Promise?

I want to find a way to promise with myself all the promises I know I won't be able to keep.

three (3)

You just don't get it, do you? You never do. Not even when I ask you for a match countless times, challenge you to a test of our dignities, our morals, our beliefs, on that court, you never understand. You never say the words I want you to say. "I'll agree to a match, Fuji;" are those words really that hard to say?

You're not normal, not normal at all. They call you captain, but what they should be calling you is an alien. You're no different from me, in truth. Maybe that's why I even bothered in the first place; it's because I've finally found someone similar to me, albeit a little different. A measly difference can be neglected in the large scheme of things, right?

You understand what I'm saying, right, Tezuka? You agree with what I'm saying, right?

1.

"What the hell was that?" I shout, grabbing you by the collar, nearly lifting you into the air. "Rematch. Right now."

With my tennis racket at my feet - both my hands were occupied to prove you a point, of course - and the hot sun shining down both our back, that was how our first match ended. A disappointment. A lie. A passing fancy.

"Rematch." I repeated, voice angry, rough, more demanding then before. Back then, I thought if I drilled it into your head enough times, your stubborn guard may have fallen. Boy, how wrong I was.

"F-Fuji-kun," You mumbled over your words, one hand trying to release my grasp on you, the other hand dangling, holding your tennis racket. "This is ridiculous. Let - let me down."

"No." I firmly resolved. My arm was straining now from the weight, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make for you. "Not until you agree to a rematch."

You remained silent; whether you were struck dumb by the truth of my words, or the idiocy of my demand, I couldn't tell. All I could tell was the sweat beading down your face, probably my face as well, the reflection of the sun in your glasses, intensifying your glare at me.

"Let me down." You said once again, this time with more certainty. Perhaps you began to understand the situation when I myself hadn't. "You won fair and square, Fuji-kun. I-I don't see what's wrong."

"Stop lying." My grip on your collar tightened, anger coursing through my veins, anger I thought I'd never have to feel at you. "Rematch."

"Calm down, Fuji-kun." Your hand on my fist was shaking, maybe just a little, but shaking nonetheless. I wanted to point it out to you so bad, prove to you that all your pride really was was nothing. Or, at least in that moment.

"Calm down? You let me win. And with a 6-0. What do you think I am?" I retorted, seeing the answer flash past quickly in your eyes, the answer you would never have the guts to say to me.

"Fuji-kun!" You squirmed a bit, trying to get out of my hold.

"A rematch, Tezuka." I growled, dropping you from where you previously hovered in the air. I bent down and picked up my racket, and pointed the tip of it directly at you. I couldn't believe that at last, there was someone whose wall of inhibitions even I couldn't break. Someone I couldn't even get pass.

"There's no need." You helped yourself off the ground, dusting off your shorts as you stood up.

"Every need. Rematch."

I glared into your eyes; I gave you my look that so many would never see, and, yet, with my eyes open, you still refused my offer. You didn't respond to my last statement - at least, not with words. You looked at me, sized me up with one hard look, allowed your cold, wall-like expression to answer my demand, and turned around.

Simple as it was - simple as you were - you strode off, your right hand cupping your left shoulder. Completely, totally, absolutely ignoring me.

2.

You're the type of person that tended, wanted, to keep your secrets, your pains, your stories all to yourself. I could tell. Ever since that match, I could tell. And even now, in our second year, after a year had passed from that incident, you continued to threaten yourself with such a habit.

"If your arm is hurting, Tezuka, you shouldn't be playing!" I said, trying to control my voice from veering itself to a plead. I understood now why you seemed to play with your right hand more often, why you seemed to be so protective after every fall, every minor injury.

"That's not your business, Fuji." You replied with the answer I expected. You may have thought, at the moment, that it was Inui that knew you the best, calculated your every move, but, in truth, it was me. I had observed you all that year, not in the same sense as Inui, but nevertheless observed you.

"It's as much my business as it is your business and the team's business!" I continued to exclaim, to persuade you to finally show me that face behind your guard, behind those eyes that seemed to completely counter mine at every meeting.

"My arm is fine." You squeezed your left shoulder as you did so, your face changing, cringing, for a split of a second no one should have been able to see.

"You're such a liar, Tezuka." I half joked, half stated, knowing you wouldn't take what I said seriously. When would you take anything I said seriously?

"Go back to practice, Fuji. The first years need your guidance." You didn't motion like Ryuuzaki-sensei, or like Oishi, for me to shoo, to leave the room, but I understood all that you meant from your tone. You had used it on me more times than I liked, more times than I should have been able to endure.

"Why are you always like this?" I hissed out of nowhere; today's events had pushed this one thought, constantly sitting on the edge, off the cliff and into actual speech.

