Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis

Lady Monozuki: I finally finished this chapter. I feel as though I'm really dragging the plotline so I'm going to speed it up a little next chapter. Anyway, thank you everyone for the wonderful reviews! You're all great! I hope you enjoy the chapter.

Chapter Nine: Discovery

Fuji wanted to punch someone, more specifically; he wanted to punch Atobe Keigo. He had to constantly keep his anger in check or else he would really go out and find the guy and hit the diva as hard as he could in the face. Even being in Ryoma's room did nothing to calm him. He had hoped that it would provide some form of comfort. Instead, he only felt empty and lonely. The stained carpet only served as a reminder of what happened earlier and caused his anger to resurface. He was not only irritated at Atobe, but himself as well.

If he had not been so afraid to visit Ryoma, then his lover may not have cut himself. It was laughable to believe that he had been afraid of someone. Usually others were intimidated by him, not the other way around. He looked at himself in the mirror for a brief second before shattering it to pieces with his hand. Everything he had worked for was ruined. He had screwed up in so many aspects and he hated himself for it. He had promised that he would not allow anyone to hurt Ryoma and failed miserably.

He had no excuses either. He did not know what he had been afraid of. He always knew that his loyalty rested with Ryoma and that the others could never come close in comparing to where he had placed e youngest member. Fuji had tried to not play favoritism throughout their relationship and put as much energy as he could into trying to make it all work. He knew that meant sacrificing time with Ryoma, but figured that he might as well put forth the effort since the other was doing his best.

Over time, he found that he really enjoyed the company of others and their benefits in a relationship, even if others thought that it was strange. However, it was short lived and very easy to fall into a mindset of blaming Atobe for all of their problems. Even though he had known of the problems, he had done nothing to stop them. At least, not what he could have done in order to prevent them from ever happening again. He could not explain it, but there had been something that always prevented him from taking the necessary steps on protecting both him and Ryoma. He always assumed that he was doing this for Ryoma, but it proved to be not so. Still, he tried to convince himself of that to make him feel better.

Why had he let Atobe continue on with the abuse? Perhaps he wanted a reason to be angry with the diva ever since he had first found out about the abuse. He punched the wall in attempt to make him feel better. It did nothing except bruise his hand. Fuji stared at the room. There were very few possessions that their youngest lover had in there. From what he could see there was some clothing, books, and stacks of papers was all the Ryoma had to keep him company in this dismal room. He really should not have been surprised. After all, it was not his first time seeing the room.

It would not take a long time to pack all of the belongings up. First though, he wanted to look through them and read to see if there had been anything that he had missed. Perhaps Ryoma had kept a diary about how he felt and even indicated what drove him to the point of trying to kill himself. He made his way over to the papers and picked up a handful before sitting down near the bed and reading though them. Many of them were from his college courses. A small smile tugged at his lips when he read about Ryoma's opinion of love. Even though he had suffered, he still had an optimistic point of view.

There were some things that you could never buy and love was one of them. You could never take away love from a person either, especially when they chose to give it to you unconditionally. He had learned about that through Ryoma. The papers from school were all written quite well and many of them had positive remarks from teachers. Their youngest lover had done well for himself in school. He had never thought to ask how college was going for him. It never came up in their conversations because he had always been focused on trying to reassure Ryoma that everything would be all right and that Atobe would pay for what he had done.

He never really took the time to learn how else his boyfriend of many years was doing in any other aspects in his life. He never thought that it would matter either. After all, they were both living in a house where they were abused when saw and could barely handle the stress and pain of that anymore. Therefore, he thought that it would always be on Echizen's mind since it was always on his own. As he read on, he found himself to be wrong.

Despite suffering from the abuse, Ryoma had constantly tried to do his best in everything so that he could excel. Fuji had missed that and it was another mark against him on the bad boyfriend list. Of course, he knew that he was not perfect, but the many marks were adding up and he wanted to believe that he was far better than that. He was wrong. He had spent so much time being wrapped up in revenge and hatred that he had forgotten a lot.

