Hello anybody reading this! Short again... Sorry, but it seemed like a good place to leave it.
Immortal Tigress- -Laughs.- I would do my best not to let OCs take over, but it is pretty much a story about OCs. Also, all of the positives get together for Christmas and things like that to hold a party at the Property, so you'll see them again, no worries. Thank you for your review!
MintIceCream- I'm not sure yet if I am going to make him oviparous, but once I know, I'll tell you, promise. As for Atsuko, I suppose it would depend on who her 'mate' was. There's a fifty-fifty chance, I'd say.
Faith Lane- I did say I was doing a sequel. -Laughs.-
KiriharaAkaya- Thank you very much. I'll update now...
Lucky.Syuusuke.Yukimura- Little Narumi, Gakuto and Yuushi's child, is like a mini Gakuto, with Yuushi's wings. To answer your question then, her hair is red.
Lieyan- Shusuke's adorable, mother or not.
Purplerainn- Please do not get the wrong impression, Ayumu is not 'chatty' at all. He only chatters when he is very comfortable with someone.
Vierblith- -Shrugs- I like Het fics too, but Ayumu... Just not right. I don't know why, but he just had to be... I dunno... I have no real reason I guess, it just felt right to make him like a guy. Also, I had Shusuke take Tezuka's last name because... With Shusuke's father being... Who he is, it probably wouldn't turn out right, you know?
Shimizu Miki- Thank you very much for your review! Unfortunately, you'll have to wait to have your questions answered!
Wishing Star67- More than Trivial Pulse? I'll consider that an accomplishment!
Disclaimer- I do not own Prince of Tennis, or it's characters, But I do own a few of the characters in this story (and if you're a true P.O.T. Fan, you'll know which ones they are without having to think about it).
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The next day, Ayumu was forced to stay home, and Atsuko, for the first time in her life, went to school alone. It felt strange to walk to school without her twin's hand in hers, and she felt cold because of it. She spent the morning with her friends near the tennis courts, but it just wasn't the same without having Ayumu there to meet her eyes every once in a while and make some cryptic mental comment about her 'boy-obsessed' friends. He never meant to be funny when he did this, but it never failed to make Atsuko smile when he did.
Still, he wasn't around, and it was almost boring to just listen to her friends blabber non-intelligently about one boy or another. Atsuko liked boys, and she likes talking about boys, but, honestly, she wasn't entirely sure how twelve year old girls could talk about them non-stop everyday of their lives. She figured that it had something to do with being normal.
Now, Ayumu might not have been quite as smart as her dearest brother, but she had developed just as quickly as he had in mental capacity, and without him around, everyone else seemed just a little bit... Stupid? Yes, she decided that, rude as it was, that word fit well. With Ayumu around, she could over look it, because if she wanted to have an intelligent (if mostly one-sided) conversation with someone, she need only send out a thought to her brother, and he would answer her in short, equally intelligent responses. She really missed him, and it had hardly been an hour since they had parted...
The bell rang then, signaling that they had five minutes to get to class. Her group of friends began to split up and head towards the school building, and she went to follow, but a voice stopped her.
"Tezuka-san!" She turned at her name being spoken, and was mildly surprised to see Sora Noboru standing there, looking like he had changed in a hurry in order to catch her before class.
"Noboru-sempai." She bowed, and then looked up at him with questioning blue eyes.
"Um... Because I'm the vice captain and all..." Sora shook his head and started over, "About your brother... I just wanted to know... You know, where he is... Because, um..."
"Because you're the vice captain," Atsuko provided kindly. She smiled slightly to herself, thinking that someone a little too nervous to simply be asking where there kohai was. "Ayumu was feeling... A little under the weather today. He wanted to come to school, but our parents ordered that he stay home."
"Is he alright? I, uh, mean, because the ranking tournament..."
"Is coming up soon, and out bull-headed Namimaru-sempai has finally decided to give him a shot, yes, I know," Atsuko said, offering him the softest smile she could manage, while hiding her inner amusement. Sora, meanwhile, was trying (and succeeding, for the most part) to hide his astonishment at innocent-looking little Atsuko blatantly bad mouthing their sempai.
"... Yes," he said, after a bit of hesitation. He sighed. "I would visit him but..." he let out a humorless chuckle, "He doesn't really like me much, does he?"
Atsuko's face twisted in confusion. "I don't know about that. He's never said that he disliked you, but then, it's Ayumu, so he probably wouldn't say anything even if he did dislike you... But really, I don't think that he hates you, not at all."
Sora looked into her eyes seriously, and then, deciding to forget their age deference entirely, asked, "What do you think I should do?"
"... Come and see him," She said, resolutely, "It might cheer him up. He's been down lately."
"Thank you," Sora said, a real smile lighting up his face this time. Atsuko mused that if her friends were still around, they would have swooned. "I'll do that."
Atsuko returned his smile, and then said, calmly, "You like my brother, don't you?"
Sora straightened up and looked around, confirming that no one was watching, he answered seriously, "And if I do?"
"Then you do," Atsuko shrugged.
"Then I do," he confirmed, and Atsuko gave him a new smile.
"Then you'd better visit," She said, and then turned with a simple 'sayounara', and headed off to class.
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Shusuke was worried about Ayumu. Of course, he realized that he wasn't the only one, but he really wished that the young mind-reader would have simply told them what was going on. Then again, Kunimitsu had kept the identity of his kidnapper from him for five years, and he was Ayumu's father after all.
"Tezuka men," Shusuke grumbled poor-naturedly to himself, "Stubborn. Every single one of them."
"Excuse me for listening to you talk to yourself, but aren't you also a 'Tezuka man', Tezuka-san?" His secretary, Kisa, asked innocently.
