Prince Of Tennis Fan Fiction ❯ To Sedate ❯ Chapter 5 ( Chapter 5 )

Fuji sat in English class the next day. He was beginning to zone off again. With his hand supporting his chin, he was staring out the window rather than looking over at the teacher, who was currently lecturing on vocabulary that Fuji probably should've been taking notes on. Tezuka and his encounter yesterday was fresh into his mind. Who wouldn't have expected that his mind would wander after something like that? He was a teenager, and had a crush on another boy. To top it off, Tezuka wasn't a “touchy-feely” sort of person. So, being able to touch Tezuka, even though it was just the fingertips, was like finding gold in bleak and desolate tundra. A teacher's figure did in fact do enough to snap him out of those thoughts, though. Almost rudely, he fell roughly back to reality. Before him was a peeved-looking English teacher, his teacher's face fixed in a stern gaze, much drier than something Tezuka could ever muster.

 

“Fuji-kun, do you care to tell me what exactly is bothering you so much that you can't pay any attention to my lectures?” This was, after all, the third time that he'd caught Fuji staring out the window in such a clueless manner as of late, and he obviously wasn't very happy about it. “I'd like that you would go out in the hall and think about the values of paying attention for a while. We'll speak after class.” With his classmate's eyes fixed firmly on him, he left the classroom and went to stand against the wall outside the door. Tenshi came walking to him from down the hallway.

 

“ Shuusuke, is something wrong? In trouble? What'd you do? Not paying attention again?” Sometimes, Tenshama was able to read his mind exactly. It was eerie in Fuji's mind, and something that was hard to believe. It was just his luck that it was in English class, too. Really, he hadn't ever had trouble in the class. However, with the goings-on with Tezuka, his grades were beginning to suffer. Fuji wasn't superhuman. There was only so much that one could handle before slowly beginning to break down.

 

“Don't worry about it, okay?” He brushed a hand across Fuji's cheek. Fuji only ignored it, probably irritated slightly. “You need to relax. Just try and focus. You shouldn't always worry and over think things. There's only so much one can analyze a situation before it's pointless.” Fuji raised an eyebrow slightly. Tenshi, when he first met him, used to never make sense. Now, he was beginning to get more and more logical by the day while Fuji's sanity slowly swirled down the drain. “I know you can't stop thinking about Tezuka, but you have to try. It's not worth throwing your life away for it. You know your mother will be disappointed if she discovers you aren't doing your best in school. Don't ruin your life for something that's unrequited.”

 

Maybe he could've understood that advice a while back, but now the words sounded foreign to him. Mumbling slightly under his breath, he looked out the window.

 

His teacher stepped outside. “You can come back inside now, Fuji-kun. I'd like it right now, though, if you would tell me if there's anything bothering you.” The man's hand rested upon his hips, and he looked at Fuji seriously. Fuji, though, didn't seem to notice. He shook his head and smiled.

 

“No, sir, there's nothing wrong. I just didn't get a lot of sleep last night. I was zoning off. I'm sorry, it won't happen again.”

 

“Very well. Come in, then. If this happens again, though, there will be trouble.” Fuji nodded and headed back to his seat.

 

“I'll hand back your papers now, okay.” A few weeks back they'd been required to write a paper in English. Fuji, naturally, had worked to do his best at it. The paper didn't have requirements that were too strict. After all, students weren't fluent in English. That didn't stop Fuji from trying his best. It turned out the paper had been a little past, one page, too.

 

There was a small flick of the paper as the teacher placed the paper he had written on his desk. With a slow, sinking feeling, Fuji picked up the paper. There were red marks all over his paper correcting his grammar, spelling, and other items. Up at the top of the paper, the teacher had written Try a little harder to check your grammar before you turn assignments in. He gulped. The score at the top of this paper wasn't just bad; it was horrible. He focused his eyes ahead, trying to ignore the flip his stomach did. He'd done his best to make sure his grammar was correct, for the most part. What had happened that made him do so badly on the paper?

 

Slightly concerned, He picked up the paper and had a closer look at it, squinting at all his mistakes. Head hanging low, he put the paper in his desk. Maybe he should've asked their teacher for help, but now he was too distracted to do anything of the sort. He wasn't in the mood to deal with another

 

Tenshi seemed to be inclined to worry about Fuji. Sometimes Fuji found it helpful, but other times he wished Tenshi would just leave him alone to do as he chose. After all, he knew perfectly well how to take care of himself. He didn't need Tenshama telling him what to do of every second of every day. Sometimes he would arch an eyebrow and tilt his head before answering. The thought that Tenshi might have some compulsive anxiety disorder had passed his thoughts more than a few times; the concept was, in fact, growing more and more prevalent by the day as soon as Tenshi's worry escalated. Touching his forehead and closing his eyes, Fuji would sigh softly. Really, it was a little stressful constantly having to answer the same question. The strange man wasn't the only one to constantly ask him “Are you okay, Fuji?”

