The characters and situations of The Prince of Tennis (テニスの王子様 Tenisu no Ōjisama) belong to Takeshi Konomi, Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump, Viz Media, TV Tokyo, et al. I claim nothing but these stories.

What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

There's a reason Fuji Syusuke is always smiling.
Every morning, the first thing he does is throw his large bedroom windows wide open, letting in sunshine and fresh air.
That's two of his favorite things right there.
Right outside is a third thing: his garden. More precisely, a row of cacti neatly arranged on his window ledge.
It's not their day for water or plant food so today he only rotates each pot, making sure that the side that had faced the window now faces outward, making sure it receives its equal share of sunlight. The difference each side receives during the day is infinitesimal, the gesture probably unnecessary, but he likes being fair, even if not everyone agrees with his particular views on fairness. Or justice.
As he moves each plant in turn, he takes the opportunity to touch them, checking for pests or signs of ill health. He finds an ant on his Ariocarpus trigonus and gently blows it away, then removes a stray leaf that has somehow fallen into the pot of his Aztekium ritteri. He notes that his Buiningia aurea and his Coryphantha recurvata are getting to be almost too big for their pots. The Lophocereus schottii and Echinomastus erectocentrus are growing as well. Come spring, he will need to finally install that window planter so they'll have space to spread and grow. He's already chosen the box he wants, and will put an order for it when the time is right.
There's not really a lot more he can do for his plants, short of singing or talking to them as some books suggest, and which he has no intention of doing, ever. Cacti are hardy but contrary plants, after all, they have thorns for a reason. One wrong move can lead to great damage, for both the plant and gardener, and the wrong kind of care can be worse than none at all. Fuji likes the challenge; he has a thing for prickly thick-skinned unresponsive creatures. Some people might consider that a flaw, but Fuji is too much his sister's brother. He believes some things are meant to fit, meant to be.
Eiji had grimaced the first time he saw Fuji's garden. "Plants are supposed to have leaves, Fuji!" he'd complained. "Flowers! Seriously, these things aren't even green!" He'd given Eiji a half-lidded Look and Eiji had gulped and suddenly began singing the praises of Fuji's Aylostera heliosa. "Wah, so pretty! Like a pineapple!"
Fuji had held the Look an entire half-second more before relenting. Eiji was his best friend, after all.
But Eiji has always been irrepressible. The minute Fuji looked away, Eiji had muttered under his breath, "I still don't see why you couldn't have just gotten a nice fern, or something."
Fuji had made Eiji pay for that remark where it counted: on the court.
Eiji might be his best friend, but the cacti are his. Fuji allows no one liberties with the things that are his, nor does he forgive any slight against them.
His favorite plant is his Geohintonia mexicana, his first cactus, a souvenir from one of his father's business trips to Mexico. Yuuta, on the other hand, had gotten a pinata. Yuuta hadn't known what the papier-mache burro had been, and had pouted until their father had taken him on his knee and whispered that his present held a very special secret. "Yours does, too," he'd told Fuji with a small wink. "But it's up to both of you to find them, to figure them out."
The wait and the effort had been worth it. The blossoms had been breathtaking.
Much much later, he'd found out that the plant had been declared a national treasure of Mexico, and therefore his ownership of it could be considered not quite legal.
That has never marred his enjoyment of the plant, however. Nor does it make the plant any less his.
Sometimes, Fuji wonders if that was where he'd first gotten his love for secrets, his fascination for the hidden, and his admittedly somewhat-alarming taste for the forbidden.
And if whacking that burro, so to speak, hadn't actually given birth to Yuuta's Super Rising shot.
He doesn't blame himself for Yuuta's decision to leave, though he acknowledges his part in it. When two strong-willed personalities with the same focus share such close quarters, sparks will inevitably fly. He doesn't mind Yuuta's continuing skittishness and bad temper, either. When tested, some plants fold into themselves for protection. Others explode, spines bared in defense and in challenge.
A transplant had been necessary, Fuji understands that. Yuuta is growing, so much and so very fast. Every time Fuji sees him, something else has changed. He's taller. He's stronger. He moves differently. His voice has deepened. Yuuta is so tall now, taller than Fuji, who sometimes uncharacteristically worries that he's as tall as he's going to be. Fuji is hard-pressed to find signs of the cute, if somewhat-touchy, child his brother had been. Yuuta has always been so determined to prove himself, to stand on his own strength, even when he was so obviously not ready. Fuji is far too used to being the older brother, the protector, and he's not ashamed to admit that he loves his brother fiercely. He'll be forgiven if he has a less than ecstatic response to the situation.
