The second part! I've done it!
If you like it, please review, because listen, I get it. I know. HorioRyo is not at ALL a popular pair and people hate it, too. Yeah. I get it. Okay. But there's someone out there besides me, Ken, and Sopita who likes it. So yeah, review, because, well, I would love to see something nice being said about this pair. So no flames. I'll wait here with a smile on my face.
And the third part might come as late as a bubblegum-bitch from the shopping mall, but like I said earlier, RL hates me. So if you follow this, you might have to wait just a bit. I love you.
26. Tears
Ryoma doesn't cry. His eyes are physically unable to tear up. Period.
It doesn't explain why Ryoma is curled up into a ball and rocking himself inside the tennis equipment storage room. Horio panics, seeing someone he knows as cold and hard so shaken up, on the floor. He rushes over to Ryoma and sits down clumsily beside him, laying a hesitant hand on his shoulder. Ryoma raises his head and looks at Horio from red-rimmed eyes.
In an extremely inappropriate moment, Horio realizes he loves Ryoma's tear-soaked eyelashes and his swollen, bloodshot eyes and his trembling mouth. Without saying anything, he raises a thumb and softly drags it along the eyelashes of Ryoma's left eye. It comes away wet, and Ryoma pushes him to the ground and covers his mouth with his own with a choked twisted sound, like he was giving him everything broken in him.
Later Horio finds out Ryoma was crying because he had been this close to giving up on the institution of love.
It's okay. He can mend his heart.
27. Foreign
The day Ryoma shows up at Seigaku, whispers of the foreigner in Horio's class sweep through the school and everyone and their best friend find excuses to walk through the corridor where the class is. Ryoma, however, doesn't pay any attention, just flips through a Japanese magazine the guy beside him offered. (It's boring. He doesn't know who these people are, and why they qualify as celebrities, when all they have in them is three tons of botox and double the makeup.)
Horio is one of the many that keep staring at the boy, and the times he's turned around to 'search for his lost book' have crossed twenty.
Then a note is passed around the class to him, and he opens it to see the words
Stop staring. Mada mada dane. Ryoma.
He blushes, but can't help turning around again—pulling out a stray pen from his bag for good measure—and as his eyes flit to the boy with the cold demeanor, he sees that that boy's smirking slightly at him. He turns back and doesn't look at Ryoma for the rest of the class.
28. Sorrow
"Sorry doesn't cut it anymore, Satoshi."
"I'm really sorry—she asked me out, Ryoma, and no one's done that to me, especially not a girl—" Horio cuts himself off in a terrified choke. Ryoma's face goes blank—not his eyes not his eyes why is he so hurt this was a joke to him this was just a joke he wasn't serious—and he says, "So you want a girl. Not me."
"That's not what I meant—" Horio stutters. Fucking up has always been what's he's been good at. That, and lying.
Ryoma closes his fists in Horio's hair and, instead of the rough teeth-tongue-breathing-biting Horio expects, it's the gentlest and most chaste kiss he's ever received.
"My lips are just as soft as hers," Ryoma mutters. Then, as the tip of his tongue shows and he licks a wet trail from one corner of Horio's lips to the other, he says, "And my tongue is no different from hers.
"What is different," he continues, pushing him up against the very wall of the house of the girl Horio kissed two minutes ago, "is that I have this." He presses all of himself against Horio, who lets out a gasp. "So, I'm the one who's sorry. I don't have long hair or bow-shaped lips or all that—but I could have given you the world."
He softly bites at Horio's neck, and then backs away, covering his face with his favorite white Fila cap. Horio can't say anything.
He breaks up with the girl immediately, but the damage has been done, and Ryoma is gone forever.
29. Happiness
Ryoma secretly likes to make people happy. It goes against his snark, his arrogance, his curt words, and everything he believes in. Doesn't matter.
He doesn't like it when people know it's him.
"I wasn't the one who gave you that racquet, okay, Satoshi. Mada mada dane."
Horio smiles, and waving away the topic, starts talking about how much he loves the person who sent him this, and how he has so many years of experience in giving people gifts. He sees the not-so-hidden smile on Ryoma's face and it's all worth it.
30. Under The Rain
Horio's already confessed. Four times. He thinks of rounding it up with a down-on-his-knees moment in the rain. He patiently waits for monsoon to haul itself over the town, and then is grateful that it starts to rain just when tennis practice ends. Someone up there likes him. Even though he's an extreme exaggerator and all.
