Hey, guys, I'm back with another Haikyuu story! I know I promised this a while back, but I didn't forget about it! It just took me a while to get it to the point where I was proud of it. That being said, if you have any constructive criticism for me, I'd love to hear it. I'm always looking to get better.

And of course, for everyone who doesn't know, this story is a sequel to my other Haikyuu story, Lunar Eclipse. If you don't rad that one first, you'll be a little confused going into this one. Just so you know :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Haikyuu or any of its characters. Also, this chapter in particular features a couple of characters playing a game of Scrabble. I don't own that, either.

So without further ado, please enjoy the story!

The Darkest Hour

Chapter One

The Karasuno Boys' Volleyball team sat in the emergency room of Miyagi General Hospital for what they desperately hoped would be the last time. Each player kept to himself, twiddling his thumbs, scrolling through his phone, and performing any number of other mindless tasks only to avoid interaction with those next to him. Although unspoken, there was one question that permeated the room.

Was he going to make it?

Each player was afraid of what the answer to that question would be, pondering their uncertain future in the leaden silence of the hospital. Relief would only come when they knew the outcome for sure.

Avoiding the obvious question, Ennoshita decided to ask a different one.

"Does anyone know when coach said he'd be back?"

The boys looked anxiously around the room. None of them knew. The hotheaded Coach Ukai had left the room several minutes ago to talk to a doctor, a nurse, a family member - someone - to hopefully figure out what was happening, but hadn't returned almost fifteen minutes later. Finally breaking the silence, Yamaguchi spoke, his voice quivering with the smallness of a child.

"Guys… w-what if… what if - "

"Don't," Daichi warned as he shot a hard glare at his teammate, "Just… don't."

As if on cue, the hallway door creaked open to reveal their infamous coach standing at its threshold. Every pair of eyes in the room fell to him, only to be met with stoicism in return. He crossed the room, sat down in the middle of the group, and sighed, looking nowhere. Every player in the room knew - they had their answer. It was the moment of truth.

"I'm sorry," he finally said, choking on his own voice, "He passed away… There was nothing they could do."

Every heart in the room fell to the floor, shattering into tiny pieces of fractured glass. One of their own, their teammate, had died. How could they possibly go to Nationals now?

~Several Days Earlier~

"Tsukki, you can't use English! That's cheating!"

Kei Tsukishima gave his best friend one of his patented mischievous smirks as he drew his replacement Romaji letter tiles from the cloth bag that sat on the bedside table between them. In an effort to get a better look at the board, he gently shifted in bed, careful to refrain from not only causing himself more pain, but also disturbing the attached IV line or heart monitor in the process. Failing to avoid the inevitable, he closed his eyes and groaned, but quickly turned his focus back to the game. Yamaguchi would rue the day he challenged Tsukishima to a game of Scrabble. He kept his fingers crossed for a few more consonants.

Tsukishima clicked his tongue as he drew his tiles and placed them in their tray. What am I supposed to do with three A's?

"There's nothing in the rules that says I can't use English," Tsukishima continued aloud, covering up his disappointment, "A word is a word." He watched as Yamaguchi laughed and returned Tsukishima's mischievous glare. Who ever said his best friend was a pushover?

As Tsukishima waited for Yamaguchi to make his next move, he let his mind wonder to his parents. What's taking them so long? He asked himself, side eyeing the door leading out of his room, I was supposed to be discharged over an hour ago.

If there was anything in the world Tsukishima wanted right now, it was to finally get out of the hospital. It had been almost a week and a half since the shooting, and the plain white walls and boring TV were seriously starting to overstay their welcome. It wasn't so much that there was never anything interesting on TV, but that it was the only means of entertainment in the room, and he was hurt far too badly to get up and find something else to do.

As was expected with the gunshot wound that put him in the hospital in the first place, Tsukishima was bedridden. He didn't mind the boredom at first. In fact, for his first few days awake after the surgery, doing anything other than lying completely motionless was agonizing - he just focused on willing away his pain. However, as time wore on and his body healed, Tsukishima found he needed less mental energy to keep his pain at bay, and with his decrease in suffering he found an increase in boredom. He was still mostly bedridden, but he could actually sit up and walk on his own, even if only for a few minutes at a time, and taking too deep of a breath no longer felt like his ribs were being torn out of his chest. The fact that he was no longer in that kind of agony was a welcome respite, but it only made the lack of sources of entertainment in the room that much more obvious. It made him extremely grateful when Yamaguchi started showing up every day with board games.

