Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis.

AN: If you must know, my favorite character in the series is Shiraishi Kuranosuke. But sadly I don't write too much about him because I have so many dreams of perfection when it comes to him.

And this pairing was something I had in mind that I seriously wanted to have work out for quite a long time. I'm trying to convince my friend it'll work too.
NiouxShiraishi

Happy late birthday Niou-kun!

How did it go again? I reach out with pallid hands to the source of the warmth. Currently, the music playing back in my head is starting to disintegrate, and the sound that cannot hold onto anything slips away like liquid through my desperate fingers. I cry out from anxiety, but stop myself when I realize that I cannot hear my own voice anymore. I want to sing, but the lyrics were long lost as if the melody never had them to begin with. I mouth something, but it's unfamiliar and I spit it out as if it were bitter. The song had been in my memory for as long as I can remember, but perhaps over time it had eroded and reconstructed into something else? I try to hum, but the memory had strained long enough to hold onto the old harmony. There through my fingers I see the floor, and in vain, I shut the world out to linger in the world of deafening buzzing.

I noticed you sometime during the tournament. I wasn't supposed to wander away from the usual group, but who was I to listen to what they told me? It was natural that I disobey, as if I was programmed to do all the wrong things. I've had my share of pain in this world, and through it, it seemed I learned where my place was. Everyone knew what I would do, and at the same time, they knew nothing about me. By the time lying became as natural as my breathing, it was too late for me. It wasn't as if I regretted that decision for I had utter confidence that was the way I was meant to be. You've changed everything.

Tennis was a part of my life for as long as I could remember. Maybe even longer where I couldn't remember, tennis was part of the destiny that was foretold, embedded into my future. I could have easily been a magician or some salesman tricking a customer into buying useless products, for I was a master as deceiving others. This kind of talent, I was born with, but instead of using it to my advantage I dug a deep hole for myself by playing tennis. It was as the others said, that tennis was a passionate sport. It was a sport where you bring out your truth self to clash with another in a battle of skill, power and wit. I believed it, but the way I played made fun of it, as if it weren't important. That kind of attitude towards the court ended me up with a doubles partner, a gentleman who understood the importance in responsibility. However, he was just a nice addition to the team, someone who seemed to understand in my place the importance of winning and to cover where I lacked in this game I played. Sure I respected him, and even thought of him as a friend, but with you something was different.

Watching your form, I was trembling from anticipation. From your play, you planted a seed of doubt in my heart.

It wasn't that passionate energy or the winning spirit that intrigued me so much, but when you raised your racquet it responded soundly as if there wasn't an impossible. The calmness you displayed against deadly odds was a form that showed no doubt in ability. Someone so true to oneself even if it wasn't even cool. And behind it, a past of hardship that made you surpass the title of ordinary human. Which, you were. Ordinary amongst the line of other talented, natural born tennis geniuses. Yet, the realization that even if a human works hard, even if hard means ten times, even one hundred times as much as one genius then you would be able to catch up, made you the bible.

And I stood, watching in awe at the sight as you won. The seed of doubt growing inside me as I realized, even if I had talent, I might be using it in the wrong place. But one thing was certain. No matter how I looked at it, tennis was all I had other then the ability to deceive. I watched you carefully, and for a moment I wanted to become like you. There were many out there who I could have been, and I wanted to be like you. I hid behind the shadows, but the heat was too strong. Being a liar wounded me when I realized there was no way I would be able to reach out to you. For if you place your hand on a bible, you must speak the truth. I had no confidence in spilling my mind now when I had guarded the secret of my identity like a guard in front of an ancient treasure. No one could remember what was inside because it had been locked away for so many years. Was there anything inside to begin with…?

During my match, I lost. I thought I had observed, and in contrast to the overwhelming feeling I had when I watched your game, I felt defeated, feeling the weight of something called a limit humans possessed. I realized that there was something one cannot do no matter how hard they try, and that is to become someone else. I lost my calm during that game, when I saw my opponent do something I had never seen before. Because I am not you, I frantically searched in my mind for what you would do in that situation. I never thought about what I would do, because I did not know what I was. In that moment, somewhere in my memory, I became desperate laying them out to see which ones were really mine and which ones were someone else's. As I thought, I couldn't tell them apart. It was truly funny how I became a trickster to the point that I started to deceive even myself. Then I felt like crying, but stopped because I didn't know who's emotions they were.

