A/N: Written for the New Year of 2008, for new beginnings.
It starts, as all fights do: unspectacularly.
They're sitting tucked away in a dim corner of the cafe because Fuji decides he likes the coloured lampshade hanging over that table and Tezuka's not comfortable in open space.
"It's the first time I've seen you for more than ten seconds and awake in a week, Tezuka." Fuji's voice is too polite to be accusing, but the edge on his smile is dangerous, corners of his mouth slightly taut. It's as if he's saying you aren't giving me enough time, only that is the sort of the thing a jealous girlfriend might say in a fit of petulance and Fuji isn't a girl, no matter how much his appearance deceives.
Tezuka thinks about Fuji's need to fill every available empty surface with something, bites back the retort about extravagance. Picking a fight with Fuji is like playing tennis with the wall, a useless arrhythmic exercise that occasionally ends in stalemate, usually in defeat.
Fuji traces the edge of his cup and watches the steam rising from it, slow tendrils dissipating at the edges. He brushes back the wisps of fringe falling over his eyes; which are open now, and watching Tezuka with a terrible intensity, impatiently expectant.
If he could, Tezuka would offer the reassurance Fuji is waiting for: the promise of more attention, of sacrifices, of greater giving, less taking. But he isn't a man who breaks his word, and this is something he cannot promise. The trees outside are flattened on the top, as if they've reached the ceiling to their growth; a limit to their aspirations.
He lifts the cup to his lips and drinks, and remains silent, silent and motionless even when Fuji pushes back his chair abruptly and the sound of metal grating across the floor shrieks in his ears.
Fuji is nothing if not extraordinary, and Tezuka – Tezuka has always felt ordinary, even in the face of admiration from every direction. To himself he's only doing what everyone should, only he doesn't realize that this is what draws people to him, this unwavering faith in the necessity of duty and his resolution to perform that duty, regardless of cost.
He remembers Fuji idly tracing pictures on the window, filling in the raindrops with food colouring because he wanted a stainglass but they weren't allowed to change anything about their room; Fuji putting a bar of lavender soap and another of rose together in the shower until they stuck, became one thick slab of conflated lavender-rose scent; Fuji methodically unraveling the edges of their sofa cover because he didn't like straight edges, they were boring.
It's never been hard for Fuji to reshape the world around him into something that pleases him, but Tezuka's determination is unearthly in its solidity.
They haven't said anything to each other about the fight, by tacit agreement. It goes unspoken that to disrupt the peace is sacrilege; but Fuji knows Tezuka is deferring to him. He's never been one to meet problems head on; he simply lives with them, endures until they go away. It was like that with Yuuta, with Echizen. So will it be with Tezuka.
But his throat stops up with the thought of Tezuka leaving. Perhaps it will be a day when the sky is an empty expanse of blue, the buildings melding into a shapeless mass of greys and glinting glass, the leaves skittering rustle-rustle-rustle across the ground. Today is such a day. Already to him Tezuka is a mere outline, nebulous with a core of unshattering determination, receding into the distance; Fuji has to forcibly stop himself from reaching out across the breakfast table to touch Tezuka, to make sure he really is there, solid and tangible and unchanging. That he isn't a delusion.
He's being irrational and dependent and ridiculous, but sometimes it's hard to remember that in the face of everything, genius endures, has endured for ages and centuries and eons.
It's hard now, in the face of Tezuka's very possible departure from his life.
Tezuka watches Fuji washing up the dishes after dinner, arms up to his elbows in soap suds. The sunset outside has gilded everything in faint gold with the slow viscosity of a broken egg yolk; the bubbles in the sink catch the light and refract it like a prism, blues and pinks and purples and greens brief on their surfaces.
It is all so normal, this scene of domesticity. It is too easy to imagine that after this they will sit down to talk about their day, about the girl in Tezuka's class who reminds them both of Eiji because she has an obsession with bandaids and wears a new one with a different pattern every day (she's worn Pokemon, Kamen Rider, flowers, Harry Potter, cats, dancing vegetables, Hello Kitty, Doraemon, Digimon and goodness knows what else) and the boy in Fuji's who keeps a Mexican jumping bean in a jar on his desk, to the teacher's chagrin. There will be a glass bowl of fruit between them, of peaches with an amber blush and a dusting of fuzz, or glossy cherries (the juice of which will stain Fuji's mouth and hands a deep purple, that he will keep licking off in a very distracting manner). Perhaps there will be tea, if Tezuka has had a trying day.
There is nothing in this that says there is the potential for Fuji to waltz out of his life now, pick up and pack up and disappear like he never existed, like a will o' the wisp. What he leaves might be only a particularly vivid patch that sticks out on the greying, striped wallpaper, the exact shape of a photo frame, but it will be enough.
Tezuka bites his lip and looks at Fuji's back helplessly, hopefully.
Fuji begins to hum, soft and muted like the fading notes of a piano in a dusty room.
Tezuka doesn't recognize the song, but he does recognize the peace offering, tentative as it is. He takes the offering, and proffers a kiss in return; Fuji's smile is once again feline, content as he brushes fingertips lightly over Tezuka's cheekbone.Somewhere in the distance there are fireworks, possibly celebrating the New Year, but Tezuka thinks hazily to himself that they could be celebrating forgiveness, new beginnings, maybe even love.