[If life began and ended on the courts--it's strange how true that seems, sometimes, in certain shapes and ways. Tennis is more than just a game in Yagyuu's world, and Rikkai more than simply a team; things are just easier with tennis, when it comes down to the simplicity of ball against strings and the intricate complexities of strategy and trajectory. Tennis gave him friends, a captain to follow, an ideal to belong to. Tennis gave him a Switch that let him do and experience things he'd thought he'd never be able to before. So perhaps in some ways it's true that his life began and ended on the courts, because without tennis, where would he have found all the things that came with it?

But for Fuji to deflect a tennis metaphor is a signal in itself, and it comes as no surprise that the subject changes again as the flow of the conversation tilts a little more. He had to have known they would reach the topic of doubles eventually; it was the natural conclusion to the ongoing train of thought. Why, then, let it escape so easily? Was the very mention of it all the confirmation that Fuji needed, and he's somehow scored another point while Yagyuu wasn't on his fullest guard? Or is it something else entirely?

No, he's still on the defensive. And the little fox is a few inches closer.]

If it's the responsibility of the tamed to accept a loss of independence by it, perhaps it's that of the tamer to accept that he might get burned in return. Just as stray cats sometimes scratch the hand that feeds them.