[FIC] Fallen Bear, Part II

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Oishi

Oishi was lost in thought. His body pounded out the familiar loop around the courts during the morning practice while his mind wrapped itself in knots. Was it really likely that Fuji, the boy he had gone through school with, been to camp with, his teammate and friend could be responsible for another’s death? Of course not! There was a perfectly reasonable explanation for Fuji meeting Echizen at Seigaku, if indeed Tomoka had really seen him at all.

“Did you see Echizen?”
“I looked but didn’t see him.”

Fuji’s words to him at Kawamura Sushi a year ago drifted back. Why would Fuji lie? Was Tomoka mistaken and Fuji really had not met Echizen that day? Was he worried that seeing Echizen so close to his disappearance would make him a suspect? Or did he have reason to hide the encounter?

“Hoi, Oishi! Hurry up!” The voice shouting across the courts jerked Oishi back to the present. He looked up to see Eiji waving at him from where he was running with the other regulars, a full half court ahead of Oishi.

He tried to focus, but Echizen’s face, visible on the freshly applied posters all around Tokyo, kept jumping before his eyes. Should not any lead, no matter how unlikely, be pursued? Fuji would understand that. He could just mention his concerns and Fuji would explain what had happened and then Oishi would apologise. Apologise for .... accusing his friend of murder.

Argh! Oishi shook his head as he ran, trying to clear the jumble of thoughts from his brain. If it was not Fuji, then he would be accusing a friend of the worst crime in humanity. If it was Fuji then his friend would have committed the worst crime in humanity.

Heads you win, tails I loose

However you looked at it, making such an accusation would destroy his and Fuji’s friendship. It might even destroy the team Tezuka had tried so hard to build.

Oishi drew to a stop as he reached the end of his circuit, lowering his head as he rested his hands on his knees. A pair of white trainers came into view as someone stepped up in front of him.

“Oishi, are you using the training schedule I drew up for you?” Inui’s voice came from above him. “You are thirty four seconds behind your usual time.”

“Ah, yes,” Oishi said as he straightened. “Sorry, Inui, I just....” His voice trailed off as he came face to face with the tankard Inui was holding. It contained a vivid green liquid that seemed to bubble slightly.

Inui smiled. “I called it ‘remem-beer’,” he said. “It will help you keep to that schedule.” He pressed the beaker into Oishi’s trembling hands.

“I...,” Oishi began. He looked up at his teammates but none of them were looking at him. Instead, six pairs of eyes were trained on the goblet of remem-beer, looks of horror etched on each face. Oishi swallowed and squeezing shut his eyes, he drained the cup in one go.

It was .. revolting... disgusting ... horrific... No, such adjectives were more suited for describing cute bunny rabbits than for this concoction. Oishi fell on his hands and knees, allowing the tankard to roll away across the clay courts as his stomach heaved.

“Inui!” came Eiji’s indignant squeak from somewhere close by. “You killed Oishi!”

Red hair flicked into view across the top of Oishi’s vision as Eiji knelt down opposite him on the ground, twisting his neck to try and see into Oishi’s down-turned eyes.

“The probability of that being true is no greater than 10%,” the tall spectacled player replied. Oishi could hear the sound of a pen moving across paper.

“10% chance of death?!” Momo’s voice cut through Eiji’s cry of horror. “Before you try that juice on someone, shouldn’t you be sure that number is zero, Inui-senpai?”

Hands reached down and grasped Oishi’s shoulders and he felt himself being hauled into a semi-upright posture, Momo and Eiji under each of his arms. Looking up groggily from his slumped position across his friends, Oishi saw Inui adjust his glasses as he reviewed the notes in his exercise book.

“It is impossible to allow for all side-effects,” he said blandly. “Therefore the chance of demise is always finite.”
Eiji peered round at Oishi’s face, bright blue eyes wide with concern. “You’re not going to die, are you?” he asked, sounding panicked.

Oishi squinted at him, battling to hold the contents of his stomach steady. This close, Eiji’s eyes merged into a single orb that filled his entire vision. He tried to smile. “I don’t think so,” he managed to croak.

“Ii data,” Inui murmured from close by, still scribbling in his book.

