Hi and welcome to "Why Sony does not write PoT", take two! Merry Christmas, or Boxing Day now, and Happy Holidays! This is for June and her prompt, and a sort-of-not-really sequel to Dreammaker by Norisumi so you may want to read that first before you are completely and utterly confused. I don't usually write PoT, so forgive me for any characterization errors. I also have this odd feeling I drove my tenses and my non-existent plot in circles...so beware. That aside...
All characters and etc. belong to their respective owners!
Heartbreaker
That day three years ago, and he wants to say that he remembers it as if it were yesterday. And he does. He remembers it in every stroke, in every game, in every match. He remembers it when he walks past the court. He remembers it when he stands on the roof, the wind drawing circles with his hair.
He remembers the pain, the shock, the nothingness, the happiness. He remembers the elation, the loss. He remembers the weight of the earth and the far, far away sky.
And he remembers every time he stands against a pillar, divided by a net strung by string and a court marked by white, tucked under a bridge and lit by the streetlamps. A pillar who has risen as tall as him, as strong as him. That year, after that day two years ago, despite the loss of a genius, they won the Kantou tournament, they won the Nationals. He passed the burden onto a new pillar, and they won the Kantou tournament, they won the Nationals. And this year, they won the Kantou tournament, and they will win the Nationals.
And they play. No, they do not play. To call it "play" would be to degrade it. They dance. Furious and beautiful, unencumbered by the shackles of the earth, free to fly. Every stroke takes them upwards, every volley aims them towards the sky. And they do fly, they fly up and up, tennis racquets in hand, and Tezuka doesn't know where to, but with Echizen, he is flying.
He remembers the feeling of loss, and the feeling of gain.
When not locked in these graceful dances, he can't help but feel as if he is lost. No direction, no mysterious smile to take him by the hand and lead him on, lead him up. He has only his wings, his blue-grey wings that take him towards that endless sky.
They win the Nationals. A child genius takes the world by storm. He rises, lit by a flame brighter than any he has seen, let alone experienced. When he told Echizen to be Seigauku's Pillar of Support, he didn't expect him to be his Pillar of Support, but gradually, that is who he has become. He is his pillar, and Tezuka rises with him. He is guided, but for all that the boy gives him, he is missing something.
He remembers it when he flies, effortlessly gliding in the wind, forward, ahead, up. He remembers it when the wind carries him through the blue-grey sky on his blue-grey wings. And he remembers his dream.
They go up together, higher and higher, pushing upwards and upwards. Flying into the wind, the wingless and winged, angelic and an angel, with no direction to go towards but up. Somewhere along this ever upwards flight, Tezuka has finally realized where Echizen has been pointing him towards. Mankind was born to dream of the sky. Angels are born to live it. He had once chosen Fuji for that dream, and had once been pulled into the maelstrom by one Echizen Ryoma, before he had been pushed into a dream to chase a dream, and here he was at the beginning of that dream, in the middle of another, and driven past the dream of a third.
They say that when a human flies too close to the sun, there is only one direction for him to go. But for an angel flying on wings not of wax but of blood and bone, the legends still hold true. They have traded their humanity for the sky, and the sky is their home and prison with the moon as their sire and the sun as their dame. And unlike humans who roam the earth and dream of the sky, the angels walk the earth and are prisoner to the sky, their fledging wings unable to take them higher.
It matters not to Tezuka. He who was born of the earth and who has lived his dream, and he who has outlived another, risen far and fallen bright cares not for such legends, bound as he is to them. For the beginning of his dream lies not beyond unreachable limits, but at a place where he has already arrived.
He remembers the sense of achievement, of accomplishment. He remembers his heart breaking, and a dream being born.
He has arrived at the start of his last and final dream, the dream that broke his heart and cast another. He arrives and finds himself enveloped in a dream of fallen angels, Fuji's open arms ready to welcome him. He has flown far and high on his borrowed wings and it is past time to give them up, and he does so willingly, the wings breaking off cleanly, and for the first time in many years, Tezuka Kunimitsu bleeds as well as any human, and Fuji cries his tears of joy for him.
Ah, but that is of Tezuka. Tezuka, a human who dreamt, Tezuka, a human who flew, and Tezuka, a human who lies in cohorts with a fallen angel. He had achieved his dreams, and he had found his happiness. But as for the wingless Echizen, a star, a meteor, a comet, destined to rise higher and higher before he goes in a supernova of glory, he does rise, he rises and rises, dazzling and leading, reaching for his own dreams, his own happiness, even if he must leave behind others, Tezuka include.
And so as Tezuka and Fuji live in each others' dreams together, they watch as they are cast off as memories by the boy who has flown above the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, the US Open, and still flies, soaring above the title of World Champion, beyond the title of Number One, but still higher. For even if angels and humans are confined to the prison-nest of the sky by the sun and the moon, for wings can only take one so far, it is he who bears no wings but carries a guiding light within that burns more brightly than the sun who can rise above, up and up and up.
And he will fall. And he will fall hard. These are the thoughts of one who has fallen, and one who knows that the angel beside him will catch Echizen when he falls, as he was caught when he fell. Fuji will because Fuji knows and Tezuka knows that Fuji will not leave this star out to dry. The stars that burn the brightest go the brightest, and this star will be no exception, but once he has fallen, for all that goes up must come down, Fuji will catch him.
He remembers the sense of loss, and he remembers the sense of being saved. And a sense of helplessness of not being able to save.
Echizen falls. Fuji saves him. "Ryoma" he says as he catches him. Ryoma, not Echizen, or Ryoma-kun. Tezuka feels something stir within him, but he stays quiet. But that night, he does make sure Echizen stays asleep for a good long while, and Fuji is left alone with only him.
Echizen is there now, ever present but ever not. Because Tezuka, saved by a fallen angel and raised by a fallen star finds that his heart was only ever broken by one and forged by one. And he knows well who that one is. He is thankful to the star though, because the star has done all he could to give him his happiness, but Tezuka cannot find it in himself to thank the boy in the way he yearns. Fuji is thankful to the star, for without him, he would truly be imprisoned with no substance, smothered with no barriers, covered with the wind. But now, this is freedom, overwhelmed by the insubstantial everything known as Tezuka. But to one who has only flown wingless, flown higher than any dare, he cannot join in the sweet taste of those who have flown on wings that could only take them so far. He is not them.
And he remembers his flight. He remembers how the blue-eyed boy granted him the dream that he dared not ask. And he remembers Fuji.
But all that is in the future. As he stands in the park at sundown, the blue-grey of the overcast sky matching the blue-grey of his outstretched wings, he remembers a day three years past when a dream was made and a heart was broken, and one of both was made in their place. And he flies.
And that's that :D
Oh, as for the title...Moonriver: Oh dream maker, you heart breaker etc. etc.
Thank you for reading and happy holidays! (PS: Reviews are always much loved)