Chapter Five - "Not yet."

It was Saturday morning. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and Hizashi's day had already hit rock bottom, drilled a hole through and was ready to sink some more into the deepest depths of depression.

Not to say that she was a chronic pessimist, but her fate had been sealed (as far as she was able to identify) the moment she'd decided to use intercom at breakfast.

She'd been halfway through her food when a call had come in for her, which her mother had picked up. Hearing that it was one of her 'school friends', Hizashi had laid the phone by her plate, ready to apologize to Miyumi or whoever it was and explain that, no, she couldn't go out for a tennis match or any shopping, because she needed to do that dumb school project.

To her utmost horror, a different voice than Miyumi's bubbly, gentle one, had rang out from the cursed phone.

"Hizashi speaking."

"Ohayo, Hizashi—"

"Oshitari Yuushi?"

"The one and only. Now, I hope you remember today's meeting at my house?"

A sigh was suppressed at this point. "Yes."

"Excellent. I was wondering if you would like a ride there."

"Thank you, but that won't be necessary."

"Oh, but I insist, Hizashi." (Her birth name on his tongue was grating to her ears.) "Gakuto and Kobayashi are both being picked up. Besides, the car is a mere ten blocks away from your door."

Naturally, Hizashi had protested further, but Oshitari had dug in his heels, and had made himself mentally incapable of taking 'no' for an answer. Then, he'd reported an apparent technical failure (obviously faked) in his mobile phone, and the line had been cut. She might have been able to escape the ordeal of accepting a favor from him even then—if it hadn't been for her parents.

"He sounds like such a nice boy," her mother had said warmly. "Hurry up and finish your breakfast; he'll be here soon."

More ominous words Hizashi had scarcely ever heard.

"I hear he's a good kid," her father had echoed, already in a suit and tie and draining the last drops of his coffee before getting up from the table. "His father said so, during one of our business talks. Great man, his father. Has some wonderful ideas for business promotion."

Which naturally mattered so much when judging character of the man's son. So, due to the overhead conversation and two desperately clueless parents, she'd had no choice but to slap some fresh clothes on her back and step out onto the porch to await the dreaded ride.

It came in the form of a dazzling white limo, which turned heads even in her relatively prosperous neighborhood. Sighing with fraying tolerance, she left her home, walking slowly down to the sidewalk. The chauffeur got out and opened the door to one of the back seats. Nodding her thanks, she slipped in.

And got a huge shock when Oshitari's glasses glinted at her in the dimly lit compartment.

One hand twitched, but otherwise she managed to keep her unpleasant sense of surprise under wraps. Unnerved, she went for the most scathing remark that popped into her head. "What's with the weird car? Aren't white limos used only when people get married?" It wasn't exactly biting, but she hadn't had much time to think.

Oshitari, for some unfathomable reason, merely smirked at her jab. "Normally, yes."

It took a few seconds for Hizashi to discern his meaning, but when the horrific conclusion was finally reached, she allowed herself a miniscule choke before shooting him the most menacing glance she could muster, nightmarish weddings, wedding carriages and bridegrooms rampaging wild through her imagination.

"Said something you regret, Hizashi?" the self-satisfied tensai said with mirth in his accursedly suave voice.

"No," she snapped with reflexive aggression. "And stop calling me 'Hizashi'."

"As you wish," he yielded courteously, much to her bewilderment. "Hizashi-chan."

"Oshitari."

"What?" the mocking boy drawled. "I've heard your other friends call you by your first name."

"That's because they're my friends," she hissed. "You, on the other hand—"

"Am no one to address you as such?" A theatric sigh. "Perhaps not, Jukumaru." Once again he conformed to her demands with uncommon readiness, but this time, Hizashi was left with no ambiguity. Unspoken words hung about him like deniable, unacknowledged, yet disturbingly substantial wisps of mist:

"Not yet."

Things weren't going as Oshitari wanted. He had made a most generous offer of playing chauffeur (symbolically, of course; he wasn't old enough to drive) and what thanks was he getting? Hizashi not only wasn't accepting his goodwill graciously, but was now all but ready to hammer holes, with the punches packed in her glower alone, in the beautiful limo he'd brought out just for her use.

He supposed her reaction wasn't completely unaccounted for; he'd made a rather unfavorable impression of himself, after all. Time to adjust to his new stance, that was what she needed.

Very well, then. This was all just part of the game.

