Beta: Fayah
A/N: Opinions and critique, all kinds of reviews welcomed.
No tennis. No tennis? No tennis!
It couldn't be true! Ryoma had to play tennis, there had to be tennis, he was nothing without tennis, life wasn't worth living without tennis!
Ryoma sat at the back of a classroom he had never before been in, but still somehow had sat by a desk he knew was his. Even the chair felt familiar, so did the scenery from the window and the unfamiliar teacher's voice was a familiar kind of annoying background voice. There was something really wrong here.
He'd probably died when that weird thing crashed on him and gone to hell. Ryoma really didn't think he'd done anything so wrong in his short life that would merit a trip to hell, but if he'd gone to heaven, Horio wouldn't be there, and there he was, at the front of the class, staring at the teacher with a blank face. Probably didn't have any idea what he teacher was saying no matter how intently he seemed to be listening.
And there was no tennis!
Ryoma shivered and pressed his hands on his forehead. He felt sick. This couldn't be happening.
"Alright Ryoma-kun, let's go home," Katsuo stood up from his seat when class ended and looked at him.
"But… tennis practice," Ryoma mumbled, not getting up.
"You want to go watch the tennis practice?" Kachirou asked, coming over to them. "You haven't been interested in tennis in along time. Is it because we won the Nationals?"
"Hmm, yeah," Ryoma said, shakily standing up and gathering his things. It felt strange not having the weight of the tennis bag on his shoulder.
"Oh I remember you used to play tennis when you were a kid," Katsuo said. "You and Horio-kun, though Horio-kun still plays."
Ryoma nearly fell down from shock. Horio played tennis but he didn't? What kind of twisted universe was this? "Uh… let's just go watch," he mumbled and decided to follow Horio, who really was carrying a tennis bag.
When they reached the courts there was already a crowd there. Ryoma figured half the school was there and most of them were girls. He flinched when he recognized Osakada Tomoka. The girl looked at him, but didn't shriek or squeal the way Ryoma was used to her doing. Instead she was staring starry eyed at someone on the tennis court. Ryoma followed her gaze and recognized the boy he same time Tomoka yelled, "Akaya-sama!"
The boy on the court visibly twitched and turned to glare at the girl who just waved at her new idol, a big grin on her face.
So there was one good thing in this twisted universe. Ryoma felt a cruel smile form on his lips. He couldn't think of anyone more deserving of Tomoka's worshipping than Kirihara. He was still pissed about his knee.
"There's Horio-kun," Kachirou pointed on the courts. "He's talking to Sanada-sempai."
Ryoma looked to where Kachirou pointed and recognized Sanada immediately. Horio was clutching his racket, standing straight in front of the vice-captain, not looking at all like his usual bragging self. He bowed deeply when Sanada was done talking to him and went to practice swinging his racket.
"Oh, he isn't playing," Katsuo pointed out.
"First years don't get to play that often," Ryoma muttered and stared hungrily at the people playing on the courts. He ached to be there. He would have been fine with just running laps around the courts or doing swing practices with Horio.
His eyes went to the person he'd wanted to see this morning. He'd wanted so much to see Yukimura, but this wasn't how it was meant to be. He was supposed to show up on the Rikkai courts and challenge Yukimura to a game wearing his Seigaku uniform and cap.
His cap!
Ryoma's hand flew on his head but of course it wasn't there. He never wore it anywhere but at tennis practice, why would he have it in this twisted universe where he didn't even play tennis?
His eyes returned to the courts and he caught Yukimura's eyes on him. The older boy lifted a hand and waved at him. Ryoma huffed and left. He wasn't staying here to be mocked at.
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"Who's the kid Mura-buchou's waving at?" Marui asked, blew a bubble and then continued to chew on his gum while bouncing a tennis ball on his racket.
"No idea," Niou said and snagged the tennis ball and started tossing it. "Never seen him before. He's cute."
"Didn't know you looked out for cute boys," Marui said and tried to get his ball back, but Niou just tossed it higher.
"He's a first year," Kirihara said from behind them. The minute he turned to look at the crowd, there was a loud yell,
"Do your best, Akaya-samaaaa!"
"I hate that bitch," Kirihara spat the words between his clenched teeth and glared at the girl, murder in his eyes.
"You shouldn't be so cruel to your fan girls- oh, sorry, fan girl," Niou grinned.
"Fuck off, sempai," Kirihara cursed and took the ball from Niou and threw it at the squealing girl who somehow managed catch it. "Shit!" Kirihara cursed again and tore at his hair when the girl squealed some more and huggled the ball.
"Language, Akaya," Yanagi reprimanded the boy from behind them.
