The end. The fourth part. I'm really happy I wrote this series, because I really, really think that there should be at least two or three fics about every pair, you know, and Ryorio (as Ken calls it, and I agree) didn't have a serious fic about their relationship. I couldn't find any. This last part is dedicated to Kentastic72, sopitaXXmor and Bittersweet Blossom. I am eternally grateful to all three of you for reviewing really nicely on this fic, because there are just some bigots out there who are against a certain pair just because of how one person looks, or because their OTP decrees Ryoma shouldn't be with anyone else.
Well, my PoT OTP is Royal. But I like Ryorio and I like Pillar and MomoRyo and Thrill, etc. Problem?
No. 100 (Relaxation) is for Kenny, because Kenny was the first one to review on Talking. I love you!
This fic helped me evolve into someone who I think I'd like to be for longer. I'm grateful to so many people out here, on this site, so many people who encouraged me and reviewed and I love you all.
I'll end the sentimental rambling now. If you like it, please review. I think I'll be going offline again because I have lots of schoolwork to handle, and I'm just so busy I won't be able to be on the Internet again. I think. Please remember me and don't give up on me. Thank you for reading On A Series Of Circumstances, and bye. :)
76. Broken Pieces
So Ryoma is in America, and Horio is in Japan. He regrets ever confessing to Ryoma (because if he had to, he should've done it when they first met, but Horio had always wanted to know the value of time) but he did. They had said goodbye and seen each other in person for the last time, and at that moment, everyone present to say goodbye to the tennis prodigy had known who they were to each other and what they'd done, and they averted their eyes from Horio's heartbroken face because they couldn't bear to see the raw pain in his eyes.
Horio regrets confessing, he regrets the kissing, because what he's done's left them both shattered, especially Ryoma.
77. Test
What's the square root of 169?
Horio can't believe the simplicity of the question and proudly writes the answer down. 13. There. He looks at the next question, and the answer pops into his head. Horio writes it down, too. A condescending smile grows on his face. He's going to fucking ace this test.
Then he comes across the question of doom, and he freezes, the smile vanishing.
He waits a bit. The answer doesn't magically write itself down on the paper. He closes his eyes in consternation. Pride always comes before a fall. Why didn't he pay heed to that? He sighs a bit and looks around the class. Someone please tell me the answer.
His eyes meet those of the foreigner, and he blushes a bit, because it was only yesterday that he'd gotten the note telling him to stop staring. He doesn't know whether to ask the foreigner the question or not, but Echizen makes the decision for him, ducking his face back into his paper.
Horio is going to fail. He knows it.
Then a piece of paper lands on his desk, and miraculously the teacher doesn't notice. He opens it to find the question of doom's number, and its answer. Along with the words you're welcome.
78. Drink
Horio doesn't know what a drinking game is. Ryoma, because he hangs out with Momoshiro, knows what it is only too well.
The first drinking game that Ryoma's been involved in after the Nationals is with the entire tennis club, but it's only sodas, because some of them (all of them) were underage, and when Ryoma went with Momo alone, they'd always had Red Bull. Ryoma used to miss Ponta, but he's got it now.
Everyone's in the mood to celebrate, because they upstaged Rikkaidai, and so they sit down to watch a movie - Twilight.
Ryoma is not in the mood for lovey-dovey vampires. He gets up to leave, but Horio pulls him back down, making sad eyes, which unfortunately work, because Karupin's eyes are somewhat the same color.
Momo gets up and announces the rules. "Every time the vampire speaks, one shot! Every time the dull girl narrates through a part, three shots! A road scene, one shot! You are the world to me, I love you, he loves me, I love him, blah blah blah, se-ven shots!" He continues in the same strain and everyone's listening with big smiles on their face but they're all somehow fake because everyone still misses Tezuka like a phantom arm. They talked to him on the phone and sent him a video of them hoisting the massive trophy but they're all hoping Tezuka doesn't see the tears in their eyes because well, it was Tezuka who should've raised that Nationals trophy to the world.
The movie begins, and everyone takes three shots. And then one shot.
