"--And that is why Rikkai Dai will win!"

It was the same speech that Sanada always gave on the day before matches. To the untrained, it sounded as if he was winding down and would dismiss the team at any moment.

The Regulars, however, knew better. Sanada had been giving this speech since first year, and although the lack of Yukimura at his elbow was new, they were prepared when their vice-captain gained his second wind and shot off on a tangent--he looked at Marui when he said triumph made everything taste better--and then ricocheted off on a tangent of the tangent.

Akaya and Niou both knew this speech by heart, and, with encouragement, would recite it in perfect unison while doing one of their impressions of Sanada. Marui's favorite recital had included a representation of their vice-captain's speech accompanied by interpretive dance.

"Our day of glory is now at hand!" Sanada announced with a chest-thump that interrupted Marui's thoughts. It seemed that their day of glory was always at hand, and frankly, it was getting boring. What if, Marui thought to himself, what if our day of glory is always at hand and never actually in hand?

He sighed. Boring fukubuchou with his boring speeches. He cast his eyes about the clubroom--Yanagi was, as usual, the only one paying attention. Niou and Yagyuu were playing pocket chess, Akaya was poking a bug--even Jackal was preoccupied.

Marui watched his partner shave for a moment, then leaned close and rested his chin on Jackal's shoulder. "Hey," he whispered, quiet so fukubuchou wouldn't hear. "Can I?"

"What?" Jackal asked, grooming paused.

"I want to try. Can I?" Jackal shrugged and handed the electric razor over. Marui scrambled behind him and slowly, carefully began to work.

It was rather soothing, he thought. The sound and feel of the razor's buzz merged with the cadence of Sanada's voice. "Why do you shave your head, Jackal?" he asked softly.

"My mentor was bald. In Brazil."

"Ah," said Marui, and kept shaving. He ran his fingers over the newly smoothed scalp and reflected that Jackal's head really didn't have anything on chocolate.

"I shave my legs, too," Jackal added. "But for a different reason--it makes my legs look better in tennis shorts." Marui nodded. That made sense. "But I shave my chest because girls like it better."

Marui's mind drifted this way and that with the buzz of the razor. "And so," Sanada announced, "that was the day that Yukimura got his headband! And what does the headband symbolize for this team?" he shouted.

"Holy divine victory reincarnated in green cotton," the team droned. Marui thought about Jackal's lack of body hair, which led to vague comparisons to hairless cats. And then a thought occurred to him and gripped him in awful claws.

Just how much of Jackal was shaved? Did he shave his armpits too? Marui wrinkled his nose--that was a girly thing to do. But...what if he shaved...

"Ow!" Jackal squeaked when the razor slipped from Marui's grip.

Sanada paused his soliloquy of the first time Yukimura shouted at him, what it symbolized, and how hindsight was 20/20 and he would not be who he was today if it hadn't been for that. When Marui didn't do anything but mumble an apology and pick the razor up again, he continued. "Obviously, Yukimura was doing it for my own good, and all of you should appreciate the efforts he goes to. He spends hours ill in his bed, but he still watches tapes of your matches," Sanada took a deep breath and frowned at the group, then finished explosively, "And you clearly don't understand the significance of his sacrifice!"

But Marui, once again, wasn't listening. He was shaving Jackal's head, and he was wondering with quiet desperation how he would assuage his curiousity without resorting to unnecessary, drastic measures--such as Akaya. The only problem was that Marui wasn't the best on the team when it came to plots-- nor was spying one of his specialties.

Oh, what was he saying! Specialty or no, he was Rikkai's tensai! Besides, he reflected, it wasn't like he was spying on a complete stranger: what are doubles partners for? The team began to pack up, even though vice-captain was still speaking--they recognized that he was winding down for real this time.

Marui, finished with Jackal's head, slung his bag over his shoulder and left.

The next day's tournament was anticlimatic--anything would be after fukubuchou's speeches, they agreed while riding the bus home. Marui yawned; the opposing school's doubles-two team had only needed a glimpse of his incredible tensai talents before they'd been utterly defeated. God, but utterly defeating people was sort of boring after a while.

Sanada closed his cellphone with a snap. "Yukimura is pleased, so he says you can do an extra five laps tomorrow as a reward."

Akaya began whining. "Fukubuchou!"

"He also requests Jackal to, quote, 'be a good sempai and take his kouhai for ramen or videogames or whatever non-tennis-and-therefore-useless activities children in platonic relationships engage in these days,'" Sanada recited. "Unquote."

"I didn't start playing tennis to end up a babysitter, you know," Jackal whispered to Marui, who nodded. Akaya, who was sitting in the seat in front of theirs, stopped whining, turned around, and fixed Jackal with a kicked-puppy look.

"Sempai..." he whimpered, lower lip beginning to tremble, "You don't like me anymore?"

Jackal sighed. "Want to sleep over at my house tonight?"

"Will there be staying up late telling secrets and videogames of death?"

As one, Marui and Jackal glanced to Sanada, who shook his head. "We can play Go if you like," Jackal offered. "But I've run out of secrets because you keep telling them to people." Akaya, whose face had become speculative at the mention of Go, clutched at the back of the seat in sudden alarm.

"But Niou-sempai told me that if I have too many secrets, my brain will ooze out through my ears." Niou cackled when Sanada turned in his seat and whacked him upside the head.

"Akaya," Yanagi said, longsuffering. "What have Seiichi and I told you about listening to Niou?"

"Not to do it because one day he'll convince me I can fly off the roof of the clubhouse and when I break my neck, buchou won't let me stop running laps to go to the hospital?"

"Right."

Akaya wailed, "But Niou-sempai said it was true!"

