Beta: pinksnow
Pairing: TezuFuji
Disclaimers: PoT does not belong to me, though I am putting it in my Christmas wish list as early as now. The song "Gravity" and all associated copyrights belong to Ms. Vienna Teng.
Author's Notes:
1) Please watch out for alternating third person POV and Tezuka's first person POV.
2) Stuff in italics are flashbacks; Stuff in boldface are segments of song lyrics.
3) Inspired by Vienna Teng's "Gravity"
4) Comments are LOVE!!!

For chilibreath... for her courage to write outside of her comfort zone. And sorta inspired me to do the same.

Of Celestial Bodies

He was staring up at the sky once again. It was starting to become a habit; one that his teammates have taken notice of.

"Ne, buchou, what's so fascinating about the sky, anyway?" Echizen asked of him one time and he tried to hide a smile. It seems that even in high school, some things never changed. It looked like Echizen drew the shortest straw.

Tezuka vaguely shook his head without looking down at the inquisitive freshman. "No, not the sky," he answered cryptically, "The sun."

At that, the freshman raised an eyebrow and stared quizzically at his captain. After a few seconds of thoughtful silence, Echizen quietly offered his thought, "You know, depending on the angle and the light, Fuji-sempai's hair sometimes shines like the sun."

At these words, Tezuka's stunned gaze landed on the boy who turned out to be sharper than any of the others. Echizen just shrugged his shoulders, as though to say that it was just an idle thought, and sauntered off without another word.

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Hey love

Is that the name you're meant to have

For me to call…

It had been the lightest of touches. So soft that I almost thought I imagined it. And I would have passed it off as being just that, except that he wouldn't let me.

"Fuji…?" I asked uncertainly, looking up at him from where I sat on that bench in the boys' locker room.

He drew me in again… and reality, as I knew it, ceased to exist. A fleeting second collided with perpetuity, as eternity seemingly ended and began right then. I felt… owned. Branded by the searing heat of his kiss that was steadily growing even more passionate.

It was probably only our bodies' demand for air that made Fuji break the kiss, but even then, he held me close. And as I struggled to grasp for the edges of the reality that I once knew, he managed to snatch it away again with eight words whispered into my ear:

"I got tired of waiting for you, Tezuka."

"Fuji…?" I try once more—what exactly I was trying to ask, I wish I knew. And so the question died on my lips.

He drew back, gave a knowing little smile, and shook his head at me.

He calmly walked away, leaving me alone to process what just happened. But just as he reached the door, he made sure I had more to think about.

"I'll see you at lights out, Tezuka."

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Hey love

That's the name we've long held back

From the core of truth

So what were they exactly? Friends? Lovers? That tiresome undefined gray area in between? They've never really talked about it. Or rather, he refused to talk about it.

The fumbling touches, the passionate kisses, the unintelligible moans and soft sighs that they shared that one night bled onto other nights. Excuses to be with each other when all the others have gone had been plentiful. They couldn't seem to help it. They couldn't seem to help themselves. They were drawn to each other as celestial bodies responded to each other's gravitational pull.

But for all that the as-yet unnamed emotion between them was powerful, Fuji seemed to loathe the idea of fully acknowledging it. It seems to have been a pattern that was set down after that first night they spent together.

See, in the light of day, Fuji remained the smiling tennis prodigy while Tezuka was the team captain who was driven only by the vision of his team in the Nationals.

And 'love' was only a word to indicate that no points have been scored as yet.

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So don't turn away now

I am turning in revolution

These are the scars that silence carved

On me

It was almost lights out and Fuji had yet to make an appearance in the room that we shared. The purpose of this tennis training camp had been lost on me all day as I contemplated in morbid anticipation what would happen tonight.

At the sound of the door softly clicking shut, I looked up impassively from the book I was reading into Fuji's inscrutable blue eyes. My posture, back leaning against a mountain of pillows and long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, screamed of relaxed indifference.

In reality, I had been staring at the same page in the book for over thirty minutes, and my train of thought had me imagining a dog pointlessly chasing its own tail. But I'll be damned if I showed Fuji just how much he affected me.

But who was I kidding? This is Fuji I'm dealing with - He could probably tell me exactly what was running through my mind just by the little twitch in my eye. I knew I was right when his smile turned all but feral. Without looking, his hand sought the light switch.

"Lights out, Tezuka," was all the warning I got.

