A/N: I wrote this story because Fuji is a kind person, a good older brother, and someone who will do anything for the people that he loves. And he really deserves his own epic love story, you know? Also people have gotta stop making Fuji the go-to love triangle for RyoSaku squabbles. The guy is a tensai, he's not gonna go for a pushover like Sakuno. xoxo
Also, I ask shyly that you give this story a chance! I won't give up on it if you won't! Let me know what you think :)
PSA: Fuji Syusuke DEFINITELY appears in Chapter 2 ;) Chapter 1 is all about setting up the premise, which is important as well!
Disclaimer: I donut own PoT!
Bursts of Light: Chapter 1
Long Exposure:
A photographic image exposed to the scene for an extended period.
A distillation of slow movement.
The product of something a long time coming.
"I want to transfer to Seigaku."
Four eyes around the dinner table blinked at Tsuchida Nami.
"Do you really, nee-san?" asked Nami's little brother Hiro, who was about to enter 5th grade. He turned to their father, his dark-gray bangs flopping into his blue eyes. "Does that mean I can transfer too?"
Everyone ignored him.
Finally, their stepmom spoke. "Don't be silly, both of you. It's the week before school starts and I had to pull a lot of strings to get you both into the St. Rudolph system last year to be with your stepsister."
"Yeah, lucky us," Nami deadpanned. "Thank you so much for letting us freeze in hell, Mitsuko-san."
Hiro giggled. Their stepmom pursed her lips. Nami knew Mitsuko-san held back from disciplining them because she wasn't their real mother, who was currently traveling the world as a photographer for National Geographic Japan.
"Language, Nami," their dad sighed. "What's wrong with St. Rudolph? Sakiko has always thrived there, and you'll get into an excellent college with such a good high school name if you get your grades up."
Her older stepsister Sakiko jumped in even though no one had asked her to. "Nami, you're just not used to the environment yet. Stay at St. Rudolph. You can work with me on where you're….lacking. What would you do alone at Seigaku when you only survived last year by having me as your role model?"
Her stepmom nodded proudly.
By now Nami was used to the shameless self-promotion that had come with the women of her father's second marriage last year. But God, she'd had enough of it at home. Over the summer, after spending even more time with Nakamura Sakiko than during her first year of high school at that hellhole full of creeps (like Mizuki Hajime anyone?), after watching Sakiko prattle on and on about her perfect grades and perfect friends and endless string of boyfriends—Nami couldn't take it anymore.
She needed a reprieve from the madness that was her uppercrust stepmom and stepsister, from the superiority complex that was so ingrained in them—so Nakamura—that Nami couldn't even accuse them of doing it on purpose.
God, oh God, please let her parents say yes. She didn't need to spend anymore time with long-legged golden-haired Sakiko, who as a second year at St. Rudolph had sought Nami out throughout the school day to ask if she was following the diet plan outlined for her to reach an acceptable level of thinness. Sakiko, who went to Nami's teachers to get her test scores (and of course they gave it to St. Rudolph's star pupil) and then proceeded to buy remedial books for subjects Nami had a 90 or below in.
Sakiko, who had purposely humiliated and alienated Nami's first friend at St. Rudolph for being too poor to associate with them. And by poor, Sakiko had meant just about the same economic level Nami's family had been before her dad married Mitsuko-san. Even though Nami had gone into high school with grim expectations, she didn't know her experience would devolve into some sort of twisted hide-and-seek with an egomaniac stepsister who everyone else—teachers, peers, adults—seemed to adore.
Hiro was so lucky to still be learning pre-algebra in the elementary school a mile away from Sakiko's radius of "helpfulness."
"Anyway," Mitsuko-san sniffed, clearly miffed at the lack of gratitude from her two stepchildren. "It's too late to do anything about it now."
"Actually, Seigaku already accepted me." For the first time in a long while, Nami had felt a swell of pride when she'd received the blue and white package in the temporary mailbox rented out to receive her transfer application decisions. "And I've filed my resignations for all the clubs and leadership positions Sakiko made me join at St. Rudolph. It'll look terrible on my college applications if I don't have a transfer as the reason for me quitting all my extracurriculars. There's nothing left to do but for otou-san to sign my commitment."
Game. Set. Match. (As her friend Yuuta-kun would say.)
The two adults gaped at her. Sakiko looked mildly impressed and Hiro seemed to be formulating his own escape plan now that Nami had cornered their parents.
Their dad furrowed his brow. "Well why did you wait until now to tell us?!"
Nami blushed. "I was—I was waitlisted at first. I didn't make Seigaku's initial transfer cutoff scores, but I told them I really really wanted it and they gave me the good news two days ago."
