Akaya thumped down into the grass under the stand of chestnut trees at the edge of campus. For a long time he just lay, looking up at the sky, which was a lovely, clear blue that day, just about as empty as his mind. With luck, no one would notice him for a while.<\/p>\n
Luck clearly thought that he’d gotten enough favors lately, though, because he heard footsteps well before he had recovered himself.<\/p>\n
“You look dazed.”<\/p>\n
Akaya levered himself up on an elbow to make sure that was who it sounded like. “Jackal-senpai.” Who looked rather amused. He let himself thud back down. “That’d be because I feel dazed. I mean,” he rambled on, “there have got to be eight billion<\/em> new first years running around today, and half of them are in the tennis club, and they’re all calling me Buchou<\/em>.”<\/p>\n Jackal-senpai leaned against one of the trees, humor hovering at the corners of his mouth. “Surely you’re already used to that, Akaya; everyone has been calling you that for months, now.”<\/p>\n “It’s different,” Akaya muttered. He sat up and folded his arms around his knees. The second years he could handle; he had earned what he saw in their faces when they called him Kirihara-buchou<\/em>. Respect or fear or pride, he had earned it. But the glow in the first years’ eyes, the awe in their voices when they whispered to each other about him, that made him twitchy.<\/p>\n “Hm.” Jackal-senpai sat down next to him, but didn’t speak for a while. “You know,” he said, finally, “this is one of my favorite places on campus. It’s where I used to come when culture shock was getting to me.”<\/p>\n Akaya rested his head on his knees, looking sideways at Jackal-senpai. “Culture shock?”<\/p>\n “When you feel unsettled and out of place. When you feel like either you or everything around you is changing and you’re not sure which it is. When you don’t feel like you can connect.” Jackal-senpai leaned back on his hands. “This is a nice, quiet place to calm down again.”<\/p>\n Akaya bit his lip, hard, as his stomach lurched. Disconnected. Yeah. But it wasn’t like he was alone, was it? He had his team, just a different one this year. And next year he could go back.<\/p>\n Couldn’t he?<\/p>\n Out of place… no, that wasn’t exactly the problem anymore. “What do you do when you’re in place and it’s a different place than it was?” he asked, softly.<\/p>\n A crooked smile twisted Jackal-senpai’s mouth for a moment, more like one of Niou-senpai’s than his own. “Ah. That’s what comes next. When you get there you just have to stand as firm as you can.”<\/p>\n He could do that, Akaya was pretty sure. The first years didn’t make him twitch because he thought he couldn’t live up to those looks. Actually, he picked at his feelings, slowly unraveling them, he was twitchy because he was so sure he could. He sighed at his own total illogic. “I’m an idiot,” he said to his knees. “There’s no such thing as being too good.”<\/p>\n “Wouldn’t think so,” Jackal-senpai agreed. “But you’ve had two years under Yukimura; none of us will be surprised if it takes you a while to get used to being on your own.”<\/p>\n Another cold shiver grabbed Akaya’s insides, and he grimaced. This was ridiculous. He wasn’t afraid of catching up to Yukimura-san. He knew he wasn’t. He didn’t need to lean on Yukimura-san. He knew he didn’t. He just…<\/p>\n He just wished he did.<\/p>\n “Complete idiot,” he muttered to himself.<\/p>\n Jackal-senpai made a questioning sound, though, when Akaya lifted his head, he turned out to be looking up at the sky. A breath of a laugh caught Akaya by surprise. He was getting to appreciate that kind of tact more every day he had to deal with Niiyama and Sakamoto.<\/p>\n “I miss it,” he whispered. Missed the comfort of not being the strong one.<\/p>\n Now Jackal-senpai looked at him, steel eyes level. “Yes. And it won’t be quite the same when you go back. But that isn’t something we can help, Akaya. Any of us.” Suddenly he smiled—his own smile, serious and kind. “But I really don’t think anyone is going to toss you back out the door; my aunts and uncles certainly don’t, though the comments on how much I’ve grown since they last saw me almost make me wish they would.”<\/p>\n Akaya had an absurd mental image of Yukimura-san pinching his cheeks the way his own aunts did when they visited, and broke down laughing.<\/p>\n Jackal-senpai reached over and ruffled his hair, a rare casual gesture from him. “It’ll be better when the tournament season starts and you have other things to distract you,” he assured Akaya.<\/p>\n Akaya snorted a final laugh. Come to think of it, the tournaments probably would cure him of this irritating introspection, if only by providing him with opponents to take away any silly qualms about winning. And winning. And winning some more. He smiled, feeling better just thinking about it.<\/p>\n Summer would be a good time.<\/p>\n End<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The new year starts, unsettling Kirihara a bit until he talks with Jackal.