Happy spring, worblehat!

[takewing]

Title: Leaps of Logic
Recipient's Name: worblehat
Disclaimer: Definitely not mine; I just borrow the boys!
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Fuji/Saeki (brief mention of MomoKai)
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: I hope you enjoy this, worblehat. I had a lot of fun writing it, mostly because this pairing isn't normally one I'd write.



Leaps of Logic

The first thing that Fuji wanted to do when Tezuka told them that he was going to Germany was to call Yuuta. He didn’t want to do it just to annoy Yuuta, or to find out how his tennis was going ot whether he was still hanging around with that strange manager; he simply wanted to ring someone, tell them what had happened, and have them say, “I’m sorry,” upon hearing it.

However, Yuuta currently wasn’t talking to him (apparently because Fuji had eaten the last of the dumplings when Yuuta had come home, or so his sister had said) and he really wasn’t the person to say “I’m sorry” when he heard bad news. Fuji knew this, of course, since his brother hadn’t changed that much since going to St. Rudolph’s, but there were times when he desperately wished Yuuta was that kind of person. But he wasn’t.

So Fuji called Saeki instead.

He felt strangely calm as he dialled the familiar number, the same part-daze, part-trance that had come over him after he’d finally made sense of what Tezuka had said. Maybe it was shock, but Fuji didn’t generally suffer from shock and also had an extremely good tendency for taking things in his stride.

“Hello,” he said when Saeki picked up, his voice dreamy and soft. “Tezuka is going to Germany for rehabilitation.”

There was a pause, and then Saeki said, “Crap,” in a dismayed tone.

It was close enough.

“For how long?” Saeki asked, and Fuji could hear him shift to a more comfortable position on the bed.

“For as long as it takes, I suppose,” Fuji replied, staring over at the cacti lined up on his windowsill. “We were all told today.”

He knew that telling Saeki all of this could technically be considered giving a rival team information they shouldn’t know, but there was also a significant difference between tattling to the opposition and ringing a friend after being given some really bad news. So that was why Saeki didn’t press him for any more details after that, instead asking, “He didn’t tell you beforehand?”

“No,” Fuji said. “Or Oishi.” His lips thinned in agreement when Saeki winced.

“This is bad,” Saeki mutters, “really bad.”

“Seigaku will survive,” Fuji told him firmly, and he was surprised at the conviction he heard in his voice.

Saeki wisely didn’t say anything, though Fuji knew what was probably running through his head anyway: Seigaku’s terrible record from the past few years and how Tezuka really was the reason they had managed to scrape up further in the past two years, even with Fuji joining him as a Regular last year.

Pillar of Seigaku, indeed. Fuji rubbed his forehead and gritted his teeth at the headache beginning to form.

Instead of saying any of the number of things curently running around in his head, many of which should never be said, Fuji asked instead, “When are you going to visit us again?”

“I was thinking of coming down soon, actually,” Saeki said. “I wasn’t sure with Yuuta in a different school now.”

“I’ll tell him,” Fuji assured him, shifting the phone to a more comfortable position against his cheek. “he’ll be home if you’re here, too.” The sun was beginning to finally sink towards the horizon, twilight creeping in from the east. Lights were beginning to flicker on in the nearby houses.

“Are you sure he’ll even answer the phone if you’re calling?” Saeki asked, a teasing lilt to his voice. Though Fuji’s knuckles whitened temporarily as he gripped the phone a little bit harder than he should, he nevertheless laughed. This was the problem with having such an old friend: they knew every weak spot, so well that they could exploit them without even realising it.

“Maybe it’s a good thing Tezuka won’t be around when we play you,” Fuji remarked after a moment.

Saeki paused, and then said, “Why?” He was naturally suspicious of the suddenly pleasant tone in Fuji’s voice.

“I can only imagine what Tezuka would do to your freshman captain,” Fuji finished smoothly, and then smiled as Saeki began to sputter.

Fuji laughed and said goodbye, adding that he would see Saeki soon. He was still sputtering when Fuji hung up.

^.^.^.^

Playing Rokkaku wasn’t at all like coming home because Seigaku was Fuji’s home. But it was familiar, if only because Saeki was there.

There was no triumph or bitterness when Seigaku beat them, merely relief.

We can still do this, Fuji thought as he packed his racquet away, This is not the end, even if Tezuka isn’t here right now. His stomach almost dropped as a weight unexpectantly lifted from his shoulders.