'Attacked' might have been an apt word to describe what happened to me the very instant the room was engulfed in shadows. Before I could even register the darkness, he was on me. His wet, heated mouth was on mine, kissing me hard enough to bruise, and I felt the cool night air against my skin only moments before I was covered by his heat.

But then again, I 'attacked' him too with equal fervor, so I guess that discredits any angle that might make me appear a victim. I tore my mouth away from his bruising kiss only to latch onto whatever part of his body I could reach, my hands urgently tugging at his clothing.

"Fuji… Fuji, I…" I wanted to tell him that I wanted this. Wanted to say that I wanted him. But he gently stilled my frantic hands and stopped my words with a light kiss. He drew away from me slightly, and in that dark room which was illuminated only by a sliver of moonlight, I saw him shake his head and tenderly smile at me.

And then we made love. Slowly. Tenderly. Passionately. We reveled in discovering each other with a thoroughness that belied the clumsy urgency we started with.

And in the end, I tried once more to put into words all the things that were left unsaid. "Fuji, I…" don't want this to be the only thing between us… I don't want it to just be physical… I love you… I want to be with you…

But once again, my words were intercepted by a kiss and a shake of the head. "No words, Tezuka. Just leave it be."

I decided to give in to him this time.

… If I knew how impossible it would be to try to say the words again later, I might have tried harder to get them said and out in the open. As it is, the silence after our moments together seems to have taken up a permanent place.

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Hey love

I am a constant satellite

Of your blazing sun

"So what did you tell Echizen?"

With a shoulder propped against the window frame of his second floor bedroom, arms loosely crossed at his chest, Tezuka shifted his gaze from the setting sun and onto the lightly smiling young man who was sitting with one leg curled beneath him on Tezuka's bed.

"What do you mean?" he asked back.

The fair haired tensai gave a light laugh. "Oishi's convinced that you're wrestling with some difficult personal crisis or other. He's got practically everybody in the team convinced that you'd be hanging yourself from the first available ceiling some time soon. They drew lots to see who should go up and ask you what was wrong; to ask you what you were thinking of whenever you looked up at the sky like that."

Tezuka shook his head in wry amusement. So he was right about Echizen and the shortest straw. Always being right tended to become rather tedious after a while. With a sigh, he pushed himself away from the window and made his way towards the bed.

"So why didn't you just ask Echizen what we talked about?" Tezuka asked again as he wearily sank into his bed.

"We did. Everybody crowded onto Echizen as soon as he was out of your earshot. But he only said that Oishi was wrong. That you were perfectly fine, and that it wasn't the sky you were interested in. It was impossible to get any more out of him after that. He just shook off Eiji, Oishi, and Momo, who were the most persistent, and walked off muttering things about paranoid sempais and the need for vending machines closer to the tennis courts." Fuji chuckled as he remembered the frustration Echizen incited among the other regulars by his refusal to answer their questions.

Noticing his partner's thoughtful silence, Fuji uncurled his leg and stretched out on his side, head supported by his hand, elbow digging into the space beside Tezuka's pillow. He smiled down at Tezuka and once again asked his question, "So what did you tell Echizen?"

Tezuka looked intently at the young man before him.

"If it wasn't the sky that fascinated you, then what was it?"

The settling dusk had touched the tensai's hair and made it look like the same color of that fiery orb that was slowly setting outside his window. His hand twined into some of those soft strands before he reverently answered, "I was looking at the sun."

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My love

I obey your law of gravity

This is the fate you've carved one me

His eyes widen at my answer. He didn't need an explanation, I knew. He understood.

And in that moment before he closed his eyes to once again brand me as his own in a searing kiss, I saw all the nameless things between us shining in his eyes.

My arms possessively wrap around him and he melts into me. I take what he is offering me. In an hour, two at most, he would be leaving me. Going back home… having finished reviewing for a quiz tomorrow that would not be happening.

I still do not know why he refuses to put into words the things that I need to hear. Why he refuses to listen to the things I was willing to put into words. But as with everything he does, he must have his reasons.

At the very beginning, he set down the rules. There will be no talk of this—whatever this was. Tomorrow, in the light of day, we would go on as if none of this ever happened. I will once again be as the moon who, while the world pays attention, silently basks in the sun's blinding light, before I am allowed to revel in my own reflected light in the darkness of the night.

But if that is what takes for me to stay within his orbit, and if that is what it takes to make him want to stay in mine, then so be it.

Owari

La Fuego 3/2007