"Regulars, ten rounds around the court!"

Tezuka's voice rang out at the end of practice, making Fuji turn jump slightly. He had not expected the captain to be standing just behind him as he tied his shoelaces. Usually, all it took was the low timbre of Tezuka's voice to send a pleasant jolt of sensation to his stomach. It was rustic, husky and somewhat quaint with its low undertones and careful formality.

Fuji's smile grew faintly wider as he stood up slowly, breathing in Tezuka's familiar smell of soap and freshly laundered clothes. From the side of his eye, he saw a stray tennis ball rolling past him until it stopped against his foot. Picking up his racket, Fuji flung the ball high into the air where it reached its peak and blocked out the sun from his vision. Smashing it through the air, the shot flew through the air and landed perfectly in a basket of tennis balls.

The sudden amount of force that he had put in the shot had wrenched his wrist a little, but he wanted to do it again and again. Setting his racket against the fence, Fuji took a moment to adjust his shirt. Sensing Tezuka's eyes on him, Fuji smiled a little wider as he deliberately caught him staring. Tezuka was tremendously fun to provoke, and he did enjoy watching his stoic captain flush, the slightest tinge of pink that wouldn't have been visible if not for his marble-fair complexion.

"Enjoying the view, Tezuka?" he murmured archly and watched Tezuka's eye twitch.

Still grinning, he headed off to join the rest before Tezuka could add laps.

"Fuji!"

The tensai glanced back in surprise just in time to brace himself for Eiji's weight, before it could effectively topple both of them over. A warm feeling settled in Fuji's heart despite his best friend clinging onto his back like an obstinate koala.

"Ne, are you joining us for dinner later? Momo is treating!"

From a distance ahead, Fuji could hear the junior's outraged protests, which were cheerfully drowned out again by the rest of the team. Smiling, he hoisted the redhead more carefully onto his back and continued walking.

"I don't think so…I have a tuition session with Haruka-san tonight."

Fuji said quietly, his mind intrigued at the thought of his classmate. Something seemed remarkably familiar about her, and yet different. He couldn't place his finger upon it but it nagged away at him. Belatedly, Fuji realised that Eiji had stiffened at the sound of that name, his fingers gripping Fuji's shoulders so tightly that he winced.

"What's wrong? Eiji?"

He was about to say something, but the words died in his throat before they could emerge. Eiji looked as pale as death for a split second, before the stricken expression turned into anger. The redhead's strange expression was something that he wasn't accustomed to seeing. His large eyes were narrowed fractionally and appeared to be a shade darker in the sunlight. Within seconds, the stark hostility was replaced by a forced smile.

"Nothing. Let's go."

Fuji nodded dumbly as he gazed at his friend jogging off to rejoin the team.

It was a privilege to be captain.

Tezuka leant against the green wired fence as he watched the regulars run laps. Fuji caught his eye as he went to join the rest, and the slight smile the tensai directed at him made Tezuka's heart pound a little harder.

Inwardly, he rebuked himself and thought of Oishi who lectured him ceaselessly on how he should let his emotions out more often. Somehow or other, that always had the reverse effect of making him stricter with himself and more laconic than ever.

To be honest, Tezuka wasn't entirely sure if a platonic regard was all he had for the fair-haired tensai. He remembered their first meeting at Seigaku. They had met each other just outside the tennis courts, when a particularly skilled shot from a Seigaku regular had them both fixated. They became aware of each other's intense interest in the sport, and Tezuka was painfully aware of the slight flush that tinted his cheeks pink, when the most beautiful boy he had ever seen turned and smiled at him.

Tezuka had signed up for tennis in his first year. He didn't know what he was expecting but it saddened and disappointed him a little, when he scoured the faces of other awkward freshmen of the 1st years, and could not catch a glimpse of that carefree, brilliant smile he thought about frequently enough.

The second year progressed smoothly enough, until mid-term, where Fuji joined the tennis club abruptly. He had been recommended highly by previous coaches and his qualifications as a genius were taken into consideration as well. It was the first time where someone had entered the club a year late and still managed to jump straight into the Regulars team.

Tezuka remembered hurrying to practice on that day, having received news about the tennis prodigy that their club had just accepted.

It nearly stopped his heart when he saw Fuji tackle one the third-year sempais mercilessly, every stroke vicious and accurate, causing the senior to struggle to even maintain the furious pace of their game. At the end of the game, Fuji caught sight of him. When their eyes met, Tezuka was taken apart by the piercing brutality that lingered in the depths of those azure eyes, and the absence of the brilliant smile that he had fallen in love with.

6 - 0.

Tezuka didn't play, but he lost completely on that day.

Within 2 years, all he knew about Fuji were just random facts and trivia that enticed him and led to a dead end eventually. It made him empathise strongly with how frustrated Inui must have been, when all his efforts at piecing together the complex jigsaw that made Fuji, turned up a similar blank.

Only Oishi knew of his secret fixation, but he had always been unusually perceptive of Tezuka's moods and thoughts since they were year one freshmen. Even back then, Oishi somehow knew that Tezuka had bitterly regretted his decision to drop tennis, yet his pride didn't permit him to take back his words. As such, Tezuka trusted Oishi's intuition when it came to the team, almost more than anyone else.