"Hey Yanagi, you know the kid?" Niou asked him.
"The one Yukimura has taken on interest in?" Yanagi asked and when Niou nodded, continued. "Yes. He's always on top of his classes. Doesn't attend any sport clubs."
"Weird. He seems like the athletic type," Niou mused.
"How'd you know that? You just saw him," Marui had taken another ball and was bouncing it on his racket again. This time when Niou tried to take it, he just moved the racket and the ball from Niou's reach.
"Dunno," Niou shrugged. "He just does."
"Do not misunderstand. Just because he doesn't attend any sports club, doesn't mean he isn't athletic," Yanagi said.
"What club's he in?" Kirihara asked.
"Art." Yanagi answered, managing to confuse them all even more.
"Any good?" Niou asked, after he'd processed the not-information Yanagi had provided about the boy's sporting activities.
"No idea," Yanagi admitted.
"His work is acceptable," Yukimura had appeared behind them. "Nothing exceptional, though," he pursed his lips together. "Shouldn't you be doing something like practicing, since we are at practice?" Yukimura gave them all an icy smile that had them running off to do things they should have been doing all the time.
Yukimura watched the boy walk out off the school gate with his friends. He had seen him before, acknowledged his existence but never really paid much attention to him, before today when the boy suddenly seemed to pass out in the middle of the hallway and had grabbed hold of him in order to stay standing. And when the boy had opened his eyes there had been something different in the gaze, something Yukimura had not seen before, was sure hadn't been there earlier.
He wasn't sure what it was yet, but was determined to find out.
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Ryoma followed Katsuo and Kachirou out of school, trying to understand what was going on. Somehow he'd ended up going to school in Rikkai Dai Fuzoku, along with Horio, Katsuo, Kachirou and Tomoka. He was pretty sure that if he'd look, he'd find Sakuno there too.
So far his mind hadn't come up with a better explanation than hell. Or it could be a dream. He was probably in a coma somewhere, lying on a hospital bed and all this was just a hallucination, a weird, twisted dream he'd cooked up, provoked by the last thought he remembered from before the blue and white lightning. 'I just wanted to go to Rikkai.'
But the dream didn't actually follow his wish. He'd wanted to go to Rikkai because of tennis, and here, he didn't play tennis. Why? Everything else was great, he was at Rikkai, if he'd played tennis here, he was sure he'd be on the team and if not a regular, he'd at least be on the team and in a position to challenge Yukimura.
On the other hand, what was stopping him from challenging Yukimura anyway? All he needed to do was find a racket.
The thought brought a smile to his face. That's right, it wasn't hopeless. He just needed to get his hands on a racket. No big deal. Then he could play against Yukimura, and maybe even Sanada. He could join the Rikkai tennis team.
"Ryoma-kun?" Katsuo spoke.
"Huh?" Ryoma asked.
"Aren't you going home? We just passed your house," Kachirou pointed towards a two storey, grey house; the kind Ryoma remembered Momo-sempai living in. It didn't have a wall surrounding it and there was no temple or a tennis court in the back. It was just like any other house, the kind he saw all around him, nothing to make it any different from the rest. The kind of boring house he would have never thought his dad would voluntarily live in.
At least there was one thing Ryoma was sure he could count on had remained the same, even if this was hell, a dream, or some twisted other reality he'd somehow ended up in. Nothing could change Echizen Nanjiroh, not even his son's hallucinations. He'd always be a perverted stupid old man.
"See you tomorrow Ryoma-kun!" Katsuo yelled after him and Kachirou settled on just waving as they ran towards their own houses. Ryoma waved back, took a deep breath and stepped towards the door.
His hand shook a little as he took hold of the door handle. Maybe it was locked? Did he have keys? Should he look for them first, or just open the door? What if it was the wrong house and he stumbled on people he knew nothing about? What if the people inside were strangers but still his family? Anything was possible in a world where he didn't play tennis. Oh god, he could be Kikumaru-sempai's little brother!
Ryoma shook his head and just decided to go for it and turned the door handle, opened the door and stepped in.
A hallway. Just a normal hallway, with a hangar for coats and a place for shoes.
Ryoma closed the door behind him, took off his shoes and, -
"Chibisuke!"
"Aaaah!" Ryoma screamed and backed against the door. He stared at his adopted brother he hadn't seen since the catastrophic cruise and tried to remember how to breathe.
"Welcome home, little brother," Ryoga grinned at him, acting like there was nothing strange about Ryoma's behaviour. "I made dinner. You hungry?"
Ryoma shook his head silently.
"Not hungry?" Ryoga sounded disbelieving. "That's a first." he shrugged. "Well aunty Rinko won't be home for another hour, we can all eat then."
