Writer's Note: These aren't an arc, but they do go together. If you do decide to review, at least have the courtesy to sign in and allow me to answer any and all accusations.

Shattered

Continuity 51/100
Prompt: 026 - Teammates
Summary: It's time for a reunion - even if it is almost spur of the moment. But when the famous people have an evening free, everyone tries to accomodate them.
Author's Notes: Half way done! Yes! (well, I was half way with the last one, but who's counting, right?) A quick snapshot of the team we know and love, some years later.
Disclaimer: Characters are owned by Konomi Takeshi, and whoever did the anime. At any rate, it's not me.

Sushi and Memories

It was short notice, but Kawamura Takashi managed to get hold of everyone for a rather impromptu gathering at his restaurant the next evening. It was close; having Ryoma, Tezuka, and Kaidoh in Tokyo with a free night in common was serendipity, and everyone else was willing to drop what they were doing to see their old teammates.

So he closed the restaurant for a special engagement that night, and got ready.

The first to arrive was Momo; the loud power player was… a little less loud, looking around in some confusion, maybe surprised he was there before everyone else.

Before either of them could say anything, Eiji and Oishi came in, and Taka narrowed his eyes at the redhead. Something was off. He couldn't exactly put a finger on it….

But something was wrong. And it had happened since he'd been in with Atobe.

The greetings sounded okay, the way they fell into easy conversation, but he still couldn't shake the unease he was feeling every time Eiji met his eyes.

Tezuka came in with Ryoma, both of them talking easily, and Taka watched as Momo latched onto Ryoma – a little more difficult, now, since the pro player was so tall – and Tezuka gravitated toward Oishi. Eiji gave him a welcoming smile and moved away to sit at the bar. "Hey, Taka," he said with a smile. "It looks like things are going really well for you." There was even something wrong with Eiji's smile. Taka just wasn't sure what. Except that it didn't seem to reach his eyes.

"It's been good," he said. "How are you doing?"

"Oh," Eiji said slowly. "Well enough. Work is hard, but it keeps me busy, which is important. Beyond that… I guess there isn't anything beyond that these days. What about you?"

He smiled, setting one of Eiji's favorite pieces of sushi in front of him. "I'm actually dating someone who doesn't mind that I work so much."

Eiji perked up – but not as much as Taka thought he would have. "Oh? That's amazing. Congratulations. I hope she likes fish."

Taka grinned. "She does. Thankfully. Half of our dates have ended up here because Dad needed my help."

He was embarrassed when Inui slid into the seat next to Eiji's – when had they come in? – and looked at the redhead, glasses glinting in the overhead lights and concealing his eyes.

"Inui," Eiji said, looking completely unfazed. "Is something wrong?"

"You tell me."

Eiji only smiled and turned back to his sushi. "Nothing is wrong that I know of," he said. "Is Kaidoh here, too?"

Inui didn't answer for a moment, still watching Eiji with that inscrutable expression. "Yes."

And then Taka heard it, the quiet "Fssshhuuu," interspersed with Momo's angry words. He had to laugh, too, because it was so typical of the two of them, and it seemed that some things never changed.

He glanced down at Eiji, who had turned to look at the two arguing men without his familiar laugh, then at Inui, who looked back at him. "Is he okay?" Inui asked softly.

Taka could only shrug. That was something that had changed.

Oishi stepped in between the two arguing men, separating them with the ease he'd shown in school, and then sat back down; when he did, Eiji went with him.

"Are they together?" Inui asked, watching them.

"No. Oishi's dating Tachibana Kippei. They've been together for a long time – a few years, I think. Since some time in University."

Taka looked up as the door slid open, and the last of the Junior High regulars stepped in. Fuji looked the same as always….

No, he didn't. He looked somehow… more frail. Inui glanced at Taka, confirming the same thing – since when had he begun to think like Inui? – and then looked back at the smaller man.

Taka waved him over, offering the small platter of wasabi sushi, and Fuji laughed as he took it. "Thank you, Taka-san. I've been looking forward to this all day." He turned and went to sit next to Tezuka; Taka, knowing something about what had happened, watched.

Eiji didn't even flinch. He greeted Fuji with a smile and a nod, and went on talking to Tezuka.

It was bizarre.

"Something has happened," Inui said, sounding merely curious. "I would have given very high odds that those two would have been friends forever."

Taka sighed softly. "Yes," he said.

And the whole night, it didn't get any better. There was a strange… wall, for all intents and purposes, between Eiji and the others. Taka didn't understand it, and he didn't know if anyone but Inui and himself noticed it. Even Eiji's exclamation of "Ochibi!" was restrained, at least in comparison.

But he was older now, and more serious, and… if not actively avoiding Fujiko, certainly not trying to talk to him. He was polite, and… business-like. Taka remembered, suddenly, that evening with Atobe, Oishi, and Tachibana, how strange it had been, to stand there and listen to Eiji – Kikumaru Eiji, who had never seemed to have a serious thought in his head – calmly and easily tell Atobe how he should go about acquiring that company. No hesitations, no 'nyas', no… nothing that let him know that was his friend and former teammate sitting in that chair.

