AN: I've been watching TV show reruns a lot. And writing songs with my boyfriend's band. I have no life.

For those who don't know who Hannah Eissenheimer is, she's Tezuka's trainer :) You know, in that episode where they went to Germany after defeating Rikkai (is my timeline correct?) and Ryoma inspired her to remember her old self and all that inspirational talk. Yes.

Oh, and I know it's kinda awkward, having to give Tezuka's first name before his last (made me wince a lot when I was writing), but they're in Germany, so bear with me just a little bit :) And, enjoy :)

Saving Hannah

Being the expert that she was, Hannah Eissenheimer knew, from the first moment she laid eyes on uptight Kunimitsu Tezuka, that he was in love.

Of course, Hannah had never been in love, but she certainly had her fair share of people pining. They tend to frequent the bars Hannah favored, nursing drinks, reeking lovesick – some sad, sappy, sickly sweet smell that she could not stand, had she not been drunk enough. But she always was, so that did not matter very much.

But she'd seen them, spent every waking drunk hour staring at them, in fact, because there was nothing else to stare at that was more interesting. They all had that look, the look of utter misery and hopelessness that had defined the first few years Hannah had spent without tennis before she discovered alcohol and had finally drunk enough to develop some kind of hazy immunity where she was just numb.

They weren't numb, though. They were hurting and hurting and still hoping, and how in the world did they live like that? Was it nice to spend every waking moment telling yourself, hey she doesn't love me, and it hurts, but it's a new day and maybe she'll remember my name for once? Was it nice? Did it feel gratifying?

(Why can't they just stop and save themselves the pain? The way Hannah did. The way Hannah is still doing right now.)

They looked like they hurt more than her even though Hannah knew no one, absolutely no one, could hurt more than her, having had what she had and lost what she did. So that was saying something. But it was a good thought to entertain when she was drunk – there were people who were worse off than her, joy! – even though it was just a load of bullshit.

And Kunimitsu Tezuka, fifteen and brilliant, had that look. No normal person would have noticed, it was buried under dreams and some other kind of pain, but Hannah could see, because you only need to see that kind of misery once for you to be able to see it again.

She assessed the Japanese bowing at her before she turned to his doctor. She racked her brains for his name but she might have drunk just the tiny bit of scotch before this meeting, and she might be just a little tipsy.

She always had trouble remembering names when she was tipsy.

"You're giving me a lovesick schoolboy," she informed him, unimpressed, secure in the knowledge that this boy was Japanese and he probably understood as much as a camel would have, had he heard her talking.

The doctor shot her a scandalized look, before launching into a very long, very boring rant about how Kunimitsu was a talented tennis player with a very bright future (like she'd never heard that before) blah blah blah arm injury blah blah bl-

Wait, arm injury?

She looked at the boy again, watching her coolly, his eyes pining, his face so full of something she decidedly did not like and fuck it, she did not need his pity, especially not when both her arms were still working.

"Okay, worse, you're giving me a lovesick cripple."

Kunimitsu Tezuka gave her a cool, I'm-better-than-you look. "I'm not a cripple," he said in perfect, non-accented German. Which was probably even better than Hannah's right now, because she was tipsy and slurred her vowels with her consonants.

Hannah's eyes narrowed. And narrowed. And narrowed some more.

Well, then, if that's how he wanted to play it.

Because he certainly wasn't better off than her, pining like he was. And she did not need his pity. Nor did she need his judgment. He could just stuff those along with the stick up his ass.

Hannah certainly did not miss the fact that while he denied being a cripple, he neglected to deny anything about him being lovesick.

And she said that twice.

The first time she heard about Fuji was the morning after.

She was nursing what was probably the worst hangover she had ever had ever since her first one. And okay, maybe that was because she had drunk herself silly the night before, but still.

It wasn't going to stop her from drinking again anyway.

She was stumbling around, trying to remember which way was right, and whether or not you actually had to turn right to get to her destination, when she turned the corner and right into an eyeful of Kunimitsu, talking on the hall telephone.

He was yammering something about a Golden Pair.

...Was that a Japanese thing? Golden Pair. That was probably the cheesiest thing she had ever heard since the bullshit that was never give up.

But then he said something about Doubles 2 and some more names and damn it-

He was talking about tennis. Again. Again? He just got here! He just destroyed his arm because of tennis, and he can't even go a half a day before he's yammering about it?