As they turn the corner to Ryoma's house, Ryoma suddenly reaches for Horio's hand. They're drenched and Horio's hand probably feels like rubber, but then Ryoma pulls him into a hug and whispers, "I love you, Satoshi." He breathes hotly against Horio's ear and Horio shudders at the cold rain—hot breath mix.
Damn it. His moment was stolen. But Horio doesn't care. He kisses Ryoma in the rain, and that's a confession in itself.
31. Flowers
The flowers that Horio gave Ryoma as one of his steps to get Ryoma back end up in the trash bin, not ten minutes after he left them outside Ryoma's locker with a note of apology. The note was in pieces at the door of the locker room, and Horio feels his heart stutter in a pain that he's felt for the first time in his life. He's going to feel like this for the next year, and there's nothing and no one except Ryoma who could take the pain away, but the person who caused it can't take it away.
Horio knows he's back to being the unimportant-loser-braggart-novice in Ryoma's life. He just didn't think he would matter so less to Ryoma after everything. But he sends another bunch of flowers to Ryoma's home the next day, and when he sees them in a vase by Ryoma's window, he's slightly happy, even though he knows it's Ryoma's mother who put them there, not him.
32. Night
It's Ryoma who drags Horio along to see the night sky in the barren field at the edge of town. Not the other way around.
So Ryoma's just as much of a sap as Horio is. They kiss at the exact moment a shooting star flashes across the sky, and what a fucking cliché but hey. They're both saps.
33. Expectations
The world expects a lot from future generations. Ryoma's dad doesn't really want him to be the successful bastard that Ryoma's going to become, because who knows, maybe even Ryoma might meet the most beautiful woman in the world and then marry her, throwing away all chances of further fame.
But Tezuka expects him to make a name for himself, make an irremovable mark on the history books of the world.
The team expects him to lift the Nationals trophy for them.
Horio expects himself to be left the moment Ryoma graduates from Seigaku.
Ryoma, on the other hand, expects Horio to be his lover for life.
Expectations can either be fulfilled or let down. Ryoma meets the girl he knows is meant for him, and Horio knows he has no hope now, but then Ryoma says "You're the guy for me, Satoshi" and walks back into his life. He is happy.
34. Stars
Horio gets hit with a stray tennis ball and blacks out.
When he wakes up, he sees Ryoma Echizen's worried-concerned face hovering in front of him. Ryoma. The boy he can't stop staring at in class. He's in the tennis club?
"Dream?" Horio hears himself mutter. The face in front of him smiles. Horio hears other people muttering around him, but he doesn't care about those nondescript people. They don't like him, anyway. Right back at you, bitches.
He wants to take the risk, but stops himself. But then lets go; it's a dream. What's the most that'll happen? He'll wake up.
So he raises himself and kisses dream-Ryoma.
And when he thuds back to the ground and hears people gasp and pain explode on the back of his head, he realizes dream-Ryoma is actually real-Ryoma, the boy he just kissed. Not a dream.
Now he's seeing stars. He faints again.
When he wakes up he's in the infirmary and Ryoma's sitting beside him. "You made me see stars," Horio gasps. Ryoma smirks. "Let me give you some more," he says, and then he's kissing Horio again.
35. Hold My Hand
Ryoma's not a touchy-feely person. He doesn't feel the urge to stick to the nearest person around. So, naturally, it feels a bit—well, more than a bit—uncomfortable that he wants to hold Horio Satoshi's hand.
He's watching Horio brag about the latest 'adventure' he had, and he's also looking at the way Horio keeps fisting his hands. Ryoma wants to run his fingers over the tendons and veins and soft skin.
Horio wipes away some sweat on his forehead with a hand. Ryoma wants to feel digusted, but he can't help how he wants to hold Horio's hand even more and feel the sweat Horio's sweat clinging to both their skins. It doesn't help when Horio comes and places a hand on Ryoma's shoulder. "It'll be okay, Echizen. I'll tell you about my adventure later."
Ryoma can only say, "Get your hand off me. Mada mada dane," and walk away feeling the urge to hold Horio's hand twist his heart something bad.
36. Precious Treasure
For Horio's birthday, they organize a mock treasure hunt. Leave notes hidden in places with inventive clues to the next destination, and Horio with a too-big party hat on his face and a happy smile on his face walks around the park, ridiculously happy at finding the next slip of white paper.