You raised your eyebrows immediately, sensing another upcoming attack from me, another round of questioning of your dignity, your morals, your beliefs. I didn't have to see the new light harshly glinting from your glasses to know that you no longer wanted me here. But, still, I'm persistent. Just like you.

"Tezuka, what is it that you always say to the first years?" I smiled, a fake one, the kind I placed on my face when I wanted something answered my way.

"Don't let your guard down." You grunted this line, aware that I would be messing it up, playing it up in some bizarre way. Your line of sight was directed towards the floor, the ceiling, the window - it didn't matter, you seemed to want to look everywhere that wasn't me.

"Well, it's bad advice." I stepped closer to him, anger controlling my actions now instead of my brain - not that it would've made much of a difference to you. "Because, you see-"

"Fuji, cut it out now." Your voice came out hoarse, deep, nervous. Just like when you had tried to pry my grasp off of you that day of our first match. In a way, I was proud that I had established myself in your seemingly empty head that you now knew exactly when my antics were coming up.

I nearly circled you, slowly, stopping only when I was partially behind you. One of my hands were on the shoulder you had been protecting so intently.

"Because, you see, to make sense, one has to let down their guard sooner or later." I tightened my hand on that shoulder, my grin stretching as I heard the barely audible sound of pain you released.

And, just as quickly, I let go of my hold on your left shoulder, and turned around, arriving at the door before you had any chance to react to what I'd accomplished. With a wave of my hand as goodbye, without any words as an apology, or as an explanation, I opened the door, stepped out, and closed it almost in one simultaneous movement.

The smile still on my face, I sighed - whether in exasperation or accomplishment, I wasn't quite sure - at my new revelation; simple gestures did do the trick, right, Tezuka?

3.

He almost fooled me, almost, with that near flawless impression of you. That trickster of Rikkaidai, Niou Masaharu. He tried to be you, he put his all in it to be you, but he failed. And, all for what? Just so he thought he could beat me as you? That I had some weakness over you?

Niou wasn't half wrong, but he wasn't half right either. But, yet, the trickster's act of the day had brought one thing into the light, one lie revealed, for certain.

You had faked that first match of ours. You had forced yourself to lose. For what reason, I can't even fathom, because just like how no one is able to guess me, I can't possibly even guess you. The way that my grip of my racket loosened, the beat of the game crushed, as Niou changed into you, as all I saw before me wasn't my opponent, but you, made me certain that you had lied that day.

You smiled your faint, constrained, disciplined smile at me, racket pointed at me in much the same way I had done two years earlier. And, all I could do then was look down at the ground. Not at you, no. Not at this fake mirage, illusion, that Niou had created. Nothing was the same as the real you.

"You're not Tezuka," I said to my opponent, closing my eyes to make sure. "You try, but you're letting your guard down." My voice was faint, only audible if Niou himself had really wanted to hear it; however, as Niou's serve - or, maybe yours? - came down at me, I knew he had taken in every word of it.

"I'll give you this one match, Fuji." Niou had even your voice down, shocking me as much as the crowd.

I revealed to Niou - or, you? - my smile at its best, the real smile of mine. With my eyes still closed, I felt the ball, felt your resolve, your morals, your beliefs.

Ironic, that the only way I would truly beat you at a match was when you were the one guiding me, the reason for my every move. As one smash came after another, one rebound, one lob, after the other, I couldn't help but grin to myself, to Niou, for being the Tezuka that you yourself didn't have the courage to be.

I would win again this match, I knew that as soon as he had turned into you. But, I didn't want to admit it to myself. I didn't care about the game anymore. The win. The loss. All I cared about was that it was you, across that net. The thrill you gave, that no one else could provide.

"Game! Fuji! 7-5!" The referee's voice ended my reverie, my dream, that game with you I knew I would have to beg at your feet to experience once again.



You understand now, don't you, Tezuka? I shouldn't even have to ask you, buchou.

Maybe you've always known. Maybe you just wanted to figure me out like I had wanted to figure you out, sending us on an endless circle, retracing the same path back and forth. The same path I would've been happy, overjoyed, to be on, with you. Over. And over. And over again.

parallels from the bird

Ichimaru had a bird once. Or, at least to Kira's knowledge, he had a bird once. The vice-captain remembered the countless times he strolled into his captain's office, stack of paperworks completely blocking his vision, while catching a glance of Ichimaru not focused on his own individual (and much larger) stack of work, but instead absolutely captivated by his bird.

It wasn't much of a pet as more of a captive; Ichimaru had always kept the cage open, but he had tied a taught string around one of the bird's hind legs. Even if it had tried to fly, Kira doubted it would've gotten any further than the very edge of its metal prison.

The bird had the most beautiful voice, the most beautiful appearance. Or, at least in Kira's memory, it had such traits.

