Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Pairing: FujiRyo
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Note: Part 4 of 5 from the Five Senses Arc.
Feedback: Yes, please.
Archive: As you will. Just let me know.
Dedication: Sight is shameless bribery for confabulation, whom I adore and love.
Sight
by Ryuuza
Fuji Syuusuke didn't have any particular fondness for sharing. This was why none of his photography projects for school contained photos from his personal collection. Certainly, he had one Ryoma album he was delighted to share with the public, to his boyfriend's profound embarrassment, but there was another for private exhibit only; some things were not meant for prying eyes.
And while abstract skyscapes and black-and-white stills of lashes against cheek were scattered over his public portfolio, his home studio was a completely different matter.
"I'd get kicked out of school if anyone knew about these," Ryoma had said to him before, pointedly eyeing the numerous portraits hung on the walls.
Fuji had only smiled serenely. "Saa, no one's seen them but you and me, and no one will."
Ryoma didn't doubt it. If Fuji Syuusuke didn't want anyone to enter his apartment's private studio, then no one would. Those who knew him had learned better than to do something so directly against his wishes, and those who didn't—well, even they understood the unspoken threat those smiling eyes could hold, albeit it often being a subconscious understanding, survival instincts rising up in tandem with inbred politeness.
But if anyone other than Fuji or Ryoma had seen the studio, there would've been no doubt in his or her mind that Fuji had two passions in his life and that both were displayed on those walls. One of the larger rooms in the apartment, in reality the spare bedroom with a few touch ups, the studio had a row of skinny, east-facing windows that let in the sun and flooded light across the multitude of prints covering the walls. Ryoma stared out of every one: the curve of his cheek as he looked away, the shadows playing behind his eyes as he gazed at the camera, the graceful lines of his body as he arched, mid-serve…
Fuji may have given up tennis in college, but he was quite glad Ryoma hadn't. Seigaku High's team was undoubtedly headed to the Nationals again this year with their golden-eyed and confident captain leading the way. That cocky smirk had become famous in recent years, gracing endless glossy covers as tennis magazines reported in awe of first Echizen Nanjirou's genius son and then of the rising star Japan's Seishun Gakuen. It would be only one more year before Echizen Ryoma turned pro, and the world was awaiting him anxiously.
(He hadn't asked Fuji to go with him. It was unfair, asking the other to leave a successful college education and budding photography career to travel the world in a hectic chaos of tours and tournaments. It wasn't his life and Fuji had plans of his own, after all…)
They didn't speak of it often.
Still, it pleased Fuji, now, to be able to see a side of tennis wonder Echizen Ryoma that the world was not privy to. That was why he hung his pictures in the studio, captured moments of the sulk in golden eyes or the softness in the curve of his smile, gentle and free of its more well-known expression of determination and challenge. He liked to see the curve of Ryoma's throat, pale skin and bones exposed by an unbuttoned jersey, knowing that he knew its shape, texture, and taste far better than anyone else could hope to.
His favorite portrait hung, life-size, beside the door on the side wall that led to his darkroom (the walk-in closet with alterations). Not precisely black-and-white, it was instead a muted harmony of pale grays and blues. Light played across Ryoma's bare back, highlighting his sleek and unmarked skin, a slice of white against the slate blue silks he was laying stomach-down on. Unkempt dark hair left shadows over his features and his lashes were lowered, eyes cast downward at the hands curled near his face. Though Ryoma himself was outlined clearly, the rest of the picture was vaguely blurry, the blues bleeding into grays that stained the edges of the portrait.
It was Fuji's favorite not only because Ryoma had posed nude, but because he had trusted Fuji enough to agree to pose sans clothing. Even his expression, though lacking any emotive display of adoration or love, was a testament to his trust; he'd felt relaxed enough to deem it unnecessary to keep a wary eye on his boyfriend at all times. There was even something coy, Fuji mused, about the way he didn't look at the camera. (It'd never be mistaken for shyness, though, not in Ryoma. Not now.)
He remembered the trust after the modeling session too, whispered along his skin.
Hands sliding along his back, bare legs wrapped tight around him, hands clutching at his shoulders and leaving marks, even as those golden eyes peered up at him, heated. The openness of the desire in Ryoma's expression left him breathless, singing along his nerves until his blood rushed, hot, through him.
He leaned down to kiss that mouth, lips and tongue sliding over lips and tongue as his hands shifted restlessly up and down Ryoma's side, moving to the rhythm set by their hips. The silks were a mess beneath them, tangled into a hopeless pile that left him glad, remotely, that they had finished the shooting; it would've been impossible to rearrange the aesthetic folds. It was a only a distant thought, though, and his mind was filled with more urgent things like running his fingertips over Ryoma's nipple to draw out those low keens, feeling warm breaths panting over his ear as he traced his tongue along a perfect jawbone.
His head was spinning, heart pounding frantically, as everything—the jerk of Ryoma's hips against his own, the smell of sweat, the silk of skin, the sight of Ryoma arched under him, the heat, gods, rushing in his blood—spiraled him into a surreal world. A camera could never capture the perfection of this moment, for some things were too fleeting and others were too amorphous, ever-changing, shifting into newer worlds of pleasure, of fierce, unspoken love, of possession. An instance of heaven would never credit the vast, eternal expanses that stretched before and beyond it.
He felt Ryoma bite down on his neck, and he moaned, rainbows arching behind his eyes. Sight was too wanting a sense to encompass the experience of the fluttery butterflies of heat and desire and the gentle perfection of the smile that curved into his collarbone, unseen.
It recalled to him the fleeting perfection of their relationship as it was now. Five years had tempered it into the comfortable rightness of the present; no longer was it about Ryoma overcoming the team prodigy, or Fuji searching for someone brighter than the sun to block out the gray void when Tezuka had left. It had moved past the deliberate provocations, teasing that was flavored with bits of wasabi-like sadism, and past the resentment of wishes unfulfilled, to evolve into an equitable give-and-take.
There was no doubt that Fuji still adored teasing Ryoma, but it was a gentler sort of amusement, and Ryoma had learned to take it better as well. Their relationship, also, was now less about tennis and more about the two of them, something that had taken Ryoma a long time to come to terms with. Neither had expected to fall in love with the other, but life was unexpected in its surprise gifts, and they had adapted.
It hurt to think of the future, though, and the uncertainties it held, so they didn't. Ryoma grudgingly continued his education at Seigaku High, devoting the majority of his passions toward tennis and the team now under his guidance. Fuji continued his attendance at college, pleasing professors with his impeccable grades and stunning art critics with his vivid photographs. He continued his candid and postured shots of Ryoma, as well, and occasionally a new addition was made to the private collection in his studio.
At a glance, they would appear a normal (if slightly more extraordinary than usual) couple, barring the prejudices of the close-minded. But beneath the surface, behind the prints of embarrassed flushes and mischievous smiles, lay something vaster, endlessly wide and deep.
They were Fuji Syuusuke and Echizen Ryoma, photography genius and tennis wonder.
To go: Taste, Hear, Smell, Sight, Touch
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