Author Notes : Hello again, guys! Maybe some of you are wondering why this freaky girl appear again? A new story! To torture my characters! *get smacked by the reader* Fine! Okay! ^_^* Not mine and maybe not to torture but at least I’m here not to make their life any happier ^^ Meaning there will be a lot of angst and deep self-reflection done by the characters (I suppose you know who I’m actually talking about, right? My favorite pairing has never changed. Long live Tezuka x Fuji!) In brief, this story may be different from the ‘True Friendship’, still I hope you’ll like it in its own way. For the sake of everyone, please read the warning first. About the R rating, I don’t know if I will add lemon, but I know this story will have some mature themes later –not only about sex but also the killing things. I add a further explanation at the end of this chapter, but you may want to read it first. Thanks and have a happy reading!

DISCLAIMER : All the characters here, including Tezuka’s and Fuji’s families, are not mine. I’m merely borrowing them for this fic. I promise I will return them alive, even after the so-much mental distress ^.^

WARNING :

For the entire story:

1)      This fic is AU (Alternate Universe). Not that it doesn’t have anything to do with tennis. It does, but it won’t focus on tennis like in the anime. And I change whole lot things for the sake of this fic.

2)      Contains male/male relationship (Tezuka x Fuji, perhaps Oishi x Kikumaru and some other traditional pairings)

3)      I make the guys older here, they are in high school. I know some readers disapprove this and I myself feel unworthy to spoil such a good story made by Konomi-sensei. But due to their heights and some themes that may not be suitable for 14 year-old boys, I decide to write them as 17-year-olds ^_^* This fic is rated R not for nothing, you know.

4)      My Fuji is evil, read that, EVIL! He will not be a nice sweet tensai only. I know, in the manga and anime he has shown some cruelty but I must say it isn’t anything like this. He is an assassin and that’s far from good.

5)      If any of you object any of things mentioned above, please leave or read at your own risk.

For this particular chapter:

     This chapter is relatively safe for anybody but please mind the story’s warning.

Italicized words in the story are for thoughts.

                                                                               Unattainable

                                                                               Author : SIB

Talk to me when I’m bored

Care for me when I’m sick

Sooth me when I cry

Kiss me when I’m sad

Cry for me when I die

Love me when I’m still alive

                             [Anonymous]

Prologue : Inevitability

The perfect but cold azure eyes glared at him, gleaming menacingly in the dimness of silvery moonlight. Their gaze locked for a blink of an eye before the stranger stepped outside the window. When the other guy reached the sill, he had dissolved into the thin air.

Tezuka’s Residence; The Bedroom

May 2 – 06:20 a.m.

Tezuka woke with a start. His breathings were heavy, sweat drops were covering his temple. Despite the sunbeam that brightened the room by penetrating his rather thick drapes, his mind was still dark, still attached to the event which took place the night before.

He, as the youngest and special member of the international intelligence organization, known as The I2, was ordered to investigate some unsolved murdering cases which occurred in the last couple of years. The assassin had never been caught –not that they had a lucid depiction of the suspect- and last night another murder took place. It was when the young investigator arrived at the crime scene that he met the guy who had just haunted his dream.

His hand was brought to cover his eyes from the sunlight. He didn’t understand why the incident affected him so, even disturbed him in the shape of a nightmare. Yes, nightmare would be a right term. He still shuddered even so slightly whenever he recalled it. There, inside the main bedroom of the rich man’s residence, lay the soulless body of the mansion’s owner. And the angel of death who appeared out of the blue…

He shook his head in disapproval. There was supposed to be no angel when we talked about death –there were way too much diversity between the black and the white. But the mysterious guy was somehow different.

Tezuka frowned as he realized his thoughts were going aberrant. No private feeling should be interlaced in unraveling a case and it was an assassin they were talking about. Someone able to overhear his silent words would possibly think the cold guy was attracted to an unknown villain. Of course it was foolish –irreverent to what he felt, a murderer was a murderer, no matter what- still…                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Feeling he couldn’t cope with the reverie anymore, Tezuka got up from his bed and walked to the bathroom. He did not want an addition of absurd thoughts to disorganize his proper mind –the veiled crimes had brought enough viruses in. A refreshing bath would be very much welcomed in the state he was now.

