Disclaimer: Still don't own Loveless. :[

Sorry for taking so long on this chapter! I've been a little busy with other things. But anyway, enjoy this one and be sure to review!

Morning Surprise

Chapter IV

Yuiko walked away from her friends calmly. She kept calm, but on the inside, she was going crazy. Her best friends – her only friends had both lost their ears. And on the same day. It wasn't that she was jealous. Well, not in Yayoi's case, but she was jealous of Soubi. She loved Ritsuka more than anything, and the fact that he'd gotten drunk and lost his ears to Soubi on his birthday was a bit too much for her to handle.

As soon as she turned the corner, she took off running for home. Ritsuka and Yayoi had watched her walk away, but didn't do anything to stop her. They both knew she should be alone right now. Then again, all three of them really needed to be alone right now to have time to think.

Yayoi's head was still hanging down. At least in Ritsuka's case, he loved Soubi. But with Yayoi, he didn't exactly know Kio very well. They'd seen each other a few times over the past couple years, but they couldn't even be considered friends. Just acquaintances.

"My mom's going to kill me when I go inside." Yayoi said, turning his head toward the front door.

"At least she won't literally kill you." Ritsuka replied. "I'll be lucky if I don't at least get put in the hospital."

They both wished each other good luck, then took off. Ritsuka walked as slow as he could. He'd already gotten badly injured from breaking his curfew before. Now, even though he was allowed to stay out later, he hadn't come home at all, and the fact that his ears were gone were going to make things a whole lot worse. The thought of wearing fake ones slipped through his mind several times, but his mother would eventually find out. And if she found out he was lying to her…well, he didn't want to think about that.

Half an hour later, he was standing in front of his house. He could see the light on in his mother's bedroom. If he was lucky, she'd locked herself up in there all night and hadn't even noticed he was gone. Unfortunately, he never had the best luck in these situations.

He slowly unlocked the door and opened it, looking around. His mother was sitting silently at the kitchen table.

"Hey, Mom…" he said, closing the door behind him.

The teen instinctively stayed as far away from the woman as he could without her noticing. The farther away from her he was, the better chance he had at running. As his mother stand there he wondered if she'd even noticed he was there, or that his ears were gone. But then he heard his mother begin muttering something.

"My Ritsuka…wouldn't do this…"

It was then he noticed the knife on the table. He stood there, frozen, for a moment, unsure of whether to run to the door or stay still. By the time he decided to run, Misaki was already coming at him with the knife.

"My Ritsuka wouldn't do this to me! He'd keep his ears and he'd stay home when he's supposed to!" she screamed. She lunged at him, aiming the knife at his arm, but he quickly moved out of the way.

'Mom! Don't!" he exclaimed as she tried to grab his arm.

His mother was totally out of it, though. She threw the knife towards Ritsuka, and he tried to dodge it. He moved just a second too late; the blade pierced his leg as he unsuccessfully tried to move out of the way. He screamed as he pulled it out of his lower leg and limped out of the way of his mother, who was now attempting to slap him to death.

"Give me my Ritsuka back!" she kept screaming.

As she neared him, she caught onto his neck, wrapping her fingers around it tightly. Ritsuka coughed as his lungs were cut off from air. He tried to pry her hands from his neck, but she only squeezed tighter.

"Mom! ….Let…go!"

His pleas only made it worse. Still yelling her head off, she punched him in the eye, causing him to scream as loudly as he could with her fingers still wrapped firmly around his neck. When his squirming around made it too hard for her to hold on, she threw him against the wall and let him fall to the ground. His arm briefly made contact with the knife, giving him a small cut near his elbow. He winced slightly, trying to regain his breath.

Misaki had apparently worn herself out, because as soon as he fell, she walked off to her room, though she was still screaming.

The smart thing to do would have been to get out of the house, but instead, Ritsuka limped up the stairs to his room, trying not to bump his leg against any of the steps. On the way to his room, he grabbed a towel from the bathroom and wrapped it around his wounded leg. It wasn't too deep; probably just a flesh wound, but it still hurt like hell.

When he got to his room, he let himself fall to the floor. He was too tired to get himself onto the bed.

His phone rang, but he ignored it. Soubi probably got worried when Ritsuka didn't call, so he called him. As much as he would have loved to see Soubi right now, he knew he couldn't let the man see him like this. Misaki had never hurt him this badly before, and Soubi would end up throwing a fit and drag him over to his house for good. Even though he did love that idea, it meant leaving his mom. She always hurt him, but he knew it wasn't her fault. She just went a little crazy after Seimei died. If he left….it would only get worse.

