Animal Identification
A
Prince of Tennis WTF fic
By
Jaelle
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Setting: Random.
Rating: G. Silliness, implied
Shinji/Kamio at the end.
Notes: For the neko-uke challenge
at fudo_courts.
Last three lines inserted purely so that the story, which mutated
massively on me during the course of its conception, would actually
qualify.
It
was a typical Sunday afternoon on the street tennis courts. Every court
was filled with people playing tennis, at varying degrees of ability,
with the sole exception of the court at the very end, where Fudoumine’s
Kamio and Seigaku’s Momoshirou were arguing again. Nearby, Shinji and
Echizen watched them both scream at each other, identical bored
expressions on their faces.
“Stupid bike-stealing idiot!”
“When are you going to get over
that? I TOLD you it was an accident?!”
“NEVER!”
Shinji
sighed and wondered if there was some way he could stop them fighting
so that he could play a match. He didn’t want to watch them argue
anymore. They always argued about the same things anyway, it was
boring, and they went on and on and ON and never EVER seemed to stop
and it was so pathetic and it was even worse when the topic of the bike
and that bandanna guy came up... oh, hey.
“If he’s a viper...” Shinji began,
and then trailed off.
Echizen
glanced over at this conversational gambit and debated about whether or
not he wanted to find out what was going through Ibu’s mind.
Hmmm... it beat listening to
Momo-senpai. Just.
“If he’s a viper...?” He prompted.
“Then what animal is Momoshirou?”
Shinji finished.
Both boys bent themselves to
thinking about this. A particularly loud shout made Ryoma wince.
“A mule,” he said.
Shinji nodded. “And Fuji?”
This one required more effort.
“A hyena maybe?” Ryoma ventured.
“Or a cat?”
“No, you’re the cat,” Shinji argued.
Ryoma gave him a flat, offended
stare.
“See?”
Ryoma sniffed and turned away.
Silence fell.
“WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS HANGING AROUND
ANN-CHAN THEN?”
Sort of.
“What about YOUR team?” Echizen
said finally. “I think your Captain’s a wolf.”
“Then we’re all wolves,” Shinji
said thoughtfully. “Because I read somewhere that wolves are pack
animals and we’re all a pack.”
“Team.”
“I don’t think wolves are team
animals...”
“That’s
not right,” Ryoma wished he was big enough that he could bang Kamio and
Momo-senpai’s heads together and make them shut up so that he wouldn’t
have to devote actual brain cells to having conversations like this
one. He went on the attack against Shinji’s reasoning. “Because if you
do it that way then everyone would be wolves. Or something that goes
together. They have to be DIFFERENT animals.”
Shinji tilted his head and
considered this. “Okay. So Tachibana-san’s a wolf. And Kamio’s a
cheetah, because they’re fast.”
“Kawamura-senpai’s a dog,” Ryoma
said thoughtfully. “Inui-senpai’s a blowfish.”
“Why a blowfish?”
“Because he’s ultra-poisonous and
nasty to eat.”
Shinji pondered this for a moment
and then shrugged. “What about the golden pair?”
“Goldfish,” came the instant reply.
“Or goldfinches or something.”
“Tezuka?”
Ryoma ground to a halt. “Dunno.” He
frowned. “It’s your turn anyway.”
Shinji
accepted this calmly and thought about his team again. “Hmmm...
Ishida’s an orangutang, because they have long, strong arms. Uchimura’s
a hummingbird.”
“A hummingbird?”
“Because he flutters
around in your face all the time,” Shinji explained. “Or maybe that
should be a bee. But that buzzes. On the other hand, it’s small, and so
is Mori. Hmmm... a bee then. Maybe. Sakurai... can I use animals that
you’ve already listed? Because I think he’s a dog too, because he’s
loyal and friendly and it’s not exactly the same thing...”
“Sounds fair,” Ryoma interupted
hastily. “Just don’t make everyone the same thing.”
Shinji nodded. “A dog then. That
leaves Mori. He’s loud, so he’s an elephant.”
Mentally
relieved at reaching the end of the roster of Fudoumine and Seigaku
players, Ryoma leant back and gave Shinji a piercing look. “And you’re
a cat.”
Shinji gave Ryoma a slow stare.
“... I’m sure that’s not right.”
“You are,” Ryoma insisted. “You act
like one.”
“Don’t.”
“Do.”
“Don’t.”
“Do. And I’m one, so I should know.”
“So, you admit it.”
Ryoma
gave him a slow, catlike smile. Shinji’s lips twitched like whiskers,
and the two of them stared at each other for a few minutes before
suddenly looking away at exactly the same moment and pretending they
had been thinking about something completely different.
Eventually
Momoshirou and Kamio sorted out their argument through tennis (for now)
and the boys all went home. And aside from Echizen earning ten laps the
next day for suddenly pointing at Tezuka in the middle of a game and
announcing, “Eagle!”, that was the end of the matter.
Well, except for one other thing.
“Shinji... are you... purring?”
“Yes. Because I like what you’re
doing right now.”
“Oh. Okay.”
End.
A/N: What are they doing at the end
there? Uh... nothing that would jeopardise the G rating of this fic,
hopefully.