Ok, the document manager update thingy scared me away for a little bit.
Thankies for reviewing.
After I posted this, I went through and found another story with a very similar plotline. I didn't mean to steal it, well, I did, but not from her. I took it from the millions of romance novels that my mom reads that all have the same basic plot. I wont go into it because I don't want to ruin it for those who don't read the back of cheap romance novels, but I didn't take this from any one person in particular. I am sorry about that, if I had known before it then I would have cleared it with her. Um, and if that person isn't a girl, I'm sorry to have say "her" rather than "him" but I am yet to find a boy on this site so I have begun to assume that everyone is female
The deep rumbling of thunder in the distance caused Ryo to wake up. He instinctively attacked the alarm clock before waking up enough to realize that it was not his foe at the moment, today was his day off. He released the clock from his death grip and rolled over, trying desperately to get more sleep to continue his dream, but it would not come to him. The pounding of rain on the window refused to let up long enough for him to drift to sleep again.
After only a few minutes, he surrendered to the fact that he would not finish his dream. He climbed out of bed, careful not to wake Amy as he did so, and walked out into the hallway, traveling towards the Kitchen. He made his coffee and took it into the living room where he sat next to the large window and watched the rain wash away the tiny partials of dirt that dared to litter the perfect sidewalk that wove across the perfect town.
He understood why Bikky had agreed to go to boarding school, nothing happened in the town. So far, his biggest case was who knocked over Mr. Johnson's trash can and dented him. They asked the local paperboy if he had seen anything. He promptly confessed and spent the rest of the summer mowing lawns for the money to pay for the trash can, he wouldn't have gotten enough money just from being the paperboy.
Ryo sighed, watching the rain run down the window. He reached behind him to the couch and pulled a blanket off of the back of it and wrapped it around himself. Although the afternoons were scorching, the morning were still cold, particularly when it rained. As he sat there, bundled up in that warm blanket, he allowed his mind to drift.
"It rained that night..." He muttered to himself, reaching out with one finger to trace the path of a single rain drop. He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders and tried to shut out the pain that still haunted his mind when he did not watch his thoughts.
He still remembered that night vividly, and he knew that he always would. Two years ago, the rain pounded heavily on the New York City pavement, running in rivers down the road before falling into drains. He had stood outside of Dee's apartment for hours working up the courage to knock on the door, trying not to cry. He had come to say good bye to the man he loved, good bye forever. The other goodbyes had been taken care of already at the office. Although they had been full of pain and anguish, nothing could match this.
With a heavy heart, he pounded on the door. Dee opened the door just enough to see who was out there before swinging it open, half prepared for a visit from JJ it seemed. Ryo stepped in, unsure of how to act.
"I know why you are here." Dee walked to the couch and sat down, signaling for Ryo that it was safe to do the same. "I suppose that we will just say good bye and then you walk out of that door and I never see you again, right?"
All of the tears that Ryo had fought off threatened to return and overtake his body. He kept his eyes cast down at the floor. If he could see Dee in this pitiful state, all resistance would be gone. He wanted to believe that he was the strong one, that he would not burst into tears at the thought of not seeing Dee. The pain crushed his spirit. He had to try three times before he was able free the words from their binding.
"No, that's not what I want. I don't want to be alone right now, I want to be with you tonight, ignore tomorrow for now. I don't want to say good bye, ever." He felt Dee's arm come across his back, pulling him closer. All of his resistance fell and he began to cry into Dee's chest.
"I'll never say good bye then." Dee held him close, allowing Ryo to cry out all of his tears into his strong chest, arms wrapped around him. They eventually fell asleep like that, in each other's arms. When Ryo left, neither of them said good bye.
The memory still pulled at Ryo's heartstrings. Three tears fell down his face, washing away a day's worth of dirt and creating a tiny line of freshly cleaned skin. An arm reaching over his shoulder shook him out of his daze. For one idealistic moment, he thought that it was Dee but cold reality overtook that notion far too soon. It was Amy.
"Randy, honey, are you alright?" Amy hugged Ryo closer but he did not acknowledge her presence. He continued to look out at the rain cascading from the swollen clouds. "Please, tell me what is wrong or I cant help you. Did you think that I would be worried about that girl that visited you? I'm not, I trust you more than that."
