I'll be scowling in the corner with my one arm (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} sparklespiff) wrote,@ 2006-07-24 00:44:00 |
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Title: Attrition
Pairing: TezuRyo, TezuFuji, Fujicest, some Fuji/Saeki, possible Fuji/Mizuki
Rating: R
Notes: There are no words for how grateful I am tospurious for being the most fantastic beta ever. She was there since this was just an idea and she has been so helpful and supportive and wonderful, and yes. Much love. Thanks also to hikaridonya and vanishing_moon for helping. This fic has been my baby for months, so feedback/concrit is very, very welcomed.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
at•tri•tion n. 1. Erosion by friction. 2. The wearing down of rock particles by friction due to water or wind or ice. 3. Sorrow for sin arising from fear of damnation. 4. A wearing down to weaken or destroy; "a war of attrition". 5. The act of rubbing together; wearing something down by friction.
It’s on page 14 of the sports section: Echizen Loses in Second Round of Wimbledon Debut. Fuji barely scans the article; he’d watched the match on television with the rest of the Regulars but somehow it is more real in writing, in the neat lines of kanji, too ordered to be a lie.
Looking back later, Fuji will think, This is when it started to fall apart. For Fuji it is Yuuta staying at Seigaku High and patterns maybe not repeating and Yuuta coming down to breakfast yawning and Fuji being able to see it. Fuji knows that for Tezuka it is page 14 of the sports section and Ryoma.
For Tezuka it’s always been Ryoma.
Someone brings a copy of the newspaper to school. Fuji thinks of exactly forty-three things to say, each perfect and lethal and sharp, and then passes silently by the student’s desk. He knows that Tezuka has seen it too; it doesn’t show on his face, not yet, but it’s there in the nearly imperceptible shaking of Tezuka’s pencil. This would be fine except for the fact that Fuji knows this is only the beginning, like icebergs, storm clouds, the boiling ocean before a tsunami.
It’s just Wimbledon. Fuji tries it out in his mind, but it doesn’t work at all. It’s off, like the sound of dropping a metal spoon into a blender, like pricking his finger on the spines of one of his cacti. Three years ago, it might have been fine. Now he feels it like a scud serve to the stomach because Ryoma is Seigaku and now Fuji doesn’t have a choice.
He follows Tezuka to all of his classes, even the ones they don’t share, because if he distracts himself with what Tezuka is showing he doesn’t have time to think about what Tezuka is not. Then Tezuka pulls him into the bathroom and kisses him, and this is almost like all the other times, only the pain is different. Fuji thinks for a moment that he might be able to understand completely for once, because this, this he can feel like the rest of them. Then he remembers that when Tezuka is playing Ryoma, he looks like he’s glowing; both of them do, and Fuji will never understand completely after all.
*
They have rules. The first is that they don’t mention Ryoma. This is not for Fuji. The second is that when Fuji talks about Yuuta, Tezuka listens. This is not really for Fuji, either. He just lets Tezuka think it is.
*
Fuji remembers how bad it was when Ryoma left. Fuji remembers how much worse it was when Ryoma came back. Fuji remembers the first time he found Tezuka nearly catatonic in front of the television, the glow from Ryoma vs. Sanada hitting Tezuka's face in the dark and Ryoma spitting English out into the room and Ryoma so vibrantly unreal that Fuji feared him coming out of the screen and then static and Tezuka still not moving. Fuji remembers the moment he realized it really was possible to love someone too much.
*
(Fuji loves Yuuta exactly as much as he should. This is actually why it begins: Yuuta is the reason Fuji cannot allow Tezuka to break.)
*
When Fuji looks for Tezuka, he finds him practicing against a ball machine. Fuji knows immediately that Tezuka has been there for hours: it’s broadcast in the set of Tezuka’s shoulders, in the balls on the ground, in the tightness of Tezuka’s grip.
He walks right in front of Tezuka; a ball misses his face by a centimeter. He pries the racket out of Tezuka’s grip and drags him to Yumiko’s car, and there Fuji kisses Tezuka until he stops shaking, until Tezuka starts slumping against Fuji and asking, “Why did he lose?” Fuji knows that this is not the time to tell Tezuka he is breaking rule number one. He knows that he can say it happens all the time—John McEnroe, Pete Sampras—but he also knows that it isn’t the answer Tezuka is looking for.
“I didn’t give him enough,” Tezuka whispers finally, and fucking Tezuka won’t fix this, and talking about Yuuta won’t fix this, and Fuji can’t think of a single thing to say. He doesn’t like feeling helpless so as he holds Tezuka in the back seat of his sister’s car he wishes fiercely that Ryoma had never been born.
*
“Nobody beats me at tennis.” Rewind. “Nobody beats me at tennis.” Rewind. “Nobody beats me at tennis.”
Fuji shows up at Tezuka’s house to turn off his television, because Fuji is never wrong.
*
Ryoma returns on a Wednesday. This is not particularly important, but for some reason Fuji will remember it, years later, like this: It was Wednesday when Echizen came back.
At practice, it seems that nobody knows how to act. Tezuka looks lost when he thinks nobody is watching, but Fuji always is. So is Inui, who does not write anything in his notebook. So is Ryoma, who looks at his racket angrily as if peeling the paint with his eyes will fix Tezuka’s expression.
Maybe Ryoma is just angry in general.
Fuji avoids Ryoma for the most part by staying on the opposite side of the courts. This turns out to be a good plan; Ryoma is playing wild-eyed like something frenzied, playing like an animal in pain, and the two second-years he’s practicing against look like they would like to hide in the basket of tennis balls, if only they would fit.
Nobody tells Ryoma to stop.
That night, Fuji goes into Yuuta’s room. Yuuta lets Fuji kiss him for nearly an hour before kicking him out; his “Stop doing weird things, Aniki,” is the weakest Fuji’s ever heard it.
Yumiko is standing in the hallway. Her expression is almost scared, but Fuji can’t make himself care.
“Syusuke—”
“Goodnight, Oneesan,” he says politely, and keeps walking.
*
Fuji doesn’t typically fight losing battles, mostly because Fuji doesn’t typically lose.
Tezuka is, of course, the exception. In the moments Fuji decides to analyze why, he thinks it has something to do with the word rival.
A rival, Fuji thinks, is someone who pushes you to fight.
*
Tezuka is stupid enough or tired enough or lonely enough or crazy enough to fall asleep in Fuji’s bed exactly once.
Fuji quietly takes out his camera and snaps a picture, and Tezuka wakes up to the sound of the shutter clicking. He looks unhappy but doesn’t tell Fuji not to develop the film; Fuji takes it as permission to do so.
He keeps the picture in an envelope in the second drawer of his desk, because the image of Tezuka sleeping is not something Fuji feels others should see. There are only two other pictures in the envelope.
One is of his own hand, a picture that Fuji finds strangely too intimate for anyone else to glimpse but is unable to throw away.
The other is of Yuuta, two days before he had started at Seigaku. Yuuta’s eyes have changed since then. It is the last picture Fuji has in which Yuuta looks completely without resentment.
Fuji had thought of putting another picture in the envelope, once. He has long since burned the undeveloped roll of film and has learned not to take pictures of Tezuka so obviously thinking about Ryoma, because the swirl of emotions is so intense that even in his head it hurts to look at.
*
On the days they need it the most Fuji drags his lips across Tezuka’s skin and whispers “You’re mine,” right above the place where Tezuka’s heart beats.
“Yours,” Tezuka lies in reply. This is their balance.
“This” is not particularly definable, aside from the fact that it is both three years old and necessary. If Fuji ever felt like being entirely honest, he’d call it protection. Fuji never feels that way. He calls it a relationship. Tezuka, to the best of his knowledge, doesn’t call it anything at all.
*
Yuuta isn’t a Regular.
Fuji had thought once, almost seriously, about poisoning Inui’s juice during a ranking match, because it’s so painfully frustrating. His brother is good but it isn’t enough; Fuji sometimes wonders what it must be like for Arai.
Fuji doesn’t have time for pity, however; he’s busy trying to keep Tezuka from bleeding himself dry over Ryoma (he has nightmares, sometimes, of Tezuka, standing at the net, ripping out his own heart and handing it to Ryoma: “Take it. It’s still beating. Take it.” and Ryoma hitting it with his tennis racket, Tezuka’s heart making a beautiful red arc right into the sun and Tezuka smiling with empty eyes and a hole in his chest) and busy making Yuuta better.
The thing is that Yuuta doesn’t get discouraged. Yuuta gets angry and motivated and beautifully determined. Yuuta asks Fuji to practice with him now, and they do, for hours. Fuji holds back, just a little, a little bit less every time, and Yuuta tries so hard.
