Title: Never Ending Evergreen

Author: DnKS – giRLs

Rating: T (now we get it right in standard, yay!)

Pairing: TezuFuji

Disclaimers: first, The Prince of Tennis is not, has not been, and will never be ours. Second, this story was inspired by the sweet romantic story "La Dame aux Camélias", which, sadly, is not, has not been and will never be ours. It shall belong to its respective owner, Alexandre Dumas, forever. Now… what do we own!

Warning: AU, a bit of …. over romantic and OOC (sigh…)

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Life! we've been long together,

Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;

'Tis hard to part when friends are dear;

Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear;

Then steal away, give little warning,

Choose thine own time;

Say not Good night, but in some brighter clime

Bid me Good morning.

(Life by Anna Laetitia Barbauld)

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Chapter 8 – The Passing of Time

The thought of time rarely ever crossed my mind in my days of past. Why? I knew not. It's just that when you had everything in your hands, time seemed like an unimportant matter that could do none to you. But shame was on my part who thought so little of the ancient power of time. Shame was on my part who never stopped to think what might be of the days before my eyes. Shame was on my part who always realized things when it was already too late.

And that applied, in a very vindictive way, in my matter with someone I held so dear. My Fuji Shuusuke, my dear love one. I have failed him in my inattention of what the power of time might bring upon us. I do not seek for forgiveness, for I am of no worthy to receive such an amazing treat, but please let me say these words of my most humble prayer and respectable apology.

My love, I am sorry.

I had been too much engrossed in our happiness that I failed to notice such a simple yet crucial thing called time had begun its toil on us. In my bliss with him, I had forgotten what could possibly lay bare before us. Indeed the months I spent after our reconciliation had brought me to a state of happiness far beyond what I could have imagined before. In those months we had nothing to fear. We laughed, we loved, we were simply being together.

He was my happiness. My days, weeks, and months with him were the happiest in my life. I might have told you in the beginning of how I loved him then, of how I still love him now, but I wish for you to see every step by which we came, I to love him more than everything, he to hold me dear beyond anything.

It was the day that remarked the third month of me being together with him that we walked together leisurely across that certain place on which we were first met. Under the evergreens I once again found myself standing beside him like what we had so often done recently. The air was humid as it was in the middle of summer, but he seemed not to mind of it. We were just walking and enjoying ourselves, talking if we felt the need, and more than once did we stop for a brief kiss.

And it was then that suddenly he made me realize of the time that had passed between us.

"Don't you realize how long we've been together?" he said as he threw his face to meet mine. His eyes were gleaming with laughter and his smile was never fading.

"Three months, I think…" I said. "Time really does fly, doesn't it?"

He laughed, "Indeed, and that's why we are sometimes failed to notice some important things because of it…"

I frowned. He seemed to see my frown for he then explained it more thoroughly. "I speak for the passing of time," he said. "We are often too much engrossed in our sadness, or in our happiness, that we don't remember that time still flows like ever regarding not of our feeling."

I saw him closing his eyes briefly. I fancied myself seeing a look of something that resembled sadness passing over his face but I knew not what was it or what was the cause. I just knew that it put my heart in such a turmoil that I could not bear.

"Is there any reason why do you speak about this now?" I asked, already afraid of his answer though I did not know why.

One thing I knew from Fuji Shuusuke was that he seldom opened his eyes. He only did so when he felt the need to. So when that time he opened his beautiful blue eyes fully to look at me with such a serene smile upon his lips, I knew whatever thing he was about to say was serious.

"Kunimitsu," he said in such a voice that sent something akin to a creep to travel down my back. Time was freezing for me when he said his next words. "I am dying."

And those three simple words made the world we had happily built seem to crumble. For seconds I had only managed to stare at him with my feelings running wild in me. He said no word as I stood there facing him. He said no word, he spoke no phrase, and even his eyes told me no more than what he had previously revealed to me.