Half an hour later found Oishi sitting in the club house, showered and changed but still feeling like he had been involved in some kind of train wreak. He sat with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, a damp towel draped over his head. Inui’s juice was of course the main culprit, yet Oishi’s thoughts from the beginning of practice still ran in circles around his mind. Should he approach Fuji? If so, what should he say?

As he sat staring at the floor another thought occurred to him. If Fuji was responsible for Echizen’s disappearance, what might he do when Oishi confronted him? Could Oishi be in actual danger? Oishi hated the thought that one of his own friends would wish him harm and yet ...

The door swung open and the rest of the regulars tumbled in as practice finished for the day.

“Hoi, hoi, Oishi,” Eiji called, dropping his bag and jacket next to Oishi on the bench and heading for the showers.

Oishi looked up through the folds of the towel, to see Eiji disappear into the shower block, shortly followed by Momo, who dropped his bag next to Eiji’s, grinning at Oishi as he grabbed his towel.

“How are you feeling?” Oishi looked up to see Tezuka standing next to him, carrying Oishi’s racket bag as well as his own.

“Ah, better. Thank you Tezuka,” Oishi reached out and took his bag from Tezuka’s hold. He paused and then came to a decision. “I thought I would visit Fuji later,” he said, keeping his voice light.

Tezuka placed his own bag on the floor and reached into his locker to extract a sheet of paper. “Hnn. You should tell him to attend the regular’s practice sessions,” he said, passing the sheet to Oishi. “This is a spare schedule. He can train while he is not on the team. He should not get careless.”

Oishi took the schedule from Tezuka. There was no going back now. “I-I will,” he said. He watched Tezuka also head towards the showers, leaving Oishi alone in the club house. He looked down at the bench, seeing Eiji’s jacket tossed carelessly across it. With a casual gesture he knocked the garment off the seat where it fell into Momo’s bag. As Tezuka said, there was no point in getting careless.

Oishi

Oishi drew to a halt as he neared his destination, eying the eves of the familiar two story house 100 yards down the road. Digging into his pocket, he took out his cell phone and pressed a quick dial number. He did not bother to raise the handset to his ear but watched the LCD screen as the phone rang once ... twice... three times. Oishi pressed his thumb down on the red ‘call cancel’ button and returned the phone back to his pocket. Then he strode swiftly down the street and pressed the door bell on the outer wall.

“Hello?” the voice crackled through the wall mounted electronic speaker.

“Fuji, it’s Oishi.” There was a buzz and the gate swung open, allowing Oishi to walk up the driveway to the house’s wide porch.

“Oishi,” Fuji opened the front door as Oishi approached, welcoming him with his usual smile.

“Hi, Fuji,” Oishi hesitated, looking at Fuji and then, once, glancing back towards the gate which was swinging shut on its electronic hinges. His grip tightened on his tennis bag. “Could I have a word?”

“Of course,” Fuji stepped back, motioning for Oishi to follow him into the house. “I’ll make tea.”

Fuji’s hallway was dimly lit and smelled pleasantly of beeswax. Oishi slowly removed his shoes and carefully set down his bag next to them. He listened to the gentle chink of crockery as Fuji walked through the kitchen’s open archway and started hunting for cups. The light from the kitchen window spilled onto the laid wooden floor and Oishi stood watching the shadows dance across its surface wondering whether he was really going to go through with this. Regardless of the response, he and Fuji’s relationship was never going to be the same again. Did he really want to cause a friend even more pain? The phone in his pocket vibrated and then let out a bright tune. Oishi flipped it open without looking at the called ID and headed into the kitchen. “Eiji?”

“Oishi!” came the cheerful reply. “I missed your call, couldn’t find my phone, nya!”

“No problem, I was just, ah, calling to see if you’d found your jacket?” Oishi invented. “Someone mentioned they’d seen one was left in the gym.” He mouthed a ‘sorry’ to Fuji who was spooning tea into a strainer. Fuji waved the apology away and gestured for Oishi to take a seat at the breakfast bar.

“Mou, Momo had it!” Eiji was telling him. “We’re going for burgers, want to join us?”

“I’m at Fuji’s, Eiji,” Oishi told him, pulling himself onto a stool.

“Fujiko? Let me talk to him! I asked him to look for my jacket,” Eiji demanded excitedly.

