title: quest
summary: Shishido starts a journey; one that the members of Hyoutei cannot follow.
pairing: Gen, Silver Pair
the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
~Lao Tzu
Ohtori is a little more upset about the news than the rest of them. Hiyoshi's arms are crossed against his chest, eyebrows furrowed, leaning against the doorway frame. Atobe's eyes are drilling themselves through Shishido, who is slumped in a bench across from them all and picking at the fabric of his tennis jersey, completely aware of the steam-rising atmosphere. Even Kabaji is looking a little bit pale, his normally composed facial expression looking a bit different than it usually does.
Shishido looks up at Atobe. The team captain doesn't react. "Well," Shishido begins. "You don't seem very upset about this, Atobe."
Ohtori feels his world tilt a little bit as he leans forward and fixes his gaze on Shishido. "You never mentioned any of this," he accuses, eyes wide and desperate. "Discussion is important, you know, Shishido-san. You can't just make these decisions without discussing them with us!"
Shishido nods and clears his throat. "I talked to Hiyoshi about this before deciding anything," he clarifies, and he looks over to where Hiyoshi stands. Hiyoshi stares back, gives a small nod of his head, and the corner of Shishido's lips lift in a half-smile.
Ohtori bites his lip. "Shishido-san," he begins to say, but Shishido interrupts him with his own explanation.
"Hiyoshi is surprisingly wise," Shishido says. He shakes his head almost pityingly. "And if I talked to you about this, Choutarou, you would have told me to stay, and that wouldn't have been what I wanted to hear, from you." Ohtori closes his mouth to continue gnawing on his lip; a silent gesture of surrender.
Oshitari frowns a little bit. "It's your own decision, Shishido. It's not like it's permanent or anything, right? It's a chance that you're willing to take, so you're going to take it." He leans back into his seat and rubs his temples with his thumbs; it feels as though they're merely talking about changing his hairstyle, and not an indefinite member of their team.
The door swings open. "Take what?" Gakuto steps into the room with his bag slung over his shoulder and an impatient tug at his voice. He stares at Oshitari, who smiles tiredly, a half-hearted smile hanging almost off his face, and drops his bag at his feet and shoves Oshitari over to the left, creating space for himself.
Ohtori, still eager to turn the situation around, explains: "Shishido-san says that he's been offered a chance to try and go off solo. The only person he's talked about it to was Hiyoshi and he claims that he's been thinking over it himself, too, but we're a team and teams need to discuss things before decisions are put through."
As Ohtori rambles on in his explanation of things, there's a sense of growing maturity hiding in his voice, the little bit of hesitance that tells them that maybe it's better for him to go, experience what he can. Shishido smiles a little bit when Ohtori trails off. They'd all been waiting for him to interject, but he's just sat there, listened, and nodded. Shishido knows when to be serious.
Atobe sits with his mouth set in a straight line. "Hiyoshi, what did you say when Shishido came to you about this?"
Hiyoshi is a little bit startled at being called upon, but he responds as he should and shrugs. "I told him to do it. It'll be a bit lonely, but we could do without one." And everyone realizes that he may or may not be lying through his teeth here; they've never had another member missing from their team, like Seigaku or Rikkaidai. They don't know how they would fare, but they are willing to take the chance. "This'll be a good opportunity," he says, lowering his head in embarrassment, as though he's never talked for this long before them.
Atobe's gaze rests on Shishido, flickers of concern flitting about. "You know what this means, right? For you to leave Hyoutei."
Shishido nods slowly. "I've been thinking about it for a long time," he admits. "You guys have nothing to worry about. Hyoutei is important to me. It always will be."
"Then why are you leaving?" Ohtori almost cringes at his own voice; it's too loud, too loud for this room; this conversation.
"I need to do this," Shishido says, and he smiles through his words. "It's not permanent. I swear it's not. I've talked to the school board and the principal and everything—I've got it covered. They'll let me back when it's time. I just need to do this, just for a little bit. Please." The last word he speaks rings with the impression that his voice is threatening to crack and the urgency. His head is lowered in a plea for their understanding.
Atobe's voice is soft, but everyone hears it, and there is a tinge of guilt, of hesitancy, of insecurity, of something that they could only identify as fear. Atobe could not be easily penetrated. "You're really going to come back, right?"
Shishido nods, his head still lowered.
Ohtori doesn't understand. He doesn't think he ever will, or ever want to, and Shishido hasn't told them anything, but…
"Okay," Ohtori agrees, and Shishido's head shoots up, his eyes daring Ohtori to say it once more. "Okay," he says again, and he can see Shishido's grateful smile breaking through.
