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Under-17 World Cup, Australia

Because the world did not feel inclined to simply arrange itself to suit Fuji's desires, the U-17 World Cup concluded without him playing Tezuka.

It had been a foregone conclusion from very early on, with little Fuji could do about it: he had been set to play doubles with Duke in the exhibition match against Germany but not in the actual semi-finals, and that was that. Tezuka had watched them win, Fuji had watched Tezuka win against Yukimura in turn, and if the two of them were ever going to play one another again in an official capacity it was going to have to be at some other time. Japan had eked out the win on Germany and gone on to play the United States in the finals. At that point, the most interesting thing for Fuji to do had been to watch Tezuka watch Echizen, leading him to conclude that the world of juniors tennis was founded on a sort of chain voyuerism where players pinned their sights on other players who refused to look back at them.

With the competition now finished, Fuji was playing a one-sided game of hide and seek at the all-countries social mixer that the organisers had thrown for them. The cavernous hotel banquet hall the representatives were in was filled with chatter in a dozen different languages and yet also devoid of any sign of Tezuka.

'Yukimura,' said Fuji softly to his roommate as the two of them stood in line for the buffet table. 'I might be back late tonight. Could you cover for me?'

Yukimura gave him a curious look but did not press for details. 'Honestly, I don't think you'll need an excuse with the ruckus the rest of the team is going to make.' He nodded at Kirihara, who was at the end of the buffet with an overloaded plate clutched in his hands. Said plate looked in imminent danger of decorating the floor with its contents as Kirihara gesticulated in tennis player sign language at one of the Americans.

Fuji laughed quietly but did not make fun: Oishi had not been much better with Volk, the German professional and Tezuka's new north star.

'Good luck,' Yukimura added, as if he knew what was on Fuji's mind. Maybe he did, Fuji wagered. Tennis was, after all, played for the public to see, and people like Yukimura probably saw more than most.

Eventually, Fuji spotted Tezuka hiding in plain sight equidistant between the sponsors' tables and the emergency exits: a quiet spot that gave him a good vantage point on the room without having to interact with anyone.

Fuji went and found Oishi. 'Look,' he prompted. 'Isn't that Tezuka over there?'

It was all the push that Oishi needed: five minutes later and Tezuka was a captive of Team Japan. The group dragged Tezuka to a table, subjected him to a barrage of questions (many, such as "why didn't you tell us you were going to be playing for Germany?", very justified), and managed along the way to suck a few of Tezuka's teammates in by virtue of Atobe's combined charisma and bilingual German. Though Tezuka was stiff at first, as if he'd been bracing for a negative reaction to his having turned traitor, Fuji watched him slowly relax into the familiar position of being the centre of the Japanese team's attention. He wondered if it was the most Japanese Tezuka had spoken in a while.

Fuji gave the increasingly rowdy group twenty minutes, then slotted himself neatly next to Tezuka and set himself up as a lifeline. 'Talking is thirsty work, isn't it? Do you want to get something to drink?'

Tezuka looked sidelong at him; Fuji tilted his head in response. They both overheard Atobe loudly suggest that they all abandon the mixer in favour of an Atobe Group restaurant where there would be better food, and took the opportunity to make their escape.

They found some drinks, then snuck out of the hall and wandered until they found a small courtyard garden with benches set around a prettily lit-up water feature. They sat down, glad for the quiet.

'This was quite the World Cup,' Fuji said after they had watched the fountain for a while: a friendly opening rally.

Tezuka nodded, clearly dropping back into a more laconic mode now that they were alone. 'Japan did well.'

'My apologies for knocking the defending champions out.' Germany had been the winners for the last seven years running. 'Did your team give you any trouble over it?'

'No,' Tezuka said, shrugging. 'I know nothing that would have been of any use to the Germans even if I had said anything. Everyone's tennis has grown. Ultimately Volk lost the decider: the results speak for themselves. It was a good series.'

Fuji was about to offer a polite rejoinder when Tezuka turned and looked at him, gaze flat and expectant. 'Why didn't you play?'

Fuji paused. 'Our coach decided not to put me in the lineup.' That was the truth, but not all there was to it. Fuji shook his head, helpless to explain. 'If you're going to ask me about how my tennis has changed, Tezuka... I don't know how much more I have to say. I played seriously in that exhibition match, even if it was a doubles game.'

Fuji had played more than seriously. He had played his heart out; laid bare all the work he had done for Tezuka to witness and judge. He had played his heart out even though he hadn't even known if he'd had the heart for it at all: tennis had never been a true passion of his until so recently. Fuji was good at it, but he had always played for other people. Even on the occasions when he'd been pushed to want to play to win, he'd played to win against someone: a person, a goalpost against which to measure his skills. Tennis itself was... just a game. Or it had been, until the day Tezuka had walked away. The memory of Tezuka abandoning midway the game he had promised Fuji and then leaving immediately afterwards to make his own way in Germany was branded onto Fuji's soul.

Fuji had wanted Tezuka to beat him: wanted Tezuka to beat the strange and prickly new love of tennis he had developed out of him, wanted Tezuka to squash the desire before it bubbled over and turned a no-stakes past-time into an obsession. Fuji had wanted to feel exactly how insignificant his own tennis was in comparison, wanted the shame of losing to trump everything else the game had given him. But Tezuka had walked away. Not from Fuji, but from the position Fuji had forced him into: being the executioner of Fuji's budding ambitions.

Now here they were, a spare few months and – or so it felt – an entire lifetime later. For the first time in his life, Fuji had tried. He had trained. He had put in the work to make himself capable of more than just defensive, reactive tennis: now he had at his fingertips an offensive play style that would let him win matches on something other than the back of pretty plays and high-level extemporisation. Fuji looked down at his hands. He opened and closed the fingers of his right hand; felt the callouses that had built up from all the hours of training he'd once never bothered with.

'You have what it takes,' Tezuka said quietly. 'You've never pushed yourself before. But you could.'

Fuji leaned back against the bench and looked up at the sky. 'Will it be worth it?' he asked, knowing it was a question only he could answer. What would chasing after professional tennis mean? What would it cost? What else would he have to give up to focus on this one, singular thing he was not even sure he loved enough? He'd never settled – not on photography, nor on his love for cacti and other strange corners of botany – but Fuji had also never imagined a world in which he'd have to focus so much on one thing that he'd have to give those other things up. Fuji looked over at Tezuka, expression wry. 'Has it been worth it for you?'

Tezuka shifted slightly, his equivalent of a shrug. 'I have only been in Germany a few months. I have not played enough to truly say, but I think it will be.' He took a sip of water, and seemed to measure his next words carefully. 'I've spent the last few years focused on Seigaku. I think it was the right time for me to go: now, before high school and another team that I would not want to leave behind.'

Fuji nodded. 'You're going to stay in Germany, aren't you?'

'Yes,' Tezuka said. 'Volk's agency might sign me to a pro contract that will make playing the junior ITF circuit significantly easier for me. If not, I have also had scouting offers from a number of tennis academies.'

They were both quiet for a little while after that. The garden was silent save for the burbling of the fountain and a low breeze rustling through the trees. Winds of change, Fuji supposed. He eventually broke the silence, feeling thoughtful. 'Tezuka, I still don't know if I came here playing with pure intentions.'

'Hm?'

'On one hand, I did learn how to play tennis for my own sake, to take it seriously for my own reasons.' Fuji looked away from the sky and shifted so that they were facing one another. He made sure that Tezuka met his gaze before he said, 'Ultimately, though, I wonder if my reason for playing is still you.'

