Tomoka has learned that praying often pays off.
Well, she hasn't shut herself into rooms with any unaware pornstar classmates for about three months now. Pornstar classmates, who might or might not have skin that is very well maintained, or appendages that keep Tomoka dreaming herself into fantasies that almost always get her into trouble, seeing as the fantasies keep happening in History class.
She does see them, of course, them being said pornstar classmates, but Tomoka obviously is the very definition of Professionalism - Ryoma-sama, if he notices, doesn't give a shit, and Horio, the lucky bastard, knows nothing because he usually never fucking does (Tomoka would hit him twice or a thousand times - but she's too busy being envious to hate him)(also she could never really hate him, because under that braggart attitude lies a very insecure boy with a heart of iron forced to rust).
Praying pays off. Tomoka takes a sudden turn towards religion and the benefits of believing in a higher power.
Until one day everyone decides to fuck with her. Everyone being the boy she has worshipped since the very first sight of that Fila cap on his head.
Tomoka is minding her own business for once, walking down the school corridors after hours (being a very sincere student and doing yet another errand for a teacher) when a very clichéd and scary thing occurs: a hand shoots out of a classroom and drags her in.
Tomoka has unfortunately not learned martial arts or proper self-defence techniques, so she settles for an elbow in the stomach as she turns around to face her attacker - and the voice that yells out in pain is one which makes her heart drop to her ankles.
"Ryoma-sama! What the actual fuck - "
"Goddammit, Tomoka, the fuck were you thinking - " Ryoma holds onto his stomach, eyes shut.
"The fuck were you thinking - "
"Mada mada fucking - "
"Let's get you to the nurse's office - "
"Are you crazy - "
Tomoka flounders about in confusion, fearing for her life. Ryoma, however, stands up straight again, because Seigaku tennis boys are used to Hadokyuus 500 times the power of Tomoka's elbow jab - and says, "I need your help."
"Of course, anything you say."
"Horio and I had a fight, and he's avoiding me - I need you to do something about it."
Tomoka stops short.
"No," she immediately says. "I cannot. Ask of me something else which I may perhaps find not exceedingly taxing upon my mental health to execute."
Ryoma shoots her a dark look. "You're the only one who can do it."
"I know what you're thinking, Ryoma-sama. I can't help you get back together with Horio."
"Look, Osakada - you're the only one who knows what we get up to, and I need you to put us in one of those situations again."
Tomoka puts a hand to her mouth, prepared to do the Oneesan Laugh while denying all help - but gasps and instead says, "What do you get up to? I have no clue whatsoever!"
Ryoma blinks at her. "Okay, if we're playing this game."
Tomoka waits.
"Horio and I fuck like rabbits every chance we get, everywhere we can, and I know you saw us in the classroom and that storage room, and we've done all sorts of things before then and since, so I am asking you politely, please set us up somewhere we can be alone - he's not prepared to listen to me.
"And," Ryoma tacks on, "If you do this, I'll do anything to you, just for you, do everything you say to you."
Tomoka's mouth is hanging open by the time he's done talking.
This is unbelievable. Who is the person in front of her saying all of this?
Tomoka peers intently at Ryoma. The expression that she's seeing on his face is something that's familiar to her but unfamiliar on him -
"Ryoma-sama is really desperate, isn't he...?" Tomoka breathes quietly.
Ryoma's gaze drops to the floor. "Yeah," he says after a while. "I'm desperate to have him back."
Tomoka wishes things were different. She really, really wants to hate Horio.
But she really, really can't, because he really is just an insecure lonely boy who thinks he doesn't deserve to be loved.
And this assumption of his character is one hundred percent true because it's been confirmed by the ex-boyfriend. It's the reason they broke up.
Horio has always been on the stupider side of stupid, anyway.
She tries to talk to him during breaks - he's an entirely new person; taciturn, moody, stressed, rude. He never accepts her offers of going on walks to relax. He never accompanies her to the tennis storage room when she's sent to get armloads of stuff. Suspicious glances start deterring Tomoka from using those sort of excuses again. Because, maybe, maybe Horio might know about her after all.
