Love is Just a Word
Chapter 7:
"The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live."
~Flora Whittemore
--
Sakuno wiped her tears away stubbornly as she watched Ryoma board the plane to the United States. He gave everyone a last wave and blew her a kiss before disappearing around the corner.
'Pull your self together woman!' She thought angrily. 'It's not like you're never going to see him again.'
She left the airport with her grandmother and they drove home in silence.
"When do your classes start?" Sumire questioned, interrupting her thoughts.
"I-in two weeks." She squeaked; her voice was slightly raspy from crying.
"It's your first year of college! Aren't you excited?"
"Of course I am!" She chirped. And she was; it didn't matter how hard she had to work to pay for said classes.
"Grandma, you have to step on the gas; I have to be at the shop in fifteen minutes!" She cried in alarm.
Her grandmother had gotten a bad case of pneumonia about a year ago and was hit pretty hard by it. She was in the hospital for about a month before they released her. 'On good behavior' as Sumire joked. That lengthy visit was pretty expensive and money was tight for them at the moment so she had gotten a job and was helping pay the bills. She took a job at the sports shop where they bought all the equipment for the Seigaku teams.
"No problem! Hang on to your socks, girly—it's about to get a bit bumpy." Sumire howled in response, following it with a light hearted cackle.
--
She was about half-way through her shift when who walked into the store but Horio.
"Long time, no see!" She giggled jokingly as soon as she saw him.
"Yeah; I haven't seen you since…this morning." He replied as he approached the counter she stood behind. Which was a correct estimate; all of Ryoma's friends from the tennis team had come to wave him off as he got on the plane. She had seen Horio, but they hadn't had much of a chance to talk.
Thinking about Ryoma's departure made her feel lonely again. This must have shown on her face because Horio patted her head comfortingly.
"Don't worry; he'll be back before you know it. This should be a welcome break for you…hell, I don't even hang out with the guy as much as you do and I'm already sick of him." He joked.
She gave a halfhearted laugh but slowly brightened at his effort to cheer her up.
"So…" Horio started after there was a pleasant lull in the conversation. "Have you heard much from Tomo-chan lately?" Sakuno winced.
She and Tomoka weren't exactly on speaking terms at the moment.
After freshmen year, Tomoka started hanging around with friends that Sakuno didn't exactly approve of, so they had a sort of 'falling-out'. They remained civil to one another; not interfering in the other's affairs and keeping up polite conversation when necessary…that is until they ran into each other a week before graduation. They had a casual greeting on the street and started talking about their plans after graduation. She was shocked to learn that Tomoka didn't plan on going to college. She wasn't even going to a junior college like Sakuno. She insisted that she had a job and she was just fine with it. Sakuno couldn't help but be outraged. After years of talking with Tomoka and agreeing that it would indeed be a bad idea to not go to college in this day and age, she felt blindsided. Sakuno had hoped that even though so much of Tomoka had changed over the years, she would still maintain that idea.
And there was that other part of her that still hoped they would make up and be friends again; that part had hoped she and Tomoka could regain their friendship by attending college together— after all, it was supposed to be a fresh start.
After she heard that Tomoka wouldn't go to college and that she would rather continue her place in the working force than attend college, Sakuno felt extremely hurt and lashed out at Tomoka.
Tomoka responded in kind and they got into a heated argument. The ending result of which was Tomoka telling Sakuno to 'fuck off' and insisting that it wasn't any of her business what she did with her life.
Sakuno was depressed the week after. It took Ryoma's offer to have a 'talk' with Tomoka (which she turned down vehemently) to get her to turn her thoughts elsewhere. She still hadn't talked to Tomoka since that day, so she could offer no information of her whereabouts.
Horio nodded in understanding when she told him this.
Tomoka hadn't been very nice to him since she started hanging out with other friends; the fact that he still wanted to be with her after all the years he had been rejected and insulted was commendable.
Horio had come from a well-off family like most of the Seigaku attendee's so of course it was no surprise that he was attending 'some frou-frou private college' as Tomoka had so eloquently phrased. Sakuno hadn't really understood this remark since Tomoka had come from just as nice a life-style as Horio. Since when was a private college anything special? Sakuno was the only one of their group who had ever had money trouble in the past --she was allowed to attend Seigaku purely because her Grandmother was a renowned teacher there.
Horio and Sakuno continued to talk for a short while about other things such as school supplies and classes they were looking forward to. Then Horio said he had somewhere he needed to be and Sakuno waved him off. She finished the rest of her shift at the shop with few mishaps and she aided the manager in closing up the shop for the night.