"And that's why Yukimura-buchou wants you to spend time with Jackal," Sanada declared.

"Why?" asked Yagyuu. "So that Akaya has to tell secrets to keep his brain from oozing?" Niou clutched his stomach and went into paroxysms of silent giggles; Akaya sniffled.

"No," said Sanada, glaring at Yagyuu. "Because if he was hanging out with you, he'd get all sorts of Ideas, and if he was with Niou, he'd be lied to."

"Also," Yanagi continued. "Even if you don't manage to impart morals to our kouhai, at least the ones he already has won't be corrupted."

"Sempai?" Akaya asked, grinning over the back of the seat. "Can we play Go the way I play it?"

Jackal blinked. "Sure. Bunta, would you like to come?"

"Will there be staying up late and telling secrets?" Marui asked wryly. Jackal raised his eyes to the heavens and mouthed a prayer while Akaya laughed.

---

"YAAAAAAAAA!" Akaya screamed, and slammed another black stone onto the Go board. A few of the pieces on the edge rattled off and fell to the floor with soft clatters. "Your turn, Jackal-sempai," Akaya whispered, hugging his legs to his chest and studying the board with delighted glee.

Jackal, whimpering and rubbing his forehead, replaced the edge stones and placed a white stone in techu.

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Akaya screamed again, and smacked another stone down.

Marui had had enough. He set his coffee cup down. "Akaya-kun, do you have to do that?"

"Do what?" Akaya asked, all wide eyes.

"The screaming."

"Oh, you mean my battle cries." Akaya beamed. "Do you like them, Marui-sempai?"

"No," said Marui. "Go is a dignified game. You shouldn't shout like that."

"You sound like fukubuchou," said Akaya, slamming another stone down.

"EXCUSE me?"

"You do!"

Jackal quietly placed another stone. "Akaya, what were the rules you suggested?"

"Every five pieces captured, you remove a piece of clothing."

"You have to remove both socks, then," said Jackal, counting the stones as he took them off the board.

Akaya cursed, did so, then put another stone down. He was quiet for a moment, then proudly said, "I call that the Tsubame Gaeshi of Go."

"Akaya, you stole that from Fuji Syuusuke," said Marui.

"Yeah. And?"

"And it doesn't have anything to do with Go," added Jackal.

"And Go doesn't have anything to do with tennis."

"I know," Akaya said defensively.

"So why are you naming your strategies after tennis moves?" Marui demanded.

"Cause it's cool. Duh, sempai!"

Jackal rubbed his forehead again. "It doesn't matter." He looked beseechingly to Marui. "Could you get me a pair of aspirin?"

"Sure. I'm bored anyway." Marui left his coffee cup on the table.

Akaya placed another stone. "HAH! Kakari Towards Destruction!"

"That's not kakari, Akaya."

---

Leaving his cup unattended in the same room as Akaya had been a bad idea. A bad, bad idea. Marui cursed his doubles partner for not noticing. Akaya had drained the coffee in the time it took Marui to return with Jackal's aspirin, and a minute and five seconds later the boy had started with the shivering and the jumpiness and the mad giggling. And then--then with the abandoning the game, falling downstairs while he muttered about making his Great Escape, and fleeing out the front door...

"How long did it take?" Marui asked hoarsely, downing the Aspirin that Jackal had offered.

"Ten minutes?" Jackal panted, leaning on his knees.

"Sounds about right. You keep that rope especially for this?" Marui wiped sweaty pink hair out of his eyes; Jackal nodded and kept wheezing. "He do this often?"

"Every time he stays over." Jackal gasped for breath. "And no matter how much..." Gasp, wheeze. "No matter how much I train..." Pant, gasp. "I always have to catch my breath after catching him."

"The catching was the easy part," Marui noted, sitting on the floor with a thump. "It was wrestling him down and tying him in the chair that..." Wheeze, sigh. "Was the hard bit."

"He does tend to flail."

"And bite." The pair continued to pant for a few minutes while Akaya squirmed in the chair he'd been bound to. "Don't gnaw on the gag, Akaya, it hardly ever works. God, I'm tired."

"Me too," Jackal yawned hugely. "Bed?"

"Yeah. Gonna leave him in the chair?"

"He'll get out of it, but the coffee will have worn off by then, so it'll be alright."

They went into Jackal's room and collapsed on two blanket-heaps they'd laid out. Moments passed as the two drifted towards sleep.

"Jackal?" Marui mumbled into the pillow.

"Yeah, Bunta?" Jackal slurred back.

"D'you shave all over?"

"Yup."

"'s cool. Night."

A soft snore was his reply, and Marui slipped off to dreams of naked, oily, hairless Jackals dancing in the sunshine, while Akaya took over the world with the Kirihara Zone.

---

Damn his sempai-tachi. Damn them! He'd almost gotten free this time!

Akaya wriggled free of the last of his bindings and removed the gag. Stupid Marui-sempai and Jackal-sempai were probably up there doing weird, gross things to each other like buchou and fukubuchou in the showers. Echh.

Oh well. Akaya brightened; now he'd go into Jackal-sempai's garden and hunt for fairies. Niou-sempai had told him how, and even though Yanagi-sempai and Yukimura-buchou told him not to believe what Niou-sempai told him, Akaya knew that Niou-sempai wouldn't lie about something like fairies.

---

Techu -- The Iron Post. Two stones of the same color on the same line, with one point between them. It's a reasonably strong move. Looks like this: -()--()-

Kakari -- an attack.

Kirihara Zone -- one of those impossible things that only happen in dreams. Akaya says that it takes over the whole board in one move, but anyone who's ever played Go will know that only works if he's the one making up the rules.