Yamato had heard about Tezuka, of course - Ryuzaki-sensei had mentioned him more than once when they discussed the team’s prospects for the next couple of years - but the first time he actually matched the name to a face was when he saw Tezuka destroying a third year non-regular in a completely unauthorised practice match.

For a person who was supposed to be the hope of the team, Tezuka Kunimitsu wasn’t much to look at. He was shorter than every first year but Fuji and wore glasses. Even his form, effective though it was, seemed slightly stilted.

When Tezuka beat Yamato the first time, the team stared on in horror. Yamato just smiled at the first year.

“Well played, Tezuka-kun,” he said, meeting the steady gaze unflinchingly, noting the slight quirk of the lips that he suspected was the closest Tezuka dared to get to a smile after beating a senpai. Then he looked around and frowned. “Back to practice, everyone!”

No one was more surprised than Yamato when someone mentioned in passing in the locker room that Tezuka was left-handed, though with hindsight it explained a lot about the way he’d been playing.

No one was more horrified when he saw the racket coming down towards what he now knew to be Tezuka’s racket arm.

Yamato, watching practice from the overlooking classroom, was running before his mind had caught up. Tezuka was surrounded by second years, all much taller than him and with no escape route. If something should happen to him….

“Don’t mess with me!” Tezuka wasn’t crying, wasn’t shouting even. He’d lost his glasses as he was knocked to his knees and his eyes were flaming. His self-discipline was something else. “How many years have you guys played tennis? You don’t use your racket to hurt other people! If that’s what this club is all about, I’m quitting.”

Yamato skidded to a halt in the entrance to the courts took in the scene: the players gathered around him, staring in shocked silence. Even the regulars had halted their practice. The only one who’d tried to stop it was Tezuka’s friend, Oishi, who wasn’t much bigger than Tezuka.

Tezuka picked up his glasses and turned to leave.

“Tezuka-kun!”

“Oishi-kun, sorry.”

“You can’t do this! Tezuka-kun!”

Oishi was right. There was no way that Yamato could forgive himself if Tezuka quit: to lose such a player because of a fight on the courts was bad enough. To have it happen under his supervision was worse. Yamato was Tezuka’s captain, that should have been enough. At the same time, he doubted Tezuka would respond to platitudes: he was too proud for that.

“And what are we fussing about?” he managed to ask, voice calm. Tezuka stopped in his tracks. Perhaps there was hope. Everyone else was looking his way now, guilt showing in every face. Even those who had been too far away to help were wondering if there was something they could have done. He agreed: one word from a third year and chances were the problems would have stopped. A general consensus among the second years and Takeshi wouldn’t have dared. “Looks like it’ll be a hundred laps. Everyone’s in this. All right people, if you don‘t run fast enough, it‘s going to get dark”

In all his time as captain, Yamato had never assigned one hundred laps before. Most club members weren’t physically capable of it. Having Tezuka looking up at him, blame written in his face, was sufficient justification. Tezuka was right: he should have been there, should have dealt with the resentment before it reached this level.

“Although it was short, thank you for the time in this club.”

Tezuka paused for a second. Yamato grasped for something that would keep him there, even for a short time, as he bowed and walked away. He grabbed Tezuka by the collar.

“Hey, hey, you’re a club member too, right? Let’s run the one hundred laps together.”

Making Tezuka run the laps was perhaps the least fair act he’d ever done as captain but it would give him time to consider his next move. He would have run them himself anyway.

Tezuka turned to stare at him, for once shocked out of his serious expression.

“I’m quitting,” he stuttered.

“Is that so? What a pity,” Yamato said, as if he hadn’t overheard that part of the conversation. He still needed to make Tezuka run those laps… Ah, “But I still haven’t received your resignation form. So there, go run those laps and I’ll take your form after that.”

Tezuka was looking at him as if he’d gone mad - perhaps he had, certainly it was a common reaction - but he turned to run his laps without argument. Soon he was running with the third year regulars. Maybe he felt that he deserved the laps for getting careless, for letting his guard down. Yamato jogged after him, watching as the first years started to drop out, one by one, until only those he’d noted as potential regulars were left in: Oishi, Inui and the rest.

He was startled when Oishi came to an abrupt halt in the middle of a lap. So were a few of the regulars, judging by what they were calling to him as they passed. When Oishi began to run back to confront Tezuka, he picked up his pace, hoping against all hopes that there would be something in this confrontation tha the could use.

Oishi was close to tears. Tezuka was out of breath after running his laps at a furious pace to work off his frustration.

“Don’t quit just because of a small matter like this!” Oishi shouted at last. “Tezuka-kun, if you’re quitting . . . I’m also quitting! I’m serious! You can’t quit!”

Tezuka stared at him in shock. Yamato wondered if he was used to having friends that would stand up to him and for him like this. Sometimes being a prodigy couldn’t be easy.

“Seems like you’re causing your friend to quit as well, Tezuka-kun,” he said quietly, a hand on Oishi’s shoulder. If he’d judged Tezuka correctly, there were many things that he’d hate, among them people who abused the game, but he suspected that wasted talent was one of them. Oishi was one of the most promising doubles players he’d ever seen and he was sure Tezuka knew it. He smiled wryly. “As captain of this club, I can’t really do much. I lost to you during yesterday’s match too. But you shouldn’t quit because of small things like that if you’re dreaming of going to the Nationals. Tezuka-kun, I want you to become Seigaku’s pillar of support.”

Tezuka looked up at him, still looking slightly shell-shocked, but perhaps seeing something in Yamato’s eyes, something of the burning ambition that he himself clearly possessed. Yamato had already decided that this one would make a fine captain when the time came, one who ruled through talent as well as popularity.

When Tezuka nodded, bowed and kept running, he allowed himself to lean against the fence. If he wasn’t so incredibly responsible, Yamato wasn’t sure that he’d have been able to keep him.

Yamato watched Tezuka almost constantly for the next few months, determined to prevent such a thing happening again. He watched as Tezuka’s ever rare smile vanished completely, as he started to remind his year mates not to let their guard down, as he played Fuji and was completely destroyed, perhaps for the first time ever, because of his injury.

He hung on as captain longer than tradition allowed, waiting until the Newcomer Tournament. There was really no other choice for it. Fuji was more than capable but he wasn’t yet a Seigaku regular in more than name: until Yamato saw him get serious, he wasn’t sure that he could completely accept him.

Tezuka won the tourament. Well, even though Seigaku’s representative hadn’t won in years, it wasn’t entirely unexpected - Rikkai’s top three first years and Hyotei’s best two had played in the summer tournament, so were ineligible.

On the way back, Tezuka fell asleep in the back seat of Ryuzaki-sensei’s car with his head on Yamato’s shoulder. He smiled and reached to brush the hair out of his eyes. Perhaps, perhaps there was a chance for him to be forgiven if Tezuka trusted him enough for this.