Ryo shook his head some, the first proof that he had been listening, and then returned to watching the rain. Amy seemed to understand that he wanted to be alone and she went into the kitchen to get her own coffee before returning to the bedroom.
She set her coffee on the dresser and pulled a photo album out from under the bed. She leafed through the pages. In most of them, Ryo's happy face smiled back at her, but some revealed an ill contrived illusion of joy and barely masked pain. It was not the first time that he had slipped into depression. Every time it poured down rain he would watch it, allowing tears to run down his face and not say a word to anyone. Not even Bikky had known what it was about.
She went to put the album away, shoving it under the bed, but it hit something. Her curiosity was struck and she reached under the bed to find what she had hit. She pulled back a shoe box that she had never seen before with Ryo's name scribbled on the top. Amy went against her better judgment and pulled the top off of it. For a long time she had suspected that the reason for his depressions had been because of his past but he remained so secretive that she didn't even know the names of his friends.
"The only way that I can help him is if I know what happened, the only way that I can know what happened is to snoop because he wont tell me. I'm snooping through his stuff for his own good." Amy told herself as she lifted the lid to the box. Inside there was a sheet of paper with a note scribbled out on it in messy handwriting matching the first signature at the bottom of the page.
"RYO! Hey, it was great working with you and we all wanted to get you a good bye present but we didn't know what you would want so we decided to make you a scrapbook but then we realized that we didn't know how so we made a shoebox full of memories instead. Just one warning, Dee did the black pouch and wouldn't let us see what was in it.
Great working with you and we are going to miss you,
Drake, JJ, Ted, Rose, Diana, and Dee (who I'm sure has another present for you too so his name goes last!)"
Amy put the note aside and began to poke through the contents of the box. A large picture covered most of the inside of it picturing the entire Twenty- Seventh Precinct together with the names listed at the bottom from left to right. Below it was a smaller picture of six people, five men and one woman, standing together in a group. Names were signed next to each of the people's faces, the names from the letter. One person stood out among them, a man with black hair, green eyes, and a smug grin on his face. He was handsome and he knew it. She tried to read the name but it was a blur rather than actual letters. It could not be deciphered by a team of handwriting consultants and code crackers. Giving up on his name, she moved to the other photos.
The black haired man appeared in many of the other ones, but he was never alone. One picture of him had a man latched around his chest with him looking like he would rather be anywhere else. She recognized the smaller man from the picture, his name was JJ. JJ was also in another picture, hugging someone again. This time she recognized him as Drake, and he was more willing to participate in the hug. Many of them had groups of three or four, some even had all of them. They were goofing off, joking around, and a few serious pictures. The last one she picked up was of the black haired man standing alone. It was a black and white picture and was worthy of being printed in a magazine.
She placed the pictures back in the box and topped them with the letter. She had to tell Ryo about the snooping that she had done and see if she could get some answers out of him.
Amy found him still looking out of the window though he had stopped crying. She sat down next to him and set the box down where he could see it but she was still closer to it. His usually un-breakable trance was lost when he saw it.
"Where did you get that?" He asked, reaching for it, eyes wide with terror. "Did you look through it?"
"Only a little. I only looked at the pictures on top." Amy did not try to keep him from taking the box from her. "Why do you ask?"
"You shouldn't look through things that don't belong to you!" Ryo yelled at her, clutching the box close to his chest and standing up. "People might not want people poking through it. "
"I'm sorry, I just thought that I might figure out what made you so depressed every time it rains like this. I didn't mean to invade your privacy." She looked up at him, not knowing why he would get so upset. He was always calm and friendly to her as well as everyone else. This was the first time she had seen him yell at anyone other than Bikky, and he had deserved it.
"It's alright." He relaxed and sat back down. "I overreacted, I shouldn't have yelled. It is only that, well, there are some things in here that I don't want other people to know about, that's all."
"If you don't mind me asking, can I hear something about your past. You don't have to tell me anything that you don't want to, but I would like to hear something about it." She moved closer to Ryo, placing a hand on his shoulder, near begging for a response.
"Alright, I'll tell you some things." He got out the box and began telling her about Ted, About Drake, JJ, Rose, and Diana, leaving out anything to do with Rose liking him or JJ chasing after Dee, who he left out entirely. He knew that he wouldn't get away without giving out some information about Dee, but he wanted to hold back on it for as long as possible.
"What about him, the man with the dark hair." Amy picked up the photo that she had liked best, the black and white one. "Who was he?"