Ryoma loves every moment of the movie, because he takes so many shots of Ponta he's feels he's going to die.
Horio watches Ryoma's throat swallow all through the film. He doesn't drink, but no one notices except Ryoma, who leans over to kiss him, tasting of grape Ponta so much that Horio doesn't need to take any shots.
79. Starvation
The week that Ryoma was seriously ill, he wasn't able to eat anything. Anything he swallowed came back up and he vomited it out violently into a bedpan. IV wasn't working either. Nanjiro was worried about his son for the first time in years, and he stayed by Ryoma's side all through the day, leaving only to toll the bell of the temple.
There were deep purple circles under Ryoma's eyes, and his lips were slowly turning blue, and the doctors were saying he was going to be fine, but was he?
Then he started improving as the week wore on, and he started keeping liquids down, and then one day he ate a whole lunch and nothing untoward happened. Everyone was relieved, and could go back to their schedules, because even if no one admitted it out loud, Ryoma was an integral part of all their lives.
The day that Ryoma was first allowed to go to school, he specifically sought out Horio (not just because Horio would be keeping him company the whole day; he wasn't allowed to play tennis yet, and he hated it) and said, "I missed you."
"I was there every day," Horio replies, a bit confused.
Then Ryoma steps forward, and cups Horio's face in his hands tenderly and kisses him like a thirsty man in the desert finding an oasis. "I missed you a lot."
80. Words
The first time he saw Ryoma, Horio was speechless.
The next few times he managed to talk about the things he loves.
Then he fell in love, and he was speechless again.
On Ryoma's birthday he gives Ryoma nothing except a simple card saying I don't have words to describe how being with you feels, even though you know (and you keep telling me) I talk too much.
Ryoma writes a card to him, too, and it says Let's hope you don't start writing too much, because I don't have the time to sift through the junk that's your handwriting. I love you, too. Stop being so sappy.
81. Pen And Paper
Horio and Ryoma both use laptops to stay in touch after Ryoma moves (they somehow become really good friends, but Horio knows he'll never tell Ryoma about his feelings) but one day Horio's laptop dies on him, and cuts short a conversation with Ryoma that was really important, because Ryoma was telling Horio about the girls in his school, and he had wanted to know because, well, of his reasons.
So he writes Ryoma a letter; it's not even a long one, damn it, and he spends too much just to send one line of writing over the Pacific ocean. Ryoma replies in the same paper, different envelope;
To Ryoma: Keep telling me about those girls in your schools. My laptop died and I'll email you after I get my mom to buy me a new one. Horio.
To Horio: They won't be interested in you. Ryoma.
To Ryoma: That's not why I'm asking. Horio.
To Horio: They won't be interested in me, either, because I'm taken. There's this really cool girl who plays tennis as well as I do, and she and I went on our first date the day I got your letter. Ryoma.
Horio gives up, and doesn't reply. He gets his new laptop, but pretends not to remember Ryoma's email address. He should've let sleeping dogs lie.
82. Can You Hear Me?
"What?"
"I said, why didn't you reply to the letter?"
Horio can hear Ryoma-from-another-continent perfectly well. "What? I didn't catch that. Repeat it, there's too much static on my end," he says anyway.
"Why didn't you reply to my emails?"
Horio finds no excuse to get past this, and says, "What's the name of your girlfriend?"
"What?"
"The name of your girlfriend."
"Emma."
Pretty name. Horio wants to hang up, but that would sever their friendship beyond repair. "Nice name," he says.
"Why didn't you reply to my letter?"
"Too much pocket money was being used," Horio says, looking at his little sister's piggy bank on the table.
"Oh. My emails?"
Horio says nothing.
"Do you want to talk to her?" And there - Ryoma crosses the line there, and Horio says, "No, thanks, I've got to go set the table for dinner, now." It's five in the evening.
"But in Japan it's five in the-"
Horio hangs up with tears in his eyes, and nothing matters anymore.
83. Heal
He's going to get over Ryoma someday. Just not this day, or the one after it, or the one after that.
There's no bandages for a broken heart, but Horio would've done anything, spent any amount of money on anything that would get him over Ryoma.
