DISCLAIMER: Konomi Takeshi owns Prince of Tennis and its characters. I don't.

NOTES: Was feeling sentimental today. Got a haircut and wrote this story.

Alpha-reader(?) said the first part reminded her of a Leo diCaprio movie ^^ Er, I hope not. It was something I witnessed when I was younger, and I'm really not in the mood to find another scene to replace it right now. So I'm sharing it while I can't stop myself.

All resemblances to persons living or dead, or other fictional works that have earned any sort of money from the telling, are purely coincidental.

Was listening to "Silent Lucidity" by Queensryche while writing...I'm pretty sure the song doesn't fit, but I just had to include that bit of useless information.

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Right Beside You
by MorphailEffect

Kikumaru, still in his school uniform, came into the room with his hands behind his back, wearing a kittenish smile.

"Hey, Gramps. Guess what I got?"

The room was small and acrid. The smell of disinfectant barely covered the stink of medicine and filth. The windows were pulled open, and the last light of the day streamed onto the floor beside the mattress occupied by an old man.

The old man had sparse hair that was white for the most part, but which still held isolated strands of brownish-red. The skin stretched tight over his thin bones was white like snow, dry and flaking. His toothless mouth was open and his sunken eyes were closed.

He turned his head to the direction of the door when he heard the young man's voice. He opened his eyes a crack, but didn't seem as if he saw anything.

"Surprise!!" the young man said cheerfully. "Bought this for you on the way home!"

Kikumaru stepped up to the mattress, knelt carefully so as not to make a sound. He held his hands out, to show that all along, he had been holding a small pink, plastic, stubby, tubular thing. It looked like a toy of some sort.

"Here...look! You can push this button here..."

The uniformed teenager sat at the edge of the bed, and the old man eyed him warily. The teenager brought the toy up close to the old man's chin, where he was sure to see it.

"...and then the lights come out...like this!"

The young man stretched out his arm and pointed the toy to the ceiling. Then he pushed a button, and a sparkle came out of one end of the toy.

A translucent, multicolored flower was suddenly displayed on the ceiling. The petals were polygonal and definitely digitized, enhancing the angular beauty of the projection.

The old man stared at it with a magical wonder. His jaw dropped open slowly. "Pretty," he said beneath his breath.

"You see, Gramps? I knew you'd like it!"

Kikumaru Eiji clicked on the button again. The flower disappeared. Just as instantly, a whine of protest issued from the bedridden old man's lips.

But it wasn't long before Kikumaru pressed the button again. And another flower came out on the wall -- with a different set of petals, and different colors. The toy, it seemed, was a digital kaleidoscope. Every time one clicked on it, it showed a different flower, made up of different colors.

It mesmerized the red-haired old man. Made him chuckle in childlike delight.

"I knew you'd like it," Kikumaru said softly, as he pressed the toy into the old man's trembling hands. "It went over my budget, too, but Ooishi helped get it for me, nya."

"...Ooishi."

Kikumaru's fingers on the old man's hands tensed up slightly. He had heard him say that name a few times before. But every time, it sounded like an echo. A sound that meant nothing.

"Yeah...Ooishi, Gramps. My doubles partner. Do you remember?"

"Aaah," the old man said at a high-pitched voice, like a sick child's. "You're always so good to me, Eiji..."

It was when his grandfather said his name that Kikumaru doubted who he was talking to. When he drew the first syllable out, as in "Ei~ji," it meant the person from his past. The one everyone knew, but no one knew anything about...

When he just said "Eiji" without any accentuation, it meant he was talking to Eiji, his youngest grandchild -- the one he barely remembered, because he was already growing senile when that one was being born. At the same time, he had insisted that everyone in the house throw a party when Kikumaru was first made a regular in the tennis club, insisting that it was "a joyous occasion for the family, and i say so as the head of the family."

But accentuation was a vague thing.

There was a knock on the door. "Eiji? Are you in there, dear?"

The voice was Kikumaru's grandmother's -- his Gramps' wife of over half a decade. She was much younger than he was, and much more lucid.

