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Learning to Land	By : Suteishichic Category: Prince of Tennis/Tennis no Ohjisama > General Views: 11419 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis (Tennis no Ohjisama), nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Learning to Land. Chapter Seventy Nine ~Tachibana~

Warnings: Yaoi, Love, Angst, Fluff, and Lots of Sex. Some kink. You've been warned ;)

Disclaimer: Nope not mine. Still in my dreams. ;)

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Over the next few weeks there seemed to be an uneasy peace at school. No major battles were fought although you could cut the constant tension with a knife--especially when any of the tennis regulars were around. Tachibana was surprised at how tough a school Fudomine was. What little people had they fought to keep. He had never been exposed to things like this before. He had seen fights, even been in a few scuffles, but nothing from before prepared him for what happened at this school over small things from a supposedly stolen mp3 player to someone supposedly looking at someone else's girlfriend the wrong way. And none of the vicious fights he had seen compared to the horrible treatment the freshmen had to put up with every day.

When Tachibana suggested that the freshmen go to the teachers or an authority to complain, five of the freshmen looked at him as if he were insane and Ibu shook his head silently no to let it drop. It was only then Tachibana understood that no one would hold a hand out to help any of the freshmen. It was clearly considered their problem to deal with and no one wanted to be seen as being a part of it. Even students who had been friendly to the freshmen when Tachibana first arrived now as things were worse stayed away from them. They were always together and isolated from everyone else. The six freshmen were left out on their own and not even the teachers chose to get involved.

Tachibana stopped making suggestions after that. He figured Fudomine was home for them and they seemed to understand the rules of the game, what to do, and how to take care of things better than Tachibana did. All he could do is support them, train them, and hope for the best.

Even with no major battles being openly fought, it still felt as if there was a war being waged. The regulars never left the six freshmen alone and clearly their tormentors weren't backing down or off, but nothing seemed to happen quite as badly as when the senpais spit on Ishida. Daily the tennis regulars trashed the locker room to force the freshmen to clean it, ordered them to run numerous laps for no reason, and worst of all the senpais made fun of them. You could cut the tension like a knife and everyone was on edge, but nothing went further than verbal abuse for the moment.

Usually it was just crude jokes and sexual remarks but occasionally they joked about one of them hearing Ibu singing in the shower, or calling out to someone--usually they said they heard him calling for his mommy. That they obviously knew his mother was sick and in the hospital. It was just another thing devised to hurt the freshman and upset his friends as much as possible. And it was unnecessary. Tachibana still had not heard Ibu make a single sound, and all the freshmen wanted to do was to play. It was as if the regulars were out to see how far they could push the freshmen until one or all of them broke. It was bullying at its worst and the only reason the six withstood it he figured was because they were stronger together and they wanted to play more than anything in the world. Kamio once told him that they had a right to be part of the tennis club and the six of them seemed bound and determined to keep working at it until they were accepted.

Tachibana had fallen into a habit of walking to, from, and around school with a few of them every day. He was rarely alone, and in the few classes where Ibu wasn't sitting beside him, because Tachibana hung around the six freshmen all the other students at school gave him a wide berth. He was somehow guilty by association, and he couldn't help but think what a bunch of idiots everyone at this school was to not see how great this group of guys were.

Things were not getting better. Tachibana suspected things were getting worse, but he saw little and they said even less to him. He wondered again if they were trying to protect him and if so what the hell they were trying to protect him from. Still a few things he discovered seemed to show that things were continuing to go worse. A girl Mori was dating said she could only keep dating him in secret because her friends thought she was insane for liking him--because Mori was one of them. Tachibana only knew all this because Mori was quietly telling it to Ishida as they ran and he overheard it. He was reduced to eavesdropping and annoyed by that. But otherwise he would have had no idea what was going on. No one at school told him anything any more.