Tezuka did him the honour of neither looking away nor hesitating before he said, 'If you wanted me to notice your game, I did. Like I said: you played well. You've grown.'

It was high praise, genuine praise, and a neat sidestep of things left unsaid. Fuji cocked his head to the side. 'But would I have worked as hard if I hadn't known you would be watching?'

'Did you know I would be watching?' retorted Tezuka, because it was true that no one from Japan had known that Tezuka would be at the World Cup at all, much less representing Germany.

'You would have found a way,' Fuji said confidently, eyes crinkling as he smiled. 'Wouldn't you?'

Tezuka did not deny it, nor did he look away. He was braver abroad than he had been in Japan, Fuji thought: less burdened by certain expectations, truer to his own goals and ways of thinking.

'What do you need to do?' Tezuka asked him. 'What must you do to find out whether you truly want to play tennis?'

'I need to play the game somewhere you aren't,' Fuji joked. He paused. It did seem that simple now that he had said it out loud.

Tezuka was ready to make the sacrifices needed to turn pro: in some ways, he had made sacrifices by not embarking on professional tennis sooner. Tezuka was going to leave Japan and he was not going to look back, not for a long while. What better time, Fuji realised, for him to find out if he wanted to make that same commitment than these next few years? He could test his mettle in high school and U-17 Nationals tennis played at the highest standard Japan had to offer. He could do it, more importantly, out of sight and mind of Tezuka, who had always made the reasons Fuji played serious tennis feel confused.

Tezuka seemed to read his mind. 'High school tennis won't be what you are used to.'

It wouldn't, Fuji knew. Seigaku's third-years were already splintering apart as their futures started to diverge: Oishi off to a high school that would put him on a better path to medical school, Taka-san to his family's sushi restaurant. If Fuji wanted to make tennis a priority, he would have to do so by himself; a disbanding tennis club would generate no momentum to ride off of.

Fuji shifted so that their shoulders touched, and felt Tezuka lean into him in turn. 'Don't wait for me,' Fuji warned him. 'I can't promise you that I won't relapse while you're gone.'

'One way or another,' Tezuka said quietly, 'I want to see where you end up when you try.'

This was how Tezuka always made people burn up inside, reflected Fuji: his simple desire to see others live up to their potential was something people could not help but respond to. Fuji was no more immune than anyone else; he had just more exposure to it, more time to let it sink down and take root somewhere deep inside of him.

'Tezuka,' Fuji said, kicking his legs out in front of him and stretching down to touch his toes. 'Would you like to play a game? Not seriously; just for fun.' He turned and gave Tezuka a look up over his shoulder, his eyes wide open.

Tezuka looked steadily back down at him. 'Fine. Let's see how much you've changed.'

They snuck off to their rooms to get their gear and met at one of the hotel's courts. It was late and the floodlights threw everything into stark high relief, but the air was cool and there was something simmering under Fuji's skin that he did not, for once, try to ignore.

Tezuka served. The ball crashed down near the centre line, fast but not unreturnable, and it set the pace of their game: back and forth and quick and hard but always just this side of what either of them could respond to. By silent agreement they ended up playing not for points but for the longest rallies possible.

When Fuji finally used one of his new counters, he felt more than saw Tezuka activate tenimuhou.

Fuji's next shot was a lob so ridiculous and out of place that it was frankly comical, and Tezuka could do nothing except step back and hit an equally terrible slice to keep the ball in play.

'We're playing for fun, Tezuka,' Fuji called out from his side of the net as he hit back a lousy dropshot. 'Otherwise we'll be up all night and everyone will get the wrong impression.'

'What impression is that?' Tezuka responded, deadpan, and smashed the ball down so near the line on the far court that neither of them could tell if it was in or out.

Fuji walked over to the ball and picked it up. 'Draw?' he asked.

'Draw,' Tezuka agreed, and they met at the net to bump fists, both of them smiling hard.

Before they drew apart, Fuji encircled Tezuka's wrist with his fingers and pulled him in slightly. They were now standing very close to one another, the net the only thing really separating them.

Tezuka looked down at him and raised an eyebrow. 'Is this a good idea?' he asked, not resisting.

Fuji brushed his thumb over Tezuka's pulse point and considered it. It was a terrible idea: Tezuka had his professional career to focus on, and even Fuji could see that pushing their friendship further now of all times would do nothing for his attempt to clarify his own motivations.

Fuji let go and opted instead to lean in and rest his forehead against Tezuka's collarbone. He felt Tezuka touch the back of his neck with the tip of his fingers, stroking gently.

They pulled back by mutual, silent agreement. Fuji offered Tezuka the ball. 'Another round?' he asked, though they'd just agreed to stop.

'It's your serve,' Tezuka said, and went to take up his position on the far court.

Yukimura leaned up in his bed when Fuji returned to their room later that night. The digital clock on the nightstand read nearly midnight.

'Would you mind if I showered?' Fuji asked quietly, setting his racquet bag down.

'Go ahead,' hummed Yukimura sleepily, watching Fuji through lidded eyes. 'Who won?'

'We decided to call it a let,' Fuji quipped, and went to get clean.

Tokyo, winter

Yuuta rang the doorbell twice – the way he always did to announce that he was home – then shoved his keys into the lock and opened the door. He jostled his way in, fighting his jacket and his tennis bag and his luggage to fit through the doorway: coming back from St. Rudolph's for winter break was always such a pain.

'I'm home,' he called out, kicking off his shoes in the entryway.

'Yuuta!' Yumiko appeared and, in her sisterly way, got all up in his shit without actually helping him with any of his stuff. 'It's nice to have you home again. Have you had lunch? I'm making something special for Shuusuke.'

'Yeah, I could eat lunch,' Yuuta said, but then muttered 'What did aniki do to deserve you cooking, though?' under his breath. While Yumiko was good at many things, she was better off sticking with baking. Her cooking could challenge even their brother's warped sense of taste.

'He needs good food while he's cramming for his entrance exams,' Yumiko said as Yuuta dragged his heavy suitcase along.

'Entrance exams?' repeated Yuuta, baffled. He finally managed to get all his bags inside and turned to find his brother seated at their dining room table, books stacked neatly in front of him and actually studying.

'What are you doing?' Yuuta asked, aghast.

His brother looked up at him. 'Welcome back,' Shuusuke beamed, putting down his pencil.

'Why are you studying,' Yuuta demanded. 'You never study for anything.'

'Maa,' Shuusuke shrugged easily, looking about as unstressed and fresh as any third-year middle schooler had probably ever looked while cramming for entrance exams.

'I thought you were just going to go right up to Seigaku's senior high section,' Yuuta continued accusingly as his brother tried to distract him by helping with his luggage. 'Are you–'

'I'm applying to Rikkaidai Fuzoku,' Shuusuke said brightly, cutting off Yuuta's semi-hysterical wondering about whether his brother was trying to get into St. Rudolph's just to drive him insane. At least it was just him applying to Rikkai– wait, what?

'Wait, what?'

Kanagawa, spring

'This is not right,' was the first thing Kirihara Akaya said to Fuji the day they met on Rikkai's campus, the both of them dressed in the same uniform. 'This is just too freaking weird, Fuji-san.'

They were on the practice courts. Since the junior and senior high school divisions shared the facilities, it was inevitable that this was happening: Fuji found it somehow very charming that Kirihara had come around, like a lost puppy, to watch the senior division train.

