(no subject)

[kat8cha]

Title: Waiting Room
Pairing: Tezuka/Fuji
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A 10 year reunion of all the tournament leads to Fuji and Tezuka having their first conversation in 5 years.
Warnings: Er. Fluff? Touch of angst.
Disclaimer: THIS IS ONLY A PROLOGUE. …not really, but no, I don't own PoT, that's all Konomi, as are Tezuka and Fuji.
A/N: Massive thanks to you 69 for beta-ing at the last minute. Love, appreciation, and marshmallows. For lafuego a la christmas_cacti .

There were certain things Fuji liked about Tezuka's dates.This current piece of arm candy accented Tezuka's broad shoulders and his muscular arms. The beautiful woman's long blonde hair twined around her shoulders, and when she clung to Tezuka's arms her hair would fall forward and drape dramatically across Tezuka's broad chest and his dark blue suit. The woman's blue eyes were predatory though, and she kept scanning the gathering to see if there was someone more her speed there.

"I preferred the redhead." Fuji stated casually. Eiji snickered from Fuji's side, one arm wrapped over Fuji's shoulders, a flute of champagne banging against Fuji's chest. "She was at least entertaining to talk to."

"Why doesn't Tezuka's PR people ever find him a nice quiet Japanese girl, Fujiko?"

Fuji chuckled, sipping from his own glass of champagne. "I think they're living out their fantasies through Tezuka's dates."

Tezuka's staff were all entertainingly, rather annoying, cheerful fans of Tezuka. All of them seemed to think Tezuka should date glamorous Western women. There had been a few glamorous, well-known Japanese women early on, before Tezuka had become an internationally known name. They had caused a great deal of controversy and had not lasted long. Westerners were safe though because no one expected Tezuka to marry a Westerner, and it was well known that Tezuka had never slept with the young women he dated.

"No fun, no fun at all." Eiji sipped at his champagne, nearly strangling Fuji. Fuji laughed, noting that several heads turned to look their way. Tezuka's eyebrow merely twitched. Fuji knew that they had Tezuka's attention though.

"Well, Eiji, we all know what kind of things you consider 'fun'." Fuji teased his friend cheerfully. "Oishi baiting for one."

Eiji laughed again. Oishi was standing over in the corner with his wife, calmly talking to some of the teenagers from Fudomine. "Oishi needs to lighten up now and again. Otherwise his kids will be raised to be Oishi clones!"

"Tasty." Fuji deadpanned.

Eiji snickered again and unwound his arm from around Fuji's neck. "Very. Now if you'll excuse me, Fujiko, I think I will go refresh my glass." Eiji turned and headed into the crowd becoming an arm above the mingling ex-tennis players, and a loud voice shouting 'hooooooooooooooi'.

Fuji chuckled, and sipped some more at his champagne. He was halfway done with this glass, and it was his second of the evening. One more and Fuji would be done. Despite the fact that the reception hotel the reunion was taking place in was attached to the hotel many of them were booked at, Fuji did not want to take any chances. Losing control around old rivals was not something Fuji intended to do.

"Fuji Syuusuke?" Fuji turned, blinked, looked down at a tiny ball of curly blond hair and wide brown eyes. "It is you! Daddy says you were the best tennis player ever. Is that true?"

Fuji smiled slightly, there was no need to ask who 'daddy' was, the child's genetics were obvious. "Well, if your daddy is Jirou Akutagawa I would have to call him a liar. The best tennis player ever is over that way." Fuji made a brief wave in the direction of Ryoma, who had early on been carried off by Momoshirou and some other well-meaning players. From what Fuji had seen, the ex-tennis players fully intended to get Ryoma plastered. "And your father played Atobe Keigo, who is also an excellent tennis player."

The kid's eyes were wide now and Fuji felt a little pang of remorse. Well, maybe he should have lied.

"You're so PRETTY and NICE." The child burst into tears and turned around, running off. Fuji sighed and brushed hair out of his eyes. Really, children were just so… childish.

An amused presence hovered at his back. "Still making kids cry, Fuji?" The kansai drawl and the slightly too close presence, Fuji tipped his head back and smiled at Oshitari Yuushi.

"Mm, at least it's not because of my face, Oshitari." Fuji smiled, sweet and innocent, tone lighter than angel food cake. "And you?"

Oshitari smiled back, his glasses streamlines and not the round versions he had worn in his teenage years. These were stylish, square and plastic, but nothing like Inui's old glasses. The frames were clear and tinged faintly with blue-green. "I'm a pediatrician, I have tools other than my face to make children cry." Oshitari offered Fuji a glass of champagne and Fuji downed the rest of his before taking Oshitari's offered flute. The champagne fizzed and bubbled pleasantly down his throat.