The freshmen were outcasts and Tachibana was considered a part of them--even if the freshmen confided nothing to him. The whispers and gossip Tachibana once heard about the freshmen now dried up. The whispering stopped suddenly whenever Tachibana entered a room, and started again as soon as he left it. The freshmen one day all started carrying lunch to school and Tachibana suspected that it was the only way they would be able to eat somehow--although none of them said anything to him. He decided to stick with them to see if he could get answers, and he found he liked their company. It was better than the stony silence everyone else presented him. He started carrying his lunch too and eating with them after he ran the laps they were assigned with them. He might as well keep fit.

He met and spoke to no one else other than a freshman girl who confessed to him out of the blue one day. He had never gone to a school with girls and was still adjusting to seeing them on a daily basis. Kamio and Ishida were with him when the girl, Tachibana immediately forgot her name, just out of nowhere said her name, that she loved him, and would he please be her boyfriend--in secret so no one else knew. He was stunned so speechless and angry at her both at the same time that he almost walked on without answering her. He told her that he was too busy training for him to be distracted by romance, and he harshly told her he would never, ever date someone in secret. The seemingly dejected girl said she understood and walked away with her head hanging down. Without a word, and even more surprising, Ishida and Kamio exchanged looks before Ishida veered off to walk after her.

Kamio started quickly talking to Tachibana saying that perhaps a curt dismissal at his old school was fine, but at Fudomine if Tachibana treated all the girls who confessed to him like that, he would quickly develop a few problems. First of all, the girl who just confessed had three big, mean brothers in high school who would be as furious at Tachibana for breaking their little sister's heart if she said one word to them. Kamio told him that he would have to learn to tread carefully until he learned his way around. Plus Kamio said, his biggest problem if he turned people down like that all the time, is Tachibana would somehow gain a reputation as a heart breaker. Which for some reason Kamio told him would only bring more girls to his doorstep. Tachibana was baffled by all of this but Kamio assured him it was true. It seemed at this stupid school, the more people Tachibana rejected and the harsher he turned them down, the more people would like him and confess. Kamio said in his rapid-fire way that it was human nature and always wanting what you couldn't have--that at least Tachibana could understand, and then in the same breath, the redheaded freshman asked Tachibana why he didn't like the girl back. Kamio thought she was "kinda cute".

Tachibana explained that first of all, the girl did not even know him and he didn't know her at all. He never saw her before in his life so he wondered out loud to Kamio how could she love him? Second, he explained that perhaps he was harsh, but no one had ever confessed to him before. He had after all always attended all-male schools before, so he had no idea what the best response to someone saying things like that to him really should be.

Kamio said surprised, "Really? No girls? At the entire school? You gotta be kiddin me!"

Tachibana said dismissively, "No girls in the entire school. Most of the best tennis schools are men only. You really don't have time to date when you're training and completely focused on your game." He thought how that sounded a bit lame and maybe even gay so he added, "Of course, there are all-girls schools in the area and we would often date and get to know girls who went to those schools. On group dates." Kamio looked confused as to what that was. He explained, "Four or five guys get together and we would take out four or five girls together in a big group. I had a girlfriend for a while and all my friends were group dating her friends. My roommate was dating her roommate, his tennis partner was dating her friend and so on. We all went out together in a big group. All dates have to be planned activities because there are no girls allowed outside of family visitors in the guy's dorms and no guys allowed up to the girls rooms in their schools."

"Damn." Kamio said and Tachibana thought he was impressed, but then he changed his mind when Kamio said, "Okay, so group dates with other people and no one can go back to anyone's room. Not even to study?" Tachibana shook his head no and was confused. He thought he had made everything quite clear, but Kamio was asking about something different entirely, "So...when the hell do you get to mess around if you can't go to each other's rooms ever? You know? Like kiss and have sex and stuff?"

