PoT Ryosaku (PG-13)
Consequences (Sequel to Finding Me Finding You)
By angelhazel
Disclaimer: I asked, very nicely, but they refused to send me the legal rights. Damn!
Ryoma had more trouble sleeping than Sakuno. Damn teenage hormones. Lying in the dark with his eyes wide open, he sorely missed the companionship of Karupin. He tossed and turned on the unfamiliar bed, trying to find a spot that suited him. After a while, he tried to count tennis balls, imagining two invisible players volleying a green sphere to and fro, while he was looking down the net and keeping count of the number of times the ball crossed it.
Still unable to sleep, he started to entertain himself by imagining all the different special moves he had seen before, and kept on counting as the ball whizzed past the net again and again. He ran out of interesting moves soon enough and somehow ended up imagining a spherical Horio being whacked across a court, making strange squeaky noises every time he bounced off the ground or connected with a racket. Both the rackets hitting Horio were red, just like the ones Ryoma habitually used. The thought brought a smirk to his face.
Two hours later, he was still as wide-awake. Sitting up resignedly, he decided to get some water from the kitchen. He quietly opened his door and made to tiptoe past Sakuno's room. He heard a sound from her room that brought him up short, it sounded like she was crying again, except the broken sobs were louder in the silence of night.
Worried, he barged into her room without further thought. In the moonlight peeking in through the windows, he could see that her face was wet, and she looked like she was in pain.
Damn, not again! Sitting on the edge of the bed, Ryoma quickly felt her face to check her temperature, and as he expected, she was frozen up again, this time worse than before. He flipped aside her comforter and felt her hands; they were cold and lifeless too. His priority was to make her warmer, it couldn't be good for her to be so unnaturally cold, and he knew but one quick way to go about it.
There was no time to think, no time to panic; he needed to make sure she would stay alive. He picked her up, cradling her in his arms while he navigated his way to the bathroom, taking extra care in the darkness of the corridor. There was enough moonlight to locate the bathtub and place her prone body gently into it, making sure her neck was leaning against the side. Then he turned on the hot water tap at full blast.
He made use of the time lapse to switch on the small nightlight beside the washbasin, filling the small room in an eerie blue glow. Then there wasn't much else to do but wait. Ryoma kept an eye on the water level, and turned off the tap when the tub was almost full, submerging Sakuno from the neck down.
He squatted down beside the tub studying her. She had stopped crying at least, the tears were drying on her pale cheeks. Gently, he pushed her long hair away from her face, and felt how cold her cheeks were. Looking around, he grabbed a small towel and, after dipping it in the hot water, gently wiped her face. In the absence of the noise of falling water, he filled the silence by talking to her.
"C'mon Sakuno, wake up. You are making me worried. Obaasan asked me to take care of you for this whole week, and within a few hours you been like this twice! How am I going to answer to the old woman when she returns? Wake up, Sakuno, come back to me, ne?"
She looked so pale, so still, but for the shallow breathing, he would have thought she was lost to him. Reaching for her hand in the hot water, he was slightly comforted when he felt the weak pulse. Taking her hand between his larger ones, he brought it to his cheek, seeking to assure himself she was still alive. His heart wrenched painfully at the sight of her pale face, her lips looked an unearthly blue in the strange lighting.
"Come back, I am waiting. Open your eyes, Sakuno. I haven't told you how much I like seeing them. I like your smile too, and your long hair. I remember how you used to wear braids everyday. Although you look prettier when you don't tie it up." He spilt his guts to the unconscious girl.
There was no sign that she could hear him, no sign that she was waking up. "Please, love, look at me." Yes, love, come back to me now and I swear I will never ignore you again. Never let you go again. "Sakuno …" he was begging her.
It hurt; hurt so very much to see her like that and him helpless to do anything. "Wake up, please ……"