"I… I'll be in my room," Ryoma said, not moving an inch.
"Well I ain't going to come and get you from upstairs when she's home, you better haul your ass downstairs all by yourself then. Got it, Chibisuke?"
"Yeah, sure, whatever," Ryoma said, still not moving away from the door.
With a small frown, Ryoga turned and disappeared through a doorway on the left. Ryoma finally dared to step away from the comfort of the door's solid wood and looked after Ryoga. He was in a kitchen that looked small, with western styled furniture and a few cupboards, a few kettles that had steam rising from them on the stove. Who knew Ryoga was domestic? Heck, who knew anything about Ryoga? It's not like they grew up together.
Ryoma looked ahead of him, through another doorway where Ryoma could see there was a couch, so it was obviously the living room. He was a little surprised his father wasn't there, lounging on it. Well, maybe in this weird universe his dad had gotten himself a job. And pink elephants danced in their backyard every full moon.
Ryoma turned to his right and saw a narrow staircase ahead of him. That's probably where the bedrooms were. He just hoped he'd be able to figure out which one was his.
Upstairs he found four doors. The first one turned out to be a bathroom. He smiled when he saw a row of bath salts on one of the shelves. He was going to take a very long bath tonight. All he needed now was Karupin.
Karupin.
Was Karupin here? What if he didn't have a cat here?
Ryoma's throat dried out from fear, at the thought of Karupin not being there. He could handle the tennis; he already knew how to solve that problem. Ryoga being here probably wasn't going to be as bad as he feared and Rikkai probably was a nice school to go to, even if he did slightly and only very slightly miss his sempais. But he wouldn't have seen them anyway, not after going back to America; he'd gotten over that already, but Karupin… He couldn't handle all this without Karupin.
Ryoma opened the second door next to the bathroom on the left side of the corridor, saw a double bed and a dressing table and knew it belonged to his parents. The first room on the right looked like it might have belonged to him. There were no posters on the walls, the bed was narrow, there was a potted plant on the windowsill and a closed laptop on the desk and clothes scattered on the floor and hanging form the bookshelf.
He picked up one of the shirts on the floor and figured this was Ryoga's room since the shirt was too big for him. And on the fact that he saw a few porn magazines under the bed when he picked up the shirt.
What scared him was that there were no cat hairs. Even if Ryoga had banned Karupin from his room, there'd be cat hairs in the room. They were inevitable in a house where a cat lived. His mother never stopped complaining about them.
Ryoma approached the last door feeling dread, sensing the horrible truth even before he opened the door. There would be no Karupin behind the door. He was alone in this nightmare.
His room turned out to be a little smaller than Ryoga's. There was a poster of a band Ryoma didn't recognize on the wall to his right, a few pencil sketches next to it. When he looked closer, Ryoma recognized his own signature on them.
There was closet and a bookshelf on his left, his bed was against the right wall, his desk on the left wall. There was a window opposite the door, between his bed and the desk. There were books stacked on piles under the window.
Ryoma frowned. "Why don't I get a laptop?" and slammed the door closed. "Ryoga gets a fucking computer and I don't even have Karupin."
He dropped his bag on the floor and flopped down on his bed, hoping to pass out from exhaustion, but instead something sharp poked him on the ribs. Ryoma sat up and drew his blanket aside to see what someone had- no, what he, apparently, had hidden there.
It was a leather covered brown book. It looked suspiciously like a diary. "I don't keep a diary," Ryoma mumbled and stared at the book. He opened the cover and on the first page, with decorative English letters was written, 'The diary of Echizen Ryoma'
"Eeeh!" Ryoma shuddered and dropped the book as if it'd burned him.
He spent at least five minutes staring at it until he finally picked it up again. He turned the first few pages and read what was written there.
'I think I'd like to have a cat. I saw a cat I wanted today, it was a long haired Himalayan, but mom said no. It was beautiful. It had the most amazing eyes. When I petted it, it started purring right away. I told mom I'd take the trash out for a whole month and do the dishes but she said she didn't want cat hairs all over the house. I bet if dad was alive he'd let me have a cat!'
'I bet if dad was alive he'd let me have a cat!'
Ryoma read the sentence again and again, thinking he'd misread it. 'If dad was alive'.
"Gotta be a mistake," Ryoma said out loud and turned to another page.
'We went to dad's grave today. I don't remember much about him, all I remember is that we played tennis and he always laughed at me. I wish I knew more about him. Ryoga always smiles when he talks about dad, he remembers him. Mom never talks about him without crying. She can't stand to even watch tennis anymore. She started crying when I watched tennis with Ryoga.'