Tachibana felt his face flush slightly and it had nothing to do with the warm sunny weather. He had never really been asked about things like this by anyone. Certain things, such as group dates and when and where is proper to be romantic were common knowledge to everyone he had gone to school with before. "There are places. Dates in movie theaters are good." Tachibana had kissed several girls at the movies. "And there are parties sometimes and dances where one school goes to another." He had been to several. Kamio seemed to want to hear more, "And if you get really desperate and are hot and heavy with a girl there's always a love hotel." Tachibana had never done this but a guy on his team had.

"A love hotel! Don't you have to be eighteen or something to go to one of those?" Kamio looked suspiciously at him through his shock of red hair that was always in his face.

The guy on Tachibana's team had been a big guy. He had lied and told the older girl he was in high school and given all of them very explicit details. Tachibana shrugged and answered the same thing the guy on his team had said, "They don't really check your age. You go in and the door locks behind you and you pay to get out when you're done. As long as you pay and don't make too much noise or bother anyone, no one asks anything."

"Wow." Kamio seemed impressed and almost speechless, but it only lasted a few seconds, "So...how many times did you go to one? Are love hotels expensive? Was it with the same girl? Is she still your girlfriend? Is that why you don't like that girl, because you have a girlfriend already? You shoulda told her that because that woulda sounded better. What's her name?"

Tachibana was lost in the sudden blur of fast lobbed questions, "What is who's name? I don't have a girlfriend now, that girl and I broke up some time ago. And I've never been to a love hotel. You asked how guys hook up with girls if they can't go to each other's rooms and I told you what some guys do. I haven't."

"Oh." Kamio was quiet for a long moment. Almost a minute and counting. That in itself seemed remarkable and somehow important. Finally, in a much more quiet tone than normal, he asked, "Tachibana-san? You ever been in love?"

He bristled at the question and considered how to best answer it. He decided to be truthful, but leave out all details. "I have. Once." Tachibana knew someday someone would ask him about his first love--about Fuji and he would have to say what happened, but he wasn't prepared to comment any more about it now. Instead he decided to distract Kamio from slamming other questions in all directions at him until he could no longer return them. When Kamio was curious about something, he had no tact and would ask anything that popped into his head like a little kid would. Plus he would ask and ask and ask until ordered to stop. Then he would sulk once forced to be quiet only to ask more questions a little later until he got the answers he wanted. What if he knew nothing about sex at all and wanted Tachibana to tell him everything? That would be mortifying. Instead Tachibana decided to distract Kamio from the train of thoughts his quick mind was racing down and asked him, "Have you ever been in love?"

To his complete shock, Kamio answered and smiled, "Yeah..."

Slowly, as Tachibana watched, the freshman blushed as red as his hair. Even more remarkable, he said nothing and offered no explanation. Instead he seemed to be caught between being childishly honest, embarrassed about his feelings, and inviting his senpai to ask him more. Tachibana thought the mix of childish innocence and raw emotions playing across the redhead's face was adorable, and for a moment he was tempted to move Kamio's hair out of his eyes to see the freshman's face uncovered. Kamio smiled more as if thinking about someone, and Tachibana felt his heart racing in a way it had not around anyone in a long time. The moment where they held each other's gaze stretched out between them.

Kamio seemed almost daring him to ask, and Tachibana found he was very close to doing just that. It was a huge temptation to find out everything about at least one of the freshmen, and perhaps share with Kamio some of his own past. The guy talked a lot sure, but Tachibana was fairly sure he could trust Kamio to keep his secrets, although the guy would both love to have secrets from his friends while at the same time he would hate not being able to gossip. Especially about Tachibana to the other five freshmen. He could already hear Kamio whining that couldn't he at least tell Ibu who couldn't talk? But there was the worry that if Kamio knew certain things Tachibana had done, not even the worst of it, the adoration the freshman had always shown could turn into revulsion. Tachibana wasn't prepared to be hated when all he wanted recently was to be liked and included. He would have to tread carefully. He didn't want to have to change schools and have to start over again for trusting the wrong person. He had been wrong about someone before.

