[Multichapter] What am I to you? ... Chapter 5
Title: What am I to you? …. Chapter 5
Pairing: RyoDa, JinDa, TegoPi
Rating: PG-13 for some mild violence
Genre: Romance, drama, smut, fluff
Length: 3502 words
Disclaimer: I love JE-boys but unless I can get one of them for Christmas this year, I don't own any of them.
Summary: For a long time Tatsuya had a pretty decent life. She was from a fairly rich family, had high expectations from her parents and high grades. But never a good enough reason to smile.... Until she met Ryo, a fierce delinquent and the ringleader of a high-school. Unlikely as it seemed they found each other and although Ryo always comes late for their dates, all beaten up, Tatsuya usually doesn't mind since she loves him so much.
But being the ringleader's girlfriend can sometimes be very dangerous, especially when challenging ringleaders find their opponent's lover very attractive.
Warnings: In this fic Tatsuya equals GIRL. So if you don't like it, don't read. I also made Tatsuya a few years younger just to make the whole story more believable. *hihi*
A/N: This is a request-fic for Jindaluver <3 I hope you like it sweetheart! This is also dedicated to my darling Miru-chan, I hope this might make you feel a little better <3 Also a lot of love to all those who keep supporting me in my writing, I owe you so much <3
Ignore the double LJ-cut, don't have the time to fix it before my next class :P
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"So you go to Madoka High? That's a really prestigious school isn't it?” Tatsuya asked the older man as they walked the long way to her home. It had been two weeks since the try-out and after a fairly calm training-pass Ryuuta had offered to follow her home, Sou had offered as well but the oldest of the five siblings, who Tatsuya now knew was named Ichirou, had dragged the younger brother away saying something about a dressingroom that desperately needed cleaning and a pile of homework that needed doing after that so now it was only Tatsuya and Ryuuta.
“Yep, my dad may not be rich like yours but he knows that I don't want to do boxing forever so he sent me to Madoka so that I have a good chance to go to any university I'd like later on.” He smiled but his comment made Tatsuya frown.
“How did you know that my parents were rich? I didn't tell you that.”
Ryuuta laughed and for a second Tatsuya forgot that she was supposed to be suspicious of him.
“Well, if you don't mind me saying so you don't really look poor and those clothes look like they have just been flown in from Milan.” Tatsuya smiled and raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Are you...?”
“Hey, can't a guy read an occasional fashion-magazine without being gay?” He asked and Tatsuya couldn't help but laugh at the feigned frustration.
“Sorry, it just seemed a little strange to me that you would know that.” She giggled as they kept on walking.
“So what school do you go to? Seiryuu Gakuen?” He asked when they had almost past the park that laid about halfway to Tatsuya's house.
“Um, but I'm thinking about quitting.”
“What? Why?” Ryuuta looked at her with confused eyes, he didn't understand why someone, who clearly was as bright as she was, would want to quit school when she was only a first year-student.
“Well, my only friend abandoned me because about two weeks ago she thinks that I have slept with her crush, which I haven't and now everyone is talking behind my back. I haven't been there since and it's just... It's killing me.” Her voice was almost shaking but she managed to keep a straight face, how embarrassing wouldn't it be if she had started to cry in front of a man she hardly knew when she wouldn't even cry in front of people that she did know.
“Is it really bad enough for you to quit over? Can't you just transfer to another school?” He asked.
“I need my parents permission to do that and I would never be able to get that just because of this.” Tatsuya's voice gave away how hopeless the situation was but Ryuuta didn't want to her to give up her future like that.
“But won't they notice that you're not in school?”
“Neither of them have been home in three months and I don't think they are planning on returning any time soon.”
“Ohh, I see.” Ryuuta turned his eyes to the ground. The girl didn't sound sad but the look in her eyes gave it away, it was a look filled with disappointment and sadness and it hurt Ryuuta to look into those eyes any further. “So you live alone then?” He then asked, trying to lighten the dark atmosphere that the topic had created.
“Yep, my brother used to live there as well but he moved out when he started his architect-training abroad so now it's just me.... Here we are.” They arrived at a big house that made the Akiyama household look like a moldy storageroom and Ryuuta's mouth was hanging open as Tatsuya unlocked the door and showed him in.
“This is your house?” He gasped as he took off his shoes in the hallway, it was actually bigger than his bedroom.
Tatsuya nodded with a sad smile and showed the way into the livingroom.
“It's really big for just one person, isn't it?” Ryuuta looked around but to his surprise there were no personal things in the room,. No family-photos, no things thrown on the floor like in his house, no dirt or mess. Everything was spotless and it made him cringe. No child should have to grow up in a place that cold and un-personal.