"And a lollipop afterwards for the good ones?" Fuji did not take a sip of the new flute of champagne, instead letting his eyes wander over Oshitari, and then over the room. Tezuka was still watching. "You haven't changed."

"You make it sound so… pornographic." Oshitari's tone rolled over Fuji, or it tried to. Fuji was rather immune to such things, especially since Fuji had spent 4 years working around the best, and biggest, in the entertainment world. Being a photographer of the famous and fabulous led to you meeting people with very attractive voices and very unattractive egos.

"You put in half the effort, Oshitari, maybe you should get half of the reward?" Fuji sipped at the flute of champagne. "Except, I'm all out of lollipops."

"Shame." Oshitari smiled slightly. "I may have some up in my room."

Fuji patted Oshitari on the shoulder and slipped his eyes open. "Mmm, tempting, but you're not my type. Now if you'll excuse me." Fuji slipped past Oshitari and past a waiter picking a glass of champagne off of his tray. Coming up to Tezuka's side Fuji smiled at the blonde woman who was now coquettishly blinking at Atobe Keigo.

"Tezuka, your hand was looking lonely." Fuji passed Tezuka the champagne, noted the quick flicker of the blonde's eyes to the hand Fuji had passed it to. Now if the blonde wanted to cling to Tezuka she would have to switch sides, and what a shame that would be. "Atobe."

"Fuji." Atobe paused, looked at the blonde and then looked at Tezuka. It was entertaining, the amount of subtext you could fit into such non-verbal movements. "Tezuka, your date looks absolutely famished, did you not feed her?"

"Oh, we went out to dinner before hand, but I was just too nervous to eat." The blonde nattered, inching subtly towards Atobe. Atobe's left eyebrow went up and his eyes went down, and Fuji noticed that at some point the blonde's daringly low cut black dress had inched even further downward, giving a rather clear portrait of how much she had to offer.

Tezuka shrugged, slightly.

Atobe smiled, slightly, and nodded, slightly. "So you will not mind if I took your charming date over to the buffet table then?"

A charmingly innocuous sentence which meant 'may I feel free to take your date upstairs and bang her into the finest mattress the hotel can provide?'

Tezuka gave Atobe a curt nod. "Ah. I see no problem."

A statement that, anyone who knew Tezuka knew it meant 'for those things, she charges by the hour'.

Atobe slipped an arm around the blonde's shockingly thin waist and turned her away. "I won't be long."

'I'll tip well.'

Fuji chuckled into the glass rim of his flute, amused at what one of the top tennis player's in the world and one of his many sponsors were not saying. Tezuka stood beside him, silent, waiting for Fuji to speak first. The ball always seemed to start off in Fuji's court; Fuji wasn't sure if that was Tezuka being gentlemanly or Tezuka just not wanting to deal with speaking up.

"I hear that you're dating… oh what was that actresses name…" Fuji could remember the actress of course, and all the other women Tezuka was rumored to be sleeping with.

Tezuka's face tightened. "I'm not." That was all Tezuka responded with. Fuji waited a few seconds for more; more to make Tezuka feel awkward because he thought more information would be coming. Tezuka's fingers slowly curled around the champagne flute's stem.

"Five years between meetings and you don't have anything more to say?" It had been less than that, actually. Fuji had seen Tezuka at various meet-and-greets, and Fuji had attended all of Tezuka's matches. And then there had been that one surprise run-in while Fuji was vacationing in the Alps. So in reality, it had been barely half a year since Fuji and Tezuka had run into each other last.

But it had been five years since their last good conversation.

"Perhaps we need a few years between each meeting." Tezuka's tone was level, perfectly level.

"Perhaps we do." Fuji waved cheerfully at Saeki, who was attempting to make his way across the room but kept getting waylaid. "So who decided Christmas was the right time of the year for this reunion? I would have thought that doing it during the summer would be more appropriate."

Tezuka shrugged, motioned to Oishi and then the path Atobe had taken to disappear with Tezuka's date. "Scheduling conflicts. Christmas had the most of them."

"I suppose if you can't make everyone happy, making everyone upset is the best way to go about things." Fuji set his half finished flute on a passing waiter's tray; the night was beginning to sparkle which meant it was certainly time to stop. Though perhaps that was just the effect Tezuka had on him. "Did you have plans for Christmas?"

Tezuka shook his head and turned so that he and Fuji were standing across from each other instead of side by side. Fuji had read somewhere that when you wanted to put distance between you and someone else, you stood at an obtuse angle, facing away from them, but if you wanted to connect with someone you stood across from them. It had been in some psychology paper and Fuji had always thought 'well that's just common sense'. "And you, Fuji?"

"I was going to fold Yuuta's soul into an isosceles triangle and mail it out with our Christmas cards." Fuji smiled brightly.

