Coming Home

By: Bunny

Rated: Teen 15 and up

Genre: Romance, Drama

Summary: RyoSaku. At the start of high school, Sakuno is forced to leave Seigaku. Trying to move on proves to be impossible.

Warnings: Lime, Nudity, Sexual Violence, Strong Language - since I forgot to include this on chapter one. Also, this story is a more drama/angst/romance than my usual comedy/romance stories, in fact, this story is very different from all my other RyoSaku fics. It's VERY RyoSaku only romance though, it's just a more dark romance take for our dear couple.

Still - there is a happy ending! ;D

Chapter Two

Sakuno hadn't been happy about moving away from Seigaku and her friends from middle school, but Akihiko-kun had made the pain lessen by quickly becoming her best friend at her high school. Of course, she missed being with Tomo-chan everyday something terrible. She also missed being awed by Ryoma-kun and the other tennis regulars everyday, but all in all, life at her new school and living with her parents again wasn't so bad.

She'd kept up with her tennis, despite the lack of Ryoma-kun and the others from the dream team in her life, but beyond that she wouldn't have had anything else if it hadn't been for Akihiko-kun. His friends became her friends, his fans became her fans, she supported his baseball games, he supported her tennis tournaments, she even found a close girl friend in his childhood friend, Kobayashi Kaori. Of course, she still called Tomo-chan everyday, but having Kaori around at school had been a lifesaver of female companionship for her.

In this way her first year of high school began to pass by. Spring turned into summer, summer turned into fall, and before Sakuno knew it, it was time for the cultural festival. She was really looking forward to the cultural festival. After all, the school prince Akihiko-kun was in her class, so they were pretty much guaranteed to have the most visitors to whatever they decided to do. Even more exciting was that after the cultural festival, they were going to have their first big high school party.

To their everlasting advantage, Kaori's family worked overseas, so she lived by herself. Needless to say it was customary for their smaller group of usual friends to hang out at Kaori's whenever they were all getting together. The night of the cultural festival had been no different sans the much larger amount of people present. In fact, though they'd planned to throw a fairly large party it had turned into oh...probably the whole school and then some were there type of party. Since Akihiko-kun was one of the group throwing the party everybody wanted to go to it and everybody certainly did - invited officially or not.

That was when her happy high school life did a 180 on her.

Akihiko-kun had always been a flirt. Sakuno had noticed he flirted with her more often than other girls, but she'd always assumed it was because he spent more time in her company. If only it had been that...if only.

At the party somehow, Sakuno and Akihiko had ended up alone in one of the upstairs bedrooms. With the noise from the party below Akihiko had turned to her with his usual flirty grin before he'd slammed the door shut.

"So what's going on, Akihiko-kun?" Sakuno had asked. Surely, it must be some big secret her best friend was excited to tell her about! Ohh...maybe he finally got a girlfriend!

Instead of responding though, he'd swooped in on her personal space, grabbed the back of her neck and tilted her head up to capture her lips. In the nick of time, Sakuno had realized what was happening and turned her face away just enough that he'd kissed her chin instead.

He pulled away from her with a shocked look on his face, "What?"

Sakuno's eyes had widened as her mind began to whirl in panic, "What, what?"

Akihiko-kun, the school prince, drop dead irresistibly cute male and her best friend at her new school had just tried to kiss her and she'd refused!

This couldn't be happening!

"What do you mean, what, what? What's your problem?" He'd asked.

Sakuno shook her head, "I-I don't understand."

"Don't you like me?" He asked.

Sakuno had quickly nodded, "Of course, Akihiko-kun."

He moved to grab her again, but she backed away a step, putting her hands in front of her like a shield she said, "You're my friend, I...um...have someone." She looked away and blushed in embarrassment. Well, she didn't exactly have someone...

"Sakuno. Don't play games with me. We've been dancing around this for months. Besides, everybody expects it," Akihiko had said, and oh, he'd suddenly looked very unlike the Akihiko-kun she'd always known. He looked serious and he looked angry.

Why was this happening? This wasn't really happening was it? It was just a bad dream, or...or Akihiko-kun was playing a bad joke on her...or...or-

She took a hesitant step towards the door, "Let's get back to the party Akihiko-kun."

