"C'mon, I could show you a good time…"

Fuji looked over at the source of noise and disturbance, only to see a man being accosted by another drunk, slightly overweight fellow that leaned so far onto him that he fairly breathed down the collar of the poor guy. Fuji raised his glass and invited the harassed man to join him. The look of absurd gratitude and relief that flooded the other's expression, wasn't quite enough to put Fuji in an irreversibly charitable mood that evening.

Yet, before he could get a word in, Fuji felt cold wetness dripping off his hair.

"You bastard, what the hell do you think you're doing?" the other man screamed at him incoherently, rage contorting his features. His hand held a half empty beer mug limply, as he continued to rant and rave, blissfully ignorant of the bouncers that were headed his way. Fuji considered yanking his hair out by the roots, and slamming his mouth into the edge of the bar counter. Then, catching the sight of the young man who looked as though he wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere and die, he amended his plans a little.

Running his fingers up and down the shoulder of his newfound prize, Fuji tilted his head and smiled.

"I should have thought it was obvious?"

Before the mug itself connected with Fuji's head, the bouncers had already caught his arm in mid air, and were busy hoisting the struggling man out of the club itself. Fuji shrugged and turned back to the young man, realising in amusement that his cheeks had raised hotly in colour. Smiling contentedly, Fuji slipped his arm through his and pulled him in the direction of the bathroom. He had begun to stop breathing as the seconds ticked by, contentedly feeling his air supply run low. His determination pressed him on to swallow back the choking, accepting the slight giddiness. He would wait it out. He would triumph and wait out the need for him to breathe. There was no reason why he should lose.

Pain will take away the engulfing blackness and set you free.

"What do you think you were doing back there?"

Tezuka's voice sounded from somewhere far away. Pulling him away from himself, stopping him from hurting himself, from hurting other people, yanking him forcefully back into the dreamlike state he could never break out from.

This wasn't real.

None of this was happening.

It was raining. It was the kind that of rain that seemed to promise that it would fall forever, until the world was drowned in muddy depths. He had cancelled tennis practice that day, due to the abrupt downpour in the middle of practice. Talk had been rife that Fuji-sempai's bad mood had influenced the weather to darken, as much as his uncanny prediction of Hakugei's precise launching moments, was based on his incredible psychic powers. It made him sick to listen to their senseless babble, and he had personally promised 50 rounds to the next idiot that he discovered spreading the rumours further.

Yet, it was not without a certain degree of uncertainty that Tezuka approached the tennis prodigy. Fuji was sitting at in a lonely corner, heedless of the damp that soaked the ground which he sat upon, watching the rain fall from the skies, cleansing the pavements below and washing away a fair amount of eroded soil.

His hand touched his shoulder lightly.

"I saw her again, you know."

"You know that is not possible, you told me yourself that she died – "

Tezuka sat down beside him, watching him flip through the photo albums and scrutinising each one for details.

"I know what I saw. She was walking towards the grocery store that - "

"How do you know you weren't dreaming?"

All it took was one question to blur the fine line between reality and sleep.

Fuji had been staying awake every single night, too exhausted to sleep, too frightened to keep his eyes closed. There were moments when he succumbed and tumbled into an irritable, headache-inducing slumber. Those were the times when he slept and dreamt, and awoke numb to the concept that somehow, he returned to life, grey morning after morning. He was frayed so thin that he felt as though anyone would see, anyone could tell that he was dying and he needed their help. He wanted someone to see, to know, and he didn't have the heart to tell Tezuka that it wasn't even him he needed right then.

He kept dreaming of death. It hurt indescribably to awaken and find himself alone; and still wanting to feel the same emptiness, anything to take the hurt away for a little longer. Wanting…still wanting… Every night, he let the minutes tick past, waiting for the silence to yawn deeply before him, skirting the chasms in his mind, and still somehow wanting for the catharsis of somuch pain and blood to hurt him. He missed the unbearable gentleness that descended after the screaming and the hurt.

