To Whom It Concerns
by Suke
Summary: Oishi has always had a crush on him but it seems that the last person that the flawless, perfect Tezuka-buchou needs is some overly- worried vice-captain fluttering all over him, asking about what doesn’t concern him. More shonen-ai fluff! Banzai!
It’s something a little milder than my recent stuff, softer and sadder, probably because of the main protagonists. Angst? No, I still can’t manage something so strong. I’ll revert to the old lighter, funnier stuff soon but I hope you like this anyway.
^^^^^
They met on the bus again as usual. It was like clockwork, only less mutable.
As always, it was the 6.17 bus. The one covered with a Fujitsu notebook commercial on the sides and a blown-up picture of a woman, apparently a satisfied Fujitsu user, smiling at tail-gaters from the back of the bus.
If Oishi left his house at 6.09 in the morning and walked briskly, he would reach the bus stop just as the bus pulled in. It would bring him to school fifteen minutes before morning training started, leaving him enough time to unlock the clubroom and prepare for his day.
Of course, as steady and dependable a person Seigaku’s vice-captain was, there were days he missed the bus. After all, there were things.
Sometimes, he over-slept due to a late night, or forgot to set his alarm clock. Some mornings, his sister woke up and decided that she was having a bad hair day and locked herself in the bathroom for half an hour. Or the dog managed to escape into the neighbour’s backyard. Or it rained just as he was stepping out of the house.
Oishi was organized, diligent and careful with his things but he was hardly perfect. He had known this since kindergarten when the picture he drew of his family received only one gold star while the boy sitting next to him got two stars and a ‘very good!’ scribbled in red ink. That was why some days, Oishi ended up on the 6.20 bus.
But it was okay because Oishi had been told that nobody was perfect, and arriving at school on the 6.20 bus still gave him plenty of time to get ready.
But it was not so okay because Oishi knew that some people were perfect and that two stops after he got onto the 6.17 bus, at precisely 6.21am, one of these perfect people would flag the bus down and board it with every gleaming chestnut hair uncompromisingly in place.
Before the pale bespectacled gaze of the high school boy, suddenly everyone else seemed rumpled in comparison. Tezuka would walk down the aisle of the bus, one hand gripping the strap of his tennis bag, the other holding the rail as he made his way swiftly to the back of the bus.
And as he did on every other day, the Seigaku buchou would find his way to the rearmost seat and sit down in one economical motion that Oishi was sure he would never master were he to practice a hundred times everyday for the rest of his life.
It was like a law of nature, only less flexible. Hence, Oishi was not surprised to find himself seated shoulder-to-shoulder with the famous buchou of Seigaku this morning, knees inches apart, sharing a silence warmer and more natural than that he found with anyone else. He had, in fact, sprinted all the way to the bus stop for this very occurrence.
“Ne, Tezuka,” Oishi began.
“Hn,” his companion replied, constant as the sunrise.
“Did you sleep well last night?” The vice-captain asked and then continued to further qualify his question. “It rained at my place so it should have rained at your house too. When I went to bed, I was wondering if your elbow was hurting since wet weather makes it act up.”
“It’s fine,” the taller boy said flatly.
“The paper said it’d rain today too,” Oishi informed him but a question was there as well.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t push yourself too hard if it hurts,” he added, the worry evident in his voice. “We need you if Seigaku is going for the national championship.”
“Hn,” Tezuka muttered and Oishi was silent for a while.
It’d always been this way. They would meet and Oishi would be concerned about something: his health, his work, his family, his studies, his sleep, his relationship with his mother... And then, sometimes they sat in silence, each caught up in his own thoughts, and sometimes they’d chat about school or the tennis team or the professional tennis scene, or just tennis.
Today, there was silence, all the way to the clubroom where they found an unnaturally early Kikumaru Eiji sitting outside on the step.
Actually, they heard Eiji before they saw him and it was really Eiji who found them since he had heard them coming first and shouted Oishi’s name excitedly as they had rounded the corner, before throwing himself bodily into his doubles partner.
“Oishi! I was here before you nya! I was the first one here!” The redheaded boy proclaimed triumphantly, breaking away from his friend to bounce happily around.
“That’s nice,” Oishi said, opting for an encouraging tone as he unlocked the door to the clubroom. “It’s good to be early.”