Ryoma isn't himself anymore, and Tomoka feels the jolt in her knees as she resists sliding to the floor, hand pressed to her mouth.
Giving her a show was fucking understating it - he's pulling out all the stops - Tomoka loses her first kiss to a boy desperate enough to cheat on his ex-boyfriend, and it's not romantic, it's rough, feral and miles away from 'chaste'.
Ryoma kisses every inch of her face, returning to her mouth again and again, his tongue brushing against hers every few seconds. He kisses the mole beneath her eye. He kisses her forehead. He licks her lips.
She can feel him pulling out the ends of her shirt from her skirt. Once he succeeds, his hands go underneath the shirt, up to her breasts, caressing very sensitive nipples through lacy fabric, and her back arches without her permission.
There's a place between her legs that feels very, very hot right now, and she can sense Ryoma's leg between her thighs, sliding between them, rubbing softly and then rubbing hard -
But no, no she can't. She won't. She will not let him ruin himself. So she gently pushes Ryoma away, only to see him in tears. Ryoma looks like he was the one almost ravaged - swollen lips, red eyes, open shirt - Tomoka feels so guilty she almost starts crying herself.
Stupid fucking Horio. Why hasn't he realized yet how his low self-esteem affects other people?
"I don't really want a show or anything," she mumbles against the hand she's pressed on her mouth. "I just... wish you'd be happy."
Ryoma bites his lip, wipes the saliva off with the back of his hand, and Tomoka isn't even offended.
But she lets Ryoma cover her body with his as he jerks off to Horio's name, and then watches him suck the come off his own fingers as seductively as he can with tears running down his face.
"Listen, you stupid fuck," Tomoka decides to damn all subtlety to hell. "Don't you fucking make Ryoma go through hell just because you think you don't deserve him."
Horio looks slightly taken aback. Not even fully. And that pisses Tomoka off even more. "I understand why you think that. But after a fucking month of ignoring him, even I'd say you need to stop feeling so self-entitled."
"Who says I'm feeling self-entitled? He deserves better," Horio says, eyes downcast.
"I bet you've been cutting yourself, too, haven't you?"
Horio doesn't reply. Tomoka grabs his arm and drags him over to the girls bathroom - pulls him inside, disregarding all protests. She pulls down the hem of her socks - untucks her shirt and pulls it up - hikes up her tights.
White scars line every hidden area. The calves. The thighs. The waist. Horio stares.
"I used to do it, too. And I fucking loved the feeling - despair. It's so fucking sweet. I mean - there's some sort of deep fucking satisfaction in thinking that the world hates you, right? That no matter what you do, you'll fuck up and not get any second chances - there's so much poetry in depression - some sort of morbid beauty in these fucking scars that'll never go, no matter how much I scrub the skin."
Horio's eyes flit to Tomoka's face, and then back to her calves - he realizes she uses very tight socks.
"But that's a shit feeling in the end. You know what? I felt like the world owed me something, because I was depressed. And then I realized I wasn't even sad anymore - I was forcing myself to be, so I could continue to feel that satisfaction. And that's what you're fucking doing - you have no clue how much he loves you - he tries to show you and you keep pushing him away! Nobody gives two shits about how much experience you have in tennis, but you keep bragging about that; and when Ryoma actually values you, you have to go and shut yourself up."
Horio blinks.
Tomoka straightens her uniform. Tucks the shirt in again. Pulls up her socks. Adjusts her tights.
"If you really think you don't deserve to be loved, then get over yourself. He's been trying to show you the exact opposite of that for so long, and you're throwing him away."
She dramatically walks to the door, stops, and says, "And you're forcing me, the girl who has always loved him, to watch."
She leaves.
Maybe this'll make him go back to Ryoma.
Please let this make him go back to Ryoma.
Tomoka has learned that praying often pays off. So she prays.