May I present to you:
The Cheesiest Romance in the Histoy of Fanfiction
OR: How Fuji Realized That He Really IS A Corny Bastard
(titles that I auditioned, but determined too long to serve as the official name)
By: Rennes
A blossom fell from the cherry tree, drifting here and there on the wind, as if in a ballet before coming to rest on Fuji's nose.
He was lying in the still-dew-damp shade of the cherry tree in the school courtyard with his captain. Fuji's eyes went crossed for a moment as he looked down at the petal, then he gingerly lifted it off and held it up against the sun so he could see the slivers of plant veins inside it. He brought the petal down to his lips, not really in a kiss, but just to feel it against his skin and smell the earth.
"Tezuka…"
"…Mmm?" The bespectacled boy rolled over to face Fuji, still bleary from his nap, stretching his long limbs.
"What is it?" he prompted when Fuji said nothing. Fuji simply reached over and dropped the petal on Tezuka's forehead.
Tezuka looked carefully up at it and plucked it off. Pale, fragile, beautiful…rather like Fuji really, he mused.
"I wonder why spring came so early this year," Fuji said softly, rolling over as well, to rest the side of his face in the grass. "Not that I'm complaining or anything…but it's strange, isn't it?"
Tezuka reached uncertainly over to the tensai, whose pale skin was graced by silken strands of ginger bangs. His hand wavered over the scene, not wanting to destroy a perfect vision.
Fuji smiled mischievously, as if knowing what Tezuka was thinking.
"Go ahead, then," he challenged, opening his eyes.
Tezuka looked into the cerulean orbs and saw the summer.
"Fuji, your eyes are like the summer," Tezuka said.
There was silence for several moments as the wind ruffled Fuji's hair and he looked into the hazel eyes of the taller man who was watching him adoringly.
Then he burst into laughter.
There was a noise of someone tutting loudly, and then,
"CUT!"
The director poked his head around the set of the tree and angrily pulled off the headset he had been wearing. "Fuji, what the hell?! We had almost finished the scene that time! We were almost there!"
"I—can't—do—it—" Fuji was rolling on the ground, almost hyperventilating with laughter. "I—can't—do it—it's too much…"
He choked on his own spit and starting coughing like crazy and the director stalked over to his star and gave him a kick in the back to stop him from dying.
"Fuji how many times do we have to go through this? You—fall—in—love—with—Tezuka—and—live—happily—ever—after!"
He enunciated each word by slamming his head against the cardboard tree on the set. The director was at the end of his rope. They had been filming this scene for three weeks without success because Fuji couldn't keep a straight face when Tezuka professed his love.
Speaking of Tezuka, said boy sat up, and brushed fake grass off his jacket. "Sir, that can't be good for your head—" he said softly.
"Shut up!" the director screamed, but pulled away nevertheless. "I'm sick of you! I'm sick of this! We've been trying to film this movie for over four months now and it just isn't working! Why, Fuji, why can't you just be normal for once?!"
Fuji finally got control of his laughter and stood up.
"I'm sorry—" he began.
"No, you aren't! No you fucking aren't! You do this every day!"
"I'm taking five, guys," Tezuka muttered quietly, sidestepping out of the scene, but neither Fuji nor the director noticed.
"It's like you enjoy screwing up the whole movie!" the director concluded.
"It's nothing of the sort! It's just…how can I take this seriously?!" Fuji whipped out his copy of the script. "Eyes, eyes…" he muttered, scanning the paper. "Ah! Here!" he pointed. "Cerulean orbs. What the hell?! My eyes are BLUE, for godssake, colored pencil BLUE. BE-LUE! Not cerulean, not cobalt, not azure or anything else like that! And why do you have to call my eyes 'orbs' for godssake? They're EYEBALLS. At least call them what they are! Why do you have to make it so corny?"
"Because that's what sells, damn it!" the director screamed. "Fuji, picture this: you're a thirteen year old girl and you've just gotten used to your 'new body'."
Fuji frowned, trying to imagine this, but failing.
"Now, throw Prince of Tennis into the mix. You see where I'm going?"
"Not really," said Fuji.
"We want action, Fuji!" cried the director. "Hardcore action! We want Tezuka to sweep you off your feet and take advantage of you while you squeal like a piglet!"