He isn't able to look at the gleeful grin on Tomoka's face as he lifts the lid of the 'treasure chest' and finds Ryoma smirking up at him.
37. Eyes
Horio loves Ryoma's eyes. He is obsessed with them.
His long eyelashes. The beautiful golden irises. The pupils dilated with desire. Horio waxes poetic in these moments, the moments where Horio is the only one Ryoma looks at, the only thing in Ryoma's eyes' line of sight.
Sometimes he feels he was blind before he saw Ryoma's eyes and everything came back to him.
38. Abandoned
The moment his family finds out Horio's gay, they kick him out. Literally push him out of the house with a small bag containing only enough clothes to last two days, and then slam the door in his face.
Ryoma won't stop killing himself for it.
Then one day he does, because he's dead. Will you forgive me for ruining your life, Horio?
39. Dreams
Horio has nightmares, too.
Nightmares in which Ryoma kisses him and then makes Horio taste the poison he took to kill himself, because he ruined Horio's life by accepting the love confession. "You killed me, Satoshi."
You killed me and I'll always love you and be with you forever and you killed me you killed me.
Horio follows Ryoma's footsteps a year after.
40. Rated
It's the first time both Ryoma and Horio have ever watched an R rated movie, so they've even closed the door and locked it to be sure no one butts in and catches them. Horio's fidgeting nervously, biting his lip, and Ryoma's just calm, watching Horio bite his lip and make it shiny and make it absolutely kissable.
They really get into the movie, the plot, just as a sex scene comes in.
Horio goes stock-still, hearing the girl's sighs and moans and the guy's words slipping dirtily out of his mouth like golden oil.
Ryoma pauses the movie.
Horio doesn't really move. He can't. Then Ryoma kisses him and they're emulating what just happened on the screen without all the cheesy sounds and words and the girl and Horio has never felt the way Ryoma makes him feel and then oblivion Ryoma white bliss yeah.
41. Teamwork
Tezuka's pairing up the regulars for a three-legged race to improve co-ordination, and Ryoma's left out. Fortunately Tezuka sees Horio drinking from the water taps and calls him over. Ryoma just gives Horio a cold glance of contempt and bends down to attach his left and Horio's right ankles together.
They find out soon enough that's it's near impossible to run like this with their torsos leaning away from each other like their heads are opposite poles of a magnet (not to mention the others are laughing at them), so Ryoma reluctantly wraps his left arm around Horio's shoulders, and then they're running perfectly and overtaking the others. Horio wants this run to last forever, but they push through the winner's ribbon and then Ryoma's bending down again to untie them.
Horio draws his ankle away before Ryoma completes the untying, and he falls over. Ryoma falls over too, and they're lying on the tennis court, and Ryoma is pissed at Horio, who's apologizing.
"You know what, forget it." Ryoma tries to undo the last knot on the laces wound around their ankles, and succeeds, and then he's walking away with a "mada mada dane" lingering on his lips.
42. Standing Still
The day they win the Nationals, Ryoma's sure that he loves Horio. He can see, out of the corner of his eyes, the team huddling together, some of them crying, some laughing, some just smiling. He's standing a few feet away, and he's scanning the crowd for a pair of big brown eyes. He finds many, but none of them belong to the person he wants to share his happiness with.
And then he finds him.
Horio's not the only one standing, but he's the only one who's not moving. He's staring at Ryoma, and Ryoma stares back.
They just stand there, watching each other while the world roars around them.
43. Dying
"I've been diagnosed with cancer."
Horio remembers the day very clearly. Remembers the way Ryoma's lips moves to say the word 'diagnosed' and the word 'cancer'.
Also the word 'terminal', said a few hours later.
Ryoma holds Horio's hand for the last time a month later, and Horio knows he's slipping away but he doesn't know how to catch him. It's like there's always been something dying around them. Horio's father died. Ryoma's cousin died. Now Ryoma himself is dying, and Horio can't talk anymore.
44. Two Roads
Ryoma rarely reads anything. The most he's read is an autobiography of a tennis player (he doesn't remember the name, the book wasn't as interesting as he'd thought), but one day he chances upon some poetry his mother left lying around, and he has absolutely nothing to do, so he picks up the book.
He finishes it in four hours, too much for just a book of poetry, but he's reading a particular piece over and over and over.
I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence / Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- / I took the one less travelled by, / And that has made all the difference.
He wishes he could relate to it so he could love it more but he can't think of anything.