“You’re right! At first I thought that it’d be super boring to come to school so early and I had to wake up really early too, and that was so hard! But then, on my way here I saw so many things! At the market outside my house, there was this truck with these huge fish. They were so big! Like seals!” At this point Eiji dropped his bag onto the ground by the lockers to stretch his arms wide. “And they were still alive! And the men were whacking them over the head with sticks!”
As they changed and got ready for training, Eiji continued to rattle on at top speed about how he had proceeded to stand and gape at the men for a full five minutes according to his watch.
Oishi couldn’t help but note that throughout the exchange, Tezuka stood apart from them. He changed using his neat, efficient movements, eyes averted from them all the while as though he wasn’t listening to their conversation. And when he was done, he left the room without a word.
When they arrived on the courts, Tezuka was doing his own warm-ups. Half- listening to Eiji’s description of his exciting exploration of the school ‘while it was still dark!’, Oishi let his eyes follow the buchou’s movements.
The vice-captain was, after all, not new to Tezuka-watching.
It had begun as a fascination for Oishi. The other boy was so different. He was unsmiling and stern and immovable, and so clean and efficient that Oishi had to watch him to make sure that someone like that really did exist.
Of course, Oishi then realised that Tezuka did smile, except it looked different from the way other people smiled. And that was fascinating too.
Once, in idle chatter when Oishi had been in a particularly unguarded mood, he had asked the other boy why he didn’t smile like normal people. Because Tezuka’s smile was so unidentifiable as anything other than a slight narrowing of eyes, people never knew when Tezuka was pleased and it left them feeling thwarted and upset.
“You know when I smile,” Tezuka had said, expression unshifting.
“Sometimes I forget,” Oishi had replied, smiling at the unexpected openness with which his friend had received the subject. “And I’m not the only one that’s important. People think you’re unfriendly.”
“I don’t care what they think, as long as you know,” and before Oishi could argue further, “I’ll remember.”
And that was why Tezuka was cruel. He gave Oishi reason to hope when, Oishi was quite sure, there was very little reason for him to hope. And Tezuka did it quite obliviously too. And that was what made Tezuka even more cruel.
Anyway, it was Oishi’s fault. From the fascination and the watching had grown other things. There was admiration, and respect. And some portion of wonder, acceptance, amazement and an odd mix of awe in the normality of daily life. And more.
He had no right but he made Tezuka important to him. And he wanted to be important to Tezuka. So it was Oishi’s fault.
“Ne, Tezuka, are you finishing up?”
“Hn,” the captain said in his flat tone without turning around.
“I’ll be going first so please lock up when you leave.” Oishi reminded.
“Don’t be late. There’s assembly today,” Oishi added when Tezuka didn’t answer.
He left the clubroom for class only to be pounced on by his sparkly doubles partner who had been waiting outside the door for him.
“Oishi, you’re amazing nya! You’re not scared of buchou at all!” Eiji crowed, clearly privy to his conversation with Tezuka.
“Why should I be scared of Tezuka?” Oishi asked obligingly, a smile already forming on his face.
“Because, well, I’m scared of him because sometimes when I talk to Buchou, it’s like I’m bothering him and annoying him. Then I feel kind of stupid and sad,” the redhead mused and then continued with his next breath. “So I always try to keep out of his way. I don’t think there’s anything I could do that won’t annoy him. He’s so perfect and stuff. I’m like a silly kid next to him.”
“Of course that’s not true, Eiji,” the taller boy said although clearly amused. “Tezuka doesn’t feel that way about you.”
The bright-eyed boy laughed happily.
“I know that, nya, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling like an idiot.”
And the boy beside him, with the eyes the shade of Summer, laughed with him because he was that kind of person.
But really, truly, he understood the feeling. Sometimes, especially lately, the tennis team’s vice-captain had begun to wonder if he was really a fool because, even though they were friends and he knew that Tezuka did like him as a companion and vice-captain, Tezuka had a way of making him feel particularly foolish. Tezuka was perfect, after all.
“Tezuka, have you seen Nita-sensei yet?”
“Aa,” the boy sitting beside Oishi replied and of course he would. Tezuka wouldn’t forget something like that.
“Did you manage to clear it up?”
