Author's Note: Okay, so I got some requests to continue, and I still have the motivation to do it, so here we go. This is still insight for before the actual story begins, but it is separate from Oishi's part of the prologue, this is Eiji's side, so here we go.

Disclaimer: I do not own Prince of Tennis.

Help Me

Prologue 2

"I hated myself for going, why couldn't I be the kind of person who stays?"
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

"I'm sorry."

It had been one of the hardest things Eiji had ever done. He had left Oishi and all of his friends at Seigaku behind. His mother had packed up all of their belongings and forced them to leave their home behind, all because of their father. That was the one thing that Oishi had known about. His parents had been fighting for several months before the accident had happened. Eiji rubbed absently at the metal framed brace around his leg, remembering what had happened a year ago.

*Flashback*

"Get in the car." He growled, grabbing the youngest Kikumaru by his red hair, steering him out of the house.

"Let go of me! I said, let go!" Eiji screamed, flailing along behind his father.

The other Kikumaru siblings had been forced to flee after the eldest brother, Hachirou, who had tried defending their baby brother, was thrown into the closet. The twins, their two sisters, were cowering in the corner, clinging to each other and crying. Yori was watching, frozen in panic. Eiji was crying, but he refused to give in, he refused to be a victim of his father's drunken rage.

Out the door they went, to the car, where Kurou tossed his youngest son into the passenger seat. Then he got in the driver's seat and began to speed down the road. Eiji was scared now. No matter how many times his father had come home drunk after losing his job; he had never resorted to violence with his children. He had screamed and yelled until the twins and Eiji were crying and Hachirou and Yori were shaking with barely contained rage. Now, he had not only slapped his sister, but shoved Hachirou in the closet, and he had abducted him.

But Eiji was scared. He was scared of what would happen to his siblings. He was scared of what would happen to him. He was scared of what his father could, and would do.

"I'm going to show you what it means to be loved. You're the most troublesome of all of you brats." His father was grinning manically, rambling to his youngest son, "I'm going to die today. I'm going to die before someone else can kill me. And if I'm going down, you're going with me, brat."

Eiji paled as the engine roared in his ears, the scenery flying by, his father laughing joyfully. Suddenly, his vision flashed white and there was a sickening crunch as the car crashed into a red brick wall.

Blinking blearily, Eiji's head rolled around as he looked down toward his legs. He barely registered that his left leg was trapped beneath the dash board before his vision went black.

*Flashback End*

He had meant to tell him everything. About the arguments, the accident, his leg. Everything. But when he had finally gathered the courage to call him, all he had managed to tell him was that he was leaving. And apologize. Eiji had apologized to everyone. Oishi, Fujiko, all of his friends. But that was all he had managed to say.

"I'm sorry."

Eiji cried. For a long time after he had called Oishi, he had cried. He was lost. Empty, having lost the one person he had expected to be with him forever, he had cried until his eyes were puffy and red, his expression hollow. Then the doctor had told him that he may not ever play tennis again, and he had cried again. He cried a lot after he left Seigaku, but always behind his locked bedroom door.

'I love you.'

Neither of them had said it, but both had wanted to. Even after he was gone, Eiji felt like Oishi was there next to him. Every time he accomplished something in his counseling, or rehabilitation, he would grin and turn to look at a person who wasn't there. Then he would feel horrible, because it was his fault that Oishi wasn't there with him.

"…I don't know when I'll be back."

He had told him things that would make him forget about him. That would make Oishi move on without him.

"I don't know…if I'm coming back at all."

But he was going back. Back to where it all began. Eiji didn't know if they would all still be there, but he was going back. He was going back to Seigaku.