Hello, everyone. First, I'd like to thank you all for the positive reviews I've been getting for this story. Seeing that my work is making your day, really gives me the motivation to keep going :)
Anyway, I know it's been a couple weeks, but here's the next chapter. I hope you all enjoy :)
Lunar Eclipse
Chapter Twenty-Two
It didn't come as a surprise to Daichi that the entire team, including those who were absent from school, met at the gym that day to visit Tsukishima. With all the chaos unfolding around them, the Karasuno Boys Volleyball Team had never been so divided. Each individual player was trying to survive on his own, like a colony of ants scattering at the first drop of rain. Daichi knew that if he let this train wreck go any further, it might be impossible to reconcile everyone again. Trauma was a tricky beast. He just hoped that his plan would work - that getting everyone in the same room and letting them see Tsukishima for themselves would remind them of the reason their camaraderie was important. Daichi pondered this dilemma in the gym for a while, watching his teammates mill around until they were ready to depart. Once Takeda and Saeko showed up, the team piled into cars and left for the hospital.
Nobody except Sugawara and Yamaguchi really knew what to expect walking into Tsukishima's hospital room. A few of them had seen people in hospitals once or twice before, but none of them had ever seen someone who had been shot, especially someone their own age. As they walked through the sickly, off-white halls to the ICU, Ennoshita did Yamaguchi the service of filling him in on the day's troubles - the fighting, the rumors, the online articles - everything. Yamaguchi peered over to Sugawara every so often as Ennoshita explained, wondering how his senpai was reacting to the whole mess, but it quickly became apparent that Sugawara wasn't even listening. He simply kept his gaze on the ground as he walked, just barely avoiding colliding with doctors, nurses, and medicine carts. Yamaguchi on the other hand was horrified. He almost couldn't believe things had gotten that bad. Ennoshita had just finished his tale when they finally reached Tsukishima's room.
Amaya greeted them wearily, but kindly as they entered the room one by one with Daichi holding up the rear. The team parted as the captain made his way to the front of the group. Standing directly in front of Amaya, he bowed as the rest of the team quickly followed suit.
"Mrs. Tsukishima. On behalf of the Karasuno Boys' Volleyball Club, we're very sorry for your loss."
Amaya teared up at the team's display of respect. She took Daichi by the shoulders and pulled him into a hug.
"Thank-you, honey," she whispered gratefully in his ear, "It's been a tough day."
Little by little the team straightened themselves out and turned to Tsukishima, sedated in the hospital bed in front of them. A hush fell over the room, every pair of eyes glued to the injured player. Before the silence could deepen, Amaya cleared her throat and excused herself.
"Well, I'm going to give you boys some time alone with Kei. If you need me, I'll be down in the cafeteria." The team murmured a chorus of thank-you's as Amaya quietly left the room, pulling the door closed behind her.
For several seconds after her exit, the room's energy fell flat on the floor, replaced with a growing tension. Not one person spoke. No one - not even Takeda - could pull their eyes from the unconscious Tsukishima. After the metaphorical dumpster fire that was the team meeting the night before and the storm that fanned the flames throughout the school day, this was the first time anyone other than Yamaguchi and Sugawara had seen physical proof of the event that nearly killed their teammate.
The first thing Yamaguchi noticed upon turning his attention to his fallen friend was the plastic tube that was conspicuously absent from the blocker's mouth, the machine it was connected to missing as well. In place of the large, cumbersome breathing tube was a much smaller, thinner one that hooked around his friend's ears and came to rest at his nose. It seemed to be connected to what looked like an oxygen tank as well. Yamaguchi remembered seeing this particular equipment in the medical dramas his mom watched all the time, but he'd never really learned what it was called. He did remember that it was supposed to give a patient with breathing problems extra oxygen to help them breathe more easily, which had to be a step above his needing the ventilator this morning. It had to mean Tsukki was getting better.
"That's different." The room turned to look at him.
"What do you mean?" Narita asked, his voice quiet.
"He was on a ventilator this morning... there was a tube down his throat - the machine was breathing for him. He's just on oxygen now, so I guess the doctors decided his lungs were stable enough for him to breathe on his own."
