I've just realized I completely forgot to put headings and stuff.
Title: the devil and the deep blue sea
Pairings: TezuFuji, kinda, I think?
Rating: K, it's really very tame
Length: 2,057 words
Notes: It was originally meant as a drabble. But alas, then I wrote it. I distinctly remember this having a point, but apparently the fastest way to murder a point is to try and write it. So, enjoy this shameless fluff-not-fluff, I don't know, interaction between them. All mistakes are mine.
Summary: Tezuka notices raindrops. Fuji is (not) a magic practitioner. Nothing is resolved, yet - but something of a not-epiphany occurs to Tezuka in the clubroom.
the devil and the deep blue sea
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Practice begins with the sun obscured by grey clouds and ends with a raindrop that turns into two that turns into a million that turns infinite - no one would be afraid of rain if raindrops fall alone, someone says in quite a few different words that Tezuka doesn't remember, and he calls off practice with a voice not obscured by the rain.
Something of a not-epiphany occurs to Tezuka in the clubroom with the familiar scent of must and mildew, and Tezuka does not really know what to make of it.
Fuji sits on the bench by the leftmost locker - dented, he noted with a smidgen of annoyance; he'll consult Ryuzaki-sensei on the appropriate punishment later - and in his right hand is a water bottle. He lifts the bottle and the motion is fluid, rehearsed without looking such, natural the way only a choreographed performance can be. Tezuka watches as a drop of water - very clear, very transparent; he quells his augmenting thirst - trails a line down Fuji's throat and he suppresses a shiver. Then Fuji lowers the water bottle with a small sigh - still with the same fluid motion and Tezuka stands there transfixed - and Fuji picks up a white towel, lifted straight from the clean pile that smells of softener and his fingers caress the cloth like a ripple on the surface of a lake and Tezuka doesn't know why but he forces himself to look away.
When Fuji speaks he does not hear the words but instead the ripple, the ribbons of waves underneath and something warm and cold and terrifying curls up in Tezuka's chest but he doesn't know what.
That night, instead of the raindrops pattering on his roof Tezuka hears Fuji's voice. He turns in his bed and buries himself under the soft covers; for what, he does not know, but his sleep is inadequate, and he dreams of rain and long, slender fingers caressing the waves.
.
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The next day Tezuka plays Fuji in a friendly match - a match between them is never friendly, Tezuka doesn't think - and he thinks again of pale fingers when Fuji hits a Houou Gaeshi and the referee announces, 'Game set, Fuji, 6-3', but the announcement is half-drowned by raindrops in his ear.
The loss does not faze him, because he and Fuji have played more than once or twice in this new world they call high school, and - the person with more win counts is still him, dammit - he is not so prideful a person he can't surrender a few fair losses or two.
But Fuji stays back in the clubroom after everyone has left - and hasn't it always been like this - and he says, "That's the first game that ended in a 6-3, Tezuka."
Tezuka doesn't bother to comment, only partly because he doesn't know what to say. He takes out a water bottle and his tennis duffel bag from the locker and sits on a bench opposite from where Fuji is leaning. He considers looking up to be a mistake, because he knows he will never be able to forget the blue, blue that is Fuji's eyes.
"Is your arm all right?" Fuji asks when he does not speak, and his eyes are like the sea.
"It's fine," Tezuka says, more than a little agitated, more than a little hurried, because Fuji is the last person he would want to cause worry for. His tone signals the end of the conversation.
But Fuji, as always, Fuji, never abiding to anyone's rules except the ones that align nicely with his own; the ones that slot fittingly between the colours that make up his person, colours invisible to anyone but him, and Fuji being Fuji goes and breaks once again the silence.
"Are you all right," Fuji doesn't quite ask, because Fuji somehow always knows the answer to his questions even before the person he asks does.
"I'm," Tezuka starts, but he takes one look into Fuji's eyes - so blue, so deep electric blue - and his voice abruptly loses itself in a wave of colour.
Fuji looks confused, but only for a moment. Then his face breaks into a smile - a different one, an unsettling one - and Tezuka's stomach skips a bit - because of the wasabi sushi he's had for lunch, he tells himself, which Fuji likes, and he will stop this train of thought now - and Fuji's eyes crinkle around the edges and sparkle.
Then Fuji walks, the word Seigaku fluttering behind him like an albatross with blue-tipped wings and retrieves his tennis bag and sets it down besides Tezuka. Fuji kneels and unzips the bag, close enough but not touching, never touching and it's the first time Tezuka thinks that this distance might be on purpose, another movement to the elegant choreography of Fuji's life, another invisible rule that he only knows.
When he lifts himself the smile is no longer, except as the undertone behind his words, "If you say so." It's only after Fuji leaves that Tezuka realizes what Fuji is referring to.
.
.
Tezuka knows all of Fuji's smiles, and he says this with the certainty of more than three years of friendship. He knows how Fuji smiles when he's talking with Momo or Kaidoh or Oishi, when he's talking about Echizen, when he's planning something with Kikumaru or testing another one of Inui's juices or thanking Kawamura for wasabi sushi, and he's learnt to identify them all; inside his mind there might be a catalogue detailing every curl and twist of Fuji's lips, which smiles to watch out for and which smiles are harmless, and he realizes that although Fuji has a smile for everyone he's never had one smile Tezuka can call his.