 

Nothing really came of Tezuka, at least from what Fuji could say. Earlier in the last month, he'd asked Fuji if he was ill. Upon the beginning of the inter-school ranking tournaments, he'd asked again, just offhandedly after practice. Sometimes it made him feel hollow, to smile and say, “Yes, I am alright.”

 

After all, it was Tezuka he was so enamored with.

 

He was supposed to trust Tezuka.

 

It was quickly becoming Tenshama's trademark to bounce that tennis ball up and down. Fuji didn't know for what reason he did, because he seemed to not know a thing about tennis. Slowly, he'd picked up the question, but earlier he'd asked Fuji what exactly a fault. Either where he'd come from, he'd never played tennis, or Tenshi was absolutely crazy. After everything that happened, the prodigy wasn't sure of which. All he was able to do was answer whatever questions came up. Other than that, Tenshi seemed obsessed with his style. Eiji seemed to pique his interest as well, with the sort of acrobatic style he played.

 

“Is he a gymnast?” he asked one day.

 

Fuji smiled.

 

“No, that's just the way he plays. I suppose he wouldn't make a bad gymnast, though, given the thought.” Fuji was able to see why Tenshi was so interested in the way Eiji played, especially since it appeared that this was the first time in his life that he'd ever seen somebody play tennis before. Then again, Tenshi was a foreigner, with a slowly improving grammar, but a very strong accent to make up for that improvement.

 

Sometimes he would hesitate, asking Tenshama to repeat it again, because he hadn't heard it through the thick, unrecognizable accent. What he could easily tell was that Tenshama hadn't been in Japan before, but he seemed to adapt easily. Currently, Fuji was teaching him Kanji. He'd already picked up katakana and hiragana very quickly. Every day Fuji introduced five new characters to him, so Tenshi was learning fast. For a foreigner, he was becoming awfully contempt at the writing system. It surprised Fuji that somehow, still, the man wasn't able to speak with proper grammar.

 

“Which one does that mean?” Tenshama asked while Fuji was writing a report about a rainforest's ecosystem. This was a rather simple character, but Fuji hadn't taught it to Tenshi yet. Curiously, he looked over it. Usually, it took him this long to read over something that Fuji had written. After all, it was obvious that Japanese wasn't his native tongue. “I know this one mean's `forest', so what does that one mean?” He added on after a minute.

 

“That one means `rain'. So, it's `rainforest' that I'm writing.”

 

Distraught as he may have been over his feelings for Tezuka, Tenshi seemed to be able to correct it. Smiling around him, Fuji did sometimes feel annoyed, but for the most part, Tenshama's cheerfulness rubbed off. Fuji was beginning to be happier being around him. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Tenshi sat next to him sitting Indian-style. Fuji didn't seem to notice how close they were in proximity when Tenshi leaned over to put over at another kanji character that he had written, asking Fuji to explain it again.

 

Drumming his fingers slightly, Fuji hesitated and then wrote a little more. Inwardly, he was groaning to himself. Right now, he still had his English work to do. Ever since the bad paper, his English had slowly been declining. Even the quality of his notes, no matter how much he tried to focus, was getting worse and worse by the lesson. Now whenever he had to look at the letters, his eyes blurred and he felt immensely dizzy. Tonight, it was translating sentences in his workbook. It shouldn't have been to hard, but somehow fate had found it a way to make it impossible.

 

He couldn't disappoint his mother by not doing his best in school.

 

He couldn't let Tezuka get to him so much as making him fail his classes.

 

He was slowly beginning to lose the person he was in the process…

”Hey,” Tenshi called, pointing over to the sheet again and leaning close to Fuji's shoulder. For a moment, Fuji thought he'd ask another question. He wasn't in a state to answer it, either. For goodness sake, he didn't even know what he was really writing. “This is spelled wrong. What you wrote is actually a word, but there should be an `e' there, not an `a'.”

 

Tenshi spoke English?

 

“Oh…” Fuji said for a moment, his eyebrows knitting in slight worry. “Thanks a lot. Taking his pencil, he erased his previous answer. It really was a surprise, and it made his heart jump a little. When the scratching of the pencil stopped, and the correct answer was in place, Tenshi leaned back and continued to look at his worksheet.

 

“I didn't know you spoke English.” He said. Tenshi shrugged.

 

“I picked it up a while back.”

 

“Do you know if anything else is wrong?”

 

“Not that I can see.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

That was a rather worthwhile skill. Up until now, Tenshi had always been the one that asked the questions. Rather it be about tennis, Japanese, or just about Fuji. Going back to his English homework, Fuji felt grateful. Pausing after a minute, he pointed with his pencil to another word. “Do you know what this means?” he queried, unable to figure it out.

 

“It means `help',” he answered simply. “So this would mean `She helped her mother with the chores in the kitchen.'” Fuji wrote the proper word in the blank and went back to working on his homework, wondering if Tenshi was American or something. Tenshi didn't sound American, though. He'd met foreigners from America before, and they always sounded so much different. They sounded foreign, but modern. Tenshi's accent was odd… odd in the sense that it sounded ancient. Fuji hesitated for only a moment on the thought.