"Yes, but not by blood, meaning that I, thankfully, hold no such trait." Shusuke said this with such resolve that Kisa was afraid to mention the many times that Shusuke himself had demonstrated just how stubborn he could be.
"... Did you have some new photographs to turn in then?" Kisa asked, trying to avert the conversation to a safer topic.
"Yes," Shusuke answered, his signature smile coming back to his face. He held out a bend-less envelope, and Kisa took it, curiously looking inside.
As always, the pictures Shusuke had taken were breath taking and Kisa looked at each for several minutes before nodding. "They're wonderful, Tezuka-san. If... You don't mind my asking, who are the children that are always in your photos?" Little winged children, whose faces were never shown in the photographs... Many other people had asked him the same thing. Normally, he would reply that such knowledge was a secret, but Kisa had worked with him for several years, and he knew that she could be trusted not to tell anyone.
"They are my children," Shusuke said proudly, and pointed to one of the young girl's photos, in which she was standing, hands clasped lightly behind her back, facing a lake which made up the background of the picture. The lake, of course, was the one at the Trivial Property, and Atsuko had not known at the time that her picture was being taken. "That is my little girl, Atsuko," he explained, "She's twelve years old now, and he," he motioned to one of the little boy's pictures, in which he was half turned away, his black wings stretched out and prepared to take off, you could see just a small bit of the creamy skin of his face, "Is her twin brother, Ayumu."
"They're beautiful, Shusuke-san," Kisa said, looking at the pictures once more, with renewed awe. "You and your husband must be very proud, and have been very lucky to find them."
Shusuke smiled, "Yes, we were." That was their guise. Neither Kunimitsu nor he himself had wanted to keep their marriage a secret, but their children... Were not so easy to explain. They passed them off as adopted twins, and their resemblance to Kunimitsu and himself as a coincidence. "We were very lucky." He sighed and looked out the windows, "Though sometimes I wonder if they feel the same way."
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Sora Noboru was nervous. Atsuko had told him that he should visit, but at the same time, he felt that he might be making a mistake. After all, it wasn't like Ayumu had ever even acting remotely like he liked him, even as a friend or a sempai, so coming to see him while he was out sick... Well, he could always say that he was coming because of the club. So, he took a deep breath and knocks on the door.
Within seconds, the door opened and a stern looking man was standing there. Sora nearly lost his nerve and turned away on the spot, but then he noticed how much the man looked like Ayumu, and was able to draw some sort of comfort from that. He reminded himself that a little bit of discomfort was more than worth it if he could find out if Ayumu was alright.
"Good evening, Sir, I'm Sora Noboru," he said, bowing, "I'm on the Seigaku tennis team and I was just here to check up on Ayumu-san. We were all rather worried, because it's so unlike him to miss school." He let out a mental sigh of relief at having said that without any stuttering.
The man however, didn't seem as impressed, and simply gave him what he figured might have been a glare. He was about to try again when another man, whose smile reminded him somewhat of Atsuko, poked his head out of the door.
"Oh?" He asked, in a slightly musical sounding voice, "And who's this?"
"I'm Sora Noboru, Sir, I'm on Ayumu's team..."
"Ah, I'd wondered who Mitsu was out here glaring at," he said, giving the other man a somewhat teasing grin. "I suppose you'll want to talk to Ayumu. Come in, I'll see if he's awake."
Sora was relieved at the invitation, and bowed before excepting it and walking into the house. It was a traditional style house, and he took off his shoes at the entrance without being asked, knowing that it would be disrespectful to do otherwise. The stoic figure who had first answered the door gave a small nod of approval, and Sora was led into a sitting room.
"Hold on just a moment while I see if Ayumu is awake," the smiling man said softly. His voice was somehow comforting, and it reminded him a bit of Ayumu's, on the rare occasions that he heard the young boy speak.
"You're Sora Noboru?" The expressionless man said now that the other was gone, he motioned for Sora to sit. The eighth grader did as he was told and nodded in response to the question. "Ayumu has mentioned you before."
Sora was surprised, and looked up at the man with slightly widened eyes. "R-really? I... Um... I hope it wasn't bad... I do not think that he thinks very well of me..."
An eyebrow rose in silent question. "I was under no such impression. He mentioned that you were a very talented tennis player."
Sora really didn't like the way the man looked at him, like he knew something it shouldn't be possible for him to know. Still, he blushed slightly at hearing that Ayumu had praised him. "Ayumu-san is very talented himself. He's actually going to be in the ranking tournament coming up soon. That was part of the reason I was so worried. I would hate for him to miss that chance."
Tezuka nodded, the slightest of smiles on his face. "As would I."
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Shusuke entered the room silently, but quickly realized that there had been no need, as Ayumu was awake, and sat up in bed at his entrance. The tensai smiled at his son.
"Someone from your tennis team is here to check on you. Do you wish to see him?"
"Who is it?" Ayumu asked, curious as to who would bother.
"Sora Noboru, I believe he said his name was."
"NO!" Ayumu yelled out immediately, and then erupted into a fit of coughing, his throat and voice not used to such an outburst. When he settled down, he reached out with his mind instead. "No, I don't... Feel up to it."
"Ayumu," Shusuke said, his voice sounding nearly angry. "What's wrong? Has this boy hurt you?"
Ayumu's eyes widened only the slightest, but those who knew him could tell that he was horrified by the thought. "N-no, I..."
The gaze on him softened. "Yes, Ayu?"
"I... I really... Like him," Ayumu choked out. Shusuke's soft, calming smile returned, and he patted his son's knee before moving back towards the door.
"Alright, Ayumu," he conceded, "I'll tell him that you are asleep, but, after, we're going to talk about this, alright?"
Ayumu nodded, and watched as his father left the room.