"Syuusuke…why do you keep doing this to yourself?"

Fuji smiled. Bitter, sad, his smile was a fragment of his mask and he caught the flash of pain that showed in his lover's eyes.

"I only regret that it wasn't me."

Mama's eyes had been blue. Like aquamarines, like the sunlit ocean above, an iridescent blue that glowed when she was happy, and darkened significantly when she was displeased. It was a pity, as she said frequently, that Yumiko and Yuuta had never inherited her eyes. It was only through his biology classes, where Syuusuke had discovered how rare it had been, that his eyes were blue at birth, and stayed that way. Yuuta had only muttered sullenly, that it was suitably fitting how the only genius in their family, got boththe brains and the looks.

He had skipped school that day again.

There was only a strange of detachment left. There was no longer any sadness, any fear or thoughts that today would be the day that his mind would break and he would kill himself. He would have to be strong for Yuuta. He had nearly ran into the rain the day before, the urge to flee from everyone and everything he knew overwhelming his senses, the taste of freedom lingering in his mouth.

But Yuuta doesn't even want you. He doesn't even need you around.

Even so, no matter how much Yuuta despised him, he would still want to protect his younger brother. In death, he would be unable to. Yumiko was busy and their father…somehow, each time he looked at him, he felt a strange sense of shame that the once industrious man was reduced to this hollow shell. He was a working man who provided for the family, seemingly happy and hardworking, yet he broke into the most heartrending sobs in the middle of the night, drunk and unhappy when he thought that no one was awake to hear him cry.

But that was alright, because he didn't feel like going crazy and slamming his fists against the walls until he saw blood, anymore. The sounds used to reverberate in his head, driving him mad with their quiet intensity. Nowadays, he didn't need to sleep anymore, and all that was left, was a distant peace and numbness.

He thought that maybe it was a sign that he was getting better.

Raising his camera, he took a few more pictures.

-

"This is her. Don't you see?" Fuji pleaded quietly for the last time.

Tezuka felt like crying.

-

He remembered Ryuuzaki-sensei's frustration that one of their star players was refusing to come to school, as he appeared to be "too sure of his place in the school team". He remembered his sudden impulse to punch the witch in the jaw. No one at school seemed to understand, and the school counsellors were at a loss to explain the sudden decline of the genius the school had once been so proud of. No one wanted to involve themselves in the mud that Fuji Syuusuke's name had been dragged through. Their team was concerned, and yet unwittingly condescending at the same time. He listened to Oishi's unspoken worry that their school placing would fall, he heard Eiji's sullen silence, he understood Inui's inquisitive nature as he subtly attempted to probe Tezuka for more information, he heard all of their worry and his only realisation was that no one had really seen the extent to which Fuji was capable of breaking down. No one really feared that the tensai was never coming back again.

Model student, school captain, all the titles meant nothing to him as he, Tezuka Kunimitsu, skipped school for the first time in his life.

He hadn't explained anything to his grandparents, but had left a note to state that he would not be home for dinner that day. He didn't say anything either when he turned up unexpectedly to accompany Fuji on his search. Fuji had never requested anything from him, but he sensed that at this crucial moment, his friend needed familiar company more than anything else. Somehow he couldn't shake the feeling that something wrong was going to happen whether or not he was there.

So they sat down and waited.

Fuji's unnatural calm and silence was really beginning to worry him.

It got to the point where he found himself babbling nonsense, just to break the silence, whereupon Fuji smiled slightly and nodded or responded politely to whatever he was saying. His mind seemed fully intent on looking for the same woman that he had seen twice in the vicinity already.

"Let's go."

Fuji's spoke at last, tense and excited at the same time, as he stood to leave, his eyes never leaving a figure hurrying away rapidly, wearing the same worn brown coat captured in his photograph.

