© 2008 Gold

Title: Beyond: A Tribute

Part 4: The Brotherhood of Man

Author: Gold
Rating: K

Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis is created by Konomi Takeshi. This work is a piece of fanfiction and no part of it is attributed to Konomi-san or any other entity holding any legal right associated with and arising out of Prince of Tennis . It was written purely out of fanservice and it is not to be used for profit or any false association with Konomi-san or aforesaid entities.

Notes: This chapter is centred around one of the nicest and most overlooked characters in all of Prince of Tennis—Kawamura Takashi, all-round good guy and sushi chef.

Kawamura Takashi padded up the stairs quietly, bare feet making soft thumps against the good, solid wood of each step beneath him. There was something curiously comforting about feeling the cool, smooth slats of wood on the callused soles of his feet. Kawamura slid open the doors to his bedroom as noiselessly as he could and stepped in, carefully shutting the doors behind him.

Then he leaned against the doors and drew a long, deep breath.

It had been three years since he had left tennis and high school behind him to devote himself solely to the pursuit of sushi-making. He had started out like everyone else, exchanging addresses and telephone numbers and what-have-you, promising to keep in touch. But distance and time and schedules packed like tinned sardines leave no time for old friends, no matter how close those old friends are. One year, you forget a birthday; another year, yours is forgotten. Someone changes dorms and telephone number and e-mail address; another changes campus altogether. Too busy to talk, too busy to answer, too busy to even remember what it was you promised... or if you had actually promised anything.

We'll keep in touch!

But he had seen very little of them since, except now and then, quick glimpses of hello and goodbye from those who still came back to the town of Seishun now and then, and short snippets of how-do-you-do, and nice-seeing-you-again, and what-did-you-say-you-were-doing-at-university? Sometimes Fujiko called, but those moments were fleeting and few between. As for Oishi, Eiji and Inui… somehow they, too, faded into the woodwork, as Keio University and the big lights in Tokyo-city did a brilliant job of swallowing them up. Kawamura passed a hand over his eyes. He couldn't remember when he had last talked to them, couldn't remember what they had talked about, couldn't remember when he had last seen them… Some mornings he woke up in a cold sweat from nightmares where he was talking to them again, but he couldn't see their faces. Kawamura did hear with clockwork regularity from Tezuka, who sent good wishes precisely twice a year, always in time for Kawamura's birthday and the New Year. Tezuka, though, was the exception.

Kawamura was well aware that he was not the only one feeling left out of the loop. Momoshiro, who had stayed on at Seishun Gakuen University, was the only one who even made an effort to drop by regularly, even if it was only to mooch free sushi off him. Kawamura had once tentatively asked Momo how the others were doing, but the younger boy had only shrugged his shoulders a little sadly.

"They're all working really hard," Momo had said, looking almost wistful. "I guess they don't have any time to themselves... and Echizen's always sleeping when I'm awake on this side of the world, hmph. I can't keep calling him anyway... it's not like I've got that much time... or that much money to spare." Momo's grin had been a little less cheery than usual. "I haven't even heard from Eiji-sempai... Taka-san... you know, I never thought … I guess it's just 'cause we're all grown up now. I just never thought it'd be this way." And he had pushed away his tray of half-eaten sushi, claiming that he had eaten enough.

For Momo to say that—Momo, who had always been the cheerful, back-slapping, optimistic one, with an appetite that was rarely sated by anything less than the entire food supplies of a small army—well, Kawamura knew exactly how Momo felt. Three years ago, he could never have believed that they would so easily drift apart, or that he could have contributed to that distance between them. But these days, except for the big photograph in its pride of place on the wall, the medals somewhere in a corner of his room and the untouched racquet bag on top of his closet, Kawamura Takashi might as well have forgotten that he had once played tennis for one of the finest schoolboy teams in all of Japan.

Kawamura's eyes shifted to the photograph. He hadn't had the heart to ptake it down, because it had been there for so long now. Besides, sometimes, when a day had been too long and too hard, he liked to look at it just before going to bed. The photograph had been taken on their trip to a well-known onsen just after winning Nationals. In it, Momoshiro Takeshi's huge grin was at once both cheeky and infectious, while Tezuka Kunimitsu's eyes were particularly soft, his lips curved into the rarest, faintest of smiles. There was nothing there to hint that just three years later, they would be...

Missing, the papers had said, just two days ago.