"Uh...yeah, Gram! It's me. I was just..."

"You shouldn't have woken him up, dear. You know he gets cranky if he falls asleep right before dinner."

Kikumaru rubbed the back of his neck. Unaware of his embarrassment, the old man played in utter bliss with the flashlight-like affair that his grandson had bought him. Click, click, click.

"Hai hai. I'm really sorry, Gram. I won't do it again!"

Colors. Petals falling into different shapes and patterns. Growing brighter as the colors of the sunset grew deeper. Kikumaru smiled.

"Well," the old woman outside the door intoned wearily, "it's still a few hours before dinner. Please let him have a little more rest until then."

Kikumaru sighed and brushed damp strands of his grandfather's hair away from his face. "Ha~i..."

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Sometimes his grandfather would have nightmares.

He would be shouting his youngest grandson's name outloud. "Eiji! EI~JI! EIJI~!!"

Even if it was the dead of night, Kikumaru's grandmother would rush in from her room to check up on his grandfather. Otherwise the whole household would be awakened by his noise.

Kikumaru would be awakened before his grandmother could do anything. His room was just beside his grandfather's...and it wasn't that every little noise woke him up. But whenever his grandfather said his name, it roused him from anything he had been dreaming about.

There was one time he had been dreaming about Ooishi buying him a digital kaleidoscope. And he had been so happy he had thrown his arms around Ooishi's neck. And he was just bringing his lips close to Ooishi's, when his grandfather's screams broke through the adjacent wall.

Kikumaru's grandfather had fought in the War. That was all everyone in the family said. He had had a good friend named Eiji. This Eiji had been honest and upright and dependable. And he had laughed at all his grandfather's jokes.

And this particular Eiji had died shielding his grandfather from enemy fire. No one had any details...all anyone really knew was that this Eiji was kind and good, and that he took great care of everyone he gave a damn about.

Sometimes, even after Kikumaru's grandmother had finished checking up on him, his grandfather would lie in bed mumbling for hours. Kikumaru would take it upon himself to lie down beside his grandfather -- and then either listen or not. But he would not leave until his grandfather had fallen asleep. He knew his presence did something to calm his grandfather down...even if he wasn't entirely sure how.

Kikumaru remembered clearly when he was still an energetic toddler, and his grandfather was teaching him how to do a somersault. And how to do a headstand on just one hand so he could hold a racket with one hand and stay firm on the ground, upside-down, at the same time.

The old man demonstrated as well as he could, which earned him a few unforeseen trips to the hospital (which frightened little Kikumaru quite a bit) -- but Kikumaru took the trouble to study, and to foster his own love of the playing style. He liked how the old man's eyes shone whenever he showed he had mastered a trick on his own.

It was his grandfather who taught him about acrobatic tennis. Kikumaru's grandfather had seen it on a translated foreign journal when he was very young -- indeed, when he was about Kikumaru's age now. And he was so impressed with the theoretical aspect of it, he wanted to try it out himself.

But before he could get anywhere, he had volunteered for the Youth Corps. And he thought that meant he also had to give up his dreams of becoming an athlete with his newfound skill.

In the Youth Corps, he met this youth named Eiji. Eiji was a tennis enthusiast, and he knew more than Kikumaru's grandfather did about tennis around the world. It had been a perfectly beneficial relationship between them, and Kikumaru's grandfather always referred to his offshore retreats with Eiji as "the best times of his life."

Many, many years later, Kikumaru's grandfather passed on everything he knew about acrobatic tennis to his youngest grandson, who was finally named Eiji. His son, who was Kikumaru's father, had steadfastedly resisted naming any of his sons "Eiji," because he was firm in the belief that his own father's relationship with this special person named "Eiji" was "unnatural."

But in the end, Kikumaru's father had to accede that "Eiji" was also a good name.

It was with the help of his loving grandfather that Kikumaru came into this world thinking it was a fun place, full of color and love and light.

But as he grew up, Kikumaru learned that the world was actually a bland, strange and harsh thing. And everyone was dying. Everyone was telling him, with their smiles and their sighs, that someday they were all going to leave him alone.