Fuji looked down at the western-style blazer he was wearing. 'I suppose this will take some getting used to,' he admitted, tugging down the knot on his already-loosely done tie.

'But why are you here?' Kirihara wailed, his world view clearly crumbling. 'Yukimura-buchou, why is he here?'

Yukimura shook his head with a smile. 'I'm not your captain anymore, Akaya.'

'You'll always be my captain,' Kirihara muttered mutinously. 'Just like how he'll always be Seigaku.'

Fuji supposed that there was more truth to that statement than Kirihara knew, but just shrugged cheerfully. He tucked his hands into his pockets and said, 'It's a pity that matches between junior and senior high players aren't allowed,' and smiled as sunnily at Kirihara as he could manage.

'This is the worst,' Kirihara groused. 'Absolutely the worst.'

You are the worst, Fujiko, Eiji texted him. This first week of school has been so weird! No you, no Oishi, how am I supposed to pass any of my classes anymore?!

<< I'm sure you'll make it through somehow, Fuji texted back. Just because we're in different schools now doesn't mean we're going to stop being friends.

I don't like this. I knew Oishi was going to go, but you didn't say anything until practically the last minute!!!

<< I had to make up my mind about some things. I decided I wanted to give tennis a try. For real, this time.

Yeah, because you're one of the top national players WITHOUT EVEN TRYING FOR REAL, Fujiko.

<< Maa.

This is about Tezuka, isn't it??? Because of that crazy game you played with him before he left the U-17 camp and ditched us for Germany?!

<< This is actually exactly not about Tezuka.

The only person who makes you want to play ~real tennis is him! And maybe Ochibi, but I'm pretty sure that's because Ochibi was taking up all of Tezuka's attention and you were jealous or something.

<< Thanks...

I'm serious! Are you going to try to go pro?

<< I don't know, Fuji answered, more truthfully than he would have to nearly anyone else. But this was Eiji: Eiji who was so simple that people thought he was simple, even though that was not the case. Eiji felt things and listened to the things he felt, and there were far more people in the world too foolish to know how to do that than there were people, like Eiji, capable of letting their hearts guide them.

So why have you gone to GO PLAY TENNIS AT RIKKAIDAI with Yukimura and Sanada and that crazy devil kid????

<< To find out.

Oh.
Well.
When you put it that way.
Is their cafeteria food any better? Because ours still sucks and I miss trading you for your mum's desserts.

Rikkai was not quite like any other school Fuji had attended, but it was not hard to fit in. People were people, at the end of the day: they had their passions and their pettiness and their joys and their disappointments, and it was always interesting to watch other people live their very varied lives. Fuji was familiar with – and liked being – just a step on the outside, looking in: it was why he liked photography, putting things in-frame. Making friends, consequently, was not difficult.

He ended up in the same class as Yagyuu, which was in some ways like living with a much inferior mirror-verse version of Tezuka. It was not an insult to Yagyuu's character – he was, like Tezuka, prim, proper, and prone to moments of unprompted madness when around the right people – as it was an acknowledgement of Tezuka's uniqueness. Yagyuu was as capable a student council member as Tezuka had been, as smart, and as composed, but there was nevertheless something missing. Passion, perhaps?

Fuji knew irony when it stared him in the face. Still, he took the time to get to know Yagyuu better.

There was a wickedness to Yagyuu's sense of humour that Fuji could appreciate: it was borderline vicious, and sharp enough to cut. Seigaku had been a monstrously good school to play tennis in, but Fuji's teammates had been friends first and competitors second: they'd played always as a team, sacrificing for one another rather than viewing each other as rivals. Fuji knew that he would have been a very different person if he had had Yagyuu and Niou as formative friends. He would have had much more reason to sharpen both his claws and his tongue, because that was what Rikkai was like: competitive to the very edge of cruelty.

It was interesting in its own way: Fuji, after all, had never had to try before.

'Fuji-kun,' Yagyuu said to him as they walked to practice together one afternoon. 'I hope you realise that we're not going to take it easy on you. It's unlikely that the seniors will allow all that many first-years to become regulars.'

'Which means,' Niou said from Fuji's other flank, 'you're probably going to get crushed like a bug.'

'I've beaten you once, Niou-kun,' Fuji said, not missing a beat. 'I'm happy to do so again.'

Niou threw his head back and laughed. 'It's not me you're gonna have to worry about if you want a place on the team, puri.'

Fuji smiled from cheek to cheek. 'I don't think I'm going to be the one worrying.'

A few weeks later, Fuji found himself reflecting on his new environs. Playing tennis in Seigaku had been about watching to see where the team needed reinforcements the most. He'd frustrated Tezuka by refusing to push himself to be the best he could be, but Tezuka had ultimately had to balance that against the utility Fuji's flexibility afforded them in both doubles and singles. Fuji hadn't developed a style of his own so much as he had moulded himself to fit Seigaku's needs, and he'd found satisfaction in being needed and helping his friends.

Here, there were no more needs to fill but his own.

Now he was playing tennis at Rikkai, and Fuji was not sure if it was the team or himself that made it feel so different. Practices were certainly as brutal as rumours had made them out to be, and competition was fierce. Still, it wasn't their coach or even the proximity of players like Yukimura which was making Fuji do extra rounds of cardio and additional weights at the gym. There was nobody holding him to the time Fuji now regularly set aside to review his own matches and those of pros he thought worth studying. He kept waiting to get bored by the tedium of it all: the repetitiveness, the way it was so detached from direct human contact. Instead, Fuji kept finding nuances to the game that had never occurred to him before: a deeper understanding of ball physics, of physiology, of how far he could push his body before the physical gave way to the mental.

Fuji had always thought that he understood tennis: he'd always been able to pick apart other people's plays, understand what made them tick. But tennis was a single-player game, and he was that player: not his opponent. Had he ever understood his own tennis? Had it existed substantially enough to be understood? Counter-punching was a game of deflection, and was nothing to look at when you held it up in front of a mirror.

Fuji smashed match point down past Niou in the practice game they were playing.

'I give up on copying Tezuka when I'm playing you, puri,' Niou sighed, switching back into himself as he came to the net to shake Fuji's hand. 'You know him too well.'

'You're a pale imitation,' was Fuji's response; he hadn't even needed to focus fully for most of the match.

'Vicious,' Niou whistled. 'I like it.'

In the summer, Fuji played Yanagi in a ranking match and won. He played Sanada and won as well, earning himself one of only two highly-coveted spots on the regular team permitted to first-years. At that point, the rest of the club seemed caught between relief and disappointment that Fuji and Yukimura were not slated to play one another. The third-years, eager to quell the disruption Fuji was causing, scheduled the two of them for different courts for the rest of the practices for the year.

Not long after, Kirihara ambushed Fuji at the high school gates. 'Fuji-san!' he said, springing up from where he'd been clearly waiting for Fuji to come along.

'Kirihara-kun,' Fuji greeted him in return, feigning surprise: he'd had a sense this was coming. 'What are you doing on this side of campus?' He didn't stop walking.

Kirihara heeled like an overexcitable puppy, all moppish hair and clownish focus. 'You beat fukubuchou yesterday, right? I can't believe I didn't get to watch! How did you do it? Did you bust out some new moves? How mad is he – I bet he's so mad.'

There was no lingering animosity in his tone, no dubious sense that Fuji was an outsider anymore: Fuji'd won a place in Rikkai tennis – or, at least, in Kirihara's view of what constituted Rikkai tennis – by winning, and that was that. There was something endearing about this new and instant acceptance that made Fuji shorten his stride and walk in-step with Kirihara. 'I think Sanada found the experience informative, and I learned a lot playing him as well.'

