AN: I'm so sorry I have been non-existent in quite a really long while :( I have been SMOTHERED by med school, and most days all I can think about are case studies and diseases (I have become quite the successful hypochondriac) and OHMYGODPLEASELETMESLEEPIWILLDIE.

But I've been writing in my (mythical) free time, and while none of the other chapters of my current stories that I've been snail-writing are good enough to actually publish, I have this with me. Sort of.

This idea stuck to me and kept EATING away and I just had to write it. It's about three chapters, although the third one's sort of more like an epilogue, really. So. Please enjoy.

Warnings (for this fic): It's fantastical and the timeline is seriously screwed in some places, so I ask you guys to please suspend reality for quite a bit while reading this. Be sufficiently warned.

The Best of All Lies

one.

first year

Fuji Syusuke meets him on his freshman year in Seigaku. It's inevitable, because he is someone who cannot be missed (and he still isn't, Fuji's sure), not with his strong presence and calculating eyes that are considerably far too wise for a boy of twelve, maybe thirteen.

Back then, he hasn't quite grown into himself just yet – short for his age with brand new glasses he looks like he hasn't gotten the hang of wearing. Fuji watches him covertly, from behind closed lids while his brand new best friend of one day, Eiji, is talking to him and the boy with the strange hairstyle that Eiji's introduced as his soulmate. Fuji watches the sun catch the brilliant hazel color of his eyes, watches the breeze play lightly with his tousled hair. He doesn't smile, and somehow, to Fuji, that only makes him look even more welcoming.

He glances briefly on his palm, on the name written there that only he can see and no one else. It's written in a script that's not Fuji's own, a script that Fuji will one day be looking at for the rest of his life. He's memorized the name that's written there, has known it since the day when he first realized what it really represents. He folds his fingers over it, and watches the handsome boy with the tousled hair and hazel eyes whose name he doesn't even know.

Eiji is beckoning him closer, and Fuji feels hopeful.

He looks like a Keigo.

Later, when Fuji is alone, he tries to tell himself that he imagined that moment of crushing disappointment once he's found that Tezuka's name was not the name that he wanted.

He succeeds until he doesn't.

(It's rather pathetic - how it doesn't take him very long.)

.

Everyone that's ever born in the world has a soulmate. The names on people's palms go back, way, way back, even before history started recording their presence. It's just there, and scientists like to explain them away with smart words like evolution and adaptation – that somehow, the genetic code is all-knowing and godlike that it can even give you the best chance of finding the perfect fit.

Fuji is ten when he decides to stop listening to all this bullshit. Because it is bullshit. The scientists don't know what they're talking about; after years and years of research, they're still just as clueless as Fuji is.

He knows this, the soulmate marks aren't a chance. They're just another limitation that binds everybody, that humans can't run away from. They only take away yet another choice they could have been making in this life.

If humans were born to love, why can't they choose?

Why did something have to tell them who they should and shouldn't love?

Why did the universe feel the need to dictate this, too?

He tells all this to Yumiko, who gives him one long grown-up look, then smiles gently, lovingly gathers him into her arms and calls him her darling boy. Her voice cracks, like she's holding her tears at bay but failing.

It's not until he grows up that he understands what Yumiko can do, and why what she saw made her sad.

.

"I don't think they even realize that we're still here."

Fuji steals a glance at Tezuka's impassive face. He looks like he hasn't moved at all since the last time Fuji's stolen a glance, but it's still a far sight better than having to watch Oishi and Eiji be all over each other. The story goes that they are soulmates that found each other very young, the lucky bastards. Fuji doesn't quite eat that story up as much as the next starry-eyed girl, because if they had found each other at five, wouldn't they be able to stand not being codependent by now? They are twelve.

Tezuka grunts, but it's easy to tell that's he's just about as exasperated as Fuji is. He glances at the soulmates across the booth from them again and – "...Are they feeding each other?"

Tezuka shrugs, looks down at his own green tea ice cream. He brushes Fuji's shoulders slightly when he moves, and Fuji resists the urge to touch that spot, feel that blooming warmth himself. "It's a thing of theirs," Tezuka says.