All the darkness in the world changed in the company of one person. It was no wonder that it was that one person Kikumaru found himself most often thinking about, to keep himself laughing...

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"Ei~ji! EI~JI~!"

The first syllable was accentuated.

Kikumaru sighed and pushed himself out of his comfortable mattress.

It was not his name, but he was needed.

He made his way to his grandfather's room, opened the door slowly so as not to alarm the old man, or anyone else in the house, with his noise.

"What is it, Gramps? Need anything?" he asked sleepily.

The old man's high-pitched voice was broken when he answered, through the shadows: "I'm lonely. I'm lonely, Eiji."

Eiji. Not Ei~ji. Not something that has been lost for so long.

Kikumaru never had to think about it. He pulled up the old man's covers, and slid in beside him. Snuggled up as close to the old man as he dared. He was, after all, no longer a child.

"It's okay, Gramps. I'm right beside you," he said, not in a child's voice.

The old man visibly calmed down upon hearing that.

Kikumaru, who was otherwise profoundly communicative, had a genuinely hard time talking to anyone else about his grandfather. He was his most beloved family member, but it was hard to tell anyone else. His older relatives condescended to say "You're such a sweet child," and his cousins and siblings took it upon themselves to chide him with "You're so weird!" whenever he said his grandfather was his "favorite person."

After all, no one else in his household shared his love for acrobatic tennis. And they could all care less where he got the inspiration and most of the technique from.

So whenever he had to speak about his grandfather, he had to do it in passing, as in, "I learned about acrobatic tennis from my Gramps. But it's not important" -- or even in jest, as in "That old car's just about as close to the grave as my Gramps."

The only person who ever really asked about his grandfather -- and wanted to hear the answer -- was his doubles partner, Ooishi Shuuichirou. Who had asked as a very perceptive first-year, because he "could tell your Gramps means a lot to you, maybe more than anyone else."

While letting his grandfather's babbling slip in one ear and out the other, Kikumaru took time to think: sometimes he felt like he was taking advantage of Ooishi. It was a fond thought. Everything about Ooishi was. Sometimes Ooishi looked like he was just asking to be taken advantage of. He was so gullible, and at the same time so damn smart, Kikumaru never knew where he was coming from.

Yet Kikumaru felt good, being with him.

The way he listened, the way he nodded silently as if he perfectly understood, even if he so obviously didn't, was all so precious. The way he could look through Kikumaru's sunbeams, into the darkness that ate away at the parts of him that couldn't cry, somehow made Kikumaru feel lucky. Made him feel stronger. Like no one else had this, and there was no way in the world he was going to lose sight of it.

Kikumaru learned this a long time ago: Ooishi was the one thing he looked forward to. The one thing who gave him the freedom to behave the way he did. The one who gave him the strength to come home all bright-eyed and sparkly, ready to take on anything -- his studies, the way his father and mother discussed his grandfather's medical care bills, the stress of practicing before tournaments.

Ooishi let him be a kid. He let Kikumaru be happy.

That meant more to Kikumaru than he could ever express. He was never that good with words...

"This Ooishi," he heard his grandfather saying suddenly, "is a good child."

Kikumaru blinked a few times and then asked, in the following silence, "What?"

"Take care of him," his grandfather answered.

That was the first time Kikumaru heard his grandfather say Ooishi's name without making it sound like just another set of sounds...without making it sound like something just repeated.

He placed an arm across his grandfather's shoulders lightly. He had to take care, with the old man's fragile bones.

"I will," he said, choking back everything else.

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A few nights later, he dreamed about Ooishi trying to tell him something. But he couldn't hear it over the thunder of cannon fire and bullets flying overhead.

It was a strange dream. Ooishi was wearing fatigues and holding a rifle with one hand, while holding on to his shoulder with another. Kikumaru felt wounded all of a sudden -- not in pain, but somehow very, very afraid. Like Hell was coming down around his ears, and he was in no condition to run.

"I'll see you through this," his dream-Ooishi said to him, and then his dream-Ooishi let go.

