Helllooo! Here I am again! Whoosh~
Thank you Zwolftd, Sachiel Angelo, RyoKei and SnowyIce for the reviews. xD I'm really happy to see that you guys followed this! And thus, I've updated earlier than usual... LOL. Updating within 9 days is a record, okay! HAHAHA. Kisses and hugs to you guys! :D
To Zwolftd: Yay! Thank you very much xD And yep, I think it will finally happen in this chapter! Ryoma, I mean LOL. Oops, was I supposed to spoil it for you? xD
To SnowyIce: I'm super happy that you would read a Kajimoto x Ryoma fic! I know it's a really strange pairing as well LOL, so thank you! xD
.-*-.
A voice outside the door startled him out of his reverie, and Marui jolted slightly.
"Could you open the door for me?" It was Nanako, and she was probably back from cooking the rice porridge. Marui hurried to stand up, stretching his limbs for the first time in the hour, as he reached out to open the door quickly.
An aromatic scent drifted into the room in warm puffs as Nanako entered the room, carrying a steaming bowl of rice porridge on a tray with both hands. She set it down on Ryoma's bedside table, before turning back to look at Marui, and gave him a sheepish smile.
"Thank you very much. I couldn't open the door earlier because my hands were occupied," she explained, and Marui smiled back at her understandingly.
"It was no trouble at all, don't worry," He assured her, before turning back to Ryoma. His expression dimmed, and his hand unconsciously reached out for the other's limp hand, closing around his smaller wrist tenderly.
But could Ryoma even eat the porridge in this condition...? Maybe he'd have to heat it up for him later when he awoke…
A light cough in the room reminded him that Nanako was still around, and he stared down at their entwined hands for a moment, trying and failing to think of a good reason for why he was practically assaulting Nanako's family member in his sleep. Nothing came to mind though, and he looked up hesitantly, glancing to gauge Nanako's reaction.
She was blushing lightly as she stared at the scene in front of her, then averted her gaze as if she was glancing at something incredibly forbidden, but she glanced back time and time again, seemingly nervous and excited at the same time. Marui decided that she approved of their (one-sided) relationship. It was slightly reassuring that he would have someone who acknowledged them when he asked for Ryoma's hand in marriage.
….Okay, so maybe he was thinking a little too far ahead, but there was no putting off things that would happen anyway, right?
"Um, I'm sorry for intruding! Feel free to stay with Ryoma-kun as long as you like- no, actually, you could just stay over if you want to! Just remember to contact your parents!" Nanako flustered out, and with that, she rushed out of the room, closing the door behind her quickly to ensure that they would get the maximum level of privacy they needed.
Now, if only Ryoma would wake up, everything would be perfect...
Just as Marui was about sit back down next to Ryoma, a blinking light and vibrating sound on the bedside table caught his attention. Curious, he went closer to see what it was. It turned out to be Ryoma's cell phone. The vibrating sounds continued, sounding absolutely annoying on the wooden surface of the table, and worrying that it was disturbing Ryoma, he picked it up.
On the screen, written in large letters, were the words 'Momo-senpai'. Huh. So the loud mouthed power player was calling Ryoma. He hesitated on whether to pick it up- he could ask Momoshiro about any strange people who had been around Ryoma lately... But what if Momoshiro had been the one to do the deed? He definitely would have had the power and strength to knock someone out with one blow...
As he continued to ponder, the call stopped, and the phone beeped once to show that there had been a missed call. The screen disappeared back to the menu screen, where the icons for Mail and Contacts showed up.
Marui let his eyes linger on the mail button for a moment, feeling extremely guilty. He had to admit, he was curious of what mails Ryoma had gotten recently… Well... Not in a stalker-ish kind of way, definitely not! It was just that, well, he wanted some sort of assurance that he was special to Ryoma too, and ugh, it just sounded like excuses the more he tried to convince himself that his reasons were plausible!
Ah, yes! It was possible that if Ryoma had had any fights with tennis players in the recent past that led up to him being assaulted, there could have been a history of their conversation in his inbox! That's right! It wasn't that he was curious about his standing in Ryoma's social life or anything; it was just that there could be a clue to the perpetrator in his inbox!
With that notion planted firmly in his mind, Marui nodded determinedly, and touched the mail icon. He held his breath as the icon enlarged and the inbox loaded... and...