His chance comes in the form of Tomoka, who asks him out, but bluntly says it's just to piss off some other boy, do you have a problem with me using you.
"Of course not. I'm going to be using you in return, too."
They're both going to hell, and Horio doesn't see how this will heal him, but he goes with it.
"I have a girlfriend, too," Horio says casually to Ryoma.
"Good for you." Ryoma is clipped, curt, and Horio thinks he just came back from a date with his lovely Emma.
"Yeah. It's Tomoka."
"Tomoka. Who was my number one fangirl?"
"You remember that?"
"And I remember Sakuno, too." Ryoma sounds like he's trying to provoke Horio, and Horio knows that, but he still rises to the bait.
"She's none of your business anymore," Horio snaps into the phone. "You've got your Emma, don't think about all the heartbroken people you left in Japan."
Ryoma apparently gets that he just doesn't mean Tomoka and Sakuno or the rest of those fangirls.
He's going to hell, damn it.
84. Out Cold
The first time Horio and Ryoma get into a fight, Ryoma gets angered beyond his limits of tolerance. He screams, "You're just a fucking loser, okay, Satoshi, you don't even know how to fucking play the fucking sport and a stupid normal serve is enough to fucking knock you out you son of a bitch-" he trails off, too angry to even speak now, and Horio looks like his world ended in front of him.
The fight was just about goddamn Ponta and Horio's tennis racquets. How did it get so out of hand?
Horio says, "I'm sorry, then, Ryoma."
Then he passes out, and wakes up a day later to find Ryoma in tears, standing beside his bed in the hospital. "I'm sorry. I took it further," he sobs, and everything is right in Horio's world.
85. Spiral
He's deteriorating. He's getting more and more addicted, and no one knows anything.
He likes taking cocaine up the nostril and losing himself for a while before he has to come back down to reality and live an empty life without his love.
But Horio walked out of Ryoma's life a long time ago, and while Ryoma accepts each pinprick of blame, Horio's not going to come back. Ever.
Tennis legend Echizen Ryoma dies of drug overdose. Funeral goes by incomplete without lover Horio Satoshi.
86. Seeing Red
Ryoma's never been jealous before, so he doesn't know how to handle himself when he does become jealous.
He coldly ignores Horio for a while before trying to provoke him using other people, and then when Horio looks like a kicked puppy there's a cold satisfaction in his eyes. But then it all turns into a payback chain game, and Ryoma and Horio break in every way possible except the literal.
Apologies don't work anymore, and they break apart, too.
87. Food
Ryoma can be a glutton when he wants to be. He likes Japanese food over American, and maybe that's why he doesn't like eating in his own house, because Rinko makes Japanese food quite well, but it's Horio's mom that makes the most exquisite yellowtail teriyaki.
So on Ryoma's birthday Horio comes over with a big carton of Ryoma's favorite food items, and watches while Ryoma devours it all in a seriously messy manner (but he's not a lady, so who cares) and then says, "I 'oveyou Shatoshi," with a full mouth and sparkling eyes, and maybe giving up his pocket money for the next two months just so his mother would make all this was worth it.
88. Pain
When Horio was ten, he came in the way of a speeding bicycle and was thrown five feet away because of the impact. His skin got deeply cut and wounded at his calves, elbows, and the back of his shoulders. Years later the scars still hurt like hell, and when Ryoma's hugging Horio, he lightly runs his fingers over the scars every time, making sure his fingers don't press down too much, praying that they heal and Horio can sleep and walk around and do stuff comfortably.
Then one day Horio comes and embraces Ryoma tightly and says, "They don't hurt anymore," and Ryoma wants to cry with happiness. He compensates by hugging him just as tightly, and when all Horio does is come impossibly closer and hug him impossibly tighter, Ryoma has the world at his feet.
89. Through The Fire
He's seen people walking on hot coals and coming out unscathed, without a single burn on their soles or heels. He's seen dogs jump through circles of fire just for entertainment, but that's all on TV. So when there's a circus in town, Horio wants to go really bad. His mom won't let him go alone, though. He doesn't have any good friends other than Kachiro and Katsuo, and they're both busy, so he asks people from the tennis club, "Do you want to go to the circus with me? Please?"