Several minutes later, he heard a knock on the window.

"Go away!" he groaned.

"Ritsuka, what's wrong? Let me in!"

It was Soubi, of course.

"Please, Soubi, just go away right now!"

He could feel the tears falling down his cheeks. The pain in his leg had worsened, his eye hurt, and he had bruises on his back and arms from being thrown against the wall. He just couldn't let Soubi see him like this.

The boy knew he didn't have much of a choice, though, when he remembered that the window wasn't locked.

"Ritsuka, I'm coming in!" Soubi yelled, opening up the window.

Ritsuka buried his face in his knees as Soubi came over to him. The older man knelt down beside him, pulling him into a tight hug. The boy instantly threw himself onto Soubi, sobbing into his chest. They just sat there for a few minutes; Soubi holding him while Ritsuka sobbed his heart out into the older man's chest.

"I thought I told you to call me if anything happened?" Soubi said, finally breaking the silence.

Ritsuka looked up at him. His eyes were red and puffy from crying. "You're not the one who's supposed to be giving orders…"

"Ritsuka, you know how much I worry about you when you go home. I just like to know if you're okay, or if you're hurt."

The boy turned his head away from Soubi.

"I-I'm sorry… I just didn't want you to see me all beaten up like this…" He hung his head, avoiding Soubi's gaze.

Soubi lifted his head and gave him a quick peck on the forehead before taking him back into his arms again. "As much as it hurts seeing you hurt like this, I still want to see you. That way I can help you if you're hurt."

Ritsuka stayed silent. He knew he needed to get away from his mother, or he'd end up dead, but he couldn't. After all, it wasn't her fault she was like this. She was just sick. If it was anyone's fault, it was his for replacing the real Ritsuka. But at the same time, he was still angry at her. Couldn't she just accept him like he was? Even the real Ritsuka would've started to change eventually. Then again, as long as he had Soubi's love, it was enough. It was enough to put up with whatever his mother did.

After a few minutes, he felt himself being lifted off the floor. He looked up at Soubi, who was walking towards the window.

"Soubi, what are you doing?"

"I'm taking you back to my apartment. You need your wounds treated better."

Ritsuka didn't object as he was carried out of his room and back to Soubi's apartment.

During the remainder of Winter Break, Ritsuka had spent as much time at Soubi's apartment as he could. He often snuck out of the house and snuck back in through the window, just to avoid any confrontations with his mother. Climbing in and out of the window every day was hard on him with the amount of bruises, cuts, scrapes, and other wounds he had, but if it was for Soubi, it was worth it. Of course on the days he stayed at his apartment rather late, Soubi would be forced to carry him home since the boy was much too sore to move.

By the time it was time to go back to school, his leg had fully healed and his bruises weren't as bad. Unfortunately, they were still bad enough that Yuiko kept fussing over the amount of bandages he had, which of course, made Yayoi jealous. What made it worse was that she kept bringing up the fact that Ritsuka and Yayoi had both lost their ears every time something came up even slightly related to that.

When he first showed up at school, everyone had immediately jumped to the conclusion that he'd done it with Yuiko. Of course when Yuiko showed up at school with her ears and tail firmly intact while Yayoi showed up without his ears and tail…everyone suspected Yayoi and Ritsuka had lost them to each other. If only they knew they'd both lost their ears to college students.

Ritsuka was sitting at his desk; Yuiko and Yayoi were standing around it. The teacher was going to be late because of something going on in the office, so everyone was free to talk for a while. Yuiko was yapping about how all she did was sit around during break since Yayoi was grounded and Ritsuka was always off with Soubi.

"It's not my fault I was grounded!" Yayoi protested. "Otherwise I would've done anything you wanted me to!"

Ritsuka looked up from the book he was reading. "I…would've gone out, but I wasn't exactly in the best shape to be walking around."

Yuiko and Yayoi stared at him. "Ewww…"

He blushed a bright red as realized how it sounded. "Nothing like that! Well…maybe a little… But you know how my mom is! She went crazy when she saw me without my ears!"

"Yeah, I'm sure Soubi had absolutely nothing to do with it!"

The three turned to see Asami standing there, looking bored, as usual, but she flashed a big smile when they'd fully turned around.

"Ritsuka-kun! I came to your house on the 22nd! Why weren't you there?!"

