For the past few days, Eiji had been trying to ignore him subtly, but Fuji longed to tell him that it didn't take a prodigy to realise that something was wrong when his best friend barely spoke a word to him in class, sat in the further corner from him when the team had lunch together, and returned all conversation starters with polite smiles and quiet answers. Eiji's usual gait alternated between a feline slink and a sort of ecstatic bounding. Yet, even at practice his form was off, his usual agility disappearing amidst awkward, halting movements that let in too many balls and returned far too little.

However, Eiji was prone to keeping whatever bothered him inside, until a sudden provocation caused him to lash out and attack the nearest person. Fuji knew better than to approach Eiji directly but Haruka's words were still replaying in his mind and he needed to figure out what had transpired between Eiji and her.

Desperate times called for desperate measures.

"Inui, are you free for a moment?"

"What's wrong?"

Inui adjusted his glasses and waited, folding his arms as he leant against the sun-warmed walls. Orange light painted the grass at their feet, transforming the staid colours of the tennis courts into an idyllic dusty golden.

"It's about Eiji…" Fuji began, before realising that Inui had turned to stare at Kikumaru through the window. Eiji was still inside the locker room, packing his bags silently. The combined weight of a slow, measured gaze and a slightly alarmed one, caught Kikumaru's attention. Fuji groaned inwardly as Eiji's smile melted away into a terse frown, as he scowled and deliberately turned his back on them.

"Does this have anything to do with why he's been avoiding you?"

"Mm…I guess you could say that. What do you think?"

"There is a 90 percent chance that he does not want you to know why. Eiji has always been temperamental, and his usual style is to confront any issues head-on. However, when it comes to personal issues, such as his pride, he would be more likely to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking over it alone. Yet, it is common for him to get frustrated in the process instead."

Fuji mulled over Inui's words for a moment. Inui was patting his pockets for a pencil as he prepared to take further notes on Fuji's reaction. Fuji wondered when Inui would realise that there was little use in judging him through the behavioural signposts of the normal. He read the wrong signs but interpreted them correctly, only to arrive at logical yet flawed conclusions. Fuji could only say that Inui's persistence was a self-perpetuating mystery in itself.

"Are you still tutoring Haruka?" Inui asked abruptly. Fuji breathed in sharply, his eyes flaring open in surprise.

"…it was just one session with her. Inui, you know her too?"

"Not very well, I'm afraid. But whoever said that women were easy to understand?" Inui questioned rhetorically, his glasses glinting dramatically against the sunlight.

Fuji tried to look appreciative, smiling encouragingly at him. Apparently that had been a cue for a dramatic pause of sorts, such that they could each take a collective breath of air in readiness. He particularly disliked asking Inui for information if he could help it. Something about that slight hint of superiority and the secretive way in which he clutched his book, irked him. It was almost as though he was just about to reveal a part of his top secret data, even though it may not actually have been very secret in the first place.

Taking in a deep breath, Inui recited composedly from his notebook,

"Imano Haruka. Third year at Seigaku…at home with her parents, and had one elder brother…"

Pieces of information went past him, and Fuji suddenly found himself alone in his head with only his thoughts for company. He couldn't hear much of what Inui was saying, and a strange paralysis ran through him. Even his thoughts were disjointed, and as they resurfaced, he could neither pinpoint their source nor their author.

Not here, not now, not as and when you feel like showing up.

Words, meaningless words, data upon data filed upon the vast screen of his mind and he didn't care. He watched them go past and the low melodic hum of Inui's voice recited on, relentlessly and unceasingly in the dusty sunlight. Slowly, he suffocated. Fuji felt the information flood through him, and recede, waiting patiently for his mind to return to the debris of their destructive wake. His mind cried out to be heard, and he struggled to focus.

Imano. Imano Kaito.

He breathed.

"… is literature. Her scripts were displayed in school, as part of the decorations before the summer festivals - "

"Enough."

Inui glanced up startled.

The look on the prodigy's face was bleak, before he turned away abruptly.

Fuji walked away, freeing his mind as he strolled on without a sense of destination. Eventually finding himself back in a classroom, he slid onto the window's ledge, where he had an uninhibited view of the skies and city. The skies above were a blend of burnt sienna and a deep blue. It took his breath away, every single sunset viewed above the tops of trees stretching into the horizon, interspersed between the shorter buildings and roads. The sense of peace he attained from watching the dying light play across the school grounds was unparalleled.

