…:Chains:…

Here I am with the first real chapter of this long fic. I want to alternate one chapter with Ryo's POV with one with Rika's. In this way, I hope I can describe better both of their feelings and emotions. Plus, these couple of chapters will be divided into present narration and flashbacks.

Now it's "poor" Ryo's turn, hope you'll enjoy it.

Thank you to all those who reviewed the Prologue! Your reviews mean so much to me and make me want to write faster. Please, keep on helping me with your lovely comments and maybe some advices!

And don't worry, lemon is coming.

Chapter 1. His chains

Ryo jumped, a throbbing pain rushing through his body.

But it wasn't the wound on his left shoulder that hurt.

It was her touch.

He lifted slowly his eyes to watch Rika's expression: her eyebrows raised, her expression intensely focused on the dried blood on his shoulder, her thin hands sliding down his skin. She was just disinfecting a deep scratch he got during their battle to close the gate, but he felt deeply disturbed. It was as if Rika was burning every cell of his body by just brushing his skin with her fingertips.

"What?" she asked, turning suddenly her gaze on his fixed eyes.

Ryo startled, surprised. He couldn't tell how many minutes had passed since he started to stare at her so intently.

"Um… what what?"

"You are staring at me."

"N-no… I'm just checking my shoulder. I don't want you to disinfect it with poison or something like that."

"Then do it yourself, you asshole." She snorted, annoyed, although she took a bandage to wrap his shoulder up.

He chuckled. "There's no need for me to disinfect it. I've had one million of scratches like that in Digiworld and nothing ever happened. They just cure themselves after a while."

Rika smirked, lightly. "This is a real deep scratch, though, Rambo. So just shut up and stay still."

Don't. Fucking. Smirk. Rika. Ryo thought by himself, diverting his eyes from her curved, round, soft lips. Lips he just wanted to nibble at, champ, kiss, savour. Just shut the fuck up, you sick brain. She's just sixteen. She can be my little sister... but I had sex for the first time when I was sixteen. Okay, stop. You CAN'T think about such things. Stop, you pervert brain, stop.

"Okay, I've finish to wrap you up like a mummy, Heroboy. Hope you'll think it twice before acting like a perfect idiot next time. No one gets a price for getting hurt." Rika said, getting up from her knees.

"I just wanted to protect you." Ryo whispered, staring her into her beautiful eyes.

"I know. Don't do that again. I can protect myself." She said, exiting the room without looking back. It seemed to him that Rika's cheeks had turned a little pink.

Ryo sighed slightly, staring at Rika as she could hardly lift her suitcase. She refused both his and Henry's help, saying she could handle it on her own.

So stubborn. So proud. So strong.

Every time he looked at her, he felt the scar on his shoulder burning. As if her fingerprints had left a brand on his scarred skin.

The house hosting their holiday in Okinawa was quite big. It had one triple room and three rooms with a double bed. The girls decided to share the triple room, stealing it to Kazu and Kenta who wanted to share it with Ryo. Ryo was safe; he could keep a whole double bed room for his own, since Kazu went with Kenta and Takato with Henry.

"Yeah Ryo, you're so lucky! So, if you get a girl during this holiday, you can bring her into your own room!" said Kazu, during their first lunch in the house.

Ryo choked on the water he was drinking, starting to cough out loud. Rika raised an eyebrow, unperturbed, as she finished drinking her ice tea.

"What a brilliant idea you've just had, Kazu." Rika smiled, impishly. "So this means you're just going to pair up with Kenta the whole holiday?"

"Fuck off Rika! I'm gonna surely get a super cool girl! And I'm sure Ryo will lend me his room, right man?!"

"...whatever." muttered Ryo, looking at Rika, embarrassed.

Alice caught the gazes between Ryo and Rika, and smirked mischievously.

"What about you, Rika? Are you going to find a boyfriend in Okinawa or not?" asked the blonde girl, with her strong American accent.

Rika looked at her with a strange smile: half amused, half peeved.

"I still can't tell, Alice. You know, I don't overtly flirt with guys as you usually do." Rika said, standing up from the chair and looking at Alice with a challenging expression. Alice gave Rika a dirty look. The air in the room suddenly froze.

