Title: Breathe No More
Author: Queen Momoko
Rating: G
Genre: Angst
Characters: Sakuno, Ryoma, ?
Written: 11/17/2004
Summary: In the future Sakuno thinks about her past with Ryoma and comes to a decision.
Disclaimer: I don't own PoT, but oh how I wish I did. I would be the happiest person alive to own such shininess. So don't sue, because I have nothing.

Sakuno sat at the kitchen table and looked at the photo album that she had taken out earlier. Her finger traced along the bindings of her home-made album. She had put a lot of time and effort into collecting their history, her history with Ryoma. The light scent of her tea and the soft piano music in the background relaxed her.

A small smile crossed her face as she lifted the cover and was met with their junior high freshman pictures. Her first meeting with him had been anything but spectacular. In fact, it was rather embarrassing now that she thought back on it. Her future husband hadn't even remembered her when they'd met a second time.

As she continued through the album, the pictures that were there were mostly of the tennis team. She paused to look at one of the pictures that she had discovered among Ryoma's things when they had gotten married. The picture included only the tennis players of Seigaku and everyone was smiling at the camera, looking happy. It was a rare photo indeed.

She took a sip of her tea as she studied the picture. She hadn't been there when that picture was taken. In fact, none of the tag-along freshman were there. It had been taken right before Tezuka-buchou had left to go to Germany. Sakuno chuckled softly to herself and shook her head. Tezuka hadn't been Ryoma's buchou for a long time.

After placing her cup back down, she continued through the album. The pictures progressed through junior high and into high school. Looking at it now, there were mostly pictures of Ryoma and tennis. There weren't very many pictures with his true smile in them, but many contained his cock-sure smirk; and all of those contained a certain teammate of his. Among those pictures there were a few pictures of herself with her friend Tomoka. There were a few pictures that had her in the background watching Ryoma play, but there wasn't anything special about those pictures. The real notice of the passing of time amongst the pictures that had been taken was that the subjects were slowly getting older.

The sudden change of pictures caused Sakuno to stop turning pages. On the table before her lay the wedding pictures. A single portrait of them filled the entire page. A light blush stained her cheeks as she peeked up at the camera. The cause of her blush then had been the fact that her left hand was being held by Ryoma's right hand. Such a silly thing really that she was embarrassed from holding hands with her own new husband. But Ryoma hadn't ever been physically forthcoming during their engagement. It had been a little bit of a shock when he'd actually grabbed onto it.

Sakuno continued to look at the picture and let all the small nuances of it freeze in her mind. Ryoma standing to her left, was staring straight at the camera, face blank. And as she continued to gaze the marriage portrait, she let out a soft sigh. It was only their hands that had been touching. If you cut along down the picture through their hands, there would only be two clean pictures, with nothing to show that it had once been a part of a larger picture.

Once again, she began to turn through the pictures. The decorations had been magnificent. Everyone had looked nice. But still, as she continued to go through the pictures, the contact didn't ever seem to get any farther than that hand. A few of the pictures contained Ryoma with a small smile. But none of them had Sakuno in them. They were all with Ryoma's old tennis-mates. The pictures slowly shifted to their life after the wedding and pictures of Ryoma with any type of smile seemed to stop altogether. And still there was no contact between the couple. It seemed that as things changed they still seemed to stay the same.

Sakuno sat back in her chair and stared up at the ceiling. What had happened to her life? How had things turned out this way? She thought back. They had graduated from high school and she had still been following him in tennis. And somehow, their parents had thought that they were dating. Oh how she had wished they had been, but she was happy just being near him. Yet when they had jumped to that conclusion, she hadn't told them otherwise. So his father had begun to pester him about it.

Somehow, talk about marriage had come up and things just seemed to rush forward at that point. Ryoma and herself had been caught up in the moment. He'd agreed to it before he should have and so did she. A short, bitter laugh choked its way out of her throat. She'd been a lovesick girl, whose prince charming had said that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. What girl would or could turn down that kind of offer? But he'd never really said that he'd wanted any of that. He'd just agreed in his normal grunt of acceptance when they'd ask. Not really anything to be as hopeful about as she had been.

It had been his chance at more freedom and he'd taken it. Free from his parents' complaints, free from society's prying eyes, he'd only have her keeping him from being completely free. But he seemed to know that she would never speak up against it. She'd never been able to deny him anything and that had never changed. So when he left to go play tennis with friends for a couple days, she wouldn't say anything about her loneliness to him. She'd just be there waiting for him to return.

Sakuno heaved a great sigh and bent back over the photo album. She turned the page and stared at the empty whiteness. She'd reached the end of all their history together. The piano music continued to drift over her as she sat there. Reaching under the album, she pulled out a small stack of papers and set them carefully on top of the empty page. Her seat let out a screetch as she pushed herself back from the table. Her tea, long gone cold, sat forgotten on the table as she made her way to the back door. Glancing once behind her at the kitchen, Sakuno picked up the bag she had next to the door. The soft click of the door shutting could barely be heard in the still playing music.

Piano music was the sound that greeted Ryoma upon his return home from a day out with friends. He turned off the stereo as he walked through the house looking for his wife. She usually greeted him when he got back, but now she was no where to be found. When he entered the kitchen he walked over to the table. Her cup of tea was barely touched and the photo album lay open with the papers stacked on the empty page. Picking up the top sheet, he quickly read it. A bewildered look briefly crossed his face before being replaced with a small smile. Taking a pen off of the counter, he quickly signed his name to papers.

He looked briefly out the kitchen window into the dusk beyond. The note replayed through his mind again.

Ryoma,
This is my last gift to you. Be free. Go be happy with him and have a good life.
Sakuno

And he hoped wherever she found herself that she'd be happy.