Valentine's Day
Summary: Tezuka and Fuji meet up on Valentine's Day to spend most of the day in each other's company. [TezukaxFuji]
Disclaimer: (long forgotten. Gomen.) Prince of Tennis is not mine. We should all know that by now.
A/N: Of course, a long delay on posting this yet again. I apologize.
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Tezuka woke up to his alarm clock after snoozing it for 20 minutes. He sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes at 8:20 in the morning, his mind trying to shake off the last of his sleep as he got out of bed and dragged himself to the bathroom to take a shower.
Tezuka double-checked his wallet; he had pulled out his savings and would be using it for today – appropriate as that sounded. He took a bag with him – that housed his umbrella among other things on the off-chance of bad weather before trudging downstairs. Two cars were missing from the garage, which had meant that his parents had gone to take his mother's van to the shop for its check-up.
The stoic youth adjusted his glasses once before heading out. As he walked down the long street, he pulled out his phone and sent a message to his mother, stating that he was on the way to meet with Fuji. The reply he received caused him to blush slightly.
'Ok take care. Happy Valentine's Day!'
Tezuka shook off his train of thought and punched in a reply, greeting his parents a 'Happy Valentine's' as well. He then punched in a message that he sent to Fuji, stating that he was on his way. When he sent it, he looked up and stopped in his tracks when he saw the hood of a familiar stage-wagon that he familiarized as his father's car. Tezuka, who was hidden behind a parked car, took a few steps forward to avoid detection and confirmed the plate number before shaking his head. He slipped his phone into his pocket and proceeded to head out of his subdivision and get onto a particular bus.
After much debate with the venue of their lunch date, Tezuka had convinced Fuji that they have an early lunch at a restaurant across his university that they had chanced upon eating in once before. 'It isn't overly difficult to convince Syusuke with tempura, it seems,' the stoic youth thought to himself in slight amusement.
Wanting to make sure that he put Fuji's health above everything else, Tezuka coaxed the tensai to meet up with him at the small convenience store so they could take some public transportation to go to the restaurant. Tezuka was the first to arrive and he sat himself down at an empty stool and waited patiently for Fuji to arrive.
After some minutes of waiting, the stoic youth pulled out his phone to find that Fuji was waiting for his older sister Yumiko, as she was going out as well to meet up with a relative nearby. And Tezuka continued to wait. The bespectacled youth heard his stomach grumble – though he couldn't really blame it because he had left the house skipping breakfast – before shrugging, wondering how much longer he had to wait.
Fuji finally came in through the doors and greeted Tezuka, taking the empty seat beside the stoic youth to rest for a little while. They talked casually about a few things before they stood and left the convenience store and made their way to the restaurant.
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When they got there, both Tezuka and Fuji found the place to be nearly empty, save for another customer who was eating in their lonesome. They were escorted to a table before menus were given out to them. It was Tezuka who looked through it and ended up placing both their orders, giving Fuji the freedom to choose their sushi.
While waiting, Tezuka found himself smiling more that the tensai didn't fail to point it out. The stoic youth's reasoning was because of the nightly conversations he had been having with Shiro-sensei.
'I swear, the way he abuses those smilies…' Tezuka thought bitterly to himself, shaking his head (A/N: If you are all wondering, I am referring to the use of this smiley: ^_____________^). It was interesting to note, however, that Tezuka had begun reminding the tensai of Shiro-sensei for the sudden change in demeanor. Normally Tezuka would've just shrugged off the comparison, but implored innately why he felt almost complimented.
The bespectacled youth had been chatting with Shiro-sensei primarily as a student of the F101 course. But having graduated early, he remained under the educator's radar and has still been bothered with helping out to attend to Shiro-sensei's other students; one of which happened to be Fuji, who was taking an advanced class of F104. Tezuka briefly recalled that afternoon before he was informed of his eligibility to graduate that Fuji was attending F104 under Shiro-sensei, which chiefly had Tezuka gritting his teeth in mild irritation.
For Valentine's Day, Tezuka was almost glad for whatever advice he had received in planning for the day's events from Shiro-sensei. '…I think that would be reason I find myself smiling a lot more… Giddy, I believe is the term?' he thought to himself as the food was set down in front of them.