They were seated at a quiet corner of Tezuka’s classroom by the window facing the field, opposite each other, Oishi having turned his chair around to face Tezuka at his desk. Oishi had come over from his own class next door and the room was half-filled with classmates chatting over lunch, laughing, gossiping, giggling and sharing secrets and triumphs and little upsets.
“Aa,” Tezuka assented and of course Tezuka wouldn’t have any problems with getting permission to skip his Math test that clashed with the ranking matches.
“Did your Science quiz go well just now?”
“Aa,” Tezuka said in the way that seemed to say that of course it went well. What a stupid question to be asking. He was Tezuka Kunimitsu after all.
There was a silence, like there was earlier this morning on the bus. Oishi tried to eat his bento and think of something else to talk about besides Tezuka’s wellbeing. But he really wanted to know. He worried, and about Tezuka, he worried most of all.
“Tezuka, did you --” Oishi began and stopped.
The pale chestnut head shifted and the narrow gaze landed on Oishi for a moment before moving off and back to the bento that Tezuka was eating. And of course Tezuka knew to take care of himself. He was already grown up and more than that, he was Tezuka. Beautiful, perfect Tezuka.
“Aa?”
“Ah, nothing,” the other boy whispered.
He felt foolish. Foolish for asking questions that he should have known the answers to. Foolish for bothering his friend with his own worries.
“Oishi-san,” a girl’s voice hailed him. It was Class 3’s representative. “Mitani-sensei wants to see all the class representatives.”
Oishi got up and made his way to the girl standing at the classroom door. He turned back once to say something or wave to Tezuka but the bespectacled boy was no longer looking in his direction. It made him feel worse. But Tezuka was like that and Oishi felt, in a way, that he should have known all along.
^^^^^
A storm broke midway through practice in the afternoon. It wasn’t surprising. The sky had been full of ominous warnings that day and the hot air overcharged and humid. But they had gone ahead with practice on Ryuzaki- sensei’s word. It was important to get in whatever training hours they could.
Tennis club members ran with a half-wild, organised sort of chaos, cold rain-numbed hands taking down nets and scooping up stray equipment, splattering mud in brown patterns over shoes and socks. Someone fell and got up. Someone else fell.
The rain came in sheets and soaked through jackets and shirts all at once; running into their eyes and hair, blinding them and making them squint at the vague shapes around, all running for shelter, pushing for entrance beneath the short overhang above the clubroom’s door.
They jostled each other into the room, slipping and sliding, trampling muddy puddles onto the linoleum floor. Wet, soiled equipment was hastily set down in piles by the walls as everyone undertook the task of getting dry.
Clean club towels were handed around the space overcrowded with wet, previously-sweaty boys who were now cold. Kikumaru rubbed at his face with the towel Kawamura was using to dry his forearms. Echizen kicked off his dripping socks and shoes, and bumped into Momoshiro who was trying to resuscitate his hair.
The captain slid through the confusion, belting out instructions to get as dry as possible before cleaning up the equipment, himself leaving a wet trail as he went. Oishi and Kaidoh burst into the room still running, arms full of more towels wrapped in their jackets.
Order was restored slowly and drier members, barefoot, were herded to various tasks: cleaning and folding the nets, sorting the clean balls from the muddy ones, wiping up the floor with their used towels.
The captain performed his role in coordinating them, sending the ready second-years, third-years and regulars home under umbrellas and in dry socks with damp shoes. The vice-captain returned to his element and walked around checking for injuries and making sure everyone was as dry as possible.
“Fuji, you’ve been a little under the weather lately. Why don’t you go home first?” Oishi asked the smiling blue-eyed tensai who had smiled throughout the debacle.
“Then, I’ll go now. But don’t worry, Oishi, things like this give me strength,” Fuji said, beaming as he watched Momo and Kaidoh trip over each other.
“Ah, Momo, Kaidoh!” The vice-captain hastened over to the bickering two before they hurt each other by accident. “Why don’t you two get going too? The rain’s stopped.”
“Echizen,” Oishi proceeded down the line to the next regular. “Are you okay? You were out in the rain for a long time.”
“Hai,” the boy muttered.
“And Taka-san? Inui? Are you guys feeling feverish or unwell?”