What Sanada had really said was Why didn't Seigaku ever use you properly?, but Fuji was getting better at translating Sanada-ese into plain speech. It also wasn't much different from what Fuji's other coaches and captains had said to him over the years.

'Your Hetonachaeires or whatever move,' Kirihara chattered on, eyes bright. He had the sort of tennis fever that seemed to burn people up when not properly tended. 'Can you show me how it's done?'

Fuji, who once upon a time could not have imagined wanting (or needing) to learn anything from anyone, took a moment to appreciate the humility required of Kirihara to ask him that. So he said, 'Of course,' and wondered whether some of Kirihara's fire was catching.

Just as Fuji settled into Rikkai, he and Tezuka settled as well. They had developed – with refinements over the simultaneously too-short and too-long year of being on separate continents – a fairly standard protocol for staying in contact.

Sending text messages between Germany and Japan quickly became expensive for exchanges of any length, so they reserved it for time-sensitive things and short updates. Fuji sent Tezuka good luck messages before Tezuka's more important matches; Tezuka sent Fuji monthly status updates on the cactus Fuji had sent him from a local German supplier.

Emails between them were sporadic and unpredictable. Fuji sent Tezuka random things at random times: an article about alpine mountaineering, a picture of his favourite spot on Rikkai's campus, a botanical illustration of succulents; never a word about tennis. Tezuka, in turn, could go months without sending Fuji anything, but every now and then Fuji would find a three page email in his inbox. They read like Tezuka had summarised his own diary entries, and painted a clear picture of certain narrow aspects of his life alone in Germany. Fuji had no idea what Tezuka's pro contract entailed, but he could tell you in detail what the corner of Tezuka's neighbourhood looked like, with its bakery and second-hand bookstore, and what Tezuka was reading on his plane flights.

Every now and then, Tezuka sent him fragments of German fairytales translated into modern Japanese; Fuji took them, read the same stories in English, then adapted Tezuka's translations into classical Japanese, sometimes nativising characters and story elements as he went.

And then, even more rarely, Fuji went and bought an international calling card, and called.

('How else are you going to keep your Japanese in practice?' he had joked the first time.

'You're right,' Tezuka had said to him. 'Atobe speaks to me in German.'

And people still somehow thought that Tezuka had neither a sense of humour nor a wicked side.)

The summertime madness that was tennis all the time eventually gave way to a cool and less manically practice-packed autumn. Fuji took the opportunity to breathe some life back into old hobbies: he wandered through Kanagawa's parks with his camera, spent more time at home, put on records and read.

Fuji had never paid much attention to the goings-on of Japanese juniors tennis, having had both a complete disinterest in it and the benefit of Inui and Tezuka ever-present whenever the rare need for information came up. It still bored him, but a long-standing loyalty to Inoue-san and Shiba-san meant that Fuji'd had a subscription to Monthly Pro Tennis for a long while now. Mostly he abused the issues by cutting out pictures of his friends and comparing the professional shots to his own private ones, but now they had the added benefit of keeping Fuji up to date on the things Tezuka never bothered to say in their messages to one another.

For one thing, Tezuka nearly never mentioned his matches: their last back and forth a week ago had been about Fuji's plans to visit Germany, since he was coming close to having saved enough money for the trip. Monthly Pro Tennis, on the other hand, was happy to splash headlines about one of their favourite sons of Japanese tennis, and Fuji was treated to a full five-page feature article about Tezuka's rise through the ITF circuit, including details on how he had won a final the same day that they'd been discussing potential hiking routes in the Bavaran Alps.

Inoue-san's paean to Tezuka's recovery from injury was enjoyable to read, but a second editor's speculation about what could have been if Tezuka had entered the circuit at a younger age was laughably shallow. Reporters always seemed to forget that Tezuka had nearly destroyed his elbow and his future career for his team; he wouldn't have left even if he could have left, and it had never been for lack of opportunity. Fuji had seen first-hand letters from scouts that Ryuuzaki-sensei had fielded on Tezuka's behalf, even though Tezuka never mentioned them.

Fuji drummed his fingers over the article and then took out his phone.

<< Thank you, he texted Atobe.

Aah? was the nearly instantaneous reply. What did ore-sama do this time to deserve such praise?

<< Thank you for taking the captaincy of the U-17 National Team last year.

There was a longer pause before the next response, but Atobe had always been quick on the uptake and did not disappoint. Do you and Tezuka ever just talk to one another directly, or do you always go around making other people do the work for you?

<< Hmm?

Forget it. You're very welcome.

<< And congratulations on winning your last draw. Atobe was another one of Monthly Pro Tennis' darlings, and the jewel in the crown considering he continued to play mostly in Japan and only occasionally flew himself out of their reach to overseas tournaments. That Atobe was also juggling attending Hyotei at the same time was testament to his ferocious work ethic.

Fuji wondered, putting his phone away, if this was what it felt like to underperform; if this is what Yuuta had felt.

Please do not send pictures of me to Pro Monthly Tennis without my permission,Tezuka texted him the week that the October edition of the magazine was released; Fuji had sent Inoue-san an email with a few choice selections from the U-17s and was glad to see them getting some use.

In a rare break from protocol, Fuji texted Tezuka back with another photograph, sans caption. The shot was of the Rikkai high school tennis team hoisting the Nationals trophy aloft, with himself and Yukimura kneeling in the foreground smiling.

It had been a euphoric win, but strangely unchallenging. Fuji had been put on Singles 2, and had spent most of the tournament either unfielded or falling into the old bad habit of toying with his opponents. The loss of the most reliable names from the middle school circuit was palpable; Atobe no longer played on his school team, Chitose was back to ghosting in and out of tennis, and Tachibana continued to be plagued by injury. With the exception of one glorious, no-holds-barred match against Shiraishi in the quarter-finals, there had not been enough to push Fuji. He'd tried to catch himself whenever he adjusted his level of play down to match his opponent, but it was hard for him; Fuji liked playing games with close scores, especially when he sensed he'd be able to come out on top. Yukimura was of the opinion that the way Fuji modulated his play was good psychological warfare and, unlike a certain someone, didn't push as long as Fuji kept winning.

It was all very boring.

Tezuka did not say anything about the championship, or Fuji's extreme tardiness in reporting Rikkai's victory. What he did send back was simply, I notice you did not lose to Shiraishi a second time.

Trust Tezuka to spot the exception to the rule. Fuji's next message was a picture of Atobe in his newest ridiculous outfit, and they both dropped the subject.

Germany, winter

Tezuka's first words when picking Fuji up from the Munich airport were a polite 'Your flight must have been tiring,' followed immediately by 'That is not a tennis bag.'

'Mm,' Fuji agreed smilingly, too busy taking in Tezuka – a year older, taller, broader, more comfortable now in his skin and far superior to how he appeared in photographs – to be anything other than amused. 'It's winter, Tezuka, and I'm here on holiday; we're not going to play tennis.'

Tezuka shifted and started them walking; they fell into a familiar lockstep that Fuji had been half-afraid they had forgotten. 'There are indoor courts,' Tezuka provided.

'There are,' Fuji agreed. 'I'm sure you also own spare racquets. But it's winter, and I didn't come here to play tennis.'

He felt Tezuka reach over and tug his rolling suitcase away from him; their fingers brushed, warming Fuji to the core as Tezuka said, 'I suppose you didn't.'