 

“Hey, Tenshi?” he queried, looking down intently at his paper so as not to even give passing glance to the man. Stretching his arms above his head, Tenshama paused for a moment, laying his hands in his lap.

 

“Hmm?” was the pensive response.

 

“If you were in my situation, what would you do about Tezuka?” Tenshi seemed to like him, even though Fuji was able to faintly sense it, he paid no heed to it. Perhaps such a question was cruel, and could have painful effects. Touching his chin, Tenshi paused, trying to think of some sort of suitable answer. Despite how little Tenshi acted like an adult, Fuji was seeking his expertise since he was obviously older.

 

`Pedophile!'

 

The thought ripped nastily through his brain, just as offhandedly as it had been that Fuji had brought up a question about Tezuka. Shaking these thoughts off, he might have decided then to do in spite of those thoughts, and draw Fuji into an embrace. With his fingers woven slightly through Fuji's hair, he laid his chin on Fuji's head. Painful as it was…

 

“I'd hold onto him, if you really want him so much. Don't give in.” No, that's not what his thoughts told him to do. Cruel, though, as it may have seemed, Tenshi decided that was best. `He's suffering. Make him forget Tezuka.' A small frown made way across his lips. Being so much like Fuji, he never frowned, until now. It wasn't his place to. After all, he was just a…

 

Random stranger.

 

“You should know such things. Just try and think with your common sense. Remember, you haven't told Tezuka you liked him. You've got a good chance with him. Go ahead. The sakuras are in bloom. Invite him on a picnic or something over the weekend. I've seen you two studying together before. He'll enjoy it as much as you do.” Slightly, Fuji stiffened. He'd seen them? The times when he had Tezuka over, Tenshi was never anywhere within plain sight, at least not for Fuji. Fuji blinked.

 

Really, he didn't understand it sometimes, why Tenshi didn't just go off and find a boyfriend his own age. With all he had been doing lately, it seemed like he really needed it. So, why did Tenshi persist? Why did Tenshi wait after practice and always seem to be delighted in playing with a tennis ball even though he didn't really know much about tennis at all. Tenshi saw it right to call him by his first name even after their first meeting, and seemed to have virtually no home at all.

 

Fuji liked the spring, and it was slowly fading away. Soon enough the sakura trees would be normal, free of pink petals, and life would fall into summer, fading once again to a pattern Fuji cared not to memorize. Back at the tennis courts, a cheerful young man ran around the tennis courts for warm-up laps, followed by his red-haired friend and the team's vice captain, Oishi. Where was that person now? Lips quivering, he shut his eyes. He wanted to lie down and sleep. Cold. He felt cold. A breeze reached him, but was like ice against clammy skin, making him freeze up slightly.

 

“It's easy enough for you to say. You're not the one dealing with it.”

 

“You don't think I've ever been though it?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

 

“It isn't that—it's just that this is Tezuka.” Fuji paused for just a moment to yawn. He hadn't realized how nice it was to be able to lean in against Tenshi's chest not because it provided emotional comfort, but rather, because it provided him with a nice place to rest his head.

 

“Don't you think that all the times out of all the times I've watched you, I've been able to get to know him just a while, from a distance. You worry too much, and I don't think that your consequences will be bad if he doesn't like you. Take a risk, Shuusuke, feel the thrill. You used to like to do that, didn't you? You were confident.”

 

Fuji muttered something unintelligible under his breath and shut his eyes out of exhaustion. “You sure?” his lack of confidence in the matter didn't seem to matter as of much right now. He was just discussing. “I used to like it. Liking Tezuka was the best at first because it was thrilling to be around him. Now it's just tiring. I feel so helpless. If I try and do anything, nothing will happen, after all…”

 

“Have a bit more confidence, Shuusuke.”

 

“It's tiring, thinking about it,” he muttered under his breath a good few minutes later. Tenshi shifted back so that Fuji was no longer lying against his chest, rather, he had his head on the pillow. Unwillingly unwinding his fingers from Fuji's hair, and placed them in his lap again, surveying the teen.

 

“Then sleep a little,”

 

If only everything could fade into nothing. Then, love wouldn't matter anymore. In darkness, there is silence. Emotionless. It's a good idea; “paradise” is; yet it is so hard to believe in that it takes the very thing that, in the end, is the downfall of many. If only it could be conquered, or at least controlled.

 

Tenshi thinks that saying love is a person's downfall is like saying, “it is, but it isn't.” Fuji may be able to ask advice on love itself, but otherwise, Tenshama felt just as clueless as Fuji. Sometimes, the passage of time yielded no knowledge but simple experience. It was the experience that showed Tenshi the painful truth. Unless Fuji was able to get control of the emotions, he'd fall victim like so many others had. Like Tenshi had, except that had been a long time ago…

 

At his own home, Tezuka looks up to the blue sky. Would you think of me when I think of you, miss me when I miss you, long for me when I long for you. Tezuka is always so stoic that he's used to being able to understand and easily cope with emotions. Now his worry for Fuji is getting the best of him.

 

Fuji…