“Oishi, I’m fine,” Taka-san replied, throwing him a smile.
“Well, just remember to take a hot bath when you get home and stay out of the cold.”
“I have a special juice that will help strengthen your body in times like this if anyone needs it,” Inui offered.
“Oishi, you’re such a mother hen nya,” the acrobatic player of the team slung an arm around the fussing vice-captain’s shoulders.
“Aa, gomen,” Oishi apologised. “But Eiji remember to put your things in the laundry the moment you get home or the stains might never come out.”
The redhead laughed as Oishi moved to the next in line. Tezuka was seated on the bench beside Kikumaru, efficiently drying his hair. He looked neat enough to have just come out of the shower but Oishi could see the way the captain was hunched over just the slightest bit to favour his left arm.
The bespectacled boy looked up at him, eyes bland, as though he had just said something or was about to. Oishi smiled back and turned away to the other side of the room where the first-years were still counting balls.
Oishi had decided after all, during class sometime after lunchtime and before training began, to stop.
He should stop bothering Tezuka with his worries. Oishi worried about everything and some things needed worrying. Like the tennis team’s line-up, their class play, his book report, his little sister’s new crush, Eiji... And then there were things that didn’t need worrying about, like Tezuka.
It wasn’t like he could stop himself from feeling worried about Tezuka, but he could just stop asking about everything all the time. And he would. He had no right to feel that way about Tezuka. He had no right to hope. So he would stop.
Tezuka would prefer it that way and Oishi could stop feeling like a fool.
^^^^^
Nothing much changed after that decision.
They still met on the 6.17 bus and went to school together. They still met for lunch sometimes and they were still the captain and vice-captain of the Seigaku tennis team.
They discussed tennis, school, exams, the tennis team, recent news events and the professional tennis scene. Sometimes, conversation even veered to more trivial topics like movies, dreams and politics.
In general, nothing had changed.
“Tezuka, ohayo!” Oishi greeted as he entered the clubroom to find the captain alone inside.
He had missed the 6.17 and was a little later than usual today. Kaidoh was already on the courts and he was a little surprised that Tezuka hadn’t been. Perhaps he was busy. Perhaps he was unwell.
“How are you today?” The vice-captain asked with his warm smile. He had meant to completely stop asking the other boy about his wellbeing but it seemed kind of rude so he limited himself to this one question.
“Hn,” Tezuka muttered as usual.
Oishi pulled his tennis shirt on over his head and then reached for a clipboard. He walked over to Tezuka who seemed to be thinking about something because he hadn’t moved. Flipping to the right page, Oishi slotted the clipboard into the space in front of the captain.
“I’ve written out the training schedule for next week. We can have the ranking matches starting Wednesday,” the boy gestured with his ballpoint pen at the appropriate places on his neatly printed page.
“Oishi,” the tone was hesitant and the shorter boy looked up at once.
“Nani, Tezuka?”
“Aa, iie,” he said, stopped and then spoke again. “Are you okay?”
“Of course I am,” Oishi said, smiling his warm smile at him. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You just seem -- different.”
Tezuka frowned at this point. Hadn’t Oishi noticed? The vice-captain had been different lately, more distant and less concerned. It was unlike Oishi to not ask, to not try to help, to not remind him about everything or suggest solutions to everything. It had been odd.
And it seemed that he had changed specifically towards Tezuka only. Because Tezuka knew that Oishi had always been more concerned about him than he was for any of the others, when Oishi stopped for Tezuka only, it was hard not to notice.
And Tezuka had been distracted enough to drop a set to Echizen yesterday.
And Oishi hadn’t said anything about that either.
“Really?” Oishi mused, tapping the pen against his lip. “I don’t feel very different.”
Stop it, Tezuka wanted to say. Change back. Become yourself again. Ask how I am. Ask about my arm. Tell me to take care of myself. Worry about me.
“Hn,” Tezuka said.
^^^^^
Review kudasai!
I’m aware it’s not a nice ending and although I always need good endings in a fic as a rule, I still have no idea what to do with this one so this might be the end. This must be my fifth attempt at this fic and I’ve actually finished it this time although I don’t really like it but it was done so I thought I’d just post it.
Well, let’s just say it didn’t turn out the way I had expected. Sigh.