That was when he was suddenly seized with the urge to cry out --

"Eiji! Wake up! Wake up, quick!"

His first older sister was shaking him. Her blurred image slowly came into focus before his eyes.

"Huh? Neechan...what..."

"Grandpa's dead."

Suddenly Kikumaru was awake. He sat up with the speed of a shot through the heart.

"WHAT?! What do you mean? What happened?"

His sister slouched. It seemed she was in no hurry. Her eyes looked slightly swollen.

"He was playing with that flashlight you bought him. And...it just happened..."

Why did she make it sound like it was his kaleidoscope's fault it happened? What went wrong?

"...The doctors said his heart just stopped," his sister finished.

Kikumaru couldn't say a thing for an entire minute.

"Why didn't you wake me?" he ended up asking, more softly than he intended. "Why didn't anyone wake me?"

His older sister wouldn't hug him. But at around that time he very badly needed a hug. Everyone else in his family seemed to be somewhat averse to displays of physical affection. Over time he had come to respect it, without sacrificing anything.

"Everyone knew you would take it badly," his sister said, looking down at the warm hands she had clasped firmly on her lap.

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Kikumaru expected it was going to be a relief.

It had been too many years. Now Gramps' suffering was over.

But somehow it didn't feel like that...

It somehow felt like Gramps left without saying goodbye.

"Eiji? You alright?"

He snapped out of his reverie and looked over at Ooishi. They were walking side by side, on their way home from after-school tennis practice.

Ooishi was looking at him with deep brown eyes full of concern.

Kikumaru was still looking for the right time to tell Ooishi about his grandfather's death. It had just been that morning. For some reason, the normally concerned and familial Kikumaru decided to still go to school and not spend the day in the company of his relatives.

All day, hence, he longed to tell Ooishi more about his grandfather.

And about the other Eiji. Whom Kikumaru had mentioned to Ooishi during an idle moment in-between tennis practice. And whom they never really got to discussing, because Kikumaru never knew that much about him, to begin with.

Gramps died this morning. You should come to the wake, Ooishi. He looks so peaceful... this was how he was planning to start.

But when Ooishi asked about his grandfather, giving him the perfect opportunity to speak, Kikumaru found himself smiling and saying "Nah. Just got a few things on my mind."

Ooishi looked a little hurt then. Asking with his eyes, "Things you can't tell me?"

Just then Kikumaru's gaze fell accidentally on something shiny, glittery off the corner of his eye. He turned toward it on impulse.

It was a large-ish, foil-covered crib ball. Sparkly as anything. It could have fetched more than the price that was advertised on the display window.

Still, the price on the display window was above Kikumaru's budget. He didn't mind it much -- he was used to finding stuff that his grandfather would like, but he couldn't really afford.

"Gramps would love this," he muttered out of habit.

Then he pulled himself up rigidly. He had not been able to stop himself.

Ooishi was already smiling and digging into his pockets.

"Here," the other boy was saying. "Let's buy it for him."

And before Kikumaru could opt for any measure of control, his hands had gripped whole fistfuls of the front of Ooishi's school jacket. His eyes were shining and he was damn near ready to jump up and down.

"Wa~h! Doumo Oo~ishi~!" It was something he said all the time. It didn't feel wrong, despite the circumstances. "Suki suki DAIsuki nya~! I'll pay you back after I've saved up, oka~y?"

Ooishi blushed. Kikumaru was always pleasantly surprised whenever that happened.

"Er...that is, er..." The older, taller boy cleared his throat. "You don't have to pay me back. It's just a little money, anyway." He held Kikumaru's hands away from him. "You should even keep the change! So you'll have money to buy something else for your Gramps later, right?"

It was something he had said before, lots of times.

But this time, saying it while holding his hands, he made Kikumaru want to cry.

At that moment, Kikumaru broke free and threw his arms around Ooishi.

And became determined, with all the force of his broken heart, never to let go.

"Suki da yo, Ooishi. Suki," he whispered. "I wish you knew how much."

(THE END)