*growl* TezuFuji. Gyaaaah.
Whoops. Never again am I going to not write for an ENTIRE DAY and then wake up at four in the morning, completely incapable of doing anything but thinking of writing. Damn it. This, at 1500 words or so (it underwent some minor editing since its original production) is probably the closest thing to a drabble that's ever coming out of my cracked little brain...
Title: Asobi (Game)
Pairing: TezuFuji (Why, oh why... I thought I'd told myself No More Couples...)
Rating: PG-13ish
Warnings: written at four in the morning, and thus the My Crack version of Fuji. It's pretty bad. *wince* Also, you know those long, long sentences that were especially a problem in Jishin? Yes, they're a real problem here, too. -_-
Disclaimer: Not my TeniPuri boys! (Oh, how I wish...)
Asobi (Game)
Fuji Shuusuke was well-accustomed to patience--its careful ease, the way it tugged, taut, on one's mind, drawing tight if done correctly. He was accustomed to observing, after all, through half-closed eyes and an easy smile that only those who knew him well found threatening, his own sensations as well as those of others. Perhaps that was the reason for which he excelled at tennis, he mused, sometimes--the simple observation of one's reactions, far beyond the data that Inui extracted so diligently, extended far further than a simple percentage, made it simple to see, and more importantly, to feel, what one could do next. Each reaction provoked a sensation to be turned over, carefully, whether the sweet taste of certainty and adrenaline in the back of his throat when he saw the way a racquet drove a smash towards him, or the strange bitter sting of rain on his face as he played without being certain that he could win--and in a match such as patience, whether it be against a person, a situation, or simply one's self, the only way to win was to simply observe, and feel the way the strings tugged, releasing them before they could snap in his hands.
Fuji Shuusuke never lost.
It wasn't a matter of it being so paltry as a tennis game. Since the result only rarely ever mattered to him, he could not find himself to consider it a loss even when the scoreboard or the glint of eyes through glasses whose reflections seemed dull against that knife-edged gaze told him otherwise. He was aware that he disappointed Tezuka with his unwillingness to play seriously, but Tezuka couldn't see that he was playing seriously.
Tezuka, he thought, would never understand that it was not for tennis' sake that Fuji played, but simply for the joy of the game--one that, when it suited him, had absolutely nothing to do with whether or not Fuji was holding a racquet (whose grip was tacky with sweat, familiar as the brief tickle of hair against his cheek) in hands whose skin was thin, almost delicate, over the backs of long, slim fingers.
And it didn't matter that Tezuka didn't understand that; odd, for all that it seemed, sometimes, that his gaze could pierce through the thin skin of Fuji's eyelids, closed over eyes that the mirror told him were the electric blue of a morpho butterfly, the heavy, impermeable mask of his smile--light because of how long he had worn it, well-toned as if he had exercised it--with a force that thrilled him, tingling underneath his skin like blood.
It didn't matter, because it was Tezuka's dedication that blinded him--being Seigaku's pillar meant, sometimes, that one could not see past one's own stone, Fuji thought, perhaps.
Some, like Hyotei's Atobe, thought that such things could be broken with a racquet in hand and too much confidence, but like with Fuji's smile, he thought the stone extended deeper than simple flesh, deep as a gem vein. Such things happened, he noted, observing his own pleasure in things which would not have made him smile earlier in life. Such qualities--a smile, opaque and ineffably serene; a responsibility asked politely--once worn down to the bone through intention or otherwise, could not be stripped away so simply without leaving one... raw, or perhaps tender.
Fuji understood this--understood how difficult it was to throw away a part of one that spoke through one's lips and moved through one's body, rather than simply sliding off, like rain.
He was not surprised to find himself aching dully within his skin, too tender to be touched, when he realised that Tezuka's lips were not moving against his--not returning the kiss, despite the reflection of water warm ripples off that stern, beautiful face that made Fuji wonder, when Tezuka, perhaps, had forgotten how to smile. Without the length of Tezuka's legs drawing him too high for Fuji to touch--but he was still too high for Fuji to touch, even with both of them seated at the bank of a reed-brushed river, any more than Atobe had touched him with a shattered shoulder and tennis that scintillated like the blade of a knife--Fuji had kissed him without the mask, and realised, oddly, that past the ache, there was hurt in the small rejection.
