Once upon a time, in a day and place that seem unfathomably far off, Renji kept his data in notebooks. Indeed, he had once told Sadaharu that writing down absolutely everything was the only way to keeps straight all the data that the world had to offer.

Sadaharu thought this was logical, and for a time, a series of matching notebooks pass through their tennis bags in what seemed to be an endless parade.

When Renji's family moved all the way to Kanegawa, it might as well have been half the world between him and Sadaharu. He didn't have Sadaharu's email address. His family was always on the phone. Renji knew that missing Sadaharu was acceptable, but if he let slack his studies and observations of his surroundings, then Sadaharu would not only get ahead, but be disappointed, and rattle off some calculation of how unlikely that event had been. (Where had he picked that up? Renji certainly hadn't taught it to him. It was infuriating.)

The new school year found him walking into the gates of Rikkai Dai, hauling a bag filled with textbooks, notebooks, databooks... His tennis racket, of course. It wasn't much different from elementary school, he'd thought. The students were taller, the hormones more touchy, but all in all, it was just another school.

The tennis club, however, changed his life. He was sure of it as he stood, clutching the fence with both hands and staring (like everyone else) at the match that was going on; a match, Renji would reflect later, that was nothing short of beautiful.

"I'm Yukimura Seiichi."

Renji looked up from the notebook in which he was furiously scrawling. The boy from the match was standing there on the other side of the fence, hands tucked behind his back, sweet--if bemused--smile shining from his face, swaying slightly from foot to foot like a young sapling in the breeze.

"What are you doing?" Yukimura asked, nodding to the notebook.

"Nothing," Renji answered.

"Can I read it?"

Standing in the sunshine, holding the notebook up to the fence without a moment's hesitation so Yukimura could see what he'd been writing, Renji knew, with a bone-deep certainty he knew, that this was what people meant in novels when they said implausible things about feeling the shift in the the course of their destiny.

Or perhaps it was just because Yukimura was so nice, so good-looking, with his racket resting on his shoulder and leaning down to peer more closely at Renji's tiny handwriting, and the wind and the shine of his hair and the light polish of sweat that had dampened his forehead--to be expected in this heat, after such a match...

Renji stopped the mental ramble. Yukimura stood straight and smiled again. "Very insightful, um..."

"Yanagi Renji."

Yukimura nodded. "It's an interesting approach. Would you like a match?"

"Yes, please."

"To play or just to watch?" Yukimura asked, with a knowing sparkle in his eyes.

Renji realized he didn't miss Sadaharu that much after all. The weeks passed, then months. He had friends in this school--plural friends, which was new and exciting, and offered all sorts of chances to catalogue data. He did seem to be misplacing notebooks more often these days, but since his data files were all computerized anyway, and the notebooks only served as a portable means of documentation, he did not pay it much heed.

Until the middle of second year. "Yanagi-sempai!" The new ace shrieked from across the court. "Niou-sempai is going to teach me how to fold cranes with lasers in them! Do you have paper?"

Lasers. Right. He sighed. "In my bag."

"Thanks, Yanagi-sempai!" It wasn't until the end of practice when Yanagi, walking into the clubroom, saw the neat rows of cranes lining the benches, the windowsills, peppering the top of the locker... He picked one up and read off the wing,

--haru: 175cm, 62kg. Dislikes heat. Favorite occupation: Terrorizing the kouhais, molesting Ya--

He very carefully placed the crane back on the shelf, and thought he might know where his databooks had been mislaid.

Two weeks later... "Yanagi-sempai, Yanagi-sempai! Marui-sempai brought marshmallows, so Niou-sempai's gonna start a little fire so we can toast 'em! You want some?"

Renji returned Sanada's ball before he spoke. "No thank you, Kirihara-kun." Thwock. Sanada gave a glare that clearly told Renji that merely declining was insufficient. "Please attend to practice." Thwock.

"Okay, sempai! I'll just have one! Will you play a match with me?"

Thwock. "If you like, Kirihara-kun."

"Awesome! I'll totally crush you after I bring these old books to Niou-sempai!"

Thwock.

Renji pressed his lips together and returned the next ball.

That night, he memorized his data, and deleted the computer file. He put his remaining notebooks through the paper shredder, and thought that carrying unrecorded data could be an impressive feat indeed--possibly even similar to floating in midair.

And Niou-kun and Kirihara-kun wouldn't have all that seductive paper to distract them from running two hundred laps.