I swear, this is the closest to fluff I get. This was supposed to be a prompt for the other community. It isn't now, though. Please tell me if any of the terms I use in here are wrongfully used. I try and research everything, but I'm not a doctor.

All disclaimers apply. Konomi Takeshi owns it, not me.

Please review, too. Thank you! Constructive criticism is much appreciated, and even flames will be taken into consideration

Expressionless

When it rained that day, it poured. That rain was the type of thick sheet that drenched people within minutes, and fogged the windows in houses as it kicked up a mist from the ground. On the other side of the window sat a set of eyes, looking through the foggy window to the muted colors of the landscape outside.

Perhaps, as a young boy he had been considered cute. As a young man, maybe he was called 'pretty' or 'beautiful'. Such terms, so unbefitting of a male, seemed to frame Fuji, and his supposed status as a genius and a prodigy. Fuji Shuusuke was, of course, every woman's dream. He was clever and talented; he was attractive and charismatic. That was so much different from the equally attractive and talented captain Tezuka, who seemed all but aware of the many girls who pined for his nonexistent affection.

He had grown up very well, one might have said. All that he was happened to be everything his admirers and friends would have hoped for. Yet, there was something odd, something that couldn't be placed about Fuji. Nobody could really detect what that something was, and therefore chose to ignore it as a tiny flaw, a flaw that kept Fuji human. The tiny quirk was only an undetectable blip on most people's radar. To them, the outward warm personality that Fuji radiated was far more important to them. People as teenagers often never looked below the surface. What Fuji had outwardly was of the utmost importance. Fuji was attractive, popular, and talented. That's all that mattered to most people at that age. Such things, surprisingly, hadn't changed. Most people would rather look right at the surface than search for what might have been buried beneath.

"I made some tea," A man said, sitting down next to where Fuji sat, staring at the frosted piece of glass, stained with a muggy fog. He was handed a steaming cup by his counterpart, a man wearing glasses who had worn his own face into an eternal look of the most absolute form of seriousness. Smiling, Fuji took one cup from him and wrapped his fingers around it.

"Ah, thank you, Tezuka." His lips tested the liquid. Eel tea, Tezuka's favorite. He paused for a moment as the rain pounded down, breaking the silence with its thunder. "You've gotten good at making it," he added in silence, letting the words slide softly off his tongue. Tezuka's hazel eyes retracted as he took a sip of his own tea, pursing his lips slightly in dissatisfaction. Obviously, Tezuka didn't agree.

Their silence was never hospitable anymore, like it used to be sometimes, especially before a tennis match. Tezuka gave off a sense of serenity, and Fuji had turned to more pensive mannerisms when he was alone with Tezuka, something they would never have done before. Tezuka was surprisingly patient with it, allowing Fuji to take as much time he needed in order to think. In return, Fuji never questioned the silence between them that Tezuka valued so much, because the former captain always though silence spoke the loudest.

The rain still hammered. Tezuka's lips wore into a thin, straight line.

Though Tezuka seemed uninterested in something that was usually a favorite of his, Fuji didn't mind taking a few sips of the liquid while their silence continued, and Tezuka once again seemed to sternly wait for Fuji to come up with something to say.

"The doctor called today," Fuji started. His eyes opened, carefully tracking ever inch of Tezuka's face for some sort of sign of a change in expression. Nothing seemed to change; Fuji was only slightly ruffled at that, calmly pressing the back of his hand into his lips and chuckling lowly into it. Such bitterness, such coolness, left a very bitter taste in the atmosphere. Fuji licked his dry lips. The laughter was dark and mocking, holding no trace of mirth.

"What did he say?" Tezuka asked, cautious after the cold laughter that would have shaken any girl that was standing there. Even for Fuji, who could practically switch his personalities in a heartbeat, this was strange. He wasn't a morbid person by a long shot

"Oh, this and that," Fuji replied, darting playfully around the subject. Tezuka paused again and tested the air acutely as if Fuji was not allowing him to speak. He knew what was going on; Fuji was suppressing pain, both physical and psychological. Tezuka's eyes saw past the outer workings of the genius.

Geniuses, after all, were not always ones who were completely normal. Being very smart came with not only the stress of high expectations, but also a critical outlook on everything that they did. In some areas, Fuji's interest was fleeting, and though he was brilliant, he put in minimal effort while still managing to cruise. In others, it seemed that Fuji was never satisfied. The one thing Fuji would never allow himself to do was to fail, or to be overshadowed. It left Fuji with a strange attitude, something that had come up later in his high school career, something that had slowly become more and more noticeable as he got older. Originally, it might have been able to been considered just a run-of-the-mill case of perfection. However, when Fuji was finally sent to a therapist, he was diagnosed as OCPD, or obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.