The very scent of the air reminded him of too many yesterdays as the winds sifted through his memories, murmuring through his mind. His head hurt and he didn't want to think, but the thoughts flooded through his mind in a barrage of sights, smells and sounds. Alone with his thoughts, Fuji felt the weight of his façade crumble despite his efforts. The pain raged inside, and Fuji bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, just enough to keep the tears away from his eyes.

Kaito's betrayal was the worst possible reminder of the past he had hoped to leave behind.

There had been no one when he most needed help, and he had never let Kaito see him when he was at his worst. He couldn't ask for help from anyone, his voice failed him because he wasn't sure if he could stop himself from begging, and the effort of acting normal wore him down day after day. His family kept inquiring after him, casting worried glances at him when they thought that he wasn't looking. Their concern drove him further into himself, because he didn't want to burden them further. And when everyone returned to their own lives gradually, shifting back into their usual routines, it had hurt, but being unnoticed gave him more space to breathe and recover, without constructing and re-mending the fortresses that cracked with its daily strain.

In his mind, Kaito remained beautiful. Fuji could believe in Kaito's tender simplicity, trust that things could get better, would get better. But Fuji knew better than to persuade himself that it was love. He wondered about the concept, thought about it, but he couldn't believe that such an ideal could be reality. All he had known was the gentle happiness the distractions brought to him, tearing his mind from his grief, and he delighted in feeling loved and wanted more desperately than ever before, just for who he was.

Things were wonderful on the surface, and Fuji relied on that to keep the darkness at bay. But inside he remained torn between an inexplicable grief and apathy, and he didn't want Kaito to understand that.

Kaito allowed him to feelhappiness that he didn't feel worthy of and a love that he couldn't reciprocate. But Fuji's fear reached far deeper and the closer they became, and the longer they stayed together, the more Fuji panicked inside of him. He became increasingly claustrophobic, and the more he tried not to think about it, the more it came to mind. Everything, from their linked hands to their physical proximity sent jolts of fear into his heart, which was ridiculous because he trusted Kaito more than he trusted anyone else.

Fuji had been careful not to let Kaito suspect that his heart rebelled beneath his image of contented docility. He had continued to whisper endearments into his ear, had continued to laugh and talk to him, but inside everything felt so wrong and he didn't know how to explain it. He needed to break away; he needed Kaito to stay. His body acted in a fashion opposite to what his mind screamed, and he was torn between the two yet desperate enough to keep the façade intact.

In the end, he hadn't even been the one to leave.

"It's so warm nyah…" Eiji complained plaintively as he stepped out into the sunlight.

Inui counted the seconds in his head before the redhead's restraint broke.

"You two looked pretty serious out there. What's up?" Eiji began casually.

Inui had to fight hard not to smirk. If it was any indicator, the earlier incident had to be the first time where the tensai had actually lost his composure. It wasn't just the starkness of his tone that had caught his attention, but the spooked expression in Fuji's unshielded eyes as well, providing excellent material.

Inui smiled slightly.

"He was pretty worried about why you weren't talking to him. Hmm…and he asked me about Haruka as well. There must be something pretty serious involving this girl, considering that you asked me about her just the other day, and now Fuji."

"Haruka? How does he – I don't get it. Why would he ask about her all of a sudden?" Eiji queried, looking slightly worried as he walked faster to keep pace with Inui's longer strides.

Inui shrugged. "From the looks of his face, things aren't about to turn pleasant for the poor girl though. Fuji looked ready to torment her until she provided some answers."

"What?"

Inui bent down to tie his shoelaces, considering his next words before he spoke.

"I saw him heading back towards school. If you have something to say to him, I suggest you do it before he catches up to her."

Eiji walked hurriedly through the school building, racking his brains for places which Fuji might be. The rooftop would have been his best guess, but a quick check had already disposed of that idea. A growing dismay arose in him when he realised that he was never really sure where Fuji went, whenever the urge to be alone took him. What kind of friend was he?

Each empty room he entered left him feeling guiltier and a little bit angry. He didn't realise that Fuji would be so upset over the whole issue, but didn't he have the right to have some time to himself to think? He wasn't really avoiding Fuji after all, just needed to have some space between them in order to think clearly for once.

Sighing, Eiji walked down the darkened corridors, peering half-heartedly into all the classrooms, only to note the absence of his friend, and different personalities of each classroom painted by the vanishing light outside the windows. Reluctantly he forced himself on, quelling the insistent voice inside of him that Fuji had already gone home.

