SILVER MELODY
A fanfiction written by elusivemelody
Disclaimer: I do not own anything of Prince of Tennis
Chapter I : The Broken Frame
The songs of the dead are the lamentations of the living.
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"Hoi hoi! Christmas is coming!" Kikumaru exclaimed excitedly, bouncing around before stopping to catch his breath and attempting unsuccessfully to change his childish voice into that of a deep growl. "Ho, ho, ho, I demand from Santa presents, presents and more presents!"
Fuji smiled at his friend's childish antics, his mind slowly drifting away, away to a certain truth he wished to escape.
"... Ochibi (1) would be going back to America, Kawamura's going to help his father with the big Christmas orders, I'm going to visit Osaka with my family, and even Tezuka-buchou (2) will be spending Christmas with his family instead of playing tennis!" Kikumaru exclaimed cutely, eyeing Fuji curiously. "Nya Fujiko! Are you listening to me?"
"Saa," Fuji replied teasingly, his smile starting to border on a playful grin. "Perhaps?"
"Fujikooooo, you meanie!" Kikumaru wailed and heartily glomped Fuji. "Nya, I really hope I get an in-inexhaus…" Kikumaru's face scrunched up cutely as he tried to think of the word.
"Inexhaustible," Fuji piped up helpfully. Kikumaru flashed a grin at him.
"Inexhaustible amount of presents!" Kikumaru said, flailing his hands wildly. A grin spread across his face as he bounded over and leant towards him, as if sharing some kind of special secret that couldn't or shouldn't be overheard.
"Nya, Fujiko, what are you doing for Christmas?"
"I don't know," Fuji replied truthfully, having no plans for upcoming Christmas. He supposed it wouldn't be any special occasion anyway. His Christmas for the past few years mostly consisted of frivolous strolling down the brightly-lit streets of Tokyo watching wistfully as happy families bustled past excitedly, and occasionally some star-gazing from the observatory deck of the Tokyo Tower.
"Hoi? How could you not have any plans for Christmas?" Kikumaru asked, a worried and slightly hysterical tone entering his voice as he comically leant closer towards Fuji and comically felt his forehead, "what about your family?"
That innocent question caught Fuji off-guard, his smile wavering a little between uncertainty and insecurity before he quickly righted himself again, unwilling to let his friend see the pain he kept bottled within himself.
Family.
What was family? It had ceased to be a word, a whisper, just the alphabetical letters which made it up. Nothing else, nothing more. All that was left was an endless darkness to mark a place where something supposedly precious used to reside. Something that had been stripped from him so long ago, he couldn't remember what it was anymore.
"Saa, I'm going to have a family dinner, Fuji lied languidly after a brief lapse, surprised at the way the foreign words slipped fluidly from his tongue naturally like butter. Kikumaru scruntinized Fuji suspiciously for a brief moment, causing him to fidget uncomfortably under the other's scrutiny.
"Nya… I got to go now, bye Fujiko-chan!"
"Ah, bye Eiji."
Fuji trudged home slowly, occasionally kicking at stones, an odd sense of trepidation washing over him. A shiver made its way down his spine. Perhaps that was the sixth sense that Yumiko always claimed he possessed at work. He opened the gates to his house, frowning at the sight of a familiar black car pulled up along the driveway. Yumiko. She never came home anymore unless she had something important to take care of. Fuji quickened his pace and entered the gates, greeted indeed by the sight of Yumiko. A light rain began to sprinkle.
Yumiko was dressed in a formal yet casual looking set of blouse and skirt, looking as if she had immediately rushed home from her university. She was wringing her hands apprehensively as she paced around the living room, biting her pale lips in distress. Fuji's eyes opened a fraction from its usual curved state as he narrowed his eyes at her tersely. Only one thing could have made her so agitated.
"Otou-sama (3) and Okaa-sama (4)?" Fuji asked quietly, his heart queasily skipping a beat at saying those alien words as she met his gaze with desperation.
"They're... coming back for Christmas," she sighed disbelievingly, collapsing onto the sofa as if that one statement had cost her all the strength she had in her body.
His eyes widened. If he had been holding something, it would have slipped out of his hands. But he wasn't, so the silence that followed her announcement was deafening, and every drop of rain could clearly be heard through the silence, brewing into a thunderstorm.
Clash!
Ironic how his little lie had came back to nip him sharply at the bud, morphing into a twisted reality.
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Heavy drops of rain pelted relentlessly against the window, its soft muffled thuds echoing softly in the silent room.
Fuji lay on his bed silently, unfocused eyes unconsciously etching every miniscule scratch on his faded sky-blue ceiling into his mind as he absentmindedly threw a lime green tennis ball into the air and caught it with ease. It felt like he was thinking of something important, but he couldn't put a finger to it, almost as if he hadn't been pondering on anything at all.