"That's Dee, he was my friend for many years." Ryo's voice dropped to a whisper, alerting Amy that this was where the trouble came from. She could picture terrible images of him dying after they had completed the box, maybe even suicide judging by the idea that he had something that he was hiding from anyone else. She wanted to press for information but held back.
"You really miss him. Is he the reason that you don't like to talk about your past?" Amy hugged him loosely, looking over his shoulder at the picture. Ryo didn't say anything but he nodded solemnly. "I understand if you don't want to talk about him. I'll leave you alone."
Ryo sat there, making sure that she was gone, before he dared to open the black packet, the one that he knew Dee had put together. Right on top was his favorite photograph. It had been a day in late spring when Dee treated Ryo, Bikky, and Carol to ice cream in the park. Carol had snapped the photograph when no one else was paying attention. Ryo was leaving back on Dee's chest, looking back into his eyes as he looked back down. Bikky was sitting a short distance away from them, ignoring them and concentrating entirely on his ice cream. It had been one of the few times that Ryo had allowed Dee to touch him in public.
The rest of the photographs were also of them together, some less appropriate than others. The one at the bottom was just of Ryo, lying in bed after one of their nights together. His hair was all messed up and the sheets were strewn about, but he laid there like an angle in calm serenity, a content smile on his face. At the bottom, written with Dee's scrawling handwriting, were four words, "I love you.....Always" Ryo began to cry again, holding that picture close.
"Amy!" He stood up and walked into he kitchen. "Amy, I cant take it anymore. I need to talk to him. Please say that I can invite him up for a weekend. There are some things that I need to settle." Amy ran to his side, hugging him tightly and leading him to a chair. She had no idea what had gotten him so worked up, but she wanted to see it resolved.
"You can invite any of your friends up whenever you want, you know that, Randy."
Ryo nodded and began to stifle his tears. He relaxed and stood up, drying his eyes a final time.
"I'm going to go call him....."
Ok, I think you all know the drill, please review, if you see something you like, tell me so that I can put more in. If you see something you hate, tell me so that I wont put any more in, BUT AMY AND JAMES STAY!!!! Otherwise there isn't much of a plot left. I know of some people, one in particular, who wish them great harm in the near future.
After I posted this, I went through and found another story with a very similar plotline. I didn't mean to steal it, well, I did, but not from her. I took it from the millions of romance novels that my mom reads that all have the same basic plot. I wont go into it because I don't want to ruin it for those who don't read the back of cheap romance novels, but I didn't take this from any one person in particular. I am sorry about that, if I had known before it then I would have cleared it with her. Um, and if that person isn't a girl, I'm sorry to have say "her" rather than "him" but I am yet to find a boy on this site so I have begun to assume that everyone is female
The deep rumbling of thunder in the distance caused Ryo to wake up. He instinctively attacked the alarm clock before waking up enough to realize that it was not his foe at the moment, today was his day off. He released the clock from his death grip and rolled over, trying desperately to get more sleep to continue his dream, but it would not come to him. The pounding of rain on the window refused to let up long enough for him to drift to sleep again.
After only a few minutes, he surrendered to the fact that he would not finish his dream. He climbed out of bed, careful not to wake Amy as he did so, and walked out into the hallway, traveling towards the Kitchen. He made his coffee and took it into the living room where he sat next to the large window and watched the rain wash away the tiny partials of dirt that dared to litter the perfect sidewalk that wove across the perfect town.
He understood why Bikky had agreed to go to boarding school, nothing happened in the town. So far, his biggest case was who knocked over Mr. Johnson's trash can and dented him. They asked the local paperboy if he had seen anything. He promptly confessed and spent the rest of the summer mowing lawns for the money to pay for the trash can, he wouldn't have gotten enough money just from being the paperboy.
Ryo sighed, watching the rain run down the window. He reached behind him to the couch and pulled a blanket off of the back of it and wrapped it around himself. Although the afternoons were scorching, the morning were still cold, particularly when it rained. As he sat there, bundled up in that warm blanket, he allowed his mind to drift.
"It rained that night..." He muttered to himself, reaching out with one finger to trace the path of a single rain drop. He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders and tried to shut out the pain that still haunted his mind when he did not watch his thoughts.