Drugs, they said, suspension.

Feared dead, the papers said abruptly, only yesterday.

Investigation, they also said. Guilty, they might as well have added.

Chance of foul play definite, they said on the local radio this morning.

Kawamura abruptly turned away from the photograph. It used to be that he could grip a tennis racquet, and he became someone other than the same old Kawamura Takashi, son of a sushi shop owner. He was Kawamura "Burning Heart" Takashi, Seigaku team stalwart, and wielder of the famed Burning Serve, feared up, down and all round the Kanto region. No matter how insurmountable the odds were in tennis, so long as one persevered, everything would come round in the end.

But tennis couldn't help Momoshiro now, and somehow, some way, tennis had betrayed Tezuka Kunimitsu horribly.

Kawamura rubbed a hand wearily across his face. Once, perhaps, all he had ever needed to do was to pick up a tennis racquet, roar a few war-cries, slam a few balls over a net, and the world righted itself. But all that was in the past, when things were different, before everything changed. How had it all come to this? Wasn't it just yesterday when they had been best friends and team-mates, and relied on each other for everything? Where were the dreams they had shared, and where was the comfortable fellowship they'd forged together once upon a time, not so long ago? What had happened in the intervening years that had made him feel so… left out? It was as if his friends had gone on into another world and then shut the door behind them so that he was just outside, on the fringes, not even allowed the luxury of peeking in.

Meet. The call to arms had come urgently this morning from Inui Sadaharu, who had called at the unholy hour of seven-thirty. Inui said something about a meeting and that Atobe Keigo had ordered them all to gather—captains and vice-captains from Seigaku, Fudomine, Hyoutei, St. Rudolph's, Yamabuki, Rokkaku and Rikkaidai—and how, from what the captains said, it sounded like the old teams were going to turn up, rather than just the captains and vice-captains. They were going to do something that would turn Tezuka's situation round. Inui had admitted readily that he didn't know exactly how they were going to go about it, but if Atobe was behind this, it meant that they were going to succeed. After all, Atobe Keigo never indulged himself in anything that had less than a one hundred per cent chance of success.

The thing was, Inui had sounded distinctly hesitant on the telephone. It made Kawamura wonder just a little if he should even go, even though he had promised he would. He should have been there by now, really, since he had promised—

The sound of the telephone ringing sharply and shrilly shattered the silence, forcing Kawamura out from his self-imposed reverie. He stared at the jangling instrument with a sudden sense of impending doom, his heart thudding loudly against his ribcage. No doubt Inui was calling to politely ask where he was. Kawamura's shoulders slumped as he contemplated the possibility of the telephone conversation. Well, there was no help for it.

Kawamura squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. He reached forward gingerly and picked up the receiver. "Moshi moshi."

"Taka-san?"

The voice on the telephone was an unexpected blast from the past, a hark back to old days of summer sunshine and blue skies, of rolling green courts and bouncing neon-yellow balls, recalling light brown hair fluttering in the wind, eyes curved like half-moons, a cheerful, ever-present smile —

"Fujiko!" gasped Kawamura.

Melodious laughter tinkled through the telephone receiver and into Kawamura's suddenly perked-up ears. "Yes, it's me, Taka-san. How have you been?"

Been? How had he been?

"Great! Good! Burning!" babbled Kawamura, his thoughts scrambling to address the amazing fact that it was Fuji Syuusuke on the line.

"That's wonderful." There was clear pleasure in Fuji's voice. "I haven't heard from you for such a long time. I really miss your sushi, Taka-san. And, of course, I miss you too."

I haven't heard from you for such a long time.

Kawamura felt as if he'd been hit by a powerful serve in the stomach.

I haven't heard from you for such a long time.

It was true, wasn't it?

He'd been sitting around, moping and wondering why he hadn't heard more regularly from them. But he had never taken the time out to write cards the way Tezuka did. He was never the one who called Fujiko, and he had never spent hard-earned money like a waterfall the way Momo had done, trying to reach Echizen at least three times a week (and more if Momo had been able to help it)—he had never made the time to do so.

"I…"

The voice at the other end gave a sort of wistful sigh. "Will you be coming over to Karuizawa?"