Oishi slid the phone across the table as Fuji placed a clean cup in front of him. “He wants to talk to you,” he said.

Fuji shook his head in amusement and picked up the handset. “Eiji?”

Oishi half listened as the adventure surrounding the lost jacket was revealed to Fuji, turning the cup round in circles between his palms. His hands felt cold and clammy on the cup’s cool ceramic sides. Breath, he told himself. Take this slow.

“It works better with tea in it,” Fuji had finished his conversation with Eiji and was holding a full tea pot above Oishi’s cup. Oishi held the cup still on the table and green tea filled it.

“Thanks,” he said, raising the cup to his mouth but then hurriedly putting it down as the heat permeated the cup’s exterior.

Fuji poured himself a cup and sat on the opposite side of the table, looking across at him. “You seem anxious, Oishi,” he said. “Is everything all right?”

Now he had put the cup down, Oishi was no longer sure where to put his hands. He linked them together, staring down at his fingers. “It, ah,” he began, then stopped and reached quickly into his pocket, bringing out the folded practice schedule. “From Tezuka,” he said, sliding it across to Fuji. “He thinks you should still join the regulars’ practices.”

Fuji glanced briefly at the schedule. “And I was enjoying my lie-ins too,” he said in mock sadness. He tilted his head slightly to one side. “That’s what’s bothering you, Oishi?” he asked teasingly. “How to fit nine players into the practice sessions? I’m sure we’ll cope. Tezuka will probably just make me run laps.”

Oishi had returned to staring at his hands. He locked and unlocked them and then picked up his tea cup again. It had not cooled though Oishi was sure an hour had just passed. “No,” he said at last. “I wanted to ask you ... about that time you visited Seigaku. Just before ... Echizen disappeared.”

Fuji blew lightly on the surface of his tea before taking a carefully measured sip. He placed the cup down gently on the counter, centering it exactly in front of him. “Oh?” he said.

“You said,” Oishi rotated the cup once by its rim. “that you didn’t see Echizen that day.”

“I didn’t,” said Fuji calmly.

Oishi rotated the cup in the opposite direction, still not looking at Fuji. “Tomoka saw you talking with him,” he said, fighting to keep his voice even. “She was on the roof.”

There was a long silence. “She must have been mistaken,” said Fuji eventually. Fuji’s voice had not changed its light tone, but his fingers pressed white against the cup’s sides. It was all Oishi could see of him since his eyes were still fixedly lowered.

“Where were you that day, Fuji?” he asked. “Why were you late to Kawamura Sushi?”

This time the silence did not break. Slowly, Oishi looked up to see Fuji staring across at him, his eyes open and his smile gone. He fought the impulse to run. It was too late now, this had to be seen through to the end.

“You think I had something to do with Echizen’s disappearance?” Fuji asked. His voice was cold.

Oishi forced himself to keep staring into those cerulean eyes. He gripped his cup, letting the heat burn into his hands. “Tell me you didn’t,” he replied, his voice cracking slightly.

Fuji continued to stare at him unblinkingly as the kitchen clock on the wall behind him marked out the seconds. Tick. Tick. Tick. Oishi wondered crazily if they were counting down the beats of his heart. Why did they have to be in the kitchen of all places? If they had been in the sitting room, the worst weapon Fuji could have reached would have been a pillow.

You can smother someone with a pillow.

Stop it! He told himself. You promised to be open minded! There has to be a reasonable explanation.

Fuji suddenly exhaled and looked away. He picked up his cup and sipped the contents. “Your tea will get cold, Oishi,” he said calmly.

Oishi automatically lifted his own cup to his lips.

“If you really believe I hurt Echizen,” Fuji continued. “Aren’t you taking a big risk coming here alone?” he smiled. “Surely therefore you don’t....”

Oishi’s eyes flicked inadvertently to his cell phone, sitting between them on the counter top. Fuji caught the gesture and followed his gaze.

“Ah,” his smile faded again. “Of course. You meant Eiji to call you just then.”

Oishi took a sip of his tea and unstuck his throat. “He never....,” he coughed. “Eiji never picks up before the forth ring. His phone is always somewhere at the bottom of his bag.”

“So you left a missed call,” Fuji put his cup down and his voice was sad. He reached over and touched the folded schedule beside him. “and Tezuka also knows you planned to visit.” He smile was weak. “You thought this through, Oishi.”