Or if he has a less than genial response to those who try to take his place in his brother's heart.
His sister thinks he should have gone easier on Mizuki. The St. Rudolph Tennis Club manager was annoying but inconsequential, after all, barely a blip on anyone's radar. But he had used-worse, endangered-Yuuta, and that Fuji will not forgive. As it was, Mizuki was lucky that Fuji had considered his abject humiliation enough.
For now.
Mizuki, after all, has proven to be less than astute. Fuji feels perfectly justified in his disdain of the St. Rudolph player. Despite his supercilious pronouncements, he's done nothing for Yuuta. He's only hindered Yuuta's growth, only managed to prove that Yuuta still needs to be looked after, to be protected.
But Fuji is a much better gardener these days. His touch much lighter, though that much more sure. He has a better understanding of the needs of the creatures under his care. When he's ready, Yuuta will come home to find that he has the space he needs, both for his roots and his new wings.
In the meantime, Fuji sees his brother where it matters - at his worst and at his best. Time and again they meet, in the one place where Yuuta is still forced to look up to him, to acknowledge his authority. The one place where Fuji can still teach Yuuta, where he can even kick ass on his brother's behalf.
Tennis gives him so many things, it's no wonder he loves it so.

Having completed his inspection of his garden, Fuji turns back into his room to prepare for school.
His room is spare, 'freakishly neat' as Eiji once told him. Clutter, if it can even be called that, is found only in one part of the room- on a 5x5 corkboard placed strategically at the wall farthest away from the window and the light. Under a thin frame of glass to protect them from the air is his other collection: his photographs.
His sister had remarked once, her voice laden with innuendo, how curious it was that his two main passions were nearly polar opposites of each other. "Syusuke," she'd said, her eyes twinkling, "you were always one for contradictions." There aren't many people Fuji would allow such liberties with; unfortunately, his sister is one of them. More importantly, his sister is one of a handful that he actually respects, is maybe even wary of, and Fuji is far too smart to present her with an opening. Besides, he doesn't see things the way she does.
There are a lot of photographs in his gallery, the prints almost crowding the small space, but he blames this on the plethora of material available. The Seigaku Tennis Club alone provides so many subjects and themes; he understands completely why Inoue-san, Shiba-chan, and various fans are constantly hanging around.
Eiji doing handstands. Momo-chan and Kaidoh-kun glaring at each other. Echizen scowling at the world in general. Oishi speaking with the non-regulars and freshmen. Taka looking somewhat baffled and overwhelmed while Inui furiously scribbles something in his notebook. Ryuuzaki-sensei watching the regulars practice, a smile of smug satisfaction gracing her face.
There are no photographs of Tezuka.
Fuji doesn't think he'll ever be a great photographer, though he has a solid enough grasp of the basics. Light and shadow, coverage and exposure, positioning and perspective. He's read that photographs should be about expression, should tell a story, should paint a thousand words. Fuji believes otherwise.
A sakura tree in bloom, a pool of koi, a flock of herons in the snow, a thin line of white ice against a backdrop of blue sea. His treasure, though, is a semi-aerial shot of a small stream barely visible through a patch of trees. Even less visible is a tiny glint of life, sunlight reflecting off some indistinguishable object.
For Fuji, the stories in the photographs aren't half as interesting as the secrets they hide.
Sometimes, it's all about what can't be seen.
There's a reason Fuji is always smiling. Each morning, he wakes up surrounded by his favorite things. Then he goes to school, plays tennis, and is surrounded by more. His favorite thing in the world, in fact, can usually be found standing at the sidelines of the Seigaku tennis courts, impassively watching the members practice.
A prince inspecting his kingdom, watching over his subjects.
You'd smile, too.
Fuji is fascinated by Tezuka's face, by the stony blankness of its features. Like the side of a craggy mountain in some arid land or desert-unreadable, uncompromising, unaffected by the elements-and yet somehow filled with character. Tezuka is a mystery to Fuji, an almost-paradox considering how straight-laced and straightforward the other boy is.
