AftS!, Number 22, Seigaku’s Kichida

Title: Number 22, Seigaku’s Kichida [Kichida]
Fandom: Aim for the Sky!
Rating/Warnings: PG for lacrosse violence off-screen.
Summary: Kinsho doesn’t want Yutaka to play.
AN: Mousapelli’s Birthday Theme 15: To be continued, as a start. Spoilers for Episode 31: Two?! Kichida’s Confession!, and also introducing Kikage, the guy who basically exists to not be on the team.

Number 22, Seigaku’s Kichida

When Kichida comes to, he finds himself surrounded by ten concerned faces, one of which is his own.

Kinsho moans. Then moans again, because his head is pounding.

“Get him in the locker room,” Tsukada orders quietly, then his eyes flick towards Yutaka, who at least has the decency to flush a little since this was all his idea, “and then I want an explanation.”

“Thank god it’s halftime,” Sato mutters as they scrape him off the field, and the world tilts crazily, but once they have them on his feet, Kinsho can manage a sort of shuffling stagger if he leans on them heavily.

“God, you always have to complicate things,” Yutaka sighs, and Kinsho would punch his twin in the face if there were any chance he wouldn’t just fall down and die from trying.

They set him down on a bench in the locker room, and Kinsho draws shaky breaths and tries not to throw up on anybody.

“He needs a doctor! What are we bringing in him here for?” Asakawa is protesting, tugging on Sato’s arm and when Sato shrugs at him, and Asakawa turns to protest at Tachiki, who is on his other side.

“Do you want to forfeit?” Tachiki demands. “Because Harada’s already playing, since Kikage’s been suspended again, so we don’t have any substitutes.”

Asakawa falls silent, biting his lower lip, and Kinsho laughs a little because things must really be messed up if Tachiki is voting to keep on playing. Then he moans, because laughing makes him want to die.

“Look at me,” Tsukada kneels in front of him, and Kinsho swallows hard and forces his eyes to focus. Tsukada’s eyes are dark and serious, and he presses an icepack to Kinsho’s head. “He’s your twin?” Kinsho nods, wincing when it bumps his head against the ice. “We won’t be breaking any tournament rules if he plays because a ‘Kichida’ is already registered, but we’ll have to leave you in here until after the game’s over, understand?”

“Do it.” Kichida sways a little on the bench, then rights himself. He reaches up to hold the icepack himself. “Put him in defense.”

“Is that okay with…” Tsukada breaks off, scowling, when he stands and turns to find Yutaka already tugging on Kinsho’s spare jersey. “What’s your name?”

“Kinsho,” Yutaka answers immediately. His easy smile is back in place now that Kinsho seems to be mostly okay.

“So we have to start calling you Yutaka now!” Kazuhiro exclaims, leaning down into Kinsho’s face. “Otherwise it’ll be confusing.”

“Kichida is just fine,” Kinsho snaps, closing his eyes against the pounding of his head. Someone sits on the floor, bumping his leg, and starts untying his cleats. In the background, Tsukada is urging his teammates to hurry back out.

“Get out here as soon as you can, Kinsho,” he calls, then the locker door bangs shut.

“Stop scowling like that.”

Kinsho opens his eyes gingerly and finds himself staring down at his brother, tugging off one of his cleats, then one of his own sneakers, then a cleat then a sneaker.

“You blew our cover,” Kinsho says.

“So sorry,” Yutaka drops the sneaker and glares up at him. “I didn’t really think it was that important after I’d just seen you take the butt of a stick to the head! Forgive me for running down from the stands to make sure you were still breathing like a good older brother.”

“Only by two minutes,” Kinsho grumbles. He knows he’s being a jerk, but the site of Yutaka in his jersey is making his stomach churn even more than the maybe-concussion. “I want to play.”

“Well, if we win this game and don’t get dropped before the quarter finals, you will.” Yutaka straightens up, dusting off the rear of Kinsho’s spare shorts. “I won’t even make you take a baseball game in exchange because I’m such a nice guy.”

“No,” Kinsho shakes his head, ignoring the dizziness and pushes himself to his feet. “I want to play this game! I want to play!”

“You aren’t making any sense,” Yutaka says gently, taking his shoulders and pushing him back down onto the bench. “You’re hurt, Kinsho, sit down.” His brother’s fingers smooth through his hair, feeling under the icepack for the lump that’s rising just behind his ear, and Kinsho finds he has to swallow tears of frustration.

It doesn’t make any sense to him either really, but he knows it hurts to see his brother in his jersey, and it hurt to have Captain Tsukada call his brother Kinsho, and it hurts to sit here on this bench while his brother plays the second half of this game.

He’s sick of being Seigaku’s Kichida, he realizes as he twists hands in the jersey and presses his face against his brother’s chest. He wants to be Seigaku’s Kinsho on the field, just this once.

“Relax, relax,” Yutaka soothes, rubbing his shoulders. “Look, they just know you have a twin, right? They don’t know anything else. After this game things’ll go back to normal, right?”

“Normal?” Kinsho jerks back and stares up at his brother stupidly. Normal means baseball practice three days a week in the other jersey that says “Kichida” across the back, and suddenly the idea of that seems a lot more unbearable than it did this morning.

“Yes, normal.” Yutaka pries Kinsho’s fingers off him and straightens. “You got your brains rattled a little, that’s why you feel weird. You just stay here and rest, and we’ll get you fixed up after the game, and everything will go back to the way it was on Monday, okay?”

Kinsho watches his brother slip out through the door and the door swing shut again, then climbs carefully off the bench to sit on the floor, so that he can tilt his head back against the cool locker.

“I like lacrosse,” he says out loud, then repeats it louder, then louder, until it echoes off the lockers and makes his head ache sharply.

Starting Monday, he decides, normal is going to start looking different.