"I noticed," Fuji replies dryly, though he's still smiling. "They have a lot of things."

Tezuka grunts again. For a while, there's only comfortable silence interrupted by the occassional 'Say ahhh~' from Eiji as he feeds his blushing-but-still-grinning soulmate strawberry ice cream.

"Maybe we should get our own thing," he muses, swinging his legs back and forth in his seat. "Like coffee, maybe? Before practice in the morning?"

Tezuka blinks at him. "Coffee is everyone's thing," he informs Fuji solemnly.

It's a very grown-up thing to say. Fuji assesses him quietly as he says it, they're close enough that he could see the golden flecks in Tezuka's eyes. They're breathtaking to look at, even now. "Not if you're British."

Tezuka smiles a little, a brief upturn of the corner of his lips. It rearranges his features, almost, makes him look younger, more open. Fuji can only just barely stop looking at him.

"Or Japanese, maybe," Tezuka answers. They both grin at each other, over a shared joke probably only they can understand.

It's not the beginning of a love story.

But it's enough.

.

As breathtaking as Tezuka is, it's even more breathtaking to watch him play tennis. There's a pureness to it, peerless in its passion, even as Tezuka holds back. Even restrained, incomplete like this, it fills Fuji with such thrill that makes him question whether, before this day, he'd really, truly been alive.

"You didn't have to stay, you know."

It's late afternoon, and he and Tezuka are still stuck in the tennis courts, picking up balls. Not even a few months into the school year, and Tezuka's somehow managed to find himself an enemy to more than half of their seniors.

It must be a talent, Fuji muses, looking up from where he's crouched down a few feet away from Tezuka, picking up the last few strays he's missed. It's either that or believe that the members of the well-renowned Seigaku tennis club could be so shallow and bitter that they'd try to impede the growth of their juniors, instead of encouraging it.

He hums to show that he's paying attention.

Tezuka sighs, wipes the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. "This is my punishment, not yours." He looks back down and repeats, "You didn't have to stay."

Fuji smiles, despite himself. "Ne, Tezuka-kun," he calls, waiting until Tezuka looks up and meets his eyes. He smiles until he can feel his eyes crinkle. "You're really left-handed, aren't you?"

Tezuka startles, though only in minimal movements. Fuji's so used to watching him that he can easily notice. He doubts anyone else can. "How...?" Tezuka's brow furrows slightly, adorably. "How did you know? Not even Ryuzaki-sensei knows."

"You're good," Fuji says. "You would have very easily won if you used your left hand."

It's not an answer. Tezuka looks unsatisfied, but that's all Fuji's willing to offer right now. Not when he knows that the other question, the one on the tip of his tongue will go unanswered by Tezuka, too.

Tezuka opens his mouth; Fuji cuts him off. "It's late. We should go home."

Tezuka shoots him a look he doesn't understand, and for a moment, Fuji is tempted to risk asking anyway. But it's only for a moment, and it's broken far too easily. Tezuka walks away, Fuji follows him. He watches their shadows mingle in the light of the setting sun, sometimes fusing into one so it's hard to tell which one belongs to who.

Fuji smiles at their shadows wistfully. If only things were that easy.

.

Fuji dreams of Tezuka, and Tezuka's tennis. He wakes up sometimes, with the same question niggling his brain, swirling over and over, like a piece of a puzzle he couldn't quite fit.

During the days, he waves to Tezuka when he sees him in the halls, smiles and makes mostly one-sided conversations. He gets to know Tezuka, delights when Tezuka lets him in, even as he puts up his barriers to everyone else.

Tezuka is passionate, so deeply passionate, single-mindedly working for a purpose, a goal. And Tezuka loves tennis more than anything, perhaps maybe even more than he will love his soulmate, though Fuji cannot judge.

He's not whimsical like Fuji, whose goals are as interchangeable as his long-term interests. (Sometimes, they're even non-existent.)

So why Tezuka-kun? Why do you hold yourself back?

