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Forbidden Desires	By : pocketsoul1127 Category: Prince of Tennis/Tennis no Ohjisama > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 5832 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis or any of the affiliated characters. No profit or money was made from writing this fanfiction.

Chapter List
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Chapter One

Fuji stood at a window in an emtpy classroom staring thoughtfully down at the people walking below him. Practice would begin soon but he liked taking a bit of time before every practice to watch the people around him. He learned a lot by watching others interact. It had helped him assimilate, which was best done by appearing quiet and unassuming without seeming aloof or uncaring; it required a delicate balancing act which Fuji pulled off expertly.

The act was a necessary one because without it he would be stripped bare. Naked for the world to see; that thought terrified him. There was no one who would be able to handle his true personality. His congeniality was just a mask for something much darker, much more sinister than anyone around him would imagine. He wondered, idly, if the people around him would have a chance in hell against him if he ever got serious outside of tennis. Chances were they wouldn't. Not with the way his mind truly worked. Even now he had to keep himself from giving into his desire for destruction. Watching people break and fall apart...well, there was a pasttime he was sure no one else would truly understand.

So to keep himself from going too far, he maneuvered things just far enough in the direction he wanted them to go without taking them to an irreversible point. He did it so subtly that very few people, if any, noticed that he was manipulating them. A word here, a look there, it was enough to keep him from taking things too far. Of course, he'd learned the necessity of walking that tightrope the hard way. At first, he'd been so disgusted at the very idea that he enjoyed other people's pain that he'd drowned himself in denial. Saeki, his only childhood friend, had paid the price for that denial. The regret he felt for what had happened was tinged with the determination to never let it happen again and he balanced himself accordingly.

Watching the students below, he smiled sadly. Their world was not his world. He always felt a million miles away, completely removed from their sense of reality. He knew he'd never fit them and that they'd never fit him. Still, sometimes it was nice to imagine.

Shaking his head to clear it, he stood and headed down to the tennis courts. All things considered, there was at least one thing to look forward to if the rumors about the new freshman were to be believed. Another good player on the team would ease their burdens considerably, especially considering the captain's worsening injury. Fuji knew neither Tezuka nor Oishi thought he knew anything about that but he saw it every time Tezuka moved. He favored it just a tiny bit, such a miniscule amount that pretty much no one would notice, but Fuji didn't miss anything. He also didn't comment. It wasn't his secret to share. And he had enough true compassion for his teammates that the urge to be destructive towards them simply didn't exist. They were his friends, his teammates, even if they didn't know he was a shark hiding in their midst.

Fuji walked to the area in front of the school when he caught sight of the regulars grouped together. When he got closer to them it became apparent that Tezuka wasn't present but that wasn't really surprising. They exchanged a few comments about the new freshman. Oishi in particular seemed convinced that if he was as good as the rumors he'd be a good asset to the team.

"We'll see," Fuji said and the team moved from the school entrance to the locker rooms. When they got to the courts he immediately saw that the non-regular juniors and seniors had monopolized the courts so the freshmen couldn't practice at all. None of the freshmen really stood out except for the one in the green striped shirt. Judging by his body language, he was likely the type to boast about having skills he didn't possess. Not the new talent, then. Momo had said the kid was cocky but reserved. Considering that the freshman with the green shirt was surrounded by other freshmen and talking with gestures that shouted "know-it-all," Fuji was confident that he didn't fit the bill.

There were two avid hanger-ons of the striped shirt guy, both of them eagerly leaning forward as if to catch every word the guy said. That alone made it obvious that they were new to the sport and easy to intimidate. There would be no fun for him in that quarter.

There were a few other freshmen scattered about but only one other caught his attention. He was standing a bit to the side of the rest of his peers, idly kneading his racket. That habit told Fuji that he was very attuned to how well his racquet held up and how often it needed to be restrung. He couldn't make out the face of the freshman in question because a white cap obscured his eyes. All he could really tell from the distance was that the freshman was short. Incredibly short. Under five feet. He'd probably had to endure a lot of grief about it because "short people can't play tennis." Well, Fuji would see how he handled that hurdle later.

While Fuji had been analyzing the freshmen, Oishi had relaxed the freshmen by inviting them to do a little light hitting. Not wanting to stand around himself, Fuji spoke up. "Oishi, we should do a little light hitting until Tezuka gets back as well."

"All right." Oishi stooped to pick up a crate of tennis balls and they found their way onto a free court. The vice-captain of the team lobbed a ball his direction and Fuji smashed it easily into the basket but his mind was a bit preoccupied.

"Fuji, you were a step late."

Fuji acknowledged the misstep with a slight nod and after a few more swings, moved to let someone else take a turn. He noticed that it had grown quiet and he took a look around to see that nearly everyone was staring at the regulars in stunned silence, like it was difficult to hit a smash with accuracy into such a target. He snorted mentally in derision. More than half the people in the club would never see a match against another school.

"Oops. Too far," Oishi called, shielding his eyes with his hand as he watched where it would fall.