This, Fuji thinks, this is someone to love. Ryoma and the ease of his genius remind Fuji too much of himself. Fuji realizes abruptly that this can also work in the other direction and hits the Tsubame Gaeshi without thinking about what he is doing. Yuuta looks gratified and Fuji does not say anything, feeling something uncomfortable in his stomach, a little bit like confusion, nauseating like guilt.
*
When he brings it up, he is suddenly startlingly certain that if Tezuka were anyone but Tezuka, he would be laughing at Fuji.
“You’re nothing like Echizen.” (He doesn’t say, “Isn’t that the point?” He doesn’t need to.) And that is the end of that.
*
There are many things that Fuji remembers, not in order. There is the moment Fuji has labeled as the day he met Tezuka, even though it is many years after; Fuji feels it should have been the beginning:
Ryoma is away at his third U.S. Open and they are watching Ryoma’s match, just the two of them on Fuji’s sofa, and as Ryoma hits a rather impressive return ace, Fuji says, “He’s doing well, isn’t he, Kunimitsu?”
“Don’t,” is all Tezuka says, and Fuji doesn’t know if he’s talking about Fuji breaking rule number one or using his name.
Fuji doesn’t do either ever again, because this is the moment Fuji realizes it, deep, as he looks over and really sees: eyes silently burning, watching Ryoma conquer the world. Tezuka.
*
Echizen catches them in the changing room. It is not Tezuka’s fault; Fuji is simply accustomed to getting his way. It goes like this:
When they are finished, Fuji pushes the curtain aside and Ryoma is standing there with his shoulders shaking a little and his eyes so very wide. Fuji smiles and does not look at Tezuka because if he does Tezuka will realize Fuji had them in the shower exactly long enough for this to happen.
Then Ryoma takes his tennis racket and walks out, looking almost like Tezuka in miniature, the way his expression is so controlled, the way he barely twitches as he makes his way calmly out the door when Fuji knows he wants to run. Of course, Ryoma is not Tezuka, and has left behind his hat. Tezuka picks it up and Fuji knows that his hand tight on Tezuka’s wrist is the only thing that keeps him from using it as an excuse to chase after Ryoma.
*
Tezuka does not go near the Ryoma vs. Sanada tape. Tezuka does not pay particular attention to the smallest fish in the koi pond. Tezuka does not say anything at all.
“Tezuka,” Fuji decides out loud, “you are going to come to my house and help me water my cacti. And when we’re done with that, you can help me organize my pictures of Yuuta.” There are hundreds, and they are organized perfectly, but in a way only Fuji understands; they will look random to Tezuka and that is what matters.
It is one of Fuji’s more blatant attempts at a distraction. Tezuka does not point this out because it is also something resembling an apology.
*
(People sometimes wonder if Fuji has a savior complex.
It isn’t true, of course. He’d seen the way Tachibana and Tachibana’s sister looked at each other, and everything is about Yuuta in the end.)
*
Ryoma trudges around looking more disgruntled than usual and there’s something quietly glaring in him whenever he looks at Fuji.
Yuuta notices: “What did you do to Echizen, Aniki?”
“I gave him back his hat.”
Yuuta doesn’t understand.
Fuji just smiles and tells Yuuta not to worry and thinks that perhaps Ryoma understands more than Fuji had given him credit for, enough that he walks around looking like a wounded puppy except when Tezuka is around, but not enough that Fuji is going to let Tezuka go, because Ryoma knowing doesn’t change anything. Ryoma knowing doesn’t change Tezuka.
Fuji wonders what would have happened if Ryoma had won Wimbledon. When he thinks hard about it, he’s almost glad Ryoma failed, if losing at Wimbledon could be considered failure.
*
The truth is that Fuji doesn’t really understand what Tezuka feels for Ryoma. He knows that it’s different from the way Tezuka feels about Fuji, different from the way Fuji feels about Tezuka, and different from the way Fuji feels about Yuuta, but closer to that than anything else Fuji can think of.
Some people have religion. Tezuka has Ryoma.
Watching Tezuka, Fuji knows what Tezuka knows, which is that if Tezuka isn’t careful, he will find that one day he has given Ryoma too much. He will sacrifice everything of himself on the altar of Echizen’s tennis and the most worrisome part is that when it’s finished, when there is nothing left to give, the burnt offering that Tezuka will be will not regret a thing.
*
Fuji tries it, once. He goes and plays against the ball machine until his arm is shaking, until he can’t hold his racket anymore. He tries to understand what tennis means and he tries to think like a normal person and he tries to figure out why wanting Yuuta doesn’t feel wrong but what happens is that his racket clatters loudly to the ground and the last ball hits him in the chest and he falls to the ground without having figured out anything at all. He’s in love with his brother, he’s in love with his brother and a million balls to the chest won’t change that and his racket is lying a few feet away from him and he is too tired to reach for it and he will never understand Tezuka. He’s crying, kneeling on a tennis court with balls all around him, like he might drown in them and he’s crying and doesn’t understand why.
*
Tezuka is completely silent, which is just fine, because Fuji has no intention of saying anything either. Talking things out is too healthy anyway, and Fuji has his own way of dealing with things.
*
“Saeki,” Fuji says, like he’s the one surprised even though he is the one who took the train to Chiba, he is the one who has been standing right outside Rokkaku’s tennis courts waiting for practice to end.
Saeki just stares at him, so Fuji asks, “A match?” even though he doesn’t particularly feel like playing.
Then Saeki laughs and they walk off together and Fuji learns that Saeki’s kisses are rough but that his touch is light, that he fucks more carefully, more gently than anyone else Fuji has been with, that maybe Saeki has been wanting this moment for a very long time. That makes Fuji feel something too much like guilt and he wonders why he didn’t just go find Mizuki and then thinks about how he probably would have made Mizuki bleed, about how that wasn’t a good idea so soon before Nationals. The look in Saeki’s eyes as Fuji gets on the train to go back makes him think that this probably wasn’t a good idea, either. Fuji is rather against sabotage, prefers the look of fear on his opponents’ faces when he crushes them, and the thing is, Rokkaku—Saeki—hadn’t deserved either.
On the ride home he realizes it hadn’t even helped at all; it still feels like his chest is surrounded by water and he can’t breathe and when he walks into his house he finds Yuuta before even showering, and if Yuuta knows he doesn’t say anything. That’s good; Yuuta is the only one that will really matter, after all.
*
Fuji destroys the Ryoma vs. Sanada tape one day, steps on it, over and over again and then brings it into Tezuka’s backyard and sets it on fire. He has been watching Tezuka long enough to know the expressions that crash silently through his face: Tezuka is angry, Tezuka is tortured, Tezuka is just a little bit free. Fuji wonders almost absently if the rest of the team would be surprised if they knew just how much Tezuka is capable of feeling and contemplates looking through all of Tezuka’s things, locking Tezuka out of his bedroom until he can find everything that reminds Tezuka of Ryoma and ripping it all to pieces, but he stops with the tape because he knows, knows with the feeling of the moment before falling down stairs, before getting hit by a bus, before your brother tells you he’s leaving, that feeling of no but also of inevitability that even if he destroyed Ryoma it wouldn’t be enough to save Tezuka.
*
Fuji isn’t there when it happens, not exactly, but he might as well have been, the way he has to deal with the aftermath.
Ryoma is Ryoma again, for the most part, all smirks and flashing eyes and breathtaking tennis. Tezuka is a tangled mess of awe and pride and responsibility and pain and need and Fuji knows even before Tezuka tells him that there has been another private match.
Tezuka allows himself to rest his head on Fuji’s lap but will not let Fuji play with his hair.
“It’s okay to cry, you know,” Fuji says, and he knows that Tezuka can’t tell if he is teasing or serious.
“You say things like that on purpose,” Tezuka accuses, and it is true. For the moment, Tezuka is too busy being annoyed at Fuji to think about his match with Ryoma. Fuji smiles for real even though this is only a temporary fix, because at least Tezuka is letting him try.
*
Fuji thinks once as they’re lying on Tezuka’s bed, just quiet, just tangled together with their eyes closed that he wouldn’t mind if it was like this always. Fuji thinks, in that moment, that maybe he is in love with Tezuka, a little, wishes just in that moment that this wasn’t about pain, wishes that they could be about comfort, instead, or not even need that at all, just Tezuka and Fuji. Just that.
Then Tezuka opens his eyes and Fuji sees it: tennis. Tennis, and Ryoma, and Fuji wonders if everyone knows what expression means Yuuta, if that is the reason for the fear he sees in people’s eyes whenever he opens his.
They can’t be Tezuka and Fuji, wouldn’t be what they are anyway without the things that make it so they aren’t, but during moments like this, when all Fuji can feel is warm, he wishes that they could be anyway.
*
Yuuta stops talking to him one day and Fuji doesn’t understand why until he sees Yuuta and Ryoma practicing together, hitting angry balls at each other and Fuji can tell immediately that it isn’t Yuuta Ryoma is playing, that it isn’t Ryoma Yuuta sees.