He still remembered that night vividly, and he knew that he always would. Two years ago, the rain pounded heavily on the New York City pavement, running in rivers down the road before falling into drains. He had stood outside of Dee's apartment for hours working up the courage to knock on the door, trying not to cry. He had come to say good bye to the man he loved, good bye forever. The other goodbyes had been taken care of already at the office. Although they had been full of pain and anguish, nothing could match this.
With a heavy heart, he pounded on the door. Dee opened the door just enough to see who was out there before swinging it open, half prepared for a visit from JJ it seemed. Ryo stepped in, unsure of how to act.
"I know why you are here." Dee walked to the couch and sat down, signaling for Ryo that it was safe to do the same. "I suppose that we will just say good bye and then you walk out of that door and I never see you again, right?"
All of the tears that Ryo had fought off threatened to return and overtake his body. He kept his eyes cast down at the floor. If he could see Dee in this pitiful state, all resistance would be gone. He wanted to believe that he was the strong one, that he would not burst into tears at the thought of not seeing Dee. The pain crushed his spirit. He had to try three times before he was able free the words from their binding.
"No, that's not what I want. I don't want to be alone right now, I want to be with you tonight, ignore tomorrow for now. I don't want to say good bye, ever." He felt Dee's arm come across his back, pulling him closer. All of his resistance fell and he began to cry into Dee's chest.
"I'll never say good bye then." Dee held him close, allowing Ryo to cry out all of his tears into his strong chest, arms wrapped around him. They eventually fell asleep like that, in each other's arms. When Ryo left, neither of them said good bye.
The memory still pulled at Ryo's heartstrings. Three tears fell down his face, washing away a day's worth of dirt and creating a tiny line of freshly cleaned skin. An arm reaching over his shoulder shook him out of his daze. For one idealistic moment, he thought that it was Dee but cold reality overtook that notion far too soon. It was Amy.
"Randy, honey, are you alright?" Amy hugged Ryo closer but he did not acknowledge her presence. He continued to look out at the rain cascading from the swollen clouds. "Please, tell me what is wrong or I cant help you. Did you think that I would be worried about that girl that visited you? I'm not, I trust you more than that."
Ryo shook his head some, the first proof that he had been listening, and then returned to watching the rain. Amy seemed to understand that he wanted to be alone and she went into the kitchen to get her own coffee before returning to the bedroom.
She set her coffee on the dresser and pulled a photo album out from under the bed. She leafed through the pages. In most of them, Ryo's happy face smiled back at her, but some revealed an ill contrived illusion of joy and barely masked pain. It was not the first time that he had slipped into depression. Every time it poured down rain he would watch it, allowing tears to run down his face and not say a word to anyone. Not even Bikky had known what it was about.
She went to put the album away, shoving it under the bed, but it hit something. Her curiosity was struck and she reached under the bed to find what she had hit. She pulled back a shoe box that she had never seen before with Ryo's name scribbled on the top. Amy went against her better judgment and pulled the top off of it. For a long time she had suspected that the reason for his depressions had been because of his past but he remained so secretive that she didn't even know the names of his friends.
"The only way that I can help him is if I know what happened, the only way that I can know what happened is to snoop because he wont tell me. I'm snooping through his stuff for his own good." Amy told herself as she lifted the lid to the box. Inside there was a sheet of paper with a note scribbled out on it in messy handwriting matching the first signature at the bottom of the page.
"RYO! Hey, it was great working with you and we all wanted to get you a good bye present but we didn't know what you would want so we decided to make you a scrapbook but then we realized that we didn't know how so we made a shoebox full of memories instead. Just one warning, Dee did the black pouch and wouldn't let us see what was in it.
Great working with you and we are going to miss you,
Drake, JJ, Ted, Rose, Diana, and Dee (who I'm sure has another present for you too so his name goes last!)"
Amy put the note aside and began to poke through the contents of the box. A large picture covered most of the inside of it picturing the entire Twenty- Seventh Precinct together with the names listed at the bottom from left to right. Below it was a smaller picture of six people, five men and one woman, standing together in a group. Names were signed next to each of the people's faces, the names from the letter. One person stood out among them, a man with black hair, green eyes, and a smug grin on his face. He was handsome and he knew it. She tried to read the name but it was a blur rather than actual letters. It could not be deciphered by a team of handwriting consultants and code crackers. Giving up on his name, she moved to the other photos.