"Hah! Take that!"

Snapping out of his thoughts, Tsukishima looked down at the board and noticed a word he'd never seen before.

"Braun," he muttered, "What does that mean?" Yamaguchi continued to smirk.

"It's German for brown." Tsukishima knit his eyebrows together in frustration.

"Since when do you know German?"

"Since I looked it up just now while you were daydreaming."

"That is cheating."

Another thing his gaming sessions with Yamaguchi gave him, other than relief from boredom, was relief from his parents. Amaya and Yoshirou had become almost unbearable since his brother's death, each making his life miserable in different ways. Yoshirou had begun to close himself off. After his outburst of emotion at Akiteru's funeral, he seemed to be drained of any emotion at all, electing most days to do nothing but stare at his phone or lock himself away at the office, working hours of overtime for which the company would never pay him . Amaya, however, had gone in the other direction. She'd turned into the ultimate helicopter mom, fussing over every aspect of Tsukishima's recovery, no matter how miniscule. She seemed to be constantly on the verge of crying, and burst into sobs at the slightest utterance of Akiteru's name. No matter what kind of conversation Tsukishima tried to start, he couldn't seem to get his parents to actually talk to each other. He wondered why he even tried in the first place.

It made it difficult for Tsukishima to deal with his own grief. He wasn't a touchy-feely person by nature, and the fact that his parents were too absorbed in their own grief to deal with anything else around them did nothing but put more pressure on him to navigate his problems on his own. Although he hated to admit it, Tsukishima was having a hard time handling the grief from his older brother's death, and not having his parents to confide in only made it that much worse. After a full day of not only managing his physical and emotional pain, but also playing referee between his parents, Yamaguchi's entrance into Tsukishima's hospital room was like a breath of fresh air.

Turning his attention back to the game, Tsukishima looked at his tiles and considered what kind of word he could make with mostly vowels. Just as he was about to throw away his turn with a smaller word, giving himself a few tile openings to hopefully draw some more useable letters, Yamaguchi turned the conversation in another direction.

"So… do you know when you'll be going back to school?" The question took Tsukishima off guard.

"Not really. I assume I'll have to be out of the wheelchair first. They probably don't want me tearing my stitches trying to carry my books from one room to the next."

"Yeah…"

Silence. A pensive look spread over Yamaguchi's face; his frown deepened and his eyes glassed over, far away.

"Hey, Tsukki?"

"Hmm?"

""Well… It's just that…" Yamaguchi glanced away from his best friend's gaze and a nervous pink flushed his cheeks. "You know how relieved we are that you're okay, right?"

Tsukishima's brows furrowed, his eyes sinking into their sockets, anger deepening the lines in his face. They'd had this conversation before. Yamaguchi had brought it up not long after Akiteru's funeral, and Tsukishima had reacted with more malice than he thought he had in him. The freckled server probably meant the question to be comforting, since he, the team, and Tsukishima's parents were relieved that he didn't share his brother's fate, and it was in honor of that relief that he tried to keep his cool.

"Yamaguchi, don't - " But Yamaguchi, overcome with emotion, got up from his chair.

"I'm serious, Tsukki! You can't just brush me off every time I bring this up."

Yamaguchi began to shake as tears tugged at the corners of his eyes. He gripped the railing of his best friend's hospital bed, his knuckles just as white as they had been the first day he saw the blocker awake.

"You're my best friend and you almost died. Do you even realize how lucky you are that things happened the way they did?"

Tsukishima's time with Yamaguchi was supposed to be a break from the tragedy that clung to him like a shadow. Every time he thought he could escape its grasp he felt the gruesome details of his recent tragedies close in on him, right there beside him every time he turned around. Why couldn't Yamaguchi just stop talking about his tragedy for one moment and let him be? He was stupid for believing that he could ever have a peaceful moment to himself.

"Lucky!?" he shouted, letting out the full force of his desperation, his heart monitor spiking with his anger, "I was shot! I can't play volleyball. I can't dress myself. I can't even walk without help! How in the hell is that lucky?"

The pinch server slammed his hands onto the table, knocking Scrabble pieces all over the bed and floor.

"Because you're alive!" It was at that point Yamaguchi broke down, tears pouring down his face as he struggled to breathe through his heartache. He fell to his knees as he sobbed, looking up at the painful rage of the first friend he had ever known. His voice quieted to almost a whisper. "You're alive. You're my best friend, and you're alive. Do you really think I care about anything else?"

