Title: Chaos of the Mind
Author: Queen Momoko
Chapter: 3?
Pairings: Fujicest, Mizuki/Yuuta
Rated: PG-13
Genre: Drama
Summary: Tennis club chaos and Fuji thinks back on the past.
Disclaimer: PoT does not belong to me... though, oh- how I wish it did.

"Mou, where's Fujiko?" Eiji complained. "He ignores us on the street on Saturday. He doesn't answer his cell phone." Here he crossed his arms and stuck out lower lip in a pout. "No one answers the phone at his house. And now he doesn't come to school! Mou, Oishi!"

A worried frown covered Oishi's face as he tried to keep his focus on the tennis courts before him. The non-Regular students were currently practicing with Oishi watching them. However, Oishi found it hard to keep his attention completely focused on the courts with his anxious partner talking beside him. The little bit of Eiji's face that Oishi could see from the corner of his eye was scrunched up in thought.

"I mean, what if something happened to Fuji? What if he was running from kidnappers? What if he was caught and they've taken him away somewhere? He could trapped somewhere without food or water. He'd be slowly dying, Oishi, and we wouldn't have done anything to stop it!" Eiji's voice was quickly speeding up along with the pace of his thoughts. A slightly panicked tone began to find its way into his voice. "What if Fuji's dead? He could have been hit by a car! Or maybe he was trying to runaway from being kidnapped and the kidnappers ran over him!"

With that final burst, Eiji flung himself onto Oishi seeking comfort. Oishi stared wide-eyed at the boy that was clinging to him. Slowly Oishi put his arms around Eiji to comfort him, still trying to catch up and filter with everything that Eiji had just said.

"Hey, why's Kikumaru-sempai crying? Did something happen?" Momoshiro's voice brought Oishi out of his stupor.

Oishi had just opened his mouth to reply to Momoshiro's question when Eiji's cry interrupted him

"Fuji's DEAD!" Eiji lifted his head and cried out before burying his head back in Oishi's chest.

"What?" Momoshiro's startled cry carried across the courts. "Fuji-sempai is DEAD!"

The silence that greeted Momo's shout was defeaning. Everyone was now staring at the three Regular players. A slight blush covered Oishi's face as he thought about the sight the other players must be seeing.

"Ano... That's n-" Oishi's started to reply, but with his beginning to speak so had everyone else. The buzz of voices quickly drowned out anything else that Oishi was trying to say. He let out a sigh of defeat and turned his attention to solely trying to comfort Eiji.

So it was a scene of barely controlled chaos that greeted Tezuka as he stepped onto the courts after talking with Ryuuzaki-sensei. His lips thinned in displeasure. There wasn't single person practicing.

"Everyone, 50 laps!" Tezuka's clear voice carried over all the noise, effectively silencing everyone. "Now!" With that second command, everyone headed out to begin their laps.

"Lastly, Fuji and Momoshiro will be playing a match in the third court," Tezuka finished and nodded as the members of the tennis club shouted their assent and started their practice.

Fuji grabbed his racquet, walked over to the court. While he waited for Momo, he absent-mindedly stretched himself with a smile firmly locked on his face. He had been mildly surprised when he'd attended class that morning to find Eiji shocked that he was still alive. That had brought a twitch to his already smiling lips.

But the rest of the day he had been receiving worried looks from his friend. Fuji found it slightly odd that his friend didn't ask the questions that he was dying to ask. Almost as soon as the puzzlement over his friend's behavior entered his mind, the answer of Tezuka warning them off under threat of laps or worse appeared.

"Ne, Fuji-sempai, are you ready?" Momo's voice drifted across the court to him.

Fuji absently nodded and automatically got into position to return Momo's serve. Fuji followed the ball easily enough and got into the rhythm of hitting the ball. The soft sound of the ball hitting the court tugged Fuji into relaxation. As he let himself be taken over by the timing of hitting the ball, his mind began to wander.

There was pause in the sound from his court and Fuji let the sound of the tennis balls in the other courts continue to keep his mental pace. Just as quickly as the noise from his court stopped, it started again. After about a minute the rhythmic bouncing of the ball stopped yet again. Once again after a little while the thumping started again in his court.

When the sounds stopped once more in his court, Fuji's hearing was greeted only with the soft murmur of whispers. The lack of tennis sounds caused Fuji to blink and look around him. The court was surrounded by all the members of the club. Momo stood panting and Inui sat scribbling in a notebook in the referee's seat.

