fandom: Prince of Tennis
title: There all over again.
pairing: Tezuka + Fuji
rating: pg
description – A simple question to Tezuka led to very deep memories…

Disclaimer – Prince of Tennis isn't mine.

There all over again.
By miyamoto yui

On the night when the white moon laid on its back, half showing itself in between the clouds of the twilight, there was a smell of crispy cold air. It made me shiver.
As I stared at the small shadowed crevices lining out the spine of your back, your sharp eyes were staring into the moonlight that darkened and brightened through the window. You looked as if you were secretly exchanging messages to one another in a language not meant for me to understand. The moon was talking to you.

And I was there watching you wanting to take you again.
The sky never looked so dark at six in evening on a Fall evening as it did at that time when I was so near you and yet, the most painfully away from your thoughts. Your eyes were like polished sword, so clean to clearly cut away what I couldn't reach for.
I wondered about a billion things in between split-seconds of what I could have done. What could I do to reassure you that things were going to be okay once I moved away from you? But I knew that there was nothing that I could guarantee as collateral, that this was as far as I could go.
But you always thought so logically, that everything had to have an answer. It was so easy to have things so planned out to your advantage. And though I looked like the person to have such a philosophy of life, there was that part of me that was attached to hope itself.
From the pile up of disappointments in life, there was nothing guaranteed, but I had to believe. I just believed that if I did everything and pushed beyond even the walls of my heart and mind, purposely hurting myself like a masochist, maybe I would see something that was an answer to only me.

The separate spaces between us in heart, soul, and mind, were just that: We were different people no matter how close we became. Even after we pressed into each other's bodies and even when our sweat intermingled, in the end, because of that happiness, I would be left this bare.
Then, now, and in the future, I understood at the moment you put your polo shirt that I would be left alone in that place that you could not reach into, no matter how many times I screamed inside myself that I had always wished you could.
I wished you could have predicted something about me as well as you did when you half-opened your eyes and lifted the racket silently and arrogantly behind you and above your head. I wished you could have seen all the unspoken things I thought when I looked at the awesome you.
In the tight lightless corners, on the court, or under the sunlight, we were different to one another, but we saw each other so clearly.

As I stared at you cross your arms as you pulled on the ends of your shirt, you finally turned your head to me with an expression that was scarier than when you fully opened your eyes to become fully aware of your environment and your opponent: Your eyes were lines again, claiming indifference.
You watched me openly and that was when I knew you saw through all the things inside of me. The wish I somehow created instantly turned into some damp piece of clay that was dirty in my hands. That was when I found out that happiness meant that the more you gave, the more your senses were heightened to everything. Yes, and the more you felt, the more moody you would become because you knew what it meant to have that kind high and you knew what it meant to crash.
In happiness or in sadness, you would feel the same: Your mind was tired; your body wanted to pull itself into the ground, never to rise; your soul somehow forgot what balance was.

You were forever out of sync with yourself.

I had been thinking so deeply and looking at you, I was surprised to finally realize that you were staring at me. I wanted to catch you but you were already turning away from me. When I took a step forward, you ran away from me, and my fingertips grazed against the crisscross cotton of your polo.

And this feeling trailed after you, though it wasn't obsession or love anymore…

I wanted to hope in you because, I thought surely, if I hoped, I could finally put my energy and feelings into someone or something…

And that all led to you.

But you were there before me and you stared at me as if I had something quite shocking, disturbing even, and I went back into myself. I couldn't accept that you were okay with just bring 'average' in the 'genius' sense. It was okay to be challenged, but only to your capabilities. You didn't want to hurt yourself, nor did you want the risk of giving anything to someone that you didn't know could give you anything and equally in return. You wanted me to always be physically near you even though we drove each other crazy.
You couldn't be in a place without me, but left me alone to think when it was convenient for you.

Were people so ruled by this fear?

Yes, unfortunately, it was true.