Sakiko sighed dramatically. "Nami, I've always told you you needed to get your grades up. It really brings you so many more opportunities than you have right now. I'm already in talks with Tokyo University about a full ride for next year, you know?"
Leave it to Sakiko to turn a family crisis into a bragging session.
Their dad pinched his forehead. "Nami, let me—let me talk over this with Mitsuko-san tonight. We'll get back to you, okay? For now let's finish eating."
"I'm not hungry anymore!" Hiro exclaimed. Nami snorted.
Tsuchida Akinari loved his children. He really did. So he couldn't help but feel continuous waves of guilt when he started to realize that they weren't quite warming up to his new wife Nakamura Mitsuko.
The problem was, he loved her, he really did. A college professor of feminist literature at Keio University, he had always been attracted to strong career women who pushed back against traditional expectations. It was, after all, what drew him to his children's mother, a headstrong photographer who flew away from their comfortable nest of family life when Nami was 10 and Hiro was only 4. Tsuchida Nadeshiko had never really needed him or even children, and one day she realized it and never looked back.
So when Akinari met Nakamura Mitsuko at a dinner celebration for prominent female lawyers of Tokyo three years ago, where he had been asked to give a few words on the importance of feminism, he felt a stirring in his heart that had not occurred in many years. Oh, she was definitely headstrong like Nadeshiko, but he loved that about the both of them. But unlike his ex-wife, there was also something heartbreakingly vulnerable about her, the way she had teared up over a glass of wine when relating to him her failed marriage with Sakiko's father, a partner at her previous law firm who had almost as many affairs as cases. The way she told him that she just wanted, for once, a nice man who would not be bitter over her strength, accomplishment, and wealth.
Really, he had no choice but to take her hand and say that he would be that man.
He knew she and her shiny daughter Sakiko could be a bit much—that everyone agreed on—but they both meant well. And more importantly, after years of growing up without a mother in the house, it was time for Nami and Hiro to have someone who could cook better dinners than omurice or katsu-don every night. Now that he thought about it, maybe it was the sudden increase in vegetable intake that had his children so crabby about moving in with his decidedly wealthier second wife and stepdaughter.
"What was she thinking, doing all of that without a word of it to us," Mitsuko huffed. "Doesn't she know how good of an opportunity St. Rudolph is?"
Akinari watched his wife forcefully remove bobby pins from the corporate bun that her golden waves had been confined to. "Don't be so hard on her, anata," he murmured. "She hasn't had the easiest transition this past year."
"Well Hiro's having a great time isn't he?"
Akinari laughed a little. "Hiro's still young and flexible. And that child will be happy as long as you give him Legos and popsicles."
Mitsuko peered at her husband critically. "You should have raised them with stricter standards. All Nami does is wander around with that expensive camera and snap pictures. She's not going to make a living off of that. Not everyone can end up as successful as Nadeshiko-san, you know?"
He nodded slowly.
She continued. "I want the best for Nami. And part of that is learning from Sakiko. My daughter's going to go so far in life, and she can teach yours so much."
"But it really seems that...even after a year, Nami isn't happy."
"Happiness is overrated, anata."
"Aren't you happy after you married me?"
"I—I am. But it took a long time for me to get where I am today."
"I want my kids to be happy, Mitsuko."
"What are you saying then? Let Nami transfer to Seigaku?"
"It's a fine school. My uncle went there."
Mitsuko sighed. "If that's what you want. I care about her, but at the end of the day, she's your kid. I just hope she doesn't relinquish her college prospects."
"I want to take a chance on Nami, anata. I want to give her a chance."
"Alright. Me too."
"I guess I won't see you at school next week then."
Nami looked up and saw the last person she wanted to talk to standing in the doorframe to her bedroom. But after hearing the good news from her father and stepmother, there was nothing—not even Nakamura Sakiko—that could could dampen her spirits.
"That's right," she said proudly.
Sakiko shook her head. "I don't get it. St. Rudolph is such a great school. Seigaku is so, so—" she wrinkled her nose. "—middle class."
Nami couldn't help but roll her eyes. "For someone who's supposed to be brilliant, you really don't get it, do you?"
"Get what?"
"Nobody cares about class except for you. Not even the students at St. Rudolph."
"Then why are you leaving?"
Because you're there. Nami wanted to say. Because all you ever do is nose into my business and tell me all the things that are wrong with me.
"I need to become my own person, Sakiko," she said instead. Diplomacy. Calm. Happy. "Without your—your help."
Her stepsister looked at her pityingly. "From your abysmal performance this year at school, it's clear you can't do anything without my help."
The condescension almost riled her up again, but Nami tried to remember that this was her victory and she wasn't going to let Sakiko ruin it. "Well now I won't be such a nuisance anymore, right? You can go back to focusing on your friends and your college apps and your Tensai-san."