But then Horio phones him and tells him that he got through to Tokyo University, so Ryoma makes a decision on the spot and hopes that years later he can finally say that leaving a promising career in tennis to pursue a degree in Japanese literature in T University was worth it. For Horio. And then he hopes that he can say that the poem inspired him. Robert Frost is a fucking genius.
45. Illusion
He's falling into a bottomless pit and he can feel the air rushing up around him and he can't feel any ground, but then he blinks and he's talking to Ryoma and there's piano music floating around him and he wants to wave at the imaginary notes and break them up because they're denoting love ballads and Horio hates love ballads. Ryoma's looking at him strangely because it's the middle of the day and what the hell is Horio saying about it being dark, turn on the lights.
Horio wakes up and he's in Narnia, some land he read about in a fantasy book, and Ryoma's the king Edmund, staring cruelly and coldly down at him and dealing out a death sentence to him. Then he wakes up again and he's covered in sweat and blood because he cut his wrists just a moment ago and he should be dead but he's not because there's no blood flowing out the cuts.
There's no blood.
Horio screams and then everything clears and the magician winks at him. Ryoma's beside him holding his hand and he sighs shakily, and tries to forget what happened and concentrates on the magic show Tomoka pushed them into going to.
46. Family
They're from different worlds. One's family is intolerant of homosexuality, and the other's family is completely fine with it, going as far as to joke about it and make him absolutely comfortable. One's family kicked him out, and the other pulls him in.
But family's family, Horio learns as his brother shows up at Ryoma's door, and breaks down in tears, sorry for everything. Then his father and mother come and sit down to talk. They leave as the discussion doesn't end all that fruitfully, but you have to love family. Ryoma's family is now his own, so yeah.
47. Creation
Horio wrote a short story about a prodigy who comes to a school his father used to go to, and makes a place for himself on the tennis team, and leaves everyone shellshocked. It's clear to Ryoma that this is about him (although he's a bit embarrassed about the prodigy part-he's not that vain) except for the part where the prodigy (he cringes) is in love with the narrator.
Horio won the first prize in the original story competiton (even if it's not so original, but the teachers don't know who "Kazuki" is in real life) held in the school for that, and Ryoma is a bit proud, seeing as the story features him. He writes a letter to Horio the day Horio wins, and it's not what a letter should be, because Ryoma sucks at communication, period, but Horio reads the jumble of kanji and hiragana anyway, and smiles as he realizes Ryoma wrote a sequel (however badly) to his own story. He writes a reply with the third part, and the love story Horio started in his imagination turns real as Ryoma replies to him again, but not with a fourth part. Horio is happily surprised to read the roughly expressed feelings in the letter.
Have a tennis match with me, and if I win, you're mine.
48. Childhood
Ryoma tells Horio about his childhood in the US, and Horio wants to see the house they lived in, and the school he went to, and especially the girls who said they liked him. Ryoma's not so sure about the last request, but they book a flight to the United States the next month, anyway.
Horio sees the tennis court where Ryoma won his first Junior Tennis tournament, and he smiles at Ryoma, because Ryoma was happy here, in the US.
"Is Japan good enough for you?"
"Mada mada dane," Ryoma sighs, walking away from the court, because memories of his childhood bring smiles to his face he can't let anyone see, but Horio's already seen them.
49. Stripes
Ryoma despises patterns of any kind, but he admits that Horio looks good in stripes. But then he grows tired of them, too, as he starts seeing stripes everywhere-rabid fangirls of his wearing them to please him.
So Horio one day shows up at his house and shows him the striped boxers he bought, and Ryoma collapses in spontaneous laughter. But then he loves those boxers, so Horio buys another pair for him as a birthday gift, and says, "Now we're the Boxer Brothers Striped."
50. Breaking The Rules
Seishun Gakuen has many rules. One of them being: Do not skip class at any cost. Another: No public displays of affection on the school campus.
Ryoma hates rules, so he drags Horio up to the terrace after homeroom and sits there with him, occasionally kissing him, licking Horio's lips, holding hands. He's a bit disappointed that no one catches them, so he does it the next day and the day after that, too. Nothing happens, so he gives up and starts attending class again.
The teachers jump on him, and a bit of his disappointment is washed away. So he tries the PDA rule-breaking in the tennis courts, but nothing happens. He smirks.
The teachers are left gaping after Ryoma practically abuses Horio's mouth in front of the staff room.
I hope you liked it. Please review.