Title: Smiling by Proxy
Genre: AU, Fluff
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Pairing: Tezuka/Fuji
Rating: K
Summary: Fuji inadvertently answers a long-standing question in Tezuka's mind.
Warnings:1st person Tezuka POV. Un-beta-ed.
Disclaimers: Been wishing for it for the past 3 years, but they're still not mine. Didn't make money out of this, so please don't sue. Thanks!
Author's Notes: A ficlet originally published in the LJ comms under a different pen name. Reviews of the non-harsh variety would be deeply appreciated.

Smiling by Proxy

Fuji Syuusuke joined the law firm I was working for not long after I did. Being contemporaries, after a manner, it was inevitable that comparisons between the two of us were made at an annoyingly regular basis. While I was very good at what I did and nobody ever had any chance to complain at the results of my performance in court, it always seemed that whenever I was compared to Fuji, I was always found somewhat lacking. I never resented him for it, though. He was gentle and approachable, while I was stern and aloof. His words were usually measured and given in a soft, lilting tone; mine were usually curt and abrupt. He smiled… I didn't.

It never started out as something big and wide – Fuji's smile, I mean. It had its own stages of development. It would start out as slight twitching of the lips, and then the left side would quirk up just so – it's a very subtle movement and one would most likely miss it if one was not paying attention. It wouldn't take long for the right side of his lips to follow suit and Fuji would let it be more obvious then, that slight upward curve of his lips. The attractive slight upward curve of his lips, made all the more attractive to me because it always had the tendency of curving upward all the more when he looked at me.

He smiled. He always smiled. We would win a case and he would have a small smile of joy and pride but when he looked at me and took in my non-smiling visage, his smile would turn up a notch. We would be at a company party and he would be smiling fondly at some of the junior associates in the firm, watching their drunken antics, and then he would catch a glimpse of me watching that same scene with a nary a crack on my stoic face, and his smile would turn up just a bit wider. It was something I never quite understood and eventually, I stopped trying to. I simply accepted that it was part of what made him who he was and left it at that.

I've given up trying to understand Fuji and his cryptic smiles and so it was with no little confusion that I found myself in my office, replaying each of his smiles, marveling at how they always pulled up higher in the corner of his lips whenever he saw my unsmiling face. I also brutally squashed down the fluttering in my stomach that arose at the possible implications of those widening smiles.

"Tezuka?"

The soft, lilting voice that called out my name was all too familiar; how eerily coincidental that the object of my thoughts would show up right at that moment. He slowly made his way to me, stopping beside me at an angle that would give him a clear view of my face.

"I was just on my way out when I saw the lights in your office still on. Thinking about an upcoming court case?" He asked, eyeing me curiously.

"I was…" thinking about you, actually. But I didn't think he would want to hear that. And I knew I would never say it out loud. So instead, I continued with, "… thinking about the possible inferences I could make, given the few evidences I have on hand." That was true enough. If you look at it in a certain way.

Beside me, Fuji stiffened ever so slightly. I knew that he caught that slight hesitation in my voice – that hesitation that told him there was something to that statement that quite hid the whole truth from him. Fuji didn't become one of the firm's top lawyers because he couldn't detect verbal evasions such as the one I just did. But I was relieved when he once again relaxed, deciding to let it go for now.

"Don't worry. You've always had sharp instincts, Tezuka. I'm sure that whatever conclusion your evidences point you to, if you feel that you're right, then I'm sure you're right," he reassured, and smiled that smile I always saw on his face.

I stared at him for a full minute, my mouth drawn into its usual straight line, before I did something I haven't done before: I smiled back at him. I smiled directly at him. I smiled for him. It was just a small smile and I'm sure it couldn't have been as pretty as his smiles, for all the practice I've had at smiling at people, but it was enough to wipe the smile from his own face and draw his mouth into a little 'o' of surprise.

"You smiled…" he whispered in something akin to shock.

I didn't know what to make of that declaration and his unusual reaction to what was, after all, just a smile, so I countered with an inane, "You stopped smiling."

And so he gave me a smile. A very slight smile. It was every bit as heart-clenchingly beautiful as his other smiles, but this one was… small.

I must admit that I was a bit disappointed, but I still managed to hang on to my own small smile.

"You have a beautiful smile, Tezuka. You should smile more often," he told me with that same small smile. This time, however, I noticed how much easier that small smile came to him, how much more natural it seemed than his wider smiles.

"Ah. I'll try to."

And then his smile got brighter. Not bigger, no. Just… happier. "That's good. So then when I smile, I don't have to smile for you anymore... Because you've already found your own smile."

-Owari-
La Fuego
10/12/2009