So in the end, Tachibana decided to say nothing. It was clear he couldn't with the way Kamio looked up to him. Tachibana even thought that the way Kamio was looking at him in a way looked an awful lot like that girl had when she confessed. In fact he wondered if he asked who it was Kamio was in love with, if Kamio might even say him. Did Kamio have feelings for him? No way. That was just wistful thinking. Or was the freshman just thinking of someone else and that was why he had this sweet and goofy smile on his face? Probably Kamio was thinking about some other cute freshman girl. Most likely it was her he was all hung up on. No way was he thinking what Tachibana was.

That he looked cute enough to kiss...

Before Tachibana could ask who Kamio was in love with, Ishida returned and saved him from an embarrassing moment, "Oi!"

The strong guy had apparently run hard to catch up to them while they walked to the old courts for practice, but was not even winded. Tachibana was pleased with how fit they all were after the many laps and practices. "She's fine. She asked me if I think you have someone else from your old school and I told her yes, Tachibana-san. I know it's technically a lie, because I'm really not sure if you do or not, but she was crying and upset. It felt better to leave her with that as an explanation. I hope you aren't upset with me...?"

"No, Ishida. Not at all. Thank you in fact. She took me by surprise. And I wouldn't like to think I carelessly upset her...or her brothers." Tachibana smiled although his heart was still racing and his mind was still reeling thinking of Kamio. He felt as if he had run hard instead of Ishida. He turned back to Kamio still smiling, "Thank you both."

"Anytime..." Kamio smiled and sounded...strange. It sounded like a suggestion. Not the word, just...the way it was said. Had it been anyone else but Kamio or any of these freshmen, Tachibana would have thought the freshman was... flirting with him! Kamio cracked another smile, and it might have just been Tachibana's imagination after just having had such heated thoughts of uncovering his face and kissing the redhead, but for an instant, Tachibana thought he saw more than a spark of interest there. He blinked to see if it was just his imagination working overtime and figured it was.

"Kamio..." Ishida said and it sounded like a warning. Usually the freshmen addressed each other by their given names. It was odd to hear any of them say anything else or call each other by their family name.

"What?" Kamio sounded all innocence while he kept smiling at Tachibana. The redhead shook his hair which for most people moved it out of their eyes and off of their face. Kamio had a habit of shaking his hair which only resulted it more of it moving over his face and covering it more completely. Tachibana itched to smooth his hair back and see him square on, once and for all. He had only caught glimpses of Kamio's face as they ran but the speedy freshman was always either so far ahead or moving in such a fast blur it was difficult to see his face uncovered. It felt important to see Kamio's face for once clearly, and suddenly very strange that he hadn't even now after all this time.

Maybe, Tachibana thought to himself wantonly as his mind raced, the thing was that he hadn't seen Kamio or any of the freshmen clearly at all.

Tachibana immediately dismissed these thoughts as not worth the time to ponder. His libido or his hormones or something must be acting up causing him to see things that weren't even there. Hell, after going so long without being touched by anyone else, his imagination was apparently acting overtime too. It was only natural for him to have sex thoughts and he was above acting on any impulse that flashed through his brain. Clearly he wasn't thinking straight because they were already at the courts and the four other freshmen were standing there waiting for them and watching whatever was going on. Tachibana hadn't even noticed.

"Let's begin." Tachibana said completely forgetting everything he had planned on having them work on. After a lifetime of tennis you would think he would remember what to do first when he got to practice...

Ishida again saved him, "Kamio, you're with me..." The large, strong freshman rolled his eyes and he put a hand, maybe possessively Tachibana thought and then figured he really was seeing things, on Kamio's arm as if forcing him to go. Tachibana wondered if he had gotten too much sun. Probably his lack of sleep lately was catching up to him. He was reading far too much into everything.

