Title: Realizations: Rent
Author: Alexis
Pairing/Characters: Oishi, Kikumaru, wee bit o' Fuji (gaspu I actually wrote him!)
Rating: PG
Part: 1/3, probably
Warnings: Eiji POV, angst, pissy redhead, Fuji (needs a warning all in itself, 'cause I WROTE HIM), possible shounen ai hints (okay, probably more than just 'possible'), overuse of a cliché storyline
Summary: Three years after the series. The boys are in high school. Eiji receives some unpleasant news from Oishi, and gets ukeish upset.
Disclaimer: If I owned Prince of Tennis, all the boys would be paired with each other, so that's why I write fanfiction.
Notes: For one the first line challenge in encryptedminds.

What is reality without a dream to pursue, and what is a dream with reality to escape from. Yet, when that dream comes crashing down, reality takes on a whole different meaning.

"Eiji, I got accepted into Tokyo University, pre-med. Isn't that great?"

The smile freezes on my face as I stop short while opening the front door for you. You called before saying that you had good news, but I didn't expect this. You never told me that you had applied to go anywhere other than Seigaku for college. Why didn't you tell me? We're partners; I thought we told each other everything.

...well, not anymore, we're not.

"Yeah, that's great! Congratulations." Can you tell how fake my smile is? How fake my cheer, my well-wishes are? Do you know that all I want to do is scream, to grab your shoulders and shake you, to ask you WHY you are doing this to me, to us? What happened to the Golden Pair? I haven't beaten you yet, I'm not ready for this to end.

And no, I'm not thinking about why it is that I haven't beaten you. Even if there is a small voice in my head whispering that I could have done so years ago. Not listening, nope, not at all. I silenced that voice, just as many years ago, and I'm not about to listen to its words now of all times.

You stay for a few more minutes, talking about how excited you are, and how you can't wait for the term to start, and I don't think you've noticed how little I've been speaking, how little I've been smiling. You get up to leave, saying you have to be home for dinner, but wanted to tell me the good news in person. I give you another wan smile, and watch your retreating back get smaller and smaller, until I can't see you anymore.

That night when I sleep, I don't dream. It's like being submerged in deep water, surrounded by blackness, and when I awake, I feel more tired than when I went to bed. My day is a fog, everything having a surreal sort of dream-like quality to it.

Fuji is the first person to realize something is wrong. But then again, he's been my best friend for longer than I can remember, nor care to remember for that matter. He knows me better than I know myself; he probably knew what was wrong, what was going to happen, even before I did. His smile hides a lot, more than I'll probably ever know, but that doesn't change the fact that he's my friend...although that day, I wouldn't have wanted to admit that.

"Eiji, did you really think this wasn't going to happen?"

Right now, there's nothing I would rather do than dump my melon soda over Fuji's head...but then I'd get thirsty, and he'd probably do something to get back at me like slip some wasabi into my ice cream. After the first time he did that, I swore never to give him a reason to do it again.

"No; well, okay, maybe...but why didn't he tell me before now?"

Fuji just smiles, and gives me a knowing look. Okay, fine; so I would have gotten mad – but I'm angrier now, since he didn't tell me in the first place. Don't I have the right to be upset? I'm not the one hiding things from his doubles partner, the one letting people assume one thing and then going behind their back and doing something else entirely. That title goes to one Oishi Syuichirou.

The bell rings for us to return to our classes from the lunch period and we go back together, leaving the rooftop sanctuary we had discovered back in junior high, and continued to seek out through high school when needed. Unlike then, though, we're not in the same class and we part ways to deal with the rest of our day. Only half-over, I was ready to go home, but unfortunately, there was still tennis to get through.

Practice rolls around, and our doubles are affected. I hear the whispers, but I can't bring myself to correct the slight change in our timing, the distance that's keeping us from being able to read each other. I know I'm not trying. What's the point, anyway? Soon enough he'll be gone off to college on the other side of the city, and there will be no more Golden Pair.

I know I'm sulking; I'm seventeen, and should be past that, but I'm allowed. I'm the youngest of five children, and I've perfected pouting to an art form. The other regulars see it most, because they've known me for years, but I try to pass it off with my usual bright grins, explaining that I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, and wasn't that history test awful?

I know Oishi is looking at me, wondering what's going on, but I just turn away, go talk to Fuji, to Momo, to anyone in order to get away from those green eyes. Practice finally ends, and instead of walking with Oishi, I latch onto an excuse to run home quickly, not even changing out of my uniform, saying I have to do something for one of my sisters. At least the tennis season is almost over, and then after that, the school year, and we'll be going off to college. Well, some people will be going off to college, others will be staying right where they are, where they belong.