They had followed her from one winding street to another, and it had started to rain very slightly. It didn't impede their progress. They didn't even have to hide from view, as the woman ahead began to walk a little more hurriedly, seemingly preoccupied with the overcast skies ahead. It was so cold, and Tezuka realised that it was only him that felt the chill in the air, his breath emerging in misty gasps, the fear sinking so deeply into his bones unlike anything that he had ever felt before.

There were people around, the streets were bustling with activity as people prepared to duck back indoors before the real storm hit. Fuji Syuusuke, his lover and friend, single-mindedly obsessed with tracking his prey, seeming not to notice anything else but the figure ahead. Something just seemed so wrong in the whole scenario. He thought of the Mona Lisa all of a sudden. It was like a jigsaw lacking only a piece towards identifying it as the devil's portrait, it was as though the smile had been leading you to hell all along. He couldn't place his finger on it, but he was so terrified and so miserable at the same time, he wanted to tell Fuji everything he felt and beg him to turn back, pleading with him to return to school, where it was a familiar place at least.

But Tezuka also knew that Fuji would fade away if no answers surfaced. If there was no longer any reason for him to persevere, his self-destructive tendencies would intensify into a muted violence. He didn't want to be the one to watch Fuji die. Tezuka wanted to say so much, for the first time in his life, and he couldn't speak a word around the lump that rose in his throat. In place of words, he ran with Fuji, grabbing his hand and running across the road with him, where the red traffic lights had impeded their progress, and continued to close the distance between them and their quarry.

They reached their destination before they knew it. It seemed like such a normal home. It was in a quieter part of town, and the gates had broken padlocks that hung limply over the metal bars. Apart from the slightly run-down condition of the house, it was not ominously threatening and even had a small garden planted at the front porch. It had 2 storeys to it, and the pair stood outside, and let their eyes roam over the dark red brick tiles, and the shades that lined every window.

"Do we…" Tezuka broke off, gesturing at the half-opened door.

Fuji said nothing and walked forwards tentatively. It was only on close inspection, that Tezuka realised that the other boy's teeth were gritted so tightly in order to prevent his teeth from chattering, but his hands were still clenched violently by his sides. He didn't know the strange compulsion that led them to chase insanely after a woman, when they had never actually seen her face.

He walked ahead of Fuji, pushing open the door cautiously, and stepping back to let the other enter. Fuji looked almost sick with fear and expectation, and his skin had gone so incredibly white that Tezuka was shocked. Placing his hand at his back, they stood for a moment at the entrance, surveying the unkempt surroundings before them. Newspapers were flung around the place, pieces hanging off the wall where they appeared to have been tacked. The wind blew in from the opened balcony directly in front of them, making pieces of paper rustle and scatter loosely in the breeze. The floors were dusty, the windows were shuttered, and a distant clock ticked the seconds away, echoing unnaturally loudly throughout the house.

There was no sign of the woman that they had followed to this house.

There were no sounds of anyone else in the house. They remained so still that it would have been impossible to avoid hearing the sounds of another human being in the same house. Outside the sky reflected a gloomy yellow-grey and the rain continued to pelt down relentlessly. Fuji glanced at the dusty staircase that went up to the second level of the small house, and decided to ignore it for the moment. Cautiously glancing around, he made his way over to the newspapers tacked clumsily onto the walls.

And realised that every single article, every picture, was of him.

Every success and failure he accumulated and duly reported in the sporting news, had been pasted onto the walls. Numerous photographs of him turning around, of him eating in a café, of the sunlight that caught in his eyes as he waited for the traffic lights to change; all the pictures were intimate, as though the photographer had known him personally. He reached out, his hands shaking, to trace the newspaper clippings with delicate fingers, as though worried that this too, was a figment of his overactive imagination. He was more stunned, than afraid, at the sheer magnitude of clippings and articles and photographs.

Then, abruptly, the fear set in with a surety so blunt that he forgot to breathe.