Before Tsukishima had a chance to retort, the door to his room flung open, revealing a nurse and both his parents, worry etched into each of their faces.

"Kei, what happened? What's wrong?" Amaya asked, eyes wide and fearful.

The nurse rushed to Tsukishima's bedside and checked vitals and charts, quickly making sure he hadn't taken a sudden turn for the worse in their absence. Amaya and Yoshirou followed closely behind, eager to see what was the matter with their son. It didn't take either of them long to notice the overturned Scrabble board, pieces littering the bed and floor.

"He's fine." the nurse was saying beside them, "His heart monitor just spiked."

Amaya knew why. She watched as her son avoided her question, choosing to look down at the IV line in his wrist instead, picking at the tape for the umpteenth time that week. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Yamaguchi kneeling on the floor, slowly picking up the pieces of the upset board game, all the while avoiding her son's angry gaze. It was obvious. For the first time in a long time, Kei and Tadashi had a fight.

Amaya took the now vacated chair at Tsukishima's bedside and stroked his hair.

"How are you feeling, honey?" Her son stiffened underneath her touch, avoiding her gaze.

"Fine."

"At any rate," Yoshirou interjected, deadpan, "The paperwork for your discharge is done, so the nurse here is going to get you ready to go." Amaya held up a faded blue duffel bag, marked 'Anemaru Middle School VBC' on one side and 'Tsukishima #4' on the other in peeling white lettering.

"Here, I brought you a clean change of clothes," she continued, "I figured jeans would be too uncomfortable, so you have a pair of sweatpants in there, as well as pajama pants in case the elastic in the sweatpants is too tight near your incision. I packed a couple different T-shirts so you can pick what you like, as well as a fresh pair of underwear - "

"Thanks, mom." Tsukishima interrupted before his mother could say anything else to embarrass him. At first glance, he thought his mother had brought his old middle school volleyball bag, given the school's name emblazoned on the front. Upon taking a closer look, he noticed one small detail that his mother apparently had not.

Number four, he realized, I was number eight. That's not my bag - It's Akiteru's.

It made sense that his mother might confuse the two. Both he and his brother had been on the volleyball team in middle school, and the school had been using the same design for the Boys' Volleyball Club sports bags for years. Since the bags were marked by last name instead of first name, and the brothers were far enough apart in age that there was no need to distinguish between them on the same team, both bags were labeled 'Tsukishima.' The only difference between the two was the jersey number on the side pocket.

He doubted Amaya had noticed that she'd grabbed the wrong bag; any mention of Akiteru sent her into a wild fit of hysterics. In fact, he wondered if his mother even remembered which of them had worn which number. He looked up to see if his father had noticed, and sure enough, Yoshirou wasn't even looking in his direction, choosing instead to rifle through his phone.

Tsukishima suppressed a twinge of heartache at the happy memories the bag brought him. He thought of all Akiteru's games he'd gone to when he was little, back when his brother was still the ace and Tsukishima still didn't know the people he idolized weren't invincible. He missed the days when he could love his brother unconditionally, without the tragedy of his betrayal or his death coming along for the ride. Despite the influx of nostalgic emotion, he couldn't let Amaya know what was going through his head, or she'd catch on. His mother was emotional, but she wasn't stupid. So despite the tumult of grief that whirled around in his mind, Tsukishima kept his face blank and unreadable.

"If you'll give us a minute," the nurse began, "I'll get him changed and ready to go." The Tsukishimas turned to leave the room, and Yamaguchi, once he'd finished cleaning up the board game, followed suit.

Several minutes later, the group found themselves back near the ICU nurse's station talking with Tsukishima's attending physician, Dr. Fujimori. Tsukishima was fully dressed in a pair of green plaid pajama pants and a navy blue t-shirt, sitting in a wheelchair at his father's left. Amaya stood behind them, and Yamaguchi stood to Tsukishima's left, on the opposite side as Yoshirou. The IV line had been removed, a small patch of gauze taped to the blocker's left wrist the only remaining visible sign on Tsukishima's body that anything had been wrong with him at all.

"His outpatient physical therapy will be here on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9am. It will probably take him a couple more weeks until he can fully function on his own again, but as long as he keeps up with his therapy he should heal in no time. I also want you to bring him back to see me about a week from now so we can see about getting those stitches out. How does next Monday at 11am sound?"

