It'd had been a few months since Oishi Syuichirou had blurted out an ill-timed "Suki da" to Tezuka Kunimitsu. So ill-timed in fact, it was just minutes before Tezuka had to step on his flight away from Seigaku, to the rehab center hundreds of miles away. Tezuka simply blinked, bowed slightly, uttered an unreadable, neutral "Take care." to Oishi, turned on his heel and walked to his gate.

Oishi had been filling up whatever little idle time he had from managing the tennis team with swimming, homework, his fishes and more a surprise to him than anyone else, Eiji. While there were flocks of girls in the school who were huge Golden Pair fans, prior to Tezuka's departure, the Golden Pair actually spent little time outside of practice-related events together. Oishi had spent virtually all of his time like Tezuka's virtual lap dog, much to his chagrin. After his unintentional earful of Tachibana's secret relationship with the captain, Oishi had been careful to slowly and moderately pull away, without seeming like he was abandoning the team or his duties. Despite all of his efforts, Oishi's emotions were boiling over, but like a good friend, he wasn't about to butt in on something that looked from all respects, good for Tezuka. He had promised himself he wouldn't do that to to Tezuka, put him in awkward position of having to concentrate on his recovery and burden him with these feelings. But like most things under pressure, as Tezuka was saying his goodbyes, Oishi had felt something inside pop, and it just came out, faster than he could blink. But by the time he could take back what he had said, Tezuka had left.

The days after that horrible haunting sentence, Oishi had been a wreck. Such that Ryuusaki-sensei had told him to take the days off, assuming he was stressed about taking over. Inui and her held off just fine, but perhaps the students didn't from the extra juiced-up regimen. During one of the days while Oishi was resting at home, Eiji came over and literally dragged him out of the house to the local aquarium. "You finally did it huh?" The bouncy red head stated. Oishi had been so trapped in his thoughts, he didn't realize that Eiji had been quiet for a very long time. "I had thought from that time you ran away from the clubhouse, you had already told him. But I guess there was something else going on. I won't pry, although it's killing me to know. But if you do feel like telling someone, anyone, you know I'm here. That being said, it's good you finally told right?" With a huge grin only Kikumaru Eiji could manage.

Eiji's carefree attitude was a welcome change from Tezuka's ever-sturdy, seemingly perpetually serious demeanor. The red-head's happy go-lucky energy provided a strange balm to the captain's stunningly lackluster reaction to Oishi's sudden confession. And somehow, Oishi found himself smiling for the first time in a week.

Well, Eiji had been right, it did feel better to confess, but it had been agonizing to wait…. to wait, for well, just about anything.

In the months that Tezuka had been away, he had not bothered to contact the vice captain except for the occasional text message before a big match with his ever-predictable "Yudan sezu ni ikou." In retrospect, the whole confession had been such a casual, such a matter-of-fact occurrence the green-eyed boy was beginning to wonder if it really had happened at all. All he had known was, essentially, nothing had changed. Nothing. Tezuka had been away ages, finally he was back, and literally it had been as if the captain had left on one of his camping trips a Friday and was back the following Monday.

Despite the bespectacled boy's return of over a week, Oishi had yet to find himself in a setting with Tezuka alone. All their time together was composed of regular reranking matches, and most recently the shocking news that Echizen was going to leave for the matches in the U.S. Any of the meaningful glances Oishi had poised in Tezuka's direction were either completely missed or utterly ignored, the green-eyed boy wasn't sure which.

Around mid-week, when the reranking matches we pretty far progressed, the vice captain noticed a familiar set of uniforms walking toward Tezuka. Fudoumine. He hurried to get as close as possible, yet hidden behind a wall, to the conversation between Tachibana Kippei and the captain. Damn, he came to see Tezuka pretty quickly after he came. Almost too soon. A fleeting thought of Did Tezuka call me or Tachibana first as soon as he arrived? For a split second as he observed Tachibana and Tezuka shaking hands, he realized they were holding both their stares and their handshakes for a little bit longer than was considered normal. However, at this point Oishi was so sick… of well just waiting…that this provided a clear closed case of how things were going to end up.

He hadn't realized however, at what point he had started crying. Whether they were tears of relief or sadness or combination of both, he just slid down against the wall and wiped his eyes. "Makechatta. I lost and I didn't even get a chance to try."

He almost jumped when he realized Eiji was sitting right next to him, hands around his knees, quieter than he knew the boy could be. "Eiji… I…." The red head smiled at him, not his typical brighter-than-life smile, but a sad one, and shook his head. "Oishi, you don't have to explain. Whether or not you realize it, I know you better than anyone. So, you can sit here for as long as you want." His blue eyes turned downward slightly. Wow, those blue eyes really do pick up everything, Oishi vaguely thought.

"And I'll be right here next to you." Eiji's eye lifted and gave him a honest, true smile. The green-eyed boy leaned back and slid his head on his doubles partner's shoulder. "Well I'm glad in that case someone who's sitting so close next to me brushes his teeth so often." Oishi half-chuckled the ache away. "Oishi! Here I am trying to be all serious and kakkoii, and you're ruining it!" Eiji in mock-anger spouted, but his eyes were shining it all.

"Thank you, Eiji." Came the statement suddenly. At a quick squeeze of Eiji's shoulder, Oishi stood up, pulled Eiji up and turned the corner where he bumped almost full-on with a boisterous Tomoka. Tomoka seeing Oishi's hand which had not yet unclasped Eiji's from pulling him up, squealed loudly and ran off to tell the Golden Pair fanclub about her newest discovery.

Eiji grinned. "Well, I don't mind the rumours. We can give Tezuka a reason to be disappointed he didn't realize the greatest guy in the world was under his nose, ne?" He winked. Oishi turned slightly pink at the compliment. He opened his mouth to reply when a "Oi, Kikumaru-sempai, your match is next!" interrupted the moment. They smiled at each other slightly before running off in the direction of the courts.

Author's notes:

Although I tend to find it really annoying when people use "Fangirl Japanese" in fanfics, there are certain subtle things about the Japanese language that can't be conveyed in English.

"Suki" can be used to mean either like or love. The ambiguity of it I think sometimes is really fascinating. So essentially, if Tezuka really felt like reading it as such, he could just take it as "I like you," but it guess if I hadn't made it exceptionally clear Oishi means it a lot more strongly than that.

Yudan sezu ni ikou – the cliché phrase from Tezuka meaning "let's not get careless"

"Makechatta" I'm not actually quite sure if I'm Romanizing this right. But "I lost" doesn't have quite the same effect. The verb makeru carries more the conviction of being completely defeated. But saying "I was defeated" in English sounds really weird and "I've lost" isn't quite as strong I think.

Other notes. I wasn't intending this to be a Golden Pair fic. Really honestly, Although I like em, and they really are, honestly, sooo married, I tend to think the best relationships come out of friendship. Tezuka and Oishi's relationship seems so much more binding… but even so, this, just came out.

But then again, I love anything with Oishi. Even if it was Oishi x his fishes I'd prolly love it ��