Momo really wants to go, but his sister's coming from Sapporo and she hasn't come over in a while, so Momo can't get out of the house till she leaves. Eiji has plans with Oishi, but he would've gone, too. He's really sorry. Horio doesn't bother asking the rest of the regulars. Most of the second years are bastards, so he asks just one of them timidly but he's not going either, so he reluctantly gives up on his dream of seeing dogs jumping through rings of fire in front of his eyes.
The day of the last show, Horio wants to curl up and just cry but he's not that much of a baby, so he switches on the TV, thinking maybe the live broadcast will placate him. It won't. The show starts in an hour, and Horio sits there, disappointed in the world.
The door knocks, and Horio goes to get it. He doesn't look through the peephole, it's highly unlikely a serial killer would show up at six-thirty in the evening, so he just opens the door and finds Ryoma standing there, wearing his generic shorts and t-shirt and that Fila cap of his.
Horio gapes at Ryoma, who looks like he regrets ever coming. "Wh-what do you want?" Horio manages to speak. He isn't even on good talking terms with this guy, and said guy is on his doorstep.
"Go wear something nice, we have to be at the circus by seven, or else they won't let us in," Ryoma mumbles, hiding under his cap. Horio's pretty sure he hadn't asked Ryoma, so he asks, "But how do you know I wanted to go?"
Ryoma doesn't want to answer it, but he does. "I saw everyone turning you down, and you looked like you really wanted to go, and I had nothing to do because my old man won't play tennis with me tonight, so... we're getting late, by the way. Mada mada dane."
Horio just gives Ryoma a blinding smile and rushes up to change. He comes back down in record time, tells his mother he and a friend are going, and then they're out of the house, and walking on the footpath toward the circus, whose music is being heard a mile away.
He has the time of his life there, and it's a packed audience, no space to even move a step, so they're not even sitting, and there's noise and music and drums and acrobats and confetti and ringmasters and fire everywhere and Horio finally gets to see what he always wanted to see, and he's the happiest man in the world. He sits back in his seat, satisfied with his life now, and Ryoma, who's looked on through it all, the only one this bored in the whole crowd, turns to him. "Liked it?"
"Loved it. Thank you, Echizen-kun." Horio can die in peace now. He gives the ceiling a lazy smile, and then feels a hot hand on his arm and another just below his jaw and he turns and there's fiery lips on his, moving with his and Ryoma fucking Echizen who doesn't give him the time of day is kissing him openly in front of everydamnbody and Horio feels like he was the one who just jumped through the ring of fire with exhilaration. There's sounds coming from both of them that Horio's only heard in that video he accidentally saw on the Internet. Ryoma's tongue licks at his and Horio feels weak all over, even though he had his lunch today, so he wraps his hot arms around Ryoma, too, trying to stay standing. People who see them don't care.
"Ryoma's fine, and just so you know, this was our first date, and I'm your boyfriend now," Ryoma smirks as he pulls away to watch the lion obeying the ringmaster, and Horio falls in love.
90. Triangle
Ryoma's dealt with a love triangle before. Not personally, it was just Nanako and two guys who "loved" her, but she got rid of any suitors efficiently by introducing them to the people she lives with (they got spooked away by Nanjiro).
When it happens to him personally, he thinks of the trauma Nanako might have gone through.
Sakuno's a cute girl, but it's just a stupid crush, because girls like arrogant boys with big egos, who trash them and then treat them tenderly. Ryoma's just arrogant about his tennis, but he doesn't have an ego and he's never even talked to a girl before so he has no idea how to trash one. So why does Sakuno love him anyway? Does she even love him?
Horio won't tell him he loves him, but he loves him, and it hurts Ryoma inside to see Horio talking nicely to Sakuno, who dissed him in public and screamed at him just for being in love with a guy she thinks should be hers. It's public knowledge, that these two like Ryoma, but while Sakuno came up and confessed to him, Horio just avoids his eyes and walks away.