"Ah." Tezuka's lips twitched, not a smile, but less of a frown. In years gone by Inui would have been there with a video camera, recording every twitch. Now Inui was lurking suspiciously near a suspiciously smoking punch bowl. "So much like me then."

"Mmmm." Fuji nodded. Yuuta had started spending Christmas with… whomever he was dating, and Fuji's parents generally spent it with Yumiko and their darling grandchildren. Fuji liked visiting his family and enjoyed spending time with Yumiko and her progeny, but there were only so many questions about when Fuji would be continuing the family line that Fuji could take. "I was surprised when the invitation came. A ten-year reunion for a Jr. High tennis tournament? How absurd."

Tezuka passed off his champagne flute as well, then made a small motion with his now empty hands. "Has it been disappointing?"

Disappointing? Not really. Fuji had talked to some old rivals, and made a few business connections that could come in handy, and Fuji had of course flirted with 25% of the wives and 40% of the unmarried men. Not that anyone would ever call Fuji on it, except Inui, it was just the way Fuji was. "There is a surprising lack of tennis at this party. I was waiting for Echizen to challenge someone to a game."

"Would you like a match?" Tezuka offers, and Fuji's fingers twitch.

"I did bring my racket."

They slip out of the party unnoticed except by a few. Eiji, who has managed to thoroughly harass Oishi while keeping one eye on Fuji; Saeki, who had been trying to talk to Fuji all evening; and Inui, who actually had been video taping Tezuka.

Tezuka exits the elevator on the 6th floor, to head to his room and change, while Fuji stays on till the 9th. They meet on the roof, Fuji holding a jacket under one arm and a racket under the other, and Tezuka dressed in sweats with his tennis bag slung over his shoulder.

"A little chilly for tennis." Fuji states, pulling on the jacket before he begins to warm up. A fine dusting of snow litters the tennis court, like white on an evergreen.

Tezuka shrugs, his breath clouding the air on every exhale. "You like to play in difficult conditions."

Fuji smiles and silently agrees.

Their match is similar to the one from 10 years ago, the match they had played against each other after middle school exams ended and their high schools were announced. Fuji had left Seigaku then for Rikkai, performing a transfer he had been debating since the middle of his third year. Tezuka had stayed at Seigaku, and they had met up occasionally between matches, or when Taka invited everyone for sushi, or when Eiji had called up Fuji and dragged him out on some sort of adventure.

They had met in competition for the nationals, had met at nationals, but had never played an official match against each other.

Fuji serves first, and takes the first game. 1-0

After high school had been the Universities. Fuji had attended Rikkai for one year, before transferring out of the country. Eventually Fuji had ended up in America with a major in Photography and a minor in Anthropology. What Fuji would do with the two of those, no one could guess. Halfway through college Fuji had met Tezuka on a foreign campus, surrounded by people who could barely pronounce their names.

Tezuka takes two games, one after the other. Tezuka leads, 2-1.

They had talked and talked, and gone out and played some tennis.

And then they had gone back to Fuji's dorm room, hung a tie on the doorknob, and proceeded to make a mess of Fuji's prim, white sheets. Tezuka had been more than Fuji expected and Fuji would never know what Tezuka had expected from him. The sex had been a little rough, a little uncontrolled, it had made all of Fuji's muscles ache with exhaustion the next day, and his back had complained bitterly. Tezuka had been there when Fuji woke up, long enough to explain that he could not stay and he needed to leave.

Fuji had, perhaps, been a little bitter. He may have snapped.

Tezuka still leads, 3-2, their tennis begins to change, shifting from the careful maneuvers they use now to the rough, surprising game of their middle school years.

There was nothing to break up, so really, it was not a break up. Merely a cessation of friendliness. Fuji had regretted it, and he had wanted to apologize but had been unable to find the words, even now five years later, and Fuji still can not find the worlds.

5-4, and the cold makes Fuji's grip on his racket stiff, his moves brittle. Tezuka as well seems to be battling through the chill. The match ends at 6-4, Tezuka's training bringing the match to an easy close. Fuji blows on his hands, rubbing them together before he shakes Tezuka's hand.

"Tezuka." Fuji smiles up at him. "You know, I noticed you never date brunettes."

Tezuka's hand is chilly against Fuji's, both their fingers frozen. "I have my reason." Tezuka's lips when they brush Fuji's are also cold, though Tezuka's breath is warm. "Would you like to come back to my room to warm up?"

'Can we dirty the sheets?'

"My room is closer." Fuji smiles against Tezuka's lips, and pulls back, tugging on their still clasped hands. "And I brought condoms."

Blue, red, and white striped condoms, in fact, and a few with little tennis rackets drawn on them. Fuji would be glad to put them to good use. "Oh, and Tezuka." Fuji opened up the roof door, "will I be getting a Christmas gift?"