Kind Eyes
Rated: PG-13
Pairings: Yuuta/Fuji and one-sided Fuji/Taka
Warnings: Shonen-ai, incest, and spoilers.
Disclaimer: Prince of Tennis belongs to Konami Takeshi, not me.
There was only a soft click heard as Yuuta closed the door behind him. The back of his head was pressed against the cold wooden frame and his eyes stared blankly at the ceiling as he tried to force back tears that he didn't want to admit were there. A soft breeze from the fan in the corner of the room, right on his desk, blew across his face, making his eyes feel bitterly cold yet they were still far from dry.
"Yuuta." That one word echoed in his mind, the image of his brother burnt into his vision. His eyes were open, but he was still smiling. It was almost hard to believe that those were the same eyes that held such sadism whenever they looked upon an opponent. Fuji always had such kind eyes when he looked at him. So soft and blue, brimming with warmth, he was always too kind.
Yuuta almost didn't notice the racquet that Fuji still had in hand. But it had been obvious—too obvious—at the same time, the 'K' on the bottom and the dried blood that now dirtied both the handle and the inside of his brother's hand. It was Kawamura's racquet, the same one that Fuji had just used to defeat Jirou. Why had he been holding it? The matches with Hyoutei had long since ended.
"Aniki." It had been there, beneath the surface of that one word, the very thing that Yuuta would realize far too late. He slumped further back against the door, sinking down to his knees. The tears that wanted to fall were a flame in the corner of his eyes despite the cold breeze of the fan now. Yuuta didn't care too much.
"I miss you, Yuuta." There was never a tint of sadness in Fuji's features. It even seemed, at times, as if he were incapable of feeling such an emotion. He was always calm, always collected, always smiling, or just distant. The only time he had ever seen anything different had been the flicker of hatred that had burned in Fuji's eyes during his match with Mizuki.
Those words had still been so kind, sincere. They made Yuuta's features melt into a warm expression, something far from the way his features were twisted with bitterness as he sat immobile, pressed against the door. He hadn't expected what was going to happen to happen. So he had smiled, a smile that hadn't been directed towards his brother in so, so long, and he'd replied, "I miss you, too."
They spoke for a while after then, talking of the regular small talk, how both of them were doing, what was going on in their lives, although Fuji's input on subjects was always much left than Yuuta's. He hadn't thought too much of it at the time—Fuji was never the type to say more than what was necessary although he talked much more than Tezuka's common answer of 'aa' and nothing more—but now he could see that Fuji had something that he didn't want to give away.
Stubbornly, Yuuta told himself that he should've realized it then. There had been signs that he had overlooked, the vaguest of hints that he would've seen if only he hadn't been stuck in his own world full of determination to eventually be able to match up against Fuji.
But as the conversation went on between the two, another blinding factor came to Yuuta's mind. At first he had noticed little things—how whenever Fuji's smiled he felt a small hint of warmth in his chest, how it felt oddly satisfying to hear his name roll off of his brother's tongue as if it was the gentlest of caresses. Yet it hadn't been until he noticed how the sun made Fuji's eyes seem a little bit sweeter than normal, that Yuuta reached a conclusion: he loved his brother.
No, no. He was in love with his brother.
Oddly, that realization hadn't shocked him, not even close. It was quite the opposite. Being in love with Fuji made sense. Somehow it had also made sense in Yuuta's mind that his brother would be in love with him too. There had been enough signs pointing towards that.
So he had made the mistake—the stupid, stupid mistake—of taking his realization a step further. At the time it hadn't even registered that Fuji had been talking, even now he couldn't recall the words that passed over him as he was distracted by his own thoughts. Yuuta hadn't even noticed that he had cut off Fuji's words.
He'd taken Fuji's face into his hands, noting the way his brother's light blue eyes widened slightly as his own were soon blinded by the fluttering of his own eyelashes as his eyes slipped closed.
The sensations were still vivid in Yuuta's mind. He could feel his brother's lips as he kissed them—that soft but slightly chapped surface that, too him, was all too perfect—and the soft gentle breaths that blew from Fuji's nose, brushing light against this side of his face. There were also the less pleasant things—the ones that made Yuuta claps a hand over his mouth as his body jerked with a single sob. Yuuta could still feel the way his brother tensed underneath his touch, the way the muscles twitched in protest as he obviously forced himself not to pull away, and the way Fuji's lips pressed into a firm line as Yuuta kissed them.
Fuji had frowned.
It had only been for a split second but it had still been there.
Yuuta hadn't seen it but it had been there against his lips, burning them with the rejection he hadn't anticipated. His heart throbbed in his chest, swollen an aching, as he had pulled away to see Fuji's lip curl upward in a smile. It hadn't been there but Yuuta could still see it: the 'I'm sorry' that lied beneath the surface, masked by kind blue eyes.
Never before had Yuuta felt such an intense urge to running away. He had wanted to then, to pick up his feet and run faster than his body would allow him, away from those kind eyes, away from what he had just done.
His feet and pride—the little bit of it that he had and clung to—wouldn't allow him to though. Yuuta had stayed on the spot like his legs were made of stone, heavy and useless. "I'm sorry." Yuuta had muttered, his cheeks aflame with the embarrassment and his stomach heavy with the guilt. What kind of person would kiss their own brother? 'Someone who seriously needs their head checked,' Yuuta told himself now, shaking his head as he pushed a hand through his short strands of hair.
"Don't apologize." Fuji had told him. The silence echoed the next part, Yuuta could see it in those soft blue eyes, 'I'm the one who should apologize.' That's what they had told him.
'What for?' the silence spoke again.
This time Fuji answered. "I love you, Yuuta," the sadness Yuuta had thought he'd never seen in Fuji's eyes showed clearly then as his brother's hand gripped even tighter on the blood stained racquet at hand, the 'K' seeming to mock Yuuta then, "but, I'm in love with Taka."
That had been the one answer that Yuuta would've never expected. His brother loved him but he loved Kawamura more. Yuuta slumped further against the door, his legs stretched out haphazardly as he if he were rag doll, and his back curved painfully as he slid further and further down.
Another goal that was impossible to reach, another goal in which all Fuji would do to support him was look at him with those kind eyes, and pretend that everything was all right.
