Topgallant : Prince of Tennis: love does that.

I apologize to everyone for this. I had to. It was calling to me. :| This is why I should never be allowed to write Rikkai.

lovedoesthat/ Sanada.

Kirihara finds her lying on the tennis courts one day, barely conscious, her hair fanning over the clay. She doesn't know how she got there. He looks at Sanada looking at her, eyes dark and shrewd beneath his cap. He doesn't claim to know her, but Kirihara accidentally treads on her hair on his way to the nurse anyway.

The first time they fight Sanada hits her--a quick pop across the cheek because she won't shut up about how he won't shut up about Yukimura. His eyes go wide with horror, eyebrows shooting straight up and disappearing into his hairline. It makes him look suddenly young, and Sanada has never looked young. She wonders if Yukimura looks that young, and then she kisses him.

The second time it happens she borrows new hair barrettes from Tachibana's little sister. She pins her hair up, one side, then two, and massages the redness from beneath her eyes, over her cheeks, her enflamed jaw. An looks at her with a solemn expression, and instead of snapping insults at her, insults about Kirihara and taking it hard, MK just smiles at her mirror reflection, and asks her if she has any that are Hello Kitty.

Sanada's sword collection is older than MK's entire family. She can trace her ancestry back three generations; his oldest sword is three hundred years. He lets her hold the reverse-blade, his favorite, bracing it from behind her to support its weight. She traces the inlaid steel with her fingertips while he talks of Samurai codes of conduct and the way of the warrior. Mostly, though, she leans against his chest and feels his reactions through the material of his silk kimono, the one he wears when he practices. She has never seen him practice. He won't let her look, but he lets her touch.

Kirihara stops her one day while she waits for him outside the clubhouse. It is raining and he deliberately holds his umbrella away from her. "You're distracting him," he tells her. His hair is plastered to his cheekbones and she can't tell if it's because of the rain or because he has come from the showers. He doesn't look threatening this way. But she is still wet and cold, and when he continues, "From the nationals. From Yukimura, everything," she doesn't try to argue.

When Sanada comes out of the clubhouse he takes Kirihara's umbrella away from him, and for a moment she knows she's in love.