Oishi returned to rotating his cup. He watched the liquid swirl against the sides as its container spun clockwise, then anti-clockwise. “Well,” he tried to force a note of practicality into his tone. “if you were planning on disposing of Eiji as well as me, then I suppose...”

“I’d never hurt Eiji!” Fuji pushed his stool back from the counter so hard it toppled over, smacking into the sink before falling to the floor with a crash. He stood a foot back from table edge, eyes wide open and shocked.

Oishi looked up slowly, meeting Fuji’s eyes for a long moment. Stunned realisation dawned on that usually closed face as Fuji understood what his statement implied about what he had left unsaid. Oishi gently pushed his own stool back and got to his feet. He turned and walked steadily towards the door, pulling on his shoes and picking up his tennis bag.

“Oishi?”

His hand stopped on the door handle.

“What are you going to do?”

He did not turn around. “I don’t know,” he replied and turned the handle, walking out into the soft early evening sunshine.

Fuji

Fuji paced his room like a caged tiger. Why had he not seen this coming? He knew that the start of this school year was likely to bring everyone’s minds back to Echizen; the prodigy who should be joining the tennis team but was not. He should have been watching for exactly this occurrence, for signs that his name and Echizen’s were being linked during that critical time one year ago. If he had not been so preoccupied he would have noticed Oishi’s growing suspicions and thought of an alibi to waylay his fears. Hell, Oishi had wanted to hear an alibi, he would have accepted almost anything Fuji would have thrown at him. Instead, he had taken Fuji by surprise and his mind had gone completely blank and now Oishi knew. Fuji balled his palms into fists. Damn Oishi!

From downstairs, he heard the clatter of keys in the lock as his sister returned from work. She hummed gently as she walked into the kitchen and turned on the faucet to fill the kettle for tea. Fuji reached for his jacket and walked briskly to the door. He could not stay here and make polite conversation as if nothing had happened. He had to get out.

He was down the stairs with a hand on the door when Yumiko poked her head out of the kitchen, smiling when she saw him.

“Shuusuke,” she said brightly. “Are you heading out?”

Fuji paused to force his usual smile back onto his face before turning to his sister. “I was going to the library,” he said, keeping his voice as light as possible. “We have an assignment due tomorrow and the cacti are failing to provide inspiration.”

Yumiko chuckled appreciatively and ducked back into the kitchen, coming out with a sheet of paper. “Could you pick up this DVD on the American Civil War for Yuuta?” she asked. “He needs it for a special project this semester.”

“Of course,” Fuji took the sheet from Yumiko and left the house, keeping an easy stride until he was out of sight of his street.

Then he started to run. Not caring about direction, he ran through the roads, following the path beside the rail tracks and then out to the river, past the children playing baseball, past the runners and old ladies out shopping, past a father flying a kite with his son, past all these damn normal people, leading horribly pleasant lives. Fuji no longer felt a part of them. He was a known criminal and surely it would not be long now before his days in this open air were over.

Eventually he stopped, exhausted, resting his hands on his knees as he tried to regain his breath. He stood under a bridge that traversed the river, the sound of traffic thundering above his head.

“Spare change, sir?” a voice came from behind him.

Spinning around, Fuji saw a figure emerge from a pile of filthy blankets pressed up against the alcove of the bridge. He dug into his pockets for his wallet and threw a 5000 yen note at the man who stared at it in disbelieve.

“Keep it,” Fuji told him, his laugh high and unnatural in the echoing concrete arc. “I’ve no need for it now.” He turned and started to run again as the homeless man stared after him.

“I’ll take the clothes off your back if you’ve really no use for them?” the man called after Fuji, shaking his head as he gazed down at the cash. The boy had truly lost it if he was throwing away money like that.

Fuji slowed as he reached his neighbourhood again. Glancing down, he realised he still grasped the paper Yumiko had given him with the DVD Yuuta needed printed on it. Turning towards the main commercial area of his district, he headed for the general library reaching it just as it started to rain.

The librarian scowled at Fuji as he entered, clearly suspecting him of only gracing the library with his presence because of the sudden change in weather. Fuji smiled blandly back at her and headed for the back of the building where the video and DVD collections were stored.