"But sir—" Fuji was crossed between the desire to laugh and to wail in despair, "I'm going to kill myself if anyone calls my hair ginger or honey again. And 'the taller man'?" Fuji was really working hard not to laugh more. "I know you're trying to make the protagonist seem masculine, but first of all, Tezuka is about the meekest, quietest bastard that ever existed. And secondly, there's no way I could get lost in his hazel eyes or whatever, even if I tried. The glare off his glasses is to bright!"
Fuji paused for breath and started to flip furiously through the script again. "And what about these later parts of the movie? My mom dies and I become destitute and start prostituting myself? I mean, what the HELL?! How do people even come UP with this shit?!"
"Oh, really? You know what? Fine, then. FINE!" the director, whose blood pressure had been on the rise for the last five minutes, exploded. "What's your idea then, Rising Star? Hm? What would you have me do?"
Fuji thought about that for a moment seriously, patting his chin. Tezuka had come back, now sipping a tall strawberry smoothie.
"How about it, Fuji?" the director jeered. "This is your chance. Tell us all. What do you want?"
"What do I want?" Fuji suddenly asked, looking at the director. "This is what I want!" he lifted the script for all of them to see, and then dramatically tore it in two. The director and Tezuka both gasped.
"Fuji…you…can't be serious!" the director cried, shocked out of his fury.
"I am. I am!" Fuji cried dramatically with a faraway look in his eyes. "I want a romance I don't have to memorize! I want a tree that's made of wood! I want an unscripted life!"
"DOUBLE GASP," Tezuka dropped his drink.
"Fuji, the real world is not nearly as romantic as they make it out to be," the director soothed. "They're just a bunch of phonies who pretend that everything is "real" and "swell" when it really isn't—"
"Director-sir, you just described us." Fuji pointed out.
"TRIPLE GASP!"
"I've decided," Fuji said. "I can't live like this anymore; it doesn't motivate me and I'm just not a corny bastard! I'm leaving! I'm off to find a real man to love, not this douche—" he gestured at Tezuka who simply looked like an awkward adolescent with oversized hands at this point. "See you on the other side, losers!"
Fuji pranced away, leaving Tezuka in an extremely awkward silence with the director.
"Well, that was the worst take we've ever had," said the director flatly. "It's a pity Fuji wasn't in a dress; I could have used that scene for my next movie if he had been…" He trailed off and turned away. "C'mon, we have work to do now. We need to find a new uke."
"You really think Fuji's gone for good?" Tezuka asked cautiously.
"Nah," the director dismissed this thought. "A week, tops. But still, maybe we can finish the scene if we substitute in a puppet for Fuji…"
oOoOoOoOoOo
Fuji began his new life the next day as a one hundred percent normal, average and totally unremarkable person.
"Ah, I feel so liberated!" he said aloud, stepping out of his house into the morning sunlight with a jolly spring to his step. "From now on, I'm calling the shots! Everything's going to go my way!"
It was a matter of pure coincidence that just as Fuji was about to step off the curb, about ten cars honked at him, forcing him to hop back onto the pavement and wait at the crosswalk for the light to change with everyone else.
Fuji decided that the first thing he wanted to do with his new life that morning was get a nice creamy ice cream cone. Just because he hadn't been allowed to have one for the past two years because his personal trainer kept saying that Fuji needed to keep the weight off his hips.
Everywhere Fuji went, he attracted stares because of his dazzling beauty and more-than-outrageously-gay attire. He soon had a handful of semes following him at a short distance with their mouths watering.
The ice cream shop was closed. Fuji stared at it for a moment before drooping like a flower in winter. No ice cream this morning. Apparently no one else got cravings for a cone at 7:30 am.
1. And so Fuji experiences the pains of the free-market system
"Ah, well it's only a minor setback," said Fuji finally, forcing himself to smile even though he was really crying on the inside. "I'll just have to make my morning special some other way. He sat down on a bench to think for a while.
"What did I always want to do when I had a normal life, off camera? What do commoners do?" he asked himself. It had seemed like an interesting and important question that morning, but Fuji realized that he didn't really know an answer to it.
Then he snapped his fingers as a lightbulb went on.