Standing under the shimmering water, he found himself once again recalling his most recent failure. He had not admitted defeat, obviously, yet it was a failure to his eyes. The murder was not unheard of before, that was the problem. An announcement, concealed in riddles, had been sent to the Police Headquarter, a place where most of its workers were too occupied in their own thoughts to pay heed of such a childishly quizzical game. Luckily, some guys were smart enough to pass the burden to the I2 who unfortunately did not possess the ability God did, therefore clearly needed several amount of times to crack the code. When they ultimately had, immediately Tezuka and his men rushed in mad speed to the mansion, and still it was too late.

No one to blame, he thought wryly. Not that he looked for a black sheep; he was merely upset by the sluggishness of their Police Department. What in the world they were doing, no one knew. He felt blood was surging to his head, blessing him with throbbing veins. The should-be-cool water felt vapid, its advantage of clearing confused mind seemed to have lost. It barely had an effect on him right now.

Admitting it was only a wasting of precious water to keep bathing, he turned it off and got dressed. When he walked out of his room to the dining room, he was greeted by a sight of his parents were kissing right behind the wooden table. His only reaction was raising his thick eyebrows as his ‘good morning’ greeting halted at the edge of his tongue. They promptly broke apart when they realized their only son was watching, standing silently at the threshold.

“Kunimitsu! You could have knock first!” his mother reprimanded with a flush tainted her white unblemished cheeks.

“The door was wide open,” he calmly replied as he took his usual seat.

“But…”

The mother’s words were cut by a sudden appearance of her father-in-law and his deep commanding voice. “Good morning. Ah, Kunimitsu, take a look at this site map and tell me where you had actually seen the suspect.”

“Father, he is JUST awake…” Tezuka’s father desperately tried to hold the old man’s enthusiasm. “Really, I can’t understand why both of you is so drawn in this murdering things, especially you, Kunimitsu. You are only seventeen after all. With ability as brilliant as yours, why can’t you find a normal job like I do- ”

“Right, like you are actually doing a very normal one, being a special assistant of the Minister of Defense and all,” his wife admonished in a resolute tone, earning a loving smile from her husband. As she put her only son’s breakfast before him, the griping resumed, “Never come home punctually, spending more nights abroad than anywhere in this country, where is the normality of your job?”

“Well, at least it is not like that I’m cheating on you,” her husband teased playfully.

The rigid woman, who apparently was the holder of the black belt in aikido countered with hands were put on her hip, “Let me compete fairly with her if she dares to touch a single hair of my husband.”

“Understood,” Tezuka’s father winked. Subsequently he darted his gaze to the impatiently-waiting old man, “Still, my duty doesn’t involve anything related to blood-spilling,” and realized his son was eyeing him with great distrust, “directly…” he added eventually though with a discernible reluctance. Hoping that his only heir to be oblivious about the secret assignments he had been doing for the three last years -due to the order which unfortunately came from the Minister of Defense alone- was as much as hoping him to lose his interest in tennis. Meaning an absolute impossibility.

“This is his own choice,” the grandfather abruptly defended, then turned his attention back to his grandson, also his junior investigator, “Last night you told me you didn’t remember this suspect’s appearance but you were absolutely sure it was a man. How did you come into such a conclusion?”

“It is not that I don’t remember,” Tezuka retorted with a perfunctory tone, taking another mouthful of rice from his bowl, “it was too dark that I hardly saw anything. The only thing I remember was he had blue eyes.”

Blue eyes, it was all he recalled. No adequate light but to illustrate a slender body, silhouetted by the moon. Yet, the eyes glowed in their blueness as to be the only ray in the total darkness of an assassin. Tezuka shivered again, for the second time in the morning, despite the brightness and warmth enveloping him. He found the aqua pools far from comforting –so serene yet so ominous, like death woven in tranquility. It was not that he had yet seen a murderer, as a matter of fact he had personally met many kinds of them. However, none of them had any resemblance to the one he encountered last night.