In the end, he chooses Sakuno, because she's fighting for him, and Horio just smiles and gives up with the words, "I loved you more than her, but I can't fight for you, because I don't know how I could compete against her."
91. Drowning
Horio doesn't know how to swim. It was a bad idea, his family going to a fucking resort near the fucking beach.
The lifeguard has to dive in to save him in the first few minutes that Horio goes into the water, and so he stays in his room for the rest of the week.
When they get back and the story circulates through the tennis club, people don't make much fun of Horio. Not many of them know how to swim, either. The story gets to Ryoma too, who, in a moment of wild heartbeats and adrenaline, thinks he almost lost the most talkative person in the world, and Horio notices the flare of his eyes as he says it, and smiles at Ryoma. "I'm alive, Echizen-kun. I'm going to keep boring you for the next two years, at least."
92. All That I Have
The world abandons Horio, but Ryoma kicks at the world and says, "Fuck it. You have me. Don't give up, and you're going to become a better tennis player than me and my old man combined, so don't give up."
"I'm a paraplegic, Ryoma, I'm can't even stand up." The accident two months back, where Horio lost his baby sister and his father and the use of his legs, left him unable to believe in any good thing in the world.
Ryoma turns to Horio with tears in his eyes, and says, "You're all that I have left. You remind me of the person I should be. Don't give up on yourself, or I'll die."
Horio shakes his head softly. "OK," he sighs. "I'll try."
He's given up, inwardly, but he can't bear the thought of Ryoma breaking because of him.
93. Give Up
Sakuno tells Horio to give up. "He's mine, now," she hisses at him in class. "You're not allowed to even look at him, okay, you jerk?"
"How the fuck am I a jerk?" Horio asks her. "You, you're the bitch. You don't even love him."
"I do, I love him a lot!" Sakuno seems disgusted Horio would even doubt her love for Ryoma, and Horio can only wonder if this is how Sakuno behaves around Ryoma.
"No, you don't. You just want to be with the most popular guy in our grade."
Sakuno hesitates, with a soft "that's not true," and Horio goes back to his homework with a snort that tells Sakuno he clearly doesn't believe her. A minute later, Sakuno says, "Do you really love him?"
"More than you ever could."
"How long?"
"Seven months." Horio doesn't want to say all this, but it's coming out like his mouth was a broken dam and the words were a river. Sakuno seems shocked. "You kept it hidden this long?"
"Yes."
Sakuno doesn't say anything, but then she does, and asks, "Why didn't you fight for him?"
"Because if you look at it properly, then Ryoma should be with a girl, and you love him, don't you, and I suppose you're halfway pretty, and compared to me you're absolutely beautiful, so you're perfect for each other. I can't compare with that."
"So you'll give up?"
"Bitch, I gave up the minute he gave you a can of Ponta. Now leave me alone." Horio finally starts writing the essay due next period, and he's embittered, now, and he doesn't care. Sakuno sighs, and then turns back as a friend calls her. She freezes and a loud gasp escapes her mouth, and Horio looks up, follows her gaze and turns around to see Ryoma sitting behind him, still with a horrified look at Horio. "You love me this much?" he asks.
Horio wants to die, but instead he says, "Yes," and turns back to the front.
94. Last Hope
Ryoma's last hope (a) of ever staying back in Japan is the tennis club, and last hope (b) is Horio. His parents don't really want to go back to the US either, but Nanjiro wants the very best for his son, and now that's he's had inspiration from his father's old school, you know, let the boy go back where he came from and just show the world his miracles.
But Horio comes to their house one day and makes an impassioned plea about how he, personally, needs Ryoma to stay because the friendship they have (which isn't really even friendship, it's more) means a lot to him and maybe Ryoma wants to stay, too?
Rinko persuades Nanjiro to stay, and so they stay, and so Ryoma can have a few more years of going to the lake and holding hands with and kissing the person who means the most to him.
95. Advertisement
As a project in class, groups of two had to make a poster advertising a certain product, that could either be imaginary or real, with catchy slogans and pictures and stuff. The people who made the best posters would get free coupons to the carnival.