He wonders for about a second if they—but he discards that idea just as quickly, because they aren’t fucked up like Fuji and Tezuka are; they’re not about pain and replacement and drowning and breathing like Fuji and Tezuka are.
“Echizen, I’m cutting in,” Fuji announces, as if it’s a dance he’s interrupting, because in a way it is. The interesting thing is that Ryoma lets him, but he remembers again that Ryoma is far too straightforward to pretend properly, and it makes rather a lot of sense after all. Fuji worries for a moment about Tezuka; he realizes the obvious, which is that Ryoma will likely go looking for him, but Yuuta is more important right now. Yuuta is always more important.
Yuuta is always most important.
Yuuta’s return goes out, rattling the fence violently, and Fuji smiles. “Are you done?”
“Shut up,” Yuuta spits, and serves at his face.
The rest of the game is like this, and it is not until they are alone in the locker room and Fuji’s arm is aching a little that Yuuta really talks.
“You love him,” Yuuta says, with something in his voice like surprise, something like anger, and Fuji imagines just for a moment fucking Mizuki in front of Yuuta to make him understand, but Yuuta is not Syusuke and probably wouldn’t realize what it meant anyway.
“You love him,” Yuuta says again, as if Fuji hadn’t heard it the first time, daring his brother to say something. For Fuji it’s almost as if Yuuta is begging him; Fuji doesn’t contradict what Yuuta is saying, and it isn’t technically a lie.
Then Fuji almost laughs at himself because he isn’t Tezuka; he is perfectly capable of separating Yuuta and Yuuta’s tennis, and can admit that he gives rather more of a damn about Yuuta. Most importantly, Fuji isn’t about sacrificing himself for others, but about winning for them, so he grabs Yuuta’s wrist and whispers, “You know I love you more than anything, Yuuta.”
Yuuta twists out of Fuji’s grip, and Fuji lets him, because the important thing is in the angle of Yuuta’s head and the exact moment his eyes close and the way Fuji thinks that being selfish is sometimes not a bad thing at all.
*
“Where were you yesterday? I couldn’t find you.” Tezuka’s arms are crossed and Fuji almost laughs because from Tezuka this is practically a tirade.
“I was busy,” Fuji replies lightly, and that should be enough. It isn’t, apparently.
“Yuuta?” Tezuka asks, and his voice is like needles, like glass, beautiful and cutting like an ancient but well-kept katana.
“Yes.” Fuji does not say that the world does not revolve around Tezuka and Ryoma. He does not remind Tezuka that loving his brother isn’t normal, that Fuji isn’t just here because it’s convenient, that while Tezuka is burning Fuji is drowning. He does not yell that yesterday, Tezuka should have been saving him.
He does not say any of these things; instead he thinks about the way Yumiko once said he was too kind. He wonders if she was right.
*
Fuji walks in on them in the locker room one day; they’re having the sort of conversation that makes Fuji feel he ought to either make his presence known or leave, even though no words are actually coming out of their mouths.
Then Ryoma says, “Buchou,” and Fuji can see the way his muscles are tensed, like he’s about to jump up and hit a smash if only Tezuka will send him the ball.
Tezuka doesn’t look frightened, or desperate--Don’t do it, Fuji thinks, don’t do it, completely unnecessarily, because Tezuka looks responsible.
Tezuka doesn’t even twitch and the look on Ryoma’s face is not that of a frustrated predator but of someone who had expected this but hadn’t been able to keep from trying anyway even though it hurts a little more each time.
Then Tezuka’s hand moves and something changes in Ryoma’s eyes but it is at that moment they notice Fuji standing there. Tezuka’s hand stays frozen in the air for a second before dropping to his side and suddenly Fuji doesn’t know what to do so he smiles and says, “Good afternoon, Tezuka, Echizen,” as if he hadn’t just interrupted them about to maul each other or worse.
Ryoma looks annoyed and the expression on Tezuka’s face is one Fuji doesn’t recognize. Ryoma must, though, because his eyes widen before he runs out of the room, slamming the door.
Ryoma is just a boy, Fuji thinks, human, but this is hard to remember when Tezuka sits down the moment the sound of Ryoma’s footfalls disappear, and it looks like breathing out, like falling, and Tezuka doesn’t say a word about laps.
*
Fuji observes the fish in Tezuka’s pond sometimes. When the sun sets, the water glows orange and the fish shine. It is always at that moment Fuji has to look away.
*
“One match, Buchou. Please.” Ryoma’s bow is low and his voice cracks; Fuji wonders at Ryoma choosing now to ask. They are standing in the middle of a hallway. Other students turn their heads as they walk by; Echizen Ryoma bowing to Tezuka Kunimitsu will be this lunch’s gossip.
“Please,” Ryoma repeats, and Fuji wonders if his eyes are closed, if they are open, if he is looking at the floor or at their shoes or seeing something else entirely. Fuji is glad he can’t see them; this he can understand.
Tezuka has been silent and completely unmoving. Fuji has many guesses about what he is thinking, but as is disturbingly more often becoming the case, he is completely devoid of certainty. Fuji imagines a clock ticking somewhere in the background. One. Two. Three. A bomb. Tick. Tick. Tick.
“One match,” Tezuka says finally, quietly.
Ryoma looks up and his eyes are strikingly luminous. Something inside Fuji is afraid; he can feel the tension in Tezuka beside him.
The other students still walk by, completely unknowing.
*
Fuji will think, This is where it started to fall apart.
*
“Aniki.” Yuuta’s voice is almost hesitant. Fuji looks up, his smile automatic, and Yuuta shakes his head.
“Not that smile, Aniki. Please.” It is a word Fuji so rarely hears from Yuuta that his eyes open in surprise; Yuuta looks satisfied.
“Don’t close them.” It is a whispered command, and when Yuuta moves closer, eyes open and scared and determined and so direct, when Yuuta’s lips brush against his, lightly, and his eyes finally go unfocused, Fuji doesn’t even blink.
*
Of course Fuji watches their match. Everyone does, because watching Tezuka play is inspiring and watching Ryoma play leaves people breathless and watching them together is like the scent of incense, like the ringing of a shrine bell. Their tennis looks sacred.
Then something changes, something in Ryoma’s wrist, in his eyes. Tezuka reacts and suddenly their match is so intense it makes Fuji’s chest hurt, makes him expect people to start shielding their eyes. It’s sex, Fuji thinks, and it isn’t just the shouts and the sweat and the tension and the way they are focused so entirely on each other. It’s the tennis.
They’re fucking, right here on the court in front of everyone, and they’re the only ones who don’t realize it.
*
Fuji stands shirtless in front of the mirror in his bedroom, music playing in the background, something in English with a beat that pulses through him like sex, with a melody that’s low and aching that makes him trace a finger along his collarbone, drag his hands down his chest and when he pulls off his pants it’s a slow slide and he can’t take his eyes off of himself. He’s standing there, staring, half-hard in his boxers, thinking, this is my throat, this is my shoulder, this is my arm, these are my veins underneath, these are my eyes. He’s looking at his eyes when he steps out of his boxers, when he thinks this is my cock, when he slides his hand lower and the music is still going, still aching softly, something that makes him almost want to cry and instead he fists himself, starts pumping slowly, slowly, still staring at his eyes because there’s something there he doesn’t comprehend.
He doesn’t hear Yuuta saying, “Aniki, turn the music down,” until the door opens because he’d forgotten to lock it and Yuuta is staring at him with the door still open and Fuji is still looking at himself. Then he says, “Yuuta,” and the door clicks shut but Yuuta is inside and still watching him and Fuji knows Yuuta is pressed against the door like he wants to escape but won’t, can’t, like he’s caught and Fuji still hasn’t stopped looking at his eyes. He might know exactly how Yuuta feels.
Then Fuji hears the soft shedding of clothing and the sound of the door locking and then he feels Yuuta warm behind him and then he shifts his focus, just a little, to see Yuuta in the mirror, his head over Fuji’s shoulder because Yuuta is taller and then he turns around.
When Yuuta’s lips touch Fuji’s neck, he thinks he hears waves crashing.
*
They are eating when Ryoma accosts them. That really is the only word for it, Fuji decides, putting down his chopsticks and smiling. “Hello, Echizen. Don’t you have a class now?”
Ryoma ignores him entirely. “Why did you turn down the Open, Buchou?”
Fuji wonders how Ryoma even knows; Tezuka hadn’t said anything. The only reason Fuji is aware of it is because he had seen the single crumpled piece of paper in Tezuka’s trash can. He pulls himself out of the memory: Tezuka is speaking.
“My focus is Seigaku. The U.S. Open would be a distraction.” Tezuka’s voice is too calm, and Fuji sees Ryoma’s hands make tiny fists on the table.
