Hello, all. Here's chapter nineteen. Enjoy.

Lunar Eclipse

Chapter Nineteen

Sugawara and Yamaguchi sat half asleep in the back seat of the car. The pair had waited in the lobby for their ride for twenty minutes as Sugawara called his mom to update her on the situation. She was concerned, having not heard from her Koushi in several hours, but she understood the circumstances and was relieved to hear that her son's teammate had pulled through. He decided not to tell her about Akiteru.

"So, yeah..." Sugawara said as he climbed into the car and buckled his seat belt, "Yamaguchi's mom's taking me home, so I should be back soon." However, before the two could say their goodbyes, Yamaguchi interrupted their conversation. Reaching over from his seat on the other side of the car, he tugged firmly on Sugawara's shirt sleeve.

"Hey, Suga," he whispered, "I know this is last minute, but... um... I'm really not okay right now. I figured... since my mom already said I could skip school today, can we hang out at your place for a bit? I'm sorry to ask, but... I just... after what happened, I really don't wanna be alone right now." Sugawara turned to look at his teammate, and offered an exhausted, yet sincere smile in reply.

"Uh, hey, mom...," he said, turning his attention back to his phone conversation, "I was thinking... I didn't really sleep last night, and after everything that happened, school just... I can? Thanks... So in that case, can Yamaguchi spend some time at our house? Really? Thanks so much! Okay, love you." Sugawara hung up the phone and stuck it in his pocket.

"Good news: My mom gave us the green light. Is there anything you wanna pick up from home?"

In the end, they stopped briefly at Yamaguchi's house so he could grab a change of clothes and a toothbrush before continuing on their way. All the while, Sugawara sat slumped against the back seat of the car, his head resting against the window. He could feel the sunlight caress his forehead, and the only thing preventing him from simply falling asleep was the vibration of the car's engine that radiated through the cool surface, rattling his brain out of its stupor. He watched the trees and buildings pass by on the side of the road as he tried with all his strength not to think about the nightmare he'd just lived through. He wished he could say that it didn't feel real, that it felt like just that - a nightmare - but that simply wasn't the case. Every iota of pain, every touch of fear, sadness, and grief was all too real to him. Every time he looked down at his hands and studied the faint pink stains peeking through the bandages, Sugawara felt himself fall, reeling backwards to live the entire ordeal over from the beginning. The pain of the injury had faded, but he was afraid the pain of the memories it brought would never lessen.

Sugawara snapped out of his thoughts when he felt the car hit the rough edge of his driveway. He felt something deep inside himself settle just a little bit at the soothing sight of his childhood home, soft sunflower yellow siding and bountiful dogwood trees shading the weather-worn porch. As Sugawara lifted himself from the backseat and stepped out of the car, he saw his mother hurriedly throw open the screen door and rush onto the porch. Still clad in her pajamas and slippers, hand towel thrown over her shoulder, Mrs. Sugawara ran down the front stairs and scooped him up into her open arms. Sugawara hardly had time to process what was happening before his mother began rambling lovingly in his ear.

"... finished making your breakfast and started doing dishes to clean up the kitchen a little bit before you got home. Your bed's made, I found some of your favorite bubble bath in the bathroom cupboard, and I even set out some of your favorite tea."

"Thanks, mom."

Mrs. Sugawara took her son's shoulders, kissed his face, and held him out at arm's length. It was at that point she noticed the bandages wrapped around Sugawara's hands. Letting go of his shoulders, she gasped as she hurriedly took his hands, brought them to her face, and kissed the tips of his fingers.

"Koushi, your hands! What happened? Does it hurt?" Sugawara pulled his hands from his mother's grasp.

"I'm fine, mom, it's nothing." Mrs. Sugawara took his wrist and pulled him toward the house.

"Come on, pumpkin, let's go take a look just to be safe." Suddenly, she stopped as if remembering something, and turned her head to look at Yamaguchi and his mom, who were getting out of the car themselves.

"Oh, I'm sorry, where are my manners? Mrs. Yamaguchi, thank-you so much for bringing him home." Mrs. Yamaguchi flashed a smile that, to Sugawara, almost looked like a smirk.

