Disclaimer: I don't own Tennis no Ohjisama. Imagine the havoc if I did. I only own Tezuka's manager, Kitano, and he only comes in in this chapter

Notes: I'm sorry for the long wait, I was busy, and I kind of hit writer's block over these two weeks.

-x-

Tezuka did not know how long he sat there, with his head crushed against the ivory keys, emitting a broken chord. It could have been seconds, minutes, or even hours, if he slept during that unnamable period of time, he didn't recall. All he wanted to do was either melt onto the ground, or fade into nothingness.

"Did you miss me?" the childlike question could all too easily be translated into something that was not innocent at all, "Do you love me?"

Maybe he had, at one time, loved Fuji Syusuke, but that was then, and this was now. Back then; he was Tezuka, the nation-level tennis player, and the stoic captain of Seigaku, whose complements were as rare and as precious as gold.

Now, he wasn't sure what he was, one might say that he was Tezuka, the rising piano prodigy, whose reputation was slowly spreading through Kyoto like a…virus.

A virus. He had never thought of it that way, but it was true, partially, if one cared to look at the situation negatively enough.

"Tezuka…san?" a voice sounded from behind.

"Yes?" Tezuka whirled around, lest it be another surprise, but this time, he saw what he was expecting, "Oh…Kitano-san, you're late."

"Traffic was heavy." His manager replied tonelessly. Kitano was a man in his late twenties; he was probably almost as serious as Tezuka, which was saying a lot. "What are you doing?"

"Practicing, or at least trying to." Tezuka posed his fingers on the piano again, "It hasn't been a good day." And today was supposedly his birthday.

"Oh." It seemed to be an unspoken agreement between them not to discuss the more personal points of life, in fact, Tezuka did not find out that Kitano's first name was Harusuke until fairly recently, "By the way, have you seen the program for tonight?" Kitano thrust a piece of paper at him.

"No." Tezuka replied matter-of-factly as he scanned the note, "Were you the one who changed the encore piece? I don't like playing Liebstraum."

Kitano raised an eyebrow, "But it's one of your best pieces."

"Change it."

"Into?"

"Just change it." Tezuka laid the paper down beside him on the piano bench and began to play again, "I don't care what, just change it."

"Very well." A thick file folder practically materialized out of nowhere in Kitano's lap, he began leafing slowly through its contents, "What are you playing now?"

"…Moonlight Sonata."

"Do you want to play that then?"

"Fine."

His manager got to his feet, "With that being settled, I'll leave."

Why couldn't Fuji reply like that? A normal person, but what was he saying? Fuji wasn't normal. "See you."

-x-

Tezuka should've known that something was terribly wrong when he spotted two other cars parked outside the apartment driveway. If he knew, he wouldn't have gone home, even if someone offered him a million yen.

The apartment wasn't particularly big; it had two bedrooms, a study, a kitchen, and a medium-sized living room, furnished with a couch and an armchair. The only thing unique about the whole structure was that there was a long hallway leading to the living room from the front door.

So it was only natural to assume that Tezuka didn't have any clue of what was about to happen. He took of his shoes, and paused at the sight of four other pairs of shoes beside Inui's loafers. It was probably a study session or something. Inui was always doing that without warning.

"Hoi! Tezuka!"

Tezuka barely had time to glance up as a person virtually slammed him against the coat closet door, "What the…"

"Eiji, don't do that." Another voice scolded, "Say sorry to Tezuka."

"Uh…uh…guys, I think we should give him some room to breath."

"Mada mada dane."

Tezuka peeled himself away from the door and stared at the scene in front of him, even though his face was still perfectly expressionless, he wanted to scream.

What the hell happened to his living room?

The room was strewed with green and blue crepe paper, and three packages were piled upon the coffee table, and lastly, a banner made out of what looked like old bedsheets was taped from one side of the room to the other, bearing the words in block capitals: Happy Birthday Tezuka.

He swallowed hard and stared some more.

"So, do you like it?"

Tezuka whirled around to face Inui, "You're paying the rent." He snapped, "Is this your idea of fun?"

Inui shrugged nonchalantly, as if none of this was his doing, "Kikumaru and Oishi live in the east dorm, I've known for quite some time, you know, and Kawamura just happened to be in Kyoto visiting his cousins. Echizen had a tennis tournament—"

At the mention of the word tennis, Tezuka winced, "What about…"

But whatever he had set out to ask never had a chance to leave his mouth, because Inui innocently held up two fingers and everyone in the room burst into a very out of tune chorus of "Happy Birthday".

If he had not taken up piano, Tezuka would not have minded the song so much, but it was just that everyone, well, almost everyone was out of tune, and since his ear was much more sensitive than before, it hurt.

The song had barely started for three seconds and already his eardrums were starting to bleed. He mumbled a quick excuse and ducked into the bathroom.

Behind the safely locked door, he could think. Tezuka had never been the type to give in to panic, and he certainly was not going to start now, but this…this was a bit much.

Someone pounded on the door, "Nya, Tezuka, I know you're not really using the bathroom, come on!"

"Eiji, don't force him."

Tezuka sighed and unlocked the door. "Look—" he started, he wanted to tell them, that he was NOT Tezuka-buchou, not a tennis player, and most of all, if it happened to come up, he was definitely not in love with Fuji Syusuke.

Once again, he never finished. They dragged him into the living room and sat him down on the couch. "Open your presents, Tezuka!" one of them said excitedly, Oishi, he thought it was.

Tezuka prayed for a miracle.

It happened. The phone rang, he snatched it up with unnatural quickness, "Hello?"

"Tezuka, this is Kajimoto."

"Yes?" ask to see me, I don't care, just get me out of here, that was the atypical thought that flashed across his mind. Breathing was becoming an ordeal.

"About the project, uh, I just realized that Professor Hijitaka wanted us to work in pairs, it said so on the rubric in the introductory paragraph, I was wondering if you—"

"Let's meet at the library."

"Now?"

"Yes, now."

Kajimoto never figured out why Tezuka was so eager to meet him that day in the library for a very boring project, on top of that, Tezuka even treated him to coffee afterwards. Not that he was complaining, it was really expensive coffee, but it was strange.

-x-

Save Inui, the place was empty when Tezuka came back to prepare for the concert, the others had gone, thank goodness. The gifts still unopened lay on one corner of the coffee table beside the tulips.

"You know, Tezuka, knowing them, they'll be back." Inui remarked offhandedly, absorbed in his biology textbook, "But I was kind of surprised that Fuji didn't show up, I did leave a message at his house."

Tezuka nearly dropped the pile of music he was holding. "Inui, did you tell them?"

Inui looked mildly surprised, "Tell them what?"

"Why I stopped."

"I can't tell them what I don't know. I'm not a creative person." Inui replied evenly, flipping a page, "You just stopped, you didn't tell anyone. Why did you stop? No, really, you didn't stop in the freshman year when the doctor told you to."

Tezuka pulled on his suit jacket, "I can't get careless."

Inui knew Tezuka long enough to know that it meant "I can't tell you, not yet." He could have pushed it, but for some reason, he chose not to. There was a 78.8 percent chance that the answer would come soon. He was a patient person, especially if the reward was good data.

-x-

"Tezuka-san, these are for you." The usher gestured to a fresh bouquet of yellow tulips on the table when he came in for intermission. "A young man brought them."

This time, there was a note, written in delicate cursive, a feminine hand that could only belong to one person.

Tezuka had a sudden urge to crumple the paper up, but his eyes did not obey. It read:

Tezuka, you were better at tennis. Happy Birthday.–Fuji

-x-

A/N: Um, this chapter was hard to write, so please humor me