This a fic that I'm working on for my enjoyment and it means so very much to me. Please understand that when your reading and judging and reviewing. It's not perfect but I would be disappointed if it was. So help me keep it flawed. I intend to keep the pace fast and slow if that makes any sense. I'll update when I feel as if I should, this will not be rushed. It'll be written in a drabble-y kind of way sometimes but I like it better this way.

There are pairings, or there will be, but I'm not going to announce them yet. You'll figure them out soon.

Warnings: Anorexia, Bulimia, language. Slash/Yaoi. If you want to classify that as something to be warned against. Possible forms of self harm. Character death but not major. OOCness but that was to be expected.

I hope you stick around for the ride.

-Sy

"Hell is wanting to be somewhere different from where you are. Being one place and wanting to be somewhere else . . . . Wanting life to be different from what it is. That's also called leaving without leaving. Dying before you die. It's as if there is a part of you that so rails against being shattered by love that you shatter yourself first."

- Geneen Roth

The first time Ryoma threw up he was twelve.

He remembered crouching in front of the toilet, looking at the water swirling inside and without realizing why his hand fluttered up, stretching his lips. He could hear his father's voice commanding him to keep his body in the perfect condition for tennis. And he could hear his scolding's when he ate something he wanted to eat like a muffin or a piece of cake. "Recruiters aren't going to want a player with flab, no matter how well you play." They're not going to want you, no matter what you do. Ryoma shivered.

He became hypnotized by the bright, florescent lights in the bathroom. The hard tile of the floor. And when he registered the finger in the back of throat, the leaning of his head in the toilet, it was already too late to change his mind. The vomit almost choked him and just in time he remembered to move his finger. He could smell the breakfast his mother had furtively slipped him that morning and he reached to the side and flushed his secrets. Was this how it felt? To be empty? It was too easy. Was it always so easy?

He stared at the water for a long time.

His mother died when he was fourteen.

There was a ghost that sat in the chair at the table and lived in spaces in his heart. There was a spirit that existed in pictures and blew in with the wind. But there was no one to serve him Japanese style breakfast or ruffle his hair. There was no one to remind him what laughing sounded like or listen to him play piano when his father wasn't home. There was no to look at him like he existed for more than a sport that he didn't even want to play. She was gone and so was his life raft.

Fifteen

"Ryoma." He ignored his boyfriend and continued running. He had a pounding migraine and the heat wasn't helping any but he was going to push through it. His father was here and he was expecting more from him then the rest of the guy's. Just because he had the overwhelming urge to cut his head off with a blunt knife did not give him a fucking excuse. He felt a hand creep up his shoulder but he shook it off, shooting a well placed glare to blonde beside him.

"Watch where you're putting your hands, Smith. My father's here."

Kevin was looking at him, the way he always did when his dad came to watch him practice, like he'd never seen anything sadder in his life. Whatever. He wasn't a kicked puppy. He ran faster, heading toward his fiftieth lap. "Ryoma."

"Was there something you wanted or are you just going to keep saying my name ominously?"

His boyfriend didn't even flinch. They'd been together too long for his hissing to bother him much. "You're not feeling well."

Ryoma could feel himself softening a bit because Kevin was an annoying idiot but he was just worried and he didn't have anyone else to do that since his mother had died. "No."

"You shouldn't be here."

Yeah, because that made him feel all warm in fuzzy inside. It was the sort of comment that sent heat rushing into his veins and made his fingers twitch in an angry rhythm. He screwed his face up into a scowl good enough to make his father proud.

"I appreciate your stupid concern. But you can take it and shove it up your ass. You know, where you put everything else."

He didn't stick around to watch the hurt. Kevin drew back as he sped up, making eye contact with light brown eyes by the fence. There were bodies milling around the entire court, endlessly active. He wanted to be a part of the energy, the chattering, and the laughter. But he was tired. As always.

He won the match in fifteen minutes. He didn't even notice who he was playing. It was a blur of points and serves, the sound of rackets hitting balls. Ryoma was ruthless. His opponent was great but he was perfect. There could be nothing less. When the game was over he realized who he'd been playing. Kevin. He wasn't looking at him but he could see the ropy muscles and short stature sitting on the bench. There were people surrounding him with worried expressions. Ryoma wanted ask if he was alright but-

"Ryoma?"

He straightened, tension filling him up until he was close enough to over flowing. And his father hadn't even really started a conversation yet.

"Yes?"

He was an intimidating figure, his father, with piercing eyes and a stern jaw. Everything about him was firm. Ryoma couldn't remember the last time he'd seen him smile or laugh. That had been saved for his mother. There was a hand on a shoulder but it was different then Kevin's touch. More to assert then comfort. He waited for it.