Fuji was half-ready to have to insist, but Tezuka was still Tezuka: courteous when not tennis-obsessed, and not actually as tennis-obsessed around his true friends as others might expect. Tennis as a subject stayed comfortably dropped throughout their bus ride into the city.

Tezuka's small flat was spotlessly clean, and there were pillows and a folded blanket neatly laid atop the sofa in the living area. On his compact dining table was a plate of pastries, all of which Fuji recognised from descriptions in emails, and tickets for their planned trip to Sankt Englmar tucked inside a clear folder. And set down beside all of that was...

Fuji put his ski bag down next to the sofa and walked over to brush his fingers gently against the lip of the cactus' pot. 'It's doing very well,' he observed, delighted.

'I am capable of following instructions,' was Tezuka's dry response as he came to stand by Fuji's side.

'You'd be surprised,' Fuji said, looking sidelong at Tezuka. 'People misunderstand cacti. They either worry too much and overwater, or forget that cacti, no matter how tough, still need nurturing.'

Tezuka looked back at him. 'I have some experience in dealing with difficult and prickly things.'

Fuji laughed, feeling lighter than air. He moved towards Tezuka, then hesitated. Tezuka surprised him by being the one to pull Fuji into a hug.

Fuji closed his eyes and tucked his face into the crook of Tezuka's neck, and just spent a moment breathing in the way he smelt: clean, warm, vaguely of tea.

They separated eventually, mutually tentative about where they wanted to draw the line but happy regardless to simply be in each other's space again. Fuji was tired of typing, of taking photographs, of having to translate ephemeral things into text or talk or something transmitted. Tezuka seemed just as relieved to be able to sit with him while Fuji sampled the pastries. They reviewed a map of the Bavarian Alps region around Sankt Englmar together, discussing their planned skiing and the possibility of winter hiking with their ankles tangled under the table.

Fuji spent a day in Munich listening to Tezuka be himself in a completely different language. His flat turned out to be in a building with a dormitory-like setup for young athletes, and Tezuka was friendly with them and familiar with the resident billet family that lived on the first floor. He was more vocal in German; not artificially so, but enough that Fuji suspected that Tezuka did not feel entirely at home: that everything took effort and energy when Tezuka was normally efficient and reserved. That subtle tension eased when it was just the two of them as Tezuka showed him around the city.

They headed up to Sankt Englmar the next day. Fuji allowed jetlag to overtake him on the train ride; he fell asleep with his head against Tezuka's, lulled by both the sounds of the train and Tezuka quietly turning the pages of the book he was reading. They spoke, all told, very little over the two days they spent in the Alps. When they were outdoors there was no need to talk about the beauty all around them: when Fuji had his camera, he took pictures, but he left it behind more often than not in favour of the simple, exhilarating thrill of plunging down ski slopes. He loved winter sports, but had never skied outside of Japan. Tezuka more than kept up, and in exchange Fuji went gladly on a frozen winter hike with him that left them both exhausted afterwards.

The tiny hostel room they'd rented for two nights in town had bunk beds. On the second night, Fuji climbed down from his bunk and quietly slipped in next to Tezuka in his. Feeling washed clean of all thought and worry, he closed his eyes and went to sleep with Tezuka breathing quietly into his ear.

They didn't play tennis for the duration of Fuji's trip.

Kanagawa, spring

It was Rikkai team policy not to finalise their new captain and vice-captain until after the first ranking series of the year, which was when Fuji at long last found himself on the other side of the net from Yukimura.

'Fuji,' Yukimura said to him as they shook hands after the toss-up. 'You're really not my problem to deal with, but would you let me give you a piece of advice?'

'What?' Fuji asked, feeling irritated and oddly vulnerable at how much he wanted this match to mean something. He squeezed down on their joined hands, hard.

'Figure out what it is you want to commit to, and just commit to it.' Yukimura let go. 'People who have the freedom to do anything they want sometimes end up doing nothing instead.'

Fuji let his gaze slide towards the sidelines, where Sanada was watching. Something prompted him to ask, 'Do you ever find that people find it difficult to catch up to you?'

Yukimura looked at Sanada as well. 'I don't need people to match me. Not everyone will. Most people won't, in fact. What I need is people to challenge me, and people do that all the time. Yourself included.' He pointed with his racquet. 'Now play seriously, Fuji Shuusuke.'

Fuji held his own racquet up in salute.

They played to a tie-break that went on for so long that Fuji wasn't sure if he was going to be able to feel his right hand after the match. His world narrowed itself down to nothing but breathtakingly challenging tennis played with a dizzyingly narrow margin for error. Every step and every hit asked everything of him, and the more Fuji threw at Yukimura, the more Yukimura gave back.

It was therefore jarringly obvious when Yukimura intentionally dropped a point and gave him the advantage while Fuji was at-serve.

Dripping sweat and breathing so heavily that he could hear nothing but the pounding of his own heartbeat, Fuji tried to stare Yukimura down, but Yukimura had already put himself at the ready on the far court, glacially composed and unreadable. Fuji had never played against someone who wanted to lose before. Not at this level. He hadn't thought it was possible to be this good at the game and not want to chase the thrill of a win.

He served, as angry as he had ever felt playing tennis. Fuji heard the umpire call a service ace and had to force down a noise of pure rage. He was shaking when he walked up to the net and determined not to shake Yukimura's hand. Yukimura thwarted him again by making no offer of a handshake; Fuji's glare seemed to simply slide off of him. 'Frustrating, isn't it, to have people hold back on you?'

'Don't patronise me,' Fuji spat. 'Why?' Why had Yukimura given him the point, given him the ace, given him the match?

Yukimura shrugged. 'Call it a bad habit of captaining,' he said cryptically, then walked off without a backwards glance.

'Please clear the court for the next match,' the umpire called out, hesitant, and it was only then that Fuji realised he had been stuck standing in place for quite some time.

Taniguchi-sensei called Fuji and a third-year into his office after classes ended that Friday and said, 'Congratulations, Fuji-kun. It has been decided that you will be captain, with Higuchi-kun as your vice-captain.'

'What?' Fuji blurted out, eyes widening in shock, but Taniguchi was not joking. Higuchi did not seem to find it strange, either; in fact, he looked almost relieved to be put out of the captaincy by a second-year. 'Me?'

'Our team operates on a policy of strict meritocracy. Seniority plays only a secondary role,' Taniguchi said, severe.

Fuji attempted to formulate a coherent response about how merit was not the same as competence, especially with regards to leading a team. Instead, what came out of his mouth was, 'What about Yukimura?' Or Sanada, or anyone but him. Ryuuzaki-sensei would rather have had anyone on the Seigaku team but Fuji step in as vice-captain even in the event of an apocalypse, and rightfully so.

Taniguchi-sensei blinked at Fuji. 'Hasn't Yukimura told you? At the end of the term, he and Sanada are both transferring to a tennis academy in...'

Fuji barely heard the rest; the thought of Yukimura going with Sanada by his side had caused a flash of jealousy to hit him hard enough to leave him breathless. A flare of irrational anger welled up inside of Fuji: what if he hadn't avoided playing Tezuka over the years, what if Tezuka hadn't hurt himself so irresponsibly, what if their seniors had had even an iota of responsibility and not injured Tezuka to begin with? They were supposed to have had time, time to figure things out together–

'Fuji-kun?' prompted Taniguchi-sensei. 'You are correct in that Yukimura was my first choice, but I spoke with him. He nominated you, and I agreed.'