Rokkaku were graceful losers, their freshman captain latching onto Echizen like he was his new best friend, much to Echizen’s chagrin and everyone else’s amusement. Saeki sidled up to Fuji afterwards and told him that he’d be coming down the following week.

“Oh, good,” Fuji said, pleased, and smiled. “I’ll tell Yuuta.”

“Is this going to be another instance of having him yell at me because he lost again?” Saeki drawled as he grinned.

Fuji sniffed. “He’s become a lot stronger.”

“Yes,” Saeki agreed and nudged him, still grinning. “It’s lucky we’re not all like you, or no one would grow stronger at all.”

Fuji raised an eyebrow, but laughed after a moment. “I’ll choose to take that as a compliment.”

“You do that,” Saeki agreed, running a hand through his hair and then turned to the call of: “Saeki-senpai!”

“Your captain is calling you,” Fuji said dryly.

“Oi,” Saeki muttered, then smiled. “See you soon,” he added over his shoulder, waving as he went to join his teammates,

“Aa,” Fuji replied softly, watching them get on the bus until Oishi began to call him; it was time to go home.

^.^.^.^

It was strange, but Fuji only realised that he had missed Saeki when he was at their kitchen table, eating his mother’s cooking and looking like every bite was the best thing he had ever tasted.

That said, it was also very likely that Fuji’s mother had also missed Saeki as well, if only for that very reason.

“What?”Saeki asked when they were up in Fuji’s room, looking up from his examination of Fuji’s cacti. “I missed your mother’s cooking; it’s ten times better than my mother’s cooking.”

Fuji rolled his eyes. “If you say so.”

“Bet you’d say the same about my mother’s cooking,” Saeki said, looking like he was trying to resist the temptation to poke one of the cacti.

“Not a chance,” Fuji said mmediately, and sighed as Saeki grinned at him over his shoulder.

“Case in point,” Saeki said, holding up a hand in triumph.

“Fine,” Fuji admitted. “Your mother’s cooking is hopeless.”

“Hey!” Saeki exclaimed, whirling around and looking momentarily outraged, his eyes narrowing at the innocent look on Fuji’s face. “Where’s Yuuta, anyway? You said you’d call him.”

“He should have been home by now,” Fuji said, and knew he wasn’t hiding his worry very well when Saeki’s expression softened. Thankfully, anything that could have been said was stopped by the door opening and slamming shut.

“I’m home!” Yuuta yelled, and Fuji sighed, his shoulders immediately relaxing.

Saeki shook his head. “Sometimes I’m really glad I don’t have a brother,” he muttered.

After a few minutes, they could hear Yuuta’s footsteps pounding on the stairs and then he knocked and poked his head around the door. “Hey,” he said.

Fuji’s face lit up. “Yuuta,” he said.

“Hey,” Saeki said, lifting a hand in greeting.

“Is it too late to play a game?” Yuuta asked, and Fuji glanced at Saeki just in time to see him bite his lip to stop himself from grinning. It was nice to see that Yuuta’s one-track mind hadn’t changed at all since he’d left home.

“Yes,” Fuji said. “I think all the courts are closed by now.” It wasn’t technically true; Saeki remembered one or two that he and Fuji had snuck out to when they were younger, but Yuuta didn’t need to know that.

“Relax,” Saeki said, winking, “I’m staying over for the night. You can play me tomorrow.”

Yuuta snorted. “You’re going down, Saeki.”

Saeki laughed. “We’ll see.”

“Yuuta!” his mother called from below. “Your dinner is ready now!”

“Coming!” Yuuta yelled.

“Come up when you’re finished,” Fuji said, and Yuuta nodded, waving at them as he disappeared back around the door. His footsteps thumped down the stairs.

There was a pause, and then Fuji sank down onto his bed. He sighed, and then murmured, “I wish he still said things like that to me.”

Saeki frowned. “Like what?” he asked, sitting down beside him.

“Like ‘you’re going down’,” Fuji explained, leaning back until he was lying fully down on his bed. “He doesn’t say things like that to me anymore. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“Not really,” Saeki replied, gazing down at him. “You’re... well, you, Fuji,” he added, laying down beside him, “and Yuuta’s been playing you for a long time.” Fuji didn’t reply and they lay in silence for a few minutes, just breathing. They were lying so close together that Fuji could feel the heat from Saeki where their arms were pressed together.

“He’s been getting so strong lately,” Fuji whispered.

“But not strong enough?” Saeki asked after another pause.

