The first time Tezuka sees Ryoma, he's fourteen and Ryoma is a force of nature in a white cap and a cloak of arrogance, unknowingly slamming through the neat, ordered spaces of Tezuka's life with a cocksure smile. Tezuka lets him, encourages him even and accepts the chaos that follows with resigned amusement. It's all about tennis then.
In the three years that follow, it becomes more than tennis.
They kiss only once in that time. It's short and awkward but when Ryoma draws back, he's smiling like a self-satisfied cat and Tezuka can feel his own lips tilt up at the corners.
Ryoma will leave the next day to spend his vacation with his parents in America. When term starts, he'll be Tezuka's kouhai again and they'll play tennis as a team again. Tezuka has the strangest feeling when he thinks of that, like there's something warm and heavy where his heart should be.
He believed it to be impatience, but he's beginning to suspect that it might be something more.
The last time he sees Ryoma, he's seventeen on the cusp of eighteen, and Ryoma has lost the cap, the arrogance has been tamed into quiet confidence, and he's staring right back at Tezuka with wide golden eyes uncharacteristically soft.
They don't kiss at the airport though Tezuka can see that Ryoma wants too.
He waves once at Ryoma's retreating back and doesn't leave until the flight takes off. The whole time there's a smile on his face that he can't quite make himself hide.
The plane never makes it to America.
Ryoma's funeral is in Japan.
Tezuka attends the wake with the rest of the Seigaku regulars. Oishi shoots him worried glances through bloodshot eyes and Fuji hovers close, tense and grim. Tezuka ignores them both – ignores them all – and stares at the ground. He looks, just once, at Ryoma's picture and averts his eyes the moment his gaze lands on the frowning face.
In his mind, he can see Ryoma as he was at the airport, impish and smiling.
That night, Tezuka checks his phone and sees the last message Ryoma sent him, shortly after their parting.
See you later, buchou.
That's when he cries.
The world moves on.
After a few empty words of sympathy and horror, the media forgets the 163 who died and the fifteen year old tennis prodigy amongst them. The Echizen family returns to America.
Tezuka moves on as well. He spends his time playing tennis, reading, playing more tennis until there's a telltale ache in his shoulder, and trying not to think of Ryoma, Ryoma's tennis, Ryoma's kiss, Ryoma- Ryoma.
Well, he tries.
Oishi calls almost every day. There is a new nervousness in his concerned enquiries and Tezuka wonders if he'd known somehow. Oishi sees more than people give him credit for. Those calls always end in swollen silence. Tezuka is the one to hang up each time.
Fuji is the only one who visits. This time, the silence is not merely strained but alive and vicious. Fuji's eyes are open and narrowed on him, stripping away flesh and bone to bare the raw parts underneath. For once, it's Tezuka who looks away.
"Tezuka," Fuji whispers, soft and sad like a lament. Tezuka stares at the wall, past knowing blue eyes, and doesn't respond.
There are no more words from either of them. Fuji leaves shortly after but it takes a long time for the silence to lose its edge.
A hollow eternity of a week later, the dreams begin.
There's a moment of disorientation when Tezuka can see nothing, hear nothing, and then he's there, in the clay court where he first played Ryoma. He's in his Seigaku jersey with his racket in his left hand but the other side of the net is empty and stretching out to infinity.
A flash of something dances in an out of his peripheral vision, red and white and person-shaped. When Tezuka tries to turn, he finds himself frozen in place, unable to shift even an inch.
He hears footsteps, first to the side and then behind, loud one moment and soft the next. Tezuka closes his eyes but it's no use, he can still see the courts, hear the sounds. It goes on like that for what feels like eons. He can't help but try to fit an image of Ryoma into the blurred outline of this phantom stalker.
Tezuka wakes in the middle of the night with clammy hands and a racing heart, trying and failing to hold on to the fading wisps of his dream.
Next night, he dreams again.
After many a nights and mornings pass with increasingly erratic sleep patterns, Tezuka begins to remember.
At first it's just vague images but as threads of gold and green start to appear in the hazy phantom and the sound of footsteps fades into soft breathing, the dreams become etched more clearly into his waking memory.
When Ryoma finally stands before his still frozen body, smirking and deceptively whole, Tezuka can do little but whisper his name. His fingers twitch with the need to reach out and he opens his eyes to a dark ceiling, Ryoma's name still on his lips.
The place is different, which surprises Tezuka into forgetting for a moment that this is a dream. It's still a tennis court but this time, Tezuka is seated on a bench and his body is entirely under his command.
That's why, when Ryoma appears before him in an indolent slouch as if he's been right there all this time, Tezuka moves before he can think, reaching out to grab wiry arms in a death-grip. He feels reassuringly solid.
"Buchou," Ryoma calls softly and Tezuka's hands spasm hard, once. It's a word that has long since transcended being a title between them; a word that haunted Tezuka in his hormone-addled years and now haunts him for entirely different reasons.
"You're not real," Tezuka tells him.
Ryoma smirks and leans forward.
"Aren't I?" The kiss is different from their first and only one, deep instead of chaste, firm instead of hesitant, but just as cripplingly heady. Ryoma's lips are cold as ice and he tastes like the grape ponta Tezuka had drank once – and just that once – to see what was it about carbonated sugar that had his kouhai so addicted. He hated it then but now, he can't get enough.
Ryoma's smiling when they part, just like before. Tezuka tastes salt on his lips when he licks them.
"Aren't I, buchou?"