“Distraction?” Ryoma is just barely keeping his voice under a yell. “What about all those things you told me, Buchou? The first time? Why aren’t you going? I want you there—”
“Echizen. That’s enough.” Tezuka stands up and walks away, leaving his unfinished lunch behind.
Ryoma stays at the table for a long time, staring at Tezuka’s chopsticks as if they will give him the answer. Then he looks at Fuji, who has nothing to tell him.
*
Fuji will think, This is where it started to break.
*
“Syusuke.” His sister’s voice is soft as Fuji is exiting the kitchen.
He pauses and turns around.
“I saw you. Last night. You left the bathroom door open.”
“Ah.”
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Yumiko’s hands are twisting the fabric of her skirt and her voice is coming out high pitched and strangled—she wants to scream but can’t. “I saw you! I saw you kissing Yuuta—Syusuke, what were you thinking?”
“Are you going to tell?”
“I—no, of course not, but—”
“Don’t let Yuuta know.” Fuji turns and starts walking away.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”
It feels like he is cutting himself with the edges of his smile. “Don’t I always, Oneesan?”
*
It feels like falling, like the color of cherry blossoms, like the very second before goodbye.
*
The day before Ryoma leaves for the U.S. Open, Tezuka challenges him to a match. Fuji doesn't stop him, because he knows that Tezuka is thinking about Wimbledon, about the Graveyard of Champions, about numbers that looked like they should have been backwards.
Afterwards, Tezuka doesn't tell Fuji what happened. He doesn't say who won. He doesn't talk at all for two days.
Ryoma wins the Open.
When he comes back, they win the Nationals. Fuji thinks it's almost junior high again, only he sees Ryoma kiss Tezuka when he thinks no one is looking, and realizes what Tezuka wouldn’t say. Afterwards, when Tezuka fucks Fuji, he sounds like he's crying. Fuji can envision the flames in the background and wishes hitting Tezuka would help.
*
It happens again. Tezuka and Ryoma are talking, and Fuji knows he isn’t supposed to be hearing it; it feels wrong, like the first time he’d sat outside Yuuta’s door listening for his name, but he is unable to move away, just like he had been unable then.
“Buchou!” Ryoma says, and Fuji hears Why? Why aren’t I enough? because Ryoma telegraphs his emotions like he plays tennis—loud and fearless and blinding.
Fuji knows what Tezuka wants to reply: Don’t you see you’re everything? but of course Tezuka doesn’t say anything and it isn’t in his eyes or the corner of his mouth or his left eyebrow. There isn’t anything for Ryoma to read so of course he doesn’t understand.
“Buchou...” Ryoma says once more, in a voice so soft Fuji almost can’t make it out. Ryoma looks so small, with his chin tilted up towards Tezuka, with his hands opening and closing uselessly at his sides.
Fuji has never thought of Ryoma as fragile before. It makes him feel cold, and the chill spreads until it’s ice in his stomach, making him nauseous because now Fuji knows exactly what is going to happen. He can see what Tezuka will do and what Ryoma will become. He knows exactly how they are going to destroy each other.
Fuji knows what it’s like to be losing a match with no hope of winning; he has seen it in the eyes of people he’s played. Tezuka says, “Echizen,” and Fuji can hear everything it means. Suddenly the worst thing in the world would be for Tezuka and Ryoma to see him.
Fuji has to walk away.
*
It feels especially like the moment before goodbye.
*
“What do you do when you’ve made a mistake, Yuuta? A big one?”
“Aniki?”
Yuuta’s eyes on him are too much; Fuji closes his. “Never mind.”
*
It is low but Fuji can hear it: the hiss Tezuka makes as Fuji slides off his shirt, sharp like the sound of opening a new can of tennis balls. Fuji looks at Tezuka’s back and sees the scratches, red-pink, and thinks Ryoma. He touches his finger to the tiny half-moon bruises on Tezuka’s bicep; Tezuka’s skin is hotter than usual and he doesn’t say anything and Fuji is sure.
*
Fuji looks at himself in the bathroom mirror. He remembers always being right and throws up in the sink. The toilet is half a meter to the right; Fuji curses and starts cleaning.
That night, he walks past Yuuta’s door without even looking at it. It doesn’t make a difference because Yuuta is waiting in Fuji’s room and Fuji is incapable of telling his brother to leave.
*
He sees the letter on Tezuka’s desk and knows what it means. The fact that it is sitting in the open says enough; Fuji doesn’t ask about it and Tezuka doesn’t answer him.
*
Tezuka’s mouth on his is too soft. Tezuka’s hand on his cock is too gentle; his own groans sink too fuzzily, edgelessly, into the sheets, the carpet, the curtains.
Tezuka’s name sounds muted when he moans it and his own is more whisper than gasp.
Fuji keeps his eyes closed and pretends it doesn’t feel like they’ve started pulling away. It isn’t time yet.
*
Fuji dreams of long row of glasses breaking, one by one. He tries to move closer, starts running after them, trying to catch up, trying to save just one. He doesn’t know why, he doesn’t know what will happen, but if he can only save one--
He reaches the end. The last glass explodes and the shards fly through him.
*
It shouldn’t be time yet.
*
His father’s eyes, he thinks, look like ice, look like doors slamming but for some reason all Fuji can think of are cherry blossoms falling. He doesn’t quite realize what’s happening, not even when Yuuta is saying, “Aniki, Aniki,” like he’s choking and somehow they are on the street tennis courts and Fuji has no idea what possessed him to bring them there, only that when he looks, they have their tennis rackets and bags filled with clothing that Fuji doesn’t remember packing but knows he must have because Yuuta is shaking like he’s about to fall apart, like he will if Fuji’s hand on his arm gets any looser than circulation-restricting. Part of Fuji wants to think—about how this happened, about what they are going to do but Yuuta is shaking, shaking, so Fuji pulls out Yuuta’s racket and hands it to him and tells him that they are going to play.
*
Showing up at Tezuka’s house is logical, or at least that is what Fuji thinks until Tezuka opens the door.
“Hello,” Fuji starts. Yuuta looks down. Tezuka looks at them both.
Tezuka is so very silent and Yuuta is clutching his hand so hard it’s painful, in fact, extremely so, but Fuji will not shake off his brother for anything in the world. Fuji spends the moment trying to guess what will come out of Tezuka’s mouth when he finally opens it: “What are you doing here?” “This is rather inconvenient.” “I was expecting this to happen.” “I see you were careless.”
“I’ll call Atobe,” is what Tezuka says.
Fuji thinks blinkingly that the inside of Tezuka’s house looks different; perhaps it is because his eyes are open or because Yuuta is standing beside him or because he and his brother have just been disowned. There are so many things he doesn’t remember noticing and he wants to point them out to Yuuta but his brother is still staring at the floor and Fuji doesn’t know what to say.
They sit down and Tezuka goes to prepare tea and Yuuta finally speaks. He touches the fabric of the couch with gentle fingers—his fearless-rough-beautiful Yuuta seeming almost afraid the furniture will bite him—and says, “Did you ever... you know... with him... here? On this couch, I mean.”
Fuji is suddenly flooded with memories of everything he’s ever not said or said wrong and is once again submerged in the feeling that he can never say the right thing to Yuuta. “It was for you,” would come out terrible, he thinks. He is saved from saying it by Tezuka’s return.
“Atobe says you can stay in one of his Tokyo apartments.” If it were anyone else, Fuji would feel indebted, but Atobe is strange when it comes to Tezuka.
Fuji nods, and they sit, and they drink, and Fuji tries to smile but feels himself failing. He stares at the walls instead, distantly noting excessive amounts of lavender, concentrating on the heat of the cup in his hands and Yuuta beside him instead of the quiet.
Somehow it is Tezuka who breaks the silence. “Shall I ask my parents if you can spend the night here?”
“No,” Fuji says, “we really should be going.” It feels wrong now, Yuuta here. Fuji has the fleeting thought of Ryoma joining them and the house exploding. It reminds him.
He makes Yuuta walk out ahead of him and turns around to look at Tezuka. “I’m going to need you,” he says to Tezuka as he walks out the door, “So try to survive until then.”
*
Fuji looks at Tezuka’s door, thinks, This really is the end. Yuuta squeezes his hand.
Fuji cannot let go.
*
*
*
Fuji closes the door behind him and Tezuka is alone. He walks up the stairs slowly, feeling each step beneath his feet and when he reaches his bedroom he pauses with his hand on the knob because everything feels different somehow.
He pushes the door open and the smell of burning wood hits him; downstairs his grandfather is building a fire. He can hear Fuji’s voice in his head: How appropriate.
Sorry, Fuji, Tezuka thinks, as he picks up the envelope. Tezuka is ready; he lets go and it’s so easy. He imagines flames and everything else quickly melting away.
