Warnings: None as of now.

Characters: Tezuka, Fuji. (Friendshipp-y). Rest of Seigaku makes random appearances.

Disclaimer: PoT is not mine. I'm merely playing with the characters.

Thank you very, very much to everybody who reviewed. Your words mean a lot to me and I hope you'll enjoy the next chapter of this fic as well. To answer the question; this is not a sequel to Ghost Hunt (meaning: Tezuka doesn't yet know the supernatural exists), though the genre is actually the same. The villain is another, as is the plot, but that should be explained somewhere in this story ^_~

Without further ado, enjoy!

What Should Have Never Been Found

Two

"I'm home." Fuji called and hurriedly shut the door behind him, glad to be back in the familiar, well-lit corridor of his own home. Warm air assaulted his frozen cheeks and awkwardly he started pulling gloves of his numb fingers.

The door to the living room opened and his sister glanced at him in surprise. "Hello Syuusuke." Then she raised an eyebrow. "You're quite late."

"I texted you earlier." Fuji protested through stiff cheeks that were reluctant to move. A tingling sensation however told him the blood was returning to them – his fingers and toes on the other hand remained numb.

His sister merely smiled. "My, my. One time mom leaves on a trip and you immediately start hanging out with your friends until midnight, doing God knows what."

Fuji pouted and bent down to untie his shoelaces, though his fingers hardly moved. For one it wasn't midnight, and for another his sister knew very well that Tezuka was probably the last person with whom one could get into trouble. Still, she apparently enjoyed herself very much depicting her little brother turning delinquent.

"Next we'll know you'll have started smoking and drinking. Or will start bringing home girls or stay out all night. And we'll get a call from the police informing us …"

"Sis'." Fuji finally uttered, exasperated.

Yumiko chuckled. "Can't I tease my little brother a little? I won't be able to do that for the next two weeks after all."

He would not have admitted it, but deep inside the playful reception helped to dispel the last vestiges of dread and confusion from his mind. When he had been walking from the house to the train station with Tezuka, deep inside he had been fearing an abrupt attack.

Fuji had never been particularly afraid of the darkness, but tonight something had felt different. It might have just been the silence of the area at that time, but then again…

With a shake of his head he finally managed to slip off his shoes and turned back to his sister.

"Did you finish packing?" Fuji asked, put his coat on the hanger and followed his sister into the kitchen. Yumiko routinely started boiling water while Fuji fetched two cups from the cup board, careful not to let them slip from his still cold fingers.

"About." Yumiko eventually answered. "Everything important is packed – I'll just have to find out what I forgot once I arrive. And then again, I'll only be gone for five days, so I'll probably be able to live without it."

Fuji chuckled and once the tea had been brewed he followed his sister back into the living room. Very slowly life was returning to his feet, though his toes remained numb. Maybe a hot bath would help them.

"So, where did the two of you go that you got back this late?" Yumiko inquired, dropping a spoon of sugar into her tea.

Fuji smiled tiredly and sank into one of the large armchairs. "Well… the house of friends of Tezuka's grandfather near Nikko."

His sister tilted her head and Fuji continued. "They are on holiday and wanted somebody to make sure everything was in order."

"Still, it's quite a trip to make on a week day." Yumiko commented.

"It is. I think I slept most of the way back." Fuji yawned, silently reminding himself to thank Tezuka tomorrow for waking him up in time. He reached for his tea cup and burrowed deeper into the warm cushions of the chair, enjoying the tingling feeling that ran through his fingers. Yumiko reached for a magazine she'd been reading earlier, while her brother gazed outside.

The darkness was as complete as it had been in Nikko and Fuji wondered whether he was going to faint the moment he opened the door as he had done earlier. No matter how much strain exams were putting on him – he still doubted it had been fatigue.

But what had it been then?

Had he turned paranoid after his fainting spell or had there really been something unnatural about the darkness? Had he seen something outside, or had that just been his imagination?

Fuji pressed his lips together and tried curling his toes, but they still refused to comply.

"Sis'." He contemplatively said, not turning his eyes away from the outside. "Is there something special in the Nikko area?"

Yumiko glanced up from the glossy magazine she had been leafing through and immediately understood her little brother wasn't talking about tourist attractions. She tilted her head. "What do you mean?"

"When we were at that house, I thought I saw something outside." Fuji replied thoughtfully. "I opened the door to the backyard – but the snow there was undisturbed."

He purposefully left out the part about him fainting – either his sister would mercilessly tease him or start to worry. And Tezuka had done enough worrying today already; so much that Fuji at times had wondered whether the cold wasn't doing odd things to his friend's usually stoic character.