“Not quite helpful,” his grandfather murmured, sweeping his thought away, “there are too many people with blue eyes, not to mention those who wear contact lenses. I don’t see how we can solve this case in a short span of time, as the Commissioner ordered us to.”

“Talking about time,” his mother interfered, “I think you’ll be late for school if you don’t go now, Kunimitsu.”

When Tezuka was about to stand, his grandfather had commented, “I don’t see the point of you going to school now. You have graduated from the most prestigious university in America anyway. You can use your time more efficiently if you work full time for us-”

“Now, now, Father, we both know why, don’t we? What else besides tennis? If Seigaku isn’t so famous for its tennis, he won’t even consider it as a high school, no matter how many important persons who study there,” his mother smiled warmly at her son. “Oh, I almost forgot. This morning Oishi-kun called. He said something about the tennis club and your responsibility as a captain or something such, so you were ordered to meet Ryuzaki-sensei as soon as you arrived.”

“Thank you, Mother. I’m going now,” Tezuka inclined his head slightly and made his way out, didn’t aware of three pairs of eye watching him intensely.

As the door was closed with a thud, the father sighed, “Why does he have to act so cold and silent, not to mention he inherits the strictness from you, Father…”

“That is hardly my fault, except the fact that I teach him to be responsible of his doings,” his father pointed out, “however, it should be good. Our Commissioner even said Kunimitsu had a great chance to be his successor if he retired. Aren’t you proud, considering how young he is?”

“It is barely that important,” the mother replied sternly, “I just hope he can grow up like normal boys do, spending weekends by playing football or games, or even falling in love…”

“Step over his tennis first.”

----- -----

Fuji’s Residence; Underground Confinement

May 2 – 06:47 a.m.

A guy sat silently in a dimly lighted room, which surrounded by thick wall. The bright sun only managed to send it rays to the hard concrete floor by passing the wide apart bars planted in mossy old stone twenty metres aloft, which revealed the sight of the fresh blue morning sky. Some soft knocks from the large iron door, the only passable entrance to the confinement, disturbed the entrapped one.

“Aniki,” A low voice muttered from the other side of the door, “can you hear me?”

The older brother inside sighed wearily, “What is it, Yuuta? You know well you are not allowed to meet me at these times.”

All of a sudden, the door began to move with a metallic crack before eventually it was opened soundlessly, revealing the satisfied but cautious face of Fuji Yuuta. The older brother stared at him in mild astonishment. “How in earth do you open that?”

“I took this from mother’s room,” he threw a key, which easily caught by the other guy. Fuji Shuusuke looked at the small gadget in his palm.

“You will be severely punished if she finds out,” he stated evenly.

“I will not risk you to be sick just because you haven’t eaten anything since yesterday’s breakfast,” Yuuta disappeared from the room and came back with a plate full of onigiri. “Besides, I will return it as soon as possible, so just eat these quickly,” he shoved the plate to his brother.

“Thanks,” Fuji smiled warmly at him.

While Fuji was helping himself to the rice balls, Yuuta observed the worn-out face of his brother, “You didn’t get any sleep last night, did you?”

“No,” came the muffled answer, “it was unusually cold last night. Even the weather doomed me.”

“What did exactly happen in your mission?” the younger brother inquired, “I thought it went rather well, at least compared to mine. My knife missed my target’s heart that I had to behead him before he had the chance to scream and wake the whole mansion.”

Fuji sighed in remorse and leant back to the cold wall, a regretful smile colored his face, “Actually, there was nothing wrong with the target. The process ran smoothly until the last seconds. When I was about to jump out of the window, a guy suddenly came in and of course he saw me. Mother knew this because of the camera put in my watch, and so here I am.”

“Well, that’s a bad luck,” Yuuta chuckled lightly, “you are rarely punished by mother so we were kind of shocked when we heard that you were sent here.”