He found Yuuta’s DVD easily but the distant roll of thunder made him pause to browse the shelves rather than hurry back outside. He had never explored the American section of the video collection before, having only studied the country briefly in world history the previous year. His fingers idly traced along the spines of the movie cases as he scanned the titles: “Brother against brother; the American civil war”, “1776: The year we came home”, “The real Americans; the story of ten tribes” , “Confessions of a death row convict”... Fuji’s hand stopped on the last of these and pulled the case free of the rack. He flipped it over to read the synopsis on the reverse side. “Henry Cruger, known and feared as Hangman Harry, is one of America’s most notorious villains. In this never-before-seen footage, Cruger talks frankly about his motives that left his wife, best friend, sister and seven others dead.”

Fuji stared at the case for a long moment. He did not like the idea that he would ever be associated with someone like Henry Cruger and yet, perhaps, Cruger’s confessions would allow him to see a way through his own troubles. He took both the DVDs to the librarian and exited the building.

---

“So you killed your wife to prevent her affair destroying your reputation and your business,” the off-screen interviewer’s voice probed. “But why did you then kill your friend when he discovered what you’d done? Surely there was another way?”

The camera zoomed in to Cruger’s face, the bad lighting making the scene crackle eerily. Cruger looked up into the camera, his eyes dark pools of blackness. “If you are found guilty of one murder, they kill you,” he said, his voice a monotone free from expression. “If you are found guilty of one hundred, they kill you. What does it matter then, if you kill one or one hundred? Once he’d found out, my only hope was for him to die.

I did not have a choice. Once you’ve killed once, it is easy to kill again.”

Oishi

Oishi started when the doorbell rang, jolting him out of his reverie as he sat in the living room arranging photos to put into an album. The prints lay scattered over the table and floor, images from Seigaku’s fight for the nationals three years before. Oishi had meant it to be a monument to the team’s efforts but now he looks at his photographs, he realised most of them were of Eiji.

Standing and picking pieces of tape and trimmings off his trousers, he walked to the door, opening it to find Fuji standing on his doorstep, his face downcast. Oishi stared at the other boy for a long moment, not greeting him. He had not expected Fuji to seek him out, actually he had thought the other would avoid him at all costs given what he now knew.

Fuji raised his head, and Oishi noticed with shock that he was startlingly pale. His eyes, normally almost closed, were open and bloodshot and there was a haunted look in their blue depths as he stared across at Oishi.

“Let me in?” he asked quietly.

Slowly, Oishi stepped back from the entrance, allowing Fuji to pass through into the house. He closed the door carefully behind him, leaving it unlocked with the vague thought that this might still provide an escape route. Daylight poured in from the wide windows and skylight to the open-plan room, yet to Oishi it seemed much darker than it had moments before.

He walked around into the centre of the room and leaned against the sofa, facing Fuji. He saw the other boy’s eyes move over the photo album he had been preparing and then back to his face.

“Why....” Fuji began and Oishi was astonished to hear his voice crack slightly over the words. “It’s been three days. Why haven’t you gone to the police?”

Oishi stared at Fuji and then looked away. He had been asking himself the same question over the last seventy two hours. Fuji had all but admitted he had a hand in Echizen’s disappearance... Echizen’s death, Oishi sadly corrected himself. Why had he not taken that information straight to the authorities?

“I... don’t know,” he said at last.

His eyes fell on the stack of photographs still to be sorted. The top one showed Eiji, beaming from ear to ear, one arm slung around Oishi another around Fuji, his two best friends. That, Oishi supposed, was part of it. How could Eiji cope with knowing that his best friend was a murderer? A hand crossed his field of view as Fuji picked up the photo and examined it.

“Please ... do not touch my photos,” said Oishi in a voice colder than he had heard it before. He felt they both know that it was not the photograph that Oishi wanted Fuji to stay away from.

Fuji placed the picture carefully back on the pile before turning to face Oishi. “I love him too,” he stated.

Oishi’s eyes snapped up to Fuji’s, feeling hot anger for the first time. “Love?” he exclaimed. “How can you talk of love after what you did? After you... you murdered... another human being!” His voice echoed with disgust as he walked further across the room, putting as much distance as possible between himself and Fuji. He spun back around, not trusting to keep his back turned, to see Fuji now leaning on the sofa with one arm, his head bowed and face obscured behind his elbow. When Fuji spoke, his voice was choked with tears.

