Culture Shock

A/N: i am so in love with tezuka/ryoma fluff right now that it's not even funny. so i thought i'd try my hand at it. and i don't think this fic will end up as lame as the summary suggests, so i hope everyone gives it a try.

words - English


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Culture Shock
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Echizen Nanjiroh watched with veiled worry as his son took the icepack from his mother and stalked up the stairs. His and Ryoma’s tennis rackets were still slung over his shoulder, and his free hand was slowly ruffling his hair.

“Nanjiroh, what happened?” his wife asked in a soft voice.

He sighed and walked to the low table to lounge gracelessly beside it. He didn’t say anything as his wife joined him and his niece prepared the tea. When the girl sat down with them, he closed his eyes and sighed again.

“I don’t know. We were playing, I was, of course, winning, and then the next thing I know, my return was smashing him in the head.”

“Did you happen to say something to upset him, ojii-sama?”

“Who knows with that brat? It was the usual taunting. You know, ‘Hey, with the way you’re playing, you won’t be able to beat your captain, let alone me!’”

“Ojii-sama! You shouldn’t have said that,” admonished his niece.

“But I always say that, Nanako-chan.”

“Ryoma’s never been distracted by that before,” added Rinko, who’d been silently sipping her tea as she listened to her husband.

“I know…” Nanako bowed her head slightly, and Nanjiroh couldn’t help but feel that she was hiding something.

“Do you know what’s bothering the brat, Nanako-chan?” he prompted. She bit her bottom lip before looking up at him with solemn eyes.

“Hai. B-but you can’t tell him! He’ll be mortified! I just happened to find out…”

“What is it, Nanako-chan?” Rinko’s voice was laced with concern.

“H-he has a little… crush on someone at school.”

Nanjiroh’s worried frown brightened into an amused smirk. “That’s it? So the boy’s finally interested in something other than tennis. I see, I see. Of course his concentration would slip if his mind’s on a pretty girl.”

“I don’t think Nanako-chan was finished, dear,” his wife calmly replied.

“Eh?”

“W-well, you see, Ryoma-kun… likeshisbuchou!” Nanako rushed the end, closing her eyes against the faces of Ryoma’s parents, not wanting to see their undoubtedly stricken looks.

“Eh?”

“Nanjiroh…”

“No, I mean…” Nanako paused, and Nanjiroh looked at her, knowing what was coming, but wanting her to say it anyway. “He likes Tezuka-kun, and I guess he’s depressed because Tezuka-kun’s going off to college soon.”

“I don’t think that’s it, exactly,” Rinko stated softly. “He’s been in America most of his life. There are different social standards here. It might be that Tezuka-kun is about to start a new part of his life, but it might also be that Ryoma doesn’t think he has any place in it.”

“You two are taking this a lot better than I thought,” admitted Nanako.

“We lived in America, too,” said Nanjiroh lightly, but then his eyes became serious. “He’s our son. His happiness is all we want.”

Silence settled in the room as each person thought about the lonely and troubled teen upstairs.

~*~

Nanjiroh stomped angrily through the house, not caring when he stepped on the cat’s tail, but suddenly caring when said cat bit his leg in retaliation. They glared at each other, both stressed since their common thread was in a mood. Ryoma is such a brat, thinks Nanjiroh as he turned from the cat and stomped through the house more.

‘That damn obaa-san! I do not want to coach the brat’s damn tennis team!’

Nanjiroh thought back to the phone call he’d received that morning, of Ryuzaki asking him to coach Ryoma’s team in the absence of her colleague, as he was leaving for Hokkaido to visit his ailing sister. He’d replied that she should coach the team herself, and he’d received an earful about how she was busy getting her Seigaku team ready for their next tournament.

“They’ll be fine without a coach. The kid’s team is made up of the same people from Seigaku. They’re like a pack of wolves, moving together, never separating, mating for life, and all that,” he’d replied.

Thinking back on that particular answer, Nanjiroh snickered when he pictured his son and his stoic buchou as tennis-playing wolves, mating for life…

‘Okay, moving on,’ he grimaced.

Ryuzaki had conceded that if he could find someone to coach the team, she’d let him off the hook. And now he was stomping through the house because an entire day of brainstorming had left him with zero candidates for the position.

“Why don’t you just take the job, Nanjiroh?” asked his wife by the sink as he stomped into the kitchen.

“No,” he and Ryoma answered simultaneously. He cleared his throat after throwing an irritated look his son’s way. “As much as I’d love to have that old bat owe me a favor, the effort is definitely not worth the reward,” he drawled as he lay out on the matted floor.

“Baka oyaji,” Ryoma countered the ill-disguised slight against his demeanor and skills.

“Ryoma, if you’re finished, go upstairs and study.”

“Hai, kaa-san.”

Nanjiroh gazed lazily from his position on the floor as Ryoma headed to his room. The boy was still depressed and off his game, and his loud friend Momoshiro was always complaining that they wouldn’t win their next tournament if Ryoma didn’t shape up. When they’d gotten the old woman’s call, Nanako had suggested that he take the job to help Ryoma ‘land the man,’ as his niece had put it.

Rinko had thought it a silly idea, but the way she was eyeing him as Ryoma disappeared told him differently. He was half afraid that Rinko was about to bully him into accepting the job when the phone rang. Cursing, Nanjiroh muttered that ‘it better not be that old bat looking for an answer.’

“Echizen residence,” he heard Nanako greet. “One moment. Ojii-sama, it’s for you!”

Nanjiroh snatched the cordless from her hands as Nanako held it out to him and put it to his ear, letting it rest on his shoulder as his hand idly slid a few feet to capture a magazine left on the floor.

“Why the hell are you calling, obaa-san, when I already gave you an answer?” Nanjiroh stuck his tongue out at the magazine when he saw that it was one of Ryoma’s many tennis issues.

“Who the hell are you calling ‘old,’ old man?”

Nanjiroh didn’t say anything for a moment, too stunned to speak. “Kate-chan?”

“I see you’re not up for an English conversation. Yes, it’s me.”

“How are you doing, sunshine?” Nanjiroh felt Rinko move to his side, and he looked up at her over his shoulder. “It’s Kate-chan.” Rinko smiled down at him and moved to continue her cleaning.

“I’m fine, but I have big news! I’m currently on study abroad in Kyoto, but my main research material for my senior thesis is in Tokyo. So I placed an application into a high school in Tokyo that needs an English teacher ASAP. I got hired!”

“That’s great news, Kate-chan.”

“Thank you. But I was calling to see if I could snag a room from you until I found an apartment in Tokyo.”

“That’ll be no problem! We told you that you could always come to us if you were ever in Japan!”

“Thanks so much, old man. Just let me know what I can do in return. I didn’t know what I’d do if you’d turned me down.”

“How could I ever turn such a pretty girl down? You’re still pretty, right?”

“You can marvel at my beauty when I get there, you perverted old geezer.”

Nanjiroh laughed, thinking that maybe an old friend could help the brat out of his funk. His brow crinkling in question, Nanjiroh asked, “What high school will you be teaching at?”

“Seigaku. Their third-year English teacher suddenly quit – something about evil cacti – and I come very highly recommended. Hell, I even speak the language fluently.”

Nanjiroh smirked evilly when he heard which school she’d be relocating to. “Ne, Kate-chan. I know a way you can repay us for the room…”


TBC


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that was pathetic, wasn't it? i fail at life. oh well. this little plot bunny won't leave me alone until i write it, so it'll be written.

thanks for reading!