'Ah,' Fuji coughed, coming back to himself. He loosened his hands from the fists he had unconsciously curled them into. 'I'm honoured,' he said, though it was a complete lie.

He could say no, Fuji knew. The rest of the meeting passed in a blur as he considered, over and over, just saying no. But there was a part of him that felt that would be cowardice: shying away from yet another thing because he was afraid of failure.

Captaining Rikkai would not be about playing better tennis or catching up with Tezuka. Leading a school team was about fulfilling a responsibility to his teammates: the regulars whom Fuji had played with for over a year now, the non-regulars who were waiting for their chance. It seemed strange to consider a hyper-competitive Rikkai team one that needed a captain to look after their psychological well-being, but that was what captains ought to do, Fuji thought. High school tennis might be the last chance many of them had to give a sport they loved everything they had before the harsh realities of adulthood came knocking on their doors.

High school tennis was not, Fuji realised, professional tennis. It wasn't even preparation for professional tennis. How had he forgotten something so fundamentally important? Professional tennis was about the individual; high school tennis was about a team, about the friends you made along the way.

Maybe Yukimura had been right in his advice. If Fuji wasn't going to go professional this year, then maybe he had made a commitment – in however roundabout a way – to Rikkai to do his best for them.

There was some irony to accepting a Rikkai captaincy because of Seigaku principles, he reflected, but there were worse things in the world.

'This is so weird,' Yuuta complained.

He was meeting his brother at a street court for some hitting practice and to catch up, because his aniki was so damned busy these days that Yuuta had to be the one to make sure they still saw one another. That already been strange as hell to do, but now this? Yuuta stared at the handful of Rikkai players who were hanging around the court acting like it was totally normal to stalk their captain.

'Why do we have an audience,' he hissed at his brother.

'Maa,' Shuusuke shrugged, a little helpless. 'Yanagi wanted someone to hit with now that Yukimura and Sanada are in Chiba, and Kirihara...'

'Hello!' Kirihara beamed, his hair still as crazy but his eyes at least not that crazy... for now. Yuuta was withholding judgement.

'Kirihara somehow ended up tagging along. Then Niou wanted to come along as well, and...' Shuusuke trailed off, almost sounding embarrassed.

Yuuta stared. So now his brother was being followed around by – list not exhaustive – a kid who needed help, a guy who looked like he had only recently graduated from bowl haircuts, and someone who liked to shapeshift into Tezuka. Because his brother was captain of Rikkai.

Because of course he was.

'Can we play doubles?' Kirihara asked, completely oblivious. 'There are more than four of us, we could play doubles!'

Yuuta responded in the only reasonable way he knew how. 'Whatever,' he said, and picked Yanagi as his partner... just in case.

Fuji called Tezuka halfway through the Regionals and said, the moment Tezuka picked up, 'I'm close to considering issuing absurd numbers of laps as punishment for my regulars, because otherwise I might contemplate killing them.'

'Homicide will set you back,' Tezuka replied, sounding highly amused and extremely unsurprised. Fuji expected Yanagi was a leaky sieve of information. 'How are you enjoying captaincy?'

'"Enjoying" isn't the word I'd use,' Fuji said, but being teased about it by Tezuka meant he laughed as he said it.

In accordance with their silent agreement, Fuji avoided talk about his own tennis, but he found himself telling Tezuka about the state of the team in general: how Niou was breaking through to become their best player, how he doubted Yanagi would still be in the club next year, how the third-year doubles pair was having a spat.

Tezuka let him ramble, actively listening but rarely speaking until Fuji had talked his fill. Then he asked, 'What do you use instead of laps?'

'I play matches,' Fuji admitted, closing his eyes so that he could focus on Tezuka's voice. 'I take people aside and let their tennis talk for them.'

He never played to win in those matches, just to analyse. Teenaged boys were not the best at using words; Fuji ought to know, being one. It suited his leadership style to help people work through their problems with them, side by side. When a player struggled with stamina, Fuji dragged out the duration of play. When someone was frustrated by things outside of club business, Fuji let them vent their feelings into the game, meeting them at their level until they found focus or at least some catharsis.

'That must take a great deal of your time and attention,' Tezuka judged, but he said it without censure.

'They're rarely full matches,' Fuji said. 'I don't let myself play in thunderstorm conditions anymore.'

'Good.'

'Besides, Higuchi is more than capable of maintaining club discipline. Everyone cowers in fear of him; meanwhile, I get to be the eccentric captain. It works, Tezuka.' Strangely, crazily, it did. 'I like seeing how far people can go.'

There was a meaningful silence over the line before Tezuka said, 'So do I.'

After a season of wrangling quarrelling doubles partners and backfilling their singles positions with high-potential players, after a season of roster turnover and challenging draws, Rikkaidai Fuzokukou won their second consecutive Nationals title in the summer.

Fuji reflected, with no small amount of irony, that he had lost more matches in the tournament's run than he had in all of middle school. It should have bothered him: he had never liked losing, and he had come out to Rikkai to learn how to play at a level that would help him lose as little as possible. Yet it didn't bother him: his matchups had been dictated by team strategy such that he'd played opponents the others would have struggled with even if it meant playing at a disadvantage himself. Fuji had pushed every losing match to the full set count, and was ashamed of none of them. Somewhere along the line, he had come to accept that losing was an inevitable and necessary part of growing as a player and as a captain.

At the awards ceremony, Fuji lifted the National's trophy, but immediately passed it over to his teammates lined up behind him.

'Buchou,' Kirihara grinned, bounding about him like a monkey and completely unable to control himself. Except that wasn't quite true: Fuji had spent the better part of the early summer exorcising Devil Akaya with a combination of ruthless practice matches – Yukimura's old style – and gentle ones – his own.

Kirihara, he'd learned, had all of Echizen's drive to win but none of Echizen's self-assured cockiness to pad his losses with. What he did have was fear: fear that he would never achieve tenimuhou no matter how much sweat or blood he put into a game he loved so much but apparently not enough. Faced with that fear, Kirihara had decided that there were only two options: to give up, or to get angry, and he'd chosen anger over submission to mediocrity. When Fuji had finally understood that, the pieces had all fallen into place. Tenimuhou is just a technique, he'd said to Kirihara. We can find you a counter to it.

And they had. It hadn't been easy, but neither was tennis: it was gloriously complicated, both technically and psychologically, and it had taken coaching other people to show Fuji how much depth there could be beyond just winning. Akaya had won the deciding match, himself the entire time.

'Buchouuu,' Kirihara repeated himself, waving his hands to catch Fuji's attention. 'Stop spacing out! We did it! We did it! We won!'

Fuji blinked to pull himself back into the moment and smiled softly. 'Yes,' he agreed as Kirihara danced around Yagyuu and Niou, nearly elbowing Taniguchi in the eye in the process. 'We won.'

He felt astonishingly grounded, like he was standing in the eye of the storm that was his team celebrating, their combined achievement something unspeakably greater than any individual win. It was, Fuji decided, the most peaceful he had felt since graduating from Seigaku, and doubly so because it was a peace that he hadn't thought or even tried to find.

Tezuka texted him in the autumn, and it was testament to their friendship that, when Fuji looked up JAL 291, the Japan Airlines flight inbound from Munich was not due in yesterday or today, but the day after.

Fuji was waiting at the arrivals hall at Narita when Tezuka cleared customs; Germany felt like a long time ago, and the sight of Tezuka was one for sore eyes. Fuji watched Tezuka scan the crowd, spot him, and walk over.

'Fuji,' Tezuka said, as verbal as ever.