"40-Love," Inui stated, after he had finished writing.

Fuji blinked again. He didn't even remember hitting the ball, let alone scoring. Fuji's smile turned down slightly in a thoughtful frown. For him to have gained those points so fast meant that he hadn't been holding back as much as he usually did. What was happening to him? He didn't play matches to destroy his opponent, on most occasions.

"Fuji," Tezuka's voice brought Fuji out of his thoughts. Once Fuji had walked over to Tezuka, he continued, "Go home."

Fuji opened his mouth to protest.

"Fuji. Home. Now," Tezuka's stern gaze forced Fuji to nod. "And don't come back until you can concentrate."

With those final words, Tezuka headed back towards the other tennis club members. Fuji let out a small sigh and looked at Tezuka's retreating back. There had been no sense in doing more than a token argument about his leaving practice early. After all, he really didn't want to be there in the first place.

So keeping his smile in place, Fuji collected his things from the locker room, not bothering to change, and left the school. His pace was a little slower than his usual saunter, and once he was a few blocks away from the school, he let his smile fade to nothing.

The weekend had been long, too long in his opinion. Saturday had started out well enough. His mother and sister had gone shopping. His father was going to be out drinking with some work associates. So Syuusuke had had the whole house to himself and without any plans for that evening he would be able to fully utilize the solitude to his liking.

It was rare that he would get to do one his guilty pleasures. While it was true, that if anyone found out about it, they wouldn't be too traumatized by it. They might have even given a soft laugh at the fact that he considered it a guilty pleasure. But it was private. It was something that he hadn't shared with anyone.

His family had long since stopped questioning him about where he went during the evenings and nights and that suited him just fine. While he loved being out in nature, or at least as much nature as Tokyo had, it was nice to be able to do it every once in a while in his room.

So when the call had come that evening, it was to a darkened house with the only light being of candle sitting on the floor of Syuusuke's room. The sharp trilling of the phone caused Fuji to jump almost knocking the candle over in the process. With a slight frown he had unwound his legs from their positions, blew out the candle and made his way over to the phone, turning lights on in his wake.

It seemed almost surreal now as looked back at it as he continued his seemingly endless walk. There were only two words that he could even remember from the brief phone conversation, if the only response on his part had been which hospital could be considered a conversation, were "Yuuta" and "hospital". He had hoped to never hear those words uttered again in the same phrase.

Yuuta hadn't been the healthiest child when he was small. He somehow always managed to get sick with something. Half the time not even the doctors would know what it was. But then he would get better and then everyone just nodded it off and continued with life. In fact, it was because of those trips to the hospital that he had actually begun to like his younger brother.

He had been horrible when he was little. He had hated Yuuta for being born, for taking the attention away from himself. It just hadn't been fair. Then he had seen how absolutely hopeless little Yuuta really was and he pitied him. At least that's what he now figured he'd felt. From this pity, he had sworn to himself that he would protect his younger brother. After all, if something happened to Yuuta, who would he be able to blame.

And Yuuta had needed him. He needed his older brother to look after him. He needed Syuusuke to fight off the bullies that bothered him. He needed him to be there for him every step of the way. It was through his protectiveness for this person smaller than himself that had caused him to begin to love him.

Fuji sighed to himself. Perhaps that was why he had felt betrayed when his younger brother had stopped wanting to be around him. When he had decided he no longer wanted to take baths together. Betrayed when he had started avoiding touching, or even being around, his older brother. Heart-broken when his young follower had stopped playing tennis upon entering secondary school. Perhaps that is why he had felt numb ever since Yuuta had left Seigaku to attend St. Rudolph's.

Yet no matter how angry or sad he was Yuuta, he would still come running to protect him. That was his job, his duty. That had been his purpose in life for too long. So when the call had come that Yuuta was heading towards the hospital that was all it had taken for Fuji to make a dash for the door, only barely remembering to grab a jacket and put on his shoes.

The streets to the train station had been a blur. Thinking back the only thing he could remember were brief streaks of color and a sea of people. There had been no sounds in that city of light and people. Only the sound of his blood rushing and his feet hitting the ground seemed to reach his ears. The fact that he hadn't heard Eiji's shout to him was more than proof enough of that.