He indistinctly heard the hum of a car as parked on the driveway, yet refused to acknowledge it. He lay wistfully on the soft linens of his bed, knowing that soon he had to go down to the living room and face the unfamiliar faces of ones he called family.
"Syuusuke-kun! Yuuta-kun," a voice that he vaguely placed as Yumiko's called for them from downstairs. "Greet Otou-sama and Okaa-sama!"
Resignedly, he rolled out of his bed, glancing at the window and the sharp raindrops paltering against it. Dropping the tennis ball onto his bed, he trudged surreally towards a reality he was reluctant to face. He paused outside the door of his room, seeing a familiar figure walk down the stairs. He forcefully widened his smile.
"Hello Yuuta-chan," Fuji said as pleasantly as he could, looking disapprovingly at the choice of Yuuta's clothing. "I hope Mizuli-san hasn't been influencing you too much, you never used to like purple of any shade, claiming it was too girly for your taste."
Yuuta glared at him pointedly and walked down the stairs at a brisker pace, embraced awkwardly by a barely recognizable woman before bowing and exchanging words with a man with ragged gray eyes. Recognition came queasily to him. He stood there, dumbfounded for a moment as his stomach twisted in knots. Even Yuuta had changed so much, not replying with so much of a retort at his words as he had used to.
He slowly made his way down the stairs and stood gingerly next to Yumiko.
"Otou-sama, Okaa-sama," he greeted formally, bowing to his parents, feeling strange and uneasy. He felt an intense gaze looking reproachfully at him.
"Syuusuke," Father greeted back crudely, eyes surveying his son for a moment before striding regally into the dining room. Mother shot him another scrotching stare with eyes filled with hate, walking regally behind Father as she let out a soft hrrumph of displeasure.
Slightly hurt yet unsurprised by the concise greeting, he walked tersely into the dining room. He had lost his appetite long ago, the exquisite food bland and its aroma oddly unappetizing as he shied away from the watchful cold eyes of his family.
"Eat more steak," Father said brusquely, placing some steak onto Mother's bowl.
They had only just sat down around a wide circular table for Christmas Dinner, and yet the tension that cracked in the air was agonizingly evident, so thick that a butter knife would have been able to slice through it. It had been a four years since they had last sat together in the same room sharing the same dinner, almost like a normal family. Even the tension was so suffocating that he was careful to leave out any quirks he usually had in his every sentence. Little polite yet empty words were exchanged as they tried in vain to feel up the distance that time had left, pretending to care.
"So," Father started, looking nervously at Fuji as he delicately sliced a piece of beef, "you're going to take your high school entrance exams next year right?"
Everyone swiftly averted their gazes from him.
"I'm fourteen this year," Fuji said quietly, "I took my high school entrance exams already."
"Oh," Father blinked. "I see. Did you score well?"
"As ever, Otou-sama," Fuji replied dutifully.
There was an awkward silence quickly filled by the clattering of cutlery.
"What school do you intend to go to?"
"I'm not sure," Fuji muttered softly. Hesitantly, he added in a slightly more audible voice, "perhaps Seishun Gakuen Kōkō (5)..."
Another awkward pause. Even a stranger could have told that Father didn't really care about his future, much less which school he went to.
Fuji sighed softly, wishing that he was anywhere but here. Away from all the pretense that their family didn't lack everything that a family should have had. Hah, Fuji scoffed mentally. Can a family without the key substance called love even be considered to be a family? The only thing that they really had in common was the blood that was pounding in their veins, as well as the shared surname.
"Yuuta's the one taking his high school entrance exams next year," Yumiko added in meekly, attempting to break the ice.
"Hm," Father pursing his lips as he glanced at a disgruntled Yuuta. "I hope you score as well as Syuusuke next year. It would be wise for you to follow in his footsteps an—"
"You know what," Yuuta slammed his hand down onto the table, glaring at Fuji as he cut off Father. "I've had enough of being in your shadow all the time. Enough of being called your otouto (6) all the time, of people thinking that I'm good only because I have you as my aniki (7) and them always asking why I can't be as good and flawless as you are! If people think being your otouto is so great, why don't they exchange places with me and see for themselves how taxing it having to endure the endless teasing that you put me through every time I come home!"
Yuuta's chair screeched menacingly, scraping across the cold floor as he stood up abruptly.
"Just go away," he said cuttingly, voice brittle. "I don't want to see you anymore," Yuuta ended quietly, turning to leave the room as everyone stared at his back in surprise. Fuji blinked away the hotness that threatened to spill from his eyes in the form of bright crystalline tears.
