What Never Was

by La Fuego

When one is too scared of being vulnerable enough to let somebody else in, two hearts usually break. (My swan song, as this was the very last fic I ever wrote for the PoT fandom. Thank you for staying with me all these years!)

Title: What Never Was
Genre: Angst, FutureFic
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Pairing: Tezuka/Fuji, mainly
Rating: T
Summary: When one is too scared of being vulnerable enough to let somebody else in, two hearts usually break.
Warnings: Written from Tezuka's POV. Possible bit of OOC-ness. Watch out for the jumping timelines (and jumping tenses).
Disclaimers: Alas, no matter how much I love the boys, they belong solely to their copyright holders. PoT is, was, and never will be mine. I just borrow the boys for some fun and I promptly give them back. Also, the song "Can't Let Go" by Landon Pigg is brilliant, but also isn't mine. Please don't sue.
Author's Note: This is being posted against my Beta's advice. The last fic I ever wrote for the fandom. That being the case, I would appreciate any reviews. Consider it your parting gift to me. Much love to all of you who have read everything I have written till now and have given me some of the sweetest encouragements to keep writing! Thank you!

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What Never Was

Well, you're the closest thing I have
to bring up in a conversation
about a love that didn't last

Not for the first time, I wondered what I was doing here. College drinking parties have never held much appeal for me, but this one time, I thought it would be ok. I don't know whose face showed more surprise at my acceptance of the invitation, though: Oishi's or my own. But since I already expressed my agreement even before my mind registered the fact that that was what my mouth was saying, I didn't want to take it back and sound fickle or indecisive. Tezuka Kunimitsu does not do indecisive.

And so I found myself in this awkward situation. My mouth seemed to be operating without any aid from my brain today. First, agreeing to come along to the drinking party. And then… blurting out the name I tried so hard to not even think about. I dared to look at Oishi's face as he sat across from me, took in his mystified expression, and felt a thoroughly unfamiliar urge to kick myself. Hard.

"Fuji, huh?" Takamiya, the friendly second year college student who usually sat to my left during Biopsych classes, repeated thoughtfully. "So what happened between you and this Fuji? It didn't work out?"

But I could never call you mine
'Cuz I could never call myself yours

The attraction was there. It was always there. Palpable. Thick. Almost a visible mist swirling about us. Not for the first time, Fuji Syuusuke smiled invitingly at me. His junior high diploma clutched in his hand, he took a hopeful step towards me… And I took a reflexive step back.

He halted instantly and looked as though I'd backhanded him across the face. And then, as suddenly as it appeared, he wiped the hurt look away from his face and replaced it with a blasé smile. Under the shower of sakura petals floating down from the sakura trees that lined the Seigaku middle school orchard, I thought it was the most heartbreaking thing I have ever seen in all my fifteen years.

"Congratulations on graduating from Junior High," he told me in his soothing contralto. He opened his eyes and let me see the depth of the pain I just dealt him—such pain that made a complete lie of the beatific smile playing on his lips. "I look forward to more of your guidance and kind regard in High School, Tezuka-buchou." He bowed ever so politely at me, and then turned to leave.

Faced with his retreating back, I was almost overwhelmed by the compulsion to call him back; to tell him that I didn't mean to step away from him. That I didn't mean to reject him like that. But then what? After I tell him that, what would happen next?

Contrary to what a lot of people thought, I do not have all the answers. Tezuka Kunimitsu does not know everything. And in this case, even if I did know what came next, I'm fairly certain that I wasn't ready for it. Whatever it was.

The next three years of high school were some of the most painful, beautiful, sweet, awkward, bitter, exquisite years of my life. And, always, at the center of it all was Fuji. Fuji who was able to genuinely smile at me again a few months into freshman year of high school; Fuji who always had agently consoling hand to my back after a rough day; Fuji who was so mysterious to everyone else but made sure that I never had any reason to misunderstand him and what he wanted from me; Fuji who finally forced a clumsy kiss on me the week before high school graduation and left me with what must have been, to him, a cathartic exorcism of a hopeless love:

"I've never kept what I felt a secret from you. Right from the start, you knew that I was in love with you. And for years, I kept on hoping, kept on waiting. Everyone kept looking at me as this genius who could do anything, but you knew that that wasn't true; you knew my frailties and you never thought any less of me for having them," his head tilted thoughtfully to the side and a wistful smile played on his lips. "Come to think of it, I think it was the fact that you saw me simply for who I was, none of that exaggerated hype that always attached itself to my name affecting the way you saw me, that made me fall ever deeper for you.

But you know what makes this whole thing so painful? You know what made the waiting so unbearable? It wasn't the fact that I didn't know if you loved me or not—because I know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that you, Tezuka Kunimitsu, love me. What made it so agonizing was knowing that you love me but that you would never allow yourself to belong to another. Because that would mean letting another person have control over you and how you feel. You loved me, yes… but you didn't trust me enough to let yourself completely fall for me."

And if we were really meant to be
Well then, we've just defied destiny.
It's not that our love died,
It just never really bloomed…

"Well…" I started out uncertainly, after clearing the memories of the past from my head, "it's more like there was really nothing there to work out rather than it not working out, if that makes sense to you."