"I've got it!" he cried, causing a flock of crows perching on the bench to take flight in alarm. "Normal people haggle with health insurance companies! Yes! It's brilliant, absolutely brilliant!"
So Fuji called up some health insurance companies, intending on getting some good arguing done, but since he was a first timer, they were actually all really nice to him and offered him deals that sounded great (because that's what insurance companies do to first-timers) and actually made him feel very secure about his future were he ever to get in any kind of accident.
2. And so Fuji gets drawn into the web of security that insurance companies weave before stealing all your money
"Well, that was anti-climactic," Fuji said moodily, shutting his cell phone. "They were so nice! I wonder why everyone hates them…"
Feeling bored, Fuji dropped his chin into his hands. Surely there had to be more things he had wanted to accomplish! His eyes lit up as he remembered the final thing: tomatoes! Yes! He had always wanted to buy cheap canned goods! It was quintessential normal! If someone were to write an epic novel about normal-ness, canned tomatoes would be chapter one!
Feeling re-energized, Fuji jumped to his feet and searched until he found an open grocery store. He went in with a plastic basket and bought several cans of diced tomatoes and then he decided that he might as well go down to the old part of town where he used to live and eat the tomatoes in his childhood playground. Because apparently that's what you do when you're bored in Prince of Tennis. You visit random childhood sites.
Fuji arrived and sat down on a swing with his grocery bag. He took one of the cans of tomatoes out and looked at it.
There was a very long pause.
Then he realized he didn't know how you open these things. Sure, he had just seen them on t.v. before, but he had never actually bought one, let alone open it.
Fuji tried throwing it on the ground, but that didn't help. He tore at it, bit it, knocked it against the wooden frame of the swing set, but nothing worked. Finally, in frustration, Fuji flung it as hard as he could onto the pavement where someone had painted white lines for hopscotch, and the can exploded, spraying diced tomatoes in every direction, all over the black concrete.
Fuji felt like crying. He trooped back over to the swing set and slumped down. Who was he kidding? He didn't know how to be normal. He couldn't even open a can of tomatoes, for God's sake. But I can't go back to the director already, with my tail between my legs, he thought miserably. It'll be way too embarrassing. Fuji wondered if the director was having as many problems without his star as Fuji was having without his job.
--Back at the Director's Place—
"Okay Jirou," said the director to Fuji's replacement, "now you look deeply into Tezuka's eyes and tell him that you love him."
Jirou glanced at Tezuka, who was determinedly staring off into a space to the right of Jirou, a blush creeping up his neck.
"I love you," said Jirou.
"Good. Now say he's the manliest man you've ever seen and you want to—"
Jirou snorted loudly.
"I know it's cheesy," said the director patiently. "But you can manage."
But Jirou kept laughing, because actually what was funny to him was describing Tezuka as "manly".
---Anyway---
As Fuji sat there sniffling, it started to get cold and he looked up nervously at the storm clouds forming overhead. It had started out as a beautiful day—was it going to rain now? A sharp clap of thunder made him jump to his feet and he started to walk briskly, looking for some sort of shelter.
Rain started to come down in miniscule whips to his back, creeping down his neck and making him cringe with discomfort. Fuji increased his pace to a run, seeing the umbrellas of an outdoor café up ahead, thinking he could get shelter under them for a while. Focusing on the ground as he ran, Fuji did not see the other man approaching him, eyes also on the ground. The two collided head-on, causing Fuji to drop his grocery bag.
He almost started crying as the canned foods starting rolling all over the place. The other man, who had apparently had his eyes on the ground as well, quickly dropped to his knees, apologizing and helped Fuji frantically pick up the rolling cans. Their foreheads almost touched and they looked up at the same moment. Their eyes met.
Fuji almost swooned at the sight of the electrifying ocean eyes, rounded with concern. Even if they were obviously just contact lenses, since asians have brown eyes. He was the most handsome, delectable, dreamy archetype of manly goodness Fuji had ever seen and he damn near almost said so to the man's face. The man smiled mysteriously and said, "I'm really sorry about that," in the sexiest tenor Fuji had ever heard. He allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.
"What's your name?" the man asked Fuji.
"Fuji Syuusuke," Fuji replied breathlessly, forgetting about the rain. "Who are you?"