Reactions to the pinch server's words varied more in kind than intensity. The most obvious were those of Takeda, Ennoshita, Kinnoshita, and Narita, who were overcome with both pity and empathy. Asahi paled, his lip quivering ever so slightly as he stood with Nishinoya, who looked more angry than anything else. Tanaka and his sister Saeko stood together, taking in the sight as a pair. Saeko wore an uncharacteristic look of mourning, while Tanaka stood furious at her side, giving off the aura of a protector. It made Yamaguchi wonder if the siblings' current emotions were a reaction to Tsukki's injury, or Akiteru's death. Hinata's reaction was a simple one. He just stared, brows furrowed and focused, like the whole situation was a game to be won, an obstacle to be overcome. Maybe thinking of everything in terms of volleyball was just what he needed to do. Maybe it was the only way Hinata could cope. Daichi, always the leader, kept his stone-faced captain's facade as his team struggled in front of him. Though, Yamaguchi could tell - in the way his eyes softened and his mouth turned at a funny angle - Daichi was having just as much trouble keeping it together as the rest of the team.
However, there were two reactions that worried Yamaguchi the most. The first was Kageyama's. It was no secret that Tsukki and Kageyama didn't get along, but Kageyama wasn't a bad guy - he'd never wish harm on anyone. It made Yamaguchi wonder what Kageyama was thinking right now, seeing someone he fought with so often so helpless in front of him. As he studied his teammate's face, he saw some of the same anger he found in Tanaka's. However, mixed in was a very slight, but very present hint of guilt. But why would Kageyama feel guilty? He had nothing to do with the incident that caused Tsukki's injury; he didn't even know about it until it was all over. Was it possible that Kageyama, who had no experience distinguishing and expressing his emotions, who never considered the consequences of his own actions, felt guilty over his and Tsukki's feud? Yamaguchi considered anything that brought out such a raw vulnerability in Kageyama a rare opportunity. Maybe today, Kageyama would mature.
The second worrying reaction was Sugawara's. Staring intently at Tsukishima's unconscious form, he looked like he felt absolutely nothing. Sugawara had been little more than a zombie since they'd woken up that afternoon, and Yamaguchi could tell by looking at him that his empty expression was not due to just exhaustion. Before they'd fallen asleep, Sugawara had cut off any attempt Yamaguchi had made to talk about the ordeal they had experienced, and he could tell that his teammate was very quickly moving from "emotional basket case" to "completely shutting down". He knew if he didn't pull Suga out of it quickly, it would be much harder for the setter to learn from the experience and move on.
"So... I guess I'll be the one to ask." Takeda started nervously, nearly choking on the weight of the silence, "Where was he shot?"
The room turned to Takeda, and then to Yamaguchi and Sugawara expectantly. Yamaguchi looked tentatively at Sugawara beside him, since he had actually seen it happen, but realizing that Sugawara wasn't even paying attention, Yamaguchi answered instead.
"It was his liver... The bullet broke one of his ribs going in and got stuck in his liver. The pieces of bone that broke off... they put holes in his lung. If you wanna know anything else, though, Sugawara could answer more than I could."
Yamaguchi realized that the only thing Sugawara knew more about was the incident itself, but by turning the team's attention to the vice captain, he hoped to get his friend alert and talking. Unfortunately for both of them, that didn't seem to be the case. As the team once again turned their focus to Sugawara, the silver-haired setter simply stood there and ignored them. Yamaguchi doubted whether he even saw all the eyes focused in his direction, or if all he saw was the kid whose life was hanging in the balance in front of him.
"Um... Suga?" Asahi asked warily in an attempt to get his teammate's attention. No reaction. Daichi stepped closer and reached out to grab his friend's shoulder, but before he, or anyone else could coax Sugawara into conscious awareness, Kageyama, with one furious glance in his senpai's direction, marched over to him, took his collar in his balled fists, and shook him violently. Sugawara simply let his teammate push him around as he pleased, lacking the energy and motivation to do anything to stop him.
"Hey, we're talking to you!" Kageyama shouted, "Or don't we matter anymore?" Daichi placed a firm grip on Kageyama's arm.
"That's enough! Didn't you learn anything from last night? Or school today?"
As Kageyama snapped his head around to look at his captain, a thousand emotions passed over the setter's face - everything from anger to grief to shame and back. He found himself wondering why he was lashing out like this. Did it even matter? Every time Kageyama tried to look inside himself to figure out the reasoning behind his problems all he found was the emptiness of an abyss staring back at him. It was like a black hole of intense emotion, and every time Kageyama tried to brave the darkness, he was sucked back up inside the enormous pressure of all the feelings he refused to deal with. It's easier this way, he thought as he watched Sugawara's emotionless face so close to his own, It's easier to shut everything out.
Pretty soon he felt another, smaller hand seize the back of his shirt. From behind him he heard shouting in Hinata's unmistakable voice.
"Stop it! Sugawara didn't do anything!"