Amaya and Yoshirou expressed their agreement with a couple polite affirmatives.

"Excellent. And last but not least," he said as he handed the couple a few small white sheets of paper, "Here are a few prescriptions for him for the next few weeks as well. There are some pain medications and antibiotics in there among other things. The pharmacy downstairs will give you instructions when filling them."

Amaya took the prescriptions and put them in her purse while Dr. Fujimori placed his hand on the arm of Tsukishima's wheelchair. Smiling, he looked up at Amaya and Yoshirou.

"Take care of him. He's a good kid." He glanced down at Tsukishima.

"And stay out of trouble!" he scolded with a wink and a smile. Tsukishima nodded politely, but gave no other reaction.

"If you have any questions about anything, feel free to call the hospital. They'll put you in touch with me and I can answer anything you need." The four of them expressed their thanks and watched as Dr. Fujimori walked away from them, returning to attend to his other hospital duties.

After the twenty minutes it took for Amaya and Yoshirou to get Tsukishima's prescriptions filled at the hospital pharmacy, the small family, with Yamaguchi in tow, finally found themselves at the front entrance to Miyagi General Hospital. Yamaguchi tentatively looked over at his best friend, who was still looking down at his lap, stubbornly avoiding his eyes.

He's really mad this time... Yamaguchi found himself thinking as he considered saying something to get Tsukki's attention. The last time he and Tsukki fought, it was over before Yamaguchi realized it had begun. Contrary to what most people thought, Tsukki had a hard time staying angry with people. Sure he liked to rile up their more rowdy teammates when he was annoyed with them, but Tsukki didn't hold grudges. Even when he had his falling out with Akiteru, he was more hurt than angry. Yamaguchi could tell from the look in Tsukki's eyes whenever he brought up Akiteru's name those first few months after the incident in middle school, Tsukki was avoiding his brother because he was afraid of getting hurt, not because he still held onto any sort of anger over what Akiteru had done.

That's why Tsukki's silence now scared him so much; his best friend was clearly still angry. Honestly, Yamaguchi thought, I wonder if Tsukki even knows what he's feeling right now. Between the trauma of the shooting and the grief over his brother's death, Yamaguchi wouldn't have been surprised if Tsukki just wanted to sort out his emotions before facing what happened to him.

Yamaguchi followed his train of thought as Yoshirou took his place at the front of the group, holding open the door so his wife could push their injured son outside. The businessman waved Yamaguchi through first, and Amaya and Tsukishima followed behind him, careful not to get the wheelchair stuck on the lip in the doorway. After the other three were outside, Yoshirou stepped out himself, letting the door slowly close behind him. Stiff, yet with the suavity of a gentleman, Yoshirou took the car keys from his pocket and held them up for the group to see.

"I'll bring the car around," he said as he slipped away in the direction of the family minivan, leaving Amaya alone with her son and his friend. Yamaguchi watched Tsukishima as he raised his hands from his lap and gripped the arm rests of the wheelchair. His face shifted from a forced calm to obvious tension as he attempted to push himself onto his feet. Startled, Yamaguchi and Amaya were at his side in an instant.

"Kei, honey, wait until your father gets here with the car. Don't strain yourself."

"Tsukki, it's okay, you don't have to get up yet - "

But Tsukishima wasn't in the mood to listen. Slowly, and with a great deal of effort, he took in his first breath of fresh air since the night he was shot and stood on his own. Yamaguchi couldn't explain why, but there was a certain air around Tsukishima that made the idea of his taking it easy seem foolish. A fierce determination that swallowed him whole.

Confident, Tsukishima took a step forward. Pain shot through his abdomen and into his chest, producing a painful cry. His knees buckled underneath him as Amaya and Yamaguchi rushed forward, each catching him underneath one arm to steady him and keep him on his feet.

"It's okay, baby. I've got you." Amaya whispered as she supported her share of her son's weight.

Yamaguchi watched his best friend struggle to do the most basic of tasks and realized that his friend's anger didn't matter. Tsukki is struggling, in more ways than one, Yamaguchi thought as he watched the pain spread over his friend's face. What he felt toward his best friend right now wasn't what mattered most. What matters, he continued, is that I am exactly where I am right now: At his side, ready to catch him if he falls.

And that's the first chapter. As I mentioned above, I'm always looking to get better, so if you have any constructive criticism for me, I'd love to hear it. Leave a review if you're so inclined, and stay tuned for next chapter. Thanks, guys!