The sudden change in Fuji's tone startled Kawamura. "Oh, er…" mumbled Kawamura, searching desperately for something intelligent to say. "Uh…"

"I'm at Atobe's summer cottage in Karuizawa. You remember that summer in our last year of junior high, when we went to the mountains to train before meeting Rikkaidai in Kanto taikai? Hyoutei came to practice with us that time. Apparently they stayed at Atobe's Karuizawa summer... cottage."

Oh, yes, Kawamura remembered that summer all right. It was the summer without their captain. They'd drawn together around Oishi, their vice-captain and their then temporary captain—but it had been a very, very difficult time. Though they had never said it out loud then, every one of them had feared that Tezuka wouldn't be back in time for Nationals. Tezuka was a stupendously good player, but that was not the reason why they had wanted him back. More important was the fact that Tezuka was the anchor in their team, the one thing that they were built around. Tezuka had led them from the beginning—he had been the rock they relied on, and was the one person who through mere look or glance could inspire spirit and confidence, and the passion and courage to win against all odds. He had always been there for them. And now perhaps Tezuka needed them more than anyone else—wait, was this what Fujiko was trying to say…?

"There are a lot of people here, not just from Seigaku. Fudomine… and Rikkaidai… Yamabuki… Rokkaku… It almost feels as if we're going to play at Kantou or Nationals again…it's like old times again. We haven't seen each other for years, but they came anyway, because they wanted to help us with Momoshiro and Tezuka and Rikkaidai's Yukimura-san… it's quite amazing, isn't it, Taka-san?"

"Amazing," Kawamura echoed obediently, and suddenly he felt something like shame wash over him.

There they were, a bunch of separate, disparate people who hadn't seen each other for years, and were linked together only by the fact that they had once forged a litany of odd friendships through competitively hitting small, neon-green-yellow balls over low white netting. It was all tremendously bizarre from any normal point of view, and yet somehow they had struck up the sort of friendship that was real. This was the type of friendship that could be picked up where they had left off all those years ago, right where the laughter and the tennis had always been. There wasn't a name for it, there wasn't any way to describe why it was that way, and there was no any way of quantifying it. There was no emotional baggage there at all, Kawamura realised; not if he didn't want any attached. Kawamura felt a bit silly now, all that angst about not being contacted and feeling abandoned and all that jazz. So what if they hadn't spoken for more than a year? When had he come to doubt himself and everyone else? Maybe it was all those afternoon soaps his mother kept taping and watching– and making him watch them with her.

But that didn't matter.

What really mattered was that it was important to do something to help Tezuka and that he, Kawamura Takashi, could be part of this—whatever it turned out to be.

His mind made up, Kawamura blurted out quickly: "Fujiko, please tell the rest that I'm coming right away!"

"…?"

"I'm on my way, Fujiko! Wait for me!" As an afterthought, Kawamura added: "And—and I'll bring sushi!"

On the other end of the line, Fuji chuckled suddenly, a light-hearted sound that was somehow very different from his earlier laughter. Kawamura felt the sound wrap itself around his heart like a warm burst of sunlight and found his own mouth turning up at the corners in return.

"We'll all wait for you here, Taka-san," Fuji said finally, and Kawamura could hear the echoes of laughter still in Fuji's clearly happier, brisker tone. "Don't be late."

"I won't," promised Kawamura fervently, and this time he meant it.

"Good night, Taka-san."

"Good night, Fujiko."

Kawamura glanced at the clock as he hung up. It was pushing midnight, so he'd catch some sleep first, he decided, and set the clock so that he could wake at about three to make some sushi, before racing to catch the first bus to Tokyo Station and taking the Nagano Express from there to Karuizawa. From there he could call Fuji, and ask him how to get to Atobe's summer cottage... or mansion, or whatever it was, really, because if memory served him right, Atobe's "cottage" was a palatial mansion with eight tennis courts, a couple of Olympic-sized swimming pools, and…

Kawamura was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.

That night, in his dreams, he saw once more the chilling glint of thick, square-rimmed glasses and the soft scritch-scratch of a pencil on lined paper; silver-tinged blue eyes coupled with deceptively light, sweet smiles that were mostly genuine and always dangerous; the presence of an immovable pillar of strength and sure leadership; a strong feeling of steady, unyielding dedication and care; a sure sense of dogged persistence and unquenchable passion ... and, always hovering on the edges of his consciousness, were the familiar sounds of nanjaroh hoi hoi and mada mada da ne echoing and fading into the unreachable extremes of the green courts and blue skies in his dreams.

—They were... good dreams…