Pain.

Such sharp pain went through Ryoma's head as the bottle connected with it. Glass fragments flew to different directions and some smaller ones stayed caught in his long hair.

Blood ran down his face as the drunken man continued with his violent behavior and the people that knew him rushed to help him.

"Hurts." A soft whisper.

As his head was bandaged Ryoma recalled yesterdays conversation with his two former senpais. It was unfair; everything that they had said was utterly selfish, it was probably nothing important to them, but to him the mere thought of recalling that day…

"Ao are you ok? You look awfully pale." A blonde girl that also worked in the same "profession" as Ryoma asked. He sounded worried and when Ryoma looked up he gave one of his small, fake smiles and said:

"I'm fine now, thank you." He didn't know her name, never bothered to remember.

The girl still looked a bit worried as she finished bandaging his head. As soon as that was done Ryoma stood up, but the moment he did that a heavy wave of dizziness came over him. The girl that had bandaged his head pushed him back down on that chair and gave a glass of water.

"Drink this and calm down. After that you should go home, you really don't look too good, you know."

After that she left him alone.

Ryoma slowly drank the cold water and still thought about yesterday. He still couldn't believe that they actually had they had actually thought that he would do what they wanted.

"Idiots. All of them are bunch of freaking idiots."

He stood up once again and after reassuring couple of worried people that he vaguely recognized Ryoma walked out into the cold night's air. The pointless talks, car noises, laughs, unrecognizable song around him whirled into one big noise. Not paying attention to what happened around him, Ryoma walked away from the bar and into the illuminated streets, wandering around aimlessly. The pain coming from his head was still too vivid to ignore and the bandages were a bit too tight.

Somehow he managed to her his cell phone ringing. He didn't even check the caller ID before answering.

"Hello."

"Ech-Ryoma. Where are you now?"

"Atobe? …Why do you want to know?" The second time in four days Keigo called. The second time in four days that Ryoma felt truly surprised. And only after a while he fixed the fact the Keigo had called him by his first name.

"Because I would like to meet you again and…" he was cut off as someone else called Ryoma. Someone right next to him, someone that knew him, someone Ryoma didn't want to meet.

"Echizen… Why are you here and what happened to your head?"

Ryoma didn't know what to say. Right there, almost in front of him stood some of the people that he had least expected to meet, just like Keigo, Tezuka and his other too sempais from yesterday.

Momoshiro, Ryoma bitterly thought, hadn't changed at all; the same could be told about Ann that was hanging on his arm. Kikumaru on the other hand had finally got rid of the band aid that used to be constantly on his cheek and since he already talked to Fuji yesterday…

"Ryoma? Is everything ok? Ryoma?" Keigo's worried voice was ignored.

"For your information, Momoshiro-senpai, I work here and what happened to my head is clearly not your business." Ryoma said, voice cold and expression bored.

Ryoma ignored them as he continued his talk with Keigo:

"Atobe, can you come pick me up?"

"Sure, but what happened? I thought I heard you say 'Momoshiro'. Is everything ok?"

"Don't worry about that."

Ryoma finished his talk with Keigo after telling his whereabouts and returned his attention to the four people that were still standing there, watching him.

"Echizen, what do you mean by 'I work here'?" Kikumaru asked. His bouncy, happy-go-lucky nature all gone, serious expression adorned his face.

"Exactly what I mean, I work here. Well, to be more precise, I work on the street and in bars." He looked into Kikumaru's eyes and continued "Why do you care?"

It seemed that everyone, even Momoshiro, understood exactly what Ryoma meant by what he just said. Even if other people didn't notice, the air between them was thick. No one was willing to start the talk.

The minutes went by and Ryoma just continued to stare at them with his empty, hate filled eyes. Ann was the only one that dared to ask the one question that haunted their minds:

"Why, Echizen-kun? Why are you doing this to yourself?" she looked into Ryoma's eyes, the same determination that she had all those years back was still there.

Ryoma laughed one of his emotionless laughs: "Why? Simple, because my soul is broken, I'M broken. Do you really think that I can just go back to being the innocent and cocky brat that I was after everything I went through? Oh, please! I've become too indifferent to actually care about what happens to me."

Ryoma spotted a black sports car coming their way and faced them one more time to say his last words before Keigo picks him up: "This is the life I chose; it's too late to try to change something."

Just as the black car stopped Ryoma got in it and just as fast as it appeared it drove away, leaving the shocked people on the crowded street.

In the car Ryoma sat in his seat and watched how his hands were shaking. Keigo sat next to him, but said nothing. Ryoma needed to think and he will talk when he will be ready.

Ryoma couldn't believe himself. He just told them that. All this time he held that pain and hurt in himself and just when Ann had carelessly asked 'Why?', even though she probably knew what had happened, Ryoma wanted to go and slap her to wake her up and open her eyes. But instead he said that, told them how broken he is, how pitiful.

Tears started to for at the corners of his eyes. Somehow after saying it directly into their faces made him feel better, but at the same time – worse.

He didn't know when the car had stopped or when the warm hands suddenly wrapped around his shaking body. Ryoma did know that those warm hands that held him in a warm embrace were all he needed. It was the warmth that he wanted to fell for so long, that he longed for.

"K-keigo… I-it hurts, it hurts s-so much…" he whispered and clutched the shirt on his back tightly.

Keigo still didn't say anything, only held Ryoma close and gave him his warmth.

They stayed like that: one crying, one comforting for a while.

"You know" Ryoma said after calming down a bit "it's their fault that I ended up like this. If they had listened to me back the then maybe it would have turned out differently. I might have been happy."

"It's not too late for you to find happiness, you know? You just have to know where to look." Keigo said, hands still around Ryoma's body.

"You really think so?"

This time Keigo pushed him away, so that they could face each other and Ryoma saw Keigo's old smirk adorning his lips as he said: "I don't think, I know."

A/N: Don't worry; it's still not the end! ^^