Deafening Silence ( prince of tennis) (#wattys2016)

63

Roko hid his deep frown with his blank mask. What did people do in these kinds of situations? Was he supposed to stop her? Should he tell Sanada? Did it really matter?

Roko quickly decided to not say a word, and Ann smiled in sudden renewed conviction. Not that that would last long when she found out practice was cancelled.

"Oh, Echizen" Ann said suddenly, and Roko looked up curiously.

"Will you be watching our match or your brother's?" she asked, and Roko almost rolled his eyes.

She's an idiot, his consciousness declared.

"I'll watch your match" his hands stated, and Ann smiled widely.

"Really?" she asked in disbelief, "I don't want to be any trouble". Roko shook his head in response, and Ann smiled.

"Thank you, Echizen, it'll really help the team" she said, and Roko suddenly felt a huge stab of guilt. It wouldn't really 'help' the team when they found out he was the so-called Speed Demon of Rikkaidai. Maybe he should tell her?

Roko raised his hands to make signs. Ann wasn't even looking in his direction anymore, shifting through her shoulder bag and withdrawing a camera. Roko frowned deeply at the sight, but Ann didn't notice.

"Alright" she said, with a sudden triumphant smile, "I'm going to do this"

She looked so happy and prepared in that moment Roko couldn't bring himself to tell her it was all for naught.

"Ah, here we are" she suddenly said, looking up, and Roko noted that the train had stopped at the Kanagawa station, and Roko stood up quickly, shouldering his cello case as the doors opened. Ann, for whatever reason, didn't even take note of the fact he was leaving at the same stop she was, moving out the doors quickly and taking a few steps before waving back at him in the doorway and disappearing off. She hadn't even noticed he was wearing a Rikkaidai uniform.

Idiot, his consciousness declared.

Sadly, Roko agreed with the voice in his head, but it didn't matter. If practice was cancelled then school didn't start for an hour. It was a good enough excuse to get a snack and drink before he walked to school.

Kanagawa General Hospital

If there was one thing Yukimura had, it was time. Lots and lots of time, and so he had plenty of time to think about what the doctor had said to him two days ago, the alighted feeling he felt whenever Echizen appeared, and the hopes of his return, and Yukimura had to admit it.

He may have the tiniest, tiniest crush on Echizen, which was weird, considering Yukimura thought he was straight. But then again he'd never had any sort of evidence to back this up; he'd always assumed he was into girls, because that seemed like the natural thing.

It also kind of bothered him how Echizen was two years younger than him. True, there wasn't that much of an age gap, but it still felt awkward to him.

But onto the topic of Yukimura's rather startling self-realisation, he was rather clueless on what to do next, and so he had done the only thing he could think of doing.

"No"

Ok, in hindsight, involving Sanada in this probably hadn't been the best decision.

"Genichiro" Yanagi scolded, but Sanada didn't falter, his stony gaze colder than usual.

"No, I don't like this one bit, Yukimura" he stated, and Yukimura supressed a sigh with his patient smile.

"I'm sorry, Genichiro, I shouldn't have involved you in this" he said calmly.