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

Chapter 25

Reichi's weekend went by uneventfully, Ryoma and him went on a walk on Saturday that turned into a jog before playing tennis together for a bit. Sunday was a relaxing day for the twins, Reichi spent his morning reading and listening to music. Letting his muscles relax and destress as he got mentally prepared for the ranking matches that would start on Monday after school. During the weekend he got the occasional text from his friends that he responded to, thumbs moving quickly across the keyboard to reply to Yanagi and Seiichi on Sunday afternoon in the group chat. A lot of them liked talking in the group chat, but some conversations were a bit too private to have there so they each had their own private chats with everyone. Much like the conversation he was switching between with Seiichi and the group chat- several people were active in the group chat, watching on as Yanagi shared some new data he collected about people. But then Reichi stopped responding to the group chat, so Yagyuu took up the conversation with Yanagi instead.

Reichi was curled up under a fleece blanket, book long forgotten about as he texted Seiichi. Seiichi had a heart of gold and a smile like a sun, blinding and warm and cherishable and so important. Their conversation from Friday returned between the two as Reichi talked about his recent distress about his sexuality. How he doesn't really feel attached to girls and he doesn't exactly want to date them. And Seiichi soothed him through this journey, much like how Reichi had done for him just the other year over the phone, telling him it was okay and encouraging him to not find a label yet but to take his time.

And only once during the drawn-out conversation did Seiichi falter. 'What if I'm gay, Seiichi?' Simple words were forming a simple sentence on his screen from Reichi. But those simple words, that formed that simple sentence made his heart flutter with hope. Hope that he had thought- prayed- had fizzled out back in middle school. He had thought they had gone away- those unmistakable feelings toward Reichi- he hoped they had. Hoped they had disappeared over time, and god they were coming up again at the worse time possible. He was trying to help his friend, his best friend, figure himself out, this shouldn't bring the hope that maybe- maybe they could be more than friends. So he shoved those thoughts away and continue helping Reichi through his minor crisis.

Reichi did calm down, taking slow breaths as he relaxed and moved up to his bedroom instead, to have privacy and alone time, away from his family- even if they were being quiet today, he could feel the energy in the house. Ryoma was likely about to yell at their father to challenge him. And really he'd prefer to be in his room, away from peering eyes,s and just sink into his bed with Karupin. Conversation fizzling out and into something more light-hearted, Seiichi asking how his cactus has been in the group chat rather than private chat. Reichi quickly sent picture updates, it had grown a bit and the flower had bloomed nicely.

'I actually named it too' His fingers moved across his screen easily, sending the message and watching the little 'Read' pop up in place of 'delivered'. Akaya was the first to respond.

'Are you going to tell us the name?' Reichi grinned a tiny bit, responding after Nio and Jackal also asked to know the name.

'Reichi tell us the name, please??'

'can we know the name?'

'no' Was all he responded, followed by a single red heart emoji before leaving the chat, returning to his book as he took steadying breaths. Slowly getting out of bed after another half hour and leaving his room. He headed across the hall to Ryoma's room, hand raising to knock before he exhaled slowly and rapped his knuckles on the wood three times.

"Yeah?" He heard from inside, Reichi opened the door and stepped in, head swiveling around to find his brother, who was laying on his bed on his phone. Thankfully not in a call, but rather just playing a game. "Surprised you haven't asked... Dad to a game yet... Can we talk..?" Ryoma pushed himself up so he was sitting, nodding and motioning for Reichi to take a seat. He bumped the door closed once he was fully into the room, sitting on the end of the bed and just breathing. Ryoma let him gather his thoughts, being patient and continuing his game while Reichi collected himself.