She was walking down the quiet, city sidewalk, with the yellowish streetlights glaring down at her. She felt her heart beat accelerate slightly when there was a rustle from down an alley. She chose this moment to remember that this was the first time she was walking home from work by herself.
Ryoma had always insisted upon walking her home when she had a night shift like she did tonight. 'Great,' she thought venomously 'Now I'm scared and lonely.'
She hurried around the corner that she had mentally marked as the 'halfway to home' point. One of the yellowish streetlights flickered over head which spooked her and caused her to break into a trot. 'The sooner I get home, the better.'
Then she heard something that made her blood run cold and her heart stop.
Footsteps.
They were much larger and heavier than her own, and following directly behind her. She took a shaky breath. She was being paranoid—it was just someone getting home from work late. She then imagined herself on the headline of a news paper: "High School Graduate Killed on First Walk Home; her Boyfriend Blames Self—'I thought she could make it on her own, I should have known better'."
She increased her speed just in case.
She relaxed as the footstep's volume decreased and disappeared altogether. It was in her head all along—she was just nervous walking home by herself for the first time.
Right when she had fully convinced herself that the footsteps probably hadn't even existed in the first place, that it was just her mind playing tricks on her, she heard them again. This time they were coming louder and faster than before.
Sakuno didn't bother concealing her fear this time, she just took off at a dead run.
This was one of the few times in life that she thanked god for Ryoma's hellish, tennis boot-camp. Though every second of it made her miserable, it made her much faster. She got ahead fast and darted around many unfamiliar corners and alleyways; she thought she lost him at one point. But the footsteps kept pounding on behind her resolutely. She was getting tired and losing speed fast. She tripped over a large crack in the sidewalk and landed on her ankle badly. Hot and angry flames of pain seemed to lick up her leg; still she stumbled on desperate to get away. 'I have to find somewhere to hide.' She thought urgently. She turned down into an alleyway and to her utter dismay saw it was a dead end. She ducked behind a dumpster that had seemingly been long forgotten as it was filled to the brim with rotting compost. She heard the footsteps pounding along and getting ever closer.
To her horror they didn't fly past the entrance to the alleyway as she had hoped but slowed a stop right in front of it.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are pretty baby." A voice called down the alley. It was nasal and had a slimy quality to it.
It made the hair on the back of Sakuno's neck stand on end. Ryoma had called her 'baby' thousands of times before, but now, instead of the warm fuzzy feeling she usually got, her lungs seemed to fill with ice and drop into the pit of her stomach. The walls seemed to close in on her, making her feel even more trapped than she already was.
He stepped further into the dark and forlorn alley which concealed her. He knocked over some trash cans that sat near the edge. "I just wanna play, baby." He called into the darkness that she was swallowed in.
She highly doubted he was talking about cards.
She started formulating a plan, as soon as he got close enough, she would strike. While he was distracted she would run out of the alley and bang on the nearest door and ask them for help. It wasn't much, but it was all she had, she was too tired and her ankle was throbbing with an angry vengeance. The only thing that kept her from crying out was the adrenaline buzzing through her veins, loaning her what little strength it could offer.
He crept ever closer and every muscle in Sakuno's petite frame tensed, preparing for action. She counted silently to herself.
10…
The man knocked over another trash can.
8…
"Baby, I'm getting tired of hide and seek. Come out and we'll have fun."
5…
He approached the edge of the dumpster that she was hiding behind.
3…
His brown boot came into her line of sight.
2…
"There you are baby—I should get a prize for finding you."
1…!
She launched herself into action and swung her uninjured leg as hard as she possibly could into his shin.
He gave a strangled cry and she took the opportunity to leap up and hobble toward the entrance to the alley.
She was almost back under the streetlamp when she felt a rough tug on her pigtail. She gasped and stumbled backward in pain, the man yanked her into his waiting grasp and she felt large, meaty arms enclose her. She felt his sticky body pressed against her back, smelled the stale sweat and alcohol that made up his scent, heard the heavy, husky way he was breathing. The darkness seemed to close in on her again; the streetlight pulled back and became further and further away.
The ice that had coated her throat earlier suddenly seemed to crack—she found her voice.
Then she screamed. She screeched like a banshee. She howled like a frightened animal. She turned and clawed at her attacker's face, all while shrieking loud enough to wake the dead.
