.disclaimer.: Prince of Tennis would be soo angsty (or weird) if it were mine...
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... .m.o.v.i.n.g. ... .o.u.t. ...
"You have one new message. There are two messages in your mailbox."
"Syuusuke, I'm playing Atobe today. Wait for me in the player's lobby, and we'll go out for dinner afterwards. And don't call me 'mitsu in public. Ja."
"Syuusuke, it's Kojiroh. I'll come for you tonight at eight, okay? Until then."
Fuji Syuusuke dropped his arm, letting his cell phone hang by his side. He smiled sadly. It was almost done: the walls were bare, closets close to empty, room almost naked. The open boxes on the floor were almost full. He – no, they – were moving out.
ikusen no hoshi wa -- thousands of stars
imi wo nashinagara -- while having no meaning
yuukyuu no toki wo shizuka ni tsumugu -- will quietly be fine in an eternal time
The house phone rang. Fuji let it. He hadn't answered the phone for a while now – three years to be exact. Everyone had been worried at first, but they'd slowly gotten used to it. Now they just left messages, knowing that Fuji would hear them…sooner or later.
"Fuji-kun? Ah…this is Kunimitsu's mother…I was wondering if you would mind packing Kunimitsu's things up too? I know I was going to come over…but…"
"It's okay…" Fuji whispered to the empty apartment, "I can handle it."
"…ano, so, thank you, Fuji-kun." The answering machine clicked off.
Fuji got up and retrieved a few empty boxes from his room. He would be helping 'mitsu move out too, then. Fuji slowly walked over to the only closed room in the apartment. Taking a deep breath, he twisted the knob and let the door swing on its well-oiled hinges. Tezuka's room was immaculate – just like him. Fuji smiled wryly. Poking around, he started placing objects in the boxes. Tezuka didn't have very many belongings: a few shirts, pants, shorts; some essential toiletries; trophies and medals; and of course, tennis equipment. It didn't take long to pack, so within twenty minutes, Fuji was lingering by Tezuka's bedside table, inhaling Tezuka's now faint scent. He smiled again. There had once been a picture of the two of them, enjoying themselves at an amusement park on this table. But Tezuka had taken it with him, like he'd taken everything else good in Fuji's life. Fuji tried a laugh. It was bitter.
"Happy third…no, seventh anniversary, 'mitsu."
sora wa kataranai -- the sky won't say anything
uso mo shinjitsu mo -- neither lies nor truth
tada kanata kara mitsumete iru -- it just observes from a distance
The doorbell rang. Fuji ignored it. But it rang again. And again. And again.
Fuji sighed. What an insistent bastard. He trudged his way to the front door, smiling pleasantly, but dangerously. He grabbed the doorknob, preparing to scare off whoever was standing on the opposite side. And stopped, face and mouth frozen in mid-lecture.
"K-Keigo…?"
"Syuusuke."
"What…are you doing here?"
"I heard."
sotto kokoro ga fureta ano hi -- softly on the heart the day when the ship left
kanjita ne nukumori -- you felt the warmth, right?
na no ni doko e yuku no?-- even thought, where are you going?
koe wa todokanai -- my voice won't reach
Fuji and Atobe sat in the small kitchen, nursing a blend of tea and brandy. Fuji invented it three years ago – it gets you drunk and keeps you awake at the same time, he had said. Atobe added a generous amount of honey to the bitter concoction – Fuji had been too distracted to do it for him today. The two sat in comfortable silence, until…
"Seven years?"
"Three, if you want to look at it that way."
"Are you done packing?"
"Aa. There wasn't much to pack."
"His things too…?"
"Tezuka-san asked me to."
"Oh." Atobe paused. "Ore-sama brought something for you."
Fuji looked mildly interested.
"He used to carry it around with him. Under the current circumstances, I think you should have it." Atobe pulled a small box from his pocket, sliding it across the table. Fuji opened it cautiously. His blue eyes widened.
"Did you read them?"
"Was I supposed to?"
Fuji lifted the delicate paper out of the box.
"I wrote him these letters when he was in Germany. I told him what was happening with all the regulars and competition…how we did in our matches, how practice was going, things like that. I also told him I missed him, in every single letter."
Atobe stayed silent.
"When he came back, the first thing he did was tell me that he missed me too. Then he hugged me – in front of the entire team too. And he also gave me this necklace." Fuji gestured to the silver chain around his neck. "It's ironic that after all that, we're moving away on our anniversary…" he trailed off. And broke down.