"Not a big deal," She turned to Yamaguchi, "Make sure you get some sleep at some point, Tadashi. If your father comes home and you're cranky, he's going to pitch a fit." Yamaguchi gave his mother an embarrassed glance, hunching his shoulders so he was just out of her reach.

"... I will, mom."

Mrs. Yamaguchi said goodbye to the trio shortly before getting back into her car and pulling out of the driveway. After she was gone, Mrs. Sugawara practically dragged the two boys into the house, giving Yamaguchi free reign over the kitchen while she took a look at her son's injured knuckles. Having cleaned and re-bandaged them, all the while fussing over why her son wasn't telling her where the injuries came from, Mrs. Sugawara was quick to make sure both boys were clean, comfortable, and well-fed. After asking them for the umpteenth time if there was anything else she could do for them, she finally left them to themselves upstairs in Sugawara's bedroom.

As the boys lounged together on Sugawara's bed, mindlessly watching the movie his mom had put on for them, Yamaguchi felt an indescribable itch in the center of his brain. In a weird way, it frustrated him that he and his teammate weren't talking about what had just happened to them. If he took the time to glance sideways at his teammate's face, it was all too obvious that Sugawara wasn't enjoying the movie any more than he was. His expression was pained and far away; it was clear his mind was back at the hospital ICU, and not on the cheesy action unfolding in front of him.

In a way, Yamaguchi was almost afraid to sleep, even though it was quickly approaching 8am and he could feel the exhaustion toying at the back of his mind. If he was asleep, there was no way he could fend off the ensuing nightmare he was sure to encounter while he was one step removed from his current reality. As he watched his friend, he found himself wondering if Sugawara felt the same way, if the only reason he was enduring the ever-encroaching fatigue was because he, too, was afraid of the specters that were sure to plague his dreams.

Him more so than me, Yamaguchi found himself thinking, He actually saw it. He tried not to think about whatever it was Sugawara was about to say in the gym before Daichi had cut him off. He was covered in blood...

"Hey, Suga?" Yamaguchi asked as he picked up the remote and paused the movie.

"Yeah?"

"I just wanted to say... I'm sorry for what happened in the club room last night. I was upset, and I wasn't thinking straight." Sugawara turned to face him, not quite meeting Yamaguchi's apologetic gaze.

"No... it's okay. I understand. Tsukishima means a lot to you. I should have expected that you'd get upset." The two were overcome with several seconds of awkward silence. Yamaguchi, unwilling to unpause the movie just yet, broke the ice.

"So... um... How are you doing?" Sugawara took one of the folded knitted blankets sitting on the corner of his bed and absentmindedly covered himself with it, fidgeting with a frayed piece of yarn on one of the corners.

"... fine," he finally replied. Yamaguchi shot him an incredulous look.

"... No, really. I'll be okay. I think I just need some sleep." He tossed Yamaguchi a second folded blanket and a pillow, courtesy of his mother, "Here, you should get some sleep, too. We'll feel better in a few hours."

Yamaguchi was hesitant to let the conversation drop after Sugawara so abruptly shut him down, but he knew that getting anywhere with his teammate was going to be next to impossible until they were both fully rested. Reluctantly shutting off the movie, Yamaguchi took his blanket and pillow and curled up on the air mattress on the floor. Sugawara shut the blinds and took his own place on the bed, and the two fell asleep.

Ukai opened the front door to his apartment with only one thing on his mind. He kicked his shoes off at the door and lazily and tossed his car keys onto the kitchen table before emptying his pockets. Nicotine. He needed nicotine. Rifling through the odd coins and such, he pulled his lighter from the pile and lit a cigarette without a second thought.

Cigarette hanging from his lips, Ukai shuffled toward his kitchen cabinets. He pulled a glass from the confines of the one above the sink and set it on the table. He then returned to the sink and, sitting back on his haunches, he opened the cabinet below. From this one, he pulled a very large and very full bottle of scotch and set it on the table next to his glass. He pulled up a chair.

