Shinji slept a whole day; twenty four hours straight and then some. The combination of the pain, medicine, and the warm presence of Kippei and Rien relaxed him into a stupor and his brain simply gave in to what his body needed, sleeping it away. Naota came in several times to check, just to make [...]

Shinji woke screaming, grabbing at his head, eyes wide with disbelief, pain throbbing through him, nightmare still strong but none of it meaning anything, all of it fading into insignificance through the agony in his head. He could feel it! The shard of metal sitting there, lodged in his head and not supposed to be [...]

Kippei had been trying not to think too hard about tennis, but he had to face it sooner or later, and make a decision. He felt a little sick every time he remembered that Shinji had nearly killed himself trying to play because watching Kippei had reminded him how badly he wanted it. And now [...]

Shinji woke feeling confused and squashed, and decidedly sore. He frowned and tried to sit up but couldn’t even move, which made him frown more and open his eyes, only to find himself face to face with Kippei, which was weird because it felt like Kippei was behind him. He blinked and slowly realised Rien [...]

It didn’t really occur to Kippei that Shinji and even Rien would be shocked by what he’d done, he hadn’t been thinking at all beyond wanting to get the hell out of there and catch his plane already. The flight was several hours long, and he spent most of it tense and restless, sitting quietly [...]

As soon as he got off the phone with Shinji, Kippei had made the call to withdraw from the tournament, and another to get a flight home as soon as possible, and one more call, to Akira. The soonest flight he could get was the next day, and it was going to be too long [...]

Shinji woke continuously, never getting more than two hours sleep at a time, jerking at first from whatever dream had woken him, but soon not even reacting to that, simply blinking open weary eyes and staring at nothing, feeling the hot burn of tears welling and clenching them closed again, slowly slipping back into sleep [...]

Rien had expected to have to spend several more nights talking Shinji down, and had figured on being on the phone with him a large percentage of the time. He had minutes to burn and under the circumstances he didn’t figure anyone would care if Shinji went over his. But Shinji didn’t message him again, [...]

It was the second day. The first day, Shinji had been stunned by the quiet on the outside and disquiet on the inside. The first night was rife with bad dreams until he rang Rien and talked to him the rest of the night. When he fell asleep the next morning, the dreams were worse [...]

Shinji sat bolt upright in the bed, the room dark, body aching, sweat cool on his forehead, his own heavy breathing the only sound, followed by sobs as he curled up in the middle of the bed, realising no one else was there. They were gone and they weren’t coming back. Who would want to [...]