"They call me Saeki," he said, as an incredibly manly theme music started to play, sound coming from no identifiable source. He flashed a handsome-as-hell smile that made Fuji weak in the knees. "Care to join me for a drink?"
Completely forgetting about his canned tomatoes, Fuji limply followed Saeki into the café, auditioning various sexy nicknames for him in his head.
"So why haven't I seen you around before?" Saeki asked as they took their seats at a small wooden table by the window that had been miraculously reserved for them.
"It's my first time in this part of town," Fuji admitted, looking down at his hands. "I was an actor until yesterday when I decided that I—"
"Wanted to see how the rest of the world lived." Saeki finished for him, nodding understandingly. "It's the old story. You wanted to branch out. Feel life for what it really is in all its beauty and imperfections," he paused. "That's right, isn't it?" he asked softly.
Fuji's eyes widened in awe.
Saeki nodded again. "I can understand that," he clarified, in case his nodding had not quite gotten the message across.
"You have no idea what fools they are at the studio, though!" Fuji exclaimed. "They'll do anything to make a buck! They'll literally sell anything and I got fed up with it!"
A waitress came to take their orders.
"I'll have the manliest thing on the menu," said Saeki casually without even looking at her as she served them tea. A hint of Saeki's theme music started to play as he said this, but then it figured, 'oh, what the hell; I don't get paid enough for this crap' and it faded away before anyone could really be sure they had heard it. The waitress looked a little unnerved, but bowed and backed away.
"Lately, I've just been so disillusioned with the whole acting-scene," Fuji said sadly, fingering his cup of tea once he and Saeki were alone again. "It's like it's not even about making art anymore. We're just selling stimulation to kids who don't know better."
"Well, there must have been something you liked about the career," Saeki said concernedly, leaning one cheek on his hand. "How did you get into acting in the first place?"
"My mom signed me up when I was seven," Fuji admitted. "I was one of those child actors in Tylenol commercials. I was also a model for a while."
Fuji took a sip of his tea. "I was really into it all throughout my childhood, until I was about fifteen. Then, even when I wanted to branch out and try different things, I couldn't because I had skipped so much school to do acting contracts that I didn't have any other skills. So I was more stuck with acting than anything else. It's all I've ever known."
"Must be hard." Saeki was starting to rub Fuji's calf with his foot under the table.
"Yeah. And then when I was sixteen, I started Prince of Tennis and that just opened up a whole new can of worms."
"Prince of Tennis?" Saeki's foot paused momentarily at the mention of the famous show. "What happened with that?"
"I…it was…" Fuji sighed and shook his head. "I don't even know anymore. I don't know if it was them or me. It started out being about tennis and I was working hard, but then they kept shaving my screen time and I lost my motivation."
"Ah," Saeki said.
"Yeah, I just…" Fuji rubbed the back of his neck, sighing again. "I don't know. By the end of the second season, I was wasted all the time. I would come onto set still drunk from the night before, making up the lines as I went along and never opening my eyes because they were so bloodshot…" Fuji's voice broke and he looked away apologetically, rubbing his hands together.
He continued, "Then it took three years to kick the meth addiction. By the time I finally did, the damage was already done. Apparently now I was a genius tennis player who served disappearing balls—"
The corners of Saeki's mouth twitched.
"—and everyone in fandom was already calling me 'Sadist Fuji' and pairing me with Tezuka, so I figured I might as well just go with it. Then, as you probably know, Prince of Tennis ended, but my relationship with Tezuka was so popular that the director had us launch this whole new series based off me and Tezuka, and I just got so fed up with it all one day that I just…left."
Fuji stopped talking and took another sip of his tea.
"I don't know what came over me…" he said apologetically as Saeki regarded him under his painfully manly stare. "It just…all came out. I guess I feel like I can talk to you."
Saeki paused, then leaned forward and took Fuji's hands in his own. "You can tell me anything," he said seriously, looking deeply into Fuji's eyes. "I would never judge you or laugh at you."
"Oh, Saeki…" Fuji's eyes welled with happy tears and he gently dabbed them away. "That means so much coming from a guy I've known for ten minutes!"
"Please…call me Kojirou," said Saeki.
They gazed lovingly into each other's eyes for about ten seconds. They both jumped and broke hand contact at the sound of someone clearing her throat and looked up to see the waitress with their orders.
