university arc #2:
1369 words and unbeta-ed; I apologise in advance for my attempts at humour D:
It isn’t in Tezuka’s nature to be remotely disturbed by anything, much less show it on his face; Inui has once calculated that if he could convert Tezuka’s lack of facial reaction into a marketable formula he would outsell Botox in three weeks.
But there is something extremely wrong about the fact that he’s been shunted into the group that has to perform some kind of dance for a concert to commemorate the completion of Orientation (he’s quite glad to celebrate the end of it, certainly, and get down to proper work) by virtue of his late arrival. Moreover, the fact that the dance includes partnerwork is both unexpected and unwelcome, because at this age all are surely capable of forming their own relationships, not being socially inept teenagers any longer.
Though considering the pitch at which the girls around are giggling, and the amount of mascara being *______ in his direction, he wouldn’t be surprised to find out that most have the brain capacity of the aforementioned, possibly far less.
*fluttered is not a word in his vocabulary, and in any case the vehemence with which the offending eyelashes are being utilized is reminiscent of the frantic waving of a red flag screaming help! help!
It is a rather horrifying thought, and he winces involuntarily at the thought of being in close proximity with them for more than fifteen minutes at a time.
He hopes the rule of diffusion from higher-to-lower doesn’t apply in this instance.
*
There are approximately four hundred and eighty people in the hall at this point. The sheer amount of noise concentrated in these few hundred square feet of space is giving Tezuka a massive headache, as is the fact that there are at least a dozen girls shooting him coy looks that look more like bad attempts at facial contortion.
He’s actually seen better on the deer on Animal Planet.
Tezuka is secretly afraid that if he has to spin any of them like he’s seen in those bad romantic movies, their arms might actually come off. He’s pretty sure that he’s seen thicker twigs than some of the arms (and waists) around the room.
The instructor in the front is waving his arms desperately in a bid to get their attention: possibly he’s trying to get them to pair up. Tezuka stands stiffly to one side, in the hopes that he will blend in with one of the pillars (coincidentally and conveniently, his shirt is the same colour as them).
To his dismay, however, there is suddenly there is a hand slipped into his, warm and callused, slender fingers entwining with his.
He blinks. The audacious female has arrived in a swirl of lavender skirts and apple scent (oddly familiar, that); he doesn’t know anyone with hair like that, unless -
“Hello, Tezuka-kun.” Fuji is looking at him from over his (her?) left shoulder, coquettishly formal, smiling beatifically with eyes wide open in wicked glee, blue as a field of cornflowers and full of (hopefully) practiced vapidity, lined with black flicked up and out at the corners.
Tezuka’s right eye twitches violently.
*
“Fuji. Go back to your meditation session or your clapping game or whatever it was you signed up for.” He puts on his best I-am-buchou voice, and realizes too late that it has never worked on Fuji, because it provokes his contrary streak instead.
Fuji turns to him and pouts; Tezuka is appalled to find that what looks dementedly fishy on anyone else is pretty on Fuji. He puts it down to whatever Fuji is wearing on his lips; it turns his mouth into a lush crimson blossom, striking against his fair complexion.
(He is even more appalled to find himself lapsing into what sounds like lines from bad love sonnets.)
There are battles to be fought and battles to be won; this happens to be neither for Tezuka.
As he turns in disapproving resignation to face the platform, Fuji’s mouth crooks to the left in what can only be called triumph.
Red has always meant victory for the bearer. In this case, it is the wearer; but regardless the outcome is the same anyway.
*
Tezuka knew that being a tensai meant one was gifted with certain abilities, but for dancing to be one of them was slightly more than very unexpected. Fuji is, after all, a boy.
Yet for every pose he strikes the line of his body is a single fluid stroke, carelessly executed and effortlessly perfect. Next to him Tezuka feels clumsy and inadequate; he knows that for someone so physically able, he is hideously awkward and unsure, arms at odd angles and always a beat too slow. It frustrates him immensely, because he’s used to having things come easily to him, where bodily movement is concerned.
During their water break Tezuka sits down on a grass patch and feels the perspiration trickling down his back, collecting at the base of his spine, tries and fails to remember what comes after the torso isolations to the right and left.
“There’s a difference between physical ability and physicality, Tezuka.” Fuji is uncharacteristically serious. “Just because I know my arm can take this shape it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m really feeling it. You’re thinking too much.”
He motions to Tezuka to stand, and Tezuka does, grudgingly, because if Fuji can keep trying for him, he can damn well try for his own sake.
*
It is two days to performance, now.