“I am still capable of love,” he cried. “I am not a total monster!... Am I?” The last part of his sentence was almost indistinguishable as uncontrolled sobs over took him and he clutched at the sofa’s arm for support.

Oishi gazed at him in mingled horror and pity. The person who was before him was not the Fuji Shuusuke he knew. That boy had gone, perhaps died with Echizen. Yes, he could report him, but what could the police do that was worse than what Fuji was clearly doing to himself? Hesitantly, Oishi crossed back through the room and laid a hand on the quivering shoulder.

“Fuji,” he said quietly. “There is still some good you can do.”

It was the only thing Oishi could think of that could still make a difference, since Echizen was lost to them forever. He felt Fuji struggled to get himself under control, the shaking becoming a held back tremor. Slowly, Fuji looked up at him, his face still covered with water turning his eyes into an even more brilliant blue.

“Tell the police where to find Echizen’s body,” Oishi told him. “Let Nanjiro and Rinko bury their son.”

Fuji stared at him, the tears still falling down his cheeks, although now silently. “You mean turn myself in?” he asked, his voice no more than a whisper.

Oishi sighed. “That’s up to you,” he replied. He could not honestly think of a way in which Fuji could reveal that information without also confessing to his part in it, but he had to try for the sake of Echizen's family.

Fuji laughed without humour. Straightening, he walked to the door and opened it. “Thank you for listening,” he said without turning and stepped out, closing the door behind him.

Oishi watched him walk down the driveway before throwing the bolts across the door. He felt drained from a mixture of fear and compassion for Fuji. He had done a terrible wrong, but was he not also Oishi’s friend?

Fuji

The bell above the door at Kawamura Sushi jangled cheerfully as Fuji entered the restaurant, carrying his school bag over one shoulder. He lifted a hand in greeting to Taka’s father who was wiping down the bar, readying it for the next wave of customers.

“Fuji-kun!” the man welcomed him cheerfully. “The useless boy who I’ve had the misfortune to call a son all these years is upstairs. See if you can talk some sense into him.”

Fuji climbed the steps to the second floor where the Kawamura family lived above their shop and tapped on Taka’s bedroom door. At the answering call, he pushed it open and stuck his head into the room to see Taka holding a collection of cds, apparently at a loss as to which one to play.

“Fuji!” Taka gave a glad cry and dropped the disks onto his bed, sweeping the other boy into a bear hug and kissing him fiercely.

Fuji wrapped his arms around Taka’s neck, closing his eyes briefly as the sense of Taka surrounded him, keeping the rest of the world at bay for those few precious moments.

Still hugging him tight, Taka swung Fuji round in a half circle before letting his feet touch the floor once more. “You're tense again, Fujiko-chan,” he scolded gently, putting Fuji down so he could massage his shoulders.

Fuji sighed in contentment and rested his forehead on Taka’s chest, wincing slightly as the strong hands forced the tight muscles to relax. “Your father says I must talk sense into you, Taka-san,” he said, not raising his head. “I hope he means that you should return to tennis, since that is what I would have you do.”

“Ah,” Taka’s hands paused in their work, his tone hesitant. “Not tennis, no.” He hugged Fuji close to him again. “He shouldn’t have mentioned it to you at all.”

Pulling gently free of the arms that enfolded him, Fuji looked up into Taka’s face. “What’s happened?” he asked. He met the pair worried brown eyes and his own blue gaze cracked open in concern. His hand came up to cup Taka’s cheek, “Nothing bad?”

“Not... not bad,” Taka hesitated and then let go of Fuji, walking over to his desk. He picked up a letter and reluctantly held it out. “Do you remember Gen-san?” he asked. “He worked for us while Father’s arm was broken about two and half years ago.”

Fuji nodded, taking the letter. Gen had been a masterful sushi chef who Taka had greatly admired. He unfolded the paper to see an invitation for Taka to visit and work for Gen in Hokkaido, enrolling for a couple of semesters in the High School close to where Gen’s restaurant was situated. “Taka, this is a great opportunity,” said Fuji seriously. “You did say that Gen-san’s sushi was the best you’d ever tasted?”