Ibu meanwhile had crossed over to him and was standing in front of him holding his racket as if he wanted something. Oh. Right. Warming up. Ibu wanted to be his partner. He was looking at Tachibana strangely as together they went through the now familiar routine of stretches Tachibana had introduced the freshmen to. It wasn't jealousy or anger or anything like that so Ibu couldn't be upset over whatever it was Kamio did that had Ishida annoyed with him. Ibu's look was close to how Kamio and that girl had looked at Tachibana but not quite. There was something else there and for the first time in a long time Tachibana couldn't read what it was Ibu was trying to say and Kamio was too busy over with Ishida to translate. Friendship? Openness? Interest? Desire? Longing? He had no idea.

Ibu noticed his confusion and smiled.

Feeling uncharacteristically flustered, Tachibana asked quietly so as not to disturb anyone else warming up, "What?"

Ibu shook his head no and didn't say a word, but his smile increased to a full one as if he were very pleased--or very amused. He rarely smiled and Tachibana thought to himself it really was a shame. Ibu was quite attractive when he smiled.

Tachibana gave up. His hormones were making thinking impossible. He returned the smile but gently instructed Ibu, "Focus. Injuries happen when you aren't paying attention. Warming up and stretching are very important."

Ibu nodded that he agreed, but smiled throughout the rest of practice.

Tachibana was in a routine by now. During the week, he would practice and practically coach the freshmen daily both in the mornings and in the afternoons. On the weekends he saw them a few hours for a practice or would meet up with them to watch other schools play matches. Sometimes they would watch a match and then practice. A few times he had gone to the public doubles courts to watch the freshmen play. Tachibana could then clearly see how each player individually and as a doubles team was coming along and could improve.

The freshmen's potential was really limitless. After watching them play, he would offer suggestions that the freshmen took deeply to heart. They practiced to the point of near collapse every day just with the effort to improve themselves and each other. It was the closest knit group of guys Tachibana had ever seen. They were the closest team he had ever in any way been a part of. Tachibana wasn't stupid enough to try to fit in any more than they let him. He felt on one hand he was too new to be completely accepted by them, and on the other, he was wary of them.

They still hadn't told him everything that was going on.

Okay sure, he had seen the horrendous hazing and heard all the rumors but it felt like there were other things that were going on and maybe other things that had happened. Things the freshmen clearly weren't letting him know about. Tachibana tried to figure out why they hadn't included him more or told him what was really going on, and had to admit he was at a loss. Sure, they didn't want to dump on him and perhaps they were a bit embarrassed. Everyone at this tough school seemed very determined to make it on his or her own, but wasn't Tachibana proving himself every day to them as more than just anyone? Hadn't he proven himself as their friend and as a good senpai?

And he would admit while a small part of him still felt like maybe he shouldn't get involved, he only felt happy and like he had a purpose when he was with them, helping them grow and evolve. A larger part of him wanted to belong. To be one of them, liked and accepted on some sort of an equal level, instead of just looked up to by them as a kind of a tennis guru. After all he wasn't that much older than the youngest of them. Turns out he was only a few weeks older than Sakurai. And even if he was more experienced in tennis, Tachibana realized just by being around them he had lived a very sheltered and privileged life in his far-away tennis schools. He had a lot to learn and no one to really teach him.

Never had he seen people truly try to eek out a living like these guys and their families did. In his old schools, his classmates were usually wealthy. A very few were like he was and there by scholarship. He was used to being the poorest. He always thought he had things tough because his family was not as wealthy as his old friends and teammates.

Here, compared to these freshmen and many of his classmates, his family was considered--wealthy. Honestly his family was middle class at best. Both his parents worked and both his grandmother and great-grandmother lived with him. It was a shock to him after seeing his old schoolmate's luxury homes and penthouse apartments and vacation villas to see how most people really lived. The freshmen were by and large hand-to-mouth poor and had to creatively scrounge for supplies and basic necessities that he had always taken for granted like shoes or rackets or tennis balls or food. If they had two parents, they both worked one and sometimes they even worked two jobs just to make ends meet.

