a/n- this is possibly a little confusing. just read it all the way through, and i think it'll clear up. the super-long sentences and repetitions were done intentionally. so let me know what you think! it's a little bizarre, but i think it turned out alright.
He dreams of rice fields.
All around him, they rustle and whisper. What language are they speaking? Their long green stalks shift in the water.
He is lying on his back between the fields, wandering, lying still. He does not move for fear of falling off the path into where the rice roots grasp the mud. Someone approaches- he sees the stalks parting for legs to come near. The wind sweeps thinly, brushing against the plants and the hairs on his skin. He realizes that it is Fuji but he does not call out, does not sit up. The wind moves his surroundings in green waves, as if it is living.
The wind always blows for Fuji.
The air is thick like soil as he waits. He watches those blue eyes with their little tributaries running to the pupil, and wonders if he is prey. Or a stream. But Fuji comes bearing only a pinwheel; it is garishly orange against the smooth green background.
In dreams he has no sense of time, but he doesn't wonder how long he has lain there. He is comfortable on the packed dirt. Fuji lies on his stomach and holds that pinwheel and places it on his naval. He looks at his stomach and that pinwheel, and Fuji looks too, and smiles. Fuji leans forward on his elbows and blows that pinwheel clockwise, clockwise, clockwise.
At morning practice he grasps his racket tight and incinerates. Inui notices his game is off, hands him a towel, and tells him to take a break. Fuji looks at him and furrows his brows a little, but when he turns back, he is smiling. He smiles like maybe he knows, maybe he knows, and Takashi can almost feel himself go up in smoke. He is burning.
He only stretches a little for the rest of practice, doesn't go and work on his Hadokyuu. Afterward, Fuji comes and hands him his water bottle.
"Taka-san," he says, "feel better soon."
He nods and thanks Fuji and says maybe they should try doubles again soon? And he thinks maybe Fuji's ever-present smile warmed just a little bit as he agreed.
When he takes the train home, he stands by the door, shifting his weight as it moves. An old woman across from him falls asleep on the shoulder of a stranger. Her prim hat tips forward and it seems precarious, to him. The stranger looks uncomfortable, but lets the woman rest.
Out the window he sees rice fields and he aches, aches for Fuji and the fields he's known all his life. He knows he's got schoolwork, and that his dad wants him to work at the restaurant, but all he can think of is Fuji's soft smile and that bright orange pinwheel, spinning, spinning.
At his stop he steps outside and waits for the wind to blow.