Atobe walked around the table, gently putting his arms around the crying tensai.
"It's okay, Syuusuke, it's okay to cry."
Three years ago, Atobe would've scoffed if anyone had dared suggest that he'd be holding a crying prodigy in his arms. He would've scoffed even more if they'd said that the prodigy would be Fuji Syuusuke from Seigaku, and not Oshitari Yuushi from his own team. But from the first awkward embrace, Atobe had let Fuji cry on his shoulder so many times that his arms now wrapped around the smaller man naturally. Fuji was the only person Atobe loved. But Tezuka was still the only person Fuji loved.
Atobe held Fuji for a while longer, then pushed him gently away. Lifting Fuji's chin with one hand, he gently wiped away Fuji's crystalline tears with the other.
"Come on, Saeki's coming for you at eight, isn't he? It's six already, we don't want to waste time."
Fuji nodded, best he could with Atobe's hand under his chin.
"Aa."
hana kakeru hoshi ga -- if the stars, that are put on flowers
yoru wo terasu nara -- when it illuminates the night
ano hito no yami mo terashite hoshii -- please shine it towards that person's darkness
Atobe heaved one of the last boxes into his car. Or rather, his chauffeur did. Some things never changed. Atobe walked back up the stairs – Fuji was still saying goodbye to his home of seven years.
Positioning himself in the doorway, Atobe waited patiently for the tensai to finish. When Fuji finally stumbled out of the room that was once Tezuka's, Atobe stood ready to catch him. His hair might've covered his eyes, but not his tears.
"Where to, Atobe-sama?"
"The cemetery."
sora wa kataranai -- the sky won't say anything
ai mo yakosoku mo -- neither love nor promises
tada unmei wo shimeshite iru -- it just directs to the fate
Atobe helped Fuji out of the car, careful to be touching the blue-eyed boy at all times. Ever since Tezuka's death, Fuji had been dependent on human contact – perhaps because Tezuka could no longer hold him. In the first few months, both he and Saeki had taken turns spending the night with Syuusuke – comforting him, rocking him to sleep, or pretending to be Tezuka while he dreamed. The worst part came only when Fuji woke up. Atobe grimaced. At least those days were two years past.
Fuji stared blankly at the wet cemetery. Without him noticing, it'd begun to snow. Clean, white, numbing snow. It was better this way.
"Baka. You'll freeze." Atobe dropped his long coat over Fuji's shoulders.
Fuji smiled – gratefully or not, he couldn't decide. Tezuka used to give Fuji his coat too, when Fuji would carelessly run out into the rain, the snow, or the cold. But Tezuka was long gone, killed in a freak terrorist attack. After high school, Tezuka and Fuji had moved in together. Fuji had gone on to college to study psychology. Tezuka had immediately gone pro. As a rising star, Tezuka's talent and prestige had secured him an invitation to an American tournament, where he and Atobe proceeded to sweep the field to meet at the finals. Unfortunately, with the new international competitors, the games had been targeted by terrorists, drawn by the high-profile tennis players and thousands of spectators. The stadium was bombed that night, with a death count of 4000 and an injured count of hundreds more. Atobe had been saved by Tezuka's quick reactions. He passed out under Tezuka's dying body.
Stopping in front of a black gravestone, Fuji winced. He'd chosen black because Tezuka had been taken away from him unfairly, because Tezuka had been killed by the darkness of the human heart, because Tezuka had died an unbefitting death. The rock itself was polished to a shine, engraved with pure white characters.
Tezuka Kunimitsu
1988 - 2004
son, captain, teammate
Beneath it, Fuji had painstakingly carved another word.
forever
In the months after Tezuka's death, Fuji often visited the cemetery on the days where he was too exhausted to attend college. In the end, he ended up dropping out of college when his psychology courses began discussing coping with loss. He began carrying a camera around with him everywhere, obsessively taking pictures to make up for all the times he'd missed a perfect shot of Tezuka. With his impressive talent, Fuji had picked up a free-lance photo job, which allowed him flexible hours and good pay. But that wasn't what he wanted.
What Fuji wanted was Tezuka. The source and cure to his tears. The focus of all his nightmares – or were they fantasies? The reason he came to the cemetery eight days a week, twenty-five hours a day. The driving force behind his life.