She was roughly slammed against the wall of the alleyway. All of the wind was knocked out of her and she was suddenly gasping for breath. Her head cracked against the brick and stars flashed before her eyes.
"Shut up, you stupid bitch!"
She felt his hands slip under the hem of her shirt and pushed away desperately, but she was suddenly very weak. She tried to scream again but her throat had locked with fear again. She felt like things were closing in again—everything was going black. She felt a buzzing at the back of her head as her entire body thrummed a silent symphony of pain.
The last thing she registered was the immense weight being pulled off of her and the melodious voice of an angel.
"Saku-chan?!"
--
She awoke in a dimly lit room, feeling achy all over. The first thing she was aware of was the bandages tightly wrapped around her head. She tentatively touched them while she tried to pull herself into an upright position. She heard soft music playing in the back round. It was some strange foreign beat and tune tickling her ears just out of her understanding.
Bum bum bedum bum bum bedum bum
What's wrong with me?
Bum bum bedum bum bum bedum bum
Why do I feel like this?
Bum bum bedum bum bum bedum bum
I'm going crazy now
Bum bum bedum bum bum bedum bum
She then became aware of the fact that she was laying on what looked like two tables pushed together. She sat up quickly and became dizzy, everything blurred for a second before she was able to clear her head.
Then she heard a quiet sniffle and whirled her head around, despite the pain to see where it was coming from.
She saw a woman hunched over in a chair with her head in her hands, her long blonde hair spilled over her tanned and slender shoulders. She was dressed in nothing but a see-through sort of negligee and Sakuno's first instinct was to blush and look away. She glanced back at the girl and her concern took over.
"Hello…?" She managed to croak, her throat felt like sandpaper. The girl jumped about a foot in the air and looked alarmed as she glanced around the room wildly. When her eyes met Sakuno's she immediately ran over to where she lay atop the two tables.
"Oh my god, Sakuno! I thought you were never going to wake up! Don't scare me like that!" The woman yelled hysterically, while pulling her into a hug.
Sakuno was shocked, this woman sounded like Tomoka!
It's the thief in the night to come and grab you,
It can creep up inside you and consume you
A disease of the mind it can control you
It's too close for comfort
"T-t-tomo-chan?" She managed to stutter in alarm.
The woman stiffened before releasing her. "Yeah…" Tomoka replied while pulling away, suddenly looking embarrassed. "It's me…"
Put on your pretty lies, you're in the city of wonder
Ain't gon' play nice, watch out you might just go under
Better think twice, your train of thought will be altered
So if you must falter be wise
"But…what happened to your hair?" She insisted while fingering the blonde locks in amazement.
"It's a weave." She answered. "And this is a spray-on tan." she gestured toward her bronzed skin. There was an awkward silence that followed in which Sakuno sat back on the table staring up at her transformed friend in awe.
Tomoka shifted awkwardly from side to side. "Do you remember what happened before you came here? You were jumped in an alley; what are you doing in this part of town anyways?" Tomoka questioned, changing the subject.
The memories of last night seemed to come rushing back to her all at once and she shuddered as she recalled the greasy man crushing her against the wall in the alley.
"I was running away…I guess I got lost…" Sakuno mumbled.
"We'll you're lucky that you ended up where you did, otherwise I don't know wether anyone would have came and helped."
"Why?" She questioned Tomoka, looking horrified.
"Well, this type of thing is a regular occurrence around here…in fact I think you're the third we found this week!" Tomoka gave a forced laugh as Sakuno continued to look up at her fearfully.
"Where's Ryoma anyways? He should have been walking you home…I thought you two were sewn together." Sakuno winced at her words and she suddenly remembered the dull ache of loneliness in her chest.
"He went to college in America…he left this morning…"
Tomoka sensed her discomfort and tried to change the subject. "How's your head? It was banged pretty hard against the wall; you were bleeding really bad…I was worried because they wouldn't let me call an ambulance…"
"I'm okay…" Sakuno questioned once again looking bewildered while tenderly prodding the bandages on her head. "But why wouldn't they let you call?"
"No cops." She answered simply.
"No cops?"
"No cops."
It's a thief in the night to come and grab you
It can creep up inside you and consume you
A disease of the mind it can control you
I feel like a monster, oh
The was another of those awkward silences that followed, then Sakuno felt brave enough to ask.
"Why are you dressed like that?"
Tomoka looked ashamed she kept her gaze downward. "…because it's my character: Mindy; the 'school-girl-wanna-be pop star'."
"…like…a theatre group…?" Sakuno asked blankly.
