A/N: *horrible, gurgling gasp* I LIVE! *leaps upright and does victory dance, chanting in a sing-song voice* I wrote something, I wrote something!

Whew! I'm really sorry about that long, unannounced hiatus. Thank you all very much for your amazing patience for those of you who've been reading along, and welcome to those who have just tuned in. Special thanks go to KuroiYuki13. I told myself I wouldn't make excuses, and so . . . *deep breath* I won't. Oh, and I rewatched the movie. Turns out, I've been calling my villain Sakurafubuki Hikomaru this whole time, but it's actually Hikomaro – a one letter mistake at the end. Whoops! Oh well. I guess I'll just carry on with Hikomaru for continuity.

But anyway, because it's been so long that even I forgot what happened (which is really quite sad), here's a recap from the beginning of HS II 'til now. I bolded the timeline stuff, too, just for clarification. You're totally free to skip this. It was more for myself, anyway.

Monday: the events of Hostage Situation. To turn 20,000 words into one blunt sentence: Seigaku regulars go on cruise, get taken captive, beat up, and Ryoma gets raped.

Chapter 1: Tuesday: Ryoma returns from the cruise all bruised up, falls asleep on his bed. Nanjiroh comes in, sees him, freaks out, Ryoma doesn't explain anything and falls back asleep. Nanjiroh calls the coach (Ryuzaki Sumire), who doesn't know what's going on. Nanjiroh vows to find out. Ryoma wakes up the next morning (Wednesday) to see his dad sleeping beside him. Ryoma goes downstairs to watch TV.

Chapter 2: Awkward conversation between Nanako and Ryoma as Ryoma heads downstairs, his dad following behind. Nanjiroh joins Ryoma on the couch and tries to get him to explain what happened. Nanako again interrupts briefly. Ryoma hurries back upstairs and Nanjiroh lets him go. In his room, Ryoma breaks down and cries.

Chapter 3: Still in his room, Ryoma freaks out over his memories – feels vulnerable, exposed – and covers up all of his skin that he can. Earlier that Wednesday morning, the coach talks to the regulars and Tezuka tells her all that he knows of what happened. None of the three rescuers (Oishi, Kaidoh, Kawamura) say otherwise, and so only they know about the rape. Tuesday: interview between Sakurafubuki and the cop, Santiago Isabela. She says he could easily get 25 years in prison, he lawyers up. Sakurafubuki remembers when his boyfriend, Hiroshi, left him, who looks a lot like an older Ryoma or Ryoga.

Chapter 4: Wednesday afternoon: Ryoma peers at his unbandaged, cut left hand. Exiting the bathroom, he runs into his dad who says the regulars are at the house. Ryoma decides not to see them, heads to his room. Momo barges in, followed by the others who hover in the doorway. After some awkward conversation, Ryoma heads back downstairs to talk with them where there's more space. Inui notices shifty looks between Ryoma and the rescuers when they mention that the coach knows. The group agrees to have sushi at Kawamura's dad's place when Ryoma finally goes back to school. Outside, Nanjiroh and Ryuzaki talk.

Chapter 5: Thursday late morning: The cops, Santiago and Ogata Kenshin, come to the Echizen's house. Nanjiroh goes outside to fetch Ryoma, who very reluctantly agrees to go inside to see them. Upon seeing him, the cops decide to take him to the hospital. Ogata prods Ryoma into agreeing with charm and the promise of ice cream. Cue very awkward, semi-incompetent medical exam. A CSI takes photos. Doctor confides to cops and Nanjiroh of suspected sexual assault – too late after the fact to bother with rape kit. Nanjiroh gets doctor's note for school absence, the cops get Ryoma's old clothes from the "incident," doctor recommends counseling. At the station, Ryoma gets ice cream and an interview. Ryoma breaks down, and admits to the assault, but not in so many words; sobs on Nanjiroh's shoulder.

Chapter 6: Friday evening: As Ryoma stands outside on the tennis court, he hears Nanjiroh shouting inside the house. He goes to investigate; turns out reporters have been coming by since Wednesday. Ryoma agrees to a tennis match with his dad. Second interview between Santiago and Sakurafubuki: Santiago plays recording in which Oishi testifies Sakurafubuki raped Ryoma. Sakurafubuki brushes off the mounting evidence as nothing. Santiago leaves the room, talks to Ogata, reveals there's no real way to charge Sakurafubuki with rape as the laws stand – defines it as being between male and female – so closest they've got is act of indecency. Ogata goes into interrogation room, hands over a written reply of some sort. Ogata drops the happy-go-lucky façade, reveals he's known Sakurafubuki a long time. Kaidoh gets a visit from two cops and figures it was Oishi who cracked first.

*deep breath* Sheesh, that was long. And now (cue drumroll) onto chapter 7! Goodness, it'd better be at least as long as that recap, huh?


Chapter 7

Early Monday Morning:

Well, it was now one week to the day since . . . that, and Ryoma could finally scrape up enough energy to stay awake for long hours at a stretch. It amazed him how exhausting it was to be covered in bruises, though if he was honest with himself, he probably just didn't want to be awake. The waking world loomed harsh and constricting in comparison to his dreams. That tennis match with his dad? It lasted less than 20 minutes. Pathetic. He was pathetic.

Ryoma buried his head into his pillow and curled tighter beneath his bedspread. Sure, maybe he could even stand to talk at length now – potentially answer questions in class and such – now that it was a week after his near-suffocation, but the bruises . . . they were still stark and obvious on his neck, clearly hand-prints. God, and his face! He had quite the shiner on his left eye, for one thing, plus a couple nice colorful bruises on his left jaw and a smaller one on his right cheek. Probably more than that, but who's counting? Those were just the obvious ones, anyway, the ones everyone would see at first glance – the ones beneath his clothes weren't all that humiliating, just painful to pressure.