The smile Fuji gives him in the clubhouse, Tezuka thinks, might be the one if he can just figure it out and his stomach flips just all the more harder - wasabi sushi, Tezuka insists.
.
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One day Tezuka sits in class and listens to the teacher speaking about Sengoku jidai and he already knows the material like the proverbial back-of-hand so he gazes out the window to the classroom across the lawn and there he sees familiar blue eyes gazing back.
It's not the first time Fuji does this; he's lucky - unlucky? - enough to have two classes with classrooms that are in good view of Fuji's, but usually Tezuka glares at him and pointedly looks at the teacher, or the board - Fuji's and then his – and does not look back, and he imagines Fuji shaking his head and chuckling and following suit.
He's just about to look away when Fuji smiles, and this time it's an identifiable smile but something's off, something's different and Tezuka's stomach flips a little, again - he knows he can't blame it on his perfectly normal breakfast this time, so naturally he blames it on the air-conditioning.
For the first time it's Fuji who looks at Tezuka's teacher, then his own, but he does this with a playful smile and Tezuka sees him raising his fingers to suppress a chuckle as he looks away.
.
.
During break time Fuji accompanies him on the roof and as he steals a piece of Tezuka's maki sushi asks, with his eyes open, "Tezuka, is there something you'd like to say to me?"
Tezuka considers. All he can think about is rain and clubhouses and water bottles and blue. He replies, "No."
"You're a good liar only when you don't know you're lying, buchou," Fuji says. Tezuka doesn't understand Fuji at all.
.
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Tezuka remembers how once during middle school Kikumaru spread rumours about Seigaku's resident tensai not being one-hundred-percent human.
'He bleeds green blood, like spinach juice,' Kikumaru used to say. 'And when his eyes open they shoot laser beams.'
Naturally the rumour mill runs with it and churns out precious, indescribable, ridiculous gems such as 'Fuji is a member of SOLDIER' and 'When he touches sea water he turns into a mermaid, sorry, merman', and the smile Fuji carries when presented with the questions does not help matters any - Tezuka suspected Fuji's own involvement in some select rumours, especially the one about annual ceremonies of eating the hearts of a few freshmen.
While Tezuka is certain that Fuji, despite his purported sadism, has never ripped out the heart of any freshmen - or any living being, for that matter - sometimes, only rarely, because Tezuka's schedule and his own personality does not allow for much daydream, sometimes he wonders if Kikumaru's claim has some truth in them - the one about Fuji not being completely human, not the green blood or the laser beams.
It's because, Tezuka thinks, it's because Fuji doesn't exist - Fuji doesn't survive - Fuji shifts, changes, lives. The way Fuji breathes is like it's not because his lungs need oxygen; he breathes like drawing a part of the world in him, like a click of the shutter of a camera that captures and solidifies just one moment of the shifting world.
For that reason Tezuka thinks that Fuji does not need air; he's pretty sure Fuji can live, miles and miles below the surface of the sea, as long as the world exists around him.
.
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"Is there something you'd like to say to me," Tezuka asks the question the next day the way Fuji asks a not-question.
The sun is bright that day so they sit in the shade with their backs against the wall, and Fuji is quietly setting up his bento, carefully unwrapping his chopsticks and folding the napkin.
"Our tennis matches have never been anything but honest these last few months, Tezuka," Fuji answers without looking up, without answering anything at all.
"Your tennis is honest. I'm asking whether there is anything you'd like to say."
Fuji looks up. Tezuka hates it when Fuji answers everything with the smile he can't understand, because it somehow feels like Fuji's gone off and lived under the sea or above the clouds and Tezuka knows that if he follows suit he'll plummet or drown and die.
.
.
Practice that day is rigorous, hot and sweaty, and this is the way Tezuka likes it, because it's that kind of practice, of tennis, that penetrates defenses and turns words obsolete.
Again, Fuji stays with him in the clubhouse even after everyone leaves, and this time Tezuka tries not to look at him as he packs his bag. He tries, but it's without thinking that his eyes linger on Fuji's fingers as he stows his racket and picks up a water bottle or Fuji's hair as he tucks a few loose strands behind his ear, and inadvertently they meet Fuji's eyes.
He has this distinct feeling of being caught - except with what, he's not certain. Fuji smiles that smile again, and stands up and glides across the room to where he sits. Fuji lifts a hand - Tezuka fights the urge to jerk backwards - and removes his glasses, setting them down on the bench, carefully, softly, and with the same softness reaches for Tezuka's hair.
Fuji's fingers are cool from the condensation of his water bottle, and as they trace his ear to his cheek Tezuka hears raindrops pounding in his ears and almost shivers. He belatedly realizes that Fuji is whispering something, and his ears aren't quick enough so the words drown.
"What are you doing?" Tezuka asks, more bewildered than offended.
Fuji smiles - that smile, again, blurred around the edges - and Tezuka realizes for the first time that the way he doesn't know what thissmile means bothers him more than it should. "I cast a spell on you, Tezuka. Maybe one day you'll know what it is."
Later, when Fuji finds him in the library poring on old Japanese texts about Onmyouji and youkai he takes a quick peek at what book Tezuka is reading and stifles a laugh. It's not this kind of spell, Tezuka, Fuji says, and Tezuka wisely does not say anything and his fingers inch towards another text - Western, this time. Fuji only laughs harder, until the library patron finds the need to shush him.
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end.
So what do you think? Comments, criticism and suggestions are welcome.