It was strange that when Fuji was younger, no symptoms showed through. After that, though, Tezuka could remember periodically Fuji would be left at the psychologist's office for an hour or so, for a brief session. The rest of their high school career passed without incidence. Recently, Fuji had been going to the doctor with periodic bouts of illness and occasional fatigue. Rather, Tezuka was making him go, because Fuji often times brushed off illness as if it were not anything at all.

Fuji said that going to the doctor's office was a waste of time. After all, they were both busy people. Tezuka was well on his way to being admitted into medical school in America, while Fuji built up his reputation as a photographer. Fuji's job required him to be constantly on the move, not going to the hospitals to figure out if there was medication he needed to get, or to take a blood test.

"Did he prescribe something?"

Fuji smiled, softly. "No, he says that I should be fine for now. I have a slightly low white blood cell count, but that might just be due to the colds that I've been having lately." Fuji paused, and Tezuka hesitated, knowing that there was something the genius wanted to add on to what he had been saying. "Still, though," he continued a minute later, the air tense and thick as he spoke. "Inoue-sensei says that he would like me to come in and get a more extensive test, just to be sure. He says he wants some bone marrow to analyze for anything that might have came up because of the infections."

The rain still hammered. Standing up, he took the empty cup from Fuji. He'd finished it all. Tezuka, who hadn't taken a sip of his own, gave it up to Fuji as an encouragement to drink. "I'll be back."

Fuji caught him by the sleeve.

"Have you studied the immune system yet, Tezuka?" Tezuka turned and tilted his head in question to Fuji, who had had an odd expression mixed into his smile, turning the air even more bitter and chilly. Tezuka glanced towards the clouded windows, catching a flash of lighting as it tore across the sky. He took a seat again when Fuji refused to answer, being as stubborn as ever. Fuji never gave something without getting something in return. Fuji took the cup from him and set the full one aside, not paying attention to it.

"Yes, though not fully."

"Then… can you tell me if people usually die from it?" Fuji asked, his tone becoming rather abrasive. Fuji eyed the window with cold blue orbs, as if he expected the glass to shatter at any moment.

"Well," Tezuka answered with difficulty, "It depends,"

"Depends?"

Fuji looked slightly frightened by the thought that he could die from something. Tezuka always had viewed dying as a natural process, and wasn't able to see why Fuji was suddenly getting so worked up. Fuji was supposed to be a genius that never wavered. Now, his smile trembled slightly. He looked down at his lap.

Sometimes, accepting possibilities was difficult. Fuji sighed and set the cup of tea aside. Tezuka picked it up.

"It varies by type," Tezuka stated.

"Well what about auto-immune…." Fuji shook his head and smiled, with a soft and fluid laugh. "Never mind. I was never very good with medical terms. Too tedious, if you ask me; sometimes, I wonder how you did it." Fuji flashed his a coy look, a Tezuka face warmed slightly, even though there was no detectable trace of any sort of pink tint to his cheeks. He stood up and took the empty cup from Tezuka, their fingers brushing softly.

"It's sort of like the rain, isn't it?" Fuji brought up a minute, only succeeding in confusing Tezuka. Then again, Fuji had always been confusing, if not slightly frustrating, to Tezuka. Nothing was every quite simple with him.

"See," he continued, "You keep walking and walking, but you don't know where you're supposed to go. It's cold and wet, and it would be nice if you could just quit, because you sometimes wonder why you're out walking in the rain in the first place. Is that right, Tezuka?" He turned an expectant eye over to Tezuka.

"You think about it too much," Tezuka replied simply.

"Ah, perhaps," said Fuji, breezily. "Don't you think that I might be nervous though, that I might have something serious?" His voice was more and more serious now, because Fuji had never thought that he would be frightened over such a thing.

"You shouldn't worry. You'll be fine." Tezuka stated simply. Fuji was giving him a strange look.

"If you had any severe auto-immune disorder, you would have noticed when you were younger. Do some research before making assumptions," he mentioned. Fuji's face lightened considerably. He walked up to Tezuka and gave him a gentle tap on the shoulder. Tezuka only blinked.

Fuji looked as if his answer had been something of a hallmark, something that needed to be celebrated.

"Ah," Fuji smiled brightly, even as the rain hammered down.