Turning, he saw a figure straightening from under the staircase, mere seconds away from where Tezuka's back. In 2 strides, he was standing behind the captain, his arm poised, an object in hand, silent as Fuji as he choked and tried to remember how to form the words in his mouth, silent still, when he swung his arm down and the most sickening crack of bone breaking resounded.

Blood trickled down his amazed expression, his eyes turning bloody, but open still, with the singular desire to protect and serve his lover. He tried to breathe but it felt as though his lungs could no longer function. The last thing he saw, was Fuji collapsing onto the floor, almost catatonic with fear as he hugged his legs to himself.

"Syuusuke…"

Torn wail after wail shredding themselves away from Fuji's throat, broken and unbearably grieved as he gasped and breathed for air at last, anguished sobs that emerged from his ravaged throat. A high keening replaced the harsh shrieks that he made, a continuous whine of fear and despair as he backed further away, his eyes wide and unseeing as the man came closer to him with every step.

They were in the middle of a busy street and near a crowded marketplace, but they were going to be murdered like animals and no one would come for them.

"Do you know me?"

Fuji shook his head dumbly, violently. But a part of him did recognise the man. The answers were in his fair hair and his aquamarine eyes that stared back at him. Fuji couldn't take his eyes away from that face, that familiar, beautiful face with its translucent blue, blue eyes. He had seen that face in his dreams, and he was choking, his nails carving bloody crescents into his face, desperately clawing as though he could force the thoughts in his mind.

He had been sitting in his bedroom. Outside, the lightning flashed and rain continued to pound down relentlessly. The downpour was never ending, but it was pretty and he liked the smell of the rain and the grass that came in from the windows that were left open by a small crack. His father would be late home that day, away on one of his business trips. Yuuta was away at a junior tennis enrichment camp, whilst Yumiko was staying at the university campus. He was alone with his mother in the house, and it was dark in his room, but that was alright. His mother was cooking dinner, and he rather liked the quiet when there was nobody around to interfere.

The top he was playing with spun through the air, making a series of jumps and unnatural bounces. He liked its friendly yellow and white colour and the way it leapt gracefully through the air and landed spinning on the ground. A series of knocks sounded, before his mother entered the room, flicking on the lights as she did so.

She was indifferent to all the tricks and skills he had mastered; and even as she began to place the neatly folded stacks of clothing into his drawers, he was performing in hopes of a word of praise or admiration from her.

Then he heard it. The familiar sound of the door opening downstairs.

"Ne…okaasan…I think someone's home."

"Your father is away on business, as you already know. And neither of your siblings will be home for the next week. Do stop making up stories."

"But I heard it. The door opened!"

"It was only the wind…"

Their voices trailed off when they heard a strange sound in the hall below. Fuji had never seen his mother look like that before, something akin to suspicion and a weary resignation seeming to settle heavily over her features. There was something wrong that she wasn't telling him about. He was about to protest when she pushed him gently towards the walk-in wardrobe that he owned.

"Go in, Syuusuke. Okaasan will let you out soon."

"Why?"

"Be a good boy. Do as I say. Go."

Confused and more than a little scared, he obediently went into his closet and closed the door behind him. Something prompted him not to turn on the wardrobe light, which could show through from the gaps left between the slats. He sat with his knees tucked up to his chest, peeking through the holes, and waited with bated breath while his mother switched off the lights and went outside the room.

Seconds ticked by, and then minutes, and pretty soon it felt like an eternity where he was trapped in darkness. He couldn't see anything in the pitch black room, only catching momentary flashes when thunder roared and the lightning illuminated the room briefly. He could smell the clean scent of his laundry, and the dry musty scent of the wooden interior, and his scalp was crawling with the sudden notion that there may be another presence behind him. It was so dark and he couldn't even see his hands and he was so scared suddenly, half daring himself to turn behind, half desperately trying to shy away from the hidden terrors that his imagination seized upon.

"I want to go out…" he whispered to himself, wringing his clammy hands nervously.