How?

How do you live like that?

Hannah was about to open her mouth, she really was, because she can't stand it, all this boy's single-minded passion, when life had not exactly given him enough reason to be passionate. His arm was all but broken! Hell, he was practically a cripple, tennis-wise, for all his arm can function.

(Why can't he stop and save himself the pain? The way Hannah did. The way Hannah is still doing right now.)

But then, Kunimitsu shifted, his entire posture and expression changing, ever so imperceptibly, becoming like the pining lovesick saps in the bars that Hannah favored.

"I see," he said. In a softer voice, he added, "And Fuji?"

Hannah had never heard a name said with such gentleness before, so reverent, as if it would shatter if he was any less gentle and as if he cared so much to make sure that it didn't.

It stopped her mouth, if anything. Somehow, Kunimitsu was pining and lovesick and it was so damn... It was so damned... There wasn't even a word for it.

Just that he was pining and lovesick, and Hannah couldn't say a word.

So Hannah turned and left.

Ever since then, the name Fuji had not been a stranger in any conversation that Hannah was able to pull out of Kunimitsu.

And that was saying something, considering how Hannah was always sort of tipsy, and she had trouble remembering names when she was tipsy.

Add to that the fact that Kunimitsu even barely talked, if at all. Unless he was scolding Hannah and lecturing her about being a drunkard (who did he think he was, he was fifteen!), he barely talked about anything else. But somehow, when he did talk, through some love Cupid magic she did not know about, he always, always managed to find some way to insert Fuji into every other sentence or so.

"My friend Fuji-" blah blah blah.

"Fuji would-" blah blah blah.

"Fuji was-" blah blah blah.

"Fuji and I-" blah blah blah.

"Fuji has a technique-" blah blah blah. (Okay, so maybe this was just the slightest bit interesting, knowing that there was some fourteen-year-old middle schooler out there who could make the ball bounce back, all the way back, to her hand on the other side of the court just from reading wind patterns. Wind patterns. Wind- Why did Hannah even bother being a tennis player? Why?)

And what was worse, Kunimitsu did not even seem to notice it when he did.

But to Hannah it was obvious. It was obvious in the easy way Kunimitsu talked about Fuji, when, if Hannah pried about anyone else, there was always a part of Kunimitsu that was almost... impartial. It was obvious in the way he said Fuji's name, like nothing could be any more precious, even tennis. It was obvious in his eyes, and his body language; it was like Kunimitsu was bringing along a neon sign with Fuji's name and hearts all over it.

Once, in one of her many drunken moments, Hannah had snapped, "Your Fuji would leave you behind, if you keep on your uptight stick up your ass." (She more slurred it, than said it, but that was not the point.)

Kunimitsu had been taking care of her, like he always was, lecturing her all the way. (Really, it surprised Hannah how he could be so eloquent in this, and so wordless in everything else.) But when he finally made sense of what she said, he stopped talking long enough to blink.

"Fuji is my teammate," he finally said.

Hannah might have actually snapped out of her drunken stupor in shock. What? "And?"

Blink again. "And my friend."

"And?"

Kunimitsu actually looked confused. Confused. The first time there was ever any expression on his face, and it was confusion.

About his pining away for his Fuji.

And how was that even- Wait.

Wait. "Fuji is your teammate?"

"Why are we discussing this?"

"Fuji is your teammate?" She was drunk. Her head really can't take this much overload of information right now, it really can't. "How?"

"He's in the se-"

"He?" Fucking-

"Fuji is a boy?"

The next morning, Hannah actually forgot to feel sorry for herself.

Because even though she was nursing a hangover, and yet still had to work (the epitome of unfair, if it was anything at all), there was Kunimitsu, and his destroyed arm, and his pining, lovesick love.

And he didn't know about it.

And, Hannah would wager a year of remaining sober that Fuji did not know about it, either.

Because Fuji was a boy.

Kunimitsu was in love with a boy.

He couldn't stop and save himself the pain. He didn't even know.

...He still wasn't as bad as Hannah, but he might actually not be far off.

One morning, Kunimitsu did not come to their session at all.

Which was fine, and all, because really, Hannah did not care, she was getting paid either way. And she could finally drink. In peace, for once, because there would be no glaring uptight fifteen-year-old behind her back, disapproving, like he had any right.