'I can't play tennis anymore, mom gets too sad. I even hid my trophy, the one I got from the tournament I won. She seems happier now when I don't play tennis.'
Ryoma looked at the date. He'd been ten when he wrote that, eight when he'd wanted a cat.
"I always wished he'd disappear," Ryoma whispered, shutting his eyes, refusing to cry for something that wasn't even real. This wasn't real, he didn't go to school at Rikkai, Ryoga didn't live with them, Karupin was there and his dad was alive. His dad was alive and any minute now he'd throw a tennis ball against his window and shout something idiotic or his mom would yell at his stupid father to stop reading his perverted magazines and then he'd step on Karupin's tail and Karupin would scratch him and Ryoma would come and yell at his father for hurting Karupin, then his dad would send him to another date with Ryuzaki and-
He wasn't crying for that stupid pervert…
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"Ryoma! Auntie Rinko's home!"
Ryoma rubbed his eyes dry and shoved the book back under his blanket. Slowly he got up and walked downstairs. He stopped at the kitchen doorway to look at his mother.
She wasn't the same either. The lines on her face were deeper, her shoulders hunched.
Ryoma had always thought his mother was beautiful and she still was, but something was missing. Ryoma remembered a happy twinkle, a bit of playfulness in the corner of her eye. His mother had always seemed to be smiling, even when she was scolding Ryoma or his dad.
Rinko turned her face towards Ryoma and a small smile appeared on her face, but a layer of sadness covered it. Had she really loved Nanjiroh so much? Why? He was a pervert and an annoying idiot.
"Mom?" Ryoma asked.
"Yes darling?"
"What happened to dad?" Ryoma asked and almost regretted it when she saw the pain on her face. But he had to know. There was nothing about what happened in the diary.
"You already know what happened, Ryoma," Rinko turned away from his son and focused her attention back on the shopping bag she'd been unpacking when Ryoma came downstairs.
"Mom, tell me," Ryoma pressured.
Rinko sighed and pressed her hand over her eyes. "It was a car accident. We'd lived here for only sixth months and one day when he was crossing the street a car… The driver wasn't looking and he…" Rinko took a deep breath and leaned on the kitchen table. "No, I should be able to talk about it, it's been so many years. Your father got hit by a car, he died instantaneously. There was nothing anyone could have done."
"And the driver?"
"Died in the hospital. Brain damage." Rinko took out the milk cartons from the shopping bag and without once looking at Ryoma put them to the refrigerator. When she didn't close the door or turn back to look at Ryoma, he guessed she was trying not to cry and didn't want him to see.
Ryoma left the kitchen and went to the living room where Ryoga was flipping through channels. "Yo, Chibisuke!" Ryoga grinned at him and then turned back to the TV.
So this was his family. An adoptive brother he'd apparently grown up with, but didn't know at all and their guardian was a widow who still hadn't gotten over her loss even if it must have been at least six years since her husband died. 'Shit dad, even when you're dead you're causing nothing but trouble. Fuck you for dying!'
Sometime during reading his own diary Ryoma had forgotten that he didn't think this was real. It was too painful for it to be just a dream.
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Rikkai AU
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"Ryoma-kun!" Sakuno screamed when she saw Ryoma fall and then she was forced to close her eyes because of the blinding flash. Her eyes were watery when she opened them and she couldn't see very well, but she heard adults yelling.
"Is that kid okay? The thing, it went off professor! It was on! What if he-"
"There is no possible way! He probably just fainted from the shock, it couldn't have been-"
"Echizen-kun! Someone call an ambulance!" Sakuno recognized their teacher's voice. He sounded on the verge of panic. "What is that thing? Why is something that unstable somewhere where there are children? What is it?"
"It had nothing to do with the accident; I'm sure the boy just collapsed form the shock."
"Professor, it was activated! The kid- He could be somewhere now!"
"Don't talk nonsense, there is no way…"
Sakuno blinked and saw an older man with a beard hovering over Ryoma who lay on the floor, with an oval shape made of copper tubes and glimmering wires surrounding him. It resembled Sakuno's mother's mirror frame, except where there would have been a mirror, was nothing but air. As Sakuno watched, blue and white streaks of light moved over Ryoma's unconscious body.
"Professor did you see that? It activated when the boy was in the circle!" one of the younger men surrounding the machine said.
"I… it's not possible. So far we've only tested it on animals. Human's… Could the boy really have..?" the bearded man stumbled on his words, he seemed at the same time exhilarated and horrified.
"Who are you?" Their teacher demanded to know.
"Professor Yamata," the man answered.
"What has happened to my student?"
"I… am not sure," professor Yamata admitted, staring at Ryoma's unconscious body.