It plagues Fuji even as he smiles, steals one of Tezuka's sushi, and coats it in so much wasabi, it's probably unedible to anyone else. He laughs when Tezuka glares, he can see in Tezuka's eyes that he's moved on, so used to Fuji's antics by now.

Later, he stares out of the window of his class and sighs. He can't say it, after all.

"Play a match with me."

Fuji is as mysterious as he is beautiful. Tezuka blinks at his request, complete with the sweet, disarming smile that allows people to dismiss him as harmless. They're wrong, Tezuka knows, because Fuji is far smarter than any adult would ever give him credit for. Tezuka also knows that Fuji gets a kick out of making them squirm, and getting away with it.

Tezuka almost thoughtlessly says yes, is almost willing to do anything, agree to anything to make Fuji pleased. Such is the nature of Fuji's beauty – a face that would make even the angels of western literature weep. It's a weapon in itself, and Fuji knows well how to use it.

"First years aren't allowed to play, Fuji," he says, after many internal battles. It's the responsible thing to do, Tezuka tells himself, even as he fights against the very, very, very strong temptation to give in.

"Not in practice," Fuji insists.

His wide eyes are so blue, like the sky and ocean, and Tezuka soars in them and drowns in them all at once, doesn't think anyone can look at Fuji's eyes and not be pulled in.

Tezuka is agreeing before he can even think about it.

Fuji breaks into a breathless smile, and laughter falls from his lips like pure water from the stream, tinkling, shimmering, making the surroundings suddenly lighter. He's beautiful like this, when he's real and raw and unguarded. His eyes - singlehandedly the most expressive part of him - sparkle like diamonds, like somehow they've captured all the shining stars of the galaxy in their depths.

He grabs Tezuka's hand in both of his. They are soft and slender and warm against his skin. He tells Tezuka when and where, but most of Tezuka's attention is focused somewhere else, where Fuji is squeezing Tezuka's hand gently.

Later, once Fuji's said goodbye and glided down the hallway, Tezuka looks down at the hand that Fuji's grasped. It feels as though it should have been changed somehow, changed by Fuji's touch.

The name of his soulmate stares back at him, and he closes his fingers over it because he doesn't want to see.

.

Of course, like many things Tezuka wants in his life, it doesn't really work out at all.

Tezuka feels the pain shooting up his arm, even before he's really aware of what is happening. He gasps against it, his body trembling, trying to deal with the mind-numbing agony that all concentrated on one spot.

Tezuka remembers starting tennis when he was seven. Since then, he's been pouring all his blood, his sweat, his strength, his dreams to this sport. He's trained, joined competitions, bought magazines, dedicated most of his life to enhancing himself for it.

Morbidly, Tezuka wonders, as he sinks to the ground clutching his arm, throbbing and aching and hurtshurtshurtsmakeitstop... he wonders if these seniors know that it's taken them five seconds to destroy what took Tezuka five years to build.

.

Despite the near crippling pain, Tezuka decides to play with Fuji anyway.

Years after, he will think that it's the best and worst decision of his life.

.

Fuji's anger can move mountains, make it bow down to his will from the force of it alone. His eyes flash in the light, steely, hot like blue lightning, and as he stalks toward Tezuka like an avenging angel, Tezuka finds himself unable to move.

He's yelling, yelling at Tezuka, so angry he's crumpled the front of Tezuka's shirt in his fists. He shakes with livid rage, the afternoon light like a backdrop, a halo, lighting up his normally honey hair like a match does the flame.

But Tezuka can can only pay that so much attention, because even in his anger, Fuji is beautiful. He is beautiful anywhere, anytime, in any light. There is no need for any quantifiers or any conditions – there is only the knowledge that in every sense, and in every meaning of the word, Fuji is beauty.

His heart clenches, even though Tezuka can't tell anyone what for.

It's a choice, Fuji realizes, because you always have a choice.

Right now, as he watches Tezuka struggle with his broken arm, held back beyond his control, Fuji feels like he wants to break down. He can feel the tears at the back of his lids, the sobs at the back of his throat, chokes on them.

