Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Title: Ten Thousand Silver Ties (Chapter One)
Author/Artist: MoonlitAffairs (Kyoka)
Theme(s): #28—Beauty
Characters: Tezuka Kunimitsu, Fuji Shuusuke, Atobe Keigo
Rating: T
Warnings: Character death (eventual)
Disclaimer: All characters are hereby disclaimed to Konomi Takeshi. I don't claim ownership, and am writing this as a non-profit work.
Author's Notes: Here's my next deathfic. This one is multi-chaptered, so though elements of death should be in almost all chapters, leading up until the final one, there won't be a death every chapter. I'm trying this in a newer, shorter, style. Because I just want to finish these prompts. Please give me some feedback!
Ten Thousand Silver Ties
Chapter One: Photographs
Fuji had always loved the mountains since he had been a small child, accompanying his mother and sister as they made their way to a local shrine there for a festival. The melting mix of his memories was beautiful, he thought, so absolutely beautiful. His thoughts melted into a scene, where he sat at an altar in the shrine, his hands folded in front of his face. He smiled widely in accomplishment to his mother and then trotted out of the room, closing the sliding screen behind him, and then holding on tightly to his mother's hand.
The beautiful scene of a dirt road and blooming cherry blossom trees slowly melted back into the modern city, with its bustling crowds and energetic shopkeepers, with its banners above and the crowds of teenagers talking about the latest, most popular music artist.
It was a strange contrast.
Memories of the mountains melted away, into middle school, high school, university… His landscape changed from Chiba, to the familiar streets in Tokyo, then to American streets that had never quite seemed like home to him. They were so different than those back in Japan; the people were different, the food was different. Everything was different, and Fuji hadn't realized that he would miss Japan so much until he left. Now the only visits he made back were seasonal, to visit his mother, Yumiko, and of course, his beloved little brother, Yuuta.
The world had a beauty of it's own, a natural beat that joined a chorus of symphonies.
His eyes were focused on photographs and pictures before him, as he slowly slid aside pictures that had been bleached out by the sun, or didn't quite have the proper elements in them. It made him want to get out his old pictures, ones that focused on people. Right now his most recent ones were of a weeklong 'business trip' he had taken up to the Rocky Mountains, in hopes that he would get some good photographs that he would be able to sell at an upcoming photography convention. The landscapes spread before him were everything from the mountain sunrises, to streams, to small animals that he had managed to capture on film on his hikes through wooded areas. It all looked lovely, he thought to himself. Certainly, people of the city would want to bring such beauty into their house.
After all, most people were not lucky enough to be able to see the beauty of natural, untamed mountain wilderness everyday. These photographs sent him to his bedroom, digging for a box under his bed that held all of his old photographs and albums from his youth. He opened them to a picture of Tezuka Kunimitsu, sitting unassumingly under a tree.
That had been a beautiful picture, in his opinion, even more beautiful than the mountains themselves.
His old calendars and photographs piled up. Fifteen years. It had been fifteen years since he had left Seishun Gakuen behind. It had been twelve since he had graduated from high school and gone to continue his studies in America. The photographs had been one of the only worldly possessions besides clothes that he had brought with him overseas. Eight years, it had been since he graduated from his university and continued work as a professional artist and photographer. Six years, it had been since he became an official American citizen.
The events drew beautifully to a close, like the end of a movie. Fuji had just turned thirty this year, his life coming to a new stage. That stage was so blank, so empty that he no longer knew what was ahead of him.
It had been fifteen years since he had left the scene of his middle school tennis club, and the sweet memories of those days still tickled his mind, wafting past him like the sweetest scent. Fuji hadn't forgotten what it smelled like when he played all-out, the beads of sweat running down his neck, the roar up wind in his ear as he brought his racket forward quickly, feeling the power of the ball hitting his racket and traveling up his arm like electricity. A second later, the ball was traveling away from him in a blur of color, towards the other person. Fuji hadn't forgotten the fragrance that drifted across the courts when the cherry blossom trees nearby bloomed, or what it was like as a first year student to have to sweep any stray petals off the tennis courts.
Fifteen-Love
Sometimes, he wondered what it would be like to go back to those days. Sometimes, they tugged at his heart in such a manner that he thought that sometimes, just sometimes he missed those days. He wouldn't have thought so, back then. The world he lived in now was a wide-open path that he was free to explore. Fuji had power, freedom, and independence in almost all aspects. He'd managed to draw himself a comfortable life, free from worry. This had been what he wanted. Even now, people loved him, wanted to be him, reveled in his talents. This was what he had wanted. He was still 'Seigaku's prodigy' He still brought honor to his family name, even though he hadn't followed his parents' expectations by marrying a nice girl and settling down.
This is what 'Seigaku's prodigy' wanted most, always and forever. He lived proudly up to the standards that had been set for him years ago, with much ease.
Sometimes, though, he would look back and wonder what Kawamura Takashi, Echizen Ryoma, Kikumaru Eiji, Oishi Shuuichiro, Momoshiro Takeshi, Kaidoh Kaoru, and Tezuka Kunimitsu were doing right at that moment.
He missed Tezuka especially, sometimes; the last time that Fuji had talked to him, they had met on a train. That was during their third year of high school, when Fuji had been running late for school and taken a different route than usual, which had coincidentally crossed with Tezuka's. He wondered what it would be like to be able to meet with Tezuka once more. Oh, what he wouldn't give.
Fuji shook his head to separate his thoughts from his memories, and then rested his chin in his palm. Tonight was a little colder than usual, he thought as he went to retrieve a woolen sweater from his bedroom. Pulling the sweater over his head, Fuji sighed wistfully.
What he wouldn't give… To see Tezuka again, perhaps only once more…