"So listen, Fuji…" Saeki started to say as she laid the plates before them.
"Call me Syuusuke," said Fuji, blushing and looking bashfully down at his lap.
Saeki smiled and the waitress scurried off to avoid puking on them both.
"Syuusuke, I hear all that you say, but I still think that you should consider going back to acting."
"Why would you say that?" Fuji asked in surprise.
"Well, acting has been your life up until now. "It's your talent, your calling. By the sounds of it, you work with a director who really wants you on the job. And besides, you're too beautiful not to be shared with the world," Saeki added.
"Maybe," Fuji said. "But I completely yelled at him the other day for being so corny."
Saeki frowned, thinking. "You know what else just occurred to me?" he said. "Why just talk about how corny the movies are? Why not try to change that?"
"What…reform the movie business?" Fuji said slowly.
"Exactly!" Saeki started to get excited. "The world needs entrepreneurs such as yourself with big ambitions and shapely legs! You could go back and show them how it's done! You could engender a whole new generation of movie making!"
"It sounds good…" Fuji admitted, starting to get interested. "But I don't know if I have it in me. For the last few years, I've really lost my motivation."
"Oh, don't worry about that. I can motivate you," Saeki said, looking at him with bedroom eyes.
At this point, everyone in the restaurant choked on whatever he was eating at that moment, but when Saeki and Fuji looked around curiously, none of them made eye contact, so they figured that they had just imagined it.
"Kojirou—it stopped raining!" Fuji said, noticing out the window that the sun had started too come out. "I think this might be a sign! You know, maybe you're right—maybe I can get my motivation back!"
"Of course you can," Saeki smiled genially. "Syuusuke, are you really hungry?"
"No." Fuji said, realizing this for the first time as he looked down at his food.
"Then why don't we go find your motivation right now? For lack of better expression, let's blow this popsicle stand!"
Fuji didn't know what that meant, but when Saeki jumped to his manly feet, Fuji couldn't help but take Saeki's hand and follow suit before skipping out of the restaurant, leaving everyone inside looking after them in shocked disbelief.
"Mommy, what's that?" a four year old asked his mother, pointing at Saeki and Fuji holding hands.
She sighed and covered the child's eyes. "I'll tell you when you're older."
oOoOo
Outside, the rain had all cleared up. The sun started to peer again through the trees, the flowers turned to follow Saeki and Fuji as they pranced through the streets, arm in arm; and—was that a rainbow?
"Oh, I'm so happy to have met you, Kojirou!" Fuji gushed. "You've really changed my way of thinking! I can't wait to get inspired!"
"Let me show you this town, Syuusuke!" Saeki said. "This is where I've gotten my motivation since I was a child!"
"Hurrah!"
The two of them frisked around town: they played a sweet little game of mini golf in which Saeki helped Fuji improve his swing; they took photos of each other for their facebooks; they went shopping at all the ridiculous stores and tried on silly hats together; Saeki pulled some of that shit where you get someone to straddle the city lines and then tell them that they're in two places at once, and they generally just fell in love in about two hours. Finally, they went to the beach where they spent a lovely romantic time staring out at the waves gleaming with the setting sun.
"Kojirou…" Fuji murmured.
"Mmm?"
"This is it. I understand it all now; it makes sense. I've found my motivation."
Saeki chuckled manly…ly. "And where is it?" he asked in his sonorous voice, turning to Fuji.
"…It's right here." Fuji said softly, looking up at Saeki from under his honeyed eyelashed. "You are my motivation!"
Saeki smiled gently. He leaned his forehead in and rested it against Fuji's. He was about to kiss Fuji when he suddenly paused and sharply turned his head around.
"For God's sake, will you cut that out?! It's driving me crazy!"
"Awww….." the random guy who had been following them around, playing "L-O-V-E" on a portable stereo sadly switched it off and walked away with his head bowed.
"Now where were we?" Saeki turned back to Fuji and kissed him, and coincidentally at that moment, some teens down the beach who had been playing with fireworks accidentally set them off and there was a beautiful display of gold and red flashes over the heads of the two passionately in love young men.
"You know, Kojirou," Fuji said when they broke apart. "You're right! Let's go back and reform the acting business! Now that I have my motivation, I can do anything!"