Hizashi held her tongue for the rest of the ride, quietly fuming at having been made to put her foot in her mouth. Her rigid fingers gripped the velvet seat cushion beneath her, eyes ignoring the elegantly tinted windows and tinkling lights winking soothingly from the car's black ceiling. Once she caught Oshitari staring speculatively. She quickly looked away, and the awkwardness she perceived lasted until the limo mercifully stopped, and its door was opened.

In a fashion quite unbecoming of any limo-riding folk, she scrambled out of the vehicle, all her tennis-enhanced muscles pumping to help. The hairs at the back of her head shot up as she heard Oshitari, who had been sitting a good five feet away from her, emerging just inches behind.

"Oshitari-kun! Hizashi!" A welcome distraction came in the form of a tittering girl known as Kobayashi Yuki, who appeared to have just gotten out from a stately grey Benz. A third car pulled up beside the noisy fountain in the spacious Oshitari courtyard, from which sprang a bounding redhead. "Ossu, Yuushi."

Nodding his greeting, the young master of this home motioned his guests inside, and was met with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Yuki looked ready to break into a run, linking Oshitari's arm with her own (which he pretended wasn't there until she let go) and gazing hungrily around her. Gakuto just walked. Like he'd been there a million times before (he probably had). Hizashi brought up the rear with the sullen expression of someone dragged along by thick iron manacles.

The house itself wasn't as big as Atobe Keigo's was rumored to be, but was still indecently large. It looked more like the residence of a family with half a dozen rowdy children than the home of one overachieving businessman, his wife and only child.

"I think we'd better use the lounge," Oshitari waved a lazy hand in the direction of a room opening up straight ahead down an extravagantly long corridor. "It's the most comfortable room with tables."

Presently, a pair of polished wooden doors to their left (a luxurious flight of stairs swept upwards to their right) creaked inward, revealing a towering, bulky man in an expensive suit. "Friends from school, Yuushi?" He had a round, pink face with none of his son's calculating cunning, receding brunette hair and a boyish smile.

"Yes, Otou-san." The teen came to a halt, gesturing at his three classmates. "Gakuto you know. I had he will be doing a project with Kobayashi Yuki and—"

"Jukumaru Hizashi?" Oshitari senior boomed, startling everyone, but the girl most of all. "So pleased to meet you," he announced after patting Gakuto on the back and shaking Yuki's hand. "Knew who you were the moment I set eyes on you, of course—you have your father's nose, but he keeps moaning about how you only look like your mom." He put out his hand, which Hizashi took.

"I'll be counting on him to do a good job on my product's new commercial, young lady."

"My father enjoys partnership with you very much, sir." She gave him her best diplomatic smile, reminded that despite his misleading appearance, this man was still top dog in his profession, and couldn't be as laid-back and innocent as he looked.

"He seemed quite taken with you," Oshitari junior remarked once the four teens had made their excuses and left for the lounge. "I'm not sure whether he's ever wanted a daughter—"

"It was a business tactic," Hizashi asserted, the term 'daughter-in-law' sprouting unbidden into her head (the 'white limo' mishap was still fresh in memory). "He was being nice to his business partner's daughter."

Oshitari shrugged permissively. "If you say so."

Correctly interpreting that he wasn't saying so at all, she lunged at a new subject. "Where's your mother?"

"Out inspecting sales samples, I expect. She owns a line of stores selling women's clothing and is currently thinking about importing from Paris." Grasping the chromium-plated handle to the lounge's handsome glass doors, he produced a thin-lipped smirk. "What, eager to meet my parents?"

Snarling, Hizashi pushed past him into the room and declared in ill-temper that they should get on with their work.

Late afternoon found Oshitari still in the lounge long after Hizashi, Yuki and Gakuto had gone home, kicking back against the fluffiest cushions and humming pleasantly.

All in all it had been on of his more productive days. Perhaps he was still a little way away from having Hizashi melt at his feet, but she had asked him to pass the salt quite nicely at lunch, if a bit stiffly. That was something.

On dusty pavements, surrounded by the jarring noise of traffic, vendors and the general bustle of passersby, Fuji walked. One step in front of the last, one step after another, he walked though the sun had already travelled a wide arc across the sky since he had left home that morning.

He had walked more that day than he ever had, in one go, in his life, pushing on like some wounded animal making a desperate break away from a hunter closing in for the kill, too exhausted to run and yet struggling to escape its fate.

His legs ached.

However that bodily pain was lost in the stinging hurt another part of him throbbed with, despite his constant efforts to be rid of the oppressive sensation.