Marui found himself smiling lightly when he noticed that Ryoma had a separate folder for his messages, labelled as 'Marui-senpai'. He could see all his older messages stored safely within it, and his heart soared at the thought of this adorable act his beloved rookie had done. He scrolled down briefly, smiling as he indulged himself in the memories of their various meetings and encounters, lunch dates, up until the first mail he'd sent him. "Echizen, let's have a meal at the sushi place again! Jackal's treat!"
The thought of Jackal and his recent strange behaviour made the smile drop off his face, and he tapped the main folder of the inbox again, determined to continue his search. Regardless of whether Jackal was the culprit or not, he was going to find out who it was- the person who made Ryoma suffer, and make him suffer. His fingers clenched around the thin metal of the phone for a moment, and he accidentally clicked the Bin option, where all the deleted mails went before they were permanently erased.
Marui was about to click the back button before he realized there was a mail, no, several mails... From a number which hadn't been recorded in Ryoma's contact list, by the looks of it. He didn't recognize it as well, much to his disappointment. His eyes were drawn to the most recent message, which had been sent minutes after his message where he had told Ryoma that he was setting off to the train station.
He tapped on it... and when the message loaded up, his eyes darkened upon reading its content.
"Echizen Ryoma, if you turn up for the meeting today, you will regret it for sure."
... That was a threat right? Assuming that the meeting was referring to his and Ryoma's meet up... And the fact that Ryoma had been attacked in reality showed that they weren't just empty threats.
The most worrying part of it though, was that the culprit had known about their meeting. Seeing as the culprit had messaged Ryoma right before the meeting, he had only known about it just before they met up. Either that or they were just busy beforehand and didn't have the time to message... Well, it was a strange reason, but there were people like that.
Marui's eyes widened. This actually narrowed down the list marginally... And according to this new information, the most probable suspects were... the members of his team.
Seeing as they were the only ones who had known that Marui was going out to meet Ryoma, and there had been practice right until the time he left, the perpetrator hadn't had the time to message Ryoma during practice and so had done so right after it ended...
Of course, all this was sheer speculation. It could be someone else completely unrelated to the Rikkaidai team, and, hell- even the messages could be a fluke... Well... Okay, so that wasn't very possible considering how many mails of this nature had been sent to Ryoma... Ugh.
... Speaking of which, why didn't Ryoma tell him anything about the messages? Did he want to prevent Marui from worrying or something?
The thought of Ryoma bearing the harassment from the messages while deleting them as if they didn't bother him crossed his mind and Marui felt sick to his stomach. He had been by his side all the time and he hadn't noticed... He was a complete failure.
What if Ryoma never woke up again?
What if the injury affected the other's physical abilities permanently? Marui knew how much Ryoma loved tennis, and if he had to stop because of the injury, he swore he'd never live it down.
As depression and misery continued to cloud Marui's mind, he barely noticed as there was a slight movement from under the covers. Then it happened again, a slight shuffle, and Marui's gaze snapped up, staring at the awakening Seigaku rookie in front of him, hardly daring to believe what he was seeing.
Ryoma eyelids fluttered open, revealing sleepy, dazed golden orbs, and a soft yawn escaped his lips, before he winced as even that simple action seemed to hurt. He sat up slowly, seemingly still not realizing that Marui was in the room, and slowly confusion began to appear in the once bright, golden eyes, as he took in his surroundings, and he turned to Marui, a questioning look in his eyes.
For now though, Marui reasoned to himself, it could wait, and he rushed forward to envelope Ryoma tightly into his arms, feeling tears of relief prickle at his eyes as he buried his face into Ryoma's hair, relishing the comforting scent of the other male. Ryoma's shoulders had stiffened at the sudden action, but Marui couldn't bring himself to stop now, not when his loved one had finally awoken.
"M-Marui-senpai...?" Ryoma questioned, his voice hoarse from disuse, as he hadn't been talking the whole time he had been out cold. He sounded embarrassed and confused, but Marui wasn't letting go now, not just yet.
He leant down and whispered softly into the other's ear, not even feeling a shred of embarrassment when his voice broke midway. "Thank god, Ryoma... Thank you for waking up..."
And slowly, surely, he felt Ryoma's arms wrap around his back unsurely as well, returning his embrace hesitantly but tenderly.
Perhaps things would turn out alright after all.
*-.-*
So Ryoma finally woke up. LOL. I figured he had to stop being unconscious some time soon.
And yes, Nanako approves :) She's a closet BL fan!
Next chapter, we get some fluffy moments! And the culprit will be revealed soon. xD Really soon. LOL. -drumroll-
Don't forget to review! :)
Thanks for reading!