Coming Home

By: Bunny

Rated: Teen 15 and up

Genre: Romance, Drama

Summary: RyoSaku. At the start of high school, Sakuno is forced to leave Seigaku. Trying to move on proves to be impossible.

Chapter One

Despondent, Ryuzaki Sakuno dragged the heels of her feet against the sidewalk as she wandered around. She had no idea where she was. She figured she was probably still in the greater Tokyo area somewhere, but at this point, she just didn't care.

How did she end up like this? With this life? With this problem? Stuck in this...horror created by others?

She should have known better.

She should never have even tried to make it work, to try to find happiness, to try something new. She never should have thought it might work. What had she been thinking? That things would really work out with the so-called 'prince?' Of course it was going to end. Of course it was going to go wrong and blow up in her face.

Why, oh why, did he have to do that? Why did he have to say those things? He wasn't a real prince, that's why. How had she allowed herself to ever imagine it was possible that he could really be a prince? That he could ever...replace...him.

Well, not completely, that really was impossible, but just the...

Tears gathered in her eyes at the thought of him...

Ryoma-kun.

Ryoma-kun would never do something like this. Well, obviously...he was the very private type.

She knew that much first hand.

Oh, but this mess her life was in! Wretched, wretched mess!

How had this happened to her? Could she have possibly somehow avoided this?

Where had it started?

She looked up at the darkening clouds gathering above her and wondered over her situation. Had it started when Grandma had moved away? Yes, certainly that was the very start of it, wasn't it?

Or was it further back than that? Was it when she'd gone to the US Open with Ryoma-kun a year and a half ago? When they'd...

She shook her head. If she was going to go back that far, then she might as well go to the very beginning, when she met Ryoma-kun the day he saved her from the boys on the train. Was that it? Was that when it really started? After all, if she wasn't in love with Ryoma-kun, this wouldn't have been a problem, right?

She took a deep breath and let out a big sigh.

This wasn't like her.

Ryuzaki Sakuno, she wasn't the type to give up. She wasn't the type to give in, and she definitely wasn't the type to blame others. This had to be her fault. Like Akihiko-kun - no...like Nishimura-san had said, she was asking for it.

Right?

Though, honestly, she wasn't asking for it. She wasn't! She wasn't!

There had been a lot of decisions though, a lot of choices she'd made, ones that if she'd chosen differently, she wouldn't be here...in this place...with this life.

Alone.

Scared.

Lost.

She shivered as the temperature dropped. Was it supposed to rain today? She looked up once again at the darkening sky.

Bring it. The clouds matched her mood after all. Her life was so messed up right now, what harm could a little bit of rain do? In fact, it might just comfort her in the misery loves company kind of comfort.

She could have stayed with Grandma.

Sakuno had been really happy for her grandmother when she'd been offered a very high paying top coaching position for an elite tennis team in Hong Kong. The timing was right, as the last of the dream team, or rather Echizen Ryoma was graduating from middle school and moving on to the high school team next term. The only problem was, it left Sakuno with the option of moving to Hong Kong with her grandmother or moving back in with her parents. Either choice was away from Seishun Gakuen. Grandma rented her house, and her parents couldn't afford to keep it for the sake of Sakuno staying at Seigaku for high school. Her parents lived in another prefecture of the greater Tokyo area, so even commuting to Seigaku would be too much, either way it was going to be a big change. So it was back home with her parents, or go to Hong Kong with Grandma.

Hong Kong had seemed too daunting. A new country, a new city, a new language, and for what? Just to stay away from her parents longer? She was a little older now that middle school was over. She could handle the lack of attention that came with living with them. It had to be better than going to China...right?

Or so she had thought.

Moving back to her parents' house had been almost like completely starting over anyways. Sure it wasn't a new country and a new language, but everything else was all new. No-one from her grade school was at her new high school. So much for the theory of being back in the old neighborhood with her old friends.

She was away from Seigaku, at a new school, with a new prince.

She hadn't been looking for a new prince. She already had one, even if they were separated, even if she'd probably never see him again. Take her heart out and have a good look at it, and she was pretty sure it had Echizen Ryoma branded into it. Three years of her world revolving around the young tennis prodigy would do that to a girl. Especially since...