She hated him, sometimes, she thought. Absolutely everything in him was annoying. She hated his pretty face, with his stupidly determined eyes, like he could be crumpled again and again, but he couldn't be crushed. She hated him, being all stupid and oblivious and knowing nothing, nothing, and how can you live like that?

How can you live like that and still have the strength to try and get better?

How can you not want to stop? How can you not want to get away?

Because Kunimitsu was not going away, he was flinging himself headfirst towards the pain. As if it was okay. As if he didn't care. As if it was all going to get better in the end.

It didn't.

Not for Hannah.

So she drank, because it didn't get better, it doesn't, but there was a time when it was easier, when she was numb, at least, and felt nothing at all. She was physically sick, from all the alcohol she consumed, but it didn't matter.

She still wasn't numb (hurting) enough.

It was probably early evening, when her drink was plucked off from her hand, and there he was, with all his stupid passionate eyes, and stupid pitying face.

And if he was going to say one stupid thing, she was going to...

She didn't really know.

Who cared?

But he only said, "Come on," and he brought her to her place.

She fell asleep before they were even halfway there.

When she woke up again, her head was pounding. It wasn't an unfamiliar pain. Hannah did not want to move.

"Here." Pills she didn't know were shoved into her hands. She swallowed them dry. It did not do much, but at least her headache lessened a little.

She lay back down, covering her eyes with her arm. "I'm waiting for the lecture, Kunimitsu. Get it over with."

There was a sigh from her side. A few shuffling sounds later, there was another sigh again.

"My injury happened when I was in my first year," he began. Hannah's eyes, hidden behind the skin of her arm flew open in shock. This was not his usual alcohol-is-bad lecture. It wasn't even remotely close. He never talked about his injury.

Tennis after it got better, maybe. But that was all.

"In Japan, first years are not allowed to take part of the ranking matches," he continued. "I didn't, either, but I played with some of the upperclassmen and I defeated them."

It was all very clinical, and direct, as if they were not discussing him, and the reason why his future in tennis was starting to dim.

"I played them with my right hand, so when they found out that I was left-handed, they were furious. They cornered me one day. They told me that if I didn't need my arm, then I shouldn't mind if they took it away."

...It was like watching a car crash. Hannah knew what was going to happen, but she couldn't stop listening.

"And then they broke my arm."

Just like how those jealous tennis players broke Hannah's spirit. She actually had to choke back tears.

Kunimitsu was just like her.

No, Kunimitsu was worse. He had lost his arm. He was in love and pining. He was still pining. He was still fighting.

How do you live like that?

But Kunimitsu was not done, "Before that happened, I'd already promised Fuji a match." He sounded almost wistful, still with that soft, gentle tone he used when he mentioned Fuji. "So I played him, with my broken arm. I didn't finish the match. Fuji was furious. He told me that it wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to play me, not a coward.

"Because that was exactly what I was at that time. Intellectually, I knew the extent of the damage on my arm, more than even the doctors. But it seemed easier to just walk away from the problem and pretend that everything was fine. Fuji thought differently. He thought it was... lazy and he did not like it that I wasn't helping myself pick up all the broken pieces."

Hannah was silent. What was there for her to say? That was exactly what she did. She walked away, because it was the easiest thing to do. Because she was tired of fighting and fighting and never getting anywhere, never getting anything back.

She just wanted everything to stop. And for a while, they were just there, bathed in guilt-ridden silence that Hannah did not have the strength to break.

"I'll buy you lunch," Kunimitsu finally said.

It took a while, after he was gone, before Hannah realized that she was crying.

A ringtone she did not know filled the air. It was loud. It was loud, and fuck it, her head. Who fucking owned that stupid phone? It was noisy, she was having the hangover of her life, and what was it doing in her apartment in the first place?

And why wasn't it stopping? Make it stop, fuck, the things it was doing to her head.

She threw her arms open, to try to grope her way through the table by her bed, and finally, she was met with a vibrating object, cool againt her overheated skin.

She didn't care who owned it at this point, it was their fault for leaving it behind in the first place. "Hello?" she hissed at the other line.

"Oh... Um... Hello?" In Japanese. Oh, fuck, why? Of all the phones that could be left behind, did it really have to be Kunimitsu's? Japanese hurt her head.

