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Syuusuke Fuji loves pretty things.
But more than just pretty things, he has a knack for taking pictures so vivid that you can’t help but feel like it is a tangible moment, suspended in time.
Syuusuke Fuji loves pretty things, by his standards of course.
A new grip tape on his racket, scuffled tennis shoes after a particularly difficult match, his teammates in their zone, practicing their special shots. The sunrise on the top of the mountain with his teammates, the river that oversees it, the following fishing trip with his captain after it.
Fishing rods when they're just barely dipping from a bite, water rippling and disturbing the otherwise quiet atmosphere.
His captain gracefully reeling in his latest catch.
His captain.
Syuusuke Fuji loves his captain.
He'll never admit it if asked, a gentle smile and knowing, mellow silence in response to any allegations of it.
His countless albums on Tezuka and his surroundings are testament to his feelings, pages filled with shared days, shared memories, shared drinks and outings, and practice match courts.
They say that if you look at what someone photographs most you will see what they love, and that's no exception to Syuusuke.
The rare cotyledon tomentosa that Tezuka got him for his previous birthday, its chubby leaves glowing softly against the rising sun, the personalised hook he meticulously made for Tezuka’s next fishing trip, the neatly placed shoes next to his tennis bag- never apart from Tezuka's own change of shoes and bag.
The lamp post in which they both part ways to their respective houses after a carefully paced journey, shining almost like a star to guide them home.
Syuusuke Fuji also has a tendency to not express his feelings, at least not in the conventional way; and he knows he loves, because he hurts.
He hurts when he sees Tezuka in his pictures. Both a blessing and a curse, this gift of his, to suspend a moment so beautifully that it aches to reach out and try to relive it.
It hurts when he gazes into his polaroids in his albums, in his films, both developed and undeveloped, in his prints hanging over his precious cacti and succulents.
It hurts when he photographs Tezuka, over and over and over again.
It hurts when he sees Tezuka hesitate to part under their shining lamppost, it hurts when his beloved bear's paw -a try at Tezuka being funny because of his Higuma Otoshi- grows and blooms with the sakuras, it hurts when Tezuka asks him to play a match against him and he wins, it hurts when his memories become more and more of a limited edition, and less of a recurring event.
But if it means seeing, capturing, Kunimitsu blushing under the setting sun the exact moment he receives and carefully opens his gift -the bait he delicately crafted- and getting to place him in his precious collection, if it means that he gets to relive his limited countless moments with Kunimitsu, no matter what their future looks like, if it means that Tezuka understands how he expresses his feelings, how he thinks and how he dedicates his entire life, even if it consumes him, to his loved ones...
Then, Syuusuke thinks, it's okay that loving hurts.
He hopes loving hurts and aches and tears him up inside out if it means he gets to love Tezuka.
And that, just as he loves his captain, waiting under the lamppost for him to come home, stands his Kunimitsu;
Understanding him, loving him back.