The freshmen pooled their resources and their hearts together to help each other out. They shared, bought used, doctored old things up, and made due. If someone was down or their parents were going through a divorce or if one of their parents were sick or out of work, these guys came together as brothers would. They were closer than teammates or friends. They were completely there for each other like a family. Tachibana had never experienced anything like that before and it attracted and repelled him both at the same time. He admired their closeness, their will to survive, their fierce loyalty to each other, and admittedly at times longed to be included in that, but at the same time he felt their dependency on each other was each individual's biggest weakness.

If you're always looking out for everyone around you, how can you grow and improve yourself? How can you strive to be number one beside people that you love as family also trying to achieve the same goals? Somehow, these guys did. Tachibana had always been taught that to get ahead and to be the best, you had to be selfish, ruthless, and take advantage of any opportunity given to you. If you didn't, someone behind you would take it from you, and it would only be your own fault. These guys lived and believed in the complete opposite. They were all for one and one for all. They would never stab each other in the back or use each other to get ahead as an individual. They would never do any of the things Tachibana saw his former friends and teammates, and even himself do in the name of getting ahead to be number one. It annoyed him how selfless they could be, and at the same time, made him feel ashamed for many of the things he had done.

They each seemed to like him as a person and he tried to get to know each of them. He liked them each as individuals and when he was alone--rare times when he was at home, locked in his room and away from his sweet but annoyingly nosy little sister--he found he often thought about the freshmen. Tachibana broke them down as people and as tennis players because in his mind everyone really was their tennis game. At least he had always found this to be true.

The guys who were ruthless on the court but seemingly nice in person were most likely to stab you in the back over nothing. The ones who were too giving and weak when playing were the same as a friend. They made a decent friend but you didn't want to get stuck with them in a doubles match against solid opponents. Not that Tachibana had many close friends ever before. Mostly he had a lot of acquaintances and a lot of followers because he played so well, but no one he would call a real friend. He had always relied on no one and no one had ever relied on him. If anyone had asked him a year or two ago he would have said he preferred things that way. Friends and people who depended on you could let you down. You could only rely on yourself. Anything else made you weak. Weak as a player and as a person. That was what he had always been taught and believed.

But once in a while, looking at the close bond these freshmen shared, it didn't seem to make them weak. It seemed to somehow be a reason for their high tolerance to stress and pain as individuals and as a group. It seemed to be the source of each of their determination and seemingly endless enthusiasm and belief in themselves. It seemed to be the primary reason for their strength as individuals and as a group. Or, sometimes he would think to himself, it seemed to be the source of their strength as a team. These freshmen, if they stuck with this and made it through to their senior year, would be strong together. They would be a strong team with a lot of spirit. He grudgingly had to honestly admit, if they continued like this, really they had almost limitless potential. He felt they would be capable of even challenging some of the best tennis teams around.

And occasionally he wondered if it wasn't that strength, that bond between them in fact that he had been lacking in his life and in his tennis. Tachibana's purpose up until then had always been to win for himself primarily and his family as an afterthought. But if he were part of such a strong team...with such pure motives, and hearts, and souls...if he were leading and guiding them...then maybe...perhaps...

At that point in his thinking, Tachibana stopped his mind from wandering aimlessly into such foolish speculation. He even idly wondered if there were something in the water in the area that caused delusional belief in one's self and one's friends. Not that these freshmen were his friend or he theirs because for all their reverence of him as their senpai, Tachibana felt he was and would always be an outsider looking in. Whatever these guys had been through, even if it was just them growing up in such a poor, rough area, it bonded them closely with maybe no room for anyone else.

