Bring him back

chapter 11

The days have passed and while majority of the Raimon members didn't make much progress with the ghost boy, Kariya has advanced majorly and Tenma himself has also been quite glued to the defender, some of the teammates would even consider him being 'awfully sticky'.

Hikaru has told them days before his house address, recommending them to go there on weekends, in hopes for them to get closer to the unwilling ghost boy. Aoi and Shinsuke were the main ones that have tried this method, at first, it seemed like it wasn't working at all, but eventually their persistence paid off, partially. On the last Sunday, Shinsuke and Aoi sat beside Tenma, even though they were fully expecting for him to either move away or float back to Hikaru and surprisingly, he didn't. He just stayed there, quiet while looking down at his swinging feet, at first, the manager and the goalkeeper weren't sure if he didn't go away because of his own will or because he got tired of having to change spots so frequently, but after a while, the ghost boy said something that struck them like a lightning of hope

"Hard work and persistence really do pay off..." After that he didn't say anything else, in fact, no more words were needed to be said for Aoi and Shinsuke to understand.

The two of them obviously told the team their small little progress, although it wasn't anything major, it was at least better than nothing. On the other hand, a certain teal headed defender was getting a little jealous seeing that more people were beginning to get closer and closer to his dear Tenma.

~'0'~

On Saturday

Hikaru and Tenma were watching TV in the living room, so far it was a pretty mellow day, no visits from others, it's just been the two of them in the house. Although, at around 1pm, the doorbell rang and both of them would've easily assumed that it was either Kariya or Aoi or Shinsuke, but yesterday all three of them said that they all had plans for today, so this time around they were wondering who it was

"Coming!" Said Hikaru as he went and opened the door "Tsurugi!?"

At the mention of the ace striker's name somehow caught Tenma's attention even more so than before, he leaned towards his left and sure enough, there he saw his ex-bestfriend standing in front of the shorter first year

"What are you doing here?" Tsurugi's eyes looked towards his empty right hand side before responding Hikaru's question

"I came to ask Tenma a favor-" At first, Tenma was disgusted by the thought of Tsurugi having the guts for asking him to help with whatever he wanted him to help with, but then, his anger suddenly died down almost completely "-for my brother."

'Yuuchi-san...' Tenma's been so riled up with his teammates trying to regain his forgiveness, to the point where he has forgotten about the people that are outside of the team.

Hikaru invited the other in, seeing his change of expression to grim. Unlike the time with Kariya, Tsurugi didn't stay quiet, he just went straight to the point, avoiding to sugarcoat anything

"I know you hate me Tenma and I understand that, but please, you gotta help my brother, he's innocent!" At this point, Tenma didn't know if he should be surprised or worried. As far as he knows, Tsurugi has never begged, just like Kariya, he rarely even shows a variety of emotions like he's showing now. But at the same time, he was worried for Yuuichi, whatever the problem was, it was definitely bad enough for Tsurugi to be begging on his knees. He didn't hold any grudge against Yuuchi, after all, he was one of the few people he cared about that never met Shiro, therefore there was no reason to hate him, he also remembers the good times he had spent with him, in his eyes, Yuuchi was pretty much like a brother he never had

"First of all, what's the problem." After debating between talking or gesturing, he thought that the best way to cope with this situation is talking, though it didn't mean that he forgave the ace striker even the slightest bit and the said player himself, saw that in his empty yet serious orbs. The navy haired player straightened up his posture and began explaining

"Ever since nii-san found out about your death, it has caused a massive impact on him and even more when I confessed to him about my actions towards you. He isolated himself in his room, he refused to eat or talk to me, no matter how many times I pleaded him." Tenma felt guilty about it, after all, he was the main reason why this was happening

"But how am I supposed to help? It's not like he can see me."

Tsurugi wiped away a few droplets that were coming out of his piercing eyes and said

"Yesterday I asked coach Endou to contact the aliens with his bracelet and they told me that if a ghost willingly hugs another person, that person will automatically be able to see and feel the ghost for 24 hours." Tenma and Hikaru were both shocked by this discovery. This obviously, has solved the issue of how Tenma could help Yuuichi, but then there's his internal debate of wether he should help or not.

In the end, he decided to lend a hand to help Yuuichi, Tsurugi thanked him from the bottom of his heart, although, the ghost boy himself made it very clear that he was only doing this for Yuuichi, since he was one of the few people that didn't intervine on making things worse during his hardships.

~'0'~

The two humans were walking towards the two brothers apartment while the ghost boy was floating above everyone else. When they arrived, Hikaru was baffled at how beautiful and modern the apartment looked, it wasn't over the top big, but it wasn't tiny either, Tenma on the other hand, was already used to seeing the modernity of the apartment from all the times he had come over to hangout, but after a few seconds of quiet, they could visibly hear muffled sobs coming from a room that had its door closed. They went up to the room and Tsurugi knocked on the door

"Nii-san, please... Open the door..."

"Go away..." Yuuichi's voice sounded very muffled, almost inaudible, and Tenma knew that this is where he had to step in.

~'0'~

'Kay... This was interesting...

I was having a hard time with thinking how to include like more people to this story, to kind of like build it up and... This is what I came up with...

... Little weird, if I do say so myself