Being thirteen is a lot like being twelve, except that his dad has taken to making jokes about growing up. He's always harder to avoid in the winter; Ryoma scowls and retreats to his room, fingers itching for games he can't play. There's too much snow and slush on the ground.
Three days before the New Year, his mother knocks on his door with a stack of cards. Ryoma eyes them with disfavour; they are white with a design of little animal ornaments. At least it's not too girly, he thinks. Apparently he is supposed to send them to people who have 'helped' him during the past year, which his mother says means senpai and teachers. Ryoma wonders if former opponents count; the idea of thanking the Monkey King for helping him get stronger is tempting.
"Do I have to?" he asks reluctantly. It is sleeting again outside, and the nearest posting box is several streets away.
"Yes." His mother frowns at him. "I've already bought a gift for Ryuuzaki-san." It takes Ryoma a moment to realise that she's talking about the teacher, not the mousy pigtailed granddaughter.
"Che. Whatever." He takes the cards and the pen she gives him, and wonders what he's supposed to write. New Year cards have never been a fixture in his life before; in America his mother had simply required that he sign his name on the Christmas cards before she mailed them out.
"Write neatly," his mother tells him. "And use polite language." Ryoma sighs in resignation and takes the pile of little cards to his desk.
Congratulations on the new year and Thank you for your assistance get boring before he is even done with the teachers. Ryoma draws tennis balls onto the corners of the cards destined for his senpai.
He leaves Tezuka-buchou's card until last, and writes slowly.
Congratulations on the new year. Thank you for everything you have done for me. That sounds like goodbye, Ryoma thinks, but the third years will be graduating in the spring. I will work hard to keep Seigaku strong; the formal language just looks weird. Ryoma stares at his careful hiragana, dissatisfied; it's the kind of thing he's supposed to say, but it doesn't sound like him. Please play a match with me before graduation.
Ryoma signs his name, then props his chin on his folded arms, watching the card as though it might get up and hit a Twist Serve at him. Karupin jumps out of his lap, twining round his feet beneath the desk. Eventually, Ryoma picks up the pen and scrawls a decidedly informal postscript: We're going to Nationals again, buchou.
His mother is writing her own cards at the kitchen table when he comes downstairs. She looks up and smiles as Ryoma wanders to the fridge in search of juice.
"Are you done?"
"Aa." Ryoma pokes through the icebox and frowns. "Mom, there's no Ponta."
"The case is in the storeroom." His mother sets a card aside and starts on another. "It's cold enough in there; you don't need to keep putting it in the fridge."
Ryoma shrugs, and goes to retrieve himself a can. He can hear his father's raucous laughter above the sound of the TV from the living room.
"Mom?" he asks when he returns, eyeing the stack of store bags on the chair beside her. "What do you get someone for New Year?"
"Hmm?" His mother looks up at him curiously. "Usually something like traditional sweets or good sake. Why, do you want to send a present?"
Ryoma concentrates on opening his Ponta. "Not really."
Ryoma stares at the doorbell as though it might bite him. This gift-giving thing is already seeming like a bad idea; that morning his mother had made him take a box of mochi over to Ryuuzaki-sensei's house, and her granddaughter had opened the door. He'd ended up being forced to stay for tea while the girl stammered and blushed and knocked cups over. What if Tezuka-buchou invites him in? Ryoma remembers the way Momo-senpai's mother always fusses over him, and shudders.
His finger is hovering over the buzzer when the gate opens abruptly. Ryoma blinks and drops his hand hastily, feeling like he's been caught feeding Karupin from the table.
"Echizen?" Tezuka-buchou sounds startled, and Ryoma reaches up to pull down his cap before remembering that he isn't wearing it.
"Buchou. Here." He shoves the paper-wrapped box out abruptly, ducking his head and more certain than ever that this is a stupid idea. "Happy new year." It takes Ryoma a moment to realise that he'd said that in English; he looks down at his feet, feeling like an idiot. "I mean, congratulations on the new year."
"Ah." Tezuka-buchou clears his throat, and Ryoma looks up uncertainly as he accepts the gift with a polite bow. "Thank you very much." There's something in his voice that Ryoma can't quite put a finger on, but he's distracted from wondering when Tezuka holds out a paper-and-string store bag.
"Huh?" Ryoma blinks up at him, confused now. Buchou is the senpai here, so why is he giving gifts?
"For your birthday last week," Tezuka-buchou tells him quietly, his breath making clouds that fuzz the edges of his face. "And also, congratulations on the new year."
"Oh." Ryoma looks down at the gift bag, feeling suddenly warmer. "Thanks, buchou," he mutters, now vaguely ashamed of his own present; it's only green tea mochi, with a hastily scribbled note repeating his request for a match before graduation.
"I received your card," is all Tezuka says, but there is a smile behind his eyes as he looks down at Ryoma. "I'll see you at school next week."
"Yes, buchou." Ryoma watches him walk away, poised and certain even on the icy pavement. Then he looks down at the bag in his hands, and wonders whether his father will make the usual assumptions about girls.
The stores and restaurants are all still closed for the holiday. In the end, Ryoma wanders into a local park and finds a bench out of the wind; it's cold, but no one else is around to laugh at him.
Tezuka-buchou's gift is another wrapped box; Ryoma fumbles at the paper with gloved fingers, not quite willing to rip it, and isn't surprised when it turns out to be mochi again. Purple ones, in the shape of little bunches of grapes. Ryoma unties the ribbon and sniffs them gingerly, then blinks when an envelope slithers out of the wrappings to land in the snow at his feet. He scoops it up hastily, staring at the neat symbols of his name. It feels like cardboard.
Ryoma rips open the thick paper and stares at the contents. Tezuka-buchou has written Congratulations on the new year on the back of a postcard showing Sampras and Agassi shaking hands at the net. The only other words are Saturdays, three PM. Court C. Ryoma frowns, confused, and looks at the other card. It's a pass for a tennis club near the high school; Ryoma has never played there, but they have good facilities. His name is printed neatly above the membership number.
Oh, Ryoma thinks, a little stunned. He's been itching for a proper game all winter, but even in the glow of everything that they'd done last summer he'd only played two matches with buchou. It occurs to Ryoma with a strange, happy kind of surprise that maybe Tezuka regrets that too, with graduation coming up.
The idea of getting to play Tezuka-buchou every week is more than enough to make separate schools seem like nothing at all; Ryoma tucks the card safely into his pocket. When he tries one of the mochi, the familiar sweet-sharp taste makes him smile.