He moved to block her path, and grabbing onto her wrist he said, "You know how many girls would love to be in your place right now." It wasn't even a question, it was a statement.

Sakuno's mouth opened in shock.

He was seriously going to come back at her with that? She knew he was considered to be the school's prince, the guy all the girls wanted to date, but that didn't really mean they ALL really did want to date him! Insulted, she twisted her wrist to pull it from his grasp, but his grip tightened.

Ouch.

"Akihiko-kun, there's someone else, please understand!"

This was quickly escalating from bad to worse and Sakuno's alarms had gone from slight panic to full blown emergency status. Why did he have to decide he wanted her of all people when he had his pick of the girls in the school? Couldn't they just stay good friends?

"You dirty, filthy tease!" He spat against her face as his grip on her wrist tightened further.

Sakuno flinched, smelling the alcohol on his breath from the party. She was pretty sure her fingers were starting to go numb. She wriggled her wrist more forcefully despite the increased pain from the pressure of his firm hold on her, and said with more bravado than she felt, "Akihiko-kun, you're drunk and you don't know what you're saying! Just let me go!"

He flung her wrist away, and as she dashed towards the door, he grabbed her by her waist. Spinning her around, he pushed her down on the bed in the middle of the room and climbed on top of her. He pushed his weight into her body to restrain her and started trying to kiss her again.

"NO!" Sakuno screamed in terror. She tried kicking her legs to get him off of her and moved her head from side to side violently to keep him from kissing her.

He yelled to her as they struggled, "You SLUT! You're really going to deny me? ME? You're nothing without me Sakuno, you better think about this!" He gripped her wrists tightly above her head in one hand as the other hand roughly slid under her shirt.

Feeling his rough hands on her bare abdomen, Sakuno screamed bloody murder. She'd never screamed so hard in her life!

Oh it was pointless, the party was so noisy, nobody would ever hear her! As no help came, she began to beg and whimper as his free hand roamed over her wiggling form, trying to touch her in places it had no business being in. "No! Please! Stop! I don't want this, I don't want this!"

"Shut up! Stop moving!" He shook her whole body with forcefulness, trying to rattle her into submission.

She started bawling her eyes out in earnest and great sobbing wails escaped her throat. He was breaking her...he was breaking her heart. He'd been her dearest friend and now this was her reward?

"Ak-Aki-Akihiko-kun," She choked between wracking sobs, "D-don't, don't, please, don't."

Suddenly, he was off of her.

Sakuno watched him through her watery eyes as he towered over her, standing next to the bed, giving her a look filled with hate and disgust. He kicked at the bed, rattling the frame to the side. She shrieked in fright as she covered her face with her arms, and pulled her knees up to her chest. He was definitely going to climb on top of her again, wasn't he?

"We're through, Ryuzaki," He declared. He spun on his heel, opened the door and strutted out of the room as if he owned the place, as if he had done nothing wrong. As if the whole disaster had been all her, as if he hadn't just...just...

...just...

Sakuno rolled off of the bed and cowered on the floor, hiding behind the side of the bed, she curled into a ball. She wiped her tears with her hands, relieved that he'd stopped, but feeling a type of numbness come over her.

It was okay, she consoled herself. Everything was going to be okay, somehow, everything would be okay. It was just a really, really bad dream. Right. Everything would be okay. It had to be. She'd go to school on Monday and it would be as if none of this bad stuff had ever happened.

Everything had NOT been okay.

Sure she'd kept her innocence, but she hadn't kept her reputation. Akihiko had made a point of telling anybody who would listen that they'd hooked up at Kaori's party. Being the school's prince, of course, everybody wanted to listen and everybody believed him. Nobody ever dreamed that their prince could be turned down, nobody would ever believe the truth even if she tried to tell them.

Everybody had expected it after all, they'd been inseparable for months. They'd been flirting for months. At least, that's what they told her when they were either congratulating her for her big score, or threatening her for taking what wasn't hers.