My Fuji Shuusuke was dying.

Those words were not supposed to exist in whatever language ever subsisted on earth. Those words brought something to my heart which I identified as sadness and I could not help from showing it on my face.

"You are not," I said calmly as if to run from the cruel reality we had to face.

"You must face it, I am dying," he said without any mean to sweeten his words. "These days and even months we spent together are beautiful and I am glad for it, but I cannot run from the truth. These months that have made me happy beyond relief have also made me walk closer to my death. It was inevitable, I am dying, and yet, I am happy."

"I am not," I said.

He only smiled without saying anything as his reply to my words. We had stopped walking then, we just stood there feeling the wind caressing our skins. It was so soft of a wind that blew between us, as soft as his hands as he cupped my cheeks in his two palms.

"I love you, you know?" he said.

"I know," I said. "I love you enough to deny your death if it shall ever come."

"But I won't," he said with his eyes that seemed to be more saddened by my words. "I will embrace my death if it shall come and you too must accept that."

I grabbed his palms that were still cupping my cheeks. I took them in mine and brought them to my lips to kiss them before I held it before my chest. We had been together for so long, we had done far more intimate things than that, yet it by far up until now was something I always cherish as one of those most intimate moments I ever had with him.

"You ask for something I don't know if I will ever be able to do," I whispered.

"If I can do it, so can you," he whispered back. "I have gone past those states of denials and anger and now I have come to my acceptance. Am I wrong to hope you will somehow, someday, accept it too? For I know it will be harder for you to let go of me otherwise."

"I will find a way to keep you," I said thought we both knew when those words passed my lips that there was no such thing possible. I knew he was far beyond anything that medical world could offer. It was just our desperate attempt, my desperate attempt, in believing that there had to be a way to keep him forever with me, to keep him alive.

"Don't push yourself, Kunimitsu," he chuckled. "You love me and that's enough. And beside… I know that this might sound strange but the prospect of dying is not entirely unwelcome now… for me…"

Shocked, I drew a breath. I let him know my feeling by showing it on my face. And seeing that, he only smiled.

"It's confusing, I too feel it that way," he tried to explain. "When I was all by myself, without anyone for me to love or anyone to love me, I felt averse to die, yet now that I have… all that I have dreamed… friends, love, loyalty… I… somewhat I don't feel like that again…"

"Are you saying that now you're eager to die?" I almost shouted in shock.

"No, it's not like that. I felt remorse of parting with life, that's for sure. I have you, I have people around me that I can call as my friends, of course it's hard for me to say goodbye, but now that I have gained everything that I have ever dreamed of, I feel that I can finally die without regret," he said before he stopped as if thinking. I watched him as a small chuckle coming from his lips and a somewhat sheepish grin broke on his face. "I must sound ridiculous."

Strangely, that did sound so ridiculous in my ears. Somehow I thought I could understand his point, or at least I thought I tried to understand. What I still could not understand was how could I ever able to accept the prospect of him leaving me in the near future. Somehow, I deemed it as such a hard task to do.

"Are you really happy with all that?" I asked finally.

"Well, not entirely, I mean, who can be so happy over the prospect of his death?" he said with a laugh. "But the fact that I can claim you as mine and give myself for you to claim as yours is enough to make me happy beyond any other happiness I have had. And that is enough. I have had what I always wanted: my own happiness, my own dream. That is enough."

He stopped for a while but reading from his visage I knew that he was not finished. Thus I spoke none; I waited for him to continue. It actually took him quite long to continue his speech and when he did, he said something that I thought at first was something totally irrelevant with his previous speech.

"I like this place," he said then and I frowned, trying to read where those words would lead to. "It's so quiet and peaceful… I hope that I can have such place like this to be my last resting place, a place where wind always blows, where the trees are forever green, and where you will always come to remember me."

He looked up at me and said, "Forget me not when I'm gone."

And finally I smiled, "I think I can do that very well."