So when I thought of that scene and when that person asked such a significantly yet innocent question out of concern, I was beside myself.
Because he was in town, Echizen-kun called me: "Do you still talk to Fuji-sempai? After you left to go to Germany again, his cel didn't work. I wondered if you had it."

In the middle of a busy street in a city near our hometown, under the brilliant sky and the smoky air, I stared blankly at the phone for a moment until I heard his voice again calling me back to reality.
I stopped walking and leaned against a railing separating me from the busy road before me. Even though under the sun, I honestly wanted to cry. I was quietly shaking and I was so mad at myself to the point that I didn't know I felt so upset and frustrated.

I didn't know how much I truly hated myself sometimes for being the way I was. That I couldn't be stupid or dependent like other people. That I couldn't admit that I could do something other than be complacent or that I was the same person that cried every night every time I thought of those words you told me,

"You're too strong for me." = I don't need someone that doesn't need me.

Was I so unmoving to you that I didn't prove myself to you? Was I so capable of making everything happen, thinking of you, that I turned myself into my own rival?
Yes, it was actually possible. The same thing that you had said attracted you to me was the very thing that you pushed to my face as if it were the worst trait to have: I had done something so wrong as to be the person that I was.

All I wanted was for us to be together. I didn't want anything else in life. I didn't ever ask for a lot, just that you be there. You didn't even need to be next to me to reassure your feelings for me.

I trusted you implicitly.

So, yes, even now as many people came up to me for advice or some sound judgment on their life or their tennis career, I was as helpful as ever. I remained unchanged in expression. To them, I had always been like this.

Under the multiple faces of Tokyo's weather, I had to learn to adapt to find small pieces of happiness each day I came back here.

For, without those things, I didn't have anything else.

There was nothing for me to really live for.

And as good as things were, as great as everything seemed when you saw what rank I was and where I was going with my students, I would still have to take the same train at night. I would still get off a station or two away just to save money and walk under the patches of trees, indicating the seasons to me with the leaves hanging or dropping to the ground.

I would still have so much time to myself though I had been next to so many people.
They told me "You don't have time to be sad, Sensei" but that's because exciting and eventful meant distractions to them. Everyone had the potential to become whatever they wanted. I happened to know that and made full use of that.
To me, these times of being with others or not were always times to reflect. Being with people made me more and more aware of how different our priorities were, and how distant our feelings were linked to our life experiences.

Though my parents worried about me even they thought I was capable of handling anything. So they didn't ever think I acted any differently than before.
They, like everyone else, thought that I had always been this way, untouched by fear, self-loathing, and other things masked by my contemplatively calm face.

Being only twenty five with the many titles and experiences I had, it made people interested in me, but they had no advice to really offer me. Their hearts and wills were not the same as mine.

It attracted and intimidated them.
It isolated me and the parts of myself even more.

Yes, walking along, even though I would somehow put that song in the cd player without realizing it and finding it again years later, I would quickly change the track number so that I wouldn't have to hear my own voice.
But being the way I was, I still somehow went back to that song to face it, even if it was just inside my mind.

To hear my innermost desire:
That I did not want to be alone,
punished for the things I had done 'right' in life.
To be told for once in my life,
"You can rest. You can take a break because I'll take care of things for a while, then you can go back to where you left off."

To have someone reliable in my life who was not scared of my opinions, my goals…
Who supported my quiet passion for life…
Who didn't think I was fake when I was pleased to take pictures randomly on the street when I saw things were honestly more beautiful than could be imagined…
Who didn't have to be selfish to be needed all the time.

Someone who wouldn't throw me away
Because I was

Being

Myself.

At that moment, my phone beeped.
Seven years later, you texted me: "I want to see you."

Being older, I knew the difference between going after a dream and catching it: they were two completely different things.

You had chosen what you did because you were you
And I had dreamed what I did, not wanting time to taint you with your ugly traits.

And that place of loneliness that I thought could be cut no deeper than the day your eyes pierced me with their brilliant, exacting gaze…

…I was there all over again.

Owari./The End.

11/18/2007 7:15:23 AM - LA
11/19/2007 12:15 AM - Tokyo