Fuck this shit. Fuck every last bit of this shit, he found himself thinking as he screwed off the bottle's lid and poured himself a glass. Ukai wanted to forget it. He wanted to drown everything that happened to him last night out of his brain until the last twenty-four hours of his life bled into one big drunken mess. A group of innocent kids who have done nothing to deserve the crap hand life dealt them received the worst news of their lives while a perfectly normal family all but fell apart in the span of a few hours. And he was at the head of it all, holding these people together by the barest threads with absolutely no knowledge of what he was doing, or if anything he was saying was even helping. It left him hollow, with an intense feeling of futility. It wasn't like leading the team. He knew volleyball. He'd grown up in it, and he when he taught volleyball, he knew he wasn't leading the players astray. Volleyball was easy. The people who played it weren't.

It wasn't long before Ukai had completely lost track of time. He was coherent enough to be in control of his own thoughts for the first few drinks, but after glass number four, and cigarette number who gives a damn, his kitchen began to fuzz, and the minutes on his kitchen clock began to tick faster than he could possibly follow. As his vision blurred, and his stomach began to churn in ways that reminded him a little too much of the darker parts of his high school days, Ukai relished at the feeling of his emotion receding into the back of his mind.

It was at around drink six or seven that Ukai began to regret his decisions. Having that much straight scotch in his system without any sort of meal beforehand wasn't exactly the smartest thing he could have done, and his stomach was really starting to remind him why he always woke up the morning after his bouts of binge drinking with Nekoma's coaches regretting his existence.

That's probably enough, he thought less than coherently as he attempted to stand from his kitchen chair. As he pushed his body weight onto his feet, Ukai's stomach jumped into his throat, and it was all he could do to keep himself from vomiting into his own lap. As he tried to steady himself, he found his sense of balance swinging all over the place, and was therefore unable to keep his footing. As a result, Ukai lost what little balance he had, and he collapsed onto the floor, losing consciousness.

Amaya felt much lonelier once Ukai and the others had gone. Now that it was just her and an unconscious Kei, it was a lot easier for her to slip back into the paralyzing fear that had plagued her the night before. As still as Kei was, she couldn't seem to pry her eyes from her beloved son. It didn't make sense. She knew he was under sedation - he wasn't going to do anything - but she couldn't shake the fear that something would go horribly wrong as soon as her back was turned. She wondered if it could have something to do with Akiteru's loss, that the last time she left her eldest son alone without a second thought was the one time he was crudely taken from her.

"I'm not going to lose you, too." She murmured from her visitor's chair, her eyes flitting over to the heart monitor every so often to keep herself steady, "I already lost your brother. I'm not going to lose you, too." It wasn't long before she was swallowed by her thoughts and lost track of time.

She was shaken from her stupor by the opening of the hospital room door. In entered a nurse carrying a clipboard with a rather large looking pile of papers. She took a few steps into the room and closed the door behind her.

"Hello, Mrs. Tsukishima," she greeted, wearing a sunny morning smile, "I'm Itsumi. I have the insurance paperwork here for your son's surgery." Amaya stood to meet her.

"Yes," she said, hoping she didn't sound nearly as exhausted and mentally drained as she felt, "Thank-you." As Amaya took the clipboard and attached pen from Itsumi's hand and sat back down in her chair, Itsumi crossed the room to Kei's hospital bed. She took the chart hanging from the foot of his bed and checked it over, seeming at the very least comfortable with whatever she saw. She lifted one or two of the hanging IV bags and checked them as well, once again seeming content with whatever it was that she saw.

"He's doing great!" She exclaimed as she pored over the charts, "His lungs seem to be holding really well. I'll go talk to Dr. Fujimori about removing the ventilator."

Amaya let her concern ease just a little at the nurse's optimism. She had realized upon checking her phone that it had been a couple hours since Kei had been let out of surgery, and to hear that he was doing so well so soon was gave her a magnitude of relief that Amaya had never dreamed she could achieve. As she sat and filled out Kei's insurance paperwork, she stared out the window and watched the birds flit about in the trees. As she watched a mother bird feed her babies in a nearby nest, she let herself believe, just for a little bit, that maybe... everything would be okay after all.

And the day after begins. Certainly it can't be easy for our heroes. Leave a review if you're enjoying the story so far, and remember, constructive criticism is always welcome :)