Ryoma is waiting.
Pairing: TezuRyo, TezuFuji, Fujicest, some Fuji/Saeki, possible Fuji/Mizuki
Rating: R
Notes: There are no words for how grateful I am to
spurious for being the most fantastic beta ever. She was there since this was just an idea and she has been so helpful and supportive and wonderful, and yes. Much love. Thanks also to hikaridonya and vanishing_moon for helping. This fic has been my baby for months, so feedback/concrit is very, very welcomed.Disclaimer: Not mine.
at•tri•tion n. 1. Erosion by friction. 2. The wearing down of rock particles by friction due to water or wind or ice. 3. Sorrow for sin arising from fear of damnation. 4. A wearing down to weaken or destroy; "a war of attrition". 5. The act of rubbing together; wearing something down by friction.
It’s on page 14 of the sports section: Echizen Loses in Second Round of Wimbledon Debut. Fuji barely scans the article; he’d watched the match on television with the rest of the Regulars but somehow it is more real in writing, in the neat lines of kanji, too ordered to be a lie.
Looking back later, Fuji will think, This is when it started to fall apart. For Fuji it is Yuuta staying at Seigaku High and patterns maybe not repeating and Yuuta coming down to breakfast yawning and Fuji being able to see it. Fuji knows that for Tezuka it is page 14 of the sports section and Ryoma.
For Tezuka it’s always been Ryoma.
Someone brings a copy of the newspaper to school. Fuji thinks of exactly forty-three things to say, each perfect and lethal and sharp, and then passes silently by the student’s desk. He knows that Tezuka has seen it too; it doesn’t show on his face, not yet, but it’s there in the nearly imperceptible shaking of Tezuka’s pencil. This would be fine except for the fact that Fuji knows this is only the beginning, like icebergs, storm clouds, the boiling ocean before a tsunami.
It’s just Wimbledon. Fuji tries it out in his mind, but it doesn’t work at all. It’s off, like the sound of dropping a metal spoon into a blender, like pricking his finger on the spines of one of his cacti. Three years ago, it might have been fine. Now he feels it like a scud serve to the stomach because Ryoma is Seigaku and now Fuji doesn’t have a choice.
He follows Tezuka to all of his classes, even the ones they don’t share, because if he distracts himself with what Tezuka is showing he doesn’t have time to think about what Tezuka is not. Then Tezuka pulls him into the bathroom and kisses him, and this is almost like all the other times, only the pain is different. Fuji thinks for a moment that he might be able to understand completely for once, because this, this he can feel like the rest of them. Then he remembers that when Tezuka is playing Ryoma, he looks like he’s glowing; both of them do, and Fuji will never understand completely after all.
*
They have rules. The first is that they don’t mention Ryoma. This is not for Fuji. The second is that when Fuji talks about Yuuta, Tezuka listens. This is not really for Fuji, either. He just lets Tezuka think it is.
*
Fuji remembers how bad it was when Ryoma left. Fuji remembers how much worse it was when Ryoma came back. Fuji remembers the first time he found Tezuka nearly catatonic in front of the television, the glow from Ryoma vs. Sanada hitting Tezuka's face in the dark and Ryoma spitting English out into the room and Ryoma so vibrantly unreal that Fuji feared him coming out of the screen and then static and Tezuka still not moving. Fuji remembers the moment he realized it really was possible to love someone too much.
*
(Fuji loves Yuuta exactly as much as he should. This is actually why it begins: Yuuta is the reason Fuji cannot allow Tezuka to break.)
*
When Fuji looks for Tezuka, he finds him practicing against a ball machine. Fuji knows immediately that Tezuka has been there for hours: it’s broadcast in the set of Tezuka’s shoulders, in the balls on the ground, in the tightness of Tezuka’s grip.
He walks right in front of Tezuka; a ball misses his face by a centimeter. He pries the racket out of Tezuka’s grip and drags him to Yumiko’s car, and there Fuji kisses Tezuka until he stops shaking, until Tezuka starts slumping against Fuji and asking, “Why did he lose?” Fuji knows that this is not the time to tell Tezuka he is breaking rule number one. He knows that he can say it happens all the time—John McEnroe, Pete Sampras—but he also knows that it isn’t the answer Tezuka is looking for.
“I didn’t give him enough,” Tezuka whispers finally, and fucking Tezuka won’t fix this, and talking about Yuuta won’t fix this, and Fuji can’t think of a single thing to say. He doesn’t like feeling helpless so as he holds Tezuka in the back seat of his sister’s car he wishes fiercely that Ryoma had never been born.
*
“Nobody beats me at tennis.” Rewind. “Nobody beats me at tennis.” Rewind. “Nobody beats me at tennis.”
Fuji shows up at Tezuka’s house to turn off his television, because Fuji is never wrong.
*
Ryoma returns on a Wednesday. This is not particularly important, but for some reason Fuji will remember it, years later, like this: It was Wednesday when Echizen came back.
At practice, it seems that nobody knows how to act. Tezuka looks lost when he thinks nobody is watching, but Fuji always is. So is Inui, who does not write anything in his notebook. So is Ryoma, who looks at his racket angrily as if peeling the paint with his eyes will fix Tezuka’s expression.
Maybe Ryoma is just angry in general.
Fuji avoids Ryoma for the most part by staying on the opposite side of the courts. This turns out to be a good plan; Ryoma is playing wild-eyed like something frenzied, playing like an animal in pain, and the two second-years he’s practicing against look like they would like to hide in the basket of tennis balls, if only they would fit.
Nobody tells Ryoma to stop.
That night, Fuji goes into Yuuta’s room. Yuuta lets Fuji kiss him for nearly an hour before kicking him out; his “Stop doing weird things, Aniki,” is the weakest Fuji’s ever heard it.
Yumiko is standing in the hallway. Her expression is almost scared, but Fuji can’t make himself care.
“Syusuke—”
“Goodnight, Oneesan,” he says politely, and keeps walking.
*
Fuji doesn’t typically fight losing battles, mostly because Fuji doesn’t typically lose.
Tezuka is, of course, the exception. In the moments Fuji decides to analyze why, he thinks it has something to do with the word rival.
A rival, Fuji thinks, is someone who pushes you to fight.
*
Tezuka is stupid enough or tired enough or lonely enough or crazy enough to fall asleep in Fuji’s bed exactly once.
Fuji quietly takes out his camera and snaps a picture, and Tezuka wakes up to the sound of the shutter clicking. He looks unhappy but doesn’t tell Fuji not to develop the film; Fuji takes it as permission to do so.
He keeps the picture in an envelope in the second drawer of his desk, because the image of Tezuka sleeping is not something Fuji feels others should see. There are only two other pictures in the envelope.
One is of his own hand, a picture that Fuji finds strangely too intimate for anyone else to glimpse but is unable to throw away.
The other is of Yuuta, two days before he had started at Seigaku. Yuuta’s eyes have changed since then. It is the last picture Fuji has in which Yuuta looks completely without resentment.
Fuji had thought of putting another picture in the envelope, once. He has long since burned the undeveloped roll of film and has learned not to take pictures of Tezuka so obviously thinking about Ryoma, because the swirl of emotions is so intense that even in his head it hurts to look at.
*
On the days they need it the most Fuji drags his lips across Tezuka’s skin and whispers “You’re mine,” right above the place where Tezuka’s heart beats.
“Yours,” Tezuka lies in reply. This is their balance.
“This” is not particularly definable, aside from the fact that it is both three years old and necessary. If Fuji ever felt like being entirely honest, he’d call it protection. Fuji never feels that way. He calls it a relationship. Tezuka, to the best of his knowledge, doesn’t call it anything at all.
*
Yuuta isn’t a Regular.
Fuji had thought once, almost seriously, about poisoning Inui’s juice during a ranking match, because it’s so painfully frustrating. His brother is good but it isn’t enough; Fuji sometimes wonders what it must be like for Arai.
Fuji doesn’t have time for pity, however; he’s busy trying to keep Tezuka from bleeding himself dry over Ryoma (he has nightmares, sometimes, of Tezuka, standing at the net, ripping out his own heart and handing it to Ryoma: “Take it. It’s still beating. Take it.” and Ryoma hitting it with his tennis racket, Tezuka’s heart making a beautiful red arc right into the sun and Tezuka smiling with empty eyes and a hole in his chest) and busy making Yuuta better.
The thing is that Yuuta doesn’t get discouraged. Yuuta gets angry and motivated and beautifully determined. Yuuta asks Fuji to practice with him now, and they do, for hours. Fuji holds back, just a little, a little bit less every time, and Yuuta tries so hard.