“Not strong enough against me,” Fuji continued, nodding. He sighed.

“Hey,” Saeki said, trying to lighten the mood. “If my sister was a genius and beat me at school all the time, I’d be pretty annoyed too.”

“...Saeki, your sister is a genius. She’s done better in school than you since you were kids,” Fuji replied at last, staring at him like he’d lost his mind.

“Yeah, but you don’t see me whining, do you?” Saeki replied, gesturing seriously with a finger. “And she definitely doesn’t.”

Fuji contemplated turning this serious and pointing out that there was a vast difference between tennis and studying, but instead he laughed. Saeki sighed.

“If you want, we can do something that I can definitely beat you in,” Saeki suggested, grinning broadly.

Fuji sat up and looked at him, his eyes gleaming. “Oh, really?” he asked.

“Yup,” Saeki said. “We never did finish that video game, did we?”

“No, we didn’t,” Fuji said, grinning as well. He laughed. “You’re on.”

Later, just before Yuuta joined them to watch, just after Saeki had delivered a critical hit to Fuji’s character, Fuji said quietly, “Thanks for coming down.”

Grimacing as Fuji retaliated onscreen, Saeki waited another few moments before replying, “No problem. Just return the favour?”

Then Yuuta flopped down beside them and told Saeki in a grave and very serious tone to kick Fuji’s ass.

Saeki did.

^.^.^.^

“Do you consider me a rival?” Fuji asked later that night, when they were sitting on his bed, eating snacks and watching a film neither of them were particularly interested in.

Saeki paused in the middle of eating a stick of Pocky, turning to look at Fuji with it still partially sticking out of his mouth. He blinked, finished crunching and swallowed, and then said, “What brought this on?”

“Just wondering,” Fuji said.

Saeki raised an eyebrow and then paused, taping a new Pocky stick against his lips as he thought. “I guess so,” he said at last, “in a way.”

“Oh?” Fuji asked, staring down at his ice-cream as he stirred it into melted goo.

“I mean, there’s only so far I can consider you a rival because of the obvious reasons. I’ll never catch up to you completely because you’re too far ahead, but I look towards you like... I don’t know, someone to aim for in the general sense? It’d be like thinking of Tezuka as my rival.”

“Echizen considers Tezuka to be his rival,” Fuji remarked, licking the back of his spoon thoughtfully.

Saeki snorted. “Yeah, well, Echizen has the Samurai for a father and could probably hit a ball before he could walk or talk. There’s rivals and then there’s rivals. We’re both out of their league.” Fuji bristled and Saeki rolled his eyes. “Be serious, Fuji, we are. You can’t say otherwise.” Fuji sighed, stirring his ice-cream again, and then reluctantly smiled when Saeki leaned over to repeatedly poke his arm.

They fell asleep before the film ended, though they tried their best to stay up until the early hours of the morning. Technically, Saeki also had the spare futon laid out by Fuji’s bed, but they were asleep before he could think of climbing into it.

They woke up the next morning sprawled on top of Fuji’s bed, the covers half-tangled around them. Saeki grinned and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly when Fuji rubbed his eyes and glared at him; he’d taken as much of the blankets as possible.

They were almost finished eating breakfast (Fuji trying to ignore the expressions of rapture on Saeki’s face), when Yuuta came into the kitchen and asked them when they were going to the courts, bouncing with impatience even as his mother told him to sit down and eat.

It was a perfect day for tennis, clear and cool. The weather was a lot better than the last time Saeki had visited, but the outcome didn’t change: Yuuta was still left sweating and scowling at the end of the game, glaring at Saeki.

Saeki smiled crookedly. “You lasted a lot longer, this time,” he pointed out.

Yuuta’s scowl deepened.

“Food bribery?” Saeki asked.

Yuuta looked like he was contemplating flinging his racquet at Saeki’s head.

“Yuuta,” Fuji said, smiling.

Something flickered across Yuuta’s face, too quickly for either of them to recognise, as he turned to look at his brother. There was a long pause and then he said, “Play a game with me, aniki.”

Saeki stared. Fuji went very still, his eyes opening just a little. He took several breaths and then said, “All right.”

It ended very quickly. Fuji didn’t go all out on him.

Yuuta didn’t talk to them for the rest of the day.

^.^.^.^

Saeki didn’t ring him until he’d been home for around six hours. Then, at almost three in the morning, he finally picked up the phone and dialled.