Sighing silently, he poked his head into yet another classroom and was about to leave, before his head snapped around, catching movement from the corner of his eye.

He wasn't sure when he had realised that he was in love with his best friend, but watching Fuji sit at the window's ledge, his eyes closed as he tilted his head back and felt the wind against his face, Eiji was filled with a sense of protectiveness. Something about the pain and solitude in the fragile frame of his best friend, made him want to cry each time Fuji ended up at his house, seeking comfort mutely in his arms and still failing to see how much Eiji loved him and would have done anything to make him better.

But even then, Fuji was still smiling.

Eiji didn't know what to say, what to do, what to feel even when he saw the faint, tremulous smile tugging on the lips of the fair boy who leant perilously close to the edge and didn't seem to care.

Overhead, the skies smoothened into a dusty red and inky black.

The pain threatened to overwhelm him if he didn't smile. He smiled even more in those days. Sometimes he had smiled so much that it made his jaws ached. His smile became prettier and sweeter over the years, even as he felt himself grow colder. Word and thoughts and ideas and feelings ran through his mind consistently and he could all but block them out, drowning their calling voices in a pool of silence.

Nothing was as it should have been; it was almost as if life was becoming a dream that he couldn't wake up from. Fuji had the strangest feeling of being displaced somehow, of sensation not belonging to the body that received it, of thought separate from the mind that housed it for so long. Everything that was happening took place too quickly and too slowly at the same time.

The wind was lifting, and Fuji leant his head back, exposing his neck to the settling chill of the incoming night. The classroom was lit in the deep blueness of twilight, and the steady ticking of the clock on the wall punctuated his disjointed thoughts with its rhythm.

Imano Haruka.

Fuji didn't know what he was supposed to feel. There was no anger, no surprise. Mostly, all he felt was a vague sense of inevitability, and irritation that he had not seen the link earlier. The most important question was "why". But what she had gained from attempting to draw closer to him remained a mystery. He didn't even know why she tried to alienate him from Eiji, but only sheer obtuseness could have kept her from realising that her efforts were clumsy and obvious.

The more he thought about it, the more he convinced himself that Haruka was unjustified in her actions. A burning anger rose up in him, but was quelled in the same breath. It was her brother's choice to leave. Was she intending to flaunt his pain further?

Fuji took in a shuddering breath as he opened his eyes and looked at the busy night life of the city that resided below. The cold night breeze carried the sound of distant traffic and the smell of grass, tennis courts and an indescribable feeling of loneliness. Fuji felt like crying as he closed his eyes to the twinkling, glistening world of neon lights below him.

A light tapping on the door was heard. Even as Fuji registered the sounds, his team mate entered quietly, his head bowed as he turned to shut the doors behind him. His gait remained stilted and forced, and Fuji thought of marionettes with each confident step that Eiji took.

Then, Fuji's breath had caught at the look on Eiji's face.

The glossy red of his hair gleamed wetly from the dim lights in the distance, and his skin was unnaturally pale. His eyes were dark with uncertainty and Fuji realised that his best friend was standing so still that the fine tremors that raced through him could be seen. Fuji saw shame, fear and a hovering uncertainty, reflected in the dark pools of Eiji's eyes, and had to resist the urge to hug his best friend and tell him that it was alright.

Swinging his legs carefully off the ledge, he sat with his back to the expanse of open space behind him, and waited patiently for Eiji to speak.

The silence stretched painfully for seconds, and the ticking of the clock sounded abnormally loud and harsh in the classroom. Eiji stood before him, his head still bowed, occasionally sneaking glances at Fuji, as if reassuring himself that Fuji was still there and was not a figment of his imagination.

"I…"

His repeated attempts to speak were choked off beyond the second syllable or third, and Fuji found himself sympathetic with his best friend's efforts to force the words out. Sympathy and curiosity ran through him at the same moment. Forcing his thoughts back, Fuji placed his hand on Eiji's shoulder, rubbing it comfortingly even as Eiji flinched and jerked away as though burnt.

Their eyes met before Eiji gave up on talking. Sliding a hand around Fuji's neck, Eiji's fingers brushed the fine, brown strands of his hair as he pulled Fuji closer in a chaste kiss.

"I'm in love with you."

END CHAPTER FIVE

A/N: Is this amount of detail fine? Or should I cut it short and finish the story earlier? Feedback is much appreciated! And I sincerely apologise for taking so long with this... Life is tedious right now, and there's too much to do with too little time. :(