This, Fuji thinks, this is someone to love. Ryoma and the ease of his genius remind Fuji too much of himself. Fuji realizes abruptly that this can also work in the other direction and hits the Tsubame Gaeshi without thinking about what he is doing. Yuuta looks gratified and Fuji does not say anything, feeling something uncomfortable in his stomach, a little bit like confusion, nauseating like guilt.
*
When he brings it up, he is suddenly startlingly certain that if Tezuka were anyone but Tezuka, he would be laughing at Fuji.
“You’re nothing like Echizen.” (He doesn’t say, “Isn’t that the point?” He doesn’t need to.) And that is the end of that.
*
There are many things that Fuji remembers, not in order. There is the moment Fuji has labeled as the day he met Tezuka, even though it is many years after; Fuji feels it should have been the beginning:
Ryoma is away at his third U.S. Open and they are watching Ryoma’s match, just the two of them on Fuji’s sofa, and as Ryoma hits a rather impressive return ace, Fuji says, “He’s doing well, isn’t he, Kunimitsu?”
“Don’t,” is all Tezuka says, and Fuji doesn’t know if he’s talking about Fuji breaking rule number one or using his name.
Fuji doesn’t do either ever again, because this is the moment Fuji realizes it, deep, as he looks over and really sees: eyes silently burning, watching Ryoma conquer the world. Tezuka.
*
Echizen catches them in the changing room. It is not Tezuka’s fault; Fuji is simply accustomed to getting his way. It goes like this:
When they are finished, Fuji pushes the curtain aside and Ryoma is standing there with his shoulders shaking a little and his eyes so very wide. Fuji smiles and does not look at Tezuka because if he does Tezuka will realize Fuji had them in the shower exactly long enough for this to happen.
Then Ryoma takes his tennis racket and walks out, looking almost like Tezuka in miniature, the way his expression is so controlled, the way he barely twitches as he makes his way calmly out the door when Fuji knows he wants to run. Of course, Ryoma is not Tezuka, and has left behind his hat. Tezuka picks it up and Fuji knows that his hand tight on Tezuka’s wrist is the only thing that keeps him from using it as an excuse to chase after Ryoma.
*
Tezuka does not go near the Ryoma vs. Sanada tape. Tezuka does not pay particular attention to the smallest fish in the koi pond. Tezuka does not say anything at all.
“Tezuka,” Fuji decides out loud, “you are going to come to my house and help me water my cacti. And when we’re done with that, you can help me organize my pictures of Yuuta.” There are hundreds, and they are organized perfectly, but in a way only Fuji understands; they will look random to Tezuka and that is what matters.
It is one of Fuji’s more blatant attempts at a distraction. Tezuka does not point this out because it is also something resembling an apology.
*
(People sometimes wonder if Fuji has a savior complex.
It isn’t true, of course. He’d seen the way Tachibana and Tachibana’s sister looked at each other, and everything is about Yuuta in the end.)
*
Ryoma trudges around looking more disgruntled than usual and there’s something quietly glaring in him whenever he looks at Fuji.
Yuuta notices: “What did you do to Echizen, Aniki?”
“I gave him back his hat.”
Yuuta doesn’t understand.
Fuji just smiles and tells Yuuta not to worry and thinks that perhaps Ryoma understands more than Fuji had given him credit for, enough that he walks around looking like a wounded puppy except when Tezuka is around, but not enough that Fuji is going to let Tezuka go, because Ryoma knowing doesn’t change anything. Ryoma knowing doesn’t change Tezuka.
Fuji wonders what would have happened if Ryoma had won Wimbledon. When he thinks hard about it, he’s almost glad Ryoma failed, if losing at Wimbledon could be considered failure.
*
The truth is that Fuji doesn’t really understand what Tezuka feels for Ryoma. He knows that it’s different from the way Tezuka feels about Fuji, different from the way Fuji feels about Tezuka, and different from the way Fuji feels about Yuuta, but closer to that than anything else Fuji can think of.
Some people have religion. Tezuka has Ryoma.
Watching Tezuka, Fuji knows what Tezuka knows, which is that if Tezuka isn’t careful, he will find that one day he has given Ryoma too much. He will sacrifice everything of himself on the altar of Echizen’s tennis and the most worrisome part is that when it’s finished, when there is nothing left to give, the burnt offering that Tezuka will be will not regret a thing.
*
Fuji tries it, once. He goes and plays against the ball machine until his arm is shaking, until he can’t hold his racket anymore. He tries to understand what tennis means and he tries to think like a normal person and he tries to figure out why wanting Yuuta doesn’t feel wrong but what happens is that his racket clatters loudly to the ground and the last ball hits him in the chest and he falls to the ground without having figured out anything at all. He’s in love with his brother, he’s in love with his brother and a million balls to the chest won’t change that and his racket is lying a few feet away from him and he is too tired to reach for it and he will never understand Tezuka. He’s crying, kneeling on a tennis court with balls all around him, like he might drown in them and he’s crying and doesn’t understand why.
*
Tezuka is completely silent, which is just fine, because Fuji has no intention of saying anything either. Talking things out is too healthy anyway, and Fuji has his own way of dealing with things.
*
“Saeki,” Fuji says, like he’s the one surprised even though he is the one who took the train to Chiba, he is the one who has been standing right outside Rokkaku’s tennis courts waiting for practice to end.
Saeki just stares at him, so Fuji asks, “A match?” even though he doesn’t particularly feel like playing.
Then Saeki laughs and they walk off together and Fuji learns that Saeki’s kisses are rough but that his touch is light, that he fucks more carefully, more gently than anyone else Fuji has been with, that maybe Saeki has been wanting this moment for a very long time. That makes Fuji feel something too much like guilt and he wonders why he didn’t just go find Mizuki and then thinks about how he probably would have made Mizuki bleed, about how that wasn’t a good idea so soon before Nationals. The look in Saeki’s eyes as Fuji gets on the train to go back makes him think that this probably wasn’t a good idea, either. Fuji is rather against sabotage, prefers the look of fear on his opponents’ faces when he crushes them, and the thing is, Rokkaku—Saeki—hadn’t deserved either.
On the ride home he realizes it hadn’t even helped at all; it still feels like his chest is surrounded by water and he can’t breathe and when he walks into his house he finds Yuuta before even showering, and if Yuuta knows he doesn’t say anything. That’s good; Yuuta is the only one that will really matter, after all.
*
Fuji destroys the Ryoma vs. Sanada tape one day, steps on it, over and over again and then brings it into Tezuka’s backyard and sets it on fire. He has been watching Tezuka long enough to know the expressions that crash silently through his face: Tezuka is angry, Tezuka is tortured, Tezuka is just a little bit free. Fuji wonders almost absently if the rest of the team would be surprised if they knew just how much Tezuka is capable of feeling and contemplates looking through all of Tezuka’s things, locking Tezuka out of his bedroom until he can find everything that reminds Tezuka of Ryoma and ripping it all to pieces, but he stops with the tape because he knows, knows with the feeling of the moment before falling down stairs, before getting hit by a bus, before your brother tells you he’s leaving, that feeling of no but also of inevitability that even if he destroyed Ryoma it wouldn’t be enough to save Tezuka.
*
Fuji isn’t there when it happens, not exactly, but he might as well have been, the way he has to deal with the aftermath.
Ryoma is Ryoma again, for the most part, all smirks and flashing eyes and breathtaking tennis. Tezuka is a tangled mess of awe and pride and responsibility and pain and need and Fuji knows even before Tezuka tells him that there has been another private match.
Tezuka allows himself to rest his head on Fuji’s lap but will not let Fuji play with his hair.
“It’s okay to cry, you know,” Fuji says, and he knows that Tezuka can’t tell if he is teasing or serious.
“You say things like that on purpose,” Tezuka accuses, and it is true. For the moment, Tezuka is too busy being annoyed at Fuji to think about his match with Ryoma. Fuji smiles for real even though this is only a temporary fix, because at least Tezuka is letting him try.
*
Fuji thinks once as they’re lying on Tezuka’s bed, just quiet, just tangled together with their eyes closed that he wouldn’t mind if it was like this always. Fuji thinks, in that moment, that maybe he is in love with Tezuka, a little, wishes just in that moment that this wasn’t about pain, wishes that they could be about comfort, instead, or not even need that at all, just Tezuka and Fuji. Just that.
Then Tezuka opens his eyes and Fuji sees it: tennis. Tennis, and Ryoma, and Fuji wonders if everyone knows what expression means Yuuta, if that is the reason for the fear he sees in people’s eyes whenever he opens his.
They can’t be Tezuka and Fuji, wouldn’t be what they are anyway without the things that make it so they aren’t, but during moments like this, when all Fuji can feel is warm, he wishes that they could be anyway.
*
Yuuta stops talking to him one day and Fuji doesn’t understand why until he sees Yuuta and Ryoma practicing together, hitting angry balls at each other and Fuji can tell immediately that it isn’t Yuuta Ryoma is playing, that it isn’t Ryoma Yuuta sees.