Tezuka isn’t as bad as he first was, but his arm movements still look a lot more like flailing than dance movement and occasionally he treads on Fuji’s feet, or trips over the hem of his own trousers.
Fuji is very understanding about it, naturally. It makes Tezuka feel awful for being so incapable and ungentlemanly; there are moments when he forgets and refers to Fuji in his head as she because the sweep of Fuji’s arms and the toss of his head is distressingly androgynous.
(He’s glad, though, that Fuji doesn’t have a ponytail or braids to smack him in the face with when they have to execute the partner-spin thing. Lots of boys are sporting nasty bruises or scratches across their cheeks; he’s heard a story about a boy who got his nose broken because his partner flung her head back too far and too hard in overzealous excitement.)
Without the instructor in front Tezuka doesn’t quite remember when to turn, but he doesn’t have to, because Fuji simply grabs his hand and spins himself around. His skirt flares as he does, and for a moment Tezuka sees the whirling, spinning cherry blossoms floating from the trees, airborne and weightless and unreachable.
Unconsciously, he grasps Fuji’s fingers (too slim in his hand) a little tighter, and wills himself to keep up, counting one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight over and over in his head.
*
“You’re much better now,” Fuji tells him solemnly as they walk home from dance practice. He’s still flushed and breathing lightly, eyes fever-bright with excitement; alive the way tennis could never make him (unless it was with Tezuka), because in doing this he has nothing to prove to anyone and no reputation preceding him, no unspoken expectations of tensai.
Tezuka smoothes flat his hair slightly self-consciously and nods slightly, once, in acknowledgement.
It feels like he’s entirely composed of aches and his physical fitness has gone on holiday; but looking at the way Fuji is smiling at him, really smiling, face palely aglow with pride and moonlight, he isn’t sure he cares.
Fuji being genuinely kind has always been a balm to soothe anything, because he knows that he’s the only one besides Yuuta and Kikumaru to see it as often as he does.
And really, at times like these, when Fuji’s hair is in damp tendrils against his cheek and they’re in a suitably secluded place, it’s easy to stop thinking. Because the instinctive reaction is to reach for Fuji, put his arm around his waist, bend him over and kiss him like they’re drowning.
*
Fuji suggests that, given his flexibility and Tezuka’s secretly passionate nature, they should sign up for tango classes.
It isn’t in Tezuka’s nature to be remotely disturbed by anything, much less show it on his face; Inui has once calculated that if he could convert Tezuka’s lack of facial reaction into a marketable formula he would outsell Botox in three weeks.
But there is something extremely wrong about the fact that he’s been shunted into the group that has to perform some kind of dance for a concert to commemorate the completion of Orientation (he’s quite glad to celebrate the end of it, certainly, and get down to proper work) by virtue of his late arrival. Moreover, the fact that the dance includes partnerwork is both unexpected and unwelcome, because at this age all are surely capable of forming their own relationships, not being socially inept teenagers any longer.
Though considering the pitch at which the girls around are giggling, and the amount of mascara being *______ in his direction, he wouldn’t be surprised to find out that most have the brain capacity of the aforementioned, possibly far less.
*fluttered is not a word in his vocabulary, and in any case the vehemence with which the offending eyelashes are being utilized is reminiscent of the frantic waving of a red flag screaming help! help!
It is a rather horrifying thought, and he winces involuntarily at the thought of being in close proximity with them for more than fifteen minutes at a time.
He hopes the rule of diffusion from higher-to-lower doesn’t apply in this instance.
*
There are approximately four hundred and eighty people in the hall at this point. The sheer amount of noise concentrated in these few hundred square feet of space is giving Tezuka a massive headache, as is the fact that there are at least a dozen girls shooting him coy looks that look more like bad attempts at facial contortion.
He’s actually seen better on the deer on Animal Planet.
Tezuka is secretly afraid that if he has to spin any of them like he’s seen in those bad romantic movies, their arms might actually come off. He’s pretty sure that he’s seen thicker twigs than some of the arms (and waists) around the room.
The instructor in the front is waving his arms desperately in a bid to get their attention: possibly he’s trying to get them to pair up. Tezuka stands stiffly to one side, in the hopes that he will blend in with one of the pillars (coincidentally and conveniently, his shirt is the same colour as them).
To his dismay, however, there is suddenly there is a hand slipped into his, warm and callused, slender fingers entwining with his.