"Yes?" she replied, in Japanese. The language sounded awkward on her tongue, brought about by many years of disuse. But at least she could still communicate, that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, she supposed. "Kunimitsu's out, I can take a message."

"Of course," the boy on the other line sounded relieved. "I'm just calling to inform Tezuka that Fuji's okay now."

Hannah felt a quick shock go through her still-sluggish system. She didn't expect to hear that name. Hearing it from another person had just made Fuji all the more real, like he wasn't just some fantasy boy in her head that Kunimitsu was crushing on anymore. He actually existed in real life, and he was... sick?

The boy continued on, unaware of Hannah's tiny revelation. "He's slowly gaining back his sight and the doctor that checked over his head said that it wasn't anything really drastic. It will probably take more than that to stop our Fuji from playing." The boy laughs, before he stops abrubtly, belatedly realizing that it wasn't Kunimitsu he was talking to. "They say he's going to be fine."

Was this the reason why Kunimitsu did not come to their session? How cute.

"Hey, kid," she said, unable to resist. "Who's Fuji in your team?"

The boy on the other line seemed surprised, but replied, without missing a beat, "He's our genius."

"And on a scale of one to ten, where ten is the highest, how attractive is he?"

There was sputtering in the other line, until finally, the boy managed a, "I don't think that's very..."

Hannah could have actually laughed. And it turned out that she ended the call just in time, because Kunimitsu was finally coming back with lunch, the smell of food permeating the air. Hannah couldn't decide whether it smelled heavenly, or if it only made her want to throw up even more.

When Kunimitsu glanced ever so slightly at his phone that Hannah had returned to the table, she said, "Your Fuji's fine."

Kunimitsu actually looked surprised. But instead of giving her a lecture about messing with other people's things and other people's business (Hannah, strangely enough, could actually imagine it all in her head), his features softened into that pining look and he said, "Thank you."

And then it continued on like that, Hannah drinking with considerably more force now, because she hated that Kunimitsu knew so much more than she gave him credit for. She hated that he was just like her, but not. She hated that he chose to be brave, and refused to be the victim, and what did that make Hannah look?

What did that make Hannah look, if he had been worse off than her, but here he was, spouting crap like not letting your guard down and never give up?

Hannah had turned her back on that, she'd turned her back on that, and why should she have to suffer like him?

Was it so bad to not want to hurt anymore?

Was it? It wasn't.

It wasn't. It was only Kunimitsu that made it look bad, and she hated him for it.

(She hated herself, too.)

Until the day when Kunimitsu's precious tennis team came along.

At first, it was fun, it was almost like a kind of game to her, trying to guess which boy precious Fuji was. She was almost 99% certain that these people she'd sucked into drinking with her weren't him, they seemed too rash and frankly, she really couldn't imagine Kunimitsu... well.

Well.

So she complained a little, and hey, it was funny getting Kunimitsu's teammates to trash talk him, even if they technically didn't know it was him they were trash talking (she did, and that was all that mattered).

But then the cheeky, cocky kid with eyes exactly like Kunimitsu's had come along, bringing back to the surface all her hate, and all her frustration and why did they all look like that? Like it was okay if the world brought you down. Like they can just stand back up, even if they knew they were going to be pushed back down again.

Like they won't get tired.

And Hannah hated it, and she was going to beat that look out of the boy if it killed her.

But she didn't.

And it was almost funny, how everything, from the moment she became Kunimitsu's trainer, seemed to be leading up to this moment. Like, somehow, this boy, and by extension Kunimitsu, had been sent by fate to save her, to remind her of all she had forgotten, and all she had turned her back on.

She never thought it would come. From the very first awful taste of alcohol in her mouth, she'd known she'd fucked up her life. But she'd never thought she'd come to this.

Liberation.

Like, for all her post-tennis life she had been carrying this burden on her shoulders, and now it had been lifted up and she could finally be happy.

Like, she'd been freed, and it was all she'd ever wanted, even if she didn't know it was.

She looked up, to watch Kunimitsu clapping the boy on the shoulder, as if that had been his plan all along. And maybe it was, but Hannah really could not find it in herself to be angry.

She let her gaze wander, back to Kunimitsu's teammates, rowdy and full of life and hope and courage that Hannah had lacked, before her gaze landed on one in particular, and maybe it was just a feeling, but she was pretty sure that that boy was Kunimitsu's Fuji.