Then abruptly, footsteps sounded. He could hear them coming up slowly, approaching the room, and suddenly he didn't want to leave the closet any longer. It was excruciating keeping himself quiet as he heard raised voices coming up the staircase. He could hear his mother, and she sounded as though she was trying to keep her voice calm. Only that it sounded so forced, and Fuji had a sudden realisation that she could have been just as scared as he was. It was so dark…everything was so dark… He whimpered and clamped his hands around his mouth in the next moment.

"Syuusuke…here…there is only me…"

A harsh slap echoed through the room, and he heard his mother gasp. He could hear them arguing now, in the room and she now sounded openly terrified, the other voice mocking her, repeating her words as strange sounds rustled from outside, sounds of zippers and cloth tearing. And then the fighting subsided, and somehow that scared him more than anything else.

He strained his ears and caught some of the murmured phrases, and thought that he heard her say, "not here…not…the boy's room..."

He was looking for me.

Fuji put his eyes as close he could to the shutter, trying to see what was going on and who the intruder was. He didn't recognise his voice and from the unnatural heaviness of his steps, it reminded him of the times when father got drunk and his gait became unsteady and ponderous. Thunder boomed so unexpectedly that he let out a startled squeak. He thought the sound hadn't been noticed, yet in the next flash of light that flooded the room, his heart skipped a beat when he saw the tall man stand upright, and look towards the closet.

His hair was of a brown so light that it was nearly blonde, and his eyes…Fuji tried to tell himself that he was dreaming, but his eyes were startlingly blue, alike to his mother's. His eyes were hungry and devoid of sanity in the split second where they had flashed towards where Fuji was hiding. He huddled closer to himself, and prayed the darkness was enough to conceal him, pressing his hands against his mouth so tightly that his fingers had gone numb.

He couldn't see a thing but the footsteps were approaching his direction.

Fuji was so frightened that he wanted to cry, and he groped blindly around him but found no weapon that he could use, only soft sheets that slipped through his fingers. He tried to forget the sight of his mother huddled in the bed, helpless as she watched the other man stand and turn towards him. He couldn't hear a sound from her, and a part of him was angry that she could not find the heart to protect him. His mother had left him alone. Why?

"I'm coming for you, my little one…"

Someone…please, someone, anyone…help me. I'm so scared…

He started crying a little, small gasping sobs as he squeezed his eyes shut and pretended that he couldn't hear the footsteps, couldn't hear the taunting as the other man laughed. The footsteps went away, and a brief spark of hope flared up in Fuji abruptly.

The doors were thrown open as lightning flashed, and Fuji screamed.

"She abandoned you, didn't she? My silly girl was always doing things like that."

The man asked him gently, his fingers reaching down to caress the side of his face.

"I met your mother at a company lunch one day, did you know that? I didn't understand why someone as smart and as beautiful as her, was knocking back the drinks at the bar alone. Turns out your parents weren't all that fond of each other in the past; fought a lot, argued a lot and it was easier to turn to a distraction like me."

"I did love her though. She was, after all, very beautiful. Our affair went on secretly, but when she discovered that she was pregnant with you, things came to an abrupt end. You see, I'm not the heartless kind of man that would simply abandon the woman and run for it. I loved the idea of having my own family with her, but she wouldn't hear anything of it. I even had to track her down again, after she callously moved house without letting me know."

Fuji's fingers were buried in his hair, trying to stop himself from breaking into tears and losing his mind completely. The memories were flooding his mind, memories that he had always thought that he had lost forever. There was nothing pleasant, and as soon as he remembered each horrific scene, it was as though a part of him had changed, becoming engorged on the past hurts until he became a new person altogether. He was the same person but what made "him" had changed dramatically. He wasn't making any sense even to himself, his fingers tangling into his hair as he rocked himself to and fro, subconsciously attempting to calm himself down.