He missed that. And he wondered just what Fuji had done – because he had obviously done something, from what Eiji had implied that night with Atobe – to create this thing, this person that none of them seemed to recognize. And who seemed, strangely enough, to want to keep them all at arms length.

The only exception was Oishi, who watched the redhead with an expression of worry that was so prevalent their final year in Junior High, while Tezuka was gone to Germany. And, he realized now, as Oishi watched Eiji talking with Kaidoh and Inui, that it had been there their senior year as well, like they'd said that night with Atobe. He'd watched Eiji with that exact expression every day the last two months before graduation.

"Taka."

He turned his attention to Fuji, who had sat down at the bar again. "Fujiko," he said with a smile.

Fuji's eyes opened for an instant, showing a glint of ice blue, and his smile became more… real. "No one's called me that in years. I've been away a little too long."

"I heard you had a picture of me in your exhibition."

"I had a picture of almost everyone," he said. "Yours was the only in-joke, though. Someone asked me why I'd put a picture of a sushi chef – no matter how happy – in the frame shaped like a tennis racquet. I took great joy in saying "you had to be there"." He laughed, although it sounded forced. "She didn't like the answer, and I didn't explain."

Taka grinned. "Did it go well, then? Your exhibit, I mean?"

The smile faded slightly. "I think so. Mostly, I mean. I… made a mistake that I had to rectify, and it made some people angry." His eyes drifted away to where Eiji spoke with Momo and Ryoma, then turned back to him. "And some of them shattered."

Taka would be the first to admit that sometimes, he simply did not understand Fuji. Okay, most of the time they spoke, he didn't understand Fuji. So he only nodded. "Is that why you had to change things? Close part of your exhibit, I mean?"

Fuji nodded. "The situation had changed, and I wasn't aware of it. If I had known…"

Taka was absolutely stunned at the regret in that voice, so soft, always lovely, but he'd never heard regret before. "I'm sorry," he said softly.

And the smile was back, just the same as it was, but more fragile, as if he'd lost something irreplaceable. Something Fuji had lost because of something he'd done. Taka just could not understand what kind of things would make him sound so… sad.

"Thanks for listening," Fuji said, and got up to go join in the discussion around Tezuka.

Taka didn't hear much else from any other teammates; most of them moved in a flowing river around him, ordering food, greeting him, and in general, getting caught up.

Eiji was the first to leave, claiming an early morning, but first he spent some time convincing Oishi to stay. It took some convincing, too; Oishi seemed to think his one-time doubles partner needed… company. Taka thought that Fuji nearly volunteered to accompany the redhead, but he took one look at Eiji's face and turned away.

Finally, though, Eiji was gone, and it was almost as if the whole team breathed a sigh of relief. Oishi looked at them from where he stood by the doorway, and then shook his head and went back to his seat. Taka thought it was as strange as Oishi seemed to.

Ryoma sat down at the bar, looking across it at Taka. It was so strange, to see him so tall, and he smiled at the other man. "What can I get you?"

"What happened to Eiji?"

Taka shook his head. "I wish I knew. Oishi might."

"He's not speaking."

"He usually doesn't," Fuji said, sliding into the chair next to Ryoma's. "He's been pretty… quiet about the whole thing."

Ryoma looked at him. "So have you. Someone said it started your senior year."

"It did," Taka said when Fuji didn't respond. "He started changing then."

And Eiji had continued changing, moving farther and farther away from the boy they'd known to a man that Taka was almost afraid of what he was going to be. And he really didn't know if he'd recognize him one day, this complete stranger who could not have been more different from the boy they'd known.

Continuity 052/100
Prompt: 054 - Air
Summary: Eiji's thoughts after the reunion.
Author's Notes: It's a short, reflective piece.

Breathing again

Eiji took a deep breath of the cool air outside of Taka's restaurant, arms wrapped around himself, less to keep warm than to keep himself from flying apart.

It was much more work, to keep that wall up around him, among those who had known him so well - who expected him to be a specific way. Inui's gaze no longer scared him, though. That was a relief.

The biggest relief was how he had managed to act around Fuji. Almost normal. Well, no. But at least, maybe, hopefully, he'd pulled off the fact that he wasn't avoiding Fuji, or at least not making it painfully obvious.

He was sure Inui knew something was wrong; Inui didn't miss much at all. And what Inui knew, Kaidoh would know.

Well, then everyone knew, he decided. They all knew something was wrong. But if things were done well - and he'd ask Oishi tomorrow - they didn't know it had something to do with Fuji.

Although why he cared - still, after all his work - that his former teammates don't know what Fuji had done to him, he didn't know.

Was he protecting Fuji, or himself?