Tomoka gave a dry chuckle in response. "Yes, Sakuno; like a really, really, really bad theatre group." Sakuno suddenly got what she meant when she saw sunlight bounce off of something shiny perched atop a stage that was built on the opposite end of the room.
A pole.
"D-d-does your family know about this? Don't they notice that you're working odd hours?" She stuttered, trying desperately to look for some semblance of sanity in her friend's story.
Tomoka kept her head bowed in remorse. "You think that I still live with my family?"
Her head was spinning, she felt disconnected with the ground. Nothing was making sense anymore! She was alone, Ryoma as gone, and now Tomoka was a stripper
"How…how could this happen….?" She begged Tomoka, praying that she was the butt of some sick joke.
"…You know those guys I started hanging around with at school? Well, they all worked here…so I thought it would be fun…music, drinks, dancing…everybody watching me…once you join…you can't just walk away you know." She said this statement with a finality that scared Sakuno.
Before she could even begin to think things through, she became aware of the buzzing that came from the depths of her pocket. She absently picked up the phone and checked it.
It was Ryoma.
She suddenly looked at Tomoka in a panic. Tomoka looked back at her with the same expression. She silently mouthed the words 'please don't tell'
She answered the phone blankly. "Hey R-"
"Where the hell are you?!" The howled inquiry made her ears ring. She had rarely heard Ryoma this agitated; the only time she could think of being when Karupin was lost for a week.
"I-I-I'm with..." She glanced over at the terrified-looking Tomoka "-with friends."
"Don't you dare lie to me! I have been calling you for the last three hours; your grandma called as soon as my plane touched down, saying you didn't come home- you know how fucking worried I was?!" She heard how his voice cracked at the end, thick with agony, and she immediately was moved to tears.
"Now tell me the fucking truth!" His voice was shaking as he growled this out. She wished she could hold him and tell him that she was okay and that he didn't have to worry.
"I'm sorry…" She managed to whimper, wiping her tears away on her sleeve.
She heard him sigh over the phone and she sensed he was trying to calm himself. "It's okay…now, tell me the truth. Where are you?" He was trying his best to keep his cool; that much she could tell.
"I'm…" She still hesitated seeing her pleading friend. "I'm being taken care of at Tomoka's house."
"Taken care of?" His voice was sharp. "What happened?"
She decided than that she couldn't keep her terrifying walk home from him. So she told him the whole story in a rush, from leaving the store to running down an alley, to crouching behind a trash can and being slammed up against the wall. By the time she was finished she was slightly hysterical and had tears pouring out her eyes.
Tomoka and hopped up on the table with her at some point in her story and started patting her back comfortingly. This helped in some ways, but in others it just made her more emotional. This was the girl who used to be her best friend, who was now working as a stripper, who saved her life, and who was hanging around with people who didn't want cops around. It felt good to have someone there if nothing else.
"I was lucky because I ran down an alley and Tomo-chan happened to hear me and she saved me! She pulled off that weird man and then she took me …to her place and bandaged me up." She assured him in a hurry.
Though she felt better after telling him, Ryoma sounded twice as agitated when she was done.
"So you and Tomo didn't think to call the police? She just pulled him off and took you home and you let this guy run free?!" At this point he was as close to hysterics as she.
Her eyes suddenly widened, she hadn't thought of that. She turned to Tomoka looking fearful. She placed her hand over the receiver, not wanting Ryoma to hear her answer.
"So that guy just went free?" She questioned. Tomo's eyes widened before she gave a grim nod.
"…I wasn't allowed to call the cops…" She mumbled, looking unsure if that was justification or not.
Disturbia, it's like the darkness is light
Disturbia, am I scaring you tonight?
Disturbia, ain't used to what you like
Disturbia, Disturbia
Bum bum bedum bum bum bedum bum
Bum bum bedum bum bum bedum bum
Bum bum bedum bum bum bedum bum
Bum bum bedum bum bum bedum bum
The last chords of the strange haunting song echoed into the corners of the empty room. She thought about her answer very carefully before removing her hand and saying very quietly in the receiver. "No, Tomo-chan says she called the police…"
This was the only time she ever lied to him.
A few days later Ryoma would return briefly to Japan to assure himself of her safety. He would refuse to go back home until he was sure that she was okay and made his friends promise to walk her home after work. He would miss his first week of classes.