Ritsuka glared at her. "Why do you care? It's not like we're friends or anything."

Asami frowned. "Well, it makes it awfully hard to carry out orders when the person you're supposed to drag over to Ritsu-sensei is never there."

Yayoi and Yuiko looked confused as ever. Ritsuka had never told them anything about Fighters, Sacrifices, real names, or anything, so it was only natural that they had no idea what was going on.

Ritsuka, however, was confused as well, though not as confused as his friends were.

"What does he want with me?" he asked.

"To get your ass over to that school, of course!" she screamed. "You haven't had ANY proper training and just because Soubi's standing in as your Fighter doesn't mean he's your REAL Fighter. But if you'd just go over there, then maybe they'd actually FIND your Fighter!"

If it was possible, Yuiko and Yayoi looked even more confused than before. Ritsuka looked over at them and gave them a quick, 'I'll explain later.' look. He then turned back to Asami, who was fuming. He'd forgotten how irritable that girl was.

"How do you know all this stuff anyway?"

Asami sighed and pulled up the sleeve of her long-sleeved top, revealing a mark on her wrist. Ritsuka laughed slightly as he read the name.

"What's so funny?!" Asami yelled.

"The name Adorable doesn't exactly fit you all that well."

She glared at him. "How dare you! You're gay! It's not like you pay attention to girls' looks anyway, so how would you know?!"

"Oh, shut up already, will you? If you're such a homophobe, stay away from me."

Asami gave him a hurt look. "Me? A homophobe? Really, I spend most of my free time reading and watching any yaoi and shonen-ai I can get my hands on!"

She stopped as she realized how off-topic this was getting. In only a couple minutes, they'd gone from talking about him going to Ritsu for training…to what she did in her free time. Irritated, she grabbed the book from his hands and whacked him on the head with it.

"Hey, that hurt!"

"Well, it's your fault for making me get off topic! Just please, go to Ritsu-sensei for training!" She clasped her hands together against her chest and batted her eyelashes. "Pretty please?"

Not knowing what to do, Yuiko and Yayoi had only stood there watching the two squabble. Their friend was definitely going to have to explain things to them, because right now…they were totally lost.

Ritsuka shook his head. "I'm not leaving Soubi."

Asami immediately dropped her innocent pose. "Oh, come on! What's so great about him anyway? Sure, he's hot, but he's annoying! All he wants is to be ordered around and he's a freakin' masochist!"

The boy ignored her as she continued ranting. "I'm not going, okay? Just stop asking!"

She was about to protest when the teacher came in.

"Everyone, take your seats! I'm sorry I was late."

Asami glanced back at Ritsuka quickly. "I'll find someway to get you over there. I can't have Sensei mad at me."

"Rikoooo-chaaannnn!!!!!!!! It's not working!" Asami cried.

School was over for the day, and she was already walking home with her Fighter. Or rather, hanging onto her Fighter's arm and being dragged home.

"I told you it wouldn't work, didn't I?" Riko asked, trying to get Asami off of her arm.

"You haven't exactly helped me at all!" the younger girl protested. Her ears and tail were drooping.

Riko stopped and looked down at her. "'Course not! I don't have time for things like that!" she said cheerfully.

"Just because you're older doesn't mean you can blow off orders! Sensei will be angry if we don't succeed on this!"

Riko patted her Sacrifice on the back reassuringly. "Don't worry. I'm sure you can find someway to get us back on his good side."

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?!" Asami exclaimed as they continued their walk to her house.

The older girl ignored her. "What exactly did you say to him?"

"I just told him to go to the school for training." she replied.

"Well, next time I'll help you. I'll try and force him!"

"Ritsuka-kun! Tell us what all that was about this morning!" Yuiko begged, pulling on Ritsuka's sleeve.

Ritsuka shook his head. Yuiko and Yayoi leaned in close to his face, trying to give their best sad face they could. Ritsuka ignored it.

"Look, it's a long story, and you probably wouldn't understand." he said.

"We don't have homework. We've got plenty of time!" Yayoi protested.

"Please, Ritsuka-kun?!" Yuiko cried, clasping her hands together in front of her.

Ritsuka sighed. "Fine. Let's go to the park or something, though. I don't really feel like going anywhere near home right now."

o.o I couldn't think of a good way to end this chapter. I also think I may have gotten a bit OOC with some of the characters at some point in this chapter. Next chapter may take a bit longer since school's starting Monday (nnuuuu, school ;;), but I'll try and get it up as soon as possible.