Perspective

-BluAyu

(A/N: This is an odd little one-shot maybe a little mini-fic drabble-ish sort of fic. Um, this will sound really odd but I literally laughed out loud at the idea of our beloved Tezuka becoming a school teacher for junior highschool students. So I thought, he became famous in the tennis world, got too old…twenty-eight, and would be retired. So he coaches tennis and teaches a writing class since I noticed while he was in Germany in the actual PoT series he wrote a couple tennis articles I think. This fic will first be following a student… It'll get a lot better. BTW shonen-ai between the buchou and tensai if you know what mean, so you've been warned.)

Disclaimer: The Prince of Tennis (Tenisu No Oujisama) belongs to Takeshi Konomi, not me.

Part One

Iroto Isuke boredly sat at his desk, his face resting in his right palm, and his dark brown eyes looking back at the twenty-eight year old who coldly behind frameless glasses gazed back at his students for the year. They already knew that this writing class wasn't going to be as fun as last year… Why did Shimota-sensei go to the US to pursue a writing career when he actually had students who adored him and admired him for making such a boring subject fun?

There was an awkward silence, a horrible ring in the room, and it being the beginning of spring wasn't helping the moods of some people both since the weather was getting hotter, and would probably get hotter as time went on until September or October which was a long way until now. Iroto was now slowly counting the days until he'd have a summer break.

The teacher cleared his throat and sighed.

"I see there's nothing really to say to eachother so we'll get straight onto it," he said. He quickly wrote his name on the board. Tezuka Kunimitsu. That's why he looked familiar. He was tennis star for a long while; he was matched up to the Japanese legends of Ryoma Echizen whose father was Nanjiroh Echizen, and the rich and egotistical Atobe Keigo. Tezuka had retired recently from what the tennis magazines said but now Iroto was wondering why such a famous player was here at Seishun Gakuen. He already heard a rumor fly from the other side of the room from another dark haired boy with a scrawny frame, "I heard he's taking this job because he's coaching the tennis team here."

Tezuka-sensei snapped his fingers and walked over to the boy.

"You shouldn't spread rumors," he merely said. The boy paled.

"A-ah, Hai sensei," the boy stuttered out.

The poker faced teacher looked at his roll sheet and started to see who was present and who was not.

"Imoto Sakura!"

"Present."

"Inari, Jououchi!"

"Present."

"Isuke, Iroto!"

"Present." He said stand, bowing and then sitting back down. This was only a formal thing they did everyday until their teachers recognized their names. After his name, Iroto blocked out droning names and the present replies and was in a daze until there was another annoying silence again. Damn, this was just awkward.

"You're all in eighth grade; this is a big time of year for most of you. You all, hopefully, a year from now will be advancing into the ninth grade where you'll be taking final exams. Highschool entrance exams to be exact with you if you didn't already know. Most of these questions will be either math questions or at most essay questions. And this is why I won't accept ninety-nine-point-nine percent. I expect one-hundred-ten out of every single one of you," Tezuka-sensei began.

He droned on and on and on. He had a feeling to say to his friend Hinto who was sitting beside him, "This guy just talks and talks and talks…"

He did hear the part at the end of class when Tezuka-sensei said, "You all have a 5,000 word essay on something that's happening right now in the environment due tomorrow. Anyone who doesn't have it tomorrow will face the consequences. I'll see you all tomorrow morning you're dismissed."

Sonva bitch. 5,000 words on the first day on something as boring as the environment? Iroto knew that he would only probably have two hours of sleep by the time he was done. His math teacher wasn't going easy on them and nor was their writing teacher. Wonderful…

--

It was true on what that scrawny guy who ended up being named Naru ended up saying about Tezuka becoming their coach for the boys' tennis team. Tezuka was so merciless at his job too. But he was good, very good. He played tennis well again the senpai who were Regulars and some even got kicked off of the Regulars spot because Tezuka said they didn't play well enough. Their last tennis coach was Sakuno Ryuzaki and she had no taste in tennis or who to pick for such a sacred position. She literally thought everyone was talented enough. It seemed like now that Tezuka was here she was moved over to the girls' tennis team to coach with her other friend Tomoka.