Well, did that really even count anymore with where she was at now?

...did anything?

She let out a big sigh as her thoughts swirled into depression. Just thinking about...him. The new prince in her life.

Nishimura Akihiko.

The prince of her high school...he had lived up to his name, 'shining prince.' Or rather, she had thought that he did. At first anyways. She'd been just as charmed by him as everybody else.

All the girls referred to him as their prince. The prince, their prince, their shining prince Akihiko-sama. It was with good reason they called him the prince of their school though. Similarly to her first prince Ryoma-kun, Akihiko-kun was smart, ridiculously good-looking, popular, and a prodigy athlete. That's however, where the similarities ended. Unlike Ryoma-kun Nishimura Akihiko was always smiling. He was friendly, outgoing, and flirty. Super flirty. He loved girls and he was very open with his admiration of them.

She would never forget the day they met.

It was the first day of high school, and she was running late. Not because she hadn't left home with enough time to get to school, but because she'd gotten lost three times already that morning trying to get there! So much for remembering the old neighborhood. Things had either changed a lot in the last three years, or she had simply forgotten a lot. Or, maybe she was as bad at directions as Ryoma-kun always accused her of being.

It was as she was running through the school gate just in the nick of time when she'd stepped on the back of someone's shoe, unable to stop her momentum quickly enough to avoid it. At least she hadn't collided into the back of him and taken him out.

"Hey!" Akihiko had cried as he'd spun around to face her, glaring as he hobbled on his bad shoe.

Sakuno's eyes had widened in surprise. She quickly bowed multiple times, "I'm so sorry, it was an accident, please forgive me," She said over and over again.

A large hand gently landed on the crown of her head, effectively stopping her from her frantic bows, "Don't worry about it, beautiful."

Beautiful?

What? Her?

No-one had ever called her beautiful before. Baffled, Sakuno raised her head back up, and finally took a good look at the boy she'd ran into.

He had dark brown hair with a slight burgundy tint to it, and chestnut colored eyes, not unlike her own, and a friendly smile with dimples.

Wow.

He was adorable.

Wouldn't it just figure she'd have a bad first impression on her first day of high school with the cutest guy in the school? Dig a hole and just bury her, on the spot!

Realizing she was staring at him, she flushed red and flustered, "Really, I'm so sorry about your shoe!"

He had dismissed her embarrassed apology with a wave of his hand. "What's your name?" He asked as he bent over and fixed the heel of his shoe.

"Ryuzaki Sakuno," She replied.

"What year are you in, Sakuno-san?" He asked friendlily.

"First year," She answered.

"Me too!" He pointed to himself enthusiastically, "I'm Nishimura Akihiko, nice to meet you. Let's be friends."

Sakuno bowed once again, "Nice to meet you, Nisihimura-san."

As she looked back up he was waving his hand back and forth, "Please, call me Akihiko." Smile. Dimples and all.

Oh my...

Utterly charmed, Sakuno had smiled back, "Okay, Akihiko-san."

He grinned at her, "I hope we're in the same classroom."

"Un," Sakuno agreed with a nod.

The two resumed their walk into the school together, discovered they were indeed assigned to the same classroom, changed to their school shoes and walked to their classroom together. All the while Akihiko had maintained a dialogue of questions, while also sharing facts about himself: He'd grown up in the area, he had two older brothers, he played baseball and was joining the team today, his favorite color was blue, his birthday was in November...

Sakuno was actually a little overwhelmed by how open he was with someone whom was practically a perfect stranger to him.

She found him to be...rather irresistible.

As a friend. Nothing more than a friend, adorable prince or not.

Again, Echizen Ryoma...it was burned into her heart.

Still, Nishimura Akihiko gave her hope. Hope that high school in her old prefecture wouldn't be so bad after all - and it wasn't.

They'd sat together towards the back of the class, and it had been the start of what Sakuno had thought was going to be a long lasting beautiful friendship.

Oh...if she'd only known.

And there was another choice.

She could have not made friends with Nishimura-san.

Yeah...right. Like she could have resisted being friends with him! That much at least, she could honestly say was just downright ridiculous. Who wouldn't be friends with the cutest, friendliest, smartest, and most popular guy in the whole school?

...right.

At least there was that.