Tezuka's face is ageless, unchanging, the seasons leaving only the barest of marks. Tezuka meets every challenge with serene competence, receives every teasing innuendo with stony indifference. Even the most severe life crisis merits only the barest of acknowledgements. The fiercest of emotions are barely discernable, fleeting, landing only for the briefest of tenures in his eyes or on the firm set of his mouth.
Fuji spends an inordinate amount of time watching Tezuka, trying to catch each minute flicker of expression, analyzing and cataloguing the complex code of his eyes. Sometimes, he amuses himself by trying to rock that stoic expression, searching for a weakness, a crack in the granite perfection of Tezuka's profile.
Fuji's machinations are largely ineffectual, his attempts to elicit a response hardly ever successful. Where the Seigaku tennis club captain is concerned, Fuji's digs rarely show, the seeds he plants never take root.
But sometimes, Fuji succeeds. He gains an inch, catches a glimpse, and it's more than anyone else has ever managed. But then, anyone else would have given up long ago.
It's no coincidence that Fuji is a baseline receiver. He's developed complicated strategies, formidable attacks, but most of the time he doesn't even need to use them. His greatest weapon has always been his patience.
Like Inui, Fuji has endless fortitude to watch and study, to analyze and use his discoveries to his advantage. He knows how to wait. For an opening. For a chance. For his opponent to show his hand, reveal a weakness, make a mistake. Unlike Inui, however, Fuji is not at all myopic. His half-slit smiling eyes have always seen far more than his bespectacled teammate's.
Fuji knows that Inui's weakness is that he's dependent on empirical data, on what he can observe and measure. This is why Inui will never catch up to Tezuka, and why he'll never catch Tezuka's gaze. Inui only sees what's shown. He never attempts to find the hidden, never even suspects there could be more. He doesn't realize that, as far as Tezuka is concerned, any photograph is useless, any data gathered immediately obsolete.
Every fisherman knows: by the time you spot a fish swimming in a stream, it is no longer there. The key to catching fish, therefore, is not to strike at where they seem to be, but where they are headed. While Inui is measuring performance, Tezuka is realizing potential, and he's never where Inui thinks he is. Tezuka never stands still. Despite his seeming impassiveness and stolidity, Tezuka is always moving forward. His gaze is always fixed on a point far beyond the next game, beyond the next match. Beyond the Nationals, even.
Echizen is the one he has to watch out for, Fuji thinks. Echizen keeps moving, too, and he's managed to catch Tezuka's interest. But Fuji knows Tezuka only sees Echizen for his tennis.
If that was all Fuji wanted, he could have had it all along.
Fuji could probably defeat Tezuka if he set his mind to it. He's not a tensai for nothing. He has never really tried, though. He's not like the others. Like Tezuka, Fuji has set his sights much, much higher.
Fuji doesn't expect it to be easy. Tezuka keeps his secrets close, acts like he has none. Tezuka wears his privacy like his Seigaku Tennis Club Regulars jacket-as if his right to it can never be contested. Tezuka never shows more than he has to, never gives away anything he doesn't want to.
Fuji isn't worried. Fuji knows Tezuka better than anyone-better than Oishi even, who, like his pet fish, hovers quietly behind Tezuka, placid and undemanding. Not even Oishi, who Tezuka allows near, knows the truth about what lies beneath the steely gaze, the stony facade.
The hardest part, as far as Fuji sees, is that Tezuka knows him, too. He's seen all of Fuji tricks.
Well, all the tricks Fuji has used so far.
Fuji isn't quite that predictable.
Fuji follows behind no one, needs no permission, and he has quite a few secrets of his own. He's never where Tezuka thinks he is, either, and he's far closer than anyone knows.
Tezuka's thorns aren't blatant or dramatic, but Fuji knows that only means they're far more lethal. There won't be any second chances, as far as Tezuka is concerned.
He's not worried. Yuuta was Fuji's first lesson in prudence. Unlike Mizuki, he doesn't need a second. He knows better than to force his hand, and he knows that some things have to happen in their own time.
He knows, better than most, the rewards of patience.
Fuji isn't like Inui. He isn't like Ryoma, or Atobe, or a hundred other so-called tennis players. He doesn't want to catch up to Tezuka, to be the one to beat him, break him.
Fuji knows Tezuka better than anyone; he knows Tezuka will never break.
But Fuji is an excellent gardener.
Someday, he'll be the one who makes Tezuka bloom.

© JCSA 2005