Taka rubbed the back of his neck, awkwardly. “It ... it is,” he said, softly.

Fuji looked across at him and saw the faint blush stealing over his friend’s face and neck as he gazed at him from the desk. He smiled, holding out the letter. “Saa, I would like to visit Hokkaido,” he said. “Perhaps spend the summer there?”

Taka’s face broke into a broad grin. “You would?” he asked, delighted.

Fuji smiled, “Ah, the summer in Tokyo is far too hot.”

Taka beamed and stepped forward to wrap an arm around Fuji as he read through Gen’s letter again. “They’re expanding the shop,” he said enthusiastically. “That’s why they need more help, what with Gen-san’s wife being pregnant.”

Fuji leaned against him, smiling as he listened to his friend. In reality, he knew he could not go to Hokkaido that summer. By that stage, it would be too late. But right now, he could listen and pretend before he did what he knew he had to do. The thing he had no choice over.

Oishi

Oishi walked slowly away from his home and through the streets that would eventually lead him to the wooded gardens of the largest Shinto Shrine in his district. As he walked, he thought of Tezuka, and how he had mastered complete leadership by minimising his word count to less than ten per practice session. He thought of Inui’s data collecting and wondered what percentage of those notebooks was actually remotely connected to tennis. He thought of Momo and Kaidoh and debated if they would ever acknowledge they were best friends. He thought of Taka and how hanging out with Fuji all these years was probably preventing him getting the right amount of wasabi in his sushi. He thought of Eiji who said the first thing that came into his mind, regardless of any of the consequences, and every time lit up Oishi’s world. Finally his mind turned to Fuji who had asked him to meet him that evening at the Shrine and he wondered why he was going when this walk felt like a death march.

Do people know when they are going to die?

He had been locking up the club house that afternoon when he turned around to find Fuji standing a few feet from him. So silently had the other boy approached, that Oishi dropped the keys in shock and had to fumble while he juggled rackets and school books so he could retrieve them from the ground. Fuji had watched impassively before asking Oishi to meet him at dusk at a place that was further away from the school than either of their houses. Oishi had initially moved to say no, but Fuji had bowed as he added a ‘please’ that emerged as a choke. So he had agreed and now here he was, trying to think logically while wondering all the time if the choice of the Shrine had not been to offer him religious support in his final moments.

The gates to the Shrine were locked, but the gardens were open and Oishi crossed the lawn to the group of trees near the closed museum building. Shadows criss-crossed the grounds, making him jump and turn at the slightest movement. There was silence as reached the place he was supposed to meet Fuji, even the cicadas seem to have found somewhere else to be that night and the trees felt oddly dead without their continual chirping. Oishi leaned back against the bark of a pine, closed his eyes and preyed that Fuji had decided not to come.

When he looked up again, it was to see the slender figure in question standing only a few feet away. How he had managed to walk across the thick bed of broken twigs and leaves without making a sound, Oishi could only guess. He swallowed and straightened.

“Why on earth did you want to meet here, Fuji?” he asked, trying to inject a sense of safety into his surroundings with his own question.

Fuji glanced around the gardens and back towards the Shinto Shrine. “It’s a good departure point,” he said softly.

Oishi fought against the desire to run. Honestly, he would never outstrip Fuji and that being so, he might be better in an outright fight. “What do you want?” he asked, surprising himself at the steadiness of his voice.

Fuji looked back at him, cerulean eyes glinting in the departing light. “Two things,” he told Oishi. “A gift and a favour.”

A gift and a favour? Oishi spread his hands in a gesture of confusion and then took a step back and Fuji walked right up to him. He hit the tree trunk with a thunk that prevented thoughts of a quick escape, with Fuji only a few inches away.

“First, the gift,” Fuji said quietly. Leaning forward, he cupped Oishi’s cheek with his hand and kissed him. He kissed the way Taka had kissed outside Kawamura Sushi the night when he felt his life was slipping away. He put in the same passion, affection and desire that Taka had given him, the promise of eternal love no matter what the future held.

When Fuji broke away form him, Oishi could only gasp, his mind a complete blank. He gazed into those blue eyes, still lost in the torrent of emotions that the embrace had held.