"He's right," Ennoshita chimed in, "Besides, if you guys keep screaming like this, security's going to kick us out."
But Kageyama didn't relent. Frozen in place with his teammate's collar twisted through his fingers, he continued to seethe, gripping the cloth of Sugawara's shirt so tightly his knuckles glowed a vibrant white. Daichi kept trying to get his attention, but the effort was futile. No matter what he said or how loudly he said it, Kageyama was completely stiff and unmoving, beyond listening to reason. It was at that point Daichi began to truly worry. If there was one thing his time as the volleyball team's captain taught him, it was that he was very good at corralling the players, especially if they were being particularly uncooperative and he needed to use the full force of his voice to shut them up and convince them to pay attention. As difficult as Kageyama was to handle when he was riled up, he was never immune to a good old fashioned scolding. The fact that Daichi had suddenly found himself unable to control Kageyama's ridiculous temper meant that the setter had fallen even further into whatever bottomless pit of emotion Tsukishima's tragedy had sent him spiraling into. The bottom line was, Kageyama was losing his grip, and it scared Daichi. A lot.
Their fight was broken up by a small, unsuspecting nurse. Barely larger than Yachi, a young woman threw open the door, silencing the whole team.
"What's going on in here?" she asked, angry, yet professional. The bulk of the team, with the exception of Sugawara and Kageyama, bowed deeply in apology.
"W-we're very sorry," Takeda stammered, "We'll keep it down."
"Good, thank-you." the nurse responded, "The patients in this hospital need their peace and quiet to recover. If I or another one of the nurses hears you again, you'll all have to leave."
"Yes, of course." Daichi muttered. With another quick nod, the nurse left the room, shutting the door behind her. After the nurse had gone, Daichi noticed Takeda's face change. His expression quickly flipped from a meek apology to a stern teacher, a role that, while fairly obvious, none of them had really seen too often.
"Kageyama."
"Takeda-sensei..."
It was in that moment the whole team realized that none of them had ever really heard their teacher scold someone before. Usually when they misbehaved Coach Ukai was around to take up the task instead. The mild-mannered literature teacher usually never so much as raised his voice. Hearing him say Kageyama's name so firmly, though his voice wasn't nearly as booming as Daichi's, was a whole other kind of deafening.
"Would you please step into the hallway with me for a minute?"
The sheer level of calm in the teacher's voice frightened Kageyama in a way he had never felt before. He suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned toward the teacher, releasing Sugawara's collar and letting him fall to the floor. Takeda nodded in acknowledgement and left the room, not pausing to see if the troublesome student was following him. Kageyama, faint surprise peeking through his furious exterior, slowly followed his teacher's footsteps.
The soft click of the door's latch snapped the team out of its stupor. Daichi turned to a still silent Sugawara and extended his hand in an offer to help him to his feet. Sugawara accepted the offer numbly, mechanically standing as his teammates looked on with deep concern.
"Suga, are you okay?" Daichi asked, his friend's hand still clutched tightly in his own. For the first time Sugawara really seemed to see him, and he answered accordingly.
"...Yeah... um... sorry."
In a sudden burst of effort, Karasuno's vice captain yanked his hand out of Daichi's grip and took off through the hospital room door.
"Kageyama, why don't you tell me what's going on?" Takeda asked as he meandered around the hospital gift shop. It was a rather cramped shop, with small wooden shelves built into white walls to make enough room for the only two round stainless steel clothing hangers the place could hold. There were several different kinds of items stocked from the floor to the ceiling: t-shirts and sweaters that bore the Miyagi General Hospital logo, stuffed animals with "get well soon" sewn into their fur, and an entire wall dedicated to nothing but Hallmark cards, in various shapes and colors.
"There's nothing going on." Kageyama replied moodily as he tried fruitlessly to avoid the teacher in the tiny space. He found himself playing thoughtlessly with a little key-chain he picked up out of a plastic bin on a shelf. He twirled the metal ring around his finger, oddly comforted by steady movement.
"Kageyama," Takeda tried again, pushing his way past a display of sweatshirts to reach his student, "You came very close to hurting Sugawara. And don't think Mrs. Nakada didn't tell me about your outburst in her class. There's clearly something wrong."
The dark-haired setter remained silent, catching the little key-chain in his hand and squeezing it firmly.
