Disclaimer: PoT is owned by the owners of PoT. Two lines from The Little Prince are owned by Saint-Exupéry.
For: ele5 for the encouragement.
Yuuta clutched his jacket close to his body as he walked down the road. He wasn't precisely sure where he was going, but he knew whom he was trying to find. Although he hated to admit it, he was worried about Syusuke. He hated knowing that his brother was suffering even though he spent many hours ensuring its inevitability. That was his right, and his right alone.
He remembered when his brother was going off to start his first year at Seigaku, tennis club in his sight. He had felt so jealous that he'd started yet another fight with Syusuke before running off to the park to let off some steam.
Yumiko found him there later on, throwing rocks at the wall. He spent the following hour complaining about how perfect his brother was and how he could never measure up and how utterly unfair it all was. Yumiko then told him something he'd never forget, even if he didn't understand exactly what she was talking about at the time.
"We're lucky. Your brother loves you and me so much. Not many people ever experience something like that. One day, Syusuke will fall in love and he'll love that person more deeply than he loves even you or me. But I worry."
"Why?" "Because people like our brother will only love like that once." "I don't understand." "Syusuke can only love someone like that once because once he gives his heart to someone, it'll be so completely that he'd never get it back to give anyone else." "Oh."
He hadn't really got the enormity of what she was concerned about until he followed his brother to Seigaku. Although he had let his brother think he left because he wanted to escape that rather imposing shadow, it was also because it was nearly suffocating to be under Syusuke's watching eyes. At St. Rudolph's, he could finally breathe.
Looking back, it had been obvious from the start that Syusuke had found the one. There'd been many clues and, if they hadn't been too young themselves to grasp it, it would have been glaringly obvious. The way a name was mentioned more frequently than any other. The way his eyes would soften just a bit whenever he was mentioned. The way his picture was taken with more frequency than any other friend. The way his brother went to school early and stayed later. The way he took Tennis Club a bit more seriously than he used to.
When he had spent his first day at Seigaku, it had all clicked in his head and he knew. He didn't pretend to understand why, or act as if he cared in the least, but he watched silently as his brother's eyes followed him and internally cringed.
He had hoped that he was mistaken or that he was just looking for something that wasn't there. He didn't want to think of how his brother's face brightened in his presence or how Syusuke murmured that name in his sleep.
It wasn't until Syusuke entered his third year that Yuuta's innate desire to protect his brother, as his brother often protected him, emerged. Competition being so thick between schools, he often had opportunity to observe his brother. It was truly a sight to behold Syusuke, usually so unendingly subtle, acting so blatantly obvious. It was then that he gathered a grasp of the larger picture; it was then when he began to get angry.
It hurt in a way he didn't know was possible to see his brother unhappy. It annoyed him that Syusuke was seemingly content with watching quietly, simply being in that idiot's presence as if that was enough. When he left, he noticed a subtle difference in his brother. It was the way he sighed as if the act of breathing was a chore. It was the way he looked out the window unseeingly at the sky for hours. It was the way he stared at the phone as if willing it to ring. It was the way he went from hopeful to disappointed every time the mail came. It was the flash of jealousy that laced his tone when he related to him a message Oishi had received.
He knew he was working himself up by mulling it all over in his mind as he neared his goal, but he didn't care. He had to do something. It was his turn to get back at the bastard that hurt his brother. It was his turn to protect. Everyone else was content to let it go along as it had been. It pissed him off that even his friends would just sit by and watch as his brother waited and waited for something that would never happen.
Yuuta looked inside the door, grateful that he had to go no further to find his quarry. He walked inside, closing the door behind him.
Tezuka looked up from his papers for a moment, and gestured to the seat across from him. Yuuta moved in front of the chair, but remained standing.
"Yes?" Tezuka asked shortly.
"Stop stringing him along," he said at once.
Tezuka stopped writing and turned his face back to Yuuta. "What?"
Yuuta scowled. "I said, stop stringing my brother along."
Tezuka said nothing, but his lips thinned in annoyance.
"Don't tell me that you don't know. I know you do."
"I know," Tezuka said simply.
Yuuta took a deep breath before continuing. "It's not fair to him. You don't deserve it. You don't deserve him. You lead him on and you pretend like you don't know and you let him wait for you like he's some simpering wife waiting for her husband to come back from the war and you never say anything."
Tezuka stood up, crossing his arms. "That's his choice."
Yuuta felt the rage boil up inside of him. How could he be so nonchalant? "YOU BASTARD! Doesn't he matter to you at all? Is it because you don't want to lose your Number Two player? I've seen you! The way you stand just a centimeter or two closer to him. The way you touch him on the shoulder. The way you smile at his jokes when nobody is looking. He sees it! He thinks it means something!"