Fuji smiled for them both. 'Tezuka. Welcome back. Is no one from your family here to pick you up?'

'No,' Tezuka said. 'I only told them I was coming before boarding my flight this morning.'

Fuji raised an eyebrow.

Tezuka fiddled with the strap of his tennis bag, which was as close to him looking shifty as he ever got. 'I'm playing in the Dunlop Open Junior Championship in Nagoya on Friday and over the weekend, then flying back on Tuesday. It was easier to book the flights first and avoid being asked to stay longer than that: I have another tournament the week after I return to Munich.'

'Ah,' nodded Fuji, knowing. He turned to walk them towards the trains. 'This is a work trip.'

'Yes,' Tezuka said, falling in step with him and sounding torn between relief and amusement. 'A work trip.'

'Are you going to tell anyone else that you're here?'

'Atobe knows,' Tezuka admitted. 'He is competing in the same tournament.'

Fuji unwound that thread. 'So,' he surmised cheerfully as they got on an escalator. 'Atobe knows, and Yukimura therefore also knows, and so Sanada knows as well. When Oishi ends up finding out last again, he might think you've forgotten him.'

There was a flash of upset across Tezuka's face.

Fuji lifted a hand. 'Let me take your tennis bag,' he offered. 'You've been in Germany for a long time, but people still care. You're not some sort of distraction: you're their friend. Send them a message, if nothing else.'

Tezuka handed over the bag and reached into his pocket for his phone. 'Or you'll make me run rounds?'

'Or I'll make you play tennis with me,' Fuji retorted before he could quite think about what he was saying.

They dismounted off of the escalator in silence.

'They are going to want to throw me a party,' Tezuka said grimly, looking down at his phone. 'Aren't they?'

Fuji let out the breath he had been holding. 'Taka-san's sushi is getting very good,' he said. 'There are worse things in the world to endure than that. At least none of our ex-teammates will try to sing you a song.'

Tezuka looked appropriately pained, but he did smile at the memory.

'Tezuka-buchou!' Momoshiro exclaimed the moment Tezuka walked in through the doors of Kawamura Sushi, for a moment so exactly like Kirihara that Fuji had to smother a grin at how all teams, really, were as similar as they were different.

He took his camera out of his bag, and started taking pictures.

The hastily-assembled reunion ended up taking over most of Kawamura Sushi despite it being a weekday. It was the first time that they had gathered in a long while: people were scattered everywhere these days, but even Oishi and Inui made it, coming in late but excited to see Tezuka again.

Fuji filled two memory cards and then abandoned his camera entirely in favour of sitting next to Eiji while Inui dissected Tezuka's upcoming opponents for the table in exacting detail.

'I haven't played tennis in months,' Inui admitted as he wound down his presentation, 'but I've kept up with statistics from the Japanese junior circuit.'

'Why don't we go watch Tezuka play this weekend?' Eiji suggested, draping an arm meaningfully over Fuji's shoulders as he did so. 'Maybe there's a match timing that works for everyone?'

Inui had a printout of the singles bracket and made it appear, as if by magic, on the table so that they could trace out Tezuka's potential draw schedule. 'Tezuka's first game is at 14:00 on Friday, and if he wins, then...'

Fuji caught Tezuka's eye over everyone else's bent heads. Tezuka was smiling. Fuji reached for his camera and took a picture. Tezuka did not openly object, and Fuji spent the rest of the evening thinking nothing of it until Tezuka opened his mouth and said, 'Congratulations, by the way, on winning the Nationals with Rikkai.'

The whole room turned as one to focus their attention on Fuji, which struck him dumb for a moment. 'Ah,' Fuji stuttered, caught off guard. 'Thank you.'

'Fuji-senpai, your quarter-finals match against Jouji was really good,' Kaidou commented.

'Yeah, we were cheering for you the whole time once Seigaku got knocked out,' enthused Momo. Fuji had practically forgotten that the two of them had been present as first-year supporters; he had had other things to worry about at the time.

'Fujiko, you're ranked third in the country for high school single players, aren't you?' Eiji went on, traitorous because Fuji knew how little Eiji cared about rankings and that he must have looked it up.

'I have footage of all of your matches,' Inui offered, withdrawing a VCD from his bag.

Fuji was going to strangle Yanagi with his bare hands.

'Kawamura, do you have a VCD player?' asked Tezuka, who then cemented his revenge.

Later, while they were walking together via an unnecessarily circuitous route back to the train station, Tezuka said, 'The Jouji match was well-played. You took it seriously from the start.'

'Maa,' said Fuji softly. 'I have a wider range of play styles now. I don't need to invent defensive counters on the fly as often, and the odds of winning are better when I play offensive tennis sooner.'

They had unconsciously traced much of the old route they had often walked together in middle school. Rikkai was challenging and exciting and considerably better academically than Seigaku was, but even after two years it did not feel like home the way that this neighbourhood still did. They stopped at an old playground, empty at this time of the evening but still lit by orange streetlights. Fuji sat on a swing; Tezuka opted to stand leaning against the supports.

'Tezuka,' Fuji started, then found he didn't quite know how to go on.

A stray cat walked across the far end of the playground. Slightly distant, a bicycle bell rang out. Cars rumbled along.

Tezuka moved to sit on the other swing. He had grown slightly taller again, and his legs looked comically long in the low seat. 'It was good to see everyone again.'

Fuji looked over. 'Are you lonely, in Germany?'

Now it was Tezuka's turn to be quiet. 'No,' he said eventually. 'And yes. I have a good coach and know many other players. But...'

Fuji felt he understood. When you let go of things that were holding you down, it was inevitable that you were uprooted in turn. 'I see. But how about your tennis? Has it been worth it?'

Tezuka kicked himself backwards and let himself swing. It was so uncharacteristically whimsical that it said everything that needed to be said even before Tezuka asked, 'When the tournament is over, why don't you find out for yourself?'

Yuuta picked up his phone when it rang even though it was late. There was a 90% chance that his brother was just calling to tell him that some constellation or whatever would be "especially nice to look at around 2:13AM," but also a 10% chance that it was actually something important. 'Aniki?' he groaned sleepily. 'What's wrong?'

'Oh, nothing's wrong,' his brother replied, lighthearted as ever, and Yuuta heroically resisted the urge to throw his phone across the room. 'Tezuka is playing in the Dunlop Open in Nagoya this weekend; want to go watch?'

Oh. Well. Tezuka-san being back in Japan was pretty special, Yuuta supposed. Why his brother had to go call him in the middle of a school night to talk about it was beyond him, but then again most things about Shuusuke were.

It took some wrangling of train times and serious evasion of Mizuki-san to pull off, but Yuuta managed to get himself to the Higashiyama Koen Tennis Centre on an unseasonably warm Saturday morning. He was wondering how he was going to find his brother when he noticed a disturbingly easy to spot contingent of supporters in the stands.

'This is still so damned weird,' Yuuta muttered as he headed over to the rag-tag group of ex-Seigaku players, current Rikkai players, randoms he vaguely recognised, and that one reporter guy from Monthly Pro Tennis who had been stalking them since they were kids. Also, was that Tachibana with blond hair?

Shuusuke was there in the thick of it, camera in hand and somehow totally at home with the circus he'd managed to drum up. Yuuta thumped down into the free seat next to his brother. 'You didn't tell me this many people were coming,' he grumbled.

'Sorry,' Shuusuke said, raising his camera. Yuuta hastily held his hand over the lens, careful not to actually touch it. 'I suppose it's become rather rowdy, hasn't it?'