Sakuno would never tell anyone about Tomoka's job. The elders of the tennis team would find out three months later when they dragged Horio to Club Sterling for his birthday. He would continue to visit her thereafter. Later he would be offered, and would accept, a job as a bouncer after punching a drunken man for trying to grope Tomoka.
He and Tomoka would begin to date four months later as Horio gets into a fight with his parents about his job. They would kick him out shortly after. He would drop out of college and move in with Tomoka.
He would never regret it.
--
The jaws theme song rang a steady tune for a full five minutes before his wife and love of his life yelled at him and forced him to answer the phone.
Nanjiro adjusted his yukata with a huff before reluctantly taking his cell phone from his dear wife's hands and answering it.
"Yeah?" He barked roughly, his beloved frowned before leaving the room. He thought about just hanging up then, but decided against it.
"Master Ryoma requested that I call and inform you that he has visitors from Japan coming to see him. Inform us of a date and time when you are free and Ryoma will arrange for a meeting."
"Why not call ?" He questioned snappishly. "She's the one with all the plans." It somehow put him in worse mood that it was a butler instead of the spoiled brat himself.
"Master Ryoma himself tried, but she wouldn't pick up. So he asked me to inform you instead." The elder Echizen rolled his eyes at both his son's and his wife's antics.
They thought he was the immature one.
"Well I'm pretty busy, but I'll see if I can find the time." He answered crisply.
"I'll inform Master Ryoma, Good day to you sir."
As soon as he hung up, rudely cutting off the butler's salutations in the process; his darling wife was at his side.
"What do you have to do Nanjiro? You mostly sit around the house as it is; what plans could you possibly have?"
"Well, I plan to not be tricked into answering any more phone calls from him for starters." The middle-aged, ebony haired woman frowned again at him. "Your plan was foiled anyway; he had his butler call."
She gave an unhappy grunt in response and ran a frustrated hand through her bobbed hair cut, a gesture that bore an uncanny resemblance to his son. "Why are you two so stubborn? What happened to the days when we were a family?" She questioned sharply, She looked close to tears.
As bad as he felt about upsetting her, he didn't intend to have a heart-to-heart with his estranged son any time soon.
"Uncle, you should really sit down with Ryoma and talk this out. I could give you a free session if you want?" He started when a third suddenly joined him and his wife.
"Nanako! When did you get here?" he questioned the bookish looking individual that was his niece.
"Ryoma called me and I thought I'd drop by—I figured that you would hardly get the news otherwise." She must have come from work because she still had her grey, business, pant-suit on.
"So how are the people from the loony-bin?" He questioned just to annoy her, she reacted as expected.
"Uncle Nanjiro, they are not 'loony' they are mentally disturbed individuals! They are sick people and should be treated as such." She insisted, on her face was the same frown that his wife had. Perhaps Nanako was spending too much time with them.
"Nanako has a point dear; she's a psychologist! She could help you and Ryoma work out your problems with each other." Nanako turned to her aunt with a broad grin on her face.
"Yes, Auntie Rio; I even have I theory; I believe it sprouted from a deep-seated rivalry that began at Ryoma's birth. You see Nanjiro felt that he was losing in a battle for his wife's attention to Ryoma. And Ryoma of course suffered, as many young men do, from an oedipal-type complex--"
"I don't need your psycho-mumbo-jumbo." He interrupted rudely once again. "I know what happened and I know that Ryoma is being an idiot. And that's all I need." He bent and kissed both of the females on their cheeks. "Now if you'll excuse me—I have to meet a friend for tennis."
As he started to gather his belongings for his match (he didn't bother to change his clothes; he would win anyways), his wife called softly to him.
"You will go with to see him this time, right dear?" She questioned, looking hopeful.
He couldn't bring himself to let her down, so he sighed and agreed that he would go with when they visited Ryoma's house.
"It's not like the brat will be there anyways, he'll make sure he has other plans." He mumbled to himself as he exited his home, gym bag in tow.
--
Disclaimer: I don't own Prince of Tennis/ Tennis no Oujisama. I don't own Jaws. I don't own Disturbia- Rihanna.
--
A/N: Yo! So yeah, another flashback chapter, it was necessary though! Sakuno's having a bit of a rough time. I also go to include Tomoka's past which is good.
So the plot web untangles just a bit more. Thanks for all the wonderful responses and advice from you my lovely reviewers! Please continue to review! They're my blood! I'll be dead without them!! And it's always a pity when blood is spilled.
So I posted the song names and artists in my profile incase you're interested. They're songs that I feel connect with what's happening. Do as you will with them.
That's all for now!