A moment of silence passes before Oshitari sighs and digs an elbow into Gakuto's side. Gakuto's laughter, followed by the small annoyance tantrum pierces the heavy atmosphere, shattering whatever bits of tension are left hanging in the air.
The next day of practice with Shishido is their last—until he comes back, of course. The other club members wrap themselves in their shock at the sudden announcement, but Shishido laughs and smiles normally as though nothing has changed, as though he knows that nothing will change, and his attitude keeps their spirits up, through the sadness and regret of the situation.
Ohtori watches as Shishido helps the freshmen pick up the tennis balls, take down the nets, can sense the 'goodbye for now' feeling in the air. When he finishes, Ohtori meets him in the change room and Shishido grins. "Choutarou, are you done for the day?"
Choutarou flashes a small smile of his own and waits for him as Shishido gathers his items. He studies his profile—the curve of his neck, the calm determination in his eyes.
He feels awkward, suddenly. He wants to know, wants to ask why he wants to take a break from them, wants to know what it'll mean for the rest of them. Because they are eight people and there is a lot to be considered when they are suddenly seven making up for the eight they would once have to become.
Tell him to keep in touch, something whispers inside of him. Tell him to call regularly, whenever. Tell him that he's allowed to come visit whenever, too.
Shishido reaches up to pat him on the shoulder, the touch heavy and light at the same time. "I'll be back before you know it, Choutarou. It'll be like… a quest."
A quest. Ohtori likes the sound of it, and it rings well in his ears when the two of them stop at the regular intersect. Shishido waves his goodbye, and Ohtori can hear the distant pok-pok of a tennis ball in the distance. He looks around, but sees no court, and watches Shishido's back become smaller with each step he takes.
The courts, even with over two hundred people in the club, seems a bit colder, a bit emptier, when the new week starts. It's a strange feeling, because just knowing there's one person missing from the room makes the absence hit them all harder.
Ohtori looks around and sees Shishido everywhere—wants to see him everywhere, in that small space, smashing tennis balls one at a time, until the sweat slides under his collar and he pauses, only to swat his hat around and put it back on with a newly refurnished sense of determination. There is a set of weights in that it corner, the ones that Shishido used to wear and train himself with, and with it, the sense of loneliness. There's a faded mark on the ground nearby, and Ohtori recognizes it as the spot where Shishido used to scuffle his feet around, until the spot there was a dark, rough surface where the patterns on his shoes created art.
"Good afternoon," Ohtori says when he returns to the change room and takes a seat on the bench. Jirou rolls his eyes to the left and makes a noise at him before closing his eyes again in his usual nap. Gakuto turns towards him, mouth full of something probably edible but no longer identifiable, and makes a slightly annoyed sound at the back of his throat. Kabaji spares him a glance. Hiyoshi peeks at him over his tennis magazine, rustling his pages as he nods.
The room falls back into silence.
Things really haven't changed. Everything is in its proper place, and everyone is doing what they usually do before practice starts.
Well, maybe Ohtori can get used to it, for the time being. Maybe Hiyoshi was right; his intuition was never to be doubted, after all. It's—
"It's a little lonely in here, isn't it?"
Ohtori looks up and sees the strained smile on Oshitari's face. It's heartbreaking and yet inspirational at the same time.
Gakuto gulps whatever food he'd been eating before and scoffs. "We've been done in by that asshole. Now he's got us all feeling bad." He stretches noisily and makes a noise of feigned discontent. "I bet that was his stupid little plan to begin with."
"That's right." Atobe joins in, his fingers against his temple. "The idiot played a dumb little joke on us." He chuckles, a little bit self-concious, because he knows as well as the rest of them that it isn't the truth. They all join in anyway.
None of them notice the picture Hiyoshi takes with his cell phone, imprinting the memory, and sends it off, attaching a little message to it;
See, we're doing fine.
A few minutes later, Hiyoshi's phone rings; a tinkling noise that comes out of the speakers. Before Atobe has a chance to yell at him for disrupting them all, Hiyoshi beckons all the regulars closer and shows them the message;
You little bastards—don't get too happy with my absence, you hear?
Practice resumes, but there is a different chill in the air, and Ohtori scratches the surface of the court with his sneaker before allowing a settled smile to relax on his features.
to be continued.
A/N: ...er. Hi. I'm doing a kind-of-not-really Hyoutei!multichapter fic. :'D I've been kind of working on this for a while, actually - couldn't really write it though 'cause inspiration doesn't like me (totally not 'cause I'm lazy, nope), but this part was able to come out without any big problems. I kind of utterly fail at multichapter fics so concrit would be very very nice. n_n
Thank you for reading~ :D