Yuuta looked at the giant group around them. 'You think? You should start charging them money for admission to the Tezuka Fanclub.'

'You can be fan number one,' Shuusuke said sweetly, and managed to snap a picture (damn him) while Yuuta was spluttering in indignation.

It turned out that Atobe was playing right before Tezuka, and they were all treated to a pretty good game as Atobe sent smash after smash into his Swiss opponent's weaker side. It was so distracting that it took Yuuta a hot minute to realise that his brother had vanished at some point, and he was surprised to catch sight of him with his camera along the press line on the other side of the court.

'Aren't they going to throw him out?' Yuuta asked the Monthly Pro Tennis guy – right, Inoue-san, that was his name.

'No, I helped Fuji-kun get a press pass for the event,' Inoue told him. 'Your brother is an impressive photographer. His coverage of the events near Kanagawa has been–'

Yuuta waved his hands in the air to cut Inoue off. 'Wait wait wait, what? My brotherhas been reporting on tennis?'

'Mostly photography, but yes,' Inoue-san nodded.

'Huh,' Yuuta said, because what else was there to say? Aniki just had to go be good at everything. Typical.

His brother stayed in the press area for all of Tezuka's match, which was pretty awe-inspiring. It was like the time in Germany had honed Tezuka into an even better tennis playing machine, his play was so clean to watch. Pro tennis really was something else.

That Monday, Fuji played truant from school and met Tezuka at the public courts underneath the train tracks. Tezuka did not ask or disapprove: this was the new Tezuka now, or maybe Tezuka as he had always been, just freed from obligations that got in the way of his game.

Tezuka had a coin at hand for the toss, breaking from their old tradition of informally spinning a racquet. 'Your call?'

'Heads,' Fuji said, and won. 'I choose to play on this end of the court,' he said, giving Tezuka the serve. 'Three sets?'

'Three sets,' Tezuka nodded.

Fuji took his place. Japanese high school tennis, even played at the national level, was not going to compare to the level of tennis that Tezuka now lived and breathed on a daily basis. Academics had never bothered Fuji, but even for him there simply were not enough hours in a day to train on that level and do everything else that school required, however minimal. Sheer mechanics alone dictated that he should lose.

Was that the game that they were going to be playing? A game of mechanics and numbers, a comparison of how many hours each of them put into practice?

'Are you ready?' Tezuka called.

Fuji wondered if either of them was prepared for what this match was going to show them. He flipped his racquet over in his hands and settled into place. 'Are you?' he called back.

For a moment, the rest of the world stood still in a moment of perfect, unreplicable balance.

Then Tezuka served.

Fuji had spent the last two years playing matches with other people to learn how to push them the way he had once been forced to push himself: a team player's tennis. Tezuka had spent the last two years playing matches with the singular goal of winning and going as far as his self-discipline could take him: a tennis played only for himself.

That day, Tezuka's game, always technically superb, opened itself up entirely to Fuji for the first time. Gone was the unmotivated player whom Tezuka had left behind, the boy who had been afraid of what his own tennis could be lest it ended up being – even at its best – not good enough. Here was the player and the captain who knew a little better, and who knew to ask: good enough for what?

Beyond Tezuka's Zone and behind the Gates was a human being, a person, a competitor: Fuji's best friend, the man who had challenged Fuji to try, and the reason that Fuji had discovered what it was like to be asked for everything he could give and not shy away from giving it all. Underneath Tezuka's blinding set of skills was the person whom Fuji had once revealed his greatest vulnerability to: the fear that he would never want anything for himself enough to care.

Fuji cared, now. Not about winning, not about what level of tennis he might one day play if he tried, but about all the things that seemed so obviously important once you tuned everything else out: he cared about people, his people. His family and his team and his friends and the places he belonged to that, transitively, also belonged to him in turn.

Fuji cared about the man on the other side of the net and the world from him: Tezuka, who was making his way alone in a foreign country because he wanted to find out where that unreasonable, breathtaking dedication to tennis of his might take him.

Tezuka, whose game was just that slightest bit off-kilter today because he had played four days of tournament-level tennis at his best right after getting off of a plane from Europe.

Tezuka, who tried not to disappoint his own family with how little his professional career was allowing him to be at home by making his presence as unobtrusive as possible.

Tezuka, who had not told any of his friends about being back in Japan but who had patiently listened to Momoshiro and Kaidou talk about tennis, to Oishi about studying for medical school, to Eiji about training to be a stuntman.

Tezuka, who, even after having Atobe Keigo tell him to be a little more selfish, still didn't know how to ask for things in any way other than through his tennis.

Tezuka, who needed more than just other tennis pros able to challenge him in his life.

Tezuka's tennis, which Fuji Shuusuke had taught himself – finally – how to read.

Fuji won, two sets to one.

The last set they'd played like they were playing underwater: Fuji had stopped responding to Tezuka's attacks with defensive counters, then stopped using his offensive counters at all. He'd focused on responding to each of Tezuka's shots with measured strokes, and gradually lowered the intensity of their match down and down and down, and did so because Tezuka let him. By the end, their rallies had felt like their phone calls did: meandering, separated by time and distance, easy. When Fuji won points, it was not because Tezuka had let him: it was simply because that back-and-forth had gone on for as long as it needed to, and nothing no matter how well-matched could last forever. When Tezuka won points, Fuji smiled, feeling no pressure because there was nothing to catch up to, anymore.

The final, random score was 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 in Fuji's favour, but the numbers mattered only insomuch as something they'd needed to keep track of in order to know when to stop.

They met at the benches. Tezuka sat with his arms on both of his knees, breathing hard from the exercise. Fuji put a damp towel over Tezuka's head and sat next to him, their knees knocking. Trains rattled noisily overhead as they cooled down.

'Tezuka,' Fuji said, leaning back with his eyes closed. 'Remember that tennis is meant to be fun.'

Tezuka snorted with uncontrollable laughter, and Fuji felt the towel get dumped over his head a moment later. 'Yes, buchou.'

The same laughter bubbled up through Fuji like water from a deep spring. He turned his head and Tezuka was there to lean in and meet him, and they kissed.

Omake – Munich, 4 years later, spring

'Kunimitsu,' his publicist said to him as she herded him into a car to get driven to his afternoon appointment, a photoshoot for one of Atobe Group's sporting brands. One of Tezuka's major sponsors, Atobe('s family) was delighted to have on their docket a young Japanese player who had already won two major titles, and he paid for their delight with many an advertisement campaign.

'Yes?' Tezuka asked.

'A Japanese photojournalist who will be on-set today is requesting an interview with you,' she said.

Tezuka frowned. That was unusual: Atobe enforced a strict level of professionalism at shoots, and his people never let journalists through without prior appointments made well in advance. He was about to refuse when his publicist added, 'He says here in the notes that he "might be able to get you to smile in the ads," which...' She laughed. 'Maybe that's why Atobe Keigo let this request through.'

Tezuka closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat, forcing down a smile. 'What's his name?' he asked, even though he already knew the answer.

'Shuusuke Fuji,' his publicist said. 'Do you know him?'

He has his own set of keys to my apartment, Tezuka did not say out loud. 'Yes,' he told her, unable to stop the smile any longer. 'He's someone who helps remind me why I play tennis.'

His publicist raised an eyebrow. 'Oh? And what's that?'

Tezuka looked out of the car window. Overhead, a plane was leaving jetstreams along the sky's open blue canvas as it headed east towards the airport. He traced its soaring trajectory, and let himself smile without answering.