“You’re an idiot,” he said when Fuji picked up.

There was silence for several moments, before Fuji sighed and said quietly, “I know.”

There wasn’t much else to say after that.

^.^.^.^

They were all there when Rokkaku played Higa in the opening of the Nationals, so Fuji watched as Saeki lost to... what was his bame again? - oh, yes, Kai. Fuji nodded as Saeki grinned and thanked them for supporting him and the others, giving them a thumbs-up before he rushed to see how their coach was doing. As he watched him go, Fuji swore then that Higa would not get past them in the Nationals.

They didn’t.

Later, when the Nationals were over and Seigaku came out triumphant, Fuji kept his promise and took the train to Chiba. Saeki was waiting for him and grinned when Fuji walked up.

“Hey, National Champion,” Saeki teased him, his grin widening.

Fuji rolled his eyes. “Don’t be silly,” he said.

Saeki laughed. “Come on.”

Saeki’s mother welcomed Fuji with a wide smile, telling him that dinner would be ready soon and not to get deeply involved in any video game. Saeki muttered, rolled his eyes, and made exaggerated hand motions behind his mother’s back for Fuji to follow him up to his room. Fuji did, trying not to laugh.

“I’m glad the Nationals are finally over,” Fuji remarked as he lay on Saeki’s bed, gazing up at the ceiling. “I think everyone was starting to go crazy from the stress.”

“I could believe that,” Saeki remarked, looking up from where he was trying to untangle the cords of his Playstation. “Playing against Rikkai didn’t exactly look fun.”

Fuji pursed his lips, paused for a moment, and then said, “It was... difficult. There’s no point in denying it. But it was fun, in a way. Yukimura and his team... they understand tennis in a way that few other teams do. Playing Hyoutei is more fun, though.”

“You just say that because Oshitari and you try to out-Higuma-Otoshi each other,” Saeki drawled, and ducked the pillow that Fuji lobed at him.

“It’s good practise. Few others can play like Oshitari,” Fuji said, trying to hold onto his dignity and failing. “It’s nothing petty.”

“Of course,” Saeki said, and manged to hold a straight face for precisely ten seconds before falling back onto the floor with laughter.

Thankfully, Saeki’s mother called them for dinner right then.

Fuji noticed that Saeki seemed distracted throughout dinner, lost in his thoughts and hearing nothing that anyone said to him. From the way his family glanced at each other, though, it seemed that this wasn’t unusual behaviour for Saeki. Fuji decided to pretend he hadn’t noticed anything, and tried his best to pay attention to Saeki’s sister as she told him about the latest topic she was interested in. While he could be considered a genius in tennis, it didn’t bring over that well into schoolwork.

Fuji kept quiet until he and Saeki were back in his room with snacks, watching Saeki set up the game. When they were in the middle of a fight, he finally said, “What’s wrong?”

Saeki blinked and then scowled as Fuji chose that moment to lay two rather heavy kicks at his character, sending him sprawling. “Cheater,” he said, tapping buttons furiously, and then added, “Nothing’s wrong. What makes you think there is?”

“You’re not yourself,” Fuji said. “You haven’t been for a while, not in your emails or whenever we’ve talked on the phone, but I didn’t realise it was this bad until today.”

There was a long pause, before Saeki finally sighed, played until Fuji had kicked his ass, and then said, “Three weeks ago, just after we lost to Higa and were trying to get back to normal, I walked in on Bane and Davide in the clubhouse.”

Fuji blinked, paused, blinked again, and then said, “When you say ‘walked in on’...”

“I mean, as in kissing and some bit of groping,” Saeki replied flatly, keeping his eyes firmly on the ‘game over’ sign on the television screen. “It was... uncomfortable.”

Fuji smiled. “I bet.” He paused again, and then said, “You obviously haven’t heard about Momo and Kaidoh, then.”

“No, I haven’t,” Saeki said, and then added, “Wait, what?”

Fuji laughed, before leaning over and kissing Saeki. It was the briefest brush of lips, but it might as well have been a full-on (with tongues) type of kiss from Saeki’s expression when Fuji pulled back.

“Oh,” Saeki breathed. He swallowed. “I think I’m glad that your leaps of logic are better than mine.”

“Yes,” Fuji said, keeping a straight face, “or you’d still be wondering whether to kiss me or not by the time we were in high school.”

Saeki glared at him and Fuji laughed again, but Saeki soon made it so that he was making a different sort of noise entirely.