Rika started to clean the table, followed immediately by Alice and Jeri. Takato asked if they needed some help, Rika and Alice answered "No" in unison and Jeri signal the boys to run away from the dining room as soon as they could.

Ryo went outside, sighing. Something wrong was in the air, and he was afraid it could explode. Why was Alice provoking Rika so openly? And what meant Rika's smirk as she heard Kazu's embarrassing proposal? Was she jealous? Or it just meant she couldn't care less about other girls flirting with him? Because as Alice asked Rika about her finding a boyfriend in Okinawa, Ryo felt anger and pain flowing through his veins. He felt he was being carried away by his feelings for Rika. He needed to regain control over himself.

He sat on the wicker chair on the terrace and closed his eyes, feeling the warm wind ruffling his hair. He immediately dozed off.

He must have fallen asleep on the sofa, as he was waiting for Rika to finish showering. He was very tired and felt his body aching everywhere, especially on the shoulder. He sat up painfully, deeply breathed in twice and then got up from the couch. He went towards the bathroom, but found out that the door was already open. He turned his gaze towards his bedroom, whose door was not perfectly closed. Through the slight opening of the door, he saw Rika's naked back. She only had her shorts on and she was lacing her bra on her naked shoulder.

Ryo jumped immediately and rushed towards the living room, his heart racing and his cheeks burning. And then he felt his blood rushing somewhere else, all the way down his chest, below his belly.

"Rika, have you finished in the bathroom?!" he shouted nervously.

"Yes..." she said, closing immediately the door of his room. "I came to tell you earlier but you were asleep."

"That's fine. I-I'm gonna get a shower." He said, rushing to the bathroom and quickly closing the door behind his back. He turned on the shower, rotating completely the knob of cold water. Icy water stung painfully on his skin, as he managed to cool down his hormones.

"Hey, you're going to catch a cold."

Ryo slowly opened his eyes and what saw made him startle on the chair.

Rika stood in front of him, her bare pale skin illuminated by the sunlight. She was wearing a black two-piece swimsuit. On the fabric triangle covering her left breast, there was printed a purple star. The lower part was covered by her usual denim shorts and she was wearing a pair of black Converse.

Ryo's mouth fell open, his eyes gazing at her bikini top. Rika blushed, instinctively covering her breasts by folding her arms. Ryo blushed, diverting his gaze from her swimsuit and feeling embarrassed for staring at her so intently.

"What, sleeping beauty, never seen a girl in swimsuit?!" she bristled, raising her eyebrows.

"I-I..." Ryo tried to reply. No, it's just that I fucking want to rip that swimsuit out with my teeth. "No, it's just... I didn't expect you to go to the beach, it's quite early and the sun's going to burn you..." ...liar.

"It's already a quarter past four, Ryo. You slept for about 2 hours. You better go to the beach soon, otherwise all the girls in bikini will be gone. And I bet you don't want to upset Kazu by coming home empty-handed, do you?" she said, a sarcastic expression on her face.

"You can bet on it, princess." He said, frowning. He got up without looking at her and went inside the house, angrily.

In the corridor, Ryo met Takato and Jeri, who were going out to the beach.

"Where are you going Ryo?!" asked Takato, worried by his dark expression.

"To have a fucking icy shower." He muttered, closing himself in the bathroom.

After coming out from the shower, Ryo was freezing but his mind was not. He wished the shower could have helped him getting rid of that painful anger caused by Rika's words. She was good with words: she could use them as knives to hurt people's feelings whenever she wanted. Did she really want him to go out and find another girl? Good, he will have. He stood in front of the mirror arranging his hair when he noticed Rika's beauty case – he knew it very well, since it was the same she had brought to his house – left on the cabinet next to the sink. There, a red lip gloss was popping out from one of the zippers. He didn't know she used lip gloss. She certainly got much more feminine in those years. Even her tendency to leave her hair untied made her look much sexier and adult than before.

Ryo smiled bitterly: he felt haunted by her presence. The more he tried not to think about her, the more she would come back to his mind. He sighed sorrowfully, leaning his forehead against the mirror. He felt enchained by those feelings.