"Are you sure you aren't mistaken?" His sister inquired.

"I might be." Fuji admitted. "It was dark outside and there were a lot of plants. But, let's say if there was a reason to be certain something had been there – what would you think?"

Yumiko caught his eye, but didn't ask him to clarify his reasons. "I can't decide for you – but Nikko is an old place. Very old."

Her eyes grew distant. "Those mountains … there are stories. One doesn't know what is true and what is not. But." And with that she looked back at her brother. "That doesn't mean whatever you encountered was truly something out of those stories. Unless of course, you sensed something?"

Fuji hesitated. He wasn't as gifted as his sister where the paranormal was concerned, yet he knew he could sense spirits and such when they were close. Yet try as he might, he couldn't recall anything that had felt out of the ordinary with that house.

He shook his head. "Nothing in particular."

Yet on the inside he wondered whether the sudden onset of darkness didn't make a good argument. The longer he had mulled over the affair in his mind, the more certain he grew that his fainting spell hadn't been due to natural causes.

Or at least no exclusively.

"As I said." His sister added. "Nikko is a peculiar area, so I wouldn't have been surprised had you encountered something there. Usually spirits and their like avoid humans, but that doesn't mean you don't stumble about some from time to time. Especially at that place."

Fuji frowned. He hadn't sensed a spiritual presence during the entire trip. With a soft sigh he put his empty cup back on the table.

"It was probably nothing then." He said. "I'll go and take a bath now."

The following day began as dreary as the last one had ended; dark grey clouds hung deeply over snow-covered roads and all life appeared to have frozen. Tezuka passed empty parks on his way to school and as he stopped feeling his toes after five minutes, he wondered whether he shouldn't have taken the bus.

The cars passing him however did not move much faster than him due to slippery ground and patches of ice. He had already seen two small accidents which made him wonder whether all teachers would make it to school in time.

Still, he though as he rubbed his hands together in a hopeless attempt to restore the circulation in his fingers, he wouldn't mind being in a warmer place now.

"Good morning, Tezuka." A cheerful voice greeted him when he stopped at a traffic light.

He turned to find Fuji beside himself, almost unrecognizable with most of his face hidden underneath a thick scarf. Still, from what he could see his friend's pallor had improved since yesterday and at long last Tezuka could stop wondering whether he had been wrong to accept Fuji's offer to accompany him.

"Good morning." He returned.

"Doesn't look like there'll be tennis practice today either." Fuji commented, eyeing the layers of snow that slowly had begun covering even the more frequented roads. Usually those were kept clear, but with the amount of snowfall lately this was turning into an impossible task.

Tezuka nodded and let the fact that he hadn't even brought his tennis bag speak for itself.

Fuji chuckled and Tezuka wondered if the icy air didn't faze him – he found that even moving his cheeks hurt. "I wonder if they'll close the school if it keeps snowing like this. Eiji is predicting this will happen on a daily basis at the moment."

Trust Kikumaru to hope for this to happen before their exams. Not that the lessons currently brought any useful knowledge, but the likelihood of students studying at home in case classes were cancelled were exceedingly low – one didn't need to be Inui to know that.

"So what does our student council president say to this? Can we look forward to a few extra holidays in the future?" Fuji asked mirthfully.

An overcrowded bus made its way slowly past them and Tezuka suddenly felt very happy he had decided to walk on this morning. "Unless the public transport stops operating that is not going to happen."

He did not add that it was far more possible to have classes cancelled due to teachers unable to make their way through the ever-growing traffic jams.

"Pity." Fuji airily commented and didn't appear overly concerned.

"We'll have a break after the exams." Tezuka evenly replied as they turned around a corner, leaving the main road behind. He could already spy the school building through the leafless branches of trees populating the small park they were crossing.

Fuji kicked up some snow. "That's almost a month away."

He really didn't want to think about what was going to happen then. Tezuka had not yet confirmed the rumour of him leaving to study abroad, but Fuji could tell from the tense line of Tezuka's shoulders whenever he thought nobody was watching him, that his friend had made a difficult decision – and wasn't certain yet he had made the correct one.

While Fuji didn't really want to see him go – another three years of playing tennis with Tezuka, Eiji and everyone else seemed like a fabulous prospect – he would support his friend regardless of which decision he would make.

"It's not a month." Tezuka corrected, shuddering as a frosty gust of wind swept over them. "It's only about three weeks."

"Is that supposed to cheer me up?" Fuji asked and Tezuka knew the small smile playing on his friend's lips bode no good. In turn he raised an eyebrow, silently asking what Fuji would have him do.