He hadn't expected that.
Another man--another boy--would have recoiled, or put his hand to his lips, tasting the foreign against the familiar. But Fuji was familiar to Tezuka, he knew--actions or not; he had always prided himself on sheer spontaneity, and there was comfort in knowing that Tezuka expected it. His team captain merely looked at him, slow and deep as seawater moving dark and black behind the thin shield of his glasses, and asked. "What was that for?"
It was stone that faced him, stone he saw, not blown glass this time--not as there had been when he'd seen a tear trail down Tezuka's face as they'd walked victorious and defeated away from the Hyotei matches, easily mistakable as a drop of sweat from drenched hair, and Fuji had reached out to touch a nonwounded arm with his fingers light as spiderwebs. Tezuka had merely looked at him, neither acknowledging nor denying the drop of moisture that vanished quickly into the high collar of his Regular jacket, and simply said "It's all right"--and meant it. Not tennis. No mention of the team. No mention of the state of his health, or the fact that he might never have been able to play tennis again. Because In Tezuka's mind, what he felt was less important than any of them--and, perhaps, because that was what Fuji needed to hear.
Fuji had realised, to his surprise, that he had loved him for longer than he'd thought to consider.
Tezuka never stopped surprising him, and perhaps that was why he stayed.
Fuji smiled at him, genuine, and saw the gaze through shining glasses pierce through the smile, stone through water with the briefest 'plink.' "Saa..."
He hadn't broken through, and the knowledge that he stripped himself bare of obscurely unthreatening smiles and sweetness that was no longer false, to press his mouth, soft and closed and yielding, against Tezuka's, was an odd pain, and he savoured it. For Tezuka--he wanted to be real, not a smile.
And to his surprise--and he opened his eyes and watched Tezuka's reflection fractured by the slow river--Tezuka watched the real him, without words, for a long moment, and something that Fuji did not dare to read for fear of daring to hope moved in the sharp passion behind that gaze. If he let himself hope--if he let himself do anything but play--he would lose, and he could not.
He didn't know whether Tezuka still knew how to be anything but Seigaku no Hashire. A glimpse of a tear was not a crack in the shell. In the end, it did not truly matter, because Fuji knew he could not break away what Tezuka had wrapped around himself when a racquet had struck his arm with brutal force, when a respected buchou had towered over him and asked: "Will you become Seigaku's pillar of support?" He could not strip away solitude worn soul-deep, because a pillar supported alone.
But, perhaps, he could make Tezuka want to.
Water wore away stone, and Fuji was molten steel.
He could be patient. Patience, he knew well. A long game was ineffably the most satisfying, and Fuji knew that when he played as he chose to play, he could spin it out in a long web even when his opponent knew the game; it was simply his way. Slow, careful, teasing past the courts in a long and easy match against the boy, the man, he had never defeated, slowly pushing until control broke, or Fuji did. He wasn't entirely certain which result he would anticipate, or savour, more, to tell the truth. This was a new game, for him, and the first point had shattered against lips that had been still, unmoving, eyes open and watching him.
But Tezuka had not pushed him away. And Tezuka's eyes had been balm and bliss on a face that ached with the loss of its smile and stung almost crimson with the force behind those eyes.
A small hope was dangerous, especially in the face of a loss--Fuji understood that. And yet, if--perhaps--he could get Tezuka to watch him as Fuji had watched Tezuka... perhaps.
Fuji versus Tezuka: love, fifteen. But the court was still his.
Because love was a score, after all.
And Fuji Shuusuke never lost.