"I understand you all are upset about Nationals. Is that what's eating you?" Kageyama whipped his head around in surprise. For a fleeting moment he was angry with himself. Why should he be surprised that Takeda-sensei knew that was what was bothering him? He'd only been shouting about it for the last twelve hours. Then he was angry with Takeda-sensei himself. What right did the teacher have to just brazenly display Kageyama's problems out of nowhere? He never gave him permission to call him out. Finally, the anger settled into a dull simmer, and Kageyama tried to push his words through the emotional block in his brain.
"No!" He thought for a second. "Well... I mean... Yeah, but..." Takeda put his hand gently on the teenager's shoulder.
"It's okay to not know what you're feeling, you know," he said, "You're a teenager, and this is a difficult time for all of us. Not knowing what's going on inside your head is completely normal." Kageyama met Takeda's gaze for the first time and absorbed the kindness and understanding he found within it. Maybe... maybe that abyss wasn't as dark as he'd feared.
"I..." he stammered, "I feel... bad." Takeda shifted his expression to one of intrigue.
"Bad how?" Kageyama's brow furrowed as he looked down. Takeda could almost see the cogs turning inside the teen's mind, putting together his feelings as laboriously as a map-maker. It was like watching someone struggle to speak another language.
"When I see Tsukishima lying there I get... angry. But not angry at him, like when we're fighting. I get angry at myself."
"Do you know why? You didn't do anything to put him in the hospital like this." Kageyama thought some more. He turned the key-chain over in his fingers again, more slowly this time, in an effort to ease his thinking.
"I... I don't know. I just think about him getting hurt and I just wanna punch something!" he squeezed the key-chain with all his might, fearful for a moment that he might break it. "If I had a dummy of myself I'd tear it to pieces!"
Takeda listened to Kageyama's explanation with genuine surprise. Was he... guilty? Guilty over how he and Tsukishima have fought these last months? He couldn't imagine that Kageyama had ever actively wanted something bad to happen Tsukishima, but he'd had experiences in his own life where thoughts of that nature pop up unexpectedly, like weeds. Of course nobody ever wanted something bad to happen to someone else, but in the split second before you catch yourself, you find you do wish harm on them, especially if they'd hurt you in the past. If Kageyama had experienced thoughts like this, then the guilt made sense. If he'd wished every so often that maybe something bad would happen to Tsukishima, just enough to teach him a lesson, of course he would feel guilty when it actually happened.
"Kageyama... is it possible that you feel guilty for what happened to Tsukishima?" The teen's reaction was just as angry and hostile as Takeda imagined it would be. He broke away from the teacher's reach and stomped over to one of the hangers, fingering through t-shirts.
"No! I'm not guilty!"
But as soon as the words left the setter's mouth, they both knew - Kageyama deep in his heart, and Takeda clearly on his face - it was a lie. And that brought them back to his fight with Sugawara. Sugawara showed little to no emotion back in the room, and with the myriad of emotions Kageyama was feeling right now - his guilt, his anger over Nationals - even as they speak, there was the possibility that Kageyama felt insulted that Sugawara didn't seem to be feeling his guilt as harshly as Kageyama was.
"You know," the teacher began without looking at his student, "Sugawara's having just as hard of a time dealing with this as you are."
"What do you mean?" Kageyama asked with more than a hint of sass.
"I mean that grief isn't a competition. You're both allowed to process your emotions differently." Takeda turned to follow Kageyama to his position by the t-shirts. "Try to understand what Sugawara went through. He saw everything happen. He saw the shot. He saw the blood. He saw the chaos it caused. It was undoubtedly overwhelming. Right now, in order to cope with what he saw, his brain needs to shut down his emotions. That's normal. It doesn't mean he's having an easier time with this than you are. Now I'm going out on a limb here, but is it possible that you subconsciously directed your guilt at Sugawara because you thought he should be the one feeling guilty for shutting down?"
Kageyama froze and turned to his teacher with unmistakable surprise.
"I... how...?"
"I teach literature, Kageyama. The human condition is the basic subject of every story every written. When you've read as much as I have, you learn a few things about how people work." He looked down at Kageyama's hands.
"You want me to get that for you? You seemed to be attached to it."
Kageyama realized he was still clutching the key-chain.
"Uh... sure. Thanks." The two made their way to the checkout counter. Kageyama didn't realize it until Takeda pointed it out, but the key-chain he had grabbed without thinking, that he'd been turning in his hands all this time, bore the image of two people holding hands and smiling deeply at each other. Etched into the artwork was one word:
Forgiveness.
"Koushi, honey, what are you doing here?"
