Waiting (by HaveYouNoMercy)
[Title: Waiting]
Tezuka does not care much for waiting, although he is particularly good at it. He waits for his coffee-a plain latte, no whip cream or any fancy stuff on top-with a slightly impatient tapping of his leg and a fixed stare at the waitress bustling around the outdoor cafe.
He picked this cafe mainly because it had outdoor seating, but another plus is the little waitress. She is frowning, and there's a certain limp in her step that suggests that she is quite tired. He likes waitresses like these. Smiling waitresses never are fast enough, to be quite honest. They are always too busy smiling and chatting with customers, admiring the way roses bloom in the springtime and how the sky holds not a cloud in sight.
His latte arrives soon after with a small sigh and a glimpse of what looks to be annoyance. Perhaps staring is not appropriate behaviour in Germany, where everyone eats potatoes every day and orders ice cream that looks like spaghetti. After she leaves, Tezuka looks down and sighs himself. There is cinnamon sprinkled on the top of his latte, a clear sign that someone has let his guard down.
Whether it is the waitress for not noting it down, the barista for not making it according to instruction, or Tezuka for not saying it right, he is not sure.
After scooping out the cinnamon with a spoon, he takes a sip. It tastes perfect, but there is something missing. He looks down again at the little spoon, and uses this to scoop a spoonful of sugar out of the pot and into his latte. Not only is this unhygienic and very crude, but it also makes his latte just a touch too sweet.
But this is what Fuji does to his coffee whenever they drink together. Fuji always adds extra sugar into Tezuka's coffee using his used spoon. After getting scolded about it being against every hygiene rule ever, Fuji would always smile sweetly and reply, "But black coffee is so bitter, Tezuka."
And no matter how many times Tezuka insisted that he didn't drink black coffee, Fuji would always say that it looked plenty black to him.
As Tezuka takes a sip of his now imperfect coffee, he wonders why he ruined it, why he remembered Fuji at this moment.
He guesses that maybe he misses his team more than he thought.
His shoulder twitches as he holds the cup in the air, and Tezuka forces himself not to cringe. He must endure this if he wants to get back to Japan, get back to his team and his family and tennis.
Tezuka sets the cup down. The waitress walks by him carrying a small plate and the aroma of apple strudel wafts past him, making his stomach grumble. Suddenly, he has the urge to eat sushi. But the food in the rehabilitation center is-for lack of a better word-crap, and finding sushi in Germany is like finding prime numbers past 7883. Possible, but painstaking and time-wasting.
He will just have to wait until he returns to Japan. And that is only after he is cleared from rehabilitation.
And that, as the doctors said, can only be done with time and rest. This is the part that Tezuka hates the most. He has to wait to get better, which means that he cannot do things his way. He is powerless to do anything because if he did, then he'd ruin his shoulder again and have to do more waiting. He is almost tempted to succumb to his deepest thoughts: that strong tennis training would be able to cure him in an instant, but he knows that he is wrong. Oishi would be furious. Everyone would be.
His teammates flash by in his mind again. First they are smiling and happy, and then shocked and downhearted. He cannot let them see him with fall again.
Tezuka personally hates waiting as much as the next person, but for this, (for himself, for his team,) he will wait. Someday, he will return to his life and then, everything will pay off.