We all looked at Oishi when he started coughing and making choking noises. Saitou, one of our more quiet classmates, helpfully thumped Oishi on the back. Oishi finally waved Saitou off with a breathless, "Thank you," when he got himself under control a half minute later.

Oishi's eyes, still a tad watery from his coughing fit, met mine, and I could see from the light in his eyes that some puzzle pieces finally fell into place for him. I knew that he was finally making sense of the weird tension around Fuji and myself all those times we were together back in our tennis team days. And his eyes were telling me that he absolutely refused to believe the "there was nothing there to work out" nonsense that I just fed the others. I looked away from my best friend's intense gaze that promised unholy retribution if I declined to answer some very pertinent questions later on.

"… So wait," Takamiya interjected into the silence that was just starting to settle in the wake of Oishi's coughing fit. "Let me see if I'm getting this straight: Tezuka-kun, we were talking about short-lived relationships, you mentioned this Fuji, but now you're telling us that it was more like an actual non-relationship than a short-lived relationship?"

A non-relationship, huh? Yes, perhaps that just about summed up what I had with Fuji perfectly. "It was rather… complicated," I hedged. The tenuous balance that was required to keep what was between Fuji and myself from collapsing in on itself was exhausting. It took up all the energy I could spare from all the other duties and responsibilities I had. And what's worse, is that up until now, I've never really fully understood the reason why that delicate balance had to be maintained. I still have that unanswered question that Fuji left me with… a question that was only very thinly veiled from the indirect challenge he gave me during his confession right before high school graduation.

Am I unable to let go of the iron-grip I have on my self-restraint enough to let someone else into my heart?

And then we saw our paths diverge
And I guess I felt okay about it…
Until you got with another man;
And then I couldn't understand why it bothered me so

I went on to attend Keio University soon after graduating from high school. It was a comfort to me that although Oishi and I would eventually move on to different fields of specialization in Medicine, our pre-med curriculum more or less consisted of the same courses. Oishi smiled wryly at me back in 3rd year of high school when he saw my first choice for university when we were filling out our graduation transition plans. I could have just as easily chosen Todai, he knew that, but he thought I chose Keio out of consideration for him (his family insisted that he go to Keio as family tradition dictated) – because when we first started talking together about the possibility of a future in the medical field, we were young enough to naively think that going to the same university would be a matter of course. And a part of my mind still insisted that that was the reason I was so set on going to Keio university, despite my father's very vocal opinion of how Todai was the better choice.

The fact that Keio university is known for its excellent Liberal Arts department and that I knew for a fact that a certain tennis prodigy was going into the same university had no bearing on my decision. None whatsoever.

… Besides, the buildings where the Liberal Arts department held their classes were so far removed from the Sciences that as it was, it took almost half a year since entering college before I got to see Fuji again. I was about to head home and, randomly, I thought I'd go out the north gate for a change. I was a few meters from the exit when I saw him. He was lightly jogging towards the gate, a welcoming smile on his lips. For a moment, I was transported to a different time… a different place… something clenched painfully in my chest and I imagined that that smile was meant for me. But I was shaken out of my self-induced stupor when he stopped in front of a familiar figure: Saeki Kojiro.

Despite the distance, I can almost hear Fuji's polite excuses for making his companion wait and the little breathless laugh that came after it.

And the painful clenching in my chest intensified.

That could have been me. That could have been my smile. That could have been me holding out my hands for Fuji's books. That could have been me asking him how his day was and what he wants to do next. That should have been me with him.

But I'm not.

I can't.

And as if he sensed my eyes on him, Fuji suddenly swung around to look my way and met my gaze. A myriad of emotions passed through his face before he settled for pleasantly surprised. He gave a faint smile, whispered something brief to Saeki, and then made his way toward me.

He stopped a few feet in front of me and just looked. The silence that filled the space between us was something new for me. We haven't seen each other for almost half a year and in that time, the meaningful silences that marked our times together have been replaced by this awkward, stifling silence. I wanted to rage at the unwanted change. I wanted to say something… anything… but I didn't know what.

Fuji, on the other hand, seemed determined not to be the one to break the silence, and so he kept his mouth shut and just kept on avidly watching me. His expression was so rapt, it was almost as if he could hear the multiple conversations I was having with myself inside my head and he was interestedly listening in.

"Fuji," Saeki finally called out to his companion after about five minutes of our shared silence.

My time was up. I looked at Saeki to Fuji, back to Saeki, and then finally, back to Fuji.

"I thought you said you loved me," I said quietly. Questioning. Hopeful. Inwardly confused. Outwardly nonchalant.

"I do," he answered firmly.

'But my loving you is not going to change anything. Not your mind. Not our positions. Not your self-imposed restrictions. Not the death-grip you have on your emotions.'

But those recriminations were left hanging in the air… made all the more heavy because Fuji opted to let them remain unvoiced.

… No, we didn't die,
We just never had the chance to grow...
And it might not make much sense,
to you or to any of my friends,
but somehow still, you affect the things I do;
And you can't lose what you never had
I don't understand why I feel sad
everytime I see you out with some one new.