The train ride had seemed to take forever. His silent cries of 'aniki is on his way' only further prodded his impatience. It had only been once he was a block away from the hospital that he remembered that no one else in the family knew. He gave a quick call to his sister's cell phone to deliver the message and promptly hung up.

The young nurse that had been sitting at the reception counter had smiled sadly at him before trying to convince him that visiting hours were over for the day. But he had been manipulating people for far too long to let a person like her stand in his way to see his sick brother. So he had turned up the charm a little by opening his eyes slightly wider, smiling softly at her and telling her how truly worried he was about his baby brother who had just been admitted.

She had either been taken in for his looks or for his caring, yet either way she managed to pull up his room number on her computer and whisper it conspiratorially to him. He gave her another smile and nod before quickly making his way up to see Yuuta.

The sight that greeted him upon looking into the room shocked him slightly. Yuuta lay on the bed, an I.V. in his pale arm. His body lay covered by a thin sheet further showing Yuuta's thinning frame. His head was tossed to the side with eyes closed and a sheen of sweat along his brow.

But the thing that truly shocked Syuusuke the most was Mizuki. Mizuki sat at the head of the bed and was stroking Yuuta's head. His clothes were in more disarray than he thought possible for someone of Mizuki's persuasion. The most striking thing about him though was that his eyes were filled with worry and the bags under them were visible from the door.

The chime of the train's doors opening allowing him to board drew him out of his thoughts. He walked onto the train and stood near the door even though there were plenty of seats available. It was a bit ridiculous. After all, he wouldn't get there any soon whether or not he sat down. But to take the extra effort to get to a seat just didn't seem worth it.

It was almost like getting along with Mizuki. At this point it would have taken perhaps a little effort on his part to get along with Yuuta's teammate, but to Syuusuke it was too much effort. After all, he still had a grudge to bear against the black haired boy. The boy had hurt his one and only little brother. It was one of the few things that Syuusuke had decided he would never be able to forgive.

He himself was still performing his penance for hurting his younger brother, though he still wasn't quite to sure what he had done. But Yuuta's avoidance of him was a clear indication that he'd done something, albeit unwittingly, to hurt him. He had done the only thing that he could think of that might make them even. Syuusuke knew that the only way his younger sibling might possibly forgive him was if he paid for his transgression enough.

It was through all of his suffering that Syuusuke had hoped to regain the lost little brother he had once had. He wanted his Yuuta-chan to smile widely again at his only aniki. So Fuji ate only spicy foods without blinking. He drank Inui's juice without a flinch and went back to ask for more. He had replaced all his beloved little potted plants with cacti of various shapes and sizes. His smiles froze into fake imitations of what they had once been. His once many friends dropped to a few that could stand to be around his increasingly sadistic type humor.

But most of all he had given up in his tennis. He hadn't stopped playing tennis, but he had stopped giving it his best. He had to make sure that he hid how well he played so that no one would think to compare Yuuta to him again. Tennis was one of his few true passions, but yet he had sacrificed it as a part of his penance.

That hadn't made a difference. Yuuta had left for St. Rudolph's and he had been left behind to look at the fading back. He didn't write or call to St. Rudolph's to find out how his otouto was. After all, Yuuta had decided that Syuusuke's penance wasn't enough. So he lived with isolation from Yuuta.

But why did Mizuki not have to go through this? Even after Yuuta had learned that the skills that Mizuki had been teaching him were dangerous, he still stayed around him. He still interacted with him. Why did it seem that their friendship just grew stronger after that incident?

Fuji leaned his head against the upright pole in the train car. He closed his eyes against the tears that he could feel wanted to come out. Why did Yuuta choose Mizuki over himself?

With that his stop was announced and Fuji raised his head. All traces of the possible tears from just a few moments ago were gone and his face was once again covered with a smile. Picking up his tennis bag, Fuji disembarked from the train and jogged over to the hospital. The only thing he could do was to continue his penance until Yuuta forgave him for his horrible crime.

Author's Notes: Well, that was it for this chapter. I had originally planned to take this chapter a bit farther, but as I got to there I figured it wouldn't fit the rest of this chapter quite right. So I hope you all liked it. I'm still trying to determine the ultimate pairing so any preference between the two might be taken into consideration. Comments and criticism are always appreciated. And as always, this chapter was un-beta-ed, so if you find any spelling or grammatical mistakes please point them out.