Fuji watched the ball go out of the court and head straight for the short freshman with the cap, wondering what the kid would do. He felt some mild annoyance with Oishi for serving so poorly when he was known for his pinpoint accuracy. As for the freshman, he smashed the ball cleanly across the court back into the basket. Fuji felt a bit impressed in spite of himself. Not many freshmen could do that, even if it was a rather simple technique.

The freshman said, almost surprised, "That was unexpectedly simple."

In the part of himself he didn't express to the world, Fuji laughed. The guy was a breath of fresh air. He bore watching.

Tezuka appeared on the scene to end the fight about to boil up between Arai and the cocky freshman by making the two of them run twenty laps before disappearing again. A call from Oishi brought Fuji's attention back to his own practice so he focused intently on what he was doing and dismissed the freshman from his mind. He'd have plenty of time to observe later.

Fuji didn't know how much time had passed, but he was suddenly aware that Eiji had stopped moving. For Eiji, that was weird, so Fuji turned to look at him.

"Ah, Arai and the freshman are at it again. Should we stop them?"

"Hmm," Fuji said and the rest of the regulars turned to look. Somewhere along the way Oishi had disappeared. Arai was brazenly up in the freshman's face, goading him about not having a racquet. Which was complete crap, of course, because the freshman had held a racquet at the beginning of practice. It wasn't likely it had walked off on its own. No, Arai was enjoying tormenting a freshman, a past-time Fuji didn't really understand. One of Arai's friends handed the freshman - Echizen (he finally heard the name) - a racquet that would never be approved for use in an official match and challenged him to one set match.

For a moment, it seemed that Echizen wasn't going to take the challenge he'd been presented with but Fuji saw the way his shoulders tensed at the mention of his missing racquets. So he gets angry when someone messes with his stuff. It was a good thing to remember. Fuji couldn't really blame him, he'd be pretty pissed himself if someone hid his expensive tennis equipment. "I want to see this," he said, directing his words to Eiji. One of them really should step in and stop it but Fuji's interest had been piqued.

"I knew you were going to say that," Eiji responded, not making a move to stop the match.

Fuji watched as Echizen's first attempt at returning Arai's serve caused the ball to fall short of the net and how his second attempt forced the ball out of bounds and into the fence.

"You can't hit it normally," Momo noted.

"Hmm. With that gut, you really can't spin the ball," Fuji said in agreement. It would be interesting to see if the freshman could overcome the handicap he'd been given; it would prove his abilities one way or another.

"Hmm, I see," Echizen said, tapping the racquet's gut with his hand twice.

Fuji felt his eyebrows arch a little. He saw? What did he see? He got his answer when, on Arai's next serve, Echizen scored a point.

"Oh, he put a spin on it by rotating his body," Eiji said, surprised.

"He's good," Fuji agreed. Echizen had overcome the problem of the bad racquet with relative ease. Fuji watched the rest of the match in silence, not surprised that Arai wasn't able to keep up with the talented freshman. Arai had always been the kind of player who relied on other people's weaknesses to make him strong rather thansearching out his own strengths. He'd never become a regular because of that attitude towards tennis. "A workman doesn't fuss with his tools," Fuji said at the end of the match. He was impressed. And that was rare.

Tezuka and Oishi appeared on the court after the match was over and berated everyone for their lack of respect for the rules and yelled at all of them to run twenty laps. Consequences. But it had been a match worth seeing so no one was really complaining.

After being dismissed to run those laps, Fuji fell into step beside Oishi. Neither of them said much and Fuji soon fell behind, which was fine with him. He wasn't in a rush. He spotted Takashi's racquet resting against the fence and picked it up. It seemed the guy always forgot that he needed the racquet to switch to his tennis-savvy personality.

Looking around, Fuji saw that most of the regulars were a bit ahead of him but Takashi, Momo, and Inui were behind him. Slowing his pace a little, he was a bit surprised to note that Echizen was keeping pace with Momo but didn't think too much on it. They'd just started running, after all. Fuji dropped his pace until he was beside Takashi. "Taka, your racquet."

Takashi grabbed hold of it and, with a cry of "Burning!", took off running until he was even with Oishi and Eiji, who always ran together.

Fuji's face never wavered; he kept his expression kind and his eyes closed at all times to keep himself from unintentionally intimidating anyone but on the inside he felt himself truly smile. Takashi was the type of honest, dedicated player he admired most because all of it came from hard work. Tennis was easy for those who had the knack for it but overcoming the hurdle of not having talent...well, that was impressive.

Fuji finished running the laps with the others right beside Eiji. He'd given the doubles team half the laps to talk to one another before catching up to their pace and engaging in some light conversation. Eiji was the kind of person who needed constant conversation and Fuji had set himself up as his best friend, next to Oishi, of course, at the beginning of their freshman year. The three of them were pretty close, by all accounts, but Fuji knew that they'd never be able to handle his true personality. He wasn't sure anyone would.
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Forbidden Desires