He only vaguely remembered its mesh of feathers, some green, some blue, some white. Ichimaru had never allowed him to pet the bird, but from the way his captain was constantly distracted by it, Kira figured it must've had an insane degree of softness. Its melody it had chirped was calming, but not droning. Lively, but not shrill. The bird's voice had been perfect, even to the point where Kira had found an asleep Ichimaru Gin as he came into the office, his curved grin only slightly relaxed in his slumber.

That was the fact that irritated Kira the most - for what reason, he didn't quite know himself. While he himself could never even stand up to Gin, never able to look him in the eye without skipping a breath, never managing to stop stuttering in his presence, the bird had no inhibitions against his captain. He figured perhaps the bird was too lowly, too much of a perfect slave, to be afraid of Ichimaru, but, he found himself in slight jealousy of the bird. Again and again.

Yet, one thing Kira knew for sure was that he never wanted to be that bird, that animal in the open cage, trapped with the irony of not being able to escape. Entrapment was one reason, for sure. But, even stronger, even more horrifying, was the smirk his captain had given the bird every time his attention was on it. It wasn't Ichimaru Gin's normal smile, as infamous as that was; the bird had received a smile much worse, one of uncertainty, of doom, of all the acts Ichimaru was capable of that Kira didn't know, didn't even want to know.

Kira never wanted to come face to face with that same, horrible grin.

In fact, even for awhile, Kira was completley content with the bird occupying all of Ichimaru's attention, however work-adding such a distraction was for him. Because, the satisfcation, the relief, of knowing that for once, his captain's gaze - his deathly glare - was not upon him, was worth more than anything else Kira could've asked for.

But, one day, as if out of the blue, the bird disappears. Gone from Ichimaru's office. Gone from this world, as far as his captain had informed him. The table where the cage sat previously had already been replaced with another mountain of paperwork, almost seeming to erase the memory of there ever being a bird in 3rd Division.

"W-what happened to the bird, Ichimaru-taichou?" Kira inquired, eyes scanning the room for any trace of the previous 'pet' in the room.

"It got borin'." Ichimaru replied simply. His chin was resting on his uprighted hand, nearly setting a pose completely matching his previous words.

Raising his eyebrows in doubt and confusion, Kira wasn't quite sure if he should've kept on talking or not. Hadn't Ichimaru loved that bird with the same affection of a completely toy-obsessed kindergartener?

"Boring?" The vice-captain parroted. He was almost completely certain Ichimaru was able to feel the quivering fear resonating from his voice.

"Didn' ya' think so too', Izuru?" He paused for a moment, twirling on the desk with his free hand a piece of paper that was probably more important than Ichimaru regarded it to be. "All it did was stay 'n the cage all day. No fun at all."

Kira didn't bother mentioning that the bird was stuck in the cage all day because Ichimaru had willed it to do so. Instead, he focused on the finer points of what his captain had said. If, there had been finer bits.

"Are you planning to finish some paperwork, then?" Kira's voice was somewhat meek. Even after months and months of being 3rd Division vice captain, he still couldn't find the courage to speak with a firm voice in front of his captain.

"Na'," Gin chimed, voice lightheartedly dull. "Tha'd be no fun, either."

Throwing back his head, Ichimaru let out a big, playfully bored sigh. His hands were behind his head, and he seemed to be leaning back in the chair with a bit too relaxed way. Something told Kira that his captain was plotting once again; whatever unfortunate results would become of this, he had the strangest instinct that he himself would be effected.

"Are you planning to buy a new bird, taichou?"

"Hmm," Ichimaru instantaneously pulled his head back, so that his face was now meeting Kira's, who was halfway across the room. The grin across his face was eerily foreboding, eerily familiar to Kira as it embedded itself into his captain's expression. An 'aha!' look, the bad kind - Kira's own experience so far had taught him that much-, was practically screaming, dying to let itself, the idea of its purpose, to be revealed.

"Nope." The smirk remained as Gin continued.

"Then, w-what?" Kira couldn't help but be taken back by the smile of his face. That smile, he had seen it somewhere before. He had been frightened by it, somewhere before.

"'ve found somethin' much better."

Ichimaru then took the liberty of plopping himself up with one sly movement, gliding himself over to Kira, and ruffling his vice captain's hair before leaving the room, all the while with the smirk still upon his smug countenance.

Kira was frozen in spot, body completely rigid. He didn't know how to react, how to breath, even, as his captain ambled out. His fists were clenched together now, the hands ice cold, without his own notice. He couldn't get the image of that smirk out of his head, couldn't get the fear associated with it out of his head.

Where have I seen it before?

The realization hit him, hard and fast and unexpected and frightening. The same smile. The same smirk. The same grin. The same curve of Ichimaru's lips.

The same role as the bird. The same doom.