{These characters are not property of me, except for that of Ryuuji. I wouldn`t try to claim them as my own. This story may not be used without my permission, and may not be used to make money in any way, shape or form. Characters and certain situations were created by Rumiko Takahashi, so don't try any funny stuff!}

Mercy

by Lara Bartram

"Ryuuji... honey. It's your father..."

Ryuuji looked at his mother, horror washing over his face. "What about him?" This was bad, but it couldn't be that bad, could it?

"He's... he's dead." His mother burst into tears, covering her face with her hands.

Ryuuji could only sit and stare. His father dead? No, it was a lie. He couldn't be dead. It was just a mean joke by his mother. She liked to joke, though this was going too far.

She walked over and sat down beside him. She leaned on his shoulder and her crying intensified. She put her arms around him, squeezing him tightly.

Ryuuji was paralyzed. He mechanically put one arm around his mother, but could only sit with disbelief on his face. His father... dead. Unthinkable... until now.

***

All his friends were suitably sorry. None of them had ever lost a parent and did their best to cheer him up. But being 16 and without a father, Ryuuji refused to be cheered up. His teachers went easier on him since he was so devastated but they couldn't give him forever. That's just not how things were done.

He sleptwalk through each day, unable to find humor in anything. His friends began leaving him out of their plans, he just wasn't any fun to be around. Sometimes they took pity on him and invited him to a movie or out to eat, but those invitations were becoming fewer and farther between.

He was sitting at his desk after school had ended, his face in his hands. Every day was a struggle, it was all too much for him. Home was a difficult place to be, he kept waiting for his father to show up. And when he didn't, Ryuuji would want to go into his room and cry.

There was a hand on his shoulder that made him look up. One of the girls from his friends class was standing there, looking at him. Her birthday being so late in the year, she was a year older than he was. Ryuuji's friend had also told him stories about her less than sterling reputation.

"What do you want?" Ryuuji couldn't hide the bitterness and disappointment in his voice. The whole world was so unfair.

"I just wanted to see if you were OK." She smiled at him.

Too bad it didn't make him feel any better. "Yeah, well my Dad's dead and my life is shit. I'm not OK." His words were mean, but his eyes held only sadness.

"Oh." She looked at him, sizing him up. He wasn't bad looking. In fact, in a couple years he could be considered handsome. She decided he would be a nice mercy lay. She liked breaking in virgins anyway.

She sat on his desk and crossed her legs. "I bet I could cheer you up if you gave me the chance." She smiled at him. A sweet smile guaranteed to put him off guard.

"I don't think so," he answered, keeping his eyes on her.

"Oh, I bet I could. Just give me a chance." Her voice was quiet, silken.

"What? I don't believe this. You're going to..."

"Why don't we go back to your house? We could have a little fun." She put her hand over his and slid off his desk.

Ryuuji got a glimpse of the rather racy underwear she was wearing when her dress got hiked up on the desktop. His eyes widened a moment as she pulled him from his desk and out of the classroom.

The walk back to his house was interesting. She had put her arm around him and rubbed his back. A few times, her hand had dropped to his butt and squeezed before returning to his back. Ryuuji was confused though. He didn't really like the girl but he couldn't control his erection either.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. He could see how she was more physically mature than the other girls in his class. Her top was a little tighter, her breasts more pronounced. And her dress hugged her figure a bit more.

She turned to look at him, a playful smile on her lips. She spotted him looking at her and licked her lips. He seemed reluctant, but a little encouragement would probably get him humming like a wasps nest. She watched him raise his eyebrows and smiled.

The house was empty, so achingly empty. Ryuuji almost broke down then but managed to keep his composure in front of the girl. He realized he didn't even know her name. "Hey, what's your..."

"So where's your room?" She cut him off.

"Um, it's upstairs." She was still holding his hand and began pulling him to the stairs.

"I hope you have a big futon. It's more fun when there's more room." They were walking up the stairs.

"Uh, I guess." The family had enough money to get him a king- sized bed if he wanted. His futon would have been considered huge by normal standards.

"Oh, good. Is this it?" She was standing in front of a door, her hand ready to open it.

"No. That's my par... my moms room." He gestured down the hall. "Mine's down there."

She immediately pulled him down the hall and opened the first door she came to. It was his room, though in complete shambles.

"The 'grunge' thing. I could get used to it..." She eyed his unmade futon before forcing him to sit on it. She had succeeded. He was unresisting. She started to remove the two straps to her dress.

"Hey! What are you..."

She smiled at him, her eyes sparkling mischievously. "Why did you think I followed you home? Not for your fabulous conversation. Just sit back and relax for a minute." She winked at him.

She pulled down the straps of her school uniform, then pushed it down so only her shirt was covering her. With the dress out of the way, Ryuuji could see the black bra underneath the white shirt.

The girl pulled the shirt out of the dress and began unbuttoning it from the bottom up. Ryuuji could only stare as her skin came into view. First her stomach, firm and flat, as she pulled her shirt open. Then her bra, all black lace and leaving nothing to the imagination. She undid the final button and let the shirt slide off her arms.

She hooked her thumbs into the dress around her waist and pushed it down, past her hips, where it fell easily to the floor. She put her hands on her hips and turned slightly. "Like what you see?"