So Fuji chooses to be angry, because he doesn't want to cry.

.

Fuji's best friend Kojiroh finds his soulmate young, too.

They're eleven when a girl tranfers into their school from somewhere in Hokkaido. She's terribly normal, with brown eyes and brown hair that's cut into a bob and curls into her jaw. She has boring interests and interprets rules so literally, it's silly.

She also has Kojiroh's name on her palm, in Kojiroh's own handwriting, just like Kojiroh's had hers ever since he'd been born.

Kojiroh thinks she's the most fascinating person in the world. (She's not.)

Slowly, very slowly, she cuts him off one by one from all the other people in his life. Kojiroh goes along with her, looks entirely blissful and content with having his entire world revolve around her, and tells Fuji that later, he'll find his own soulmate and he'll understand.

Fuji goes home that day, spends all his time staring at Atobe Keigo's name on his palm, and wonders how it will feel to love someone so intensely, they're the only thing that exist.

Fuji doesn't understand.

When he thinks about it, all he feels is miserable and lonely.

"It'll be okay," Tezuka says in the silence that engulfs them both.

It's been over a week since the disaster that was That Game. They don't speak of it, even when they find themselves together. There are things that should be kept in the past, that should stay in the memories that haunt in the dark of the night.

Fuji opens his eyes and stares at Tezuka for a very long time. Tezuka resists the urge to fidget in his gaze. He feels as if Fuji could see him, see beyond the barriers that Tezuka's kept up against most everyone in his life. As if Fuji could see his doubts, that even with the doctor's almost forced optimism, Tezuka may very well never reach his full potential in tennis again.

Fuji's eyes flutter close after what feels like an eternity. "Then let's play once more," he says, softly. "Someday, when your arm heals completely, let's play once more."

He says nothing else, he doesn't need to. Tezuka understands, without even having him say it.

You've found your limits. Now break them. Push, Tezuka.

Fuji grins at him, settling his chin on his upturned palm. "Don't let your guard down, ne, buchou?"

"Fuji," Tezuka blushes despite himself, and expends all energy so he can fight it down. "Don't call me that. I'm not the captain."

"Yet," Fuji replies easily, unperturbed, eyes opening once again. "But you will be."

The blue pierces Tezuka with their sharpness. Push.

Somehow, they really do end up having a thing. It's after practice and not coffee, because coffee shouldn't be everyone's thing. They end up in Eiji and Oishi's ice cream place, which Tezuka turns up his nose at, and Fuji laughs because gods if nothing could be more hilariously ironic. Tezuka doesn't, mostly because Fuji refuses to explain his reasoning.

Fuji finds that he likes having things (with Tezuka, although he's ignoring that).

"So, who's the name on your palm anyway?" he asks one day, trying for genuinely curious and not pushing. It's an intimate question, a discussion one has only with people one is really close to. Everybody likes to keep their soulmates for their own, at least until they've found them. It's a sacred link; it makes sense that it's also a sacred topic.

Tezuka stares at his palm for a very long time, until his ice cream (green tea, like always) starts to melt. He startles at the touch of the cool droplets on his hand, and Fuji wonders if he's overstepped.

He starts to say, "You don't have to say, if you don't-"

"Echizen," Tezuka cuts him off, voice quiet. "Echizen Ryoma."

Fuji cocks his head to the side. "Hmmm," he hums thoughtfully. "Like Samurai Nanjiroh?"

"Maybe."

Fuji bites his lip, because he feels like he can't say anything appropriate in this line of conversation any longer.

They sit in silence for a while until finally, Tezuka asks, "And you?"

Fuji looks down at his own hand, like he doesn't remember, like the name doesn't haunt him at night, like it's not imprinted into his very essence.

Like he doesn't despair at night, when he longs for someone different, all the while feeling like he's hurting some phantom person, who's probably waiting and hoping, maybe desperately, for the perfect match of his soul.

"Atobe Keigo," he says. It's easy when he says it, his lips were meant to shape these words.

But it hurts him too, because there's another name he wishes were just as easy to say.

