"Here's your visitor's pass."

Tezuka nodded and collected the small card, clipping it over his shirt pocket. The sense of unease lingered even as he continued walking towards the tennis grounds, absently running his fingers against the cover of the diary. Seigaku was almost exactly how it had been; the tennis courts at a distance, familiar gates creaking and swinging from their spots, the colours of the school painted over with warmer colours to represent a shift in education policy. Essentially, nothing had changed. The students were the same too, their eyes reflecting the same earnestness, the same joie de vivre as his batch had once possessed.

Fuji mentioned a few people repetitively throughout his diary, and they were Eiji, Yuuta and him. After his disappearance, the police should at least have questioned them, only they didn't, and only now did he realise that Fuji's parents probably knew next to nothing about their own son. He didn't blame them; unlike Yuuta where what you saw was what you got, Fuji's calm demeanour and pleasant smiles must have imparted a quietly impervious image of him to them. There mustn't have been anything that he didn't seem capable of, as the gentle child with the best grades, the porcelain skin and sky blue eyes, the talented sportsman...his list of achievements went on and on. Yet, behind the mask of perfection, there must have been someone who was capable of laughing, of crying, of breaking down when things were too much for him to bear. After all, his disappearance proved that, hadn't it?

Although he couldn't shake off the feeling that Fuji was still waiting somewhere –

The students walked past and no one was standing there. Perhaps he was being cowardly, but he wasn't going to interview either Eiji or Yuuta, until he had exhausted the narrow pool of candidates he had listed. His headache had increased over the past couple of days, and it gnawed away at him whenever his anxiety rose, as insistent as a tooth extraction occurring inside his head. He gave a barely perceptible sigh of relief as he spotted a familiar figure outside of the teacher's lounge.

"Tezuka! I'm so glad that you're here!"

"Oishi."

His old friend hadn't changed much over the past few years, although his hair had lengthened a little from its customary bob and his fringe was kept back by a headband. Oishi Syuuichiro had studied physical conditioning and applied to return to Seigaku as a teaching assistant for Ryuuzaki-sensei. He looked tanner, more at ease with himself and Tezuka recognised at a glance that Oishi had shed the awkward phase when he hovered anxiously around others, all arms and elbows and joints.

"It's nice to see you again! Why did you want to come all the way to Seigaku when we could have met outside for lunch just as easily?"

"I thought I might want to walk around our old school and see what has changed."

Oishi looked at him wonderingly, before breaking into a small smile.

"You've certainly changed, Tezuka."

"I did?"

"In the past, you always seemed to be in such a hurry. Somehow you seemed so determined in rising to the top, you were almost relentless in your ideals of perfection."

"Two steps forward, one step back, wasn't it?"

"Maa… perhaps, you just weren't too sure what you really wanted at that time." He suggested mildly, his hands buried in his pockets as they walked slowly down the corridor. It was only a matter of time before their feet brought them to the familiar tennis courts. They sat at an empty bench beside a deserted court, which was thankfully shaded in the afternoon sunlight. Oishi talked on cheerfully, updating Tezuka on whatever he had missed while he was studying in Germany. Around them, the warm breeze rifled through the tree branches and sent small golden leaves spinning through the air.

"But why are you really here, Tezuka? Ah, not that it isn't nice to see you again!" Oishi wrung his hands anxiously and Tezuka had to bite back the twitch in his cheek.

"I'd just come to the point then. Have you seen…"

Tezuka paused, uncertain as to how to continue without sounding like a madman.

"Is this about Fuji?"

"You knew what I was going to ask?"

"To be honest, I was a little surprised that it took you so long to inquire about it. Most of us had always assumed that you would be the most interested in Fuji's affairs. But 5 years passed with barely a word from you…I guess we all just took it for granted that you'd moved on."

Oishi leant back against the bench, his brows knitted together as he squinted at the sunlight filtering through the leaves.

"In these past few years, quite a number of things changed. Echizen returned to America to concentrate on tennis, our year graduated, Momo and Kaidoh undertook co-captaincy during their year… Even though we spent 2 years together, somehow I've never really known Fuji personally. I don't think I've even come close. No, let me finish…" Oishi continued relentlessly, even when Tezuka looked as though he was about to interrupt.

"I've never really understood him. I mean, sure, I like him as a friend, we had fun together, it was always good to know that there was someone we could rely on at the end of the day. But…what made him happy? What made him sad? What connected him to the rest of us – was it really friendship? I've never knew what the world seen through his eyes was like. If there is such a concept as 'genius', I will accept that he is one such example…and you are another."

"The two of you are too similar, Tezuka. Did I ever tell you that? I wish I did, I wish I said something earlier, before this entire mess grew into something uncontrollable. When you're together with Fuji, the look in your eyes mirrors his. I've always thought that somehow, only you can touch the world that he inhabits; only you can reach him. What happened between you two?"