But it had been three years. Tezuka wasn't coming back.
wakariaeta to shinjite ita --we understood each other, i believed in it
shirazu namida kobore-- tears start flowing without me knowing
"soba ni ite" to iezu -- and i can't tell you to be near me
hitori tachi tsukusu -- standing alone…
Atobe arrived with his chauffeur, putting four boxes in a neat square.
"I'll wait for you in the car."
Fuji nodded. "Thank you."
Atobe waved it off, and walked away.
Fuji took some incense out of his pocket, and kneeled in front of the grave. He produced a bottle of sandalwood oil, slowly spreading it over the boxes.
"Ne, 'mitsu, I'm back again. Maybe for the last time a long while. I have an hour, 'mitsu, to tell you everything that I've been wanting to say lately. But I think you know most of it already, since I come here everyday, aa? So where should I start?
"I love you, 'mitsu…but I hate you too. I hate you, I hate this life, I hate this existence. I hate living without you. I hate it so much that I'd endure death to meet you again. But 'mitsu, I'm afraid that if I kill myself, I won't be able to find you. I'm afraid you won't want to meet me, because you'll be too disgusted with how weak I've become, how dependent.
"But the truth is, 'mitsu, you made me this way. I loved – no, love you so much. But I can't live out my life like this. Kojiroh says that he's tired of seeing me look like a skeleton. But I don't mind, really. The closer I get to death, the closer I get to you. But I'm hurting people around me, 'mitsu, and that's the last thing I want to do. You would want me to live, wouldn't you?
"I packed up our things today. I'm going to burn your things, so you can have them with you, wherever you are. Actually, it's more selfish than that. I'm afraid that if I keep your things, 'mitsu, I'll be tempted to look at them. Sleep in your shirts, play with your racquets. And then I'll never recover. But I stored away each racquet, each shirt, each trophy in my mind before I put them in these boxes. I still haveour memories.
"You never told me you kept those letters, 'mitsu. I'll be burning them too, so you can read them, wherever you are, and remember how much I love you.
"Have you been watching over me? Then you'll know that I sold the apartment, ne? Or that I'll be living with Kojiroh from now on. It's funny, how someone strong like Kojiroh can love someone broken like me. Or how someone as arrogant as Atobe can love someone as dependent as me. One day, 'mitsu, I think I might fall in love with one of them. Not like I fell in love with you, because the first love is always the strongest, but someday, 'mitsu, my heart might mend. You don't mind, do you?
"Do you remember your last words, 'mitsu? They're on my cell phone, the last message you ever left anyone. I was waiting for you in the player's lobby, you know. I just didn't expect you to come out on a stretcher. I'll record that message and save it somewhere, ne, because someone's dying words, especially yours, are too precious to be deleted.
"Oh, and happy anniversary again, 'mitsu. Seven years since we started dating. Three years since your...accident. Happy anniversary.
"My time's almost up, and I want to watch these things burn, just to make sure they get to you safely. Please watch over me in the future, ne, anata? I'll come back and visit occasionally. Know that I love you, 'mitsu, but I don't want those to be my last words to you. They'll be like yours: "ja", because I will see you again."
Fuji smiled tiredly, and lit the four boxes, topped by another slim one on top.
"Aishiteru, Kunimitsu, ja matta ne."
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.a.n.: Quick cultural note! I don't know about Japan (was too lazy to research ::hehe::), but the Chinese tradition is that if something is burnt as an offering, it'll be available for the use of the death in the afterlife, so people gather to burn their dead relatives "money", charms, miniatures, etc. So that's why Fuji's burning everything...sort of. He explained that part himself. But yesh, just if you were wondering, that's where I got the idea and why he's burning them after all...
Anyway...that was...erm...yeah. Well, just a few things. I guess this ended up being somewhat of a songfic, which would mean that this is my first attempt at a songfic. O.O Tehehe...the song is Sora wa Kataranai from Onegai Teacher, and I was only going to put in the English lyrics, but then I read them and thought "but the Japanese lyrics are so beautiful..." The song itself is too. I got the lyrics/translation off AnimeLyrics, so if there's an error somewhere, please submit it to them. I apologize for any error in my own Japanese (erm...last sentence or so), it's just that it felt better like that. I think "ja matta ne" means "see you later" or something of the like. I'll be trying to fix my breaks a.s.a.p., so please bear with the ugliness. Oh, and sorry if the ending is a little disjointed, that was a little bit of the ending I was trying to give, but not too much so...Eto...I can't really think of anything else, so until next time!