*_*_*_*
~owari?~
Not sure if this is where it ends. Maybe! Actually, not at all sure where it came from. *laugh* Like I said--all badness I am going to blame entirely on the fact that I wrote this after a whole day writing about creoles (which, incidentally, plays Hell with my English) and the fact that it was four in the morning, and I desperately wanted to go back to sleep. ^_^
Title: Asobi (Game)
Pairing: TezuFuji (Why, oh why... I thought I'd told myself No More Couples...)
Rating: PG-13ish
Warnings: written at four in the morning, and thus the My Crack version of Fuji. It's pretty bad. *wince* Also, you know those long, long sentences that were especially a problem in Jishin? Yes, they're a real problem here, too. -_-
Disclaimer: Not my TeniPuri boys! (Oh, how I wish...)
Asobi (Game)
Fuji Shuusuke was well-accustomed to patience--its careful ease, the way it tugged, taut, on one's mind, drawing tight if done correctly. He was accustomed to observing, after all, through half-closed eyes and an easy smile that only those who knew him well found threatening, his own sensations as well as those of others. Perhaps that was the reason for which he excelled at tennis, he mused, sometimes--the simple observation of one's reactions, far beyond the data that Inui extracted so diligently, extended far further than a simple percentage, made it simple to see, and more importantly, to feel, what one could do next. Each reaction provoked a sensation to be turned over, carefully, whether the sweet taste of certainty and adrenaline in the back of his throat when he saw the way a racquet drove a smash towards him, or the strange bitter sting of rain on his face as he played without being certain that he could win--and in a match such as patience, whether it be against a person, a situation, or simply one's self, the only way to win was to simply observe, and feel the way the strings tugged, releasing them before they could snap in his hands.
Fuji Shuusuke never lost.
It wasn't a matter of it being so paltry as a tennis game. Since the result only rarely ever mattered to him, he could not find himself to consider it a loss even when the scoreboard or the glint of eyes through glasses whose reflections seemed dull against that knife-edged gaze told him otherwise. He was aware that he disappointed Tezuka with his unwillingness to play seriously, but Tezuka couldn't see that he was playing seriously.
Tezuka, he thought, would never understand that it was not for tennis' sake that Fuji played, but simply for the joy of the game--one that, when it suited him, had absolutely nothing to do with whether or not Fuji was holding a racquet (whose grip was tacky with sweat, familiar as the brief tickle of hair against his cheek) in hands whose skin was thin, almost delicate, over the backs of long, slim fingers.
And it didn't matter that Tezuka didn't understand that; odd, for all that it seemed, sometimes, that his gaze could pierce through the thin skin of Fuji's eyelids, closed over eyes that the mirror told him were the electric blue of a morpho butterfly, the heavy, impermeable mask of his smile--light because of how long he had worn it, well-toned as if he had exercised it--with a force that thrilled him, tingling underneath his skin like blood.
It didn't matter, because it was Tezuka's dedication that blinded him--being Seigaku's pillar meant, sometimes, that one could not see past one's own stone, Fuji thought, perhaps.
Some, like Hyotei's Atobe, thought that such things could be broken with a racquet in hand and too much confidence, but like with Fuji's smile, he thought the stone extended deeper than simple flesh, deep as a gem vein. Such things happened, he noted, observing his own pleasure in things which would not have made him smile earlier in life. Such qualities--a smile, opaque and ineffably serene; a responsibility asked politely--once worn down to the bone through intention or otherwise, could not be stripped away so simply without leaving one... raw, or perhaps tender.
Fuji understood this--understood how difficult it was to throw away a part of one that spoke through one's lips and moved through one's body, rather than simply sliding off, like rain.
He was not surprised to find himself aching dully within his skin, too tender to be touched, when he realised that Tezuka's lips were not moving against his--not returning the kiss, despite the reflection of water warm ripples off that stern, beautiful face that made Fuji wonder, when Tezuka, perhaps, had forgotten how to smile. Without the length of Tezuka's legs drawing him too high for Fuji to touch--but he was still too high for Fuji to touch, even with both of them seated at the bank of a reed-brushed river, any more than Atobe had touched him with a shattered shoulder and tennis that scintillated like the blade of a knife--Fuji had kissed him without the mask, and realised, oddly, that past the ache, there was hurt in the small rejection.