In the end, it was all about perception. Perception is reality and her 'reality' was now being the prince's discarded plaything. Oh yes, according to Akihiko they hadn't just hooked up at the party after the cultural festival, he'd dumped her as well.

If that wasn't bad enough the double impact was that she'd lost her best friend at her new school. Akihiko wouldn't so much as look at her, unless he was making some obscene gesture to his friends about her. Kaori still spent time with her, but even time spent with Kaori was awkward or filled with lectures to stop fighting with Akihiko-kun, because it wasn't cute. It wouldn't bring him back to her.

As if. As if she wanted him back! As if she wanted him in the first place! NO, it was because she didn't want him that it was like this.

It was hell.

It was a special kind of hell where the most popular, good looking, good at everything boy in the school spread lies about deflowering you and leaving you to fend for yourself - come what may in the way of what the rest of the students would throw at you.

Sakuno didn't even know what to do, so she'd suffered in silence. She'd managed to tough it out while Kaori had continued their awkward friendship. For a couple of months, she'd really tried to not let it get to her, to be the better person. To keep her mouth shut and her head down, and just try to somehow ride out the rest of the school year. She told herself that this too would pass, just like any other bad thing that had ever happened to her.

For a few months, she put up with the name-calling, the other guys making rude sexual passes at her, the girls calling her a slut or a whore or whatever other names they came up with. Even worse, the Akihiko fanclub girls had taken to bullying her out of jealousy or protectiveness since she was snubbing Akihiko now, she wasn't sure which, maybe it depended on what girl it was; either way it didn't really matter what their motives were. It was the things they did to her.

Destroyed shoes, frayed umbrellas, shredded gym clothes, direct confrontations where she was pushed, slapped and punched. She was constantly being set up as the scapegoat in any mischief or wrongdoings they were trying to get away with as well. She was constantly in and out of the principal's office and the nurse's office.

It was the worst.

It wasn't until sometime after her birthday in January that even Kaori had left her, being sick of being pulled in two directions between her friends, she'd finally fully sided with Akihiko, her childhood friend.

No longer having any form of protection, everything had come to a head today as some of the Akihiko fanclub members had cornered her with scissors and tried to cut her hair. She had somehow managed to get away, losing only a bit of length on one of the ends, and getting a cut across the side of her arm for her efforts.

It had been the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. She'd ran from the school, and ran, and ran, and kept running. She'd boarded train after train, not paying any attention to where she was going, so long as it was away. Further away. Away from them. That was it, she was gone, she would never go back. She was 16 now, she could get a job, and just forget that life, it was no good.

She looked down at the red, angry cut on her arm and grimaced in pain. It could be worse she mused as the clouds finally opened up and began pouring cold water on her. The few pedestrians that had been on the sidewalk in the cold weather quickly disappeared. Alone, cold and wet, she looked up at the rain, and cried with it. With great long heaving tears, and her eyes heavenward, she wept with nature. Her high school life, her happy life, her golden days were over, it was all over, it was all gone. The good times really, were long, long gone - stored away somewhere at her Grandmother's place and Seishun Gakuen Middle School.

What would she do with her life now?

Finally, utterly soaked the bone, she shivered a bit, but still didn't duck for cover. Somehow this lonely rain was comforting her and for some inexplicable reason, she didn't have the courage to leave the comfort of the rain. Allowing the tears to continue to fall from her eyes she felt that she could never have a lower point in her life than this.

That was when it happened...

"Ryuzaki?"

...A/N: So yeah...you all know what's coming on the next chapter, right? ...wink, wink... I hope you're excited?

Once again, I want to thank you all so much for your support! It's so encouraging to me to see so many of you already adding this fic to your faves & story alert and giving me review love! Especially since it's so different from my other RyoSaku fics. I think it's different in a good way, and I can only hope you all will agree and embrace this fic as well.

MUAH! xoxo to foureyesfreak27, JulieBookLover21, nertz, SinfulEmerald, Ryo-senpai and 1wingedangelX for the reviews for chapter one! You guys are the best! xoxo I'm so happy to hear from you all again and so soon after FSR has ended! ILU guys! Thank you so much for the support! SO MUCH LOVE for you guys! xoxoxoxoxoxoxo