"Whatever you want, darling." Saeki took his had and the two of them flew back to Fuji's studio. Actually they took a bus, but "flew" sounds much more romantic, don't you think?
oOoOo
The director was in the middle of shooting a love scene with Jirou and Tezuka and they were on take twenty-three.
"No, no, NO!" the director was screaming when Saeki and Fuji showed up on the scene. "Jirou, you have to thrust your body onto his like a wanton adolescent in the budding of his youth! Show some more emotion here; you too, Tezuka—"
"Director-sama, I'm back!" Fuji announced, walking right into the set in front of all the cameras.
"QUADRUPLE GASP!"
Everyone on set went quiet.
"Fuji…you're back?" the director was afraid to raise his hopes. When Fuji didn't burst out laughing, his eyes started to well with grateful tears.
"Oh, thank God!" he cried, wiping his streaming eyes. "It's been an absolute nightmare without your talent here; I'm so glad you decided to come back! What changed your mind, dear Fuji!?"
"This man," Fuji said, pointing to Saeki. "I thought that I didn't care any more and there was nothing in this world that could move me. But then as I was running through the rain, I bumped into this man and I found someone who I connected with—really connected with, like a USB cable! We spent the afternoon together and he helped me find my inspiration—honest, you can check my facebook pictures!"
The director looked bewilderedly at Saeki, clearly unable to believe this shit. Tezuka started to feel quite awkward from where he was lying in a stage bed with Jirou and he gingerly got out and tiptoed away to find a robe.
"It's true!" said Saeki grandly. "I met this beautiful young man and I felt his pain! We spilled our souls to each other and then we embarked on a mission to motivate Syuusuke!"
And the word "motivate", the director choked, caught between a laugh and a gasp, and started coughing, but Fuji and Saeki were lost in each other's eyes for a moment and did not notice.
Fuji spoke again. "You see, when I spent that cold, unforgiving morning out on the streets, I learned something: real life is completely over-rated. Why not have a camera on you at all times? Why the hell not?"
"I suppose…" said the director uncertainly.
"And with the power of my new love—" Fuji jumped into Saeki's arms. "I'm ready to come back into this sector of the world and change film-making forever!"
The director looked on in complete and utter shock, as did Tezuka, who had come back with a robe, and Jirou who was still in the stage bed with the covers pulled up to his chin.
"Why, Fuji!" cried the director, finding his tongue. "You realize what this means, don't you? You really are a corny little bastard, after all!"
"I realized I am," Fuji agreed, nodding sagely. ["You see, while some of us might dream of high ideals and make fun of silly situations that happen in movies, when it comes down to it, if we were faced with the same situation, most of us would probably do the same thing!"]--(author's message)
"QUINTIPLE GASP!"
"Oh come on, 'quintuple' isn't even a word," muttered Tezuka, but everyone ignored him.
"But there's one condition to my return!" Fuji said dramatically, dismounting from Saeki's arms. "I want Saeki to play the main character, not that douche!" said Fuji, pointing at Tezuka.
"Fair enough," said the director, sensing that it would be better to give Fuji what he wanted. He paused. "But, wait…what am I supposed to do about Jirou?"
"Fuck Jirou." said Saeki disdainfully.
"I WILL!" the room was suddenly full of drooling semes. We're not sure how they got in.
"No, no, I didn't mean, fuck Jirou…..oh, forget it." Saeki tried to explain but trailed off when he saw that no one was listening to him.
"Well, I guess that's taken care of," said Fuji, smiling brilliantly as Jirou was carried off on the shoulders of a figure that looked suspiciously like Atobe, but we can't really tell under the hooded cloak. "Saeki, let's made a beautiful movie together!"
"Oh, I love you, Syuu-chan!"
"I love you, too!"
They started smooching and Tezuka and the director looked at each other awkwardly, wondering what to do.
"I'm fired, aren't I?" asked Tezuka finally.
"You said it," said the director.
Tezuka sighed. "It's back to looking for a role that doesn't require a personality or any particular skill in acting…maybe Naruto has some options…"
He trooped out the door, still in a bathrobe, and more fireworks went off inside the studio from some unknown source as Fuji and Saeki flew to the moon in the zenith of their happiness. Figuratively speaking, of course.
The End!