It took a full year before I crossed paths with Fuji again.

I was sitting on a bench just outside the university library when I felt a familiar prickling at the back of my neck that let me know I was being watched. I looked around and saw Fuji looking straight at me as he excused himself from the conversation he was apparently having with a familiar blue-haired young man. The possessive hand the aforementioned man had on the small of Fuji's back left no question as to what kind of relationship the two had. That's right; I did hear from Oishi, who heard it from Kikumaru, that Fuji had broken up with Saeki a couple of months after our chance encounter by the north gate.

"Oshitari Yuushi?" I asked in mild disbelief when Fuji was close enough.

His tinkling laughter spilled forth. When his laughter died down, he gave a careless shrug of his shoulders and his head tilted a bit in recollection. "Well, when Atobe and I accidentally met a few months ago and ended up having tea together, he suggested that perhaps, the superficial similarities Yuushi had with… uh, someone else might be able to fill in the longings I try to keep at bay."

I looked away from Fuji and gave Oshitari, who was now conversing with somebody else, a considering look. "He's not going to be able to make you happy, you know," I declared softly, shifting my eyes back to Fuji.

Fuji opened his eyes, and his sharpened blue gaze told me that he was picking apart what I just said for something… "Are you going to do something about it?" he asked lightly, jokingly. Because we both knew that the only way he could shrug off another rejection from me was to make it so like he didn't really care about what my reply would be one way or the other.

A few seconds of tense silence passed.

"He won't be able to make you happy," I only reiterated. Because I wanted it to be true. Because I needed to reassure myself that Fuji would never be truly happy if it wasn't with me. It's selfish, I know, but I wanted to convince myself that he could still be mine… despite the fact that I wasn't man enough to make him mine.

For the briefest moment, I saw that familiar desolate, heart-broken look in Fuji's shuttered eyes before he closed them and he gave me a deceptively sweet smile. "Perhaps," he agreed ambiguously as he turned around and made to move back towards the waiting Oshitari, but then, he stopped midway and regarded me with one last challenging look, "but that's not going to stop me from trying, anyway." He inclined his head at me in a slight, dismissive bow. "Goodbye, Tezuka."

"Fuji, wait…" I called out to him impulsively and he paused mid-stride to look back at me questioningly. "I'd like to talk to you…"

I can't let go
No, I can't let go of you
You're holding me back without even trying to.

"I'd like to talk to you…" I said, my voice betraying equal parts hesitation and frustration.

"You're angry," he stated in wonder.

I furrowed my brow and glared at him to show him how ridiculous I felt that declaration was.

"You are angry!" he reiterated.

I scoffed.

"You know what the interesting thing about anger is?" Fuji continued doggedly down his train of thought, "It's just a secondary emotion; underlying anger is always fear." He gave me a few seconds to digest that.

"What are you so afraid of, Tezuka?"

Losing you. My entire being silently screamed at him. I'm scared of losing you to somebody who's willing to take the risks I will not let myself take.

As was the norm with the blue-eyed young man, he seemed to have been able to hear the words I could never push past my throat. He reached out a hand to my face, but my hyper-awareness of where we were and of the people milling about us and the thoughts they may have, caused me to flinch away from his touch. He immediately pulled back his hand as though seared.

The silence between us was so sharp, it seemed to have cut something deep within him. Something in his eyes died.

But valiantly, he pushed a sweet smile past the crushing silent rejection. "Goodbye, Tezuka. I hope you find that one that will be all I could never be to you…

… And perhaps, someday…"

I can't let go
I can't move on from the past

"I thought I was pretty perceptive when it came to things that concerned you," Oishi later chided me as we walked home from the drinking party. "Apparently, there were a lot of things that went on that I just had no clue about."

I did feel a little guilty that Oishi felt badly about being kept out of the loop. But I must admit that I did not regret not telling him about it. This was something that was only ours, Fuji's and mine. "Oishi, I-"

"But I can understand why you wouldn't want to talk about it," Oishi interrupted, his dark head bent. "As your best friend, of course I would have wanted to know about these things. But then again, there are some things that are just too… sacred; there are certain kinds of grief too deep that no one should carelessly tread on them, ne?" Oishi glanced at me, his green eyes filled with quiet acceptance and understanding. "I just have to ask, though, how do you feel about Fuji now?"

I took a few moments to try to organize my thoughts enough to try to answer that. Oishi's question was simple enough, but the complicated answer to it needed the right phrasing to make it sound just as simple as the question it answers. After a few moments, I replied with, "I feel the same way I've always felt about him."

True, that answer was a tad cryptic, but Oishi understood what I meant.

"Ne…" my friend started out uncertainly, "I know about the omiai your parents arranged for you." He gave me a furtive sideways glance before continuing, "I hope you don't look like the way you do now when you meet the girl for the first time."

I just gave him a questioning look.

"You look like a heartbroken prince valiantly denying that he's grieving."

I couldn't help the slightly acerbic smile that came to my lips as I recalled the very last words Fuji ever said to me.

"… And perhaps, someday, we would both be able to stop mourning for something that never was."

Without lifting a finger you're holding me back.

~owari~
La Fuego
04/29/2009