanada had dropped Akaya and walked up to the buchou, who was still tense with silent, quivering anger.

"You too." Yukimura ordered. Sanada didn't move. "I Said, Laps For The Rest Of Your Life, Sanada-fukubuchou." In the music room, the strains of violin began, very softly. "Go on," he said to the team, then started towards the clubhouse.

Several things happened. The music swelled. The cloud moved past the sun. The wind blew.

And Sanada said, "But I like you, too"

For a moment, the world stopped. Akaya and Marui both dug their fingernails into Jackal's elbows.

Yukimura didn't say anything. Neither did anyone else, until Sanada broke the silence with, "I'll get back to practice now."

The captain turned around and delivered a swift kick to Sanada's shin. "Shut up."

"Of course, bu--Yukimura."

"Follow me. Renji?"

"Yes?"

"Come lock the equipment room door for us, would you?"

The team slumped again, but this time from relief.

"Ah, young love," said Niou, nudging Yagyuu with his elbow. "Doesn't it just..."

"Make you want to fuck?"

"Exactly!"

Akaya blinked as Yanagi came back out of the clubhouse. Their data master tossed the silver keys in the air--they gleamed in the sunshine, and he caught them. Akaya tilted his head and frowned. Why would buchou and fukubuchou want to be locked in the equipment room? There wasn't anything interesting in there except mops and tennis balls.