Whenever someone did a wrong swing and Tezuka told them how to fix it and they still couldn't get the angle going they'd have to run laps around the campus. Twenty of them! Iroto had enough experience on running those laps because his wrist wouldn't exactly obey him correctly. The whole team would have to run laps sometimes and Tezuka sometimes ran with them and ran so fast that he warned that if he passed anybody they'd have to do double the laps he ordered.

Today was one of those days and they ended up outrunning their coach by teeth on skin.

"What the hell is this? A tennis team or a track team?" panted out Seto-senpai one day.

"I know… This is jacked up," muttered Ryosuke from the other side of the lockers as everybody dressed out to go home after evening practice. It was already beginning to get dark because they had ran so long and Iroto already knew he missed dinner and probably would see if he could poke and prod Ryosuke or Seto-senpai who were regulars to treat him to some burgers down at a burger place that wasn't too far from here. I mean senpai treat their kouhai right?

"You guys are lucky. You don't have his writing class. It's all essays and he's doubles the words up because some idiot didn't do their homework. One day all of us were standing on our tiptoes holding water pails just because Risa Omori suggested that we take a break from all this essay work we've been doing," pointed out Iroto.

"Oh he catches us running in the halls all the time. It's really funny because he calls a power walk running," said Takyou Azumi.

They all laughed at that.

"It's because he makes us run so much. We don't know the difference anymore because of it," joked Ryosuke.

"He's just a grouch. I dunno maybe he didn't retire. Maybe he got beaten by somebody in tennis," said Seto.

"By who though?" Iroto asked with a grin.

"Echizen, Ryoma," they all said in unison and laughed. They all walked out together cold air evening air chilling them. They all stopped laughing when they found quite a pretty male standing just a couple feet away from them. He was gazing up at the school building with beautiful azure blue eyes and his fawn brown hair flowed with the wind. He noticed the attention he was getting and his glance was now in their direction only with lidded eyes now.

"My, your tennis coach keeps you young boys out so late?" he asked.

"Ah, we're used to it. He wants us ready for the Nationals," replied Ryosuke with a slightly tented blush on his face. They had never witnessed such a beautiful man before. Why was he here out of all places?

"Sou ka... I was on the exact same team when I was your age," replied the man with a warm smile.

The small group of teens looked in surprised.

"You were? Wow…"

"Matter of fact I was a Regular with quite the strict buchou," continued the male.

"Reminds us of someone," muttered Takyou.

"Well I wouldn't want to keep you guys, but will you do me a favor and be so kind to tell me where Tezuka Kunimitsu's office is?" the male asked.

They paled. Why was this guy here for their coach?

"Ano, I think he's still available in his class room. Room C-8-4," said Iroto.

The male bowed and waved to them.

"Thank you very much. I hope to see Seigaku in the top three this year! I'll see you all around hopefully!" he called out before walking away.

The teens looked at eachother with shocked eyes as the brown haired man made his way around a corner out of sight to the small group of tennis club members. Three being Regulars and one being just a member but was in consideration of becoming a Regular.

"What does he want with him?" hissed out Seto quietly.

"Wanna check it out?" asked Takyou.

Iroto paled.

"No way! That'd make us stalkers!" he whispered furiously.

The senpai-tachi snickered at their little kouhai.

"We'll promise to pay for burgers if you tag along," bribed Ryosuke with a smirk.

Well then, who could turn down free food? If they were paying then-…

"Fine, but you owe me," said Iroto as he followed his senpai into the now abandoned school building. It looked creepy all empty… They made the way up stairs and quietly made their way into the hall and crawled down on their knees to avoid the window and press their ears to the wooden door to eavesdrop.