Ryuuji was speechless. There was a nearly naked girl in his room and it looked like she was going to strip all the way. He stared, first at her breasts, getting teasing glimpses of her dark nipples, then at her satin panties. They had lace accents around the edges and in the front giving him a pretty good look at the hair covering her sex.

"I'll take that as a yes." She stepped up to him and pushed him into a reclining position on the futon. She straddled his body, keeping on her knees and removed her bra. She cupped each breast and lifted them, rubbing her nipples with her thumbs. "Wouldn't you like to touch one of these?" Teasing virgins was so much fun.

Ryuuji was still paralyzed. He couldn't even make a sound.

"Still frozen, eh? I think we can change that." She got off his body and stood briefly while she removed her panties. Then her hands fell to Ryuuji's fly, undoing his pants with ease and precision. Instead of pulling off his pants though, she began removing his shirt.

She hovered over him, removing each button from it's hole, touching his bare skin as often as she could. She got to the last button at his neck and took it between her teeth. Pulling, she bit the button off and spat it out then ran her tongue over the hollow of his throat.

She kissed her way up his throat to his chin, then to his mouth. He was still unresponsive so she kissed his lips, trying to get him to kiss back. She worked her hand down into his underwear and grabbed his shaft.

She broke the kiss. "My, aren't we hard?" She smiled and resumed her kiss. Slowly she moved her hand up and down his manhood, feeling it swell and enlarge further.

Her hand on his cock, her tongue in his mouth... it was too much for him. He grabbed her arms and sucked her mouth aggressively. She pushed away from him, removing her hand from his underwear and pulled at his pants. Lifting his butt from the futon, Ryuuji allowed the girl to take off his pants and briefs. Then he sat up and removed his shirt the rest of the way.

Ryuuji grabbed the girl again and pushed her onto her back while he sat over her. He stared at her breasts but didn't touch them. He put his hands on either side of her and began to thrust his hips, trying to find her opening.

"Ow. Don't you know what you're doing with that thing?" The girl had an irritated look on her face as Ryuuji repeatedly missed. "Here, let me do it." She reached down and took a hold of him, guiding it to her entryway. "Now do it."

Ryuuji obeyed and rammed himself into the girl.

"Hey! Be more careful! Don't you know that fuckin' hurts?" She should have known better than to do a virgin on the spur of the moment.

Ryuuji only looked at her confused. How could it hurt? She wasn't a virgin. She should be used to it. He pulled back and thrust at her again, feeling himself at a bad angle but not caring.

"I said that hurts! What're you, stupid? You're not doing it right! Get the fuck off me." She tried to push him but he had his feet on the floor, bracing himself.

He pulled back and thrust again, bringing another complaint from the girl. "Goddammit! You stupid prick, stop!"

Ryuuji was beyond caring though, and continued. The girl soon stopped complaining when she saw that he wasn't going to stop and only let out grunts of displeasure.

She heard the door open downstairs and the footsteps come up the stairs. "Hey, someone's coming. Get off me." She shoved at Ryuuji. "Get off me..."

"Ryu..."

Ryuuji's head whipped around and he saw his mother standing in the open doorway, staring at him, at his nakedness. "Mo.. mom." He pulled away from the girl and covered himself with a corner of the blanket.

"What the hell is going on here?"

The girl sat up from the bed. She collected her clothes, slipped on her shirt and dress. "Lady, you know you have one fucked up son," she said, then left.

"Mom.. I... She..."

She looked at her son, her eyes narrow. "Why were you with that slut?"

"She.. It was her idea. I didn't..."

"But obviously you did. Well that's just fine. You can just do whatever the hell you please. And if you want go around fucking whores, then go ahead. Just don't come to me when you have to support your whore and five other guys kids." She walked away from his room.

Ryuuji heard the door open to her room, then close.

TWO MONTHS LATER...

The girl had, thankfully, not mentioned what had happened to anyone. Ryuuji was happy for that, but his life was never quite the same as before. He had accepted the death of his father finally, but his personality had changed. He was a much more private person. He abandoned many of his friends, only keeping with a few close ones. And even then, he only talked to them at school; he never did anything outside of school with them.

It was quite unfortunate because his 17th birthday was coming in two weeks. He walked home alone, as he always did. He didn't want to be a whiner, but his life had turned to complete crap. It had started with the death of his father, escalated with being caught with that girl, and sent him spiraling into depression.

His schoolwork didn't suffer, but he didn't feel he had anyone to turn to. No one knew how much he hurt. He walked in the house, dropping his bag on the floor by the door, kicked off his shoes and went to his room. That was where he spent most of his time, shut in his room, away from everything.

He flopped on his futon and turned on the radio. He listened to the radio and stared blankly up at the ceiling until late at night. When he heard his mother come home, he switched off the radio and crawled under his blanket, not bothering to remove his clothes.

Only when he heard the door to her room close did he undress. Never again did he want her to see him in any state of nudity. Even wearing a tank top around her made him uncomfortable. He pulled the blanket around himself tightly and drifted off to sleep.

He opened his eyes sometime later that night when his door opened. He couldn't see anything in the darkness, but he felt it when someone slipped into bed next to him. "Hey, who's..."

"Sshh. Just go back to sleep, Ryu-chan."

His mother. He felt her come up behind him and put her arms around him. She held him tightly, holding her body against his. He could feel the sheer nightgown she was wearing on his bare back. He held perfectly still, trying not to breathe too deeply. He couldn't find sleep the rest of the night, or for several nights after that.