“Yeah, but after sixteen years I'm kinda used to it.” Tatsuya sat down on thew couch with a smile but Ryuuta noticed that the smile didn't reach her eyes.
“Listen, Tatsuya.... You don't mind me calling you Tatsuya, do you?” He sat down next to her.
“Not at all, as long as I can call you Ryuuta.” She winked at him and the young man felt how his heart was fluttering around in his chest.
“I have an idea, tell me if you think it's crazy. But how about you transfer to my school? Don't worry about your parents, my dad can talk to them and convince them somehow.”
Tatsuya just looked at the man next to her, it was a crazy idea, she knew that and yet she couldn't help but smile at him.
“You are crazy, you know that, right?” She said and just for a second she thought she saw a glimpse of sadness in Ryuuta's eyes but it was probably just her imagination. “I don't want for you to have to deal with this. It's my problem and I will solve it myself.” Tatsuya pulled her fingers through her hair with a firm expression.
“I'm not going to involve people who have nothing to do with it into this battle. I will do this alone, it's not like I'm not used to it by now.” She thought as she waved goodbye to Ryuuta. She was going to do all in her power to fix this mess, with or without Ryo's help.
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“What are you doing here?” The poisonous voice of one of the girl's in the classroom asked as Tatsuya walked up to them the next day. The classmate was one of those bitches that would resort to anything to get what she wanted, Tatsuya knew this but she had to talk to Sakura who was sitting right in the middle of the group of bitches, looking at her with disgusted eyes.
“I need to talk to you, Sakura. It's important.” Tatsuya tried to keep her voice calm even though her heart was beating hard beneath her chest.
She was on enemy-ground but she had to do this, she had to at least try to explain.
“And why should I care? You never cared about me.” The younger girl glared at her, making Tatsuya's chest hurt.
“Because it was all a misunderstanding, nothing has ever happened between me and Akanishi. You have to believe me.” The calm in her voice was starting to disappear and the pleading was evident in her voice.
“A picture doesn't lie, Tatsuya. You were kissing Jin and you were enjoying it!” The tears were staring to flow down the younger girl's face but the anger in her eyes didn't go away.
“Sakura, if you were ever my friend, then please trust me. Nothing happened with Jin. You are my friend.” Tatsuya's voice was starting to fade away as the lump in her throat was growing bigger for every word.
Sakura looked up at her, the tears on her cheeks were shining as the light was reflected in them.
“You betrayed me, Tatsuya, and friends don't do that to each other.” She stood up and walked up to Tatsuya and without saying a word she slapped her former friend hard in the face. “I no longer consider you my friend.” She whispered as she with head hung low walked out of the room.
Tatsuya let out a shaky breath as she ran her hand through her hair, a habit of hers when she felt sad or nervous, and was about to walk after her friend, or former friend if you were to believe Sakura, when a hand grabbed her upper-arm.
“Where do you think you're going?” One of the bitches asked her with a stern face and Tatsuya felt the panic rise in her chest.
“That's none of your business, now let go of my arm.” Tatsuya tried to yank her arm away but the girl holding her was a lot stronger than she looked.
“You've done enough damage to Sakura already. I think you'd better leave her alone.” She suggested but her voice made it sound more like a threat.
“Or you'll do what to me?” Tatsuya looked her straight in the eye not going to back down anymore.
The tall girls now standing around her laughed and when Tatsuya turned around to ask one of them why they were laughing she felt a stinging pain in her ribs from a closed fist connecting with her side.
“Let me make one thing clear to you, bitch. Since you are no longer dating Nishikido we can do whatever we want to you without getting into trouble.” One of them grabbed her long hair and pulled her out of the ring, across the room to one of the desks.
“Maybe we should give this bitch a little trimming before we let her go, what do you say girls?” Tatsuya felt the sweat drop from her forehead, they seriously weren't going to take it that far, were they?
She started fighting the one holding her by her long hair but the other girls started kicking her sides. Tatsuya fell down on the floor as the kicks kept hitting her, but it wasn't until she heard the noise from her hair being cut just below her ears that the tears started to fall.
She just closed her eyes and sobbed, silently wishing to hear Koki's terrifying voice telling the bitches to get away from her but deep down she realized that he was never going to come again. She was on her own from now on and sobbing Tatsuya let her body tense up again as she fought to stand up, catching a foot in her hand and shoving it back at whoever it belonged to. A fist hit her straight in the face but she pushed the person away and ran towards the door, leaving the classroom with the laughs from the girls ringing in her ears.
