Deafening Silence ( prince of tennis) (#wattys2016)

43

This one's shorter than the other Day chapters or whatever you want to call them, sorry about that. And I like your feedback on Ryoma's birthday, since it gives me an excuse to plot Roko's revenge. Mwahahahahahaha

Echizen Household

Ryoma sighed softly, sitting on the sofa in the living room with Roko next to him and Karupin on his lap. Today was Christmas, and to any other family than meant gifts and celebration, but to the Echizens that meant even less to do than usual. Aside from watch TV, listen to music, search the internet, eat and sleep, there was nothing to do at all. Roko didn't seem to mind though, since he practically spent every waking moment outside of the house with his earphones in, so he decided he'd wear them inside the house too. He sat there calmly sipping his green tea with English techno music playing in his ears at a volume high enough that Ryoma could hear it.

Their parents were still asleep, or rather; they were still in bed, since both of them had even less to do than they did, so they decided they'd spend the day doing absolutely nothing. That was fine by Ryoma, it meant less time with his idiot father.

Karupin yawned softly on Ryoma's lap, and then got up and stretched his legs before jumping off of him and walking away, leaving Ryoma to share a comfortable silence with his mute brother. This was one of the few times Ryoma wished he had invested in an iPod so he could listen to his own music, but music had never interested him, since his only real focuses in life were food, sleep and tennis, anything beyond that wasn't worth his total intefTo just sat there and acted like Ryoma wasn't sat right next to him, staring up at nothing as the music played in his ears, and Ryoma could tell he was in his own little world right now. He could say with confidence that he was the only person who really understood Roko, even better than his parents, because he could read him like a book just by making eye-contact. Roko had always been a patient person who would never express his opinion unless asked, because he'd rather not talk at all, and he appeared to never care about the opinions of people, but Ryoma knew that there were times where people's statements would hit Roko dead-centre, despite how he didn't show it.

One such example was his team's display yesterday when they mistook his conversation with his teammate for a conversation about porn. Ryoma didn't show it, but inwardly he was cackling, because he knew exactly what was going on, and just decided to savour the moment and watch. Roko had just walked out when it was done, and Ryoma couldn't help but smirk, he didn't blame his brother for walking out on his birthday, since he found Seigaku three times as annoying as he did and was accused of talking about porn. Ryoma was rather surprised he didn't kill them.

His anger issues were a problem, but Ryoma didn't refer to them as 'anger issues', but rather times to blow off steam when tennis isn't enough. Ryoma knew exactly why Roko became so angry; it was because of most of his life. In America the kids in grade school didn't understand what being mute actually meant, and just thought Roko was some kind of freak for not being able to talk, and naturally others thought he was too stupid to talk. Roko was none of those things, and there was one occasion when Ryoma wasn't present, and some kids had tormented him about his disability, and Roko ignored them. It continued, and one kid said something about how Roko would always be an idiot. Roko's temper went through the roof and he gave the kid a bloody nose and knocked out one of his teeth. So he was expelled, and Ryoma followed him, which was fine, he never liked the people there anyway.

Roko had moments like that because rather than taking those comments on, he just absorbed them and ignored them. Like a bottle of soda, the comments built up and up until eventually the bottle can't take any more pressure and it explodes, and all of Roko's despair and hatred and rage comes flaring out, and anyone caught in it would likely suffer a lot of pain. Ryoma didn't blame Roko for it, and in fact he hated the fact that Roko just absorbed the comments rather than taking them on first-hand, but he knew that Roko knew that it would never work. It was a despairing realisation, but for as long as he lived Roko would always be the 'mute boy' and Ryoma could not stand it.