30 kisses, #13, Excessive Chain.
Such a little thing; Tezuka doesn’t know why he can’t stop thinking about it.
The
other Seigaku players address Tezuka as “Buchou,” or “Tezuka-Buchou.”
There is nothing in the word; he is captain of the tennis team, and one
day one of them will be captain. Later they may have other captains.
He
finds himself lingering, though, over the way Echizen says “Buchou.” He
doesn’t know why he feels, every time Echizen says it, as though the
word creates something between them; as though the word itself is
somehow too personal, too private. Echizen calls Tezuka captain as if
“Tezuka-Buchou” is somehow redundant. His voice quavers occasionally on
the word as if it’s Tezuka’s name and he has forgotten he has another
one.
He has been pondering the way Echizen calls him “Buchou” for weeks now.
Tezuka
knows he can be obsessive, but until now his obsessions have never
bothered him because they have never involved another person. But
Echizen is an exception to all Tezuka’s rules, in and out of tennis
practice. He knows Echizen is fascinated by him, as much as Echizen can
be for anyone or anything outside of tennis itself—it shows in his
voice and in the shape of his eyes when Tezuka talks to him. He and
Echizen have each other in Chinese finger traps: whenever Tezuka
emphasizes the distance between them, he feels himself being drawn more
tightly in.
Tezuka doesn’t often think about the other side of
the metaphor: that if he lets himself relax and move closer Echizen
might slip away. Tezuka wants tennis now and everything else later. And
Echizen is still too young to know or care about anything except
tennis. It doesn’t work to think of his connection to Echizen the way
he thinks of his other relationships with the people in his life. With
everyone else Tezuka knows, there is a give-and-take, a willingness to
accept and give affection, friendship, or respect.
But with
Echizen there is something else, something simpler, and yet something
more—something Tezuka can’t quite define, something hovering around the
edges of Echizen’s voice when he addresses Tezuka as captain.
Something that, occasionally, drives Tezuka as close to crazy as anything can drive Tezuka.
It
finally, finally hits him one night in Germany, a few days after
Seigaku has learned they will be playing Rikkai at the regionals. He
should be finishing his article for the tennis journal. Instead he has
been staring at blurring words and thinking of Echizen, hearing Echizen
in his head. “Buchou…”
Such a little thing.
He closes
his eyes and thinks about Echizen, about his appearance at Seigaku,
about his appearance in Tezuka’s life, about his past, present, and
future. “Buchou.”
And suddenly he understands.
Ryoma says “Buchou” as if Tezuka is his captain. Not just the Seigaku captain, but his.
He
calls Tezuka “Buchou” as if one captain and only one is all he will
ever need, and he has made his choice. Behind the word, Tezuka
realizes, is all the trust and respect and need that Ryoma, obsessed,
single-minded Ryoma, yet knows how to place in another human being.
Behind
the word is, “I choose you.” Behind the word is, “You won’t disappoint
me.” Behind the word is, “You are my higher aim.”
The fact that
Echizen Ryoma is quite possibly the greatest tennis player Tezuka has
ever seen isn’t really the reason Tezuka’s throat is suddenly dry. It
isn’t simply a compliment to Tezuka’s abilities—it is more than that.
He feels Echizen’s pull on him strengthen, feels it even across oceans.
He puts down his pen and abandons the pretense that he is thinking of anything else.
“Tezuka,
why do you go so far for Echizen?” Ryuzaki-Sensai asks him a half-hour
later. He has risked waking her up although he knows her sleeping
habits are erratic at best—has called her just for this, just for
Echizen. Only and always for Echizen.
Tezuka knows the answer—knows himself—for the first time.
“Because
I am his captain,” he says after hanging up the phone. The
understanding of it is still too new, too private, to acknowledge
before an audience. Ryoma has made it so.
He hears Ryoma calling
him captain, and wonders if, from thousands of miles away, Ryoma has
finally hit him a shot he cannot return.