Abruptly, he caught sight of the matted, blood soaked hair of the tennis captain that lay across the floor from him, and his mind blacked out again.

"My, look at you! I would never have guessed that you were hiding in the closet!" The man stooped lower, bending to look at the boy who backed into the corner, his eyes squeezed shut.

"What's your name?"

He couldn't breathe properly. Little coloured spots were dancing in his vision and he was steadily choking himself to death, and the man repeated his question. Repeated it over and over again until it rang in his ears and the tears ran down his cheeks, and his mother…merely watched quietly.

"Yuuta!" he screamed at last. "My name is Fuji Yuuta."

He had run away. Fuji breathed in horror, remembering at last. His mother's expression was inscrutable as she gazed at him after that lie. He wasn't sure if saying what he did, had endangered his sibling. But it was his life that was at stake here! Didn't she care? Why didn't she say anything?

"All I wanted was you. She could have continued leading her blissful life, as long as she gave me custody over my own child. No one in that family understands your genius, no one!"

The words were washing over him. He suddenly felt very tired, and the gears in his mind were running without rest, rushed towards an inevitable conclusion.

"Did you know? Did you know that I was lying then?" he asked abruptly.

"She was the one who led me to you. She sent me your pictures from time to time. How else do you think I even have pictures of you, at home, pasted on my wall up there?"

Fuji thought that his heart might be breaking.

"There is no one that cares about you, except for me. You do know that, don't you?

He thought about the way she had smiled, and the fondness which he had recalled those memories. Only now did he remember that there had been Yuuta who was standing with him. There had been someone that they both doted upon, and he recalled feeling jealous and simultaneously protective over his baby bother.

He thought about the way he had tried hard to excel in both school and tennis, until he had realised that extraordinary progress would only be put down to his "gift" but never to his effort. Amazing feats were only to be expected of the family genius, and where he was normal, or had more plebeian tastes like other children, people didn't seem to understand why. It was as though a genius had to be even more abnormal than what he was born as, in order for people to notice him. More attention was always lavished on his elder sister, or the younger brother, and everyone didn't seem to realise that as self-sufficient as he was, he needed people to love and pay attention to him at the same time.

He thought about the way she had screamed when his real father had tried to take him away, he thought about how much of her anguish was real. He thought about the way the man had fled and he had gone after him, but tripping over the same top that he had been playing with, and crashing onto the bed.

He thought about the exact hue of her eyes, as she lay dying.

He thought about the people who cared for him, he thought about the way his family had broken apart, he thought about his family that became perfect strangers, he thought about the nameless faces of people whom he had slept with, who vocalised their love for him and made him feel even more empty when they all left, come morning. He thought about Kaito whom he had loved, and how he had learnt from him that pain cleansed the soul and left it clean. He thought about how ironic that notion was, because when things came full circle, he was left feeling as unclean and sinful as ever. He thought about how Kaito had died, and the letters that he had thrown away by himself, then dug up again and replaced carefully in his own cupboard. He thought about his split personality and the entire incident that he erased carefully from his memory. He thought about his classmates who had isolated him, and the teacher whom he had placed his trust in. He thought about his best friend who broke his heart and became his worst enemy.

He thought about Tezuka who loved him more than he had expected, he thought about the way he had always tried to be there for him. He thought about all the things that Tezuka had done and how he had always fought to make Fuji happy, even whilst he deliberately hurt him and made him sad. He thought about how Tezuka's long fingers had wrapped around his throat, he thought about the massive amount of pain that he had become addicted to, and he thought about his grief in realising that it was never enough to erase his identity.

He thought about how there was no one left in the world for him. He thought that the unbearable loneliness might kill him. He thought of the beautiful captain and saw the blood that was beginning to reach his shoes, pooling slowly from the wound in Tezuka's head.

He thought that there could always be others to fill his place.

Somehow he stopped thinking anymore.

END CHAPTER

A/N: This is the last chapter, with only a short epilogue to go. Tell me if you liked it.