There are a lot of things Tezuka could blame this mess he's in on. It might have been the heady euphoria at winning Nationals, something Inui might've slipped into the drinks (he wouldn't put it past Inui to attempt to 'lighten him up' by creating some Super Inui Rabu-rabu Ready Juice Deluxe just for him), it might have been the light, translucently amber, a sepia-tinged wash. The same light filled Fuji's eyes with honey, outlined the angle of his cheekbone and the curve of his neck and his sharp collarbones, jutting out and barely visible
He remembers feeling warmth coiling in the base of his chest, a feeling he associated previously only with tennis, the feel of the shock reverberating up his arm as his racket contacts the ball with a smack, watching it skim the net and hit a precise spot on the baseline. The phantom feeling of a gold medal, weighing heavy and solid around his neck.
They walked home together after, because Fuji's house is only a few streets away from Tezuka's and Tezuka wasn't comfortable with the thought of Fuji walking home alone, tired from the day's handover ranking matches as he is. Fuji has never told him explicitly but he knows that there have been instances in trains, on buses, in alleys (Fuji tells Eiji and Eiji tells Oishi and Oishi tells him); he doesn't doubt that Fuji can take care of himself, but the slight shaking of Fuji's hands as he lifted the cup of green tea to his lips didn't escape his notice.
At the door of Fuji's house Fuji turns and touches him lightly on the elbow.
Thank you, Tezuka. Would you like to come in? Yumiko's out with her boyfriend and Yuuta and my parents aren't at home at this time, usually.
They go through this ritual regularly; Tezuka walks Fuji home, Fuji asks him to come in - though whether out of politeness or a real desire for his company, Tezuka doesn't speculate - and Tezuka always declines. In all his years with the Seigaku regulars he's never been to anyone's house but Oishi's, and the last because it was strictly necessary and nothing more.
Today, though, he says yes, and Fuji's eyes open wide in startlement before he smiles crookedly and turns to fumble with the lock. It evidently doesn't take much to surprise Fuji when one doesn't mean to.
Tezuka blinks. Fuji's eyes are full of light again, the moon and the streetlamps mingling, reflecting. This is an important moment to remember; this is a point of reference for Tezuka.
Fuji kicks his shoes off and leaves them haphazardly where they land, toes pointing in different directions. It isn't his house but it still pains Tezuka, who neatly aligns his shoes perpendicular to the door, parallel to each other. When he's sure Fuji has walked off down the hallway he nudges them into some semblance of order.
The cactus on the hallway table seems to either be staring at him in bemused horror or sniggering at his obsessive-compulsive tendencies.
Tea? Fuji calls dulcetly down the hallway. His house is tidy and looks lived-in the way Tezuka's does not, scuffmarks on the floor and sweaters draped over chairs and papers scattered over tables.
If it's not any trouble, calls back Tezuka.
Fuji reappears at the door of the kitchen balancing a tray with two cups and a plate of biscuits. The steam from the tea wafts its way over to Tezuka in languid tendrils, forming a curious sort of white halo effect around Fuji's head. They pad up the stairs in their socked feet, pausing only for Fuji to point out and coo over Yuuta's topless baby picture on the wall (a devious glint of the eyes accompanies the announcement, if he ever becomes famous I'm going to auction it off on eBay. Alternatively I could just send copies anonymously to every girl in school on his birthday, and Tezuka thanks his stars again that he doesn't have siblings)and for Tezuka to carefully manuever around one of Fuji's more prickly cactus specimens, left (decoratively, insists Fuji) near the side-edge of a step.
Fuji's room is not the explosion of chaos Tezuka subconsciously expected; instead there are even rows of cacti arranged on the windowsill and all the clothes present are nicely and crisply folded at the foot of the bed. What does confuse him is the shelf full of Hanakimi manga and Hana Yori Dango DVDs; as does the presence of several NEWS and Arashi and (most horrifyingly) KAT-TUN. In a bid to pretend ignorance he takes off his glasses, ostensibly to clean them but more to avoid seeing anything else horrifying, like the Kama Sutra -- which he'd actually already seen at Oishi's house (Oishi had blushed an unattractive shade of brilliant scarlet and stammered that Kikumaru had bought it for him thinking it was a book on Zen meditation; but he isn't very good at lying and anyway Tezuka is far less obtuse and prudish than everyone thinks him).
