Chapter 32: A Sister's Voice
The lock clicked behind him with a finality that echoed in the empty hall. Taichi dropped his gear bag by the door and stood in the center of his dorm room, listening to the silence. It was a different quiet than before. Before, it had been his. Now it felt borrowed, thin, like the walls knew something.
He hadn’t looked at his phone since practice. It was a dead weight in his pocket. His laptop, closed on his desk, felt like a lid on a box of snakes. The blue LED strip was off. The only light came from the streetlamp outside, cutting a yellow bar across the My Neighbor Totoro poster. He’d spent the afternoon running drills alone on an auxiliary field until his legs burned and his mind went blissfully, brutally blank.
He peeled off his practice clothes, the fabric damp and cold, and pulled on soft sweatpants and an old shirt. The ritual did nothing. He crawled into bed, pulling the blanket over his head, trying to shrink his world down to the space of his own breathing. The scent of his own sweat and the lingering sandalwood incense was familiar, but it couldn’t anchor him. All he could see was Cruz’s overly earnest face. We don’t care. The pity in it was worse than disgust. It meant they’d discussed it. It was a thing. And Noah, standing there by the fence, watching it all happen. Saying nothing.
A vibration shattered the quiet. His phone, buzzing on the nightstand. He flinched. It skittered against the wood. He knew what it would be. A text from his mom, having somehow heard. A message from a former teammate, either mockery or awkward support. A notification from some social media app he should have deleted years ago.
It kept buzzing. Insistent. A call, not a text.
He didn’t move. It went to voicemail. Thirty seconds of silence, then it started again. The same number.
With a groan that came from the pit of his stomach, he slid a hand out from under the blanket and fumbled for it. The screen was blinding. The caller ID wasn’t a saved contact, but he knew the area code. Los Angeles. His chest tightened.
He accepted the call and held it to his ear, saying nothing.
“Nii-chan?” The voice was small, young, laced with a worry that immediately unraveled something in him.
“Hikari?” He cleared his throat, pushing himself up on an elbow. “Why are you calling from Julia’s phone?”
“Mom took mine. She was crying. She’s talking to Dad in the kitchen.” His little sister’s words came in a rushed whisper. “I Googled you. I saw… the stuff. Are you okay?”
Taichi closed his eyes. Of course she’d Googled him. She was thirteen and smarter than all of them. The fact that she’d seen it, that his baby sister had to read those words about her brother, sent a fresh wave of nausea through him. “I’m fine,” he said, the automatic lie brittle. “You shouldn’t look at that crap.”
“Was it Kevin? From your old club? His Instagram is really nasty.”
“Hikari.”
“Okay, okay.” She paused. He could hear the muffled sounds of a TV in the background at her friend’s house. “But are you, though? Okay?”
He opened his mouth to repeat the lie, but it dissolved. He was so tired. The weight of the day, of the weeks, of a lifetime of careful editing, pressed down on him in the dark. Here was a voice from before, a voice that loved him without conditions, without a scholarship on the line.
“No,” he whispered. The admission was a crack in a dam. “Not really.”
“I’m sorry.” Her sincerity was a clean, sharp pain. “Do… do the guys on your team…”
“They know. Some guy posted something. They were ‘supportive’ today.” He let out a short, bitter laugh. “It was awful.”
“I bet.” She was quiet for a moment. “Is there anyone there? You can talk to?”
The image surfaced unbidden, immediate and vivid: green eyes under a stadium light, the feel of worn denim against his palms, the solid warmth of a shoulder under his cheek in a silent truck bed under a sky full of stars. A secret so new and tender he’d almost convinced himself he’d dreamed it.
“I met someone,” he said, the words leaving him in a quiet rush before he could stop them.
“Yeah?” Her voice lifted, bright with interest. “Like, a friend?”
“More than a friend.” He swallowed. “At least, I thought so.”
“Tell me.”
And he did. He told her about the cowboy at the party who talked about horses with a slow drawl. About the unexpected offer of a ride home in a beat-up Ford. The drive that didn’t end at his dorm, but at a field outside of town. He described the callouses on Noah’s hands, the way they felt tracing his jaw. The terrifying, exhilarating moment of leaning in. The complete silence afterwards, heavy and wrong. He told her about the soccer field tonight, Noah standing there like a statue while his world was announced over a PA system he never agreed to.
“He sounds scared,” Hikari said, when he finished.
“He’s a cowboy, Hikari. From some tiny town. He dates cheerleaders.” Taichi’s voice was flat. “He’s not scared. He’s… straight. Or wants to be.”
“You said he kissed you first.”
“People do confusing things.”
“And he held you after. In the truck.” She spoke softly, like she was piecing together a puzzle. “That’s not a confusing thing. That’s a clear thing.”
Taichi didn’t answer. He stared at the bar of yellow light on his wall.
“He sounds like he loves you, nii-chan.”
The words, so plainly spoken, hit him directly in the center of his chest. He actually gasped, a small, wounded sound. “You don’t even know him. You can’t say that.”
“I know you,” she said, with the unshakable confidence of a little sister. “And you wouldn’t have told me about him if he was just some confusing thing. You never tell me anything.” A beat. “Don’t let the world take that away from you. It sounds… nice.”
Tears, hot and sudden, blurred the yellow light into a streak. He blinked rapidly, pressing the heel of his hand against his eye. His throat was too tight to speak.
“You still there?”
“Yeah,” he managed, hoarse.
“I gotta go. Julia’s mom is giving me a look. But… call me? On this phone? Tomorrow?”
“Okay.”
“Love you, Tai.”
“Love you, too.”
The call ended. He lowered the phone, its screen going dark. The room was quiet again, but the silence had changed. It wasn’t just the absence of sound anymore. It was filled with the echo of her words. He sounds like he loves you.
It was a ridiculous, impossible conclusion drawn from a handful of fractured details by a thirteen-year-old three thousand miles away. But she had said it aloud. She had named the wild, hidden hope he had refused to even shape in his own mind.
He lay back, the phone resting on his sternum. He felt the vibration of his own heartbeat against it. The weight in his chest wasn’t gone, but it had shifted, grown lighter and more precarious at the same time. It was no longer just the heavy stone of exposure. It was now also the fragile, terrifying filament of a possibility he had, minutes ago, been determined to snuff out.
Outside, a car door slammed. Someone laughed. Normal life, moving on. Taichi stared at the ceiling, the ghost of a touch on his skin, the memory of a low voice in his ear, and the improbable, stubborn sound of his sister’s conviction, all tangled together in the dark.