She saw that Sakiko stiffened at the mention of her latest boyfriend. Interesting.
Nami and Hiro referred to the guy as Tensai-san because Sakiko never mentioned her boyfriends' names in front of the family, so all they could go off of were small tidbits of information she let slip up, in this case that he was a tensai like she was.
Her stepsister never brought her boyfriends home either. Probably, Nami guessed, because of the awkward stepfamily that embarrassed her with their lower class habits, like wrapping the remote in plastic wrap or reusing grocery bags as trash bags, practices that Mitsuko-san had grudgingly adopted into the new family routine.
"He and I—he and I aren't together anymore," Sakiko muttered.
Nami wasn't that surprised at the news of a breakup, which occurred fairly often as Sakiko tired of a boy's lack of mental prowess, looks, or pedigree. But it was the fleeting look of defeat that crossed her stepsister's face as she said it that made Nami wonder what had happened.
"I'm sorry," Nami said awkwardly. "When did you guys break up?"
"February."
Nami blinked. That was almost two months ago. Now that was surprising, considering that usually the end of one boyfriend was continuous with the start of another (maybe even overlapping), yet since Tensai-san had appeared she and Hiro had yet to encounter the need for a new boy nickname. Which was why she had assumed that they were still together…
"And I guess, as always, you dumped him?"
"Y-yeah." Sakiko's voice faltered.
"Huh."
Silence. Nami almost felt bad for asking.
"It's late," Sakiko said abruptly. "I have to wake up early tomorrow to prepare my start-of-the-year speech. It's not easy surpassing my own words every year when I've been student council president for the entirety of high school."
And she was back.
"Okay," Nami muttered. "You go do that. I'll just dream about my desolate high school career at Seigaku without your guidance."
"Seigaku, huh?" Fuji Yuuta mused as he stared at his friend Nami hanging upside down by her legs on the monkey bars.
She nodded, her chin moving up and down vigorously. She couldn't have looked sillier, with all of her dark-gray hair pulled down by gravity.
He had been one of the few at St. Rudolph whom she had confided in about her desire to transfer, but he hadn't known that she was considering Seigaku.
"Why do you look so pensive, Yuuta-kun?"
"Ah—it's just I know someone who goes there."
"Don't we all?"
"I know him quite well actually."
"Oh, who?"
"Aniki. My older brother."
Nami flipped off the monkey bar to stare at him from the right side up with her dark blue eyes. "Well, I guess you would know him pretty well, Yuuta-kun."
"Yeah," he laughed.
"How come you go to a different school than him?"
He stayed silent for a moment. "It happened during junior high. Pretty much for the same reason as why you're transferring. I hated Aniki back then. But I was angry and immature, you know?"
Nami snorted. "There's no way your aniki is worse than my stepsister."
That was probably true, Yuuta thought. Nakamura Sakiko was absolutely insufferable, and he couldn't for the life of him see why the rest of the student body at St. Rudolph adored her. It probably had something to do with her legs for the male population and a stifling fear of her wrath for the females.
But most of all, Yuuta hated how Sakiko brought out the worst in Nami, how she never even gave her a chance before nitpicking away at everything Nami did, breaking her confidence and reveling in it. He hated how Nami became small and bitter and mean after her daily dose of Sakiko, when the Nami he knew was kind and genuine and strong.
She was the kind of girl who would sit with a surly tennis freak that others avoided (aka him) at lunch when all the other St. Rudolph tennis regulars were off doing shady shit that he didn't want to engage in. She never judged Yuuta for being associated with a sports team known throughout the school for playing dirty, even when he could tell that she loathed Mizuki-senpai with all her little heart and refused his pleas to use her photography skills for spying on rival tennis teams. Tsuchida Nami was a loyal friend if there ever was one, and he would miss her a lot more than their short year of friendship would suggest.
The sun was beginning to set and the cicada chirps had grown louder. They migrated to the creaky set of swings at the corner of the playground.
"Hey," he punched her in the arm. "Good luck at Seigaku." I'll miss you.
Nami smiled softly. It was a softness that disappeared whenever Sakiko appeared, Yuuta had noticed.
"Let's stay friends, okay?" She looked at him earnestly.
"I can't make any promises," he teased.
She whacked him on the head.
"Okay, okay, pinky promise," he said gruffly.
Having crossed pinkies, Yuuta watched Nami's gray hair swish back and forth as she biked toward her house, her enormous black camera bag haphazardly strapped to her small frame. As he turned to head back to the St. Rudolph dorm dedicated to its small percentage of boarding students, he couldn't help but feel that a kindred spirit had left his side at school.
~XX~
Let me know what y'all think ! :D :D Reviews are greatly appreciated hehe
xoxo rainywindows