He wakes up to the sound of his alarm. His cheeks are wet.
Tezuka is no stranger to odd dreams.
That first week of his rehabilitation in Germany was one of restless nights plagued by a recurring dream of Tezuka cutting off his arm and offering it to Ryoma like a bouquet amidst a shower of rose petals and Hyotei cheers. There was no pain or regret, only satisfaction that welled up and threatened to suffocate him when Ryoma accepted the gift with a lopsided grin.
Even now, he can't tell whether that was a dream or a nightmare.
But he finds it telling that what he remembers best is Ryoma's smile, still vivid in his mind's eye.
He has always been quite happy with his ability to function on a bare minimum of sleep. Busy as he was with mostly self-imposed responsibilities, each spare second was precious and rarely spent idle.
In a way, it's no surprise that it's Ryoma who changes that just like he's changed many things about Tezuka.
He doesn't suddenly ignore his responsibilities. He's diligent with summer assignments and as dutiful a son and grandson as ever. And the intensity of his tennis regime only increases, almost as if he's compensating for another who will never pick up a racket again.
Nevertheless, the hours he spends sleeping increases. There's no use denying that each time he closes his eyes, he does so hoping for another glimpse of the Ryoma of his dreams, who is not at all different from the Ryoma who lived. As always, Ryoma doesn't disappoint him. Sometimes, the images are vague and his recollection of them nonexistent. But more often than not, Ryoma is a real, tangible presence that Tezuka can touch and hold and say all those things he never had the chance to say in life. It help that the words come easier in the dreams than they ever do in reality. Ryoma isn't nearly as talkative but that's fine since the smile on his face is more or less a permanent fixture and the few words he does speak are enough to propel Tezuka through days of a life that becomes increasingly lackluster.
He is aware, on a rational level, that this is not strictly healthy.
Unfortunately, he signed away any reason associated with Ryoma three years ago in a match chart.
Countless dreams later, Tezuka finally musters the courage to ask the question he's been putting off since that first unfinished conversation.
They're on a mountain this time, the same one the regulars all climbed prior to Tezuka's departure for Germany. It's night in this dream and his eyes are fixed on the stars that are scattered all over the sky in unfamiliar patterns.
"Are you real, Ryoma?"
There's a loud scoff from beside him and the warmth pressed to his side disappears. Ryoma leans over him, his face close enough to Tezuka's to be a blur of green and skin.
"Haven't you asked this already?"
"You never answered."
Ryoma frowns, eyes narrowing in a way that leaves Tezuka no option but to reach up and kiss him. Ryoma's mouth is as cool but as solid as any reality. It always is.
"I'm real to you," Ryoma breathes when they part, voice low and pleased. "Isn't that good enough?"
Tezuka considers that for a moment, only for his mind to white out when Ryoma practically invades his mouth, teeth and tongue driving all thought from his head. That's cheating but it's no use protesting because Ryoma will only grin and do it again. And again and again and again.
Later, Tezuka will conclude that it is indeed good enough.
His mother comments one morning during an otherwise innocuous breakfast that he seems happier these days.
Tezuka doesn't know what to say or how to react and settles on nodding solemnly. He very carefully doesn't think about why he is happy. But his mother doesn't ask, only smiles her usual half-smile. She never brings up the topic again.
And any guilt Tezuka feels is washed away that night by golden eyes and a crooked smirk.
Life, both real and not, settles into a comfortable routine.
But if his admittedly short life has taught Tezuka anything, it's that nothing lasts for long.
All dreams must end.
One humid Saturday, Tezuka goes to sleep earlier than usual and wakes some unknown hours later in cold sweat. His can feel the harsh pounding of his heart and the erratic rhythm of his breaths.
The absence of the dream, of Ryoma, is like a physical wound that throbs in time to the thrum of his pulse; similar but ultimately more intense than the ache that occasionally plagues his shoulder. He doesn't panic, not quite. The absence of a single night's dream doesn't mean anything and it certainly can't mean that Ryoma is gone for good. For all he knows, he could go back to sleep and find himself in a court with Ryoma across the net.
But falling back asleep proves nearly impossible. Tezuka's own mind betrays him this time with fears and doubts that ring too loud in the empty silence of the night. No amount of tossing and turning makes him comfortable. His thoughts refuse to quiet down despite his best efforts to stop thinking.
It's nearly dawn by the time he drifts off and even then, he finds himself stranded between sleep and wakefulness, assaulted by indistinct images and sensations that once again jolt him awake with a pounding heart.
He opens his eyes to see Ryoma perched on the edge of his bed, looking far too amused.
He's a little hazy around the edges but Tezuka reaches out with a desperate hand and finds him entirely solid to the touch.
All dreams must end. But some do become reality.
Tennis club in his third year of high school is a near perfect copy of the third year of middle school. He's still the captain, Oishi still worries too much, Kikumaru still has more energy than humanly possible, Fuji still scares the freshmen, Kaidoh and Momoshiro still fight like a married couple, and Inui is still obsessed with data.
All that is lacking is Kawamura and-
There's one more missing and the space where he should have been seems all the more pronounced in the face of the certainty that he will never return. That knowledge is reflected on all of their faces, their expressions set in varying degrees of grim dejection. Their pain is palpable enough to make Tezuka feel guilty for his own elative cheer.
There's a flash of white and blue in the corner of his eyes. Cold fingers brush against his own; once, twice.
Mada mada dane, buchou.
Tezuka smiles.