The Silence In The Dark (Prince of Tennis) ||REWRITE||

Chapter 22

Reichi felt as if he had done something wrong, horrible; a burning feeling of guilt clenching deep into his gut, even as he idly texted a group chat with all his teammates. (O̶l̶d̶ t̶e̶a̶m̶m̶a̶t̶e̶s̶, n̶o̶ l̶o̶n̶g̶e̶r̶ h̶i̶s̶ t̶e̶a̶m̶m̶a̶t̶e̶s̶. H̶e̶ w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶n̶'t̶ b̶e̶ p̶l̶a̶y̶i̶n̶g̶ w̶i̶t̶h̶ t̶h̶e̶m̶ f̶o̶r̶ s̶o̶m̶e̶ t̶i̶m̶e̶ n̶o̶w̶. H̶e̶ l̶i̶k̶e̶l̶y̶ w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶n̶'t̶ s̶e̶e̶ t̶h̶e̶m̶ a̶n̶y̶t̶i̶m̶e̶ s̶o̶o̶n̶ e̶i̶t̶h̶e̶r̶.) Yanagi was telling them all about how he and Inui had been talking recently and had come up with some new data. It was nice reading over the boy's messages with a light smile on his face. Slowly he rolled onto his stomach on his bed, kicking his legs as he read Seiichi's message about getting a new plant recently; he could feel his captain's (o̶l̶d̶ c̶a̶p̶t̶a̶i̶n̶) excitement about the plant. And that brought another light smile to his face. So right now, talking to his teammates over text as he lay on his new bed, hearing his parents and older twin brother arrange furniture downstairs, it wasn't the worst thing in the world. But everyone was slowly saying their goodnights, as it was far later in Japan. Being behind Japan by seven-teen hours was a little trippy. He looked at the time in the upper left corner of his phone, exhaling and doing some quick math to figure out the time over there. It was probably close to ten at night or so. He bid his friends goodnight before slowly getting up and plugging his phone in before joining his family downstairs to help organize furniture.

"Ah, Rei, done talking to your friends?" His mom, Rinko, asked gently, passing him with a small box of things for the living room, rubbing Reichi's head on her way by him as he nodded. "Y... Eah... They're... Uhm... Heading to bed now..." Rinko smiled gingerly as she nodded. "Good, could you go help your father in the kitchen? You know he doesn't know how I like my pots and pans organized." Rei smiled and nodded, setting the living room box on the couch before heading into the kitchen to help his father, smiling just a bit easier as he was surrounded by easy chatter and family. Still, a pit of guilt settled into his stomach; looking up and watching his dad put things away in the upper cabinets. His mouth opened and closed a few times before his dad looked at him.

"Yes, Reichi?" His dad's tone was a bit softer than expected, with no teasing, just gentle coercing, offering an ear for him to vent or get whatever is bothering him out. And Reichi took a slow breath in, then let it out before signing, not wanting to bother with speaking, knowing he'd end up with more voice cracks than usual with the pit of guilt in his stomach. 'I just feel bad, I miss them, and I don't want a new school or new teammates, I know I shouldn't feel this way, but I do, dad. I miss them.' His hands were slightly shaky, and he heard his dad walking toward him, carefully wrapping him into a hug. "I know you do, and I know you didn't want to leave, but thank you for compromising, and thank you for pushing through this for us. And I promise, when all of us are ready, we'll move back, and you can see them again. And who knows, maybe by then, you won't have a shaky voice, and maybe you'll be doing better when we move back than you are right now. And I understand missing your teammates, so thank you for doing this and pushing yourself this much; I know you were comfortable in Japan and got attached to your teammates and opened up to them a lot. So I know you are going far out of your comfort zone by complying and moving. So thank you, Rei..." His dad's tone was gentle and understanding, fingers running through his youngest son's hair.

Reichi's shoulders shook because this conversation shouldn't be this emotional, but it was; he missed them a lot. He misses his blue's comforting touch, gentle hair ruffles, and soft encouragement. How Seiichi would talk about plants to him and, in return, listen to him talk about his runs and jogs and how he had recently upped the weights on his ankles. He misses Grey's loud encouragement that doubled as judgment (he had a reputation to uphold, after all), Sanada's confusing looks during English, and his grumbled complaints under his breath about not understanding something. His harsh punishments that were usually given to the whole team if one of them messed up. He misses Brown's gentle words and caring nature, Jackal asking if he was okay and how his weekend was, how his vocal therapy was going if he had made any progress that week, and how his run had gone the previous day.