"I think the problem lies more in that nothing did happen."

"Ah…I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry! But do you have any idea where he could have gone?"

"Not exactly …well, this may sound a little strange but do you ever feel as though you're…forgetting something?"

The look in Oishi's eyes was all he needed to know the truth.

"You've experienced it too, then?" Oishi whispered, his expression stricken. "I thought I was going mad! There are times when I turned around on the tennis courts, and I feel as though someone had been leaning against the wall only a moment ago. I should be scared, but somehow I'm not! Only a strange but familiar feeling is aroused in me, this curious sensation that makes me want to cry instead. It's like…it's like…"

"Like you're missing something important, only that you can't remember what it is?"

"Yes, that's exactly it! Only…only that I know that it's Fuji. Fuji's the one who's disappeared, isn't it? I know that, so why – why do I still feel this way?"

"You're not alone in this. I feel like I remember Fuji, yet there are certain details about him which elude me. I think I remember him, but within a day or two, the facts have all but disappeared, and only by reading the notes which I left, do I remember what it was that I could have so easily forgotten."

"Do you think everyone feels the same way about this?"

"Not Atobe, that's for sure. He's remembered practically everything about Fuji, except for the trivial details perhaps, which most people would probably have forgotten in the span of 5 years anyway. What about Eiji? What does he remember?"

"Eiji is probably a little different."

"What do you mean?"

"He doesn't remember Fuji at all."

He remembered, the last time he had entered the Fuji household. A couple of weeks had passed since Fuji had been reported missing. Fuji Syuusuke had been last seen walking out of the school, and a few witnesses had come forward to report that they had seen him sitting alone on a bench in the nearby park. That night's storm had been one of the worst that Tezuka had ever remembered and Fuji had never been seen again after that night. So Tezuka paid a visit to the Fuji household against his will, something inside dragging him back into the house with its shrouded unhappiness.

He remembered Yumiko's voice which emerged barely above a whisper in the still kitchen.

"Somehow, I have forgotten what he is like but only 2 weeks have passed. Sometimes I worry myself sick over his disappearance, yet when the moment passes, I have forgotten what I was worrying about. Even now, I feel more detached than worried, as I should be."

He remembered feeling as though his memories were being chipped away just from his contact with Yumiko. There was an irrational urge to surround himself with the solitude of his home, and the pages of his personal journal, holding the memories close to himself before they faded away. Some mornings, he had awakened with a start, a strange twinge in his chest and a nagging feeling at the back of his mind that whispered of things forgotten. Panic often overtook him in those moments, until his mind had recaptured an elusive image of Fuji in his mind and he could breathe more easily again. The rest of the team was starting to forget. He found himself resenting their ability to laugh and act as though nothing was wrong, as though it hadn't only been 2 weeks ago that Fuji had disappeared. Was he the only one who couldn't disregard the complete disappearance of his teammate?

Her voice could not be erased, refused to be erased.

"Yesterday, I thought I felt his presence the other day in the kitchen. I heard him crying...I could feel him standing just behind me. But I didn't want to turn around... The crying ceased the moment my abrupt bout of misery ended. There was no one there, when I turned around. Did I…was I the one who chased him away again?"

Yumiko had started crying then, and Tezuka waited awkwardly at her side, unsure of whether he should put his arm around her or wait for her to recover her senses. It didn't take long for her grief to fade, her eyes closing slowly as she rocked herself to and fro in the kitchen chair.

"A few months after Fuji disappeared, a curious change occurred in Eiji. From some time he seemed genuinely happy, but occasionally, a shadow crossed his face and he would turn to me, looking almost stricken with a sudden realisation. Yet before he could articulate his concern, the thought would vanish. With time, these incidents occurred less and less often, until one day he turned to me and asked:

'Oishi, who's the boy over there? The one with light brown hair and blue eyes?'

"After the words left his mouth, he just stood there with this…this look on his face." Oishi gestured helplessly.

"Just like that, he started crying in the middle of the tennis courts, and I hadn't the faintest idea how to help him. There were all these juniors staring, you were playing a match against Momo in the other court, and some of the other regulars looked like they were about to run over in concern. Ryuuzaki-sensei gave us leave to skip the rest of practice, so I led Eiji to our usual hiding place. He really scared me then, you know? The way he had seemed so distant when he has asked me who the person was, the way he broke down on the tennis courts…"

"In a way it was good, I guess. I never had the courage to give Fuji my answer, when he asked me how I felt about Eiji. I just thought it was wrong for two guys to be together, and what would my family say when I brought him home and introduced him as er, my boyfriend?" Oishi turned red as he stuttered over the endearment.

Tezuka pretended not to notice.