His temporary loss of vision, however, means that when he turns around he finds himself chest-to-nose with Fuji, who nearly drops the cup of tea he is proffering in surprise.
This is the part where everything is unclear; he remembers looking down at Fuji, searching and unsmiling and unsure, before leaning down and awkwardly pressing his lips against Fuji's. Fuji doesn't yield softly and gently like girls are supposed to, doesn't do anything at all except maybe open his mouth a little in a slight 'o' of surprise. The nape of his neck is a warm curve against Tezuka's palm.
It takes Fuji dropping the cup of tea to break them out of it. The sharp noise makes them spring apart and Fuji wipes his mouth with the back of his hand before looking at Tezuka. For once he isn't smiling at all, and the tilt of his chin is defiantly challenging.
Before he can say anything, Tezuka bolts. Bang, goes the door.
The tea seeps slowly over the floor, a stain spreading from the centre outwards, inching towards Fuji's feet like the tide coming in.
He is walking down a street towards the school when he passes a pregnant figure in an empire-line dress the exact shades of blue and white on the Seigaku regular's jersey. The blue's an unusual enough colour that he has to turn around to look at it; even from the back the silhouette is familiar, wispy brown hair and pixie-delicate angularity -
Fuji?
The person turns from the shop window, full of (Tezuka notes with mingling dismay and satisfaction) miniaturised tennis equipment.
Ah, Tezuka. I was wondering when you would find out. Fuji smiles, seemingly unperturbed by the fact that he is standing in broad daylight, in public, a boy with curves where there shouldn't be
This is physically impossible, he tells Fuji. We didn't --You're a boy and I pay attention in Biology class and you're --
Ah, but Tezuka, you're only fifteen, what do you know of impossibilities? Fuji walks over, slides his arms around Tezuka's neck and leans in so close that Tezuka could count the faint sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of his nose if he wanted to.
An elderly couple walks past and smiles indulgently at them; a motorcycle goes past and someone shouts - in Momoshiro's voice - hey, buchou, get a room!
(Tezuka makes a mental note to make Momoshiro run a hundred and thirty laps at their next tennis practice session.)
S'not like you're in any position to talk about physical impossibility either. Just think about it. Fuji's breath is warm on Tezuka's ear, his voice raw silk and ricepaper. The Tezuka Zone? It isn't everyone who can do that, you know.
Tezuka wants to say something about taking responsibility and appropriate decorum and public displays of affection but that gets lost along the way somewhere in the hollow at the base of his throat; before he knows it he's kissing Fuji in the middle of the street, in full view of anyone and everyone.
To his surprise Fuji draws away after a while and looks at him, eyes open and alight with meaning, and says simply, So what are you going to do about it?
Tezuka tries to form a coherent reply but the only thing that comes out of his mouth is twenty laps -- and there is a moment of silence, when Fuji's mouth briefly twists into a bitter line before settling into a smile of resigned sadness. I see. He walks away, dignified despite the unreality of his physique, and though Tezuka wants to say no, stop and run after him there is suddenly a rising chorus of buchou, buchou behind him and he is torn between the team that needs him and going after Fuji and it feels like he is being torn apart but --
-- Tezuka jerks awake and looks at the clock beside his bed, the colon in the 2:29 blinking serenely at him.
Sometimes he almost wishes he was a normal teenage boy, with normal dreams for that age demographic -- but then again normal teenage boys don't usually have the word demographic in their vocabulary.
Tezuka stares up at the blank ceiling, hoping for some kind of answer to appear, maybe a message from the tennis powers that be. When it appears there are none forthcoming he pulls his blanket miserably over his head and closes his eyes. This is what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a Zero-Shiki, wondering what to do about the ball that rolls casually to a stop and waits silently at his feet, the outcome of his own creation, his own doing.
Somewhere at the back of his mind, a little voice says snarkily, mada mada dane, Tezuka-buchou.
Echizen never quite understands why Tezuka makes him run a record hundred and twenty laps for being merely three minutes late for the next practice.