"Why... why you... Why did I have to fall in love with you?" he whispered, taking out her lip gloss from the beauty case. There, a notice caught his attention: cherry-flavoured.

"Cherry..." he whispered, frowning.

After that cold shower, Ryo went back to the sofa, sneezing.

"What happened, Ryo? Caught a cold in June?" Rika asked. She was sitting on the sofa, embracing her knees. She was wearing Ryo's Milan t-shirt, one of his favourite European football teams.

"Just a cold shower. Too cold, I guess. Good choice." He said, hinting at his shirt, as he sat next to her on the sofa.

Rika smiled slightly, very slightly. But she DID smile.

Now I'm gonna kiss her. I swear I do. Ryo thought, dazed.

"I wanted something clean to wear and I liked these colours the most. Plus, I don't really support Avispa Fukuoka as you do." Rika smirked, leaning against the seatback of the sofa.

"Hey, we are good. We can do better, though." He laughed. And they started talking.

About their favourite football teams and favourite TV shows. He told her about his trip to Italy, when he accompanied his father on a business trip and where he bought that Milan t-shirt. They talked about their travels throughout Japan and abroad, about which countries they would have wanted to visit the most. Just a normal couple, a normal boy and normal girl, talking about their interests and their life experiences. No wars, no fights, no problems. Although he had always felt the need to fight as a fundamental part of his life, he thought that maybe this was enough for him. Just him and Rika. Maybe she was more than enough to fill that empty space inside of him. Perhaps her fire was enough of a challenge for him.

At a certain point, he had stretched his arm along the seatback, positioning it behind Rika's back. She didn't say anything or maybe she didn't even notice it. But the atmosphere was warm, cosy... familiar. Finally, his usually empty house really felt like home.

Rika's eyelids were heavy and she struggled to keep them open. Ryo asked her if she wanted to go to bed, but she stubbornly refused, saying she was wide awake. Three minutes later, she started dozing off, her head sliding from the seatback of the sofa towards his shoulder.

"You should go to bed." He said, embracing her shoulders lightly. Being so close to her felt strange, but it also felt really, really good...

"And... you should shave your beard... it tickles..." she whispered, before falling deeply asleep in his arms.

He couldn't tell when he fell asleep or how long he had been sleeping, but when Ryo woke up, Rika was gone. She went to sleep in his bed, leaving him alone on the sofa. Before going, she had covered him with a comforter. Ryo rubbed his eyes with his fingertips and bit his lower lip, sadly: he already felt alone without Rika by his side. Before dozing off again, he realized that his lowered lip tasted like cherry.

That evening, Ryo didn't have dinner with the others. He stayed on the balcony, watching the sun setting and the moon rising, illuminating the sea in front of his eyes.

His mind was hazed. His eyes frowned. His expression upset.

But his seriousness was ruined by his sneezes. In fact, he was wrapped in a cover, since he kept on sneezing all afternoon.

Suddenly, he heard the sliding window behind his back opening. Rika entered the balcony, a tray with a cup of tea and some biscuits in her hands. Her hair was loose on her shoulders and she was wearing a large t-shirt covering her denim shorts.

"Hey, I heard you were feeling sick. So, I thought... you know... maybe you were hungry." She said, leaving the tray on the coffee table by his side. As she leaned forward, her hair exposed part of her neck. For a moment, Ryo felt like a vampire: he longed to bite it hard, to leave an indelible mark on her skin. "What's your problem with summer colds, anyway, Akiyama?"

She looked him in the eyes, but immediately diverted her gaze. Ryo was staring at her intensely, his mouth covered by his hand. He still didn't answer.

Rika seemed nervous. She sighed deeply, watching the sea in front of her.

"I'm sorry, okay? I've been bitchy today." Rika said, worn out by Ryo's gaze.

"You kissed me." He said instead, out of the blue.

"Wh...?"

"You kissed me. That night, on my sofa. You kissed me."

...to be continued.

Thank you for reading so far. I'll try to update next chapter as soon as I can. Don't worry, lemon is coming. u.u