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Koki watched in silence as Tatsuya ran through the schoolgate and his heart hurt when he realized that the younger girl was crying. He had never liked it when girls cried, especially when he knew that he could have stopped it, but even though his whole body was twitching wanting to run to the girl's rescue he didn't move.
And it wasn't because Ryo had ordered him to stay away from her, even though he had. No, this one time he was actually willing to against his leader, pushing the fear of ending up in the hospital again aside. This one time he was more worried about Tatsuya than about his own neck.
He wanted to call out to her, make his presence known to the crying girl, he wanted to comfort her but he knew that if he did she would never learn.
She would never learn to stand up for herself if he kept on interfering in her life.
Yes, he was cruel but his love for Tatsuya, which was very much like that of an older brother, made him able to stop his body from moving out of the shadows and to her rescue.
She needed to get through this on her own, even if it would be hard on her and she might always carry the scars of being thrown away for a mere rumor, just like Ryo had to get over this as well.
He had insisted that he was fine, acted like Tatsuya's so-called betrayal hadn't broken his heart into little pieces but he couldn't fool Koki who had known him since childhood.
Even when laughing that forced laugh his dark and usually so lively eyes were empty, cold like they had been frozen, even during dinnertime he just poked at his food making his parents worry for him and even in his sleep he was tormented by nightmares.
Because of what had happened with Tatsuya Koki had offered to stay with Ryo overnight even though his friend had insisted that he was fine and didn't need the company. But during the night Koki had woken up from the screaming coming from Ryo's bed and even when Koki had managed to wake him up, his leader still insisted that it had nothing to do with Tatsuya.
Koki sighed to himself where he stood in the alley, hidden from the eyes of the people walking by. He was probably the only one alive who knew why Ryo was taking the break-up so hard, the only one Ryo that had ever told.
One year ago, almost to the day, Ryo's girlfriend since almost nine months had left him for Akanishi Jin after the rival had been going after the girl for almost three months. She had been mesmerized by the other man's beauty, his confidence and his smooth tongue, in more ways than one.
She had totally abandoned Ryo, the man who had given up his friends for her, who had given up fighting in order to spend time with her, in order to be with Akanishi.
It was an understatement to say that Ryo had been crushed by the whole thing, he had been close to disappearing more than once either because he refused to eat or because he had started getting into even more reckless fights than before.
It had taken him almost this entire year for him to heal and Tatsuya had been a big help in that but now that she was gone the cut in Ryo's almost healed heart was even deeper than it had been before.
And although Koki didn't believe for a second that Tatsuya would be with Akanishi by her own free will it didn't matter since Ryo's judgment was tainted by what had happened with his previous girlfriend, he was too hurt to listen to anyone right now and even if he wasn't....
Koki ran a hand through his blond hair,sighing as he did so. Maybe he should just stop following Tatsuya around, now that she had obviously started to build up her life again with the boxing-gym and all that.
Yes, he had followed her there and he must say that he had almost never seen her with a smile that wide before so maybe this was the right road to take with her life right now. He smiled to himself as he swung the grocery-bag over his shoulder and made his way to Ryo's house to cook him some get-better-soon-dinner.
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When Tatsuya reached her home the tears had finally stopped falling but the pain in her heart was worse than ever. She had never been beaten like that before and she had never expected it to happen inside the school. It was first now that she realized how protected she had been being Ryo's girlfriend, how sheltered she had felt when she was in his embrace.
As she with shaking fingers fumbled with her keys to unlock the frontdoor she heard something behind her. She stopped, suddenly afraid of who might be behind her, suddenly afraid to breath properly when a hand came to her shoulder, slightly squeezing the sore area.
“I thought you said you'd go back to school so what are you doing here?” Ryuuta's face showed up next to hers but as soon as he saw the tears in her eyes and the swollen lip and eye, the smile on his face quickly evaporated. “What happened?!” He turned her around to take a better look at the damage done to her face.
“It turns out your idea to transfer schools wasn't such a bad idea after all.” Tatsuya chuckled but the tears were falling from her eyes again and when Ryuuta saw them he sighed, cupped her face with one hand and wiped the tears with his thumb.
“Jesus, you're a mess. Let's get you cleaned up over at the gym.” He let go of her face and trailed his fingers up to her unevenly cut hair. “And maybe I can get my brother to help you with this.” He smiled a little when she blushed at the hand almost touching her exposed, sensitive neck.
“Thank you.” Tatsuya mumbled as Ryuuta took her hand in his and led her away from the empty house.
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“There you go, I hope it doesn't hurt too bad.” Ryuuta placed the first-aid-kit back on the shelf again after tending to Tatsuya's injuries, they weren't too bad but probably hurt so he left the girl in Daiki's and Rumi's care when he went to get the painkillers from his dad's office.