He couldn't bear the thought of going to school like this. His classmates would look at him and they'd know. They'd know everything: he saw part of a newspaper article about the cruise-from-hell (the front page!) before Nanako hastily swiped if off the table. Oh, they didn't name names. No, not even they would be so indiscreet as that. But they mentioned a middle school tennis team on a cruise, and everyone in the tennis circuit knew exactly which one they were talking about. He was sure they all knew by now exactly which regular hadn't gone back to school yet either. As for everyone else at Seigaku, well . . . a single glance at his stupid face would tell them all they needed to know. "Look at the weakling. Can't protect himself worth anything." Or maybe, "Look at the freak. You know what happened to him, right? I thought that only happened to girls." Or what was almost worse: "I'm so, so sorry. Are you okay? Can I do anything for you?" And then there'd be that damning pity in their eyes.

A whimper escaped him, and he pulled an extra pillow to his chest. Please, don't make him go to school. Not yet. Let the bruises fade. No, see, he was still sleeping! Cut him some slack. He nearly died a week ago.

The thought jolted him. It was true. He nearly died. He'd stared down more than one barrel of a gun that day, yet it had never really registered that he could have died. One click and he'd be gone. Boom! He giggled a little, on the edge of hysteria. He snapped his fingers. Like that. One wrong move would be all it would have taken. Yet here he was, still alive, against all odds and all logic.

Why didn't he get shot? Why didn't . . . (he winced at even thinking the name) Sakurafubuki kill him? The man had pressed the gun against Ryoma's head and stated he would pull the trigger if the boy did not do exactly as he was told. So what did Ryoma do? The exact opposite by continuing to fight back. Even staring at the barrel of a gun and the man's unflinching gaze, Ryoma somehow did not realize the danger. With all logic, Sakurafubuki should have killed him.

He should have. Shut the kid up, run a tighter ship, get rid of anyone who could testify. It would have fixed so many problems for them both. Ryoma released the pillow, pressed his face into his forearms and gripped his hair tight in both fists. Why didn't he? Why?


Sakurafubuki sighed, tilting his head back to rest against the cold, block concrete wall of his cell. Thin, sickly yellow light trickled in from the small window set high in the wall to his left, shooting invisibly across the cell, sliding smoothly between the bars on his right, and falling onto the floor of the neighboring cell. Sakurafubuki sat on the spindly bed – with a lumpy, insubstantial pallet that might as well have been filled with porcupine-like straw for as comfortable as it was. The bed, and across the room, the dirty toilet and sink, were the lone objects in the room.

He had absolutely nothing with which to pass the time – not even so much as a magazine. He could only count the number of blocks in the wall so many times. Frustration tangled with boredom, setting him on edge. He needed to be out and about, striding confidently here and there, directing men toward the highest profit and greatest productivity.

Where did the thrill of his exciting, cutthroat world disappear to?

Sakurafubuki sighed again, mouth twisting with dislike. That so-called reply that his young policeman friend, Ogata-kun, had passed on to him actually said little of substance. An entire page of code boiled down to one word: wait. After that latest interrogation by that woman police officer (why they still bothered to question him, he did not know), and he had returned to his cell, Sakurafubuki eagerly tore open the envelope tucked into his sleeve. By the time he got to the end, his mouth had been hanging open in disbelief.

After all that he had done for them, all they had to say in reply was "Wait." His lip lifted in a sneer. It had been couched in oh-so-formal wording, but rest assured, Sakurafubuki heard the subtle rebuke. He had done his best on that cruise – yes, with some tweaking to their plan to add his own intention for his Ryoma, but that should not have thrown it off too horribly. Unfortunately, it was thrown off. Such things happened, but their end goal was accomplished nonetheless, so what did his arrest matter? Damn it, he had already waited for an entire week! Was that not long enough? Did they not realize that the longer they let him sit and fester in this blasted jail cell, the more difficult it would be to get him out? The press was bound to get the story, if they had not already, and the police were even now gathering evidence against him. He had not believed that those children could have escaped and run rampant across his ship the way they had, and so did not arrange any contingency plans for it. Surely there was evidence aplenty because of that lack. Neither had he expected the high school boys on his own tennis team to betray him, switching loyalties to those dratted Seigaku regulars.

Sakurafubuki heaved a breath, scrunching his eyes closed. Initially he had been furious at their desertion, but now he was simply tired, tired of all the painful betrayals that seemed as though they came from all fronts, even the most unlikely. Like Ryoga Echizen. Now that one he probably should have expected – simply as brother to his fiery Ryoma, adopted or no.

Two years ago, a then-16-year-old Ryoga was perfectly happy to pick up and move away from his foster parents, joining Sakurafubuki. For only being 16, Ryoga was quite worldly; the two of them precisely understood their agreement: win a few fixed matches or blackmail a few foes and in exchange, get out from beneath his foster father's thumb. Simple. Quaint, even.

Yet it all fell apart that fateful day, one week ago. He certainly never expected any further contact from Ryoga. The boy may have been willing to bend a few laws – even to the breaking point – but not if that would hurt his little brother. Sakurafubuki shook his head ruefully, rubbing his hair across the wall. No, Ryoga may seem a little coarse, but he loved his otouto.

Well, so did Sakurafubuki. He had tried relationships with men above the age of consent, but they never truly satisfied him; perhaps that was why they always failed. Now the one with his Ryoma . . . Ryoma did not leave him. He had been ripped away unwillingly by those Seigaku regulars and Sakurafubuki's own untimely arrest. There was no betrayal there; he was too innocent for such deceit. Ryoma understood now how very much Sakurafubuki loved him.

He smiled. Soon now, Sakurafubuki would be released from this noisome cell and all would be well. Everything.