“That is what you need to do to Eiji,” Fuji told him. He stepped back, allowing Oishi to catch his breath. “The favour,” he continued when the green eyes focussed again on him. “is to give me a month. One month,” he stared into Oishi’s eyes. “Then you can go to the police with what you know.”

Oishi blinked, trying to digest what Fuji was now saying. “One month,” he whispered. “Ok.”

Fuji paused to consider him one last time and then turned sharply, running through the trees to where he had left his army bag, stuffed with his possessions. Then he was gone, a shadow blending into the night. He did not have a choice. Even if there was no point for his future, he had to leave to preserve the good he had left in him, not sacrifice himself to the bad like the serial killer on death row. As he ran, he thought it was ironic that Echizen’s death had given him just one year; the same amount of time he would have had before Echizen had joined the school.

Epilogue

“Shuichiro,” Oishi’s mother tapped on his bedroom door and poked her head in, smiling at her son as he sat working at his desk. “You have a package.” She passed him the padded envelope and retreated, humming cheerfully as she headed back down the stairs.

Oishi looked at the envelope in surprise. Its right corner was covered with stamps as if it had been posted from location to location before being finally sent to him. The address was written in a precise hand, the Kanji free from the usual flourishes associated with a casual scrawl. Gently, he prised open the flap and looked inside. Folded just under the opening, so they would be the first things that his fingers touched, were a pair of surgical gloves. Sitting below them was a second envelope.

Oishi looked up at the calendar tacked to his wall and understood. Thirty days. One month since he had last seen Fuji Shuusuke and made him one last promise. Gingerly, he removed the gloves and placed them on his hands before sliding the second envelope free and pulling back the unsealed flap. It contained two pieces of paper that Oishi carefully unfolded and placed on his desk. The first was a picture of Echizen on a copy of the missing person poster that decked Tokyo’s streets. The second was a map, indicating a lake in an isolated park outside of town.

Oishi stared at both sheets for a long moment before placing them back in the second envelope and sealing it. Even though he had known the truth since that fateful conversation with Fuji over a month previously, it still came as a shock. While he had never denied it, Fuji had not ever admitted to harming Echizen,

He dropped the envelope back into the first wrapping with the surgical gloves as the tears began to fall. Placing his head in his hands, Oishi cried for the loss of his two friends.

---

The sun was properly up by the time Oishi reached his street the following morning. He had risen earlier than the rest of his family and slipped out, cycling through the city to a public library several districts away. Into its mail box he had dropped the inner envelope Fuji had sent him, pausing to look at the replica of the missing person poster contained inside it stuck to the library’s window. The discoverers of the envelope would know what to do.

On the way back, he had dropped the surgical gloves into the “burnable” section of a garbage can. If the police examined the envelope of fingerprints, they would not find his. Oishi doubted very much they would find Fuji’s either.

Had he been right to hand that envelope in anonymously? Oishi did not know, but he did not think he could cope with causing his friends even more pain. The full truth of Echizen’s disappearance would be for him to bare alone.

As he swung his bike through the gates of his house, he saw Eiji standing by the front door, tapping out a tune to what must be an empty household. Oishi guessed his sister and parents had gone out since Eiji appeared to be in the second movement to his doorbell symphony and no one had yet let him in.

“Oishi~!” the redhead exclaimed in delight when he heard the squeak of bicycle breaks on the path behind him. “They’ve put up a huge ferris wheel by the park,” Eiji held his arms out wide to try and impress upon his friend the size of this new discovery. “...and there’s takoyaki and toffee apples and fireworks tonight and...”

Oishi dropped his bike and walked over to his doubles partner and best friend. Without thinking anymore, he kissed him.

Comments

[kantayra.livejournal.com]

Wow... I just read both 'The Swallow' and this, and just: Wow. This was really powerful and well-written and a beautiful mind-fuck all around. Gorgeous work, and definitely something that will stay with me for a long, long time. Twisted and brilliant!

[pergamond.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! Feedback means a lot :)

After writing it, it was quite a relief to watch a TeniPuri episode and remember that life had not been completely destroyed for them all~

[jadeskye79.livejournal.com]

Wow... just wow.
Amazing story.

[pergamond.livejournal.com]

Thank you!!

[sayac3p0.livejournal.com]

Great!

[pergamond.livejournal.com]

Thanks XD