Tezuka raises his brow. "Like The Atobe Corporation?"

Fuji blinks, pulls himself away from his musings. "Huh," he breathes. "I never actually made that connection."

"They're the richest company in Japan," Tezuka informs him, like Fuji has no idea. He does, he just never made the connection, because really, what are the odds?

He lets his lips spread into a sly teasing smile. "So, between the two of us, we have the famous tennis pro's son who is probably filthy rich, and the prominent businessman's son, also filthy rich," he summarizes. "Saa, Tezuka, we're set for life."

Tezuka gives him an incredibly unimpressed glare, which he laughs really hard at. Hysterically. It's the only thing that allows him to swallow down the sudden wave of misery that's threatening to overwhelm him. "Don't look at me like that," he says between laughs. "Think about it – what are you gonna do, when you're rich and famous?"

Tezuka's glare doesn't let up, and it only makes Fuji even more hysterical. "I'll start you up," he offers. "When I'm rich, I'm buying millions of rare cacti."

Tezuka blinks. "You're serious," he says dryly, although it also sounds like an extremely condescending question.

"Just think about thousands upon thousands of those darlings in their pots," Fuji sighs into his daydreams teasingly.

"You're seriously spending your money on cacti."

"Millions of them," Fuji pauses, and then smiles. "With fancy pots."

Tezuka looks like he's seriously contemplating on laughing at Fuji for his silliness. Fuji can see it in his eyes and he pouts. "Well, what about you, huh?" he retorts. "Doubt you can get anything better than cacti."

"When I'm rich," Tezuka pauses thoughtfully. "I'll probably get a collection of bonsai."

It's Fuji's turn to blink, because seriously. "Bonsai."

"But only a greenhouse of them, maybe," Tezuka continues, looking at Fuji pointedly.

"You don't have a greenhouse," Fuji shoots back.

Tezuka shrugs uncaringly. "I'm rich, aren't I?" he asks. "I'll get one."

"So if you can get bonsai, how come I can't get my cacti?"

"Because a bonsai is proud and noble."

"Well, I can get the cactus a noble pot, Tezuka!"

For a few moments, after Fuji's outburst, they stare at each other, until they both burst out laughing. It's a childish argument to have, and it's silly to be having this conversation at all, but they both know that this isn't going to last, that they won't have forever to have childish arguments. It will never be when we're rich because they don't have a future, not together. So Fuji just laughs harder, smiles brighter, opens his eyes and lets Tezuka see. And in return he sees Tezuka, too, so he milks this moment for as much as he can, drinking and drowning and basking in Tezuka's warmth.

.

He cries that night, cries long and hard, sobbing I'm sorry over and over again into the name that's written in his palm.

I'm sorry for wanting you to be someone else.

Tezuka doesn't cry.

But he says I'm sorry, too.

Although to whom, even he doesn't really know.

It's like this for the rest of the year, but Fuji doesn't cry, not anymore. Spending time with Tezuka and finding joy in his company feels innately wrong and there's always a little voice in the back of his head that's telling him that he shouldn't want him, shouldn't want this. He can't find the things he's searching for in Tezuka, Fuji knows this, too; the universe, or fate, or the gods laughing at them in the sky have all long decided that.

And he doesn't care.

Tezuka is going to break him apart, piece by piece, little by little. He knows this deep in his very core, in the essence that calls for someone else, someone who's not Tezuka, will never be Tezuka.

He doesn't care.

The only thing he's really not sure about this is whether he wants it to happen all at once, or make it last until the end of forever.

So, yes. There's one more and an epilogue. Also, my first shot at present tense! I just felt it would fit better for this story when I started writing it, even though I can't explain (or understand, quite frankly) my line of reasoning now. OTL

I'm heading to exams soon (or every single damned day, actually, what made me decide that I wanted this to be my life, I honestly don't even know anymore), so I'll have to wait for a few before I can post the next one (it still needs edits) as long as I actually do good in said exams :'( Wish me luck! -fist pump-

Um. Please tell me what you think? :)

/silverglitters