Tatsuya sat there on a chair, silent as she watched the two remaining siblings quarreling over some candy again as they so often did. For some strange reason the lump in her throat was slowly disappearing the longer she spent with the Akiyama's and she actually smiled a little as Rumi climbed up in her lap in order to escape her brother.
“Well, since my dear baby-sister won't listen to me, how about we get started on you hair? Since we can't really go anything about the length without having to put in extensions at least I can make the short hair look good, what do you say?” Daiki placed a towel over her shoulders and stood behind her, ready with the scissors in hand.
Tatsuya nodded even though she wasn't too sure about letting a guy cut her hair but since it couldn't get any worse she shut her eyes and tried to relax as the cutting sound reached her ears, a sound that it would take a long time to neutralize again.
Five minutes later Ryuuta was back with the painkillers but he was surprised to find Tatsuya talking freely with his older brother. From what he had seen of Tatsuya she wasn't really the type of person to talk much so for some odd reason his heart clenched a bit when he saw the girl speak so freely to his brother but he swallowed the strange feeling, placed a smile on his lips and walked up to them.
“So how is it turning out?” He asked Daiki as he handed the painkillers to Tatsuya who accepted them with a polite nod.
“I think we're almost done, just give me a minute.... And we're done!” Daiki put down the scissors and took off the towel from the girl's shoulders. “Take a look.” He smiled at her and it was with shaking steps and a nervous heart that Tatsuya approached the mirror.
The sight that met her was one that made her jaw drop, she looked... Cute and attractive. She had looked good in long hair too but this was even better!
“You're amazing, where did you learn to do that?” Tatsuya asked as she nearly jumped up to him, feeling happy down to her toes.
Daiki chuckled at her happy face and put away the towel.
“I'm a hairdresser at a salon not too far from here but boxing has been something that I have always loved to do so that's why I spend most of my free days hanging around here, training and just enjoying the atmosphere.”
“Well, that explains it. Thank you so much, Daiki-kun, I don't know how to repay you for this.”
“No need to, just think of it as a favor from me.” Daiki smiled at her and Ryuuta could almost feel how his eyes turned black and Daiki apparently noticed as well, Tatsuya had just been dragged away by Rumi to play so she wasn't around to witness the conversation revolving around her.
“Ryuu, if you like her you should just say so. Cause there is no need to get jealous over her when she doesn't even know it.” Daiki laughed and the younger brother felt his face turn red at the comment.
“I've only known her for two weeks. How could I possibly like her?” Ryuuta looked at his shoes which suddenly seemed very interesting.
“Sometimes that's all it takes, it's been known to happen.” Daiki walked up to him and placed a hand on his brother's shoulder. “Just take it slowly so you don't scare her away, that's also been known to happen before.” He said and left his little brother standing alone with only his thoughts for company.
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“What do you mean you're done? You have to fix this! Ryo is completely out of it, I've never seen him like this before. Akanishi, you have to fix this mess that you created!”
Jin turned around with a mad face causing the younger man to flinch back a little, but still with the determined look on his face.
“'The mess that I created'... Unless you're memory sucks you were the one who told me to break them up and now you want to blame me for it? Tell me, Tegoshi Yuya, where is the logic in that?” Jin took a step closer to the now shivering boy.
"Well... You could have chosen to turn down the offer but you took it on and now you have to fix it...” Further than that Tegoshi wasn't allowed to come as a hand came to his throat and pressed him harshly against the wall.
The furious look in Jin's eyes made him gulp and close his eyes in fear of what's to come. For a moment he hoped that this was just a bad dream, a nightmare that he could wake up from but when he opened his eyes again Jin was still in front of him, hand around his throat and with the killing-look in his dark eyes.
“I agreed to break them up, not to take care of the mess after. He's your brother and you're the reason for his current condition so I suggest you tell him the truth and hope he'll be merciful enough not to kill you on the spot.” Jin tightened the grip so that Yuya was having trouble breathing steadily. “And don't you even think about hurting Tatsuya again, if you do I will hunt you down and rip the skin off your body before I kill you. Understood?”
Yuya nodded, however a little awkward as the hand at his throat hindered his neck-movements.
“Good.” Jin ruffled the younger's hair harshly, it actually hurt but than again that was probably the idea, and let him go. “I hope I won't be seeing you here anymore, kid.” Were his last words before exiting the building, finally allowing Yuya to drop to his knees on the dirty floor and letting his tears fall.
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A/N: Once again thanks to all who keeps supporting me with my writing, I'm so happy that I have your support! This chapter is dedicated to my dear darling MiruMiru-chan, I really hope you feel better <3
Comments are always appreciated xD