He wonders for about a second if they—but he discards that idea just as quickly, because they aren’t fucked up like Fuji and Tezuka are; they’re not about pain and replacement and drowning and breathing like Fuji and Tezuka are.
“Echizen, I’m cutting in,” Fuji announces, as if it’s a dance he’s interrupting, because in a way it is. The interesting thing is that Ryoma lets him, but he remembers again that Ryoma is far too straightforward to pretend properly, and it makes rather a lot of sense after all. Fuji worries for a moment about Tezuka; he realizes the obvious, which is that Ryoma will likely go looking for him, but Yuuta is more important right now. Yuuta is always more important.
Yuuta is always most important.
Yuuta’s return goes out, rattling the fence violently, and Fuji smiles. “Are you done?”
“Shut up,” Yuuta spits, and serves at his face.
The rest of the game is like this, and it is not until they are alone in the locker room and Fuji’s arm is aching a little that Yuuta really talks.
“You love him,” Yuuta says, with something in his voice like surprise, something like anger, and Fuji imagines just for a moment fucking Mizuki in front of Yuuta to make him understand, but Yuuta is not Syusuke and probably wouldn’t realize what it meant anyway.
“You love him,” Yuuta says again, as if Fuji hadn’t heard it the first time, daring his brother to say something. For Fuji it’s almost as if Yuuta is begging him; Fuji doesn’t contradict what Yuuta is saying, and it isn’t technically a lie.
Then Fuji almost laughs at himself because he isn’t Tezuka; he is perfectly capable of separating Yuuta and Yuuta’s tennis, and can admit that he gives rather more of a damn about Yuuta. Most importantly, Fuji isn’t about sacrificing himself for others, but about winning for them, so he grabs Yuuta’s wrist and whispers, “You know I love you more than anything, Yuuta.”
Yuuta twists out of Fuji’s grip, and Fuji lets him, because the important thing is in the angle of Yuuta’s head and the exact moment his eyes close and the way Fuji thinks that being selfish is sometimes not a bad thing at all.
*
“Where were you yesterday? I couldn’t find you.” Tezuka’s arms are crossed and Fuji almost laughs because from Tezuka this is practically a tirade.
“I was busy,” Fuji replies lightly, and that should be enough. It isn’t, apparently.
“Yuuta?” Tezuka asks, and his voice is like needles, like glass, beautiful and cutting like an ancient but well-kept katana.
“Yes.” Fuji does not say that the world does not revolve around Tezuka and Ryoma. He does not remind Tezuka that loving his brother isn’t normal, that Fuji isn’t just here because it’s convenient, that while Tezuka is burning Fuji is drowning. He does not yell that yesterday, Tezuka should have been saving him.
He does not say any of these things; instead he thinks about the way Yumiko once said he was too kind. He wonders if she was right.
*
Fuji walks in on them in the locker room one day; they’re having the sort of conversation that makes Fuji feel he ought to either make his presence known or leave, even though no words are actually coming out of their mouths.
Then Ryoma says, “Buchou,” and Fuji can see the way his muscles are tensed, like he’s about to jump up and hit a smash if only Tezuka will send him the ball.
Tezuka doesn’t look frightened, or desperate--Don’t do it, Fuji thinks, don’t do it, completely unnecessarily, because Tezuka looks responsible.
Tezuka doesn’t even twitch and the look on Ryoma’s face is not that of a frustrated predator but of someone who had expected this but hadn’t been able to keep from trying anyway even though it hurts a little more each time.
Then Tezuka’s hand moves and something changes in Ryoma’s eyes but it is at that moment they notice Fuji standing there. Tezuka’s hand stays frozen in the air for a second before dropping to his side and suddenly Fuji doesn’t know what to do so he smiles and says, “Good afternoon, Tezuka, Echizen,” as if he hadn’t just interrupted them about to maul each other or worse.
Ryoma looks annoyed and the expression on Tezuka’s face is one Fuji doesn’t recognize. Ryoma must, though, because his eyes widen before he runs out of the room, slamming the door.
Ryoma is just a boy, Fuji thinks, human, but this is hard to remember when Tezuka sits down the moment the sound of Ryoma’s footfalls disappear, and it looks like breathing out, like falling, and Tezuka doesn’t say a word about laps.
*
Fuji observes the fish in Tezuka’s pond sometimes. When the sun sets, the water glows orange and the fish shine. It is always at that moment Fuji has to look away.
*
“One match, Buchou. Please.” Ryoma’s bow is low and his voice cracks; Fuji wonders at Ryoma choosing now to ask. They are standing in the middle of a hallway. Other students turn their heads as they walk by; Echizen Ryoma bowing to Tezuka Kunimitsu will be this lunch’s gossip.
“Please,” Ryoma repeats, and Fuji wonders if his eyes are closed, if they are open, if he is looking at the floor or at their shoes or seeing something else entirely. Fuji is glad he can’t see them; this he can understand.
Tezuka has been silent and completely unmoving. Fuji has many guesses about what he is thinking, but as is disturbingly more often becoming the case, he is completely devoid of certainty. Fuji imagines a clock ticking somewhere in the background. One. Two. Three. A bomb. Tick. Tick. Tick.
“One match,” Tezuka says finally, quietly.
Ryoma looks up and his eyes are strikingly luminous. Something inside Fuji is afraid; he can feel the tension in Tezuka beside him.
The other students still walk by, completely unknowing.
*
Fuji will think, This is where it started to fall apart.
*
“Aniki.” Yuuta’s voice is almost hesitant. Fuji looks up, his smile automatic, and Yuuta shakes his head.
“Not that smile, Aniki. Please.” It is a word Fuji so rarely hears from Yuuta that his eyes open in surprise; Yuuta looks satisfied.
“Don’t close them.” It is a whispered command, and when Yuuta moves closer, eyes open and scared and determined and so direct, when Yuuta’s lips brush against his, lightly, and his eyes finally go unfocused, Fuji doesn’t even blink.
*
Of course Fuji watches their match. Everyone does, because watching Tezuka play is inspiring and watching Ryoma play leaves people breathless and watching them together is like the scent of incense, like the ringing of a shrine bell. Their tennis looks sacred.
Then something changes, something in Ryoma’s wrist, in his eyes. Tezuka reacts and suddenly their match is so intense it makes Fuji’s chest hurt, makes him expect people to start shielding their eyes. It’s sex, Fuji thinks, and it isn’t just the shouts and the sweat and the tension and the way they are focused so entirely on each other. It’s the tennis.
They’re fucking, right here on the court in front of everyone, and they’re the only ones who don’t realize it.
*
Fuji stands shirtless in front of the mirror in his bedroom, music playing in the background, something in English with a beat that pulses through him like sex, with a melody that’s low and aching that makes him trace a finger along his collarbone, drag his hands down his chest and when he pulls off his pants it’s a slow slide and he can’t take his eyes off of himself. He’s standing there, staring, half-hard in his boxers, thinking, this is my throat, this is my shoulder, this is my arm, these are my veins underneath, these are my eyes. He’s looking at his eyes when he steps out of his boxers, when he thinks this is my cock, when he slides his hand lower and the music is still going, still aching softly, something that makes him almost want to cry and instead he fists himself, starts pumping slowly, slowly, still staring at his eyes because there’s something there he doesn’t comprehend.
He doesn’t hear Yuuta saying, “Aniki, turn the music down,” until the door opens because he’d forgotten to lock it and Yuuta is staring at him with the door still open and Fuji is still looking at himself. Then he says, “Yuuta,” and the door clicks shut but Yuuta is inside and still watching him and Fuji knows Yuuta is pressed against the door like he wants to escape but won’t, can’t, like he’s caught and Fuji still hasn’t stopped looking at his eyes. He might know exactly how Yuuta feels.
Then Fuji hears the soft shedding of clothing and the sound of the door locking and then he feels Yuuta warm behind him and then he shifts his focus, just a little, to see Yuuta in the mirror, his head over Fuji’s shoulder because Yuuta is taller and then he turns around.
When Yuuta’s lips touch Fuji’s neck, he thinks he hears waves crashing.
*
They are eating when Ryoma accosts them. That really is the only word for it, Fuji decides, putting down his chopsticks and smiling. “Hello, Echizen. Don’t you have a class now?”
Ryoma ignores him entirely. “Why did you turn down the Open, Buchou?”
Fuji wonders how Ryoma even knows; Tezuka hadn’t said anything. The only reason Fuji is aware of it is because he had seen the single crumpled piece of paper in Tezuka’s trash can. He pulls himself out of the memory: Tezuka is speaking.
“My focus is Seigaku. The U.S. Open would be a distraction.” Tezuka’s voice is too calm, and Fuji sees Ryoma’s hands make tiny fists on the table.
