Away from the Sun

PROLOGUE

"Always remember to forget the things that made you sad, but never forget to remember the things that made you glad."

Tezuka Kunimitsu was in a hurry. Tezukas did not usually hurry, but time had put him into the awkward position of wearing his shoes while stumbling out of the room on one foot.

The book he had been reading was left on his bed, and the windows were left open.

The wind blew, and the book was flipped open to the first page. In golden letters, engraved on the page were the words:

Dearest Tezuka, this is a gift from Japan.

x

Much later, Tezuka returned to his room to find it all messed up, as though someone had been looking for something.

Vexed, he arranged his things as quickly and neatly as he could. The captain could not find anything missing, and decided not to report it. After all, it was almost midnight.

The captain climbed into bed and fell fast asleep.

x

Fuji Syusuke sat at his desk near the window, looking out at the autumn leaves that had begun to fall. And it made him remember the book that he had given Tezuka before he left.

The idea had originally been Fuji's. But it was Eiji who carried it out.

The book was a special one, its cover made from the fallen leaves of that autumn. Inside, had been the names and personal details of the people close to him.

The fun too, had been getting the people to write in the book. Fuji smiled, remembering them one by one.

Oishi had been the first to write. He seemed to specialize in the sort of thing, as he gave Tezuka an eighteen page long memoranda of advice after jotting down his name, address, telephone number and email.

Eiji wanted to be the second, as he had helped to carry out the plan. He drew teddy bears, toothpaste and candy as a border. At the bottom of the page, he wrote Tezuka 'heart' Fuji, to Fuji's amusement.

Inui did not seem to get the message. He preferred to write the personal details of other people, such as St. Rudolph's Mizuki, and received many a glare from the tensai.

Momoshiro protested to being the fourth to write. "Four is an inauspicious number!" he had yelled. But he wrote anyway.

Echizen was cute. He wrote the necessities, then four words 'mada mada da ne' underneath, the total taking up barely a quarter of the page.

"Echizen, be nicer to your bunchou!" Momo said, grabbing the marker and writing a couple of words next to Echizen's: Echizen also wishes you a happy time in Germany and party forever!

"Write on your own page, Momo-senpai."

"I already did."

Whereupon Eiji pounced on Momo and took his lunch away while Fuji went off to find Kaidoh.

Kaidoh was as plain as Echizen, minus the mada mada da ne.

Taka-san was the sweetest. Well, at least until he caught hold of a racket and nearly shredded the book to bits.

The next fun was going to Hyoutei. Fuji enjoyed it excessively.

Gakuto and Oshitari were too busy flirting with each other to write much, but Fuji managed to grab a bit of information from the couple.

He was next met with a completely opposite couple from the former. Shishido and Ohtori were standing almost three feet apart, neither brave enough to make the first move. Glad for the distraction from each other's eyes, both took a long time pretending to scribble while the words remained a paragraph long.

Jiroh was sleeping, but leapt to his feet, throwing his arms around Fuji the second he saw the tensai. Watching Atobe's reaction from a little higher up, Fuji detached himself long enough to tell Jiroh what he came for.

Atobe made it very clear that he wanted all the attention, writing so much that Kabaji had only the space to write the three letters 'usu'.

Hiyoshi, poor, poor, Hiyoshi, was purposely left out by the sadistic tensai.

That night, Fuji sat by his desk, filling in the blank pages with his own words. And much later into the night, Yuuta came in to find his aniki had fallen asleep on his table.

"Baka aniki." He whispered. "Oyasumi nasai."

And when Fuji opened his eyes again, Yuuta was gone.

Fuji was pulled out of his daydream when the bell rang, signaling the end of class, and to many other people, the start of the term break.

"Fuji!" a cheerful redhead cried out. "It's holiday time!"

Fuji smiled and followed the acrobatic player out of the room, leaving his thoughts behind him in the deserted classroom.

x

The clock read three fifteen in the morning when Tezuka awoke. The dream was fresh in his mind, and Tezuka suddenly realized that there was a book he did not see when arranging his belongings.

Scrambling out of bed, he checked the shelf.

And sure enough, there was an empty space beside his history textbook where the book used to sit.

The gift from Japan was gone.

Tbc……

I posted this story before, but my mom freaked out that I was writing pg13 stories when I was barely thirteen so she made me delete it. Hopefully, this time she won't make me delete it again. Even if you've read the story before, please review!

Thank you!