He blinks. The audacious female has arrived in a swirl of lavender skirts and apple scent (oddly familiar, that); he doesn’t know anyone with hair like that, unless -
“Hello, Tezuka-kun.” Fuji is looking at him from over his (her?) left shoulder, coquettishly formal, smiling beatifically with eyes wide open in wicked glee, blue as a field of cornflowers and full of (hopefully) practiced vapidity, lined with black flicked up and out at the corners.
Tezuka’s right eye twitches violently.
*
“Fuji. Go back to your meditation session or your clapping game or whatever it was you signed up for.” He puts on his best I-am-buchou voice, and realizes too late that it has never worked on Fuji, because it provokes his contrary streak instead.
Fuji turns to him and pouts; Tezuka is appalled to find that what looks dementedly fishy on anyone else is pretty on Fuji. He puts it down to whatever Fuji is wearing on his lips; it turns his mouth into a lush crimson blossom, striking against his fair complexion.
(He is even more appalled to find himself lapsing into what sounds like lines from bad love sonnets.)
There are battles to be fought and battles to be won; this happens to be neither for Tezuka.
As he turns in disapproving resignation to face the platform, Fuji’s mouth crooks to the left in what can only be called triumph.
Red has always meant victory for the bearer. In this case, it is the wearer; but regardless the outcome is the same anyway.
*
Tezuka knew that being a tensai meant one was gifted with certain abilities, but for dancing to be one of them was slightly more than very unexpected. Fuji is, after all, a boy.
Yet for every pose he strikes the line of his body is a single fluid stroke, carelessly executed and effortlessly perfect. Next to him Tezuka feels clumsy and inadequate; he knows that for someone so physically able, he is hideously awkward and unsure, arms at odd angles and always a beat too slow. It frustrates him immensely, because he’s used to having things come easily to him, where bodily movement is concerned.
During their water break Tezuka sits down on a grass patch and feels the perspiration trickling down his back, collecting at the base of his spine, tries and fails to remember what comes after the torso isolations to the right and left.
“There’s a difference between physical ability and physicality, Tezuka.” Fuji is uncharacteristically serious. “Just because I know my arm can take this shape it doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m really feeling it. You’re thinking too much.”
He motions to Tezuka to stand, and Tezuka does, grudgingly, because if Fuji can keep trying for him, he can damn well try for his own sake.
*
It is two days to performance, now.
Tezuka isn’t as bad as he first was, but his arm movements still look a lot more like flailing than dance movement and occasionally he treads on Fuji’s feet, or trips over the hem of his own trousers.
Fuji is very understanding about it, naturally. It makes Tezuka feel awful for being so incapable and ungentlemanly; there are moments when he forgets and refers to Fuji in his head as she because the sweep of Fuji’s arms and the toss of his head is distressingly androgynous.
(He’s glad, though, that Fuji doesn’t have a ponytail or braids to smack him in the face with when they have to execute the partner-spin thing. Lots of boys are sporting nasty bruises or scratches across their cheeks; he’s heard a story about a boy who got his nose broken because his partner flung her head back too far and too hard in overzealous excitement.)
Without the instructor in front Tezuka doesn’t quite remember when to turn, but he doesn’t have to, because Fuji simply grabs his hand and spins himself around. His skirt flares as he does, and for a moment Tezuka sees the whirling, spinning cherry blossoms floating from the trees, airborne and weightless and unreachable.
Unconsciously, he grasps Fuji’s fingers (too slim in his hand) a little tighter, and wills himself to keep up, counting one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight over and over in his head.
*
“You’re much better now,” Fuji tells him solemnly as they walk home from dance practice. He’s still flushed and breathing lightly, eyes fever-bright with excitement; alive the way tennis could never make him (unless it was with Tezuka), because in doing this he has nothing to prove to anyone and no reputation preceding him, no unspoken expectations of tensai.
Tezuka smoothes flat his hair slightly self-consciously and nods slightly, once, in acknowledgement.
It feels like he’s entirely composed of aches and his physical fitness has gone on holiday; but looking at the way Fuji is smiling at him, really smiling, face palely aglow with pride and moonlight, he isn’t sure he cares.
Fuji being genuinely kind has always been a balm to soothe anything, because he knows that he’s the only one besides Yuuta and Kikumaru to see it as often as he does.
And really, at times like these, when Fuji’s hair is in damp tendrils against his cheek and they’re in a suitably secluded place, it’s easy to stop thinking. Because the instinctive reaction is to reach for Fuji, put his arm around his waist, bend him over and kiss him like they’re drowning.
*
Fuji suggests that, given his flexibility and Tezuka’s secretly passionate nature, they should sign up for tango classes.