“Distraction?” Ryoma is just barely keeping his voice under a yell. “What about all those things you told me, Buchou? The first time? Why aren’t you going? I want you there—”
“Echizen. That’s enough.” Tezuka stands up and walks away, leaving his unfinished lunch behind.
Ryoma stays at the table for a long time, staring at Tezuka’s chopsticks as if they will give him the answer. Then he looks at Fuji, who has nothing to tell him.
*
Fuji will think, This is where it started to break.
*
“Syusuke.” His sister’s voice is soft as Fuji is exiting the kitchen.
He pauses and turns around.
“I saw you. Last night. You left the bathroom door open.”
“Ah.”
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Yumiko’s hands are twisting the fabric of her skirt and her voice is coming out high pitched and strangled—she wants to scream but can’t. “I saw you! I saw you kissing Yuuta—Syusuke, what were you thinking?”
“Are you going to tell?”
“I—no, of course not, but—”
“Don’t let Yuuta know.” Fuji turns and starts walking away.
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”
It feels like he is cutting himself with the edges of his smile. “Don’t I always, Oneesan?”
*
It feels like falling, like the color of cherry blossoms, like the very second before goodbye.
*
The day before Ryoma leaves for the U.S. Open, Tezuka challenges him to a match. Fuji doesn't stop him, because he knows that Tezuka is thinking about Wimbledon, about the Graveyard of Champions, about numbers that looked like they should have been backwards.
Afterwards, Tezuka doesn't tell Fuji what happened. He doesn't say who won. He doesn't talk at all for two days.
Ryoma wins the Open.
When he comes back, they win the Nationals. Fuji thinks it's almost junior high again, only he sees Ryoma kiss Tezuka when he thinks no one is looking, and realizes what Tezuka wouldn’t say. Afterwards, when Tezuka fucks Fuji, he sounds like he's crying. Fuji can envision the flames in the background and wishes hitting Tezuka would help.
*
It happens again. Tezuka and Ryoma are talking, and Fuji knows he isn’t supposed to be hearing it; it feels wrong, like the first time he’d sat outside Yuuta’s door listening for his name, but he is unable to move away, just like he had been unable then.
“Buchou!” Ryoma says, and Fuji hears Why? Why aren’t I enough? because Ryoma telegraphs his emotions like he plays tennis—loud and fearless and blinding.
Fuji knows what Tezuka wants to reply: Don’t you see you’re everything? but of course Tezuka doesn’t say anything and it isn’t in his eyes or the corner of his mouth or his left eyebrow. There isn’t anything for Ryoma to read so of course he doesn’t understand.
“Buchou...” Ryoma says once more, in a voice so soft Fuji almost can’t make it out. Ryoma looks so small, with his chin tilted up towards Tezuka, with his hands opening and closing uselessly at his sides.
Fuji has never thought of Ryoma as fragile before. It makes him feel cold, and the chill spreads until it’s ice in his stomach, making him nauseous because now Fuji knows exactly what is going to happen. He can see what Tezuka will do and what Ryoma will become. He knows exactly how they are going to destroy each other.
Fuji knows what it’s like to be losing a match with no hope of winning; he has seen it in the eyes of people he’s played. Tezuka says, “Echizen,” and Fuji can hear everything it means. Suddenly the worst thing in the world would be for Tezuka and Ryoma to see him.
Fuji has to walk away.
*
It feels especially like the moment before goodbye.
*
“What do you do when you’ve made a mistake, Yuuta? A big one?”
“Aniki?”
Yuuta’s eyes on him are too much; Fuji closes his. “Never mind.”
*
It is low but Fuji can hear it: the hiss Tezuka makes as Fuji slides off his shirt, sharp like the sound of opening a new can of tennis balls. Fuji looks at Tezuka’s back and sees the scratches, red-pink, and thinks Ryoma. He touches his finger to the tiny half-moon bruises on Tezuka’s bicep; Tezuka’s skin is hotter than usual and he doesn’t say anything and Fuji is sure.
*
Fuji looks at himself in the bathroom mirror. He remembers always being right and throws up in the sink. The toilet is half a meter to the right; Fuji curses and starts cleaning.
That night, he walks past Yuuta’s door without even looking at it. It doesn’t make a difference because Yuuta is waiting in Fuji’s room and Fuji is incapable of telling his brother to leave.
*
He sees the letter on Tezuka’s desk and knows what it means. The fact that it is sitting in the open says enough; Fuji doesn’t ask about it and Tezuka doesn’t answer him.
*
Tezuka’s mouth on his is too soft. Tezuka’s hand on his cock is too gentle; his own groans sink too fuzzily, edgelessly, into the sheets, the carpet, the curtains.
Tezuka’s name sounds muted when he moans it and his own is more whisper than gasp.
Fuji keeps his eyes closed and pretends it doesn’t feel like they’ve started pulling away. It isn’t time yet.
*
Fuji dreams of long row of glasses breaking, one by one. He tries to move closer, starts running after them, trying to catch up, trying to save just one. He doesn’t know why, he doesn’t know what will happen, but if he can only save one--
He reaches the end. The last glass explodes and the shards fly through him.
*
It shouldn’t be time yet.
*
His father’s eyes, he thinks, look like ice, look like doors slamming but for some reason all Fuji can think of are cherry blossoms falling. He doesn’t quite realize what’s happening, not even when Yuuta is saying, “Aniki, Aniki,” like he’s choking and somehow they are on the street tennis courts and Fuji has no idea what possessed him to bring them there, only that when he looks, they have their tennis rackets and bags filled with clothing that Fuji doesn’t remember packing but knows he must have because Yuuta is shaking like he’s about to fall apart, like he will if Fuji’s hand on his arm gets any looser than circulation-restricting. Part of Fuji wants to think—about how this happened, about what they are going to do but Yuuta is shaking, shaking, so Fuji pulls out Yuuta’s racket and hands it to him and tells him that they are going to play.
*
Showing up at Tezuka’s house is logical, or at least that is what Fuji thinks until Tezuka opens the door.
“Hello,” Fuji starts. Yuuta looks down. Tezuka looks at them both.
Tezuka is so very silent and Yuuta is clutching his hand so hard it’s painful, in fact, extremely so, but Fuji will not shake off his brother for anything in the world. Fuji spends the moment trying to guess what will come out of Tezuka’s mouth when he finally opens it: “What are you doing here?” “This is rather inconvenient.” “I was expecting this to happen.” “I see you were careless.”
“I’ll call Atobe,” is what Tezuka says.
Fuji thinks blinkingly that the inside of Tezuka’s house looks different; perhaps it is because his eyes are open or because Yuuta is standing beside him or because he and his brother have just been disowned. There are so many things he doesn’t remember noticing and he wants to point them out to Yuuta but his brother is still staring at the floor and Fuji doesn’t know what to say.
They sit down and Tezuka goes to prepare tea and Yuuta finally speaks. He touches the fabric of the couch with gentle fingers—his fearless-rough-beautiful Yuuta seeming almost afraid the furniture will bite him—and says, “Did you ever... you know... with him... here? On this couch, I mean.”
Fuji is suddenly flooded with memories of everything he’s ever not said or said wrong and is once again submerged in the feeling that he can never say the right thing to Yuuta. “It was for you,” would come out terrible, he thinks. He is saved from saying it by Tezuka’s return.
“Atobe says you can stay in one of his Tokyo apartments.” If it were anyone else, Fuji would feel indebted, but Atobe is strange when it comes to Tezuka.
Fuji nods, and they sit, and they drink, and Fuji tries to smile but feels himself failing. He stares at the walls instead, distantly noting excessive amounts of lavender, concentrating on the heat of the cup in his hands and Yuuta beside him instead of the quiet.
Somehow it is Tezuka who breaks the silence. “Shall I ask my parents if you can spend the night here?”
“No,” Fuji says, “we really should be going.” It feels wrong now, Yuuta here. Fuji has the fleeting thought of Ryoma joining them and the house exploding. It reminds him.
He makes Yuuta walk out ahead of him and turns around to look at Tezuka. “I’m going to need you,” he says to Tezuka as he walks out the door, “So try to survive until then.”
*
Fuji looks at Tezuka’s door, thinks, This really is the end. Yuuta squeezes his hand.
Fuji cannot let go.
*
*
*
Fuji closes the door behind him and Tezuka is alone. He walks up the stairs slowly, feeling each step beneath his feet and when he reaches his bedroom he pauses with his hand on the knob because everything feels different somehow.
He pushes the door open and the smell of burning wood hits him; downstairs his grandfather is building a fire. He can hear Fuji’s voice in his head: How appropriate.
Sorry, Fuji, Tezuka thinks, as he picks up the envelope. Tezuka is ready; he lets go and it’s so easy. He imagines flames and everything else quickly melting away.
Ryoma is waiting.