Knowing that Ryoma did the best at everything for him, to make him proud, to show him that he wasn't useless was only adding to his guilt. He never thought of his lover as useless and believed that Ryoma could do anything that he set his mind to. The one exception being that they could not change Atobe. He sighed. He had allowed himself to get distracted. From what he had read though, there was nothing indicative of suicidal behavior. The college papers did not show any sign of distress, no ambiguous sentences that could be misinterpreted. He even went through the notes and found that there weren't even drawings or phrases scribbled on the side.

He opened the desk drawer and found a journal and some more papers. He pulled them out and decided to read the small journal first. Fuji sat down on the bed so he could be more comfortable. He observed the date on the first entry went back to their junior high days when they had first gone out. After reading through a few entries, he decided to skip ahead. The dates stopped in the middle of high school. He decided to read about the end of junior high going into high school and the moments afterward. Nothing written mentioned what had happened in their relationship, it was records of the tennis team and their accomplishments. Once he finished with that, he put them aside and looked at the papers. Many of them were the start of papers that he had read earlier. However, a small portion caught his attention.

Who knew that Ryoma-chan could write lyrics?

This was something that he did not even know Ryoma could do. He smiled as he read the lyrical pose on one page. Fuji put down that page and noticed the title of the next song.

Broken Promises by Ryoma Echizen. There was a date in the upper right corner which read August 10th, 20XX. He frowned. He felt his heart skip a beat and he drew in his breath. The date when this was written was only two days before this. This was probably the closest thing that they would ever find to a suicide note. He did not want to read what was written, the title already had turned him off from wanting to read it.

You need to read it to know why.

He read the first two verses. Instantly, two memories came to mind. He remembered the night where they said they would never leave Ryoma's side. Particularly, he recalled the Atobe was the one who was intent on erasing their youngest lover's fears.

"Ne Monkey King," Ryoma said in a breathy voice.

"What is it, brat?"

"Do you think we'll ever break up?"

"Why is that thought even in your mind?"

"Because you're starting to go through the process of becoming the legitimate heir to Atobe Cooperation."

"You should know by now that no matter what we go through, we'll always be together. We can withstand all trials."

He smiled fondly at the memory. It was one of the brief moments where they were happy. There had been a break in the abuse and they were really trying to work everything out. Apparently, the words meant nothing to Atobe because a week later, the painful routine started again, leaving behind more hurt and anger for both of them. He flinched at the thought of seeing one of Ryoma's bruises from that time and thought that it could not get any worse. He had been wrong though.

Fuji read through the next verses and saw that this time these promises that Tezuka had made to Ryoma. More memories surfaced in relation to them. How quickly indeed were these words forgotten, he could remember them all and they played in his mind over again. Their meaning had long since faded away as they suffering in their silence. They were never ones to share their pain with each other, even though they had all gone through the same thing. He finally read the last lines and recognized that they belonged to both him and Sanada. He gripped the paper tighter, crumpling it slightly. He had hurt Ryoma, the one person he never wanted to.

It hurt to know that he had even been the source of Ryoma's pain. He really should not have been expecting to be excluded considering that he had gone along with Atobe's antics for long enough. He bowed his head and really hoped that Ryoma would pull through this so that he could make up for what he had done. He was wrong for even hurting his lover in the first place, but he wanted a second chance. He could only hope that Ryoma would give him one.

I would understand if he didn't even glance at us again.

Even though he knew that Ryoma was not one hold grudges, he could still not forgive himself for even acting this way. He let out a bitter laugh. He was the one who promised to protect Ryoma but had failed miserably. He leaned back on the bed, and tried to relax. The entire day had worn him out, but it still felt unresolved between all of them. However, he had no desire to try and repair some of the damage tonight. He was far too angry at the moment and wanted nothing to do with Atobe anymore. He was more than happy to move out from Atobe's house.

He could use the money he had managed to save up from his job, despite how many days he had to take off due to the fact that some days were so bad that he could not hide the physical abuse. While Atobe had done well not to strike in obvious places, there were times when the diva could not control himself and thus resulting in his inability to go into work. It had been difficult to even miss those days because he needed the money. He had planned to leave a while ago, but he could not without Ryoma. Now, his priorities had changed. He had to take care of Ryoma now. There was nothing left to hold him back.