"You could have done better. "

Sixteen

Ryoma didn't do it often. Only on the really bad days when he was feeling like too much. Like he needed to be lighter or he'd blow away. Another balloon in a sky of endless helium filled rubber. He and bathrooms had become good friends. Not the best, the kind of friends you go to for trivial things but never really have a conversation with. He could stop if he wanted to because it wasn't exactly his forte, throwing up. He liked schedules better.

No breakfast or lunch everyday until Friday. Then he could eat lunch and dinner. But on the weekend no dinner or lunch. Just breakfast. It was automatic after almost five years and he didn't even know when he'd started it. There were restrictions, rules, and then there were the bad weeks. The one's where he was harsh and angry and couldn't see the point of breathing another breath.

There was a game he liked to call, let's see how long Ryoma can go without eating. The record was three days. But then Kevin had noticed how pale he'd gotten and shoved a dessert into his mouth. He could taste the fat as he chewed and when his boyfriend had tried to feed him another piece he turned away.

"But it's your favorite kind. You used to fight me for it."

Having a favorite food was a joke. You ate it and then what? It took forever to digest and probably put a set back to staying the weight you wanted to be. Pointless. Pleasure was a butterfly. It didn't stay for long.

Kevin broke up with him during junior year of high school on a swing set in the rain.

There were apologies and whispered words of affections during the creaking of the swing and the force of the wind. Kevin kept saying something, repeating it like a mantra but Ryoma didn't understand what the words meant or why they really mattered in the end. He stared ahead, watching a little boy laugh with another boy on the sidewalk. He couldn't remember what it was like to be that young or that happy or that free.

Then some words finally filtered through his drain of a mind. "I think you need to find someone who'll help you, Ryoma."

He opened his mouth. Closed it, then forced it through. "There's no one. It's too late for me, Kev."

"You're just lost. Some people are like that. That's who they are," The words were soft and so were his baby blues. Then his voice tightened. "But no one can ever help you if you don't want them to. Don't fuck up the rest of your life or you'll end up like your father."

"But one day, you're going to find someone who'll let you wander off, let you get lost. And then they'll find you. Every time."

Ryoma closed his eyes when he felt a whisper of a kiss on his forehead. And when he opened them again there was the sound of an empty swing wavering and it was debatable whether the water dripping down his cheeks was rain.

Right at the height of his tennis career, at age eighteen, his father died of a brain aneurysm on his way home.

The funeral was held on a sunny day that completely contradicted the feeling of thunder that boomed in his chest. His thoughts were in a frenzy. All he could hear was the last thing his father had said before he'd left the house for the day.

"Ryoma?"

He wondered why people were always using his name like he didn't know it himself.

He turned around, blinking into the reality of the retreating figures and the spot where they'd buried the only person he had left. No, that wasn't true. He had Ryoga. The big brother he'd never had. The tall form standing in front of him wearing a smile that wasn't painted or stitched on, but naturally curved. Ryoma tried to mimic it but his jaw didn't twist that way and it hurt to try new things when you didn't know of it was possible to do them right or not.

Ryoga shifted on the balls of his feet. His hair was shaggy, eyes bright, alive. There was a five-year age difference between them but his brother looked younger than he did. At least he thought he did. Ryoma hadn't glanced in a mirror in ages. "Are you alright? Wait, no, that's a stupid question. Of course you're not alright."

"I'm fine." He gritted. He hated when people tried made assumptions on his feelings.

"You're too thin."

And he hadn't even had to work for it. The observation left him flying a bit closer to the sky as much as it curled its way into his stomach like a snake. He reached up to wrap a hand around his tie. He wondered how tightly he'd have to pull before he choked. He flinched when a hand grabbed his and unwound it from its grip. Ryoga was summer's day warm while everything in him was frosting over like snow.

"Come stay with me in Japan." Ryoga said suddenly. A negative two letter word danced on his tongue but he stopped when his brother regarded him with eyes almost the same shade as his own. It was like looking in a mirror but seeing someone else's reflection. "I want you there. I have an annoying boyfriend who drives me insane but I keep him around for his adorable daughter. That doesn't bother you, does it? I mean, if it does I underst-"

"You want me there?"

He repeated it to himself over and over so he could keep the words somewhere and remember what they tasted like. Lemons, he decided. Not the sour taste, but the childishness of wrapping them around your teeth and creating a smile.

"Of course." Ryoga affirmed. He didn't seem ashamed of the sentiment at all.

But Ryoma had to ask because it was always the most important thing, "What about tennis?"

"A real passion for something doesn't go away no matter where you are."

There was a silence and he realized that they were still standing there, by the one thing that had connected them and torn them apart in the first place. There were things growing over his father, he thought. Is that what death was? The living going on over your head while you rested in a coffin under the ground? Somehow he wanted to be more than that.

"Okay."