He hadn't expected that.
Another man--another boy--would have recoiled, or put his hand to his lips, tasting the foreign against the familiar. But Fuji was familiar to Tezuka, he knew--actions or not; he had always prided himself on sheer spontaneity, and there was comfort in knowing that Tezuka expected it. His team captain merely looked at him, slow and deep as seawater moving dark and black behind the thin shield of his glasses, and asked. "What was that for?"
It was stone that faced him, stone he saw, not blown glass this time--not as there had been when he'd seen a tear trail down Tezuka's face as they'd walked victorious and defeated away from the Hyotei matches, easily mistakable as a drop of sweat from drenched hair, and Fuji had reached out to touch a nonwounded arm with his fingers light as spiderwebs. Tezuka had merely looked at him, neither acknowledging nor denying the drop of moisture that vanished quickly into the high collar of his Regular jacket, and simply said "It's all right"--and meant it. Not tennis. No mention of the team. No mention of the state of his health, or the fact that he might never have been able to play tennis again. Because In Tezuka's mind, what he felt was less important than any of them--and, perhaps, because that was what Fuji needed to hear.
Fuji had realised, to his surprise, that he had loved him for longer than he'd thought to consider.
Tezuka never stopped surprising him, and perhaps that was why he stayed.
Fuji smiled at him, genuine, and saw the gaze through shining glasses pierce through the smile, stone through water with the briefest 'plink.' "Saa..."
He hadn't broken through, and the knowledge that he stripped himself bare of obscurely unthreatening smiles and sweetness that was no longer false, to press his mouth, soft and closed and yielding, against Tezuka's, was an odd pain, and he savoured it. For Tezuka--he wanted to be real, not a smile.
And to his surprise--and he opened his eyes and watched Tezuka's reflection fractured by the slow river--Tezuka watched the real him, without words, for a long moment, and something that Fuji did not dare to read for fear of daring to hope moved in the sharp passion behind that gaze. If he let himself hope--if he let himself do anything but play--he would lose, and he could not.
He didn't know whether Tezuka still knew how to be anything but Seigaku no Hashire. A glimpse of a tear was not a crack in the shell. In the end, it did not truly matter, because Fuji knew he could not break away what Tezuka had wrapped around himself when a racquet had struck his arm with brutal force, when a respected buchou had towered over him and asked: "Will you become Seigaku's pillar of support?" He could not strip away solitude worn soul-deep, because a pillar supported alone.
But, perhaps, he could make Tezuka want to.
Water wore away stone, and Fuji was molten steel.
He could be patient. Patience, he knew well. A long game was ineffably the most satisfying, and Fuji knew that when he played as he chose to play, he could spin it out in a long web even when his opponent knew the game; it was simply his way. Slow, careful, teasing past the courts in a long and easy match against the boy, the man, he had never defeated, slowly pushing until control broke, or Fuji did. He wasn't entirely certain which result he would anticipate, or savour, more, to tell the truth. This was a new game, for him, and the first point had shattered against lips that had been still, unmoving, eyes open and watching him.
But Tezuka had not pushed him away. And Tezuka's eyes had been balm and bliss on a face that ached with the loss of its smile and stung almost crimson with the force behind those eyes.
A small hope was dangerous, especially in the face of a loss--Fuji understood that. And yet, if--perhaps--he could get Tezuka to watch him as Fuji had watched Tezuka... perhaps.
Fuji versus Tezuka: love, fifteen. But the court was still his.
Because love was a score, after all.
And Fuji Shuusuke never lost.
*_*_*_*
~owari?~
Not sure if this is where it ends. Maybe! Actually, not at all sure where it came from. *laugh* Like I said--all badness I am going to blame entirely on the fact that I wrote this after a whole day writing about creoles (which, incidentally, plays Hell with my English) and the fact that it was four in the morning, and I desperately wanted to go back to sleep. ^_^