Love Song
A
Prince of Tennis Fudoumine Fanfic
By
Jaelle
Rating: G. Angst, Romance.
Pairings: Unrequited Shinji/Kamio,
Shinji/Tachibana.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N:
A fic that haunted me all yesterday until I finally wrote it down, at
which point it promptly deserted me four paragraphs away from the
ending. Argh.
Shinji served the ball and thought
about words.
In
abstract, words were both meaningful, and meaningless at the same time.
Each individual word had a meaning, a value. They were precious. But
the problem with a word was that one was never enough. You had to have
more, and that was where the problems began. Because when you added
words together, you had to make sure the values matched. Some words
added value to the original words, while others subtracted from them.
Words that created a coherent,
positive total shone like a necklace of beautiful gems, strung together
with love and order.
Words that didn't fit together
would only result in chaos, confusion, and ultimately loneliness.
Words were a lot like people,
really.
Shinji
quite liked words. He used them a lot, fascinated by the way they
joined together and mated and created more words. Some people found
this strange, but he'd never worried about that, because he had tennis,
and he had words, and this created music.
He loved the music.
But
he got older, and the music faded, muted. He redoubled his efforts at
tennis and words, but the music didn't come back to him, no matter how
hard he tried.
In his last year of high school,
the music went
away and he lost control of the words. They spilled forth from him like
a flood, but the sense in them was lost, the calculations incorrect,
the value reduced. Finally the school counsellor had handed him a
notebook and pen and suggested that he try writing the words down
instead of speaking them aloud.
"You need to organise and control your
thoughts, Ibu-kun."
And
so he'd begun to write his words down. At first they'd twisted and
turned on him, furious at their new environment, rebellious at being
ordered and defined. They didn't like their new environment, and they
missed the music. They were sad and bitter by turns. He reminded the
words of the way they used to be, and eventually they began to come
together once more, remembering the precious values they'd once held.
He began to play tennis again, and the words remembered how happy
they'd all been together, and cried for him.
In his second year
of university, he lost one of his notebooks. He mourned the loss of the
words for two days, before it was returned to him by one of the girls
in his literature class.
"I'm sorry it took me so long to
give it back to you, Ibu-san. I swear, I only meant to look in it for a
second... but I just couldn't put it down. Is there... is there any
more?"
She'd pestered him until he'd
reluctantly allowed her to borrow another notebook. This time it took
her a week to return it.
"I
showed it to a friend of mine who works for a publishing company, and
he showed it to his boss, and his boss took it to the editor and...
uh... well... they want to meet you, Ibu-san."
At first he'd
fought against the changing of his words, until Fujiwara-san, his
managing editor, had pointed out that it was a form of organisation and
control, and wasn't that the point of writing the words down in the
first place? Reluctantly he'd agreed, and had gone back to his early
words, substituting more valuable words to create a higher total.
Fujiwara-san had sighed over the finished version of his words, calling
them beautiful and tragic. He hadn't understood what she meant at
first, and had said so, at which point she'd looked at him with a
surprised expression.
"Ibu-sensei, it's quite obvious that
the main character is in love with the other boy, who is both his music
and his muse. But the other boy loves another, so his love will always
remain unrequited. Wouldn't you call that tragic?"
Shinji
had put the words together in many ways, created many different
totals... but he'd never realised that the ultimate sum of the equation
was... love.
He'd walked out of the office
clutching a hardback
book containing his words, his thoughts, and his admission of love.
He'd gone straight home, snatched up his tennis gear and headed for the
courts, leaving his notebooks behind. He rejected the words. Rejected
their meanings. Rejected their sum. The words had betrayed him, had
revealed his true feelings to the world. How could he trust them now?
On the tennis courts, he had no
need of words.
And
so he played, going home only to eat and sleep. He skipped his classes
and ignored the messages from Fujiwara-san about sales and book-signing
tours. He would have no more words. He could live without the music, he
could live without words. He still had tennis, the only thing which had
never betrayed him.
Until the day the music came back.
"Shinji, I read your book." Kamio
gently pried the racquet from his hands. "We need to talk."
The
music loved him, it explained, but it could not love him the way he
loved it. But it hadn't meant to leave, hadn't meant to hurt him. It
only wanted him to be happy.
The music took him home and tucked
him into bed, and in the morning he woke to find Tachibana-san watching
over him.
"Ann
and Kamio had to go out for a while," he explained. "How are you
feeling today? My match was cancelled, so I wondered if you'd like to
play a game with me after breakfast."
The music could not be with him,
and his words betrayed him. Only tennis remained, so he agreed.
And then he lost.
"Shinji,"
Tachibana's arms were warm as they enfolded him in a tight embrace.
"This isn't the end. There will be other games. Tennis will always be
here for you, and so will I. And maybe one day you'll find words and
music that go together, and create a song just for you."
It
had been hard to believe at that moment, but Kippei had been so sure,
so convincing, and he'd been right so often before. And Shinji so
wanted him to be right this time.
"Can we play another game?"
"Of course."
Game
followed game, and tennis did not leave him. As he acquired security in
his game, the words also began to come back. And one day, tennis and
words came together and discovered that they held a hidden tune, and
joined together to become a love song.
Kippei rolled over in
bed, and opened his eyes when he found it empty. Looking around the
room, he spied Shinji sitting at the desk, scribbling furiously in a
notebook.
"Shinji, what are you writing?"
"The sequel."
End