Tezuka and Fuji consumed the Ebi Tempura and Kakiage sushi at a hearty pace, inserting some random chat here and there on random things. When all was said and done, they asked for the bill, which Tezuka had taken the liberty of paying for. As he scanned at the receipt, he smirked to himself. 'So I was right in my assumption…' He pulled out his wallet and took out a few bills and set them in the booklet before handing it off to the waitress. '…This wouldn't cost as much as what I got for Syusuke…'
After receiving the change, they took a few minutes to rest before finally rising from their place and decided to finally start heading off to Tezuka's house to spend the rest of the afternoon.
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Upon arriving there at about noon, Tezuka locked the door behind him as soon as both he and Fuji had entered the room.
Tezuka had already anticipated it (or rather saw it coming because Shiro-sensei had hinted at it the night before), but he was glad that Fuji had gotten him something as well. Fuji was first. The tensai had pulled out something from his bag, revealing it to be a small, yellow Labrador. Tezuka slowly eased himself onto the bed beside Fuji and took the stuff animal, looking at for a long moment.
Fuji chuckled at the sight. "It's cute, isn't it?" he said quietly.
Tezuka nodded, searching his slowly malfunctioning brain for a name to give his new pet. "Hershey…" he breathed, as the tensai chuckled more in amusement. As soon as he moved Hershey aside, Tezuka moved to momentarily blindfold the tensai as he moved to his backpack to retrieve the gift he had gotten for the tensai. He knelt himself down on the floor by the bed in front of Fuji and opened the box.
"You can take the blindfold off, Syusuke," Tezuka stated firmly as he watched Fuji fiddle with the bandana before finally pulling it off.
As cerulean eyes were revealed, Tezuka's hazel ones carefully observed the tensai's reaction to the item that lay inside the small box; it was a silver necklace with the pendant of a dolphin. Tezuka put on a genuine smile as he noted the tensai's brief disbelief at the piece of jewelry before him.
"A necklace?" Fuji choked.
Tezuka nodded. "Yes."
"For me?"
Tezuka nodded once more. "Who else?" Tezuka got up and sat down beside the tensai before he placed it around Fuji's neck, pecking him on the cheek afterwards. "Happy Valentine's Day," he greeted quietly.
"Happy Valentine's," the tensai replied, returning the gesture with a kiss of his own.
What occurred in the span of the afternoon was almost bliss for the stoic youth. It had grown to be one of the few times that they would be spending alone with each other. Tezuka's bed became the site for various moments between the two, which the stoic youth made no complaints to.
Every kiss, every touch and most every word remained engraved in Tezuka's memories when it was time for the tensai to leave for home. While waiting outside the house for the taxi to arrive, Tezuka and Fuji spent those moments talking about a number of random things to lighten the mood.
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Tezuka sighed heavily as the taxi arrived to take Fuji home as they exchanged their goodbyes. Sitting down to dinner with his parents and his cousins, the stoic youth couldn't help but be envious with both his cousins, both of whom had either their boyfriend or girlfriend over and having dinner with them.
Later that evening, Tezuka came online only to be greeted by the tensai that brought a smile to the tennis player's face. After chatting for a while, another chat window that belonged to Shiro-sensei popped up, asking how the day went.
Whether Tezuka uniquely found himself seemingly brainwashed or not, he told the educator of earlier's incident where Fuji had compared the youth to the older man. While Tezuka expected Shiro-sensei to simply grin widely in response, what followed caught the stoic youth by surprise.
"I have found my protégé."
'I understand that you've influenced me to be… giddier than I would have liked to be, but…' Tezuka paused in the midst of his thoughts, shaking his head in disbelief. The stoic youth refused to believe that he had anything at all in common with Shiro-sensei to suddenly become his apprentice. 'We're two TOTALLY different people!' he reasoned with defiance.
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The rest of the evening passed in quiet stride, save for a few brief moments of quarrel. Tezuka was convinced that it would be the first of many more Valentine's to spend with Fuji.
TBC