I am a horrible person.

Countless times that day, he'd told himself he should be glad. She was, and so he ought to be as well. He'd said as much, hadn't he? "As long as it makes you happy, I really don't mind," he'd said.

Yet here he was, walking.

"Then…we'll still be friends, won't we?" she asked anxiously, taking an urgent step forwards.

He nodded, not letting on that the knitted frown she wore was threatening to make his chest heave with emotion—she was worried! That the two of them remain on good terms was something she took to heart. He was someone she took to heart. "Of course," he said, assuring her that they were, and always would be, friends.

"That's great." Grinning in obvious relief, she trotted to his side, nudging his shoulder with her hand, indicating that they should continue on their way. The contact burned him through his thin shirt. "We'll keep doing the stuff we used to, right? You know, tennis, burger joints, hiking?"

If he had to do that, if he had to be in her presence knowing he couldn't reach out to hold her close, couldn't cover her hand with is, he would die. "Of course we will, Tezumi. I'm looking forwards to those things already."

She beamed at him in delight.

There weren't many other occasions in his life he had put on an act quite so convincing, Fuji concluded. He hadn't merely been misleading or evasive, oh no. he had actually lied to her. Told her the exact opposite of what he felt and meant. She had believed him without question.

Maybe it was for the best that he kept his distance from her; if this was the attitude with which he handled the beginning of a relationship, who knew what kind of havoc would have been unleashed, if time had progressed with them remaining a couple? Tezumi didn't appreciate being deceived or kept in the dark; that much he knew for sure.

Mechanically winding a path through the throngs of people around him, he breathed out a small sigh. He was well into the core of the commercial area nearest Seigaku, and home, a place he and Tezumi might have spent many an afternoon just like today's, if he'd just—

Fuji heaved another lengthier sigh like a puff of lifeblood. After all this time, all that had happened, he was still under the illusion that if only he had tried a little harder, done a little better, he would have been able to change Tezumi's position on him. This wouldn't do at all. He mustn't be so stubborn.

With dusk oncoming, he wandered the streets until chancing upon a small café nestled in a cozy corner some distance from the main road. Stopping in front of it, he gazed into the large, glass-paned windows which took up an entire wall. The shop was one of his favorite places to go for snacks and drinks, but he didn't visit was often as he liked, being rather short on leisure hours as most of his tennis-playing friends were. He would definitely have liked to bring Tezumi to the place.

Scolding himself lightly (he understood very well the dangers of self-pity), he nonetheless walked up to the door and stepped inside.

Light tinkling of a bell greeted him as he entered, a perfect compliment to the simple elegance the café displayed with its spindly-legged square tables and chairs, deep green tablecloths and matching seat cushions, and curiously shaped glasses poised on every table, reflecting dim yellow lamplight.

The main serving area was full of couples, of course. Men and women in business suits or slacks, teens in their sweaters or jeans or skirts, natives of Japan and people speaking languages popular halfway around the world, all with their eyes locked, or hands touching, oblivious to everyone else in the room. Fuji wondered why he'd never noticed this before, considering how the pairs and pairs of cooing lovers stood out with such painful prominence to him at the moment.

Perhaps coming in hadn't been the best idea.

From across the café's length, a waiter smiled at him, preparing to bring him a menu. For courtesy's sake, he sat down at the nearest two-person table, hands folded listlessly on his lap as he stared sadly at the empty seat opposite him. The scene unfolding before him was nothing like how he'd pictured it. For instance, in his imaginary visit, he hadn't been alone.

The door-bell tinkled. A menu was placed in front of him. He briefly considered ignoring both, but found that too depressing even for his current situation. With a habitual word of thanks to the waiter, he opened the three-folded menu with no real interest.

"I'm sorry, miss, I'm afraid I can't find you an individual table. We're always rather full around this time of day. There's a seat over here, though; would you mind—?"

"Not at all. Thank you."

Clipped, polite voices rang out nearby, accompanied by carpet-muffled footsteps. At first Fuji made nothing of it. Then the footsteps grew louder, closer. Before long, it dawned upon him that whoever was making those noises were coming right towards him, and he glanced up just in time to see the newcomer arrive.

"I thought I told you to go home."

Tezumi stepped aside, revealing the half packed tennis bag sitting on a stone bench, one of the many unoccupied benches in an otherwise deserted tennis court. "I am going home."

Stopping beside her, Hitomi frowned in vexation. "Tezumi, I told you to go home three hours ago."