Horio would really love to go to the carnival for a second date. Ryoma doesn't know why their dates have to be at places where there's bearded women and midgets and mirrors that show you distended reflections, but he says nothing, planning to steal and give the coupons to Nanako if they win, anyway.
Ryoma wants to advertise Ponta. They have a small fight over that, because Horio wants to advertise cellphones. Ryoma scoffs at that, and tells Horio to look around. Many people are advertising Mitsubishi and Toshiba and Sharp, so Horio gives up. "But we're not going to advertise Ponta."
They have another small fight over that. Meanwhile, across the room, the teacher shoots down two boys' idea of advertising an escort company.
They settle on finally advertising tennis racquets. They lose. Ryoma sighs in relief. But Horio looks heartbroken, so Ryoma lets him buy tickets and take him to the carnival, anyway.
96. In The Storm
Ryoma loves thunderstorms. He likes the crack of thunder and the flash of lightning and the pattering rain on his window. Whenever one hits, he sits and watches it till it fades away.
The tennis regulars are at a resort, challenged by some school to a tourney, when a thunderstorm strikes at night, and Ryoma is very happy because he can calm down now.
He's watching it, while his roommate, Momo is snoring away, when he gets an email. It's Horio, and he's asking whether he's looking at the thunderstorm or not. He replies in the affirmative. He gets another reply from Horio:
I'm watching a thunderstorm, too, for the first time, and it's reminding me of you.
Ryoma smirks and replies, I love you.
Horio sends another email before going offline: I'm going to sleep, now. I love you too. I hope you're Singles 1. And Ryoma shuts the phone, leans his head against the window pane and stares at the sky.
97. Safety First
After what happened out at sea, Ryoma won't let Horio even put a foot inside a swimming pool without a buoy.
Horio thanks him for it, and even though Ryoma can swim like an Olympian athlete, he wears a buoy too, and they both paddle around in the pool like little children, laughing madly, occasionally kissing wetly.
And everyone who's watching them feels like a piece of their hearts was just taken by the two boys in Bermuda shorts and buoys that look like Mickey Mouse with a hole where his nose should be.
98. Puzzle
Sudoku came from Japan, and yet Ryoma fumbles with the numbers, trying to put them where they should be. At last he gives up and starts randomly filling out his cellphone number in the boxes. Horio catches the trick and starts laughing at him.
"Mada mada dane," Ryoma mumbles. "You solve the puzzle, then."
Horio shows him. He solved it ten minutes back.
Ryoma rubs out his, and starts copying. "Thanks," he drawls when he's done.
"I have two years of experience in this, Echizen-kun, you should know."
Ryoma ignores him and gives the paper to the teacher, who congratulates him on filling it up so fast.
99. Solitude
Ryoma loves being alone. He doesn't have to indulge in brainless conversations, and pretend to be somebody he's not, just to make others comfortable. So it's really nice when his family goes out in a while, leaving him alone in the house, so he can watch Nepuri and cuddle his cat and practise his serves.
But Horio hates being alone. It makes him think about who he really is, and what he finds out isn't very appealing, because he knows all he can do is talk the talk, because he can't walk the walk. So he needs constant company, someone to just speak to, so that he doesn't have time to think about the truth about himself.
Ryoma and Horio both love being alone together.
100. Relaxation
The beach is calm and empty in the evening, and Ryoma thinks back on his years as he sinks his toes in the sand like he used to when he was younger. He left the tennis world stunned by achieving landmarks no one dared cross, created a whole new chapter for himself in the books of time, and made his old man proud by beating him in an intense tennis match. The latter particularly pleases him, because the minute before Nanjiro died, he told his son he loved him.
Horio comes and sits beside him, and they both sip tea together.
"Are you happy?" Ryoma asks him.
Horio nods. "Couldn't be happier."
Ryoma says, "I'll die in peace, then."
"Shut up, old man."
"Mada mada dane."
They close their eyes against the piercing-yet-soft rays of the sunset and realize they've gotten all they wanted in the world, and maybe that's enough.
The End