Mother suddenly got to her feet as well. Father glanced at her curiously, wondering what rash deeds she was about to do as it had been made clear since birth that Yuuta was her favourite. His mild curiosity soon turned to horror as he saw the oddly distorted expression Mother was wearing.
"A freak, a freak," her voice trembled with rage at first, quickly rising into a screech as she pointed accusingly at Fuji while he stared back tearfully in confusion and hurt. "Why couldn't you be more normal? Why did you have to make Yuuta's life so miserable? Why couldn't you be like him? A normal being!"
Fuji gaped. Each word slit his heart and rendered him wordless. Yumiko stared at him sympathetically but didn't make move to defend him, her silence only making it worse. He thought at least she cared.
"No one would care about a freak like you! A freak that no one would ever care about, that's what you are!" Mother screeched, seemingly oblivious to the other occupants of the room that cringed with every word that she deliberately threw at him, so much venom in her hurtful words that it caused him to whimper softly.
"You," she continued raving madly, glaring at Yumiko, "bringing all that filth into the family, giving that freak such a bad influence."
Yumiko flinched, but made no sound. Mother turned back to Fuji, eyes wide and voice hysterical.
She panted softly, tired from straining her throat so much. Father attempted to push her gently back to her seat but failed when she roughly slapped his hands away, continuing in an audible voice that cracked like static through the suffocating silence with an manical glint in her eyes.
"No, you're not my Syuusuke. Give me back my Syuusuke! Don't think no one had noticed your eye colour, you voice, the way you move changing all this years! Give me back my Syuusuke! Go away! A child I gave birth to would never turn out as like thi—"
"Stop it," Yumiko cried, she too getting out of her seat. The silver cutlery on the table fell clattering to the floor with a cold metallic sound. Yumiko and mother stared at each other for what seemed to last a lot longer than the few seconds it actually did. Father pursed his lips, eyebrows furrowed as he tried to calm the situation down.
"Calm down, dear. Perhaps we should just try and enjoy the rare opportunity of the whole family bei--"
"Hah," Mother scoffed, "family? What family? Are you blind?" She closed her eyes and smiled grimly, body swaying dangerously for a moment.
"Maybe you are, you never really are home to see what this monster had turned us into! You never really cared. Tell me, all this years, how many girls have you seduced? I've seen you place those filthy hands on those." She shuddered, spitting out the word like venom. "Whores. And don't even try to deny it."
Father's mouth open and closed a few times before it closed in a grim line.
"I think we all had enough of this, and it's time I made a stand for what I truly want," Mother said slowly, ominously, glancing around the table with narrowed eyes. Yumiko gripped the tablecloth with clenched fists as if her life depended on it, the blood rapidly draining from her face and knuckles as she stared helplessly at Father and Mother, the words that were about to come, hung threateningly in the air.
Clash!
Mother's lips moved, but Fuji heard nothing as he sat paralyzed, in a state of shock. Yet the words she just uttered were as clear to him as if she had shouted them in his ear.
"I want a divorce."
He broke his family apart.
His chair scraped the floor with a metallic screech as he abruptly stood up, head down and bangs casting a looming shadow over his eyes. It was too much for him to take. His family had been skirting and edging around that one word for years, dangling dangerously from a frail thread that could easily be severed.
The irreversible word. He knew it was coming, he prepared himself for it, but he greatly underestimated the impact one word could have on five completely different people connected only by blood and words.
Divorce.
Family wasn't family without the love between the people that made it up. But family was still family, until a single word broke them forcefully apart.
Hoped you enjoyed reading this chapter. ^^
Fuji's family problems are actually not a main part of the fanfiction, in case if you were wondering. Feel free to ask if you have any queries. n_____n I tried keeping the use of romaji to the minimum, knowing that some people dislike the excessive use of romaji. Hope you don't mind.
Kept this in for a long time already, hoping to get the next few chapters done before I start publishing this fic. But stuff have really been getting to me and making me all confused, and I really hope this would cheer me up~ (indirect attempt to hint that next few updates might take quite a while Dx) I feel so awesome. -.-
Please read and review! :D
Next up-- Chapter II: The Jagged Shards
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(1) Ochibi : A nickname Kikumaru often calls Echizen by because of Echizen's short stature
(2) -buchou : A surffix used to address a captain
(3) Otou-sama : 'Otou' means father and 'sama' is a japanese surffix used to address respected people
(4) Okaa-sama : 'Okaa' means mother
(5) Kōkō : If I'm not wrong, this is what high schools are called in Japan. Anyone correct me if I'm wrong please.
(6) Otouto : Little brother
(7) Aniki : A Japanese honorable term for an older brother or a superior