Sighing, the ravel-haired girl flopped down upon the bench, back bent in exhaustion and propping herself up by her elbows on her knees. Sweat soaked her clothes; her thin long-sleeved shirt with its sleeves rolled up and matching shorts stick to her skin. As a stiff breeze rushed past, she shivered. "It's not that late."

"It's sundown," Hitomi pointed out archly. "And that's not even the point. You've been here for five hours, do you realize that? That's double your normal daily training time. I bet it'll knock you out tonight, not to mention how horrible you're going to feel tomorrow for overusing your muscles."

"I'm not that tired," asserted Tezumi, but she was only running on autopilot; when she tried to get to her feet, she felt unsteady on her legs. Mostly because they were shaking. And were this close to giving way beneath her.

Hitomi didn't even bother to contradict her. "What were you thinking?"

"How did you know I was here, anyway?" After taking a last sip of water and shuddering at its iciness, Tezumi stuffed the bottle away between her racket and soaked towel.

"I called you at home. Wanted to ask about homework—but never mind that. Your mom said you weren't back yet. The rest wasn't hard to figure out. But you're changing the subject. I repeat: what were you thinking?"

Seeing that her friend was not to be deterred, Tezumi spared herself the trouble of posing the innocent question, "What do you mean?" Instead, she spread her arms wide, indicating at the public tennis court the two girls were adjacent to, basked in deep orange rays of diminishing light. "I like it here. And tennis is fun. Don't you think so? I mean, you did spend two of those five hours with me playing matches."

Hitomi raised a brow. "Tennis is fun, therefore you spend a whole afternoon playing it, non-stop."

Inwardly, Tezumi made a noise of annoyance. The problem with Hitomi was that her comments were so short, and yet so loaded with meaning that it gave lots to think about but very little time to think. Forming excuses under such circumstances wasn't easy. "Look, I just wanted to train a little more, okay? And I really do like that…state of concentration training puts me in, all right? I find it relaxing." She zipped up her bag with ill grace.

"I can understand that. Tennis does help forget your troubles, ne?" agreed Hitomi softly. At last, Tezumi glanced over her shoulder to meet the other's eyes, and flash a grin. She was glad to have such a friend; no matter what she did, she would always have the girl's sympathy in the end.

"So the question is, what kind of troubles are you trying to forget, exactly?"

Or not.

The bag was shouldered, the strap adjusted. "I'm not trying to forget anything. What, do you only play tennis when there's something you want to forget? You must have a pretty traumatic life, then, since you play it every day." Tezumi felt the cut of those snide words before they reached the intended ears. She immediately regretted saying them, but also gained a little guilty satisfaction, feeling as though some inflaming substance had been released and rid of in the act.

Sorry, Hitomi. But I don't really care right now. She remained unrepentant, even as a firm hand shot out and grabbed her sports bag. "Hitomi, let go."

"Tezumi—"

"Look, I am not in the mood for this. You can patronize me all you like some other day, but right now, let go, Takahashi, before I'm late for dinner—"

"Tezumi, please."

The world froze up. Neither girl moved.

"Tezumi…you're tired. Let me carry that." Gently, almost shyly, Hitomi removed the burden from Tezumi's grasp.

Tezumi felt like crying.

"Come on," her best friend coxed, putting an arm around her shoulders. "Let's go home."

The first tears leaked out.

Hitomi sighed. "See? You're terrible at hiding that something's wrong."

"Hitomi, listen. Nothing's w-wro—"

"No, you listen!" Tezumi felt the grip on her shoulders tighten. "There's something bothering you, and there's no use denying it. It'd have to be deaf, blind and a fool not to tell. But I'm not going to ask you what it is, okay? Happy? You don't have to tell me… Though obviously I'd prefer it if you do."

Somehow, Tezumi found herself bursting into laughter. "Oh, you're hopeless, Hitomi. Absolutely hopeless. I swear you're turning into Oishi." Gradually she sobered down. "Though, seriously, I'm sorry I was so mean and unfair just now. I hope you can forg—"

"Your friends don't need an apology and your enemies won't believe you anyway."

And she knew she had been forgiven. Following Hitomi away from the tennis courts, she suddenly grinned playfully. "You know, I might think it over and might want to tell you what's up…at around, say, three o'clock tomorrow morning?"

It was one of those rare times when the once timid girl rolled her eyes and groaned. "I suppose I'd better keep my mobile phone on for the night, then."