Being home, it turned out, was not the magnificent cure-all some movies would have you believe it was. The comfort of being in his own house, sleeping in his own bed, walking the familiar streets of Nuvema Town-- they were all wonderful. He felt better now than when he had still been traveling, trying to distract himself by hurtling from challenge to challenge without stopping to think. Now, Black had to deal with the other side of the same coin. Everything was too familiar, and not distraction enough.
This was different from the last time he'd spent an extended period of time at home, when he'd been wracked with his own guilt. Then, the only person he was angry with was himself. He'd stayed mostly within the walls of his house for nearly a month. This was, in a lot of ways, easier. He was a lot more used to being angry than he was to being guilty, and he could handle it better, conceal it more thoroughly. He could watch stupid tv shows with White and visit Professor Juniper and pretend nothing was wrong. And while he preferred this particular kind of lowness, there were a few things that were worse than they had been. For one, now he had to wait on someone other than himself. Things weren't in his control, which was as frustrating as it was relieving. And for another, he wasn't used to being hurt. He tended to mask the hurt with anger, but at times he least expected it, it came clawing through his stomach and chest. He felt betrayed, to an extent, although he still couldn't ascribe any blame to Lyra. He felt stupid for not doing more to prevent Silver from kissing her or confessing to her or whatever the hell it was he did. Most of all, he was embarrassed. About every single part of this.
He didn't keep all of this to himself. He screamed and yelled with White about what a bastard Silver was, but getting angrier did nothing to calm him down or help the situation. He'd talked through every option he could take while White may or may not have listened, which only served to worry him more. What he really needed, he thought, was someone to talk some damn sense into him. He tried to do it himself, tried being the key word. There just wasn't much possibility that he would be rational about this.
Maybe he kept thinking I need to talk to Cheren because that really was the best course of action. Cheren, after all, had always been about twenty times smarter than Touya was, and he'd never been shy about sharing his opinion. Black couldn't think of a time his advice had been unhelpful. But more likely, he just wanted to talk to Cheren for the sake of talking to Cheren. Even without getting an-hour long lecture, just a chat with his best friend sounded like the best thing in the world. He'd picked up his phone to dial Cheren's number a dozen times a day since he'd been home, but there wasn't any denying that Cheren had stuff to do. He was a newly minted gym leader, in the trainer school, to boot. He was, as usual, miles ahead of Black in the race to actually accomplishing something, and Black didn't want to weigh him down.
After a certain point though, a brother has to do what a brother has to do. Cheren could lecture his ear off for whining to him when he had better things to do, and even that would seem a breath of fresh air. Before he could change his mind, he hit the 'call' button on his Xtransceiver, holding it resolutely to his ear and waiting for a familiar voice. He'd barely heard the first syllable of it before he was interrupting. (Typical.)
"Cheren? Can I come visit you?"