“Yeah, bad luck. If only that guy hadn’t showed up-”

Suddenly they were silenced by a slight sound of a faraway door was being opened. Fuji darted his gaze to the still-widely-opened door in front of them and signaled his brother to leave, along with the empty plate. In no time, he was once again alone, staring at the door watchfully.

As he predicted, his door was once more pushed open –only now, he was not too pleased to see the visitor. His cousin, Mizuki, was standing at the threshold, looked at him with a malicious smile.

“Having fun, aren’t you last night?” he satirized the pitiful guy, “At last, the genius Fuji Shuusuke is incarcerated.”

“Do you come here just to mock me?” Fuji countered calmly. He returned the gaze with his typical stare, the deriding but tempting one, the one he was sure would be able to bring him a victory over this round. And of course there was his smile.

 It was proven to be right when Mizuki tore their connection and answered briefly, “You are summoned by your mother.”

“Well, thank you,” the brunettes murmured in mock courtesy and walked passing his cousin without even bothered to look back. But, before they had the chance to reach the range of three metres between, Fuji heard the other guy turned on his heels and suddenly threatened, “I’ll make sure your dearest mother will know momentarily about the key you’ve stolen. It wasn’t there at it usual place when she ordered me to call you.”

In a slow deliberateness, Fuji did more or less the same. Facing his adversary with a thrilling serenity lurking in his eyes, he smiled, “Just what does that accusation you have spilled base on?” The low voice he used seemed to gain the expected effect on Mizuki. The skillful strategist had to hide his chuckle as he watched amusedly the spell he cast was beginning to weave around his pitiful cousin.

The raven-haired guy gritted his teeth, “You are the only one who was able to do it, even if you were trapped in this prison!”

“I’m very much flattered, thank you,” Fuji replied politely and threw the problematic key, which landed right in front of his stunned relative with a loud clang, “I’m positive that my mother will be very proud of me for being able to steal it.” And the charm was implanted successfully. Mizuki could find no answer to his simple statement. Watching the prodigy of the family once more praised due to his fabulous skill obviously not one of his plan to put the spotlight on himself. He had enough of Fuji and his genius.

The tensai cast a final smile and resumed his paces, a satiated smile loomed on his thin lips. The best psychological aggression he learned was to make his opponents losing the control over their own mind. His cousin was speechless, meaning his aim was attained.

He glanced to the still-standing form, wondering where the nice Mizuki he used to know had gone. Their encounters always ended in such of these games, which undoubtedly won by him alone. When would his cousin finally learn about his inadequate capacity to stand evenly against him? Not that Fuji minded, he needed some practices after all.

Maybe this is the way we have to be, he thought as he resumed his paces. The next second the thought was blown away by a shaking of his head.

It was weak. Being able to think of pity was a point of weakness he must not have. He had learned it since his three-years-old birthday was commemorated and clearly did not have a plan to discard that particular policy in anytime near future. It was one among the basic and Fuji scolded himself severely for disregarding it so easily. Another flaw of his. No wonder his mother awarded him by a punishment.

When eventually Fuji arrived in front of his mother’s chamber, he reminded himself to pull the edges of his lips upward before raising his callused hand to knock.

“Come in,” a firm answer came from behind the wooden door. Fuji slid it open and walked in silently. Inside, the woman who had a role in training him to be a worthy assassin in his whole 17 years life sat behind a low table. Her eyes sharply scanned the build of her son.

“I hope you will learn much from my punishment,” she started their dialogue with a reprimand, “therefore I hope you will act more carefully in the future. I will not have any member of our family suspected as a villain, is that clear?”

“Yes, Mother,” Fuji answered in tractable manner.

“Now about your next mission,” her tone of voice changed that it was very much alike a robot was talking now. She waved her taper hand as a sign for her son to sit in front of her. After Fuji did so, a map was put forward to him.

“His name is Oishi Shuichiroh, I believe you have known that he is the son of the owner of the Central Hospital. His father has a lot of authority in our country, a fact which unpleased our respected client. Therefore I assign you to befriend him, find out about his habits, and gather as many information as you can get from his mouth. And remember this, if it is necessary, we also can use him to blackmail his father or,” the keen eyes pierced her son’s stoic visage, “even kill him, depends on the request from our costumer.”