The ground started to swirl, maybe the heat was getting to me, but there seemed to be someone standing ahead of me glowing as brightly as if he descended from the heavens. Hah, there was no fucking way that was possible. Because a real person couldn't be so bright by just standing there…

"Niou…kun, was it?"

My heart seemed to stop for a split second before beating again, and accelerating. I was frightened by the voice, and it was rare for me to be afraid of anyone but myself. Even Sanada and Yukimura weren't able to waver me like you did. I refused to look up, pretending that the sun in my eyes was a harmful thing, you approached me but also kept your distance. It was fine with me, and it was perhaps even better that way. But I came out of the world of no sound, only because your voice was soothing and I wanted to hear more of it.

"I saw your match with Fuji-kun. Your trickery is truly an amazing thing. But- if you were going to use me as an example I wished you would have won."

You laughed, and even your voice gave me a vision of light in the darkness. I shut my eyes tightly wondering if this was what it meant to be confronted by truth. I shuddered, feeling like if you spoke any more then all my lies would vanish and there wouldn't be anything left of me anymore. As if I wasn't born human but as a set of lies and all the wrong things in Pandora's box put together in an aura of black finally being cleansed by the hands of 'the truth'. Yet, even if I ceased to exist because of that, the thought actually comforted me more then did harm. In this kind of time where I couldn't figure out what to do, I just wanted to vanish. The sad truth was, I was really human; flesh and blood.

You have treated my actions as if nothing was wrong, but I felt you understood there was something going on inside of me. And then you sat next to me and started to play with the end of your bandage and I could only peek from the side to watch your arm as you did so. I did not speak, and rather held my breath, wondering the whole time if you could see right through me.

But I knew.

I knew that you were just a human too, and humans weren't able to read minds or understand other humans and everything that happened without experiencing the same pain or talking to each other. Even so, some were still ignorant of others, because the truth was, they only truly cared about themselves. When they were faced with death, only a select few would choose a select few to die in place for and that kind of bond only happened overtime. In the end, it was also for themselves, because of the pain of losing someone so important becomes unbearable. And the other half that they died for will soon experience that pain after they left them behind. That's what I believed because that's all that I saw. People being brave and gallant and everything like that, to me it was just a lie… Even so it felt like you understood me, and even when I knew that was my wishful thinking, it soothed me to some extent.

The sun hid behind a cloud and cast a ray through its holes creating the illusion that there were breaks in heaven's ground and even though the ray was too bright to see, if you squint you could see paradise.

"Beautiful isn't it?"

I hesitated. I didn't realize I raised my head to look at the sight ahead. I only nodded curtly, looking away from the golden light.

"If you like it, why don't you just say so. You're a bit of a strange one."

I frowned, but still refused to open my mouth. I was supposed to be used to comments like that telling me I'm one oddball or that my behavior wasn't normal. Although they were people I didn't really know or even if I knew them it didn't bother me because most of the time I wasn't acting like myself, and they were usually victims of my tricks. However, coming from you, it truly struck me. I wondered why that was.

"Niou-kun?"

Then I realized it a bit too late. You were looking at me with straightforward eyes and it stung. I looked down at my hand, unable to look directly into your eyes. I knew that you didn't understand me, but you really didn't need to. You were talking to me and no one else. When you looked at me you only saw me for who I was. Niou Masaharu. I grinned lightly, surprised at my own emotion towards you that were right in front of me. It may have been a start of something mysterious stirring up inside me, but at the moment I didn't care.

It only took that much to realize that no matter who I was, there was still me underneath everything that only you were able to see, and show me in that instant. It was amazing to be seen by someone in this way, and I truly grasped the fact why you were the 'bible'. And it wasn't just tennis. Then the familiar music flowed back into my mind, as if it had been there all along. A song with no words, the melody with no known instrument. The song I was born with, the one that gave me my title of trickster. So to return the debt, I did what I did best, and that was to deceive.

"I think you're beautiful."

But if that was really a lie, I didn't know either.