Tachibana figured it was a waste of his time to wonder about where the freshmen could end up if they had the right coach and equipment. They wouldn't ever have either because things like that cost far too much money. Instead he figured his time would be better spent helping them as much as possible until he was allowed the chance to play and made a regular. Eventually even their fat, slovenly coach would inevitably find out who Tachibana was and do the smart thing by bringing him on board. It would boost things in the tennis club and maybe even the school. Maybe he should even let one of the tennis reporters know where he was and let them do an article on him. He had read several articles wondering where he had gone. One call would be all it would take. Then at least, Tachibana could change things from the inside out so that these freshmen could continue to develop and grow without by being abused by their senpais and ignored by their coach.

As pure as the freshmen's love for each other and tennis was, it was ridiculous to speculate what he could make them develop into in the time left before he would graduate. He still after all had responsibilities to himself to grow and better as a person, and a duty to his family to succeed despite his strange step in a completely different direction when he changed schools. He couldn't devote himself to them, and if they ever found out his past, how dirty he was, they wouldn't care about him at all anymore. It was better if he kept them thinking he was a pure person, and in the meantime helped them as much as he could.

Pure was and always had been a big thing for Tachibana. There were so few pure things in the world. Tennis, just the game on the courts away from all the behind the scene manipulations and drama, playing tennis was pure. True love similarly was rare and pure. Tachibana's parents truly loved each other. Though he had not been around much or spent a lot of time with his family, they truly loved each other. His sister, even at her most devious and annoying, still loved her friends and family and even him in such a pure, beautiful way that it touched him as few things until then had.

Tachibana thought he always knew pure things when he saw them. Pure people with pure hearts and clean souls. People without any ulterior motives who did not try to manipulate others. The way these freshmen loved playing and each other was pure like that. Tachibana often thought so while watching them, but he had been wrong once before. He had been wrong about Fuji Syusuke, and it had shattered his belief in himself.

He met the genius at an invitational training camp and had been awed by him. Tachibana had been looking forward to challenging the tennis tensai from the moment he heard Fuji was attending the camp. He didn't know what to expect but what he hadn't expected was the pure presence that Fuji had.

First of all, Fuji physically was one of the most beautiful people Tachibana had ever seen. Fuji was prettier than most women when he wasn't playing tennis. From his honey-colored hair to his deep blue eyes to his tanned and finely muscled slight body, he was gorgeous enough to be a model. He had a quick mind, a pleasant demeanor, and was someone you were just drawn to. He was the kind of guy you just wanted to like you. And then Tachibana had played tennis with him. He had heard the rumors of the tennis genius before, but Tachibana who was nationally ranked by then had only been excited by the prospect of utterly destroying this slight and angelic-looking legend on the courts.

Fuji had agreed to play him that first night with a radiant, beatific smile and Tachibana remembers thinking it was going to be a shame to break this guy when he defeated him. He had even wondered if Fuji was as beautiful when he cried because Tachibana was very good at tennis. They walked to the courts alone in the dark, and Tachibana let Fuji serve first because even though he was going to crush him, the guy was too pretty to be cruel to.

But somehow, the beautiful boy with the angelic-smile thoroughly bested Tachibana. Fuji didn't even seem to work up a sweat. He used moves and counters Tachibana had never seen and couldn't even imagine attempting. Fuji smiled as he attacked, and he smiled as he defended, and Fuji smiled as Tachibana realized there was no way in hell he could beat him. He was furious and thought this must be some trick. Some plan Fuji must have had to defeat him all along now being played out. It was brutal and ugly and over in a very short time.

Tachibana was shocked to his very core. It rocked his world and part of him was wondering if Fuji's smile was somehow evil and manipulative--a calculated plan to throw him off balance. Yet Fuji looked so pure and curious and happy to play him. Tachibana remembers thinking angrily that all he wanted to do was to wipe that pleased, contented smile off the slender boy's beautiful face.

And the next moment, he was kissing Fuji...

A/N: More soon! ;)

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Learning to Land