"You come visit me, Ryou," his uncle said over the phone. "It would cheer you up. Boston is beautiful this time of year, and you need a change of scenery."

"I... I'll think about it, Uncle Rinji," Shishido said, leaning against the wall.

"It'd be good for you."

Shishido laughed, "Everyone says that!"

"I'm serious, Ryou. If you stay there, you'll run into him and you two will just have another chance to hurt again. I heard you started smiling and laughing again a few days ago. I'd hate for that to smile and laugh to vanish again. America is different and far enough away."

"You already bought the tickets, didn't you?" Shishido accused.

"Of course," Rinji said with a laugh. "Now, go pack. You leave in two days."

"All right," Shishido said with a tired sigh. "I'll see you in a few days then."

~

When Shishido had first gotten off the plane, it was raining. A hard pelting rain that sounded too loud in the metal hallway that lead into Logan. He could thunder off in the distance and found he really couldn't care that much about the impending storm. In fact, he looked forward to it.

He met his uncle at the baggage carousel and they loaded his bags into his uncle's car. He was quite for the entire car ride, content to merely look out the window and watch the rain pelt the people on the streets of Boston.

"Ryou?" Rinji asked, pulling Shishido from his thoughts. "We're here. You can leave your bags in the car, someone will be down to pick them up later. I think, though, you should eat something and then get some sleep to get adjusted to the time difference."

Shishido nodded and hugged his uncle. "Thank you, old man. I really did need to get out of Japan. Too many memories at too soon a time."

Rinji smiled and patted Shishido's hair. "Go get some rest. Tomorrow is a new day and you can go play around the city."

Shishido cracked a small grin and nodded, finding that even though it was the middle of the afternoon in Tokyo, he was exhausted. Maybe the emotional turmoil was draining his energy; his mother was always saying that emotions were tied into energy. Peeling off his shirt and not caring about sleeping in a pair of cargo shorts, he flopped down on the bed and fell fast asleep.

~

Boston was exactly as he had remembered it. During the summers, Shishido and his family had spent a few weeks here, visiting his uncle and bumming around the city. He hadn't been here in a while, but not a lot had changed.

Taking some money out of his wallet, he bought tokens for the T and made his way to the Green Line. He was tired, but not too tired to look around Quincy Market and have lunch in the area. Of course, one of his first priorities was to find a coffee house and buy the strongest espresso drink they had available. Time zones changes and insomnia never really mixed well.

As he was walking down the street, he felt more than saw someone following him. Frowning, he glanced over his shoulder to see a slightly older man in a suit following him. In broad daylight on a crowded street, Shishido didn't worry. He stopped and waited for the man to catch up to him.

"Why are you following me?" Shishido demanded in near perfect English.

"You have such an air about you, a natural beauty," the man said, sizing Shishido up. "You would make a perfect model." The man was possibly thirty-five, and very well dressed.

Shishido arched an eyebrow. "Pardon?"

The man produced a business card and handed it to him. "I'm an agent with It Modeling. We only select the best models, and may I say, you would be signed within seconds. If you go to school as well, I'm sure that our company can help out with all the costs."

Shishido cocked his head to the side, "You're scouting me."

"Of course. If you've never been scouted before, then people just don't know what they're missing. Might I ask where you're from? You barely have an accent!"

"Tokyo," Shishido said, smirking. "And I have been scouted before, I just turned them all down."

"I hope you won't turn me down," the older man smiled charmingly.

"Give me a reason not to," Shishido said, crossing his arms.

"We pay very well, obviously," the man said. "Our models are always treated like royalty, given whatever they want. Whether they take or drop an account is entirely up to them. We pay all fees for schooling, and have an extremely good health care plan. We do shows three times a year, and our models only work the accounts they want. You can sign contracts from anywhere from two to five years. We do magazines, TV ads, pretty much everything."

Shishido nodded and held up the man's card between his index and middle fingers. "I'll think it over and give you lot a call."

"Excellent."

~

"Uh, hello? Is a Mr. Jesse Brooks there?"

"What is your name, please?"

"Shi...Sorry, Ryou Shishido."

"One moment please, Mr. Shishido."

"Hello?"

"Ah, yes. Hello, this is Ryou Shishido. You gave me your card after stalking me near the Government Center?"

"Ah, the beauty! You did call!"