"I didn't know that you and Kikumaru were together then."

Oishi smiled ruefully. "Somehow I get the impression that you're just holding back the urge to yell at us for wasting our time on such frivolities when we should have been concentrating on tennis."

"Aa, as I probably should have done then too." Tezuka acknowledged.

"But why Eiji? Why do some of us remember? And some of us forget? You know I'm not superstitious by nature, but there's something about this whole affair that is a little unearthly. Or spooky if you'd prefer. I would be scared, only that it's Fuji and I can't help but feel sad whenever I think about him instead. Do you see him around too, Tezuka?"

"Yes. No…I'm not too sure. I feel as though he's too familiar, for him to have disappeared 5 years ago. Sometimes I turn, expecting to see someone but nothing's there. Sometimes I wake up from dreams I can't remember, but I remember my mind being so at ease, I can't help but think that – " Tezuka broke off in embarrassment.

"I understand what you mean." Oishi muttered, patting him on his shoulder in a commiserating manner. "Well, unlike us, Ryoma-kun appears to takes everything in his stride."

"Didn't he return to the States?"

"He came back for a visit once. I remember him suggesting dryly that I should put up travel posters around the club room showcasing Paris or something, because Fuji's dedication to our tennis courts was bordering on obsession."

"I take it that he remembers Fuji well?"

"Yes, his memory hasn't been affected in the least. Like Atobe, as you mentioned, only the trivial details have been forgotten. I've known Fuji for a longer time than him, yet I seem to remember less about him than Ryoma-kun does."

They sat in companionable silence for a while, admiring the last drops of evening sunlight on the grass. Tezuka mentally went through the facts in his mind. For now, he knew about 6 people's reactions to Fuji's disappearance, excluding his own. The ones who remembered and the ones who had forgotten…

"Oishi, let us pretend for a little while that Fuji's disappearance is somehow linked to us forgetting about him. Is it possible that the people Fuji feels closest to are the ones most affected by the amnesia?"

"But – but that doesn't make any sense! Are you suggesting that Fuji is somehow erasing our memory?!"

"Also, probably only those who feel close to Fuji, have a chance of regaining their memories."

Oishi sputtered in confusion for a while, his mind working frantically around the conclusion. Surely it wasn't possible that one person had such power, Fuji had never shown any inclination toward the supernatural or… had he simply forgotten about it? He sank lower into his chair and momentarily regretted hearing Tezuka out.

"I've given it some thought, and your story and Eiji's seem to back up my theory."

"O-okay.. In short, you're saying that it depends on whether Fuji feels closer to the person, or whether the person feels closer to Fuji? The more Fuji is attached to the person, the more they will forget about him. Conversely, if the person is close to Fuji, he will attempt to remember? Hence, taking Atobe as an example, he is not affected by the amnesia because Fuji wasn't very close to him to begin with."

"By the 2nd week of his disappearance, Yumiko forgot many things about her brother but she's one of the few who still sees Fuji lingering in the vicinity."

"And it was the same with Echizen! He is not affected, because Fuji was not particularly close to him."

"With Eiji, his memory loss was the most severe. If this theory holds, it is because Fuji was extremely close to him. Conversely, Eiji's seen him around occasionally, but these occasions have fallen greatly, because Eiji was not as attached to Fuji from the start, he tried to sever their friendship at the time of his disappearance, and as time passes, their link weakened further until Eiji had forgotten him completely."

"But I'm not particularly close to Fuji and yet I've 'seen' him a couple of times, at least more often that the rest of the team. How do you explain that?"

"You worry about everyone, more so than others, don't you?"

"Oh…I see. But what about you, Tezuka?"

"I seem to oscillate between remembering and forgetting him. For the past 5 years, I couldn't shake the feeling that I knew a little less about Fuji with every passing day. I took to writing down my impressions and memories of him, and that has helped me to keep some of my thoughts. Now that Fuji's brother has asked me to find his brother, I personally intend to see it to its conclusion."

"But all this time has passed…he could be anywhere, isn't it?"

"I cannot afford to do anything else. Inside of my mind, there is a curious blankness. Every day, I lose a little more of myself and I cannot remember what it is that I do not understand about this matter. If I cannot find Fuji, I lose that which I do not realise that I have lost."

"Ah, it's best to be careful then. You should understand better than anyone else, that Fuji Syuusuke has always been completely unpredictable. I'm afraid I cannot help you anymore than this, I have told you everything that I know."

"Aa. Thank you, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me."

"Come on, we're old friends, aren't we?" Oishi laughed nervously. "Have you seen Inui recently, by the way?"

"No. What happened to him?"

"Ahh, it's nothing! Nothing at all."

END CHAPTER

A/N: I'm sorry for the delay! And I'm sorry(er) if it's even more boring than usual!!