The black haired man appeared in many of the other ones, but he was never alone. One picture of him had a man latched around his chest with him looking like he would rather be anywhere else. She recognized the smaller man from the picture, his name was JJ. JJ was also in another picture, hugging someone again. This time she recognized him as Drake, and he was more willing to participate in the hug. Many of them had groups of three or four, some even had all of them. They were goofing off, joking around, and a few serious pictures. The last one she picked up was of the black haired man standing alone. It was a black and white picture and was worthy of being printed in a magazine.
She placed the pictures back in the box and topped them with the letter. She had to tell Ryo about the snooping that she had done and see if she could get some answers out of him.
Amy found him still looking out of the window though he had stopped crying. She sat down next to him and set the box down where he could see it but she was still closer to it. His usually un-breakable trance was lost when he saw it.
"Where did you get that?" He asked, reaching for it, eyes wide with terror. "Did you look through it?"
"Only a little. I only looked at the pictures on top." Amy did not try to keep him from taking the box from her. "Why do you ask?"
"You shouldn't look through things that don't belong to you!" Ryo yelled at her, clutching the box close to his chest and standing up. "People might not want people poking through it. "
"I'm sorry, I just thought that I might figure out what made you so depressed every time it rains like this. I didn't mean to invade your privacy." She looked up at him, not knowing why he would get so upset. He was always calm and friendly to her as well as everyone else. This was the first time she had seen him yell at anyone other than Bikky, and he had deserved it.
"It's alright." He relaxed and sat back down. "I overreacted, I shouldn't have yelled. It is only that, well, there are some things in here that I don't want other people to know about, that's all."
"If you don't mind me asking, can I hear something about your past. You don't have to tell me anything that you don't want to, but I would like to hear something about it." She moved closer to Ryo, placing a hand on his shoulder, near begging for a response.
"Alright, I'll tell you some things." He got out the box and began telling her about Ted, About Drake, JJ, Rose, and Diana, leaving out anything to do with Rose liking him or JJ chasing after Dee, who he left out entirely. He knew that he wouldn't get away without giving out some information about Dee, but he wanted to hold back on it for as long as possible.
"What about him, the man with the dark hair." Amy picked up the photo that she had liked best, the black and white one. "Who was he?"
"That's Dee, he was my friend for many years." Ryo's voice dropped to a whisper, alerting Amy that this was where the trouble came from. She could picture terrible images of him dying after they had completed the box, maybe even suicide judging by the idea that he had something that he was hiding from anyone else. She wanted to press for information but held back.
"You really miss him. Is he the reason that you don't like to talk about your past?" Amy hugged him loosely, looking over his shoulder at the picture. Ryo didn't say anything but he nodded solemnly. "I understand if you don't want to talk about him. I'll leave you alone."
Ryo sat there, making sure that she was gone, before he dared to open the black packet, the one that he knew Dee had put together. Right on top was his favorite photograph. It had been a day in late spring when Dee treated Ryo, Bikky, and Carol to ice cream in the park. Carol had snapped the photograph when no one else was paying attention. Ryo was leaving back on Dee's chest, looking back into his eyes as he looked back down. Bikky was sitting a short distance away from them, ignoring them and concentrating entirely on his ice cream. It had been one of the few times that Ryo had allowed Dee to touch him in public.
The rest of the photographs were also of them together, some less appropriate than others. The one at the bottom was just of Ryo, lying in bed after one of their nights together. His hair was all messed up and the sheets were strewn about, but he laid there like an angle in calm serenity, a content smile on his face. At the bottom, written with Dee's scrawling handwriting, were four words, "I love you.....Always" Ryo began to cry again, holding that picture close.
"Amy!" He stood up and walked into he kitchen. "Amy, I cant take it anymore. I need to talk to him. Please say that I can invite him up for a weekend. There are some things that I need to settle." Amy ran to his side, hugging him tightly and leading him to a chair. She had no idea what had gotten him so worked up, but she wanted to see it resolved.
"You can invite any of your friends up whenever you want, you know that, Randy."
Ryo nodded and began to stifle his tears. He relaxed and stood up, drying his eyes a final time.
"I'm going to go call him....."
Ok, I think you all know the drill, please review, if you see something you like, tell me so that I can put more in. If you see something you hate, tell me so that I wont put any more in, BUT AMY AND JAMES STAY!!!! Otherwise there isn't much of a plot left. I know of some people, one in particular, who wish them great harm in the near future.