A part of himself hoped Fuji would answer honestly. Share one of those unfathomable wishes and if he could, he would make it come true – if only to see the expression on Fuji's face.

Fuji's cheerful voice dragged him out of his thoughts and back into a black and white reality. "You know, I have a far better idea."

Tezuka belatedly realized he ought to have started running the moment Fuji stopped to bend down. He started backing away once he realized what Fuji intended to do, but that was far too late to avoid the snowball aimed directly for his face.

Most lessons passed quite uneventfully. There had been that instance where one of Tezuka's classmates had almost burst into tears when she had come to face a difficult equation during math, but their new math teacher had proved himself to be competent and gotten her to understand the task without embarrassing anybody.

That aside, Tezuka had been silently amused when he caught Oishi's head dropping forward during history more than once. He had idly contemplated poking him whenever his eyes fell shut, but decided against it. Kikumaru had successfully demonstrated in front of the entire tennis club that Oishi squeaked when woken up abruptly.

He was already bemoaning not having brought a more interesting book five minutes into lunch break, when a familiar voice called for his attention.

"Tezuka!" Fuji waved from the entrance of his classroom. "Can I borrow you for a moment?"

Wordlessly Tezuka closed his book and got up, while the majority of the female population of his class apparently couldn't tear their eyes from his friend. Fuji gifted them with an extra shiny smile, before he and Tezuka disappeared into the corridor.

A wall of cold air hit him immediately and he had to take a deep breath, while Fuji looked at him sheepishly. Tezuka suppressed a shudder and raised an eyebrow.

"Sorry to bother you." Fuji said in a tone Tezuka found exceedingly hard to read. "It's just that…"

Tezuka waited patiently. While Fuji glanced down at the floor tiles, he took the moment to scrutinize his friend closely. It was true that Fuji looked decidedly better than yesterday, he still seemed paler than usual and Tezuka couldn't help feeling guilty.

"I lost my student ID yesterday." Fuji said. "At that house."

Tezuka sighed, feeling exhausting creeping over him as he recalled the dreadfully long train ride. And he could see his own fatigue mirrored on Fuji's face all too well.

"I have student council today." Tezuka evenly replied and glanced out of the window. No snowflakes were dancing in the air, but the clouds hung low and looked as if they would open any moment. There was barely enough light left outside to read by.

Fuji flashed him a half-hearted smile. "I can go by myself." he offered. "If you're okay with that, though."

Tezuka hesitated.

If he was to be honest with himself, Tezuka didn't like Fuji's suggestion. It wasn't that he didn't trust Fuji; it were the remains of dread from yesterday. Nikko was far and even if Fuji appeared healthy, he was taking a risk. The cold outside was harsh and it would be even icier up in the mountains – the last trip had already put a strain on his own health, and if his impression was anything to go by, letting Fuji go there once more was a sure way for the boy to catch a cold.

Furthermore..

Fuji hadn't actually been sick yesterday, and still he had fainted so abruptly. Tezuka still hadn't been able to banish the memory of his friend's still body from his mind – how cold Fuji's skin had been to the touch and…

What if something like that happened again? What if it happened outside, somewhere on that dimly lit mountain path connecting the railway station to the outskirts of town?

The Fuji would surely…

Unaware of the ice spreading through Tezuka's body, Fuji pursed his lips. "I know it's not good style, but would you mind lending me the keys then? I need my ID and I promise I'm not going to do anything strange."

For a moment Tezuka was about to reply he'd never even gotten the idea of Fuji doing anything odd – yet he found himself unable to voice the real reasons as to why he would like to disagree. Fuji appreciated reminders of his delicate appearance as much as Tezuka was fond of people telling him to take care of his arm.

With a sigh Tezuka turned to his satchel and found the keys without even having to search. Reluctantly he held them out, while in his head reason warred with emotion. He desperately wanted to find a reason to tell Fuji not to go – but then again, as the small voice of logic reminded him, this way of thinking was quite unreasonable.

People did not faint without a cause and surely nothing would happen to Fuji.

Although yesterday…

"Here are the keys." Tezuka said. "Can you bring them back tomorrow?"

He would have preferred to say 'Can you call me once you get back home', but Fuji would be able to tell that he was worried then. And even though concern belongs to every friendship, at times Tezuka couldn't help wondering whether he wasn't over-worried whenever Fuji was concerned.

"Of course I will." Fuji replied with a brilliant, heart-warming smile. "Thank you, Tezuka."

Then he turned and left Tezuka to watch his back disappear into the distance and Tezuka almost wished it was already the next day and Fuji had safely brought back the keys.

tbc

I hope you enjoyed reading; comments, thoughts and critique are most welcome!