"I'm interested. What do you want me to do?"

"Can you come here in about, three hours?"

"Of course."

"Brilliant."

~

"You should call your friends at Hyotei," Rinji said when Shishido got off the phone with his parents. "To let them know that you're not coming back to Japan for a long time."

Shishido sighed and grabbed his phone. "I'm going to go for a walk."

"It's 8:30 at night!"

"Yes, which means it'll be 9:30 in the morning," Shishido smiled. "I'll be back in a few."

"It's going to rain!"

"I'll be fine, old man! Promise."

Rinji sighed and shooed him away. "Go. Be back before midnight?"

"Of course."

~

"You're not coming back?" Atobe asked, shocked.

"I need a bit of change in scenery," Shishido said, sitting on one of the swings in an abandoned park. "Get my head together. This whole thing with Choutarou...it's as much my fault as him. I need to pick it apart and see what went wrong where. If I were to come back... Gods, I don't even want to think about that."

"Are you going to call him yourself?"

"Yeah," Shishido said quietly. "I just thought you deserved a head's up since your singles 3 player is abandoning you."

"You will come back, right? Sometime?"

"Possibly," Shishido said, kicking the ground and watching the sand spray in an arc in the dark. "Probably."

"Good. Call him. He loves you," Atobe said, grudgingly. "He's been a mess since you left. Taki and Hiyoshi have been keeping an eye on him."

Shishido's heart wrenched itself at the thought of Ohtori in pain, but a small part of him approved. If Ohtori was in pain, then he must have realized what was happening.

"I'll call him now," Shishido said. "Bye, Keigo."

"Bye, Ryou. Don't forget to keep in touch."

Shishido had no answer, he merely hung up. Staring at his phone, he started swinging back and forth on the old swing. It creaked and groaned, but held his weight. Taking a deep breathe, Shishido punched in the number and let the phone ring.

On the third ring, someone picked up.

"Hello, Taki speaking."

Shishido winced, "Hi, Taki. It's Shishido. Is Ohtori there?"

"You're one hell of a son of a bitch, you know that?" Taki snapped, his anger obvious through the phone line. "How could you do that? Leaving him like that!"

"Taki—"

"I'm not the only one pissed off," Taki warned. "Oshitari and Gakuto are furious with you as well, and Jiroh wants to know what's going on inside that fluffy little head of yours. When you come back—"

"I'm not coming back, you ass!" Shishido snarled. "Put Choutarou on the goddamn phone now and stop interfering with affairs that do no concern you!"

There was complete silence until the phone changed hands.

"Ryou?" Ohtori asked, a quiver in his voice.

"Hey, love," Shishido said, smiling sadly as he swung a little bit, feet on the ground.

"Oh, god, it is you!" Ohtori said, thankfully. "Ryou, I'm so sorry! I can't say how sorry I am! I promise it won't happen again! It'll be better, just, please... come home?"

Shishido closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm not coming home, Choutarou," he said, letting the breath out. "I'm not coming back to Japan."

"...what?"

"I've been offered a job and scholarship to any school I wish," Shishido said slowly. "I've talked to my parents and uncle, and they all agree it'd be stupid to turn this offer down."

"But, what about...us? About the tennis team, Hyotei...? Doesn't that mean anything?"

"It means...meant a lot to me," Shishido said. "But...what's been happening in this past year had just made me realize that I need to reevaluate things. We weren't working out. We made each other miserable. We rushed into it too early, too fast, and it shows, on both our parts."

"You're leaving because of me?"

"No!" Shishido shouted, hearing thunder in the distance. Rain started to patter down around him. "Goddammit, Choutarou, I love you! May all the gods in existence help me, I love you. But it can't continue! I left, and you need to move on. I need to do this for me, and dammit, you need to wake up to! Are you just going to go to University at Hyotei? Your real talent is music, Choutarou. Use it. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

"Ryou..."

"I love you. And I will see you again," Shishido said, voice choked, "but not now. Probably not for a while."

"Ryou, please!" Ohtori said. Shishido knew he was crying, could hear it in his voice, could see it in his mind's eye.

"I love you, and I'm sorry."

As the rain poured down around the playground, Shishido hung up the phone and tilted his head back. He wasn't crying. He wasn't. It was just the rain that flowed down his face and stung his eyes.

Just the rain.

The End

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