Oishi had come to him the day before, warning him in his usual concerned fashion that Fuji hadn't been acting himself lately.

The quiet statement had not been a first, yet neither was it uncommon enough to justify the hard clenching of his stomach. Ever since the first time it happened in their second year, the accidents occurred in increasing rarity, yet Tezuka couldn't pinpoint why he feared so badly the provincial calm before the storm.

The first time that it had happened, Tezuka could only watch in mute horror. He had stayed back late in school, and if not for the sound of the tennis balls ping-ing softly against the walls, he would not have even bothered to check the darkening tennis grounds. And there, he saw Fuji, his hair tied back in the furious downpour, hitting ball after ball against the wall.

He ran towards Fuji to call him off his training, knowing of his weak constitution and inability to sustain such intensive training without serious injury to himself. Yet, even though Fuji had caught sight of him, his aquamarine eyes faded into the black of their darkening surroundings, and he persisted on. Fuji refused to stop, seemed unable to stop, even as his hand wrapped around the bloodied grip of his racket and carried on swinging it mechanically as the ball rebounded furiously, over and over again.

Before Tezuka could wrestle the racket from his hand, Fuji's eyes blurred and closed momentarily, only to reopen to a growing darkness. His knees gave way and Tezuka grabbed hold of him before he collapsed entirely. Fuji was incapable of taking care of himself at that moment, and Tezuka helped to dry him off with a towel in the locker room, before finding him a dry outfit to change into.

Something seemed to warn him that Fuji was probably even unaware of his surroundings at the moment, and Tezuka took his hand and led him out of the school. The moment Tezuka had murmured quietly that he would take him home, Fuji stopped dead in his tracks however.

Tezuka remembered looking back, seeing the withdrawn way which Fuji stood with his head bowed, unwilling to let go of Tezuka's hand. Outside the school, lightning flashed against the darkened skies. Neither of them spoke, but Fuji's reluctance to walk spoke louder than anything that he could have said. Tezuka wondered if Fuji knew that there was nothing that he could have asked of Tezuka at that moment, which he would not have given.

"I don't want to go home…"

In the end, he took Fuji home with him, and laid him on his bed, tucking the comforter securely around the boy. It was then that he saw the dark bruises that etched themselves against the pale skin of Fuji's neck. He wondered how he had not noticed them before, and upon closer inspection, saw the same marks that marked Fuji's slender wrists and several areas where the skin had tore in superficial wounds.

"Fuji, are…are things alright at home?"

"Hnn? Of course they are… What a strange question to ask, Tezuka!"

He didn't know how to break the silence that welled up between them in the morning, and he kept silent. He was suddenly afraid that if he inquired too deeply into matters, Fuji would understand that he saw the marks on his skin. More than anything, he wanted to show that he cared without scaring Fuji away.

So he stayed silent and allowed Fuji to convince him that it had been a momentary urge for extra practice. He allowed himself to be talked into conviction, that nothing was wrong, and Fuji had merely been over-engrossed in his training. He made himself forget the blood that the rain couldn't wash out from the grip of Fuji's racket, the slender scars that marked his upper arms and the smell of the rain and grass that reminded him too strongly of Fuji punishing himself over and over because he couldn't stop.

The only consolation he had was that the incidents of Fuji losing utter control of his self became increasingly rare over the years. He knew that Fuji was capable of leading a double life and there was no proof that all was well with the blue-eyed tensai. Still, from his observations, Fuji's darkest moods took place in the period when he first arrived at Seigaku, and gradually improved from there.

In the meantime, he had to be more careful just in case things took a turn for the worse.

His watch read 9:00 p.m.

"Perhaps it would be wise to develop your own writing style, Haruka-san. It is only my personal opinion, but I believe that a fluid style might be just as good, if not better, than rote memorisation of a high end vocabulary, in order to do well." Fuji concluded softly as he gathered his books together.

"Aa…thank you for the advice, Fuji-san." Haruka bowed slightly as she rose.

Despite what Eiji had said, Fuji couldn't find detect anything wrong with the slender girl. When he looked at her, she seemed a little subdued, but studious and determined to do well nevertheless. Her demeanour was quiet and modest, and Fuji wrecked his brains to figure out why she was such a threat to Eiji. His best friend almost never reacted in that fashion, unless he felt threatened in some way.

"Fuji-san, if you don't mind me asking, are you on good terms with Eiji?"

Eiji…? Since when didshe become so familiar…?

She laughed, watching the gears in his mind spin at a furious pace.

"He told me to address him as such, said the formalities made him uncomfortable…"

Fuji's face was inscrutable as he smiled. His eyes slid shut again, nodding politely at her explanation. The hairs at the back of his neck were standing for no apparent reason.

"We're best friends."

"Really?" she murmured, her eyes downcast. "Funny, but that wasn't what he told me."

END CHAPTER FOUR

A/N: Thank you for reviewing! I'd do my best to write faster!