He smiled too before he threw his self to my arms. In impulse, I put my arms around him and secured him in my embrace. I felt his fragile self shaking a little and I knew I was not imagining the feeling of wetness on my shirt.

"You have not asked me if you could embrace me," I said to him.

He laughed a bit chokingly, "I haven't, have I?"

I kept silent. It was just moments before he spoke again.

"Kunimitsu…" he said. "Can I embrace you?"

"Aa…" I answered.

"Can I also cry on you?"

For that, I did not answer, yet his tears had already flown free from his eyes, seeping into my shirt, into my skin, into my heart, where I too cried with him.

I could not recall how long we spent there holding each other like that. It was somehow cliché: some lovers cried because they would be parted from each other. And it was pure coincidence that the sun happened to set when that scene took place. As I observe it now when I recollect that moment, I could not stop myself from thinking of how cliché it was. I held him who was crying in my arms while the sun was setting in the background.

Still, it was different because I was participating in it. It was not just some random couple crying in sunset like those old cheap romance movies that people so fond of watching. It was me and my love that stood there, feeling sadness overlapped with love.

And somehow, that did not seem so cliché at all.

At last, when the first star had appeared on the darkened sky, we released our hold of each other. Seeing into his eyes, I found no regret there. He was serious when he said that he had accepted his inevitable fate. He was serious when he said that he was happy enough with having me on his side.

I too was happy enough having him with me, and I thought I had somehow accepted the worst possibility could happen to him. But that was just me and my stupid, childish thoughts. I thought I accepted it, but in fact, I could not.

No… I still can not…

That night I walked him to his room. After giving him a good night kiss I returned to my own room. The events that happened that day came again to me full force as I lay on my bed that night. I wondered why he suddenly brought up that matter at that certain day, was there any reason behind it.

I did not hope to get an answer to that question of mine, nevertheless I got the answer. As a matter of fact, I got it the very first thing on the following morning though it was not a kind of answer I hoped.

The ringing of my phone woke me up from my deep sleep. It was just the very beginning of dawn and I wondered who could be trying to talk to me in such a time. The caller ID gave out Atobe's identity and, with a frown, I took the phone up.

Hearing what he said, my mouth was opened, my eyes were widened, and even my heart seemed to stop beating for an instant.

One hour after that phone call, I was still sitting on the floor of my room, wearing nothing but my pants, and with dry eyes. This fact seems unimportant, but if you consider what news I had heard from Atobe that time, you would expect me crying heartily. Yet, I could not cry. My mouth tightened, my palms fisted, my heart ached.

But I still could not cry.

That was how I came to my consciousness of my own foolishness in thinking that I had accepted Fuji's words that he had said on the preceding day when in reality, I still could not. I knew it then, in a very hard way.

Realizing that, I smiled a little and with it came a single drop of tears from each of my eyes. That was all I let to pass before I got up and dressed. Some moments later I had already found myself in my way to the place where he was at that current moment.

I walked, without even once turning my back, to the hospital that Atobe had said in his phone call earlier. His words were still ringing in my mind though I still could not make use the most of it. I just grabbed the words Fuji, collapsed, and hospital.

But really, that was enough, right?

And what a coincidence it was when I remembered the previous day when Fuji was still smiling beside me, saying those words with his soft voice.

'That is enough.'

I gritted my teeth as I opened the door of my car: that was enough. I tightened my lips as I started the engine: that was enough. I braced myself as I drove through the empty highways: that was enough.

Yet I cried.

I cried: that was not enough.

- end chapter 8 -

(A/N: drama and angst and sap and cliché in a single chapter, what say you? Just send us the review, then (smile) we consider death threat as review too, worry not… at least that shows people really care for us so much they want us die, and even tell us about it (sigh) so anyway… good encouraging reviews are always better… hope you like this chapter and please note that we now don't accept nuclear waste as review… that's bad for environment…)