"Kunimitsu I'm disappointed, you're not even the least bit happy that I came here all the way from Chiba to see you?" asked the male disappointedly. The all quietly gasped as the man used their sensei's first name. They must've known eachother quite well.

"You've come to start trouble Fuji," snapped Tezuka.

"I've come to see you. Kunimitsu, please don't try avoid me. You're driving me crazy," whispered the male who they found to be called Fuji.

"I'm not avoiding you."

"Is it because you can't play tennis anymore because of your shoulder got hurt again?" asked Fuji.

There was a silence.

"Shut up," hissed Tezuka.

The teens looked at eachother worriedly.

"T-Tezuka….please….don't… You're hurting yourself most of all you're hurting other people around you, especially me," cried out Fuji.

"Fuji, go home."

"I'm not going home unless you come with me, that or I'll stay with you. Which is it?" yelled out Fuji.

"I couldn't come home to you, I have a job here," said Tezuka.

"And you're not doing a good job of it by the way. I heard from a couple girls you snapped over every little thing and I already witnessed the tennis members you didn't send home until eight o'clock at night," said Fuji.

"It's my way of teaching discipline," answered Tezuka.

"Kunimitsu they don't need anymore discipline than they've already got! Have you even gotten outside of political essays for these kids to write? Do you give them more than two-thousand words knowing more than well they have other classes and homework too and they'll only get a mere hour or so of sleep each night with sports teams and juku to attend to? Have you even picked a captain for the tennis team knowing damn well that Kanto Regionals are less than two months away?" screamed out Fuji.

There was a guilty silence.

"That's what I thought. Nothing. If you plan to stay here and teach you need to do things right. You need to show these kids that there's more to life than just school and that there's an outside world. And you need to find a captain for your team and yet act like the buchou you were when you were with me, Ryoma, Oishi…and everybody else when we were a team. Tezuka, I'm willing to help you not fall you just need to trust me."

"Syusuke, I'm sorry," murmured Tezuka in a voice Iroto had never heard his sensei speak in before. It was gentle and yet guilty at the same time.

"You know I love you right?" asked Syusuke.

Ryosuke stumbled backwards hitting into Takyou landing in his lap. Takyou gave him a glare and Ryosuke sheepishly looked away and got off of his teammate before continuing to listen quietly.

"I know. I love you too, I guess I'm just afraid," said Tezuka.

"I'm here every step of the way," answered Fuji, the teens could almost see the soft smile on Fuji's face that they had witnessed outside when they met him. They daringly peeked to take a glimpse out the window to see both Tezuka Kunimitsu and the ever so beautiful Syusuke Fuji kissing passionately not even noticing that they had an audience from the classroom window. Fuji had tears streaming in his eyes and Tezuka-sensei for once looked calm and not tense as his arms snaked around the smaller male's waist. He even trusted this Fuji Syusuke by taking off his rimless glasses and closing his eyes to kiss him back gently. They still didn't notice when they both slowly opened their eyes looking longingly at eachother both wrapped into eachother. Seto signaled them to duck and leave before they got caught by the two adults. Everyone agreed and the night air even felt cooler as it hit their flaming faces as they had witnessed a kiss between two men.

"So Tezuka-sensei has a…..boyfriend," Iroto said awkwardly.

"I have no idea why someone as pretty as him would want such a stick in the ass though," said Takyou.

Ryosuke rolled his dark green eyes up to the sky and leveled back again.

"He acts differently around peoples he likes. I mean have you ever heard sensei speak like that before?" he asked.

"Psh no, and I probably don't want him proposing to me," said Takyou.

"You're just heartless," muttered Ryosuke under his breath.

"Speaking of heartless, you guys owe me food. I'm hungry and have probably missed dinner," said Iroto.

The senpai-tachi laughed together at the sudden mention of food. They were all actually hungry.

"Alright, alright. Torture us with the traditional senpai-treatment," said Seto with a cheesy grin as they walked past the school gates. Ever since that day they never looked at Tezuka-sensei the same way again.