No, there was nothing holding you back before. You were just too much of a coward to do anything about it.

"You're a fool, Syuusuke. You let this get out of hand."

He could feel the tears threatening to fall. Why had he waited so long? If he had taken action sooner, how would things have turned out? Would he and Ryoma be living a better life? It would have still been a hard journey, but perhaps it wouldn't have turned out this way. No one had to get hurt further, yet it happened. Now, they couldn't do anything else. It was up to Ryoma as to whether or not he wanted to live.

Please don't give up, Ryoma. There's still so much that you haven't done yet.

He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling for a moment. He needed to pack up all of Ryoma's thing and eventually his own. There would be little sleep for him tonight, but it was his punishment. It wasn't enough by his standards, but he would accept it. After all, he would have to endure more in the future. That much was certain. He stood up and decided to go to look for boxes when something caught his eye. He noticed that there were a few boxes in the corner, a few looked as though they hadn't been used in a while, though they were still in good condition. He walked over to them and looked at their contents. One of them contained some old textbooks while another contained Ryoma's old tennis trophies and awards. He noticed that there was one in there that was newer than the rest, he picked it up and looked at the date engraved on it.

This is the trophy he won in America last year. In just a few hours after he won this, we got the call informing us that he was in the hospital. I'm shocked he even kept it. It also looks as though it's been polished somewhat recently. I wonder why he would do such a thing and leave the others untouched.

He noticed that there were some newspaper clippings from that incident. He could not understand why Ryoma would even keep them around. Fuji knew how hard Ryoma had tried to forget about what happened in America. After looking through the rest of the papers in the box, he noticed that there was a written note. He picked it up and looked at the writing. No one could ever mistake the handwriting of the pompous diva. His eyes widened when he read the note.

Brat—

You should never forget what you did. It's all your fault. You're the one who ruined this relationship.

He couldn't believe that Atobe would stoop so low. As if he needed another reason to hate the guy. Unfortunately, this raised more questions than it answered. A knock came at the door.

"Come in," he said in a quiet voice. Even if he did not feel like talking to anyone at the moment, he would not be rude.

"Syuusuke," came a deep voice. "Are you all right?"

"How could I be all right, Gen? You can't even say that you're fine without lying."

"Where are you going to go tomorrow?"

"It doesn't matter," Fuji said with a bitter smile on his face. "After all, I've potentially lost the only thing that matters to me. What about you, Gen? Where are you going to go?"

"I talked to Seiichi…"

"Your former buchou in Junior High? I didn't know you still kept in contact with him."

"He's going to let me stay with him in his apartment until I can find a place on my own."

"I see," Fuji muttered. "It must be nice to have kept in contact with others."

"Atobe prevented you from contacting your former teammates?"

"Aa, he was afraid that Ryoma and I would leave if we stayed in contact with others. He wanted to be control us."

"You didn't mention this in our talk earlier."

"It didn't need to be brought up. Besides, the goal was not to bring up everything that went wrong in our relationship. We would have been there much longer if that were the case. I only wanted to discuss what we were going to do from henceforth. I know where everyone stands except for you. You're not doing us any favors by standing in the middle. It's not like you to be indecisive."

"I suppose you're right."

"You better figure out where you stand. It will make you feel better once you do."

"You should take better care of yourself as well. Also, I went ahead and had some servants pack your things."

"I could have done that myself."

"I know you. You would have stayed up all night packing everything if you had your way. You need to stop being so hard on yourself."

"You see right through me all of the time," he muttered.

"Have you found anything in his belongings?"

"Aa, there's a song he wrote on the bed. You can read that. I also found out something else just now. It seems Atobe never wanted Ryoma to forget what happened."

He pulled out the several articles from the box. He noticed Gen's fist tighten. They had all tried to avoid mentioning the incident, unless brought up by Ryoma himself. Instead, it seemed as though Atobe had taken the liberty of reminding their youngest lover in spite of the trauma he had sustained from it.

"I won't forgive the man, Gen. You can't ever change my mind either."

"I never said you have to forgive him. However, don't let your hatred let you lose sight of what is important."

"I already lost sight of that a long time ago."

We all have.

To be continued…