Huh. He was probably the most beautiful boy Hannah had ever seen (and she'd seen a lot of boys), with his heart-shaped face, high cheekbones, and rose-colored mouth curved into a gentle smile. Everything about him, from the top of his honey-haired head down to his lithe, slender body, screamed gentle, almost to the point of being effeminate.

She could almost see why Kunimitsu loved this boy.

She glanced back at Kunimitsu again, and that boy Ryoma Echizen. They seemed to be absorbed in their own little world, talking tennis or whatever, and she glanced back at Fuji. His eyelids had fluttered open, his eyes were glimmering blue, and... well, fuck.

They had the same pining, longing look that Kunimitsu had. And he was looking straight at Kunimitsu, still discussing tennis or whatever with Ryoma Echizen.

Hannah realized that before today, she had never really entertained the thought that Fuji was probably as hopelessly in love with Kunimitsu as Kunimitsu was with him.

And she felt a prickle of annoyance seep into her, because such a broken expression shouldn't be seen on such a beautiful boy. She wanted to go up to Kunimitsu and turn him around and point him in the right direction.

She wanted to say, there he is, you love him, pay attention to HIM!

But there were things she didn't know, and... This was giving her a headache. Because it seemed like Kunimitsu was in love, and so was his Fuji and they both had no idea.

And, fuck, did that say something about how low she had gotten, when the lovelife of two hopeless teenagers were the foremost interest in her life?

...She wanted a drink.

Of course, never let it be said that Hannah Eissenheimer did not know how to be grateful. When all was said and done, Kunimitsu had been working to help her, just as much as she was supposed to (supposed, being the keyword) help him.

And because Kunimitsu was so hopeless in everything that involved himself (she probably understood now, how his Fuji felt all those years ago), she decided that as thanks, she was going to give him a push in the right direction.

So, on the day he was set to leave for Japan, something about taking over for his coach in a training camp, she clapped him on his shoulder and gave him a piece of her mind.

"You love him, did you know?" she finished.

Kunimitsu looked confused. Again. Hannah had to resist slapping her face with her palm. "You're hopeless."

"Thanks again for coming with me," she called to Alice, one of the new friends she had been able to make in her journey back to the professional tennis circuit.

Alice grunted moodily, she never was in the right mood before she got her morning coffee. The line in the coffee shop was long, and she guessed it was probably because of the Invitational Tournament was about to take place a few days from now. She glanced at the tickets she was able to purchase, and smirked. She hadn't exactly planned on going, but she couldn't resist.

The temptation was too much.

"If you're going to say thank you one more blasted time..." Alice began, trailing off threateningly.

Hannah laughed. "Yes, yes, I know." She was about to say more, but the door to the shop had opened once again, bringing with it the warm air from outside.

Two teenagers joined the line, dressed in sports gear. The shorter one, with the honey hair and pretty smile was gesturing gracefully, face lit up and flushed, a nice rose shade. The taller one with the tousled hair and steel-rimmed glasses nodded along, not contributing much to the conversation, although it was obvious that they had each other's undivided attention.

Hannah's eyes widened, before a smile settled in her lips. Well. So Kunimitsu had manned up, after all, and something had (obviously, finally) happened between Hannah's lecture and now, because that wasn't just her eyes playing tricks with her, those hands were brushing, brushing, almost familiarly every single time Kunimitsu and his Fuji moved.

And they seemed just as happy as Hannah had been, after that match she had with that Echizen boy, radiating light and love as they were. It was the kind of aura that would have made Hannah even more bitter, not so long ago, but it only made her smile wider now.

It seemed like everyone was on their way to their little happy ever afters.

Alice followed her gaze, and raised her brow at Hannah. "I bet you twenty Euros the tall one is straight," she said.

Hannah smirked, watching Kunimitsu looking at his Fuji fondly, like there was nothing else in the world that he would rather look at more. Even tennis.

"You're on."

I wasn't about to right another multi-chapter (even though I was sorely tempted to). In my defense, one, almost two, episodes gave me only so much of an insight to Hannah Eissenheimer, but I'd like to believe that deep down, she really did love tennis and really did want to go back and really was a good person. I tried to get Tezuka as IC as possible, but my imagination ran away with me. Ehehe.

So, if you guys can drop by, leave me a review? I'd appreciate it very much :)

/silverglitters