Fuji looked down at the photo of a raven-haired guy who was smiling excitedly. In his hand was a tennis racket as he was standing at the side of a tennis court, clearly watching a heating-up match. The pictures of his victims that had been shown to him were always the smiling ones, taken when they were experiencing a glorious moment of life. He was sure none of them had ever guessed by the time he committed their identities to his memory their deaths were doubtless.

“I know this is rather an unusual assignment for you, considering it doesn’t directly involve any killing,” his mother’s cold voice turned his attention back on, “but I need someone who can act perfectly as a high school student. And there is your tennis ability. Fortunately he attends a tennis club, so once you have entered this school, you also have to take that club.”

“This school?” her son repeated in confusion.

“Seigaku,” she answered impatiently, “you will enter this school tomorrow.”

Fuji sighed inwardly at the reply. It was the fourth transfer in his high school years and his third year had only begun in count of days. It might rouse suspicion of a fussy teacher or student about why he had not attended the school since the first two weeks. But of course, that a fever was overcoming him could be a nice safe reason.

“This school is full of students whose parents are both rich and important, therefore I want you to be extra cautious in running your assignment. You are the best asset in this family and I have a high expectation on you. Do not loosen your guard, stay alert of the I2, or last night fault may take place once more and mark my words, I won’t be so generous. And one more thing,” she narrowed her eyes, “do not involve emotionally with anyone. I don’t want anything went amiss only because of your selfishness. I hope your failure last time is sufficient a lesson to keep that in mind.”

“It won’t,” Fuji answered coldly before retreating himself.

To be continued…

Recovery may prove impossible

                                 [Ian Malcolm – Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton]

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Some added explanation :

In case you’re confused by the too-short prologue, I will clarify some things.

I2 : An abbreviation of International Intelligence (sorry for my uncreative mind ^_^*) This is a private organization, unlike the CIA or FBI, and leads by a commissioner called Solff (wolf in German). Later explanation can be found in the next chapters, if you think this fic is good enough to be resumed.

Seigaku : Even I make the school AU >_< This Seigaku is different from the one in manga or anime. Most of the students’ of Seigaku are children of highly important people. Not all of them, of course.

Tezuka : He is an agent of I2, has finished his study in US, and enter Seigaku mainly because of tennis. I won’t change other things about him. About his family, I don’t know much except from what I read in the fanbook. Don’t get their characters too well, I suppose, so I decide to make them up, a strict and firm grandpa and kind parents.

Fuji : Now, we have a major problem! Thanks to me, my Fuji is the most AU character in the entire story T_T I know, even if he’s a bit cruel and have odd taste in several matters, he’s certainly not a bad guy, let alone a murderer. Really sorry, guys. Believe it or not, Fuji is my favorite character and I make him like this! >_< So, yes, he’s a murderer and has been raised a murderer. Like Tezuka, he’s a genius on and off court. His family is also a hard part because they are not only a bunch of killers. Well, they are killers but they are well-organized ones, lead by Fuji’s mother. His family has worked in that dark side for generations and he’s no exception. They are creepy, I admit that, just look at how Fuji and Yuuta talked so casually about beheading someone *shudders*

Residences : I feel a necessity to clear this part. We know, from both the manga and anime, that Tezuka lived in a traditional Japanese-styled house while Fuji was in a western-styled one (I saw it in the 10.5 fanbook too) but I reverse those facts in this fic. Only Fuji’s room which will stay as it is because I like it so much ^^

Ramblings : That’s the prologue! I admit it’s boring but background explanation is necessary since this fic is kinda AU -_- And sorry for the too-long rambling introduction, that’s my bad… So what do you think, guys? Should I continue this or not? Please, I need reviews and comments because I can’t be objective enough to evaluate my own story. Forgive me if I insert too many impossible things and make too many changes, but please don’t flame me. You’ve read the warning, right? Still, thank you for reading!