Sugawara slowly approached the soft-haired woman nursing a cup of coffee in the hospital cafeteria. The first thing he noticed was how exhausted Amaya looked. Clear dark circles hung under her eyes. Her makeup had been touched up, but sloppily, as if she had done it with whatever she had in her purse without care. She was still wearing her clothes from yesterday, an obvious sign that she hadn't gone home. And there was, of course, the unmistakable pain in her gaze, the pain of a mother whose son was taken from her far too soon.
A parent should never have to bury their own child, Koushi.
The sudden memory of the night before hit him like a freight train. Was it just last night? Everything had bled together so much, Sugawara could hardly tell. When Amaya had spoken those words to him, sitting in her bathroom cleaning the fresh wounds on his knuckles, she had been talking about herself and Tsukishima. As fate would have it, the child she would bury would not be Tsukishima, but Akiteru instead. He wondered if she'd realized the irony of it all, or if she was still too engrossed in her agony to give it much thought. Hell, she's been awake for a day and a half, Sugawara mused, I wonder if she's thinking clearly at all.
Sugawara approached her table without answering her question. He couldn't seem to bring his voice to his lips. He'd tried, but somewhere along the line it had just gotten... stuck. Sitting down across from her, he noticed the coffee in her cup, an exact replica of the mediocre cardboard/plastic one he'd gotten the night before. The only difference was the liquid it contained. Sugawara could tell - there hadn't been an ounce of cream or sugar anywhere near the steaming black beverage. Having followed Sugawara's gaze and realizing that he wasn't going to answer her first question, Amaya made conversation instead.
"I don't usually take it black," she said, "but I feel like I'm about to fall over, so I'll try anything to keep me on my feet."
"Why don't you go home and get some sleep? Tsukishima's stable."
"Oh, Koushi," she murmured, brushing his silver bangs out of his eyes, "Someday you'll understand. When you grow up and have children, you'll understand."
"Mrs. Tsukishima," Sugawara began, playing with a loose string on his t-shirt, "Last night you told me, 'A parent should never have to bury their child'... I know you were saying it to keep me from wishing this whole mess had happened to me instead, but I was wondering... how are you so... I don't know... calm, I guess? I mean, after everything that happened, I feel like I'm drifting away. How are you still... normal?"
Amaya let out a deep sigh as she brought her coffee to her lips and took an eager sip. She could tell Sugawara was slipping, losing his grip on his reality. He was vulnerable, and he needed someone to give him a direction, to give him meaning. But how could Amaya possibly give him any direction when she was just barely afloat as it was? At Sugawara's age and in his position, he needed gentleness; he needed to be treated with kiddie gloves. But when the gentle answers weren't available, what were you supposed to say to a kid on the brink of total emotional collapse?
"Koushi, this may come as a bit of a surprise to you, but I don't have all the answers." And she meant it honestly, without a hint of sarcasm. "I'm only just barely holding it together."
"Then what do I do? If you can't do it, what about me?" Setting her coffee cup on the table, Amaya reached across and lifted Sugawara's hands from underneath it. Setting them on the table's surface, she took them inside her own.
"Listen, honey. One day you're going to learn that there isn't a single person on Earth who knows exactly what they're doing all the time. I understand this is going to be hard to accept, but not even adults have all the answers. That's one of the first things you learn as you grow into adulthood, Koushi." Sugawara became overcome with the first strong emotion he'd experienced all day. He pulled his hands away from Amaya's and turned away as tears formed in his eyes. Amaya continued as if reading his mind.
"You don't need to be embarrassed," she said, taking another sip of her coffee, "It's a hard thing to accept. What you need to remember is that you have friends and family who will be right by your side. But tell me, why is this coming up now? I thought you were upstairs with the team visiting Kei."
"I, uh, had some problems. I... don't really wanna talk about it." Amaya nodded slowly, pondering the young man's situation. The easiest answer was to assume he'd gotten into a fight with someone. He didn't seem to be injured, but maybe it was more of an argument than an actual fight. Amaya knew it'd be impossible to know without Sugawara telling her outright, and she'd had enough experience with Kei's mood swings to know that if he really didn't want to tell her, it just wasn't going to happen.
"It's important to remember that your friends are having a hard time with this, same as you are. If they lash out at you, just remember that their emotions are just as valid as yours."
Sugawara met Amaya's gaze and smiled faintly.
"Thanks, Mrs. Tsukishima. I don't know what I'd do without you."
"Absolutely, Koushi. Now run along back upstairs with your friends. I'm sure they're worried about you." Sugawara nodded, stood from his chair, and left the cafeteria.
Another longer one, but that was chapter twenty-two. If you feel inclined to review, please do, and remember that any and all constructive criticism is greatly appreciated :)