Tezuka frowned, "I treat him the same way I treat everyone else on the team."
Yuuta didn't bother to point out the lie. "Let him go. Let him be happy. He deserves to be happy. That Fudoumine Coach, Tachibana, likes him, but he refuses to consider it because you're all he thinks of."
For a moment, Yuuta thought that Tezuka looked jealous, but it was gone as quickly as it came.
"You like him," Yuuta stated then, knowing it be truth.
Tezuka sighed and looked down at the floor. "We must prepare for the Nationals."
"And after that?" Yuuta asked. "Tennis won't end with the Nationals? Is he to wait forever? Until you retire?"
Tezuka's gaze remained fixed on his feet as he shifted in obvious discomfort.
"Tennis will always be more important to you than Syusuke. You will always be more important to Syusuke than tennis. He'll wait for you forever and you'll let him because you're a selfish bastard. You don't care about my brother's happiness, only your own. Let him go. Let him be with someone who deserves him."
Yuuta heaved as if he just ran a very long race, took one last glance at Tezuka, who was still standing there silent, "You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed," he spat and slammed the door as he left.
Yuuta's heart was still pounding when he was within a kilometer of his home. He instead went to the nearest tennis court and destroyed the five people who answered his challenge. He barely noticed that they were all love games.
He immersed himself in practice and school and tried to forget the look Tezuka had on his face. He refused to feel sympathy for that cold bastard. As far as he was concerned, Tezuka could go to hell. One week later he found himself at home, sitting at the kitchen table eating one of the sweets their sister had left for them. Syusuke walked in, barely lifting his head, strode past him, and locked himself in his room. He could hear the music playing softly in the hallway. He didn't want to consider sounds the music was masking.
Later that evening, he casually mentioned Tezuka's name as he got ready to practice and pretended that he didn't notice the pain that flashed across his brother's face. Guilt and anger coursed through him in equal amounts. His grip on the racket tightened, and he restrained himself from making what his senpai did to him in first year look like child's play. Instead, he went and practiced hitting the ball against the wall until he could no longer feel his arm.
Yuuta noticed that Syusuke refused to take Tachibana's calls and his camera remained untouched.
When he knew his brother was at practice, he went into Syusuke's room and sat on the bed. For some reason, he was hoping an answer would come to him. He felt something graze his thigh, and he looked down and saw a picture of Tezuka. It was of him standing in the locker room in naught but a towel. He was holding his glasses in his hands, eyes closed as he made to set them down on the nearby shelf. Yuuta doubted that Tezuka even knew the picture had been taken. It wasn't as well lit as most of his brother's photography, but it still held Syusuke's talent for capturing a moment perfectly. He shoved the dog-eared photograph back under the pillow and ignored the guilt that thrummed in his chest.
He watched his brother plaster that godforsaken fake smile on his face and stride out of the door with the air of a person nursing a hidden injury. Two weeks had gone by, and he could no longer take it.
He practically ran all the way to Seigaku when he knew practice should be over. He couldn't take it anymore. He wondered if this was how helpless Syusuke felt when he watched that match where he risked injuring his shoulder. This sense that you looked on helplessly as someone you cared for suffered and there was nothing you could do about it. At that point, he was willing to beg Tezuka to lie to his brother, something, anything, to make his brother smile again, for real.
Yuuta noticed that the light in the locker room was still on. He made to open the door, when he saw something that made him stop. His brother was already there. He didn't know what to do so he watched. He wished that he could listen, but it wasn't necessary. Syusuke's body said everything.
Tezuka stood there, arms crossed and eyes on the floor, as he spoke. Syusuke's sagged, arms listless by his side as he responded. Tezuka looked up and at Syusuke's face, which was resigned. Then they both stilled. Yuuta wanted to run in there and rescue his brother, but he was frozen on the spot. He saw as his brother nodded once, smiled that horrible fake smile, and made to leave. Yuuta contemplated whether he should go home and wait for his brother there, or if he should stay and try to offer whatever comfort he could here. The choice was taken away from him when Tezuka suddenly reached out and grabbed Syusuke's arm, stopping him. Another few words from Tezuka, and then they were kissing.
Yuuta sighed, and silently wished his brother good luck, because there was no point in fighting it any longer. Tezuka, the unworthy bastard, was what Syusuke wanted. He watched as Tezuka ran his hand under Syusuke's shirt and decided that he should leave now before he could see more of his brother than he'd ever cared to.
No one deserved to be loved as his brother loved, something he knew quite well. He just hoped that Tezuka never forgot to be grateful for the fact that Syusuke was in his life. If ever he did, Yuuta vowed to remind Tezuka: "On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur, l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux."
You only see rightly with the heart, what matters is invisible to the eyes.